Debt Crisis

Here's another partially written post saved from 8/7/11 that I am just now getting around to writing:

A friend related to me the gist of an Atlantic Monthly article that told about how the debt was deliberately manufactured by GOP actions (see August 2011 article).

In 2011, the Republicans shifted their tactics and began to hammer the subject of the deficit.  The main reason they wanted it handled then was because they wanted to use it as a issue to help them defeat Obama.

I often think of the psychological term Projection when I watch the Republicans.  You have to watch what they say when they criticize their opponents, because that's a big clue as to what they do and what their plans are themselves. It seemed to me that they really did want the country to fail in order to get in power.  Enough Republicans came out and stated that this was their goal, that it's easy to project that motive onto the entire party.  After all, when parties vote as solid blocs, it's difficult to convince the public that anyone within the party is actually weighing the merits of any particular course of action to determine what's best.  They are simply adding their weight and voice to the issue.  It's bloc strategy (or block strategy, more like it).

On the other hand, Democrats are just as guilty in doing nothing when they are in the minority to slow down rampant spending, or going into expensive wars.   You saw no evidence of principles or personal courage in the years following 9/11, just a dejected and cowed mass of snivelling cowards with no voice and nothing better to offer.

The rest of the article talked about how bad the jobs situation was and forecasted a double dip recession.  While this was not true, the jobs situation did not get worse, but it did not improve.  Fears of what was going to happen still made stocks drop.

Then we had the downgraded credit "crisis".  The GOP said they would allow this to happen if we failed to control deficit.  The real reason we had to downgrade the credit rating is a lack of confidence in the ability of the US government to put together a budget and govern rationally.  Gridlock and political posturing is worse than bad decisions.

The irony of a downgraded credit rating is that this would most likely increase interest rates and that would most likely benefit the banks that got bailed out in the crisis that created this mess.