David Ignatius and the Washington Post Flunk Trade Arithmetic Again

Thursday, 06 December 2012 07:35

The Washington Post is notorious for getting numbers terribly wrong when it comes to trade. It once ran a lead editorial touting the wonders of NAFTA that claimed Mexico's GDP had quadrupled from 1987 to 2007. According to the IMF the number was 83 percent. But the Post is willing to toss numbers, logic, and arithmetic to the wind when it comes to pushing the trade agreements that have been on the political agenda in recent years.

Paul Krugman: The Forgotten Millions

Let’s get one thing straight: America is not facing a fiscal crisis. It is, however, still very much experiencing a job crisis.

It’s easy to get confused about the fiscal thing, since everyone’s talking about the “fiscal cliff.” Indeed, one recent poll suggests that a large plurality of the public believes that the budget deficit will go up if we go off that cliff. 

In fact, of course, it’s just the opposite: The danger is that the deficit will come down too much, too fast. And the reasons that might happen are purely political; we may be about to slash spending and raise taxes not because markets demand it, but because Republicans have been using blackmail as a bargaining strategy, and the president seems ready to call their bluff.

Tiny structure gives big boost to solar power

Princeton researchers have found a simple and economic way to nearly triple the efficiency of organic solar cells, the cheap and flexible plastic devices that many scientists believe could be the future of solar power.

The researchers, led by electrical engineer Stephen Chou, were able to increase the efficiency 175 percent by using a nanostructured "sandwich" of metal and plastic that collects and traps light. Chou said the technology also should increase the efficiency of conventional inorganic solar collectors, such as standard silicon solar panels, although he cautioned that his team has not yet completed research with inorganic devices.

Chou said the research team used nanotechnology to overcome two primary challenges that cause solar cells to lose energy: light reflecting from the cell, and the inability to fully capture light that enters the cell.

Get Ready For America’s Next ‘Education Crisis’

By Jeff Bryant | December 6, 2012

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” has become a popular mantra of the ruling class. Of course, these are not the people who usually experience the brunt of a crisis.

But a pervasive narrative in the mainstream media is that Americans are a people beset by near-continuous crisis, whether it’s the fake crisis of a looming “fiscal cliff” or a real crisis like Frankenstorm Sandy that still has many Northeasterners inexplicably living in the dark in unheated homes.

Arguably no sector of American society has been cast with the narrative of crisis as much as public education. And the fever pitch is about to go higher.

An economy that works for the middle class won’t happen on its own

Posted December 6, 2012 at 11:49 am by Rebecca Thiess

A vital goal of economic policy should be to raise the living standards of the millions of American households who have seen their wages and living standards stagnate or decline over the last few decades. Fundamental to this is an economy that produces good, well-paying jobs. The biggest obstacle to this, currently, is the jobs crisis driven by a shortfall in aggregate demand. Additional factors though, written into our current policies, mean that even when the economy does recover, there is no reason to believe that the jobs it produces will actually be well-paying jobs.

A Sign That Obama Will Repeat Economic Mistakes

By Robert Scheer


Please don’t tell me that these reports in the business press touting Sallie Krawcheck as a front-runner for chairman of the SEC or even a possible candidate to be the next Treasury secretary are true. Who is she? Oh, just another former Citigroup CFO, and therefore a prime participant in the great banking hustle that has savaged the world’s economy. Krawcheck was paid $11 million in 2005 while her bank contributed to the toxic mortgage crisis that would cost millions their jobs and homes.  

Not that you would know that sordid history from reading the recent glowing references to Krawcheck in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News that stress her pioneering role as a leading female banker—a working mother no less—but manage to avoid her role in a bank that led the way in destroying the lives of so many women, men and their children. Nor did her financial finagling end with Citigroup, as Krawcheck added a troubling stint in the leadership at Merrill Lynch and Bank of America to her résumé. 

A woman who would be an excellent choice as the most experienced as well as principled candidate to head the SEC or Treasury is Sheila Bair, former head of the FDIC, who labored to protect consumers rather than undermine them. Indeed, her outstanding book “Bull by the Horns,” chronicling her fight in the last two administrations to hold the banksters accountable, should be required reading for the president and those who are advising him on selecting his new economic team.  

The Mother of All Government Shutdowns

Josh Marshall, December 6, 2012, 10:39 PM


It seems crystal clear that Republicans will and know that they will concede the game on rates and try to reclaim power with a new debt ceiling hostage drama early next year. Having spent a few days in DC, it seems clear to me that absent a dramatic and preemptive climb down on the part of Congressional Republicans, this means we’re headed for the Mother of All Government Shutdowns.

Here’s why.

The President says under no circumstances will he negotiate a ransom for a debt ceiling extension as he agreed to do in 2011. It’s still not entirely clear to me what end game they envision. But they’re being very clear that this is their line in the sand. That ups the stakes dramatically and the President will have a hard time climbing down from that promise even if he needs or wants to.
 

Christian Right Leader Lauds Uganda Dictator as 'Kill the Gays' Bill Is Revived

By Cynthia Burack

December 5, 2012  |  In the past week the Family Research Council has been busy praising Uganda’s commitment to Christian faith and “national repentance” -- even as the Ugandan Parliament once again takes up a bill that would legally mandate the persecution of LGBT people. The bill appears to be part and parcel of dictator Yoweri Museveni’s “repentance” program, and its reappearance before the legislature has drawn no criticism from FRC or the other Christian right groups allied with the dictator. If anything, it seems to be drawing tacit, artfully-phrased praise.  

Many who have followed the human rights crisis for LGBT people in Uganda know that, in 2009, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill [3] was introduced into the Ugandan Parliament to supplement laws that already banned homosexuality. The bill, quickly dubbed the “Kill the Gays” bill because of its provision of a death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” also includes severe penalties for other actions and non-actions, including the “failure to disclose the offense” by anyone who might be aware of another person’s same-sex sexuality. Although the bill has not been yet passed, it has attracted harsh international condemnation, and many attacks [4] on LGBT people and activists [5] have been attributed to the public debates surrounding it.

Wonder Why States Are Broke? One Reason is Companies Play Them Off Against Each Other

By David Segal, executive director of the online organizing group Demand Progress and former member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives

The New York Times published an expose this week on Texas’s regime of business incentives, but for anybody who pays passing attention to so-called municipal and state economic development schemes, there wasn’t much news: Our states and localities are cannibalizing one another as they concoct targeted tax breaks which they use to lure corporations from their neighbors. Meanwhile, a bevy of middlemen wet their beaks by helping corporations pit sucker states off of one another and brokering deals to sell the tax credits that comprise much of the ensuing largess. Here’s the rub:

Granting corporate incentives has become standard operating procedure for state and local governments across the country. The Times investigation found that the governments collectively give incentives worth at least $80 billion a year.

That’s an especially big deal for cash-strapped states, banned from deficit spending, no printing presses on hand. The $80 billion figure represents a full ten times the budget of my state of Rhode Island, and more than 15 times the amount spent from locally-generated funds.

Synthetic fuels could eliminate entire U.S. need for crude oil, create 'new economy'

Posted November 27, 2012; 09:00 a.m.
by John Sullivan, Office of Engineering Communications

The United States could eliminate the need for crude oil by using a combination of coal, natural gas and non-food crops to make synthetic fuel, a team of Princeton researchers has found.

Besides economic and national security benefits, the plan has potential environmental advantages. Because plants absorb carbon dioxide to grow, the United States could cut vehicle greenhouse emissions by as much as 50 percent in the next several decades using non-food crops to create liquid fuels, the researchers said.

Why Capital Gains Tax Should Go Up, and Go Up a Lot

By Eliot Spitzer  |  Posted Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012, at 10:22 AM ET

The fiscal cliff negotiations aren’t just about plugging holes in the deficit: They are about restoring fairness to our tax code. This should go beyond merely raising the rates on the top 2 percent of income earners—the current line in the sand drawn by the White House.

Two of the fundamental economic problems we need to confront are the increasingly disproportionate percentage of income earned by the top tier, and the underlying lack of demand that is inhibiting economic growth. Fortunately both of these trends can be at least partially reversed in the negotiations now underway, because the tax code—which is surely going to be reformed as part of this process—is one of the best tools we have to confront each of these problems. A couple of data points: First, in 2010, 93 percent of the income that was added to our economy accrued to the top 1 percent of families. Second, corporate earnings as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time high—totaling 1.75 trillion in the third quarter of this year, while wages as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time low—just about 43 percent of GDP.

The FCC Must Not Give Rupert Murdoch More Control Over US Media

John Nichols on December 6, 2012 - 9:16 AM ET

 

We now know that top players with Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel plotted with General David Petraeus about the prospect of using the cable network as a platform for launching a “Petraeus for President” campaign. As Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author Bob Woodward writes in the The Washington Post:

So in spring 2011, [former Republican campaign strategist and now Fox News president Roger] Ailes asked a Fox News analyst headed to Afghanistan to pass on his thoughts to Petraeus, who was then the commander of U.S. and coalition forces there. Petraeus, Ailes advised, should turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested.

Koch-Funded ALEC and Americans For Prosperity Launch Assault on Michigan Unions

By Mary Bottari 

December 7, 2012  |  Yesterday in Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder and his GOP controlled lame-duck legislature pulled a fast one, introducing and then ramming through the House and the Senate so-called "right to work" legislation. The bill was introduced at 11 a.m., passed the House at 5 p.m. by a narrow margin and the Senate at around 6:00 p.m. When the process is complete and the bill is signed, Michigan will become the 24th right to work state.

Why the rush? The GOP majority felt it might not have the votes once the newly elected legislature was seated in January. The bill is designed so it cannot be repealed by popular referendum.

The Capitol was chaotic today as police peppersprayed protesters and locked down the building, forcing Democrats to seek a court order to get the doors open again. "It's not only anti-worker, its anti-democratic," Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero told MSNBC.

Jim DeMint, Tea Party US senator, quits

US Republican senator and Tea Party champion Jim DeMint is resigning to lead a conservative think tank.

His office said the South Carolina politician would become president of the Heritage Foundation next month.

The 61-year-old Republican was first elected to the Senate in 2004 and won a second term in 2010.

3 Things You Have to Know About the Bogus 'Fiscal Cliff'

By Larry Beinhart

November 23, 2012  |  Obama won. Romney lost. That is a crisis averted and a very good thing.

But the contest is hardly over. The election was essentially an intermission in a long drama over economics. What’s going to happen in the upcoming act? A sharp change? Muddled compromise? A new stalemate?

According to the coming attractions, the episode up next is a really big action scene: The Fiscal Cliff!

Wall Street manipulates deficit angst with fiscal cliff fear

Deficit hawks rely on media allies to report budget doom to advance their agenda of cutting Medicare and social security

Dean Baker
guardian.co.uk, Monday 3 December 2012 13.49 EST

Many of the nation's most important news outlets openly embrace the agenda of the rich and powerful that colors its coverage of major economic issues. This is perhaps nowhere better demonstrated than during the current budget standoff between President Obama and Congress, which the media routinely describes as the "fiscal cliff". This terminology seriously misrepresents the nature of the budget dispute, as everyone in the debate has acknowledged. There is no "cliff" currently facing the budget or the economy.

If no deal is reached this year, then on 1 January, daily tax withholdings will rise by an average of about $4 per person. Any money actually deducted from pay checks will be refunded if a deal is subsequently reached that returns tax rates to 2012 levels. Government spending probably won't change at the start of the new year, since President Obama has considerable discretion over the flow of spending. No one can think that this modest increase in tax withholdings would plunge the economy into a recession, but the Wall Street types seeking to dismantle social security and Medicare have used their enormous wealth and allies in the media to generate this kind of fear-mongering across the country.

Paul Krugman: Welcome Back to the Dark Ages

Quite a few bloggers are having fun with Senator Marco Rubio's bobbing and weaving in response to a question from GQ magazine during a recent interview:

GQ: How old do you think the Earth is?

Marco Rubio: I'm not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. ... I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in seven days, or seven actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries.

OPINION: the behind-the-scenes battle that could subvert Obamacare

Complex state level battle over stop-loss coverage could eliminate crucial consumer protections

By Wendell Potter | 6:00 am, December 3, 2012, Updated: 6:00 am, December 3, 2012

I’ve written before about the tight relationships between health insurance companies and organizations that claim to represent the interests of small employers, specifically the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business.

Those two groups have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars over the past two decades from the insurance industry in an effort to kill or weaken health reform initiatives designed to protect consumers, including those who work for small businesses.

The Chamber was the insurers’ organization of choice to derail Obamacare. During 2009 and 2010, America’s Health Insurance Plans —the major industry trade group— funneled more than $100 million of policyholders’ money to the Chamber’s anti-reform advertising campaign.

How Wall Street Hollowed Out Industrial America

Forget the fiscal cliff. America's real problem is a Wall Street that has eaten up industrial America and threatens to consume the rest of us.

—By Steve Fraser | Mon Dec. 3, 2012 11:03 AM PST

"Debtpocalypse" looms. Depending on who wins out in Washington, we're told, we will either free fall over the fiscal cliff or take a terrifying slide to the pit at the bottom. Grim as these scenarios might seem, there is something confected about the mise-en-scène, like an un-fun Playland. After all, there is no fiscal cliff, or at least there was none—until the two parties built it.

And yet the pit exists. It goes by the name of "austerity." However, it didn't just appear in time for the last election season or the lame-duck session of Congress to follow. It was dug more than a generation ago, and has been getting wider and deeper ever since. Millions of people have long made it their home. "Debtpocalypse" is merely the latest installment in a tragic, 40-year-old story of the dispossession of American working people.

For Pete's Sake, What's Happened to Our Democracy?

December 5, 2012 · By Sam Pizzigati
One billionaire has the wherewithal to totally redirect America's political discourse.
Down through the millennia, specific individuals have changed the course of history. Some made their indelible mark through their intellect, some through their courage, and still others through the depth and breadth of their vision.

But you don't need smarts, courage, or vision to change history. You just need a ton of money, the sort of fortune that 86-year-old Peter Peterson has amassed over his years wheeling and dealing on Wall Street.