There Will be Blood

[lilyannerose]

There Will Be Blood
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Former Senator Alan Simpson is a Very Serious Person. He must be — after all, President Obama appointed him as co-chairman of a special commission on deficit reduction.

So here’s what the very serious Mr. Simpson said on Friday: “I can’t wait for the blood bath in April. ... When debt limit time comes, they’re going to look around and say, ‘What in the hell do we do now? We’ve got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give ’em a piece of meat, real meat,’ ” meaning spending cuts. “And boy, the blood bath will be extraordinary,” he continued.

Think of Mr. Simpson’s blood lust as one more piece of evidence that our nation is in much worse shape, much closer to a political breakdown, than most people realize.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/opinio...ugman.html

I think Paul Krugman makes some valid points within the article. Difficult to say who these economically unsophisticated GOP and Tea Party members are going to hurt I have no doubt they will do it. Sometimes it seems to me that the GOP and those who vote for them are missing both a compassion and empathy gene.

[DeistPaladin]

Republicans were elected in 2010 on five major platform points:

1. Cut taxes
2. Reduce the deficit
3. Cut spending, except for defense, social security, medicare and anything else significant
4. Reduce government involvement
5. The government should do something to create jobs

Needless to say, 1 and 2 can't be done at the same time. 4 and 5 also conflict with each other (should the government do more or less?). And the conservative pipe dream that there's hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and liberal pork that can be cut is just that.

Not a good situation. The voters in this last election reminded me of a quote I once heard about how the worst are fired up with conviction.

God help us! ...oh right...

[Minimalist]

Walt Kelly said it best, D-P.

[Ryft]

Sometimes it seems to me that the GOP and those who vote for them are missing both a compassion and empathy gene.

How, exactly?

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4 and 5 also conflict with each other (should the government do more or less?).

Actually, 4 leads to 5.

[Ashendant]

4 and 5 also conflict with each other (should the government do more or less?).

Actually, 4 leads to 5.

No it doesn't

[DeistPaladin]

Sometimes it seems to me that the GOP and those who vote for them are missing both a compassion and empathy gene.

How, exactly?

"Unemployed? Fuck em. No health care coverage? Die quickly, then."

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4 and 5 also conflict with each other (should the government do more or less?).

Actually, 4 leads to 5.

Only in the conservative pipe dream where the benevolent and perfect free market creates abundance for all if only the evil government could be destroyed. In reality, deregulation has been a disaster for the American economy and it caused the most recent meltdown. Had the evil government not gotten involved, the auto industry would have gone belly up along with the financial sector and that would have killed a lot of jobs. Now, there's a lot with the bailouts that I would have done differently. Too much was given away to the corporations with nothing asked in return other than eventual payback. But deregulation nearly drove us into another depression and the government saved the day.

[lilyannerose]

[quote='lilyannerose' pid='106579' dateline='1290467707']
Sometimes it seems to me that the GOP and those who vote for them are missing both a compassion and empathy gene.

How, exactly?

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The hostile attitude towards social entitlements. I feel it harms a country when you have people in need and ignorance and that investment in people is the best spending a country can do. A population in need and ignorance weakens a nation and sets up a vicious cycle. Everyone benefits when "Johnny or Sally" has a warm home, medical care when sick, good food and a solid education.

[Ryft]

"Unemployed? Fuck em. No health care coverage? Die quickly, then."

—neither of which Tea Party conservatives assert, Mr. Grayson.

Only in the conservative pipe dream, where the benevolent and perfect free market creates abundance for all if only the evil government could be destroyed.

The Tea Party is not an anarchist movement; i.e., they do not want the government destroyed. Reducing the federal government, particularly Congress, in its scope and authority to the powers enumerated in the U.S. Constitution does not equate to destroying the federal government. This also includes a serious reduction of centralized power, recalling that the 10th Amendment is still in the Constitution.

In reality, deregulation ...

They do not want deregulation. They want less regulation, specifically from the federal government which, again, is constrained by specific powers enumerated by the Constitution. All other regulation is to be left to the several states. So much power being centralized to the federal government contradicts the national framework of a constitutional republic, where the states govern in themselves whatever is not delegated to the federal government (e.g., entitlement programs, insurance regulations, public education, etc.).

... deregulation has been a disaster for the American economy and it caused the most recent meltdown.

It was not deregulation so much as the federal government manipulating the banking and housing industries with ideological legislation that has "been a disaster" and "caused the most recent meltdown." For example, creating new regulatory oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that stiffened enforcement of fair housing and fair lending laws (cf. HUD-imposed housing goals for financing of affordable housing, especially in central cities and other under-served areas), mandating Fannie and Freddie to devote more of their lending to purchase mortgages from lenders and bundle them into securities. Lenders and CRA-regulated banks were thus encouraged to create more loans through high-risk instruments (e.g., negative-amortization subprime mortgages), which Fannie and Freddie continued buying and turning into mortgage-backed securities that were sold on global secondary markets to investors, who assumed the government would back these securities it mandated into existence. When the bottom fell out of the housing market—and borrowers couldn't refinance their ARMs while housing prices fell with foreclosures rising, etc.—due to government-created 'moral hazard' through legislation, enterprises, financial rules and innovations like mortgage-backed securities minted at the behest of Congress, the collapse extended far beyond lenders and borrowers, devestating not only the market but also international investors and financial institutions as untold billions of dollars vanished.

Congress and the executive created this problem with ideological legislation and regulatory extortion of the financial industries into poorly-considered lending practices under the threat of prosecution as 'unfair lenders', which they compounded through incentives for lenders by having government-sponsored enterprises buy the paper and resell it on the global market. As Ed Morrissey said, "What we need is a way to make sure that government doesn't interfere in lending markets again. We need to eliminate GSEs entirely and let borrowers and lenders find each other in the marketplace. If government would quit trying to pick winners and losers, we wouldn't find ourselves in this grave financial crisis."

But deregulation nearly drove us into another depression and the government saved the day.

It is almost incomprehensible that you could actually believe that. After strict government regulation caused the savings and loan crisis from the 60s through the 80s, a new and largely unregulated financial services industry emerged and performed extraordinarily well—until the Clinton administration from the mid-90s onward resulted in what we're dealing with today. We have decades upon decades of evidence that government intervention in the market wreaks havoc upon it (Utt 2008, Wallison 2008). One can debate political ideology but facts are what they are.

• Utt, R. D. (2008). The Subprime Mortgage Market Collapse: A primer on the causes and possible solutions. The Heritage Foundation.
  
• Wallison, P. J. (2008). Bear Facts: The flawed case for tighter regulation of securities firms. Financial Services Outlook. American Enterprise Institute.
  

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The hostile attitude towards social entitlements.

What "hostile attitude" toward entitlements? It is not a partisan issue: entitlement programs are broke. Whether Republican or Democrat or independent, everyone recognizes this fact and must contend with it. For example, Social Security tax revenues will fall into permanent cash-flow deficit as of 2016, and will exhaust the claim on general revenues by 2040. The worse thing to do is ignore it and carry on as always.

[Minimalist]

DeistPaladin Wrote: "Unemployed? Fuck em. No health care coverage? Die quickly, then."


—neither of which Tea Party conservatives assert, Mr. Grayson.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/03...04709.html

In an interview this Wednesday, Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle heightened her criticisms of unemployment insurance, insisting that the benefits program to help the jobless ended up benefiting nobody.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/201...bid-in-12/

Washington (CNN) - The head of one of the best known national Tea Party groups predicts that a potential White House bid by Mitt Romney could face pushback from Tea Party activists because of the health care plan implemented in Massachusetts during Romney's term as the state's governor.

Tea Party Express chairwoman Amy Kremer, asked during an interview by David Brody on CBN's "The Brody File" if the Massachusetts health care situation will fly with Tea Party activists, responded by saying "Absolutely not. You can't get away from that."

"These people don't have short memories. They're digging up everything from the past and they're not going to let go of the health care," added Kremer.

Perhaps there is ANOTHER tea party out there? It took me all of a few seconds to find these. They are not exactly subtle about fucking over the poor and aiding their rich patrons.

[DeistPaladin]

"Unemployed? Fuck em. No health care coverage? Die quickly, then."

—neither of which Tea Party conservatives assert, Mr. Grayson.

What is "no unemployment extensions for those unable to find jobs in this recession and no spending on jobs programs but let's not worry about where we're going to find 700 billion for tax cuts for the rich" anything but "fuck em".

My wife would be dead now but for the fact that she's covered by my plan. She's uninsurable because of pre-existing conditions. What is the conservative plan to fix our broken health care system? Or are they living in denial that a problem exists?

The Tea Party is not an anarchist movement; i.e., they do not want the government destroyed.

Just put in its proper role of regulating my bedroom instead of the financial markets.

All other regulation is to be left to the several states. So much power being centralized to the federal government contradicts the national framework of a constitutional republic, where the states govern in themselves whatever is not delegated to the federal government (e.g., entitlement programs, insurance regulations, public education, etc.).

Letting states regulate health insurance and removing interstate purchase of health care insurance will result in all health insurance companies relocating to the state with the fewest regulations so they can screw us all more. This is what happened with the credit card industry.

Like it or not, we don't use goose quill pens and horse and buggies anymore. Federal regulation is both necessary and appropriate in the modern age.

But deregulation nearly drove us into another depression and the government saved the day.

It is almost incomprehensible that you could actually believe that. After strict government regulation caused the savings and loan crisis from the 60s through the 80s, a new and largely unregulated financial services industry emerged and performed extraordinarily well—until the Clinton administration from the mid-90s onward resulted in what we're dealing with today. We have decades upon decades of evidence that government intervention in the market wreaks havoc upon it (Utt 2008, Wallison 2008). One can debate political ideology but facts are what they are.

Wow!

You know, during my conservative, Reagan-worshiping Republican days, I don't remember being so detached from reality. I never spent so much time arguing what the facts were.

When Reagan deregulated the financial industry, that's when we started having meltdowns. First the savings and loan meltdown and now the most recent one. Government will still guarantee the stability of banks but not regulate how they invest as much. Not surprisingly, investors prefer high risk, high return investments when they can't lose. They've been playing "heads, I win, tails, you lose" with the tax payers and Republicans made that possible.

And do you remember the words "too big to fail"? Do you know WHY the banks got too big to fail? Republicans stripped away the regulations that prevented the mergers that allowed so many eggs to be put in so few baskets.

Again, I would have handled the bailout differently. But what can't be denied is that it worked to prevent total meltdown of the entire economy and the second great depression. Government intervention, decried as "socialism" by hysterical tea-partiers, saved the auto industry as well.