Only one party is serious about a jobs plan

November 2, 2011

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: According to experts, the Obama jobs plan would create jobs, and the GOP jobs plan, well, wouldn’t. What a Jobs Plan Looks Like | The White House blog.

(Update) The Fire Next Time: My Big Fat Greek Euro Crisis

November 2, 2011

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Last week Eurpoean leaders announced a deal that applied a band-aid to Greece in the ongoing saga of the Euro crisis, but they did not address the fundamental problems with any fundamental reforms. Stock markets surged on news of the deal.

This week, the government of Greece tore off the band-aid threatening to take the deal to Greek voters in a referendum. The Chicken Little investor class went into a panic on Tuesday shouting "the sky is falling!" So where do things stand today?

Paul Krugman writes Eurodämmerung – NYTimes.com:

Things are falling apart in Europe; the center is not holding. Papandreou is going to hold a referendum; the vote will be no. Italian 10-years at 6.29 at pixel time; that’s a level at which the cost of rolling over the existing debt will force a default, even though Italy has a primary surplus. And with everyone simultaneously pushing for fiscal austerity, a recession seems almost certain, aggravating all of the continent’s problems.

I’ve been charting this trainwreck for a couple of years, and am feeling too weary to trace through it again right now. Let’s just say that the euro was an inherently flawed idea that can work only given a strong European economy and a significant degree of inflation, plus open-ended credit to sovereigns facing speculative attack. Yet European elites embraced the notion of economics as morality play, imposing across-the-board austerity, tightening money despite low underlying inflation, and have been too concerned with punishing sinners to notice that everything was going to blow apart without an effective lender of last resort.

The question I’m trying to answer right now is how the final act will be played. At this point I’d guess soaring rates on Italian debt leading to a gigantic bank run, both because of solvency fears about Italian banks given a default and because of fear that Italy will end up leaving the euro. This then leads to emergency bank closing, and once that happens, a decision to drop the euro and install the new lira. Next stop, France.

It all sounds apocalyptic and unreal.

With the government of Greece teetering on the verge of collapse, the Greek cabinet offered its full support early Wednesday to Prime Minister George A. Papandreou for his surprise plan to call a referendum on the Greek financial crisis. Greek Cabinet Backs Papandreou on Referendum – NYTimes.com:

The proposal threatens Greece’s adherence to the terms of a new deal with its foreign lenders and has plunged Europe into a fresh bout of financial turmoil.

But several lawmakers in the governing Socialist Party rejected the plan, raising the possibility that Mr. Papandreou will not survive a no-confidence vote scheduled for Friday that depends on his holding together a razor-thin parliamentary majority.

An emergency cabinet meeting convened by Mr. Papandreou ended at 3 a.m. with the cabinet saying that it unanimously supported the prime minister’s call for a referendum, local news outlets reported. The opposition and some members of his own party, however, were calling for new elections immediately.

Despite the political turmoil provoked by Mr. Papandreou’s call for a referendum, the prime minister appeared to have rallied his troops behind him after the seven-hour cabinet meeting.

The Greek government spokesman, Elias Mossialos, said the government aimed to hold the referendum “as soon as possible” — “on the condition” that Greece had the “basic elements, not the full agreement” of the loan deal with the European Union in place. News reports on Wednesday said the referendum might be brought forward as soon as December.

The political atmosphere remained tense and chaotic, with politicians both in the government and in the opposition maneuvering intensely ahead of the confidence vote.

* * *

Still, the political instability in Athens seemed likely to delay — and perhaps scuttle — the debt deal that European leaders reached after marathon negotiations in Brussels last week.

Financial markets in Europe rallied on Wednesday after two days of losses that had wiped out the gains since the Brussels deal was announced last week. Some analysts said that Greece was now coming closer to a messy default on its debt, and perhaps a departure from the zone of 17 countries that use the euro as their common currency.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, apparently caught off guard by Mr. Papandreou’s call for a referendum and then by the disarray in his party, said they would hold emergency talks on Greece with euro zone leaders on Wednesday. They said they also planned to meet with representatives of the Greek government before a critical meeting of the Group of 20 advanced and emerging economies on Thursday, and they defended the terms of the bailout package as “more necessary than ever today.”

The chairman of the euro zone finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, warned that the plan to hold a referendum endangered an $11 billion loan that Greece is to receive under the bailout deal, and that Greece urgently needed to avoid a default. Mr. Juncker, who is the prime minister of Luxembourg, said Greece could face bankruptcy if it votes no on the bailout.

The big fear is that a decisive turn against the bailout package in Greece could undermine European efforts to enforce deep budget cuts in other heavily indebted European countries, especially Italy, which is mired in its own political crisis and has a far larger economy and much more debt than Greece.

* * *

If Mr. Papandreou’s government falls, it would not be the first one in Europe to be toppled by the austerity demanded by European debt relief. In Ireland and Portugal, governments fell after accepting bailouts from the European Union and the I.M.F., and last month the Slovakian government fell over a vote on whether to participate in the European Union’s rescue package.

But Greece’s problems are more acute, and its economic slump is much deeper, making the prospect of a government collapse even more worrying. While a new government might try to reopen negotiations with lenders and seek new terms, European leaders have repeatedly dismissed that idea, saying that trying to do so would be damaging and would throw away months of work on a plan to keep Greece from defaulting.

World leaders convening at this resort for a long-planned summit find themselves confronting a suddenly acute crisis over Greece and signs of an economic slowdown throughout Europe that may narrow their room for action. World leaders to confer with Greece over referendum call – The Washington Post:

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou left a cabinet meeting in Athens early Wednesday with his government intact — for now — and backing his plan to hold a national referendum on the country’s latest international rescue program.

But his call for a popular vote on Tuesday has jeopardized the rescue plan and upended the agenda for Group of 20 leaders. Papandreou has been called to a meeting here Wednesday night to explain himself.

This was to have been a summit where the G-20 — the forum where industrialized nations and the leading developing economies compare notes on the world economy — puts its stamp on a plan that convincingly appeared to settle Europe’s lingering financial crisis.

Instead, with Cannes under a security lockdown that has made its streets into a virtual ghost town, the group will be looking for ways to avoid even greater problems.

* * *

“We want to implement this program,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday before she headed to France. “For that we need clarity. That’s exactly what the conversation will be about this evening.”

Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, expressed more annoyance in extensive comments at a Wednesday news conference, calling Panandreou’s move a “serious situation that Europe has not been through before.”

* * *

In Athens, the Greek parliament began a three-day debate on a confidence vote scheduled for late Friday that could topple Papandreou’s government long before the referendum takes place.

* * *

World markets tumbled after Papandreou’s announcement Tuesday, with some European indicators dropping 5 percent. But they recovered some on Wednesday. The German DAX closed up 2.25 percent, the FTSE 100 up 1.15 percent and the Euro Stoxx index up 1.4 percent. In the United States, the Dow Jones index and the Standard & Poor’s 500 were both up about 1 percent in the afternoon, after the Federal Reserve released a modestly positive report on U.S. economic growth. The Nasdaq tech index had fallen from its earlier high and was down.

So we have Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou summoned to the G-20 summit at Cannes to answer for himself, but it may be all for naught because Papandreou, who has lost popular support in Greece and his own political party, faces a no confidence vote on Friday that most observers predict he will lose, leading to new elections. The supposed deal reached by European leaders last week will unravel. The risk is that this will have a domino effect, with Italy and then France next in line to fall.

Reminder: Axe the Flat Tax! Forum on Thursday

November 2, 2011

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Panel to discuss Legislative plan to raise taxes on middle classWould cut taxes for those making over $100k annually State Capitol, Phoenix – Organizers in southern Arizona are gearing up to stop the Legislature’s Flat Tax bill – an income tax plan that will raise taxes on 8 out of every 9 … Read more

Response from the Arizona Democratic Party to Tea-Publican Abuse of Power

November 2, 2011

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The Democratic Caucus leadership in the Arizona Legislature released this press release late Tuesday: Democrats outraged by politician power grab and bullying of redistricting process STATE CAPITOL, PHOENIX – As the Republicans wrapped up a one-day chaotic special session to impeach citizen Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) Chairwoman Colleen Mathis, legislative Democratic leaders … Read more

Brewer and her Star Chamber remove the ‘Independent’ from the Independent Redistricting Commission

November 2, 2011

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Exhibiting complete and utter contempt for the voters of Arizona who enacted the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission by a citizens initiative in 2000 to put an end to just this sort of political gamesmanship, our lame-duck Governor and her Tea-Publican Arizona Senate Star Chamber engaged in the most heinous violation of the Arizona … Read more

BREAKING: Brewer calls Special Session to remove AIRC Chair Colleen Mathis

November 1, 2011

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: After a day of wrangling among Tea-Publican conspirators on how far to go in blowing up the AIRC, the votes must now finally be lined up as our lame-duck Governor has issued the call for a Special Session  to remove AIRC Chair Colleen Mathis. The Senate will come into session to rubber-stamp Governor Brewer's … Read more

“Occupy” is the new “In”

November 1, 2011

by David Safier First there were sit-ins. On February 1, 1960, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, David Richmond, and Ezell Blair, Jr., walked into an F.W. Woolworth Company store in Greensboro, North Carolina, purchased some school supplies, then went to the lunch counter and asked to be served. They knew they probably would not be. The … Read more

AIRC Update: Action Alert

November 1, 2011

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Last night the Governor's office announced that it would not call for a Special Session on Tuesday, but the governor's spokesperson said that she was keeping her options open. The political gossip rag The Yellow Sheet Report (suscription required) has a post about the Tea-Publican leadership making a last ditch effort today for … Read more