No Pain, No Gain.

The test of whether Scott Brown's election will have any positive and lasting effect on how and what business is conducted in D.C. is far from clear, though since we are in a prognosticating mood this morning, I'll offer that it will have no meaningful effect. Yes, health care (non) reform is no doubt stalled for now, and maybe even shelved indefinitely.

Call me when the FIRE economy oligarchs aren't running the show, and I will get excited about the prospects for real change. As near as I can tell, all that has happened is the other head in the two headed hydra has just experienced a boost-courtesy of the timid and confused voter- in its chances to displace its rival as the oligarch's primary agent. More and more it appears that the electorate does not, can not, stomach even the mere prospect of weaning themselves off of the political pushers in D.C. lest the voters have no one to blame should a genuinely intrepid political experiment fall on its face. Sorry to say, but that old weight room adage seems appropriate here, "No pain, no gain."

And now I'd like to draw your attention to a piece that analyzes President Obama's performance in his first year in office.

Here are two particularly spot on paragraphs:

The Triangulating Neo-liberal Con

But, Obama is yet another centrist, triangulating New Democrat in the Bill Clinton mold. Don’t be bamboozled by republican propagandists telling you Obama is running left or that he is a ‘socialist.’ This is nonsense – kabuki theater, if you will. They are merely using Obama’s weakness to gain control of the historical political narrative. In reality, Leftists are absolutely outraged at his legislative agenda.

Obama is a corporatist like other New Democrats of the neo-liberal mold. The schtick – as also used by Schroeder in Germany, Koizumi in Japan and Tony Blair in the UK – is to say the things that progressives want to hear, but do the things that big business wants to be done. You have to give a sop to the base here and there like exempting unions from the healthcare bill’s Cadillac policy tax. But, the goal is to curry favor with big business, which is the paymaster of both established parties in the U.S.