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
