Daily digest – economics of disaster

What you need to know to navigate today’s most critical debates.

Did We Drop the Ball on Unemployment? (NYT)
Politicians have stopped working on it. Journalists have stopped writing about it. Sadly, many Americans don’t have the luxury to stop worrying about it.

Obama Said to Choose Krueger for Council of Economic Advisers (Bloomberg)
The president’s pick to replace Austan Goolsbee at the CEA is a Princeton-trained labor economist who has studied long-term unemployment and supports increased infrastructure spending. If only he had an influence on economic policy.

Power Politics – What Eric Schneiderman Reveals About Obama (Naked Capitalism)
Roosevelt Institute Fellow Matt Stoller argues that New York’s AG and the president share something in common: They’re both trying to do what they think is right. The problem is, only one of them is right about what’s right.

Dissecting the Mind of the Fed (NYT)
David Leonhardt suggests that Ben Bernanke chooses to err on the side of doing too little because there’s no one around to give him grief about it. Aside from non-Fed members, but they don’t count.

Let’s Not Draw Broad Conclusions From the Stock Market Turmoil (TNR)
Dean Baker writes that conservatives have filled in a trail of phony dots to connect the S&P downgrade with their demands to slash Social Security and Medicare.

Profits Falling, Banks Confront a Leaner Future (NYT)
With consumers no longer gorging on debt and businesses in no mood to expand, banks can’t give their credit away — and that means the infinite profit they’d come to expect to has begun to shrink down to size.

Europe’s Big Mistake (New Yorker)
James Surowiecki writes that the European Central Bank is determined to save the EU from inflation even if it has to destroy the European economy in the process.

Does America Need Manufacturing? (NYT)
Jon Gertner imagines an economy in which the big money shifts away from complicated financial instruments that only three people in the world understand to something slightly more useful, like batteries.

NLRB Issues New Rules on Workplace Postings of Union Rights (FDL)
Business leaders are outraged that the NLRB isn’t keeping workers’ rights a secret, but they won’t have to worry much longer, since the board just lost a key member.

Why Republicans Might Demand Hurricane Relief Be Paid For With More Program Cuts (TPM)
Eric Cantor and the uber-hawkish wing of the GOP have struggled to reduce their human empathy deficit when it comes to federal spending on disaster relief.

Lines Blur Between Candidates and PACs With Unlimited Cash (NYT)
What’s the difference between Candidate A and the “Vote for Candidate A, Defender of Puppies and Rainbows” Super PAC? Money, and lots of it.

Short URL: http://aworldofprogress.com/readingroom/?p=837

Posted by New Deal 2.0 on Aug 29 2011. Filed under New Deal 2.0, the reading room. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry