None Dare Call it Sabotage

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Consider a thought experiment. Imagine you actively disliked the United States, and wanted to deliberately undermine its economy. What kind of positions would you take to do the most damage? You might start with rejecting the advice of economists and oppose any kind of stimulus investments. You'd also want to cut spending and take money out of the economy, while blocking funds to states and municipalities, forcing them to lay off more workers. You'd no doubt want to cut off stimulative unemployment benefits, and identify the single most effective jobs program of the last two years (the TANF Emergency Fund) so you could kill it.

You might then take steps to stop the Federal Reserve from trying to lower the unemployment rate. You'd also no doubt want to create massive economic uncertainty by vowing to gut the national health care system, promising to re-write the rules overseeing the financial industry, vowing re-write business regulations in general, considering a government shutdown, and even weighing the possibly of sending the United States into default.

You might want to cover your tracks a bit, and say you have an economic plan that would help -- a tax policy that's already been tried -- but you'd do so knowing that such a plan has already proven not to work.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Matt Yglesias had an item the other day that went largely unnoticed, but which I found pretty important.

...I know that tangible improvements in the economy are key to Obama's re-election chances. And Douglas Hibbs knows that it's key. And senior administration officials know that its key. So is it so unreasonable to think that Mitch McConnell and John Boehner may also know that it's key? That rank and file Republicans know that it's key? McConnell has clarified that his key goal in the Senate is to cause Barack Obama to lose in 2012 which if McConnell understands the situation correctly means doing everything in his power to reduce economic growth. Boehner has distanced himself from this theory, but many members of his caucus may agree with McConnell.

Which is just to say that specifically the White House needs to be prepared not just for rough political tactics from the opposition (what else is new?) but for a true worst case scenario of deliberate economic sabotage.

Budget expert Stan Collender has predicted that Republicans perceive "economic hardship as the path to election glory." Paul Krugman noted in his column yesterday that Republicans "want the economy to stay weak as long as there's a Democrat in the White House."

As best as I can tell, none of this analysis -- all from prominent observers -- generated significant pushback. The notion of GOP officials deliberately damaging the economy didn't, for example, spark widespread outrage or calls for apologies from Matt or anyone else.

And that, in and of itself, strikes me as remarkable. We're talking about a major political party, which will control much of Congress next year, possibly undermining the strength of the country -- on purpose, in public, without apology or shame -- for no other reason than to give themselves a campaign advantage in 2012.

Maybe now would be a good time to pause and ask a straightforward question: are Americans O.K. with this?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

So you are suggesting that Obama has thrown our economy further down the toilet because he is STUPID?

[Fandango 1,440]

I'll run around my block naked if O gets re-elected, lolz

[lostinblue 1,989]

The liberals will never take responsability for your own actions.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/281504-climate-change-is-main-barrier-to-development-united-nations/page__st__15

The EPA can regulate CO2 emissions as per the Supreme Court, regardless of whatever the nutty denialists have tantrums over.

This post has been edited by El Buscador: 05 November 2010 - 05:42 PM

When you look further into this mess....

http://www.affordablepoweralliance.org

New Study Documents the "Environmental Injustice" of EPA's Soon-To-Be-Unleashed Climate Tax

A groundbreaking new study reveals that the carbon tax being pushed by the Environmental Protection Agency will hit minorities, middle-income families and the working poor the hardest.

Download a one-page summary of the study here.

An Executive Summary of the study is here.

The full study is here.

This tax will hit all Americans hard -- small businesses, farms and ranches, churches, schools, hospitals -- no one will be spared the pain of higher energy costs from the EPA carbon tax.

Such a tax on America's poor is the definition of "Environmental Injustice," according to the leaders of the Affordable Power Alliance, which commissioned the study.

You can stop this travesty!

Go here to tell President Obama, and your elected representatives in the U.S. Congress, to stop EPA bureaucrats from slamming minorities and the working poor with a carbon tax.

When you look at this study ..one question Why are you keeping your foot on the black mans neck?

[Dakine10 5,452]

A groundbreaking new study reveals that the carbon tax being pushed by the Environmental Protection Agency will hit minorities, middle-income families and the working poor the hardest.

Most taxes hit middle-income families and the working poor the hardest. Nothing groundbreaking about that study.

Edited November 21, 2010 by Dakine10

[JohnSmith2007 353]

Ah yes, if you disagree with the pinhead economists then you are guilty of sabotage. I expected the hissy fit from the left after the election but I didn't think it would sink this low this quick. I sense a bit of desperation in your posts Steven. The truth is, the reps are preventing a huge meltdown by opposing the likes of Krugman. They are the ones that are sabotaging the economy. What, after trillions of dollars of stimulus your answer is trillions more? Your answer to the debt is to monetize that debt and inflate the currency? Your answer to unemployment is to make unemployment benefits open ended with no firm ending date and create a class of people that are permanently on unemployment? Yes there is sabotage, and the reps are stopping it.

Edited November 21, 2010 by JohnSmith2007

[spookyturtle 9,466]

I'll run around my block naked if O gets re-elected, lolz

Pics or it didn't happen.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I wonder how many more billions Soros will make when he collapses the US dollar like he did the British pound.

Soros cashes in again on the collapse of the pound

Thursday, 29 January 2009

One of the world's leading investors and the man famed for "breaking the Bank of England" in 1992, George Soros, told the World Economic Forum yesterday that the current financial crisis is even worse than what was experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Mr Soros also revealed that he has once again been selling sterling short, though he has now stopped betting against the pound. In a pessimistic tour d'horizon of global prospects, Mr Soros added that he did not think that America would return to robust 3 per cent growth for a decade.

While he had not seen events such as the collapse of Lehman Brothers coming, Mr Soros did say he had in recent months been ready for the fall in the pound, and had profited from it once again. "I did actually have a short position in sterling and it was one of the trades I carried out," he said. "But sterling did fall from around $2 to about $1.40, and at that level the risk-reward balance is no longer clear. I'm not saying it won't fall any more though. It will continue to fluctuate."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/soros-cashes-in-again-on-the-collapse-of-the-pound-1519190.html

Edited November 22, 2010 by ##########

[Pooky 3,825]

You might want to cover your tracks a bit, and say you have an economic plan that would help - a tax policy that's already been tried - but you'd do so knowing that such a plan has already proven not to work.

And unemployment won't get above 8% with the stimulus plan.

Edited November 22, 2010 by Pooky

[mawilson 2,133]

Imagine you actively disliked the United States, and wanted to deliberately undermine its economy. What kind of positions would you take to do the most damage?

I would

• borrow trillions of dollars from foreign nations and waste the money on useless projects or to bail out failed companies and banks
  
• print trillions of dollars to devalue the currency and screw the middle class whose dollar-denominated savings and wages would not keep up with inflation. (The investor class, millionaires and billionaires would be ok because they can protect themselves from inflation.)
  
• decry the outsourcing of American jobs overseas, while inviting more illegal immigration into this country, pushing poor, young, unskilled or minority workers off the lowest rung of the employment ladder
  
• vastly expand the military budget while failing to achieve domestic reductions in the budget
  

Did I miss anything?

Edited November 22, 2010 by mawilson

[mawilson 2,133]

Ah yes, my favorite - I would spend hundreds of billions of dollars trying to artificially

prop up the real estate market (i.e. stop home prices from falling further and actually

becoming affordable), while spending hundreds of billions more on "making home affordable"

programs, such as http://makinghomeaffordable.gov.