The GOP is selling "crazy" on climate change

NYTs columnist Thomas Friedman - who IMHO misses the mark more often than not - hits it dead on in discussing climate change and "the crazy" being sold by the GOP's presidential hopefuls, as well as the best path to sustainable green energy and green jobs:

Every time I listen to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota talk about how climate change is some fraud perpetrated by scientists trying to gin up money for research, I’m always reminded of one of my favorite movie lines that Jack Nicholson delivers to his needy neighbor who knocks on his door in the film “As Good As It Gets.” “Where do they teach you to talk like this?” asks Nicholson. “Sell crazy someplace else. We’re all stocked up here.”

Thanks Mr. Perry and Mrs. Bachmann, but we really are all stocked up on crazy right now. I mean, here is the Texas governor rejecting the science of climate change while his own state is on fire — after the worst droughts on record have propelled wildfires to devour an area the size of Connecticut. As a statement by the Texas Forest Service said last week: “No one on the face of this earth has ever fought fires in these extreme conditions.”

The austerity agenda as path to more unemployment...

The Promise of Increased Unemployment

The International Monetary Fund issued a new report on the impact of austerity policies - i.e. cutting government spending during a recession - on increasing unemployment. This "prolonged unemployment through austerity" is the heart of the GOP's economic program.  According to the historical research of IMF economists, it is a recipe for making the existing disaster worse:

Fiscal contractions raise both short-term and long-term unemployment, as shown in Chart 3, but the impact is much greater on the latter. Long-term unemployment refers to spells of unemployment lasting more than six months. Moreover, within three years the rise in short-term unemployment due to fiscal consolidation comes to an end, but long-term unemployment remains higher even after five years.

Fiscal consolidations thus add to the pain of those who are likely to be already suffering the most—the long-term unemployed. This is a particular worry today since the share of long-term unemployed increased in most Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries during the Great Recession. And even in countries where it did not increase—such as France, Germany, Italy, and Japan—the share had already been very high even before the recession.

Job loss is associated with persistent earnings loss, adverse impacts on health, and declines in the academic performance and earnings potential of the children of displaced workers (see “The Tragedy of Unemployment,” in F&D, December 2011). These adverse effects are exacerbated the longer a person is unemployed.

Capital gains & Capitol games - how the rich avoid paying fair taxes on money generated by...uh...being rich

Excellent primer on the capital gains tax, a loophole that exempts the wealthy from paying the same tax rates on income as ordinary folk pay on wages, by Steven Mufson and Jia Lynn Yang at The Washington Post:

"Dear Mark...Merry Christmas!"

The K Street office of Mark Bloomfield, president of the American Council for Capital Formation, is full of knickknacks collected in three decades of lobbying for cutting the capital gains tax.

The coffee table has campaign buttons that read “Capital Gains = Better Jobs.” One wall displays a blown-up cartoon retracing the steps that led President Jimmy Carter to reluctantly sign a cut in the capital gains tax rate. On a shelf sits a framed, handwritten note from President George W. Bush in December 2003 that says: “Dear Mark, I got your treatise on taxes — many thanks. I will look it over with keen interest. Merry Christmas.”

For the very richest Americans, low tax rates on capital gains are better than any Christmas gift.

As a result of a pair of rate cuts, first under President Bill Clinton and then under Bush, most of the richest Americans pay lower overall tax rates than middle- class Americans do. And this is one reason the gap between the wealthy and the rest of the country is widening dramatically.

"Pass this bill!"

President Obama unveils the American Jobs Act:

"Stop talking so crazy"

Jared Bernstein's appeal to reason:

I’d like to impose a new fiscal measure.  Whenever you say either “America is Greece!” re our fiscal debt—or anything like that—or “Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme!” you have to send $10 to the US Treasury.

Today’s bond markets have the yield on the 10-year Greek bond at 23.54 and on the US ten-year note at 1.95.  So enough about that…OK?

Social Security is pay-as-you-go. 

Ponzi’s scheme was not as it depended on continuous doubling the ratio of contributors to investors (read this wonderful treatment by Social Security’s historian).

As the above link concludes: “The first modern social insurance program began in Germany in 1889 and has been in continuous operation for more than 100 years. The American Social Security system has been in continuous successful operation since 1935. Charles Ponzi’s scheme lasted barely 200 days.”...

"The magical world of voodoo economics"

Steven Pearlstein at WaPo:

If you came up with a bumper sticker that pulls together the platform of this year’s crop of Republican presidential candidates, it would have to be:

Repeal the 20th century. Vote GOP.

It’s not just the 21st century they want to turn the clock back on — health-care reform, global warming and the financial regulations passed in the wake of the recent financial crises and accounting scandals.

Reckless, Dumb and Scared: Growing Up in Dysfunction Post-9/11

Ezra Klein deconstructs the 9/11 Decade, in Washington Monthly:

You know how we know the terrorists didn’t win? It’s not because we killed Osama bin Laden. It’s because we killed him and we didn’t really care.

Which is not to say that we won, either. It’s more to say it’s been a weird decade.

According to the Gallup Poll, President Barack Obama’s “Osama bump” in his approval rating was about five points and lasted about five weeks. Think about that for a second: President Obama ordered a daring SEAL raid that ended in the execution of America’s deadliest foe and the president’s approval rose five points for five weeks. The president can get five points for five weeks by switching from white bread to whole grains. He could probably get twice that from a single appearance on “American Idol.”

Channel-surfing we can believe in...

More people watched President Obama's jobs speech Thursday evening than tuned into the NFL's season kickoff game that followed.



Via Balloon Juice

Mark Zandi, founder of Moody's and an '08 advisor to John McCain, does the numbers on the Obama Jobs Act

This is useful analysis, given the "non-partisan," "business elite economist" resume of Moody's Analytics' chief Mark Zandi.

Jared Bernstein has it:

Here’s (Zandi's) projected impact of GDP and jobs:

–President Obama’s jobs proposal would help stabilize confidence and keep the U.S. from sliding back into recession.

–The plan would add 2 percentage points to GDP growth next year, add 1.9 million jobs, and cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point.

Source: Zandi, Moody’s Analytics

The view from a moderately liberal Keynesian economist of good intentions who is filling in for "the Left" on America's bizarre, Tea Party-tilted political spectrum

Paul Krugman, long a leading liberal critic of the President on economic strategy, was both impressed by the jobs plan Obama laid out before Congress and depressed by a toxic political landscape that is likely to kill the legislative proposals:

I was favorably surprised by the new Obama jobs plan, which is significantly bolder and better than I expected. It’s not nearly as bold as the plan I’d want in an ideal world. But if it actually became law, it would probably make a significant dent in unemployment.


Of course, it isn’t likely to become law, thanks to G.O.P. opposition. Nor is anything else likely to happen that will do much to help the 14 million Americans out of work. And that is both a tragedy and an outrage...

(I)t’s worth noting just how much that opposition has hardened over time, even as the plight of the unemployed has worsened.

President Obama's Jobs Speech - 9/8/11

I was impressed with the speech and appreciated the fact that the package was about 50% larger than had been anticipated in early reports.  The proposal falls short of the ideal, i.e. what is needed to recover quickly from the unemployment crisis - but the President was clearly trying to put a concrete legislative challenge to Congress on the table that would be realistic if a significant segment of the Beltway GOP was serious about anything other than sinking his chances for re-election.  He was asking his opposition to put country before petty politics.  Bitter experience, of course, suggests that they won't.

The speech was a substantive appeal to reason that could persuade moderate and/or confused voters that Obama is serious and his opposition is not, as well as offering the Democratic base some plausible agenda around which they can rally. The tone was passionate and convincing.  It represents a turning point, both for uniting Democrats and setting a marker for the coming campaign.

"Taking the temperature" among restive Democrats, here's one early reaction from economist Mark Thoma, who has been an outspoken liberal critic of the President on these issues: "(T)he speech was bolder than expected, showed political savvy (though it will still face stiff resistance), and there appears to be a commitment to keep pushing new legislation until the unemployment problem is eased."

FDR on Unemployment

No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources.  Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance.  Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order...

I stand or fall by my refusal to accept as a necessary condition of our future a permanent army of unemployed. On the contrary, we must make it a national principle that we will not tolerate a large army of unemployed and that we will arrange our national economy to end our present unemployment as soon as we can and then to take wise measures against its return.       FDR - 9/30/34


(Thoughts for a much-anticipated speech tonight by President Obama. Via "Freakonomics.")

"Republicans are crazy..."

"We're all Bozos on this bus!"

In the wake of Willard "Mitt" Romney rejecting Governor "Good Hair" Perry's nutty Ponzi Scheme rhetoric regarding Social Security during last night's GOP debate, Romney is getting kudos from the Beltway punditry as the "not crazy" candidate hoping to hustle his way to the Republican Presidential nomination.

Unfortunately, that's not true. Romney's crazy too...

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones:

Jared Bernstein notes that if he's elected president, Mitt Romney has promised to "immediately move to cut spending and cap it at 20 percent of GDP." That's crazy with the economy so sluggish, but in fact, it's even crazier than that. Here are budget projections for 2013 from the OMB:

The public supports, by large margins, a strong federal jobs program and tax increases on the economic elite

Whether they recognize it as such, the public supports a strong liberal economic agenda on key issues, according to major polls. Beltway politicians of both parties would do well to pay attention.

Think Progress:

President Obama will lay out his latest jobs plan before a joint session of Congress on Thursday, in the wake of a report that showed zero net jobs were created last month. Unemployment has remained above 9 percent, while unemployment amongst African Americans is at a 27-year high...

But while the GOP may be firmly against progressive job creation measures, the public is assuredly not. According to two polls released today, the public supports government-backed measures to bring down the unemployment rate.

"Should Democrats play by Republican rules?"

At NYTs "Economix" Former Reagan Treasury official Bruce Bartlett - a long-time Republican and moderate conservative who has defected from the reactionary radicalism of the GOP - offers some good advice to Democrats to counter The Crazy, i.e. ideological dominance of Tea Party fundamentalism:

Republicans are predisposed to blame government for every problem regardless of the circumstances, and Democrats tend to view government as necessary to deal with economic and social problems...

Right now, it is clear that the right side of the political spectrum is dominant. Virtually all policy debate these days is based on the premise that the conservative position is at least valid. For example, we have heard for months from Republicans that government regulation is a major, if not the primary, factor holding back economic expansion and employment growth.

Just last week, the House majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, posted a memo to House Republicans detailing specific regulations whose repeal would create jobs.

President Obama's Labor Day Speech in Detroit

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Detroit! (Applause.) Thank you, Michigan! (Applause.) Oh, this is a --

AUDIENCE: Four more years!

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, everybody...

I am honored, we are honored, to spend this day with you and your families -- the working men and women of America. This day belongs to you. You deserve a little R&R, a little barbecue -- (laughter) -- little grilling -- because you’ve been working hard. (Applause.) You’ve been working hard to make ends meet. You’ve been working hard to build a better life for your kids. You’ve been working hard to build a better Detroit. (Applause.) But that’s not all I’m going to talk to you about.

I also want to talk about the work you’ve been doing for decades: Work to make sure that folks get an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work. (Applause.) Work to make sure that families get a fair shake. The work you've done that helped build the greatest middle class the world has ever known. (Applause.) I’m talking about the work that got us a 40-hour workweek and weekends, and paid leave and pensions, and the minimum wage and health insurance, and Social Security and Medicare -- (applause) -- the cornerstones of middle-class security. That's because of your work. (Applause.)

If you want to know who helped lay these cornerstones of an American middle class you just have to look for the union label. (Applause.)

The ozone regs: job-killer or job-creator?

There has been a lot of political controversy over the White House killing the new ozone regulations that had been prepared by the EPA. I don't like this decision at all on the merits, since groups keyed into the issue ranging from the American Lung Association to the National Resources Defense Council have protested the delay of any action to enforce stricter limits.  The science points to real health dangers.  But the most interesting and persuasive critique of the timing of this decision, given that the administraion rationale was economic - i.e. to lessen the burden on businesses, with the jobs equation implicit - is Paul Krugman's blog post arguing that the failure to implement kills potential jobs in a bad economy:

Let’s talk about the economics. Because the ozone decision is definitely a mistake on that front.

The GOP has devolved into a dangerous, deadly cult

Reflections of Mike Lofgren, a recently-resigned, 28-year staffer for the Congressional GOP:

Barbara Stanwyck: "We're both rotten!"

Fred MacMurray: "Yeah - only you're a little more rotten." -"Double Indemnity" (1944)

Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests - no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.

But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

"Is austerity killing Europe's recovery?"

The Washington Post:

After more than a year of aggressive budget cutting by European governments, an economic slowdown on the continent is confronting policymakers from Madrid to Frankfurt with an uncomfortable question: Have they been addressing the wrong problem?

The campaign to reduce government deficits has come in response to a European debt crisis that could endanger the global banking system. And the budget cutting has been coupled with a reluctance by the the European Central Bank to stimulate economic growth like the Federal Reserve has in the United States; the ECB has instead raised interest rates twice this year to contain inflation.

Those steps have sucked hundreds of billions of dollars out of a European economy that may be edging towards recession.

The mortgage mess marches on...

New York Times:

The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation.