Reader complains about the all-too predictable anti-Romney position of this blog

A reader writes: “All the anti-Romney, pro-Obama talk is becoming dull. Living as I do outside the US it has been absolutely impossible for me to find a single pro-Romney supporter. I was hoping that by coming to www.brianbarrington.com I could get a fresh perspective. Something that would go against the grain. But alas no.”

BB SAYS: Sorry, but on this question I find it impossible to go against the grain just for the sake of it – the US Republicans are currently a brain-dead party and when they are in power they cause immense damage, both to Americans and to the world. For me to take up a contrarian position on this would be irresponsible.


So I am going to make a hopeful prediction: Obama will win the US presidential election tomorrow, with at least 290 electoral college votes, and probably 303 electoral college votes. (270 electoral college votes are needed to win).

As far as I can work out, Romney has made himself somewhat competitive in the Presidential election by promising that if elected he will govern as a sensible Massachusetts liberal, just as he did when governor. Effectively, Romney has thrown the right-wing nutters in his party under a bus. However, if Romney is elected the right-wing nutters will all come crawling out from their lairs for one last hurrah, and they could have a seriously negative impact. 


But even if Romney-Ryan scratch out an unlikely victory tomorrow the Republicans are a political party in deep trouble. Basically, there are too many young people, women, blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Asians, homosexuals and well-educated socially liberal urban professionals (and not enough old white rural Christian men) for the Republicans to win without great difficulty. And it’s only going to get worse for Republicans, who are reacting with panic and embracing irrationality. “If we lose this election there is only one explanation - demographics,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “If I hear anybody say it was because Romney wasn’t conservative enough I’m going to go nuts,” said Graham. “We’re not losing 95 percent of African-Americans and two-thirds of Hispanics and voters under 30 because we’re not being hard-ass enough.”’

In every election, since 1992, Democrats have either won the White House or fallen a single state short of the presidency. Even before the Presidential election begins Democrats already have 237 electoral college votes in the bag in states that would never vote for the Republican Party in its current form (the Northeast, the West Coast and much of the Great Lakes area). This means Democrats only have to pick up another 33 votes in swing states to win. In contrast Republicans start out with only 191 electoral college votes in the bag (the Deep South and Fly-Over America) – meaning they have to pick up 80 votes in swing states to win. So the Republicans start out with a major handicap.

If Obama does lose we will have to be patient and wait another few years to watch the Republicans get their well-deserved comeuppance. But if Obama does win we should avoid the temptation to gloat too much and we would be wise to keep in mind an important fact: the white male working class populace in the US is in crisis – in the last 30 years they have seen their status collapse, their job-security disappear, their incomes stagnate, their position in society eroded. Admittedly, Republican policies since Reagan have played a large part in bringing about this situation, but that is not the point: this damaged class is mostly made up of decent people and they need decent jobs and they also deserve a respected place in their society. This is something that should be remembered over the coming week regardless of what happens in the elections.

Explaining Mitt's inexplicable Vice-presidential Choice

THE CONUNDRUM

Mitt Romney looks like the kind of guy who would steal money off your granny in order to buy himself caviar. Not only that, he IS the kind of guy who would steal money off your granny in order to buy himself caviar. So, after Republicans had chosen this Gordon Gekko wannabe as their Presidential nominee, you would expect them to put forward someone a bit more humane for Vice-president. Surely they would choose someone who can at least do a passable impression of being a member of the human species?

Not a bit of it! For their VP pick, the Republicans have chosen a dorky android by the name of Paul Ryan, an Ayn Rand fan who looks like the kind of guy who has spent his entire life sucking up to people who would steal money off your granny. In fact, Ryan HAS spent his entire life sucking up to such people, doing everything he can to reduce their taxes. Paul Ryan is the Smithers to Mitt Romney's Montgomery Burns.

What do Mitt and Paul propose to do if they are elected? They barely even try to disguise the fact that their sole aim is to defend the interests of the mega-wealthy while screwing over the middle class, and everyone else as well. Mitt and Paul want to reduce taxes on rich people while simultaneously reducing spending on health, pensions, welfare, education, infrastructure and everything else - except military expenditure, of course. That might sound like a caricature of what they are proposing. But no ... that is actually what they are openly saying they will do.

Have the US Republicans lost their marbles? Why has this happened? How has this happened? Why!? How!?

THE EXPLANATION

There is, in fact, a simple explanation for all this. Mitt Romney, as we all know, is a monumentally weird and unlikable person. Remember, this is a man who once drove all the way to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of his car. When the terrified dog had an attack of diarrhoea, an unperturbed Mitt pulled over at the next petrol station, hosed down the dog, put him back on the roof of the car, and then cheerfully continued on his trip. That's the kind of man we are dealing with here. Mitt, who has made a fortune asset-stripping companies and then putting all his profits in the Cayman islands and Switzerland, won't release his tax returns - because then everyone would see the extent of his tax evasion, and his greedy financial shenanigans.

So, in the race for the US Presidency Mitt only has one advantage over Barack Obama - he has vastly more money to spend, thanks to the support he has from a series of his mega-rich gazillionaire chums, who are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into pro-Romney Super-PACs. Mitt's only hope is that he can spend Obama into the ground. But in order for this to happen, poor old Mitt has to energise his base (i.e. the gazillionaires) and that means doing exactly what they tell him to do. And what they told him to do was to select Paul Ryan as his VP nominee, because Paul Ryan's name is synonymous with wanting to reduce taxes on the mega-wealthy while simultaneously reducing spending on everything else.

What we have here is a naked, brazen attempt to finally turn the US into an outright plutocracy, by perpetrating a war against its general population. Mitt and Paul want to complete the work started by George W Bush (remember him? Shudder). It would be a sad outcome for what has been the world's greatest democracy. 

Will Mitt and Paul succeed? Only time will tell. 

But I'm inclined to think that not even Americans will tolerate this.

Why Greece will not Leave the Euro

I am going to make a rash prediction: Greece will not leave the Euro.

All that is required for this is the following: the ECB does what is necessary to keep Greece in the Euro. If the ECB acts rationally and in accordance with its legal mandate and obligations, then this is what it will do – it is obligated to ensure the stability of the Eurozone monetary system, and Greece is part of that system. The ECB has all the tools necessary to do this. Greece will only leave the Euro if the ECB acts irrationally and fails to fulfil its legal obligations. To date, the ECB has acted rationally and has fulfilled its legal obligations.

In order to understand what has been actually happening here one must first of all ignore the meaningless posturing of politicians and the “markets”, and look at the real, meaningful events.

Consider the two most meaningful and important REAL events that have happened this year:

FIRST MEANINGFUL EVENT:

Earlier this year the interest rates on Spanish and Italian debt started increasing to dangerous levels. What happened? The ECB lent lots of money to Spanish and Italian banks on the condition that they would then lend it to the Italian and Spanish governments. The interest rates then went down. If the interest rates again reach dangerous levels, the ECB will do the same thing again. The significant thing here is that the Italian and Spanish banks did what they were told to do by the ECB - they actually have no alternative, since they are effectively bankrupt and thus utterly dependent on the ECB for their survival.

(Previously, I argued here that the ECB should lend money to governments via the EFSF. Instead, the ECB has lent money to governments using the private banks as conduits rather than the EFSF, thus maintaining the charade that “the markets” are doing the lending.  I am glad to see that the Mario Draghi followed my advice and put my plan into action, but he found an even cleverer way to implement it!).

SECOND MEANINGFUL EVENT:

Consider the recent withdrawal of deposits from Greek banks, and other periphery banks. Most of that money is being put in German banks or other core country banks. The German banks have no one to lend this money to (they are hardly going to lend it back to Greece!). So what are they doing with these new deposits? They are depositing them in the ECB to get some interest. What will the ECB do with that money? It will lend it back to the Greek banks and periphery banks, in order to replace the deposits lost in the withdrawals, thus ensuring the stability of the Greek monetary system. Or it will lend it to periphery governments who will then nationalise the banks (The ECB effectively did the same thing when there was a run on Irish banks a few years ago).

CONCLUSION:

These events demonstrate two things: the ECB will willy-nilly do whatever is necessary in order to make sure that neither governments nor private banks in the Eurozone collapse. It has a legal obligation to do so, since its mandate requires it to guarantee European monetary stability. German politicians cannot stop the ECB doing this even if they want to. (A THIRD MEANINGFUL REAL EVENT of the last year was that the German hawks were removed from the ECB board and replaced with political appointees commited to preserving the Euro).

The over all effect of these policies is the following: private European banks are rapidly becoming wards of the ECB. Their balance sheets with the ECB are exploding, effectively putting them under the complete command of the ECB. The ECB tells them what to do and they do it. They are under de facto control of the ECB.

Now: the Eurozone banking system is by far the biggest banking system in the world. In other words, the largest component of “global markets” is gradually being placed under effective public control i.e. under the control of the ECB, which is a non-profit maximising public institution. The profit-maximising institutions are being controlled by a non-profit-maximising institution. The private banks are no longer profit-maximising institutions, since they effectively destroyed themselves in their quest for short-term profits (in the run up to the Great Recession).

Thus, attempts by the “markets” to abolish the Euro will lead the abolition of the markets.

(Incidentally, this will happen even if Greece leaves the Euro. If Greece leaves the Euro capital controls will be implemented all over Europe, thus abolishing the free international movement of capital i.e. thus abolishing the “markets”. That would be an irrational thing to allow to happen. Far better to gradually strangle “the markets” by slowly placing private banks under complete public control).

Consequently, there is no need for European populations to elect Communists or Leftists to power in order to abolish the “markets” since this is already occurring right before our eyes, albeit in a gradual manner, unannounced by the authorities and unnoticed by the general population.