Prog Blogs, Orgs & Alumni
Bank Slate
Betsy Devine
birch paper
Democracy for NH
Granite State Progress
Mike Caulfield
Miscellany Blue
Pickup Patriots
Re-BlueNH
Still No Going Back
Susan the Bruce
New Hampshire Labor News
Chaz Proulx: Right Wing Watch
Politicos & Punditry
The Burt Cohen Show
John Gregg
Landrigan
Pindell
Primary Monitor
Scala
Schoenberg
Spiliotes
Campaigns, Et Alia.
NH-Gov
- Maggie Hassan
NH-01
- Andrew Hosmer
- Carol Shea-Porter
- Joanne Dowdell
NH-02
- Ann McLane Kuster
ActBlue Hampshire
NHDP
DCCC
DSCC
DNC
National
Balloon Juice
billmon
Congress Matters
DailyKos
Digby
Hold Fast
Eschaton
FiveThirtyEight
MyDD
Open Left
Senate Guru
Swing State Project
Talking Points Memo
50 State Blog Network
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Texas
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
The movement has spread to New Hampshire. Looks like they could use a little help organizing. Can't tell if it is to take place in Concord or Manchester or both. Anyway I'm very pleased that we are a part of this amazing movement.
https://www.facebook.com/pages...
I took a break to enjoy the holiday, as I'm sure many of you did, but my inbox kept busy, and on Friday came a doozy, courtesy of the Washington Post.
You remember that little bit of a banking crisis we had a couple of years back, where banks around the world might have possibly, maybe, just a little, conspired in a giant scheme to package toxic mortgage loans into Grade A, investment-ready securities instruments, which then blew up in everyone's faces to the tune of a whole lot of taxpayer bailouts?
Well all of a sudden, it looks like an agency of the Federal Government is looking to do something about it, in a real big way.
Last Friday the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced they're suing 17 firms (I'll give you a list, bit it's pretty much all the usual suspects); depending on who you ask the Feds are seeking an amount as high as $200 billion.
As Joe Biden would say, it's a big...well, it's a big deal, anyway, and that's why we're starting the new week with this one.
This is what Warren Stephens calls the "federal government allocating credit." If banksters can't decide who's credit worthy and who's not, how are the little people going to be kept in check? If the law works as designed, the "protectors" on Capitol Hill and their henchmen on Wall Street will have to toe the line.
So this Jon Stewart/Daily Show clip is getting a lot of play over on FB, but I wanted to post it here, especially since we can see this argument coming soon in our own NH budget battles.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/wa...
You know, that part about if they didn't pay those Wall Street guys that big money, and all those bonuses, because of the contracts, then all that huge talent might go elsewhere -- do you think that talent might jump to those contracted-protected, 3-months-off-a-year teaching jobs?
In NH and around the country, as well as in DC, we hear over and over that cutting government budgets, getting rid of all that "job-killing" spending, will create lots and lots of private sector jobs. Even if it hasn't worked in the last 30 years, this time it will work.
Well, the guys who do economic predictions for Wall St., big banks, etc., beg to differ:
Zandi, an architect of the 2009 stimulus package who has advised both political parties, predicts that the GOP package would reduce economic growth by 0.5 percentage points this year, and by 0.2 percentage points in 2012, resulting in 700,000 fewer jobs by the end of next year.
In 2006, a majority of voters - angry, disgusted and alarmed with our country's direction under Republican control - swept Democrats to majorities in Congress. They were then lulled into accepting the Party's self-serving rhetoric that if only voters delivered Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate and the presidency in 2008, they would be able to restore sanity and the rule of law to our nation.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be an intentional and cynical lie in the spirit of Lucy's duping the ever gullible Charlie Brown into hoping that just this once she might not laughingly yank the football away at the last second, leaving him flat on his back in the dust (again).
It's part two of our "Netroots Nation Goes To Vegas Piano Bar Extravaganza", and in keeping with tradition that means we are again taking a story request.
This time we won't be talking about energy security or "climate security"; instead, we'll discuss retirement security, keeping your money for yourself instead of paying it out in "mystery fees", and how one of the "usual suspects" is at it again.
That's what the Columbia Journalism Review says. The collapse of Wall Street has not been well covered by the traditional press. Perhaps traditionalists are just incredulous. Anyway, the failure is being dissected here, albeit by a professor of economics. Which accounts for his insistence that the problem lies in financial institutions not having followed the rules. Economists are all about following rules, even when they have been proven not to work -- i.e. produce the desired result.
No, not the flu that is wreaking havoc in Mexico. The swine flu ravaging Wall Street is the kind that turns banksters into financial pigs crowding around the bonus pay trough to gorge themselves.
Unbelievably, despite the financial meltdown, despite the most severe recession since World War II, despite the fact that these banksters have destroyed their industry and their corporations, and despite the fact that they have their hand in our pocket to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, they are back to their tricks of giving each other enormous, outsized paychecks.
(Not a NH-based story, but an important one, and one that reaffirmed my ability to be shaken to the core by Bush era malfeasance. - promoted by Dean Barker)
One of the signs that our late, unlamented president was losing his Capitol Hill mojo was when Congress rejected his cockeyed plan in 2005 to privatize Social Security by investing our tax money in Wall Street. Bush argued that those who opposed this plan had no faith in the markets, but ultimately good sense prevailed and he didn't get his way.
Unfortunately, Bush did not lose his personal belief in the magic ability of "the market" to solve all problems. In 2007, he appointed an investment banker from Lehman Brothers who shared his belief named Chuck Millard to run the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation along proper free-market principles.
There's really no way to do justice to this effort by one of the DailyKos diarists, so I encourage you to click on the link and find out how one of our premier United States Senators managed to correct a significant problem. But, for a taste, let me reproduce a portion of a New York Times article from the time the problem was created in 2000.
So I was thinking today about the complaint that the auto industry hadn't planned for the long term, and how I wrote that at least part of the blame for that might rest with stock owners, who want returns on their investment RIGHT NOW. And since I have absolutely no expertise in this area, I wondered if maybe we could change the game so they would be less desirous of returns RIGHT NOW.
And I don't see, offhand, why you couldn't do that. The government could, let's say, change the nature of stock so that half the stock of any company has to be held for more than 5 years. Or do it at the other end, regulate stock sales so that half of any stock purchase has to be held for a long term. Or regulate it at the level of mutual fund and large pension fund purchases.
Hillary Clinton gave a speech in New York yesterday, calling upon Wall Street to step up and do its part in averting a growing crisis in foreclosures. Hillary recognizes that we all need to work together as a community to solve this problem, which means Wall Street needs to pitch in and assist as well. If it does not, she will call on Congress to step in instead.
"I'm here today to call on Wall Street to do its part to help end the foreclosure crisis that is devastating middle class families and threatening our economy," Clinton said. "Wall Street needs to be part of a comprehensive solution that brings to the table all those responsible and calls on them to do their part. Wall Street helped create the foreclosure crisis, and Wall Street needs to help solve it.
Today, Barack Obama released the following statement on the proposed Webb Amendment currently under debate in the Senate:
Over the coming months, I will continue to push for a new course in Iraq that immediately begins a safe and orderly withdrawal of our combat troops, that changes our military mission to focus on training and counter-terrorism, that puts real pressure on the Iraqis to resolve their grievances, and that focuses our military efforts on the real threats facing our country. This amendment is an important part of that new course.
On Sept. 12, Barack crystallized his vision of that new course as he laid out his plan to end the Iraq War.
In a speech on Monday, Barack asked Wall Street to join him in saying that we will not tolerate a market that is fixed, and rigged by lobbyists who don't represent the interests of real Americans or most businesses. We will no longer tolerate the attitude that "what's good for me is good enough" - because the only thing that's good enough is what's best for America.
On Tuesday, he laid out the first part of his agenda - a plan to modernize and simplify our tax code so that it provides greater opportunity and more relief to more Americans.
Other highlights from the campaign this week:
Yesterday, State Senator Jackie Cilley hosted a roundtable discussion on Barack's Tax Fairness plan in Rochester.
Also yesterday, the NH Obama campaign blog profiled Shana Potvin a single mother in Manchester who would benefit greatly from Barack's tax proposals.
Also yesterday, the NH Obama campaign blog profiled Rep. Kris Roberts, a member of the Obama for New Hampshire Veterans Steering Committee.
On Monday, the NH Obama campaign blog profiled Theresa Peters, who believes that Barack "can follow FDR's example and make the government work for the average person again."
On Sunday, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky visited a Women for Obama meeting in Portsmouth.
Also on Sunday, the NH Obama campaign blog profiled Tom Brown, a veteran who served as a drug and alcohol counselor in the Air Force.
On Saturday, the NH Obama campaign blog profiled Bob Wayss, State Commander of Disabled American Veterans for 2005-06 and a member of the Obama for New Hampshire Veterans Steering Committee.
On Friday, the NH Obama campaign blog profiled Mary Morin, Director of the State Veterans Council and a member of the Obama for New Hampshire Veterans Steering Committee.
On Thursday, the NH Obama campaign blog profiled Ryan Gray an Iraq War veteran and a member of the Obama for New Hampshire Veterans Steering Committee.
On Wednesday, bloggers from across the country, including Blue Hampshire's own Elwood, attended a conference call with Samantha Power and Sarah Sewall of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy to discuss Barack's plans for getting our troops out of Iraq.
For the latest in the campaign's efforts across the country and right here in New Hampshire, including a three-part series on issues affecting New Hampshire's veterans, check out the NH Obama campaign blog at nh.barackobama.com.
Tim Foley Proud to be a New Hampshire staff member for Barack Obama's movement for change.
