Are you tired of blog posts that tell you what is wrong with the world and offer no solutions?

New Economic Perspectives has the article The Job Guarantee which tells you some things that are right, in other words, it offers solutions.

NEP’s Pavlina Tcherneva appears in the following video by Rebecca Rojer. The video condenses a lecture by Pavlina explaining what a job guarantee is, its economic impact, and what we can learn from her research on the Jefes (“Heads of Households”) Program in Argentina.

I received an email with a link to Charles Krauthammer’s article Sea of easy and open bigotry is rising.

Given that Israel has a profoundly democratic political system, the freest press in the Middle East, a fiercely independent judiciary, and astonishing religious and racial diversity within its universities, including affirmative action for Arab students, the charge is rather strange.

I found The Real News Network story Israel’s Bedouin Face Displacement Despite Apparent Gov’t Concessions.

LIA TARACHANSKY, TRNN PRODUCER: On November 30, the Bedouin Arabs of Israel’s Negev Desert launched a coordinated day of protest that saw solidarity around the world. They were protesting the so-called Prawer law that would forcefully urbanize them and on the lands from which their villages would be demolished construct Jewish ones.

Did I miss the profoundly democratic political system’s application to Bedouin citizens of Israel? Are we now to conclude that official apartheid policies can be part of a profoundly democratic system? The gong of cognitive dissonance that is echoing in my head has made it hard for me to think.

Makes me ask “Was the way the native Americans were pushed off their lands by European settlers profoundly democratic? What have we learned from our history?”

For further information on the plan discussed in the video see my subsequent post The Prawer Plan: Bill on the Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev.

The Boston Globe published the article Treasurer wrestles with potential conflicts over family firm on December 16, 2013.

State Treasurer Steven Grossman’s family marketing firm touts an impressive list of high profile clients that includes some of Boston’s biggest private sector names: the Bruins, the Celtics, J.P. Morgan Chase, and the high-powered law firm Mintz Levin.

Those organizations each have something else in common. They all have lucrative financial relationships with the state Treasury or the Massachusetts State Lottery, which Grossman oversees.

I saw the headline when the story first came out, but I didn’t get around to reading it.  Then I realized I was making decisions based on the headline rather than what was in the story.  So, I finally went back and read the story.  I am not quite sure what to make of it.  Maybe you can read it, and then tell me what the significance of this story is in regard to the political race for Governor of Massachusetts.  Steven Grossman is one of several seemingly progressive candidates in the upcoming election.

Here is an excerpt from a campaign email that I just received from Steven Grossman:

My vision for Massachusetts deals decisively with the issue of rampant economic and income inequality – the central and defining challenge we face. When we empower those citizens and communities that have been left out and left behind for far too long, we will build one Commonwealth that thrives together. It’s an ambitious vision, but it is absolutely essential to our success.

The Inter Press Service News Agency has the article Gates Conceals Real Story of “Gaming” Obama on Afghan War by Gareth Porter.

The leaking to the news media of a politically damaging version of internal debate between the White House and the coalition pushing for a major escalation was nothing less than shot across the bow from Obama’s principal national security officials, including Petraeus, Mullen, Gates and Clinton. They were signaling to the president that he would incur a significant political cost if he rejected the McChrystal request.

I have often wondered if the Obama administration’s excessively belicose (warlike or hostile in manner or temperament) foreign policy was a product of his then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or if it  came from Obama himself.

The fact that since John Kerry has taken over there have been a number of diplomatic breakthroughs makes me even more suspicious that Clinton was the one pushing the belicose strategy.

If this suspicion proves true, it would make me even less likely to want Hilary Clinton to be our next president.

Creditslips blog has the article The Behavioral Economics of Bitcoin by  Adam Levitin.

Bitcoin is a completely decentralized peer-to-peer currency and payments network. There is no central Bitcoin authority that verifies transactions, etc. This also means that there is no central for-profit manager that has to be paid to operate the system.  Instead, every Bitcoin user has a Bitcoin wallet on a personal electronic device (or webhosted). This wallet consists of open-source software that interfaces with other Bitcoin users’ software.

The above excerpt is only the beginning of the explanation.  There is something called bitcoin mining that is the mechanism for creating bitcoins.  I had heard about this, but hadn’t found an explanation until reading this article.  I won’t steal Adam Levitin’s thunder by quoting it here.  You’ll have to read the article yourself.  The explanation is pretty brief, but it is enough to satisfy me for the moment.

New York Magazine is has the article Steve Kornacki: George Washington Bridge Lane Closure Was About More Than a Traffic Jam based on an MSNBC video.

This morning, Steve Kornacki offered up a new theory for why Chris Christie’s aides closed two of Fort Lee, New Jersey’s George Washington Bridge access lanes back in September. According to the MSNBC host, the shutdown was about much more than giving Mayor Mark Sokolich a nasty but temporary headache by causing a traffic jam in his town. Instead, Kornacki says that the lane closures may have been part of a long-term scheme to disrupt a project that Sokolich considers the “defining mission” of his tenure.

As seems typical of shows on MSNBC, there may be too much verbiage in this teaser, but it sure makes a whole lot more sense than any other explanation i have heard so far.

There was one comment on the magazine’s web site that I particularly liked.

TH_NY

I saw American Hustle this weekend, and now I’m picturing Christie with a combover and lapels as wide as the Hudson.

Liked By You and davifranci

The Daily Kos article Al Roker tells Rush Limbaugh to “Stuff It” reports on the NBC segment below.

The Daily Kos also has a petition for you to sign, Thank NBC weatherman Al Roker for telling Rush Limbaugh to “STUFF IT”.

Before I saw this article and video, I was thinking about today’s weather.

Now that the temperature in Sturbridge, Massachusetts is 60 degrees on this January 11th, are the deniers going to notice this unusual temperature extreme, or are they going to pretend it isn’t happening? Pretending today’s temperature isn’t what the thermometer says it is would be the ultimate act of denial.

New Economic Perspectives has a two part series by by L. Randall Wray.  The first part is The Greatest Myth Propagated About The FED: Central Bank Independence (Part 1). I think the main point of the first part is best exemplified by the following excerpt:

While many supporters and critics alike have stressed the Fed’s nominal ownership by member banks as evidence that it is somehow independent of government, the Fed’s Bruce MacLaury interprets the independence as follows[6]:

First, let’s be clear on what independence does not mean. It does not mean decisions and actions made without accountability. By law and by established procedures, the System is clearly accountable to congress—not only for its monetary policy actions, but also for its regulatory responsibilities and for services to banks and to the public. Nor does independence mean that monetary policy actions should be free from public discussion and criticism—by members of congress, by professional economists in and out of government, by financial, business, and community leaders, and by informed citizens. Nor does it mean that the Fed is independent of the government. Although closely interfaced with commercial banking, the Fed is clearly a public institution, functioning within a discipline of responsibility to the “public interest.” It has a degree of independence within the government—which is quite different from being independent of government. Thus, the Federal Reserve System is more appropriately thought of as being “insulated” from, rather than independent of, political—government and banking—special interest pressures. Through their 14-year terms and staggered appointments, for example, members of the Board of Governors are insulated from being dependent on or beholden to the current administration or party in power. In this and in other ways, then, the monetary process is insulated—but not isolated—from these influences. In a functional sense, the insulated structure enables monetary policy makers to look beyond short-term pressures and political expedients whenever the long-term goals of sustainable growth and stable prices may require “unpopular” policy actions. Monetary judgments must be able to weigh as objectively as possible the merit of short-term expedients against long-term consequences—in the on-going public interest.

Although, I can’t help including the next excerpt because it uses my favorite metaphor.

While hyperinflationists have been pointing to the fact that the Fed is essentially “printing money” (actually reserves) to finance the budget deficits, most other observers have endorsed the Fed’s notion that QE might allow it to “push on a string” by spurring private banks to lend—which is thought to be desirable and certainly better than “financing” budget deficits to allow government spending to grow the economy. Growth through fiscal austerity is the new motto as the Fed accumulates ever more federal government debt and suspect mortgage-backed securities.

The second part of the series is The Greatest Myth Propagated About The FED: Central Bank Independence (Part 2).

According to MacLaury,

When fiscal policy does not match spending appropriately to tax revenues, then the monetary authority is faced with a difficult choice: (a) how severely should it restrain the inflationary forces that may develop, and (b) to what extent should it permit inflationary forces to have their effect in higher prices? When the   failure to provide appropriate tax revenues generates acute forces of inflation, then even the best compromise may require severe monetary restraint. This has the effect of appearing to be at cross-purposes with congressional intent and can also produce severe disruptions in some areas of the private sector such as housing. (p. 8 )

If Ron and Rand Paul could read this with an open mind (if they had one between the two of them), it would squelch a lot of nonsense that they spout about the FED.

I also include the following excerpt because it relates to current economic policy:

Bad policy—whether monetary or fiscal—is always possible and painful. Fortunately, there is nothing in the post-Great Depression experience to warrant unduly pessimistic views of the motives of either Congress or the Fed. Even the extremes of the Volcker years—short term rates driven above 20%–were eventually reversed and, one hopes, lessons were learned from the experience. And there is nothing approaching a Congressional consensus that the US government ought to budget to produce hyperinflation.

If anything, all the budgeting errors are on the other side: insufficient fiscal stimulus in the GFC, Partisan silliness over expanding the debt limits, tying compromises to sequestration, and an unhealthy fear of budget deficits. While the Fed has a great deal of independence in setting its interest rate target, it appears unlikely that in a crisis (whether induced by excessively high rates on private debt or high rates on public debt that create an exploding debt ratio or a major war that requires cooperation between the Fed and Treasury) the Fed would resolutely pursue dangerous policy. And if it did, Congress can intervene.

On December 23, 2013, I wrote a Facebook post recommending the movie American Hustle. Last night, I realized why that movie was so great and how it connects to politics. I’ll use the Massachusetts’ race for governor as an example that is important to me now.

I think every candidate for that office will tell you how important it is to attract companies to Massachusetts that will create high paying jobs in the state. No matter where they fall in the political spectrum, they will probably tell you that we need to offer tax incentives to lure these companies to Massachusetts.

So here is the question that I will ask of every one of them that I get a chance to meet.

Every state and location in the country wants to attract business to their location that will create high paying jobs.

Every corporation that has these kinds of jobs to offer will play one state or locality against the others in order to extract the maximum tax breaks and other concessions from the candidate locations while giving up the fewest commitments on the part of the corporation.

Inevitably this has led to a race to the bottom for localities for giving the most tax breaks, loosening of regulations, changing labor laws, and even building infrastructure for the corporation while asking for the least commitments in return.

As candidate for governor, what can you tell me about how you would play this game so that the non-rich citizens of the state would get the best deal possible, instead of becoming patsies in the game the corporations are playing?

You are free to use this question with any politician you meet. Do not offer any hints or suggestions as to how you would answer this question. You want to know if the candidate has give any thought to the question. That is why I am publicizing the question. It can be an open book test. What you want to know, in any case, is whether the candidate understands the issue and whether that candidate has any reasonable and even creative ideas.

This is where the movie American Hustle comes into play. The main characters in the movie give you, for only the price of admission, a first class lesson in how to get people to come to you begging to give you their best offer. Now in the movie, the people giving you this lesson are con artists of the highest caliber. However, you can also use the techniques to accomplish honest and meritorious goals.

How I wish that this movie had come out in 2008 or earlier and President Obama could have seen it and learned the lesson. What he could have accomplished in his presidency would have been so amazing and so good for the country. Oh well, that is water over the dam, but we can still get the massive benefits if progressive politicians could only take these lessons into the future. I think Elizabeth Warren is a prime example of a politician who knows how to play the game for us.

Alternet has a very interesting article The One Crucial Detail That Could Sink Legal Pot in Colorado.

Weed may be legal now in Colorado, but one key detail threatens to boost crime, raise costs and sink the business.

In looking through the comments on the article I saw a couple of mentions of this idea already, but what a boost to bitcoin this is.  If nothing else, bitcoin does produce some competition for the government for creation of money.  If the government does not want bitcoin to succeed, then they had better fix the rules they thought they were free to make when there was no competition for creating money.

I wonder if Ron and Rand Paul will use this example as another reason to get rid of the FED?

I wonder what the MMT people and Paul Krugman would have to say about this.

What a case  for the aphorism about politics making for strange bedfellows.