Archive

Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games.

This is a true but hard-t-believe story.

Austerity -- cutting government benefits and services -- is not the path to fixing deficits. In fact, economists warn that trying to fix a sluggish economy by cutting government spending will just make things worse. Worse yet, this approach can have damaging effects that last into the future. This can be easily shown with simple calculations.

Paul Krugman today:

I see that the New York Times is helpfully reframing the election away from jobs and the economy. Here's the headline on the dead tree version:

"Romney chooses Ryan, pushing fiscal issues to the forefront"

Huzzah. As Tristero points out below, this would be a lot less scary if the debate wasn't going to be between the moderate centrist plan for a "balanced approach" that slashes vital government programs in exchange for some ephemeral tip money from millionaires in the middle of an historic slump and a radical right wing plan that simply slashes vital government programs in the middle of an historic slump. In my view, that's a losing debate no matter who wins.

Americans now stand a greater chance of dying from the effects of austerity than being killed in a car crash. At least that's what a new report suggests, if you read between the lines.

America's billionaires have realized they really don't have to bother convincing a majority of people to vote their way. They can put their cash instead into campaigns to keep the hard-to-convince from voting.

David Corn at Mother Jones has released another Romney video. This one's from a Bain Capital meeting in 1985 in which Romney says Bain's business model is to acquire companies and then "harvest them at a significant profit" in five to eight years.

Get the word out. The movie Won't Back Down is another propaganda product of the corporate/conservative machine, put in theaters to get you to support union busting and school privatization.