Category: Budget

The Krauts Don’t Practice What They Preach

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It looks like the Germans are going to miss their austerity goals this year:

European countries are expected to implement tough austerity measures amid the debt crisis. But Germany isn’t setting a very good example. SPIEGEL has learned that Berlin failed to reach its own austerity goals in 2011. And despite pressuring its neighbors to save, Germany is behind this year too.

As she travels from one European Union summit to the next, Angela Merkel’s constant mantra in recent months has been austerity, austerity, austerity. But apparently the German chancellor hasn’t been quite as strict when it comes to her own country’s budget.

SPIEGEL reports this week that the German government didn’t reach even half of its planned savings in the federal budget. Only 42 percent of the spending cuts named by Merkel’s coalition government, comprised of the conservative Christian Democrats and the business-friendly Free Democratic Party, were actually not implemented.

Calculations made by the influential Cologne Institute for Economic Research indicate that only €4.7 billion ($6.16 billion) of the €11.2 billion in austerity measures stipulated by the savings package actually took shape in 2011.

You know, maybe, just maybe, Merkel and allies are a bigger part of the problem than people imagine.

Someone Remembers the Old Lesson: Do Not Let German Chancellors Run Europe

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To the accolades of his countrymen, Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy has told Sarkosy and Merkel to go Cheney themselves:

The Spanish rebellion has begun, sooner and more dramatically than I expected.

As many readers will already have seen, Premier Mariano Rajoy has refused point blank to comply with the austerity demands of the European Commission and the European Council (hijacked by Merkozy).

Taking what he called a “sovereign decision”, he simply announced that he intends to ignore the EU deficit target of 4.4pc of GDP for this year, setting his own target of 5.8pc instead (down from 8.5pc in 2011).

In the twenty years or so that I have been following EU affairs closely, I cannot remember such a bold and open act of defiance by any state. Usually such matters are fudged. Countries stretch the line, but do not actually cross it.

…………

What is striking is the wave of support for Mr Rajoy from the Spanish commentariat.

This one from Pablo Sebastián left me speechless.

My loose translation:

“Spain isn’t any old country that will allow itself to be humiliated by the German Chancellor.”

“The behaviour of the European Commission towards Spain over recent days has been infamous and exceeds their treaty powers… these Eurocrats think they are the owners and masters of Spain.”

“Spain and other nations in the EU are sick and tired of Chancellor Merkel’s meddling and Germany’s usurpation – with the help of Sarkozy’s France and their pretended “executive presidency” that does not in fact exist in EU treaties.”

…………

The Latin Bloc is awakening.

The Germans don’t realize just how deeply disliked they are, and this has nothing to do with the unpleasantness from 70 years ago.

Politicians prime directive is to be reelected, and once they realize that calling Angela Merkel a c%$# sucker ensures electoral success, the pretty much everyone in Europe (except for Nicolas Sarkosy, who is desperately clinging to in what appears to be a vain attempt for politic survival) is going to start telling her to pound sand.

This is a Feature Not a Bug

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Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times is noticing that the Social Security tax holiday is putting the program at risk:

The accepted response to the economic deal reached in Congress last week, extending the Social Security payroll tax holiday and unemployment insurance and maintaining reimbursement levels for Medicare doctors, is huzzah!

Finally Congress got something important done with a minimum of brinkmanship and posturing, and more than a few minutes before the deadline. A threat to the embryonic economic recovery was averted, and the extensions even pushed any subsequent fracas over the same issues to the end of this year, safely past the presidential election.

So why should we consider this action cause for despair?

It’s because with every extension of the payroll tax holiday, which was first enacted in 2010, the prospect that Congress will ever restore the tax to its statutory 6.2% of covered income recedes a little bit further over the horizon. And that’s bad medicine for Social Security.

To be fair, thus far the payroll tax holiday hasn’t impaired Social Security’s fiscal resources one bit. By law, 100% of the cut must be compensated for by transfers from the general fund; those transfers have come to about $130 billion since 2010, covering the original “temporary” one-year holiday and a two-month extension passed late last year.

The new extension will require a further transfer of about $94 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Yet because of the unique features of the program’s financing, tampering with its revenue stream is playing with fire. The payroll tax is currently set at 12.4% of wages, split equally between employer and employee, up to a maximum of $110,100. The tax holiday cuts the employee’s 6.2% share to 4.2%.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) put it well when he excoriated President Obama and his fellow congressional Democrats for approving a measure that places Social Security’s financial stability on the table. “I never thought I would live to see the day when a Democratic president … would agree to put Social Security in this kind of jeopardy,” he said. “Never did I ever imagine a Democratic president beginning the unraveling of Social Security.”

Even conservatives who aren’t fans of the program’s current structure acknowledge how hard it will be at any point in the foreseeable future to restore the old rate.

………

But the worst aspect of the payroll tax holiday is that it erodes Social Security’s standing as a unique government program with its own revenue stream, a tax dedicated to its upkeep alone. Melding its own revenue with that of the federal government at large chips away at its standing, facilitating no one’s goals except those who want to see the edifice pulled down.

The more the program has to rely on general income tax revenue, the shakier becomes its claim to being a special case among government expenditures. When program-slashers sharpen their axes in Washington, the line has always been drawn at Social Security because it’s funded by a source distinct from the income tax.

Barack Obama has been looking to dismantle Social Security since the start of his Presidential campaign, he stacked the “super-committee” with Social Security foes, and tried to sell the program out in the debt ceiling deal, so this course of action is consistent with past behavior. (Additionally, he tried to do the same to Medicare. where he suggested means testing)

I’m not sure why, it could be his exposure to Chicago School economists, it could be that he feels that this is a way to stroke his “bipartisanship” fetish, or he could simply have a temperament that cannot see beyond the consensus of the “very serious people”.

Remember, notwithstanding the alleged benefits for the poor, this replaced “Making Work Pay,” which was more generous for people making less than the median household wage.

Cyberwar Is the New Profit Center

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Seriously, we are seeing yet another hyped up bit of pants-wetting terror in order to create another way for defense contractors to rip the taxpayers off:

In last month’s State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to pass “legislation that will secure our country from the growing dangers of cyber threats.” The Hill was way ahead of him, with over 50 cybersecurity bills introduced this Congress. This week, both the House and Senate are moving on their versions of consolidated, comprehensive legislation.

The reason cybersecurity legislation is so pressing, proponents say, is that we face an immediate risk of national disaster.

wired guest column“Today’s cyber criminals have the ability to interrupt life-sustaining services, cause catastrophic economic damage, or severely degrade the networks our defense and intelligence agencies rely on,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said at a hearing last week. “Congress needs to act on comprehensive cybersecurity legislation immediately.”

Yet evidence to sustain such dire warnings is conspicuously absent. In many respects, rhetoric about cyber catastrophe resembles threat inflation we saw in the run-up to the Iraq War. And while Congress’ passing of comprehensive cybersecurity legislation wouldn’t lead to war, it could saddle us with an expensive and overreaching cyber-industrial complex.

Every so called case of a major attack on meat-space infrastructure has turned out to be false, but we’re gonna spend billions on it.

Europe is F%$#ed

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Because the Germans have been allowed to force their self delusions on the rest of Europe:

Chancellor Angela Merkel cemented her political ascendancy in Europe on Monday when 25 out of 27 EU states agreed to a German-inspired pact for stricter budget discipline, even as they struggled to rekindle growth from the ashes of austerity.

Only Britain and the Czech Republic refused to sign a fiscal compact in March that will impose quasi-automatic sanctions on countries that breach European Union budget deficit limits and will enshrine balanced budget rules in national law.

The accord was eagerly greeted by the European Central Bank which has long pressed euro zone governments to put their houses in order.

The solution to problems caused austerity and overly aggressive efforts at European integration will be more austerity and overly aggressive efforts at European integration.

The Euro Crisis Starts to Hit Defense Contractors

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It looks like Italy is having 2nd thoughts about its JSF purchase🙁paid subscription required)

The Italian government is ushering in a new round of defense cuts in which, for the first time, the fate of Rome’s participation in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program will be seriously threatened.

The newly launched defense review not only has sweeping implications for Italy’s defense ambitions but also rings in a further belt-tightening in Europe among countries that are just beginning to come to grips with the scale of their budget and debt problems. Spain, where a new conservative government is grappling with greater-than-anticipated economic troubles, may follow with budget reductions. France is also expected to scale back defense spending after presidential elections in May.

In Italy, much of the work on the military review remains to be completed. Nevertheless, a sharp reduction in the number of F-35s Italy will buy is virtually certain, military officials say. At least a third of the 131 fighters slated for procurement will likely fall under the budget ax, with some minority parties arguing for an outright program termination.

Rome is one of the largest international buyers of the F-35—after the U.K. drastically cut its procurement objective in its 2010 spending review. Italy plans to spend €13 billion ($16.7 billion) to buy and sustain both the F-35A conventional-takeoff-and-landing and the F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing versions, though it has not ordered any aircraft yet.

I wonder how people are going to start feeling about the austerity fairy fixing everything now that it’s defense spending on the block.

The folks who endorse austerity always seem to think that it’s just things like healthcare and the social safety net that need to be cut, and that somehow, the bloated derfense procurement programs all over the world will somehow continue apace.

I think not.

Well, What Do You Know, Another DoD Cost Overrun

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The Gerald R. Ford, the lead ship in the first new US carrier class in 35 years is seriously over budget:

The Navy has estimated a worst-case cost overrun of as much as $1.1 billion for the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, the service’s most expensive warship.

The carrier is being built in Newport News by Huntington Ingalls Industries under a cost-plus, incentive-fee contract in which the Navy pays for most of the overruns. Even so, the service’s efforts to control expenses may put the company’s $579.2 million profit at risk, according to the Navy.

A review of the carrier’s rising costs began in August after the Navy’s program manager indicated that the “most likely” overrun had risen to $884.7 million, or about 17 percent over the contract’s target price of $5.16 billion. That’s up from a $650 million overrun estimated in April, according to internal Navy figures made available to Bloomberg News. The worst-case assessment would be about 21 percent over the target.

I would suggest, given the record of the DoD, as well as the well documented issues with getting its new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) catapult, that the worst case assessment is at least 10% below the final overrun.

Italy’s Cancer of the Body Politic Offers to Step Down

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Silvio Berlusconi has offered to resign:

The European debt crisis appeared to claim its most prominent victim on Tuesday when Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, cornered by world markets and humiliated by a parliamentary setback, pledged to resign after Italy’s Parliament passes austerity measures demanded by the European Union.

Although Mr. Berlusconi’s exit was not immediate — weeks of political wrangling over the austerity measures probably lie ahead — political commentators said they could see no escape this time for the prime minister, whose Houdini-like ability to wriggle free from scandals is legendary.

“A season is over,” said Mario Calabresi, the editor in chief of the Turin daily newspaper La Stampa, who said Mr. Berlusconi told him that he was not only stepping down, but also would not run for office again.

In the end, it was not the sex scandals, the corruption trials against him or even a loss of popular consensus that appeared to end Mr. Berlusconi’s 17 years as a dominant figure in Italian political life. It was, instead, the pressure of the markets — which drove Italy’s borrowing costs to record highs this week — and the European Union, which could not risk his dragging down the euro and with it the world economy.

It’s good that he’s going, but the bigger picture is that Berlusconi’s continued political success has been almost entirely due to his near complete dominance of Italian television.

Self-serving clowns like Silvio are the inevitable result of media consolidation, whether it’s the Italian monopoly on commercial TV (and effective control of state TV), or the media oligopoly in the United States.

The problem is that while one can have free and fair elections, but without an independent and heterogeneous media, you stand a real risk of not having a free and fair campaign.

Dems Try for Seppuku Once Again

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So the Democrats on the “Super Committee” are trying to gut Medicare once again, while showing how serious they are by exceeding their mandate for deficit reductions:

Democrats are proposing to slash huge budget deficits by up to $3 trillion, aiming high to repair the country’s fiscal mess even as Republicans show early signs of resisting the proposals.

The broad package of measures calls for long-term spending cuts, including to the government-run Medicare health program for the elderly that threatens to explode the national debt. The other half of the package would come from tax increases, four congressional aides told Reuters on Wednesday.

Republicans rejected the Democratic initiative.

“Asking for a $1.5 trillion tax hike in the middle of a jobs crisis is not a serious proposal,” said a House of Representatives Republican leadership aide.

There is a deep ideological divide between the two parties over taxes — likely a key issue in the congressional and presidential elections in November 2012.

The Democratic plan was presented on Tuesday behind closed doors to a special congressional panel tasked with finding ways of cutting the budget deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years, the sources said.

It was a rare leak from the so-called “super committee,” whose secretive deliberations have sparked intense speculation about how much progress the 12 Republican and Democratic members have made since they first began meeting on September 8. They face a November 23 deadline to report to Congress.

The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

The Democratic plan proposes cutting the deficit by $2.5 trillion to $3 trillion and calls for between $200 billion and $300 billion in new stimulus spending to boost an ailing U.S. economy. It would be paid for with lower interest payments from reducing deficits.

It also seeks around $400 billion in Medicare savings, with half coming in benefit cuts and the other half in cuts to healthcare providers. Details of that proposal were scant but tackling the popular Medicare program is always politically risky for politicians in Washington, especially Democrats.

The Democratic proposal also identifies $100 billion in cuts to the Medicaid healthcare program for the poor, according to a lobbyist in contact with the committee.

Seriously, it’s both bad policy and bad politics, and it echos Obama’s strategy of attempting to show that they are even more crazy serious about the deficit, which the rest of the country really does not give a crap about.

The First Shoe Drops for Obama Care

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The Obama administration just shut down the CLASS long term health insurance program:

A long-term disability care program shepherded into the U.S. health overhaul by Senator Edward Kennedy before his death was canceled as financially unsustainable by health secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Republicans opposed the so-called Class Act that created the program. It will be indefinitely suspended, Sebelius said today in a statement, because the program isn’t likely to generate enough revenue to pay for its benefits.

Democrats led by Kennedy created the plan to help people disabled by illness or accident. By paying premiums while employed, beneficiaries would be eligible after five years for at least $50 a day toward health and support services provided at home. The program was billed as paying for itself.

“I do not see a viable path forward for Class implementation at this time,” Sebelius said in a letter to congressional leaders.

Republicans celebrated the program’s demise, calling it misguided policy used as a financial gimmick to reduce cost estimates of the health law. At the time, the Congressional Budget Office subtracted $70 billion from the cost of the law thanks to Class — which stands for Community Living Assistance Services and Supports — contributing to $143 billion in total savings, because the program’s premiums would exceed benefits over its first decade.

This is what happens when you try to create a program that accommodates the sources of the problem (insurance companies and for-profit healthcare), because you lack the courage, and quite frankly the interest, in actually fixing the system, as opposed to just slapping the label “Healthcare Reform” on half measures.

The fact that this will add $70 billion over the next ten years to the cost of healthcare reform will lend credence to Republican attacks in the 2012 campaign season.

This is why half measures, particularly when they did not serve to secure meaningful bipartisan support, create more than just bad policy, they create bad politics.

Chutzpah

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The old definition was murdering your parents and asking for mercy because you are an orphan.

The new definition is House Majority Leader Eric Cantor whining about delays in disaster aid to his district:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-7th, is pushing for information on the status of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s request for federal disaster assistance for Louisa County residents in the wake of an earthquake there last month.

On Friday, Cantor held a conference call with Federal Emergency Management Agency and Louisa County officials. A readout of the call provided by Cantor’s office indicates that he asked FEMA officials about the timeline and process for determining whether the agency would grant federal assistance.

Maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with your attempt to use FEMA as a political chip in the budget fight you pig felching hypocrite.

Worst      Speaker      Ever

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I mean, of course John Boehner.

It’s not because he’s an evil ratf%$#, I think that Newt has him beat on that particular qualification, but rather because he is completely unable to manage his caucus:

House Republicans tried a fresh strategy Wednesday night: Go it alone on a spending bill.

The result was an embarrassing setback.

Wednesday night’s rank-and-file rebuke of GOP leadership — with 48 Republicans bolting on a temporary spending bill — underscored the fact that the House Republican majority is still struggling to find unity on major spending bills. It also showed they still need Democratic votes to help them govern.

The pressure from an angry Speaker John Boehner didn’t work — he even threatened to strip committee assignments. Four dozen Republicans —mostly conservatives — wanted more cuts, and they just said no, creating an uncomfortable scene on the House floor as the funding bill failed on a 195-230 vote. Democrats showed a rare moment of unity in overwhelmingly opposing the continuing resolution, which would keep the government funded through Nov. 18.

Now, to prevent a government shutdown, Republicans will have to rewrite the bill and figure out how to get the votes.

Which means that he’s going to have to drop the offsetting cuts for the disaster relief, and come up with a bill to appeal to the Democrats, at least about 25 or so of them anyway.

The inmates are running the asylum, when Boehner should be the adult in charge.

Have you ever though how f%$#ing terrifying it is to think of a situation where a chain smoking tanaholic sot with the brains of a turnip like him has to be the adult in the room?

And he is 3rd in line to be the President.

Well Knock Me Over With a Sledge Hammer!

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Barack Obama revealed his deficit plan, and for once, I’m pleasantly surprised:

President Obama will unveil a plan on Monday that uses entitlement cuts, tax increases and war savings to reduce the federal deficit by more than $3 trillion over the next 10 years, administration officials said.

The plan, which Mr. Obama will lay out Monday morning at the White House, is the administration’s opening move in sweeping negotiations on deficit reduction to be taken up by a joint House-Senate committee over the next two months. If a deal is not enacted by Dec. 23, cuts could take effect automatically across government agencies.

Mr. Obama will call for $1.5 trillion in tax increases, primarily on the wealthy, through a combination of letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire, closing loopholes and limiting the amount that high earners can deduct. The proposal also includes $580 billion in adjustments to health and entitlement programs, including $248 billion to Medicare and $72 billion to Medicaid. Administration officials said that the Medicare cuts would not come from an increase in the Medicare eligibility age.

Senior administration officials who briefed reporters on some of the details of Mr. Obama’s proposal said that the plan also counts a savings of $1.1 trillion from the ending of the American combat mission in Iraq and the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.

In laying out his proposal, aides said, Mr. Obama will expressly promise to veto any legislation that seeks to cut the deficit through spending cuts alone and does not include revenue increases in the form of tax increases on the wealthy.

I’m stunned.

His plan doesn’t suck (much), and it doesn’t cede major points to the Republicans as a starting point.

I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop (with all of his caving, I’m still going long on spelunking gear) .

Someone must have made it clear to him that while “the left” would vote for him in 2012, regardless of how much he flamed them, they made the point that if they do so reluctantly, then the low information independent voters won’t feel the enthusiasm, and they’ll not take the time to pull the lever for him.

1000 Words On Raising the Medicare Eligibility Age

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I think that one of the reasons that Obama took raising the Medicare eligibility age off the table is this report, which gives us this little picture:

For the non chart pr0n inclined, the first thing that you notice is that it costs society twice as much to move these folks off the Medicare rolls.

The next thing to notice is that almost almost half of that cost is born by people who are under 65, who, because of community rating, will have to cover much of the increased expenses.

And then there is the huge hit on 65-66 year olds and their employers.

What isn’t listed here is the loss in market power that would result, with an associated increase in costs.

It’s bad policy, it’s bad politics, and thankfully Obama realizes this ……… For a while, at least.

Another Gift from the Austerity Confidence Fairy

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Thankfully, it’s the UK, and not us, but this is unbelievably grim:

George Osborne’s austerity programme will cut the living standards of Britain’s families by more than 10% over the next three years as those on the lowest incomes suffer most from the tax increases and spending cuts designed to reduce the budget deficit.

A study from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the UK’s leading experts on the public finances, concludes that the chancellor’s strategy will result in greater inequality and rising child poverty, throwing into reverse progress made in the final years of the last Labour government.

The bleak picture painted by the IFS will be used by opponents of the chancellor’s austerity measures to call for a plan B to generate faster economic growth. There is likely to be further pressure on Osborne on Monday as the head of his independent commission on banking, Sir John Vickers, outlines measures for banking reform.

I’m more of a cynic than the author, Larry Elliott, economics editor of The Guardian, because I believe that part of the reason that Osborne is supporting this is because of the, “greater inequality and rising child poverty, throwing into reverse progress made in the final years of the last Labour government.”

They are determined to roll back whatever minor progress occurred under Blair and Brown, and move back to where Thatcher and Major left the nation.

And once they’ve done that, they want to take Britain back to the Dickensian standards of the middle of the 19th century.

It’s On Girl!

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AFL-CIO president Richart Trumpka just said that Obama has aligned himself with the teabaggers:

The most powerful union official in the country offered reporters his harshest critique of President Obama to date Thursday, questioning Obama’s policy and strategic decisions, and claiming he aligned himself with the Tea Party in the debt limit fight.

“This is a moment that working people and quite frankly history will judge President Obama on his presidency; will he commit all his energy and focus on bold solutions on the job crisis or will he continue to work with the Tea Party to offer cuts to middle class programs like Social Security all the while pretending the deficit is where our economic problems really lie,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told reporters at a breakfast roundtable hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
Trumka dismissed Obama’s recent job creation proposals — an extended payroll tax cut, patent reform, free trade deals — as “nibbly things that aren’t going to make a difference,” and said the AFL-CIO might sit out the Democratic convention if he and the party don’t get serious.
“If they don’t have a jobs program I think we’d better use our money doing other things,” Trumka said.

I do not think that Barack Obama has the slightest clue just how disappointed his “base” is with him, and if he did, I think that he would be dismissive of the fact.

Get ready for President Bachmann. (honest to God, how did the ‘Phants find someone scarier than Sarah Palin?)

Baucus?!?!?!?! Max F%$#ing Baucus?!?!?!?

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So Harry Reid has appointed his 3 Democrats to the “Super Committee”, and they are John Kerry, Patty Murray, and Max Baucus.

Here is my rundown:

  • Max Baucus is the least Democratic Democrat in the US Senate.  He is more responsible for killing the public option than anyone in the senate.
  • John Kerry is angling for the Secretary of State appointment after Hillary Clinton resigns, probably after the election, and so is in Obama’s, and Secretary of Defense Panetta’s pocket.
  • Patty Murray is the Senator from Boeing.

So Reid has appointed 3 people who will blink at the possibility of the automatic cuts to defense, and Republicans desperate to get Democrats to join in their “Kill Medicare” suicide pact.

The rule is that a majority vote passes along a non-debatable, non-filibusterable, and non amendable motion to both houses, so if just one Dem flips *cough* Baucus *cough*, we see something that cuts Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, both gutting the safety the safety net, and saving the Republicans from the Paul Ryan budget.

I honestly believe that this is intentional.

It will condemn the Democrats to minority party status for a generation, because it means that we stand for nothing.

A ‘Phant Disavows Norquist

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If he is the only ‘Phant to repudiate his “no taxes of any kind” pledge to Grover Norquist, he’s toast, but if he is the first of a few, i.e. double digits, he becomes a a leader of some sort of wing of the Congressional Republicans

Still, it’s a gutsy move:

In answer to one question, the 1st District Republican congressman revealed he informed Grover Norquist and his anti-tax organization he no longer is committed to that organization’s pledge to oppose any form of tax increases.

“I did sign that pledge when I was first running” for the House in 2004, Fortenberry said. “I no longer sign any pledges.”

A pledge “restrains your ability to think creatively,” he said, noting Norquist attempts to interpret and define what is considered a tax increase.

“I informed the organization I don’t consider (the earlier pledge) binding,” Fortenberry said. “I don’t care to be associated with it. It’s too constraining.”

Fortenberry said he remains committed to reducing federal spending, but suggested an openness to tax reform.

“We have a broken tax code that is skewed to the wealthy and corporations (who) know how to move capital around,” he said.

Tax reform could close loopholes and perhaps lower tax rates, Fortenberry said, and the result might be more revenue.

Not only is he saying that taxes are on the table, but he’s talking about how fat cats game the system.

Note that this from a Republican, from Nebraska.

I don’t expect sanity to break out in the Republican party, but if this is the first step toward Grover Norquist becoming irrelevant, it’s a good step, assuming that he is not replaced by someone even more evil and crazy.*

H/t Think Progress.

*Considering the history of the Republican Party, which makes me yearn for the intellect, liberalism, and moral rectitude of Richard Nixon, I would say that the chance of him being replaced by someone more evil are pretty good

Busy Day at the Casino

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All the major stock indices fell over 5%.

The term here is “Bloodbath”.

The standard meme is that Standard & Poor’s downgrade of US debt had investors fleeing the stock market and buying US debt.

So, standard wisdom is that because people are worried about the credit worthiness of the USA, they are buying debt from the the USA.

Me, I just think that they are realizing that we are heading to a double dip recession.