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.

Oligarchies are most effective when they work in the background, out of the public eye, getting their way by having political leaders carry out their bidding. The oligarchy usually prefers to use establishment academics and the media and the bond rating agencies to speak on their behalf but they seem to have become worried that those subtle, behind-the-scenes ways seem to have failed when it comes to raising the debt ceiling, forcing them to come out more in the open.

Wall Street has pretty much openly told the Republican party leadership that the kabuki theater had gone on long enough and to raise the debt ceiling. In a highly unusual move, a broad segment of the oligarchy sent an open letter to Obama and every member of Congress (though I suspect that the real targets were the debt-ceiling holdouts) that the ceiling must be raised.
[Read more…]

The second weekend of the Sarah Palin fan biopic The Undefeated saw the film being expanded to 14 cities from the original 10 but reporting gross box office receipts of just $24,000, a decline of 63% from the first weekend.

To the calculators! With apologies to Tbogg, who has been mocking chronicling the film’s performance so far (see here and here and here), but the above results mean a weekend average of $1,714 per city or $571 per day or $143 per show (assuming four shows per day) or 18 people per showing (at $8 per ticket).

I think it is safe to say that if you want to see the film, you need not bother about buying tickets in advance, unless they are showing it in people’s living rooms.

This must really hurt, you betcha. After all, the distributors carefully chose cities that are supposed to be friendly to her, such as Grapevine, Texas.

Which raises the question: Where are all the real Merkins who see Palin as the nation’s savior? Surely she has more fans than this? Why aren’t they showing her some love in return for the joy she brings to their lives?

I do not tend to follow micro-politics (who’s up, whose down, what the latest rumor is about this or that, how the polls vary from day to day) carefully because doing so not only consumes all your time but it prevents you from seeing the more important big picture. I prefer to focus on macro-politics, politics on the large scale and longer time frames. However, there are times when macro-political theories impact micro-political events and the debt-ceiling debate is one such case.

I have been writing about how the US is run by an oligarchy that is fronted by the Democratic and Republican parties. The issues that the oligarchy is united on (ones that financially benefit themselves) are agreed upon by the two parties and usually take place so quietly and behind the scenes that we are not even aware of it (much of the legislation passed by Congress and the regulations implementing them by the committees is of this form) or when it cannot be avoided becoming public (as was the case of the massive bailouts of the financial sector in 2008) is done with a grand show of bipartisanship and rushed through as matters of supposedly extreme urgency that gives the rest of us no time to participate in the process at all, let alone mount a protest.

The debt ceiling debate is another case where the oligarchy has been forced to emerge from the shadows and try to more overtly influence events.

So who makes up the oligarchy and how does it make its wishes known? The oligarchy is not a hierarchy or secretive cabal that issues orders. Such a crude system cannot be effective for long. It is a loose alliance of the top people in the business, financial, and media sectors, all of whom all share the same goal of enriching themselves at the expense of the general public. This tends to create a uniformity in general thinking, though it can differ in details. These people tend to move around in the same circles as top government officials so a lot of the oligarchy’s wishes are communicated informally. The rapidly revolving door by which top government and business officials switch roles is another mechanism to ensure uniformity in thinking. The oligarchy’s lobbyists, who pretty much have taken up residence in the halls of government and contribute heavily to congressional and presidential campaigns, also exert constant pressure to ensure that politicians know what they should do.

The major media (which is also owned by the oligarchy) also contributes when it interviews business leaders and selected intellectuals and reports their opinions which can then reach a wider audience. A lot of so-called ‘think tanks’ (The Heritage Foundation, The American Enterprise Institute, etc.) are also created and funded by the oligarchy, along with prominent university academics who are sympathetic to oligarchic interests (see the great documentary Inside Job for examples of the latter). The chair of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Secretary can always be relied upon to be reliable spokespersons for the oligarchy since they almost always have close ties with them and often emerge from their ranks and go back to them when their terms of office are over.

This is how an informal consensus becomes created about what the ‘best’ course of action (i.e., what benefits the oligarchy) is for any given situation and those who are outside this consensus can then be dismissed as radicals and extremists and ‘shrill‘.

When it comes to the debt ceiling, I wrote the following back in November of last year:

Despite Republican rhetoric about opposing the rising national debt, the oligarchy needs the government spigots to be kept open and so I predict the Republican Party will agree to raise the debt ceiling, all the while hypocritically wailing and gnashing their teeth at what a bad thing it is. It will be interesting to see how well their supporters respond to such a blatant betrayal of what they were promised.

It has indeed been interesting to see how this is being played out in the current debt ceiling debate. I did not pay too much attention to the day-to-day drama of the talks between Obama and the Republicans or worry about the US defaulting on its debt because I felt that the oligarchy was united in wanting the debt ceiling raised and thus it would happen. This is because a default would trigger a lowering of the US’s debt rating which would require it to pay higher interest rates on the money the government borrows which in turn would raise interest rates all round. Since it is a fairly good rule of thumb that interest rates are inversely correlated with stock prices, and the oligarchy is devoted to keeping stock prices high, I felt it was a no brainer that they would push for passage of a debt ceiling increase to prevent a steep stock market decline.

It looks like that is what is mostly happening. The stock market has not panicked yet (in fact, it rose somewhat the last week) and the yield on US Treasury bonds (a key predictor of interest rates) has remained pretty much stable for the month of July.

However, it has also become clear that some vocal elements of the Republican party (such as the Tea Party caucus) are not as yet quite adept at picking up the subtle cues that tell them what they must do and who the real bosses of the country are, and are balking even when those cues are translated for them by their party leaders in more direct terms. They seem to be true believers of the idea that raising the debt ceiling is a horrendous evil and not merely a fairly routine procedure that was made into a marquee issue simply to win votes in the 2010 elections.

Given this high level of obtuseness on the part of the Tea Party, the oligarchy has to be more direct in conveying its message and it is interesting to observe it coming out in the open and start cracking the whip.

Next: How the oligarchy speaks

In reading about the horrific tragedy in Norway, I was trying to think of how, even to a diseased mind, it would make sense to mow down a large number of trapped unarmed young people. How could you possibly think it would bring credit to your cause (whatever it is)?

I know I may be engaged in the futile pursuit of trying to make sense of the actions of someone who has to be crazy, but such people do not seem to be crazy in the sense of having no idea what they are doing. This guy was clearly a coldly calculating person, planning the murders with great precision.

So what is it that causes their calculations to go so awry in the one particular area of gauging the likely reactions of ordinary people to their actions? Why can’t they see that it will cause people to recoil in disgust?

As the debt-ceiling talks drag on, Democratic party supporters keep getting alarmed at getting regular reports that he seems to be willing to give away the store to the Republican crazies who are clearly losing the public relations battle, and keep wondering why he seems to be such a lousy negotiator.

It is important to bear I mind what I have said repeatedly. Obama and the Democratic party leadership are not trying to get the best deal from the Republicans. They and the Republicans agree on what they want to do (cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits and provide more tax breaks for wealthy individuals and corporations) because that is what their bosses, the oligarchy, want.

What Obama is trying to negotiate is a way to get all these things without completely alienating his party’s base. He will go as far as he can get away with. That is why all these trial balloons keep getting floated and then denied.

Those of us who follow politics closely, and think that it is important to do so for the future of ourselves and the nation and the world, tend to be frustrated by people who do not seem to care or whose understanding of politics does not rise above the most naïve and simplistic sloganeering (“Cut government spending!” “Get rid of government regulations!”, “All government is bad!”, “Lower everyone’s taxes!”, “Cut social services!”, “Eliminating foreign aid and waste will balance the budget!”). We wonder how these people, many of whom belong to the middle or lower-middle classes, cannot see that they are actually harming their own interests, by undermining the very things that make current their lives tolerable or even desirable.

Such ignorance about the reality of politics also makes them easy prey for those unscrupulous politicians who do know better but use these slogans to deflect attention from the things that affect almost everyone (such as health care, salaries and benefits, working conditions, and public and social services) to those highly emotionally-charged issues that directly affect only a small fraction of people in any tangible way (such as abortion and gay and gun rights) or are almost entirely symbolic (prayer in schools, ten commandments in public places, flag burning, etc.).

Why, we ask ourselves, don’t these people invest at least a little of the time that is devoted to Casey Anthony or sports to learning more about how society really works? One answer may lie in a disturbing new survey shows that half of America’s families are in a state known as ‘financially fragile’ in that they “would not be able to cope with an unexpected expense that required them to come up with $2,000 within 30 days” which is the amount of money and time that “reflects the cost of an unanticipated car repair, home repair, medical or legal expense.”

This is worrisome. It is not hard to imagine a situation where one might suddenly need $2,000. To know that you could not lay your hands on it even in 30 days must be very stressful. Financial counselors advise people that they should have six months income saved to cope with emergencies. This study suggests that this is completely out of reach for most people since $2,000 would cover only two weeks for a family that earns the median income.

Perhaps as a result of this, people may be too busy trying to make ends meet or worried about their immediate state of affairs to seek deeper causes. And when they do have some free time, they would rather escape into a fantasy world where they can forget their worries. So we have people choosing to spend their discretionary time in pursuits other than politics, seeking escapism. It used to be the case that during difficult financial times in the past, attendance at films and sports events rose. This may not be true anymore since the prices of these forms of entertainments have risen considerably, to be replaced by TV watching.

It is interesting that poor people have disappeared from our TV landscape. It seems to me that there are very few comedy shows nowadays that have central characters who are poor or working class, perhaps reflecting the fact that people don’t want to see their own lives reflected on the screen. Instead they want to see their lives as they hope it might become. For example, are there any contemporary equivalents of All in the Family, The Honeymooners, or Sanford and Son, all of which involved working class families living lives that were consistent with their incomes?

Even the shows that do not have rich characters show them having lifestyles that are absurdly extravagant. Some of the Friends, for example, did not have steady jobs or had jobs waiting tables and yet they lived in apartments in New York that would have been impossible on their income. In Married With Children, the father worked as a shoe salesman in a retail store and the mother stayed at home and yet they managed to live in a nice home. Is this why Americans are notorious for living beyond their means, living in housing that they cannot really afford and pursuing lifestyles that can only be supported by going into debt, because they think that this is how people who have jobs like they do should be able to live? Seinfeld may have been the exception in that era, with the title character living in a modest apartment, doing his laundry in a public facility, etc. (As should be obvious from the programs mentioned, I stopped watching regular TV about a decade or so ago so I may be wrong about the current state of affairs.)

In the US, it is possible that political activism is largely perceived as just another form of recreation that some people can afford to indulge in or choose to do so, while others need ways of entertaining themselves to take their minds off their worries. A case can be made that until the realities of politics whacks people upside the head, political involvement will not be seen as a necessity by enough people for them to want to get seriously involved.

The sudden fall of powerful people is an interesting phenomenon to observe, especially if they are old. Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak was seen as an invincible strongman, ruling his country with unquestioned authority. But when he couldn’t quell the street protests, in a matter of days he began to look, even when he was still head of state, like a confused old man who seemed to have lost his grip. This new perception of decrepitude further emboldened the opposition and undoubtedly accelerated his departure.

We are observing the same phenomenon with Rupert Murdoch. This arrogant man was as recently as a week ago viewed as a powerful business genius to whom the political and business elites bowed obsequiously, treating his every utterance as if he were an oracle. Now suddenly, he looks like an old dodderer who has ‘lost the plot‘ and does not seem to quite know what he is doing. Even the photographs that are now published of him smiling weakly give the image of clueless feebleness, and are causing the media to pile on.

Being photographed out with his personal trainer, with his jowly jaws, and spindly knees sticking out of his running shorts, the mighty mogul had very clearly aged. Then, those pictures of him alongside someone who could have been a matronly nurse in mufti in his silver-grey Range Rover showed him looking not just old but fragile, too. You could almost see the power seeping from him.

His performance at the parliamentary inquiry today further strengthened the impression of someone who seems to be losing his grip but it is not clear whether this was a charade, pleading ignorance of most things as a way of forestalling any attempt to place the blame on him.

Those who worked for people like Murdoch and stayed silent when they were still seen as invincible now feel freer to defect and spill the beans. People who would not have crossed him in the past, and would have sought to curry favor with him, are now showing some backbone. For example, the British political leadership of all parties had long been under Murdoch’s thumb. But now the new Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, who had been seen as a lightweight whose tenure could well have been brief, has seized on this issue to make his name, aggressively attacking prime minister David Cameron for his close association with Murdoch’s people, much to the delight of his party’s backbenchers who had been disgusted at the sight of their previous leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown toadying to Murdoch.

We should not underestimate Murdoch, though. Such arrogant people who are used to getting their way will, when faced with a real threat, stoop to anything to wriggle free. There are still enough people in Murdoch’s media empire who will try and protect him because their jobs depend upon being in his good graces. It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

David Sirota provides ten case studies of rich people who seem to be so completely oblivious to the raging and widening inequalities in the US and the resentment it breeds that the apocryphal story of a princess (wrongly attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette) who upon hearing that the poor had no bread helpfully suggested “Let them eat cake” immediately comes to mind.

One of Sirota’s examples is billionaire Charles Munger who, in a 2010 speech to University of Michigan students, said that the unemployed, the homeless and the impoverished, whose lives are being torn apart by the recession, should stop whining and instead should “Suck it up and cope.” Yes, those very words. Sirota also said that Munger “first lauded bankers as people who “saved your civilization” and then urged all Americans to bow down and “thank god” that the bailouts preserved the financial industry’s profits.”
[Read more…]

One of the interesting features of the current discussions involving raising the debt ceiling is how Obama keeps offering cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits as part of the deal. This does not surprise me because I have repeatedly said that the best chance for the oligarchy to cut these programs that they do not care about is when a Democrat is in office because then the defenders of these programs drop their guard, thinking that the president will defend their interests, not realizing that his primary goal is to serve the oligarchy.

Obama’s supporters seem to think that this is just a clever strategy on Obama’s part, that by linking it to some tax raises for the very rich, it will cause the Republicans to reject the plan, thus making them appear unreasonable. I disagree. Offering something in negotiations that you actually oppose on the assumption that the other side will reject the entire deal is very dangerous because there is always the small chance that they might accept and also because in future negotiations you cannot refuse to consider those proposals if brought forward by the other side.

Matt Taibbi argues persuasively that Obama does not want a progressive deficit deal. He actually does want to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow also has Obama’s number.