MORNING MESSAGE: Is Keeping The Rich Comfy Your Job Future?

OurFuture.org's Sam Pizzigati: "Good manufacturing jobs have largely disappeared, outsourced away. Most Americans no longer make things. They provide services. We could, of course, have a robust 'service' economy, if we built that economy on providing quality services to all Americans. But providing these quality services, in everything from education to health to transportation, would take a significant public investment — and significant tax revenue from America’s rich ... That leaves young people today, as economist Jeff Faux points out in his new book The Servant Economy: Where America's Elite is Sending the Middle Class, with a stark choice. ... Young people can become engineers and programmers and spend their careers in 'pitiless competition with people all over the world' just as smart and trained but 'willing to work for much less.' Or they can join the servant economy and 'service those few at the top who have successfully joined the global elite.' In this new 'servant economy,' we’re not talking just nannies and chauffeurs. We’re talking, as journalist Camilla Long notes, 'pilots, publicists, art dealers, and bodyguards' — a 'newer, brighter phalanx of personal helpers.'"

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We've lost our manufacturing economy in the United States. Now we're losing our service economy. We're rapidly becoming, some observers fear, a 'servant economy.'

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New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase over allegations of wholesale fraud by Bear Stearns, which JPM acquired during the 2008 financial crisis. The lawsuit's critics, including Rep. Barney Frank, say the megabank shouldn't be sued because its acquistion of Bear Stearns was a "good deed."

But was it really? We have some questions about that.

One thing's for sure: If the lawsuit's dropped, that won't be a "good deed" for the investors Bear Stearns allegedly ripped off - investors that include pension funds for teachers and other public workers.

"Sack of Sh*t"

Lawsuits like this one are long overdue, given the massive evidence of widespread banker fraud. In this case it appears that Bear Stearns executives knowingly suspended underwriting rules for their loans, suspended quality controls to step up production -- one underwriter was forced to produce nearly 1,600 loans in five days -- and then lied to investors about the the loans they were bundling and selling.

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Mitt Romney delivered his "closing argument" today. True to form, Romney did not make argument contrasting his conservative positions with President Obama's. He instead tried to take as many Obama positions as his own, blame Obama for things he wants to do himself, and distort Obama's record as much as humanly possible.

He are some of the many lies, projections and misdirections from today's speech:

***

* [Obama is] trying instead to distract our attention from the biggest issues to the smallest--from characters on Sesame Street...

...oh wait, that was me, telling you the only specific thing I will cut to make up for my giant tax giveaway to millionaires.

* America voted for a post-partisan president, but they have seen the most political of presidents...

...except that every major legislation that was passed had bipartisan support. Except for ObamaCare. Which was a Republican idea. Namely, mine.

* He promised to cut the deficit in half, but he doubled it.

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Americans for Tax Fairness does a pretty devastating take-down of the group of CEOs who were at the New York Stock Exchange Thursday ringing the opening bell under the banner "Fix the Debt." Their picture makes the point:

According to their researchers, here is what you need to know about the people who are pointing the fingers at us to "fix the debt":

♦ Thirteen out of about 80 CEOs and companies that signed a letter urging Congress to Fix the Debt have milked the federal tax system out of tens of billions of dollars, according to an analysis by Americans for Tax Fairness. Another six companies that signed the letter are leading proponents of a tax amnesty for corporate profits shifted out of the United States, especially profits shifted to offshore tax havens.

♦ Five of the corporations whose CEOs signed the Fix the Debt letter paid ZERO federal income taxes on $62 billion in total profits and received $27 billion in tax subsidies over the last four years according to Citizens for Tax Justice.

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The mainstream media and blogosphere lit up like Christmas trees yesterday when 80 CEOs came together to call on Congress and the president to agree on a comprehensive deficit reduction plan that includes revenue increases and spending cuts. Here's David Wessel's story from The Wall Street Journal.

(Note: I'm linking to the story on the Fix The Debt website only because you need a subscription to the WSJ to see Wessel's story there. This definitely is not an endorsement of Fix The Debt.)

As I told Janet Novak of Forbes yesterday, while it's great to see the CEOs engaged on the issue there's much, much less here than meets the eye.

The ultimate value in the CEO statement is that it lends credence and provides some political cover for members of Congress who vote for a deficit reduction plan that includes tax increases and Medicare and Medicaid cuts.

But the statement fails to move the needle as much as the hype wants you to believe because its way too general to demonstrate that any of the CEOs are willing to give up spending or tax provisions that are important to their companies.

Yes, as wealthy individuals they are likely to pay more if income tax rates rise.

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The things Mitt Romney says can just astonish you. Romney shows a wondrous perfection of the ability to smile and just say whatever needs to be said at the moment to make the sale.

This time he tries to scare Ohioans by saying Jeep is leaving the country and taking all its jobs with it (when it is really expanding into other countries) and then promises to "fight for every American job." He says this even as Bain Capital's Sensata is closing their factory here and sending all its jobs to China -- adding even more money to Romney's huge fortune.

The Detroit News reports that "Romney picks up incorrect story about Jeep production moving to China":

"I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state Jeep — now owned by the Italians — is thinking of moving all production to China," Romney said at a rally in Defiance, Ohio, home to a General Motors powertrain plant. "I will fight for every good job in America. I'm going to fight to make sure trade is fair, and if it's fair America will win."

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• MORNING MESSAGE: Europe's Agony Could Be Our Future Under Romney
• BREAKING: GDP Ticks Up
• Romney Spox Plays Race Card
• Romney Recipe For Deep Inequality
• Obama Signals More Wall St Reform In Second Term
• Early Vote Push May Make Difference

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At last Monday's debate Mitt Romney said the United States is "heading toward Greece." That remark was filled with bitter ironies, not the least of which is the fact that the world's current economic miseries were triggered by financial speculators like Romney himself. And while Romney says his harsh economic policies are designed to reduce the national debt, we now have proof they'll have the opposite effect.

European austerity, like its American counterpart, isn't just morally wrong: It's also self-defeating.

Nations like Greece aren't just wracked with sky-high unemployment, endangered by full-scale depression, and experiencing the first throes of social disintegration. They're also struggling with soaring debt. That why even the International Monetary Fund, hardly a bastion of leftist dissidence, has turned against Romney-style austerity.

The United States isn't immune from contagion if Romney and Ryan enact a full-blown austerity program. The riot-torn streets and malarial villages of Greece could become our nation's future.

Austerity Increases Debt

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Way back at the beginning of this summer, an eternity it seems in this exhausting presidential campaign, The College Board launched its Don’t Forget Ed campaign to "get the candidates to prioritize education this election."

The campaign kicked off, according to an article in USA Today, with two installations. The first stunt was to line up rows of 857 empty school desks on the National Mall to represent the number of students who "drop out of school each hour of every school day." The second was to pile a six-foot-high stack of fake $100 bills on Wall Street to represent the $1.5 billion that would be put into the economy each year if the high school dropout rate was reduced by 1%.

Months before The College Board's campaign started, however, The Beltway Class had already determined The Very Serious Issues for this election. And education wasn't to be one of them.

Now that the three presidential debates have run their course, it's obvious that education has indeed been relegated to a side issue at best. But it's not the candidates' fault.

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Right now a company named Sensata is moving equipment out of a factory in Freeport, Ill. and shipping it to a factory in China. Sensata will be laying off all of the American workers, but first they are making the workers train their Chinese replacements. The workers' last day is the day before our election. Here's the thing: this company is owned by Bain Capital, and Mitt Romney -- who says he is against shipping jobs to China -- will make a fortune from the move to China.

The Sensata employees have set up a camp outside the factory that they call Bainport and are trying to stop the Bain trucks that are moving the equipment out for shipment to China. These soon-to-be-jobless workers have asked Romney to come help them.

This is a tremendous opportunity for Mitt Romney. As the former head of Bain Capital and with all the visibility of a presidential campaign, he could step in and help these workers. It offers him the chance to demonstrate to voters that he means the things he says on the campaign trail, and is not just saying these things to get votes. But Romney has refused.

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Having entered the "closing argument" phase of the campaign, President Obama has pivoted to jobs. But as Bill Scher noted, the president's newly published jobs plan is cribbed from from policies that he's already proposed. President Obama has always enjoyed the advantage a massive policy gap between him and Romney. President Obama is finally pressing his his policy advantage on jobs — effectively saying to conservatives, "We've got you jobs bills right here," right where they've always been. (Now, he should do the same with his job creation advantage.) The "nitty gritty" details of President Obama's jobs plan are posted on the White House website, and thus are a matter of public record.

On the other hand, Mitt Romney's jobs plan is based on bogus math, just as bad as the math behind his tax plan. (And Romney's tax math was so bad even Fox news didn't buy it.) Paul Ryan admitted that he and Romney "haven't run the numbers" on their budget. Vagueness is probably the best possible strategy for the Romney campaign, for one simple reason: Mitt Romney can't afford to tell the truth about jobs.

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Earlier this year, the Campaign for America's Future and other organizations urged the President to get rid the Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Ed DeMarco. A Bush administration holdover, he has been single-handedly blocking White House proposals to use mortgage principle reduction of bring relief to struggling homeowner with loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

According to the Financial Times, the President has heard the call:

... if Mr Obama wins re-election, Mr DeMarco’s days may be numbered, with senior White House officials quietly telling housing industry activists in recent weeks that he will be replaced.

...

Administration officials have argued there are few qualified candidates willing to take the demanding position. Some borrower advocates have argued that the White House has kept Mr DeMarco in office in part because it provides the administration with an easy excuse when questioned about why they have not done more to prevent millions of home seizures.

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"Sometimes the dreamers are the only realists"
Sen. Paul Wellstone

10 years ago today, a phone call brought the unimaginable news: Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, his daughter Marcia, three staff aides and two pilots had died in a plane crash in northern Minnesota. Paul, the source of energy, joy, inspiration was gone. Along with thousands of others, I couldn't stem the tears flowing down my face.

I first met Paul Wellstone in the late fall of 1987 when he was serving as chair of the Jesse Jackson for President campaign in Minnesota. Paul was leading Jackson through a series of meetings and speeches in the Northern Minnesota Iron Range. The Reverend was bundled up in a large heavy coat and thick scarf against the fierce Minnesota cold. Paul was dressed in a suit without gloves, a sparkplug of irrepressible energy, collaring people on the street to introduce them to Jackson, pushing the Reverend and his aides to move, talking as fast as he scampered, with a twinkle in his eye and a big smile on his face. That night took me back to his home to meet Sheila, offering me a bed on his "newly winterized" porch. I froze my duff off and became a devoted friend to a special man.

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MORNING MESSAGE: Jesse Jackson, 13 Others, Arrested At Sensata

OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "There were fourteen arrests today community supporters of the Sensata workers marched on the Bain-owned facility to demand a meeting with the manager of the plant. Arrested include Rev. Jesse Jackson, Bishop Tavis Grant, Rockford Alderman Victory Bell-Rockford, local community members, and three Sensata workers ... Earlier today Sensata workers filed a complaint with the NLRB over retaliation threats by the company. The company threatened to immediately close the plant if workers didn't stop protesting and organizing."

Romney's Mourdock Problem

"Roe vs. Wade is probably hanging in the balance," says President Obama after Richard Mourdock's rape comments on "The Tonight Show."

"Obama Campaign Presses Mitt Romney To Fully Disown Richard Mourdock For Rape Comments" reports HuffPost.

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