Month: April 2010

Krugman/Wells And A Friend

by tristero

Paul Krugman and Robin Wells have an excellent article in the current New York Review of Books, discussing the history of financial crises in the light of our current one and in the context of a new book, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. I will give you some short excerpts below, but you really should read it all.

Since I am not even close to being a beginner on anything financial, I asked a very knowledgeable friend of mine to comment on the Krugman/Wells arguments. That commentary follows. I’ll wrap this post up with a brief meta-commentary of my own.

From the Krugman/Wells article:

So what is the message of This Time Is Different? In a nutshell, it is that too much debt is always dangerous. It’s dangerous when a government borrows heavily from foreigners—but it’s equally dangerous when a government borrows heavily from its own citizens. It’s dangerous, too, when the private sector borrows heavily, whether from foreigners or from itself—for banks are basically institutions that borrow from their depositors, then make loans to others, and banking crises are among the most devastating shocks an economy can face.

Yet people—both investors and policymakers—tend to rationalize away these dangers. After any prolonged period of financial calm, they either forget history or invent reasons to believe that historical experience is irrelevant. Encouraged by these rationalizations, people run up ever more debt—and in so doing set the stage for eventual crisis…

What we’re in the middle of right now is what Reinhart and Rogoff call the “second great contraction”—a giant banking crisis afflicting both sides of the Atlantic, with effects that have spilled over to the entire world. The first great contraction was, of course, the Great Depression. In the past, banking crises have often led to sovereign debt crises as well, since banking collapses depress the economy, reducing government revenue, at the same time that they often require large outlays to rescue the financial system…

So now we’ve experienced a severe financial crisis, fundamentally similar to those of the past. What does history tell us to expect next? That’s the subject of Reinhart and Rogoff’s Chapter 14, “The Aftermath of Financial Crises.” This chapter can usefully be read in tandem with two studies by the International Monetary Fund that take a similar approach, published as chapters in the April 2009 and October 2009 editions of the semiannual World Economic Outlook. All three studies offer a grim prognosis: the aftermath of financial crises tends to be nasty, brutish, and long. That is, financial crises are typically followed by deep recessions, and these recessions are followed by slow, disappointing recoveries.

Consider, for example, the case of Sweden, which experienced a severe banking crisis in 1991, following a major housing bubble. Sweden’s government has been widely praised for its response to the crisis: it stabilized markets by guaranteeing bank debt, and restored faith in the system by temporarily nationalizing and then recapitalizing the weakest banks. Despite these measures, however, Swedish unemployment soared from 3 percent to almost 10 percent; it didn’t start coming down until 1995, and progress was slow and fitful for several more years…

How long does the pain last? According to the second of those IMF studies, the answer, to a first approximation, is “forever”: financial crises appear to depress not just short-term performance but also long-term growth, so that even a decade after the crisis real GDP is substantially lower than it would otherwise have been…

History says that the next few years will be difficult. But can anything be done to improve the situation? Unfortunately, This Time Is Different says little on this score…

…but others have. Thus the IMF, squinting hard at a relatively limited run of experience (it looks only at advanced countries since 1960), finds evidence that boosting government spending in the face of a financial crisis shortens the slump that follows—but also finds (weak) evidence that such policies might backfire when governments already have a high level of debt, a point we’ll come back to. Interestingly, the IMF also finds that monetary policies, usually the recession-fighting tool of choice, don’t appear effective in the wake of financial crises, perhaps because funds don’t flow easily through a stricken banking system…

[During the 1930’s], nobody was following Keynesian policies in any deliberate way—contrary to legend, the New Deal was deeply cautious about deficit spending until the coming of World War II. There were, however, a number of countries that sharply increased military spending well in advance of the war, in effect delivering Keynesian stimulus as an accidental byproduct. Did these countries exit the Depression sooner than their less aggressive counterparts? Yes, they did. For example, the surge in military spending associated with Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia was followed by rapid growth in the Italian economy and a return to full employment.

Since conditions in the 1930s resembled those now in important ways—as Eichengreen and his coauthors put it, now as then we live “in an environment of near-zero interest rates, dysfunctional banking systems and heightened risk aversion”—this seems to suggest that the right course of action now is to spend freely on stimulus and pay for it later.1 But doing so would mean running large budget deficits and adding to debt levels that are already historically high in many countries. How dangerous is doing that?

Much of This Time Is Different is devoted to sovereign debt crises, in which governments lose the confidence of lenders, are unable to service their debt, and respond by defaulting, engaging in inflation, or both. Implicitly, then, the book warns against taking it for granted that nations can get away with deficit spending. On the other hand, advanced nations have historically been able to go remarkably deeply into debt without creating a crisis…

The truth is that the historical record on the consequences of government debt is sufficiently ambiguous to admit of different interpretations. We read the evidence as supporting a policy of stimulate now, pay later: spend strongly to promote employment in the crisis, but take measures to curb spending and raise revenue once the crisis has passed. Others will see it differently. The main thing to notice, perhaps, is that there is no safe path: debt has long-term risks, but so does failing to engineer a solid recovery. The IMF’s research suggests that the long-term cost of financial crises is less when countries respond with strong stimulus policies, which means that failing to do so risks damage not just this year but for years to come…

Clearly, the best way to deal with debt crises is not to have them. Is there anything in the historical record indicating how we can do that?…

What the data show is a dramatic drop in the frequency of crises of all kinds after World War II, then an irregularly rising trend after about 1980, with a series of regional crises in Latin America, Europe, and Asia, finally culminating in the global crisis of 2008–2009.

What changed after World War II, and what changed it back? The obvious answer is regulation…

The world’s two great financial centers, in New York and London, wielded vast influence over their respective governments, regardless of party. The Clinton administration in the US and the Labour government in Britain succumbed alike to the siren song of financial innovation—and were spurred in part by the competition between the two great centers, because politicians were all too easily convinced that having a large financial industry was a wonderful thing. Only when the crisis struck did it become clear that the growth of Wall Street and the City actually exposed their home nations to special risks, and that nations that missed out on the glamour of high finance, like Canada, also missed out on the worst of the crisis.

Now that the multiple bubbles have burst, there’s obviously a strong case for a return to much stricter regulation. It’s by no means clear, however, whether this will actually happen. For one thing, the ideology used to justify the dismantling of regulation has proved remarkably resilient. It’s now an article of faith on the right, impervious to contrary evidence, that the crisis was caused not by private-sector excesses but by liberal politicians who forced banks to make loans to the undeserving poor. Less partisan leaders nonetheless fret over the possibility that regulation might crimp financial innovation, even though it’s very hard to find examples of such innovation that were clearly beneficial (ATMs don’t count)…

…as many have noted, President Obama’s chief economic and financial officials are men closely associated with Clinton-era deregulation and financial triumphalism; they may have revised their views but the continuity remains striking.

In that sense, this time really is different: while the first great global financial crisis was followed by major reforms, it’s not clear that anything comparable will happen after the second. And history tells us what will happen if those reforms don’t take place. There will be a resurgence of financial folly, which always flourishes given a chance. And the consequence of that folly will be more and quite possibly worse crises in the years to come.

LIke I said, please read the whole thing; the above only gives the broad outline of their argument.

I sent this link to a friend of mine, who deeply understands matters economic and corporate and had some criticisms of Krugman and Wells positions:

I’ve read the entire piece which will give you some sense for the situation. Since I’ve been closely following this for some time now, I can’t say there was anything new in here for me… but again, I know you’ve not been as closely tracking things and so this will be useful for you. Again, it’s well written. But since I do have a bit more rounded understanding, let me point out some things that the article glosses over (perhaps because of word limits and/or the authors’ sense of not going too deep for their audience).

First, Krugman and Wells imply that the Swedish example was ‘nasty, brutish and long’. By the standards of responses to these sorts of crises, that is not correct. Look to the bottom of the article where Krugman point out how truly long the Japan experience has been… that is nasty, brutish and long. Sweden’s experience was quite short. [In further correspondence, my friend clarified this as essentially a semantic distinction, ie, relative to the extended problems in Japan, Sweden’s experience was short.] Moreover, Sweden’s policy focused on the ‘real economy’, not the asset based, financialized economy… of which, more below.

Second, Krugman and Wells provide only one explanation for continued strength of the dollar: flight to safety/safe haven. This is simplistic — in ways the two of them fully understand. Again, perhaps the tyranny of word limits. But, while some investors are seeking safe haven (I know I am), there are many other major players who are flying to dollars in order to keep up value of dollar in turn so that asset values don’t deflate/drop…. much of the entire approach to this crisis can be summarized as ‘extend and pretend’… extend the unrealistic values of assets while pretending that the whole thing was just an unfortunate problem of illiquidity and that there can, in fact, be a return to ‘normal’…. remember, last year, congress enacted a law that allowed ‘mark to make believe’ accounting — the whole game here is to allow financial institutions –and now the Fed!! — to carry these assets on their balance sheets at values that have no relation whatsoever to ‘fair market value’. If these assets — including those on Fed’s books — were marked at what the market would actually pay for them, we’d have a complete collapse of the financial sector. It’s make believe.

Third, this implication that dollar value remains high solely because of flight to safety when, in fact, it’s mostly about extend and pretend also relates to perhaps the most glaring omission of the krugman/wells article: they fail to mention that the crisis derives in major part because we have shifted to an asset based economy grounded in fictitious paper based debt instead of a jobs based economy grounded on sustainable incomes derived from an economy that’s real. As just mentioned, the policy approach now in play is about preserving and extending the asset based economy; it is not about returning to a jobs based economy. I’m a bit surprised krugman/wells failed to note this — especially since they so rightly described how the deregulation regime is so much a part of our current difficulties; and also since they make a key point about the need for stimulus to create jobs notwithstanding the deficit implications.

Indeed, they also bypass the more insightful points about government deficit/debt. They make an important point — as just stated — that its key to get jobs back and that deficits don’t matter if they are producing jobs. But, Krugman/Wells simply gloss over this in their larger commentary about govt deficits…. they fail to note that 80 to 90% or more of govt commitments in this crisis have been to prop up assets, not produce jobs. The Fed has basically engaged in the same high leverage act as the financial sector — and the price tag for that is that we’re a hair trigger away from collapse while simultaneously have so over committed the govt — all to prop up asset prices because we said “no” to the Swedish model (which was short, not long) — that, in effect, we’ve shot our wad at asset prices and when folks say, jobs, jobs, jobs, the oligarchs cry: too much govt debt.

Krugman/Wells simply do not explain this — and the article would have been far superior if they had.

Last; in the concluding paragraph, they correctly lament that what may well make this crisis different is that we will not have any financial sector reform. I agree with them. I just wish they’d taken an additional 3 to 7 paragraphs to let us know if they believe the Dodd bill is serious reform. It is not. It is merely band aids and fig leaves. And, unfortunately, a replay of so called ‘health care reform’.

The one thing that may be different — and could lead to real financial reform — is that folks like Sherrod Brown and others may have the power this time around to convert the Republican party of no plus huge public unrest into amendments to the Dodd bill that actually might be real reform. I’m reasonably certain that Obama will sign any bill — so if Brown et al can get a good bill, Obama wouldn’t stand in the way. On the other hand, if we get health care redux, Obama will sign that too — and the media will then continue their horse race, ‘reality tv’ act and obama’s stature will go up, up, and up while the economy remains in peril, peril, peril.

Let them eat assets!!

I can’t comment on the relative merits of Krugman’s arguments vs. my friend’s as I simply don’t speak finance, but I’d like to end this post with a few words about a meta-issue.

This is what genuine disagreement looks like. Regardless of who is right and who is wrong – or more precisely, whose emphases are more useful for understanding the present financial crisis – the arguments presented both by Krugman/Wells and my friend are fact-based, reality-based, devoid of ad hominem attacks, and reasoned. There may be more facts to consider, there may be other parts of reality that are more salient, there are certainly personal biases that both Krugman/Wells and my friend bring to the table, and their reasoning may be simplified or expressed in shorthand in order to save space. All of that said, it is quite clear to me, even if I am not able to enter the argument other than to ask questions, that the points raised by all of them are both useful and substantive. The disagreements are real because the issues are real and they are not based on crazy, arbitrary assertions stemming from a priori ideological imperatives.

These are the kinds of discussions that rarely occur in the public discourse about any issue. Rather than hypocritical calls for civility and bipartisanship, I perceive here a genuine tug of war among ideas – real ideas, discussed by people who do understand the subject and have made a serious effort to explain their positions and defend them honestly.

True, my main reason for posting all this was to share with you what I think are two interesting, accessible analyses of the current financial crisis. But another reason I wanted you to see all of this was that many folks mistake posturing for engagement and disputation. This is what genuine disagreement looks like.

And I, for one, want to see more of this, and less of the fake nonsense that the rightwing is wasting all our time over.

Land of Smiles

by digby

I haven’t written anything on the events in Thailand but I assume that anyone who’s reading the papers is following it at least a little bit. This article in today’s WaPo captures my main thought on the matter since the protests began. Thailand is going crazy? Thailand?

BANGKOK — Whether keeping rapacious colonial powers at bay, averting political violence or settling family squabbles, Thais have earned a reputation for deft diplomacy, thwarting confrontation and achieving compromise, or as they proudly say, “bending with the wind like bamboo.”

Until now, it seems. The latest iteration of Thailand’s political crisis, which pits a largely rural movement against the government, is in its seventh week. There is no end in sight and seemingly no one able to break the deadlock that has seen protesters occupying key areas of Bangkok for weeks. Individuals and institutions, including the monarchy, that once played key mediating roles, are either powerless or silent. Confrontations have so far taken the lives of 26 people and paralyzed central Bangkok, where the protesters, known as the Red Shirts, occupy a square-mile (half-kilometer) of some of the capital’s most glamorous shopping areas. Almost everyone agrees that old-fashioned give-and-take is the best way out of the stalemate, which has crippled Thailand’s golden tourist industry and shaken investor confidence. But three rounds of talks have already failed, and the seemingly intractable standoff even has some worrying publicly about the potential for civil war.

This is not a country with a history of doing this sort of thing. But it’s a canary in the coal mine:

The Red Shirts consist mainly of rural supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and pro-democracy activists who opposed the military coup that ousted him in 2006. They believe Abhisit’s government is illegitimate because it came to power under military pressure through a parliamentary vote after disputed court rulings ousted two elected pro-Thaksin governments. But what really fuels the protesters – and makes reconciliation difficult – are not legal decisions and political wrangling, but deep-seated anger at a Bangkok-based elite they say treats the rural poor as second-class citizens while it fails to alleviate their poverty. Compromise is hard even for past masters of the art, given the “intensification of polarization” in Thai society, says Surat Horachaikul, another political scientist at Chulalongkorn University.

I lived in Thailand when I was a kid and have relatives who live there now. It is one of the nicest places on earth with a culture that is so friendly, tolerant and easy going that it’s hard to imagine any kind of serious violence in the streets much less a civil war. This income inequality must have gotten completely unendurable if it came to this.

If it can happen there it can happen anywhere.

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Reformers With Results

by digby

So one week, you get an anti-immigration teabag outfit gaybaiting Lindsay Graham:

The national border security organization known as Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) is officially calling for US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to make his homosexual lifestyle public knowledge in the interest of political integrity and national security. “US Senator Lindsey Graham is gay and while many people in South Carolina and Washington DC know that, the general public and Graham’s constituents do not,” said William Gheen President of ALIPAC. “I personally do not care about Graham’s private life, but in this situation his desire to keep this a secret may explain why he is doing a lot of political dirty work for others who have the power to reveal his secrets. Senator Graham needs to come out of the closet inside that log cabin so the public can rest assured he is not being manipulated with his secret.”

And the next week we get this:

In a move that may derail a comprehensive climate change and energy bill in the Senate, one of the measure’s central architects, Senator Lindsey Graham, has issued an angry protest over what he says are Democratic plans to give priority to a debate over immigration policy. Mr. Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said in a sharply worded letter on Saturday that he would no longer participate in negotiations on the energy bill, throwing its already cloudy prospects deeper into doubt. He had been working for months with Senators John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, on the a legislation, which they were scheduled to announce with considerable fanfare on Monday morning. That announcement has been indefinitely postponed.

That worked like a charm.

The irony, of course, is that the anti-immigrant teabagger complaint was that Graham was being blackmailed into voting for immigration reform.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Da bomb

By Dennis Hartley

What with presidents Obama and Medvedev’s recent nuclear disarmament discussions, Ahmadinejad’s saber-rattling and subsequent speculation about the possibility of U.S. strikes in Iran in the news lately, I found myself checking my wall calendar to see if it said October 1962, just to make sure I hadn’t fallen into a time warp. I suppose the Cold War has never really gone away; it just goes on sabbatical every now and then. I seem to remember a resurgence back in the early to mid-80s, when the idea of Evil Empire-hatin’ Ronnie Raygun’s finger hovering ever so close to the red button 24/7 spawned a new cycle of Cold War paranoia movies like War Games, The Manhattan Project, Top Gun, Rambo and Red Dawn (good times!). I wonder if we are due for a new wave. We’ll see.

At any rate, the cautionary and/or entertainment value (hey-there’s an upside to everything) of Armageddon-themed scenarios has not been lost on filmmakers over the years, whether they are precipitated by vengeful deities, comets, meteors, aliens, plagues or mankind’s curious propensity to boldly seek out new and improved ways of ensuring its own mass destruction. With that latter joyful thought in mind, I now offer my picks for the Top 10 Nuclear Nightmare Movies (alphabetically). So, enjoy…while you still can.

The Atomic Cafe– Whoopee we’re all gonna die! But along the way, we might as well have a few laughs. That seems to be the impetus behind this 1982 collection of cleverly reassembled footage culled from U.S. government propaganda shorts from the Cold War era (Mk 1), originally designed to educate the public about how to “survive” a nuclear attack (all you need to do is get under a desk…everyone knows that!). In addition to the Civil Defense campaigns (which include the classic “duck and cover” tutorials) the filmmakers have also drawn from a rich vein of military training films, which reduce the possible effects of a nuclear strike to something akin to a barrage from, oh I don’t know- a really big field howitzer. Harrowing, yet quite entertaining. Written and directed by Jayne Loader, Pierce Rafferty and Kevin Rafferty (Kevin went on to co-direct the similarly constructed 1999 doc, The Last Cigarette, a takedown of the tobacco industry).

Black Rain-For obvious reasons, there have been a fair amount of postwar Japanese films dealing with the subject of nuclear destruction and its aftermath. Some take an oblique approach, like Gojira or Kurosawa’s I Live in Fear . Others deal directly with A-bomb survivors and their descendants (sometimes referred to as hibakusha films). One of the better entries in the latter genre is this 1989 drama from director Shomei Imamura (The Ballad of Narayama, Vengeance Is Mine) which tells a relatively simple story of three Hiroshima survivors: an elderly couple and their niece, whose scars go much deeper than the visible kind. It may be a simple story, but has more layers than an onion (especially when you consider the complexities of Japanese society). Most interestingly, Imamura uses his movie to point an accusatory finger in a direction that that you may least expect.

Day After Trinity-This thoughtful and absorbing film about the Manhattan Project and its subsequent fallout (literal, historical, political and philosophical) is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen, period. At its center, it is a profile of project leader Robert J. Oppenheimer, whose moment of supreme scientific triumph (the successful test of the world’s first atomic bomb, just three weeks before one was dropped on Hiroshima) also brought him an unnerving precognition about the destructive horror he and his fellow physicists had enabled the military machine to unleash. Oppenheimer’s journey from “father of the atomic bomb” to anti-nuke activist (and having his life destroyed by the post-war “Red hysteria”) is a twisted and tragic tale of Shakespearean proportions. And if you can spare the time, the BBC produced an exemplary mini-series in 1980 called Oppenheimer (with Sam Waterston in the lead) which is also worth your while.

Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb-“Mein fuehrer! I can walk!” Although we have yet (knock on wood) to experience the global thermonuclear annihilation that ensues following the wheelchair-bound Dr. Strangelove’s joyous (if short-lived) epiphany, so many other depictions in Stanley Kubrick’s seriocomic masterpiece about the tendency for men in power to eventually rise to their own level of incompetence have since come to pass, that you wonder why the filmmakers even bothered to make all this shit up. In case you are one of the three people reading this who have never seen the film, it’s about an American military base commander who goes a little funny in the head (you know…”funny”) and sort of launches a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Hilarity (and oblivion) ensues. You will never see a cast like this again: Peter Sellers (absolutely brilliant, playing three major characters), George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens (yee-HAW!), Keenan Wynn, James Earl Jones and Peter Bull (who can be seen breaking character as the Russian ambassador and cracking up during the scene where Strangelove’s prosthetic arm seems to take on a mind of its own). There are so many quotable lines, that you might as well bracket the entire screenplay (by Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George) with quotation marks. I never tire of this film.

Fail-safe – Dr. Strangelove…without the laughs. This no-nonsense 1964 thriller from director Sidney Lumet takes a more clinical look at how a similar wild card scenario (in this case, a simple hardware malfunction) could ultimately trigger a nuclear showdown between the Americans and the Russians. Talky and a little stagey at times; but riveting nonetheless thanks to Lumet’s skillful pacing (and trademark knack for bringing out the best in his actors), Walter Bernstein’s intelligent screenplay (with uncredited assistance from Peter George, who also co-scripted Dr. Strangelove) and a superb cast that includes Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Fritz Weaver, and Larry Hagman. There’s no fighting in this war room, but plenty of suspense. The film’s final scene is chilling and unforgettable.

Miracle Mile– Depending on your view regarding the “half-empty/half-full” paradox, this is either an “end of the world” film for romantics, or the Perfect Date Movie for fatalists. Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham give winning performances as a musician and a waitress who Meet Cute at L.A.’s La Brea Tar Pits museum. But before they can hook up for their first hot date, Edwards inadvertently stumbles onto a fairly reliable hot tip that L.A. is about to get hosed…in a major way. The resulting “ticking clock” scenario is a real nail-biter. This modestly budgeted, 90-minute sleeper offers more genuine heart-pounding excitement (and much more believable characters) than any bloated Hollywood disaster epic from the likes of a Michael Bay or a Roland Emmerich. Puzzlingly, writer-director Steve De Jarnatt stopped doing feature films after this 1988 gem (his only other film was the guilty pleasure Cherry 2000); opting for TV instead (pays better, maybe?).

On the Beach– Compared to many of the films on my list, this 1959 network narrative drama takes a relatively low-key approach, yet still delivers a powerful message and quite the emotional punch. A global nuclear exchange has virtually wiped out the populations of all the continents, with the exception of Australia and Antarctica, which now await the imminent blanketing of deadly fallout over the Earth’s southern hemisphere. The U.S. naval fleet is reduced to a single submarine (commanded by Gregory Peck) which has made its way to Australia. Ava Gardner provides a love interest, and Fred Astaire gives one of his best dramatic performances (atypically, he plays a very cynical character). Anthony Perkins and Donna Anderson are particularly affecting and heart wrenching as a young couple with a newborn child. It borders on soap opera at times, but the earnest performances, John Paxton’s thoughtful screenplay (adapted from Nevil Shute’s novel) and Stanley Kramer’s assured direction keep your attention throughout. The film picked up two Oscars-for best editing (Frederic Knudtson) and best music score (Ernest Gold).

Testament– Originally an “American Playhouse” presentation, the film was released to theatres and garnered a well-deserved Best Actress nomination for Jane Alexander (she lost to Shirley MacLaine). Director Lynne Littman takes a low key, deliberately paced approach, but pulls no punches. Alexander, her husband (William DeVane) and three kids live in sleepy Hamlin, California, where the afternoon cartoons are interrupted by a news flash that a number of nuclear explosions have occurred in New York. Then there is a flash of a whole different kind when nearby San Francisco (where DeVane has gone on a business trip) receives a direct strike. There is no exposition on the political climate that precipitates the attacks; a wise decision by the filmmakers because it helps us zero in on the essential humanistic message of the film. All of the post-nuke horrors ensue, but they are presented sans the histrionics and melodrama that informs many entries in the genre. The fact that the nightmarish scenario unfolds so deliberately, and amidst such everyday suburban banality, is what makes it all so believably horrifying and difficult to shake off.

Thirteen Days-I will confess that I had a block against watching this film about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis until just a few months ago (it was released in 2000), for several reasons. For one, director Roger Donaldson’s chequered output (for every Smash Palace/or No Way Out, he’s got a Species or a Cocktail to kill the buzz). Then, there was the matter of “Kevin Costner? In another movie about JFK?! Give it a rest!” Finally, I felt that the outstanding 1974 made-for-TV film, The Missiles of October would be hard to top. But to my surprise-I found this to be one of Donaldson’s better films, and completely absorbing. Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp make a very credible JFK and RFK, respectively. The film is paced like a tense and exciting political thriller, yet it is also intimate and quite moving at times (especially in the Oval Office scenes between the brothers). Costner provides the “fly on the wall” perspective as Kennedy insider Kenny O’Donnell. Costner gives a compassionate performance; on the downside he proves once again that he has a tin ear for regional dialects (that Hahvad Yahd brogue comes and goes of its own free will). According to a tidbit of trivia posted on the Internet Movie Database, this was the first film to be screened at the White House by George and Laura Bush in 2001. Knowing this now…I don’t know whether to laugh or cry myself to sleep.

Threads -Out of all of the selections on my list, this is arguably the grimmest and most sobering “nuclear nightmare” film of them all. Originally produced for British television in 1984, it aired that same year here in the states on TBS (say what you will about Ted Turner-but I always admired him for being the only American TV exec with the balls to run it). Mick Jackson directs with an uncompromising sense of docu-realism that makes The Day After (the similarly-themed U.S. television film from the previous year) look like a Teletubbies episode. The story takes a run-of-the-mill, medium sized city (Sheffield, England) and shows what would happen to its populace during and after a nuclear strike…in graphic detail. The filmmakers make it very clear that, while this is a dramatization, it is not designed to “entertain” you in any sense of the word. Let me put it this way-don’t get too attached to any of the main characters. The message is simple and direct-nothing good comes out of a nuclear conflict. It’s a living, breathing Hell for all concerned-and anyone “lucky” enough to survive will soon wish they were fucking dead.

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Liberteabagger Logic

by digby

Following up on my post from this morning, Perlstein wrote in to tell me about this video in which Cenk Uygar repeatedly asks why the tea parties aren’t protesting on Wall Street. The libertarian teabagger he’s interviewing doesn’t have an answer.

Cenk keeps on asking and after the bagger executes a series of rhetorical dance moves that would put Michael Jackson to shame, Cenk finally says:

“You’re not answering the question. Why are the only tea party protests in favor of corporate America and not against corporate America which is buying those politicians you claim you are so upset about?”

The Liberteabagger responds:

“The only thing I can say to you in response to that is that I’m a guy who believes in the private sector and private industry and I don’t feel any great need to protest Goldman Sachs. I feel a much stronger need to protest public employee unions who are ripping off people in far greater numbers.”

He goes on to defend Goldman Sachs’ right to be held innocent until proven guilty. Seriously.

Watch the whole thing. This person happens to have been the Libertarian Party’s Vice Presidential candidate, Wayne Alan Root, who has opportunistically joined the tea party movement and is probably making a lot of money selling this nonsense to his faithful. He knows he’s supposed to be against Wall Street and insists he even wrote something about it four or five months ago that you can find on his blog somewhere. But he’s very confused by all this and doesn’t quite know how to make the argument in a way that preserves his fanboy worship of John Galt and belief in the satanic nature of government which is needed to rein them in. It’s a real problem for him.

Heather at C&L pretty much sums up the teabaggers, I think.

This tea party movement is one part Dick Armey and company fake astroturf protest, one part angry McCain and Palin soreloserman, one part abortion clinic protester, one part white nationalist militia movement/gun rights nuts, one part ClusterFox/Glenn Beck brain dead watcher, one part anti-immigration Lou Dobbs/Tom Tancredo fan, one part southern racist that isn’t done fighting the Civil War yet and one part Ron Paul/Libertarian. What could ever go wrong with that special blend of tea?

I think they all mix together into a particularly nasty cup of poison that the country needs to be warned about. It’s a potent brew that has a smell to it far too many people find comforting and familiar.

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No Magic Bullet

by digby

It’s very easy to chalk all the bad things in government up to bad character and corruption. After all, if there wasn’t so much money required to run for office, our representatives would all be able to just sit around a table and calmly figure out what’s best for the people, right? I watched Casino Jack last night and convicted felon Bob Ney explained that if he hadn’t had to chase money the way he did, he would never have gotten so involved with Abramoff and company. He was foursquare behind public financing.

Well, I’m not convinced. I think money is a huge factor, no doubt about it. However, I think human nature and ideology are even bigger. I don’t believe that simply getting the money out of politics, however laudable and necessary that is, will necessarily result in a more progressive government devoted to the general welfare.

And I have a little bit of proof: Arizona, where 70% of the state representatives were elected under public financing. We know what they just did, don’t we?

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Help Us Help Kagro End The Filibuster

by digby

Blue America will be hosting a slightly different kind of chat this morning over at Crooks and Liars at 11 AM (2PM EDT). We’ll be talking with “one of us” — a blogger and activist whom you all know and already love — Kagro X of Daily Kos and CongressMatters, (also known by the slightly less mysterious name, David Waldman.)

Kagro is a fundamentally important resource not just to the netroots and the progressive blogosphere, but to the Democratic Party at large. During the health care debate his expertise in congressional rules and tradition was incredibly useful to anyone who cared to understand the arcane processes that were necessary to pass the legislation and I happen to know that this included a lot of journalists and academics as well as bloggers, staffers and activists. He truly is a valuable resource and we need to find ways to support people like him.

To that end, The Progressive Congress Action Fund, Credo Action and Blue America are teaming up to sponsor a fellowship for Kagro so that he can help us organize a movement to end the filibuster.

I’ll let him explain it to you himself:

Reforming the Filibuster, with the Progressive Congress Action Fund Fellowship Program

-by Kagro X

No one has to tell you at this point that Republican obstructionism in the Senate is probably the biggest impediment to the ability of Congressional Democrats to implement a progressive agenda. And I’m equally sure nobody has to tell you that the filibuster has been the single most frustrating weapon in the arsenal of the Republican obstructionists.

So it won’t surprise you that when Congressman Barney Frank was asked recently what ought to top the progressive agenda going forward, he replied that it ought to be getting every Democratic Senator to sign on to restricting the filibuster, as you can see in the video above.

As you know, the filibuster and the need it creates to find 60 votes in the Senate is the reason we don’t have a public option in the new health care bill. It’s why we haven’t addressed climate change. It’s why a significant percentage of appointments to the Obama administration remain vacant, crippling the administration’s ability to do its job.

The clamor for change– and the American people’s frustration with its pace– is just starting to get traction inside the Capitol, where newer Senators like New Mexico’s Tom Udall are pointing out that despite the Constitution clearly giving each house of Congress the right to adopt its own rules of procedure, just a handful of today’s Senators have ever had the opportunity to actually vote on whether they want to continue working under the filibuster rule.

The opportunity to change that is coming, and momentum for it is growing every day. Senate precedents say that the beginning of each new Congress, the Senate has the opportunity to adopt or amend its rules by a simple majority vote, so January 2011 could be a real turning point. But organizing for such a big change needs to start now.

That’s why I’ve been pushing for the launch of an organized campaign toward this end, and why I’m so pleased that the Progressive Caucus Action Fund has created a fellowship program to help support efforts like this one and others aimed at bringing the netroots into a working partnership in moving our the progressive agenda forward in Congress.

Over the years, I’ve built something of a niche expertise in unraveling the mysteries of Congressional procedure for netroots activists and the wider blog-reading audience. And lately, we’ve been seeing the positive effects of informing an engaged community about the ins and outs of the rules and other mechanisms that make the Hill tick. The public option, declared dead at least half a dozen times over the past year, survived as a possibility nearly up to the last minute of the health care reform debate because we identified the pressure points that kept it alive. “Citizen whip counts” driven by a new and better understanding of voting dynamics helped apply needed pressure for passage of last year’s stimulus package. And when we discussed how the decision on renewing Joe Lieberman’s committee gavel would go through the previously obscure Senate Democratic Steering & Outreach Committee, members heard in unprecedented numbers from thousands of you on a process normally conducted entirely behind closed doors.

We’d all agree that an informed citizenry is an empowered one. It’s something we accept as an axiom when it comes to knowledge of the issues. But the same and more goes for Congressional procedure. It’s something that’s generally been shrouded in mystery for most people (and don’t think Members of Congress don’t sometimes like it that way), yet its critical not only to understanding why things on the Hill happen the way they do, but also to explaining why high-priced professional lobbyists tend to get their way so much more often than the millions of ordinary citizens who tend to want… something different. Getting what we want means understanding how to get it. Not just in terms of emails and phone calls, but in the mechanical terms of draft legislation, committee markups and floor procedure. There’s a good reason why Congressman John Dingell of Michigan– the longest-serving Member in the history of the House of Representatives– once said, “Let me control the procedure and I’ll never lose.”

So that’s what this is all about. More than just the filibuster, though that’s where we’re starting. If you choose, we can make this a long-running project aimed at increasing our leverage in Congress over a broad range of issues. Not just with my help, but potentially with the help of many more dedicated activists who can put their time, energy and expertise to work for all of us.

What are we asking you to do? For starters, how about joining in our filibuster reform petition effort, sponsored by CREDO Action? By sigining on, you’re also signing up to receive CREDO Action’s alert e-mails, so you can stay on top of the latest hot topics that need your attention on the Hill and elsewhere in the government. Is it a list-building exercise? You bet it is. But the good news is that for every name we add to that list, CREDO Action makes a generous donation to the fellowship program.

And if you’re in a position to do more and help us with a direct donation, we’ve got an ActBlue page set up for that, too. We’ll try and make this as transparent as we can.

So if you felt like you were well-served with good procedural information during the health care reform debate, and want to see our ability to build that kind of knowledge continue to grow, think about pitching in with us and making it happen. I’d appreciate it, and I hope you will too!

Come on over to Crooks and Liars to chat with David about what we need to do to end the filibuster once and for all.

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The Enemy Of My Enemy

by digby

In case anyone’s still laboring under the illusion that the “populist” teabaggers give a damn about reforming Wall Street (or direct even the tiniest bit of their famous anger at the wealthy) this should clear your head:

Tea Party Nation has enlisted members to bombard Corker (R-TN) with phone calls pleading with him “not to compromise” with the majority party. In an email obtained by TPMDC as a member of the group’s mailing list, Tea Party Nation leaders give out Corker’s six state office numbers and his Washington line.

The tea party group’s facts aren’t quite accurate, since Corker was one of the 41 Republican senators who signed a letter last week pledging to block the bill in its current form. But as we’ve been reporting on our Financial Reform Wire and in detail here, Corker and other GOPers are cooperating with Democrats.

Here’s the illiterate missive:

Bailout Bob Corker, (RINO-TN) is at it again

The liberals have three major agendas they want passed this year. The first was health care, the second is financial overhaul and the third is cap and tax. While the liberals were able to take over 1/6 of the economy with healthcare, they are now trying to take over the remaining 5/6 with “financial reform” legislation.

This bill, written by Chris “Countrywide” Dodd, is a permanent bail out of the financial sector. It provides for advance funding for government take overs of banks.

Although Corker denies this, it is a permanent bailout.

Until now, all 41 Republican Senators had stood firm, providing a filibuster that the liberals could not break.

Now, that is changing. Corker has been signaling his willingness to work with Chris Dodd.

This bill does nothing for the American people. It will only allow the government to control even more of our economy.

Corker needs to hear from all of us, regardless of whether you live in Tennessee. Call his offices as soon as you can and tell him not to compromise with Chris Dodd, and not to support this “financial reform.”

…

Send this email to your friends and encourage them to call Corker’s offices.

The Obama/Pelosi/Reid axis of fiscal evil are on the move again and Bailout Bob Corker is the one vote that could stop this.

Call him today!

I’m actually starting to feel sorry for them.

One more time, with feeling. They are not populists and they are not libertarians. They are what is known as the far right. And their organizing principle is hatred of liberalism (and those it serves) and government when it is in the hands of the Democratic Party. That’s all there is to it.

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A Political Reporter Who Boasts He’s Never Seen Glenn Beck’s Show…

by tristero

A political reporter who boasts he’s never seen Glenn Beck’s Show is like a proctologist who boasts he’s never seen an asshole.

It’s an important part of the job.

Word

by digby

With extra, added funny dancing:

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The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c