economy

Ralph Nader believes it is time to put U.S. global corporations on the DEFENSIVE! He declares that would be “the first step for the resurgence of the people so that corporations become our servants and do not remain our masters.”

In “Patriotic Yardsticks for Unpatriotic Giant Corporations” he calls out US Global Corporations for BETRAYING America -- betraying the American citizen taxpayers that have enabled them to become so incredibly successful. Nader spells it out: Read below the fold...

Here are some “realpolitik” excerpted takes on Obama’s State of the Union Address from Glen Ford, Norman Solomon, Barry Grey, Pepe Escobar, Matthew Rothschild:

Glen Ford of BAR in “Obama’s State of the Corporate Union”:

It was an impassioned performance by a cynical politician who offers little but corporate tax incentives and continued austerity. Barack Obama peppered his State of the Union address with up-tempo buzzwords about illusory “progress,” but the president’s substantive message was that he is determined to complete the austerity bargain he struck with the Republicans in 2011. ...

snip

Obama’s jobs program is almost entirely a corporate tax incentive scheme, to bribe corporations to send home the jobs they sent offshore, where they have also hidden tens of trillions from taxation – a subject not deemed worthy of mention in a national discussion of shared sacrifice and patriotic obligations.

snip Read below the fold...

From wunderground: Read below the fold...

Obama is now promising jobs to American workers. But there is a COLOSSAL catch. Savaged wages and benefits.

Repeat: SAVAGED!!!

Exactly what the one percenters have been lusting after and now enjoy coming to fruition from a DEMOCRATIC President, of all creatures, who has managed to hoodwink the American citizenry into not seriously noticing. You put the rhetorical emphasis on JOBS .... yadda yadda yadda ... then who seeks more reality-troubling negative details as to how this will come about. Who seriously applies individual critical thinking in this hysterical climate of political gamesmanship and mass corporate disinformation?

Apparently our Democratic president thinks he can keep up the big lie beyond his election in November. Sadly, I wouldn't make book against that. Read below the fold...

except, perhaps, here. Via Skydancing, some new research by Josh Mason and Arjun Jayadev shows that it's not increases in household borrowing that has driven higher household debt, but leverage.

Some of the interesting bits: Read below the fold...

Someone asked me back at the end of 2008, shortly after the meltdown, what I would do to address the current economic crisis. Since then I have put out a list once or twice a year on the subject. Here are some of the gifts I would like to see under our national Christmas tree, gift wrapping optional.

Force banks to prove they are financially sound and not bankrupt.

1. Evaluate assets and solvency on mark to market basis
2. Remove discredited executive leadership
3. Enforce Prompt Corrective Action to place financial institutions into bankruptcy or receivership regardless of size
4. Initiate forensic audits of financial institutions, investigate and prosecute fraud at all levels (both fraud in lending and control fraud); RICO malefactors Read below the fold...

According to financial economist and historian Dr. Michael Hudson:

It’s a good cop-bad cop charade. The Republicans are playing the role of the bad cop. Their script says: “You cannot raise taxes on anybody. No progressive income tax, no closing of tax loopholes for special interests, not even prosecutions for tax fraud. And we can get a lot of money back into the economy if we give a tax holiday to the companies and individuals that have been keeping their money offshore. Let’s free the wealthy from taxes to help us recover.’

Read below the fold...

For what it might be worth, this is what hard times has taught me:

Get on food stamps. What little money you have will go farther. If you do not qualify for food stamps, learn where the local food pantries are; same principle, your money will go farther. Also, places with food sometimes have used clothing.

Craigslist is your friend, especially the free section. Even if you are comfortably circumstanced, get to know Craigslist. You can get whatever it is for less with the satisfaction of knowing that your hard earned dollars are going to someone who needs them.

Get on Medicaid if you can. You really have to be poor for this, but at least it is some medical care. Read below the fold...

While some progressives are happy with the President's speech on the budget; others are suspicious, recognizing the President's repeated pattern of offering words that are reassuring to progressives while later acting to work against the general principles he asserts in a major speech. As Bernie Sanders is saying: “the devil is in the details.”

It surely is. But also, the devil is in the framing of the issues and the negotiation to come. And if the framing is done in such a way that the definition of the problem already implies an unfavorable solution for the middle class, American workers, the poor and the vulnerable, then I'm afraid the outcome is a predetermined defeat. So let's look at the framing in the form of a number of assertions made by the President during his speech. Read below the fold...

One commenter at FireDogLake says:

”. . . we should be exceptionally careful not to jeopardize the hard-fought for benefits (like S.S.) by risking devaluation of the dollar. That would be truly tragic.”

and another at New Economic Perspectives says about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and inflation: Read below the fold...

Ah.... my fellow Americans, be very, very, afraid of the terrible Social Security crisis that will sink us as a nation. According to Government projections, we won't be able to pay full Social Security benefits, in 2037 and beyond, unless we cut benefits now, because the Social Security “Trust Fund” will be short of money.

Read below the fold...

In the big budget fight going on right now in Congress, the Tea Party conservatives rightly point out that $61 Billion in spending cuts is just a drop in the bucket compared to the $1.6 Trillion predicted deficit, and they react with a great deal of moral fervor to the suggestion that they ought to compromise on $33 Billion in cuts in order to avoid shutting down the Government. That moral fervor sounds perfectly reasonable to me as long as one agrees that Government spending causes inflation, that we now have a huge deficit, debt problem in the United States that we must solve, or face national insolvency in the not too distant future, and also if the people afire with moral fervor would also apply that to the issue of the wealthy paying their fair share of taxes. Read below the fold...