If John Boehner planned to accomplish something then he’d say so. A partisan player does not pre-emptively hand over the wheel unless he doesn’t want to be holding it when the car hits a tree. Of course, after handing over the wheel he has a strong incentive to make sure that the car does in fact hit that tree.
Republicans aren’t stupid*. Fixing the disaster that Bush left is will be punishingly hard. It demands the kind of compromise that conservatives cite when they spit on George W’s dad, except times ten million. Even if Boehner somehow keeps the teaparty lynch mob at bay and pulls it off**, his name will be anathema and history will give Obama the credit.
So why not let fail? If the country slides a bit farther then grampa Fred Thompson could sleepwalk into the White House. Even the worse case scenario (BOA goes tits up, dominoes, proles starve) isn’t necessarily a disaster for the GOP. These are the same guys who keep flirting with defaulting on the national debt. A little creative destruction doesn’t put them off nearly as much as you’d think it would.
(*) Pipe down. It isn’t that easy to win when the country hates your agenda and doesn’t think much of you personally.
(**) Hahahaha.
Crashman
This is so depressing.
Mako
…tits up, dominoes, proles starve…
Oh dear, didn’t expect to find my exact sexual fetish mentioned here.
4tehlulz
@Mako: ‘sup /b/?
Paris
#1 on Boner’s agenda: cocktail hour time and duration does not change. Governing is for chumps.
BR
The BofA failure scenario is looking more and more likely, but will put the GOP in a tough spot – split loyalties between the banksters that own them and teatards who will scream about bailouts from their electric tricycles.
NR
And today, Obama said he wants to work with the Republicans.
Well, guess what Barack? They don’t want to work with you.
gbear
Thanks for the optomism. I think I’ll just kill myself now.
kdaug
@Paris: #2: Seeing how many golf courses he can get renamed after him.
me
@kdaug: #3 tanning salon
Trinity
Alcoholism…it’s what’s for dinner.
ugh. I’m doing a double shot as soon as I get home tonight.
blondie
Oh they aren’t kidding about being the “party of no.” I anticipate a couple of years of the GOP trying to bring all of the fed. gov’t to a grinding halt, with the exception of subpoenas and investigations into made-up issues about Obama.
One problem with getting government small enough to drown in a bathtub is that by the time you make that happen, there’s no more bathtubs left.
Mako
Proving once again that Apple is better than Windows, Washington State slaps down Bill Gates Sr.
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/11/03/why-washingtons-tax-on-the-rich-failed/
Bill E Pilgrim
@NR: Listening to his press conference right now.
“After last night, no one party will be able to control what we do”
Wait, did the Republicans lose last night?
El Cid
Any failure in passing a Republican agenda will be blamed by the pundiariat and establishmentarian billion dollar media as the fault of partisan Democrats unwilling to move forward and the fault of Obama, also, for failing to move his party forward past its old-fashioned selfish partisanship.
jacy
At least for today (maybe I’ll be in a better mood sometime soon, although I doubt it) I say let if fucking burn. It’s like being in a relationship with somebody totally self-destructive. You turn yourself inside out to make things better, but regardless, they’re going to go down and drag you with them.
I’m busy rearranging my life so that I have less actual contact with people than I already do, because in general, people fucking suck.
jwb
Krugman is pissed. Friday’s column should be fun.
It’s ok to run the country into a ditch, but the corporate overlords will not be pleased if it hurts their bonuses or adversely affects their gated communities. Then, too, defaulting on the debt would do significant damage to the corporate sector, and I doubt very much that they’d be willing to take that hit. These are the same folks, remember, who started complaining when the government said they might want to hold down their compensation a little bit. A complete collapse of the economy will also pit corporation against corporation and even more significantly sector against sector; it may well be hard to line up all those CEOs when they are struggling to keep their companies afloat even as their investments disappear with the collapsing market. Add to that 20% unemployed or more in the street armed not with metaphorical rusty pitchforks but with real semi-automatic weapons, and, Washington, we have a problem. I don’t think this scenario is yet likely, but it has now entered the realm of possibility.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Do you ever fucking listen? Or do you just troll with the same comment 14 different times?
Dennis SGMM
@BR:
Not just BofA. I have the feeling that the large investors and pension funds who were left holding worthless mortgage-backed securities have been taking some time to figure out just whom they are going to go after and BofA isn’t the only one with liabilities in this area. I predicted Son of Bailout some time ago. The only thing is that even though the Republicans vote it in the administration will get the blame for it – just as with TARP.
BR
@Dennis SGMM:
The thing is, I’m not sure I see them being able to pass it in congress. I’d say the bill will die in the house after some serious teatard v. bankster infighting and the smarter Dems standing aside. The key is for Obama to not try to take a side too early in that process and let the GOP fight it out. (There’ll be a host of GOPers running for president who’ll be happy to fight with each other on it – Romney will take the banksters’ side, Huckabee will take the teatard side, Palin will be incoherent, etc.)
Bill E Pilgrim
@jwb: He’s become by far my favorite blogger. For one reason, among many, he’s able to stay on an even keel, admitting that even if a larger stimulus had been attempted it might not have gotten passed in the political reality of the time, while at the same time not masking his exasperation that it wasn’t even tried.
Or, more to the point, exasperation that it’s now common wisdom that it wouldn’t have mattered, just because it wasn’t even attempted.
FlipYrWhig
@jwb: Hey, Krugman sounds like one of the more repetitive Balloon Juice readers! Yes, no one cares about bipartisanship as a primary-level issue. On the other hand, when people _don’t_ see results, and they’re casting about looking for answers, one of the answers they fasten upon is… lack of bipartisanship. Talk about a desire for “bipartisanship” _means_ talk about “results.” Not for liberals, not for conservatives, but for run-of-the-mill members of the voting public.
FlipYrWhig
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Also, we’ll never know if we would have had a system of instantaneous teleportation between the US and Gabon. What pains me is not so much that political reality makes it highly unlikely, it’s more that it was never _tried_.
Bill E Pilgrim
@FlipYrWhig: So they “cast about” and come up with fiction, which you suggest that people should try to head off anyway by pretending to be engaged in something that doesn’t matter? Or, more to the point, doesn’t actually exist.
Republicans stated openly that they weren’t interested in cooperation, and I can only assume, and hope, that most of Obama’s attempts to engage them were done with him knowing that it would never happen. God I hope so, no one could be that gullible.
Erik Vanderhoff
Pipe down. It isn’t that easy to win when the country hates your agenda and doesn’t think much of you personally.
Precisely. Republicans are brilliant at politics. It’s governing they can’t manage to get right.
El Cid
@jwb: To an extent, true, but most of our corporate leaders today are focused on smash & grab for the next few years, not their position over the next few decades.
In the 1920s the biggest of the corporate super-rich was quite forward thinking, wanting to be rich in a stable country for generations. The upper-class sponsored ‘think tanks’ of the day actually helped propose and back the original Social Security act. (Mainly because they preferred such an approach than maintaining their own private pensions forever, but also for reasons of population stability.)
So for most of today’s corporate leadership and investment class, if you give them the choice between making the biggest shit ton of billions right now versus instability or collapse later, they’ll choose the former.
Suck It Up!
@Bill E Pilgrim:
there is no might, it would not have. period. And if Obama had tried as Krugman puts it, the complaint would have been that he didn’t try hard enough. After all the criticism lobbed at the Senate I will never understand why anyone thinks they would have approved of a trillion plus dollar stimulus.
El Cid
@Erik Vanderhoff: They get governing as right as they need to get it for the people they’re working for.
Dennis SGMM
@BR:
I hope that you’re right. My concern is that the “If these guys go under then we’re all gonna’ die!” mantra will be dinned into our ears. My guess is that a “bi-partisan compromise” will be forged resulting in our holding the bag for the under-performing mortgages. The administration will still get the blame.
Bill E Pilgrim
@FlipYrWhig: How is that “trolling”? Because it’s critical of Barack Obama?
Oy.
And not even very critical.
Please by all means be as highly supportive of everything Obama does as you like, but do you have to pretend that any other position at this site is “trolling”?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Suck It Up!: So, you know, Krugman doesn’t, is that it?
Forgive my doubt.
At least he has some.
Suck It Up!
@Bill E Pilgrim:
No offense, but you’d have to be pretty arrogant to think that.
Mark S.
@BR:
Another banking crisis will really test the leadership of President Boehner.
I’m 98% sure there won’t be another bailout. We’ll soon see what would have happened if there were no bailouts in 2008-9.
BR
@Dennis SGMM:
I hope you’re wrong. But maybe that highlights what should be our singular focus – getting the administration to pick up their populist tendencies that Plouffe must have promoted during the campaign in 2008. Obama will probably want to be “reasonable” and prevent the short-term pain of the banks going under. We need to push him and Dems to not do that.
Mako
@jwb:
Krugman has been wrong about Japan for decades. Which makes it a bit difficult to give him credence about the US.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Suck It Up!: Sorry didn’t get that one.
I’d have to be arrogant to think that Republicans are lying when they say they dream of bipartisanship?
I’m not sure if you can possibly mean that. Did I miss something?
FlipYrWhig
@Bill E Pilgrim: IMHO you don’t get much of a boost from “bipartisanship,” but you can definitely can take a big hit from “partisanship,” so you’d best inoculate yourself against it by talking about “bipartisanship.” You’re right that Republicans lately have done nothing to suggest that they’re interested in coming together, working together, bipartisan whatnot. They aren’t, and they won’t. And non-ideologically-inclined people who don’t follow politics closely _won’t like that_.
Even Dubya Bush, for christ’s sake, talked about bipartisan cooperation. It’s a platitude that rank-and-file members of the public like to hear; but, even more than that, to _lack_ it is a charge that they really _don’t_ like to hear. Think of how often people have complained about Democrats “ramming things through” and the like. That’s an argument that Democrats are… partisan. Republicans created that situation by refusing to engage; but it’s hard to point that out without seeming like a sore loser.
At any rate, yes, even Republicans know that voters like for politics to be bipartisan; the trick they pulled off was being so partisan themselves thy managed to make _Democrats_ look partisan, as evidenced by the recurring gripes about overreach, swinging too far towards liberalism, ramming things down throats, etc.
celticdragonchick
@jwb:
I, for one, know how to use mine.
If they are stupid enough to actually crash the country, then whatever blood they shed for real will not bother me in the slightest.
Try as I might, sometimes my old helicopter door gunner attitude just keeps coming back.
Suck It Up!
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Krugman knows, he’s just not ready to admit it. All over the news was that this country is trillions of dollars of debt and that TARP could cost 64 trillion dollars and you think THIS conservative senate was going to vote for a trillion dollar stimulus? And was it you that said he conceded that his figure would not have been enough? when did he decide this because I knew this long ago. It never made sense. 800+ billion in stimulus was not enough, but just 300 billion more would have done it? I’m not economist, but when shit don’t make sense, it don’t make sense.
Not claiming to be an expert, not claiming to be smarter than Krugman either.
FlipYrWhig
@Bill E Pilgrim: NR has been on EVERY FUCKING THREAD observing with one-liners that Obama is talking about working with Republicans. I have tried to engage him in an actual discussion about the rhetoric of bipartisanship, and NR just scuttles off to the next thread to say the same inane thing. That’s trolling.
some other guy
Someone should start a website that consists entirely of the message “It’s been almost [x] hours since Republicans won and they haven’t fixed all the problems in the country yet! How’s that change working out for you?” where x is automatically updated to the time since midnight 11/2/10.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Suck It Up!:
Well said. No, I mean it, that could be the motto for the entire election last night.
As I said, no offense either, but he is an economist, plus what he says rings true to me. So forgive me if I believe him and not you, I’ve had enough of “I don’t care, all I know is…” thinking for one day.
Mako
@Suck It Up!:
No offense, but you’d have to be pretty arrogant to think that.
I’m not a bigot, but i don’t think fat people should be allowed on airlines.
Suck It Up!
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that sentence say you hope Obama wasn’t gullible enough to believe that Republicans wanted to work with him?
Bill E Pilgrim
@FlipYrWhig: Okay, point. I only was going by this one instance.
I think I need to check out, the ferocious Obama loyalist thing versus the DFHs has got to be the most boring conversation possible, yet so easy to fall into. Cheers.
FlipYrWhig
@Suck It Up!: Krugman, like many other very smart people, has faith that the position or idea that is right will ultimately win out over something stupid or illogical. Thus, if you’re right, why not fight, because, well, how could you lose? All you have to do is be convincing, and it’s in the bag!
On the other hand, I think it’s pretty clear that conservative Democrats are a hindrance to all good ideas, that they’re extremely hard to convince of anything they don’t already believe, _and_ that, alas, they’re the best shot we’ve got to implement anything even slightly left of center.
Suck It Up!
@Bill E Pilgrim:
He’s an economist, but he’s making political commentary when he says Obama should have “tried” to get the trillion dollar stimulus.
...now I try to be amused
@El Cid:
“Life is uncertain; eat dessert first.”
It explains a lot.
Mako
@celticdragonchick:
I so hear you. Perhaps you could offer some advice on gun/ammunition purchases? I’ve been doing some research on my own,-
http://ww2.zombieinitiative.org/node/2910 –
cuz you never know when thing might collapse, but having a respected tailgunner in the loop, that would be cool.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Suck It Up!: Right…. …and if I think it’s painfully, bleedingly, mind-thumpingly, staring-you-in-the-face-like-an-artificially-orange-jackolatern politician-whispering-sweet-nothings-about-cooperation obvious that they’re lying… why would it be anything but natural for me to think that?
I think Obama has to play a certain amount of “looking bipartisan” even if he knows that it will likely fail. Politics 101, it seems to me.
Suck It Up!
@Bill E Pilgrim:
LOL!!! oh wow! never fails. When in doubt cry victim and conjure up violent imagery of enlightened progressives being attacked by Obots.
Ferocious! LOL!! GRRRRRRRR!!!
celticdragonchick
@Mako:
Hmm.
Not really a good thread here for that, so email me
[email protected]
or
[email protected]
celticdragonchick
@Mako:
The zombie thing is a bit funny though…
Bill E Pilgrim
@Suck It Up!:
Sigh.
I thought I was characterizing both sides as sort of comical.
Well, you’ve proved my point, better than I even expected.
Honestly, this place just becomes unbearable when that shit starts. Half the time I check in to read it, some centrist enforcer is threatening violence by the end of a thread.
Enough for me. Have fun screaming…..
Mako
@celticdragonchick:
Yeah. It was meant to be a joke. Thanks for seeing it.
twiffer
i have to say, this quote sums everything up quite well:
in other words, the republicans will work with democrats, provided the dems completely agree with the repubs.
celticdragonchick
@Mako:
LOL.
I watched the premiere of Th Walking Dead on Sunday. It rocked.
Scott de B.
If the banks go under, that’s not short-term pain. That’s long-term pain. Unless you’re saying it’s short-term because it will be terminal.
Mako
@celticdragonchick:
The problem with defending yourself against zombies is not much different from defending yourself against the hungry hordes of the future. Sure today we can ignore the hoboes at every highway interchange, but what happens when we are all hoboes? Those crates of 5.45×39 in the basement, will they be enough? The wife wants them out of her wine closet, should I dump her, and replace her with someone more Milla Jovovich? What do you think about this-
http://ww2.zombieinitiative.org/node/671?page=1
a giant punji stick throwing slingshot? It’s got to be cheaper than that craigslist howitzer i got my eye on.
Cain
Tim F:
The problem is that even if they sleepwalked whoever into the leadership seat.. they still have an incredible mess on their hands. They really can’t do any more tax cuts because there will likely be nothing more to cut. In fact, they can’t really do much of anything other than either increasing taxes, or let the country fail further. They could of course keep blaming democrats, but they still need to fix it. It looks like people can only wait two years for that to happen…
cain
Kirk Spencer
@Mako: heh.
For what it’s worth, some years ago I practiced with a sling. I could hit a melon sized object (shades of Dan Burton) eight times out of ten at 50 yards when using car lugnuts for my bullets. Of course they were stationary, not shuffling.
It’s long been my opinion that if you’re serious about preparing “for the apocalypse”, firearms should not be your long-term weapons of choice.
Linda Featheringill
@jwb:
Plus the withering away of local government services because of lack of money, including police, fire, and various medical services.
He who has the most guns wins.
The Somalia system, complete with warlords and their little territories.
chopper
@Mark S.:
this. deep down inside, i always wondered how bad things would have gotten if mccain was elected and the government didn’t do shit to stop the plunge in the economy.
so we’ll get to find out.
grumpy realist
Anyone who think that developed countries can’t collapse back into messes should be introduced to Zimbabwe and the mess Mugabe has managed to make of it over the years.
I find it ironic that the US, which benefited so much from the influx of brainpower fleeing Nazi Europe, has never considered the possibility that the same could happen here. And if the situation in the US ever gets to the point where the intellectuals and scientists are moving abroad, then forget it; stick a fork in her, she’s done.
goatchowder
No. The worst-case scenario is that Boner digs in his heels (or is hamstrung by the Teahadists), and CANNOT or WILL NOT pass the bill to raise the debt ceiling next year.
If that happens, then the USA defaults on its debt. The global financial system goes into a tailspin. Complete and utter collapse, at the level that would make the first Great Depression look like, well, a tea party.
That’s the worst case, and it’s coming.
If that happens, then Glenn Beck was right– and I’m buying gold right now.