The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Fiercely Independent Partisan Hackmanship of Ezra Klein

Posted on | May 11, 2010 | 18 Comments

At some point, “progressive” becomes just another synonym for “whatever Democrats want”:

Greece . . . is a bailout Republicans can finally be against. TARP, after all, was proposed by the Bush administration and attracted a substantial number of Republican votes in Congress. Not so with Greece. . . .

Ezra Klein goes on from there to argue that, in fact, the U.S. isn’t bailing out Greece — it’s the IMF. Right. So let’s have Congress zero out U.S. funding of the IMF and see how long the IMF stays in business, shall we?

Not too many years ago, the Left was vandalizing Starbucks in protest of globalization, and progressive heroes like Dennis Kucinich were assailing the IMF. But now when it’s time for U.S. taxpayers to pony up for the Greek bailout, Klein is all about the “global economy” and pretending that the IMF acts independently, without any input from the White House or Congress.

Kind of like how, when Republicans wanted to fight terrorists overseas, progressives told us that was an imperialistic “blood for oil” conspiracy by Halliburton and the military-industrial complex. Now that Obama is in the White House, the courageous progressive voices for peace sound surprisingly similar to crickets chirping.

Meanwhile, if progressives want to know the truth about the IMF and the Greek bailout, they’ll have to get it from Republicans like Mike Pence and Cathy McMorris Rodgers:

[O]ur “share” of the $40 billion IMF package for Greece is equivalent to $6.8 billion.
Last year, Congress passed another $100 billion line of credit to the IMF — funds the IMF said will go “to forestall or cope with an impairment of the international monetary system or to deal with an exceptional situation that poses a threat to the stability of that system.”
In other words, the “too big to fail” doctrine is being expanded to an international level — with the United States as the primary stakeholder. . . .

Read the whole thing.

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Category: Economics, Greece

Comments

  • Joe

    I did like Tina Fey noting that in Greece they retire at 50 but in America Greeks work the register until they die!

  • Joe

    I did like Tina Fey noting that in Greece they retire at 50 but in America Greeks work the register until they die!

  • http://pointofagun.blogspot.com/ Dave C

    Greece . . . is a bailout Republicans can finally be against. TARP, after all, was proposed by the Bush administration and attracted a substantial number of Republican votes in Congress

    Bush, TARP and the bail-outs where the smoldering match that help to light the Tea Parties..

    Obama was the gasoline thrown onto the fire.

  • http://pointofagun.blogspot.com/ Dave C

    Greece . . . is a bailout Republicans can finally be against. TARP, after all, was proposed by the Bush administration and attracted a substantial number of Republican votes in Congress

    Bush, TARP and the bail-outs where the smoldering match that help to light the Tea Parties..

    Obama was the gasoline thrown onto the fire.

  • Joe

    I hated TARP but I can understand why it was done in light of financial meltdown. Once it was clear the markets had stopped collasping, we should have stopped TARP.

    Rather than assisting in helping the EU deal with its welfare states–why don’t we just address the underlying problem? Out of control entitlements.

  • Joe

    I hated TARP but I can understand why it was done in light of financial meltdown. Once it was clear the markets had stopped collasping, we should have stopped TARP.

    Rather than assisting in helping the EU deal with its welfare states–why don’t we just address the underlying problem? Out of control entitlements.

  • http://www.haemet.blogivists.com Roxeanne de Luca

    [O]ur “share” of the $40 billion IMF package for Greece is equivalent to $6.8 billion.

    Since my blog is down, I’m just going to rant on y’alls: $6.8 billion? Six point eight billion dollars?

    Greeks retire, on average, at the age of 53. The highest-earning Americans, who pay the supermajority of our federal taxes, are in their 50s and 60s. That $6.8 billion is coming from the pockets of Americans who would be retired if they were in Greece.

    My parents are working today – long, LONG hours (my dad is out of the house by 5 am every morning and my mom is a small business owner) – to pay for some Greek of the same age to lounge around and collect their tax dollars. They are stressed beyond belief, every single day: my dad hates his job and my mom is watching the Obama Administration and wondering if she can keep her business going, but hey, at least some Greek can exercise her human right to retire at the age of fifty.

    I’m sorry, I’m about to have a stroke.

  • http://www.haemet.blogivists.com Roxeanne de Luca

    [O]ur “share” of the $40 billion IMF package for Greece is equivalent to $6.8 billion.

    Since my blog is down, I’m just going to rant on y’alls: $6.8 billion? Six point eight billion dollars?

    Greeks retire, on average, at the age of 53. The highest-earning Americans, who pay the supermajority of our federal taxes, are in their 50s and 60s. That $6.8 billion is coming from the pockets of Americans who would be retired if they were in Greece.

    My parents are working today – long, LONG hours (my dad is out of the house by 5 am every morning and my mom is a small business owner) – to pay for some Greek of the same age to lounge around and collect their tax dollars. They are stressed beyond belief, every single day: my dad hates his job and my mom is watching the Obama Administration and wondering if she can keep her business going, but hey, at least some Greek can exercise her human right to retire at the age of fifty.

    I’m sorry, I’m about to have a stroke.

  • Adobe Walls

    The truly despicable part of all this is that Greece will almost certainly collapse no matter how much money goes down that rat hole.

  • Adobe Walls

    The truly despicable part of all this is that Greece will almost certainly collapse no matter how much money goes down that rat hole.

  • Estragon

    Congress did the smartest thing they’ve done since the Democrats took over in 2006 when they only authorized half the requested $750 billion in TARP funds in late 2008. That money was necessary to avoid a meltdown, and turned out to be enough.

    The rest just became a candy jar for Obama – treats for him to hand out to supporters until they could pass the “stimulus” rip-off.

    Ezra Klein has never been anything but a partisan hack. The Short Pants Brigade at NRO for some reason decided he was deserving of respect . . . maybe he picked up a tab for them somewhere, I’ve never seen any reason to respect the little worm.

  • Estragon

    Congress did the smartest thing they’ve done since the Democrats took over in 2006 when they only authorized half the requested $750 billion in TARP funds in late 2008. That money was necessary to avoid a meltdown, and turned out to be enough.

    The rest just became a candy jar for Obama – treats for him to hand out to supporters until they could pass the “stimulus” rip-off.

    Ezra Klein has never been anything but a partisan hack. The Short Pants Brigade at NRO for some reason decided he was deserving of respect . . . maybe he picked up a tab for them somewhere, I’ve never seen any reason to respect the little worm.

  • Joe

    Greece will go down and bring the EU and us with it. Better to set the Greeks free to do what Greeks do best–eat salads with feta cheese and drink wine at the beach. All the Greeks who like to work hard are already in America and Australia.

  • Joe

    Greece will go down and bring the EU and us with it. Better to set the Greeks free to do what Greeks do best–eat salads with feta cheese and drink wine at the beach. All the Greeks who like to work hard are already in America and Australia.

  • http://pointofagun.blogspot.com/ Dave C

    Anyway.. Never trust the opinion of a liberal over twenty whose balls have yet to drop.

  • http://pointofagun.blogspot.com/ Dave C

    Anyway.. Never trust the opinion of a liberal over twenty whose balls have yet to drop.

  • dr kill

    Oh snap, number five has it correct. Greece then the EU are going down. The markets are betting against them, They are toast.

  • dr kill

    Oh snap, number five has it correct. Greece then the EU are going down. The markets are betting against them, They are toast.

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