Friedman of the NYT Bargains with Nonsense [The Grand Bargain]
Abstract: Thomas Friedman[1] pushes his questionable literary skills to the limit in an attempt to create a new and compelling sell of the Grand Bargain, a stale rehash of all the reasons why we should have our taxes increases. He thrusts and jives to highlight some of the weaknesses of Governor Christie of New Jersey and informs us why he is not suitable. He attempts to justify another stimulus in clumsy terms.
Overview:
Anytime we get a warm and sticky ladle of praise for any Republican from the Opinion Section of the Walter Duranty Papers[2]—aka [the near-bankrupt] New York Times, we have to look for the bait and the rusty hook upon which that person is dangled in bold hyperbole and maudlin song. The Times has not endorsed a Republican candidate for President since Dewey as their first choice for President. Pretending to be ever-so clever with their triple reverse baiting speckled with innuendo and whipped with the Race Card, we can never believe that they are serious. Today’s awkward propaganda piece from Thomas Friedman merely attempts to guide us down that sorry old wet ditch where there is only one real pathway and that is soggy, moldy and ends nowhere except oblivion.
How to best read my blogs:
[I offer extensive quotes in this blog so that the reader can view the exact language and can be confident that nothing was taken out of context or that nobody was misquoted. The easiest way to take in the salient points is to read the emphatic points in the quotes and then peruse my comments. Comments on my comments are always welcome: ryckki@gmail.com.]
We Begin:
“Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey isn’t going to run. That’s too bad. He had a chance to rescue the Republican Party from its dash to the cliff and make President Obama a better leader, too.” -- No Christie, No Bargain By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN OP-ED COLUMNIST Published: October 4, 2011
When I was trout fishing as a boy, we used to buy a small jar of white salmon eggs and open the lid and place in a warm spot overnight so that it was ripe and ready as bait for the next morning. When a hook was cast into a small stream with a single egg affixed upon the trident it left a slim white trail in the slowly running water and the fish followed this mystic signal from it sudden origin to their final end. Here, we are exposed to some vision of a White House candidate that could ostensibly benefit both parties. In the fishing analogy, above, that would be equivalent to having two jars prepared as such but the second one having the red eggs. So, we would potentially get double the prize when the sucker bit the barb. This article is theatrically fishy in both aroma and content. We are going to get a double debt whammy out of this kind of thinking.
This absurd statement begs for a clarification of this enigma:
“Here’s why: When the G.O.P. presidential candidates were asked during their debate on Aug. 11 whether any of them would accept a budget deal that involved $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases — and they all said no — the Republican Party officially became a danger to itself and to the country.”-- No Christie, No Bargain
A dumb question rejected. “No” becomes a platform for the rabid left. A casual question thus becomes some kind of lynch pin that holds the opposition and forces them to ease off on taxes, the lifeline of the cancerous government we now live under. The Republicans need no salvation; they hold the purse strings and make take the Senate next year as well. This comment is some form of political bait.
“The G.O.P. became a danger to the country because it announced, in effect, that it would not be a partner for the kind of Grand Bargain that many economists believe we need — something that provides more near-term investment in the economy that spurs job growth, combined with a credible long-term plan to increase tax revenues and trim entitlements so the country’s debt-to-G.D.P. ratio stays in a safe range. Such a Grand Bargain would simultaneously boost the economy and optimism by its economic logic and the mere fact of the two parties working together.”-- No Christie, No Bargain
The twists and turns of this paragraph are like fishing the potholes on a river and harboring the excitement that the very next hole will camouflage the biggest fish in the forest. The introduction of [1] a Grand Bargain and [2] that bargain slipping away forms the basis of this screed. This is because, without any numbers or sound economic analysis, the Grand Bargain becomes the pea under the shells on the old sidewalk shell game. The pea is not under any of the shells. But the haunting thrill of having tried to guess where the pea rests is the essence of the game. You are not going to win but you sure have a grand time and, heck, the rich will pay anyway.
There is no Grand Bargain, but the twiddling and hokum in the next paragraph seems to show that this approach is solid and a squandered opportunity for the Republicans to join in with the Tax Follies and drive us deeper into debt.
We now rest on the opinion of an Expert!
““Cutting $10 in spending for every $1 in tax increases would result in $9 in net tax reduction. That’s because lower spending today means lower taxes tomorrow, and limiting the future path of government spending does limit future taxes, as Milton Friedman, the late Nobel laureate and conservative icon, so clearly explained. Promising never to raise taxes, without reaching a deal on spending, really means a high and rising commitment to future taxes.””-- Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason University [quoted in this article]
Cowen is a Harvard PhD and a libertarian economist. He is funded by Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation so his work is used as a shill comment to attempt to convince us that even conservative Republicans are turning to Obama’s side and wantonly call for tax hikes for our salvation. Not so.
We must work on the actual content of this trial balloon [that nobody supports thus a farce]
Here are the current US fiscal numbers [all in trillions] from USdebtclock.org:
Item Trillions
Spending 3.567
Tax Revenue 2.281
Deficit 1.286 [40% of the spending]
70% of Revenue 1.5967 [paid by the top 10%]
National debt 14.801
Deficit as % of Debt 8.69%
Year Debt GDP 5% Growth GDP 10% Growth
2011 14.801 14.957 14.957
2012 16.087 15.705 16.453
2013 17.373 16.490 18.098
2014 18.659 17.315 19.908
2015 19.945 18.180 21.899
2016 21.231 19.089 24.088
2017 22.517 20.044 26.497
2018 23.803 21.046 29.147
2019 25.089 22.098 32.062
2020 26.375 23.203 35.268
2021 27.661 24.363 38.795
At our current rate, the debt will be $27.6 at the end of 2021. At 5% growth in GDP our debt will still be higher running the same deficit with NO new spending. At 10% annual sustained growth, we can reach almost 39% but such growth is impossible.
Note that our deficit runs almost 9% of GDP [$14.957] thus we increase our total external debt by that amount each year. Our current debt-to-GDP is 14.801/14.957 or 98.957 % of our GDP. The tables below shows how our debt will proceed if we continue on with this destructive deficit. In a decade, we will be in worse shape than Greece or Portugal. Notice that a mere 3.9 trillion reduction in 27.7 trillions is nothing. The GDP must increase wildly and balance off the debt. The 3.9 is only about 400 bln per year back loaded and we need to cut spending by 2 trillions [deficit plus debt service].
This massive debt is not even discussed in this article.
“By refusing to embrace Simpson-Bowles as the basis of a Grand Bargain, and instead offering a watered-down version, Obama has left a gap for a sane Republican or independent candidate. Why was Christie popular among G.O.P. moderates and independents? Because he seemed ready to tell hard truths that Obama has started to shrink from. Had Christie — a moderate on gun control, climate change and immigration who has also backed Simpson-Bowles — run and won significant support, he would have forced Obama back to the center.”-- No Christie, No Bargain
The Simpson-Bowles idea is a regurgitation of what President Obama needed to hear […to cut the debt by $3.9 trillion by 2020]. A fast calculation shows that this is useless. That is less than is necessary.
“Then, instead of a race between the Democratic left and the Republican right — in which the whole country would lose because the winner would not have had a mandate for the real change we need — we would have had a race between the Democratic center, independents and the Republican center. Then the whole country would win. Because whoever captured the presidency would have a mandate to actually implement some version of the Grand Bargain needed to get growth going again — and growth is the only sustainable cure for unemployment, the deficit and inequality.”-- No Christie, No Bargain
Conclusions:
[1] The GDP cannot grow that fast under any circumstances.
[2] The EU, vaulted exponents of Keynes and such are NOT employing the Krugman Solution[3] [unlimited spending or Grand Bargain].
[3] The Democrats will NOT tolerate any spending cuts and need even more for social spending in the future.
[4] We either cut spending and also eliminate nearly ½ of all government jobs or we go broke.
[5] Even a growth of 1% in GDP is not possible with the virulent anti-business hysteria in the Obama Administration.
rycK [a 5th generation Californian in exile]
Comments to: ryckki@gmail.com
[1] Thomas L. Friedman of the
http://ryckki.blogspot.com/2010/08/thomas-l-friedman-of-nyt-is-certainly.html
Friedman of the
http://tinyurl.com/y9sr3gy
Friedman Bawls about Balls and Can Show Nothing. EcoNazism and Propaganda at Work.
Friedman of the NYT Mumbles about the Real Generation X. He Stares into the Abyss and Sees Himself. http://rycksrationalizations.blogtownhall.com/2008/12/08/friedman_of_the_nyt_mumbles_about_the_real_generation_x_he_stares_into_the_abyss_and_sees_himself.thtml
Friedman Calls on Pakistan to Protest: It takes a Village [or many Village Idiots]?
Friedman Calls Code Red and then Instructs Us in Confidence: Depression is Here. Believe in O’Bozo http://rycksrationalizations.blogtownhall.com/2008/11/23/friedman_calls_code_red_and_then_instructs_us_in_confidence_depression_is_here_believe_in_o%e2%80%99bozo.thtml
The NYT’s Friedman’s Flat Propagandistic Thinking on Auto Bailouts: Ignore Unions and Blame Management.
Friedman of the NYT Drinks the Obama Kool-Aid and Sails off into the Depression Era in Song and Dance.
Friedman of the NYT [briefly] Collides with Economic Reality. Something is Wrong Here. Depression on the Way.
Friedman of the NYT Hides his Economic Aces up His Sleeve: Tax and Spent.
http://ryckki.blogspot.com/2011/09/friedman-of-nyt-hides-his-economic-aces.html
[2] In honor of that celebrated Communist stooge and liar and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for the
“He said that these people had to be "liquidated or melted in the hot fire of exile and labor into the proletarian mass". Duranty claimed that the Siberian labor camps were a means of giving individuals a chance to rejoin Soviet society but also said that for those who could not accept the system, "the final fate of such enemies is death." Duranty, though describing the system as cruel, says he has "no brief for or against it, nor any purpose save to try to tell the truth". He ends the article with the claim that the brutal collectivization campaign which led to the famine was motivated by the "hope or promise of a subsequent raising up" of Asian-minded masses in the Soviet Union which only history could judge.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty
[3] Krugman Searches for His Own Truth in an Irish Mirror. He Reflects upon the Mirror and Finds Himself as Originator of the Eternal Solution. Tax and Spend.
1938 in 2010 By Paul Krugman [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.] Published: September 5, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/opinion/06krugman.html?src=me&ref=general
Krugman Offers Us Canned Circular Revisionism: We Can Repeat the War Time Successes of FDR.
http://ryckki.blogspot.com/2010/09/krugman-offers-us-canned-circular.html
The Tax-Cut Zombies By PAUL KRUGMAN Op-Ed Columnist Published: December 23, 2005. http://select.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/opinion/23krugman.html?hp
Krugman Explains EcoNazism in the Warmest Terms. Tax Tax Tax
Krugman Receives the Ultimate Insult: The Swede's Bozo Prize for Leftist Stooges.
Averting the Worst in Liberalism as Contrasted by Paul Krugman. Tax and Spend our way to Prosperity.
How big is $9 trillion? By Paul Krugman The Conscience of a Liberal, August 23, 2009, 5:54 PM http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/how-big-is-9-trillion/
