So yesterday we saw in real time the panicky Institutional Democratic strategy of scaring the “professional” Left into Clapping Louder! LOUDER!!! unravel before our eyes.  Yet this lefty among others was oddly unmoved.  Why is that?

Perhaps it has something to do with an analysis like this-

Why Should I Care? Leaders Lack Good Reasons to Vote For Democrats – or Against Republicans

By: Jon Walker, Wednesday September 8, 2010 6:45 pm

For the past two years, Democrats have at every turn repeated the completely fictitious “you need 60 votes in the Senate” myth to duck accountability and justify their wasteful corporate giveaways. Even if the Democrats do manage to hold on to the House and Senate, they will have only tiny majorities in both. With only 53 Democratic senators, there is no hope that Democrats can pass anything substantial-things on which they have already failed to act -as long as they are committed to giving the Republican minority some sort of quasi-parliamentary veto power.

On the flip side, there is no way Republicans can win the House and a 60-seat majority in the Senate (let alone the 67-vote majorities they would need to override an Obama veto). I’ve been told for two years a mere 59 Democrats in the Senate are powerless due to the filibuster; by this same logic, we have nothing to fear from Republican gains because they will never be able to get anything through a Democratic filibuster, and even if they do, Obama can veto it.

…

Given the Democrats’ Congressional paralysis of the last year, and Obama’s veto power, the fear mongering over sweeping Republican changes is baseless. I’ve heard only two legitimate policy cases for why a Democratic base would really not want Republicans to take the House this year. The first is that Obama is a secret conservative who will happily join a triumphant Speaker Boehner in passing the Republican platform. (Note: claiming your president is secretly excited to work against the party’s own platform is not a good way to increase base enthusiasm.) The second is that if Republicans control the House, Obama won’t be able to take a piss without Darrel Issa subpoenaing the urinal, making it impossible for Obama to get anything done. Sadly, this argument would resonate better if Obama had used his powers during some part of the current session to bypass Republican obstruction and advance progressive goals (like quickly putting Elizabeth Warren in charge of the CFPB, for instance).

Rahm’s golden parachute is insufficient.  We need heads on pikes and changes in policy.

More Economics.

The Tortoise Economy

by Robert Reich

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

After a typical recession, growth surges until the economy reemerges from whatever hole it fell into and returns to its normal growth path. Usually that surge isn’t difficult to accomplish once the upswing begins because all the assets the economy needs to get back to its old path are readily available – lots of people who have been laid off or have come into the job market and been unable to find work, unused office and retail space, factories and equipment that had been idled. After the economy returns to normal and almost all these people and physical assets are back to work, growth slows to its normal pace.

But this time it’s not happening that way. More than two and a half years after the Great Recession began, many months after we hit bottom and when in a normal “recovery” we’d expect growth to surge, the opposite is happening. Growth is slowing.

…

The underlying problem is structural, not cyclical. There will be no return to normal because normal got us into the hole in the first place. And the normal kind of prescriptions can’t possibly get us out. Until the economy is restructured so more Americans share in its gains, the economy won’t make many gains. We’ll be forever trying to scale a wall that can’t be, because the vast majority of Americans lack the purchasing power to move upward.

The current battle is over the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts.  Whether for the rich or just those under $250K they are by definition NOT STIMULATIVE.  It doesn’t add anything to aggregate demand because it’s money you already have.  It is not being spent to create new demand.

Likewise business tax cuts.  Businesses are already sitting on $2 Trillion that they are not spending because there is no demand for the goods and services they produce.  They are awash in cash and credit and giving them any more is like pushing a string.

That leaves Government and they have 2 choices, give money to people who will spend it (which is why giving to the poorest is the most stimulative, because they’ll definitely spend and not save it thus creating demand), OR spending it themselves.  The only “stimulative” part of Obama’s new proposal is the $50 Billion spent on Infrastructure and it’s not enough.  The rest of the money is wasted pushing string and if you claim to care about “deficits” (and the bond market says you shouldn’t even if you’re not a Modern Monetary Theorist) you’re a hypocritical liar to support that and not the spending.

IF you wish to increase aggregate demand AND not increase the deficit THEN you should be talking about explicitly redistributionist policies that take money away from those who are not spending it to create demand and giving it to those who will.

Supply side economics is “Voodoo Economics”.  It has been tried and it has failed.  Spectacularly.

The most economically productive period in American History is the 40s, 50s, and 60s when the concentration of wealth was lower, the marginal tax rates higher, and business more regulated.

It’s amazing to me that those most anxious to turn back the clock socially are the most reluctant to do so economically.

Well this is interesting, Keith on Dave without a cancellation by Johnny "Wet Start" McCain.

• AMC– The Enforcer x 2
• Disney– Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Depp), Phineas and Ferb
• Discovery– Man vs. Wild (last week’s and new)
• ESPN– Rays @ BoSox, Dodgers @ Padres
• FX– Jumper, Terriers x 3 (Series Premier)
• Oxygen– The Wedding Planner x 2
• Turner Classic– The Great Man’s Lady, Springtime in the Rockies
• TNT– Dark Blue (2 premiers)
• Travel– Man v. Food (2 premiers)
• USA– The Bourne Ultimatum, Psych (premier)
• Vs.– Slapshot (Paul Newman)
• Bravo– Top Chef marathon (leading up to the Season Finale which is then endlessly repeated)

The new episode of Man v. Wild, Fan v. Wild, is an interesting concept.  They had a contest to pick a fan to tag along with Bear.  Should be fun.

Later-

• AMC– Repeat of this week’s Rubicon, The Cowboys (Marion)
• National Geographic– Giuliani’s 9/11 (9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11)
• Turner Classic– Touch of Evil (I think this film is really under rated)

Dave hosts Julianna Margulies, Keith Olbermann and The Black Angels.  Jon has Tim Kaine (loser), Stephen Biden and Odierno as part of his salute to the Troops special.  Alton does Choux.

Boondocks, It’s Goin’ Down, the Season 3 Finale.  Highly watchable, number 3 on my list.

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Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 BP takes share of blame for Gulf of Mexico oil spill

by Ben Perry, AFP

28 mins ago

I just listened to Chuck Todd describing how NBC identifies likely voters-

• Did you vote in 2006?  Yes.
• Did you vote in 2008?  Yes.
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how interested are you in voting in 2010?  Two.

NBC is only interested in 8 or above.

Likelihood I personally WILL vote in 2010?  100%.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 US church vows Koran burning will go on despite concerns

AFP

1 hr 39 mins ago

Three posts and a video from Greg Sargent @ Plum Line.

10:34 AM Voters aren’t listening to Dem message about GOP and Bush

What if voters are simply not buying the central Dem message that a vote for the GOP is a vote to return to the Bush policies that ran the economy into the ground? What if the GOP has already achieved separation from the former president?

…

There are still more than two months to go until election day. Perhaps voters will grow more receptive to the Dem claim that the GOP wants nothing more than a return to Bush policies once they begin focusing harder on the choice before them. But for now, the data clearly shows the public is not listening to the core Dem message.

11:57 AM Axelrod: Voters aren’t (yet) buying our Bush message

Now this thesis is being confirmed by none other than White House senior adviser David Axelrod, who  acknowledges to Sam Stein that Dems have failed to communicate this message adequately:

Perhaps this is where we have been failing to communicate,” said Axelrod. “[A] large number of people [don’t] believe that a Republican Congress would go back to the policies of George W. Bush, even though their own leaders have said as much in public. Pete Sessions said we want to go back to the same exact agenda that was there before this president took office. So our job in the next eight weeks is to make sure that people understand that, that they understand the stakes.

2:13 PM David Plouffe to Dems: Don’t despair, get to work!

Thanks to his work as the architect of Barack Obama’s stunning victory in 2008, few political strategists command the respect of the Dem rank and file to the degree  David Plouffe does.

So Plouffe is now trying to buck up despondent Dems by starring in a new video, to be emailed out to supporters by Obama’s political operation, telling them that all is not lost and that Dems can do far better this fall than the pundits are predicting — if they get to work:

(W)hat’s also interesting is Plouffe’s insistence that rank and file Dems understand that finding a way to muster up some enthusiasm may be the difference between winning and losing…

So you know what to do, otherwise Tinkerbell WILL DIE!!!!

While it’s different than the trial balloons there are 2 things wrong with Team Obama’s latest economic proposal.

The stimulus is too small-

Infrastructure

by Paul Krugman, The New York Times

September 7, 2010, 5:30 am

Beyond all that, the new initiative is a chance for me to air one of my pet peeves: the stupidity of the claim, which you hear all the time – and you’ll hear again now – that it’s always better to provide stimulus in the form of tax cuts, because individuals know better than the government what to do with their money.

Why is this claim stupid? Because Econ 101 tells us that there are some things the government must provide, namely public goods whose benefits can’t be internalized by the market.

And the tax cuts misdirected-

Why Obama Is Proposing Whopping Corporate Tax Cuts, and Why He’s Wrong

by Robert Reich

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The reason businesses aren’t investing in new plant and equipment has nothing to do with the cost of capital. It’s because they don’t need  the additional capacity. There isn’t enough demand for their goods and services to justify it. Consumers aren’t buying because they’re trying to come out from under a huge debt load, including mortgage debt; they have to start saving because their nest eggs are worth substantially less; and they’ve lost or are worried about losing jobs and pay.

…

Republicans and corporate lobbyists have been demanding tax cuts on corporate investments for one reason: Big corporations are investing in automated equipment, robotics, numerically-controlled machine tools, and software. These investments are designed to boost profits by permanently replacing workers and cutting payrolls. The tax breaks Obama is proposing would make such investments all the more profitable.

In sum, Obama’s proposed corporate tax cuts (1) won’t generate more jobs because they don’t put any cash in worker’s pockets (as would, for example, exempting the first $20,000 of income from the payroll tax and making up the difference by applying the payroll tax to incomes over $250,000); (2) will subsidize companies to cut even more jobs; and (3) will cost $130 billion – money that could better be spent helping states and locales avoid laying off thousands of teachers, fire fighters, and police.

Yay Team.

Return to normalcy.  Dave and the Boys are back.  Keith and Rachel all night long.

• ABC Family– Melissa & Joey (premier), Gone in Sixty Seconds
• AMC– Magnum Force x 2
• Disney– Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (Clap Louder! LOUDER!!!), Phineas and Ferb
• Discovery– Swords: Life on the Line (last week’s and new), The Colony (premier)
• E!– Bring It On: All or Nothing
• Food– Chopped (premier, 2nd group in the Champion’s series)
• FX– Cloverfield (What?  Too soon?)
• Oxygen– Barbershop x 2
• SciFi– Warehouse 13 (last week’s and new)
• Speed– New Monster Jam! (St. Louis, also Inside Monster Jam)
• Turner Classic– Dark Journey, Storm in a Teacup (Vivien Leigh night)
• Vs.– Eight Men Out x 2
• USA– White Collar, Covert Affairs (premiers)

Later-

• AMC– Unforgiven (“We all got it coming”)
• SciFi– Last week’s Haven
• Turner Classic– St. Martin’s Lane (more Vivien), A Yank in London

Dave hosts Katie Holmes and Rich Harrison.  Jon has Tim Gunn, Stephen Anthony Romero.  Alton does Milk.

Boondocks, It’s a Black President, Huey Freeman.  The opener of Season 3 and just a fantastic summary.  I won’t spoil it, but if there is one ‘must see’ episode this is it (my second favorite is The Red Ball).

Where’s it gonna end, Briggs?  Pretty soon, you’ll start executing people for jaywalking and executing people for traffic violations.  Then you end up executing your neighbor ’cause his dog pisses on your lawn.

There isn’t one man we’ve killed that didn’t deserve what was coming to him.

Yes, there is. Charlie McCoy.

What would you have done?

l’d have upheld the law.

What the hell do you know about the law?

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The thing about marathons is they’re great (if a little wearying) when you like the show and just horrible if you don’t.  Lots of marathons, premiers, and double features, but not much late at night unless you’re catching up on stuff you’ve already had a chance to see.

• ABC Family– The Secret Life of the American Teenager (premier), Friday Night Lights (Series Premier repeat)
• AMC– Dirty Harry x 2
• Bravo– The Real Housewives of New Jersey (Season Finale)
• Disney– Camp Rock 2 (because I know you just can’t get enough Jonas Brothers)
• Discovery– Dirty Jobs marathon
• ESPN– Boise State vs. Virginia Tech
• FX– Two and a Half Men marathon
• Food– The Best Thing I Ever Ate (premier), Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (premier)
• History– New Pawn Stars and American Pickers
• Lifetime– Bringing Down the House, Notting Hill
• Oxygen– The Skeleton Key x 2
• SciFi– Underworld
• Spike– The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi
• TBS– Family Guy night
• Turner Classic– Make Way for Tomorrow, Tender Mercies
• TNT– The Closer (last week’s and new, next to last this season), Rizzoli & Isles (premier)
• Toon– Series Premiers for Regular Show and MAD, new Total Drama World Tour
• Travel– Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations marathon including premier of the 100th Episode Special and another premier (Paris)
• Vs.– Bull Durham, The Longest Yard (the good Burt Reynolds version)
• TV Land– Crocodile Dundee

Later-

• AMC– Rubicon, Mad Men (repeats of this week’s)
• Oxygen– The Craft
• Turner Classic– Playtime
• Vs.– Major League

Dave, Jon, and Stephen in repeats, but they’ll be new again tomorrow through Thursday.  Alton does Coconut cake.  Boondocks, Bitches to Rags the second episode of Season 3.

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