Click here to receive the Daily Digest via e-mail.

Austerity's Big Winners Prove To Be Wall Street and the Wealthy (HuffPo)

Zach Carter writes that austerity hasn't only been a source of misery. As Roosevelt Institute Fellow Dorian Warren points out, the rich are liking it just fine, since they've reversed the process of redistribution to rob from the poor and give to themselves.

A Closer Look at Middle-Class Decline (NYT)

David Leonhardt notes that given the most prolonged income decline since the Depression, we need a debate that addresses the core problems in our economy rather than one that decides who gets to carry the handbasket on the way to hell.

Low-Income Older Women Will Be Worst Hit if States Don't Expand Medicaid (The Nation)

NND Editor Bryce Covert writes that without the Medicaid expansion, uninsured older women will have a much more difficult time paying for health care and saving for retirement. Bonus for Boy Scouts: There may be a lot more of them out on the streets.

Obama's Skills on the Campaign Trail Explain His Haplessness in the White House (TNR)

Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Mark Schmitt argues that Obama's Bain attacks may prove as clever as his 2008 strategy, but like a dog chasing a car, politicians who focus all their attention on winning office may not know what to do with it if they get it.

Q: How Are the Swing-State Economies Doing? A: Who Cares? (The Atlantic)

Reporters are going to spend the rest of the year obessing about states like Ohio as if they work for the tourism board, but Derek Thompson notes that state-level economic reports tell us nothing about the election. It's the national economy, stupid.

Bankers Gone Wild (New Yorker)

James Surowiecki writes that given the incentives banks have to lie and cheat, regulators need to stop treating Wall Street less like a gentleman's club where members can police themselves and more like a group of toddlers playing with matches.

The LIBOR Scandal's Lies (TAP)

Wallace Turbeville argues that while it's fair to criticize regulators for not doing as good a job as they could have in the LIBOR scandal, we shouldn't let that distract us from the fact that the banks involved were behaving as badly as could be.

From an Unlikely Source, a Serious Challenge to Wall Street (Rolling Stone)

Matt Taibbi looks at a plan by local governments to use eminent domain to buy up underwater mortgages. But who are you going to trust to treat you fairly, your elected officials or trained professionals with big rubber FORECLOSURE stamps?

Meet the Front Group Leading the Fight Against Taxing the Rich (MoJo)

Josh Harkinson takes a closer look at attacks on the president's tax proposals by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, or NFIB -- an acronym that would be much more accurate if they dropped the N or changed the B to "Billionaires."

Another "subprime" crisis: Student loans (Salon)

Andrew Leonard argues that that the housing and student loan debt crises weren't driven by irresponsible borrowers, but by the same underlying philosophy of banks: there's a sucker born every minute, and they're our new favorite customers.

With additional research by Danielle Bella Ellison.