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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 Mary Newsom
Citiwire.net

As local politicians across the country get scorched by voter anger over recession-induced budget cuts — laying off teachers, closing schools and libraries and slashing services — perhaps they’ll be more receptive than usual to some powerful and surprising tax revenue numbers.

So what follows is about fiscal prudence as much as it is about smart city planning.

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.

Editorial
New York Times

No industry enjoys the array of tax breaks and subsidies that the oil and gas industry does. No industry needs them less. For all the damage it has caused, the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may provide the political momentum to end this special treatment.

As the tax rates on the wealthiest declined, the wealth divide increased -- the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer and the middle class shrinking. This is not a coincidence but cause and effect.

click to enlarge

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

By James Verini
Washington Monthly

By Kevin Zeese
Huffington Post

The United States can be fiscally responsible and meet the urgent necessities of the American people by stopping corporate welfare to concentrated industries, taxing the wealthiest that profited from three decades of tax breaks and reigning in weapons and war spending. Expanding Medicare to cover all Americans will save money and improve health. And, Social Security is essential to most Americans and is a contract between the government and the people that should not be broken.

By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI

When the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform set off the worst oil spill at sea in American history, it was flying the flag of the Marshall Islands. Registering there allowed the rig’s owner to significantly reduce its American taxes.

The owner, Transocean, moved its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Cayman Islands in 1999 and then to Switzerland in 2008, maneuvers that also helped it avoid taxes.

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER
AP

WASHINGTON – The economic rebound is stalling.

A raft of weak new reports Thursday provided the strongest evidence yet that the recovery is slowing and added to concerns that the nation could be on its way back into recession.

Most notable was a rise in the number of people filing for unemployment benefits for the first time. The four-week average for jobless claims now stands at its highest point since March.

Testimony of Kevin B. Zeese, Executive Director, Prosperity Agenda
June 30, 2010

By Silla Brush and Jordan Fabian
The Hill

Democrats were forced to rewrite part of the Wall Street overhaul bill on Tuesday after objections from Republicans threatened to scuttle the legislation.

Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-Mass.) announcement that he would vote against the bill because of a provision imposing up to $19 billion in fees on large financial firms led to lawmakers reconvening a House-Senate conference on the legislation.

Bank Fee Is Eliminated in Financial Bill
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
New York Times

WASHINGTON — Congressional negotiators briefly reopened the conference proceedings on a sweeping financial regulatory bill on Tuesday after Senate Republicans who had supported an earlier version of the measure threatened to block final approval unless Democrats removed a proposed tax on big banks and hedge funds.
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Luke Sharrett/The New York Times

By JIM KUHNHENN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Top Democratic House and Senate negotiators who worked out a deal on a sweeping overhaul of financial regulations regrouped Tuesday to eliminate a $19 billion fee on banks that had threatened to derail the legislation.

Eager to salvage one of President Barack Obama's legislative priorities, lawmakers replaced the bank fee with budget adjustments involving the $700 billion bank bailout and increased premiums on bank deposit insurance.

By Jeff Madrick
New Deal 2.0

By Stephen Long
Australian Broadcasting Company

Commitments by world leaders from the G20 group of major economies to cut spending will undermine economic growth and risk scuppering recovery, experts say.

Countries have agreed at least to halve their budget deficits within three years and to stabilise the level of government debt by 2016.

But the communique from their meeting in Toronto leaves nations free to do so in their own way and at their own pace.

By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times

How else can we interpret the G20 communiqué that includes not even a measly tax on financial transactions?

By Naomi Klein
Globe and Mail

My city feels like a crime scene and the criminals are all melting into the night, fleeing the scene. No, I’m not talking about the kids in black who smashed windows and burned cop cars on Saturday.