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Old 01-31-2012, 09:54 PM   #2021
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Rahm Emanuel

Though it is not an explicit policy prescription, Chicago's new mayor, Rahm Emanuel, has also come from the White House and hit Chicago's urban, low-income community hard through the city budget and changes to the parade ordinance that he has instituted in the first six months of his term.

The budget will shut down half of the city's 12 mental health clinics, lay off more than one-fifth of public library staff, privatize all seven of the city's neighborhood health clinics and cut funding for overnight outreach crews to bring homeless people to shelters ahead of what is expected to be one of Chicago's worst winters.

The changes to the parade ordinance would increase fines and require $1 million liability insurance for protesters, as well as mandate a much larger police presence for protests.

Long, speaking at a protest against the ordinance change, said, "I am greatly concerned that the proposal will regress our citizens to leave simple rights: leaving the most vulnerable citizens no redress to speak in defense of whatever misfortunates involve them."

A member of the Jane Addams Senior Caucus, a protest group focusing on senior rights, Long continued, "I need assurance that I'll be able to advocate for myself and other seniors."

Whether the primarily negative perception that Emanuel has amassed in his first six months in office will be a hindrance to Obama's re-election campaign remains to be seen, but Maritere Gomez, with Chicago's Occupy el Barrio, says that she sees Emanuel's policies as connected to Obama's.

"I think both of them have been ruling the country with an iron first, to be politically cliche," said Gomez. "What Obama has done to the immigrant community is harsh and cold-hearted, which is pretty much consistent with what Rahm is doing in Chicago. He doesn't waste time in disguising what he is doing to hurt democracy, freedom of speech, all of the critical rights."

Gomez, 24, is an undocumented student living on Chicago's Southwest side and working minimum wage jobs to help support her family. "I can't vote, and now I can't even protest," said Gomez, whose Occupy group focuses on the city's Hispanic communities.

Obama 2012

Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else - like education and medical research, a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we're serious about paying down our debt, we can't do both.
- State of the Union Speech, January 2012

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, income inequality was a key component of Obama's speech. He touched on an unfair taxing system, the importance of helping young, undocumented people fulfill their dreams and the importance of an affordable higher education.

But he was telling this to a country that had already seen his administration extend the Bush tax breaks and fail to pass the DREAM Act, which would have offered a path to legalization for young immigrants, and that is in the midst of a growing student debt bubble.

Neither the White House nor the Obama for America campaign replied to multiple requests for comment.

Long is now an activist on senior rights, but says she still remembers clearly when she had to move to the back of the bus because she was "colored."

She plans to vote for the first African-American president a second time in the coming election. "I am pleased with our president, but I know this: the president can't go any further than he is allowed to go," said Long. "We live in a controlled society, by Wall Street and the rich and powerful, one percenters they are called."

But not everyone is ready to forgive Obama in time for the next election. Occupy, the newest political force, is likely to take a more critical position.

"The immigrant community is definitely and thoroughly disappointed in Obama. If anything, there are more broken up homes because of deportation, more tension in the workplace because of E-Verify," said Gomez. "There really is no hope, and I really hope that we come out and Occupy."

Arun Gupta, an independent journalist who has traveled to occupations around the country, says he has seen a mixed consciousness with regard to the coming Obama campaign.

"Obama's 2008 campaign was built on deception. He came into office with a huge mandate for change and a once-in-a-lifetime Democratic super-majority. Instead, we got the third George W. Bush term," said Gupta.

"So it's heartening to see that people realize electoral politics, on their own, don't result in progressive change.... People do not want the Occupy movement to become a left-wing tea party, and there are forces that are trying to push it in that direction."

"Like I always say, the Democratic Party is the graveyard of social movement."
http://www.truth-out.org/obamas-urba...ies/1328042445
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Old 01-31-2012, 10:39 PM   #2022
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The Chicago 2012 budget was passed unanimously by the City Council....the vote was 50-0. Yes there are 50 aldermen elected from the 50 wards of Chicago....the thought of 50 members on any city council makes me want to run away screaming............I am entirely shocked all 50 could ever agree on a budget

On November 16, 2011, the City Council unanimously approved the 2012 Budget for Chicago. We heard your voice loud and clear throughout this entire process as we worked to fill a $635.7 million budget gap. More than 3,100 of you posted more than 10,000 ideas and comments on this site, generating 62,000 votes. At public town hall meetings, we took many your questions live and answered more than 400 online. We reviewed your letters, emails, Facebook comments and tweets. Working together, we created an honest budget.

http://www.chicagobudget.org/
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Old 02-01-2012, 02:01 AM   #2023
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The Biggest Risk to the Economy in 2012, and What’s the Economy For Anyway?
by Robert Reich

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos a few days ago, said the “critical risks” facing the American economy this year were a worsening of Europe’s chronic sovereign debt crisis and a rise in tensions with Iran that could stoke global oil prices.

What about jobs and wages here at home?

As the Commerce Department reported Friday, the U.S. economy grew 2.8 percent between October and December – the fastest pace in 18 months and the first time growth exceeded 2 percent all year. Many bigger American companies have been reporting strong profits in recent months. GE and Lockheed Martin closed the year with record order backlogs.

Yet the percent of working-age Americans in jobs isn’t much different than what it was three years ago. Yes, America now produces more than it did when the recession began. But it does so with 6 million fewer workers.

Average after-tax incomes adjusted for inflation are moving up a bit. (They increased at an annual rate of .8 percent in the last three months of 2011 after falling 1.9 percent in prior three-month period. For all of 2011, incomes fell .1 percent.)

But beware averages. Shaquille O’Neal and I have an average height of six feet. Exclude Mitt Romney’s $20 million last year — along with everyone else securely in the top 1 percent — and the incomes of most Americans are continuing to slip.

Consumer spending picked up slightly in the fourth quarter mainly because consumers drew down their savings. Obviously, this can’t last.

Meanwhile, government is spending less on schools, roads, bridges, parks, defense, and social services. Government spending at all levels dropped at an annual rate of 4.6 percent in the last quarter – and that’s likely to continue.

Some economists worry this drop is a drag on the economy. But it also means fewer public goods available to all Americans regardless of income.

Congress still hasn’t decided whether to renew the temporary payroll tax cut and extend unemployment benefits past February. If it doesn’t, expect another 1 percent slice off GDP growth this year.

Tim Geithner is surely correct that the European debt crisis and Iran pose risks to the American economy in 2012. But they aren’t the biggest risk. The biggest risk is right here at home – that most Americans will continue to languish.

All of which raises a basic question: Who or what is the economy for? Surely not just for a few at the top, and not just big corporations and their CEOs. Nor can the success of the economy be measured by how fast the GDP is growing, or how high the Dow Jones Industrial Average is rising, or whether average incomes are turning upward.

The crisis of American capitalism marks the triumph of consumers and investors over workers and citizens. And since most of us occupy all four roles – even though the lion’s share of consuming and investing is done by the wealthy – the real crisis centers on the increasing efficiency by which all of us as consumers and investors can get great deals, and our declining capacity to be heard as workers and citizens.

Modern technologies allow us to shop in real time, often worldwide, for the lowest prices, highest quality, and best returns. Through the Internet and advanced software we can now get relevant information instantaneously, compare deals, and move our money at the speed of electronic impulses. We can buy goods over the Internet that are delivered right to our homes. Never before in history have consumers and investors been so empowered.

Yet these great deals increasingly come at the expense of our own and our compatriots’ jobs and wages, and widening inequality. The goods we want or the returns we seek can often be produced more efficiently elsewhere around the world by companies offering lower pay, fewer benefits, and inferior working conditions.

They also come at the expense of our Main Streets – the hubs of our communities – when we get the great deals through the Internet or at big-box retailers that scan the world for great deals on our behalf.

Some great deals have devastating environmental consequences. Technology allows us to efficiently buy low-priced items from poor nations with scant environmental standards, sometimes made in factories that spill toxic chemicals into water supplies or pollutants into the air. We shop for great deals in cars that spew carbon into the air and for airline tickets in jet planes that do even worse.

Other great deals offend common decency. We may get a great price or high return because a producer has cut costs by hiring children in South Asia or Africa who work twelve hours a day, seven days a week. Or by subjecting people to death-defying working conditions.

As workers or as citizens most of us would not intentionally choose these outcomes but as seekers after great deals we are indirectly responsible for them. Companies know that if they fail to offer us the best deals we will take our money elsewhere – which we can do with ever-greater speed and efficiency.

The best means of balancing the demands of consumers and investors against those of workers and citizens has been through democratic institutions that shape and constrain markets.

Laws and rules offer some protection for jobs and wages, communities, and the environment. Although such rules are likely to be costly to us as consumers and investors because they stand in the way of the very best deals, they are intended to approximate what we as members of a society are willing to sacrifice for these other values.

But technologies for getting great deals are outpacing the capacities of democratic institutions to counterbalance them. For one thing, national rules intended to protect workers, communities, and the environment typically extend only to a nation’s borders. Yet technologies for getting great deals enable buyers and investors to transcend borders with increasing ease, at the same time making it harder for nations to monitor or regulate such transactions.

For another, goals other than the best deals are less easily achieved within the confines of a single nation. The most obvious example is the environment, whose fragility is worldwide. In addition, corporations now routinely threaten to move jobs and businesses away from places that impose higher costs on them – and therefore, indirectly, on their consumers and investors – to more “business friendly” jurisdictions. The Internet and software have made companies sufficiently nimble to render such threats credible.

But the biggest problem is that corporate money is undermining democratic institutions in the name of better deals for consumers and investors. Campaign contributions, fleets of well-paid corporate lobbyists, and corporate-financed PR campaigns about public issues are overwhelming the capacities of Congress, state legislatures, regulatory agencies, and the courts to reflect the values of workers and citizens.

As a result, consumers and investors are doing increasingly well but job insecurity is on the rise, inequality is widening, communities are becoming less stable, and climate change is worsening. None of this is sustainable over the long term.

Blame global finance and worldwide corporations all you want. But save some blame for the insatiable consumers and investors inhabiting almost every one of us, who are entirely complicit. And blame our inability as workers and citizens to reclaim our democracy.
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Old 02-01-2012, 02:22 AM   #2024
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Taxing the Rich Won't Help the Poor
by Ted Rall

Reacting to and attempting to co-opt the Occupy Wall Street movement, President Obama used his 2012 State of the Union address to discuss what he now calls "the defining issue of our time"--the growing gap between rich and poor.

"We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by," Obama said. "Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules."

No doubt, the long-term trend toward income inequality is a major flaw of the capitalist system. From 1980 to 2005 more than 80 percent in the gain in Americans' incomes went to the top one percent. This staggering disparity between the haves and have-nots has created a permanent underclass of underemployed, undereducated and alienated people who often turn to crime for survival and social status. Aggregation of wealth into fewer hands has shrunk the size of the U.S. market for consumer goods, prolonging and deepening the depression.

How can we make the system fairer?

Liberals are calling for a more progressive income tax: i.e., raise taxes on the rich. Obama says he'd like to slap a minimum federal income tax of 30 percent on individuals earning more than $1 million a year.

Soaking the rich would obviously be fair. GOP frontrunner/corporate layoff sleazebag Mitt Romney earned $59,500 a day in 2010--and paid half the effective tax rate (13.9 percent) than of a family of four earning $59,500 a year.

Fair, sure. But would it work? Would increasing taxes on the wealthy do much to close the gap between rich and poor--to level the economic playing field?

Probably not.

From FDR through Jimmy Carter it was an article of faith among liberals that higher taxes on the rich would result in lower taxes on the poor and working class. This was because the Republican Party consistently pushed for a balanced budget. Tax income was tied to expenditures, which were more or less fixed--and thus a zero-sum game.

That period from 1933 to 1980 was also the era of the New Deal, Fair Deal and Great Society social and anti-poverty programs, such as Social Security, the G.I. Bill, college grants and welfare. These government handouts helped mitigate hard times, gave life-changing educational opportunities that allowed class mobility, closing the gap between despair and hope for tens of millions of Americans. As the list of social programs grew, so did the tax rate--mostly on the rich. The practical effect was to redistribute income from top to bottom.

Democrats think it still works that way. It doesn't.

The political landscape has shifted dramatically under Reagan, Clinton and the two Bushes. Budget cuts slashed spending on student financial aid, food stamps, Medicaid, school lunch programs, veterans hospitals, and aid to single mothers. The social safety net is shredded. Most federal tax dollars flow directly into the Pentagon and defense contractors such as Halliburton.

As the economy continues to tank, there's only category to cut: social programs. "Eugene Steuerle worked on tax and budget issues in the Reagan Treasury Department and is now with the Urban Institute," NPR reported a year ago. "He says one reason no one talks about preserving the social safety net today is that lawmakers have given themselves little choice but to cut it. They've taken taxes and entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare, off the budget-cutting table, so there's not much left."

Meanwhile, effective tax rates on the wealthy have been greatly reduced. Which isn't fair--but not in the way you might think.

Taxes on middle-class families are at their lowest level in 50 years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal thinktank.

What's going on?

On the revenue side of the budget equation, the poor and middle-class have received tiny tax cuts. The rich and super rich have gotten huge tax cuts. Everyone is paying less.

On the expense side, social programs have been pretty much destroyed. If you grow up poor there's no way to attend college without going into debt. If you lose your job you'll get 99 weeks of tiny, taxable (thanks to Reagan) unemployment checks before burning through your savings and winding up on the street.

Military spending, on the other hand, has soared, accounting for 54 percent of federal spending.You have to rebuild the safety net. Otherwise higher taxes will swirl down the Pentagon's $800 toilets

In short, we're running up massive deficits in order to finance wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and so on, and so rich job-killers can pay the lowest tax rates in the developed world.

I'm all for higher taxes on the rich. I'm for abolishing the right to be wealthy. But liberals who think progressive taxation will mitigate or reverse income inequality are trapped in the 1960s, fighting the last (budget) war in a reality that no longer exists. The U.S. government's top priority is invading Muslim countries and bombing their citizens. Without big social programs, invading Muslim countries and bombing their citizens is exactly where every extra taxdollar collected from the likes of Mitt Romney would go.

The only way progressive taxation can address income inequality is if higher taxes on the rich are coupled with an array of new anti-poverty and other social programs designed to put money and new job skills directly into the pockets of the 99 percent of Americans who have seen no improvement in their lives since 1980.

If you're serious about inequality, income redistribution through the tax system is only a start. Whether through stronger unions or worker advocacy through federal agencies, government must require higher minimum wages. Maximum wages, too. A nation that allows its richest citizen to earn ten times more than its poorest would still be horribly unfair--yet it would be a big improvement over today. Shipping jobs overseas must be banned. Most free trade agreements should be torn up. Companies must no longer be allowed to layoff employees before eliminating salaries and benefits for their top-paid managers--CEOs, etc.

And a layoff should mean just that--a layoff. First fired should be first rehired--at equal or greater pay--if and when business improves.

Once a battery of spending programs targeted to the 99 percent is in place--permanent unemployment benefits, subsidized public housing, full college grants, etc.--the tax code ought to be radically revamped. For example, nothing gives the lie to the myth of America as a land of equal opportunity than inheritance. Aristocratic societies pass wealth and status from generation to generation. In a democracy, no one has the right to be born into wealth.

Because everyone deserves an equal chance, the national inheritance tax should be 100 percent. While we're at it, why should people who inherited wealth but have low incomes get off scot-free? Slap the bastards with a European-style tax on wealth as well as the appearance of wealth.

Now you're probably laughing. Even Obama's lame call for taxing the rich--so the U.S. can buy more drone planes--stands no chance of passing the Republican Congress. They're empty words meant for election-year consumption. Taking income inequality seriously? That's so off the table it isn't even funny.

Which is why we shouldn't be looking to corporate machine politicians like Obama for answers.
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Old 02-01-2012, 07:45 AM   #2025
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I appreciate the focus on Chicago and the budget crisis here not unlike the crises other municipalities are facing.


Remembering 1968 as Chicago Prepares for G8



April 27, 1968: some 8,000 peaceful peace marchers walk about a mile to Chicago’s Civic Center where a phalanx of police wade in without provocation, beat dozens bloody and jail scores more who are tear gassed in the Center’s jail cells. Roosevelt University’s President Emeritus, Edward Sparling, led a citizens commission to investigate the incident and found total fault lay with the police and Mayor Richard J. Daley. It was obviously Daley’s forewarning of what would befall demonstrators who might show up for the Democratic National Convention in August. Call it batting practice.

It may have dissuaded some, but many came anyway. Daley fulfilled his promise with violence that stained Chicago’s reputation for decades and changed American politics for the worse. Flash forward 44 years: Mayor Rahm Emanuel gets the G8 and NATO to meet here in late May. The host committee remains highly secretive about the true cost to the city, while some in the business community are fearful. The host committee head is former Richard M. Daley aide, Lori Healey, whose last great fiasco was being second in command on the committee to bring the Olympics to Chicago.

Emanuel is much subtler than RJD in his warnings to protestors. As noted earlier, he proposed onerous ordinances boosting fines, authorizing unlimited funds for surveillance equipment and permitting the deputization of others to police the protestors. Some strictures were nearly impossible to comply with. Emanuel backed off a few after some aldermen and media complained—leading some to think he was magnanimous—but nevertheless passed provocative restrictions guaranteed to build in failure and almost automatically criminalize every participant.

My friend Todd Gitlin, the Columbia University author, historian and fellow veteran of 1968, recently summed it up in another publication: “…all applicants for permits (1) must supply at the time of application ‘a description of the size and dimension of any sign, banner or other attention-getting device that is too large to be carried by one person,’ and (2) that they obtain $1 million insurance coverage to ‘indemnify the city against any additional or uncovered third party claims against the city arising out of or caused by the parade, and agree to reimburse the city for any damage to the public way or city property arising out of or caused by the parade.’ (If all that weren’t tragic and farcical enough, it now also becomes mandatory that the applicant submit ‘a list identifying the type and number of all animals that applicant intends to have at the parade.) The minimum fine for a violation jumps to $200; the maximum is $1000 and/or 10 days in jail….

“It is full frontal abuse of the First Amendment,” Gitlin charges. But wait—there’s more: He warns, “…the Feds may end up preempting the city by imposing their own still more stringent national security laws.”

This repressive ordinance was passed with the votes of some of our most progressive aldermen. Maybe they should have read it in the original German before voting “Ja!”
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Old 02-01-2012, 09:04 AM   #2026
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Old 02-01-2012, 09:10 AM   #2027
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Default Indiana poised to approve anti-union law

INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - The Indiana state Senate was expected on Wednesday to give final approval to a new law allowing workers at unionized businesses to avoid paying union dues, the last major legislative hurdle to making Indiana the first "right-to-work" state in the nation's manufacturing belt.

No state has approved a right-to-work law since Oklahoma a decade ago, and Indiana is being closely watched nationwide during a presidential election year.

The measure was given preliminary approval by both chambers of the Republican-majority Indiana legislature earlier this month, but the Senate must give final approve to the House version of the bill.

Supporters of right-to-work, led by Indiana's Republican Governor Mitch Daniels, say it is needed to bring business and jobs to the state. Opponents call it "union busting" and say it will lower the wages of workers.

Daniels, who considered running for president last year and gave the Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union message last Tuesday, has made passage of right-to-work one of his priorities for this year.

Indiana would join 22 other states with right-to-work laws, most of them in the South and West. Indiana's action could encourage other states to pass similar laws.

Democrats and their union supporters tried to slow the bill by boycotting the legislature and other delaying tactics, but Republicans supportive of right-to-work control both chambers of the legislature and the governor's office.

Organized labor could be a significant issue during the 2012 election year. In addition to the Indiana action, Democrats and unions are hoping to recall Wisconsin's Republican Governor Scott Walker after he championed a new law that severely restricted collective bargaining powers of public sector unions in the state. Ohio turned back similar attempts to curb public sector unions last year, voting in a state referendum against the proposal.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/indiana-poi...140910525.html
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Old 02-01-2012, 11:39 AM   #2028
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Default I think this belongs in some other thread, but I couldn't find the right one

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Old 02-01-2012, 11:43 AM   #2029
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Creator of 'Soul Train' Don Cornelius , Dead @ 75, apparent Suicide
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Old 02-01-2012, 02:21 PM   #2030
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The Cancerous Politics and Ideology of the Susan G. Komen Foundation ~ by Jodi Jacobson, Editor-in-Chief, RH Reality Check, February 1, 2012 - 10:30am
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Old 02-01-2012, 02:25 PM   #2031
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The FDA Safety Information and Adverse Events Reporting Program

Lo/Ovral-28 (Norgestrel/EthinylEstradiol) Tablets: Recall - Possibility of Inexact Tablet Counts or Out of Sequence Tablets

AUDIENCE: OB/GYN, Healthcare Professionals, Consumers

ISSUE: Pfizer Inc. notified healthcare professionals and consumers that it recalled 14 lots of Lo/Ovral-28 (norgestrel and ethinyl estradiol) Tablets and 14 lots of Norgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol Tablets (generic) for customers in the U.S. market. An investigation by Pfizer found that some blister packs may contain an inexact count of inert or active ingredient tablets and that the tablets may be out of sequence.

As a result of this packaging error, the daily regimen for these oral contraceptives may be incorrect and could leave women without adequate contraception, and at risk for unintended pregnancy.

BACKGROUND: These products are oral contraceptives indicated for the prevention of pregnancy. These products are packaged in blister packs containing 21 tablets of active ingredients and seven tablets of inert ingredients. Correct dosing of this product is important in avoiding the associated risks of an unplanned pregnancy.

RECOMMENDATION: Patients who have the affected product should notify their physician and return the product to the pharmacy. See the Press Release for a list of affected lot numbers.

Healthcare professionals and patients are encouraged to report adverse events or side effects related to the use of these products to the FDA's MedWatch Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program:

Complete and submit the report Online: www.fda.gov/MedWatch/report.htm
Download form or call 1-800-332-1088 to request a reporting form, then complete and return to the address on the pre-addressed form, or submit by fax to 1-800-FDA-0178
Read the MedWatch safety alert, including a link to the Press Release, at:

http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/S.../ucm289803.htm
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Old 02-01-2012, 04:30 PM   #2032
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6 Shocking Ways Capitalism Is Failing Working America
Without a dramatic rethink, our "free-enterprise" system may never again provide enough decent jobs for those who need them.

Capitalism is coming apart at the seams and the middle-class is paying the price. This week’s news alone bombards us with examples of how, absent a dramatic rethink, our "free-enterprise" system may never again provide enough decent jobs for those who need and want them.

1. iSlavery

Apple is arguably the world’s most successful company. Yet most of the 700,000 jobs needed to produce its cherished products are located abroad, especially in China. Why doesn’t Apple manufacture in the United States? Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher writing for the New York Times reveal that Apple is looking for a cheap, “flexible” workforce that can be put to work whenever and wherever it is needed on the company's terms.

One chilling example concerns the manufacture of glass screens for the iPhone to replace plastic screens which are easily scratched. With only weeks to go before the phone’s release in 2007, the late Steve Jobs demanded a switch to glass. But to get that done on time required deploying the pliable workforce of the giant Chinese manufacturing firm, Foxconn:

“They could hire 3,000 people overnight,” said Jennifer Rigoni, who was Apple’s worldwide supply demand manager until 2010, but declined to discuss specifics of her work. “What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”

In mid-2007, after a month of experimentation, Apple’s engineers finally perfected a method for cutting strengthened glass so it could be used in the iPhone’s screen. The first truckloads of cut glass arrived at Foxconn City in the dead of night, according to the former Apple executive. That’s when managers woke thousands of workers, who crawled into their uniforms — white and black shirts for men, red for women — and quickly lined up to assemble, by hand, the phones. Within three months, Apple had sold one million iPhones. Since then, Foxconn has assembled over 200 million more.

Little wonder that Apple just announced that it doubled its already enormous profits over the Christmas holidays. Like the Pharaohs of old, it’s always paid to build great things on the backs of slave labor.

2. The Bain of Our Middle-Class Existence

A day doesn’t go by without suffering through another Mitt Romney defense of his career at Bain Capital, his highly profitable leveraged buy-out firm. Mitt repeatedly tells us that Bain created tens of thousands of jobs at Staples, Domino’s Pizza, Sealy, Brookstone, Sports Authority, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Toys 'R' Us.

For a moment let’s put aside the fact that Bain also drove a large number of companies into bankruptcy while loading them up with debt and extracting enormous profits along the way. Instead, let’s focus on the type of jobs that Staples, Domino’s et al. produce for the American middle-class. While these jobs are not as slavish as those sought after by Apple in China, most Bain companies pay so little and have so few benefits that it is impossible to support a middle-class existence from the jobs they create.

Since Romney likes to brag about Staples, we took a closer look at its average hourly pay (as reported on Glassdoor.com). Out of 61 job classifications listed, only three provide starting salaries of $20 or more per hour. The vast majority of those 61 jobs categories have pay scales that begin at $7 and $8 per hour and scale up over time to $13 or $14 an hour. I’d like to see Mitt raise his dog on that.

But wait! There really is some fairness in our economy when it comes to taxes. If you work at Staples and somehow climb your way up to a middle-class salary, you might be paying the same tax rate as Mitt who earns $20 million a year. Then again, since Mitt paid only 13.9% on his 2010 taxes, you might even pay a little more counting all your state and local taxes. (More on how he does it below.)

3. Surprise! Federal Auditors Find Big Pay for Bailed-Out Bankers

While the middle-class suffers, top executives are raking it in yet again, even at the companies bailed out by our tax dollars. You may recall that the Obama administration demanded that executives at the top seven bailed-out firms receive no more than $500,000 a year. Congress complied by passing a law to set up a “special master” to administer the salary cap. Well, this week we discovered that the special master got mastered, according to federal auditors.

Apparently, the bailed-out companies teamed up with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and company to pressure the special master to allow salaries 10 times as high for these failed executives. “Forty-nine people received packages worth $5 million or more from 2009-2011,” according to the auditor’s report. (What the auditor failed to mention is that the law only applies to direct bailout money. It does not cover the big Wall Street firms that took trillions in hidden loans from the Federal Reserve to avoid collapse. Those top bankers earn much more than those at the seven bailed-out firms.)

So what was the excuse for busting the pay cap? Without fatter paychecks, these poor executives would...quit.

Here’s the argument one bailed-out company used to claim a “hardship” exemption so the employee could receive at least $1 million in cash: “This individual is in their early 40s, with two kids in private school, who is now considered cash-poor.” Such people “would not meet their monthly expenses” if the $500,000 a year cap were applied to him. Ouch!

Why not let this executive walk? After all, his or her firm was a failure. It was only saved from destruction because of the generosity of the taxpayer. Where’s that executive going to go anyway, and couldn’t a suitable replacement be found at $500,000 a year?

Just count all the alleged “laws of capitalism” that are broken in this example: 1) the original bailout instead of bankruptcy; 2) the irreplaceable executive in an economy with massive layoffs even in the financial sector; and 3) a financial wage scale having no connection to real value produced (especially since the firm produced negative value and needed to be bailed out).

So while the Apple workers in China get up in the middle of the night from their company dorms to assemble phones, and while Staples workers try to live on $8 an hour, we the taxpayers are supporting financial executives who can’t make ends meet on $500,000 a year?

4. Economically Addicted to War

The news is hot this week with military strife. Iraq is drifting back to civil war. Afghanistan is already there. Iran is threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz, and the New York City police got nabbed using an anti-American Muslim training film on 1,400 of its officers. What does this all add up to? Spending trillions on the military and then asking the middle-lass to tighten its belt to make up for deficits.

Since W.W.II pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression, massive military expenditures have been used repeatedly to keep the economy near full-employment. During the Cold War, these expenditures contributed mightily to a new form of state capitalism where public funds were used to subsidize private corporations which supplied the military. Along the way, this process also helped prop up the middle-class in defense industry jobs.

But over the last decade this military Keynesianism got a new wrinkle. The U.S. went to war without paying for it, thereby racking up nearly a trillion dollars in new debt. At the same time an enormous tax cut was handed over to the super-rich which proceeded to spend a good deal of it in the Wall Street casino which then crashed. In total, the unfunded wars, the tax cuts and the economic crash account for the entire deficit problem. Let me repeat, there would be no deficit at all were it not for the Bush tax cuts, the two unfunded wars and the Wall Street crash.

Nevertheless the middle-class must pay. We are told that the real problem is “entitlements,” including public support for healthcare, education, unemployment benefits and Social Security. Therefore we must cut, cut, cut, to pay for military adventurism and the lifestyles of our financial oligarchs.

5. Mitt Slithers Through the “Carried Interest” Loophole

Of course, one of the big news items of the week was Mitt’s tax returns, which revealed that he paid only 13.9 percent in federal taxes instead of the 30-plus percent high-income earners are supposed to pay. Like Warren Buffett, Mr. Romney probably pays a lower tax rate than his secretary at Bain Capital. How does he get away with that?

It’s not just that he has a legion of tax sharpies who know how to hide his money in secret Swiss accounts and in the Grand Cayman Islands. The real culprit is a gigantic tax loophole called “carried interest” that allows private equity moguls and hedge fund honchos to essentially lie about what they do for a living.

You will hear Mitt wax euphoric about how hard he worked at Bain to obtain his riches. What he doesn’t tell you is that he used the carried interest loophole to hide all that hard work from federal taxes. Instead of paying himself an income for the real work he performed (which would be taxed at 35 percent), he hid his income within a slice of the profits so that he could claim it as capital gains (which is taxed at 15 percent). If he worked at a big bank doing exactly the same kind of work and got big stock options as his bonus, he would have to pay 35 percent. But thanks to the largess of Congress, he and billionaires in the private equity and hedge fund rackets pay only 15 percent. And of course, every effort to remove this loophole has been stalled by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

This loophole is the poster child example of how the super-rich enhance their wealth at the expense of the rest of us. And the rest of us do indeed make up the difference either through increased taxes or decreased services.

6. How the Gringrich/Freddie Tryst Distorts History


This week also treated us with the release of Newt’s $600,000 a year consulting contract with Freddie Mac. Did he get paid for influence-peddling or for his prescient historical insights? Who cares? As sordid as his deal may have been, the real damage comes from the analysis of the financial crash that accompanies the story. We hear again and again by all, including the media, that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two troubled government housing agencies, caused the financial meltdown.

Not true!

Let’s start with some basic facts about these corporations. They are not government agencies. They are private corporations that have the implicit backing of the government to help provide a massive mortgage market for middle-class Americans (or they were before the crash). The big mistake was allowing these agencies to become for-profit organizations in the first place. But that’s another story.

The widely repeated erroneous analysis claims that Fannie and Freddie caused the crash by underwriting risky housing mortgages. Ron Paul, in particular, blames the Community Reinvestment Act for pushing Fannie and Freddie to buy up “risky” loans that enable underserved minorities in particular to obtain mortgages.

But Paul, who should know better, has it dead wrong. CRA mortgages were standard mortgages and not risky ones. Their default rates are just like other standard mortgages given to Anglo home buyers. CRA, in short, had absolutely nothing to do with Wall Street’s reckless gambling as big banks and hedge funds bought up risky mortgages and sold them in even riskier mortgage-related securities.

Fannie and Freddie also wanted in on that enormously profitable Wall Street derivative game. But they got there very, very late just as the crisis was starting to unfold. These flawed private/government backed agencies didn’t cause what already was fully developed. Instead they were left holding the bag. You can’t blame them for the mess that Wall Street already created.

Who suffers? The middle-class homeowner who is already underwater due to the housing crash, and those who will purchase homes in the future. The drumbeat of attacks on Freddie and Fanny will surely lead to the privatization of those functions, which in turn will drive up the costs of mortgages for the rest of us.

How do we put America back to work?

These recent examples demonstrate yet again that "free-enterprise" on its own can not create enough middle-class jobs. Neither Apple, nor Bain-Staples, nor Wall Street, nor deficit reduction will get us there. By the way, neither will small business.

We need to recognize that modern financialized capitalism is deeply flawed. Without enormous government support, it cannot function. Without enormous government support, there will be no sizable middle-class.

The solution is both simple and difficult for us to accept. We need to use public money to create jobs and decent wages doing the things that need doing!

- We need more education? Then make higher education virtually free as we did at the end of W.W.II.

- We need alternative energy? Then use government funds to perfect the technology as we did with the Manhattan Project to build the A-bomb, and as we did with NASA’s moon shot.

- We need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure? Then hire a million workers to do it as we did during the Great Depression.

How do we pay for it? By now that should be conceptually easy: Wall Street should pay for the damage it has done. (A financial transaction tax would be a good first step.) And while we’re at it, get rid of the carried interest loophole so that Romney and the rest of his gang pay the same rates as the rest of us.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/1539...a/?page=entire
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Old 02-02-2012, 08:47 AM   #2033
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Default I thought just by the headline it was pretty sick, it gets worse once you read it.

Man Adopts 42 year old Girlfriend ~ HuffPo
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Old 02-02-2012, 10:58 AM   #2034
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Quote:
Originally Posted by UofMfan View Post


Imagine that. This Palm Beach, Florida heterosexual millionaire can adopt his 42 year old girlfriend to help keep his money from the parents of someone he killed by running a stop sign.

But.......... in Florida, same sex couples are not allowed to adopt a child that needs care, love, financial, support, a family, a parent in his or her life. Why? Queer Phobia. Another sad example of control, fear and hypocrisy.
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Old 02-02-2012, 11:37 AM   #2035
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Janet Howell, Virginia State Senator, Attaches Rectal Exam Amendment To Anti-Abortion Bill
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Old 02-02-2012, 12:11 PM   #2036
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Tracey Cooper-Harris, Gay Army Veteran, Sues Over Denial Of Military Benefits

WASHINGTON — A gay Army veteran and her wife sued the federal government on Wednesday after they were denied military benefits granted to straight spouses.

The lawsuit announced in Washington involves a 12-year veteran of the Army, Tracey Cooper-Harris. After leaving the Army she married Maggie Cooper-Harris in California in 2008. Two years later, Tracey Cooper-Harris was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and she has received disability benefits through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as a result. But her application for additional money and benefits that married veterans are entitled to was denied.

The couple's lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Los Angeles, argues that a federal law and military policy that resulted in the denial of benefits are discriminatory and unconstitutional.

If the couple were straight they would receive about $125 more a month in disability payments as a result of Tracey Cooper-Harris' illness, which has no cure. In addition, Maggie Cooper-Harris would be eligible for approximately $1,200 a month in benefits as a surviving spouse after her wife's death. The pair would also be eligible to be buried together in a veterans' cemetery.

"We're only asking for the same benefits as other married couples. We simply want the same peace of mind that these benefits bring to the families of other disabled veterans," said Tracey Cooper-Harris at a press conference in Washington on Wednesday.

During her military service, Cooper-Harris helped take care of drug and bomb-sniffing dogs. She met her wife, a former teacher, when the two played on opposing rugby teams in California. They now live in Pasadena, Calif.

The military has recently become more tolerant of gay service members. In September it ended its 18-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy and began allowing gay and lesbian service members to serve openly.

But the Pentagon has said that a federal law enacted in 1996 that defines marriage as the legal union between a man and woman prohibits the military from extending benefits to the partners of gay service members, even if they are legally married in certain states. The Defense of Marriage Act is being challenged in a number of court cases, including one by military service members filed in Massachusetts in October. Those service members were suing over a wide range of benefits that married couples receive. The Obama administration has said it will not defend the law in court.

The telephone message seeking comment from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on Wednesday was not immediately returned.

Same-sex marriage is now legal in six states and the District of Columbia. Tracey and Maggie Cooper-Harris were married in California during a brief window in 2008 when same-sex marriage was legal in the state before residents voted to ban it. Marriages performed before the ban are legal, though no new marriages are currently being performed.

The couple is being represented by attorneys from the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization, and the law firm WilmerHale.
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Old 02-02-2012, 01:08 PM   #2037
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Did you hear about the Burmese Python Invasion in Florida??? I wonder if Snow & Grant know.....

Stopping the Burmese Python Invasion



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Old 02-02-2012, 03:27 PM   #2038
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I so loved seeing this on the news- when the state house secretary had to read the amendment to include this out loud while in full session!! The men appeared a little sqeemish....

It didn't pass, but she has introduced something else.
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Old 02-02-2012, 08:03 PM   #2039
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I love this!!!! In another state - I cant remember which - democrats extended the piss in a cup to get assistance rule to include legislators. If they fail the piss test they lose perks like parking and a laptop and such.
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Old 02-03-2012, 09:06 AM   #2040
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The Right-Wing Zombie Lie About Public Workers That Just Won't Die
...the Congressional Budget Office released a study this week on government employees' earnings that has the Right buzzing – and even some progressive pundits repeating the myth that government workers are “overpaid.”

http://www.alternet.org/story/153992...e/?page=entire




The above lie is the perfect companion piece to this congressional betrayal.
It’s okay to renege on the agreement to cut military spending because federal workers are overpaid anyway and besides we need all the money we can get for our next war (one would imagine with Iran.)

Capitol Hill Scrambles To Save Military Spending After Debt Deal
- Common Dreams staff

Republican leaders in Congress yesterday moved to avert potential cuts in the military budget that were part of a bipartisan budget agreement made last year.

The Hill reports today:

A group of Republican senators introduced legislation Thursday that would wipe out automatic defense cuts by reducing the federal workforce by 5 percent and extending a freeze on federal pay through June 2014.

The GOP senators, led by Arizona’s Jon Kyl and John McCain, wish to prevent $500 billion in automatic defense cuts set to begin in January 2013.

Their bill would eliminate the first year of the cuts by hiring back two workers for every three who leave. It would save $127 billion in all, with $110 billion covering automatic cuts to defense and non-defense spending scheduled for 2013 under last summer’s deal to raise the debt ceiling.

Republicans have zeroed in on the federal workforce as a way to reduce deficits. On Wednesday, the House approved extending a federal pay freeze in a bipartisan vote. Seventy-three Democrats voted with the GOP.

At Talking Points Memo, Brian Buetlers writes this morning:

Republican leaders in Congress have all but reneged on a key agreement they reached with the White House last summer rather than reconsider their unwavering stance against new tax revenue.

Relations between the Obama administration and the congressional GOP were already just about as bad as can be. But even so, this sets a precedent future Congresses and White Houses will remember when partisan mismatches force them to strike deals and govern.

“I’ve got concerns about the sequester,” House Speaker John Boehner told reporters Thursday. “I’ve made that pretty clear. And replacing the sequester certainly has value. The defense portion of the sequester, in my view, would clearly hollow our military. The Secretary of Defense has said that, members of Congress have said it. But the question I would pose is, where’s the White House? Where’s the leadership that should be there to ensure that this sequester does not go into effect.”

“Sequester” is budget-speak for across-the-board cuts. But the cuts he’s talking about were part of a deal he recently claimed he’d honor.
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