06-04-2016, 08:06 PM
(06-04-2016, 04:12 PM)Mikebert Wrote:(05-20-2016, 10:33 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Do we need another 2008-style (or worse, 1929-style) economic meltdown to further discredit the economic Right? Do we need another diplomatic or military debacle because the President wants a war and Congress is willing to give it to him? History repeats at its worst when people fail to learn the lessons.
Seeing how Republicans have retaken the House and Senate and Trump is within a few points of Clinton in the polls, it would seem that the economic right have not been discredited. So if this is to happen, something discrediting needs to happen.
TARP bought us some time without solving the core causes of the economic mess that awaits us.
The Right is on the brink of consolidating full power, and it is more adept at casting blame and imposing pain than at solving anything. It would blame workers for not working hard enough, long enough, and cheaply enough for the Ruling Elite, the only people who matter in their world. Get leadership full of narcissists at best and sociopaths at worst, people devoid of any moral compass... and you get Simon Legree in modern garb and in possession of greater technologies of repression.
Quote:IMO another financial crisis is a possibility in the next few years. Whoever wins the election this fall should have no impact on its probability. IMO how economic policymakers will respond will have an impact on the severity of the economic impact of a crisis, should it appear. The Fed will do its own thing regardless of who is president. Any fiscal response will be up to Paul Ryan and the Republican house, who are typically unwilling to do stimulus unless there is a president of whom they approve.
I can even imagine a new version of serfdom as a solution, a serfdom that the elites enforce with the lash and the gallows. The government can be weakened, but private interests can be made all powerful in their fiefs. That's how life was in the Middle Ages.
Quote:The the Ryan-led Republican House most certainly does not approve of Hillary Clinton and if she is president the outcome from a crisis (should one happen) would be more severe than what we saw under Obama. If the president were an establishment Republican, I see a generous stimulus being approved, although they would call it something else. But the only alternative is Trump. I do not see Ryan spending much of his political capital quieting the Tea Party Caucus on the behalf of Donald Trump, so I don't see Congress acting to blunt the impact of a crisis (should it happen) with either potential president.
Of course they want Hillary Clinton to fail and get the blame, which might allow them a Constitutional majority that allows them to amend the Constitution at will. Maybe after a few Amendments they can purge the last remaining Democrats first from politics and then to "ten years without the right of correspondence". That was the formulation that hid a death sentence to some "Enemy of the People" in the Soviet Union. Only this time it will be "Enemy of Progress".
Quote:So if a crisis happened I see a very serious recession, possibly even a depression regardless of who is elected president. Here is where the 4T climax comes into play. There will be a war between the White House and the Congress over who will get the blame for destroying the American economy. If Congress wins, the outcome will be Republican political dominance a decades or two. Again this is regardless of who is president.
No, only until the American Evil Empire goes too far in pushing its horrific New Order onto the rest of the world, and brings about its own defeat and dissolution.
Quote:However if the president wins then it gets interesting. If the president is Clinton it means Democratic dominance for the next couple of decades. If the president is Trump it means the destruction of the current Republican party, but Trump will remain. He will probably get a Democratic Congress. If he can strike a deal with them and get the policy needed to restore some semblance of prosperity, he will get a fair chunk of the credit. The Republican brand will be toxic, but the Trump brand will not. Trump could then be the nucleus about which a new Republican party could form, perhaps named after him--he would certainly go for that.[/quote]
Who gets the blame in 2018 -- and 2020?
I ask any educated person -- what would it take to make you into a Lenin?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.