Michael Moore>"The effects of capitalism: The most upsetting story I've seen on 60 Minutes in a long time" (video)

CBS News-60 Minutes, video (13:34):

For some children, socializing and learning are being cruelly complicated by homelessness, as Scott Pelley reports from Florida, where school buses now stop at motels for children who've lost their homes.

Ed Schultz: "Good thing we gave the Job Creators those tax breaks." (with video)

Ed Schultz with video from MSNBC (05:26):

...But "where are the Jobs?" In the video above, ED talks to leaders of the law enforcement labor community in Wisconsin.

Maddow Blog: "Normal starts in 2014. Maybe."

Laura Conway (Maddow Blog):

In politics, nothing matters more than the unemployment rate. You could even argue that nothing else matters.

Today in the New York Times, David Leonhardt looks at how long it will take the nation to return to a healthy labor market -- full employment, as they say. This gets harder as we go, because in addition to having lost 8 million jobs in the recession, we keep adding people to the labor market as our population grows.

On his chart, normal happens when any of the red lines hits the black line. The gist: Even if we suddenly started adding jobs an unimaginable rate, we're looking at 2014. Which you'll note is after the 2012 elections.

"Loss of jobless benefits could be serious blow to U.S. economy"

Don Lee (LA Times):

Many Republicans and a small number of Democrats say they're not against continuing benefits for the unemployed, but they want the government's spending to be reduced by the same amount.

That throws jobless benefits into a bitterly partisan fight over preserving the Bush-era tax cuts and how to deal with the overall budget deficit, making it more likely than ever that the emergency federal benefits for the unemployed will be cut off permanently.

If that happens — and some leaders still hope to include a compromise on jobless benefits in a larger deal over tax cuts — it would come well before such benefits were curtailed after past periods of high unemployment.

It was 28 months after the deep recession in the early 1980s that emergency benefits ended, and unemployment then was 7.2%. It is now only 17 months since the official end of the last recession, and the jobless rate is at 9.6%. MORE...

Bob Herbert: "Winning the Class War"

Bob Herbert:

Anyone who thinks there is something beneficial in this vast disconnect between the fortunes of the American elite and those of the struggling masses is just silly. It’s not even good for the elite.

There is no way to bring America’s consumer economy back to robust health if unemployment is chronically high, wages remain stagnant and the jobs that are created are poor ones. Without ordinary Americans spending their earnings from good jobs, any hope of a meaningful, long-term recovery is doomed. MORE...

Howie P.S.: Long story short...greed is bad for business,

"The Way We Forget"

William Rivers Pitt:

This country of ours has a monstrous capacity to forget. We are able to forget - if we ever knew - what happened two hundred years ago, one hundred years ago, fifty years ago, ten years ago. Worse, we are able to forget what happened one year ago, last month, last week, and even yesterday. We forget, we ignore, we refuse to know, and in our deliberate ignorance are found the seeds of further destruction, widely sown and also to be forgotten.

It has been made far too clear that our national amnesia certainly extends over the last two years. After an era of Republican rule that saw vast economic collapse, the abrogation of basic rights, the trashing of Constitutional law, two decade-long wars that still have no end in sight, a catastrophic terrorist attack that could have been prevented, the virtual annihilation of a major American city that could have been prevented, and the theft and waste of trillions of dollars, every available poll appears to indicate that the American people have already forgotten all about it, and are perfectly ready to let the wolves back inside the fence. MORE...

"Why Millions March in France, But Not in the US"

Rick Wolff:

There is a basic lesson in all this for the US left. It concerns why millions march there but not (yet?) here. The failure to develop, support, and widely disseminate anti-capitalist criticism and proposals for non-capitalist alternatives undermines the capacity for mass mobilizations to protect and advance working people's interests, especially in times of crisis. Even to make a political difference on so limited an issue as changing the age of retirement, effective mobilization of workers requires that they understand that issue in a much broader framework. Workers who see themselves in a broad social struggle for justice and for basic social change toward a better society can also then grasp and act on a particular issue with a sense of its historic meaning and implications. MORE...

Howie P.S.: What he's talking about is referred to as "the broader story line" or "narrative" in contemporary political jargon although he is proposing a specific theme..

"Spoiled Americans" or #NOT?

"Americans aren't 'spoiled,' they're angry about not having jobs" (Adam Serwer-The Plum Line):

Eugene Robinson's column about how the American people are "spoiled" ingrates unable to recognize all that's been done for them is comically ill-timed given today's dismal unemployment report, showing an economy unable to get moving:

In the punditry business, it's considered bad form to question the essential wisdom of the American people. But at this point, it's impossible to ignore the obvious: The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.

This is not, I repeat not, a partisan argument. My own political leanings are well-known, but the refusal of Americans to look seriously at the nation's situation -- and its prospects -- is an equal-opportunity scourge. Republicans got the back of the electorate's hand in 2006 and 2008; Democrats will feel the sting this November. By 2012, it will probably be the GOP's turn to get slapped around again.

It's bad form to call the American people "spoiled" because generally that's what pundits do when their side is losing. This column is no exception: Robinson laments the fact that "incredibly, according to Gallup, registered voters say they intend to vote for Republicans over Democrats by an astounding 10-point margin." MORE...

"Spoiled Voters, Real Americans" (Digby):

Adam Serwer correctly took issue with Eugene Robinson's assertion today that the American people are acting like spoiled brats. People are genuinely stressed and it's human nature to want to take it out on the government, which is the only institution in which the average person has a say. But I would take issue with one thing. Serwer writes this:

[I]t's silly to blame the American people for reacting to the results of Democratic governance. Unemployment edged up to 9.6 percent, the economy losing 54,000 jobs. As Neil Irwin reports today, "The current pace of job creation is too weak to put Americans back to work in significant numbers." There's no mystery as to why Americans aren't dancing in the streets. A better argument might be that Democrats are being "spoiled," since it's their lack of enthusiasm about voting that is giving the GOP a major advantage.

But, you know, Democrats are Americans too. And they are also without jobs (or unable to change them) and are losing their homes and savings in this economy. MORE...

Howie P.S.: 'Americans' (I'm referring to the middle class) are not essentially spoiled. They have been hung out to dry (roast) by a political shitstem in general and a Democratic leadership in particular that has abdicated the fight on behalf of their interests. Or to put it in crass political terms:

This is what happens when you abandon your base.

"Goldman Sachs agrees with Krugman that more stimulus is needed"

theCapitalistRedux' diary on Kos:

Let me preface this by saying whiteshoes at GS aren't always the smartest guys in the room- I've sat across the table from a few research analysts, PMs, and wholesalers of theirs and they can be a mixed bag. But on the whole, they are certainly canny enough to know what's good for their firm, and spiraling deflation is rough for even the best distressed asset investor. To see them in agreement with a self-proclaimed Liberal (not in the economic sense) neo-Keynesian like Paul Krugman is not something I would normally foresee without the risks of premature austerity being so grave. MORE...

Howie P.S.: I wish I understood that last sentence, H/t to Chris in Paris.

"Two More Candidates for the McChrystal Treatment" (with video)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Eliot Spitzer
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

Robert Scheer:

It was Geithner who, as head of the New York Fed, presided over the $180 billion bailout of AIG, which, as revealed by the 500-page documented record of that travesty released last week by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, was a scam to pass taxpayer money to Goldman Sachs and the other large banks that had created the problem. And it was Summers who as President Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary pushed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which guaranteed “legal certainty” for the toxic derivatives packages that Goldman and the others sold. At the time Summers assured Congress that “the parties to these kinds of contracts are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to be eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty insolvencies. …”

For such not-so-prescient but very convenient insight, Goldman Sachs rewarded Summers with $200,000 for two speeches he gave to its executives while he was an adviser to candidate Obama. Not surprisingly, the new financial regulations proposed by this administration and soon to be signed into law let Goldman and the others so much at fault off the hook.

There is enormous and justifiable populist outrage out there over the antics of a runaway Wall Street that is not being held accountable. Obama could tap into that outrage by taking his cues from a true populist, Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. One of only eight senators to vote against the Clinton-backed 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which had done so much to protect the economy, Feingold voted against the Bush bailout too and is now breaking with Obama on his so-called financial reform:

“The bill does not eliminate the risk to our economy posed by ‘too big to fail’ financial firms, nor does it restore the proven safeguards established after the Great Depression, which separated Main Street banks from big Wall Street firms and are essential to preventing another economic meltdown. The recent financial crisis triggered the nation’s worst recession since the Great Depression. The bill should have included reforms to prevent another such crisis. Regrettably, it did not.”

The president’s record on the economy is even worse than his performance in Afghanistan, and a reversal of course is much in order. If he doesn’t get the message now, the voters will give it to him loud and clear come the November midterm elections. MORE...

Howie P.S.: I find that Robert Scheer is usually more accurate in his judgments than I would prefer. Eliot Spitzer has reached the same conclusion and shared his thoughts with Stephen Colbert, video (06:09). Glenn Greenwald agrees and wrote about it in April. 2009.

WikiLeaks, vanden Heuvel, Phish, Keynes and Joe Bageant (with video)

"US private Bradley Manning charged with leaking Iraq killings video" (GuardianUK):

A US army intelligence analyst was today charged with leaking a highly classified video of American forces killing unarmed civilians in Baghdad and secret diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. MORE...

Katrina vanden Heuvel (WaPo op-ed):

But, as I've argued before, if progressives are to alter the hostile political environment that arms the lobbies and forces President Obama -- and, even more, fearful centrist Democrats in Congress -- to shrink from bolder reforms, they must build and mobilize a broad reform movement that transcends left-right divisions.

Now, we have a compelling blueprint of just how to do that. A new book -- "The DeMarco Factor: Transforming Public Will Into Political Power" -- shows that that kind of organizing is no pipe dream. Written by Michael Pertschuk, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and co-founder of the Advocacy Institute, the book focuses on the strategies and leadership of organizer Vincent DeMarco, who has waged successful advocacy campaigns in Maryland and Congress for 20 years. MORE...

"Killing in the name of" (Phish 7/4/2010, video-03:59).

"Keynes & Co. have lost the stimulus argument" (Brad Delong-The Week):

With the nation mired in unemployment, liberal economists have been pulling the fire alarm with increasing urgency. But the fire department isn't coming.
(SNIP)
The situation is grim. So why isn't everybody running around with their hair on fire?
I have my theories:
• widening wealth inequality and an upgrading of the class position of reporters and pundits, who are no longer ink-stained wretches immersed in mainstream America;
• the collapse of union power, which ensures that nobody who sees real workers on a daily basis sits at the table when the deals are made;
• increasing job security for the powerful in Washington, aided by the growth of the lobbying apparatus that envelops the mixed-economy government;
• the collapse of professional integrity among the Washington press corps, which no longer dares to call balls and strikes as it sees them, preferring to say only that the Democrats say it was a strike and the Republicans say it was a ball, and that opinions on the shape of the earth differ.MORE...

"Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball" (Joe Bageant):

As an Anglo European white guy from a very long line of white guys, I want to thank all the brown, black, yellow and red people for a marvelous three-century joy ride. During the past 300 years of the industrial age, as Europeans, and later as Americans, we have managed to consume infinitely more than we ever produced, thanks to colonialism, crooked deals with despotic potentates and good old gunboats and grapeshot. MORE...

"Mayberry Machiavellis: Obama Political Team Handcuffing Recovery"

Ryan Grim (HuffPo):

Under the leadership of President George W. Bush, science, empirical evidence and expert advice struggled to be heard above the din of politics. It's one thing to prioritize politics over good policy; it's quite another to let bad politics drive the agenda. But that's what the Bush administration did during its Terry Schiavo era and his congressional majorities paid the price.

Today, a new band of Mayberry Machiavellis has gained control, counseling President Obama to ignore the advice of his economic team and press forward with deficit reduction ahead of job creation. MORE...

"Oily Troubles Trickle Down" (with video)

Bill Whitaker (CBSNews.com) with video (03:25):

When the oil spill stifles the way of life for fisherman in Louisiana, it causes a domino effect for everyone affiliated with one of the largest industries in the area.

Like an oily octopus spreading its tentacles through the Gulf of Mexico, menacing muck is choking off sea life and on shore a way of life. Bill Whitaker reports. MORE...

Howie P.S.: More Good News from The Wall Street Journal:
"Obama Decried, Then Used, Some Bush Drilling Policies."

"The Source of Obama’s Trouble"

Bob Herbert:

The Obama administration and Democrats in general are in trouble because they are not urgently and effectively addressing the issue that most Americans want them to: the frightening economic insecurity that has put a chokehold on millions of American families.

The economy shed 36,000 jobs last month, and that was trumpeted in the press as good news. Well, after your house has burned down I suppose it’s good news that the flames may finally be flickering out. But once you realize that it will take 11 million or more new jobs to get us back to where we were when the recession began, you begin to understand that we’re not really making any headway at all.

It’s also widely known by now that the official employment statistics drastically understate the problem. Once we take off the statistical rose-colored glasses, we’re left with the awful reality of millions upon millions of Americans who have lost — or are losing — their jobs, their homes, their small businesses, and their hopes for a brighter future.

Instead of focusing with unwavering intensity on this increasingly tragic situation, making it their top domestic priority, President Obama and the Democrats on Capitol Hill have spent astonishing amounts of time and energy, and most of their political capital, on an obsessive quest to pass a health care bill.

Health care reform is important. But what the public has wanted and still badly needs above all else from Mr. Obama and the Democrats are bold efforts to put people back to work. A major employment rebound is the only real way to alleviate the deep economic anxiety that has gripped so many Americans. Unaddressed, that anxiety inevitably evolves into dread and then anger.

But while the nation is desperate for jobs, jobs, jobs, the Democrats have spent most of the Obama era chanting health care, health care, health care.

The talk inside the Beltway, that super-incestuous, egomaniacal, reality-free zone, is that President Obama and the Democrats have a messaging or public relations problem. We’re being told — and even worse, Mr. Obama and the Democrats are being told — that their narrative is not getting through. In other words, the wonderfulness of all that they’ve done is somehow not being recognized by the slow-to-catch-on masses.

That’s just silly. People are upset because they are mired in economic distress and are losing faith that their elected representatives are looking out for their best interests. They’ve watched with increasing anger as their government has been hijacked by the economic elite. They know that the big banks that were bailed out by taxpayers can borrow money at an interest rate of near zero while at the same time charging credit-card holders usurious rates of 20 to 30 percent.

They know that the financial fat cats are fighting the creation of a truly independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency. They know that while ordinary Americans are kept out of the corridors of power, the elites with their lobbyists and lawyers and campaign contributions have a voice in every important decision that is made.

It’s not the message that’s a problem for Mr. Obama and the Democrats, it’s the all-too-clear reality. People know that the government that is supposed to be looking out for ordinary people — for working people and the poor — is not doing nearly enough about an employment crisis that is lowering standards of living and hollowing out the American dream.

This is not just a short-term crisis. There are many communities across the country in which the effective jobless rate is higher than 50 percent. Many state and local governments are grappling with disastrous revenue shortfalls that are forcing cuts in services and layoffs, and threatening the viability of even a modest national economic recovery.

A University of Michigan survey of consumer sentiment in February found that 60 percent of American consumers expect to receive no income gains at all in the year ahead, the worst finding in that category in the history of the surveys.

The Republican Party has nothing in the way of solutions to Americans’ economic plight. It is committed only to the demented policy of trying to ensure that President Obama and the Democrats fail.

But the fact that the Republicans are pathetic and destructive is no reason for the Democrats to shirk their obligation to fight powerfully and relentlessly for the economic well-being of all Americans. There are now six people in the employment market for every available job. There is a staggering backlog of discouraged workers who would show up tomorrow if there were a job to be had.

The many millions of new jobs needed to make a real dent in the employment crisis are not going to materialize by themselves. Mr. Obama and the Democrats don’t seem to understand that.

Road to Recovery?: "Boeing Co. continues to play us for suckers"

(Above graphic from ObamaForAmerica)
John Burbank (SeattlePostGlobe, op-ed):

We begin 2010 with a pretty severe hangover from 2009. The national economy is bouncing along the bottom, unemployment continues at record high levels, consumption is down, tax receipts are dwindling, and public services have been pulled back just when we need them the most. In short, all the “hope” of the 2008 elections has been dissipated in the economic implosion brought to us by Wall Street.

In our state, and especially in Everett, the Chicago-based Boeing Co. continues to play us for suckers. While congratulating Washington Machinists and engineers for the successful launch of the 787, Boeing is developing a second 787 assembly line in South Carolina. Aaron Reardon, the Snohomish County executive, couldn't help piling on. In a recent op-ed, Reardon wrote “Washington is a very high-cost state and is not competitive.”

It is odd when a leading politician publicly declares that his state is not competitive, especially when that state, our Washington, is ranked by Forbes magazine as the second-best state for business. We achieved that ranking because our labor force is well educated, and more and more people are migrating to Washington. We are ranked No. 1 for future growth, thanks to “projected job, income and gross state product growth as well as business openings/closings and venture capital investments.”

Regardless of this, Reardon seems to want to shrink these advantages and have us look more like South Carolina. He wants to reduce unemployment compensation, right in the middle of the recession. He suggests cutting workers compensation benefits, when our current workers compensation system provides decent benefits at low cost, thanks to our state system that keeps private insurance companies from reaping profits off of workers' injuries.

What Reardon suggests is that we embrace a race to the bottom, reducing wages and benefits while giving away more and more tax credits to global corporations. What's next? Slash our minimum wage? Charge parents for K-12 education?

This may be the way to build a Third World economy, but it sure won't build a better economy. It will instead put us ever more at the whim of corporate decision-making, whether that occurs in Chicago, Houston, Riyadh, London or Shanghai. What we should do instead in Washington is build on our own strengths and chart our own future.

This means that we need to enable all high school graduates to go to community college or a four-year public college. It means we must invest more in our K-12 system. We need to invest in community colleges around the state, and use Everett Community College's model of integrating instruction with four-year colleges.

It means we must begin directing our own savings into local investments. There is no good reason that savings should be invested in corporations that create off-shore jobs to displace Washington workers. The State Investment Board needs to allocate a larger proportion of our pension and tax money to enable Washington state economic growth.

We could even follow North Dakota's example by creating a state-owned bank that is dedicated to funding economic development throughout Washington. Wouldn't it be nice to have a bank that actually works for us? And while we are at it, why not invest in our local credit unions? By keeping currency circulating within our economy, we keep building economic activity within our state.

We have tremendous resources that no other state or country can claim. We have hundreds of thousands of educated and skilled workers who know aircraft development, health care technology, high tech development and software development. We have an education system ready to fill the demand for even more of these educated workers and citizens. We live in a great area of the country, surrounded by mountains and Puget Sound, providing a good and healthy quality of life.

For the past 75 years, through economic development and public policy advances, Washington has replaced desperation with hope and opportunity. The question for us to answer in 2010 is whether we want to reverse this progress, becoming victims of global corporate forces. Or do we want to embrace our traditions and advance further — combining economic prosperity with a strong middle class citizenry, able to enjoy and participate in productive and meaningful lives? The choice is ours to make.

Happy New Year!

"President Obama, Black Leaders Meet About Solutions To Economic Crisis" (with audio)

Tell Me More (NPR), audio (11:57):

President Obama met Wednesday with civil rights leaders to address the impact of the economic crisis on the African-American community. Host Michel Martin speaks with the Rev. Al Sharpton, of the National Action Network, who was attended the meeting along with president's of the NAACP and the National Urban League. Sharpton is joined by Charles Ogletree, professor of law at Harvard University, who has been critical of President Obama's efforts to help the interests of African-Americans affected by the economy.

Stiglitz: "Obama's muddled solutions"

Joseph Stiglitz:

The president is trying to please everyone, but he needs to take tough action to prevent the US economy's second freefall---Defeat in the Massachusetts senatorial election has deprived US Democrats of the 60 votes needed to pass healthcare reform and other legislation, and it has changed American politics – at least for the moment. But what does that vote say about American voters and the economy?

It does not herald a shift to the right, as some pundits suggest. Rather, the message it sends is the same as that sent by voters to former president Bill Clinton 17 years ago: "It's the economy, stupid!" and "Jobs, jobs, jobs". Indeed, on the other side of the United States from Massachusetts, voters in Oregon passed a referendum supporting a tax increase.

The US economy is in a mess, even if growth has resumed, and bankers are once again receiving huge bonuses. More than one out of six Americans who would like a full-time job cannot get one; and 40% of the unemployed have been out of a job for more than six months.

As Europe learned long ago, hardship increases with the length of unemployment, as job skills and prospects deteriorate and savings gets wiped out. The 2.5-3.5m foreclosures expected this year will exceed those of 2009, and the year began with what is expected to be the first of many large commercial real-estate bankruptcies. Even the Congressional budget office is predicting that it will be the middle of the decade before unemployment returns to more normal levels, as America experiences its own version of "Japanese malaise".

As I wrote in my new book Freefall, Barack Obama took a big gamble at the start of his administration. Instead of the marked change that his campaign had promised, he kept many of the same officials and maintained the same "trickle down" strategy to confront the financial crisis. Providing enough money to the banks was, his team seemed to say, the best way to help ordinary homeowners and workers.

When America reformed its welfare programs for the poor under Clinton, it put conditions on recipients: they had to look for a job or enroll in training programs. But when the banks received welfare benefits, no conditions were imposed on them. Had Obama's attempt at muddling through worked, it would have avoided some big philosophical battles. But it didn't work, and it has been a long time since popular antipathy to banks has been so great.

Obama wanted to bridge the divides among Americans that George W Bush had opened. But now those divides are wider. His attempts to please everyone, so evident in the last few weeks, are likely to mollify no one.

Deficit hawks – especially among the bankers who laid low during the government bailout of their institutions, but who have now come back with a vengeance – use worries about the growing deficit to justify cutbacks in spending. But these views on how to run the economy are no better than the bankers' approach to running their own institutions.

Cutting spending now will weaken the economy. So long as spending goes to investments yielding a modest return of 6%, the long-term debt will be reduced, even as the short-term deficit increases, owing to the higher tax revenues generated by the larger output in the short run and the more rapid growth in the long run.

Trying to "square the circle" between the need to stimulate the economy and please the deficit hawks, Obama has proposed deficit reductions that, while alienating liberal democrats, were too small to please the hawks. Other gestures to help struggling middle-class Americans may show where his heart is, but are too small to make a meaningful difference.

Three things can make a difference: a second stimulus, stemming the tide of housing foreclosures by addressing the roughly 25% of mortgages that are worth more than the value the house, and reshaping our financial system to rein in the banks.

There was a moment a year ago when Obama, with his enormous political capital, might have been able to achieve this ambitious agenda, and, building on these successes, go on to deal with America's other problems. But anger about the bailout, confusion between the bailout (which didn't restart lending, as it was supposed to do) and the stimulus (which did what it was supposed to do, but was too small), and disappointment about mounting job losses, has vastly circumscribed his room for manoeuvre.

Indeed, there is even skepticism about whether Obama will be able to push through his welcome and long overdue efforts to curtail the too-big-to-fail banks and their reckless risk-taking. And, without that, more likely than not, the economy will face another crisis in the not-too-distant future.

Most Americans, however, are focused on today's downturn, not tomorrow's. Growth over the next two years is expected to be so anaemic that it will barely be able to create enough jobs for new entrants to the labour force, let alone to return unemployment to an acceptable level.

Unfettered markets may have caused this calamity, and markets by themselves won't get us out, at least any time soon. Government action is needed, and that will require effective and forceful political leadership.

Herbert: "Time Is Running Out" on jobs, infrastructure, trade, education, energy

Bob Herbert:

We’ve now lost 8.4 million jobs in this recession, and a vast majority of them are gone for good. The politicians are clambering aboard the jobs bandwagon, belatedly, but very few are telling the truth about the structural employment problems in the U.S. and the extremely heavy lift that is necessary to halt our declining living standards and get us back to an economy that is self-sustaining.

We don’t hear a lot that is serious about the sorry state of the nation’s infrastructure or the trade policies that crippled so many American industries or our inability (or unwillingness) to compete effectively with China when it comes to the new world of energy for the 21st century or our abject failure to provide a quality public education for the next generation of American workers, scientists, artists and entrepreneurs.

Speaking at a conference here on Wednesday, Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania said that if we don’t act quickly in developing long-term solutions to these and other problems, the United States will be a second-rate economic power by the end of this decade. A failure to act boldly, he said, will result in the U.S. becoming “a cooked goose.”

Neither the politicians nor much of the mainstream media are spelling out the severity of these enormous structural problems or the sense of urgency needed to address them. Living standards are sinking in the United States, and there is no coherent vision or plan for reversing that ominous trend over the long term.

The conference was titled, “The Next American Economy: Transforming Energy and Infrastructure Investment.” It was put together by the Brookings Institution and Lazard, the investment banking advisory firm.

When Governor Rendell addressed the conference on Wednesday, he used words like “stunning” and “unbelievable” to describe what has happened to the nation’s infrastructure. His words echoed the warnings we’ve been hearing for years from the American Society of Civil Engineers, which tells us: “The broken water mains, gridlocked streets, crumbling dams and levees, and delayed flights that come from failing infrastructure have a negative impact on the checkbook and on the quality of life of each and every American.”

The conference was sparked by a sense of dismay over what has happened to the U.S. economy over the past several years and a feeling that constructive ideas about solutions were being smothered by an obsessive focus on the short-term in this society, and by the chronic dysfunction and hyperpartisanship in much of the government.

I was struck by the absence of grousing and finger-pointing at the conference and the emphasis on trying to develop new ways to establish an economy that is not based on financial flimflammery, that enhances America’s competitive position in the world, and that relieves us of the terrible burden of reliance on foreign energy sources.

I was also struck by the pervasive sense that if we don’t get our act together then the glory days of the go-go American economic empire will fade like the triumphs of an aging Hollywood star. One of the participants raised the very real possibility of Americans having to get used to living in an economy “that won’t be number one,” an economy that perhaps is more like Germany’s.

Rescuing the U.S. economy will require a commitment, and undoubtedly sacrifices, that need to start now. And it will require leadership that pulls together the best talents from all sectors of the society — not just business, not just government, but from everywhere.

Bruce Katz, the director of Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program, discussed some of the steps that need to be taken to remake an economy that has been thrown completely out of whack by frantic, debt-driven consumption, speculative bubbles, exotic financial instruments, and so on.

A new, saner, more sustainable economy will have to be more export-oriented, powered by cleaner fuels, bolstered by innovation that comes from a renewed focus on research and development, and committed to delivering a better-educated, more highly skilled work force.

Mr. Katz believes this is doable, but by no means easy. The nation’s infrastructure, he said, will have to “shift from 20th-century models of transport and energy transmission to rapid bus, ubiquitous broadband, congestion pricing, smart grid, high-speed rail and intelligent transport.”

New ways of financing such transformative changes will have to be developed, linking public and private capital, preferably through the creation of a national infrastructure bank, among other things. The nation’s political leaders and the public at large will have to grasp the difference between wasteful spending and crucial investments in the future.

It’s time for serious people to step forward and help lead on these critically important issues. Time is short.

Howie P.S.: Is this another example of "the fierce urgency of now"? Or is it the "decline and fall" of another empire?

Naomi Klein: "Copenhagen: Seattle Grows Up" (Updated)

,
UPDATE: More Naomi Klein: "Climate Rage--The only way to stop global warming is for rich nations to pay for the damage they've done - or face the consequences" (Rolling Stone).

Naomi Klein (The Nation):

The other day I received a pre-publication copy of The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle, by David Solnit and Rebecca Solnit. It's set to come out ten years after a historic coalition of activists shut down the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, the spark that ignited a global anticorporate movement.

The book is a fascinating account of what really happened in Seattle, but when I spoke to David Solnit, the direct-action guru who helped engineer the shutdown, I found him less interested in reminiscing about 1999 than in talking about the upcoming United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen and the "climate justice" actions he is helping to organize across the United States on November 30. "This is definitely a Seattle-type moment," Solnit told me. "People are ready to throw down."

There is certainly a Seattle quality to the Copenhagen mobilization: the huge range of groups that will be there; the diverse tactics that will be on display; and the developing-country governments ready to bring activist demands into the summit. But Copenhagen is not merely a Seattle do-over. It feels, instead, as though the progressive tectonic plates are shifting, creating a movement that builds on the strengths of an earlier era but also learns from its mistakes.

The big criticism of the movement the media insisted on calling "antiglobalization" was always that it had a laundry list of grievances and few concrete alternatives. The movement converging on Copenhagen, in contrast, is about a single issue--climate change--but it weaves a coherent narrative about its cause, and its cures, that incorporates virtually every issue on the planet. In this narrative, our climate is changing not simply because of particular polluting practices but because of the underlying logic of capitalism, which values short-term profit and perpetual growth above all else. Our governments would have us believe that the same logic can now be harnessed to solve the climate crisis--by creating a tradable commodity called "carbon" and by transforming forests and farmland into "sinks" that will supposedly offset our runaway emissions.

Climate-justice activists in Copenhagen will argue that, far from solving the climate crisis, carbon-trading represents an unprecedented privatization of the atmosphere, and that offsets and sinks threaten to become a resource grab of colonial proportions. Not only will these "market-based solutions" fail to solve the climate crisis, but this failure will dramatically deepen poverty and inequality, because the poorest and most vulnerable people are the primary victims of climate change--as well as the primary guinea pigs for these emissions-trading schemes.

But activists in Copenhagen won't simply say no to all this. They will aggressively advance solutions that simultaneously reduce emissions and narrow inequality. Unlike at previous summits, where alternatives seemed like an afterthought, in Copenhagen the alternatives will take center stage. For instance, the direct-action coalition Climate Justice Action has called on activists to storm the conference center on December 16. Many will do this as part of the "bike bloc," riding together on an as yet unrevealed "irresistible new machine of resistance" made up of hundreds of old bicycles. The goal of the action is not to shut down the summit, Seattle-style, but to open it up, transforming it into "a space to talk about our agenda, an agenda from below, an agenda of climate justice, of real solutions against their false ones.... This day will be ours."

Some of the solutions on offer from the activist camp are the same ones the global justice movement has been championing for years: local, sustainable agriculture; smaller, decentralized power projects; respect for indigenous land rights; leaving fossil fuels in the ground; loosening protections on green technology; and paying for these transformations by taxing financial transactions and canceling foreign debts. Some solutions are new, like the mounting demand that rich countries pay "climate debt" reparations to the poor. These are tall orders, but we have all just seen the kind of resources our governments can marshal when it comes to saving the elites. As one pre-Copenhagen slogan puts it: "If the climate were a bank, it would have been saved"--not abandoned to the brutality of the market.

In addition to the coherent narrative and the focus on alternatives, there are plenty of other changes too: a more thoughtful approach to direct action, one that recognizes the urgency to do more than just talk but is determined not to play into the tired scripts of cops-versus-protesters. "Our action is one of civil disobedience," say the organizers of the December 16 action. "We will overcome any physical barriers that stand in our way--but we will not respond with violence if the police [try] to escalate the situation." (That said, there is no way the two-week summit will not include a few running battles between cops and kids in black; this is Europe, after all.)

A decade ago, in an op-ed in the New York Times published after Seattle was shut down, I wrote that a new movement advocating a radically different form of globalization "just had its coming-out party." What will be the significance of Copenhagen? I put that question to John Jordan, whose prediction of what eventually happened in Seattle I quoted in my book No Logo. He replied: "If Seattle was the movement of movements' coming-out party, then maybe Copenhagen will be a celebration of our coming of age."

He cautions, however, that growing up doesn't mean playing it safe, eschewing civil disobedience in favor of staid meetings. "I hope we have grown up to become much more disobedient," Jordan said, "because life on this world of ours may well be terminated because of too many acts of obedience."

Howie P.S.: Naomi Klein talks about the current economic crisis
with two other authors @ the 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival, video (10:14).

"Obama Cuba move marks big change in policy" (video)

MSNBC-Morning Joe, video (11:33).

Howie P.S.: Chuck Todd and Eugene Robinson (minus Joe) discuss the style and substance of the Cuba issue before moving on to the state of the economy. Regarding Cuba, I think this is an example of Obama's thoughtful (cautious), incremental theory of change.

Barack Obama