The dangers of a foreign retreat from Treasury securities are slight in the short-term but increase over time as the public debt continues to grow. Americans would do well to realize that things which cannot go on forever tend not to.
Wall Street and Goldman Sachs Party On
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It’s ironic that all we hear on FOX News and right-wing talk radio is how “socialistic” the Obama Administration is when in reality the way the administration has handled the Wall Street crisis is anything but “socialistic.”
Drinking Motivational KoolAid: How It All Works Financially
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Even the soberest fiscal conservatives cannot avoid the power of this pitch and will jump out of his or her seat with wallet wide open! You may get in for $19, but more than half of you will spend many hundreds if indeed not thousands more.
Wall Street Is More of a Threat to Obama’s Domestic Agenda than Afghanistan
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The Congress, always in hock to Wall Street, is dragging its feet in passing anything near the sweeping regulatory restructuring that is needed if we are to prevent Goldman Sachs and the rest of the gang from exploiting their “moral hazard” by using the federal treasury as the mother of all “credit default swaps.”
Will Obama Save America from Capitalism
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If the Obama administration wants to be a truly transformational force in American history, rather than a slightly-better-than-average, one-term presidency with good intentions, it will give America the new New Deal.
To “Americans For Prosperity,” Capitalism Already Is a Love Story
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It’s amazing that even after the entire Wall Street house of cards collapsed a year ago requiring the public sector to rescue the private sector these fierce advocates of free-market fundamentalism can still show their faces in public, let alone gather to rail against the evils of the government that saved their asses.
Fuzzy Thinking: Obama, Capitalism, and Socialism
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An honest criticism of corporate and government abuses, inefficiencies, and undemocratic ways should always be welcome, but not fuzzy thinking and scare tactics.
El Sistema in L.A.
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The Venezualan approach that the maestro has introduced focuses on learning instruments in groups, engaging interest before instruction, playing with joy, and developing community.
USC Professor Roberto Suro Wants Statue of Liberty Message Erased
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Suro thinks most immigrants are “adventurous” and “ambitious,” not “tired and poor.”
New Jobless Stats: Still “Less Terrible”? Not for Some
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The Lex Column in the Financial Times got it right: “… ‘less down’ is now the new ‘up’ as media watchers search for stabilization in the overall market.” The writer was referring to the world of advertising where some analysts were putting a hopeful spin on revenue that fell 18% over the first three months [...]
Is Economic Growth a Delusion?
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Unemployment reached 8.5% in March of this year, but add in the once full-time, now part-time laborers, it may be as high as 15%. Yet my fellow rail commuters somewhere between New Haven and Grand Central Terminal think they smell recovery. As one salesman put it to me, “things will come back–even better than they [...]
Arnold and Gavin: Using the Deficit to Scare Us
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Everyone knows we’re in tough times with huge deficits – but there are few things more offensive than politicians using that to scare us. With the May 19th propositions sinking in the polls, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has threatened to lay off 1,700 firefighters during peak fire season if the measures fail. He’s even suggested that [...]
How About a Student Loan Bailout?
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The education bubble is going to burst. It has to happen. On a daily basis, we hear about the bursting of the housing bubble. Housing values were over inflated. Millions of people found themselves with mortgages they could not afford to pay—whether through hard times and job loss, racial profiling and predatory lending by unscrupulous, [...]
Beyond the Fields: Yes We Can!
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In spite of the victory we had on November 4th, the fight for social and economic justice in the United States is far from over. Barack Obama has emphasized the need for all of us to pitch in and make this country better. His administration has opened the lines of communication to everyday Americans by [...]
The Auto Bailout: A Bad Deal
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With the economy tanking and unemployment skyrocketing, you’d think the Obama administration would be doing all it could to save jobs. But if its auto bailout plan is any indicator of its current direction, we’re on our way to losing a lot more jobs.
Construction Industry Fails to Insure Workers, Even in Boom Times: Jobs Created with Stimulus Money May Lack Health Coverage
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The construction industry, which stands to gain the largest share of new jobs generated by the economic stimulus package — 670,000 jobs nationally — has a dismal record of insuring its workers, even in the best of times. A study released today by the Center on Policy Initiatives, Construction: Working Without a Healthcare Net, found [...]
Another $8 Billion Or So on the Line for AIG
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AIG has finally come clean with the public about who was at the other end of its calamitous financial bets. The recipients of billions of taxpayer dollars were … well … pretty much the banks that we expected: Societe General, Goldman Sachs, and Deutsche Bank, to name a few. The full list is here . [...]
“Where’s My Million Dollars?” Swindled Senior Asks
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When I entered my friend Jason’s house he was shouting into his telephone, “Where’s my million dollars?” There was a pause, after which Jason insisted, “I want you to pay me the million dollars you promised me!” His face was red and he was angry. To my shock, my senior friend, a former U.S. military [...]
Obama Rescuing Capitalism: That’s a Lot of Weight for One Brother
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Back in December, when it was obvious that the economy was in bad shape and before we knew how precarious it could get, Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International and columnist for Newsweek and the Washington Post, wrote, “For Obama to be remembered as a great president, he has to do nothing less than rescue [...]
And Now Homeowners
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The two most important features of the administration’s plan to help homeowners are, first, its support for amending bankruptcy laws to allow judges to modify mortgages. This will give homeowners bargaining leverage with mortgage servicers (and give the servicers more leverage with securitized creditors on up the line) to get better terms; and, second, a [...]
Guess What? The New Deal Worked!
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Since the economic crisis we’re now in is being compared to the Great Depression, the solutions being offered are being routinely compared to the New Deal. Republicans in particular have been quick to pronounce the New Deal a failure as a way of justifying their opposition to the new stimulus package and any other federal [...]
The End of the Ownership Society?
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In his second inaugural address, President George W. Bush offered a vision of an “ownership society” In America’s ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence… To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will… build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership [...]
Watchdog: No, Hank, You Didn’t Get a Good Deal for the Taxpayer
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Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said last October that the taxpayers shouldn’t fret about putting $250 billion in the nation’s banks: “This is an investment, not an expenditure, and there is no reason to expect this program will cost taxpayers anything.” But a draft report from the Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP says Paulson [...]
Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
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“Men…think in herds; …go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses…one by one.” — Charles MackayRepublican Assemblyman Roger Niello‘s recent editorial “Performance Based Budgeting Deserves a Look,” is his bid to appear as a man who has recovered his senses. In it, he reminds us that California’s state budget process is imperfect. The [...]
Pardon Me, Scooter?
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On July 2, 2007 George W. Bush commuted the sentence of convicted felon and former top White House staffer Scooter Libby for his convictions on five felony counts of perjury, false statements, and obstruction of justice. He didn’t pardon Libby but, instead, issued a Grant of Executive Clemency before Scooter Libby even served a single [...]
The Stimulus: How to Create Jobs Without Them All Going to Skilled Professionals and White Male Construction Workers
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The stimulus plan will create jobs repairing and upgrading the nation’s roads, bridges, ports, levees, water and sewage system, public-transit systems, electricity grid, and schools. And it will kick-start alternative, non-fossil based sources of energy (wind, solar, geothermal, and so on); new health-care information systems; and universal broadband Internet access. It’s a two-fer: lots of [...]
Momma, Let Your Kids Grow Up to Be…Accountants!
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Times are not tough everywhere. Indeed, The Big Four accounting firms: Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PriceWaterhouseCoopers reported annual combined 2008 global earnings in excess of $102 (US) billion and a blended growth rate of almost 16%. $102,775,000,000. Shall we let that sink in whilst you catch your breath? The 581,423 people [...]
Stimulus Plan: The Need and the Size
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The core problem we face is not access to capital. The Treasury has already flooded Wall Street and the banking system with money, committing nearly $350 billion; the Federal Reserve Board has exchanged Treasury bills for some $2.2 trillion of troubled assets; other agencies, such as the FDIC, have guaranteed trillions more. But there has [...]
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New York Times: “American Workers Are Overpaid”
If recent resistance by IBEW and UNITE HERE members are any indication, the Times’ BreakingNews folks and corporate America have a long way to go before convincing workers that it is they, rather than their high-paid, amply-bonused bosses, whose compensation should be downsized.