Jr.

The Debt Ceiling Question


Once again the Republicans are threatening to refuse to raise the debt ceiling. This is a form of “If I don’t get what I want, I’m going to hold my breath until I turn blue.” If this were one of Trump’s breath holding threats I’d say fine, go turn blue. Please. But it isn’t painless for the rest of us.

The debt ceiling is a relic of dealing with our debts from the World War I years. We had purchased the guns and airplanes and ships and uniforms and were left with quite a stack of bills we had to authorize and pay. Our country has been operating that way ever since. Buy stuff. Authorize payment. Pay for stuff.

The hitch in the system is that Congress, with its impenetrable defense against wisdom, is the body that authorizes payment of our debts. To accomplish payment, a majority of those people must agree to pay for what we already purchased. If they don’t agree to do that, bad things will happen.

It’s just like your credit card bill. You can refuse to write a check to pay for the stuff you bought and which is already in your hands. If you do that, it will be very bad for your credit rating and huge interest charges will smack you upside your wallet. It will work the same way for our country if Congress were to refuse to allow us to pay our bills. Our system really is as stupid and self-defeating as that. Nevertheless, that’s the system.

The debt ceiling has nothing to do with future spending. It is entirely about paying our already incurred bills, just as it was following WW I. That’s a significant point, because everyone to whom we owe money for goods and services already delivered is expecting to be paid. Here are three key points about that:

  1. If we refuse to pay those to whom we owe money, they will not only be very unhappy with us, but they will be most justified in refusing to do business with us again. That will affect all nations. In fact, there will be worldwide economic chaos if we default. See point 3 below.
  2. If the US is no longer trustworthy, anyone still willing to take a chance on us will want a lot more financial up-side to take that risk. In other words, interest rates will soar and everything will cost way more, including everything our country buys and even everything you buy. “Way more” means huge increases in both interest charges on the national debt and the price of goods and services. It won’t be just the few percentage points of our current inflation; it’ll be way more.
  3. If the US is no longer trustworthy, all other countries will scramble to find a country that is, some nation that can be the world economic leader. Which country do you think might be up to that task? Right: China. If we want to make this the Chinese century, US debt default is a most effective way to accomplish that. That would be a major result of our turn blue debt refusal chaos.

I haven’t any facts that indicate that the Chinese are behind Republican threats of debt default, although they could be. On the other hand, I am wondering who else might benefit from a national debt default and might be urging Republican fools onward toward our self-inflicted destruction. That’s

The Debt Ceiling Question
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Who would benefit from our Congress telling the world that we won’t pay our bills?
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Mark Felt aka Deep Throat of Watergate fame

A useful way to explain people’s actions was articulated by Watergate’s Deep Throat: “Follow the money.” If we do that with debt default, who, other than the Chinese, might make a killing from that?

Perhaps the super rich would benefit, because they already have so much money (an extra $50 trillion since 1975 and now growing by $2.5 trillion every year) that they can tolerate an economic crash and still have plenty of money to buy up what’s left of the country. Mel Brooks said it clearly: “It’s good to be the king.” And the owner of everything.

That’s just speculation, of course, but a lot of politicians are submerged so deep into the bottomless pockets of extremely wealthy people that they can’t see daylight. The super rich guys could be the ones calling the Republican turn blue debt default dance steps.

Go ahead and do your own speculation. In fact, speculate in the Comments section below to make us all better informed. Remember that we’re talking about our Congress – specifically, the Republicans, because the Democrats aren’t playing this suicidal game – so no answer to the Debt Ceiling Question is too stupid.

NOTE: If the Republicans huff, and they puff, and they blow our house down by stiffing our creditors, we won’t have a house.

Top Stupiditude of the Week
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The three ring circus that is the Republican controlled House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Epidemic is underway!
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The job of this committee is to ascertain the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In their quest for the truth the Republicans on the committee are using their most powerful tools: they’re pointing fingers and blaming.

“IT’S CHINA!” “IT’S WUHAN!” “IT’S A WET MARKET BAT CONSPIRACY” “IT’S SOME BIDEN DIRECTED WEAPONIZED GOVERNMENT AGENCY!” “IT’S THE JANUARY 6 COMMISSION!” “IT’S HUNTER BIDEN!”

O’, the fine, self-serving pontifications they’ve put on display!

Not a single member of that august select committee is a doctor or an epidemiologist or a medical researcher or a scientist or an investigator of any kind. They’re just politicians. In an epidemiological investigation or in any medical environment at all, not one of them could find their own ass using a flashlight and both hands. That’s why this committee is the winner of the Stupiditude of the Week Award.

Well, okay, there’s one additional award that must be given.

Donald Trump, Jr., pretender to the throne of Cruelty, Retribution And Powerlust (“CRAP”), weighed in on the insolvency of Silicon Valley Bank with his customary flamboyant inaccuracy. He tweeted,

This is a beautifully layered stupiditude. The first layer is that 16 banks failed during the Trump presidency. Eight of them went insolvent before the pandemic.

The second layer of his stupiditude is his apparent amnesia about the 2018 trashing of the regulations that had been designed to prevent bank insolvencies like that of Silicon Valley Bank. His daddy did that regulation trashing, same as he did the deregulation of the railroads. Think: East Palestine, OH. Doesn’t matter that Junior doesn’t remember. We do.

That leads us to question the motives of Junior (as if we needed prompting). Is he intentionally misleading us or is he just a walking stupiditude? You be the judge. Regardless, he gets a dishonorable mention this week. Same for all weeks.

Just For Fun

Click the pic

Today is a good day to be the light.

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


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    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
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    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. & Democracy


Reading time 5:16; Viewing time – 8:35  .  .  .

BREAKING NEWS  .  .  .

In the second and last presidential candidate debate last Thursday President Trump set a new International Prevarication Record – the coveted IPR – by lying more than once per minute with peak gusts to 3 per minute for multiple extended periods of time. The record had been held by Pinocchio since 1883, but Trump obliterated Pinocchio’s record in just 90 minutes. Said one of the judges, “Boy, that guy sure can make up total crap really fast.”

Many of his lies were about the coronavirus. His lies have and will continue to prove to be lethal to Americans. More on that in the Health Statistic of the Week section below.

————————–

The Main Point

In looking for a particular quotation, I recently had occasion to revisit Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter From the Birmingham Jail (download a copy here). I wound up reading the entire document again and found that much of what he wrote in 1963 applies to today.

This isn’t the 1950-60s segregated South or the middle of the 19th century before the Civil War, but we are once again at Robert Frost’s metaphorical point where two roads diverge and the choice we make for the path moving forward will have profound consequences. This road is both about race in America and whether we will continue go be a democracy and we must decide which path to take.

Dr. King wrote his letter to a group of clergy with whom he was quite disappointed because of their lack of support and outright criticism of the peaceful, nonviolent demonstrations he led for racial justice. With that in mind, here are some quotes from his letter. Decide for yourself if his words feel uncomfortably applicable to today.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in Birmingham [feel free to apply this statement to today by substituting Portland or Kenosha or St. Paul or Ferguson or  .  .  . ]  But I am sorry that your statement did not express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the demonstrations into being.

Birmingham’s [or substitute the name of another city] ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of this country. It’s unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. [See this post for confirmation.]

I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.

We know from painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

  • For a contemporary look at this and to truly understand what is going on in America right now, watch author Kimberly Jones’ 7-minute video. Before watching you need to know that her words are hard. They are rough. If all you can tolerate is a Kumbaya moment, this isn’t for you. This is only for you if you really want to know the truth, if you really want to know the “why” of what goes on and not just the “what” and if you really want to see what our country steadfastly refuses to look at. Many thanks to Amy Tucker for highlighting this video.
  • Be clear that race is an issue where choice and consequences demand our immediate action. At the same time we are dealing with the destruction of much of what had been believed to be our national bedrock, the rules, practices and guardrails that have allowed us to be a democracy since the Constitution was ratified.
  • There’s big trouble right now, leaving us with the ongoing challenge to both issues and the requirement to answer the questions: What will we do? And what will we be?
  • The principles driving our choices and the consequences they produce in both race and for our democracy itself are interchangeable.
  • That road diverging into two paths and the choice about which we follow is upon us. We are facing the choice between destruction and hope. We are deciding whether we will continue to hate or whether we will find reconciliation. We are deciding whether might makes right or whether right makes right. We are deciding if we truly believe that all men and women are created equal and whether the call of the Pledge of Allegiance for liberty and justice for all means anything. It is a profound moment in America. History and our children’s children will be a brutal judge if we choose poorly. Choose wisely right now.

  • VOTE IN PERSON EARLY**

  • WEAR YOUR “I VOTED” STICKER WITH PRIDE

  • ————————–
Health Statistic of the Week
  • There are over 70,000 new cases daily and
  • OVER 700 COVID DEATHS EVERY DAY IN THE U.S.
  • Click the graph for the WaPo article.

President Trump told us clearly and in no uncertain terms that “We’re rounding the bend” on the coronavirus and that “it affects virtually nobody.” Just to prove him right, over the past 7 days more than 5,600 American nobodies rounded that bend and are now dead.* According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the actual number is almost certainly far higher than the official count.

We send our deep, heartfelt condolences to all of our dead American nobodies.

Dr. Scott Atlas is a radiologist – an MRI, x-ray guy. He’s an infectious disease and epidemic imbecile. He’s heading Trump’s program of avoidance of doing anything positive to protect Americans from the pandemic. Atlas recommends herd immunity to beat the coronavirus. That consists of waiting for infection to sweep the nation and for millions to die. After that we’ll just carry on with the few of us remaining. Trump has talked about this method of national suicide at times and, by his lack of action, appears to favor it. Why would he do that? Try this.

The elderly are the ones most likely to die from this disease, so doing nothing to protect people will cull the herd of millions of those whose tax dollars funded Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid but who are now a financial drain from the system. Neither George W. Bush nor Paul Ryan could get those programs privatized, but Trump may accomplish the same tax dollar savings by getting millions of our people killed. Genius.

So, we chant, Trump lied, people died.

  • ————————–
Quote of the Week

This is for all the hissy fit people who refuse to wear a mask because it infringes on their freedom.*** And for those whose liberty has been squashed and want the schools to reopen, regardless of how many teachers, staff and grandparents become infected and die. And for all those so desperate for a drink that they need their favorite bar to open so they can have a Covid party. And for the mega churches in Denver whose rights were so horribly stomped on that they sued and won the right to jam mask-less people into their amphitheaters in weekly super-spreader events. And for all the self-proclaimed keepers of the one true vision of America, the daddy issues militia morons, whose rights are somehow more important than those of the rest of us.

“Liberty doesn’t mean freedom to infect other people.” – Paul Krugman, NY Times

  • ————————–

*Worldwide the number is over 1 million dead.

**You really need to read Ira Leavitt’s take on this.

***Read Paul Krugman’s love letter to Libertarians here. My view is that any Ayn Rand is too much.

  • —————————————-

    There might not be time to mail in your vote and have it arrive in time, so DROP IT OFF in a drop box.

    Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

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    2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
    2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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