Marvc ,we lost every vestige of our democracy over a decade ago There was a class warfare waged over 30 years ago ,and we didn’t win .In fact ,we didn;t even know there was a war .Our rentiers are just plucking up the spoils .Whoa ,gotta go ,Big Ed is on ,and I just know he’ll lead us out of this terrible mess .

Marvc both parties stink .They are both corporate-owned frauds who seek to destroy America by advancing austerity agendas for Wall.St. internationalists .

Obama has never promoted growth .His auto bailout was engineered by Wall.St. and spurred by GMAC , bond exposures and unfunded indemnities .These and a spindly .compromised stimulus in a climate of unconditional bankster giveaways said it all.Bowles told C Rose that O wasn’t interested in SB because he planned to make very much deeper cuts in entitlements after re-election .Obama is just another austerity shill who clerks for G-20 MOTU

Hey Ludwig ,What did you infer in my comment that makes you think I have any view on Krugman ?I think for myself ,and admire Michael Hudson ,not Krugman .If you wish to challenge my reasoning,bring it ,but don’t be cute because my thinking isn;t conventional .

sn1789 .you say contraction and stagnation as if they are bad phenomena .From a monopoly view,this is an excellent climate for the capital expropriation cycle to further the corporate takeover process known as structural adjustment .Everyone is waiting for that sideline money to be invested,well,it’s coming in M&A ,fiscal consolidation ,privatized utilities and claims on millions of new bankruptcies and foreclosures .Depressed economies are fruit baskets for monopolists.Then comes hyperinflation to cheapen all the debt leverage for this global seizure while also enjoying myth to market on trillions in toxic loans .

I’ve been a voice in the wilderness for nearly 2 years at FDL when saying austerity is a confidence game in the vein of a pigeon drop or a bonded securities racket .Ponzi is crazy talk .Austerity is merely the jab that sets-up the k.o.,which is the theft of all hard assets in all economies .The underlying premise of the con is belief in some paper,the euro ,having static value .

Booker created the same set-up bait ,where his defenders and others said the dem party is run out of Wall St.and .while impolitic and self-serving .he spoke the truth and O shares his sentiments .No surprise for FDL .but the ‘folks’ seldom hear such candor .The best I”ve heard since DR pushed Big Ed into admitting both parties were bought and sold completely .

I agree inde ,dem tribalist are afflicted the same as birthers insofar as they continue to believe bullshit because their beliefs and hence their identities are invested in bullshit narratives .

Unlike mas,I don’t think O has done anything that well-meaning and very little that was foolish .Mark H appears to be a stooge defending a Wall St. stooge ,which is okay if he’s getting paid .His rant was pure sophistry betokening a second-rate mind .A quick tell was when he framed the enemy as pubs and blue dogs ,when Obama proudly defines defines himself as a blue dog .Any fool could have predicted wholesale credit would be lent to wholesale borrowers ,e.g. ,the treasury,transnational monopolies or foreign banking elites.The outcome being commodities speculation or sidelining for M and A after austerity creates fire-sale prices and easy privatization of public wealth .

Hey judibrown ,you come off as a congenital reactionary .I believe you have been a dem for 40 years ,and I could imagine you being an activist who worked to advance some issue for which you have empathy ,but I hope you realize that the class-averse nature of identity politics doesn’t reflect progressive politics .I believe anyone is delusional who believes a pansy like Gore wouldn’t have been rolled into war by Lieb and other neocons .Please ,put down the kool-aid and think for yourself .Can you name 2 dems in the DLC who didn’t push the war ?

Hey judibrown .clearly you have no understanding of progressive politics .I don’t think you will find many OWS or Nader peeps who find lesser-evil dems more laudable than pubs Personally .I blame mainstream dems for moving the center into fascist terrain ,and do not give a fuck about Obama or Romney .

Welcome Professor Krugman :If viewed from a perspective of monopoly sociopathy , austerity would be a very logical means of looting and privatizing public wealth in a fire-sale climate of fear and desperation .Accordingly ,the tighter the austerity screws are turned more euros are squeezed into what appears to be a recirculating scheme that empowers the bundesbank to perform with reserve currency dictates .I realize those euros also come here ,but I’m speaking of structural adjustment power .Your thoughts please .

I agree with Rose Anne Demarro , NNU prez ,who said progressivism is so unattractive because it doesn”t adhere to absolutes .In other words ,forget junk issues such as the public option ,child hunger ,legalizing this or that drug .some legal spin on same sex marriage ,and efforts against CU .Absolute food security.single-payer,end the drug war ,full l.g.b..t. rights ,real campaign finance reform etc .Even a child knows one doesn’t negotiate by starting with something that is barely acceptable .

I’m sure the same source noted we have the same problem.Both have 2% owning over 40% of everything and they are mostly straight deadbeats .

For me ,the only safe currency is gold .considering the interconnectivity of global banking when a run on banks in one currency cascades globally within days ,if not hours .

Hey Adam,good tips .You really must check out Robert Lichtman on KPFA’s program ,Against The Grain ,I wasn’t hip to him until hearing his two talks on 4-15 and 4-16 .Mind-blowing analyses .

Hey shooter you do realize free enterprise doesn’ t even need capital or could have county -based capital for trade expediency .It’s just paper dude .Keeping at the village level .which is what conservatives say they desire ,we have a shop-owning entrepreneur.he is both labor and business .and he relies on ,you guessed it ,to sell his tasty pies .As demand grows ,he hires other workers and regional lenders ,and pie eaters ,lend him paper for expansion .I f capital flow remains rooted as Adam Smith endorsed .it has circular accountability within a loop of labor ,investor and revenue .However .it all starts with the consumer investing paper,eggs .gold nuggets or whatever,on a gamble that the pie tasting good .You are not a learned man ,so if you also need to be schooled on why royal mooches are anti-American thieves and parasitesI,I will school you on macroeconomics .

Austerity is a scam supported by knaves and fools .If pressed ,its defenders will admit growth would never occur until we render ourselves to debt peonage so we can be competitive with Vietnam to attract investment capital .The banksters collapse the economy ,externalize $11-trillion onto the taxpayer ,and then work this austerity hustle to further hobble economies into a state of fear and desperation via which they can steal and monopolize all public wealth .These bankster parasites gutted the revenue base and hence created massive budget shortfall.As housing and portfolio values disappeared this devastated consumer demand and without this demand unemployment soared and the receipts plummeted .We need demand .

austerity is

Hey eCahn .you might be right ,but one way or another they’ve been enjoying moral hazard for nearly a half-century .I can’t speak to its formative period ,but I know that Wriston said fuck the Fed’s permission circa 1970 when peddling a new derivative and never looked back as he later cooked up the syndicated-lender scheme for moral- hazard socialism circa 1980 .