Seniors finally get Social Security increase

Once again, for those too clueless to understand why most Americans support Occupy Wall Street, here's yet another example. With the simple wave of a wand, the Wall Street fat cats who caused the economic crisis were bailed out with trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. It was much too easy for them and they all were able to maintain their cushy lifestyle and inflated compensation plans. Meanwhile, everyone else is stuck with the problem.

How fair has it been that there were no increases in Social Security the previous two years? There's something dramatically wrong with the calculation for inflation when it suggests there was no inflation. It doesn't match the reality of higher gas and food prices, not to mention the always increasing health care premiums.

We really need to see more fairness in the system because what we've been seeing the previous few years has not been fair at all.

Some 55 million Social Security recipients will get a 3.6 percent increase in benefits next year, their first raise since 2009, the government announced Wednesday.

The increase, which starts in January, is tied to a measure of inflation released Wednesday morning.

About 8 million people who receive Supplemental Security Income will also receive the 3.6 percent cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, meaning the announcement will affect about one in five U.S. residents.

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Tax Policy Center does the numbers on the Herman Cain 9-9-9 plan—It's perfectly regressive

Perfectly regressive (my phrase). That means that quintile by quintile, the greatest burden falls hardest on the poorest (they pay almost 20% more in taxes), and lightens progressively through the next three quintiles (15% more taxes, 10% more taxes, 6% more taxes).

Then guess what? The top quintile gets a little gift — a nice little 7% tax savings.

But it gets better. The Tax Policy Center then takes that top quintile (the top 20% of taxpayers) and breaks it down.

Again, the numbers are perfectly regressive. The more you make, the bigger your refund. The top 0.1% would receive a stunning 26% giveback from the government, for, well ... something to do with virtue, I'm sure.

(I wonder what the top 0.01% would get? General Motors? Drilling rights in the Grand Canyon?)

Paul Krugman has the data, all in a nice chart. Be sure to click and read. It's quick and very dirty.

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Blue collar whites support OWS, though they still aren’t great fans of the President

From Greg Sargent at the Washington Post:

* In the National Journal poll, 56 percent of non-college-educated whites agree with the [Occupy Wall Street] protesters; only 31 percent disagree.

* In the Time poll, 54 percent of non-college-educated men, and 48 percent of non-college educated women, agree with the protesters. (That’s roughly 51 percent overall.) Meanwhile,only 29 percent of non-college-educated men, and only 19 percent of non-college-educated women, disagree. (That’s roughly 23 percent.)

By the way, this doesn’t necessarily help Obama. As Alex Altman noted in his excellent write-up of the Time poll’s overall numbers, Obama’s approval rating among these voters is an abysmal 26 percent. But this polling suggests that embracing the protests are not part of the problem — quite the opposite, in fact.

I'd have liked to have seen how this group feels about the GOP. Along those lines, Alex Altman finds that while Obama's support among another key demographic, college-educated women, has dropped, they like the Republicans even less.

Even among the demographic groups that flocked to him in droves four years ago, Obama is falling out of favor amid high unemployment. In a TIME survey taken in June, 57% of college-educated women approved of the President’s job performance. This month that number fell to 49% in TIME’s survey, a notch above the 47% who disapproved, but a significant slip in a few short months. Obama still trounces his leading Republican rivals in the race for this key group’s likely voters, holding a 54% to 38% edge over Romney and a 56% to 34% advantage over Perry among likely voters. But his diminishing support among a demographic squarely in his wheelhouse must be disconcerting for his boosters.

It's good for the President that a lot of polls show him still more popular than the Republicans, but low popularity all around could depress (and thus supress) voting across the board, leaving the election up to each party's diehards. And the GOP diehards are far more motivated at the moment than our diehards. That's slowly changing, I think, as each new absurdity from the GOP House and the GOP presidential candidates riles up key Democratic constituencies.  But will it be enough by November of next year? Read the rest of this post...

What was up with Michele Bachmann’s jacket at the GOP debate?

As Joe My God reports, Twitter was abuzz with folks trying to get a handle on Michele Bachmann's weird white paramilitary jacket at last night's GOP debate.  WafflesAtNoon has assembled some of the best tweets about it, here are a few:

JeffLassiter
Michele Bachmann looks like she’s running for President of the Love Boat in that jacket

TheDCVince
Ok, I admit it. Bachmann definitely borrowed Gaddafi’s winter jacketfor tonight’s debate.

JoeMyGod
I can’t hear Bachmann over the loud jacket from JCPenny’s Lady Dictator line.

3x1minus1
I just really wish @andersoncooper would ask Bachmann “WHAT is UP with that JACKET?”

KYColChad
Nice jacket, Bachmann, but you left your twirling baton and the rest of the band back at the hotel.

MikeDrucker
Michele Bachmann looks like she’s running for Space Emperor.

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Cain (again) blames unemployed, GOP debate crowd cheers

Sounds like booing a service member on the front lines wasn't enough for the Republican audience. Now they're getting their rocks off by booing the victims of the recession. Classy bunch, as always. More from the Huffington Post:

Herman Cain recently criticized the Occupy Wall Street protesters, saying, "Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself."

At Tuesday night's CNN debate, Cain stood by his comments -- to loud cheers from the audience.

"I still stand by my statement," he said.

"They might be frustrated with Wall Street and the bankers, but they're directing their anger at the wrong place," he added. "Wall Street didn't put in failed economic policies. Wall Street didn't spend a trillion dollars that didn't do any good. Wall Street isn't going around the country trying to sell another $450 billion. They ought to be over in front of the White House taking out their frustration."

It's easy to disagree with Ron Paul on many subjects but at least he pushed back on this ridiculous and cold remark. Read the rest of this post...

County and city job cuts adding to unemployment problem

And of course it's only going to get worse since there's no longer any stimulus money to help. USA Today:

The job cuts by city and county governments are helping offset modest private-sector employment gains, restraining broader job growth.

"They'll continue to be a drag on the overall (employment) numbers and the economy," says Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner.

Localities have chopped 535,000 positions since September 2008 to close massive budget deficits resulting largely from sharp declines in property tax receipts. That exceeds the 413,000 local government jobs cut from 1980 to 1983, the only other substantial downturn in local government employment, according to federal records that go back to 1955.

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NYPD uses "people’s microphone" to talk to protesters

Author Naomi Wolf was arrested at the OccupyWallStreet protests. When some protesters went to the police station to follow up on her arrest, the police apparently used the protesters' "people's microphone" method of communications, where one person speaks then the crowd repeats what they just said so that someone far away can hear it.  From the Twitter feed of Mother Jones' Josh Harkson:

This is perhaps the first smart thing the NYPD has done throughout the entire weeks of protest. They're being nice, normal, even funny human beings. Let's see if others in the NYPD follow suit, or whether we get more videos today of cops beating innocent protesters. Read the rest of this post...

Greenwald: OWS cannot be turned into a Democratic Party movement

The issue of OWS co-option has been much feared and much discussed. (Chris Hedges take is here, along with some thoughts of my own.)

Now Glenn Greenwald takes the question by the horns, in a stunningly researched piece called "Can OWS be turned into a Democratic Party movement?"

He starts by quoting the New York Times (Greenwald's emphasis):

Leading Democratic figures, including party fund-raisers and a top ally of President Obama, are embracing the spread of the anti-Wall Street protests in a clear sign that members of the Democratic establishment see the movement as a way to align disenchanted Americans with their party.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s powerful House fund-raising arm, is circulating a petition seeking 100,000 party supporters to declare that “I stand with the Occupy Wall Street protests.”

The Center for American Progress, a liberal organization run by John D. Podesta, who helped lead Mr. Obama’s 2008 transition, credits the protests with tapping into pent-up anger over a political system that it says rewards the rich over the working class ... Judd Legum, a spokesman for the center, said ... Democrats are already looking for ways to mobilize protesters in get-out-the-vote drives for 2012.

After quoting Politico to the same effect, Greenwald asks, "Can that scheme work?"

Can the Occupy Wall Street protests be transformed into a get-out-the-vote organ of Obama 2012 and the Democratic Party? To determine if this is likely, let’s review a few relevant facts.

The next nine paragraphs, taken together, are the strongest, tightest indictment of the Obama administration as Wall Street handmaiden I've ever read. Please do read them; they are accessible and, to my mind, irrefutable.

Starting with Obama's 2008 election fundraising — noting contemporaneous election-season articles like “Democrats are darlings of Wall St“ and “Wall Street puts its money behind Obama” — Greenwald moves quickly and cleanly through the Hall of Shame we witnessed the last three years.

Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, Chuck Schumer, Tim Geithner, Mark Patterson, Michael Paese (former top Barney Frank staffer turned Goldman lobbyist), Ben Bernanke, Jeffery Immelt, Rahm Emanual, Bill Daley, and the DoJ's blind eye — all neatly, trial-lawyerly skewered. These nine paragraphs could be cut out and nailed, like Luther's 95 Theses, to the wall of DNC headquarters, so effectively are they written.

That said, Greenwald then asks (again, Greenwald's emphasis):

Given these facts, does the Center for American Progress really believe that the protest movement named OccupyWallStreet was begun ... in order to devote themselves to ensuring that these people remain in power?

He thinks that the OWS protesters are, in large part, aware of much of the information he presented, and they're unlikely to be backed into the Democratic corner by whichever hack the Republicans eventually nominate (emphasis now mine):

As Naomi Klein explained after speaking to the protesters, the reason they are out on the street rather than working for the DNC or OFA is precisely because they concluded that electoral politics or working for either party will not address the issues motivating them; part of what they’re protesting is the Democratic Party.

Thus Greenwald answers his question with a resounding No.

I have to agree. The pain and suffering felt by those of us aware-niks, watching cave after cave, from the pre-inauguration FISA give-back to the Father Christmas gift of the Bush tax cuts, created our (politely named) "2012 problem".

I'd be shocked if the aware-niks on the street aren't responding with their feet to the frustration that causes me to write. Occupy.

(UPDATE: Fixed some bad HTML.)

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Older working Americans hit hard by recession

The under-30's are dealing with high unemployment and limited opportunity and seniors are hit hard by with limited options in terms of earning there way through the recession. And then there's the over-55 crowd who need to still work but struggle to find employment after losing their jobs. All of these scenarios (and more) are terrible which is why Occupy Wall Street is such a no-brainer outside of the political and corporate elite class.

...Americans 55 and older have less time to catch up on retirement savings and recover from housing market losses before they stop working, the Government Accountability Office report found.

In addition, although older workers haven’t been as hard-hit by unemployment, government data show that when they do lose a job, they have a much tougher time finding a new one.

For many older Americans, the most immediate effect of the economic downturn has been the hit to their nest egg. The report noted that many older Americans simply don’t have time to wait for the stock market to recover and home values to start rising again.

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Lots of Obama’s top fundraisers sitting this election out

From HuffPost Hill:

"President Obama's campaign may have just passed its one millionth donor for the 2012 season, but one portion of his 2008 fundraising class remains notably absent: the majority of his original big-dollar bundlers. Of about 189 bundlers who hauled in over $200,000 each for Obama's first campaign, some 108 have not returned to the ranks of his top money team, a review of Obama's latest 'volunteer fundraiser' list finds. It's a continuation of a trend noted in reports on Obama's finance numbers in the previous quarter, including one write-up that found Obama's original idealistic buck rakers fleeing the 'machine' they see his campaign becoming for this election. Still, Team Obama notes that it has more than replaced bundlers it lost from the last election cycle, including scores of power-brokers whose roots go deep in Democratic politics, with many veterans of the Clinton political ATM. And they argue that other new voters and donors are rapidly engaging with the still-new 2012 push."

More from HuffPost. Read the rest of this post...