Ours is a period of profound social crisis: our social discourse and political “possibilities” rigidly limited by a narrow ideological hegemony, political system failures, continuous economic dislocation even in “boom” or “growth” years, an increasingly precarious worklife for an ever-growing proportion of the population, an increasingly damaged natural world, and an increasingly violent and fragmented social world. Concepts like class consciousness, social solidarity, and a sense of enduring community have largely disappeared, or, more accurately, been expunged from our social reality. This interconnected web of problems is what I’ve taken to calling the 21st Century Social Crisis. This crisis has its origin in the collapse of the 20th century’s once highly successful social compromise between the powers of capital and of the people, what I call the 20th Century Synthesis.
Category: Economy
Aug 09 2010
Media and the Message. CNN; Retain Bush Tax Cuts
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria says the easiest way to cut the deficit is to let the Bush tax cuts expire.
copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.org
The day was Sunday, August 1, 2010. Former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan appeared on Meet the Press. When asked to discuss the Congressional debate on tax cuts, the man known to move markets, a person who leans to the “Right,” offered a decisive decree. In direct disagreement with Republican officials and the profitable corporations that fund countless political campaigns, Mister Greenspan declared, “Look, I’m very much in favor of tax cuts, but not with borrowed money. And the problem that we’ve gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day, that proves disastrous. And my view is I don’t think we can play subtle policy here on it.”
This statement was as a slap in the face to corporations, or more correctly to the tycoons who head these firms. Multi-millionaire media moguls might understand this best. These television and radio Executives experience firsthand that influence over an industry can translate into influence over an outcome. Cable News Network Chief Officers are among those who actively make use of this truth. Tax cuts expired? “Never;” say network Administrators and the newscasters such as Allan Chernoff, who do their bidding.
Aug 08 2010
What IF Congress was on Merit Pay — like average folks are
Gridlock
grid·lock
noun
1. A traffic jam in which no vehicular movement is possible, especially one caused by the blockage of key intersections within a grid of streets.
2. A complete lack of movement or progress resulting in a backup or stagnation:
“the political gridlock that prevented … the President and Congress from moving expeditiously to cut the budget”
gridlock – Chiefly US
noun
1. (Engineering / Automotive Engineering) obstruction of urban traffic caused by queues of vehicles forming across junctions and causing further queues to form in the intersecting streets
2. a point in a dispute at which no agreement can be reached; deadlock political gridlockverb
1. to block or obstruct (an area)
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gridlock
Aug 08 2010
Our Morbid Economy
The monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was already bad enough.
Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 131,000 in July, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Government employment fell by 202,000 in July, largely reflecting the loss of 143,000 temporary workers hired for Census 2010. Private-sector payroll employment edged up by 71,000.
And meanwhile the estimate of jobs lost in June was revised upward to 221,000 from 125,000. That adds up to 352,000 jobs lost in the last two months.
Incomes also stagnated in June, failing to increase for the first time since September, compared with a 0.2 percent gain projected by the survey median. Wages and salaries in June fell 0.1 percent, the first drop since September.
The number of contracts to purchase previously owned houses fell 2.6 percent in June, indicating demand kept unraveling after the expiration of a homebuyer tax credit. The index of pending home resales dropped to 75.7, the lowest level since data began in 2001, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed. Economists projected sales would rebound 4 percent following a 30 percent plunge in May that was also the biggest on record.
The Commerce Department reported that factory orders declined 1.2 percent in June to a seasonally adjusted $406.4 billion. Analysts expected a smaller drop. The agency also revised May’s decline to a sharper 1.8 percent instead of 1.4 percent.
In the first half of 2010, more than 1.6 million U.S. properties were hit with foreclosure filings, which include bank repossessions, default notices and auction sale notices. That’s up 8 percent from the first six months of 2009 and puts the U.S. on pace to top 3 million filings this year, including more than 1 million bank repossessions. While subprime borrowers and bad loans led the surge in foreclosures in 2008 and 2009, this year’s wave comes from homeowners who’ve lost their jobs.
Under-employment, as measured by Gallup, was 18.4% in July, essentially unchanged from 18.3% at the end of June and in mid-July. Underemployment peaked at 20.4% in April.
Americans aged 18 to 29 had easily the highest underemployment rate in July of any age group, at 28.4%.
28.4% under-employment for the kiddies!
And of course that reminds me of my favorite new song, which we might as well adopt as the national anthem.
.
Aug 07 2010
The 99ers — ARE simply ‘Americans who Want to Work’
The ’99ers’ Share Their Stories
Paul Solman, PBS, MAKING SEN$E — August 6, 2010
I’m a 49 year old single mother of a 15 year old. I was laid off in September of 2008 and my unemployment ended in April of 2010. The way New Jersey calculates your base year made me ineligible for more than 79 weeks.
I apply to just about 50 jobs per week and I went to school and got some medical certifications that are just about useless. Everyone I speak with says “your certifications are great, but we’re really looking for some experience.”
I have been unable to pay my rent since June and expect to be evicted shortly. I have no one in a position to help, and can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like, telling my daughter that we have no home. […] Although I can’t consider suicide, I understand where these people are at!
That was just one of the personal stories out of the MILLIONS of fellow out-of-work Americans,
also known as the 99er’s …
Aug 06 2010
When does ‘Mostly Gone’ actually mean, ‘A LOT is still There’?
The oil has gone? Tell that to Gulf coast residents
By Rupert Cornwell, independent.co.uk — 6 August 2010
And though only a quarter of the 4.9m barrels reckoned to have leaked is still unaccounted, that represents the equivalent of five Exxon Valdez, the tanker whose spill caused an environmental catastrophe in Alaska in 1989.
“There are still boats out there every day working, finding turtles with oil on them and seeing grass lines with oil in it,” charter boat captain Randy Boggs, of Orange Beach in Alabama, told the Associated Press. “All the oil isn’t accounted for. There are millions of pounds of tar balls and oil on the bottom.”
Turns out, This — TIMES 5 —
IS mostly STILL There! … lurking somewhere, just below the surface …
Aug 04 2010
The Week in Editorial Cartoons (Part I) – Dropping the Ball
Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette
|
|
|
|
Note:
Due to the unusually high number of editorial cartoons published over the past week or so (I literally have another 300+ cartoons saved), I’m going to try and post another edition of this diary by Friday, August 6th. It something I’ve never done before.
Aug 02 2010
Gleaning: Bringing in the Sheaves
With so many people still out of work and depending upon unemployment benefits, I thought I might briefly explore one particularly ancient safety net program. Republicans believe that welfare in any form swells the deficit and creates a system of entitlement, but I disagree. Pointing back to the Bible, as I so often do, I’d like to discuss the particulars and modern day application of a very ancient custom. Those who are up in arms about the very thought of welfare might benefit from a different means of framing the issue.
Aug 02 2010
Three years later and still nothing has been learned
Three years ago this past Saturday the economic crisis struck.
That’s why the comments by Alan Greenspan on the very same day on Meet the Press are worth noting.
“There is no doubt that the federal funds rate can be fixed at what the Fed wants it to be but which the government has no control over is long-term interest rates and long-term interest rates are what make the economy move. And if this budget problem eventually merges to the point where it begins to become very toxic, it will be reflected in rising long-term interest rates, rising mortgage rates, lower housing. At the moment there is no sign of that because the financial system is broke and you can not have inflation if the financial system is not working.”
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The financial system is still broken three years later!?! Think about that for a moment. We’ve thrown trillions of dollars at the financial system and we’ve fixed nothing.
The obvious conclusion from this reality is that we haven’t addressed the real causes of the crisis, and instead are only dealing with symptoms. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s recent “unusually uncertain” comments before Congress proves that the so-called experts simply don’t understand what the problem is.
Jul 30 2010
Where do Jobs Go, When they don’t come back?
br>
Is it just me, or is the face of American Employment Opportunities, subtly changing?
Has the Dignity of an Honest Day’s Work — suddenly become a “Luxury”, that as a country, we can no longer afford?
Or is it simply that the Toothpaste of “Cheap Labor”, has been squeezed out of the Tube — and it’s such a mess now, there is no easy way to put it back to where it used to be.
Is the Job Market going through a permanent “structural change” — one where the employment landscape will look totally different, after the all the Great Recession dust has cleared?
Jul 27 2010
State and local governments prepare to cut 500,000 jobs
It’s the economic timebomb that we all knew would go off, but kept hoping that a heavenly miracle would save us.
Well, time is up, and miracles are in short supply.
The report, a result of a survey by the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Association of Counties, showed local governments are moving to cut the equivalent of 8.6 percent of their workforces from 2009 to 2011. That suggests 481,000 employees will lose their jobs, according to the report, which said the tally may yet rise.
That’s bad, but the real story is actually much worse.
Jul 23 2010
Reid puts Energy Bill on Ice: with a Chilling Effect on Wind and Solar?
The Energy Bill has been shelved for now — another Price exacted by the Do Nothing Party.
Senate Halts Effort to Cap CO2 Emissions
Democrats Forgo Centerpiece of President Obama’s Energy Plan, as Cap-and-Trade Fails to Lure Broad Support in Congress
By Stephen Power, Wall Street Journal — July 23, 2010
Mr. Reid refused to declare the idea dead. But Thursday’s decision called into question when or whether any legislated cap on greenhouse-gas emissions would reach Mr. Obama’s desk.
Now, businesses, such as wind-turbine makers, that had bet on a greenhouse-gas provision to make alternatives to coal and oil more cost-competitive must recalculate how long it might take for that to happen.
[…] the solar industry is growing at the rate of about 40% a year in terms of electrical power installed and is likely to continue to grow, said Ron Kenedi, vice president of Sharp Corp.’s Sharp Solar Energy Solutions Group in Huntington Beach, Calif.
We need some new Senators (at least 60), who actually care about Energy Independence — enough to act.