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Krugman: “Let’s Not Be Civil”

Evans Liberal Politics
April 18, 2011

 

Krugman: “Let’s Not Be Civil”

Krugman: “Let’s Not Be Civil”, Daily Kos, April 18, 211, by Bob Swern, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

Paul Krugman is most legitimately righteous, and his newspaper’s editorial board even more vehemently so, about the so-called budget “negotiations” between Democrats and Republicans (led by the “‘Gang of Six’ In The Senate Seeking A Plan On Debt“), in his spot-on column in Monday’s NY Times, entitled: “Let’s Not Be Civil.”

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Let’s Not Be Civil
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
April 18, 2011 Last week, President Obama offered a spirited defense of his party’s values — in effect, of the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society. Immediately thereafter, as always happens when Democrats take a stand, the civility police came out in force. The president, we were told, was being too partisan; he needs to treat his opponents with respect; he should have lunch with them, and work out a consensus.

That’s a bad idea. Equally important, it’s an undemocratic idea…

Krugman walks through the past two week’s history reminding us of the House GOPer’s budget proposal, “…selling it to credulous pundits as a statement of necessity, not ideology — a document telling America What Must Be Done.”

He speaks of the Republican’s deficit/debt fear-mongering, and their focus upon maintaining low taxes among our nation’s wealthiest.

The bottom line is: “…it revealed a deep difference in views about how the world works.”

Krugman writes about how we should remember that the G.O.P. ran on fear-mongering regarding Medicare cuts during the mid-terms; but, somehow, they’re supporting a budget which would, eventually, “dismantle Medicare completely.”

In closing, he reminds us of recently publicized polls that “…suggest that the public’s priorities are nothing like those embodied in the Republican budget. Large majorities support higher, not lower, taxes on the wealthy. Large majorities — including a majority of Republicans — also oppose major changes to Medicare.”

Which brings me to those calls for a bipartisan solution. Sorry to be cynical, but right now “bipartisan” is usually code for assembling some conservative Democrats and ultraconservative Republicans — all of them with close ties to the wealthy, and many who are wealthy themselves — and having them proclaim that low taxes on high incomes and drastic cuts in social insurance are the only possible solution.This would be a corrupt, undemocratic way to make decisions about the shape of our society even if those involved really were wise men with a deep grasp of the issues…

…So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters.

As I noted above, also in today’s edition, the Times’ editors talk of the Republicans and “…the full landscape of destruction that their policies would cause — much of which has already begun.”

The New Republican Landscape
Editorial
New York Times
April 18, 2011 Six months after voters sent Republicans in large numbers to Congress and many statehouses, it is possible to see the full landscape of destruction that their policies would cause — much of which has already begun. If it was not clear before, it is obvious now that the party is fully engaged in a project to dismantle the foundations of the New Deal and the Great Society, and to liberate business and the rich from the inconveniences of oversight and taxes.

At first it seemed that only a few freshmen and noisy followers of the Tea Party would support the new extremism. But on Friday, nearly unanimous House Republicans showed just how far their mainstream has been dragged to the right. They approved on strict party lines the most regressive social legislation in many decades, embodied in a blueprint by the budget chairman, Paul Ryan. The vote, from which only four Republicans (and all Democrats) dissented, would have been unimaginable just eight years ago to a Republican Party that added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare…

…President Obama, after staying in the shadows too long, is starting to illuminate the serious damage that Republicans are doing. Their vision, he said last week, “is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America.” Other Democrats are also beginning to stand up and reject these ideas, having been cowed for months by the electoral wave. Their newfound confidence will give voters a clearer view of this bare and pessimistic landscape.

In yet another piece, from Sunday’s edition, we learn more about the current state of budget negotiations via the: “‘Gang of Six’ in the Senate Seeking a Plan on Debt.”

We’re told of  ”progressive” Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, the second-highest ranking senator in the majority party in that august body, and how he is working closely with two other Democrats (Warner of Virginia and Conrad of North Dakota), along with three Republicans (Chamblis of Georgia, Coburn of Oklahoma and Crapo of Idaho), and they’re “nearing consensus” on a $4-trillion debt reduction plan.

For over 30 years, the status quo’s minions in Washington have been eviscerating America’s middle and lower classes. As a result, we’re witnessing the greatest income inequality between our nation’s haves and have-nots since reliable metrics were first established, well before our nation’s Great Depression, to benchmark this inconvenient truth.

We now live in a world where the “bipartisan negotiation” meme is just another reminder that, inside the Beltway, as Joseph Stiglitz just noted it, it’s a government “Of The 1%, By The 1%, For The 1%.”

“The Pirates Of Capitol Hill,” the veritable foxes, guard the henhouse.

Since when did it become acceptable policy to negotiate with terrorists?

It is time for our government, from the White House on down, to focus their campaign financing efforts towards the same place where their mouths are directed.

Otherwise, at the end of the day–and it will be the very last “day” for many on Main Streets across this country, too–it’s just more of the same if Medicare is eviscerated and other economic transgressions against our country’s poor and those getting poorer are enabled under the moniker of “bipartisan negotiation.”

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F*ck that!

Never has Krugman been so spot-on as he is in today’s NY Times!

One more time, if for nothing else than EMPHASIS…

So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters.

Take the case to the voters. They want what the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party wants. That’s what I would call the most important “consensus” of all.

And, while we’re at it, send a message to Conrad, Durbin, Warner and everyone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to drop this “bipartisan negotiation” bullshit!

What has “civility” done for our nation’s middle and lower classes over the past three decades?

This is Einstein’s definition of insanity, writ large: “Repeating the same action and expecting a different result.”

Democrats are at a crossroads. Right now. We can continue to do what we’ve done and we’ll get what we’ve got. Or, not!

“Let’s Not Be Civil!”

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Evans Liberal Politics would like to thank Bob Swern for permission to republish his work on an ongoing basis. Bob is our favorite progressive economics writer (along with Robert Reich). More than even Paul Krugman, Mr. Swern fleshes out his articles with lots of details and links, and so provides real grist for liberals and progressives to learn from. You are invited to email Bob Swern here.

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Posted on April 18, 2011 by , Reply

Fed: Household wealth plummets 23% in two years

Evans Liberal Politics
March 28, 2011

 

Fed: Household wealth plummets 23% in two years

Fed: Household wealth plummets 23% in two years, Daily Kos, March 26, 2011, by Joan McCarter, used with permission of Joan McCarter and quoted verbatim: Thank You!

This is one of the more alarming reports of the week.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The average American family’s household net worth declined 23% between 2007 and 2009, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.

a pair of black eyeglasses sit on top of a foreclosure notice in this article about a Fed report on plummeting American wealth

A rare survey of U.S. households, first performed in 2007 but repeated in 2009 in order to gauge the effects of the recession, reveals the median net worth of households fell from $125,000 in 2007 to $96,000 in 2009….

Federal Reserve officials said Thursday the new report offers a look at exactly how hard the recession hit families, and how they reacted.

The numbers paint a stark picture.

Families that owned stock saw their portfolios drop by more than a third to $12,000 from $18,500, on average. The value of primary real estate holdings decreased by an average of $18,700.

And families took on more debt, pushing median total debt levels to $75,600 from $70,300. They also made less money. Media household income dropped to $49,800 from $50,100.

High unemployment, rising food and medical costs, tanking stock portfolios and complete loss of equity make for a world of hurt for American families. Which makes the single-minded focus in DC on the deficit and austerity all the more inexplicable. And frightening for our future. Krugman:

[J]obs now, deficits later was and is the right strategy. Unfortunately, it’s a strategy that has been abandoned in the face of phantom risks and delusional hopes. On one side, we’re constantly told that if we don’t slash spending immediately we’ll end up just like Greece, unable to borrow except at exorbitant interest rates. On the other, we’re told not to worry about the impact of spending cuts on jobs because fiscal austerity will actually create jobs by raising confidence.

How’s that story working out so far?

Not so great, if the Fed and its report is to be believed. Yes, the report’s data is a year old, but while stock prices have rebounded, unemployment is still unsustainable, housing prices continue to fall, and food and medical costs continue to rise.

Posted on March 28, 2011 by , Reply

Johnson, Krugman, Nocera: Elizabeth Warren Is Getting Thrown Under The Bus

Evans Liberal Politics
March 21, 2011

 

Johnson, Krugman, Nocera: Elizabeth Warren
Is Getting Thrown Under The Bus

Johnson, Krugman, Nocera: Elizabeth Warren Is Getting Thrown Under The Bus, Daily Kos, March 20, 2011, by Bob Swern, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

MIT Professor, author and former International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Economist Simon Johnson noted, on Thursday, (See: “Who’s Afraid of Elizabeth Warren?“) that it’s certainly beginning to appear that–at least as far as the ongoing, Wall Street mortgage fraud settlement negotiations with our states’ 50 attorneys general are concerned–Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s quite perturbed with presidential advisor Elizabeth Warren and her Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for taking the lead in advocating Main Street’s position on the matter.

nice photograph of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau advocate Elizabeth Warren

But, over the weekend, in “Heroes As Villains: The Case of Elizabeth Warren,” and “An Advocate Who Scares Republicans,” even Paul Krugman and the NYT’s Joe Nocera, respectively, note that when political push comes to shove, Democrats from the administration on down, are more than ready to justify their inaction and tacitly feed Ms. Warren to the GOP wolves, as strong headwinds from the Wall Street go all out to vilify Warren.

As Johnson stated it–which should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been following Mr. Geithner’s ongoing, two-plus-year reign over all things financial in this country–after pointing out multiple comments which underscored general GOP disdain for Warren on Capitol Hill, many of Ms. Warren’s and Main Street’s economic hurdles lie on the other side of the aisle: “…Mr. Geithner at this stage is more pro-banking lobby than even Mr. Bachus.” Johnson was referring to House Financial Services Committee Chair Spencer Bachus (R-AL).

As a Democrat–even as a pragmatic Democrat–please take a few seconds to think about that.

Coming from the author of “13 Bankers,” “The Quiet Coup” and “The Two-Track Economy,” that’s really quite a statement.

To jog our memories, Johnson reminds us that Bachus is the person who recently said…

“In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.”

Johnson’s Geithner reference was with regard to a piece that appeared in the New York Post, around eight days ago, prior to Warren’s appearance before the House Financial Services Committee, earlier this past week. In that article, we learn that Secretary Geithner “isn’t happy” with Warren’s CFPB taking the lead advocacy position in the ongoing mortgage/foreclosure fraud settlement talks.

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Warren ripped again
By MARK DeCAMBRE
New York Post
Last Updated: 4:57 AM, March 11, 2011 …Geithner has privately told others that he isn’t happy with Warren’s involvement in the talks either, according to sources familiar with the matter…
…

…To be sure, one CFPB insider insisted that the agency only got involved in the mortgage negotiations after being “sought out as advisers” by state attorneys general.
“Politicizing the funding of bank supervision would be a dangerous precedent, and it would deprive the CFPB of the predictable funding it will need to examine large and powerful banks consistently and to provide a level playing field with their non-bank competitors,” Warren said in a recent speech.

To say that Geithner’s been “annoyed” by Warren, despite spin and related public statements to the contrary, from virtually the very first day he was in office, is to put the matter quite kindly. The facts are that she’s been a thorn in his side since day one, IMHO.

As I noted above, we’ve reached a point where even folks like Krugman and Nocera are making significant note of how our party’s leaders are conspicuously silent at this critical juncture:

Krugman, in his blog, yesterday (see link, above)…

…Warren has clearly faced a lot of hostility from within the administration, too. And as I see it, this also comes precisely because she was right: that gives her the kind of credibility that, in turn, makes her something of an independent force — which some people don’t like at all.Of course, that very credibility could make her an important asset to the Obama administration, for whom she could serve both as an able administrator and as a symbol of commitment to reform. But so far, the administration seems eager to avoid drawing any contrasts with the GOP, even when it has both justice and public opinion on its side.

Nocera, in Saturday’s NYT (see link, above)….

…It’s not just the House Republicans either. Already the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has reverted to form, becoming once again a captive of the banks it is supposed to regulate. (It has strenuously opposed the efforts of the A.G.’s to penalize the banks and reform the mortgage modification process, for instance.) The banks themselves act as if they have a God-given right to the profit they made precrisis, and owe the country nothing for the trouble they’ve put us all through. The Justice Department has essentially given up trying to make anyone accountable for the crisis.Thank goodness, then, for the attorneys general — and for Ms. Warren. On Main Street, where the attorneys general operate, it is pretty obvious that problems persist…
…

…Let’s face it: there isn’t anybody in Washington more fearless about standing up to the big banks. No wonder they don’t like her…
…
…Senate Republicans have vowed to block her appointment if President Obama nominates her. Yet even if her nomination goes down in flames, Senate confirmation hearings would be clarifying. Americans would get to hear Ms. Warren explain why the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has the potential to help Americans. And they would get to hear Republicans explain why the status quo — including the everyday horror of the foreclosure mess — is just fine.

It has been much noted in recent months that President Obama seems unwilling to start a fight with Republicans. Maybe that’s why he has shied away from nominating Ms. Warren to a job for which she is so clearly suited. But if protecting financial consumers — and helping the millions of Americans struggling to hold onto their homes — isn’t worth fighting for, then what is?

As some reading this might note, and as I’ve pointed it out in numerous posts — and as recently as in a diary in the past 24 hours — I think that even this woefully inadequate demand for $20 or $30 billion in mortgage modifications that the President and advisor Warren are now trying to squeeze out of Wall Street is quite pathetic, and really not much more than a charade once one realizes that the Treasury Department already has access to at least this amount in unspent, preapproved funds to accomplish this task.

It’s been widely reported, and as I’ve noted it in my own diaries of late via a recent ProPublica investigation, the government’s efforts to keep people in their homes via the HAMP program has been nothing short of a dismal failure.

From a practical standpoint, it’s now being projected by many of our country’s leading experts on residential real estate valuations, that as many as half of our nation’s mortgageholders will be underwater (owing more on their homes than they’re worth) by year’s end. Then again, much to the chagrin of those promoting our corporatocratic recovery (while Main Street languishes in pain), this situation was projected to come to fruition two years ago by experts at Barclays and Deutschebank. So, it’s not exactly new information.

The truth is that very little’s been accomplished to ameliorate Main Street homeowner suffering over the past couple of years.

As Johnson notes…

…[Geithner's] team agreed to Basel III, which requires banks to have less equity funding than Lehman had the day before it failed. There is no sign that systemically important financial institutions will be required to have a significant extra capital buffer – although this is supposedly not yet decided. And despite the undecided capital standards and large evident problems still facing banks (the foreclosure fiasco, commercial real estate woes, continuing high unemployment), the Financial Stability Oversight Council – which Mr. Geithner chairs – is about to sign off on letting banks increase their dividends.This makes no sense at all in terms of economic policy, but this is exactly what Mr. Geithner is presiding over. (If anyone you know at Treasury thinks this assessment is unfair, send them to Anat Admati’s webpage at Stanford.)

And having Elizabeth Warren on the scene – providing an alternative pro-consumer perspective – is apparently increasingly inconvenient to Mr. Geithner. For example, he has expressed displeasure at her engagement in the mortgage settlement process.

President Obama missed his best opportunity to reform the financial system when advisers – including Mr. Geithner – recommended that he defer to the top 13 bankers in March 2009. His team further punted when they failed to push for real change in spring and summer 2010, when the financial legislation was before the Senate. Mr. Geithner and his people were instrumental in defeating the Brown-Kaufman Amendment, which would have limited the size and the leverage (debt relative to equity) of the largest banks in the United States.

Will Mr. Geithner go for the trifecta? He was instrumental in bailing out the big banks without any strings. He held back serious attempts at legislative reform. Will he now prevent Elizabeth Warren, our potentially most effective modern regulator, from even coming up for a vote in the Senate?

When Geithner leaves the Treasury Department, he will return to the vampire squid’s lair from whence he came, upgrading his former, $500,000+ per-year gig as President of the NY Federal Reserve for a $10- or $20-million-a-year chairmanship with one of the too-big-to-fail firms that he’s done more to enrich over the past few years than any other U.S. citizen, save for–perhaps–Ben Bernanke. But, that’s certainly an arguable point, if ever there was one.

What’s inarguable here, however–White House apologists aside–is that, once again, when it comes down to a critical choice between Wall Street and Main Street, we’re dealing with a political party — OUR party — whose leadership is almost as much in thrall to Wall Street as the G.O.P.

Perhaps nowhere is that more self-evident than with regard to what’s happened to Elizabeth Warren over the past few days.

This country’s leading advocate for Main Street is being fed to the wolves, as our party’s leaders standby and, at the very least, witness this mugging in broad daylight.

IMHO, it’s the political version of the Kitty Genovese story, writ large.

In the words of Joe Nocera this weekend: “…if protecting financial consumers — and helping the millions of Americans struggling to hold onto their homes — isn’t worth fighting for, then what is?”

IMHO, Elizabeth Warren is being thrown under the bus…by both parties…and, it is unacceptable.

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Posted on March 21, 2011 by , Reply

Paul Krugman: The Forgotten Millions

Evans Liberal Politics
March 18, 2011

 

Paul Krugman: The Forgotten Millions

The Forgotten Millions, © The New York Times on Common Dreams.org, March 18, 2011, by Paul Krugman, quoted verbatim:

More than three years after we entered the worst economic slump since the 1930s, a strange and disturbing thing has happened to our political discourse: Washington has lost interest in the unemployed.

Jobs do get mentioned now and then — and a few political figures, notably Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House, are still trying to get some kind of action. But no jobs bills have been introduced in Congress, no job-creation plans have been advanced by the White House and all the policy focus seems to be on spending cuts.

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So one-sixth of America’s workers — all those who can’t find any job or are stuck with part-time work when they want a full-time job — have, in effect, been abandoned.

It might not be so bad if the jobless could expect to find new employment fairly soon. But unemployment has become a trap, one that’s very difficult to escape. There are almost five times as many unemployed workers as there are job openings; the average unemployed worker has been jobless for 37 weeks, a post-World War II record.

In short, we’re well on the way to creating a permanent underclass of the jobless. Why doesn’t Washington care?

Part of the answer may be that while those who are unemployed tend to stay unemployed, those who still have jobs are feeling more secure than they did a couple of years ago. Layoffs and discharges spiked during the crisis of 2008-2009 but have fallen sharply since then, perhaps reducing the sense of urgency. Put it this way: At this point, the U.S. economy is suffering from low hiring, not high firing, so things don’t look so bad — as long as you’re willing to write off the unemployed.

Yet polls indicate that voters still care much more about jobs than they do about the budget deficit. So it’s quite remarkable that inside the Beltway, it’s just the opposite.

What makes this even more remarkable is the fact that the economic arguments used to justify the D.C. deficit obsession have been repeatedly refuted by experience.

On one side, we’ve been warned, over and over again, that “bond vigilantes” will turn on the U.S. government unless we slash spending immediately. Yet interest rates remain low by historical standards; indeed, they’re lower now than they were in the spring of 2009, when those dire warnings began.

On the other side, we’ve been assured that spending cuts would do wonders for business confidence. But that hasn’t happened in any of the countries currently pursuing harsh austerity programs. Notably, when the Cameron government in Britain announced austerity measures last May, it received fawning praise from U.S. deficit hawks. But British business confidence plunged, and it has not recovered.

Yet the obsession with spending cuts flourishes all the same — unchallenged, it must be said, by the White House.

I still don’t know why the Obama administration was so quick to accept defeat in the war of ideas, but the fact is that it surrendered very early in the game. In early 2009, John Boehner, now the speaker of the House, was widely and rightly mocked for declaring that since families were suffering, the government should tighten its own belt. That’s Herbert Hoover economics, and it’s as wrong now as it was in the 1930s. But, in the 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama adopted exactly the same metaphor and began using it incessantly.

And earlier this week, the White House budget director declared: “There is an agreement that we should be reducing spending,” suggesting that his only quarrel with Republicans is over whether we should be cutting taxes, too. No wonder, then, that according to a new Pew Research Center poll, a majority of Americans see “not much difference” between Mr. Obama’s approach to the deficit and that of Republicans.

So who pays the price for this unfortunate bipartisanship? The increasingly hopeless unemployed, of course. And the worst hit will be young workers — a point made in 2009 by Peter Orszag, then the White House budget director. As he noted, young Americans who graduated during the severe recession of the early 1980s suffered permanent damage to their earnings. And if the average duration of unemployment is any indication, it’s even harder for new graduates to find decent jobs now than it was in 1982 or 1983.

So the next time you hear some Republican declaring that he’s concerned about deficits because he cares about his children — or, for that matter, the next time you hear Mr. Obama talk about winning the future — you should remember that the clear and present danger to the prospects of young Americans isn’t the deficit. It’s the absence of jobs.

But, as I said, these days Washington doesn’t seem to care about any of that. And you have to wonder what it will take to get politicians caring again about America’s forgotten millions.

© 2011 The New York Times

Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman is professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a regular columnist for The New York Times. Krugman was the 2008 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics. He is the author of numerous books, including The Conscience of A Liberal, and his most recent, The Return of Depression Economics.

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Posted on March 18, 2011 by , Reply

Krugman: Is Tucson “A Turning Point” or “Just The Beginning?”

Evans Liberal Politics
January 10, 2011

 

Krugman: Is Tucson “A Turning Point”
or “Just The Beginning?”

Krugman: Is Tucson “A Turning Point” or “Just The Beginning?”, Daily Kos, January 9, 2011, by Bob Swern, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

Paul Krugman opens up his column, “Climate of Hate,” in Monday’s New York Times, asking his readers if they were surprised by the events in Arizona this past Saturday, or if they were, like him, “…expecting something like this atrocity to happen?”

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He then posits that it’s disingenuous for anyone to think that this act has nothing to do with “the national climate.”

His main theme in Monday’s NYT op-ed: “…it’s the saturation of our political discourse — and especially our airwaves — with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence.”The editors of the NY Times, in their lead editorial in Monday’s edition, generally agree with Krugman’s assessment, as well: “Bloodshed and Invective in Arizona.”

Bloodshed and Invective in Arizona
Editorial
New York Times
January 10, 2011…It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman’s act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge. Many on the right have exploited the arguments of division, reaping political power by demonizing immigrants, or welfare recipients, or bureaucrats. They seem to have persuaded many Americans that the government is not just misguided, but the enemy of the people…

Krugman…

Climate of Hate
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
January 10, 2011….Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.

Krugman continues on to note that people like Beck and O’Reilly are “…responding to popular demand.” A few sentences later, he admonishes: “…that doesn’t excuse those who pander to that desire. They should be shunned by all decent people.”

He then comments how these “…purveyors of hate have been treated with respect, even deference, by the G.O.P. establishment.”

He concludes…

So will the Arizona massacre make our discourse less toxic? It’s really up to G.O.P. leaders. Will they accept the reality of what’s happening to America, and take a stand against eliminationist rhetoric? Or will they try to dismiss the massacre as the mere act of a deranged individual, and go on as before?If Arizona promotes some real soul-searching, it could prove a turning point. If it doesn’t, Saturday’s atrocity will be just the beginning.

The editors of the NY Times on Jared Loughner…

…[he] appears to be mentally ill. His paranoid Internet ravings about government mind control place him well beyond usual ideological categories. But he is very much a part of a widespread squall of fear, anger and intolerance that has produced violent threats against scores of politicians and infected the political mainstream with violent imagery. With easy and legal access to semiautomatic weapons like the one used in the parking lot, those already teetering on the edge of sanity can turn a threat into a nightmare…

And, on our country’s newest ground zero….

…Anti-immigrant sentiment in the state, firmly opposed by Ms. Giffords, has reached the point where Latino studies programs that advocate ethnic solidarity have actually been made illegal.Its gun laws are among the most lenient, allowing even a disturbed man like Mr. Loughner to buy a pistol and carry it concealed without a special permit. That was before the Tucson rampage. Now, having seen first hand the horror of political violence, Arizona should lead the nation in quieting the voices of intolerance, demanding an end to the temptations of bloodshed, and imposing sensible controls on its instruments.

Amen to that!

Must Read: Bone-chilling prescience from Matt Taibbi, Daily Kos, January 9, 2010, by thereisnospoon.

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Posted on January 10, 2011 by , 5 comments

The Smell of Christmas: Fresh Nuts Roasting On The Open Fire

Evans Liberal Politics
December 25, 2010
Merry Christmas!

 

The Smell of Christmas:
Fresh Nuts Roasting On The Open Fire

The Smell of Christmas: Fresh Nuts Roasting On The Open Fire, Daily Kos, December 24, 2010, by Bob Swern, photo of Santa courtesy of Wikipedia and NORAD, article used with permission, quoted verbatim: Merry Christmas to Everyone!!!

Paul Krugman, who’s been on quite the Orwellian rant over the past couple of weeks, had a little post on his blog Wednesday, entitled: “Arsonists Prosecuting Firefighters.” In it, he gives us this gem from George, himself…

…Gary Younge reminds us of another great Orwell essay, In Front of Your Nose:

The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

Yep.

NORAD has apparently scrambled a jet escort for Santa Claus of two jet fighters as he makes his way south from the North Pole

Speaking of “in front of your nose,” I don’t quote much from Brett Arends, but checkout his latest from MarketWatch, from earlier this week: “The great bank heist of 2010.”

The great bank heist of 2010
Commentary: Wall Street wins, Main Street pays--again
By Brett Arends, MarketWatch
December 21, 2010 12:01AM

This was the year America finally took on the power and greed of the Wall Street banks.

And the banks won.

They dodged the bullet of real reform, probably for all time. They bounced back to post huge profits, helped by legal theft from the middle class. They completed their takeover of both political parties -- and bought themselves a new Congress even more pliable than the old one.

Middle-class America is flattened, devastated and broke. The bankers that caused it all have escaped punishment. They're raking in huge profits. Oh, and the tax cuts just got extended for high earners, too!

Game over...

--SNIP--

Think of the lavish campaign checks. The lucrative hedge fund "adviser" jobs. The pervasive influence of pinstriped "progressives" like Larry Summers and Bob Rubin.

This was the year the investment paid off. Big time.

--SNIP--

...It was the greatest heist in history. The bankers pulled it off under everyone’s nose.

Bold type is diarist’s emphasis.

And, here’s more from Krugman on that smell in front of everyone’s nose….

ON THE DEFICIT BULLSHIT…

…The hypocrisy of the centrists: Just two weeks ago, the deficit was the great evil, and all the VSPs insisted that we needed fiscal austerity now now now. Then, magically, a big tax cut — increasing federal debt by more than the original Obama stimulus, and substantially raising the probability of making unaffordable tax cuts permanent — was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Why, it’s almost as if all the concern about the deficit was a front for opposing anything progressives might want, to be dropped as soon as debt was being run up on behalf of conservative goals. But that can’t be true, can it?

ON THE GOPer’s “BIG GOVERNMENT” BULLSHIT…

(From his column in today’s NY Times: “The Humbug Express.”)

…If you listen to the recent speeches of Republican presidential hopefuls, you’ll find several of them talking at length about the harm done by unionized government workers, who have, they say, multiplied under the Obama administration…

–SNIP–

….Horrors! Except that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, government employment has fallen, not risen, since January 2008. And since January 2009, when Mr. Obama actually did take office, government employment has fallen by more than 300,000 as hard-pressed state and local governments have been forced to lay off teachers, police officers, firefighters and other workers.

So how did the notion of a surge in government payrolls under Mr. Obama take hold?

–SNIP–

…anyone paying attention knew why public employment had risen — and it had nothing to do with Big Government. It was, instead, the fact that the federal government had to hire a lot of temporary workers to carry out the 2010 Census — workers who have almost all left the payroll now that the Census is done.

Is it really possible that the authors of those articles and speeches about soaring public employment didn’t know what was going on? Well, I guess we should never assume malice when ignorance remains a possibility.

There has not, however, been any visible effort to retract those erroneous claims. And this isn’t the only case of a claimed huge expansion in government that turns out to be nothing of the kind…

ON THE ANTI-KEYNESIAN BULLSHIT…

…”We’re living in a dark age of macroeconomics,” Krugman said during his lecture, before an audience of several hundred students (and several of his former MIT colleagues) in the Stata Center. “Economists themselves are confused,” he added. “It’s been really amazing within the economics profession to see how much has been lost.”

What has been lost above all, Krugman argued, is an appreciation of ideas developed in the 1930s — most notably the economist John Maynard Keynes’s broad view that in certain circumstances government spending is the best tool to instigate an economic recovery. At a time when interest rates are minimal and can hardly be lowered to spur private investment, Krugman argued, Keynesian thought is especially vital, despite some loud arguments to the contrary.

–SNIP–

“We are caught in a situation more than a little reminiscent of the mid-1930s,” Krugman emphasized. “How can we be replaying the past so badly?” he added. “That is the question that has worried me a lot.”

–SNIP–

….The problem, in his view, is that “political people tend to always look part-way. If you say you need to do this big [bill], they’ll say, `All right, let’s do part of it.’ … That’s very difficult to do in a situation where half a loaf may be not much better than nothing. And that is the situation we face with this crisis. If you do a half-hearted policy, even if economists think you should do more, the conclusion will be, `Well that policy failed.’”

As Krugman sees it, then, the government did too little to fight the recession, and now it’s too late to reverse course…

Yes, you can just smell the holiday season in the air (among other things)!

GROWTH/GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT: “Why The Upward Revision in Third Quarter GDP Growth is Not Good News.”

Why The Upward Revision in Third Quarter GDP Growth is Not Good News
By Mark Thoma
Professor of Economics
University of Oregon
Maximum Utility Blog
December 22, 2010

The growth rate for GDP for the third quarter was revised upward from 2.5 percent to 2.6 percent, but a closer look at the numbers reveals it’s actually not such good news. Dean Baker explains why:

Inventories and the Wonders of GDP Accounting, by Dean Baker: The news stories are coming out on the Commerce Department’s release of revised data on 3rd quarter GDP and it seems that almost everyone has missed the story. The headlines of the articles are telling us that GDP growth was revised up slightly from 2.5 percent to 2.6 percent. While that may sound like at least somewhat positive news a more careful review of the data shows the opposite.

While the rate of GDP growth was revised up, the rate of final demand growth was revised down. Final demand, which is GDP excluding inventory accumulations, grew at just a 0.9 percent annual rate in the 3rd quarter, the same as its growth rate in the second quarter. The reason that GDP growth was revised upward was a more rapid reported growth in inventories.

The reported rate of inventory accumulation in the 3rd quarter was $121.4 billion (in 2005 dollars), the fastest pace ever. This added more than 1.6 percentage points to the rate of GDP growth in the quarter.

It is very unlikely that this pace of inventory growth will be sustained…, because the upward revision to GDP growth was based on more rapid accumulation of inventories it should not be viewed as a positive for the economy’s growth prospects.

A graph may help. This is a graph of business inventories from the Cleveland Fed: Business Inventories October 2010

WHEN IS A FULL-TIME JOB NOT? Stockman: “Jobs outlook worse than people think”

Stockman: “Jobs outlook worse than people think”
by gjohnsit
Daily Kos
Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 04:01:29 PM EST

We’ve heard a lot about how the economy has created one million jobs since the end of the recession in 2009, but until recently we haven’t heard anyone break down what those jobs are like. That changed last week when David Stockman appeared on CNBC.

“The jobs that they count every month and people get excited about are really part-time jobs,” he said.

THE LINK BETWEEN MORTGAGES AND SMALL BUSINESS: “The Effect of Falling Home Prices on Small Business Borrowing.”

The Effect of Falling Home Prices on Small Business Borrowing
Mark Thoma
Professor of Economics
University of Oregon
Economist’s View Blog
Tuesday, December 21, 2010

I didn’t realize how much small businesses depend upon home equity to finance their business operations:

The Effect of Falling Home Prices on Small Business Borrowing, by Mark E. Schweitzer and Scott A. Shane, Economic Commentary, FRB Cleveland: Small businesses continue to report problems obtaining the financing they need. Because small business owners may rely heavily on the value of their homes to finance their businesses (through mortgages or home equity lines), the fall in housing prices might be one of the causes of their difficulty. We analyze information from a variety of sources and find that homes do constitute an important source of capital for small business owners and that the impact of the recent decline in housing prices is significant enough to be a real constraint on small business finances.

A persistent issue throughout the recovery has been the reported inability of small businesses to get the financing that they need. To better understand the sources of any shortfall, the Federal Reserve System undertook a project in 2010 to meet with representatives from banks and small businesses.1 In some of the focus groups…, participating small business owners explained that the reduced value of their homes has made it difficult for them to provide the necessary collateral for small business loans. Other participants said that the reduced value of homes has made home equity borrowing as a source of business capital more difficult to come by, also contributing to the difficulty many small businesses face in obtaining sufficient capital to finance their operations. While the small business owners’ message of a link between home values and small business borrowing came through loud and clear in the focus groups, the process did not provide estimates on the magnitude of the effect of declining home values on small businesses’ access to capital…

WALL STREET FRAUD: “Deutsche Bank Agrees to Pay $553.6 Million to Settle U.S. Tax Shelter Case.”

Deutsche Bank Agrees to Pay $553.6 Million to Settle U.S. Tax Shelter Case
By David Glovin, David Voreacos and Bob Van Voris – Wed Dec 22 00:01:01 GMT 2010

Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) — Deutsche Bank AG, Germany’s largest bank, admitted criminal wrongdoing and agreed to pay $553.6 million to avoid prosecution in the U.S. over fraudulent tax shelters that generated $29 billion in “bogus” tax losses.

The U.S. Justice Department, under an agreement yesterday, won’t prosecute the Frankfurt-based bank for fraud or tax evasion for enabling wealthy U.S. citizens to avoid $5.9 billion in taxes, after the bank admitted criminal wrongdoing.

The settlement includes a $149 million civil penalty, the fees that Deutsche Bank generated from the shelters, and the taxes and penalties the Internal Revenue Service was unable to collect from taxpayers because of the misconduct, according to the agreement.

From 1996 to 2002, “Deutsche Bank assisted high net worth United States citizens, who, through 2005, reported approximately $29.3 billion in bogus tax benefits on their tax returns,” according to the agreement. “DB acknowledges that it was wrong and unlawful to have engaged in these transactions and regrets having done so…”

Bold type is diarist’s emphasis.

And, then there’s this, just up on Naked Capitalism over the past couple of hours: “Fraud Ruling Against Wells Fargo in Minnesota Points to Widespread Abuses in Securities Lending Program.”

Fraud Ruling Against Wells Fargo in Minnesota Points to Widespread Abuses in Securities Lending Program
Yves Smith
Naked Capitalism
Friday, December 24, 2010 12:44AM

A fraud and breach of fiduciary duty ruling against Wells Fargo in a major scandal in Minnesota may have much broader ramifications for this sanctimonious bank.

The facts are not pretty. Wells Fargo, in its investment management operation, used securities lending to boost returns. But the returns it increased appeared to be only those of the bank. Institutional investors in various programs lost money as a result of this activity. Four Minnesota plaintiffs, including two of the state’s high profile charities, sued. A jury had already awarded the plaintiffs $29.9 million for fraud. A post trial ruling by the judge has added costs, interest, and reimbursement of fees that looks set to more than $15 million to the total.

District Judge M. Michael Monahan concurred with the jury’s main findings:

Wells Fargo breached its duty of full disclosure by not adequately disclosing that it was changing the risk profile of the securities lending program, that it breached its duty of impartiality by favoring certain participants over other participants, and that it breached its duty of loyalty by advancing the interest of the borrowing brokers to the detriment of one or more of the plaintiffs.

What makes this ruling interesting is that although it set aside a minor part of the jury award, a $1.6 million issue, to be subject to a new trial, is that it was punitive as a result of the judge’s determination that the fraud was systematic. It is unusual to award the payment of the plaintiff’s attorney’s fees, or to order disgorgement of fees paid for services (the other component of the additional $15 million plus is interest on the $29.9 million). The basis for awarding attorneys’ fees? The bank is such a menace to society that having counsel root it out is a public service…

Which brings me to the last portion of my post, tonight: “What Were They Smoking? The 10 Dumbest Stories of 2010.”

(Please note below, per New Deal 2.0, the number one dumbest story of the year…a story near and dear to me, and a topic upon which I’ve written numerous diaries.)

What Were They Smoking? The 10 Dumbest Stories of 2010
Thursday, 12/23/2010 – 9:04 am by Tim Price, New Deal 2.0

It’s been an unpredictable year, and if our pundits and policymakers could do it all over again, there are some moments they’d probably love to take back. Unfortunately for them, the Internet never forgets, and the ND20 team has decided to look back over 2010 by counting down the dumbest headlines, decisions, and predictions. There was a lot of dumb to cover, so if you think we missed something, be sure to let us know.

10. One and done: To be a great president, Obama should not seek reelection in 2012 (WaPo)
…
9. Heritage Foundation and the “Luck” of the Irish (OurFuture.org)
…
8. The Health Care Bill is Dead (Weekly Standard)
…
7. Off-Message Watch: “I Don’t Know That for Sure” (Economist’s View)

Austan Goolsbee brought a lot of good will with him to the Council of Economic Advisers, but when he turned out to be agnostic about the benefits of a bigger stimulus package, it made us wonder if he was off-message or if the entire administration was.

…
6. Robert Rubin: `Virtually Nobody’ Saw Crisis Coming, Bush Deserves Much Of The Blame (HuffPo)
…
5. The war recovery? (WaPo)
…
4. Christine O’Donnell TV Ad: “I’m Not a Witch… I’m You” (CBS)
…
3. President Obama: Drill, Baby, Drill (ABC)
…
2. The Politics of Foreclosure (WSJ)
When the foreclosure scandal broke, the Wall Street Journal argued that liberals were making too big a fuss about “the pain that results when the anonymous paper pusher who kicks you out of your home is not the anonymous paper pusher who is supposed to kick you out of your home.” The editorial stated that the good folks at the Journal were “not aware of a single case so far of a substantive error.”

And…drumroll please…without a doubt, THE dumbest story of not just 2010 (per New Deal 2.0), IMHO, but of 2009 and 2008, too.

1. Welcome to the Recovery (NY Times)
Tim Geithner probably didn’t mean for the title of his now-infamous op-ed to sound sarcastic, but as Wall Street’s profits soared and the middle class continued to sink, it was hard for anyone to take it seriously…

# # #

So, what lies ahead, in 2011? Just look at a few of the lies left behind (up above)…

“Stiglitz: What Lies Ahead in 2011?” h/t Mark Thoma

Stiglitz: What Lies Ahead in 2011?
ProjectSyndicate.org
Monday, December 13, 2010

…The problem is politics: in the US, the Republican Party would rather see President Barack Obama fail than the economy succeed…

In both Europe and America, the free-market ideology that allowed asset bubbles to grow unfettered – markets always know best, so government must not intervene – now ties policymakers’ hands in designing effective responses to the crisis. One might have thought that the crisis itself would undermine confidence in that ideology. Instead, it has resurfaced to drag governments and economies down the sinkhole of austerity.

If politics is the problem in Europe and America, only political changes are likely to restore them to growth. Or else they can wait until the overhang of excess capacity diminishes, capital goods become obsolete, and the economy’s internal restorative forces work their gradual magic. Either way, victory is not around the corner…

# # #

Yes, our fresh nuts are being roasted on the open fire…and Jack Frost’s nipping at our door.

Merry Christmas…to you!

Posted on December 25, 2010 by , 6 comments

Krugman, Morgenson Nail Wall Street Jobless Lies, Mortgage Fraud

a blocky golden dollar sign highlights this article on Wall Street greed, jobless lies and mortgage frauda blocky golden dollar sign highlights this article on Wall Street greed, jobless lies and mortgage fraud

Evans Liberal Politics
September 27, 2010

 

 

Krugman, Morgenson Nail Wall Street
Jobless Lies, Mortgage Fraud


Krugman, Morgenson Nail Wall St. Jobless Lies, Mortgage Fraud, Daily Kos, September 26, 2010, by Bob Swern, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

IMHO, there are two must-read pieces in Monday’s New York Times concerning unemployment and the Great Recession, Wall Street mortgage fraud, and our economy, in general.The first article of note is the paper’s Monday business lede, by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gretchen Morgenson, “Raters Ignored Proof of Unsafe Loans, Panel Is Told,”  which publicizes testimony that occurred last week before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, wherein we learn of the truly astonishing extent of rampant, institutionalized, mortgage-investment-related fraud which was pervasive throughout Wall Street in the run-up to our economy’s crash and burn in September 2008.

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The second piece is an op-ed by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, entitled, “Structure of Excuses,” which continues a theme upon which I’ve posted multiple diaries of late: the concept of “structural unemployment” as the cause of our society’s extended joblessness problem is little more than a grossly-misleading myth perpetuated by our status quo via the MSM.

#            #            #

MORGENSON: “Raters Ignored Proof of Unsafe Loans, Panel Is Told“


In what might very well become a historical milestone concerning coverage of the events that ultimately led up to the 2008 implosion of Wall Street, NY Times Pultizer Prize-winning business journalist Gretchen Morgenson, on the front page of Monday’s NY Times’ business section, reports on testimony and events over the past week at the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission,  in “Raters Ignored Proof of Unsafe Loans, Panel Is Told.”

Quite clearly, based upon Ms. Morgenson’s report, it’s now obvious that the FCIC has been provided with an arsenal of smoking guns which collectively scream that–the credit ratings agencies were clearly complicit and directly enabling Wall Street’s misrepresentations to the investing public of the quality of their mortgage-backed securities throughout much of 2006, 2007 and 2008, but–virtually every major Wall Street firm was aware of the fraud they were committing at the time, as well.

The article tells us of last week’s testimony of D. Keith Johnson before the FCIC…

…D. Keith Johnson, a former president of Clayton Holdings, a company that analyzed mortgage pools for the Wall Street firms that sold them, told the commission on Thursday that almost half the mortgages Clayton sampled from the beginning of 2006 through June 2007 failed to meet crucial quality benchmarks that banks had promised to investors.

However, as Morgenson states it, “…until Mr. Johnson’s testimony last week, it was largely unknown that the ratings agencies had been told that vast numbers of loans were being packaged as securities even though they failed to meet underwriting standards.”

Of critical importance here, however, as far as this latest FCIC testimony is concerned, is the now-formally-recognized reality — a truth which has been widely known among Wall Street insiders all along, by the way — that while the Wall Street spin on all of this fraud for the past couple of years has been to blame the credit ratings agencies for Wall Street’s fraudulent transgressions,  the reality is that these same Wall Street firms were also contracting out due diligence services on these very same mortgage portfolios, directly, with the same firms that were providing similar services to the ratings agencies.

Essentially, as we’re now hearing it in Morgenson’s report regarding recent FCIC testimony, these Wall Street firms were fully aware of their misrepresentations to the investment community and to the public. And, as Morgenson also tells us, the Wall Street purveyors of these fraudulent mortgage-backed investment vehicles merely used these due diligence reports on their portfolios to negotiate better pricing with the mortgage firms that were bundling them!

As the article notes, in some instances, almost half of all of the mortgage loans initially bundled in certain mortgage-backed securitization (MBS) deals did not meet underwriting standards.

(Diarist’s Note: IMHO, the NYT article headline is somewhat misleading; perhaps perpetuating the Wall Street meme that attempts to pass along full blame for rampant mortgage fraud to the credit ratings agencies. Obviously, Morgenson’s article points out that my comment regarding Wall Street’s missteps rings true.)

Raters Ignored Proof of Unsafe Loans, Panel Is Told

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
New York Times
September 27, 2010…The results of the Clayton analyses were not disclosed to investors buying the loan pools. Instead, Wall Street firms used the information to pressure the lenders issuing the most troubled loans to accept a lower price for them, according to prosecutors who have investigated these cases.

A more proper procedure, analysts said, would have been for lenders like these — New Century Financial and Fremont Investment and Loan among them — to buy back the problem loans and replace them with higher-quality mortgages. But because these companies did not have enough capital to do that, they were happy to sell the troubled mortgages cheaply to the brokerage firms.

Since Wall Street firms were paying lower prices for the troubled loans, they could have passed along those discounts to customers, reducing investor risk. But Wall Street charged investors the same high prices associated with better-quality loans, thereby increasing their own profits on the problematic securities, according to a law enforcement official and executives with Wall Street companies. To be sure, the prospectuses detailing the types of loans in these pools contained brief warnings that some of the mortgages might not meet stated underwriting standards. But few investors probably realized that huge portions of the pools had failed to meet the benchmarks…

Bold type is diarist’s emphasis.

textbookx.com (Akademos, Inc.)

KRUGMAN: “Structure of Excuses“


First, in referencing two of my posts over the past week, here are the first couple of paragraphs from my diary from Sunday (yesterday) morning: “‘Structural Unemployment’ & ‘Deleveraging,’ My Ass!”

“Structural Unemployment” & “Deleveraging,” My Ass!

by bobswern
Daily Kos
Sun Sep 26, 2010 at 07:37:06 AM EDTOver the past couple of years, many have been sucked-in by a lot of bullsh*t economic pseudo-analysis from GOPers and misdirected Dems parroting totally false, Wall Street-centric memes and baseless “conventional wisdom” about our Great Recession.  Gradually, the obfuscated truths are finally coming to the fore.

This morning, Yves Smith picks up where respected economist and NetRoots Nation guest Mike Konczal left off a week ago, explaining that the widely-accepted, Orwellian theme of “structural unemployment“ is completely bogus.

(Konczal irrefutably demonstrates, via his just-released study, that the statistical facts tell us that the jobless downturn–which is significantly and adversely affecting all business sectors, not just construction–was a direct byproduct of Wall Street’s stripmining of Main Street’s mortgage marketplace, and is/was due to a general lack of demand that is still extremely pervasive throughout our society. However, there is no “skills mismatch” in the marketplace [i.e.: the basic concept behind the structural unemployment meme]; and that’s just another Wall Street excuse for offshoring jobs and/or cutting pay/hours on Main Street among those who’ve been able to hold onto their jobs until now.)

For more detail on the bogus structural unemployment meme, here are links to other diaries I’ve posted on the subject in the past few days: “‘Proofiness’ and ‘Disestimation’,” (9/25/10), and “Konczal Study: Lack of Demand, Not Skills, Is Jobless Problem,” (9/20/10).

Now, onto the maestro’s take on Wall Street’s propaganda concerning joblessness amongst us little folk…

Structure of Excuses

By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
September 27, 2010What can be done about mass unemployment? All the wise heads agree: there are no quick or easy answers. There is work to be done, but workers aren’t ready to do it — they’re in the wrong places, or they have the wrong skills. Our problems are “structural,” and will take many years to solve.

But don’t bother asking for evidence that justifies this bleak view. There isn’t any. On the contrary, all the facts suggest that high unemployment in America is the result of inadequate demand — full stop. Saying that there are no easy answers sounds wise, but it’s actually foolish: our unemployment crisis could be cured very quickly if we had the intellectual clarity and political will to act.

In other words, structural unemployment is a fake problem, which mainly serves as an excuse for not pursuing real solutions…

In Sunday’s diary, I went into fairly extensive detail on one of those quite “real” solutions towards the end of my post: a small ($1 billion program) but extremely successful jobs program praised by Dems and GOP’ers, alike…one which is about to come to a grinding halt due to a lack of desire on Capitol Hill to extend funding for it. Here’s Bob Herbert’s NY Times column from July 3rd on this very initiative, “A Jobs Program That Works.”

Gradually, with hindsight being 20/20, we are learning more with each passing day concerning the details as to how 30 years of greed and unbridled capitalism-gone-wild  have brought us to where we are now. The solutions to our economy’s problems ARE out there. But, given Republican obstructionism, one may only wonder whether or not the collective will is there (in our government, and within our population as a whole) to solve them.

Evans Liberal Politics would like to thank Bob Swern for permission to republish his work on an ongoing basis. Bob is our favorite progressive economics writer. More than even Paul Krugman, Mr. Swern fleshes out his articles with lots of details and links, and so provides real grist for liberals and progressives to learn from. You are invited to email Bob Swern here.

Watch or download a devastating and scathing PowerPoint presentation on the Banking Industry and Subprime Mortgages: WARNING – contains obscenity, not for those under 18! (Download the FREE PowerPoint viewer direct from Microsoft if needed. — 60.3 MB)

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Posted on September 27, 2010 by , 6 comments
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