September 2012
16 posts
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Two Cheers for the Fed, but Thumbs Down for...
With deficit hawks circling overhead, the responsibility for creating jobs has fallen by default to Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve. Last week the Fed said it expected to keep interest rates near zero through mid 2015 in order to stimulate employment.
Two cheers.
The problem is, low interest rates alone won’t do it. The Fed has held interest rates near zero for several years without that...
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The Wrong Way to Save Money on Health Care
Employer outlays for workers’ health insurance slowed from a 9 percent jump last year to less than half that — 4 percent — this year, according to a new survey from the Kaiser Foundation. Good news?
Our political class believes it is. The Obama administration attributes the drop to the new Affordable Care Act, which, among other things, gives states funding to review insurance rate...
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Moody's in a Mood
The rating agencies are at it again. Moody’s Investors Services says it’s likely to downgrade U.S. government bonds if Congress and the White House don’t reach a budget deal before we go over the so-called “fiscal cliff” on January 2, when $1.2 trillion in spending cuts and tax increases automatically go into effect.
Apparently the credit rating agencies can’t decide which is more dangerous to...
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WatchHere’s a slideshow of the illustrations I did for the new (and expanded) paperback edition of BEYOND OUTRAGE — just out. First time I’ve illustrated my own book (or any other for that matter). Hope you enjoy them.
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The Biggest Economic Challenge of Obama's Second...
The question at the core of America’s upcoming election isn’t merely whose story most voting Americans believe to be true – Mitt Romney’s claim that the economy is in a stall and Obama’s policies haven’t worked, or Barack Obama’s that it’s slowly mending and his approach is working.
If that were all there was to it, last Friday’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing the economy added...
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The Jobs Report and the Election
President Obama’s speech to the Democratic National Convention was long on uplifting rhetoric but short on specifics for what he’ll do if reelected to reignite the American economy.
Yet today’s jobs report provides a troubling reminder that the economy is still in bad shape. Employers added only 96,000 nonfarm jobs in August. True, the unemployment rate fell to 8.1% from...
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The Real Importance of Bill Clinton's Wonderfully...
Bill Clinton’s speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention was very long but it was masterful — not only in laying out the case for Barack Obama and against Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, but in giving the American public what they most want and need in this election season: details, facts, and logic.
Republicans have eschewed all detail, all fact, all logic. Theirs has been a...
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The Most Important Political News This Week
The biggest political news this week won’t be the Democratic convention. It will be Friday’s unemployment report. If the trend is good — if the rate of unemployment drops and the number of payroll jobs is as good if not better than it was in July — President Obama’s claim we’re on the right track gains crucial credibility. But if these numbers are moving in the...
August 2012
16 posts
3 tags
Labor Day 2012 and the Election of 2012: It's...
The most troubling economic trend facing America this Labor Day weekend is the increasing concentration of income, wealth, and political power at the very top – among a handful of extraordinarily wealthy people – and the steady decline of the great American middle class. Inequality in America is at record levels. The 400 richest Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 150 million of us put...
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How Romney Keeps Lying Through His Big White Teeth
“We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers,” says Neil Newhouse, a Romney pollster. A half dozen fact-checking organizations and websites have refuted Romney’s claims that Obama removed the work requirement from the welfare law and will cut Medicare benefits by $716 billion. Last Sunday’s New York Times even reported on its front page that Romney has...
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George W. Bush as Hurricane Isaac
There is nothing Republicans would rather the American people forget more than George W. Bush, who doesn’t even have a bit-part at the GOP convention opening in Tampa.
But W’s ghost may be there, anyway.
The National Weather Service says tropical storm Isaac is now heading for New Orleans, and Isaac is projected to become a Category 1 hurricane by the time it makes landfall late...
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Romney's Lying Machine
I’ve been struck by the baldness of Romney’s repetitive lies about Obama — that Obama ended the work requirement under welfare, for example, or that Obama’s Affordable Care Act cuts $716 billion from Medicare benefits.
The mainstream media along with a half-dozen independent fact-checking organizations and sites have called Romney on these whoppers, but to no avail. He...
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The Fanatical GOP
We’re witnessing the capture by fanatics of what was once a great and important American political party.
The Republican Party platform committee now includes a provision calling for a constitutional amendment banning all abortions, without an exception for rape or incest. This is basically Missouri senatorial candidate Todd Akin’s position. (At least the GOP platform doesn’t...
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Ryan Isn't an Entitlement Reformer, He's an...
David Brooks in today’s New York Times commits the standard error of pundits who want to appear neutral but know the Romney-Ryan plan would be a disaster for America. He asserts that Ryan makes a serious effort at entitlement reform. “If you believe entitlement reform is essential for national solvency, then Romney-Ryan is the only train leaving the station.”
Baloney.
Ryan “reforms” Medicaid by...
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Mitt's 13% Tax
Mitt Romney says “every year I’ve paid at least 13 percent [of my income in taxes] and if you add in addition the amount that goes to charity, why the number gets well above 20 percent.”
This is supposed to be in defense of not releasing his tax returns. Assume, for the sake of the argument, he’s telling the truth. Since when are charitable contributions added to income taxes when...
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Paul Ryan's Faux Populism
On Friday, Paul Ryan, the presumptive Republican vice-presidential nominee, made the most populist speech of this campaign season.
“It’s the people who are politically connected, it’s the people who have access to Washington that get the breaks,” he told an enthusiastic crowd of over 2,000 at a high school gym in Virginia.
“Well, no more. We don’t want to pick...
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Why Romney's Choice of Ryan Won't Help America...
I keep hearing that Mitt Romney’s pick of Paul Ryan “enables the country to have the debate it needs to have,” or “permits us to have a grownup discussion,” or “finally presents America with a real choice.” The New York Times oped page proclaims: “Let the Real Debate Begin!”
Debate? What debate?
Romney isn’t even standing by Ryan’s budget plan. He’s been distancing himself from it...
