Paul Krugman summarizes Ben Bernanke's, uh, action plan.
1. Things are really, really bad.
2. The damage is cumulative; the longer this goes on, the worse the prospects for the future.
The Fed is geared up to do something about all this, but is hesitant.
5. Therefore, what we at the Fed will do is, um, sit on our hands some
more, and think very seriously about maybe, someday, doing something.
One commenter on Krugman's post may have hit the bull's-eye. Which is to say that I think he's right.
It's been apparent for quite a while now, at least to me, that Chairman
Bernanke is terrified of his board, terrified of Republicans in
Congress, and terrified he might be criticized for ... well, anything. ...Charley James
Have a nice Labor Day weekend. Or are you jobless and homeless still? Well... um...
The headline over at Daily Intel: "CRITICS PAN EASTWOOD, GO WILD FOR EMPTY CHAIR!"
The Daily Newsnotes
that within hours, the speech had sparked the meme known as
"Eastwooding," which involves Twitter users posting pictures of their
favorite unoccupied chairs. Even the non-imaginary President Obama
jumped on the trend. "This seat's taken," Tweeted @BarackObama, along with a photo:
One commenter at Daily Intel asks: "Where's Jessica Walter when we need her?"
Well, it wasn't a heavy-weight convention speech. More like a Celebration Of Me. Let's face it, you know Romney by what he doesn't like to talk about. Think Progress noticed the glaring absence of the following: financial reform, climate change, immigration, Romneycare, Afghanistan, Syria, Social Security, veterans, Medicare, and housing.
Oh, right. He's running for mayor of Wolfeboro, NH. Or is it mayor of La Jolla? Park City?
Ryan doesn't own the lie machine. He shares it with Mitt Romney.
That gas price lie was so obvious that, once again, it's obvious that when Mitt lies, he knows he lying and doesn't give a damn.
Gas prices have not doubled. "Exactly four years ago," according to Washington Post's Glenn Kessler's fact check, "the price was $3.67 — not much different than today’s price of $3.72." By the time Obama came into office, "the collapse of Lehman Brothers [had] sparked the crisis," and the whole economy dropped into a pit and gas prices also sank before Obama was inaugurated.
Obviously, for someone with Mitt Romney's wealth, it's easier to ignore the recession. And so he did and does. His income was secure; Mr. and Mrs. Middle Class's income dropped because the rest of us were severely hit by recession. And that, says Romney, is Obama's fault. Huh?
And then there's the matter of taxes and defense cuts.
“Unlike President Obama, I will not raise taxes on the middle class.”
Romney appears to be referring to mandates in the health
care law, but overall Obama has cut taxes broadly for the middle class.
He has extended Bush tax cuts, included a “Making Work Pay” credit in
the stimulus bill and reduced payroll taxes by two percentage points in
the past two years.
Obama has called for raising taxes on people making more than $250,000 a year. ...WaPo
“His trillion dollar cuts to our military will eliminate
hundreds of thousands of jobs, and also put our security at greater
risk.”
Romney here attributes planned cuts to the military
entirely to Obama, but they actually are the result of a 2011 budget
deal between Obama and congressional Republicans, which avoided a
default on the national debt. ...WaPo
The next one is more like wishful thinking based, as the Post points out, not on hard numbers but on "policy assertions." "Policy assertions" are a more convincing way of saying "hopey changey."
“And unlike the president, I have a plan to create 12 million new jobs.”
This sounds like a pretty bold statement, especially considering that only two presidents
— Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — created more than 12 million jobs.
Romney, in fact, says he can reach this same goal, in just four years,
though the policy paper
issued by his campaign contains few details. It is mostly a collection
of policy assertions, such as such as reducing debt, overhauling the tax
code, fostering free trade and so forth. ...WaPo
Hopey changey thinking? Sure. Romney indulges in it all the time.
Yesterday a federal judge threw out parts of the Florida law, after
calling them harsh and impractical. This law changed how voter
registration works. Florida's Republican leaders say it was intended to
reduce fraud, but groups that organized voting drives said it created
huge obstacles. And this week, the Florida Times Union reported that
since the law went into effect, new voter registration among Democrats
fell drastically. ...NPR
Public Radio reports on the effect of Republican efforts to control access to voting in Florida. It's pretty bad. It's had a dire effect on the ability of Democrats even to register. Some excerpts:
[Restrictive new laws] reduced the number of days that they have to turn the new voter
applications from 10 to 48 hours. So basically, under the old law it was
10 days for a new voter application needed to be turned into an
election official. And under the new law it went to 48 hours. And there
are some penalties associated with late fees, and many of the groups
said 48 hours was too narrow of a time frame, and they were afraid that
they were going to have to pay some fairly hefty fines. So a lot of them
after this legislation took effect July 1, 2011, just kind of got out
of the registration game altogether. ...NPR
The drop in Democratic registrations has dropped dramatically since 2004. From 200,000 to 11,000 over the same periods in the election cycle. The numbers of Republican registered voters "continues to go up."
"A U.S. district judge now plans to file a permanent injunction against the law," and that means "there's no threat going into November that these restrictions would be re-implemented."
Since May 30 ... these groups have restarted their
reorganization effort, that at that time the federal judge out of
Tallahassee had temporarily said, these things can't be enforced and
then earlier this week he said, you know, I'm permanently tossing them.
So basically it's an indication that there's no threat of them coming
back before November, and these groups can continue to do their
registration efforts. ...NPR
