Our paper goes to press this fortnight only a few hours before the U.S. House is scheduled to take a momentous vote: whether to permit the Treasury to pay such debts as the legislature has incurred already, or to refuse and plunge the world’s economy into a chaotic maelstrom.
Vote “Yes” and the world goes on about its business. Vote “No” and you unleash chaos. For most people, this would seem to be a straightforward proposition and a fairly easy choice. We are dealing with Congress, though, so it’s all a little more complicated.
For one thing, chaos can be quite entertaining. It is when it’s vividly portrayed by characters based on cartoon figures, performing in Hollywood blockbusters. When it is unleashed in the real world, though, it tends to be less attractive.
All of this may seem too obvious to mention. The evidence suggests, though, that some in Congress—and some of their constituents—could use a little remedial instruction in how to make this vital distinction.
Our argument against voting in favor of chaos should not be misinterpreted. We are not saying that the world conducts its business in a manner that is above reproach. Far from it, in fact. We don’t know a lot about this subject, but the more we learn the more appalled we become.
Average Americans—we include ourselves in this number—scuffle around at a very low altitude, economically speaking, rarely aware of the empyrean realms where the world’s truly wealthy dwell. We are familiar with water, though.
Earth’s hydrologic cycle manifests itself in familiar ways; oceans, tides, and currents wash all over the world. Money does, too, but nearly invisibly. We poor schnooks only get glimpses in Hollywood pictures. Some Bond villain’s yacht, for example, its colossal size emphasized by comparison to a vast host of others, spread like a blanketing across some sparkling Mediterranean harbor.
Fortunately, two fairly recent books, Oliver Bullough’s Moneyland, published in 2019, and Tom Burgis’s Kleptopia, in 2020, can serve as atlases for mere plebians. They show a global economy that looks more like Gotham City than most of us could ever have imagined. All over the world, nations are being plundered. Whole populations are impoverished by their rulers. Crooked bankers assist as these despots deplete their nations’ treasuries, for a reasonable percentage.
Something, surely, should be done. But what?
Two thousand years ago, Jesus is said to have stormed Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem, tipping over the tables of the money changers, and driving them out with a scourge. That sounds pretty violent, coming from the Prince of Peace. We have not read the original Aramaic though, so who can tell?
Even a reasonable person, driven by moral indignation sparked by the gross inequities of today’s global economy, might wish that such a solution could be used today. This is understandable, even in the absence of any guidance in the Bible regarding the consequences of that disruption on the local economy.
We see few signs, though, of anyone in Congress following the lead of his or her professed Lord, risking a little chaos to bring about righteousness. To the contrary, many Members argue that if we cannot have complete chaos, we must at least make things significantly worse.
We must hold true to certain principles, they say. A stand must be taken. Also, a line must be drawn in the sand. In fact, all of the old, tried and true cliches must be dredged up from the sewer of rightly-discarded bad ideas, and repeated ad nauseam.
This is America, after all. Our appetite for zombie-based entertainment has survived the demise of the drive-in theatre, spilled out from the feeble confines of Hollywood, and taken up permanent residence in the District of Columbia.
For example, take the common trope that the national budget and your household checkbook are virtually indistinguishable. They are not. The two things bear no resemblance to each other. However, because our browbeaten corporate media have been so thoroughly trained to allow liars to endlessly repeat idiocies without challenge, this canard simply will not die. The implication of its immortality is clear. It’s only a matter of time before some cretin decides that he’s some kind of Sovereign Householder, with the God-given right to crank out currency in his basement on an old mimeograph machine.
In the eyes of today’s so-called conservatives—the faction formerly known as fascists—this is a momentous time during which heroic figures such as themselves must follow the time-honored precepts laid down by such thought leaders as the lizard-tongued William F. Buckley, who wrote, “A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”
If Speaker McCarthy’s confidence was not misplaced, the debt ceiling bill moves on to the Senate—that sacred chamber in which Rep. Preston Brooks provoked beyond measure by Sen. Charles Sumner’s intemperate remarks which likened chattel slavery to a harlot—used his metal-headed cane to beat Sumner nearly to death. One hesitates to think what Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene might do to Sen. Chuck Schumer, if she were aware of that precedent.
Come Monday, we should know if Congress has managed to just barely avert a possible global financial catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. If the news is good, it will still be bad.
For one thing, the worst politicians the country has to offer will have been taught that it’s OK to put the rest of us through all this again.
For another, that same cohort will have gotten what they wanted in terms of national policy. The IRS will remain hamstrung, too shorthanded to pursue the tax-dodging fatcats who keep their campaign coffers full. Meanwhile, food stamp recipients get new work requirements. The poor are always with us, and the Republicans are happy to keep it that way.