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September 26, 2005
Spring Offensive?

In USNews.com "White House Week" column there is this piece small piece which leads me to some questions.

When in Doubt, Shoot the Staff

Conservatives chafing at President Bush’s Hurricane Katrina spending plan and depressed with his low poll numbers are beginning to blame his top staff for moving too slowly to reverse the slide. Indeed, some suggest that the president needs to bring in new top staff to invigorate his administration. "He needs a new group of people with energy and ideas around him," says a GOP strategist with ties to the White House. "They’re like a dying cellphone battery." Ever since the re-election campaign ended, the president’s supporters have worried that his top staff was worn out. It’s a feeling administration staffers have often concurred with. But White House insiders balk at calls for changes, claiming that the president knows exactly what his political situation is and has a long-term plan built on new initiatives that will drown out the critics next spring.

What is Bush’s long-term plan? What new initiatives  could possibly drown out critics? A Spring Offensive?

Posted by b on September 26, 2005 at 17:50 UTC | Permalink
Comments

No, it’s Bring the War Home Time w/ a War on the Middle Class & below. Deficits were created by their refusal to tax those stealing all the money. Now they expect the rest of us to pay it off. As Bill Clinton said recently, he’s gotten 4 tax cuts that he did not need.
Tax breaks such as deductions for home mortgage interest and state and local taxes cost the federal government $728 billion last year and need to be reexamined, the Government Accountability Office said in a new report on Friday.
….
For most of the last decade, revenue losses from tax expenditures were greater than the federal government’s discretionary spending, the GAO said.
The biggest growth in recent years is the exclusion from income tax of employer-paid health insurance benefits, contributing $102.3 billion or 14 percent of the 2004 lost revenues. Deductability of home mortgage interest — including second homes — was the second biggest portion at $61.5 billion or 8.4 percent of the total.
Net exclusion of 401(k) contributions and employer-paid defined pension benefits and earnings together were $94.7 billion while deductability of non-business state and local taxes came to $45.3 billion or 6.1 percent of the total.
link

Posted by: jj | Sep 26 2005 18:25 utc | 1

Spring Offensive, b, Te-He-He.
They’ll probably dig up Douglas Haig and make him CJCS.
Couldn’t possibly be that much worse than Meyers.

Posted by: Groucho | Sep 26 2005 18:34 utc | 2

jj that link is downright scary

Posted by: annie | Sep 26 2005 18:43 utc | 3

Greenspan admitted Friday in a meeting with
the French financial minister that the US
budget deficit situation is “out of control”.
Whether this is political, to send a message
to Bush by going around his cheerleader squad,
or intrigue, where the French minister is
trying to scare the markets towards EU’s, I
don’t know, but the Fed declined to comment
on whether Greenspan actually said that.
They maintain instead, “We are on track to
cut the budget in half by 2006.”
Well, the only way they’re going to do that, is
by devaluating the US$ by 50% in six months!
So going along with that (shudder) assessment,
Bush has declared a national emergency in 41
states, allegedly due to Katrina, and then has
suspended (Fed) prevailing wages. The Supreme
Court has suspended habeus corpus. You can now
be held indefinitely without charges and without
a lawyer. The FBI is seeking blanket access to
everyone’s personal and financial information
without the need for a warrant.
So one way out of the deficit would be to stop
paying prevailing wages to workers, and to cut
all health and human services spending, which
they are already discussing, then bring out
the National Guard for food and energy riot
control when they devalue the dollar, and
foreign countries suck out our surplus.
Can you imagine the grocery stores if our
dollar drops by half, and all agriculture
surpluses get bought by EU, Russia, China
and India to feed their own people? Then
imagine the effect on meat production as
cost of feeding livestock grains goes up.
Hey, we’re already eating lard and sugar.
Not much more until we’re eating Ramen
Noodles, Spam, and (Cherry Red) Kool Aid.
The Neo-Cultist Breakfast of Champions!
One thing we seem to forget, that for every
dollar the cost of gasoline production goes
up, gas is only 1% of the average US income.
But for the world’s billions, the fuel cost
is closer to 10% of their daily income, and
then the choice becomes fuel … or famine.
As the wheels wobble off the US Repug wagons,
what a seismic wave in the rest of the world!

Posted by: tante aime | Sep 26 2005 19:42 utc | 4

Greenspan admitted Friday in a meeting with
the French financial minister that the US
budget deficit situation is “out of control”.
It’s not out of control – he’s merely running from responsibility. This is Greenspan & the Repugs Financial Engineering at work. (W/complicity of the rest of the elite – can’t merge xUS w/Mexico unless it’s already a Third World Country, now can you?)

Posted by: jj | Sep 26 2005 20:06 utc | 5

Greenspan admitted Friday in a meeting with
the French financial minister that the US
budget deficit situation is “out of control”.
It’s not out of control – he’s merely running from responsibility. This is Greenspan & the Repugs Financial Engineering at work. (W/complicity of the rest of the elite – can’t merge xUS w/Mexico unless it’s already a Third World Country, now can you?)

Posted by: jj | Sep 26 2005 20:07 utc | 6

From a serious paper in Calcutta maybe a hint for the Bush long-term plan
Gulf factor key to PM’s Iran vote decision

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh personally cleared the decision to vote with the US and the so-called EU-3, namely Germany, France and the UK, in favour of referring Iran at an unspecified date to the Security Council on suspicions of pursuing a programme to acquire nuclear weapons in the full knowledge that the vote would spark a furore among Left parties and to a lesser extent in the BJP.
In deciding to vote with the West and not abstaining along with Russia, China, Brazil and South Africa, what weighed with the Prime Minister was the absolute imperative for India to secure its interests in the Gulf and not the desire to protect the July 18, 2005, Indo-US nuclear agreement, according to diplomats engaged in the negotiations that led to the IAEA resolution yesterday.
Top-ranking Americans have told equally top-ranking Indians in recent weeks that the US has plans to invade Iran before Bush’s term ends. In 2002, a year before the US invaded Iraq, high-ranking Americans had similarly shared their definitive vision of a post-Saddam Iraq, making it clear that they would change the regime in Baghdad.

Posted by: b | Sep 26 2005 20:09 utc | 7

A war so nice (for Corporate),
they’re gonna wage it twice,
for a timely bump in the polls.
It’s all about keeping and then
holding onto power … Red Meat.
The rest is, as they say, gravy.

Posted by: Lash Marks | Sep 26 2005 20:20 utc | 8

A war so nice (for Corporate),
they’re gonna wage it twice,
for a timely bump in the polls.
It’s all about keeping and then
holding onto power … Red Meat.
The rest is, as they say, gravy.

Posted by: Lash Marks | Sep 26 2005 20:20 utc | 9

Some bad news I’m afraid from the Federal Reserve report on the nation’s finances through June 2005:

The United States now owes the rest of the world $5.2 trillion more than the rest of the world owes it. This is an increase of more than $600 billion from a year earlier. During 2004, foreign investors absorbed 98.9% of all Treasury issuance, $358.5 billion of $362.5 issued; $272.7 billion of that by foreign central banks. The Federal Reserve itself added $51.2 billion to its own Treasury portfolio, so US private investors were net sellers of government debt. Foreigners also absorbed a large proportion of the issuance of US agency securities, 89.2%, or $104.8 billion of $117.5 billion issued. As for the purchase of corporate bonds, foreign investors took $254.4 billion, 42.8% of total net issuance of $594.9 billion.

Smells to me like some of this private domestic selling and foreign buying is money fleeing the country and then coming back in from offshore domiciles – something to do with the FBI getting access to all those domestic records? CheneyCo getting ready to leave in a hurry and sending their money ahead?
The central bank buying is predominantly out of Asia – China, Japan, Taiwan. They will keep recyling trade surpluses into US treasury reserves until they have squeezed the last drop of exports from the US consumer who is in turn squeezing the last drop of cash out of home equity. Watch Walmart – the pipeline for consumer goods from China into the US – and property prices. Once the consumer dries up China can’t support the dollar even if they still wanted to.
Of course, there is always the chance that one of the big USD holders blinks first, and tries to rush into another currency (or gold) before the others. That could trigger a rush for the door. A big game of international chicken. Whose regime is better able to withstand unemployment of 20%?
In any case, better hope those ‘furriners’ continue to buy the promise for now. That is the only thing keeping the dollar up and interest rates down. When they want their money back, or even stop buying quite so willingly, look out below! The US will see both inflation and high interest rates, GDP will fall off a cliff, unemployment leap, property fall…
End game? Foreign central banks will own the national debt, domestic banks will own the real-estate, domestic consumers will own squat. On the other hand, with short term rates cut to zero and long term rates at 10% or more, the hedge funds and banks that survive that move will make out like bandits on the carry trade.
Interesting times (in the Confucian sense).

Posted by: PeeDee | Sep 26 2005 20:36 utc | 10

Extremely slow system is driving the double-posts. Glad I wasn’t the only one!!
The link between B’s post & tante aime became clear to me. Destroy the econ. & you drive the young to the military. This was all set up – both parties are on board.

Posted by: jj | Sep 26 2005 20:40 utc | 11

In other news:

“America’s wealthiest people got even richer over the past year, with the top 400 now worth $1.13 trillion, Forbes magazine said. The top rankings were little changed over the past year. But the net worth of the 400 rose a combined $125bn. To make the list of the top 400, a minimum net worth of $900 million was required, up from $750m last year.”

Posted by: PeeDee | Sep 26 2005 20:46 utc | 12

Whoops. Link.

Posted by: PeeDee | Sep 26 2005 20:49 utc | 13

PeeDee & Knowledgeable others
Do you think Greenspan’s scream was fear that it could suddenly crash, or him saying enough time for middle class to start paying the bills for which they’re not responsible?

Posted by: jj | Sep 26 2005 21:11 utc | 14

Christ on a crutch, I do hope they do something stupid like launch a “Spring Offensive.” When Ludendorff launched this benighted series of attacks, he had to strip most of the effective German troops from his front divisions to stuff into his assault divisions, which he then bled white. After six months of mindless slaughter, Ludendorff had no effective field army left, which promptly collapsed when the Allies started their counterattack to seize ground for jumping off points for 1919.
Let Dubya destroy the Modern Republican Party. It couldn’t happen to a more detestable and corrupt organization. The nation hasn’t seen a national party disappear since the Whigs self-destructed 150 years ago.

Posted by: PrahaPartizan | Sep 26 2005 21:12 utc | 15

Except the Whigs were a party protesting Federal Executive power,
and when they collapsed, became the New (Old) Republican Party of
small government and conservative values. So for the Neo Republicans
to go the way of the Whigs would be a non sequitur. Far more likely
for the Democrats to go the way of the Libertarians, going the way
of the Whigs, and all of them becoming the Come On Let Us In! whiner
branch of the Neo Republican Party. Every family needs its be-yatch.
From a Corporate POV, Conservative Republicanism, Drowning in Bath
Tubs, Military Industrialism and Take It to the Bank are just the
four faces of the American Power Pyramid. Learn to like the whip,
and grovel on kneepads. A Thousand Year Reich is a long, long time.

Posted by: tante aime | Sep 26 2005 22:09 utc | 16

Nice catch b. It looks like the spinners have spin fatigue. Burned out from the constant lies and the spin needed to cover them up.
On the economic front, Greenspeak exspected the rethugs to control spending while his foot was off the money machine. But like drunkin sailors in a foriegn port the Congress can’t control its appetite for pork. Now hes trying to save his legacy and he’s going to blame congress. Greenspeak was a big fan of those Bush tax cuts, but he sure doesn’t like what its reaped.
As stated above, this stealthy new tax fact finding committee to find alternative forms of taxation is a sure way to find revenue without taxing the rich. Middle class, bend over and spread that rump because the big one is coming. If the mortgage deduction is taken away every 401 K in the country will be sold off and no-one with any since will have a mortgage. Although, one big special interest group will put the skids to that. BANKERS.
Anyway, message fatigue is good. The Dems are just sitting back letting the GOP slowly self destruct. The Dems know they are on the route to a majority by default.

Posted by: jdp | Sep 26 2005 22:09 utc | 17

This may sound irrelevant but I don’t think it is. This past Saturday brought our local historic society’s tour of some very pricey apartments downtown. I overheard the realtor who was showing the (rentals)in one building say that when she asked the well-heeled people who were considering renting the apartments whether they would not prefer to buy something outright, she was met with a hasty “Oh no, we’d rather rent.”
Some people know some things, and some people don’t. I expect something big and nasty is in the future for those of us who are not millionaires.
As for Bush’s Big Plan? What else has he got to break?

Posted by: hopping madbunny | Sep 26 2005 22:41 utc | 18

How’d you like Greenspan’s job?
“Homeowners with significant equity will be well cushioned in a sudden housing drop.”
OK.
If you only have $50,000 equity in a now $800,000 house, and you were the last sucker who bought at that $800,000, you walk away with your clothes, $50,000 wiser.
If you have $400,000 equity and bought at $800,000, you get your money back, less the $50,000 to your realtor.
So who is the bigger chump?
The guy who stuck $400,000 in his house and lost $50,000?
Or the guy who stuck $50,000 in his house, and $350,000 in energy stocks, and lost the $50,000, but made $300,000 in the stock market?
The chumps are the people who thought real estate was an investment,
and flipped their way up to $20,000 in property taxes each year, and paid down their mortgage on an accelerated schedule. The smart ones
bought carefully, insisted on 0D-ARM’s, and put their equity into
the energy stocks run-up where it belongs, making a tax-free killing
when they write off their real estate losses.
Greenspan is either talking out his ass, or certifiably insane. The fact that that he’s “concerned” about 0D-ARM’s means exactly, what!?

Posted by: Clint Calder | Sep 26 2005 23:17 utc | 19

Some people know some things …
I was having dinner last weekend with a highly placed economist (a Dem), who is liquidating some expensive real estate in Orange County to become a tenant. The smart money who can’t afford to take a huge hit in their home equity are starting to bail.

Posted by: Knut Wicksell | Sep 27 2005 1:43 utc | 20

US Debt Trend Chart And the Presidents responsible for it.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 27 2005 3:22 utc | 21

A hedge fund advisor I follow has sold his house, and taken a 3yr lease with an option to buy on the next house he wants. If prices go up (which he doubts) he exercises his option. If they fall, he buys it cheaper.
jj: The best guy I know on Greenspeak is Paul McCulley at Pimco. His latest is the problem with the “Greenspan Put” – ie. investors have stopped paying attention to Greenspan’s warnings because they “know” he’ll always bail them out anyway. Bill Gross is even better on the wider economic picture. These guys run the largest bond portfolio in the world. Both write “must-read” commentaries monthly.

Posted by: PeeDee | Sep 27 2005 3:28 utc | 22

Am talking to a local realtor about pros/cons of selling my house. She insists “I really don’t see any significant downturn in the market,” and I say, “That’s what they said in San Diego.” Moving right along here… not keen on becoming a renter again, but in a way it does seem safer…

Posted by: DeAnander | Sep 27 2005 3:46 utc | 23

tante_aime posted on 26 Sep 2005 at 6:09:23 PM:
Except the Whigs were a party protesting Federal Executive power, and when they collapsed, became the New (Old) Republican Party of small government and conservative values. So for the Neo Republicans to go the way of the Whigs would be a non sequitur. Far more likely for the Democrats to go the way of the Libertarians, going the way of the Whigs, and all of them becoming the Come On Let Us In! whiner branch of the Neo Republican Party. Every family needs its be-yatch. From a Corporate POV, Conservative Republicanism, Drowning in Bath Tubs, Military Industrialism and Take It to the Bank are just the four faces of the American Power Pyramid. Learn to like the whip, and grovel on kneepads. A Thousand Year Reich is a long, long time.
Tante, the Whigs were not really interested in restraining Federal executive authority and the Republican Party which replaced them was even less interested in restraining the Federal government. In truth, the Republican Party as established was interested in eliminating states rights and expanding Federal authority. After all, it was the Republicans who wanted to pursue Federal investment in transportation and education, which was anathema to the old Democratic Party dominated by the slaveocracy elite of the Old South. It is the philosophy of the Neue Republikan Partei which will fall victim to its being out of touch with the times, just as the Old Democratic Party was crushed by the upstart Republican Party of the 1850s.
Doesn’t the Thousand Year Reich exist in some sort of relativistic universe anyway? After all, its thousand years was only twelve years objective in our universe.

Posted by: PrahaPartizan | Sep 27 2005 5:18 utc | 24

On a related note, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer,
after many hard sessions with his program leads,
(and against a recalcitrant Bill Gates who was
content to keep throwing money at it), has hit
the reset button on Longhorn/Vista, and recast
MSFT’s efforts along a pastiche Google model.
In addition, because of Longhorn’s collapse
and paltry c’s dividend, they’re pancaking the
entire corporate structure from seven divisions
down to three, with three individual presidents.
Although MSFT won’t admit it, a good part of the collapse is attributable to a single anonymous
employee, posting at minimsft.blogspot.com
(Another part is due to Google’s decision to
issue more shares, which won’t see the public,
but were intended to bribe MSFT’s top coders
away, with the lure of lucrative stock options.)
It is as if a 9.0 earthquake split the entire West Coast away from Nevada, but the Las Vegas casinos never even skipped a beat. What a world.
I mention this because the MSFT shareholders
were ready to rip Ballmer a new as—ole, or cut
and run, when they heard through this blog just
how bloated and bureaucratic MSFT had become.
Not that we didn’t know that, as code hackers,
but it flew under the media radar, like BushCo.
So good news, a whole host of minimsft’s are
out there telling the inside story about the
NeoClowns on the Hill, and their Bush Bunko.
A whole lot of US “shareholders” are pissed.
But bad news, BushCo doesn’t have to meet any
target rollout dates. BushCo doesn’t have to
stay ahead of a product curve. BushCo doesn’t even have to make one single cent in profit,
and nobody is trying to lure his coven away.
The reason the Bush Magic 40% is pissed has more to do with their US bond portfolio, than whether Bush is going to rebuild the St. Bernard Parish.
All he has to do is find the votes to cut out
health and human services, to the bone, and grift enough campaign contributors, and keep
the price of Big Oil high, and the interest
rates on Big Bank high, and he’s a made man.
America Inc is still in business.
What we need is a minimsft on the Hill to post
RNC inner workings on a blog for all to read.
Voters see reality through the media endoscope. We just have to keep the lanterns way up bright.
One if by land, two if by sea. To arms, to arms.
It really has come down to that.
Read dKos.

Posted by: tante aime | Sep 27 2005 5:26 utc | 25

@tante aime
Hear hear!

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 27 2005 5:33 utc | 26

Tante, all good things come from the Muse.
May I modify your
Voters see reality through the media endoscope.
to Voters (or Americans) see reality through the media proctoscope
and make it my own??
Endoscope is more mellifluous; but proctoscope is more evocative.
Hmm. Quandary.

Posted by: eftsoons | Sep 27 2005 6:02 utc | 27

Am talking to a local realtor about pros/cons of selling my house. She insists “I really don’t see any significant downturn in the market,” and I say, “That’s what they said in San Diego.” Moving right along here… not keen on becoming a renter again, but in a way it does seem safer…

No doubt it has occured to you that real estate agents get paid on commission, ergo the more overheated the housing market becomes the fatter their commission cheques. Which more or less guarantees that realtors will keep talking up the market right up to the moment that the housing bubble actually bursts.
People have short memories. Just have a look at what tech stock gurus like Mary Meeker, Frank Quattrone, Jack Grubman and Henry Blodget were saying in the months before the Internet bubble imploded in 2000.

Posted by: Lexington | Sep 27 2005 6:08 utc | 28

Yeah, that Spring Offensive may not be what we/they think…
Of course even if you like Bush, there is no excuse, none, nota, zip, for this.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 27 2005 7:44 utc | 29

I really don’t see any significant downturn
doesn’t mean she doesn’t see a downturn.
by the time it’s significant it’s too late. we will inevitably start seeing more foreclosures w/ the collision of adjustable notes meets raising interest rates. the catch 22 in calif is everyone who has owned their homes for years save so much money every year on their taxes it only makes sense to sell if you plan on renting forever, or move to an area with a lower market. if you aren’t planning on using your equity to finance your future just stay put. i take solace in knowing when it happens, we’ll all be in it together. it’s a hard decision to leave your home. you may find this article helpful

Another method is to compare house prices with local incomes to see how affordable houses are. Michael D. Youngblood, an economist at the Arlington, Va., investment-banking firm Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., studies the ratio of median house prices to personal incomes per capita. Based on that ratio, he recently found that Santa Barbara, Salinas and Santa Cruz, all in California, were the nation’s least-affordable housing markets.

Posted by: annie | Sep 27 2005 15:22 utc | 30

no downturn
CNN

The Conference Board’s reading of consumer confidence plunged in September to 86.6 from 105.5 in August, reflecting the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Forecasts were for a slide to 95.
…
In other news, the government said new home sales fell to a 1.24 million unit annual rate in August from a downwardly revised 1.37 million units in July. The decline was bigger than expected.

Posted by: b | Sep 27 2005 17:34 utc | 31

hmm. that link from a couple days ago re the possible revision/elimination of the tax writeoff on the interest portion of your mortage? this would be the real sinker. unbelievable shock to the system. real estate investors would be bailing in droves,driving the market down. and that doesn’t even address the hit the middle class would take loosing the writeoff.

Posted by: annie | Sep 27 2005 18:01 utc | 32

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