the rix mix

So who won? Partisan pro-Obama commentators painstakingly try to demonstrate that Barack bamboozled the Republicans. He did manage to postpone some of the pain. But the only "trick" he seemed to have pulled on Repugs was limiting future Medicare cuts to providers rather than recipients. Since the providers include  the companies & pharmaceutical interests  that help fill Repug (& Democratic) campaign coffers, politicians will weigh those cuts very carefully against their own bank accounts.  Overall, I think Obama took a large, & largely avoidable whuppin' that he'll have a difficult time explaining next year when it's not sufficient to trot out Michelle & the girls & lead crowds of college students in chanting "Yes we can." Americans are itchin' to  replace  the guy - Democrats, Repugs & independents.   Among Repugs only Romney doesn't come off as a whackadoodle, but as the primaries get going he'll increasingly have to sound like one.

But with the debt ceiling out of the way for the time being, we're back to the state-of-the-economy & news stories like Merck cutting 13,000 jobs even as their sales increased 7% last year. Merck is a major employer in New Jersey. There are three Merck plants in my county, & the corporate offices are out in West Jersey in an affluent town where a lot of Merck white collars  relocated when the offices moved  from Rahway, & maybe a few of them will learn what it's like to miss a mortgage payment  if they're ordered to  lay off themselves after  they cut loose the hourly workers with a "So sorry, we're restructuring."

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, in the news, New Jersey