RJ Eskow: Politicians and regulators serve criminal banks for the very same reason that Willie Sutton robbed them: That’s where the money is. If these senators don’t figure that out pretty soon, they’re going to have to go to the people to raise money.

Robert Reich: Austerity economics — of which Ryan’s upcoming budget is the most extreme version — is a cruel hoax. Cruel because it hurts most those who are already hurting; a hoax because it doesn’t work.

Lawrence Wittner: At this time of severe cutbacks in government funding for food stamps, early childhood education, and meals on wheels, some Maryland legislators are hard at work looking out for the welfare of one of the world’s wealthiest corporations.

Lauren Windsor: Rapper 50 Billion of The Billionaires is joined by several of The Young Turks in this satirical music video parody I wrote and produced. “U Can’t Cut This” is an ode to the notorious sequester, a product of our utterly corrupt American political system.

Berry Craig: Polls show the Republicans are about as popular as a wet dog at a wedding in most parts of the country. Even so, count me not among lefties who think the sequester snafu is the last nail in the GOP coffin.

Steven Hill: Want a smarter workforce? A stronger manufacturing sector? Germany seems to offer a blueprint for Obama’s middle-out economic agenda — if we take away the right lessons

Steve Hochstadt: If the public had perfect understanding of the elements that we examined, the proportion of Americans who favor “Obamacare” might increase from the current level of 32% to 70%.

Karen Finney: Now that they have an opportunity to demonstrate concern for the middle class, Congressional Republicans seem willing to go to the mattresses to oppose Obama and defend economic policies designed to protect the extensive tax loopholes and breaks enjoyed by the top 1 percent and multinational corporations.

Ellen Brown: Quantitative easing (QE) is supposed to stimulate the economy by adding money to the money supply, increasing demand. But so far, it hasn’t been working. Why not? Because as practiced for the last two decades, QE does not actually increase the circulating money supply. It merely cleans up the toxic balance sheets of banks.

Peter Dreier and Donald Cohen: Raising the minimum wage is good for business and the overall economy. Why? Because when poor workers have more money to spend, they spend it, almost entirely in the local community, on basic necessities like housing, food, clothing and transportation.

Robert Reich: So where’s the outcry? Why aren’t more people up in arms? Why aren’t big businesses (including major military contractors) and Wall Street screaming into the ears of the GOP? Where’s the outrage from Main Street?

JP Sotille: The foreclosure scandal did not happen organically, nor was it just a matter of circumstance or the business cycle. It was a well-played game of slick mortgage salesmanship, cheap money lent, bad debt sold, insurance bets hedged and the whole system played like a golden harp.

Randy Shaw: Brown’s argument that the affordable housing crisis is actually one of distribution rather than supply–there is a shortage in the Bay Area and other places where jobs exist but there are plenty of vacant affordable rental units in the high-unemployment Central Valley–is not unique.

Ellen Brown: The government can pay for all the services its people need and eliminate budget crises permanently, simply by issuing the dollars to pay for them, debt-free and interest-free.

Sylvia Allegretto: It simply never made any sense to make an already weak economy weaker by slashing government spending before having a sustained and robust recovery. Sylvia Allegretto:It simply never made any sense to make an already weak economy weaker by slashing government spending before having a sustained and robust recovery.

Richard “RJ” Eskow: There’s no quicker way to become completely untethered than to read economic reports, including the latest one from the Congressional Budget Office, and then watch the political debate go on as if reality didn’t even exist.

f you’re sitting in the well of the House when a president gives a State of Union address (as I’ve had the privilege of doing five times), the hardest part is on the knees. You’re required to stand and applaud every applause line, which means, if you’re in the cabinet or an elected official of [...]

John Peeler: Since we glorify competition as good for both individuals and society at large, why not treat retirement as a job for which you apply? Then we could be sure that only the fittest, those most qualified, would get to retire.

Allison Mannos: Charity should not be a bribe to facilitate expansion at any cost. Walmart’s company values are reflected in the fact that a corporation whose net sales exceed the GDP of Norway would rather give charity to the poor than end the poverty it creates.

RJ Eskow: If great speeches could heal our economic wounds, if they could repair the ever-increasing gap between the rich and the rest of us, we’d be living in a different country today.

Steve Hochstadt: The total debt that American consumers have signed up for was about $11.3 trillion at end of 2012. About three-quarters of that comes from mortgages, with the rest on credit cards, from student loans, or as home equity loans.

Ellen Brown: The trillion dollar coin actually represents one of the most important principles of popular prosperity ever conceived: the creation of money by sovereign governments, debt-free.