Robert Reich

Labor Day: Build Esprit de Corps for Action

Leo Gerard — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:58:49 -0400

Celebrate Labor Day. Really, celebrate. It’s important.

Wear a t-shirt announcing to the world the name of your union and march in a parade, chanting and whooping it up about how glad you are to belong to an organization whose members are devoted to looking out for each other. If you’re among those without a union, proclaim your profession and declare your pride in the hard work you do. Make some happy noise. Infect your fellow marchers with your zeal.

Invite your most beleaguered neighbors, friends and co-workers over for a picnic. Raise a pint, braise some burgers and praise your companions for their skill, devotion and compassion. Recognize them for all they’ve persevered through since this relentless recession began in December of 2007. Build esprit de corps among your fellow workers.

This is one day devoted to labor, to the middle class, to the majority. One day out of 365. On this holiday, everyone gives an obligatory nod to workers. So don’t fret this Labor Day. Don’t waste it away in apathetic doldrums. Don’t let the minority rich and their purchased politicians take this celebration away from us too.

Some, including former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, have called for protests on Labor Day. They say workers must use this opportunity to demand that Washington solve the real crisis debilitating this country – dogged joblessness.

Reich is right. But it’s too early for that. Ultimately, workers must flip this ugly situation upside down so that once a year it’s Rich People’s Day. Once a year, the middle class gives the frivolous Kardashians and tax-shirking GEs of the world an obligatory nod. But every other day, 364 days a year, is labor day.

Then, we would have a country committed to the wellbeing of the majority, the middle class, the workers, whose labor creates wealth.

Getting there is a long haul from where we are now, though. We must develop some self-confidence before we start protesting. Achieving the change we want requires an uprising of hope and anger. There’s plenty of anger out there. The populace is seething after suffering years of “no, not-for-you” politics from country club conservatives:

No more unemployment insurance extensions. No more Social Security and Medicare as you and your parents know it. No public option, providing health insurance for all. No end to tax breaks for corporations that off-shore jobs. No more Trade Adjustment Assistance workers who lose their jobs because of off-shoring. No end to tax breaks for corporate jets. No end to tax breaks for oil companies making billions. No end to income tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. No extension of the payroll tax break for the middle class. No reasonable restrictions on the big Wall Street banks that got bailed out with taxpayer money. No help for unemployed homeowners threatened with foreclosure. And no, there won’t be any jobs program. The country club conservatives must sustain high unemployment to regain the White House. So too bad for the jobless.

These unremitting attacks on the middle class have left workers feeling beaten up and beaten down. Workers are suffering from what author, psychologist and social critic Bruce E. Levine calls “battered people syndrome.” Exhausted, depressed, and blaming themselves for the country’s problems, too many workers feel unable to challenge the elite overlords.

This combination of anger and hopelessness produces destruction and self-destruction, like the riots that left London burning last summer. Hopeless about their future and angry at the rich for bilking the poor and at expense-padding British politicians imposing “austerity,” the city’s jobless ruffians abandoned morals, just as the wealthy and the ruling class had.

Frances Fox Piven counsels in her book, Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America that hope is crucial, that constructive change arises from the mix of hope and anger. In places like Libya and Egypt this Arab Spring, wealth proved insufficient to overpower the majority invigorated by hope and anger.

The bitch for the rich in a democracy like America’s is that majority rules. And, frankly, the rich and corporations (newly dubbed persons by the U.S. Supreme Court) are a tiny minority in America.

Even though we’re the majority, workers can’t win until we hope we can, until we feel some assurance that we can overcome. It’s a long haul to hope from resignation and pessimism.

So let’s put some effort into fostering optimism. Let’s strengthen each other this Labor Day. We must raise that hope before we organize Reich’s protests.

Rile yourself up and pump up a friend this Labor Day so we can unite in anger and hope to push back the naysayers and make every day Labor Day. This video helps.

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Leo W. Gerard also is a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Committee and chairs the labor federation’s Public Policy Committee. President Barack Obama recently appointed him to the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. He serves as co-chairman of the BlueGreen Alliance and on the boards of the Apollo Alliance, Campaign for America’s Future and the Economic Policy Institute. He is a member of the IMF and ICEM global labor federations and was instrumental in creating Workers Uniting, the first global union. Follow @USWBlogger

Jamie Didn't Know: The Tragic Legacy of JPMorgan Chase's CEO

Richard Eskow — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:13:46 -0400

Why are people still interested in what Jamie Dimon has to say? As CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Mr. Dimon presides over a serial corporate criminal whose long list of misbehaviors[1] got longer only last week. As an investment and economics "expert" he failed to anticipate the worst financial crisis in modern history.

Now Jamie Dimon's come up with a list of economic concerns for the economy that would be amusingly clueless, if it weren't such a sad example of the Marie Antoinette-like detachment and hauteur of our financial leaders.

Dimon had a lengthy interview with an Australian newspaper, which Business Insider distilled into five reasons why (according to Mr. Dimon) people are negative about the economy:

1. Greece (which is, as most people know, facing default)
2. Japan -- as a result of the Fukushima disaster
3. Oil
4. Politics -- which in Dimon's case means the fear of too much regulation for banks like his
5. Fiscal deficit

What's not on that list is much more telling than what is. If anybody but a Wall Street executive were to cite the reasons why things are so bleak, the list would look like this:

1. Jobs -- millions of people don't have them, and millions of others are under-employed.
2. Wage stagnation -- while compensation for clueless CEOs soars, everybody else is struggling.
3. Lost wealth -- Real estate prices have collapsed, leaving middle-class America bereft.
4. Household debt and student debt
5. People aren't buying things, which prolongs that knotty jobs problem

If he were merely a self-indulgent and clueless millionaire, Mr. Dimon's reality distortion field would be nothing more than another artifact of the Second Gilded Age in which we live. But his misperceptions hold enormous sway in Washington. His bank's lobbyists wield considerable influence, his opinions (and contributions) are guiding the actions of Republicans and "centrist" Democrats, and two senior Administration officials have worked for him.

Let's take a look at Mr. Dimon's list of concerns. Greece has borrowed enormous sums of money which it's now unable to repay at full value. In a mirror image of the moral debate here at home, nobody seems to be pointing out that the banks who lent them that money made a careless and reckless bet. Once again, the argument goes, ordinary people should bear the full weight of a bad bank loan while incompetent lenders suffer no penalties for their recklessness.

At least the Treasury Department in Great Britain is suggesting that British banks bear their share of the burden for fixing the Greece problem (and that's under a center/conservative government). An American agency has yet to make the same proposal.

Japan's nuclear disaster, contrary to opinions expressed by Mr. Dimon and others, was absolutely predictable - not as an inevitability, but as a possibility. While Mr. Dimon suggested the Fukushima accident was a "black swan" -- an occurrence nobody could have foreseen - the presence of five nuclear reactors on a beach in an earthquake zone made the accident a foreseeable contingency that should have been addressed. (Nassim Taleb's "black swan" concept has provided a generation of irresponsible corporate executives with an excuse for managing their own risk.)

Japan faces another threat, too. Mr. Dimon's bank is near the top of the list of "too big to fail" banks prepared by Japanese regulators. A JPMorgan Chase failure there would threaten the entire Japanese economy.

As for politics, Mr. Dimon claims that the recovery has stalled because of too much banking regulation. As Robert Reich observed, that notion is "bizarre." And smart economists agree that it would be tragic to cut government spending for deficit reduction before a real recovery has taken hold. (It would, however, be very good for Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase.)

Still in his fifties, Mr. Dimon has many years of work life before him. But we already suspect that his professional legacy will be written with the words "Jamie didn't know." Deregulation put the global economy at risk, and Jamie didn't know. Dimon's entire industry went on a reckless gambling spree with government money, and Jamie didn't know. Spending and demand were down for anybody making less than $100,000 per year, leaving demand low and unemployment high, and Jamie didn't know.

But then, "not knowing" is also Mr. Dimon's moral and legal defense as JPMorgan Chase CEO. Given the level of corporate crime and malfeasance in his organization during his tenure as CEO, it seems that he's been a remarkably unobservant executive. He's failed to instill a corporate culture that places a premium on ethical behavior and respect for the law. Consider the evidence:

JPMorgan Chase participated in a blackmailing scheme in Jefferson County, Alabama that was so corrosive and corrupt that it was forced to give up three quarters of a billion dollars to settle the case. Apparently Jamie didn't know this was going on in his organization, although it lasted quite a while.

A whistleblower report says that JPM knowingly sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bad credit card debt to third parties. Apparently Jamie didn't know.

JPM paid $25 million, a slap on the wrist, to settle charges that it illegally propped up a failed mortgage lender in Florida. Apparently Jamie didn't know.

Only last week JPMorgan paid $153 million to settle charges after it illegally lied to investors about a portfolio put together by a hedge fund that was betting that portfolio would fail. Apparently Jamie didn't know.

And in the very same week that JPMorgan Chase was making this sweetheart deal with the SEC and paying a fine for its wrongdoing, Jamie Dimon said this to the Australian: "It's so unfair to talk about Wall Street and ethics."

"The people that we deal with a lot on Wall Street are some of the most ethical people I know," Dimon added.

When anyone wonders why we need more banking regulations and stronger enforcement, Mr. Dimon (once called our "least hated banker") is Exhibit A. JPMorgan has set aside more than two billion dollars in expected litigation costs arising from its foreclosure actions. And yet I believe him when he says he's hurt and angry at the harsh way the public judges him and his peers.

Public distrust of bankers is the highest it's been since Gallup started tracking it in 1979, and has fallen to nearly half of what it was in 2007. Institutions like Mr. Dimon's are bigger than ever, and pose a greater risk than ever to the global economy. Bankers still break the law with impunity. Why does the public fear and distrust his profession? Why do people want to rein in Mr. Dimon and his peers before they cause even more harm?

Tragically, Jamie doesn't know.

[1] I originally wrote "whose long list of confessed crimes ..." But as is too often the case, the SEC accepted the usual "neither admits nor denies wrongdoing" language in its settlement. That has to stop. Either there was wrongdoing or there wasn't.

After Summers, Which Path Will the President Take?

Richard Eskow — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 22:18:52 -0400

Now that Larry Summers is leaving, the President has a decision to make. His choice of a replacement will send a signal about the next two years of economic policy. That signal can restore consumer confidence and reinvigorate the electorate, or it can lead to even more discouragement and despair. Today unnamed Administration officials floated the idea of naming a corporate executive to the position. That's a trial balloon that should be punctured immediately.

The thirty-year-old law school graduate who asked the President yesterday, "Is the American dream over for me?" might interpret a choice like that as a 'yes' - unless he also happens to be a Fortune 500 CEO. Fortunately, there are much better candidates to be found elsewhere.

There's some confusion around today's news about Summers' end-of-year departure. Was it a rushed announcement? Did Summers choose to leave,or did he get the axe? Bloomberg News observed that Summers' departure leaves Tim Geithner as the sole remaining member of Obama's original economic team, which adds up to something that looks very much like a shakeup.

Or maybe not.

The Bloomberg article also quotes Robert Gibbs as saying "it is not a surprise," and it's true that it's common for Administration officials to leave after the midterm elections. For his part, the President lavished Summers with praise: "I will always be grateful that at a time of great peril for our country, a man of Larry's brilliance, experience and judgment was willing to answer the call and lead our economic team. Over the past two years, he has helped guide us from the depths of the worst recession since the 1930s to renewed growth."

Despite the kind words, the Wall Street Journal reports that "Administration officials say Mr. Summers' departure could reinvigorate the White House economic team." And there's this quote from the President's town hall meeting yesterday (via David Dayen): "Well, look, I have not made any determinations about personnel. I think Larry Summers and Tim Geithner have done an outstanding job ... This is tough, the work that they do. ... they're going to have a whole range of decisions about family ... the bottom line is that we're constantly thinking, is what we're doing working as well as it could?"

But for those who are hoping that this move signals a change in policy, we can zigzag back to the "no policy change" camp if we take this quote seriously (from the WSJ article:) "Those who know Mr. Summers say his departure has more to do with the need to recover from two tough years in which he worked brutal hours and often did not sleep."

In other words, we don't know nothin'. That means the Administration doesn't have to pay the political price for looking like it's in disarray. But it also means the President doesn't get the benefit of looking as if he's taking decisive action after seeing unsatisfactory results.

Here's what we do know: For middle-class Americans in search of economic relief, Summers' departure is hardly what you'd call a setback. According to all reports it was Summers who insisted on introducing a smaller stimulus package, back when Obama had the political clout to get whatever he needed to fix the economy. We're seeing the results in today's "jobless recovery." Ezra Klein quotes Stephanie Taylor of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, who said his departure is "a big victory for anyone who voted for change in 2008 only to see Summers work from the inside to water down Wall Street reform, block President Obama's promise to protect Net Neutrality, and urge other pro-corporate positions."

The Bloomberg report tried to pin down the Administration's thinking about possible replacements. But by citing a variety of unnamed sources ("one person familiar with White House discussion," two people," "one person") we're left with a cloud of unknowing:

"Administration officials are weighing whether to put a prominent corporate executive in the NEC director's job to counter criticism that the administration is anti-business ...White House aides are also eager to name a woman to serve in a high-level position ... They also are concerned about finding someone with Summers' experience and stature ..."

That's enough trial balloons to float an army of economists somewhere high above the clouds. (Whoever said "good idea" - hey, that's not nice!) The President's choice will be watched closely by discouraged Americans like those he met yesterday. His appointment of Elizabeth Warren last week sent an encouraging message, not only to progressives but to middle class Americans who seem to have resonated with Warren whenever they've seen her. But whatever glow the Warren appointment cast will soon be outshone, for better or for worse, by this appointment.

Felix Salmon said that the idea of replacing Summers with a corporate executive is "a bit weird," and that's putting it mildly. I have nothing against corporate executives, having been one myself, but Salmon is right when he says that this position calls for an economist's technical expertise.

And that's not even considering the political ramifications. With poverty on the rise, record joblessness, the employed middle class struggling to make ends meet, and staggering numbers of mortgages underwater, delinquent, or foreclosed, the selection of a wealthy CEO would probably set off a political firestorm. One CEO mentioned in press reports was Richard Parsons, former head of Time Warner AOL and current head of Citigroup. Parsons is a very sharp guy, but does the Administration really think it can fix its public perception problems by naming the head of Citigroup as his senior economic advisor?

A CEO name that's getting even more traction is Ann Fudge. Ms. Fudge served as a senior executive at Kraft Foods before becoming head of Young & Rubicam. She's an impressive leader by any measure, and that includes the personal qualities she's integrated into her management style (although I have to admit that in my own executive life I tended to get very impatient with "team building" exercises like the ones she reportedly pushed at Young & Rubicam.) Fudge's background suggests she might surprise some people by bringing a more progressive perspective. But she brings some political baggage, too. She sits on the President's Deficit Commission, which is becoming increasingly controversial because of its co-chairs' shared antipathy toward Social Security. She also sits on the board of Novartis, and pharmaceutical companies aren't very popular.

Ann Fudge would be a great choice for a cabinet position with greater management responsibility - Commerce would be ideal - but putting any business person into this slot right now could pose real problems for the Administration.

In any case, a CEO appointment won't placate the executives who complain that "Obama doesn't like us." That's just a ploy to intimidate him into giving them what they always want: less regulation. If he names an executive to this position, they'll just use a new ploy. Besides, the Administration already has a senior business executive on its economic team: Jacob Lew, who is being nominated to run the Office of Management and Budget. Lew is both an economist and a former executive who was the COO of Citi's Alternative Investments unit. That means the Administration already has its private-sector leader on board (although the fact that Lew received a $950,000 bonus after the bank was bailed out may make it something they're not eager to advertise).

But if he doesn't pick an executive, who should he choose? The President could start by considering the economists who were right from the start - about deregulation, about the housing bubble, and about the need for stimulus. And for academic credentials, he could go straight to the top of that group by seeking out a Nobel laureate. Imagine the spike in consumer confidence we'd see if Paul Krugman or Joseph Stiglitz got the nod. (Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?) Since the Republicans won't work with the Administration anyway, there's no downside.

Alright, alright - I know. He won't do that. But if not Krugman or Stiglitz, then who? Given the Administration's appropriate emphasis on finding a woman for the slot, one interesting choice might be Janet Yellin, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She's been a little more pro-growth and pro-employment than many of her peers. Laura D'Andrea Tyson, who's been arguing cogently and forcefully for more stimulus spending, could be an excellent candidate.

Our number one concern right now is jobs. So if we're looking at men as well, Robert Reich would be an inspired choice. While he's not an economist, he is a former Secretary of Labor. He's also an articulate and outspoken advocate for policies that will put people back to work. Washington insiders might be appalled, but Reich would bring a much-needed perspective and would send an encouraging signal to disaffected voters. He'd also make a great spokesman for Administration policies.

Jared Bernstein would be a very good choice, and as Joe Biden's chief economic advisor he's already on the team. (Maybe - I don't know how the turf's laid out in this Administration.) And while I've been critical of Jason Furman on a couple of issues (Wal-Mart, the so-called "excise tax"), he's smart and dedicated and would provide an excellent counterbalance to some of the Administration's other players.

This is all just speculation, of course. But the President has the opportunity to set a new economic course for his Administration. By choosing a CEO he would be signaling a turn to the right, a capitulation to the special interests and political groups that will dog him no matter what he does. By choosing another economist in the Rubin/Summers mold, he would be telling a disgruntled American electorate that it can expect more of the same. But by selecting someone with a different outlook, he could help turn the economy around - while injecting new life into the political debate at the same time.
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(Not to readers: Hey! Zach Carter and I have a new financial/economics blog over at Campaign for America's Future - www.curbingwallstreet.org. Check it out -- we'll have economic commentary, updates on news items, and probably the occasional inappropriate musical reference, too. What's not to love?)

Austerity Chic: It's This Year's "Weapons of Mass Destruction"

Richard Eskow — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 17:38:31 -0400

Sometimes our political commentariat seems to go fashion-crazy. When a new trend gets popular it overwhelms everything in its path: logic, poltical divisions, even expert opinion. The latest vogue is deficit reduction, and our nation's Anna Wintours tell us we simply have to have it. In Washington, screaming about being in the red is the new black.

Call it "austerity chic," and it's catching on fast. We've already written about an odd quartet of recent austerity-chic pieces from pundits that included Tom Friedman and Anne Applebaum. These pieces tell us why we should find this new style appealing: Self-denial is what makes a nation great.

We've seen this herd mentality before, of course, most notably in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The experts warned us what would happen, but our keyboard-clacking dedicated followers of fashion thought they knew better. Ever eager to issue the clarion call for sacrifice - on somebody else's part - they issued their calls to arms. Their support played a pivotal role in building support for the invasion.

How'd that work out for you?

Once again, the experts tell us that the warning lights are flashing red and the fashionistas aren't listening. That was made clear again this morning, when a conference call was held to announce that 300 economist and civic leaders have signed a statement saying that "there is a grave danger that the still-fragile economic recovery will be undercut by austerity economics." The statement, released by the Institute For America's Future*, adds: "A turn by major governments away from the promotion of growth and jobs and to premature focus on deficit reduction could slow growth and increase unemployment - and could push us back into recession."

Contrast those sentences with the fetishized way Friedman approached reduced spending in his column. "The Greatest Generation's leaders were never afraid to ask Americans to sacrifice," he writes, whereas today's Americans "had a values breakdown." Here's what Friedman's missing: With 15 million people unemployed and 44 million in poverty, a lot of people are sacrificing right now. As for Applebaum, her orgiastic descriptions of "axe-wielding," "slashing" British budget cuts have to be read to be believed (although I did provide a summary here, if you're the type who shuts their eyes during slasher movies.)

Friedman and Applebaum aren't the only dedicated followers of fashion to join the austerity trend, of course. As we noted in the Friedman/Applebaum piece, Megan McArdle high-fived another business writer for dismissing retirement as a "vacation" while adding that "decades-long" vacations are an indulgence we can no longer afford. And Fareed Zakaria has flirted with the Austerians more than once, although he leans more toward letting all the tax cuts expire. Zakaria's followed at least two other trends recently - the notion that fear of Obama is hampering business investment and the idea that the Great Recession was really your fault - so this isn't a great surprise. (I'm not as down on Zakaria as it might sound. He's a smart guy and his TV show's usually quite interesting. Maybe his "fashion sense" just gets in the way of his common sense.)

In the world of political fashion, Republicans set the trend and others follow. Austerity chic's no exception. As with Iraq, it has just enough Democratic support to provide the "bipartisan" gloss needed to give it critical mass. The latest supporter is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who upped the rhetorical ante recently by declaring the deficit a "national security threat." Erskine Bowles and Rep. Steny Hoyer are among the other prominent Democrats who have jumped on the bandwagon.

But if some Democrats are including are wearing a splash of this year's color, right-wingers are painting their faces with it. John Boehner's call for a 15% cut in domestic spending would plunge the nation back into a deep recession. The Tea Partiers' calls for deep cuts in Social Security would immediately plunge 20 million seniors into poverty, followed shortly thereafter by a massive spike in unemployment as their purchasing power leaves the economy. And their cuts to Medicare and education would further crush our already-wounded economy. (For more information, see Adele Stan's Five Ways the Tea Party Agenda Screws Tea Party Supporters.)

As Dean Baker pointed out on this morning's call, government spending is not the cause of our current deficits. Two wars and a massive tax cut turned a surplus into a massive deficit. (I'd add a massive bank bailout with no reqruiements to limit profits or increase lending.) And, as Baker observed, greater unemployment always leads to greater deficits. Robert Reich, another participant in the call, observed that last quarter's slowdown in the growth of the economy is a warning sign in an already-grave situation. Theresa Ghilarducci suggested that an increase in Social Security could help stimulate growth. All agreed that greater spending is urgently needed to stimulate the economy, leaving deficits to be addressed once economic conditions are healthier.

If "austerity" is this year's "WMD," that doesn't mean that's deficits aren't a concern. They are, and so is the need to keep powerful weapons out of the wrong hands. It's a matter of proportion and priority. The economists who signed today's statement understand the need to reduce the deficit. But they also know that the economy needs to recover first, and that budget cuts - like military might - must be directed toward genuine threats.

Right now the 300 people who signed this statement are as outnumbered as the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae. Let's hope they do as well. As for Applebaum and Friedman, is it churlish to point out that they were both cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq? I don't think so. Then, as now, they embraced and promoted a Beltway trend without sufficient thought or foresight. And they've demonstrated a stubborn resistance to face reality in both cases. Applebaum greeted the bipartisan Baker report on Iraq with resentment. She continues to insist, against most experts' opinions, that we won't know whether the war went well for at least a decade. And now, unbowed by past errors, she's trying to drum up support for an attack on Iran.

As for Friedman, he said "we need to give the war six more months" so many times that observers began describing these intervals as "Friedman units." Friedman's enthusiasm for that war led him to the most notorious moment of his career, when he told Charlie Rose that it didn't matter which country we attacked. Any Muslim nation would do, he said, as long as Muslims everywhere saw "American boys and girls going door to door and saying ... you don't think we care? ... You think this bubble fantasy, we're just going to let it grow? Well, suck on this."

That was fifteen Friedman units ago, and people change. Friedman's done his mea culpa on the war, which is commendable, and his support for a government-backed "green revolution" is an excellent idea (one that contradicts his newfound austerity passion). Still, he's about to do another major disservice to the American people. He may think it's wise and even inspirational to frame spending cuts as a form of national sacrifice. But the wrong people will be sacrificed,especially in this political climate The economists who signed today's statement understand better than Friedman does what will happen if austerity wins the day.

When asked what piece of fashion advice she would give, Catherine Deneuve suggested that women look in the mirror before going out and remove one piece of jewelry. Austerity-for-its-own sake is a bauble that makes its wearer look overdressed and leaves other people unclothed. We need to have the courage to invest in the future, rather than slashing spending out of political trendiness and a failure of nerve.

A lot of people are hurting right now. To let them languish would be Washington's way of telling them to "suck on this." But helping them would also help the economy recover and grow, which would benefit everybody. It would also send a message to them, and to the world, the this country still believes in its own future. It would be a signal of renewed confidence in the American Dream.

Sure, it will be hard work to turn things around, but it's like the old folks used to say: Hard work never goes out of fashion.

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*I am a fellow at the Campaign For America's Future, the Institute's sister organization.

(UPDATE: Yet another fashionista dresses himself in austerity chic as a journalist applauds.)

(UPDATE II: Via Glenn Greenwald, we learn that Digby told us of an an austerity-chic pioneer who can afford all the newest fashions.)

For more information on the statement, see here, here, and here.

Health Insurance Coverage Keeps Shrinking as Premiums, Family Costs Climb Ever Higher