The election of Worse and Worser continues. We now know Romney's VP pick, Paul Ryan. Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan managed to get the House Budget Committee chair, and has been on a quest to destroy Social Security and Medicare.
What a gift to Obama. Face it folks, we're now stuck with Obama for four more years. AARP alone will surely mount their legions to vote against the Galt/Gekko Replication ticket. Most people know election 2012 is the battle of the billionaires, we sure don't have a say. But now the choice has become astounding. We don't think even the Koch Brothers, with their propaganda armies can turn this tide around.
The Deficit Boogie Men, Medicare and Social Security are once again knocking at the door. The Social Security Trustees just released their annual report. They say social security will run out of money by 2036. This is one year earlier than projected last year. Why the sudden shocking news? Seems the fund projected revenues greater than actual because gee, people have less income than originally thought.
Iowa has joined the ranks of crazy, putting first in a straw poll someone out to destroy social security and medicare. This agenda would lead to the biggest increase in abject poverty the United States has ever seen. Meanwhile, Texas Governor Rick Perry is being touted as the new savior of the radical right, proof positive all economic theory comes from God.
This fundamentalist radical right is nothing new. The Tea party is simply the moral majority, wrapped in a new bow.
What is new is the bold faced economic fiction being spun right, left and center. It's like the idea that Creationism is equal to Evolution and the biological sciences has invaded the world of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics.
We are re-entering the dark ages. Down is up, left is right and if you float in water, you must be a witch. Most economists know in a severe recession increasing government spending to take up the slack in demand is a good thing to do. Yet, a group of crazies have kidnapped the national discourse and demanded public policy to cut government spending in a time of very weak economic demand. Once again, up is down and down is up.
As you know by now, the jobs crisis reality exploded Friday with only 18,000 jobs created for June and an even lower labor participation rate implying more people are falling out of the labor force count entirely.
The latest is Obama, as part of some debt ceiling negotiation offered to raise the age for Medicare. I kid you not.
According to five separate sources with knowledge of negotiations -- including both Republicans and Democrats -- the president offered an increase in the eligibility age for Medicare, from 65 to 67, in exchange for Republican movement on increasing tax revenues.
After putting controversial cuts to Social Security and Medicare on the table in negotiations with congressional Republicans over a plan to raise the nation's debt ceiling, President Obama still doesn't have a deal in the works. Emerging from a meeting with congressional leaders on Thursday, Obama said that both sides in the negotiations would find the ultimate outcome "painful." He also explained that the two sides had not yet arrived at an accord, but would reconvene talks on Sunday.
"I want to emphasize that nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to," Obama said, adding that the talks were conducted "in a spirit of compromise" but that the parties "are still far apart on a wide range of issues."
We're not worth having around after 65, says Michael Collins. Why else would they want to kill us off?
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) proposed a Medicare plan that combines Social Darwinism and a bailout for health insurance carriers, even larger than the one provided by the president's health care reform legislation.
The specific features of the program are less important than the overall effect. In summary, Ryan proposes a plan that will starve most of those sixty-five and older of health care. Here are the numbers, based on Congressional Budget Office projections and elaborated by Dean Baker and David Rosnick (in 2011 dollars) (Center for Economic and Policy Research, April 2011)
The election of Worse and Worser continues. We now know Romney's VP pick, 
Welcome to the weekly roundup of great articles, facts and figures. These are the weekly finds that made our eyes pop.
Iowa has joined the ranks of crazy, putting first in a straw poll someone out to destroy 
Let the word go forth from Washington! The corporate rulers occupying our nation's capital have declared war on just about every citizen.
As you know by now, the jobs crisis reality exploded Friday with 
Recent comments