Portside

Many in Washington bristled at the public’s failure to register how strong the economy was during the Biden Administration but were they relying on flawed statistics? Unemployment was higher, wages lower, growth less robust than was claimed.

The Fed’s pursuit of its 2% inflation target will slow economic growth, repress wage gains, make almost everyone’s job less secure, and put us at risk for a recession.

"Chained CPI" might sound technical and boring, but anyone who has closely followed the Social Security debate knows better. It has long been proposed as a deceptive, hard-to-understand way to cut our earned Social Security benefits.

The chained CPI has risen to walk among us again in the muttering and jawboning around the government shutdown/debt limit standoff and the search for an exit. We're hearing again about a "grand bargain" on the government deficit -- never mind that the deficit is falling, not rising.

First, a terrible jobs report, then a Democratic President offers a budget that proposes cuts to Social Security and Medicare. What they actually heard was Austerity 2013 - U.S. style. President Obama's offering up a cut in Social Security (make no mistake, that's what it is) contravenes promises he has previously made about not undermining the program and a recent flat out pledge by Vice-President Joe Biden that it would not happen.

Readers comments: CPI, Grand Bargain, Social Security Cuts; Labor Party Time?; Whither the Socialist Left; Plan B; Thatcher - Reality & Myth; Incredibly Angry Songs About Iron Lady; Forgotten Radical History of March on Washington; Medi-Cal interpreters; How Maggots Heal; Announcements - Two events with Angela Davis - Berkeley - Apr 17; Los Angeles - Apr 19; May Day 2013 - New York; The Labor Film Database In Memoriam: Harry Kelber; Philip Bonosky (memorial Apr 21)