I was inspired by Michael Collins' wonderful article, Where are the Populists?  to make this contribution. I have been spending much time this winter peering through the kaleidoscope of American history at what happened in the early 1900s, when progressives were able to ride a rapidly rising wave of populism to political power, and institute some major reforms that still redound to our advantage today. These progressive populists were able to achieve a number of specific goals, such as direct primaries (to break the rule of state and city political bosses), direct popular election of U.S. Senators (to break the stranglehold large business and financial interests had acquired over the selection process in state legislatures), and some reforms within the U.S. Congress that curtailed the power of entrenched interests by curbing some of the administrative power of House Speaker Joseph Cannon.

“China Unveils the World’s Fastest Super High-Speed Train” versus “America’s Top Ten Performing Banks.” If you can’t figure out, from this one picture, what’s wrong with this country, and where we’re headed on our present course, I really don’t think there’s anything that I could write that would enlighten you.

This was written and posted by Mitchell Hirsch last week at Working America's 'Main Street' blog, where he is a featured guest blogger. Mitch was kind enough to email me his HTML text to cross post it here. 

What if Wall Street's financial transactions could be taxed to help fund job creation and economic recovery on Main Street? Politically the idea is vastly appealing, especially in the wake of Wall Street's bailouts and the resurgence of its obscene bonus plans. But as it turns out a financial transactions tax also makes a lot of economic sense.

The basic idea is fairly simple. Impose a small percentage tax of anywhere from .02% to .5% on things like securities trades and derivatives transactions, thereby generating an estimated $150 billion annually.

Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not. —Robert F. Kennedy

According to figures compiled by the America Society of Civil Engineers, a multi-year program of just repairing all existing U.S. infrastructure requires an additional $1.134 trillion dollars than already planned funding.

Using various employment multipliers specific to types of infrastructure (more discussion below), such a program spread over five years cen be expected to create 4.605 million direct and indirect jobs.

I have further identified a greatly expanded infrastructure program, to bring the United States economy into the 21st century. Building the infrastructure required to end our dependence on burning fossil fuels and shift the United States entirely to renewable energy, and also ensuring all drinking water and waste water management needs for future Americans, requires another $4.686 trillion.

Hat tip to Firedoglake, for picking this up from MSNBC and The London Guardian:

In remarks that will fuel the row around excessive pay, Lord Griffiths, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said banks should not be ashamed of rewarding their staff.

Speaking to an audience at St Paul’s Cathedral in London about morality in the marketplace last night, Griffiths said the British public should “tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all”

Continued downstairs. . .

Cross posted from DailyKos, but expanded

The National Academy of Sciences has issued its own estimates of the number of Americans in poverty, and yes, it’s much worse than the official statistics have been telling us for the past decade. The new NAS formula estimates nearly 1 in 6 Americans, 15.8 percent, are living below the poverty line. That’s 48 million Americans.

By comparison, the latest official Census Bureau statistics are that 13.2 percent of Americans, or 39.8 million, are impoverished. It should be noted that the Census Bureau is reportedly cooperating with the National Academy of Sciences to get this information out as quickly as possible.

Suggestions to solve the financial crises by basically shutting down most of Wall Street are always shouted down by howls of “How are companies going to raise money?” or “How are people going to invest in companies?”

Well, take a good, long look at this graph, which shows the percentage of capital expenditures by U.S. non-financial companies that was raised in U.S. financial markets from 1952 to 2006.

We are at the end of an era – the end of cheap oil, the end of suburban sprawl, the collapse of the world’s “shadow banking system”, the end of Wall Street’s arrogation of our nation’s financial system, the end of treating our natural environment as a “free” externality that corporations and consumers can ravage at will. In this time, as we transition from one era to another, billions is the mark of a mere politician. A true statesman -- someone who understands what we need to bring our country into the new era dawning -- will be talking about how many trillions we need. That’s why I was not happy with the stimulus package proposed and won by President Obama. Fortunately, the President has noted that it was only the first stimulus, implying there may be more to come. What we need to do now is begin defining the terms of the debate as to what is needed, and how much it is going to cost.

The past week, the news that Merrill Lynch had hurried to pay out billions of dollars in bonuses before the end of the year, provoked a torrent of tirades and rage across America. Now, progressive blogs are in another uproar over the perceived lack of leadership from President Barack Obama in the fight for a stimulus program. Many defenders of President Obama demand to know what he might do different. And many seem not to feel, or do not yet understand, that the financial and banking system needs a complete reformation. Well, here’s my suggestion, in the form of a speech the President can give explaining a few crucial, truly transformative measures to the nation.

My fellow Americans,

I put this up yesterday on DailyKos. It did not get much traction, but I think it is important to get people thinking about the issues raised. In short, the success of both the two-pronged bank bailout (TARP and the Fed’s largesse), and the stimulus bill, are going to depend on whether or not the U.S. economy is transformed. I don’t think there is much disagreement in the direction we need to shove the U.S. economy; BruceMcF has done a brilliant job of discussing some of the more important aspects of transportation.

On the day that a new American President was inaugurated, the Lords of the City of London decided to quietly announce in their newspaper of record, the Financial Times, that there are about to be major shifts in policies and practices.

On Monday the UK government declared total war on the economic crisis, and not a moment too soon. A long phony war ended abruptly with the financial system’s near-meltdown in October. Now, in the next phase of the crisis, the government is thankfully using a full arsenal of ammunition.

A guest op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday regarding the prospects of the U.S. defaulting on its debt, reminded me of a comment I had made on DailyKos about a week ago. Which led me to polishing and expanding the comment and posting it a diary.

Writing in the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard a few days before Christmas, Christopher Caldwell, reviewed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s and Fed Chief Ben Bernanke’s erratic responses to the collapse of the financial system – and defended them::

There are some very disturbing sounds coming from the President-Elect. Even more disturbing is that only a small number of people in the progressive blogsphere have picked up on what’s been said.

Stirling Newberry warned yesterday that Obama Puts New Bank Bailout in Stimulus Bill - allowing financial companies to use losses in this crisis to “recover” taxes paid on profits going back five years! As Newberry notes, “The Wall Street Journal calls it a bonanza.”

But even worse, is what Obama had to say about what he is considering now:

“We expect that discussion around entitlements will be a part, a central part” of efforts to curb federal spending, Mr. Obama said at a news conference. By February, he said, “we will have more to say about how we’re going to approach entitlement spending.”

Is there a way to actually place a dollar amount on how much conservative rule has cost America? Stirling Newberry has offered a “back of the envelope” estimate of the costs of four consequences of conservative rule the past 28 years:

over-financialization of the American economy, the waste of privatized health care, over militarization of the American economy, and the externalization of global warming.

The total cost of conservative rule, in today’s dollars, is a staggering $27 trillion, nearly twice the total output of the entire U.S. economy for an entire year.

Last night I stumbled upon a series of Wikipedia pages on the sub-prime mortgage crisis, financial crisis, global financial crisis, and economic crisis of 2007-2008.

The pages so far are OK, but I think the denizens of EP can add a lot to those pages (and I wouldn't be surprised if many of you already have). What I am especially worried about are attempts by wrong-wingers to rewrite certain parts, as I gather from the discussion pages has happened already. So, I appeal to everyone here to look at those Wikipedia pages every once in a while, and help keep them accurate.