Follow @americablog
The United States will have spent a total of $3.7 trillion on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, costing 225,000 lives and creating 7.8 million refugees, by the time the conflicts end, according to a report released on Wednesday by Brown University.
The report estimates the U.S. government has already spent between $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion...Read the rest of this post...
PRESIDENT OBAMA CALLS FOR DEBT CEILING DEAL, COMPARES REPUBLICANS TO CHILDREN - At his first press conference since March, President Obama urged lawmakers to break the impasse over the debt ceiling and warned of dire economic consequences if an agreement is not reached. "If everybody else is willing to take on their sacred cows and do tough things in order to achieve the goal of real deficit reduction, then I think it would be hard for the Republicans to stand there and say that, 'The tax break for corporate jets is sufficiently important that we're not willing to come to the table and get a deal done,' or, 'We're so concerned about protecting oil and gas subsidies for oil companies that are making money hand over fist, that's the reason we're not going to come to a deal,'" he said. Taking a page from -- well -- The Game, the president tried to cajole Republicans into doing things his way by playfully insulting them. "Malia and Sasha generally finish their homework a day ahead of time," he said. "They're not pulling all nighters. They're 13 and 10. You know, Congress can do the same thing. If you know you've got to do something, just do it."Read the rest of this post...
So my wife just got laid off and I discover that our health care ends at the end of the month. We can buy continuing coverage but its not cheap (at $15K/year) and it is only for a limited length of time.Read the rest of this post...
At the moment I am working half time on a start up of my own and the rest of the time part time for another company. So unless I can persuade my half time employer to give me benefits, I will probably have to go back to working full time just to get healthcare.
Wouldn't it be better for the economy if I could work on my startup without having to worry about healthcare? The last startup I worked on grew to employ over 3,500 people over time, three quarters of whom were in the US.
The crazy US healthcare system is not just bad for people, it is terrible for businesses. The biggest element in the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler was the cost of the retirees health care plans. If I take on employees in my business I am going to have to be thinking about health plans.
From Chris Bowers at Daily Kos Campaigns (via email), new poll results on the Wisconsin recall elections. Note that only three of the six races have been polled, and these are the results: Public Policy Polling. June 24-26, likely voters:More here.
Senate district 32, currently held by Republican Dan Kapanke
Jennifer Shilling (D): 56Senate district 18, currently held by Republican Randy Hopper
Dan Kapanke (R): 42
Jessica King (D): 50Senate district 10, currently held by Republican Shelia Harsdorf
Randy Hopper (R): 47
Sheila Harsdorf (R): 50Six Republicans face recall elections, and Democrats need to defeat three of them to take control of the state Senate. We have only polled three of those six races so far, and already we found Democrats ahead in two campaigns and close in another.
Shelly Moore (D): 45
The Obama administration won the first appellate review of the 2010 health care law on Wednesday as a three-judge panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati held that it was constitutional for Congress to require that Americans obtain health insurance.Read the rest of this post...
The ruling is the first of three opinions to be delivered by separate courts of appeal that heard arguments in the health care litigation in May and June. Opinions are expected soon from panels in both the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va., and in the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta.
Lawyers on both sides of the case widely expect the Supreme Court to take one or more of the cases, perhaps as soon as its coming term, which starts in October. The speed of the Sixth Circuit ruling could help ensure that timing.
The Sixth Circuit opinion is the first on the merits that has not broken down strictly along seemingly partisan lines. Two of the judges on the panel were appointed by Republican presidents and one was appointed by a Democrat.
A new poll shows President Obama beating Mama Grizzly in her homestate. When asked if they preferred Obama or Palin, 42% of responders leaned towards Obama, while only 36% chose Palin.Read the rest of this post...
Of those who preferred Obama, 35% said they felt strongly about their choice. 24% felt similarly about Palin.
Debunking any accusations of a liberal survey bias, the Anchorage Daily News reported that conservative radio host Mike Porcaro paid for the poll.
Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) raised hell last year to stop the federal government from investigating Goldman Sachs regarding allegations that the company defrauded investors. In April 2010, shortly after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)announced a civil suit against Goldman Sachs, Issa sent a letter to SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro demanding to know if there was “any sort of prearrangement, coordination, direction from, or advance notice” between the SEC and the Obama administration or congressional Democrats over the timing of the lawsuit.Read the rest of this post...
Issa’s investigation of the SEC’s investigation into Goldman Sachs stolethe headlines and reinforced Goldman Sach’s claim that they had done nothing wrong. Explaining his defense of Goldman Sachs, Issa said he was representing the views of ordinary Americans who are worried about the “growth of government and the growth of government wanting to become more complex, with more agencies and more control over our lives.”
However, recent personal finance disclosures reviewed by ThinkProgress paint a different picture of Issa’s motivations. According to documents filed recently with the House Clerk, Issa went on a buying spree of high yield Goldman Sachs bonds at the same time he was running defense for the investment bank in Congress. From February to December of 2010, Issa bought 12 Goldman Sachs High Yield Fund Class A bonds, each worth up to $50,000 (view page 10 the disclosurehere). Many of the bonds were purchased in the months after he filed his letter to the SEC. The $600,000 in new Goldman Sachs investments added to Issa’s already multimillion dollar stake in the company, valued from $5.1 to $15.5 million.
Leading congressional Democrats immediately recoiled Tuesday from a new proposal to cut $600 billion in Medicare spending over the next decade — in part by raising the eligibility age.Cutting Medicare and Social Security is a top priority for the GOP. Democrats should not only NOT be talking about cutting those programs, period, but it certainly shouldn't even be discussed at all while the GOP continues to say "no tax increases." This budget negotiation has been on their terms from day one. It needs to stop. This is a good first step. My favorite part of the Post story:
Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) unveiled the proposal as part of a bipartisan effort to produce the kind of savings necessary to achieve the $2 trillion in debt reduction both parties say is needed to convince reticent lawmakers to vote to raise the debt ceiling. It would raise Medicare’s eligibility age from 65 to 67 and assess higher premiums on wealthier seniors.
The proposal echoes Republican demands that entitlement reform — especially deep cuts in Medicare spending — be a part of any agreement to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.Yes it does. Read the rest of this post...
It shows that in August, the government could not afford to meet 44% of its obligations. Since the $134 billion deficit for that month couldn't be covered with more borrowing, programs would have to be cut.Read the rest of this post...
If Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, payments to defense contractors and interest payments on Treasury bonds were exempt, that would be all the government could afford for the month. No money for troops or veterans. No tax refunds. No food stamps or welfare. No federal salaries or benefits.
So what do we have, if this analyst is right? Not melodrama, with large cartoonish national groups, but that old familiar combo — predators and prey:Well, thanks to David Dayen, we find this on the current state of the Greek "radical privatization plan," part of its debt reduction program (my emphasis):
■ Cash-rich big business eager to buy up public goods for pennies
■ Cash-starved governments in crisis
■ Easily corrupted pols
Shades of Naomi Klein. And why are those governments cash-starved? The long-term reason, of course, is their own bad behavior, plus that pesky Euro problem that ties Greek hands.
But the near-term reason may be this — that the German big-business types whispering into Chancellor Angela Merkel's shell-like ear (and through her ear to Brussels) will make out like bandits if Greece has to sell itself off to survive.
"Welcome to the Athens-Peiraios Causeway, brought to you by Deutsche Telekom. €4.00 please."
Prime Minister George Papandreou announced an immediate sale of state assets on Monday evening, including its shares in the telecom operator OTE and the ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki.The article also mentions selling off "interests in airports, weapons contractor OPAP, as well as regional ports and highways."
Following a cabinet meeting, Papandreou announced 1.6 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in savings along with the privatization measures. ... "Now we take the necessary decisions to avoid the danger once and for all, and to change the country," read his statement.
The Greek state has a 16-percent stake left in OTE, the largest shareholder being German telecommunications firm Deutsche Telekom.
Other assets up for sale include Hellenic Postbank - one of Greece's major lenders - the Thessalonki water company, gas company DEPA and the train operator Trainose. The exact contents of the list for privatization have yet to be finalized with the Greek Finance Ministry. ... Greece has been urged to press ahead with a 50-billion-euro program of privatization as part of the conditions to smooth the way for a loan instal[l]ment of 12 billion euros.
One of the world's most prominent scientific figures to be sceptical about climate change has admitted to being paid more than $1m in the past decade by major US oil and coal companies.Read the rest of this post...
Dr Willie Soon, an astrophysicist at the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, is known for his view that global warming and the melting of the arctic sea ice is caused by solar variation rather than human-caused CO2 emissions, and that polar bears are not primarily threatened by climate change.
But according to a Greenpeace US investigation, he has been heavily funded by coal and oil industry interests since 2001, receiving money from ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Insitute and Koch Industries along with Southern, one of the world's largest coal-burning utility companies. Since 2002, it is alleged, every new grant he has received has been from either oil or coal interests.
More than 10,000 retail jobs face the axe as the British high street faces one of its most painful bouts of contraction since the second world war amid the biggest squeeze on household budgets for decades.Read the rest of this post...
As the government's austerity measures take hold, experts warned that the number of retailers going bust would continue to rise this year with a number of household names facing insolvency.
The confectioner Thorntons emerged as the latest high street casualty when it said on Tuesday it would close up to 180 stores, putting more than 1,000 jobs at risk. The flooring chain Carpetright followed suit, saying 50 stores could close as consumers shun purchases amid fuel and food price inflation and rising job insecurity, especially in the public sector.
France's Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, 55, has been named the first woman to head the International Monetary Fund (IMF).Read the rest of this post...
Ms Lagarde fought off Mexico's Agustin Carstens for the job, although an IMF statement said that both candidates "were well qualified".
She received backing from America and Europe and key emerging market nations, including China, India and Brazil.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
