Michael Maiello's picture

    What Obama Sacrificed

    By Michael Maiello on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 10:26am | Politics

    I see over at Swampland today that likely casualties of the budget deal include the long-term unemployed (who are unlikely to get another extension of unemployment benefits) and, of all things during a time when we're encouraging people to get more education to be better at their jobs, graduate students, who will lose the ability to take out federally subsidized loans.  One can only hope that pulling subsidies for those loans will eventually bring the costs of graduate schools down (the subsidies could be inflationary) but I doubt it as the uberwealthy are probably the biggest inflationary driver here.

    I'm sure that further casualties will emerge, especially as the new Gang of 12 unveils its recommendations.  In my column for The Daily today, I explore why it didn't have to be this way.

    If George W. Bush had been in this situation, he'd have used the 14th Amendment solution.  I have no doubt of that.  Do I agree with it?  Not really.  But the idea is to just go ahead and challenge your enemies in Congress to impeach, which is a fight they would surely lose.  The American public is not going to support ousting a president who avoided a debt default.  Obama should have made that decisions based on reality, rather than intellectual merit.

    A downgrade by the ratings agencies would have been likely.  But the President could have preempted that by directing the SEC to strip its imprimatur from all 10 of the Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations.  The SEC should never have given these agencies special prominence in the first place.  Losing that distinction would actually do a lot to take power away from S&P, Moody's and Fitch.

    Finally, even if the President didn't direct Treasury to ignore Congress and raise the debt we need to pay for what Congress already approved (and, in fact, ordered the executive to spend money on) the Federal Reserve could have still cleared the government's checks, for an indefinite period of time, by offering a kind of "overdraft protection on steroids."

    The President simply had more options than most of the media recognized or discussed.  He was not forced into a compromise, he chose it.  Which is why this week's column is my angriest one yet.

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

    Destor, I'm with you in sentiment.

    As for use of the 14th Amendment it's impossible to know what was in Obama's mind, but if no agreement had been reached my Tuesday, my belief is that he would have used it. As I commented earlier, use of the 14th would create a lot of additional uncertainty, particularly in the minds of the populace--which would have been self defeating in terms of confidence and increasing pulling out of the market, etc.

    My favorite whipping boy, Geithner, has said, "The agreement is the beginning of restoring fiscal sustainability" Knowing that the beginning was in 2009 when he helped blow it by giving banks a pass, I wanted to regurgitate when I read his statement.

    One thing he did say which was "factoidal", screw spell check, was that the spending cuts until 2013 represent one tenth of one percent of GDP. That's a win.


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 11:38am

    Robert Kuttner's take on the real reason the 14th amendment option was taken off the table by the White House: http://blog.prospect.org/robert_kuttner/2011/08/on-the-corner-of-14th-and-wall.html


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 12:21pm

    Good on you, destor, here and in your Daily column.  Thank goodness there are reporters like you who are not just parroting a pat narrative others are selling, but are willing to dig, question assumptions, and uncover or advance different ways of thinking.  We desperately need a lot more of that, but you're doing a great job.


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 11:40am

    It's not just that Obama lacked the intestinal fortitude to use tougher measures to get the debt ceiling raised.   The problem was that Barack Obama himself was trying to accomplish a "grand bargain".  Obama himself had bought into deficit hysteria and austerity economics and cutting.

    And I have mentioned this before, but there was never going to be any "default".  Here's just one piece of reporting that makes that fairly clear:

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/29/138806068/why-interest-payment...

    What Obama could have said to the public is something like this: "The constitution says that the nation's debt shall not be questioned.   So if the debt ceiling is not raised, Treasury Secretary Geithner will be forced to prioritize debt payments.   People who hold treasury debt have absolutely nothing to worry about.  However, a whole bunch of ordinary people, many providing vital national services, will not get some of the money they have been counting on.  Those are the folks who will get stiffed if the Republican radicals go ahead and fail to raise the debt ceiling.  And sucking that money out of the economy will hurt business and hurt jobs."

    But instead of saying that, Obama decided to promote his own version of debt and default hysteria, so that he could try to get his version of a big budget-cutting bargain.  This isn't just not being tough enough.  It's having the wrong priorities.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 12:21pm

    This isn't just not being tough enough.  It's having the wrong priorities.

    My read--and everyone's got their own these days--is that a combination of not being tough enough (or, if you prefer, having an inflexibly conflict-averse temperament; or, if you prefer, having a no longer defensible faith in the necessity and possibility of bipartisanship with the modern day GOP on terms not amounting to a progressive surrender), along with a crippling ambivalence and unwillingness to make some basic decisions on what he believes on economic policy--led to adoption of the wrong priorities. 

    His own advisors were glad to assist him down this road and there is no indication any of them were even advocating a different one.  For starters (and maybe for finishers), they somehow convinced him this course of action was better, or even necessary, for his re-election prospects.  I don't doubt that he thought it would go better than it did.


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 12:33pm

    Right.  And isn't it amazing that immediately following the end of this debate, we suddenly have a whole bunch of MSM articles with the theme, "Hey, maybe an austerity budget in the middle of a global recession is not such a good idea?"   Where were these jackasses during the debate when all they could talk about was political maneuvering, negotiating and process?

    And isn't it interesting that the stock market tanked immediately after passage of this bill?

    I hope Barack Obama has a meeting soon of all of these genius political and economic advisers who told him this was the way to go.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 12:44pm

    Dan, this is a great debate here and I share many of your sentiments. But I'm not sure the market "tanking" can be fitted logically into it. Anyway I think the negativity is being overdone and I voted today with some stock purchases.  


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 6:45pm

    Be careful

    Remember "A fool and his money are soon departed"

    I wouldn't put it past those in power, to manipulate the market.


    by Resistance on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 7:24pm

    I prefer this one: "Potter isn't selling. Potter's buying! And why?"


    by Verified Atheist on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 8:35pm

    Right. Street wisdom is that the small investor is a contra-indicator. Anyway, I didn't use all my dry powder, more down days to go before it settles out.

    Actually a pure investor, which I'm not, may think this is an historic stock market opportunity. They can't go wrong with Obama, or Perry. If Obama wins he'll let the Bush tax cuts expire. Sure that's a few percentage points on earned income. But broadly speaking, the tax revenue would ameliorate some of the spending cuts, the deficit would be more in hand and the economy could take off. If Perry wins, he may keep the Bush tax cuts but unless he uses stimulus to overcome the dire cuts, the economy is going to drag on and he'll be out in four years. So he will become a compassionate Keynesian. 

     


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 10:54pm

    I think Dan's got it right. Obama has consistently championed deficit reduction, almost since the moment he signed the stimulus in 2009 and straight through the debt ceiling negotiations. And he seemed to be pushing for the $4 trillion deal a lot harder than Boehner.

    Obama's rhetoric and actions suggest that a deficit reduction agreement was his goal from the get-go. He calculated--correctly--that he and Boehner could strike a deal, but he miscalculated Boehner's ability to hold his caucus in line.

    After the deal fell through, Obama just took what he could get.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 1:29pm

    I agree with all of you about this.  What irks me, though, is Obama pretending like he had no choice when he had lots of choices.  He didn't have to accept any cuts at all, he wanted the cuts.  That's the reality.  But it's in conflict with the narrative that goes, "Obama wanted a clean debt ceiling vote but the Republicans wouldn't go along."  If Obama had ever wanted that, he could have gotten it.

    Or, as has been pointed out many times, he could have done this back in 2010.


    by Michael Maiello on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 2:13pm

    Did Obama actually say that he wanted a clean debt ceiling vote? Or was it just that we projected that desire onto him? He certainly didn't push very hard for it. I think he allowed the Republican demands to cover for his interest in cutting spending.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 4:12pm

    "Or, as has been pointed out many times, he could have done this back in 2010."

    I didn't realize the president had the ability to propose and to pass his own debt ceiling increase back in 2010.  Failure to do that truly was political malpractice.


    by brewmn on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 5:07pm

    He should have done it when Democrats still had majorities, in the lame duck.


    by Michael Maiello on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 6:47pm

    My understanding is that Harry Reid wanted to defer both the debt ceiling and the tax cut extension votes until after the 2010 elections.  Just a nitpick, perhaps, but I get annoyed with the constant assumption that the Democrats passed exactly what Obama wanted, no more, no less.  I'm of the opinion that Senate Democrats are chiefly to blame for the failures, real and perceived, of Obama'sfirst term.


    by brewmn on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 6:56pm

    Totally possible.


    by Michael Maiello on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 7:38pm

    Too smart by half?

    Multi-dimensional Chess that comes back to bite them in the butt?

    What's with these leaders; is it always about head games?


    by Resistance on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 7:34pm

    So then do you believe Obama thought if he could have gotten the grand bargain he wanted, it wouldn't have had a negative effect on the economy? 


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 2:20pm

    Sorry to answer for Genghis but I can only conclude that Obama believes that.  He wouldn't be without evidence, by the way.  Many of his advisors are from the Clinton White House and so they experienced an economic boom during years of deficit reduction and the formation of a surplus.  I don't think you can compare the 90s to now, but that experience was formative for Geithner & Co.


    by Michael Maiello on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 3:12pm

    You bastard! OK, fine, you actually said it better than me.

    Yes, I think that Obama believed that the stimulus was sufficient and that the economy is still on a road to recovery, which is why he hasn't been pressing for anything more than extending unemployment benefits.

    I can understand why he might have believed that at the time, but I'm a bit baffled why he still seems to believe that. It seems like a stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge the reality.

    Lost in the whole debt ceiling debate is the fact that the cuts themselves are not all that significant. What's significant is the assumption going into the whole debate that the government will not take any further efforts to stimulate the economy.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 4:09pm

    I think one thing that is relatively new - compared to the Clinton years -  is that Obama and his people appear to be smitten by the trendy field of behavioral economics, and are a bit too inclined to think that our economic problems are not so much due to sick fundamentals, but are more due to psychological phenomena having to do with confidence.  They are trying to "nudge" people into optimism, and talked themselves into the idea that if the government were perceived as doing something about the federal debt, this would give people renewed confidence, and make them more willing to spend and invest.

    I think they are really overestimating the psychological business, and neglecting bigger, more objective structural factors.  But even if confidence and the lack of it are big factors, the overriding impression that was created by the debt ceiling debate was of a government that is dysfunctional and incompetent.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 4:45pm

    Behavior economics is new, but the importance of optimism? What about "the only thing that we have to fear," circa 1932?

    Correct me if I misunderstand Keynes. I don't think that deficit spending was ever meant to fix underlying economic problems but rather to artificially elevate consumption in order to compensate for a temporary failure of confidence, aka a deflationary spiral.

    On that view, the problem with Obama's approach was that the 2009 stimulus did bolster consumption sufficient to revive business confidence.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 5:06pm

    Are you saying you really believe this stuff?  Or just that this is what Obama appears to believe.

    Obviously, confidence is always an issue.  But countercyclical deficit spending is not regarded by Keynesians as primarily a stopgap to replace spending losses that are mainly due only to a short term drop in confidence.   Loss of confidence can be a factor that can lead to dramatic decreases in aggregate demand, but it is only one among several factors.   A more important role for stepped-up government spending is to replace spending that is due to sudden losses of real income and wealth, which is what we experienced in 2008.

    When a tenth of the workforce is suddenly out of work, almost every business suddenly has many fewer customers.  That's not because those former customers lack confidence.  It's because they lack jobs and money.

    And when companies fire lots of workers, that is not just due to a psychological loss of company confidence.   It is often a rational response to a worsened economic environment.  The companies can no longer sell enough stuff to sustain their costs and still break even, so they have to cut their costs.  If you have a mortgage contract written in nominal dollars, as they usually are, and the market value of your home declines sharply in value, you may find yourself underwater on your mortgage.  That's a real economic fact that does not depend on how confident you are.  It doesn't go away if you are feeling buoyant.

    In this case, we had a dramatic and rapid worldwide decline in the values of financial assets, leading to a cascading decline in the value of other kinds of assets.  Given the fact that the nominal values of liabilities don't usually change much when the nominal value of your assets decreases, that made lots of debtors suddenly much poorer.  For people who saw the value of their retirement assets and investments cut in half, that is a real economic fact they have to deal with, and it has nothing to do with how confident they feel.

    Yes, the idea is to arrest a downward spiral.  The government is a big, powerful, rich and stable customer and employer in the marketplace, one that is capable of running massive deficits in a currency that it, itself manufactures, and is also capable of exerting some substantial influence on price levels.  When customers are wiped out, impoverished and disappear from the marketplace, the government can step in to provide purchases that those customers can no longer make, thus saving the jobs in the businesses that depended on those vanished customers.   It can directly provide jobs that companies can no longer provide.  It can use its massive powers of taxation to take money from savings accounts in which money exists in abundance and is doing little work in the economy, and transfer it to hungrier accounts where people will spend it or invest it.  It can borrow lots of money relatively cheaply on its substantial credit.  It can also print money directly and spend it into the economy, without causing inflation so long as it is reactivating idle capacity.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 6:51pm

    Stimulus done right is also supposed to lead to a multiplier effect.  Businesses, aware that those inclined to spend additional money will be getting some (through tax cuts to middle class and poor, direct federal job creation, federal assistance helping state and local governments cover shortfalls they would otherwise have to cover in part through layoffs, etc.), plus with the federal government spending more money as a direct buyer, now have reason to expand or produce more, and do so.  They hire and pay people who in turn spend money to boost the health of other enterprises.  And so it goes, a virtuous cycle.  As excess capacity gets soaked up and as you get nearer to full employment, inflation becomes a concern.  But the deficit is decreasing, both as a percentage of GDP and in absolute terms, as a result of the growth, which means more tax revenues for whatever the given rates are and fewer counter-cyclical outlays (federal expenditures that automatically go up during hard times and down during good times, as a result of the way the programs are deliberately set up), such as unemployment compensation, Medicaid, and foodstamps.  

    Keynesian stimulus should still be in Econ 101 textbooks even though his views are not dominant in the economics profession today.  An accessible, non-technical, short book that is not just on Keynes' economic philosophy is Keynes: Return of the Master, by his biographer, Robert Skidelsky, for those interested.  Skidelsky's view is that today's economics profession is in disarray, that the greater volatility in our economy, with 5 recessions since the golden age ended in 1973, reflects bad economic policies resulting from bad economic thinking and ideas.  (Keynes once said that societies are built on little else besides the ideas in peoples' heads.)  Skidelsky believes economics is badly in need of reconstruction, and that Keynes' contributions remain very relevant to that task as well as to vital issues of our day.  

    Keynes thought the purpose of economic policy, and of economies, was to generate abundance, leading to shared prosperity.  Not for its own sake but so that ordinary people could live wisely and well and not have to forfeit quality of life just to survive (or not).  Keynes thought that was a possibility 60 years or so from the 1930s and calculated that the amount that would be "enough" to live well would be roughly $60,000 per year in current dollars.  Which the US is presently a bit short of, farther short of because our income distribution is lopsided right now.  Skidelsky sees Keynes as a philosopher who happened to devote himself to the study of economics.   

     


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 7:49pm

    By confidence, I didn't mean merely the irrational animal spirits, but the expectation of return on investment, which includes both rational response to "real economic facts" and irrational factors. (I believe that Keynes used the term more narrowly to mean confidence in ones economic forecast, in contrast with uncertainty.)

    The problem we're facing is not that companies are laying off tons of worker--that happened already. The problem is that companies are not hiring new workers nor investing in new production. There is no expectation of future demand or--consequently--no expectation of a profitable return on investment. Companies are not going out of business, but they are saving rather than investing, i.e. excessive saving.

    So in addition to the multiplier effect that Dreamer mentions, stimulating aggregate demand should provide an accelerator effect that restores investor confidence and restarts the growth cycle. I called the measure "stop-gap" because the public spending is not meant to permanently replace private spending but rather to stand in during a period when there is limited private spending.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 8:56pm

    I assume "did not".

    Ya'll have navigated into a very meaty discussion about "confidence".

    First, if it's confidence Obama is trying to build, he needs someone out front barking the crowds other than the drab looking team he has.

    Building confidence is a worthy goal, and achievable. Sorry to point this out, and I do not place myself in this category, but affluent consumers have a huge impact on overall consumer spending numbers. An up market will lift spending, although it will take something this time other than quantitative easing. My gut tells me that there is pent up demand among consumers which has been depressed by the debt scare.  

    Something needs to get people's attention with a flamboyancy uncharacteristic of Obama and the policy wonks. This would take imagination, which rules out Obama's team, especially the risk averse careerist--Geithner.  


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 7:04pm

    Do not be fooled into participating in strengthening their grip.

    They will manipulate the market to suck you in, they want you to ignore the plight of millions. "Come get in the water, theres money to be made, forget about the losers, come get your reward come get some of the blood money".  

    When these bastards stole our homes, they stole our wealth.

    Now they want you, to ignore those who have been cast aside. “Move along folks nothing to see here”  Too bad, to sad for them, but time to move along, forget about them homeowner folks .

    First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --
    Because I was not a Socialist.

    Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --
    Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
    Because I was not a Jew.

    Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

    Martin Niemöller

    The rich have divided the spoils and now they want to divide the working class.

    I believe the majority of homeowners were the base of the Democratic Party.

    Don't ask me to contribute to your reelection President Obama, I want YOU to feel what its like to lose, living in the Whitehouse.  


    by Resistance on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 7:59pm

    Destor, I find it is important to look forward, not back, to be constructive, not just another Wednesday morning quarterback. So where do we go from here?

    This deal already cuts discretionary (non-defense) spending more than the "loony" Ryan budget from back in winter, and including Baucus in the super-committee ensures that Medicare will (through a hike in the qualifying age and means-testing) transition towards a Ryan-style voucher system, and that Medicaid will transition towards block-grants. Likewise moderate democrats in the senate are already rushing to endorse some sort of balanced budget amendment capping spending at 18 % of GDP which is in line with Ryan's proposal.

    So, first point, the Ryan budget is now the bi-partisan new normal.

    But, and this is the second point, the debt deal is leading to the realization in the markets that the threat of debt-default is now also the new normal, which will lead to rapid downgrades of US debt both by ratings agencies and by the markets, a trend which will increase the pressure to more rapidly reduce deficits. Likewise, the spending cuts and the political trend of Washington will lead economic forecasters, including the CBO, to revise growth expectations over the medium term and even the long term, thereby also revising higher the long term deficit trend. So, once again, another factor increasing the pressure to more rapidly reduce deficits.

    These forces will dovetail nicely with the expectation, one that the White House is already signaling, that the Democrats will cave on their threat to block (in the Senate or by presidential veto) an extension of all the Bush tax cuts. After they do cave, the following debt-ceiling showdown of 2013, if Obama is re-elected, will lead to a bi-partisan deal going much further to roll back the Liberal agenda of social safety net programs. Because any Obama veto-threat will not be credible.

    At that point it becomes harder to see what a right-wing agenda will look like, since what was recently an extreme right-wing stance (the Ryan budget) will be a mainstream democratic position. And despite my incredibly huge brain, I leave that speculation up to smarter minds ... like Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin.

    But if I have gamed this out correctly, this is what the obvious tactical adjustment is: Obama's best move now is to take the initiative, pre-emptively endorse broad entitlement cuts and a permanent extension of all the Bush tax cuts. This way he will look like a winner! And he will be pushing the Republicans into increasingly ludicrous policy positions in order to differentiate themselves. And with the wind at his back, he can then win the future by privatizing the FDA and the EPA and auctioning off physical infrastructure to the Chinese and the Arabs.

    Result? Permanent Democratic majority!

    That is my suggestion.

    Thank me later.


    by the smartest ma... (not verified) on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 1:17pm

    Well, yes, I guess you can have a permanent Democratic majority if Democrats just become Republicans and Republicans become something else.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 2:13pm

    Though he's a bit apocalyptic, I think smart guy has a point. Conservatives success will probably generate a backlash, and indeed it has already begun. How long it will take to reach a critical mass, I don't know.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 4:15pm

    I agree about the backlash - no question about it.   But I find nothing encouraging about the fact that Republicans are heading of a far left cliff, if the result is that Obama governs the country in a manner equivalent to, say, the Cameron government in England.  If I wanted a Tory government, I wouldn't be a Democrat.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 4:48pm

    I meant far right cliff.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 6:57pm

    I may have gotten him completely wrong but I took smartest man's comment to be pure sarcastic snark, mocking what he sees as the apparent Democratic party strategy of hoping to gain a majority by replacing the Republicans with right-wing policy (death via a thousand cuts and compromises).  My guess was he was a once and possibly future regular, maybe obey/cho?


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 7:02pm

    Doh! I think you're right.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 8:58pm

    You're buying int o the great deception that somehow Obama was weak or a bad negotiator when that is not really the case.  Obama, in partnership with his Republican friends, used this fake crisis as an excuse to pursue the highly unpopular policies they both favor: cutting vital domestic spending programs in the midst of depression which will put more people out of work and fatally damaging the very foundation of income security and stability for the elderly and the poor Social Security,Medicare and Medicaid.  Obama is with them in this and is against the very people who voted him in office.  It's as plain as day yet normally perceptive people like yourself refuse to admit this obvious reality and instead keep writing and speculating about the latest Obama appeasement effort as though the result was not something he had wanted all along.  He did this with the stimulus, healthcare, the budget, and again now with the debt ceiling.  He ain't on our side.  He's playing for the other team.  And no, if he loses the Republicans won't be worse because at least if they are in command, the remaining Democrats will once again start defending the elderly, the sick, the poor and the workers of this country instead of going along with it in order to support the allegedly Democratic President.


    by oleeb on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 11:09pm

    You're buying int o the great deception that somehow Obama was weak or a bad negotiator when that is not really the case. 

    I don't agree that destor is doing that.  If you've been reading him, he has expressed growing skepticism, consistent with a record of decisions and actions calling into increasing question the hopes or assumptions many progressives have had about Obama's true policy beliefs and intentions.


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 08/03/2011 - 11:25pm

    Barrack "Quisling" Obama?

    Excerpts of Lyrics by Pink Floyd

    CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN

    Come on, now
    I hear you're feeling down
    Well I can ease your pain
    Get you on your feet again

    OBAMA COLLABORATING WITH THE REPUBLICANS

    Okay
    Just a little pinprick
    There'll be no more
    But you may feel a little sick

    Can you stand up?

    CAN YOU CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE?


    I do believe it's working good
    That'll keep you going through the show

    THE CONTINUING CRISIS SHOW

    There is no pain you are receding

    WIN THE FUTURE WHEN THE SHIP COMES IN
    A distant ship's smoke on the horizon

    OBAMA HOPES, YOU’RE COMFORTABLY NUMB, SO HE CAN CONTINUE WITH THE SURGERY    


    by Resistance on Thu, 08/04/2011 - 12:44am

    What I do not understand is what the American Automobile Association has to do with all of this.

    I mean why should a map maker dictate our future?

    Everybody wishes for these triple A ratings.

    Fuck em!

     


    by Richard Day on Thu, 08/04/2011 - 7:54pm

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