Progressive Media Advocates
Lawrence Wittner: The recently-concluded Black Friday provided the occasion not only for an orgy of consumer spending, but for ferocious action by screaming mobs of shoppers who engaged in mass riots in their desperate attempts to obtain a variety of products.
Walter Brasch: Imitating Sgt. Schultz of “Hogan’s Heroes,” Walmart executives claimed they knew nothing—NOTHING—about working conditions in a garment factory in Bangladesh where 112 workers died and more than 150 were injured in a fire.
Robert Reich: Excuse me for sounding impertinent, but isn’t this fear-mongering likely to buttress Republican arguments that the Bush tax cuts should be extended for everyone — including the rich?
RJ Eskow: The CEOs of America’s largest corporations have banded together to lecture us on the importance of debt reduction. And despite their lack of qualifications and their very obvious self-interest, the media can’t get enough of them.
Randy Shaw: While the media’s highlighting “the unfortunate” during the holiday season raises vital private donations to help their needs, letting the politicians responsible off the hook perpetuates the crisis.
Richard “RJ” Eskow: On the same day that Goldman Sach’s CEO issued his “balanced” demand for Social Security and Medicare cuts, a Wall Street-funded group published a poll precisely reflecting the wishes of Goldman Sach’s CEO. Coincidence? I report, you decide.
Tina Dupuy: Since Walmart, the largest private employer in the country, generally doesn’t pay its “associates” or “Walmart family members” enough to live on – the giant multi-national corporation is relying on the U.S. government to feed its employees.
Lauren Windsor: Apparently the good life does not extend to Wal-Mart’s workers–half of the company’s one-million American hourly employees earn less than $10 per hour.
Dotty Lemieux: All is not gloom and doom for the Golden State after all. And if we tackle the inequities in Proposition 13, especially the ones favoring the largest corporate abusers, the outlook could become all the more rosy.
Robert Reich: I wish President Obama and the Democrats would explain to the nation that the federal budget deficit isn’t the nation’s major economic problem and deficit reduction shouldn’t be our major goal.
Mark Dempsey: American government has the legal right to create literally unlimited dollars, so it can never be insolvent. It will run out of dollars when the Bureau of Weights and Measures runs out of inches.
John Peeler: In the midst of a massive recession, the conservative argument for balancing the budget by cutting government spending is manifestly perverse.
Richard “RJ” Eskow: This phony crisis is a lot like this scene in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles, where Cleavon Little as The Sheriff pretends to take himself hostage to escape an angry crowd.
Robert Reich: I hope the President starts negotiations over a “grand bargain” for deficit reduction by aiming high. After all, he won the election.
Ellen Brown: The rich get progressively richer at the expense of the poor, not just because of “Wall Street greed” but because of the inexorable mathematics of our private banking system.
Richard “RJ” Escow: The voters have asked President Obama and his fellow Democrats not to “shirk a fight” over economic issues. We look forward to seeing the democratic process unfold as a much-needed fight against economic injustice is played out in the public arena.
Peter Dreier: Wells Fargo Bank and US Bank have chosen to celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month by trying to evict breast cancer survivors from their homes.
Claude Fischer: To the extent that facts matter in such a politicized debate, it is becoming increasingly clear that equality rather than inequality is a better policy for economic growth.
Sheila Kuehl: About 20% of California’s insureds would presumably see their rates go up because they had a lapse in insurance that didn’t fit into acertain categories.
John Peeler: Obama, if he could free himself of the Wall Street crowd, is the likelier buyer of Will’s prescription of breaking up financial institutions that are “too big to fail”.
Dan Bluemel: At the request of a homeowner under foreclosure, occupiers have barricaded themselves inside another home. They hope to stave off eviction and force an amicable arrangement with the mortgage lender.
Tina Dupuy: Bachmann and the tea party are like a 30-year-old who lives comfortably in the family home while railing against parental tyranny and bemoaning the mediocrity of the meals his mother cooks.
Robert Reich: Democrats want a deal that raises taxes only on America’s wealthy and doesn’t substantially alter Medicare, and Social Security — which is the opposite of what Republicans want.
Stephen Lendman: Monthly Labor Department (BLS) data report inaccurately. America’s broken jobs engine isn’t explained. The latest 7.8% unemployment rate is blarney. Based on the 1980s calculation model, real unemployment approaches 23%.
Shamus Cooke: The coast is clear, the media tells us; economic disaster has been averted. The Euro Zone is finally stable and the U.S. economy is recovering. Whew! Why, then, are government policies internationally still pursuing extremist measures?
Robert Reich: RBoth Obama and Romney assume the recovery will continue, even at a slow pace, and that we’ll be back to normal at some point. But I’m not at all sure. “Normal” is what got us into this mess in the first place.
Steve Hochstadt: Romney thinks that the people who got the jobs he says he created are those irresponsible parasites who are hopelessly dependent on government. That is ironic.
Ekkeb Brown: Insolvent banks should be put through receivership and bankruptcy before the government takes them over. That would mean making the creditors bear the losses, standing in line and taking whatever money was available, according to seniority.
Charley James: Reports surfaced today that Nobel Prize Winning economist Dr. Paul Krugman will be offered the job of chairman for the White House Council of Economic Advisors.
Dana Lone Hill: It seems as if the ongoing battle within the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe over alcohol will still continue, but the biggest obstacle will be the battle will be with each other. The days of working together as a tribe seems to be a thing of the past…when there was no alcohol.
Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer: As inequalities in wealth continue to create an ever-widening chasm between the rich and the rest of us, the concept of “shared sacrifice” is becoming increasingly ludicrous.
Lauren Steiner: So while America is supposedly coming out of the recession, many Americans are not experiencing any relief. 50 million Americans live in food insecure homes, including 17 million children.
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How to Win the Debate on Taxes
Steve Hochstadt: epublican proposals in the Senate and House, created mainly by Romney’s VP selection, Paul Ryan, lower taxes on the wealthy in two whopping chunks: the top tax rate drops from 35% to 25%, and all taxes on capital gains disappear.