Yearly Archives: 2012

Quelle Surprise! QE Zombifies Economies

Nobody has wanted to heed the lesson of post bubble Japan until way too late.

Wolf Richter: EU Bureaucrats Don’t Follow Own Austerity Prescription, Siphon Off EU Money

In pursuing its dream, the EU has created a ballooning superstructure of governance manned by 41,000 bureaucrats and mostly unelected politicians. In 2011, they spent €129 billion of taxpayer money. But now, the European Court of Auditors released its audit report for that year—a damning document that outlines how up to 4.8% of the EU budget seeped through the cracks and disappeared.

Bill Black: Wall Street Urges Obama to Commit the Great Betrayal

By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from Benzaga

Wall Street’s leading “false flag” group, the Third Way, has responded to the warnings that Robert Kuttner, AFL-CIO President Trumka, and I have made that if President Obama is re-elected our immediate task will be to prevent the Great Betrayal – the adoption of self-destructive austerity programs and the opening wedge of the effort to unravel the safety net (including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid).

Election Night Open Thread and Live Blog

12:47AM This concludes the regularly scheduled portion of our live blog. As of this hour, we don’t know the vote totals, and Romney has not yet scheduled his concession speech. However, the political class seems united in it view that Obama is the once and future President, and although I might wake up tomorrow and find the whole landscape changed, I don’t think so, for reasons stated below in “From the Barcalounger.” Thank you for participating, and good night. If you have additional comments to make, please feel free, but I am heading off to bead.

12:09AM Best results for Jill Stein and the Greens as of this hour: 1.4% in the great state of ME (Hat tip SFR).

11:50PM From the Barcalounger: The networks having called the election for Obama, the remaining unanswered question is whether the Republican brains trust will attempt to delegitimize the election through court challenges. I’m guessing no and here’s why:

Daniel Ellsberg debates David Swanson: Lesser of Two Evils Voting in Swing States

The Unknown Transcriptionist was been at work again, and donates the following transcript to the NC community. Older vs. younger, Lesser Of Two Evils vs. If Not Now, When? Lots to consider here. There’s are some interpersonal issues at the start, and I’m leaving that material in, those who study debates understand that such issues come up all the time, and practice in dealing with them is required. Emjoy!

Who Needs Nate Silver When We’ve Got NC Readers?

Prediction contest!

Links 11/6/12

The False Dodd-Frank Narrative: Occupy Wall Street Attacks Huge Hot Money Loophole in the Law

Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller.

Proponents of Dodd-Frank have an incentive to argue the law is a tough crack-down on Wall Street. It’s a core part of Barack Obama’s narrative, that he bailed out the banks, but then did what FDR did in the 1930s with a series of tight regulations. Of course, it was immediately obvious that Dodd-Frank was an afterthought of the Bush/Obama administrations, that the real policy framework involved three key fights – the Fannie/Freddie bailouts under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (the so-called bazooka law), TARP, and the reappointment of Ben Bernanke. These fights were supplemented by Eric Holder’s decision to give legal forbearance to Wall Street executives, to not prosecute for rigging the CDO market or any number of illegalities in the foreclosure space.

After this radical consolidation of banking power in the hands of bailed out Too Big To Fail institutions, the Obama administration went to work on Dodd-Frank, which was essentially a 2000 page mash note to regulators saying “please don’t let that crisis happen again, it was awkward’. And now the evidence is beginning to trickle out that Dodd-Frank is a nothingburger.

Should People Vote for Obama or Third Parties in Swing States?

Paul Jay of the Real News Network interviews David Swanson, the co-founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition. David blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for the online activist organization http://rootsaction.org

What If Liberals and Progressives Could Learn to Talk to Southern White Men?

Lynn Parramore is an AlterNet contributing editor. She is cofounder of Recessionwire, founding editor of New Deal 2.0, and author of ‘Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture.’ Follow her on Twitter @LynnParramore.

Ever since Neil Young sang about him, the white Southern man has been the symbol for all that is wrong with America to urban lefties. He is a redneck. He is a gun-toting, rebel flag-waving racist whose sinister activities wreak far more havoc on the country than, say, the wily Wall Street financier. If you can’t hate the white Southern man, who can you hate?

Europe’s Extremism Gambit

By Delusional Economics, who is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2012/10/eggs-and-veal-at-the-eu-summit/“>MacroBusiness.

I’ve spoken previously that apart from the economic and social fallout from the European financial crisis, the other major issue I see is the loss of political capital on both sides of the economic divide.

Make up your own jokes!

Why didn’t Obama cross the road?

US War Against IED’s in Afghanistan a Strategic Failure

I figure that if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had been victories, we would have seen some victory parades. Also too some “leaders” in the political class taking credit for starting them instead of ending them. But no.* So here’s one reason why we lost. Paul Jay of the Real News Network interviews Gareth Porter, a historian and investigative journalist on US foreign and military policy analyst.

Links 11/05/2012

Pete Peterson and the Deficit Hawks Teach Lawmakers Deep Fiscal Irresponsibility

Michael Hoexter is a policy analyst and marketing consultant on green issues, climate change, clean and renewable energy, and energy efficiency. Originally published at New Economic Perspectives

We have come to accept in the Orwellian world of mass communication and media spin that pressure groups and political organizations name themselves in ways that contradict their actual mission. We have become cynical about truth and about good intentions, trusting only after long observation certain political actors and then only reservedly. There is now such an alphabet soup of organizations in Washington, a veritable smorgasbord of lobbyists that only political junkies and Washington insiders will know every acronym and player.

However there is a constellation of particularly influential groupings in Washington that should be known by every American for what they are and what they are not. These groups form a powerful hub at the center of the fiscal austerity campaign.