Secret footage of Michelle Nunn and Pete Peterson discussing the US Senate race in Georgia.

Tyler Durden has released to me secret footage of Michelle "No Backbone" Nunn and Pete Peterson discussing the upcoming US Senate race here in Georgia.

The 1% has plans for the Georgia US Senate race... by jim.nichols on GoAnimate


More footage to come...

What Jane McAlevey and 2000 Bush/Gore recount can teach us...

Its good to see labor out fighting on Social Security.    If we are to protect Social Security we have to raise some hell.

I haven't seen it here in Georgia yet from unions; I'm waiting for the posts and leadership to start rallying the troops locally (cough cough).

But while I wait for Georgia labor to mobilize on Social Security, I'm reminded of something I've learned from Jane McAlevey's excellent book on organizing Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement--we have to raise expectations and raise some hell if we ever expect to make political gains vs the 1%.

I found her book via an excellent Doug Henwood interview she did which you need to check out. After buying her book, my own organizing in the workplace blossomed in to some really awesome work which i've learned and grown from in so many ways.

I think McAlevery's book provides some important context to why I've been hitting Michelle Nunn hard for her policy positions and her failure to publicly hold positions that protect and empower working people.  

Lacking backbone is a DLC/Fix the debt trademark of the past 30 years for the Democratic Party and labor has been acquiescence in the decline.  McAlevey opens her book talking about the Bush v Gore ballot recount and the failure to fight embedded into the playbook of Democrats and labor and its worth a read...

Palm Beach County was the land of the butterfly ballot and the hanging chad. Butterfly ballots were punch card ballots with the candidates and issues displayed on both sides of a single line of numbered voting marks— an arrangement especially liable to misinterpretation by people with poor vision, such as the elderly. Hanging chads were tiny bits of paper that should have fallen out of the ballots when voters punched in their choice of candidate but hadn’t, leaving a trail of ambiguity that could be used to obscure the intent of the voter. Thousands of ballots were being discounted or contested due to this rather archaic paper voting system. 

Finally, our plan took shape. Each of the senior staff would be given a team of organizers and we would start knocking on doors and collecting affidavits from people who would swear under oath that they had meant to vote for Gore but, confused by the butterfly ballot, had accidentally voted for Bush or Pat Buchanan.* Other teams were dispatched to grocery stores, and some were sent to a candlelight “protest” vigil. I was given a team of organizers, an attorney or two, a van, and a stack of maps indicating our assigned condominium complexes, mostly inhabited by senior citizens, and we raced off to collect affidavits. 

It was like shooting fish in a barrel. From the first complex we hit until we were pulled off the assignment a few days later, it was hard to find an elderly voter who hadn’t screwed up the ballot or didn’t want to make a sworn statement. These places were full of funny, highly educated, cranky New York Jews. I was a New Yorker myself, with a partly Jewish upbringing,† and these people felt like home to me. I adored them. And they were really pissed off, especially the ones who thought they had accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan (“ the SS guard,” they called him). There were holocaust survivors, and sons and daughters of holocaust survivors. What’s more, many of these folks had been union members in the Northeast before retiring. You would knock on their door and it was as if they had been sitting there impatiently wondering when the union would finally show up. Soon there were long lines in the community rooms, because we hadn’t anticipated such an outpouring. These folks could hardly stand up, there were walkers all around, but no one was leaving until they’d all met the lawyer, told their stories, and filled in the affidavits. And they were ready to do much more than that. Affidavits? Lawyers? Hell, these people were furious. 

I reported this every morning and evening at the  debrief meetings for lead organizers. “So when can we actually mobilize them, put these wonderful angry senior citizens into the streets and on camera?” I would ask. But we didn’t do anything of the sort. Instead, we did a candlelight vigil, which was an awful, badly organized affair, just the kind of event that makes me crazy. First, because it could have been huge, and second, because everyone who came was bored— a good recipe for how to get motivated, angry people to stay home the next time they get a flyer. But it got worse. Big-shot politicians from across the land were starting to show up, and they all came to the vigil to calm people down. It was a mind-blowing thing to watch. Were these guys idiots, did they want to lose, or what? 

I heard someone from the press mention that Jesse Jackson was coming in two days to do his own rally and march. Hmm. Why hadn’t we heard of that? Then, later that night, during the regular debriefing on legal updates on the recount and the next day’s assignments, a higher-up said, “Jesse Jackson is coming to do a big march. We won’t be participating in it. 

” I thought I had heard him wrong: “Um, sorry, can you repeat that?” 

“The Gore campaign has made the decision that this is not the image they want. They don’t want to protest. They don’t want to rock the boat. They don’t want to seem like they don’t have faith in the legal system. And they definitely don’t want to possibly alienate the Jews— you know, it’s Jackson— so we are not mobilizing for it.” 

While my heart was sinking my head was exploding. The American electoral process is breaking up like the Titanic and we don’t want to rock the boat? 

“I’m sorry, something doesn’t seem quite right here. As the person leading a field team in largely Jewish senior complexes, and, frankly, as someone raised by Jews, I can tell you that we need to take people into the streets. We need to let them express their anger. Republicans are starting to hold little rallies demanding that Democrats not be allowed to ‘steal’ the election. We need to either support this rally or do our own or both. 

” I also knew that to turn them out would require some resources, beginning with transportation from each condo complex. Most of these people didn’t drive or didn’t like to drive, which was why they lived in the condos, but that also meant they were generally home where we could find them. We had an instant mobilization in waiting; we could have 30,000 people in the streets in two days. I knew that the only outfit in Florida with the money, staff and experience to make this happen was organized labor. 

What was on the table here was more than a rally. It was a question of what sort of power was going to be brought to bear on a defining national crisis. The Gore people not only wanted to project a nice image, they wanted to be nice. They wanted everyone to go home and hand everything over to something called “the legal process.” This was ridiculous, because when and how and where this went to court was deeply political. Al Gore himself appeared to actually believe that if he could politely demonstrate that more Floridians had voted for him than for Bush, the “democratic system” would award him the election. Gore was right in the sense that he had won the state. There were other Democratic Party honchos who were not so naïve, but they lived in a world where you deal with these things behind closed doors. They were completely unprepared for the hypercharged political street theater exploding in Florida, and couldn’t understand the difference between a narrowly conceived legal strategy and a mass mobilization direct action strategy. They thought there was no difference. 

OK. That was the Democratic Party. We were organized labor. We didn’t represent the candidate. We represented thousands of union workers whose votes were being stolen, and millions more who would suffer if the whole damn election was stolen. We knew how to mobilize and we had the resources to do it. We had the Florida voter lists. We had the computers. We had an army of smart people on the ground, ready to go. And we had a base of literally millions of really angry people. We could have had buses of senior citizens chasing Katherine Harris, 

Florida’s secretary of state and the Bush campaign’s hatchet woman, all over the state— a Seniors Truth Commission of lovely, smart, appealing, telegenic elders lined up with their walkers outside every single meeting Harris was in and camped outside her house at night while she slept. Don’t Let the Republicans Steal Votes from Your Grandparents. All they needed was a top-notch lead organizer and an experienced field team, a lawyer, a communications team: in short, exactly the big support we had on hand. They could have operated 24/ 7, like in a strike. Unions know how to do strikes, don’t they? 

That moment, when we could have supported the Jesse Jackson rally and didn’t, could have organized something big of our own and didn’t, was the turning point, the moment when the Gore campaign and their unquestioning AFL-CIO cohort snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. And by the way, it wasn’t like I was a big fan of the contemporary Jesse Jackson. But Jackson could turn people out and give a good speech— the same one he’d been giving for thirty years. The fact that our choice was between joining a rally led by Jesse Jackson and not doing anything at all was beyond pathetic. Oh, well. All that was at stake was an endless war in Afghanistan, an unprovoked war on Iraq, American torture, warrantless wiretapping, eight years of doing nothing on global warming, not to mention a relentless class war against workers and their unions, all building up to a second Great Depression. No big deal.

McAlevey, Jane; Ostertag, Bob (2012-11-13). Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement (Kindle Locations 55-118). Norton. Kindle Edition. 

Social Security going flop in 20!!! File under: Dick Durbin Doesn't Know How to Read Budget Reports

In 20 years Social Security, which currently has over 2 trillion in surplus reserves, is going to be flat broke![insert scary organ music]. Or so says Sen Dick Durbin who either doesn't know how to read buget reports, or thinks you don't.  Zach Carter over at Huffington Post has Durbin's nonsense from the Fox News Sunday show.

Here is some fun with logic for you.

Explain how Social Security, which will be able to pay out 77 percent of scheduled benefits once the Trust Fund is closed out to zero is going to be "flat broke" in 20 years. As I'd truly appreciate the insight.   Lets take a closer look and see if its hyperbole of the austerity crew or if Social Security truly is in crisis.

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities had a rundown of the 2013 Social Security Trustee's report

Several key points emerge from the new report:

• The trustees estimate that, in the absence of policy changes, the combined Social Security trust funds will be exhausted in 2033 — unchanged from last year’s report.  That date fluctuates slightly in each trustees’ report depending on economic, demographic, and other variables; over the last two decades, it has ranged between 2029 and 2042, but the overall story has been consistent.

• After 2033, Social Security could pay three-fourths of scheduled benefits using its tax income if policymakers took no steps to shore up the program.  (Those who fear that Social Security won’t be around at all when today’s young workers retire and that young workers will receive no benefits misunderstand the trustees’ projections.)

• The program’s shortfall is relatively modest, amounting to 1 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the next 75 years (and 1.6 percent of GDP in 2087, the 75th year).  A mix of tax increases and benefit modifications — carefully crafted to shield recipients with limited means and to give ample notice to all participants — could put the program on a sound footing indefinitely.  Social Security benefits are very modest.  The average retiree or elderly widow receives just $15,000 a year from Social Security (and the average disabled worker even less); an unmarried elderly person, on average, has just $3,000 in annual income other than his or her Social Security.  Accordingly, taxes should make up a large proportion of a solvency package.

• Policymakers will have to replenish the Disability Insurance trust fund by 2016.  They should try to do so as part of a comprehensive solvency package, because the retirement and disability components of Social Security are closely woven together.  Pending action on a balanced and well-designed solvency package, it is reasonable to reallocate taxes between the disability and retirement programs, as policymakers have often done in the past.

Sen Durbin thinks Social Security is gonna be out of money in 20 years because, "like the Babyboom is JUST MASSIVE YO!!!"  But the reality is less sexy and a lot more stable.  Here are some key dates...

Key Dates and What They Mean

2033 is the “headline date” in the new trustees’ report, because that is when the combined Social Security trust funds are expected to run out of Treasury bonds to cash in.  At that point, if nothing else is done, benefits would have to be cut to match the program’s annual tax income.  The program could then pay 77 percent of scheduled benefits, a figure that would slip to 72 percent by 2087.  Contrary to popular misconception, benefits would not stop.

Although the exhaustion date attracts keen attention, the trustees caution that their projections are uncertain.  For example, while 2033 is their best estimate of when the trust funds will be depleted, they judge there is an 80 percent probability that trust fund exhaustion will occur sometime between 2029 and 2039 — and a 95 percent chance that depletion will happen between 2028 and 2044.  Slightly more sanguine estimates that the Congressional Budget Office issued last year suggest there is an 80 percent probability that the combined trust funds would be exhausted between 2029 and 2045.[10]   In short, all reasonable estimates show a long-run problem that needs to be addressed but not an immediate crisis.

Two other, earlier dates also receive attention but have little significance for Social Security financing:

• 2010 marked the first year since 1983 in which the program’s total expenses (for benefits and administrative costs) exceeded its tax income (from payroll taxes and income taxes that higher-income beneficiaries pay on a portion of their Social Security benefits).  That was long expected to happen in the mid-2010s as demographic pressures built; the economic downturn led it to occur several years sooner.  The trust funds are nevertheless still growing, chiefly because of the interest income they receive on their Treasury bonds.  In 2012, for example, Social Security’s interest income of $109 billion more than offset its so-called cash deficit of $55 billion, leading the trust funds to grow by $54 billion.[11]

• 2021 will be the first year in which the program’s expenses exceed its total income, including its interest income.  At that point, the trust funds — after peaking at $2.9 trillion — will start to shrink as Social Security redeems its Treasury bonds to pay benefits.

Neither of these dates affects Social Security beneficiaries.  From 1984 through 2009, Social Security collected more in taxes each year than it paid out in benefits, lent the excess revenue to the Treasury, and received Treasury bonds in return.  Together with compound interest, that accounts for the $2.7 trillion in Treasury bonds that the trust funds hold today.

The drafters of the 1983 Social Security amendments purposely designed program financing in this manner to help pre-fund some of the costs of the baby boomers’ retirement.  The interest income from the trust funds’ bonds, as well as the eventual proceeds from redeeming the bond principal, will enable Social Security to keep paying full benefits until 2033.  Of course, policymakers should restore Social Security’s long-run solvency well before then.  Social Security’s diminishing cash flow does affect the task of the Treasury, which manages the government’s overall financing needs.  Nevertheless, the bonds have the full faith and credit of the United States government, and — as long as the solvency of the federal government itself is not called into question — Social Security will be able to redeem its bonds just as any private investor might do.

The effort to cut Social Security is being coordinated by a cohort of Wall Street 1%'ers who crashed the economy and would love to privitize Scoail Security so they can get their hands on some "fees"; and small Government types who hate the idea that Social Security keeps millions of Seniors out of poverty every year--thereby disproving the Dystopian Nightmare of Government programs never being able to do anything right.

The reality about Social Security is that its doing just fine; and as long as we keep Wall Street's hands off it we should be able to not only sustain current benifits but expand it to help cushion the blow for Babyboomers who's 401k's and savigngs were completely destroyed by Wall Street hacks who don't know anything about buidilng an economy that works for working people but know a whole lot about theft, graft, and corruption. 

Now if we can just start reporting projected 75-year actuarial deficit's for US Military Spending we might get some proper context on the Social Security numbers. 

Feb 15th 2003 and Michelle "No Backbone" Nunn

Democrats who fail to learn from history are destined to leads us back down a path of repeating it.

 The Michelle Nunn campaign has been a profile in spinelessness.  All the cool kids and politico's are lining up behind her for the spoils of having a Democratic US Senator.  But everyday working people in Georgia don't get to reap the benefits of "appointments" and jobs in DC that come along with winning a US Senate seat.

In fact if history teaches us anything.  Sending a Democrat who lacks the backbone to stand up to the Tea Party, someone unwilling to stand openly with the reality based community no matter the headaches that will be created by doing so at forums in rural Georgia, is very dangerous.  Today at work the February 15th 2003 Anti-War protest kept coming to mind.

 I was on the streets of Sacramento that day--where were you that day?


The war began shortly there after.  The Iraq War vote was pretty much a litmus test of leadership within the Democratic Party; on one side was the reality based community pointing out the major flaws in the Bush Administrations case for war; on the other side were a bunch of Democrats who wanted to aspire for higher office and were more focused on what the public opinion polls said the average voter thought about the jingo-ist war propaganda of the Bush Administration.

Nunn had a test-run for leadership with the #GOPshutdown and she proved that when the full faith and credit of the United State was in question and at risk she lacked the spine to stand up and speak the truth; a truth some right wing voters don't want to hear  and some disengaged ill-informed "swing voters" don't pay enough attention to policy nuances to understand.

Nunn is more concerned about winning power; and will say anything to get it.  We've seen this game throughout history many times before.  This has proven quite deadly to the lives of millions if recent American history is the judge.  The scars of sending Democrats with no spine to Washington DC can be seen in the waiting line at the VA for mental health services and the suicide epidemic within the military.  Or the votes for the Patriot Act that have eroded our civil liberties yet not made us a wit safer from terrorist.

This is no game.  Sending  Michelle "No Backbone" Nunn to Washington at a time when we need open, honest, hard working leaders is a horrible mistake.  

Her Father had backbone--he voted No to the First Iraq War--and has been a powerful advocate for nuclear disarmament.  But Michelle has been sent in as a pinch hitter for a Democratic Party with no bench of candidates way above the level any novice should be sent to play.  She's not ready for prime time and it shows by who she has been listening to and the things she's been doing and saying on the campaign trail (when she bothers to even show up).

Michelle "No Backbone" Nunn is not an option for any honest Democratic Primary voter.

----Update----
I totally forgot to mention that voters will have a good choice on the ballot in the Democratic Primary.

Michelle Nunn, extortionist Fellow Traveler, can't tell Georgia voters the truth.

The Government shutdown and the Democratic US Senate candidate Michelle Nunn's response to it was the straw that broke this Teamsters back so to speak.

Straight out of the gate the Nunn campaign was hyping up Fix the Debt talking points. But what was worse was in the middle of the #GOPshutdown Nunn decided to side with the hostage takers.


I caught three things today which reminded me that Nunn's style of politics---to poll test ones way to 50% + 1 of the vote is a failed strategy for Georgia Democrats which will undermine our efforts to reach out to and gain support from rural areas of Georgia. This is an area of Georgia which Democrats lost over the past 3 decades due to the Democratic Parties tactic of aligning with Wall Street rather than an economic populism that puts a strong economy for all, before the needs and interests of the 1%.

First Krugman writes that the Fix the Debt crew is still beating a dead horse on the debt even after the shutdown. A horse that was rode into the ground by Ted Cruz and his Tea Party crazies...

Extortionist Fellow-Travelers - NYTimes.com 

Alec MacGillis attends a Fix the Debt event, and is awed to find everyone still saying the same old things:

Fix the Debt officials spoke as if they have had no role in bringing us to this point – as if, to the contrary, we arrived at this point precisely because we were not listening to them. Compared to them, the second-guessing Republicans on the Hill Wednesday were models of candor and self-awareness.

Actually, it’s even worse than he says (a line I find myself using a lot these days.) Fix the Debt didn’t just help create a climate of crisis with its fearmongering over the deficit; the fiscal scolds actively cheered GOP hostage-taking in 2011, and were still lending support to hostage tactics this time around.

Furthermore, neutrality is not an option here. If one political party attempts to defy due process and extract concessions from the other party by threatening financial and economic catastrophe, and your response is to condemn partisanship in the abstract and suggest that both sides are equally to blame, you are in effect lending cover to the hostage-takers.

In other words, Fix the Debt isn’t just ineffectual in its pursuit of a Grand Bargain, it’s an actively malign force in our politics, in effect acting as an ally of the extortionists.

When push came to shove in the middle of the crisis; Nunn didn't have the integrity to call a spade a spade and acknowledge to Georgia voters that the Tea Party fringe had hijacked the governing process.  Nor focus on the unemployment crisis we face in the state.

I've been impressed with the willingness of Dr Rad to engage conservative voters and get through some of their frustration so that they can see that he's fighting for them.  It takes listening and time.  It takes engagement; and I'm convinced Dr Rad is willing to do the hard work to win over many of the Tea Party ilk in Georgia.

Nunn's public relations model of politics just finds a position conservatives approve of; rather than tell them something they might not like to hear--that a radical fringe in Congress is to blame for the current crisis we face.  We don't face a debt crisis, we face a political crisis, and Michelle Nunn is making our problems worse by lying to voters; she is undermining the long term efforts to rebuild trust and faith in the capacity of Government to Govern.

Next along these lines I caught Barry Ritholtz who basically laid out Michelle Nunn's arguments to voters if she truly cared as much about the deficits as she claims but was willing to be upfront and honest with voters.  But you won't see her campaign to raise taxes and cut spending any time soon--"leadership" and volunteering are easier to talk about.  Platitudes are the easy way out; but voters need and deserve the truth...

The Truth about Deficits:

If you are truly concerned about deficit, then what you must do is (eventually) raise taxes and cut spending — that is how you balance the budget.

Current deficit is now ~$550B, down from over $1T.  Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist of Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote “We are baffled by the idea that the pace of deficit reduction needs to be increased, given how rapidly the picture is improving already.”

If the tax cuts from 2001, 2003 were repealed, half of that deficit goes away.

If the FICA cap is lifted from $113k and allowed to rise to $250k or $500k, SS is solvent for 75 years.

If the US no longer spent the equivalent of the next 20 countries COMBINED on Defense, a huge chunk of the deficit goes away.

The US now spends 2X what most developed nations spend on healthcare. If you are concerned about the long term debt, than you must develop a system that radically lowers US health care costs, bringing them into line with what other industrialized nations spend.

You cannot tax cut your way to fiscal solvency in a weak economy any more than you can spend your way there in a slow recovery. However, you can make the deficit worse with poorly timed tax increases or poorly timed spending cuts.

My read of the current situation is that it has nothing to do with the deficit. The past votes of the current Deficit Peacocks reveal that it is not important to them. Unfunded tax cuts (2001, ’03), expensive wars of choice (most recently, Iraq), and unfunded entitlements (Medicare Part D) reveal that most of the people currently clamoring about the deficit have precisely zero interest in reducing it. They are merely using the deficit as a tool to pursue their ideology.

The current debate has revealed two things: Some people very much want a MUCH smaller government, including much lower taxes. But, they know that is very unpopular among the broad public when you start specifying what to actually cut. It is an ideological goal with which most of the country disagrees. So, the argument that appears more reasonable is to come out against deficits.

Have a look at Center of American Politics – Statistics and Numbers on American Politics from Esquire. While there are some areas of overlap, its pretty clear that the Tea Party is so out of step with most of the USA.

Want to fix the deficit? Then make the hard choices to cut spending and raise taxes (even if you implement this in later years).

Want to have a much smaller US government? The way to do that is not with the deficit or the debt ceiling or other misdirected tactics — instead, try having an honest debate on the subject, and see if you can convince a majority of your fellow Americans to that view . . .

 Ezra Klein reminded me of something, its not going to require manipulating public opinion to get just enough "conservative" street cred to win a US Senate race.  Democrats if they want to get serious need long term education and engagement with rural voters not a public relations campaign that takes advantage of the political momentum Democrats appear to have at the moment:

The shutdown probably won’t matter in the 2014 election. It definitely won’t matter in 2016

First, basically nothing matters in elections. Once you account forpartisanship, the economy, presidential approval and incumbency, there's very little vote left to swing. The main mistake the political class makes about elections is vastly overstating their volatility. But partisan preferences are overwhelmingly stable, and the voters who don't have strong preferences tend to be pretty checked out of day-to-day political events.

 No no, we shouldn't sacrifice the truth in order to win a US Senate race.   Sorry Team Nunn manipulation is not a winning tactic.

Nunn's campaign is dead in the water for any honest Democratic primary voter.  There is too much at stake.

We have two choices.  Invest in a candidate willing to out organize Nunn and donate to Dr Rad, someone willing to be open and honest with Republican voters and work real hard (I'm a monthly sustaining donor).  Or draft a name that can run a pro-gun economic populist campaign vs Republicans and can "win" against Nunn on the name recognition front.  Since the 1% have the Georgia Democratic primary on lockdown I'd argue you do both and see which gains steam faster with the demos, because letting Nunn out of the primary is not a viable option for Democrats.

Lets call this the all of the above Strategy.  None of us deserve Nunn on the ballot come next November.

Matt Bruenig on cutting poverty

Matt Bruenig reflects on Sasha Abramsky’s The American Way of Poverty and breaks down the program for reducing poverty to three lines...

Dramatically cutting poverty can be done fairly easily by efficiently altering the income distribution so that the poor get a larger share. If we take the above list, trim down some of the more marginal programs, and collapse all the jobs items into "full employment," we can squeeze a program down to three lines:

1. Full employment (i.e. getting to NAIRU).
2. Basic income.
3. Negative income tax.

These three things alone are capable of doing all of the heavy lifting necessary to greatly slash poverty rates. They may be politically hard to achieve, but it’s best not to confuse political difficulty with policy difficulty. We can, as Abramsky notes, shrink the ranks of the impoverished if we really want to. What’s hard is not how to do it, but how to get people to do it.

We won't inspire people to do it by sending the utterly clueless to talk them into it.

Josh Barro: Niall Ferguson is an idiot; Michelle Nunn edition...

Brad Delong sends us to Josh Barro who notes that Niall Ferguson does massive damage to our political debate with his nonsense and therefore deserves scorn.

Josh Barro: Niall Ferguson Uses Twitter Science To Prove He Is Better Than Everyone:

In the process of criticizing me, Ferguson writes: "If you are defending someone against a charge of incivility…" I'm going to stop him right there. I'm not defending anybody against a charge of incivility…. The reason Ferguson wants to talk about civility is that he can't talk about not being full of crap. Ferguson… write[s] popular articles that contain misleading and false claims… causes readers to come away with a worse understanding of the economy than they entered with. He is changing the world for the worse. My contention is not that we haven't been uncivil to Ferguson. We definitely have. My contention is that he deserves it.

I argue the same about Michelle Nunn. Who is proving to be either clueless about the economy or willing to lie in order to gain power.   Neither are what we need right now from our political class.

The First Rule of of Running for US Senate--You do not side with the 1%. 

Michelle Nunn, radical ideologue for the 1%, defender of future world. 

 In which Brad Delong shows that Michelle Nunn is clueless on the deficits... 

Managed democracy and the demobilization of the working class

When it comes to the economy Michelle Nunn has no clue what she is talking about (see Dean Baker, and Brad Delong for more)

Eric Loomis of Lawyers Guns and Money recently noted the nonsense coming out of the Nunn campaign:

I understand that Michelle Nunn faces an uphill battle to win the Georgia Senate seat. But I’m absolutely not convinced that parroting right-wing lines about the national debt and the need to cut spending is going to help a Democrat win office anywhere. I know that she might have to make some compromises on the issues that matter to a conservative Georgia electorate–I wouldn’t expect her to take a strong statement on guns. I’d expect her to be pretty hawkish on foreign policy (which I expect anyway because of her father). I wouldn’t expect her to be a national leader of gay marriage (although I would expect at least neutrality). I wouldn’t even really resent her for being an ally of dirty energy. But how does the national debt play with the voters of Georgia? I’m skeptical it really matters to anyone but the 1% who are looking to concentrate resources in their pockets. Unfortunately, Democratic politicians tilting right seem to equate that with also supporting the extremely rich. This is DLC-style posturing at its worst. Makes the big funders happy though.

Sheldon Wolin in his excellent bookDemocracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism tapped in to the reasoning behind the DLC 1% posturing of the Nunn campaign; the goal is managed Democracy:

A major tactic on the way to managed democracy was to encourage what might be called "discouraged democracy." A prime example was the device of requiring extraordinary majorities that became a staple of antitax and -spending forces beginning in the latter part of the twentieth century. Not only did the device increase the power of highly organized minorities, but it served to discourage a majority from using its power to promote social programs intended to meet basic needs and improve the lot of poorer citizens.  Voter apathy is importantly a consequence of low expectations that their government will respond to their needs. Why bother? Perhaps because inequalities are not confined to differences of wealth, status, life prospects, and conditions of existence; such inequalities translate into inequalities of power.  Arguments about taxation are, at bottom, arguments about the distribution of power.

 While low voter turnout might seems a reflection of low civic morale and a dangerous symptom of democratic decline, republicanism would view it in a positive light.  A certain amount of nonvoting is especially welcome if it deters the most desperate, those who are likely to be swayed by "populist" demagoguery.  When Republicans and conservative Democrats work methodically to reduce or eliminate social programs, the result is tantamount to a deliberate strategy of encouraging political apathy among the poor and needy....

During the 1990's politicians of both parties educated the populace in anti government ideas. Democrats and Republicans alike then raced to see who could propose the most drastic cutbacks in social welfare programs.  Government that had prided itself on serving the Many was dismantled in favor of "a leaner government." Predictably this counterrevolution was made easier during the 1980's and 1990's by a spate of ideologically inspired, wildly exaggerated, and racially divisive attacks upon "welfare cheats" and "Cadillac welfare queens."

The successful counterrevolution was doubly significant.  Whatever the merits of corporate capitalism, it is not a system whose benefits are equally distributed.  It is instead a system that, as a matter of course, produces striking inequalities.  The results are evident in the greater concentration and extremes of wealth, a deeper divide between classes, in terms of health care and of educational and cultural opportunities than at any time in recent history.  The wide disparities serve to expose the counterrevolutionary strategy that motivates the champions of managed democracy.

Counterrevolution means, not a return to the past--the powers fostering it are too dynamic--but a closing off of a demotic direction and the nudging of society toward a different direction where inequalities will be taken for granted, rationalized, perhaps celebrated....

.... The aim of the counterrevolutionary strategy is the permanent institutionalization of a counterdemocratic state.

 In the middle of an economic crisis one might think the Democrats would work to stick a pro-gun populist on the campaign trail in the US Senate race; we instead have a "name" that is AWOL from the campaign trail aside from random op-eds and interviews where she pushes talking points of the 1%.

The Democratic Party insiders are selling a "grand bargain" type to the base of the party as a "done deal".  The 1% has the Democratic primary on lock-down.  Its doing two things--telling working class Republican voters "we think you are rubes who couldn't understand economics if we tried".  Believe me, they may not know a lot of macroeconomics but Red voters in Georgia will see through Nunn for the lies she's touting on the campaign trail (either Nunn is a liar or clueless; if she's just clueless lets get her some better advisers. If she isn't  clueless and is just telling people what she thinks they want to hear to get elected she is therefore a liar.)

Its also continuing a pattern of the Democratic Party selling out the working class of Georgia, so they can get through to the General election a politician that will reinforce the worst cliches about an out of touch Democratic Party elite who don't understand working people--and those red voters will be absolutely correct.

That's why I started a Draft Jason Carter for US Senate petition campaign.  The only thing that will beat Nunn is a name who has the political apparatus able to beat her in the primary.  Working people don't have the time, energy, or money to help one of the other two  no name candidates win the primary--its just not going to happen in this short amount of time.   But can get people to sign a petition in opposition to Nunn's neoliberalism.

We need demotic action; we need Jason Carter to run for US Senate.  Please sign and share.

Michelle Nunn, Unleashing the 1% spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship across Georgia

So earlier this morning I pointed you over to economist Brad Delong beating up on Michelle Nunn's economic positions (In which Brad Delong shows that Michelle Nunn is clueless on the deficits..). 

Now Dean Baker over at the Center for Economic and Policy Reserach has chimed in to beat up on Michelle Nunn's economic positions as well:

The absurdities pushed by Ferguson and like-minded people in positions of power, in direct defiance of massive evidence to the contrary, have ruined millions of lives and cost the world more than $10 trillion in lost outputsince the crisis began. 

First, contrary to what Ferguson claims, the downturn is not primarily a “financial crisis.” The story of the downturn is a simple story of a collapsed housing bubble. The $8 trillion housing bubble was driving demand in the U.S. economy in the last decade until it collapsed in 2007. When the bubble burst we lost more than 4 percentage points of GDP worth of demand due to a plunge in residential construction. We lost roughly the same amount of demand due to a falloff in consumption associated with the disappearance of $8 trillion in housing wealth. (FWIW, none of this was a surprise to folks who follow the economy with their eyes open. I warned of this disaster beginning in 2002, see also here and here.) 

The collapse of the bubble created a hole in annual demand equal to 8 percent of GDP, which would be $1.3 trillion in today’s economy. The central problem facing the U.S., the euro zone, and the U.K. was finding ways to fill this hole. Government stimulus is the most obvious answer. This is where the Ferguson types first began to obstruct efforts to boost the economy. They warned that stimulus would not be an effective way to boost growth and create jobs. We also heard dire tale of exploding interest rates and runaway inflation. 

In fact, the stimulus in the United States went pretty much according to the textbook. It was far too small and too short to get the economy back to full employment (again, this was predictable at the time, see here and here), but it did create around 2-3 million jobs. The problem was that that the economy needed 10-12 million jobs. 

This is all about as simple as it gets. At least in the U.S. case there is very little room for any financial crisis type explanations. Investment as a share of GDP is almost at its pre-crisis level. This is quite impressive given the huge amounts of excess capacity that persist in many sectors. Is there some story where we would expect to see much more investment if our financial system had not gone through a crisis? 

The same holds with consumption. Contrary to conventional wisdom, consumption is quite high relative to disposable income. People are spending a smaller share of their income than at the peak of the bubble, but that should not be surprising since they lost $8 trillion in housing wealth. It is not the financial system or pessimism about the economy that is holding back consumption, it is loss of wealth. 

If we can’t reasonably expect much more out of investment or consumption than what we are now seeing, then that just leaves the government and net exports. This is not really a debatable point; it is a matter of accounting identities. That means we have to rely on the government sector to boost the economy. (I am a big proponent of a lower-valued dollar to boost net exports, but this is more of a longer term strategy since our trading partners will take time to adjust.) 

In the years since the original stimulus the Ferguson types have repeatedly raised absurd fears about the U.S. and other countries hitting debt limits and risking soaring interest rates and hyper-inflation. The result of people pushing this line is that efforts to boost the economy have been stunted. This is why the United States remains close to 9 million jobs below its trend path. Peripheral countries in the euro zone, such as Spain and Greece, have been even harder hit with unemployment rates hovering near 25 percent. 

In addition to all the people who are unemployed or underemployed, the weakness of the labor market has made it impossible for most workers to be able to achieve real wage gains. As a result the benefits of the growth we have seen in the United States and other wealthy countries have gone overwhelmingly to the richest 1 percent of the population.
This story is not only devastating for the current generation of workers; it is also having a devastating impact on their children. There are millions of children having impaired childhoods because their unemployed parent(s) cannot properly care for them.(Bizarrely, Ferguson and his ilk are obsessed with deficit projections for 20 and 30 years out, which are entirely due to our broken health care system, as the worst threat facing our children.) 

The horrible plight facing so many people in the United States and Europe is especially infuriating because it is so preventable. We know how to get people back to work – Keynes taught us the answer almost 80 years ago. We just need to spend money. Keynes was shown right in the Great Depression and all the evidence that we have seen to date in the current downturn show that these lessons still hold. (Btw, we can also go the route of reducing work hours, while making up for most of the shortfall in wages. Reductions in work hours is the secret to Germany’s 5.4 percent unemployment.)

While the 1% has the Democratic Primary on lockdown.  Its up to the people of Georgia to either call on a leader to rise to the occasion.  Or else get with other like minded people and do the hard organizing to win the primary back from the Wall Street interests that have destroyed the Democratic Party brand for a generation

In which Brad Delong shows that Michelle Nunn is clueless on the deficits...

The 1% has the Democratic Party US Senate race on lockdown. Michelle Nunn is fighting for our great great grandkids while the house is on fire.  Brad Delong has a good break down of why she is clueless...well sort of,  insert Harvard's  Niall Ferguson as Democratic US Senate candidate Michelle Nunn's stand in this morning.

Here's Brad with more: LABORING IN VAIN TO RAISE THE LEVEL OF THE DEBATE OVER THE DEBT AND THE DEFICIT

he CBO's 2013 Long-Term Budget Outlook states that, looking into the long-run future of 2013-2038, it projects three things:

1. The present value of the current debt plus all spending on entitlements plus appropriations growing at the pace authorized by current law is 21.5% of GDP over that period.
2. The present value of revenues plus the debt that can be allowed as of 2038 in order to avoid any deterioration in the debt-to-GDP ratio is 20.7% of GDP.
3. The difference between them--the difference between projected outlays and projected revenues--is the "fiscal gap": 0.8% of GDP.

NOT BIG: That 0.8% of GDP in the 2013 LTBO is a small number: it tells us that--under the laws currently in force--the U.S. government's spending and taxes are nearly in balance over the next twenty-five years. And as long as we do not have unexpectedly-bad economic news and as long as the Congress and the President follow PAYGO--pays for tax cuts with spending cuts, and pays for spending increases with tax increases--we will stay in rough balance.

Now the CBO goes on to say that it does not expect Congress and the President to maintain that balance. A year ago, after all, current law required the expiration of all of the 2001 tax-rate cuts. It expects Congress and the President to do things to widen the deficit in the future. That is why it presents its Alternative Fiscal Scenario, in which it assumes that (a) Congress and the President will never implement the reduction in Medicare payments to doctors that Newt Gingrich put into the budget in the late 1990s and that has been postponed since; (b) Congress and the President will undo the sequestration cuts, and (c ) Congress and the President will continue to extend indefinitely "certain expiring tax provisions" that are currently classified as temporary. We do face serious long-run deficit problems. But they are not because of anything in current law--they are because of what the CBO fears future Congresses and Presidents will do to unbalance America's fiscal future.

Niall Ferguson is simply wrong when he writes "the question is not if the United States will default but when and on which of its rapidly spiraling liabilities". And Niall Ferguson is simply wrong when he claims that that is what the CBO 2013 LTBO says: the CBO 2013 LTBO says that America's fiscal gap over the next 25 years under current law is small, but there is reason to fear that legislative changes will unbalance the budget.

(7) True, the federal deficit has fallen to about 4% of GDP this year from its 10% peak in 2009. The bad news is that, even as discretionary expenditure has been slashed, spending on entitlements has continued to rise—and will rise inexorably in the coming years, driving the deficit back up above 6% by 2038.

WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT?!: Here I have a hard time figuring out what the argument is supposed to be. Ferguson forecasts a budget deficit averaging 5% of GDP over the next 25 years. That means that a national debt about the size of annual GDP would grow in nominal terms by 5% every year. But U.S. nominal GDP grows at an average pace of 5% per year as well. Ferguson is thus forecasting a roughly-constant debt-to-GDP ratio--one that will take a generation to rise from its current 75% of GDP to 100% of GDP. How is that a crisis? It isn't. And virtually nobody on Wall Street sees it as a crisis: the term structure of interest rates tells us that interest rates are expected to stay very low for at least a generation to come.

We have two options in Georgia Draft a name that can win.

Or get busy organizing aginst the 1%.

I'm going to go load trucks now....