Sunday, November 30, 2003
William Greider on Dean:
The always lucid Grieder hits the proverbial nail. Dean’s appeal to progressives and moderates is that he’s outside of the establishment, he fights back, he’s done wonders with the internet and he is- at least for now- less tied to the wishes of contributors. I’m grabbed by the bluntness which serves to strengthen the voice of the other candidates and the rest of us, to counter our collective timidity.
The governor has shown flashes of the same bluntness in his prime-time campaigning. Last summer, he told a revealing story on himself--a conversation with Robert Rubin, the former Treasury Secretary and Wall Street's main money guy for Democrats. Rubin had warned that unless Dean stopped attacking NAFTA and the multinationals for the migration of US jobs, he couldn't raise contributions for him from the financial sector. As Dean told it, "I said, 'Bob, tell me what your solution is.' He said, 'I'll have to get back to you.' I haven't heard from him." What I like so much about the story is that powerful, influential Bob Rubin pokes Dean in the chest, and he pokes him back. Then Dean discloses the exchange to the Washington Post.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1126-13.htm http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031215&s=greider
What’s Happening, Iraq:
A top judge in Great Britain condemned the detention of “terror” suspects at Guantanamo. It is most unusual for British judges to speak on hot political issues.
"The question is whether the quality of justice envisaged for the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay complies with the minimum international standards for the conduct of fair trials," Lord Steyn continued. "The answer can be given quite shortly. It is a resounding 'no'."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3238624.stm
Attacks widen: Spanish intelligence officials, Japanese diplomats, Korean and Colombian “contractors”, as well as U.S. deaths. Not surprisingly, Vietnam-era body count claims emerged, i.e. ‘we killed more of them than… The picking off of other foreign workers/soldiers continues to drain the will of our ambivalent allies. Notably, at least two of these attacks had postscripts of local Iraqis celebrating and chanting pro-Saddam slogans. The attacks have limited the political gain that Bush accrued from his Thanksgiving “bravery” that bumped Hillary’s previously planned trip to page 3. Some sympathetic commentators actually commended Bush’s courage for slipping in and out of the air hanger. I was hoping at least some of them would have commented on how this is not how Karl Rove imagined it- probably more like a parading through Baghdad with crowds singing his praises. Interestingly, Clinton stayed overnight, traveled between the airport and another base. Guess that makes her qualify for a purple heart.
Meanwhile, the political situation worsened. Plans for our handing over power a.s.a.p. had to be recalibrated after being rejected by Iraqi politicos, especially Grand Ayatolah Ali Sistani who’s kyboshed two plans. Sistani seems to have emerged as the one dictating policy, not the U.S. and its appointed Governing Council.
Economic News:
The Sunday NY Times was loaded. Austan Goolsbee explains one of the ways the depth of the recession has been minimized and its unemployed undercounted. The latter is a long-standing problem. The U.S. undercounts its unemployed, leaving out the long-term unemployed who are off the rolls and ignores those that found a part time job to replace a full-time one. Here Goolsbee focuses on those on disability.
The reality is that we didn't have a mild recession. Jobs-wise, we had a deep one.
The government reported that annual unemployment during this recession peaked at only around 6 percent, compared with more than 7 percent in 1992 and more than 9 percent in 1982. But the unemployment rate has been low only because government programs, especially Social Security disability, have effectively been buying people off the unemployment rolls and reclassifying them as "not in the labor force."
In other words, the government has cooked the books. It has been a more subtle manipulation than the one during the Reagan administration, when people serving in the military were reclassified from "not in the labor force" to "employed" in order to reduce the unemployment rate. Nonetheless, the impact has been the same.
Research by the economists David Autor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Mark Duggan at the University of Maryland shows that once Congress began loosening the standards to qualify for disability payments in the late 1980's and early 1990's, people who would normally be counted as unemployed started moving in record numbers into the disability system — a kind of invisible unemployment. Almost all of the increase came from hard-to-verify disabilities like back pain and mental disorders. As the rolls swelled, the meaning of the official unemployment rate changed as millions of people were left out. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/opinion/30GOOL.html
Louis Uchitelle’s regular column looks at the short-term stimulus and the intermediate term drain on the economy resulting from the Bush tax cuts.
Lauding the Bush tax cuts isn't easy. They have turned a comfortable budget surplus into a constraining deficit, and they are enriching the wealthy far more than families with only five-figure incomes.
The one mitigating factor is stimulus. The tax cuts are helping to revive the economy by putting more spending money into people's pockets. But even that will soon backfire.
The stimulus is at its peak right now. During the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, the nation's taxpayers pocketed $117 billion, mainly from rebates and from reductions in paycheck withholding as lower tax rates went into effect. That $117 billion, which is the portion of the tax cut going only to individuals and not to companies, rises to $200 billion in the current fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office reports.
Most of the windfall from both fiscal years is packed into the 12 months that started last summer and will end next summer
By this reckoning, the Bush tax cuts will not do much to lift the economy. The $117 billion in fiscal 2003 gives birth to only $40 billion in effective stimulus. Much more of the cuts, perhaps every nickel, would have been spent if the money had been channeled to the states instead, to pay the salaries of teachers who were fired to balance budgets. The economy surged in the third quarter, but as Mr. Slemrod notes, "the tax cuts were not a major part of that growth.''
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/opinion/30GOOL.html
And with mutual fund scandals in the news, Gretchen Morgenson helpfully looks at another way mutual fund investors lose their money.
It has not been easy for investors to fathom exactly what they are paying in fund fees. In fund prospectuses, the fees charged to investors are stated as a percentage of assets.
At around 1 percent a year, these costs look positively benign.
In dollar terms, however, the fees are staggering. And when the managers receiving them turn in a woeful performance, as has been the case recently more often than not, the fees represent an enormous and troubling transfer of wealth from hard-working individuals to some seriously fat cats.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/business/yourmoney/30watch.html
Meanwhile, the Republican House continues to try to feed their wealthy and corporate sponsors by looking to extend more than a dozen tax breaks that would expire at the end of the year while showing no inclination to extend the temporary federal program to help the long-term unemployed which would provide additional benefits beyond the regular state-funded benefits. Tom Delay rules! http://www.cbpp.org/11-25-03ui.htm
Molly Ivins summarizes the Energy and Medicare Bills: Better than her usual (excellent) columns, Ivins provides some pearls. From the Fort Worth Star Telegram
According to Public Citizen, pharmaceutical companies have given $44 million since 1999 -- 78 percent to Republicans, 22 percent to Democrats -- and have spent millions more hiring an army of lobbyists that physically outnumbers the 535 members of Congress.
The Health Reform Program of Boston University estimates that of the bill's $400 billion price tag, $139 billion will go to increase drug company profits over eight years -- a 38 percent increase in what is already the world's most profitable industry.
But forget about the Medicare bill -- it won't take effect until 2006 anyway, so you won't even notice what it does 'til then. Regard the even more amazing energy bill.
In case you haven't been keeping up (and you do have to race to keep up), there is a gasoline additive called MTBE that has polluted ground water across the country. So naturally the Republicans have put in a provision that would limit the liability of the manufacturers of MTBE -- that means you can't sue them for ruining the water -- and the bill would give the companies up to $2 billion in federal aid.
Congratulations! That means you, the users of MTBE-polluted water across the nation, will get to pay for cleaning it up.
This is an amazing energy bill because it will not (A) reduce our dependence on foreign oil; (B) provide significant new energy sources; (C) create many jobs; (D) improve the grid system so we won't have more blackouts; (E) promote energy efficiency or conservation; or (F) do anything about global warming.
But -- it will give at least $20 billion in subsides to fossil fuel companies. Those poor li'l oil, gas, coal and nuclear companies like Exxon Mobil and General Electric need our help. This is compassionate conservatism.
We would, of course, tell you who wrote this abomination, except Dick Cheney, who headed the task force, doesn't think any of us should know, and the Republicans who have been working on it for months met in secret. Democrats were not even admitted to the committee meetings.
The environmental groups are still going through it, finding new horrors hidden away.
Greenwire reports: "Section 349 would remove the discretion of the Interior Department to deny applications to drill amid onshore and offshore lands -- upon receiving an application to drill in a leased area, the department would have 10 days to determine whether additional information is required to grant a permit. Once the information is provided, the department must approve the application regardless of whether drilling would damage the environment."
I like that.
The Natural Resources Defense Council reports that the bill will roll back environmental protections to boost oil and gas drilling on American's last remaining wild lands and open spaces.
It also will eliminate consumer protections and subsidize construction of new nuclear plants that most Americans don't want, and it will exempt polluters from laws that ensure clear water and healthy air. A provision seriously weakening the Clean Air Act was inserted behind closed doors.http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/7362899.htm
Republican Hardball: A textbook case. This is a description of how they do business, a reminder that we must fight back with equal fervor. What’s unusual about this example is that it comes from Robert Novak, the conservative columnist most recently in the news for his printing the name of CIA Valerie Plame (remember her?) in his column. Full text at http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak27.html
During 14 years in the Michigan Legislature and 11 years in Congress, Rep. Nick Smith had never experienced anything like it. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, in the wee hours last Saturday morning, pressed him to vote for the Medicare bill. But Smith refused. Then things got personal.
Smith, self term-limited, is leaving Congress. His lawyer son Brad is one of five Republicans seeking to replace him from a GOP district in Michigan's southern tier. On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat…
AND:
Republicans voting against the bill were told they were endangering their political futures. Major contributors warned Rep. Jim DeMint they would cut off funding for his Senate race in South Carolina. A Missouri state legislator called Rep. Todd Akin to threaten a primary challenge against him.
Intense pressure, including a call from the president, was put on freshman Rep. Tom Feeney. As speaker of the Florida House, he was a stalwart for Bush in his state's 2000 vote recount. He is the Class of 2002's contact with the House leadership, marking him as a future party leader. But now, in those early morning hours, Feeney was told a ''no'' vote would delay his ascent into leadership by three years -- maybe more.
-R
The always lucid Grieder hits the proverbial nail. Dean’s appeal to progressives and moderates is that he’s outside of the establishment, he fights back, he’s done wonders with the internet and he is- at least for now- less tied to the wishes of contributors. I’m grabbed by the bluntness which serves to strengthen the voice of the other candidates and the rest of us, to counter our collective timidity.
The governor has shown flashes of the same bluntness in his prime-time campaigning. Last summer, he told a revealing story on himself--a conversation with Robert Rubin, the former Treasury Secretary and Wall Street's main money guy for Democrats. Rubin had warned that unless Dean stopped attacking NAFTA and the multinationals for the migration of US jobs, he couldn't raise contributions for him from the financial sector. As Dean told it, "I said, 'Bob, tell me what your solution is.' He said, 'I'll have to get back to you.' I haven't heard from him." What I like so much about the story is that powerful, influential Bob Rubin pokes Dean in the chest, and he pokes him back. Then Dean discloses the exchange to the Washington Post.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1126-13.htm http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031215&s=greider
What’s Happening, Iraq:
A top judge in Great Britain condemned the detention of “terror” suspects at Guantanamo. It is most unusual for British judges to speak on hot political issues.
"The question is whether the quality of justice envisaged for the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay complies with the minimum international standards for the conduct of fair trials," Lord Steyn continued. "The answer can be given quite shortly. It is a resounding 'no'."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3238624.stm
Attacks widen: Spanish intelligence officials, Japanese diplomats, Korean and Colombian “contractors”, as well as U.S. deaths. Not surprisingly, Vietnam-era body count claims emerged, i.e. ‘we killed more of them than… The picking off of other foreign workers/soldiers continues to drain the will of our ambivalent allies. Notably, at least two of these attacks had postscripts of local Iraqis celebrating and chanting pro-Saddam slogans. The attacks have limited the political gain that Bush accrued from his Thanksgiving “bravery” that bumped Hillary’s previously planned trip to page 3. Some sympathetic commentators actually commended Bush’s courage for slipping in and out of the air hanger. I was hoping at least some of them would have commented on how this is not how Karl Rove imagined it- probably more like a parading through Baghdad with crowds singing his praises. Interestingly, Clinton stayed overnight, traveled between the airport and another base. Guess that makes her qualify for a purple heart.
Meanwhile, the political situation worsened. Plans for our handing over power a.s.a.p. had to be recalibrated after being rejected by Iraqi politicos, especially Grand Ayatolah Ali Sistani who’s kyboshed two plans. Sistani seems to have emerged as the one dictating policy, not the U.S. and its appointed Governing Council.
Economic News:
The Sunday NY Times was loaded. Austan Goolsbee explains one of the ways the depth of the recession has been minimized and its unemployed undercounted. The latter is a long-standing problem. The U.S. undercounts its unemployed, leaving out the long-term unemployed who are off the rolls and ignores those that found a part time job to replace a full-time one. Here Goolsbee focuses on those on disability.
The reality is that we didn't have a mild recession. Jobs-wise, we had a deep one.
The government reported that annual unemployment during this recession peaked at only around 6 percent, compared with more than 7 percent in 1992 and more than 9 percent in 1982. But the unemployment rate has been low only because government programs, especially Social Security disability, have effectively been buying people off the unemployment rolls and reclassifying them as "not in the labor force."
In other words, the government has cooked the books. It has been a more subtle manipulation than the one during the Reagan administration, when people serving in the military were reclassified from "not in the labor force" to "employed" in order to reduce the unemployment rate. Nonetheless, the impact has been the same.
Research by the economists David Autor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Mark Duggan at the University of Maryland shows that once Congress began loosening the standards to qualify for disability payments in the late 1980's and early 1990's, people who would normally be counted as unemployed started moving in record numbers into the disability system — a kind of invisible unemployment. Almost all of the increase came from hard-to-verify disabilities like back pain and mental disorders. As the rolls swelled, the meaning of the official unemployment rate changed as millions of people were left out. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/opinion/30GOOL.html
Louis Uchitelle’s regular column looks at the short-term stimulus and the intermediate term drain on the economy resulting from the Bush tax cuts.
Lauding the Bush tax cuts isn't easy. They have turned a comfortable budget surplus into a constraining deficit, and they are enriching the wealthy far more than families with only five-figure incomes.
The one mitigating factor is stimulus. The tax cuts are helping to revive the economy by putting more spending money into people's pockets. But even that will soon backfire.
The stimulus is at its peak right now. During the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, the nation's taxpayers pocketed $117 billion, mainly from rebates and from reductions in paycheck withholding as lower tax rates went into effect. That $117 billion, which is the portion of the tax cut going only to individuals and not to companies, rises to $200 billion in the current fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office reports.
Most of the windfall from both fiscal years is packed into the 12 months that started last summer and will end next summer
By this reckoning, the Bush tax cuts will not do much to lift the economy. The $117 billion in fiscal 2003 gives birth to only $40 billion in effective stimulus. Much more of the cuts, perhaps every nickel, would have been spent if the money had been channeled to the states instead, to pay the salaries of teachers who were fired to balance budgets. The economy surged in the third quarter, but as Mr. Slemrod notes, "the tax cuts were not a major part of that growth.''
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/opinion/30GOOL.html
And with mutual fund scandals in the news, Gretchen Morgenson helpfully looks at another way mutual fund investors lose their money.
It has not been easy for investors to fathom exactly what they are paying in fund fees. In fund prospectuses, the fees charged to investors are stated as a percentage of assets.
At around 1 percent a year, these costs look positively benign.
In dollar terms, however, the fees are staggering. And when the managers receiving them turn in a woeful performance, as has been the case recently more often than not, the fees represent an enormous and troubling transfer of wealth from hard-working individuals to some seriously fat cats.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/business/yourmoney/30watch.html
Meanwhile, the Republican House continues to try to feed their wealthy and corporate sponsors by looking to extend more than a dozen tax breaks that would expire at the end of the year while showing no inclination to extend the temporary federal program to help the long-term unemployed which would provide additional benefits beyond the regular state-funded benefits. Tom Delay rules! http://www.cbpp.org/11-25-03ui.htm
Molly Ivins summarizes the Energy and Medicare Bills: Better than her usual (excellent) columns, Ivins provides some pearls. From the Fort Worth Star Telegram
According to Public Citizen, pharmaceutical companies have given $44 million since 1999 -- 78 percent to Republicans, 22 percent to Democrats -- and have spent millions more hiring an army of lobbyists that physically outnumbers the 535 members of Congress.
The Health Reform Program of Boston University estimates that of the bill's $400 billion price tag, $139 billion will go to increase drug company profits over eight years -- a 38 percent increase in what is already the world's most profitable industry.
But forget about the Medicare bill -- it won't take effect until 2006 anyway, so you won't even notice what it does 'til then. Regard the even more amazing energy bill.
In case you haven't been keeping up (and you do have to race to keep up), there is a gasoline additive called MTBE that has polluted ground water across the country. So naturally the Republicans have put in a provision that would limit the liability of the manufacturers of MTBE -- that means you can't sue them for ruining the water -- and the bill would give the companies up to $2 billion in federal aid.
Congratulations! That means you, the users of MTBE-polluted water across the nation, will get to pay for cleaning it up.
This is an amazing energy bill because it will not (A) reduce our dependence on foreign oil; (B) provide significant new energy sources; (C) create many jobs; (D) improve the grid system so we won't have more blackouts; (E) promote energy efficiency or conservation; or (F) do anything about global warming.
But -- it will give at least $20 billion in subsides to fossil fuel companies. Those poor li'l oil, gas, coal and nuclear companies like Exxon Mobil and General Electric need our help. This is compassionate conservatism.
We would, of course, tell you who wrote this abomination, except Dick Cheney, who headed the task force, doesn't think any of us should know, and the Republicans who have been working on it for months met in secret. Democrats were not even admitted to the committee meetings.
The environmental groups are still going through it, finding new horrors hidden away.
Greenwire reports: "Section 349 would remove the discretion of the Interior Department to deny applications to drill amid onshore and offshore lands -- upon receiving an application to drill in a leased area, the department would have 10 days to determine whether additional information is required to grant a permit. Once the information is provided, the department must approve the application regardless of whether drilling would damage the environment."
I like that.
The Natural Resources Defense Council reports that the bill will roll back environmental protections to boost oil and gas drilling on American's last remaining wild lands and open spaces.
It also will eliminate consumer protections and subsidize construction of new nuclear plants that most Americans don't want, and it will exempt polluters from laws that ensure clear water and healthy air. A provision seriously weakening the Clean Air Act was inserted behind closed doors.http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/7362899.htm
Republican Hardball: A textbook case. This is a description of how they do business, a reminder that we must fight back with equal fervor. What’s unusual about this example is that it comes from Robert Novak, the conservative columnist most recently in the news for his printing the name of CIA Valerie Plame (remember her?) in his column. Full text at http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak27.html
During 14 years in the Michigan Legislature and 11 years in Congress, Rep. Nick Smith had never experienced anything like it. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, in the wee hours last Saturday morning, pressed him to vote for the Medicare bill. But Smith refused. Then things got personal.
Smith, self term-limited, is leaving Congress. His lawyer son Brad is one of five Republicans seeking to replace him from a GOP district in Michigan's southern tier. On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat…
AND:
Republicans voting against the bill were told they were endangering their political futures. Major contributors warned Rep. Jim DeMint they would cut off funding for his Senate race in South Carolina. A Missouri state legislator called Rep. Todd Akin to threaten a primary challenge against him.
Intense pressure, including a call from the president, was put on freshman Rep. Tom Feeney. As speaker of the Florida House, he was a stalwart for Bush in his state's 2000 vote recount. He is the Class of 2002's contact with the House leadership, marking him as a future party leader. But now, in those early morning hours, Feeney was told a ''no'' vote would delay his ascent into leadership by three years -- maybe more.
-R
