And this is the problem. Minimum wage is not a living wage, which I’m sure surprises no one. But I make something like 1.5 times minimum wage, and after child support, taxes and health insurance, I’d still struggle to afford a two-bedroom apartment. Even if I didn’t pay child support, I’d still be stretched enough that I’d never be comfortable calling myself middle class.

But the Republican, free-market capitalist answer is always that I’m somehow not trying hard enough. So tell me, Rick Santorums of the world … how can you snub higher education and also tell Americans that their inability to comfortably support their families, the likelihood they will need two working parents (or one parent working two jobs), the constant struggle to give their children a merely adequate life … how can you say it’s because people don’t try hard enough?

And facing statistics like these, how can you defend the markets and assume that anyone on welfare is scamming and/or lazy?

(Source: brosephstalin)

A deputy from the Communist Party, Giorgos Mavrikos, threw his copy of the austerity bill at Evangelos Venizelos, the finance minister, during the debate on Sunday.

I know I read a lot of Krugman, but seriously? How is a slowdown in government spending supposed to revitalize the economy? We’ve given markets a chance for a long time and it HASN’T WORKED. We gave bankers as close to free-market power as they’ll ever get without dismantling the government and THEY DID NOTHING BUT FUCK PEOPLE. How does anyone continue to believe that gov’t spending is the problem?

(Source: rethinksocialism)

motherjones:

Chart of the Day: Low-income people care about jobs. High-income voters care about the deficit. Guess which one Congress cares about?

YUP

I’ve been arguing that the nature of US debt now is not, despite appearances, all that different from debt post-World War 2, when we pretty much entirely owed the money to ourselves. Now, of course, some of the money is owed to foreigners; but as I pointed out, America has large assets abroad, not too much less than its liabilities.

But wait, there’s more. American assets. often taking the form of foreign subsidiaries of US corporations, earn a higher rate of return than US liabilities — especially now, when there’s a lot of foreign money parked in Treasuries, but this was true even before the crisis. As a result, income from US-owned assets abroad — the blue line below — consistently exceeds payments on foreign-owned assets in the United States, the red line:

Again, if your image is that we’re deeply in hock to foreigners, that our extravagance has condemned us to a future of debt peonage, you’re wrong.

From Paul Krugman, as always.