Robert Reich on Our Stalled Budget Talks and the State of the US Economy
MSNBC's Thomas Roberts, filling for Ed Schultz after his suspension, talked to former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich about the stalled talks on raising our debt ceiling and how the paralysis in Washington, D.C., is allowing the bigger problem to be ignored -- namely, the fact that our politicians have done little to nothing to address the situation with unemployment in the U.S.
I for one am sick of the hostage-taking by the GOP on this issue and their complete irresponsibility on taking Medicare and Medicaid hostage and demanding that either the poor and the elderly get hit as part of their deal, or they crash the world's economy. As Reich noted, there are very large problems our politicians are refusing to deal with in regards to our economy that they're completely ignoring due to ideological issues and making this ridiculous argument a centerpiece when they should be focusing on getting Americans back to work instead.
Reich has much more in his columns at his blog in a couple of his latest posts, some of which he discussed with Roberts here.
How to Get Washington’s Attention:
Finally, it seems, the economic burdens of America’s vast middle class may be catching up with the Street. The Dow lost 2.22 percent today; the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 2.28 percent. Both marked their worst declines since August 11, 2010. The Nasdaq composite index fell 2.33 percent.
We’re coming full circle: The stock market is dropping because corporate earnings are slowing. Corporate earnings are slowing because consumers are pulling back. Consumers are pulling back because they don’t have enough jobs or adequate wages.
The immediate cause of the sell-off was an announcement by ADP Employer Services, a payroll processing firm that estimates employment, that private employers added only 38,000 jobs in May. The economy needs 125,000 new jobs a month just to tread water, given that at least 125,000 people join the potential labor force every month. Simply put, if new hires are in the range of five digits, American consumers will not have enough purchasing power to buy what the private sector can produce. Read on...
The Truth About the American Economy (II):
The Stalled Recovery
The U.S. economy was supposed to be in bloom by late spring but it’s hardly growing at all. Expectations for second quarter growth aren’t much better than the measly 1.8 percent annualized rate of the first quarter.
That’s not nearly fast enough to reduce our ferociously-high level of unemployment. The Labor Department will tell us Friday whether the jobs situation improved in May, but there’s been no sign of a surge in hiring. Nor in wages. Average hourly earnings of production and non-supervisory employees – who make up 80 percent of non-government workers – are lower than they were in the depths of the recession, adjusted for inflation.
Meanwhile, housing prices continue to fall. They’re now 33 percent below their 2006 peak. That’s a bigger drop than recorded in the Great Depression. Homes are the largest single asset of the American middle class, so as housing prices drop many Americans feel poorer. All of this is contributing to a general gloominess. Not surprisingly, consumer confidence is also down.
The recovery has stalled. It’s unlikely America will find itself back in recession but the possibility of a double dip can’t be dismissed.
The Problem of Demand
The problem isn’t on the supply side of the ledger. Corporate profits are still healthy. Big companies continue to sit on a cash hoard. Large and middle-sized companies can easily borrow more, at low rates.
The problem is on the demand side. American consumers, who constitute 70 percent of the total economy, can’t and won’t buy enough to get it moving. They justifiably worry they won’t be able to pay their bills or afford to send their children to college or to retire. Banks, with equal justification, are reluctant to lend to them. But as long as consumers hold back, companies remain reluctant to hire new workers or raise the wages of current ones, feeding the vicious cycle.
The timing is unfortunate. Foreign consumers won’t help much even if the dollar continues to slide. Europe’s debt crisis and embrace of austerity, Japan’s tragedy, and China’s fiscal tightening have reduced global demand. At the same time, the federal stimulus here has about run its course. The Federal Reserve is about to end its $600 billion of purchases of Treasury bills, designed to bring down long-term interest rates and make it easier for homeowners to refinance. Worse yet, state governments – starved for revenue and constitutionally barred from running deficits – continue to cut programs. Local governments are now in worse shape, laying off platoons of teachers and fire fighters. Read on...
.. there has not been any real signs of sustained recovery, only projections? Time to revise the terminology - it's a depression.
If you consider we add government spending and banking services to GDP, instead of subtracting them, we've been in bad shape for a long time.
there would be bread lines.
This Depression is well hidden. End food stamps, section 8 housing, and unemployment benefits and you would see massive homelessness.
By trying to privatize public property people would be forced out as trespassers.
First they ignore us..then they ridicule us..now they are feeding us chicken crap- sign my petition:
http://www.change.org/petitions/fda-stop-feed...
www.ickenittlepost.com
Just the way the cheap labor republicans want it. Everything is going exactly according to the creepy republicani plan. They think about nothing except making Obama a one term President. The blog posted earlier by Jon Perr alone, is confirmation that no person or group of people can be so stupid as the republicans would have us believe they are. They are simply not capable of such poor judgment and still be operating in good faith for the country. Republican stupidity is the kind of stupidity that can only be explained by malicious intent.
Thank God Harry Reid is finally getting his voice.
From Pawlenty to Romney, they are so stupid it simply has to be malicious intent.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
When the Republicans say that any anti-deficit proposal with tax increases is dead on arrival, the proper Democratic response is to say that any such proposal WITHOUT tax increases on Wall Street and the top 1% of earners is dead on arrival - and when Republicans are willing to discuss tax increases, the Democrats are willing to discuss spending cuts... but not before.
This was always the problem with the Obama "strategy" of making repeated concessions in the hope that the Republicans would join in. Now, the Republicans are conditioned to believe that the more unreasonable they are starting out, the better a deal they'll get.
The republicani ratchet up but they don't ratchet down. The Democrats have been negotiating with hostage takers and that won't work.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Republicans should just be ashamed of themselves. Perhaps they need more town halls with people who are suffering from their complete and utter lack of interest in democracy.
People are getting TIRED of these nasty fools: they have sought nothing but power for so long, and once they had it what did they do with it?
They started two unwinnable wars. They created a housing bubble that, once it burst, almost brought the entire world economy to the ground. They spent a lot of time and a lot more hot air worrying about gay sex, abortions and establishing religion IN our government.
We through them out in 2008. Time to do it AGAIN.
MyMy
The corporate and Wall Street owned Republicans in Congress will raise the debt ceiling because their owners will tell them to do so.
So these right wingers run up trillions of dollars of debt under Bush and now blame their debt on President Obama. They voted to raise the debt ceiling no strings attached several times under Bush, but now insist on ridiculous, crippling preconditions while holding the economy hostage as a means to get their way.
I am beyond sick of this routine.
The Dems should call their bluff. Refuse to negotiate on anything, period. In a matter of days the country will witness the Republican's rich buddies on Wall Street soiling themselves in mass. Given that dynamic I guarantee you the Republicans will suddenly find themselves very much in the mood to raise the debt ceiling.
"Reaganomics"/"The Laffer Curve" has REPEATEDLY BEEN PROVEN to be a myth and an absolute joke ; it is time to cease and desist with this so-called "arguing" , when one side presents a farcical and worthless plan that merely further rewards the wealthy and is about as valuable as used toilet paper ..............................
This is an interesting idea - that the debt ceiling fight serves as a distraction from the total failure of the Republican Party to focus on jobs.
I don't think that is the intention of it. I think the intention is to solidify the Republican marriage to the Tea Party. The debt ceiling could not have ticked off the Tea Party more if it had been designed to do so, and by opposing it, Republicans align themselves more firmly with the Tea Party. Then (hopefully?) the Tea Party will stay tame.
This is going to backfire on them the moment they vote to raise the debt ceiling, and I anticipate a lot of very careful vote-assignments, so that the more vulnerable House members, the ones who need the Tea Party support the most, can vote against the measure while still ensuring that the ceiling gets raised. But the idea that there is extra dust being thrown up to better obfuscate the dismal Republican record on job creation measures is one that had not occurred to me, and I think there is merit in it. Making sure that the public eye is somewhere other than on the jobs is definitely good policy when you promised to start creating jobs and then didn't do that at all.
Holy Cow!
http://waronignorance.net/index.html
beeryblog
Fighting a War on Ignorance
Just what the fuck have these idiot assholes like Ryan and Cantor missed about the history of the past 100 fucking years? Trickle down supply side bullshit is just that, bullshit. Keynesian pragmatism has a proven track record of working. Why aren't these fucking idiots driven from the public service like the diseased curs that they are?
that real math stuff is hard.
...fornicating idiots still manage to get elected?
Where are the JOBS? What is Washington waiting for? Total economic collapse?
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
I have no problem with the Republicans for doing what they are doing. I have a big problem with the President and the leadership of the congress for letting them do it. They have let themselves be taken hostage. By this time they are deep into the Stockholm Syndrome. The moment the President accepted the concept of "cut", whether he meant "cut taxes" or "cut entitlements" he lost the game. From that point on it was just a matter of negotiation of how far the cuts will go.
This is the alternative: NO CUTS. NO TAX CUTS. NO MEDICARE CUTS. If they send up a bill with cuts in it, the bill will be vetoed. We will not give one inch. If you want to wreck the country, then wreck it. We will hang it around your neck.
You are negotiating with fundamentalist terrorists. They do not understand the concept of compromise and negotiation; they only see weakness and every adjustment in their direction is an opportunity for them to pull in the slack, like reeling in a fish. And pretty soon you are in the frying pan.
Why is this argument taking place in the dark depths of a comment thread on a partisan website? Why isn't it being made on the floor of the congress and in the White House press room? That's the real problem.
Treating the Republican arguments as if they had any credibility has proven to be Obama's biggest mistake. The second is thinking he could negotiate at all with these lying sacks of shit and that they wouldn't constantly change their position in order to drag us ever further to the right. I don't blame people for feeling frustrated-- Obama won by one of the largest majorities in over twenty years, it wasn't any secret what we expected from him, but he seems determined to cast his lot with the losing side.
Both parties are pissing around keeping the American citizens distracted while the nation's wealth has been stolen and the middle class destroyed by the Bankster elite. The jobs they are lining you up for are at par with Chinese workers, say $5,000/year. Since most will have lost their homes the state will provide concentrated housing for workers including, GMO soya diet and clothing made from southern cotton you picked. As oil becomes costlier more human power will be used. Hey, cheap like borscht.
The US economy is not free market driven but rather a command economy like the USSR had before it collapsed. The Soviet experience came on quickly and so it will in the fascist USA.
Time to adopt a recent war vet to provide your family with protection as hunger will be the first wave of terror. And remember who sold you down the river, politicians of both parties and the banksters who well protected by the Pentegon.
Currently, the gamblers on Wall Street and in the nation's corporate offices, and oil companies getting their last hostage payoffs before hydrogen and hybrids, are the only ones profiting in the recession. Their situation is precisely analogous to casino card-counters who have the memory/algorithms to win, and the bucks to keep playing. Henry Ford, anti-Semite though he may have been, had the formula for American prosperity: pay workers enough to afford his products. Each employed family purchased one of his vehicles, and had enough left over to purchase from other businesses and pay them enough to afford an A or T model.
I'm no Trump fan, but his casinos, and the rest as well, eject card-counters. I'd never thought I'd see the day when I'd be anti-profit, but we're being gamed by world-class bullies, and we will have to use any weapons to fight back. Stiffen regulations and enforce fraud laws until corporate America has to profit from American labor to survive.
Forget changing the laws for Wall St. That will NEVER happen. They own the government. People need to rise up and start building guillotines and gallows and set them up on Wall Street.
Just call it the Foxconn Fox-con job market.
the only things they believe is smaller government, lower taxes, no minimum wages and no regulations. None of these will result in job growth either in the short or long run. The have proposed nothing because they have nothing.
for the simple fact that they want everything to stay bad-as bad as it could possibly get,
It's their only hope. Destroy America in order to save it.
Talk about stockholm syndrome.
First they ignore us..then they ridicule us..now they are feeding us chicken crap- sign my petition:
http://www.change.org/petitions/fda-stop-feed...
www.ickenittlepost.com
You got it . The condition this country is in is no accident , I mean check it out , it was a win / win for the banksters and the big boys on wall Street , they ballooned the deficit creating the excuse they needed to go after SS , medicare and medicaid . There is no doubt in my mind that it's been a plot from the beginning , a conspiracy more or less . These people are traitors and saboteurs , they are fascists .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
And no social safety net .They want a fascist state and they've damn near got their wish . To them greed is a virtue , the only one they know . They are madmen .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
It continues to be quite a show the Corporations put on for us. The country is now almost entirely owned and operated by the large to big to fail corporations and banks. They never disappoint with the help of their think tanks (eg. americans for prosperity...... should be really called- Tricking Americans Into Helping Robber Barons Increase Their Prosperity By Destroying The Middle Class). Endgame from their perspective is a permanent pool of cheap labor willing to work for any wage. We are owned by corporations who use politicians as their front men. They wear their democrats on their left hand and their republicans on their right hand and allow us to choose our favorite team. They then play the time honored game of divide and conquer. They tear us apart with wedge issues (eg. race, gun control, abortion) and other distractions they own (mainstream media) all hiding the truth and selling us easily proven lies (the wealthy are the job creators...... only if you count sweatshops and call centers in India). Both the democrat and republican administrations opened those flood gates with all the global free trade agreements that are really just laws designed to allow large corporations to outsource our jobs. They are removing our manufacturing base and taking the value out of our country. Their greed has created natural disasters .... eg. oil spill gulf and future disasters..... eg. fracking for natural gas polluting water with cancer causing chemicals. We have to understand their intention and stand together to rebuild when they have released us from their game. They know that divided we fall easier since there are fewer robber barons and we are to numerous to defeat if we stand together against their agenda. DO NOT let them take away, change or defund social security or medicare. These programs work wonderfully and are only experiencing a future shortage due the recent practice of the government borrowing some of our money and never paying it back. They know that if we stand together we will win. We all just want clean and safe food and water for our families and affordable housing and jobs that allow us to enjoy life fairly.
Beware of Fox Fed Citizen Soldiers
Seems that the Republicans have created for themselves a run away train that they can't stop or get off of , their ideology , it's a proven a disaster , but none dare say so , none dare question or stray from it , if they do they will be jumped on , shredded and disowned by their pals . Robert Reich's blog is really good , informative . http://robertreich.org/
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
......for posting my comment. I tried to post my previous and only comment ever on a blog..... on Yahoo four times with no luck. The thread I was trying to put my comment on contained comments multiple times longer, angry both right and left. They accepted my first comment (a favorite comment I had saved from some other past thread (actually from crooks and liars) I cut and pasted it in. My first time attempting to comment anywhere on the internet tubes. Accepted in minutes. I think to myself "Huh, that was easy... I should write my own comment." No luck. Submitted last night 4 times. In the morning off to work for 8 hours. After work I tried huff. post. (thought "hate to preach to the choir but, here goes") No luck. Multiple times. Then I tried splitting my comment in two parts and adding intros with references and direct quotes from article thread comments were on (always staying on relevant threads, so as to not appear off topic). They finally would accept only my last seven sentences when I added an intro sentence (Obama not keeping corporate greed in check has led to natural disasters). What a journey.........whewwww and it was not even what I was meaning to say (3) replies to my comment thought I was hating on Obama. OMG. When I tried Crooks And Liars....... you posted my comment in full, unedited and pretty quick. Thanks again, for not being the thought police and allowing my opinion to be heard.
Beware of Fox Fed Citizen Soldiers
Republicans don't care about the economy; the worse it gets, the better their chances of big wins in 2012. Their corporate masters play the long game and have demonstrated they can weather a recession just fine so there's no pressure from the money. The rest of us may become paupers but at least the Republicans will be in charge!
He is a hero of mine.He has scrupulously avoided working in the so-called private sector. He is a Keynesian's Keynesian.
having killed the American Dream years ago, and with the collapse of the US middle and working class at hand, I hope they like what they wrought when they figure out that they slayed the golden goose.
about. I believe the GOP is deliberately stymieing economic recovery, or they're just plain stupid. They keep insisting that giving rich people more money will create jobs, which is a falsehood and totally backwards. Demand will create jobs. Money in the pockets of the middle/working class will create demand. Jobs will not be created in anticipation of demand that may never come. Doesn't make sense.
Am I ever glad I live in Canada. We came through the meltdown OK because we have pretty good banking regulations.
The problem is, when you guys fart, the stink wafts north...
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine"
But, but, but...this is the NEW economy! We're supposed to be living off our investment income!
Saint Ronnie told us so!
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
Methinks your tagline is a tad optimistic and assumes too much...like a photo of a vacuum...
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine"
"there are very large problems our politicians are refusing to deal with in regards to our economy that they're completely ignoring due to ideological issues"
this is the question isn't it? whether or not the government has any business exerting any control over the economy in the first place? whether or not the citizenry has the right, collectively, to dictate what can and can't be done by business on american soil, and what rights the people have to make a living.
this is a struggle between socialism and capitalism and to ignore that fact, to try to soft peddle the truth, all it does is empower the opposition. the argument must be framed for exactly what it is, otherwise the result will be a more thorough domination of the entire planet by multi-national conscience free corporations.
this is why the right has pitched their lines where they have, they know what is at stake, or at least have been fooled by corporate to think they know what is at stake. does the supposed left have as good of an idea? will anyone one of the donkey's minions be willing to take up the standard? or are they going to continue to give it the old soft-shoe?
how is the donkey's song and dance routine working out on this debt ceiling thing? what is the asses reply to the fact, the fact mind you, that the government does not create jobs except by taking money from the private sector? why did we allow the carco's to buy back their stock? why didn't GM turn into government motors? i submit it is because the asses are not socialists, and that until they quit being the handmaidens of wall street nothing will really change. if you have a brain you can only fool yourself for so long. so, keep begging those scraps from masters table, keep kow-towing to the apparatchiks of empire, see where it gets us in the long run, for myself, i have a pretty good idea, and it will be third world wages, a race to the bottom, more unemployment, just like perot said.
see that's the bitch of it, our "trade policy", or lack thereof, doesn't even make sense from a cutthroat capitalist perspective, except for them raking in the profits which we are then, belatedly, trying to tax away from them. this is really disgusting, cart before the horse, front-loading is generally better than back-loading, i guess they don't teach that at harvard.
from Washingtons Blog
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/06/yastro...
First they ignore us..then they ridicule us..now they are feeding us chicken crap- sign my petition:
http://www.change.org/petitions/fda-stop-feed...
www.ickenittlepost.com
Reich's appearances lately remind me of the Clinton Era and how we should have Reich back in there instead of the Goldman-Sachs bunch. He offered several ideas for getting us through this rough patch in our fiscal history, including FDR-era workforce employment, which we could pay for by taxing the super-rich. Reich is one of the most progressive economists in the country. It is a pity that many buy the right wing talking point and use Luntz type thinking to relabel "progressive" as "socialist." They play to an electorate's unfounded fears. They prejudice the debate before it is started.
Funny Reich, who teaches at U-Cal-Berkley, did not mention a plan I have advocated for a decade at least: base the gasoline tax on axle weight and/or the miles-per-gallon rating of the vehicle. There is no excuse to be driving a pickup truck in a city unless you can prove a business purpose, just as there is no excuse to own an SUV unless you're carpooling or transporting a lot of children. Truck and SUV owners are pigs because they lap up a disproportionate share of the petro and pay no more tax on the fuel than someone driving a Honda Civic. Why are people afraid of this type of taxation? It's only fair. Driving pickups and SUV'S is prolonging dependence on foreign oil.
"Respect for the rights of others is peace." --Benito Juarez
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