From this Monday's Democracy Now, economist Richard Wolff is asked about Bill O'Reilly's remarks last week where he told his audience on Fox that Cyprus and other European countries are facing economic hardships because they’re so-called "nanny states." Wolff responded with a lesson in economics 101 for Bill-O:

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Wolff, before we end, I want to turn back to the crisis in Cyprus and relate it to what’s happening here. Bill O’Reilly of Fox News warned his audience last week that Cyprus and other European countries are facing economic hardships because they’re so-called "nanny states."

BILL O’REILLY: Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, now Cyprus, all broke. And other European nations are close. Why? Because they’re nanny states, and there are not enough workers to support all the entitlements these progressive paradises are handing out.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. Richard?

RICHARD WOLFF: You know, he gets away with saying things which no undergraduate in the United States with a responsible economic professor could ever get away with. If you want to refer to things as nanny states, then the place you go in Europe is not the southern tier—Portugal, Spain and Italy; the place you go are Germany and Scandinavia, because they provide more social services to their people than anybody else. And guess what: Not only are they not in trouble economically, they are the winners of the current situation. The unemployment rate in Germany is now below 5 percent. Ours is pushing between 7 and 8 percent. So, please, get your facts right, Mr. O’Reilly.

The nanny state, you call it, the program of countries like Germany and Scandinavia, who tax their people heavily, by all means, but who provide them with social services that would be the envy of the United States—a national health program that takes care of you, whether you’re employed or not, and gives you proper healthcare. In France, for example, the law says when you go to work, you get five weeks’ paid vacation. That’s not an option; that’s the law. You get support when you’re a new parent for your child care and so forth. They provide services. And they are successful in Germany and Scandinavia, much more than we are in the United States and much more than those countries in the south.

So they’re not broken, the south, because they’re nanny states, since the nanny states, par excellence, are doing better than everyone. The actual truth of Mr. O’Reilly is the opposite of what he says. The more you do nanny state, the better off you are during a crisis and to minimize the cost of the crisis. That’s what the European economic situation actually teaches. He’s just making it up as he goes along to conform to an ideological position that is harder and harder for folks like him to sustain, so he has to reach further and further into fantasy.

h/t Raw Story

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The Krugman-bashing on Morning Joe continued unabated Wednesday, following Joe Scarborough and Paul Krugman's debate the other night on Charlie Rose's show. It seems the right has been looking for countries to prop up to prove that their calls for more austerity measures in the United States are not going to harm the economy and they've found at least one in the tiny Baltic nation of Estonia.

Scarborough started things off in the clip above by writing off our current economic circumstances as just another "period of deleveraging" where the United States needs to get its fiscal house in order with absolutely no reference to the fact that we should not be taking a series of booms and busts as the norm, or the part that deregulation and the dismantling all of the protections that were put in place following the Great Depression to attempt to prevent these types of cycles from happening again have played.

After Scarborough pointed out the fact that Americans and particularly young people are not longer racking up debt, but are also not spending and pumping money into the economy, his guest and CNBC regular Miles Nadal then moved onto the Krugman bashing:

NADAL: So when you say, are you positive on the economy, I'm positive in a cautious kind of way, but as Joe articulated on The Charlie Rose Show, which I thought was really a terrific debate, there are things on the horizon that are very scary. And I thought Paul Krugman's perspective was kind of, a little frightening in the sense that he didn't see any possibility of any Black Swan on anything that's happening and if you talk to any informed business person, that's not possible that you could completely eliminate the probability that nothing, including this multi-trillion dollar deficit would have no impact.

And as we articulated in the green room, nobody could run a company or a home the way the government is running things.

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Former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says that President Barack Obama's policies are allowing a "worldwide virus" of terrorism from places like North Africa and Syria to destabilize the planet and "potentially" infect Europe and the United States.

Gingrich on Sunday told CNN's Candy Crowley that a recent hostage crisis at a gas plant in Algeria was evidence that terrorism was more like a virus than "Whac-A-Mole."

"I think we haven't had any honest epidemiology," he explained. "We're trying to hunt down 5,000 people in al Qaeda, there is a potential pool of 65 to 100 million recruits... They're spreading across the whole planet, from the Philippines to, frankly, the United States. And I think we greatly underestimate how many places you're going to have trouble in the next decade."

"We talk about the Iranian potential nuclear weapon, Pakistan is probably building more nuclear weapons than any other country in the world right now," he continued. "Pakistan is a very fragile system which could disintegrate at any time. We're not prepared for that. The whole challenge of the Persian Gulf, we're not prepared for that. The level of violence in Syria."

The former House Speaker argued that Obama was advocating a "minimalist approach to the world" by nominating Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) to be secretary of state and secretary of defense.

"Neither of them nor the president have a positive vision of how you're going to deal with a worldwide virus that is increasingly destabilizing the planet," he opined.

"And that's what's happening from Pakistan through North Africa to Syria, and I think potentially in Europe and the United States."

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From this Saturday's Up With Chris Hayes, his Story of the Week is a good reminder for anyone who is not thrilled with a lot of the ugliness of our democratic process, or frustrated with dealing with the United Nations -- it sure beats the alternative.

Hayes: The beauty of process:

ABC's Martha Raddatz did, I thought, on the whole, a pretty good job moderating Thursday night's vice presidential debate, particularly when asking questions on her area of expertise, foreign policy. But her final question of the night, about the negativity and sordidness of electoral politics, really bothered me.

Here's what she asked:

I recently spoke to a highly decorated soldier who said that this presidential campaign has left him dismayed. He told me, quote, "the ads are so negative and they are all tearing down each other rather than building up the country." What would you say to that American hero about this campaign? And at the end of the day, are you ever embarrassed by the tone?

That soldier, of course, isn't alone: Lots of Americans feel the same way. I've heard the same thing from random voters I've interviewed in every campaign I've covered. And it's a recurring theme among the political press paid to cover politics to bemoan the nastiness and negativity of the thrust and parry of electoral politics. But it's an impulse we should collectively resist, because it contains the kernel of an insidious view of the value of democracy and diplomacy and bureaucracy and the manifold ways that we as human beings channel and resolve conflict in a non-violent fashion.

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After taking a shot at Harry Reid last week for going after Mitt Romney for tax avoidance and refusing to release his tax returns, it appears The Daily Show's Jon Stewart may be having a change of heart over whether that criticism was deserved. He went after Mittens tonight for having his business practices being too shady for Italy.

Here's more on that from Bloomberg: Romney Persona Non Grata in Italy for Bain’s Deal Skirting Taxes:

Mitt Romney skipped Italy on his swing through Europe. That was probably prudent.

That’s because Bain Capital, under Romney as chief executive officer, made about $1 billion in a leveraged buyout 12 years ago that remains controversial in Italy to this day. Bain was part of a group that bought a telephone-directory company from the Italian government and then sold it about two years later, at the peak of the technology bubble, for about 25 times what it paid.

Bain funneled profits through subsidiaries in Luxembourg, a common corporate strategy for avoiding income taxes in other European countries, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. The buyer, Italy’s biggest telephone company, now has a total market value less than what it paid Bain and other investors for the directory business.

In Italy, the deals have spurred at least three books, separate legal and regulatory probes and newspaper columns alleging investors made a fortune at the expense of Italian taxpayers. Boston-based Bain wasn’t a subject of the inquiries, which didn’t result in any charges.

The sale of the government’s directory business is “a dark chapter in the country’s privatization history, one that has hurt Italians deeply,” said Bernardo Bortolotti, an economics professor at Turin University who advised the Italian Treasury on asset sales from 2002 through 2005. “It was a mistake from the start, damaged by a lack of transparency and the use of offshore funds.”

Personally Involved

While few ordinary Italians realize the link between Romney and the investor group, the deal symbolizes Italy’s economic woes and government futility as the nation struggles to convince investors that it can repay Europe’s second-largest debt without a bailout. The economy is in its fourth recession since 2001 and unemployment is at a 13-year high.

Romney himself probably earned more than $50 million, and possibly as much as $60 million from the Italian directory sale of Seat Pagine Gialle SpA, according to a person familiar with the matter. The deal turned into one of the biggest windfalls of his tenure.

“With this investment, Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, with its consortium partners, partnered with a new management team to transform this company, and grow it into a tremendous success,” said Michele Davis, a spokeswoman for Romney’s presidential campaign. “Mitt Romney is running for President to put that experience to work.” Read on...

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This is the kind of fact free claptrap that passes for political commentary on Fox every day of the week. From this Thursday's Your World with Neil Cavuto, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal joined Cavuto's show to critique President Obama's speech in Cleveland, Ohio this Thursday.

Naturally we had Jindal running through the list of typical Republican talking points about all the evils of "big gubmint" and how we're going to end up like those evil Socialists over in Europe and the public sector just needs to "get out of the way" and allow the private sector to unleash all of that awesome job creating they're going to do if they were just free from those over burdensome regulations and taxes they're having to pay.

Never mind that they had eight years under Bush which proved those theories aren't true. And now of course you're not supposed to be allowed to talk about that, because we can't have anyone daring to ask the voters to do something like remember their recent history over the last decade. That would just be terribly irresponsible.

Note to Bobby Jindal: until Republicans take some different economic stances than they have under Bush, or most of their candidates and leaders for the last half century or so, it's going to be fair game to run against those policies. It's only too late if your party has actually changed those policies, or stances, which they have not.

Here's how Fox's blog, Fox News Insider, characterized the interview: Bobby Jindal: It Sounds Like President Obama Is Trying to Run Against President Bush; He’s 8 Years Too Late:

Jindal described Obama’s remarks as “disappointing,” because he talked about the need for even more government spending in America. “What it shows is President Obama continues to believe that government is the source of our prosperity; he couldn’t be more wrong,” he added.

He pointed out the one thing he thought the president said that was right was when he said that this election is only about two clear choices. “We can either go the European way or the American way. We can either grow the government or grow the private sector.”

“He literally can’t ask people ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’” Jindal said. “So, instead of talking about his record, instead he has to attack Governor Romney and instead he has to try and distract us with his class warfare.”

Cavuto couldn't be bothered to point out that these days, the "European way" means a whole lot of painful austerity measures; the same kind which are being pushed by his party and their presidential candidate Mitt Romney. And in case anyone hasn't noticed, that's not working out so well over there right now.

Jindal also seems to think that government spending and private sector spending are mutually exclusive, as though the government spending when the economy is otherwise stagnant doesn't help the private sector as well, or at least he pretended to here. I've already noted here at C&L, Jindal was more than happy to take credit for that government stimulus spending back in 2009, but wasn't willing to admit President Obama's policies were responsible for his state's recovery back then either. I guess we can at least give him an "A" for being consistent about sticking to his same lies a few years later.

Jindal was still being touted as a potential presidential contender himself until he gave his zombie-like performance after President Obama's State of the Union back in 2009. It seems he's brushed up his act on television a bit since then, but he's no less dishonest. And now he's supposedly on the short list for a spot as the vice presidential candidate on a Romney ticket.

Given Mittens' propensity to lie non-stop every time his mouth is opened, I'd say Jindal would fit right in.

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For all the fearmongering we hear out of our politicians on the right about how heaven forbid we're going to turn into Greece, the one country you never hear them talk about any more is Iceland. The reason they don't is, as Cenk Uygur explained on his show this Tuesday, they took a different path than the United States after their financial crisis and nationalized the banks, threw some the people responsible for the crash in jail and bailed out the homeowners instead of worrying about only bailing out the banks. And now they're coming back and their economy is growing again.

FDL's Dave Dayden has been writing about the financial crisis in depth for some time and he visited the set of The Young Turks to discuss whether the United States should be looking to Iceland as a model to emulate as he wrote about here: Iceland Provides Blueprint for How to Deal With the Financial Crisis:

I love this story. It’s one of those that calls to mind the old Margaret Mead dictum, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger.

Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association.

So does the story end there? Did the people revolt and the banks give in, leading to a lower standard of living or some financial disaster or something? No. Debt deleveraging successfully brought back the Icelandic economy.

The island’s steps to resurrect itself since 2008, when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, are proving effective. Iceland’s economy will this year outgrow the euro area and the developed world on average, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates. It costs about the same to insure against an Icelandic default as it does to guard against a credit event in Belgium. Most polls now show Icelanders don’t want to join the European Union, where the debt crisis is in its third year.

The island’s households were helped by an agreement between the government and the banks, which are still partly controlled by the state, to forgive debt exceeding 110 percent of home values. On top of that, a Supreme Court ruling in June 2010 found loans indexed to foreign currencies were illegal, meaning households no longer need to cover krona losses.

We’ve heard in this country for the past several years of housing crisis that principal forgiveness rewards bad actors and causes moral hazard, and that we can’t do that to the poor, put-upon banks. Well guess what? Debt write-downs work. They generate a wealth effect among the population, and they help to end balance-sheet recessions and bring about economic growth. What’s more, Icelandic home values came back, just 3% off their September 2008 pre-crisis level. You can take the example of Iceland or you can take the example of the rest of Europe. It’s your choice. But the facts reveal that austerity is counter-productive, while debt forgiveness is extremely productive.

More there so go read the rest. Dave's interview with Cenk below the fold.

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As we already discussed here, Republicans in the House forced a vote on their ridiculous gender-based abortion bill this week. Chris Matthews invited Rep. Cliff Stearns on his show, who defended the bill on the basis that Europe and Asia supported such measures. After being hammered by Matthews on why they're always going after the doctors instead of the women who have abortions, he got Stearns to admit that he'd like to see women face criminal charges for having abortions.

GOP Congressman: Women Who Undergo Abortions Should Face Criminal Charges:

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) unwilling admitted to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Friday afternoon that he believed women who receive abortions should face criminal charges. “I think the punishment should certainly be very serious,” he said. “It should be more than a civil case. It should be something very serious”:

MATTHEWS: So it should be a criminal matter for the woman as well as the doctor?

STEARNS: I think so. You are killing an embryo and in some cases you are killing an embryo that is four or five months into gestation.

As Rep. Donna Edwards pointed out earlier in the interview, this is just another attempt by Republicans to roll back women's reproductive rights and it's asking doctors to be mind readers. One issue that wasn't discussed here is the fact that most abortions are preformed well before anyone can determine the sex of a fetus and that it's ridiculous to pretend that there's some sort of wide spread problem with women waiting around to find out what the gender of their child might be before having an abortion. As Edwards noted during the interview as well, it's a solution for a problem that doesn't exist here.

No one is forcing women to have abortions for population control in the United States and Matthews alluded to that earlier in the interview when he reminded Stearns that China is not a country that is anti-abortion.

As the post from Think Progress noted, here's how Matthews responded to Stearns' assertion that they have this rule in Europe and Asia, and asking why we can't do the same in the United States:

But Matthews responded succinctly, saying, “it’s always amazing when you guys on the right want to import the values of other countries. Any time we do it, any time a liberal tries to do it, you say they’re bringing foreign values into this country.”

I'll be happy to see Congressmen like Stearns keep talking this way, because even in areas of the country where you have the majority of voters against abortion, they don't want to be throwing women in jail for it. He's a reminder of just how extreme the Republican Party has become on this issue. Normally you never get them to admit something like this on camera.

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From Current TV this Tuesday -- Bernie Sanders suggests ways to boost the US economy and reform campaign finance:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer consider what the U.S. can learn from the rejection of austerity measures in the recent European elections. Sanders proposes investments to bolster the economy, calling for “fundamental changes” in U.S. trade policy: “Unfettered free trade has not worked for the United States of America and for our workers. We have to demand that corporate America start investing in this country, not China.”

Sanders also expresses concern about U.S. campaign finance in the wake of Citizens United: “We are moving into a system — and we see it now every single day — where these guys who are billionaires are literally buying politicians and trying to buy elections.”

And as Sen. Sanders noted on his web site, he supports austerity measures... for millionaires and billionaires: An Austerity Backlash:

France handed the presidency on Sunday to François Hollande, who declared that "austerity can no longer be inevitable." In Greece, Germany and Italy, parliamentary and local elections Sunday were seen as setbacks for austerity measures. Sen. Bernie Sanders saw a lesson for the United States in the European elections. "In the United States and around the world, the middle class is in steep decline while the wealthy and large corporations are doing phenomenally well. The message sent by voters in France and other European countries, which I believe will be echoed here in the United States, is that the wealthy and large corporations are going to have to experience some austerity also and that that burden cannot solely fall on working families. In the United States, where corporate profits are soaring and the gap between the rich and everybody else is growing wider, we must end corporate tax loopholes and start making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. At the same time, we must protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Austerity, yes, but for millionaires and billionaires, not the working families of this country."

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From the man who hates Europe so much he hid out there to avoid going to Vietnam and who has two degrees from Harvard, we got more of the Barack Obama is a European Socialist-loving, elitist, Harvard professor who hates America during his victory speech in Florida.

This man has exactly zero self-awareness to be able to give a speech like this.

Romney came pretty close to just recycling the same dishonest speech he gave after his victory in New Hampshire.

Full text of Romney's prepared remarks below the fold for anyone who can't or doesn't want to watch the video.

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