Democrats used to clean up Republican economy messes

Daily Kos points out the obvious.

Remember the good times.

Snipshow777

• 6mo ago •

What Joe Biden has done:

Year One (all credit to u/backpackwayne)

Highlights from Year One

• ⁠Reversed Trump's Muslim ban • ⁠Historic Stimulus Bill passed • ⁠Ended the war in Afghanistan (Set in place by Trump*) • ⁠Reduction of poverty levels by 45% along with reduction of child poverty levels by 61% by the first 6 months • ⁠5 Rounds of cancellation of student loan debt totaling almost $10 billion • ⁠Passed largest infrastructure bill in history • ⁠The unemployment rate dropped from 6.2% when Biden took office to 3.9%, the biggest single year drop in American history. (This was also affected by COVID quarantine ending.)

Year Two

Highlights from Year Two

• ⁠The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 • ⁠3 Additional rounds of student loan debt cancellation (8 rounds so far), totaling up $35 billion for 20-40 million Americans • ⁠First major gun legislation in 30 years • ⁠CHIPS Act to protect American supply of semi-conductor chips • ⁠$62 billion worth of health care subsidies under the ACA (Obamacare), capping insulin at $35 • ⁠Allows Medicare to negotiate 100 drugs over the next decade, and requires drug companies to rebate price increases higher than inflation • ⁠Unemployment at 50 year low

Year Three

Highlights from Year Three

• ⁠Got republicans to publicly take Social Security and Medicare cuts off the table by tricking them during the State of the Union • ⁠6 More rounds of student loan debt cancellation (14 rounds so far), totaling up to $127 billion • ⁠As of October 2023, 34 straight months of job growth, longest stretch of unemployment below 4% since the 1960s • ⁠Child poverty rates fall from 12.6% to 5.8% due to Biden's Expanded Child Tax Credits, 2.9 million kids escape poverty • ⁠World's best post-pandemic recovery, doubles all nations except Japan • ⁠Created 14 million jobs since he took office - More than any president in history did in four years (and its only been 3 years) • ⁠Black unemployment rate lower under Biden than any other administration (4.7%) - Compared to black unemployment under Trump was 2nd worst number in history, reaching over 16% • ⁠Diversity in justice: Majority of Biden’s appointed judges are women, racial or ethnic minorities – a first for any president • ⁠Rail companies grant paid sick days after administration pressure in win for unions. Most people will only remember that he forced rail workers to go back to work in December 2022, even now that will be the top answer if you google "Biden Railworker Deal". But most people do not know that the Biden administration continued to pressure the rail corporations and work with the unions so that in June 2023, the corporations capitulated and gave the rail workers what they wanted. Biden knows how to work politics and knows that the real work isn't done with the cameras on you for a soundbite, but in the background where people can debate without a fickle public watching every move.

Year Four (so far)

Highlights from Year Four

• Another round of student loan cancellation, $1.2 billion this time, 15 rounds so far, totaling more than $128 billion • Growth shatters expectations: GDP expands 3.1% - a year beginning with heavy odds of a recession • ⁠Post-pandemic recover still leading the world by far • ⁠Plan to modernize American ports • ⁠Rescinds Trump-era "Denial of Care" rule that allowed health care workers to deny medical care to patients because of their personal religious or moral belief • ⁠Violent crime drop significantly since 2020 • ⁠$5.8 billion to clean up nation’s drinking water and upgrade infrastructure

Trickle down

 

Economics: Republicans v Democrats

 

The "We can't afford it" bullshit incoming

 

Robert Reich 

11m  · 

My take on the week ahead: Congress is back this week, so you can expect more of the “we can’t afford it” bullsh*t from every Republican member of Congress and two Democratic senators (Manchin and Sinema) — aimed against Biden’s and the Democrat’s social investment bill.

Behind the scenes, big corporations and Wall Street are paying huge bucks to feed this hokum to the public. And the mainstream media is doing their bidding. So it should be no surprise that Americans are utterly confused and many are misinformed about what’s at stake in this important legislation, which will come to a head in the next few weeks.

Let's take my Friday interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett as Exhibit A.

She started by asking me: “The big question is whether Democrats can afford all of this.” By making this her first question, she’s already framing the debate around the cost of the plan. And by phrasing it as “whether Democrats can afford,” she’s making it a partisan issue.

Let’s be clear: Every rich country other than the United States already provides childcare, pre-K, child assistance, paid family leave, subsidized college, decent housing, and health coverage extending to vision and hearing. Every other rich country is taking measures to reduce climate change. We are the richest of the rich. Of course America can afford these.

In fact, there’s a good argument that making these investments will grow the economy (childcare will free more people to join the workforce, pre-K and community college will make our workforce more productive, and so on), while not making them will create huge costs down the line (the tab from wildfires and floods due to climate change is already mammoth).

Erin Burnett’s other guest, a former Republican governor, then argued we can’t afford these things because the national debt is too high.

This is a slight-of-hand. The national debt isn’t at issue. There’s no reason for the debt to grow if we tax the wealthy and big corporations to pay for the plan, as Biden and most Democrats — and the vast majority of the public — want to. Simply repealing the Trump-Republican tax cut to the rich and big corporations would pay for almost half the cost of the plan.

Biden is asking the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, but Burnett shows two slides purporting to show that they already pay their fair share (one showing the richest 20 percent of Americans pay 78 percent of the nation’s taxes, the other showing that the richest 1 percent – who pull in 20.9 percent of the nation’s earnings -- pay over 40 percent).

This is seriously misleading because the ultra-wealthy pay almost nothing in taxes. For example, Jeff Bezos, the richest person in America, didn't pay any income taxes for at least two years between 2006 and 2018.

How can the ultra-wealthy maintain their lavish lifestyles and pay almost no income taxes? By keeping their incomes small and borrowing against their vast wealth. (Bezos’s yearly income is only around $81,000.)

To give you some idea of how much wealth is now at the top, America’s 660 billionaires increased their wealth by $1.8 trillion just since the start of the pandemic. That’s half the cost of Biden’s entire plan right there.

Hence the fallacy of using shares of income rather than wealth to determine what’s a fair tax. Wealth is far more concentrated at the top than is income. The wealthiest 0.1 percent have as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent put together. This argues for a wealth tax or higher capital gains taxes, increased inheritance taxes, and a bar on heirs inheriting vast fortunes without paying capital gains on them.

Finally, the figures Burnett cited only look at federal taxes. State taxes – which comprise half the total tax revenue going to government – impose a disproportionate burden on lower-income people. That’s because they come largely in the form of sales taxes, which take a bigger chunk out of lower incomes.

Biden’s plan may be the last chance we get to fix what’s broken in our system. But the public knows little or nothing about it — other than it will cost a bundle. Even if Biden and other Democrats are doing a poor job explaining it, the mainstream media is doing a horrendous job. A democracy requires informed citizens. How are Americans to be informed about something as crucial to their future as this, when they’re being systematically misled?

PS: People often ask me “how do you keep your cool on these TV shows?” The short answer is I often don’t. I almost lost it with Erin Burnett.

The Great Resignation

OPINION

PAUL KRUGMAN

The Revolt of the American Worker

"All happy economies are alike; each unhappy economy is unhappy in its own way.

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the economy’s problems were all about inadequate demand. The housing boom had gone bust; consumers weren’t spending enough to fill the gap; the Obama stimulus, designed to boost demand, was too small and short-lived.

In 2021, by contrast, many of our problems seem to be about inadequate supply. Goods can’t reach consumers because ports are clogged; a shortage of semiconductor chips has crimped auto production; many employers report that they’re having a hard time finding workers.

Much of this is probably transitory, although supply-chain disruptions will clearly last for a while. But something more fundamental and lasting may be happening in the labor market. Long-suffering American workers, who have been underpaid and overworked for years, may have hit their breaking point.

About those supply-chain issues: It’s important to realize that more goods are reaching Americans than ever before. The problem is that despite increased deliveries, the system isn’t managing to keep up with extraordinary demand.

Earlier in the pandemic, people compensated for the loss of many services by buying stuff instead. People who couldn’t eat out remodeled their kitchens. People who couldn’t go to gyms bought home exercise equipment.

The result was an astonishing surge in purchases of everything from household appliances to consumer electronics. Early this year real spending on durable goods was more than 30 percent above prepandemic levels, and it’s still very high.

But things will improve. As Covid-19 subsides and life gradually returns to normal, consumers will buy more services and less stuff, reducing the pressure on ports, trucking and railroads.

The labor situation, by contrast, looks like a genuine reduction in supply. Total employment is still five million below its prepandemic peak. Employment in the leisure and hospitality sector is still down more than 9 percent. Yet everything we see suggests a very tight labor market.

On one side, workers are quitting their jobs at unprecedented rates, a sign that they’re confident about finding new jobs. On the other side, employers aren’t just whining about labor shortages, they’re trying to attract workers with pay increases. Over the past six months wages of leisure and hospitality workers have risen at an annual rate of 18 percent, and they are now well above their prepandemic trend.

The sellers’ market in labor has also emboldened union members, who have been much more willing than usual to go on strike after receiving contract offers they consider inadequate.

But why are we experiencing what many are calling the Great Resignation, with so many workers either quitting or demanding higher pay and better working conditions to stay? Until recently conservatives blamed expanded jobless benefits, claiming that these benefits were reducing the incentive to accept jobs. But states that canceled those benefits early saw no increase in employment compared with those that didn’t, and the nationwide end of enhanced benefits last month doesn’t seem to have made much difference to the job situation.

What seems to be happening instead is that the pandemic led many U.S. workers to rethink their lives and ask whether it was worth staying in the lousy jobs too many of them had.

For America is a rich country that treats many of its workers remarkably badly. Wages are often low; adjusted for inflation, the typical male worker earned virtually no more in 2019 than his counterpart did 40 years earlier. Hours are long: America is a “no-vacation nation,” offering far less time off than other advanced countries. Work is also unstable, with many low-wage workers — and nonwhite workers in particular — subject to unpredictable fluctuations in working hours that can wreak havoc on family life.

And it’s not just employers who treat workers harshly. A significant number of Americans seem to have contempt for the people who provide them with services. According to one recent survey, 62 percent of restaurant workers say they’ve received abusive treatment from customers.

Given these realities, it’s not surprising that many workers are either quitting or reluctant to return to their old jobs. The harder question is, why now? Many Americans hated their jobs two years ago, but they didn’t act on those feelings as much as they are now. What changed?

Well, it’s only speculation, but it seems quite possible that the pandemic, by upending many Americans’ lives, also caused some of them to reconsider their life choices. Not everyone can afford to quit a hated job, but a significant number of workers seem ready to accept the risk of trying something different — retiring earlier despite the monetary cost, looking for a less unpleasant job in a different industry, and so on.

And while this new choosiness by workers who feel empowered is making consumers’ and business owners’ lives more difficult, let’s be clear: Overall, it’s a good thing. American workers are insisting on a better deal, and it’s in the nation’s interest that they get it."’

Vote in Republicans, Gut the Treasury, Tank the Economy. Vote in Democrats, Fix the Economy, Refill the Treasury. Vote in Republicans....

 

What did you do to my car?!

 

Tradition!

 

You first, boss!

Because that's the first thing you think about besides toilet paper....

We're in for interesting times

Have you forgotten?

Economics 101

Here is the situation:
1) There was a downward spiral, businesses were laying off so customers were not spending. This caused businesses to cut back more, which caused customers to cut back more, which caused businesses to cut back more. 

2) Expectation were also in a downward spiral because everyone saw what was happening so they cut back too. 

3) Deflation joined the party as businesses cut prices to try to get customers, so customers decided prices were going down and decided to wait before buying. 

4) Unemoployment caused people to ask for lower wages when they took a job, which put downward pressure on wages, so cutomers were cutting back even more, (go to 1) 

5) Etc., spiraling ever downward. 

In the past, society learned that the way to fix this is for government to step in and “stimulate” the economy by investing in things like infrastructure project, hiring people to fix roads etc., which stopped the spiral. In fact the Obama stimulus reversed the downward spiral. We were losing 800,000 jobs a month until the stimulus kicked in, then after a while we were gaining jobs again 

But then came the Wall Street-backed “austerians” demanding that government cut back instead of stimulate. Wall Street benefits from unemployment because the very wage drop means they pay less for the labor commodity. And they benefit from deflation because people with lots of money gain while people who owe money lose. And the “study” by Reinhart and Rogoff provided an intellectual justification for Wall Street’s demand.

And Paul Krugman:

Let’s start with what may be the most crucial thing to understand: the economy is not like an individual family. 

Families earn what they can, and spend as much as they think prudent; spending and earning opportunities are two different things. In the economy as a whole, however, income and spending are interdependent: my spending is your income, and your spending is my income. If both of us slash spending at the same time, both of our incomes will fall too. 

And that’s what happened after the financial crisis of 2008. Many people suddenly cut spending, either because they chose to or because their creditors forced them to; meanwhile, not many people were able or willing to spend more. The result was a plunge in incomes that also caused a plunge in employment, creating the depression that persists to this day. 

Why did spending plunge? Mainly because of a burst housing bubble and an overhang of private-sector debt — but if you ask me, people talk too much about what went wrong during the boom years and not enough about what we should be doing now. For no matter how lurid the excesses of the past, there’s no good reason that we should pay for them with year after year of mass unemployment. 

So what could we do to reduce unemployment? The answer is, this is a time for above-normal government spending, to sustain the economy until the private sector is willing to spend again. The crucial point is that under current conditions, the government is not, repeat not, in competition with the private sector. Government spending doesn’t divert resources away from private uses; it puts unemployed resources to work. Government borrowing doesn’t crowd out private investment; it mobilizes funds that would otherwise go unused. 

Now, just to be clear, this is not a case for more government spending and larger budget deficits under all circumstances — and the claim that people like me always want bigger deficits is just false. For the economy isn’t always like this — in fact, situations like the one we’re in are fairly rare. By all means let’s try to reduce deficits and bring down government indebtedness once normal conditions return and the economy is no longer depressed. But right now we’re still dealing with the aftermath of a once-in-three-generations financial crisis. This is no time for austerity.

Update: Ezra Klein says: The era of austerity is over (for now)

Thursday's child has far to go...

What is it with cats and boxes?

Legalize marijuana if you must... but don't let the pharmaceutical companies get their grubby paws on it.

Ryan's oops.

Krugman to Obama: It's the economy.

Jon Stewart with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jon Stewart with Rachel Maddow.

BPA has leached into all of us...

Blackwater was CIA's extension, founder Erik Prince admits

One more reason not to visit Florida.

From West Point to Frankenfoods....

West Point cadet left because of religious oppression.

Pesticide Action Network.

Right-wing extremism:  armed and dangerous.

Sunportal makes pipes that bring sunlight inside buildings.  And a nanomesh triples solar cell efficiency.

The drought will be worse than Hurricane Sandy...

A good doggie and his charge:



How to be clear about what the 'Right to Work' means:



Exxon hates your children:



Ed Asner explains our failing economy:



Bill Maher and Frankenfoods:

But... it's too simple and involves math...

Robert Reich on Facebook:

I hope the President starts negotiations over deficit reduction from the strongest possible position. After all, he won the election. 

The consensus (Simpson-Bowles, Congressional Budget Office, Republican leaders, White House) is we need to cut the deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years. 

Here's how. 

First, raise taxes on the rich -- who are now richer than they've ever been, and taking home a larger share of total income and wealth than in over 80 years. 

Sixty years ago, Americans earning over $1 million in today's dollars paid 55.2 percent of it in income taxes, after taking all deductions and credits. If they were taxed at that rate now, they'd pay at least $80 billion more annually -- which would reduce the budget deficit by about $1 trillion over the next decade. That's a quarter of the $4 trillion in deficit reduction right there. 

A 2% surtax on the wealth of the richest one-half of 1 percent would bring in another $750 billion over the decade. A one-half of 1 percent tax on financial transactions would bring in an additional $250 billion over the decade. 

Add all this up and we get $2 trillion over ten years -- fully half of the deficit-reduction goal. Raise the capital gains rate to match the rate on ordinary income, and cap the mortgage interest deduction and tax-free employer health care at $20,000 a year, and that's another $500 billion over ten years. Bottom line: $2.5 trillion in additional revenue, and that's not including spending cuts. 

Now, for spending cuts: Cut military spending by 10 percent and we save over $500 billion. Eliminate special tax subsidies to oil and gas, price supports to big agriculture, subsidies for ethanol, tax breaks and research subsidies for Big Pharma, and indirect subsidies to the biggest banks on Wall Street, and we save close to another $1 trillion over ten years. 

Bingo: $4 trillion -- without raising taxes on the middle class, without cutting Social Security or Medicare and Medicaid, without cutting education or infrastructure, without reducing programs for the poor. 

Are you with me?

Don't give in to blackmail, Mr. President.

Paul Krugman:

So what should he do? Just say no, and go over the cliff if necessary. 

It’s worth pointing out that the fiscal cliff isn’t really a cliff. It’s not like the debt-ceiling confrontation, where terrible things might well have happened right away if the deadline had been missed. This time, nothing very bad will happen to the economy if agreement isn’t reached until a few weeks or even a few months into 2013. So there’s time to bargain. 

More important, however, is the point that a stalemate would hurt Republican backers, corporate donors in particular, every bit as much as it hurt the rest of the country. As the risk of severe economic damage grew, Republicans would face intense pressure to cut a deal after all. 

Meanwhile, the president is in a far stronger position than in previous confrontations. I don’t place much stock in talk of “mandates,” but Mr. Obama did win re-election with a populist campaign, so he can plausibly claim that Republicans are defying the will of the American people. And he just won his big election and is, therefore, far better placed than before to weather any political blowback from economic troubles — especially when it would be so obvious that these troubles were being deliberately inflicted by the G.O.P. in a last-ditch attempt to defend the privileges of the 1 percent. 

Most of all, standing up to hostage-taking is the right thing to do for the health of America’s political system. 

So stand your ground, Mr. President, and don’t give in to threats. No deal is better than a bad deal.

If the Republicans win the election

And we become a banana republic as Krugman predicts....

Does that mean free bananas for all?

Scattershot news

Americans throw away 40 percent of their food every day

Less government...

Someone who is very displeased with Windows 8.

Why Pennsylvania's Voter ID Law Is Unconstitutional

But will the pharmaceuticals let this kid ruin their business?  I bet no.

Depression comes from eating too much trans-fats.

Never insult an Irishman:

Michael D. Higgins (who was elected president of Ireland last year) is fed up with over-the-top Tea Party rhetoric, and he isn't afraid to show it. Listen to him call out radio host Michael Graham on everything from health care to foreign policy in this heated exchange from 2010. Trust me, you don't want to miss this one.

The Drought Map.  And those who make money off of food shortages caused by drought.

The Problem with Men Explaining Things.