Yeah, He Lied

Yeah, He Lied

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Any better conclusions than that? Seriously, after the huffing and puffing and bluster that the News Journal and his critics were trying to mislead people or trying to hurt him or trying to delegitimize his function in office -- Treasurer Chip Flowers finally meets with the News Journal and what we find out is that he really is that incompetent. And we find out that records requested are conveniently missing. From this morning's NJ, where Flowers admits that there are financial records missing from his office:

What If You Held a “Fix the Debt” Twitter Chat and Only People Hip to Your Scam Showed Up?

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This is nothing but awesome sauce. The astroturf group Fix the Debt had a live Twitter chat yesterday to try to keep spinning up the fearmongering on the debt and they got trolled Big.Time -- by smart citizens who know that Fix the Debt is nothing but a front to eliminate Social Security and to cripple us with their austerity program. If you are on Twitter, you can look at #fixthedebtqa to see the fun up close and personal. But here are a few sites who are posting up some of the favorite Tweets:

Late Night Video — The Speechless Banker

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A few days ago, there was a press opportunity with ECB representatives, where Irish journalist Vincent Browne wanted to know specifically why the people of Ireland are being asked to live with the debt burden of a defunct bank. This is the kind of questioning many of us would like to see our own journalists perform when standing in front of folks who are taking crazy decisions on our behalf. These questions are fierce, fearless and utterly just. And the banker has nothing to say.

A Modest Proposal

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First — read this: Feast of the Wingnuts (How economic crackpots devoured American politics.) This is a great article (teasing Chait’s book on the same subject) from about a year ago — it is sorta long, but stick with it. Here’s some of the intro:

American politics has been hijacked by a tiny coterie of right-wing economic extremists, some of them ideological zealots, others merely greedy, a few of them possibly insane. The scope of their triumph is breathtaking. Over the course of the last three decades, they have moved from the right-wing fringe to the commanding heights of the national agenda. Notions that would have been laughed at a generation ago–that cutting taxes for the very rich is the best response to any and every economic circumstance or that it is perfectly appropriate to turn the most rapacious and self-interested elements of the business lobby into essentially an arm of the federal government–are now so pervasive, they barely attract any notice.

Just read the whole thing. The conclusions will certainly resonate now.

Bailout Nation — Hell No, Mr. Paulson

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As Jason notes below (and in my comment) the scope of this bailout just gets bigger. Now we apparently are going to be on the hook for foreign banks (whose expose to this toxic stuff is worse than many of our own banks) and for the credit card debt your cousin Stewart racked up on vacation in Cabo.

Today, lots of very smart financial heads have been responding to the bailout proposal:
Robert Kuttner; Robert Reich; and Bob Borosage, and Dean Baker (this is a very detailed set of principles to guide the restructuring).

Happy Birthday Social Security

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73 years ago today, FDR signed the law that created the Social Security program. This pay-as-you-go (as designed, where younger workers pay for the older ones) program has been not only one of the most popular, but also one of the most effective programs in the history of the US. John McCain thinks that it is a disgrace:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugN8Rn5baqM[/youtube]