Question: Why did President Obama put Social Security and Medicare on the table in the budget negotiations when 80% of the people oppose cuts to these programs?
Answer: The president is not in office to represent those people. He was selected, funded and carried over the finish line by corporate America. Look at the appointment of Wall Streeter Timothy Geithner, the bailouts, and the failure to prosecute any of the crooks who caused the current recession. He's serving the people who put him in office. Those people don't need Social Security and Medicare.
Q: Doesn't the president need to worry about reelection? Why would he risk that by going against such a large majority?
A: President Obama has no personal or financial risk if he loses his job.. He has a tidy lifetime pension and will, no doubt, be on plenty of corporate boards, not to mention the opportunities for huge speaking fees. There is less political risk than you might think. The only Republican presidential candidate who might be other than certifiable is the largely unknown John Huntsman, former governor of Utah and Obama's ambassador to China. The rest would do much more harm to seniors than Obama concessions this time around (if they materialize) and people know that.
Q: The national debt is at $14 trillion. Doesn't Obama have to do something decisive now?
A: If you assume that reducing the national debt is the primary challenge facing the nation, yes. But why do we have out of control spending? Social Security pays for itself. If Obama truly wanted to help Medicare, he would lift the ban on medicare negotiating 40% to 60% discounts on prescription drugs.
If the president wanted to cut the budget now,everything would be on the table. He would cut military spending and end the wars. He would demand an end to outsourcing and the multilevel scheme to give away the jobs of the citizens of the United States. He won't even consider and discuss these high yield options. Without any doubt, the president would never have allowed the Bush tax cuts to carry forward, if he wanted new revenue from those who could pay. He is not serious about lowering the national debt.
Q: Isn't Obama forced to negotiate some budget cuts due to the Republican threat to vote against raising the national debt ceiling?
A: Failing to raise the debt ceiling is pure insanity. The good faith and credit of the United States would be shattered. The AAA credit rating would drop, everything that the government does would be more expensive, causing even more debt. In addition, the impact on the US and world economy would be catastrophic, like a global tsunami. This is well known. Only the delusional believe otherwise.
Q: So why isn't the false drama between Republicans and Democrats made clear?
A: The corporate media has no interest in debunking this false drama. Their owners benefit greatly from this sort of contrived crisis. The drama by no-drama Obama and the shrill voices on the right in are in complete alignment with the very big money interests. Those interests can force cuts in Social Security and Medicare (already begun with cuts to the employee payroll rax). They can protect the Bush administration's tax breaks, a major factor in the deficit. They can sneak in all sorts of legislative and regulatory changes while the focus is on this false drama. This is a time honored technique. For example, the real threats from the 9/11 attacks were never addressed. Instead, the turmoil after the attack became the pretext for war against Iraq invasion and opened the door for huge increases in military spending. They do this whenever they have an opportunity.
Q: Aren't you saying that the president doesn't care about the typical citizen struggling through this serious recession and those who have lost their jobs, homes, and futures
A: Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. The president might call it "shared sacrifice" or some other corny term. But, in fact, he is willing to to see people thrown out of their homes with few if any resources, denied medical care, and stay jobless for months and years. His first term in office has demonstrated that in the clearest terms.
This president will never do a single thing to oppose the the agenda of the ruling financial elite unless, of course, members of the ruling elite tell him to oppose something meaningless just for the sake of appearances.
Q: So there is no hope?
A: There hasn't been much hope for a long time. There will never be any change as long as just about everybody in elective office and much of the judiciary remain in office. You can't get there from here as long as they control the political scene for their patrons, The Money Party..
END
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Comments
wow, although about sums up my views
This is just like healthcare "debate" where they fill up the airwaves with nonsensical nothingness to pass a health care lobbyist filled wish lists in the end.
It's absolutely disgusting the media doesn't point out the fact SS is solvent, fine and good example of legislation refusing to allow Medicaid/Medicare to negotiate prices.
If you notice the only ones up for getting squeezed on health care are the actual doctors.
The Media or Medea;)
The corporate media is the PR shop for the Money Party. They love obfuscation and phoney drama.
I get a kick out of watching Ed and the other one, can't recall her name right now. They make these appeals to Obama as though Obama might change. Obama is doing exactly what he was put in there to do. When will they get the message and tell the people - this is a scam. They will do that on their last show ever on MSNBC or any other major network. Silly drama, cynical. No wonder their viewership never tops 2.0 mil, if that. O'Reilly has the same low numbers, btw. It's the big storyline to justify the big rip off.
Michael Collins
Elliot Spitzer, Dylan Ratigan
covered some of these stuff but not in depth enough. Gotta love those noise panels and on top of it, Ratigan's sub, when he's on vacation, is one of those corporate drones who proclaims "we must" destroy SS and Medicaire for the "sake of the budget", of course no mention that one could balance the budget in a heart beat with some taxes.
I did it in no time by repealing the Bush tax cuts, adding both a transaction tax on Wall Street flash trades and then adding a VAT (low, like 2% or something).
Bam, balanced budget, imagine that. We'll have to point that out with some budget game.
Spitzer was also bringing in some reality and of course CNN cancelled him. CNN cancelled anyone who actually says anything, if you notice.
Agree or disagree with whoever that person is, but the pattern is to cancel anyone who talks about the real issues.
Invite them for a guest editorial on EP
They would fit right in.
Michael Collins
Obama's "deal" implies he will cave on Bush tax cuts permanently
This is precious, some people analyzed the deal and realized it implies the Bush tax cuts would be made permanent.
Full spectrum insincerity
Now Obama is concerned about revenue but when he had a shot at huge revenue, revenue from people who can pay, he turned it down. That was a few months ago. It's called "crazy making" dialog. You just say the most contradictory stuff and act like it's sensible. On technical skills, I'd put Obama up there with Reagan and Clinton in this regard. He's much more distant than they are and can't engage the people for full the total con but he's very good. They made the right choice.
Michael Collins
Good summary of the hypocrisy
And worse yet, Obama thinks he can act with impunity - without fear of a challenge from the Progressives (where the Repubs fear the extremists of the Tea Party). I think the only limited hope is to primary Obama - no chance of defeating him but a good chance of a wake up call (he will need their votes and support in the General Election vs blind confidence as in "where else can they go")
Thank you
Primaries are a great chance to show how people respond. Obama's election in 2008 was predicted by lopsided primary turnout in favor of Democrats. This time around, those extrs will stay home unless they have a chance to register disapproval in the Obama. The public has the word on Social Security cuts by Republicans, now they'll get it about Obama. I think that a lot of folks will want to know why he caved with such a majority behind him. The answer to that question in liberating;)
Michael Collins
John Boehner "Cuts Off" Negotiations
The entire thing is a joke. The Republicans simply will stone wall anything and create a "crisis" that doesn't need to be.
So the fact Obama even put SS/Medicare on the table is even more telling because....why? GOP isn't interested in doing anything but stone walling, creating a crisis.
It's ridiculous. Unfortunately because people were so pissed at Democrats, they voted in a group of bat shit crazies.
Which is assuredly the option for 2012. Corporate corrupt or bat shit crazy.
Economic Populist - EP's Got Google;)
Google had EP on their front page for keywords "Obama budget". Seems we captured what most people are thinking at this point.
Michael Collins
EP's got too large images!
Ok, awesome but the image is a real drag on page load. ;) Sorry I replaced it with text announcing Google had us in their front page for Obama budget.
That actually means we were getting a lot of reads, links hits for their news algorithm rotates also is based on relevance but also overall site credibility.
BTW: Google hates slow loading websites. Ours is already pretty loaded because we use so many images and graphs.
The page load was hitting 20 seconds with your image added.
I disagree about the GOP field
Huntsman's prospects don't seem that good, but there's another GOP candidate who isn't sadistic and batshit crazy, and **does** have a serious shot: Romney. He's a completely uninspiring, plastic, status quo, corporatist center-right kind of guy. In other words, totally indistinguishable from Hope'n'Change. He might well be **preferable** to Obama: I can't see Romney stumbling into the idiotic Libya adventure, and I think he'd have a much harder time gutting Social Security and Medicare -- if he even wanted to.
Since the Dems are too worthless to mount a primary challenge to the current fraud, I think it's a rational strategy for lefties & liberals to register Republican and vote for Romney in their local primary. Consider it a kind of damage control -- you shut out Bachman or somebody like her, and you don't need to worry about whether Hope'n'Change beats Romney, since you're getting pretty much exactly the same thing either way.
Makes sense
Does make sense about why to register Republican, except I hate to encourage the two-party schemers and scammers. Depends on primary rules in the state you happen to live in, but it just goes against the grain to register either Republican or Democrat.
I like Buddy Roehmer for calling out the others on campaign financing, by his example of limiting contributions to $100. But he was shut out by the GOP machine and the RNC.
I also like Donald Trump, but for another reason. He was shut out by the corporate media machine and the RNC for daring to use the word 'tariff'.
But I agree about Romney. He's suspect for his outsourcing and downsizing in his business biography, but that may not predetermine his actions as a POTUS.
Everybody knows but ....
.... nobody can do a thing about it.
Of course, there are still a few True Believers divided into the so-called Left and the so-called Right.
These few still take television network news seriously.
WTO and local
Join a growing movement to get out of the WTO. It's the root of all that's happening. Phyllis Schlafly says we need to get out. She's right. Rather than rejecting her around other issues, jump on this and bring everyone together to get it done.
Take control locally. Know people locally. National elections are an orchestrated drama but local stuff is real.
Grow your own food. They are planning shut downs of food supplies under the food safety law, using military and DHS. Fortunes to be made in shortages. Ask Enron. Food riots are great marketing.
A right way and a wrong way
"Phyllis Schlafly says we need to get out [of the WTO]."
Of course, Schlafly's critique of the WTO is sound. However, there's a right way and a wrong way. Ron Paul has argued for dumping the WTO and all existing 'trade agreements' ... but then he wants the U.S. to pronounce unilateral ZERO TARIFFS.
Ron Paul has it upside down and backwards.
The right way is to scrap our entire system of preferences and replace that with a 15% Across-the-Board Tariff. After that, either the WTO reforms itself globally or, without the U.S., it dies.
The people have the power here in the U.S. to fix all the problems because the problems originated here in the U.S.. There's no need to take out after China or the WTO, just take care of ourselves in our own sovereign nation. The world will follow.
WTO is the structure for corporate global rule
A movement to get out is a movement for human rights over corporate power. There is no sovereignty for any while they are in it. And out of it, "free" trade agreements have no enforcement.
WTO paper tiger
Leave the WTO without first putting a protectionist policy (Across-the-Board) tariff in place? Make no sense to me.
But I wouldn't worry about the WTO imposing fines or whatever. The WTO is a paper tiger.
Once the American public takes charge and forces Washington to enact an Across-the-Board tariff, the WTO becomes a non-issue. 'Fast-track' trade "agreements" are unconstitutional anyway.
Find your footing
Corporate media has done all possible to portray fundamentalists and religious people as stupid, bad, dangerous, but it is religious faith that guided Gandhi and MLK and gave them both courage and kept them from hatred and despair.
We can see for ourselves this is a huge battle between good and evil. Secular humanism doesn't come close to dealing with any of this, either in terms of living peacefully day to day or in grappling with the extent of depravity we are witnessing.
If you want to do something immediately and with severe impact on them, go after a major source of their funding and power - vaccines - a 20 billion investment industry. The truth will tear it apart and make you safer because vaccines are dangerous and yet can be mandated.
Garth Nicolson, editor of the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Metastasis, and one of the most cited scientists in the world, who's published over 558 medical and scientific papers, edited more than 14 books, and served on the editorial boards of 28 medical and scientific journals, says this about vaccines. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e2ljD3hkhg&feature=related
Another video with him discussing ways we are being damaged . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU12h6lWi9I&NR=1
Donald W. Scott, editor of The Journal of Degenerative Diseases and co-founder of the Common Cause Medical Research Foundation, agrees and goes further into whose behind this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8FX-B9vcgg&feature=related
Find your spiritual footing and abjure hopelessness. The good you can do and power you can undo, by sending out alerts on vaccines is large. The left has to be as critical of "health" agencies as military and there is no real separation. http://salem-news.com/articles/may132011/cdc-wrong-bw.php
Gandhi was no fool. He overturned an empire based on strength he gained through spiritual belief. The whole story of the Garden of Eden has been misrepresented. It was not a serpent but "an illusion" that got loose in the Garden, one that suggested there was something other than God. Jesus's "saving," by this interpretation, was about saving mankind from a delusion or illusion and reconnecting it to what is universal and real. Buddhists and Hindus and indigenous people all believe there is nothing real beside that force (whether it is called God or not) and that we and everything are part of it. That coincides with physics and seeing everything in the world as energy. And the most positive and healing energy levels are love and happiness, the most destructive from hatred and fear and depression. The unreal is the illusion that wealth, power, control, (even knowledge) matter is what we call evil. And we can see how out of control it has gotten. Where they used to speak openly of hatred and power, they speak soothingly and cunningly, using one lying illusion after another.
Fundamentalists and religious people, whether educated or uneducated, are not facing what is happening alone. They, like Gandhi, have something they believe in that gives them strength and courage. Gandhi's faith helped him see more clearly what he needed to do. If this much evil doesn't make us more spiritual, we are missing the good for each of us that can come out of it, and goodness, as Gandhi showed, is also a means to overcome it.
Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.
Mohandas Gandhi
When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.
Mohandas Gandhi
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
Mohandas Gandhi
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
Mohandas Gandhi
When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.
Mohandas Gandhi
Where love is, there God is also.
Mohandas Gandhi
Where there is love there is life.
Mohandas Gandhi
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. --Mahatma Gandhi
I have but shadowed forth my intense longing to lose myself in the Eternal and become merely a lump of clay in the Potter's divine hands so that my service may become more certain because uninterrupted by the baser self in me.
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness --Mahatma Gandhi
Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. --Mahatma Gandhi
If you don't ask, you don't get. --Mahatma Gandhi
Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love. --Mahatma Gandhi
When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall - think of it, ALWAYS. --Mahatma Gandhi
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. --Mahatma Gandhi
The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice. --Mahatma Gandhi
I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love. --Mahatma Gandhi
Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence. --Mahatma Gandhi
Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action. --Mahatma Gandhi
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. --Mahatma Gandhi
"wealth without work"
Anon. article touches on several topics probably not relevant to EP, such as questions about vaccinations ... and I searched to find something directly related to economics. Good points: "the things that will destroy us are: ... wealth without work ... business without morality ... "
Thanks for links and also for quotes from Gandhi.
Vaccines are about economics
Vaccines couldn't be more about economic populism.
Very good point that to go after them is to go after power/funding of those harming us. A great means to overcome helplessness because the problems for the bankers and corporations caused by exposing the vaccines would be quite significant. That's they're incredibly dangerous or harmful is large truth they've done everything to hide even having built whole agencies around them.
If this isn't about economics, don't know what is.
http://coto2.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/murdoch-and-vaccines-exposure-of-m...
Religion, Vaccines, CT and 9/11 CT are not appropriate for EP
Sorry, this is an economics site and in particular we only cover topics which we can document and we know what we're talking about.
The great conspiracy theory on Vaccines is one of those who do not cover. Sorry. Also, religious views are not welcome on EP for we are an economics blog exclusively.
Is this just another move to
Is this just another move to fascism? Or corporatism? Because if this game to blow up the credit rating of the gov't is successful, won't the banks be in full control then? Because they have stellar borrowing capabilities (thanks to the gov't backstop) and are considered too big to fail while the gov't will now be considered capable of failing.
interesting, banks can't fail for our government can
Very good observation. Congress moved immediately to bail out the banks yet when it comes to the United States government and nation, block a rescue at every turn.