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By letsgetitdone
FDL

By Allen W. Smith
Dissident Voice

In December, the Obama deficit-reduction commission will make recommendations for budget cuts that will then be voted on, with an up or down vote, by the lame-duck Congress. Already, there is much speculation that Social Security will be one of the big targets. The rationale for cutting Social Security seems to be that, during such difficult economic times, everything should be a candidate for the chopping block, and that the public should support such cuts out of a sense of patriotism.

The Daily Beast

Economists Manifesto

Does the G-20 Show the Shape of things to Come -- austerity and extreme police actions?

By Paul Jay
Real News Network

With all the public attention during G20 on the 1000 arrests and such, something critical was overlooked. That's the paradox the assembled heads of governments created for ending the global economic crisis.

The G20 leaders recognize that "demand" needs to grow. That means people must have the means to buy stuff. Do a search in the G20 Toronto Summit Declaration and fourteen times you'll find a reference to boosting or increasing "demand".

By Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge

As we close on another week replete with ugly economic data and the usual bizarro counterintuitive market, here is a summary of the 50 most underreported facts about the state of the US economy, courtesy of the Coto report [1]. After reading these it almost makes sense that the market has become completely desensitized to the sad reality now pervasive in this country. Readers are encouraged to add their own observations to this list. Surely if the list is doubled, the market will go up to 72,000 instead of just 36,000.

By Ezra Klein
Washington Post

Financial reform has passed. The sprawling legislation is meant to be an air bag protecting us from the next major crash, which of course raises the question: Will it work?

"We would have loved to have something like this for Lehman Brothers," said Hank Paulson, who served as Treasury secretary when the financial system melted down in 2008. "There's no doubt about it."

Debt commission leaders paint gloomy picture

By GLEN JOHNSON
Associated Press

BOSTON – The heads of President Barack Obama's national debt commission painted a gloomy picture Sunday as the United States struggles to get its spending under control.

Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles told a meeting of the National Governors Association that everything needs to be considered — including curtailing popular tax breaks, such as the home mortgage deduction, and instituting a financial trigger mechanism for gaining Medicare coverage.

Agence France Presse

The International Monetary Fund on Thursday urged the United States to put its budget deficit "on a sustainable path," that would not hurt the "modest" economic recovery.

"The central challenge is to develop a credible fiscal strategy to ensure that public debt is put -- and is seen to be put -- on a sustainable path without putting the recovery in jeopardy," the IMF said in a report.

Road to Perdition

By Jim Willie
Financial Sense

By Paul B. Farrell
MarketWatch

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Financial reform is D.O.A. Window dressing. What's next? An implosion? Yes, a depression. Dead ahead.

Scott Adams warned of this trend in "Dilbert & the Way of the Weasel." Forget competition. No, capitalism breeds monopolies, it's a "financial system designed to transfer money from lesser weasels to greater weasels. Someday, if everything goes according to plan, one supreme weasel will have all the money and everyone else will be his or her domestic servant."

By JACKIE CALMES
NY Times

WASHINGTON — Not since the first years of the Clinton administration has a White House had to debate whether to give precedence to stimulating the economy or reducing budget deficits. Now, as the recovery shows signs of faltering, that debate is playing out within the Obama administration, with a twist compared to the 1990s: the economic and political teams have switched sides.

By Ryan Grimm
Huffington Post

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 Terri Schiavo era and his congressional majorities paid the price.

But is his U.S. Chamber of Commerce good for business?

By James Verini
Washington Monthly

By MATT BAI
NY Times

WASHINGTON — In case you’ve been out of the country for the last 25 years and were afraid that nothing had stayed the same, here are some current events you may find comforting: Bon Jovi is touring. The Russians are spying on suburbia. And Democrats in Washington are squabbling over the direction of their party.

$166 billion jump spurs concerns over policy

By Stephen Dinan
Washington Times

The nation's debt leapt $166 billion in a single day last week, the third-largest increase in U.S. history, and it comes at a time when Congress is balking over higher spending and debt has become a key policy battleground.

In this RSA Animate, radical social theorist David Harvey asks if it is time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that really could be responsible, just, and humane?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0

Below are three articles discussing a forecast of Robert Prechter that the New York Stock Exchange will drop from its current level of 10,000 to 1,000.

Prechter says Dow could fall to 1,000

By John Parry
The Guardian

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Longtime technical analyst Robert Prechter said on Tuesday he expects that as the U.S. economy sinks into a deflationary depression stocks will plunge.

By MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Congressional budget experts say a climate and energy bill now stalled in the Senate would reduce the federal deficit by about $19 billion over the next decade.