Yearly Archives: 2012

Social Security: Will Obama Cave?

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The American Prospect has the Robert Kuttner article Social Security: Will Obama Cave?.

The premise of the “Chained CPI” is that the standard CPI overstates inflation because people regularly substitute products when they are more expensive. If beef is too pricey, people switch to chicken.

There are two fallacies in this premise as applied to seniors. Most seniors already live so close to the margin of poverty that they have already done all the easy substituting, unless we expect them to further downshift from chicken to cat food, or to choose between filling stomachs and filling prescriptions.

Moreover, the CPI as applied to seniors understates the true impact of inflation, not overstates it. As several studies have shown, the cost of health care has been increasing at more than twice the general rate of inflation, and seniors spend a far larger share of their incomes on medical care than younger Americans do.

This information backs up what I told Representative Richard Neal’s staffer as described in my previous post Cutting Social Security benefits is a cruel, stupid policy.

One other set of enablers are those liberals who say that at least a disguised cut in Social Security is not quite as bad as raising the Medicare eligibility age, a Republican demand that Obama has rejected. This chorus includes the sainted Paul Krugman, another resolute liberal who ordinarily earns nothing but our thanks and appreciation.

But saying that cutting Social Security is not quite as bad as cutting Medicare sets a pretty low bar. Neither should be cut.

The above quote also seems to back up my deviation from Krugman as mentioned in that previous post.

My best hope is that Boehner will pass his Plan B in the House and so anger President Obama, that all negotiations fall through.  Once on the other side of the cliff we can see what kind of a deal can be worked out with the next Congress.  Perhaps with restricted ability to threaten filibuster in the Senate and fewer Tea Party members in the House, the President will finally come to recognize the strength of his position.

Cutting Social Security benefits is a cruel, stupid policy

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This headline is a quote from the Paul Krugman post The Deal Dilemma.

Switching from the regular CPI to the chained CPI doesn’t affect benefits immediately after retirement, which are based on your past earnings.What it does mean is that after retirement your payments grow more slowly, about 0.3 percent each year. So if you retire at 65, your income at 75 would be 3 percent less under this proposal than under current law; at 85 it would be 6 percent less; there’s supposedly a bump-up in benefits for people who make it that far.

This is not good; there’s no good policy reason to be doing this, because the savings won’t have any significant impact on the underlying budget issues. And for many older people it would hurt. Also, the symbolism of a Democratic president cutting Social Security is pretty awful.

I have already called my representative Richard Neal, to tell him that I hope he publicly opposes this cut to Social Security.  His staff person who answered told me that Neal does not consider this to be a cut.  I told him that I did.  From what I have heard, seniors have a faster rising cost of living than other citizens.  As Krugman says, it would be “cruel , stupid policy” to change their formula for cost of living raises to be less than the general population.

I told Congressman Neal’s office that I would prefer that he take us over the cliff than accept this compromise.  The country can get a better deal from the next Congress.  Though the gist of the Krugman article is that he is not so sure which deal would be better.

Tell the President: No Deal That Cuts Benefits.

Galbraith: Change of Direction, IG Metall Conference

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Mark Thoma has posted the transcript of speech Galbraith: Change of Direction.  Here is the link to the audio of the speech.  The audio has some annoying background noises, but is quite understandable.  If this noise is too annoying for you, you can read the transcript.  If the following teaser is not enough to get you to listen, then there is probably nothing I could have said to change your mind.

Yesterday we heard Professor Nouriel Roubini give a magisterial and very high speed tour of the world situation making it clear of course that the promised recovery has not occurred. But if Nouriel is Sir Isaiah Berlin’s fox, who knows many things, let me try this morning to be the hedgehog who knows one big thing, and that one big thing is that what we are experiencing is a single, unified, global crisis of the economy and of the financial system. It is not a cluster of distinct and separated events; a subprime crisis in the United States; a public debt crisis in Greece; a bank crisis in Iceland; a real estate bust in Ireland and Spain; nor are there distinct U.S. and European crises, nor can the financial be separated from the real, nor is Germany a country to which crisis has not yet come with the suggestion that there might be some separate way out. There is one crisis, only one crisis, a deeply interconnected crisis of the world system. This crisis has, I think, three deep sources going back not twenty years but forty years to the early 1970s and the end of what we sometimes call the “golden age,” the “glorious thirty” years in the immediate aftermath of the second World War.



For the sake of context, you might be interested in the WikiPedia definition of IG Metall.


IG Metall (German: Industriegewerkschaft Metall, “Industrial Union of Metalworkers'”) is the dominant metalworkers’ union in Germany. Analysts of German labor relations consider it a major trend-setter in national bargaining. As a metalworkers’ union, it represents workers in the motor vehicle industry. Significantly, IG Metall represents both blue- and white-collar workers.





    

    
                                    

                                
                                                            
                                                                    

                                        
    

              

          
Interview With James Galbraith
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Mark Thoma has posted an Interview with James Galbraith that was conducted by Roger Strassburg in the German publication NachDenkSeiten.  I give the link to Thoma’s post of the interview just so you get a few introductory remarks and also get a chance to see other links on his blog.  One of those links is to a speech made by James Galbraith at a conference in Germany. The actual interview on the original site are part 1 and part 2.


The teaser I have chosen from the interview is a response by James Galbraith:


The specifics of this begin with the question of the debt, and recognition that you cannot adjust your way out of a debt that can’t be paid. A debt that can’t be paid won’t be paid. The sooner you relieve the burden of that debt, the better off you are.


This is just an example of the practicality of the discussion.  I see it as an attempt of both the interviewer and the interviewee trying to get people to see reality as it is rather than as their preconceived notions would want it to be.


    

    
                                    

                                
                                                            
                                                                    

                                        
    

              

          
Untold History: Early US Imperialism, Hitler, Roosevelt, The Spanish Civil War
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The Real News Network has the dialog Untold History: Early US Imperialism, Hitler, Roosevelt, The Spanish Civil War as the second part of the series.  I posted the first part previously in The Making of “Untold History of the United States”.









It is hard to pull out a sentence or two to act as a teaser. All I can say is that it is a fascinating discussion of history.  As in any telling of history, I am no authority to tell you who is right, or wrong, or even anywhere near the truth on what actually happened.


I am beginning to think that the only purpose of delving into history is to get an understanding of what various people think about each other based on what their understanding of history is.  The reason for people to have the attitudes they do is based on what they think history is.  It almost makes no difference how close to reality that imagined history is.  Our understanding of people is probably no more accurate than our understanding of history.  So where does that leave us?


Maybe the real lesson is that life is just very complicated.  As an engineer, I feel like the best attitude to have is to always put safety margins in your plans based on the premise that what you think you know may not be completely accurate or may not be complete.  Putting such contingencies in your plans has a cost.  The art of engineering is to make these contingencies as small as possible without making them too small.  Competition makes for pressure to cut the safety margin. As an engineer you have to give in to that pressure enough so that your enterprise survives the competition, but not give in so much that your product becomes unsafe. That’s a neat trick if you can do it.


    

    
                                    

                                
                                                            
                                                                    

                                        
    

              

          
So You Think You Know the Second Amendment?
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The New Yorker has the post by Jeffrey Toobin So You Think You Know the Second Amendment?


For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The courts had found that the first part, the “militia clause,” trumped the second part, the “bear arms” clause. In other words, according to the Supreme Court, and the lower courts as well, the amendment conferred on state militias a right to bear arms—but did not give individuals a right to own or carry a weapon.


You will have to read the rest of the article to see how this interpretation got turned around.  It’s hard to tell if enough people will change their minds on this issue.


    

    
                                    

                                
                                                            
                                                                    

                                        
    

              

          
The Making of “Untold History of the United States”
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The Real News Network has the first installment of a series on The Making of “Untold History of the United States”. The article has a transcript of the video below and links  to related article.









The actual series on Showtime sounds like it holds some promise.  Part of the series depends on the history of Henry Wallace, an historical figure whose name I know and of whose history I am completely ignorant.



Henry Wallace was as progressive a mainstream politician as this country ever saw, and becomes vice president at a critical period.



There are links on The Real News Network to more information about Henry Wallace. Two of the items are WHEN THE AMERICAN VP WAS PROGRESSIVE and IS THERE ANY ‘WALLACE’ LEFT IN DEMOCRATIC PARTY?


    

    
                                    

                                
                                                            
                                                                    

                                        
    

              

          
State Fails To Measure Effect Of Voter ID Law
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The Boston Globe story State reports few problems with voter ID law is a good example of Greenberg’s Law of the Media.


The overwhelming majority of voters who cast ballots this year in Rhode Island had no problems complying with a new voter identification law. Secretary of State Ralph Mollis’s office reported Friday that of 560,000 ballots cast in this year’s elections fewer than 190 provisional ballots were submitted because the voter failed to present a driver’s license, bus pass, or other form of ID. Lawmakers passed the law last year to prevent voter fraud.


This proves that 190 people who had no ID still attempted to vote despite the law.  It does not tell you how many people decided not to vote because they did not have the required ID.  If these people without ID who did not vote were otherwise legally eligible to vote, then I would say that these were problems.  We have no idea of how many such people there were.  So while the story appears to be true that the state reported few problems, that does not mean that there were only a few problems.  In fact there is no report of the state trying to measure how many problems there were.  It is very likely that you will not find what you do not seek.


I predict that the “information” published in this article will be used as a means to justify the continuation of the voter ID law. Perhaps a better headline would be the one I used for this article.


    

    
                                    

                                
                                                            
                                                                    

                                        
    

              

          
Elizabeth Warren Appointed To Senate Banking Committee – It’s Official
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I just got an email from Elizabeth Warren.  Please follow up with Harry Reid as Elizabeth Warren has suggested.




On 12/12/2012 6:22 PM, Elizabeth Warren for

Daily Kos wrote:


 











Steven,


Just moments ago, I received a call from Sen. Harry Reid’s office, confirming my position on the Senate Banking Committee in January.


I appreciate the faith that Leader Reid has put in me to take this assignment, and I am looking so forward to playing a role in Congressional oversight over big banks on Wall Street and the banking agencies in Washington. Middle class families need more watchdogs in Washington that will try to hold the big guys accountable and to stop bad deals for the American people. I’m ready to help.


Please join me in thanking Leader Harry Reid for this incredible opportunity.


Over the years, your faith in my work has strengthened me. You donated to my election campaign, you made phone calls to help identify volunteers and get out the vote in Massachusetts, and you pushed hard again and again to put wind in my sails in every way imaginable so that I could take on the big guys.


Against the odds, you helped give me a real shot at winning.


You’ve been there for me since the beginning, and I’m so grateful. This is how real change happens – we do it together.


Of course, fighting for the middle class means more than talk or strongly worded emails. It means across-the-board, consistent accountability for anyone who breaks the law — no matter where they work or who their friends are. And that’s what we’re going to work hard to accomplish.


But before we get started, please join me in thanking Leader Reid for his giving me this incredible opportunity.


I’ve taken on Wall Street banks and other powerful interests for years, and, with your help, I’ll continue to do so for many years to come.


Thank you for being a part of this, and keep fighting!


Elizabeth


donate













    

    
                                    

                                
                                                            
                                                                    

                                        
    

              

          
Angry with Obama, GOP threatens political war next year
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CNN has the story Angry with Obama, GOP threatens political war next year.


Conservative Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, promised the newly re-elected Obama “one hell of a fight” next year if the president forces through his plan for high-income earners to pay more taxes without agreeing to substantive steps to reduce the nation’s chronic federal deficits and debt.


“But there will come a time in February and March where we have to raise the debt ceiling,” Graham said Tuesday on “Piers Morgan Tonight” on CNN.


“I will not raise the debt ceiling ever again until we get significant entitlement reforms, because if we don’t reform entitlements, we’re going to become Greece,” adding that the situation presented a chance for Obama to lead. “But if he doesn’t lead, there’s going to be one hell of a fight over raising the debt ceiling.”


Do you need any more proof that we need to reform the filibuster rule in the Senate in order to disarm the Republicans who want to wage war against the country?


To take action see my previous post Reform The Filibuster – Don’t Just Stand There, Do Something. If the Republicans see the growth in signatures on this position every time they threaten the country, maybe they will get the message.  In any case, this reform needs to happen.  If the Republicans claim to be conservative and long for the good old days, then they should all be in favor of putting the filibuster rules back to their traditional status.  It was the recent change that made it too easy to stop the Senate with a mere threat of a filibuster that has brought this country to the sorry deadlock in which it finds itself.