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By Eric Hazan
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By Chris Abani
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The debt limit debate continues on Capitol Hill, with many senior lawmakers saying it’s unlikely the GOP-controlled House can reach a budget agreement with Democrats in the Senate and the White House.
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AP / J. Scott Applewhite
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Economists across a broad range are frowning on the Federal Reserve’s most recent attempt to spur the economy, saying that the strategy of buying federal debt has helped the stock market but has had little positive effect on the general population.
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White House / Pete Souza
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Standard & Poor’s, one of those ratings agencies that made a living signing off on toxic assets, has once again thrust itself into the spotlight by downgrading Uncle Sam’s credit outlook from “stable” to “negative.” As a consolation prize, S&P let us keep our AAA rating.
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Luojie, Cagle Cartoons, China Daily, China —
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By Joe Conason — Having hesitated to fully enter the fiscal fray, President Obama has at last delivered a plausible, principled response to the budgetary flimflams of the far right.
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During his deficit speech Wednesday, the president called Republican proposals to slash the budget “deeply pessimistic” and said such plans “tell us we can’t afford the America that I believe in and I think you believe in.”
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AP / Daniel Roland
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European Union financial officials meeting in Brussels have agreed on the setting up of a permanent bailout fund, even as Portugal reportedly teeters on the precipice of financial collapse.
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By Ruth Marcus — It’s possible to simultaneously worry about the debt and believe in an active and compassionate role for government. In fact, it’s required.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — We are acting as if the only real problem the United States confronts is the budget deficit, the only test of leadership is whether a president is willing to make big cuts in programs that protect the elderly, and the largest threat to our prosperity comes from public employees.
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By Joe Conason — Among the mysteries of modern politics in America is why so many of our leading pundits and politicians persistently seek to undermine Social Security, that enduring and successful emblem of active government.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The president has proposed some serious spending cuts and some modest revenue increases to keep things stable. This annoys his deficit-obsessed critics. He should smile, let them rage, and go about his business.
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Flickr / cliff1066™(CC-BY)
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On Wednesday, newly released minutes from the Federal Reserve’s late-January meeting reflected a more optimistic stance vis-à-vis the next phase of the U.S. economy, but unfortunately, the slightly brighter outlook didn’t extend to the Fed’s take on the job market.
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By Amy Goodman — President Barack Obama unleashed his proposed 2012 budget this week, pronouncing, proudly: “I’ve called for a freeze on annual domestic spending over the next five years.”
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By Sasha Chavkin, Cezary Podkul, Jeannette Neumann and Ben Protess —
Under federal law, borrowers who develop lasting disabilities after taking out federal student loans are entitled to have their debts forgiven. The system was meant to spare former students who become disabled from a lifetime of spiraling debt. But the process of discharging the loans of disabled borrowers is broken.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Welcome to the war over E2I2. The great budget battle of Bill Clinton’s presidency was waged around a slightly different set of initials, also inspired by the “Star Wars” character R2D2.
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Martha Soukup (CC-BY)
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According to The Associated Press, “for the third straight year, American families and businesses will pay less in federal taxes than they did under former President George W. Bush. ...” In fact, as a share of gross domestic product, Americans haven’t paid this little in taxes since Harry Truman called the shots.
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By Ruth Marcus — The man once known as Governor Moonbeam sounded more like Governor Laser Beam when it came to addressing California’s fiscal crisis.
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Flickr / John D. Carnessiotis (CC-BY)
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According to The New York Times, “What’s Broken in Greece” is that the cost of labor in Greece from 2005 to 2010 has been, on average, 25 percent higher than in Germany. (more)
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By Ruth Marcus — The president talks the talk about fiscal responsibility. But the evidence suggests he’s not willing to spend the political capital to translate that talk into action.
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By Andrew Bacevich, TomDispatch —
In defense circles, “cutting” the Pentagon budget has once again become a topic of conversation. Americans should not confuse that talk with reality.
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AP / Charles Dharapak
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By Bill Boyarsky — The selfish negativity expressed by Republicans in the House health care debate last week showed why we should fight hard for President Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012.
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By Ruth Marcus — Discretionary spending, the part of the federal budget that is not on autopilot and is subject to annual appropriations, generally constitutes less than 40 percent of federal spending. Take out defense spending and that share drops to well under 20 percent.
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Fake news by Andy Borowitz —
In a moving White House ceremony today, President Hu Jintao of China presented U.S. President Barack Obama with a counterfeit DVD of the Hollywood blockbuster “Toy Story 3.”
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For-profit schools, some of which are accused of failing to properly educate while loading students with debt, have banded together to fight the introduction of three federal reforms.
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By Joe Conason — Data sets and out-year projections may make everybody’s eyes glaze over, but without accurate information, the end result of legislation is disaster.
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By Eugene Robinson — Ben Bernanke may or may not succeed in saving the economy, but at least he has the courage to try—and the honesty to tell the truth. The same cannot be said of our elected officials.
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White House
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By Ruth Marcus — I read “Decision Points” and it turns out that George W. Bush is the Edith Piaf of fiscal policy: He regrets nothing.
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By Ruth Marcus — The predictably childish reactions of the left and right to the budget blueprint unveiled by the co-chairs of President Obama’s debt commission offer the president a chance to play a role to which he may be uniquely suited: the grown-up in the room.
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The commission to study how to get federal debt under control floated a trial balloon when it released recommendations by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles ... and it seems that just about nobody likes or believes what they’re saying.
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AP / Frank Franklin II
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By Nomi Prins — In the wake of the election, the Fed pulled off a move detected only by downtown Manhattan. It quietly announced a purchase of $600 billion in Treasury securities (read: our debt) while pundits on the left and right were dissecting the role of the tea party in political life as we know it.
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Flickr / Gisela Giardino (CC-BY-SA)
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Trying to follow the amount of money the Federal Reserve has pumped into the economy (and the banks) can be truly mind-boggling, and it’s not getting easier. (continued)
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By William Pfaff — The European Union’s leaders, Germany and France, decided Oct. 30 to try to change the EU’s Lisbon Treaty. This is a highly charged and divisive move.
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Flickr / International Monetary Fund
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While the International Monetary Fund has historically been an organization used by wealthy countries to assert economic dominance over the rest of the world, developing nations won a small battle Saturday as the IMF moved to increase scrutiny over its rich members, including the United States.
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Flickr / jmlawlor
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The Federal Reserve is taking action to try to give the flagging U.S. economy a much-needed jolt by committing to buy up some of the government’s debt in the form of long-term Treasury securities.
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Flickr / fictures
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In case you hadn’t heard, the Golden State ain’t so golden these days, and Gov. Schwarzenegger is having a tough time finding a way to yank California out of a yawning financial hole. This is where gambling comes in.
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Flickr / World Economic Forum
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In a metaphorical walk around the debt crisis block, Greece’s prime minister has said he believes his country is “turning the corner” as economic recovery efforts by the ransacked country may have started to pay off.
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AP / Petros Giannakouris
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By Chris Hedges — Here’s to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out.
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Flickr / U-g-g-B-o-y-(-Photograph-World-Sense-)
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The answer to the headline question, at least on Monday, would be $1.2234, as the euro dropped to its lowest point in four years. As this CNN report puts it in somewhat startling terms, ” ... Ongoing debt concerns prompted a flight to the safety of the U.S. dollar.”
Posted on May 17, 2010
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Fake news by Andy Borowitz —
Finance ministers from 16 EU nations awoke in Brussels this morning to find that a huge wooden horse had been wheeled into the city center overnight.
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youtube.com
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Thousands of angry Greeks took to the streets on May Day, protesting a wave of wage cuts, tax increases and pension reductions implemented to deal with the country’s growing debt crisis.
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Flickr
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Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, declaring that the “moment has come,” formally requested the activation of a $60 billion financial aid package from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
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By William Pfaff — Today’s European crisis was precipitated by Greece acting with possibly reckless honesty, and Germany behaving badly.
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Flickr / Dan DC
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According to the International Monetary Fund, the global economic crisis has not only screwed over the poor but has left “deep scars” on the developed world. The level of debt owed to richer countries is the highest since World War II, the IMF says.
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Sure, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein once crowed that his firm was “doing God’s work,” but, as Stephen Colbert points out here, Blankfein never actually specified which God he was talking about. Perhaps it was Hades, Greek god of the underworld. Given the state of the Greek economy, that may not be too much of a stretch.
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Flickr / antiparticle
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It’s not the only financial institution involved, but Goldman Sachs features prominently among the companies that the Federal Reserve is investigating in relation to Greece’s recent debt calamity, Fed chief Ben Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday.
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Martin Sutovec, Slovakia —
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Flickr / World Economic Forum
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The logic of global capitalism is everywhere. New investigations are showing that the same Wall Street tactics—and companies—that ushered our own economy to economic collapse have emerged to exacerbate Greece’s current financial crisis.
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AP / Gregory Bull
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Call it pity or call it sensible politics, the G-7 nations have together pledged to cancel $1.2 billion in debt that Haiti owes them, something Global South activists have been requesting for all developing countries—not just those hit by horrible earthquakes.
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