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Bad Times Could Get Worse for Obama
The Obama administration faces the midterm elections in the vortex of forces that might impale it. Does President Obama recognize the magnitude of the risks?
Even if the great recession is statistically over, unemployment will likely continue to exceed 10 percent for many months. Double figure unemployment has a resonance with wide sectors of the population. Beyond the ugly numerical symbolism, most people now know friends who have been laid off and enjoy little prospect of a job: “Am I going to be next?” is the inevitable reaction. The attendant insecurity in turn makes consumers unwilling to exceed barest necessities and businesses reluctant to invest.
Bad as this situation is, it could easily become worse. The mere reduction in the rate of job loss is cited by Wall Street conservatives, the Blue Dog Republicrats and establishment media to suggest that a rebound is under way. They will hound the Fed to raise interest rates and pressure Congress for a whole range of budget-cutting initiatives. Should they succeed, the possibility of a so-called W-shaped recession becomes more likely.
In a world where economic insecurity now virtually trumps all other issues, Obama has staked his political future on health care and winning the good war in Afghanistan.
Though the health care legislation most likely to pass will insure more Americans, it lacks cost containment for the currently insured. Even provisions to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage of pre-existing conditions will likely be met by company increases in premiums and-or deductibles and co-pays. The New York Times cites recent studies that Big Pharma already is increasing prices to establish a higher base from which future price reductions would be calculated.
Obama faces a tenuous job market, growing foreclosures and rising health insurance premiums. Meanwhile, investment banks reap huge bonuses by taking taxpayer-backed bets on stock in companies that most aggressively “downsize.”
One indication of whether Obama recognizes the risks in these converging factors will be the guest list for the jobs summit. He should invite Paul Krugman and Dean Baker, both of whom predicted the real estate collapse and highlighted the inadequacy of the first Obama stimulus package. Both have detailed proposals for market-friendly tax and spending policies that would create new jobs.
Obama’s good war will likely amplify left and right distrust of the president. And these amplifications cross several registers. War aims remain unattainable. “Counterinsurgency” runs afoul of two considerations. If any large portion of the country is to be even partially protected the doctrine itself implies a need for vastly more troops than even Gen. Stanley McChrystal is proposing.
The government the U.S. endorses is neither honest nor democratic. Much of the country will remain in the hands of the Taliban and warlords whose distrust of al-Qaida is exceeded only by hatred for the U.S., democracy and women’s rights.
This war will not come cheap. The U.S. already spends nearly $200 billion yearly in Iraq and Afghanistan, a figure sure to grow if the president accepts any current escalation strategy. The budget hawks give little consideration to the effects of wartime spending on the deficit or long-term economic growth. Several credible econometric studies show that military spending is a poor job creator in comparison with education and alternative energy programs.
Yet when increases in these domestic initiatives are proposed, the size of the current deficit suddenly becomes an insurmountable barrier. Programs that would increase jobs and make us more able to cope with unstable energy supplies and a world of rapid global change become unthinkable.
Is Obama to be drowned in a choir of who lost Afghanistan, tanked the budget and the economy? We should not wait to find out. The California Democratic Party has just passed a resolution asking the president to withdraw forces and commence multiparty peace talks in Afghanistan. Democrats in Maine and other states should follow.
The steelworkers union has just entered a partnership with Spain’s Mondragon worker co-op to explore how workers here can become direct owners and managers of the plants that are lying idle. These struggles can be connected. Activists need to encourage mutually reinforcing programs and enthusiasms to counter the angry mixture of xenophobia and hatred of all things public that is brewing.
- Posted in
69 Comments so far
Show AllThere's a lot of people Obama should invite and they're the same people he should have listened to for the last 11 months -- yes, folks, we have officially passed Obama's 11th month in office. But I just don't see these people being there. I hope the list of attendees will be posted prominently. We have a right to know.
"W" recession = O.D. (O-shaped Depression).
Captive of the elites that he is, Obama will just sit by passively while his own political disaster continues to unfold. It is all over him. It is also all over for the Democrats come 2010.
No sympathy for Obama or the Democrats. They made their graves and they can lie in them.
well lets see...troop increases in Afganistan, troops still in Iraq, new belligerent new military build up in Colombia for "full spectrum dominance of "anti-american countries", Gitmo still open, torture moved to Bagrahm, political show trials in NYC and kangaroo courts for those more difficult to find guilty, a health care bill that further restricts legal abortion and fattens the wallets of Big Insurance, more cash for Wall Street and resession restricted to the poor and middle class while the rich get richer...
What was the down side of a GOP win in 2012 again???
"What was the down side of a GOP win in 2012 again???"
McCain is white.
You people don't get it.
Obama was never supposed to 'fix' anything. He is owned, lock, stock and barrel by the same forces that controlled Bush. He is there to mark time until things become so bad vis a vis the economy and resources you happily and with open arms accept St. Sarah or another of her easily led mouth-breathing ilk.
The IEA has been caught grossly overstating world oil reserves (under threat from the US to not report actual reserves, which are much lower), Climate Change is racing ahead at accelerating rates faster than worst case scenarios predict, and the Economy worldwide is in freefall.
I keep saying this: This is not a Recession. This is not a Depression. THIS IS A COLLAPSE!
We have to accept that the days of being happy little consumers, without a care as to where or how our pleasures come to us, are *OVER*!
Time to accept we have to live smaller scale, closer to each other and the ground.
Your so right about the climate. I'm just finishing up reading Dr. Orrin Pilkey's new book "The Rising Sea" in which Pilkey one of the world's most reknowed Coastal Geologists of these last 40 yrs. says that the last IPCC report which many had thought lowered sea rise estimates for the 21st century do to the warming had done nothing of the kind. The IPCC under intense political pressure had merely altered the basis of how the sea rise predictions were estimated from the previous method. Prior to 2007's report both Grennland and Antarcticas estimated melt was added to the report basis. In the 2007 report both areas were excluded making it look like the IPCC's sea rise est. had been lowered! It hadn't, in fact Pilkey says since 2001 the estimates for the melt from these two sources alone has greatly increased! He estimates along with other major scientific groups that global sea rise by 2100 will exceed 20 feet not the 3 ft. the IPCC has been erroneously quoted as predicting! 20 ft. will flood every major coastal city on earth and drown whole regions of nations. So. Fla. according to Pilkey is toast and so are all the east coast barrier islands and beaches from Fla. to Maine. NYC, Philly, Baltimore , DC, Boston, etc et al. under water by 2100 and the sea rise will not happen in a linear fashion either. It will happen possibly very quickly once we reach a certain rate of melt in Greenland and Antarctica. Even Orrin's predictions might be to small as they didn't take into account recent data from Eastern Antarctica long thought to be stable or actually adding ice but now is believed to also be melting and adding even more water to the oceans! Were in for a climate calamity of a magnitude never seen by civilization since the destruction caused by Thera's ( AKA Santorini) destruction 3500 yrs ago. Pilkey also says this.. its essentially way to late, that the train of sea rise has long ago left the station and that even if we stopped cold putting any greenhouse gases into the atmosphere the seas will rise anyway for many centuries to come. In the end they might be hundreds of feet higher then today and that would mean the end of coastal civilizations that exist today and many Island States. Will we do anything more about this in the short then waste billions on so called beach replenishment? Not likely. As is with all else in America today the protection and care and feeding of the 2% is more important then anything else or any other agenda. The have the power not us and they will ride us all down and then move to their feudal castles with their private militias. Remember the 70's movie Zardoz? Welcome to the real 21st century 1st Neo-Fascism and then Neo-Feudalism.
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Excuse me, but I think most of us here do "get it." Were you under the impression that this site suddenly morphed into a Sarah Palin cheering section, or what?
The jig is pretty much up no matter what Obama does now. The US is on a virtually irreversible downward trajectory with manufacturing jobs gone and a middle class that is desperately and hopelessly trying to hang on. It has a completely broken political system that is under the control of diverse corporate interests that may act in harmony with regard to oppressing the little people and enriching most of the wealthy elite (in the short term) but that pursue their own particular forms of predation in an unorganized, chaotic manner. The MIC, the energy industry, Wall Street, the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, and other powerful groups will continue pursuing their own agendas with no concern for the long-term welfare of the whole, even the long-term welfare of the whole of corporate elites. And no one has the power to discipline them and organize them for any set of common purposes. And the little people are hopelessly divided with little chance of developing any solidarity or political power. This is what the endgame of a crumbling and failing state looks like. To me the only real question is: "Will the US bring down the rest of civilization and even threaten human survival as it convulses and flails about haphazardly and uncontrollably in its death throes?"
Thank you for this wonderful comment. You have accurately described the ultimate fate of the United States. The USA was a comet that streaked across the sky for a few moments before burning up in the atmosphere of uncontrolled corruption and unassailable stupidity.
I feel more pessimistic today than at any time since Obama was elected. Your post did not help my mood, kivals. Your excellent insights are usually welcome, but today, not so much.
Great comment, as usual from kivals. You summed it up perfectly.
Apart from THAT, Mrs. Lincoln-- how did you like the play?
· Yr Obd't Servant
great comment, kival! where'd you get that last quotation?
That quote was mine as it was my question, but I have seen similar sentiments expressed in the blogosphere by others.
righting the wrongs of the previous eight years was going to require a herculean effort on the part of the newly elected.
instead, we got mickey mouse with the leadership skills of a dicky duck, flying with his cape of hope and change.
First, Obama is the insecure self proclaimed "mutt" who strives to be white by conforming to white convention. During his career, this is economic convention, and economic convention is exchange value. Finance generating exchange faster than production, the economy is "recovering" after the government financial stimulous. Finance functioning with few personnel, however, jobs do not follow the "recovery."
Second, foreign policy convention is American hegemony. Hegemonic, Obama made it clear during the campaign he was obsessed with Afghanistan. Although not much discussed, he seems similarly obsessed with Hispanic America. Thus U.S. troop presence has expanded in Columbia to the point of Venezuela destroying two bridges inorder to reduce the chance of Columbian invasion.
Pathetic as he is, there is little hope for Obama and the Democrats
Pathetic as he is, there is little hope for Obama and the Democrats.
That should read:
Pathetic as he is, there is no hope whatsoever for Obama and the Democrats.
You got that even more right brother!
This is not a recession we're in. It's the 21st century version of a depression. The true rate of unemployment is near 20%. And it's shaped like an "S" . . . for Shit. To call His Excellency, The Great Obama, an empty suit is an insult to suits.
Does anybody get the feeling that train usa and probobly the world is picking up speed and the tracks are ending?Tony
Yup, I sure do!
An occasional writer published at CD and "Democratic Party 'framing' strategist and self-styled movement guru George Lakoff" has revealed himself as just another liberal traitor as described here, http://www.counterpunch.org/maher11242009.html
Indeed, a whole battle for control of the UC system appears to be taking place with nary a peep from this site. The root of the action relates to the privitization philosophy that Obama embraces but tries very hard to hide. There was a recent item that lamented the quietude of college students. Obviously, that item lied bigtime.
Agreed. Thank you very much.
I read the article about Lakoff. Interesting. Push comes to shove, the Liberal will sell you out.
"Bad Times Could Get Worse for Obama."
should read
"Bad Times about to get much worse for the average American".
Not worse for Obama. He's now part of the elite; even if he's just a one-termer, he's set for life. Shiny shoes, silver tongue - he's a perfect addition to the country club circuit. The new "diverse" face of the western/global elites.
Yup. He is already floating the idea that he may not run for a second term. That way he can start making the big bucks, (speaking engagements etc.) four years sooner.
You got that right brother.
"In a world where economic insecurity now virtually trumps all other issues, Obama has staked his political future on health care and winning the good war in Afghanistan."
--Well, the verdict is in, then. This corporate puppet has no political future, though he may have one as a top military adviser after the total debacle awaiting him in Afghanistan. Kissinger parleyed his dismal failures in Vietnam into a world-class consulting gig for governments wishing to trod the same path of self-destruction. I'm sure the Big O can manage the same.
"Kissinger parleyed his dismal failures in Vietnam into a world-class consulting gig for governments wishing to trod the same path of self-destruction." –(Ephraim)
–As did the rebarbative toady, the unctuous war criminal Tony Blair.
International Capital rewards its stooges, knowing more of the same are on the way: State terror, war criminality, and mass murder are the standard operating protocols of global capitalism.
Blood in, blood out.
Obama deserves to be a one term puppet, even if followed by a Republican.
–(Jill Bains)
camus13
Oh god raise interest rates that would be the end. Yea.
Like how will the banks and other crooks on Wall street borrow money from the federal at near 0% interest rate then reinvest in other areas for 2 to 3%. Try that on a billion dollars.
I as a just plain John Q. Public asked the fed for $1 billion and then I was going to invest the same way....guess what....their answer was no. Just how in the hell did I think as a plain citizen I was going to be allowed to get in on this deal. This is for the very very rich bankers to get our jobless rate down and etc.
By the way it's called the "Carry Trade." Japan has been doing it for years....keep interest rates at o% and screw you people...just like us.
35% of Americans work for enterprises with fewer than 100 employees. 20% of Americans work for firms with fewer than 20 employees.
Loans to commercial and industrial firms continue to drop.
The current 20% decline, year-over year, does not look like a recovery. These declines continue to accerate with no turn around occurring.
Until there is credit for small business, we will continue to hemmorage jobs - 10% now will grow to 15% in six months.
No one has examined the loss of overtime and its affect on the family budget. Many who were dependent on second jobs are screwed. Students continue on to graduate school because there are no jobs. Are they found in unemployment figures.
Yes - the glass may be half empty - unless you are on Wall Street. Watch the effects of rising oil and commodity prices on small business. And inflation - with $5000 once gold?
True unemployment is over 20% now and will go to at least 30% (abt 15% in "official statistics") when the commercial real estate loans come due next year. I think the rulers are prepared for this - the police state is ready to move into overdrive whenever needed.
Commodities are building a bubble now. Some will pop in the coming days and months. Gold is a complete wild card. High unemployment means inflation in general is going nowhere. Deflation may well arrive in a few months.
Obama squandered the opportunity for a peace dividend.
His fate is of no relevance to genuine progressives.
Obama will be a one-term president, because he just doesn't get it. This recession will never be over .....
looks like little georgie bush is going to get a run for the money
in the title for the "worst presient ever". he just tipped
us off to 34,000 new troops in afhganistan. killing more
and more innocent lives. has he no self respect?
RE: The steelworkers union has just entered a partnership with Spain’s Mondragon worker co-op to explore how workers here can become direct owners and managers of the plants that are lying idle. These struggles can be connected.
To me this last paragraph, which seems stuck-on, is the most important thing in the article. That working people will continue to get screwed by Obama is not news. That American steelworkers are talking to Mondragon, a huge worker owned collective that was so savvy that it was able to succeed under facsist Franco is exactly what working people should be doing - instead of begging for crumbs from the Democrats.
I am sorely disappointed in Obama & his Administration.
I am virtually speechless, which is very rare for me, btw.
Ducksawce writes:
"Students continue on to graduate school because there are no jobs. Are they found in unemployment figures."
The answer is no because they are considered gainfully occupied (if not "employed") and they aren't looking for work.
Related to this, a figure I heard on NPR today is that the AVERAGE U.S. college student graduates with $23,000 in outstanding debt.
Another debt bomb, as a very high percentage are defaulting on 2007 debt as well as 2008 while the interest keeps compounding. Call them "educated jobless wage slaves." And notice the University of California just raised tuition by over 30% (in one year!!!). Probably unheard of in history. And of course loans and scholarships are dwindling as both private and public endowments shrink (like Harvard's in the past year, by some 30%).
Anyway, who needs U.S. trained engineers. As Paul Craig Roberts has observed often in CounterPunch, if you've outsourced production you've also outsourced R&D, and besides people like Bill Gates can hire foreign-trained (Indian, Chinese) engineers on the cheap. I think we are going to see a serious contraction in the number and depth of graduate schools soon.
***
For decades people around me said I was full of too much "gloom and doom" about the U.S. Too pessimistic. It was the first OPEC embargo and then the complete DENIAL of the warnings by Jimmy Carter, trained as a nuclear engineer, about energy issues, that made me realize we are doomed. More than three decades of DENIAL in the midst of increasing per capita energy consumption and a growing carbon footprint. In Carter's day it was the hole in the ozone layer. Today it is the global atmosphere.
Also, I started using the term "fascist" for Dubya's regime during his first year in office and was told I was being too extreme. Within his first term, The Progressive's Matthew Rothschild was using the term, "McCarthyite." Today "fascist" is commonly used to refer to the entire imperialist project that is the United States. And the comments by others above are in my opinion not only accurate, as is the article, but we can see the arc of history here.
Or, as Presidential Press Secretay Gibbs said the other day, the reason that Obamabot is making no effort to reduce the imperial powers of the Presidency (Patriot Act, etc) is that he does not wish to "diminish" the office. Meanwhile, his mere occupation diminishes the office.
What has alarmed me in recent years is how rapidly this fascism is accelerating, how it is coming with virtually no organized resistance (with just about the sole exception being the ACLU and that is only on the civil liberties side, not the corporate/economics side), and how it is being adopted by the entire political establishment. I grossly underestimated the capacity for banal evil in this country. My apologies to all!
-30-
Nazism, fascist Italy and Stalinism all totalitarian, all had highly a mobilized populace, whereas half of Americans don't vote and most are depoliticized. In the book "Democracy Incorporated" author Sheldon Wolin describes the US system as "inverted totalitarianism" to distinguish it from the classic totalitarianisms mentioned above. Well worth reading.
Again and again. Obama this, Obama that.
As if 'they' frankly DON'T own the 'place.'
Now, it can't be both - 'they' either own it, or 'they' don't.
If we're to believe Senator Dodd, 'they' own it. "It" includes Obama. An owned President does what he's told, no matter what pretty words he offers.
If we're to disbelieve Senator Dodd, then we're as stupid as teabaggers and GWarming deniers and Left Behinders and dittoheads.
Obama's record so far confirms Sen. Dodd's refreshing truth. So why do so many esteemed writers and thinkers continue to pretend that the 'place' isn't owned and, with just a bit more pressure (or something,) Obama will 'do the right thing?'
Cause even they can't accept the fact that America is wholly corporate owned and operated, as we've been told by a SENIOR SENATOR! They just can't. But they better, and soon, or the screwing will just get worse and worse...
"He should invite Paul Krugman and Dean Baker, both of whom predicted the real estate collapse and highlighted the inadequacy of the first Obama stimulus package."
I think that's the larger part of the problem--relying on economists instead of ecologists.
According to a recent posting by Paul Krugman on his blog, people are angry at the bank and Wall Street bail out, but have directed their anger at the stimulus package because they don't know the difference between the two.
I am sure that won't surprise any readers here. So for the few activist who still cling to a sliver of hope that your efforts can make a differenc you might direct your activism toward trying to enlighten a few confused citizens about the difference between the two.
It is because the MSM studiously avoids mentioning the bailout or the wars when weighing in on the cost\debt.
And with Democrats like Obama raiding Medicare to fund his insurance give-away health INSURANCE reform, don't expext a counter message to emerge.
The problems of modern day Rome/Babylon. Even if Obama doesn't get elected again he'll receive all his benefits, write a book, build a library to himself, & go on lecture tour so he won't be hurting at all.
People already thrown out of work & those to come will be hurting. Even hurting more if they become homeless.
Now had people lived like the Tribes all things considered how things changed very little over 1000's of years people would still just be hunting, fishing, growing & gathering a little food, but gosh golly then the land would still be one big beautiful National Park, & we'd missed The Simpson's.
That would have almost been a shame.
So life is what it is since Columbus sailed & the Pilgrims landed.
For there are no Banks in Heaven because God don't need a loan. And there are no taxes in Heaven because Caesar doesn't rule there. And no one Heaven has turned God & Jesus into big Business, Religion & Politics.
I wonder when Jesus said, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's if he knew that while it may look like Caesar is building some really grand swell world upon the earth that in the long run all Caesar will do is build hell on earth?
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
Sorry, but this isn't on topic, but this is a Frontline show everyone should see. Playing now here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/creditcards/view/
One thing it fails to mention is the fact that consumer lending has grown over the last 30 years precisely because the capitalist class has been so effective in keeping real working class incomes down, forcing workers to get by with credit. What better idea for the capitalists than to lend the wages to workers and then charge interest on those "wages"!
Please watch it.