Of the top 10 states for poverty, 6 are “Right-to-Work” (union busting) states.

Of the top 10 states for hunger, 7 are “Right-to-Work” states.

That should say it all, but the fact that Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby (Alabama - ranked 6th for poverty) are arguing against good union jobs that raise wages across the industry also tells you all you need to know about the divide between the the haves and have-nots in these “Right-to-Work” states: only it’s who has representation in Congress, and who only gets lip service (or worse).

While slavery might be dead in the South, employers below the Mason-Dixon still hanker for the lost riches that abundant free labor used to provide. They drive down wages by threatening - or actually - shipping jobs overseas, and by pitting whites against minorities to insure that labor solidarity is all but impossible.

Case in point:

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R- Ala., told reporters Wednesday, “I can not imagine a real justification for a worker in Alabama who does not have any health insurance at his company to be taxed to maintain a Cadillac health care plan for somebody in Detroit.”

Sen. Sessions, when is the last time you supported a bill for universal healthcare that would help out your constituents?

And when is the last time you addressed poverty in your state?

Yes, the Big 3 have been top-heavy and unresponsive to actual market conditions for ages. But we have a chance now not only to save about 3,000,000 jobs (at a time when unemployment is at its highest in 16 years) but to demand concessions from the executives - instead of the workers - that could re-make these critical manufacturers at a time when nothing matters more than creating jobs and improving wages.

Oh, and Sen. Sessions: any bailout to the auto industry would be a loan, not a grant, so chances are your poor and hungry constituents, if they even make enough to pay taxes, won’t be out a dime. And neither will the rich, white employers who bought you that seat.

My job in Portland, Oregon depends on exported raw materials coming back into the U.S. as auto glass. The bottom line is that none of us, from the UAW members in Detriot to me to even those Honda workers in Alabama, cannot afford for the country to lose 3 million manufacturing jobs. Demand in this country for everything from hibachis to Hondas would fall so low as to drive us to the edge of a Depression that could last a decade or more (unless we decided another war was the way out).

Peace and prosperity is what Americans want now, Sen. Sessions. Instead of being part of the problem, why don’t you shut up and get to work on some solutions?

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

1936 Chrysler Airflow Series C-9

These days I sometimes feel like I am living in a psychosis.  I have been absolutely opposed to the financial sector bailout from the beginning.  Our government freaked out and reacted poorly.  Too much money was approved with too little oversight for an industry that has become too big and monopolized for its britches.  I favor using government to restructure mortgage obligations and setting up a RTC (remember that) type of entity that will hold and resell foreclosed properties.

Now comes the automaker bailout.  While I do not favor handing the big three a blank check, it seems the ramifications of letting these industries file bankruptcy and stiff everyone are too serious to ignore.

Once again it seems the our government is reacting poorly to the crisis.  Making a loan to Chrysler during the Iacocca days worked out OK didn’t it?  Why can’t we do the same thing again for all three of them?  All of the car companies including Toyota and Honda have had hefty declines in their revenues.

While the domestic automakers have been hit hardest, all manufacturers have seen sharp drops in sales. Toyota’s sales were down 23.0 percent compared with its year ago levels. Honda’s sales were down 25.2 percent, and Nissan’s sales fell 33.0 percent.

Since this is an industry wide problem and not just an American automaker problem, where is our government when you need them to help strengthen our economy and our domestic industries?  Is the fallout from failure of a few financial giants so much more important than ensuring the survival of millions of American jobs in the auto related industries?

Or perhaps this is a disguised union busting tactic? If the automakers go under, Toyota, Honda and other car makers will be able to cannibalize their revenues while using non-union labor to produce their cars.

In any event, it seems to me that the old adage, As goes GM, so goes the country, is more true today than ever.  Do we really want to cede another industry to foreign manufacturers?  Unless we help out our automakers, we may soon find that the only thing America makes anymore is payday loans.

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Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

3 Comments

• At November 20, 2008, First You Were Against the Bailout Before You Were For It wrote:

  [...] the rest of this great post here Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]

• At November 21, 2008, Allen wrote:

  What I find amazing is that nobody is mentioning Ford's 65+MPG, 5 passenger car that they WON'T sell in the USA. Why should the taxpayers bail out the auto companies when they keep shafting the consumers?

  I do realize that many jobs are dependent on the big 3, but when management, such as Ford's, are opposing selling economic sound vehicles, with such good MPG, it does make a person wonder. I also remember the VW diesel car back in the 70's that was getting over 50 MPG. They also disappeared.

  The big 3 have had the knowledge to manufacture autos that would have excellent MPG for many years, and yet they have not put them on the market. Now they want my tax money to help them with their golden parachutes? NO WAY.

  And yes, it's probably a union busting idea they are trying to use. Labor cost is not the problem, as they want you to believe it is, management, gov't red tape, and the oil companies are the problem, but like everything else, the unionized labor force gets the blame.

• At November 21, 2008, John wrote:

  Here are some afterthoughts to my post.

  Why is it OK to require the car companies to come up for a plan to turn themselves around before giving them government assistance but nothing similar is being required of the banks, insurance companies, investment houses, etc?

  Why was it urgent to get immediate funds to the financial oligopolies but Congress is taking their time with the potential failure of the car companies?

  It seems to me we continue to have a bunch of ineptitude haunting us in D.C. and unfortunately we have no one to blame but ourselves because we put them there.

  I just wish somehow we could eliminate Congress or at least 99% of the people that work there and start over with some people that know what they are doing. After all isn't that what happens in failing corporations? Management is fired and new management is put in to straighten things out.

  We need new management in Congress not just a new party in control.

Some 691,000 children went hungry in America sometime in 2007, while close to one in eight Americans struggled to feed themselves adequately even before this year’s sharp economic downturn, the Agriculture Department reported Monday.

The department’s annual report on food security showed that during 2007 the number of children who suffered a substantial disruption in the amount of food they typically eat was more than double the 430,000 in 2006 and the largest figure since 716,000 in 1998.

Overall, the 36.2 million adults and children who struggled with hunger during the year was up slightly from 35.5 million in 2006. That was 12.2 percent of Americans who didn’t have the money or assistance to get enough food to maintain active, healthy lives.
…
“There’s every reason to think the increases in the number of hungry people will be very, very large based on the increased demand we’re seeing this year at food stamp agencies, emergency kitchens, Women, Infants and Children clinics, really across the entire social service support structure,” said James Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, an anti-hunger group.

Weill said the figures show that economic growth during the first seven years of the Bush administration didn’t reach the poorest and hungriest people. “The people in the deepest poverty are suffering the most,” Weill said.

This is disgraceful, to say the least. We’re spending trillions between Iraq and Afghanistan and the bank robbery-cum-bailout, but we can’t manage to keep our populace from hunger - one of the hallmarks of a “first-world” country.

As Rachel Maddow has so often said, we are Birkina Fasso with cable.

When the Walk & Knock bag comes in your Columbian in the next few weeks, please fill it up with canned & boxed goods (if you can - these are tough times, I know), and remember to leave it outside by 8am on December 6th. If you don’t subscribe to the Columbian, please mark the date on your calendar and use any old bag. (Almost all neighborhoods in Clark County will be covered by Walk & Knock teams.)

You can find more information and volunteer for the Walk & Knock and prep activities before December 6th here.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

From CNBC, here is the Treasury’s financial crisis balance sheet, as of last Wednesday:

That’s 4,284.5 BILLION dollars, or $4.2845 TRILLION.

And not a single dollar for infrastructure repair or job creation.

Time for shrillness, anyone?

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

2 Comments

• At November 18, 2008, David Carrier wrote:

  I never thought I would see the day when the Secretary of the Treasury in a right wing Republican Administration would heed the advice of someone like Barney Frank, the only Socialist member of Congress (who has been saying this very thing for a year now):

  Fighting the Financial Crisis, One Challenge at a Time

  By HENRY M. PAULSON Jr., NYT, November 17, 2008

  The answer to the second question is that more access to lower-cost mortgage lending is the No. 1 thing we can do to slow the decline in the housing market and reduce the number of foreclosures. Together with our bank capital program, the moves we have made to stabilize and strengthen Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and through them to increase the flow of mortgage credit, will promote mortgage lending. We are also working with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the F.D.I.C. and others to reduce preventable foreclosures.

• At November 19, 2008, missy wrote:

  Actually Barney Frank is a Democrat. Bernie Sanders (Senator from VT) is a Socialist.

See, Ed, I was right:

The real problem is on the demand side of the economy.

Consumers won’t or can’t borrow because they’re at the end of their ropes. Their incomes are dropping (one of the most sobering statistics in Friday’s jobs report was the continued erosion of real median earnings), they’re deeply in debt, and they’re afraid of losing their jobs.

Introductory economic courses explain that aggregate demand is made up of four things, expressed as C+I+G+exports. C is consumers. Consumers are cutting back on everything other than necessities. Because their spending accounts for 70 percent of the nation’s economic activity and is the flywheel for the rest of the economy, the precipitous drop in consumer spending is causing the rest of the economy to shut down.

I is investment. Absent consumer spending, businesses are not going to invest.

Exports won’t help much because the of the rest of the world is sliding into deep recession, too. (And as foreigners — as well as Americans — put their savings in dollars for safe keeping, the value of the dollar will likely continue to rise relative to other currencies. That, in turn, makes everything we might sell to the rest of the world more expensive.)

That leaves G, which, of course, is government. Government is the spender of last resort. Government spending lifted America out of the Great Depression. It may be the only instrument we have for lifting America out of the Mini Depression. Even Fed Chair Ben Bernanke is now calling for a sizable government stimulus. He knows that monetary policy won’t work if there’s inadequate demand.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Ed Schultz said today that governors and state legislatures should do what they can to prop up the auto makers to give consumers an incentive to buy cars. He was suggested a tax credit for buying a car made in the U.S.

In the first place, Ed, most states are looking at budget deficits right now - the last thing they need is a revenue killer. A tax credit that would be sufficient to tempt a consumer today would have to be so large that it would overwhelm any ability of sales tax, tag and title fees to make up for it.

And in the second place, who has the money - or credit - available to buy a car today? Adult Americans are holding an average of about $50,000 of debt a piece, and with unemployment at a generational high and more added to the rolls every week, who are going to buy these cars, Ed?

We have to start smaller, truly with Main Street, as annoying as that term has become. Maybe in a year or two or three we’ll work our way up to $25,000 durable goods, but right now we just have to give consumers enough breathing room to buy groceries and clothes for their kids again.

UPDATE:

Retail Sales Collapse in October

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for October, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $363.7 billion, a decrease of 2.8 percent from the previous month and 4.1 percent below October 2007. Total sales for the August through October 2008 period were down 1.3 percent from the same period a year ago.

Retail trade sales were down 3.1 percent from September 2008 and were 5.0 percent below last year.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

5 Comments

• At November 13, 2008, John wrote:

  Yea, I turned Ed Schultz off today which I do every so often because I can only take so much of his BS.

  The way I see it, the car companies are in trouble mostly because:

  1. Poor trade policies, ie NAFTA causing outsourcing and erosion of competitiveness.

  2. Lack of single payer, universal health care making the cost to hire US employees non-competitive as compared to other countries.

  Once again, our government's failure to regulate and enact good regulatory policies is coming back to bite us.

  We may have to bail out the automakers but the root causes must be addressed or they will just keep bleeding us dry due to not having a sound business model.

  All the money in the world will not fix an unprofitable business model.

  A bean counter once told me when I asked why a certain company was losing money, "They are selling dollars for 80 cents." That is quite simply what the automakers are doing. And if they keep selling dollars for 80 cents, one bailout is just going to lead to another and another.

• At November 14, 2008, Pat Campbell wrote:

  Yes, first start with ourselves (Work on a debt reduction/elimination program. Dave Ramsey's book Total Money Makeover is great.).

  Work also on mainstreet (no speculation with tax money on Vancouver's waterfront is a good start). Elect officials who try to inact economically sound policies or urge those who don't to do so.

• At November 14, 2008, missy wrote:

  Re: the car companies and their unprofitability... Does anyone know why they could make the EV-1 go 40 miles on a charge 15 years ago, and now they're bragging about the Volt coming out in 2010 and how they're still working on the 40-mile batteries to make it possible? I understand it's a sedan (not a compact), but haven't they had 15 years to upgrade their battery technology?

  I guess shit happens when you spend 15 years selling gas hog SUVs to the exclusion of everything else.

• At November 15, 2008, Chad Lupkes wrote:

  What I think we need our states to do is to focus their resources on infrastructure, specifically energy production, distribution and conservation. Especially here in Washington State, we need Olympia to contract for the construction of Wind, Solar, Geothermal and Tidal power stations, giving people jobs. The Sound Transit Proposition passing in the Puget Sound also helps, but that's pretty localized. The new state Treasurer should review the buyout of Puget Sound Energy, and force some infrastructure development projects as part of the deal.

• At November 15, 2008, admin wrote:

  I think I fixed the commenting not posting issue. Thanks for letting me know it was messed up.

  John

The $700 Billion Dollar Man gave a report on the progress of the “TARP” program this morning, and unsurprisingly the benefits are all going to the banks, while the individuals who are in debt to those same banks get bupkis. If you’ve ever seen the movie House of Games (or even The Sting), you’ll have a good roadmap to Paulson’s signature moves.

Start with that time-honored con, the Bait and Switch:

We asked for $700 billion to purchase troubled assets from financial institutions. At the time, we believed that would be the most effective means of getting credit flowing again.

During the two weeks that Congress considered the legislation, market conditions worsened considerably. It was clear to me by the time the bill was signed on October 3rd that we needed to act quickly and forcefully, and that purchasing troubled assets - our initial focus - would take time to implement and would not be sufficient given the severity of the problem… I determined that the most timely, effective step to improve credit market conditions was to strengthen bank balance sheets quickly through direct purchases of equity in banks.

Next, make the beneficiaries (in truth, your partners-in-crime) seem like a tough sell; this is a variant on the con-man’s trust-aversion gambit:

As we planned a capital purchase plan to support the overall financial system by strengthening balance sheets of a broad array of healthy banks, the terms had to be designed to encourage broad participation, balanced to ensure appropriate taxpayer protection and not impede the flow of private capital.

Then, hype your success at getting these hard-sells to participate in the program, without letting the mark ever sense that it was easy:

By October 26th we had $115 billion out the door to eight large institutions. In Washington that is a land-speed record from announcing a program to getting funds out the door. We now have approved dozens of additional applications, …[but] it will take time to complete legal contracts and execute investments in the significant number of institutions who meet the eligibility requirements and are approved…

Keep the pressure on to make sure no one gets the troublesome idea of clapping eyes on what you’re doing:

During times like these with a slowing economy and some deterioration in credit conditions, even the healthiest banks tend to become more risk-averse and restrain lending, and regulators’ actions have reinforced this lending restraint in the past. With a stronger capital base, our banks will be more confident and better positioned to play their necessary role to support economic activity.

Mix up news of your successes with mentions of probable failures to make your mark think throwing good money after bad is all part of the program, and that we’re on the right track:

First and foremost, because the system remains fragile, we must continue to stand ready to prevent systemic failures. That is the basis for Monday’s action to purchase preferred shares in AIG. The stability of our system remains the highest priority.

…The injection of up to $250 billion of capital into individual banks, the FDIC’s temporary guarantee of bank debt and the Federal Reserve’s multiple liquidity facilities for banks, money funds and commercial paper issuers have all significantly enhanced liquidity and helped improve market conditions.

While your mark is absorbing this avalanche of information, throw out another “must do” project that the mark would have never approved at the beginning, and push him over the brink and into the mindset that he’s put too much up already to stop now:

Second, the important markets for securitizing credit outside of the banking system also need support. Approximately 40 percent of U.S. consumer credit is provided through securitization of credit card receivables, auto loans and student loans and similar products. This market, which is vital for lending and growth, has for all practical purposes ground to a halt. Addressing these two priorities will have powerful impacts on the overall financial system, the strength of our financial institutions and the availability of consumer credit.

(Here you also neglect to tell the mark the obvious, that the U.S. consumers’ capacity to service all of the nation’s consumer debt has long since exceeded its limit.)

Finally, explain why it’s strictly necessary to help all of your associates, but never the mark’s associates or friends:

Over these past weeks we have continued to examine the relative benefits of purchasing illiquid mortgage-related assets. Our assessment at this time is that this is not the most effective way to use TARP funds, but we will continue to examine whether targeted forms of asset purchase can play a useful role, relative to other potential uses of TARP resources, in helping to strengthen our financial system and support lending.

Our only hope is that Obama, being from Chicago, has seen this con game run before, and will shut it down - that is, if Congress manages to get through its lame duck session without approving the release of the final $350 billion. (Bush’s release of the second $100 billion is a given at this point; he’s got nothing to lose, and his and Cheney’s buddies in the banking sector have everything to gain.)

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Percent Negative Equity in Homes (click to enlarge)

source

Automaker average wage comparisons (click image for source article)

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Larry Summers is the 180° wrong choice for Treasury Secretary:

It would be a really bad start to his administration if President Obama picked a Treasury Secretary who shares a substantial part of the blame for the bubble economy and the financial crisis. It will not be easy to pick up the pieces and get the economy back on its feet, but we would be going in the wrong direction to put one of the people responsible for getting us in this mess in the top economic position in the Obama administration.
…
President Obama has a chance to make a fresh start. He would handicap his administration by relying on those whose mistakes helped to bring about about this economic crisis.

Open Left has set up this anti-Summers petition that will be forwarded to Obama transition team members John Podesta and Michael Strautmanis; I’m having trouble getting through the link right now, but I hope that’s just because so many people know that Larry Summers is a DLC wanker, and the wrong man at the wrong time:

DATE: December 12, 1991
TO: Distribution
FR: Lawrence H. Summers
Subject: GEP

‘Dirty’ Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? I can think of three reasons:

1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.

2) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I’ve always though that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. Only the lamentable facts that so much pollution is generated by non-tradable industries (transport, electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs of solid waste are so high prevent world welfare enhancing trade in air pollution and waste.

3) The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostrate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostrate cancer than in a country where under 5 mortality is is 200 per thousand. Also, much of the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is about visibility impairing particulates. These discharges may have very little direct health impact. Clearly trade in goods that embody aesthetic pollution concerns could be welfare enhancing. While production is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a non-tradable.

The problem with the arguments against all of these proposals for more pollution in LDCs (intrinsic rights to certain goods, moral reasons, social concerns, lack of adequate markets, etc.) could be turned around and used more or less effectively against every Bank proposal for liberalization.

What.A.Dick.

UPDATE from Open Left - More charming Summers correspondence, this time to Ken Lay:

No doubt that energy market deregulation was more than a little on Kenny-Boy’s mind when he penned his congratulatory billet-doux to Larry.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Obama Pumpkin

So says our Representative Brian Baird and I quote him from a link to a story in my earlier article:

Baird said the legislation also will prevent executives who presided over the financial crisis from reaping huge salaries and bonuses.

“Any company that chooses to participate in the program will not be able to offer their departing executives exorbitant severance packages,” he said. “In companies where the government is making a direct purchase, it will also place strict limits on executive salaries and will end the tax deduction for executive salaries over $500,000. For the first time in a long while, adult supervision is returning to Wall Street.”

And as any 6th grader could have anticipated back then, Seeking Alpha has an article entitled, For Shame: $50 Billion of Bailout Funds Already Designated for Year-End Bonuses, which states:

As if the economic bailout by U.S. taxpayers isn’t enough to make you sick to your stomach, new information has come to light that several banks are planning to pay billions of dollars in year-end bonuses from the bailout funds they received.  Investigations are beginning into the nine banks that took in the first $125 billion – the same $125 billion that was supposed to be used to unclog the credit system which was preventing banks from providing much needed funds for individuals and businesses.

There are many feathers in a ruffle over this and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and several congressmen are furious that over $20 billion has already been earmarked as bonus funds for management and employees. Unbelievably, that is just the estimates from Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS) and Merrill Lynch (MER). There are six more banks that are also working on similar heists.

Here is their rationale for using that money: It is reported that the financial industry pays base salaries in the range of $80,000 to $600,000 and apparently that is simply not enough to keep some of the best and brightest working to keep their companies profitable. It seems that if they were paid only this meager amount, the company would risk mass defections. That would be a real problem…or would it?

Representative Baird, did you REALLY think that lowering the deductibility of executive compensation to $500,000 or $5 for that matter would REALLY stop the robber barons from stealing our (the taxpayer’s) money?  If so, given what is now occurring, do you think you continue to be qualified to represent us (the taxpayers) in Congress?

When is adult supervision going to return to Washington’s 3rd Congressional District?

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Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

On the day that the first of the bailout dollars are to be disbursed, we learn this:

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) — Five straight quarters of losses and a 70 percent slide in its stock this year haven’t stopped Merrill Lynch & Co. from allocating about $6.7 billion to pay bonuses.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, both still on track for profitable years, have set aside about $13 billion for bonuses after three quarters, down 28 percent from a year ago. Even some employees at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which declared the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history last month, will get the same bonus they received a year ago.
…
Goldman, the biggest and most profitable Wall Street firm until it opted to become a bank holding company last month, has set aside about $6.85 billion for bonuses, or an average of $210,300 for each employee, down 32 percent from $339,400 a year ago. Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest securities firm until it also converted to a bank, has $6.44 billion for bonuses, or $138,700 per person, down 20 percent from last year.

Unsurprisingly, banks lobbied hard during the consideration of the bailout bill to keep restrictions on bonuses out of any bailout plan.

At the same time as the bonuses are being totaled up:

Goldman Sachs plans to cut about 3,200 people, or 10 percent of its employees, a person familiar with the matter said last week…

More job reductions are likely, especially at Merrill and Lehman. About 10,000 Merrill employees may lose their jobs, estimates Richard Bove, an analyst at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Options Group, a financial services recruitment and consulting firm in New York, estimates that global banking job cuts could reach 200,000, with as many as 50,000 in New York.
…
Barclays Plc, which is acquiring Lehman’s North American investment banking and capital markets businesses, will cut about 3,000 jobs…

Hedge funds, which have poached top traders from securities firms in the past, may cut as many as 10,000 jobs this year after their biggest losses in more than 20 years, estimates Options Group.

Meanwhile, the banks are using the bailouts for more than just bonuses:

PNC Financial Services Group was approved to receive $US7.7 billion in return for company stock. At the same time, PNC said it was acquiring National City Corp for $US5.58 billion.

Milton Friedman socialism: the taxpayers foot the bill - and the unemployment benefits - while the banks widen their market share and reduce competition, and their top executives profit.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

1 Comments

• At October 27, 2008, John wrote:

  So much for your executive pay oversight in the "socialism for the rich" bailout bill, eh Representative Baird?

I just got my Fidelity IRA statement and don’t have the guts to open it.

So far this morning, the Dow has fallen almost 360, with many wondering if it will lose 1,100 before 2pm triggering a suspension of trading.

Something has to be done to quell fears of a national/international recession bordering on depression. Yes, emotion is driving the market, but their are big, bad fundamentals behind those fears.

There are $18 billion in ready-to-go infrastructure projects in this country: projects that have been through design and engineering and land acquisition, but are simply awaiting funding.

Analysts estimate that for every $1 billion invested in transportation projects, approximately 35 thousand jobs are created.

That’s 630,000 jobs. That could begin to put a dent in the 2.2 million jobs lost in the last 12 months, including the 3,300 positions that Hank Paulson’s own Goldman Sachs announced it would be eliminating today.

Every dollar invested in infrastructure turns over in the community an average of 8 times - that’s a lot of people stimulating the economy.

Bernanke, Bush & Paulson: you were so good at spending money to buy off phantasms of lost value. Why don’t you give us something concrete for a change, something that will help this country move forward and get people back to work?

Get off your asses, you selfish sons of bitches.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

From the greed and short-sightedness of the banks to the insanity of free trade policies to the shrinking of the middle class and the fundamental financial ignorance of the average U.S. consumer:

That says it all.

h/t hilzoy

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

Noticed this comment to an article about poor Joe the Plumber over at OpEd News this morning:

The crap is about to hit the fan…

from a post:

“John McCain did great tonight in the debate. But every time John mentioned “Joe the Plumber,” some of us in the campaign banged our heads against the wall. If Steve Schmidt had any hair left, I hear he would have been pulling it out tonight. He reportedly screamed at John’s debate prep team tonight (out of earshot of reporters, of course). “You idiots - he’s related to Charles Keating… of the Keating Five scandal!” They thought they had a real live Joe Six-Pack who’s spurned Barack Obama’s tax plan. But what they forgot to do was check on Joe Wurzelbacher’s background.
Turns out that Joe Wurzelbacher from the Toledo event is a close relative of Robert Wurzelbacher of Milford, Ohio. Who’s Robert Wurzelbacher? Only Charles Keating’s son-in-law and the former senior vice president of American Continental, the parent company of the infamous Lincoln Savings and Loan. The now retired elder Wurzelbacher is also a major contributor to Republican causes giving well over $10,000 in the last few years.
Does any of this make Joe the Plumber a bad guy? Of course not. In fact, after that ill-fated night at the Watergate, he may finally be giving plumbers a good name. But at a debate where John goes full bore on Obama for guilt-by-association with William Ayers (and dodges a bullet by Obama not mentioning Keating Five), the press is going to bring it back front and center by midday tomorrow once they delve deeper into the most popular plumber in America.“
And then there are some other questions.
Is Joe the Plumber’s real name Joseph Wurzelbacher or Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher?
According to some sources, including the Politicoblog, which claim to have already checked voting records, Joe the Plumber is NOT registered to vote in Ohio.
Joe the Plumber appears to have multiple addresses, including the one at which he gave the media a short interview this morning.  He is not registered to vote from that particular address.  It is not clear if he is the owner of that address (curious given his claim to an income of over $250,000).  Of the other given addresses for Joe the Plumber, his parents are registered to vote on one, but none are listed for him.  Which means he is either more than just an undecided voter.  Or less, since non-registration means he’s not eligible to vote!
He has an open unpaid income tax tax lien case against him in Lucas County, Ohio.
Twice married, with the public records of those cases available at:
http://apps.co.lucas.oh.us/onlinedockets/Default.aspx
Just type his name into the search box to bring up both divorce cases.
There are some suggestions that he does not own his own business but may be related to another Joseph Wurzelbacher who does run a septic tank company.  Ironic that Joe the Plumber may be full of “crap”, eh?
Considering Joe the Plumber’s sudden rise to fame and notoriety, I am sure more will come out about the real man behind the face.  Given McCain’s tactics, it would not at all surprise me if this character has a real shady history - one which includes more than being related to the central player in the Lincoln Savings and Loan debacle from 20 years ago.  Might be this is something out of the playbook of G. Gordon Liddy, an ex-con with whom McCain is known to “pall around with”!!  Would also not surprise me if Joe the Plumber is not registered to vote due to an Ohio state law which prohibits those convicted of felonies from participating at the ballot box.

by Steph Fauxco (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 28 comments) on Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 11:26:07 AM

So Joe may not be just your average, $250,000 a year potential plumbing business owner after all.

The article, Joe the Plumber — the Parisitic Leech by Rob Kall, that the above is a comment on, is also a great read.  Here are a few highlights:

Joe wants to have it easier than his father did–to pay less of the freight than his dad. Joe’s father lived during the time when Franklin Roosevelt’s taxes were in place, the same taxes that Dwight Eisenhower felt were appropriate. Back then, if a rich person earned more than a certain amount, he or she paid taxes of 90% on the amount above the limit. Now, that number might be $10 or $10 million dollars a year. So, if you earned $20 million, you’d pay the maximum now, about 35%, on the first ten million, then, on the amount over $10 million, you’d pay 90%. Poor Joe, paying all that tax on that fat paycheck. It’s what the wealthy of your father’s generation and grandfather’s generation did– you know, when the middle class was treated decently.

And this:

If Joe takes a salary out of the business of more than $250,000, then he’ll pay more. Of course, if Joe’s small business does pay him that much, he’ll be in the upper two percent of small businesses. Now, let’s say there is a higher tax and it makes Joe reconsider crossing that $250,000 threshold. What else can Joe do with the money? Invest in the business in new services? Expand marketing? Hire more employees? The other side of the decision helps the economy. Oooh, that sound so un-American, so socialist, as Joe accused.

Sorry Joe. You want to talk about socialism, point the finger at Henry Paulson’s bailout and investment at gift rates to bankers. Paulson gave them such a good deal that the Banks that cut deals with Gordon Brown and are now complaining and talking about rebelling.

Let’s get real folks or should I say “my friends”.  John McCain’s pleadings for Joe Wurzelbacher was a bunch of hooey.  If he can make more than $250,000 owning a plumbing business and a 10% income tax increase on his earnings over $250,000 stops him from owning the business or hiring more people, surely there are plenty of others who will jump at the opportunity.

What is quite evident when examining McCain’s tax and other proposals and comparing them to Obama is that McCain wants to continue the “trickle down” policies of the past that have been shown to only benefit the very wealthy.  Obama’s policies are clearly focused on helping the middle class.   McCain is trying to repeat the words “increase taxes” and “Obama” enough times in the same sentence while leaving out “only on the very rich” so that people will vote for him.  Haven’t we had enough of this Rovian bull hockey?  Oh and anyone notice McCain’s insane comment, Obama’s plan is “class warfare…spread the wealth around”.  Isn’t spreading the wealth around what you SAY you want to do for Joe the Plumber, John?  Yea, right.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

1 Comments

• At October 17, 2008, Army vet in Germany wrote:

  You may want to re-check that statement about former felons not being allowed to vote in OH. In an excellent interview on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman a few days ago, the OH Attorney General stated that felons who are currently in prison may not vote but - as is the case in many states - once they've served their time and paid back their debt to society, former felons ARE allowed to vote. These "once a felon, never can vote again" laws are a relic of the 19th century Reconstruction era, when bogus laws were passed to facilitate the labeling of new black voters as felons. At the same time, they passed the "once a felon, never can vote again" laws to disenfranchise as many black men (no women could vote at the time) as possible. The vast majority of states DO NOT have such laws, thank heavens. It's time for America to move to the 21st century on voting.

Forbes editorial writer William Anderson struggles mightily to wake up from his nightmare of market failures and bank suicides-by-greed, and worst of all, Paul Krugman’s Nobel Prize in Economics, but he just can’t click his heels fast enough:

Today’s announcement that Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in economics, although not earth shattering, indicates that outright political partisanship is not a deterrent to winning. This is not as tragic a moment in western civilization as the sacking of Constantinople in 1453 or the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, but it suffices as one of those sad moments we will regret over time. [WWWWAAAHHHHHHH!]
…
Paul Krugman is an unabashed liberal, and there is no crime in an economist having such persuasions. For that matter, many economists have a bit of that streak, too. Furthermore, many of us are in agreement that some of the economic policies of the Bush administration have been bad, if not downright disastrous.
…
In Krugman’s world, ideological right-wingers took a meat axe to the carefully planned, stable New Deal economic structures of finance, telecommunications, transportation and manufacturing and created an unstable mess in which greed overruled good sense. Going even farther, Krugman has called for a reinstatement of the New Deal or at least another set of legislative initiatives like the New Deal.
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As for the current economic turmoil in financial markets, Krugman offers outright socialism as the cure but also continues to peddle the snake oil that the Bush administration is beholden to free-market ideology.

…Krugman believes the problem is that the Bush administration is not socialist enough, which makes it ideologically “free market.” If Obama is elected and Krugman receives a high position in his administration, we shall see if Krugman becomes the first commissar who makes socialism work. I’ll be betting against him.

Poor William Anderson. It must be terrible to be among the elite few - like Alan Greenspan - who see the Objectivist truth: that Milton Friedman’s capitalist utopia has only failed to emerge victorious under yet another Republican president because, like all of his predecessors, George W. Bush lacked the courage of his convictions and refused to stand up to the socialist Republican majority in Congress during the first six years of his presidency to free the markets and let them run their genius course.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver