I was contacted over the weekend by Sputnik News to give them my thoughts on Nancy Pelosi’s announcement to force through votes on the two big spending bills she’s been stymied on for months now. The opposition to these bills, even the Infrastructure Bill she eventually got through the House at the midnight hour, is increasing because the perceived need for them is falling.
Sputnik published their article this morning and is worth your time (not just because some of my ideas are presented). Since this bill passed the realization that the “Build Back Better” Bill of Davos’ dreams is still in serious trouble.
The fact that Pelosi arm-twisted this hard so close to last week’s electoral shellacking should confirm for you just how desperate things look on Capitol Hill. There is a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party which is playing out both in Domestic and Foreign Policy. More on that later in the week.
Since Sputnik didn’t use all of my comments I’m publishing them here to keep things brisk and clarify any finer points.
Q:How will the “transformative” Build Back Better Act change the everyday lives of ordinary Americans?
That hasn’t passed yet, and if the moderate Democrats in the Senate were listening to the voters on Election Day, they should continue to hold out against it and kill it completely. Compared to the original text of the bill the BBB Act monetarily isn’t a big deal. Most of Trump’s tax cuts are still in place.
What will be terrible coming out of that bill is the new administrative powers, snooping, regulations on travel, cryptocurrencies, etc. which will continue to strangle the middle class and ensure the continued roll up of wealth in the U.S. from the middle and lower classes to major firms.
They will not only wind up with the lion’s share of the funds, but also operate in a landscape where the costs of the new rules fall disproportionately on smaller firms, increasing their competitive advantage.
Q: Six Democrats, known as The Squad, voted against the infrastructure bill. Do you expect more infighting within the Democratic party, which is soon set to vote on the $1.85 trillion climate, tax, and social policy bill?
Yes, I actually do. The Democratic Party isn’t a political party per se. Instead, it is best to think of it as a three-headed coalition of the aggrieved.
They are in panic mode to ‘just sign anything’ and give their people something to run and fundraise on, even though they already know they’ve lost the mid-terms.
What happened on Friday was more interesting from the Republican side of the aisle (as always) as enough of them caved to politically neuter “The Squad” on this vote.
These squishy RINOs did what they were supposed to do, betray their constituents at the last minute to serve whatever higher master, in my view the ones who just met at COP26, they answer to.
By neutering “The Squad” over this vote with the help of RINOs, it will be easier for Pelosi and company to get The Squad to cave over the second bill. The Progressives got their heads handed to them last night.
So, moving on to the BBB Act, Sen. Joe Manchin is now the key player, obviously. Pressure on him will be insane. But, he’s bought himself a few weeks by saying he’ll wait for the CBO report, which will say exactly what Biden and Obama want it to say.
The problem for everyone is that the argument for this spending is fading. Inflation is raging. Biden took credit for the new Jobs Report, even though it was simply Holiday temp hiring, and the Fed is in opposition to the rest of the central banks, committing to ending QE. Expect Powell to talk about hiking rates in 2022 the minute he’s reappointed as FOMC Chair.
Republicans have blasted 13 fellow party members for voting in favour of what they described as a “wasteful” bill. Do you share this point of view?
Of course. I’m a libertarian. All of this spending is not only wasteful but immoral. But, taking off my partisan glasses, this bill is innocuous by D.C. standards, to be honest. The real damage was done during COVID-19 with the CARES Act and the follow up support legislation.
Winnowing the bill down from $3.5 or $5.5 trillion (who can keep track anymore) to $1.85 trillion over 10 years makes it far less of a threat to the Federal Reserve, and leaves it room to end QE and force the rest of the world to deal with a sharply rising U.S. Dollar.
As always, the Republicans are focusing on the money because it’s the easiest message to sell but also the easiest to bargain away. This is how you know the leadership is controlled opposition. Notice how there is no discussion allowed on the regulatory and bureaucratic changes, only the rate at which they get deployed. These bills are technocratic nightmares which should always be opposed root and branch.
The goal of them is to bring the U.S. in line with the sclerotic and dysfunctional EU and create chaos within the U.S. political system. As much as it pains me to say this, the Fed looks to be the only organization on Capitol Hill interested in defending the people of the U.S. by forcing a dollar rally which will blow up the budget while also forcing capital flight out of Europe, Japan and China.
Some Democratic lawmakers have criticized the party for failing to pass the bill ahead of Tuesday’s gubernatorial election in Virginia, which could have given Dems a legislative victory to campaign on. How true is this? How do you expect the electoral landscape to change now?
I think the Democrats saying this are still trapped in thinking that the rules of the political game are the same as they were in previous years. This is the problem with the old generations refusing to leave the scene.
The Pelosis, Feinsteins, Schumers and Hoyers simply don’t realize that there has been a seismic shift in the rules of politics since the election of Trump in 2016. Voters aren’t responding to the old adage of “when you promise to rob Peter to pay Paul you can always count on Paul’s vote,” the same way anymore.
This is a civilizational fight of ideology and the definition of what community is, which the Democrats and The Davos Crowd stoked. Now thinking they could go to their districts with some pork spending to buy off parents who the Biden administration and Obama just dismissed as cranks is evidence of a myopia no corrective lens could ever fix.
The Democrats and Davos know they are losing the mid-terms. They are already in damage control mode, hoping to only lose a couple dozen seats rather than the historic wipeout they are now facing. This is why Pelosi called in every marker and used everyone’s hatred of The Squad to get the BIF bill passed but are still facing a stiff House on the BBB bill.
What has to happen now is that not only a primary purge of the old money Democrats (very likely) but also a purge of the Mitt Romney-style RINOs for the mid-terms. When you see what happened in New Jersey with a truck driver who spent $153 challenge the State Senate President to within an inch of his political life you know the rules have changed.
Since they know their time is very limited, that’s why what’s in the unread guts of these bills had to be passed regardless of the topline cost.
That’s the point of this exercise, it always is.
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Nancy and Gov Gav were here…
https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/inside-ivy-getty-wedding-weekend-in-san-francisco
People are only loyal to their wealth and power…wherever that is on the spectrum…all other allegiances fade away…people will do anything…terrible things…to keep from falling from their illusory level. So many woke Karens, but also lots of RINO’s around me trying to carry on as if things are normal…quoting more and more bible verses as the ship sinks…all in the top percentiles of wealth and conveniently ignoring the fact their book is crystal clear about needles and camels.
There is not one constituency, be it religious, rural, etc that hasn’t bought into the debt based illusion. Walmart, folksy Buffet, et all lead the charge to hollow us out…but fill the void with endless flags and support the troops tropes…and the sheeple eat it up…BIS mafia ready to harvest its fattened livestock.
Anyone with an interest in history and human behavior has to be enjoying this…what a fantastic shit show…on to the metaverse where the exploitation will ramp up without the resource constraints…no more defiling and depleting the elite’s resources. Developed world finding out now what rest of world has had to deal with for so long…we are all livestock to those who run the world…no hard feelings…it’s just business.
Some will lead, the herd will follow (maybe somewhat) and some will stand aside and watch (maybe comment or blog). Business as usual until the business model busts. And then what? We live in interesting times
I’m not sure what Americanism to use here, but can’t you see that the Davosians are about to pull the trigger on something big?
They are shooting for the moon. Eating their seed corn. Swinging for the fence.
They have taken enormous risks, installed imbeciles as national leaders across the world, and burned all their political capital to bring the world to the brink. This is a one-way trip for them. Shit or bust.
To quote Vincent in Gattacca – they have saved nothing for the swim back.
I may not be able to say exactly what rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem to be born, but I can see the head.
Ivor usually something fascinating to say. If he can quell the challenges and insults when the urge arise, thank you for your insights. An Tom, of course you’re well worth reading
They’re dangling it in front of everyone’s face: hold North America hostage by killing power lines in the middle of winter. The method doesn’t matter. They don’t care who they kill and they want private contractors and foreign intervention replacing our law enforcement. The people in our agencies don’t seem to understand their useful idiocy and disposable nature so they’ve been enabling them. Obviously this is ‘conspiracy’ but listen to Charles speak about a militarized force, that scumbag level brit still hates freedom with a passion and their fortunes are invested in it, they all invested in our infrastructure.
Oh: remember Enron? When they took Cali’s power grid hostage?
By today’s standards doesn’t that look like a practice run?
I would suggest that the question isn’t where D.C. goes. The question is where do WE go? It no longer really matters what happens in Washington. It really doesn’t matter what happens in California, or New York, or Tennessee, or Montana. And it doesn’t matter what happens in Kansas City, or Philadelphia, or Sacramento, or Detroit.
The country I was born into some 60 odd years ago no longer exists. It’s a shell of it’s former glory. And it’s taken a bit of time, but I have finally realized that these things just don’t matter anymore because it is all going to fall apart – probably soon.
Mr Luongo was right a few weeks ago when he penned an article suggesting we just “say no”. The reaction from those in power to this simple act would be amazing – if everyone would just do it. But deep down, we all know this will never happen. I guess most people just aren’t ‘wired’ this way.
I find that I now read very little about what is going on in the world because it just doesn’t matter anymore. The die has been cast, so to speak. My focus now – what I do care about – is ensuring that my family and friends can survive what is coming. Honestly, I’m not sure any of us can do more than that at this point.
So as we know, in American politics, nothing is free. So she traded something for those votes. The question is what ? So it’ll go to committee and the differences between the two bills ironed out. Question is, will Pelosi and Schumer live up to their end of the deal ? It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out now. We won’t know until the final product is released, but I suspect the Republicans might have gotten stuff they wanted removed or added, that was in the senate bill. It’ll probably resemble the Senate bill more then anything else.
The government needs to be right sized like the bloated 1970s conglomerate that it is. 70% of headcount needs to be eliminated. Too much corruption. Too much red tape. Too many useless bureaucrats spending most of their day cost justifying their own job without adding any value what-so-ever.
It doesn’t matter which idiot is mismanaging things unless and until that happens — the thing is unmanageable even if competent politicians were willing to run (and right now the smartest people in society don’t want anything to do with government).
And what was the unspoken deal here…
https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/china-us-make-joint-statement-cop26-climate-summit-2021-11-10/
Can’t trust Reuters to give accurate coverage. Here’s what they really said — actual transcript :) :
Biden: I want another ice cream cone.
Xi: COP26 was a pre-teen too young to have pimples and a bunch of trust fund babies flying in on jet-fuel powered private jets. They used diesel generators to charge their electric car. The whole thing was a farce!!
Biden: I nominate a failed Soviet economist to run the Office of Comptroller of the Currency
Xi: China is worried that the octogenarians running the USA are not going to be alive long enough to repay the trillions in debt they took out. China needs to diversify its holdings to debtors that might repay us.
Biden: I want to sniff Mrs Xi’s hair!!!
Xi: No
Biden: Where’s my f-cking ice cream cone!!
Xi: China has great respect for the people of the USA, but we are worried the US government is run by morons
Biden: ICE CREAM CONE NOW!!!!!
You have such great geopolitical analysis.
If you’d like a similarly good analysis of the source of society’s current division and dysfunction, you can get that at newdiscourses.com.
New Discourses was started by an academic, James Lindsay, after he watched a totalitarian mindset march through academia. He found the source is an education in Critical Social Justice Theory, which was created by Marxists, and is a combination of Critical Theory (Marxian analysis), Post-Modernism (argument style), and biased opinions required to be accepted as fact.
The fastest way to get a rather complete understanding of this ideology is to go to his website and click on the link for the woke encyclopedia at the top of the first page. Then read the discussion behind the definition of each encyclopedia entry.
Thank you.
I notice that the Crypto Tax Reporting Bill (that the Senate passed without amendment back in August) slipped through the House last week (despite lots of obvious problems and objections) and now just awaits Biden’s signature? Few people predicted that.
And Omarova (Stalinist academic) is closing in on her role as Comptroller of the Currency.
And Diem is about to launch.
The Davosians already had motive to outlaw/regulate to death private crypto and launch their own for use as UBI. They are now crafting means and opportunity.
Everyone predicted that. they won’t even begin to go into effect until 2023 and by then those rules can and likely will be gutted. You are wrong about this Ivor.
From what I read, the Crypto Tax applies to brokers and miners. So if FB issues Diem, it will be considered a broker and thus subject to tax reporting. Do you think FB has considered this tax or simply plans to act as a US Gov contractor? FB has two pilots operational now. They could go either way IMHO.
If I’m right that Diem is their chosen vehicle, they will simply take it into public ownership with Zuckerberg’s blessing. Or he will “gift it to the world”
Essentially, it will be nationalised and therefore perfectly immune from the restraints then placed on private crypto.
But as the regulatory body that manages it will be a global one (IMF or BIS, or some new Global Currency Council?) it might be more accurate to call it the first case of globalising – something taken into global public ownership?