What, Me Worry?

The president wrapped up a speech in the Rose Garden, essentially comparing the tea-bagger fringe of the Republican Party to terrorists, a bunch of lunatic ideologues he isn't about to negotiate with (and I certainly hope he is serious, but we'll see), over a law that was passed by both houses of Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by a conservative Supreme Court.

All three branches of government have given their blessing to the Affordable Care Act—Obamacare—and yet there are certain members of Congress—politicians, getting paid with tax-payer dollars—who just can't accept it.

So they're holding the government hostage. A small portion of it. That portion which would otherwise have these cynical show-boating opportunists' heads on a stick, that portion is being left alone.

The military, Obamacare, anything that's expensive and would have the least potential to take this latest cheap piece of theater by these reality-show types to something affecting, truly consequential, forget it.

If you don't believe me, check out part two of this month's double feature, coming October 17th: The Debt-Ceiling!!!

Be assured that the government is not going to default on its bills, the ones Congress created. Powerful people would not be happy about that. Still, as obvious as that seems, before it's over, all of us paying attention to "the story" will wonder. Remember how you thought for a while, even if you weren't watching the story exclusively on Fox News, that Obama was going to lose the election to a guy like Mitt Romney? Hell, I was even worried.

Some advice you can take or leave: if you see the word "Countdown" on the screen, you can be sure that whatever is waiting at the end of the countdown isn't going to amount to much.

So, I'm not too worried. Anymore than I was about The Taper—the last sort of ongoing bit of theater. Of course there wasn't going to be a Taper, I thought. We have an economy that is growing at sickly rates in spite of zero percent interest rates and the Federal Reserve buying $85 billion dollars in treasury and mortgage bonds every month. To give you an idea of how much that is: with the same amount of money you could afford to pay 30 million people 50 thousand dollars a year. Instead—and perhaps in the universe of poor remedies to a quite possibly intractable problem, this is the best of the poor—we are in effect giving the money to the banks to speculate with, or to at least do what they think best with it, they being bankers and all. This rather than leave it up to 30 million people, randomly selected, in what could be a very exciting lottery, to decide what best to do with an extra 50 thousand a year!

Still, we here in Peyton Place know that it's best not to be too certain, that things can go horribly wrong just when you think, with only a minute left in the game, it would take a miracle ...

Just when you think "Lincoln" is a lock for Best Picture.

But this isn't sports. Or the Academy Awards. It's politics.

Easier to predict? Usually. But we'll see.