OccupyWallSt. should “have demands” and “be on the lawn of the Whitehouse” Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism describes misgivings for policy prescriptions (demands) becoming central to the OccupyWallSt. movement at this time. Co-option of the energy and emotion of people taking the time to be involved is a real danger and cautions not to cave […]

by Linda Beale More on Occupy Wall Street–Stiglitz and Madrick add their voices Jim Swan, the Not-an-economist blogger who writes about “economics and the economy in the wake of the financial crisis”, is definitely a supporter of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement. In an earlier post, I noted the addition of labor concerns to […]

I want to pass this forum and debate along at Policymic to readers. There are a number of excellent people in the comments section as well. There’s a great debate happening now between libertarian Harvard Professor Jeff Miron and Center for American Progress tax specialist Michael Linden on the hot topic of whether we should […]

The September employment report was among the strongest this cycle. Private payroll employment rose 137,000 and despite the 34,000 drop in government employment totalpayroll employment rose 103,000. Moreover, the household survey showed a gain of 398,000.Even so, by historic norms employment continues to be weak. But compared to the other jobless recoveries this cycle continues […]

by Mike Kimel A very interesting video from Think Progress juxtaposes a speech by Barack Obama with a speech by Reagan. In it, Reagan says: We’re going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. In theory, some of those loopholes were understandable, but […]

If your question—correctly—is “why Axelrod and Plouffe were satisfied,” then you have to think like people whose vote support came, in some significant numbers, from people who were just entering the workforce in 2008 (and who did not show up in 2010 because, having entered, they found they were unwelcome). Which means, if you’re any […]

The Washington Post had two articles on their latest poll. The first focused on the Presidential horse race. The second noted that US adults disapprove of congress and then went on to discuss other results. At the very end of the the second article this follows: Obama’s proposal to raise taxes on millionaires to help […]

Kash at The Streetlight points us to other aspects of the world, touching upon the WTO and the IMF roles in global trade and China in particular: Retaliating Against Currency Manipulation: A Primer You’ve probably heard that this week the US Congress has been addressing the issue of how China controls its exchange rate with […]

by Linda Beale Reid’s Plan for Job Creation Harry Reid announced on Wednesday (Oct. 5) that the Senate would take up Jobs Act legislation (S. 1549) soon, but that the offsets in the president’s proposals would be replaced by a 5% surtax on those making more than a million that would raise about $445 million.  […]