David Runciman – Is this how democracy ends?

On election night, almost as soon as it was clear that the unthinkable had become a cold reality, Paul Krugman asked in the New York Times whether the US was now a failed state. Political scientists who normally study American democracy in splendid isolation are starting to turn their attention to Africa and Latin America. They want to know what …

Graham Vanbergen – Shadow Banking verses Global Hunger

Banking Verses Humanity – FactVILE Fact: Nearly 1/2 of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — less than $1.25 a day. VILE – Seven years after the global financial collapse, regulators and investors are still working through an epic pile of lawsuits and other …

GLEN GREENWALD – The Unrelenting Pundit-Led Effort to Delegitimize All Negative Reporting About Hillary Clinton

IN HIS New York Times column yesterday, Paul Krugman did something that he made clear he regarded as quite brave: He defended the Democratic Party presidential nominee and likely next U.S. president from journalistic investigations. Complaining about media bias, Krugman claimed that journalists are driven by “the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage …

DAVID ROSEN – Are We Entering an Era of Postmodern Serfdom?

Over the last few years, a growing numbers of authors have convincingly argued that America’s social order is in a deepening crisis.  Among these studies are: Louis Uchtelle, The Disposable American (2007); Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine, (2008); Don Peck, Pinched (2011); Donald Barlett and James Steele, The Betrayal of the American Dream (2012); D. W. Gibson, Not Working (2012); and Barbara Garson, Down the Up Escalator (2013). These and other writers …

Gerald Friedmand – Why Liberal Economists Dish Out Dispair

The ferocious reaction to my assessment that Senator Bernie Sanders’ economic and health care proposals could create long-term economic growth shows how mainstream economists who view themselves as politically liberal in America have abandoned progressive politics to embrace a political economy of despair.  Rationalizing personal disappointment and embracing market-centric economic theories according to which government can do little more than fuss around the edges, …

Matt Taibbi – Why the Banks Should Be Broken Up

Paul Krugman wrote an op-ed in the New York Times today called “Sanders Over the Edge.” He’s been doing a lot of shovel work for the Hillary Clinton campaign lately, which is his right of course. The piece eventually devolves into a criticism of the character of Bernie Sanders, but it’s his take on the causes of the ’08 crash that really …

Alternative Visions – Krugman and Neoliberal Economist Attacks on Sanders’ Programs – 03.25.16

Dr. Jack Rasmus explains how his version of a Financial Transaction Tax on stocks, bonds, derivatives, and currencies could raise far more than sufficient revenues to pay for a single payer-national health care program and still leave hundreds of billions to expand social security Medicare and other programs. In the second half of the show, Rasmus shows how a single payer system would save $1.2 trillion a year out of the current health care cost of $3 trillion today. Based on a tax study done in Europe in 2013, Rasmus shows a US financial tax of 5% on stocks & bond trades, a 1% tax on derivatives sold in the US, and 1% on non-government US currency sales raises $3.89 trillion a year, or about twice the revenues needed for a comparative single payer system. Rasmus then reviews and debunks the debates by neoliberal economists like Paul Krugman, and Clinton’s ‘gang of four’ economists, who have been attacking Sanders’ proposals for a financial tax and single payer health care. In the first half of the show, reviewing recent events in the global economy Rasmus addresses the fallout from the European Central Bank’s recent decision to expand its quantitative easing and negative interest rate programs and why they will fail; the growing default risk in the US energy junk bond markets; the preliminary agreements by Russia, Saudi Arabia and others to freeze oil prices; China’s continuing desperate moves to deal with the massive bad corporate debt problem; French retreats on introducing labor market reforms in response to mass demonstrations: the doubling in average prescription drug prices in the US: and why millennials (age 25-34) in the US now earn take home pay today in 2016 less than they did in 1984.

Ed Walker – The Problem of the Liberal Elites Part 1

As I pointed out in this post, conservative elites have completely lost their minds. But liberal elites have problems as well. The problem is more complex with liberals, and it will take several posts of reasonable length to get into it. To make things concrete, I’m going to begin with the liberal approach to trade, which gives me an opportunity to …

Rabbi Michael Lerner – How Change Happens

The last thing America needs is another “realist” or liberal compromiser as President. You never know what is possible until you fight for what is desirable. The realists are almost always wrong. The assaults on Bernie Sanders’ presidential candidacy reached new lows in the past week. Unable to effectively challenge the value of his policies, the denizens of the status …

Les Leopold – Krugman’s Attack on Sanders Was Based on an Economic Study Produced by … a Clinton Supporter

Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist, Nobel laureate and defensive linebacker for Team Hillary, is accusing  [3]the Sanders campaign of voodoo economics. He attacks an independent economic analysis of the Sanders agenda produced by economist Gerald Friedman. That questionable study shows incredibly high gains in jobs, employment and income. Krugman fails to mention that Friedman is a declared Clinton supporter! [4] That’s is either bad …