Black Swans Could Tip Debt Ceiling Brinksmanship Into Catastrophe

From Sarah Palin's smirky, contrived "Hells no," to smuggy Grover Norquist's budget-hostage style incremental debt ceiling hike proposal, the self-obsessed narcissists ruling the reality TV show called Our Federal Government all think the looming deadline to raise the nation's spending limit is just another opportunity to get lots of media face time before adoring sycophants.

It is not. Should lawmakers fail to raise the $14 trillion debt ceiling, the US Government would not be able to fund operations, and could begin defaulting on maturing debt, setting off a catastrophic cascade failure throughout the bond markets.

Part of the problem is that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said the US would hit its current credit limit May 16, and really, really bad things would start happening around July 8. All the media-mad politicos scrambled to figure out exactly how many cameras they could thrust their mugs in front of in those intervening eight weeks. All those shameless self-promoters with visions of godhood scampered from hair stylist to tanning salon to maybe a quick nip-and-tuck for getting as much face time as possible pontificating on the greatness of their visionary posturing.

Republicans are virtually jumping up and down at the prospect of bringing the world to the brink of economic annihilation. They are elated at all the attention, all the fawning their position gives them. They could make President Barack Obama, the leader of the Free World, along with the rest of the Free World, and the not-so-free world at that, grovel and beg and plead to placate their fabulous Republicaness. The self-worshipping frat boys and sorority sisters who comprise the GOP caucuses nowadays cannot imagine there might be real world consequences and that the whole debt ceiling issue is not all just about their fabulous selves.

After May 16, Geithner will have to start all sorts of very creative - and risky - account juggling to keep the government running until his July 8 deadline. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who knows a thing or two about Republicans as he was in George W. Bush's administration, figures Geithner shouldn't have given Congress such a soft deadline. Too much temptation to mug for the cameras while ignoring a very, very real problem.

O'Neill famously likened anyone entertaining notions of not raising the debt ceiling with al-Qaeda terrorists. Even the Republicans' plutocrat overlords in the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Wholesale Distributors and the National Association of Manufacturers have been calling Tea Party Republicans to urge a hike in the ceiling.

But all the attention has just given the ego maniacs an amphetamine-like boost to stratospheric self-idolizing delusion. Republicans have determined they would demand all sorts of budget-slashing, Medicare-busting, Social Security-plundering concessions for raising the debt ceiling, not because they care about budget shortfalls and debt, but because they want to make a President and a whole world dance to whatever tune they call for.

All of this is very unfortunate, as once Tim Geithner has to start juggling account books May 16, any unforeseen hiccup anywhere in the world could trigger a catastrophic cascade of tumbling markets and financiers throwing themselves from high places. Any piddling bank failure in Ulan Bator, any errant flamethrower in a Middle East oil producer, any butterfly flapping its wings in the wrong neck of the wrong woods could trigger a series of escalating crises a global financial market limping along with it's biggest economy hobbled by a nagging groin pull won't be able to shrug off.

Nassim Taleb called the occurrence of extraordinarily unlikely but seismic events "Black Swans." Europeans once thought all swans were white, and based all sorts of notions on that assumption, until the 1697 discovery of black swans in Australia messed up everyone's day.

Should lawmakers fail to raise the debt ceiling and Tim Geithner start to toss account books into the air, it could set up all manner of unknown gnomes to mess up everyone's day once again.

Republicans, and some Democrats, who think the debt ceiling show is just another venue to prance their ideological prancing before adoring fans either haven't the vaguest notion or couldn't care less that their ego masturbations could cause havoc in the bond markets and trigger global credit freezes that would grind commerce to a halt. Republican legislators chose posturing over action in 2008, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 777 points in a matter of hours, plunging the world into an economic maelstrom it hasn't climbed out of yet.

Should lawmakers fail to act on the debt ceiling, the resulting catastrophe would make 2008 look like a quick grope in the back seat of a '67 Chevy: risque for its day, but no big deal.

Hopefully, the recalcitrant lawmakers will get a visit from Luca Brasi carrying a severed horse's head wrapped in a sheet.

$5 Gas Attack Is De Facto GOP Assault on Obama

The big oil companies announced very, very big profits last week as gas prices surged above $5 per gallon in some parts of the nation. Best of all for Republicans, Americans were blaming Barack Obama for their pain at the pump, and the President's approval ratings were slipping.

Exxon enjoyed a 69% jump in first quarter profits over the same period last year, taking home $10.7 billion. Conoco Phillips' coffers jumped 43% as they stuffed another $3 billion into their kitty, and Chevron found they'd cleared $6.2 billion, up 36% from Q1 2010.

Royal Dutch Shell reported they'd managed to clear $6.3 billion in the first quarter, a 30% improvement over the first quarter last year. BP was the only one of the "Big Five" whose profits slipped this year, dipping to a measly $5.48 billion compared to $5.6 billion for the first quarter last year. BP incurred certain charges while it was busy mopping up some spillage over the summer.

While most folks would be happy with the billions, the oil moguls must have been even happier that their $5 per gallon gas attack was hurting one American even more than the rest. President Obama's popularity was down, especially among the 39% of Americans who said gas prices were hurting them. Only a third of them approved of Obama.

While analysts have blamed Middle East unrest, Chinese demand, and speculating speculators for high oil prices, actual global demand has flattened. The catastrophic earthquake, tsunami and meltdown tragedies in Japan, the world's third largest economy, have quelled some of the thirst for oil.

Some had been predicting $5 gas since before the current round of Mid-East turmoil. Former Shell Oil exec John Hofmeister said $5 gas was around the corner back in December, before anyone knew flying into Tripoli International was going to become a bit dodgy for anybody not riding a French Rafale fighter.

The big jump in pump prices has hurt the nascent economic recovery, although Wall Street shrugged off the anemic 1.8% first quarter growth in GDP.  Perhaps a sniff of Obama's lower approval scores helped ease their pain over weaker than expected growth.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had pledged that defeating Barak Obama in 2012 was the Republican Party's number one goal. For McConnell and the Republicans, creating jobs, growing the economy, and providing health care all took a back seat to destroying the Obama Presidency. The oil industry poured millions into Republican campaigns, the Independent Petroleum Association of America alone kicking $19 mil into GOP election coffers. The American Petroleum Institute, whose members include Exxon and Chevron, gave $27 million to mostly Republican campaigns. For that kind of largess, one would hope the oil companies at least approved of McConnell and the Republicans' agenda, let alone had a hand in formulating that agenda.

McConnell and his GOP legions went to Capitol Hill to wreck the Obama Presidency, and the oil companies were among the folks who sent them there to do so. Aside from sending others to do your bidding, if you could help your own cause simply by pumping up pump prices to grind down the economic recovery and bludgeon the President's approval rating while raking in a few extra billion to boot, why wouldn't you? If it wasn't part of the vast right-wing conspiracy's plot to destroy the world, it certainly should have been.

Analysts blaming speculators for rising oil prices doesn't preclude those speculators including industry insiders, and Republican contributors.

The President has long been calling for an end to oil company subsidies, which run to $4 billion a year.  House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan began making noises that ending subsidies might be an acceptable idea until Luca Brasi swung by with a horse's head wrapped in a blanket. $4 billion might begin approaching chump change status when it's spread out across an industry in which one company clears $10 billion in a quarter, but it turns out nobody wants to give up an extra four billion dollar bills to stuff into strippers' g-strings, after all.

Even if all this turns out to be a happy happenstance for GOP-backing oil moguls and their industry minions, it is certainly a de facto assault on the Obama presidency, with the American people as unfortunate collateral damage in the war to toss Democrats out of the White House. Intentional or not, the effect is precisely the same: pain at the pump, and more pain down the road when a faltering economic recovery falters completely.

Cracks in GOP Phalanx Appear on Ryan Medicare Couponization

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) just might start feeling like a bridesmaid as GOP heavy hitters start talking about not being wedded to his 2012 Budget proposal. Ryan, after all, is Chairman of the House Budget Committee, and the Budget is his thing. After initial hoopla from folks who should know better, some folks who did know better took a look at Ryan's ramblings, and pronounced them to be "Ludicrous and Cruel."

Then came polling that showed Ryan's budget was about as popular as a banjo hitter coming to bat with the bases loaded and the game on the line in the bottom of the ninth. Exactly that popular, in fact, as 78% opposed cutting Medicare to balance the budget, and 84% opposed canning Medicare in favor of a voucher program. In big league baseball, a .200 batting average, or 20%, is considered the demarcation of offensive futility. Hall of Famer George Brett popularized the "Mendoza Line," named for a particularly dreadful hitter.

As the Ryan plan's popularity scuffled around the Mendoza Line, a festive atmosphere engulfed GOP town hall meetings across America during Congress' spring break. Camera phones posted plenty of You Tube moments with Republican pols hemming and hawing in front of jeering crowds.

Just about that time, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) became the first groom to discreetly back a step or two away from the altar.

"It's Paul (Ryan)'s idea. Now other people have other ideas," Boehner mumbled and stumbled. "I'm not wedded to one single idea." Boehner had earlier stated that he "fully supports Paul Ryan's budget." This of course, was before the bill flopped, and Boehner flipped.

Apparently 84% of Americans had a great many ideas about Ryan's plans. Ryan's idea would dismantle Medicare, hand its money to insurance company cronies, and pawn off seniors with coupons that wouldn't cover a third of their health care costs, while giving the richest Americans another 10% tax break.

The Ryan plan would, for people presently under 55, replace Medicare, which pays doctors for services, with vouchers the future seniors would use toward the purchase of private insurance. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office calculated by 2030, Ryan's coupons wouldn't cover a third of what seniors would need to shell out for premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and other expenses.

GOP presidential aspirant-in-waiting Michele Bachmann (R-MN) then became a bride sidling a step or two away from the altar. "One position that I'm concerned about is shifting the cost burden to senior citizens," she told Fox News Sunday. She explained her vote for the Ryan budget with a not very graceful, "They are not pieces of legislation. They are aspirational documents."

The Ryan proposal was a bill, Michele, and a bill is a piece of legislation. Please cue that tape from "Schoolhouse Rock." Now, the Cub Scout's creed is an aspirational document. Unless you're President Barack Obama, for whom the Nobel Peace Prize was an aspirational document. But as far as aspirational documents go, most folks should start small and work their way up.

Some uncharitably consider Michele Bachmann as just a pretty face, if you like that nipped, tucked, botoxed faux-thirty Voldemort-with-a-nose look.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was smart enough to feign a headache and avoided going to the church altogether. She announced she wouldn't support the Ryan Couponization Budget weeks ago.

Then, former New York Lt. Gov.Betsy McCaughey, the Medicare-buster and anti-health care activist riding point for Ryan, was denounced by the authors of studies McCaughey touted as proving how Ryan's scheme guaranteed sunshine and roses for all. McCaughey had written editorials in several prominent periodicals pushing elder-genocide as a good thing, but the authors of studies she cited begged to disagree.

McCaughey also denegrated the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office as "deceptive." She found exception to findings that seniors would end up having to sell all their earthly belongings and empty their bank accounts before dying horribly and miserably while loved ones looked on helplessly in anguish because the Ryan coupons would only cover 68% of costs. "It's time for Congress to find a new source of honest, independant research" she said. She didn't mention Fox News by name.

Even among Republicans, trashing the Congressional Budget Office is a bit unseemly. At this rate, Ryan might find himself standing around the altar wondering where everyone was. Ryan should start worrying whether fellow Republicans might start blaming President Obama for tricking them into voting for the Ryan bill just make them look bad.

Mission Really Accomplished

US Forces Kill Osama Bin Laden in Pakistani Luxury Hideout

President Barack Obama strode to a lectern in the East Room of the White House Sunday night and soberly told the world that Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind, was dead. US special forces had stormed a large, secured compound in a posh neighborhood in Abbottabad, Pakistan, near the residences of retired Pakistani officers and a Pakistani Army academy. Bin Laden and several others were killed in a firefight as they resisted.

The news came eight years to the day after George W. Bush donned his G.I. Joe Top Gun costume, flew out to an aircraft carrier, and, in a shameful display of narcissistic self-indulgence, boasted victory beneath the infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner.

Now, that mission, at least, is finally accomplished.

The President revealed that American intelligence and special operations forces had worked for eight months developing information and plans culminating in the covert mission completed Sunday. The President had given final approval for the mission on Friday as he departed to tour storm devastation in Alabama. "No Americans were harmed," the President said.

President Obama reminded Americans how the nation had come together after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. "We were united as one American family," he said. "We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who commited this vicious attack to justice."

Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had then proceeded to transfer billions of American taxpayer dollars to Cheney's Halliburton Corporation through a no-bid contract for an Iraq war fought under the guise of rooting out Bin Laden, or a dictator allied with Bin Laden, or someone who might have known Bin Laden, or at least read about him in the newspaper.

President Obama told survivors of the 9/11 attacks that they had not been forgotten, and reminded Americans that "we must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad."

Outside the White House and in New York City, crowds gathered to cheer and sing the Star Spangled Banner.

Americans still have many enemies who would dismantle Medicare and hand its money to wealthy insurance company cronies in exchange for worthless coupons. Americans still have many enemies who would plunder Social Security and hand its money to Wall Street cronies in exchange for nothing. Americans still have many enemies who would cripple oversight of business and industry, allowing wealthy plutocrats to run roughshod over every day liberties. Americans still have many enemies who would cripple environmental stewardship, disaster preparedness, and vanquish the very emergency responders who fought and died to save American lives on 9/11.

Americans still have many enemies who would hold hostage the nation's debt ceiling and imperil the world financial markets in a shameful display of narcissistic self-indulgence to promote their ridiculous ideological agenda.

Former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said those who would hold the nation's debt ceiling hostage were no different from "Al Qaeda terrorists." Raising the debt ceiling is normally a pro forma vote, as not doing so would prevent the US government from funding operations and rolling over maturing obligations, plunging world bond markets into catastrophic cascade failure.

Americans still have many enemies, and not all of them are based on foreign shores.

Plutocracy in Action: Despite Polls, GOP Forges Ahead With Medicare-Busting

In a nation that's supposed to be a democracy, 78% would seem like a fairly major majority. After all, what big league ballplayer would want his batting average stuck around .220? Yet, Republicans figure 22% represents a majority, and are surging forward with their plot to dismantle Medicare, hand the Medicare money to their well-heeled insurance company cronies, and pawn off future seniors with coupons that won't cover a third of their health care costs.

A recent Washington Post/ABC News Poll revealed 78% of Americans oppose cutting Medicare to help balance the federal budget. Nevertheless, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), architect of the GOP scheme to gut Medicare while handing the richest Americans another 10% tax break, said his constituents were "Overwhelmingly supportive" of his budget plot.

"Oh, they are overwhelmingly supportive. Have you actually attended these meetings?" Ryan crowed. "The crowds are overwhelmingly supportive."  During the Congress' spring break, Ryan had been booed at town hall meetings, and once had to be escorted by police to avoid hostile demonstrators.

In drawing his conclusion, it was not known whether it was because Ryan had keep his eyes closed with his fingers in his ears, or if the 22% approving gutting Medicare was the only constituency Ryan cared about.

Ryan's staff quickly highlighted a standing ovation at one town hall meeting as proof of Ryan's tsunami of support. It was not immediately known whether they'd thanked their parents for attending.

The same WaPo/ABC News poll found 72% approved raising taxes on Americans making $250,000 or more, as President Barack Obama had proposed.

This polling found 84% of Americans opposed converting Medicare to a voucher program. Ryan's scheme would nix Medicare for folks under 55. When they reach retirement, instead of getting Medicare, which pays doctors and hospitals for services provided to seniors, they would get vouchers they could use toward the purchase of private insurance. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office figures by 2030, those coupons, probably glossy affairs featuring Paul Ryan's smiling mug, would only cover 32% of the cost of premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and other expenses. Rich people would love them. They were going to pay cash at exclusive hospital resorts anyway, so a 30% off coupon for nips and tucks and implants and nefarious secret organ and body fluid transfers from screaming kidnapped 12-year-olds sounds pretty good.

For the rest of Americans, having to pay 68% of health care costs out of pocket sounds pretty much like selling your house, emptying your bank account, then, when the money runs out, dying horribly and miserably as anguished loved ones look on helplessly.

You can see why 22% of Americans are "overwhelmingly supportive" of Ryan's plan. That proportion's just about the combined total of the ultra-rich, wannabes and toadies, and brain-sucking zombie vampires.

Republicans, the party of the ultra-rich, wannabes and toadies, and brain-sucking zombie vampires, are lining up squarely behind Ryan. Except Susan Collins (R-ME), who draws the line at brain-sucking zombie vampires.

While 72% support higher taxes on the rich, approval for Obama's handling of the economy remained only plurality-ish. This may be an indication that Americans want the rich to pay more than just the amount repealing the Bush-era tax cuts, as Obama proposed, would yield. Americans would be right on that score. The rich need to pay much more to balance the federal budget, which is out of whack primarily because they've been dodging paying their fair share for thirty years and have accumulated a truly overwhelming proportion of America's wealth. 20% of Americans own 84% of all the wealth in the country.

Ryan must mean his overwhelming support is in the form of the dollars his well-heeled overlords can wield.

What America really needs is the kind of progressive income tax schedule that shifts the burden of running the nation from the poorest 80% of Americans, the bottom half of which only splits a mere three-tenths of one per cent of the nation's wealth to begin with, to the top tiers where all the money is (see sidebar).

Lacking a progressive income tax, seeing how the richest 400 Americans have as much as the lowest half of Americans, perhaps we should put those 400 folks on a new reality show, Survivor Billionaires. Every week, Americans could vote somebody off the island (or, actually, onto an island, which would be barren, icy, and surrounded by sharks) and the nation could take over all their wealth, since they stole it from us in tax giveaways, leveraged buyouts, asset liquidations, payroll downsizing, off-shoring, outsourcing, and all manner of funny money Wall Street accounting schemes.

That way, Americans could get to fire Donald Trump, instead of the other way around.

Florida Medicaid Busters Assert GOP Health Care Priorities: Cronies First, Patients Last

While an alarmed citizenry stormed GOP town hall meetings to vent their anger over Republican plans to dismantle Medicare, hand its money to insurers, and pawn off future seniors with coupons that won't cover a third of their health care costs, Florida moved ahead with a Medicaid plot that underscored the Republicans' health care priorities: industry cronies first, patients last.

In fact, Florida's new Republican Governor Rick Scott isn't just a health industry crony, he's the multi-millionaire former head of a hospital chain that had to pay $1.7 billion-with-a-"B" in criminal and civil fines for defrauding Medicare. Scott stepped down as head of Columbia/HCA in 1997 while the FBI was crawling all over the company's books.

Now Scott and Florida's GOP-led legislature are poised to dismantle the state's Medicaid system. Just as Republicans on Capitol Hill aim to hand Medicare's money to insurers, Republicans in Florida aim to hand the state's Medicaid money directly to HMOs. Just as Republicans on Capitol Hill scheme to change Medicare from a system that pays doctors for services to a system that pads insurance company profits, Republicans in Florida scheme to change Medicaid from a system that pays doctors for services to a system that fattens HMOs.

And, just as Beltway Republicans covet tossing future seniors into the retail market to buy whatever insurance they can afford with the pittance of "premium assistance" they'll get, Florida Republicans covet tossing their poor, elderly and disabled into accepting whatever the HMOs offer for the Medicaid subsidy the state hands over.

Over the last decade, Florida's Medicaid bill has ballooned from $9 billion to $21 billion. State Senator Joe Negron, author of one of the GOP bills trundling through the legislature, whined that "the Medicaid system is irretrievably broken." The state Senate was set to vote on his bill Friday, and the state House had already passed its version earlier. "We were not going to kick the can down the road another year," Negron crowed.

Horror stories about the state's new-style Medicaid's pilot program told of poor and disabled patients deprived of doctors and care as their new HMO scuttled needed services to make their state subsidies pay. Instead of paying doctors for services to patients, the Florida scheme forces patients into authorized for-profit HMOs that'll get state money directly and decide how much of it will be spent on patient care and how much of it will be spent on private jets, private yachts, and very private dancers.

Did I mention that Rick Scott made millions heading a company the FBI nailed for defrauding Medicare?

Victims of Florida's Medicaid pilot program who had been receiving care for chronic illnesses found themselves shunted off to HMOs that didn't offer the services they needed. They found that the new HMOs offered few services and specialists, and that their doctors were dropping out of the program because of red tape and low pay.

Republicans justified all this cruelty by screaming about costs.

In fact, Americans pay more than twice as much per person for health care than any other industrialized nation, but suffers among the lowest life expectancies and most miserable infant mortality rates. America's health care system is broken not because Medicare and Medicaid are too expensive, but because the health care system is cobbled together from so many profit centers geared to rake in as much cash as possible for greedy scammers.

Did I mention Rick Scott made millions heading a company the FBI nailed for defrauding Medicare?

In America, administrative costs eat up a huge chunk of health care spending. 5%-10% of what big companies pay to insure their employees goes toward administrative costs. 25%-27% of what small companies fork out goes toward administrative costs, and a whopping 40% of individual insurance plans goes toward administrative costs. No wonder Republicans want future seniors in the individual insurance market.

Medicare, on the other hand, only uses 3% of the money it gets for administrative costs. Rick Scott would have been hard pressed to become a millionaire working for Medicare.

America also spends about $30 billion a year to correct mistakes. And, that doesn't even count the $1.7 billion Columbia/HCA coughed up in fines and penalties.

When Republicans scream about reining in skyrocketing health care costs, they always focus on slashing services rather than tossing out the administrative leeches sucking all the money out of the system. It's the old, tried and true Republican dodge: when your rich cronies create a problem, kick and scream that the only solution is to hand even more money and even more power to the very cronies that created the problem in the first place.