THE DEFICIT CRISIS WAS NOT A CHICKEN GAME.

THE DEFICIT CRISIS WAS NOT A CHICKEN GAME. I have posted several times about chicken games and how the debt ceiling crisis of last year was often portrayed as a chicken game both by journalists and participants. I posted here about Dick Weisfelder’s comment that chicken games are usually more complicated than all or nothing. I said:
“The results of negotiations are often very complex, as was the case with the latest debt ceiling crisis.” Now, this article in the Washington Post by Peter Wallsten, Lori Montgomery and Scott Wilson describes the high level negotiations between the President and the Republican leaders in the House that were taking place while what was visible was an eyeball to eyeball staredown. They say that at one time: “…The major elements of a bargain seemed to be falling into place: $1.2 trillion in agency cuts, smaller cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients, nearly $250 billion in Medicare savings achieved in part by raising the eligibility age. And $800 billion in new taxes.” In the end the ambitious negotiations were unsuccessful, and the final result looked like a staredown. Complicated non-zero sum games can often be reduced to staredowns, and the staredown aspect is often in the backgraound.