Whose fault is the growing student loan securities bubble?
It's not quite as big as the housing bubble, the causes are somewhat different, and it's less likely to collapse. But still, the parallels between the housing bubble and the growing student loan bubble...
View ArticleThree big problems. One simple solution.
No need to pay attention to this. I'm sure everything will be fine.The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air jumped dramatically in 2012, making it very unlikely that global warming can be...
View ArticleHow to survive the next nine years of hell
It should be obvious by now that the Republican Party and the American conservative movement at large is incapable of introspection. Greg Sargent makes that perfectly clear in his examination of the...
View ArticleMitt Romney, just the latest throwaway politician of the Right
Much has been made of Mitt Romney's cold reception among conservatives just a few months after being their standardbearer for the presidency. The usual reasons given are that Romney was too liberal on...
View ArticleDeficits are the new Iraq
I mentioned a few days ago that the failure to prosecute the crime of the century in defrauding the world to invade Iraq is a moral stain that will never fully wash out of the fabric of society until...
View ArticleWhy the neoliberal consensus doesn't work
There is a comfortable conventional wisdom among elites today, one that exists not only in Washington but seemingly across the developed world. The expected norm for so-called "serious thinkers" is an...
View ArticleClimate activists must become economic activists, and vice versa
President Obama headlined a fundraiser yesterday at the home of billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer, the same person giving heart attacks to corporate Democrats and pliant media across the country....
View ArticleThe Grand Bargain is bad negotiating. It's bad eleventh dimensional chess, too
The two main arguments in defense of the President's new chained CPI Grand Bargain proposal seem to be that:1) the Grand Bargain is dead on arrival, anyway, so it doesn't matter except as a way to make...
View ArticleThe technocrats are incompetent.
Does anyone think this means tested Rube Goldberg Social Security slicing machine is actually supposed to work?The White House, fighting back against liberal critics who say he’s giving away too much,...
View ArticleParody Has Died
Words fail:Obama Called Their Bluff: Republicans Admit They Are Too Scared to Cut Social Security No so-called Democrat should be able to write those words without drowning in unintended self-parodic...
View ArticleWe can choose that workers not die in horrific mass accidents
Matt Yglesias caused a lot of justified moral outrage yesterday when he suggested that weak Bangladeshi regulations leading to mass deaths were economically justifiable in the open labor marketplace....
View ArticleDramatically increase Congressional oversight of NSA
With pundits quickly staking out sides in the "hero or villain" debate over Edward Snowden, it should be clear to all but the most ardent authoritarians or partisan Administration defenders that the...
View ArticleA surprising 1950s PSA about income inequality can teach us a lot
While doing some research on income inequality, I came across this little-noticed 1955 PSA on income inequality in America. It was produced by the "National Education Program," an institution created...
View ArticleDavid Brooks is a racist creep
It's amazing that in July of 2013, the New York Times would allow these words to appear on its public editorial column, courtesy one David Brooks:Islamists might be determined enough to run effective...
View ArticlePassing laws doesn't make a President great. Passing GOOD laws does
When asked why I spend so much time writing on a blog, one of my first responses is that political opinion journalism shouldn't be left to opinion journalists, especially those closest to powerful...
View ArticleThe world has failed Syria
As America stands on the precipice of yet another war, it's worth remembering how we got to this point. The list of imperialist actions and domestic reactions goes back hundreds of years, and many of...
View ArticleLimited strikes accomplish none of our stated objectives in Syria
Watching the Senate hearing on authorizing use of military force in Syria, I was constantly frustrated by the lack of logical clarity in most of the arguments being made.There are two key arguments in...
View ArticleWhat evolutionary biology can teach us about gun control
How do we know right from wrong? It should be an easy question, but it's harder than it looks. Is it doing the greatest good for the greatest number as John Stuart Mill would argue, or is it simply a...
View ArticleThe incredible hubris of Grover Norquist
From one perspective, Grover Norquist's little victory lap yesterday is understandable. After all, government funding has dropped to near Ryan budget levels due to sequestration, and it appears that...
View ArticleReminder: balancing the budget doesn't help the economy
As we begin to engage in another round of deficit hysteria, it's helpful to remember that the notion that balancing the budget will help the economy is possibly the most widespread and most harmful lie...
View ArticleThe fact-free laziness of centrism
Reading about the Bircher war on the institutional Republican Party, it's easy to see how an average reader would want to embrace "centrism":
View ArticleAdam Nagourney gets it dead wrong in California
Adam Nagourney is already famous as the New York Times journalist always eager to write "Democrats in disarray" stories. But of all of the slanted stories he has written over the years, this one about...
View ArticleAnd then the machines came for the doctors and lawyers
You remember IBM's Watson, the Jeopardy champion computer program? It diagnoses cancer now, and better than doctors do. Read this, and think about what it means for public policy and the future of...
View ArticleWhere did the Republican political acumen go?
It's hard to describe to political activists who cut their teeth during the Obama era just how intimidating Republicans were during the early 2000s. Conservatives had forced or persuaded a Democratic...
View ArticleThe Dow hit another record high. So where are all the jobs?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit another record high yesterday, closing at a nosebleed-worthy 15,680.35. This isn't exactly a surprise, given that corporate profits are at or near record highs and...
View ArticleWould this cosmic message fly today?
When America sent a reconnaissance spacecraft called Voyager out into great beyond in 1977, knowing that it would one day leave our solar system never to return, our scientists gave thought to the...
View ArticleThe glorious, dystopian future envisioned by our libertarian masters
I've written often before about how much of the war between the American left and right is essentially the building of sand castles in the face of the oncoming tide of globalization, deskilling and...
View ArticleThe choices conservatives face on inequality
Conservative hack Glenn Reynolds has a column in USA Today in which he attacks the President's focus on income inequality, with the usual bleating about government dependency and what not. Mickey Kaus...
View ArticleDemocrats shouldn't be crowing about the unemployment rate
There's a growing political phenomenon out there of Democrats saying nice things about the economy because unemployment seems to be going down somewhat. That's a big mistake.Americans who aren't part...
View ArticleRepublican answers for a young urban Latino
Joe Scarborough, speaking at the Reagan Library:“We’ve got to make sure that we nominate a candidate like Reagan who believes that freedom and less taxes and less regulations and more opportunity are...
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More goodies for the asset class
Danny Vinik notes in Business Insider that most federal housing subsidies are going to those with household incomes over $100K, while a whopping $34 billion in subsidies are going to household over...
View ArticleThe Right can't handle the reality of the 21st century economy
One of the biggest differences between a neoliberal and a progressive is whether they talk about our current economic difficulty as a somewhat-larger-than-normal downturn that will soon correct itself,...
View ArticleThe survival of the human race depends on fate of KeystoneXL and fracking
One of the frustrations of being a climate activist is that far too many people simply do not understand the stakes. Climate issues are often forced through an "environmentalist" lens, wherein issues...
View ArticleRepublicans do not understand what it means to be human
Republicans are very upset that people who are working just to hold onto health insurance might be willing to quit the labor force because the Affordable Care Act will allow them to. The notion that...
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Americans: we love paying more for less
Now that Comcast is apparently going to be merging with Time Warner, net neutrality is dead, and vertical integration is all the rage, it's worth remembering the glorious benefit Americans are getting...
View ArticleThe Left doesn't just need better tactics. It needs a return to better ideas.
Adolph Reed has made a recent splash with his essay in Harper's Magazine and subsequent interview with Bill Moyers. His thesis essentially states that the Left spends too much of its time attempting to...
View ArticleDear Third Way: Economic Populism Works. Especially in tough districts.
Markos Moulitsas and the execrable Third Way are in a minor media tussle at the moment. Markos correctly pointed out that in both the House and Senate, the Democratic caucus has shifted significantly...
View ArticleAlternatively, Democrats could give midterm voters something to believe in
President Obama, on Democratic difficulties in midterm elections:President Obama complained Thursday that Democrats “get clobbered” in midterm elections, blaming a “toxic” atmosphere in Washington for...
View ArticleNote to Jim DeMint: Ending slavery was a Big Government police action
Jim DeMint, noted professor of history and respected race relations theorist, puts out his theory on the end of slavery:"Well the reason that the slaves were eventually freed was the Constitution, it...
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Climate change denialism is a tribal marker for old white Republican males
Gallup is out with a new poll on climate change. It turns out that while climate denialism spiked in 2010, acceptance of climate science has increased such that only 1 in 4 Americans are climate...
View ArticleNo matter the murderous motive, the common denominator is always the gun
Yesterday a deeply disturbed man committed an unspeakable crime in Isla Vista. He was motivated by the worst forms of misogyny, sexual entitlement, racism, and privileged narcissism, and engaged in a...
View ArticleThis is what legislative courage on gun control looks like. Action, not just...
We hear it after every mass shooting: politicians on both sides of the aisle intoning their deepest condolences to the victims and their families. We hear a lot about thoughts and prayers and...
View ArticleWe ignore people who don't vote. We stop caring about you. So vote.
It's that day again. If you're obsessive enough about politics to be reading this, you should probably already be registered to vote by mail (assuming you live in a state that allows it.) But if you're...
View ArticleYou haven't seen me in a while. Here's why.
Hey fellow Kossacks,It's been a pleasure being part of this extraordinary community for almost ten years now. I started writing here in 2005, amassing hundreds of diaries before I started writing once...
View ArticleThe future of unemployment
GE has a cute little ad called "The future of work" praising their advances in 3D printing automation:We'll gloss over the fact that no one in the copyediting process caught the misuse of "beg the...
View ArticleHow economic populism can reprogram the conservative brain
Neuroscience is one of the world's most exciting fields, challenging the ways we think about ourselves and our personalities. Our political behavior is no exception.Some of the latest findings about...
View ArticleLet the people vote, AP!
The Clinton campaign must be worried about California. There’s no other reason for the AP to have prematurely declared an end to the Democratic primary.The AP bizarrely decided to retabulate the votes...
View ArticleCalifornia DNC members respond to anti-Ellison smears
It’s no secret that the smear campaign against Keith Ellison has been running nonstop since he decided to run for head of the DNC. There have been nasty whispers about his religion and about his racial...
View ArticleThe Race for CA Democratic Party Chair Will Be a Test for Effective...
There is a remarkable and underreported story in the California Democratic Party that is still waiting to be told. The story is not yet finished, and the outcome could have profound consequences for...
View ArticleThe Real Story of the Battle for California Democratic Party Chair
Last night Eric Bauman won the race for Chair of the California Democratic Party by a slim margin at the state’s party convention in Sacramento. His opponent Kimberly Ellis refuses to concede, but she...
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