This is welcome news. Don’t know if it makes up for Hollande’s milquetoast/ totally inadequate economic policies though.

I’m inclined to agree with them: it might be necessary for things to reach such a point. It is not the course we should seek to take. Indeed we should do everything we can to affect drastic change by peaceful means. But let’s not fool ourselves. The powers that be have tremendous interests at stake and they have demonstrated a proclivity for unfettered sociopathy. It would be naive to think that they would not employ violence & terror to maintain the present order. And then what?

That being said, I do believe that: A) revolutions which employ violent and ruthless means tend to take on a violent and ruthless character which corrupts the resulting governments and B) If the people are largely unified, a credible threat of violence would probably suffice- given our vast numerical superiority!

Well I think you’re absolutely right to say that it was the wartime spending and not the war per se which bolstered the economy and that equally ambitious investments during peacetime could do as much-likely more- if the political will existed. I’ve always found it baffling that the fact the war expanded the economy more than the New Deal is often used as an argument against Keynesian theory: to me this says more about how much the New Deal could have done if it was larger in scope. It’s government spending either way- and I have no doubt that military expenditure is far less stimulative dollar for dollar than the civilian, domestic variety. It’s got to be doubly true these days with the fat profit margins of the military contractors: if homeland security spending has helped to prop up the economy in the past 10-12 years, imagine if that money had been directed somewhere where we actually tend to get our money’s worth!

While the numbers you quote are accurate, I am not sure they provide the clearest picture either. IIRC the dollar experienced significant deflation during the early years of the Depression. In constant 2005 dollars, the GDP of the United States was back to its 1929 levels by 1936: even remaining at or above this point during the ‘Roosevelt Recession’ which followed as policymakers gave into Conservative criticisms and began to wind down the New Deal. There may be flaws with this approach to looking at the data as well but I think it gives a slightly better idea of what was going on.

In any case, your point about World War 2 being a bigger driver of economic growth and prosperity still stands.

I hate to give Congress any credit, but perhaps they know they jig will soon be up. They certainly seem to be acting like it: they don’t do much else these days but protect the power and privilege of themselves and their friends or to grab more in the general chaos. Nothing new, of course, but at least in the past they made an effort to appear as though they were engaged in the business of running the country! The past few Congresses could barely be bothered to put up any window dressing.

A brief summary of the major legislation of the 113th Congress so far:
- Hurricane Sandy relief bill, after months of asinine quarrel
- Renewal of the Violence Against Women act
- Renewal of Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Act
- Continuing resolution with Monsanto immunity rider
- Quietly rendering the STOCK Act worse than useless

So in 3.5 months they’ve managed to pass what should have been an uncontroversial relief bill, renewed a handful of old laws, funded the government for half of one year and showered themselves and their corporate benefactors with outrageous favors. Now maybe this is naive of me but if they want to maintain their hold on power and convince the public that our present system works, shouldn’t they at least try to give the impression that they are trying to address the pressing problems of our day?

I hardly think that the worst is over yet but I can’t help but feel that they’re running out of plausible moves. Of course they’re pathological but even a sociopath would recognize the need to throw the masses a bone or two if one wanted to hang onto power, wouldn’t he/she?

Not only does he fail to mention which ‘experts’ share his view (and to be fair to Mr. Summers, I am sure academia is overloaded with such hacks) but he doesn’t even bother to offer an explanation for his claim! Single-payer health care and a guaranteed minimum income would have been bad for what reason, exactly?

I suppose it doesn’t much matter. Even if Summers had bothered to puke out a rationale, it wouldn’t have meant much to me. The man is a pro-growth cornacopian who believes the Earth has an unlimited carrying capacity, has spent the past 2 decades floating from one useless elite institution to another, helped to deregulate the derivatives market, could scarcely find a bad thing to say about Milton Friedman and whose stint in the Obama administration helped to produce a stimulus that included more regressive tax cuts & less infrastructure development. His opinion is worth significantly less than nothing. I do wish there was a giant dive bar toilet big enough to flush him and all others like him down.

Let’s hope that by 2016 either the American public completely sours on all of our reprehensible political dynasties or former secretary of state Clinton has a massive aneurysm.

There are few moves that the Democratic Party could pull that would be much more inflammatory and insulting than the way they hyped up their ostensible base to line up behind Barack Obama as the officially sanctioned alternative to the arch neo-liberal war hawk Clinton when in fact the two are entirely of a kind. Nominating Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 after 8 years of having the same policies she unsuccessfully tried to sell to the public crammed down our throats by a fresher face (initially, at least!) is definitely one of them.

Unfortunately this is the standard response even to “incidents” much pettier than this. Your typical functionary/ police state goon is largely incompetent, thin-skinned and inclined to think him or herself above reproach. If you so much as contradict them you best believe they will do whatever is in their power to squash you just for having the nerve to do so! Of course most onlookers will give this their tacit or explicit approval: by now most of them have been conditioned for the better part of their lives to defer to any authority no matter how outwardly ridiculous and unworthy of respect- and to expect that anyone who does not do so will be greeted with massive reprisals greatly disproportionate to the “crime” which has been committed. Of course they would never be so candid as to admit that last bit: that it’s more about a statist desire to squash those who buck the system than it is about what’s just or appropriate!

Unbelievable! When was the last time our federal government was funded through an entire fiscal year?!

This pathetic lot of obviously paid for politicians and media personalities who are so blinded by their own avarice and resistance to loosening their hold on even the smallest bit of power and privilege to the point that it is self-destructive ought not to be fooling anybody. Yet just four and a half years after the Wall Street implosion they have managed to steer most of the political discussion away from the need for systemic reform and accountability for criminal conduct in the financial sector and toward further deregulations, privatizations, tax breaks for profitable industries and a wholesale assault on even the most universally supported trappings of the welfare state!

What I want to know is who has watched this deliberately orchestrated protracted foundering of the country and, upon seeing the latest moronic band-aid applied by Congress onto a problem of its own creation, comes to the conclusion that any of the parties involved are giving their best crack at honest & good governance?! This series of sad sack contrivances that have been foisted upon us in the past few years should be enough to permanently erode faith in every last one of them and their most vaunted institutions and yet we are still talking about whether each specific debacle will benefit the Democrats or the Republicans going into the next mid-term or presidential elections!! There’s neither a word nor noise to properly express my frustration and contempt! Ugh!

I have to agree with those who say the racial element of the story is perhaps being overplayed a bit here. Living in New Jersey, I feel safe in saying Christie is a dirty-dealing loud mouthed louse but probably one of the least racist and homophobic people inside the GOP mainstream. Is his behavior at town pugnacious, patronizing, demagogic and largely unacceptable? Yes. But to me this man, who will coast to re-election as he is an uncanny human manifestation of so much of what is wrong with this state, is smarter than to blow what will likely be a catastrophically successful push for public school privatizations in what has long been one of the most pro-union states in the country on a racist slip-up at a town hall.

To me more the fact that both Republicans and some Democrats here are advocating more wholesale privatizations of even what used to be firmly the domain of local government- public schools, mass transit, basic infrastructure and water- and that most members of the public are either receptive to these ideas or altogether comatose!

I see this as more indicative of the fact that Americans want simple solutions to complex problems. As a whole, we are loath to take the long view of pretty much anything. It’s easy enough to, when something tragic like the Newtown shooting happens, act as if the problem is a black and white one which can be solved in one fell swoop but that doesn’t make it so. What annoys me the most about the people calling for almost total clampdown on gun ownership in the light of the tragedy is that before the shooting many of them were completely oblivious to the undercurrent of simmering hatred, angst and helplessness lying just beneath the surface in our society- ready to quickly boil over. The declining mental health of our population, the way it has become progressively more incohesive, the militarization of our society, the way government and media push violent retaliation as a tonic for most major social and political problems (War on Drugs, humanitarian interventions that involve widespread bombing campaigns?), the increasing social alienation and withdrawal of great numbers of young people- these topics were, and in most circles still are, conspicuously absent. And yet those calling for a near absolute ban on firearms have the unmitigated gall to claim that their’s is the only morally defensible position in light of the massacre. It’s despicable.

I am all for some new restrictions on firearms such as regular inspections to ensure that owners have probably secured them, mandatory and thorough training on how to properly handle a weapon and how to respect how dangerous one can be or comprehensive background checks for anything other than a single shot rifle or shotgun but acting as if banning them outright is a cure-all and relentlessly attempting to shame anyone is worse than simply wrong, it’s making use of a reprehensible emotional ploy!

For those who think that extremely strict laws governing firearms ownership is going to do much good, don’t just look at Prohibition and the War on Drugs as examples of how flawed this logic is. Understand that as long as these weapons exist, people who want them badly enough will still largely be able to get their hands on them! Considering that the United States is the world’s largest dealer in arms both large and small, assuming that these things are all going to vanish is optimistic at best and disingenuous at worst.

If this election really is hopeless for the Democrats, I sincerely hope that fact pressures progressive minded people in this state to support an independent or third party challenge from the left. The present state of affairs here is beyond pathetic.
We have very nearly 1,200 people per sq mi and still most places outside of the biggest cities are underserved by a public transportation system which consists of a few buses which don’t run often enough & a rail network which has barely been expanded since the state took over the few dying commuter railroad lines which remained in 1976. The commuter trains run even more infrequently and thanks to poor planning and maintenance were badly battered by Hurricane Sandy.
Despite rising energy costs & the obvious consequences of climate change making themselves known, we still largely allow opportunistic developers & national chains to set the development agenda: clearing the way for more sprawl and architectural abortions which do nothing to serve the needs of the community they inhabit.
Our infrastructure is rotting and decrepit (or sometimes just shoddily constructed in the first place!) and nobody seems interested in doing anything about it. Just yesterday, a railroad bridge in Gloucester County failed for the second time since 2009, spilling at least 25,000 gallons of vinyl chloride into a creek which drains into nearby Delaware Bay. Despite this and the disproportionately severe damage inflicted by Sandy in some areas that did not get bear the brunt of the storm, Christie gets high marks for his disaster preparedness and quick response.
Despite an environment that was severely degraded over the past 150 or so years, state law still allows polluters to avoid cleaning up tainted sites unless the property is sold or leased for at least 99 years!
Our state universities and colleges are controlled by real estate moguls, financial & insurance executives, and major law firm partners.
The mob rackets which controlled industries like waste disposal were never held accountable and almost certainly are involved in unsavory activities today.

This is to name a few problems offhand. Why anyone would support either party in this state when they have respectively given us Jon Corzine and Chris Christie is far beyond me…

That blog is one of the most truly disturbing sources of ‘commentary’ I have ever seen. To the extent it even touches upon any issue other than electoral politics it is riddled with moral vacillations, torturous contortions of logic, baseless & arrogant self-satisfaction rooted in no principle deeper than support for the Democratic Party, and petty authoritarian efforts to bully those who see the system for what it is. Though in regards to all these I state the obvious.

Obama’s miserable presidency will have been worth it if it ends up opening the eyes of the majority to the complete bankruptcy of both parties. To some extent, I believe it has: I have never observed such low enthusiasm, so much soft support for the major candidates, or a general feeling amongst so many people that the outcome is going to decide little. Sure, we’ve seen these things to a lesser degree before. 1996 comes to mind as another instance where the differences between the candidates were academic at best. But that year most of the public was simply unconcerned; they figured things would turn out pretty well regardless. Now, one gets the sense that few people outside of the true believers in both parties believe that things will much improve for them in either case. We may well be about to witness the biggest drop in voter turnout between consecutive presidential elections.

Still, we must realize that the psychological propaganda is deep and pervasive within both Democratic and Republican circles. At this point, both camps rely more on fear and paranoia of the other to attract votes than vision or hope or firmly held belief. This puts them in a precarious position: should the world economy or conditions at home deteriorate too rapidly, people will leave the major parties in droves. If we are to have any hope of moving the discussion back to the realm of sanity, we are going to have to build an alternative vision in the meantime. Anything we could do to support the growth of worker owned businesses, community owned utility companies, the proliferation of community gardens, the reduction of fossil fuel consumption and so on will put us in a position to gain the support of people who are leaving the Republican and Democratic parties en masse. There needs to be a movement that produces some concrete accomplishments and in building it we need to recruit people across a wide spectrum. After reading the inanities of Democratic hacks like TBogg, I am convinced that people with any allegiance to truth & justice would have an easier time making allies of the libertarian-leaning crowd than with apologists for that party’s establishment. At the very least, if we are trying to build a coalition, we should look in places other than the Democratic Party.

If your writing dripped with as much substance as it does unfounded smugness maybe it’d be worth a damn. Could you articulate why you are so satisfied with the current system at all or does the satisfaction you get from knowing you fit inside the mainstream trump all else? Why don’t you learn to debate the merits of the idea instead of being a high-handed twat?

We’re all going to lose so long as capitalism prevails anyhow so it really is asinine to try and lay the guilt on thick for others who are not prepared to march themselves in line and vote for Obama. Without challenging the system which necessitates perpetually increasing consumption just to achieve near full employment and in which the only motivation is self-interest, we are doomed to failure. There is no tenable long-term alternative to dismantling capitalism internationally in the years to come. Fortunately, it is hard to see how support for this will not swell with the working classes coming under particularly sustained and vicious attack throughout the developed world since the meltdown. The world’s elite seem to be getting too greedy, too audacious of late- they are placing themselves in a precarious position indeed!

To say that overplaying the distinctions between a Romney presidency and a second term of Obama is not seeing the forest for the trees is putting it mildly.

Better to have self-professed disciples of Ayn Rand in the White House than a man who pays lip-service to principles of economic fairness and social justice while enabling corporate hegemony and the liquidation of public assets. There isn’t really a major faction in either party committed to building and nurturing a sustainable economy (i.e.- one that isn’t dependent on cheap oil, consumer credit and perpetual growth). Considering that a complete blowup of our whole system is quickly coming, I’d rather the blame be correctly assigned to right wing economics.

Obama is the worst of both worlds because he implements conservative/neo-liberal policies while sounding just progressive enough for leftism to take the blame.

If energy independence were of such importance; would it not be desirable to increase the efficiency of our cars, build and expand mass transit in urbanized areas and to plan communities that were compact and zoned for mixed use to minimize sprawl? Yet all of these things are opposed by drilling proponents as a matter of political principle! It appears that for a group of people claiming faith and understanding of the principles of supply and demand the republican rank and file has been taught to accept only supply-side solutions- with the possible exception of pricing a sizable portion of the country out of driving! Could it be that the real goal of the originators of these ideas is to make sure that the interests of entrenched big businesses are treated as sacrosanct?

The fact that both Obama and Romney have a good shot at getting more than 45% of the popular vote says that public awareness of the problem is not what it needs to be. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if 2012 saw the biggest ever drop in voter turnout between presidential elections so it’s not unlikely that the powers that be are rapidly losing control of the narrative.