"Words that make actions speak louder."
Voters are in a surly temper. The economy stinks. Jobs are scarce. Wages are under pressure. One in 4 homes with mortgages is underwater. Retirement savings have been butchered; pensions are at risk. Bailed out bankers are paying themselves record bonuses; the oil keeps fouling the Gulf; the jobs aren’t coming back. It is ugly […]
The Washington Post’s Neil Irwin today offers a good summary of foreboding reality: in the halting economic recovery, the global ec
President Obama touted his National Export Initiative this week, boasting that in the first quarter of this year, exports were up 17% from a year ago. Increased exports abroad generate jobs at home. Given the failure of the Senate to pass badly needed jobs bills, the collapse of consumer confidence, plunging home sales, declining factory […]
Obama went to town meeting in Racine. Full transcript here: http://www.wrex.com/Global/story.asp?S=12735210 He finally did contrast with conservative ideas that failed. On economy, on jobs, on Wall Street, on energy. Gloves not off, but at least mixing it up. Striking, however, that he didn’t use the riff to turn back to jobs and the need for […]
Republican House leader John Boehner laid out the Republcan world view in an interview with a friendly reporter at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Boehner defended the big banks from reform, arguing that the finanical reform bill was like “killing an ant with a nuclear weapon.” His comments came as Republican Senators Scott Brown and Susan […]
Americans have grown fearful. Most believe, not surprisingly, that the country is headed in the wrong direction. For the first time ever, most Americans believe their children may not fare as well as they have. We spend nearly as much as the rest of the world combined on our military, chasing phantoms across the world. […]
When progressive activists gather next week at the annual America’s Future Now conference, frustration and dismay will be widespread. Action on jobs is stalled among mixed signals from the White House. A Democratic Congress pours billions into the war in Afghanistan even as legislation to forestall the unimaginable layoff of 300,000 teachers is derailed in […]
Congress is about to pass an additional $32 billion to pay for the war In Afghanistan. It will have overwhelming bipartisan support, with legislators eager to display their fealty to the troops in an election year. At the same time, the Congress is struggling with a $23 billion bill to forestall the layoff of nearly […]
Ben Bernanke Thinks We Are Idiots Or that we have the attention span of a tadpole. Or he mistakenly read a speech written in 2006 when Alan Greenspan was still the Maestro. In a speech in Tokyo yesterday, Federal Reserve Chair Bernanke warned that central banks must be independent from political interference in their handling […]
What was the message of Tuesday’s elections? Clearly the base voters of both parties are unhappy and looking for change. Incumbents are at risk. Politics as usual is unappealing. Conservatives in both parties are spinning this as a protest vote about deficits and spending. But voters are angry not because of abstract deficits. They are […]