bargain or betrayal?

I couldn't help but notice that President Obama's new "signaling" that he is prepared to discuss cuts to the social safety net, and such programs as social security and medicaid, is exactly what Bill Black has been terming the administration's marketed Grand Bargain which in essence is a Great Betrayal for the vast majority of Americans.

Black, and many others, suggest that both parties are responsible, perhaps equally, for the Sequester and its impending "austerity" that will indeed hurt the less fortunate much more than the "haves." It's all very reminscent of President Clinton's "successful" reform, termed Welfare-to-Work, but I wouldn't want President Bush's No Child Left Behind to feel neglected here. I suppose it's just crazy fun that all these nifty new programs appear effective when the economy is on the rise or on the mend.

Alas, unlike Clinton's boom years and even Bush's housing bubble "good times," this "recovery," is a recovery of corporate profits and not one that is producing jobs that real living "regular" Americans can or will do. As everyone has noted, though, we are producing drones, food stamps, and the novelty of concurrent rising student-debt default rates and relief programs. Hey, we may not have the cure for all the debt burdens plaguing the median American, but at least we can rest easy knowing that President Obama has chosen a budget specialist straight out of Made-in-the-USA Wal-Mart to help heal our national wounds.

But what else is new?

Health coverage, or so we can hope.

Joseph A. Domino

I just stumbled upon this Joseph A. Domino piece, and was reminded that he was one of the early supporters of Fight for Your Long Day. Thanks, Joe. (I was searching for a recent reprint of his amazon review but couldn't find it.)

In a week where I've learned that another good friend lost a job, in this case, a so-called "good job," and that Governor Corbett has his steak knife out and is taking another look at Pennsylvania public-employee pensions, I'm still stumbling upon this kind of thing all over the web, and then I get caught up in how relatively good I have it and wonder when some more awful version of life will find me.

Okay, I'm going to crouch under the desk and hope they pass by.

And then in the middle of the night, when no one is looking, maybe I'll sneak back up here and watch Bill Black "Grand Bargain or Great Betrayal" videos at realnews.com. Black has it all--paranoia, tenure, facts, even a fair amount of his hair, and an office that is messy but not impossibly messy in that way in which even a Philip Roth character couldn't clear a clean well-lit place to seduce his paramour (the cleaning lady).

Good luck to everyone striving for a safer and more secure future.

Austerity redux

Data shows second helpings, ice-cream sundaes, and extra cheese are all polling higher than economic austerity programs, particularly if said measures are linked to other countries' banks or governments. Krugman and the Palestinians are against austerity, too.

This guy, a law or economics professor somewhere in the middle of America, has some good ironic analysis on how ostensibly lefty Labor in England attempted to woo American finance with less regulation while some in the Republican party stateside are writing books attacking deregulatory policies.

Just when you think you have it all sorted out. . .