MMT

During Part One of this series, I approached the end of my post with this paragraph.

Apart from the political opposition from the insurance companies that Medicare for All would have engendered, I think the main justification for abandoning Medicare for All and switching to more »

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During the run-up to passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), I wrote a number of posts (here, here, and here) assessing the ACA very negatively, and pointing out the shortcomings of the various versions of this bill, preceding its final passage. My focus was on contrasting varying versions with HR 676, the Conyers-Kucinich Medicare for All bill, in relation to its likely impact on fatalities, bankruptcies and divorces attributed to lack of health insurance coverage in the US.

At that time, about 47 million people were uninsured, and based on the rate of 1,000 fatalities per million established by the Wolper-Woolhandler-Himmelstein et al study of 2007-2009, I anticipated 47,000 fatalities in 2010. In addition, I predicted that

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In an October 12th Post entitled "Foreigners and the Burden of Debt," Paul Krugman made the following comment.

. . . we'd all agree that deficits make us poorer if they crowd out investment spending, which they would if the economy were near full employment, but won't if we're deeply depressed. All we have to do is realize that net foreign investment purchases minus sales of assets from and to foreigners is also a form of investment. Or to put it a bit more simply, sure, budget deficits can make us poorer as a nation if they lead to bigger trade deficits.

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Last week, Reps. more »

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The polling since the conventions shows that Democrats are doing better than expected. President Obama now apparently has a clear lead over Mitt Romney. Democratic Party control of the Senate seems likely to survive this election year of many more Democratic rather than Republican Senate seats up for election. more »

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Alan Grayson's e-mail on Moody's warning that it might reduce the US's AAA rating, suggested that Moody's was either threatening a downgrade because it wants to get the Bush tax cuts for the rich extended, or, alternatively, that “Moody's is living in what Aristophanes called "Cloud Cuckoo Land."” He says this because Moody's is upset about the possibility that the US may go over the so-called more »

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Bob Woodward's releasing a new book, so we are now seeing articles based on it. more »

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Who else thinks the President's speech didn't include any plans to create more »

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A few days ago, I saw John Sununu, one of the Republicans favorite Bushie junk yard attack dogs all up in arms about the debt subject to the limit (the so-called national debt) reaching $16 Trillion dollars, and going on to tell people that every man, woman, and child in the United States now owes $50,000 to pay that debt off. Now, I'm here to tell you that all that is bull shit. more »

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Got this in an e-mail from my brother, Hal:

“June food stamp Recipients Hit All Time High As Three Times As Many Americans Enter Poverty As Find Jobs, bringing the total to a new all time high of 46.670 million and once again rising fast.”

This headline, circulating via e-mail, seems to be picked up from Zero Hedge by merging the title more »

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