Joe Mason for President 2012 – Strong Criticism of Obama’s Record

This video was not discovered by me but by James Fallows at The Atlantic. Here’s his take on the video -

The main complaint in this video is that Obama’s “conciliatory” and “reasonable” approach, far from being wise and strategically far-seeing, has proven to be simply weak and vacillating. This is related to the “chess master, or pawn?” debate about Obama’s strategy from earlier this summer.

(You should read all of Mr. Fallows comments. It’s a good essay.)

After listening to the video I was impressed. However, I am a little surprised at Joe Mason’s lack of a web footprint. For a would be presidential candidate, he barely exists in the world of the Internet. If my count is correct, I will be the third web site to feature this video. Please watch it now (just click on it).

Joe Mason for President 2012: Democratic Party Re-Nomination of Obama Challenged

(The Joe Mason video is also featured on Vote Third Party. Currently, the Joe Mason Campaign is apparently almost entirely a You Tube site.)

Whatever form, the Joe Mason campaign takes, it has a powerful criticism of the President’s leadership style. Many feel including myself that the President is a poor negotiator with few fixed beliefs of any importance.

Should this generate a primary challenge?

Absolutely.

Currently the Democratic Party essentially offers voters one thing only – they are not Republicans. Apparently, many Democrats think this is enough. They are so confident in this strategy that they toss their allies particularly Progressives and Liberals over the side with regularity and contempt. Further, they are absent any ideas on how to help the great middle class survive the current cycle of economic catastrophe.

The President is a pure example of this. The main and most effective threats as well as a flurry of vicious insults of his Presidency have been delivered to the liberal wing of the Democratic party to force them to get in line. They are apparently the only recipients of this kind of treatment, the Republicans hearing little but kind words.

You see, to politicians like Obama, those who have voted for the Democrats in the past have nowhere to go. Obviously, they have to vote for him, so they can be treated with disdain.

The fear of Rick Perry, Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann will bring the reluctant party faithful crawling back on their hands and knees to the only “adult in the room.”

I don’t believe that.

We don’t have to vote for Barack Obama and a good way to let him know that is a primary challenge.

The only way that Progressives and Liberals are going to have an effective say is when these kinds of politicians are humiliated at the polls and ridiculed by the party faithful.

As long as the Progressive wing of the party votes without question for a candidate there is no influence. He who can destroy a thing has power. There are easily enough Progressive voters whose defection would defeat Democrats at the polls.

That will be painful.

But is it as painful as watching Barack Obama yield time and again to the enemies of the Middle Class? Would it be as painful as having huge, almost without precedent, majorities in the House and Senate frittered away on half measures and simple inaction for two full years? Would it be as painful as watching the nation’s first real chance at health care reform thrown away for a surrender to the drug and insurance companies modeled on an old Heritage Foundation idea? Would it be as bad as watching the President ignore campaign promise after campaign promise, these superficial promises apparently only made to bamboozle the left-wing of the party to vote for him? Would it be as bad as watching a financial élite who plunged this nation into recession be rescued with taxpayer funds from their own folly?

I tell you truly, it is awful to watch the political victories of your enemies. But there is something worse, and that is to see the people you elected, you worked for, you believed in, act against your interest and call it victory.

James Pilant

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Campaign for America’s Future: Extremists Won (via Beaver County Blue)

The author explains why the budget deal is a disaster. I agree with everything in the article.

The biggest disaster is to our chances of rational government. The President has handed the House or Representatives a sledgehammer to pound him to mulch anytime they want something.

James Pilant

Capitulation By Robert Borosage The raw deal on the budget ceiling has been cut. The Tea Party terrorists – the extremist faction willing to hold the economy hostage to get their way – have won. The Republic, common sense and decency have been trampled. With the economy deeply depressed, 25 million people in need of full time work, the raw deal will impede any recovery. It precludes any serious action on jobs from the federal government. It will … Read More

via Beaver County Blue

Professional politicians made up of mostly lawyers con men (via str8media)

Yeah. Pretty much.

We have a brand new national catastrophe. There is no way to sugar coat it, no way to improve the sound of it. Middle class Americans are going to suffer a further decline in benefits, job security and educational potential while the “bond” market is protected (although it was doing just fine).

James Pilant

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders reached historic agreement Sunday night on a compromise to permit vital U.S. borrowing by the Treasury in exchange for more than $2 trillion in long-term spending cuts. Most of you don't get it but are too blind to see even if it was laid out in front of you, their plan is to bankrupt this country, this vote fixes nothing.  Please ignore your party loyalty and think about ou … Read More

via str8media

Middle Class And Poor To Feel The Pain After Deal Is Passed (via Sky’s Universal Predications)

Yes, as always, this is the case. The beltway bloviators, the “villagers,” the 24 hour news networks, the opinion makers, etc. long ago decided that the great mass of Americans were a bunch of lazy, unmotivated, whiny, and fat hogs who need the discipline of the market in their pointless lives. I am reminded of the condemnation in the Bible for those who load the poor with burdens while being unwilling to bear any burden of their own.

James Pilant

(As always, the middle class and the poor will feel the pain the most, while the wealthy get another tax break. And when we hit the debt ceiling again in a few years, they'll be asked to do it all over again–by taking it up the ass for the rich.) Debt hope: Obama praises 'Gang of Six' plan WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and a startling number of Republican senators lauded a bipartisan deficit-reduction plan Tuesday that includes $1 tri … Read More

via Sky's Universal Predications

The Best of the Debt Ceiling Postings on the Web

Wright Investor Services discusses the debt ceiling debate’s effect on stocks. There is no pro or con here just cold analysis.

eleriravuby in a posting called: Conservative ire threatens GOP debt plan in House (AP)   comments as follows -

For all that, it was the tea party-backed members of Boehner’s own party who continued to vex him, and heavily influence the debt and deficit negotiating terms ? not to mention his chances of holding on to the speakership.

THE DC FOLLY TROLLEY (via Corruptus Maximus) This is not a kind view of the Obama Administration.

It’s a gorgeous road (via A Walternative Universe) Here are some beautiful photographs followed by political commentary – it’s all very well done.

Hurry up and wait…. (via From D.C., With Love) This appears to be an actual participant in the crisis, a D.C. insider. However, she’s not giving up any heads up’s on the crisis.

current politics (via JCS Blog) This writer believes that our current debt ceiling situation is a positive thing. Please read and see what you think.

Here’s a comment from  Predictions (via Tfgray’s Weblog) -

True, I came up with a different reason for Wall Street’s blasé attitude, but there’s a fundamental similarity. They’ve already figured out a way to make money off it. Buy low, sell high is a lot easier to do when everyone is bailing on their investments in order to cover the expenses that their Social Security check used to.

This is a very cynical comment. I really like it. One must appreciate cynicism when it is delivered accurately.

Here is the last of the blog posts I enjoyed (and had time to read). Take a look at this paragraph – this is some pointed writing.  It’s from – The Fairest Game: Servants of Oligarchs (via For The Kindle/Lulu Ebook Lover)

The debt ceiling debates in Washington seem to best illustrate my point. This is the silliest political side show I have ever seen. It seems like we have a lot of those these days with the strange goal of this non official so-called Tea Party leading these power hungry Republicans by the nose rings. In Speaker Beohner, for instance, we have what must be one of the most Lillie livered politician ever to grace the front page of any newspaper. If my memory serves me, I believe it was he who stated that the leader of the republican party was actually Rush Limbaugh. It wasn’t something that he suggested in some round about way, either. For this professional public servant a race/class baiting talk show host was the leader of the Grand Old Party, the party of Teddy Roosevelt, the party of Dwight Eisenhower. It’s men like this, politicians like this who are, next to (very sadly to say) our current President who are the fairest game, the fairest game for the angry public, for comedians, for cartoonists. Why, because what we see speaking to us from the radios and TV sets are the servants of oligarchs. Their actions are meant to fly in the face of the overall public.

Obviously, I could only cover a small proportion of the writing on the net but I do hope you enjoy my selections.

James Pilant

 

Five Reasons the House GOP Is to Blame (via James Fallows from The Atlantic)

James Fallows continues his comments on the current debt ceiling crisis. -

Here’s a comparison: Suppose, by similar quirk, there was an arbitrary ceiling on the amount of ammunition the U.S. military could buy each year. Or the amount of fuel for drones, bombers, and Humvees. Like overall national debt, these purchases are foreseeable consequences of previous political decisions — in this case, about the wars the country decides to fight. But suppose that when the “ammo ceiling” came due for its routine extension, a group of legislators said they would refuse. No more bullets or jet fuel after August 2, and for good measure no more food for the troops, unless demands for radical change in future foreign policy were met in full. That would rightly be seen as blackmail, and as a reckless willingness to damage the nation for partisan ends. A similar reckless exercise in blackmail is underway now, with the difference that the consequences can be longer-lasting and worse.

Blackmail- that’s exactly how I see it. I am happy to observe that I am not the only one.

There is not much to be done now. The Republicans cannot generate a bill that will get a majority of their own caucus’ vote. Without that, there is no chance of a congressional action ending the crisis. The only ball park left is for the President to declare that based on a Constitutional provision, the United States will continue to pay its debts.

I doubt if he has the will or the courage. Of course, even mice pushed into a corner will on occasion bite.

James Pilant

The U.S. as ‘Lethal Laughing Stock’ (via James Fallows from the Atlantic)

This is from James Fallows -

Yesterday I mentioned that governmental paralysis over the debt ceiling — a wholly artificial construct* being addressed with mainly incoherent arguments** — was already turning the strongest, richest country in the world into an international laughing stock, whether or not we reach the final disaster of a default.

Yes, that’s about right.

It’s easy to blame the ideology driven House or Representatives but the real villain is the President. Obama has established a reputation as a negotiator ever ready to cave under every imaginable circumstance, always willing to appear as the “adult in the room” no matter what has to be given up to maintain that image. But if that isn’t enough, we have a President celebrated for his eloquence who is constantly unable to rally the American people behind any major policy whatever. His speech this week should have laid out the shady blackmail being played out by the House, instead it’s a wimp suggestion to “call your congressman.”

I would like to explain something to Mr. Obama. My congressman is one of those people who are blackmailing him to do what they want on the budget. There is no threat I can imagine including physical violence that will change his mind. He could not care less what I think and probably even less what the President thinks.

I am a constituent of this person only in the most technical sense. In reality I am meaningless to him. His real constituency is Fox news, Rush Limbaugh, the Tea Party and talk radio. The President’s call for phone call activism is a waste of his and my time.

So, the train wreck approaches. Will the President cave? Of course – that’s almost his profession.

But that is not enough any more to stop default. There are too many competing plans and the Republicans Congress is split – unable to generate a majority for any one plan. Even if they can get it together in these last few days. any bill put together by these petty blackmailers, is dead on arrival in the Senate.

So, disaster is coming, kinds of a 2012 apocalypse on an early schedule.

James Pilant

 

They Make A Wasteland and Call It Healthcare

The Individual Mandate.

President Obama took universal health care and converted it into an insurance company bonanza. The President claims a great victory and says he has accomplished what many Presidents failed to do. Quite a victory. It reminds me of a quote about a war “They take a wasteland and call it peace.” Well we have the wasteland.

We live in a country where you can at penalty of law be forced to buy medical insurance.

It’s a great precedent. Think of all the things Congress might decide you should buy. From the innocuous like an emergency medical kit to disaster insurance (only if you live on the coast) to forced retirement accounts only in Wall Street Investments (We wouldn’t want the Chinese to get American money). The government has the power to force Americans to make any business profitable.

Back in the days before the Civil War, many people called the new industrial workers, “wage slaves.” What does that make us, “insurance slaves?” Taxes are one thing. I understand that civilized societies need to do things, defense, education, etc. But when did business get to collect taxes? Because that’s essentially what this is. The government mandates that you buy a service whether or not you want it. Everyone has to pay out the money, no exceptions. That’s a tax.

Individual responsibility.

They always cry out this one phrase, whenever they take something from you. Now, they say, once you’re buying insurance, you’ll be compelled to act responsibly. No free riders (Brush those teeth, eat right). You’ll be part of the system. I don’t think I have to worry about you being fooled.

This is an insurance company mandate.

There is no universal health care here. Forced consumers are powerless consumers. What do you get when you have no bargaining power? Tell me, if you have a $4,000 deductible, how inclined are you to get medical problems looked after? Not having insurance is a set of problems. They are formidable problems. Having this kind of insurance is a set of problems. They have you like so many rats in a trap. Bewildering sets of rules, denials of insurance claims, endless games and financial penalties aimed at American citizens. There is indeed insurance here, the insurance companies are insured against loss. They are insured against their own incompetence, stupidity and failure.

They’re too big to fail. Could the government allow an insurance company to go under? Wouldn’t that interfere with the smooth delivery of services? What’s a few billion here or there to keep the system running. And the government will have new ways to make insurance companies on the backs of Americn taxpayers.

How about profit? Let’s have a look.

This is a superb post by one of my favorite bloggers, J.N. Nielson on his blog, Grand Strategy: The view from Oregon.

How about the money?

How much cash flow are we talking about as a result of the individual mandate? I did some very rough calculations — literally on the back of an old envelope — and if we take the frequently cited figure of 47 million Americans without health insurance, and divide this by average household size of 2.59, we get more than 18 million uninsured households. I found figures cited between $46,000 and $50,000 as the median US household income in 2010. I took the lower number of $46,000, and found estimates between 7.5 and 12.8 percent of household income to be spent on healthcare (the Urban Institute’s report cited above gives a rate of 2.5 percent, but this is not to be taken seriously). If we pick a number between the two percentages cited, between the high and the low figure, we get about $4,650.00 annually for health insurance per household. This is an unrealistically low number, but I’m doing a conservative calculation. With these conservative numbers, we find that the individual mandate would funnel another 83.7 billion dollars into the coffers of the insurance industry annually. This is cash flow that they can leverage even if they have to pay out a little more than 83 billion in claims.

83.7 billion dollars. Pretty good chunk of change, courtesy of the United States government.

Will The Deficit Kill Us?

Joseph White has written a timely article. In the past few weeks we have been deluged with dire warnings about the deficit, sometimes they featured the Chinese, sometimes the destruction of social security; it was all very dramatic. Then when the continuation of tax cut became an issue, it all faded a way until the wealthy were assured their tax cuts. It was a budget buster of colossal size, totally unsupportable. It will cripple the government in financing every expenditure save those supported by their own fees.

Now that the wealthy have their money, the deficit has returned as an issue. We must cut back on entitlements. We must find cuts in education, etc.

The two-faced asinine clowns of the beltway would be funny if they weren’t taken so seriously.

Joseph White in the article quoted below has doubts as to the importance of deficit reduction.

I have similar doubts about the dangers of the deficit. However, the idea of deficit reduction now in the midst of the Second Great Depression strikes me as far more serious and dangerous. Such austerity reduces the size of any recovery and delays it. I have seen estimates of up to ten years of recovery to return to 2007 levels of employment.

We need a serious national discussion about expenditures. We will not get it from Obama’s stacked commissions or the “beltway boys.” The big act is that these are not matters of dispute. “Everyone recognized the danger of deficits.” “Like a well functioning family, a nation must not have any debts.” Etc.

Those are not settled matters. There are far more nuances to national debt management than any family budget.

As usual, I call with little hope for actual intelligent thought.

This is written by Joseph White at the Financial Times –

In the 1980s, deficit hawks recognized that, in the words of former CBO Director Rudy Penner, , “the crisis is there is no crisis.” In other words, the deficit wasn’t actually hurting people much. But it could, eventually, like “termites in the basement” as former OMB Director Charlie Schultze put it. How could this be dramatized?

One approach was to make arguments about the economic good that would be accomplished by reducing deficits. The idea was that lower deficits would produce greater national savings so more investment and a larger economy. Unfortunately, the standard economic estimates (such as by CBO) did not project enough extra growth to convincingly justify the pain of the deficit reduction. (Would you have abolished the Navy and Medicaid so that the economy would be 3% bigger thirty years later?). So deficit hawks promoted two other arguments, each of which should sound familiar.

One was to invent scenarios about what would happen if absolutely nothing were done for decades – a highly implausible case, but one that could, with sufficient assumptions, lead to economic disaster. The point was to promote so much fear that the goal of deficit reduction would take precedence over messy, uncomfortable subjects like the consequences of any particular means of reducing the deficit.

The other was to claim that “the markets” would eventually turn against the U.S. government and U.S. economy because of the spiraling debt, forcing some sort of payback that would make everyone miserable. …

I had never thought about it the way he presents it. I think this is similar attitude to Paul Krugman.

I recommend it to your reading and thought.

James Pilant

Banks Suffer Major Setback

When foreclosing on mortgages the banks have been skipping the rule of law. They have not followed the rules for the transfer of property preferring to pretend that their electronic records are a viable substitute. I never believed the courts would go along with that and the Massachusetts court did not. Here’s the story from that excellent blog, Rortybomb.

From Rortybomb – Big Week in Foreclosure News –

The biggest news is the decision in Massachusetts’ “Ibanez case”, where the Massachusetts Supreme Court voided the seizures of two homes by Wells Fargo and US Bank based on their inability to show that they owned the mortgages at the time of foreclosure. Tracy Alloway walks you through the case, David Dayen has more including the PDF of the decision, and analysis from Yves Smith and Felix Salmon.

From the opinion: “Where, as here, mortgage loans are pooled together in a trust and converted into mortgage-backed securities, the underlying promissory notes serve as financial instruments generating a potential income stream for investors, but the mortgages securing these notes are still legal title to someone’s home or farm and must be treated as such.”

They ruled through Massachusetts law instead of New York law, so no answers on looming New York trust law. Bank stocks are down. This is likely to have major implications down the road. We’ll have more on this opinion later.

I do not believe the ruling will stand. Congress will ride to the rescue of the banks legalizing their reckless disregard for state law and afflicting the suffering homeowners with even more pain. Congress will enact it. Obama will sign it. He will then explain it as a major legislative victory. Everything he does merits a press release and a couple of morning show appearances demonstrating his successful legislative record.

I wish there was someone somewhere who was as concerned with the rights and privileges of the American middle class and less concerned with the welfare of the banks.

James Pilant