Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 2, 2011


Remember when everything that was "cool" came out of America?
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3 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=280

* BY THE ALWAYS HONORABLE SENATOR RAND PAUL

To paraphrase Senator Jim DeMint: When you're speeding toward the edge of a cliff, you don't set the cruise control - you stop the car.

The current deal to raise the debt ceiling doesn't stop us from going over the fiscal cliff. At best, it slows us from going over it at 80 mph to going over it at 60 mph.

This plan never balances.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD IN ACTUAL GRIEF*)

The President called for a "balanced approach."

* SEE: "JUDGEMENT OF SOLOMON" - ONLY THIS TIME NEITHER SIDE "GIVES IN" AND THUS "THE BABY" REALLY IS KILLED.

This deal does nothing to fix the overreaches of both parties over the past few years: Obamacare, TARP, trillion-dollar wars, runaway entitlement spending - they are all cemented into place with this deal and their legacy will be trillions of dollars in new debt.

(*BARELY RESISTING THE URGE TO PUNCH A HOLE IN THE WALL WITH MY FIST*)

The deal that is pending before us now adds at least $7 trillion to our debt over the next 10 years.

(The deal purports to "cut" $2.1 trillion, but the "cut" is from a baseline that adds $10 trillion to the debt. This deal, even if all targets are met and the Super Committee wields its mandate - results in a BEST case scenario of still adding more than $7 trillion more in debt over the next 10 years.)

* FOLKS... HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU HEARD OR READ ABOUT THIS IMAGINARY "CUT OF $2.1 TRILLION" (PORTRAYED AS REAL BY THE MEDIA AND THE DEMPUBLICANS AND REPUBLICRATS) VS. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU HEARD THE REAL BOTTOM LINE OF A "BEST CASE" SCENARIO WHERE $7 TRILLION WILL BE ADDED TO THE NATIONAL DEBT OVER THE NEXT 10 YEARS THANKS TO PEOPLE LIKE MY OWN CONGRESSWOMAN, DR. NAN HAYWORTH (R-NY-19)?

* FOLKS... AGAIN... YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND HOW BADLY YOU'RE LIED TO BY OUR NATION'S "ESTABLISHMENT" DAY BY DAY, ISSUE BY ISSUE.

Buried in the details of this bill is the automatic debt limit increase proposed a few weeks ago. The second installment of the debt ceiling increase is initiated by the President automatically and can only be stopped by a two-thirds vote of Congress. This shifts the Constitutional check on borrowing from Congress to the President and makes it easier to raise the debt ceiling. Despite claims to the contrary, none of the triggers in this bill include withholding the second limit increase.

* FOLKS... IN OTHER WORDS... PUTTING ARGUMENTS CONCERNING "PRAGMATISM" AND "POLITICAL GAIN" ASIDE... THIS BILL BASICALLY "AMENDS" THE CONSTITUTION WITHOUT GOING THROUGH THE AMENDMENT PROCESS! THIS PORTION OF THE BILL IS BLATANTLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL...!!! CONGRESS CAN NOT SIMPLY "GIVE AWAY" ITS CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS/RESPONSIBILITIES TO THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH!

* I HEREBY RETRACT THE STATEMENT I MADE IN MY "HOUSE VOTE 690" STAND-ALONE POST ABOUT NOT ALL 174 REPUBLICANS WHO VOTED WITH BOEHNER NOT BEING SCUMBAGS. UPON FURTHER CONSIDERATION... THEY ARE ALL SCUMBAGS - EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM. THEY'VE KNOWINGLY VOTED TO TRASH THE CONSTITUTIONAL SEPARATION OF POWERS.

Credit rating agencies have clearly stated the type of so-called cuts envisioned in this plan will result in our AAA bond rating being downgraded. Ironically then, the only way to avoid our debt being downgraded and the resulting economic problems that stem from that is for this bill to [have] fail[ed].

* FOLKS... WHATEVER THE MARKETS DO TODAY... TOMORROW... UNDERSTAND THAT CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT HAVE JUST SEALED THE ULTIMATE FATE OF OUR NATION'S CREDIT RATING. THEY'VE PROVEN THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT IS INCAPABLE OF ACTING IN A RATIONAL, FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE MANNER.

August 2, 2011 at 11:59 AM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43975590

* BY PETER SCHIFF

[T]he real crisis is not, nor has it ever been, the debt ceiling. The crisis is the debt itself.

* ACTUALLY, IT'S THE EXISTING DEBT WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF ONGOING DEFICIT SPENDING - AND THUS DEBT EXPANSION - THAT IS THE CRISIS.

Economic Armageddon would not have resulted from failure to raise the ceiling, but it will come because we succeeded in raising it.

(*NOD*)

Both parties are now pretending that the promised cuts in spending outweigh the increase in the debt limit.

* "PRETENDING" IS MORE POLITE THAN REFERRING TO THE LEADERSHIP OF BOTH PARTIES AS FUCKING LIARS...

(*SHRUG*)

$900 billion in identified "cuts" are spread over a decade and are skewed toward the end of that period.

* AND THESE "CUTS" AREN'T CUTS AS YOU AND I THINK OF CUTS; NOPE, WE'RE TALKING "CUTTING" FROM THE ALREADY PLUGGED IN INCREASES! (WE'VE GONE OVER THIS AND OVER THIS...) (*SIGH*)

There are an additional $1.4 trillion in "cuts" that the plan assumes will be identified by a bi-partisan budget committee. But similarly empowered panels in the past have almost never delivered on their mandates.

* BUT IN ANY CASE... (KEEP READING)...

[N]one of these "cuts" are actually binding. There is plenty of time for future Congresses to reverse what was so laboriously agreed to over the past few weeks. My guess is renewed economic weakness will be used to justify ultimate suspension of the cuts.

(*SIGH*)

The CBO currently projects that $9.5 trillion in new debt will have to be issued over the next 10 years.

(*BANGING MY HEAD ON THE DESK TOP*)

Even if all of the "reductions" proposed in the deal were to come to pass, which is highly unlikely, that would still leave $7.1 trillion in new debt accumulation by 2021.

* AS RAND PAUL POINTS OUT IN THE NEWSBITE PRECEEDING THIS ONE!

Essentially, the structure announced today allows both political parties to talk about reform without actually changing anything. To underscore that point, the deal involves less than $25 billion in immediate cuts! This is less than a rounding error in a $3.8 trillion dollar budget. This is politics as usual.

* AGAIN, FOLKS... IF VIOLENCE ISN'T THE ANSWER - WHAT IS...?

* To be continued...

August 2, 2011 at 12:53 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

* BY PETER SCHIFF

Some might say that the primary goal of this deal was to avoid the dreaded credit rating downgrade. Unfortunately, the deal addresses none of the ratings agencies' stated grievances.

(*NOD*)

For political reasons, the downgrades may not come right away, but they are inevitable. But as has happened so often in the past, by the time the tardy downgrades arrive, the market will have likely already rendered its verdict.

(*SIGH*)

The debt ceiling itself merely represents a self-imposed limit on US borrowing. Since Congress can vote to raise the limit, its existence has been more of a political nuisance than an actual barrier. The operative factor is not how much we allow ourselves to borrow, but how much our creditors are willing to lend. That type of ceiling can't be raised by an Act of Congress. Once our creditors come to the conclusion that they have lent beyond our capacity to repay, they will be very reluctant to lend more. As trillions in short-term Treasurys mature, the dwindling pool of buyers will demand higher rates of return to compensate them for the risk. But our government is in no condition to afford those higher rates without gutting the rest of the budget.

Last week, it was revealed that despite Obama's warnings that a default would immediately occur if the debt ceiling were not raised, the administration had already agreed to prioritize interest payments to avoid default. Such preferential treatment is only possible because current interest rates are so low and debt service represents only about 10% of total revenue.

When the pool of willing lenders evaporates, net interest payments could quickly consume more than 50% of federal revenue. This is particularly true since rising rates will also plunge the economy into a recession that will substantially reduce revenues - even as debt payments surge.

* WHAT TERRIFIES ME IS THAT EVEN MANY "SOPHISTICATED" PEOPLE EITHER DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS OR SIMPLY DON'T BELIEVE IT'S POSSIBLE. FOLKS... IT'S NOT JUST POSSIBLE - IT'S A FOREGONE CONCLUSION!

[P]rioritizing interest payments would mean deep sacrifices in the rest of the federal budget - including Social Security, Medicare, and the Armed Forces. The question then becomes: Will U.S. politicians really be willing to take the political heat that would emerge from prioritizing interest payments to foreign creditors over payments to American voters?

* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... THESE DUMB FUCKING BASTARDS ARE ACTUALLY PURSUING POLICIES THAT MAKE FUTURE WAR - REAL WAR - WITH CHINA PROBABLE. (AND EACH YEAR WE GET WEAKER AND CHINA GETS STRONGER...)

I expect that as soon as our creditors decide that they are no longer willing to lend to us at ultra-low rates of interest, we will refuse to repay what they have already lent.

* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... THIS WOULD AMOUNT TO AN ACT OF WAR. (*SHRUG*)

Besides default or major cuts to domestic spending, inflation provides the only other means for the government to deal with this intractable crisis. Because of its political palatability, inflation is, in fact, the most likely outcome. Once we go down that path, we risk high inflation turning into hyperinflation, which would decimate the remainder of our economy.

(*HEADACHE*)

So, as our leaders congratulate themselves for saving the nation, the reality is that they may have just sold it down the river.

* THEY HAVE. THERE'S NO "MAY" ABOUT IT.

August 2, 2011 at 12:53 PM

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