Lynn Parramore

February 3

“All you need to know to navigate today’s economic debate.”

Hank Paulson’s Dry Heave (NY Observer)
Paulson’s autobiography, On the Brink, “gives the spectacularly unsettling sense that world history is decided by an assortment of guys who are improvising, and may not be particularly good at it.”

Fiscalizing Failure (The Conscience of a Liberal)
Paul Krugman explodes the notion that deficits are always bad for the economy, criticizing NYT reporter David Sanger, and others, for perpetuating deficit mythology.

Geithner: ‘I’ll carry the burden’ of AIG forever (CNN Money)
A day after facing furious lawmakers on Capitol Hill, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told CNN on Thursday that he would…

‘Fear the Boom and Bust’ is a rap battle between Keynes and Hayek

Who said economics had to be boring?

This just in from Emily Wazlack, our erstwhile (and sorely missed!) intern, courtesy of her econ professor. Seems that a television producer for Spike TV and a professor of economics at George Mason University have joined forces to created a website called Econstories.tv, aimed at teaching economic theory to the masses. “Fear the Boom and Bust”, their first video, is a rap-off between John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek…

Deficit Hawk Logic: Hummers, howitzers, and helicopters, yes. Health care, no.

So is the government running out of money? Not when it goes on a military spending spree…

A recent Bloomberg report reveals that the Pentagon is seeking $14 billion to train forces in Iraq:

“The U.S. military next week will request about $14.2 billion more to train and equip Afghanistan’s forces, according to two Obama administration officials. The Defense Department’s proposed budget for fiscal 2011, which begins Oct. 1, will include $159 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That includes $11.6 billion to accelerate the growth of the Afghan military and police. The Pentagon separately will seek about $2.6 billion…

Elizabeth Warren Defends Middle Class on Daily Show

TARP watchdog Elizabeth Warren warns that banks are still doing business as usual — and the middle class can’t survive further attack.

Elizabeth Warren, Rob Johnson, Eliot Spitzer, and more: What We Want to Hear Tonight from Obama

As we look for the President to set the agenda for the year ahead, I asked New Deal 2.0 contributors and friends to tell me the ONE thing they’d like to hear Obama talk about in his State of the Union address. Here’s their wish list:

1. I’m looking forward to hearing the President aggressively making the case for strong financial regulatory reform. The Wall Street CEOs are working hard behind the scenes trying to kill the kinds of basic safety rules that will put an end to our boom and bust economy. The President needs to make it clear to…

Spot-on spoof of predatory lenders

This just crossed my desk (shout out to Erica Payne of the Agenda Project)…a brilliant spoof of an industry that richly deserves our ire.  The ‘Predatory Lending Association’ website offers handy tools like the ‘working poor finder’ and vows to continue ‘extracting maximum profit from the working poor by increasing payday loan fees and debt traps,’ noting that ‘the working poor are an exciting, fast growing demographic that includes: military personnel, minorities, and most of the middle class.’

Click here for Predatory Lending Association website.

New Chapter? Obama Takes on Banks

Today, Obama came out with guns blazing on financial reform — taking a far different approach than he has to health care. Is this a new chapter for the presidency?

Joseph Stiglitz on ‘Ersatz Capitalism’ and Moral Bankruptcy

Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow and Chief Economist Joe Stiglitz told CNBC yesterday that we’ve got something he calls “ersatz capitalism” in the US, and it isn’t pretty. The version of capitalism we’ve ended up with is a flawed, unfair system that socializes economic losses and privatizes the gains.

“‘An awful lot of people are not managing their own money,’ Stiglitz said. ‘In old-style 19th Century capitalism, I owned my company, I made a mistake, I bore the consequences.’

‘Today, (at) most of the big companies you have managers who, when things go well, walk off with a lot of money. When things go…

Eliot Spitzer, Naomi Klein, and others talk to Fareed Zakaria on “GPS”

Eliot Spitzer blasts federally-insured banks for STILL gambling with our money this morning on CNN program “GPS”…

Click here for video.

Frances Perkins, FDR’s labor secretary , to be celebrated in NYC tomorrow

On Thursday, Jan. 14, join me from 4pm - 8:30pm at the Harvard Club of NYC (35 West 44th St.) to honor one of the most inspiring women of the original New Deal.

Frances Perkins, who was secretary of labor for the 12 years of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency and the first woman to hold a Cabinet post, will be celebrated in film, food, art & discussion. The event, “Frances Perkins and Social Security” will feature a line-up of historians, authors, and policy experts to talk with about Social Security, Frances Perkins’s work to get it passed, and the threat it…