When the economy is still so hard on so many, it's important to distinguish between entrepreneurial zeal and self-employed desperation.
The job numbers show that, in the short term, we need more stimulus -- especially extended unemployment benefits and aid to state and local governments. But the deficit crazies in the Senate last week shot that down.
The President should order BP to establish a $5 billion clean-up fund, and immediately put America's army of unemployed young people to work saving the Gulf coast. Call it the new Civilian Conservation Corps.
The president says the BP will pay for its mistake. He should act now to make sure. He should also order BP to set aside at least $5 billion for the cleanup, and create a new Civilian Conservation Corps to do it.
The Fed projects a GDP barely above that needed to keep pace with the growth in the labor force. But all the boosters keeping the economy barely going now are coming to an end. So what do you do?
The common wisdom is that excessive debt-financed spending was one of the causes of the recent recession, so the news that household debt is dropping is being celebrated as reason to believe we're on the mend. Baloney.
John Maynard Keynes is being exhumed because his Depression-era worry about inadequate demand is once again the nation's central economic problem.
BP has legal duties to its creditors and stockholders. Its duties to the United States are still vague and unknown. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 can be interpreted in various ways. So far, the administration hasn't tried.
Unless or until BP's shareholders are forced by law to part with their assets to ensure the safety of the American public, shareholder interests will come first in the Gulf. Not the wildlife. Not the citizens.
The man who electrified the nation with his speech at the Democratic National Convention of 2004 put it to sleep Tuesday night. President Obama's address to the nation from the Oval Office was, to be frank, vapid.
Call me old fashioned but I still think democracy is better than corporatist negotiation. Obama and his advisors do a disservice to the American people when they make important deals in secret.
The real challenge of our time has nothing to do with whether one trusts Big Business and Wall Street more or less than Big Government. The challenge is to keep the two apart.
We can manage the Greenspan Debt if we get the U.S. economy growing again. The only way to do that when consumers can't and won't spend and when corporations won't invest is for the federal government to pick up the slack.
