The Week In The News: Markets Tumble, A Debt Deal, FAA Deadlock

Eric Penman

After the second drop the real fun begins, no more bailouts for the
rich, no fed printing money, no new jobs programs, nothing in fact
just the sense of falling and watching your money and future go down
the drain. If after the safety net is cut to shreds and people start
passively dying on the streets for lack of food or shelter, I proclaim
the Millennium has now arrived. Sadly people often do not respond
to financial idiocy so peacefully often they lose it and say and do
stupid things. “Let them eat cake”, said Maria Antoinette as she had
no idea what starvation was like and that cake was not what was
needed not dessert but real food, like a full dinner or pork and beans.�
Our rich think their media control mechanisms will protect them, but
people don’t want more media they want jobs a similar confusion in
a strange paradoxical way.
Just before they cut her pretty head off maybe Maria understood
something profound about poverty but we will never know then or now.
The elites never understand until its too late for them or us, let
the games begin again. There is no human progress Nietzsche
had that bit right.

Anonymous

Nice tale about Marie Antoinette. However there is no evidence that she ever said that. She was 38 when she was executed. She was Austrian and that did help her in the eyes of the French population.
Austria was then an enemy of France. While you are correct in how the aristocracy ignored the plight of the people of France, this was just as common in all other nations of Europe.

Still I guess I should dust off my pike and sharpen it for the coming revolution. Or maybe I should find refuge in a more stable and civilized country.
- twenty-niner
  
  Or maybe I should find refuge in a more stable and civilized country.
  
  Perhaps Spain.
Anonymous

The “cake” referenced was not dessert cake like we know, but the burnt material in the oven that built up over time that was periodically scraped up and fed to pigs. Not quite as appetizing as a devils food cake huh?
The French Artistocracy was oblivious and uninterested to how regular folks survived and actively suppressed individual rights to the populus (sound familiar?)
Anonymous

@1ce948dab9d9f2f519f91fbc13a29a06:disqus This is like the Fox News woman who talked about health insurance including contraception for women without co-pays as being unnecessary since they could buy contraception instead of the $5 lattes, etc.

Well, I have news for that twit: there are a LOT of people who CANNOT AFFORD lattes, etc., particularly when they are out of work.

Michiganjf

“No new taxes! No new taxes!”

“It’s not a revenue problem, it’s a spending problem!”

This country ain’t seen nothing yet when it comes to suffering municipalities!

While Republicans assure that joblessness isn’t addressed, or even worse, while they ensure more job losses by targeting the trivial percentage of the budget represented by extremely important discretionary spending devised over decades of careful legislation… in this meanwhile, more Americans than ever are homeless, destitute, hungry, unemployed, and ever more desperate.

Will all the hungry and destitute just give up and die?

Well, some certainly will, but most will of course do whatever it takes to survive, and that means higher and higher crime rates.

Yet, an extremely small minority in our country is thwarting the will of the majority regarding increased government revenues, undermining education, housing/food/energy assistance for the poor and elderly, anti-crime/anti-gang programs, youth counseling and rehabilitation programs, police funding initiatives, public transporation subsidies, worker training programs, etc., etc…..

The results of countless studies over the last half century are being ignored, as are decades of carefully developed and refined legislation, all of which helped to create a degree of balance, fairness, and opportunity in our society… something of which we are in desperate need now more than ever.

The new Republican extreme, however, can’t seem to add two and two, proving themselves completely ignorant of the ways in which balance benefits all, and just how expensive neglect will ultimately be to America.

Add to the formula decreased investment in infrastructure spending, deeply exacerbating the lack of opportunity, further eroding the tax base, and making our country less and less attractive to foreign investment…

The bottom line:

we’re going to need those policemen, firemen, and civil servants more than ever as crime and desperation rises, and by the time Americans realize just how bad the “Right” screwed up our country, decades of carefully devised solutions will have been deinstitutionalized and it will take decades again to rediscover, re-legislate, and fix our country anew.

Michiganjf

… and the stock market’s drop is DIRECTLY related to the braindead, ill-conceived deficit reduction package that TPers forced on Americans!

…amazing how linear and narrow-minded the view of media commentators and Republicans that they would blame yesterday’s stock market dip on European woes… it’s all directly connected, folks! How about a little inter-disciplinary and broad-based reasoning for a change, as opposed to one-liners and soundbytes?

Did anyone really think the markets wouldn’t react to the debt/deficit fiasco now that TPers have made their stupidity page one material and institutionalized their ignorance in the U.S. Congress?

Here’s a little story about what business thinks of the TPers and the “new” Republican party… and these are Republican CEOs we’re
talking about:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-01/-embarrassed-ceos-silent-on-debt-debate-driven-by-republicans.html?cmpid=msnmoney
- Michiganjf
  
  … and here’s what Americans think of Congress after the TPer debt’deficit fiasco (hint: 82% disapprove):
  
  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44027567/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/
  - Michael
    
    See that really doesn’t matter to the NeroRepublicans. Why? cause they know that the Media has to report such with a “Balanced approch”
    
    So if Onpoint were to say 82% of business disapprove what the NeroRepubican are doing they will than have to say some people Disapprove what the Democrats are doing. Even if the # were 82 to 40%. The media would report such as if they were close.
    
    A most recent example is the debt ceiling (http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2011/08/01/138904558/torpedoing-the-debt-perils-of-going-live)
    
    short story- Steve Inskeep to House republican “why did House Republicans spend this summer threatening to torpedo the economy by defaulting?” This cause some (20 people) to complain and said the boogyman word “Liberal Biased” compelling the ombudsman to dutifully apologize and Inskeep should by much harder on the democrat and softer on the republican.
    - Gary
      
      His question is not neutral, because he is first and foremost expressing an opinion. Many people believe that the Tea Party was working to save the country. Do you understand that? Why the lack of tolerance for different political orientations?
    - nj
      
      “Many people believe that the Tea Party was working to save the country. ”
      
      Many people believe that God will come again soon and save the world.
    - Cory
      
      … and that maroons like Palin and Bachman are qualified to be president.
    - Cory
      
      … like Socialism???
    - TFRX
      
      and the flipside is the unspoken “many people believe that the Tea Party’s opponents are working to destroy the country”.
      
      We need saving like that that badly?
    - Gary
      
      To all: People disagree in a Democracy, sorry about that.
    - TFRX
      
      To all: Disagreeing? I’m sorry, I’m just going over my collection of Tea Party virulent hatred and racism towards President Obama.
      
      Do I need to link fleckspittles with the signs saying “morans”, “Get government out of my medicare”, and Obama Photoshopped with a bone through his nose?
      
      The Tea Party’s bullflop idea is that they say they’re “saving” the country means that they think they’re the only one. Everybody else is “ruining” the country. And in virulent, violent manner, this is really directed at the black Democrat elected to the White House.
      
      We need saving like that that badly?
    - Michael
      
      Your belief of my intolerance’s is not neutral, because you first and foremost is expressing an opinion. Many people (from what there actually seen,read, and watched) believe that the tea party is racist,bigoted and clueless. Do you understand that? Why the lack of tolerance for racist political orientations?
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      ALL political ideas, insane or inherently desirable, have to have a convincing narrative or they’ll be rejected out of hand and never catch on. Problem is many such convincing narratives are merely carefully crafted fig leafs to cover a hidden agenda. The Tea Crackpots have such a narrative that they are fiscal conservatives. But one need not dig far to find this is nonsense. There haven’t been any real fiscal conservatives in the GOP for decades. They’ve been replaced by Starve The Beasters who use fiscal irresponsibility as a political weapon. They want to starve Democratic programs but not their own. The exception might be someone like Ron Paul.
      
      You can put as much lipstick on that pig as you want, the Tea Crackpots are just cynical conniving politicians who are playing chicken with our economy to get their way.
- Michael
  
  The market sooner or later would have dropped, the stock prices are way overinflated atm so there should be no surprise there. It will further fall when it finally comes out China has a housing bubble and gold-rush pops.
  
  If one were to calculate the NAV’s of most the top companies on Wall Street its way below what there being offered.
- http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
  
  If perhaps 75% of the stock market trades are done by high frequency trading computers that often just hold stocks for a few minutes… just how can the media pretend to be “measuring the mood of investors”?
SteveV

I wish I could dispute your reasoning, but I can’t. I live in a low crime area; however, based on what I see coming I’m taking measures to protect myself and my wife (providing my own 911). In my state we are “gun friendly” as they say, while other states restrict a persons right to bear arms. Crime rates will surge as the economy worsens and there will be fewer police officers to provide protection. What is unfortunate is that many people in our country will be denied the ability to protect themselves (by owning a gun) and will be easy prey for criminals. I do not intend to become a victim and if carrying a gun is the way to prevent that so be it. And by the way, I retired from a 35 year career in law enforcement. I know what’s out there better than most people and if you knew what the average police officer does you would understand where I’m coming from.
- Michael
  
  I’m not sure if crime rates will surge if we all back into a recession, since the first recession in 2008 crime rates actually decreased overall, yet we still went on locking up more people.
  - Gary
    
    “yet we still went on locking up more people.”
    
    Those crazy libertarians share your concern, Michael. Why are you trying to torpedo the country?
    - Michael
      
      “Those crazy libertarians share your concern,” which crazy libertarians? or are you referring to them all?
      
      ” Why are you trying to torpedo the country?” ??
      
      Why ask a question that has no relations to my post? So not being sure that crime rate will surge is torpedoing the country?
  - Michiganjf
    
    That is likely because the Government was assuring that assistance was provided where needed… that won’t be the case with Republican’s new found “power.”
  - Anonymous
    
    @28bbccc27ef781ca07672e02bc35e35b:disqus The crime rates did not immediately rise after 2008; it took the expiration of the ARRA (stimulus) support to states and cities before the number of police started to drop. See Newark, NJ, which “had” to cut police and fire protection which was followed by an increase in crime.
  - SteveV
    
    Two comments. First, it’s just possible that locking up more people had an impact on the crime rate. Second, I’m not talking just a “recession” as we normally think of it but something much worse. I don’t feel, as a society, we’re prepared for what’s to come. I fear it will be something we’ve never experienced.
    - Michael
      
      Hi Steve,
      
      On the first if I have my # right majority of those locked up were for non-violent crimes..
      
      As for the second, I believe Americans are too distracted and preoccupied to care. Even if such violence were to occur the media would have had time to spin it enough to weaken any type movement. If the right started the left would use it to there advantage, if the left started the right would use it as well. As well before all out chaos would occur there be multiple scapegoats to be done with (Muslim, illegals,minorities,gays, non-believers). Add on the growing police state always preparing for such.
      
      It could happen but I still think it’s a long time away if that.
william

Lack of food? Even Brian Williams (certainly no TEA Party member) is “astounded” (his words, not mine) the number of people using food stamps.
- Michael
  
  Yep,
  
  Best way to reduce those people using food stamps is to cut them off right?
- Anonymous
  
  You know what is amazing, that for some reason you interpreted Brian Williams’ astonishment as a negative. I dare say he was shocked at the numbers because they tell the real story on how people are hurting. 50 million plus and counting are on some kind of food assistance and the funds are being cut by Obama by the way.
  
  Do you really think people want to be on this kind of assistance?
  Are you that much of a ideologue to believe this?
  - william
    
    It appears that the large number of people on food stamps is a more accurate indication of the total failure of the Obama administration economic plan(s).
    - Anonymous
      
      No, it shows the utter failure of the Bush “economic” policies – let businesses and wall street do whatever they want and when they fail – bail them out – and make the regular Americans pay for their stupidity. But that’s what you meant to say right??
    - william
      
      Really? Wall Street gave out those loans to people that never could afford them? Or was that BIG GOVERNMENT? Nowhere along the way we did not see Freddy/Fani Mae out there pushing junk loans.?
    - Anonymous
      
      Spare me, blaming poor duped home owners is a cop-out. FM/FM started playing the same game the big boys were already playing and winning at, but the end game was quickly appraoching as corp banks started dumping their crappy products on them. Nowhere along the way we did not hear the “ownership society” and consumer consumption being pushed by the gwb administration???? Banks took advantage of the leeway lax oversight gave them and ran all the way with it. Thing is, they aren’t crying poverty anymore. Just the poor shmucks were were the casulties along the way of greed and corruption: vast portions of the American public who lost money, jobs, homes and their security.
    - william
      
      Duped home owners? 80/20 loans? No doc loans? who was duped? You can’t hid the truth. Big government has been pushing the idea of putting people into homes they never could afford since Jimmy Carter invented the idea during his failed term.
    - TFRX
      
      It’s well-documented that black mortgage applications were steered to
      the higher-risk (and therefore more expensive) lenders when every other
      financial metric was the same as for white appliers, for one.
      
      Another so-called Libertarian or usedtabeConservative cherry-picks things to blame on a Democratic president.
      
      Proving…what?
    - Anonymous
      
      Spare me, blaming poor duped home owners is a cop-out. FM/FM started playing the same game the big boys were already playing and winning at, but the end game was quickly appraoching as corp banks started dumping their crappy products on them. Nowhere along the way we did not hear the “ownership society” and consumer consumption being pushed by the gwb administration???? Banks took advantage of the leeway lax oversight gave them and ran all the way with it. Thing is, they aren’t crying poverty anymore. Just the poor shmucks were were the casulties along the way of greed and corruption: vast portions of the American public who lost money, jobs, homes and their security.
- Michiganjf
  
  What’s more astounding, states like my state (Texas) will be cutting back on Food Stamp assistance, AND LIKE I INDICATED ABOVE, the new debt/deficit bill will likewise further reduce FS assistance, along with hitting just about everything else that helps our nation’s destitute and elderly.
  - Michiganjf
    
    … that is, a new budget has ALREADY been passed in Texas that has severely targeted the FS program… along with severe cuts in education, and to restate, JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT HELPS THE POOR AND ELDERLY!!!! Of course, the State legislature is completely controlled by Republicans, as is the governorship.
- TFRX
  
  So, a mainstream media newsreader isn’t in touch with the actual breadth and depth of poverty in this country outside the Beltway, Sally Quinn’s cocktail parties, or as reported in Drudge (andthereforePolitico)?
  
  At this point in the business cycle, after so many months of high unemployment (noting the correlation to other numbers, official rate or no), it should not be unexpected.
  
  His astoundedness may not mean what you think it does. Maybe he needs to be talking to more real economists.
  - TFRX
    
    Actually, I’m taking some of this back–too quick to blame the regular “blamestream” media.
    
    I’ll go with Jeffe below: BriWi’s report is still open to interpretation.
    
    But William’s interpretation is pretty evident, nonetheless.
Michael

Did you catch that the nerorepublicans are holding up a FAA bill cause there want to bust any types of future unions and reduce the budget by 16 million for the year while at the same time the U.S. government is losing 30+ million daily?
- Gary
  
  We can hope that the Democratic will stop being the Party of No to Republican ideas and stop torpedoing the country. You have a hard time truly accepting diversity, don’t you Michael? I don’t mean superficial diversity, like skin color or sexual preference–things that a person shouldn’t pat themselves on the back for tolerating…but actual, honest-to-goodness DEEP diversity. Tolerance exists around issues, opinions, or behaviors you find objectionable. An example of intolerance would be calling people that see things differently than you names like “terrorists”. This creates a climate of hate. Why the righteousness, Michael?
  - Cory
    
    There are lots of people with opinions we deem objectionable and many acts we legislate against. We don’t tolerate the KKK or Timothy McVeigh. Diversity doesn’t protect the evil, the criminal, or the sadly mistaken. BTW, step down from the sanctimonious soapbox, it doesn’t suit righties.
    - Gary
      
      Tea Party members are evil?
    - Cory
      
      I don’t know them all personally, but my other descriptor (sadly mistaken) is a solid bet. Some of the greed, ignorance, and bigotry I’ve seen borders on evil.
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      Are Tea Crackpots evil? NO ONE, except a few Satanic psychopaths really thinks of themselves as “evil”.
      One of the greatest human self-delusions is everyone thinks they are well meaning and infallible. Who knows, maybe it once served some evolutionary purpose and now it’s at the core of most human misery.
      Any successful belief system… in this case a dangerous Right wing political narrative, makes True Believers feel they are doing the right thing. If THAT’S all we gage a belief system on, then ALL political narratives pass the “non-evil” test… including that of the Nazis who believed History would realize their attempted extermination of European Jews was desirable.
      
      The test for “evilness” isn’t in one’s self-serving rationalizations or fantasies… it’s in all the humanity and information available to them that they REJECTED while concocting their schemes.
    - Gary
      
      Step 1: Define everything I don’t like as evil.
      Step 2: Declare tolerating evil as not an example of intolerance.
      Step 3: Call myself tolerant.
      
      Got it! Thanks
    - Cory
      
      I think your #2 might be a double negative…
    - Michael
      
      lol
    - Cory
      
      Also, I don’t recall describing myself as tolerant.
  - nj
    
    Republican ideas? I didn’t know there was more than one: Cut taxes and spending.
    
    Why are we supposed to be tolerant of discredited “ideas” that only entrench powerful, monied interests?
    - Gary
      
      Do you not realize that people fundamentally disagree with you? That they don’t characterize the situation as you do? That diversity ACTUALLY exists? Why are you so righteous?
    - nj
      
      “People” disagree that the planet is warming, but that doesn’t mean it’s not warming.
      
      “People” disagreed that black people should have the same rights as others.Trickle-down has been proven to be a failure for the middle class, yet it remains the center piece of Repub ideology.Yeah, i’m righteous, because the corporations and their political servants are ruining the country.If you want to argue some particular position on an issue, go for it, but i’m not really sure what the point is you’re trying to make with these vague comments.
    - Anonymous
      
      I understand that there is absolutely fundamental disagreement. I just don’t think 2+2=6 is a legitimate viewpoint. If one “disagrees” that 2+2=4, they aren’t expressing a diverse viewpoint. They’re wrong. Period.
    - Gary
      
      Everyone that disagrees with me is the equivalent of 2=2+6 from now on. So there! Who decides when the issue is like basic arithmetic? I do.
    - Anonymous
      
      When one claims “tax cuts create jobs”, “lowering taxes increases revenue”, “reducing demand leads to prosperity”, I think you have reached the 2+2=6 moment.
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      Methinks you’re too clever by half… pretending to use what you think are traditional “liberal” values against them. Hey, I’m no stinkin’ Liberal so what the hell do I care what they think. What matters isn’t whether Liberal or Right wing versions of reality are true. On some level both are “self-justifying” belief systems. The only thing that matters is whether someone is “self correcting”, willing to adapt to new realities. In this regard the Right in the US has taken the crazy train to new heights.
  - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
    
    �
    Refusing to accept, or compromise with ideas proven not to work… worst, ideas that serve as nothing more than a fig leaf to conceal or justify the Right’s class warfare in behalf of the malefactors of great wealth against the rest of us… is not “intolerance”. It’s common sense for we serfs… AND self-preservation. �
    Of course if you buy into the Orwellian Right’s narrative that government is inherently dysfunctional and can’t be trusted… and all societal good flows down from corporations and our rich overlords… then the Tea Party message might ring true.
Jasoturner

It’s neither spending nor revenue. It is a labor problem. The off shoring of good manufacturing jobs means that there is little space for an “average” American (read: intelligent, physically fit, no college degree) to make a middle class wage. And this is a problem.

Furthermore, it was my observation during the boom times that there were gobs of unqualified or under-qualified consultants running around basically making a nice living for doing nothing and knowing nothing. These people too are out in the cold when things get tough, and they really have little substantive to offer.

Until these constituencies are addressed and made employable, you can raise taxes or cut spending all you want. They are still in the vice. And it is a trap of personal ability, not a trap of policy.
Tina

Michiganjf,
Your post is right on target! Sadly, SO sadly, President Obama SHOULD have been saying exactly what you said — loud and clear — for quite some time, but he was too busy moving to the right in a “conciliatory” manner, as we know. Your post makes strong, concrete points; WHERE is the President when it comes to this kind of expression?!?? Even during the last few weeks before the final vote on the debt ceiling — when hyperfocusing on the deficit was in opposition to balancing deficit-worry with tax reform and with job creation — I was ASTOUNDED by how little CONCRETE information we heard on NPR (usually, my beloved NPR!) about the consequences of eliminating federal programs on the lives of US citizens and on programs that, as you agree, DO run smoothly, efficiently, and fairly. Your post represents the kind of political thinking and expression that we need to see more of!!! Thanks so much!

Anonymous

Friday, 8-5-11: The NY Times:

The Wrong Worries
Paul Krugman

In case you had any doubts, Thursday’s more than 500-point plunge in the
Dow Jones industrial average and the drop in interest rates to
near-record lows confirmed it: The economy isn’t recovering, and
Washington has been worrying about the wrong things.

It’s not just that the threat of a double-dip recession has become
very real. It’s now impossible to deny the obvious, which is that we are
not now and have never been on the road to recovery.

For two years, officials at the Federal Reserve, international
organizations and, sad to say, within the Obama administration have
insisted that the economy was on the mend. Every setback was attributed
to temporary factors — It’s the Greeks! It’s the tsunami! — that would
soon fade away. And the focus of policy turned from jobs and growth to the supposedly urgent issue of deficit reduction.

But the economy wasn’t on the mend.

Yes, officially the recession ended two years ago, and the economy did
indeed pull out of a terrifying tailspin. But at no point has growth
looked remotely adequate given the depth of the initial plunge. In
particular, when employment falls as much as it did from 2007 to 2009, you need a lot of job growth to make up the lost ground. And that just hasn’t happened.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/opinion/the-wrong-worries.html

There’s more and it’s on the money, no pun intended.
It’s plain to see that while Washington and especially the republicans played their little debt ceiling game our nation is going down the tubes.
It is interesting to note that Congress’ approval rating is now the lowest it’s every been with something like 82% disapproving with these clowns.
One more note, the tea party comes out pretty bad and the bulk of the wrath is directed towards the republicans.

People want good paying jobs, period. It’s the economy stupid.

http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard

I’d like to write that this is all Bush and Cheney’s fault, or, it’s both that and the obstructionist Republican/Tea Party’s fault, but Krugman is right, Obama had the chance to stop this bleeding two years ago and he blew it.

Not taking Obama off the hook, I have to say that Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and their inner circle have blown this. It’s now easy to see why various economists have walked away from the Obama cabinet over the past two years, including Paul Volker.

I don’t want to give Winston and Ed more ammunition and I’m certainly not taking Bush off the hook but I’m not sure Obama would have gotten it right had he had a compliant Democratic Congress to back him up from the start.

Larry Summers put a huge dent in Harvard’s endowment by investing in mortgage backed securities, not to mention what he did to Brooksley Born when she tried to blow the whistle on the fact that banks were over exposed to these highly leveraged securities. Summers is the height of arrogance and to put it bluntly, is a prick.

I’d say his credibility was shot during those years yet somehow Obama pulled him in.

Some of us have complained about Obama’s hires in this area from the start and have continued complaining when he let Elizabeth Warren twist in the wind.

While I would never vote for anyone on the Republican ticket if the Dems or a progressive third party puts someone else up they certainly will have my consideration.
- Anonymous
  
  Larry Summers is a wall street guy. He did his bidding for them.
  To think this man would have done anything less is kind of misreading him. He is brilliant but not fit for the office he held.
  He is way to arrogant as stated, and this is not a good attribute for these times.
  
  As to the right wingers who post here it does not matter as the events of the last few days and the debacle of the invented debt ceiling crisis has shown what the right for what they are: extremist. They offer nothing. No solutions whatsoever. It’s all sound bites from the play book.
  
  They have done nothing but political maneuvering since Obama took office. They don’t care about deficits or debt. It’s all about power, period. I might be inclined to say that in some republican circles they don’t even recognize the democrats as a legitimate party. The malice and conceit witnessed in the last few weeks at the expense of the American people was appalling. The last few days has shown that the markets are agreeing with Dr. Krugman and that the economy is not growing but quite the opposite. Obama and the democrats have really screwed up here and now they have let the republicans and the extremist in the tea party pave the way for their agenda.
  
  What a mess.
  - http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard
    
    Many including Obama have said that with crisis comes opportunity. We’re waiting Mr. President…
    
    What a great time to propose something like the WPA or the CCC. Put people to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. I know the Republicans would attempt to get in the way of this but at least come up with a grand plan and let them. The fact that Obama has chickened out on Medicare for all, on Liz Warren, and on an FDR style solution to the employment problem shows that either he doesn’t have the stones to stand up to the idiots on the other side, he doesn’t have a plan, or both.
    - Anonymous
      
      Richard, Obama’s has tied his hands with this deal he cut.
      He can’t do a thing. Nada. The man is essentially a lame duck president.
    - Jasoturner
      
      Read the letter James Fallows published today at Atlantic.com.
      
      http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/obama-as-chess-master-think-of-him-as-bobby-fischer/243139/
      
      This writer may be right or may be wrong, but I think the overall assertion, that things more profound than the obvious may be in play, is not unreasonable.
      
      I would bear in mind too that the republicans are playing high stakes chicken in order to clip Obama’s wings. Should they misstep, the fallout could hand Obama unforeseeable opportunities or even a mandate.
    - nj
      
      Richard demurs: “shows that either he doesn’t have the stones to stand up to the idiots on the other side, he doesn’t have a plan, or both.”
      
      Third option: BO is a bought-and-sold corporatist who is a tool of the special interests that will fund his re-election campaign.
      
      He’s not going to “stand up” to the “other side.” He is part of the “other side” playing his good-cop role.
    - http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard
      
      That very well may be nj, I don’t know but for a while I wanted to believe that he’d undo some of the damage done during the Bush years. Between the Republican establishment, the Tea Party, and the Democrats in Congress and Obama’s weakness I think we’re in terrible shape even looking forward.
      
      My question remains: if Obama wins the next election and Congress pendulums to the Democrats (both houses, highly unlikely but a hypothetical) I’m still not sure Obama can dig us out of this.
      
      Bush and Cheney broke the country and Obama, while trying to fix it has possibly made it worse.
  - Tina
    
    To make matters WORSE, it is now Saturday, and S&P dropped the USA rating while insisting that entitlement programs be cut — NOT defense spending (at least in the report that I heard); meanwhile Obama’s Leon Panetta is gonna insist on major military spending. We’re gonna be stuck with even more entrenched military spending and fewer of the “life cycle” programs that we need. Here is a link to an editorial from the Providence Journal — it astounds me because the paper had been so conservative, but here’s the link where they compare the successful economies of Scandinavia and Germany with the deeply troubled Greek economy, along with their projections for the USA’s direction:
    
    http://www.projo.com/opinion/editorials/content/ED_welfare6_08-06-11_EQPHTES_v16.38679.html

Ed

President Obama is in a classically tragic situation. His economic policies lead to disaster and suppression of business and jobs, but he can’t disown them or back away from them.

Anonymous

That’s not really true. It’s a growth problem. There are a lot of people out of work. Most Americans are tapped out and are paying down their debt. So they don’t buy. Consumerism is about 70% of our economy and right now that’s not working to well. I don’t see any great ideas except tax breaks coming from the republicans. Not a thing except nihilism.
Michael

So thank Jebus for the house republicans with all those jobs they created.
Jasoturner

Yeah, he really suppressed the tens of thousands of good jobs of those workers at GM and Chrysler, as well as their suppliers. Oh, wait, he rescued their jobs. Well, I’m sure he’s doing other bad stuff.

Anonymous

This clip of Richard Wolf on Democracy Now is spot on.
They should have this man on for an interview.

Richard Wolff, Professor Emeritus of Economics at University of
Massachusetts Amherst, visiting professor here in New York at New School
University, also hosts a weekly program on WBAI called Economic Update.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/28/richard_wolff_debt_showdown_is_political

nj

Unless i missed it, On Point never had on a panel of actual economists of any ideological stripe during this whole “debt-crisis” debacle.
- http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard
  
  I think Simon Johnson has been on at least once. I like his stripes.
  - CS
    
    He’s got nice stripes
- TFRX
  
  Dean Baker was on, yesterday or so, to douse the foundation. They’ve had a couple of others who actually talked some nuts and bolts. But there were also too much “balance” in the persons of wingnut welfare sorts.
- CS
  
  How about having a Marxist economist on like maybe a David Harvey

nj

Back story for some of the Bachmann-flavored nutterism:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/michele-bachmann-light-bulbs-agenda-21

First They Came for the Lightbulbs

Thu Aug. 4, 2011 3:00 AM PDTFew issues get Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) going quite like lightbulbs. At campaign stops across the country, she has repeatedly denounced a 2007 law that required manufacturers to develop energy-efficient lightbulb varieties. Bachmann sees the law as an affront to American values. “I think Thomas Edison did a pretty patriotic thing for this country by inventing the lightbulb,” she told a New Hampshire audience in March. “And I think darn well, you New Hampshirites, if you want to buy Thomas Edison’s wonderful invention, you should be able to!”In reality, no one’s stopping New Hampshirites (or anyone else, for that matter) from buying any kind of lightbulb they please—even the incandescent variety that Bachmann warns will be outlawed unless we pass the Better Use of Light Bulbs (BULB) Act that she supported. (BULB would repeal the energy-efficiency rules.) But Bachmann’s crusade is about much more than energy-conserving bulbs: The Minnesota congresswoman is part of a movement that considers “sustainability” an existential threat to the United States, one with far-reaching consequences for education, transportation, and family values. If Bachmann is right, lightbulbs will soon be the least of our worries.—snipped

Anonymous

President Obama’s birthday was Aug. 4th…I have a book on birthdays here is what it says for people born on that day…it is the day of the Guiding Light. They are clever, quick and elusive…they can also be hot headed, and undiplomatic…it’s just very interesting to me as I look everybody up in this book. So it says for President Obama, to learn acceptance, concentration and awareness. It also says these people have formidable strength and influence. His tarot card is the Emperor, who rules over wordly things, through wisdom, the primary source of his power. Happy Belated Birthday President Obama.

twenty-niner

Did I ever tell you you’re my hero?

You’re everything, everything I wish I could be.

Oh, and I, I could fly higher than an eagle,

’cause you are the wind beneath my wings,

’cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

Oh, the wind beneath my wings.

You, you, you, you are the wind beneath my wings.

Fly, fly, fly away. You let me fly so high.

Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.

Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.

Charlie mc

Brooksley Born, Brooksley Born, Brooksley Born. We need you!

http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard

Obama has brought in the very people who told her she was nuts and continues to employ them (Geithner, et al). Even if she reappeared she’d no doubt be marginalized yet again by a group of arrogant men. I agree, we need her and I’d like to think Elizabeth Warren was the modern version in a slightly different area of concern.

Gary

Status quo: Not negotiating terms of raising the debt ceiling.
Change: Negotiating terms of raising the debt ceiling.

Thanks Obama! Democrats were obstructing this change, loudly saying, “No!”, but you brought change to Washington like you said you would. Thanks, again.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

Screw the status quo (not you the 2 parties)!!!

Jasoturner

Hey, it could be worse:

President John McCain
Vice President Sarah Palin

We’d probably all be living in cardboard boxes now if these two had tried to manage the economic crisis. Except, of course, for the executive class.

Yar

36 million pounds of turkey are recalled, I hope Grover Norquist pledge signers will listen for a moment. Guess who will pay for this, we will and not just the people who buy ground turkey, all of us. Try living without using Cargill products or products that have Cargill ingredients, you can’t do it. The turkey recall amounts to a tax increase. We pay when companies cut corners or make mistakes. �
You might think it will come out of their profits, I doubt it, sure a short term loss may occur, the stock may dip a bit, but over the long term they are making a profit based on the amount of product they move. Did BP lose money from the oil spill? Who is paying that bill? It is the you the consumer, even if you never buy a gallon of gas from BP. The market price for fuel reflects the costs of cleanup. Corporations have the ability to tax the consumer, I would rather have a progressive tax system run by our government then the ones imposed by corporate interests. If we had spent more money up front on inspection maybe we could have prevented this nasty ground turkey from being shipped in the first place. But no, we want to Starve the Beast. A tax is not always called a tax.

Cory

Sure glad I never got back in the market. Maybe Granny knew better when she kept her savings in her mattress. Probably learned during the LAST Great Depression.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

I have been telling everyone about that since 2008. One reply I had was “what if there is A Fire”?

Cory

Ever heard the theory that if the power grid failed civilization would collapse in 30 days? It is a good illustration of the fragile nature of human civilization.

I wonder what will happen when unempolment jumps higher, interest rates rise, food costs soar, pensions are cancelled due to lame municipal bankruptcies, and medicare/medicaid/social security are hollowed out and essentially destroyed?

What will be left, even for the rich and powerful?

Jasoturner

This is a very troubling thought.

But as I think about it more, I believe the rich and powerful will be fine.
Anonymous

Unemployment won’t go up if the US government is counting the numbers. They just keep redefining the unemployed into the discouraged workers category and then they don’t count in the headline unemployment number.
http://www.richardsnotes.org Richard

Soylent green.
- Cory
  
  Touche’!!!

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

Democrats and Republicans with the twist of Tea Party followers should start blaming the 2 parties not finger pointing one Party.

It is the 2 parties fault we are in a Double Dip Recession. President Obama is part of this tragic economic event in America. He tried to save the American economy but it was too late 3 years is not enough to solve economic recession. The economic cycle is unstoppable. Not even a new President can save the economy. Too Late and We are hopeless for another 20 years of economic instability not only in America but the entire world.

Jasoturner

Hey, it’s blasphemy, but free trade has created a race to the bottom, and America can’t (yet) compete in that game. Will the economists ever admit that they screwed the pooch with this near-theological principle (read: received wisdom) that they so unquestioningly worship?

Anonymous

Everyone should know that even though the Tea Party is gaining influence, they were the big loosers in the debt deal. This is evedent in the fact that 50% of Democrats, 50+% of republicans and close to 0% of Tea Party members voted for the compramise bill.

Jasoturner

Nah, they got what they wanted for now, and probably celebrated with some 15 year old scotch that night in private. Being able to vote no was a bonus, since it gives them street cred with their constituents.

I simply don’t believe that the intransigence shown by the Tea Party is sincere, since an inability to change positions on the basis of changing evidence would be highly atypical for humans.

I think these guys are pretty pleased with themselves for changing the terms of the debt and tax debate, and I think they see themselves at the hammer with which Obama can be beaten down going forward.
TFRX

Getting to ruin something that was not even on anyone’s list of concerns, 30 times for the last 3 GOP presidents, then getting everyone to blame it on “government”?

That’s a win for the Teabaggers. Government not working is their goal, even compared to the GOP’s level of “run it to ruin it”.

Anonymous

Labor Force Participation Rate Drops To 63.9%, Lowest Since January 1984fact: the labor force participation rate, and the reason why the general unemployment rate declined to 9.1%, just dropped to 63.9%, the lowest in 16 years, or matches the participation rate from January 1984.

Peter

The market has spoken elequently on the Washington manufactured debt crisis

TomK in Boston

The debt ceiling deal was insane. Only in the DC fantasy ideology world was the deficit a pressing problem. Cutting gvt spending with an economy a “stall speed” is economic suicide. Investors know this. With the Dems having surrendered to the TOP, gvt will not be doing what is needed to stave off the deeper recession or Great Depression II. That is why the mkt sold off IMO.

The whole discussion is insane. Taxes “off the table” with tax revs under 15% of GDP. With no spending allowed, “free trade” deals to stimulate the economy – seems offshoring American jobs is a plus in fantasy land. Cutting payroll taxes is another favored solution, paving the way for the final assault on SS. And state and city gvt is downsizing like mad, helping the economy by laying off tens of thousands of workers.

It would be really nice if we could consider economics instead of ideology – but real economics is “off the table”, too. I feel like there has been a far right coup in the USA, but I never would have expected it with Dems in control of 2/3 branches.

Anonymous

You do realize that less than 1% was cut from this years budget and most of the cuts were in the 6-10 year out timeframe which history shows never occur.
- TomK in Boston
  
  Do you realize that ANY cuts in an economy at “stall speed” are a bad idea? Do you realize that taking away the tools that gvt needs to use to keep us out of recession/depression is a bad idea? Almost every economist agrees that gvt should be spending now and worrying about the big bad deficit later. The right is really screwing the USA this time.
Anonymous

You should also realize that if the debt deal would have froze spending at the 2011 levels for the next 6 years the CBO would have scored it as a $9T cut in spending!?!?!?! That is how out of control our government is!

It would be really nice if we could consider economics instead of ideology – but you obviously don’t know economics!

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

What make us so divided is another party called the Tea Party. We are so divided that it destroyed America’s middle class and it is gradually desolving. there will be no middle class anymore but Lower middle class and upper middle class, the new economic terms. The Tea Party, Americans is so dazed and confused for which really partry is really telling the truth. A nation divided that ultimately destroyed the economy. If we continue to listen to the Tea Party we will be heading into Greatest Economic Depression in the history of mankind. Stop Listening to them and follow your instinct. Time to be self-reliant in our political views.

John

consumers are not spending due to the fact that the producers of products and services are bad corporate citizens, why should we continue their bottom line when it is not reciprocated, this is the agreement between consumers and producers, consumers are tired of carrying the load in a already depressed economy while producers sit on all the revenue. of course this is never considered, this is the reality combined with the fact that consumers have less income thanks to the lower wages top producers have pushed so they can sit on a larger sums of revenue that is not “trickled down”, i call it the silent revolt.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

I am waiting for unemployment rate to go up 10.5% and we have full blown economic recession part 2. we can have part 3 but that’s too much to reconsider. Part 3 will be a Depression.

Anonymous

Tom,

Did you see that the national debt jumped by $200+ Billion dollars the day after the debt deal was signed and there wasn’t even a Treasury auction, so no money changed hands! How does this happen?

Does this show that our own government is cooking the books Enron Style!

John

back payments to essential services i would think

http://twitter.com/Swampyanky Peter Bradley

it took repubs 7 years to tank Clinton prosperity Dems started recovery Now repubs have tanked it again in 18 months

http://twitter.com/Swampyanky Peter Bradley

Obama not a leader Give McConnell his wish. Obama step aside in 2012 Run a real leader like Pelosi for the next 8 years

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

There will be no new President that can save the economy. We will be hearing the same old whining just like the whining we are hearing now.

Anonymous

Who exactly wrote this debt deal bill and how did they sneak so much unrelated stuff in like the healthcare stuff?

Anonymous

@Brandstad:disqus People who think like you, who else? The Democrats wanted a “clean” bill!
- Anonymous
  
  They said they wanted a “clean” bill, but what they got was even better for them. They got lots of little pet projects attached and they got <1% cuts so they can claim it is all cuts and when it doesn't help we will have to raise taxes!
  - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
    
    Who’s talking about “raising taxes” B? The Bush tax cuts were TEMPORARY… they were written by the GOP to self-destruct in 10 years… at which point the older Clinton tax rates would prevail. Consider it tax restoration.
    Only the Orwellian Right can claim that if a tax cut doesn’t last forever… and despite perhaps $2 TRILLION in lost revenue, that it doesn’t count.
    - Anonymous
      
      Can you show me a chart of this? If you look at the government revenue chart, there was no sign of this lost revenue. The Federal Revenue went flat for a little while, then up after the Bush tax cut.
    - Anonymous
      
      @Brandstad:disqus Where is YOUR chart of Federal Revenue going up (???) after the Bush tax cut? By how much over what the GDP went up (by percentage)? Where did that increased “revenue” come from? The investment banks “profits” went up immensely due to their “gambling” with CDOs and CDSs based on faulty mortgages so their taxes went up, but that was NOT, repeat NOT, due to the tax cuts. And that largely kicked in after 2004, which would probably fit your false picture of the (imaginary) Laffer Curve theory’s applicability to today’s tax structure.
      
      This (and all sites) need a moderator to strip out repeated claims for long-debunked proclamations like so many of yours. [Note: the phrase "debunk a claim" means to recognize that a claim is pure "bunk."]
    - Anonymous
      
      It is no surprise that you weren’t able to give me a link to a chart showing your long-debunked proclamations of Bush tax cuts resulting in lower federal revenues.
      
      Unlike you, I can produce a chart that clearly shows this.
      
      http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/downchart_gr.php?year=2000_2015&view=1&expand=&units=b&log=linear&fy=fy12&chart=F0-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=s
      
      As you can see federal direct revenues went up every year following the Bush Tax Cuts in 03 up to 07 when the economy started to crash due to the housing bubble.
    - Anonymous
      
      It’s called a “bubble”, which looks fine until it bursts.
    - Steve T
      
      Because we printed more worthless money.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2L4LQQNBMFLZ7QPCZCBEABTXEI Mark

Not just cuts. The Committee needs to include Revenue Increases!!!!

Steve T

But that would mean Taxes on the rich and they can’t do that. No sorry WON”T do that.

nj

Whoa, disinformation right out of the starting block. McKenzie: “The public” wanted a “balanced” approach and supported cuts to entitlements?

As usual, misinformation goes unchallenged on this show.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2L4LQQNBMFLZ7QPCZCBEABTXEI Mark

I was one who wants bipartisan so no it is not misinformation.
- TFRX
  
  Do you fetishize over bipartisanness and comity above all else, even good policy outcomes?
  
  If so, not only are you well-represented on this show, and the Evening News, you are their core constituent.
Dan

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/07/21/rel11b.pdf
- Anonymous
  
  @b074e36f2d643c5c1d5feb2a49289453:disqus For those who can’t take the time to go to Dan’s link and search down the opinion poll, respondents OPPOSED cutting Medicaid (77%), Medicare (87%) and Social Security (84%). That sounds like a ROUSING cheer for NOT putting entitlements on the table (and they do not belong there as THEY were NOT the cause of this problem).

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2L4LQQNBMFLZ7QPCZCBEABTXEI Mark

The super congress should include a tax subsidy for companies that create new jobs, in exchange for closing other tax loop wholes.

The job subsidy should be based on the size of the company and how many net jobs the company creates.

Anonymous

Republicans are the net looser from the deal since the committee will not come up with an agreement that will pass.

Since the outcome of this is big defense cuts and cuts to doctors, which just happens to make more doctors and patients want to get to Obama Care, the failure of the committee is a Win – Win for the Dems and a Loose Loose for the R’s

EricMJones

Brandstad: It’s all over anyway.

See: http://www.periheliondesign.com/downloads/Wealth%20Distribution%202007%20update.pdf
TFRX

Let’s see. The party who invented “run it to ruin it” can be a loser from this?

I might be persuaded that the GOP was interested in really cutting the deficit if they’d done anything else since the midterm election. But there’s a huge list of bills they’ve done, in DC and in state capitols, and jobs are still Job N+1 for them.

Anonymous

Debt to GDP is now at 100% for the US.

Everyone should know that no country has ever recoverd from this.

Cory

Whaddabout good ole American Exceptionalism?
Dan

What about the USA? http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/include/us_fed_debt_20c.png
Anonymous

@Brandstad:disqus At the close of WWII, the U.S. debt to GDP was 120%! I guess we are belatedly showing that we did not recover.
Anonymous

@Branstad:twitter What followed WWII, was the greatest ECONOMIC GROWTH for the U.S., WITH high marginal income taxes and STRONG unions, that the U.S. has ever had. And it lasted for 25 years.
- Anonymous
  
  And I am sure that had nothing to do with the fact that we bombed the rest of the developed world into oblivion…
  - TomK in Boston
    
    You are 100% talking points. For every proof of the wrongness of voodoo econ you have an excuse. Great prosperity of the middle class during a period of high taxes and regulation would give any rational person second thoughts about voodoo, but on cue all you guys echo the script about the bombed out competitors. Let’s see, the Bush tax cuts led to the worst job creation since DDE, I suppose that was 9/11, right? The economy boomed after Reagan and Clinton raised taxes, got a script for that one?
    
    The 3 primary causes of the deficit are the recession itself, the Obusha tax cuts, and the wars. Any solution should focus on those 3, not on screwing the middle class. Simply letting those disastrous tax cuts expire would do a hell of a lot more to fix the deficit than cutting pell grants etc.
    
    Voodoo econ makes no sense till you realize that is really designed to transfer wealth to the top. Then it makes perfect sense, and it’s working.
    - Anonymous
      
      I see you don’t understand economics. I would reccomend getting a degree in it like I did.
      
      I thought you were for the middle class unitll I saw this “Simply letting those disastrous tax cuts expire would do a hell of a lot more to fix the deficit than cutting pell grants etc.” I hope you know that this would mean the middle class would pay more in taxes since it would eliminate the 15% tax rate.
      
      Why did Obama continue the Bush tax cuts on Dec 17th 2010 if they were so bad?
      
      I don’t have time to teach you economics, so I hope you start looking into this further on your own without considdering which political party supports what.
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      What’s insidious about deceptive “spin” is that it ALWAYS sound plausible to True Believers. Those who are concocting all this misleading and deceptive narrative are much more sophisticated than the low information citizens they target their propaganda at. But those low information citizens are always made to feel as if they just were handed down the self-evident truth on a slab.
  - Anonymous
    
    The rest of the bombed-out world prospered too. It would be helpful to your discourse if you used facts as the basis of your positions.
    - Anonymous
      
      Of course they did, but we had a strategic advantage because we didn’t have to rebuild. None of the bombed-out world prospered as well as we did.
    - Anonymous
      
      And we have squandered that. The facts are that we have steadily fallen behind them since we implemented “conservative” economic principles, to the point that we now are no longer the country with the highest standard of living.
    - Anonymous
      
      When did we implament a “conserfative” economic policy?
      
      Can you list the date that we reduced corporate tax rates to something less than the world wide average?
      
      When did we reduce federal regulation on buisness to allow buisnesses to reduce compliance costs?
      
      When did we limit Federal spending by implamenting a balanced budget? balanced budget amendment? or otherwise limit federal spending to 1% increase?
      
      Please give me some facts not political talking points!
    - TFRX
      
      Let’s you and the GOP fight.
      
      You had Shrub, the House and the Senate, and after 9/11 they got the credit card of “the Dems are traitors if they don’t give us everything they want”.
      
      Of course, we got a decade of never-pay-for-themselves tax cuts, and an administration which ran government to ruin it. And said “Deficits don’t matter”. But you say the conservatives never had a shot.
    - Anonymous
      
      If your assertion that “never-pay-for-themselves tax cuts” is correct, then why did federal revenues go UP every year after the 03 Bush Tax cuts?
      �
      Please let me know how you come to your conclusions that are completely opposite of what our government revenue charts show? Are you smarter then our federal Government?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

United States of China is the new America. The only people who can save the American economy is the American people. think of something and the the mighty bald agle will be release from the mouth of the dragon of Asia.

Anonymous

Jack,

The Progressives have made proffit a bad word and everyone knows that proffit must be made inorder for buisnesses to invest.

wellbasically

Investment by government is always late, it will be in companies that are already at the table and frankly big enough to bribe their congressmen. Investment to produce true growth comes from people seeing promising products.

Jack and the Democrats only see investment as coming from the government. That ship has sailed, Jack!
Anonymous

Corporate profits are at record highs. So things must be great, right? Now for the “investment”. . . . .We’re waiting. . . . We’re still waiting. . .

Bill

Jobs won’t be created until there is money to made from creating those jobs. As government cuts happen there will be even less money out there to chase after so there will be even fewer jobs. In a nutshell, jobs are never coming back.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2L4LQQNBMFLZ7QPCZCBEABTXEI Mark

There are ways to encourage job creation, tax subsidies for companies that
create new jobs, in exchange for closing other tax loop wholes.
- Anonymous
  
  @Mark:twitter What company do you know who will make or market something for which they see NO BUYERS? As long as consumers have NO MONEY (which happens when they don’t have jobs or are afraid of losing their job or have large DEBTs to pay down) they cannot buy things that do not have an immediate necessity for their continued LIFE.
  
  That is why new jobs are needed and thus the government must be the BUYER (mostly indirectly, by subsidizing the improvement of energy efficiency, reduction of pollution-creating power generation, etc.) of last resort UNTIL the unemployment rate approaches 6% ot so. Additionally new infrastructure to benefit business in the future would have an immense effect.

nj

Understatement of the day: Clift: “There’s a feeling now that things aren’t working.”

The kind of penetrating insight we come to the program for.

TFRX

Reagan also restored confidence by getting an oil glut.

(And now let’s hear from every right-winger who’s going to retcon all the inflation and oil shocks from the 1970s to have started on Inauguration Day 1977.)

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2L4LQQNBMFLZ7QPCZCBEABTXEI Mark

We need to “invest” in America’s future. We need to Raise Revenue. We need to create jobs.

The super congress should include a tax subsidy for companies that
create new jobs, in exchange for closing other tax loop wholes.

The job subsidy should be based on the size of the company and how many net jobs the company creates.

Anonymous

@Mark:disqus The country faces a potential existential threat just as we did during the 1930s (then from the Axis powers, this time from Climate Change) and again, the Republicans cannot see it or respond because they are tied to big business which does not want to see any change to their income.

The federal government needs to create the incentives to build the required infrastructure to mitigate the emission of CO2. This does not “pick winners and losers” since it does not say HOW that mitigation has to be accomplished. However, it can help do the research to investigate ways that goal can be achieved and which ways work best. That is the way gains in disease-fighting can be improved through the NIH, which does the basic research on which the U.S. drug industry DEPENDS for ideas on how to improve their drugs and bring new products for fatal diseases to market.

Dennis.in.Omaha

I have no grudge against countries like China making factories and competing against workers like me.

But I do have a grudge.

That is, tax deductions used to create those factories. Now I have to work and pick up that tab, and now there are fewer workers to split that tab among.

Income taxes paid to other countries, by state owned companies, or partner companies, are essentially paying taxes to themselves. Then when the deduct 100% of those expenses from their US taxes, it means that the US taxpayer is building their factories and their armies.

Yar

China has 600 million people without electricity, they have significant problems. You reached the wrong conclusion, they have 600 million people who know how to survive without electricity. That is a significant skill in this day. We are the hot house tomato, we depend on the skills of others for our very survival.�
Which culture would you bet on surviving for the next 1000 years?
The problem is we won’t even look past the next election.

John

Hey Rick Perry, you know what Jesus would do, sell all of his possesions and travel the kingdom, or Texas in your case, by foot promoting love and happiness instead of blaming the mistakes of his enviroment on others or in your case your own actions.

AndyF

“Intelligence is NO measure of Common Sense”…

You and your guests, and listeners agree: Congress, ne Washington is out of touch. Hello? How about a little good old Common Sense…

You have a collection of rather rich people running a country where the middle class is disappearing and they, (Congress) dont appear to get it. Uh, yeah. How would employees (Congress) who have the BEST pension, BEST healthcare, and plenty of money even begin to identify with the pain average Americans are enduring.

This would be like putting some Al Queda person in charge of our silly “War on Terror” and then wondering why we are losing.

The biggest problem holding America back right now is pure and utter stupidity and a complete lack of good old Common Sense. We designed the perfect impossible system – and now we are seeing it do exactly what it was designed to do.

If you want America brought back to its ideals and the things that made it great – stop electing the uber-rich who take care of only the uber-rich and get some average Americans with Common Sense to Washington. A pipe dream? Sure. But without it, we are already dead as a “great country”.

Anonymous

@c44bb6b4adce8c87bc880c6d2de134b9:disqus The best approach is to radically (and that is where the problem lies) change the campaign finance system. One way that might get through Congress would be to give every voter in the last election a $50 bank account that could ONLY be used to make a contribution to the voter’s choice for the next election. With over 100 million voters in the last Presidential election, that would mean the average voter would collectively be contributing some $5 billion to the next election, considerably MORE than the current “fat cats” do. That amount could be ramped up as necessary to ensure that ratio continued, which might even have a dampening effect on “fat cat” donations.

With a general interest source of campaign financing maybe our legislators would be more interested in the general welfare of the whole country instead of just the wealthy oligarchic interests.

This approach comes from Bruce Ackerman of Yale Law School.

Dennis_in_Omaha

I don’t have a grudge against foreign countries building factories to compete against workers like me.

But I do have a grudge against using US taxpayer money to build them.

State owned companies pay income tax to themselves, then they deduct those “expenses” from their US taxes. Then workers like me have to pick up the tab, and there are fewer workers to split that tab.

Anonymous

Why did the Obama administration back loans to Brazilian oil companies to drill off shore Brazil while blocking off shore drilling in the gulf?

You have to love that Obama that is all for American Jobs! LOL
- http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
  
  I’m not a fan of Obama, but what are you trying to say… that your precious Right in the US cares about US jobs? Where’s the evidence?
  
  When it comes to oil the GOP isn’t concerned about US jobs though it might use that as a fig leaf. It’s ONLY concern is that US oil companies aren’t profitting fast enough from Gulf oil. The GOP really could care less… and might even prefer cheap oil workers from abroad.

Ellen Dibble

Jack Beatty posits that Obama has bought into the Tea Party opposition to growth. The Tea Party has won, he says.
Well, let’s hear that again. The Tea Party has won, it’s done its job; end of story.
But I think “opposition to growth,” however he phrased it, has many forms. Is Obama looking to have no more investment in the future? Or just starving ourselves in a nonconstructive, Old-Economy mold? I think he sees what the new economy has to be.
I think it is up to the voters to elect reps with a vision of the future to get ourselves mobiliized towards. So much of our vision is of “getting rich” through financial shenanigans. Who wants to invest in a 30-year undertaking. Especially with a $14.3 trillion debt dogging our heels as we try to invest.

Bill

On Perry’s prayapalooza – one does not have to go further than the Bible (Matthew 6) to see Jesus frowned on public displays or prayer and piety, which must something Perry missed in his religious studies.

CS

Prayapalooza sounds like the best Christian rock festival ever
- TFRX
  
  “Best Christian rock festival ever” is immediately on my shelf of useless superlatives, such as ” Air Supply’s best drummer ever”.
  - CS
    
    “Best Christian rock festival ever” I believe I am the first person in history to combine those words in that order
    - TFRX
      
      Taken as the punchline it was given as. Good show!

Dennis_in_Omaha

Oh, sorry for the duplicate comment.

http://twitter.com/FilipinoBoston FilipinoBoston

This is not so pretty solution for America’s economic crisis and I bet no one will like this solution
Chinese businessmen should start making factories in America instead of making products in China.

Chinese hiring American employees to work for those factories with minimum wage or higher.
�
It will solve the economic collapse of America.

Jamie O

It feels like there is no way that we are going to turn this economy around when so much of our wealth is locked up in the strongboxes of the uber-wealthy. In general the super wealthy are not investing that money in the future of america, and the american people. They are just making money on their money by buying and selling bits and pieces of companies like some huge horse race. It also feels like our financial sector just has too much influence. Am I putting too much emphasis on these factors? How much of a role do they actually play?

John

i have to admit that higher edu should be held on some level of standard to place graduates in a job, that is the reason why many go to college right?

Steve T

??????????? I just heard that a PHD in Education applied for a job as a Math teacher and was denied.

TFRX

“Conservative populist appeal”, per Eleanor Clift, for a Perry idea to get a bachelors’ degree for about $10-$12k.

I submit that the number of “conservative populists” who appreciate that idea is dwarfed by the number who think that any of that fancy book learnin’ is a waste.

Are we totally ignoring the incredible anti-intellectual streak they have, or is that only a concern when other people (i.e. the wrong color, creed, gender, orientation, or ideas) get higher education?

http://twitter.com/FilipinoBoston FilipinoBoston

“United States of China” OMG LOL

John

Jack is right about the ability for the Prez to get any meaningful legislation bill for jobs through the house, they have been against him from day 1, he acts like an abused spouse always believing it will bet better.

Worried for the country(MA)

Remember he had majorities in both houses for his 1st 2 years.
- TFRX
  
  …and 41 Republican Senators, and a GOP loser whining in Minnesota who dragged out his losing for months and months so Al Franken wouldn’t get seated, and a record number of holds and filibusters.
  
  When a group wants to not govern, why does it go into governance?
- John
  
  obstructionist, how quick we forget the actions of the republican party during that time, Democrats were to blame for not going after the Bush Tax Cuts deferring to after the election in effect causing many to lose their seats as a result because the base saw a weak represntation.
Anonymous

so you blame the fact that the Dem’s couldn’t pass a budget for the 1st 2 years on the minority party? Or was it that the Dem’s couldn’t even agree with themselves!
- John
  
  party line votes Brandstad, you fail to see past your own ability to recognize a party intent on doing nothing because they are sore about getting kicked out for eight years of follies, which i might add is why we are in the position of a decline today, stop being so simple-minded and look at the facts or at a minimum history.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2L4LQQNBMFLZ7QPCZCBEABTXEI Mark

We need to “invest” in America’s future. We need to Raise Revenue. We need to create jobs.

The super congress should include a tax subsidy for companies that
create new jobs, in exchange for closing other tax loop wholes.

The job subsidy should be based on the size of the company and how many net jobs the company creates.

http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

Why should we PAY for employers to create jobs? We should reverse free trade and the jobs will come home on their own… with the added benefit we’d again be getting revenue from tariffs.

Scott B, Jamestown, NY

I don’t want to see Perry in the White House. As much as I like some of his views on bettering education, he also lets the Texas Board of Education buy books that rewrite history, such as downplayingt slavery (“triangle trade” as it’s called).

He’s suggested, albeit semi-seriously, that Texas secede from the Union.

And as far as his religious participation, that’s a big cast of bad players he’s hanging with. Each of them think their version of God is the only version, and all other are sinners and infidels. Those are not the people I want around the POTUS, waging personal holy wars against every other denomination. Want a theocracy? Move to Iran and see how well that’s working out. The Statue of Liberty a demonic icon? That guy needs the canvas sweater with the wraparound sleeves.

I’m a firm believer in the quote attributed to Sinclair Lewis, ““When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving a cross.”

Johnnygolightly

What’s up with the example of Britain and Germany…They’re currently in European wide debt crisis because those 2 countries and in particular Germany can’t get past their own navels. They should have followed Obama’s advice!

Scott B, Jamestown NY

Actually Germany has the strongest economy in Europe right now, and they have higher taxes and more (and sane) government regulation.

UK went all austerity and they’re even further in the economic mire than they were before all the cuts.

http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

REAGAN RESTORED CONFIDENCE? A guest just rewrote history and was NOT challenged by Jackie. He claimed things were pretty bad in 79 but Reagan came in and restored confidence and we had a pretty good 25 year run. WHAT? ERTA was passed in July 1981 and was immediately followed by the deepest recession since the 30′s with unemployment reaching 10.8% some 18 months later. In seasonally unadjusted numbers unemployment was above 8% from Dec 81 to March 84. Reagan’s team predicted in 2-81 there’d be some 13 million new jobs by 1986. There were 8.4 million. He predicted in summer 81 that there’d be a budget surplus in “a few years” and he’d start paying down debt. Ya right. While the economy eventually improved despite Reagan, the claim Reagan ushered in an age of confidence is a dishonest claim I suspect made by a conservative.

Johnnygolightly

yeah…when does Tom come back?…I miss the topical audio clips.
John

that sounds like the same thing Obama campaigned on with the same reult up to this point and i supported his rhetoric, striking comparison.
- http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
  
  Uh? Reagan didn’t inherit a great economy inflation was way too high was were oil prices. But technically we weren’t in recession… it ended 6 months before. The Reagan recession began 6 months AFTER he took office. Obama inherited the proverbial sh*t sandwich from Bush who imploded the economy leaving a collapsed housing and banking sectors, sabotaged revenues with irresponsible tax cuts, and left Obama with two credit card wars and $5.5 trillion in new debt. Atop of that there was the disloyal opposition of True Believers. These right wingers were incapable of reflection or soul searching and seemed to think despite the evidence all around them there was nothing wrong with their ideas. If the economy imploded, it must be because they hadn’t been extreme enough.
  - John
    
    he did inherit quite a bit of crap, i wish he would have decided to hire a staff that was more porgressive, most of his advisors were contributors to the economic downfall before arriving on the hill, if you go to the bullpen for a relief be sure it is a changeup.
  - william
    
    So the major problem with Bush was overspending via war or whatever, but that was the single biggest failure for Bush?
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      And why must there be ONE single biggest failure during the Bush Junta? You seem determined to find Bush guilty only of overspending… and thus sweeping his irresponsible tax cuts under the table… even if they might have cost the Treasury some $2 trillion. The incompetence of the Bush Junta is beyond measure… and sadly Obama, by not educating the public as to what happened, and not pushing for real reforms of Wall St, is making it easy for the Orwellian Right to sweep the Bush era under the carpet and pretend history started when Obama took office in January 09. I don’t know about you but shouldn’t we ALL start looking for the man behind the curtain who’s creating these bogus narratives, these false realities? After all, it’s not in yours or my interest if we again go down the Bush route… but SOMEONE’S profiting from it.
    - william
      
      The majority of the Bush tax cuts went to the poor and middle class..even Obama admitted as much and made the Bush tax cuts his tax cuts. So back to the original question. Bush’s biggest failure was overspending?”
    - TFRX
      
      The Bush tax cuts were loaves for the rich and crumbs for the rest. And they ain’t never gonna pay for themselves.
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      �
      The GOP doesn’t give a rat’s arse about the working poor. But the only way to pass tax cuts that are designed to benefit the rich the most is to have a tax cut for all. And if the GOP’s goal is to Starve the Beast… ie sabotage revenue then what the hell… the more revenue cut the better. Either way it doesn’t matter what the breakdown was because ANY tax cut at a time when We The People were close to $6 TRILLION in debt… and based on projections of the Clinton Surplus extending into the future was grossly irresponsible… especially since Bush promised in 2000 that paying down debt to strengthen Social Security was his FIRST priority. In reality Bush did everything he could to create MORE debt. It doesn’t take more than a room temperature IQ to see what he and the GOP were really up to.
Anonymous

@60f910e5f7ef0a1604f01ec2fa2dbd2f:disqus And Jacki is not some newbi! She should know better on the history of the recent past. And her knowledge of macroeconomics is truly deficient. She needs to read Krugman, DeLong, Robert Skidelsky, Ezra Klein and a few others so she UNDERSTANDS what Keynes SAID, not what the RIGHT WING wants people to think he said, whether she personally believes it or not.

NPR should create a commission to review their coverage of political issues, much as the BBC recently did for its science coverage. The review spotlighted the BBC’s veering into FALSE BALANCE, where opposing factions are given equal coverage and equal validity even when one side’s point of view is demonstrably false.

The myths about Ronald Reagan’s presidency are legion and EVERY reporter should be familiar with the ins and outs of each of them. It is truly a mark of incompetence when a program host is not.
http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

According to http://www.bls.gov/cps/prev_yrs.htm the average unemployment rate for 1982 was 9.7%… and for 1983 it was 9.6%

Yikes….

Those Reagan tax cuts worked like a charm, didn’t they!

Scott B, Jamestown NY

LaHood’s a good guy, but he denies every study on sleep deprivation and people working odd shifts, and denies air controllers naps for no longer than a long bathroom or smoke break, risking lives. That’s not speaking well for him or the administration. It’s a cheap, sane fix, as opposed to the cost of hiring more people, or, worse, the disasters that can easily happen.

Worried for the country(MA)

LaHood has been promoting putting mileage monitors in every car so the Feds can tax you per mile driven. LaHood’s a good guy? Not!
- Scott B, Jamestown NY
  
  I didn’t say perfect, just good. I don’t think anyone needs government tracking how far you drive to get more revenue. We already pay it in all the other ways from gas tax, to toll booths, and local taxes.
  - Worried for the country(MA)
    
    I agree with you. Also, LaHood may be a “good guy”. I may have been a little harsh in my criticism. When he first promoted the ‘mileage’ idea the administration was very quick to snuff it out. It was that bad.
    - Scott B, Jamestown NY
      
      It’s good to run any idea up the flagpole, eventhose that end up being really bad ones. Because then we can look at what makes it bad. It’s much like Edison’s failing to make a successful light bulb 240 times. “I learned 240 way to NOT make a lightbulb.”
      
      Maybe instead of taxing by mileage, why not give tax breaks for NOT driving so much? Same machine, different outcome. It would make people pay a LOT more attention to their driving, probably encouraging more use of public transportation, driving routes, car pooling, you name it.
    - Worried for the country(MA)
      
      Don’t you think high gas prices and traffic congestion are incentive enough to avoid driving when possible?
      
      We need to massively simplify the tax code not look for ways to make it more complicated.
  - Anonymous
    
    @8e1a3e5642d40f7a16533193869586fa:disqus See my response to “Worried…” above.
- TFRX
  
  “Has been promoting”?
  
  It’s called a trial balloon–look up the meaning.
- Anonymous
  
  @ec83219a7a1ebf66c63f3a5b695ec4ba:disqus And just how do YOU want to pay for new and maintenance of existing roads, bridges, etc. as the gasoline tax revenue declines?
  The declining revenues will occur since that tax is mostly a PER GALLON charge (federal tax is only /g) and with cars and trucks getting more miles per gallon, the road damage per (truck) mile traveled will go up while the money to repair will go down. And then electric vehicles will not be paying ANY road taxes except for toll roads.
  
  And aren’t you for the maxim that “users should pay”?
  - Worried for the country(MA)
    
    Don, I agree with you that a mileage tax by vehicle weight is a more direct USE tax. The proposals for vehicle tracking went way beyond mileage (they had GPS and could also measure speed). This is the classic government overreach.
    
    For now, the gas tax is a good proxy for a use tax. KISS! btw – I thought we should be encourage electric cars so they should be getting a natural subsidy, right?
    
    I’m not against a moderate increase in the gas tax IF there is a shortfall for road infrastructure projects. Unfortunately they typically use these funds for boondoggle projects like high speed rail.
  - Anonymous
    
    I agree with you on this one. Electric and other high mileage vehicles should be taxed more than gas guzzlers since the guzzlers pay for it at the pump. I don’t agree in any government tracking of vehicles though so the high mileage vehicles should be paid through the local DMV when the vehicles registration is updated yearly.�

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2L4LQQNBMFLZ7QPCZCBEABTXEI Mark

We need to “invest” in America’s future. We need to Raise Revenue. We need to create jobs.

The super congress should include a tax subsidy for companies that
create new jobs, in exchange for closing other tax loop wholes.

The job subsidy should be based on the size of the company and how many net jobs the company creates.

http://twitter.com/FilipinoBoston FilipinoBoston

You are on good example of the will of the people to survive without relying from the Federal government.
http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

Why should we PAY for employers to create jobs? We should reverse free trade and the jobs will come home on their own… with the added benefit we’d again be getting revenue from tariffs.
- Johnnygolightly
  
  Sounds like you’re advocating this:
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Act
  
  which brought on: everything that happen from 1930 to 1941
  - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
    
    “Everything”? ROTF Are you even reading your own article? It doesn’t say SH was to blame for “everything”… at most it says it was a MINOR contributor.
    
    The US became a great industrial power because of protectionism… policies put into place by Hamilton in the early 1790s. We don’t have to look far to see how free trade has sabotaged our industrial base. At SOME point we have to look at what’s best for the nation as a whole, not for what’s best for multinationals.
    - Anonymous
      
      Unfortunately that ship has long sailed out of the jobs harbor.
      Bringing back protectionism is not likely to work at this point.
      Not when GE and other large corporations have so much invested overseas.
    - twenty-niner
      
      You can do protectionism in different ways, for example, tax breaks for in-sourcing balanced against tax hikes for out-sourcing.
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      If we have the biggest retail market in the world then companies, even those who went overseas, are going to want to sell here. They would then have two choices, pay tariffs or move jobs back. At SOME point the tide of free trade has to be reversed or reformed. Dog eat dog, exploitative if not abusive capitalism, has to be tamed again. It represents a system built on false economics in that it always seeks to escape some crucial costs of production… pollution, worker safety, etc and those costs then are born by innocent third parties. Put another way, society as a whole ends up subsidizing private profit.

http://twitter.com/FilipinoBoston FilipinoBoston

We Filipinos learned something for past 25 years of Marcos dictatorship never ever trust the government. Almost 80% of revenue in the Philippines are made by the sweat and blood of the Overseas Filipino workers. from Maids in Hong Kong, construction workers in Saudi Arabia, public school teachers in Kuwait or nurses in Boston hospitals. The Filipinos are still struggling but we are happy to learn the way to survive by not listening to the Philippine government.

Americans should never anticipate the help of the Federal government, never ever rely from your government to help you get up when stumble and fall. Stop the Politics and do something.

What the Chinese people learn is to be Independent. Make your own niche to survive. China doesn’t have Democrats or Republicans or 2 parties to make their economy strong it is the people who will make a country strong again.

http://twitter.com/FilipinoBoston FilipinoBoston

The South Koreans did that and China followed. Filipinos did the same and Japan too.

R Horn

After the first 40 minutes, I could no longer bear listening. It was too painful to hear your guests struggle to the point of choking to avoid discussing the most important issue.

That is, why it is not feasible to ask those who have profited most from the 10+ trillion dollar bail-out to contribute to economic adjustment and recovery.

It is a class issue. Why are you afraid to acknowledge it. Your sophisticated listeners grasp your reticence.

How much longer can Tom Ashbrook stand it?

Robert Horn, Cornersville Tennessee

CS

You raised an essential question, Why are people afraid to acknowledge the class dimension of our economic problems? This question gets to the root of how ideology functions in our society today, and needs to be addressed.
Anonymous

EVERY interview of EVERY politician or pundit should require they answer these questions:

1. Why do you think that 80% of the gain created by our economy over the past 3 decades has gone to the top few percent of the wealthiest?

2. What do you think needs to be done to reverse this disparity and change its increasingly unbalanced distribution of income and assets? Or are you OK with it?

This is THE issue facing our country.
- Steve T
  
  Well when the Supreme Court said that company’s were people but not taxed like you or I, example GE pays less than 1% how can we get a break. Yes we have many issues facing our Country. NO way am I OK with any of it.

Howard Wenger

I was listening to the panel this morning. A question about how the economy is hurting the middle class came to the panel. The answer was yes the middle class is suffering and has not seen any real growth in income this decade – actually it has been much longer than that. The subject was quickley dropped. When will the message change. When will many of the middle class tea party people change their message. When will the trend of accumulation of wealth to the .01% of the population reverse so our economy can grow.

Tina

Other ways to help the (real people’s) economy:

a) we need to study how to enact laws against many of the practices of the patent trolls (if you haven’t heard this term, google stories from npr about patent trolls that aired in the past few weeks — my description would be pitiful. I think Planet Money may have one story, and possibly This American Life). Apparently, money is being siphoned off from the rewards of true entrepreneurial inventiveness by “money-spiders” (the trollers or trawlers?).

This point ALSO goes along with the point made by the caller who despaired (rightfully, I believe) that she & her husband felt that they couldn’t find ways to invest thru Wall Street in ways that would truly benefit companies by helping them grow thru research, invention, re-design, retrofitting, growing their infrastructures, etc., BECAUSE Wall Street is busy gambling (credit default swaps, etc.). The patent trolling issue walks hand-in-hand with the situation the caller described.

b) couldn’t there be federal laws against some of the outrageously high interest rates that are charged on credit cards (34% — HOW is that NOT illegal?). Many, many young people got caught up by corporations “giving” them credit cards when they were away from home at college, and without their parents’ knowledge started charging things. Some of these same kids were working jobs while going to school and studying hard — they WERE often doing what they were supposed to do, but they got caught in a snare by corporate greed.

c) I fear that I agree with what Jack B. said the other day about capitalism. Jack said that Marx said that capitalism could thrive for quite some time EVEN WITH high unemployment (remember: capitalism is about capital, not about people!). We all need to know more about capitalism, socialism, communism, and social-democracies, and about bartering economies, and other economic types as differing economic models, because a LOT of the political verbiage out there misrepresents the plusses and minuses of just a few of these systems, and WE need to NOT fall for verbiage that just isn’t understood (or represented) in a broad enough context. That capitalism can be THAT evil to citizens (those who cannot get and/or make enough work) exists within a broader context that we need to understand. Personally, I want to find out more about how Denmark makes a go of it. They seem to have happy, inventive people who are even dealing effectively with environmental issues, and they have merged a respect for their architectural past with extraordinary inventiveness in contemporary design. Seen thru the context of the great lives that so many Danes enjoy, are higher taxes REALLY such a bad thing??

http://twitter.com/FilipinoBoston FilipinoBoston

Denmark has Universal Healthcare, Denmark has free education, Denmark don’t rely on credit cards or got 3 cars. Denmark don’t eat and think to much that can cause health issues that will raise the healthcare cost. Denmark don’t waste a lot of food and resources.

Denmark don’t use capitalism all the time.
- http://twitter.com/FilipinoBoston FilipinoBoston
  
  Denmark as a culture just like the Chinese which Americans don’t have. A cultural identity
- Scott B, Jamestown, NY
  
  Denmark also has one of the highest rates of government involvement in literally EVERYTHING, taxes are outrageous, and it’s stiffling people from being innovative or wanting to excel. It’s reflected even in their sports, where fans aren’t exactly rabid to troot for a team because there’s this big “blah” about everything.
  
  That’s not to say the we need to end all gov’t regulation, or that something like socialized medicine is bad. But it’s a balance approach.
  - CS
    
    be careful claiming that Danes are less innovative or motivated because of government involvement.
    - Scott B, Jamestown NY
      
      The Danish people are good, but the government has it’s claws in every aspect of every pie. I got that info from an NPR story, actually.
Johnnygolightly

Crony capitalism is what is practiced in U.S…and that’s just the problem…Solutions: Campaign finance reform, Transparency, Smart legislation

http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

Is it time for a government jobs program? In the 30′s my dad worked for the CCCs building state parks in two states. Those parks are still used today. The WPA employed everyone from laborers to artists to writers. In the late 70′s I ran a historical research project under the subsection of the CETA program. That research is still used today. I know the GOP is loathe to have another jobs program. Yet when the private sector just isn’t creating jobs is the GOP saying it’s better to spend for unemployment and get nothing in return? Of course we also could start to reverse free trade. Right now we’re in a situation where if there’s increased consumer demand, it’s met by increasing jobs overseas. My, free trade was a brilliant idea!

twenty-niner

My, free trade was a brilliant idea!

Free trade with first-world countries that have rigorous environmental laws, intellectual property laws, livable wages, and currencies that are allowed to float, is perfectly sensible. Free trade with China and the like has proven disastrous, and both parties are equally to blame for pushing this policy.

To my recollection, only Ross Perot spoke out against such free-trade initiatives, which were ultimately pushed through by the Clinton administration in the 90s.

Ross Perot Prophecy Comes True

http://investorcentric.blogs.nuwireinvestor.com/2011/07/ross-perot-prophecy-comes-true.html

It’s seriously time for a third party.
- http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
  
  I have no problem with free trade with other nations that share our social overhead… Social Security, worker safety, benefits, unemployment insurance, pollution controls etc. We spent a century trying to tame the worst abuses of dog eat dog capitalism…. to see much of that effort undermined by corporate Dems like Clinton who drank the right wing Kool Aid of free trade and deregulation.
  - twenty-niner
    
    The point is I haven’t heard any serious denouncement of NAFTA or Chinese trade policies from EITHER party. I did hear this from Perot. I remember clearly a debate between Perot and Al Gore on Larry King, where Gore droned on and on about how free trade was going to unleash an era of unprecedented growth in US manufacturing. Wrong again Al. The problem is 20 years down the road, we have a hobbled manufacturing base, and Al has five mansions; of which all, I’m sure, are very energy efficient.
david

Sounds good until you factor in that our economy no longer has the industrial base it had in the 30′s. We are a consumption driven economy, meaning if the govt. does this, you think the Nat’l debt is bad now! Money follows the cheapest labor!
- http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
  
  Money chases the cheapest labor (and let’s not forget all the other costs corporations escape when they go to these nations) because WE allow this “investment” strategy to work. What makes this profitable is not the cheap labor and overhead in itself. It’s the ability to import these cheap goods into high profit retail markets. If there were trade barriers on goods coming into the US on goods from these nations, capital would still be free to go where it wanted, but it would not be as profitable. In the process we protect our own industrial base and standard of living for blue collar families.
- twenty-niner
  
  our economy no longer has the industrial base it had in the 30′s
  
  Yes, this is the root of the problem, not taxes, not spending, not Twitter. Deindustrialization. We need to put a tourniquet on the arm, stop the blood loss, and put the patient (US economy) in triage.
  
  As I posted below, a first step would be tax breaks for in-sourcing balanced against tax hikes for out-sourcing. Any candidate running on this platform would have MASSIVE public support.

Scott B, Jamestown NY

The knee-jerk reactions of everyone on Wall St, and the 24hr news cycles of nothing but doomsayers, has too much [negative] influence than it should. It just reinforces what the bearish want to hear, everyone starts selling, and even people shopping on main street stop spending. This is one time (perhaps the only time) when Dubya’s,”Go shopping” would actually apply and do some good. Regular people going about their daily business would do far, far better
for this economy than skittish, panicky Wall Street players.

The Wall St bell should be replaced with a clip that says “Stop being idiots!”

http://twitter.com/FilipinoBoston FilipinoBoston

Federal Government doesn’t help the people. How can you listen to the people that made America broke. America has been stabbed multiple times and you still listen to the Republicans and Democrats that made your country broke.

Chinese government didn’t help the people of China. The rich Chinese businessmen from Honk Kong who invested so much to the main land China created a strong economic country that all American are envious about and plus they have money to lend other countries like USA.

Anonymous

Don’t forget that China has one of the largest number of peaople anywhere in the world that barely make enough money to live on.

Freeman

Jacki;
Eleanor Clift is a great woman;watch her every Friday night on
The McLaughlin Group. She is a very strong advocate for the welfare of ALL of America. She is a strong supporter for the working class and the disadvantaged.

Anonymous

Did I catch that right when you said “She is a very strong advocate for the welfare of ALL of America.”?

Doesn’t that make her a socialist? Does that mean you are a socialist too?

Isn’t socialism quite the opposite of being American?

Why

http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/126825018.html

Michael H.

One of your panelists gave the current conservative answer to what to do: streamline & reduce taxes, and then businesses will feel more secure and create jobs.

The problem is, this is nonsense. Many businesses are having *fantastic* quarters right now, with record profits, but they’re still not hiring. Why not? Because the current unemployment and competition for jobs means that they can get more productivity out of their current employees, by hours or automation, without fear of people leaving.

Reducing taxes does not increase government revenue. Closing “loopholes” does, yes.

Crozet barista

I keep hearing the same fallacy over and over again. Something like businesses are “worried” and “uncertain” about taxation and therefore not hiring. Total BS. Same for the debt/deficit of the fed government causing the economic meltdown. Not so, it is the reverse if you want to link a cause to an effect. The 8 Bush years are a fine example of the opposite: massive tax cuts and an anemic economy at best with incomes stagnating or declining for most (except for the “haves more” super rich elite who filled their own pockets with 4-10x more wealth, while deficits soared. Extreme wealth concentration and therefore power (Congress is deeply corrupt and more and more bought by the deep pockets) brings about most of the anxiety and jitters in the population at large, not the actual debt or deficit. I am amazed that we are not breaking out in an all out revolt against the oligarchs and plutocrats who are running the show and ruining life for most of us.

http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

The Right KNOWS it can’t sell its irresponsible “starve the beast” fiscal policies without a fig leaf that redefines these policies as the opposite. This is why they pretend they are worried about “job creators” and business certainty… because in a recession they know that message will sell. When times are good they have to change that message to pretend restoring taxes to the Clinton level will cause a recession.
At times like this we have to ignore the words and look for a deeper level of internal consistency explains the seeming inconsistency. And we don’t have to look far… it’s that the GOP is against ANY restoration of the Clinton tax rates even if the Bush tax cuts have starved the nation of revenue for a decade. Why would ANYONE want to sabotage the finances of the government? Because the Starve The Beast strategy uses growing debt is useful to the GOP. It’s a political weapon that tries to put the Democrats in a fiscal straight jacket and tries to dismantle or weaken their programs. Once the GOP embarked on this insane strategy they could not go back… and now they believe this is their time to go in for the kill.

Anonymous

WhiteHouse ADMITS IT DOESN’T ‘CREATE JOBS’

As President Obama prepares to deliver a speech on how his administration will help returning veterans get back to work, Press Secretary Jay Carney made a bold admission that “the White House does not create jobs.”

If Jay Carney is right, why exactly do democrats want to increase our taxes so government can be the “spender of last resort” LOL

Just another Democrat contradiction…

It is too bad I can’t suspend critical thinking or I would be a democrat too

TomK in Boston

Don’t beat yourself up, you do a great job of suspending thought, especially where the results of voodoo econ are concerned.

The ans to your question is simple, if you could open your eyes and recognize that Obama is not a liberal but, by our historic pre-TOP standards, pretty far to the right. He is talking the voodoo talk and certainly walking the voodoo walk – as in the recent surrender – most of the time now.
The ceiling surrender will probably weaken the economy enough to actually increase the deficit. Then the TOP can demand more cuts – they really got “starve the beast” going on steroids.

Latest rumor is that the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization S&P is ready to downgrade treasury debt despite the surrender. Putting aside the fact that these clowns should not be a factor at all, that will hurt the economy even more, and it would NOT be a possibility with more tax revenue “on the table”.
- twenty-niner
  
  S&P is ready to downgrade treasury debt despite the surrender
  
  Serious investors have disregarded S&P/Moody’s bond ratings, especially in regard to Treasuries, for a while. The recent spike in Treasuries is not so much about a “flight to safety” but more about a flight to the most liquid market in existence, US debt. In other words, traders know they can park a few billion in USTs for a period, and then pull the money out anytime they want.
  - TomK in Boston
    
    I’m a serious investor and I told you what I think about S&P, but mkts have an emotional component and a downgrade will have an effect.
    
    Treasuries have been strong for a long time. The recent spike is really just more of the same. You’re right about quality, but there is also an ongoing flight to safety in view of the euro crisis. As Bill Gross says, we’re the cleanest dirty shirt.
    
    The most important factor is the weak economy. With the USA heading into recession/depression thanks to Hooverism, the current low interest rates remain attractive, ie bond prices still have room to rise. IOW, the TOP is propping up the bond mkt by killing the economy!
    
    If you want to see how far right the TOP is compared to the good old GOP, look at this from jared bernstein. Amazing!
    
    Anti-depression planning by the Administration includes plenty of stop-gap measures just in case the experts prove wrong and the expected moderate decline turns into full-scale recession. On the shelf are $15 billion of public-works projects [that’s about $100bn today] already blueprinted and approved by Congress, which can quickly be set in motion. Plans have been made to speed up state and local public-works projects, if need be by buying up their bond issues. The “tight money” policy, which has already been liberalized, would quickly be switched to fast expansion of credit by decreasing Federal Reserve margins, resuming the price-pegging of government bonds, and stimulating installment buying. Taxes would be cut still more, the building industry would get special inducements to expand. The republicans say they will spend money faster than the New Deal if they have to.

Anonymous

If Keynesian economics works, why is the US economy smaller today than it was in 2007. We have had how much government stimulus over the last two years?

Michael

“If Keynesian economics works, why is the US economy smaller today than it was in 2007. ”

Why? Must of been the extension of the bush tax cuts.
http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

And the $5.5 TRILLION in debt Bush ran up… ie the sum of his deficit spending, isn’t also essentially Keynesian?
- http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
  
  Sorry, that was a stupid comment. All deficit spending isn’t Keynesian. Deficit spending as a last resort to keep an economy from going into a death spiral is.
http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

It comes as no surprise that you ignore the bigger question that is MUCH more obvious to all those who do wear blinders… if Bush tax cuts and deregulation worked, why did the entire economy implode? The Obama stimulus was much too small to fill the giant hole Bush punched in the economy. It and TARP, stop the slide into the abyss, but that was it.
- http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
  
  CORRECTION… I’m such a sloppy self-editor. I meant to write:
  
  It comes as no surprise that you ignore the bigger question that is MUCH more obvious to all those who do NOT wear blinders… if Bush tax cuts and deregulation worked, why did the entire economy implode?
Alan Shulman NH

It’s fashionable right now to knock, debunk and otherwise poke fun at JM Keynes. But didn’t Roosevelt in 1937 bow to austerity pressures, cut government programs, and see unemployment shoot up? And wasn’t it, after all, the biggest government program of all – WWII mobilization and prosecution – that finally ended the Great Depression?
- william
  
  Check the numbers…FDR did not make massive spending cuts.
  - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
    
    Gee W, you’re telling us to check the numbers as if YOU did?
    
    Clearly you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Alan is correct that FDR DID reduce spending. It was $8.228 billion in 1936, $7.582 billion in 1937, and $6.850 billion in 1938. Source Historical Budget Tables Table 1.1—SUMMARY OF RECEIPTS, OUTLAYS, AND SURPLUSES OR DEFICITS
    
    The spending cuts did lower the deficit but also caused unemployment to spike again from about 14% to 17%…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Unemployment_1910-1960.gif
Roy Mac

You continue to be an ignoramus. Reagan steered away from Keynes 30 years ago. Since then, everyone worshipped at the Friedman altar. Go away and let the adults talk.

Anonymous

The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever…..

Published by the amazing economics blog Calculated Risk, the chart shows the decline in employment as a percentage drop from peak employment for every recession since World War 2.And as you can see from a quick glance at the chart, our current recession (or recovery, or whatever it is) is by far the worst in post-War history.U.S. employment is still miles below where it was in 2007. And the rate at which employment is improving suggests it will take many more years before we regain the previous high.Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/job-losses-by-recession-2011-8#ixzz1UBtKEwVWThe Brand New Scariest Jobs Chart EverIt’s the average duration of unemployment — which surges without any sign of slowing down — that’s really scary right now. Not only is this number taking off like a rocket, but it potentially represents people permanently and structurally kept out of the jobs market.Be afraid.Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-average-duration-of-unemployment-2011-8#ixzz1UBteJf6O

Michael

Scariest is right, funny how that happen when the republicans are in control of the House. odd right?

Jnbdickey

I am a new listener since WDUQ in Pittsburgh started carrying your program recently. I am unable to listen regularly, but I enjoy it when I can. I am surprised however, how Sen. Harry Reid seems willling to say anything regardless of the facts. The FAA became an issue because of Democtat’s intransigience. What he calls a settlement is really a matter of democrats accepting the bill passed by republicans weeks ago which included the waiver allowing Secretary Lahood to overrule the elimination of small airport subsidies. By rejecting the bill causing the furloughs, the democrats cost the government millions in tax revenus and construction workers thousands in pay. All of this to support their union interests. Who held whom hostage? Thank you.

Scott B, Jamestown NY

Seems to me that the Republicans were the hostage takers in an effort to make a point about not wanting workers to unionize. Seems to me that if the government can put in no more than $200M a year to a few rural airports and get $1B or so back from taxes generated that, by anyone’s terms, is a good investment. You probably can’t get that kind of return anywhere without going to jail, save maybe Wall St derivatives and sub-prime mortgage schemes. Would that the US had more programs with that kind of return.
- Michael
  
  But that would show the government does work at some things and of course the republicans can’t have that. Wanna bet those same republicans will be complaining next year about the difference in loss revenues of the FAA.
TomK in Boston

Seems to me that the TOP held the FAA hostage to continue their attack on unions, which is one of the main reasons why all our wealth is being transferred to the top.

Anonymous

I hereby renew my request that “On Point” devote a full two-hour examination of how Boston’s “Big Dig” resulted in over $20 billion in cost overruns. When those of us not living in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts learn exactly the depth of native outrage there at the expenses incurred in their name, for their putative benefit, and once we hear for ourselves the groundswell of opinion calling for the Commonwealth to restore some significant portion of these “expenses” to the Federal Treasury that dished them out, then perhaps we would begin to appreciate what Bostonians or residents of the Commonwealth have to say about the Federal debt, Federal spending, Federal fiscal policy, et cetera. Failing this, many of us outside of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts cannot take too seriously any opinion coming from your hallowed Commonwealth, especially and including from the Kennedy School (the two-hour show can spend a quarter of its time explaining how the Kennedy School made a huge public fuss over the mismanagement of the “Big Dig” project, assuming that the Kennedy School in fact made such a sustained fuss). (Even a quarter of the $20 billion could have saved New Orleans from Katrina, for instance, but the cash pipeline only ran north.) More pockets than highways were paved with that $20 billion in cost overruns, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts owes other Americans a frank and candid explanation of how they allowed this nonsense to transpire over the course of almost two decades. –As I say, then maybe anything you have to say about what does or doesn’t occur in the District of Columbia will have any merit or interest to the rest of us. “Common wealth”, indeed . . . .

david

Here is a small example of what happens to people when they get hooked on Govt. handouts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuCKkOkQcHY&feature=player_embedded

I know of a family that is selling drugs and they get a ton of money each month from us good ole taxpayers. Never worked a day in their lifes.
We have now reached 100% debt to GDP!!!
S&P just downgraded USA to AA+!!!!!!
Okay folks!!!! do you still want bigger Govt.?????
You wanted to be like Europe, well, we are almost there.
Wake up America!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Michael

“You wanted to be like Europe, well, we are almost there.”

Europe’s a big place. Assuming know this already but different parts of Europe are doing better or worst than the U.S.

On a side note aren’t it the republicans always claiming we should be more like Europe in regards to Corp Tax Rates?
- Michael
  
  Europe’s a big place. Assuming you know this already but different parts of Europe are doing better or worst than the U.S.
Michael

Good thing you have a union job. how many years left you got being hooked on government?
- david
  
  You folks cannot handle the reality that your liberal thinking is a failure. I have for several years now warned you folks about the spending problem, only to be demonized by you. You blame everyone except the man sitting in the White House! You deny any facts except your own, you deny other’s positions except your own and now your Utopia is here.
  One thing is a fact, you can blame this on all politicians who bankrupt the USA inorder to secure your vote! Blame yourself for wanting more than our Govt. can ever provide even if you tax every rich person at 100% trying too.
  Notice, everyone how Michael paints me in a negative tone because 30 years ago I chose to be a USPS rural mailman for a job.
  By the way, the S&P was more concerned about our spending problem than they were our bush tax cuts.
  - Michael
    
    “You folks cannot handle the reality that your liberal thinking is a failure.”
    
    Yet the recession started under a Republican President, Yet Reagan increase the deficit by 5 Trillion, Bush started two unfunded wars.
    
    “I have for several years now warned you folks about the spending problem,”
    
    Back to 2008 right?
    
    “only to be demonized by you.”
    
    You demonize unions yet work for one.
    
    “You deny any facts except your own, you deny other’s positions except your own and now your Utopia is here.”
    
    What facts? you stated were becoming like Europe. Did you not? but europe is a big place and of course some countries are doing better than the U.S. right now which reside in Europe. Is this not a fact?
    
    ” One thing is a fact, you can blame this on all politicians who bankrupt the USA inorder to secure your vote!”
    
    I did, Republicans promise tax-cuts to secure peoples votes,
  - Michael
    
    “Blame yourself for wanting more than our Govt. ”
    
    Unlike yourself I was in favor of both spending cuts and tax increases
    
    “even if you tax every rich person at 100% trying too.”
    
    Cause clearly that is what I stated right? please provide a link of me stating such?
    
    “Notice, everyone how Michael paints me in a negative tone because 30 years ago I chose to be a USPS rural mailman for a job”
    
    Of course and will do so as long as you demonize other unions and prevent others the right to unionize. If you practice what you preached you wouldn’t be on government handouts you would have instead choose the private sector.
    
    “By the way, the S&P was more concerned about our spending problem than they were our bush tax cuts.”
    
    See TomK in Boston Today 10:11 PM post. Clearly proving you wrong
    
    As for liberal Utopia? please provide the time frame? 2000? 1990?1980?1970?
    
    Now remember now many liberals are pro-choice, pro-equal rights,see very little problems with homosexuals, believe in evolution, and believe in a progressive tax code.
    
    Notice yet again one works for a union that leeches off the government while complaining about other unions.
    
    Btw, Im not even a big union guy but see your hypocrisy breath taking. Why didn’t you quit your union job if unions are so bad? I have a few answers but like to hear them from you?
    - david
      
      Iam in a union because I was in a not so up front way, told too!
      I have never been to a union meeting in 30 years. Unions are OK until they seek political power! Most the union people I know, all they talk about is “show me the money”
      Michael, If you had remembered my past comments you would know my stance on cuts and taxes. I clearly remember Obama before he changed due to polls that He wanted a $2.4 T or so increase with nothing else added.
      Iam for capping spending, cutting out duplicating programs and reforming the tax code so everyone has a stake in this, the rich and the 51% who have no IRS tax owed.
      You can make the case for your belief, but in reality, it is not working.
      The country is in deep trouble, the liberal/progressive way has failed and now only conservative economics will get us out.
      It is known as Living within your means!!!
    - Michael
      
      “Iam in a union because I was in a not so up front way, told too!”
      
      Could of left for your principles and choose the private sector but again you did not. I’m assuming your perk’s outweighed what you could get in the private sector so you stayed
      
      “I have never been to a union meeting in 30 years.” So? quit if you don’t like it? oh wait being on the government teet is too nice.
      
      “Unions are OK until they seek political power!” So are religious groups, Muti-National Corporations.
      
      “Most the union people I know, all they talk about is “show me the money” The same working in the private sector esp in the Wall Street sector. Isn’t that Capitalism ?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTFJocQBLyE
      
      “I clearly remember Obama before he changed due to polls that He wanted a $2.4 T or so increase with nothing else added.”
      
      Like many things you clearly remember wrong, recall his 4 Trillion dollar proposal with tax increases? Increasing note is it was reported the Republicans held out so long due to polls from there teabag right possibly coming after them in the next election.
      
      “Iam for capping spending, cutting out duplicating programs and reforming
      the tax code so everyone has a stake in this, the rich and the 51% who
      have no IRS tax owed.”
      
      So in a since you believe we should raise taxes on that 47-51%? Why are there not a single republican proposing raising taxes on 47% of Americans? there openly stated they will never raise taxes(most of them)
      
      51%? Jon S quoted 47%? btw Corp’s in the US have close to a 67% rate of not paying taxes so you be in favored of cutting loop holes and raising taxes on them for them to pay there fair share right?
      
      “You can make the case for your belief, but in reality, it is not working.”
      
      I asked you when did we have a liberal Utopia and you did not answer? 1970?-198?0-1990?-2000?
      
      “The country is in deep trouble, the liberal/progressive way has failed and now only conservative economics will get us out.
      
      “It is known as Living within your means!!!”
      
      Nice,
      
      so you support cutting funding for our overseas war? if we can’t afford to do it ourselves than? You must also be in favor or cutting loop holes on Companies and subsidies for ones that ship jobs overseas.
  - http://twitter.com/wwwcash Criostoir
    
    it is governments responsibility to ensure that all members of the economy it oversees are catered for.
    
    it is not the liberal spending that had destroyed America, rather it its fundemantlist capitalism gone out of control.
    
    if lower-class people are allowed to make enough money to survive in the economy which they inhabit then there is little need for so called government liberal spending.
    
    America is now officially in France 1789 mode, so I guess we should get used to eating cake.
    - david
      
      You state”if lower-class people are allowed”
      Read the book “Something to Prove by Yvonne Thornton M.D.” a true story of a poor man in Harlem who worked his butt off and sent all of his four daughters to Medical school.
      You can do anything you put your mind and effort too.
      I have a college degree I never used, worked hard as a carpenter, later a mailman. I was out of debt at age forty, all due to listening to the right people and never giving up!
TomK in Boston

Hey, if we’re “almost there”, do we get national health care? Can we have taxes go from 14% of GDP to over 25% like in europe?

The downgrade, which should not matter (but will) coming from a gang of financial criminals, was primarily due to the TOP holding the USA hostage and the lack of new tax revenues. S&P thinks we don’t have the common sense to let the bush tax cuts expire, which would be very bad for the deficit. With anti-tax hysteria running rampant, maybe S&P is right.
- Michiganjf
  
  Nice Tom!
- william
  
  The majority of the Obama tax cuts are going to the poor and middle class.
  - chris
    
    what goof is a tax cut if you have no income

TomK in Boston

So S&P, who put AAA on MBS based on borrowers with Macjobs making payments on Macmansions, has downgraded Treasuries to AA+.

Obama is so inept. Supposedly a main reason for his surrender to the TOP was his fear of a downgrade without a deal. So now he gets an all-cuts deal AND a downgrade. How can anyone be such a horrible negotiator?

Michael

good question, but the peons in the Corp News will spin things in to just enough short sound bites to make it look like some grand comprise.

Worth pointing out in 2010 compared to 2008 only about 40% of americans who could vote actually voted. Compared to 2008 where about 60% actually voted. Assuming there’s now more than enough reason to vote out the teabaggers in 2012.

Anonymous

Has your Friday panel any incite as to whether insider knowledge of the S&P credit downgrade caused the Thursday stock selloff?

TomK in Boston

Excerpts from S&P statement, not that I have any respect for those scum. The TOP voodoo econ gang shouldn’t be throwing any stones over this….looks like a list of what they wanted.
[...]The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.[...]It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.[...]The act contains no measures to raise taxes or otherwise enhance revenues, though the committee could recommend them.[...]Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.

fredlinskip

As reflected in many of the comments below, On Point, although clearly one of the best news programs available, still lacks the courage to address perhaps the most glaring reason for how economy has gotten where it is- namely 30 years+ of “feed the rich” at the expense of the rest of the nation. I think this reflects NPR’s continual attempt to remain “in the middle”. Unfortunately, by continually avoiding meaningful debate of these facts, NPR is not filling it‘s mandate to inform it‘s listening audience; and plays a role, like most other media outlets today, of fostering ignorance. Murdoch’s news orgs all along have done wonders at bringing the debate down to the level of “The National Enquirer”. Without an informed electorate there is no democracy. The media in general for many years has not been doing a good job at informing electorate. Guess what that means.

Fredlinskip

When 70%+ of Americans polled believe that tax rates on the wealthy should be increased, maybe once in awhile we should hear that perspective from one of the “guests ” on NPR.

Bring on economists who have been right all a long with there predictions. Where’s Robert Reich when you need him?
JonS

Please explain when policies of the sort you advocate ( income re-distribution, soak the rich, equality of outcome and not opportunity) have ever worked? What’s more important–increasing tax revenues or increasing the marginal tax rates on the so-called rich? Why do you assume an informed electorate with being liberal? Frankly , I rarely ever hear a logical, persuasive ,common sense position ever articulated by anyone on the left. Too often their appeal is emotional and logical…
- TomK in Boston
  
  How about a return to our historically normal normal tax rates? The middle class was more prosperous under those conditions, so obviously progressive taxation “works”. It’s hardly “soaking the rich” to move rates back to the norm after 30 years of cuts and increasing of wealth and income at the top, is it?
  
  You talk about the left being “emotional and logical” (you meant illogical) but you are the one who is ignoring the FACT that the middle class has declined during the period of tax cutting. It’s emotional and illogical to call raising taxes in a group that has had its rate cut drastically and now is better off than it has been since 1929 “soaking the rich”. And, I assume your reference to increasing revs vs increasing the marginal rate is about the fallacy echoed by all voodoo econ believers that increasing rates doesn’t increase revenues:get real, that’s illogical and wrong.
  - JonS
    
    According to the IRS , the top 10% of wage earners paid nearly 70% of all federal income taxes and the bottom 47% paid nothing. What would be “fairer” in your mind? The top 10% pay 100% of all income taxes and the 90% pay nothing but expect more benefits? please tell me what percentage of a person’s income should be paid in taxes. I don’t know what you refer to as “historically normal tax rates” but realize this: (1) under today’s lower marginal rates more ” adjusted gross income ” is subject to tax because of the phase out of permitted deductions and exemptions from income , thereby exposing more income to taxation (2) the “dreaded” Bush tax rates expanded the earned income credit , allowing more people to avoid paying anything in taxes. As a result , high income taxpayers today pay a far greater percentage of all federal income taxes than before the Bush tax rates were implemented. Sorry , but lower rates , especially lower capital gains rates , due generate more tax revenues!
    
    Also, why do you compare today’s middle class to the very rich? What you should really be comparing is today’s middle class to the middle class of twenty years ago. I think if you make that comparison, today’s middle class compares favorably.
    
    Lastly, yes I do believe liberal positions are strong on emotion and generally devoid of any common sense and logic. For example, I can’t recall anything ever said by Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid that sounded intelligent. They and their fellow travellers are some of the biggest idiots I’ve ever listened to in my life. I find their appeal to class warfare to be disgusting , divisive , and undemocratic.
- Alan Shulman NH
  
  While explaining is going on, please explain how nations with tremendous disparities between their few wealthy persons and everyone else – and not just disparities but concentrations of wealth (as in 1% having 25% of the wealth)…explain how those nations have survived for very long without resorting to oppression? Even Henry Ford, that iconic capitalist, understood that if the populace did not make a decent wage, there would be no one to buy the cars he was producing.
  - Ggerg
    
    When you see a fat man standing next to a skinny one do you automatically assume the fat man stole the skinny man’s food?
    - Alan Shulman NH
      
      Ggerg: I’m sorry but your use of an individual body weight metaphor to debunk a general economic phenomenon of concerted and extreme wealth transfer going on for decades does not work for me. Compare, for instance, CEO remunerations v. that of workers in 1955 with the same comparison fifty-five years later. Have we seen a corresponding increase in job creation; are corporations performing that much better that such disparities are warranted?
    - Ggerg
      
      I don’t disagree concentrated wealth is an unfortunate side effect of Capitalism. I agree with your data. I disagree with the word “transfer”.
      
      Workers decide their own qualifications, work ethic and by extension their pay. Or whether they are an employer or employee. The pie grows.
    - Alan Shulman NH
      
      I hope you’re not saying that any worker could have been a CEO, that only ambition holds any worker back from moving from 25/Hr to 25M/Yr.
    - Gregg
      
      I wouldn’t say anyone can make $25M/yr but I’m hard pressed to articulate exactly why not.
    - Gregg
      
      I didn’t mean to be why, sorry.
    - Gregg
      
      Can’t understand it.
    - Gregg
      
      I didn’t mean to be why, sorry.
    - Steve T
      
      When a poor man has to eat his shoe and a rich man says it should taste good I gave you a packet of salt. Should the poor man be ever so thankful?
- Ggerg
  
  When confronted during the campaign with the fact that lowering the capital gains tax brought in more revenue, Obama said it was more a matter of “fairness”.
  
  Less revenue, more debt but fair (defined as soaking the rich). Emotion vs. logic. You’re absolutely right.
- Fredlinskip
  
  Let’s try looking at it from another perspective, for a second shall we? Because consumer spending is the biggest driver of our economy, for a while the baby boomers drove economy. What did America’s perhaps most productive generation receive for those efforts? Well I expect you’ve heard that for last 30 years plus, middle class income stagnated- in other words those who actually did the work did not receive proper compensation. Well where did all the fruits of their efforts go? It’s quite obvious that it trickled up to a privileged few- those 100 million $ compensation packages to top execs for example. – well-deserved you say? And pension plans were converted to 401k’s (helping feed Wall St) And now the benefits these productive Americans have been promised are not there apparently? Where did they go? They paid into these programs all there lives. No?? Well one place is that tax rates for the wealthy have steadily decreased. “What’s the matter with that you say- this is Capitalist society for god sake- let the rest eat cake.” Problem with that sentiment is that when consumers can’t buy, the whole system comes crashing down. All’s I’m advocating is that we should return to a time of more sound fiscal policy. It’s so easy to convince the minions- “taxes bad”, because most people don’t take the time to study the facts. These “shelter the wealthy” policies are the same ones that occurred before Depression. Coincidence? For 30+ years we’ve heard “taxes bad- especially on wealthy”. So what has been policy, especially during GOP administrations?- BORROW and SPEND. BORROW and SPEND. BORROW & SPE (Oh wait I said that). If we just keep borrowing and making sure the wealthiest few are taken care of all will be peachy! And they were right all is peachy – for the wealthy few. If we ever get a surplus- can’t have that- let’s give it as tax breaks to the wealthy. Brilliant! But for those who have a grain of compassion in their spirit, America isn’t all about the wealthy – and that was not the founders intentions. It’s not about soaking the rich, it’s about encouraging those who this country has done so much for to invest in America. And by “starving the beast”, by simplest of logic, it is impossible to PAY DOWN DEBT that 30+ years of absurd fiscal policy have created.

http://twitter.com/wwwcash Criostoir

just returned from an economically devastated Ireland where I read a report that their woes can be traced to the actions of a mere 180 people.

A country of 4+million brought to it’s knees by the actions of 180 individuals who had only their own greed as a motivating force.

I wonder how many Americans are responsible for our woes.

A small group of exceptionally rich folk or a few hundred million ordinary people just trying to survive in the land of opportunity!!!!!

twenty-niner

I wonder how many Americans are responsible for our woes.

How many Americans work at Goldman Sachs? How many congressmen voted to give Wall Street a blank check as a reward for creating the housing bubble. Let’s find out:

TARP (H.R. 1424)?

House:Democratic 172 Yeas, 63 NaysRepublican 91 Yeas, 108 NaysSenate:9 Democratic Nays14 Republican Nays1 Independent Nayhttp://clerk.house.gov/evs/200… http://www.senate.gov/legislat…
- Sam Walworth
  
  Saving Goldman was not the reason for any economical disaster, it was giving Goldman et al a pass on everything and anything they did BEFORE the crash was the problem.
  
  Saving Goldman et al was very important for the time being, as being deeply involved in the center of the turmoil and being in the center of the world finance system it was really critical at the moment to save Goldman et al.
  
  However Congress FAILED to put conditions on the check they gave to them, and that was fueled by the individual greed and that will hurt us all in the medium and long term
  - twenty-niner
    
    it was giving Goldman et al a pass on everything and anything they did BEFORE the crash was the problem.
    
    The problem is they have a new hall pass that says “roam where ever you want and don’t forget to smoke in the boys room”.
    
    But there’s another bailout coming that won’t happen, given the current climate in Congress, and I support it not happening. While US gambling houses, for the most part, don’t hold a lot of European sovereign debt, they’ve written a boat load of CDS against this debt, and guess what happens default-mas morning? Kablooey.
    
    And here’s the latest from Deutschland:
    
    German Govt: Italy Too Big For EFSF To Save – SpiegelGerman Govt: Doubts Whether Tripling EFSF Would Help It Save Italy German Govt: Italy Must Make Savings, Reforms To Exit Crisis – Spiegel Italy Debt Guarantee Could Raise Doubts Over Germany’s Finances – Spiegel German Govt: EFSF Should Only Help Small, Mid-Size Countries – Spiegel
    
    And now for the response:
nj

The flip side of this is that is doesn’t take all that many to make a positive change.

Even with historic social, environmental, and political change movements, relatively few people initiated the needed changes and moved them to a point of being implemented. It doesn’t require having every single citizen on board.

Zari Cohen

31 US troops die as
Taliban reportedly shoots down helicopter

Isn’t it easier to look at the Collapse of WTC #7 and understand what really happened on 9/11?

If the owner, Larry Silverstein says: We brought the building down… does it really mean the building came down by syteriously all by itself for whatever reason NIST makes up in the upcoming 6-7 years?

Lewis Eisenberg: President of UJA. Head of NY Port Authority in 2001. He gave the control of the WTC complex (public since 1973) to Private hands in thru a secret bidding. Dartmouth ’64; co-founder of Dartmouth Hillel.

Steve Ross: CEO of Vornado Realty; biggest contributor to UJA. He won the WTC secret bidding on March 17, 2001. He withdrew on March 18, 2001 … having Larry Silverstein take over the WTC buldings in July 2001. Vornado is the biggest profiteer from the new construction of WTC complex. Steve Ross, Dartmouth ’63, is also co-founder of Dartmouth Hillel. Steve and Lewis are best of friends, idealogical best of buddies.

Larry Silverstein: Board Member of UJA. Was about to file for bankrupcy – WTC #7 asbestos legal problem in 2000. March 2001 he was awarded the ownership of WTC Complex with $42 million downpayment. August 2001, quadrouples the insurance coverage of the WTC Complex. September 12, 2001…. $7 billion is due from insurance companies to Larry Silverstein (and his partner former Israeli commando rich Australian, Frank Lowy)

The 31 guys have died as part of the 10-yr cover up of a scam.

Ggerg

The myth the meme.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/08/obama-partisans-ignore-facts-when-bashing-bush

Michael

lol,

the Washington examiner no doubt
Right-Wing Tilt Drives Washington Examiner

One word not uttered by Smith, however, was “conservative” — as in the
political orientation of York’s former employer, the National Review.
Indeed, York has regularly peddled conservative misinformation from his National Review perch.

York is one of the latest manifestations of the rightward skew of the
Examiner, a free tabloid daily created four years ago when conservative
billionaire Philip Anschutz took over a chain of suburban papers and
refashioned them after the publication he owns in San Francisco — an
interesting move since Anschutz himself hasn’t talked to the media in decades.

The Examiner has had a conservative skew from its inception,
as exemplified by its early hiring of Bill Sammon, a former Washington
Times staffer who penned several books laudatory of George W. Bush and
his presidency even while serving as a White House correspondent. Sammon
moved last year to Fox News, but he left no ideological vacuum behind.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terry-krepel/right-wing-tilt-drives-wa_b_191379.html
- Ggerg
  
  You did not address a single issue or number cited in the most excellent and accurate article. Instead you complain about “Stretch” Sammon. Beyond lame.
  - Michael
    
    oh I will, Just stated and linked how biased your source is,
    
    for one
    
    “As far as tax cuts are concerned, Bush did indeed cut taxes for the wealthy”
    
    Clearly false since the majority of the tax cut went to the wealthy
    
    “Everybody talks about how much the Bush tax cuts
    ‘cost,’” says one GOP strategist. “We’re saying, no, they led to a huge
    increase in revenue.”"
    
    Says a GOP strategist( a guy paid to spin and get GOPer’s elected) hardly credible)
    
    “And deficits shrank. ”
    
    nope, the deficit before either obama or Mccain would have took office was a additional 1.2 trillion per year.
    
    “Deficits went up in 2008 with the beginning of
    the economic downturn — and, not coincidentally, with the first full
    year of a Democratic House and Senate.”
    
    Again a false reality with no look at cause and effect. Also neglecting the 1.2 trillion per year that bush left whoever were to be taking his place.
    
    What’s lame is your clearly easy to debunk links.
    - Gregg
      
      “Clearly false since the majority of the tax cut went to the wealthy”
      
      Absolutely not true. The rich’s rate was lowered 4.6% and the poor’s 5%. Wealth was redistributed from the rich to the poor in the form of the EIC. Every single American got a tax cut.
      
      Look at the numbers, deficits shrank. The 1.2 billion a year you cite is bogus. What do you mean by “per year”?
    - Michael
      
      Your classic,
      
      but you stated in previous post Tax Cuts aren’t redistributing wealth. Now you admit it is. hahah. As for you claim about the poor and middle class getting more please provide a objective source.
      
      :”per year”?
      
      the following year after bush left a 1.2 trillion dollar deficit would occur per year. So if the debt was say 10 trillion when bush left add 1.2 trillion per year which would be 11.2 trillion than 12.4 trillion and so on.
    - Gregg
      
      I have ALWAYS maintained tax credits are redistribution of wealth, always. That’s part of the reason why I don’t understand liberals problem with the vast benefits to the poor from the Bush tax credits. You will never hear the words “Bush tax cuts” without “for the rich”. It’s been pounded so much people actually don’t believe everybody got a tax cut.
      
      I do not believe tax cuts are a redistribution of wealth from poor to rich as has been claimed here.
      
      Deficits were shrinking because of increased revenue despite wars as my man Byron points out. That changed when�
      Democrats took control in 2007. It’s Obama’s deficit now and Bush is not making him spend $1.2 trillion per year.
    - Michael
      
      See Ultra post again debunking your claims.
      
      From the source Greg quoted, which is pretty funny in a sad people actually believe that way.
      
      From:
      
      Pajamasmedia
      |
      Aug 4, 2011
      |
      
      23,464 views
      
      Despite what you
      hear from the media and the Democrat party, the poor are getting richer.
      In fact, America’s poor are so rich, we should be celebrating it. Bill
      Whittle has the facts to back it up.
      
      That’s right folks the poor are doing great.
      
      ha, talk about not living in reality. Still waiting greg for your objective sources???
      
      Your man Bryon is a joke and Ultra(among others) have proven the majority of your claims as false yet you go on.
    - Gregg
      
      If you don’t already know about the percentages and scope of the tax cuts then you really shouldn’t make claims. Look it up, just google “Bush tax cuts” and look for a wiki link. It’s all there.
      
      The rich get richer and the poor get richer. America’s poor are better off than the average European.
      
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkebmhTQN-4&feature=player_embedded
    - Michael
      
      Again I asked for objective sources Pajamasmedia is no such thing. Try again.
    - Steve T
      
      You are absolutely Thick as a brick. Or you are one of the few wealthy that have not had to work for a living. America’s poor are better off than the average European.??????????? That’s just NUTS.
    - Gregg
      
      Did you watch the video? The evidence is compelling.
    - Steve T
      
      What The fact that I have a refrigerator and a microwave, air conditioning and a computer?
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      More nonsense? If we’re deep in debt, then ALL tax cuts are “funded” with BORROWED MONEY. If there’s any redistribution here it’s not from the rich down. Since money is fungible, ALL tax cuts… even for the rich, are a redistribution from FUTURE TAXPAYERS to us today.
  - Michael
    
    btw, the link i provided talks about York as well and why he’s full of it and address why York tends to be wrong on issues.
    - Gregg
      
      Dude, it’s a Huffington post link! Don’t talk about biased sources and come at me with that.
    - Michael
      
      ha,
      
      Cause writing a book called the vast left wing conspiracy makes one objective.
      
      If you wish,
      
      York stating why a government default is not such a bad thing
      http://sroblog.com/2011/02/25/byron-york-why-the-gop-shouldnt-fear-a-government-shutdown-washington-examiner/
      
      http://crooksandliars.com/taxonomy/term/713
      
      The hole in Byron York’s head
      My February issue of the American Spectator arrived today. I
      immediately flipped to page 50 to reread the article, “Ron Brown’s
      Body,” written by Byron York. Why reread a piece of no worth? Because
      it’s just plain fun to analyze the inconsistencies and machinations of a
      “professional” who sacrifices integrity for reasons unknown.
      http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=2619
      
      http://www.journalstandard.com/opinions/guestcolumns/x1274030323/MY-VIEW-Big-companies-pay-no-taxes
      
      http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2895
      
      The first great wave of pundit concern over “Bush-hating” occurred in the summer of 2003. At the time, National Review columnist Byron York wrote “Annals of Bush-Hating” (National Review,
      9/1/03; Hill, 9/3/03), which became something of the landmark of the
      genre. York argued that left-wing loathing for Bush equaled the
      right-wing animus that plagued Clinton’s presidency. (York’s failure to
      raise his voice during the Clinton assault may be due to the fact that
      he worked for the American Spectator, the leading “Clinton-hating” journal, from 1996 to 2000.)
      
      Black Americans are not a legitimate demographic in Byron York’s view
      http://themoderatevoice.com/30469/byron-york-blacks-are-skewing-obamas-poll-numbers/comment-page-1/
      
      Byron York Compares Democrats Voting for Health Care Bill to Tiger Woods Cheating on His Wife
      
      http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/byron-york-compares-democrats-voting-healt
      
      and of course media matters has mutiple cases of York BS,
      http://mediamatters.org/search/tag/byron_york
    - Gregg
      
      Tax cuts for the rich did not cause this problem. York is right, as would be the devil himself if he had said it, it’s a myth. And still not a word to rebut the claim and numbers.
    - Michael
      
      See ulTRAX Today 05:35 PM in reply to Ggerg post, and the many others debunking your claims as well as Yorks.
    - Gregg
      
      Well, it must be nice to have someone to stick up for you when you fail to make a cogent rebuttal. Unfortunately, ulTRAXX lives in a fantasy world. He cites a CBO report that was requested by John Spratt as evidence tax cuts cost billions. The CBO will cipher out any thing you give them. That is how Obamacare was deemed deficit neutral. It would have had to go something like this: “IF the tax cuts never happened AND revenue continued a straight line course immune to ALL outside influences such as bubbles bursting and 9/11 then revenue WOULD HAVE BEEN even more abundant.”
      
      It’s a fantasy. The fact remains revenue rose by over a half trillion dollars from 2003 to 2007. The fact remains no significant tax cuts for the rich happened until 2003 despite ulTRAXX’ claim that a half point reduction in the top rate is “significant” in comparison to 3-5% cuts in every bracket across the board. All the “woulda’, coulda’, shoulda’s” and “if onlys” do not get around those facts. It is unbelievably naive, shallow and short-sighted to keep on blaming Bush tax cuts for anything but rescuing an economy in free fall after 9/11 and the Clinton recession.
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      The ONLY one seemingly living in a fantasy world is YOU G. You hold it as a religious belief that tax cuts DON’T reduce revenue because at some distant point in the future revenues might finally catch up to the revenue produced by old tax law. But the revenue growth under the old law WOULD have been higher.
      Your claim IGNORES what everyone else KNOWS… TAX CUTS REDUCE REVENUE. Those who propose it know it, the CBO and those who score such proposals know it… those who use common sense here know it… only you don’t.
      It really doesn’t matter who requested the CBO report. All that was requested was their estimate of the direct revenue losses from the Bush tax cuts PLUS the added interest. While you’re here with your Orwellian tax cuts = free lunch or that Bush’s 2007 revenues were so great nonsense, the reality is that those Bush tax cuts REDUCED revenue over Clinton tax law AND all that extra borrowing cost extra INTEREST.
      Time to deal with reality G. Up to it?
      Didn’t think so.
    - Gregg
      
      It makes all the difference in the world who made the request. You need to learn how the CBO works.
      
      You say tax cuts reduce revenue but they didn’t, it went up. You can’t deny it.
nj

Myth is right. More supply-side fantasy that has been consistently debunked.

There’s just no credible evidence that tax cuts are responsible for stimulating economic activity.

Revenues no doubt would have increased even more in the absence of the Bush cuts.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/07/18/271761/franks-bush-tax-cut-revenue/

http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/supply-side_spin.html
- Gregg
  
  There were essentially no tax cuts in 2001. The $300 tax credits were sent out and the “Earned Income Credit” (along with the new 10% bracket) resulted in millions of the poor paying no taxes. So, 2001 saw diminished revenues attributed to the tax credits. In 2003 rates were lowered for everyone and revenue rose over a half trillion dollars by 2007.
  
  It is absolutely laughable to ignore the impact of the Clinton recession, 9/11 and the actual real revenue increases and say “it would have been better if“. That’s fantasy.
  - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
    
    G wrote: “There were essentially no tax cuts in 2001.”
    
    Given that I’ve already DISPOVED this claim I have to again question your veracity. Why are you here day after day posting false claims? The 2001 tax cuts provided some immediate cuts and the upper bracket cuts were to be phased in over 5 years. This was accelerated in 2003.
  - TFRX
    
    http://www.slate.com/id/2296578/
    
    “So, to recap: The Bush tax cuts were followed by low GDP growth, negative median wage growth, and little job growth. Even before the Great Recession, growth in the Bush business cycle was the weakest since World War II. And the cuts cost about $2.6 trillion between 2001 and 2010, according to the Economic Policy Institute—adding to a debt future generations of taxpayers will pay for, plus interest.
    
    By Bush’s own metrics, then, the tax cuts were a failure. But perhaps that is because Bush chose such absurd metrics and made such silly promises about tax cuts’ economic omnipotence in the first place.”
- http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
  
  NJ wrote: “Revenues no doubt would have increased even more in the absence of the Bush cuts.” This is the trick the Orwellian Right always tries when it comes to hiding the reduced revenues from irresponsible tax cuts. Revenue tends to grow on a predictable curve. All things being equal, the growth is spurred by inflation, a growing population, and often the level of economic activity. What tax cuts do is throw that curve back a few years but eventually they will top revenue from older tax law. Of course that older tax law would have produced higher revenue. G’s logic is something like this… a kid stays back 6 years in school and he’s now 18 but in 6th grade. G would see it as a great success that that 18 year old has graduated to the 7th grade… claiming all that matters is what happened, not what could have. Under his logic we’re not supposed to even consider the perhaps $2 trillion in lost revenue from the Bush tax cuts a loss. Tax cuts = a Free Lunch.
http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

Gee G, you’re back AGAIN trying to peddle the same Orwellian nonsense that LESS revenue is more. We’ve been over this time and time again that in constant dollars Bush revenues were NOT as great as you pretend. They only exceeded Clinton’s last year in 2 of Bush’s 8 years. Where I come from five years of DEPRESSED revenue… 01-05 is NOT a revenue boom. Everyone else seems to understand that tax cuts CUT revenue over existing tax law.
- http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
  
  CBO: BUSH TAX CUTS COST $211 BILLION IN 2007
  
  JCT estimated the revenue effects of EGTRRA and JGTRRA at the time the acts were considered in 2001 and 2003, respectively. Taken together, those estimates imply a loss of revenues totaling $165 billion in 2007. As you requested, CBO has calculated the debt-service costs that would result in 2007 from the legislation under an assumption that they were financed in full by additional debt rather than offset elsewhere in the budget. On that basis, CBO estimates that the revenue loss in JCT’s projections would lead to additional debt-service costs of $46 billion in 2007, for a total budgetary cost of $211 billion. On the same basis, the agency estimates the total budgetary costs, including interest, for 2008 through 2011 to be $233 billion, $245 billion, $269 billion, and $215 billion, respectively….The short-term effects of EGTRRA and JGTRRA in stimulating aggregate demand in the economy have largely dissipated by now, and the supply-side effects of those policies are uncertain but are probably small. Some provisions of EGTRRA and JGTRRA increased incentives for people to work and save (which can increase growth), but other provisions had no effect on incentives. In addition, the two tax laws increased the budget deficit, and doing so tends to reduce economic growth over the medium and long term.source: http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=8337&type=0 July 2007 CBO report.
http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

The article is using dishonest numbers to hide the true extent of the Bush deficits. In 04 the real deficit wasn’t -413 billion but
-567.961 billion source Historical Budget Tables, Table 1.1—SUMMARY OF RECEIPTS, OUTLAYS, AND SURPLUSES OR DEFICITS… on-budget deficits. The numbers used in the article hide the $155 billion borrowed from the arious federal trust funds. Given the Clinton Surplus was a $86.422 Billion on-budget surplus in 2000, this represents a $-654.383 billion turnaround…. this from Bush who promised in 2000 to pay down debt.
TFRX

…The link to the Washington Examiner.

Ggerg

Is there a risk of the United States loosing it’s AAA+ credit rating?

“No risk at all” -Timothy Geithner (April)

Roy Mac

The downgrade reflects more poorly on S&P than on the US Govt. S&P rated AIG AAA. (There is no AAA+–just AAA.)
- twenty-niner
  
  AIG payed well for that rating.
  - Roy Mac
    
    Agree; well and often. The S & P sets a poor standard.
    - Gregg
      
      All that may or may not be true but it still is a historical blemish on America. Further down grade(s) may be forthcoming.
    - Michael
      
      historical election of a tea party wing of the republican party in the house with a Historical downgrade.
    - Gregg
      
      S&P thinks the cuts didn’t go far enough. 66% of the public supported the Tea Party influenced “Cut, Cap and Balance” but it was not the plan we ended up with. S&P would have liked it better, they sure don’t like Obama’s failed vision.
    - Michael
      
      Quinnipiac poll: Americans favor Obama, Dems over GOP in debt ceiling
      
      http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/quinnipiac-poll-americans-favor-obama-dems-over-gop-1609697.html?printArticle=y
      
      Obama’s 45% approval rating in the latest USA Today/Gallup
      poll, as well as congressional Democrats’ 33% rating and the
      Republicans’ 28%, are all statistically similar to their ratings in
      contemporaneous surveys since August 2010.
      
      http://www.gallup.com/poll/148568/amid-debt-clash-approval-parties-congress-low-steady.aspx
      
      Since all teabagger were elected as republicans the public obviously favors the dems and obama. I guess that’s the reason you used influenced instead of actual approval.
      
      As for your S@5d22af21c13b58d0d09ae606c636b2ca:disqus P claims.
      
      S&P’s U.S. Downgrade A Warning To End Partisan Business-As-Usual
      
      http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/08/06/139038131/s-ps-u-s-downgrade-a-warning-to-end-partisan-fights-solve-fiscal-woes
      
      Teapary and Republican controlled house,
      
      Verdict on the Debt Ceiling Negotiations: ‘Ridiculous,’ ‘Stupid,’ ‘Disgusting’
      http://www.pollwatchdaily.com/2011/08/01/verdict-on-the-debt-ceiling-negotiations-ridiculous-stupid-disgusting/
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      66% of the public? Really? And you’re not at all suspicious that 66% would “approve” such an insidious piece of legislation? Did the poll inform them this proposed balanced budget amendment would leave the tax Cut Psychos free to cut taxes with a simple majority yet require those who had to repair the damage and reaise revenues to get a supermajority in both Houses?
      
      http://www.scribd.com/doc/52020805/GOP-Balanced-Budget-Amendment-Text
      
      Didn’t think so.
    - Gregg
      
      It was a CNN poll but they didn’t report it on TV. The balanced budget amendment provision was a long long way from a successful amendment. What about balancing the budget is “insidious”?
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      Again, another pathetic diversion. There’s nothing wrong with a balanced budget except that it doesn’t pay down debt… and there’s NO evidence the GOP wants to do so.
      
      The issue I raised is that the proposed BBA gives a free reign to the Tax Cut Psychos to sabotage all the revenues they want with a majority vote, but hamstrings any attempt to reverse their insanity by requiring a 2/3 vote.
      
      Gettin’ it yet G? Didn’t think so.
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      G claimed “S&P thinks the cuts didn’t go far enough.”
      
      I’ve read the S&P report. Your claim is untrue. But what else is new.

Mark

Why hasn’t On Point devoted a program to explaining The People’s Budget (endorsed by over 70 Congress persons and many mainstream experts) that would balance the federal budget and get us out of this financial mess far sooner than Paul Ryan’s plan or Obama’s plan?

Tom: I’m not donating another dime to this station until it starts to pay more respect its listeners and this nation…

nj

I’ve been grumbling about this for weeks. The one time when i heard the People’s Budget mentioned on the air, Tom A. said something about not being familiar with it, and that was as far as it got.

On Point continues with this well-choreographed strategy of structuring panels/commentators which are consistently weighted to the center-right region of the spectrum of political thinking.

The left end of the spectrum, limited as it is, rarely gets even mentioned, let alone seriously explored. Go listen to Democracy Now, or read any of the more lefty news sites or blogs, and this NPR tilt becomes even more obvious.

Gettin’ tired of it.
http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

Yes! It’s like there’s been a nationwide media blackout on the Peoples’ Budget… including NPR. One of the OP hosts, I believe it was Thom, admitted a few weeks back that he hadn’t even heard about it! Given the Peoples Budget represents an alternative to Obama and the Tea Crackpots, it SHOULD be looked into. OP usually does a better job in exploring the market place of idea but there’s some sort of ideological blind spot here… even after Thom was made aware of it.

Anonymous

Eleanor Clift made the claim that “Republicans and Tea Partiers” have made “investment” a dirty word.Baloney!It is he-who-must-not-be-named’s repetitive use of “invest” or “investment” when what he really means is untempered spending that has brought the words into disrepute.

david

Your memory is short, back during the healthcare debate, all the liberals were screaming for a healthcare system like Europe.
All this hope and change that everyone bought into has back-fired!
Obamacare will prove to be a behemoth of an expense, just wait and see. We are becoming like Europe, deep in debt and no longer a power in the world. We now have the same rating as Belgium.
I also must remember that this site belongs to those who are of the liberal persuasion.

Michael

Screaming is different from getting, surely your aware of that? Liberals wanted universal healthcare,which btw is proven so far to be cheaper and more effective than what we have in the U.S.. Liberals than relented to a public option. The “Socialist” President didn’t even attempt to put the public option on the table whatsoever instead following the previous republican governor of Ma. Plan. Than we had that Socialist “Gang of Six” consisting of blue dog democrats and republicans. Than we had bi-partisan senate committees which added some more. In fact most of what was in the health care bill reflects the “Moral Majority” republicans of the 1990′s.

” We are becoming like Europe”

Again,

You never answer which part of Europe? Europe is a big place and to lump them all together seems naive at best.

“I also must remember that this site belongs to those who are of the liberal persuasion.”

Go back and check this site during the health care debate, almost nothing about universal health care in the U.S. and very little about the public option. tons on “The Gang of Six” Republican 1990′s health care plan. pushing the reporting to center right not liberal as you claim.
nj

More distortion from the right.

Liberals (in any true sense of the label) wanted universal coverage/single payer. This is not what was passed. What was passed is nothing like what most other industrialized countries have. Real liberals opposed what was passed.

Universal coverage/single payer systems, while they have their own problems, generally result in care that is at least as effective—and often more effective—than the what the current U.S. mess of a system produces.

Obama caved in to corporate and insurance interests, but people like this poster continue with the myth of the “socialist” president.
- david
  
  Liberals wanted universal/single payer like “Europe”.
  From 3/1/2010:
  “There is not one, but many models … all of which deliver more healthcare for less money than our system. There are single payer systems (like Canada), national health care (like Great Britain), and insurance based systems (like Switzerland). What do they all have in common? They are all subject tightly regulated by their governments.”
  Others stated Italy, Germany as models as preffered over ours system. Many made claims that the European systems offered much better plans.
  “I like the German system and from what I understand the Dutch have something very similar.”
  ” If a (European)government managed system was so problematic, why aren’t the citizens of those countries protesting?”
  Well, we are now in 2011 and many of those single payer systems ran by the government are now running out of money.
  Austerity is now the new word.
  And the citizens are now protesting.
  We shall see who is right or wrong, the liberals or the conservative.
  - Michael
    
    Source?
    - david
      
      Onpoint radio!
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      Do you know what providing a specific source even means? No… claiming OP is NOT sufficient.
http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

D wrote: “all the liberals were screaming for a healthcare system like Europe.”I draw a clear distinction between Progressives and Liberals. Progressives would want European social democratic reforms in both our political and economic systems. I consider myself in that camp. Liberals like fussing with band-aids. They might propose reforms like Motor Voter, but they’d never think of proposing reforms to make the Constitution more democratic. Some fall in between. Talk show host Thom Hartman is a economic Progressive but a political Liberal. So perhaps Progressives were all for Single Payer. I think the “Liberal” position was for the weaker Public Option.

david

MICHELLE OBAMA: “Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices; we are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going to have to change our traditions, our history; we’re going to have to move into a different place as a nation.”
I reckon Friday with the S&P revelation marks the beginning of that!
I would love to be a fly on the wall to hear what his vision is for our nation. So far, I don’t like what I see!

Fredlinskip

Repeat of a response to Jon S below- Shoot me dead.

Let’s try looking at it from another perspective, for a second shall we? Because consumer spending is the biggest driver of our economy, for a while the baby boomers drove the economy. What did America’s perhaps most productive generation receive for those efforts? Well I expect you’ve heard that for last 30 years plus, middle class income stagnated- in other words those who actually did the work did not receive proper compensation. Well where did all the fruits of their efforts go? It’s quite obvious that it trickled up to a privileged few- those 100 million $ compensation packages to top execs for example. – well-deserved you say? And pension plans were converted to 401k’s (helping feed Wall St) And now the benefits these productive Americans have been promised are not there apparently? Where did they go? They paid into these programs all there lives. No?? Well one place is that tax rates for the wealthy have steadily decreased. “What’s the matter with that you say- this is Capitalist society for god sake- let the rest eat cake.” Problem with that sentiment is that when consumers can’t buy, the whole system comes crashing down. All’s I’m advocating is that we should return to a time of more sound fiscal policy. It’s so easy to convince the minions- “taxes bad”, because most people don’t take the time to study the facts. These “shelter the wealthy” policies are the same ones that occurred before Depression. Coincidence? For 30 years we’ve heard “taxes bad- especially on wealthy”. So what has been policy, especially during GOP administrations?- BORROW and SPEND. BORROW and SPEND. BORROW & SPE (Oh wait I said that). If we just keep borrowing and making sure the wealthiest few are taken care of all will be peachy! And they were right all is peachy – for the wealthy few. If we ever get a surplus- can’t have that- let’s give it as tax breaks to the wealthy. Brilliant! But for those who have a grain of compassion in their spirit, America isn’t all about the wealthy – and that was not the founders intentions. It’s not about soaking the rich, it’s about encouraging those who this country has done so much for to invest in America. And by “starving the beast”, by simplest of logic, it is impossible to PAY DOWN DEBT that 30+ years of ABSURD FISCAL POLICY HAVE CREATED.

david

Obama kicks off his magical mystery bus tour today.
Magical, in that he hopes by magic he can sell his hope and change again.
Mystery, in that he will find anyone out there that will still buy it!

http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX

�
Sadly I agree. Obama’s no slouch, he did after all manage to become president. Yet once in his political instincts undermine his own positions. He SHOULD have gone after Wall St and refused. He SHOULD have been exposing the Right and educating the public how it was THEIR ideas that caused the economy to collapse… and he did neither. He’s allowed the GOP to rewrite history to forget the Bush disaster and place all the blame on Obama. �
Obama can try to be the post partisan “grownup” in the room but in reality he’s losing ground by not standing for anything. In politics if you’re not out there every day with a big message… an ideological framework in which everything else are mere details, you’re losing ground to those who do have a big message.
- david
  
  To blame all this mess solely on the right and Repubs. is just a little off the mark. Obama took the keys to the car away from the Repubs. told them to ride in the back and then drove the car off the cliff.
  Obama has no experience governing, he is just the mouthpiece for the power players of the Democratic machine.
  There are powerful people on both the liberal left and right that have pushed this nation in the wrong direction. They are behind the scenes chipping away at our nation trying to direct it in the direction of their ideological framework.
  They have bankrupt the nation for the purpose of trapping people in an endless cycle of dependence on entitlements for the sole goal of power. Once they trap the public, they can herd them into any pen they desire.
  As history proves on the 10 step fall of nations, bondage(10) comes after dependence(9),
  - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
    
    I’m sorry, I was not as clear as I am in other posts. The problem here is right wing IDEAS… and corporate DEMS also have to bare much of the responsibility for the collapse of the economy. Clinton may have reversed the fiscal irresponsibility of the Right, but he bought into free trade and he signed Phil Gramm’s bills to deregulate the banking and commodity sectors. Bush compounded the problem with more deregulation, not paying for his wars or Medicare D, and irresponsible tax cuts when he PROMISED he would pay down debt.
    
    The ones who showed the best instincts in opposing the above were on the Left.
    - Gregg
      
      Clinton fought the balanced budget tooth and nail. He had to submit 5 budgets before Newt was satisfied. There was no way on God’s green earth he would have balanced the budget, reformed welfare and claimed “the era of big government is over” without the Republican takeover in 1994. No way. He was smart enough to listen to the will of the people however and deserves far more credit than Obama on that front.
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      Absolute bullcrap Gregg. You’ve made the claim before that somehow Newt was the one who was responsible for the Clinton Surplus. You’ve not proved ANY part of your claim or shown any part of it to be relevant. You’ve also claimed some small 1997 tax cut was responsible for the Surplus by “unleashing the economy”.�
      Again you’re just revomiting Orwellian Right talking points. Like ALL tax cuts, the 1997 bill CUT revenue and SLOWED getting to a surplus. I’ve already present the numbers from the Treasury showing what this bill was going to cost in LOST revenue. You’ve predictably chosen to ignore them.
      Also in your Orwellian rewrite of history… you’re neglecting to include those GOP bills that FAILED to become law. How convenient! But then no decent Orwellian rewrite of history respects the fact, right? In reality Clinton VETOED GOP tax cut legislation in 1998 and 1999. Sources:
      http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/20/us/clinton-vows-to-veto-80-billion-tax-cut.html
      http://articles.sfgate.com/1999-09-24/news/17698477_1_tax-bill-tax-credit-smaller-tax
      If the GOP had gotten its way there NEVER would have been a surplus. And here lies the internal schizophrenia of the GOP. It can’t give up using the language of fiscal conservatives even as it strives to use fiscal IRresponsibility as a political weapon.
      We SAW what happened when the GOP and the Tax Cut Psychos got their way when Bush was installed as President. Time to deal with reality Gregg… are you up to it?�
      Those EIGHT YEARS of fiscal irresponsibility under Bush was your GOP in action.
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      �
      Of course by Gregg’s “logic” if these GOP tax cuts didn’t pass… then they don’t count as the GOP’s REAL intent to sabotage the Clinton Surplus. Gregg can then have his cake and eat it… pretending some GOP budget deal was responsible for the Surplus while ignoring the GOP’s REAL intent to sabotage a Surplus before it even became a reality.
      Why was a budget surplus and the possibility of paying down debt a threat to the GOP? Because the Starve The Beast strategy needed to keep the Democrats in a fiscal straightjacket. If Newt could not prevent debt paydown during the Clinton years…. Bush2 would be sure to sabotage debt paydown.
    - Gregg
      
      Do I really get under your skin so bad that you must babble?
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      Pathetic evasion G. You want to give the GOP sole credit for the Clinton Surplus yet ignore all the times the GOP tried to sabotage it with irresponsible revenue cuts. That’s OK… they got their chance and succeeded with Bush 2. Happy now?
    - Gregg
      
      I’ll take that as a yes.
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      I’ll take you’re increasingly brief deflections and evasions that you consider this argument lost.
    - Gregg
      
      You said “bull crap”, did Clinton submit 5 budgets or not? Yes, he did, why? Did his pre-Contract budgets have $250 billion deficits or not. Yes. I know you disagree but I have a basis for everything I write or I would not write it. It’s not “bull crap”. Clinton deserves credit for listening to the people and caving to Newt. Obama, not so much.
      
      It is hilarious that you all of the sudden don’t like the projections! Isn’t that the foundation you build your entire premise of Bush’s “lost revenue” on? Which is more reliable: What a president says he will spend or how the economy will react to the hundreds of factors that determine revenue? Yea. Add to that your illogical exercise of projecting an upward trend when it was going down before the tax cuts. Project that!
      
      No, I don’t consider the argument lost. I consider any response to you as a waste of time so I keep it pithy if I can.
    - Me
      
      Well, you would have loved my reply but it was removed without a trace as is so often the case. Sometimes they leave a “comment removed” as above but most of the time I disappear and then am blocked.
    - Gregg
      
      What’s not true? Focus.
      
      It was Bill Clinton who, during the big budget fight in 1995, had to submit not one, not two, but five budgets until he begrudgingly matched the GOP’s balanced-budget plan. In fact, during the height of the budget wars in the summer of 1995, the Clinton administration admitted that “balancing the budget is not one of our top priorities.”
      
      http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5656
      
      Now, please ignore the numbers and points made, attack the messenger as biased, change the subject, project some thing I didn’t say and love on Clinton.
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      Cato’s, analysis is amusing. Ya gotta love those guys if for nothing else than comedy relief. This has to get a laugh from all who know better: ” Yet today’s surplus is, in part, a byproduct of the GOP’s single-minded crusade to end 30 years of red ink.” WHOA! Reagan was single minded in getting rid of red ink? HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR NEARLY TRIPLING THE DEBT! And you wonder why I call propaganda houses like Cato the Orwellian Right.
      
      The Cato “report” takes what I assume is one of Clinton’s budget FY 95 budget proposals and projects to 1998. In this intellectually dishonest analysis we’re to believe that if those projections were not met in 1998 then all the credit must go to the GOP for intervening in some positive way. One way presumably would be to make budget cuts, but no numbers are given for us to evaluate. It also ignores Clinton’s veto of the GOP’s 1995 Budget or the Balanced Budget Act, or that he proposed his own balanced budget roadmap. It also assumes that Clinton never would have wanted a balanced budget on his own terms and was “forced” into it.
      
      Of course reality isn’t two snapshots as the Cato report pretends. The picture was actually unfolding for those 3 years and all those forecasts and projections DID change several times a year. The January 1997 CBO THE ECONOMIC AND BUDGET OUTLOOK reports the deficit was lower for FY96 than forecast because of two factors… $24 billion more in revenue than the CBO predicted and $9 billion in Medicare savings. Are you going to the give the GOP credit for more revenues? Let me guess, it was economic activity “unleashed” in anticipation of a tax cut two years later! LOL
      
      Last, I know you need to say it, and perhaps you even believe it, but the GOP’s tax cut proposals of 98 and 99 throw into doubt ALL you claims that the GOP really wanted a surplus to pay down debt. If there’s a doubt then, then Bush2 and the GOP removed it.
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      �
      It comes as no surprise that I can’t find that Clinton quote “balancing the budget is not one of our top priorities” anywhere EXCEPT in forums… usually accompanied by the full quote from the Cato site as our resident Cato regurgitator posted here. Even if the quote is true, Cato provides no context nor is it any proof that Clinton wasn’t always working towards a balanced budget.
    - http://reinventing-america.blogspot.com/ ulTRAX
      
      Hoping no one bothers to double-check what he claims, G wrote: “There was no way on God’s green earth he would have… reformed welfare… without the Republican takeover in 1994. No way.” See what happen when you only read Orwellian Right rewrites of history instead of primary material! Clinton in 1992 RAN ON WELFARE REFORM. From his 1993 State Of The Union… “Later this year, we will offer a plan to end welfare as we know it. I have worked on this issue for the better part of a decade.” http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=47232 He also vetoed two presumably GOP welfare reform bills. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/22/opinion/22clinton.html

shel

Jack stated that the mortgage interest tax deduction is spread widely accross the middle class home owners and so unlikely to be touched. I heard free marketeer, Mark Calabria of Cato at a housing forum recently. According to him 80% of the dollar value of the MID goes to residents of CA, NY, NJ and CT. This is certainly a function of home prices. Nevertheless, another redistribution of wealth to the wealthy. We could policy support a lot of entry housing for the MID on a $1.5M, median priced home in Greenwich.