Symbolism comes with a heavy hand these days as Stock Exchange traders cheer at the Dow hitting 10,000 while the national employment rate heads for double digits.
The disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street keeps widening as money jugglers, who caused the credit crisis that led to bailouts with taxpayer billions, are getting record bonuses while those who do real work in the world, such as airline pilots, with hundreds of lives in their hands daily, are seeing their salaries slashed.
(On the Daily Show, Captain Sully Sullenberger, who saved 153 by landing safely in the Hudson River last January, has Jon Stewart shaking his head over the cuts.)
Today's stock market rise was fueled by JP Morgan Chase reporting a $3.6 billion third-quarter profit with the expectation that other banks and brokerage houses will follow suit.
Meanwhile, interest rates remain at record lows, a juxtaposition that will tempt Americans, such as retirees and near-retirees with IRAs, who can't afford the risk to put their money on the line again in the Wall Street casinos in the hope of getting a decent return.
Recognizing this disparity and the fact that Social Security recipients next year will not see an increase in their checks for the first time in three decades, the President asks Congress for a one-time payment of $250 to seniors and disabled Americans, just about the amount that Wall Street movers and shakers will tip the doormen at their Manhattan apartment houses.
Amid all the talk about employment as a lagging indicator in the recovery, it's clear that who in this economy gets paid off first.
Something serious is amiss when the most apt comment on the stock market rise comes not from the Obama Administration's financial wizards but House Minority leader John Boehner, not previously known for economic acuity:
"At the end of the day, the American people aren't looking at the stock market in terms of putting food on the table. They want jobs, and they want them now."
Showing posts with label Social Security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Security. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Health Care: Too Big to Fail
In the frenzy over jump-starting the economy, the House stimulus bill includes, among other straws being grasped, $117 billion of spending for health care, most of it to maintain coverage for the disabled and newly poor. Otherwise, the political consensus is that we can't "afford" to reform the system.
If anything, there is a stronger case to be made that we can't afford not to. Paul Krugman scratches the surface today with the argument that "helping families purchase health insurance as part of a universal coverage plan would be at least as effective a way of boosting the economy as the tax breaks that make up roughly a third of the stimulus plan--and it would have the added benefit of directly helping families get through the crisis, ending one of the major sources of Americans’ current anxiety."
He cites research showing that Obama's campaign promise of universal coverage would add “only” about $104 billion to federal spending next year, but this overlooks the huge possible benefits in reforming a system that rewards greed and inefficiency.
Start with health care fraud by hospitals, doctors, pharmacists and other care providers. which the FBI estimates at between $60 and $100 billion a year. Stopping that could be a small growth industry to employ some of the analysts being laid off by the banks and Wall Street, to say nothing of starting to fix a system that has been criminalizing the healing profession in order to let its members survive.
But the big payoff would be in transferring the estimated one-third of the $2.4 trillion-and-counting that goes for insurer overhead and profits into patient care.
In the current economic climate, the SCHIP expansion of coverage for children which George W. Bush resisted on "philosophical" grounds is about to be signed by the new president, and the money in the House stimulus bill has aroused Conservative fears about "nationalizing" the health care system.
Just so, and it opens the way for a healthy debate over whether the current health care system, like greedy Wall Street, is really "too big to fail" and why it can't evolve toward the single-payer system that rational analysts favor.
Krugman cites Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, declaring that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste” and points out that FDR "was able to enact Social Security in part because the Great Depression highlighted the need for a stronger social safety net."
In repairing the economy, health care can be both part of the stimulus and the 21st century social safety net.
If anything, there is a stronger case to be made that we can't afford not to. Paul Krugman scratches the surface today with the argument that "helping families purchase health insurance as part of a universal coverage plan would be at least as effective a way of boosting the economy as the tax breaks that make up roughly a third of the stimulus plan--and it would have the added benefit of directly helping families get through the crisis, ending one of the major sources of Americans’ current anxiety."
He cites research showing that Obama's campaign promise of universal coverage would add “only” about $104 billion to federal spending next year, but this overlooks the huge possible benefits in reforming a system that rewards greed and inefficiency.
Start with health care fraud by hospitals, doctors, pharmacists and other care providers. which the FBI estimates at between $60 and $100 billion a year. Stopping that could be a small growth industry to employ some of the analysts being laid off by the banks and Wall Street, to say nothing of starting to fix a system that has been criminalizing the healing profession in order to let its members survive.
But the big payoff would be in transferring the estimated one-third of the $2.4 trillion-and-counting that goes for insurer overhead and profits into patient care.
In the current economic climate, the SCHIP expansion of coverage for children which George W. Bush resisted on "philosophical" grounds is about to be signed by the new president, and the money in the House stimulus bill has aroused Conservative fears about "nationalizing" the health care system.
Just so, and it opens the way for a healthy debate over whether the current health care system, like greedy Wall Street, is really "too big to fail" and why it can't evolve toward the single-payer system that rational analysts favor.
Krugman cites Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, declaring that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste” and points out that FDR "was able to enact Social Security in part because the Great Depression highlighted the need for a stronger social safety net."
In repairing the economy, health care can be both part of the stimulus and the 21st century social safety net.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Dr. Paul Wants to Amputate
If you consulted Ron Paul as a doctor, you would be lucky to leave with all your limbs. The man is not an incrementalist. Cut out the income tax, he told Tim Russert on Meet the Press today, bring home our troops from everywhere and, with only a few caveats, Dr. Paul doesn't see much more value in the FBI, CIA, public schools and Social Security than tonsils or the appendix.
But the man who raised $19 million in two months is no crackpot. He has clearly tapped into a vein of voter discontent, and his opposition to US military and fiscal over-involvement all over the world deserves serious consideration.
Yet Paul's arguments come wrapped in a dogmatic personality with impatience about detail and with anyone who questions contradictions in his record. He insisted Russert was "confused" when asked about the apparent contradiction between Paul's theories and all the pork he collects for his district. "I vote against it," he said, "but that's the system."
Paul seems to find Mike Huckabee's sudden ascent galling and, while hedging his "fascism" response to the new front runner's commercial with the cross, complained about a general "softer fascism: loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business. So you have the military industrial complex, you have the medical industrial complex, you have the financial industry, you have the communications industry. They go to Washington and spend hundreds of millions of dollars. That's where the control is. I call that a soft form of fascism, something that is very dangerous."
Ron Paul sounds like a right-leaning Ralph Nader, and it remains to be seen if, in the Republican primaries or as an independent candidate, he exerts as much influence on the outcome of next year's elections as Nader did in taking votes from Al Gore and electing Bush in 2000.
But the man who raised $19 million in two months is no crackpot. He has clearly tapped into a vein of voter discontent, and his opposition to US military and fiscal over-involvement all over the world deserves serious consideration.
Yet Paul's arguments come wrapped in a dogmatic personality with impatience about detail and with anyone who questions contradictions in his record. He insisted Russert was "confused" when asked about the apparent contradiction between Paul's theories and all the pork he collects for his district. "I vote against it," he said, "but that's the system."
Paul seems to find Mike Huckabee's sudden ascent galling and, while hedging his "fascism" response to the new front runner's commercial with the cross, complained about a general "softer fascism: loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business. So you have the military industrial complex, you have the medical industrial complex, you have the financial industry, you have the communications industry. They go to Washington and spend hundreds of millions of dollars. That's where the control is. I call that a soft form of fascism, something that is very dangerous."
Ron Paul sounds like a right-leaning Ralph Nader, and it remains to be seen if, in the Republican primaries or as an independent candidate, he exerts as much influence on the outcome of next year's elections as Nader did in taking votes from Al Gore and electing Bush in 2000.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
The Prudent President
The compassionate conservative who ran in 2000 lost his empathy on the way to the White House but, after years of spending for wars and tax cuts for the wealthy, is belatedly rediscovering his fiscal prudence--about health insurance for children, school aid and public housing.
Bush's latest act of compassionate conservatism is to deny funding for the Social Security Administration that would cut delay of financial aid to the disabled, many of whom now have to wait years to have their claims adjudicated.
As a New York Times editorial points out today, "the backlog of applicants who are awaiting a decision after appealing an initial rejection has soared to 755,000 from 311,000 in 2000. The average wait for an appeals hearing now exceeds 500 days, twice as long as applicants had to wait in 2000.
"Typically two-thirds of those who appeal eventually win their cases. But during the long wait, their conditions may worsen and their lives often fall apart. More and more people have lost their homes, declared bankruptcy or even died while awaiting an appeals hearing."
After Congress last month passed a bill to give Social Security $275 million more than he requested, enough to hire judges to speed up the process, the President vetoed as profligate an amount that wouldn't pay for a day of the war in Iraq.
What would America be like if we had elected an unfeeling liberal (as many disaffected Democrats believe we actually did) in 2000 rather than the compassionate conservative who is setting our priorities now?
Bush's latest act of compassionate conservatism is to deny funding for the Social Security Administration that would cut delay of financial aid to the disabled, many of whom now have to wait years to have their claims adjudicated.
As a New York Times editorial points out today, "the backlog of applicants who are awaiting a decision after appealing an initial rejection has soared to 755,000 from 311,000 in 2000. The average wait for an appeals hearing now exceeds 500 days, twice as long as applicants had to wait in 2000.
"Typically two-thirds of those who appeal eventually win their cases. But during the long wait, their conditions may worsen and their lives often fall apart. More and more people have lost their homes, declared bankruptcy or even died while awaiting an appeals hearing."
After Congress last month passed a bill to give Social Security $275 million more than he requested, enough to hire judges to speed up the process, the President vetoed as profligate an amount that wouldn't pay for a day of the war in Iraq.
What would America be like if we had elected an unfeeling liberal (as many disaffected Democrats believe we actually did) in 2000 rather than the compassionate conservative who is setting our priorities now?
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Credit Crunch from the Cheap Seats
For the middle-class old, of which I am a card-carrying member, the sub-prime mortgage loan crisis is like distant thunder. As storms roil the markets, most of us know we won't be drenched but, from experience, we are braced to pay a price for our prudence.
It happened when the dot.com stock market bubble burst, and it's happening again with the drop in interest rates to help bail out the greedy, the gullible and the reckless that will cut into what we can get from Certificates of Deposit and bond-fund holdings to supplement Social Security and pension income.
Many of us, recalling our parents' shock in the Great Depression, mistrusted the stock market boom of the late 1990s and, in large part, resisted the euphoria over the "new economy."
Just before the Millennium, in a doctor's waiting room, I felt old and foolish overhearing the receptionist and a messenger comparing their capital gains on AOL and Amazon stock. Maybe there was a free lunch after all, and my generation was just too stubborn to belly up to the bar.
When the bubble burst, our conservatism was rewarded with the lowest interest rates in half a century that cut modest incomes from savings by more than half. As Social Security became the largest part of our safety net and the costs of health care rose, we were becoming the newest poor until interest rates finally began to inch back up from 1 and 2 percent.
Now that another wave of greed is threatening to swamp the economy, the government will rightly do what it can to save the homes of people who were roped into no-down-payment and variable-rate mortgages by sharks who "innovated" credit markets into disaster.
It would be churlish to complain about our modest losses compared to the real victims, but there is cold consolation in having lived long enough to know enough to resist the something-for-nothing lures that keep coming up for each new generation.
It happened when the dot.com stock market bubble burst, and it's happening again with the drop in interest rates to help bail out the greedy, the gullible and the reckless that will cut into what we can get from Certificates of Deposit and bond-fund holdings to supplement Social Security and pension income.
Many of us, recalling our parents' shock in the Great Depression, mistrusted the stock market boom of the late 1990s and, in large part, resisted the euphoria over the "new economy."
Just before the Millennium, in a doctor's waiting room, I felt old and foolish overhearing the receptionist and a messenger comparing their capital gains on AOL and Amazon stock. Maybe there was a free lunch after all, and my generation was just too stubborn to belly up to the bar.
When the bubble burst, our conservatism was rewarded with the lowest interest rates in half a century that cut modest incomes from savings by more than half. As Social Security became the largest part of our safety net and the costs of health care rose, we were becoming the newest poor until interest rates finally began to inch back up from 1 and 2 percent.
Now that another wave of greed is threatening to swamp the economy, the government will rightly do what it can to save the homes of people who were roped into no-down-payment and variable-rate mortgages by sharks who "innovated" credit markets into disaster.
It would be churlish to complain about our modest losses compared to the real victims, but there is cold consolation in having lived long enough to know enough to resist the something-for-nothing lures that keep coming up for each new generation.
Exposed! Obama's Kindergarten Secret!
Is it sexist to say Hillary Clinton is getting shrill? If you think piercing screams only come from women, remember Howard Dean in 2004. But that was after the vote in Iowa. Clinton's tone there now is rising in pitch as her poll numbers go down.
What's disturbing about the decision to attack Obama is not that Clinton is doing it but doing it so lamely. "I have been, for months, on the receiving end of rather consistent attacks," she announced stiffly. "Well, now the fun part starts. We're into the last month, and we're going to start drawing the contrasts."
Obama took the opening: "This presidential campaign isn't about attacking people for fun, it's about solving people's problems, like ending this war and creating a universal health care system. Washington insiders might think throwing mud is fun, but the American people are looking for leadership that can unite this country around a common purpose."
The official "Hillary for President" web site went after Obama for saying, "I have not been planning to run for President for however number of years some of the other candidates have been planning for."
This heinous untruth is exposed by quoting Obama's law school classmates, brother-in-law, third-grade teacher and, most damning of all, his kindergarten teacher, who discloses he wrote an essay, "I Want to Become President," proving that he was an ambitious tyke even back then.
As this pathetic attack is released on the official Clinton site, over at the gloves-off "Hillary Is 44" location, which has been vilifying Obama for months, the leadoff fusillade accuses him of "lying" seven times in the first ten lines.
On his blog, Robert Reich, who was in Bill Clinton's Cabinet, asks, "Why Is HRC Stooping So Low?" while refuting a "series of slurs" against Obama over Social Security and health care
Why indeed and, if the former First Lady feels she must stoop to conquer, why isn't she doing a better job of it?
What's disturbing about the decision to attack Obama is not that Clinton is doing it but doing it so lamely. "I have been, for months, on the receiving end of rather consistent attacks," she announced stiffly. "Well, now the fun part starts. We're into the last month, and we're going to start drawing the contrasts."
Obama took the opening: "This presidential campaign isn't about attacking people for fun, it's about solving people's problems, like ending this war and creating a universal health care system. Washington insiders might think throwing mud is fun, but the American people are looking for leadership that can unite this country around a common purpose."
The official "Hillary for President" web site went after Obama for saying, "I have not been planning to run for President for however number of years some of the other candidates have been planning for."
This heinous untruth is exposed by quoting Obama's law school classmates, brother-in-law, third-grade teacher and, most damning of all, his kindergarten teacher, who discloses he wrote an essay, "I Want to Become President," proving that he was an ambitious tyke even back then.
As this pathetic attack is released on the official Clinton site, over at the gloves-off "Hillary Is 44" location, which has been vilifying Obama for months, the leadoff fusillade accuses him of "lying" seven times in the first ten lines.
On his blog, Robert Reich, who was in Bill Clinton's Cabinet, asks, "Why Is HRC Stooping So Low?" while refuting a "series of slurs" against Obama over Social Security and health care
Why indeed and, if the former First Lady feels she must stoop to conquer, why isn't she doing a better job of it?
Saturday, November 17, 2007
New Kind of Presidential Debate
Would you rather see the candidates grilled by Tim Russert and Wolf Blitzer or a snowman and a gun nut cradling his "baby," a semi-automatic weapon?
Close call, but isn't there an alternative? The question is prompted by Paul Krugman's column after this week's Democratic debate, claiming Barack Obama was "a sucker" for signing on to fears that Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme" that will go bankrupt before Baby Boomers can collect what's due them.
Most voters, it's fair to say, would like to know who's blowing smoke here--politicians or dueling economists--but we're not likely to find out from sound-bite answers to ignorant questions.
In our treasured but messy democracy, there is room for college girls to ask Hillary Clinton about diamonds and pearls but so far not for informed political scientists, historians and economists to ask knowledgeable questions that could show us who really understands the issues.
At the end of this month, CNN will give us Republican hopefuls being discomfited by cutesy YouTubers, a spectacle that will undoubtedly produce entertaining insights into how well the candidates handle social embarrassment.
But if we want to know what they know about issues that will affect our lives when one of them takes the oath, couldn't there be at least one debate in which they face those talking heads the networks trot out only on election night to give us perspective on what's been going on or at other times we only hear on PBS?
A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, but total ignorance, as we know only too well from recent experience, can be disastrous. Along with the snowman and Chris Matthews, can't we have at least one debate with questions from Krugman and his academic peers of various political persuasions?
We should be willing to take the risk of being bored to death to try to avoid being governed by morons.
Close call, but isn't there an alternative? The question is prompted by Paul Krugman's column after this week's Democratic debate, claiming Barack Obama was "a sucker" for signing on to fears that Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme" that will go bankrupt before Baby Boomers can collect what's due them.
Most voters, it's fair to say, would like to know who's blowing smoke here--politicians or dueling economists--but we're not likely to find out from sound-bite answers to ignorant questions.
In our treasured but messy democracy, there is room for college girls to ask Hillary Clinton about diamonds and pearls but so far not for informed political scientists, historians and economists to ask knowledgeable questions that could show us who really understands the issues.
At the end of this month, CNN will give us Republican hopefuls being discomfited by cutesy YouTubers, a spectacle that will undoubtedly produce entertaining insights into how well the candidates handle social embarrassment.
But if we want to know what they know about issues that will affect our lives when one of them takes the oath, couldn't there be at least one debate in which they face those talking heads the networks trot out only on election night to give us perspective on what's been going on or at other times we only hear on PBS?
A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, but total ignorance, as we know only too well from recent experience, can be disastrous. Along with the snowman and Chris Matthews, can't we have at least one debate with questions from Krugman and his academic peers of various political persuasions?
We should be willing to take the risk of being bored to death to try to avoid being governed by morons.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Liberal, Progressive, Whatever
In the YouTube debate, Hillary Clinton said she would rather be called “progressive” than “liberal.” As usual, her judgment is poll-perfect.
Later in the week, the Rasmussen Reports asked voters and found:
“Just 20% said they consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically liberal while 39% would view that description negatively. However, 35% would consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically progressive. Just 18% react negatively to that term.”
Irving Kristol, father of Bush’s best media friend William, famously described a neo-conservative as “a liberal who has been mugged by reality,” a snappy definition with a touch of sly racism. In today’s political atmosphere, a progressive might be defined as a liberal who has changed his (or her) name out of ambition.
Until the Ann Coulters of the world worked so hard to make it a synonym for godless and goofy, liberal was a badge of honor for those who valued people over property and, in the last century, helped create Social Security, unemployment insurance, civil rights for minorities and opposed the war in Vietnam on the same principles that they now oppose the war in Iraq.
Even today, the most-educated Americans, including college professors, describe themselves as liberal and (hold the snickering from the cheap seats) so do I.
It’s saddening that Hillary Clinton, as her husband did, feels compelled to change her political name.
Later in the week, the Rasmussen Reports asked voters and found:
“Just 20% said they consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically liberal while 39% would view that description negatively. However, 35% would consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically progressive. Just 18% react negatively to that term.”
Irving Kristol, father of Bush’s best media friend William, famously described a neo-conservative as “a liberal who has been mugged by reality,” a snappy definition with a touch of sly racism. In today’s political atmosphere, a progressive might be defined as a liberal who has changed his (or her) name out of ambition.
Until the Ann Coulters of the world worked so hard to make it a synonym for godless and goofy, liberal was a badge of honor for those who valued people over property and, in the last century, helped create Social Security, unemployment insurance, civil rights for minorities and opposed the war in Vietnam on the same principles that they now oppose the war in Iraq.
Even today, the most-educated Americans, including college professors, describe themselves as liberal and (hold the snickering from the cheap seats) so do I.
It’s saddening that Hillary Clinton, as her husband did, feels compelled to change her political name.
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