Makes you wonder-- if the 14th Amendment is the card Obama has up his sleeve. He needs the Congress to make a fool out of itself first, so he can legitimize the move... unconstitutional or not, the courts can fight that out later...
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
Makes you wonder-- if the 14th Amendment is the card Obama has up his sleeve. He needs the Congress to make a fool out of itself first, so he can legitimize the move... unconstitutional or not, the courts can fight that out later...
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
I hope that's his plan because he's leading from the back, way back, back with the logistic clerks and coffee machines. It would be nice to know he has a plan.Originally Posted by Samurai Waki
Banquo summed it up quite nicely. The whole process is embarrassing. The only party that wants to make much needed cuts started off blatantly political and now they can't manage themselves. The opposition doesn't want to play ball (maybe due to the farcical opening) and the chief executive is chillin' with his homies.
Reinvent the British and you get a global finance center, edible food and better service. Reinvent the French and you may just get more Germans.
Ik hou van ferme grieten en dikke pinten
Down with dried flowers!
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
Ah, the latest Republican meme, "Obama has no plan!" And yet multiple sources and published articles have revealed details* of the offers he was making to Boehner in private meetings. Enough details, in fact, to dismay the liberal base and make his left-wing allies in Congress get all snippy with him. Sounds like there were concrete offers on the table, which rather undermines the talking point du jour, "He has no plan!" Yawn.
This entire episode is a manufactured crisis. And I find republicans fulminating about debt now to have the stink of born-again virgins about them. Two trillion-dollar off-budget wars combined with tax cuts and a new giveaway to old people? Is the president republican? Yay! Oh, now the president is a democrat? HERESY! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!
-edit-
* From one of many sources: "We did learn some intriguing details about the debt ceiling negotiations in recent days. Both President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner were ready to anger their respective bases in order to work out a deal. To the dismay of many Democrats, President Obama was ready to support cuts in entitlement spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He was ready to support what’s called 'means testing' – meaning that richer people would have to shell out more for health benefits under Medicare than poorer people. The president is also apparently ready to adopt a new cost-of-living increase formula that effectively would result in reduced Social Security and Medicare benefits. When I interviewed Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont the other day, he made it clear he hated those proposals."
Last edited by Lemur; 07-29-2011 at 16:27.
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
If we're all gonna get hoit, I'd rather be kicked in the butt than in the groin.
In historic terms, I would have hoped for a gracious retreat from 250 years of unadulterated growth and expansion instead of a head-on collision with reality.
I find myself miraculously in agreement with today's Berlingske, a conservative paper from Denmark:
The best way of reducing the mountain of debt in the long term would be for the western world to strengthen its global competitiveness by introducing structural reforms. That would allow the necessary growth to be generated primarily through exports. ... This assumes, however, that consumers in Asia, for example, buy more goods and that the Asian countries' exchange rates reflect their new economic strength. We must now get used to the fact that reducing our debts - both state and private - will take a long time and that economic growth will be slowed down for years. People must change their expectations of the future accordingly. That will be very hard, but unfortunately there is no other way.
The bloody trouble is we are only alive when we’re half dead trying to get a paragraph right. - Paul Scott
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
Real men take it in the Jimmy.
As in your article: Exports are nice but they need buyers. It's time for us to chill out for a while until the baby boomers pass from this life. This is the best course due to our structure and responsibilities.
Reinvent the British and you get a global finance center, edible food and better service. Reinvent the French and you may just get more Germans.
Ik hou van ferme grieten en dikke pinten
Down with dried flowers!
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
Wouldn't you rather wait until Venus is in conjunction to our Ascendant? The energy of Venus in conjunction adds grace to our undoing and stimulates our self-projection.
In other words, what are you on about?
AII
The bloody trouble is we are only alive when we’re half dead trying to get a paragraph right. - Paul Scott
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
These people are adults, why is this happening?
There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford
My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation.
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
Because a significant number of them live in a fantasy world where tax hikes in a stagnant economy are a good idea.
"Don't believe everything you read online."
-Abraham Lincoln
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
At this point, the first bills the Treasury should not pay is the Congressional paychecks.
The .Org's MTW Reference Guide Wiki - now taking comments, corrections, suggestions, and submissions
If I werent playing games Id be killing small animals at a higher rate than I am now - SFTS
Si je n'étais pas jouer à des jeux que je serais mort de petits animaux à un taux plus élevé que je suis maintenant - Louis VI The Fat
"Why do you hate the extremely limited Spartan version of freedom?" - Lemur
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
I don't get it.The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.
Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling by the Supreme Court (1857) holding that blacks could not be citizens of the United States.[1]
Its Due Process Clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness. This clause has been used to make most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, as well as to recognize substantive and procedural rights.
Its Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction. This clause was the basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision which precipitated the dismantling of racial segregation in the United States. In Reed v. Reed (1971), the Supreme Court for the first time ruled that laws arbitrarily requiring sex discrimination violated the Equal Protection Clause.
Days since the Apocalypse began
"We are living in space-age times but there's too many of us thinking with stone-age minds" | How to spot a Humanist
"Men of Quality do not fear Equality." | "Belief doesn't change facts. Facts, if you are reasonable, should change your beliefs."
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
One of the phrases in the 14th is that the debts of the United States shall not be questioned. You could take that to mean that debt must be serviced, no exceptions, and if congress won't do it, the executive must. Needless to say, this interpretation has never been tested in court.
Who knows? Congress has already abdicated its warmaking powers. Maybe they're incapable of handling the purse as well. Shades of Cato and the optimates. Fortunately, Obama is no Julius Caesar.
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
Lemur offering suggestions during meetings hardly constitutes a plan. "Being ready to support" is the same as preparing to move. He is the one who stormed out of these meetings* and neither he nor his mouthpieces have put forward a concrete budget proposal. Instead he is trying to scare old people by stating that we won't be able to pay social security while intoning what he may support.
He's great at speeches and rhetoric, but far from a leader with a concrete plan.
*I don't remember the date.
Last edited by Vladimir; 07-29-2011 at 16:46.
Reinvent the British and you get a global finance center, edible food and better service. Reinvent the French and you may just get more Germans.
Ik hou van ferme grieten en dikke pinten
Down with dried flowers!
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
Making detailed offers in private meetings sounds like something you do when you're serious about reaching an agreement. Passing a bill that nobody but the Tea Party will support, on the other hand, is un-serious. Let's say President 44 wrote up all of the offers he has made to Boehner and put them out on the web in a PDF. Do you think that would change anything? Bring us any closer to a deal? Didn't think so. The republicans are fully aware of what compromises 44 is willing to make.
Re: storming, do you really want to go there? Do you really want to get into who has been more rude and impossible? 'Cause there's plenty of that to go around.
A sudden and unplanned 44% reduction in federal budget means many will have to do without. Debt service must be paid. Soldiers must be paid. So I don't know how unrealistic it is to eye Social Security and say, "You're going to have to wait a bit while this gets sorted out."
Last edited by Lemur; 07-29-2011 at 18:52.
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
Again, offers, however detailed, do not constitute a plan. You've so much as admitted that the Republicans are the only side that has submitted a detailed plan. It doesn't matter if you agree with it or not. "Un-serious" is unconvincing.
Let the President write up not just his offers, but a comprehensive plan. As you stated, he has not. What I think it would change is irrelevant. If one side brings a soccer ball to a basketball game, mock them, and bring your own ball.
Again you reference a loony article that reflects your personal biases. Spare me the feigned outrage. As I recall, he made it quite clear during a speech that Social Security checks would not go out; likely in an effort to frighten the largest and most active voting block as a part of his "appeal to the people" (if he used those words).
You're unwilling do directly admit that as impractical as the Republican plan may be, that it is the only one out there. "Dead on arrival," proposals, and phone calls are as much of the game as the plan you despise.
Once the old people die we'll have more money.
Likely for power and influence. That's how adults play.
Last edited by Vladimir; 07-29-2011 at 19:01.
Reinvent the British and you get a global finance center, edible food and better service. Reinvent the French and you may just get more Germans.
Ik hou van ferme grieten en dikke pinten
Down with dried flowers!
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
oops.
Reinvent the British and you get a global finance center, edible food and better service. Reinvent the French and you may just get more Germans.
Ik hou van ferme grieten en dikke pinten
Down with dried flowers!
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
Okay, here's my "detailed plan": you give me all of your worldly possessions and become my manservant for life without pay. There. That's a detailed plan. Is it serious, or a joke? Have you ever attended a real negotiation in your entire life?
Re: US gubmint shutdown + default + subprime sequel?
Are your parents dead yet?
AII
The bloody trouble is we are only alive when we’re half dead trying to get a paragraph right. - Paul Scott
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks