I have posted this before, The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class with Elizabeth Warren, but I think it is time to post it again. This is the background to everything that Elizabeth Warren has been saying since she made this speech in 2008.

She didn’t just pull this information from some bodily orifice, but this comes from careful research.

Elizabeth Warren has this, Elizabeth Warren speech at American Prospect on income inequality and TPP, posted on her Facebook timeline.

If you are a staunch supporter of Elizabeth Warren, you may have heard these ideas before. I think there are still a lot of people who haven’t heard the full story, and here it is in a nice, compact 22 minutes. You can spread the message to people you know who might still not have gotten it. What more powerful service could you do for your country?

Naked Capitalism has the article Gaius Publius: Sinking the Sanders Campaign Beneath a Wave of Silence.

The point of the article is not so much, “What is Bernie going to do about it”, and more “What are you and I going to do about it?” While we still have access to the internet, this is the biggest tool we have to get things done our way. It is up to us to use it, Tweet, Facebook, Blog, MeetUp, Organize, Petition, or do whatever else you can imagine doing on the internet to overcome the lame stream media’s silence.

Don’t just sit back and say it can’t be done. How do you know it can’t be done, if you don’t try? If a 72 year old guy can muster the energy, perhaps the younger folk can find a little energy to invest, too. (Of course forcing you to have to work two or three jobs to make ends meet, is a good way for the oligarchs to make sure you don’t have too much excess energy to devote to politics.) If you are participating in this thread, then you must have some spare time on your hands.

“They” may have the money, but, at least for the time being, “we have the votes.”

USA Today has the article and video Trumka: Disappointment with Obama, a warning for Hillary.

The nation’s most powerful labor leader, vowing to defeat President Obama’s key trade legislation in the House next month, warned Hillary Clinton of serious political consequences if she fails to take a stand against the Pacific trade pact that the president is campaigning for as a major part of his legacy.

I wonder how loudly labor has to speak in order to get the President’s attention. I am not sure Hillary is listening, either. Hillary and her supporters are going to have to learn that we are not going to take the usual crap from Democratic pretenders any more. If they don’t like it, then they should admit that they are really more comfortable in the Republican Party. They should put their efforts into fixing that party, and leave the Democratic party to us.

Campaign For America’s Future has the article In Search of the Democratic Soul.

Progressive Democrats are often advised not to challenge their party’s leaders too firmly, because the Republican alternative is so terrible. “It is vital (for) Dems to figure out how to maintain maximum unity,” writes Ed Kilgore, “even as they disagree.” Similarly, independent progressives are often told it would be “irresponsible” not to vote for Democrats, even those of the Wall Street variety.

Democrats should be wooing progressives, not scolding them. By appealing to left-wing voters, Democrats will also be winning over the many Republicans and independents who agree with them on a broad range of issues.

The best way to find the soul of the Democratic Party is by seeking out the small-d “democratic” soul instead – that voice of the majority that so often goes unheard in today’s money-driven politics.

Part of the article remarks about how similar Hillary Clinton’s rhetoric is to that of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. I tried leaving the following comment.

In Hillary Clinton’s Roundtable in New Hampshire, one of the panelists cast aspersions on Dodd-Frank twice, and Hillary Clinton did not say a word in response. She made no defense of it, nor did she acknowledge the complainants’ comments.

In fact, Elizabeth Warren has a video response to the issue, Elizabeth Warren: Statement on bill to roll back Dodd-Frank.

Hillary Clinton still uses the same economic advisers who started the ball rolling toward the great collapse of 2008/2009. She has yet to denounce them or the advice that they gave.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are actively engaged in fixing these problems in their day jobs. Clinton is all talk, and not very convincing talk at that.

If you want to equate what Hillary says with what Sanders and Warren actually do, then that’s your privilege. But I think you have your eyes closed to the reality.

Elizabeth Warren has made the Facebook post Statement on bill to roll back Dodd-Frank. If you would perfer to join the conversation elsewhere, you can go to YouTube where the video is posted.

The Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Republican Richard Shelby, has a new bill that would dismantle the Dodd-Frank financial regulations put in place after the 2008 crash. This bill is good for big banks, but it’s bad for families. While we should be providing targeted regulatory relief for community banks and credit unions – and stepping up our consumer protections – the last thing we should be doing is rolling back the rules and weakening the oversight for the biggest banks in this country.

It is abundantly clear that Bernie Sanders supports this type of stance that Elizabeth Warren is taking. It is entirely unclear what Hillary Clinton thinks of Dodd/Frank. She made no effort to defend it when one of the panelists in her New Hampshire Roundtable cast aspersions on it twice.

If you are having troubles with Quicken screwing up your financial records, you are not alone. I know that is not much comfort to find out that there are others who are having their decades of financial data trashed by Quicken.

You may want to read the Quicken community post Why, after downloading stock quotes today, has my portfolio incorporated a fictitious stock split for PRGO, completely messing up my information for this stock?. It’s not the post I wrote, but it is the one that mine got consolidated into.

Quicken tells me I have a certain amount of money. I hope I don’t wake up tomorrow to find that Quicken has run off to South America with it or how ever much money I may actually have.

It’s going to be time consuming to switch my financial records to a different program and change all my daily procedures, but the time is drawing near. I hope Intuit isn’t screwing up my taxes as badly as they are screwing up my financial records.

Good luck with your Quicken loan, if you have one.

Oh, and remember to request a backup after every successful session you have with Quicken. I hope you have enough disk space. It can be a life saver.

Alternet has the article 7 Things People Who Say They’re ‘Fiscally Conservative But Socially Liberal’ Don’t Understand by Greta Christina.

You can’t separate fiscal issues from social issues. They’re deeply intertwined. They affect each other. Economic issues often are social issues. And conservative fiscal policies do enormous social harm. That’s true even for the mildest, most generous version of “fiscal conservatism” — low taxes, small government, reduced regulation, a free market. These policies perpetuate human rights abuses. They make life harder for people who already have hard lives. Even if the people supporting these policies don’t intend this, the policies are racist, sexist, classist (obviously), ableist, homophobic, transphobic, and otherwise socially retrograde. In many ways, they do more harm than so-called “social policies” that are supposedly separate from economic ones.

The above is just the introduction to the 7 things. This has to be one of the strongest arguments against fiscal conservatism that I have read.

Thanks to Wesley Chrabasz for sharing this Facebook post. If only he could get a mutual friend to read this.

Reuters has the story U.S. settles ‘pay-for-delay’ fight with drugmaker Teva over Provigil.

igil by paying generic drug makers to drop their challenges to Cephalon’s patent.

This is often called a “pay-for-delay” agreement since the brand name drugmaker pays a generic maker to delay entering the market.
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The FTC has fought pay for delay deals for more than 10 years. The agency has pushed for legislation to ban the patent agreements or make it easier for the FTC to challenge them.

This opposition got a boost when the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that the FTC could pursue pay-for-delay drug cases as potentially illegal.

Well, it is about damn time that our government put a stop to this. I bet you thought that this kind of thing was plainly illegal because of anti-trust laws. Now you know how else the economy has been rigged against you for over 10 years.

The Atlanta, Georgia TV station has the article and video Legislators and corporate lobbyists meet in secret at Georgia resort. This is not just about Georgia. ALEC is nationwide.

Those of you in the liberal bastion of Massachusetts, can you imagine local political pundit John Keller of WBZ doing a piece like this? No, I thought not.