Category Archives: Republicans

The Great Recession: How the Free Market Got Rigged

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What happened after 30 trillion dollars of credit default swap derivatives flooded the worldwide market…

This is my understanding, based on the data cited here:
https://www.mixermuse.com/blog/2012/01/10/the-facts-how-the-republicans-created-our-current-economic-crisis/
http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/10/14/how-george-bush-and-the-private-mortgage-market-created-the-perfect-storm/

In the latter part of the last decade, real estate pricing had been on the rise for decades and was due for a correction.

Credit default swaps (CDS) are private market derivatives that bundle up packages of mortgages. They were suppose to bundle higher risk mortgages with lower risk mortgages to level off the risk so that they could be sold for higher costs (less overall risk than the higher risk mortgages in the package). These packages are rated by rating agencies. In the Bush administration, regulation and rating agencies were closely aligned with the corporations and Wall Street. This has been thoroughly documented. Rating agencies and their agents were being wined and dined and were rewarding their comrades with lax regulatory enforcement and higher ratings on products like CDS.

CDS have very involved mathematical formulas that attempt to assess the risk of the package being sold. The ratings agencies are suppose to rate or endorse the validity of the risk assessment made by the company producing the derivative. The rating agencies were underfunded and did not really have the expertise to know how to accurately rate the CDS derivatives. Therefore, they were receiving ratings that were much higher than they should have been.

With the rapid increase of CDS, 900 billion to 30 trillion during the Bush years, more mortgages were needed to build the CDS packages. If you remember the last decade you will remember continual commercials on TV for ‘liar loans’. Private mortgages went up dramatically and were leaving the GSEs (Fannie and Freddie) in the dust. Everyone and their brother were jumping into the mortgage provider business. Housing pricing was going off the chart in an already inflated real estate market and house flipping was a favorite past time for many people. All this expansion was being funded by the need for CDS packages that were being sold like wildfire on the private market.

In the ‘free market’ the notion of value is really all about trust. When securities and derivatives are sold the buyer has to believe that the asking price is fair and worth doing the transaction. Even gold does not have an intrinsic value. It is also subject to trust as the recent rapid rise of asking price demonstrates. Capitalism which depends on the ‘free market’ depends on trust. Capitalism periodically has bubbles, runaway market segments where pricing goes up rapidly beyond any justifiable intrinsic value of the commodity being sold. When investors see other investors making money on inflated products they are inclined to jump in and trust that their investment will be rewarded with ever increasing pricing.

In a normal bubble cycle the market corrects itself, the latest investors to the ‘pyramid’ scheme lose and pricing goes down dramatically when the bubble bursts. This does not always happen. Occasionally the market develops ‘super bubbles’. This happened in the Great Depression. This also occurred in the CDS fiasco. In both cases lack of regulation and ratings agencies were key factors. For the CDS super bubble, instead of a ‘run on the banks’ there was a ‘run on the CDS’. The highly overinflated valuations of a super bubble carry with it the seeds of its own destruction. Trust gets strained and investors get more and more nervous as pricing goes up. This engenders more scrupulous requirements for risk assessment on the part of the investor. All the while, the requirement for more and more new mortgages to feed the beast is exasperating the oncoming doom. This is why the private mortgage market was leaving the GSEs in the dust.

Once the trust starts to break down, the market goes into panic sell mode. No investor wants to be left holding the bag. Housing valuations plummet. The housing market is left with very high inventories while pricing is out of whack for new home buyers. Mortgage holders are left holding all the risk consequences of highly inflated housing valuations and variable rate loans that make over-leveraged home owners absolutely incapable of making their payments or selling their house. So how is it that the homeowner takes the blame, all the risk and the consequences?

Anyone that blames the CDS super bubble of the last decade on the government has not understood the facts of what really happened. Wealthy Republicans control the purse strings of the Republican Party. They are the natural ones to benefit from the bubbles and super bubbles in the market. It is in their interest to find a straw man to blame when the bubble bursts and the individual mortgage holders are the last investors on the pyramid scheme. Housing valuations plummeted when the super bubble burst and the mortgage holders were left with the consequences. If Republicans allowed the idea that the ‘free market’ sometimes is rigged, people would demand oversight (regulation and independent ratings agencies) to level off the inequality of the market. Who do you think this would hurt? –wealthy Republicans of course. If the Republican electorate would maintain the same skepticism for the ‘free market’ they have for the government, market inequalities would be tilted more in their favor by electing politicians that exercise regulatory restraint on market excesses. Instead, the Republican electorate is made to believe that regulation kills the market and puts them out of jobs. Sure, a market can be regulated to death but that has never been the issue in this country. Our country has been highly tilted to the other side – no regulation and crony capitalism. How this problem has been made to be the Democrat’s fault is nuts. It is flagrant manipulation of the electorate by the Republican Party that creates this impression. If the electorate buys the Republican agenda and elects more Republican candidates, they will be throwing gasoline on the fire that will burn them alive. The next super bubble will make the Great Depression look like a time of affluence.

The Facts: Deregulation=Republicans=Economic Crisis

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Myths about the Mortgage Meltdown

Myth 1: Clinton caused the mortgage meltdown
Myth 2: Low income lending caused the mortgage meltdown
Myth 3: Bush did not contribute to the mortgage melt down
Myth 4: The private (free market) was not the cause of the mortgage meltdown

The increase of MBS (mortgage backed securities) purchased by the GSEs (Fannie and Freddie) from 2003 through 2006 under pressure from the Bush administration to meet their 56% affordable housing requirement started PRIVATE, market speculation – a 30 trillion dollar bubble worldwide on the PRIVATE, credit default swap derivatives markets – this was the cause of the housing bubble that burst into the subsequent economic crisis. Deregulation of the financial market allowed this bubble to occur. The private (free market) speculative derivative bubble caused the meltdown not the low income housing increase and subsequent loses. The low income housing loses in the Bush years resulted in tens of billions of dollars. The private market speculation for derivatives, 30 trillion dollars, is orders of magnitudes larger than the low income housing loses during the Bush years and is the only amount large enough to bring down the markets worldwide.

To understand how all this created the perfect storm see:
https://www.mixermuse.com/blog/2012/01/11/the-great-recession-how-the-free-market-got-rigged/

Even Alan Greenspan, a Republican, admitted in his interview with Brian Naylor:

BRIAN NAYLOR: The man once known as the maestro for his direction of the nation’s economy as Fed chairman sat for four long hours yesterday, watching lawmakers who once cheered his performances turn into harsh critics. Testifying before the House Oversight Committee, Greenspan didn’t down play the severity of the crisis in the nation’s markets.
Mr. ALAN GREENSPAN (Former Chairman, Federal Reserve): We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century credit tsunami. Central banks and governments are being required to take unprecedented measures.
NAYLOR: Under questioning from Democrats on the panel, Greenspan conceded he might have been, as he put it, partially wrong in not moving to regulate trading of some derivatives that are among the root causes of the credit crisis. He also admitted his free market ideology may be flawed. This exchange with committee chairman, Democrat Henry Waxman of California, verged on the metaphysical.
Representative HENRY WAXMAN (Committee Chairman, Democrat, 30th District of California): You found a flaw in the reality…
Mr. GREENSPAN: Flaw in the model that I perceived is a critical functioning structure that defines how the world works, so to speak.
Rep. WAXMAN: In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology was not right. It was not working.
Mr. GREENSPAN: How it – precisely. That’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I’ve been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96070766

In September 2002, Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Harvey Pitt, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman James Newsome wrote a letter to members of Congress to note their opposition to legislation that would regulate derivatives.

They wrote:

“We believe that the [over-the-counter] derivatives markets in question have been a major contributor to our economy’s ability to respond to the stresses and challenges of the last two years. This proposal would limit this contribution, thereby increasing the vulnerability of our economy to potential future stresses….
We do not believe a public policy case exists to justify this governmental intervention. The OTC (over the counter) markets trade a wide variety of instruments. Many of these are idiosyncratic in nature….
While the derivatives markets may seem far removed from the interests and concerns of consumers, the efficiency gains that these markets have fostered are enormously important to consumers and to our economy.
Greenspan and the others urged Congress “to be aware of the potential unintended consequences” of legislation to regulate derivatives.
They got it exactly wrong. Swaps and derivatives ended up undermining, not bolstering, the economy.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/10/alan-shrugged

Proof:

Certainly, a significant event that started the collapse happened during the last few years of the Clinton administration. The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act of 1999, known as financial services deregulation,

“It repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, opening up the market among banking companies, securities companies and insurance companies. The Glass-Steagall Act prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act

The bill was a compromise between the Clinton Administration and the House Republicans:

“The bill then moved to a joint conference committee to work out the differences between the Senate and House versions. Democrats agreed to support the bill after Republicans agreed to strengthen provisions of the anti-redlining Community Reinvestment Act and address certain privacy concerns; the conference committee then finished its work by the beginning of November. On November 4, the final bill resolving the differences was passed by the Senate 90-8, and by the House 362-57. This legislation was signed into law by Democratic President William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton on November 12, 1999.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act

“In 2003, the two [GSEs, Fannie and Freddie] bought $81 billion in subprime securities. In 2004, they purchased $175 billion — 44 percent of the market. In 2005, they bought $169 billion, or 33 percent. In 2006, they cut back to $90 billion, or 20 percent. Generally, Freddie purchased more than Fannie and relied more heavily on the securities to meet goals.
In 1997 the GSEs owned about 12% of the total market share of these securities. In 2001 the GSEs owned about 15% of the total market share of these securities. In 2008 this percentage had grown dramatically to 40%.
In intervening years it was much more. President Bush directed his HUD director to pressure the GSEs into buying massive amounts these MBS [Mortgage Backed Securities] on the open market. This created huge market for these securities and encouraged more and more risky private sector mortgages so they could be bought, bundled and sold on the open market largely to Fannie and Freddie.
But by 2004, when HUD next revised the goals, Freddie and Fannie’s purchases of subprime-backed securities had risen tenfold. Foreclosure rates also were rising.
That year, President Bush’s HUD ratcheted up the main affordable-housing goal over the next four years, from 50 percent to 56 percent. John C. Weicher, then an assistant HUD secretary, said the institutions lagged behind even the private market and “must do more.”
For Wall Street, high profits could be made from securities backed by subprime loans. Fannie and Freddie targeted the least-risky loans. Still, their purchases provided more cash for a larger subprime market.
“That was a huge, huge mistake,” said Patricia McCoy, who teaches securities law at the University of Connecticut. “That just pumped more capital into a very unregulated market that has turned out to be a disaster.””
“In 2003, the two bought $81 billion in subprime securities. In 2004, they purchased $175 billion — 44 percent of the market. In 2005, they bought $169 billion, or 33 percent. In 2006, they cut back to $90 billion, or 20 percent. Generally, Freddie purchased more than Fannie and relied more heavily on the securities to meet goals.
“The market knew we needed those loans,” said Sharon McHale, a spokeswoman for Freddie Mac. The higher goals “forced us to go into that market to serve the targeted populations that HUD wanted us to serve,” she said.”
But because Fannie and Freddie were buying mortgage-backed securities rather than the actual subprime loans, their involvement came too late to require stiffer standards from lenders.
Fannie and Freddie “made no progress in civilizing the market,” said Sandra Fostek, a senior regulator at HUD.
William C. Apgar Jr., who was an assistant HUD secretary under Clinton, said he regrets allowing the companies to count subprime securities as affordable.
“It was a mistake,” he said. “In hindsight, I would have done it differently.””
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/09/AR2008060902626.html

Conclusion: Even though Fannie, Freddie and FHA had much less to do with new loans in the Bush administration they bought huge amounts of MBS in those years to meet President Bush’s 56% housing requirement.

Additionally, the President encouraged the GSEs to “focus” their “core housing mission” “with respect to low-income Americans and first-time homebuyers” in the following statement from the White House,

“The Administration strongly believes that the housing GSEs should be focused on their core housing mission, particularly with respect to low-income Americans and first-time homebuyers. Instead, provisions of H.R. 1461 that expand mortgage purchasing authority would lessen the housing GSEs’ commitment to low-income homebuyers.”
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/omb/legislative/sap/109-1/hr1461sap-h.pdf

Conclusion: President Bush had directed HUD to require the GSEs to meet the 56% low income housing requirement. This pressured the GSEs to buy massive MBS. This created a massive market for junk mortgages.

Credit Default Swaps are insurance policies on mortgages, sort of like the futures market for commodities for MBS. Credit Default Swaps are not regulated. The government did not own credit default swaps. This was purely a private market commodity.

Between 2000 and 2008, the market for such swaps ballooned from $900 billion to more than $30 trillion.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/credit_default_swaps/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier

This is what brought AIG down.

Goldman Sachs played both sides MBS and Credit Default Swaps.

When the Fannie and Freddie bought huge amounts of MBS, pressured by the Bush administration, the market for credit default swaps went astronomical. This is ultimately what broke them and resulted in tax payers having to bail them out.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/01/24/8234040/index.htm

If you do not believe me what about Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Harvey Pitt, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman James Newsome (quoted above)?

Here are the numbers that show:
1) the percent of subprime lending to total mortgage originations
2) the percent of Alt-A lending to total mortgage originations – An Alt-A mortgage, short for Alternative A-paper, is a type of U.S. mortgage that, for various reasons, is considered riskier than A-paper, or “prime”, and less risky than “subprime,” the riskiest category. Alt-A interest rates, which are determined by credit risk, therefore tend to be between those of prime and subprime home loans. Typically Alt-A mortgages are characterized by borrowers with less than full documentation, lower credit scores, higher loan-to-values, and more investment properties. A-minus is related to Alt-A, with some lenders categorizing them the same, but A-minus is traditionally defined as mortgage borrowers with a FICO score of below 680 while Alt-A is traditionally defined as loans lacking full documentation. Alt-A mortgages may have excellent credit but may not meet underwriting criteria for other reasons – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-A
3) GSE backed loans

http://www.mortgagebankers.org/files/News/InternalResource/57640_GAOReportInformationonRecentDefaultandForeclosureTrends.pdf

the percent of the total market of GSE and FHA, sub-prime loans (Col 1)
the default percentage of the total market (Col 2)
the amount in billions of the total market defaults (Col 3 )
Note: All currency amounts in billions
Year Col 1 Col 2 Col 3
1997 10% 0.9% $8
1999 13% 0.9% $12
2001 12% 0.7% $17
2003 11% 0.6% $21
2005 11% 1.5% $9
2007 13% 0.5% $28
Detail for Subprime Loans – see endnotes for sources (page 10 pdf)
http://www.aei.org/docLib/Pinto-High-LTV-Subprime-Alt-A.pdf
GSE Investment Portfolio and MBS ($ Billions, Left Axis)
GSE % of Total Outstanding Single Family Mortgages (Right Axis)
http://www.fcic.gov/hearings/pdfs/2010-0227-Jaffee.pdf
GAO report (page 18 for sub-prime data and page 21 for default rates data in pdf):
http://www.mortgagebankers.org/files/News/InternalResource/57640_GAOReportInformationonRecentDefaultandForeclosureTrends.pdf
http://www.aei.org/docLib/Pinto-High-LTV-Subprime-Alt-A.pdf (page 12 pdf)

This data clearly shows that:

The increase of low income, sub-prime loans and the low overall default rate of all loan originations (1.5% in 2005 was the highest tracked in this data, through 2007). This dispels that myth that the crisis was caused by loan defaults of low-income folks.

For more informations see – https://www.mixermuse.com/blog/2010/10/14/how-george-bush-and-the-private-mortgage-market-created-the-perfect-storm/

Something I blogged on the Huffington Post…

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“Class warfare has been going on for decades. Republicans are really good at propaganda. However, they have finally deconstructed themselves. They could only talk generally for so long about cutting the size of the Federal government before their rhetoric caught up to them. Now that their own people are demanding that they walk the talk, the folks that are in the “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” syndrome will find that their leaders have been picking their pocket to sell them their own watch. The Republicans must put up or shut up and this will be their demise. Yes, they would love the Democrats to do the fate fatale for them so they could sophistically blame that on the Democrats as well (as they try to blame their failed economics on the Democrats) but Obama has caught the fox in his own trap – His populism actually works and helps the middle class (Proof: https://www.mixermuse.com/blog/2012/01/06/all-you-need-to-know-about-politics-1-6-12-2/) while their populism, as is typical, does exactly what they condemn the Democrats for – split the American public (religious, crush the middle class, attack immigrants, destroy the government they say the love, change the constitution they say they want to uphold the ‘original’ intent of, etc.) . The ‘populism’ of Obama as understood by the right is finally the courage that brings into the daylight the right’s own secret class warfare against the non-elite. As is typical, the right does the damage and blames it on the Democrats (i.e., lose of AAA rating). As a an ardent socialist in the industrial revolution (corporatism on steroids), Orwell is falsely revered by the right for “Animal Farm” but Orwell would have been much more sympathetic to this, https://www.mixermuse.com/blog/2012/01/06/the-fox-and-the-hen-house/, than the unmitigated proponents of capitalism.”

After a little more thought…

There has been a ‘secret war’ going on for decades on the middle class that every economic study has shown for many years. The latest census data tells us 1 out of every 2 Americans is in poverty. Yet, we get the right’s self-righteous shrill proclamations about the newly formed class warfare project from President Obama. Republicans really merit study for the copulas conjunction of the subject, President Obama and the predicate, class warfare. Republicans have well understood “The Little Prince” and the war of all against all. The best war is the invisible war; the war that takes the moral high ground while simultaneously erasing the enemy all the while producing its dominance. In this case, policies that prefer the rich and impoverish everyone else, are ‘capitalism’, the aspiration that any old fool could be rich too and corporatism would be their self-crafted philosophy, the philosophy that reifies the exception and punishes the accidental. If the old fool was rich he would be a king and the bourgeois jester of the noble would speak with Republican lips. The drama of the fool is more powerful than his poverty. Now, these new leftists come along and tell the fool that he is dreaming; that the jester lies as sirens sing. How dare the leftist disturb the fools slumber, let him dream. The leftist is the true enemy. These nag flies get in the way of baseless dreams, the opium of truth. I must say that it is ingenious along the lines of Nietzsche’s idea of Christianity. The truly powerful is never seen. It never becomes obvious. It hides in un-thought hermeneutics. It is the only proper language. It is the language that establishes and maintains truth and excludes madness (“Madness and Civilization”). Without the proper, the fool will fail but the fool fails anyway. Here resides the aporia, the riddle. When the riddle, the conundrum, the paradox is solved it loses its passion. In this therefore, existence loses. The end of the proper announces the beginning of anarchy, the victory of chaos – but how could anarchy have a beginning – can a circle be a square? When riddles multiply, mystification abounds and canon subverts its undoing. The past is lifted into the future as revised, continually re-established in service to unseen manipulation. The horror is the actual life I live and the sacred is the one I aspire to. The taboo is my inability to buy bread and the totem is the feasts I will have when I am rich. To understand what it means to be human must think the desire for fantasy. The elite Republicans know this well and count their riches on it. Truth in a void that can only endlessly turn on itself, eat itself, to obtain its ends must hide the producer at all costs. Obama is the evil Marxist spokesman of class warfare not because he did it (class warfare) but because he said it. He spoke the profane, the improper and therefore must die in his sin…and we wonder why there was a need for postmodernism?

All You Need to Know About Politics 1-6-12

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Here are the latest numbers:
Bush debt increase: 85%
Obama debt increase: 43%
Bush increase in unemployment: 86%
Obama increase in unemployment: 9%

Bottom Line: Anyone that tells you President Obama ran up the debt percentage wise more the President Bush OR that President Obama ran up unemployment percentage wise more than Bush IS A LIAR and here are the numbers and references to absolutely unquestionable sources (Treasury Department and The Bureau of Labor Statistics).*

Please note the the seasonably abjusted unemployment numbers for December was revised downward to 8.5% so don’t let them tell you it was Christmas help.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm

This is a graph of the debt since 1950 (click on the graphs to make them larger)…

This is the rate of increase of the debt since 1950…

Please note the difference from 2001 to 2009 and 2009 to 2011. This is Bush vs Obama

Note: The graph only uses full fiscal year data. The last fiscal year ended was September 30, 2011

Here is the data and links to the Treasury Department to verify the numbers…

The links shown above are:
Historical Debt Outstanding – Annual 2000 – 2010
Historical Debt Outstanding – Annual 1950 – 1999
The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It
Debt Position and Activity Report
The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It (type in Enter Beginning Date: 9/30/11)

Check for yourself…
From January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2009 the national debt increased from $5,727,776,738,304.64 to $10,626,877,048,913.08. For those that still believe in arithmetic this is an 85% increase in the debt over the Bush administration’s term ((10,626,877,048,913.08 / 5,727,776,738,304.64) * 100) = 185% or an 85% increase).

From January 20, 2009 to January 5, 2012 the national debt increased from $10,626,877,048,913.08 to $15,236,541,899,973.10. This is a 43% increase in debt over President Obama’s term ((15,236,541,899,973.10 / 10,626,877,048,913.08) * 100) = 143% or a 43% increase).

Don’t take my word for it, check it out on the US Treasury Department site at:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

When Bush took office on January 20, 2001, the national unemployment rate was 4.2%. When he left office on January 20, 2009 and President Obama took office the national unemployment rate was 7.8%
http://www.bls.gov/cps/prev_yrs.htm

The current unemployment rate as of January 6, 2012 is 8.5%
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Doing the math, the increase during the Bush administration was (7.8 / 4.2) * 100 = 186% or a 86% increase in unemployment. For the Obama administration the math is (8.5 / 7.8) * 100 = 109% or a 9% increase in unemployment.

* Note: I have revised this based the January, 2009 unemployment number of 7.8%. Preseident Obama took office January, 20, 2009. From the graph below you can see that the unemployment rate exploded just as he got into office. I think this explosion arguably was not due to anything President Obama did in his first few months (just 4 months later the rate was 9.4%) as the national unemployment rate does not turn on the dime but I will give the detractors the benefit of the doubt. There is still a huge difference in 86% (Bush) and 9% (Obama). If the numbers from 4 months after President Obama took office are used they work out to:

Bush administration increase in unemployment: 124%

Obama administration decrease in unemployment: 10%

Transition Date: End of May, 2009

Given this, the difference would be a 134% increase in unemployment during the Bush administration over the Obama administration. I would love it of someone could explain to me how this is an indictment of the Democrats? Doesn’t this clearly show that the Democrats are doing something right and the Bush administration did something wrong? Why are we suppose to believe that this is something peculiar to the Bush Presidency and not endemic to the ideology of Republicanism that ALREADY is back to the rhetoric of deregulation?

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/lns14000000

What is a “Postmodern Conservative”?

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There used to be a conservative website, some of its content is still around, called “The Postmodern Conservative”. I read a little content from this site as I am a little intrigued how one could maintain the conjecture of a ‘postmodern conservative’. On the surface, this is an oxymoron. Perhaps it is intended ironically. It is tantamount to thinking of Nietzsche’s nihilism and Christianity together in positive terms. Postmodern thinking seeks to overturn constructionism and its resulting epistemological result, structuralism. Postmoderism cannot be thought as a coherent, autonomous and positive philosophy. It is a symbiotic philosophy. It preys on structure and narrative. It is a methodology that deconstructs structure based on the specific structure’s own content, its counter narratives that contradict and undermine its canonical determinations. No philosophical system of thought is immune from the oxidizing effect of its most ardent iron. Deconstruction is the tool of the nihilist. In light of this, how would a ‘conservative’ postmodernists be thought except as ironically?

Their claim is further confused in their assertion that a ‘conservative’ postmodernist is more coherent that a ‘liberal’ postmodernist. This is like thinking that a Lucifer is more Christ-like than an Antichrist. What would one ‘conserve’ as a postmodernist? Why would the content of their conservation be immune from their own devices? How could a postmodern recommend ‘conservative’ content over ‘liberal’ content? Haven’t we established a canon, a ‘logocentrism’, by maintaining conservatism? If the thought is one of a sort of Darwinian mind-beating as opposed to the more conventional chest-beating in the belief that survival of the fittest is established, these folks should re-read Derrida’s essay on “Force and Signification” in “Writing and Difference”. Derrida writes, “To comprehend the structure of a becoming, the form of a force, is to lose meaning by gaining it.” 1) If the structure of ‘conservatism’ is meaningful and is to be recommended over ‘liberalism’ then, for deconstruction, its meaning is lost at the same time that it is achieved.

If, on the other hand, ‘conservatism’ here is meant to designate brute force, mystification of raw power, then power becomes that text that Derrida writes of when he states, “To say that force is the origin of the phenomenon is to say nothing” 2) He goes on to state that Hegel clearly demonstrates that force is a tautology. Force can only assert itself. Force and language amount to the same thing, the same identity. Nothing new or different is added in thinking either word. To rejoin this notion to conservatism is reminiscent of Ayn Rand and her elitist dogma; a tautology of power makes right, history IS the narrative of the conqueror. Without regard to any moral or ethical disjoins, this assertion merely redundantly marks itself. Its only claim is to force or the structuralism that it establishes. To deconstruct its specific narrative is the task of postmodernism. To deconstruct deconstructionism is to revert to constructionism and thus re-establish (or never have de-established) its myopic insistence, its force. In other words, it is to say nothing using a lot of words. While this trend has certainly not been alien to philosophy it seems to rise to the level of infinite nonsense in the thought of a “Postmodern Conservative”.

 
1) Writing and Difference, Force and Signification, page 26 (paperback)
2) Ibid, page 26 (bottom)

Bloggers Get Ready for 2012 – Dealing with the Radical Right

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I am always amazed at right-wing efforts to revise history to fit their canonical wish for purity. The most absurd attempt I can think of is “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning” by Jonah Goldberg. According to Goldberg, Democrats should feel right at home in their local KKK meeting. Don’t you love all those bleeding heart, white supremacists? They are so touch feely and came out in huge numbers for Obama. In this parallel universe it is easy to feel revulsion from the collision of our universe and their fantasy land.

I must admit I am fascinated as to how these folks can reach these conclusions with both oars in the water. I have exposed the Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini myths elsewhere

(https://www.mixermuse.com/blog/2010/01/03/fascism-is-liberal-and-squares-are-circles/)

with lots of data and direct quotes from these guys showing their love for nationalism and their violent hatred for socialists and liberals. Every serious historical scholar I have found has nothing but absolute disdain for Goldberg and his illusions. Most average folks shake their head when they hear such nonsense. However, as in any unfalsifiable claim, they have an explanation for rejection of their wackiness, it is the liberal press, scholars associated with communist universities, antichrist-secular-God-haters and so on that have deluded average folks and revised history. Their version is the sanctified version and you are either in their church or not, holy or profane.

I have also found this pathology on the sanctified version of Southern history, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and how the Republicans were the saviors of Southern blacks and the Democrats were the racist bigots that opposed Civil Rights. This is a prized list these folks love to pass around:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-gop/1499184/posts

Here is their entry for 1964…

June 9, 1964 Republicans condemn 14-hour filibuster against 1964 Civil Rights Act by U.S. Senator and former Ku Klux Klansman Robert Byrd (D-WV), who still serves in the Senate
June 10, 1964 Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL) criticizes Democrat filibuster against 1964 Civil Rights Act, calls on Democrats to stop opposing racial equality
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was introduced and approved by a staggering majority of Republicans in the Senate. The Act was opposed by most southern Democrat senators, several of whom were proud segregationists—one of them being Al Gore Sr. Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson relied on Illinois Senator Everett Dirkson, the Republican leader from Illinois, to get the Act passed.
June 20, 1964 The Chicago Defender, renowned African-American newspaper, praises Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL) for leading passage of 1964 Civil Rights Act

There is nothing here about that guy LBJ, he was the lowly Democratic president at the time that signed the bill. I have responded to this topic elsewhere:

http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/03/29/the-democrats-filibustered-the-civil-rights-act-of-1964-and-performed-southern-lynching/

http://mixermuse.com/blog/2009/12/15/of-all-the-varieties-of-virtues-liberalism-is-the-most-beloved-aristotle/ (this has the actual vote counts fro the bill)

If you notice there is a distinct difference in the way I approach this topic and Goldberg and the Republican white-washed list approaches the topic.

I think it is great that Republicans starting with Lincoln were against slavery and for Civil Rights.

I know there was post Civil Rights Democrats that were racists in the South. It is only logical that a Southern Democrat would hate the party that won the war and killed them in large numbers. Of course, there were Northern Democrats that equally hated slavery and supported Civil Rights. I am willing to give credit where the historical record demonstrates credit is due.

I also know, being from the South that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 turned white Southerners against the party that sided with them in the Civil War. The real issue for white Southerners was not Republican or Democrat but white and black. When busing started in the South white, Democratic Southerners became white Republican Southerners. Initially, they voted for the Dixiecrats and retained their party affiliation in the Democratic Party. Eventually, they started voting Republican and were DINOs (Democrats in Name Only). In the eighties and nineties they changed party affiliation.

Today, in Louisiana the clan groups are in northern Louisiana where the WASPs are dominate. Most of the north is Republican. In the south where the Cajuns live, it is typically Catholic and Democrat. I used to debate David Duke on the LSU campus. He and his Nazis always came dressed in Nazi uniforms and expressed only violent hatred for the left. He actually won a seat in the House of Representatives as a Republican. Only a crazy idiot would tell you that KKK’ers are Democrats. They make no bones about what party they vote for (if they haven’t been convicted of a felony of course). Much of the blogging you will find on the internet about those liberal fascists comes from white supremacists and many times from prisons. The internet is a perfect media to peddle their goods.

The revisionist right is fond of claiming Republicans voted more for Civil Rights than Democrats. On the surface, percentage wise (the Republicans were in the minority) this is true but as the data shows in the link above, the actual votes fell along the Mason-Dixon line. Southern Democrats and Republicans voted against it. Northern Democrats and Republicans voted for it. Note that Southern Republicans voted unanimously against it and Democrats were mixed.

Here is the point. Whenever a zealot tells you about history there are ‘tells’ (i.e., poker) that will inform you when they are revising history to suit their needs. They want to convince you that they are keepers of the truth and everyone else is trying to deceive you. It is pure manipulation. Here are the tells:

1) Everything they did was historically correct.
2) Everything the opposition did was historically incorrect (otherwise called political correctness).
3) They use “proofs” a-temporally. In other words, for all time they were politically correct and for all time the opposition was politically incorrect.

These techniques were raised to a fine art by the Nazis. The bottom line is that to get to the truth you need an open mind and a resolve to work. The real data is typically out there with these kinds of issues but it is not easy to find. Include references in your proofs. Go with reputable sources. If you use Wikipedia you must check the references.

If you know of demographic data by region from the sixties to the present for party affiliation please let me know. I have checked Pew, Gallop, The Census Bureau and others but no luck yet. I know I can dig election data out of the Congressional and Presidential official government records and that may be what I need to do. I am not interested in books about the era only hard data.

When zealots try to sell you on their truth they are insulting you. They think you are too stupid to check their ‘facts’. I think of it as part of my civic duty to check the data if I do not have it handy and get back to them whenever I can about my findings. I never insult them personally but I am often the brunt of personal insults. If you return their rude insults you lost the argument so don’t give them that pleasure; that is what they want. The political stalemate in our country will not be solved on either side by war but by rationality. The majority of folks will learn and make wise political decisions while the zealots will always have their church. If they get violent we pay our taxes to law enforcement to deal with them.

Here is an interesting quote from Newt:

“Johnson shattered his party, Gingrich went on to say, because he had “grotesquely overreached” in four areas: mismanagement of the economy, the failure in Vietnam, the cultural divisions that emerged in part over Vietnam and later civil rights initiatives. Johnson’s mistake on civil rights, he said, was not in signing major legislation but in later getting ahead of the country by supporting school busing and failing to take a firmer stance against racial violence in the cities.”

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/03/gingrich-like-lbj-obama-risks.html

Some other interesting links:

http://www.tagalogshortstories.com/civil_rights_act_of_1964/encyclopedia.htm

http://100days.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/how-kennedy-won-the-house-and-lost-the-south/

Fantasy and Lies OR Reality and Facts

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It is odd that Republicans how found religion on the debt after the Bush administration ran the debt up 85% while President Obama’s administration has only run it up 41%.

http://mixermuse.com/blog/2011/12/08/all-you-need-to-know-about-politics/

Let’s not even think about discretionary and non-discretionary parts of the budget.

In any case, I think most of us can agree debt is important.

I guess the next thing in line after debt for Republicans would be quality of life or as they would have it, the misery index.

For me, the next thing would be life or the lack of it, death. For Iraq and Afghanistan, 7,648 of our children have been killed.

http://icasualties.org/

Bush started these absurd wars. I know from personal experience with two older brothers that wars create misery and death. Additionally, the cost of both wars is estimated at $1,284,743,552,321.

http://costofwar.com/en/

http://nationalpriorities.org/en/blog/2011/08/16/How-Safe-Are-You/

The cost of the wars, make the national debt look insignificant. I am not a Ron Paul supporter but I like his stand on foreign engagement. He is the only Republican candidate that is not itching for another war. If you really care about the debt, misery and/or body count you should vote to re-elect President Obama.

What Republicans Want…

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Mitt recently stated, “The president says he wants to transform America, I don’t want to transform America into something else. I want to restore it”

Mitt Romney along with Sarah Palin is fond of mocking President Obama for his promise of “hope and change”. So, what is the alternative to hope and change? Is it hopelessness and changelessness?

Or

Let’s see, restore it to…

…the Bush administration

Bush started two wars and bankrupted the economy. President Bush increased the national debt more than twice as much as President Obama. During his administration unemployment went up 90% more than during the Obama administration.

http://mixermuse.com/blog/2011/12/08/all-you-need-to-know-about-politics/

…prior to Medicare and Medicaid?

“Before Medicare, only 51% of people aged 65 and older had health care coverage, and nearly 30% lived below the federal poverty level.”

http://www.usgovernmentbenefits.org/hd/index.php?t=define+medicare

…before women had the right to vote and blacks and gays were hung for entertainment?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States

…before Social Security?

“the best estimates show that the elderly poverty rate in 1935 was probably somewhere in the range of 70 to 90 percent.”

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/aug/17/eddie-bernice-johnson/texas-congresswoman-eddie-bernice-johnson-says-soc/

…before the civil war

Slavery

…from the beginning

In 1800, the mean life span in the United States was about a quarter century

In 1900 the mean was about 50 years

http://www.longevity.ca/info_life_expectancy.htm

Do you REALLY want to go there?

The Republicans are painting a fantasy picture for voters that need to believe fantasies of the past – it NEVER happened. The fact is that we have progressed from a dark past albeit in a bumpy and messy way. It is absolute insanity to want to go back to the way it really was. There was no earlier, greater time than now for the United States. Yes, a few things may have been better but don’t let them fool you, things are better now than they have ever been for folks.

So, here is the question, do you want to transform our future or restore our past?

The Obvious: Why have Republicans suddenly found religion on the national debt?

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First, let’s start with the obvious:

From January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2009 the national debt increased from $5,727,776,738,304.64 to $10,626,877,048,913.08.  For those that still believe in arithmetic this is an 85% increase in the debt over the Bush administration’s term ((10,626,877,048,913.08 / 5,727,776,738,304.64) * 100) = 185% or an 85% increase).

From January 20, 2009 to today July 12, 2011 the national debt increased from $10,626,877,048,913.08 to $14,343,010,710,537.58.  This is a 35% increase in debt over President Obama’s term ((14,343,010,710,537.58 / 10,626,877,048,913.08) * 100) = 135% or a 35% increase).

Don’t take my word for it, check it out on the US Treasury Department site at: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

So, in light of the simple math, why would anyone suggest that President Obama is big government and the Republicans are not?  This is patently absurd.  President Bush and the 6 year majority of Republicans  in the House of Representatives and the Senate went from the 4 year surplus that President Clinton left to record deficits and an 85% increase in the national debt.

No amount of groveling can erase this FACT so “man up” Repubs.

Myth 1: Republicans do not favor BIG Government.

Myth 2: Republicans favor tax cuts to create jobs.

Myth 3: Deregulation increases jobs

The first part of Myth 2 is true.  Bush cut the marginal tax rates across the income spectrum.  For those making over 1 million dollars a year the income taxed over $373,650 went from a marginal tax rate of 39.6% to 35%.  The lowest income bracket marginal tax rate went from 15% to 10%.  What is not true in Myth 2 is that the Bush tax cuts increased jobs.  It increased unemployment dramatically 98% as this post documents:

http://mixermuse.com/blog/2011/07/08/the-obama-administration-raises-unemployment-25-really/

The national debt went up 85%.  We lost the four years of budget surplus that the Clinton administration gave us AND gained the stock market and mortgage market crashed as this post documents:

http://mixermuse.com/blog/2010/10/14/how-george-bush-and-the-private-mortgage-market-created-the-perfect-storm/

The deregulation of the financial industry, oil and gas and product safety (and almost every other government regulatory function) was a disaster.  The private sector, unregulated market for credit default swaps went from 900 billion to 30 trillion dollars under President Bush.  The financial collapse under President Bush was the result of a 30 trillion dollar unregulated market based on junk mortgages.

Now, after the first African-American president the Republicans deem as “socialist” has actually turned the Republican nightmare of the Bush years around, Republicans are popping out of the the wood work with newly found religion on the national debt.  Where were these disciples during the Bush years?  Could it be that spending was ok when a Republican was doing it, at least judging from the rhetorical decibel level of their party, and now that Democrats “have the checkbook” they are fuming with moral debt rage?  This is two-faced and hypocritical.  It is a laughable elitism that was deferred in part by Dick Armey’s creation of the TEA party.  It was smart to off-load the most intense Republican anger with the Bush administration with a thinly veiled, far right wing group that will still vastly vote Republican.  They can in effect be Republican in their voting habits but fantasize that they are neither Republican nor Democrat.

In any case, I am encouraged by the rising sentiment in the Republican ranks against absurd wars and wish they had joined us during the most costly wars started in the Bush administration.

Across the board, Republican ideology has failed to live up to its essential claims AND historically proven themselves to have opposite consequences.  Their counter claims about what Democrats do to the economy have also proven themselves to be fabrications and historically unfound…oh for the days of the budget surplus and the 4.7% unemployment rate of the Clinton administration. ..I would also take the 2% decrease of unemployment under President Obama to the 98% increase under President Bush.

The only way to understand how the Republicans have succeeded in their claims is to understand how “marketing” or better yet “propaganda” can be used effectively to control voters.  They are the masters of propaganda, revisionist history and sophistry.  Their ideology of “free market based” survival of the fittest gives them the latitude to employ these techniques freely.  Democrats are much less adept at these practices.  They have more resistance to lying and manipulation built into their ideology and are generally awful at it when they try.  If the Republicans succeed, the crony capitalism that results will be disastrous for the masses that gave them the votes to do it and the “middle class” will continue to disappear.

As for me, I still maintain that there are facts that are not private and some statements can be deemed more historically accurate than others.  I hope I am not in the minority.

The Obama Administration Raises Unemployment 25% – REALLY?

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When Bush Junior took office on January 20, 2001, the national unemployment rate was 4.7%.  When he left office on January 20, 2009 and President Obama took office the national unemployment rate was 9.3% ( http://www.bls.gov/cps/prev_yrs.htm ).  The current unemployment rate as of June 2001 is 9.2% ( http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm ). Doing the math, the increase during the Bush administration was (9.3 / 4.7) * 100 = 198% or a 98% increase in unemployment.  For the Obama administration the math is (9.2 / 9.3) * 100 = 98% or a 2% decrease in unemployment.  The latest Karl Rove, Crossroads, national ad states that the national unemployment rate increased 25% during the Obama administration.  Since unemployment data by definition is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, no amount of “private facts” or bold face lies can explain away the real facts.  The Republican lie machine has no problem spending millions of dollars spewing forth unadulterated lies. 

Do these folks really think that sane voters would prefer a 98% unemployment rate increase to 2% percent decrease in unemployment?

Well, what about the long held theory that taxes cuts create jobs and help the economy.  We had 8 years to try this theory out.  Not only did it result in a 98% increase in unemployment but it also resulted in an economic crash and the greatest recession since the Great Depression.  Did it work?  Didn’t the Clinton administration end up with 4 years of a Federal surplus and a 4.7% unemployment rate?  Do voters really want to believe that if we try the Republican’s economic solution again it will work this time?  Are voters that stupid?

Well, what about health care and lassie faire?  We have tried decades of letting the market decide in the Republican promise that the market would solve the problem.  Did it work?  How much longer do we need to TRY the market based approach?  Ok, so let’s get rid of “Obama-care”…is the solution to go back to what we had before?  Was it so much better?  How many more decades do we need to try the market approach?  If we cut everyone off and get rid of the debt, are we willing to let men, women and children die in the streets from lack of health care while we satiate ourselves in our country clubs?  What is the solution?  Is there one?

The more interesting questions are:

1)      What kind of folks continue to spin out lies decade after decade to get and keep political power?

2)      Why does it seem to work?

When an ideology continually repeats lies to sustain and get power the word that describes it is “propaganda”.  The main purpose of propaganda is to manipulate.  There are two assumptions that propaganda proves out:

1)      Those that are have the money and power to create this marketing blitz are the elite “knowers”.  They are willing to do anything to obfuscate their true motives.  Their apparent contradictions are smoking mirrors cleverly designed to play on folk’s emotions and trick folks into supporting their true agenda – protecting the rich and powerful.  At the bottom of this machine is a pure Darwinian belief that power needs no justification, logic or truth.  Power is its own virtue.  Conquest proves who the blessed are and who the cursed are. 

2)      People are stupid.  They are “herdal” and cow-like.  They cannot remember the past and have no sense of logic and rationality.  They are zombies that can be manipulated and controlled by the elite.  They can be made to run straight off a cliff to their own demise and believe the whole time that it is in their best interest.

While the elite would never make such an explicit statement of their intentions, their actions leave no doubt as to what their game really is.  

I hope and want to believe they are wrong.  I want to believe in logic, rationality and history.  I would like to think that there is an intrinsic good in people that will overcome these schemes.  I can’t say that I do not have doubts and maybe the Darwinian instinct is correct.  However, if I were to believe this ideology I would find a certain meaninglessness and futility in existence.  Maybe we should “make friends with the enemy” as Apocalypse Now” maintains.  Maybe we should head straight of the cliffs and thank the wolves that made us believe we were doing it for our own good.  Well, as for me, I am willing to hope against hope, if that is what it takes, to adopt a more optimistic approach to human existence.  I suppose that this may be a kind of Kierkegaardian, existential staking out my “eternal happiness” on an absolute paradox…at least as thought from the dialectic of power.  These choices are left to us individually whether we explicitly know it or tacitly “do it”.  I find the belief that one is the “blessed” and “all-powerful” to be a comic tragedy of one’s own making in which the hero becomes the blind fool and forgets his end will be in the dust with his cows while the only thing that really mattered was humanity and concern, optimism and belief, the virtue of work – of harmony and balance with nature and logic, the scorned simplicity that faces us in the other.