Category Archives: Economy

Economy, labor

First-Hand Report: Demanding Jobs at the G20

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g20-jobsmarch

Pittsburgh Diaries: Day One
March for Jobs in ‘The Hill’

By Carl Davidson
Beaver County Blue

The ‘G20’ is a big deal in Pittsburgh, with multiple stories in the local press and TV, even though many everyday citizens are wondering what it’s really all about and whether it’s worth all the fuss and expense.

“I know all the big shots from around the world are coming, I see that on the news” my dad told me last week. “But what do they actually do behind all those guards and closed doors?”

It’s a good question. The ‘big shots,’ of course, are all the top political and economic leaders of the world’s nineteen largest economies, with the European Union added to make twenty. And lots of people would love to be a fly on the wall when they start wrangling over who’s really to blame for the latest financial meltdown and how to recover from it.

I told my dad, for starters, that they’re cooking up schemes to have the rest of us pay off the gambling debts of Wall Street speculators while they ship more jobs overseas. That’s why the unions are going to be in streets, along with the environmental people, the antiwar movement, and everyone else. He’s dubious that it will do any good, but I told him I’ll be in the thick of it, and I’d let him know what happens.

Continue reading First-Hand Report: Demanding Jobs at the G20 →

Community, Economy

Justice Sotomayor Issues Challenge to a Century of Corporate Law

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By JESS BRAVIN

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125314088285517643.html

WASHINGTON — In her maiden Supreme Court appearance last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a provocative comment that probed the foundations of corporate law.

During arguments in a campaign-finance case, the court’s majority conservatives seemed persuaded that corporations have broad First Amendment rights and that recent precedents upholding limits on corporate political spending should be overruled.

But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong — and that instead the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights flesh-and-blood people have.
Economy, Environment

Shameful PA Budget Deal Takeaway from Working Families Giveaway to Gas Drillers

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Plan would destroy state forests on altar of natural gas industry

Drilling Rig on Marcellus Shale
Drilling Rig on Marcellus Shale

The proposed budget deal announced September 11, 2009 includes a massive giveaway to huge, multi-national energy corporations that want substantial and immediate access to drill, baby, drill in our public forests and parks.

Tell your state legislators that opening up much of the state’s forest lands to gas drilling is NOT the way that Pennsylvania should solve its budget crisis.

Greedy gas companies spent more than one million dollars lobbying state government this year, and it looks like it paid off. The state budget does not include a severance tax on natural gas drilling even though it injures Pennsylvania taxpayers. To add insult to injury, the budget deal also opens up state parks and forests to gas drillers. Because gas prices have fallen, gas leasing prices have also fallen, so now giant multi-national energy corporations will be able to make a sweetheart deal to lock up leases at bargain basement prices.

Continue reading Shameful PA Budget Deal Takeaway from Working Families Giveaway to Gas Drillers →

Economy, labor

Week of Actions for Jobs, Peace and Prosperity

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makeourfuturework

Labor’s Stake
In the Pittsburgh
G-20 Protests

By Alan Hart
United Electrical Workers

When G-20 government leaders met in London last April, thousands of trade unionists marched in protest. Labor organizations from over 100 countries – including the AFL-CIO – issued a “London Declaration” that criticized the G-20’s policies for favoring multinational corporations and banks, and demanded new economic priorities that “put people first.”

Unions are the strongest and most consistent voices for working people. Pittsburgh union members need to take a prominent place in the peaceful protests and educational events planned when the G-20 Summit comes to Pittsburgh.
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Community, Economy, health care

Can the US Afford Single Payer Healthcare? Yes!

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Tina Shannon
Tina Shannon

Presented to Cong. Jason Altmire at a PDA Roundtable Discussion on Healthcare on August 20, 2009

 

by Tina Shannon, Chairperson
PA 4th CD Chapter Progressive Democrats of America
 

Perhaps the biggest sticking point in the single payer/national healthcare argument is cost. If you look at the system of healthcare we have now, it’s hard to imagine being able to provide that to everyone in the country.

But study after study indicates that we can.

June 1991, General Accounting office: “If the US were to shift to a system of universal coverage and a single payer, as in Canada, the savings in administrative costs (10% of health spending) would be more than enough to offset the expense of universal coverage.

December 1991, Congressional Budget Office: “(a) single payer system that paid providers at Medicare’s rates, that population that is currently uninsured could be covered without dramatically increasing national spending on health.”

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Community, Economy

PA Senate Republicans Declare War on Working Families with Vicious Budget Cuts to Protect the Rich

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 Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center
Pileggi, Scarnati, Vogel Attack Children, Elderly, Vets
Pileggi, Scarnati, Vogel Attack Children, Elderly, Vets

 www.pennbpc.org

 717-255-7156   
 
On May 6, on a party-line vote, the Pennsylvania Senate passed a budget that makes deep cuts in most state services and programs.
 

Senate Bill (SB) 850 proposes spending $24.6 billion in state general fund dollars in FY2009-10, effectively reducing state expenditures to 2005-06 levels. With the addition of $2.7 billion in federal stimulus funds, total state spending rises to $27.3 billion, $1.7 billion less than the spending plan proposed by Governor Ed Rendell in February.

Even with federal stimulus funds accounted for, every major department will be cut. Funding for the Department of Public Welfare will decline by $250 million, a 4% cut, while funding for environmental protection will decline by 40%.

The Senate plan relies on cuts to balance the budget, rejecting other options. The plan leaves the state’s $740 million Rainy Day Fund untouched and contains little new revenue. It rejects the Governor’s proposed tax on smokeless tobacco and other tobacco products, a new natural gas severance tax, and a cigarette tax rate increase. It leaves $500 million in the Health Care Provider Retention Account, a portion of which could be used to avoid service cuts.

Continue reading PA Senate Republicans Declare War on Working Families with Vicious Budget Cuts to Protect the Rich →

Community, Economy

The Crisis for Main Street Deepens: U.S. commercial mortgage delinquencies jump 585%

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Dayton Business Journal – by Katherine Conrad

Delinquencies on commercial mortgage backed securities soared $10 billion in June, hitting a 12-month high of almost $29 billion, according to Realpoint Research.

California led the nation with the highest amount of delinquent loans, closely followed by Texas and Florida.

Late loans across the country are up an “astounding” 585 percent from a year ago when just $4 billion were delinquent, reported the Horsham, Pa.-based research firm. The low point for delinquency was March 2007 when $2 billion was delinquent.

Continue reading The Crisis for Main Street Deepens: U.S. commercial mortgage delinquencies jump 585% →

Economy, labor

AFL-CIO Calls for New Stimulus to Create Jobs

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wealthcareEconomic Recovery: Take Two

July 28, 2009
Silver Spring, MD
AFL-CIO Executive Council statement

The legacy of the Bush Administration has been a perfect storm of economic devastation — in finance, housing and jobs.  The challenge of fixing this economic mess is enormous – and urgent.  Creating good jobs that cannot be outsourced is central to the solution.

Despite much-touted “green shoots,” the prognosis for the U.S. economy keeps getting worse.  The official unemployment rate hit 9.5 percent in June and is likely to exceed 10 percent by later this year and remain high throughout 2010 – when mid-term elections will take place.  We have lost an extraordinary 6.5 million jobs since the onset of the recession, and we are 8.8 million jobs short of where we should be, taking into account the growing working age population.

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Economy

Record Number of Unemployed Benefits Ending: Working Families Need Extension of Unemployment! Call Your State Senator Today!

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Unemployment Insurance Exhaustion Rate

 

Unemployment Insurance Exhaustion Rate

 Urge Pennsylvania State Senate to help jobless workers   

The House took decisive action on July 7 to provide a lifeline to some 57,000 Pennsylvanians who are still looking for work but are running out of unemployment compensation.   

The legislation (H.B. 1770) would temporarily change the mechanism Pennsylvania uses to trigger extended unemployment benefits. By switching the state’s trigger to the total unemployment rate, the state could draw on $145 million in federal stimulus money to offer seven weeks of additional emergency unemployment benefits.  

If the Senate does not act quickly, tens of thousands of Pennsylvania workers and their families will lose the only safety net they have right now. Just this weekend, benefits to about 18,000 unemployed workers will not continue.   

You can help in this fight. Visit the House Democrats’ online action center and send a message to the Senate. Tell the Senate to make use of the available federal funding for jobless workers and to pass the bill today. 

Call Sen. Elder Vogel  today: 724-774-0444 Rochester, 724-654-1444 New Castle.