Northwest Pennsylvania Grassroots Coalition

Robert Reich Debunks 6 Big GOP Lies About The Economy

2011-09-28T02:34:00.000-07:00

Is Social Security a Ponzi scheme as Republican Presidential candidate Rick Perry claims? Noted author and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich debunks that claim and five other lies the right-wing tells about taxes, government and the economy.

The lies Reich debunks:
1) Tax cuts to the rich and corporations trickle down to the rest of us. (No it doesn't and it never has.)

2) If you shrink government you create jobs. (No, you get rid of jobs that way.)

3) High taxes on the rich hurts the economy. (No, the economy grew when the US did this under Eisenhower.)

4) Debt is to be avoided and it is mostly caused by Medicare. (No, if debt is properly used to grow the economy, it becomes a smaller part of the budget because of increased revenue and Medicare has the lowest overhead of any health insurance plan out there.)

5) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme (No, its solid for 26 years. Social Security is solid beyond that if the rich pay the same percentage in social security taxes as the rest of us do.)

6) We need to tax the poor. (This is what Republicans have been proposing when they say any "tax reform" needs to involve all Americans because poor people pay no income tax. The poor have no money and taxing them will not solve our budget problems.)

Reich was speaking at the "Summit For A Fair Economy" in Minneapolis, Minnesota on September 10, 2011.

Goldman Sachs Report Warns of New Financial Crisis

2011-09-08T07:48:00.000-07:00

Goldman Sachs Report Warns of New Financial Crisis

Europe needs $1 trillion in capital to shore up its banks, U.S. employment looks bleak thanks to languishing small businesses and China's growth may be due for a breather, according a key Goldman Sachs strategist.

"Solving a debt problem with more debt has not solved the underlying problem. In the U.S., Treasury debt growth financed the U.S. consumer but has not had enough of an impact on job growth. Can the U.S. continue to depreciate the world's base currency?" Goldman Sachs strategist Alan Brazil writes in a note to hedge fund clients, according to the Wall Street Journal.

According to the report, hedge funds should look for complicated trading opportunities to make money that include bearish plays on both the euro as well as indices of insurance contracts on the credit of European financial stocks, the Journal reports.

The memo is noteworthy in that Brazil is not part of the bank's research division but rather, works in the trading group.

"As a matter of course, financial institutions publish reports suggesting strategies to fit clients' needs. Whether clients want to hedge existing exposures or take long or short market positions, our goal is to help them meet the challenges the markets present," a Goldman Sachs spokesperson tells the newspaper.

Goldman Sachs isn't the only market watcher of note to grow increasingly gloomy over the world's economic outlook.
New York University economist Nouriel Roubini says the world is worse off now than in 2008, when financial crises gripped the world and credit markets froze.

"We are in a worse situation than we were in 2008. This time around we have fiscal austerity and banks that are being cautious," Roubini says, according to CNBC.

Read more: Goldman Sachs Report Warns of New Financial Crisis

Perry back to ‘Ponzi scheme,’ ‘monstrous lie’ on Social Security

2011-09-08T05:45:00.000-07:00

Perry back to ‘Ponzi scheme,’ ‘monstrous lie’ on Social Security

Rick Perry’s spokesman Ray Sullivan told The Wall Street Journal recently that the views in his book “Fed Up!” — such as his description of Social Security as an “illegal Ponzi scheme” — don’t necessarily reflect how he feels now.

It was intended “as a review and critique of 50 years of federal excesses, not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint or manifesto,” Sullivan told the WSJ.

But Perry returned to the “Ponzi scheme” description on the campaign trail in Iowa last night:

“It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people. The idea that they’re working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie,” Perry said. “It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can’t do that to them.”

Later, in Des Moines, when a reporter asked about the suggestion that his campaign was backing off some positions in the staunch states-rights book, Perry said, “I haven’t backed off anything in my book. So read the book again and get it right.”

Kay Henderson has more on this:

Another reporter pressed the issue, asking if Perry believes Medicare is “unconstitutional” as well.

“I never said it was unconstitutional,” Perry said. “I look at Medicare just like I look at Social Security. They’re programs that aren’t working and we ought to have a national conversation about it. You know, those that have said I’ve said they’re unconstitutional — I’m going to have them read the book. That’s not what I said.”

In his book, Perry called Social Security something akin to a “bad disease” that was created “at the expense of respect for the Constitution and limited government.”

The whole episode underscores how difficult “Fed Up!,” which strongly favors states’ rights and is getting picked over by reporters and opposition researchers alike, will be for Perry to explain on the trail.

Discussions of major changes to Social Security are alarming to seniors, and while there hasn’t yet been public polling data on how the “Ponzi scheme” point plays in Florida, there likely will be.
For Perry, saying a version of “that’s not what I said” is unlikely to do the trick.
Read more: www.politico.com