It’s Ryan’s turn.

One has to wonder how much evidence is necessary to disabuse some people of the idea that austerity is the solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist. If an employee or executive did that to a company, they would be immediately fired.

Disclaimer: I’m aware that it’s the mega wealthy pulling these strings so please don’t get all sanctimonious and scold me over it.

Good morning all,

We can’t afford the ‘protection’ our armed forces forces on us anymore. Since the choice is between a militarized police state or more humane compassionate state we were evolving toward austerity is a another word for the first choice , we have to give up all our values and possessions to buy our “safety’.

This is mass hysteria led by DC nut cases.

When it hurts them…..and not before.

Good morning, pups. Today we have Brooks, Cohen and Krugman. In “When Families Fail” Bobo says President Obama’s new prekindergarten initiative focuses on reform, as it should. Mr. Cohen, in “The Success That Failed,” says the story of Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, is a case study in wasted opportunity. Prof. Krugman looks at “Rubio and the Zombies” and says the Republican response to the State of the Union sure was revealing.

Here they are, and

here’s Krugman’s blog.

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve made apricot scones. It looks like we’re in for another chilly, gray day. Typical February weather here, but not the prettiest you’ve ever seen. So I spend lots of time in the kitchen. I think tonight it’s going to be roast duck with potato and sage stuffing. Time to feed the kittehs, since they’re getting a bit rambunctious. Have a great day.

I’m looking forward to seeing the Ryan Ten Year Cure.

It’s not austerity until we close down a few of the Pentagon’s golf courses (more than 200 worldwide). Or the dozens of marching bands.

http://youtu.be/6TJuQsQINSA

Close golf courses? How could you even suggest such hardships? Better that the olds and poors eat cat food… /s

Hey, On the other hand, what else can they give up?

so, Senate Republicans willing to put American security at risk because their feelers were hurt 7 years ago.

It’s the Toddlerus Petulantus party.

Yep..the petulance of the Orange Guy. Astounding.

Thanks, attaturk, balancing the budget is the new code for impoverishing workers. Alternate terms = ending the deficit.

I wretch when I hear these republicans complaining about finances…..just wretch……I am so sick of them screwing the country, to protect their corporate supporters…..all my life, i have heard this shit……I always thought people would eventually see through this charade..guess not….ty

“That, of course, is pretty much the Ryan Plan for a Randian Starvetopia.”

And is pretty much the President Catfood Plan

Yes, I know why the rich like this, but why do ordinary people buy into it, again and again?

Humans identify up so “ordinary people” don’t think of themselves as being in that class, i.e., “those people.” It’s the Keep the Government’s Hands off My Medicare syndrome. And there isn’t one of us who doesn’t have an emotional blind spot somewhere for something.

Let the Hunger Games begin!

The austerity scheme here in the U.S. is designed to further the Social Security privatization wealth grab. The proles will go for it because then they can feel they’re part of the “investor class”. That will become the biggest bubble ever to burst.

Meanwhile, a newly issued GAO report warns that climate change poses a significant financial risk to U.S. taxpayers. We’ll have to wait for a few more Sandy and Katrina disasters to wake up the PTB on how government investment should be diverted from military to infrastructure — but it won’t be, because those “acts of god” are not “real” threats to their security. We are on the Titanic.

The thing is none of this hurts the PTB. Some of it plays into their advantages: their incentives are not aligned with ordinary people.

You can never overestimate the human capacity for ignoring facts that conflict with their cherished beliefs.

The big mistake non conservatives make is to think that conservatives want a strong and growing economy. They don’t. Oh, they think they do but what they really want is a properly ordered society based upon conservative principals. They sort of think if this social model came to pass then the economy would take care of itself. But not in a way that would make the 47% better off. For making the 47% better off makes them less conservative.

A properly ordered society has a large, subservient and hopefully docile lower class full of people who know their place. Give money to the 47% and they get uppity and worse come to believe they deserve more. They will be less conservative if they do now cower before the fear of losing everything.

All this was said better by John Holbo 10 years ago.

“The thing that makes capitalism good, apparently, is not that it generates wealth more efficiently than other known economic engines. No, the thing that makes capitalism good is that, by forcing people to live precarious lives, it causes them to live in fear of losing everything and therefore to adopt – as fearful people will – a cowed and subservient posture: in a word, they behave ‘conservatively’. Of course, crouching to protect themselves and their loved ones from the eternal lash of risk precisely won’t preserve these workers from risk. But the point isn’t to induce a society-wide conformist crouch by way of making the workers safe and happy. The point is to induce a society-wide conformist crouch. Period. A solid foundation is hereby laid for a desirable social order.”

http://examinedlife.typepad.com/johnbelle/2003/11/dead_right.html

Just like they don’t care about the deficit, but sort of believe they do they do not even care about economic growth. Different issues but the very same sort of self deception.

I know one thing-You folks on these blogs sure do eat well.
Roast Duck? Really?