Democracy For America has the petition U.S. Senate: Reject Medicare cuts and reject Fast Track.

There’s a big — brand new — attack on Medicare that’s just been added in the Senate to the Fast Track bill for the TPP. The bill would cut a whopping $700 million from Medicare, hurting seniors who need access to health care.

I have received several emails about this. The best I can do to find out what these emails are talking about is the article in The Hill, Healthcare groups object to Medicare cuts in trade bill.

Leading healthcare provider groups are objecting to Medicare cuts being used to help pay for a new House Republican trade bill.

The Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) bill helps workers displaced by trade and provides a tax credit to help pay for health insurance. It was rolled out in addition to a proposal to give President Obama “fast-track” authority on trade.

The healthcare providers object to the TAA bill including a 0.25 percent cut in Medicare payments in fiscal year 2024, which amounts to a $700 million cut, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Here is the breathless prose in the email that I received from Democracy for America.

Robert Reich’s blog has the post Nike, Obama, and the Fiasco of the Trans Pacific Partnership. He concludes with the following:

No doubt Nike is supporting the TPP. It would allow Nike to import its Vietnamese and Malaysian-made goods more cheaply. But don’t expect those savings to translate into lower prices for American consumers. As it is, Nike spends less than $10 for every pair of $100-plus shoes it sells in the U.S.

Needless to say, the TPP wouldn’t require Nike to pay its Vietnamese workers more. Nikes’ workers are not paid enough to buy the shoes they make much less buy U.S. exported goods.

Nike may be the perfect example of life under TPP, but that is not a future many Americans would choose.

Along the way, he has facts and figures that refute the BS that you are hearing from President Obama.

Another thing he said is something that I should remember to emphasize in general, not just about Nike.

I’m not faulting Nike. Nike is only playing by the rules.

I’m faulting the rules.

Although, if Nike is using bribery to get the rules to be the way they want them, then I guess we would be justified in faulting Nike. So let me just apply this amnesty to innocent bystanders, like myself. I know how to play by the capitalist’s rule. I play by them to survive, but I didn’t vote to have the rules this way, and I would be happy to see them changed. If any other company or person has the same justification for playing by the rules they don’t like, then I don’t think their behavior is hypocritical.

Naked Capitalism has the article Exit Strategy, Part One: ZIRP.

The Fed has announced plans to raise rates in the imminent future, but the market does not believe it.  Why not?  Conventional wisdom appears to be that the Fed will chicken out, just as it did during the so-called Taper Tantrum.  The Fed has signaled its appreciation that “liftoff” will involve increased volatility, and has stated its resolve this time simply to let that volatility happen, but markets don’t believe it.

I want to suggest a slightly different source of disconnect, concerning expectations about what exactly will happen in the monetary plumbing when the Fed raises rates.

Some of it is reasonably easy to understand if you have a little knowledge of the Fed and finance. Other parts may require more knowledge to understand.

Here is my explanation of why this article is important to read, even if you don’t understand all of it in detail.

I hark back to what our <sarcasm>beloved</sarcasm> ex Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, once said.

1. There are things we know.
2. There are things we know that we don’t know.
3. And there are things that we don’t know that we don’t know

It is worthwhile to read an article that can move things from category 3 above into category 2. That is the best chance you have of ever getting them into category 1.