China cuts holdings of US Treasuries
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/China-cuts-holdings-of-US-apf-2797288222.html?x=0&.v=3
USA hits debt ceiling
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703421204576325583050561022.html
US Treasury to tap pensions to fund government
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/treasury-to-tap-pensions-to-help-fund-government/2011/05/15/AF2fqK4G_story.html?hpid=z1
Is this any way to run a household, yet alone the Federal gummit?
Monday, May 16, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
The social counterrevolution in America and the tasks of the working class
Two and a half years after the Wall Street collapse and multi-trillion dollar bail-out of corporate swindlers, the ruling class is carrying out a savage and unprecedented assault on the living standards and basic social rights of tens of millions of working class families in the United States. Against the backdrop of an intractable recession, with long term unemployment at its highest level since the 1930s, the political elite—Democrats and Republicans alike—are engaged in a bipartisan campaign to destroy crucial social programs upon which the working class depends.
What is unfolding in the United States is a social counter-revolution—the ruthless and systematic destruction of the fundamental gains and social rights won by the working class over a century of struggle.
On health care, the Obama administration and congressional Republicans are conspiring to cut trillions of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid, the programs for the elderly and poor. One study estimates that a proposal from Republicans to cut Medicaid—which the Obama administration has refrained from publicly criticizing—would raise the number of people without coverage by 44 million over the next decade. State governments throughout the country, bankrupted by the economic crisis and starved of resources by the federal government, are carrying out their own sharp cuts in services and eligibility.
Public education, a central concern of progressive movements in the United States for over 150 years, is being dismantled. Cities throughout the country are closing public schools, expanding private charter schools, increasing class sizes, laying off thousands of teachers, and imposing sharp cuts in pay and benefits. In response to cuts in state funding, public colleges and universities are raising tuition to levels unaffordable to the vast majority of working class youth.
At the same time, recent data confirms that there is no letup in the jobs crisis in the United States. Persistent mass unemployment is being used by corporations as an opportunity to drive down wages and slash benefits for those who have work. Long-term unemployment remains at record highs, even as states are taking steps to cut more workers off from benefits. Michigan has already shortened the length of benefits to 20 weeks, excluding federal emergency relief. The Florida legislature passed a similar measure this week.
State governments have passed legislation targeting the basic right to collectively resist the demands of the corporations and states. Several states, including most recently the Democratic-controlled government in Massachusetts, have followed the lead of Wisconsin in passing laws that rip up existing contracts with state employees and prohibit strikes.
With extraordinary speed, the ruling class is working to destroy whatever remains of the social reforms of the 20th Century. These programs were won through bitter struggles, as the corporate elite sought to contain class conflict and preserve the capitalist system through reform measures. The Russian Revolution of 1917 inspired the struggles of workers throughout the world and raised the threat of socialist revolution in the United States itself.
The general strikes in Toledo, San Francisco and Minneapolis in 1934, followed by the great sit-down strikes in Michigan in 1936 and 1937, propelled the reforms of the New Deal, including Social Security, and the gains of manufacturing workers throughout the country. Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s were the byproduct of the mass mobilization of workers in the civil rights movement, combined with the militant labor struggles of the post-war period.
For the last 40 years, these gains have been under persistent attack. Vast sums of wealth were transferred upwards, into the hands of the financial and corporate elite, fueling the stock market mania of the 1990s and 2000s.
Now under the Obama administration, this scorched earth policy is entering a new phase. The first step was taken last year under the guise of "health care reform," a drive to reduce corporate and government spending under the fraudulent slogan of "universal coverage." Now, there is little attempt to hide the fact that what the administration is seeking is a sharp reduction in access to health care and other social programs.
This assault takes place at the same time as the sums of money controlled by the wealthy reach record highs. Corporate profits in the first quarter of this year are expected to break the record set the previous quarter of $1.68 trillion at an annualized rate. CEO pay for 2010 exceeded the previous record levels set prior to the crash. The combined net wealth of just the 400 richest Americans is, at last count, $1.37 trillion—approximately the same amount that would be saved over an entire decade through cuts in Medicaid that will threaten the lives and health of millions of people.
The working class in the United States stands at a historic crossroads. It must mobilize its collective strength against the unfolding social counterrevolution or undergo a devastating decline in its living standards.
The social counterrevolution will not be defeated by mere protests. As last February’s events in Wisconsin proved, the protests of the working class could not reverse the policies of the state government.
The entire logic of social and economic development is bringing the working class into conflict with the capitalist system and its political representatives.
There can be no solution to the crisis facing workers without directly opposing the subordination of the economy to the profit demands of the giant banks and corporations. The political representatives of capitalism, both Democrats and Republicans, proclaim that that there is no alternative but a drastic lowering in the living conditions of the vast majority of the population. In doing so, they make the greatest argument for the bankruptcy of their system.
Moreover, the struggles of workers in the United States are part of a global struggle. The conditions facing workers in the US are fundamentally the same as those facing workers in every country. Following brutal cuts last year, workers in Europe are confronting new demands for austerity, which will intensify over the coming months. The mass eruptions in Egypt and throughout the Middle East and North Africa this year are a reaction to the same conditions of inequality and exploitation that prevail in the United States. Workers in every country must be unified in a common fight.
Finally, the struggles of workers are political. If they are to be successful, they require the building of a new political party and a new leadership. The trade unions—controlled by highly-paid functionaries—do everything they can to keep workers tied to the Democratic Party. They have rejected any struggle against the war on the working class, and are now focusing their entire energy on the reelection of Barack Obama in 2012. In brief, they are determined to maintain their political alliance with a government that is engaged in open warfare against the working class.
Throughout the country, there are signs everywhere of mounting anger against the rampant greed of the ruling elite and its unrelenting drive for ever greater wealth at the expense of the basic rights of ordinary working people. The massive growth of poverty and social inequality is deeply offensive to the democratic and egalitarian sentiments that are deeply rooted in the working class. They feel betrayed by an economic and political system that demonstrates, day after day, its callous indifference to their basic interests and needs.
The working class is looking for a way to fight back.
SOURCE
What is unfolding in the United States is a social counter-revolution—the ruthless and systematic destruction of the fundamental gains and social rights won by the working class over a century of struggle.
On health care, the Obama administration and congressional Republicans are conspiring to cut trillions of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid, the programs for the elderly and poor. One study estimates that a proposal from Republicans to cut Medicaid—which the Obama administration has refrained from publicly criticizing—would raise the number of people without coverage by 44 million over the next decade. State governments throughout the country, bankrupted by the economic crisis and starved of resources by the federal government, are carrying out their own sharp cuts in services and eligibility.
Public education, a central concern of progressive movements in the United States for over 150 years, is being dismantled. Cities throughout the country are closing public schools, expanding private charter schools, increasing class sizes, laying off thousands of teachers, and imposing sharp cuts in pay and benefits. In response to cuts in state funding, public colleges and universities are raising tuition to levels unaffordable to the vast majority of working class youth.
At the same time, recent data confirms that there is no letup in the jobs crisis in the United States. Persistent mass unemployment is being used by corporations as an opportunity to drive down wages and slash benefits for those who have work. Long-term unemployment remains at record highs, even as states are taking steps to cut more workers off from benefits. Michigan has already shortened the length of benefits to 20 weeks, excluding federal emergency relief. The Florida legislature passed a similar measure this week.
State governments have passed legislation targeting the basic right to collectively resist the demands of the corporations and states. Several states, including most recently the Democratic-controlled government in Massachusetts, have followed the lead of Wisconsin in passing laws that rip up existing contracts with state employees and prohibit strikes.
With extraordinary speed, the ruling class is working to destroy whatever remains of the social reforms of the 20th Century. These programs were won through bitter struggles, as the corporate elite sought to contain class conflict and preserve the capitalist system through reform measures. The Russian Revolution of 1917 inspired the struggles of workers throughout the world and raised the threat of socialist revolution in the United States itself.
The general strikes in Toledo, San Francisco and Minneapolis in 1934, followed by the great sit-down strikes in Michigan in 1936 and 1937, propelled the reforms of the New Deal, including Social Security, and the gains of manufacturing workers throughout the country. Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s were the byproduct of the mass mobilization of workers in the civil rights movement, combined with the militant labor struggles of the post-war period.
For the last 40 years, these gains have been under persistent attack. Vast sums of wealth were transferred upwards, into the hands of the financial and corporate elite, fueling the stock market mania of the 1990s and 2000s.
Now under the Obama administration, this scorched earth policy is entering a new phase. The first step was taken last year under the guise of "health care reform," a drive to reduce corporate and government spending under the fraudulent slogan of "universal coverage." Now, there is little attempt to hide the fact that what the administration is seeking is a sharp reduction in access to health care and other social programs.
This assault takes place at the same time as the sums of money controlled by the wealthy reach record highs. Corporate profits in the first quarter of this year are expected to break the record set the previous quarter of $1.68 trillion at an annualized rate. CEO pay for 2010 exceeded the previous record levels set prior to the crash. The combined net wealth of just the 400 richest Americans is, at last count, $1.37 trillion—approximately the same amount that would be saved over an entire decade through cuts in Medicaid that will threaten the lives and health of millions of people.
The working class in the United States stands at a historic crossroads. It must mobilize its collective strength against the unfolding social counterrevolution or undergo a devastating decline in its living standards.
The social counterrevolution will not be defeated by mere protests. As last February’s events in Wisconsin proved, the protests of the working class could not reverse the policies of the state government.
The entire logic of social and economic development is bringing the working class into conflict with the capitalist system and its political representatives.
There can be no solution to the crisis facing workers without directly opposing the subordination of the economy to the profit demands of the giant banks and corporations. The political representatives of capitalism, both Democrats and Republicans, proclaim that that there is no alternative but a drastic lowering in the living conditions of the vast majority of the population. In doing so, they make the greatest argument for the bankruptcy of their system.
Moreover, the struggles of workers in the United States are part of a global struggle. The conditions facing workers in the US are fundamentally the same as those facing workers in every country. Following brutal cuts last year, workers in Europe are confronting new demands for austerity, which will intensify over the coming months. The mass eruptions in Egypt and throughout the Middle East and North Africa this year are a reaction to the same conditions of inequality and exploitation that prevail in the United States. Workers in every country must be unified in a common fight.
Finally, the struggles of workers are political. If they are to be successful, they require the building of a new political party and a new leadership. The trade unions—controlled by highly-paid functionaries—do everything they can to keep workers tied to the Democratic Party. They have rejected any struggle against the war on the working class, and are now focusing their entire energy on the reelection of Barack Obama in 2012. In brief, they are determined to maintain their political alliance with a government that is engaged in open warfare against the working class.
Throughout the country, there are signs everywhere of mounting anger against the rampant greed of the ruling elite and its unrelenting drive for ever greater wealth at the expense of the basic rights of ordinary working people. The massive growth of poverty and social inequality is deeply offensive to the democratic and egalitarian sentiments that are deeply rooted in the working class. They feel betrayed by an economic and political system that demonstrates, day after day, its callous indifference to their basic interests and needs.
The working class is looking for a way to fight back.
SOURCE
Time to save the economy now. Here's how...
Our economy is in serious trouble. The dollar continues to fall and is in danger of losing its status as the international currency. Food is skyrocketing in price. Jobs are scarce. Education is under assault. The middle class is disappearing.
Only the wealthiest Americans are improving their economic situations. The rest of us are withering on the vine.
These conditions cannot continue. If they do, America will slip into third world status with hyper inflation, a destroyed stock market, unaffordable food, currency that is worthless to buy daily needs, riots in the streets, and vulnerability to assault from outside, shall we say, interests. Not only will poor and middle class Americans suffer, but the wealthy will watch their vast riches disappear.
So far, American debate on this deteriorating situation revolves around two competing opinions: continue spending and tax the rich vs. cut spending and cut taxes for the rich. Neither approach will work.
My approach is simple. And it will work. It works for families, so why not this Nation? Simply put, we must increase our income while strategically decreasing spending.
To stop the destruction of social security, we must eliminate the cap on income subject to social security taxation. To increase income, the Bush tax cuts must be eliminated on incomes over $500,000/yr. Certain tax loopholes, like the tax credit on interest, must be eliminated. Tax credits given to oil companies need to go away.
Medicare fraud needs to be addressed by having the Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals, investigate for medicare fraud and then send violators to the Justice Department for prosecution. The age for early retirement benefits should be increased to 65 and the age for full retirement should be increased to 68 – across the board.
Spending on warfare in Trashcanistan and Iraq should be curtailed immediately and the troops returned to our shores.
My plan would create trillions of dollars in additional income and trillions of dollars in savings. A bipartisan economic oversight team should be created to monitor the resulting economic recovery, and make adjustments as needed.
Nobody will like my plan. Conservatives might argue that raising taxes on wealthy Americans would cause them not to create jobs. I’d point out that wealthy Americans ain’t creating jobs now, even with the Bush tax cuts. ‘sides, Even with the removal of the Bush tax cuts, wealthy Americans would remain wealthy. And they would be contributing to the health of a Nation that has allowed them to become wealthy. Liberals might argue that raising social security eligibility would violate the trust between retirees and the government. As a retiree, I’m willing to do my part (as the richest people among us should also be) to ensure that America continues to exist with a sound economic footing, job growth, and opportunity for all.
This strategery must be implemented now. Time is short. The danger signs are frightening. Let’s get cracking!
Only the wealthiest Americans are improving their economic situations. The rest of us are withering on the vine.
These conditions cannot continue. If they do, America will slip into third world status with hyper inflation, a destroyed stock market, unaffordable food, currency that is worthless to buy daily needs, riots in the streets, and vulnerability to assault from outside, shall we say, interests. Not only will poor and middle class Americans suffer, but the wealthy will watch their vast riches disappear.
So far, American debate on this deteriorating situation revolves around two competing opinions: continue spending and tax the rich vs. cut spending and cut taxes for the rich. Neither approach will work.
My approach is simple. And it will work. It works for families, so why not this Nation? Simply put, we must increase our income while strategically decreasing spending.
To stop the destruction of social security, we must eliminate the cap on income subject to social security taxation. To increase income, the Bush tax cuts must be eliminated on incomes over $500,000/yr. Certain tax loopholes, like the tax credit on interest, must be eliminated. Tax credits given to oil companies need to go away.
Medicare fraud needs to be addressed by having the Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals, investigate for medicare fraud and then send violators to the Justice Department for prosecution. The age for early retirement benefits should be increased to 65 and the age for full retirement should be increased to 68 – across the board.
Spending on warfare in Trashcanistan and Iraq should be curtailed immediately and the troops returned to our shores.
My plan would create trillions of dollars in additional income and trillions of dollars in savings. A bipartisan economic oversight team should be created to monitor the resulting economic recovery, and make adjustments as needed.
Nobody will like my plan. Conservatives might argue that raising taxes on wealthy Americans would cause them not to create jobs. I’d point out that wealthy Americans ain’t creating jobs now, even with the Bush tax cuts. ‘sides, Even with the removal of the Bush tax cuts, wealthy Americans would remain wealthy. And they would be contributing to the health of a Nation that has allowed them to become wealthy. Liberals might argue that raising social security eligibility would violate the trust between retirees and the government. As a retiree, I’m willing to do my part (as the richest people among us should also be) to ensure that America continues to exist with a sound economic footing, job growth, and opportunity for all.
This strategery must be implemented now. Time is short. The danger signs are frightening. Let’s get cracking!
Texas’ Wild Tea Party
On the muggy afternoon of Tax Day, state Representative Mike Villarreal hurried into his House Ways and Means Committee meeting, running late. One of the few rising stars in the Texas Democratic Party, which was swamped in November by a Tea Party tsunami, the 39-year-old from San Antonio is known as that rarest of beasts at the Capitol: a thoughtful, progressive policy wonk. Even at the best of times, the Texas Legislature—which Molly Ivins aptly called “the national laboratory for bad government”—is a lonely and frustrating place for the likes of Villarreal. But this session, which kicked off in January with news of a $23 billion budget shortfall for the next biennium, has been downright mind-boggling.
Two weeks earlier, Villarreal and his Democratic colleagues had protested in vain as the House passed perhaps the most radical state budget bill in US history. The Tea Party–mad chamber voted to balance the ledger without raising revenues, axing $23 billion from current spending levels—about one-fourth of the state’s current spending, and some of the deepest cuts contemplated anywhere in the country. Spending cuts to public schools, already among the nation’s most poorly funded, could mean some 100,000 teacher layoffs, pre-K programs decimated and schools closed. Huge cuts to Medicaid could push an estimated 60,000 senior citizens out of their nursing homes. “We’re already as a state fiftieth in per capita spending,” said another young San Antonio Democrat, Representative Joaquin Castro. “So you’ve got to ask yourself…at what point is this budget akin to asking an anorexic person to lose more weight?” Hundreds of citizens gave impassioned testimony about the mental health and home healthcare programs, and the drug rehabilitation, juvenile justice and early education efforts that were about to be gutted. The situation was so dire that one conservative Republican came to ask for his taxes to be raised. David Walker, the county attorney in the conservative Houston suburbs of Montgomery County, testified that his county had just built a treatment center to divert mentally ill offenders from jail. “If there must be budget cuts, let’s not cut human beings,” he said. “My Lord Jesus tells me, ‘What you do unto the least of my brethren, you do unto me.’….If it means raising taxes, then raise mine first.” But no amount of logic or moral suasion could derail the government-shrinking train.
READ MORE
Two weeks earlier, Villarreal and his Democratic colleagues had protested in vain as the House passed perhaps the most radical state budget bill in US history. The Tea Party–mad chamber voted to balance the ledger without raising revenues, axing $23 billion from current spending levels—about one-fourth of the state’s current spending, and some of the deepest cuts contemplated anywhere in the country. Spending cuts to public schools, already among the nation’s most poorly funded, could mean some 100,000 teacher layoffs, pre-K programs decimated and schools closed. Huge cuts to Medicaid could push an estimated 60,000 senior citizens out of their nursing homes. “We’re already as a state fiftieth in per capita spending,” said another young San Antonio Democrat, Representative Joaquin Castro. “So you’ve got to ask yourself…at what point is this budget akin to asking an anorexic person to lose more weight?” Hundreds of citizens gave impassioned testimony about the mental health and home healthcare programs, and the drug rehabilitation, juvenile justice and early education efforts that were about to be gutted. The situation was so dire that one conservative Republican came to ask for his taxes to be raised. David Walker, the county attorney in the conservative Houston suburbs of Montgomery County, testified that his county had just built a treatment center to divert mentally ill offenders from jail. “If there must be budget cuts, let’s not cut human beings,” he said. “My Lord Jesus tells me, ‘What you do unto the least of my brethren, you do unto me.’….If it means raising taxes, then raise mine first.” But no amount of logic or moral suasion could derail the government-shrinking train.
READ MORE
FLASHBACK: Corporations Used 2004 Tax Holiday To Repatriate Billions, Then Laid Off Thousands Of Workers
A slew of multinational corporations — who have crafted a campaign known as “WinAmerica” — are lobbying hard for Congress to enact a tax repatriation holiday, which would allow multinational corporations to bring money they have stashed offshore back to the U.S. at a dramatically lower tax rate. (Usually corporations pay the statutory 35 percent rate on repatriated earnings.)
However, the Congressional Research Service looked at a repatriation holiday approved by Congress in 2004 and found “little evidence exists that new investment was spurred.” In fact, many of the largest companies that took advantage of that holiday wound up cutting tens of thousands of jobs over the subsequent two years, as this table shows:
Overall, corporations used 92 percent of the money they brought back under the tax holiday to enrich their executives and buy back their own shares, not to invest in job creation. Several of the companies in the WinAmerica coalition already pay exceedingly low taxes due to the various loopholes and credits in the corporate tax code and through their use of offshore tax havens. The Joint Economic Committee found that a repatriation holiday would cost $78.7 billion.
HERE
However, the Congressional Research Service looked at a repatriation holiday approved by Congress in 2004 and found “little evidence exists that new investment was spurred.” In fact, many of the largest companies that took advantage of that holiday wound up cutting tens of thousands of jobs over the subsequent two years, as this table shows:
Overall, corporations used 92 percent of the money they brought back under the tax holiday to enrich their executives and buy back their own shares, not to invest in job creation. Several of the companies in the WinAmerica coalition already pay exceedingly low taxes due to the various loopholes and credits in the corporate tax code and through their use of offshore tax havens. The Joint Economic Committee found that a repatriation holiday would cost $78.7 billion.
HERE
Looking for excuses to deny welfare
Is it right to demand recipients of welfare, food stamps, and unemployment compensation to submit to drug testing, considering that no such demand was made of CEOs or employees of corporations and banks that have received billions of $$ of bailout money?
The notion that the poor are more prone to drug use has no basis in reality. Research shows that substance use is no more prevalent among people on welfare than it is among the working population, and is not a reliable indicator of an individual’s ability to secure employment. Furthermore, imposing additional sanctions on welfare recipients will disproportionately harm children, since welfare sanctions and benefit decreases have been shown to increase the risk that children will be hospitalized and face food insecurity. In addition, analysis shows that drug testing would be immensely more expensive than the acquired savings in reduced benefits for addicts.
MORE HERE
The notion that the poor are more prone to drug use has no basis in reality. Research shows that substance use is no more prevalent among people on welfare than it is among the working population, and is not a reliable indicator of an individual’s ability to secure employment. Furthermore, imposing additional sanctions on welfare recipients will disproportionately harm children, since welfare sanctions and benefit decreases have been shown to increase the risk that children will be hospitalized and face food insecurity. In addition, analysis shows that drug testing would be immensely more expensive than the acquired savings in reduced benefits for addicts.
MORE HERE
Friday, May 13, 2011
Goodbye, American Dream
America Is Rapidly Bleeding Wealth And Jobs: 28 Statistics About The Gutting Of The U.S. Economy That Will Blow Your Mind
Red alert! Over 40 billion dollars of America's national wealth is being shipped out of the country every single month. Our economy is being gutted and we are bleeding wealth and we are bleeding jobs. This is a distress call. Is anyone listening? Thousands of our factories and millions of our jobs are being shipped overseas. Over the past decade over 6 trillion dollars have been transferred into the hands of foreigners. Our national government is so broke that they constantly have to go and beg those foreigners to lend us back some of that money in order to finance our exploding debt. The number of good jobs continues to decline and there are millions upon millions of my countrymen that are unemployed. Can anybody help us? Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
Sadly, the vast majority of Americans really are dead asleep on this issue. They just continue to run out to the big retail stores and fill their carts with products made in China and yet they seem completely bewildered by the fact that the number of good jobs continues to decline.
Over the past decade, the number of middle class jobs has fallen by about ten percent. There is a reason for this. America is becoming poorer. The economic pie is shrinking. When we ship 40 to 50 billion dollars into the hands of foreigners every single month, that means that there is a lot less wealth for all of us to divide up.
Every single month, the U.S. ships in massive amounts of foreign oil and massive amounts of cheap plastic trinkets from places such as China which we greedily consume. In return, we send them a giant pile of money.
This happens month after month after month. You see, we always need more of their oil and more of their plastic trinkets. They are more than happy to keep getting richer and richer.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/america-is-rapidly-bleeding-wealth-and-jobs-28-statistics-about-the-gutting-of-the-u-s-economy-that-will-blow-your-mind
Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System
A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.
Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.
More: http://www.truth-out.org/why-united-states-destroying-its-education-system/1302418800
The Decline of the "Two Breadwinner" Family: How Long-Term Unemployment Threatens to Demolish the Middle Class
The two-income family was once a means for staying in the middle class. One of those incomes is rapidly disappearing as more and more husbands or wives lose a job.
Keith Baudendistel counts himself lucky. The reason is convoluted. He is, after all, unemployed, having lost his factory job in East St. Louis nearly three and a half years ago.That puts him easily among the 6.1 million Americans labeled by the government as long-term unemployed. What makes Baudendistel lucky is that his wife works. And her second income, which once made the couple comfortable, is now in effect their unemployment insurance.
Born of the women’s movement and the income stagnation that started in the 1970s—soon making one income inadequate—the two-income family became a means of staying in the middle class or striving for that status. Now, one of those incomes is rapidly disappearing as more and more husbands or wives lose a job and, in a period of minimal job creation, can’t get back into the workforce. Once the unemployment benefits expire for the jobless husband or wife, the working spouse’s income then becomes the couple’s jobless pay, sustaining them, but at a lower—sometimes much lower—standard of living.
“We started out after World War II telling people that one person could support a family, and after a while that one income was not enough,” notes Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, in Washington. “Then we said that if the husband and wife both worked, they would get into the middle class. And now more and more the second person is not working.”
http://www.alternet.org/economy/150871/the_decline_of_the_%22two_breadwinner%22_family%3A_how_long-term_unemployment_threatens_to_demolish_the_middle_class/
Red alert! Over 40 billion dollars of America's national wealth is being shipped out of the country every single month. Our economy is being gutted and we are bleeding wealth and we are bleeding jobs. This is a distress call. Is anyone listening? Thousands of our factories and millions of our jobs are being shipped overseas. Over the past decade over 6 trillion dollars have been transferred into the hands of foreigners. Our national government is so broke that they constantly have to go and beg those foreigners to lend us back some of that money in order to finance our exploding debt. The number of good jobs continues to decline and there are millions upon millions of my countrymen that are unemployed. Can anybody help us? Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!
Sadly, the vast majority of Americans really are dead asleep on this issue. They just continue to run out to the big retail stores and fill their carts with products made in China and yet they seem completely bewildered by the fact that the number of good jobs continues to decline.
Over the past decade, the number of middle class jobs has fallen by about ten percent. There is a reason for this. America is becoming poorer. The economic pie is shrinking. When we ship 40 to 50 billion dollars into the hands of foreigners every single month, that means that there is a lot less wealth for all of us to divide up.
Every single month, the U.S. ships in massive amounts of foreign oil and massive amounts of cheap plastic trinkets from places such as China which we greedily consume. In return, we send them a giant pile of money.
This happens month after month after month. You see, we always need more of their oil and more of their plastic trinkets. They are more than happy to keep getting richer and richer.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/america-is-rapidly-bleeding-wealth-and-jobs-28-statistics-about-the-gutting-of-the-u-s-economy-that-will-blow-your-mind
Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System
A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.
Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.
More: http://www.truth-out.org/why-united-states-destroying-its-education-system/1302418800
The Decline of the "Two Breadwinner" Family: How Long-Term Unemployment Threatens to Demolish the Middle Class
The two-income family was once a means for staying in the middle class. One of those incomes is rapidly disappearing as more and more husbands or wives lose a job.
Keith Baudendistel counts himself lucky. The reason is convoluted. He is, after all, unemployed, having lost his factory job in East St. Louis nearly three and a half years ago.That puts him easily among the 6.1 million Americans labeled by the government as long-term unemployed. What makes Baudendistel lucky is that his wife works. And her second income, which once made the couple comfortable, is now in effect their unemployment insurance.
Born of the women’s movement and the income stagnation that started in the 1970s—soon making one income inadequate—the two-income family became a means of staying in the middle class or striving for that status. Now, one of those incomes is rapidly disappearing as more and more husbands or wives lose a job and, in a period of minimal job creation, can’t get back into the workforce. Once the unemployment benefits expire for the jobless husband or wife, the working spouse’s income then becomes the couple’s jobless pay, sustaining them, but at a lower—sometimes much lower—standard of living.
“We started out after World War II telling people that one person could support a family, and after a while that one income was not enough,” notes Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, in Washington. “Then we said that if the husband and wife both worked, they would get into the middle class. And now more and more the second person is not working.”
http://www.alternet.org/economy/150871/the_decline_of_the_%22two_breadwinner%22_family%3A_how_long-term_unemployment_threatens_to_demolish_the_middle_class/
Friday, May 6, 2011
Obama's War
The secret behind the bin Laden takedown is the president’s new conception of terrorism.
Ever so gingerly, even as they praised President Obama’s success against Osama bin Laden, some former senior Bush administration officials have sought to take a little credit for the mission themselves. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, interviewed by MSNBC this week, even called the operation “a good story for continuity across two presidencies.”
That assessment couldn’t be further from the truth. Behind Obama’s takedown of the Qaida leader this week lies a profound discontinuity between administrations—a major strategic shift in how to deal with terrorists. From his first great public moment when, as a state senator, he called Iraq a “dumb war,” Obama indicated that he thought that George W. Bush had badly misconceived the challenge of 9/11. And very quickly upon taking office as president, Obama reoriented the war back to where, in the view of many experts, it always belonged. He discarded the idea of a “global war on terror” that conflated all terror threats from al-Qaida to Hamas to Hezbollah. Obama replaced it with a covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaida and its spawn.
This reorientation was part of Obama’s reset of America’s relations with the world. Bush, having gradually expanded his definition of the war to include all Islamic “extremists,” had condemned the United States to a kind of permanent war, one that Americans had to fight all but alone because no one else agreed on such a broadly defined enemy. (Hezbollah and Hamas, for example, arguably had legitimate political aims that al-Qaida did not, which is one reason they distanced themselves from bin Laden.) In Obama’s view, only by focusing narrowly on true transnational terrorism, and winning back all of the natural allies that the United States had lost over the previous decade, could he achieve America’s goal of uniting the world around the goal of extinguishing al-Qaida.
HERE
Ever so gingerly, even as they praised President Obama’s success against Osama bin Laden, some former senior Bush administration officials have sought to take a little credit for the mission themselves. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, interviewed by MSNBC this week, even called the operation “a good story for continuity across two presidencies.”
That assessment couldn’t be further from the truth. Behind Obama’s takedown of the Qaida leader this week lies a profound discontinuity between administrations—a major strategic shift in how to deal with terrorists. From his first great public moment when, as a state senator, he called Iraq a “dumb war,” Obama indicated that he thought that George W. Bush had badly misconceived the challenge of 9/11. And very quickly upon taking office as president, Obama reoriented the war back to where, in the view of many experts, it always belonged. He discarded the idea of a “global war on terror” that conflated all terror threats from al-Qaida to Hamas to Hezbollah. Obama replaced it with a covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaida and its spawn.
This reorientation was part of Obama’s reset of America’s relations with the world. Bush, having gradually expanded his definition of the war to include all Islamic “extremists,” had condemned the United States to a kind of permanent war, one that Americans had to fight all but alone because no one else agreed on such a broadly defined enemy. (Hezbollah and Hamas, for example, arguably had legitimate political aims that al-Qaida did not, which is one reason they distanced themselves from bin Laden.) In Obama’s view, only by focusing narrowly on true transnational terrorism, and winning back all of the natural allies that the United States had lost over the previous decade, could he achieve America’s goal of uniting the world around the goal of extinguishing al-Qaida.
HERE
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