I've been watching your government shut-down, not to say melt-down, from afar with growing dismay. I have no wise words or advice to give you, and my words of comfort won't be of much help to you. In Israel, when things get bad, we tell each other "We got through Pharaoh, we'll get through this". It kind of puts stuff into proportion.
Nevertheless I thought some words of comic wisdom might bring some light relief. So here you are, my latest steal from facebook:
And some other google gleanings from the ineffable Maxine (and others). :-)
And to conclude, the fervent wish of all of us:
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A great start to the day. Thank you Annie!
ReplyDeleteThat first Maxine is wonderful!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the laughs, annie :-) I have to admit that I'm happy with the shutdown. Good. May it continue until the people on both sides who supposedly represent us learn how to spend our money.
The shutdown is mostly a charade. (I'm figuring that some people are really getting impacted by non-fake aspects of the shutdown, but "shutdown" doesn't really describe what's going on.)
ReplyDeleteThe debt ceiling thing is real. The establishment is wrong about a lot of things. This ain't one of them, folks. It will be very bad to get to the end of next week without a deal and if checks bounce Nov 1... wow.
If payments are in fact prioritized, and all the Treasury bond interest gets paid, in the meantime, the resulting government shutdown of stuff that is not paid will be "for realz" and very disorderly.
My estimation is that the damage to the Treasury bond market is happening already. This is twice now in short succession that the US has caused real pain on the world stage. Coupled with the whole money printing (er, I mean "quantitative easing") thing (which, when other countries do it, we call "currency manipulation"), and the fact that the epicenter of the financial crisis 5 years ago was New York, means the rest of the world is figuring out how to be less dependent on the US financial system.
The world has always said the US enjoys an "exorbitant privilege" when it comes to the dollar. I never understood this and figured it was more anti-American claptrap for years, until I really studied the financial system. Turns out the world is basically right. We may well find out what the loss of that privilege will entail.
Not to say that the Tea Party folks who are bringing the fight are not justified. In most ways I think they are. But folks who start a fight ought to know what the consequences are. Those who truly believe that the US can get through without raising the debt ceiling are deceiving themselves.
Until recently, there was a reason for this 'exorbitant privilege'. The US dollar was simply the strongest, most stable currency in the world.
DeleteThat has now all changed, and it is only tradition that keeps us in that place.
With the absurd, and rapidly-increasing debt this government has piled onto the citizens under the guise of 'humanitarian' programs. we are no longer in any better condition than any semi-developed nation.
We are shedding jobs in hard manufacturing, where America's wealth has been since the turn of the 19th century, and changing into services that are the first things to be dropped when hard times hit.
And they have hit, hard. Despite trillions more borrowed dollars thrown willy-nilly at the problem (which is always the dems first and last answer for anything) the economy in this country has not improved for any except the bankers, and the welfare recipients.
The middle class, which used to be the backbone, as well as the guts and muscle of America, is fading fast.
I see little chance, at this point, of things actually ever getting better.
Quite true, Dances.
DeleteThe thing is the economic fundamentals - the jobs situation - is a long cycle thing. To be sure, Obama hasn't helped matters, but it's bigger. It really got going after 2000 and is occurring all over the world, manifesting in different ways.
But as far as the dollar and the Treasury market go, the other thing we had was actual political stability. This too is now seen as being in jeopardy. The establishment is so dug in that any return to a more traditional interpretation of the Constitution and the enumerated powers of government will entail a pretty substantial disruption.
It's worth noting (especially given that this is annie's thread - Hi annie! loved the comic!), that, while Barack Obama wants to see America's role in the world fundamentally changed - rolled back - so does a substantial and influential part of what representation the Tea Party has in Washington. Rand Paul, I'm looking at you.
But it's not just Rand Paul. Many authentic, libertarian/conservative people - and people who don't (over) conceptualize politics (like I probably do), feel pretty much the same way.
Chinese publications are today calling for a "de-Americanized world". The weird thing is - that there are parts of Occupy, the Tea Party, and even some establishment Washington that are pretty much in agreement here.
Personally I disagree with this, and I think that a disorderly collapse of American power in the world will be a bad thing. Stability in the Middle East has been and continues to be important for US national security.
It was obvious after 9/11 that the status quo was unsustainable in the ME, and had to be changed wholesale - and it _would_ change, with or without us.
- Bush recognized this and had a plan to actively manage the change. It was sabotaged at home, was poorly executed abroad, and turned out to be a bridge too far in terms of what we could afford in blood and treasure.
- Obama recognized nothing, had no plan, says random shit - stands up his SecState to deliver wild ass ultimatums and walks away from it (pity poor Lurch). Seems to think that whole "ME stability" thing is overrated.
No sane country can, at this late hour, avoid planning for a disorderly devolution of American power around the world. Last I checked, Israel is a sane country.
Lewy, as ever, thank you for your very well-informed and thoughtful reply (or replies).
DeleteNo sane country can, at this late hour, avoid planning for a disorderly devolution of American power around the world. Last I checked, Israel is a sane country.
For foreign nations watching America's disintegration (OK, that's too strong a word but I can't think of another right now) it is a very discombobulating moment and gives rise to a lot of fear and great concern. Israel in particular, being a tiny country in a hostile neighbourhood, American support has been vital to our survival. Not necessarily economic support any more, because Israel's economy is probably one of the strongest in the world right now. I mean political support and the knowledge that military support is there if we would ever need it. That knowledge and understanding is now gone. Nothing is certain any more.
The same goes for countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who while not exactly friendly have always looked to America for support, but who are now turning to Russia in the absence of America for arms, to sell their oil to and for political support.
This is causing huge instability and is an exceedingly dangerous state of affairs not only for Israel but also for the rest of the world.
Politically, while still aligned with America, there are reports that Israel too is looking east, to China. I think this is terrible because I don't believe the Chinese can be trusted to support Israel in a crunch. All they are interested in is power, they don't seem to have much of a moral compass, and the Arab countries have a lot more oil, money and power than Israel.
As for the economy, Israel's economy is outpacing the rest of the world according to the IMF, which is nothing short of miraculous when you consider what an economic basket case Israel was until the mid-1980s.
However, we are definitely suffering a lot of collateral damage from the American crisis, as the Jerusalem Post's veteran economic reporter Pinchas Landau writes just this last Friday. I think you, Lewy, will find this article particularly interesting.
And if it's affecting us, with our super-strong economy, I hate to think what this is doing to the rest of the world. Destabilizing our neighbours is never a good idea.
annie, always a pleasure to chat.
DeleteI read the article you linked on Bernanke and interest rates - while I largely agree with the thinking, and the facts are incontrovertible, I think the story can be overplayed. If you look at the trends in interest rates, they have been decreasing globally for a long time - look at the chart for Israel. The financial crisis precipitated the drop to (near) zero in the US. Bernanke didn't have much of a choice if he wanted to avoid full on Depression.
What he has done hasn't brought prosperity but it staved off a deep dive. Would it have been better to go through a deep trough / full scale global liquidation? Maybe - and maybe the resulting recovery would have been strong. Reasonable people may disagree on this matter, it's full of conjecture. My answer is, I don't know, and by "I don't know" I mean people who are 100% sure either way lack a compelling case in my eyes.
In any case I don't think most any global central banker type would have acted much different - at least through 2010 or so. (All the bond buying after the first tranche was really pretty questionable in my mind - if 2008 was too soon to swallow all the medicine all at once, 2011 would have been a fine time to ween off of the pain killers. Now we're addicted to an endless flow of liquidity to the tune of $80 billion a month). All the same, I doubt we'd be out of the ZIRP woods by now even if (and maybe especially if) the "quantitative easing" had ended sooner.
I'll note that in addition to Summers and Yellen, one of the names floated for Fed Chairman was Stanley Fischer. So I don't think Israeli monetary policy thinking is too far removed from American, actually.
With respect to persistent unemployment, I'm tending to think the fundamental nature of the economy has changed. Read some stuff by Tyler Cowen. The future is scary for the individual of median talent, and the sad thing is the median person in 2035 will likely be dependent on government for subsistence, because that median individual will be unlikely to be able to contribute in the super high tech, utterly complex economy of 2035. Maybe only 20% of people globally will have what it takes to do any damn thing at all except stay out of the way of productive people.
It doesn't surprise me at all that Israel's economy is strong. Israelis will be exceptionally well positioned in this economy, actually, due to the emphasis on education (equal to the Chinese and Japanese), a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation (equal to the Americans), and a "we are so f**ked if we don't get off our ass and work hard" attitude which is without parallel in the developed world. So there's that. I do expect Israelis to be "disproportionally represented" in the new economy. Power to them!
Pretty sure I've told this one before: when I was in Hong Kong on business in the early 90's, I watched a Jewish couple from New York (presumably - yeah, going by accent / cultural stereotypes here, I didn't ask) haggle with a Chinese shop owner over a watch. It was an experience. I think Israel can do business with the Chinese. But it's just business. The Chinese can be trusted to look out for nobody but the Chinese. Makes them predictable - they're good like that. But if you have your wits about you and are decent negotiators and watch everything like a hawk, you can do business.
Weirdly, it's probably evident to the Gulf states and Israel that they share strategic interests in opposing Iran. "Delicate" doesn't begin to describe this one - a kind of "diplomacy that dares not speak it's name". A competent US foreign policy and State department would be invaluable in helping to coordinate that one. Oh well... I hope some back channels exist.
Thanks for your thoughts on the shutdown everyone (and finance in general).
DeleteLewy, politics does indeed make strange bedfellows. While I realize that untold sums of American treasure has kept the ME from all-out war, I'm really sick to death of being extorted. It never stops, and it's never enough.
What will it take for Washington to be good stewards of our money? We keep raising the debt limit, while the corruption, fraud, and incompetence run rampant. No one that I know of wants to default on our debt, but there HAS to be a way to put the brakes on. Quite simply, the middle class can't afford to do "business as usual".
The Tea Party has served to draw attention to the ridiculous and the unacceptable. It's too bad they consistently overplay their hand; the "million vet march" garnered only a few thousand, and the truckers shutting down Washington sounded good, but was overbilled. However, the Mad-As-Hell folks had an opportunity to vent some steam, and that's a good thing.
Winners of the week? Military veterans. Losers? National Park employees. The exposure of the militarization of parkies was a solid body punch to the current regime.
Rand Paul must have felt his ears burn when I mentioned him - he published this piece in Foreign Policy yesterday.
DeletePretty hawkish stance on Iran. The Paul-bots went nuts on him in the comments. Good sign, I believe. It seems that Rand Paul wants to be within the bounds of the mainstream in his foreign policy - improving his electability.
You're a savant, lewy ;-)
DeleteI agree with you, Rand is more realistic than his dad. Ron Paul's foreign policy ideas were the main reason I couldn't support him even though I was on board with so much else that he believed.
Hi annie! I love your comic wisdom! :))
ReplyDeleteThe shutdown is bad Kabuki at best. The "Debt Ceiling"? When does the US hit the legislated limit? 31 Dec 2012 you say? Guess we're 9 and 1/2 months past hitting the limit and just now getting all excited ( again! ) about Obamessiah's refusal to negotiate?
ReplyDelete