Inflation:  The Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is the most common measure of inflation, rose  1.1% in June, which means that inflation for 2008 so far is 5.5%.  For comparison's sake, the CPI for all of 2007 went up 4.1%.  If you take the inflation rate of the past three months and annualized it, it comes to an annual seasonally adjusted inflation rate of 7.9%

Jobs: New claims for Unemployment benefits numbered 366,000 last week. The number of people on unemployment rolls is 3.12 million — the 12th straight week it has been over 3 million.

Troops: As the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, suggests that he may suggest some troop pullout from Iraq in the Fall depending on the security situation, these numbers to note — Number of U.S. troops in Iraq, about 150,000. Number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, about 36,000.

Any numbers that you think we should be noticing this week?

We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline" despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said…

Mr. Gramm said the constant drubbing of the media on the economy's problems is one reason people have lost confidence. Various surveys show that consumer confidence has fallen precipitously this year to the lowest levels in two to three decades, with most analysts attributing that to record high gasoline prices over $4 a gallon and big drops in the value of homes, which are consumers' biggest assets.

"Misery sells newspapers," Mr. Gramm said. "Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day."

I am sure that with his seven-figure salary, Gramm does not feel as though the economy is in a sharp decline. But for a large portion of this country, the attempts to get by on a day-to-day basis has very real effects on their lives.  It isn't what they read in a media that is trying to sell misery, but their own, real experiences.  Obama struck back pretty quickly:

“That’s what he said. We’re in a mental recession. He didn’t say this but I guess this is what he meant, it’s just a figment of your imagination.”

“This comes after Senator McCain recently admitted that his energy proposals for the gas tax holiday and the drilling will have mainly psychological benefits,” Mr. Obama went on. “Well, you know, America already has one Dr. Phil. We don’t need another one when it comes to the economy.”

He added, “It isn’t whining to ask for more than psychological relief.”

John McCain quickly realized the damage that Gramm's comments could cause him and suggested that if elected the only thing that Gramm would be considered for is Ambassador to Belarus. But McCain's and Gramm's problem is bigger than this.  The whole shape of this economic downturn is due to a runaway, unregulated investment environment put in place by one Phil Gramm.

Former Senator Phil Gramm is not simply a friend of John McCain, he isn't only McCain's "Economic Advisor" or a Vice-President of the Swiss bank UBS. Gramm was also once Chairman of the Senate banking Committee, and from this perch he designed and passed laws that basically got the economy in the fix that it is in. When he was on the Banking Committee he constantly argued for less regulation of financial services, and fewer restrictions on the types of business that such companies could engage in.  As David Corn explains, Gramm's crowning moment was in a midnight legislative maneuver accomplished in the shadow of Bush v. Gore in December of 2000:

As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the agriculture committee, the measure had been considered dead—even by Gramm. Few lawmakers had either the opportunity or inclination to read the version of the bill Gramm inserted. "Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it," says a congressional aide familiar with the bill's history.

———-

For starters, the legislation contained a provision—lobbied for by Enron, a generous contributor to Gramm—that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, allowing Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market, and cost consumers billions before it collapsed…

Because of the swap-related provisions of Gramm's bill—which were supported by Fed chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury secretary Larry Summers—a $62 trillion market (nearly four times the size of the entire US stock market) remained utterly unregulated, meaning no one made sure the banks and hedge funds had the assets to cover the losses they guaranteed.

The article goes on to explain the problems in detail (including a very good explanation of financial swaps), but the essence is that because of the unravelling of the regulatory and oversight authority in these arenas, most transactions were "done in the dark  The current housing crisis is to a great degree due to the shady investment and trading projects that were ventured by various financial services companies.  With the appetite for investments growing, subprime mortgages became increasingly attractive as an under-tapped market.  you know the rest of the story — more and larger loans to borrowers who could not afford their mortgages once interest rates went up.  Considering how essential the housing industry is to the health of the U.S. economy, the problems in that market is a big piece of the current economic downturn.

So  Phil Gramm's recent comments are not simply made to attack Barack Obama and all those who look at reality and say, "Hey, The Economy Stinks right now." he is trying to defend his own ideology, his own work, his own record.  But if his record is examined, we can see that due to his service on the banking Committee he was able to land a high-paid job in the financial sector, while the rest of us have to live with the consequences of his so-called accomplishments.

"I want it to be said about George W. Bush that when he finished his presidency he looked in the mirror at a man who did not compromise his core principles for the sake of politics or the Gallup Poll, or the latest whatever, and you can't lead in this world if you're chasing something as temporary as a popularity poll."

When I heard this, my first reaction was, What principles, exactly, are those that you were talking about? What, exactly, did he not compromise? Looking at his record, there actually are some principles that stand out:

1. What's Good for Big Oil is Good for America — Seen as recently as this week with his call for new drilling for oil off America's coastline, this principle includes protecting their tax loopholes, letting their lobbyists write the industry's regulations, and making certain that their profits continue unfettered. He once admitted that "America is addicted to oil," but his policies show that wasn't really a bad thing in his mind.
2. A Crisis isn't a Crisis Unless it Hurts the Republican Voting Base — Hurricane Katrina hits Democratic and poor sections of New Orleans? Look at it through an airplane window and send political hacks to do something about it. Hurricanes hit the state where his brother was Governor in 2004, and the $12 billion in federal aid was requested and delivered almost immediately.
3. You're Either With Us or You're Against Us – This principle, stated most clearly, is for all the allies who supported the United States after September 11th, or all the countries caught up in the maelstrom of politics before the invasion of Iraq, or just anyone who didn't think the Bush Administration's post September 11th "strategy." Either you support the War in Iraq, the shredding of the Constitution, the wiretapping of American citizens, the no-bid contracts for Halliburton and Guantanamo, or you supported the terrorists out to destroy our way of life. Any questions?
4. If the President Says it, It Must be True — Bush can make statements like "The economy is strong," " America doesn't torture," "Mission Accomplished," and "We are winning in Iraq," and it doesn't matter what the actual facts are — when the President tells you what is reality, there is no need to question it.
5. Loyalty Overrides Competence and Experience — When hiring people for critical jobs in the Executive Branch, look at whether someone is a blindly loyal Republican, like the 20 year olds fresh out of college sent to the Green Zone fix Iraq, or appoint people who have contributed a lot of money to your campaign, like when you appoint people to head FEMA, or just Republican hack operatives, like for your Cabinet. Competence is for wusses.

So Bush does have a legacy of principles. Not particularly good principles, but they are there. Did I miss any?

President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq…

In an exclusive interview, he expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. “I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.”

Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive”, he said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”.

Right. His rhetoric must have confused us, because if it weren't for his tone, then the world might understand that he is really, "a man of peace." Or maybe not.

The counter to Bush's claims that he was misunderstood and is not someone who wanted to go to war, is the report by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The analysis was reported out of the Committee by a bipartisan 10-5 vote. It is long and comprehensive and while I have yet to read the whole thing, there is a nice summary on the Committee's website.

The Committee’s report cites several conclusions in which the Administration’s public statements were NOT supported by the intelligence. They include:

Ø      Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence. 

 

Ø      Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information. 

 

Ø      Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products. 

 

Ø      Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing. 

 

Ø      The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information. 

Ø      The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed. 

This of course is not surprising. It has long been documented in other ways that the Bush Administration ignored or cherry-picked the findings of the intelligence community to rationalize their own behavior. So if you look at the way the President and the rest of the Administration tried to justify an invasion of Iraq, not at the cowboy rhetoric, but just at the case that was being made as to why awar with Iraq was supposedly "necessary," from the WMD, to connections to Al Qaeda, to the rosy scenario as to the Iraqi response to an American invasion, there is a conclusion that one could easily make… that this was a guy really anxious for war.

Tariq Ramadan has been an extremely controversial figure and me posting this video does not reflect an endorsement of the full gamut of his views; I assert only that he is a provocative and important thinker.

More here.

For more information see the official website.