All Life Is Problem Solving

The Democratic Party will be the first to tell you that it’s the Party of the people, especially working people and the middle class. Change we’re supposed to believe in is change from a society moving in the direction of the wealthy, to one that is clearly moving in a direction to restore the American […]

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This one’s addressed to progressives in the United States. OK, we’ve gotten our bright young President, his lovely family and his team of the “best and the brightest” into the White House. We’ve emotionally invested in him. We’ve celebrated with him. And we’ve trusted him during the opening months of his Administration. Now, what do […]

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If Progressives and Democrats are going to be successful in the future, they have to solve important problems of middle and working class people, such as stagnant real income, declining wealth, terrible and high risk (i.e. easily disappearing) health insurance, high quality education for all, including opportunities for everyone to get a college education, a […]

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Marcy Wheeler who most frequently blogs at Firedog Lake as “emptywheel,” just filed a blog at Salon entitled: “The 13 people who made torture possible.” I have two comments. First, please note Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, Rush Limbaugh, and any other distraction-motivated warriors vitally concerned about Nancy Pelosi’s alleged, but non-existent, insult of CIA personnel, […]

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The Obama Administration evidently wants desperately to put the war crimes of the past behind America, and to address the economic, educational, environmental, energy, health care, and hopefully, equality issues that it views as the issues of our time. The trouble is that the people who really care about the Constitution won’t cooperate. There are […]

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One of the hardest things about decision making is distancing yourself enough from the alternative you prefer, to look at its possible side effects, or unintended consequences, and then compare it against other alternatives with both their intended and unintended consequences. The Obama Administration decided to subsidize the big banks, while also allowing them to […]

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The Obama Administration worries about the consequences of taking over the big banks, re-structuring them, and then, once they’re “cleaned up,” re-privatizing them. They’re afraid of giving Republican charges of socialism credibility, and they’re afraid of possible consequences for the International Financial system if the big banks have to go through this process. So they’ve […]

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In a number of earlier posts I’ve discussed the alternative to the Geithner Plan of temporary nationalization followed by restructuring and re-privatization of the Banks. I’ve also pointed to the lack of transparency of the Administration in refusing to explain its decision to follow the Geithner Plan in the context of a fair evaluation against […]

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There are three basic policy alternatives for solving the problems of our “insolvent” large banks. We can liquidate them, reorganize them using conservatorships, or provide them with Government subsidization in the hopes that the market value of their troubled assets will rise, and that liquidity and enough asset value to achieve solvency will be restored. […]

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The notion behind the idea of “Lemon Socialism” is that government policy creates arrangements that largely privatize the gain from economic activity if there are profits, while socializing losses, if they result. The just leaked Obama Administration plan for coping with the financial system’s “toxic assets” is another creation of the Lemon Socialists. This weekend […]

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