Sunday Drama

The newest word is that John Boehner told congressional Republicans that there must be some kind of positive signal on a debt ceiling deal before the Asian markets open Monday morning, which is Sunday evening North American time. Steve Clemons writes,

“Instead of August 2nd being the debt default deadline, Boehner’s tactics and now his statement to his own troops have created market expectations that will either be met — or be disappointed, possibly creating a real sell-off in American treasuries.”

This may be just politics theater designed to keep Republican talking points in the news, or not. But the next few hours could be interesting.

Boehner is saying he’s going to push for a short-term deal, even though the President has said he won’t sign off on a short-term deal. Is Boehner making an offer he knows the President will refuse?

Not entirely related, but interesting — “Why Conservatives Abandoned Monetarism.”

11 thoughts on “Sunday Drama

  1. Boehner wants this to be about Obama, so I expect he will make an offer the president would refuse

    But the president wants the fight to be about the economy, so you can expect the Senate will kill the offer from Boehner without Obama having to veto.

  2. To quote one of our greatest Americans…” Bring it on”

    Boehner needs to realize that you can beat a dead horse just so long before people grow tired of the bullshit. If he’s determined to crash the economy he should just do it and dispense with the antics. It’s like in child rearing were a parent sends a constantly changing or contradictory message to a child that only leaves the child confused and doubting the parent’s veracity….Or in other words..shit or get off the pot, Boehner!

  3. Boehner is demanding that the size of the cuts meet or exceed the size of any debt limit increase.

    Huh? That’s just a shell game at best. Shifty politics. Overall that demand creates the illusion of doing something while actually doing nothing if the debt is really the concern. It’s like converting a whole number into a fraction…nothing really changes except for how it is viewed.

  4. “John Boehner told congressional Republicans that there must be some kind of positive signal on a debt ceiling deal before the Asian markets open Monday morning…”

    Fine John.
    Sign a piece of paper that raises the debt ceiling. Even a man of limited intelligence like you can probably write a simple declarrative sentence – and if you can’t, find a staffer who can. Or call a Democrat.
    Then release the hostage economy.

    You can take the economy hostage again for the budget talks. It’s not going anywhere – at least as long as you raise the debt ceiling.

    I love the smell of flop sweat in the morning.
    It, it smells like… victory.

  5. Didn’t monetarism come into vogue when Britain faced stagflation, which contradicted Keynesian theory? Thatcher came to power and employed monetarist theory to no avail. In the end, she was driven from power by an economic crisis that had blindsided her.

    Despite the Swedish Bank Prize in honor of Alfred Nobel, are there examples of monetarist theory actually working, or appearing to work in the long term? It seems just another “conservative” fever dream.

    • My understanding is that monetarist ideas are applicable in some circumstances but not in others. In other words, it’s OK as long as it’s not your religion. But the Idiot Right these days is running away even from monetarism and wants to reinstate the gold standard. The article’s point is that the Right went along with monetarism mostly because Milton Friedman said it was good, and now that he’s gone they are leaving that reservation because no one on the Right is speaking out for it and they never understood it, anyway.

  6. OT: Time Warner’s NY1 televised the first same-sex marriage ceremony in NYC (Manhattan I presume). The couple — Phyllis and Connie — have been together over 20 years and are aged 85 and 75. The Clerk’s ending comment to the ceremony was wishing that their love would grow and enable them to cope with life’s challenges (paraphrase). For all the craziness this past week, I think this is an excellent start to the new week. This day is good.

  7. “In other words, it’s OK as long as it’s not your religion.”

    I had written a post that expanded on this idea, but deleted it instead of posting. Most of our attempts mix insights or “truth” and illusions. I was thinking that by and large success happens when the group governing an enterprise is able to accept reality when their theory no longer describes it, and rethink the situation. This is rare.

    I derived my comment from a BBC Documentary. The section on the Thatcher years basically presented the situation I tried to describe. Stagflation was a puzzle in a Keynesian view, but attempts to effect a monetarist solution came to naught. Among other things efforts to pinch or reduce the money supply seemed to have little effect.

    One thing for sure, my understanding of economics is pretty abysmal, but, it’s hard not to think about it. In the world I grew up in, Keynes’ theories were conventional wisdom and people like Krugman and Steiglitz still present examples of how they worked in the real world. I am a big fan of empirical evidence.

  8. One thing for sure, my understanding of economics is pretty abysmal,

    That’s because economics is dynamic and any truth or understanding that can be arrived at becomes invalid with constantly changing input.. My understanding is abysmal also,except I can determine an immutable truth in regard to current debt ceiling debate…If you don’t raise revenues, you can never overcome the debt problem..I’d guess in theory that perhaps in a millennium it could be whittled down by cuts..But that’s close enough to be considered as never.

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