The Audit

07:17 PM - October 13, 2011

Audit Notes: Economic Policy Edition

By Ryan Chittum

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Perspectives from Antonio “I like to call the wives of the people I kidnap, torture and murder and taunt them” Negri … edgy. What’s next, reflections on the abortion debate from Eric Rudolph? How about we ask Ratko Mladic about the most just and humane way to deal with ethnic conflicts?

And while Milbank certainly isn’t a “political discourse through the barrel of a gun” lefty, his comments certainly don’t do anything to express the other end of the spectrum in this debate.

#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Fri 14 Oct 2011 at 09:52 AM

Your calling the wife of the kidnapped claim goes step too far based on the evidence.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1980/apr/17/terror-in-italy-an-exchange/?page=2

"The telephone call that Negri allegedly made to the Moro home on April 30, 1978, continues to make the front page. On November 16, 1979, Professor Oscar Tosi reported to the Roman magistrates (whether on the basis of tests made in America or in Italy, I do not know) that it was 80 percent sure that Negri had made the call. But three Italian experts appointed by the court (Professors Ibba, Paoloni, and Piazza) affirm more cautiously that Negri’s voice and that of the unknown Brigadist whom the police taperecorded “belong to the same class of voices…without excluding the possibility that they can be attributed to the same speaker.”"

Not that I care much, since he did advocate violence and, apart from self defense, such advocacy is indefensible.

And Milbank is emblematic of the vapid center. His type of "savvy" journalism, with few exceptions, has long been the nails on America's journalistic chalkboard.

#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 14 Oct 2011 at 12:39 PM

You see things like this and you have to ask how it is this president became so powerless to get what he supposedly wants done, and yet when it come to things he supposedly doesn't want, the impossible becomes inevitable.

It's a con. The right policies weren't followed NOT because they weren't politically possible, but because they weren't desired. These politicians, Barack Obama and his DLC comrades, are owned by banks and the business interests that fund them. For instance, HAMP was completely left to the discretion of the executive and therefore Obama could have used that money to acheive whatever he wanted without giving thought to what was possible. He did what he wanted.

He and his DLC friends are conservatives who support bad, conservative (or Rubinomic if you prefer), economic policy. There's no excuse for it. Nobody made Obama seek bankers to run his economic policy, no one prevented him from listening to alternatives who actually know what to do during a depression, he made his choices because that is who he is. There isn't any reason to expect any better from him or his like in future.

Support people like Elizabeth Warren if you want change.

#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 14 Oct 2011 at 05:01 PM

Thimbles... When next November rolls around, you're going to be pushing the Obama button in the voting booth.

Suck it up, dude. He's your man and you might as well get behind him now.

Of course, spending our way out of bankruptcy hasn't worked out. Go figure.

And a government boondoggle, market-meddling program that was designed to let deadbeats keep their homes from being foreclosed not only hasn't worked... But it isn't even being run right by the government's market minders, despite its huge budget and noble commie objective... Again.. Whoda thunkit?

And Dick Durbin and Barney Frank screwing with debit card fees has pissed off the universe and will kill consumer spending just before Christmas.

But hey! It's nothing a few new government agencies can't fix if we raise taxes, right?

#4 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Fri 14 Oct 2011 at 09:40 PM

I don't see how anyone could have read the propublica article above and concluded that the program was "designed to let deadbeats keep their homes from being foreclosed".

Especially since the administration's treasury department admitted that "The narrative seemed to change from helping homeowners to spacing out the foreclosures. I asked them to repeat it, because the idea that billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent to smooth out foreclosures for banks struck me as new narrative – it’s explicitly extend-and-pretend, and also fairly cynical."

This is the heart of the problem, the government and its programs work as designed and have helped those they were designed for, but they weren't designed for the american citizens who were screwed by the banks. They were designed to be the lube for the bank's next screw.

That is how Obama policy has worked since the beginning and you'd have to be willfully blind not to see it.

In other words, if you are calling him a commie, you're doing it on a basis other than his record.

#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 15 Oct 2011 at 01:18 PM

Have it your way, Thimbles..

A government boondoggle, market-meddling program that was designed to let deadbeats keep their homes from being foreclosed (but was corrupted by the Obama administration in favor of "Wall Street") not only hasn't worked... But it isn't even being run right by the government's market minders, despite its huge budget and noble commie objective... Again.. Whoda thunkit?

Better?

#6 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 15 Oct 2011 at 01:43 PM

"that was designed to let deadbeats keep their homes from being foreclosed"

is a lie.

"noble commie objective"

is willful blindness, a kind of color blindness if you ask me.

"not only hasn't worked"

But it has. It helped the banks, provided positive pr, and only spent a few billion out a budget of 75 billion.

It's been amazingly successful from a wallstreet standpoint. Given that, do you think wallstreet parasites should run the government and the economy or citizens?

#7 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 15 Oct 2011 at 02:00 PM