Al Smith , a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel community columnist, selectively uses tax data to plead the case that rich folks are overtaxed.
Mr. Smith distorts the real picture of who is shouldering the tax burden in this country by focusing exclusively on the mildly progressive federal income tax and ignoring the impact of social insurance taxes.
Yet the vast majority for Americans (80%) pay more in social insurance taxes, F.I.C.A. Social Security and Medicare, than they do in federal income taxes and a much higher percentage of their income on these taxes than the wealthy. As a result, social insurance taxes have become the nation's fastest growing source of revenue.
Now the facts that Mr. Smith ignores!
In 2005, the poorest 24 million households (the poorest 20%) averaged only $15,900 a year but paid 8.3% of their income in social insurance taxes.
The second poorest (average income $37,400) third (average income $54,500) and fourth (average income $82,200) paid 9.2%, 9.5% and 9.7% of their income in social insurance taxes- a significantly higher rate than the 6% contributed by the richest 20% who average $231,000 annually.
And it gets even more regressive. Those averaging $339,100 , the richest 10%, paid a social insurance tax rate of only 4.8%, while the wealthiest 1 %, averaging $1,558,500 a year, paid only 1.7% of their income in these taxes.
To be blunt, New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez paid a significantly lower social insurance tax rate than a welder at Bucyrus Erie or an MPS teacher!
Mr. Smith apparently thinks this is fair.
Other taxes Mr. Smith mentions, sales, property and excise, are all regressive taxes which means moderate and low income folks pay a higher percentage of their income in these taxes than do the wealthy. For example, the poorest 20% paid 2.4% of their income in federal excise taxes while the richest 10% paid only 0.5% and the richest one percent 0.2%.
The decision by the National Taxpayer Union and Al Smith to focus only on the income tax is a conscious effort to distort the facts to make their case that the wealthy are overtaxed. The reality is entirely different.
Federal income tax rates for the wealthiest American have been reduced by almost 50% since 1978 and by almost 66% since the 1950’s. Capital gains, dividend and estate tax rates have also been slashed so that billionaire hedge fund managers pay a lower tax rate than hourly employees.
Warren Buffett, the third-richest man in the world, recognized this inequity when he criticised the US tax system for allowing him to pay a lower rate than his secretary and his cleaner.
The Bush era tax cuts provide extremely wealthy families with vast benefits. The richest one percent of families will get an average tax cut of $92,000 in 2010, including cuts in income and estate taxes. The average income for families in the top one percent will be $1.6 million in 2010, and yet, the President and his allies in Congress have showered the most generous tax cuts on these fortunate families. Meanwhile, the poorest 60 percent will get only 12-15 percent of the total tax cuts in 2010.
The argument for these reductions is that lower tax rates encourage people to work harder, increasing incomes and savings, leading to reduced interests rates, increased investment and economic growth. Yet the rates of economic growth in the 1990’s and 2000s, the heyday of high income tax cuts, were significantly lower than in the Post World War II era when marginal income tax rates were higher and social insurance rates lower.
During the Post World War II era, which economists call the Great Compression, the United States invested more as a percentage of the GDP into research and development, education, health, and the nation’s infrastructure than it has since the nation began its experimentation with supply side ideology. The middle class grew and economic insecurity and inequality declined.
If the U.S. is to compete in an increasingly globalized world, strategic investments are required. How we pay for these is a contentious question that can only be answered through honest debate. A prerequisite is that the facts be presented honestly.
Mr. Smith's column may serve his ideological and political objectives, but it does not move us toward the real discussion we need to have.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Climate change, drought and civil war
In a column entitled "Extended Forecast: Bloodshed", Nicholas Kristof discusses how the failure to confront global warming and climate change results in internal violence and civil war in effected countries and regions of the world.
He sites research that suggests a drought in one year will increase by an amazing 50% the chance of an African country slipping into civil war the next!
He writes:
As we pump out greenhouse gases, most of the discussion focuses on direct consequences like rising seas or aggravated hurricanes. But the indirect social and political impact in poor countries may be even more far-reaching, including upheavals and civil wars...
The point is that climate change will have consequences that will be difficult to foresee but will go far beyond weather or economics. There is abundant evidence that economic stress and crop failures — as climate scientists anticipate in poor countries — can lead to violence and upheavals.
In the United States, for example, some historians have found correlations between recessions or declines in farm values and increased lynchings of blacks.
Paul Collier, an Oxford University expert on global poverty, found that economic stagnation in poor countries leads to a rising risk of civil war. Professor Collier warns that climate change is likely to reduce rainfall in southern Africa enough that corn will no longer be a viable crop there. Since corn is a major form of sustenance in that region, the result may be catastrophic food shortages — and civil conflict.
The area that may be hardest hit of all — aside from islands that disappear beneath the waves — is the fragile Sahel region south of the Sahara Desert in West Africa. The Sahel is already impoverished and torn by religious and ethnic tensions, and reduced rainfall could push the region into warfare.
"The poorest people on Earth are in the Sahel, barely eking out an existence, and climate change pushes them over the edge,” Professor Miguel said. “It’s totally unfair.”
His research suggests that a drought one year increases by 50 percent the risk that an African country will slip into civil war the next year.
Ethnic conflict in Darfur was exacerbated by drought and competition for water, and some experts see it as the first war caused by climate change. That’s too simplistic, for the crucial factor was simply the ruthlessness of the Sudanese government, but climate change may well have been a contributing factor.
In a forthcoming book, “Economic Gangsters,” Mr. Miguel calls for a new system of emergency aid for countries suffering unusual drought or similar economic shocks. Such temporary aid would aim to reduce the risk of warfare that, once it has begun, is enormously costly to stop and often damages neighboring countries as well.
The greenhouse gases that imperil Africa’s future are spewing from the United States, China and Europe. The people in Bangladesh and Africa emit almost no carbon, yet they are the ones who will bear the greatest risks of climate change. Some experts believe that the damage that the West does to poor countries from carbon emissions exceeds the benefit from aid programs.
All this makes the United States’ reluctance to confront climate change in a serious way — like a carbon tax to replace the payroll tax, coupled with global leadership on the issue — as unjust as it is unfortunate.
He sites research that suggests a drought in one year will increase by an amazing 50% the chance of an African country slipping into civil war the next!
He writes:
As we pump out greenhouse gases, most of the discussion focuses on direct consequences like rising seas or aggravated hurricanes. But the indirect social and political impact in poor countries may be even more far-reaching, including upheavals and civil wars...
The point is that climate change will have consequences that will be difficult to foresee but will go far beyond weather or economics. There is abundant evidence that economic stress and crop failures — as climate scientists anticipate in poor countries — can lead to violence and upheavals.
In the United States, for example, some historians have found correlations between recessions or declines in farm values and increased lynchings of blacks.
Paul Collier, an Oxford University expert on global poverty, found that economic stagnation in poor countries leads to a rising risk of civil war. Professor Collier warns that climate change is likely to reduce rainfall in southern Africa enough that corn will no longer be a viable crop there. Since corn is a major form of sustenance in that region, the result may be catastrophic food shortages — and civil conflict.
The area that may be hardest hit of all — aside from islands that disappear beneath the waves — is the fragile Sahel region south of the Sahara Desert in West Africa. The Sahel is already impoverished and torn by religious and ethnic tensions, and reduced rainfall could push the region into warfare.
"The poorest people on Earth are in the Sahel, barely eking out an existence, and climate change pushes them over the edge,” Professor Miguel said. “It’s totally unfair.”
His research suggests that a drought one year increases by 50 percent the risk that an African country will slip into civil war the next year.
Ethnic conflict in Darfur was exacerbated by drought and competition for water, and some experts see it as the first war caused by climate change. That’s too simplistic, for the crucial factor was simply the ruthlessness of the Sudanese government, but climate change may well have been a contributing factor.
In a forthcoming book, “Economic Gangsters,” Mr. Miguel calls for a new system of emergency aid for countries suffering unusual drought or similar economic shocks. Such temporary aid would aim to reduce the risk of warfare that, once it has begun, is enormously costly to stop and often damages neighboring countries as well.
The greenhouse gases that imperil Africa’s future are spewing from the United States, China and Europe. The people in Bangladesh and Africa emit almost no carbon, yet they are the ones who will bear the greatest risks of climate change. Some experts believe that the damage that the West does to poor countries from carbon emissions exceeds the benefit from aid programs.
All this makes the United States’ reluctance to confront climate change in a serious way — like a carbon tax to replace the payroll tax, coupled with global leadership on the issue — as unjust as it is unfortunate.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The economic boom that wasn't!
If you want to know why 81% of American disapprove of President's Bush's handling of the economy look no further than the kitchen table?
Recent Census Bureau data tells us that the "economic boom" that just ended never happened for most American families!
In 2000 at the end of the previous economic expansion, the median American family made about $61,000, according to the Census Bureau’s inflation-adjusted numbers.
In 2007, in what appears to be the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, made less — about $60,500.
David Leonhardt, a New York Times economics columnist, reports:
This has never happened before, at least not for as long as the government has been keeping records. In every other expansion since World War II, the buying power of most American families grew while the economy did. You can think of this as the most basic test of an economy’s health: does it produce ever-rising living standards for its citizens?
In the second half of the 20th century, the United States passed the test in a way that arguably no other country ever has. It became, as the cliché goes, the richest country on earth. Now, though, most families aren’t getting any richer.
More than anything else — more than even the war in Iraq — the stagnation of the great American middle-class machine explains the glum national mood today. As part of a poll that will be released Wednesday, the Pew Research Center asked people how they had done over the last five years. During that time, remember, the overall economy grew every year, often at a good pace.
Yet most respondents said they had either been stuck in place or fallen backward. Pew says this is the most downbeat short-term assessment of personal progress in almost a half century of polling.
Recent Census Bureau data tells us that the "economic boom" that just ended never happened for most American families!
In 2000 at the end of the previous economic expansion, the median American family made about $61,000, according to the Census Bureau’s inflation-adjusted numbers.
In 2007, in what appears to be the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, made less — about $60,500.
David Leonhardt, a New York Times economics columnist, reports:
This has never happened before, at least not for as long as the government has been keeping records. In every other expansion since World War II, the buying power of most American families grew while the economy did. You can think of this as the most basic test of an economy’s health: does it produce ever-rising living standards for its citizens?
In the second half of the 20th century, the United States passed the test in a way that arguably no other country ever has. It became, as the cliché goes, the richest country on earth. Now, though, most families aren’t getting any richer.
More than anything else — more than even the war in Iraq — the stagnation of the great American middle-class machine explains the glum national mood today. As part of a poll that will be released Wednesday, the Pew Research Center asked people how they had done over the last five years. During that time, remember, the overall economy grew every year, often at a good pace.
Yet most respondents said they had either been stuck in place or fallen backward. Pew says this is the most downbeat short-term assessment of personal progress in almost a half century of polling.
Leonhardt suggests that President Bush's economic policies are not responsible for the failure of family income to grow because these are long term trends.
Leonhardt is right that these are long term trends, dating back to the Reagan administration when real incomes began to fall. But he is wrong when he suggests that economic policy doesn't make a difference.
Bush's hyper supply side model of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, opposition to increasing the minimum wage, support for trade bills that promote capital's interest and ignore labor and environmental protections, and failure to support reforms facilitating union organization have all contributed to these trends.
While real wages and family income have declined in the United States they have increased in several European countries that have not embraced the hyper market model of deregulation, financial liberalization and privatization that has contributed to driving down the wages of hourly non supervisory workers in the U.S.
The Republican Presidential nominee, John McCain, has endorsed these failed policies including the upper income tax cuts which he originally opposed as fiscally irresponsible.
As the November election come into focus and Republican operatives raise wedge issues to divert the electorate's attention, the Democratic nominee will need to focus on the economy like a laser beam!
"It's the economy stupid!" And economic policy matters!
Monday, April 7, 2008
States need federal aid to avoid draconian cuts
Last week, before we learned about the loss of another 80,000 jobs, I wrote that at least 25 states are expecting budget shortfalls for the 2009 fiscal year. This is the largest number since 2002, when in the aftermath of the 2001 recession 37 states were forced to cut their budgets.
California is looking to fill a $14.5 billion hole for its next fiscal year, and Arizona’s $1.8 billion budget gap is 16 percent of its general fund, the largest percentage in the nation.
Wisconsin's deficit now stands at more than half a billion dollars ($527 million).
In response, most of these states are developing plans to cut state spending because they are required to balance their budgets. This will only make the recession worse!
The Washington Post updated these developments:
State budgets have been hit hard by a worsening national economy, including rising costs for energy and health care. In addition, fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis -- declining home sales, deflated property values and mounting foreclosures -- has caused a slide in states' anticipated tax receipts. Revenue from property taxes, sales taxes and real estate transfer taxes is affected.
At least half of the nation's states are facing budget shortfalls, some of them severe, and policymakers in most of the states affected are proposing and passing often-painful measures to trim costs and close the gaps.
Spending on schools is being slashed, after-school programs are being curtailed and teachers are being notified of potential layoffs. Health-care assistance is being cut for the elderly, the disabled and the poor. Some government offices, such as motor vehicle department locations, will start closing on weekends, and some state workers are receiving pink slips.
Some analysts worry that the impact is being felt disproportionately by the most needy. ..
A recent 50-state survey by the Associated Press showed that hundreds of thousands of poor children, the disabled and the elderly stand to have their health coverage eliminated as a result of budget cuts, and more than 10 million people would lose access to dental care, specialists and name-brand prescription drugs.
Budget experts said they see a repeat of the pattern that happened during the recession of 2001: States generally cut health services and medical benefits first, because these costs are often rising more rapidly than others, and the savings tend to be immediate.
Subsidies to higher education are also a favored target for budget cuts -- mainly because policymakers often believe that universities can find money from other sources, such as private donations or higher tuition.
Budgets for parks and recreation, and for natural resources and science, also stand to take a hit.
Over the past three months the nation has lost 300,000 private sector jobs. Yet, state governments are cutting back on services to the very people who have been hardest hit by the most severe recession since at least 1981 when unemployed peaked at 12%.
The states are required to cut spending because all of them except Vermont are required by law to balance their budgets.
These cuts will hurt our most vulnerable citizens, the unemployed, the poor, children and the elderly. They will undermine efforts to educate our children as pupil teacher ratios soar and art, music, technical education and physical education classes are eliminated. They will result in higher tuition and student fees, increasing the already spiraling costs of higher education and making it less accessible to the nation's working families..
The cuts will also make the recession worse by reducing the demand for goods and services at a time when private investment and consumption are declining.
There is an alternative-an additional stimulus package that includes aid to the distressed states. Such a package would be a twofer. It would allow the states to avoid imposing draconian cuts in education, healthcare and other areas and it would stimulate demand in our struggling economy.
Congress' original stimulus package of tax rebates was insufficient, the result of a compromise with the Bush administration's insistence on tax cuts as the only acceptable policy option. Now that it is clear that the recession is intensifying, Congress should immediately pass an additional stimulus package that extends unemployment benefits and provides temporary aid to the states.
California is looking to fill a $14.5 billion hole for its next fiscal year, and Arizona’s $1.8 billion budget gap is 16 percent of its general fund, the largest percentage in the nation.
Wisconsin's deficit now stands at more than half a billion dollars ($527 million).
In response, most of these states are developing plans to cut state spending because they are required to balance their budgets. This will only make the recession worse!
The Washington Post updated these developments:
State budgets have been hit hard by a worsening national economy, including rising costs for energy and health care. In addition, fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis -- declining home sales, deflated property values and mounting foreclosures -- has caused a slide in states' anticipated tax receipts. Revenue from property taxes, sales taxes and real estate transfer taxes is affected.
At least half of the nation's states are facing budget shortfalls, some of them severe, and policymakers in most of the states affected are proposing and passing often-painful measures to trim costs and close the gaps.
Spending on schools is being slashed, after-school programs are being curtailed and teachers are being notified of potential layoffs. Health-care assistance is being cut for the elderly, the disabled and the poor. Some government offices, such as motor vehicle department locations, will start closing on weekends, and some state workers are receiving pink slips.
Some analysts worry that the impact is being felt disproportionately by the most needy. ..
A recent 50-state survey by the Associated Press showed that hundreds of thousands of poor children, the disabled and the elderly stand to have their health coverage eliminated as a result of budget cuts, and more than 10 million people would lose access to dental care, specialists and name-brand prescription drugs.
Budget experts said they see a repeat of the pattern that happened during the recession of 2001: States generally cut health services and medical benefits first, because these costs are often rising more rapidly than others, and the savings tend to be immediate.
Subsidies to higher education are also a favored target for budget cuts -- mainly because policymakers often believe that universities can find money from other sources, such as private donations or higher tuition.
Budgets for parks and recreation, and for natural resources and science, also stand to take a hit.
Over the past three months the nation has lost 300,000 private sector jobs. Yet, state governments are cutting back on services to the very people who have been hardest hit by the most severe recession since at least 1981 when unemployed peaked at 12%.
The states are required to cut spending because all of them except Vermont are required by law to balance their budgets.
These cuts will hurt our most vulnerable citizens, the unemployed, the poor, children and the elderly. They will undermine efforts to educate our children as pupil teacher ratios soar and art, music, technical education and physical education classes are eliminated. They will result in higher tuition and student fees, increasing the already spiraling costs of higher education and making it less accessible to the nation's working families..
The cuts will also make the recession worse by reducing the demand for goods and services at a time when private investment and consumption are declining.
There is an alternative-an additional stimulus package that includes aid to the distressed states. Such a package would be a twofer. It would allow the states to avoid imposing draconian cuts in education, healthcare and other areas and it would stimulate demand in our struggling economy.
Congress' original stimulus package of tax rebates was insufficient, the result of a compromise with the Bush administration's insistence on tax cuts as the only acceptable policy option. Now that it is clear that the recession is intensifying, Congress should immediately pass an additional stimulus package that extends unemployment benefits and provides temporary aid to the states.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Remembering Dr. King and the struggle in Memphis
Forty years ago on April 4, 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
King has been invited to Memphis by civil rights and union leaders to help draw national attention to that city's garbage workers' strike.
The strike began over the mistreatment of 22 sewer workers who reported for work on January 31, 1968, and were sent home when it began raining. White employees were not sent home. When the rain stopped after an hour or so, they continued to work and were paid for the full day, while the black workers lost a day's pay. The next day, two sanitation workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed to death by a malfunctioning city garbage truck.
These two incidents epitomized the workers' long-standing grievances. Wages averaged about $1.70 per hour. Forty percent of the workers qualified for welfare to supplement their poverty-level salaries. They had almost no health care benefits, pensions, or vacations. They worked in filthy conditions, and lacked basic amenities like a place to eat and shower. They were required to haul leaky garbage tubs that spilled maggots and debris on them. White supervisors called them "boy" and arbitrarily sent them home without pay for minor infractions that they overlooked when white workers did the same thing.
The workers asked Memphis Mayor Henry Loeb and the city council to improve their working conditions, but they refused to do so.
On February 12, 1,300 black sanitation workers walked off their jobs, demanding that the city recognize their union (the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFSCME) and negotiate to resolve their grievances. They also demanded a pay increase to $2.35 an hour, overtime pay, and merit promotions without regard to race.
For the next several months, city officials refused to negotiate with the union. In private, Mayor Loeb reportedly told associates, "I'll never be known as the mayor who signed a contract with a Negro union."
In King's speech delivered the night before he was murdered he noted that the struggle of Memphis' African American community was identical with labor's:
Memphis Negroes are almost entirely a working people. Our needs are identical with labor's needs -- decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor's demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.
The next day, James Earl Ray assassinated King as he stood on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Hotel.
As Time magazine noted at the time: "Ironically, it was the violence of Martin Luther King's death rather than the nonviolence of his methods that ultimately broke the city's resistance" and led to the strike settlement.
President Johnson ordered federal troops to Memphis and instructed Undersecretary of Labor James Reynolds to mediate the conflict and settle the strike. The following week, King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and dozens of national figures led a peaceful memorial march through downtown Memphis in tribute to Dr. King and in support of the strike. Local business leaders, tired of the boycott and the downtown demonstrations, urged Loeb to come to terms with the strikers.
On April 16, union leaders and city officials reached an agreement. The city council passed a resolution recognizing the union. The 14-month contract included union dues check-off, a grievance procedure, and wage increases of 10 cents per hour May 1 and another five cents in September. Members of AFSCME Local 1733 approved the agreement unanimously and ended their strike.
The settlement wasn't only a victory for the sanitation workers. The strike had mobilized the African American community, which subsequently became increasingly involved in local politics and school and jobs issues, and which developed new allies in the white community.
In his final speech, King, only 39 at the time, told the crowd about a bomb threat on his plane from Atlanta that morning, saying he knew that his life was constantly in danger because of his political activism.
"I would like to live a long life," he said. "Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land."
We haven't gotten there yet.
Inequality is greater today than at any time since the Gilded Age. The percentage of workers who are unionized has fallen to a dismal 12%, 8% in the private sector. Black workers are unemployed at twice the rate as their white counterparts. The are alarming racial gaps in educational achievement, home ownership, income and wealth.
The best way to honor Dr King's memory on the anniversary of his assassination is to continue the struggle for human dignity, workers' rights, living wages, equality and social justice.
King has been invited to Memphis by civil rights and union leaders to help draw national attention to that city's garbage workers' strike.
The strike began over the mistreatment of 22 sewer workers who reported for work on January 31, 1968, and were sent home when it began raining. White employees were not sent home. When the rain stopped after an hour or so, they continued to work and were paid for the full day, while the black workers lost a day's pay. The next day, two sanitation workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed to death by a malfunctioning city garbage truck.
These two incidents epitomized the workers' long-standing grievances. Wages averaged about $1.70 per hour. Forty percent of the workers qualified for welfare to supplement their poverty-level salaries. They had almost no health care benefits, pensions, or vacations. They worked in filthy conditions, and lacked basic amenities like a place to eat and shower. They were required to haul leaky garbage tubs that spilled maggots and debris on them. White supervisors called them "boy" and arbitrarily sent them home without pay for minor infractions that they overlooked when white workers did the same thing.
The workers asked Memphis Mayor Henry Loeb and the city council to improve their working conditions, but they refused to do so.
On February 12, 1,300 black sanitation workers walked off their jobs, demanding that the city recognize their union (the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFSCME) and negotiate to resolve their grievances. They also demanded a pay increase to $2.35 an hour, overtime pay, and merit promotions without regard to race.
For the next several months, city officials refused to negotiate with the union. In private, Mayor Loeb reportedly told associates, "I'll never be known as the mayor who signed a contract with a Negro union."
In King's speech delivered the night before he was murdered he noted that the struggle of Memphis' African American community was identical with labor's:
Memphis Negroes are almost entirely a working people. Our needs are identical with labor's needs -- decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor's demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.
The next day, James Earl Ray assassinated King as he stood on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Hotel.
As Time magazine noted at the time: "Ironically, it was the violence of Martin Luther King's death rather than the nonviolence of his methods that ultimately broke the city's resistance" and led to the strike settlement.
President Johnson ordered federal troops to Memphis and instructed Undersecretary of Labor James Reynolds to mediate the conflict and settle the strike. The following week, King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and dozens of national figures led a peaceful memorial march through downtown Memphis in tribute to Dr. King and in support of the strike. Local business leaders, tired of the boycott and the downtown demonstrations, urged Loeb to come to terms with the strikers.
On April 16, union leaders and city officials reached an agreement. The city council passed a resolution recognizing the union. The 14-month contract included union dues check-off, a grievance procedure, and wage increases of 10 cents per hour May 1 and another five cents in September. Members of AFSCME Local 1733 approved the agreement unanimously and ended their strike.
The settlement wasn't only a victory for the sanitation workers. The strike had mobilized the African American community, which subsequently became increasingly involved in local politics and school and jobs issues, and which developed new allies in the white community.
In his final speech, King, only 39 at the time, told the crowd about a bomb threat on his plane from Atlanta that morning, saying he knew that his life was constantly in danger because of his political activism.
"I would like to live a long life," he said. "Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land."
We haven't gotten there yet.
Inequality is greater today than at any time since the Gilded Age. The percentage of workers who are unionized has fallen to a dismal 12%, 8% in the private sector. Black workers are unemployed at twice the rate as their white counterparts. The are alarming racial gaps in educational achievement, home ownership, income and wealth.
The best way to honor Dr King's memory on the anniversary of his assassination is to continue the struggle for human dignity, workers' rights, living wages, equality and social justice.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Who is supporting the troops now?
The Bush administration's cynical use of the American military personnel was exposed by the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed, the failure of the VA to provide adequate medical treatment to thousands of returning veterans and the widespread use of Stop-loss that sends soldiers (over 81,000) who have fulfilled their military obligations back into combat against their will.
It turns out that returning vets are also having a hard to finding jobs, harder than for civilians of similar age and education.
The Washington Post reports that 18% of veterans recently back from tours of duty are unemployed. Twenty-five percent of those lucky enough to land a job earn less than $21,840 a year, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Is this what the Bush administration means by supporting our troops?
The Post article is attached.
It turns out that returning vets are also having a hard to finding jobs, harder than for civilians of similar age and education.
The Washington Post reports that 18% of veterans recently back from tours of duty are unemployed. Twenty-five percent of those lucky enough to land a job earn less than $21,840 a year, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Is this what the Bush administration means by supporting our troops?
The Post article is attached.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Who is Paul Singer and why is he trying to buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court?
Burnett County Judge Michael Gableman has outraised Justice Louis Butler in late contributions by more than $30,000 with more than three-fourths of his money coming from five donors who hit the maximum according to late contribution reports filed at the Government Accountability Board. The reports cover anything that's come in since the close of the last reporting period, March 17. Since then, Gableman has received 24 donations totaling $77,360, compared to 55 donations totaling $46,200 for Butler.
Gableman received $10,000 donations -- the maximum -- from Paul Singer, general partner at Elliott Management in New York City, and Bonnie Loeb, the executive assistant at the company. Jay Newman of New York, whose occupation was listed as finance, also gave $10,000.
Gableman also received $10,000 each from Gordon Singer and Jenny Singer. That's' $50,000 from Paul Singer's family and firm!
So who is Paul Singer and why is this New Yorker hedge fund manager so interested in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race?
Paul Singer is an up-and-coming GOP funder. He gave $5K to the Swift Boaters in 2004 and $500,000 to Rudy Giuliani's failed Presidential campaign. He runs Elliott Asset Management, a New York hedge fund known by some as a "vulture fund," so-named because it buys debt cheaply from cash-starved countries, and then sues them for the full repayment, pocketing scarce funds that would otherwise be invested in education, clean water, medicine and debt relief.
Singer is generally known as the original 'vulture' of the for-profit so-called 'vulture funds', which buy government bonds from poor countries and demand an exorbitant return on their loans.
In 1996, Singer bought up some of the debt of Peru for $11 million and got back $58 million. He purchased a bond from the Democratic Republic of Congo for about $10 million, sued in court for $400 million and ended up with $127 million... His estimated personal net worth is $700 million.
Greg Palast explains how a vulture operation works. The vulture fund buys up the debt of poor nations cheaply when it is about to be written off and then sue for the full value of the debt plus interest — sometimes more than ten times what they paid for it. Singer, for example, paid just $10 million for Congo Brazzaville’s debt and is now suing for over $400 million.
Singer knew he’d turn a 1000%-plus profit on his $10 million investment with George Bush’s help.
Bush convinced the US Congress to forgive the money Congo owes the US taxpayer, but once the US taxpayer forgives Congo’s debt, the vulture, Singer, swoops in with lawyers to claim, “Congo now has the money to pay ME.”
But wait a minute - the debt money given up by US taxpayers wasn’t supposed to go to a predator like Singer. In fact, the US Constitution provides power to the President to stop vultures from suing a foreign country in a US court if the President states such a private lawsuit interferes with America’s foreign policy.
Singer, by suing Congo for the taxpayer money meant for debt relief and medicine, is interfering with US foreign policy. Yet, the President has remained silent.
Gableman isn't the only one benefiting from Singer's largess.
Singer was in charge of Northeastern fundraising for Rudy Giuliani's failed Presidential bid.
He was Giuliani's largest fundraiser.
In August, Singer graduated from fundraising to policy becoming Giuliani's "Senior Policy Adviser."
Paul Singer also made news in September when he admitted to providing all of the funds ($175,000) to put a referendum on the California ballot to divide the state's 55 Electors according to Congressional Districts, which would give the GOP 20 Electors that would otherwise go to the Democrat - roughly the size of Ohio or Pennsylvania. When Singer's role was exposed, the staff all quit and the effort went on hold - presumably until Singer finds a less-traceable way to launder his money.
So now we know who Paul Singer is- a very wealthy and unscrupulous hedge fund manager who contributes a lot of money to Republican candidates. But why has he become so interested in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election?
Is his interest simply ideological or could Singer have an financial interest in an upcoming Supreme Court case?
Gableman received $10,000 donations -- the maximum -- from Paul Singer, general partner at Elliott Management in New York City, and Bonnie Loeb, the executive assistant at the company. Jay Newman of New York, whose occupation was listed as finance, also gave $10,000.
Gableman also received $10,000 each from Gordon Singer and Jenny Singer. That's' $50,000 from Paul Singer's family and firm!
So who is Paul Singer and why is this New Yorker hedge fund manager so interested in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race?
Paul Singer is an up-and-coming GOP funder. He gave $5K to the Swift Boaters in 2004 and $500,000 to Rudy Giuliani's failed Presidential campaign. He runs Elliott Asset Management, a New York hedge fund known by some as a "vulture fund," so-named because it buys debt cheaply from cash-starved countries, and then sues them for the full repayment, pocketing scarce funds that would otherwise be invested in education, clean water, medicine and debt relief.
Singer is generally known as the original 'vulture' of the for-profit so-called 'vulture funds', which buy government bonds from poor countries and demand an exorbitant return on their loans.
In 1996, Singer bought up some of the debt of Peru for $11 million and got back $58 million. He purchased a bond from the Democratic Republic of Congo for about $10 million, sued in court for $400 million and ended up with $127 million... His estimated personal net worth is $700 million.
Greg Palast explains how a vulture operation works. The vulture fund buys up the debt of poor nations cheaply when it is about to be written off and then sue for the full value of the debt plus interest — sometimes more than ten times what they paid for it. Singer, for example, paid just $10 million for Congo Brazzaville’s debt and is now suing for over $400 million.
Singer knew he’d turn a 1000%-plus profit on his $10 million investment with George Bush’s help.
Bush convinced the US Congress to forgive the money Congo owes the US taxpayer, but once the US taxpayer forgives Congo’s debt, the vulture, Singer, swoops in with lawyers to claim, “Congo now has the money to pay ME.”
But wait a minute - the debt money given up by US taxpayers wasn’t supposed to go to a predator like Singer. In fact, the US Constitution provides power to the President to stop vultures from suing a foreign country in a US court if the President states such a private lawsuit interferes with America’s foreign policy.
Singer, by suing Congo for the taxpayer money meant for debt relief and medicine, is interfering with US foreign policy. Yet, the President has remained silent.
Gableman isn't the only one benefiting from Singer's largess.
Singer was in charge of Northeastern fundraising for Rudy Giuliani's failed Presidential bid.
He was Giuliani's largest fundraiser.
In August, Singer graduated from fundraising to policy becoming Giuliani's "Senior Policy Adviser."
Paul Singer also made news in September when he admitted to providing all of the funds ($175,000) to put a referendum on the California ballot to divide the state's 55 Electors according to Congressional Districts, which would give the GOP 20 Electors that would otherwise go to the Democrat - roughly the size of Ohio or Pennsylvania. When Singer's role was exposed, the staff all quit and the effort went on hold - presumably until Singer finds a less-traceable way to launder his money.
So now we know who Paul Singer is- a very wealthy and unscrupulous hedge fund manager who contributes a lot of money to Republican candidates. But why has he become so interested in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election?
Is his interest simply ideological or could Singer have an financial interest in an upcoming Supreme Court case?
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