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No posts for the next two weeks because I'll be on vacation.
I was reading serious news when my eye caught a link to this story. Honestly, I was. Serious news.
Theo van Gogh was shot dead last Tuesday. And waddyaknow? There's a backlash:
The General (Glut, not Jesus'), points us towards this interesting, albeit totally unsubstantiated fun stuff from the Financial Times:
India and Russia have reportedly been selling US assets, as well as petrodollar-rich Middle Eastern investors.It's good to see this stuff right after the election. This way the electorate will learn that only stupid fucktards vote for Bush. That lesson might have been obscured if China had waited a month or two. Of course, it's nothing but a rumor.
China, which has $515bn of reserves, was also said to be selling dollars and buying Asian currencies in readiness to switch the renminbi's dollar peg to a basket arrangement, something Chinese officials have increasingly hinted at. Any re-allocation could push the dollar sharply lower and Treasury yields markedly higher.
Jonathan Chait is, of course, best known for establishing the metrics with which shrillness can be gauged. Shrillness is measured in Chaits, with one Chait (Ch) being of equal shrillness as this sentence of reference:
On a personal level, I despise Bush with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.The sentence above is a fairly accurate replica. The original sentence of reference has been transported to Sèvres, France, where it will be stored in an absolute vaccum at the Pavillon de Breteuil, home to the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures.
Dear rural/exurban Christian conservative voters: Congratulations on your election victory. By going to the polls in unprecedented numbers Tuesday, you overwhelmed an enormous Democratic turnout and returned President Bush to office, along with a number of very conservative senators. Now Bush is preparing to repay your efforts by moving immediately on your highest priorities: a flat tax and privatizing Social Security.
Oh, wait. You didn't particularly hanker for those things, did you? The election is so far in the past now that it has receded into a hazy memory. But as I recall, you voted for Bush because of his position on one issue — he opposes gay marriage — and on the general principle that he is a godly man who shares your values. Now Bush has decided, conveniently enough, that those values are identical to those of his wealthy financiers. (Go to any meeting of the Club for Growth, a group of affluent, libertarian-leaning Bush backers who mostly live in Washington and New York City. I'm sure you'll find them, like victorious Okla-homophobe Sen. Tom Coburn, deeply concerned about rampant high school lesbianism in the Sooner State.)
Bush is claiming the election as a mandate. There are, however, a couple of ways to interpret that. The conventional meaning is that a candidate gained office by promising to do a certain thing. Ronald Reagan in 1980 had a mandate to cut taxes and bolster the military. Bill Clinton in 1992 had a mandate to raise taxes on the rich, expand healthcare, reform welfare. Those were the central promises of the two campaigns.
Bush uses the word somewhat differently. As he told reporters Thursday, "I earned capital in the campaign — political capital — and now I intend to spend it."
What that means is that all you small-town folk voted for him not to pursue an agenda but just because he embodies family values. That gives him political power that he can use for purposes utterly unrelated to the source of his popularity. Sure, Bush mentioned some of these purposes in the campaign. But the references tended to be perfunctory and in code. Start with taxes.
Though Bush talks about tax "simplification," he doesn't seriously believe it. He has littered the tax code with complicated new provisions, including a ludicrous corporate tax bill stuffed with special provisions for sausage producers, foreign dog-race gamblers and the like. Simplification really means making the tax code flatter — i.e. less progressive. He doesn't care about making taxes simpler; he just wants rich people to pay a smaller share of them. There's little evidence to suggest small-town Ohioans flocked to the polls so they could have a portion of George Soros' tax burden shifted onto themselves.
On Social Security, Bush was just as evasive. Here, again, the tiny minority of people who closely follow this understood his code words. He wants to divert Social Security taxes into private accounts. Because those taxes pay for the benefits of current retirees, his plan would require cutting benefits or driving the national debt even higher.
Bush, of course, went to great pains to distance himself from these unpleasant facts. In 2001, he appointed a commission that proposed three plans to partly privatize Social Security, but he declined to embrace the panel's findings. A few weeks before the election, a New York Times Magazine story reported that Bush told GOP donors he planned to push privatization after the election. John Kerry's campaign circulated a nonpartisan study showing what the benefit cuts in one of the commission's plans would entail. Bush's spokesman dismissed the charge that he favored privatization or benefit-cutting as a "false, baseless attack."
Here's what Bush said Thursday: "I had asked [Daniel Patrick Moynihan], prior to his passing, to chair a committee of notable Americans to come up with some ideas on Social Security, and they did so. And it's a good place for members of Congress to start."
Got that? Last week, if you had described Bush as advocating the commission's plans, he would have denounced you for promoting a hysterical lie. Now they are at the top of the list of things he's saying he was elected specifically to enact.
Meanwhile, what about opposing gay marriage, the one mandate Bush might legitimately claim? Earlier this year, Bush barely lifted a finger in support of a constitutional amendment banning it. (Compare this to the furious arm-twisting he performs to get moderates to back his tax cuts.) If he has a mandate to do anything, it's to bring up the amendment again. However, he's said nothing about doing so, and nobody expects him to.
No surprise there — it's hardly in the Republican Party's interest. If gay marriage is banned everywhere, what's going to bring all those heartland conservatives to the polls next time?
Not the analysis, the reaction. As in everything European, get it at the fistful.
“If the distance expands between the two sides of the Atlantic I think that many people in Europe, including myself, will see a need for a closer foreign policy and security cooperation ... This debate (about Norway joining the EU) could be introduced if the US continues to pursue a policy in which little importance is given to its alliance with Europe,” he told Norwegian public television station NRK.
I loath the stupid fucktards that make up the American electorate
[Former candidate Felber, flanked by his family and supporters, steps up to the podium in the bright autumn sunlight. Cheers and applause are heard.]
My fellow Americans, the people of this nation have spoken, and spoken with a clear voice. So I am here to offer my concession. [Boos, groans, rending of garments]
I concede that I overestimated the intelligence of the American people. Though the people disagree with the President on almost every issue, you saw fit to vote for him. I never saw that coming. That's really special. And I mean "special" in the sense that we use it to describe those kids who ride the short school bus and find ways to injure themselves while eating pudding with rubber spoons. That kind of special.
I concede that I misjudged the power of hate. That's pretty powerful stuff, and I didn't see it. So let me take a moment to congratulate the President's strategists: Putting the gay marriage amendments on the ballot in various swing states like Ohio... well, that was just genius. Genius. It got people, a certain kind of people, to the polls. The unprecedented number of folks who showed up and cited "moral values" as their biggest issue, those people changed history. The folks who consider same sex marriage a more important issue than war, or terrorism, or the economy... Who'd have thought the election would belong to them? Well, Karl Rove did. Gotta give it up to him for that. [Boos.] Now, now. Credit where it's due.
I concede that I put too much faith in America's youth. With 8 out of 10 of you opposing the President, with your friends and classmates dying daily in a war you disapprove of, with your future being mortgaged to pay for rich old peoples' tax breaks, you somehow managed to sit on your asses and watch the Cartoon Network while aging homophobic hillbillies carried the day. You voted with the exact same anemic percentage that you did in 2000. You suck. Seriously, y'do. [Cheers, applause] Thank you. Thank you very much.
There are some who would say that I sound bitter, that now is the time for healing, to bring the nation together. Let me tell you a little story. Last night, I watched the returns come in with some friends here in Los Angeles. As the night progressed, people began to talk half-seriously about secession, a red state / blue state split. The reasoning was this: We in blue states produce the vast majority of the wealth in this country and pay the most taxes, and you in the red states receive the majority of the money from those taxes while complaining about 'em. We in the blue states are the only ones who've been attacked by foreign terrorists, yet you in the red states are gung ho to fight a war in our name. We in the blue states produce the entertainment that you consume so greedily each day, while you in the red states show open disdain for us and our values. Blue state civilians are the actual victims and targets of the war on terror, while red state civilians are the ones standing behind us and yelling "Oh, yeah!? Bring it on!"
More than 40% of you Bush voters still believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. I'm impressed by that, truly I am. Your sons and daughters who might die in this war know it's not true, the people in the urban centers where al Qaeda wants to attack know it's not true, but those of you who are at practically no risk believe this easy lie because you can. As part of my concession speech, let me say that I really envy that luxury. I concede that.
Healing? We, the people at risk from terrorists, the people who subsidize you, the people who speak in glowing and respectful terms about the heartland of America while that heartland insults and excoriates us... we wanted some healing. We spoke loud and clear. And you refused to give it to us, largely because of your high moral values. You knew better: America doesn't need its allies, doesn't need to share the burden, doesn't need to unite the world, doesn't need to provide for its future. Hell no. Not when it's got a human shield of pointy-headed, atheistic, unconfrontational breadwinners who are willing to pay the bills and play nice in the vain hope of winning a vote that we can never have. Because we're "morally inferior," I suppose, we are supposed to respect your values while you insult ours. And the big joke here is that for 20 years, we've done just that.
It's not a "ha-ha" funny joke, I realize, but it's a joke all the same.
Being an independent candidate gives me one luxury - as well as conceding the election today, I am also announcing my candidacy for President in 2008. [Wild applause, screams, chants of "Fel-ber! Fel-ber!] Thank you.
And I make this pledge to you today: THIS time, next time, there will be no pandering. This time I will run with all the open and joking contempt for my opponents that our President demonstrated towards the cradle of liberty, the Ivy League intellectuals, the "media elite," and the "white-wine sippers." This time I will not pretend that the simple folk of America know just as much as the people who devote their lives to serving and studying the nation and the world. They don't.
So that's why I'm asking for your vote in 2008, America. I'm talking to you, you ignorant, slack-jawed yokels, you bible-thumping, inbred drones, you redneck, racist, chest-thumping, perennially duped grade-school grads. Vote for me, because I know better, and I truly believe that I can help your smug, sorry asses. Vote Felber in '08! Thank you, and may God, if he does in fact exist, bless each and every one of you.
[Tumultuous cheers, applause, and foot-stomping. PULL BACK to reveal the rest of the stage, the row of cameras, hundreds of unoccupied chairs, and the empty field beyond.]
So it’s done. We have four more years of George W Bush to look forward to. A quick tour of the American blogs shows a few trying to pull some sort of moral victory from this election, but the truth is that they’ve lost everything. Not only has the president finally won the majority denied to him in 2000, but as a reward for his mismanagement and incompetence, Democrats have actually lost seats in both houses of Congress, including losing the Senate Minority Leader. For all that the vote is close, the outcome is a stunning defeat in terms of real access to power. There is no longer a meaningful opposition in the US able to moderate the power of a president who needs no longer worry about reelection.
At best, this means that in 2008 the Republicans will have to run on a deeper quagmire in Iraq, no meaningful victories in the so-called war on terrorism, another huge hike in the American public debt and all the new messes Bush can create. But, let’s be honest. That isn’t going to happen. No one will be called to account. The American electorate, for a number of reasons, simply will not hold this administration to account. They did not do so in 2002, they haven’t this time, and there is no reason to think they will in 2008.
Reaction in the French political scene is muted, but definitely not happy.
The French foreign minister is doing his job by being diplomatic about it, talking about a “new dialogue” with the administration. The French right in general is taking a similar tone. From Chirac, it’s all about “renforcing Franco-American friendship.” Alain Madelin is, once again, France’s most visible apologist for the American right. “Of course I’m happy with this outcome. […] Confronted by hyperterrorism and the treat of Islamic fascism, we need American power to be engaged.” Bush has also received the support of Jean-Marie Le Pen: “I believe that it is important for the whole world that America, an imperial power with crushing responsibilities, have an experienced man as its leader.”
The rank and file of the mainstream French right wing parties has, however, expressed clear support for Kerry over Bush. Former foreign minister Hubert Védrine believes this election reveals “a large and enduring gap in comprehension between the American people and the rest of the world.” Alas, this is only true of about half of the American people, and that half would no doubt agree entirely.
The French left, of course, is not so diplomatic today. The Communist Party is calling Bush “the candidate of excessive warfare, of unilateralism and of American hegemony.” For Green Party MNA Noël Mamère, this is “a dark day for democracy, for peace and for the environment.”
The Socialists are a bit less apocalyptic. They are doing what I hope politicians all over Europe start to do, and turn the Bush election into a reason to vote for the European constitution. Jack Lang: “This is very bad news for the world and for peace. Bush will be even more miltant, aggressive and imperialist than ever. This why Europe must be a real force, a counterbalance. More than ever, we must vote ’yes’ to the European constitutional treaty.”
François Hollande, leader of the Socialists, and François Bayrou, the president of the right-centre UDF party are echoing this sentiment: “Europe must be strong by comparison to an America that, in any case, will try to assert its vision of the world.”
I couldn’t agree more, and I hope that George W Bush is turned into the poster boy of the “Yes” campaign across Europe. He’s one of the few figures people agree on enough to create real majorities for the constitution.
We’ve had a number of hits in the last day from Americans googling “immigration to Europe” or similar queries. For a sizeable group of people who voted against Bush, this election is an unambiguous sign that they are completely alienated from a nation bent on transforming itself into something far from what they thought their countrymen stood for. They are disaffected, and they are turning to Europe and to Canada for answers.
In the past, Europeans turned to America when their governments went mad. We owe it to them to return the favour.
[italics mine, j.e.]
Let’s face it. It’s not Kerry’s fault. It’s not Nader’s fault (this time). It’s not the media’s fault (though they do bear a heavy responsibility for much of what ails our political system). It’s not “our” fault either. The problem is just this: Slightly more than half of the citizens of this country simply do not care about what those of us in the “reality-based community” say or believe about anything.
They don’t care that Iraq is turning into murderous quicksand and a killing field for our children. They don’t care that the Bush presidency has made us less safe by creating more terrorists, inspiring more anti-American hatred and refusing to engage in the hard work that would be necessary to make a meaningful dent in our myriad vulnerabilities at home. They don’t care that he has mortgaged our children’s future to give trillions to the wealthiest among us. They don’t care that the economy continues to hemorrhage well-paying jobs and replace them with Wal-Mart; that the number without health insurance is over forty million and rising. They don’t care that Medicare premiums are rising to fund the coffers of pharmaceutical companies. They don’t care that the air they breathe and the water they drink is being slowly poisoned and though they call themselves conservatives, they even don’t care that the size of the government and its share of our national income has increased by roughly a quarter in just four years. This is not a world of rational debate and issue preference.
It’s one of “them” and “us.” He’s one of “them” and not one of “us” and that’s all they care about. True it’s an illusion. After all, Bush is a millionaire’s son who went to Yale and Harvard and sat out Vietnam, not even bothering to show up for his cushy National Guard duty, and succeeded only in trading on his father’s name and connections in adult life. But somehow, they feel he understands them. He speaks their language. Our guys don’t. And unless they learn it, we will continue to condemn this country and those parts of the world it affects to a regime of malign neglect at best—malignant and malicious assault at worse.
Given the media’s talent for pandering to their lowest common denominator, the things that have driven us crazy about their past pathetic performance are bound to get a lot worse. Most of us—readers and writers of this web log and peoplelikeus-- derive an awful lot of benefit from being Americans. We owe it to our better selves, and though it sounds horribly clichéd, to our children-- not to walk away from this battle. I will admit, however, it’s pretty damn hard to see through this fog just where to turn before we march.
It appears that capital is gleeful at the re-election of the Shrub. And why wouldn't it?! [Fuck long term growth. The dividend tax will not be raised. - j.e.]
What I want to know is whether capital is going to be gleeful next week when the Treasury Department tries to begin raising $51 billion. Let's see what global capital's appetite is for infinite US debt. I suspect the Bank of Japan will again be a major buyer.
The Bush administration announced Wednesday that it will run out of maneuvering room to manage the government's massive borrowing needs in two weeks, putting more pressure on Congress to raise the debt ceiling when it convenes for a special post-election session.
Treasury Department officials announced that they will be able to conduct a scheduled series of debt auctions next week to raise $51 billion. However, an auction of four-week Treasury bills due to be completed on Nov. 18 will have to be postponed unless Congress acts before then to raise the debt ceiling. . . .
In its announcement Wednesday, Treasury said it will sell $51 billion in new securities next week including $22 billion in three-year notes on Monday, $15 billion in five-year notes on Tuesday and $14 billion in 10-year bonds on Wednesday.
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Hey, there is still an economic world out there, and things continue to get uglier and uglier for 2005.
First off, factory orders in the US are down for the second straight month.
Factory orders fell 0.4 percent in September, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. This is the largest decline in factory orders since April.
The drop was unexpected.
Economists had been forecast factory orders to rise 0.4 percent, according to a survey conducted by CBS Marketwatch.
August orders were revised lower to a fall of 0.3 percent compared with the initial estimate of a 0.1 percent decline.
This is the first two-month decline in factory orders since Nov.-Dec. 2002.
Second, the dollar headed southwards after a few days of stability.
The dollar weakened on Wednesday as dealers shrugged off the relatively quick resolution to the U.S. presidential election and turned attention back to the currency's weak fundamentals. . . .
Analysts had expected the dollar to get a near-term bounce in the event of a swift, decisive election result, and Kerry's concession relieved some of the uncertainty hanging over the market.
But although analysts had warned that any dollar relief rally would be fleeting and probably modest, it has proved even more shallow than most had anticipated.
Third, retail gasoline prices were up again last week, now a national average of $2.034/gal. Prices are now in their third week over $2/gal. Over the last four weeks they've averaged $2.024/gal.; the all-time four-week high set back in May and early June was $2.042/gal.
Finally, US distillate stocks continue to fall even as production ramps up, down 17 million barrels from this time last year. Most importantly, stocks fell in the Northeast, the region most dependent on heating oil. We're well outside the range of average and going in exactly the wrong direction for mid-fall.
But I'm sure George W. will keep us all safe and secure. No worries.
Over at Lawyers, Guns and Money, Scott Lemieux gets the sentiment exactly right:
If it is called for Kerry, I project that i will sip the bottle of 12-year old Bowmore I got at the duty free in Montreal.Unfortunately, if a definitive call is made, I'll still be at work. Damn those time zones! Who ever invented those?
If it is called for Bush, I will project that I will drink everything else in my liquor cabinet.
Theo van Gogh was a film maker, interviewer and columnist (his three main accomplishments among a host of other things). He was very outspoken, and his views can best be described as social libertarian. He received death threats the way other people receive bank statements.
"I sing the praise of Hollandaise, A sauce supreme in many ways. Not only is it a treat to us When ladled on asparagus, But I would shudder to depict A world without Eggs Benedict."
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"Ignorantia non est argumentum."
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