Ellen Brown: “Too big to fail” now trumps all. Rather than banks being put into bankruptcy to salvage the deposits of their customers, the customers will be put into bankruptcy to save the banks.
Enid, We Have a Problem
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John MacMurray: A lot of the secession folks give the impression that they haven’t thought the idea through too far. Money, for instance. Like with any new enterprise, there will be some startup costs involved, and some cash flow issues.
The Biggest Economic Challenge of Obama’s Second Term
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Robert Reich: Middle-class consumers won’t and can’t spend because their savings are depleted, their homes are worth a fraction of what they were five years ago, their wages are dropping, and they’re worried about keeping their jobs.
Homelessness: Cheaper to Fix Than to Let Fester
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any of the social, economic and political ills facing the United States will cost tens of billions to fix, from updating the power grid and building a high-speed rail network to dealing with climate change and revitalizing public education. Solving the problem of homelessness should be easy because it will cost billions less to fix [...]
Friday Feedback: More Wall Street Trickery
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Friday Feedback: This week, go99ers comments on Ellen Brown’s analysis of another shady Wall Street practice: interest rate swaps: “This past week, ex- employee of the month Greg Smith said that Goldman-Sachs referred to our local bureaucrats and the gullible suckers at the raw end of a swindle as “muppets.” So according to them, WE are all muppets, suckers to be swindled. WOW!!!!”
Robo-Signing Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg
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Ellen Brown: The evidence to date suggests that “robo-signing” was not a mere technical default or sloppy business practice but was part and parcel of a much larger fraud, the fraud that brought down the whole economy in 2008.
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.
How Austerity Is Ushering in a Global Recession
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Robert Reich: Chalk up a big part of Europe’s slowdown to the politics and economics of austerity. Europe – including Britain – have turned John Maynard Keynes on his head. They’ve been cutting public spending just when they should be spending more to counteract slowing private spending.
Ransom Paid
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Robert Reich: Anyone who characterizes the deal between the President, Democratic, and Republican leaders as a victory for the American people over partisanship understands neither economics nor politics.
Why Washington Isn’t Doing Squat About Jobs and Wages
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Robert Reich: The silence is deafening. While the rest of the nation is heading back toward a double dip, Washington continues to obsess about future budget deficits. Why?
Back Toward Double Dip
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Robert Reich: The Republican lie that the nation’s long-term budget deficit is responsible for high unemployment would be laughable if it weren’t so tragically irrelevant to the current situation.
Municipal Bankruptcy Threatens Workers, Communities…
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Caitlin Vega: The same people who want to make personal bankruptcy impossible now want state and local governments to use it strategically to screw workers.
Public School Budget Cuts Herald End of Equality
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Mark Naison: If the only schools that can function well are in communities where parents have the resources to compensate for the budget cuts, then we are basically creating a social order where children will remain in the social position of their parents into the next generation, and where poor and working-class children are doomed by inferior training to be a servant class for the rich, if they are lucky enough to find jobs at all.
Shock Wave Coming
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Brent Budowsky: The economic and political shock wave will be momentous as budget politics will increase joblessness and reveal with brutality that Washington is out of touch with heartland America and dominated by special interests that voters deplore.
The Jobs Emergency
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Robert Reich: We need a response proportional to the crisis. Obama, Pelosi, and Reed should summon Congress back to Washington for action on the jobs emergency.
A Double-Dip Recession Coming?
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Robert Reich: The only reason the economy isn’t in a double-dip recession already is because of three temporary boosts: the federal stimulus (of which 75 percent has been spent), near-zero interest rates (which can’t continue much longer without igniting speculative bubbles), and replacements (consumers have had to replace worn-out cars and appliances, and businesses had to replace worn-down inventories). Oh, and, yes, all those Census workers (who will be out on their ears in a month or so).
LA Progressive: May 9 to 15, 2010
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Articles by Rev. Irene Monroe, Randy Shaw, Georgianne Nienaber, John Delloro, Ed Rampell, Noman Solomon, Paul Hogarth, Paul Loeb, Ivan Eland, Jim Fuller, Carl Matthes, Andrea Christina Nill, Tom Hall, Charley James and Lulu Demaine, Berry Craig, Tom Degan, Robert Reich, Carl Bloice, Tracy Emblem, Tina Dupuy, Jeffrey Blankfort, Anthony Samad, Michael Sigman, and Johnny Townsend
How Will Elena Kagan Approach Immigration If Confirmed?
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Andrea Nill: Kagan could have a direct impact on the role the federal, state, and local governments play in enacting and enforcing immigration laws. Her potential confirmation could also have a more indirect effect on how the nation’s immigration population is treated and who is and isn’t protected by the U.S. Constitution.
On Guantánamo, Symbolism Trumps Substance
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Ivan Eland: Although closing Guantánamo would be important symbolically, the law-free sanctuary that the Bush administration had achieved there has already been eroded by the Supreme Court’s demand that detainees have some legal rights. And even if the Obama administration closes Gitmo, some of Bush’s unconstitutional policies would continue in prisons around the United States—for example, the use of military tribunals for some detainees and the detention of some former Guantánamo detainees indefinitely without trial.
Obomanomics One Year Out
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Robert Reich: The economic stresses of continued high unemployment and low wages are contributing to the growth of the “I’m Mad As Hell” Party – a rag-tag collection of Tea Partiers furious at establishment Republicans, left-wing Democrats angry at what they consider lily-livered Democrats in Washington, and Independents disgusted with everybody inside the Beltway.
LA Progressive: November 30 to December 5, 2009
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This weeks articles, on Afghanistan, immigration reform, joblessness and the economy, gay rights and more.
NumbersUSA Director Says Comprehensive Immigration Reform Is Anti-Hispanic
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Considering the fact that 89% of Latino voters support comprehensive immigration reform which includes a pathway to legalization, Beck is essentially saying that Latinos don’t know what’s best for them. However, most research suggests they do.
Obama’s Controversial Two-Step Moves in Direction of Immigration Reform
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After boosting border enforcement, the Obama Administration recently announced that it will also increase funding for a troublesome program started by George W. Bush. The controversial program gives Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unregulated access to the immigration information of every person in local prisons across the United States. Although Obama may be sending mixed [...]
White House and TARP to the Rescue — of Automakers, but not of States and Locales
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by Robert Reich – What now for the automakers? The Troubled Assets Relief Program — TARP — was enacted to save Wall Street but it’s already been so twisted out of its original shape by Hank Paulson that a bit more twisting to save the Big Three from bankruptcy over the next few weeks won’t [...]
Of Financial Capital and Human Capital: Why We’re Bailing Out Wall Street While Allowing Our Schools to Get Clobbered
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by Robert Reich – Our preoccupation with the immediate crisis of financial capital is causing us to overlook the bigger crisis in America’s human capital. While we commit hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street, we’re slashing our outlays for public education.
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This Jobs Crisis Is Obama’s Kryptonite
David Love: Obama can solve this whole thing tomorrow if he just calls for a new New Deal program already. But will he have the courage? Time will tell, but the President, like this sad nation, is short on time.