Tag: Politics

Dec 13 2012

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: The “Yes, Minister” Theory of the Medicare Age

Aaron Carroll can’t believe that we’re still talking about raising the age for Medicare eligibility; his disbelief is easy to understand. It is, after all, a truly terrible idea, for reasons he details in the linked post; it would inflict vast hardship on the most vulnerable, while saving the federal government remarkably little money, and would actually raise overall health spending, basically because private insurers have much higher administrative costs and much less bargaining power than Medicare, so shifting seniors out of the program ends up costing a lot of money.

Yet the idea just won’t go away. It’s almost surreal. What’s going on here? [..]

When I look at this whole discussion I keep thinking of a line from “Yes, Minister”: “We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do it.”

And there’s a real possibility that this kind of logic will lead to huge suffering for hundreds of thousands of older Americans.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: When You’ve Lost the VFW on Budget Cuts, You’ve Lost America

The “chained CPI” is an attempt to camouflage deep cuts to Social Security and other benefits, along with tax hikes on middle class wages (but not for high incomes), in a forest of numbers and terminology.

Know who’s expert at camouflage? Veterans. And a whole lot of their organizations hate the “chained CPI.” [..]

A wide range of organizations representing the nation’s veterans signed a joint letter to leaders in Congress which said “we are writing to express our opposition to changing the formula used to calculate the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) because of the harmful effects it will have on veterans and Social Security benefits.”

The organizations signing on to the letter (18 in all) spanned generations, with the Vietnam Veterans of America and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. It includes former enlisted personnel as well as the Military Officers Association of America. Gold Star Wives, an organization of widows and widowers whose spouses died while on active duty, was represented. And so was the VFW, or Veterans of Foreign Wars, an organization that had traditionally been staunchly conservative.

Here’s a thought for politicians who might be considering the “chained CPI”: When you’ve lost the VFW, you’ve lost America.

Dean Baker; The Bowles and Simpson Traveling Circus

Not surprisingly, the wealthy people who have benefitted from the policies that have redistributed income upward, for example NAFTA-type trade deals, Wall Street bailouts, and anti-union labor policies, don’t want the public talking about them. This is why we have the Erksine Bowles and Alan Simpson speaking tour.

For those who somehow have missed it, Morgan Stanley director Erskine Bowles and former Senator Alan Simpson were the co-chairs of President Obama’s 2010 deficit commission. While they were unable to produce a report that had the support necessary to win approval from the commission, they have made a career out of promoting their own proposal which they misleadingly imply was a report of the commission.

According to the New York Times, Bowles and Simpson get $40,000 a piece for speaking engagements where they push their agenda. This price tag tells us everything we need to know about what is going on here.

Robert Reich: Why the Fed’s Job Program Will Fail

For the first time, the Federal Reserve has explicitly linked interest rates to unemployment.

Rates will remain near zero “at least as long” as unemployment remains above 6.5 percent and if inflation is projected to be no more than 2.5 percent, said the Federal Open Market Committee in a statement Wednesday. [..]

These are refreshing words at a time when Congress and the White House seem more concerned about reducing the federal budget deficit than generating more jobs.

But the sad fact is near-zero interest rates won’t do much for jobs because banks aren’t allowing many people to take advantage of them. If you’ve tried lately to refinance your home or get a home equity loan you know what I mean.

Banks don’t need to lend to homeowners. They can get a higher return on the almost-free money they borrow from the Fed by betting on derivatives in the vast casino called the global capital market.

Miriam Pemberton: Defense Budget: Ripe for Reductions

The pending budget deal must include long-overdue military spending cuts.

Here we are on brink of a major historical moment. We’re beginning to wind down the longest period of war in our history. And we’re about to turn around a 13-year-long surge in Pentagon spending. [..]

And we can afford to do that because, we’re not broke. Our budget priorities just need fixing. In a recent report, my Institute for Policy Studies colleagues and I propose a framework for doing so. Our proposal includes $198 billion in yearly military cuts – from spending on things like wars we shouldn’t fight and weapon systems and overseas bases we don’t need.

These steps would get us that 30 percent contraction, which would bring this new century’s defense downsizing in line with the ones of the previous century. It’s an essential step toward building the sustainable jobs base we need.

George Zornick: Emerging Fiscal Cliff Deal Spares Corporations, but Not the Safety Net

The Wall Street Journal has news of some actual developments in the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations: this morning, it reported that President Obama will add corporate tax reform to his offer to House Republicans, in an effort to bring them along and invite a buy-in from the pesky CEOs crowding up the airwaves during most of this saga.

The Journal says “The White House’s corporate-tax suggestion wasn’t specific” but that “White House officials, in making the suggestion, cited a corporate-tax plan the administration unveiled in February.” The plan the White House outlined earlier this year, if you don’t recall, was to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent while closing corporate tax loopholes to a degree that enough revenue is raised to offset the rate reduction.

So you can immediately see the first problem with Obama’s proposal-since it’s revenue-neutral, it asks corporate America to contribute nothing to a final deficit reduction passage.

Dec 12 2012

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Wednesday is Ladies’ Day

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Katrina vanden Huevel: What’s with the GOP’s absurd fear of all things U.N.?

At least they had the decency to wait 24 hours.

Last Tuesday, following the international day honoring the disabled, 38 Senate Republicans voted down the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. With former Senate majority leader and disabled WWII veteran Bob Dole silently beseeching them from his wheelchair, Dole’s fellow Republicans railed against “cumbersome regulations” that could threaten American “sovereignty.” What is it about the United Nations that sends the GOP into such a tizzy? That diplomats are encouraged to speak French? The United Nation’s intentions are the best, yet Republicans always assume the worst. They weep for the improbable horrors that could be but shed very few tears for the hardships in the here and now, such those suffered by the 1 billion disabled people worldwide who struggle with patchwork laws and official neglect. As comedian Jon Stewart noted, “Republicans hate the United Nations more than they like helping people in wheelchairs.”

Bryce Covert: Progress for Women Continues Flatlining at the Top Ranks of the Private Sector

After the election, word was that we had just lived through another Year of the Woman. After all, a record twenty women will now be serving in the US Senate next term, representing a fifth of all seats. We had previously failed to breach the 18 percent mark in that legislative body.

But women’s progress has stalled out somewhere else: the top of the private sector. The research organization Catalyst released its 2012 Census today, which tracks the number of women in executive officer and board director positions. Women held just over 14 percent of executive officer positions at Fortune 500 companies this year and 16.6 percent of board seats at the same. Adding insult to injury, an even smaller percent of those female executive officers are counted among the highest earners-less than 8 percent of the top earner positions were held by women. Meanwhile, a full quarter of these companies simply had no women executive officers at all and one-tenth had no women directors on their boards.

Rahiel Tesfamariam: The Threat of Drones Ushering in ‘Invisible Wars’

Obama’s end to the war in Iraq and promises to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan have prevented him from seeming war-hungry. But the increased use of drone strikes during his presidency raises the question among critics that Obama has sidestepped congressional approval for declaration of war. [..]

The NY Times recently reported that over 300 drone strikes have taken place since he first took office, leading to 2,500 deaths, the creation of “kill lists” and mass displacement of civilians in targeted regions. But the administration is not backing off. Its goal is to “institutionalize” the drone program to ensure that there is protocol in place for future successors.

No American wants to return to the fear that Sept. 11th instilled in us all. But as we set rules that govern our use of drones, we must also consider other factors.

Sarah Jaffe: Occupy and the Police Needn’t be Enemies – as Sandy Showed

Many activists now appearing in court had organised relief during the storm. Hopefully NYPD officers will remember that

Ninety-nine people arrested during Occupy Wall Street’s 17 September anniversary actions had their court dates last week. They trooped into the courthouse accompanied by green-hatted legal observers and National Lawyers Guild representatives, and faced the judge. Their charges mostly boiled down to “being part of a public protest”. [..]

Many of those same people arrested for marches and direct actions on that day have also been involved in running Occupy’s Superstorm Sandy relief efforts – work that has earned them praise from mayoral hopeful and public advocate Bill DeBlasio, and even, grudgingly, billionaire mayor Mike Bloomberg. The NYPD has yet to come out and officially thank Occupy Sandy for saving lives after the storm. But the news this week, as Occupiers had their day in court, was that in Red Hook at least, the police appreciated the efforts of Occupy Sandy volunteers in helping keep the neighbourhood safe while the power was out.

Sarah van Gelder: Four Ways to Leap the “Fiscal Cliff” to a Better USA

Feeling panicked about the so-called “fiscal cliff?” Don’t be. At worst, if would be more of a “ramp” than a cliff, since effects would be spread out over time.

More importantly, the crisis atmosphere is a fabrication created by Congress. The cuts in spending and the end to tax breaks were intended to be so unacceptable that members of Congress would be forced to reach agreement to lower the deficit, which was considered, at least by some, to be at crisis levels.

Artificial or not, the outcome of this fiscal showdown could set policy for years to come. Times of crisis-even ones that are fabricated-open the door to changes that would be politically impossible in calmer settings, as author Naomi Klein has pointed out in her work on disaster capitalism.

Juliet Lapidos: Scalia’s Domino Theory

At Princeton on Monday a freshman asked Antonin Scalia to explain his legal writings comparing sodomy bans with laws against bestiality and murder. [..]

Despite Justice Scalia’s concern, laws against murder of course rely on more than just feeling; they rely on the basic principle that one person’s rights end where another’s begin. There are reasonable (if contentious) public safety arguments against prostitution and thorny consent issues surrounding bestiality, bigamy and incest.

Some of Justice Scalia’s domino-like laws are indeed the result of feelings, and nothing more. Like bans against masturbation. So far as I know, the last time a lawmaker introduced a masturbation ban it was to make a form of argument, called the ‘reduction to the absurd,’ against a personhood bill.

Dec 11 2012

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection aof editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Amitai Etzioni: Cut Medicare? Cut Fraud!

There is reason to believe that if the GOP will agree to raise the taxes on the super rich, President Obama will agree to cuts in Medicare. It is morally abhorrent to cut benefits to any current or future seniors before much greater efforts are made to stop large scale raids on the Medicare coffers by nefarious corporations. [..]

Bilking Medicare is much easier and the risk of being caught and punished is much smaller than selling controlled substances. Crooks buy patient lists and bill the government for expensive items ranging from scooters to prostheses, all to the tune of some $60 billion a year. Because Medicare is required by law to pay all bills within 15 to 30 days and has a small accounting staff, it often cannot vet claims before the checks go out. By the time Medicare authorities do find out a storefront’s bills are phonies, the crooks close it and open one next door under a different name. [..]

I say do not cut anyone’s benefits until the government triples its accounting staff, quadruples the number of corporate crooks in jail, and reduces Medicare shortfall by cutting fraud at least by half.

New York Times Editorial: Taking Aim at Michigan’s Middle Class

The decline of the middle class in this country has paralleled that of the labor movement, which has been battered by the relentless efforts of business groups and Republicans to drive down wages, boost corporate profits and inflate executive salaries and bonuses. Now that campaign is on the verge of a devastating victory in Michigan, home of the labor movement, which could transform the state’s economy for the worse. [..]

These measures are misleadingly known as “right to work” laws, and their purpose is no less deceptive. Business leaders say workers should not be forced to join a union against their will, but, in fact, workers in Michigan can already opt out of a union. If they benefit from the better wages and benefits negotiated by a union, however, they are required to pay dues or fees, preventing the free riders that would inevitably leave unions without resources.

John Nichols: John Boehner Has No Mandate

House Speaker John Boehner has grown increasingly belligerent in his “fiscal-cliff” fight with the Obama administration. Struggling to hold together a caucus that never really respected his “leadership,” Boehner is trying to rally his troops by ripping President Obama’s supposed disregard for Republican control of the House of Representatives. [..]

It is true, of course, that Boehner and his caucus control the majority of seats. While their numbers are diminished from where they were in 2010, the Republicans still maintain a 234-201 advantage in the chamber. But that advantage in not based on the popular will; it is based on the manipulated maps created by the redrawing of congressional districts following the 2010 Census, and on the fact that Democratic votes are concentrated in urban and college-town districts, as well as those with substantial minority populations.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: 4 Republican Medicare Secrets … and a $600 Billion Funeral

The Republicans are demanding $600 billion in Medicare cuts over the next ten years. Their only concrete proposal is to deny Medicare coverage to Americans during what is now their first two years of eligibility, at ages 65 and 66. But their official offer isn’t even that specific. It just throws out that figure: $600 billion. But you can’t get there from here. [..]

In fact, there are only two paths to $600 billion in savings. One’s macabre and morbid, and is offered here only to make as a Swiftian “modest proposal.” The other would take a chunk out of corporate profits.

Which path do you think the GOP would prefer?

This entire Medicare debate’s being held under false pretenses. Here are four multibillion-dollar Medicare secrets they don’t want you to know – along with that funereal “modest proposal”: [..]

Ari Berman: The GOP’s New Voter Suppression Strategy: Gerrymander the Electoral College

For a brief time in the fall of 2011, Pennsylvania GOP Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi unveiled a plan to deliver the bulk of his state’s electoral votes to Mitt Romney. Pileggi wanted Pennsylvania to award its electoral votes not via the winner-take-all system in place in forty-eight states but instead based on the winner of each Congressional district. Republicans, by virtue of controlling the redistricting process, held thirteen of eighteen congressional seats in Pennsylvania following the 2012 election. If Pileggi’s plan would have been in place on November 6, 2012, Romney would’ve captured thirteen of Pennsylvania’s twenty Electoral College votes, even though Obama carried the state with 52 percent of the vote. [..]

Will the GOP’s bid to gerrymander the Electoral College be more successful now than it was last election cycle? Let’s hope not. Pileggi’s plan divided Pennsylvania Republicans and ultimately went nowhere. Husted had to quickly backtrack from his statements due to the national uproar. Here’s an idea for Republicans: instead of diluting the votes of your opposition, how about supporting policies-like immigration reform and a more equitable distribution of taxes-that will win you more votes from a growing chunk of the electorate?

Wendell Potter: Congress Needs to Close Loopholes in Obamacare Insurers Are Using to Boost Profits

I’ve often said that the Affordable Care Act is the end of the beginning of health reform. It addresses many problems associated with health insurance, but more must be done to control costs and access real universal coverage. And flaws in the law need to be fixed.

However, the reform law will end some of the most abusive insurance industry practices, such as blackballing folks with pre-existing conditions and cancelling policyholders’ coverage when they get sick.

And health insurance companies now have to spend at least 80 percent of our premiums on actual health care. If they devote more than 20 percent to administrative overhead and profits, they are supposed to send rebate checks to their policyholders. Since that 80/20 rule went into effect last year, consumers have saved almost $1.5 billion, mostly in the form of those rebates, according to a new study by the Commonwealth Fund.

Dec 11 2012

The Debt Ceiling Myth & the Platinum Coin

US Mint Platinum CoinOnce again the Republicans in Congress are threatening to refuse to raise the debt ceiling in order to get concessions from the Obama administration. Those concessions would involve severe cuts and changes to the social safety net that our most vulnerable citizens rely on to stay out of poverty but would not solve the so-called problem of the US debt obligations and deficit spending. We’ve been down this road before and it resulted in the extension of the Bush tax cuts and an increase in the deficit.

This could all be rendered irrelevant quite easily and very legally by the minting of one or more platinum coins in denominations determined by the Treasury Secretary. Here’s the law, 31 USC § 5112 – Denominations, specifications, and design of coins:

§ 5112. Denominations, specifications, and design of coins

(a) The Secretary of the Treasury may mint and issue only the following coins: [..]

(k) The Secretary may mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the Secretary, in the Secretary’s discretion, may prescribe from time to time.

Those coins would be deposited with the Federal Reserve and used to make good on the obligated debt of the United States.  This is a legitimate option  for President Barack Obama and the argument has been made that it may be his duty to order the minting of Trillion Dollar Platinum Coins  to protect the US from failing to pay its obligations. Here is the explanation of what a trillion dollar coin does from blogger letsgetitdone at Correntewire:

If the Mint coins money in denominations appropriate for commonplace retail transactions than the coins involved can be exchanged among parties as needed. But what happens if the Mint coins platinum money with face values in the trillions of dollars? Then that money can’t be used for exchange as a practical matter, because there are no buyers who will accept the trillion dollar coins in exchange. So, if the Treasury wants to use such coins to fill the public purse with money it can later spend on debt repayment or Congressional deficit appropriations, it must transform high face value coins into divisible money; i.e. reserves in its Fed spending account. [..]

In the case of $One Trillion proof platinum coin, the profits are its face value minus a few thousand dollars. So that amount would be “swept” into the Treasury General Account (TGA), which is the account used by Treasury to perform Government spending.

A very good way to look at high value platinum coins is that they are legal instruments for the Treasury to use the unlimited “out of thin air” reserve creation authority of the Fed to fill the public spending purse, the TGA, for public purposes. In effect, platinum coin seigniorage involves the Treasury commandeering the power of the Fed to create reserves and place them in the TGA, perhaps, depending on what the Treasury chooses to do, in the many Trillions of dollars.

The coin’s value is not limited to one trillion dollars, according to the law, the Treasury Secretary sets the value. Letsgetitdone makes the argument for a $60 trillion coin that would be a political game changer:

{..} because it institutionalizes the idea that there is a distinction between appropriations, the Congressional mandate to spend particular amounts on particular goods and services, and the capability to spend the mandated accounts by having the funds (electronic credits) in the public purse (the TGA). In a fiat currency system, the capability always exists if the legislature provides for it under the Constitution, as it has under current platinum coin seigniorage legislation.

But the value of the $60 T coin, and the profits derived from it, is that it is a concrete reminder of the Government’s continuing ability to buy whatever it needs to meet public purposes, and its continuing ability to harness the authority of the Central Bank to create reserves to support the needs of fiscal policy. It demonstrates very clearly that the Government cannot run out of money, and that the claim that it can is not a valid reason for rejecting spending that is in accordance with public purpose.

So, please keep in mind the distinction between the capability to spend more than government collects in taxes, and the appropriations that mandate such spending. The capability is what’s in the public purse, and it is unlimited as long as the Government doesn’t constrain itself from creating credits in its own accounts. With coin seigniorage its capability could be and should be publicly demonstrated by minting the $60 T coin, and getting the profits from depositing it at the Fed transferred to the Treasury General Account (TGA).

On the other hand, Congressional appropriations, not the size or contents of the purse, but whether the purse strings are open or not, determines what will be spent, and what will simply sit in the purse for use at a later time. So there is a very important distinction between the purse and the purse strings. The President can legally use coin seigniorage to fill the purse, but only Congress can open the purse strings through its appropriations.

Is there anything congress could do to stop the president from issuing a coin like that? No, there isn’t. Could they impeach him? Well they could try, but I doubt they would get 67 votes in the Democratic held Senate. Nor would impeachment of a president who rescued the economy be very popular with the public.

Last year during the last budget hostage situation, Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law at Yale Law School, wrote this:

Like Congress, the president is bound by Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which states that “(t)he validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law . . . shall not be questioned.” Section 4 was passed after the Civil War because the framers worried that former Southern rebels returning to Congress would hold the federal debt hostage to extract political concessions on Reconstruction. Section 5 gives Congress the power to enforce the 14th Amendment’s provisions. This does not mean, however, that these provisions do not apply to the president; otherwise, he could violate the 14th Amendment at will.

Section 4 requires the president not to put the validity of the public debt into question. If the debt ceiling is not raised in time, there will not be enough incoming revenues to pay for all of the government’s bills as they come due. Therefore he has a constitutional obligation to prioritize incoming revenues to pay the public debt: interest on government bonds and any other “vested” obligations. [..]

An angry Congress may respond by impeaching the president. However, if the president’s actions end the government shutdown, stabilize the markets and prevent an economic catastrophe, this reduces the chances that he will be impeached by the House. (After all, he saved the country.) Perhaps more important, the chances that he will be convicted by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, which has a Democratic majority, are virtually zero.

Since Pres. Obama is no longer faced with reelection and the Republicans in the House are again threatening to default on its obligations without deep cuts to the social safety net and protect the 1% from tax hikes, there is no reason for the President not to mint that coin.

These are the articles by letgetitdone that were referenced and are all well worth reading:

Coin Seigniorage: A Legal Alternative and Maybe the President’s Duty

Beyond Debt/Deficit Politics: The $60 Trillion Plan for Ending Federal Borrowing and Paying Off the National Debt

Origin and Early History of Platinum Coin Seigniorage In the Blogosphere

What Does The Trillion Dollar Coin Do?

The Trillion Dollar Coin Is A Conservative Meme

Dec 11 2012

The Real Financial Crisis: Income Disparity and Poverty

Steve Kornacki, MSNBC host sitting in for Chris Hayes on Sunday’s Up with Chris Hayes, discussed the political posturing on fiscal negotiations with David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winner and distinguished visiting lecturer at the Syracuse University College of Law; Joan Walsh, MSNBC political analyst, editor at large of Salon.com; Laura Flanders, founder of GritTV; Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress; and Avik Roy, former member of Mitt Romney’s health care policy advisory group, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Unlike the usual talk show, where right wing talking points are rarely challenged, Up pushes back and debunks those memes for the hollow myths and out right lies they are. This panel talks head on how income disparity and poverty are the real financial crisis and the insanity of “shared pain.” Topics about taxes on Wall Street transactions, defense cuts and closing loop holes that only benefit the wealthy were mentioned. You won’t hear that on “Meet the Press” or “ABC’s This Week”.

Heather at Crooks and Liars pointed out the conversation in the second video and responses in the third video to Avik Roy arguing how things are different now that when Bill Clinton was president and the nonsense that the rich already pay too much in taxes. The responses from the panel shredded Roy’s talking points. Here are just some of the comments from the panel:

   DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: The average income of the bottom 90 percent of Americans has fallen back to the level of 1966 when Johnson was president, and the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent have gone in today’s dollars from 4 million to 22 million. In 2010, the first year of the recovery, 37 percent of all of the increased income in the entire country went to 15,600 households.

   We have created a privatized system to redistribute upwards and the reason people at the top are sharing a larger share of the income taxes because their incomes are growing at this enormous rate, but their burden is falling. And to suggest we don’t need to raise more revenue by applying it to people who are a success depends on this government, on living in this society, with its rules that make it possible to make that money is just outrageous. It is arguing that we should burden the poor and help the rich.

   […]

   LAURA FLANDERS: No, you’re right. we have 50, 5-0 million Americans living in poverty at this point with food stamp help for many of them. We’ve got 9 million Americans over the age of 50 who are food insecure. One in three of us have no savings whatsoever.

   I mean, you talk the Johnson years, in that period, ’65 to ’73 the war on poverty reduced poverty by 43 percent. We know how to do it. It works. That’s what we should be talking about. We are in a crisis where we’re going to see stimulus. We’re going to see stimulus of poverty and hunger in this country and it’s shameful. And again, going back to ’63, you had more than 60 percent of Americans, I think even in1983, 60 percent of Americans had private pension plans. Now, it’s under 20 percent.

   So these elders that you’re talking about, young people with greater unemployment than ever before. I mean, this is the stuff that we want to be talking about after the last election, children and poverty are exploding.

   JOAN WALSH: And also… we need higher tax rates for the tippy top earners because everybody likes to talk about building the middle class or rebuilding the middle class. Well, the top tax rate that the middle class we in the ’40s,’ 50s and ’60s. The top marginal rate was in the 90’s. I’m not saying you should go back to that, but you can’t say at 37 percent.

Dec 10 2012

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Robots and Robber Barons

The American economy is still, by most measures, deeply depressed. But corporate profits are at a record high. How is that possible? It’s simple: profits have surged as a share of national income, while wages and other labor compensation are down. The pie isn’t growing the way it should – but capital is doing fine by grabbing an ever-larger slice, at labor’s expense.

Wait – are we really back to talking about capital versus labor? Isn’t that an old-fashioned, almost Marxist sort of discussion, out of date in our modern information economy? Well, that’s what many people thought; for the past generation discussions of inequality have focused overwhelmingly not on capital versus labor but on distributional issues between workers, either on the gap between more- and less-educated workers or on the soaring incomes of a handful of superstars in finance and other fields. But that may be yesterday’s story.

Robert Kuttner: Money Can’t Buy Them Love

It is literally possible to have more money than you know what to do with. Take the case of the private-equity billionaire Peter G. Peterson, who has bankrolled much of the austerity crusade. [..]

The fiscal cliff has had the opposite effect from the one that its too-clever sponsors intended. It has revealed the backward economic assumptions of the Peterson austerity crusade and the self-serving motives of its sponsors. And it has thrown into sharp relief the political unpopularity of Republican positions on taxes and on social insurance.

As Republicans try to walk back their position of no tax increases on anyone, any time (even billionaires, even if the result is cuts in Social Security and Medicare), watch for Republicans to turn on each other.

It’s December. Maybe there is a Santa Claus.

Maureen Dowd: A Lost Civilization

The Mayans were right, as it turns out, when they predicted the world would end in 2012. It was just a select world: the G.O.P. universe of arrogant, uptight, entitled, bossy, retrogressive white guys. [..]

Who would ever have thought blacks would get out and support the first black president? Who would ever have thought women would shy away from the party of transvaginal probes? Who would ever have thought gays would work against a party that treated them as immoral and subhuman? Who would have ever thought young people would desert a party that ignored science and hectored on social issues? Who would ever have thought Latinos would scorn a party that expected them to finish up their chores and self-deport?

Robert Sheer: A Sign That Obama Will Repeat Economic Mistakes

Please don’t tell me that these reports in the business press touting Sallie Krawcheck as a front-runner for chairman of the SEC or even a possible candidate to be the next Treasury secretary are true. Who is she? Oh, just another former Citigroup CFO, and therefore a prime participant in the great banking hustle that has savaged the world’s economy. Krawcheck was paid $11 million in 2005 while her bank contributed to the toxic mortgage crisis that would cost millions their jobs and homes.

Not that you would know that sordid history from reading the recent glowing references to Krawcheck in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News that stress her pioneering role as a leading female banker-a working mother no less-but manage to avoid her role in a bank that led the way in destroying the lives of so many women, men and their children. Nor did her financial finagling end with Citigroup, as Krawcheck added a troubling stint in the leadership at Merrill Lynch and Bank of America to her résumé.

Michelle Chen; At ‘Urban Uprising’ Conference, Activists Reimagine the City Post-Sandy

Disaster has a way of concentrating the mind. And Gotham has always had its share of it: whether it’s a slow-burning disaster like the epidemic of income inequality, the endemic scourge of police brutality and racial profiling, or the chronic deprivation of healthy food in isolated neighborhoods. Superstorm Sandy churned all of these elements of urban chaos. But in its wake, the storm has laid bare new pathways for innovations, and new frontiers for struggles against inequality.

The undercurrent of these contradictions ran through a conference this weekend dedicated to “designing a city for the 99%,” a possibility made more real and urgent in the storm’s aftermath. Urban Uprising, held at the New School and the CUNY Graduate Center (where this reporter is also a graduate student), brought together academics, legal experts, organizers and urban ecologists to broach fresh questions about organizing communities: how to harness the energy of Occupy and channel it into direct, localized campaigns; how to balance environmental renewal with economic development; and how to reorient debates on food policy away from apolitical consumer interests and toward the connection between food justice and fighting poverty.

Susan Clark and Woden Teachout: Community Response to Disaster

n the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, one thing is striking: the extent to which many of the best and first responders have been local.

From Brooklyn down to the Jersey Shore, Sandy has left its mark. But now, stories abound of community groups shoveling sand out of living rooms, feeding and housing the homeless, and arranging online help through listservs and crowdfunding. Somehow, communities have married the best of old-fashioned neighborliness to 21st century networking – resulting in a steady flow of local energy against a sea of devastation.

Federal help is still critical. State and local governments can’t respond alone to disasters of this scale. As comedian Steven Colbert quipped sarcastically, “Who better to respond to what’s going on inside its own borders than the state whose infrastructure has just been swept out to sea?”

Dec 09 2012

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

The Sunday Talking Heads:

Up with Chris Hayes: Steve Kornacki will be filling in for Chris Hayes. Joining him at 8 AM ET will be: Dan Savage (@fakedansavage), nationally syndicated sex advice columnist and co-founder of the It Gets Better Project; Neera Tanden (@neeratanden), president and CEO of  the Center for American Progress; David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ), Reuters columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of “Author, Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill)” and distinguished visiting lecturer at the Syracuse University College of Law; Mike Pesca (@pescami), sports correspondent for National Public Radio; Avik Roy (@aviksaroy), former member of Mitt Romney’s health care policy advisory group, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, writes The Apothecary, a blog on health-care and entitlement reform, for Forbes.com; David Cullen, author of the New York Times bestseller “Columbine;” Stephen Barton, survivor of the Aurora, Colorado shooting and outreach policy associate for Mayors Against Illegal Guns; and Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh), MSNBC political analyst, editor at large of Salon.com, and author of “What’s the Matter with White People? Why We Long for a Golden Age that Never Was.”

This Week with George Stephanopolis: There will be two round tables on “This Week”. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas; and Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., face off on the stalled fiscal cliff negotiations.

The second roundtable will debate all the week’s politics, with political odd couple James Carville and Mary Matalin, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, and ABC News’ George Will and Matthew Dowd.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guests are Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D). He’ll be joined on the roundtable with TIME Magazine‘s Joe Klein, Washington Post‘s Michael Gerson, CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett and CBS This Morning Co-host Norah O’Donnell on what to look for in the coming week of negotiations at the White House and on Capitol Hill.

The Chris Matthews Show: Chris Matthews’ panel guests this Sunday are Michelle Caruso-Cabrera; David Ignatius, The Washington Post Columnist; John Harris, Politico Editor-in-Chief; and Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent.

Meet the Press with David Gregory:  MTP guests are Assistant Majority Leader of the Senate Dick Durbin and top lieutenant to House Speaker Boehner, California Congressman Kevin McCarthy.

The roundtable guests are  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA); Bloomberg White House Correspondent who interviewed President Obama this week, Julianna Goldman; NY Times White House Correspondent Helene Cooper; Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward; and MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are  Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). She also has an exclusive interview with IMF Managing Director, Christine Lagarde. Joining her for a roundtable discussion are Stephen Moore of The Wall Street Journal, Jackie Calmes of The New York Times, Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics and CNN’s Sr. Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash.

Dec 09 2012

The Great Debate on the Grand Sell Out of Medicare

Whether you voted for Barack Obama or not, the reality is he is on the same path he was on for the last four years and that is to sell out the majority of Americans to reach a “bargain” with Republicans, who lost the election, on the mythical “fiscal cliff” and the  unconstitutional “debt ceiling.” Part of that sell out is raising the eligibility age for Medicare recipients to 67. This little nugget has started a “great debate” and a bit of an internet dispute about whether or not this is a good, or even workable, idea.

In his article at AMERICAblog our friend Gaius Publius, who is just reporting it, quotes Paul Krugman’s reaction on his NY Times blog to Ezra Klein’s commentary in The Washington Post on Jonathan Chait’s article in The New Yorker, who thinks that raising the eligibility age by two years is an OK idea. What the Herr Doktor said:

Ezra Klein says that the shape of a fiscal cliff deal is clear: only a 37 percent rate on top incomes, and a rise in the Medicare eligibility age. [..]

First, raising the Medicare age is terrible policy. It would be terrible policy even if the Affordable Care Act were going to be there in full force for 65 and 66 year olds, because it would cost the public $2 for every dollar in federal funds saved. And in case you haven’t noticed, Republican governors are still fighting the ACA tooth and nail; if they block the Medicaid expansion, as some will, lower-income seniors will just be pitched into the abyss.

Second, why on earth would Obama be selling Medicare away to raise top tax rates when he gets a big rate rise on January 1 just by doing nothing? And no, vague promises about closing loopholes won’t do it: a rate rise is the real deal, no questions, and should not be traded away for who knows what. [..]

All that effort to reelect Obama, and the first thing he does is give away two years of Medicare? How’s that going to play in future attempts to get out the vote?

If anyone in the White House is seriously thinking along these lines, please stop it right now.

Meanwhile, Chait’s article, Go Ahead, Raise the Medicare Retirement Age, prompted David Dayen’s response at FDL and the Wanker of the Day Award from Atrios.

Dayen’s critique prompted some poutrage from Chait and Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly, who was more concerned about “tone” than the consequences of raising Medicare’s eligibiliy age.

Which resulted in Dayens’ response to Chait, the ill informed Ezra Klein comment agreeing with Chait that the Affordable Care Act would “blunt the pain,” and a hat tip to Kilgore’s pique about “tone.”

Meanwhile, Karoli at Crooks & Liars gets it in her response to Klein’s interview with Peter Orzag, former director of the Obama Administration’s Office of Management and Budget, currently Vice Chairman of Global Banking at Citigroup:

Listen Up, White House! Take Medicare Eligibility Age Off The Table NOW.:

Raising the Medicare eligibility age is terrible, awful, horrible policy that plays right into the Republicans’ goal of killing Medicare altogether. Obamacare does not change that fact in substantive ways. Here’s why, in bullets:

  • Adverse selection – Obamacare or no Obamacare, raising the eligibility age means people enter the Medicare system with a higher likelihood of health problems. Even if they have health insurance before they’re eligible for Medicare, facts are facts: The older one gets, the more likely health problems become.
  • Administrative costs – Medicare’s administrative costs consistently come out to about 7 percent. Obamacare allows for administrative costs of 15 percent. Extending coverage via Obamacare means higher, not lower, costs to the government and the middle class. Subsidies will cost more for that older group as well as for the younger group, since insurers will set a higher baseline on young people in order to pad reserves for older people because of the 3:1 ratio requirement on rates between youngest and oldest.
  • Workforce phase-outs of older employees – This is the dirty little elephant in the middle of the room that no one talks about. Because of the high demand for jobs right now, older employees are being shoved phased out earlier. Beginning at around age 50 to 55, jobs become scarce for older workers, leaving them with a 10-15 year gap before they become eligible for Social Security and Medicare. That means they’re living on their savings, home equity, or odd jobs just to scratch their way to the social safety net. Moving that football means leaving them on the hook for 2 extra years, not only for living expenses, but also covering their health insurance, whether or not subsidized.

[..]I’ve been told by some pragmatic liberals who I usually agree with that I’m being unreasonable on this point. I beg to differ. It is not reasonable for Peter Orszag to say we’ve gotten a concession from Republicans because privatizing Social Security is off the table entirely. That’s a little like saying we’re really lucky that they’re holding the gun to our hearts instead of our heads. The impact of conceding any ground on Medicare eligibility is immeasurably negative for Democrats.

HELLO, Barack, raising the eligibility age for Medicare is a really bad idea.

Dec 09 2012

What We Now Know

Up host Chris Hayes outlines what we’ve learned since the week began, including details from a new World Bank report that suggests region s on North Africa and much of the Middle East will suffer more severely from the effects of climate change. Joining him on Saturday’s Up with Chris Hayes are Robert Freling, executive director of the Solar Electric Light Fund; Katie McGinty, senior vice president and managing director, Strategic Growth at Weston Solutions, Inc.; David Roberts (@drgrist), staff writer on energy politics at Grist.org; and Shalini Ramanathan (@UnGranola), vice president of development at RES Americas and Next Generation Project Fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin.

Facing Up to the Threat of Climate Change in the Arab World

   

  • Consequences of climate change especially acute in the Arab world
  • Traditional coping methods severely stressed by current rate of climate change
  • Actions needed to reduce vulnerability also contribute to sustainable development

The year 2010 was globally the warmest since records began in the late 1800s, with 19 countries setting new national temperature highs. Five of these were Arab countries, including Kuwait, which set a new record at 52.6 °C in 2010, only to be followed by 53.5 °C in 2011.

According to a new report, Adaptation to a Changing Climate in the Arab Countries, extreme weather events are the new norm for the region. The consequences of the global phenomenon of climate change are especially acute in the Arab world.  While the region has been adapting to changes in rainfall and temperature for thousands of years, the speed with which the climate is now changing has, in many cases, outstripped traditional coping mechanisms.

“Climate change is a reality for people in Arab countries,” said Inger Andersen, World Bank Vice President for the Middle East and North Africa region. “It affects everyone – especially the poor who are least able to adapt – and as the climate becomes ever more extreme, so will its impacts on people’s livelihoods and wellbeing. The time to take action at both the national and regional level in order to increase climate resilience is now.“

To Stop Climate Change, Students Aim at College Portfolios

by Justin Gillis

SWARTHMORE, Pa. – A group of Swarthmore College students is asking the school administration to take a seemingly simple step to combat pollution and climate change: sell off the endowment’s holdings in large fossil fuel companies. For months, they have been getting a simple answer: no.

As they consider how to ratchet up their campaign, the students suddenly find themselves at the vanguard of a national movement.

In recent weeks, college students on dozens of campuses have demanded that university endowment funds rid themselves of coal, oil and gas stocks. The students see it as a tactic that could force climate change, barely discussed in the presidential campaign, back onto the national political agenda.

How Cellphone Companies Have Resisted Rules for Disasters

by Cora Currier, ProPublica, Dec. 3, 2012

In a natural disaster or other emergency, one of the first things you’re likely to reach for is your cellphone. Landlines are disappearing. More than 30 percent of American households now rely exclusively on cellphones.

Despite that, cell carriers have successfully pushed back against rules on what they have to do in a disaster. The carriers instead insist that emergency standards should be voluntary, an approach the Federal Communications Commission has gone along with.

After Hurricane Katrina, for instance, carriers successfully opposed a federal rule that would have required them to have 24-hours of backup power on cell towers. In another instance, an FCC program to track crucial information during an emergency – such as which areas are down and the status of efforts to bring the network back – remains entirely voluntary. Nor is the information collected made public.

After Sandy, when thousands roamed the streets looking for service, many had no idea where they could get a signal. AT&T and Sprint, among the major carriers, didn’t initially release details on what portion of their network was down.

Dec 08 2012

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Hilary Leila Kreiger: The True Meaning of Hanukkah

WHEN my brother was in kindergarten, where he was the only Jewish student, a parent organizing enrichment activities asked my mother to tell the class the story of Hanukkah. My mother obligingly brought in a picture book and began to read about foreign conquerors who were not letting Jews in ancient Israel worship freely, even defiling their temple, until a scrappy group led by the Maccabee family overthrew one of the most powerful armies in the world and won their liberty.

The woman was horrified.

The Hanukkah story, she interrupted, was not about war. It was about the miracle of an oil lamp that burned for eight days without replenishing. She urged my mother to close the book. My mother refused.

The woman wasn’t alone. Many Americans, Jews as well as Christians, think that the legend of the long-lasting oil is the root of Hanukkah’s commemoration. And perhaps that mistake is no surprise, given that for many the holiday has morphed into “Christmas for Jews,” echoing the message of peace on earth accompanied by gift giving. In doing so, the holiday’s own message of Jewish survival and faith has been diluted.

Paul Waldman: It’s Time to Kill the Debt Ceiling

Let’s use this opportunity to end the prospect of future economic hostage crises.

There are a number of strange aspects to the negotiation/maneuvering/posturing now taking place between the White House and congressional Republicans about the Austerity Trap (a.k.a. fiscal cliff), but one that hasn’t gotten much attention is the disagreement over the debt ceiling. As part of their initial offer, the White House included something I and other people have been advocating for some time: Just get rid of the debt ceiling altogether. The Republicans, particularly in the House, don’t seem to be interested. But we should take a good look at how crazy their position on this issue is.

In an ordinary negotiation, each side has things it wants, while it dislikes some or all of the things the other side wants. A union wants higher wages for its workers, while the company doesn’t want to pay the higher wages. You’d rather have your partner do the laundry while you do the dishes, but your partner doesn’t like doing the laundry either. The White House wants to increase taxes on the wealthy, which Republicans don’t like, while Republicans want cuts to social programs, which the White House doesn’t like.

Charlotte Silver: Normalising death: The business of drones

As the leading suppliers, users and developers of drones, the US and Israel have defined the landscape of the industry.

As the two leading suppliers, users and developers of drone technology, the US and Israel have defined the landscape of the industry. While this leads to an inherent competition, the industries maintain a more co-operative than adversarial relationship.

American drone manufacturers have benefitted widely from the kind of warfare and attendant weaponry that Israel has helped pioneer. Not only did America’s initial drone capabilities come from Israel, but the policy of targeted assassinations, under which 300 American drone strikes have been deployed by the Obama administration, was instigated by Israel. [..]

In 2005, Forbes magazine named the Jewish state as the “go-to country for anti-terrorism technology” and today, Israel is very well the go-to country for drone technology. The country’s academic institutions are principally to thank for that grand achievement. This symbiotic relationship between academia and drone warfare may well be coming to the US.

Assisting the US drone industry in its efforts to rebrand its unsavoury image, Israel is helping drone makers to align themselves with academic and philanthropic institutions.

Robert Kuttner: Folks Like Me

Obama should retire his line about needing to pay more taxes, and start focusing more on the mega-rich.

When President Obama calls for raising taxes on the top 2 percent, he has a habit of declaring that, “Folks like me” should pay higher taxes. He used the phrase dozens of time during the campaign, and just this week again in an interview on Bloomberg.

Either someone on the president’s speechwriting staff has a tin ear, or Obama himself does.

For starters, the comment puts unnecessary distance between the president and the citizenry. It signals: I am not like most of you. I am far wealthier.

But the phrase, “folks like me,” is wildly misleading. The people whose taxes really need to rise are not folks from the professional class like Barack Obama. They are folks like Mitt Romney and Pete Peterson-people with net worth in the billions or hundreds of millions; people behind the corporate Fix the Debt campaign; people like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson.

Robert Reich: Today’s Job Numbers Show Why Job-Creation Must Take Precedence Over Deficit Reduction

Today’s jobs report shows an economy that’s still moving in the right direction but way too slowly, which is why Washington’s continuing obsession with the federal budget deficit is insane. Jobs and growth must come first.

The cost of borrowing is so low — the yield on the ten-year Treasury is near historic lows — and the need for more jobs and better wages so high, and our infrastructure so neglected, that it’s insanity not to borrow more to put more Americans to work rebuilding the nation.

Yes, unemployment is down slightly and 146,000 new jobs were created in November. That’s some progress. But don’t be blinded by the hype coming out of Wall Street and the White House, both of which want the public to believe everything is going wonderfully well.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Tea Party Quitter DeMint Cashes In, Exposing DC’s Dark Side

They say “walk before you run,” but for politicians like Jim DeMint it’s the other way around. First you run, then you walk — walk out, that is, on your commitment to serve.

But DeMint’s performed one public service by abandoning his post: He’s given us a glimpse of a half-hidden Washington where leaders don’t lead, think-tankers don’t think, and the house always wins.

DeMint’s leaving to run the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing Reagan-era “think tank.” Is he a policy expert, a problem solver, a “thinker”? What was DeMint’s professional background before he entered politics?

Sales. DeMint ran a small marketing group (one to four employees, according to business databases) in Greenville, South Carolina.[..]

These politicians aren’t leaders. They’re corporate America’s sales force.

“Will You Help Save the American Dream?” asks the Heritage Foundation website. But that’s just another sales ploy. These politicians have already cashed in on their dreams — by selling yours.

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