HopeTracker

Powerful Congressional Committee Forming

Top lawmakers target ‘grand bargain’ for debt plan The Washington Post

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s says Congress must agree to reduce the debt by $4 trillion over 10 years to avert a downgrade. WaPo reports that leaders on Capitol Hill are forming “an especially powerful congressional committee” that would be charged with hammering out a new “grand bagain,” possibly by the end of the year.

“We all keep coming back to the same basic parameters. The Bowles-Simpson plan really laid out how you reach $4 trillion. And there aren’t a lot of things they didn’t consider,” (Democratic Senator Dick) Durbin said. “There are only so many moving parts here.”

The commission recommended saving $3.8 trillion by raising the retirement age for Social Security, slashing spending across government and wiping out more than $100 billion a year in popular tax breaks, including the tax deduction for mortgage interest and the tax-free treatment of employer-provided health insurance. It recommended larger Pentagon cuts and revenue increases than the White House sought this month.

Speechless in Salt Lake City

Governors gag over D.C. dysfunction Politico

Whether you agee with them or not, both Republican and Democratic governors have taken bold actions to tackle economic, educational and social programs at a state level. In many cases, governors have transcended partisan strife.

Probably the best example is New York State governor Andrew Cuomo who “negotiated with a Republican state Senate to legalize same-sex marriage and pass the Empire State’s first on-time budget in decades. Across the Hudson River, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie reformed the state pension system by working with a Democratic state House and Senate.”

Meanwhile, in Washington elected officials just say “no”, as the nations moves toward an economic abyss that presidential contender, Minnesota US representative Michele Bachmann promises is not a problem. God will take care of America.

Bursted Consumer Bubble

We’re Spent NYTimes

Mark Pernice and Ashly NodaListening to the forces of globalization after the 1999 World Trade Organization 1999 showdown in Seattle, it never made sense of us that American was primed to become a services and leisure consumption society while poorer countries made the goods that the world’s nations needs to function.

It was a very Las Vegas concept — an artificially-manufactured, surreal idea — that Americans had such wealth that we no longer needed to make anything from cars to computers. Coupled with an idea that sounded like a bad prescription for the American middle class was the growing influence of consumption, the “Sex and the City Notion” that a woman’s identity is the summation of her stilettos and the clothes on her back.

Borrow, was the mantra; refinance the house; buy, buy, buy.

The auto industry is on pace to sell 28 percent fewer new vehicles this year than it did 10 years ago — and 10 years ago was 2001, when the country was in recession. Sales of ovens and stoves are on pace to be at their lowest level since 1992. Home sales over the past year have fallen back to their lowest point since the crisis began. And big-ticket items are hardly the only problem.

For the first time in a recession, discretionary spending has fallen about 7 percent, when over decades of economic cycles it never fell more than 3 percent.

America won’t have new jobs (forget at the same salaries) until it has consumption and demand. Consumers can’t carry this economic recovery, writes the NYT. Investment in manufacturing and infrastructure is require and lower taxes ONLY for businesses that PROVE they have created jobs for American workers.

RedTracker | Boys Club

British Police Arrest Rebakah Brooks in Phone Hacking NYTimes

Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks prior to her resignation on Friday.Officials at Rupert Mudoch’s News International say they are surprised that Rebekah Brooks was arrested today, when she voluntarily met with police to aid their inestigation. Brooks’ lawyer David Wilson agrees that the arrest wasn’t expected as part of the pre-arranged meeting.

Since the scandal erupted, the British police — under fire for their close relationship with News International — has arrested five former editors from News International, including Ms. Brooks, whose high-flying career included spells as editor of The Sun and The News of the World.

London’s Police Chief Quits Amid Scandal, Brooks Arrested WSJ.com

The head of London’s Metropolitan Police Service, known as Scotland Yard, resigned late Sunday, caught up in Britain’s phone-hacking scandal. “Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson cited intense media scrutiny and the hiring of a former News Corp. tabloid editor to advise police on public relations; that editor, Neil Wallis, was arrested in connection with the criminal investigation last week.”

Fashion, Style & Culture

New Editorials/Commentary

LVMH Arnault Vision Cools On ‘L’Enfant Terrible’ Designers AOC Style

Reading about Antonio Marras, the Milan-based designer has an awful lot of shared sentiment with Givenchy creative director Riccardo Tisci, also a leading contender for Christian Dior.

On my checklist to find designers who genuinely like women — as opposed to remaking women by their sometimes tyrannical rules — the LVMH creative pot just got a whole lot juicier. Anne