The “Debt Crisis” According to Bruce Bartlett: Part Two
This is the second in a blog series of commentaries on Bruce Bartlett's recent statement to the Senate Budget Committee. The first post in the series discussed a number of his comments on aspects of...
View ArticleThe “Debt Crisis” According to Bruce Bartlett: Part Three
In the first two parts of this series of commentaries on Bruce Bartlett's testimony to the Senate Budget Committee, I've reviewed the first 8 paragraphs in his statement. These points debunked various...
View ArticleThe “Debt Crisis” According to Bruce Bartlett: Part Four
This is the fourth in a series of commentaries on Bruce Bartlett's recent testimony to the Senate Budget Committee. I appreciated his testimony and his critical evaluation of the idea that there is a...
View ArticleThe “Debt Crisis” According to Bruce Bartlett: Part Five
This is the last post in my analysis and commentary on Bruce Bartlett's testimony to the Senate Budget Committee. There's one very significant issue left to discuss, and that is the issue of fiscal gap...
View ArticleThe Peterson Foundation Sings the Same Old Song
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation (PGPF) always does a press release when the CBO issues one of its budget outlook 10 year projection reports. The PGPF did another in January quoting its President and...
View ArticlePodcast: A Conversation with Mike Norman
Earlier today, I appeared on Mike Norman's podcast for a long conversation about how I became interested in MMT, my recent blog series on Bruce Bartlett's testimony to the Senate Budget Committee, and...
View ArticleThe Profound Fiscal Irresponsibility of Resistance to Facts
Just as every Spring we can count on the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (PGPF) to do a supportive press release when the CBO issues one of its budget outlook 10 year projection reports, we can also count...
View ArticleThe Value of the Right Ratio Is Zero
The public debt-to-GDP ratio is, perhaps, the most important measure used in discussions of the relative fiscal sustainability of nations. Nations with high levels of debt-to-GDP are viewed as having...
View ArticleThoughts About the Trans-Pacific Partnership
During a recent Amy Goodman interview of Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, on her Democracy Now show, Wallach neatly summarized the problems of progressives with the...
View ArticleThe New York Times Covers the TPP: A Commentary
Wikileaks did us all another service yesterday by releasing the “Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP): Investment Chapter Consolidated Text,” and collaborating with the New York Times to get the...
View ArticleWhen Will CBO and the House Budget Committee Ever Learn About Sector...
It never ceases to amaze me that those who offer budget plans and projections never take into account the reality that their projections must be consistent with implications of trends in sector...
View ArticleWhen Will the White House and OMB Ever Learn About Sector Financial Balances?
In my last post I asked this same question about the House Budget Committee. As my readers saw in that one, the attempts at deficit reduction leading to budget balance were so severe that they implied...
View ArticlePolitically and Economically Driven Middle East Violence: How the Web Can...
Nancy Bordier and Joseph M. FirestoneOur thesis is that the violence engulfing the Middle East is driven primarily by political and economic factors. The roots of this violence derive from complex...
View ArticleWhen Will the Congressional Progressive Caucus Ever Learn About Sector...
In addition to the House Budget Committee and OMB budget plans and 2016 – 2025 projections fiscal policy followers have also recently been graced with the effort of the Congressional Progressive Caucus...
View ArticleWhen Will the Senate Budget Committee Majority Ever Learn About Sector...
There are two words that describe the Republicans'Senate Budget Committee's proposed budget: “dishonesty” and “austerity” for most Americans. Let's deal with the dishonesty part first. In due course,...
View ArticleConsent of the Governed: Stop the Emerging TPP Tyranny!
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of...
View ArticleHow Can Our Senators and Representatives Vote for Giving Away Our Monetary...
Right now the US fulfills the three essential conditions for monetary sovereignty: 1) it issues its own non-convertible currency, 2) which it allows to float on international currency markets; and 3)...
View ArticleIndicting the Trans – Pacific Partnership: Even One of These Counts Is...
To really appreciate what a travesty the TPP is, and the scandal of the failure of our Congress to reject it, and the “Fast Track Authority“ sought for it, out of hand, I'm going to list 23 negative...
View ArticleRidiculing Concerns About TPP Tyranny
People who support the Administration's efforts on the TPP have been known to reply to my posts on this subject by attempting to ridicule the scenarios I've presented as possible under the TPP...
View ArticleThe Death of National and State Sovereignty, Separation of Powers, and Democracy
Most of the critical attention given to the Fast Track Trade Agreement legislation and to the associated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Congressional – Executive Agreement on mainstream corporate...
View ArticleTPP: The Fascism Issue
If the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement will, if implemented, and as I've argued elsewhere, result in the death of national and state sovereignty, constitutional separation of powers, and...
View ArticleGet Ready to Call 'Em Out On the TPP!
So, on May 22, the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) (“Fast Track”) Bill passed the Senate 62 – 37, with 14 Democrats defecting to the pro-Fast TracK/Trade-Pacific Partnership (TPP) forces. However, all...
View ArticleIs Progressivism in the Eye of the Beholder?
Thomas Palley recently blogged a post that was cross-posted at Naked Capitalism where I read it. In it, he discussed the question of whether Hillary Clinton's apparent intention to run as a progressive...
View ArticleTPP: Call 'Em Out In the House, Now!
In a previous post, I discussed the likelihood that the Fast-Track bill, if it passed the House, would need to return to the Senate again to align the different bills produced by the two Houses. I...
View ArticleThe Volcker Rule Doesn't Violate NAFTA
This one is for the Finance Minister of Canada, Joe Oliver. He erroneously claims that the Volcker rule, implemented as part of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010,...
View ArticleTPP: State of Play in the House
The Republicans and the Administration still can't count on the 217 votes needed to pass Fast-Track, according to Politico. There are 245 Republicans and 188 Democrats in the House. Republicans are now...
View ArticleTPP: Don Beyer (D-VA) Puts “Free Trade” Above National Sovereignty and Democracy
Recently, my wife, Bonnie, sent an e-mail to Don Beyer, our Democratic Representative in the Virginia 8th Congressional District to express her opinion opposing fast-track/TPP and to tell him that she...
View ArticleKathleen Rice (D-NY) Is the Latest to Put “Free Trade” Above National...
I blogged a critique of Don Beyer, Democratic Representative in the Virginia 8th Congressional District to protest his announcement of support for the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill followed by...
View ArticleTPP: Jim Himes (D-CT), Another Putting “Free Trade” Above National...
This is another in a series on Democratic Representatives who recently decided that pleasing their President, and their minority leader in the House, and protecting the expectations of potential...
View ArticleFast --Track: It Looks Like It's In Pelosi's Lap or Maybe Not!
There are 246 Republicans and 188 Democrats in the House. Republicans, led by John Boehner and Paul Ryan, say they are confident about having enough votes to hold a successful floor vote on Friday,...
View ArticleTPP: Fast –Track, the Next Rounds In Congress
The roll call 126-302 vote (Roll call 361) defeating the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) bill was a result worth a little celebrating on Friday, since it was a very decisive victory on that...
View ArticleTPP: Fast –Track Is Back: Shall It Pass?
Well, that didn't take too long. The wonks in White House, the Republican Leadership. And the “free trade” Democrats, have hatched another devious process for passing the Trade Promotion Authority...
View ArticleTPP: Will Voters Re-elect Laughing Stocks to the Senate?
Let's review the devious process for passing the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill devised by the Republicans I outlined in my last post. It has the following steps:– Step one: the House passes a...
View ArticleTPP: 13 Democratic Senators Invite Republicans to Make Them Laughing Stocks
The cloture vote in the Senate is now done, making the TPA vote itself a mere formality. The vote was 60 – 37 in favor of cloture with 13 of the 14 original Democratic defectors (Ben Cardin was the...
View ArticleDeclarations of Dependence: A New e-Book on the Nation-Subjugating “Trade Deals”
The trade agreements currently being negotiated by the Obama Administration are potentially enormously important in their possible impact on the United States. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is...
View ArticleA Book about Bernie Sanders, Greece, Austerity, and Much More
The Eurozone is an instrument of the globalization process that is setting financial elites over all nations of the world, including the democracies. The situation in Greece exposes the true nature of...
View ArticleOn the IT Problem of Grexit: A Reply
I'd like to start by thanking Louis Proyect for commenting on at least part of my new e-book Austerity, Greece’s Debt Crisis and the Theft of Democracy namely the chapter entitled “The Information...
View ArticleWho Needs Balanced Trade? Who Needs Balance Budgets: A New Book on Trade and...
The intensity of the conflict over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has died down since last June, after the Administration won its victory in getting Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) through...
View ArticleThe Platinum Coin Returns
Upon my oath, I didn't intend to bring back the coin proposal until much later in the renewed process of Republican hostage-taking over the debt ceiling. After all, there's not much chance that the...
View ArticleFiscal Myths of Campaign 2016: A New Kindle e-Book
Most of the world, and most notably the United States, is in the grip of fiscal myths fostered by the ideology of neoliberalism. There is virtual unanimity across the major political parties in the...
View ArticleSome Platinum Coin Objections from the Mainstream: Part I
As I was working my way through the series of posts beginning with this one, news was announced that Republican and Democratic Party leaders in Congress, along with the President had come to agreement...
View ArticleSome Platinum Coin Objections from the Mainstream: Part II
I began a lengthy critical reply to Philip Wallach’s reply to my earlier analysis of his paper in Part I of this series. There I covered some preliminary mis-characterizations of what I said and, more...
View ArticleSome Platinum Coin Objections from the Mainstream: Part III
This is Part III of my lengthy reply to Philip Wallach’s reply to my evaluation of his views on the platinum coin proposal and other options for settling debt ceiling conflicts. In Part I I discussed...
View ArticleSome Platinum Coin Objections from the Mainstream: Part IV
This is Part IV of my reply to Philip Wallach’s reply to my evaluation of his views on the platinum coin proposal and other options for settling debt ceiling conflicts. In Part I I discussed some...
View ArticleSome Platinum Coin Objections from the Mainstream: Part V
This is Part V, and the conclusion, of the series providing my reply to Philip Wallach’s reply to my evaluation of his views on the platinum coin proposal and other options for settling debt ceiling...
View ArticleReal Fiscal Responsibility, Vol 1: The Progressive Give-up Formula
Below is an excerpt from my most recent e-book:Real Fiscal Responsibility, Vol. I: The Progressive Give-up Formula. The book is volume I of II critiquing austerity politics at the Federal level in the...
View ArticleFor US Democracy: There Is Only One Choice!
We need big, big changes in the United States. Many of them will require the Federal Government to spend unprecedented amounts, including deficit spending to enable us to solve problems that have...
View ArticleReal Fiscal Responsibility, Vol. II: Peterson Network, Inequality, & the...
This is how the mission of the President’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform was defined by the White House on February 18, 2010:The Commission is charged with identifying...
View ArticleRiskonomics: Reducing Risk by Killing Your Worst Ideas: New Book
About 6 years ago I stopped posting at my All Life Is Problem Solving site, and shifted my blogging over to other sites devoted to economics and politics, such as this one, often blogging under the...
View ArticleObama Has Plans for the TPP during the Lame Duck—Here's What You Need to Know
President Obama is mobilizing a last-ditch effort to overcome opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and get it passed before leaving office. He is planning to present it to Congress just...
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