Links: U.S. Politics & Government

• Teryn Norris & Jesse Jenkins, Will America Lose the Clean-Energy Race?, CommonDreams.org, 29 July 2009.


• Naomi Klein, Let's Put an End to Sarah Palin-Style Capitalism, AlterNet, AlterNet.org, 30 July 2009.


• Brad Friedman, Formerly-'Gagged' FBI Whistleblower Details Congressional Blackmail, Bribery, Espionage, Corruption in Remarkable Videotaped Deposition, The Huffington Post, 27 August 2009.


• Adele M. Stan, The Wing-Nut Code: What Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin Are Really Saying to Their Followers, AlterNet, alternet.org, 02 September 2009.


• Max Blumenthal, Eisenhower's Forgotten Warning and the Threat of Authoritarian Currents in Our Politics, AlterNet, alternet.org, 03 September 2009.


• Juan Cole, Where Have All the Broad Shoulders Gone? Or, Labor Day in a Kleptocracy, Informed Comment, 07 September 2009.


• Matt Taibbi, Sick and Wrong: How Washington is screwing up health care reform – and why it may take a revolt to fix it, Rolling Stone, 03 September 2009.


• James Howard Kunstler, The Labor Day Blues, Clusterfuck Nation, 07 September 2009.


• Daniel Dombey, President procrastinator, FT.com, 07 September 2009.


• Marshall Auerback, Iron Triangles: Wall St, Big Pharma, and insurance industry perfect power games, New Deal 2.0, 08 September 2009.
  
  Iron triangle, Wikipedia.
  
  Paul M. Johnson, Iron triangles, A Glossary of Political Economy Terms, Department of Political Science, Auburn University.
  
  Corporatocracy, Wikipedia.
  
  Corporatism, Wikipedia.
  
  Corporatocracy, SourceWatch.
  
  Corporatocracy, Google Search.
  
  Robert Higgs, Quasi-Corporatism: America’s Homegrown Fascism, The Independent Institute, 31 January 2006.


• Thomas L. Friedman, Our One-Party Democracy, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 08 September 2009.
  
  It's so obvious that now even Tom Friedman talks about it openly, although he says that that the U.S. one-party government is due to the retreat of Republican ideologues into head-in-the-sand irrelevance, rather than acknowledging that the two dominant parties are both the instruments of a corporatocracy for which the public good appears secondary.


• David Sirota, Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel's Health Care Speech, The Huffington Post, 09 September 2009.


• dday, The Poor, The Adrift, The Uninsured, Hullabaloo, 10 September 2009.
  
  And in the following essay a right-winger rationalize neglect and discrimination.
  
  Robert Rector, Understanding Poverty in America, National Review Online, 10 September 2009.


• Chris Bowers, If You Think Corporations Run the Government Now…, Open Left, 10 September 2009.


• Steve Almond, Glenn Beck is the future of literary fiction, Salon.com, 12 September 2009.
  "A handful of right-wing bestsellers have recast mundane cultural dislocation into riveting epics of paranoia."


• Robert Reich, Where the White House is placing its healthcare bets, Salon.com, 11 September 2009.
  
  Joe Conason, Republican politicians have no empathy, Salon.com, 11 September 2009.
  
  David Sirota, We've seen this healthcare trigger before, Salon.com, 12 September 2009.
  "The provision is designed to make us wait for a public option that will never come."


• Richard Benjamin, Inside the mind of Joe Wilson, Salon.com, 11 September 2009.
  "America is changing, and that makes white people like Joe Wilson -- and Michele Bachmann -- very nervous."


• Juan Cole, A Tale of Two Joe Wilsons, a Tale of Two Americas, Informed Comment, 11 September 2009.


• Dave Lindorff, In Praise of 'Joe' Wilson: What's Wrong with Calling Out Lies in Congress?, AfterDowningStreet.org, 11 September 2009.
  "We need more honesty in Washington, not more civility."


• Barbara Ehrenreich and Dedrick Muhammad, The Recession’s Racial Divide, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 13 September 2009.


• Adam Nagourney, Politics and the Age Gap, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 13 September 2009.
  
  When the Baby Boomers were young this was called the Generation Gap. It's interesting how things change when they're on the other side of it.


• Glenn Greenwald, Is the Right's attack on Obama's legitimacy new or unprecedented?, Salon.com, 12 September 2009.


• Frank Rich, Obama’s Squandered Summer, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 13 September 2009.


• Hendrik Hertzberg, Lies: Obama, the Republicans, and health care reform, The New Yorker, 21 September 2009.


• Thomas B. Edsall, Angry Populism Could Save The GOP, The Huffington Post, 15 September 2009.


• Andy Kroll, Dispatches from America: A well-oiled influence machine, , 16 September 2009.
  
  "More than US$1 million a day is shelled out in the United States for lobbying on health-related issues, a massive endeavor in which 3,300 lobbyists are involved. Then there are the 2,400 lobbyists working on financial industry issues and 1,000 defense-related lobbyists. In total, 12,500 federally registered lobbyists ply their trade in Washington - and they're only a small slice of the pie."


• Stephen Green, America's Strange Health Care Debate: The Most Expensive System, But Not the Best , CounterPunch.org, 16 September 2009.


• Franklin Spinney, Bin Laden's Latest Message: The Nuttiness of the War on Terror, CounterPunch.org, 15 September 2009.


• Dan Froomkin, Who Will Harness The Rage?, The Huffington Post, 18 September 2009.


• America's Workers, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 18 September 2009.
  
  Tula Connell, ‘Young Workers: A Lost Decade’, AFL-CIO NOW Blog, 01 September 2009.
  
  the report: Young Workers: A Lost Decade [PDF file], AFL-CIO, 2009.


• Bruce Judson, Economic Inequality: The Wall Street Journal Is Just Wrong, The Huffington Post, 16 September 2009.


• Jason Leopold, Did Bush Continue to Secretly Operate Total Information Awareness?, truthout, 18 September 2009.
  
  On the President's Surveillance Program.
  See also: Total Information Awareness;
  Terrorist Surveillance Program.
  
  Wikisource provides a copy of the Unclassified Report on the President's Surveillance Program.


• Bob Herbert, The Scourge Persists, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 18 September 2009.


• Michael Winship, Wall Street buys Washington, Salon.com, 19 September 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, CIA Directors conclude CIA shouldn't be investigated for murder, Salon.com, 19 September 2009.


• David Sirota, Washington's selective deficit disorder, Salon.com, 19 September 2009.
  "They blew billions on wars and bailouts, but spending cash that actually helps people seems to bother politicians."


• Justin Elliott, TX Board Of Ed Member: Minorities Must Be Thankful To 'The Majority' For Giving Them Rights!, TPMMuckraker, 18 September 2009.


• digby, What Moved Him [Irving Kristol], Hullabaloo, 19 September 2009.
  
  See also the comments.
  
  Paul Campos, To the manner born, Rocky Mountain News, 28 January 2009.


• digby, Regional Power [of the Republican Party], Hullabaloo, 19 September 2009.
  
  Christopher Caldwell, Why the GOP Is Doomed, Hoover Digest, No. 4, 1998.


• digby, "Respects The Corporate Form", Hullabaloo, 19 September 2009.


• Alex Massie, Americans treating Presidents like Kings. Monarchy restored surreptitiously, by dint of general stupidity, Cyrano's Journal Online, 20 September 2009.


• Frank Schaeffer, Right-Wing Hatemongering Fueled by Christianity?, AlterNet, AlterNet.org, 21 September 2009.


• Rachel Weiner, Josh Treviño, GOP Consultant: "My Red Hair And Pale Skin IS My Passport", The Huffington Post, 21 September 2009.


• Tom Tomorrow, Our awesome post-racial society, This Modern World, Salon.com, 21 September 2009.


• Michael Lind, Intellectual conservatism, RIP, Salon,com, 22 September 2009.


• Robert Reich, So much happening in D.C., so little to show for it, Salon.com, 09 October 2009.


• * Simon Johnson and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 09 October 2009.
  
  Glenn Greenwald, On the government's owners, Salon.com, 10 October 2009.


• David Michael Green, A Hapless Presidency: Hanging Out with Barry, CounterPunch.org, 09 October 2009.


• David D. Kirkpatrick, Lobbyists Fight Last Big Plans to Cut Health Care Costs, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 11 October 2009.


• Richard Lardner, Associated Press, Weapons failed US troops during Afghan firefight, Salon.com, 11 October 2009.


• Glenn Greenwald, Jonathan Weiler on authoritarianism in American poitics, Salon.com, 11 October 2009.

Links: Political Economy

• David Goldman, Dave’s Top 10 Reasons the Recession Will Last Forever, Inner Workings Blog Archive at Asia Times, 05 August 2009.
  
  David Goldman, All New! Dave’s (additional) 10 Reasons Why the Recession Will Last Forever, Inner Workings Blog Archive at Asia Times, 24 September 2009.


• Penn Bullock, Friedman Economics: Is Fed chairman Ben Bernanke a follower of John Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman?, Reason Magazine, 01 September 2009.


• Elizabeth Warren, Real Change: Turning Up the Heat on Non-Bank Lenders, The Huffington Post, 03 September 2009.


• Barry Ritholtz, Tactical Error: Health Care vs Finance Regulatory Reform, The Big Picture, 09 September 2009.


• Menzie Chinn, Tracking the Consumption Decline, Econbrowser, 09 September 2009.


• Damien Hoffman, Exclusive Interview: Economist John Mauldin, Wall St. Cheat Sheet, 09 September 2009.


• Alison Fitzgerald and Christine Harper, Lehman Monday Morning Lesson Lost With Obama Regulator-in-Chief, Bloomberg.com, 11 September 2009.
  
  Alex Berenson, A Year After a Cataclysm, Little Change on Wall Street, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 11 September 2009.


• Eamon Javers, Summers: High unemployment for years, Politico.com, 11 September 2009.


• The Editors, Why Wall Street Reforms Have Stalled, Room for Debate Blog, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 11 September 2009.


• Yves Smith, Another Lehman Mess: No One Can Run the Software, naked capitalism, 12 September 2009.


• Steve Lohr, Wall Street’s Math Wizards Forgot a Few Variables, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 13 September 2009.


• Gretchen Morgenson, Fair Game - But Who Is Watching the Regulators, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 13 September 2009.


• Yves Smith, IMF Head Says Crisis Set to Continue, naked capitalism, 13 September 2009.


• Michael Panzner, Food for Thought: What big stories aren’t being told?, Financial Armageddon, 11 September 2009.


• David Cho, Steven Mufson and Tomoeh Murakami Tse, In Shift, Wall Street Goes to Washington, The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, 13 September 2009.


• George Washington, Top Economists Say We Must Break Up the Insolvent Banks (Government Says Let’s Make Them Bigger), naked capitalism, 11 September 2009.


• Mark Deen and David Tweed, Stiglitz Says Banking Problems Are Now Bigger Than Pre-Lehman, Bloomberg.com, 14 September 2009.


• Karl Denninger, But I Thought It Was Just A "Panic"?, The Market Ticker, 13 September 2009.
  
  Karl Denninger, How Far Does The Lawlessness Go?, The Market Ticker, 11 September 2009.


• Peter Boone and Simon Johnson, Economic Donkeys, The Baseline Scenario, 13 September 2009.


• Stephen Mihm, Why capitalism fails: The man who saw the meltdown coming had another troubling insight: it will happen again, The Boston Globe, 13 September 2009.
  
  On Hyman Minsky.
  
  via: The Big Picture.


• Jesse, Robert Reich on Moral Hazard and Obama's Failure, Jesse's Café Américain, 14 September 2009.


• Jesse, "It has now become clear that this was no ordinary crash." [on the Criminal Activity at the Heart of Iceland's Collapse], Jesse's Café Américain, 14 September 2009.


• Arianna Huffington, Why Obama Won't Be Able to Reform Wall Street, The Huffington Post, 14 September 2009.
  
  See also comments.


• Nomi Prins, The Next Meltdown, The Daily Beast, 14 September 2009.


• Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta, Lots of Fear Remains Over Economy, Job Losses, Poll Finds, WashingtonPost.com, 15 September 2009.


• Simon Johnson and James Kwak, Lehman Brothers and the Persistence of Moral Hazard, The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, 15 September 2009.


• Henry CK Liu, Power Without Credibility, Part 1: Bogged down at the Fed, Asia Times, 11 September 2009.
  
  Henry CK Liu, Power Without Credibility, Part 2: A lost decade ahead, Asia Times, 15 September 2009.
  
  Henry CK Liu, Power Without Credibility, Part 3: Politics of the financial crisis, Asia Times, 17 September 2009.


• David Goldman, The sticky dollar reserve system, Asia Times, 14 September 2009.


• * Edward Harrison, Financial Reform: Not happening but the need is clear, naked capitalism, 16 September 2009.
  
  Steve Keen, It’s Hard Being a Bear (Part Four): Good Economic Theory, Steve Keen's Debtwatch, 15 September 2009.


• TPC, China Will Be a Bigger Bubble than Japan, The Pragmatic Capitalist, 16 September 2009.
  
  The general tone of this sounds to me like wishful thinking by insecure Westerners. China's recent policy of encouraging its people to purchase gold may absorb lots of its hot liquidity, if not completely dominate the world's supply of precious and strategic metals, another fear emerging in the West. Note also the interesting table at the end of the post: "Speculative manias and geopolitical shifts." The comments do a good job of refuting this post. Rather than worry about some hypothetical future bubble in China, we have a far greater, already existing, problem with the USA's government debt, insolvent banks, corrupt policy apparatus, and their forthcoming consequences.
  
  Andy Xie, What We Can Learn as Japan's Economy Sinks, Caijing.com.cn, 16 September 2009.


• Jesse, US Dollar Long Term Chart and a Scenario for Dollar Devaluation, Jesse's Café Américain, 16 September 2009.


• Global systemic crisis: In pursuit of the impossible recovery, Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin, No. 37, LEAP/E2020, 16 September 2009.


• Jason Linkins, Shortlist For FT Business Book Award Short On Selections That Take On The Financial Crisis, The Huffington Post, 17 September 2009.
  
  Business Book of the Year 2009, FT.com, 17 September 2009.
  
  Cardiff Garcia, The 10 books to help you understand the crisis, The Big Picture, 05 June 2009.


• Keith Bradsher, China’s Economy Is Back, While U.S. Still Ails, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 17 September 2009.


• Lisa Lambert, "Option" mortgages to explode, officials warn, Reuters.com, 17 September 2009.
  
  Yves Smith, Wells’ Commercial Real Estate “Ticking Time Bomb” And Coming CRE Woes, naked capitalism, 18 September 2009.
  
  Exposure at Default: As Banks Shrink, So Does the Economy, The Institutional Risk Analyst, 16 September 2009.
  
  Teri Buhl, Wells Fargo’s Commercial Portfolio is a ticking time bomb, BankImplode.com, 17 September 2009.


• * Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene, A deluded G-20, Asia Times, 17 September 2009.


• Toni Straka, North America Takes The Backseat in Prosperity, The Prudent Investor, 17 September 2009.


• Liaquat Ahamed, The Future of Global Finance, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 17 September 2009.


• Yves Smith, Will Peak Oil Pricing = [imply] Perma[nent] Recession [for Developed Economies]?, naked capitalism, 17 September 2009.
  
  See also the comments.
  
  Gregor Macdonald, Clarion Call from Cantarell, Gregor.us, 23 August 2009.
  
  Many of the other essays at Gregor.us look worth reading.


• Poornima Gupta, Silicon Valley warning: Detroit still doesn't get it, Reuters.com, 18 September 2009.


• digby, Keep An Eye On This [the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the "new Pecora Commission"], Hullabaloo, 18 September 2009.


• David Streitfeld, Bill Comes Due, Vexing Housing and Banking Agencies, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 18 September 2009.


• Barry Ritholtz, Pomboy: Deflation, Not Inflation, Is The Greater Threat, The Big Picture, 19 September 2009.


• George Washington, Steve Keen Out-Thinks Larry Summers, naked capitalism, 20 September 2009.


• Chris Hedges, Globalization Goes Bankrupt, Truthdig, 20 September 2009.


• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, HSBC bids farewell to dollar supremacy, The Daily Telegraph, 20 September 2009.


• George, Are Financial Blogs Trustworthy?, The Big Picture, 20 September 2009.


• Damien Hoffman, Medal of Honor: Top Analyst Josh Rosner Nailed the Crisis, Wall St. Cheat Sheet, 22 September 2009.


• Barry Ritholtz, Volcker: Reinstate Glass Steagall, The Big Picture, 24 September 2009.


• Damien Hoffman, If Corporations Cannot Vote, Should They Have The Right To Spend Money In Elections?, zero hedge, 24 September 2009.


• Tyler Durden, DOE Highlights Collapsing Energy Demand, zero hedge, 24 September 2009.


• Tyler Durden, Exhaustion Rate Hits New Record: More Than Half Of Unemployed Exhaust Benefits Before Finding A Job, zero hedge, 24 September 2009.


• Edmund L. Andrews, Global Economic Forum to Expand Permanently, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 24 September 2009.


• Edward Harrison, Obama caves to pressure on consumer financial protection, naked capitalism, 24 September 2009.


• Jesse, Federal Reserve Eyes the US Money Market Funds, Jesse's Café Américain, 24 September 2009.


• Jesse, Do Ben and Tim = Thelma and Louise?, Jesse's Café Américain, 25 September 2009.


• * Mohamed El-Erian, Return of the old ways of thinking threatens recovery, FT.com, 28 September 2009.


• John P. Hussman, We're Speaking Japanese Without Knowing It, Weekly Market Comment - Hussman Funds, 28 September 2009.


• Mark Thoma, "New Income Inequality Data: Surprising and Frightening", Economist's View, 29 September 2009.


• Barry C. Lynn, How Detroit Went Bottom-Up, The American Prospect, 28 September 2009.
  "Outsourcing cleared the way for a discreet but dangerous monopolization of the auto industry."


• Edmund L. Andrews, World Bank Head Sees Dollar’s Role Diminishing , The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 28 September 2009.


• * Edward Harrison, The recession is over but the depression has just begun, naked capitalism, 01 October 2009.
  
  Good exposition, with documentation, on how the US economy has evolved over the last 40 or more years.


• Hiroko Tabuchi, Chinese Economic Juggernaut Is Gaining on Japan, The New York Times, 01 October 2009.


• Yves Smith, Plans to Move Away From Dollar Pricing of Oil, naked capitalism, 05 October 2009.


• Robert Fisk, The demise of the dollar, The Independent, www.independent.co.uk, 06 October 2009.
  "In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading."
  
  Mike Whitney, Dollar Hysteria: Is the Sky Really Falling?, CounterPunch.org, 06 October 2009.


• Edward L. Glaeser, What Happened to Argentina?, Economix Blog, The New York Times, NYTimes.com, 06 October 2009.


• Niall Ferguson, Too Big to Live: Why we must stamp out State Monopoly Capitalism [PDF file], Centre for Policy Studies, October 2009.


• Thornton Parker, How Economists Are Missing Another One, The Big Picture, 08 October 2009.


• Edward Harrison, How did economists get it so wrong (parody version)?, Credit Writedowns, 08 October 2009.


• Bruce Krasting, FHFA's DeMarco Speaks - Ouch!, Bruce Krasting, 08 October 2009.


• * Simon Johnson and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, 09 October 2009.


• Paul Craig Roberts, Marx and Lenin Reconsidered, CounterPunch.org, 07 October 2009.


• Yves Smith, “Capitalism: A Love Story”, naked capitalism, 11 October 2009.


• Simon Johnson, Diana Farrell And The White House Theory Of Bank Size, The Baseline Scenario, 13 October 2009.
  
  Read the WhoRunsGov.com profile of Diana Farrell and recognize that neolibral economics/market fundamentalism/de-industrialization/off-shoring and their effects on the American people are not accidental nor mysterious forces beyond the control of mortals; and that the Republican and Democratic parties today follow a single economic policy and diverge from each other far less than partisans lead the general public to believe.


• Yves Smith, Krugman on Sick Banks, Bad Policy Choices, and Team Obama’s (Misplaced) Anger, naked capitalism, 19 October 2009.