March 2011
15 posts
3 tags
The Truth About the Economy that Nobody In...
Why aren’t Americans being told the truth about the economy? We’re heading in the direction of a double dip – but you’d never know it if you listened to the upbeat messages coming out of Wall Street and Washington.
Consumers are 70 percent of the American economy, and consumer confidence is plummeting. It’s weaker today on average than at the lowest point of the Great Recession.
The...
Why Governor LePage Can't Erase History, and Why...
Maine Governor Paul LePage has ordered state workers to remove from the state labor department a 36-foot mural depicting the state’s labor history. Among other things the mural illustrates the 1937 shoe mill strike in Auburn and Lewiston. It also features the iconic “Rosie the Riveter,” who in real life worked at the Bath Iron Works. One panel shows my predecessor at the U.S....
The Republicans' Big Lies About Jobs (And Why...
And if all others accepted the lie which the party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became the truth.
– George Orwell, 1984 (published in 1949)
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was in town yesterday (specifically, at Stanford’s Hoover Institute where he could surround himself with sympathetic Republicans) to tell this whopper:...
As the Global Economy Trembles, Our Nation's...
Why isn’t Washington responding?
The world’s third largest economy suffers a giant earthquake, tsunami, and radiation dangers. A civil war in Libya and tumult in the Middle East cause crude-oil prices to climb. Poor harvests around the world make food prices soar.
All this means higher prices. American consumers, still reeling from job losses and wage cuts, will be hit hard. (Wholesale...
Safety on the Cheap
Can we please agree that in the real world corporations exist for one purpose, and one purpose only — to make as much money as possible, which means cutting costs as much as possible?
The New York Times reports that G.E. marketed the Mark 1 boiling water reactors, used in TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, as cheaper to build than other reactors because they used a comparatively smaller...
Why Obama Isn't Fighting the Budget Battle
In the next week the action moves from Wisconsin to Washington, where the deadline looms for a possible government shutdown over the federal budget. President Obama has to take a more direct and personal role in that budget battle – both for the economy’s sake and for the sake of his reelection. But will he? Don’t count on it. Worried congressional Democrats say the President needs to use...
Governor Walker's Coup D'Etat
Governor Scott Walker and his Wisconsin senate Republicans have laid bare the motives for their coup d’etat. By severing the financial part of the bill (which couldn’t be passed without absent Democrats) from the part eliminating the collective bargaining rights of public employees (which could be), and then doing the latter, Wisconsin Republicans have made it crystal clear that their...
The Principles of the People's Party
The following was sent to me by someone in Madison, Wisconsin, who found it in the Capitol building last week. It was obviously written in a hurry, and it carries the label “first draft.”
It’s emerging from the heartland – from Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, and Iowa — and it is spreading across the nation. It doesn’t have a formal organization or Washington...
Why The Street's Euphoric Birthday Has Almost...
What a difference two years makes. On March 9, 2009 the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit the bottom — closing at a 12-year low of 6,547. Today the Dow is soaring well over 12,000.
From its peak in October, 2007 until its trough two years ago, the stock market lost almost $8 trillion in value. That value hasn’t been completely restored but the Street is well on the way.
Some say the...
The Birth of the People's Party
Look at the outrage in Madison, Wisconsin. Look at the crowds in DesMoines, Iowa. Look at the demonstrations in Indiana and Ohio and elswhere around America.
Hear what they’re saying: Stop attacking unions. Stop making scapegoats out of public employees. Stop protecting the super-rich from paying their fair share of the taxes needed to keep our schools running.
Stop gutting the working...
Why the Democrats Should Never Have Started Paying...
It’s called ransom. That’s what Republicans are demanding from the White House and congressional Democrats for not pulling the plug on the government.
Problem is, when you pay ransom once, you’re almost begging to pay it again. And that’s exactly the pickle the Obama administration is finding itself in.
In order to avoid a shutdown last week and buy time until March 18, the...
The Real News on Jobs
Are we making progress on the jobs front? The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 192,000 new jobs in Februrary (220,000 new jobs in the private sector and a drop in government employment), and a drop in the overall unemployment rate from 9 to 8.9 percent.
We’re heading in the right direction but far too slowly to make a real dent in unemployment. To get the unemployment rate down to 6 percent by...
Clarence Thomas and the Politicization of the...
Justice Clarence Thomas, in a speech last weekend to the Federalist Society, accused his critics of “undermining” the legitimacy of the Supreme Court – politicizing it in ways that jeopardize the Court’s credibility in the eyes of the public. He warned:
You are going to be, unfortunately, the recipients of the fallout from that – that there’s going to be a day when you need those...
WatchRush Lumbaugh continues his distortion and demagoguery — emulated by the right-wing-nuts of America.
How Democrats Can Become Relevant Again (And...
Republicans offered Democrats two more weeks before the doomsday shut-down. Democrats countered with four. Republicans held their ground. Democrats agreed to two.
This is what passes for compromise in our nation’s capital.
Democrats have become irrelevant. If they want to be relevant again they have to connect the dots: The explosion of income and wealth among America’s super-rich, the...
