NewsTrust - U.S. Economy - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

Romney Embraces Growth, Leaving Austerity To Europe

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jon Ward - May. 19 (Opinion) - Austerity is out. Growth is in. And Mitt Romney's campaign has taken notice. Politicians in Europe and in President Barack Obama's administration can't get enough of the G word these days. "Growth must be a priority, at the same time as we put in place some fiscal compact to improve our finances," said the new French President Francois Hollande, during a visit with Obama in the Oval Office on Friday.

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"End This Depression Now"

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Paul Krugman, Amy Goodman - May. 17 (Interview) - Right now, there just is not enough spending, and we need the government, which can do it, to step in and provide the demand we need. ... We’ve had austerity in the face of a recession, in a way that we have never had before since the 1930s. ... And the results are clear: it’s disastrous."

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Jamie Dimon Should Resign Over JPMorgan's $3B Lost Bet and Campaign Against Financial Regs

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Paul Krugman: Amy Goodman - May. 17 (Interview) - As the financial giant JPMorgan Chase continues to suffer major losses on its risky derivatives trades, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says bank chief Jamie Dimon should resign “precisely because he has been using his supposed wisdom as a way to campaign against reform and now it turns out he wasn't that wise after all. In fact, his bank was doing seriously bad stuff." Krugman says, "I think it would be better for everybody if he went." The Justice Department is now probing JPMorgan amid new calls for tougher regulation of Wall Street. "They are making these bets with your money because these are banks that are guaranteed. They have guaranteed deposits," Krugman says. "We are supposed to have a rule going into effect -- the Volcker Rule -- that says they can't do this kind of stuff, but they are continuing to do it. ... We can not trust the bankers to use this money safely." [Transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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Power and Money in America (Noam Chomsky)

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Informed Comment - By Noam Chomsky, posted by Juan - May. 09 (Opinion) - The Occupy movement has been an extremely exciting development. Unprecedented, in fact. There’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations it has established can be sustained [...]

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Austerity Is So Wrong!

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Daily Beast - By Paul Krugman - May. 06 (Opinion) - In a new book, End This Depression Now!, Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman says the current economic problems can be fixed both more easily and more quickly than anyone imagines. But politicians’ desire to slash spending is deeply destructive, and he details why austerity is so appealing even to Very Serious People—and why it’s such a bad idea.

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Noam Chomsky on America's Economic Suicide

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - May. 05 (Interview) - The US and Europe are committing suicide in different ways. In Europe it’s austerity in the midst of recession and that’s guaranteed to be a disaster. There’s some resistance to that now. In the US, it’s essentially off-shoring production and financialization and getting rid of superfluous population through incarceration.

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Capitalism's Dirty Secret: Corporations Don't Create Jobs, They Destroy Them

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Lynn Parramore - Apr. 03 (Opinion) - For the last four decades, U.S. corporations have been sinking our economy through the off-shoring of jobs, the squeezing of wages, and a magician’s hat full of bluffs and tricks designed to extort subsidies and sweetheart deals from local and state governments that often result in mass layoffs and empty treasuries.

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Tigress Tycoons

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The Daily Beast - By Amy Chua - Mar. 05 - In the Year of the Dragon, Amy Chua profiles four Chinese powerhouses who bucked tradition to get rich—very, very rich.

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GOP Fiscal Proposals Are Sound 'If You Believe In Magic'

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Paul Krugman - Mar. 02 (Opinion) - Mitt Romney is very concerned about budget deficits. Or at least that’s what he says; he likes to warn that President Obama's deficits are leading us toward a "Greece-style collapse." So why is Mr. Romney offering a budget proposal that would lead to muc

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Reagan’s Road to Climate Perdition

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Consortium News - By Consortiumnews.com - Jan. 30 - Reagan’s Road to Climate Perdition

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The Most Important Speech of His Presidency

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Robert Reich's Blog - By Robert Reich - Dec. 07 (Opinion) - The President’s speech today in Osawatomie, Kansas — where Teddy Roosevelt gave his “New Nationalism” speech in 1910 — is the most important economic speech of his presidency in terms of connecting the dots, laying out the reasons behind our economic and political crises, and asserting a willingness to take on the powerful and the privileged that have gamed the system to their advantage.

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Corporate America Is Sitting On The Solution To The Jobs Crisis: Report

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - Dec. 06 (Opinion) - If America's largest banks and non-financial companies would just loosen their death-grip on a chunk of the $3.6 trillion in cash they're hoarding and move it into productive investments instead, the report estimates that about 19 million jobs would be c

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Eurozone Catastrophe: How Saving the Euro Could Mean Blood on the Streets

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Marshall Auerback, AlterNet - Dec. 02 - The whole future shape of Europe must be resolved in a week or so. Itâ€™s a high-stakes game of poker that the Germans are determined to win--at the expense of misery for many.

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Too Big to Jail | Truthout

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

truth-out.org - Nov. 04 (Opinion) -

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Largest Corporations Paid Only Half Their Taxes

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

deathandtaxesmag.com - Nov. 04 (Opinion) -

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A Voice From the 1%

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Kos - By Gaius - Oct. 27 (Opinion) - The impetus behind the Occupy Wall Street movement - a vague sense that the rich are getting ever richer while everyone else suffers - was confirmed by a recent report from the Social Security Administration showing that while total employment and average wages remained stagnant, the number of people earning $1 million or more grew by 18% from 2009 to 2010. Those figures give real substance to the "We are the 99%" slogan, yet Republicans continue to insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that if anything those "job creators" deserve an even greater share of our national income. The Tea Party, meanwhile, has launched its own "53%" movement, inexplicably rallying the working class to the defense of the wealthy. The one group rarely heard from in this rancorous debate is the 1%, whose incomes and taxes are its focus. I am one of them, and here is my perspective, which may surprise you.

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Energy policy is leaving the middle class behind

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Boing Boing - Oct. 19 (Opinion) -

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Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Business Insider - By Henry Blodget - Oct. 15 (Editorial) - The "Occupy Wall Street" protests are gaining momentum, having spread from a small park in New York to marches to other cities across the country. So far, the protests seem fueled by a collective sense that things in our economy are not fair or right. But the protesters have not done a good job of focusing their complaints—and thus have been skewered as malcontents who don't know what they stand for or want. (An early list of "grievances" included some legitimate beefs, but was otherwise just a vague attack on "corporations." Given that these are the same corporations that employ more than 100 million Americans and make the products we all use every day, this broadside did not resonate with most Americans). So, what are the protesters so upset about, really? Do they have legitimate gripes? To answer the latter question first, yes, they have very legitimate gripes.

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5 New Rules for an Economy That Works

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By David Morris - Oct. 09 (Opinion) - The 99% is growing stronger and larger. The next step is to move the country. Which requires us to decide where we want to go and how we want to get there.

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Is protest in America at a turning point?

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Nieman Journalism Lab - By John Hanrahan - Oct. 05 (Opinion) - Tea Party aside, activism slowed almost to a halt after Democrats took the House and Senate and Obama was elected. Now antiwar, anti-corporate, anti-big bank protests have started up in Washington and on Wall Street, and they are spreading elsewhere. Two main questions: Will they grow to be a serious force in America, and how long will the mainstream media give them the silent treatment?

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An Open Letter to Wall Street

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

truth-out.org - By William Rivers Pitt - Oct. 04 (Editorial) - ...Really, why don't they just go home? Don't these people have jobs? I hate to be the Irony Police, but that's pretty much the whole point. They can't, and they don't. Have homes and jobs, I mean.

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The Problem of Media Idiocy: Why Do MSM Media Stars Pretend to Be Stupid?

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Eric Alterman, The Nation - Sep. 19 - People in the upper reaches of the US media think that to do their jobs they must behave like idiots in order to be â€œfairâ€ to the Republicans' idiotic ideas.

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The theft of the American pension

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Thomas Rogers - Sep. 18 (Interview) - America is in the midst of a retirement crisis. Over the last decade, we've witnessed the wholesale gutting of pension and retiree healthcare in this country. Hundreds of companies have slashed and burned their way through their employees' benefits, leaving former workers either on Social Security or destitute -- and taxpayers with a huge burden that, as the baby boomer generation edges towards retirement, is likely to grow. It's a problem that is already affecting over a million people -- and the most shocking part is, none of this needed to happen.

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Noam Chomsky on the U.S. Economic Crisis: Joblessness, Excessive Military Spending and Healthcare

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Sep. 13 (Interview) - President Obama sent his new jobs proposal to Congress on Monday with a plan to pay for the $447 billion package by raising taxes on the wealthy. Noam Chomsky says, "The healthcare system...the huge military spending, the very low taxes for the rich [and corporations]...those are fundamental problems that have to be dealt with if there's going to be anything like successful economic and social development in the United States." As Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, calls Social Security a "Ponzi scheme," and Democrats buy into the narrative that the program is in crisis, Chomsky notes that "to worry about a possible problem 30 years from now, which can incidentally be fixed with a little bit of tampering here and there, as was done in 1983, to worry about that just makes absolutely no sense, unless you're trying to destroy the program." [includes rush transcript]

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Paul Krugman: 50 Percent Chance Global Economy Will Enter Recession

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Harry Bradford - Sep. 09 (Interview) - Even though Obama's jobs plan is "bolder and better" than Paul Krugman expected, the Nobel-Prize winning economist still told Bloomberg Television on Friday that it might not be enough to stave off global recession. The risk of global recession is "quite high, maybe 50 percent," Krugman told Bloomberg. He added: "The risk of something that feels like a recession is much higher than that. My central belief is that we're likely to have higher unemployment a year from now than we do today." Krugman said that while Obama's plan "could make a noticeable difference to the economy," Republican opposition to the President's proposal, on top of the euro zone crisis, still makes recession a substantial possibility.

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