What is good for consumers?

The Fed has proposed new fees that card companies can charge retailers for swiping. Every time you swipe your card at the gas station or grocery store or Target, the companies that help in that process (Visa, Mastercard, etc) charge the retailer a fee. Currently, the fee is 44 cents. The new Fed proposal caps that fee at 12 cents. That seems like a good thing, right? Only for consumers. In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Ed Yingling, president and chief executive of the American Bankers Association, said in a statement that the rules "essentially relieve retailers of paying their fair share for a card payments system that offers them tremendous benefits." He added that the Fed's proposal was a "bad deal for consumers."

Uh, no sir. It's a bad deal for your banks, but it's good for us. The banks need to STFU.

Oh, and I'm reading 'Aftershock' by Robert B. Reich. You should, too.

Turkey posts

Here's some great links to look at during your extended break.

Jonathan Tasini does a great job in popping the deficiet myth in a 50 page booklet.

Bill Moyers explains how wage repression works.

More evidence that America is now a Banana Republic.

A thought on the results of Nov. 4

A lot of people are saying that the election results are a result of people thinking that Obama went too far in his policy. I think that's bull. If you look at the groups that voted, it was tilted towards mostly older whites. This group is always more conservative, so it's no surprise that you get this kind of election result with that electorate group. Baby Boomers are angry. They have good reason to be angry. But they did bring a lot of this on themselves, as I have said many times in this blog. What I think a good spin for Obama on this would be "Yes, the economy isn't where it needs to be. People are really hurting. I have no idea what it is like to lose your home and your job. I don't know where I would find the strength to see me through that situation. But this slow recovery is because I compromised. I tried to meet Republicans halfway. But Republicans are so far to the right that going halfway doesn't mean you meet in the center. It means you end up going right. So that is why our policies have been tilted to the right. Healthcare reform is not an over reach. The stimulus was 40% tax cuts, and look how those tax cuts are NOT helping us. Look at how large our deficiet is BECAUSE of the Bush Tax Cuts. This pain is a RESULT of Republicans, and we are forgetting who got us here and punishing those folks who are trying to get us out of this mess."

Now, will Obama say something like that? No. I don't think he actually believes that for one thing. I also think that it wouldn't help matters, even though it is the truth. Republicans have such an effective propaganda machine it's amazing. I was watching a debate that had Arthur Laffer and Phil Gramm and these guys said great things. But their past actions do not meet their words. Never have. Yet people still hear them and follow them, time and again. It's quite amazing. If conservatives actually practiced what they preached, then

a) things would be very different

b) they probably wouldn't be in office, because people in this country don't like to make hard choices

This countries biggest fiscal issue is non-discretionary spending, yet all Republican's have proposed going after is discretionary spending. That will help, but it won't solve our problems. But that is where the 'adult' conversation with Republicans stops. That's a problem, and electing these liars won't solve them.

The Rich are ANGRY

Sof for the last week or so, the blogs have been exploding over a post by a Law professor at the University of Chicago who complained that the tax increase from the expiring Bush Tax Cuts would hurt him. Paul Krugman talks about a reason why it's ok for rich people to gripe, and links to Brad DeLong's excellent takedown.

Income inequality is very real. Recently there have been several articles and discussions about this, and I think that the concept is finally getting into the mainstream discussion.

Paul Krugman - The Angry Rich

Off the Charts Blog

Bill Maher

The Washington Post

Robert Reich

The New York Times

And don't miss this handy chart showing EXACTLY how income is distributed in the US.

Things America Really Sucks At

Being a young, married, home-owning non-upper class adult with children is very tough in America. Right out of the gate you are punished.

Do you want to go to college? Better be able to pay LOTS to go.

Do you want to own a home? Get ready to pay. Ok, that's the same everywhere.

Do you want to have children? You must pay for the hospital stay.

Do you want to take time off after the baby arrives? Then make sure you either have paid for disability insurance or have saved enough if you want to take time off. It's almost the 20 year anniversary of the Family Medical Leave Act. It's only been 20 years since it became illegal to fire someone for taking time off to have a baby.

Can't afford to keep one parent at home to raise the kids? Gotta pay a LOT for daycare.

But if you are old, Times are GREAT! Free medical care!! Who pays for that? The workers!!!

America could have it much better. America could fix these issues. America has many other issues, too. But America doesn't want to fix these issues. If we fixed these issues, then we would be socialists! Wait, no we would just be delivering our wealth to those who need it and have helped create it. But we don't do that. We don't do that. Because that is un-American. And I think it will get MUCH worse before it gets better, if it ever gets better.

Bruce Bartlett interviewed in the Economist

Great interview. My favorite part:

The Republicans don’t have any credibility whatsoever. They squandered whatever they had when they enacted a massive UNFUNDED expansion of Medicare in 2003. Yet they had the nerve to complain about Obama’s health plan, WHICH WAS FULLY PAID FOR according to the Congressional Budget Office. The word “chutzpah” is insufficient to describe how utterly indefensible the Republican position is, intellectually.

Furthermore, Republicans have a completely indefensible position on taxes. In their view, deficits cannot arise from tax cuts. No matter how much taxes are cut, no matter how low revenues go as a share of GDP, tax cuts are never a cause of deficits; they result ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY from spending—and never from spending put in place by Republicans, such as Medicare Part D, TARP, two unfunded wars, bridges to nowhere, etc—but ONLY from Democratic efforts to stimulate growth, help the unemployed, provide health insurance for those without it, etc.

The monumental hypocrisy of the Republican Party is something amazing to behold. And their dimwitted accomplices in the tea-party movement are not much better. They know that Republicans, far more than Democrats, are responsible for our fiscal mess, but they won’t say so. And they adamantly refuse to put on the table any meaningful programme that would actually reduce spending. Judging by polls, most of them seem to think that all we have to do is cut foreign aid, which represents well less than 1% of the budget.

Read more here.

Here's some great analysis on the politics of extending the Bush Tax Cuts.

Good article on how to prevent the next financial crisis

Article here. Written by a former Goldman Sachs VP.

And here's an article on how to fix Social Security. It's really not that hard.