Should Congress join the "shared sacrifice" plan?

Sherrod Brown is completely correct on this and good for him to bring this up again. Of course Congress should share in the pain. Where's the solidarity? Read the rest of this post...

EU to Geithner: Keep your advice to yourself

Neither side has come through this economic crisis with flying colors, but it's interesting to see such strong rejection of Geithner by the EU members. Europe needs to look at what they did to kick this problem down the road since many of their banks were much more highly leveraged than even the gamblers of Wall Street. That said, the US model of rescuing the banks that was built by Bush/Paulson with the help of Geithner certainly hasn't done much to help besides lining the pockets of the bankers.

The EU has had a few years to watch the US and see how the bank bailout worked and they would have to be fools to think it was a successful long term plan. We saw the bankers make few changes to their casino-style ways and all they did was use the bailout money to gamble even more without doing anything to benefit the rest of society.

In this continuation of the banking crisis, there are no easy answers, but most should at least acknowledge that the US model doesn't deserve to be promoted as a viable solution. NY Times:

“I found it peculiar that, even though the Americans have significantly worse fundamental data than the euro zone, that they tell us what we should do,” Maria Fekter, the finance minister of Austria, said after the meeting Friday morning. “I had expected that, when he tells us how he sees the world, that he would listen to what we have to say.”

Such criticism was echoed by other attendees of the meeting, including the finance minister of Belgium, Didier Reynders, who said Mr. Geithner should listen rather than talk. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the finance minister group, said European officials did not care to have detailed discussions about expanding their bailout fund “with a nonmember of the euro area.”

American officials are aware that they need to tread carefully when advising others, especially now, and they have avoided offering specific plans or proposals.

Read the rest of this post...

Mayor Bloomberg: Jobs crisis could lead to riots

He may be right. CNN:

"You have a lot of kids graduating college, [who] can't find jobs," said Bloomberg, during his weekly radio show on Friday. "That's what happened in Cairo. That's what happened in Madrid. You don't want those kinds of riots here."

That was the mayor's response when asked about the poverty rate, which rose to 15.1% in 2010, its highest level since 1993, according to census data released Tuesday. About 46.2 million people are now living in poverty, 2.6 million more than last year.

"The public is not happy," he said. "The public knows there is something wrong in this country, and there is. The bottom line is that they're upset."

NOTE FROM JOHN: In this country, I could see the Teabaggers being those more likely to riot. At their core they're simply conservative Republicans. And at THEIR core, far-right Republicans don't really like our democracy, its institutions, its checks and balances. They don't believe in playing the game called civil society, they try to rig the game - and if that fails, they stage their own little riots, American style (i.e., no violence, just the yelling), like they did during Bush v Gore and like they did in August 2009 disrupting the health care town halls.

Would the Teabaggers eventually go violent?  It's hard to say no, when you're dealing with people who literally think a socialist (read: Soviet communist) is the current commander in chief of our military.  If that were really true, if a Soviet spy had secretly taken over our government, are you telling me people would still forego violence?  Not a chance.  That's why extremist GOP rhetoric is so dangerous during the best of times.  And these are not the best of times. Read the rest of this post...

TX unemployment highest in 24 yrs, twice rate when Perry took office

Well isn't that inconvenient:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's efforts to tout his record on jobs and the economy as a centerpiece of his presidential campagn took a hit today with new figures from one of his own state agencies: They show the Texas unemployment rate increased to 8.5% in August -- the highest level in more than 24 years and more than twice the rate when Perry took office in December 2000.

So how exactly is Perry going to fix the national economy if he can't fix his own? Read the rest of this post...

Chevron still fighting payout for Ecuador eco damage

Big Oil doing what Big Oil does best. When your pockets are as deep as they are in that industry, kicking the little guy and dodging responsibilities to society is easy. The Guardian:

Victims of what they say is one the world's worst environmental disasters will on Friday ask a New York court to free up billions of dollars in compensation awarded to them in a record ruling earlier this year – and oust the judge who blocked their claim.

The $8bn fine was imposed by an Ecuadorian court in February on oil giant Chevron, on behalf of 30,000 residents of the Amazon basin whose health and environment were allegedly damaged by chemical-laden waste water dumped by Texaco's operations from 1972 to 1990. Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.

Chevron has attacked the judgment as a "fraud." The company has claimed the entire case is an extortion scheme. In March, Chevron secured an injunction from judge Lewis Kaplan against the decision, ahead of a trial set for November.

Read the rest of this post...

The White House’s new strategy

I think Ezra's analysis is spot-on. The President has clearly indicated a change in approach with his jobs speech and, as Ezra notes, with the call (again) for tax increases on the rich. If the President can stick with it, he may turn things around. But his problem in the past has been two-fold - going bold, and staying bold. We're seeing signs of going bold, and that's great. Now let's see some stamina.  From Ezra Klein:

The Obama administration got to test its postpartisan approach and in its first real electoral test, it failed. Republicans refused to cut the deal, voters weren’t interested in parsing reports about which backroom players offered what concessions, and the impression of Obama as a weakened leader without a clear plan for dealing with the economic crisis solidified. By contrast, the more traditional Democratic strategy -- protect popular government programs, oppose further tax cuts for the wealthy -- had worked a few months earlier, and was still clearly scaring Republican candidates.

The flaw in the White House’s plan, as it turned out, was that they were letting the Republicans have it both ways. The White House was joining with them in proposing unpopular entitlement cuts and talking about deficits rather than jobs, but they weren’t getting the grand compromise that they needed to show voters that compromising was an effective form of presidential leadership.

The first sign the White House was realizing this was when they proposed paying for their jobs plan by taxing the rich. That was a clear nonstarter in Congress -- even among some of the Democrats -- and an unusual foray into policy-as-messaging for a White House that tended to prefer presenting policy proposals that were already a compromise.

Next week, we’ll see if that was simply a temporary divergence from the One True Path or a whole new strategy. If the White House emerges with a plan that is firmly in the middle and makes it impossible to run against Republican ideas in 2012, then we’ll know they’re not interested in returning to the post-Ryan strategy, and they still think being the adults in the room will win them the election. If they emerge with a plan that cuts the deficit in ways that the American people like and the Republicans can’t accept, we’ll know they have chosen to change direction sharply.

Read the rest of this post...