unemployment

For a long time — basically ever since Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell infamously stated that the Republican Party's #1 goal was to defeat President Obama — it has been plainly obvious that the Republican Party was committed to a strategy of economic sabotage to further their political am more »

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Got this in an e-mail from my brother, Hal:

“June food stamp Recipients Hit All Time High As Three Times As Many Americans Enter Poverty As Find Jobs, bringing the total to a new all time high of 46.670 million and once again rising fast.”

This headline, circulating via e-mail, seems to be picked up from Zero Hedge by merging the title more »

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House leaders have agreed on a compromise continuing spending resolution at the same level as before from October 2012 through March 2013. more »

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GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s reaction to high unemployment is creepy.

During an interview with CBS reporter Jan Crawford last week, Romney smirked as he mentioned that unemployment has remained above 8 percent for 39 months. more »

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Everybody knows that Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, a sometimes combative columnist and a liberal lion. But in a conversation which aired this weekend we learned more about his personal response to an ongoing crisis he describes as "really nasty," "very, very severe," and "gratuitious," and which he says "will not go away quickly or necessary at all" unless we do something. more »

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Now we know: The jobs situation is bleak, and it will continue to be bleak until we face up to the fact that we need more stimulus spending - lots more - and we have to relieve millions of homeowners from their indentured servitude to Wall Street so that they can help restore the economy too.

In other words spend, spend, spend - and provide some principal reduction for underwater homeowners. more »

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Whatever the March unemployment numbers are today, they are far, far from robust enough to employ everyone who needs work any time soon. (Please, surprise me!)

There is something that can be done to really improve things. This something also gives Republicans a chance to show they aren't just sabotaging the economy to improve their own election prospects. Let's see if they go along. more »

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Europe's in crisis. Unemployment is at a fifteen-year high after climbing for ten straight months, thanks to the austerity measures imposed on it by conservative leaders in France, Germany, and the international financial community. more »

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Perhaps my reaction to the latest unemployment statistics is colored by the fact that I'm reading them in Africa, far from the comfortable familiarity of Washington, New York, and California. There's nothing like the songs of unfamiliar birds as the sun rises over the hills of Pretoria to accentuate the strangeness of conventional Beltway wisdom. more »

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Today the Western world is divided between two visions of our economic future. One vision is of austerity and the other is of growth. One is of hope and possibility, the other of despair and cynicism. The battle between these two visions has divided the United States and the entire Western world.

And both of them can be found in in President Obama latest budget.

It's almost as if the President decided that if the Republicans can't provide him with a challenger worthy of this debate, he'll conduct it with himself.

Double Vision

In one vision, the excesses and errors of the 1 percent have left the Western world too broke to fulfill its social contract with anyone but the wealthiest among us. Middle class and lower-income citizens must be abandoned to face a future of ever-dwindling resources. Government's only permissible spending is on wasteful military systems that enrich wealthy contractors and their corporations.

In the other vision, government retains its role as an engine of growth and change. It's wise enough to invest in long-term expansion before pivoting to address its deficit problems. It manages its budget, not "like a family," but like a business - one that understands that well-timed investment is the key to continued growth and prosperity, In today's world, that means investing in jobs, research, education, health, and infrastructure.

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