One Problem with the Media: Robert Reich on How the Search for Ratings Degrades Discourse
This piece was brought to my attention by John Cochrane.
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A Thought on Evan Bayh and Partisan America
by Robert Reich
RobertReich.org, February 16, 2010
Not long ago I was debating someone on television. I thought the discussion was going well until the commercial break when a producer said into my earpiece “be angrier.”
“Why should I be angrier?” I asked him, irritated that he hadn’t appreciated the thoughtfulness of debate.
“That’s how we get channel surfers to stop and watch the program,” the producer explained. “Eyeballs are attracted to anger.”
At this point I lost my temper.
The incident came back to me when I heard about Evan Bayh’s decision to leave Congress because he felt it was becoming too partisan. The real problem isn’t partisanship. Bold views and strong positions are fine. Democratic debate and deliberation can be enhanced by them.
The problem is the intransigence and belligerence that has taken over Congress and much of the rest of the public — a profound distrust of people “on the other side,” an unwillingness to compromise, a bitterness and anger disproportionate to issues being discussed.
Anger makes good television, but it’s fake and it teaches Americans the wrong lessons. Anger also can win elections (Senate Republicans haven’t given Obama any votes because they’ve been eyeing the 2010 midterms since he took office, hoping for a rerun of 1994), but partisan anger is just as fake, and it undermines the capacity of our democracy to do the public’s business.
By the way, I was on CNBC this morning, and the subject of discussion was Bayh’s decision. No producer prodded me to be angrier but Larry Kudlow introduced the segment by saying that I’d be “duking it out” with Steve Moore, who writes editorials for the Wall Street Journal. And when it came for us to discuss the gridlock in Congress, Larry continuously interrupted, saying the reason for the gridlock was Obama’s lefti-leaning agenda.
When this is almost all the public sees and hears about public issues, it’s no wonder Americans begin to think everything is an angry shouting match. Americans stop listening to each other. We retreat into small ideological bubbles and talk only with people who agree with us. We forget how much we have in common, and how important it is to get on with the task of making the nation better.
February 28th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
I read here a hint of Andy’s “The Parable of the Tribes,” to the extent that if one side decides to make the debate a hate- and lie-filled shouting match (read Newt Gingrich in the early 1990′s), then the other side has only two choices: refuse to play and get run over, or play the same game, which, stated another way, is “a selection for lies and hate.”
February 28th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
I hesitate to post since I abhor censorship, but I feel that I should give you folks a heads up.
You’ve lost, the great unwashed have figured it out, and they want no part of your hopeychangey nonsense…
Mission Accomplished.
February 28th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Welder said,
It can reasonably be said that we’ve all lost, Welder, washed and unwashed. But I am actually not quite certain that you have figured it out.
Larry
March 1st, 2010 at 8:51 am
Welder, I see you’ve adopted the clueless, need to go back to school, Sarah Palin line as a point of pride. Even Bill O’Reilly realizes this. I assume the right wing will win a few in the mid-term elections this 2010, but I do not think they will win the majority either in the House or the Senate. If they do, then this country will be heading the wrong way faster than I think it is.
I think the major problem with the Democrats is they are letting the Republicans set too much of the agenda. Whenever a true debate happens such as Obama’s meeting with the Republicans a few weeks ago, the American people get to see that the Republicans basically just regurgitate talking points ad nauseum. Even CPAC realized this and the straw poll selected Ron Paul who is the only Republican candidate from 2008 who didn’t deny evolution or even global warming and actually wasn’t even allowed into the debate. I disagree with much of Ron Paul’s position but at least he is mostly reality based in his reasoning.
March 1st, 2010 at 11:07 am
Robin, I think you’re whistling past the ballot box. There’s a tsunami coming in November; the majority of the country now sees Obama as I have always seen him, an empty suit pushing a far left agenda. As I have said here previously, you folks have put all your hopes in a fatally flawed vessel and it’s now coming apart.
If the lessons of VA, NJ and MASS were lost on you, you’re not merely clueless, you’re in denial…
The majority of the country now thinks the country is headed in the wrong direction and it’s not because of any failure of Obama to get his message out or to control the agenda.
The people have gotten the message loud and clear; and they don’t like what they’re hearing.
I hope that the Dems decide to force through their “healthcare reform” against the majority will of the populace.
The backlash will be the stuff of political legends…
March 1st, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Welder, I think you are misreading the tea leaves. The problem in Virginia is the Democratic party ran a very weak candidate and the Republicans ran a reasonably strong candidate. The same in Massachusetts and that was somewhat close. Scott Brown isn’t a knee jerk Republican like most Republicans. If he were, he would lose his seat in the next election. As for New Jersey, my recollection is that the Democratic candidate Corzine had some corruption charges that torpedoed him although that race was fairly close as well. If Chris Christie acts too much like a knee jerk Republican, he will probably lose in his next election too.
I see you believe in hope and change though. I do too. Let’s see who’s hope is closer to the results in the upcoming midterms. Like I said, I believe that the Republicans will gain some seats in the upcoming midterms, but the Democrats will probably still hold the majority in both houses.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:51 pm
We have our conversations here, mostly in the spirit of searching for truth. Every once in a while, a comment comes in that is not really so much about content but about revealing the true spirit of the person speaking. Welder’s comment here is one of those occasions.
For Welder, he now shows us, the words are not a way to speak some truth about the world. They’re just a means to assume a posture. Welder’s posture is about chest-thumping. He’s like those figures in some gory video games who jump on the bodies of their victims, or do a celebration dance for having slain them.
Welder, I see you.
Welder’s words are not to be engaged on the level of their supposed truth value. That’s irrelevant to the man. We are simply to behold the joy that he takes in finding an occasion in which to make this dance of a hateful spirit.
For a while, I’d taken you as better than that.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Interesting perception, Alex. Surely there’s some truth to that.
But I also believe that Welder’s beliefs ARE important to him, and that when he makes an assertion, that assertion has some meaningful to him.
So when Welder says that there’s going to be a tsunami sweeping away the Democrats this fall, I expect that at some non-trivial level Wleder DOES believe that this is going to happen, and the imagining of that actual outcome is an exciting one for him. Maybe so that he can dance that dance over his fallen victim, but for whatever the reason Welder I think sincerely believes there’s going to be this tsunami.
Now, the conventional wisdom is that there’s going to be some non-trivial loss of numbers in the House. Welder’s seems to be saying it’s going to be a lot worse than that. I’d like to know just what it is that Welder is saying, put into clear language. If Welder is just saying that the Democrats are going to lose something like 35 seats– well, then he’s just putting forward the conventional wisdom. That’s what our liberal champion, Nate Silver, is predicting. And he thinks the Democrats’ position is potentially still a strong one. He sees the situation in the country –regarding Obama and the Democrats and the Republicans– as being not great but far from desperate. As do I.
But the very way Welder does his dance suggests that he thinks it’s going to be much worse for the Democrats. Nate Silver still has the Democrats as the dominant power. Welder is saying that he’s in a position to dance over our prostate bodies.
So I’d like to ask Welder: are you serious about this tsunami prediction of yours? If not, why entitle yourself to this hateful dance that Alex has observed? But if you ARE serious about this prediction, exactly what is it that you’re predicting this tsunami will amount to.
You talk as if you are so terribly confident of this “Victory” of us hateable people, you seem to think it’s in the bag. I don’t know how you come by that kind of confidence in judging such a complex landscape, with so many moving elements. I think the spectrum of possible scenarios is enormous, from a disaster for the Democrats (perhaps the public will truly sour to the Democrats and turn power back to this terrible Republican Party) to a disaster for the Republicans (perhaps the party self-destructs over the next decade)
But whatever the source of this great confidence of yours, just how many seats is it that you’re confident that the Democrats will lose this coming November in this tsunami you’re predicting?
March 1st, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Robin – I’ve read the spin that the Dem talkers have attempted to put on NJ, VA and MASS. They didn’t sound very convinced so I wasn’t. Chris Christie is attempting to throttle back the out of control spending in NJ. I will also be watching him closely.
Alex – Bah, you know zip about my “spirit”. And while I grok the movie reference, you don’t “see” me. And I’m not much of a dancer.
Andy – I’m not interested in dancing, my focus is stopping the Obama plan to “fundamentally change America”. And that’s what the tea party movement is all about; much of it’s membership is composed of the independents who put Obama into office and they don’t like the “change” they’re now seeing. This is still a center right country and the Dems heavy handed attempts to force legislation on us that the majority doesn’t want has galvanized a contingent of the populace that doesn’t normally take much of an interest in politics. The back room deals and political payoffs they’re had to utilize have further delegitimatized their position. The paradigm has now changed and even though I suspect Pelosi will still expect her members to walk the plank and pass “healthcare reform”, there are already steps being taken to challenge it on a state by state basis if that happens. Indeed, any candidates the tea partiers support for office will be expected to back a repeal effort in that event. More social engineering and less individual freedom runs contrary to the tenets upon which this country was founded. If taking an adversarial stance to Obama’s vision of a hopeychangey America makes me a “chest pounder”, then guilty as charged.
If Obama does not moderate his hard left turn and continues on his present course to force legislation on a majority that clearly does not want it, I expect Repubs will regain control of the House with a real shot at a slim majority in the Senate.
But, as you know, I didn’t think a naif with skeevy connections could become president. I was wrong in that instance, but the Dems don’t have Bush to demonize this election cycle so I like my prognostications this time better.
I like to think that the rest of the country is just a year or so slower than some of us on the uptake…
March 1st, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Your description of Obama seems to me so deluded that I marvel that you can hold it in the face of all that’s visible. What has most characterized Obama in terms of policy has been his cautiousness. He’s done no more than the political force of half the country would easily reach a consensus behind. In many areas, he’s done less. His moderation has been extreme. To attempt to do what a mainstream consensus has been wanting to do –actually, to do a fair amount less than the liberal consensus would find optimal– and the characterization of Obama as this agent of radical change –this guy who shrank from taking over the big banks, as was done with the Savings and Loan crisis– your characterizing this guy as such a fundamental radical gives some hint about just where you diverge from reality.
I don’t get it: you’re a smart guy, at least smart enough to be able to put a picture together with the thing. How can YOU buy this folly about Obama being so radical. Do you think the Democratic Party –which represents in general more than half the American people– is in itself “Radical”?
If so, then you’re a hell of a patriot, to hate half your country.
If not, then how can a smart guy like you buy this nonsense?
And once you see that some folks have been selling you nonsense –calling Obama “socialist,” calling this modest program of rules and subsidies a “government takeover of health care”– so many lies. From wall to wall. And once you see this one about Obama being such a radical force, to take America off its rightful course in a fundamental way BY ENACTING A HEALTH CARE PROGRAM THAT LARGELY OVERLAPS WITH WHAT A BIPARTISAN TEAM (HOWARD BAKER AND ANOTHER BIG REPUBLICAN FIGURE STOOD BEHIND IT) PROPOSED. Once you see how profoundly the picture of things that you’re being sold differs from what is plain right in front of your face, then I would think that a time of reflection would be called for, combined with a long-term effort to discover the sources of one’s errors and to develop habits of perception and of thought that would make it harder for me to be manipulated by hateful fear-mongering lies.
Th
March 1st, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Nope, I don’t hate anyone; your guy has simply started a national argument with his plan for the government to take over 1/6 of the nation’s economy and he’s losing it. That does not equate to “hate”, it simply means that we have a difference of opinion. If you’d like to see some real hate in action, I can offer you some links to some Bush protests; you’ll find nothing remotely similar in the tea party movement.
If that “modest program of rules and subsidies” is so innocuous, then why does a majority of the country oppose it? Oh, that’s right, it’s the insidious lie machine of the right, and once again, we dumb rubes are just buying them by the bucket full…
We simply can’t afford more entitlement programs and bigger government. That reality is becoming clearer by the day. It’s time to draw a hard line. What might appear as “moderate” to you looks like a government power grab to us.
And we mean to stop it (in a non hateful way, of course)…
I really think it’s you folks that need to do some reflecting; I’m going to spend my time making certain my country doesn’t become a super sized version of Greece…
March 1st, 2010 at 5:12 pm
The problem is, Welder, you seem to be one of those that can’t tolerate uncertainty. (See the exchange about that in the thread above.) Or at least that’s my guess about why it is you read the poll data so one-sidedly. The public’s attitudes about the stuff in the bill and about the bill and about what they want Congress to do, form a far more ambiguous picture than you suggest. The Democrats have for sure done a terrible job selling their bill, but actually a majority of the country support what is actually IN the bill, but they just don’t what is and is not in the bill. What most people know about this bill is that it was ugly in the making, and then there’s a whole swath of the country consisting of people like you who believe also sorts of weird things you’ve been told.
But there are some signs that the Democrats have turned a kind of corner. It looks to me about 70 percent likely they’ll be able to improve their position with the American people pretty substantially in the next nine months till the election. It could work out a draw, or it could favor the Republicans if the economy is still in the toilet or if the Democrats do not begin to fight the darkness of which you are the soldier, presumably unwitting that it is darkness you serve.
But there are also some plausible scenarios of a real comeback by the Democrats.
If the economy improves, and/or if Obama can continue to play the game (or fight the fight) as well as he has this past month since the State of the Union –in this month, since the Massachusetts election, the Democrats’ position has improved tremendously– then I would think the Democrats are likely to be reasonably strong going into the elections.
But there are some big uncertainties about how it all will play out, uncertainties about the economy, for example, and about the effectiveness of the new and stronger, more confrontative Democratic posture and strategy.
So neither of us should be counting chickens that really we don’t know enough to know –with ANY degree of certainty– they’ll hatch.
You ever see that film of the NFL running back who’s speeding down the field with no one in his way and then begins his celebration dance when he’s just getting inside the ten and with all the celebratory way of holding the ball he loses control of the ball and it becomes a fumble that the other team recovers at the five?
The Greeks had a word for that kind of thing. The gods are not fond of it. They even had a word for the punishment that the gods send down upon humans who get taken over by that kind of thing.
March 1st, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Well, I certainly hope Obama gets his “healthcare reform” victory.
For the Dems, it’ll be a Pyrrhic one.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:40 am
The Obama administration is wrong. The modern Republicans have alredy demonstrated they are themselves Really Bad for America. They won’t even trot out their great ex-president, noir dare to. Their only hope is to appear not as bad as the Democrats.
Welder may have something to cheer him on, maybe.
If America does, it surely is not in either political party.
So ?
What I think Welder does not know, I think, or even care, is what would the Republicans would do for the millions who are falling out of the system
and not health care alone.
JUST REMEMBER, ALL THIS DISASTER TOOK PLACE WHILE THE REPUBLICANS
CONTROLLED THE CONGRESS AND THE WHITE HOUSE.
IT IS CONTINUING DOWNHILL UNDER THE DEMOCRATS, SO THOSE WHO CHEER THEM ON ARE, TO ME, JUST AS SUSPECT AS WELDER.
I TELL YOU WHAT WELDER, LET’S JUST TROT OUT GEORGE BUSH
TO SHOW THE WAY !
I KNOW . . IF YOU FEEL YOU ARE IN A PROTECTED CLASS . .
IT’S O K; RIGHT ?
March 2nd, 2010 at 9:38 am
This “disaster” has been years in the making, and there is ample bipartisan blame to be laid.
Putting in place another massive entitlement program during a time of economic malaise is financial suicide.
The Dems plan to push it through because they hope that yet another giveaway to the dependency class will boost their fortunes in November. And of course they know that once they put another redistributive program in place, it’s nearly impossible to undo.
The rub for them is that the self sufficiency class is providing the bulk of their funding, and we’re simply going to stop picking up the tab for a government that seems incapable of curbing their appetite for our money.
I don’t claim to be “protected”, I’ve been paying my own way since I was sixteen and I see no need to stop now.
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:45 am
Interestingly, Robert Reich is a prominent and very interesting figure in Part 4 of the BBC documentary I have discussed recently in other threads here.
http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=5948
http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=5923
Please do not ask me to attempt to summarize his participation.
Larry
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Welder, what is this about putting in a new entitlement program during a time of economic malaise is financial suicide? Wasn’t Social Security put in during such a time. It all depends on how it is paid for. Hence, my desire is for it to be paid with taxes on income.
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:36 pm
What did the Republicans do to put on the brakes and attempt to turn it around. Ho ! ho ! They only gave it a push.
I’m for the Traditional America I grew up in. Neither party has demonstrated they have a clue OR don’t care and don’t give a _____!
I think that more the truth. There’s nothing wrong with two parties; there’s a whole lot wrong with their people.
And those who cheer them on ? I wonder about them too !
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Robin – It’s financial suicide because with the threat of massive new entitlements and taxes hanging over the small businessman’s head, he’s just not going to hire or expand. And it’s those businesses that are going to bring us out of the doldrums, not the government spending borrowed money in an effort to buy votes.
Social Security was originally meant as a retirement supplement, not as a retirement plan in toto. But, of course, like all redistributive schemes, it is now locked in as the single source of income of a rapidly burgeoning dependency class.
Obama may not be a genius, but he knows that the more free stuff he delivers to those on the dole, the more votes he can deliver to his party.
But it’s not the 30′s, and the folks that are actually picking up the tab for all this redistribution are better informed and less prone to tolerate the dictates of an overreaching federal government.
If you need to see our future if we continue down this progressive primrose path, just take a look at current day Greece. Sorry, I’m not interested, and I have a lot of company.
If the Dems want to continue to govern against the majority will of the people, they will reap the whirlwind.
There’s a taxpayer revolt in the works, and it’s long overdue.
We may not be able to control the beast, but we can starve it.
March 2nd, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Welder said,
From my reading you are too optimistic, hoping for that to happen anytime soon, Welder.
I was born in 1944. It is my strong recollection that people commonly understood when I was growing up that Social Security was meant to be a retirement plan in toto–not a rich retirement, of course, but decent. It was after that, perhaps starting in the late 1970′s or early 1980′s, that the government started propagandizing the idea that Social Security was never intended to be enough and that people really ought to invest in private retirement plans. That allowed the government to get away with using false new cost of living increase calculations to to minimize the annual Social Security cost of living increases, making it easier to steal a lot of money from the Social Security Trust fund and use it for general purposes. It was and is a terrible failure of a trustee’s fiduciary responsibility.
Larry
March 2nd, 2010 at 7:09 pm
And no, the main reason is not that small businessmen are worried about Obama. It is that financial institutions are currently having way too much fun playing in huge markets with huge amounts of money to want to bother with the administration of diddly-sh*t loans to small businesses.
Larry
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:26 pm
The issue of taxation is very complex. The people of New Jersey are saddled with onerous local property taxes and a state government that can’t seem to get enough money. People are justifiably riled by that situation, but should they let their anger about local taxation spill over to the national scene? Maybe so, but conservative voters had 20 of the last 28 years (12, Reagan/GHW Bush and 8 of GW Bush) to enact their vision of fiscal conservatism and the people they elected botched it. They substituted military spending and corporate welfare for the Dems’ entitlements — what’s the diff? At least with entitlements, real people get something.
Conservative thinkers always want to act as if there is no history and we’re starting with a clean slate. But the legislative failure of conservatives is due to the fact that they can’t get their ideological house in order. Their views are internally inconsistent and incoherent. The U.S. health care system violates every freemarket principle in the book and needed to be addressed and fixed at least a generation ago.
Fiscal conservatives were chicken little-ing about the “financial suicide” of the national debt in the early 90s and, now, gee whiz they’re doing it again about health care.
Welder said, “And that’s what the tea party movement is all about; much of it’s membership is composed of the independents who put Obama into office and they don’t like the “change” they’re now seeing.”
Like a good conservative rhetorician Welder brown-noses the tea party as being the wise salt of the earth, but those folks in the middle have mostly been the fools and tools of the Right. The Right is drunk on the power it’s had in (mostly) holding sway over that middle, and now wants to simply ride Obama out — so that it can have infinitely more opportunities to botch its flawed, simplistic “vision” of fiscal conservatism. Fiscal conservatism will always fail because it scapegoats “government spending” and SUSPICIOUSLY ignores the elephant in the room which is large corporations, multinational corporations, Wall Street, the oil industry, the vast byzantine legal system, outsourcing, etc.
Welder’s arguments are disingenuous.
March 2nd, 2010 at 9:39 pm
William Meyer said,
Now please don’t go messing with my legal system, William Meyer! From a New York perspective I think it still manages to reach a good outcome now and again, on the local level at least, perhaps because it is so byzantine.
I have to say also, especially since I don’t recall having seen you here before, thank you for that great post, William Meyer. I anticipate using some of your language, with link attribution here, in a private blind email broadcast series that I carry on sporadically.
Of course I might have to use some of Welder’s language also, as the lead-in. And no Welder, it’s not to make you look like a fool with your buddies, either. As Dr. Schmookler said, you’re obviously a smart guy. So I hold out hope for your understanding of the way things actually work to change as you absorb additional new facts.
Larry
March 3rd, 2010 at 8:42 am
Thanks Larry. I’ve appreciated your comments too. Feel free to quote me. Onward and upward!
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:56 am
Larry – my point would be that as long as the small business owner lacks clarity as to what redistributive burdens the current regime is going to place on him, he’s -not- going to be in any hurry to grow his business and create a real “stimulus”.
As for small businessmen being concerned with Obama’s wealth redistribution proclivities, that’s merely a fact from my standpoint, since that’s the world in which I live. But perhaps the few dozen business owners with which I communicate on a regular basis are the exception and not the rule. I’d be intrigued to know how many of the worthies here actually own or run businesses as opposed to taking a paycheck from the government in some form. I suspect that factoid would speak volumes about the majority opinion here.
I know that most of the folks in Obama’s orbit have never held a private sector job; their outlook seems to be quite similar to the local perspective.
You may indeed be correct about my take on SS; you are my senior by some years and indeed that perception may have changed. I, personally, have never looked upon SS, or the government for that matter, as my primary caretaker.
Bill – Yes, taxation may be a complex issue to you but to me, not so much. Like I’ve said, I’m a simple guy, but I know that you can’t continue to take from the producers to fund an ever rising number of non producers. At some point the producers will have had enough. Happily, we’ve just about reached that point. I’m not nearly as certain that we are locked in Tytler’s cycle as I was a year ago.
As far as “brown nosing”, I find that amusing since I’m part of the tea party movement. The concept paints a mental picture that I usually attach to “progressives”, so you gave me a chuckle…
I really don’t know why the tea party folks have you in such a tizzy, it’s just democracy in action after all…
Larry – Fear not, I’m feeling more bemused today than foolish and looking forward to absorbing those additional new facts as the Obama regime moves forward with reconciliation in order to pass their “healthcare reform”. Obama himself has said that it can’t be done with a simple majority, that it would make the country ungovernable. I think perhaps for once he’s right, but if I’m wrong, we should see these numbers improve shortly…
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
March 3rd, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Welder, I am sure you are correct that many small business owners are concerned with “wealth redistribution.” I understand that’s a very popular concern these days. But my point was, that concern is simply moot under the present circumstances. In most cases if a small business owner can’t get a loan then he/she can’t expand his business even though he/she might like to do so. It is traditional for small businesses to rely on loans for expansion. Currently and for the foreseeable future small business loans are relatively unavailable no matter to what political party the small business owner might belong.
You might want to find a way of checking that impression, Welder. lol My observation and experience is completely otherwise, to the point where your saying that makes me darkly suspicious that your purpose in saying it might be to try to mislead people who have held and/or are holding private sector jobs to switch parties. lol
May I respectfully suggest that you take another look at William Meyer’s words about the tea partiers. I might not have said “brown-nosing,” as that suggests an insincerity which may not be applicable in the case of any particular individual. But whether or not consciously, it truly does appear that you and the others known as tea partiers are “the fools and tools” of the mega-corporations and their so-called “elite”–which is often another way of referring to the Right, i.e, those who have the accumulation of wealth as their highest personal value, whenever we don’t happen to be using the term to refer to anything about sex. For what it is worth, this is not theoretical at all to me. I am deeply and personally acquainted with the type.
By the way, I wonder whether you might happen to be from New Jersey by any chance. I understand the situation in New Jersey that William Meyer referred to, with a higher proportion of people on public support, it seems, than perhaps anywhere else in the country. I don’t reside there now myself, but knowing people who live there I know that the New Jersey situation can affect one’s perspective on people, for the worse.
Larry
March 3rd, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Larry – the folks I know, and granted we’re talking a relatively small slice of the business community from which to draw anecdotes, aren’t having problems obtaining financing. There’s ample money to be had if you’re creditworthy, so I don’t know where you’re getting your info. Many of us could grow our businesses and hire employees if needed without the necessity of incurring further debt. Adding staff is a costly process, and there’s just no sense in doing so until there’s some certainty as to what those costs will be and whether the hire is cost effective.
The smart money is sitting on theirs.
And actually, less than 10 % of Obama’s cabinet has held a job in the private sector:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Less-than-10-percent-of-Obama-cabinet-has-private-sector-experience-73911212.html
I’d still be intrigued to know if there was a comparable number here. It would explain much.
And no, I’m not in NJ although I have to pass through or over it occasionally on my way to NY.
I’m actually in the Shenandoah Valley, not very far from our NSB host.
It looks as though Obama is going to waterboard the rules of the Senate in order to pass “healthcare reform”.
The coming tea party tsunami should provide us all with hours of entertainment.
March 3rd, 2010 at 2:53 pm
You talk “tsunami,” Welder, but when pressed on what you are predicting, you didn’t really venture much further than the conventional wisdom about these off-year elections. You said the Republicans would take over the house. That actually requires only a change of some 40 seats. The conventional wisdom is in the mid-to-high 30s. Are you really only saying “Hey, a handful more than what most people are expecting”? That’s your “tsunami?”
March 3rd, 2010 at 3:53 pm
It’s more of a feeling than a forecast, kind of like what the air feels like just prior to a big thunderstorm. I recall the mood of the country during the war in Vietnam, and I haven’t seen the populace that energized until recently; even Clinton’s tenure didn’t generate this type of angst.
Charlie Cook’s a pretty smart guy, and considered totally non partisan; I think he’s feeling it too…
As the 2010 campaign begins to unfold, many smart and talented people are making varying predictions about the outcome of the midterm elections. Most analysts agree that Democrats will suffer losses, at least giving up the 16 House seats that the president’s party generally loses in first-term, midterm elections. That’s where the agreement tends to end.
In my view, Democrats have been in a free fall since summer, and unless something significant changes, they are headed toward the losses of the magnitude we saw in the midterm elections of 1958, 1966, 1974, 1994, and 2006. One difference between this year and 1994 and 2006 is that the party in power started developing serious problems more than a year ahead of the election.
Although no two cycles are exactly alike, history suggests that the indicators we’re now seeing mean that the Democratic majority in the House is in grave danger and that Senate Democrats could easily see their ranks shrink to 52 or 53 seats. Today’s signs are much like those that led me to predict in August 2006 that “unless something dramatic happens before Election Day, Democrats will take control of the House. And the chances that they’ll seize the Senate are rising toward 50-50.”
Source:
http://www.cookpolitical.com/node/5874
And that’s even before you factor in the coming taxpayers’ revolt.
Ain’t democracy grand…
March 3rd, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Welder said,
Earlier when you referred to “Obama’s orbit,” I assumed you were referring to everyone who voted for him. Hence my response. Several of us here have had long careers in the private sector, and, for what it’s worth most every adult I know who is not retired is either working in the private sector or running his or her own business. Obviously I must be retired–I am–or I wouldn’t have time to be doing this. And I depend heavily on my Social Security retirement benefits, which I earned with the sweat of my brow! Well, a lot of it was white collar professional work, but it was work even so, trust me! The hours were long even. Those who want to pretend now that Social Security retirement benefits are suddenly some sort of welfare are wrong-headed. Perhaps you will say it was silly of me to have believed I was going to get what I thought I was paying for. The reason you may have to pay taxes now so that I get my money is that the government decided to steal my money to avoid raising taxes, which it would otherwise have had to do, to pay the military mainly. Sorry, but if you are paying general income taxes now to pay for my Social Security payments that ought to be coming out of a now non-existent trust account it is nothing to do with me. I have absolutely done what I was supposed to do and owe no one any apology. Furthermore, while I do not spend a lot of time complaining about it, I do, when I think about it, feel cheated that the amount is not what was promised. Unfortunately a huge number of people have worked hard at relatively low-paying jobs all their lives, jobs that left them no money for investing, and they also have a reasonable expectation of some retirement on Social Security. Now you seem to want to threaten that expectation rather than having the government cut back on military spending. Lucky for me I have the AARP on my side, I guess.
Having looked around the topic today, I see that there is a debate over whether small business lending is down because there is a credit crunch or because business is down and small business owners are wary of borrowing. I suspect both are true. This article is the source of my statement earlier in this thread about big financial institutions not wanting to bother with small business loans. I do not recall whether or not I have mentioned this article here before. Matt Taibbi is highly regarded by many as a brilliant analyst of the economic crisis. He recently appeared with Robert Kuttner on Bill Moyers Journal.
“Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle”
by Matt Taibbi, Posted Feb 17, 2010, Rolling Stone
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/32255149/wall_streets_bailout_hustle/print
Larry
March 4th, 2010 at 11:26 am
Re: Social Security, the pension benefit is approximately 40% of a worker’s earnings, and has been so for the life of the program (since 1941 when the first SS checks were issued). For lower income workers, it is slightly more; for upper income workers, slightly less. SS is intended to be one of three sources of retirement income, the other two being company pension of some sort, and a person’s personal savings.
It is a commonplace that many employer pensions have (a) been converted to or replaced with defined contribution (e.g., 401) plans as opposed to defined benefit plans, and/or (b) reduced in scope or even just cut off over the past generation or more. And personal savings, while certainly key to one’s future after working, became problematic when, beginning in the late 1970′s, the average real wage of a large majority of Americans stagnated or declined.
An old professor of mine advising students who wanted to know how a household could make ends meet and still accumuate savings, said, “Go find someone who earns 10% less than you, and live like they do.” While this may sound easier said than done, it is advice that I took to heart from that point on, eschewing the temptation to spend money on what I didn’t absolutely need. But I was lucky, not having to face any number of unexpected calamities such as chronic health diagnoses, major layoff, etc.
If one looks up the “Self-Sufficiency Calculator” for one’s state (or any comparable state), it is shocking how much it costs to pay monthly costs for a truly modest living. Increasingly, wages have simply not kept up with these costs.
Long-winded response to the idea that somehow Social Security has grown out of proportion to the economy. It hasn’t. Further, the Social Security Trust Fund, unlike the general fund of the federal government, is in a massive surplus position (about $2.5 trilion these days). I found this handy website that gives some basics on SS:
http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10024.html
And here is a recent summary analysis of the program by CBPP:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3104
March 5th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
I said earlier,
It appears that what I said earlier has some truth to it, but those words were erroneous.
First, I somehow failed to consider consider current payroll taxes. Apparently current payroll taxes currently cover benefits payments month by month. So benefits do not currently depend either on payouts from the the general fund most of the time.
I was also under the apparently erroneous impression that the rules for the Social Security Trust fund had changed somewhere along the way. In fact the Social Security Trust fund does exist. Amounts collected in a given month in excess of benefits payouts go to purchase a special series of Treasury bonds (“IOUs”) which are placed in the Social Security Trust fund. The Treasury can then spend the extra money from Social Security payroll tax collections for aircraft carriers or whatever. Apparently this is not a change, but rather the way Social Security was originally designed.
As things are now, the problem is that before we reach the point where the trust fund is exhausted, we are going to reach the point, especially given increasing unemployment, where monthly payroll taxes no longer cover benefits payouts, so that the Social Security Trust fund has to start calling in the IOUs from the Treasury. Those IOUs will have to be covered from increasing national debt or from the then-current general fund or a combination of both. There is argument over whether that might start to happen in 2018, 2016, or much sooner than that depending on the unemployment situation. That is where I was somewhat correct. That is different from the Social Security Trust fund running out of IOU’s, which has been predicted to occur around 2041 or 2037 unless adjustments are made. However, even after the taxpayers have paid those IOU’s or the money has been re-borrowed from somewhere else than from the Social Security Trust fund, presumably payroll taxes will continue to be collected each month sufficient to pay out some portion of the benefit amounts now being paid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_debate_%28United_States%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_%28United_States%29#Trust_fund
http://jimbeddow.com/tax_news/2009/borrowing-from-social-security-will-end/
http://www.heritage.org/research/socialsecurity/em940.cfm
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=there_is_no_social_security_crisis
The rising cost of health insurance is much more of a crisis.
I apologize for my error.
Larry