Andy Barenberg

Due to the very first non-viagra related comment on this blog it is currently receiving more attention and scrutiny than it deserves.

Generally Obama is pretty sharp on the economy, but he has times where he seems overly committed to adhering to fiscal hawk orthodoxy that he says the stupidest things:

Obama said. “But there is a chance that if we leave such a mountain of debt to the next generation,” living standards will fall.

My dear professor, Bob Pollin, writes in to the Nation to complain about Naomi Klien’s argument for a boycott of Israel.  This argument is beyond parody:

The toll on Palestinian civilians of the current Israeli attack on Gaza is horrible. But let’s also recognize that Hamas is deliberately using civilians as human shields. The bomb that hit the home of Hamas leader Nazar Rayyan in Jabaliya tragically killed his wives and children as well as himself. Why was Rayyan exposing his family to such danger?

Rayyan was using his family as a human shield to protect his home??? WTF????   In all the possible examples he could have chosen from why did Bob choose to use the one where Israel bombed a home - and then complain that Palestinians have the audacity to have families in their homes?  Maybe he was just a little too excited to smear them with the word “wives”?

Larry Summers 2005 - Don’t worry about the risk of deregulation - because that could lead to regulation!

From David Harvey’s interview with Amy Goodman yesterday:

DAVID HARVEY: I think, for example, the nature of the bailout of the banks and the sort of restructuring that is going on is, in effect, about saving the banks and saving the bankers, while actually sticking it to the people. I mean, we’re the ones who are going to have to pay for this in the long run. 

…..

AMY GOODMAN: If you were Timothy Geithner, if you were the Treasury Secretary—

DAVID HARVEY: Yes, if I was Treasury Secretary.

AMY GOODMAN: —what exactly would you be doing?

 DAVID HARVEY: Oh, I would take a lot of that money, and I would put it into some kind of a national reconstruction corporation. And I would say, “Look, your first duty is to take care of the foreclosure crisis and the people who have been foreclosed upon. So go into cities like Cleveland and so on that have been devastated, and go into sort of areas in California and so on and take care of the foreclosure crisis.”

….

 

DAVID HARVEY: Well, I was in favor of solving the foreclosure crisis. You see, if you’ve solved the housing crisis, the banks wouldn’t be holding any toxic assets. If you had gone in and bailed out all of the people, there would be no problem on Wall Street. They wouldn’t be sitting there with all the toxic assets. You wouldn’t have the foreclosures. So we should have gone in there right at the beginning and actually held down the foreclosure crisis.

 AMY GOODMAN: And why didn’t they?

 DAVID HARVEY: Because that would mean bailing out poor African Americans and people of that sort, and they’re not concerned with that. They’re concerned with protecting the bankers, not with protecting the people.

Harvey is suggesting that the government keep housing prices inflated at bubble prices.  This is a government supporting the group of people who own home at the expense of people who don’t own homes.  While amongst homeowners “poor African Americans” may have been overrepresented as people being forclosed upon poor African Americans are generally not homeowners. Much of the foreclosures were for the McMansions, not sub-prime loans. 

Its not all bad, there is some good analysis in there. But when it come to workable alternatives the only place he is right on is where he says we need a large social movement to push Obama to do what is needed. 

Via Jonathan Schwarz:

NYT article from 1999 on repeal of Glass-Stigel Act

Congress approved landmark legislation today that opens the door for a new era on Wall Street in which commercial banks, securities houses and insurers will find it easier and cheaper to enter one another’s businesses.

…

”Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,” Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said. ”This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.”

The decision to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 provoked dire warnings from a handful of dissenters that the deregulation of Wall Street would someday wreak havoc on the nation’s financial system. 

As Schwarz jokes, Thank God we don’t let this Lawrence Summers guy have any more influence on the economy.

(Via Tiny Revolution)

UK Times

Binyamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister, are commemorating the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of British rule, that killed 92 people and helped to drive the British from Palestine.

They have erected a plaque outside the restored building, and are holding a two-day seminar with speeches and a tour of the hotel by one of the Jewish resistance fighters involved in the attack.

Incidentally, this is the same building were Clinton met Netanyahu earlier this month.  And last month it was the building were Obama praised Netanyahu for being like him; a pragmatist who moved to the center.  As noted on A TIny Revolution, it sure is a good thing we don’t talk to those who don’t renounce terrorism.

• Obama did not read the wrong speech on a teleprompter and end up thanking himself.
• Harold Koh, the administrations pick for legal advisor to the state department did not say he would use Shariah law in the US.
• Dobb did not insert language into the stimulus bill requiring AIG to pay bonuses, language in the stimulus limited the bonuses. 
• The stimulus bill did not direct money to be used for a railroad from LA to Las Vegas. 
• The CRA, Freddie & Fannie Mae, and government programs to encourage home-ownership of minorities did not create the sub-prime crisis or the housing bubble. 

The Gallup poll has a new survey comparing views of “moral issues” of  Catholics to the general public.  Generally Catholics are statistically similar or more liberal.  Regular church going Catholics are more conservative than the general public but far more liberal than regular church going non-catholic public. 

The top line numbers for abortion is 40% of Catholics and 41% of Catholics see it as morally acceptable; statistically insignificant.  54% of Catholics compared to only 45% of non-catholics see homosexual relations as morally acceptable.

The Soccer Project from Rebekah Fergusson on Vimeo.