Thanks to Bill Black via ek hornbeck and Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism, I fell off my horse and saw the light after hitting my head.
Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jointly posted with Benzinga
We are in the midst of the blame game about the “Sequester.” I wrote last year about the fact that President Obama had twice blocked Republican efforts to remove the Sequester. President Obama went so far as to issue a veto threat to block the second effort. I found contemporaneous reportage on the President’s efforts to preserve the Sequester – and the articles were not critical of those efforts. I found no contemporaneous rebuttal by the administration of these reports.
In fairness, the Republicans did “start it” by threatening to cause the U.S. to default on its debts in 2011. Their actions were grotesquely irresponsible and anti-American. It is also true that the Republicans often supported the Sequester.
The point I was making was not who should be blamed for the insanity of the Sequester. The answer was always both political parties. I raised the President’s efforts to save the Sequester because they revealed his real preferences.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com…
It wasn’t much like the time I was kicked off a real horse when I was about 8. Had Eleanor, a cranky little mare who was intelligent enough to hate everything and everybody, connected a mite lower I would have been a girl instead of a boy. Truth be told, Eleanor was aiming at my horse but her aim was as horrendous as when Bill Clinton shot a missile at the House Judiciary Committee and hit an aspirin factory in The Sudan. All I learned that time was that Eleanor probably was part Shetland as rumored, that I didn’t want to be a girl and to watch out for girls even though they appear smaller and weaker.
This time I saw the ancient Canons of Dort still firing from ancient times as I had known from my own childhood they still do but from an unexpected source.
You see my mother was a Lutheran like my wife. Neither were ever good Lutherans, praise the Lord [snark], but the mark of understanding how the heretical Arminians could differ from Calvinists, even though never voiced, would never occur naturally to one raised in the faith of the Whore of Babylon (Catholics).
A man is visiting from the old country [Finland], our mother told us young ‘uns, and you should be very careful not to raise your voices or run and jump and laugh and smile. He is a real Lutheran and thinks people must only look grim and think about their sins.
Irish Catholics spend an enormous time thinking and talking about their sins but seldom grimly.
From the handy but often inaccurate Wikipedia, here are the Five Points of Calvinism fired by the Canons of Dort:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F…
Read them if it gives you pleasure but simply stated the elite (the rich and middle classes in today’s parlance) only for whom the Redeemer died are allowed because they are instruments of the Lord while the working classes are sinners who must be forever controlled and punished.
Thus it is absolutely mandatory that Obama must leave as his legacy the path to final destruction of the primary elements of the safety net (Social Security and Medicare). Who knew Obama was a true Calvinist like the Republicans.
The sequester is a fine start and was the Obama Administration’s idea despite denials.
Best, Terry