Tag Archives: deficit terrorism

Peterson/CBO Beat for Austerity Goes On!

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Joe Firestone | 13 comments

Recently, I’ve been writing about oligarchs advocating for entitlement cuts and austerity. I’ve discussed attacks on entitlement benefits for the elderly from Abby Huntsman (of MSNBC’s The Cycle) and Catherine Rampell (a Washington Post columnist), both the children of well-off individuals. These posts have come in the context of the English language release of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, and the more recent pre-publication release of a study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page using quantitative methods and empirical data to explore the question of whether the US is an oligarchy or a majoritarian democracy. They conclude:

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Posted in Joe Firestone

Tagged #PCS, austerity, CBO projections, congress, consols, deficit spending, deficit terrorism, Gilens and Page, Michael A. Peterson, net interest, oligarchy, Peter G. Peterson Foundation, platinum coin seigniorage, Sector Financial Balances, the Fed, Treasury

Want Jobs? Forget the Fed!

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Dan Kervick | 46 comments

By Dan Kervick

Matt Yglesias beats a dead monetarist horse – the same defunct nag whose flogged and forlorn carcass should have been cremated years ago – by again seeming to pin the chief responsibility for attacking unemployment on the Fed, and on its supposed control over inflation and inflation expectations. And yet as is often the case with Yglesias, the elected political leaders of the most economically powerful nation in the world rate no mention in his post, despite their scandalous and incompetent failure to address a national employment debacle.

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Posted in Dan Kervick

Tagged deficit terrorism, Fiscal Policy, Matt Yglesias, MMT

Latest in Deficit Terrorism: Postal Service Default

Posted on September 16, 2011 by admin | 12 comments

By Mitch Green

Americans living in rural areas should brace themselves for a new dose of pain. As the USPS approaches the end of its fiscal year, where it will be unable to make payment of $5.5 billion to its employees health benefits fund, it is considering closing over 3600 facilities nationwide. Just yesterday they placed on the chopping block another 250 processing centers. Most of these closures are distributed throughout rural areas, a demographic that has borne a considerable amount of hardship throughout this entire contraction. For an interactive map of the proposed closures go here.

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