Feudal Lords Of Finance

In some influential circles, these questions are now asked: What’s wrong with high levels of inequality in general, and with having very rich bankers in particular. After all, human societies have survived the presence of extremely wealthy individuals in the past – in fact, some now argue, the presence of such a “new aristocracy” can finance growth and spur innovation.

This argument is deeply flawed along three dimensions.

Measuring The Fiscal Costs Of Not Fixing The Financial System

This post is a slightly edited version of remarks prepared for delivery at Unwinding Public Interventions in the Financial Sector: Preconditions and Practical Considerations, IMF High-Level Conference, Thursday, December 3, 2009, Washington D.C. I participated in Session 2: Managing Fiscal Risks—Public Finance Aspects of Unwinding.

The Problem

1) The underlying fiscal problems of the U.S. have significantly worsened as a direct result of how the financial crisis of 2008-09 was handled.

2) The U.S. economic system has evolved relatively efficient ways of handling the insolvency of nonfinancial firms and small or medium-sized financial institutions. A large number of these institutions have failed so far this year, without causing major disruption to the economy.

Bernanke Channels Willie Sutton In Assault On Social Security: 'That's Where The Money Is'

Ben Bernanke has overseen the greatest expansion of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet in its history, pouring trillions of dollars into Wall Street firms at roughly zero interest rates.

His generosity, however, has a limit.

Blue Cross Blue Shield Lobbyists Quietly Helping Extreme Effort To Declare Health Reform Unconstitutional

ThinkProgess has documented how the private health insurance industry is waging a duplicitous, “two-faced” campaign to kill health reform. Because the industry understands that the public views it in a largely negative light, the industry presents itself as proactively working hand-in-hand with legislators to produce reform. However, behind the scenes, the industry is coordinating a massive effort to kill all reform — employing attacks from front groups, allied politicians, think tanks, lobbyists, and right-wing media.

An Open Letter to Congress From US Scientists on Climate Change and Recently Stolen Emails

by Climate Experts

As U.S. scientists with substantial expertise on climate change and its impacts on natural ecosystems, our built environment and human well-being, we want to assure policy makers and the public of the integrity of the underlying scientific research and the need for urgent action to reduce heat-trapping emissions. In the last few weeks, opponents of taking action on climate change have misrepresented both the content and the significance of stolen emails to obscure public understanding of climate science and the scientific process.

We would like to set the record straight.

Good News on Premiums

The health insurance industry frightened Americans — and gave Republicans a shrill talking point — when it declared in October that proposed reform legislation would drive up insurance costs for virtually everyone by as much as thousands of dollars a year. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office persuasively contradicted that claim this week.

Undaunted, the industry issued a rebuttal report, claiming again that premiums would soar. We find this second industry report no more persuasive than the first.

In its long-awaited study, the C.B.O. estimates that most Americans would pay the same or less in premiums in 2016, after reforms have kicked in, than they would pay under current law. Those who work for large employers (more than 50 workers) would, on average, see their premiums hold steady or drop by up to 3 percent per person covered. Those who work for small employers would also not see much change — anywhere from a 1 percent increase to a 2 percent reduction.

Aetna Forcing 600,000-Plus To Lose Coverage In Effort To Raise Profits

Health insurance giant Aetna is planning to force up to 650,000 clients to drop their coverage next year as it seeks to raise additional revenue to meet profit expectations.

In a third-quarter earnings conference call in late October, officials at Aetna announced that in an effort to improve on a less-than-anticipated profit margin in 2009, they would be raising prices on their consumers in 2010. The insurance giant predicted that the company would subsequently lose between 300,000 and 350,000 members next year from its national account as well as another 300,000 from smaller group accounts.

America's regression

By Glenn Greenwald

Ronald Reagan, May 20, 1988, transmitting the Convention Against Torture to the Senate for ratification:

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. . . . Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

European Legislation Creates 62 MPG Gas Cars… From Ford

By Susan Kraemer

In the US, Ford is still behind the 5 major foreign auto makers in fuel efficiency, surpassing only GM and Chrysler. Yet Ford of Europe already achieves dazzling mileage that we Americans can only dream of.

Imagine a gas-fueled car that gets 62 miles to the gallon: “With start-stop, regenerative brakes and an Eco Mode system, the new Focus gets 62 MPG (U.S.) on the European scale and emits just 99 grams of CO2 per kilometer” Available in Europe next Spring.

House Reaches Deal to Vote on Derivatives Bill, Frank Says

Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Democrats reached a deal on “most issues” in a House of Representative plan to rein in the $605 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market and will vote next week, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said.

Few differences remain between bills from the House Financial Services and House Agriculture Committees, Frank told reporters outside a hearing today in Washington.

Keep Tim Geithner

uesday, 11/24/2009 - 11:00 am by Bo Cutter

I don’t think for a moment that Tim Geithner is in any trouble with his boss. But given Congress’ general idiocy as they talked to him last week, and a similar lack of regard I’ve heard from way too many progressives, someone should stand up for him and make the vastly-stronger counter arguments. It comes down to this: the combination of brains, guts, calmness, and a willingness to act are virtually non-existent in Washington in any era, but particularly in this one. When you find the combination in a significant cabinet level job, you should value it.

At the moment, progressives or liberals hate him because he did not take over or dismember the banks, and publicly execute their senior managements. He also manages to be tarred by proximity to the now much despised Goldman Sachs — although he is not an alumni. Conservatives hate him because they feel he was unkind to the banks, and hurt senior managements’ feelings. Of course, he also caused the financial debacle, and the recession; and mis-designed the Federal Reserve Board 97 years ago. And no one thinks he is tall enough. If you read the accounts of Secretary Geithner’s hearings last week, you know this is all classic Washington behavior. If there is one thing at which the glibocracy in DC excels, it is coming out of the hills after the battle is over and shooting the wounded. This is Washington today, a system in total gridlock, in which counting coup is the central activity.

Lets review the bill of accounts against Tim Geithner more dispassionately.

Some Questions For Mr. Bernanke

On Thursday, Ben Bernanke will appear before the Senate Banking Committee, to begin his reconfirmation process as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

Based on committee members’ public statements, Bernanke already appears to have enough votes on his side. But Thursday’s hearing and the subsequent floor debate are an important opportunity for senators to raise important issues about how the Fed will operate moving forward.

This is more than a ritual. Questioning (the monetary) authority and politely insisting on a coherent answer is an important part of our political governance structure – and something that was sorely lacking during the Greenspan era.

Bhopal: 25 years of poison

Indra Sinha, who was Booker-nominated for his book on the Bhopal disaster, explains why the gas leak that killed 20,000 people 25 years ago – and continues to create health problems for countless more – is still a national scandal

Indra Sinha
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 December 2009 18.38 GMT

Under the volcano

"Wake up people of Bhopal, you are on the edge of a volcano!"

In September 1982, Bhopali journalist Raj Keswani wrote a terrifying story, the first of a series of articles, for the city's Jansatta daily. Bhopal was about to be annihilated. "It will take just an hour, at most an hour-and-a-half, for every one of us to die."

Young voters fault Obama on many measures - poll

BOSTON, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Fifty-eight percent of younger Americans approve of President Barack Obama's job performance but many feel differently about his handling of specific issues, a national poll has found.

Harvard University's Institute of Politics said on Thursday at 52 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds polled disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy and healthcare and 55 disapprove on the topic of Afghanistan.

Paul Krugman: Reform or Else

Health care reform hangs in the balance. Its fate rests with a handful of “centrist” senators — senators who claim to be mainly worried about whether the proposed legislation is fiscally responsible.

But if they’re really concerned with fiscal responsibility, they shouldn’t be worried about what would happen if health reform passes. They should, instead, be worried about what would happen if it doesn’t pass. For America can’t get control of its budget without controlling health care costs — and this is our last, best chance to deal with these costs in a rational way.

Some background: Long-term fiscal projections for the United States paint a grim picture. Unless there are major policy changes, expenditure will consistently grow faster than revenue, eventually leading to a debt crisis.

What's Cap and Trade? A New Video Breaks it Down and Reveals the Plan as a Scam

By Janet Redman, MinuteMan Media
Posted on December 3, 2009, Printed on December 4, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/144359/

Whether you listen to NPR or Rush Limbaugh, you've probably heard about climate change. And if you've heard about climate change, chances are you've also heard about "cap and trade." It's a scheme that tries to sell business-as-usual as a solution to global warming.

Here's how it works. The government puts a limit on how much greenhouse gas can be released in a year (the cap), and industries covered by the system are issued an equivalent number of emissions permits. As the cap is tightened each year, permits become scarcer and thus more valuable. The increasing value of the permits is supposed to encourage dirty industries to clean up their act fast, and sell their spare permits to the dinosaurs that didn't innovate. That's the trade.

Even After CBO Reports Stimulus Created Up To 1.6 Million Jobs, Conservatives Claim It ‘Failed’

Today, the White House is hosting a jobs forum, “to sound out ideas for accelerating job growth during the worst labor market in a generation,” as Democrats in both houses of Congress are attempting to craft jobs legislation. Yesterday, the administration for the first time expressed support for new legislation, so long as it has a “relatively small deficit impact.”

This effort comes in the wake of a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report showing that the economic stimulus package is having its intended effect — creating or saving 600,000 to 1.6 million jobs — albeit in a weaker than anticipated economy.

No. 2 official leaving Justice Department

Insiders say Ogden never clicked with Holder

By Carrie Johnson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 4, 2009

The Justice Department's second in command announced Thursday that he will step down from one of the most critical law enforcement posts in the nation after less than a year of service, bringing to the surface tensions that have long simmered over management of the vast department.

Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden, who won Senate confirmation in March, will step down next February to return to a private law partnership. In an interview, Ogden pointed to accomplishments during his tenure, including initiatives to attack health-care fraud and violence on the Southwest border, but he also cited the strain of running a 24-hour operation with more than 100,000 employees.

Taibbi: Obama’s sellout to Wall Street creates ‘permanent bailout’

By David Edwards and Daniel Tencer

If passed as it is, the financial reform bill winding its way through Congress will create a "permanent bailout mechanism," and will give complete control over future bailouts to the White House, says columnist Matt Taibbi.

In a video preview of an upcoming Rolling Stone article, Taibbi explained how the Obama administration started selling out to Wall Street interests almost as soon as the 2008 election was over.

History in a Number: Senate Amendment 2837

by Donna Smith

The idea of a Medicare for All type, single-payer healthcare system will be heard on the Senate floor. Late last evening, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont filed Senate Amendment No. 2837, and there are two additional original co-sponsors of this amendment, Senator Roland Burris of Illinois and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

The idea that healthcare is a basic human right that could and should be delivered to each and every person in this nation is not a new one. Our President knows that; our Congress knows that. But this struggle to reform the broken, profit-driven system has carried us a very long way from the spot that would allow us to finally extend that basic human right to all.

America Without a Middle Class

Can you imagine an America without a strong middle class? If you can, would it still be America as we know it?

Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street.

Group promoting climate skepticism has extensive ties to Exxon-Mobil

A group promoting skepticism over widely-accredited climate change science has a web of connections to influential oil giant Exxon-Mobil, Raw Story has found.

The organization is called the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Changenotorious among scientists for funding global warming skeptics. (NIPCC), apparently named after the UN coalition International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). An investigation into the group reveals its numerous links to Exxon-Mobil, a vehement opponent of climate legislation and

Maddow rips McConnell’s ‘nonsense’ idea to use stimulus on war

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow was all bubbling over on Wednesday about how after months of just being "the party of no," the Republicans now have "an honest to goodness plan -- a policy idea from the top Republican in the Senate."

It seems that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has come up with a distinctively Republican idea on how to fund the troop increase in Afghanistan.

James Hansen: Copenhagen climate talks must collapse

Shanta Barley, reporter

Outspoken US climate scientist James Hansen has announced that climate talks next week in Copenhagen must collapse if the world is to tackle global warming effectively, reports the UK's Guardian newspaper.

A leading climatologist and director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Hansen's testimony to US Congress in 1988 played a critical role in raising public awareness of global warming.

Now Hansen's back in the spotlight. He has raised eyebrows by saying that any agreement that emerges from Copenhagen will be counter-productive if it plumps for a "cap and trade" system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

We May Be Born With an Urge to Help

NICHOLAS WADE

Published: Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 4:16 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 4:16 a.m.

What is the essence of human nature? Flawed, say many theologians. Vicious and addicted to warfare, wrote Hobbes. Selfish and in need of considerable improvement, think many parents.

But biologists are beginning to form a generally sunnier view of humankind. Their conclusions are derived in part from testing very young children, and partly from comparing human children with those of chimpanzees, hoping that the differences will point to what is distinctively human.

The courageous Brooksley Born

By Henry CK Liu

This article concludes a two-part series.
Part 1: The folly of deregulation

In 2009, the John F Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, the nation's most prestigious honor for public servants, was given to Brooksley Born for her role in 1998, as chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to try, albeit unsuccessfully, to bring over-the-counter financial derivatives under the regulatory control of the CFTC weeks before the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM).

OTC derivatives are contracts executed outside of the regulated exchange environment and whose value depends on (or derives from) the value of an underlying asset, reference rate or index. Market participants use these instruments to perform a wide variety of useful risk management functions. The Bank of International Settlement (BIS) reports the notional value of outstanding OTC derivatives contracts ending June 2009 to be US$49.2 trillion worldwide against a 2009 world gross domestic product (GDP) of $65.6 trillion.

Blackwater’s Erik Prince to step down, reveals CIA role

'Power struggle' inside Blackwater over Prince's successor

Blackwater's Erik Prince was recruited as a CIA agent in the years after the 9/11 attacks, says an exclusive report at Vanity Fair that also reveals the billionaire ex-Navy SEAL plans to step down from Blackwater to teach high school.

For the past six years, Prince "appears to have led an astonishing double life," writes Adam Ciralsky. "Publicly, he has served as Blackwater’s CEO and chairman. Privately, and secretly, he has been doing the CIA’s bidding, helping to craft, fund, and execute operations ranging from inserting personnel into 'denied areas'—places US intelligence has trouble penetrating—to assembling hit teams targeting al-Qaeda members and their allies."

Tomgram: Barbara Ehrenreich, Welcome to the Women's Movement 2.0

No group with a major stake in health-care reform has seen as many peaks and valleys this year as women's health activists. After pressuring lawmakers and rolling out initiatives like the "Being a Woman Is Not a Pre-Existing Condition" campaign, they scored three significant victories when the House of Representatives released its health bill in late October. The draft legislation included language that would eliminate the discriminatory practice of "gender rating," block companies from deeming C-sections and domestic violence "pre-existing conditions," and require employers to pay for maternity care.

Obama's War Begins

But where does it end?

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009, at 11:58 PM ET

The war that President Barack Obama laid out at West Point Tuesday night—its rationale, strategy, tactics, and resources—is different, in ways large and small, from the war that George W. Bush fought (and didn't fight) in Afghanistan.

Obama is sending 30,000 additional U.S. troops (beyond the 21,000 extra he sent in March, more than doubling our commitment overall). He is shifting their approach from strictly shooting and shelling bad guys to protecting the population and building up Afghan forces. And he is declaring a finite limit to our involvement.

Radiator roads too hot for ice to handle

BLIZZARD-bound motorists won't have to wait for a salting truck or snow plough to clear the way if a "self-heating" road takes off.

While salting disperses ice and snow, the salty run-off corrodes the steel rods that reinforce roads and bridge decks, and also damages vehicles. With the US government striving to improve its road infrastructure after a fatal bridge collapse in Minnesota in 2007, new methods to clear snow without damaging structures are being sought.

Thomas Frank: Conservatives Want Republican Purge Trials

A 10-point purity test even Reagan would flunk.

By THOMAS FRANK

Across the land, grindstones sing as axes are sharpened for the RINOs. For years, conservatives have railed against these moderate "Republicans in Name Only," launching primary campaigns against them, pouring money into their opponents' campaign funds, and excluding them from committee chairmanships. But since 2006 the party's pulse has weakened, and the GOP's leaders have decided that nothing is more healthful in such a situation than hacking off a limb or two.

That, evidently, is the thinking behind the 10-point test for GOP candidates that was proposed last week by a group of Republican national committee members. If a candidate "disagrees" with three or more of the points—said disagreement to be determined by one's "voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire"—then they can forget about financial support from Republican central.

The folly of deregulation

By Henry C K Liu

On October 7, 2009, the United States House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services at long last held a public hearing on "Reform of the Over-the-Counter (OTC) Derivative Market: Limiting Risk and Ensuring Fairness".

OTC derivatives are contracts executed outside the regulated exchange environment whose values depend on (or derive from) the values of underlying assets, reference rates or indexes. Market participants use these instruments to perform a wide variety of useful risk management functions. The Bank of International Settlement (BIS) reports that the notional value of all outstanding OTC derivative contracts ending June 2009 was US$49.2 trillion worldwide against a 2009 world gross domestic product (GDP) of $65.6 trillion.

Worse Than Enron?

Wall Street’s big banks are playing dangerous new accounting games—and this time taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of billions. Nomi Prins uncovers a scandal in the making.

by Nomi Prins

Enron was the financial scandal that kicked off the decade: a giant energy trading company that appeared to be doing brilliantly-until we finally noticed that it wasn't. It's largely been forgotten given the wreckage that followed, and that's too bad: we may be repeating those mistakes, on a far larger scale.

Specifically, as the largest Wall Street banks return to profitability-in some cases, breaking records-they say everything is rosy. They're lining up to pay back their TARP money and asking Washington to back off. But why are they doing so well? Remember that Enron got away with their illegalities so long because their financials were so complicated that not even the analysts paid to monitor the Houston-based trading giant could cogently explain how they were making so much money.

Far-right fundraising tack: Obama plans to ‘impose homosexuality’

Far-right Christian fundamentalist group Family Research Council has a clever idea for raising money: convince supporters that President Barack Obama will take away their Bibles and turn their kids gay.

That's essentially what the group's newest fundraising alert amounts to, with its claim that the president has a "plan" to "impose homosexuality" and "silence Christianity."

It's hard to make this stuff up.

Worse Than Enron?

Wall Street’s big banks are playing dangerous new accounting games—and this time taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of billions. Nomi Prins uncovers a scandal in the making.

by Nomi Prins

Enron was the financial scandal that kicked off the decade: a giant energy trading company that appeared to be doing brilliantly-until we finally noticed that it wasn't. It's largely been forgotten given the wreckage that followed, and that's too bad: we may be repeating those mistakes, on a far larger scale.

Specifically, as the largest Wall Street banks return to profitability-in some cases, breaking records-they say everything is rosy. They're lining up to pay back their TARP money and asking Washington to back off. But why are they doing so well? Remember that Enron got away with their illegalities so long because their financials were so complicated that not even the analysts paid to monitor the Houston-based trading giant could cogently explain how they were making so much money.

Not another bank bailout

The big talk in Washington these days is "helping homeowners". Unfortunately, what passes for help to homeowners in the capitol might look more like handing out money to banks anywhere else.

The basic story is fairly simple. Tens of millions of US homeowners are now underwater: they owe more on their mortgage than the market value of their home. The reason is that they bought homes at bubble-inflated prices earlier in the decade. Economists and other policy wonks insisted that housing was a great buy, even as house prices got ever more out-of-line with economic fundamentals.

Should You Flush Your Drugs Down the Toilet?

The greenest way to get rid of old prescription meds.

By Nina Shen Rastogi
Updated Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009, at 12:05 PM ET

---

I've been hearing a lot about how prescription medications and the other drugs we take end up in the water supply. It got me wondering: What's the most environmentally responsible way to dispose of old pills and cough syrups?

It's true: A wide range of pharmaceuticals have been found in our lakes, streams, and drinking water. Scientists are trying to puzzle out what effects these drugs might have on people and wildlife, but there's still a lot we don't know. Even without hard evidence on the impacts of long-term exposure to trace contamination from our water, most government organizations now recommend that you dispose of old medications in the trash, rather than the toilet. (Of course, that doesn't address the fact that, according to most estimates, the vast majority of pharmaceutical pollution comes through our bodily excretions.)

Family health insurance to rise sharply without COBRA subsidy

By Tony Pugh | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — A new study estimates that the end of a hefty government subsidy could force millions of laid-off workers to pay more than 80 percent of their monthly unemployment checks to keep their job-based family health insurance coverage intact.

An estimated 7 million jobless workers and their dependents are thought to have received the temporary subsidy, which pays 65 percent of their health insurance premiums under a law known as COBRA, the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act.

White House Mocks 'Politico' With Super-Mean Email Forward

Hey, kids! Did you hear about how the White House has gotten itself in another white-knuckled media feud ... with Politico? Ha, ha, awesome! Except those of you hoping for a "War on Fox" redux are going to be sorely disappointed. What's actually going on is that in the wake of Politico editor John Harris's "Seven Narratives That The White House Hopes Doesn't Take Root And That We Are Going To Plant Ourselves, Nanny-Nanny-Boo-Boo" article, White House wiseacres are WINNING THE EVENING with a silly email forward of their own. It's called "7 narratives politico [sic] is fighting in their efforts to get an interview with the President" and Marc Ambinder has it up over at The Atlantic.

Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh: The Face of Rotted Washington

by Glenn Greenwald

Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh -- who was one of the most vocal cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq, talks excitedly about punishing, and even bombing, Iran, and is now demanding full-scale escalation in Afghanistan -- was on Fox News yesterday and highlighted what a fraud most so-called "fiscal conservatives" and "deficit hawks" like him really are:

WALLACE: Senator Bayh, you brought up the question of cost, and the administration has put the cost -- and this is kind of astonishing to, I think, a lot of people -- $1 million per soldier per year, so if you sent 30,000 soldiers, that would be a $30 billion price tag.

Addicted to Nonsense

By Chris Hedges

Will Tiger Woods finally talk to the police? Who will replace Oprah? (Not that Oprah can ever be replaced, of course.) And will Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the couple who crashed President Barack Obama’s first state dinner, command the hundreds of thousands of dollars they want for an exclusive television interview? Can Levi Johnston, father of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s grandson, get his wish to be a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars”?

The chatter that passes for news, the gossip that is peddled by the windbags on the airwaves, the noise that drowns out rational discourse, and the timidity and cowardice of what is left of the newspaper industry reflect our flight into collective insanity. We stand on the cusp of one of the most seismic and disturbing dislocations in human history, one that is radically reconfiguring our economy as it is the environment, and our obsessions revolve around the trivial and the absurd.

CBO: Health Care Reform Will Lower Out-Of-Pocket Burden For Most Consumers

A new CBO report, requested by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) contains some helpful, though not unexpected information about the impact of Senate health care legislation on insurance premiums, particularly in the individual market.

According to CBO, average premiums in the individual market would increase 10 to 13 percent because of provisions in the Senate health care bill, but, crucially, most people (about 57 percent) would actually find themselves paying significantly less money for insurance, thanks to federal subsidies for low- and middle-class consumers, than they would under current law.

The Faux Deficit Debate

However, since taking office Mr. Obama pushed through a $787 billion stimulus, a $33 billion expansion of the child health program known as S-chip, a $410 billion omnibus appropriations spending bill, and an $80 billion car company bailout. He also pushed a $821 billion cap-and-trade bill through the House and is now urging Congress to pass a nearly $1 trillion health-care bill.

via Karl Rove: Voter Anger is Building Over Deficits – WSJ.com.

Some of you may have read the above quote — from an editorial written by Karl Rove this past week in the Wall Street Journal – and thought to yourselves, “Karl Rove? Is he still alive?” A very natural question to ask, given the events of the past few years, which saw the Bush administration (and its accompanying historical legacy, or lack thereof) reduced to rubble thanks in large part to the horrific decision to put a purely political animal like Rove in charge of White House policy.

How Free-Market Delusions Destroyed the Economy

By Raj Patel, Picador Press
Posted on November 30, 2009, Printed on November 30, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/144151/

The following is an excerpt from Raj Patel's new book, The Value of Nothing (Picador, 2010).

If war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography, recession is His way of teaching everyone a little economics. The great unwinding of the financial sector showed that the smartest mathematical minds on the planet, backed by some of the deepest pockets, had not built a sleek engine of permanent prosperity but a clown car of trades, swaps and double dares that, inevitably, fell to bits. The recession has not come from a deficit of economic knowledge, but from too much of a particular kind, a surfeit of the spirit of capitalism. The dazzle of free markets has blinded us to other ways of seeing the world. As Oscar Wilde wrote over a century ago: "Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing." Prices have revealed themselves as fickle guides: The 2008 financial collapse came in the same year as crises in food and oil, and yet we seem unable to see or value our world except through the faulty prism of markets.

Paul Krugman: The Jobs Imperative

If you’re looking for a job right now, your prospects are terrible. There are six times as many Americans seeking work as there are job openings, and the average duration of unemployment — the time the average job-seeker has spent looking for work — is more than six months, the highest level since the 1930s.

You might think, then, that doing something about the employment situation would be a top policy priority. But now that total financial collapse has been averted, all the urgency seems to have vanished from policy discussion, replaced by a strange passivity. There’s a pervasive sense in Washington that nothing more can or should be done, that we should just wait for the economic recovery to trickle down to workers.

This is wrong and unacceptable.

Opinion: Why America needs to go back to taxing the wealthy

By Dave Johnson

Special to the Mercury News

Posted: 11/18/2009 08:00:00 PM PST

While America has always been a place where a person could get rich, it used to be that you got rich a bit more slowly, and everyone benefited in the process. This is because we used to have very high tax rates at the top.

A person could do very well, but income that came in above a certain level was highly taxed and used to pay for the teachers, police, courts and roads that enabled businesses to thrive. Just how high were taxes? During America's "golden years" of 1951-1963, tax rates were over 90 percent on income over $400,000. Then through the 1960s and 70s, they were 70 percent on income above $200,000.

Harvard ignored warnings about investments

By Beth Healy, Globe Staff | November 29, 2009

It happened at least once a year, every year. In a roomful of a dozen Harvard University financial officials, Jack Meyer, the hugely successful head of Harvard’s endowment, and Lawrence Summers, then the school’s president, would face off in a heated debate. The topic: cash and how the university was managing - or mismanaging - its basic operating funds.

Through the first half of this decade, Meyer repeatedly warned Summers and other Harvard officials that the school was being too aggressive with billions of dollars in cash, according to people present for the discussions, investing almost all of it with the endowment’s risky mix of stocks, bonds, hedge funds, and private equity. Meyer’s successor, Mohamed El-Erian, would later sound the same warnings to Summers, and to Harvard financial staff and board members.

Author: ‘The Family’ behind proposed Ugandan law that would execute HIV+ men

By Stephen C. Webster
Saturday, November 28th, 2009 -- 3:28 pm

The African nation of Uganda is weighing a bill that would impose the death penalty on HIV positive men who have committed what it calls "aggravated homosexuality."

As if that were not shocking enough, a U.S. author is claiming that a secretive group of American politicians appear to be a driving force in seeing the proposal become law.

Kyl wants no exit strategy as Obama expected to announce 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan

By David Edwards and Gavin Dahl
Sunday, November 29th, 2009 -- 11:24 am

"Talk of an exit strategy is exactly the wrong way to go," Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. The Senate's second-most powerful Republican wants President Barack Obama to defer to the generals' wishes in Afghanistan without announcing a strategy to end the war.

On Tuesday December 1, Obama will deliver a major Afghanistan speech at West Point, nine days before picking up his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.

Across U.S., Food Stamp Use Soars and Stigma Fades

By JASON DePARLE and ROBERT GEBELOFF

MARTINSVILLE, Ohio — With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.

It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.

Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare.

Sea level rise could cost port cities $28 trillion

By Peter Wilkinson, CNN

November 23, 2009 -- Updated 1440 GMT (2240 HKT)

London, England (CNN) -- A possible rise in sea levels by 0.5 meters by 2050 could put at risk more than $28 trillion worth of assets in the world's largest coastal cities, according to a report compiled for the insurance industry.

The value of infrastructure exposed in so-called "port mega-cities," urban conurbations with more than 10 million people, is just $3 trillion at present.

Race to the Unemployment Line.

With the unemployment rate the highest it's been in 25 years, The Roosevelt Institute asked historians, economists, and other public thinkers to reflect on the lessons of the New Deal and explore new, big ideas for how to get America back to work. TAPPED will be cross-posting the 10-part series with the New Deal 2.0 blog. In this installment, Barbara Arnwine looks at the "ethnic recession" and how to address training and re-employment challenges for our most vulnerable communities.

As the economy continues its long road to recovery, we must be wary of the policies implemented along the trek. Race looms at the fork in the road, and we must determine which way to turn to most effectively address these issues in a manner to protect people of all colors.

Are We Going to Let John Die?

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: November 28, 2009

If Joe Lieberman or other senators came across John Brodniak writhing in pain on the sidewalk, they presumably would jump to help him and rush him to a hospital.

Unfortunately, an emergency room won’t help — indeed, the closest E.R. has told him not to come back, he says. So, for those members of Congress who are wavering on health reform, listen to John’s story.

Default Swap Reforms Roiled as Aiful Tests Settlement

By Abigail Moses and Shannon D. Harrington

Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street’s system for determining payments on derivatives linked to the debt of defaulted companies is showing cracks less than a year after securities firms changed practices to avoid “Draconian” regulation.

Credit-default swaps tied to Thomson SA, the Paris-based owner of film processor Technicolor Inc., paid some holders 30 percent less than those with contracts expiring a day later. In Japan, owners of swaps on Aiful Corp. haven’t been compensated, though one of its banks said the consumer lender skipped loan repayments. Dealers can’t agree whether to reimburse investors in Mexican cement maker Cemex SAB’s debt swaps.