Here We Go Again - the Debt Ceiling Follies

The Republicans are gearing up for another go at the social safety net as a bargaining chip in raising the debt ceiling.  Of all the phony crises generated by this gang, this one appears to have the broadest appeal outside the wing nut faction.  People's memories being short and the number of safe Republican House seats being what they are, there's plenty of time for them to shut down the government before the mid-term elections.  Whether they have the stomach for another shutdown is anyone's guess.  Obama has said he will not negotiate policies based on the debt ceiling and so the stage is set.  Here for your enjoyment is everything you really need to know about the national debt. 


The US has been in debt every year since its founding with the one exception of 1835.  Public debt has been the norm, not only in the US but in nearly all countries, for the past 200 years.  The sad fact is that much of the public debt has been undertaken to finance wars. 


US public debt as a percentage of GDP (72.5%) is about in the middle of the pack - the world average is 64%.  Of the 10 largest economies, the developing BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) have a lower ratio.  The remaining nations in the top 10 - i.e., the large advanced industrial economies of Japan, Germany, Italy, France, and the UK- have a higher percentage of debt to GDP than does the US. 


The national debt, currently in the range of $17 trillion is not the same as the budget deficit.  The budget deficit is the difference between annual expenditures and revenues.  The national debt is the accumulation of the annual deficits plus bonds issued in support of wars.  The deficit for 2014, $514 billion, will be the smallest since 2007 - i.e., since before the economic collapse of the Great Recession. 


Basically, if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling, the US will either default on its debt (shorting its creditors) or not spend money on previously budgeted programs (stiffing its citizens). 


Until recently, raising the debt ceiling was a routine procedure.  It's been done about 90 times since 1917, when the debt ceiling was first defined.  From 1979 until Republicans gained control of House of Representatives in the 1994 elections, the ceiling was automatically raised by a parliamentary rule (the "Gephardt rule") whenever a budget was passed.


The most notorious debt ceiling debacle was in 2011, after Republicans took control of the House of Representatives.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2000 points over the July-August time frame after US credit rating was downgraded for the first time in its history.  (Hmm, are we seeing a trend here?)


The debt ceiling "crisis" exists because Republicans have chosen to make it so.  It can be solved immediately by the single step of going back to the Gephardt rule - automatically raising the debt ceiling when a budget is passed. 


If Congress can't bring itself to pass this common sense solution and must look other places to get our deficit and debt under control, here are a few suggestions.

• Increase the maximum earned income limit on Social Security. 
• Introduce another surcharge on household incomes over one million dollars but make it applicable to dividends and capital gains as well as earned income.
• Reduce wasteful and exorbitant military spending to pre-Cold War levels. In 2013 dollars this would be about 100 billion dollars - a savings of 500 billion dollars annually.  This step alone would just about wipe out our current deficit.

Useful links


America's Staggering Defense Budget [Washington Post, January 7, 2013 blog]


List of Countries by Public Debt [Wikipedia]

Sunday Round-Up - November 17, 2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the Republican stranglehold on Congress, the Euro-recession, war spending and the deficit, The Guardian editor's upcoming appearance before Parliament, and bee colony collapse.

In an article posted on its website on November 11, Rolling Stone magazine takes up the lock on Congress that Republicans have in spite of the growing gap between their policies and the wishes of the majority of the electorate.  Tom Dickinson explains how national Republicans have rigged the game by "waging an unrelenting campaign to exploit every weakness and anachronism in our electoral system.  Through a combination of hyperpartisan redistricting of the House, unprecedented obstructionism in the Senate and racist voter suppression in the states, today's GOP has locked in political power that it could never have secured on a level playing field."  The redistricting of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan is described in some detail.  The vast sum of money spent by Republicans in North Carolina to take over the state legislature in 2010, voter suppression laws, activist judges and the unprecedented use of the filibuster in the Senate are exposed.  And, as Dickinson notes, the Republicans are not done yet.  "In a project with the explicit blessing of Republican National Committee Chairman..., a half-dozen Republican-dominated legislatures in states that swing blue in presidential elections have advanced proposals to abandon the winner-take-all standard in the Electoral College. These states would instead apportion electoral votes by the favored candidate of each congressional district – a method currently practiced by only two, small, homogenous states, Maine and Nebraska. Thanks to the GOP's gerrymandering, such a change would all but guarantee that a Democratic presidential candidate in a big, diverse state like Michigan would lose the split of electoral votes even if he or she won in a popular landslide."

"The EU economy will remain flat in 2013, EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn said on Tuesday (5 November), as he downgraded the bloc's growth forecasts for 2014 and 2015...There was little to cheer for Europe's jobless. Unemployment levels are likely to remain virtually unchanged, although they are forecast to fall from 12.2 percent to 11.8 percent across the eurozone by 2015."   The November 13 EU Observer article should be a reminder to us of how austerity programs implemented to reduce deficits slow recovery from a recession.  The "sequestration" cuts, our own version of misguided austerity, will begin having a greater impact in 2014.  Combine this with the fiscal cliff negotiations and the possibility of another government shutdown and we may be in for an interesting ride leading to the 2014 mid-term elections.

Speaking of the US deficit, a Harvard report out earlier this year put the eventual total monetary cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars as high as 6 trillion dollars - or 35% of the 17 trillion dollars total national debt.  The DNA India website noted that this corresponds to $75,000 for every household in the country.  "There's a sense that we are turning the corner, but unfortunately, the legacy of these wars, because of decision about the way we fought and funded these wars, means we will be paying the costs for a long time to come," [Harvard Professor Linda] Bilmes said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. "We may be mentally turning the page, but we are certainly not from a budgetary and financial perspective."   As the Congressional budget discussions proceed, it should be helpful to keep in mind this graphic from the National Priorities Project.



 

In the UK, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has been asked to appear before Parliament to give evidence regarding the intelligence files leaked by American whistleblower Edward Snowden.  Rusbridger will appear at a meeting of the home affairs select committee amidst rising criticism from British intelligence agencies and Tories.  "Alan has been invited to give evidence to the home affairs select committee and looks forward to appearing next month," a Guardian spokeswoman said.  A New York Times editorial  warns that the freedom of the press so essential to democratic accountability, is being challenged by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government of Prime Minister David Cameron.



Finally, here's an update on the bee colony collapse that's been occurring around the world and threatening to impact fruit and vegetable production.  Ars Technica reported on October 21 that Italian researchers had cut through the complexity of causes that had surrounded the bee colony collapse.  Infections, insecticides and agricultural practices were all thought to be involved.  "Previous toxicology work in mammals indicated that a specific class of insecticides, the neonicotinoids, could influence the activity of genes involved in the innate immune system."  The researchers started by showing that the same is true in insects. Initially, they worked with everyone's favorite fruit fly, Drosophila, showing that the equivalent genes responded in the same ways in the flies. They then showed that the innate immune response isn't activated when these same flies are exposed to an infection.... Various infections may still be doing the ultimate job of killing the bees, but their virulence could be explained by compromised immune function, caused by a combination of insecticide use and agricultural practices. The results will also provide further support for the European Union's attempt to ban the use of neonicotinoid pesticides."  The relationship between insecticides and colony collapse had been legally challenged by Bayer and Syngenta earlier this year.  

The image of the European honey bee is from Wikipedia.

Jim Wallis' "On God's Side"

I've been reading On God's Side by Jim Wallis. The book could well serve as a moral compass for politicians of all stripes. The title, of course, refers to Abraham Lincoln's famous quote: "...my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side."

Jim Wallis has long been one of my favorite writers. He is an evangelical preacher, social activist, public theologian, the founder and president of Sojourners ("Faith in Action for Social Justice") and the editor of Sojourners magazine. On God's Side continues his fine tradition of badgering political and religious establishments. In the first part of the book, he discusses inspiring the common good; in the second part, practices (i.e., actions and behaviors) for the common good.

C.S. Lewis' character of Aslan the lion, the creator and leader of Narnia (The Chronicles of Narnia), is given as an exemplar of a leader working for the common good. Aslan makes "every decision and action in the best interest of the people and the land...always paying special attention to the weakest and most vulnerable." The concept of the common good, writes Wallis, is "something that has been lost in an age of selfishness."

Wallis takes both Republicans and Democrats to task for not serving the "common good". At first, this bothered me: what's he talking about? Surely the problem with not serving the common good is on the right end, not the left end, of the political spectrum. After making this general statement, though, Wallis gradually clarifies his position. Not only are Republicans defective in their ability to advance the public good; Democrats do not go far enough!

In the first section of his book, "Inspiring the Common Good", Wallis provides the heart of his biblical and theological argument for a "gospel of the common good." He writes of the Beatitutdes ("Blessed are the poor in spirit...those who mourn...the meek...those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (justice)...the merciful...the pure in heart (have integrity)...the peacemakers...those persecuted for righteousness' sake") and the Sermon on the Mount as the place to begin to understand what is meant by Jesus' preaching of the Kingdom of God.

After briefly relating his college and activist experiences in the late 60's and early 70's, Wallis dicusses the "Judgment of Nations" in Matthew 25, probably one of the most challenging texts of the New Testament. It's one of the few places where Jesus makes a point of saying who better be watching their backs at the Last Judgment. "Jesus, unlike our religious institutions, continually speaks out against judgmentalism. But the only time Jesus is judgmental himself is on the subject of the poor." The condemned, the goats, are shocked by what Jesus will say to them at the Last Judgment. "When did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or without clothes, or a stranger, or sick, or in prison?" He will answer them, "Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me." [Click here for a link to Matthew 25.  The text of the "judgment of nations" is in verses 31 to 46.]

Wallis makes two particular points in his discussion of Matthew 25. The first is that "nations", as well as individuals, are being judged. This is about collective as well as individual decisions about who or what is most important. The second is that "Christ's judgment here is not about having the wrong doctrine or theology; it's not about sexual misdeeds, or any other personal sin or failure. The everlasting judgment here is based on how we have treated the poorest and most vulnerable in our midst and in the world...[The] good or ill we have done to them [is]...the moral equivalent of how we have treated him."

The interests and well-being of the poor are not represented well in American politics. Today it is the rare politician who goes out of his or her way to advocate programs for the poor or working class. Poverty doesn't play well in American politics and "pollsters tell both parties that talking about 'poor people' and 'poverty' will not be popular." There are even those in our nation who stigmatize the poor and blame the victims of social injustice, rather than the system that has made it so. For examples from today's headlines, one needs only look at recent attempts to slash the food stamp program. On an upbeat note, Wallis relates the mostly-untold story of how "faith community leaders protected low-income entitlements in the sequestered automatic cuts agreed to in the August 2011 debt-ceiling deal." Two years later, it looks like it's time to gear up again.

When discussing the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan, Wallis writes: "The basic ethic from the Good Samaritan parable - that there are no boundaries for our definition of "neighbor" - needs to be the moral guide and compass for us now in an increasingly globalized world." He further develops the theme with a discussion of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's "beloved community," the spiritual and philosophical vision that inspired and drove his efforts for civil rights. The beloved community is one which "welcomes all tribes." Quoting Dr. King: "All I'm saying is simply this; that all life is interrelated, that somehow we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly."

On God's Side forces us to reexamine many other issues in light of Matthew 25 and the parable of the Good Samaritan - including immigration reform, the global nature of "our neighbor" (for example, how our clothes and mobile phones are made), the dangers inherent in American exceptionalism, and the war on terror. On the war on terror, Wallis calls for the application of the principles of conflict resolution. He writes of "forging alternative and more creative responses to issues of injustice and violence and rejecting the cycle of terrorism and war that marks Washington's failed strategy and failed moral logic." He excoriates what he calls the theology of war "coming from some political leaders...and even from some...religious communities...Effective campaigns of fear too easily convince anxious people and could lead our nation to decades of virtually endless wars."

Will Jim Wallis' theological and biblical argument for the common good and Martin Luther King's wish for the building of a "beloved community" resonate with today's political leaders and citizens? Or have we gone too far down the road to divisiveness and fear of the "Other"? Will we need to wait for the next generation of political leaders to bring about a truly just, equal and democratic society? The second section of Jim Wallis' On God's Side, "Practices for the Common Good" attempts to provide an answer. I'll take this up in a future post.

The Price of Inequality

The Price of Inequality by Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz is a book filled with insight into the workings (or non-workings) of the markets and on the roles of government and of central banks in the economy. A major theme of the book is that “inequality is as much the result of political forces as of economic ones.” He explodes prevailing myths about the “free” market place, globalization, the effectiveness of austerity programs, GDP as an indicator of economic performance, and government vs. private efficiency. He also exposes the policies enacted since the 1980’s that brought about the Great Recession and the current state of inequality in this country. This historic inequality has potentially serious consequences as the book’s subtitle states: “How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future”.

Let’s face it. It is not a level playing field. The rules of the game have been shaped by the powerful. One concept that Stiglitz introduces and that is at the heart of inequality is what economists call rent seeking. Broadly defined, rent seeking occurs when those at the top get income “not as a reward [for] creating wealth but by grabbing a larger share of the wealth that would otherwise have been produced without their effort.” Some examples of rent-seeking include sale of natural resource leases on public lands at below market value, statutes that allow corporations to pass costs on to the rest of society, government subsidies and noncompetitive procurement practices (e.g., private contracting for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq). Basically, it’s the corporate welfare that is so engrained in our tax codes and government policies.

In the section on “history of the deficit“, Stiglitz reviews how the country went from the large surpluses of the Clinton years to the seemingly out-of-control deficits of today. He lays the blame squarely where it belongs: the Bush tax cuts (about 1/5 of the 2012 deficit; $3.3 trillion dollars if extended for 2011-2020), the expenses incurred in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (long-term this will exceed $2-3 trillion), the provision that the Federal government, the largest buyer of drugs in the world, couldn’t negotiate price with drug companies as part of the Medicare Drug Benefit (worth “by some estimates, a half trillion dollars over ten years”) and, of course, the biggest contributor by far - The Great Recession brought about by the collapse of the housing bubble and the deregulated financial environment so dear to those on the Right. As Stiglitz states, “16 percent of the deficit was for measures to stimulate the economy…but almost half (48 percent) of the entire deficit was a result of underperformance of the economy.” The latter, he explains, “led to lower tax revenues and higher expenditures on unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other social protection programs.”

Stiglitz is well aware that the major problem now is not the deficit but the joblessness and lack of demand in the economy. Companies are not investing in capital or labor - not because they are unprofitable or lack confidence in the government but because there is a lack of demand brought about by the Great Recession. This lack of demand could be alleviated by government spending (for example, on infrastructure and education) and by benefits to those that would spend the money and put it back into the economy (e.g., unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc.) There is a multiplicative return to the economy on these expenditures - exactly the expenditures demonized by those on the Right.

In addition to discussions on the history of austerity program failures from the time of Hoover to the current European economic crisis, the deleterious effects of central bank policies on real wages, the evisceration of our democracy and the causes for the loss of American leadership abroad, the author throws out an occasional gem such as the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Striker Fighter project. This weapon that we don’t need for a type of conflict we will not be fighting, at $382 billion, “costs half of the entire Obama stimulus program.”

The book is not about the politics of envy but, as Stiglitz states in his concluding chapter, it is “instead about the politics of efficiency and fairness.” After reading more than 250 pages on how the system was rigged for inequality, I was beginning to lose hope. Is there any way out of this mess? Is there any way to restore upward mobility to the 99%?

In the last chapter, the author presents a well thought out program of economic reform. Among the reforms that would make a big difference are curbing the financial sector (“Dodd Frank is a start but only a start”), stronger and more effectively enforced competition laws, improved corporate governance, comprehensive bankruptcy law reform, ending government giveaways in the disposition of public assets and in procurement, ending corporate welfare including hidden subsidies, and comprehensive legal reform to democratize access to justice. In addition, he proposes two significant tax reforms - a more progressive income and corporate tax system with fewer loopholes and a more effective estate tax system. Several additional actions “would make a big difference in the plight of the 99 percent”: improving access to education, helping ordinary Americans save (“say, a matching grant or expansion of first-time home owner programs”), universal health care, and strengthening other social protection programs.

There are additional proposals on tempering globalization (“ending the race to the bottom” as Stiglitz phrases it), fiscal and monetary policies to restore and maintain full employment, and a growth agenda based on public investment. He also addresses “immediate issues” - fixing the mortgage problem by restructuring mortgages, more aggressive stimulation of the economy to increase employment and more active labor market policies to train workers for new jobs.

Citizens United has ensured the dominance of the 1% agenda in national politics for the foreseeable future. Without major political reforms, it is doubtful that the political process would allow even the “barest elements of this agenda.” So we are probably looking at a long-term thing. It has taken the Right 30 years of relentless propagandizing of a failed economic theory and policies to bring us to the inequality and economic crisis that we see today. Perhaps it will take as long for the country to regain its senses.

In light of this, “Is There Hope?” - as the concluding section of the book asks. Stiglitz sees two routes by which reform might happen. “Those in the 99 percent could come to realize that they have been duped by the 1 percent: that what is in the interests of the 1 percent is not in their interests…and…the second way that reform could happen [is that] the 1 percent could realize that what’s been happening in the United States is not only inconsistent with our values but not even in the 1 percent’s own interest.”

He then presents two visions for America a half century from now. One is of a society even more divided between the haves in gated communities and have-nots with ever decreasing opportunity for advancement. We would devolve to a plutocracy.

The other is a vision of a society of “shared destiny and a common commitment to opportunity and fairness, where the words ‘liberty and justice for all’ actually mean what they seem to mean…This second vision is the only one consistent with our heritage and our values.”

So is there hope? Stiglitz concludes that yes, there is hope but time is running out. “Four years ago there was a moment where most Americans had the audacity to hope. Trends more than a quarter century in the making might have been reversed…Today, that hope is flickering.”

If Obama does win a second term, this book should be required reading both for him and for his entire economic policy team. They really need to be better informed. Better yet, he should bring in Joseph Stiglitz to head up and reorganize his team. (See #4 on the October 24, 2011 post: Obama Short(falls) List.)  Of course, if the 1% wins in November and Republicans control Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Presidency, we will lose any chance to even begin implementing the slightest of the necessary reforms for at least four years.

The Insane Military Budget

Fifty-one years ago,  Republican Dwight Eisenhower, the thirty-fourth President of the United States, warned against the increasing militarization of the United States in his famous speech on the "military-industrial complex."  John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, once wrote in a letter to a Navy friend that "War will exist until the distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today."

Neither Eisenhower's warning nor Kennedy's vision have gained much of a foothold in the last half-century - this despite the end of the Cold War, despite the disastrous wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the misguided military incursions and interference in the internal affairs of Latin American countries, despite the trillions of dollars of expenditures, despite the tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of foreign lives lost. 

Militarism has powerful and influential supporters in government.  Large swaths of the populace confuse it with patriotism.  The so-called defense industry has long provided a home for retiring politicians who can effectively act as lobbyists for the industry.  Republicans will cut just about every program imaginable except the bloated military budget.  Democrats, ever fearful of seeming not militaristic enough, have been ineffective at best and complicit at worst.  Neo-con dreams of an American Empire based on military intervention still gets a welcome hearing in many corners and the drumbeat for war with Iran is starting to be played by many of the same actors who misled us into Iraq. 

It's time for this to stop.  The money that is currently spent on paying for wars - past. present, and future - is totally out of control and totally unrelated to any real dangers that we now face.  This graphic from The Economist says it all:



The Economist notes that United States military spending in 2010 was more than the next seventeen nations combined. And this is using an official figure of $700 bn, which is not the whole story by a long shot. 

As Chris Hellman explained at TomDispatch.com, the Fiscal Year 2012 Pentagon budget starting at an official figure of $703 bn rises rapidly when we see the other military-related spending squirreled away in departments other than Defense or related to past wars and military expenditures.

Official Pentagon budget: 703 bn$
Counter-terrorism and homeland security: + 62 bn$
National Intelligence Program funding: + 53 bn$
Veteran programs:hospital,medical, disability, education: + 129 bn$
Other direct security spending (for example, military aid): + 18 bn$
Military and DOD pensions: +  69 bn$
Interest on debt for past Pentagon spending: +185 bn$

Total military-related spending = 1219 bn$ or 1.219 trillion dollars

The 1.2 trillion dollars is just under 1/3 of the total budget proposal for FY 2012 (~$3.75 trillion).  In other words, one of every three dollars in the 2012 budget is spent on the military.  Coincidentally (or maybe not), this 1.2 trillion dollars approximates the FY 2012 projected budget deficit ($1.1 - $1.3 trillion). 

Any rational and humane discussion aimed at reducing the deficit must start here.  Before we cut heating fuel subsidies, shred the food stamp program, slash Medicaid, underfund health care reform, increase student loan interest rates, privatize Social Security and end Medicare as we know it, we must address this out-of-control military spending.

Jobs, Foreclosures, Speculation: Leadership Needed

Hopefully the depressing May job numbers (net of 54,000 jobs created: +83,000 private sector - 29,000 public sector) will wake up the Obama administration.  The blame is being attributed to speculation-driven high energy prices and the continuing problems with Japan's economy following the earthquake and tsunami.  The public sector job loss results from the ongoing cuts to public services as typified in the jobs-loss-budget forced by the House Republicans earlier this year and the state cuts to services made in many instances while decreasing the tax burdens on the wealthy and corporations.

Make no mistake.  Jobs creation, not deficit reduction, is the Number One domestic priority for the Administration.  Not only is unemployment in itself causing continuing hardships for millions.  It is unemployment, not subprime mortgages, that is now the leading cause of foreclosures. 

The long term deficit problem is something that can be dealt with in time and whose severity will decrease with time as more jobs are created.  It does not have to be addressed now while we are still in the midst of a recession.  Obama must force the Republicans hand on this issue and take the argument to the Amercian people.  Simple Keynesian economics say that you increase government spending in a recession to get the economy moving.  Republican supply-side-economics, as noted in my last post, are a non-starter for job creation. 

So now is the time for Obama to take the argument to the streets and put the lie to the Republican call for tax breaks for the rich and corporations and for services cuts for the rest of us.  It will be difficult to accomplish anything as long as the Republicans control the House and filibuster in the Senate.  The Republicans really have nothing to lose - if recovery is forestalled then Obama will lose in 2012. 

Nevertheless the argument needs to be made - the Big Lie of the ineffectiveness of the 2009 stimulus needs to be rebutted and a new stimulus is needed if the economy is to recover.  Here are six actions that will help the rebound:

• A payroll tax holiday
• A WPA-like jobs program to (1) rebuild the country's infrastructure and (2) move towards a renewable, non-CO2-producing (i.e., let's stop with the nonsense about ethanol) energy economy
• A jobs-training program to improve health care delivery, especially delivery of preventive care
• A redefined foreclosure prevention program based on the new reality that unemployment (and not sub-prime mortgages) is driving the current foreclosures...a strong housing market is the sine qua non for economic recovery
• Re-regulation to prevent oil speculation - high energy prices are a prime factor in the current slow-down in the economy.  And oil speculation is the primary cause of the cost increase.  Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil CEO, has stated that based solely on supply and demand, oil prices should be in the range of $60-$70/barrel.  This means that speculation adds about 75cts/gallon more at the pump.  I don't usually agree with Fox News but they are correct in at least one area - the dangers of speculation.  The CFTC (Commodities Futures Trading Commission) is charged with writing the regulations that control excessive speculation.  They need to be forceful in this.  SOS is one group that is working to make this happen.  Again, let's not get fooled by the Republican rhetoric - it is not regulation of the oil industry that is causing the problem - it is the deregulated commodities market combined with speculation and greed on the part of traders (e.g., the Koch brothers, the infamous billionaire supporters of all things right-wing).
• Increased aid to states so that they can maintain their portion of necessary social and education services until  revenues are increased as people go back to work. 

Economic Recovery

Some comments about the slow economic recovery:

• The median wage in the US is stagnant.  If this does not improve, recovery will take longer as there will be no growth in demand for goods and services.  "Trickle down" economics, which promotes tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations and which was rightly called "voodoo economics" by none other than Bush Sr. back before he became Reagan's running mate, has not worked in the 30 or so misguided years that it's been promoted by conservative economists.
• The UK, hit by PM Cameron's conservative austerity program that cut social program funding, has experienced ZERO growth over the last 6 months.  This should be a cautionary tale for those US conservatives who focus on spending cuts at the expense of job-creation and would damage the social safety net to maintain tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.
• If the jobless rate doesn't improve and Obama continues to swallow the nonsense that the 2010 electoral losses were related to "too much spending and the deficit", he will lose his base and the 2012 election.  The turnout in first-time voters, the young, the poor, and minorities were the difference between the results in 2008 and 2010.  Unemployment of African-Americans in cities are double-digit, depression era figures.  Hard to get enthusiastic about voting when you don't have a job.  The Republicans can run Mickey Mouse in 2012.  They would easily win the election because you know that they will be firing up their base - not appealing to alleged "center".