One sign of a smoothly functioning oligarchy is when everyone is so in agreement with what needs to be done that they don’t even have to discuss things.

David Corn writes about how this manifested itself in the debt ceiling vote. Despite all her public talk about how she disliked the deal, Nancy Pelosi came through for the oligarchy.

The interviewers have this weird idea that if people are really insecure about their jobs, they will work better. Damon lets them have it, but nicely. Listen to his very last words.

Matt Taibbi continues to tell it like it is about the latest deal.

The Democrats aren’t failing to stand up to Republicans and failing to enact sensible reforms that benefit the middle class because they genuinely believe there’s political hay to be made moving to the right. They’re doing it because they do not represent any actual voters. I know I’ve said this before, but they are not a progressive political party, not even secretly, deep inside. They just play one on television.
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The Democrats, despite sitting in the White House, the most awesome repository of political power on the planet, didn’t fight at all. They made a show of a tussle for a good long time — as fixed fights go, you don’t see many that last into the 11th and 12th rounds, like this one did — but at the final hour, they let out a whimper and took a dive.

We probably need to start wondering why this keeps happening. Also, this: if the Democrats suck so bad at political combat, then how come they continue to be rewarded with such massive quantities of campaign contributions?
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It strains the imagination to think that the country’s smartest businessmen keep paying top dollar for such lousy performance. Is it possible that by “surrendering” at the 11th hour and signing off on a deal that presages deep cuts in spending for the middle class, but avoids tax increases for the rich, Obama is doing exactly what was expected of him?

Thanks to reader Vincenzo for pointing me to this post by Matt Stoller. Stoller, a Democratic party insider, even uses the term oligarchy, saying, “When you look at Obama’s governing role, he is clearly a servant of American oligarchs.”

If enough people start talking like this, Obama and the Democratic party leadership could be in real danger of their supporters seeing through their act as being people who want to do the right thing but being continually thwarted by the mean old Republicans.

In order to try and repair relations with their base, watch for them to throw them some goodies in the form of policies on social issues that the oligarchy does not care about. The recent decision by the Department of Health and Human Services, starting August 1, 2012, to “require health insurance plans to cover all government-approved contraceptives for women, without co-payments or other charges” is one such step. The repeal of the absurd “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military is another. We may even see efforts to repeal of the awful Defense of Marriage Act.

All these are very good things that should have been done long ago. But we should see them for what they are, attempts to buy the allegiance of their base while they continue to be subservient to the oligarchy.

In a post titled The myth of Obama’s “blunders” and “weakness” Glenn Greenwald tries to put to rest the excuses put forward by Obama apologists that he was forced against his will into this deal. In particular, read his email to one such apologist John Cole laying out the case

Meanwhile economist Jared Bernstein explains what is actually in the proposed deal and what is likely to happen down the road if it passes.

The political theater that is US politics is unfolding in ways that should be drearily familiar by now.

Once again, Obama and the Democratic leadership have ‘reluctantly’ and with ‘great regret’ been ‘forced’ to give up every thing they say they value because those nasty Republicans and their Tea Party caucus threatened to bring the country to ruin. They had to ‘compromise’ on what they really, really wanted to do (raise taxes on the rich and close tax loopholes) in order to ‘save the nation’.

Right.

The next phase of the drama is for the Villagers and the Very Serious People to hail this ‘bipartisan compromise’ deal that averted a supposed catastrophe. Those liberals and other Democratic supporters who are critical of the terms of the deal will either express amazement that their party’s leaders are such rotten negotiators (see Robert Reich and Paul Krugman) or urge everyone to rally round the party because the alternatives are so much worse. All the Democratic party needs to do is to raise the specter of Michele Bachmann in order to get their frightened base to fall in line and support whatever sellout plan the party proposes.

Matt Taibbi warns about another huge gift to the oligarchy, the corporate tax holiday (also known as the ‘tax repatriation holiday), that is going to be snuck into the deal somewhere along the line. Also watch for the other shoe to drop in this deal as it seems as if the ‘bipartisan commission’ that is part of the deal has been given triggers that will lead to cuts in the social welfare net in the coming year.

Oddly enough, although the Democratic party’s base should be the ones demanding that this deal be scuttled, in reality it is only the Tea Party which has the gumption to defy its party’s leadership. Of course, if they do and the deal goes down in flames, the Democratic party leadership will only use the subsequent ‘crisis’ as an opportunity to be ‘forced’ give the oligarchy even more goodies.

I am not by nature a cynical person. But when it comes to predicting how politics in the US will play out, I have found that you can’t go far wrong in picking the most cynical view to be the right one.

The debt ceiling brinkmanship is a manufactured crisis where none needs to exist. It is becoming clear that for a small but determined group within the Republican party led by the Tea Partiers, the national debt and deficit financing, rather than being simply another option in a nation’s fiscal policy, has become an obsession, a dangerous ogre that must be slain now. They are adamant about not raising the debt ceiling, and seem to think that forcing the US to default could be a good thing, because it would create chaotic conditions that could lay the groundwork for their ultimate dream, a balanced budget constitutional amendment.

But what should not be forgotten is that despite the Tea Partiers, it was always clear to me that the debt ceiling would be increased because the oligarchy wanted it and the fact that there was until yesterday still no public agreement between the two parties’ leaderships and the White House suggested to me that this so-called crisis was a purely artificial one, manufactured to advance other goals.
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For those who like to know the details of how much money the US government takes in (and from where) and how much it spends (and on what), the US Treasury publishes a wealth of figures.

In particular you can see the activity in its ‘checking account’ on a daily basis. Thursday, July 28th is the last day for which the figures are available and we are told that the government started the day with about $74 billion, took in $112 billion and spent $132 billion, leaving it at the end of the day with $54 billion.

You can see what is causing concern if you look at the last column that gives the fiscal-year-to-date figures. (Note that in the US, the fiscal year starts on October 1 and ends on September 30 of the following year.) It shows that the government started the fiscal year with $310 billion, and for the year so far had receipts of $9,108 billion and expenditures of $9,364 billion. So we have had a drop of $256 billion in just ten months, an average burn rate of $26 billion per month, which is why we are so close to emptying the account.

But the monthly figures can fluctuate wildly so the average rate is not a good predictor of what will happen in the short term. (Caution: When reading the monthly table, note that for some reason monthly deficits are entered as positive numbers and surpluses as negative.)

Following the mass killings in Norway that, on a per capita basis, inflicted a death toll that was greater than that of 9/11, the government is treating it as a criminal matter and prime minister Jens Stoltenberg said that “I hope and also believe that the Norway we will see after will be more open, a more tolerant society than what we had before.”

Yes, his response is to want to make the country more open and tolerant.

Oh, those silly Norwegians. Don’t they know that that the proper response to a mass murder is to declare it to be a terrorist act, proclaim a war on terror that involves bombing and invading countries whose populations have the same religion as the killer, harass your own population by subjecting them to all manner of intrusive surveillance to make sure they are not up to no good, suspend constitutional rights by detaining people indefinitely without trial on the flimsiest of suspicions, create kangaroo courts to guarantee convictions and secret prisons overseas, and torture and kill those in custody?

I wrote earlier about how IKEA’s sole US factory was treating its workers really badly (see here, here, and here).

Thanks to reader Fu Dayi, I learn that the factory is going to unionize. What helped in the unionization efforts was the public shaming that IKEA received which was damaging its reputation as a good employer.

This should lead to better working conditions.

While many of us wonder what might be the long-term ramifications of a government default and shutdown if the debt ceiling is not raised by August 2, for many people this is not merely an academic exercise but a real and immediate danger.

Recall that about half of American households are ‘economically fragile’ in the sense that in an emergency they could not lay their hands on $2,000 within 30 days. They live from paycheck to paycheck. What will happen to such households if government employees get furloughed and don’t get paid or to similarly situated seniors if the social security checks don’t go out? How will they pay their rent and mortgages?

This should be a sobering reminder that politics is not a game. Ordinary people get hurt.