Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer: The 99% Spring is the latest effort by those close to the Democrats to take advantage of Occupy, but the results were less than spectacular.
Time to Retire the 99 Percent
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Walter Brasch: It’s time to retire the 99 percent. Not the people, but the slogan that identifies the Occupy Movement.
Will Obama Administration Now Go After Massive Mortgage Banking Frauds?
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Ellen Brown: In his State of the Union, President Obama announced that he would be creating a mortgage crisis unit to investigate wrongdoing related to real estate lending.
Holiday Pall: Joblessness Crisis Intensifies
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Carl Bloice: The average period of unemployment now exceeds 26 weeks, well above the previous peak in July 1983 of just 21.2 weeks. This is critical because the longer that people of any age are out of work, the less likely they are to find another job.
Looking Beyond Election Day
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Robert Reich: Political elites are worried about thunder on the right and the left, but they show scant understanding of what these growing anti-establishment forces signify. Meanwhile, the nation drifts.
Trigger Deficit Cuts When Unemployment Drops to 5 Percent
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Robert Reich: So the best of all worlds is to have a big jobs plan now, and also commit to automatic cuts triggered when unemployment falls to 5 percent.
What to Do with the Anti-Government Outrage
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Adam Eran: The real outrage is that private banks receive far more money than any social safety net program would need, but the proposed cuts impact only safety net programs.
S&P: So What!
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Mark Pash: Ongoing investigations by the SEC and Justice Department, Congress and federal regulators who are looking at ways to implement the Dodd-Frank Act, which contains provisions aimed at reducing the raters’ role in the financial system.
Obama’s Bold Jobs Bill (Maybe)
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Robert Reich: A bold jobs plan is also good politics. With more than 25 million Americans looking for full-time jobs, the wages of people with jobs falling, and an economy on the verge of a double dip, the President has to come out fighting on the side of average people.
Republican Double-Dip: What Must Be Done
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Robert Reich: Now that we’re slouching toward a double-dip recession, the only hope is voters will tell their members of Congress to stop obsessing about future budget deficits and get to work on the real crisis of unemployment, falling wages, and no growth.
Can Obama Pull a Clinton on the GOP?
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Robert Reich: It’s no accident that President Obama appears to be following the Clinton script. After all, it worked.
Jobs Crisis Is About People’s Lives, Not the Next Election
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Carl Bloice: If one out of ten people seeking work can’t find any, it follows that the average person has a friend, relative or neighbor amongst them. All she or he has to do is look out the window or answer the phone to be scared.
Lost Decade?
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John Peeler: One of the most striking features of our current global economic morass is that many Third World economies are weathering the crisis rather well, while the supposed leaders of the world economy (the United States, the European Union, the Japanese) are in deep trouble that looks to get deeper.
The Rich Are Destroying the Economy
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Shamus Cooke: Because both parties simply threw money at the banks and hedge funds instead of punishing them, a condition of “moral hazard” was created, meaning, that banks would assume another bailout would come their way if they destroyed the economy again — too big too fail, remember?
The Wageless Recovery
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Robert Reich: The question on everyone’s mind: Will the Fed signal it’s now more worried about inflation than recession?
Why Obama Isn’t Fighting the Budget Battle
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Robert Reich: Obama won’t actively fight the budget battle if the current White House view of how he wins in 2012 continues to prevail.
Can Krugmanomics Be Saved?
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Steven Hill: So according to Krugmanomics, taking on too much debt is not the problem – it’s not being able to pay the debt that is the problem. And Krugman’s solution, apparently, is to be able to depreciate your currency and/or default on your debts, leaving the creditors holding the bag.
The Jobs Report, and America’s Two Economies
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Robert Reich: With corporate profits are through the roof, the Dow is flirting with 12,000, Wall Street paychecks are fat again, and big corporations are sitting on more than $1 trillion in cash, you’d expect jobs be coming back. But you’d be wrong.
The Forgotten Jobless and Our Future
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Mark Vorpahl: As in the 1930s, today we must organize in a way that creates unity between the employed and unemployed. To start, we can organize the largest possible union-led demonstrations to realize this unity in the streets.
The Real Economic Lesson China Could Teach Us
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Robert Reich: China is eating our lunch. Why? It has a national economic strategy designed to create more and better jobs. We have global corporations designed to make money for shareholders.
Seven Reasons Why Capitalism Can’t Recover Anytime Soon
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Shamus Cooke: To deal with working people more ruthlessly, the radical right is being unleashed. In normal times these bigots yell furiously but no one listens. But in times of economic crisis they’re given endless airtime on all major media outlets.
Why Democrats Should Disregard Bill Clinton’s Endorsement of Obama’s Tax Deal
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Robert Reich: The Democratic Party can no longer ignore critical investments in the productivity of average workers. Nor can it ignore the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the very top, and the inability of America’s middle and working class to get the economy moving again.
Reconsidering Japan…Reconsidering Paul Krugman
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Steven Hill: No one has been more influential in defining this narrative than New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman.
Who Is Behind the Deficit Crisis
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Shamus Cooke: Unless labor and community groups massively mobilize working people in fighting for a pro-worker solution to the deficit crisis, austerity measures — like reducing Social Security and Medicare — will be forced upon us.
African American Youth Joblessness and the “New Normal”
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Carl Bloice: If it remains almost impossible for a couple of generations of young women and men to earn a decent living, it is calamitous for black people and the country. They cannot become the personification of the “new normal.”
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Where Have All the Jobs Gone?
Judith Stein: If President Obama wants the United States to manufacture again, he must change foreign and domestic priorities. The United States is more committed to maintaining its open market than to providing jobs for Americans.