Paul Krugman: Tidings of Comfort

Indulge me while I tell you a story — a near-future version of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” It begins with sad news: young Timothy Cratchit, a k a Tiny Tim, is sick. And his treatment will cost far more than his parents can pay out of pocket.

Fortunately, our story is set in 2014, and the Cratchits have health insurance. Not from their employer: Ebenezer Scrooge doesn’t do employee benefits. And just a few years earlier they wouldn’t have been able to buy insurance on their own because Tiny Tim has a pre-existing condition, and, anyway, the premiums would have been out of their reach.

But reform legislation enacted in 2010 banned insurance discrimination on the basis of medical history and also created a system of subsidies to help families pay for coverage. Even so, insurance doesn’t come cheap — but the Cratchits do have it, and they’re grateful. God bless us, everyone.

The Election Sabotage Commission

No one is in charge these days at the Federal Election Commission, the agency that is supposed to enforce campaign law. Repeated stalemates engineered by Republican members raise the potential for runaway abuses in next year’s Congressional elections.

The six-member commission, shared evenly by the two parties, needs a majority for any enforcement action. For months, Republican members have cynically withheld their votes, rejecting staff investigators’ sound recommendations for citations and fines in current cases of obvious abuse. They seem to have completely forgotten why they are there: they are supposed to be enforcing the law, not sabotaging it.

Thomas Frank: A Low, Dishonest Decade

The press and politicians were asleep at the switch.

By THOMAS FRANK

Stock-market indices are not much good as yardsticks of social progress, but as another low, dishonest decade expires let us note that, on 2000s first day of trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 11357 while the Nasdaq Composite Index stood at 4131, both substantially higher than where they are today. The Nasdaq went on to hit 5000 before collapsing with the dot-com bubble, the first great Wall Street disaster of this unhappy decade. The Dow got north of 14000 before the real-estate bubble imploded.

And it was supposed to have been such an awesome time, too! Back in the late '90s, in the crescendo of the Internet boom, pundit and publicist alike assured us that the future was to be a democratized, prosperous place. Hierarchies would collapse, they told us; the individual was to be empowered; freed-up markets were to be the common man's best buddy.

Save Social Security - 10 Questions for the Deficit Commission

By Dave Johnson

Created 12/22/2009 - 2:33pm

It is possible that there is going to be a “deficit commission” [1] to look for ways to reduce our country’s budget deficits. I have some questions for them to ask to help get things started in the right direction:

1) President Reagan increased Social Security taxes, but used that money to cut the very top tax rates that only the wealthiest pay. Now that the money borrowed from Social Security is coming due, which income group is better positioned to pay it back, wealthy people or the elderly to whom this money is owed?

2) President Clinton left office with a huge budget surplus. Then, President Bush gave tax cuts to the wealthy, and his last budget had a $1.4 trillion deficit. How much of this change was because of those tax cuts for the rich?

Timothy Geithner

The Treasury secretary was largely responsible for directing the federal government's response to the financial crisis. He's still got his work cut out for him.

By Daniel Gross | NEWSWEEK
Published Dec 21, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Jan 4, 2010

Gross: After moving to Washington, you put your house in suburban New York on the market for less than you paid for it. Analysts saw that as a great metaphor for the national housing crisis: the Treasury secretary is going to take a loss on his house. Did you manage to sell it?

Geithner: We decided to rent it very early, because rents were better than prices in most of the country, and it was a financially good decision. It wasn't as good a metaphor as people thought.

Top Ten Worst Things about the Bush Decade; Or, the Rise of the New Oligarchs

by Juan Cole

By spring of 2000, Texas governor George W. Bush was wrapping up the Republican nomination for president, and he went on to dominate the rest of the decade. If Dickens proclaimed of the 1790s revolutionary era in France that it was the best of times and the worst of times, the reactionary Bush era was just the worst of times. I declare it the decade of the American oligarchs. Just as the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union allowed the emergence of a class of lawless 'Oligarchs' in Russia, so Neoliberal tax policies and deregulation produced American equivalents. (For more on the analogy, see Michael Hudson.) We have always had robber barons in American politics, but the Neoliberal moment created a new social class.

What Your Favorite Blogger May Not Be Telling You About Health Reform

By Richard Eskow

Created 12/21/2009 - 6:47pm

Must Read:

Health Care for All

The progressive "journo/blogospere" is sharply split over the Senate health bill. Some, like Jane Hamsher [1]and Matt Taibbi [2], are saying "kill it." Others, like Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, and Jonathan Cohn, are saying "pass it" - as is. Steve Benen [3] says " it's worth appreciating the vibrancy, energy, and seriousness with which progressives are engaging in the debate."

I say maybe - but there's been a lot of condescension and hostility, too. And what bothers me even more is the tendency of some bloggers - good people, people who are seen not only as advocates but as as information gatherers on health policy- to ignore data that undercuts their position while pushing a false political choice. I'm not saying their decisions are deliberate, and I assume they're not. But it's disappointing, and it's worth discussing.

They're All Against Jobs

Sen. Fritz Hollings
Former South Carolina Senator
Posted: December 18, 2009

Who is against jobs in the United States? The big banks, Wall Street, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Business Roundtable, the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation, Corporate America, the President of the United States, Congress of the United States. Everyone is crying for jobs, but no one seems to understand why there aren't any. And the reason for those opposing jobs is money.

Beginning in 1973, big banks made most of their profit outside of the United States. Industries off-shoring, investing, banks financing the investments, transfer fees, fees and interest on the loans made for bigger profits. Long since, the big banks under the leadership of David Rockefeller have led the way to off-shore and make a bigger profit. Goldman Sachs, AIG, Citicorp and Wall Street, conspiring for a bailout and now using it for bonuses, make more money from the off-shored operations.

Finance Professionals Don't See U.S. Companies Hiring Until 2011

By E. Johns - Published: December 17, 2009

Access to Credit Emphasizes Strategies to Conserve Cash

Dec. 17, 2009 -- WASHINGTON -- Significant hiring won't begin at most U.S. companies until well into 2011, even though the U.S. economy will continue its modest recovery next year, according to professionals in the finance departments of U.S. companies.

The 2010 Business Outlook Survey released today by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) and underwritten by Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) shows that while more than a quarter of respondents indicate that their organizations will shrink their payrolls in 2010, 46 percent expect that their organizations' workforces will be stable in the new year.

Too late to learn?

The Cost of Capitalism: Understanding Market Mayhem and Stabilizing our Economic Future, by Robert Barbera

Reviewed by Julian Delasantellis

Just for a moment, pretend this is the 1967 movie The Graduate. You, readers, are poor, confused liberal arts graduate Benjamin Braddock. I'm the older gentleman who, at the graduation party thrown by Ben's parents at the family home, takes the younger man aside to give some advice derived from the labors and pains of the years.

Recovery likely strengthening after weaker 3Q By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer Jeannine Aversa, Ap Economics Writer Tue Dec 22, 4:35 pm ET

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer
Tue Dec 22, 4:35 pm ET

WASHINGTON – All signs suggest the economic recovery will end the year on firmer footing despite a report Tuesday that the economy grew at a 2.2 percent pace in the third quarter, less than previously thought.

The Commerce Department's new reading on gross domestic product for the July-to-September quarter was weaker than the 2.8 percent growth rate estimated a month ago. Economists had predicted this figure would remain the same in the final estimate of the quarter's GDP — the value of all goods and services produced in the United States.

Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator

Drew Westen
Posted: December 20, 2009 09:34 PM

As the president's job performance numbers and ratings on his handling of virtually every domestic issue have fallen below 50 percent, the Democratic base has become demoralized, and Independents have gone from his source of strength to his Achilles Heel, it's time to reflect on why. The conventional wisdom from the White House is those "pesky leftists" -- those bloggers and Vermont Governors and Senators who keep wanting real health reform, real financial reform, immigration reform not preceded by a year or two of raids that leave children without parents, and all the other changes we were supposed to believe in.

An Overview of the New Senate Health Bill

by mcjoan
Sun Dec 20, 2009 at 07:02:05 PM PST

What's good?

• They banned pre-existing conditions for children starting in 2010.
• That annual cap on benefits that was supposed to have been out of the bill but we found out was slipped back in? The one that the blogs raised hell about? It's out, mostly.

  The very first provision of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Manager's Amendment would explicitly prohibit insurers from imposing either annual or lifetime limits.

Stiglitz Says U.S. Should Prepare for Second Stimulus

By Shamim Adam

Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says the U.S. needs to prepare for a second stimulus package as there’s a “significant” chance growth will slow in the second half of 2010.

The world’s largest economy isn’t likely to expand fast enough to create jobs for new entrants into the labor force or compensate for increases in productivity that will reduce demand for workers, Stiglitz told reporters in Singapore today.

Defend and Demand: The Progressive Way Forward

By Theda Skocpol - December 19, 2009, 1:01PM

The 2009 health reform end game -- yes, the end of the beginning is in sight -- has been excruciating for progressives. Reforming health care in the real world in which we live means paying to include millions more Americans while fending off all of the tricks America's privileged, left and right, use to resist paying taxes; and it means finding ways to use public regulations and subsidies to put health delivery and finance on a more sustainable path for us all, while watching key mechanisms like the public option shrink and disappear to buy the votes of a few weasly "Democrats" in Congress who want to guarantee profits for private insurers.

Paul Krugman: A Dangerous Dysfunction

Unless some legislator pulls off a last-minute double-cross, health care reform will pass the Senate this week. Count me among those who consider this an awesome achievement. It’s a seriously flawed bill, we’ll spend years if not decades fixing it, but it’s nonetheless a huge step forward.

It was, however, a close-run thing. And the fact that it was such a close thing shows that the Senate — and, therefore, the U.S. government as a whole — has become ominously dysfunctional.

After all, Democrats won big last year, running on a platform that put health reform front and center. In any other advanced democracy this would have given them the mandate and the ability to make major changes. But the need for 60 votes to cut off Senate debate and end a filibuster — a requirement that appears nowhere in the Constitution, but is simply a self-imposed rule — turned what should have been a straightforward piece of legislating into a nail-biter. And it gave a handful of wavering senators extraordinary power to shape the bill.

Obama praises health care bill as it nears passage

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 20 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Well on the way to winning passage before Christmas after clearing its biggest hurdle in the wee hours of the morning, the Senate's health care bill will make a "tremendous difference for families, for seniors, for businesses and for the country as a whole," President Barack Obama said Monday.

Senate Democratic leaders basked in the victory for the landmark legislation that will insure 30 million more Americans. They looked ahead to the next make-or-break vote Tuesday morning. They snapped up a coveted endorsement from the American Medical Association and batted down Republican complaints about special deals lawmakers got in the bill.

Why I Still Believe in This Bill

Jacob S. Hacker

Jacob S. Hacker is the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University. An expert on the politics of U.S. health and social policy, he is author, coauthor, or editor of numerous books and articles, both scholarly and popular, including The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream (2006; paperback, January 2008) and Health At Risk: America’s Ailing Health System and How to Heal It (2008).

Now that the core demand of progressives has been removed from the Senate health care bill--namely, the public health insurance option--should progressives continue to support the effort?

For me, the question is particularly difficult. I have been the thinker most associated with the public option, which I’ve long argued is essential to ensuring accountability from private insurers and long-term cost control. I was devastated when it was killed at the hands of Senator Joe Lieberman, not least because of what it said about our democracy -- that a policy consistently supported by a strong majority of Americans could be brought down by a recalcitrant Senate minority.

Stupid Voters, Part Two

by: John Emerson

Sat Dec 19, 2009 at 13:00

1.

Last week I put up a piece on the oft-heard liberal meme “People vote for the Republicans because people are stupid”. Ever since I first started thinking about the Stupid Voter meme I’ve been seeing it everywhere (for example here, here and -- comments to the previous link -- here.) For a lot of liberals the Stupid Voter explanation of Republican success is a self-evident, unthought truth. However, in reality the Stupid Voter meme is a harmful illusion and a source of some of the Democratic Party’s big weaknesses. Today I’d like to quickly summarize last week’s argument, while also developing it further and revising it in certain ways. (Readers who find my summary here too sketchy can go to the original here; my data and links to my sources are also included there).

Why the Senate Should Vote Yes on Health Care

By JOE BIDEN

Washington

IF I were still a United States senator, I would not only vote yes on the current health care reform bill, I would do so with the sure knowledge that I was casting one of the most historic votes of my 36 years in the Senate. I would vote yes knowing that the bill represents the culmination of a struggle begun by Theodore Roosevelt nearly a century ago to make health care reform a reality. And while it does not contain every measure President Obama and I wanted, I would vote yes for this bill certain that it includes the fundamental, essential change that opponents of reform have resisted for generations.

We have been here before. In the past, as the moment of decision drew nearer, criticism from both the left and the right grew louder. Compromises were derided. The perfect became the enemy of the good.

Most recently, in 1993, Democrats had a chance to forge a compromise with Senator John Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, on a health care reform bill. Congress’s failure to pass health care reform that year led to 16 years of inaction — and 16 years of exploding health care costs and rising numbers of uninsured Americans.

Increase in Shining Clouds Highlights Climate ‘Weirding’

By Alexis Madrigal | December 18, 2009 | 2:17 pm

SAN FRANCISCO — Shining clouds at the edge of space are growing in number and brightness. For years, scientists have puzzled over the observed increase in these noctilucent clouds.

Now two groups modeling the behavior of the atmosphere have found new support for the idea that human-induced climate change is the cause.

Their models, presented here at the American Geophysical Union meeting, accurately reproduced both the variability induced by the solar cycle and the intensification trend. The intensification is driven by changes in the atmosphere below the clouds, triggered by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases.

Show Us the E-Mail

By ELIOT SPITZER, FRANK PARTNOY and WILLIAM BLACK

WE end this extraordinary financial year with news that the Treasury is in discussions with American International Group about selling the taxpayers’ 80 percent ownership stake in that company. The government recently permitted several banks to break free of its potential oversight by repaying loans made during the rescue. But with respect to A.I.G., the Treasury should not move so fast. There is one job left to do.

A.I.G. was at the center of the web of bad business judgments, opaque financial derivatives, failed economics and questionable political relationships that set off the economic cataclysm of the past two years. When A.I.G.’s financial products division collapsed — ultimately requiring a federal bailout of $180 billion — those who had been prospering from A.I.G.’s schemes scurried for taxpayer cover. Yet, more than a year after the rescue began, crucial questions remain unanswered. Who knew what, and when? Who benefited, and by exactly how much? Would A.I.G.’s counterparties have failed without taxpayer support?

The three of us, as experienced investigators and prosecutors of financial fraud, cannot answer these questions now. But we know where the answers are. They are in the trove of e-mail messages still backed up on A.I.G. servers, as well as in the key internal accounting documents and financial models generated by A.I.G. during the past decade. Before releasing its regulatory clutches, the government should insist that the company immediately make these materials public. By putting the evidence online, the government could establish a new form of “open source” investigation.

The Three Artificially Manufactured Assumptions Driving the Insurance/Drug Industry's Health Bill

by: David Sirota

Sat Dec 19, 2009 at 14:00

Without getting into the policy debate about whether this health care bill should be passed or rejected (my personal opinion is here for those interested), I think it's important to step back and just look at the false assumptions that are being made. Not about the bill's substance, mind you, but about the process. And it's important to consider those assumptions, if only to understand how the parameters and rules of the game are inherently - and dishonestly - rigged:

What’s The Matter With Democrats?

Five years ago, Thomas Frank wrote “What’s The Matter With Kansas?”, about how the GOP uses cultural populism to dupe rural working-class Americans into supporting pro-corporate policies that hasten their own economic demise. Today’s Obama/Rahm/Reid Democrats have turned that dynamic on its head, in more ways than one.

Not only have Obama and the Senate Democrats adopted pro-corporate policies that will hasten their own political demise, but they have allowed the Republicans to keep their hands clean and pretend to oppose legislation that they would have happily championed a few years ago.

GOP's New Prayer Guru Says Gays Possessed By Demons

Meet the Republican Party's new spiritual guru, Lou Engle:

[excerpt from 2007 Engle Los Vegas speech. see here for extended transcript. right: audio excerpt from Engle sermon]

"My son Jesse, he's nineteen years old. God has given him dreams, to go to San Francisco to launch a house of prayer, one block from the Castro District - where the homosexuals boast the dominion of darkness. He's going there with weeping in his heart. With the dream that prayer is stronger than the dominion of that spirit.

...He said to me, "dad," he said, "as long as I'm there I don't think the Lord will judge San Francisco." [boos, angry murmur from Engle's audience]...