The "JOBS" Bill

When I first heard about the bipartisan JOBS (Jump-start Our Business Start-ups) bill, I didn't pay a lot of attention, figuring it was just some innocuous bit of legislation with a politically attractive acronym. Well, I was wrong. I should have remembered one of my first laws of American politics:

Bipartisan means everybody gets screwed.

What the bill does is gut financial regulations put in place after the Enron debacle, and then some. When this bill is signed into law by Our President (yes, he's in on it too), companies going public can ignore many important auditing requirements, keep executive compensation a secret, and market shares directly to consumers over the internet. Five'll get you ten the JOBS Act's most outstanding accomplishment will be a massive explosion of fraud.

Here's how to do it, amateur grifters. Incorporate; announce your IPO; create some buzz with posts to consumer finance blogs; sell blocks of stock for relatively small sums, say fifty or one hundred dollars; take all the money from sales and pay it to yourself as an undisclosed executive salary; declare bankruptcy.

It's so easy, even a Congressman could do it.

Obama on the Debt Ceiling

The president announced a speech for tomorrow in which he is expected to offer his plan for reducing the deficit, in the teeth of Republican demands for more blood from the American working classes as a condition for approving an increase in the debt ceiling. As always, the announcement comes with promises of "bipartisan" appeal, but given that the result of failure to raise the debt ceiling would be economic catastrophe, the Republican threat is hollow.

To date, every time Obama promised to be "bipartisan," he followed up with a Grand Canyon sized cave-in to Republican demands, which in turn was followed by greater cave-ins as he proceeded to "compromise" from his weak starting position. If he thinks this is the only way to win himself a second term — appealing to so-called "centrists" in an attempt to appear "reasonable" — maybe he ought to pay a little more attention to what, in a previous administration, was called the "wimp factor." Americans don't like to be led by a shrinking violet, afraid to offend anybody at all.

The first rule of negotiations is to lower the opponent's expectations by demanding absolutely everything on one's wish list. The Republicans do it every time, Obama never. I'll be very pleased if this time, at least, he follows this most basic rule. I'll also be very surprised.

Here's to your health...

Needless to say, nobody expected today's "bipartisan health care summit" to accomplish anything resembling bipartisanship. The advantage was in the Democrats' court for this one — Republicans would have been much happier to avoid direct interaction and just continue to snipe from the sidelines. Who won, of course, varies based on the news outlets individuals chose to get a report of the proceedings. I suspect that even members of the press couldn't force themselves to witness all six hours of partisan bullshit redux.

Like the rest of America, all I could bear was an occasional sampling — enough to assure me that I really wasn't missing anything significant. Just the same, I feel safe when I say that the biggest problem affecting health care costs — the problem of "freeriding" — was not addressed. Freeriders are those who use a system without paying their way. Good examples are those who benefit from a union contract without paying union dues. In the context of health care, the freeriders are those who go to the emergency room when their injuries or illnesses are bad enough, but pay neither for insurance nor the costs of their care.

Mind you, I have considerable sympathy for health care freeriders. Many would buy insurance if they thought they could afford it without significantly impairing their lifestyle choices — and they are inclined to wait until they are very sick before they head for the emergency room. Unfortunately, the very sick cost a great deal more to treat than those whose illnesses are diagnosed and treated early. Health care freeriders are a lot more expensive to carry than union contract freeriders, who can collect union negotiated salaries and benefits without necessarily breaking the bank.

And so, in the absence of a single payer plan financed by genuinely progressive taxation, I suppose forcing the young and healthy to buy coverage — bringing down average per-person health insurance costs — currently is the only viable option. The question remains, though: did today's "summit" give candy-assed Democrats enough political cover to dare going with reconciliation?

I suspect that a health care bill passed by reconciliation is quite likely. Sadly, it is likely to drive quite a few young, uninsured former Obama supporters into the arms of the Republicans, since money spent on health insurance cannot be spent on the latest and most fashionable clothing, drugs, and hair styles.

Was Obama really serious when he said he'd rather be a successful one-term president than a two-term president who failed to accomplish his goals? We'll see.

Jobless "recovery"

Now that the senatorial election in Massachusetts has tossed Obama's lame-ass health care bill into the toilet, nothing will help the Democrats but some aggressive action against the bankers. How can that be done, considering that Wall Street is a major funder of candidates of both parties?

Beats me. Frankly, I see the plutocracy remaining firmly in control. As you may have noticed, I tend to be bearish on America.

Shit.

Here's why the recovery is jobless:

1. Productivity — When employers figure out that they can get more work out of decreasing numbers of desperate workers, that's exactly what they do. In case you haven't noticed, that's exactly what they're doing now. Why hire more?
   
2. Low Interest Rates — The low rates now being maintained by the Fed are supposedly going to make it easier for businesses to borrow, expand, and hire more workers. Nope, not quite. Low interest rates make it easier for businesses to afford the machines that replace workers. Why spend money on some smelly, angry guy who wants health insurance when you can have a machine that demands nothing?
3. That Whole Globalization Thing — Maybe you can train an out-of-work factory worker to be a telephone customer service representative, but cost-benefit analysis still will send the business to Mumbai or Calcutta. The whole argument that better education will improve the American economy is crap, because, whatever it is, we can't do it for less then they can.

So where do the jobs come from in this "recovery?" Beats me — and if the jobs are scarce and pay minimum wage, who has money to buy the services (we can pretty much forget about goods, except for export) the alleged recovery will produce? The Chinese? Maybe we could retrain unemployed Midwest factory workers to speak Chinese, so they can work the telephones for Chinese collection agencies.

Nah. The Indians will get those jobs.

So what is a cafe au lait president who promised change and so far has delivered just more and more of the same to do?

Me, I'd start by firing Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and anybody else who ever was attached to Robert Rubin's teats. I'd replace Summers with Joseph Stiglitz. As for Treasury, Paul O'Neill would be a pretty amusing choice, and could help Our President continue his idiotic pretense of seeking bipartisanship.

Frankly, I don't think the Democrats have the guts to enact health care reform via reconciliation, so unless one of those oddball Republican women from Maine crosses over to the "dark" side, health care reform is as good as dead. All that's left to rescue Democratic candidates in 2011 is a really hard, stinging slap at Big Finance — accompanied by a lot of rhetoric about Republicans sucking Wall Street's balls. Since the Republicans will be sucking Wall Street's balls, the only obstruction to using this approach will be the difficulty Democrats will have disentangling Wall Street's balls from their own tonsils.

If you're looking for work — good luck. If you need health care and don't have insurance — good luck. What the hell — if you're living in contemporary America, good luck! You'll need it.

On partisanship

"Bipartisan legislation means that everybody gets screwed."

I can't find the first use of that quotation, but I've heard it, in one form or another, time and time again. It's kind of amusing if you're a cynic (I plead guilty), but to what extent is it true?

As a rule, bipartisan bills emerge when both Republicans and Democrats are beholden to the same special interests. A prime example is the most recent agriculture bill, which protects and subsidizes agribusiness in both Republican and Democratic congressional districts (at the expense of consumers and our trading partners overseas.) If you're not part of some powerful interest group, though, forget bipartisanship. It's of no use to you at all.

Beyond that, I'm convinced calls to "bring the country together" are frankly idiotic if they imply that Democrats should be trying to "negotiate" with Republicans. The Republican Party is controlled by extremist ideologues, and Republican legislators are too well-disciplined to break with the party without specific permission from party leaders. It's not a negotiation when it's all give and no take.

"But," you may protest, "there are plenty of times when Republicans cross over and vote with the Democrats, especially if the Democrats are willing to compromise a little."

Bullshit. Let's look at a very recent example: the (failed) Senate version of the alleged "economic stimulus package," which would have expanded the food stamp program and extended unemployment insurance. Harry Reid needed the support of nine Republican senators to stop a filibuster and pass the bill. And how many did he get?

He got eight, exactly eight. Each of the eight is a senator facing a difficult re-election bid this November, in districts where appearing to support a bill that might actually help the poor may improve the chance for electoral success. You can be sure that each of the eight had approval to vote with the Democrats, and that if a ninth tried to join them, one of the eight would have changed his vote to "no."

Forget about "working with" Republicans. The only way for progressives to make any real progress is to crush the Republican Party, weakening it to the point at which individual Republicans will be willing to break party discipline and force the ideologues out of power. If the party can get back to the way it was before the "Reagan Revolution" -- working to help small businesses and middle class wage earners rather than just the super-rich -- then cooperation and negotiation can be fruitful once again.