Occupy Everywhere & Economic News Round-Up

In this Friday, Nov. 18, 2011, photo University of California, Davis Police Lt. John Pike uses pepper spray to move Occupy UC Davis protesters while blocking their exit from the school's quad Friday in Davis, Calif. Two University of California, Davis police officers involved in pepper spraying seated protesters were placed on administrative leave Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011, as the chancellor of the school accelerates the investigation into the incident. [AP Photo]

Related and Recommended Reading on the UD Davis incident:

Matt Wells in The Guardian: UC Davis Police Placed on Leave After Pepper Spray Video Outrage.

Garance Franke-Ruta in The Atlantic: Too Much Violence and Pepper Spray at the OWS Protests: The Videos and Pictures.

CNN: California Campus Police on Leave After Pepper-Spraying.

In other Occupy News...

The Guardian crunches the numbers and finds it more like the 99.99% [via Andy]:


[Related article here. Video transcript is available here.]
In sweet news, Occupy Wall Street activists Jonathan Lopez, 19, and Ivan Cabrera, 18, exchanged vows, marking the first same-sex marriage at Zuccotti Park.

In shitty news, powerful DC lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford "has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests. ... CLGC's memo proposes that the [their client, the American Bankers Association] pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct 'opposition research' on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct 'negative narratives' about the protests and allied politicians. The memo also asserts that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and targets specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead."

Speaking of Republicans, GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich believes that secularism is responsible for the US' economic problems (of course he does): "A country that has been now since 1963 relentlessly in the courts driving God out of public life shouldn't be surprised at all the problems we have. Because we've in fact attempted to create a secular country, which I think is frankly a nightmare." Previously: Gingrich blames same-sex marriage for the country's economic woes.

Meanwhile, at Supercommittee Headquarters...

New York Times—The Deficit Deal That Wasn't: Hopes Are Dashed: "On Sunday, just one week after both sides had begun to feel hope, several members of the bipartisan panel conceded that their weeks of negotiations had failed. In the end the two sides could not agree on a mix of tax increases and spending cuts and—perhaps above all—on the fate of the tax cuts originally signed by President George W. Bush, which are now scheduled to expire at the end of 2012. While the panel's failure was in many ways foretold—President Obama and the House speaker, John A. Boehner, failed to reach a similar deal only this past summer—the deadlock offers fresh evidence for everyone frustrated with Congress, including its own members. ... Democrats and Republicans, as has been their wont throughout the process, could not even agree on what led the talks to slide into failure."

Washington Post—Debt supercommittee members brace for failure: "The congressional 'supercommittee' stumbled its way toward failure Sunday, with final staff-level discussions focusing mostly on how the panel should publicly admit that lawmakers could not meet their mandate of shaving $1.2 trillion from the federal debt. Rather than making a final effort at compromise, members of the special deficit-reduction committee spent their final hours casting blame and pointing fingers, bracing for the reaction from financial markets that are already jittery over the European debt crisis."

Speaking of the Eurozone...

The Guardian's live coverage is here.

New York Times—Europe Fears a Credit Squeeze as Investors Sell Bond Holdings: "Nervous investors around the globe are accelerating their exit from the debt of European governments and banks, increasing the risk of a credit squeeze that could set off a downward spiral. Financial institutions are dumping their vast holdings of European government debt and spurning new bond issues by countries like Spain and Italy. And many have decided not to renew short-term loans to European banks, which are needed to finance day-to-day operations. If this trend continues, it risks creating a vicious cycle of rising borrowing costs, deeper spending cuts and slowing growth, which is hard to get out of, especially as some European banks are having trouble meeting their financing needs."

Reuters—Warren Buffett: Euro zone not working, words alone won't fix it: "Buffett, dubbed the 'Oracle of Omaha' for his long track record as a value investor, said he had no idea how Europe's sovereign debt crisis, which started in Greece two years ago and rages on, would end, though he noted there were good valuations among companies in Europe. 'Not in the debt space, but in the equity space there are opportunities,' he said."

Brad DeLong—Yet Another New York Times Fail: Ross Douthat Department:"Does Ross Douthat really believe that there ought to be a law saying that lenders must lend to a country's government whenever that country wants to borrow on terms that the country's government sets? He simply has not thought any of this through."

As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to leave links to what you've been reading/writing in comments.

Occupy Everywhere & Economic News Round-Up

People ride a stationary bicycle to generate electricity for laptops and mobile phones at the headquarters of the Occupy Wall Street movement in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District on November 4, 2011 in New York City. Despite a freak snowstorm last Saturday and the confiscation of their generators by the fire department, hundreds of young and old are staying put in the park. [Getty Images]

The Guardian's live coverage of the most recent Occupy events is here.

In US domestic news...

CNN Money—Bank dumping: Do the megabanks even care?

Credit unions and small banks say they've seen big jumps in new account openings thanks to this weekend's "Move Your Money" and "Bank Transfer Day" initiatives, but do the big banks even care?

Digital Federal Credit Union, the largest credit union in New England with 330,000 total members, welcomed 133 new members on Saturday. That's 56% higher than the average 85 account openings it sees on a typical Saturday.

...But while the "Move Your Money" initiative provided a wave of new customers to these smaller institutions, the big banks that these customers are leaving are so big that many of them have barely felt a dent in account holdings.

Bank of America, for example, has 58 million retail and small business accounts.

This, then, is yet another effect of deregulation allowing banks to expand to massive, too-big-to-fail sizes: It becomes increasingly impossible for a consumer-driven protest to have any meaningful impact.

TPMDC—Super Committee GOPers May Agree to Violate Norquist Pledge…With a Catch:

Super Committee Republicans are floating a trial balloon that would produce new tax revenue, in apparent contravention of Grover Norquist's taxpayer protection pledge, according to Wall Street Journal editorialist Stephen Moore.

But as Moore explains that the offer has a catch:

One positive development on taxes taking shape is a deal that could include limiting tax deductions, perhaps by capping write-offs on charities, state and local taxes, and mortgage interest payments as a percentage of each tax filer's gross income. That idea was introduced on these pages by Harvard economist Martin Feldstein.

In exchange, Democrats would agree to make the Bush income-tax cuts permanent. This would mean preventing top rates from going to 42% from 35% today, and keeping the capital gains and dividend tax rate at 15%, as opposed to plans to raise them to 23.8% or higher after 2013.

Neither Republican nor Democratic aides were immediately available to discuss the proposal. But if accurate as reported, it represents both a significant expansion of the growing rift between Norquist and the GOP, and a bad deal for Democrats.

...This isn't offered as a concession Republicans are willing to make in exchange for entitlement cuts — a key Democratic demand. It's designed as a concession Republicans are willing to make if Democrats will agree to make all of the Bush tax cuts permanent — and thereby throw away an enormous amount of leverage they have over Republicans who are committed to extending them.

Democrats, thus, would be expected to agree to throw in entitlement cuts anyhow, just because.

And they almost certainly will, because as soon as the Republicans start screaming, "WE MADE CONCESSIONS! THE DEMOCRATS ARE OBSTRUCTIONISTS!" the Dems will either cave on their own or face bipartipoop pressure from President Obama to cave. Sadly, the best hope we have of quashing this comes from the right, who will think the deal is too favorable to Dems.

CNN Money—Older Americans are 47 times richer than young: "According to analysis by the Pew Research Center released Monday, younger Americans have been left behind as the oldest generation has seen wealth surge since the mid-1980s. While it's typical for older generations to hold more wealth than younger ones who've had less time to save, the gap between the two age groups has widened rapidly. In 1984, households headed by people age 65 and older were worth just 10 times the median net worth of households headed by people 35 and younger. But now that gap has widened to 47-to-one, marking the largest wealth gap ever recorded between the two age groups." They weren't called the Me Generation for nothing.

The Guardian—Koch brothers: secretive billionaires to launch vast database with 2012 in mind: "The secretive oil billionaires the Koch brothers are close to launching a nationwide database connecting millions of Americans who share their anti-government and libertarian views, a move that will further enhance the tycoons' political influence and that could prove significant in next year's presidential election. The database will give concrete form to the vast network of alliances that David and Charles Koch have cultivated over the past 20 years on the right of US politics. The brothers, whose personal wealth has been put at $25bn each, were a major force behind the creation of the tea party movement and enjoy close ties to leading conservative politicians, financiers, business people, media figures and US supreme court judges."

Think Progress—Four Problems in Mitt Romney's Medicare Proposal: "Romney—who had leaked aspects of [his plan to partially privatize the Medicare program for future enrollees] during interviews—met with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) before officially announcing his 'premium support' proposal at the end of last week, and Ryan, in turn, gushed the he is 'very pleased with these kind of entitlement reforms.' ... But this approach is still problematic. ... There is still no evidence that competition between private insurers and traditional Medicare will lower health care spending. ... Lower income seniors will pay more. ... Private plans will undoubtedly be encouraged to cherry-pick the healthiest beneficiaries and leave sicker applicants to traditional Medicare. ... Nothing in Romney's plan would actually reduce national health care spending."

Meanwhile, in the Eurozone...

The Guardian's live coverage of the day's events is here.

CNN—Italian lawmakers to take up economic reforms: "The Italian parliament is expected to face a crucial vote on budget reform measures Tuesday, as the country's prime minister comes under increasing pressure to resign amid unease over Italy's economy. Italy agreed to implement structural reforms during an European Union meeting in Brussels last month. Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said the reforms must be put in place or risk Italy's credibility in the international community. The budget vote comes after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi denied Monday's rumors that he might resign. But his main coalition partner added fuel to the fire Tuesday, telling reporters he had asked Berlusconi to take a sideways step."

AP—New Greek premier expected to be named Tuesday: "Greece will get a new prime minister later Tuesday, a senior government official said, as the country's European partners ratcheted up the pressure for a swift resolution to the political crisis. Talks between current Prime Minister George Papandreou and opposition leader Antonis Samaras have dragged into a second day as they try to hammer out a power-sharing deal. The two agreed over the weekend to forge an interim government that will shepherd the country's new €130 billion ($179 billion) European rescue package through Parliament. Without the deal, agreed less than two weeks ago, Greece would go bankrupt, potentially wrecking Europe's banking system and sending the global economy back into recession. As yet, there are no precise details of when the new interim prime minister will be announced but the pressure is rising on Greek politicians to make decisions soon."

As always, please feel welcome and encourage to drop links to things you're reading and/or writing in comments.

I Guess Nostradamus Was Right

First William Shatner covered Iron Man, and now this. It's like I'm living in Bizarro World on Opposite Day:

1) There's a proposal out there "to slice $3 trillion from the [US] federal budget over the next decade through significant cuts to federal health programs, including Medicare, and as much as $1.3 trillion in new taxes."

2) That proposal is coming from Congressional Democrats.

3) Irrespective of the Democrats' push to make "significant cuts to federal health programs, including Medicare", SUPER CONGRESS! appears to be at an impasse.

4) There are only four weeks left until OMG BUDGET CRISIS! OMFG BUDGPOCOLYPSE!!! OFMGBBQ BUDGETMAGEDDON!!!1!!

5) Nobody didn't see this one coming. Nobody.