Hillary Clinton's Take on Banks Does Not Stand Up.

Matt Tiabbi.

….The other drama was serious and highly charged argument between two extremes on the political campaigning spectrum, pitting the unapologetic idealist Bernie Sanders against the master strategist Hillary Clinton. (Martin O'Malley seemed like an irrelevant spectator to both narratives.)

One of the most revealing exchanges in the Clinton-Sanders tilt involved the question of Wall Street corruption. Sanders has always been a passionate crusader against Wall Street perfidy, but Hillary's take on the subject was fascinating.

Asked about it Tuesday night, she gave an answer that to me sums up her candidacy and the conundrum of the modern Democratic Party in general. She seemed to hit a lot of correct notes, while at the same time over-thinking and over-nuancing a question where a few simple unequivocal answers would probably have won everyone over.

The key exchange began with a question from CNN's Anderson Cooper:

"Just for viewers at home who may not be reading up on this, Glass-Steagall is the Depression-era banking law repealed in 1999 that prevented commercial banks from engaging in investment banking and insurance activities. Secretary Clinton, he raises a fundamental difference on this stage. Sen. Sanders wants to break up the big Wall Street banks. You don't. You say charge the banks more, continue to monitor them. Why is your plan better?"

Paul Ryan and Republican Economics

WASHINGTON — First, it was called the Roadmap for America’s Future. Later, it was the Path to Prosperity: Restoring America’s Promise. The next installment was Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal.

STORIES FROM OUR ADVERTISER

Each one could be called the Ryan Plan, for short, or the Ryan Budget: a single-minded — Democrats would say absurdist — quest by Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, to drastically cut federal spending and taxes, transform Medicare essentially into a voucher program, partly privatize Social Security and abolish the corporate income tax, the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax.

Krugman: Why Wall Street Tycoons Are Panicking About the 2016 Election @alternet

Krugman: Why Wall Street Tycoons Are Panicking About the 2016 Election @alternet



Krugman on Glass-Steagall

Robert Reich Debunks Republican Deficit Hawks

(Democratic Debate) Bernie Sanders explains Democratic Socialism

A specter is haunting the 2016 Democratic Party primary. The specter of socialism. Bernie Sanders's presidential bid is forcing Americans to reckon with an ideology that has profoundly shaped the politics of just about every other developed country, and has shaped America more than we might like to admit. Tuesday night, Sanders's defense of the socialist label at the first Democratic debate got viewers frantically searching Merriam-Webster to find out what, precisely, "socialism" is.

According to Sanders, socialism — or "democratic socialism," his preferred formulation — is basically mainstream Democratic Party liberalism but more so. It entails single-payer health care, not Obamacare. It entails tuition-free college, not subsidized loans. It entails government jobs to deal with our unemployment problem, not stimulus through tax breaks. These are big policy changes, but they also don't really seem to amount to the overthrow of capitalism — especially since actually existing capitalism in the United States has long included regulation of business and a welfare state.

But Sanders isn't wrong. Looking at the history of socialism as a movement — from its utopian beginnings to Marx's refinement and popularization and the split of socialists into reformers and revolutionaries at the start of the 20th century — reveals an ideology that has changed over time and shaped most countries around the world, including the United States, and that in some ways just isn't as sharp a break with a status quo as the pearl-clutching tone of Anderson Cooper's questions might lead you to believe.

1) Is Bernie Sanders a socialist?

Steve Liss/the LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images

Sanders sits in front of an image of socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs in 1990.

Sanders is, in his own words, a "democratic socialist." To him, that means he supports the policies in place in many democratic countries, particularly Northern European ones like Sweden, Finland, or Denmark.

"In virtually all of those countries, health care is a right of all people, and their systems are far more cost-effective than ours, college education is virtually free in all of those countries, people retire with better benefits, wages that people receive are often higher, distribution of wealth and income is much fairer, their public education systems are generally stronger than ours," Sanders told Vox's Ezra Klein earlier this year. "When I talk about being a democratic socialist, those are the countries that I am looking at, and those are the ideas that I think we can learn a lot from."

Sheila Bair joins Bill Moyers to talk about American banks

Sheila Bair joins Bill Moyers to talk about American banks

What You Should Know About That Completed TPP "Trade" Deal;

 The Trans-Pacific Free-Trade Charade

The TPP is still secret and according to the terms in this year's fast-track legislation it will remain secret for 30 days after the president formally notifies Congress that he will sign it. That could be a while still, as the agreement's details need to be "ironed out." After that 30-day wait the full text has to be public for 60 days before Congress can vote. Expect a massive and massively funded corporate PR push.

Dave Johnson; Joseph Stiglitz and Adam Hersh

http://portside.org/2015-10-07/what-you-should-know-about-completed-tpp-trade-deal-trans-pacific-free-trade-charade

-      See more at: http://portside.org/2015-10-07/what-you-should-know-about-completed-tpp-trade-deal-trans-pacific-free-trade-charade