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This may be the way the world ends — not with a bang but with a temper tantrum. O.K., a temporary government shutdown — which became almost inevitable after Sunday’s House vote to provide government funding only on unacceptable conditions — wouldn’t be the end of the world. But a U.S. government default, which will happen unless Congress raises the debt ceiling soon, might cause financial catastrophe. Unfortunately, many Republicans either don’t understand this or don’t care. Let’s talk first about the economics...
President Obama laid out a number of good ideas in his State of the Union address. Unfortunately, almost all of them would require spending money — and given Republican control of the House of Representatives, it’s hard to imagine that happening. One major proposal, however, wouldn’t involve budget outlays: the president’s call for a rise in the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9, with subsequent increases in line with inflation. The question we need to ask is: Would this be good policy? And the answer, perhaps surprisingly, is a clear yes...
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Why are workers being left behind? The American economy is still, by most measures, deeply depressed. But corporate profits are at a record high. How is that possible? It’s simple: profits have surged as a share of national income, while wages and other labor compensation are down. The pie isn’t growing the way it should — but capital is doing fine by grabbing an ever-larger slice, at labor’s expense...
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Despite what Mitt Romney says, the lack of health insurance does kill people.
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While the Federal Reserve changes course to help the economy, the Romney camp gets even more extreme. Last week Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, announced a change in his institution’s recession-fighting strategies. In so doing he seemed to be responding to the arguments of critics who have said the Fed can and should be doing more. And Republicans went wild...
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Paul Ryan is a devotee of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” and his fiscal program clearly reflects that. This is quite scary.
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The very rich don’t just have more money. They expect a level of deference the Average Joe never experiences. And that has become a major factor in America’s politics.
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There’s a lot of tut-tutting about the focus on Mitt Romney’s personal history. But it’s not a diversion; it’s a way to bring real policy issues to the forefront. >>>> "Selon" Bentham, si les riches sont riches et qu'ils ne payent pas d'impôts, c'est pour les remercier de leur utilité sociale. Idem pour les tricheurs, les escrocs, etc... Tout ça, c'est utile, ben quoi ?
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One scenario says that European leaders will, in the end, do whatever it takes to prevent disaster. But that’s been said before.
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In Europe and America, those who have the power to contain the crisis refuse to act. Among economists who know their history, the mere mention of certain years evokes shivers. For example, three years ago Christina Romer, then the head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, warned politicians not to re-enact 1937 — the year F.D.R. shifted, far too soon, from fiscal stimulus to austerity, plunging the recovering economy back into recession. Unfortunately, this advice was ignored...
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Spending cuts and low taxes? They’re already here.
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The country is trapped between comics and delusional Eurocrats. Two months ago, when Mario Monti stepped down as Italy’s prime minister, The Economist opined that “The coming election campaign will be, above all, a test of the maturity and realism of Italian voters.” The mature, realistic action, presumably, would have been to return Mr. Monti — who was essentially imposed on Italy by its creditors — to office, this time with an actual democratic mandate...
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Guess who’s breaking with economic orthodoxy. For three years economic policy throughout the advanced world has been paralyzed, despite high unemployment, by a dismal orthodoxy. Every suggestion of action to create jobs has been shot down with warnings of dire consequences. If we spend more, the Very Serious People say, the bond markets will punish us. If we print more money, inflation will soar. Nothing should be done because nothing can be done, except ever harsher austerity, which will someday, somehow, be rewarded...
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Mitt Romney says he has a plan that would create millions of jobs. It’s a five-point plan to nowhere.
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Here’s why the protesters in Spain and Greece are right that inflicting more and more pain serves no useful purpose.
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A cynical Republican strategy: block all efforts to strengthen the economy, then exploit the economy’s weakness.
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Paul Ryan’s big lie in his convention speech was his claim that a Romney-Ryan administration would protect and strengthen Medicare.
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Excuses within excuses for not taxing the rich. Mike Konczal and Jonathan Chait both have good pieces on “You didn’t build that”, the Obama statement that, deliberately misinterpreted, has dominated right-wing discourse these past few days. Go read. But I think both of them miss a couple of tricks...
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Dans son dernier livre, l'économiste américain Paul Krugman appelle à un changement radical de politique économique dans la zone euro. Il suggère de tout mettre en oeuvre pour faire remonter l'inflation, qui allégerait le fardeau des dettes et redonnerait de la compétitivité aux pays du Sud...
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Voters can only assume the worst as Mitt Romney keeps details of his finances secret. Once upon a time a rich man named Romney ran for president. He could claim, with considerable justice, that his wealth was well-earned, that he had in fact done a lot to create good jobs for American workers. Nonetheless, the public understandably wanted to know both how he had grown so rich and what he had done with his wealth; he obliged by releasing extensive information about his financial history...
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The Supreme Court ruling upholding Obamacare certainly is a big victory for the president, all right, but the real winners are people like you.
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The halfway houses from hell in New Jersey are part of a broader pattern in which essential functions of government are being both privatized and degraded. >>>> Un triomphe, quoi ? >>>> Non seulement, en France, on n'est en avance sur rien, mais quand on copie, on choisit le bien pourrave. Du pognon, surtout pas de risques et, en guise de Chantilly woerthienne, une idéologie pète-sec (v'zallezvouar...), bondla de bondla !
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