Fiscal Cliffs: Can We Drive The Rich Over One, Leave The People Safe?

[marmar]

from the Working Life blog:


Fiscal Cliffs: Can We Drive The Rich Over One, Leave The People Safe?
Posted on 03 October 2012.


People complain a lot about Congress not working hard enough. For my money, and the money and pocketbooks of millions of people, I’d be happy to give the entire lot of them say a year off. Then, maybe, we could enroll them in an advanced political “recovery” program and wean them off this idiotic obsession with the non-existent debt and deficit crisis.

Here come the “serious” people in Congress, aided and abetted by their willing transcribers of press releases (formerly known as “journalists”), clamoring about the mythical “fiscal cliff”:

Senate leaders are closing in on a path for dealing with the “fiscal cliff” facing the country in January, opting to try to use a postelection session of Congress to reach agreement on a comprehensive deficit reduction deal rather than a short-term solution.

enate Democrats and Republicans remain far apart on the details, and House Republicans continue to resist any discussion of tax increases. But lawmakers and aides say that a bipartisan group of senators is coalescing around an ambitious three-step process to avert a series of automatic tax increases and deep spending cuts.

First, senators would come to an agreement on a deficit reduction target — likely to be around $4 trillion over 10 years — to be reached through revenue raised by an overhaul of the tax code, savings from changes to social programs like Medicare and Social Security, and cuts to federal programs. Once the framework is approved, lawmakers would vote on expedited instructions to relevant Congressional committees to draft the details over six months to a year.

If those efforts failed, another plan would take effect, probably a close derivative of the proposal by President Obama’s fiscal commission led by Erskine B. Bowles, the Clinton White House chief of staff, and former Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, a Republican. Those recommendations included changes to Social Security, broad cuts in federal programs and actions that would lower tax rates over all but eliminate or pare enough deductions and credits to yield as much as $2 trillion in additional revenue.

If you read the entire article you’d probably think you missed the part quoting, or simply referencing, the opinion that there is no “fiscal cliff” or debt or deficit crisis– an opinion held by a variety of capable people such as Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Well, no, you didn’t miss that info because it just wasn’t there.

Because the entire political and media conventional wisdom universe simply accepts the phony crisis as fact. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.workinglife.org/2012/10/03/fiscal-cliffs-can-we-drive-the-rich-over-one-leave-the-people-safe/

[tama]

1. The fiscal cliff is external

if and when other nations refuse to accept dollars for their goods, the result for consumerism is the same as "austerity", but much faster and more abrupt.

And what do other nations need dollars for? Mainly to keep on paying odious debt. If and when other nations start to follow Ecuador's example, demand for dollars drops, as dollar is not backed by export goods but crumbling empire based largely immaterial copyright and patent right revenues in digital internet age.

[mbperrin]

4. China and other major holders of dollar debt and dollar balances would be reluctant

to see their value driven to zero.

But you know what? Even if everybody else in the world won't take dollars, anyone living in the country will. Balance of trade issue over. Debt issue over. Domestic industry boost - enormous.

This is why the US has been cheapening the dollar for some time and will continue to do so - it will pay back our debt with cheap dollars and encourage domestic production while discouraging purchases from abroad.

Wouldn't lose a minute's worth of sleep either way.

[tama]

5. Hmm

When Carter said let's get serious about getting of the oil addiction, people voted Reagan. Have people changed much from those days?

[mbperrin]

6. I know that when Reagan was elected, the domestic oilpatch went belly up.

Unemployment was under 3% Thanksgiving and was 19.8% in Ector County, Texas by Valentine's Day after Inauguration. Reagan got the Saudis to open the taps wide and broke the Russian oil industry. Broke the domestic one, too.

And yet, there are many stupid people in Texas who think Reagan was a great President.

Absolutely no ability to vote in their own best interest - and that's a real Republican strength.

[Warpy]

2. Iceland pretty much did that

when they jailed the bankers and kept the social support systems intact.

They're in recovery, unlike the US and the rest of Europe. And still we're being sold austerity, budget cuts, and every other thing the rich want to cram down our throats just so their bank accounts don't go down.

There is a lesson in all this. I wish people would wake the hell up and learn it.

[Demeter]

3. Why not? That's the 1% in reverse, by the way

If they can do it, we can do it.

[Po_d Mainiac]

7. This yahoo seems to think the Federal Government is the only borrower

While Federal debt is paid off with freshly printed $, commodities prices wood soar along with interest rates forced on State and local Governments.

Mortgage interest? Ferget about it. The 19% prime we saw in the late seventies will seem like eutopia in comparision. Seniors living off fixed income will get crushed.

Every Country that has had "the" trade currency and has debased it as a way to cover their National debt (debt rung up to support an over-sized military in many cases) has seen their currency loose that trade status, and the consequences that followed.

The rich will always cover their ass with assets that will rise at or greater than the rate of inflation. It will be the lower echelons that will be loading wheelbarrows with worthless greenbacks to purchase a loaf of bread or load a room heater. Did the wealthy French bitch about the price of bread leading up to 1789?

A Country (any Country) requires a sound currency, and cannot acquire a debt load that exceeds its ability to repay that debt. It can get away with it for a period of time depending on what is going on with the rest of the Central Banks, but eventually the race to the bottom reaches the ground floor.

The rich don't have oversized bank accounts. They have portfolios that will at least keep pace with inflation. Grandmothers have savings accounts and are being crushed by the chairsatans' printing press and ZIRP already.

And the author is calling for more of the same?

[bemildred]

8. Think of the stimulus all that public wealth reclaimed from the rich will give the economy!