Bill Moyers writes: the only answer to organized money is organized people. That would be one hell of a reformation.
Read his essay on how well-heeled lobbyists for the insurance companies and banks are undermining needed reforms.
The essay is linked here.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Republicans resort to fear and violence in response to health care reform
The Republican Party and its Tea Party followers have responded to the new health care law with venomous attacks, including racist taunting of Congressmen and attacks on Congressmen's homes.
This is profoundly disturbing because their over-the-top rhetoric creates a climate where violent acts are justified, One of the bricks thrown through a Congressman's window read:"extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
In opposing legislation that provides health insurance to 31 million Americans, the Republican Party leadership is continuing its tradition of opposing any effort to create a more just and secure society for working men and women.
Not long ago it opposed Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Voting Rights Act. The Republican Party, the Dixiecrats who have now joined their ranks and the violent fanatics they inspire are the descendants of right-wing night riders and the Klan vigilantes who not long ago firebombed homes and churches and lynched men and women who wanted the United States to live up to its promise that "all men are created equal...."
Bob Herbert of the New York Times writes these new attacks are nothing new:
For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness. All you have to do is look around to see what it has done to the country. The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy. As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich.
This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry.
His column is worth reading and is linked here.
Herbert's colleague at the Times, Timothy Eagan asks:
Do Republicans really want to campaign in favor of insurance companies’ right to drop people when they get sick? Do they really want to knock the 25-year-old graduate student, living on Top Ramen and hope, off his parents’ health care? Are they going to deny tax credits for small businesses?
It was the ancient Greeks who gave us a sense of what Republicans will be living with under this pact with rage. Many people are afraid of the dark, the saying goes. But the real tragedy is those who are afraid of the light.
His column is also linked.
This is profoundly disturbing because their over-the-top rhetoric creates a climate where violent acts are justified, One of the bricks thrown through a Congressman's window read:"extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
In opposing legislation that provides health insurance to 31 million Americans, the Republican Party leadership is continuing its tradition of opposing any effort to create a more just and secure society for working men and women.
Not long ago it opposed Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Voting Rights Act. The Republican Party, the Dixiecrats who have now joined their ranks and the violent fanatics they inspire are the descendants of right-wing night riders and the Klan vigilantes who not long ago firebombed homes and churches and lynched men and women who wanted the United States to live up to its promise that "all men are created equal...."
Bob Herbert of the New York Times writes these new attacks are nothing new:
For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness. All you have to do is look around to see what it has done to the country. The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy. As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich.
This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry.
His column is worth reading and is linked here.
Herbert's colleague at the Times, Timothy Eagan asks:
Do Republicans really want to campaign in favor of insurance companies’ right to drop people when they get sick? Do they really want to knock the 25-year-old graduate student, living on Top Ramen and hope, off his parents’ health care? Are they going to deny tax credits for small businesses?
It was the ancient Greeks who gave us a sense of what Republicans will be living with under this pact with rage. Many people are afraid of the dark, the saying goes. But the real tragedy is those who are afraid of the light.
His column is also linked.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Low wage workers wait while assembly fiddles
Before the Legislature recesses, it ought to help Wisconsin's low-wage workers by fixing the state's minimum wage law by indexing it to the rate of inflation.
The state minimum wage was raised from $6.50 to $7.25 in July 2009 when the federal minimum wage was increased. Like the national, it can only be increased through legislative action. As a result, increases are far and few between.
In the years when the legislature fails to act, the minimum wage quickly loses value (purchasing power) as prices rise. While the costs of health care, gasoline and education have soared, the minimum wage has declined in value. Currently, it is worth 10% less than it was in 1979.
The solution is simple: raise the state's minimum wage and index it to the cost of living. This will ensure that the state’s more than 300,000 low-wage workers' real wages don't decline just because the legislature fails to act.
And fail it has. The state last increased its minimum wage five years ago in 2005 and that was the first increase in 7 years. So in 12 years Wisconsin legislators have increased the minimum wage only two times. During that time their own salaries have been increased six times totaling almost $11,000.
It's not as if indexing is a radical idea.
In 1972 when Republican Richard Nixon was President, the United States Congress indexed Social Security to the CPI to insure that the nation's retirees and disabled weren't thrown into poverty simply because prices increased. This simple act rescued tens of millions from poverty. The elderly are no longer America's largest impoverished group.
Raising the minimum wage and indexing it to the cost of living will reduce inequality and increase productivity.
Until the 1980s, bottom rung jobs were valuable because the minimum wage was raised frequently enough to be an effective wage floor. Regular increases also raised the pay of workers whose wages were several rungs above the minimum and consequently reduced employee turn-over. Employers, forced to value their low-end workers, offered them training and advancement that led to increased productivity. Everybody benefited.
Ten states have already indexed their minimum wage to the cost of living. Twelve have increased their minimum wage above the national. None experienced the decline in employment that opponents of raising the minimum wage predict.
Critics opposed to raising the minimum wage use simple supply and demand theory to argue that an increase in the minimum wage (the price of labor) will reduce jobs ( the quantity of labor demanded) and increase competition for the jobs (the quantity of labor supplied) hurting the very low paid workers we are trying to help.
But studies of states that actually raised the minimum wage in the early 1990s (when the real minimum wage was falling) by economists David Card and Alan Kreuger found no increase in unemployment.
A more recent study by Jeff Chapman that reviewed the experience in all twelve states that have raised their minimum above the federal minimum concludes:"...the facts clearly show that the benefits of such increases outweigh any potential costs.”
There is a simple explanation for these findings. Most firms paying the minimum wage are large national retail and fast-food chains like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, not the ubiquitous mom and pop stores of 1950’s main street. These firms make staffing decisions based on how many employees they need to efficiently serve their customers at any given time, not on marginal increases in the price of labor. The incremental increases in wages that result from indexing are absorbed through marginal price increases and or increased productivity.
Some say now is not the right time to address this problem. But if it wasn't right to index the minimum wage to the C.P.I when the economy was booming and it isn't right to raise it now, when will the time be right?
It is important to raise the minimum wage and index it now because Wisconsin is mired in what is at best a jobless recovery that will rob low-wage workers of the bargaining power they need to negotiate fair wages for their labor for the foreseeable future.
The Wisconsin Senate has already passed a bill, SB-1 that raises the state's minimum wage to $7.60 an hour and indexes it to the cost of living. It would help 316,000 Wisconsin workers, those paid the minimum and those whose wages are anchored by it.
There is a companion Assembly Bill, AB-41, but it has been stalled in committee.
What is the Assembly waiting for?
The state minimum wage was raised from $6.50 to $7.25 in July 2009 when the federal minimum wage was increased. Like the national, it can only be increased through legislative action. As a result, increases are far and few between.
In the years when the legislature fails to act, the minimum wage quickly loses value (purchasing power) as prices rise. While the costs of health care, gasoline and education have soared, the minimum wage has declined in value. Currently, it is worth 10% less than it was in 1979.
The solution is simple: raise the state's minimum wage and index it to the cost of living. This will ensure that the state’s more than 300,000 low-wage workers' real wages don't decline just because the legislature fails to act.
And fail it has. The state last increased its minimum wage five years ago in 2005 and that was the first increase in 7 years. So in 12 years Wisconsin legislators have increased the minimum wage only two times. During that time their own salaries have been increased six times totaling almost $11,000.
It's not as if indexing is a radical idea.
In 1972 when Republican Richard Nixon was President, the United States Congress indexed Social Security to the CPI to insure that the nation's retirees and disabled weren't thrown into poverty simply because prices increased. This simple act rescued tens of millions from poverty. The elderly are no longer America's largest impoverished group.
Raising the minimum wage and indexing it to the cost of living will reduce inequality and increase productivity.
Until the 1980s, bottom rung jobs were valuable because the minimum wage was raised frequently enough to be an effective wage floor. Regular increases also raised the pay of workers whose wages were several rungs above the minimum and consequently reduced employee turn-over. Employers, forced to value their low-end workers, offered them training and advancement that led to increased productivity. Everybody benefited.
Ten states have already indexed their minimum wage to the cost of living. Twelve have increased their minimum wage above the national. None experienced the decline in employment that opponents of raising the minimum wage predict.
Critics opposed to raising the minimum wage use simple supply and demand theory to argue that an increase in the minimum wage (the price of labor) will reduce jobs ( the quantity of labor demanded) and increase competition for the jobs (the quantity of labor supplied) hurting the very low paid workers we are trying to help.
But studies of states that actually raised the minimum wage in the early 1990s (when the real minimum wage was falling) by economists David Card and Alan Kreuger found no increase in unemployment.
A more recent study by Jeff Chapman that reviewed the experience in all twelve states that have raised their minimum above the federal minimum concludes:"...the facts clearly show that the benefits of such increases outweigh any potential costs.”
There is a simple explanation for these findings. Most firms paying the minimum wage are large national retail and fast-food chains like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, not the ubiquitous mom and pop stores of 1950’s main street. These firms make staffing decisions based on how many employees they need to efficiently serve their customers at any given time, not on marginal increases in the price of labor. The incremental increases in wages that result from indexing are absorbed through marginal price increases and or increased productivity.
Some say now is not the right time to address this problem. But if it wasn't right to index the minimum wage to the C.P.I when the economy was booming and it isn't right to raise it now, when will the time be right?
It is important to raise the minimum wage and index it now because Wisconsin is mired in what is at best a jobless recovery that will rob low-wage workers of the bargaining power they need to negotiate fair wages for their labor for the foreseeable future.
The Wisconsin Senate has already passed a bill, SB-1 that raises the state's minimum wage to $7.60 an hour and indexes it to the cost of living. It would help 316,000 Wisconsin workers, those paid the minimum and those whose wages are anchored by it.
There is a companion Assembly Bill, AB-41, but it has been stalled in committee.
What is the Assembly waiting for?
Monday, March 22, 2010
Health care reform passes-fear strikes out
Nobel Prize winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes:
The House has passed the Senate version of health reform, and an improved version will be achieved through reconciliation.
This is, of course, a political victory for President Obama, and a triumph for Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker. But it is also a victory for America’s soul. In the end, a vicious, unprincipled fear offensive failed to block reform. This time, fear struck out.
The column is linked.
The House has passed the Senate version of health reform, and an improved version will be achieved through reconciliation.
This is, of course, a political victory for President Obama, and a triumph for Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker. But it is also a victory for America’s soul. In the end, a vicious, unprincipled fear offensive failed to block reform. This time, fear struck out.
The column is linked.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel endorses Dream Act
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board is right that:
It simply makes no sense to cast adrift illegal immigrant students whom we have invested so much to educate from kindergarten through 12th grade.
The entire editorial is linked here.
It simply makes no sense to cast adrift illegal immigrant students whom we have invested so much to educate from kindergarten through 12th grade.
The entire editorial is linked here.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Toyota betrays Caifornia and workers
Bob Herbert writes:
California has been very, very good to Toyota. It is one of the largest markets in the world for the popular Prius hybrid. Nearly 18 percent of all Toyotas sold in the U.S. are sold in California. The state has showered the company with benefits, including large-scale infrastructure improvements for its operations and millions of dollars for worker training. California is one of the key reasons that Toyota is the wealthiest carmaker on the planet.
Toyota is paying the state back with the foulest form of ingratitude.
The company is planning to shut down the assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., that makes Corollas and the Tacoma compact pickup. The plant closure will throw 4,700 experienced, highly skilled and dedicated employees onto the street during the worst job market since the Depression, and it will jeopardize nearly 20,000 other jobs around the state.
It is a cold and irresponsible act on Toyota’s part, a decision that was not necessary from a business standpoint...
What we’re dealing with here is the kind of corporate treachery toward workers and their local communities that has ruined countless lives over the past several decades and completely undermined the long-term prospects of the economy. ..
The company could keep the plant open and profitable if it wanted to. But, instead, it has decided to shift the production of these vehicles to Japan, Canada, Mexico and Texas.
The entire story is linked.
California has been very, very good to Toyota. It is one of the largest markets in the world for the popular Prius hybrid. Nearly 18 percent of all Toyotas sold in the U.S. are sold in California. The state has showered the company with benefits, including large-scale infrastructure improvements for its operations and millions of dollars for worker training. California is one of the key reasons that Toyota is the wealthiest carmaker on the planet.
Toyota is paying the state back with the foulest form of ingratitude.
The company is planning to shut down the assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., that makes Corollas and the Tacoma compact pickup. The plant closure will throw 4,700 experienced, highly skilled and dedicated employees onto the street during the worst job market since the Depression, and it will jeopardize nearly 20,000 other jobs around the state.
It is a cold and irresponsible act on Toyota’s part, a decision that was not necessary from a business standpoint...
What we’re dealing with here is the kind of corporate treachery toward workers and their local communities that has ruined countless lives over the past several decades and completely undermined the long-term prospects of the economy. ..
The company could keep the plant open and profitable if it wanted to. But, instead, it has decided to shift the production of these vehicles to Japan, Canada, Mexico and Texas.
The entire story is linked.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
NY Times exposes Corinthian while Milwaukee welcomes it
A month ago, the Milwaukee Board of Zoning Appeals (BOZA) approved a zoning variance that allows Corinthian College, a diploma mill with a notorious record of exploiting students, to establish operations directly on the dorrstep of Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) and the Hillside Housing Project.
The change was opposed by a broad coalition including the Hillside Residents Council, Millele Coggs, the area's alderwomen, five other aldermen, the NAACP, Voces del la Frontera, MATC's Latino Student Organization, Good Jobs and Livable Neighborhoods, and the American Federation of Teachers Local 212.
After a critical article and skeptical editorial appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Senetinel, Corithian hired Milwaukee PR flak Evan Zeppos to make its case. Zeppos enlisted the Metropolitan Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce's Tim Sheeehy. Sheehy's support was apparently all that was need to convince the MJS editorial board to support Corinthian. In a particularly cynical editorial, the editorial board urged BOZA to support Corinthian's efforts as a simple "land use issue"..."that could provide a boost to development in the adjacent Park East Corridor."
It cautioned; "...the school must guard against being seen as an institution that preys on rather then helps young urban students..."
The editorial board's position is inane because Corinthian's problem is not about perception or public relations. It is an institution that PREYS on young urban students. It's student default rate is is 250% of the national average for all higher education institutions, and 140% of the national average 3-Year Student Loan Default Rate at for-profit institutions.
These startling results are the direct result of Corinthian's record of manipulating and exploiting students that has generated lawsuits, negative publicity and investigations including a recent $6.5 million settlement with the state of California. Its business plan is based on luring low income people to take out guaranteed federal loans that they have no reasonable chance of repaying.
In a recent call with investors and analysts, Corinthian Colleges, Inc. said it fully expects a shocking 56 to 58 percent of the borrowers to default. Yet they consider these loans good investments because they will increase enrollment and with it a profitable flow of federal grant and loan dollars that outweighs the planned writeoff.
[
While several other Alderman vocally opposed the development, the Department of City Development (DCD) originally championed it and the Mayor failed to use his influence to derail it. When the final vote was taken several members of BOZA cited the city's support for the development as the reason for their affirmative vote.
Corinthian is in the sub-prime student loan business. It preys on students dreams for a better life and leaves them with nothing but mountains of debt. That is why the investor magazine Barron's, described Corinthian as a "high-pressure sales operations bent on vacuuming up student-loan dollars."
It is unconscionable that the Milwaukee top elected officials are assisting an unsavory business with as dismal a record as Corinthian's.
Is DCD really so desperate for investment that it will support any development no matter how exploitative?
On Sunday, the New York Times exposed Corinthian and other for-profit colleges. Peter Goodman wrote:
Their ...profits have come at substantial taxpayer expense while often delivering dubious benefits to students...Critics say many schools exaggerate the value of their degree programs, selling young people on dreams of middle-class wages while setting them up for default on untenable debts, low-wage work and a struggle to avoid poverty. And the schools are harvesting growing federal student aid dollars, including Pell grants awarded to low-income students.
“If these programs keep growing, you’re going to wind up with more and more students who are graduating and can’t find meaningful employment,” said Rafael I. Pardo, a professor at Seattle University School of Law and an expert on educational finance. “They can’t generate income needed to pay back their loans, and they’re going to end up in financial distress.” these schools have exploited the recession as a lucrative recruiting device while tapping a larger pool of federal student aid."
Wyotech, a Corinthian's subsidiary,is highlighted in the article: "
Jeffrey West was working at a pet store near Philadelphia, earning about $8 an hour, when he saw advertisements for training programs offered by WyoTech, a chain of trade schools owned by Corinthian Colleges Inc., a publicly traded company that last year reported revenue of $1.3 billion.
After Mr. West called the school, an admissions representative drove to his house to sell him on classes in auto body refinishing and upholstering technology, a nine-month program that cost about $30,000.
Mr. West blanched at the tuition, he recalled, but the representative assured him the program amounted to an antidote to hard economic times.
“They said they had a very high placement rate, somewhere around 90 percent,” he said. “That was one of the key factors that caused me to go there. They said I would be earning $50,000 to $70,000 a year.”
Some 14 months after he completed the program, Mr. West, 21, has failed to find an automotive job. He is working for $12 an hour weatherizing foreclosed houses.
With loan payments reaching $600 a month, he is working six and seven days a week to keep up.
“I’ve got $30,000 in student loans, and I really don’t have much to show for it,” he said. “It’s really frustrating when you’re trying to better yourself and you wind up back at Square One.”
Corinthian is coming to Milwaukee to prey on Milwaukee's urban students at the invitation of a local developer and with the apparent blessing of DCD, the Mayor's office and the Journal Sentinel editorial board.
The change was opposed by a broad coalition including the Hillside Residents Council, Millele Coggs, the area's alderwomen, five other aldermen, the NAACP, Voces del la Frontera, MATC's Latino Student Organization, Good Jobs and Livable Neighborhoods, and the American Federation of Teachers Local 212.
After a critical article and skeptical editorial appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Senetinel, Corithian hired Milwaukee PR flak Evan Zeppos to make its case. Zeppos enlisted the Metropolitan Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce's Tim Sheeehy. Sheehy's support was apparently all that was need to convince the MJS editorial board to support Corinthian. In a particularly cynical editorial, the editorial board urged BOZA to support Corinthian's efforts as a simple "land use issue"..."that could provide a boost to development in the adjacent Park East Corridor."
It cautioned; "...the school must guard against being seen as an institution that preys on rather then helps young urban students..."
The editorial board's position is inane because Corinthian's problem is not about perception or public relations. It is an institution that PREYS on young urban students. It's student default rate is is 250% of the national average for all higher education institutions, and 140% of the national average 3-Year Student Loan Default Rate at for-profit institutions.
These startling results are the direct result of Corinthian's record of manipulating and exploiting students that has generated lawsuits, negative publicity and investigations including a recent $6.5 million settlement with the state of California. Its business plan is based on luring low income people to take out guaranteed federal loans that they have no reasonable chance of repaying.
In a recent call with investors and analysts, Corinthian Colleges, Inc. said it fully expects a shocking 56 to 58 percent of the borrowers to default. Yet they consider these loans good investments because they will increase enrollment and with it a profitable flow of federal grant and loan dollars that outweighs the planned writeoff.
[
While several other Alderman vocally opposed the development, the Department of City Development (DCD) originally championed it and the Mayor failed to use his influence to derail it. When the final vote was taken several members of BOZA cited the city's support for the development as the reason for their affirmative vote.
Corinthian is in the sub-prime student loan business. It preys on students dreams for a better life and leaves them with nothing but mountains of debt. That is why the investor magazine Barron's, described Corinthian as a "high-pressure sales operations bent on vacuuming up student-loan dollars."
It is unconscionable that the Milwaukee top elected officials are assisting an unsavory business with as dismal a record as Corinthian's.
Is DCD really so desperate for investment that it will support any development no matter how exploitative?
On Sunday, the New York Times exposed Corinthian and other for-profit colleges. Peter Goodman wrote:
Their ...profits have come at substantial taxpayer expense while often delivering dubious benefits to students...Critics say many schools exaggerate the value of their degree programs, selling young people on dreams of middle-class wages while setting them up for default on untenable debts, low-wage work and a struggle to avoid poverty. And the schools are harvesting growing federal student aid dollars, including Pell grants awarded to low-income students.
“If these programs keep growing, you’re going to wind up with more and more students who are graduating and can’t find meaningful employment,” said Rafael I. Pardo, a professor at Seattle University School of Law and an expert on educational finance. “They can’t generate income needed to pay back their loans, and they’re going to end up in financial distress.” these schools have exploited the recession as a lucrative recruiting device while tapping a larger pool of federal student aid."
Wyotech, a Corinthian's subsidiary,is highlighted in the article: "
Jeffrey West was working at a pet store near Philadelphia, earning about $8 an hour, when he saw advertisements for training programs offered by WyoTech, a chain of trade schools owned by Corinthian Colleges Inc., a publicly traded company that last year reported revenue of $1.3 billion.
After Mr. West called the school, an admissions representative drove to his house to sell him on classes in auto body refinishing and upholstering technology, a nine-month program that cost about $30,000.
Mr. West blanched at the tuition, he recalled, but the representative assured him the program amounted to an antidote to hard economic times.
“They said they had a very high placement rate, somewhere around 90 percent,” he said. “That was one of the key factors that caused me to go there. They said I would be earning $50,000 to $70,000 a year.”
Some 14 months after he completed the program, Mr. West, 21, has failed to find an automotive job. He is working for $12 an hour weatherizing foreclosed houses.
With loan payments reaching $600 a month, he is working six and seven days a week to keep up.
“I’ve got $30,000 in student loans, and I really don’t have much to show for it,” he said. “It’s really frustrating when you’re trying to better yourself and you wind up back at Square One.”
Corinthian is coming to Milwaukee to prey on Milwaukee's urban students at the invitation of a local developer and with the apparent blessing of DCD, the Mayor's office and the Journal Sentinel editorial board.
When their ex-students end up with broken dreams and mountains of debt will City Hall and the Journal Sentinel editorial board be there to help pick up the pieces?
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