Ramanan has a Blog Up

Perhaps most "regulars" here at Mike's already know this, (it would not be unusual for me to be the last one to realize things) but regular MMT blog commenter Ramanan has a blog up.

It is titled "The Case for Concerted Action" which I personally think is a reeeeeeaaally good name.  It can be found here.

Zero comments policy.

IMO it is already the premiere (English) econ blog where one can go to find out the details of the operational structure of the Eurosystem; the European System of Central Banks;  Ramanan has a multi-part series already at Part 4 about how the Eurosystem operates which is probably a must read.

This blog is a strong addition to the universe of economic truth.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell calls out the Chicago Tribune

Mitchell debunks seven lies that appeared in a December 3rd Chicago Tribune editorial.

Read the whole post at Monetary Sovereignty (short)

The 1% steps up its efforts to brainwash you. Are you falling for it?

by Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Noah Smith — Harrison & Kreps 1978: The power of irrational expectations

So what does that say about macro? Since the late 70s, nearly all of the models used by macroeconomists have been "rational expectations" models. "Rational expectations" is the idea that people don't make systematic mistakes when predicting the future. If you think that sounds a bit silly, you're not alone, but I kid you not when I say that rational expectations absolutely dominates modern macro.

But if expectations aren't rational in financial markets, why should they be rational in the economy as a whole? The answer is that they shouldn't. This is why Thomas Sargent, who won the Nobel Prize this year and who helped develop the theory of rational expectations, calls himself a "Harrison-Kreps Keynesian." Keynes, though he is usually associated with the idea of fiscal stimulus, was a professional stock speculator, and perceived clearly the irrationality of the markets in which he participated; Sargent is merely recognizing that financial market irrationality, which was formalized by Harrison and Kreps, is a huge hint that rational expectations is not going to get the job done in macro either. 

Read the whole post at Noahpinion

Harrison & Kreps 1978: The power of irrational expectations

by Noah Smith

(h/t Keven Fathi via email)

Some good comments too.

Smith points out that Keynes was a trader. Unlike many academic economists he was familiar with how financial markets actually operate based on trader psychology. He understood "uncertainty" based on personal experience with skin in the game. He also was aware of the many factors that affect traders in addition to those studied by academics when they consider markets. This shaped his views on macro that make the Keynesian approach to macro different from the approach based on rational expectations modeling.

I would suggest to traders and those interested in the cognitive-affective aspects of trading, along with the biases involves, that they take a look at Behavioral Finance and Wealth Management: How to Build Optimal Portfolios That Account for Investor Biases by Michael M. Pompian ((Wiley Finance, 2006).

Janet Tavakoli on crony capitalism

On Nov. 29, 2011, Bloomberg magazine's Richard Teitelbaum published an article revealing a secret meeting on July 21, 2008, with then secretary of the treasury and former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson, and around a dozen hedge-fund managers and Wall Street executives.

Five of the hedge fund managers were former Goldman Sachs employees. The meeting was held at the offices of the founder of hedge fund Eton Park Capital Management, Eric Mindich, a former 15-year employee of Goldman Sachs who rose to be the senior strategy officer of Goldman's executive office. He is also current chair of the asset managers' committee of the President's Working Group on Capital Markets.

Then Secretary Paulson asked the hedge fund managers what the market might think if he placed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship, a move that would have wiped out value for the shareholders and possibly wiped out value for subordinated debt holders.According to the article, one hedge fund manager had a short position in these stocks when he walked into the meeting. He was shocked that Secretary Paulson blabbed specifics, and the hedge fund managers therefore believed the Treasury Department would implement the plan. Seven weeks later, it did.

The hedge fund manager called his lawyer at a break in the meeting, and his lawyer told him Paulson had divulged non-public material information. His lawyer advised him to stop trading in the shares of these companies immediately. Ironically, that meant the hedge fund manager could not cover his short positions, so he profited by riding the value of the shares all the way down to the bottom. If he hadn't been at the meeting, and if he had any doubts, he might have covered his short position earlier and made less money. One will never know, because Secretary Paulson tied the hedge fund manager's hands.

But the more interesting implication is for the other managers in attendance. If they didn't already have a short position in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they now had non-public material information that would allow them to almost certainly profit mightily by initiating such a trade. They could even be more confident in shorting other financial institutions that would likely take a shellacking....

Meanwhile, then Secretary Paulson told the public a different story than he told the meeting attendees. According to Bloomberg's research, earlier that day, Paulson told the New York Times that the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were inspecting Fannie and Freddie's books and he expected the result of this would inspire confidence. The Times's articleappeared the following day. Any investor in the shares of Fannie and Freddie would be less likely to sell their shares in the face of this reassuring message.

There is no way of knowing whether the hedge fund managers initiated new trades as a result of this meeting, but the key issue is that then Secretary of the Treasury Paulson communicated non-public material information that could financially benefit the recipients at the public's expense.

Read the rest at The Huffington Post

Is Crony Capitalism Wrong?

by Janet Tavakoli

Janet Tavakoli is the president of Tavakoli Structured Finance, a Chicago-based firm that provides consulting to financial institutions and institutional investors. Ms. Tavakoli has more than 20 years of experience in senior investment banking positions, trading, structuring and marketing structured financial products. She is a former adjunct associate professor of derivatives at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. Author of: Credit Derivatives & Synthetic Structures (1998, 2001),Collateralized Debt Obligations & Structured Finance (2003), Structured Finance & Collateralized Debt Obligations (John Wiley & Sons, September 2008). Tavakoli’s book on the causes of the global financial meltdown and how to fix it is: Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles from Wall Street (Wiley, 2009).

UPDATE: Crony Capitalism? Hank Paulson’s Extraordinary Meeting
by Jesse Eisinger
 at ProPublica, 

Max Blumenthal clarifies official reaction to Occupy protests — Jaw-dropper

Since charges have made that mayoral and police reaction to OW-99% was coordinated, a controversy has emerged. Previously I posted claims that Naomi Wolf made to that effect, whose accuracy Joshua Holland of AlterNet disputed. I also posted previously that Washington's Blog provided evidence on the presence of a advisor to DHS being in on the phone call among the eighteen mayors just prior to t he recent crack down.

Now Max Blumenthal is now out with a post that ups the ante exponentially. For those who are not familiar with him, here is his bio from his page at The Huffington Post.

Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast and contributor to outlets including The Nation, Al Jazeera English, Salon.com, Alternet, the Huffington Post, and the Washington Monthly. The winner of the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Award for his investigative print journalism, he has produced numerous widely-recognized video reports that have garnered hundreds of thousands of hits on Youtube. His book, "Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party," will be published by Basic Books in 2009.

I emphasize his credentials, reputation and history, since without it one might suspect that the post that has just appeared — which clinches the argument over coordinated involvement — is conspiracy theory.

Read it at AlterNet

From Occupation to “Occupy”: The Israelification of American Domestic Security — The Israelification of America’s security apparatus, recently unleashed against the OWS, has taken place at every level of law enforcement.

by Max Blumenthal

I am not going to pull out any quotes to summarize this. It is an investigative piece that requires reading in full to do it justice. This is really a jaw-dropper. 

Blumenthal's exposé accounts for what many have been wondering since we saw the police reaction to the protests, displaying tactics that had never been used so brazenly against American citizens before. Was this widespread unprofessionalism and a "few bad apples" gone rogue (remember the explanation for torture of prisoners in US control at Abu Ghraib), or was there something more going on here. Blumenthal explains what it is, and it is both shocking and alarming.

Senators are now speaking of the US as part of the "battlefield" in their defense of their indefensible passage of a bill giving the president authority to "disappear" US citizens within the United States and hold them indefinitely without recourse to the judicial process mandated in the US Constitution. Coupled with the Patriot Act and the submerging of the proposed total awareness program behing the wall of secrecy involving national security, the Constitution seems to be hanging by the thread of judicial interpretation. The present constitution of SCOTUS gives little comfort here. After Citizens United it is clear whose side they are not and it is not the 99%.

Given all this, it is easy to be a pattern emerging and a trend gaining steam. It is time to be concerned, very concerned. The noose is tightening. The US is swiftly turning into a total surveillance police state in which the government, controlled by and representing the interests of a plutocratic oligarchy, claims absolute power as a matter of "national security." We've heard that before elsewhere.

UPDATE: People Locked in Tiny Cages, Crying in Pain: What I Saw and Heard When the LAPD Threw Me in Jail for Exercising My Right to Protest the Oligarchy
by Yasha Levine at The Exiled

Don't believe the PR. There was nothing peaceful or professional about the LAPD's attack on Occupy LA -- or the way detainees were later treated....

There was nothing peaceful or professional about the LAPD’s attack on Occupy LA–not unless you think that people peacefully protesting against the power of the financial oligarchy deserve to be treated the way I saw Russian cops treating the protesters in Moscow and St. Petersburg who were demonstrating against the oligarchy under Putin and Yeltsin, before we at The eXiled all got tossed out in 2008. Back then, everyone in the West protested and criticized the way the Russian cops brutally snuffed out dissent, myself included. Now I’m in America, at a demonstration, watching exactly the same brutal crackdown… 

Read Levine's entire report and tell me this wasn't borderline torture. However, it is not vastly different from treatment that some fairly large groups of anti-war protestors were subjected to in DC back then.


UPDATE: Prior to Violent Occupy Oakland Raid, OPD Trained Alongside Bahrain Military and Israeli Border Force by David Harris-Gershon at Tikkun Daily

David Harris-Gershon's work has recently appeared in The Jerusalem Post, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and elsewhere. His memoir, Shrapnel -– which chronicles the author's attempt to reconcile with the family of the Hamas terrorist who injured his wife in the 2002 Hebrew University bombing – is currently being shopped for publication.

UPDATE: Picked up by Raw Story
Report: Israeli model underlies militarization of U.S. police
By Muriel Kane

UPDATE: Hundreds of OccupyLA Demonstrators Held for Days Without Charges on $5,000 Bail in Often Deplorable, Illegal, and Unconstitutional Conditions

by Ernest A. Canning, The Brad Blog | Report

The Kiss of Death

Asked whether modern capitalism is sustainable, Ken Rogoff says yes.

Read it at Project Syndicate (short)
Is Modern Capitalism Sustainable?
by Kenneth Rogoff

Conclusion:

In principle, none of capitalism’s problems is insurmountable, and economists have offered a variety of market-based solutions. A high global price for carbon would induce firms and individuals to internalize the cost of their polluting activities. Tax systems can be designed to provide a greater measure of redistribution of income without necessarily involving crippling distortions, by minimizing non-transparent tax expenditures and keeping marginal rates low.  Effective pricing of health care, including the pricing of waiting times, could encourage a better balance between equality and efficiency. Financial systems could be better regulated, with stricter attention to excessive accumulations of debt.

Will capitalism be a victim of its own success in producing massive wealth? For now, as fashionable as the topic of capitalism’s demise might be, the possibility seems remote. Nevertheless, as pollution, financial instability, health problems, and inequality continue to grow, and as political systems remain paralyzed, capitalism’s future might not seem so secure in a few decades as it seems now.

Nothing mentioned about energy and climate change?

Put poor children to work — Newt

In an economy where unemployment is over 8% as officially reported (not counting those too discouraged to look for work), Newt Gingrich thinks that we need to make the children of the poor work in order to teach them good habits.

Really, you can't make this stuff up. Not to mention the thinly veiled racism.

Read it at Raw Story
Gingrich: Children of poor families are lazy, should be put to work

By Stephen C. Webster

"Mortgage QE?"

There has been more and more speculation that the Fed is getting ready to launch a new QE program, this one targeting residential mortgages. With the data coming in better than expected, stocks back up, and Plosser and Bullard both chiming in that improving data would make them hesitate or question the need for more QE, there is some fear that it is off the table.

I don’t think it is off the table, and if anything see growing signs that they are trying to create the political will to get it done. Obviously some Fed members have been vocal about doing more, so the dissenters do have competition. Some of the usual “leak” sources have been indicating that it is possible, but that is not what got me more curious.

Today at least 5 commentators on Bloomberg were downplaying good data and stating that things can’t get much better without housing. I agree, but it seemed like a weird day for so many people to refer to housing. There was no housing data out today, and the jobs report was okay so it wasn’t obvious to point out the continued weakness in housing. Maybe after weeks of Europe and deficit talks, it was time for a new subject, but it just struck me as odd how often it came up. 2008 was easier, back before Bill Gross fell out of favor with the White House, because you knew whatever he said was an attempt to prepare people for a new policy. It is harder now to figure out who is setting the market up, but I find it hard to believe that it is a co-incident that “the need to fix housing” was on everyone’s lips.

So I think Bernanke is trying to lay the groundwork of why it is so important to buy mortgages.

Read the rest at TF Market Advisors

Mortgage QE?

(h/t Zero Hedge)

Uncle Sam admonished by UN envoy for not protecting protestors rights

Ouch!

The United Nations envoy for freedom of expression is drafting an official communication to the U.S. government demanding to know why federal officials are not protecting the rights of Occupy demonstrators whose protests are being disbanded -- sometimes violently -- by local authorities.

Frank La Rue, who serves as the U.N. "special rapporteur" for the protection of free expression, told HuffPost in an interview that the crackdowns against Occupy protesters appear to be violating their human and constitutional rights.

"I believe in city ordinances and I believe in maintaining urban order," he said Thursday. "But on the other hand I also believe that the state -- in this case the federal state -- has an obligation to protect and promote human rights."

"If I were going to pit a city ordinance against human rights, I would always take human rights," he continued.

La Rue, a longtime Guatemalan human rights activist who has held his U.N. post for three years, said it's clear to him that the protesters have a right to occupy public spaces "as long as that doesn't severely affect the rights of others."

In moments of crisis, governments often default to a forceful response instead of a dialogue, he said -- but that's a mistake."Citizens have the right to dissent with the authorities, and there's no need to use public force to silence that dissension," he said....

La Rue said he sees parallels between Occupy and the Arab Spring pro-democracy protests. In both cases, for instance, "you have high level of education for young people, but no opportunities."

La Rue said he is in the process of writing what he called "an official communication" to the U.S. government "to ask what exactly is the position of the federal government in regards to understanding the human rights and constitutional rights vis-a-vis the use of local police and local authorities to disband peaceful demonstrations."

Although the letter will not carry any legal authority, it reflects how the violent suppression of dissent threatens to damage the U.S.'s international reputation.

"I think it's a dangerous spot in the sense of a precedent," La Rue said, expressing concern that the United States risks losing its credibility as a model democracy, particularly if the excessive use of force against peaceful protests continue.

Read the rest at The Huffington Post
U.N. Envoy: U.S. Isn't Protecting Occupy Protesters' Rights

by Dan Froomkin

What is President Obama thinking of turning a blind eye to this and then lecturing other countries? It's the height of hypocrisy.

Scott Walker steps deeper in it

Free speech is getting expensive in Wisconsin.

Following demonstrations earlier this year which drew up to 100,000 people to the Wisconsin Capitol, Republican Gov. Scott Walker has proposed new policies that would require future protesters to pay in advance to stage an event, at a cost of $50 per hour, per Capitol Police officer.

Police may also require a liability insurance or a bond, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal.

Demonstrators will also be on the hook for any damage and cleanup following protests....

Read the rest at Raw Story
Walker intends to charge citizens fee to protest
by Dave Edwards

Somehow I can't help but think that this is a really dumb idea that is going to backfire on the governor. Does this sound like America to you? I didn't think so.

Celente predicts the emerging trend is financial crack up

Trendmeister Gerald Celente got the theme of 2011 correct. Social unrest. Now is predicting the dominant trend of 2012 will be financial crack up.

Celente cites the double-dealing of the financial sector as a primary reason for this prediction, and he describes how he was recently taken for six figures in the MF Global fiasco.

Prepare for an Economic 9/11 and Economic Martial Law (long audio interview)

by Gerald Celente

Warren Mosler — Get ready for blood in the streets in the EZ

I don't usually post links to Warren's blog since I assume that readers of this blog regularly read it. But this fits in with the recent posts here, so I am adding to the file.

So from what I can see,there’s no chance that the ECB would fund and at the same time mandate thehigher deficts needed for a recovery,In which case the only thing that will end the austerity isblood on the streets in sufficent quantity to trigger chaos and a change in governance.

Read the whole post at The Center of the Universe
DC takeaway
by Warren Mosler

Michael Hudson — Debt Slavery

Book V of Aristotle’s Politics describes the eternal transition of oligarchies making themselves into hereditary aristocracies – which end up being overthrown by tyrants or develop internal rivalries as some families decide to “take the multitude into their camp” and usher in democracy, within which an oligarchy emerges once again, followed by aristocracy, democracy, and so on throughout history.

Debt has been the main dynamic driving these shifts – always with new twists and turns. It polarizes wealth to create a creditor class, whose oligarchic rule is ended as new leaders (“tyrants” to Aristotle) win popular support by cancelling the debts and redistributing property or taking its usufruct for the state.

Since the Renaissance, however, bankers have shifted their political support to democracies. This did not reflect egalitarian or liberal political convictions as such, but rather a desire for better security for their loans. As James Steuart explained in 1767, royal borrowings remained private affairs rather than truly public debts. For a sovereign’s debts to become binding upon the entire nation, elected representatives had to enact the taxes to pay their interest charges.

By giving taxpayers this voice in government, the Dutch and British democracies provided creditors with much safer claims for payment than did kings and princes whose debts died with them. But the recent debt protests from Iceland to Greece and Spain suggest that creditors are shifting their support away from democracies. They are demanding fiscal austerity and even privatization sell-offs.

This is turning international finance into a new mode of warfare. Its objective is the same as military conquest in times past: to appropriate land and mineral resources, also communal infrastructure and extract tribute. In response, democracies are demanding referendums over whether to pay creditors by selling off the public domain and raising taxes to impose unemployment, falling wages and economic depression. The alternative is to write down debts or even annul them, and to re-assert regulatory control over the financial sector. [emphasis added]

Read the rest at CounterPunch

Debt Slavery – Why It Destroyed Rome, Why It Will Destroy Us Unless It’s Stopped
by Michael Hudson

Mike Whitney — One Bank to Rule Them All

Take a good look: This is the future of European democracy; one country after another stuffed into a fiscal straitjacket while their public assets are privatized, their unions are crushed, and their sovereignty is surrendered to unelected bankers and eurocrats. 

Europe is being handed over to big finance on a silver platter. This isn’t a crisis; it’s blackmail.

Read the whole thing at CounterPunch

One Bank to Rule Them All

by Mike Whitney

Score one for Sauron, but he still lacks the one ring of power, which is in the hands of Frodo. Go Frodo.

Richard Wolff — A Vision for Democracy

Look at this more as a call to re-think than as a concrete proposal. How would this actually work in practice? Is it a practical solution. How could it be implemented? Would it be desirable to implement it? Who would gain and who would lose? Is it fair? Etc.

As the Occupy movement keeps developing, it seeks solutions for the economic and political dysfunctions it exposes and opposes. For many, the capitalist economic system itself is the basic problem. They want change to another system, but not to the traditional socialist alternative (e.g. USSR or China). That system, too, seems to require basic change.

The common solution these activists propose is to change both systems' production arrangements from the ground up. Every enterprise should be democratized. Workers should occupy their enterprise by collectively functioning as its board of directors. That would abolish the capitalist exploitative system (employer versus employee) much as our historical predecessors abolished the parallel exploitative systems of slavery (master versus slave) and feudalism (lord versus serf). [emphasis added]

Read the rest at TruthOut

Occupy Production: A Vision for Democracy at Work

by Richard D. Wolff, Truthout | Op-Ed

Wolff sees modern capitalism as a transition to the next step of human progress and political liberalization — a step that present circumstances indicate is potentially imminent.

What Wolff does not consider and which has to be a major consideration is capital formation and allocation. Is the present market solution optimal? If not, how can it be improved, or does it need to be re-engineered? If "capitalism" is a stage of history — and we know that nothing is permanent — what is the next iteration?

What is the relation between capitalism and democracy. Are they intrinsically dependent as neoliberalism claims? Are they antithetical as opponents assert, claiming that late stage capitalism results in plutocratic oligarchy? What happens as workers become increasingly marginalized due to productivity increases resulting from technology — automation, robotics, and, soon, AI?

How does MMT fit into this?

Mish parses the unemployment numbers — "statistical mirage"

Read the whole post (long and detailed) at MISH'S Global Economic Trend Analysis
Unemployment Rate Dips to 8.6% as 487,000 Drop Out of Labor Force

by Michael "Mish" Shedlock

Conclusion:

The official unemployment rate is 8.6%. However, if you start counting all the people that want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.

While the "official" unemployment rate is an unacceptable 8.6%, U-6 is much higher at 15.6%.

Falling unemployment rate would normally be considered a good thing, but not if it is happening because 1,793,000 people stopped looking for work. 

Things are much worse than the reported numbers would have you believe. The entire economic picture is on very thin ice given the clear slowdown in the global economy.

Manifesto of Appalled Economists

A paper written by a handful of French economists criticising the economic policies applied in the European Union to deal with the sovereign debt crisis that followed government bailouts of banks and other financial institutions in 2007 has become a manifesto supported by many worldwide.

The paper, titled ‘Manifesto of Appalled Economists’, was first published last summer by four French economists, including André Orléan, a leading European expert on the financial crisis.

Read the rest at IPS
Listening to ‘Appalled Economists’ 
By Julio Godoy

Not yet MMT, but good points attacking neoliberal policy that is crashing the EZ.

Appelbaum on why foreign banks need USD

Some have been asked why the Fed recently provided dollar loans and swaps to Europe. Applebaum explains that the short answer is maturity mismatch. European banks invest heavily in the US based on short-term funding. That funding dried up as those providing it became concerns about the banks.

The European banks get short-term funds in euros and convert them to dollars. But this funding recently went directly into dollar instruments like Treasuries as capital fled the euro. Thus the banks were caught short of funding to meet their short-term obligations in USD. So the fed obliged with the dollars.


Read about it at The New York Times
Why Do Foreign Banks Need Dollars?
By Binyamin Appelbaum

(h/t Mark Thoma)

Going global

As images rolled in this week of the Egyptian authorities' assault on protesters in Tahrir Square, observers in the United States could not escape thoughts of the official violence that had very recently been wrought on Wall Street occupiers in New York City and around the country. Civilians beaten with clubs, dragged by their hair, subject to tear gas, watching their tents demolished, returning to the square they were occupying only to be beaten back again - all that spoke well of and distinguished American police was their death toll of zero.

Then came Sultan Al Qassemi's report that an Egyptian State TV anchor had confessed the inspiration Egyptian military and security forces drew from "the firm stance the US took" against occupiers, and it all made perfect sense. The Egyptian authorities, even in the post-Mubarak period, look to America for leadership.

 Recall that, in the run-up to Mubarak's downfall, the dictator's strategy at every turn followed American advice. First, the Obama-Clinton foreign policy statements urged Mubarak to "seek dialogue," which he dutifully offered to do. That did not appease the protesters, so the US instructed him not to run again. His obedient announcement that he would not was insufficient to quell the unrest. The US then advised Mubarak to make a load of "concessions," and Mubarak's included appointing a vice president and insisting that his son Gamal would not seek the presidency. The Egyptians, however were intent on meaningful democratic revolution, and the State Department's puppeteering was all for naught.

As Egyptian authorities continue to take cues from American authorities, American protesters continue to take cues from Egyptian protesters. In the spring, I reported on an evening meeting between Ahmed Maher and Waleed Rashed, of Egypt's April 6 Youth Movement and a group of American activists that included a number of people instrumental in getting Occupy Wall Street off the ground, activists intent, like their Egyptian brothers and sisters, on wresting democracy from the grip of a corrupt ownership class intent on accumulating wealth and power no matter the human cost. "Don't worry if the revolution doesn't come tomorrow," the Egyptian comrades told us on that occasion. "It will come. It is only a matter of time. Just keep working."

Read the rest at TruthOut

Occupying Wall Street and Tahrir Square: Feathers of the Same Bird

by J.A. Myerson, Truthout | News Analysis

Frank Luntz and the new GOP talking points

1. Don't say 'capitalism.'

2. Don't say that the government 'taxes the rich.' Instead, tell them that the government 'takes from the rich.'

3. Republicans should forget about winning the battle over the 'middle class.' Call them 'hardworking taxpayers.'

4. Don't talk about 'jobs.' Talk about 'careers.'

5. Don't say 'government spending.' Call it 'waste.'

7. The three most important words you can say to an Occupier: 'I get it.'

8. Out: 'Entrepreneur.' In: 'Job creator.'

9. Don't ever ask anyone to 'sacrifice.'

• Tell them, "You shouldn't be occupying Wall Street, you should be occupying Washington.

• Don't say 'bonus!'

Read the whole post at Yahoo.News
How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street
By Chris Moody | The Ticket

See also:

Top GOP Strategist Admits He’s ‘Scared’ Of Occupy Wall Street Because It’s ‘Having An Impact’
By Zaid Jilani at ThinkProgress

George Orwell called it "double-speak."

WWJD?

So let's review. It's Passover season, when crowds pour into the city, political hope is high and the authorities are on guard. Jesus stages Occupy Jerusalem. He processes into the city, crowds acclaiming the arrival of Israel's king. He occupies the Temple, disrupting its legitimate business. He characterizes accommodation to Rome as idolatry, and he accuses the Temple authorities of exploiting the poor. All the while, the crowds are watching. So are the authorities. In what sense, exactly, is Jesus an innocent victim?

For Christians it's essential to confess Jesus' righteousness. But it's also important to consider how Jesus got himself killed. Following Jesus requires not pious passivity but passionate pursuit of justice. His path opens the way not simply to innocent devotion but also to insistent testimony.

Read the whole post at The Huffington Post

Occupy Jerusalem: How Jesus Got Himself Killed

Greg Carey, Professor of New Testament, Lancaster Theological Seminary

Labor's share hits record low

The labor force's share of income has plunged to its lowest level since the measure was first recorded.

The labor force's share of income -- or the percentage of national income -- fell to a nearly 60-year-low last quarter, according to data from the Federal Reserve bank of St. Louis. The share dropped to 57.1 percent, according to economist Nouriel Roubini, compared to an average of nearly 65 percent percent before the year 2000.

Read the rest at The Huffington Post

Labor Force's Share Of Income Plunges To Lowest Recorded Level

Robert Reich — The Rebirth of Social Darwinism

“Civilization has a simple choice,” Sumner wrote in the 1880s. It’s either “liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest,” or “not-liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest. The former carries society forward and favors all its best members; the latter carries society downwards and favors all its worst members.”

Sound familiar?

Read the whole post (short) at Robert Reich

The Rebirth of Social Darwinism
by Robert Reich

Just saw Pete Peterson working out at my gym!

I've been working out right next to him for all these years and didn't even realize it. Time to discuss some MMT!

Fielding suggestions for conversation openers.

The simple solution v. the simplistic solution

Read it at AlterNet
What If They Sent in Social Services to Help Occupations Instead of Riot Cops to Bust Heads?
by Joshua Holland

Can't do that. It would be rewarding the victims instead of demonizing them and punishing them for whining.

CFTC reform being stymied?

Leery of mounting a frontal assault on Wall Street reforms, House Republicans have opted for a guerrilla-style war on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission even as it struggles with a new mandate to regulate the famously rich and wild swaps market.

Just Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee approved the latest in a series of legislative efforts to challenge the CFTC’s rule making on trading in derivatives. Despite its new responsibilities, the agency’s budget has been effectively frozen at the insistence of the House GOP.

Read the rest at Politico

Now in GOP crosshairs: Commodities
By: David Rogers
(h/t Roger Erickson)

"Occupy Wall Street" with a twist

Last week, I had a conversation with a man who runs his own trading firm. In the process of fuming about competition from Goldman Sachs, he said with resignation and exasperation: “The fact that they were bailed out and can borrow for free — It’s pretty sickening.”

Though the sentiment is commonplace these days, I later found myself thinking about his outrage. Here was someone who is in the thick of the business, trading every day, and he is being sickened by the inequities and corruption on Wall Street and utterly persuaded that nothing had changed in the years since the financial crisis of 2008.

Then I realized something odd: I have conversations like this as a matter of routine. I can’t go a week without speaking to a hedge fund manager or analyst or even a banker who registers somewhere on the Wall Street Derangement Scale.

That should be a great relief: Some of them are just like us! Just because you are deranged doesn’t mean you are irrational, after all. Wall Street is already occupied — from within.

The insiders have a critique similar to that of the outsiders. The financial industry has strayed far from being an intermediary between companies that want to raise capital so they can sell people things they want. Instead, it is a machine to enrich itself, fleecing customers and exacerbating inequality. When it goes off the rails, it impoverishes the rest of us. When the crises come, as they inevitably do, banks hold the economy hostage, warning that they will shoot us in the head if we don’t bail them out.

Read the rest at ProPublica

Wall Street Is Already Occupied

by Jesse Eisinger

"Capitalism" becoming a dirty word?

...the movement is echoing a trend that has been noted by pollsters in the last few years: a marked fall in the number of people who view ‘free market capitalism’ positively. A  Pew poll from 2010 showed that a narrow plurality of Americans viewed capitalism favorably (53%), a number that was smaller than in Brazil or China. Equally important, about 43% of millennials (those between 18 and 30 years of age) saw ‘socialism’ and ‘capitalism’ as positive. Fewer than half of   women, low-income groups and less-educated groups describe capitalism as positive.

There is clarity among protestors and the larger public perhaps that there has been a serious betrayal of a cherished American narrative in the last three decades of neoliberal capitalism. The imagined narrative  that leading an exemplary life in the face of adversity can help anyone climb from rags to riches seems cynical and bare in the face of the events of the last three years....

Read the whole post at Triple Crisis
Capitalism in the Spotlight in the Occupy Movement

by Arjun Jayadev

Are the 1% tarnishing the brand?

The veil pulled back on the Wizard of Oz

Top officials willfully concealed the true extent of the 2008-'09 bailouts from Congress and the public.

1. The big banks and hedge funds were in much more trouble than we were led to believe. 

2. Wall Street’s secret government made sure the largest banks would grow even larger, aided by the secret funding. 

3. The bigger Wall Street becomes, the more government it can buy. 

4. Wall Street’s secret government protects its own.

5. Wall Street is a clear and present danger to democracy. 

6. Occupy Wall Street is fundamentally correct, but we need more.

Read the post at AlterNet
6 Shocking Revelations About Wall Street's "Secret Government"
by Les Leopold

Les Leopold is the executive director of the Labor Institute and Public Health Institute in New York, and author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity—and What We Can Do About It (Chelsea Green, 2009).

This pretty well sums up the way the public is coming to see this fiasco. Occupy has struck a nerve?

Setting the record straight: The truth about business investment under Obama

We've heard this pat line over and over again, that Obama is "anti-business." The president's detractors say that his anti-business views along with his regulatory excess (is this even true?) are the reason that businesses are not investing. They state it as if it is fact...businesses are not investing.

Is this really true?

I will once again examine this claim. The charts below have been constructed from data from the Bureau of Economic analysis.

Chart 1. Real Total Business Investment (billions $)

This first chart shows that total business investment under Obama beat Reagan, Bush 1 and Bush 2. And you can see that both Bush's--Republicans--were negative, by the way. Only Clinton beat Obama and that was over a period of eight years as opposed to Obama's three. Clinton also had the benefit of a booming economy, the Internet boom and Y2K. In addition, once Clinton started running surpluses, business investment slowed considerably. That's not evident necessarily in the chart, but it is upon examination of the data.

Chart 2. Real Growth in Business Investment compared to growth in GDP

The second chart is even more eye-opening. It shows that the growth in business investment relative to the growth in the economy has NEVER BEEN FASTER THAN NOW! (Again, I went as far back as Reagan.) Business investment is surging as a percent of GDP. In Obama's three years in office, the growth in business investment has been more rapid than Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2 and even Clinton!

Let me be clear, I am not here to champion or support Obama. There are lots of things that this president is doing wrong--terribly wrong--and I was among the first to point out his hard-core neo-liberal leanings. I spoke about it way back in 2008 when he first selected his economic team.

However, let's call a spade a spade. The claim that businesses are not investing under Obama because of his "anti business" attitude is PURE BULLSHIT!! The numbers speak for themselves.