Click here to view this media Fareed Zakaria gave his take on CNN this morning on Obama’s compromise with Republicans on tax cuts and why China is leaving the United States in the dust. Obama should have gotten better deal on tax cuts : President Barack Obama should have negotiated a more fiscally responsible deal with Republicans on extending tax cuts, analyst Fareed Zakaria says. After insisting on the campaign trail in 2008 and through much of his first two years in office that extending tax cuts for high-income earners was irresponsible, Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for all Americans. “Obama was exactly right to try and make a deal with the Republicans. But it does seem somewhat lopsided in that the Republicans got exactly what they wanted, which makes one wonder whether there was a better negotiating strategy that might have been adopted,” Zakaria said. Read on… Transcript from Fareed’s Take in the clip above below the fold. The best that can be said about Obama’s compromise with the Republican Party on taxes is that it might not cause too much harm. The extension of unemployment benefits will keep putting money into the economy. There are some good provisions in the bill to encourage businesses to create jobs, but on the whole, a great chance has been lost to start putting America’s fiscal house in order. If we had repealed some part or the whole of the Bush tax cuts, it would have gone a long way toward reducing the structural budget deficit the United States has. And more importantly, what the bill does is to try one more time to encourage Americans to spend more money. Now, we got into this mess because Americans borrowed and spent too much and now, we’re trying to get out of it by borrowing and spending more. The Republican Party has come to power in the recent election by denouncing Keynesian economics, that is the government’s effort to stimulate the economy, but it turns out they are actually as committed to Keynesian economics as the Democrats. You see, John Maynard Keynes simply said that when businesses and consumers stop spending, the government has to step in. He advocated two kinds of government actions, public spending or tax cuts. The Republicans simply prefer the latter. In fact, the cost of their Keynesian bill is about the same as the cost of the Democrat’s stimulus bill of 2009, $900 billion. What no one is talking about as we add to the deficit by encouraging consumer spending is that the only path to long-term growth is to have consumers borrow less, get their balance sheets in order and for the economy to focus more on investments for the future in industries of the future. And while we shy away from that kind of thinking about government funding, the fastest growing country in the world, China, has uses precisely this approach to achieve its extraordinary growth rates and now, China is moving to a whole new level. Reuters reports this week on a plan by the Chinese government to invest $1.5 trillion over the next five years in strategic industries. Beijing wants China to move out of low wage manufacturing and has identified seven key areas where it wants to quadruple its output in five years. The targeted sectors are alternative energy, biotechnology, new generation information technology, high-end equipment manufacturing, advanced materials, alternative fuel and energy saving and environmentally-friendly technologies. So, the Chinese will now move into these sophisticated industries while lending us the money, which we will use to give ourselves a tax break. Someone in Beijing is laughing.
Continue reading …If Julian Assange Should Be Tried For Espionage, What About Bob Woodward?
December 12, 2010 No CommentThere’s been a lot of talk about how WikiLeaks is terrible, how the information released is damaging to national interests and/or security, how Julian Assange should be treated as a terrorist/enemy combatant/spy (pick your hyperbole), US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad points out that far more damaging information was given by someone with a much higher clearance to Bob Woodward, and no one started screaming that Bob Woodward should be prosecuted –or worse, executed . In his latest book, “Obama’s Wars”, Woodward quoted various high level administration sources : Obama rejected the military’s request for 40,000 troops as part of an mission with no foreseeable end. “I’m not doing 10 years,” he is quoted as telling Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting in October 2009. “I’m not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars.”[..] Woodward says Obama is constantly barraged with warnings about the possibility of terrorist attacks on US soil. [..] General David Petraeus Relations between Obama and Gen. Petraeus, then chief of the central command region that included Iraq and Afghanistan, deteriorated after the President rejected his repeated requests for more troops, Woodward claims.[..] Woodward quotes Gen. Petraeus as saying: “You have to recognize also that I don’t think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It’s a little bit like Iraq, actually. . . . Yes, there has been enormous progress in Iraq. But there are still horrific attacks in Iraq, and you have to stay vigilant. You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we’re in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids’ lives.” The General felt increasingly isolated by the administration and reportedly told his aids that the White House was f—— the wrong guy” after a glass of wine on a flight in May. He was effectively banned from appearing on the Sunday talk shows by the administration but made use of private channels to Congress and the news media, the book claims. Richard Holbrooke Woodward reports that Vice President Joe Biden called Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy to Afghanistan, “the most egotistical b—— I’ve ever met.”[..] James Jones A variety of administration officials reportedly expressed scorn for Obama’s national security adviser, James Jones, who allegedly became so distrustful of the President’s political aides that he began calling them the “Politburo” and the “Mafia”.[..] Hamid Karzai The Afghan president is a manic depressive, according to Woodward. “He’s on his meds, he’s off his meds,” the veteran reporter quoted Karl Eikenberry, the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, as saying. Admiral Mike Mullen The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was criticised by his deputy, James Cartwright, because he “wasn’t a war fighter,” according to Woodward. Mullen suspected that Cartwright was briefing against him behind his back, the book claims. Robert Gates The Defense Secretary was tempted to walk out of an Oval Office meeting after taking offence at comments made by deputy national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon about an unnamed general, the book claims. Rahm Emmanuel The White House chief of staff was reportedly firmly in support of CIA drone attacks on al-Qaeda militants in Pakistani territory and reportedly asked a security adviser, “who did we get today?” David Axelrod The senior White House strategist was regarded as “a complete spin doctor” by Gen David Petraeus, then chief of the central command region that included Iraq and Afghanistan, Woodward claims. Axelrod had trouble trusting some of Obama’s senior appointments. When the newly-elected president floated the idea of making Hillary Clinton Secretary of State, Axelrod reportedly asked: “How could you trust Hillary?” Not exactly espionage, but certainly as damaging, if not more, than the recent WikiLeaks cables dump. Eikenberry, in particular, was fairly vocal about his discontent and the issues he foresaw about our occupation of Afghanistan, and the NY Times remained unscathed from releasing his diplomatic cables. Oops…maybe I shouldn’t have written anything. I’m sure George Will calling for Bob Woodward and the Editors of the NY Times to be tried alongside Julian Assange.
Continue reading …Regulators Concerned About What Comcast-NBC Merger Means For The Internet
December 12, 2010 No CommentHere’s hoping Waxman manages to plug up the worst loopholes before this deal gets rammed through, because they’re right: the future of the internet will be greatly affected by this merger . Is there no merger too large that the Justice Department won’t rubberstamp? .Although there has been a lot of talk in media circles about what Comcast’s ownership of NBC Universal would mean for viewers’ choice of news and entertainment, the two branches of the federal government reviewing the merger — the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission — are more worried about what the combination means for the online world. The Web is shaping up to be the No. 1 issue in a mega media merger today, much the way battles over program diversity and commitment to news loomed over media mergers in the past. “This isn’t the run-of-the-mill merger,” said Jeffrey Silva, a telecommunications and media analyst with Medley Global Advisors. “Online video is an emerging market and if someone gained power really early, it could stifle it…. That’s why there has been so much controversy.” The FCC and the Justice Department have different mandates, although there is considerable overlap between the two. Generally speaking, the Justice Department’s mission is to make sure a merger doesn’t diminish competition, and the FCC examines whether a deal serves the public interest. Rivals, legislators and watchdog groups fear that Comcast, armed with NBC content, will wield too much power in determining how the Internet develops as a medium to watch TV and movies. In addition to the NBC network and Universal Studios, Comcast would also get its hands on big cable channels including USA, Bravo, MSNBC and Syfy. NBC also owns about one-third of Hulu, the popular online video site. Congress and federal agencies want to slap conditions on Comcast, which provides cable TV to 1 in 5 homes and has 17 million broadband customers. The conditions would require Comcast not to withhold its own content — such as cable channels — from any potential broadband competitor or block rival video service providers from accessing Comcast’s broadband pipes into homes. This week, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), who is chairman of the House Energy Commerce Committee, sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Christine Varney, the assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, outlining the conditions he wants put on the merger. People close to the review process said Waxman’s proposals would probably be very similar to the final terms of the deal .
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Click here to view this media At least one Supreme Court Justice will be attending next year’s State of the Union address. Justice Stephen Breyer suggested Sunday that other justices shouldn’t let President Barack Obama’s criticism of the court keep them away from the annual speech. “My job, Chris, is to write opinions,” Breyer told Fox News’ Chris Wallace in a rare interview. “The job of 307 million Americans is to criticize those opinions. What they say is up to them. The words I write are carrying out my job under the law as best I can. That’s true of my colleagues.” “I’ll go next year. I’ve gone every year. I think it’s very, very, very important, very important for us to show up at that State of the Union because people today, as you know, are more and more visual,” Breyer said. “I’d like them to read, but they are visual. And what they see in front of them in that State of the Union is the federal government, every part. The president, the Congress, the cabinet, military, and I would like them to see the judges, too, because federal judges are also part of the government. I want to be there,” he said. During his 2010 State of the Union address, Obama criticized the court’s Citizens United decision which said that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts cannot be limited. “With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama said. “Well, I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps corrects some of these problems,” he added. While Democratic lawmakers cheered for the president’s remarks, Justice Samuel Alito could be seen mouthing the words “not true.” Weeks later, Chief Justice John Roberts said the address had “degenerated to a political pep rally.” “The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering, while the court — according to the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling,” Roberts said to University of Alabama law students. “That’s his opinion,” Breyer said Sunday. “He says what he thinks. I say what I think and what I think is what I said. I’ll be there next year.”
Continue reading …NBC's Andrea Mitchell this weekend named the Tea Party as her Person of the Year. Two others on the syndicated “Chris Matthews Show” disgustingly chose WikiLeaks' Julian Assange (video follows with transcript and commentary): read more
Continue reading …SNL: Obama’s Stockholm Syndrome, Embrace of Reaganomics and Turn to Full Birther
December 12, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media Looks like Saturday Night Live is getting in on the act with going after President Obama for caving and making deals with Republicans who insisted on keeping their tax cuts for the rich no matter how badly our economy might suffer for it. SNL had him claiming he was literally taken hostage for three days by the Republicans, saying he now suffers from Stockholm Syndrome and praising tax cuts for the rich as the “best part of the bill” after seeing the error of his ways in captivity. They then had him quoting Rush Limbaugh on job creation, knocking “San Francisco Nancy” Pelosi and saying the voters “overwhelmingly rejected Democrats and their San Francisco values and their class warfare politics.” They finished up with having him defend Bristol Palin and her loss on Dancing with the Stars, saying he’d be joining Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly on tour and finally going full birther on himself. It might have been funny if it weren’t so pitifully close to the truth and if Fred Armisen could do a decent Obama impersonation. That and Saturday Night Live desperately needing some better writers. If they actually wanted to go for some laughs, they should have had him calling in Bubba for reinforcements this week.
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Time magazine's Michael Duffy said this weekend that the liberal part of Barack Obama's presidency is probably over. Maybe more surprising, no one on the syndicated “Chris Matthews Show” – including the host – disagreed with him (video follows with transcript and commentary): read more
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Even after the economic crash and subsequent Wall Street reform, big banks have managed to maintain both a monopoly on derivatives trading and secrecy of its process. —JCL The New York Times: On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan. The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable — and controversial — fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential. Drawn from giants like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the bankers form a powerful committee that helps oversee trading in derivatives, instruments which, like insurance, are used to hedge risk. Read more Related Entries December 3, 2010 Joblessness Ticks Higher in November December 1, 2010 New Data Show Extent of Fed’s Free Money Programs
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New data have come to light that the Afghan police force, upon whose shoulders U.S. and British withdrawal is based, is experiencing an unsustainable churn that sees one-in-five police recruits bailing every year. —JCL The Guardian: Afghanistan’s police force, whose success and stability is crucial to allowing the government to withdraw British troops, is losing nearly one in five recruits every year, new figures reveal. Foreign Office statistics show that more than 20,000 officers from the Afghan National Police (ANP), the country’s main law enforcement agency, have left over the past year. The Foreign Office figures will cause concern in the armed forces, where the success of the police is seen as the basis for handing control to an Afghan government in 2014 and British troop withdrawal in 2015. Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said the figures were “worryingly high” and could play a significant role in determining when Britain can leave. Read more Related Entries December 3, 2010 Joblessness Ticks Higher in November December 1, 2010 New Data Show Extent of Fed’s Free Money Programs
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With ethnic divisions still etched into the memories of its citizenry, Europe’s youngest democracy, Kosovo, is holding its first parliamentary elections since it formally declared its independence from Serbia in 2008. —JCL Al-Jazeera English: Voters in Kosovo are going to the polls in the territory’s first parliamentary elections since its declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008, but there are widespread doubts that the vote will heal ethnic divisions. As polling stations opened at 7 am (06:00 GMT) there were already dozens of people queuing to vote in central Pristina, mostly the elderly and people voting before going to work. Sunday’s snap election comes after the coalition government of Hashim Thaci, the prime minister, failed a vote of no confidence on November 2. Read more Related Entries December 3, 2010 Joblessness Ticks Higher in November December 1, 2010 New Data Show Extent of Fed’s Free Money Programs
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