Elizabeth Warren...

[Stavros]

Economist Brad Delong has a more detailed explanation of how this could work.

Bluegrasscat: most of what Delong says Robert Reich says in his article, only to turn it on its head in a paragraph and claim it wouldn't work because savers would rather choose the private sector's 7% than Federal Bonds at 1%. He does not address the fundamental problem of heavy industry and light industry jobs -they do exist, but not at the same scale as the 1950s and 1960s and that is where a substantial proportion of blue collar workers were based. A lot of jobs at one time were not temporary, in the UK generations of men 'went down the pit'; the Mills of Lancashire gave jobs to generations; not temporary in a long time frame, but then on that scale all life is temporary.

I think part of the problem with late capitalism, is that there is a distinction between being prosperous and being rich: even within a 'rich' country like the USA, or indeed the UK, it is possible to live a prosperous and comfortable life in remote areas, on substantially less than it costs in the London area where everything is so much more expensive. Nationally, parts of the UK and the USA have always been poor relative to other parts of the country, but when taken internationally, it means that it is unrealistic for Greece to aspire to have an economy as diverse and wealthy as Germany because it doesn't have the components that give Germany that edge, and never will. Greece is a small country with modest natural resources, it can be prosperous, and individual Greeks have fabulous riches based on shipping rather than anything 'Made in Greece'. Greece will probably never be as rich as the Netherlands, which is prosperous rather tha rich anyway. I sometimes think the UK should make a similar adjustment to reality -indeed this may be what is happening now- we are not a Major Power and haven't been since the 1960s; our economic aspirations should be more modest and prices be adjusted to reflect this. I think we should give up our seat on the Security Council to India, and so on.

Is this current depression going to be seen 50 years from now as the moment when real power shifted to Asia? Its been discussed for decades, I wonder if it is now finally happening. The great unknown, is what happens when there is a recession in China. They can't grow year in year out for ever.

[Ben]

Published on Saturday, October 1, 2011 by Politico.com Wall Street Readies Assault on Elizabeth Warren


by Robin Bravender & Josh Boak

Wall Street is quietly watching Elizabeth Warren, getting ready to pounce.
The Democratic primary in Massachusetts is still almost a year away, but the expected race between the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Republican Sen. Scott Brown is already a hot topic in the financial services universe.
“The potential Brown-Warren matchup is on everyone’s radar,” said Scott Talbot, chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable.
On the Washington cocktail circuit, banking lobbyists are chattering about how to take Warren on. They fear that a massive, public money assault might be more of a gift than a challenge for the Harvard Law School professor who built her reputation taking on big banks.
The powerful lobby is in wait-and-see mode, weighing its options as it plots a strategy designed to hit hard, but smart.
“You don’t want to make her sympathetic by landing on her with both feet,” said a financial services industry insider and former GOP Senate aide.
All of this could be welcome news for Brown. Even though he’s the fourth-largest recipient of banking, insurance and real estate industry donations in Congress, not everyone in the banking world is enamored with him, since he cast votes to reduce debit card swipe fees and approve financial reforms.
“Better a friend with whom you sometimes disagree but can always talk to, than an antagonist who is always coming at you, guns blazing,” said the former Hill aide.
And the industry seems willing to forgive Brown.
“Although many people associated with the financial industry disagreed with his vote on Dodd Frank, most feel that Sen. Brown’s involvement in the bill was balanced, thoughtful and driven by policy considerations rather than politics,” said Sam Geduldig, a financial services lobbyist at Clark, Lytle & Geduldig. “I believe the same people view Professor Warren’s contribution to the debate to be less so.”
Support for Brown also comes with a grudging respect for Warren’s ability to electrify the left, making her a threat to the GOP’s grander plans to take the Senate next year.
Warren’s backers see the race as a blueprint for Democrats campaigning against moneyed interests. Trouble in the Bay State could spell trouble countrywide.
“A Warren victory in Massachusetts would say that a candidate can talk boldly about holding Wall Street accountable and the rich paying their fair share,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “That will have ripple effects across the nation in showing Democrats how to talk about Wall Street and still have political success.”
Warren is showing she can appeal to the grass roots out of the gate, picking up $376,848 in donations so far by more than 18,000 people through the Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s website, which the group said is a record level of support for a Senate race more than a year away. She hasn’t had to file her campaign’s full fundraising numbers to the Federal Election Commission, yet.
Democratic strategists are prepared to use Brown’s ties to the industry against him, particularly after he was dubbed one of “Wall Street’s Favorite Congressmen” last year by Forbes. Whether or not he raises another dime from Wall Street is “sort of irrelevant,” said a Democratic campaign strategist. “The die has been cast.”
When asked about Wall Street’s role in the contest, campaign spokesman Kyle Sullivan said Warren “is working hard to build a strong grass-roots campaign.”

Banking industry observers are concerned about protecting their image, regardless of who wins the contest next year.

“You have to be careful. She has powerful friends in this administration. She was almost part of this administration,” said a financial services lobbyist. If President Barack Obama wins reelection — and even if he doesn’t – the industry must still deal with a new bureaucracy that she helped create and is full of her friends, the lobbyist added.

Obama consigliore David Axelrod essentially offered a tacit endorsement for Warren, even though five other Democrats are competing against her in the primary.

“Elizabeth Warren, who I expect will be the nominee, [is] someone I know well, and there probably isn’t a person in America who’s fought harder for the embattled middle class in this country than she has,” Axelrod recently told the Boston Herald.

With Warren’s momentum, bank lobbyists are overcoming their unease about Brown, who has straddled a fine line between appealing to populists and his donor base after winning a long-shot race last year to succeed the late Ted Kennedy.

So far in the 2012 election cycle, Brown has received $776,672 from the insurance and real estate industries, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Brown trails only Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), and House Speaker John Boehner.

Among Brown’s top 20 donors so far this cycle: PACs and employees associated with Boston-based FMR Corp., Goldman Sachs, Bank of New York Mellon, Bain Capital, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and the hedge fund Paulson & Co., according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Thanks in large part to the deep pockets of his backers, the Massachusetts Republican had an imposing $9.6 million in cash-on-hand as of the June 30 filing deadline.

But the Brown campaign seized on his Dodd-Frank and swipe fee votes as evidence that he shouldn’t be identified with Wall Street interests.

“His independent voting record proves that he is a bipartisan problem solver who decides issues on the merits,” said spokesman Colin Reed.

Banks could also target their money to outside political groups.

“My guess is that if they want to play in that way, they will do it through another party,” like the super PACs American Crossroads or Americans for Prosperity, said Jennifer Duffy, a senior editor at The Cook Political Report. “There won’t be a financial services campaign fund to defeat Elizabeth Warren; it’ll be much more subtle than that.”

The financial services lobby has a series of competing and conflicting interests on Capitol Hill, such that support for Brown wavers among the different interests. Brown disappointed some last year by casting a decisive “yea” for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, yet his backing was contingent on creating exemptions so that banks can still engage in a degree of proprietary trading.

Industry lobbyists are still reeling after the swipe fee vote this summer, and say that while they’re still attending fundraisers for the Massachusetts Republican, their trust in him has faltered.

“Scott Brown dealt us a tough, huge disappointment, a blow on this interchange vote,” said the financial services industry lobbyist. “That was not something that small or large financial institutions will readily forget.”

One financial services industry executive said that propelling the GOP to the Senate majority would be the pivotal justification for donating to Brown. Contributions to Brown might depend on outreach from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

“There are other candidates we’ll support in other states; that’s where the first dollars are going to go,” the executive said. “I think the last dollars will be going to Massachusetts.”
© 2011 Politico.com

[Ben]

Nobel Prize winning economist Joe Stiglitz agrees w/ Liz Warren --

[Ben]

[Ben]

Elizabeth Warren Is Scary!

by Ruth Conniff

The Republicans are trying to sink Elizabeth Warren by linking her to the Occupy Wall Street protests. But the nation's top financial reformer is not backing down.
The furor started when Warren told the Daily Beast, “I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do. I support what they do.
The Republicans jumped all over what they view as an exciting new weapon in the contentious Massachusetts Senate race.
Check out the Massachusetts Republican Party's ad, which uses protest images and quotes taken out of context to imply that Elizabeth Warren advocates actual, physical violence.
Even among negative campaign ads, this is a new low.
You knew Wall Street and the Republicans were afraid of Warren and her idea for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. But you haven't seen the depths of their nightmarish fears until you've listened to the scary music and seen the video.
After plenty of shots of pierced protesters denouncing capitalism and getting arrested, the video cuts to an interview clip of the owlish Warren saying, "I have thrown rocks at people I think are in the wrong."
Text of a Warren quote appears next: "My first choice is a strong consumer agency . . . My second choice is no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth on the floor." (The last part of the quote appears, helpfully, in bright red.)
Who is buying this stuff?
The Republicans hope that the language they use in their ad about protesters "bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies" and "redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience, and, in some instances, violence" will alienate middle-class voters in Massachusetts.
But here is the problem: The people they hope to alienate tend to agree with the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
Like Harvard law professor, finance expert, and former Republican Elizabeth Warren, they are more concerned about the actual damage Wall Street and its enablers in the government are doing to the economy and the working people of this country than some silly 1960s bugaboo about radical Marxist hippies.
In fact, some of the people who are most open to Warren's anti-Wall Street message are the Massachusetts voters who elected her opponent, Senator Scott Brown.
As the Center for Media and Democracy's Mary Bottari pointed out in a blog back in January 2010, the Brown campaign "successfully capitalized on the bailout blues" by making an issue of Wall Street in its own ads about "bailouts, broken promises, and . . . backroom deals."
Brown's opponent, Martha Coakley, shot back with her own anti-Wall Street ads, but it was too late. Brown claimed the issue first, and as polls showed voter anger at Wall Street was high, he surged ahead.
"Democrats ignore this message at their peril," Bottari wrote at the time. "They must pass meaningful financial services reform, reform that stirs up a Wall Street backlash, that truly puts an end to the high-stakes casino and prevents the next crash."
As Occupy Wall Street shows, this issue has only gotten hotter.
While Obama and the national Democratic Party can hardly claim to be true opponents of Wall Street, Elizabeth Warren is the real deal. And the Republicans' scary ads have not intimidated her one bit.
I've been protesting Wall Street for a very long time," she said in response to the controversy "I understand the frustration, I share their frustration with what's going on, that right now Washington is wired to work well for those on Wall Street who can hire lobbyists and lawyers and it doesn't work very well for the rest of us. That's what I'm talking about, that's why I'm running for office."
When I interviewed Warren back in 2010, she put it this way, "The banks lobbied Washington so they could write the rules that got us into this crisis. They then lobbied Washington to get the money to bail them out. And now they are lobbying Washington to write the rules so they can get us into the next crisis."
At the time, she had been drafted by the Obama Administration to be the government's watchdog on the massive $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. One Wall Street lobbyist denounced her Congressional Oversight Panel because it entertained outlandish ideas like nationalizing or liquidating the banks. The hatred of her by Wall Street and the politicians it paid for was so hot, Obama couldn't get her appointed to head her own brainchild agency--Consumer Financial Protection.
But that didn't make her back down. "Every single day that goes by I read another news report about . . . how large financial institutions have figured out ways to lie to people, to squeeze them for money, to make profits by tricking and trapping people rather than by offering a better product," she told me.
Bad feeling toward the banks was not going to die down, she said then.
"My view is that middle class America is acutely aware of how bad this economy is, and it is going to demand changes. I don't think politicians can afford to be complacent."
Those politicians would do well to listen to Warren--Republicans and Democrats alike.

[Ben]

Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren Want to Shut People Up:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...ple-up/251693/

[Ben]

Brown v. Warren: Automatons v. Leaders

Corporate execs fear elected officials who have inconvenient morals or brains–like Elizabeth Warren:

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/28/brow...ons_v_leaders/

[Ben]

Starts at the 34 sec mark:

[Ben]

Elizabeth Warren Schools CNBC Talking Heads!

[Willie Escalade]

She's one of my heroes; doesn't take shit from anyone and calmly rebukes all. If she were to run for president...or be Hillary's running mate...uh, oh!

Two to go...