The Wisdom of the Deficit Owl.

“What fiscal crisis? The great unasked question in this summer of sound-and-fury is ‘why?’ The United States has many problems at the moment: a high-and-stubborn unemployment rate, a foreclosure catastrophe, a slowing economy that has not recovered and will not recover…and the ongoing challenges of infrastructure, energy and climate change. Fiscal crisis? The entire thing is a figment, made up of wise-men’s warnings repeated endlessly.“

James K. Galbraith, who warned of the deficit witchhunt a year ago, weighs in on the debt ceiling endgame currently playing out in Washington, as well as Obama’s role in it:

“[W]hat do we have, from a President who claims to be a member of the Democratic Party? First, there is the claim that we face a fiscal crisis, which is a big untruth. Second, a concession in principle that we should deal with that crisis by enacting massive cuts in public services on one hand and in vital social insurance programs on the other. This is an arbitrary cruelty. Third, a refusal to stand on the strong ground of the Constitution, against those whose open and declared purpose is tear that document and the public credit to shreds.“

Yep, that’s about it. When it became clear that Obama had fully inhaled voodoo economics and was once again going to give away the store in these needless negotiations, I said on Twitter: ““I’ll take [Boehner/Cantor/Lannisters/Littlefinger] at his word!” I just realized: Obama negotiates like Ned Stark. Now, winter is coming.“

But, really, that gives this president too much credit. He’s not a nobly deluded sap. He’s getting exactly what he wants: a Third Way-approved Grand Bargain that takes money out of a sputtering economy and needlessly slashes our social insurance system, all in response to a problem that is basically imaginary.

But, of course, the chatterers and the Serious People™ will applaud this bargain as being wise, centrist, and independent no matter what damage it causes — hey, only Nixon can go to China! And all the while the economy and labor market will continue to tank. What a fucking fiasco. [Rorschcat via here.]

There’s Money in the Memory Hole.

“The contrast in fortunes between those on top of the economic heap and those buried in the rubble couldn’t be starker. The 10 biggest banks now control more than three-quarters of the country’s banking assets. Profits have bounced back, while compensation at publicly traded Wall Street firms hit a record $135 billion in 2010. Meanwhile, more than 24 million Americans are out of work or can’t find full-time work, and nearly $9 trillion in household wealth has vanished. There seems to be no correlation between who drove the crisis and who is paying the price.“

As Bank of America pays a pittance to other banks for its malfeasance, former chair of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Phil Angelides looks into how the winners are now rewriting the history of the 2008 financial collapse. “So, how do you revise the historical narrative when the evidence of what led to economic catastrophe is so overwhelming and the events at issue so recent? You and your political allies just do it. And you bet on the old axiom that a lie is halfway around the world before the truth can tie its shoes.” Attorney General Schneiderman, our nation turns its lowly eyes to you.

Sixty hours, and what do you get?

“Just counting work that’s on the books (never mind those 11 p.m. emails), Americans now put in an average of 122 more hours per year than Brits, and 378 hours (nearly 10 weeks!) more than Germans. The differential isn’t solely accounted for by longer hours, of course–worldwide, almost everyone except us has…a right to weekends off, paid vacation time, and paid maternity leave. (The only other countries that don’t mandate paid time off for new moms are Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Samoa, and Swaziland. U-S…A?)“

It used to be a central tenet of progressivism was working to shorten the work week. Now, even unemployment-soothing innovations like workshare go nowhere, and, as Mother Jones‘s Monika Bauerlein and Claira Jeffrey explain (with handy graphs), we are all victims of the Great Speedup…but not the beneficiaries. “For 90 percent of American workers, incomes have stagnated or fallen for the past three decades, while they’ve ballooned at the top, and exploded at the very tippy-top…In other words, all that extra work you’ve taken on — the late nights, the skipped lunch hours, the missed soccer games — paid off. For them.”

Not Our New Bicycle After All.

“‘This was maybe America’s last chance to fight back against the greed of the Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats, to generate some serious discussion about public interest and common good that sustains any democratic experiment,’ West laments…’I thought Barack Obama could have provided some way out. But he lacks backbone.“

In a discussion with TruthOut‘s Chris Hedges, Cornel West — who admittedly is nursing some rather petty personal grievances here as well — lays hard into the DLC-centrism of President Obama. “I have to take some responsibility,’ he admits of his support for Obama as we sit in his book-lined office. ‘I could have been reading into it more than was there.‘” You and me both, brother. You and me both.

Too Big to Jail.

“Lloyd Blankfein went to Washington and testified under oath that Goldman Sachs didn’t make a massive short bet and didn’t bet against its clients. The Levin report proves that Goldman spent the whole summer of 2007 riding a ‘big short’ and took a multibillion-dollar bet against its clients, a bet that incidentally made them enormous profits. Are we all missing something? Is there some different and higher standard of triple- and quadruple-lying that applies to bank CEOs but not to baseball players?“

In Rolling Stone, a simile-happy Matt Taibbi reiterates the open-and-shut fraud and perjury case against Goldman Sachs that was laid out last month in the Levin report — a case that, thus far, nobody in a prosecutorial position seems to be taking up. Too busy going after Wikileaks, I guess.

“To recap: Goldman, to get $1.2 billion in crap off its books, dumps a huge lot of deadly mortgages on its clients, lies about where that crap came from and claims it believes in the product even as it’s betting $2 billion against it. When its victims try to run out of the burning house, Goldman stands in the doorway, blasts them all with gasoline before they can escape, and then has the balls to send a bill overcharging its victims for the pleasure of getting fried.”

The Lost Generation.

“The outlook isn’t sunshine and roses: Rick Raymond, of the College Parents of America, notes, ‘Graduates are not the first to be hired when the job markets begins to improve. We’re seeing shocking numbers of people with undergraduates degrees who can’t get work.'”

According to a new poll conducted by Twentysomething, a whopping 85% of college grads are moving back in with their parents after graduation. They’re also facing the worst job market on record and holding a record amount of college debt.

In other words, it’s crisis time. Should we ramp up government spending and fashion 21st-century versions of jobs programs like the CCC, WPA, and NYA? Or should we cut public sector jobs and just concentrate on lowering corporate taxes? hey, Win the Future™ and all that.

The Priorities of the Serious People™.

“This chart puts the class war in simple, visual terms. On the left you have the ‘shared sacrifices’ and ‘painful cuts’ that the Republicans claim we must make to get our fiscal house in order. On the right, you can plainly see WHY these cuts are ‘necessary.’” Via JackDean and several other sites, This is What Class War Looks Like.

But, hey, Win the Future and all that.

The End of the Beginning.

“‘We want to unite, we want to fight, we want to get back workers’ rights…The people united will never be defeated.’ ‘This is not the end. This is the beginning of phase two,’ said Sen. Fred Risser (D-Madison).” With Governor Scott Walker and the Republicans having forced their union-busting budget through, the Wisconsin 14 return to Madison to a heroes’ welcome. “‘They won the battle; we’re going to win the war,’ said Sen. Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay).” The next phase of the battle: the April 5th Supreme Court election. (Pic via Crooked Timber.)

An Apple a Day Isn’t Enough.

“In 1970, in New York City, a newly minted teacher at a public school earned about $2,000 less in salary than a starting lawyer at a prominent law firm. These days the lawyer takes home, including bonus, $115,000 more than the teacher, the McKinsey study found.“

In related news, Nick Kristof offers a modest proposal for fixing education in America: pay teachers more. “When governors mock teachers as lazy, avaricious incompetents, they demean the profession and make it harder to attract the best and brightest. We should be elevating teachers, not throwing darts at them.“

If it ain’t broke…

“You can practically break a search engine if you start looking around the Internet for those words. They’re used repeatedly with reference to our local, state and federal governments, almost always to make a case for slashing programs — and, lately, to go after public-employee unions. The phrase is designed to create a sense of crisis that justifies rapid and radical actions before citizens have a chance to debate the consequences. Just one problem: We’re not broke.“

Swimming upstream against a tide of misleading soundbites and outright idiocy — from Republicans and Democrats both — E.J. Dionne tries to explain the obvious: America has plenty of money right now. “A phony metaphor is being used to hijack the nation’s political conversation and skew public policies to benefit better-off Americans and hurt most others.”