Economy

From NY Times

The first and biggest test of Mr. Obama’s commitment to labor, and to Ms. Solis, will be his decision on whether or not to push the Employee Free Choice Act in 2009. Corporate America is determined to derail the bill, which would make it easier than it has been for workers to form unions by requiring that employers recognize a union if a majority of employees at a workplace sign cards indicating they wish to organize.

Ms. Solis voted for the bill when it passed the House in 2007. Senate Republicans prevented the bill from coming to a vote that same year. Mr. Obama voted in favor of bringing the bill to the Senate floor and supported it during the campaign.

The measure is vital legislation and should not be postponed.

The Global Economic Crisis: Bad and Worsening
by Stephen Lendman

In a new article, economics professor Richard Wolff explains the current crisis in Marxian terms. It "emerged from the workings of the capitalist class structure. Capitalism's history displays repeated boom-bust cycles punctuated by bubbles. They range unpredictably from local, shallow and short to global, deep and long." Clearly we're now in one of the latter and potentially the worst ever.

Wolff states that recurring crises and chronic instability come with capitalism, and only "social change to a non-capitalist class structure" will bring relief and stability. He explains how we got here:

Excess Debt and Deflation = Depression
by Stephen Lendman

Irving Fisher (1867 - 1947) was perhaps the most noted economist of his day. The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics calls him "one of America's greatest mathematical economists and one of" its clearest writers. He earned special acclaim for his work on monetary and statistical theory, policy, index numbers, econometrics, and the distinction between real and nominal interest rates.

He's also remembered for having made one of the worst and most ill-timed ever stock market calls that cost him his reputation and millions in the subsequent crash - on October 17, 1929 (a week before Black Thursday) when he said "stock prices had reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."

by Linda Milazzo

For years since the United States invaded Iraq, I've witnessed countless photo and video images of innocent civilians - men, women, teens and children - being rudely and aggressively threatened by hired uniformed militants (mostly men), wielding guns. I've seen these images from Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti, Palestine, and more. Whether they be armed American military threatening Iraqis, armed Israeli soldiers threatening Palestinians, or armed Ethiopian troops threatening Somalis, the images have always disturbed me. There's an inherent injustice to such blatant imbalance of power. An injustice I suffered recently myself.

The oddity here is that unlike those less fortunate innocents in war zones who faced the guns of hired aggressors, I was not in a war zone when I faced mine. I wasn't even in a high crime zone. I was in a gentle middle class suburb, where my aggressor, an armed Brinks, Inc. security guard, was in full combat-mode performing his non war-zone duty. My aggressor more typified the machismo of a Blackwater guard than the demeanor of community-minded Brinks, when he flailed his loaded gun at me, as though he'd done it often before. My armed Brinks aggressor was not merely disrespectful. He was downright hostile and dangerous. He treated me as his enemy and freely showed me his force.

Here's how it happened:

The Federal Reserve Abolition Act
by Stephen Lendman

On June 15, 2007, Ron Paul introduced HR 2755: Federal Reserve Abolition Act. There were no co-sponsors, no further action was taken, and the legislation was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services and effectively pigeonholed and ignored.

It's a bold and needed measure to "abolish the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks, to repeal the Federal Reserve Act, and for other purposes."

The bill provides for management of employees, assets and liabilities of the Board during a dissolution period, and more as follows:

• it designates the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to liquidate Fed assets in an orderly and expeditious manner;
• transfer them to the General Fund of the Treasury after satisfying all claims against the Board and any Federal reserve bank;
  

TARP This: Paulson's Bailout Plan Riddled With Deception
How a Program To Save The Economy Ended Up Enriching Big Banks
by Danny Schechter | CommonDreams.org

Talk about crazy making. How do we believe anything Hank Paulson says?

First, he needed $700 Billion, and fast, to buy up troubled assets or the skies would fall and we would be pressed to impose martial law. He found an appropriate acronym, TARP, to manage the money with a skeletal staff of 28 headed up by one of his former protégés at Goldman Sachs.

So Far, So Good,

But then he had himself a rethink, realizing that no one has a clue about how to price troubled assets considered practically worthless. So he had to a make a shift, "in the light of new facts," even though Congress never authorized the shift.

International Forecaster December 2008
By Bob Chapman | The International Forecaster

Congressional miscreants just turned down a measly $15 billion bailout for the automakers, but apparently had no problem approving $700 billion for the big bankers, albeit that the approval required a second try. Apparently, the automakers lacked the clout to threaten martial law, did not have a Goldman Sachs stand-in like Hanky Panky, our "beloved" Treasury Secretary, to champion their cause, and could not order an orchestrated PPT takedown of the Dow by 777 points. The automakers had to come up with a plan to show that the $15 billion bailout would make their continuance as an ongoing business concern viable, while Hanky Panky was given carte blanche, no questions asked, over the first $350 billion of the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program, a/k/a the Paulson Ponzi Plunder Plan) money, after lying to Congress about what the funds would be used for in the first place. Apparently, the gravitational attraction of the super-massive black hole of the banking industry losses was strong enough to attract and suck in taxpayer funds, while the miniature black hole of the auto industry could not apply the necessary "sucking" power for this purpose.

AP Study Finds $1.6B Went to Bailed-out Bank Execs
By Frank Bass and Rita Beamish | Yahoo!News.com

Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.

Congress Ignored Critical Bailout Oversight | AmericanNewsProject.com

Tomgram: Ira Chernus, What the President-Elect Should Be Reading | TomDispatch.com

Bailout Payout Tops $8 Trillion
By Jeanne Cummings | Yahoo!News.com

According to Bianco Research President James Bianco, who crunched these numbers, that amounts to more government aid and assistance than nine other historic bailouts and big government outlays combined....Asked just how much the taxpayers are on the hook for, Bianco said: “I just say you should use the number infinity, because nobody understands these numbers, and I would include the Treasury secretary and chairman of the Fed in that group.”

As the holiday season commences, it’s worth taking stock of the last gift that President George W. Bush and the 110th Congress have left for U.S. taxpayers.

America Can't Handle the Truth; But it's Coming Anyway
by Leonce Gaiter | OpEdNews.com

Unemployment benefit payouts hit a 26-year high. Foreclosures up 30% from a year ago. Layoffs abound. 43 states face budget deficits, forcing them to cut jobs, programs, and funds for education and social services.

A major story on CNN.com is, "'Mad Men' star's hair is "-bane of my existence.'"- The Fox News front page promises Glenn Beck on the "Washington State Christmas Scandal."-

Economists fear deflation, and depression. Two of the Big Three automakers may not survive through the end of the year.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

When BuzzFlash first started in May of 2000, there were very few progressives tearing up the Internet. Among the relatively small group were Michael "Symbolman" Stinson and his wife Julie Sigwart, who founded TakeBacktheMedia.com. They also invested tens of thousands of dollars in taking on the Bush Administration through video projects and the Internet, even though they are of limited means.

Eventually, they decided to move to Hawaii and raise their young son, Conrad, there. They bought a modest home, but personal circumstances and limited work opportunities have just led to their house being auctioned away this past weekend.

BuzzFlash has used the skilled IT services of Julie off and on over the years and we feel that she and Michael are members of our extended BuzzFlash family, as they are on Democratic Underground. Their story is just one of the all too many foreclosures that appear abstract, until it happens to someone you know.

By Dave Lindorff

A brief conversation I had earlier this week with a car dealership executive while standing in a post office line demonstrated simply both why the bank deregulation and consolidation process of the past two decades has been a screw job for ordinary people, and why the Washington bailout has been both a taxpayer rip-off and a failure (if it was even intended to work!).

I was chatting with the guy standing behind me who works at one of the 14 dealerships in a Philadelphia-area regional family-owned chain of GM dealerships called Bergey’s. Noting that a number of big dealers like Knopf (a Chrysler Dealer) and McGarrity’s (Ford) had been closing, I asked this Bergey’s manager if the problem was that the banks had frozen lending, making it hard for people to buy new cars.

By ANN SANNER, AP

CHICAGO (AP) — President-elect Barack Obama said Saturday that he wants to revive the economy and create jobs by upgrading roads, schools and energy efficiency in a public-works program whose scale has been unseen since construction of the interstate highway system in the 1950s.

He offered no price estimate for the grand plan, how the money might be divided or the effect on the country's financial health at a time of burgeoning deficits.

The ideas were outlined in the weekly radio address the day after the government reported that employers cut 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years. They are part of a vision for a massive economy recovery plan Obama wants Congress to pass and have waiting on his desk when he takes office Jan. 20.