California Free Press

Elizabeth Warren: Time For Wall Street CEOs To 'Earn Back' America's Trust

Published by Huffington Post, First Posted: 02- 8-10 07:50 PM   |   Updated: 02- 9-10 07:46 AM

Bailout watchdog and middle-class advocate Elizabeth Warren is accusing Wall Street CEOs of abusing the public's trust and is challenging them to step up and support financial reform -- for the nation's benefit as well as their own.

In an opinion piece in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, Warren writes that the lack of strong consumer rules has set off a competition to see which firms can make the most profits by tricking the most consumers.

For years, Wall Street CEOs have thrown away customer trust like so much worthless trash.

Banks and brokers have sold deceptive mortgages for more than a decade. Financial wizards made billions by packaging and repackaging those loans into securities. And federal regulators played the role of lookout at a bank robbery, holding back anyone who tried to stop the massive looting from middle-class families. When they weren't selling deceptive mortgages, Wall Street invented new credit card tricks and clever overdraft fees.

The Harvard Law professor, who serves as Congress's watchdog for the TARP program, added that the bankers "squandered what little trust was left" when they took taxpayer bailouts.

The piece, titled "Wall Street's Race to the Bottom," explains how bankers can reclaim that trust: by supporting a strong consumer protection agency designed to root out the kinds of abuses that helped lead to the financial crisis. Long championed by Warren, this new agency would protect borrowers from abusive lenders by policing mortgages, credit cards and personal loans.

President Barack Obama proposed the agency last year as part of a set of comprehensive financial reforms. The House of Representatives passed a bill in December that would create it.

Bankers, however, argue that the agency will add another layer of bureaucracy to government and increase costs that would ultimately be passed on to consumers seeking credit.

As proposed by Warren and Obama, the agency could protect consumers by writing and enforcing robust rules. Right now, that authority is split among seven regulators that also are charged with overseeing the health of individual banks and the broader financial system.

Faced with those dueling missions -- bank profitability and consumer protection -- the regulators tend to favor the former, for instance refusing to cap overdraft fees, Consumer advocates charge that the fees are excessive and structured in a way to maximize the potential hit to the customer. Banks see them as a profitable practice that reaps billions of dollars.

Warren takes on the argument that crises are inevitable:

So far, Wall Street CEOs seem determined to stop any kind of watchdog. They seem to think that they can run their businesses forever without our trust. This is a bad calculation.

It's a bad calculation because shareholders suffer enormously from the long-term cost of the boom-and-bust cycles that accompany a poorly regulated market. J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently explained this brave new world, saying that crises should be expected 'every five to seven years.'

He is wrong.

Warren contends that the agency would actually serve the banks' long-term interests. "It will stabilize the industry, rebuild confidence in the securitization market, and leave more money in the pockets of families," she writes.

Wall Street CEOs need to decide how they want to be remembered, she writes:

When the history of the Great Recession is written, they can be singled out as the bonus babies who were so short-sighted that they put the economy at risk and contributed to the destruction of their own companies. Or they can acknowledge how Americans' trust has been lost and take the first steps to earn it back.

Shrimp's Dirty Secrets: Why America's Favorite Seafood Is a Health and Environmental Nightmare

Published on Thursday, February 4, 2010 by AlterNet

The environmental impact of shrimp can be horrific. But most Americans don't know where their shrimp comes from or what's in it.

by Jill Richardson

Americans love their shrimp. It's the most popular seafood in the country, but unfortunately much of the shrimp we eat are a cocktail of chemicals, harvested at the expense of one of the world's productive ecosystems. Worse, guidelines for finding some kind of "sustainable shrimp" are so far nonexistent.

In his book, Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood, Taras Grescoe paints a repulsive picture of how shrimp are farmed in one region of India. The shrimp pond preparation begins with urea, superphosphate, and diesel, then progresses to the use of piscicides (fish-killing chemicals like chlorine and rotenone), pesticides and antibiotics (including some that are banned in the U.S.), and ends by treating the shrimp with sodium tripolyphosphate (a suspected neurotoxicant), Borax, and occasionally caustic soda.

Upon arrival in the U.S., few if any, are inspected by the FDA, and when researchers have examined imported ready-to-eat shrimp, they found 162 separate species of bacteria with resistance to 10 different antibiotics. And yet, as of 2008, Americans are eating 4.1 pounds of shrimp apiece each year -- significantly more than the 2.8 pounds per year we each ate of the second most popular seafood, canned tuna. But what are we actually eating without knowing it? And is it worth the price -- both to our health and the environment?

Understanding the shrimp that supplies our nation's voracious appetite is quite complex. Overall, the shrimp industry represents a dismantling of the marine ecosystem, piece by piece. Farming methods range from those described above to some that are more benign. Problems with irresponsible methods of farming don't end at the "yuck," factor as shrimp farming is credited with destroying 38 percent of the world's mangroves, some of the most diverse and productive ecosystems on earth. Mangroves sequester vast amounts of carbon and serve as valuable buffers against hurricanes and tsunamis. Some compare shrimp farming methods that demolish mangroves to slash-and-burn agriculture. A shrimp farmer will clear a section of mangroves and close it off to ensure that the shrimp cannot escape. Then the farmer relies on the tides to refresh the water, carrying shrimp excrement and disease out to sea. In this scenario, the entire mangrove ecosystem is destroyed and turned into a small dead zone for short-term gain. Even after the shrimp farm leaves, the mangroves do not come back.

A more responsible farming system involves closed, inland ponds that use their wastewater for agricultural irrigation instead of allowing it to pollute oceans or other waterways. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program, when a farm has good disease management protocols, it does not need to use so many antibiotics or other chemicals.

One more consideration, even in these cleaner systems, is the wild fish used to feed farmed shrimp. An estimated average of 1.4 pounds of wild fish are used to produce every pound of farmed shrimp. Sometimes the wild fish used is bycatch -- fish that would be dumped into the ocean to rot if they weren't fed to shrimp -- but other times farmed shrimp dine on species like anchovies, herring, sardines and menhaden. These fish are important foods for seabirds, big commercial fish and whales, so removing them from the ecosystem to feed farmed shrimp is problematic.

Additionally, some shrimp are wild-caught, and while they aren't raised in a chemical cocktail, the vast majority is caught using trawling, a highly destructive fishing method. Football field-sized nets are dragged along the ocean floor, scooping up and killing several pounds of marine life for every pound of shrimp they catch and demolishing the ocean floor ecosystem as they go. Where they don't clear-cut coral reefs or other rich ocean floor habitats, they drag their nets through the mud, leaving plumes of sediment so large they are visible from outer space.

After trawling destroys an ocean floor, the ecosystem often cannot recover for decades, if not centuries or millennia. This is particularly significant because 98 percent of ocean life lives on or around the seabed. Depending on the fishery, the amount of bycatch (the term used for unwanted species scooped up and killed by trawlers) ranges from five to 20 pounds per pound of shrimp. These include sharks, rays, starfish, juvenile red snapper, sea turtles and more. While shrimp trawl fisheries only represent 2 percent of the global fish catch, they are responsible for over one-third of the world's bycatch. Trawling is comparable to bulldozing an entire section of rainforest in order to catch one species of bird.

Given this disturbing picture, how can an American know how to find responsibly farmed or fished shrimp? Currently, it's near impossible. Only 15 percent of our total shrimp consumption comes from the U.S. (both farmed and wild sources). The U.S. has good regulations on shrimp farming, so purchasing shrimp farmed in the U.S. is not a bad way to go. Wild shrimp, with a few exceptions, is typically obtained via trawling and should be avoided. The notable exceptions are spot prawns from British Columbia, caught in traps similar to those used for catching lobster, and the small salad shrimp like the Northern shrimp from the East Coast or pink shrimp from Oregon, both of which are certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council. However, neither are true substitutes for the large white and tiger shrimp American consumers are used to.

The remaining 85 percent came from other countries and about two-thirds of our imports are farmed with the balance caught in the wild, mostly via trawling. China is the world's top shrimp producer -- both farmed and wild -- but only 2 percent of China's shrimp are imported to the U.S. The world's number two producer, Thailand, is our top foreign source of shrimp. Fully one third of the shrimp the U.S. imports comes from Thailand, and over 80 percent of those shrimp are farmed.

The next biggest sources of U.S. shrimp are Ecuador, Indonesia, China, Mexico, Vietnam, Malaysia and India. Together, those countries provide nearly 90 percent of America's imported shrimp. Interestingly, Ecuador's shrimp industry exists almost entirely to supply U.S. demand, with over 93 percent of its shrimp coming up north to the U.S. The vast majority of those shrimp (almost 90 percent) are farmed. Sadly, shrimp production is responsible for the destruction of 70 percent of Ecuador's mangroves. Farming practices in other countries range from decent to awful, but there's currently no real way for a consumer to tell whether shrimp from any particular country was farmed sustainably or not.

Geoff Shester, senior science manager of Monterey Bay's Seafood Watch, says that ethical shrimp consumption is a chicken and egg problem. On one hand, the solution is for consumers to show demand for responsibly farmed and wild shrimp by eating it but on the other hand, ethical shrimp choices are not yet widely available. Seafood Watch is working with some of the largest seafood buyers in the U.S. to help them buy better shrimp, but it's currently a major challenge.

The first challenge is that labeling and certification programs do not yet exist to identify which farmed shrimp meet sustainable production standards. The second challenge is that even when such programs are in place, the U.S. demand will likely greatly exceed their supply.

Shester's advice to consumers right now is "only buy shrimp that you know comes from a sustainable source. If you can't tell for sure, try something else from the Seafood Watch yellow or green lists." Knowing that many will be unwilling to give up America's favorite seafood, he advocates simply eating less of it and keeping an eye on future updates to the Seafood Watch guide to eating sustainable seafood.

© 2010 Independent Media Institute

Jill Richardson is the founder of the blog La Vida Locavore and a member of the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board. She is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It..

The Works Green Administration

From Dennis Kucinich:

We can still have health care reform in America. We need to take a short-term and a longer-term view. On the short-term: We need to take away the antitrust exemption that insurance companies have. We need to make sure, on the short-term, that we can see everyone with a pre-existing condition have access to insurance. There are things that we can do with single-initiatives to help regain the momentum on health care.

And for the longer-term: The answer is "Medicare for All." The answer was never to continue to give the insurance companies one out of every three dollars in our health care system. We'll talk more about that later. But what we need to do is regain the initiative in our nation to create millions of jobs putting America back to work rebuilding our roads, our bridges, our water systems, our sewer systems - millions of jobs with an initiative called the Works Green Administration that will help with the design, engineering, manufacture, installation and maintenance of tens of millions in wind and solar micro technologies. We have so many different ways that we can get our economy moving again.

I like the idea of a Works Green Administration but the Senate will never buy it because it would be a directly government funded program such as FDR's Works Progress Administration. Republicans and miscellaneous other conservatives would call it socialism. But private enterprise will never come up with a cohesive, rational program such as this on its own. Therefore, other countries with a more direct connection between government and enterprise will jump ahead of the US in the next great technological revolution. Why? Because the development of a green economy is something that private enterprise can't do on its own. It requires too much systemic organization and oversight - something that can only be done by an overarching entity such as government. Since the US government has essentially abandoned any overarching organizational functions leaving all economic development to private enterprise, the infrastructure aspects of the green revolution, which are the most important aspects, will remain undone in the US while they will be undertaken in China and other countries where the government and private enterprise are more intimately interconnected. So in the US all we'll see is some of the components being developed which is all the private sector is capable of without government oversight and direction. As a result other countries, especially China, will surge ahead of the US in their economic and social development.

Anthem Blue Cross Raises Premiums

Published on Saturday, February 6, 2010 by the San Francisco Chronicle

by Victoria Colliver

Anthem Blue Cross customers got a shock this week when the health insurer informed thousands of individual policyholders that their premium rates will jump as much as 39 percent on March 1.

"There aren't any other parts of our society where people have no regard for inflation rate and increase their prices this much. I can't imagine anything in the world that's going up 39 percent," said Josh Libresco, 54, of San Rafael, as he grappled with the news that his family premium will go from $858 per month to $1,192 - and that's with a $5,000 deductible.

Anthem, which has reportedly sent letters this week to those who buy their coverage individually and are not covered by a group policy, said rising health care costs led to the increase.

The company, based in Woodland Hills (Los Angles County), declined to say how many customers received the increase or what the average premium hike was, but the insurer has the largest number of individual customers in the state. Last year, when Anthem Blue Cross raised rates by as much as 68 percent for some customers, the company said it had about 800,000 members.

The Department of Insurance plans to hire an actuarial firm to look into Anthem's "alarming" rate increases, said Darrel Ng, spokesman for the department.

Unlike home and automobile insurers, California insurers can legally raise rates for policyholders as much as and whenever they want. Regulators technically oversee the increases, but they have no power to control rates.

The most recent effort to require state regulators to approve health insurance rate increases, a bill by Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, failed to pass the Assembly Health Committee in April.

For Jeff Sher of San Francisco, who is both an independent health insurance agent and an Anthem customer, his 38 percent increase comes on top of a 41 percent increase last year. That means that in just a year, his premium increased from $273 to $530 per month, or 94 percent.

Sher, who is 59, said he hasn't needed to see a doctor in seven or eight years.

"It's all based on this illusion there is a free market in this product. But you can't shop for health care, particularly after you're already sick," he said. "You can't shop for a carrier because there is almost no competition."

© 2010 Hearst Communications Inc

Lobbying Dooms Student Loan Sanity

Student loans used to be issued by the government. That was before the corporate takeover of the student loan industry and before Sallie Mae was privatized by Al Lord who proceeded to make millions off the backs of students especially the ones who couldn't get a job when they graduated and ended up defaulting on their loans. Lord had Congress pass draconian provisions on student defaulters while having his lobbyists put into law a sweet deal for himself. Students can't discharge their student loans by means of bankruptcy. Those loans will track them to their graves even garnishing their social security. In addition tricks and traps guarantee that late payments, defaults and other mechanisms will run up the original loans in much the same way that they do for credit cards. But Mr. Lord will not lose a dime because student loans are guaranteed by the Federal Government. So when the student defaults, the Federal government steps in to make Mr. Lord whole. Then he can go on to collect the original loan if he is able to do so assessing penalties all the way. While screwing students, the privatized student loan industry has made enormous profits.

Obama campaigned on doing away with these atrocities and having the Federal government regovernmentize student loans. But now the student loan industry is lobbying Congress not to do so, and guess who will win - the lobbyists or the students? It's simply disgusting that probably nothing will be done about this atrocious situation that has driven some students to despair, even suicide. The same ridiculous situation persists. The House passed the appropriate legislation taking the power away from the private corporations and placing it back in the government's hands. Now it goes to the Senate where - surprise, surprise - it will probably be filibustered along with any other legislation that isn't dictated by lobbyists. So it will be a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. The American people better wake up to this little charade. Obama and the House Democrats talk tough about all the good stuff they're doing and then it gets killed in the Senate. Final result: nothing, nada, they shouldn't even have wasted their breath. Until they devise a method of passing their legislation in the Senate they might as well just keep their friggin' mouths shut.

Here's more from the New York Times:

Lobbying Imperils Overhaul of Student Loans

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: February 4, 2010

WASHINGTON — Four months ago, it appeared all but certain that the White House and Democrats in Congress would succeed in overhauling the student loan business and ending government subsidies to private lenders.

President Obama called the idea a “no-brainer” last fall, predicting it would take billions of dollars from the profits of private lenders and give it directly to students, and many colleges were already moving to get loans directly from the federal government in anticipation of the next move by Congress.

But an aggressive lobbying campaign by the nation’s biggest student lenders has now put one of the White House’s signature plans in peril, with lenders using sit-downs with lawmakers, town-hall-style meetings and petition drives to plead their case and stay in business.

House and Senate aides say that the administration’s plan faces a far tougher fight than it did last fall, when the House passed its version. The fierce attacks from the lending industry, the Massachusetts election that cost the Democrats their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and the fight over a health care bill have all damaged the chances for the student loan measure, said the aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

But they said the administration had recognized the threat and was beginning to push back in an effort to get the plan approved.

Sallie Mae, a publicly traded company that is the nation’s biggest student lender with $22 billion in loans originated last year, led the field in spending $8 million on lobbying in 2009, more than double the year before, and other lenders spent millions of dollars more, according to an analysis prepared for The New York Times by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Political action committees for the lenders and company employees made $2.1 million in political contributions last year, with the money split evenly among Democrat and Republican candidates, the data showed. Sallie Mae’s PAC alone made $194,000 in donations.

Some 10 million students got loans last year to help pay for their educations, and there is disagreement about whether having the federal government take over virtually the entire lending program would help or hurt them. Private lenders warn that students may default on their loans more often because they will get less counseling; the Obama administration says students will benefit from more grants and expanded educational programs.

A defeat for the White House at the hands of the industry could become further evidence of the administration’s sagging political fortunes. The unexpected loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat has given opponents of the lending plan an opportunity that seemed unlikely last September, when the House approved legislation to move to a federally-sponsored loan program.

The student loan industry, which would be forced out of the loan origination business if the proposal became law, is seeking to cast the administration’s plan as an ill-conceived government takeover that could put thousands of people out of work at private lending centers around the country at a time when unemployment is hovering around 10 percent.

“We anticipated this,” Arne Duncan, the education secretary, said of the lending industry’s lobbying efforts. “They’ve had a sweet deal. They’ve had this phenomenal deal that taxpayers have subsidized, and that’s a hard thing to give up.”

Private lenders get a cut of the federally backed loans that they originate and service, with little risk of their own. At Sallie Mae, lobbyists for the firm are focusing on senators regarded as fiscal conservatives, as well as those in states that are home to lending centers with jobs at stake, including Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, New York and Pennsylvania, said John F. Remondi, chief financial officer for the company.

Student loan lenders employ about 35,000 people around the country, although estimates differ as to how many jobs would be eliminated if the federal government took over all direct lending on student loans.

“We haven’t left any stone unturned — we’ll meet with anyone who will meet us,” Mr. Remondi said in an interview. “We’re trying to identify at least 12 senators who would be helpful in this process.”

At the same time, Sallie Mae and other lenders have staged a series of town-hall-style meetings at their job centers around the country to help mobilize opposition to the White House plan and collect thousands of signatures for a petition drive in support of their own plan.

“I would think that the White House would prefer not to make senators vote for something that is going to be very unpopular in their states — and for good reason,” said Jamie Gorelick, a former Clinton administration official who is now lobbying for the lending industry.

Mr. Obama defended his plan last week in his State of the Union address.

“To make college more affordable, this bill will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies that go to banks for student loans” and use the savings to finance other educational programs, he said to cheers from Democrats. “In the United States of America,” Mr. Obama said, “no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.”

more...

Who's Killing Financial Reform?

by Robert Reich, Thursday, February 4, 2010

Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, scolded Wall Street representatives at a hearing Thursday for sending “an army of lobbyists whose only mission is to kill the common-sense financial reforms” needed by the public. “The fact is,” Dodd said, “I am frustrated, and so are the American people.” He charged that Wall Street’s intransigence was the reason for Congress’s failure to pass any bill to regulate the Street. “The refusal of large financial firms to work constructively with Congress on this effort borders on insulting to the American people who have lost so much in this crisis.”

In other words, it isn’t Congress’s fault. It isn’t the Senate Banking Committee’s fault. It certainly isn’t Dodd’s fault. The reason more than a year has passed since the biggest bailout in the history of the world and nothing has been done to prevent a repeat performance — even as the biggest banks are doling out more than $30 billion of bonuses, even as Goldman Sachs is awarding its big traders $16 billion in bonuses (more than the $13 billion Goldman collected from taxpayers via the bailout of AIG), even as AIG itself is handing out bonuses — the reason is … what, exactly, Senator? Because the Street has sent an army of lobbyists to Capitol Hill?

Call me old fashioned, but I thought Congress was in charge of passing legislation, not Wall Street.

Dodd left out the most telling detail, of course. Wall Street is where the campaign money is. Dodd of all people knows that. He’s been on the receiving end of lots of it over the years.

Wall Street firms and their executives have been uniquely generous to both political parties, emerging recently as one of the largest benefactors of the Democratic Party. Between November 2008 and November 2009, Wall Street firms and executives handed out $42 million to lawmakers, mostly to members of the House and Senate banking committees and House and Senate leaders. During the 2008 elections, Wall Street showered Democratic candidates with well over $88 million and Republicans with over $67 million, putting the Street right up there with the insurance industry as among the nation’s largest equal-opportunity donors.

Some Democrats are quietly grumbling that all the tough talk emanating from the White House in recent weeks — the President calling the Street’s denizens “fat cats” and threatening them with limits on their size and the risks they can take, even waiving a watered-down version of Glass-Steagall in their faces — is making it harder to collect money from the Street this mid-term election year. And the Street is quietly threatening that it may well give Republicans more, if the saber-rattling doesn’t stop.

Congress isn’t doing a thing about Wall Street because it’s in the pocket of Wall Street. Dodd’s outburst at the Street is like the alcoholic who screams at a bartender “how dare you give me another drink when all I’ve done is pleaded with you for one!”

Dodd is right about one thing. The American people are frustrated, and the failure of Congress to pass real financial reform is insulting. But in trying to place responsibility for this appalling failure on Wall Street, Dodd insults us even more.

Tax the Corporations and the Rich or Take Draconian Cuts -- the Decision Is Ours

by David Sirota, Alternet, February 4, 2010

Plagued by deficits, communities everywhere must now decide between tax reform and public spending cuts -- between economic life and death.

  Judging by Tim Tebow's much-hyped Super Bowl ad, "choose life" remains conservatives' favorite abortion shibboleth. But really, the phrase better captures the stakes in the Great Budget Wars of 2010.

Plagued by deficits, communities everywhere must now decide between tax reform and public spending cuts -- between economic life and death. And thanks to two Western bellwether states, we know what each choice means.

Choosing death means mimicking Colorado Springs -- a Republican red tattoo on Colorado's purple heart.

As a venue for political experiments, the sprawly GOP enclave is as pristine a conservative laboratory as you'll find in America. If the city has garnered contemporary notoriety at all, it has achieved infamy for domiciling right-wing groups like Focus on the Family and infecting the world with viruses like Douglas Bruce -- the father of draconian initiatives that seek to prohibit governments from raising levies.

When the Tea Party movement's anti-tax activists refer to the abstract concept of conservative purity, we can turn to a microcosm like The Springs (as we Coloradoans call it) for a good example of what such purity looks like in practice -- and the view isn't pretty.

Thanks to the city's rejection of tax increases -- and, thus, depleted municipal revenues -- The Denver Post reports that "more than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark; the city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops; water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead … recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools (and) museums will close for good; Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends; (and) the city won't pay for any street paving."

Meanwhile, even with the Colorado Springs Gazette uncovering tent ghettos of newly homeless residents, the city's social services are being reduced -- all as fat cats aim to punish what remains of a middle class. As just one example, rather than initiating a tax discussion, the CEO of The Springs' most lavish luxury hotel is pushing city leaders to cut public employee salaries to the $24,000-a-year level he pays his own workforce -- a level approaching Colorado's official poverty line for a family of four.

This is what Reaganites have always meant when they've talked of a "shining city on a hill." They envision a dystopia whose anti-tax fires incinerate social fabric faster than James Dobson can say "family values" -- a place like Colorado Springs that is starting to reek of economic death.

Choosing life, by contrast, means doing what Colorado's governor and state legislature are doing by temporarily suspending corporate tax exemptions and raising revenue for job-sustaining schools and infrastructure. Even more dramatically, it means doing what voters in Oregon did last week.

As deficits threatened their education and public health systems, Oregonians confronted two ballot initiatives -- one modestly raising taxes on annual income above $250,000, another hiking the state's $10 minimum corporate income tax.

Despite these measures exempting 97 percent of taxpayers, conservatives waged a vicious opposition campaign, trotting out billionaire Nike CEO Phil Knight as their celebrity spokesperson. But this time, the right's greed-is-good mantra failed. In a swing state that had killed every similar initiative since the 1930s, voters backed the tax increases -- and chose economic life.

No matter where we live, this same choice will soon face us all in some form. It is a choice embodied in President Obama's pragmatic initiative to end his predecessor's high-income tax breaks, a choice for which future local and federal elections will serve as proxies.

Inevitably, anti-tax zealots will attempt to obscure what this choice is about -- but the choice is now crystal clear.

Tax reform or draconian cuts, life or death -- the decision is ours.

David Sirota is the author of the best-selling books Hostile Takeover and The Uprising. He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado and blogs at OpenLeft.com. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com or follow him on Twitter @davidsirota.

Dependency

.by John Lawrence

That dependency is a bad thing most Americans would agree. The US is a nation of rugged individualists who have to get up off their duff, work hard and earn their rewards, not a nation of people who sit around and get waited upon unless they happen to be rich and don't have to work for a living because they have plenty of money to hire people to do everything for them. But people without that kind of money have to do things on their own and not expect other taxpayers to pick up the tab for them. Why should there be a transfer of taxpayers' hard earned money to help someone who won't get up off their duff and help themselves. Why should there be a transfer of money from the more able to the less able, from those willing to work hard to provide for themselves to those who won't or can't work hard.

Nevertheless, there are those among us who are in a situation of dependency. Conservatives don't want their hard earned money transferred in the form of taxes to help them. Why should someone who has worked hard all their life have the government forcibly take their money from them to support someone who is unwilling or incapable of working hard to support themselves? Why should some taxpayer's dollars go to support people like my sister, for example. My sister, Jeanne, was born with severe brain damage although that wasn't apparent at first. It didn't become apparent until she didn't develop along normal lines. First, she didn't learn to walk at the normal age, and then she didn't learn to talk at the normal age. Although she did eventually walk with difficulty for a few years, she never learned to talk. Her mental age her entire life was that of a one and a half year old. Therefore, my sister couldn't do the simplest things for herself. For instance, she couldn't go to the cupboard, get a cup, go to the sink, turn on the tap and get herself a drink of water. This would have required a degree of difficulty way beyond my sister's ability. She couldn't have opened a can of beans, put the contents in a saucepan, turned on the stove, heated them and then placed them on a plate, gotten a spoon out of the drawer and ate them. She couldn't go to the bathroom without assistance. In short my sister required a full time care giver or else she would have died within a couple of days just as an abandoned one and a half year old would have.

But yet conservatives would say that none of their hard earned money should have gone to support people like my sister. Even though they may have not had such dependent people as my sister in their families, it was just my parents' hard luck that they would have such a person in theirs. It was their problem, no one else's. My parents had to bear the burden of taking care of my sister without assistance of any kind from other taxpayers who, after all, had the right to spend their money any way they liked and not have it confiscated to deal with the plights of unfortunate families. That would have encroached upon their liberty. So my parents had to bear the costs and responsibilities of full time child care or else send my sister off to an institution. Of course they would have had to pay the institution unless it was publicly supported through other taxpayers' dollars which would have been again an encroachment on those taxpayers' liberties.

And my sister was not an easy person to take care of. Like any one and a half year old, she was always getting into mischief. She destroyed my parents' possessions. I don't know how many times she got into the Christmas presents, tore open all the packages and pulled down the Christmas tree upon herself. She was undisciplinable. She was unteachable. But you couldn't get mad at her. It wasn't her fault, really. In some societies she wouldn't have been tolerated. Hitler would have had her killed as a mental defective, someone who couldn't possibly make a positive contribution to society and yet required a full time expenditure of resources. Hitler would not have seen her as fully human. And yet she was fully human. She laughed; she cried. She gave and received love. She had a sense of humor. But as far as her higher mental faculties were concerned, she had none. She couldn't have held a job; she couldn't have supported herself.

Nevertheless, conservatives would not have wanted to part with their hard earned money to help support the likes of my sister. It wasn't their problem. It wasn't my parents' fault either. They did not ask to have born to them a child who didn't develop as a normal child, who never went to school, who never graduated, who never went to a prom, who never went to college, who never got married, who never bore grandchildren. It wasn't my sister's fault either. She didn't make a life choice that resulted in her condition. She never took drugs except those that were prescribed for her to deal with her seizures which caused her to fall a lot during the brief period in her life when she walked. No, the full burden of taking care of my sister should have been borne privately, conservatives would say, and not by means of any public expenditures which would have required a transfer of hard earned taxpayer dollars, a forcible confiscation of hard earned money, an encroachment on the liberty of one taxpayer to help another taxpayer. This would have been immoral according to some. It was no one's responsibility except my parents'.

Luckily, Jeanne was born into a family with two strong, capable and loving parents, both of whom were capable enough and loving enough to be willing to take on the full time responsibilty of caring for someone like my sister. Luckily, in later life they had the income and resources to take care of her, although even that was shaky at first since my mother ended up in a sanitarium with TB when Jeanne was nine months old. That in and of itself caused my father to declare medical indigency, let alone the costs of caring for my sister and me, all of which had to be borne by my father who also had the responsibilty of a full time job. Luckily, in later life they had the wherewithal to pay the price of having their home in a constant state of shambles due to a marauding one and a half year old who never progressed beyond that age. Of course, Jeanne had no table manners. One of her favorite tricks was to swoop at the butter dish with her spoon if it was within reach and scoop out half the contents that then found the way to her mouth all faster than you could say Jackie Robinson. You see she had some talents, but this was perhaps her most coordinated maneuver. She loved to go for rides in the car. Sometimes my parents would stop at a roadside stand and buy her an ice cream cone. Jeanne never forgot such spots. It could be a year later, but when my parents were approaching the same roadside stand, Jeanne would start cheering and pointing and imploring them in her own way to stop.

In later life, I think my parents were able to start collecting social security for my sister much to the horror of conservatives who don't believe their hard earned taxpayer dollars should be confiscated to assist people such as my parents in caring for people such as my sister. After all my parents had the resources (by then) to take care of her themselves. Why should taxpayers have to chip in? Maybe social security should be means tested so that those with ample resources should not receive it. But that would mean a lot of wealthy people would not get social security after they retired either. Oh I see, maybe that's not such a good idea. Anyway Jeanne was able to receive social security for a few years. It helped pay for the special dentist she had to go to and her various other doctors' bills and medications. After my father died, my mother didn't figure she could take care of my sister in her own advanced age so she tried to get her into the Homestead which was a home that provided full time care giving for old people who couldn't care for themselves or whose families couldn't care for them and for people like my sister. However, despite the fact that my father had been a fairly prominent local school superintendant and budding politician before he died, my mother couldn't get Jeanne into the Homestead. I guess there was an inadequate flow of taxpayer dollars to fund such an institution compared to the need. Finally, after pulling numerous strings including contacting the politicians my father had been associated with, Jeanne was admitted to the Homestead where she lived the last three years of her life. I hate to think what would have happened to a less well connected family with the same problem.

But this dissertation isn't just about my sister who was at one end of the scale of dependency. There are far more people who aren't as badly off as her who still have some degree of dependency. There are fairly high functioning people who, nevertheless, aren't capable of being totally independent. There are people who can for the most part fend for themselves but need some assistance in order to get by. There are people, unlike my sister, who are trainable. These people can learn how to do some simple tasks. They can learn how to take care of some of their own personal needs. And then there are people who can largely function in a supportive environment. They couldn't function, perhaps, as isolated rugged individuals, but in a family they can provide some functions while other family members provide other functions. Co-dependency in the psychological literature is a bad word. It's considered a negative to be co-dependent, but, in any society, people are co-dependent. For instance, most people who are not mechanics are co-dependent on their mechanics to service and maintain their cars. And the mechanics are co-dependent on them to get money to earn a living. In families perhaps one spouse can't balance the checkbook while the other can. But the one who can't balance the checkbook might be able to bake a cake, something the other one can't. Co-dependency is the essence of any cooperative social situation. So in some ways almost everyone in society, despite the myth of the rugged individualist, is dependent on someone else. No man or woman is an island. Some people can function quite well in some environments, not at all in others. There are various degrees of psychological and physical problems which no amount of hard work can overcome.

So I think dependency is a wide ranging phenomenon. There are those who can't function normally, and, therefore, need public assistance because there aren't the resources within their families to provide the requisite assistance or maybe they don't have any family at all. These people might be able to function quite normally within certain supportive situations, but they can't make it on their own. But these people would be left at the side of the road to die unless society was able to divert some of the more able taxpayers' hard earned money to assist them. Some people only need temporary assistance. Some people like my sister need full time assistance their entire lives.

I have known other quite highly functioning people who, nevertheless, couldn't make it in society without taxpayer provided assistance. Such people, according to conservatives, should just suck it up and work hard and make it on their own instead of asking them to part with their hard earned money to support some liberal social program that might make it possible for them to live a fairly full life. Such a person we'll call Grandma Nelson, not her real name, because she's still living. After her divorce Grandma Nelson just couldn't make it on her own. She tried. She got her own apartment. She got a job, a fairly low paid one, since Grandma Nelson didn't have many skills other than having been a wife and a mother. Somehow, Grandma Nelson could never get her life to work. She got involved with boyfriends who mistreated her. She wasn't able to function well at her job. She went from job to job and those were in the days when jobs were readily available before the low skilled jobs had all been outsourced to China. And then Grandma Nelson would get behind in her rent. The accumulation of all these problems would result finally in a mental breakdown and Grandma Nelson would end up in the hospital. From there she would go to a half way house where she seemed to function quite well taking care of herself and helping out with the other inhabitants until she was ready to reenter society. She would start out again with a job, an apartment and a new boyfriend, but somehow the process would repeat itself and she would wind up back in the half way house. Luckily, in those days there were such places as half way houses. That was before state funds had dried up for such places. Finally, Grandma Nelson realized that the best place for her was in the half way house as a permanent situation. There she was in a supportive environment. She wasn't completely on her own. In this environment she could function quite well and even help to earn her own keep. But I'm sure that some hard earned taxpayer money was necessary to keep the half way house going. But today conservatives can rejoice in the fact that such places have been closed down due to a lack of funding and such people as Grandma Nelson are out on the street.

Social Darwinism has made its ugly return to American life with a vengeance of Dickensian proportions! Social Darwinism has replaced Matthew 25 in which Jesus instructs his disciples that true devotion to Him is based on helping "the least of these my brethren" rather than the mental calisthenics involved in having the politically correct belief system. Service to the needy is more important than being "washed in the blood" and being "saved" and all the other brainwashed crap that billionaire religious entrepreneurs have come up with to convince people that religion is all in your head and you don't have to get off your duff to help anyone else. You just have to give them money! Helping another person is immoral if it means the transfer of hard earned taxpayer money in order to do so. So the conservative religionists tell us. But if you take Jesus' words at face value, my parents were saints!

There are all kinds of situations in which people can't function well in society. Sometimes it's because of physical problems that interfere with getting a job. Sometimes it's because of psychological problems. Sometimes, like the present, it's because there are no jobs. Even a job, when you think about it, is a co-dependent situation. The employee is dependent on the employer for a pay check. The employer is dependent on the employee to do the job. Only the self-employed are the true rugged individualists. In many cases families provide for the nurturing, education and training of their young people and this seems to be sufficient for them to go out and become fully functioning members of society in most cases. In other cases families don't have the resources either financial or psycological to provide the nurturing environment that people need to become fully functioning members of society. In some cases this can be made up for by a public school system which guarantees every child the right to a basic education. Where there is not a functioning public school system, only the rich are educated, and the poor are doomed to a life of poverty. This, presently, is unthinkable in the US, but is the actual situation in many parts of the world. However, the public school system represents a situation where hard earned taxpayer money is transferred from the rich to the poor in order to provide education for people that wouldn't be able to pay for it on their own. Conservatives, in order to redress this unfortunate situation in which money is taken from those who have worked hard to earn it and given to those who haven't, want to privatize all public institutions including public schools. Rather than their hard earned money going to a public school, they want all families to pay for the education of their own children directly. By this line of reasoning people will have to work harder if they can't pay for private school or else have fewer children. Those who can't pay for their childrens' education just shouldn't have children, that's all.

So in the final analysis what's to be done about all the people who for one reason or another either just can't cope with life without some form of assistance or are temporarily or permanently dependent on others to provide for them. What's to be done for those whose families can't provide for them? The conservative solution is just to leave them by the side of the road if they can't pull their own weight. This is more preferable than making some taxpayer have to part with their hard earned money in order to have a society where some other person could lead a better and more productive life at their expense. The conservative solution is to let those whose families can pay for the education and welfare of their family members do so, but, if the family can't provide for the education and well being of its family members, that family will have to suffer the consequences without taxpayer assistance. If discouraged and forgotten people turn to crime, that's their own moral shortcomings. If a family cannot put a roof over their own head, hard earned taxpayer money should not be used to do so because this would set the example that people will be given stuff that they didn't have to work for. This would be moral hazard. The highest form of morality is that money should not be taken from people who have earned it to help some other person who hasn't earned it. After all this is what Ayn Rand taught. When it comes down to it, people who can't provide for themselves should be left to their own devices even if with a little assistance they might have become more productive members of society. So when it comes right down to it, it is preferable to build public jails to house them than to build public schools to educate them. But even the jails should be privatized so that they don't become government takeovers. The public school system has already become a government takeover so it needs to be retaken over by private corporations. What we need is a corporate takeover of jails and schools and more corporate profits. If that's the price to be paid for keeping government small, so be it! After all government should do nothing except to be a contractor subcontracting out all functions to private corporations.

First-Time Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly

From NPR

 

by The Associated Press, February 4, 2010

The number of newly laid-off workers filing initial claims for jobless benefits rose unexpectedly last week, evidence that layoffs are continuing and jobs remain scarce.

The rise is the fourth in the past five weeks. Most economists hoped that claims would resume a downward trend that was evident in the fall and early winter.

The Labor Department said Thursday that new claims for unemployment insurance rose by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 480,000. Wall Street economists had expected a drop to 460,000, according to Thomson Reuters.

The four-week average, which smooths fluctuations, rose for the third straight week to 468,750.

The figure is the highest in the past two months. Initial claims dropped sharply in late December, raising hopes among economists that layoffs were nearing an end and the economy would soon start generating net gains in jobs.

The figures come a day before the Labor Department is scheduled to report the January employment figures, which are expected to show a tiny gain in jobs. The unemployment rate is forecast to rise to 10.1 percent.

The number of people continuing to claim benefits was unchanged at 4.6 million. That data lags initial claims by a week.

But the so-called continuing claims do not include millions of people who have used up the regular 26 weeks of benefits typically provided by states, and are receiving extended benefits for up to 73 additional weeks, paid for by the federal government.

More than 5.8 million people were receiving extended benefits in the week ended Jan. 16, the latest data available, up from about 5.6 million the previous week. The extended benefit data isn't seasonally adjusted and is volatile from week to week.

Still, the increasing number of people claiming extended unemployment insurance indicates hiring hasn't picked up. That leaves people out of work for longer and longer periods of time.

Some employers are continuing to cut jobs. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Wednesday that it will eliminate 300 administrative jobs at its headquarters. The company has cut almost 14,000 jobs in the past 13 months, including 11,200 positions at its Sam's Club stores.

Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., a unit of Japan's Sony Corp., said Tuesday it is laying off 450 people and eliminating 100 open positions.

Among the states, Oregon reported the largest increase in claims, with 4,336. Puerto Rico and Hawaii also reported increases. The state data lags initial claims by one week.

California reported the largest drop in claims, a decline of 22,674. Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia and Missouri also reported decreases.

US Spends $2 Billion a Day on Its Military and What Are We Getting For It?

by John Lawrence

Despite spending $2 billion per day on defense, the US is still not a safe place. This begs the question - is most of this money not being spent in the best possible way? A paltry sum is being spent on protecting our borders, ports, coastlines, transportation system, electrical grid, chemical and nuclear plants. In other words a paltry sum is being spent on true defense while most of the money goes into defense contracting for high tech weapons systems and offensive wars. Instead of real defense the US military system is preoccupied with rooting out the bad guys. And there are an unlimited number of bad guys with new ones sprouting up every day. And we create as many bad guys as we eliminate by killing and maiming innocent civilians and destroying their property in the process of eliminating bad guys. It is a war of attrition in which a single person, a so-called terrorist, can take out a million dollar military vehicle with a $10 explosive. In and of itself the financial asymmetry is appalling.

From a financial perspective alone, the money is better spent on real defense instead of the pseudo-defense of offensive war. Real defense works to prevent the destruction of real property as well as real human beings while not wreaking havoc on an "enemy" as well as all the innocent civilians and property surrounding him. The value of real defense can be measured in planes not being blown up as well as the human and financial destruction of the lives of the people aboard the plane. Real defense can be measured in all the illegal persons and contraband that doesn't gain entry into the US. Real defense can be measured in terms of all the plots against us that get thwarted. And real defense, once it is in place, costs little to maintain compared to wars fought on foreign soil to eliminate bad guys. With the money saved, development in the underdeveloped world, which is the source of terrorism, can be undertaken. The Peace Corps could replace the Army and Marines who are ill suited to winning the hearts and minds of civilians since, by their very nature, they are an occupying force. Sowing good will is much more preferable to the ill will sown by military adventurism. This policy change would amount to a concern for the welfare and development of foreign peoples replacing a willingness to blow them up in order to root out the bad guys among them. 

With the money saved by instituting real defense of US persons and property, a policy of economic development inside the US could be undertaken. A high tech electrical grid hardened against sabotage could be built. Water and sanitation infrastructure could be rebuilt and hardened against sabotage. FEMA could be expanded and developed so that, when a disaster occurs, as it did in Haiti, well-rehearsed teams are available for search and rescue as well as triage units. Logistical nightmares, as occurred in Haiti, could be avoided if disaster preparation were better rehearsed and planned for. There needs to be more thought and planning put into the logistical aspects. There should be a general in charge just as there is in a military operation. Complete units such as the Israelis provided can be dropped in by helicopter where needed. These units contain all the supplies and equipment needed to provide medical assistance as well as the security assets needed to protect the providers as well as all the food and water necessary so they can be self-sufficient. The fact that the Haiti operation was such a debacle despite all the money donated is a tribute to the underfunding of our disaster preparation agencies. Military units do training daily, but what training or prepartion does FEMA do besides stockpiling emergency supplies which then are delivered in a logistically disastrous way?

Disaster preparation is an important part of defense, but how much money or attention is devoted to it? A paltry sum. Why? Because defense contractors employ lobbyists to lobby for their preferred weapons systems and their preferred modes of war which are those that net them the largest profits. Meanwhile, no one is lobbying for the real defense of the American people. Real defense would mean bringing infrastructure up to date with the idea of protecting it as much as possible from natural and man-made disasters. That means, for example, undergrounding utilities so that every ice strorm doesn't result in massive power outages. Real defense would mean a health care system that wouldn't result in millions of deaths and bankruptcies. Real defense would mean a well thought out plan for recovering from an earthquake as well as a terrorist attack. Real defense would be one that attained minimal illegal encroachments over US borders by foreigners while expediting legal traffic across our borders for the purpose of increased commerce.

While defense contractors are gorging themselves on public taxpayer dollars while lobbying for a version of defense which profits them the most and neglecting the true defense needs of the American people, real defense and disaster preparedness is largely left to the amateurs. Instead of invading other countries we should be devoting the bulk of our defense dollars and thought processes to protecting this one.

The Deficit Blame Game

Published by Salon, Wednesday, Feb 3, 2010 20:20 EST

 

Millions of voters believe the GOP line about Obama's runaway spending. It's up to him to set the record straight

 

By Gene Lyons

 

President Obama takes questions from Republican lawmakers at the GOP House Issues Conference in Baltimore Friday.

If President Obama's recent face-to-face meeting with congressional Republicans had been a prizefight, they'd have stopped it: Obama by TKO. It was such a mismatch that Fox News, unofficial network of the GOP, basically conceded defeat by cutting away 20 minutes before it ended. Other networks showed it all.

Republicans appeared to make the elementary mistake of believing their own ... um, propaganda. Believe it or not, Obama's use of Teleprompters has convinced GOP stalwarts that he's kind of thick. I get frequent e-mails to that effect from people who marveled at the wit and wisdom of George W. Bush.

I know, I know. That's what they think, is all I'm saying.

House Republicans shouldn't have allowed the encounter to be televised. But then believing their own disinformation is basically what makes them Republicans.

So anyway, up jumps freshman Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas.

"You are soon to submit a new budget, Mr. President. Will that new budget, like your old budget, triple the national debt and continue to take us down the path of increasing the cost of government to almost 25 percent of our economy? That's the question, Mr. President."

Hensarling appeared to think he'd posed a real zinger. Obama's runaway spending is an article of faith among the Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck crowd. Karl Rove, Bush's cynical political guru, pushes it the way Lenin pushed "the withering away of the state."

Obama jumped on it. "With all due respect," he said, "I've just got to take this last question as an example of how it's very hard to have the kind of bipartisan work that we're going to do, because the whole question was structured as a talking point for running a campaign ...

"The fact of the matter is, is that when we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion. $1.3 trillion. So when you say that suddenly I've got ... a monthly deficit that's higher than the annual deficit left by Republicans, that's factually just not true, and you know it's not true.

 

"And what is true is that we came in already with a $1.3 trillion deficit before I had passed any law. What is true is, we came in with $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade.

"(That) had nothing to do with anything that we had done. It had to do with the fact that in 2000, when there was a budget surplus of $200 billion, you had a Republican administration and a Republican Congress, and we had two tax cuts that weren't paid for, you had a prescription drug plan -- the biggest entitlement plan, by the way, in several decades -- that was passed, without it being paid for, you had two wars that were done through supplementals [i.e., off-budget appropriations] and then you had $3 trillion projected because of the lost revenue of this recession."

Read it and weep, because those are the facts. Two weeks before Obama was inaugurated, the Congressional Budget Office projected the 2009 deficit at $1.2 trillion, adding that due to the economic crisis the new administration also inherited, "collections from corporate income taxes are anticipated to decline by 27 percent and individual income taxes by 8 percent; in normal economic conditions, they would both grow." Mandated spending on unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc., increased.

A year later, little had changed. A December 2009 analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded that the Bush administration's fiscal legacy "explain(s) virtually the entire deficit over the next 10 years."

Economic stimulus and all, new spending by the Obama administration amounts to roughly 10 percent of this year's deficit.

The GOP response to these incontrovertible facts amounts to boo-hoo-hoo. Republicans who stayed focused on Bill Clinton's zipper from 1998 until Bush's failures made necessary the promulgation of a new rule of Washington etiquette, now whine that decent people simply don't resort to arithmetic. The world began anew last January.

Obama promised miracles, they say, and he hasn't delivered. My view is that in pursuit of illusory bipartisanship, he's let congressional Republicans pout like children too long. Fiscally speaking, the GOP keeps promising voters an excursion to Big Rock Candy Mountain: lower taxes, higher revenue, prosperity all around.

Except it never happens. Multimillionaires get tax cuts, we get the bill. Virtually the entire national debt was run up by President Reagan and the two Bushes. Meanwhile, job creation under George W. Bush was the lowest since World War II. Then when Democrats take office, they style themselves "deficit hawks," and caterwaul about runaway spending.

It's like a carnival sideshow act. Except that it plays. Many readers know these things. Obama's political challenge, however, is that millions of ordinary voters don't have a clue. So he's got to find ways to tell them over and over again until they do. Republicans seem unlikely to furnish him another platform.

© 2010, Gene Lyons. Distributed by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

AN ENERGY MARSHALL PLAN & NEW JOBS

by Frank Thomas

INTRODUCTION

What can be done NOW to reduce costly fossil-fuel dependency and environmental carbon-dioxide emissions and in the process recharge job growth? I’ll give this questiom a stab with no pretensions of covering all innovative possibilities or setting perfect targets.

It’s time for an ENERGY MARSHALL PLAN of strategic near and longer term actions to achieve: (1) Energy Efficiency, (2) Shift to Alternate Green Fuels, and (3) Energy Conservation. The mission is to get off the 70% fossil fuel dependency that sends billions of dollars each year outside our country and pollutes the environment with millions of tons of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. The big oil firms can sell their fossil-fuel production anywhere and their self-interests dicate NO RUSH to develop
alternate green fuels.

If there ever was a national challenge where Solidarity and
Entrepreneurship should be at center stage, this is it!

I. Near-Term 1-4 Years

• Insure an electric/hydrogen/biofuel green fuel is in every hybrid car and light weight truck by 2014; establish tanking facilities for new green fuels; provide appropriate tax incentives to achieve these goals.

• Improve fuel efficiency in new cars by at least 30% by 2014 increasing to 40% by 2018; assess varying tax penalties on cars according to their fuel efficiency ratings.

• Promote aggressively the Dutch version lamp bulb called the 'Spaar Lamp' (Saving Lamp) which uses substantial less electricity and lasts much longer than the conventional lamp.  The initial cost is much higher but frequency of purchase is less and price will come down with volume sales. Holland requires that this bulb becomes standard in all private/public lamps and most lighting equipment over next 4 years.

• Regulate that solar panels are used in all new homes where technically feasible and existing homes by offering appropriate tax credits; same applies for commercial buildings; offer incentives for conversion of existing homes/buildings to solar. Set measurable target of solar energy supplying 10% of all energy needs by 2014, increasing to 20% by 2018. 

II. Intermediate-Term 5-8 Years

• Decrease average car weight by at least 20% by 2016. This will also increase fuel efficiency and reduce wear and tear on road systems over long-term; promote market miniature, easily maneouverable cars for large aging population over 65 and start mass production of such a car by 2012; provide appropriate tax incentives (e.g., a car tax according to weight) to meet these goals.

• Expand wind mills aggressively to supply 30% or more of all electricity needs of people living in communities near strong wind areas. Offer tax/investment incentives to achieve this goal by 2016. 

• Start producing liquified gas from coal by 2016 assuming feasibility studies confirm  technical possibility to safely and economically remove/store/neutralize all greenhouse gas emissions. Take the same approach and timing to produce oil from shale. Provide appropriate tax/regulation incentives to realize these goals.

• Increase offshore deep-water drilling in promising unleased  sites based on more realistic Ownership-Development terms with oil firms similar to Norway’s Joint Venture-Sovereign Fund model. Under this concept, funds from government´s ownership share (or royalty-fee contract) could be redeployed to finance tax/investment incentives for other green fuel alternatives and fuel efficiency developments. This strategy is an interim fossil-fuel solution during transition to non-fossil fuels as the primary energy source. This transition will take at least 20 years.

Furthermore, get into offshore oil production quickly by using Drill Ships designed with dynamic positioning for deep, rough waters and by using a floating production system to exploit a commercial find. Such systems do not require long lead-time pipelines to shore nor giant platform facilities. After a discovery is capped at sea bottom, oil can be pumped into a large floating storage tanker moored to a revolving single buoy mooring system. Then oil is transferred to small tankers for transhipment to an onshore storage facility. With this floating production system, oil can be flowing at full production within 2-4 years of a discovery. 
 
III. Long-Term 9-25 Years

• Conduct accelerated research comparing economics/safety/wastedisposal factors of Ocean Energy from waves, tides, or temperature differences with Nuclear Fission and Fusion Energy. Make the best choice here, and then GO FOR IT.

• If technically feasible, determine in advanced stage if new generation nuclear fission plant can be designed to be adaptable later to combination Fission-Fusion applications or pure Fusion nuclear energy. Nuclear fusion creates far less radioactive material and a long-lasting supply of fuel.Increase investment in Fusion reactor technology in cooperation with others – the French are one of the world’s leaders in fusion knowhow and testing – to reduce the lead times of determining technology’s safe potential. If feasibility and prototype studies are positive in all aspects, incorporate this technology in new fission power plants built before or after 2025.

• By 2016, start building Ocean Energy plant systems or state-of-art Fission driven nuclear power plants, the latter perhaps also in cooperation with the French. They are world leaders in this technology and management of radioactive waste material. Bring plants on line over subsequent years with objective that ocean energy and/or nuclear power supply at least 20% of all electrical needs by 2030. 

• Begin major pubic transportation investments in 2011 that will gradually provide innercity-suburb transit systems, bicycle paths, and modern, comfortable train systems (not using fossil fuels) for longer travels, etc., all with aim of reducing need for the automobile. Include in rail plan vastly increased freight transport to offloading centers for shorter truck hauls to final inner city/town destinations. Such an intensive program is a 20 year investment project requiring massive, effective coordination among various States. An increase in the federal gasoline tax will help pay for this project – a strong increase in jobs will also help cover costs.

SUMMARY

Cumulatively, these strategic green-fuel actions should enable our nation to realize the goals of reducing polluting, costly fossil fuel dependence per capita by at least 15% by 2015, rising to 30% by 2020, and to 60% by 2030 .... reductions reflect 2010 per capita fossil-fuel levels adjusted for effects of future population growth.

This translates into a fossil-fuel dependency of 70% today decreasing to 20% from foreign sources by 2030, plus 20% from U.S. sources, plus 60% from alternate green energy sources.... “the 20-20-60 MARSHALL PLAN ATTACK FOR CLEAN ENERGY INDEPENDENCE.” 

It’s an innovative response from all angles that will immeasurably rejuvenate our nation’s financial health, security, and prosperity. BUT, success depends on getting control of our counter-productive political divisiveness, our egocentric governance of win at-all-costs, constantly paralyzing our nation’s ability to solve huge problems. Politics as usual will be a disaster for the hundreds of thousands of sustainable jobs at stake the coming decades for our children’s children and their children.   

Achieving these goals requires our best brains and bipartisan committment near term and next 20 years to get above strategic public and private actions coordinated intelligently, consistently around sound financial planning.

Not long ago, we managed to land in outer Celestial space a multi-billion dollar Survey Machine precisely at the desired bus stop on Mars.... millions of miles away. The tragic irony is we’ll land harshly in our own outer Earth space if we hesitate to be equally daring and unwavering to grow in energy-efficiency, energy-green alternatives, and energy-conservation methods. Naked dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels is increasingly threatening the stability of American government, business, and daily life.

Lately, planet Earth has been giving signals of its limited  resources and environmental breaking points. We ignore these alarm bells at our peril. CO Neutral Solar, Wind, Biofuels, Ocean Energy, Clean Coal Liquifaction, Clean/Safe Nuclear Fission-Fusion Energy are our best chances to preserve Earth´s natural gifts .... while igniting new job opportunities and growth prospects.    
   

Our Incredible Shrinking Democracy

by Robert Reich Tuesday, February 2, 2010

I wish conservatives would stop complaining about big government and start worrying about the real problem – small democracy. I wish we’d all worry more about our incredible shrinking democracy.

It seems as if more and more decisions that should be made democratically are being shunted off somewhere to a few people who make them in back rooms. Which programs should be cut, which entitlements pared back, and what taxes raised in order to reduce the long-term budget deficit? Hmmm. Let’s convene a commission and have them decide.

Commissions are a default mechanism when politicians want to hand off difficult issues to “experts.” But reducing the long-term budget deficit has almost nothing to do with expertise. It’s about our nations’ values and priorities. Nothing could be more central to the democratic process.

Democracy requires at least three things: (1) Important decisions are made in the open. (2) The public and its representatives have an opportunity to debate them, so the decisions can be revised in light of what the public discovers and wants. And (3) those who make the big decisions are accountable to voters.

But these principles are in retreat, and I say this not just because of the proposed deficit commission.

The notorious Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) began with a virtual blank check from Congress. Treasury officials then secretly decided which companies were to receive hundreds of billions of dollars. Why these particular entities were chosen and not others remains a mystery. For months, the Treasury didn’t even disclose the identities of the major banks that giant insurer AIG repaid with its bailout money – 100 cents on each dollar AIG owed them.

The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, has gone far beyond its traditional role of setting short-term interest rates. It has bought up massive amounts of debt – mortgage debt, Treasury bills, and debt instruments emanating several public agencies, many of them supporting a wide range of private entities. No one outside the Fed knows the ultimate beneficiaries of all this government backing, the criteria used by the Fed for making these commitments, or even how much debt the Fed is buying.

Even if the economic emergency justified such secrecy – and it’s hard to see exactly why it would – the emergency is over, and yet closed-door decision making continues. Will Treasury use what’s left of TARP to help stimulate more jobs and, if so, how? Will the Fed stop buying mortgage-backed securities? No one knows.

The same pattern is evident on other issues. Congress can’t decide whether or how to limit the pay of financial executives. So where does the issue end up? The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Fed both say they’re going to look at whether pay levels are appropriate. The House and Senate can’t agree on what to do about climate change. Who decides? The Environmental Protection Agency concludes it has authority to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act.

The debate over health-care reform looked like democratic deliberation until you realize the key negotiations that framed the deal occurred behind closed doors, between the White House and Big Pharma and Big Insurance. The Administration promised these industries some thirty million new paying customers. In return, they agreed not to oppose the plan. Big Pharma even placed a firm limit on how much it would cut its costs over the next ten years – $80 billion, and not a penny more. How do I know this? Not because this crucial deal was made in public, but because it was leaked to the press.

Personally, I want the government to limit the pay of financial executives, regulate greenhouse gases, and reform health care. And no one wanted a financial meltdown. But I’m appalled by the process that’s been used to reach these objectives.

A big piece of the problem is this: Washington is now so overrun by lobbyists representing moneyed interests that it’s become almost impossible to make policy in the open. If the Treasury and Fed tried to decide publicly which industries and firms should get hundreds of billions, they’d be inundated. Wall Street lobbyists are blocking real financial reform. The energy industry has filled the House’s cap-and-trade bill with special subsidies and exemptions. Big Pharma and Big Insurance would have killed off the health-care reform if they hadn’t been bought off. When it comes to the long-term deficit, Congress is incapable of acting because so many special interests have their hands out.

But the answer isn’t to give up on democracy. Back-room policy making can succumb to private interests just as easily as lobby-infested legislatures (much of the public suspects the Treasury of being too cozy with Wall Street as it is).

The real answer is to recommit ourselves to cleaning up democracy. Yes, I know: The Supreme Court’s recent grotesque Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, which decided corporations are people entitled to First Amendment protection, complicates this. But the goal is still possible to achieve with more public money for congressional and presidential candidates who refuse private funding, more constraints on lobbyists, tighter rules for who must register as a lobbyist, fuller disclosure, and tougher rules on the revolving door between public service and private gain. Yale’s Bruce Ackerman recently came up with another good idea: A $50 tax credit per person, which they can send to the candidate of their choosing.

Yet nobody seems to be talking about these sorts of reforms. They don’t appear on Obama’s agenda. True, they don’t generate lots of public excitement or appreciation, and they’re murderously difficult to enact. But without them our democracy doesn’t stand a chance.