Dr. Jill Stein is the Green Party front runner for President.

She is a graduate of Harvard Medical School.

She has over 25 years' experience as a doctor.

Dr. Stein campaigned for single payer health care when she ran against Mitt Romney for governor of Massachusetts in 2002.

When asked about the mandate and Obamacare she explained that whatever the outcome determined by SCOTUS:

…, Americans will still be stuck with an expensive, ineffective health care system that fails to provide quality health care to all Americans.

 snip

The following are provocative excerpts from two columnists of Black Agenda Report calling out Obama and the black political class for not doing right on behalf of black Americans and, in particular, not being seriously committed to finding real justice and reform for such tragic cases as Trayvon Martin’s.

Margaret Kimberley in Freedom Rider: Obama and Trayvon Martin:

So Obama does what he has been doing for years now. He is the black but not so black man, and all black people are worse off because of his success. If there is justice for Trayvon it will be in spite of Barack Obama, not because of him. snip

Bill Van Auken of wsws has a NON-shallow take on Bill Keller’s recent disappointingly shallow column on the New York Time’s role in the launch of the Iraq War:

On the ninth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, New York Times columnist and former editor Bill Keller has penned a self-serving piece that obscures his own role in justifying that war, while setting ground rules for launching the next one.

Keller’s headline—“Falling in and out of war”—is an accurate reflection of the smug and cynical character of the well-heeled layer of establishment liberals of which he is a part, and which today constitutes a principal constituency for imperialism.

Jill Stein is calling out Obama, the darling of the Nuclear industry, not only for his corporate cronyism but also for a reckless regressivism.

Dr. Stein marked the first anniversary of the Fukushima meltdown, citing the tragic deaths involved as well as the straggering $250 BILLION cleanup costs. To Stein this is clear evidence that an “immediate move to a 100% renewable economy” MUST BE MADE. She observed that the Obama White House “has shown it has learned nothing,” since it is still promoting nuclear power plants while other progressive countries are dramatically moving away from them especially since the Japanese nuclear disaster. Stein:

Fascism comes
on little Obama-cat feet.

It sits looking
from sea to shining sea
on liberty-murdering haunches.
It won’t move on.

The sham of Obama as the "lesser evil" is over.

Glen Ford in “Eric Holder Tortures the Constitution” in Black Agenda Report writes:

Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein is disturbed by the ever-escalating efforts of Obama and members of Congress to launch a war with Iran.

She asserted today:

“A hallmark of a Stein administration will be respect for international law and a rejection of the Bush doctrine of preemptive war that Obama and his party have come to embrace. The interests of the American people are not served by illegal attacks on other nations based on hypothetical future transgressions.  Yet President Obama is threatening Iran with attack by saying that 'all options are on the table'. It’s a terrible replay of Bush's run-up to the invasion of Iraq over the mythical weapons of mass destruction.”

This is the third and last installment of a critical review of Dean Baker’s second reaction to the debate kicked off by the WaPo’s piece on Modern Monetary Theory, written by Dylan Matthews.

This is the second installment of a critical review of Dean Baker’s second reaction to the debate kicked off by the WaPo’s piece on Modern Monetary Theory, written by Dylan Matthews. The first installment discussed Dean’s views on using the monetary channel to boost aggregate demand, and began criticism on his views on devaluing the currency and increasing exports. This post continues that critique, and later takes up his views on work sharing.

Expanding US Exports at the Expense of Decreasing Real Wealth? (continued)

Dean goes on:

”To see this point, imagine a more extreme case. Suppose that we had a trade deficit equal to 50 percent of GDP. If the countries who were buying up dollar assets then decided that they had enough, so we could no longer rely on imports to meet half of our domestic demand, does anyone believe that the U.S. economy could quickly and painlessly replace our imports with domestic production?”

No, of course not! But, why do economists like Dean and Paul Krugman insist on relying on far-fetched scenarios to try to argue against simple truths that may apply today? The current account balance will probably be around 4-5% of GDP this year. As the economy recovers it will probably rise to 6% of GDP again, which represents a very real benefit to the United States. But there’s no reason to expect that this growth would continue indefinitely or ever reach 50% of GDP. Why should it? What are the dynamics that would drive things this way, and make other nations value the dollar so much, that they will keep their own populations barefoot?

China, India, and Japan are all under pressure domestically to change their policies and make more of their production available to their own people. Europe may also abandon austerity soon, as they experience its ravages.

The long-term trend in the current account balance won’t be up, It will be down, gradually down, for reasons I mentioned above. It just doesn’t make sense for foreign nations to continue giving more than they’re getting from the US. So, the 50% GDP scenario is just ridiculous. Why even bother suggesting it? What does the thought experiment prove, except that Dean Baker isn’t thinking through a realistic model of the forces accounting for the international trade patterns we see?

In fact, Dean isn’t even really serious about suggesting that this scenario somehow corresponds to a result of MMT economics. He says:

”I would not attribute this view to the MMTers, but then the question becomes one of a degree. Perhaps a trade deficit of 6 percent of GDP is okay, but presumably somewhere between 6 percent and 50 percent we get into a problem. It seems the question then has to be how quickly the U.S. economy could adjust to a much lower trade deficit and what is the risk that foreign countries will slow or stop their purchases of U.S. assets? We may differ on the answer to these questions, but they are the questions that must be asked.”

I think these are important questions. We should ask them. But, has Dean answered them? And do his answers indicate any serious problems for the United States economy? And if so, how does that relate to MMT? If these changes could possibly produce cost-push inflation in the United States, then MMT has some answers for that kind of problem. On the other hand, if other nations stop exporting so much to the US, then that may create less demand leakage for our economy. In which case, MMT predicts that we will get closer to full employment and also that we will have to moderate deficit spending as full employment is approached.

Dean continues with more scenarios about what would happen if foreign nations began to charge us more from imports. I won’t reproduce each of these here or critique them. But, invariably, there is a general pattern to them.

Dean Baker added to his previous discussion on MMT in a second post in reply to some of the comments on his first one.

Matthew Yglesias posting in Slate, also gave us a few words on Dylan Matthews’s post about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). He starts with this thought:

Kevin Drum, posting in Mother Jones, also threw his hat into the ring of discussion about Dylan Matthews’s post about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Kevin begins by characterizing MMT as “… .

Dean Baker weighed in on MMT in the aftermath of Dylan Matthews’s, MMT post on Ezra Klein’s blog. Dean said:

I consider many of the leading proponents of MMT to be friends and generally find myself on the same side of political debates. However, I have to confess to being a bit unclear as to what exactly separates MMT from the good old Keynesian economics I learned in my youth.

After stating his general approval for Dylan Matthews’s, MMT post on Ezra Klein’s blog, and his agreement with MMT on the issue of solvency, a big point that MMT’s been trying to get across to the mainstream for years, Jared brought forth a number of points of disagreement, which I’ll reply to based on my interpretation of the MMT perspective.

Tax Cuts Hard to Unwind? Not If You Legislate Properly!

This post concludes my critical evaluation of Dylan Matthews’s, post published on Ezra Klein’s blog called “You know the deficit hawks. Now meet the deficit owls.”

This post continues my critical evaluation of Dylan Matthews’s, post published on Ezra Klein’s blog called “You know the deficit hawks. Now meet the deficit owls.”

Other Issues

Here’s the next exchange envisioned by Dylan:

This post continues the critical evaluation of Dylan Matthews’s, post published on Ezra Klein’s blog called “You know the deficit hawks. Now meet the deficit owls.”

The Inflation/Hyperinflation Bogeyman

It was very welcome to see The Washington Post cover MMT with a reasonably favorable post by Dylan Matthews, published on Ezra Klein’s blog called “You know the deficit hawks.

Downton Abbey has jumped the shark in terms of overplotting and caricaturization.

I adored Season 1. Season 2 has turned into a Saturday Night Live satire of itself I was shocked to discover after viewing Episode 6 yesterday.

When I heard some of my coworkers comparing it to a Brit historical soap opera as Season 2 unfolded I found myself getting defensive. For a long time I have cherished the quality and sensibility of British dramas, especially those that make it to pbs.

Robert Parry in “Herding Americans to War with Iran” puts it this way:

For many Americans the progression toward war with Iran has the feel of cattle being herded from the stockyard into the slaughterhouse, pressed steadily forward with no turning back, until some guy shoots a bolt into your head.

Any suggestion of give-and-take negotiations with Iran is mocked, while alarmist propaganda, a ratcheting up of sanctions, and provocative actions – like Wednesday’s assassination of yet another Iranian scientist – push Americans closer to what seems like an inevitable bloodletting.

Simon Johnson, at The Baseline Scenario, has an interesting post about Ron Paul. I like Simon's ideas - he's been pushing the ideas of breaking up the Too Big to Fail Banks for several years now. He has access to some pretty powerful people in the financial world, since he was formerly with the IMF. When Simon Johnson weighs in on Ron Paul, I think it is a sign that maybe Paul isn't so-out-there-in-the-wilderness, after all. He doesn't praise Paul, but he does say that some of his ideas are worth considering.

There are 60 House Democrats, Blue Dogs (like Obama) and supposed “progressives” alike, who are reaching out to the SUPERCOMMITTEE to continue on with the charade that the CRISIS IN AMERICA is THE DEFICIT and the SOLUTION is FURTHER ECONOMIC RAPING OF THE CITIZENRY, not providing jobs and HELP to struggling Americans who have been paying taxes for years and deserve the rewards of that, not the "freedom" to starve and be homeless and betrayed.

My supposedly moderately “lefty” NYC Dem Congresswoman, Carolyn Maloney, is on the list and I will do all I can to get her out of office for her obtuseness and betrayal! That is a promise, Carolyn, you “knife in the backer”!

We need jobs. The crisis in America is unemployment not an economic deficit.

No, I don't mean the business and media overlords who rule our country from behind the scenes, making our purportedly-elected government their puppets. They've been well-established for some time, and really, they're not even that shadowy any more. Their actions against the plain people of the United States have become quite blatant. Rather, a shadow cabinet is a feature of parliamentary politics:

Kristof takes note of the need for jobs and even - in his usual nice-guy way - takes some responsibility for the media silence on the issue:

(I’m an offender, too: I asked President Obama a question at the Twitter town hall, and it was a gotcha query about his negotiations with Republicans. I’m sorry that I missed the chance to push him on the issue that Americans care most about.)

Apology noted. Another thing noted: the relentless nice-guy-ness culminating in this less-than-clarion call for action on jobs:

Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian:

Once again, the phrase that comes to mind is Milton Friedman's: socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the rest. An ordinary person defaults on his debt, he gets to live in his car. A banker defaults, and the taxpayer can be relied on to bail him out.

Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe:

The central issue in our political life is not being discussed.

At stake is the moral basis of American democracy.

The individual issues are all too real: assaults on unions, public employees, women's rights, immigrants, the environment, health care, voting rights, food safety, pensions, prenatal care, science, public broadcasting, and on and on. Budget deficits are a ruse, as we've seen in Wisconsin, where the governor turned a surplus into a deficit by providing corporate tax breaks, and then used the deficit as a ploy to break the unions, not just in Wisconsin, but seeking to be the first domino in a nationwide conservative movement.