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(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) told a gathering of Democrats, “The bottom line is we’re not broke, there’s plenty of money, it’s just the government doesn’t have it.” Ellison was discussing his ‘Inclusive Prosperity Act’ measure at the July 25th Progressive Democrats of America roundtable in Washington. “People like, George Soros, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sax, Dean Baker, Robert Poland, Larry Summers have said they all support a transaction tax,” Ellison said. “The bottom line is we’re not broke, there’s plenty of money, it’s just the government doesn’t have it,” Ellison continued, “The government...

<p>The word among Federal Reserve watchers right now is that the choice is down to Janet Yellen or Larry Summers as Ben Bernanke’s replacement. I can’t find anyone who really thinks it’ll be Roger Ferguson, Tim Geithner, Alan Blinder, or some other dark horse.</p>

Ezra Klein reported yesterday that Larry Summers is now the leading candidate to replace Ben Bernanke when Bernanke's term as Fed chairman expires in January. This, for those who haven’t been following every twist and turn in the Fed sweepstakes, comes as a surprise. For months, most Fed-watchers assumed that Janet Yellen, currently the Fed Vice Chairman and a longtime president of the San Francisco Fed, had the job all but sown up. Ezra helpfully lays out the criteria that are likely to guide the Fed selection: 1.) Obama’s personal affinity for a candidate; 2.) the candidate’s monetary policy stance...

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The White House official whom Bob Woodward charged had crosssed a line by saying he would "regret" printing his version of a set of Washington negotiations was Gene Sperling, the director of the White House Economic Council, a source familiar with the exchange told BuzzFeed Wednesday. The email from Sperling to Woodward, which Woodward read to Politico Wednesday, has transfixed Washington, with Republicans and some in the press charging that it embodies a White House lording it over a cowed press corps. Woodward, Politico reported, called the top official — identified to BuzzFeed as Sperling — to tell him that...

Larry Summers, chair of the White House National Economic Council when the 2009 stimulus was developed, suggested that President Obama will eventually tax and regulate junk food to drive people to eat more healthily — although he dinged First Lady Michelle Obama’s healthy foods initiative.“I think there is no question that the way Americans eat and what Americans weigh is a big contributor to health problems and it’s a big contributor to health costs,” Summers said on Morning Joe today.It’s not the agenda now, but I think at some point you’re going to see tax measures and regulatory measures that...

I need a quick list of all the Communist and Marxist ties in the Obama administration for use at a meeting tonight. Something beyond his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, and appointee Van Jones. I know this topic is rich, and I hope other FReepers can help me tie it altogether in one neat package. Thanks in advance.

Yesterday, Bill Clinton got into hot water by making the radical suggestion that having a massive tax hike in a recessionary environment might not be such a great idea. Clinton walked that back later in the day after other Democrats attacked him and questioned his motives for, er, making economic sense. Those critics might be turning their guns on Barack Obama's first Director of the National Economic Council and a key architect of Obama's economic policies, who said the same thing earlier today on MSNBC's Morning Joe: Lawrence Summers said Wednesday that Congress should temporarily extend Bush-era tax cuts, making...

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said on Wednesday he will step down in June, raising questions as to whether the United States will for the first time throw open the job it has always claimed as its own. "I'm honored to have led such a world class institution with so many talented and exceptional people," Zoellick said in a statement announcing his plans. Earlier, he had met with the World Bank's 25-member board to inform them of his decision. Speculation has been rife in recent months over who might take the job when Zoellick departs. Possible U.S. candidates include Secretary...

Eleven Stunning Revelations From Larry Summers’s Secret Economics Memo To Barack Obama By James Pethokoukis January 23, 2012, 3:08 pm A lengthy piece in The New Yorker looks at policymaking in the Obama White House. A key source for writer Ryan Lizza is a 57-page, “Sensitive & Confidential” memo written by economist Larry Summers—eventually to be head of Obama’s National Economic Council—to Obama in December 2008. Here’s some of what I learned about Team Obama’s thinking as the financial crisis was exploding, followed by quotes from the memo itself: 1. The stimulus was about implementing the Obama agenda The short-run...

Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011 Time for IMF to save Europe By LAURENCE H. SUMMERS The Washington Post WASHINGTON — European leaders met last week for yet another "historic" summit at which the fate of Europe is said to hang in the balance. Yet it is clear that this will not be the last one convened to deal with the financial crisis. Given that Europe is the largest component of the global economy, the rest of the world has a stake in helping to avoid major financial accidents. It also has a stake in aiding continued growth in Europe and ensuring...

(snip) The greatest threat to the nation’s creditworthiness is a sustained period of slow growth that, as in southern Europe, causes debt-to-GDP ratios to soar. Discussions about medium-term measures to restrain spending and raise revenue need to be coupled with a focus on near-term growth. Without the payroll tax cuts and unemployment insurance negotiated by the president and Congress last fall, we might well be looking at the possibility of a double-dip recession. Substantial withdrawal of fiscal support for demand at the end of 2011 would be premature. Fiscal support should, in fact, be expanded by providing the payroll tax...

US Politicians Duped By The Brotherhood In the United States, one individual maintained a pretense of "moderation" which would later embarrass the left and the right. According to the testimony of Dr. Michael Waller to the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Abdurahman Alamoudi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. A man born in Eritrea in 1951, he arrived in the US in 1979 and became a naturalized US citizen on May 23, 1996. From 1985 onwards he became involved in many Muslim groups. In 1990 he founded the Washington DC-based American Muslim Council (AMC), which Waller states "has...

For years, Democrats have bashed Republicans over tax cuts. Tax cuts supposedly did nothing to encourage work and, thus, when President Bush cut tax rates across the board, it only lined the pockets of the wealthy. This rhetoric repeated over and over for the last decade. But now President Obama's tax rate agreement is creating massive confusion among Democrats and many Senators will cast their vote tonight in contradiction to their previously stated positions. In September 2001, a New York Times editorial summed up the received wisdom of Democrats: "the Bush tax cut wasn't designed to fight a recession." The...

Round two of the economic crime of the century has begun. On January 12, Lawrence Summers, President Obama's designee to become director of his National Economic Council, sent a letter to congressional majority and minority leaders seeking the second half of the $750 billion approved by Congress last October.   Citing Obama's economic speech of January 8, Summers wrote: "As the President-elect recently stated, 'we start 2009 in the midst of a crisis unlike any other we have seen in our lifetime.'" As you no doubt recall, last September Congress, fearing the wrath of constituents, rejected a bailout scheme put together...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration has helped pull the U.S. economy back from the "abyss" with aggressive efforts to spur growth and stabilize financial markets, a top White House adviser said on Monday. Defending policies that Republicans have attacked as ineffective, National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers argued measures put in place by the administration, including a $787 billion stimulus package, had helped turn back the deepest U.S. recession since the Great Depression. "Thanks largely to the Recovery Act, alongside an aggressive financial stabilization plan and a program to keep responsible homeowners in their homes, we have walked a...

Raising $100 billion a year of climate finance by 2020 is challenging, but possible through mechanisms including carbon markets, domestic carbon taxes and a variety of international transportation taxes, a United Nations advisory group said in a report Friday. Earlier this year, the UN's Ban established the panel, which includes U.S. National Economic Council Director Larry Summers, billionaire financier George Soros and Deutsche Bank vice-chairman Caio Koch-Weser. The financing will be used to support mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries--in particular, for the poorest and most vulnerable communities.

New York Times' Frank Rich Named Obama's Top Economic Adviser By Andrew B. Wilson on 10.26.10 @ 6:08AM Things are not going well for President Obama in his search for an economic adviser to replace the departing Larry Summers. The President had hoped to reach across the aisle -- no, make that the ditch -- to find a top businessperson to take the job. You know the ditch. It is the muddy resting place for that badly damaged car, a.k.a. the U.S. economy, which the president is trying to rescue. He says that the same people who drove the car...

Obama's praise for departing economic adviser on the "Daily Show" echoes Bush comments for Katrina-era FEMA head. Stewart's advice: "You don't want to use that phrase, dude."

Caterpillar is one excellent company. It is building new factories now in Texas, Arkansas, and North Carolina, from which it will export products made by American workers all around the world. Its excellent worldwide parts distribution network gives its used equipment a very high resale value. But on September 29 Caterpillar announced it is building its twelfth factory in China -- this one to produce mini-excavators. Why can’t Caterpillar make a profit exporting mini-excavators to China? The answer is simple: China has a 30% tariff on all excavators. In fact it has a similar high tariff on just about every...