Category Archives: The destruction of the middle class

Why Occupy Wall Street’s Rolling Jubilee Puts Borrowers at Risk

Last month, I criticized the well meaning but naive strategy of the Occupy Wall Street group Strike Debt for dealing with consumer debt, which is to buy severely discounted debt from debt collectors and forgive it. My main complaint was that there were more productive approaches, such as wider publicity and distribution of the Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual, providing more counseling and legal support to borrowers, and using debt purchases to develop cases against the debt sellers. By contrast, the Rolling Jubilee increases the profitability of bad system by providing more revenues to the incumbents, while the debt purchases are unlikely to do more than help a few random people. It might make for feel-good PR, but it won’t make a dent in the problem.

Perversely the post got pushback on the last (and by implication, the least important) issue raised, namely, that of possible tax problems with the scheme. I wanted to revisit this issue and demonstrate why the responses of allies and members of Strike Debt have failed to put the issue to rest, and more important, why this matters.

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Dan Kervick: Will We Be the Lamest Generation?

Yves here. Any post that starts out by making fun of Matt Yglesias already has something going for it. But one bit I quibble with. Kervick suggests that Social Security might be excluded from a Grand Bargain. Don’t get too optimistic.

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Why the Fiscal Cliff is a Scam

This is a very good, high level interview of Jamie Galbraith by Paul Jay of Real News Network. It explains how the fiscal cliff scare was created and why Obama and the Republicans are united in fomenting a false sense of urgency. This is the sort of piece I’d suggest sharing with friends and relatives who’ve been unable to miss the news coverage and want to get up to speed.

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9 Greedy CEOs Trying to Shred the Safety Net While Pigging Out on Corporate Welfare

By Lynn Parramore, a senior editor at Alternet. Cross posted from Alternet

A gang of brazen CEOs has joined forces to promote economically disastrous and socially irresponsible austerity policies. Many of those same CEOs were bailed out by the American taxpayer after a Wall Street-driven financial crash. Instead of a thank-you, they are showing their appreciation in the form of a coordinated effort to rob Americans of hard-earned retirements, decent medical care and relief for the poorest.

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Marshall Auerback: Even a Deal on the Budget is Bad for the American Economy

Yves here. One of the frustrating aspects of the Great Catfood Debate is that it boils down to not whether, but how much, catfood you get in your future. Marshall Auerback explains why any of the proposed outcomes to the budget negotiations will slow growth and possibly produce a recession.

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Stop Using “Obama for America” Against the People!

Yves here. Team Obama is fast out of the box with its plan to redeploy its campaign ops to sell Americans on why they should lie back and think of England why they should embrace a future with more income disparity and more catfood for old people. The media got wind of the plan the evening before the messaging barrage started. Joe Firestone does a able job of taking it apart.

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A Foreign Supply Chain Threat Opening on Walmart Labor Protests?

It’s too early to tell how effective the Black Friday against Walmart’s low pay and abusive working conditions were. The early reports from management and the organizers are wildly at odds with each other.

However, a new front may open up in the Walmart disputes: that of disruption to its international shipments.

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Obama to Deploy Campaign Apparatus to Persuade Americans to Look Forward to More and Better Catfood

Our Fearless Great Betrayer is about to repurpose his campaign sales machine to persuasion of the American public of the necessity of making do with less to appease the Bond Gods. The bizarre part, as many have noted, is the Bond Gods actually don’t seem to want the human sacrifice involved (old people dying faster) but their Wall Street soothsayers would have you believe otherwise.

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The Giant Lie Trotted Out by Fiscal Conservatives Trying to Shred Social Security

By Lynn Parramore, a contributing editor at Alternet. Cross posted from Alternet

Trying to convince the public to cut America’s best-loved and most successful program requires a lot of creativity and persistence.

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Occupy Wall Street’s Debt Jubilee: A Gimmick with Tax Risk

If you stand far enough away, the OWS Strike Debt debt cancellation initiative, called Rolling Jubilee, looks like a simple and clever way to beat banks at their own game. So it’s not surprising that it has attracted a roster of celebrity supporters. But like most things in finance, the devil lies in the details, and the Rolling Jubilee plan, on closer inspection, is wanting.

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The Sucking Sound of (At Least Some) Skilled Workers Leaving the US

Defenders of the Obama Administration’s indifference to high levels of unemployment often claim the problem isn’t readily remedied because the US suffers from “structural unemployment”. That’s really wonkese for blaming the victim. No sirreebob, the problem isn’t that there aren’t enough jobs, but that the workers are no damned good, as in they don’t have the right skills for our new super duper information based economy! In mainstream media outlets, claims like this are usually followed by a business owner saying there clearly aren’t enough skilled employees, he can’t hire any good machinists for $13 an hour. Generally speaking, Mr. Complaining Boss is offering below the going rate, but why let pesky details spoil a good narrative?

You don’t have to look hard to find evidence against this argument.

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Bill Black: Wall Street Uses the Third Way to Lead its Assault on Social Security

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

Third Way, lobbyists for and from Wall Street who are leading the effort to enrich Wall Street by privatizing Social Security, was created by Wall Street to fool some of the people all of the time.

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