October 2010
16 posts
The Real Center of American Politics: A Reflection...
The true center of American politics isn’t found where most of us agree. We fiercely disagree. That’s not a problem. Democracy assumes disagreement.
The true center is about how we resolve those disagreements. Most of us believe we should work them out respectfully.
We don’t believe in winning political arguments through bullying, name-calling, lying, intimidating, or using violence.
In...
Wise Words 75 Year Ago
From Marinner Eccles, chairman of the Fed, to Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 6, 1935:
Given the “totally inadequate” amount of money the administration is prepared to spend to jump-start the economy, there’s no reason “to expect any substantial improvement. If we spend some every year, but not sufficient to give the required stimulus to private expenditures, we can build up...
Why Aren't Business Leaders Standing Up To the Tea...
America’s business leaders have not exactly shied away from offering political views. Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg has accused President Obama of creating a hostile environment for investment and job-creation, while General Electric’s Jeff Immelt says the administration is out of sync with entrepreneurs.
All of which makes particularly curious the deafening silence of business leaders...
Halliburton and the Upcoming Election
Next Tuesday Americans will be deciding whether to hand over even more of our government to corporations that have been plundering America – such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Wellpoint insurance, Massey Energy, and Halliburton, the giant oil services company.
Not every large corporation is irresponsible, of course, but plunderers that get away with it gain a competitive advantage...
Only $4.2 Billion To Buy This Election?
This, from the Washington Post’s conservative pundit George Will:
Total spending by parties, campaigns and issue-advocacy groups concerning every office from county clerks to U.S. senators may reach a record $4.2 billion in this two-year cycle. That is about what Americans spend in one year on yogurt, but less than they spend on candy in two Halloween seasons. Proctor & Gamble spent...
After the Midterms: Why Democrats Move to the...
If Republicans succeed in taking over the House and come even close to gaining a majority in the Senate, expect calls for the President to “move to the center.” These will come not only from Republicans but also from conservative Democrats, other prominent Dems who have been defeated, Fox Republican News, mainstream pundits, and White House political advisers.
After the 1994 midterm,...
The Perfect Storm
It’s a perfect storm. And I’m not talking about the impending dangers facing Democrats. I’m talking about the dangers facing our democracy.
First, income in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years. Almost a quarter of total income generated in the United States is going to the top 1 percent of Americans. The top one-tenth of one percent of Americans...
The Fed's New Bubble (Masquerading as a Jobs...
The latest jobs bill coming out of Washington isn’t really a bill at all. It’s the Fed’s attempt to keep long-term interest rates low by pumping even more money into the economy (“quantitative easing” in Fed-speak).
The idea is to buy up lots of Treasury bills and other long-term debt to reduce long-term interest rates. It’s assumed that low long-term rates...
1 tag
WatchBarnes & Noble, Upper East Side, Manhattan on September 21st, 2010
Why Democrats Should Not Join In Economic...
Deep economic crises are fodder for demagogues who channel economic fear into a politics of resentment against “them.” In the 1930s it was foreign traders (mainly Europeans), immigrants, and Jews. Now it’s foreign traders (mainly the Chinese), immigrants, and Muslims.
Why do you suppose a half-dozen states are now considering (or have recently enacted) measures to end multicultural studies, bar...
Another Horrible Jobs Report -- And Why The Great...
America’s private sector generated 64,000 jobs in September — just about half the number needed to keep up with the growth in the labor force. (Government, meanwhile, shed jobs.) That means American workers are in worse shape today than they were a year ago. The Great Jobs Recession continues. And we won’t get out of it until we face and deal with the structural problem at its...
The Secret Big-Money Takeover of America
Not only is income and wealth in America more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years, but those hands are buying our democracy as never before – and they’re doing it behind closed doors.
Hundreds of millions of secret dollars are pouring into congressional and state races in this election cycle. The Koch brothers (whose personal fortunes grew by $5 billion last year) appear to be...
The Emerging Anti-Trade Coalition, and Its Dangers
Smoot-Hawley here we come.
Willis Hawley and Reed Smoot, you may recall, sponsored the Tariff Act of 1930 that raised tariffs to record levels on more than 20,000 imported goods. The duo said this would protect American jobs and revive the economy. It did the reverse, plunging the nation into an even deeper depression. Other nations retaliated. Global trade plummeted. Americans got poorer, as did...
Wall Street's Global Race to the Bottom
Wonder what’s happening with bank reform? Watch your wallets.
Having created giant loopholes in the Dodd-Frank law recently passed by Congress (keeping “customized” derivatives underground, for example), fighting off attempts to cap the size of the biggest banks, and keeping capital requirements relatively modest, Wall Street is now busily whittling back the rest through...
Why It's Foolish to Weaken the Dollar to Create...
I keep hearing the only way we’re going to get jobs back any time soon is with a weak dollar.
Baloney.
Here’s the theory. As the dollar falls relative to foreign currencies, everything we export becomes less expensive to foreign consumers. So they buy more of our stuff, creating more jobs in the U.S. At the same time, everything they make costs us more. So we buy less from them and more from...
Corrections and Amplifications: On Andrew Mellon,...
1. A group calling itself “Stand Up For America” says I took Herbert Hoover’s treasury secretary Andrew Mellon’s words out of context in my post “Republican Economics as Social Darwinism” (September 26); and that, in any event, today’s Republicans who call for small government at a time of sky-high unemployment aren’t anything like Hoover or Mellon; and besides, many...
