Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Emma Roller and David Weigel — Give Me Amendments or Give Me Death

Inside the secretive campaign by state legislators to pass conservative amendments in 34 states and rewrite the Constitution.
Slate
Give Me Amendments or Give Me Death
Emma Roller and David Weigel
(h/t Charles Hayden on FB)

Given that the number of red states exceeds the number of blue states and the criterion is not the popular vote but the vote of state legislatures — two-thirds are required, this has a good chance of being successful. Of course, it would spell the end of US global hegemony unless the military was put off budget. Conservatives know this, of course, so they would create an exclusion. It would also limit federal subsidies to private enterprise, so that would be put off budget, too.

Whose pushing this? ALEC.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

The battle is over who gets to create the money, the monetary sovereign or the "private" banks. But hasn't it always been?

The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks. Lord Acton

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. Lord Acton

And the MMT crowd in this great struggle? AWOL or a 5th column for the banks.

You'll do what you'll do but now you don't have the excuse of ignorance or TINA.

“But if a man is righteous and practices justice and righteousness, and does not eat at the mountain shrines or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, or defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman during her menstrual period— if a man does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, does not commit robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with clothing, if he does not lend money on interest or take increase, if he keeps his hand from iniquity and executes true justice between man and man, if he walks in My statutes and My ordinances so as to deal faithfully—he is righteous and will surely live,” declares the Lord God.

“Then he may have a violent son who sheds blood and who does any of these things to a brother (though he himself did not do any of these things), that is, he even eats at the mountain shrines, and defiles his neighbor’s wife, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore a pledge, but lifts up his eyes to the idols and commits abomination, he lends money on interest and takes increase; will he live? He will not live! He has committed all these abominations, he will surely be put to death; his blood will be on his own head.
Ezekiel 18:5-13

James said...

Slightly off topic, I'm sure some of you may have read this at some point, but I just got round to reading it and thought it was worth sharing.

It's a paper by Jon D. Wisman -“GOVERNMENT IS WHOSE PROBLEM?”

http://www.american.edu/cas/economics/research/upload/2013-1.pdf

It touches on many of the topics discussed on here, I think Dan Kervick would like it. It's worth a read if you have the time.

googleheim said...

This is what I am talking about.

The banks rig the libor to win the CDO credit swap game while Detroit loses and the police & firemen lose their pensions which go to the banks.

While my Line of Credit in early 2008 should have had it's interest rate lowered due to the Prime rate drop, it did not.

Instead in November 2007 Bank of America issued a change of the margin in the interest rate ( total interest is prime rate + margin of 4.5% ). The margin was doubled and turns out to be an exact fudge factor to fill in the gap after ALL THE PRIME RATE DROPS occurred during the forth coming 18 months from 2008 to late 2009.

Did they know ahead of time ?

Did they rig the libor to go down to win the deals with credit unions and detroit ?

Did they also rig their customers' lines of credit to have the overall interest rate unchanged throughout the crash with a rigged & falling prime rate by increasing the margins ?

WIN / WIN - they win/win with all their products

LOSE / LOSE - customers and detroit and USA

But it's OK - MMT says we can print a bunch of funny money.

It's OK - Austrians love gold and the banks can do no harm.

Chicago school - not even registering a pulse.

Keynesian - Krugman is too busy apologizing for ObamaScare but not realizing the MMT behind.

Obamacare is a stimulus for all people who make less than $92,000 which is the 400% percentile mark.

Whether you get a direct check of $1000 from George Bush or a subsidy of up to $8000 for Obamacare ... which do you think will help the USA more in a MMT way ?

MMT has said nothing of Obamacare and how it is a stimulus.

I guess now we can start talking about it.

It is important to support Obama whenever he inadvertently stimulates the economy with what is MMT so that Krugman cannot take the credit to the Keynesian and Chicago or whatever school he is at.

Tom Hickey said...

Promoted that to a post, James. Thanks for sharing.