Economics Daily Digest: Dow or don't

By Tim Price, originally published on Next New Deal

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Why There's a Bull Market for Stocks and Bear Market for Workers (Robert Reich)

Reich notes that while giddy market analysts treated yesterday's Dow gains as a sign that happy days are here again, an economy's health is measured by the well-being of its flesh-and-blood people, not the corporate pod-people who are currently rolling in money.

The GOP Budget Divide: Don't Know vs. Don't Care (NY Mag)

Jonathan Chait writes that Republicans have decided to either pretend they don't know what President Obama is offering or deliberately avoid finding out, since exposure to heavy doses of reality has been proven to have harmful side-effects for their arguments. 

Paul Ryan Ups the Ante (TNR)

Jonathan Cohn writes that Ryan's plans to further gouge spending with once off-limits Medicare cuts show the GOP's not looking for a middle ground. There's where we are now and a point way off on the right that will one day be considered a leftist compromise.

Fear and the New Deal (Prospect)

Scott Lemieux writes that Ira Katznelson's Fear Itself, an account of how Southern Democrats shaped the New Deal, serves as a reminder of the political constraints that even FDR had to face, not a "gotcha" that proves the last 70 years of progress didn't count.

It's time to tax financial transactions (WaPo)

Katrina vanden Heuvel argues that instead of slashing basic government services through sequestration, we could be raising billions by taxing Wall Street's excess. If they even notice the money missing, they'll probably just assume they should be hushing it up.

To serve and protect... banks? (Salon)

David Dayen notes that there's clear evidence that banks have repeatedly broken the law by foreclosing on active duty service members serving overseas, but despite the criminal penalties in place, jail cells remain as empty as the service members' former homes.

He Who Makes the Rules (Washington Monthly)

Haley Sweetland Edwards looks at how the implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law has become less of an exercise in rule-making and more of an elaborate brain-teaser for industry lawyers hired to make words mean the opposite of what they say.

GOP Senator Suggests New Way for Republicans to Gum Up Wall Street Reform (Think Progress)

Travis Waldron notes that Richard Shelby, a top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, wants to submit all new financial regulations to a cost-benefit analysis. You know, just on the off-chance that any of them cost more than the $22 trillion financial crisis.

Tim Price is Deputy Editor of Next New Deal. Follow him on Twitter @txprice.