Paul Krugman tells it like it is in the article below.

Consider reading one of his books to understand the economy:

Paul Krugman. (photo: NYT)

The Fear Economy

By Paul Krugman, The New York Times

27 December 13

ore than a million unemployed Americans are about to get the cruelest of Christmas "gifts." They're about to have their unemployment benefits cut off. You see, Republicans in Congress insist that if you haven't found a job after months of searching, it must be because you aren't trying hard enough. So you need an extra incentive in the form of sheer desperation.

As a result, the plight of the unemployed, already terrible, is about to get even worse. Obviously those who have jobs are much better off. Yet the continuing weakness of the labor market takes a toll on them, too. So let's talk a bit about the plight of the employed.

 

Some people would have you believe that employment relations are just like any other market transaction; workers have something to sell, employers want to buy what they offer, and they simply make a deal. But anyone who has ever held a job in the real world - or, for that matter, seen a Dilbert cartoon - knows that it's not like that.

 

Here's the rest of RSN:

 

 

Six States Will Be Chosen to Host Drone Test Sites
Ed Pilkington, Guardian UK
Pilkington reports: "The FAA has promised to announce by the end of the month the six states that it has chosen as the hosts of the official drone test sites that within a couple of years will provide a 'road map' to drone participation in civilian life, including the integration of larger, high-altitude, unmanned aircraft into the air traffic control system."
READ MORE

Obama Calls on Congress to Do More on Guantanamo Bay
Reuters
Excerpt: "President Barack Obama on Thursday gave credit to Congress for relaxing restrictions on transferring detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the custody of foreign governments but said lawmakers need to go further."
READ MORE

Hospice Firms Draining Billions From Medicare
Peter Whoriskey and Dan Keating, The Washington Post
Whoriskey and Keating report: " ... the number of 'hospice survivors' in the United States has risen dramatically, in part because hospice companies earn more by recruiting patients who aren't actually dying, a Washington Post investigation has found. Healthier patients are more profitable because they require fewer visits and stay enrolled longer."
READ MORE

Poll Finds Strong National Support for Extending Unemployment Benefits
Alan Pyke, ThinkProgress
Pyke reports: "A majority of Americans believe Congress should restore the federal unemployment insurance program that it allowed to expire in the recent budget deal, according to a new poll."
READ MORE

Organic Farmers vs. Monsanto
Wood Prairie Farm
Excerpt: "Earlier this month, Monsanto filed an opposition brief with the Supreme Court in a last ditch effort to deny a group of American family farmers and seed growers justice in their efforts to protect their farms and the integrity of their crops."
READ MORE

---

"Osama Bin Laden Is Our President Obama": The Year on the Fringe

Ben Dimiero, Media Matters for America
Dimiero writes: "On a rainy morning in October, Fox News reporter Doug McKelway sat in the passenger seat of a car cruising around the Washington, D.C., Beltway, delivering a live update to Fox & Friends."
READ MORE

Amy Goodman | Obama's New Normal: The Drone Strikes Continue
Amy Goodman, Guardian UK
Goodman writes: "There has been yet another violent attack with mass casualties. This was not the act of a lone gunman, or of an armed student rampaging through a school. It was a group of families en route to a wedding that was killed."
READ MORE

Transatlantic Trade Agreement Threatens Environment and Health in US and Europe
Erich Pica, The Huffington Post
Pica writes: "Negotiations between the United States and European Union for a free trade agreement, which resumed this week in Washington, represent one of the biggest threats we have seen in our lifetimes to an environmentally sustainable and socially just world."
READ MORE

Stanley Kutler | Why Are We in Afghanistan?
Stanley Kutler, Truthdig
Kutler writes: "We can ill afford the casualties and treasure resulting from mistakes based on the premise of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address."
READ MORE

McDonald's Advises Employees Not to Eat Fast Food
Khier Casino, Opposing Views
Casino reports: "McDonald's recently posted health tips on its website for employees, advising them that they should not consume fast food, even the kind they serve at the chain restaurants."
READ MORE

More Than 150 Years After Brutal Slaughter, a Small Tribe Returns Home
Bill Donahue, Al Jazeera America
Donahue reports: "When a few canoes carrying a group of Wiyot tribal members to Indian Island cross the choppy waters of Humboldt Bay in March, it will not look as if anything particularly special is happening."
READ MORE

FOCUS: Robert Scheer | Bill O'Reilly's War on Jesus

Robert Scheer, Truthdig
Scheer writes: "Maybe it is time to put Christ back in Christmas. Bill O'Reilly annually demands we acknowledge that the man, or myth, that has been moved to the center of this once pagan ritual be properly identified with a religion, or philosophy as he puts it, that carries a moral message."
READ MORE