Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.
MORNING MESSAGE: Why Aren't Mitt & Newt Talking Social Security in FL?
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "I can certainly understand why the candidates didn't want the subject raised. More than three and a half million Republican voters rely on Social Security, including seniors, disabled people, and surviving spouses. In fact, the candidates in Tuesday's primary would be crazy not to hide their opinions on the topic ... This week's Florida primary should be renamed 'Don't Tell Grandma Social Security Will Be Dead – and Medicare Too – If We're Elected.' Mitt Romney's already on record as saying income inequality shouldn't be discussed openly. Was there some sort of 'gentleman's agreement' to ignore Social Security too?"
Europe Admits: Austerity's a Bust
EU to admit austerity isn't working. NYT: "...European leaders are expected to conclude this week that what the debt-laden, sclerotic countries of the Continent need is a dose of economic growth ... The difficulty, however, is that reaching such a conclusion is not the same as making it happen. Instead, leaders will discuss long-term structural reforms and better use of E.U. subsidies, while avoiding mention of the one thing that could change the climate: a fiscal stimulus from Germany, the euro currency zone’s undisputed powerhouse."
Several European nations are worse off than during the Depression because of austerity, argues NYT's Paul Krugman: "Britain, in particular, was supposed to be a showcase for 'expansionary austerity,' the notion that instead of increasing government spending to fight recessions, you should slash spending instead — and that this would lead to faster economic growth ... 'I firmly believe,' declared Jean-Claude Trichet — at the time the president of the European Central Bank ... '...confidence-inspiring policies will foster and not hamper economic recovery, because confidence is the key factor today.' Such invocations of the confidence fairy were never plausible ... Yet influential people on both sides of the Atlantic heaped praise on the prophets of austerity, Mr. Cameron in particular, because the doctrine of expansionary austerity dovetailed with their ideological agendas."
No Settlement Yet
CA AG Kamala Harris holding out on foreclosure fraud settlement. Bloomberg: "...she is pushing a broader probe of banks’ mortgage practices, including securitization of the loans ... After Harris rejected a proposed agreement in September, negotiators crafted two deals: one including California for $25 billion and another without the state for $19 billion ... they must decide soon whether to move ahead without her ..."
NY AG Eric Schneiderman, Obama's new housing crisis investigator, hasn't signed off either. HuffPost's Robert Kuttner: "...he has already gotten major concessions. The deal will only address the relatively narrow (but outrageous) abuse of robo-signing, and nothing in it will provide release from criminal prosecutions. Other details are still being negotiated. It is likely that Schneiderman will not give his final assent until he receives assurances on who will really be in charge of these broader investigations and with what level of resources ... Schneiderman's goal, as far as I can tell, is to serve both justice and macroeconomic recovery. With fresh federal investigative resources, he can threaten bankers with legal Armageddon. Then, in addition to sending the worst malefactors to prison, he can entertain a settlement not in the tens of billions but in the hundreds of billions -- sufficient to provide very major write-downs of mortgage principal owed. That, in turn, changes the dynamics of the housing crisis as a drag on the recovery..."
Freddie Mac investments bet against homeowners, finds ProPublica and NPR: "Freddie Mac ... has placed multibillion-dollar bets that pay off if homeowners stay trapped in expensive mortgages with interest rates well above current rates. Freddie began increasing these bets dramatically in late 2010, the same time that the company was making it harder for homeowners to get out of such high-interest mortgages. No evidence has emerged that these decisions were coordinated. The company is a key gatekeeper for home loans but says its traders are 'walled off' from the officials who have restricted homeowners from taking advantage of historically low interest rates by imposing higher fees and new rules."
Banks lobby for overseas exemption of Dodd-Frank rules. Bloomberg: "More than half of the derivatives- trading business of Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Morgan Stanley and three other large banks could fall largely outside the Dodd-Frank Act if they succeed in lobbying regulators to exempt their overseas operations ... If overseas operations aren’t subject to U.S. rules or equivalent regulation by other nations, it could impede the goal of preventing another credit crisis, Darrell Duffie, professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business ... CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler said this month that his agency won’t complete guidelines on the reach of Dodd-Frank until after April, while the financial industry waits for a similar proposal from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Gensler has said the CFTC may eventually defer to foreign regulators when they have comparable and consistent regulations."
Businessman Presidents Are Failures
How successful are presidents with mainly private-sector experience? Not every, finds LAT's Walter Zelman: "...five presidents [since 1901 had] extensive private-sector experience ... Warren Harding was a newspaper publisher. Herbert Hoover was an engineer who managed mining operations. Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer. Both Bushes had longtime experience in the oil business, and George W. Bush was a managing partner of a baseball team. None of these five presidents rank above average, and three — George W. Bush, Harding and Hoover — are near the bottom of most rankings."
Romney profited from Bain's lobbying, reports Mother Jones: "The firm spent $300,000 between August of 2007 and April of 2008 lobbying the House and Senate on bills that threatened the carried interest loophole ... Bain and its ilk paid lobbying shops, public relations firms, and trade groups like Ogilvy and the Private Equity Growth Capital Council an estimated $15 million ... Bain's gain, then, has clearly been Romney's as well—and the candidate has publicly endorsed the same policies the company has backed."
GOP is risking obsolescence, argues NYT's Tom Edsall: "The party could open up beyond its core believers to accommodate old-school Republican moderates and hold on to its libertarians and still have decent size, strength and power. But the country is going through a profound restructuring in moral and economic thinking and the danger for Republicans is that their current coalition might become obsolete. If the party doesn’t adapt, the alternative is that its power centers — the Christian right, anti-immigration forces, and proponents of policies that benefit the affluent at the expense of the less well-off — will refuse to adjust, in which case the party risks going the way of the Studebaker."
Breakfast Sides
"Bolder choices" needed on military cuts, argues FT's Edward Luce: "Why are there still 30,000 troops in Germany? Why does the US need almost 2,000 nuclear warheads? Under what scenarios does it imagine fighting major land wars?"
Sen. Min. Leader McConnell refuses to rule out tax increase to offset cost of payroll tax cut extension reports Politico.
CA Gov. Jerry makes case that high-speed rail is cheaper with cap-and-trade. McClatchy quotes: "...cap-and-trade, which is this measure where you make people who produce greenhouse gases pay certain fees – that will be a source of funding going forward for the high-speed rail."
