Economy

By Dave Lindorff

If you are sitting in class taking a test, and you’ve chosen to sit amongst your bone-headed, slacker friends, don’t turn to them for help when you can’t figure out of any of the answers. They may all tell you the same thing, but they’ll all be wrong.

That’s the situation President Obama finds himself in today in the White House. Having surrounded himself with the very Wall Street con men who set up the crooked game that led to the current financial crisis and economic collapse, and finding that the lousy advice they have been giving him since last January has left the country still mired in deepening economic decline, with the banks still not lending and unemployment still mounting, and with growing signs that instead of bottoming out and starting to recover, the economy is threatening to fall a second time, to new lows and higher unemployment, Obama has turned to the same rotten advisors for answers.

Universal Single Payer Health Care Coverage: An Economic Stimulus Plan
By Stephen Lendman

The Institute for Health & Socio-Economic Policy (IHSP) is "non-profit policy and research group and is the exclusive research arm of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, (focusing on) current political/economic policy analysis in health care and other Industries....to enhance, promote and defend the quality of life for all."

In January, it released a "First-of-Its Kind Study" titled, "Single Payer/Medicare for All: An Economic Stimulus Plan for the Nation" to reform the system by providing universal care, adding productive new jobs, billions in public and private revenues, billions more in employee compensation, and added tax revenues. More on that below.

IHSP calls its study an "econometric," not an "arithmetical" health care system analysis, covering both their costs and economic benefits to the nation. Its methodology drew on:

"widely-used and accessible data bases and econometric models which are capable of showing how changes in one economic variable (such as health demand, pricing of services, or taxation of consumers and employers) will affect not only the health care sectors directly, but also their suppliers....their employees and their households, and the generation of federal, state, and local taxes."

Elements of its comprehensive coverage include:

• universal eligibility; everybody in, no one excluded;
• everyone under a uniform single standard similar to Medicare Parts A, B, and D; and
• all enrollees having "the same health services, costs, eligibility requirements, and administrative cost burden.

The 15 Biggest Congressional Recipients Of Wall Street Campaign Cash | Huffington Post

Reforming Wall Street is a hot topic on Capitol Hill these days. Congress is currently weighing two financial reform bills that would, to varying degrees, reshape the way the financial system is regulated.

Still, Wall Street's influence in Washington appears to be as strong as ever. After all, it was just last spring that Senator Dick Durbin, frustrated by pushback on bankruptcy reform, denounced the financial sector's influence on the Senate: the banks, he said, "they frankly own the place." The Center for Responsive Politics, a research group that tracks money in politics, reports that financial industries -- the finance, insurance and real estate sectors, specifically -- have been one of the biggest benefactors to Congress over the past two decades,,,

We [Huffington Post] took a look at the Center for Responsive Politics's database, OpenSecrets.org, to see which members of Congress have so far received Wall Street money for the 2010 election cycle. The answers may surprise you. Check out our slideshow of the top 15 recipients and choose which politician may be taking too much money from Wall Street. Read more, view the slideshow.

White House reports billions of improper payments in 2009
By Tom Cohen | CNN

The federal government made $98 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2009, and President Obama will issue an executive order in coming days to combat the problem, his budget director announced Tuesday.

The 2009 total for improper payments -- from outright fraud to misdirected reimbursements due to factors such as an illegible doctor's signature -- was a 37.5 percent increase over the $72 billion in 2008, according to figures provided by Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget....

In total, Orszag listed 99 agencies and programs that received $1.98 trillion in 2009, with $98 billion of the money -- or 5 percent -- in improper payments.

Some of the larger figures for improper payments were:

• $24 billion for Medicare fee-for service, out of a total of $308 billion
• $18 billion for Medicaid health care for the poor, out of a total of $188 billion
• $12 billion for Medicaid Advantage, out of a total of $77 billion
• $12 billion for unemployment insurance, out of a total of $119 billion
• $12 billion for the Earned Income Tax Credit, out of a total of $48 billion Read more.

By David Swanson

"If a majority of workers want a union, they should get a union. It's that simple. We need to stand up to the business lobby and pass the Employee Free Choice Act. That's why I've been fighting for it in the Senate and that's why I'll make it the law of the land when I'm president of the United States." --Barack Obama

Nobody is making it the law of the land. Nobody is fighting for it. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) has drifted down to the bottom of the AFL-CIO's website, buried beneath good economic proposals which, however, do nothing to build a labor movement. EFCA is not to be found anywhere on the front page of Change to Win's website at all. The media's not smearing EFCA with U.S. Chamber of Commerce lies anymore. Congress and the White House are silent. Any escalation of pressure on senators from union members has never materialized, the polite letter-writing campaigns having drifted away rather than ramping up into pickets or sit-ins.

Note: Chris Cook recorded some interesting audio of Malalai on her current book tour as well as some of the Question & Answer period.

Opinion: U.S. is doing no good in Afghanistan
By Malalai Joya | Mercury News

As an Afghan woman who was elected to Parliament, I am in the United States to ask President Barack Obama to immediately end the occupation of my country.

Eight years ago, women's rights were used as one of the excuses to start this war. But today, Afghanistan is still facing a women's rights catastrophe. Life for most Afghan women resembles a type of hell that is never reflected in the Western mainstream media.

In 2001, the U.S. helped return to power the worst misogynist criminals, such as the Northern Alliance warlords and druglords. These men ought to be considered a photocopy of the Taliban. The only difference is that the Northern Alliance warlords wear suits and ties and cover their faces with the mask of democracy while they occupy government positions. But they are responsible for much of the disaster today in Afghanistan, thanks to the U.S. support they enjoy.

The U.S. and its allies are getting ready to offer power to the medieval Taliban by creating an imaginary category called the "moderate Taliban" and inviting them to join the government. A man who was near the top of the list of most-wanted terrorists eight years ago, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has been invited to join the government.

Over the past eight years the U.S. has helped turn my country into the drug capital of the world through its support of drug lords. Today, 93 percent of all opium in the world is produced in Afghanistan. Many members of Parliament and high ranking officials openly benefit from the drug trade. President Karzai's own brother is a well known drug trafficker. Read more.

In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: Lobbyists’
By Robert Pear | NY Times

In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident.

Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.

E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.

The lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law firms, were remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress.

High Costs Weigh on Troop Debate for Afghan War
By Christopher Drew | NY Times

While President Obama’s decision about sending more troops to Afghanistan is primarily a military one, it also has substantial budget implications that are adding pressure to limit the commitment, senior administration officials say.

The latest internal government estimates place the cost of adding 40,000 American troops and sharply expanding the Afghan security forces, as favored by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan, at $40 billion to $54 billion a year, the officials said.

Even if fewer troops are sent, or their mission is modified, the rough formula used by the White House, of about $1 million per soldier a year, appears almost constant.

So even if Mr. Obama opts for a lower troop commitment, Afghanistan’s new costs could wash out the projected $26 billion expected to be saved in 2010 from withdrawing troops from Iraq. And the overall military budget could rise to as much as $734 billion, or 10 percent more than the peak of $667 billion under the Bush administration. Read more.

Pentagon's Global Reach: Around The World In 12 Days
Rick Rozoff | Stop NATO | Blog site

On January 20 a changing of the guard occurred in the United States White House with two-term president George W. Bush being replaced by former freshman senator Barack Obama.

Bush had continued the policies of his predecessor Bill Clinton in relation to the Balkans, Iraq and Colombia - with troops and a massive military base in Kosovo, regular bombings of Iraq and a monumental expansion of military aid to the South American nation - and in addition launched two wars of his own, those against Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq two years later.

Obama, so thoroughly does U.S. polity predetermine individual administrations' policies, entered office by intensifying the deadly drone missile attacks in Pakistan begun by Bush in late 2008 and announced that he was doubling the number of American troops in Afghanistan.

Already presiding over the world's largest military budget, officially 41.5% of world expenditures in 2008 and far larger with non-Defense Department spending factored in, in April the new president requested from Congress an additional $85 billion in supplemental funding for the war in Afghanistan and the occupation of Iraq.

U.S. lawmakers were more than accommodating and on July 24 Obama signed Iraq and Afghanistan War Supplemental Appropriations amounting to $106 billion.

On October 28 he signed the $680 billion 2010 National Defense Authorization Act which includes another $130 billion to fund what his administration now calls overseas contingency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

With the authorization of $106 billion in July, the last official supplemental appropriation for the wars, and $130 billion last month for Afghanistan and Iraq the combined official spending for both wars will exceed $1 trillion. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) 2009 Year Book, total international military spending for 2008 was not much more than that: $1.464 trillion.

What: End the Fed Rally

When: Sunday, November 22, 2009, 1-4 PM

Where: Charlotte Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, 530 E Trade St Charlotte, NC 28202

US Is Doing No Good in Afghanistan
By Malalai Joya | San Jose Mercury News | Submitted by Michael Munk | www.MichaelMunk.com

As an Afghan woman who was elected to Parliament, I am in the United States to ask President Barack Obama to immediately end the occupation of my country.

Eight years ago, women's rights were used as one of the excuses to start this war. But today, Afghanistan is still facing a women's rights catastrophe. Life for most Afghan women resembles a type of hell that is never reflected in the Western mainstream media.

In 2001, the U.S. helped return to power the worst misogynist criminals, such as the Northern Alliance warlords and druglords. These men ought to be considered a photocopy of the Taliban. The only difference is that the Northern Alliance warlords wear suits and ties and cover their faces with the mask of democracy while they occupy government positions. But they are responsible for much of the disaster today in Afghanistan, thanks to the U.S. support they enjoy.

The U.S. and its allies are getting ready to offer power to the medieval Taliban by creating an imaginary category called the "moderate Taliban" and inviting them to join the government. A man who was near the top of the list of most-wanted terrorists eight years ago, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has been invited to join the government.

Over the past eight years the U.S. has helped turn my country into the drug capital of the world through its support of drug lords. Today, 93 percent of all opium in the world is produced in Afghanistan. Many members of Parliament and high ranking officials openly benefit from the drug trade. President Karzai's own brother is a well known drug trafficker.

Meanwhile, ordinary Afghans are living in destitution. The latest United Nations Human Development Index ranked Afghanistan 181 out of 182 countries. Eighteen million Afghans live on less than $2 a day. Mothers in many parts of Afghanistan are ready to sell their children because they cannot feed them. Read more.

From the I Shit You Not File: Business Aims to Relax Bans on Products Made with Child & Slave Labor
By David Sirota | Open Left

We've seen corporations use "free trade" agreements to quietly camouflage their push for exploitable labor in broader arguments about globalization. What we haven't seen is corporate special interests openly push for U.S. regulators to openly allow companies to sell goods made with child and slave labor...until now.

Check out this report from Inside U.S. Trade (no link- subscription required) - it's straight from the I Shit You Not File:

Business groups are worried by the potential effects of provisions banning the import of all goods made with convict labor, forced labor, or forced or indentured child labor that were included in a customs bill sponsored by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA)...

These groups are examining the ramifications of the bill's provisions, especially in light of the bill's requirements that a newly created office in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) annually report to Congress on the volume and value of goods made with child labor, forced labor or convict labor that have been stopped at the border.

Business sources say this reporting requirement could cause DHS to more actively seek out imported products made with child labor, forced labor or convict labor...

One source did expect a push from lobbyists closer to the Finance Committee markup of the bill, and speculated that U.S. industry groups and foreign governments could form ad hoc coalitions to help send a united message. Read more.

How to Raise $140 Billion a Year From Wall Street Banks
By Dean Baker | Counter Punch

The deficit hawk crew, famous for missing the $8 trillion housing bubble that wrecked the economy, is now on the warpath pressing the case for a big new national sales tax. They claim that the country badly needs additional revenue to address projected budget shortfalls.

While we may need additional revenue at some point, it makes far more sense to impose a financial transactions tax (FTT), which would primarily hit the Wall Street banks that gave us this disaster, than to tax the consumption of ordinary working families. We can raise large amounts of money by taxing the speculation of the Wall Street high-flyers while barely affecting the sort of financial dealings that most of us do in our daily lives.

The logic of an FTT is simple. It would impose a modest fee on trades of stocks, futures, credit default swaps, and other financial instruments. The United Kingdom currently puts a 0.25 percent tax on the sale or purchase of shares of stock. This has very little impact on people who buy stock with the intent of holding it for a long period of time.

For example, if someone buys $10,000 of stock, they will pay $25 in tax at the time of purchase. If they sell the stock ten years later for $20,000 then they will have to pay $50 in tax. The total tax would be equivalent to an increase of 0.8 percentage points in the capital gains tax. Read more.

Six Smart Progressive Complaints About House Health Bill
By John Nichols | The Nation

...Here are six smart progressive complaints about the House bill:

1. FROM CONGRESSMAN ERIC MASSA: "This Bill Will Enshrine in Law the Monopolistic Powers of the Private Health Insurance Industry"

2. FROM THE CALIFORNIA NURSES ASSOCIATION: This Bill Fails to Control Costs

3. FROM THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN: "This Bill Obliterates Women's Fundamental Right to Choose"

4. FROM PLANNED PARENTHOOD'S CECILE RICHARDS: This Bill Embraces Religious-Right Extremes

5. FROM CONGRESSMAN DENNIS KUCINICH: This Bill Worries About the Health of Wall Street, Not America

6. FROM "SICKO'S" DONNA SMITH: The Bill Does Not Cure What Ails Us Read more.

Call It Socialism
By Antony Currie and Rob Cox | NY Times

Here’s a shocker: Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the only self-described socialist in the Senate, has put forth the most capitalistic proposal yet for banking reform. The senator’s Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act proposes that if a firm is so big that its failure would threaten the economy or financial system, it should be broken up, not protected by the promise of a bailout.

That sounds simple and logical, yet none of the competing proposals floating around Capitol Hill — those from the White House or the House Financial Services Committee, or others expected this week from Christopher Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman — have been so explicit in calling for an end to government rescues for private companies.

Of course, Senator Sanders’s bill is intended to be provocative. In two pages it outlines sweeping powers for the Treasury secretary to identify banks, hedge funds and insurers that are too big to fail. Read more.

Take Sen. Sanders poll on Wall Street. What do you think?

Sign the Petition to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Here's part of the text:

Too Big to Fail is Too Big to Exist

Financial institutions that are “too big to fail” played a major role in undermining the American economy and driving our country into a severe recession.

Financial institutions that are “too big to fail” put taxpayers on the hook for a $700 billion bailout and more than $2 trillion from the Federal Reserve in virtually zero interest loans.

Huge financial institutions have become so big that the four largest banks in America (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup) now issue one out of every two mortgages; two out of three credit cards; and hold $4 out of every $10 in bank deposits in the country.

Just five banks in America (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) own a staggering 95% of the $290 trillion in derivatives held at commercial banks. Derivatives are risky side bets made by Wall Street gamblers that led to the $182 billion bailout of AIG, the $29 billion bailout that allowed JP Morgan Chase to acquire Bear Stearns, and the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

The concentration of ownership in the financial services industry has resulted in higher bank fees and interest rates that consumers are forced to pay for credit cards, mortgages and other financial products. Read more, sign the petition.

Read both pages of Sen. Sanders' proposed legislation.

By Shahien Nasiripour, Huffington Post

With the White House's blessing, a House panel voted Tuesday to water down a key post-Enron measure designed to protect investors.

READ MORE AT HUFFINGTON POST.

(Washington, DC) The StopTheChamber.com campaign, www.StopTheChamber.com, today posted a $100,000 reward for hard evidence leading to the arrest and conviction of Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donahue. Mr. Donahue and the Chamber have been publicly accused of criminal activity in complaints filed attorneys and Attorneys General in different states, and also by non-profits such as Citizens for Reform and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and Public Citizen. StopTheChamber.com now seeks direct evidence that will stand up in a court of law -- documents, affidavits and testimony -- implicating Mr. Donahue in crimes, including fraud, tax violations, campaign finance violations, money laundering, insider trading, election tampering and pension fund and stockholder manipulations. StopTheChamber.com wants to hear from insiders and whistleblowers possessing information not already in the public domain.