Obama's Ambush on Entitlements -- Under the Cover of 'Crisis'

[Octafish]

From the "Ah hate to be the Bearer of Bad Bonds" department:

Under Cover of "Crisis"

Obama's Ambush on Entitlements

By MICHAEL HUDSON
CounterPunch
July 26, 2011

You know that the debt face-off is as staged as melodramatically as a World Wrestling Federation exhibition when Obama makes the blatantly empty threat that if Congress does not “tackle the tough challenges of entitlement and tax reform,” there won’t be money to pay Social Security checks next month. In his debt speech last night (July 25), he threatened that if “we default, we would not have enough money to pay all of our bills – bills that include monthly Social Security checks, veterans’ benefits, and the government contracts we’ve signed with thousands of businesses.”

This is not remotely true. But it has become the scare theme for over a week now, ever since the President used almost the same words in his interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley.

Of course the government will have enough money to pay the monthly Social Security checks. The Social Security administration has its own savings – in Treasury bills. I realize that lawyers (such as . Obama and indeed most American presidents) rarely understand economics. But this is a legal issue. Obama certainly must know that Social Security is solvent, with liquid securities to pay for many decades to come. Yet . Obama has put Social Security at the very top of his hit list.

The most reasonable explanation for his empty threat is that he is trying to panic the elderly into hoping that somehow the budget deal he seems to have up his sleeve can save them. The reality, of course, is that they are being led to economic slaughter. (And not a word of correction reminding the President of financial reality from Rubinomics Treasury Secretary Geithner, neoliberal Fed Chairman Bernanke or anyone else in the Wall Street Democrat administration, formerly known as the Democratic Leadership Council.)

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson07262011.html

Gee. I remember in the last economic crisis when Washington called for ramming stuff through immediately, if not sooner. The rich got away with it. And the loot.

[Donnachaidh]

1. k&r -- this needs to be out there. n/t

[Octafish]

17. The guy is profound: 'Wall Street’s Euthanasia of Industry'

For those interested in learning more about how America get to be one great cash-cow for the wealthy:

Wall Street’s Euthanasia of Industry

EXCERPT...

“When I was in Norway one of the Norwegian politicians sat next to me at a dinner and said, “You know, there’s one good thing that President Obama has done that we never anticipated in Europe. He’s shown the Europeans that we can never depend upon America again. There’s no president, no matter how good he sounds, no matter what he promises, we’re never again going to believe the patter talk of an American President. Mr. Obama has cured us. He has turned out to be our nightmare. Our problem is what to do about the American people that don’t realize this nightmare that they’ve created, this smooth-talking American Tony Blair in the White House.”

Thanks, Donnachaidh, for understanding and caring.

[CountAllVotes]

2. they are using We the People

as their weapon by stealing from us. It angers me something fierce! :mad:

How dare they?

FUCK ALL OF THEM AND THEIR GOD DAMNED GOLF COURSES AND COCKTAIL PARTIES!!!

:kick:

[KeepItReal]

3. Maybe Obama meant default = govt shutdown = nobody to put SS checks in the mail

I had to shake my head when he said default threatens people getting their payments

[AndyTiedye]

19. The Social Security Trust Fund is All Invested in Treasury Bills

so if we default on those…

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProSense]

5. "So Obama is doing what any good demagogue does:

....delivering his constituency to his campaign contributors on Wall Street. "

Now Obama is a "demagogue"?

From President Obama's speech

So the debate right now isn't about whether we need to make tough choices. Democrats and Republicans agree on the amount of deficit reduction we need. The debate is about how it should be done. Most Americans, regardless of political party, don't understand how we can ask a senior citizen to pay more for her Medicare before we ask corporate jet owners and oil companies to give up tax breaks that other companies don't get. How can we ask a student to pay more for college before we ask hedge fund managers to stop paying taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries? How can we slash funding for education and clean energy before we ask people like me to give up tax breaks we don't need and didn't ask for?

That's not right. It's not fair. We all want a government that lives within its means, but there are still things we need to pay for as a country - things like new roads and bridges; weather satellites and food inspection; services to veterans and medical research.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dennis4868]

11. walk the walk?

okay, so what entitlements have been cut since Obama has been president?

[Ichingcarpenter]

15. He brought to the poker table chips he didn't own

nor should he bargain with to secure a deal with assholes


Social Security is not a bargaining chip. He put it on the table.

[dennis4868]

34. did you not hear what Obama said...

he will not agree to SS cuts that affect peoples benefits...he said that SS is not the cause of the debt...he wants to make changes that strengthen the program...DU is a funny place to be these days...hyperspeculation 24/7!

[Dragonfli]

48. You left out "CURRENT", he only wants to protect current recipients in a cynical attempt

to get grandma to throw her kids under the bus, or more precisely, support him while he feeds us to the wolves.

He used the words current recipients for a reason or do you not believe what he says?

[dennis4868]

12. you are not going to get anywhere...

here at DU with facts and statements from Obama...the fact based reality train left the station months and months ago here at DU....

[HappyMe]

14. Yup. I noticed that myself.

Hysteria and accusations first, facts whenever.

[dennis4868]

33. that's an accurate way of putting it

[Octafish]

21. Here's something you'll really like...

From a good reporter from the World Socialist Web Site:

Obama returns to the fraud of “equal sacrifice”

By Patrick Martin
wsws.org
26 July 2011

The back-to-back nationally televised speeches delivered Monday night by President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner were a political fraud on every level. The so-called debate in Washington on the federal deficit is rigged in advance. All of the participants take as their first principle the imposition of massive cuts on programs that benefit working people.

SNIP...

The pathetic, cringing character of these appeals was remarkable. US presidents usually commandeer the airwaves for a nationally televised address to announce a major policy action in either domestic or foreign policy. But Obama announced nothing except his own impotence in the face of the ultra-right, ending with a call for people to write letters to Congress urging a compromise.

Obama now complains of the federal government’s solvency being held hostage by the most right-wing faction of the House Republicans. But the White House and the congressional Democrats ceded this power to the ultra-right.

The Democrats controlled the House and Senate during the first two years of Obama’s presidency and refused to raise taxes on the wealthy. On the contrary, they expanded and extended the bailout of Wall Street begun under the Bush administration while refusing to take any serious action to create jobs for the millions thrown out of work by the economic slump that followed the 2008 Wall Street crash.

CONTINUED...

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/jul2011/budg-j26.shtml

Sorry, but I agree with the socialist perspective on this. For too long, the leadership of my Party has sided with Wall Street and the Republicans over the "Old" Democrats and working people time and time again. I think I should know: I've been a registered Democrat since 1976.

[SusanaMontana41]

46. I love it. Thanks! n/t

[Armstead]

23. NOT all Americans agree -- He is using a phony premise

Do all Americans really that young people should pay more for college?

Is it a unanimous opinion that senior citizens should pay more for Medicare?

I'm not sure we all want to slash funding for education and clean energy.

Obama does not even agree with that.

So why is he spouting what is basically a consetvative agenda as the only acceptable alternative to GOP slash and burn craziness?

[Fire1]

6. Well, you've got some "progressives" going along with it. Put

THAT out there, too.

[Octafish]

37. Rolling Back the Progressive Era

How Bankers are using the Debt Crisis to welcome in the Financial Road to Serfdom

by Michael Hudson
June 14, 2011

Financial strategists do not intend to let today’s debt crisis go to waste. Foreclosure time has arrived. That means revolution – or more accurately, a counter-revolution to roll back the 20th century’s gains made by social democracy: pensions and social security, public health care and other infrastructure providing essential services at subsidized prices or for free. The basic model follows the former Soviet Union’s post-1991 neoliberal reforms: privatization of public enterprises, a high flat tax on labor but only nominal taxes on real estate and finance, and deregulation of the economy’s prices, working conditions and credit terms.

What is to be reversed is the “modern” agenda. The aim a century ago was to mobilize the Industrial Revolution’s soaring productivity and technology to raise living standards and use progressive taxation, public regulation, central banking and financial reform to distribute wealth fairly and make societies more equal. Today’s financial aim is the opposite: to concentrate wealth at the top of the economic pyramid and lower labor’s returns. High finance loves low wages.

The political lever to achieve this program is financial. The European Union (EU) constitution prevents central banks from financing government deficits, leaving this role to commercial banks, paying interest to them for creating credit that central banks monetize for governments in Britain and the United States. Governments are to go into debt to bail out banks for loans gone bad – as do more and more loans as finance impoverishes the economy, stifling its ability to pay. Yet as long as we live in democracies, voters must agree to pay. Governments are sovereign and debt is ultimately a creature of the law and courts.

But first, voters need to understand what is happening. From the bankers’ perspective, the economic surplus is what they themselves end up with. Rising consumption standards and even public investment in infrastructure are seen as deadweight. Bankers and bondholders aim to increase the surplus not so much by tangible capital investment increasing the overall surplus, but by more predatory means, headed by rolling back labor’s gains and stiffening working conditions while gaining public subsidy. Banks “create wealth” by providing more credit (that is, debt leverage) to bid up asset prices for real estate and enterprises already in place – assets that either are being foreclosed on or sold off under debt pressure by private owners or governments. One commentator recently characterized the latter strategy of privatization as “tantamount to selling the family silver only to have to rent it back in order to eat dinner.”<1>

CONTINUED...



Thank you for the reminder, Fire1.

[Fire1]

38. Good article. K&R

[gratuitous]

7. Oh, you alarmists!

You keep taking little disparate bits and pieces out of context (the Catfood Commission, its failure to do anything, the constant appeal to its non-existent authority, repeated statements out of this administration from the top down, unsourced comments broadcast over the popular media without correction or confirmation, scare tactics, unfounded statements on national broadcasts and so forth) and try to cobble together a narrative that fits these disturbingly consistent but totally unrelated words and actions.

Of course, when the chickens do come home to roost and the lower income folks are screwed over once again to avoid the horror of an extra three cents in taxes on the wealthy, we will be told how it's too late, the signs were there all along if we'd only been paying attention, it was the only way out of this "crisis," it's your own fault, and shut up.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[leeroysphitz]

10. Mr. Obama, Mr. Boner; Where are the fucking jobs?

Not on the god damned golf course, I'll tell you that.




No one who truly had the people's best interest at heart would go on and on about deficits in this economy.

[SidDithers]

13. Michael Hudson. LOL...

Isn't he the loon who last week said Obama wanted a 30% reduction in wages? :rofl:

Sid

[Octafish]

16. Thanks for reminding me. Yes, he is. Hudson also was on DemocracyNow!

Save the Gambling Bankers

BTW: Why do you find information showing how the United States Government largely serves the wealthy at the expense of everyone else funny?

[SidDithers]

20. I find extremists and alarmists funny...nt

Sid

[Ichingcarpenter]

24. As do we find your extremists postings advocating

for the right a declaration of a middle ground or third rail.

Alarmed?...... you damn well better be if you are paying attention and not just pushing the third way.

[SidDithers]

31. My extremists postings?...

:rofl:

Sid

[dionysus]

22. it's the ODS, they can't help themselves. these kinds of articles are like porn to 'em

[OnyxCollie]

30. Oh, look. It's the Sid Dithers/dionysus tag team

doing what they can to sway DU opinion (or at the very least, increasing traffic) with their convincing arguments and persuasive rhetoric.

I swear, it's like you two are of the same mind.

Keep it up, guys. You're almost there.

[SidDithers]

32. Yup. At least we haven't seen any David Michael Green lately...

As far as loons go, he's near the top.

Sid

[Zorra]

18. If a picture is worth a thousand words,

we're doomed.

[Octafish]

26. Photographs can be stunning.

The Foursome, left to right: Speaker John Boehner, President Barack Obama, Gov. John Kasich, Vice President Joe Biden.



How the Super-Rich are Bleeding the Treasury: Understanding the Federal 'Debt Crisis'

[KoKo]

27. One big Happy Family.... Yet we are supposed to believe this Kabuki Dance

of Austerity is what we must do for the country to survive. A poster over at KOS yesterday said we should rename "OFA" group... "Obma for Austerity" It struck me as good gallows humor, like the picture above.

[KoKo]

42. Kick for this photo...Wonder why the Right doesn't get...there's little difference in Parties these

days...just a hair.

[Doctor_J]

25. Sadly he's going to have to wear this as well as the Bush Tax cuts

if he'd fought against these disasters he could stay clear of them, but now they're his

[KoKo]

28. And, since the Asian Markets didn't crash this Monday like he warned on Saturday...

it seems the CNBC Financial Networks folks are saying he is in danger of looking like the little boy who cried wolf too often. I think Bush II deserves that title ....but, whoever told Obama to do a Hank Paulson stunt...that the global markets would fall if a deal wasn't done last weekend, is obviously no friend to Obama.

[blindpig]

29. We should thank the President.

In a way perhaps not intended he has brought more clarity to the American political scene than people can stand. The correlation of forces becomes perfectly clear after the happy talk is dismissed. The ruling class owns the political process from top to bottom and will have it's way. Only with this clarity can we proceed to proper effective action.

k&r

[Octafish]

44. When he dumped his campaign economic team and hired the old guard was a clue.

This Hudson fellow does explain the big picture:

Wall Street’s Euthanasia of Industry

EXCERPT...

“When I was in Norway one of the Norwegian politicians sat next to me at a dinner and said, “You know, there’s one good thing that President Obama has done that we never anticipated in Europe. He’s shown the Europeans that we can never depend upon America again. There’s no president, no matter how good he sounds, no matter what he promises, we’re never again going to believe the patter talk of an American President. Mr. Obama has cured us. He has turned out to be our nightmare. Our problem is what to do about the American people that don’t realize this nightmare that they’ve created, this smooth-talking American Tony Blair in the White House.”

It's pretty disheartening to see how far down the pecking order The People have fallen compared to Money and Foreverwar.

[seafan]

35. Thanks, Octafish.

Just.... thanks.





Speaker John Boehner, President Barack Obama, Gov. John Kasich, Vice President Joe Biden.

"Despite our disagreements, Republican leaders and I have found common ground before."--- Barack Obama, in address to Americans on the debt, July 25, 2011

We have 'met common ground'.


The heist is nearly complete.

[alsame]

36. k&r

[H2O Man]

39. Recommended.

Thank you.

[Hubert Flottz]

40. K&R

He's got our back alright!

Edit...UBS...the crew that created the Federal Reserve theft machine.

[Scottybeamer70]

41. Thanks, octafish....

rec.

[XanaDUer]

43. K & R'd

nt.

[girl gone mad]

45. k & r

[Fearless]

47. And the PATRIOT ACT before that too.