Blog Archives
A Fairy Tale from Paul Krugman…
Settle down kiddies and listen to this, before you nod off to passive sleep and let those Republicans walk all over us…
Once upon a time, …America was a land of lazy managers and slacker workers. Productivity languished, and American industry was fading away in the face of foreign competition.
Then square-jawed, tough-minded buyout kings like Mitt Romney and the fictional Gordon Gekko came to the rescue, imposing financial and work discipline. Sure, some people didn’t like it, and, sure, they made a lot of money for themselves along the way. But the result was a great economic revival, whose benefits trickled down to everyone.
You can see why Wall Street likes this story. But none of it — except the bit about the Gekkos and the Romneys making lots of money — is true.
– Paul Krugman, NY Times
So J.P Morgan Chase got screwed on our money and will now look for a new bailout…
…Perhaps we should listen to Robert Reich:
Let’s hope Morgan’s losses don’t turn into another crisis of confidence and they don’t spread to the rest of the financial sector.
But let’s also stop hoping Wall Street will mend itself. What just happened at J.P. Morgan — along with its leader’s cavalier dismissal followed by lame reassurance — reveals how fragile and opaque the banking system continues to be, why Glass-Steagall must be resurrected, and why the Dallas Fed’s recent recommendation that Wall Street’s giant banks be broken up should be heeded.
This is the end of a great column which you can read HERE.
As to resurrecting Glass-Steagall, some don’t think it is possible, but we have to get back to regulations separating investment banks from the banks Americans save their money in. We had it like that for close to eighty years without the economic catastrophes we have now.
Quote of the Day – Huntsman on Romney
“Anyone who is in the hip pocket of Wall Street because of all the donations they are picking up, like Mr. Romney, is in these days not going to be the change agent who is going to fix the too-big-to-fail banking system.”
– John Huntsman
I don’t understand why Huntsman doesn’t get the support he should have. If there is one Republican candidate who could potentially join both sides together to move the country forward it is Huntsman.
I wish I understood Norquist Conservatives. What planet do they live on?
Related articles
- Romney on the ropes, Gingrich on the rise, Paul on the defensive, Huntsman on the periphery (thehill.com)
- Huntsman: Romney couldn’t reform Wall Street (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
- New Yorker Profile: Huntsman Campaign Worried Daughters’ Sense Of Humor May Hurt Campaign (mediaite.com)
- Huntsman hopes to break up big banks (sfgate.com)
- Huntsman accuses Romney of soundbite foreign policy (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
- Huntsman on Romney: ‘Name recognition only means so much’ (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
Why Occupy Wall Street?
Here is a video by D C Douglas that gives you 4 good reasons:
Related articles
- I AM NOT MOVING – a short film – Occupy Wall Street (pixiq.com)
- If you can’t make it to Wall Street, Occupy the URL lets you do it from home (thenextweb.com)
- Watch Live Stream Of Occupy Wall Street Protest In NY’s Times Square (mediaite.com)
- Occupy Wall Street: video of NYPD arresting what is said to be a 13 year old girl (boingboing.net)
- Sean Lennon serenades ‘Occupy Wall St.’ with Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ | The Raw Story (worldwright.wordpress.com)
- FIRST LOOK: MTV’s ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Reality Show (huffingtonpost.com)
Cartoon(s) of the Week – Occupation and Economics
Lalo Alcaraz from Universal U-Click:
The 99% get bigger on the Occupy Wall Street march…
– and –
Jim Morin in the Miami Herald:
Of course, the Right Wing represents the 1%…
– and –
Ben Sargent in the Austin American-Statesman:
We have not stopped the banks from robbing the middle class…
Related articles
- Best Cartoons of this Week – Chris Christie Drama, Herman Cain Ascent, Occupy Wall Street Well-Drawn (visionaryrealtynews.com)
- HOWARD DAVIDOWITZ: The Protests Are The Result Of “Bought And Paid-For Politics, Criminals, And Morons” (businessinsider.com)
- Occupy Wall Street & Decolonize Wall Street Posters (voodoodr06.wordpress.com)
- CARTOONS: Occupy Wall Street And Steve Jobs – The Business Insider (businessinsider.com)
Quote of the Day – Time for us all to get involved…
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Senator Sanders hits it right on the head. For my local fans, Occupy Martinsburg is starting this weekend… let’s get out there and see what Shelley Moore Capito (millionaire, btw) is going to do about it.
Economic Quote for the Day
Why do we need banks at all? If it sounds crazy – a world without banks – it is not.
We have become so used to storing money in banks and talking to our banks that we have forgotten what they do. Simply put, banks borrow money from you, and lend it out to borrowers at a higher rate than they pay you in interest. That is it: Banks are lenders. They provide credit. Everything else is window dressing.
***
You think banks provide safety? Wrong. That is the government and FDIC…. So why do you go to a bank? Because your brain has been trained to believe that you can trust them. Their brand means safety to you. You assume that their risk management is better than yours, and therefore will protect your money and enhance its value.
What if that assumption is wrong?
– Economist Michael Eisenberg quoted in Washington’s Blog
There are so many potential enemies destroying our free society through economic and political means that it it hard to see where to grab on that would be effective. I watch the spread of Occupy Wall Street and I am impressed with the energy, but I don’t see where it will end… positively or negatively.
Meanwhile, we are slowly moving into Depression-level Unemployment and politicians are very busy clawing at each other as a means to attract corporations.
It’s hard to see a way to win given the present Congress and Administration. If we could only Raise FDR from the grave (Yeah, I’m influenced by Greek Tragedy.)
Occupy Wall Street is GROWING!
From Talking Points Memo:
Wednesday could be the biggest day of protesting yet. Some of the nation’s biggest unions plan to join in at 4:30PM in downtown Manhattan, including the United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United and Transport Workers, PSC-CUNY United NY, the Strong Economy for All Coalition, the Working Families Party, Vocal-NY, New York Communities for Change, Community Voices Heard and Alliance for Quality. One Facebook pageshows almost 3,000 people who say they’ll attend.
Progressive groups like Moveon.org are also planning to join with the unions on Wednesday, saying in an e-mail blast that “together, we’ll add hundreds of thousands of voices of solidarity from the American Dream Movement for the protests across the country and show just how widespread outrage at the Wall Street banks really is.”
And one union group is showing their support in another way: The Transport Workers Union, Local 100, asked for an injunction on Monday to stop the NYPD from forcing bus drivers to transport protesters arrested during the demonstrations, though a judge denied their request.
So what do the candidates think of all this?
“I think it’s dangerous, this class warfare.” – Mitt Romney
“I don’t have facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration. Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself! […] It is not someone’s fault if they succeeded, it is someone’s fault if they failed.” – Herman Cain
Related articles
- Unions to Join Occupy Wall Street Protests (slog.thestranger.com)
- Next Wednesday Is Going To Be A Huge Day For The Wall Street Protests As Some Seriously Heavy Hitters Come To Town (businessinsider.com)
- Pols, Unions Start to Pay Attention to Occupy Wall Street (timesunion.com)
- If You Thought Last Week’s Occupy Wall Street Protests Were Crazy, Get Ready… (businessinsider.com)
- Occupy Wall Street growing rapidly (dailykos.com)
- Ties between Occupy Wall Street and unions are growing (dailykos.com)
- Occupy Wall Street movement is growing rapidly (dangerousminds.net)
- Occupy Wall Street Protests Gain Labor and Progressive Support (colonel6.com)
Planet Greed is Doomed
A visitor from Planet We Are All One drops in to visit a citizen of Planet Greed. (By War on Error)
Related articles
- Geo-engineering: green versus greed in the race to cool the planet (chimalaya.org)
- U.S. Corporate Greed and Global Agenda may have landed U.S. at #2 (theconsortiumsite.wordpress.com)
- Greed (commuteroute314.wordpress.com)
- Can ‘man’ ever say enough to his needs and greeds? (jalvayuvihar.wordpress.com)
- On Greed (greedygoddesssue.wordpress.com)
2 Quotes for the Morning – both about the Unreality of John Boehner’s economic views.
If you heard the Speaker make hos speech the other day then you know he is insisting on spending cuts before the debt ceiling can be raised. He is also pushing the classic Republican point of view on cutting taxes on the rich because they will invest in American jobs. Of course they haven’t in the last couple of years as their taxes were slashed.
Perhaps Boehner is not aware that the “trickle-down theory” didn’t work for Reagan or either one of the Bushes. Republicans have limited historic vision… primarily because it is the multimillionaires that provide their funds.
As James Rowley and Mike Dorning said on Bloomberg this morning:
“Boehner’s statement in his Wall Street speech that government spending ‘is crowding out private investment and threatening the availability of capital’ runs counter to the behavior of credit markets… Boehner also said the 2009 stimulus program ‘hampered job creation in our country,’ a view at odds with the Congressional Budget Office‘s findings last August. The stimulus package increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million and cut unemployment by between 0.7 percentage point and 1.8 percentage point, according to CBO.”
And Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post said:
“Even more alarming, because it has consequences beyond the debt-ceiling debate, is the incoherent, impervious-to-facts economic philosophy undergirding Boehner’s remarks.”
I suppose this means that, as long as we have Boehner sitting with his historical misinformation, we will have one hell of a time straightening out our economy.
Related articles
- Boehner Speaks On Debt Ceiling (npr.org)
- Rep. John Boehner holding America hostage over debt ceiling and spending cuts (crooksandliars.com)
- Rep. John Boehner Tells TODAY: Tax Increases Are ‘Off The Table’ (mediaite.com)
- Boehner contradicts self on debt limit, criticizes Bush Treasury secretary (americablog.com)
- Speaker Boehner: Tax hikes are ‘off the table’ (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Dear John (duanegraham.wordpress.com)
The Congress is going to try and screw us by way of Big Banks… but at least we have Elizabeth Warren.
Jon Stewart did a very nice interview with Elizabeth Warren, the Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Her concern was that major banks, like Citigroup, and major Wall Street players are trying to “knife” her agency in the back… and that includes support from our Representative here in WV’s District 2, Shelley Moore Capito (R), who is chair of the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee.
Warren is a very smart and intelligent woman with an agency that has very little actual power… therefore, her major strength lies in making people aware of the financial situation which has kept the middle class in financial slavery.
Warren said that the bank lobbyists and their supporters in Congress won’t be able to “knife the agency in the back alley” if they “actually believe people will pay attention, if they believe people care about this.”
To which Jon Stewart replied:
“or if they still have the capacity to feel shame — you begin to wonder at times.”
There is going to be a vote in the House Financial Services Committee next week which will delay the opening of Warren’s Agency, or, at the very least, will weaken its activities. A great many people got into the fight in public last year to set up the agency Warren will head. This year, however, the attacks against this agency are happening in secret.
Warren brought up one of her major interests, the devastating agreements that banks attach to consumer credit cards:
“There was a survey last year. Ninety-six percent of Americans said — I want to get rid of the fine print in credit card agreements and mortgages. I think it is there just to cheat me, to hide things from me. Ninety-one percent felt strongly about it. When that is the case, that’s not Democrats, that’s not Republicans, that’s not Libertarians. This is not partisan. It’s basic and sensible. This game is about trying to push the sensible part right back in the middle and say that’s what we have a responsibility to do.”
“This consumer agency is a tangible, very concrete down payment on the notion that together we can build something that is fairer, and give middle class families a chance to survive, maybe even prosper.”
– Elizabeth Warren
Even if you saw Warren on the Daily Show Tuesday night, this is one of those interviews where Stewart kept it going past the show’s end. You can see the whole interview at http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/tue-april-26-2011-elizabeth-warren . Thanks to Morgan County USA for the basic information on Capito.
Related Articles
- Warren defends consumer bureau on ‘Daily Show’ (money.cnn.com)
- Elizabeth Warren Talks With Jon Stewart -the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that Congress and the Judicial System are Trying to Kill-One Nail in the Coffin Today From the Supreme Court Ruling (ducknetweb.blogspot.com)
- The GOP’s Pathetic Attack on Elizabeth Warren (alternet.org)
- Geithner: Warren still a candidate for CFPB head post (dailykos.com)
- GOP’s war on the rest of us: The consumer protection front (dailykos.com)
- Warren Shoots to Top of Short List for CFPB Job (news.firedoglake.com)
- House Grills Elizabeth Warren in Hearing over Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (legallyeasy.rocketlawyer.com)
- We are losing Our Class” The Republican Class Wars (eleftheria64.wordpress.com)
Roger Ebert on “The One Percenters…”
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Related Articles
- Roger Ebert “Happy” Despite Cancer Battle That Stole His Voice (popcrunch.com)
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North Dakota solved the Wisconsin problem and made it profitable…
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By setting up a State-Controlled Bank with their investment funds, which is what North Dakota did, cutting out the Wall Street investment firms’ profits and making their funds in house (created some new jobs, too.) When you read the whole article you will see why someone should give this idea to Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans.
No one deserves “Quote of the Day” recognition more than Bernie Sanders:
I watched a lot of the 8 1/2 hours that Bernie lectured the Senate in his epic “filibuster” on the proposed tax cut extension. Here is a really precise quote:
“But it is not just a disastrous trade policy that has brought us where we are today. The immediate cause of this crisis, and it gets me just sick talking about it … is what the crooks on Wall Street have done to the American people.”
– Senator Bernie Sanders (D – Vermont)
Whether his long speech will make a difference we will have to wait and see on Monday when the proposal comes up in the Senate. I hope people have called and emailed their Senators supporting Bernie’s position.
Related Articles
- Bernie Sanders’ epic tax cut filibuster rant (salon.com)
- Sen. Bernie Sanders is my hero (horsesass.org)
- Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders Is Filibustering – For Real – Barack Obama’s Tax Capitulation (slog.thestranger.com)
- Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders Begins “Tax Cut Filibuster” (outsidethebeltway.com)
- “Bernie Sanders Filibuster” and related posts (themudflats.net)