And Democrats will be drowning, unless they get serious about unemployment!
The Administration’s still in permanent campaign mode, while the Fed is fighting nonexistent inflation, and the US economy is starting to look very Japanese!
Gorilla says: “No drama Obama is getting his head handed to him!”
Refreshingly, the President took responsibility for the multiple intelligence community failures behind the underwear bomber’s attempted terrorist attack.
Unchangingly, the President seems to be making a distinction between accountability, which he accepts, and blame, which he does not wish to dole out. It’s a distinction without a difference when it comes to actual policy.
These failures were clearly firing offenses, or at the very least required a degree of professional integrity that might offer resignations if you happened to be the head of the CIA or Homeland Security.
Instead, there will be lots of scrambling, lots of money wasted on air marshals and body scanning machines, and the odds of a similar attack being successful will be the same: about 11 billion to one.
The President seems to be a grown up, but he’s allowing the frightened children of an immature nation to make policy, so it’s difficult to see what lessons were learned in this fiasco.
Gorilla says: “Bring on the responsibility and bring me the heads on sticks!”
Success has a thousand fathers and failure is an orphan…
But none of ‘em get fired!
Gorilla says: “I tolerate everything and accept nothing, unless it’s the other way around!”
Our President’s not very happy about the Detroit wannabe bomber!
Yep, it’s a systemic failure, demanding explanations, promising accountability and leading absolutely nowhere near reality.
Bottom line, trying to stop one lone terrorist is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Our government spends trillions on defense, it’s certainly the biggest middle class jobs program for the lucky employed, but can’t manage to overcome a few thousand bad guys with lots of time on their hands, the ability to create explosions, and a ready stable of suicidal young men and women who have no future.
The President should be saying clearly that terrorism is not a serious national security threat, and never has been, but that goes against the bipartisan narrative of fear, defense contracting, and just wars that gave America a lost decade of torture, lying, and economic disaster.
We’re still a country in arrested adolescence, it would be nice just once if our leaders decided to grow up, but don’t hold your breath!
Gorilla thinks: “The odds of a successful terrorist attack are far longer than the odds that house prices will recover in Detroit, but we don’t give a shit about our own people suffering, we’re too afraid of the other guy’s revenge fantasy!”
Gorilla’s had a few personal issues this week, so the blog is on hiatus, will likely resume next week.
Gorilla does feel a bit vindicated by his predictions that 1) Copenhagen would go nowhere because it was more in everyone’s interests to do nothing than to do anything, 2) Health care reform would be a very minor league deal indeed, if it even passes, and 3) no one among our leaders cares to do a damn thing about 10% unemployment.
Not that these are triumphs, just reflections on how backward America has become.
Gorilla also thinks it’s even money at the moment that Obama will be the next Jimmy Carter, one and done.
“Be back soon!” says Gorilla.
These were the events that mattered in Gorilla’s world this week:
Health care reform: Farewell, public option, hello, Medicare buy-in! All very minor league stuff. Single payer is the way to go, and Gorilla believes that’s where we’ll be by 2025.
Nobel Peace Prize: An interesting speech from President Obama on the rationale for “just” war. War apparently is peace by other means. The difficulty with all this nuanced rhetoric is that it doesn’t match up with actual policy. The Administration is still defending the right of government officials to spy on Americans and to commit crimes with impunity. The Administration is all for nuclear non-proliferation, but conventional proliferation remains big business. Gorilla thinks that all this pragmatism is fine, but wishes there would be an occasional foray into non-opinion poll-based foreign policy.
Human Rights Day: A reminder of how little can be done to address major problems. Nobody’s going to war, justly or unjustly, for Darfur, the Congo, Guinea, or Zimbabwe. The plight of women and children in most countries remains appalling. Gorilla suggests that progress can be made, at the grassroots and at the margins, if there’s a willingness to see it through with political and economic capital.
Climate change: Copenhagen peters away like a deflated gas bag. There’s no political support anywhere in the developed world for doing anything that requires big money, big sacrifice, or big risks. We’re waiting for the Chinese and Indians to do something, they’re waiting for us, and it’s convenient for everyone that nothing much gets done. Gorilla predicts that serious climate change policy will come only when climate change is a serious threat, roughly 20 years from now.
US Economy: The figures remain dire. We need to be adding 300,000 jobs/month just to stay even with population and trendline growth; last month we lost another 11,000. Retail sales are barely above inflation. The mortgage modification program has been a total failure. The hoarding by banks goes on, while credit tightens further. There’s no real leadership coming from Washington as everyone gears up for the 2010 elections. Gorilla thinks the Democrats will get a severe and deserved kicking at the polls next November.
Iraq: The bombers are back, or rather they never went away. Despite all the surging, 7 Iraqis die violently every day. Gorilla thinks the civil war will resume in 2012.
Afghanistan and Pakistan: The denial dance goes on. President Karzai still hasn’t named a cabinet. Pakistan still hasn’t done anything about Baluchistan. America still hasn’t captured any top al-Qaeda leaders. Gorilla has moved his withdrawal timetable from late 2010 to mid 2011, and still believes we’ll be mostly out by 2015.
Our President wants us to know he cares, but not enough to do anything very serious about the worst unemployment picture since the Depression.
Infrastructure projects are fine, but they take years to get off the ground.
Extending unemployment benefits and health care subsidies are an absolute necessity.
Providing more tax breaks to small businesses is a waste of time and money.
Another idea which is getting no support is to guarantee state government deficits for at least the next 2 years. State governments are cutting back on spending and laying off thousands because of foolish balanced budget amendments, with the result that they’re offsetting the benefits to be had from the first stimulus package.
No one in Washington seems to be aware of basic economics.
Unless something’s done pretty soon, it will be another decade before unemployment returns to pre-recession levels.
Zombie banks are not lending to anyone, they’re hoarding against further losses.
Businesses are not investing and not growing, so government must make up for what is estimated to be at least a $2 trillion output gap.
The need for a much larger stimulus package is clear, but everyone’s worried about deficits (they weren’t of course when Bush doubled the national debt) at a time when the cost of government borrowing is effectively zero!
Gorilla sums it up: “It’s 1937 and we’re all being cast in another remake of Dead End!”
No surprise that President Obama’s escalating the war in Afghanistan, it’s been clear for months that the strategy is to keep control over big cities, train Afghans to take over, and start to withdraw within a year.
There’s little point in this, but the problem is that it’s easier for the President to stay than to face the political fallout of admitting the war is over. So, as in Iraq, we’ll pretend the surge will make a huge difference, while everyone in Afghanistan will wait a few more years to resume civil war.
The only thing interesting in all this is the extent to which a few fifth-rate terrorists can get lucky and keep the world’s only superpower pinned down in fear, debt, and fantasy. It’s not something you’d expect from the leader of the Free World, but then again it’s what we’re stuck with.
Gorilla says: “Don’t be cruel, Kabul, to a heart that’s clueless!”
Our President will go to Copenhagen, bringing with him a promise to reduce carbon emissions “in the range of 17%” below 2005 levels by 2020.
How this is to be accomplished when there is not filibuster proof support in the US Senate for climate change legislation is something our President doesn’t mention.
To be seen to be promising something that can’t possibly be achieved on your watch is what makes climate change negotiations so surpassingly ridiculous.
What’s the difference between Obama’s approach and the infamous “aspirational goals” his predecessor suggested?
One supposes it is in the degree of disingenuousness: Bush was never serious about climate change, but Obama said he was and so far his people think wishing will make it so.
Gorilla thinks: “A prune Danish may be good for regularity in a romance, but it’s a real turnoff when you’re carbon dating in West Virginia!”
President Obama wants to give senior citizens another $250 next year, in part to make up for what looks like no increase in the Social Security COLA.
Of course, a decrease in prices will benefit seniors far more than this bonus payment, and seniors remain, by far, the wealthiest age group in American society. But seniors also vote far more than any other group, and so far they’ve not been enamored by the President’s hope and change platform.
Gorilla asks: “When are we going to stop subsidizing bankers, farmers, and wealthy seniors and start bribing genuinely poor people? They need the reward a lot more!!!”
Gorilla’s Blog