Time Magazine has the article The Possible Presidential Candidate Who Agrees the Most With Pope Francis.  Time Magazine is always good for a little frivolous commentary on the news.  I wouldn’t take anything it says seriously, but this article tickled my fancy.

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders is Jewish. He’s also the likely 2016 presidential candidate whose political philosophy lines up most closely with the economic and social theories of Pope Francis.

Who knew that Sanders was Jewish?  Maybe the name Bernie was the clue.

“I’m not quite as radical as the Pope is,” he smiles. “But.”

Well, if he is not as radical as the Pope, then his socialism must be safe.

Counter Current News has the article No Outrage For Palestinian Cartoonist Who Was Arrested and Jailed In Israel.

The State alleged that Saba’aneh had contacted a publishing company about publishing his cartoons in a book. That Jordanian publisher also put out a book about Palestinian prisoners. The State of Israel said that this book was a threat to national security. Saba’aneh’s contact with this publisher was thereby used as a pretext to lock up the controversial cartoonist before he could connect with a broader audience via this publishing house.

Saba’aneh was ultimately sentenced to five months in jail after serving out his informal and continuously extended detention. He was also fined 10,000 shekels for his “contact with a hostile organization.”

Well, I mean jailing someone is not like a terrorist attack that killed people.  OK, what about the article These 17 Journalists Were Killed by Israel In Gaza?

It should be emphasized that killing of journalists and media workers is a violation of international law.

Thanks to Tim Wise for posting this on his Facebook page.

January 12, 2015

Just to give myself some cover against people who might think this post is outrageous for whatever reasons, I have this additional information from one of the respondents on Tim Wise’s post.

The comment mentions the article Death threats to Haaretz journalists appear on right-winger’s Facebook page. In commenting on a political cartoon that Haaretz had published, this article said the following:

The cartoon that sparked the death threats (captions in Hebrew read: 10 journalists killed in attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris (top), about 13 journalists killed last summer in attack on Gaza (bottom)

What I take away from this exchange is that if an Israeli newspaper can remark about journalists killed in Gaza, then the topic should not be taboo for me to even mention. This is to say nothing about the reported comments from the right wing in Israel. I’ll let you think about that part of the story on your own.

Alan Grayson has this post on his Facebook page.

Here is the link to congressmanwithguts.com.

Thanks to Elizabeth Ann St John for putting this on her Facebook page.

I am glad that Alan Grayson is getting the recognition he deserves. If Nancy Pelosi hadn’t been afraid of using Grayson as a spokesman for the party, she might still be speaker of the house.

If Elizabeth Warren will not run for President in 2016, we need to remember that there are people like Sanders, Merkley, and Grayson that would make fine candidates. It is getting to the point where Warren has to make it crystal clear. She needs to day not only is she not now running for President, but she will not run in 2016. Then we can get serious about finding another candidate.

Naked Capitalism has the article Wolf Richter: Subprime Spikes Auto Sales, Delinquencies Soar, Industry in Total Denial, Fallout to Hit Main Street.

These aren’t just a few individual cases, but much of the hollowed-out, over-indebted, underpaid middle class, the new American proletariat, the 62% of the population that has no emergency savings to cover a $500 car repair or medical bill. These households face, as the Federal Reserve said last year, “large-scale financial strain.” They’ve been bypassed by the Fed’s “wealth effect.” And with tighter lending standards, many of these folks won’t be able to buy a new car.

If you are one of those people who may now be under water in your car loan, don’t say you haven’t be warned.  Not there there is much you can do about it now.  And not that you will be reading this blog post.  However, the rest of us should take heed.  Even if your finances are in perfectly good shape, you should remember that the collapse of 2009 affected us all.  I wouldn’t be taking any expensive vacations to Florida right now. Oops.

Naked Capitalism has the post Scott Fullwiler: Paul Krugman—The Conscience of a Neo-Liberal? published on March 28, 2011.  This is one of the best counter-attacks on Paul Krugman’s attempts to discredit MMT that I have read. It is not just a  counterattack, but it is also an explanation of a lot of MMT. Your mileage may vary.  So this is another one of the posts that I make purely for my own benefit in recording the location of the article.

The article concluded with the following:

To conclude by way of reiterating the main point here, one need not agree with MMT that the three assumptions Krugman makes are incorrect. The overarching problem is that Krugman has simply assumed the Neo-Liberal macroeconomic model is correct and the MMT view is incorrect. This is far different from actually demonstrating that MMT is incorrect, which Krugman has yet to even attempt.

By the way, I stumbled across this article while wending my way through some of the links in the article of my previous post Is It Time for MMT To Become Mainstream to Save Us from the Second Global Financial Crisis of the Millennium?

Apropos of my previous post, New Economic Perspectives has the article Is It Time for MMT To Become Mainstream to Save Us from the Second Global Financial Crisis of the Millennium? by L. Randall Wray.

In the New Economic Perspectives article, Wray is commenting on a Vox article Bernie Sanders opens a new front in the battle for the future of the Democratic Party by Dylan Matthews.

As Dylan says: “For years, the main disagreement between Democratic and Republican budget negotiators was about how to balance the budget — what to cut, what to tax, how fast to implement it — but not whether to balance it. Even most liberal economists agree that, in the medium-run, it’s better to have less government debt rather than more. Kelton denies that premise. She thinks that, in many cases, government surpluses are actively destructive and balancing the budget is very dangerous. For example, Kelton thinks the Clinton surpluses are nothing to brag about and they actually inflicted economic damage lasting over a decade.”

Yeah, Bernie Sanders.  Now if Bernie and Stephanie can turn Elizabeth Warren into an MMTer, we’ll know we are really making progress.  As a constituent of Warren’s, I have tried to use what little influence I have to get Warren thinking about MMT.

Naked Capitalism has the article New Findings Point to Private Credit “Perfect Storm” Brewing in Your Financial Future.

Macroeconomic stability will be more elusive and that will affect all of our lives: from the risks many will face in childhood, to the security of employment at working age, to the challenge of accumulating for retirement. More financial instability will introduce more uncertainty all down the line, and that will be a very different world than the one we would have lived in only a couple of decades ago. But that period of calm also tells us that such instability isn’t necessarily a fact of life, and addressing that is likely to be the policy challenge going forward.

As several comments point out, this is not exactly a new finding, but the graph they show may be new to some people.  Also keep in mind that this article is talking about private credit.  This is what people in the private sector have borrowed and must pay back.  This bears no relation to the federal “debt”.  The federal “debt” is to the federal government like bank account deposits are to banks.  To make this clearer, isn’t it obvious that people tend to buy U.S. Treasury securities because it is absolutely the safest place they can put their money and earn a little interest.  This safety factor is exactly why Treasuries pay a lower interest rate than private banks, and yet the Treasury has plenty of customers who are more than happy to accept the deal.

Takepart has the article Watch Elizabeth Warren School the Senate on the Keystone XL Pipeline: ‘It’s About Money and Power’.

The Massachusetts senator blasted colleagues for fast-tracking the controversial tar sands oil project on the first day of the new Congress.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., lit into Senate colleagues on Thursday for putting a bill to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline ahead of legislation that would do much more for American job growth and infrastructure.

This is what a fighting progressive Senator looks like. Why shouldn’t she get as much coverage telling the truth as the Boners and McConnels get telling their lies?

Thanks to Elizabeth Ann St John for posting this on Facebook.

The Fiscal Times has the article Why Elizabeth Warren Trumps Obama’s Economic Message. You all scoffed when I wrote all this on my blog over the past few months.  Will you continue to scoff?  I know the issue you have.  I have seen it over and over again in my career and not only for me.  People never believe the experts they know personally.  They can’t believe they actually know anybody personally who has a handle on what is going on or what to do.  So, in industry, you just hire a  consultant to tell your company the same thing  you have been telling them for years.  If the company pays the consultant enough money, then, and only then, does the message get through.

Well here are a few tiny snippets from the consultant that I “hired” to speak to you on this blog.  For the full message, you’ll have to read the full consultant’s report by clicking on the link above.

Things could be different next time depending on the presidential matchup. Yet even a candidate as formidable as former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton may have trouble breaking through the lethargy or indifference of disgruntled middle class Democrats who have lived with wage stagnation for years.
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“This analysis suggests that a good message to the middle class could potentially yield you a lot of votes,” he added.

This is why I have been such a strong supporter of Elizabeth Warren and other politicians who deliver the same message with the same urgency.  This is also why I have been saying that Hillary Clinton would be a disastrous candidate.  What would be even worse would be if Hillary Clinton actually got elected to be President.

Personally financially, I would probably do OK if Hillary Clinton got elected.  The 90% of the population that has less financial wherewithal than I have would continue to get hammered.  If Elizabeth Warren or someone like her got elected, I might not do as well financially, but I would be able to sleep better at night by not having to worry about whether I will do well, or whether the stock market and the economy will crash instead.  I would be more than happy to trade a little chance for huge profits for the assurance that I won’t have to be eating dog food to make ends meet in  my retirement.

And then there is the other worry I have.  When the bottom 90% finally wake up to what has been done to them, and when they have so little left to lose that they decide to rebel, I will be lumped in with the crowd that they will come after with pitch forks.  I can see myself as they lead me to the guillotine, “But just read my blog.  You’ll see I have always been on your side and fighting for your welfare.”

Here is a little video to help you realize that Elizabeth Warren is not alone in her fight against the regressives.

I found this video in a Crooks and Liars article Hall Of Shame: 35 Dems Voted Yesterday To Roll Back Dodd-Frank Provisions

Among the names listed, I found the following: [see retraction below]

Elizabeth Esty (CT-05)

I have been receiving a lot of email from Elizabeth Esty in this recent election season and continuing right up to January 6, 2015. I have been ignoring these emails because I am not in her district.

I went back to my email trash and found an email where she was requesting me to vote on what were my priorities. Below is the email I sent her in response.

Subject:	Re: Your priorities
Date:	Fri, 09 Jan 2015 12:18:19 -0500
From:	Steven Greenberg <steve@ssgreenberg.name>
To:	administrator@elizabethesty.com

I have been ignoring these emails because I am not
in your district.

However, I noticed your name in the Crooks and Liars
"Hall Of Shame: 35 Dems Voted Yesterday To Roll Back
Dodd-Frank Provisions"

So don't think that these things go unnoticed.  I will
work for your defeat in the next election.

/Steve

January 15, 2015

In the FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 37, Esty is recorded as voting No.

I have posted an apology on Esty’s Facebook page.