Billmon: Generational Theft? Sorry, That Money’s Already Been Stolen

February 22, 2009

Maybe there is no way out of this mess, either practically or politically. Limitless growth, Edward Abbey once wrote, is the ideology of a cancer cell, and the doctrine of endless debt-fueled expansion may have created an economy so riddled with it that any therapy powerful enough to kill the cancer will also kill the patient. In other words, globalized capitalism (or rather, this strange brew of corporate oligopoly and lemon socialism) may have finally dug itself a hole too deep for the traditional neo-Keynesian policy tools (fiscal and monetary policy) to lift it out of.
But, if that's true, then our children and our grandchildren may indeed spit on our graves, but it's going to be because we have bequeathed them much bigger nightmares than an increase in the federal debt.

Billmon: Generational Theft? Sorry, That Money's Already Been Stolen

Posted by b on February 22, 2009 at 18:17 UTC | Permalink

Comments

So let’s look at this and see if the generational theft charge has any foundation or, as is more likely given recent history, it is mostly scare tactics being used in an attempt to manipulate public opinion.
To begin, think about how the government finances, say, $10,000 in deficit spending. To use debt finance (as opposed to raising taxes or printing money), the government will print up a piece of paper – we call it a government bond – and write “IOU $10,000 plus interest” on it. It then trades the “IOU $10,000 plus interest at some point in the future” for $10,000 in cash. Thus, the private sector gives the government $10,000 and gets an IOU (a bond) in return.
Let’s suppose the government then takes this money and spends it on a project such as a road that has benefits for a wide segment of the population. The end result, then, is that the money was borrowed from an individual and distributed through government spending (or transfer payments) to a larger segment of the population.
So far, there hasn’t been any transfer of resources from the future to the present, only a transfer a resources within the current generation. What about when the bond is paid off, does that transfer resources across generations? Let’s suppose it is a 30 year bond, and that the holder passes away and bequeaths it to his or her children. Thus, thirty years from now the bond comes due, and the holder cashes it in and is paid in full. But where does the money come from? The government pays it out of its tax revenue. That is, the government collects the $10,000 plus interest from the future generation, then gives taxes it collects to the bond holder.
But this is a transfer of resources within a generation, not across generations. A whole bunch of people in the future will have to pay higher taxes, and the taxes they pay will go to a smaller number of individuals holding the debt. But across the population the assets and liabilities cancel exactly, there is no net aggregate burden. Liabilities have passed to future generations, but so have the corresponding assets.

Mark Thoma, Professor of Economics, University of Oregon.
I post this not as a retort, but instead as an illustration of two competing ideas I cannot resolve.
Intuitively, it seems very much a ‘generational theft’ in the form of an indirect tax. But the Econ Prof says this is not so.
Any thoughts?

Posted by: Jeremiah | Feb 22 2009 18:44 utc | 1

@Jeremiah – it all depends on the where the government investment is made.
The ‘investment’ in Vietnam did not pass ‘corresponding assets’ to a future generation of U.S. taxpayers.
The investment into the Hoover dam did.

Posted by: b | Feb 22 2009 19:05 utc | 2

There is an on-going economic debate — too wonkish and tedious to explore here — about whether this wall of money was a result of a coincident collapse in personal saving in the US, the UK and some of the other wealthy countries, or whether it actually caused middle-class and upper-middle class consumers to go an a spending spree the likes of which the hasn’t been seen since the invention of the credit card.
The bounds of the permissible.
Surely, it can’t be because of a generation of organized free-market, anti-labor, de-industrialization policies planned by elite-funded think tanks, and instituted by bought-out politicians have squeezed the blue-collar middle class out of existence.
Billmon bores the shit out of me.
In any event, nothing I have ever encountered on KOS has been “too wonkish” for me. God forbid, one should be called upon to relax our emotive faculties in favor of our rational ones.

Posted by: Malooga | Feb 22 2009 19:27 utc | 3

J1) Professor Thoma of all folks should know the term “lost opportunity cost”. The present gains opportunities to profit from $4T on up in Fed spending, to reinvest those wages and profits, and to live a low-tax lifestyle of ease and leisure. The future gains some miniscule percentage profit of the bonds issued, in return for higher taxes, deficit interest, and lifelong work without end, having lost 20 years of opportunites to reinvest that this generation had.
As usual, a homily serves. My father made less than I have, and he paid even higher taxes than I am now, yet drove a Cadillac, had a winter condo in the Carolinas, and retired at 65 a millionaire, something I’ll never see. In the same way, his father made less than he ever did, and paid even higher taxes during WWII after suffering through the Depression, yet he drove a classic Cadillac, had a winter bungalow in South Florida, and retired at 65 a multimillionaire and country club squire.
They benefited from wide-open opportunities and a real dollar unimaginable today.
Here’s a more unequivocal example. The $8T proposal to build a high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to Las Vegas will benefit a Death Culture, you only have to look at the California Aqueduct and the Colorado River, the ecology of energy and water. The better place to spend $8T would be on a high-speed rail line connecting the ‘right to work’ cities of Houston and Atlanta, and the industrial hubs in between.
Again, our Funny Money corrupted present will benefit, leaving the overweening mess and deficits for our children and grandchildren to clean up. It’s the American Way™.

Posted by: Pills Berry | Feb 22 2009 20:18 utc | 4

Slothrop said it best in the last billmon post, in that,”One thing has always bugged me is a persistent lack in his criticisms of a theory of a system of power”. And I have to concur, where is the digging beyond the surface? He (billmon) does an excellent job of clear and readable encompassing overview, but merely an overview. Never the backstage.
Why is that billmon?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 22 2009 20:43 utc | 5

The ‘investment’ in Vietnam did not pass ‘corresponding assets’ to a future generation of U.S. taxpayers.
Why is it the common view that WWII was stimulus, but Vietnam, not?
This is actually complicated–beyond the rightwing simplification that opec ruined the economy, or moderate criticisms such as the lack of monetary policy needed to head off inflation.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 22 2009 21:51 utc | 6

I’ll take a stab at why Vietnam was not a stimulus: it happened when there was practically no shortfall in aggregate demand, so it did crowd out more productive uses of capital.
Billmon knows more backstage stuff than me, anyway, and if he doesn’t feel comfortable claiming it’s all explainable by some grand theory, well, better to err on that side and stay empirical than start filtering all info through preconceptions and refining generalizations.
Why do people assume that in order to understand what is going on, one must identify a monolithic system of power… is the ubiquitous will to power not monolithic enough in and of itself?

Posted by: boxcar mike | Feb 22 2009 22:36 utc | 7

Why is it the common view that WWII was stimulus, but Vietnam, not?
Just off the top of my head, I would say that WWII was an order of magnitude greater outlay in men, material, and real dollars than Vietnam. Sure, we know the Air Force dropped more bombs in tonnage on North Vietnam, but the weight of divisions and the vast scope of war, between 1941 and 1945, and the influx of dollars through the Marshall Plan and the GI Bill to give veterans accesss to higher education, were clearly stimulative to the economy and education.
We were not in a depression in the 60s, and were in one, in the 30s.
Vietnam was not a “good war” and was a profligate waste of resources, and was occuring at a time of political assassinations in the U.S. and demoralizing social unrest. LBJ was touting a philosophy of “guns and butter”, and young men were evading and resisting conscription.
The energy spent to confront the fascist apocalypse of the 1940s and the energy outlay for a grotesque, unpopular, neo-colonial war in Vietnam, must represent very different kinds of energy and “stimulus”.

Posted by: Copeland | Feb 22 2009 22:53 utc | 8

When you begin to work as a writer, and approach a piece, one of the most important factors to consider is your audience. You must begin by reflecting on who your readers are. Style and substance must be adjusted accordingly.
Billmon is writing to a very general audience of Americans at KOS. The kind of exposition he is writing is of great value to the political process in this country. It is too easy for distinguished writers here at MoA to pick apart this discourse, since this place is far from being a general forum. People are evolving and learning all the time, but at different rates, and they are hindered by their other responsibilities, as most of us are.
Because America’s media has so doctored the audience with propaganda, our political improvement has evolved over recent years as a matter of sheer will power, for the most part. Not only is it a matter of effort and digging, but it is painful at every step along the way.
“A theory of a system of power”? The stations of the cross, the school of hard knocks, the place where you find yourself down and out, are usually the most effective teachers of a theory of of a system of power. But before you get to theory, what is required is a good exposition of the system itself, and in this Billmon excels. His prose is colorful and accessible, and he is doing a good job and getting his feet under him again. And his audience is learning and responding.

Posted by: Copeland | Feb 22 2009 23:52 utc | 9

It’s a shame Billmon sticks to macro in this post. All the macro argumentation in the world will not convince me that a stimulus will work. Financial sector support will be carried off by bankers unless somebody addresses the micro problems and breaks down the kleptocratic apparat. It was also disappointing to see how Johnson’s testimony opposed regulation to growth. To ensure an effective stimulus they will have to re-regulate, but first of all they have to drain the swamps. Elsewhere Johnson explained how to pit private equity against the universal banks to break the bankers’ stranglehold on government. Any reformer has to go in like the meanest, most arrogant IFO prick in a prostrate third-world wasteland and exterminate the rent seekers by allying with their natural domestic predators. It’s America’s turn to get IMFed.

Posted by: …—… | Feb 23 2009 0:13 utc | 10

First Volcker, now Soros…
Soros sees no bottom for world financial “collapse”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is yet no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis.
Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union.
He said the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September marked a turning point in the functioning of the market system.
“We witnessed the collapse of the financial system,” Soros said at a Columbia University dinner. “It was placed on life support, and it’s still on life support. There’s no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom.”
His comments echoed those made earlier at the same conference by Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who is now a top adviser to President Barack Obama.
Volcker said industrial production around the world was declining even more rapidly than in the United States, which is itself under severe strain.
“I don’t remember any time, maybe even in the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast, quite so uniformly around the world,” Volcker said.
(Reporting by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa and Juan Lagorio; Editing by Gary Hill)

As someone elsewhere asked, “what is he doing when he makes a public pronouncement like this?”
All these insiders, including Billmon (yes, I would include billmon in this)seem to be avoiding ALL inferences of responsibility and guilt for the legions of officials including regulators, policy-makers, legislators, past/current presidents & their cabinet appointees, Banking and Investment firm managers, and economic advisors and especially the SEC, whose misfeasance, idiotic advice, negligence, duplicity and schemes undermined the principles of the ENTIRE economy.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 23 2009 0:30 utc | 11

upon review, ditto what #10 said…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 23 2009 0:36 utc | 12

Clinton Urges China to Keep Buying US Treasury Securities

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 23 2009 0:42 utc | 13

What Billmon describes are epiphenomena. The basic fact of the situation is the impossiblity of profit within an enclosed system. When the system is enclosed but related through power with an exterior where wealth is produced and can be appropriated by the hegemon, profit is actually possible, it is no different from theft. But when the system is enclosed completely the only exterior space that can be exploited profitably is debt, that is, theft from the future. Blaming the morality of this guy or another is an empty exercise, I would say, because in an enclosed system we are all collaborators in the economic movement.
On other occasions the theft is the rape of nature, the destruction of forests, the emptying of mines, the devastation of the oceans. Nature as we have it is the concrete past, the past in material form. Its exploitation is a theft of the past.
While a ruling class has generative ideas, science, parenthood, agriculture, progress is possible, but the ruling class is hobbled by fear that any disturbance of its system will be deleterious to itself, so the class becomes paralyzed and its end is on sight. We are at that moment. A sterile society must perish.

Posted by: jlcg | Feb 23 2009 0:58 utc | 14

There is steady 5% growth in gdp throughout the 60s and then high inflation solved by wage & price controls and the recession in 1970, rapid recovery and then the energy shock, stagflation, solved by flexible currency exchange and manipulation of money supply, deregulation, assault on wage labor, expansion of credit at the expense of growth.
So, yes the vietnam war was stimulative but inflationary. That was ok for workers, bad for capitalists. This is proved by the the historically lowest wage inequality prior the the nixon recession.
Oh, the contradictions.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 23 2009 2:05 utc | 15

“Billmon bores the shit out of me.”
Is there anything more grating than the *Yawn* of egotistic, terminally cynical loudmouths whose forte is denigrating people with far superior capabilities and achievments,in order to justify their own childishly simple, petty worldview.
The 2003 Koufax Awards gave Billmon due recognition. These awards are the quasi-Oscars of the left/liberal blog community, and each year they are given out, virtually, in various categories. In 2003, Billmon won three Koufax awards, for Best Writing, Best Post and Best New Blog. His writing was described by the judges as “clear, concise, insightful.” OpEdNews said he “may have done more to bring respectability to blogging than anybody.”
It’s totally ironic that this site, set up in homage to billmon, attracts nihilistic arnachists who can’t see past their own narrow, childish, immature point of view.

Posted by: waldo | Feb 23 2009 2:11 utc | 16

Billmon, like Chomsky, isn’t macro enough. Chomsky, for ex., finds in the big molar processes of economy and social relations and all that, a lot of gangsters who don’t play fair. There’s some good stories there as there are in any moral phhilosophy.
But the system of domination doesn’t insinuate in the least morality. Even if everybody is a good guy, the system is a cyclopean booby trap of contradictions and catastrophe.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 23 2009 2:16 utc | 17

It’s America’s turn to get IMFed
speaking figuratively, of course
chomsky:

It’s rather striking to notice that the consensus on how to deal with the crisis in the rich countries is almost the opposite of the consensus on how the poor countries should deal with similar economic crises. So when so-called developing countries have a financial crisis, the IMF rules are: raise interest rates, cut down economic growth, tighten the belt, pay off your debts (to us), privatize, and so on. That’s the opposite of what’s prescribed here. What’s prescribed here is lower interest rates, pour government money into stimulating the economy, nationalize (but don’t use the word), and so on. So yes, there’s one set of rules for the weak and a different set of rules for the powerful. There’s nothing novel about that.
As for the IMF, it is not an independent institution. It’s pretty much a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department — not officially, but that’s pretty much the way it functions. The IMF was accurately described by a U.S. Executive Director as “the credit community’s enforcer.” If a loan or an investment from a rich country to a poor country goes bad, the IMF makes sure that the lenders will not suffer. If you had a capitalist system, which of course the wealthy and their protectors don’t want, it wouldn’t work like that.
For example, suppose I lend you money, and I know that you may not be able to pay it back. Therefore I impose very high interest rates, so that at least I’ll get that in case you crash. Then suppose at some point you can’t pay the debt. Well in a capitalist system it would be my problem. I made a risky loan, I made a lot of money from it by high interest rates and now you can’t pay it back? Ok, tough for me. That’s a capitalist system. But that’s not the way our system works. If investors make risky loans to say Argentina and get high interest rates and then Argentina can’t pay it back, well that’s when the IMF steps in, the credit community’s enforcer, and says that the people of Argentina, they have to pay it back. Now if you can’t pay back a loan to me, I don’t say that your neighbors have to pay it back. But that’s what the IMF says. The IMF says the people of the country have to pay back the debt which they had nothing to do with, it was usually given to dictators, or rich elites, who sent it off to Switzerland or someplace, but you guys, the poor folks living in the country, you have to pay it back. And furthermore, if I lend money to you and you can’t pay it back, in a capitalist system I can’t ask my neighbors to pay me, but the IMF does, namely the US taxpayer. They help make sure that the lenders and investors are protected. So yes it’s the credit community’s enforcer. It’s a radical attack on basic capitalist principles, just as the whole functioning of the economy based on the state sector is, but that doesn’t change the rhetoric. It’s kind of hidden in the woodwork.

Posted by: b real | Feb 23 2009 4:34 utc | 18

Thanks, jlcg..
I learned a new word today. Epiphenomena, Indeed, that is spot on.
This will be the first and prolly last I will ever quote Christian idioms, but…
“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is
he.” ~Proverbs 29:18, King James
It’s looking more and more like we went from PC to MAC.
While open source thinking, Linux, has yet to be tried…
Coke or Pepsi, a feedback loop within a echo chamber.
When what we need is to explore Dynamic vs. Static, Open vs. Closed system Philosophy.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 23 2009 5:32 utc | 19

The vietnam war didn’t have the same stimulating effect on the american economy as WW II did because during vietnam most of the industrialized world wasn’t blown to bits, as it was during the “big war.”
Vietnam was more of a single battle during the cold war with russia. The entirety of the cold war did stimulate america’s economy, with the space program and the technology boom. After the end of the cold war, american politicians did what no foreign power was able to; dismantle america’s industrial sector and ship it off-shore.
The rest is obvious…

Posted by: David | Feb 23 2009 5:48 utc | 20

Obama after one month.

Posted by: Malooga | Feb 23 2009 5:53 utc | 21

# 21 descends to the socialist gossip pages to bolster their shaky case.
In reality a partial list contains:
*universal health insurance for children
*instigating the phased withdrawal for Iraq
*more pay equity for women
*the first major investment in inter-urban trains
*invested in Green projects
*higher fuel-economy standards for autos
*electronic medical records as a first step for universal health care
*hundreds of new charter schools
*new money for college loans
*help to homeowners facing foreclosures,
*creating millions of jobs with the stimulus
* a projected budget which reinstates transparency, re-focuses tax-burdens.
In one month president Obama has achieved more for his fellow Americans than most people will achieve in their lifetimes.
President Obama is political change personified, the first mixed-race black American president. The patience, focus and perseverance that saw him graduate university magna cum laude, achieve a professorship in constitutional Law, become a US senator and gain the presidency, all in only 25 years is, like his first presidential month’s achievements, an astounding record.

Posted by: waldo | Feb 23 2009 7:52 utc | 22

The WSWS = “socialist gossip pages”?
I’m speechless.

Posted by: Colin | Feb 23 2009 9:25 utc | 23

@#22
In one month he’s done what?
Tell ya what —
Let’s meet back here in — what, six months? Should that long enough for it to really start showing some effects? — and take a gander at a few statistics that, you know, indicate some sort of progress has been achieved.
My own, i’d say: with the rampant unemployment, foreclosures, and debt deflation that’s currently underway, the batch of money that’s just been tossed out is going to create something like a modern Public Works Administration. If it registers at all in those statistics, it’ll be nothing more than a passing blip — and will stay that way, until this de-tox runs its course, and the world economy re-orients.
Now, the PWA was mainly propaganda back then, and it’s still mainly propaganda now. It did little to stoke the economy, but it did build a few dams, install a few power grids, and pave a few roads; and when coupled with Hollywood, and Radio, it worked wonders in terms of public approval. That seems to be precisely what Obama’s program is aimed at, except with the money going to bio- and greening-technologies, to alternative energy sources, and to homeland security. The roads, construction, modernizations, etc, will almost all have something to do with these three pillars.
There’s nothing wrong with something like that — a modern day PWA — but really, you gotta ask yourself a few things: where would such knowledge eventually wind up? And what in hell is a plan like that going to for those who are already outside the system, today — now — almost 20% of the population?
Call me an old fart, but attempting an escalation of a failing war, with 20% real unemployment, amid economic collapse, while sporting the world’s largest prison population makes it hard for me to believe that a feel-good program like the PWA is going to do much public good. It will build a few Villas to which the wealthy can retreat for a few decades, but beyond that, you and i won’t notice much difference.
So maybe Obama really is intent on addressing some of the many inequalities that abound, in this land, but just too timid to do what’s clearly necessary —
Or maybe he’s just following along as he’s “advised”, and in the process trying to beef up “the right people,” so that they’ll have a better time of it once everything falls apart.
At any rate, i have yet to see anything which validates such superlatives as you’re slinging around, there, partner.

Posted by: china_hand2 | Feb 23 2009 13:03 utc | 24

@18 to be fair as humanly possible, one of the useful things IMF does is handle coordination failure. In a default bondholders have to give up much of the money they were promised, take a haircut on their bonds. They know that. But each individual lender has an incentive to hold out for more than the others, to the point of wrecking any reasonable agreement. IMF can bang the creditors’ heads together, squeezing holdouts, vulture funds, etc. Done right, it’s more akin to collective negotiation than bankruptcy court because mid-level IMF guys are not as patriotic as the directors, or at least not as American. Also, depending on the circumstances, people have limited patience for serial fuckups like Citibank. There’s no question that if IMF was in charge here they would be kicking more ass, domestically and internationally, than is currently being kicked. That would be a glorious thing.

Posted by: …—… | Feb 23 2009 13:36 utc | 25

@24 At any rate, i have yet to see anything which validates such superlatives as you’re slinging around, there, partner. Yeah, just because he’s a genius on another plane infinitely above your previous cretinous president spiritually, mentally, morally and politically, don’t cut the schmuck some slack.
There’s no ambit time-frame here, he’s got four (4) years.

Posted by: waldo | Feb 23 2009 14:00 utc | 26

It appears there are those on the left willing to embrace Obama with the same blind devotion neocons have for the Bush clan.
Anyone who looks to the government for solutions to problems the government created are fools.
Personally I think the O-man has shown us his feet of clay by escalating the war in Afghanistan – this action is sure to mire the country down in a long un-winnable war (are any wars winnable?) in a place that will be the largest military mess since vietnam.
But Obama is a democrat so I guess I must be wrong – everything he touches turns to gold and wine is flowing from the faucets… all people will fall to their knees to worship the great man of color… all hail Obama!
I think I got my tongue stuck in my cheek after that last graph…

Posted by: David | Feb 23 2009 15:01 utc | 27

@ waldo: regarding your “*electronic medical records as a first step for universal health care”..

Blessing to RP outsourcing: Obama spending for health IT — TUCP
MANILA (PNA) — United States President-elect Barack Obama’s plan to spend billions of dollars to build a fully integrated health information-technology (IT) system for American hospitals and doctors’ offices will generate new business for Philippine business process outsourcing (BPO) providers, particularly those engaged in medical transcription, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said Sunday.
“We are counting on the move to replace reams of paper files in American hospitals and doctors’ offices with electronic records to boost the highly labor-intensive outsourced transcription and data encoding activities of local BPO providers,” former Senator and TUCP Secretary-General Ernesto Herrera said.
To reduce cost and reinforce America’s health care system, the new US administration intends to push electronic medical records that can be shared online by hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices, post-acute care facilities and home care agencies.
The electronic medical records network would also later integrate managed care organizations, blood banks, imaging centers and even pharmacies.
The new US administration hopes to put the medical records of every American online by providing hospitals and physicians a total of up to $ 25 billion to establish IT systems. The initial funding would be included in a massive US economic stimulus plan costing at least $ 850 billion.

The electronic records are simply a way to outsource medical labor, nothing more.

Posted by: Jeremiah | Feb 23 2009 15:01 utc | 28

waldo, if Obama is a genius, then you, sir, are a moron in comparison.
If he is not a “genius on another plane,” what does that then make you?
Others here have more than made the case that Billmon wasn’t offering anything new or substantive besides entertaining writing.
I was “attracted” to this site years before you graced us with your grand entrance, largely because of the strength and insight of the analysis and the experience and depth of knowledge some long-timers here have gained in struggling for social justice — not because of the pretty pom-poms or push-up bras the cheerleading section happens to be wearing this news cycle.
You carelessly toss around the term “nihilistic arnachists,” (sic), as if that were a bad thing! I’m proud of the anarchist, as well as social libertarian, Marxist, and indigenist strains present in my moral thinking. As for the accusation of nihilism, I readily admit that I do not see much hope for a more just and sustainable world coming out of this one, baring a quantum leap in humanity’s collective wisdom. But, like Derrick Jensen, I bring something much more substantial to the table of suasive argument than a few “rah, rah, rahs and a toe-kick.”
If our society were becoming the least bit more humane under the new Puer savant, surely the holy one, blessed be he, would have seen fit to comment on this story.
Beyond that, I see no more reason to engage with you.

Posted by: Malooga | Feb 23 2009 15:55 utc | 29

The electronic records are a way for government to centralize knowledge and control of its citizenry. Without universal single-payer healthcare for all, it will only be used to further institutionalize injustice: who is deemed fit under capitalism to live, and who deserves to die.

Posted by: Malooga | Feb 23 2009 15:59 utc | 30

Malooga,
on some days, my anger and exasperation get the best of me, too. Cataloging the daily disintegration of the things we hold dear can be quite exhausting.

Posted by: Jeremiah | Feb 23 2009 16:17 utc | 31

Oh well we did enjoin the waldo spruiker to stick around after the election, since none of the other dem spruikers that swamp these pages with their sweet smelling lies before elections have ever done so, but I guess that was because they never won before.
Anyway ,from my point of view it is worth noting that in the opinion of even of the staid middle class IKEA liberals of england, Obama is no longer a Messiah, “he’s just a very naughty boy”. Whatever grand schemes total cost of which probably amounts to a billionth of whatever Obama has gifted the banksters in the latest bailout du jour, may have done for amerikans, Obama’s foreign policies have shown absolutely no divergence from his predecessor’s on the issues that count ie rolling back the empire by showing humanity instead of great evil.
The display of ‘naughtiness’ which has angered the english is Obama’s threat that amerika would cut off all intelligence exchange with the english spy services if the courts revealed seven paragraphs detailing amerikan and english intelligence involvement in the torture (including genital mutilation) of Binyam Mohammed the latest innocent released from amerika’s dungeon at Guantanamo Bay. See the comments from the english in response to one of the Guardian’s apologists for right-wing labour trying to rationalise away this bullying here.
The likes of Waldo would like to claim sainthood for Obama because he has announced the closure of that evil place but that would be like praising a wifebeater merely because he pulled one punch. Being good isn’t not doing bad things, it is actually doing good things about this planet, Obama has yet to do anything good. Of course the fact that shrub spent years trying to find a waye to close Guantanamo without seeming to admit it was all a mistake, also diminishes Obama’s act there.
The empire is trying to continue it’s campaign of murder rape and theft throughout the world. None of that has changed at all. That is something that no amount of Obama inspired attempts to silence people domestically can ever compensate for.
Incidentally on the healthcare for children thing. While it might seem like a great act children don’t prosper when their parents are sick and parents are far more prone to illness than children so don’t expect any miracles. It has been demonstrated in other nations where lobbies tried to prevent the introduction of a single payer health scheme, that these sops to sentimentality with this sort of change won’t encourage the introduction of univeral healthcare by increment. What it does is hive off some of the support for a full change into supporting a new status quo, thereby inhibiting the pressure on governments for true healthcare reform.
I don’t remember this site being created as a “homage to Billmon”.
It was created as a reaction to billmon spitting the dummy and tossing his toys out of his cot by closing off comments on his own site, when too many commenters disagreed with mainstream democrat party policy thereby embarassing billmon with his new friends in the dem party.
Sure some of billmon’s groupies hung round here for a while but they left when they discovered that none of the other commenters were interested in acquiring an entourage.
Sorry about the spelling anjd typo I’m running late – there are young impressionable minds waiting for me to fill them up with anarchist nihilistic claptrap.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 23 2009 19:43 utc | 32

A struggle for justice is ongoing in this country, and Obama is still a work in progress. What Waldo senses is that the new president is the best we’re going to get, and that it’s desperately important to try to work with him, and that if he fails, or as Malooga believes, is a toad in drag, then, in the most existential way, the country will just go down the shitter, and the people will be unredeemed.
Malooga, you are one of our distinguished writers here. You should have realized that Obama is the best we are apt to receive. You should have more sympathy with those who rebelled, heart and soul, against the monstrosity of the Bush/Cheney years, and did something about it. Demonizing the new administration is quite as childish as idolizing it.
I am having reservations about the new leaders lately. I was especially troubled by the report last week that the assistant Attorney General might be working to block a House subpoena of Karl Rove, in the Conyers probe that would, among other things, look into the Siegleman case in Alabama, where Rove is alleged to have been behind a conspiracy of concocted charges that prosecuted a former democratic governor, and wrongly put him in prison. On other issues, Obama will ultimately not be able to do an end run around the law, and the courts that constrained Bush will constrain his administration too, on rendition, treatment of prisoners, and other matters.
I’m not going to allow my relief that the fascist elements were defeated in the election, or an appreciation of Obama’s personal decency become some kind of blind followship, and neither should Waldo for that matter.

Posted by: Copeland | Feb 23 2009 20:20 utc | 33

I, for one, am extremely astonished that Obama is an American politician.
Who knew?

Posted by: Thrasyboulos | Feb 23 2009 20:32 utc | 34

@debs

I don’t remember this site being created as a “homage to Billmon”.
It was created as a reaction to billmon spitting the dummy and tossing his toys out of his cot by closing off comments on his own site, when too many commenters disagreed with mainstream democrat party policy thereby embarassing billmon with his new friends in the dem party.

I seem to remember that Billmon’s parting shot, as he closed down Whiskey Bar for good, was to hope that the Democrats lost, so as to speed the wheel of the meltdown, that ought to come sooner or later, and better sooner, since there was nothing to stop it.
There no reason to condemn Billmon either; and his writing is still serving a constructive purpose. I don’t exactly read him as cheering on the Obama policies, do you?

Posted by: Copeland | Feb 23 2009 20:40 utc | 35

copeland
it is in the area of jurisprudence where i see the rot continuing. it is what i am observing closely while rereading ancient texts

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 23 2009 21:20 utc | 36

I’m always happy to read something by Billmon.
He’s rock-solid, in both facts and reasoning, and pretty much everythin’ i’ve ever read by him had added both to my understanding of things as well as my ability to express it in not-quite-so-incendiary ways.
And if ripping off his HTML and CSS doesn’t constitute a visual homage, then what possibly could?
But i agree: Waldo’s a young fella with little understanding about how the world workds, but sense enough to recognize that Obama deserves, at the very least, to be credited with good intent and a potential for good.
Unfortunately, Waldo also has a lot to learn; while it may be that, with Obama, we now see a breath of less-stale air at last wafting through the corridors of that staid, White Man’s colonial triumph that is the U.S. executive, so far it is all only fluffy, tasty cake.
Obama has promised us a meal, though. So what should we do?
Get behind him and demand our fucking meal, that’s what. If he refuses, he’s shown to be the phoney that so many have deemed him. If he comes through for us, then we’re better off. If neither happens — then we vote the fucker out and replace him with someone better, next time around.
Love, all —

Posted by: china_hand2 | Feb 24 2009 7:47 utc | 37

“All these insiders, including Billmon (yes, I would include billmon in this)”
Now THAT made me laugh.

Posted by: billmon | Feb 25 2009 2:28 utc | 38

Is that laughing with me or at me or at yourself?
Yeah, how many here have a wiki page? Not that that in and of itself makes one a player. It may be unfair of me, but your insider status, in my eyes anyway, is above and beyond several degrees from us lay people. You sir, can not deny your hypergraphia, and it’s serious influence it has in it’s trade.
My only qualm is your reluctance to address the deeper politics, much like your forbearance of addressing the rest of my post above. I feel safe in saying, we know you can, but I guess, that doesn’t pay the mortgage eh?
On a different note, excuse me, WALDO! git in here quick, your hero is here!

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 25 2009 11:32 utc | 39

Yeah, how many here have a wiki page?
Uncle $scam, you appear to be confusing the Internet with real life. A common affliction.

Posted by: billmon | Mar 4 2009 19:36 utc | 40

A common affliction, for a common man, I suppose. Whose questions have once again, been ignored. Typical.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 4 2009 19:41 utc | 41

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