Though only a tiny country of 320,000, Iceland made international headlines in 2008 when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, exemplifying the dangers of financial deregulation. But this year, Iceland’s economy will outgrow the euro area and the developed world on average.

And as difficult as it may be for conservatives here in the U.S. to stomach, at least some of the credit for Iceland’s expeditious recovery is due to its astonishing debt relief agreement.

Since the end of 2008, Iceland’s state-controlled banks have forgiven loans for more than a quarter of the population, a total equivalent to 13 percent of its annual gross domestic product. Despite shrinking 6.7 percent in 2009, Iceland’s economy is projected to expand 2.4 percent this year and next, compared with 0.2 percent in the euro area. And while Iceland’s recovery does not provide a complete parallel to U.S. economic woes, the island’s nascent success does demonstrate how loan forgiveness can help reignite a struggling economy. According to Icelandic economist Thorolfur Matthiasson:

“The lesson to be learned from Iceland’s crisis is that if other countries think it’s necessary to write down debts, they should look at how successful the [forgiveness of debt exceeding] 110 percent [of home values] agreement was here. It’s the broadest agreement that’s been undertaken.”

Some U.S. lawmakers are trying to follow Iceland’s example. Three members of Congress — in an exceedingly rare act of bipartisanship — have introduced a bill with the potential to help hundreds of thousands of struggling homeowners while also saving taxpayer dollars.

The bill would mandate principal-reduction pilot programs at government-controlled mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Essentially, the bill allows “underwater” home owners to reduce their monthly payments in exchange for a portion of the future price appreciation on the home, known as “shared appreciation.” With the extra equity, homeowners would greatly reduce the chance of foreclosure. Principal reductions would also save these government-run companies — and thus taxpayers — billions of dollars compared to other foreclosure-prevention measures.

– Steven Perlberg

A media strategist who was a senior adviser to Mitt Romney when he ran for governor in 2003 said that he thinks Republican lawmakers are “rooting against the economy” to ensure that President Obama doesn’t win re-election.

Rob Gray, a senior adviser on Romney’s gubernatorial campaign, is a Republican media strategist who owns Gray Media, which lists an assortment of Republican officials among its past clients. Gray worked for Arizona Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and, according to Gray Media’s web site, has advised former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld (R), Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey (R), the Republican National Committee, and Romney. He did not respond to inquiries from ThinkProgress about whether he currently advises Romney or his campaign.

Appearing on Boston’s Fox 25 news channel this morning, Gray said he bought the idea that congressional Republicans were “rooting against the economy somewhat” because they believed “short-term pain” between now and November would be better than four more years under Obama:

HOST: Plenty of pundits, Rob, are suggesting that GOP lawmakers might be dragging their heels when it comes to trying to turn it around in fears that it might actually help the president. Are you buying that?

GRAY: Well, I’m not buying that they’re dragging their heels. I am buying that they’re rooting against the economy somewhat because they think that the short-term pain of, you know, the next four months is much better than having additional four years of pain under Obama. They believe the government should spend less and that they have better economic ideas than the president does. So, you know, if we have to suffer between now and November to get a better president for four years, they’re all for it.

Watch it:

Democrats have made similar allegations of congressional Republicans in the past. After Republicans blocked the American Jobs Act last October, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said Americans were “tired of Republicans in Congress rooting for the economy to fail instead of working with us to secure our economic future.”

The day college football fans have craved is possibly on its way, as representatives from the six major college football conferences met with Bowl Championship Series (BCS) officials this week to discuss and propose different scenarios to end the season with a four-team playoff instead of a single championship game.

To nearly every college football fan, the idea of deciding the sport’s champion with an end-of-season playoff is welcome news, even if details of a specific playoff plan aren’t yet clear. What is clear, though, is that major changes are on the way, as BCS executive director Bill Hancock told the Associated Press after yesterday’s meeting:

“Status quo is not on the table,” BCS executive director Bill Hancock said.

The status quo, on the field at least, appears to be changing. But allowing the BCS, an organization that dodges millions of dollars in taxes and has been the subject of multiple investigations, to stay in the picture would keep the most dangerous status quo intact.

The five BCS bowls — the Fiesta, Rose, Orange, and Sugar bowls plus the BCS National Championship game — generate millions in tax-free profits each year. In 2007, when New Orleans hosted both the Sugar Bowl and the National Championship, the games generated $34.2 million in revenue and $11.6 million in tax-free profits. The games often depend on taxpayer financing — the Sugar Bowl has taken $11 million in public subsidies since 1999; the Fiesta Bowl will receive $6.45 million through 2013 — and rely on the participation of taxpayer-funded universities, many of which lose money by participating.

The BCS bowls avoid paying taxes because they classify themselves as charities. But they give little money back to the communities that host them (just $4 million from more than $261 million in revenue in 2009) and pay their CEOs lavish salaries. The average salary for CEOs who run the games has doubled to more than $500,000 since 1999, pay that ranks the bowls in the top 2 percent among nonprofits with similar budgets and in the top 9 percent among nonprofits with budgets twice their size, according to the Arizona Republic.

The bowls, in some ways, have come to resemble America’s corporate structure: huge profits, high executive pay, and few, if any, taxes paid to the government. College football may change the status quo on the field, but until it steps away from the BCS structure, it won’t ever have a chance to change the status quo of bilking taxpayers to fund its biggest games.

During a speech in Ohio today, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney decried the economy, claimng, “almost everything the president has done has made it harder for entrepreneurs to start a business, has made it less likely for businesses like this [one in Ohio] to hire more people.” However, led by the revival of the American auto industry, Ohio’s unemployment rate has been coming down, from about 11 percent in 2009 to just above 7 percent today.

In fact, a growing number of Republican governors have been touting their respective states’ economic performances, contradicting Romney’s message of doom and gloom. And as the Wall Street Journal noted, at least one governor — Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) — believes Romney needs to stop bemoaning the state of the economy:

Iowa’s Republican governor, Terry Branstad, is part of a contingent of GOP governors and party elders urging Mr. Romney to re-tailor his message by highlighting the success stories under way in a half-dozen GOP-led states, even if it means diluting his gloomier national pitch.

While the Romney campaign could easily incorporate that message before the election, the competing narratives have led to some awkward moments. When Mr. Romney traveled to Iowa last month, his campaign released a Web ad highlighting Iowans who were struggling to find work—in a state with a 5.1% jobless rate, the seventh lowest in the U.S.

“My state is seeing significant growth,” Mr. Branstad said in an interview, adding that he didn’t see why the Romney campaign decided to highlight unemployed Iowa residents. Ticking off a long list of companies that are expanding in the state, including Alcoa and John Deere, he said, “We are doing very well.”

While the Republican governors touting their state economies are quick to credit Republican policy ideas for those jobs, the fact of the matter is that states — Republican and Democratic — are following the trend of the nation when it comes to the unemployment rate. (The spike in the blue line occurs when states changed hands and Democratic governors took control of red states.):

So as Romney continues to decry the state of the economy, the numbers — as well as the governors supporting him — are telling a different tale.

According to a new study, use of the phrase “job killer” has exploded in major media outlets since President Obama took office. An overwhelming majority of the time, the phrase was uncritically repeated, with the news organization failing to cite any evidence for it at all. The study, which was conducted by Prof. Peter Dreier of Occidental College and Christopher R. Martin of the University of Northern Iowa found:

– Media stories with the phrase “job killer” spiked dramatically after Barack Obama was elected president, particularly after he took office. The number of stories with the phrase “job killer” increased by 1,156% between the first three years of the George W. Bush administration (16 “job killer” stories) and the first three years of the Obama administration (201 “job killer” stories).

– The majority of the sources of stories using the phrase “job killer” were business spokepersons and Republican Party officials. Republican officials (41.7%) and business sources (18.6%) were responsible for 60.3% of the “job killer” allegations. In 17% of the stories, news organizations used the phrase in articles and editorials without attributing the phrase to a source.

– In 91.6% of the stories alleging that a government policy was or would be a “job killer,” the media failed to cite any evidence for this claim or to quote an authoritative source with any evidence for this claim. With little or no fact checking of “job killer” allegations, Americans have no way to know if there is any evidence for these claims.

Unsurprisingly, the Wall Street Journal was the most likely to cite the phrase job killer and the most likely to use it uncritically or without attribution.

The study’s authors wrote that “the news media, by failing to seek to verify allegations made about government policies and proposals, typically act more like a transmission belt for business, Republican, and conservative sources than an objective seeker of truth when it comes to the term ‘job killer.’” And this is certainly not the only instance in which the media help reinforce a conservative myth: the Social Security debate is plagued by misinformation thanks to media malfeasance.

Protect Our Jobs, a Michigan group working to secure collective bargaining rights, gathered more than double the 323,000 signatures needed to place a question on the Nov. 6 ballot asking voters if they want to enshrine those rights in the state constitution. Protect Our Jobs has filed the signatures with the Michigan Secretary of State, and awaits certification from the State Board of Canvassers.

Protect Our Jobs contends that workers rights are being attacked in their state, making the amendment necessary:

For more than a year, Lansing politicians and corporate special interests have made one attack after another on Michigan workers: cutting middle-class families’ wages, health care benefits, retirement security and safety protections.

They’re not done yet — there are more than 80 bills waiting for a vote in the state Legislature that would strip basic protections from working people.

These political attacks on basic collective bargaining rights have done nothing to put Michiganders back to work. Instead, all they’ve done is hurt middle-class families, small businesses and local communities.

The proposed amendment has already sparked significant opposition. A number of business groups have created Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution in order to work against it.

The initiative by Protect Our Jobs should be viewed not only in the context of attacks on labor rights in Michigan, but in the broader context of the assault on working people nationwide. In Wisconsin, for instance, stripping bargaining rights from public sector workers was merely the first step in a plan to divide and conquer unions in the state. In February, Indiana became the 23rd state to weaken unions by passing so called “right-to-work” legislation, and Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) recently called for the abolition of public sector unions. Arizona also attempted to join the parade of states weakening collective bargaining, but even Republicans balked at following through with the measure.

–Alex Brown

Sixty-eight percent of Americans — including 49 percent of Republicans — say President George W. Bush is responsible for the state of today’s economy, a new Gallup poll finds.

Indeed, the country is still reeling from Bush’s disastrous economic stewardship. His irresponsible tax cuts and deregulatory policies have contributed significantly to the slow recovery and are partly responsible for the nation’s economic plight. Here are 5 reasons why:

1. Deregulated Wall Street: It was a great time to be a Wall Street executive during the Bush administration. Sweeping financial deregulation helped build the housing bubble and allowed financial institutions to pursue risky trades unchecked. In fact, Bush eliminated the rules that allowed Wall Street to cause the financial crash that plunged the nation into the Great Recession.

2. Cut Taxes For The Wealthy: The Bush tax cuts — over 50 percent of which benefited the richest 5 percent of American taxpayers — cost about $2.5 trillion over the decade after they were enacted. Ten years later, Bush’s tax cuts are still the main driving factor of the national debt:

3. Ran Up A Tab On Two Wars: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the country trillions of dollars. Combined with Bush’s tax cuts, war spending was a main factor in blowing up the deficit and spending the surplus accumulated under Clinton. Lawmakers now use the deficit as an excuse for inaction.

4. Left Homeowners In A Lurch: While Bush was happy to help out the banks in the wake of the housing crisis, he did little to assist struggling homeowners. Hope For Homeowners, Bush’s proposal to assist those struggling with their mortgages, was a colossal failure; in its first six months, it helped just one homeowner renegotiate his mortgage. Many mortgage holders — 15.7 million or, one in three — are still underwater today.

5. Weakened Workers: Bush weakened worker safety regulations and collective bargaining rights under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Department of Labor throughout his time in office. Today, corporations are back to making record profits, while workers’ incomes are falling.

Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim, who is the world’s richest manwith a fortune of $65 billion, believes that struggling countries need to raise their retirement age to 70 in order to help fix their finances:

Countries should have people work until they are older to reflect longer life expectancy rates, Slim reportedly said…Slim added the current retirement age was established “when jobs were more physical and people died at 60, but now we live until 85 or 90.”

El Universal reported one of the world’s savviest businessmen as saying: “We live in the knowledge society, so knowledge and experience should be valued. This is why a person’s work life could be increased.”

Raising the retirement age from 65 to 70 is also a favorite suggestion of American conservatives, who cite the same reasons: an increased life expectancy and changing workforce. But at least in America, it’s not true that life expectancy is increasing for everybody.

In fact, while life expectancy has gone up substantially for richer, white men, low-income workers have not seen the same gains. Low-income minority women have actually seen their life expectancy decrease in recent years. As the Center for Economic and Policy Research put it, “there has been a sharp rise in inequality in life expectancy by income over the last three decades that mirrors the growth in inequality in income.”

If current trends in inequality continue in the U.S., raising the retirement age to 70 would result in those born after 1973 having a shorter retirement than those born in 1912.