Tag Archives: bernie sanders

By Thomas Palley“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Eighty-seven years ago those were the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his 1933 inaugural speech. Today, they resonate with Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, which confronts a barrage of attack aimed at frightening away voters.Fear is the enemy of change and the friend of hate. That is why both sides of the political establishment are now running a full-blown campaign of fear-mongering against Sanders. The...

By James Kwak The scene: Two well-dressed, fully employed people sitting at a table in the chic café at their workplace. Martha: Do you like your health plan? George: I love it. Martha: How much do you pay for your plan? George: About $550 per month.* Martha: Do you have a deductible? George: I have a $1,000 deductible for my whole family. Martha: What about co-payments? George: I have to pay 20% of the cost for hospital stays and outpatient surgery. Martha: What if you just want to see...

By James Kwak The scene: Two well-dressed, fully employed people sitting at a table in the chic café at their workplace. Martha: Do you like your health plan? George: I love it. Martha: How much do you pay for your plan? George: About $550 per month.* Martha: Do you have a deductible? George: I have a $1,000 deductible for my whole family. Martha: What about co-payments? George: I have to pay 20% of the cost for hospital stays and outpatient surgery. Martha: What if you just want to see...

Marquette Nat. Bank of Minneapolis v. First of Omaha Service Corp., 439 U.S. 299 (1978). In a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision, the court held states anti-usury laws regulating interest rates unenforceable against nationally chartered banks based in other states. Justice William Brennan: It was the intent of Congress when it passed the National Banking Act, nationally chartered banks would be subject only to federal regulation by the Comptroller of...

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has been in the news again, and for good reasons. I actually had a post with the same title back in February of 2012, hence the again in the title. But now, with the irruption of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the political scene ,and with the discussion of a Green New Deal (discussed here 7 years ago) and the feasibility of higher taxes (here, also long ago, among the many on the topic) taking the center of the political debate, MMT has become trendy. The rise...

Power to the People! ✊ In conjunction with the Sanders Institute. Yanis VaroufakisThe Progressive International has been launched. Read the Open Call. See the video. Join us!See also Is trade a promoter of peace? Adam Smith, one of the earliest defenders of trade, worries that commerce may instigate some perverse incentives, encouraging wars. The wealth that commerce generates decreases the relative cost of wars, increases the ability to finance wars through debts, which decreases their...

The Trump White House research team have issued a very strange report. It’s called “The Opportunity Costs of Socialism,”. It purports to prove that ‘socialism’ and ‘socialist’ policies would be damaging to Americans because the ‘opportunity costs’ of socialism compared to capitalism are so much higher. What is strange and rather amusing is that the White House advisers to Trump deem it necessary to explain to Americans the failures of ‘socialism’ in 2018. But when you delve into the...

Sunday political sermon.Amen.Ghion JournaEt Tu Bernie?Teodrose Fikre is the editor and founder of the Ghion Journal.  See also That the President of the United States is a Russian asset needs to be openly acknowledged. He may be a naive, negligent or unwitting asset, a coerced asset, or a willing and enthusiastic asset, or some combination thereof, but at this point there is no getting around that he is a Russian asset.My readers who have followed me from progressive blogs presumably have...

Bernie flames out. He is either brainless, or an agent of the US deep state. Likely, brainless, which became clear when he did not listen to Stephanie Kelton after appoint her economic adviser. Is there anyone else on the US left (global center right) with promise, that is, groks both domestic and foreign issues? Most of them are clueless about economics and members of the war party. Sad.Common DreamsBernie Sanders: Trump 'Really Sold the American People Out' in Helsinki Summit Jake...

Dick Cheney was right: deficits don’t matter. If only Democrats would learn.… Attempting to balance a commitment to deficit reduction alongside a theoretical responsibility to protect and expand public programs, Democrats end up imposing false limitations on themselves and neutering their own supposed political agenda. One wonders if the party, increasingly reliant on an elite capitalist donor class, is actually using deficit reduction to weasel out of the responsibility to make life...