Category Archives: The Economy

December 7, 2010 · 9:11 pm

Elizabeth Edwards Op Ed – Bowling 1, Health Care 0 – NYTimes.com

Just to remember a phenomenal woman, I wanted to post this excerpt from an op ed Elizabeth Edwards wrote for the New York Times back in 2008.

She not only was the classier, more honest one in her marriage to John Edwards, I think she was the smartest one.

We were enriched to have her voice as part of the public debate.  She will be missed.

I’ll let her words speak again…

Here is the excerpt with a link to the full article at the bottom:

 

Well, the rancor of the campaign was covered. The amount of money spent was covered. But in Pennsylvania, as in the rest of the country this political season, the information about the candidates’ priorities, policies and principles — information that voters will need to choose the next president — too often did not make the cut. After having spent more than a year on the campaign trail with my husband, John Edwards, I’m not surprised.

Why? Here’s my guess: The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country’s inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.

But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture.

It is not a new phenomenon. In 1954, the Army-McCarthy hearings — an important if painful part of our history — were televised, but by only one network, ABC. NBC and CBS covered a few minutes, snippets on the evening news, but continued to broadcast soap operas in order, I suspect, not to invite complaints from those whose days centered on the drama of “The Guiding Light.”

The problem today unfortunately is that voters who take their responsibility to be informed seriously enough to search out information about the candidates are finding it harder and harder to do so, particularly if they do not have access to the Internet.

Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden’s health care plan? Anything at all? But let me guess, you know Barack Obama’s bowling score. We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties.

via Op-Ed Contributor – Bowling 1, Health Care 0 – NYTimes.com.

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Filed under Health Care, History, Media, North Carolina, Politics, Television, The Economy

December 5, 2010 · 3:03 pm

What Else Would $60 Billion Buy? – NYTimes.com

$60 Billion: The approximate amount that extending the Bush tax cuts on income above $250,000 a year — which Congress seems on the verge of doing — will cost a year, in inflation-adjusted terms. On average, the affluent households that benefit from these cuts will save $25,000 annually. What else might that $60 billion a year buy?

•As much deficit reduction as the elimination of earmarks, President Obama’s proposed federal pay freeze, a 10 percent cut in the federal work force and a 50 percent cut in foreign aid — combined.

•A tripling of federal funding for medical research.

•Universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, with relatively small class sizes.

•A much larger troop surge in Afghanistan, raising spending by 60 percent from current levels.

•A national infrastructure program to repair and upgrade roads, bridges, mass transit, water systems and levees.

•A 15 percent cut in corporate taxes.

•Twice as much money for clean-energy research as suggested by a recent bipartisan plan.

•Free college, including room and board, for about half of all full-time students, at both four- and two-year colleges.

•A $500 tax cut for all households.

via What Else Would $60 Billion Buy? – NYTimes.com.

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December 4, 2010 · 6:30 pm

All the President’s Captors – NYTimes.com

Frank Rich’s Column for tomorrow’s New York Times is up on line…

And it’s a good one…

THOSE desperate to decipher the baffling Obama presidency could do worse than consult an article titled “Understanding Stockholm Syndrome” in the online archive of The F.B.I. Law Enforcement Bulletin. It explains that hostage takers are most successful at winning a victim’s loyalty if they temper their brutality with a bogus show of kindness. Soon enough, the hostage will start concentrating on his captors’ “good side” and develop psychological characteristics to please them — “dependency; lack of initiative; and an inability to act, decide or think.”

This dynamic was acted out — yet again — in President Obama’s latest and perhaps most humiliating attempt to placate his Republican captors in Washington. No sooner did he invite the G.O.P.’s Congressional leaders to a post-election White House summit meeting than they countered his hospitality with a slap — postponing the date for two weeks because of “scheduling conflicts.” But they were kind enough to reschedule, and that was enough to get Obama to concentrate once more on his captors’ “good side.”

And so, as the big bipartisan event finally arrived last week, he handed them an unexpected gift, a freeze on federal salaries. Then he made a hostage video hailing the White House meeting as “a sincere effort on the part of everybody involved to actually commit to work together.” Hardly had this staged effusion of happy talk been disseminated than we learned of Mitch McConnell’s letter vowing to hold not just the president but the entire government hostage by blocking all legislation until the Bush-era tax cuts were extended for the top 2 percent of American households.

The captors will win this battle, if they haven’t already by the time you read this, because Obama has seemingly surrendered his once-considerable abilities to act, decide or think.

More:   All the President’s Captors – NYTimes.com.

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Filed under History, Politics, Social Commentary, The Economy

December 3, 2010 · 8:43 pm

Flashback: 1941’s Top Earners Taxed as Much as 73%

Sounds good to me…

“To those to whom much is given, much is expected.”

Especially when today’s top earners at Hedge funds, etc aren’t even creating anything….

Drawing on IRS data recently made public in the National Archives, the New York Times created an amazing infographic  showing that in “the good old days” of 1941, upper-income Americans paid far more in taxes than they do today, with some top earners paying as much as 73% of their adjusted gross income in taxes:

Keep in mind that in 2008, people who earned more than $1,000,000 paid 24.1% of their adjusted gross income in taxes. Compare that to some of the numbers in the Times’ infographic:

The head of Bethlehem Steel had an adjusted gross income of $336,953 and paid $222,051 in taxes — 66%.

The head of MGM Studios had an AGI of $202,408 and paid $130,174 in taxes — 64%.

The head of IBM had an AGI of $476,029 and paid $329,666 in taxes — 69%

Gun makers Carl and Hulda Swebilius had an AGI of $893,593 and paid $650,389 in taxes — 73%

Remember, these rates weren’t a result of a war surtax — although World War II began in 1939, the United States didn’t declare war until December 8, 1941, the day after the Pearl Harbor attack. Yet even though we’ve been fighting two wars for the last decade, and even though today’s tax rates on top earners are a fraction of what they were in 1941, the GOP’s top legislative priority is to keep those top tier tax rates low. And for the most part, even though the polls on their side, Democrats aren’t fighting back.

More:   Daily Kos: State of the Nation.

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November 30, 2010 · 6:55 pm

Winning the Class War – NYTimes.com

The latest from Bob Herbert:

There is no way to bring America’s consumer economy back to robust health if unemployment is chronically high, wages remain stagnant and the jobs that are created are poor ones. Without ordinary Americans spending their earnings from good jobs, any hope of a meaningful, long-term recovery is doomed.

Beyond that, extreme economic inequality is a recipe for social instability. Families on the wrong side of the divide find themselves under increasing pressure to just hold things together: to find the money to pay rent or the mortgage, to fend off bill collectors, to cope with illness and emergencies, and deal with the daily doses of extreme anxiety.

Societal conflicts metastasize as resentments fester and scapegoats are sought. Demagogues inevitably emerge to feast on the poisonous stew of such an environment. The rich may think that the public won’t ever turn against them. But to hold that belief, you have to ignore the turbulent history of the 1930s.

via Winning the Class War – NYTimes.com.

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November 30, 2010 · 6:55 pm

Still the Best Congress Money Can Buy – NYTimes.com

Another great column from Frank Rich:

As John Cassidy underscored in a definitive article titled “Who Needs Wall Street?” in The New Yorker last week, the financial sector has paid little for bringing the world to near-collapse or for receiving the taxpayers’ bailout that was denied to most small-enough-to-fail Americans. The sector still rakes in more than a fourth of American business profits, up from a seventh 25 years ago. And what is its contribution to America in exchange for this quarter-century of ever-more over-the-top rewards? “During a period in which American companies have created iPhones, Home Depot and Lipitor,” Cassidy writes, the industry reaping the highest profits and compensation is one that “doesn’t design, build or sell a tangible thing.”

It’s an industry that can buy politicians as easily as it does dwarfs, which is why government has tilted the playing field ever more in its direction for three decades. Now corporations of all kinds can buy more of Washington than before, thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and to the rise of outside “nonprofit groups” that can legally front for those who prefer to donate anonymously. The money laundering at the base of Tom DeLay’s conviction by a Texas jury last week — his circumventing of the state’s post-Gilded Age law forbidding corporate campaign contributions directly to candidates — is now easily and legally doable at the national level.

via Still the Best Congress Money Can Buy – NYTimes.com.

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November 29, 2010 · 8:48 pm

where-americans-are-getting-richer: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

I knew I was lucky, but this shows how lucky those of us with jobs are….

Greensboro, N.C., might not be the best place to find a steady job. But if you’ve already got one, chances are you’re doing better than you were a couple of years ago.

The city’s unemployment rate is 9.8%, nearly a point above the still-high national average. But those with college degrees who have managed to keep their jobs during the recession have seen their median income jump to $53,400 in 2010 from $48,900 in 2007.

via where-americans-are-getting-richer: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance.

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Filed under Education, Greensboro, North Carolina, The Economy, The South

November 28, 2010 · 6:30 pm

Paying an Arm and a Leg for Health Care

From Kevin Drum at Motherjones.com:

So many charts, so little blog. Which chart should I show you from yesterday’s release of the latest global comparison of healthcare prices? How about the cost of hip replacements? Here it is:

The “average” number is a little hard to see, so here it is: $34,454. That’s 2x what it costs in Germany, 3x what it costs in France, and 6x what it costs in Switzerland. WTF?

This goes a long way toward explaining why hip replacements are so popular in the United States: they’re a huge profit center for doctors and hospitals. Keep this in mind the next time someone starts going on about how you never have to wait in line for a hip replacement in America. It’s not because our healthcare system is super efficient, it’s because doctors are super eager to perform them.

The full set of cost charts is here, and they’re pretty instructive. You can, if you want, try to make the case that we perform better hip replacements or do better angioplasties than other countries. But appendectomies? CT scans? Normal deliveries? As Aaron Carroll says about the astonishing numbers for routine CT scans and MRIs:

Why does it cost so much more in the US? Does the radiation work better here? Are the scanners different? If you’re wondering, the CT scanner was invented in the UK, so it’s not like there’s some reason to believe our machines are better….Let’s be clear. I have no problem with things costing more when they are demonstrably better. Or, if you’re getting more of them for your money. But a scan is a scan is a scan. There had better be a good reason for it costing more here, and I can’t think of a good one.

This is one of the reasons healthcare costs so much in America. We aren’t getting more for our money, we’re just paying a lot more for the same stuff as everyone else.

Link to full article:  http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/11/paying-arm-and-leg

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November 24, 2010 · 9:37 am

Tea Party Activists Not Your Average Americans, Could Complicate 2012 For GOP: Poll

I wish more people would realize this….

WASHINGTON — Tea party backers fashion themselves as “we the people,” but polls show the Republican Party’s most conservative and energized voters are hardly your average crowd.

According to an Associated Press-GfK Poll this month, 84 percent who call themselves tea party supporters don’t like how President Barack Obama is handling his job – a view shared by just 35 percent of all other adults. Tea partiers are about four times likelier than others to back repealing Obama’s health care overhaul and twice as likely to favor renewing tax cuts for the highest-earning Americans.

Exit polls of voters in this month’s congressional elections reveal similar gulfs. Most tea party supporters – 86 percent – want less government intrusion on people and businesses, but only 35 percent of other voters said so. Tea party backers were about five times likelier to blame Obama for the country’s economic ills, three times likelier to say Obama’s policies will be harmful and twice as apt to see the country on the wrong track.

These aren’t subtle shadings between tea party backers and the majority of Americans, who don’t support the movement; they’re Grand Canyon-size chasms.

MORE:   Tea Party Activists Not Your Average Americans, Could Complicate 2012 For GOP: Poll.

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November 22, 2010 · 9:42 am

There Will Be Blood – NYTimes.com

Another excellent piece from Paul Krugman….

Former Senator Alan Simpson is a Very Serious Person. He must be — after all, President Obama appointed him as co-chairman of a special commission on deficit reduction.

So here’s what the very serious Mr. Simpson said on Friday: “I can’t wait for the blood bath in April. … When debt limit time comes, they’re going to look around and say, ‘What in the hell do we do now? We’ve got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give ’em a piece of meat, real meat,’ ” meaning spending cuts. “And boy, the blood bath will be extraordinary,” he continued.

Think of Mr. Simpson’s blood lust as one more piece of evidence that our nation is in much worse shape, much closer to a political breakdown, than most people realize.

via There Will Be Blood – NYTimes.com.

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