I realize this is kind of old, but the house GOP Budget is called the “all-priorities budget.” I don’t need to go into the specifics: every out of power caucus presents an unrealistic budget that gets ignored. Then they run on, “our budget doesn’t cut education as drastically as their budget. Then never mention that they do that by ignoring all the things they would have had to put back in if they were trying to actually pass a budget. I’m not blaming them for that, if Democrats didn’t control the levers of democracy, their House budget would have tax increases that won’t actually pass, etc. Then not run on the tax increases bit.
But what interests me is the branding here. “All-priorities budget” seems like it was focus grouped to sound great. But here’s the thing: governing, especially in times of uncertainty and cuts, is about picking some priorities over others. The branding “all-priorities” implies that they think you can have it all.
Exactly.
Why Do Republicans Hate Workers?
Speaking of priories, having a job so you can support your family isn’t a priority for Republicans:
“[A] prominent Republican lawmaker said on Thursday he will introduce legislation to focus the U.S. central bank on a single mandate to fight inflation and protect the dollar’s value.
“Representative Kevin Brady, vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said in a statement his ‘Sound Dollar Act’ aims to ‘maintain the purchasing power of the dollar in order to foster long-term economic growth and stability.’
“The Fed since the 1970s has had two mandates – to maintain stability and promote maximum employment – but the latter came under fire from some members of Congress after the Fed started buying hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Treasury and mortgage bonds to push down borrowing rates.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46510408
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This is simply a back-door gold standard. The single greatest cause of the Great Depression was the gold standard. If you want to create a deflationary spiral and let it get out of control — which is what turns recessions into depressions — all you have to do is restrict your country’s central bank’s ability to adjust money supply.
This bill also sends two clear messages: Republicans don’t care about unemployment … and we can’t negotiate with Republicans. Democrats simply can’t live with this — not the bill itself but the philosophy behind it — which means we can’t do business with these guys. We have to crush them.
I’m not a big fan of quantitative easing but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to cut the Federal Reserve’s heart out. Republicans belong in a Shakespeare play, not in Congress.
@3,
We should at least sudit the Fed to see what the hell they’re doing. They’re not divine beings, for Pete’s sake. An audit would let a little sunlight into this secretive organization’s affairs. Remember – sunlight is the best disinfectant for misdeeds and corrutption!
Don’t we have the right to know what these people are up to?
“The single greatest cause of the Great Depression was the gold standard.”
No, the single greatest cause was the expansion of credit in the market place, mostly overseen by the Fed. People were buying thousands of share of stock with only a 10% margin, and every Tom, Dick and Harry was doing it. As soon as somebody was unable to sell his or her shares for enough money to cover the margin and at least break-even, the spiral downward started as other sold to cover margin calls. It was a death spiral caused by too much credit, i.e., a low 10% under Fed Regulation T. Now the margin requirement is at least 50%, so it’s less likely to cause a 1929 scenario.
@5 You apparently think the Great Depression was caused by the stock market crash of 1929. That’s wrong. Stocks substantially recovered within a year. The deflationary spiral that turned an ordinary recession into the Great Depression didn’t start until 1931 almost two years later. If you think the gold standard had nothing to do with the Great Depression, you should read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Lords-Fi.....038;sr=8-1
The internet is an amazing instrument. I recently reacquired my Vietnam letters and have been reading them. They were in Pop Rabbit’s (RIP, sniffle) papers and my sister sent them to me. One of those letters referred to a guy who was killed by an anti-personnel mine, so I did a quick internet search, and within 30 seconds came up with the name of a soldier from Indiana whose date, location, and manner of death were a perfect match. Now, 42 years later, I know who was killed that day and where he was from. I even found his high school graduation photo.
This rapid and easy access to information is changing the world. Information is power, and soon nearly everyone on the planet will possess the power of information. This has to be scaring the bejeezus out of totalitarians everywhere.
4, 5 — Whine all you fucking want to, this time the Federal Reserve saved your ungrateful ass, because the guy running it understood what the 1930s guys did wrong. Bottom line: Rightwing economy theory sucks.
You’d think that after someone jumps off a barn roof and breaks his legs, he’d have sense enough to not go up there and try it again, but conservatives are just plain stupid. They learned absolutely nothing from their mistakes in the 1930s.
This rich banker lets the working class know what he thinks of 99-percenters by leaving 1% tips. He wrote this advice on his receipt for Breanna, a server at a swanky Newport Beach restaurant who got a $1.33 tip for a $133.54 lunch: “Get a real job.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....d=webmail1
Roger Rabbit Commentary: To paraphrase Shakespeare, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the bankers.” Just kidding! That’s a lawyer joke. I’m not in favor of executing bankers, I just think we should make them sweep floors and bus dirty dishes for minimum wage.
P.S., ever since this incident went viral on the internet, the restaurant has been receiving requests to ban the banker from their establishment, and the restaurant manager has assured the public that “we’re going to take care of the server.”
I’ll bet that banker never served in the military. I’ll also bet he’s a Republican.
@11
That headline should read: banker gets banned from several area restaurants. If his server got a “real job” he’d have to make is own lunch.
Sounds like the restaurant’s a pretty stand up employer.
This guy’s proof positive that the neo-feudalists exist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neofeudalism
@8 – I wouldn’t be so sure. When a significant minority of Americans are too stupid to spend a few minutes on the internet to learn that they’ve been lied to about how “controversial” something as settled as climate change is, it’s pretty apparent that totalitarians have little to worry about.
Yes, the truth will set you free, but you have to be willing to listen to it first.