Wednesday, June 29, 2011

But the Greeks have some really good bread

In Greece their Parliament needs to pass another bill actually implementing the massive giveaway to the rich by tomorrow in order get the $17 B loan to last until September. Even after the entire $157B is released to them the debt will still need to be restructured as Greece will have given up everything and be in no position to repay the ever ballooning debt. Violence is escalating as the outrage of the Greek people is increasing with the realization of what is being done to them sinks in.

“This is bad, the country will be sold for a piece of bread," said Dimitris Kostopoulos, a 48-year-old insurance salesman who was protesting Wednesday. "There were many other more appropriate alternatives to this. Parliament has once again betrayed us."

The IMF is now involved itself in the US as well. They issued this warning today, “These [repercussions] could take the form of a sudden increase in interest rates and/or a sovereign downgrade if an agreement on consolidation does not materialize or the debt ceiling is not raised soon enough,” the IMF press release said, and it added: “These risks would also have significant global repercussions, given the central role of US Treasury bonds in world financial markets.”

The IMF isn’t really afraid of the US defaulting on its debt, this is what they live for. The only risk they see is that the US is big enough that if we decided to stop being robbed by these parasites that could set a bad precedent for the rest of their victims. If interest rates in the US were to skyrocket as they have in Greece there would be a real clamor to do something about it.

The fact is that we could stop borrowing money overnight by simply raising the tax rates on the rich back up to what they were ten years ago. If the government checks stopped coming then people who have been voting Republican would start paying attention and the IMF (who work for the rich) don’t want that. 

This was why we had the huge drama last Christmas to preserve those tax cuts, we would be running a surplus now and well that just wouldn’t do. You can ask why Obama didn’t just push that through and the answer is that people just aren’t ready to believe it no matter how simple the math. If the checks stop coming then they will ready to believe. 

But, don’t get your hopes up, more likely the Republicans will blink. They will probably accept some sort of face saving budget cuts that don’t really cut anything and acquiesce to some tax breaks being cut. In this case I’m rooting for the Tea Baggers, a real crisis would give Obama, the Democrats and some of the less insane Republicans no choice but to act in our national interest. I’m not holding my breath for such a good outcome, “national interest“ means something very different to these people than to the rest of us.


John said...

Obama didn't have to PUSH through anything last December to END the Bush tax cuts. Those tax cuts were to expire, on their own, and the Democrats still had control of the House, the chamber that had to affirmatively RENEW them if they were to continue.

The tragedy was that Obama PUSHED his own party's caucus to accept the "deal" he made with the GOP which included renewal of the Bush, job-annihilating tax cuts. (We do remember "jobless recovery" don't we?)

Then Obama solemnly, if outrageously, vowed to fight to end those very same cuts in 2012. As far as I can tell they are set to expire at the end of December of that year. That is, AFTER the election, so we can't even see if THAT promise is fulfilled before voting.

Of course, the effects of his Dec 2010 "deal," alone, is enough to worsen the comatose economy. Thus we must dangerously "hope" for the biggest clown to be nominated by the GOP for any chance of Obama being re-elected.

The current squabble is THE test for a disappointing, infuriating disaster of a "Democratic' president. IF he passes that test, then he better start concentrating on repairing ties with the "professional," and "amateur"

John Puma

prairie2 said...

I've been letting some of the right wing talking points go through. Most are obvious to anybody how far from reality they are, I will respond if it seems necessary. Anybody else care to comment?

macnow said...

You have been doing a fantastic job. Funny how just common sense facts and statements riles up so many. I think you are really hitting your stride now.

I had a roomate who got paid by one of the local orange county republican think tank / action organization / etc. to agitate online. This guy got like 10 bucks per post to go pollute on progressive websites.

I watched in horror, that fat unemployed slob (who was a smalltime trust funder) post replies in our shared office (many times in his underware / robe mix). For 1997 this was still relatively new I would assume. It still blew me away what was happening.

This was when I realized how bad the shit had really become.

Just keep that picture in your head anytime on of these anonymous pukes end up posting here.

Oh and keep the "mind bleach" close at hand, cause you don't want the image to last to long, just long enough to realize what most of these weasels are.