As the Republican demand for not destroying the economy continues to change, I am curious. If the government had to be shut down because Obamacare would otherwise destroy the very fabric of our society, how is it that they would accept something else for returning to regular order? First it was just a repeal of the medical device tax. That at least had the advantage of relating to Obamacare. More recently, it is entitlement and tax “reform.” (Note: entitlement reform is entitlement cuts; tax reform is tax cuts for the wealthy.) Why don’t the mainstream press admit that the Republicans are only interested in, “Winning!”

By that I don’t mean to suggest that the Democrats aren’t trying to “win” this political crisis. But it is clear that the Republicans caused this crisis because they wanted to win. They wanted to defeat Obama. And all the talk of Obamacare and budgets is just a cover. If they were honest, the Republicans would have said, “Unless Obama admits that we totally rock and he totally sucks, we will shut down the government.” Because that’s all it is about. And that’s all it has ever been about.

But what a dangerous game we are now playing. This morning, Paul Krugman wrote, Automatic Destabilizers. It’s a tad technical, but the bottom line is terrifying. If the Treasury Department manages to pay bond holders and the banking system doesn’t flip out, a long term Debt Ceiling crisis (and if things are quiet in banking, it will be long term) will cause the economy to contract by 10%. A normal downturn of this absolute magnitude would cause a decrease of 6%, but because automatic government stabilizers would be unavailable, the effect would be much worse.

This amounts to a loss of five million jobs on top of our already large 11 million unemployed (pdf)—not to mention the under-employed and discouraged. Yet we have increasing talk that a Debt Ceiling breach wouldn’t be that bad, or if it was, it would be just because Obama made it that way. Representative Ted Yoho even went so far as summon the Confidence Fairy, “I think, personally, it would bring stability to the world markets.” Let’s think about that for a moment. The 2008 crisis caused a contraction of the government of about the same amount. So what Ted Yoho (Personally!) thinks will add “stability” will in fact, be as bad as the downturn we saw 5 years ago.

So right now we stand on the verge of hurting not just our economy but the world economy. And that will hurt countless people. In fact, it will cause people to die. And what is the reason? Is it Obamacare? More tax cuts for the rich? More benefit cuts for the poor? No! It’s the oh so principled stand that Republicans don’t like the president. This is what they would destroy the world for.

According to CNN’s Belief Blog, there are six types of atheists:

I identify myself as an atheist just because it’s easier, but it seems that I am a particular “type” of atheist more accurately categorized as a non-theist. It’s comforting to be put into the tiniest box possible; it makes it so much easier for people to quickly assess whether or not I’m best avoided.

As a non-theist, I thoroughly enjoyed this video from The Atheist Voice.

On this day in 1835, the great French composer Camille Saint-Saens was born. Over time, I have come to think of myself as a francophile. That’s certainly true of music. As you probably know, I’m not a fan of Romantic period music. But somehow the French do it better. Of course, Saint-Saens was composing over a long period of time and well into the modern period. But the Danse Macabre below was written in 1874 and certainly transcends the style:

It’s a big day for scientists—physicists mostly. Chemist Hermann Emil Fischer was born in 1852. Physicist Mihajlo Pupin was born in 1858. Theoretical physicist Karl Schwarzschild was born in 1873. And the discoverer of x-ray deffraction, physicist Max von Laue was born in 1879.

The most overrated member of the most overrated band, John Lennon was born in 1940. This isn’t to say that he isn’t great or that the Beatles aren’t great. But I don’t idolize either. And I think it allows me to better appreciate the actual work. Here is one of my favorites, Jealous Guy:

Troy Davis was born in 1968. He was convicted of murdering a cop in Georgia. It’s a pretty typical murder case, based mostly on eyewitness testimony. And over time, it all fell apart. But the state continued to push for his murder and in 2011, they got their wish. We don’t have a justice system for the poor. And it is so much worse when you are black as well.

Other birthdays: painter Simeon Solomon (1840); the inventor of the “bendy straw,” Joseph Friedman (1900); the great cinematographer Freddie Young (1902); photographer Joe Rosenthal (1911); “Who” bassist John Entwistle (1944); singer Nona Hendryx (69); musician Jackson Browne is retired from this day on; actor Tony Shalhoub (60); actor Scott Bakula (59); and film director Guillermo del Toro (49).

The day, however, belongs to the cartoonist Mike Peters who is 70. He is the creator of Mother Goose & Grimm. He also does some very good political cartoons. He has an interesting mind, but much more important, he has a great, crazy style. Like this:

Happy birthday Mike Peters!

Jonathan Chait wrote what I think is a very insightful article today, even if the title is a bit deceptive, House Republicans’ Ransom Demands Falling. What I would say is that their demands are changing, not falling. He provides some important history about the current standoff. The House Republican leadership (John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Paul Ryan) have been planning this blackmail scheme, most likely since Romney lost the last election. The idea was to use the Debt Ceiling to force Obama to accept the usual Republican budget policies. You know: cut tax rates (supposedly without cutting overall taxes, but you know how that goes), cut entitlements, and so on.

Unfortunately, Ted Cruz ruined their plan by getting all the Republicans to support a government shutdown threat to somehow end Obamacare. This was the real reason that Boehner was promising his caucus a fight on the Debt Ceiling and why he tried to get the continuing resolution (CR) out of the way. Most observers (Including me!) thought it was just Boehner’s usual short term planning: get the CR out of the way and then deal with the Debt Limit. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. I was right about one thing, though: all the supposed reasonable Republicans don’t exist. Boehner is just as extreme as all the rest; he may just be a little more tactical.

But there is one thing that I don’t understand. Chait claims, “The plan was hijacked by Ted Cruz and transformed into a scheme using a less effective hostage threat…” I understand that the Debt Ceiling is a far more dangerous threat. But is it more effective? After all, with a government shutdown threat, at least everyone knew that the Republicans would really do it. Other than the kooks (and I’m not even sure them), everyone admits that a Debt Ceiling breach is unthinkable. I’m so certain of it, in July I predicted that causing one would effectively mean the end of the Republican Party. So was a Debt Ceiling threat so very effective? Or was it just stupid?

I suspect that the difference between Ted Cruz and John Boehner is that Cruz really was willing to shoot the hostage. But he’s no idiot; he understands how important raising the Debt Ceiling is. So he took the CR hostage and shot it (shut down the government). The problem for the Republicans is that they’ve had very bad luck in the CR and Debt Ceiling crises coming at the same time. Of course, they knew this when they started. I suspect they never thought through how things were going to go once the two crises merged, as they now have.

All is not lost however. Chait has a very compelling idea for how we get out of this. It all comes from the fact (which I have commented on many times) that the Republicans believe their own bullshit. And now there is widespread belief among conservatives that “Obama won’t negotiate with us!” Well, if they really believe that, there’s the solution: Obama can “give into their demand” that he negotiate and in return we get a clean CR and Debt Ceiling rise. For the past many years, we’ve seen how being crazy has helped the GOP; now we may start to see how it hurts them.

At Wonk Blog, Neil Irwin writes, What’s Happening in the Treasury Bill Market Today Should Terrify You. “Terrify” is not a common word in the Wonk Blog lexicon. And if you are like most people, “treasury bill” is not common to your lexicon. If you know them at all, it is because you’ve seen them listed at the bank. And if you’ve looked at them anytime over the last couple of years, you’ve noticed that they pay very poorly. That’s not the terrifying aspect of them. I’ll get to that shortly.

Treasury bills are short term government debt. They mature at no more than one year, currently either 30, 60, or 90 days. You may know the drill. Suppose the going rate is 1%. In that case, you would buy a $100 bill for $99—at least if it were for a year. But no one has received 1% for a very long time. According to Irwin, on 30 September (just 8 days ago), treasury bills that matured on 17 October had a yield of 0.03%. Are you read to be terrified?

Yesterday (Monday), it was five times higher: 0.16%. Today (Tuesday), it was ten times higher: 0.30%. We’ll see what Wednesday brings.

I thought that the president spoke eloquently today about how not paying any of our bills would hurt our credit rating. (I wrote about this yesterday.) What’s going on with treasury bills shows that you don’t even have to default on your debts for it to hurt you. If you go around in public threatening to default, most lenders will be less inclined trust you. And that’s what’s happening. Irwin writes:

Of course, those longer term bonds too will start to increase if this continues on, especially if we actually do breach the Debt Ceiling. It’s funny, the conservatives who are pushing this are certain that they are the most patriotic of people. What they remind me of is William Foster in Falling Down. The worst traitors always think they are the greatest patriots.

Afterword

When I was younger, people used to say, “America: love it or leave it.” I don’t accept that at all. America isn’t perfect. We need to continue to make it a more perfect union. But I know that these conservatives are of the “love it or leave it” mentality. But they show time and again that their love is entirely dependent upon America being something that they approve of. I cannot quite contain my hatred for these people. Stop fucking up our country!

Update (8 October 2013 7:56 pm)

Dean Baker just wrote, The Post Doesn’t Scare Me. But I think he is being far too sanguine. The issue is not that the rates are very high. The issue is that they are going through the roof because people around the world don’t trust our government. Alone, they don’t mean anything. As an indication of how the world is reacting to this Debt Ceiling crisis, it is terrifying. Irwin used the right word.

What a boring day for birthdays. This one’s gonna be short.

Two actors I rather like have birthdays today. First is Sigourney Weaver who is 64 today. She’s been in a lot of really fun movies. Two I especially like are Galaxy Quest and Heartbreakers, which is almost a perfect film for me: a very sweet film about con artists. And of course there are Alien, Aliens, and Alien: Resurrection. Okay, there was Alien³ too. I own them all. Yes, I’ve got it bad. Anyway, I like her generally. The second actor is Matt Damon who is 43. Sue me! I like the Bourne films, especially The Bourne Supremacy. It has a heartbreaking denouement. And Rounders is really good. And look, I thought Good Will Hunting was okay. It was not great writing, however. I have a problem with the main character. I just don’t know of any person who was a mathematical genius and yet also had encyclopedic knowledge of everything he had ever read. That’s just not the way brains work. Still, this scene is totally great:

Other birthdays: microtonal composer Eivind Groven (1901); science fiction writer Frank Herbert (1920); and the most annoying Ramone, Johnny (1948).

The day, however, belongs to the great French chemist Henry Louis Le Chatelier. About the first thing that chemistry students are taught is Le Chatelier’s principle. It says that a disruption in a system’s equilibrium will move in the direction to most directly establish its new equilibrium. It isn’t a difficult idea. In fact, now it seems obvious, but that’s just because we all have the molecular theory of chemistry so ingrained in us that we don’t even think about it. At the time, it was a big deal.

Happy birthday Henry Louis Le Chatelier!

Have you ever gone the theater and then had to sit through so many previews for coming soon movies that you actually forgot which one you had come to watch? Please tell me I’m not the only one…

Now there is a more insidious and slightly sadistic trend in movie promotion: get in the middle of real people going about their day and then totally fuck with them.

What would you do if you walked in on someone being murdered? The mindfuckers at ThinkModo came up with an interesting way to promote Colin Farrell’s upcoming movie mayhem, Dead Man Down, came up with the Elevator Murder Experiment.

According to Jeanne Moos over at CNN, only 20% of the people (who had been lured there from Craig’s List to participate in focus group) had tried to intervene.

What would I do if I walked into a situation in which a stranger was being murdered? In the past it’s possible I might whack the assailant on the head with my purse or back away and call 911. Now, with the lines between reality and what-the-hell-is-going-on becoming wiggly, I might hesitate and wonder whether I was actually witnessing an attempted murder or if someone was filming me not jumping to the rescue. Either way, I’d be upset and someone might be dead.

The marketing team for the remake of Stephen King’s, Carrie [1], was more elaborate with its staging, but probably caused less soul-searching angst for the witnesses.

Our society is dying a slow, self-inflicted death, so I’m pretty sure if I’m ever mugged, more people will pull out their phones to get a video rather than to call for help.

[1] I saw the original in the movie theater because my father had no concept of “family friendly” movies. It wasn’t scary, just completely fucked up awful. I won’t be watching the remake.

The last week, I’ve been hearing a lot more about the lauded Grand Bargain. This is the Holy Grail of centrists throughout Washington. Basically it would be a law that both cut entitlement spending and raised taxes. Obama even alluded to it at today’s press conference where he said, “And whenever I see John Boehner to this day, I still say, you should have taken the deal that I offered you back then, which would have dealt with our long-term deficit problems, would not have impeded growth as much, would have really boosted confidence.” God, how I hate to hear the president talk that way! It shows that he really doesn’t understand how the economy works.

A Grand Bargain would be terrible for the economy. Since it cuts the amount of money spent on Social Security, people would have less money to spend. That would cause the economy to grow slower than it normally would. Since it raises taxes, people would have less money to spend. That would cause the economy to grow slower than it normally would. See the pattern? There was a time when some economists argued that businesses would be so impressed with the government’s fiscal rectitude that they would decide that the future was bright and so start hiring. The theory was that this “confidence” would be so great as to offset the negative effects of the policy (that is, taking money away from people).

The problem is that those economists have been shown to be completely wrong. Everywhere it has been used, “expansionary austerity” has failed—prolonging recessions and in many cases not even paying down government debt. (If the economy is depressed, there are fewer tax revenues and this effect may be bigger than all the spending cuts.) But okay, I get it: that’s economics and economics is hard and there are always people who say the budget deficit is the only thing holding us back. But what about pure politics?

Obama often argues as though a Grand Bargain would give the Democrats and the Republicans something they both want. But both parts of such a deal are unpopular with both parties. Nobody likes tax increases and nobody likes benefit cuts. I understand that Obama wants to be thought of as the adult in the room—the man who made us eat our broccoli. I think he is under the impression that Clinton has a good reputation because he balanced the budget. That is naive in the extreme. He has a good reputation because the economy was booming while he was president. That’s the same reason Reagan has a good reputation. People will likely remember Obama as an okay president, but nothing great because the economy isn’t great. (Although have you seen Sam Wang’s analysis today: has has the Democrats winning back the House; if that happened, we could get a real recovery going.)

The main thing is that there is no good reason for Obama to be for a Grand Bargain at this time. Economically, it would be a disaster. Politically, it would be a disaster for the Democrats. If one were passed now, it would become law with almost no Republicans voting for it. Then, in 2014, the Republicans would beat up the Democrats with it, “You voted to cut Social Security!” And they would be right, and the Republicans would win. I don’t see why Obama would be eager for such a deal.

Afterword

A newer form of the Grand Bargain would counter entitlement cuts with a repeal of the Sequester. That would actually be good for the economy in the short term. But this short term benefit would be at the expense of lower benefits for the elderly and higher taxes for the middle class over time. But an argument can at least be made for that.

Jonathan Chait calls out Ross Douthat on his recent column, Debt-Ceiling Extortion Isn’t So Bad, Really. Douthat is arguing that forcing a Debt Ceiling crisis isn’t that bad. According to him, the problem with the Republicans is that they are asking for something that is unreasonable, the defunding of Obamacare. If they were just demanding a Grand Bargain, everything would be fine. Chait rightly notes that this is a theme with Douthat: assuming that the Republican Party was the “reasonable” party Douthat wants it to be. But I have a different issue with the man.

The second half of Chait’s article is about Douthat’s admonishment of President Obama to push for the Grand Bargain that Douthat thinks is so important. Chait goes point by point and notes that Obama has done exactly what Douthat thinks he should. This reminds me of Thomas Friedman who is now and forever claiming that we need a new centrist party that just so happens to be the Democratic Party under Obama and Clinton. But at least Friendman is (probably) a Democrat. At least he thinks that after looking at the two parties, Obama is closer to his ideal than, say, Mitt Romney.

But what are we to make of Douthat? He is a Republican. Yet apparently what he wants is what Obama is offering. He isn’t a Republican politician who pretty much has to disagree with whatever the Democrats say. So why all the posturing and pretending? Why can’t he just come out and admit that Obama is exactly what he’s looking for in a president? The answer is simple: Obama is not what he’s looking for in a president.

If you look at Douthat’s writing over time, a pattern emerges. He is for exactly the same policies as the rest of the Republican Party. But he’s not a politician, so he can be more nuanced. He doesn’t have to answer to a constituency that is calling for blood. But he wants to defund Obamacare. He wants to “reform” entitlements. He wants to build the Keystone XL pipeline. Does he really want a Grand Bargain? I figure it is a deal he thinks is worth doing but he’d much rather just have the spending cuts. So urging Obama to do what Obama has been doing almost from the moment he got into office is a kind of false equivalence: the Republicans refuse to consider a Grand Bargain but so does Obama!

This is the thing about the so called reasonable Republicans: they are for exactly what the extremists are for. But it is particularly bad coming from people like Douthat. I don’t doubt that if he were a politician facing re-election in Texas, he would sound every bit as extreme as Louie Gohmert. One of the reasons our country’s politics are so screwed up is that people like Douthat cheer lead for one side while not admitting to agreeing with it. If we are to believe his writing, Douthat (and Barro and Frum…) ought to be Democrats—conservative ones, sure, but Democrats nonetheless. But such people don’t really fit in the Democratic Party. They are very much in the mainstream of the Republican Party. But their posturing provides a patina of reasonableness to the Republican party. That’s their entire reason for existence.

I’ve just been introduced to the British television series Sherlock. Netflix estimated a ranking of 5 out of 5 stars for me. I think the only time that happened before was based upon an Akira Kurosawa film, and of course, it was right. So last week, I sat down and watched the first episode. It was good so I watched the second tonight. Based upon them, I wouldn’t give it that high a rating, but it is very good. What the producers have done is modernize the characters. This is brilliant because there is a very big problem with the old stories: Sherlock Holmes is a very unlikable character. It is Watson we like. Watson’s whole Victroian era “I was in the Anglo-Afghan War” thing probably made him very cool to readers at the turn on the 19th century. But for the modern reader (or viewer), he seems very stodgy. So naturally we gravitate toward Holmes, only to find that he really is an asshole.

Sherlock fixes these problems by making Watson a military doctor retired from the Afghanistan War, which is, you know, just perfect. And played by Martin Freeman, I think he is who most modern men wish they were: courageous, smart, and generally a decent guy. He provides the reality that the show needs. Without him, it is just another super hero action show. Or perhaps Monk without the humor.

A similar transformation is accomplished with Sherlock Holmes. Modern depictions of that character have always struggled with him because of his drug use: cocaine and (almost never mentioned in modern tributes) morphine. They have either ignored it, psychologized him, or turned him into some kind of self-destructive madman. There are basically two valid ways to read the character. Either he is just bored or it is a character flaw. Both are pretty much the same. He is a man who has an overactive mind and he simply needs to change it. Regardless, Doyle was right to understand that someone as brilliant as Holmes would certainly have aspects to his personality that most people wouldn’t like. (I wrote about this in the modern world, recently.) Sherlock does not shy away from Holmes’ antisocial tendencies, without turning him into Robert Downey Jr.

In the first episode, “A Study in Pink” (which is quite similar to A Study in Scarlet), we are introduced to two important characters. First, there is Holmes’ brother Mycroft. I suspect that the writers expected his revelation to be a surprise, since he is made out to seem like Moriarty. Anyone who knows the original, however, would not have been fooled. He is not an important character in the books, but he is ever so much fun. Sherlock seems downright normal compared to his brother. Just the same, the original character is clearly changed in Sherlock.

The other character is Moriarty, who, though only mentioned, apparently set up the villain in the first episode. I don’t much like the character. For one thing, he hardly exists in the original stories. The very idea of a criminal mastermind soils the whole thing. And then to give the character an Irish name adds racism on top of that. It is only since Doyle’s death that other writers have taken it upon themselves to turn Moriarty into a major character. I guess Sherlock wouldn’t be complete without him, but it does tire me.

In the second episode “The Blind Banker,” we get to see a graffiti artist Raz, who I think is supposed to be part of the Baker Street Irregulars. In the first episode is Inspector Lestrade, similarly modernized. Half the fun of the series is seeing what they will do with the characters and the plots (which at least thus far hearken back to original stories). For someone like me, it is perfect, because it takes away what has always bothered me with the stories. The series is effectively what Arthur Conan Doyle would be producing if he were alive today.

I’m not saying the series is great. It’s hard to say after seeing only two episodes. It also has lots of modern Steven Soderbergh like editing as well as digital images floating across the screen. None of that is necessary, I think. In fact, I find it kind of annoying. And I’m not too fond of the ticking bomb endings. But it is still quite good—better than almost all of the television that I manage to see. And it is sure to please anyone who likes the original.