Abstract: Connections between financial and health care pirates, Obamian stasis, and the necessity of (good!) empire.
Krugman in Shorting Out The Wiring: Bush was treated as a highly effective leader who knew what he was doing right up to Katrina, while Clinton — now viewed with such respect — was treated as a bungling interloper for much of his presidency.
Tyranosopher: Clinton “now viewed with such respect”. Why to proffer such an absurdity? Just because Clinton is filthy rich, now that he has cashed in? Viewed with respect by whom? Big time plutocrats?
Clinton brought the reign of Goldman Sachs, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Sheryl Sandberg (lover and pet of the preceding one), and Geithner. Seriously:
1) Bill Clinton dismantled the separation of money creation (large deposit banks) and “investment” banks (Wall Street private-public casino). That separation (Banking Act of 1933) was Roosevelt’s greatest reform. So, domestically speaking, Clinton was the anti-Roosevelt. A sort of anti-democrat, a demonstrative demon emphatic for the people as the spider to the fly. (And now big time advising his boy Obama to hang tough.)
2) Bill Clinton allowed the expansion of financial and commodity derivative trading to the point of complete dementia (up to $750 trillion for financial derivatives trades, $50 trillion for real economy trades, worldwide)
Yes derivatives are an order of magnitude greater than world GDP. People do not understand what it means. It means that the WORLD’s money creation machine has been highjacked by a few pirates, the largest “banks”… that the Public is still financing through Quantitative Easing.
None of this has to do with the free market, capitalism, whatever. It’s about a gang having captured the economic and social flying deck of the planet, and Bill Clinton gave them the keys. Thus now viewed with such respect.
All this tanks to Clinton’s minder Rubin and his pet Summers (that would make multi-billionairess Sandberg the pet of a pet).
Why is Krugman uttering plutocratic propaganda (pro-plutocratic decisions are now viewed with such respect)? Is Krugman conscious, or simply saying something because people around him are saying it, and that’s how to get a modicum of respect?
Krugman: Hitting the Ceiling: Disastrous or Utterly Disastrous?
Tyranosopher: How far do you want the Machiavellian analysis to go (I know that you know that I know that you know, etc…)?
People on the supposed left should have long seen it coming. The blockage of Obamacare was all highly predictable. By differing health reform implementation for 5 years, Obama invited this.
Medicare For All would have taken one minute, on the first hour of his presidency, and could have been implemented right away (by allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with providers, and that could be done by executive decision).
When he was elected president, Obama could do anything he wanted. He had a majority in Congress, a super majority in the Senate.
Newly elected executives controlling the legislative can do a lot. The newly elected Prime Minister of Australia, as soon as elected, launched a campaign to outlaw Australia’s Carbon Tax. Tony Abbott declared: “Today is not just a ceremonial day, it’s an action day,” the 55-year-old said in a statement. …”people expect us to get straight down to business, and that’s exactly what this government will do. We hope to be judged by what we have done, rather than by what we have said we would do.”
However Abbott’s party controls only 33 of the Australian Senate’s 76 seats. That’s not an easy position to be in. It’s very different from the total control Obama had.
Instead, once elected, Obama celebrated his blackness, as if he were a narcissist, and proceeded with Bush’s policies, as far as the eye can see, . That allowed him not to focus on what he could do to help people with health care. It is as if Obama had been elected President of the Tea Party (OK, there was no Tea Party yet, my point entirely).
But what Obama said is that he wanted to become bisexual bipartisan. Why? What did becoming bisexual bipartisan had to do with implementing reforms? What’s the difference between bisexualism, and bipartisanship? In the end, two years later, he did not get one single Republican vote (Republicans do not want to pose as bisexual bipartisan, apparently.) Anyway all this bi-something killed lots of time, as intended.
Having celebrated his blackness has proven highly profitable for Obama; I was listening to some European based talking head who was going black in the face screaming that it was all a racist plot against the “black” president. Whatever “it” was.
Krugman: The aim of Obamacare is to give coverage to the poor.
Apparently, except for Alaska, with subsidies, the cost will be $100 dollar a month for the colored plan (“bronze”; the cheapest). Top demoncrats are so disconnected with reality they don’t know that:
1) basic health care is free in other advanced countries.
2) the 50 millions of the USA underclass cannot afford durably $100 a month.
What could have helped people was to lower the COST of health care (about double that of any other country per GDP/capita).
But lowering the cost of health spending would have been a disaster for health care plutocrats.
Indeed, Medicare for All would have served Buffet not (Obama was going around calling Buffet “my friend”, when he was working on Obamacare; Buffet personally made billions from health care gouging). All what history will remember, from all this, is that Obama’s presidency was a disaster, and it got so from pseudo liberal sycophants filling up their pockets (Summers, Geithner and countless others are examples).
Krugman: Down with the Euro!
Tyranosopher: Well, yes, now that the dollar is not the only world reserve currency, nobody cares as much as they used to about a USA default. For reference, the EU has no debt. Nada. The USA has more debt than its GDP ($16.7 trillion, although Krugman, alone in the world, loves to say less than 10, by making specious distinctions…)
Europe is indeed a terrible place. At least 300 dead from just one boat trying to make it to European soil. Not only does Europe kills, but it kills by attracting people like flies, like one of these carnivorous flowers. What to do? Right now, the boats are confiscated, with the hope international crime syndicates doing the boating will run out of boats.
Not easy to control, those borders: Romania has 2,000 kilometers of borders to control, to prevent entry of the great unwashed inside the European Union. The American/Israeli solution is to build a wall (and actually, to enter the EU, Poland had to build such a wall!) But walls are expensive.
This being said, Europe has a demographic, not just democratic deficit…
So what to do? Go imperial, of course. If Europe is so good, it needs to be defended. In an age when major human vehicles weighing as much as an ancient Greek trireme can cover 8,000 kilometers in 15 minutes, the empire of the Republic extends worldwide. Whatever pseudo-leftist whiners will say, to satisfy their moronic holier-than-thou auto-celebration.
What does that mean? What does empire mean? “Imperare” means to order (well, imperially). Imperators were top Roman generals, with pretty much right of life and death over anybody in their way So imperators had rights similar to those of Consuls and Proconsuls (ex-Consuls mandated anew by Consuls). Under the pure Republic.
In this spirit, the USA just struck with two targeted raids in Libya and Somalia, to neutralize two terrorists chiefs. It seems to have been well done in Libya (live capture, differently from the somewhat lamentable Osama bin Laden raid). Capture them and make them talk (and remember as was discovered in the Middle Ages, that torture is counterproductive).
However, the raid on the Somalian coast, although not as bungled as the French one, deep in the interior, a few months ago, was not the sort of success one would more readily get, if, for example, the French and the Americans cooperated.
Having a worldwide empire is the only way out. But it has to be a good empire. A very good empire. Not a very evil empire where authorities are hunting those who reveal important malversations (Manning, Snowden), while earning respect by financing the richest (as Clinton did), or confusing wealth care exchanges for the richest with health care for the People.
By showing that he has some of what it takes, by striking terrorists, Obama may be able to earn back some of the respect he clearly needs in Washington…
***
Patrice Ayme
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 
October 7, 2013 at 4:58 pm |
Read this essay earlier this morning on my tablet when still in bed. Again, had that feeling of serendipity because just yesterday evening Jean and I watched the more than two-hours long official movie from the Thrive Movement. The YouTube link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEV5AFFcZ-s
The website of the movement is here: http://www.thrivemovement.com
Anyway, wondered if you knew of the organisation or had seen the film. Because in so many ways, your words above echo the theme of the film.
Plus, if you are aware of the organisation what your views were in their direction.
Paul
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October 7, 2013 at 7:43 pm |
dear Paul: Never heard of it, whatsoever.
One thing I know is that some generate ideas, and others profit from them. Some pretty famous people use ideas, expressions (I know for a fact of two), or words, found on my sites first (without ever referring to me). BUT, it’s OK; some do the thinking, others the exploiting. I know I am poisonous. This has happened even in pure math.
Right now I was stung my Dominique Deux’s accusation that I was “dogmatic” about instinct as learning, so I was scrambling to show in an essay more of the fascinating, and very recent, science backing that up.
PA
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October 7, 2013 at 6:06 pm |
Ah Patrice, I so love coming here. You never disappoint.
I really have thought for some time that the worst things Clinton did were:
(1) repealing Glass-Steagall and signing the Commodities Modernization Act, and
(2) pardoning the fugitive arch-criminal Marc Rich on his way out the door.
Of course, the Deputy Attorney General handling the extraordinary end run around the normal pardon process for Clinton is now Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder. Though, to be fair, Rich was ably represented by since disbarred and convicted felon Scooter Libby (who didn’t have to go to jail because Bush commuted that part of the sentence before he served even one day). Why it’s almost like they’re ALL loyal servants of the plutocracy.
There is now around a trillion dollars of American student debt, not dischargeable in bankruptcy, as part of the plutocrats looting of the republic. Of course, there are no good jobs for these students when they graduate, so they face a lifetime of being crushed by that debt.
And if history teaches us anything, it is that having a lot of highly educated, underemployed, angry young people is a recipe for big trouble.
I think that’s a lot of what’s behind the tightening of the net of the security state with more secrecy all the time (and the persecution of whistle blowers like Snowden and Madden). The plutocrats and company sense trouble could be coming, so local police forces are militarized, the NSA is building a $2 billion facility in Utah to snoop on everybody all the time (to fight “terrorism”, of course), you have to go through a TSA chokepoint screen to get on a plane, any sort of disturbance or minor misdemeanor can be labelled “terrorism” so it can be dealt with extra-judicially without all that fuss about laws and Constitutional rights.
Interesting point about TSA and “terrorism” generally is that you have more of a chance of being killed by lightning than a terrorist act.
Here’s an interesting take on the 1% by an investment manager, who wishes to remain anonymous
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html
Apparently the concentration of wealth and power in the top .01% is even more than I thought. As he says:
“Most of those in the bottom half of the top 1% lack power and global flexibility and are essentially well-compensated workhorses for the top 0.5%, just like the bottom 99%. In my view, the American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability. The odds of getting into that top 0.5% are very slim and the door is kept firmly shut by those within it.”
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October 7, 2013 at 7:37 pm |
Dear Bowtiejack: Your comments do not disappoint either. There is a lot to comment about this one. Disgruntled young people is no good recipe, indeed. But the problem is that they are not (yet) disgruntled enough to even care to know what ails them!
Why?
I read the San Francisco Chronicle. I had stopped my subscription, because they barred me from commenting (!). The SF Chronicle’s main mission seems to be a plutocratic propaganda organ. Every issue has at least one main article about the grandeur of plutocrats. Today it was about Pincus, the wife of Pincus (founder of Zynga; the low lives employed there don’t earn much money; I have a cousin who is an elite programmer there), and how Michelle Obama came for a breakfast with 25 high powered women at Pincus’ mansion, before she headed to the the $32,000 per head brunch at the Fairmont hotel hosted by Nancy Pelosi…
Obama, Pelosi being always represented as spearheads against the nasty Republicans. I wonder how much it cost to have brunch with a Republican. And if one finds this all weird, one has got to be racist fascist T party type…
This propaganda works solidly.
What caused the French Revolution was that a lot of the elite, all the way to the king, wanted a revolution. Even Louis XV, unbelievably, had a woman as PM, and Voltaire as adviser.
Louis XVI tried to ram down the plutocracy with the most revolutionary economists, and made them PM. I can’t even compare with Stiglitz and Krugman (as I do not see them proposing to tax the ric heavily!)
Not the case here. But of course, things could change if circumstances do. The French revolution happened in part at least because of a volcano in Iceland (and also that the USA DEFAULTED on France, hahahaha).
PA
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October 7, 2013 at 8:34 pm |
BTW, I do agree that the terrorization state is indeed gearing up. There was enormous deployments of force in the National Park I got to Saturday, to bar near-access roads in the backwoods. All sorts of individuals in uniform were chasing, and citing people, in places where never a uniform or law enforcement car had ever been seen before. It was beyond weird to see a ranger truck come in the middle of nowhere, lights blazing, lest the rabble get the idea that public land is also for the rabble…
PA
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October 7, 2013 at 9:15 pm |
Dear Patrice
Amazingly at 2006 i wrote this quote;
Since the decolonization of the third world countries, most of the Muslim and African countries got a self imposed dictator, causing only misery and grief . I wonder if to the citizens of these countries the decolonization was after all such a great idea.
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October 7, 2013 at 9:29 pm |
Dear Eugen: So called “Decolonization” masked different realities. The French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Belgian colonial systems in Africa were quite different.
The later two were total abominations, and would have been enough, morally speaking, to launch total wars against Germany and Belgium. Auschwitz was learned in Namibia.
By far the best system was the French one, and Africans did not profit from its dismantlement at all. It was an empire, and an administration.
The only place that really had colonists was Algeria (and Vietnam, but that’s another story). Algeria was a world onto itself, and impossible to describe quickly. Half of my family was from there, and, obviously, the resoltuion of the situation was only temporary (nothing is solved) and terrible (my family lost lives, and all property, modest belongings from life long savings).
Anyway, that’s a lost world, and no stability, let alone security, will be recovered, but through its reconstitution.
Civilization is not a given. It has to be fought for. Everyday.
PA
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October 8, 2013 at 5:45 am |
Yes, definitely the Belgians were the worst if we don’t count the Spanish and Portuguese, who finished their devastating impact on locals by the beginning of 18 century. The Belgians under pretext of spreading “civilization” in Congo and surroundings cynically exploited all the resources they could and left these places disrupted. The Rwanda genocide was a direct consequence of their policy. Yet the Germans have overdone all the rest. In Namibia, (lucily the only place to be colonized by the end of nineteen century) a place without to much to exploit, they started to colonize by systematic genocide. And it was before WWI. Doesn’t remain you something? By the way, the British in China gave their share of cruelty and unjust in the optimum wars. You say the French were better? Maybe. I don’t know. Their last two colonial wars in Vietnam and Algeria ended with disaster. If France would act more cleverly, understand better the Arab and Vietnam societies, maybe it would not have to end with a tragedy for both for both, Muslims and the Europeans as well. To me seems that the only western power that acted in the Asian-African colonies with certain mortality were the Americans. Viz the example of Japan. Luckily for them, the American boats came before the British or the French. Then they gave to the Shoguns enough time to reconsider their policy of isolation.
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October 8, 2013 at 6:10 am |
The Portuguese were not racist: they bred heavily with the natives.
The Japanase were no savages: within 25 years of first contact with Europeans, they were making their own firearms. The conquest of Japan became imaginable only in 1945.
China under the Manchus held well against Russia. It degenerated later. The Opium Wars were indeed a low point of Western civ.
The disasters in Vietnam and Algeria had lots to do with Washington and Moscow. Plus racism and selfishness (but not the ones one thinks of nowadays). That’s the dirty little secret.
Most Africans, if they could move to Europe, would. Enough said.
PA
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October 8, 2013 at 5:58 am |
My conclusion of the above, political power suported mainly by military force can many times (almost always) become very arrogant ,stupid and devastating and it doesn’t matter if it is British, German, Russian, Chinese or Franch.
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October 8, 2013 at 6:12 am |
But it matters if it’s backed by a republic, a democracy, or a fascist plutocracy, etc.
PA
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October 7, 2013 at 9:41 pm |
By the way, if the French and the British had kept on administrating Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, there is no doubt the populations would be happier, richer, safer, and with a bright future. Who would not be happy? Well, Washington…
In politics, it’s crucial to look at whom the crime profited, to understand it fully…
PA
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October 8, 2013 at 2:47 am |
“Civilization is not a given. It has to be fought for. Everyday.”
Sounds exhausting.
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October 8, 2013 at 2:49 am |
It is exhausting, but for the strong, and it makes strong.
PA
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