Greece now has the desperation power of the weak. Greek Prime Minister Papandreou's is a brave, nervy, high-stakes move, and one that deserves our respect.
With the latest unemployment numbers, the evidence keeps accumulating that this will be a prolonged economic stagnation. The unemployment rate is not as bad as that of the Great Depression, but in some respects the prognosis is equally grim.
The Super Committee needs to die of its own weight and its perverse policy assumptions. Its collapse will leave the Republicans exposed as a party with no plan for economic recovery other than more tax cuts for the rich and cuts in social insurance that most Americans value -- leaving the whole question of what programs to cut and what taxes to raise as the proper subject of a 2012 election that Democrats could actually win. Here's a better program: raise taxes on the wealthy and on corporations; use the proceeds for jobs and public infrastructure investment; get some budget cuts out of military spending by ending two wars.
While Obama makes symbolic military gestures, his administration is doing nothing serious to contest China's growing threat to America's economic base.
All of the accounts of the current situation in Europe have some merit, yet all miss the deeper point. This crisis occurred because bankers and shadow bankers (such as the hedge funds that are betting against Europe's bonds) have too much power.
