Truth Out has the article Richard D. Wolff | Obama’s Economic Significance.

President Obama’s proven reliability as outsider president extraordinaire – putting a disarming smiley face on capitalism’s depredations – is his administration’s economic significance.

It is time to face facts.  The other sad fact to face is that Hillary Clinton’s political philosophy is to the right of Obama’s.

So many people ask, what might a more palatable candidate look like?  TINA – there is no  alternative, they say.  So stop laughing when I feature posts like Bernie Sanders: “I Am Prepared To Run for President of the United States”.  As the Occupy Wall Street movement used to shout, “This is what democracy looks like.”  It does not look like Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton’s political ideas.

New Economic Perspectives has the article Peterson Thinks We Need Austerity While He Lives It Up!

In case you didn’t know, Pete Peterson has spent gobs of money on his private think tank which has been trying to confuse the public about money and economics for decades.  One thing they produce is commentaries like the one that this article rails against.

Here are some excerpts from the New Economic Perspectives article by Joe Firestone.

Here are quotations from the report and my explanations of why they are ridiculous deficit/debt terrorist nonsense.

While today’s deficits are much lower than those during the financial crisis and recession, over the next ten years debt will remain at historically high levels under the policies outlined in the President’s budget. Over the long term, our debt is on a rising and unsustainable path that harms our economy and threatens our future standard of living.

First, Government deficits that don’t exceed the sum of private sector savings and trade deficits are not bad for the private economy. They are good because they contribute directly to private sector savings and the aggregate demand and subsequent economic growth it can create. It would be nicer for all of us if Mr. Peterson learned that lesson before his propaganda turn the US into a third world banana republic; unless, of course, that’s what he’s about.
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As a share of the economy, our national debt is already higher than at any time since 1950, shortly after the end of World War II. This level of debt leaves our nation poorly prepared to enter an era in which demographic changes pose enormous budgetary challenges for the federal government. The Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s Fiscal Confidence Index recently found that a significant majority of voters — 83 percent — agree that policymakers should spend more time addressing the nation’s debt.

Again, the level of debt and/or the level of the debt to GDP ratio have no effect on our Government’s capability to deficit spend. The Government can afford to do whatever it needs to accommodate demographic changes just as it could afford whatever needed to be done during World War II and after 1950.

I commented on the New Economic Perspectives article as shown below.

You forget to mention that if the debt was so high in 1950, how did it get reduced and yet we had a growing economy, we were bailing out Europe and Japan at the same time, building the interstate highway system, sending people to the moon, fighting a war in Viet Nam, developing Nuclear bombs and ICBMs, supporting higher education and schools, adding Medicare and Medicaid, and reducing the level of poverty.

Shouldn’t Peterson be studying all those things we accomplished with a smaller economy than we have today? If we did it once before, why can’t we do it again?

The article does mention that we did a lot of things during the 1950s, but it does not emphasize the fact that there is a logical paradox when Peterson’s own commentary said “our national debt is already higher than at any time since 1950, shortly after the end of World War II.”  This implies that our debt must have been reduced after 1950 if it is only now getting back to those levels.  Why doesn’t anyone ask Peterson to explain that?

The BBC has the article Ukraine crisis ‘created artificially’ – Russia’s Lavrov.  Under the audio clip of some of Lavrov’s words they have the caption –

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov: “This crisis was not created by us”

Further quotes from the Foreign minister appeared in the rest of the article –

The Russian foreign minister said the interim government in Kiev was “not independent because it depends to a great extent on the radical nationalists who seized power by force of arms”.

This is more coverage of the Russian side than you get from the US media, but I still had some questions.

And did he say who was financing and organizing these radicals?  Did he mention the USA and countries in Europe?  If he even hinted at this, wouldn’t this have been an important part of the story to report?

Why is it only important to give details on what Russia has done, but no details on what the other side has done?

I am not prejudging that the Russians are blameless and as pure as the driven snow, but I’d like to be able to make my own judgment after hearing the whole story.  I don’t need the media to give me the part of the story that they have prejudged as being relevant because they have a point of view they want me to believe.

Truthout has the article from The Nation Bernie Sanders: “I Am Prepared To Run for President of the United States”.

In some senses, Sanders is the unlikeliest of prospects: an independent who caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate but has never joined the party, a democratic socialist in a country where many politicians fear the label “liberal,” an outspoken critic of the economic, environmental and social status quo who rips “the ruling class” and calls out the Koch brothers by name. Yet, he has served as the mayor of his state’s largest city, beaten a Republican incumbent for the US House, won and held a historically Republican Senate seat and served longer as an independent member of Congress than anyone else. And he says his political instincts tell him America is ready for a “political revolution.”

And they laughed when I said that Bernie Sanders could be the President to rein in the NSA. Reining in the NSA is probably the least significant positive change that a Sanders/Warren or Warren/Sanders administration would accomplish.

Thanks for MardyS for posting this on his Facebook page.  These are two video segments from The Daily Show titled No Money for Bold Men – The Shame-O-Meter.  Here is the summary of the two videos.

The Twitterverse blasts John Travolta after an Oscars gaffe, but the real national shame belongs to the Senate as Republicans reject a bill expanding veteran benefits.

Senators attempt to attach Iran sanctions to a veteran benefits expansion bill and military sexual assault debates, making the national shame-o-meter go to 11

I’ll include both segments below, less you miss the fact that this doesn’t just end with the first one.

Republicans starve government agencies of the necessary funds to do their jobs, and then refuse to give them any more because they couldn’t work on a starvation diet. It isn’t even legal to treat prisoners of war like this. Do the Republican Senators think the Veterans Administration is an illegal enemy combatant that isn’t even due the protections of the Geneva Convention?

The Motley Fool has the article 10 Reasons Why Russia Invaded Ukraine.

The article is by the author of the slide show below.

This slide show provides some graphics for some of the things I have already posted about this issue.

The Press-Telegram has the article Hillary Clinton compares Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine to Adolf Hitler’s in Nazi Germany. What actually happened does not seem to be nearly as lurid as the headline might indicate. The article does use the word compare in its proper way. She looks at how what is happening is similar to some actions of Hitler’s, but she also remarks on how it is different. Even with the article’s attempt to temper the reports, you really have to hear Hillary’s tone of voice to see how reasonable her remarks may have been. Here is an excerpt of what she said.

“So everybody is hoping that there will be a negotiation but a negotiation that respects Ukraine and doesn’t ratify a reoccupation by Russia of Crimea,” she said. “So it’s a real nail-biter, right now, but nobody wants to up the rhetoric. Everybody wants to cool it in order to find a diplomatic solution and that’s what we should be trying to do.”

This post is an attempt to correct the impression left by my previous post Putin vs Hitler vs Hillary.

Please read the March 6 addendum at the end and the subsequent post.  It changes the whole tone of this post.

It started with an email from a friend which I will detail below.  He sent me a link to the Washington Post article All of these people have compared Vladimir Putin to Hitler.  This article in turn pointed to Hillary Clinton says Putin’s actions are like ‘what Hitler did back in the ’30s’, which is the more substantive of the two article.

Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday compared Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine to actions taken by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler outside Germany in the run-up to World War II.
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Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate,  said Putin “believes his mission is to restore Russian greatness,” including reasserting control of former Soviet Union countries, the Press-Telegram reported. “When he looks at Ukraine, he sees a place that he believes is by its very nature part of Mother Russia,” Clinton said, according to the Press-Telegram.

After reading this article, I wanted to find documentation for a comment that I had read about the connection between the USSR, Russia, and Clinton.  That is all detailed in my previous post Russia’s Revenge.

When Soviet Union collapsed, Russia agreed to dissolve the Warsaw Pact and let its allies go of the bind on assurance from US President George HW Bush that the NATO would not outreach to its borders. But President Bill Clinton broke this promise and pushed to expand the NATO alliance to the very borders of Russia. Though a weak Russia under Boris Yetsin was not in a position to oppose the NATO’s expansionary moves, including the ‘humanitarian’ bombing on Yugoslavia in 1998, this had left deep wounds in the Russo-American cooperation touted by Gorbachev and Bush in early 1990s.

Given this record of the Clinton family and the thought processes that may have been formative in Hillary’s view of foreign affairs, I don’t think she should be pontificating on what Vladimir Putin believes. It is always dangerous to speculate on other people’s motives, but when you have had such a bad record dealing with people in the past, you should be especially careful about telling us what they think.  Remember that I only said such speculation was dangerous.  There are many times when you are forced to speculate in order to form policy, but you need to have a healthy respect for how fallible your speculation might be.  Beating the drums of war is not showing that healthy skepticism about your own assessment.

When it comes to making comparisons of Putin and Hitler, I don’t think you can dismiss the help that Putin gave us in dealing with Syria and Iran.  That does not dismiss the reality of some of the things Putin has done which I consider to be very bad policy.

Now for the comments from my friend, LeonidG, with whom I worked and with whom I socialized in Oregon. He originally came from the USSR/Russia.  I’ll edit his email slightly so that  it makes more sense in this context.

Hi Steve,

If the elections were today, I would have voted for Hillary.

That is until I read this:

All of these people have compared Vladimir Putin to Hitler.

Now, I probably would vote for her opponent, whoever he/she might be.

Keep in mind that I do not like Putin, not even a little bit. In my ranking of the world leaders he probably would end up the 3d from the bottom, right above the Iranian ayatollahs and Kim Jong Un.

Nevertheless, comparing Putin to Hitler exposes her as a dumb-head looking for cheap scandalous statements.

Considering the situation in the Ukraine, if you ask me who is better, Putin or the new Ukrainian leadership, I could relate to the citation of comrade Stalin, in broken Russian: “Both are worse!”.

You can post my  opinion on your blog, if you would like.

Regards,
-L.

Of course, if you have been reading my blog, you will know that I have never been the fan of Hillary that Leon was.  She is just receding deeper and deeper down the list of people that I would want as my President.  She is just too prone to buy into, and be a proponent of, the conventional wisdom of the right-wing from foreign policy to economic policy.

March 6, 2014

I have since read the Media Matters article What CNN Left Out Of Their Report On Hillary Clinton’s Putin-Hitler Comments.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer distorted comments by Hillary Clinton to criticize her for “compar[ing]” Russian President Vladimir Putin with Adolf Hitler, even though Putin is not engaged in genocide. But Blitzer ignored Clinton’s reported statement that while similarities to Hitler’s actions are “what’s gotten everybody so nervous” about Putin’s recent actions, she believes Putin isn’t “as irrational” as Hitler and that a diplomatic response is appropriate.

The article goes on to quote a reported Clinton comment:

“So everybody is hoping that there will be a negotiation but a negotiation that respects Ukraine and doesn’t ratify a reoccupation by Russia of Crimea,” she said. “So it’s a real nail-biter, right now, but nobody wants to up the rhetoric. Everybody wants to cool it in order to find a diplomatic solution and that’s what we should be trying to do.”

It is great to hear that Clinton is not trying to foment trouble, but is really trying to inject some reason into the discussion.

To emphasize the correction, I have made a subsequent post Hillary Clinton Compares – Examining the Similarities and the Differences.

Via a very circuitous route that I may have a chance to explain in a subsequent post, I ran across The Hindustan Business Line article Russia’s revenge.

To be sure, what Russia did in Crimea has violated the sovereignty of Ukraine. But powerful nations violating the sovereignty of smaller countries is not something new in international politics. What’s new is the growing confidence and determination of Russia to deter the eastward expansion of the Atlantic powers to its border nations.

When Soviet Union collapsed, Russia agreed to dissolve the Warsaw Pact and let its allies go of the bind on assurance from US President George HW Bush that the NATO would not outreach to its borders. But President Bill Clinton broke this promise and pushed to expand the NATO alliance to the very borders of Russia. Though a weak Russia under Boris Yetsin was not in a position to oppose the NATO’s expansionary moves, including the ‘humanitarian’ bombing on Yugoslavia in 1998, this had left deep wounds in the Russo-American cooperation touted by Gorbachev and Bush in early 1990s.

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Skip the trap, Kiev

It’s a dangerous geopolitical game. The balance of power in Ukraine had tilted in favour of the West when Yanukovych fell from power last month. By taking control of Crimea, Russia has stormed back. Its vital interests in Ukraine — including the Black Sea Fleet — are now safe. On Tuesday, Putin said a war with Ukraine was the “last option” – a euphemism for his willingness to talk. Kiev should pick the cues, instead of walking into the trap set by the West. A further provocation would only prompt Russia to expand its reach to more areas in Eastern Ukraine. What needs to be done is taking the Russians into confidence and assure them of security — both for the Russian speaking people in Ukraine and its strategic interests in the region. Unless that happens, Russia is unlikely to step back. And the crisis will be far from over.

Remember that India has had a long historical record of dealing with the USSR as an ally during the Cold War, so it makes sense to me that they may have an understanding of Russian thinking that may be better than ours, or at least different from ours. It’s also possible that India doesn’t seem to have a dog in this fight over the Ukraine, so there is a chance that it may be a more realistic discussion.

I stumbled across this article because I was looking for documentation of how Bill Clinton broke our promise that George HW Bush had made to Gorbachev “that the NATO would not outreach to its borders.”  I couldn’t find the article where I first read this, but I found this one instead.  Why it is important to bring up Clinton will become evident in my subsequent post.

Think Progress has the article Paul Ryan’s Audit Of Federal Anti-Poverty Programs Finds Many Are Actually Very Effective.

Ryan argues that federal programs have contributed to the nation’s high poverty rate and “created what’s known as the poverty trap.” The report argues, “Federal programs are not only failing to address the problem. They are also in some significant respects making it worse.”

This is exactly why I produced my previous post Did The War On Poverty Fail?.  It was meant to be pulled out and plopped down in front of people like Paul Ryan every time they make their ridiculous claims.

The Think Progress article goes on to say:

But a closer look at the analysis undermines the old Ronald Reagan adage, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” As Ryan’s own analysis points out, numerous progressive-minded spending programs have helped millions of Americans and significantly reduced the nation’s poverty rate. Below are 16 examples from Ryan’s own report of how the government can help lower-income Americans make ends meet:

I’ll let you click the link to the article at the very beginning of this post to see the 16 examples.  I only wish their article had referred to the charts in my previous post.