Hasta La Gadget!

Hillary Clinton has been criticizing Donald Trump for embracing debt, and it’s sparking fears among progressive economists that the Democratic presidential front-runner will undermine the case for running budget deficits in a slow economy.

That is especially troubling because it threatens the extensive work that progressive economists did during the Obama administration to combat the idea that debt is inherently bad. Had their arguments for more stimulus prevailed sooner, the recovery might have been far less sluggish, they argue.

The controversy centers on comments Clinton made Tuesday during a speech attacking the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The former Secretary of State mocked Trump for calling himself the “king of debt,” noting that Trump’s tax cuts would indeed cause the debt to skyrocket.

Clinton argued Trump’s proposal to pay down the national debt by printing money would trigger hyperinflation and crash the economy.

“Trump also says, we can just print more money to pay our debt down. Well, we know what happens to countries that tried that in the past, like Germany in the ’20s, or Zimbabwe in the ’90s,” Clinton said. “It drove inflation through the roof and crippled their economies. The American dollar is the safest currency on the planet. Why would he want to mess with that?”

On its face, Clinton’s critique is a typical Democratic line of attack on tax cuts for the rich and irresponsible fiscal policy. And suffice it to say, Trump’s reversals on some of his most outlandish economic policy suggestions do not change the fact that his views are wildly incoherent.

I worry that we may see a resurgence of Democrats singing the virtues of balanced budgets as Clinton tries to distinguish herself from Trump’s irresponsible tax cuts.
Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research

But Clinton’s broadside against “printing money” maligns a fundamental tenet of progressive economics.

“I worry that we may see a resurgence of Democrats singing the virtues of balanced budgets as Clinton tries to distinguish herself from Trump’s irresponsible tax cuts,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank. “In the context of an economy that can certainly use a boost now, and is virtually certain to face a recession somewhere in a two-term Clinton presidency, this is very bad news.”

When the job market has plenty of room to grow before excessive inflation becomes a problem, higher federal budget deficits and low Federal Reserve interest rates — both forms of “printing money” — boost economic growth and create jobs.

There are two ways the government can increase budget deficits: tax cuts and spending hikes. Progressives tend to favor spending projects, like building infrastructure and boosting safety-net programs, which they argue spur demand more effectively by getting money to the ordinary workers most likely to spend it right away. And borrowing is typically a great deal during a downturn, when interest rates are low.

But the fundamental goal of both tax cuts and stimulus spending is the same: ratcheting up demand at a time when consumers would otherwise be pulling back from the economy all at once.

Then, when the job market reaches a saturation point and incomes cannot get much higher, those same budget deficits can become a problem. In that scenario, the government crowds out private sector investment, driving interest rates up throughout the economy. (An extreme version of that may have driven hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, but one way or another, the distressed African country is not an apt point of comparison for wealthy developed nations.)

Trump seemed to appreciate that concept in a Wednesday interview on CBS’s “This Morning,” in which he doubled down on the “king of debt” moniker. (Although, as with most of Trump’s statements, it was not entirely clear what he meant.)

An economic downturn, he said, “could be a good time to borrow and pay off debt, borrow debt, make longer-term debt.”

Trump has even claimed he will enact a massive infrastructure initiative to “create the biggest economic boom in this country since the New Deal.”

Dan Alpert, managing partner of the investment bank Westwood Capital and author of The Age of Oversupply, a book calling for massive fiscal stimulus, expressed alarm that his views on debt might be closer to Trump’s than Clinton’s.

“This is a problem, of course. Yes, Donald Trump is on the record advocating borrowing at low rates to pay for infrastructure programs,” Alpert said. “And Hillary Clinton is sounding like she’s with the Peterson Foundation!”

Alpert’s metaphor is telling in its own right. The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, the nonprofit of Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson, for years has been one of the biggest forces behind the conventional wisdom in Washington that reducing the national debt should be the country’s top priority.

Voices like those coming out of the Peterson Foundation proved decisive in the first two years of the Obama administration, when the White House was eager to assuage public outrage over the rising debt, much of which had shot up organically as a result of the worst recession in decades.

We are going to enter the next recession, whenever it comes, without that consensus that of course we need to do stimulus.
Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute

Whether out of genuine agreement or political expedience, Democrats acquiesced to the narrative that fiscal stimulus should take a back seat to cutting spending and raising taxes. President Barack Obama’s most dramatic gesture in this direction was convening the Bowles-Simpson debt reduction commission in February 2010, long before Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives.

The political window for additional fiscal stimulus closed in subsequent years as Republicans in Congress obstructed Obama’s agenda, routinely bringing government to a halt to extract larger spending cuts. Pivoting to deficit reduction too soon, a wide array of economists say, limited the economic recovery.

One of those economists is former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, a Republican. Bernanke said in April that the spending cuts due to sequestration and other measures had a markedly negative impact on the economy.

There are still not enough jobs to raise workers’ pay significantly. While the official unemployment rate is 4.7 percent, it does not account for the high number of people who have given up looking for work. 

Meanwhile, inflation and interest rates have stayed very low by historic standards, belying budget hawks’ warnings that they would skyrocket.

Given Republicans’ stiff political opposition, it is not clear that the Obama administration could have changed this outcome even if it had fought harder for additional fiscal stimulus.

But progressives in particular wish the White House at least would have tried to explain why debt can be good in certain circumstances. That way the public might know better the next time the economy took a turn for the worst.

“Even though most economists thought we needed more stimulus, it is still not a politically accepted point,” said Josh Bivens, research and policy director of the progressive Economic Policy Institute. “We are going to enter the next recession, whenever it comes, without that consensus that of course we need to do stimulus.”

Bivens hopes Clinton and other Democrats do not make the same mistake this time around, even as he understands how hard it can be to communicate the virtues of budget deficits to a wary electorate.

“I wish Clinton had differentiated the two states of the world better and didn’t rely on what are pretty standard tropes about fiscal rectitude,” he concluded. “Then again, I have the luxury of not running for office.”

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

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Several years ago after the Newtown massacre, when Adam Lanza took his rage out on a classroom defenseless students and teachers, I wrote a piece castigating a number of Democratic Senators who dug their heads into the sand and refused to close basic background check loopholes.

These senators were Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, and perhaps the worst of the worst, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. Had they supported basic reform supported by 90% of Americans (and even the overwhelming supported of NRA members), it would have been harder for the next maniac to take his rage out upon the innocent. As the Minority Leader, Harry Reid was forced to vote “no” because of a quirky senate rule which voting no would allow him to bring up the issue again at a future date. Had Baucus Begich and Heitkamp supported the bill, then Reid would have been the 60th vote. It would have cleared cloture.

Back then, West Virginia conservative Democrat Joe Manchin teamed up with Pat Toomey, a conservative Republican from neighboring Pennsylvania to author bipartisan legislation that would close some basic loopholes on gun sales. As a member of the NRA, Machin took on the most powerful gun manufacturer’s lobby in the nation. Sadly it fell short of the needed 60 votes to clear the cloture issue and it died on the floor of the Senate. He paid a steep price as the NRA has targeted one of their own with a series of vicious ads and direct mails campaigns.

In what can only be called “total courage,” US Senator Chris Murphy stood in the well of the Senate and filibustered for over 15 hours until he received a promise from the Republican Senate leadership that there would be a vote. There were two bills on the table. The first would have barred gun sales to anyone who has been on a terrorist watch list in the previous five years. The second would have tightened a background check system to cover the so-called gun show loophole and all internet gun sales, which essentially was a reprise of the Machin-Toomey effort from years past.

Both failed to get the needed 60 votes. The background check legislation came up 4 votes short with 56 votes while the legislation that would bar those on the terrorist watch list for the past 5 years only collected 53 votes.

Last time I wrote about this, I heavily criticized Max Baucus, Mark Begich, and Heidi Heitkamp. In the case of Baucus of Montana, he had already privately decided to retire from the Senate, where he had served since 1976. At that point, Baucus could have simply voted his conscience without worrying about any political blowback. As for Begich, he went down in flames in Alaska in 2014 and voting against the measure certainly did not save his carcass. That left Heidi Heitkamp, who came up with a series of sorry excuses of why she could not vote for the legislation.

This time, three Democratic Senators failed to support it, Joe Machin, Jon Tester, and once again the odious Heidi Heitkamp. I give Joe Machin the benefit of the doubt. He carried the legislation the last time and is up for reelection this year in gun-crazy West Virginia. Jon Tester, on the other hand, is in his second term and will not be up for reelection until 2018. He has no excuse, considering that he supported the Manchin-Toomey Bill after Newtown.

But I have saved my bile for North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp. When she ran to succeed Democrat Kent Conrad in 2012, she won a razor thin vote against a Republican challenger.
As a Californian, it seemed that every other fundraising letter I received was to support Heidi Heitkamp’s campaign. It was imperative to retain a Democratic Senate seat in North Dakota, which historically votes for Republicans in presidential elections. Heidi Heitkamp appeared to be a very interesting candidate after serving as Attorney General with two landslide victories before losing a gubernatorial race in 2000.

However serving in the Senate should come with a little courage and sadly it is something that Heidi Heitkamp lacks by the gallon. In 2013, she wrote a terribly defensive statement explaining her decision-making process.

Here is what she wrote.

“I’ve been adamant from the very beginning of this conversation that the focus should be on mental health issues, full and accurate reporting into the NICS database and ensuring that we are prosecuting criminals in possession of or trying to possess firearms. This conversation should be about what is in people’s minds, not about what is in their hands. I commend Senators Manchin and Toomey for working so hard to bring a serious bill to the floor. However, in its current form I do not see a path for my support. I’ve thought long and hard about this, I’ve taken the tough meetings, and I’ve heard overwhelmingly from the people of North Dakota; and at the end of the day my duty is to listen to and represent the people of North Dakota.”

However, 90% of North Dakotan voters supported tightening of the loopholes back then but Heitkamp had to search for ways to knock it down. Today I fail to believe that there is a majority of North Dakota voters who are in favor of easy access for members of ISIS “lone wolves” to buy an AR-15 to blow away more school children, people at a club, or diners at a restaurant. This is an easy vote to defend–if you think about it.

However, at the end of the day, Senator Heitkamp proved she was so full of crap that she should’ve come with her own septic tank.

Political figures often need “cover” to inspire political courage or perhaps hide from a voter backlash. Retired Astronaut Mark Kelly who co-founded Americans for Responsible Solutions with his wife, former Congressman Gabrielle Giffords who was shot in the head during a constituent meeting in Tucson, has organized a number of military leaders to talk about getting battlefield weapon off of American streets. With Kelly and Giffords, members of the military Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus have joined the fight to curtail the access of battlefield weapons. Both were commanding generals in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are people who have seen the personnel damage caused by the battlefield weapons in theaters of battle

Both have said that there is no place for battlefield weapons on American streets.

If you cannot find political cover cowering behind the top generals of the past decade, then it is perhaps time for others to do your job.

Lyndon Johnson used to tell Senators during tough votes for Civil Rights during the 1960’s that he didn’t need their help for the easy votes–he needed them for the toughest of votes. If they lacked the courage, he offered them a choice–his way or the highway and fear of LBJ’s wrath often trumped any fear of what the voters back home might respond.

Can somebody tell me how a member of ISIS can fill up his trunk with a cornucopia of battlefield weapons? Maybe Senator Heitkamp simply does not care.

Perhaps it’s time for Heidi Heitkamp to grow some courage, if that is even possible at this juncture. If she can’t, perhaps it time to let somebody else do the job.

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By James M. Dorsey

Egypt may be inching towards a return to the stands of soccer fans, who played a key role in the 2011 toppling of President Hosni Mubarak and have been barred entry into stadiums for much of the last five years.

Clubs, players and fans see a June 28 CAF Champions League match between storied Cairo club Al Ahli SC and Ivory Coast’s ASEC Mimosas Abidjan as a dry run for a gradual lifting of the ban that has repeatedly sparked at times deadly clashes between militant, street battle-hardened fans and security forces.

International matches have been largely exempted from the ban to shield the government from potential accusations of responsibility for the poor performance of an Egyptian squad because it lacked the support in the stadium of its supporters.

Next week’s Al Ahli match is however likely to be a litmus test because it will be attended by 15,000 fans, the highest number since the ban was imposed on the eve of the 2011 popular revolt. The government has moreover harked back to an initial understanding first reached in 2013 but never implemented in which the interior ministry, clubs and militant fans agreed that security forces would be replaced in stadiums by private security firms.

“A private security company will be in charge of the stands. This match will be another step forward towards the full return of spectators to Egyptian stadiums,” said Al Ahli executive Sherin Shams.

The ministry’s consent to the use of private security companies, many of which are managed by former senior military officials, constituted implicit recognition that the country’s brutal, unreformed security forces are as much part of Egypt’s security problems as they are part of its solution.

The consent also appears likely to be an effort by the ministry and the security forces to shore up their tarnished images. In internal memos leaked to journalists earlier this year, interior ministry officials called for the boosting of the ministry’s media image and monitoring capabilities, including the hosting by popular television shows of former police generals and stepped-up monitoring of news websites on a 24-hour basis.

Egypt’s security forces have long been one of the country’s most despised institutions. Almost weekly clashes with security forces during soccer seasons in the years before Mr. Mubarak’s downfall turned militant fans, who played a key role in the revolt as well as most anti-government protests since, into one of Egypt’s foremost social movements.

More than 70 Al Ahli fans were killed in 2012 in a stadium in the Suez Canal city of Port Said in a politically loaded brawl that was widely seen as an attempt by the security forces and the military to cut the fans down to size that got out of hand. Last year, 20 supporters of Al Ahli rival Al Zamalek SC died in clashes with security forces outside a Cairo stadium.

Fans in April forced their way into a stadium in protest against the ban on supporters attending football matches. At the Borg Al Arab stadium in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Ultras Ahlawy stormed the pitch during an African Championship match against the backdrop of growing criticism of general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and protests against his handing over to Saudi Arabia of two islands in the Red Sea during a visit to Cairo in May by Saudi King Salman.

The protesters, although far smaller in number than those that toppled Mubarak, adapted the slogans of the 2011 popular revolt: calls of “Bread, freedom – the islands are Egyptian!” replaced the 2011 revolt’s “Bread, freedom and justice.” An Egyptian court this month ruled against the return of the islands.

Continued clashes with fans who repeatedly have over the years targeted the interior ministry have persuaded Mr. Al-Sisi to move government offices out of the centre of Cairo.

Mr. Al-Sisi recently inaugurated a new office of the Interior Ministry at the Police Academy in New Cairo, east of the Egyptian capital. The academy joined the prosecutor-general, state security, and judicial bodies in an effort to deprive protesters of symbols at a time of mounting discontent.

“The security situation is connected to the targeting of these institutions by a number of protesters centred in downtown Cairo. They seek to spread chaos throughout the country, especially after the demonstrations became unfortunately chaotic themselves. And they’re attempting to break the aura of authority around state institutions by putting them under siege, covering their walls with graffiti of vulgar images and language degrading to those who work there… The security challenges the country is going through have forced the ministry to accelerate its construction plans,” General Ahmad al-Badry, the former head of the Police Academy, told Al Monitor during the inauguration.

General Badry’s acknowledgement of the street power of the fans followed an unprecedented bid in February by Mr. Al-Sisi, who heads one of the most repressive governments in recent Egyptian history, to reach out to his opponents.

In his government’s initial recognition of the power of the fans, Mr. Al-Sisi phoned in to a television programme on the fourth anniversary of the Port Said incident to invite militant fans to appoint ten of their members to independently investigate the incident.

It was the first time Mr. Al-Sisi reached out to his opponents, many of whom have been killed by the interior ministry’s security forces, forced underground or into exile, or are lingering in prisons where they risk abuse and torture.

Ultras Ahlawy declined the invitation saying it could not be accuser and judge at the same time but kept the door to a dialogue open.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog and a just published book with the same title.

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Donald Trump just said “you’re fired” to his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski.

This was predictable. In fact, it was predicted years ago in a traditional bluegrass folk song called “Darling Corey.”

The Corey in the song is a woman, but otherwise it fits the tragedy of Corey Lewandowski to a tee. Her fate was sealed when she got involved with what the song describes as a “gamblin’ man,” clearly a reference to Trump’s casino operation. The song is also prescient about Trump’s tax problems (“the revenue officers are coming”). Corey’s partner was a con man engaged in selling moonshine liquor made in a local “still house.” Is this not an obvious reference to Trump’s effort to enter the booze business through Trump Vodka, which the Donald marketed under the slogan “Success Distilled,” but which quickly failed?

The “meadow” and the “graveyard” in the song no doubt refer to Trump’s burial site. Some folks recently erected a tombstone to the presumptive GOP presidential candidate in the Sheep’s Meadow section of Central Park. Since Trump just killed Lewandowski’s job, perhaps he’ll be generous enough to bequeath his “lonesome graveyard ground” to his former campaign manager.

Questions about the size of Trump’s wealth are clearly anticipated in the first verse, which is found in the earliest published version of the song, “The Gambling Man,” collected from oral tradition by folklorist Cecil Sharp, as sung by Mrs. Clercy Deeton, at Mine Fork, Burnsville, N.C., on Sept. 19, 1918. Versions of “Darling Corey” were recorded by The Weavers, Buell Kazee, Doc Watson, the Monroe Brothers, Flatt and Scruggs, Jean Ritchie, the Kingston Trio, and Pete Seeger, among others.

My pocketbook full of money,
My friends are all standing around.
My pocketbook are empty
And I ain’t got a friend to be found

Wake up wake up darling Corey
What makes you sleep so sound?
The revenue officers are coming
They’re gonna tear your still house down

Dig a hole dig a hole in the meadow
Dig a hole in the cold cold ground
Dig a hole dig a hole in the meadow
Gonna lay darling Corey down

Can’t you hear those bluebirds a singing
Don’t you hear that mournful sound
They’re preaching darling Corey’s funeral
In some lonesome graveyard ground

Oh yes, oh yes, my darlin’
I’ll do the best I can
But I’ll never take my pleasure
With another gamblin’ man

Throughout its many versions, the basic theme of the song has remained the same: Don’t mess around with people involved in shady and illegal activities.

Peter Dreier teaches Politics and chairs the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. His most recent book is The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame (Nation Books). This article was originally published in American Prospect.

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It doesn’t matter where you look these days, there is somebody trying to separate you from those “others” who are different. Somebody is trying to divide us, to categorize us with different labels. But there is still one completely safe space in this world – a place where these differences disappear and where we can unite in commonalities instead.

That safe space is underwater.

Photo by Amanda Walkins

Scuba diving is about community and about mutual understanding; there is an immense level of trust and cooperation that divers must utilize for successful and enjoyable dives.

Every day all around the world, people of varied nationalities and backgrounds come together to marvel at nature’s underwater playground. Diving establishes a community in the most remote parts of Earth, bringing people together and uniting us when so many other factors are trying to divide us instead.

Divers are all the same underwater – we are all visitors in a foreign land and our accents, our races, our beliefs have no meaning there. We are united as humans, venturing into the depths of the sea as lifelong students and researchers, as advocates and ambassadors.

It is impossible to argue underwater. It is impossible to shout over each other and to try to create divisions. Even a line drawn in the sand will very quickly disappear.

Underwater, we can be at peace and watch as an entire world coexists in fluid harmony as it has always done.

Photo courtesy of PADI

So this summer, while arguments rise with the temperatures, find a way to come together instead of trying to push each other apart.

Whether you are an experienced diver or you’ve never worn fins before, you are always welcome in the dive community. Each new diver adds something new to the group, and for each new certified diver, the world gains an advocate for protecting the oceans.

Photo courtesy of PADI

While divers used to predominantly be men, the diving community has seen more and more women joining in recent years. In fact, last year, PADI (The Professional Association of Diving Instructors) helped to narrow the gender gap of earned Open Water diver certifications by 1% following the organization’s Women’s Dive Day events. With that added diversity to the diving community comes cause to celebrate again this year.

On July 16th, come out and join this diving community in the second-annual PADI Women’s Dive Day. Last year’s event was a massive success, with divers – both male and female – getting together in 65 countries around the world to celebrate and honor all the fearless female divers of days past and present.

This year, PADI members, industry icons, and recreational divers will once again take part in events scheduled across the globe (400 events and counting) to celebrate and empower women in diving.

The scuba diving community continuously embraces new members from all walks of life, and the celebration of that togetherness is a welcome addition to an already wonderful group.

Photo courtesy of PADI

Wherever your summer travel plans are taking you in July, you’re bound to find a Women’s Dive Day event nearby. And if you’re staying local – even better! Get in touch with your local dive shop to see if they already have an event planned. If not, follow the fin kicks of the fearless females before you and create your own event. You’ll grow your own community and create a better sense of unity, which is sorely needed right now.

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This article was completed and photos were contributed with assistance from PADI. Amanda Walkins is a PADI Diver and former PADI dive shop manager in Roatan, Honduras.

Amanda Walkins is a serial expat and travel addict. You can read more about her love for scuba diving – and for a certain scuba diver – at www.amandawalkins.com.

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