What happens to minorities and the unemployed if we default

This chart from Pew Research Center shows how devastating the economic collapse was on blacks and Hispanics.  Their losses were catastrophic by any definition.  These findings should be setting off alarm bells in D.C.  They are reminiscent of the Kerner Commission findings.  In 1967 President Lynden B. Johnson created the Kerner commission after riots in Watts, Newark and Chicago.  The most infamous line from the report was widely quoted: "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—-separate and unequal."  The Pew results point to the same unequal and seperate results except that one of the societies is composed of  blacks and hispanics.  The republicans are driving relentlessly towards the default cliff.  If the nation does default one of the effects that is postulated is the loss of about 10% of our net worth.   To the unemployed  roughly 14-20 million have very little net worth left.  Studies have shown the unemployed blow through their savings and other assets rather quickly.  Many have already had their homes in foreclosure, what is a 10% loss of almost nothing?  The average black family would lose 560 dollars in a default.  The average Hispanic would lose 632 dollars, peanuts compared to the 12,000 dollars they lost after the wall street speculating crash.  The average white family would lose 13,000.  The middle class has had so many tough breaks over the last decade this is just another smack in the face.  But a family with a million dollar net worth would lose 100,000 and billionaires, might not notice if they lose a million.  The good thing about all of these losses is that finally this country would have some shared sacrifice.  This whole crisis is created and maintained by the republicans.  What this country needs is jobs.  The deficit isn't causing joblessness.  Cutting spending will not create jobs.  The republicans for 2 years talked about how the uncertainty over the health care bill was hurting business and the recovery.  Creating all this uncertainty about the US paying its debt, isn't creating a negative impact on business?   The Republicans say this is about the debt.   Right, this winter when Obama offered to sign "pay as you go" every Republican in the Senate voted against it. This is all about Mitch McConnell's number one priority:

"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

Related articles

• Wealth Gap Widens Between Whites, Minorities (time.com)
• Wealth gap along racial lines worst in quarter-century since Census began collecting data (dailykos.com)

An easy solution to the debt crisis

 From Jonathan Turley's guest blogger a great article and I heartily recommend it.  Most American families are familiar with the concept of economic shortfall, or "We can't pay our bills".  Almost always this involves some cutting of expenses, but that rarely solves the problem.  American families when money is short, one or both parents take on extra jobs to earn money.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “We don’t have this problem because we tax too little. We have it because we spent too much.”  Duh, obviously Mitch McConnel is completely out of touch with American families.  We spent too much and we need to increase revenues.  No family would stop paying for vital medication when money is short, they would find a part time job to fill in the gap.  But not the republicans, lets cut vital services instead of raising taxes.  We need an American family approach to the debt crisis.  Read on to discover the easy solution.

A very easy solution to the U.S. Debt problem is to simply tax the wealthy and corporations at 1960 levels and according to one source, the debt would be erased within a decade. “Some numbers — from an Institute for Policy Studies report released this past spring — can help us better visualize just how monumental this political failure has been. If corporations and households taking in $1 million or more in income each year were now paying taxes at the same annual rates as they did back in 1961, the IPS researchers found, the federal treasury would be collecting an extra $716 billion a year. In other words, if the federal government started taxing the wealthy and their corporations at the same rates in effect a half-century ago, the federal debt to investors would almost totally vanish over the next decade.”                                       Image via WikipediaOur Future

Raise taxes, Mitch