Earlier this month, Bank of America (BOA), the country’s largest bank, announced a moratorium on foreclosures in all 50 states.

Out-of-touch millionaires with close ties to Wall Street have steered our economic policy for too long. As Larry Summers leaves the National Economic Council, President Obama should replace him with a real progressive who will stand up to the banks and fight for an economy that works for all Americans.

Only 19.3% of Senate Dems oppose cuts in Social Security, if signing onto to the equivalent of House member Raul Grijalva’s “No Cuts” resolution is a reasonable indicator. As far as you should be concerned, that means 80.7% of Senate Dems support cuts. And things are a little better in the House, where 43.9% of Democrats have signed onto Grijalva’s resolution. What are we gonna do about it?

The Washington Post dismisses concerns about the cost of the Afghanistan war on the grounds that it is less than 1% of US GDP. But the Post supports raising the Social Security normal retirement age, although the savings to the government from doing this would be less than 1% of US GDP.

First Bai put his own thoughts about Social Security into the mouth of a congressman who repudiated him. Now he doubles down on his ignorance.

Three (sorta) “positive” stories about economic stimulus all came together in the last couple of days. They suggest that even when the forces of darkness are trying their hardest to make us stupid, it’s possible we can actually sort out the truth.

A critique of Dean Baker’s position on the Social Security Trust Funds.

Today, Dean Baker questioned the sanity of The Washington Post, after its editorial staff once again came out for cuts in Social Security to avert a crisis which will not be manifest until 2037. In reply to the Post’s observation that this year is the first in which the Social Security program will pay out more than it takes in, and that this is a warning sign, Dean points out that it:

. . . certainly is a warning sign. The falloff in Social Security tax revenue is a warning that the economy is seriously depressed due to the collapse of the housing bubble. Double digit unemployment leads to all sorts of problems, including the strains that it places on pension funds like Social Security.

He then goes on to criticize the Post for not advocating the urgency of the need to get back to full employment to solve any pending shortfall in Social Security, and for advocating instead for possible Fiscal Commission–recommended “balanced” measures, including Social Security spending cuts to be implemented gradually to avert the projected 2037 crisis.

Dean then advocates that we reject this recommendation and wait to act. He says:

Dean Baker had an interesting post in HuffPo on August 2nd on the Alan Blinder/Mark Zandi study. It’s the best take on it I’ve seen thus far. He says:

“. . . A new study by Princeton University Professor Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, examined the impact of the TARP and the related Fed and FDIC bailout programs. The study found that without the bailout, GDP would have declined by another 6.5 percent and the economy would have lost another 8.5 million jobs. In other words, things might be bad now, but if we didn’t shovel trillions in loans and loan guarantees to Goldman Sachs and the rest of the Wall Street gang, they would be even worse.

Andy Stern and Dean Baker advocate investment of Social Security Funds in the stock market. That’s a terrible idea, and we can’t let it happen.