This is why the Democrats cannot - will not - "negotiate"

[glenn1]

If it will so obviously fail, why can't Republicans just let that happen then sweep the elections and get rid of it the right way? It makes no sense. The only reason they have to be doing this is they're deathly afraid it will succeed and this is their last fleeting chance to do anything about it.

Yes, because progressives modeled that approach so well during the Bush adminstration when it came to Iraq. They didn't try to prevent the invasion at all, they just said we should all support it and then run an election platform to clean up the mess.

But no, the other side can't possibly be acting in good faith, can they? They have to be doing everything for reasons that your side is undeniably correct and they're afraid of that fact.

 

[shadow9d9]

Obama is conservative when viewing him from a far left POV, he's still on the left to moderate conservatives.

Actually, just putting him in comparison with every other first world country puts him and the democrats to the right of their conservatives.

Continuing most of Bush's policies and using the Republican healthcare plan makes him "liberal" only in the most insane of minds.

 

[glenn1]

43% of Americans aren't even Republican, let alone support this nonsense.

Cut 80% of the military if you care about money... Don't spend $1 trillion+ on 2 endless occupations while crying about healthcare for 40 million americans that will cost the same over a ten year period of time!

Very courageous of you to offer up spending you disagree with for cuts.

And actually, yes I support cutting the military also. 80% may or may not be appropriate, we would need to analyze. But it could be cut the 33% contemplated as the post-debt ceiling level without any concern from me.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Actually, just putting him in comparison with every other first world country puts him and the democrats to the right of their conservatives.

Continuing most of Bush's policies and using the Republican healthcare plan makes him "liberal" only in the most insane of minds.

Still trying desperately to convince others that Obama and the Democratic party are to the right/conservatives. I guess from your far left POV it would appear that way. It doesn't from my moderate conservative POV and it appears with the amount of posts supporting you I'm not the only one that sees it that way.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Still trying desperately to convince others that Obama and the Democratic party are to the right/conservatives. I guess from your far left POV it would appear that way. It doesn't from my moderate conservative POV and it appears with the amount of posts supporting you I'm not the only one that sees it that way.

Shadow9d9 is 100% correct. Obama is moderate-to-conservative by nearly objective measure. The "moderate conservatives" in this country are anything but, which is why the Republican party is in a meltdown. They've pushed themselves so far down the scale to stay to right of Obama they're in an alternate reality where shutting down the government and jeopardizing the faith and credit of the country is proper conservative governance.

 

[cubby1223]

The Dems have promised the world: "free" healthcare (what people thought Obamacare would be),

When your first scentence starts out with a lie then it's probably best to ignore the rest.

Try again, this time try not using talking points.

You're the one who is lying. The proof is a click away in these radical far-right sources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjALRFZSriI&feature=plcp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r99zbj6Bl_M&feature=plcp

 

[ivwshane]

You're the one who is lying. The proof is a click away in these radical far-right sources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjALRFZSriI&feature=plcp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r99zbj6Bl_M&feature=plcp

Lol! So free mammograms equals free healthcare now? I guess if all you need to be healthy or the cure to all your ills is a mammogram then I guess you would be...uh no you are still wrong.

I also like how videos from 2012 indicates that Obamacare was sold to the public as free healthcare. Can I get these time machines you apparently use to make up the shit you spew?

 

[bshole]

Shadow9d9 is 100% correct. Obama is moderate-to-conservative by nearly objective measure. The "moderate conservatives" in this country are anything but, which is why the Republican party is in a meltdown. They've pushed themselves so far down the scale to stay to right of Obama they're in an alternate reality where shutting down the government and jeopardizing the faith and credit of the country is proper conservative governance.

Are you enraged to the point of violence with the Tea Party? I know that I am. I am terrified what these lunatics are doing to my retirement. How the hell did we reach the point where a handful of fucked up nutters can essentially hold the rest of the WORLD hostage? Make no mistake, what they are engaging in right now has mammoth international implications. Default on one payment, just one, and the recession of '08 will be eclipsed.... you are looking at a catastophe that could overwhelm even the Great Depression. And these shitheels are cheerleading it!!!!

I put this in another thread but it bears repeating...

In the world of hard-right commenters like Erick Erikson, “Republicans are winning the shutdown fight, and Democrats know it,” while the Democrats can look at the polls and conclude that voters actually blame the GOP more than anyone else for the shutdown.

But those are national polls. In the much smaller world of the districts that elected the Tea Party Republicans who are behind the get-rid-of-Obamacare-or-we-shut-the-whole-fucker-down strategy, everyone is super pumped about the current stalled state of affairs. Representative Ted Yoho of Florida is getting enthusiastic pro-shutdown messages of support from his constituents, and only a few Tea Party members of the House are facing anything that could be called a backlash—the rest can look around and think, Hey, we're really kicking some ass here.

 

[werepossum]

If it will so obviously fail, why can't Republicans just let that happen then sweep the elections and get rid of it the right way? It makes no sense. The only reason they have to be doing this is they're deathly afraid it will succeed and this is their last fleeting chance to do anything about it.

Depends on what you mean by fail, I suppose. I'm of the opinion that Obamacare has two goals, the short term goal of providing access (via both subsidies and forcibly redrawing the risk-premium equation) and the long term goal of destroying the private insurance industry and moving everyone to a single payer government system. I don't see it outright failing, although obviously there will be winners and losers. Some people will be able to afford health insurance who previously could not, some people will find their health insurance suddenly much more expensive (though still within rough equivalency as to percentage of income.) Some who had crap insurance or no insurance through employers will find they now have better insurance, some will find they no longer have jobs. That's unavoidable; can't have major change without winners and losers.

It will no doubt run woefully over cost projections and have a lot of collateral damage, but that's only failure if you discount the long term goal. And it won't meet it's target goals in percentage insured - such programs always fail in that limited sense because they must assume a static model whereas in the real world behavior changes with risk and reward and punishment - but those failings will be addressed via administrative changes. Either way, most parts of it will have a constituency, people who value that particular part whether or not they support the entire bill. Thus I don't see it ever actually failing. Even federal programs that are miserable failures in meeting their nominal goals, such as the Department of Education or the Department of Energy or the War of Drugs, never really fail, they simply shift the goal posts. The Department of Education has been a miserable failure at improving educational results, so it does standardized tests so that even if education keeps getting worse, at least we can quantify the problem, and it identifies problem school districts and attempts to deal with them directly with funding or control. The Department of Energy has been a miserable failure at getting us off imported oil, but funds important research and manufacturing initiatives aimed at clean, renewable energy and energy efficiency. Like any entity, government programs must adapt or die, and I see no reason the ACA won't likewise adapt and find things people want done in place of things it cannot do. In fact, as much as I viscerally dislike the idea of moving health care to the federal government and especially to an un-elected bureaucracy, in some respects this will make it much easier to adapt. Consider the ADA - virtually every attempt to fix its problems utterly fails because so many powerful entities have wish lists and vested interests they wish addressed, so the bills typically get so bloated and controversial that even their sponsors won't have them. The ACA will have decisions made for political and/or ideological reasons, but it will also be much, much more easily amended to react to changing reality.

The long term goal is even harder to visualize failing. We've become a nation that expects high quality health care at someone else's expense - which is really just part of our overall entitlement mentality. We've also become a nation that increasingly shuns personal responsibility; when we have young people who do not believe Social Security will be there for them but also don't want the responsibility of managing their own retirement account, obviously individual health insurance is on its way out. (Although ironically I could just as easily make an argument FOR the ACA on this same basis, for breaking the employer-controlled health insurance equation and returning control to the individual.) This movement is probably irreversible, so there is little likelihood that the ACA will fail in this goal either, although obviously the exact form of socialized medicine has yet to be determined.

 

[nehalem256]

Shadow9d9 is 100% correct. Obama is moderate-to-conservative by nearly objective measure. The "moderate conservatives" in this country are anything but, which is why the Republican party is in a meltdown. They've pushed themselves so far down the scale to stay to right of Obama they're in an alternate reality where shutting down the government and jeopardizing the faith and credit of the country is proper conservative governance.

Well since in another thread borrowing policies from the Soviet Union was considered "proof" of being right-wing I think we can safely say no one knows what conservative means anymore

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Are you enraged to the point of violence with the Tea Party? I know that I am. I am terrified what these lunatics are doing to my retirement. How the hell did we reach the point where a handful of fucked up nutters can essentially hold the rest of the WORLD hostage? Make no mistake, what they are engaging in right now has mammoth international implications. Default on one payment, just one, and the recession of '08 will be eclipsed.... you are looking at a catastophe that could overwhelm even the Great Depression. And these shitheels are cheerleading it!!!!

I put this in another thread but it bears repeating...

Here, this will make you feel worse.

But what Wall Street fails to realize, according to Potomac Research Group's Greg Valliere, is the extent to which the Tea Party just doesn't care. Valliere wrote to clients this morning:

We talked to Tea Party stalwarts last night, and tried to make our best arguments. "Don't you realize the Republicans could lose the House in 2014?" We don't care, they said. "Don't you worry about a catastrophic reaction in the financial markets?" We don't care, they said. "Don't you worry that the Democrats will aggressively play the Social Security card with seniors?" We don't care, they said.

"This is the Alamo, it's Braveheart, battles to the death. These people are on a Mission from God," Valliere says. Still, he puts the odds of a default at 20% (up from his previous estimate of 10%).

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-ne...understand-anything-about-the-deficit-2013-10

 

[CrackRabbit]

Here, this will make you feel worse.

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-ne...understand-anything-about-the-deficit-2013-10

They need some lessons in history.
The Texans lost at the Alamo, and were either killed or executed by the Mexican army and then had their bodies burned.
William Wallace lost at Falkirk, and was eventually captured and then executed by the British.

 

[bshole]

Gonad,

Are you getting out of the market? I got my entire life savings in there and I am getting really effing nervous. I'm just not 100% convinved the assholes would actually pull the trigger and collapse the world economy. They have already succeeded in trimming my retirement accounts 5% in one week.

 

[boomerang]

Gonad,

Are you getting out of the market? I got my entire life savings in there and I am getting really effing nervous. I'm just not 100% convinved the assholes would actually pull the trigger and collapse the world economy. They have already succeeded in trimming my retirement accounts 5% in one week.

We're on a mission to burn it all down and then piss on the ashes. Take it all out now. Make that call. Take it out and give the .gov the penalty for early withdrawal and the interest. They'll surely find use for the money.

Buy gold bars with it. Or real estate.

 

[ivwshane]

Gonad,

Are you getting out of the market? I got my entire life savings in there and I am getting really effing nervous. I'm just not 100% convinved the assholes would actually pull the trigger and collapse the world economy. They have already succeeded in trimming my retirement accounts 5% in one week.

I would pull out now and once it crashes jump back in

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Gonad,

Are you getting out of the market? I got my entire life savings in there and I am getting really effing nervous. I'm just not 100% convinved the assholes would actually pull the trigger and collapse the world economy. They have already succeeded in trimming my retirement accounts 5% in one week.

I don't know what to do to be honest. It's still possible sanity will prevail. But if I was 20 years older with all my money in the market I'd be really fucking nervous right now.

 

[xBiffx]

But if I was 20 years older with all my money in the market I'd be really fucking nervous right now.

Not to mention a complete idiot. Good thing neither apply to a lot of us here (guessing).

 

[boomerang]

I don't know what to do to be honest. It's still possible sanity will prevail. But if I was 20 years older with all my money in the market I'd be really fucking nervous right now.

If he's that close to retirement and this worried, he should have so little invested in the market that he can weather any storm and shrug it off. You have to invest based on your tolerance for risk. It doesn't sound like that was a consideration.

 

[nehalem256]

They need some lessons in history.
The Texans lost at the Alamo, and were either killed or executed by the Mexican army and then had their bodies burned.
William Wallace lost at Falkirk, and was eventually captured and then executed by the British.

They don't care

The whole debt ceiling battle is a basically a game of chicken where whoever between Obama and the Teahadists is crazier wins.

Is there any doubt who will win?

 

[monovillage]

Still trying desperately to convince others that Obama and the Democratic party are to the right/conservatives. I guess from your far left POV it would appear that way. It doesn't from my moderate conservative POV and it appears with the amount of posts supporting you I'm not the only one that sees it that way.

He's so far out in the communist left field that he thinks that anyone that's still in the ballpark is a conservative.

 

[glenn1]

They don't care

The whole debt ceiling battle is a basically a game of chicken where whoever between Obama and the Teahadists is crazier wins.

Is there any doubt who will win?

Another day closer. Tick tock.

You hear that Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability.

 

[Spungo]

Gonad,

Are you getting out of the market? I got my entire life savings in there and I am getting really effing nervous. I'm just not 100% convinved the assholes would actually pull the trigger and collapse the world economy. They have already succeeded in trimming my retirement accounts 5% in one week.

What you can do is put in an order for a sell trailing stop at 5%. 5% is extremely tight, so you'd be out long before anyone else. Stocks generally have a slow decline before dropping off a cliff. Look at the 2008 crash. The S&P500 ETF (SPY) peaked at ~$156 around Oct 12 2007. A drop of 5% would be around $148 on Nov 9, 2007. A 10% drop to ~$140 would be Jan 11 2008. A 15% drop to ~$133 would be on Mar 7 2008. That 15% drop took 5 months. People had lots of time to get out. Set your trailing stop and don't worry about it. It will automatically sell when the time is right.

I would pull out now and once it crashes jump back in

You can set a buy trailing stop for that. Right now I have a pending order that will buy a mining ETF when the price rises more than 15% above the lowest point.

 

[boomerang]

They don't care

The whole debt ceiling battle is a basically a game of chicken where whoever between Obama and the Teahadists is crazier wins.

Is there any doubt who will win?

Obama has already lost but he's not yet ready to admit it. China called him out on the carpet and the IMF followed. The next day, he makes a speech with a very reduced degree of arrogance. It won't be a total loss for him as I predict that Obamacare will receive it's funding and some small concessions will be made in that regard. He already got his best offer when he was asked to cancel the tax on medical devices and make the .gov play by the same rules as every other person. That was a really ignorant choice to turn that down. But he's an arrogant, cocky asshole and he's incapable of learning from the pitfalls of that behavior.

 

[CrackRabbit]

They don't care

The whole debt ceiling battle is a basically a game of chicken where whoever between Obama and the Teahadists is crazier wins.

Is there any doubt who will win?

If they end up following the historical examples they were compared to, it won't be them. Though I'm willing to bet there will probably be less death and gruesome executions.
Seriously, never piss of the 14th century British.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

A ray of hope?
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/09/gop_begs_for_final_debt_limit_concession_a_shred_of_dignity/

At the risk of mistaking advancement for artifice, I think we’re reaching the return-to-reality phase of the debt limit standoff, where Republican leaders figure out a way to answer to the right for their undelivered ransoms, and Democrats grudgingly help them preserve their honor, on the presumption that the risks of seeing this ritual humiliation to its conclusion are too severe.

This afternoon, House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor met with their Democratic counterparts Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer to discuss a short-term debt limit increase. Almost as quickly as the news broke, Republicans assured reporters that the Democratic leaders — not they themselves — had requested the meeting.

Maybe that’s really all there is to it. Maybe the top two Democrats in the House just wanted to check in on the latest state of play, or let GOP leaders know what their members will or will not support.

But that’s just it — the only thing for these four to discuss in a formal setting right now is Democratic votes. GOP accession to the need for Democratic votes would be a first in this standoff. And if we’ve reached that phase, then Republicans are indeed in rapid retreat. Or at least on the precipice of it.

Today’s twin Op-Eds in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal by Cantor and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., give that impression too. Neither mentions Obamacare, which is the precipitating cause of the shutdown. Both ask longingly for negotiations with Democrats, without mentioning that they so far have only entertained negotiations under economic threat.

Indeed, the claim that Democrats “refuse to negotiate” is a lie by omission of the term “under threat.” There are 365 days in a year. Dems are willing to negotiate through about 335 of them. Republicans, only in the remaining 30 before default.

But the uproar on the right over the Democrats’ supposed refusal to “negotiate” has turned the mere prospect of a conversation about the debt limit into a concession of totemic significance. Even if the conversation is about how to walk Republicans back from the brink. Maybe Pelosi and Hoyer wanted to tell Cantor just how convincing they found his Op-Ed. But probably it’s the other thing. (Indeed, as this piece was in production, CNN reported that Republican leaders are accepting the need for a clean debt limit increase.) And if saying Pelosi and Hoyer requested that conversation is the thing GOP leaders need to prove their mettle — to prove they haven’t been disrespected — then it’s an easy thing for Democrats to give them.

This meshes with the meeting that's supposed to take place tomorrow between Obama and Republican leadership.