Category Archives: Politics

Deprogramming Progressives Indoctrinated into Supporting Austerity

By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jointly posted with New Economic Perspectives

A little bit of economics can be a truly terrible thing, for the introductory classes in micro and macro-economics are the most dogmatic and myth-filled part of the neo-liberal curriculum. Dogmas that have been falsified for 75 years (such as austerity) are taught as revealed truth. The poor indoctrinated student is then launched into the world “knowing” that austerity is the answer and that mass unemployment and prolonged recessions are small prices to be paid (by others) to achieve the holy grail of a balanced budget. Students are taught that national budgets are really just like household budgets. These dogmas are not simply false, they are self-destructive and cruel. Neo-liberal economics is so bad and has gone downhill at such a rapid rate that it now worships the economic analog to bleeding patients – austerity – as a response to a Great Recession. Millions of people are indoctrinated annually into believing this long-falsified nonsense, and that includes people who consider themselves progressives.

Obama Administration Seeks to Strengthen Rupert Murdoch

Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. He can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller

Earlier this year, Obama Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski proposed relaxing media ownership rules to allow Rupert Murdoch to buy the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. It’s not something you’ll see discussed much, because Republicans like the fact that Murdoch is going to get more power, while Democrats don’t want to admit that Obama is helping the person framed as their arch-nemesis. This is part of a larger pattern – media consolidation is one of the many structural problems that Obama promised to deal with. And indeed, this is the real arena where the battle over free speech is being fought. Corporate control over our communications infrastructure is the free speech question of our time.

Administration Planning to Use Fannie and Freddie to Provide More Stealth Stimulus

The Obama Administration is planning to launch yet another mortgage refi program, this one targeting subprime borrowers who are current on their loans but underwater, extending the government support of the mortgage market to yet another borrower group.

Econ4 on Health Care

Econ4, which is a group of heterodox economists, has produced a series of videos for laypeople on major political/economic policy issues. Their latest release is on healthcare, or more accurately, our broken healthcare system.

Revealed: Why the Pundits Are Wrong About Big Money and the 2012 Elections

By Thomas Ferguson, Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, Paul Jorgensen,s Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Texas and Jie Chen, University Statistician at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Cross posted from Alternet

Analysts of American elections routinely confuse the voice of the people with the sound of money talking.

Yanis Varoufakis: Will the Real Economy Rebound, Following Wall Street’s Resuscitation? And What of Europe?

By Yanis Varoufakis, a professor of economics at the University of Athens. Cross posted from his blog

Another Spanish newspaper, El Confidencial, were kind enough to interview me on the global and European crisis, on the occasion of the Global Minotaur‘s Spanish translation-edition. Here is the interview, in English (the actual article will appear in Spanish, of course). Read on…

Bill Black: Let’s Celebrate the Failure of the July 2011 Great Betrayal

By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives

In July 2011, President Obama and Speaker Boehner reached an agreement in principle on a deal crafted to inflict $4 trillion in austerity by raising taxes modestly, slashing social spending, and beginning to unravel the safety net. The deal would have been a disaster for America. Unemployment was 9.1%. The deal would have thrown us back into a recession and caused unemployment to surge. Recessions and increased unemployment cause tax revenues to fall and increase demand for social services (e.g., for unemployment compensation) – they produce large deficits. Austerity kills jobs and frequently increases deficits. The Eurozone is the latest demonstration of this fact.

We should, therefore, all be celebrating the failure of the July 2011 austerity deal.

Cathy O’Neil: Why Nate Silver is Not Just Wrong, but Maliciously Wrong

By Cathy O’Neil, a data scientist. Cross posted from mathbabe

I just finished reading Nate Silver’s newish book, The Signal and the Noise: Why so many predictions fail – but some don’t. I have major problems with this book and what it claims to explain. In fact, I’m angry.