By Dave Anderson:
I've had a busy day today, chasing my daughter who is becoming a world class sprinter, so just another snippet post from me on the co-option of the change metaphor and argument from Democrats to Republicans in less than thirteen months.
First from Cunning Realist as he is tracking the Ben Bernacke renomination:
Assuming Democrats
don't learn anything from the Coakley disaster and they continue the
self-immolation by pushing through a floor vote on the nomination, this
blog will break that vote down into two categories: Voted for Change,
and Complicit in the Status Quo. Check back to see which category your
senator falls into.
Then here is Stirling Newberry from September 2008, just after both parties' conventions:
What should be understood is that from the perspective of the business
cycle, we had a recession, not a hard landing, but a recession, in late
2007 to early 2008. We then had a rebound from government stimulus last
quarter. However, because the recession was neither long enough, nor
deep enough, to force the creative destruction of capital, this was
accompanied by a burst of inflation.The blame lies, of course, with two groups: the monetary authority for
its decision to accept all of the risk from the bad debt of the last
decade, and hand out fresh money in return, without taking any
direction over the resulting financial entities....The second group, of course, is the fiscal authority of the US. Namely
the Rahmite Congress, unconvinced of the existence of a recession but
willing to engage in their favorite pass time of handing out subsidies
to the middle class to consume.... The checks sent out were... partial rebates on the inflation tax for some, who proceeded
to do exactly what should have been expected: namely, they spent it on
goods that were inflating. ....We may be a better country than this, but the right-to-fuck Reaganites
are not a better party than this. We need milk and bread, we are
getting a choice in this election of Coke or Pepsi. It is not that
there are not differences between the two candidates, but they are on
the margins. The thrust of both economic programs is to subsidize the
middle class, so that it can keep paying back mortgages on houses that
are grossly inflated in value.
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