Sunday, February 22, 2004
"For Saxby Chambliss, who got out of going to Vietnam because of a trick knee, to attack John Kerry as weak on the defense of our nation is like a mackerel in the moonlight that both shines and stinks." -Max Cleland
Outsourcing Jobs: NY Times Letters to the Editor
Re "Political Timing, Outsourced" (editorial, Feb. 17):
You say shifting call center jobs and other presumably higher-end professions of the information age to, say, India, is "freeing up American capital, labor and other resources for more efficient, high-value uses."
So an American company saves X dollars on its labor costs and uses those savings — for what? New investments overseas? Higher benefits for its executives? Greater profits for its stockholders?
So an American worker laid off to produce those savings uses his newly bestowed free time — for what? Getting a Ph.D. in molecular biology? Becoming one of those high-paid, ever-lower-taxed executives himself? Working at Wal-Mart for minimum pay and minimum benefits?
The new economic pyramid: all top and no bottom.
J. PETER FLEMMING
Brooklyn
Political Timing, Outsourced" (editorial, Feb. 17):
Both sides in the debate over outsourcing frequently miss the point. Those against it are often resisting the development of safe, comparatively well-paying jobs in developing countries. On the other hand, those who support it have little to say about the damage done to local communities as business operations move offshore.
Since outsourcing and productivity gains have become such a gold mine for American businesses, surely the answer is to start sharing the spoils with the rest of the community.
By increasing taxation on corporate profits, we can transform a worrying trend into a means of funding education, retraining and the creation of better jobs at home. At the same time, strictly enforced labor and environmental standards can help prevent exploitation and unfair competition abroad.
JAMES SLEZAK
Ithaca, N.Y.
Inequality, Taxes: Virginia makes an attempt to raise taxes on the rich
Virginia is the latest economically-stressed state to attempt to return more progressivity to the tax code: Democratic ‘moderate’ Mark Warner is seeking to raise taxes on the wealthy. A Wall Street Journal take:
There's an effort under way in the Commonwealth of Virginia to raise taxes to record levels, and our guess is that John Kerry is paying close attention to how it plays out.
It's bad enough that Democratic Governor Mark Warner is trying to raise taxes by more than $1 billion. What's worse is that a GOP-controlled legislature that rose to power on an anti-tax agenda now wants to raise them even higher. If Republican Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Chichester gets his way, Virginians are looking at $4 billion in new taxes over the next two years.
Governor Warner was elected in 2001 on a promise not to raise taxes, but this is his third attempt since taking office to do just that. Like voters in Oregon and Alabama, Virginians recently shot down two referendums calling for tax hikes. The problem is that Virginia's political class won't take no for an answer. They've tried targeting taxes specifically for roads, and other popular things, but that didn't work. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107715241558433482,00.html?mod=todays%5Fus%5Fopinion%5Fhs
Tax Enforcement: last week’s Frontline looked at corporate tax fraud http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tax/and NOW’s interview with David Cay Johnston last week touched on the problem of enforcement, that the IRS has focused its energies on low and moderate income taxpayers, and cut its examining of the returns of the wealthy. My organization, Fairness in Taxes for Everyone (FITE), addressed the latter issue in its last newsletter:
Here are some of the rules imposed on our tax police:
* Don’t examine the tax returns of the super rich or even the very wealthy. Anyone violating these rules is either fired or demoted.
* Focus mostly on the poorest taxpayers even though. most of their violations are honest errors and little is recovered.
* Only rarely investigate the tax returns of small businesses worth $1 to $5 million. This is a group well known to cheat a lot.
* Do not investigate people who publicly announce in big newspaper ads that they will no longer pay taxes. Many thousands of citizens over the past several years have joined them, and NOT ONE of them has been investigated
* Don’t penalize corporations that violate tax laws. Ten years ago, the IRS penalized 2,400 corporations. Today it’s 20.
The cost to all of us is absolutely staggering. If the IRS took action, they could use the recovered funds to exempt half of all Americans earning less than $500 from paying taxes, and cut $4000 off the average tax bill of the rest of us. Count up all the losses, and it’s enough to set the federal budget right again.
More at http://www.fairnessintaxes.org/pages/howthemegarich.html
Pentagon Report warns of Environmental Catastrophe
The Guardian/Observer (Mark Townsend and Paul Harris) report on Sunday is hair-raising. Hopefully the U.S. media won’t blanche at the prospect of disseminating such dire news.
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.
'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'
The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.
The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4864237-110970,00.html
“Highlights” at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1153547,00.html
More Science-based Condemning of the Administration
Mark Green and Eric Alterman’s book, The Book on Bush, has an excerpt in the current Nation
Scientific panels and committees have proven especially susceptible to political manipulation by the White House. In one revealing case, Bush & Co. intervened at the precise moment that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention was set to consider once again lowering acceptable blood-lead levels in response to new scientific evidence. The Administration rejected nominee Bruce Lanphear and dumped panel member Michael Weitzman, both of whom previously advocated lowering the legal limit. Instead, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson appointed William Banner--who had testified on behalf of lead companies in poison-related litigation
Science magazine published an editorial signed by ten prominent US scientists railing against Bush's appropriation of the nation's scientific advisory committees and panels for political purposes. One of those scientists, Dr. Lynn Goldman at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, sees an eroding relationship between federal science agencies and the scientific community and fears that eventually scientific professionals will no longer trust crucial information gleaned from government research. Unlike previous administrations, the Bush White House, Goldman believes, has a "to the victor goes the spoils" approach to scientific research. She adds that "what they don't understand is that everybody hasn't done it that way. Science isn't 'the spoils.' Science isn't something to be politicized based on who's elected." But if there's one thing that's been obvious over the past three years of the Bush Administration, it's that nothing is out of bounds when Bush's electoral bases are involved. The federal government funds a quarter of the scientific research in this country. When a President starts appointing scientists as he does campaign staffers, we risk an era of Lysenkoism in America--when Soviet citizens were told (among other things) that acquired traits can be inherited. While Bush's supporters may giddily profit from such changes, it's the rest of us who lose out when science becomes another avenue for propaganda. http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040308&s=green
The Fate of bin Laden:
Rumors of his being already captured have now become reports as to how the additional U.S. troops allegedly being assigned to track him should result in his capture or death. This should be anticipated. Hopefully the Democrats and the media won’t lower the bar on this issue, as they’ve done for the past 3 years. Their tact should be that it is no major accomplishment to take 2 ½ to 3 years to capture bin Laden; that if there had been no invasion of Iraq it likely would have been accomplished much sooner.
The reports from the Sunday Telegraph (England) and Asia Times online:
A BRITISH Sunday newspaper is claiming Osama bin Laden has been found and is surrounded by US special forces in an area of land bordering north-west Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Sunday Express, known for its sometimes colourful scoops, claims the al-Qaeda leader has been "sighted" for the first time since 2001 and is being monitored by satellite.
The paper claims he is in a mountainous area to the north of the Pakistani city of Quetta. The region is said to be peopled with bin Laden supporters and the terrorist leader is estimated to also have 50 of his fanatical bodyguards with him.
The claim is attributed to "a well-placed intelligence source" in Washington, who is quoted as saying: "He (bin Laden) is boxed in." http://www.sundaytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,9353,8752173-28778,00.html
Bin Laden between a hammer and a hard place
(Syed Saleem Shahzad)
After taking a dramatic, and suspect, deviation into Iraq, the United States' "war on terror" is right back where it began, in Afghanistan, once again in hot pursuit of Osama bin Laden.
"The hunt has been intense," said US General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "There are areas where The sand in their hourglass is running out. The troops are re-energized," confirmed the US commanding officer in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General David Barno. "Their day has ended and this year will decisively sound the death knell of their movements in Afghanistan," Barno was quoted as telling journalists in Kabul about bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar. "We have unfinished business in this part of the world."
This part of the world, in the latest US initiative to hunt down the al-Qaeda leader - code-named Hammer and Anvil - is the rugged, inhospitable territory on both sides of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. On the Pakistan side, the area includes the semi-autonomous tribal areas, particularly South and North Waziristan. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FB21Ag01.html
Nader Declares:
It will matter less this time, and, of course, will again not be a factor in Massachusetts, NY, California where Nader could get 10–15% and the Democrat would still win. Aside from the emotion (Ralph, No!), it’s helpful to note his reasoning.
Do the Democrats need a spillover vote produced by an independent candidate? Some top Democrats have said they would welcome this part of the strategy. (Also see The Hill, January 29, 2000, for what Congressional Democrats secretly hope for.) If they need reinforcement they can ask Senator Maria Cantwell how the very large Green spillover vote in 2000 helped elect her by a narrow margin of 2300 votes over her incumbent opponent.
So, in summary, our approach can help defeat Bush, strengthen the progressive forces inside the Democratic Party by successfully amplifying ways to end this regime, while simultaneously furthering the longer range expansion of the forces of peace, justice and democracy in future elections and nourishing a more vigorous civic movement as well. http://www.votenader.org/why_ralph/index.php?cid=4
Hamburger dispensing a manufacturing job?
Two reports, from the Times (David Cay Johnston) and CBS News on whether “cooking a hamburger patty and inserting the meat, lettuce and ketchup inside a bun (is)a manufacturing job, like assembling automobiles?”
That question is posed in the new Economic Report of the President, a thick annual compendium of observations and statistics on the health of the United States economy.
The latest edition, sent to Congress last week, questions whether fast-food restaurants should continue to be counted as part of the service sector or should be reclassified as manufacturers. No answers were offered…
"When a fast-food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a 'service' or is it combining inputs to 'manufacture' a product?" the report asks.
"Sometimes, seemingly subtle differences can determine whether an industry is classified as manufacturing. For example, mixing water and concentrate to produce soft drinks is classified as manufacturing. However, if that activity is performed at a snack bar, it is considered a service."
The report notes that the Census Bureau's North American Industry Classification System defines manufacturing as covering enterprises "engaged in the mechanical, physical or chemical transformation of materials, substances or components into new products."
Classifications matter, the report says, because among other things, they can affect which businesses receive tax relief. "Suppose it was decided to offer tax relief to manufacturing firms," the report said. "Because the manufacturing category is not well defined, firms would have an incentive to characterize themselves as in manufacturing. Administering the tax relief could be difficult, and the tax relief may not extend to the firms for which it was enacted."
David Huether, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers, said he had heard that some economists wanted to count hamburger flipping as manufacturing, which he noted would produce statistics showing more jobs in what has been a declining sector of the economy. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/20/business/20jobs.html?pagewanted=print&position=
But reclassifying fast food workers as manufacturing employees could have other advantages for the administration.
It would offset somewhat the ongoing loss of manufacturing jobs in national employment statistics. Since the month President Bush was inaugurated, the economy has lost about 2.7 million manufacturing jobs, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That continues a long-term trend.
And the move would make the growth in service sector jobs, some of which pay low wages, more appealing. According to government figures, since January 2001 the economy has generated more than 600,000 new service-providing jobs. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/20/politics/main601336.shtml
“Liberal Radio” Status Report: A posting, i.e. it’s getting there:
THE O’FRANKEN FACTOR, hosted by Al Franken and Katherine Lanpher, will broadcast three hours of political satire and progressive, fact-based political analysis each weekday starting March 31. In the spirit of the 14-member Team Franken that researched Al Franken’s _Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right_, the show is building a research team to monitor national and international news, the 2004 campaign, politics generally—and the media, particularly the right-wing media. The show will run nationally on Air America Radio, a new network dedicated to fearless political comedy.
Brief job description:
RESEARCH ASSOCIATES sought for new radio show. Monitor and analyze news and commentary, uncover lies and distortion, propose and fact-check radio segments. Gather audio clips for show; post information and links to website; prepare multiple daily briefings on topics and guests for pitching to show hosts. Candidates should be able to produce clear, concise written materials while working long hours in an intense, unpredictable environment as part of a diverse team. Must be a news junkie dedicated to factual accuracy and progressive politics. Proficiency with computers required; training on specific software package will be provided. Experience in radio production, print or online journalism, politics or advocacy a strong plus. Air America Radio is an equal opportunity employer.
The show will be broadcast from New York City. Compensation includes medical and dental benefits.
-R
Outsourcing Jobs: NY Times Letters to the Editor
Re "Political Timing, Outsourced" (editorial, Feb. 17):
You say shifting call center jobs and other presumably higher-end professions of the information age to, say, India, is "freeing up American capital, labor and other resources for more efficient, high-value uses."
So an American company saves X dollars on its labor costs and uses those savings — for what? New investments overseas? Higher benefits for its executives? Greater profits for its stockholders?
So an American worker laid off to produce those savings uses his newly bestowed free time — for what? Getting a Ph.D. in molecular biology? Becoming one of those high-paid, ever-lower-taxed executives himself? Working at Wal-Mart for minimum pay and minimum benefits?
The new economic pyramid: all top and no bottom.
J. PETER FLEMMING
Brooklyn
Political Timing, Outsourced" (editorial, Feb. 17):
Both sides in the debate over outsourcing frequently miss the point. Those against it are often resisting the development of safe, comparatively well-paying jobs in developing countries. On the other hand, those who support it have little to say about the damage done to local communities as business operations move offshore.
Since outsourcing and productivity gains have become such a gold mine for American businesses, surely the answer is to start sharing the spoils with the rest of the community.
By increasing taxation on corporate profits, we can transform a worrying trend into a means of funding education, retraining and the creation of better jobs at home. At the same time, strictly enforced labor and environmental standards can help prevent exploitation and unfair competition abroad.
JAMES SLEZAK
Ithaca, N.Y.
Inequality, Taxes: Virginia makes an attempt to raise taxes on the rich
Virginia is the latest economically-stressed state to attempt to return more progressivity to the tax code: Democratic ‘moderate’ Mark Warner is seeking to raise taxes on the wealthy. A Wall Street Journal take:
There's an effort under way in the Commonwealth of Virginia to raise taxes to record levels, and our guess is that John Kerry is paying close attention to how it plays out.
It's bad enough that Democratic Governor Mark Warner is trying to raise taxes by more than $1 billion. What's worse is that a GOP-controlled legislature that rose to power on an anti-tax agenda now wants to raise them even higher. If Republican Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Chichester gets his way, Virginians are looking at $4 billion in new taxes over the next two years.
Governor Warner was elected in 2001 on a promise not to raise taxes, but this is his third attempt since taking office to do just that. Like voters in Oregon and Alabama, Virginians recently shot down two referendums calling for tax hikes. The problem is that Virginia's political class won't take no for an answer. They've tried targeting taxes specifically for roads, and other popular things, but that didn't work. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107715241558433482,00.html?mod=todays%5Fus%5Fopinion%5Fhs
Tax Enforcement: last week’s Frontline looked at corporate tax fraud http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tax/and NOW’s interview with David Cay Johnston last week touched on the problem of enforcement, that the IRS has focused its energies on low and moderate income taxpayers, and cut its examining of the returns of the wealthy. My organization, Fairness in Taxes for Everyone (FITE), addressed the latter issue in its last newsletter:
Here are some of the rules imposed on our tax police:
* Don’t examine the tax returns of the super rich or even the very wealthy. Anyone violating these rules is either fired or demoted.
* Focus mostly on the poorest taxpayers even though. most of their violations are honest errors and little is recovered.
* Only rarely investigate the tax returns of small businesses worth $1 to $5 million. This is a group well known to cheat a lot.
* Do not investigate people who publicly announce in big newspaper ads that they will no longer pay taxes. Many thousands of citizens over the past several years have joined them, and NOT ONE of them has been investigated
* Don’t penalize corporations that violate tax laws. Ten years ago, the IRS penalized 2,400 corporations. Today it’s 20.
The cost to all of us is absolutely staggering. If the IRS took action, they could use the recovered funds to exempt half of all Americans earning less than $500 from paying taxes, and cut $4000 off the average tax bill of the rest of us. Count up all the losses, and it’s enough to set the federal budget right again.
More at http://www.fairnessintaxes.org/pages/howthemegarich.html
Pentagon Report warns of Environmental Catastrophe
The Guardian/Observer (Mark Townsend and Paul Harris) report on Sunday is hair-raising. Hopefully the U.S. media won’t blanche at the prospect of disseminating such dire news.
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.
'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'
The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.
The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4864237-110970,00.html
“Highlights” at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1153547,00.html
More Science-based Condemning of the Administration
Mark Green and Eric Alterman’s book, The Book on Bush, has an excerpt in the current Nation
Scientific panels and committees have proven especially susceptible to political manipulation by the White House. In one revealing case, Bush & Co. intervened at the precise moment that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention was set to consider once again lowering acceptable blood-lead levels in response to new scientific evidence. The Administration rejected nominee Bruce Lanphear and dumped panel member Michael Weitzman, both of whom previously advocated lowering the legal limit. Instead, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson appointed William Banner--who had testified on behalf of lead companies in poison-related litigation
Science magazine published an editorial signed by ten prominent US scientists railing against Bush's appropriation of the nation's scientific advisory committees and panels for political purposes. One of those scientists, Dr. Lynn Goldman at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, sees an eroding relationship between federal science agencies and the scientific community and fears that eventually scientific professionals will no longer trust crucial information gleaned from government research. Unlike previous administrations, the Bush White House, Goldman believes, has a "to the victor goes the spoils" approach to scientific research. She adds that "what they don't understand is that everybody hasn't done it that way. Science isn't 'the spoils.' Science isn't something to be politicized based on who's elected." But if there's one thing that's been obvious over the past three years of the Bush Administration, it's that nothing is out of bounds when Bush's electoral bases are involved. The federal government funds a quarter of the scientific research in this country. When a President starts appointing scientists as he does campaign staffers, we risk an era of Lysenkoism in America--when Soviet citizens were told (among other things) that acquired traits can be inherited. While Bush's supporters may giddily profit from such changes, it's the rest of us who lose out when science becomes another avenue for propaganda. http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040308&s=green
The Fate of bin Laden:
Rumors of his being already captured have now become reports as to how the additional U.S. troops allegedly being assigned to track him should result in his capture or death. This should be anticipated. Hopefully the Democrats and the media won’t lower the bar on this issue, as they’ve done for the past 3 years. Their tact should be that it is no major accomplishment to take 2 ½ to 3 years to capture bin Laden; that if there had been no invasion of Iraq it likely would have been accomplished much sooner.
The reports from the Sunday Telegraph (England) and Asia Times online:
A BRITISH Sunday newspaper is claiming Osama bin Laden has been found and is surrounded by US special forces in an area of land bordering north-west Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Sunday Express, known for its sometimes colourful scoops, claims the al-Qaeda leader has been "sighted" for the first time since 2001 and is being monitored by satellite.
The paper claims he is in a mountainous area to the north of the Pakistani city of Quetta. The region is said to be peopled with bin Laden supporters and the terrorist leader is estimated to also have 50 of his fanatical bodyguards with him.
The claim is attributed to "a well-placed intelligence source" in Washington, who is quoted as saying: "He (bin Laden) is boxed in." http://www.sundaytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,9353,8752173-28778,00.html
Bin Laden between a hammer and a hard place
(Syed Saleem Shahzad)
After taking a dramatic, and suspect, deviation into Iraq, the United States' "war on terror" is right back where it began, in Afghanistan, once again in hot pursuit of Osama bin Laden.
"The hunt has been intense," said US General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "There are areas where The sand in their hourglass is running out. The troops are re-energized," confirmed the US commanding officer in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General David Barno. "Their day has ended and this year will decisively sound the death knell of their movements in Afghanistan," Barno was quoted as telling journalists in Kabul about bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar. "We have unfinished business in this part of the world."
This part of the world, in the latest US initiative to hunt down the al-Qaeda leader - code-named Hammer and Anvil - is the rugged, inhospitable territory on both sides of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. On the Pakistan side, the area includes the semi-autonomous tribal areas, particularly South and North Waziristan. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FB21Ag01.html
Nader Declares:
It will matter less this time, and, of course, will again not be a factor in Massachusetts, NY, California where Nader could get 10–15% and the Democrat would still win. Aside from the emotion (Ralph, No!), it’s helpful to note his reasoning.
Do the Democrats need a spillover vote produced by an independent candidate? Some top Democrats have said they would welcome this part of the strategy. (Also see The Hill, January 29, 2000, for what Congressional Democrats secretly hope for.) If they need reinforcement they can ask Senator Maria Cantwell how the very large Green spillover vote in 2000 helped elect her by a narrow margin of 2300 votes over her incumbent opponent.
So, in summary, our approach can help defeat Bush, strengthen the progressive forces inside the Democratic Party by successfully amplifying ways to end this regime, while simultaneously furthering the longer range expansion of the forces of peace, justice and democracy in future elections and nourishing a more vigorous civic movement as well. http://www.votenader.org/why_ralph/index.php?cid=4
Hamburger dispensing a manufacturing job?
Two reports, from the Times (David Cay Johnston) and CBS News on whether “cooking a hamburger patty and inserting the meat, lettuce and ketchup inside a bun (is)a manufacturing job, like assembling automobiles?”
That question is posed in the new Economic Report of the President, a thick annual compendium of observations and statistics on the health of the United States economy.
The latest edition, sent to Congress last week, questions whether fast-food restaurants should continue to be counted as part of the service sector or should be reclassified as manufacturers. No answers were offered…
"When a fast-food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a 'service' or is it combining inputs to 'manufacture' a product?" the report asks.
"Sometimes, seemingly subtle differences can determine whether an industry is classified as manufacturing. For example, mixing water and concentrate to produce soft drinks is classified as manufacturing. However, if that activity is performed at a snack bar, it is considered a service."
The report notes that the Census Bureau's North American Industry Classification System defines manufacturing as covering enterprises "engaged in the mechanical, physical or chemical transformation of materials, substances or components into new products."
Classifications matter, the report says, because among other things, they can affect which businesses receive tax relief. "Suppose it was decided to offer tax relief to manufacturing firms," the report said. "Because the manufacturing category is not well defined, firms would have an incentive to characterize themselves as in manufacturing. Administering the tax relief could be difficult, and the tax relief may not extend to the firms for which it was enacted."
David Huether, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers, said he had heard that some economists wanted to count hamburger flipping as manufacturing, which he noted would produce statistics showing more jobs in what has been a declining sector of the economy. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/20/business/20jobs.html?pagewanted=print&position=
But reclassifying fast food workers as manufacturing employees could have other advantages for the administration.
It would offset somewhat the ongoing loss of manufacturing jobs in national employment statistics. Since the month President Bush was inaugurated, the economy has lost about 2.7 million manufacturing jobs, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That continues a long-term trend.
And the move would make the growth in service sector jobs, some of which pay low wages, more appealing. According to government figures, since January 2001 the economy has generated more than 600,000 new service-providing jobs. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/20/politics/main601336.shtml
“Liberal Radio” Status Report: A posting, i.e. it’s getting there:
THE O’FRANKEN FACTOR, hosted by Al Franken and Katherine Lanpher, will broadcast three hours of political satire and progressive, fact-based political analysis each weekday starting March 31. In the spirit of the 14-member Team Franken that researched Al Franken’s _Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right_, the show is building a research team to monitor national and international news, the 2004 campaign, politics generally—and the media, particularly the right-wing media. The show will run nationally on Air America Radio, a new network dedicated to fearless political comedy.
Brief job description:
RESEARCH ASSOCIATES sought for new radio show. Monitor and analyze news and commentary, uncover lies and distortion, propose and fact-check radio segments. Gather audio clips for show; post information and links to website; prepare multiple daily briefings on topics and guests for pitching to show hosts. Candidates should be able to produce clear, concise written materials while working long hours in an intense, unpredictable environment as part of a diverse team. Must be a news junkie dedicated to factual accuracy and progressive politics. Proficiency with computers required; training on specific software package will be provided. Experience in radio production, print or online journalism, politics or advocacy a strong plus. Air America Radio is an equal opportunity employer.
The show will be broadcast from New York City. Compensation includes medical and dental benefits.
-R
