The answer is this. When it comes to protecting the fortunes of America’s rich (mostly top corporate executives and Wall Street) and maintaining their strangle-hold on the political process, Senate Republicans, along with some Senate Democrats, don’t budge
via Robert Reich (Why Obama Wins on Foreign Policy and Gays but Loses on Economics and Taxes).
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Online lessons geared toward teaching high school students economics as if people mattered. From United for a Fair Economy.
Teaching Economics As If People Mattered.
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Looks like Santa is bringing a lump of something to working families, and it isn’t a fatter paycheck.
New data show America’s workers earned less in 2009 than in 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Compensation was down by 3.2 percent in 2009 with declines in construction and manufacturing fueling the plunge. St. Louis County, the hardest hit, saw a decline of 11.5 percent.
via U.S. Workers Earned Less in 2009 Than in 2008 | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG.
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Quite unlike today’s public, what Depression-era Americans wanted from their government was, on many counts, more not less. And despite their far more dire economic straits, they remained more optimistic than today’s public. Nor did average Americans then turn their ire upon their Groton-Harvard-educated president — this despite his failure, over his first term in office, to bring a swift end to their hardship. FDR had his detractors but these tended to be fellow members of the social and economic elite.
via How a Different America Responded to the Great Depression – Pew Research Center.
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The new tax deal embodies the essence of Reaganomics.
It will not stimulate the economy.
A disproportionate share of the $858 billion deal will go to people in the top 1 percent who spend only a fraction of what they earn and save the rest. Their savings are sent around the world to wherever they will earn the highest return.
The only practical effect of adding $858 billion to the deficit will be to put more pressure on Democrats to reduce non-defense spending of all sorts, including Social Security and Medicare, as well as education and infrastructure
via Robert Reich (The New Tax Deal: Reaganomics Redux).
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… The Democratic Party can no longer ignore critical investments in the productivity of average workers. Nor can it ignore the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the very top, and the inability of America’s middle and working class to get the economy moving again.
The GOP hasn’t changed their story or their strategy since the 1990s. It’s the fault of big government. That was false then, and it’s false now. The structural problems are now much worse, and the cyclical recovery from the Great Recession pathetically anemic.
If the Democratic Party has stood for anything over the years it is to maintain and restore upward mobility for the majority of working Americans, ensure that the playing field isn’t tilted in the direction of the privileged, and limit the power of the richest among us to entrench themselves and their heirs into a semi-permanent plutocracy
via Robert Reich (Why Democrats Should Disregard Bill Clinton’s Endorsement of Obama’s Tax Deal).
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Some Dem apologists say the deal is a $900 billion stimulus. Not true. The rich spend a smaller share of their incomes than everyone else, so the huge benefits going their way will barely stimulate the economy. (Their savings will move around the world wherever they can get the highest return.)
And while middle and working class consumers will get a small break from payroll taxes, they’ll use most of it to help pay down their debts because they know the tax break isn’t permanent while their debt payments and penalties are growing. Again, very little stimulus.
An extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless will surely help them and the economy overall. But a new WPA to put the jobless to work would have been far better. The longer they’re out of work the harder it will be for them ever to get back in, even if and when jobs return. But apparently a new WPA wasn’t even considered
via Robert Reich (The Why-Should-I-Get-Out-Of-My-Chair Gap in 2012).
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Rarely before in American history has there been more disconnect between Washington and the rest of the nation. Washington is obsessing about the projected federal budget deficit. Everyone else in America is worried about jobs
via Robert Reich (The Truth About the Federal Budget Deficit That Noone Is Willing to Tell).
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Quiz: What’s responsible for the lousy economy most Americans continue to wallow in?
A. Big government, bureaucrats, and the cultural and intellectual elites who back them.
B. Big business, Wall Street, and the powerful and privileged who represent them.
These are the two competing stories Americans are telling one another
Read the rest of his analysis here Robert Reich (The Big Economic Story, and Why Obama Isn’t Telling It).
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No one needs to tell America’s families that unemployment and underemployment are at crisis levels. We need jobs—and we need them now.
Wall Street has gotten its bailouts. Now it’s time for Main Street to get some immediate help.
The AFL-CIO is calling on Congress and the Obama administration to take five steps now to care for jobless workers and put America back to work.
1. Extend the lifeline for jobless workers.
2. Rebuild America’s schools, roads and energy systems.
3. Increase aid to state and local governments to maintain vital services.
4. Put people to work doing work that needs to be done.
5. Put TARP funds to work for Main Street.
America’s jobs situation would be even more dire without the economic stimulus program President Obama and Congress enacted, which has saved or created 1 million jobs. But the depth of this crisis demands that we do more—and that we do it now, before more people lose their jobs, their homes, their health care and their hope.
Read the details at Good Jobs Now: AFL-CIO Jobs Agenda.
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