Category: Economy

They tell us we’re dropping about $10 billion a month in Afghanistan so we can catch that Bin Laden guy…but eventually, we’re gonna catch him, and as soon as we do you can imagine that folks will be wondering why we’re still over there – and I gotta tell ya, I’m one of those people.

I mean, we’re over here talking about how we’re so broke that we have no choice but to cut a couple of billion from heat assistance for the poor, and a billion-and-a-half from the Social Security operations budget, and money from food stamps and childcare assistance and tornado forecasting in Alabama…but every single month, just as regular as clockwork, we seem to be able to find another $10 billion to spend in Afghanistan, even as we have an economy that could badly use another round of truly productive stimulus.

And I don’t think y’all even realize just how much money $10 billion really is – but today we’re gonna see if we can’t fix that with a bit of a thought exercise.

Imagine if we set up a program that took that Afghanistan money and spent it right here at home for a year or two – and it was spent in the form of a lottery, where we stimulate the larger economy, help fix the mortgage crisis, and create a more energy-independent nation, all at the same time.

I got all we need except a catchy name; with that in mind let’s move on to the description of how the Happy Super Fun Day Peace Lotto Stimulus Thingy works.  

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

GRAPH: An Average CEO At America’s Big Corporations Earns 200 Times The Salary Of A Navy SEAL

   In the wake of their successful assault on Osama Bin Laden’s hideout, ABC News did a short feature on the Navy Seals. The report tells us that the people who hold this highly demanding and dangerous get paid about $54,000 a year. It then adds that:

   “The base salary level [of Navy Seals] is comparable to the average annual salary for teachers in the U.S., which was $55,350 for the 2009-2010 school year, according to the Digest of Education Statistics.’ That is one possible comparison. There are other possible reference points. For example, the CEOs of Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan both pocket around $20 million a year.

GRAPH: Income Inequality In U.S. Worse Than Ivory Coast, Pakistan, Ethiopia

Exxon Makes $30.5 Billion, So GOP Votes Unanimously To Give Them Tax Breaks

The War on the Middle Class

Former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich shares is thoughts on the rise in pay for CEO’s and the rise in unemployment number

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With Republicans in the House failing to produce any jobs bills, Democrats in the minority have decided to propose their own initiatives. This week’s episode, season 2 episode 12, focuses on one of those proposals, H.R. 613, the Airports, Highways, High-Speed Rail, Trains, and Transit: Make it in America Act, sponsored by Representative John Garamendi.

What this proposal does, is ensure that projects being funded by tax dollars are purchasing materials made in the US. After their passage of H.R. 3, Republicans in the House are going to have to explain why they find it morally acceptable to spend tax dollars on foreign-made products while so many Americans are out of work and our manufacturing jobs are steadily moving overseas.

Cross Posted  from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Americans are struggling to make ends meet, can’t find jobs and are making less money than they did in 1997. What is the House GOP solution? Tax cuts and subsidies for drilling to oil companies that are the most profitable.

Today, the Republicans in the House of Representatives celebrated this massive redistribution of wealth from American families to oil executives. With the support of 7 oil-patch Democrats, 234 Republicans voted to block a bill to eliminate a $1.8 billion annual subsidy that treats oil drilling as “domestic manufacturing”:

   House Republicans rejected an effort by Democrats Thursday to use a procedural maneuver to force a vote on a bill to repeal a key oil industry tax break.

As they did in March, House Republicans voted unanimously to defend these wasteful, unaffordable and unfair oil subsidies, even though several members told their constituents they want to end them.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Former New York governor and attorney general general, now CNN talk show host Eliot Spitzer appeared on Anderson Cooper’s “360” with “Rolling Stone” editor and blogger, Matt Taibbi discussing the two year investigation of the financial institutions that “plunged the U.S. economy into a painful recession”. The Senate subcommittee’s 650 page report that was released on April 13th is a scathing indictment of cover-ups,  lies, the conflict of interest of regulators and the cozy relationship with ratings agencies. During the discussion, Spitzer challenged Attorney General Eric Holder to either prosecute Goldman Sachs or resign:

SPITZER: Senator, I’m going to take a leap. I’m going to say it out loud. Very directly.

   Goldman Sachs, you lied to the public. You lied to your clients. You’ve got a problem. You come on the show. Sue me. I don’t care. You lied to the public, you should be prosecuted.

   I’m going to say it right now. And I hope they are.

It isn’t surprising that the “powers that be” went after Spitzer because this is the man who should be the US Attorney General.

Click here to receive Main Street Insider emails, including weekly delivery of new episodes of 90 Second Summaries.

Congress returns to Washington, DC this week, and with it returns the debate over the FY2012 budget. Frustrated with the focus on downsizing government and seeing a void of budget proposals that reflect their vision for the country, progressive members of Congress crafted the subject of this week’s 90 Second Summary: The People’s Budget.

With new episodes each Monday, 90 Second Summaries provides simple, concise explanations of bills in front of Congress. This week’s episode focuses upon an alternative to both President Barack Obama’s and Congressman Paul Ryan’s budgets. However, as seems to be the case with any “adult conversation” these days, the Beltway press assumes that progressives will be seated at the kids table.

If nothing else, the People’s Budget represents something radically different from the “austerity” measures proposed by the President and Congressman Ryan. It shatters the conventional wisdom that the only option to fix the deficit is to mangle the social safety net. Yet its exclusion from the greater debate means many Americans will never hear what the proposal is.

While folks online are watching this summary, we will be personally delivering it to targeted offices on Capitol Hill. The People’s Budget was never intended to pass on its own, but rather to influence the debate. Our goal is to make a splash today and increase understanding of the People’s Budget.

Please help us spread word about this week’s episode: The People’s Budget.

Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette

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Note: Sections 1-4 contain dozens of additional editorial cartoons and commentary.  I’m not sure why but I was getting the below error when trying to post the complete diary.  Check out the remaining portions of the diary at Daily Kos.

java.sql.SQLException: Incorrect string value: ‘xC2x8CxC2xA9=1…’ for column ‘extendedText’ at row 1

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Jon Stewart asked where is the outrage over Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget plan that includes not only ending Medicare with a voucher system but also raising the eligibility age for Medicare. Yes, Medicare, not just Social Security as has been proposed by both Republicans and Democrats, including the White House, as if the one where not enough.

Under current law, you become eligible for Medicare on the day you turn 65. If the Republicans get their way, you wouldn’t become eligible for the new Medicare voucher until the day you turn 67.

The change would happen gradually, with the eligibility age rising two months every year, starting in 2022. And, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not like that many people are between the ages of 65 and 67 anyway. But think for a second about who those people are–and the insurance options they’d have available to them without Medicare.

Remember, the House Republican budget would also repeal the Affordable Care Act. That would leave insurance companies free to charge higher premiums, restrict benefits, or deny coverage altogether to individual applicants who have pre-existing conditions. Given the relatively high incidence of conditions like hypertension, arthritis, and vision problems among older Americans, it’s safe to assume many seniors would have trouble finding affordable coverage–if, indeed, they could find coverage at all.

Economist Paul Krugman in his Conscience of a Liberal blog this morning points out that “in our increasingly polarized society, life expectancy is more and more a class-related issue.”

As the Social Security Administration has shown, the gap between life expectancy in the top and bottom halves of the wage distribution has risen sharply:

Since most of the corporate media is controlled by the right wing oligarchs, it’s a little difficult to get the real message out to the people or at least an unbiased reporting of what the Republicans have been plotting. The Murdochs and Redstones have controlled the message but because of shows like Jon’s, Stephen’s, Rachel’s and Keith’s, the real agenda is finally getting out there. Evidence the events in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio where the voters are enraged, we now need to take this to a national level. Witness also the latest DCCC message that call the Republicans out on their lies to constituents about Medicare in this MSNBC’s segment with Cenk Uygur:

Finally, we are starting these corporate puppets being held to account for their lies and hypocrisy. Now, throw all the bums out from top to bottom.

We are continuing a recent theme here today in which two of my favorite topics are going to converge: Social Security and in-your-face political activism.

I have been encouraging folks to take advantage of the recent Congressional recess to have a few words with your CongressCritter about the proposed Death Of Medicare and all the proposed cuts to Social Security…and you have, as we’ll discuss…and now we have an opportunity to do something on a national scale, just as we did a few weeks ago in support of Social Security.

This time, we’re going to concentrate on fighting the idea that retirement ages should go up before we become eligible for Social Security and Medicare (and elements of Medicaid, as well), and that Americans should just keep right on working until the age of 67 or so-which isn’t going to be any big problem…really…trust us.

Now that just makes no sense, and to help make the point we have a really cool video that you can pass around to all your friends-and your enemies, for that matter, since they’ll also have to worry about what happens to them if they should ever make it to old age.  

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Why would anyone believe ratings or projections by the S&P or Moody’s after their part in crashing the economy?  

Rather than assess risk accurately, two major rating agencies sold their top seals of approval to their investment bank clients, blessing products that the agencies themselves knew to be undeserving, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations concluded in a report released Wednesday. By repeatedly debasing their standards, these agencies helped banks sell shoddy securities to unsuspecting investors, inflating the value of assets that turned out to be worth far less, the report has found.

The senate panel, led by Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), levels a two-part charge against the rating agencies: Not only did these companies help inflate a dangerous bubble, the report says, but they also bear responsibility for popping it, as their abrupt downgrades of mortgage-linked securities in 2007 helped set off the panic that caused markets around the world to collapse.

Wall St. wants more austerity and and their puppets in Congress will help them every step of the way. So why should anyone take this seriously? Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars reminds that “the banks liked the recession”

You’d think, considering the part played by Standard and Poors, Moody’s and Fitch in covering up these stinking piles of crap inadvertently rating mortgage derivatives as sound and crashing our economy, they would have the good grace to shut up and sit down.

But since nothing happened to hold accountable any of these craven clowns, what possible incentive do they have to tell the truth? And what reason do we have to believe them? After all, they’ve already displayed their willingness to sell their ratings to the highest bidder.

Let me remind you that bankers actually like the recession. They like the falling wages and the weak job market. The only thing that really worries them is inflation, and only because it raises wages and depresses the value of their holdings. Don’t trust anything that comes out of their mouths, or the feckless minions who sell their souls to them.

No reason to believe them now.

For all those who had been hoping for swift but fair judicial treatment for criminal bank actions … dont hold your breath. “The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve and the Office of Thrift Supervision have spent the past few days completing the settlements with some of the largest U.S. banks, including Bank of America Corp, Wells Fargo & Co, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup Inc. The pacts would resolve only part of a large probe involving a group of 50 state attorneys general and about a dozen federal agencies.” But don’t worry, banks won’t actually have to part with even one dollar:

For all the “investigations” into criminal behavior by the largest Wall Street banks it is Main Street that has felt the pain. According to the NYT some 6.7 million homes have already been lost in the housing bust, and another 3.3 million will be lost through 2012. According to Zillow a staggering $9 trillion in home equity has been lost since the real estate market peaked in June 2006.

Caused in large part by reckless lending and excessive risk taking by major financial institutions, no senior executives have been charged or imprisoned, and a collective government effort has not emerged. This stands in stark contrast to the savings and loan crises in the late 1980s. In the wake of that debacle, special government task forces referred 1,100 cases to prosecutors, resulting in more than 800 bank officials going to jail.

A lawsuit filed against the SEC over the Madoff ponzi scheme was ruled on Tuesday. The suit alleged that the SEC had been repeatedly tipped off to the Madoff situation and flat-out failed to address it.

In any event, a federal judge on Tuesday dismissed the suit, which alleged the SEC had acted with “gross negligence.” U.S. District Judge Laura Swain ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to “identify any specific, mandatory duty that the SEC violated.”

Nevertheless, Swain excoriated the SEC, calling its behavior “sloppy,” “uninformed,” and “irresponsible.”  That said, continued Swain, “that the conduct in question defied common sense and reeked of incompetency does not indicate that any formal, specific, mandatory policy was ‘likely’ violated.”

It has become all to apparent that in todays Washington, Wall Street environment that being a bumbling idiot, even to the point of criminal will only get you a “strongly” worded reprimand and, quite possibly, a promotion.  

In this I will just add a few reports I’ve come across this morning while waking up, might add some more as they trickle in.