Keep Wall Street Occupied from home....

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Virtual Teach-In with John Quiggin - YouTube

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Martin Wolf on why people should take the #occupy protests seriously

Martin Wolf in the Financial Times:

The response to the crisis among those in the pro-market camp is much on the lines of the 1930s. On one side are those who blame what has gone wrong entirely on government. The Tea Party, in the US, has taken that position, with some success. In the UK, this strand is weaker. But there, too, some argue that the crisis is the result of Gordon Brown’s fiscal incontinence, over-regulated markets or incompetent central banks. In this, they follow the Austrian economists, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, in the 1930s. Against them are those who, following John Maynard Keynes, argue for a managed capitalism.

Once again, much of this debate is over use of macroeconomic policy tools: should one tighten or loosen fiscal policy in a recession? Are unconventional monetary policies a path to hyperinflation or effective policies in extreme circumstances? Again, just as radical Keynesians emerged in the 1930s and afterwards, proponents of more intervention in markets are now emerging.

This is a debate we need. In my view, both perspectives are useful. The Tea Party is wrong on the future of government. Even the US is not going back to the 19th-century state. But its more coherent members are right – and even agree with today’s protesters – that we have promoted an insider form of capitalism which exploits and indeed creates subsidies and tax loopholes on which the insiders prosper. The need to rescue banks was horrifying. The role of money in politics is disturbing. The danger is that we are moving from what the Nobel laureate economic historian, Douglass North, calls an “open-access order” to its opposite, a system in which political influence is decisive.

This is not merely inefficient. It is unjust. Few begrudged Steve Jobs his fortune. The view on those who emerged rich from rescued businesses is very different. The era of bail-outs must end. Restructuring finance to make this credible is of huge importance for the future. Yet this is not all. Market capitalism creates inherent difficulties. The two most obvious are macroeconomic instability and extremes of inequality. The tendency of a market-oriented financial system to run away with itself has, again, been demonstrated on a large scale. On the free market right people argue that if only we went back to the gold standard or ended fractional reserve banking, all would be well. I question such claims. Instability is inherent in the game of betting on the future. Humans seem prone to self-fulfilling waves of optimism and pessimism. Ways of mitigating the extent and the consequences of such instability always need to be found.

File under should have saw that coming...

Here were the graphics I brought with me (via CBO) this morning for CNN...

Growth in Real After-Tax Income from 1979 to 2007

CBO finds that between 1979 and 2007:

• For the 1 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 275 percent (see figure below).
• For others in the 20 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 65 percent.
• For the 60 percent of the population in the middle of the income scale, the growth in average real after-tax household income was just under 40 percent.
• For the 20 percent of the population with the lowest income, the growth in average real after-tax household income was about 18 percent.

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I also gave them this graph from The Economist:

They pushed back the segment as it was unclear if another activist was coming as well or not so I figured all was okay.  

Then a little voice in my ear as we are going live says--- "we weren't able to use your graphs" and we go right in to a Kasim Reed vs. OccupyAtlanta.  So I was caught off guard and had to change the game plan of how to introduce economic inequality and the massive transfer of wealth that's been going on in this country into the interview. 

I shouldn't have been thrown off, but nothing about the conversations or the pre-interview questions gave me the impression of going that direction and then I'm told we aren't using the graphics as we go live.  I sort of flubbed my way back to the core issues. Oh well.   Not one of my finer moments of clarity.

Liberal Media bias in action...

Meet the Press Panel: From GE to Morgan Stanley

Just another reminder of why I support the #occupy moment (can we really call it a movement?).

shhhh #occupy activist about to overthrow Capitalism in Henry County... [don't share]

Hey don't let the right wing attack machine know that this #Occupy protester is about to overthrow capitalism and play the victim card via a radical Marxist act of catching up on folding cloths and picking up the living room before he gets the kitchen cleaned up.  

Please no photos of said folding and picking up or my revolution will be exposed across the blogs as an Obama/Union/Move-On plot to blame corporate greed on.... corporate executives breaking laws.

Yes this is my way of saying Herman Cain is embarrassing the educated citizens of Henry County to hang our heads in shame as our neighbor is forced on the good people of this nation.   We aren't all that vapid or bad at math.  America I swear, we aren't.

Thank you again to 32 brave individuals last night in Atlanta.

I was proud to stand on-watch as my brother Ben and so many other true Americans across this country stood up for the 99% of this nation and put their bodies against the wheels of the 1% political power.

Ben said it best about why he broke the law last night:  

Georgia continues to have a higher unemployment rate than the national average, 10.1 percent, and it has the third highest poverty rate.

Our members, like working people throughout the country, are saddled with debt. Their kids are graduating from college without job opportunities. They're also saddled with debt. 

We're seeing these same financial institutions and Wall Street interests bankroll attacks on unions and fundamental workers' rights.

This is absolutely the right time for an economic justice movement behind the Teamsters' call to stop the war on workers.

#occupy Please share Ben's story on your social networks.

I'm signing off to go over throw capitalism don't tell any Republicans---somebody hand me the dish soap...

A Thank You; #occupy

Last night was quite a night.  Watching one of the TV stories of it I was shocked at how different things are when you are actually on the ground in the midst of all the spectacle that comes when economic and social rot bubbles up to the surface.

I'll have more to say, but for now a thank you to a few courageous people I was privliedge to meet last night who don't let the bullshit; the small men with small minds; the distasteful roar of childish chants; nor the confusion of a moment without a guide book keep them from a task of doing right.  I'm feeling truly humbled this morning.

Gratitude; #occupy  

Throughout history those seldom few are given to us. 

Those few who are willing to put their bodies 

against the grinding machine 

of corrupt 

and broken political systems, those few 

that say no to exploitation 

and extortion of the weakest 

by the strongest. 

They are gifts 

given to us, their actions 

and words 

should be given great weight 

in a world of shallow indulgences, 

petty thrills, 

and cowardly silence. 

A quiet tear, and a softly whispered "thank you" is all I can give back in return.

An open-letter to my teachers... to #occupy

And below is an open letter i've written to some of my former teachers and mentors as i've thought about what the #occupy movement is and means.

 

We need mentors... An Open Letter to my Teachers

As someone whom I have learned much from I needed to take a moment this morning to ask again for your time and guidance.

As both a participant in some of the early #occupy events here in Atlanta and someone that's been attacking the rot within the Goldman Sachs center-right Democratic Party from the inside for a number of years now I think there is massive confusion about what #occupy is.  My fear is that many of those whom I've learned from and have inspired me will sit back rather than participate at a time when they are needed most.

Its a demotic- moment in history.  Which means its messy, awkward, and will not manufacture the easy photo-op moments that well meaning Democratic Party/"progressive"/Move-On activists desire.  Massive social and economic inequities are bubbling to the surface. Many of the people getting involved are anti-politic to a fault; distrustful of institutions be they party politics, unions, or any long term institution that could and must be harnessed, maintained, and nurtured for long term reforms to occur. 

U.S. imperialism has rotted the social fabric of our communities.  It has corrupted the internal political process and created an illiterate and irrational citizenry fixated on bread and circus. This is a moment in history where reforms will require long term commitment by individuals to network, develop skill sets, and form new alliances.  This will take nurturing and time.  The media's focus on what "this all this means" in the short term and efforts by well meaning political and labor machine activists to force the moment is short sighted to the the massive long term challenges we face.

Sheldon Wolin noted in his book Democracy Inc. that, "Demotic action is typically triggered by felt grievances--not, initially by a yearning for political participation.  Because of the exhausting demands of making "living," surviving under harsh circumstances, dedication to a political life is hardly a conceivable vocation.  While governing is a full-time, continuous activity, demotic politics is inevitably episodic, born of necessity, improvisational rather than institutionalized." 

If I'm reading him correctly I think that right now is a moment where #occupy is the demos becoming self-conscious of itself and that the challenge for those who see potential in this moment is to act...

to recover lost ground, to "popularize" political institutions and practices that have become severed from popular control.  It involves renewing the meaning and substance of "representative democracy" by affirming the primacy of Congress, curbing the growth of presidential power, disentangling the stranglehold of lobbyists, democratizing the party system by eliminating the barriers to third parties, and enforcing an austere system of campaign finance.

I truly hope that those in the professional class recognize the moment for what it is, get involved sharing their knowledge and perspective, and feed positive energy to the well meaning participants--not to mention some good logical lashings to right-wing talking points being churned out as we speak in well financed think-tanks.

The expertise that comes from the time and training of philosophy and economics as elite professions are a privilege that many on the streets have never been able to enjoy.  Most of these people will never again have an opportunity to cross paths with experts and elites whom they can learn and grow from.  But right at this moment they are organizing events right down the road, down the block, down the hall from you and they merely need you to show up.

A strange mixture of utopianism, institutional naivety, and conspiracy theory is feeding some of the most energetic activists and only engagement and dialogue can address this problem. Be it going to a rally to talk to people in the crowd, volunteering to give teach-ins, or taking a moment to put thoughts to paper so that others can spread them across their social networks to churn up debate--all of these actions help build positive demotic- momentum that is greatly needed.  

The demos is acting and its in great need of mentors and positive energy to push this moment in history forward.  Many of your colleagues will follow your lead in word and action. Please let them know there are many of us participating in #occupy events who are desperate for guidance and engagement and want them to join in this moment as participants. No one can be neutral on a moving train.

regards,

Jim 

 

Is another U.S. recession a 'done deal'?

Michael Dueker, chief economist at Russell Investments, in a guest post at Econbrowser writes:

a U.S. recession is certainly possible, given that a Eurozone recession looks very likely. It is entirely conceivable that European policymakers will fail to gather the necessary resources in time to prevent financial-market contagion to peripheral countries, such as Italy and Spain, or to recapitalize their banks sufficiently quickly in the face of or, better yet, in advance of a Greek default. Such a financial shock, if it occurs, could be transmitted to the United States with sufficient severity to lead to recession here. This would be a new negative shock, however, and does not appear to be built into current early-warning financial indicators in the United States to a sufficient degree to make a U.S. recession the base case at this time. My current reading of the financial market indicators of the U.S. business cycle is that investors are more concerned about Japan-style economic stagnation right now than about a traditional recession.

#occupy Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?

Got back from #occupyAtlanta General Assembly.  They voted to occupy the park (which I thought was a mistake) and it confusing what the #occupy movement should/shouldn't be.  Anyways I need to sleep.  Appears I may be on TV in the AM to talk about #occupy and need some sleep in case that does pan out.

Much to write about.   For now sleep.  If you need to churn on some more discussion of #occupy go do it here.

Atlanta Fed’s Lockhart Says Regulators Must Work Further to End Bailouts

Business Week:

 Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said regulators haven’t yet put in place a system that would allow orderly failures of the largest financial firms without taxpayer rescues.

“ The system we should work toward is one in which no institution is too big to fail,” Lockhart said today in a speech in Atlanta. “Much is being done in the aftermath of the Fed’s and the Treasury’s emergency interventions of 2008 to get to this state of affairs, but, in my view, this is a longer-term aspiration at this moment.”

The Fed and other banking regulators are working to avoid more taxpayer-funded bailouts following the rescues of insurer American International Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc., which stoked public anger against the central bank and Congress. The Dodd-Frank Act passed last year mandated the Fed to monitor emerging risks to financial stability in the wake of the U.S. recession that ended two years ago.

Lockhart said regulators must raise required levels of capital to protect against failure of the biggest banks.

“Maintaining this buffer is especially important for the larger, systemically-important institutions for which government intervention in a crisis might otherwise be the only response to a threat to the entire system,” Lockhart said in the text of remarks at a panel discussion at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. “We absolutely must get to a state in which private shareholders and creditors bear the risks of failure, not taxpayers.”

IMF advisor says we face a Worldwide Banking Meltdown

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Bruce Bartlett talking common sense on the economy....

Occupy Atlanta Supplies Needed

Needs list I just got emailed from an Occupy Atlanta activists setting up one of the organizing offices: 

"Looking around, we could use folding tables, white boards, coffee machine/microwave, and a printer(s), preferably wireless and/or big. Shelves or other ways to organize stuff." 

Contact me Jim.Nichols@gmail.com if you have anything to donate I can work on helping get it to them...

The neoliberal era of Reagan/DLC Goldman Sachs Democrats is crashing and burning. Just needs a push...

Occupy Wall Street has obviously been overnight poll-tested by someone in power...

Dems rally behind ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest movement - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room.  That gave me a bit of a chuckle. 

Having attended the last Occupy Atlanta general assembly meeting I can tell you that the #occupy movement has not been built by the base of the Democratic Party.  The fact that Democratic leaders are trying to jump on board means that #occupy movement resonates with everyday Democratic voters.

I mean go figure.  Wall Street greed is coming ahead of people’s needs.  The neoliberal era of Reagan/DLC democrats is crashing and burning.

But still the Party of Goldman Sachs is not exactly radical.  I mean they gave you a center right president.  They are built on Wall Street money and are not natural allies with the #occupy movement:

You don’t have to dig deep to find evidence of that relationship. Former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has long been “one of the biggest beneficiaries of Wall Street money that Congress [has] ever seen,” and, in turn, Schumer pushed hardto deregulate the financial industry before the 2008 crash and then bailout said financiers afterwards. When Congress debated financial reform last May, House Democratic Chief Deputy Whip Ron Kind (D-Wis.) told a gathering of financial lobbyists, “We’re working hard with you to get the policy right.” And, of course, President Obama chose Larry Summers and Tim Geithner as his chief economic advisers, despite their long records of Wall Street ties and favoritism. The surtax on millionaires that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced on Wednesday replaces Obama’s proposals to tax not only a broader swath of wealthy individuals, but also oil and gas corporations.

Indeed, Democratic support for Wall Street was one of the major motivations behind Occupy Wall Street in the first place. When you read the heartbreaking “We are the 99 percent” Tumblr and you listen to the protesters, you don’t hear frustration with Republicans. The frustration is with Washington. And if Democrats want to work with the Occupy movement (or, indeed, make the “Republicans are the party of the rich” attack really work), they’ll have to undertake root-and-branch reform of their party’s relationship with Wall Street.

This is an interesting moment in history.  

Social Justice, Antiwar Protesters to Occupy D.C.’s Freedom Plaza in “October 2011” Protest

The demos is acting...  buckle up... 

Here's to the crazy ones... (h/t Steve Jobs)

Justice Carley to leave bench next July

AJC:

Justice George Carley will step down from the Georgia Supreme Court next July, giving Gov. Nathan Deal the chance to appoint Carley's successor.

The justice taking Carley's place will have to run for re-election in 2014, the court said in a statement released Tuesday.

“I am announcing this now to notify potential candidates before the election cycle gets into full swing,” said Carley, who had already announced  that he did not plan to run for re-election.

When he steps down, Carley, 73, will leave the high court as its chief justice. The court voted unanimously last month to have him serve as chief for two months before he leaves the court.

Georgia manufacturing drops to near two-year low

Atlanta Business Chronicle: 

After an August rebound, Georgia’s manufacturing sector fell to its lowest level in nearly two years in September, according to the Econometric Center at Kennesaw State University’s Coles College of Business.

Georgia’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) -- a reading of economic activity in the state’s manufacturing sector -- for September was 49.7, down 9.4 points from August.

A PMI reading above 50 shows manufacturing activity is expanding, while a reading below 50 shows it is contracting.

September was the third month in a four-month period that the PMI dropped, dashing expectation that August’s turnaround was sustainable, KSU said.

“September’s losses more than offset the 7.4 points gained in August,” said Don Sabbarese, professor of economics and director of the Econometric Center at the Coles College of Business. “The latest reading suggests the perceived soft spot in June and July may be more pervasive than we first thought. Manufacturing has been one of the few bright spots in the current recovery, but apparently it’s not immune from the current slowdown in the broader economy.”

Other highlights of the September PMI:

Production plunged 16.3 points to 46.7

New orders dropped 6.9 to 45

Employment fell 5.6 to 50

Joseph Stiglitz endorses #occupyWallStreet movement

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Yesterday, Nobel prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz met with the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters to support their cause. Stiglitz noted Wall Street got rich by “socializing losses and privatizing gain… that’s not capitalism… its a distorted economy.”

Goldman Cuts Global GDP Estimate; Sees German, French Recessions

Businessweek:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut its global growth forecast for this year and next, predicting recessions in Germany and France as the European economy stalls and the risk of a contraction in the U.S. grows.

The world economy will probably expand 3.8 percent this year and 3.5 percent in 2012, compared with earlier predictions of 3.9 percent for 2011 and 4.2 percent for next year, Goldman Sachs economists Jan Hatzius and Dominic Wilson wrote in an Oct. 3 report. The company lowered its forecast for earnings growth in Asia excluding Japan in a separate report today.

Europe’s worsening sovereign debt woes and the threat of a U.S. recession have roiled global stock markets, erasing about $13 trillion from equities since May. The debt crisis has infected the European banking system, making financial institutions wary of lending to each other and pushing overnight deposits with the European Central Bank last week to the highest in more than a year.

“The further deterioration in the economic and financial situation in the Euro area has led us to downgrade our global GDP forecast significantly,” the economists said. “Over the next few quarters, we now expect a mild recession in Germany and France, and a deeper downturn in the Euro periphery.”

Euro Region

Goldman Sachs predicts the Euro region will expand 0.1 percent in 2012, down from an earlier forecast of 1.3 percent. It expects growth of 1.6 percent for this year.

The ECB has been forced to purchase sovereign bonds to prevent the crisis from spreading to larger euro nations, and is providing banks with unlimited liquidity for up to six months against eligible collateral as governments struggle to restore investor confidence in the 17-member region.

The Frankfurt-based central bank is likely to ease its liquidity policies further this month as a result of an increase in financial risk, Hatzius and Wilson said. The ECB will also probably cut its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points to 1 percent by December, they said.

“The increase in spillovers from the Euro area, primarily via tighter financial conditions, is the primary reason why we have also downgraded our forecasts for the U.S. further,” the economists said. “We now see the risk of a renewed U.S. recession at around 40 percent.”

Flagging U.S.

The U.S. economy will expand 1.7 percent this year and 1.4 percent in 2012, Goldman Sachs predicts. It had earlier estimated a 2 percent growth rate for the world’s largest economy next year.

The Federal Reserve announced last month that it would replace $400 billion of short-term debt in its portfolio with longer-term Treasuries, a so-called Operation Twist, in an effort to further reduce borrowing costs and strengthen the flagging U.S. economy.

“We expect additional easing of monetary policy beyond the ‘Operation Twist’ announced recently, although this may not come until sometime in the first half of 2012,” Hatzius and Wilson said. “In addition, the market’s focus on changes in the Fed’s guidance on future policies -- including a greater emphasis on the employment part of the ‘dual mandate’ and/or a temporarily higher inflation target -- is likely to intensify.”

Why Occupy Wall Street can't last--You have an employee, you have an employer....

A Tea Party Commentator brings brilliance to the table in his dissection/analysis of Occupy Wall Street movement via Fox...

"I just don't see how it goes anywhere," said Sal Russo, strategist with the Tea Party Express, suggesting the demonstrations have too much of a "Marxist" appeal., "Most Americans understand that to have an employee, you have to have an employer," Russo said.

Anybody have any clue what this means/has to do with anything?  

Occupy Wall Street

Stocks Hammered by EuroCrisis Worries; Bank of America, Citi Down Nearly 10% « naked capitalism:

We have banking systems in the US and the Eurozone that are too large relative to the real economy and are increasingly extractive in their behavior. Until we have a significant change in the role and posture of the major capital markets players, we are unlikely to see a solid recovery.

Understanding the Theory Behind Occupy Wall Street’s Approach

There are no rogue traders, there are only rogue banks

As history teaches us, there are no rogue traders; there are only rogue banks.

Here’s a news flash: If you issue credit, your working assumption must be that there are unqualified people who will try to borrow money from you. It is the job of every lending facility each and every day to separate the qualified borrower who has the capacity to service that debt from the unqualified borrowers who do not. This is why there is no such thing as a predatory borrower — banks must assume that all borrowers are predatory and protect themselves. This is why lenders — at least before 2002 – inquire about income, employment history, credit scores, other debt, etc., before making a mortgage loan.

Similarly, if your business involves the use of leveraged capital for speculation by your employees, then it is your job to know which, if any, of your people are not competent. It’s a simple mathematical fact that some of your traders will take losses; in some cases, enormous but manageable losses. Your job is to identify these people and move them to other professions.

There will be a small number who will try to hide their inabilities. Your job is to separate the qualified from the unqualified, to watch over the full lot of traders and speculators in your employ. Toward that end, you will establish trading limitations, leverage constraints, risk parameters. Traders must stay within the limitations you impose on them: money lines, maximum drawdowns, loss limits.

Thus firms that highly leverage their capital to put it into the hands of a few thousand employee speculators have a crucial job: They must ensure that capital is being precisely and properly managed. They must make sure that risk levels are tolerable, that proper controls are in place, that their IT systems and internal technology can track what is happening, in as near to real time as possible.

This is not easy. It is a complex set of processes that requires constant vigilance. It must be reflected in the corporate culture from the top down. And it becomes more and more complex as the size of the organization grows. The assumption must be that every employee is a potential rogue trader.

Banks are supposed to have expertise in preserving capital and managing risk. If they cannot discharge those simple duties, then perhaps they should not be in the business of finance. Most of all, they should not be engaging in behavior that puts taxpayer money at risk.

The Bankers and the Revolutionaries By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

 I don’t share the antimarket sentiments of many of the protesters. Banks are invaluable institutions that, when functioning properly, move capital to its best use and raise living standards. But it’s also true that soaring leverage not only nurtured soaring bank profits in good years, but also soaring risks for the public in bad years.

In effect, the banks socialized risk and privatized profits. Securitizing mortgages, for example, made many bankers wealthy while ultimately leaving governments indebted and citizens homeless.

We’ve seen that inadequately regulated, too-big-to-fail banks can undermine the public interest rather than serve it — and in the last few years, banks got away with murder. It’s infuriating to see bankers who were rescued by taxpayers now moan about regulations intended to prevent the next bail-out. And it’s important that protesters spotlight rising inequality: does it feel right to anyone that the top 1 percent of Americans now possess a greater collective net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent?

So for those who want to channel their amorphous frustration into practical demands, here are several specific suggestions:

¶Impose a financial transactions tax. This would be a modest tax on financial trades, modeled on the suggestions of James Tobin, an American economist who won a Nobel Prize. The aim is in part to dampen speculative trading that creates dangerous volatility. Europe is moving toward a financial transactions tax, but the Obama administration is resisting — a reflection of its deference to Wall Street.

¶Close the “carried interest” and “founders’ stock” loopholes, which may be the most unconscionable tax breaks in America. They allow our wealthiest citizens to pay very low tax rates by pretending that their labor compensation is a capital gain.

¶Protect big banks from themselves. This means moving ahead with Basel III capital requirements and adopting the Volcker Rule to limit banks’ ability to engage in risky and speculative investments. Another sensible proposal, embraced by President Obama and a number of international experts, is the bank tax. This could be based on an institution’s size and leverage, so that bankers could pay for their cleanups — the finance equivalent of a pollution tax.

Much of the sloganeering at “Occupy Wall Street” is pretty silly — but so is the self-righteous sloganeering of Wall Street itself. And if a ragtag band of youthful protesters can help bring a dose of accountability and equity to our financial system, more power to them.

New York Observer: Exclusive "Occupy Wall Street" Unaired Fox Footage

Mentally ill inmates languish in local jails

AJC:

Detention Officer Terroyanne Harris considers the inmates she oversees on 3 North as much patient as prisoner. They suffer from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress and other mental illnesses. Some walk aimlessly around their cell block. Some are lost in hallucinations.

Most are in the Fulton County jail because they are more of a nuisance than a danger in the free world.

Taken into custody for petty crimes such as trespassing, damaging property or resisting an officer, some end up trapped in a revolving door of arrest and release. Others languish behind bars for years as they wait to be declared competent enough to stand trial.

Fulton County is not an aberration. The same is true in DeKalb, Cobb and Gwinnett counties, as well as some rural counties in the state.

Jails have become the new asylums. In Georgia, more mentally ill people are locked away than are treated in all the state psychiatric hospitals combined.

And it’s costing county taxpayers millions.

Report: Subsidies Fund Junk Food

GPB:

A new report says federal subsidies pay farmers to grow crops used in junk food that’s linked to high child obesity rates. The U.S. spent $6 billion on these subsidies last year.

Jessica Wilson is with the Georgia Public Interest Research Group. She says through the report, the organization is urging Congress to cut corn syrup, corn starch and soy oil subsidies when it reauthorizes the farm bill next year.

“The fact that we’re spending this much money subsidizing junk food demonstrates the need to reform our subsidies program and cut the wasteful spending,” she said.

Georgia received $142 million in farm subsidies last year, according to the Environmental Working Group. Only a small part goes to crops that produce items targeted in the report. The state’s cotton and peanut industries received the lion’s share of the subsidies. 

Farmers say they need some of the other subsidies because they cover crop loss, damage from natural disasters and other emergencies.

More stimulus now, Operation Twist, and political breakdown of economic policy making...

Nobel prize economist Peter Diamond interview with WSJ’s Kelly Evans about his support of “Operation Twist,” his withdrawl from nomination to the Fed Board, and why more fiscal stimulus is need to fix the U.S. jobs problem.

Two interviews on Yahoo Finance and the Wall Street Journal about a new recession

It's Going to Get Worse | Credit Writedowns

Wall Street Protesters Speak

 

Here is an OccupyAtlanta website and a Facebook Group.

There is an organizational meeting today at Hurt Park in Atlanta.

General Assembly Atlanta - Sunday 10/2 @ Hurt Park 5pm.

Use #OccupyAtlanta hashtag to spread the word, and #GeneralAssemblyATL as back channel for thought and discussion before, during, and after assembly.

 

Social Security/Ponzi Scheme Venn diagram

Memo to GOP: Shifting the tax burden 20 years down the line is not a commitment to low taxes

‎As the economist Tyler Cowen succinctly notes in his op-ed Antitax Ideas Could Have Unintended Results, "Promising never to raise taxes, without reaching a deal on spending, really means a high and rising commitment to future taxes." 

Every GOP candidate is promising no new taxes for my parents generation via a direct commitment to high taxes on the next generation. Shifting your tax burden to the future is the very definition of not taking personal responsibility--everyone under the age of 40 needs to ask "why should I pay your tax bill in 20 years?"

The worlds a complex place, and the GOP doesn't have any presidential candidates willing to fess up to the base of their party.

Russell Simmons: All My Employees Paid Less Taxes Than I Did

Organizing an Occupy Wall Street solidarity rally --Atlanta

I want to start working on organizing a solidarity rally with #occupyWallStreet outside the Atlanta Federal Reserve.  Using these three concrete demands to hold Wall Street accountable that Mike Konczal of RortyBomb came up with... 

 1. Cancel the debts. The crisis we face is fundamentally about a giant pool of bad mortgage debt. We need to work through these debts for recovery to really take off. The only question is who will absorb them—the creditors who made the loans or the people on the other side. In this case, there is no way to share these losses, and the government has stood behind the owners of many of these debts as being "Too Big to Fail."

Anthropologist David Graeber cites historian Moses Finley, who identified “the perennial revolutionary programme of antiquity, cancel debts and redistribute the land.” This remains the case. The modern inventions for dealing with failed debts, bankruptcy and inflation, both have failed. The bankruptcy code has a flaw preventing mortgage workouts and inflation is so low that markets are worried that the level of debts could increase with time.

The recession is far worse in areas of the country with the most bad debts and foreclosures, and debt relief can take the edge off. By making banks write down bad loans and work out failed mortgages we’ll have an system where the fraud that originated on Wall Street isn't borne entirely on the real economy.

2. Investigate Wall Street. In the buildup to the crisis, bad loans that could never be paid back were passed out to unsuspecting homeowners. These loans were then passed along a chain until they got to investors who thought the loans were made with the utmost diligence. When the entire house of cards collapsed, homeowners were left with bad loans, investors looked to cover their investments, and a mind-boggling 5 million people were foreclosed on. Loans were made so fast that proper records weren’t kept, which means it’s difficult to hold creditors and debtors accountable.

Now that the housing sector has collapsed, banks are cutting corners and using fake documentation to foreclose on properties that they don't have proper access to. In this mess of a system, homeowners who haven't missed a payment are being dragged down, through faulty paperwork. Several state attorneys general, including ones from New York and Nevada, have taken the lead in demanding an investigation, much to the chagrin of the Obama administration and financial elites. By supporting them, we’ll help build a country where there isn’t a two-tier system of justice.

3. Create a Financial Transaction Tax. It is hard to think of something with such a boring name as a particularly radical solution, but an FTT would be an important first step toward remaking our economy so it is not so dependent on the financial sector.

Thanks to a wave of deregulation laws in the late 1970s and early 1980s, finance has been one of the fastest-growing sectors over the past 30 years. It’s become so important, in fact, that some argue the economy should be run in accordance with the ideas and goals of the financial sector. This way of viewing our economy is less about long-term value than short-term price manipulation, less about investing in communities and peoples than about gaming tax codes and regulation and less about markets as a means of expression and more about consolidated, cornered market power. A financial transaction tax would help fight back against this and begin to steer our economy toward more sustainable and workable ends.

There are endless problems that plague America, but if the battle is brought to Wall Street, the demands should address the financial sector directly. Creating a post-recession economy that is more egalitarian is going to be a battle for generations. But there are straightforward steps that can put us well on our way.

If you want to get involved you can find me on twitter @JimNichols or email me at Jim.Nichols@gmail.com.  

Al-`Awlaqi Should have been Tried in Absentia--your silence speaks volumes...

Highly concerned with the silence within Democratic circles about the assassination of a US citizen by Obama without due process. It was an illegal action.  To my Democratic Party friends I have to ask--Do you really think it would be a good idea to give a President Michele Bachmann or a President Rick Perry the authority to kill American citizens at will and with no due process?

Juan Cole has an excellent run down of the issue.

Obama has been a third term of Bush in many ways.  There is a good case to make that on the issue of "war on terror"/civil liberties questions he has been worse.