Carmen Reinhart Warns That High Unemployment Could Last 10 Years

However bad our situation is, the crooks and liars on wall street and the bankers have taken our money and are now sitting on their trillions not hiring and not spending because President Obama won't jump through their "tax cut" hoops.



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Do you know that Obama & the Democratically-controlled Congress don't need Republicans in order to pass anything? Never have. Even without 60 Democrats in the Senate.



Obama insisted Lieberman remain in the Democratic Caucus. In spite of multiple betrayals by Lieberman before and during the 2008 election (Lieberman endorsed McCain, campaigned FOR McCain).



Over REAL Democratic senators, Obama insisted Lieberman keep the chairmanship of the Governmental Affairs & Homeland Security Committee. That's the committee that whitewashed the Bush administration's failure during Hurricane Katrina. Obama rubberstamped that committee's not investigating Bush once Democrats took over control of government after the 2008 election.



Does anyone really believe that Obama got nothing for that concession? No agreement that Lieberman would vote as Obama told him to vote?



Obama never pressured JoeLieberman, Ben Nelson or Blanche Lincoln, or any Blue Dog). That's by their own admission. The Democratic leadership could've taken away committee chairs of members in their caucus that joined with Republicans and threatened to filibustered a public option for healthcare.



The DNC could've taken away reelection funds. But it hasn't. Because Lieberman & Blue Dogs (& Republicans) provide cover to Obama & the DLC-controlled Democratic Party, to let them continue to serve corporate interests over the interests of the People.
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Carmen Reinhart Warns That High Unemployment Could Last 10 Years

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama&Democrats want what they, their supporters, want. The DLC-controlled DemocraticParty gives lip service to all populist issues (like civil rights protections, restoring habeas corpus, ending the wars, PublicHealthcare, Wall Street reform, environmental & energy issues, etc.).



If the Bush years taught us nothing else, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid & relentless in your sales pitch & tactics. It's not that Bush&R0ve were geniuses & knew something that nobody else knew; Bush&R0ve were just more ruthless (clumsy & careless many political graybeards would say) in doing what politicians & the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans.



Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine (to get the nomination) & the oldest, most experienced politicians in our nation's history (including the Rove machine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching Bush&Cheney off the table & have us still reelecting them, not marching on Washington with torches&pitchforks?



Obama&Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it.



The trick for them has been to keep the many different populist groups believing that they really do support our issues, but they're merely inept. And to get us to keep voting for them despite their failure to deliver on any of our alleged shared objectives.
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Carmen Reinhart Warns That High Unemployment Could Last 10 Years

I'm an old liberal Democrat, and I suggest that you consider Democrats and Republicans as working on the same side, as tag relay teams. Or 'good cop/bad cop'.



One side (Republicans) make brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough for that round, they put in Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric. Once in power, Democrats then consolidate Republicans' gains from previous years, and continue on with Republican policies but renamed, with new advertising campaigns.



In case you hadn't heard, among Obama's continuing Bush-Cheney policies, Democrats are having second thoughts about ending Bush's tax cuts - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/26/AR2010082605951_pf.html
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Carmen Reinhart Warns That High Unemployment Could Last 10 Years

You need 125,000 new jobs per month just to keep up with new entrants (births, 18 year olds) into the job market.

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Actually, it's 250,000.



And you shouldn't have to take a drug test for work. No one should. It's antithetical to the Constitution, where we hold people accountable for their behavior, not their thoughts.



If my job performance is negatively affected by my taking drugs, then I can be and should be penalized for screwing up on the job.



But if I'm doing drugs and the only way that you can tell isn't by my doing poorly on the job, but by testing my ur!ne or bl00d, then you lose. Or should.
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Carmen Reinhart Warns That High Unemployment Could Last 10 Years

Thinning the herd.
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Carmen Reinhart Warns That High Unemployment Could Last 10 Years

Obama's in the process of moving the wars off-the-books, i.e., transitioning to a mercenary (privatized) military force where the costs are buried.



The CIA is being turned into a paramilitary organization with its own troops and military operations, as is the State Department (privatized security forces taking over combat in Iraq).



I agree with you about a draft, but I don't see it happening.



I think we are rapidly spiraling off the rails.
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Carmen Reinhart Warns That High Unemployment Could Last 10 Years

You completely missed the point.



Pro-war neocons will use war, expanding the war, as a sales pitch for ending this Depression.
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Carmen Reinhart Warns That High Unemployment Could Last 10 Years

It's not going to be long before we hear from the pro-war neocons that what got us out of the Great Depression was World War II, and that the way out of this Depression will be the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, be expanded to Iran and beyond.
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Norman Ornstein: We Must Reform The Filibuster

Republicans haven't been filibustering anything, only threatening to filibuster.



HarryReid could've actually forced Republicans & turncoat Democratic senators to filibuster. He didn't (& doesn't).



Senate rule 22 gives the Senate Majority Leader (Harry Reid) the discretion to force Republicans to actually filibuster & not just threaten to do it. Filibustering is very hard on those soft, pampered bodies. Reid forced it once (Jim Bunning & extending unemployment) & Bunning caved.



Democrats can even change the supermajority rule (it does NOT have to be done at the beginning of a new Congress, as some argue). It can be done at any time (see page 6 - http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/45448.pdf ].



There's not just one way (or even two) for Democrats to get bills passed without Republican votes.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/27/ezra-klein-how-to-end-the_n_661234.html



http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid='0E%2C*P%2C%3B%3F%22%20%20%20%0A



http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2009/08/hertzberg-on-the-constitutionality-of-the-filibuster/



But Obama & the DLC-controlled DemocraticParty aren't doing that. Because it might actually work to get Democratic voters' legislative agenda made into the law of the land & do good for the People. And that's not what Obama&Company are there for. They're there to do the work of the transnational corporations, & preventing that are liberals.



So Obama reaches out for Republicans, watering down the legislation that Republicans won't vote for. Because everything that the parties do, both parties, is for the next election campaign.
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Norman Ornstein: We Must Reform The Filibuster

Anyone who thinks we live in a representative democracy is kidding themselves.

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Anyone who thinks we live in a representative democracy doesn't understand what a representative democracy is, nor the history of the founding of the US.



The US isn't a 'representative democracy'; it's a democratic republic. That's a whole different animal.
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