Jonathan Chait has noticed something important: the finance fucktards do not understand what the fiscal cliff is—or claim not to anyway. You, dear reader, may be forgiven if you are a little vague on it. So let me explain.

Because of the Republican “debt ceiling” debacle, unless something is done, at the end of the year, $100 billion each will be cut from military and social programs. Also, if nothing is done, there will be a huge tax increase caused by the ending of the “temporary” Bush tax cuts. If this all happens, the country will again be plunged into a recession. This is surprising, because according to conservatives, government doesn’t create jobs. Oh, that’s right: conservatives are either stupid or evil, so we shouldn’t listen to their claims about the economy—or pretty much anything else. So yes, the fiscal cliff will throw the economy into recession.

Because of this, President Obama is in an excellent situation to make a good deal with Republicans. (At least, he is if he wins reelection.) But as Chait points out, people like Jamie Dimon[1] and Lloyd Blankfein are confused about the fiscal cliff. He quotes a letter they wrote that says, “Interest rates could spike significantly if policymakers do not agree to stop the series of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts and replace them with a long-term plan to tame the federal debt.” Chait is blunt: Uh? No!

Economics is hard, but this is easy. All you have to do is remember the history of the last 4 years. Under most circumstances, when the economy is weak, interest rates are low. The fact that these guys don’t understand this very basic bit of economics shows what I often say: the rich are not that smart or knowledgeable.

The big news is not about these two guys, though. The big news is Peter George Peterson. This is the guy who for years has been making so much noise about “entitlement reform.” He claims that if we don’t do something, there will have to be entitlement cuts in the future. His big idea: entitlement cuts now. He is probably the best example of someone who wants to cut Social Security rather than raise (or eliminate) the cap. I suspect the reason that he never talks about this extremely reasonable plan is that it would cost him money, whereas raising the retirement age to 75 would not. (Peterson is 86.)

Peterson hates the idea of the fiscal cliff. But not because it will be bad for the economy. He hates it because it will pretty much balance the federal budget. And if that happens, he will have no reason to call for cutting entitlement programs. I’m not joking!

The real issue with all of these guys is that they want to do what is in their own financial interests. Anything that they say is just a smokescreen for this. What they want to do—what they always want to do—is cut their taxes, raise yours, and cut your benefits. (You also won’t see them calling for an end to corporate welfare—especially Too Big To Fail insurance!)

[1] Dimon is a Democrat. But as we all know, that doesn’t mean much. All it probably means is that he has a brain that functions at a higher level than a troglodyte. The head of JPMorgan Chase is not on the side of the little guy.

I have to go out of town again. Nothing much for the rest of the day. This is a good break down of the debate by Cenk Uygur:

The BBC reports that there is a general strike in Greece over yet more austerity from their Europe Union partners. This stuff tends to be reported in the United States as though the Greek people are a bunch of ill behaved children who don’t want to take their necessary medicine. Most of that is correct—all except the word “necessary.” Greece has been through this many times before over the past two years. And what has it earned them? Nothing other than 25% unemployment.

Dean Baker comments that Greece has a lot more leverage than they have had in the past. He points to Argentina in 2002. They were in a huge amount of debt—more than Greece. So they defaulted. All the Serious People said this was terrible—it would be a catastrophe for Argentina. But it wasn’t. Instead, their economy quickly rebounded—unlike Greece that has taken what all the Serious People claim to be the correct path. So what if Greece defaulted and left the Euro?

Greece’s economy might finally be able to heal itself. And that would be a catastrophe—for the Euro Zone. If leaving the Euro was good for Greece, then Spain—which also has 25% unemployment—would certainly follow. And then perhaps Italy would leave. And Portugal. And Ireland! The whole damn thing could fall apart.

All the pressure on Greece and the other weak economies in the Euro Zone is coming from Germany. But just like the rich in the United States, they haven’t seen that more equity would make they position stronger. Nor have they seen that less equity could greatly harm them. But maybe—just maybe—they are starting to see the reality of their situation.

The Daily Beast reports that Newsweek is going to stop producing its print version. Tina Brown, one of the top generals in the war to destroy our culture, puts a positive spin on this. They, “Are transitioning Newsweek, not saying goodbye to it.”

That is a load off my mind. After all, without Newsweek, where would I turn for Niall Ferguson’s latest passel of lies about the President? Or tripe about Muslim Rage by Ferguson’s wife Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Or the latest news about the afterlife and other drug induced hallucinations? You can imagine my relief!

Newsweek’s problems are not the fault of of Tina Brown. Newsweek has been irrelevant for, I don’t know, my entire life. (But I’ve heard that it totally rocked during the Great Depression!) Brown was just the last desperate gasp of a magazine that has nothing to offer. I can image what the meetings were like. “I know the word ‘news’ is in the title of our magazine, but maybe we could become more pop culture; I know: let’s get that chick from Vanity Fair!”

I’m not clear what this whole thing is about. The truth is that Newsweek already has a digital form. It’s called The Daily Beast and it isn’t bad (probably owing to the fact that the Newsweek folks didn’t create it). So saying that Newsweek is going digital is pretty much the same thing as saying that Newsweek is going away.

To coin a new bumper sticker: if you care that Newsweek is dead, you haven’t been paying attention.

Will sent this to me. It is great and Clinton looks fabulous:

Reading spam comments is like going back in time. There is an underlying theme to them: blogs are new and lucky me that I found a good one. “This is the type of info that are meant to be shared across the net. Shame on Google for now not positioning this submit higher!” You use Good too?! I thought it was my little secret. Now that I know others are using it, I will try to get it to treat my submits higher.

But it’s more than just that. The internet is really a lively place today. “There are such a lot of businesses over the internet these days, yet so much personal information, it actually is demanding to understand what’s actual, and then what women and men solely conjure.” It is amazing, isn’t it? Businesses on the internet! Who would have thought? And so much personal information! And then it lapses into random acts of spamness.

And RSS?! Wow. What will they think of next? “The clearness to your post is simply spectacular and i can suppose you are a professional in this subject. Well along with your permission allow me to grab your RSS feed to keep updated with coming near near post.” With all due humility, however: I am known for my spectacular clearness.

Most of all, I’m really impressed at how community organizers are not just using the internet, but also my site. Is that exciting or what? The next Obama could be reading this article right now! “We’re a bunch of volunteers and opening a new scheme in our community. Your site provided us with useful information to paintings on. You’ve done an impressive task and our whole neighborhood can be grateful to you.” I’m proud to do impressive tasks for people!

Afterword

Spam has gone through the roof the last couple of weeks. It makes it hard to gauge readership. Even though I know my readership is up substantially because of direct links and search results, Alexa downgrades me almost every day. But I do know that at least half of the 1000+ visitors per day are spammers.

This is the ballot in Maricopa County, Arizona. (Click on the image to see it full size.) In English, it gives the correct date of the election: 6 November. In Spanish, it gives an incorrect date of the election: 8 November.

The ballot has been fixed and elections officials claim that it was an honest mistake. I don’t exactly believe this. Certainly, this was not some grand conspiracy. But I think it very likely that some conservative in the office introduced the error on purpose. Especially given that there have been organized attempts on the right to do exactly this. It is the best kind of vote fraud because it has plausible deniability.

Elections officials also claim that less than 50 people were given the incorrect ballot. Hopefully that’s true.

Thomas Friedman has written another column calling for a Sensible Centrist who will tell America the truth. He notes that if we don’t shape up, “We could go the way of Greece or Japan.” This is an odd pairing. He means to say that our economy could go all haywire. The problem is that while the Greece economy is very bad (25% unemployment), Japan’s is rather good (4% unemployment).

The always brilliant and occasionally hilarious Dean Baker notes, “That was really neat, go the way of Greece or Japan? That’s kind of like going the way of Bernie Madoff or Warren Buffet.”

What a fun game! Now we can all help out Thomas Friedman with useful examples for his column. It’s fun! It’s easy! Here are a couple off the top of my head:

• We could go the way of Jeffrey Dahmer or Mother Teresa.
• We could go the way of grizzly bears or kittens.
• We could go the way of Vic-20 or Mac.
• We could go the way of Yugo or Lamborghini.
• We could go the way of poison or food.

Try this game at home. Thomas Friedman can use all the help we can provide.

Kristen McHenry has just published two new poems. And by “new” I don’t just mean that they are new to me; she is working in a new form. Her work up to now has been traditional “lined” verse. My earlier article on her has a good example. These two new pieces are prose poems.

You can check out the poems over at Busk. The first of them is called Theme, and it is written in three parts. This is the third part called “Blue”:

I’m still gnawing on the entire poem and this third part I find the most mysterious. But meaning is not what I find most remarkable here. In a traditional poem, I feel that the line breaks dictate the melody and rhythm of the words. With the prose poem, I’m free to find this “music” on my own. (And yes, mostly I do read poetry out loud.)

In this poem fragment, the opening line continues on and on, tempting the reader to resolve several times in the first sentence. Yet it never feels quite right. Following this, the second short sentence breaks in two. And then, we get into a much more rigid pattern which reminds me of a Gil Scott-Heron rap.

I’ve never thought much about prose poetry. But now I see it as perhaps a more creative art form—for the reader. As the reader of poetry is perhaps the most creative of artistic consumers, this is a very good thing.

This is what I wrote from The Reaction Quasi-Live Blogging of the Debate. I have to post it here. Today was really hard on me, because I feared that the President wouldn’t do well. I was wrong.

I have 5 pages of notes. But who cares? It was pretty much the same thing over and over: Romney mislead; Obama pounded him. There were a few places where I thought Obama went off track. He didn’t answer the question about gas prices (probably for the best. I thought that Obama could have said that Romney was the same as Bush because they had exactly the same 5 point plan. On the assault weapon issue he was trying too hard not to offend. But these hardly matter given Romney’s performance.

Romney was noticeably breathing hard as early as the third question. He wasn’t prepared for how facile Obama would be with the facts and the medium. He started off well enough with two big lies during the first question. But then he got a gut shot when Obama said that Romney didn’t have a 5 point plan, he had a 1 point plan. That was a great line, because the one thing people remember about Romney—the one thing that really defines him—is that he is for tax cuts for the rich. So Obama was saying, “Forget everything else he says: his only ‘plan’ is to cut taxes for the rich.”

Romney later used the education question to lie with his tax math. When Obama rose from his chair to respond, I noticed a certain swagger. Obama knew he was winning.

There were other funny moments. Romney claims to be for fair pay for women because he made sure he had token women in his cabinet. He was almost comical on the question of why he was different from Bush. “I really am! Don’t look at the policies or the advisers. It’s like my tax plan: trust me!” On the immigration question he wanted everyone to know, “I love immigrants!” I was surprised he didn’t say it with an Irish accent.

What was most interesting here was that Romney was clearly delivering a weaker performance than he did in the first debate. I suspect that this is because he wasn’t challenged in that debate. But it was clear. I sensed fear. Also, like Obama in the first debate, Romney often got into the weeds about issues that just don’t matter to most people: Benghazi? Fast & Furious? Please!

Just when I thought the debate could not get any better, Romney says that he cares about 100% of the people in his last answer. I couldn’t believe it! Was he really offering Obama this softball? Could it be? And if so, was Obama going to hit it out of the park? Yes. Obama’s closing was masterful.

But what do I know? What impresses me is not what impresses most people. So I switched over the Fox News. Chris Wallace was doing a “fact check” on the number of oil leases. Obama never said he increased the number of leases. In fact, he said the opposite. And then one of the Blond presenters talked about how the viewing audience doesn’t like it when the candidates interrupt each other.

Translation: Obama won big time!

Update (16 October 2012 9:45)

Jonathan Chait:

Robert Reich:

Me too!

Update (16 October 2012 9:45)

Matt Yglesias presents 5 bad policy ideas from the debate. Four of them are Mitt Romney’s and Yglesias is wrong about the other one. The four from Romney: North American energy independence (won’t happen in global energy market); E-Verify (note that Romney is against regulation—except here); Incentivize business hiring with personal income tax cuts (employers will just keep more profit; cutting sales taxes might help); and Sales taxes on Chinese goods (this is the wrong way to make exports more competitive).

The one that Yglesias is wrong about is “Manufacturing Jobs for Everyone!” Like most people of his economic class, Yglesias doesn’t appreciate the importance of manufacturing as the basis of a strong economy. See Ha-Joon Chang’s Excellent 23 Things.