The redoubtable Spengler of the Asia Times (channeled by David Goldman), offers a sobering and entirely plausible scenario showing how Obama could take advantage of the debt ceiling battle to undercut the Tea Party and the Republicans, stoke class warfare, secure re-election, and get the banks to fund his favored projects to boot. Spengler is a fan of the Tea Party, but thinks the McConnell plan as the best way to prevent Obama from off-loading the onus of the bad economy onto the Republicans. Whatever you think of the debt ceiling quandary, Spengler’s case is worth a look.
Spengler has been a friend to Radical-in-Chief, by the way. His thoughtful reading of the book, “Obama’s Hidden Radical Past,” came out just when Osama bin-Laden met his end, and it didn’t seem appropriate to blog about the review at that time. In today’s piece, Spengler adds some new thoughts on the book, highlighting Obama’s pragmatic reasons for passing over the opportunity to nationalize the banks in 2009, and noting how the president could use a debt ceiling crisis to advance his preferred practice of gaining de facto, rather than formal, government control over the private economy. A particularly interesting feature of Spengler’s original review of Radical-in-Chief is his charting of income redistribution in the United States.
Spengler’s inside knowledge of America’s banking system puts him in a strong position to game out what we may soon be facing. Agree with his position on the McConnell plan or not, best read his scenario now before perhaps facing it, or something like it, unprepared.