Monthly Archives: January 2013

Community, Economy, Infrastructure, unemployment

We Have Unemployed Workers, a Need for Public Works, and Money at the Top to Pay For It. Now We Need Political Will…

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Decaying infrastructure costing families $3,100 a year, engineers warn

By Jon Schmitz 

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Jan 16, 2013 – A leading organization of engineering professionals issued another warning Tuesday about the condition of the nation’s infrastructure, saying that current investment trends threaten millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in economic activity.

A report commissioned by the American Society of Civil Engineers said under-investment stretches across the spectrum of American infrastructure, including roads, bridges, power lines, water and sewer systems, ports and waterways.

"Deteriorating infrastructure has a cascading effect on our nation’s economy," said Gregory DiLoreto, ASCE president. "If we don’t invest now, all Americans will wind up paying more in the long run."

While the report, "Failure to Act: The Impact of Current Infrastructure Investment on America’s Economic Growth," was filled with figures in the millions, billions and trillions, one smaller item might resonate more: The spending deficiency will cost the typical household $3,100 a year by 2020 if present trends continue, it said.

Continue reading We Have Unemployed Workers, a Need for Public Works, and Money at the Top to Pay For It. Now We Need Political Will… →

elections

House Democratic Caucus Head: No Cuts to Social Security

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Rep. Xavier Becerra
Rep. Xavier Becerra

Rep. Becerra to Obama, Democratic leaders: Don’t mess with Social Security

By Mike Lillis – 01/10/13 02:34 PM ET

Breaking with the White House and other Democratic leaders, the head of the House Democratic Caucus suggested this week that he’ll oppose any budget package that includes Social Security cuts.

Both President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have signaled a willingness to support a move to index future Social Security updates to the so-called chained consumer price index (CPI), which would reduce projected benefits over the long term.

But Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) said that he’s not ready to back such a change, even as part of a much larger budget package.

“We know Republicans are interested in cutting Social Security and Medicare, [and] perhaps there are some [Democrats] who would say, ‘If that’s what it takes to reach a big deal, we’ll do that,’ ” Becerra said Thursday in an interview with C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program. “I’m not yet convinced that simply because Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare, even though there’s no justification for doing it …  that we should do that.”

Pelosi raised eyebrows last month when she defended Obama’s support of the chained CPI as part of a broad “fiscal-cliff” deal. Although the provision was not included in the final agreement, liberal critics were irate that top Democrats were ready to accept some Social Security cuts as part of the package.

Becerra, the fourth-ranking House Democrat, was quick this week to praise Pelosi for her work in searching for a long-term strategy to rein in deficit spending. But he warned that he’s ready to break with her and other party leaders on the Social Security issue as the deficit talks progress.

Afghanistan, antiwar, Militarism, Obama

A Voice for Peace in Afghanistan: ‘Stop This Criminal War’

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Malalai Joya pushes back against a decade of war, occupation and propaganda

By Jon Queally
Beaver County Peace Links via Common Dreams

Jan 10, 2013 – Malalai Joya has a simple message for US, NATO, and Afghan leaders: Get out.

‘Get out’ of her country, she tells those from the US and other western nations. And to the warlords, the Taliban, and the fundamentalists represented in the ruling government, she says ‘get out of the way’ of a peaceful and prosperous future for regular Afghans.

As Afghan President Hamid Karzai prepares to meet with Barack Obama on Friday and speculation swirls about the future US role as 2014 slowly approaches, one of Afghanistan’s leading peace advocates has a message that those in the US—increasingly cited for their war-weariness—rarely hear: Afghans themselves, caught between an occupying power and a corrupt government, are "fed up" with war, death and the destruction of their rights and aspirations.

"We are fed up with the so-called ‘helping hand’ of the US and NATO that is used to justify occupation," Joya said in an extensive interview with journalist Elsa Rassbach and published by Common Dreams Thursday.

Joya, who rose to international prominence as the youngest female member of the Afghan parliament in 2005, says the US-led war in Afghanistan—"waged under a fake banner of human rights and democracy"—has gone on far too long, and what most Afghans want is the complete withdrawal of US troops so that regular Afghans can reclaim their dignity and solve their own problems.

Responding to the Obama and Karzai meeting, Joya explained to Rassbach that agreements made in Washington between the two will do nothing to improve the lives of most Afghans.

Continue reading A Voice for Peace in Afghanistan: ‘Stop This Criminal War’ →

Community, Culture, Violence, Women, Youth and students

Rape, ‘Football Culture’ and an Ongoing War on Women

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In Steubenville, Hundreds Protest Police, Social Media Response to Alleged Rape

By Marylynne Pitz
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

STEUBENVILLE, OH Jan 6, 2012 — For more than three hours Saturday, chants, signs and speeches filled the cold air outside the Jefferson County Courthouse as a crowd of 800 to 1,000 people demanded a more thorough investigation into the alleged rape of a 16-year-old West Virginia teenager by football players from this economically depressed Ohio Valley community.

Two members of the Steubenville High School football team, Trent Mays and Malik Richmond, both 16, have been charged with assaulting the young woman last summer and face trial in February.

The case has attracted national attention because of recent Internet postings, including a 12-minute video of a former Steubenville student recounting the alleged sexual assault in graphic detail. Initially, online conversations focused on a series of alcohol-fueled parties attended Aug. 11 by football players in which the girl, who was inebriated and largely unresponsive, was carried from place to place, photographed and assaulted, according to witnesses. Later postings featured criticism of the teenagers’ behavior and the investigation that followed.

"I will not stand idly by and let a young girl’s life be ruined because she believes everyone is apathetic," said Sable Foster, a 23-year-old Kent State University senior who spoke to the crowd using a bullhorn.

Continue reading Rape, ‘Football Culture’ and an Ongoing War on Women →

budget crisis, Economy, Green Energy, Green Jobs, unemployment

The Myth of the Job Creator

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[Editor’s Note: Not only is increased demand in the form of increased purchase orders the real spur to new hiring, it’s also important that the demand be targeted. Increasing demand for goods produced in China at Walmart, for example, will create jobs in China. But if we increase demand for domestic goods and services by building local infrastructure such as the ‘Smart Grid’ and other clean and green energy projects, then much of the demand will be for increased local labor and local goods.]

By RP Watkins
Beaver County Blue via Daily Kos

The popular notion of the so-called “Job Creator” is a myth. Yet the very idea of Job Creators represents the most basic argument in the Supply Side story, a concept which postulates that economic growth requires expanding the means of production. The term Job Creator has been repeated and spun so frequently on Capitol Hill and across America, almost exclusively from Conservatives, that it has become accepted wisdom that job growth is determined by the means of production, the supply-side of the economy. It is not.

The reason is so stunningly simple and basic that it’s almost entirely invisible by politicians and pundits alike. This is because contrary to the supply-side mantra, most businesses are unwilling to expand hiring unless the new jobs are justified by sufficient Market Demand. It is for this reason that the popular supply-side policies of tax cuts and credits have done little to stimulate domestic hiring. If anything businesses have converted the government largesse of lower taxes into enhanced profitability, with little in the way of new jobs materializing.

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budget crisis, Democrats, GOP, safety net, unemployment

An Ugly Deal: 4 Reasons the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Deal Is Worse Than It Looks

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By Robert Borosage
Beaver County Blue via OurFuture.org

Jan 1, 2013 – Early this morning, the Senate passed the fiscal cliff deal by 89-8, a margin virtually guaranteeing that it will survive in the House.  The deal has some good parts.  It lets the Bush tax cuts expire on the wealthy, raises the estate tax marginally and increases taxes on capital gains and dividends a bit.  Unemployment benefits are extended for a year.  Tax boosts for the low paid workers – the child tax credit, expanded earned income credit, refundable tuition tax credits – are extended, if only for five years.  Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are not touched.

But no one should be fooled.  This is an ugly deal, with foul implications for the coming months.

1.  Setting Up the Next Extortion

The most ominous part of the deal is what was left out.  The deal makes no provision for lifting the debt ceiling.  It postpones the sequester (automatic cuts in domestic and military spending) for only two months.  It is a smaller deficit reduction package than that originally sought by the president.  It therefore sets up the right-wing House zealots to hold the economy hostage once more, while demanding deep cuts in public services (known as cuts in domestic spending), backed by a media frenzy about deficits.  And while Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid escaped unscathed in this deal, they will be the prime targets in the coming debate.

Continue reading An Ugly Deal: 4 Reasons the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Deal Is Worse Than It Looks →