Department of Fat Chance!

In a piece called “More Questions About the Job Guarantee,” John Carney provides some links to the continuing debate on the Job Guarantee (JG). All the links are to posts critical of the JG idea except a link to one of my four posts critical of Carney's earlier work and supportive of the JG. Read below the fold...

I don't know that signing statements makes a whole lot of difference, but if you are into that kind of thing, you might want to go the First Amendment Pledge site and sign up. David Swanson, Margaret Flowers, and Kevin Zeese are among the signers, so you'd be in good company. Read below the fold...

The quick summary is that the German equivalent of our Supreme Court has ruled against Deutsche Bank in a crucial case related to the ongoing financial collapse. DB is the largest German bank, and is also a prime dealer for the U.S. Federal Reserve, a recipient of bailout funds from U.S. authorities, and just as nasty a predator as J.P. Morgan Chase or Goldman Sachs. Speigel Online reports: Read below the fold...

Cross-posted from Real Economics.

The cover of a recent issue of Barron's magazine was presented in a recent post on Financial Armageddon. Please note the text on the cover at the top right of the globe (above the red arrow):

"The dollar's swoon is drawing more investors to the $4 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market." Read below the fold...

by Mike Kimel

Cross posted at the Presimetrics blog.

To maximize real economic growth in the United States, the top marginal income tax rate should be about 65%, give or take about ten percent. Preposterous, right? Well, it turns out that’s what the data tells us, or would, if we had the ears to listen.

Read more. Read below the fold...

This is for Joe. Whom I love, and respect, deeply, always.

This is the very first thing I learned about Barak Obama, back in the day. It's really simple. Maybe I'll be killed for saying this, but it's utterly and completely true. The first thing he did, on his road to becoming preznit? Take a guess. Heh, it's sort of funny, even. But the Big O's first executive decision? Let me tell you: firing a gay man. A black gay man. Who is taller than he is. Mon chere, and fellow employee, Claude. For being too gay. Read below the fold...

Democracy Now:

Green Party Candidate Excluded from California Governor’s Debate
While governor hopefuls Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman debated on Tuesday night in San Rafael, the Green Party candidate for governor was being arrested outside the hall. Police charged Laura Wells with trespassing after she tried to get into the debate that she was not allowed to participate in.

Read below the fold...

So my gf du jour won't be by until Sunday, and I'm stuck with a Working Friday Night anyway, due to...well, that doesn't matter. But I was reading one of Corrente's fabulous blogroll links, and the author was talking about the perils of dating online as an older woman. I guess that's me too, now! I'm a bit of an, um, well, [fill in your grandmother's favorite naughty word for bad grrls here]. Just out of silliness and curiosity, what dating sites do you use, and why? Read below the fold...

These days the chattering classes often converse about how the Democrats can get their base charged up and working for the fall elections. For example, Greg Sargent at the Plum Line blog says:

”As you know, over the weekend Robert Gibbs dropped a political bomb, saying that Republicans just may take back the House. His comments are being widely interpreted as an urgent warning designed to get rank and file Dems to grasp the stakes of the midterms once and for all.

”But here's the question: Will rank and file Democrats care? The thinking among Dem strategists appears to be that once Dems realize the midterms are a "choice" election, rather than merely a referendum on Dems, they'll go out and vote. But what if Dems do see this as a referendum on their party's rule, and base their enthusiasm solely on whether they are energized by the Dem performance?”

Read below the fold...

It looks like the Democratic Leadership will get its wish, a sprawling “health care reform” bill, mostly focused on changes to the health insurance system that deliver many millions of new customers to the health insurance industry. The Democrats are making many upbeat claims about this bill, calling it historic and claiming that it will produce affordable “universal” health care coverage for Americans, and for 32 million more than are covered by insurance today, while blithely ignoring the contradiction between these two statements. Read below the fold...

The "Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act", which will/would tax corporate political donations at a whopping 500%. Whether it would make it out of congress or past the SCOTUS is highly unlikely, since businesses are now able to claim it would infringe on their corporate free speech "rights"

via The Consumerist Read below the fold...

More horrors from MadamaB's mailbox: NOW has weighed in on the Health Insurance Reform Bill. Here's the action they're pushing:

Please send a message to your senators and House member asking them to assure that restrictive abortion language in health care reform legislation be withdrawn, that a strong public plan is included, that age discrimination is removed, that better cost control measures are included and insurance is made truly more affordable for everyone.

Or what, NOW? You're going to cuddle them to death? You're going to stop saying "pretty please?"

I am so tired of these women's organizations not having the ovaries to say, Read below the fold...