Cleaning up after Republicans is a full-time job.
So is reminding Democrats on the internet that this isn’t much to brag about.
Are voters who are obsessed with the debt myth but non-partisan (apartisan? is that a word? how about voters who think themselves to be fiscal conservatives?) worth wooing? I have a real hard time seeing that this is an electorate that Democrats can rely upon to vote for them. Is it not worth it to challenge the economic paradigm they are operating under (and I’m being super generous suggesting that they do work under a paradigm) that debt isn’t a bad thing, particularly with the poor state of the economy? I wouldn’t be surprised if that cynical pragmatic Democratic operatives thought “yes” and “no” to those questions respectively (I don’t expect them to level with anyone on the outside - certainly not with a journalist, academic or a disaffected Green like me). But that’s just the operatives. My rhetorical question(s) is/are for the activists, the partisan Democrats.
Do you guys get this? I’m working with basic, college level micro and macro economics. What about you? Have you been bamboozled by ideologues mascarading as academics merely insulting Keynesian theory, not disproving it? What is it about markets that you don’t understand? Am I expecting too much of partisan Democrats to have the intellectual capacity to understand these concepts or are all partisan Democrats conspiring not to utter Keynes name, let alone his theories? Why do you block me from your Facebook pages when I call you out for this?
Elizabeth Warren Is Right: Give Students the Same Deal as Big Banks
We’ve all heard the stories or lived the hardship ourselves: young Americans trying to move our economy and country forward, but being saddled with so much student loan debt it’s nearly impossible.
Now, if Congress doesn’t act, our already-too-high student loan rate of 3.4% is about to *double* to 6.8% – while banks keep their sweet 0.75% deal. ENOUGH.
Students deserve the same preferential interest rates that the Big Banks get. Will you join us and sign on to support Elizabeth Warren’s Bank On Students Loan Fairness Act, which gives hard-working students the same deal our Federal Reserve gives law-breaking banks? You can sign here:
Will you sign the petition too? Click here to add your name:
Visualize what that large, 57% wedge would look like if the USA paid for weapons systems that the Defense Department actually wanted or needed.
…the ACLU shines a light on a harrowing “debtors’ prison” system in Ohio — one that violates both the United States’ and the Ohio constitution. Ohioans are being jailed for “as small as a few hundred dollars,” despite the constitutional violation, and the economic evidence that it costs the state more to pay for their jail sentence than the amount of the debt.
Romney, Debt & Priveledge: Matt Taibbi explains
- Matt Taibbi: This is how private equity deals work, and this is what most people don’t understand. When a company like Bain wants to take over a company, let’s say, like KB Toys, what they do is — it’s very similar to the process of getting one of those no-money-down mortgages — you put down a tiny amount of money, in the case of Bain, you put down about 5 percent of his own cash, $18 million. He financed the other $302 million that he got, and what he did was he went to a bank and you’re borrowing against the assets of a company you don’t own yet. So what you do is you say to the bank …
- Ahmed Shihab-Eldin: Which is legal.
- Matt Taibbi: Which is totally legal. But what you do is you say to the bank, ‘I’m going to take over this company,’ or ‘I’m going to take over some company, and when we do that company is going to be indebted to you.’ So they borrow $300 million. With that money, and his money, you buy a controlling stake in the company that you’re trying to take over, and once you do that, the debt that you yourself took out becomes the debt of the company that you have taken over. And this is very poorly understood by most people. Now there’s the other problem, now if you’re KB Toys, you’ve borrowed $300 million and you owe the bank. And you haven’t done it to buy new equipment or open new stores or do research and development, all you’ve bought with that $300 million is …
- Ahmed Shihab-Eldin: Debt.
- Matt Taibbi: Yes, and the privilege of being managed by Mitt Romney, that’s really all you’ve bought.
- Ahmed Shihab-Eldin: Privilege.
Raygun laid Nayked
Ezra Klein and Sarah Kliff: "The European debt crisis in eight graphs."
The best graph is the last
…another one of those things that kept me up at night
Out-of-pocket medical expenses drive more into poverty
Many have believed that our poverty rates would not be so dismal if more factors were considered such as the value of social services benefits, thus the supplemental poverty measure was created. The shocking result is that poverty rates are actually greater, especially because of the additional drain on resources of out-of-pocket medical expenses – a measure even worse for those over 65.
PNHP’s version of single payer would provide first dollar coverage, eliminating out-of-pocket expenses such as deductibles, co-payments, and coinsurance. This would not only reduce financial barriers to health care, it would also reduce U.S. poverty levels. This is partly what we mean by “improved” in “an improved Medicare for all.”
Bank of America Preparing to Dodge its Debts
Looks like they’re making plans to stick the taxpayer with the bill through Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
