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Memo To WSJ: The CRomnibus Abomination Was Not "A Rare Bipartisan Success"
Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
The rank economic cheerleading in the guise of “news” printed by the Wall Street Journal, Reuters and the rest of the financial press never ceases to amaze. But on the heels of Congress’ pathetic capitulation to Wall Street over the weekend you have to wonder if even the robo-writers who compose the headlines are on the take.
How could anyone in the right mind label this weekend’s CRomnibus abomination “A Rare Bipartisan Success for Congress”? Apparently, that unaccountable plaudit was bestowed upon Washington by the WSJ solely because it avoided another government shutdown.
And one that was of its own making at that. After all, we are already 75 days into the new fiscal year, yet Congress had not yet passed a single appropriations bill. So once again it had set itself up for the usual midnight scramble behind closed doors where the pork barrel overflows and sundry K-street lobbies stick-up the joint and then demand immediate passage—–sight unseen—–in the name of keeping the Washington Monument open on the morrow.
Not only did Citigroup and the rest of the big Wall Street banks succeed in gutting the “push-out” requirements of Dodd-Frank, thereby extending their lease to gamble in the derivatives market with FDIC (i.e. taxpayer) guaranteed money. Crony Capitalism also got a huge bonanza in the form of a 10X increase in the contribution limit to party committees. Now the heavy hitters can actually give $230,000 annually to the GOP and Dem campaign committees. And this is supposed to merit praise?
Yes, this game has been going on for years. But the fact that the nation’s leading financial newspaper was witless enough to describe it as a “success” is something comparatively new. What has happened is that the deafening clamor from the Wall Street casino for endless winnings has subordinated all else. Even a brief government shutdown is now verboten——-not because it would have any deleterious effect in the real world where virtually 80% of domestic operations are exempted under the “health and safety” clause, anyway. No, the purported danger is that it might prompt a panicked sell-off in the stock market.
This oppressive regime has been building every since the House GOP had the good sense to defeat the first TARP vote back in September 2008—–only to turn tail and approve it a few days later after Wall Street staged a monumental hissy fit. So we now have governance by the robo-traders and gamblers who light up the trading screens 24/7.
Indeed, there is no evidence that the voters have ever punished elected politicians for the periodic but essentially phony “shutdowns” of Federal operations that have occurred since 2011. Indeed, the GOP did shutdown the government for an unusually long period last October, but the voters’ message this November was the very opposite of retribution.
On the other hand, there have been Wall Street hissy fits each and every time a shutdown loomed or happened. So now the bipartisan leaders have essentially become pavlovian lap dogs who are willing to countenance any outrage, plunder and dereliction that might be required to keep the doors open for a few more weeks or months at a time.
But far from being praiseworthy, this kind of kick-the-can pandering is digging the nation into a monumental fiscal trap. Consider another more troubling measure of elapsed time. At the moment of CRomnibus’ passage, we were in day 345 of CY 2014, and the cumulative deficit for that period clocked in at $700 billion.
Yes, notwithstanding all of the palaver about the shrinking deficit, here we are deep into the 6th year of so-called recovery and the national debt is still being jacked-up by what only a decade ago would have been considered bottom-of-the-recession magnitudes. And here again, Washington’s utter nonchalance about this dangerous condition is owning to the tyranny of the Fed’s free money fueled Wall Street casino.
Even after the hiccup of recent days, the market’s blistering but wholly unwarranted rise has lulled both Washington and Wall Street into the same delusion that set in during the final days of the dotcom bubble and then again at the peak of the housing and credit bubble during 2006-2008. Namely, that the business cycle has been suspended or repealed by the purported magicians at the Fed, and that, accordingly, the nirvana of permanent full employment prosperity is just around the corner.
Here’s the skunk in the woodpile. When you drop this kind of Rosy Scenario into the budget computers and crank out the projections for another ten years, the deficit and national debt always bend toward the flat-line. Its inherent in the laws of compound arithmetic.
Rosy Scenario as now embedded in the CBO projections, of course, will never materialize. CBO is currently projecting, with no embarrassment at all, that the US will go without a recession between 2009 and 2024; that 16 million new jobs will be created over the next ten years compared to 3 million during the last decade; that real GDP will grow at better than a 3% rate until we hit permanent full-employment compared to just 1.7% per year since the turn of the century; and that wages and salaries will grow at a 5.3% rate during the next decade compared to 3% during the prior 10 years. And that’s just a smidgeon of the unwarranted optimism built into Washington’s fiscal projections.
Even then, CBO projects that the national debt will rise by $8 trillion during the next decade, notwithstanding Rosy Scenario and full-employment forever. By contrast, just “copy and paste” the last 10 years of actual economic performance, and throw in the propensity of Congress to extend at the 11th hour all of the artificially expiring tax-loopholes and incentives and future budget cuts in programs like DOD and the “doc fix” under Medicare, for example, that flatter the 10-year projections. When you make those modest accommodations to reality, in fact, you add more than $15 trillion to the national debt in the decade ahead.
Stated differently, just give even partial credit to the swirling deflationary forces now besetting the world economy; or merely acknowledge that the house of cards in China is heading for some kind of landing that is not likely to be “soft”; or that the madmen running the government and central bank of Japan have ignited a deadly currency race to the bottom; or that the ECB does not remotely have “whatever it takes” to alleviate Europe’s welfare state stupor. Under these “headwind” conditions, US nominal GDP is not likely to exceed $24 trillion 10 years from now, whereas the public debt could easily exceed $33 trillion under current “kick-the-can” policies.
National debt at a Greek-style 140% of GDP? That’s exactly where last weekend’s style of “bipartisan success” is leading.
Can the Fed actually print that much money? Can the Wall Street casino avoid the mother-of-all-hissy-fits if it doesn’t?
Perhaps one day the WSJ will be required to report the real financial news.
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the propaganda is unusually thick these days
http://www.philiacband.com/propaganda.html
I'm now telling my Progressive and Neo-Con buds that they're shining examples of bi=partisan success.
everybody got what they wanted and everybody got what they said was over any line drawn in the sand, over my dead fucking body, against every fucking principle and still, they all find excuses why they got what they needed was right and the other guys are still dead wrong.
So I tell 'em this is just another example of DC, everything gets done by One Party and my buds should just start fisting one another and enjoy it because I'm not gonna listen to any of their crap anymore.
This was anything but bi-partisan, because there is no partisanship. There's only Kabuki Theater, lies, deceit and campaign contributions, between the red abnd blue practice jerseys of the one and same team
Oh and PfuckingS. When the Journal was a business newspaper pre-Murdock, it was one of the best sources for real financial, economic and business news that by and large kept the editorials and oped crap on said pages. The day it was sold, I said to Mrs K there goes the neighborhood, sucked down the drain into another propaganda mechanism which will no longer report business news.
And guess what?
I believe in the biz, they refer to it as a double penetration...
If nobody has noticed, The Rs and the Ds both want the same things now. Amnesty? Yes, please! Obamacare? Absolutely, we love it. The differences between them are slight and pastel. The most important question is: more government or less? Which will result in incredulous giggles from both sides.
They ALL WANT THE SAME THINGS. The Tea Party movement was about the last gasp for anything vaguely resembling conservatism. They've about run their course because BOTH parties hate them and the DONORS to both parties hate them. The entire government is bought and paid for. Ron Paul knows this better than anybody and I actually like that guy and agree with a lot of what he says.
Why there is even discussion about this any more is beyond me. The only rational course of action is to give them all the rope they could possibly want to hang themselves with. Nothing but outright collapse will alter the course at this point.
Double anal actually.
The voters get what they deserve, not what they want. They want change but vote for the same, so who's fault is this congress, this Presidency. It's gridlock by design, because when the elites want something the gridlock conveniently disappears.
the "voters" are brainwashed forget it what we need is a whole new re-education tactic 24/7 round the clock full on frontal assault on their empty heads no more entertainment no more music non stop anti-propaganda ...thats what they've used for 65 + years ...ah once again the only way to take all this shit out of the zio-scums hands falls to the same answer Bullets and Blood
no matter how many "models" I work up the result is always the same Bullets and Blood ... in other words nothing changes until "we" change it
I like to dream once in awhile that those "un-explained" banker deaths / suicides are the work of just regular citizens exacting fucking revenge one asshole at a time calms my nerves and puts a smile on my face
/end rant ... again forward into the fucking void
You are my favorite poster here. I wish we were neighbors but you'd probably hate that. Oh well, keep on keepin' on.
There's a reason this nasty rag is given away in every hotel and airport: it's a propaganda handbill, not a newspaper. Every article is an editorial either praising the government for borrowing and spending and letting corporate insterests run amok, or condemning the government taxing instead of borrowing, or spending too little, or poking its nose in the privvy affairs of rapaciaous bankster criminals. Nobody would pay for this shit, but we'll pick one up and read it, contaminating our reason, logic and grasp of facts. The WSJ would churn along nicely even if they never actually sold a single copy.
Pravda 2.0
Once again they all joined together to fuck the middle class over.
There is only really one party. The pretend Dems/Reps are just stage names to keep the masses distracted with fabricated drama.
agreed. every time you hear the words 'bipartisan' or 'compromise' or 'reaching across the aisle', and of that shit, t just means there is a even larger than usual deception going on (george carlin, right?). I means bend over, since both factions of the war party are getting what they want at the expense of what little freedom, libery, and prosperity left in this country. Its funny, everyone was talking shit about the dumbass japanese, following Abe into the destruction of their currency and society, and we keep voting for the same shit too. I sure wish there was some developed country, somewhere on this miserable planet, that didnt have shitheads like these running things. The US used to be that country, but its not anymore, and it sure looks like there is no where left to go.
"it sure looks like there is no where left to go"
Gotcha!
- The entire government
Every WSJ article ever:
"<lies> <fabrications> <total horseshit>..., sources said"
That's a good one. Maybe W3C could introduce those as new semantic elements in html6?
Nice. How about rolling 'em all up to the top level to have just two tags: <official>, and <conspiracy>. Then the ISPs can block everything that has a <conspiracy> tag, because what is not <official> is quite obviously, <conspiracy>.
"Bipartisan treason is plusgood. Partisan treason ungood."
I picture there being a black-box like computer device in the offices of all of the sewer-spewer media outlets.
It flashes and maintains the latest party lines so as to prevent confusion and assure proper script maintenance.
Call it the "monolith" after Kubrick's monolith in 2001 a Space Odyssey.
An American, not US subject.
Are you referring to AP or Reuters because you should be referring to both.
It was a biparti$an $ucce$$ because the 2 partie$ got what they wanted. What the voters want doesn't even matter because with a 15% approval they know 90% of them will still get re-elected. Even after Bush and Obama the divided and conquered still actually believe one party is better than the other and vote accordingly.
wsj, w/murdoch's 5B debt, is full bore in tank for rinos, particularly jeb bush. btw, what kind of decadence and rot has enveloped this country that a 3rd member of the same family is being talked up as potus? it's not healthy; it's sick.
Dude... Hillbillary is gonna run and there's already people talking about Chelsea.
Like the old feuding families. Clintons and McBushes.
Oughta intermarry with the Obamas and have the perpetual dynasty.
offspring might look like a 3 headed Medusa
check.
Sorry but do you really think it matters which "family" is put in front of the microphone? On the first day of every presidency we have the swearing in and all that. Once out of the public eye the new President is brought into a room and sat down in an uncomfortable chair without arms or padding in front of a panel. The darkest truth is then told and the new man is made to understand who he really works for and what the consequences of not following orders entails.
I really believe Obama was a true believer in his hope and change thing. That sure didn't last very long at all did it. This would explain his boredom and excessive golfing. Same thing with Bush but he went to Texas instead of golfing, though he did golf.
There is no President.
If your goal of this article was to make me cringe then "mission accomplished!" Those who look closely understand that it is not the 1% at the top stealing the icing off the cake, but the much smaller .1% or .01% that are skewing the numbers and overreaching. I contend the biggest problem with America is the massive growth in crony capitalism and corruption in Washington.
Much of this can be attributed to the ability of those in control "changing the rules" and positioning themselves to benefit at every corner. In our busy and complex world we have found it impossible to watch all the moving parts. More on how this incestuous mess leads to collapse in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-empires-collapse.html
Nice read. Not too long and to the point. The honest reflections of an observer of our times.
Once the Investment banks gained the ability to bail themselves out, immediately with TARP, (just to survive in their present Management structures and CEO personnal), and then longer term with Federal Reserve QE.... any politician worth his or her 20 pieces of tungsten recognized that it would be impossible to withstand their $$ contributions.
Very few politicians (especialy DEMs) could withstand a competitor who had $$ backing from the Inv Banks. Boehner and McConnell were bought off years ago. The march to Nihilism continues unabated.
In all the trouble Russia's going through, I find it interesting that the Russian people know exactly what to do. Which is why "capital controls" may soon be on the table. Currency management and goods are a way of life for the Russians and they get it.
When this dilemma strikes home in the US someday...whenever that is, we won't see long lines at the bank to exchange dollars, or to buy gold, etc. The sheeple will just sit on their couches scratching their nuts, eating another bag of dorritos and wondering how they're going to pay for $10 per/gallon gas since they just moved into the suburbs to get an extra 1,500 square feet and a dual zone AC system - and now live 45 miles away from their workplace. Utilities bills alone will kill them. They'd buy a scooter, but 1) all scooters have doubled in price in the last 7 days, and 2) scooters aren't really designed to haul around 290 lb lard asses.
So what if they do?
Do you care? Ok then.
Agree with Stockman, but does anyone have a link to the exact changes made to Dodd/Frank, and what, if anything is left?
Dodd/Frank = broken glass/ dead seagull the very least we need is the return of Glass/Steegle thats if ya wanna even begin to keep any of this ziobanksterscum shit even alive I for one want them all lined up and shot through the head just to make sure they can't come back... I'm really starting to believe this re-animation shit these bastards never seem to die fuckin rothrabidchilds sorros greenspan ah fuck it
Here's a placed to start - http://rules.house.gov/bill/113/hr-83
and here's my take on it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZSRkuhPzuI
what are you talking about? it was a massive bi-partisan success for the wall-street and top 0.001%.
I think it's becoming more clear all the time that the WSJ/NYT/FAUX/ZNN ziomedia complex are purely propaganda organs with no actual useful function other than telling the donkeys what to believe for their ZWO masters.
Becoming? How long you wander away from the campfire?
Confucius say -
Every journey begins with a single step;)
That one might even be legit, like it matters.
Poor guy hasn't figured out that air-time exists for advertisers. What you fill in between ads is immaterial unless upstairs calls for a massage job.
I must admit I loved Archie Bunker though.
When has the mainstream media - fiancial or otherwise - ever cared about the average citizen?
The American Media Is The Enemy Of The American PeopleYou're missing the forest for the trees. Who controls the American Media?
That's some painful subject matter and most people can't handle the truth.
WSJ has been pointless for several years now, and is moving right on to disgusting.
the tabloid stories are more believable than the shit this jew rag prints
"Bipartisan success" is a contradiction in terms. Anything that both parties can agree upon must be really terrible.
I would agree and add.
Both parties are owned by the same money.
They differ in their media created personas and their rhetoric, on some topics at least, but their actions are basically the same which is worship the Federal Reserve Corporaton and it's shareholder banks who own the government.
So this gang of ziotards are all hoisted up in front of the donkeys and they count the votes on electronic machines with no audit trail and everything is awesome if you're part of the team.
see below.
Anyone can see the turd is orbitting the bowl more quickly as the downward spiralling vortex gathers greater speed. I suppose sooner is no different than later. I only want to see our nukes kept in tip-top condition as MAD might be the only thing that keeps things from getting real squirley. Might!
This has a different, and much more dangerous dynamic than MAD.
The dynamic of MAD was, "we build bombs and they build bigger bombs and we hope there are so many bombs that no one dares push the button".
This dynamic is "we are going to destroy your country with derivatives and paper money and we dare you to shoot first".
It's beginning to look a lot like 'Christmas'
Monopoly money in an insolvent casino shutting out Russia ( resource rich ) to money markets; well i be damned boy, damned i say!
Here’s the skunk in the woodpile. When you drop this kind of Rosy Scenario into the budget computers and crank out the projections for another ten years,
Ten Years!
You can rest assured that Rosy Scenario will morph into Rosy Palm working for the Happy Ending.
In ten years, we who remain, may all be hunter/gatherers.
good bye America, your heart and soul have been sold like slavers on the block. Bill Clinton with Phil Gramm (R. Texas), and pals, sent us a Merry Christmas present in 1999 that gave us this current mess and sky rocketing 401k's of fantasy.....it is late and no one cares anyway. We had fun that year at the Christmas parties didn't we? And they knew we were very busy...didn't they? All those boys on the Hill so late at night doing the peoples work.
My relatives knew you well America, and died for your hope and promise, for the last 200 years. We gave up our homestead so you could build your military bases to defend us. Fly from the land we hauled rocks from with bloody hands and near dead horses so we could make a smooth level field for your magic winged machines. We defended you in international law tribunals, with teeth born and ready TO POUNCE ON THE CHANDGLENGERS . My family is now gone. I am the last broken branch from the great American tree of promise. Let my last leaf fall to the barren soil that I may nourish it, and bring a nation back.... to a civilization that has no controlled sellout "Americans".
Where is Joseph McCarthy now? Not behind trees, but in plain view, just as before, to distract you from what is important. Where are the traitors, in plain view? NO...not then, not now. Where are the enemies who dare to destroy the last hope of the world to be free of tyranny? In plain view? Tell me what is the truth, let me see it, let me believe. Less we live in a movie, an Apple created reality, a google universe of 'free face lifts' a at discount, then just where do we live? What has been let by out by heroes as our nations blood, has been let for the thieves of the soul of America for their hot cars, hot bar chicks, Hampton sweet spots and dull minded lazy Americans with 401ks pre occupied with carefully crafted 6:00 PM news clips and no depth or interest in facts except ball scores.
Let the children starve in the streets, that will show them that their god is indifferent, and only government can put crumbs in the babies mouths and rancid Chinese milk in the bottle. Let their eyes become crossed with Iphones trivia and their brains cooked by radiated microwaves because there is nothing more valuable than worthless chat. It is to sad to make comments on any thing any longer. No one cares, really.
The game has been played, you have been exposed. You watched your neighbors homes being taken away and said' that will serve them right". We watched the ones who told us the sky was falling and we threw rotten tomatoes at them to the cheers of CNBC. Now, we are in with the in-club, all in this because we ...did.... nothing.. to stop...it!. Glued you are to FOX, to CNBC, and all the cheerleaders who sing a siren song that is music to your ears.....make money from nothing for nothing having done nothing. You are now part of the game waiting for your bail out. Who is kidding who? Everyone things they are the smartest one in the room.
We bought what we have with fiat paper and no substance worthy of human toil or acknowledgement. Stop playing little Nell from the farm...everyone, our finger prints are on every square inch of all the ills we now stare at...like deer in the headlights....but we kid no one except ourselves for what we now reap, is a field stripped of nourishment and hope, barns burnt, seeds eaten. Say it like it is, or say nothing. Dancing around the truth is plain pretend because your respect for the financial fraternity, has no respect for you. How many are deep into their 401k or other "investment" device who blog condemnation one minute and caress their portfolios the next?
Where were you Mr. Stockman last week, last year, that your oh so up-to-the-minute warning of doom could not have gotten the attention of your peers ten years ago, five years ago, even last month? There is no traction in a world of lies and fantasy. A little chat here or there by anyone has fallen on the deaf ears of BTFD and "don't fight the Fed"
some fucking merry Christmas... as Dire Straights would say...bologna again America...Amen. Take care of your babies, teach them well. Lessons of the past are to easily forgotten or re-written.
bi-par-ti-san-ship (n.)
When the Stupid Party and The Evil Party get together to somethingstupid and evil.
Not an American. I have a question. Is it impossible to be a candidate for any political position in the states outside of being a democrat or republican? Why has america turned into a one party state with two opposing wings?
..
THE CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS ARE A PATHETIC BUNCH OF MOTHERFUCKERS!
http://therightscoop.com/mark-levin-to-the-gop-i-am-one-inch-away-from-l...
The government can kiss my a$$. I'm not giving them one more red cent from here on out. Whatever happens , happens. Just like they may know who I am, it works the other way around as well. When are peopel going to say enough. Fuck those criminals. This is not freedom.
It's the fucking Wall Street Journal - Wall Strret - main beneficiaries of the bill, of course they say its a success.