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: Show Peter Peterson We Reject His Elite Austerity Consensus
OurFuture.org's Roger Hickey: "On Tuesday, one of America's wealthiest men, Peter G. Peterson, will use his foundation's money to lecture the rest of us about why the federal deficit is the most serious problem facing our country. Since poll after poll demonstrates that strong majorities of Americans care far more about high unemployment and slow growth, Peterson's major strategy is to put on a show aimed at demonstrating that all the 'serious people' have already agreed that the deficit is such a threat to America that we must slash public spending and 'reform' entitlements (a fancy way of saying cut benefits, raise the retirement age for Gen Xers and Millenials, and dismantle Medicare for these future seniors, as Rep. Paul Ryan and just about all Republicans have proposed). I'll be outside Peterson's Fiscal Summit, with Senator Bernie Sanders, and lots of friends who don't agree with Peterson's elite consensus. If you don't believe Peterson speaks for the American majority, come on out. We start at 1 pm."
Anti-Austerity Fervor Grows in Europe
Greek voters don't accept elite insistence that austerity is necessary. NYT: "[Voters] they argue that they can have it both ways by staying in the euro and rejecting the harsh budget-balancing measures Europe has demanded in return for the money Greece needs to remain solvent ... For the guardians of the monetary union in Europe — not to mention Greece’s political establishment — it is the most dangerous of notions ... if the Greeks come to accept that there may be an easier route to recovery, perhaps the Irish, Portuguese and the Spanish and Italians may also reach a similar conclusion."
Pro-austerity ruling party of Germany loses regional election. NYT: "With the Green Party’s 11.4 percent of the vote, analysts say the state premier, Hannelore Kraft, of the Social Democrats, will be able to easily form a left-wing coalition to govern the state. For the past two years, Ms. Kraft had ruled with a minority government ... the voters handed Ms. Kraft, who pushed the state deeper into debt but hired more police officers and teachers and abolished fees for higher education, a significant victory."
Backlash brewing in Spain. W. Post: "A day after tens of thousands of Spaniards took to the streets to protest the government’s economic policies, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Sunday defended the austerity measures as crucial for pulling the country out of crisis ... Spain has often had bouts of unemployment in excess of 20 percent. But the most recent data, which showed the unemployment rate nearing 25 percent and higher in places such as Extremadura, Alburquerque’s region, surprised labor economists because of the acceleration of job losses and the spike in the number of households without anyone employed."
JPMorgan Debacle Bolsters Reformers
JPMorgan Chase sacks three traders in hopes of avoiding regulatory scrutiny reports NYT.
NYT's Paul Krugman explains why JPMorgan's bad bet makes the case for tough regulation: "As far as we can tell, it used the market for derivatives — complex financial instruments — to make a huge bet on the safety of corporate debt, something like the bets that the insurer A.I.G. made on housing debt a few years ago. The key point is not that the bet went bad; it is that institutions playing a key role in the financial system have no business making such bets, least of all when those institutions are backed by taxpayer guarantees."
JP Morgan CEO should resign from NY Fed, says Elizabeth Warren, HuffPost reports: "[Jamie Dimon] should 'send a signal to the American people that Wall Street bankers get it and to show that they understand the need for responsibility and accountability,' Warren said in a statement..."
Bad time for Mitt Romney to support repeal of Wall Street reform law. Bloomberg: "Romney hasn’t directly commented on the JP Morgan losses since Dimon disclosed them on May 10; he ignored a reporter’s shouted question about the matter at a May 11 rally in Charlotte, North Carolina."
Breakfast Sides
Sen. Marco Rubio's proposed DREAM Act compromise is trap for Democrats, suggests TPM's Sahil Kapur. "As he prepares to release his scaled-back version of the DREAM Act, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is simultaneously laying the groundwork to blame the White House for its impending failure — and Democrats appear to be falling into his trap. It’s election-year jujitsu for Rubio, who is helping the GOP court Hispanic voters and keeping the door open to the vice presidency."
Obama re-elect takes on Romney's poor record as a job creator. AP: "At the center of the push ... is a biting new TV ad airing Monday that recounts through interviews with former workers the restructuring, and ultimate demise, of a Kansas City, Mo., steel mill under the Republican's private equity firm ... The ad, at the unusual length of 2 minutes, will run in five battleground states: Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Colorado ... 'Bain Capital walked away with a lot of money that they made off this plant. We view Mitt Romney as a job destroyer,' said steel worker John Wiseman."
"Ryan budget still an issue in congressional races" reports W. Post: "More than a year after the proposal’s initial release, Republican candidates continue to find themselves on the defensive about what the plan will actually do, and Democrats continue to make claims about the dire consequences if it were to become law ... the Ryan plan has been embraced by the GOP establishment as an article of faith, and it is likely to be a key issue in this fall’s congressional elections."
