Midweek Reading

Daily case increase more than doubles in Milwaukee County, fewer hospital beds in use for COVID cases statewide

Banks Made $10 Billion In Fees Processing PPP Loans

Steve Schmidt Says It Out Loud: These Are Just Campaign Rallies

Republicans Suppress Their Own Voters

Some Sheriffs, Police Question Evers’ Shutdown

The World’s Bad Actors See Coronavirus as an Opportunity

How many workers are employed in sectors directly affected by COVID-19 shutdowns, where do they work, and how much do they earn?

A disturbing new study suggests Sean Hannity helped spread the coronavirus

Sunday Reading

CEO Pay Rewards What Was Going To Happen Anyway
Refusing To Play Dead For Big Banks, Warren Gives Fellow Senators 17 Chances To Put Consumers First
Scott Walker Does Not Respect Democracy
Stock Buybacks Are Soaring To Record Levels - And Cory Booker Wants To Stop It
Neoliberalism: How Seeing Markets As Perfect Turned Into An Ideology Justifying Crony Capitalism
Republicans Say They Favor Free Markets. Yeah, Right.
Across 20,000 Pages, The Pursuit Of Foxconn Unfolds
Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate Screnock Says He Wouldn't Hear Cases About Legislative Maps
Foxconn Deal Gets Even Worse
Hundreds Of Canadian Doctors Demand Lower Salaries (Yes, Lower.)
Larry Summers Makes The Case For A Governmental Bailout Of The American Heartland
America Is Giving Away The $30 Billion Medical Marijuana Industry
Why Is California Rebuilding In Fire Country? Because You're Paying For It

Weekend Reading

GOP Lawmakers To Write Blank Check To Hire Lawyers
Donald Trumps Economic Inheritance In 7 Charts
Janet Yellen Debunks Trump's Case For Killing Dodd-Frank
The Chair Of The Federal Reserve Just Fact-Shamed Donald Trump
Banks Are Lending A Ton, Despite Trump's Claims
Walker Proposes Eliminating Labor, Judicial, Education Oversight Commissions
Four Milwaukee County Retirees Receive Pension Backdrops Topping $1 Million
A Short History Of The Trump Family
Updated Figures Show Manufacturing & Agricultural Tax Credit Is Inefficient, Costly
Pharma's Inflated Claim About Drug R&D Costs
How Drug Companies Inflate Research Costs To Justify Absurd Profits
Walker Proposes New Welfare Work Requirements In Wisconsin
Wilbur Ross And The Era Of Billionaire Rule
The Illusions Driving Up Asset Prices
How Statistics Lost Their Power - And Why We Should Fear What Comes Next

Weekend Reading

Bernanke Was Clear, Fed's Crystal Ball Is Cloudy
The Strange Life Of John Menard
Citigroup Agrees To Pay $968 To Fannie Mae
EU Suspects 13 Banks Of Collusion In Swaps Trading
Labor's Declining Share Is An International Problem

The IRS Scandal Unwinds
America Doesn't Have The Richest Middle Class...We're 27th

10 Brilliant Pieces Of Bike Infrastructure
Why We Trail America In Jobs Growth

Ratings Robbers

The Colbert Report
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Weekend Reading

America's Staggering Defense Budget, In Charts
Another Dead End For Wisconsin Families
GOP's Motto: 'Grab All You Can'
Invest In MPS, Not Voucher & Charter
Michelle Rhee's Failing Report Card
Rising Cost Of State's Outside Contractors
Scott Walker: Liar
Social Security/Medicare VS Corporate Welfare
What's Inside America's Banks
Wisconsin's Rising Wealth Gap

Why Aren't We Prosecuting Wall Street?

h/t Crooks & Liars

Goldman Sachs Rules The World

The One Percent Solution

"In the fourth quarter, profits at American businesses were up an astounding 29.2 percent, the fastest growth in more than 60 years...The median pay for top executives at 200 major companies was $9.6 million last year. That was a 12 percent increase over 2009." writes Daniel Costello. When was the last time a public or private sector everyday worker saw a 12 percent yearly raise? The national average wage in the U.S. in 2009 was approximately $41,000. Median weekly earnings were $747. The average U.S. worker makes .004 percent of what the typical executive makes.

Gretchen Morgenson revealed the large disparity between American CEOs compensation and their non-American counterparts. Statoil, a two-thirds Norwegian government-owned company has outperformed Exxon since 2001, when Statoil went public. Helge Lund, Statoil's CEO, made $1.8 million in 2010. Rex Tillerson, Exxon's CEO, received $21.7 million in 2010. The disparity is money that should be reinvested into the company or dispersed at dividends to shareholders. Maybe this is why some of our American companies are underperforming...too much money wrapped up in bloated executive pay, rather than bolstering the company.

The wealthiest Americans are plundering and pillaging the globe accumulating gratuitous amounts of money. As our infrastructure crumbles and the impoverished starve, the uber rich sharpen their skills at avoiding taxes and garnering more wealth.

"The top 1 percent has increased its share of total income to more than 20 percent today from about 10 percent in the 1960s," notes Nancy Folbre. The bottom 90 percent have been clobbered. The uber rich have crushed wages with the threat of outsourcing and have, thus, also been able to effectively redistribute the gains of their workers' labor into their own compensation. The company is more productive because the workers do more (productivity has been increasing), not because of decisions made by the CEO. Yet the CEO is claiming all the gains of the workers as his/her own.

We have heard the apologies and the revisions about the economic collapse. There is talk of onerous regulation. Republicans have continually whined about President Obama being mean to business.

Yet, those same banks that collapsed the world economy, as Jeff Madrick describes, "The six largest financial institutions in the U.S. now account for 55 percent of all banking assets." We're just continuing our march toward an even more extreme concentration of wealth. Republican laissez faire policies brought us a near-Depression. And, it seems, all we've learned is that spending must be cut and it's all the fault of public workers. Quite the switch-a-roo the Republicans have pulled here.

Tax the top 1 percent. This is nothing punitive. The 1-percent will still have more money than the other 99 percent. This is moral. It is only asking that they pay their fair share. The one percent solution - taxing the top 1 percent - is the most equitable, simple, effective way to solve any and all budget problems we face.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Yet another great example of the hypocrisy in our public discourse. We hear all the time about how inept government is, how spending is out of control, and how the market and operating "like a business" is the magical route to a world of happiness.

Harley-Davidson participated in $2.3 billion from the Fed. (Harley's many subsidies have been well-documented.) As the Journal Sentinel reported, "Area banks, Harley-Davidson took help from the Fed." This is typical of most anti-government mouthpieces. They belittle aid to the poor, to federal and state programs, and to pretty much anything that doesn't directly benefit their balance sheet. But, they simultaneously always encourage and have their hands out for government largess if it benefits them.

Not to pick on Harley, but it would be nice to hear some of these same corporations that get hand-outs actually acknowledging the important role our government plays in the market and economy. Maybe we could actually start having an adult discussion about this. The government plays a crucial role in the legal and financial operation of the country, and they also maintain the infrastructure that allows business to function.

Instead we get douchebags like Ron Johnson moaning that the government doesn't create jobs and that it should stay out of the market. Yet he forgets to mention the handouts and low-interest loans that allowed his own job and company to grow. And this is Wisconsin's newly elected Senator whom is going to lead us down the path to prosperity? He is going to usher in a new era of honesty and sound accounting? Still waiting for the day when we can discuss the equally important roles of the public and private sectors like adults.

For Further Reading:
Blackmailed Into Oblivion
Combined Reporting
Harley Subsidies
Rumbling For Dollars
The Subsidy Game As Corporate Strategy
To Deny Corporate Demands

All Things Economic

Poor Warren Buffet, he's upset that Obama wants to tax his ill-gotten gains.

Consumer debt - pushed by are easy-money, predatory lending, and our commercialized society - is out of control.

Dean Baker shows that the abilities of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and National Economic Council head Larry Summers to avoid a complete financial collapse really was not that extraordinary. No major country had a complete financial collapse.

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate and economics professor, thinks banks have failed at their basic societal mission.

Moral Hazard

From Felix Salmon, The banks are getting bigger.

Bank Bullies

Why doesn't any meaningful reform - that benefits most working Americans - ever happen in D.C.? Barry Ritholtz explains.

Banks & Bailouts

The New York Times reports As Biggest Banks Repay Bailout Money, U.S. Sees Profit. Matt Taibbi and Max Keiser offer some perspective on the Times somewhat fanciful narrative.

Retooling

Why can't the majority of our auto workers be retrained for producing green vehicles or other green technologies (solar, wind turbines, etc.), along with retooling the factories? The government could use stimulus money to establish a management team to retool the factories and workers for these new production possiblities (rather than just throwing money at Fiat and making the workers continue to experience paycuts and layoffs). Then after getting the new endeavors up and running, sell them off to the highest private bidders. This would be similar to what many have suggested we do with the banks (nationalization) to get them healthy again. We already have a defacto policy that does this, the problem is we (the taxpayers) have no control and only get to experience the losses rather than the upside.

Auto Asphyxia

Allowing the auto companies to slowly crumble (while bailing out financiers and banks) and their workers to be laid-off, or take substantial wage cuts, is having a devastating effect on communities countrywide, as predicted.

Financial Double-Standards

Another example of the double-standard our country and economic system has between labor and capital. The auto industry better beg, grovel, and whimper for the $28 billion they received. Wall Street can have their $5.7 trillion without stipulations, no questions asked. WTF?!

Let's not forget about our, what seems to be, never-ending $5 trillion war(s).

For Further Reading:
Class Warfare
Correction To The $70-Per-Hour Myth
Failure Bonuses
Foreign-owned: Yes. American-owned: No.
Republican War Against U.S. Workers

What About Us?

We have to bail out banks, we have to bail out insurers of bad bank bets, and on and on.

Why can't the "bailout" money be used to insure most Americans in a simple, straightforward manner? Couldn't we just insure pension and retirement plans (to cover loses), nationalize banks to get lending going again, and employee people with government programs to repair infrastructure during this period of depressed demand?

How about we garnish or seize the ill-gotten gains of all these trouble-makers? This really isn't their money and they shouldn't be allowed to keep it.

Also, there better be plenty more following Madoff to jail.

Let the bankers, the hedge fund managers, the AIGs, all of them, let them go down. Get the regulations back in place and the institutional capacity back up to snuff so we have transparency and lawful, efficiently operating markets. There will be plenty of smart entrepreneurs willing to step in to fill the void and do things legally.

As Ralph Nader has said, "Sometimes you have to prune the tree for it to grow healthy."

We talk about this using rhetoric -- concern for the unemployed and the American workers -- but our actions are the most roundabout way to relieving their troubles. Why can't we use a more direct approach as mentioned above? I still haven't heard an answer to this.

Bankers v Citizens

Whose side is Geithner on?

For Further Reading:
Banking On The Brink
Nationalize Insolvent Banks
Nationalize The Banks
The Banks Have Stolen Enough