Negotiating By Dummies

So you're haggling over the price of a car. You absolutely have to sell the car before May 15, because you need the money to make a mortgage payment to stave off foreclosure. So you're willing to come down on the price some, even though you need every dime you can get if you're going to make that payment.

The prospective buyer knows your predicament, and he's going to take full advantage of it to force you to accept a price far less than what you really need.

Only now you find out that the buyer is in a predicament, too. Turns out that his wife, who's the breadwinner in the family and is providing the money for the car, is insisting that he stop haggling and just pay whatever you want, because she wants the car right now and doesn't care what it costs.

What do you do? If you're President Obama, you immediately tell the buyer that you'll accept even less than his lowest offer, even though that means losing your house and being tossed out into the street.

Wait - what?

Yep.

Wall Street financiers have given their fully-owned-and-operated subsidiary John Boehner his marching orders on the debt ceiling - stop fucking around and just raise the goddamn thing and do it right now.

President Obama could just sit back and wait for Boehner to follow orders. He could even threaten to veto the debt-ceiling bill unless Boehner accepts a $2 trillion all-jobs new stimulus, funded by tripling taxes on all income over $1 million.

Obama's in the catbird seat on the debt ceiling. Boehner HAS TO raise the debt ceiling or suffer the Wrath of his Corporate Owners. So what does he do?

He agrees to even more spending cuts before Boehner raises the debt ceiling.

This is not 11-dimensional chess. This is not preparing a mark to fall for a giant bluff. This is not loss-leading with small stuff in order to win the big fight down the road.

This is folding a winning hand. This is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

This is deliberately destroying the last chance to prevent America from becoming Haiti.