Economy

By Dave Lindorff

Ordinary, average, struggling Americans might be scratching their heads over the news today, as the Labor Department reports that unemployment is up by four-tenths of a percent for the month to a record 10.2%, fully three-tenths of a percent higher than economists had been forecasting, and stocks do what? Rise by a quarter of a percent!

What’s going on here?

Well, the tube analysts are quick to say, unemployment figures are a “lagging” indicator. That is, employment generally lags the overall economy, with layoffs coming after a recession kicks in, and hiring waiting until a recovery is well underway.

British break up several bailed-out banks
Some want U.S. to follow suit to increase financial competition | Washington Post

The British government announced Tuesday that it will break up parts of major financial institutions bailed out by taxpayers, highlighting a growing divide across the Atlantic over how to deal with the massive banks that were partially nationalized during the height of the financial crisis.

The British government -- spurred on by European regulators -- is forcing the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Northern Rock to sell off parts of their operations. The Europeans are calling for more and smaller banks to increase competition and eliminate the threat posed by banks so large that they must be rescued by taxpayers, no matter how they conducted their business, in order to avoid damaging the global financial system.

The move to downsize some of Britain's largest banks comes as U.S. politicians are debating whether American banks should also be required to shrink. Read more.

America the Betrayed
By Richard Cook

...Whitman a hero to the Beatniks of the 1950s who tried to rediscover an authentic American voice in the streets and on the roads and highways of this great land. The spirit of Whitman was surely present through the rebellion of the 1960s, when America’s young men and women rose up and fought the Establishment to stop the Vietnam War and bring civil rights to racial minorities.

The Establishment fought back with a vengeance and, through the most egregious betrayal in history, reduced the world’s greatest industrial democracy to the pathetic shadow of its former self we are today.

The first thing the Establishment did was destroy the industrial job base by shipping millions of good jobs to China and other Third World nations, where slave laborers could be forced to churn out consumer products at a fraction of the cost of similar work done by American workers. Read more.

ScienceDaily (Nov. 4, 2009) — Nearly half of all American children will reside in a household receiving food stamps at some point between the ages of 1 and 20, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

By Dave Lindorff

It would be easy to read too much into the few statewide races that were decided last night, but I think it’s fair to say that the results in New Jersey and Virginia, where Republican gubernatorial candidates won--in New Jersey’s case knocking off a well-funded Democratic incumbent--that the results were a blow to the Barack Obama/Rahm Emanuel strategy of playing to the right, of avoiding confrontation in Congress and of ignoring the progressive voters whose enthusiasm and effort back in the 2008 campaign put Obama in office.

Cites Chamber President Donohue’s own track record as director of Scandal-ridden companies

Washington, D.C. – Change to Win (CTW) Chair Anna Burger today called on members of the House Committee on Financial Services to reject the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s less than credible rhetoric and to approve the Waters/Peters Amendment to the Investor Protection Act of 2009 in this Wednesday’s vote. The Waters/Peters amendment affirms the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) authority to adopt a uniform proxy access rule.

In her letter to Committee members, Ms. Burger highlights U.S. Chamber President Tom Donohue’s own record as a director of four scandal-ridden, publicly-traded companies to demonstrate the need for this essential investor reform. That record is detailed in CtW’s new report on the Chamber, “Preaching Principle, Enabling Excess,” which Ms. Burger provided to Committee members and which is attached.

The text of the letter follows:

Bailout-deterrent bill scrutinized by both sides | Washington Times

Mr. Sherman said the bill calls for the "most unprecedented transfer of power to the executive branch to make decisions about both spending and taxes in history."

"All without congressional approval, and a sharp departure from our congressional - from our constitutional - values," he added.

Lawmakers from both parties are concerned that an Obama administration-backed bill intended to deter future taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailouts would have the opposite effect and give the White House too much power over the nation's financial sector.

Some House members are worried the measure would allow the federal government, under certain circumstances, to pump rescue money into failing Wall Street giants with little or no input from Congress - potentially leaving taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars. Read more.

THEY said it:

"On climate change, Mr. Donohue's group says warmer temperatures could help by reducing deaths related to cold weather."

By Dave Lindorff

If you listen to the happy-talk folks at Treasury and the Fed, and on the tube, you’d think things had finally turned a corner. The economy grew at a 3.5% annualized rate in the third quarter ended September 30. “The Economy is Back in Gear” shouted the headline on an article by CNN senior writer Chris Isadore. “The recession ended unofficially in September,” said a reporter on NPR.

Washington, DC – More than 350,000 families have come to ACORN Housing for help with their mortgages or to buy their first home. While the politicians argue over how to punish ACORN Housing for the actions of a few employees, people all over American are being hurt by an unforgiving mortgage crisis. This is one case we should remember:

Jermail Shelton came to ACORN Housing Corporation in 2003 when he was looking to purchase his first home and was referred by his realtor. ACORN Housing helped him understand the process and obtain an affordable mortgage. All seemed well until last year when he lost his job and fell behind in his mortgage payments. He is currently working with ACORN Housing counselors to re-modify his mortgage so he can keep his home.

Washington, DC: On Thursday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter (http://tr.im/CQCf) to an internet provider threatening legal action if it did not shut down the Yes Men parody website, (http://tr.im/CQCu) because the website falsely portrays the Chamber’s position on global warming. However, in its letter, the Chamber falsely inflated its membership by 1,000 percent and falsely alleged copyright infringement. http://tr.im/CQFu The Yes Men lawyers strongly opposed this take-down demand and the site remains up at www.chamber-of-commerce.us.

The Labor Network for Sustainability needs you
-- And you need it.

Are you in the labor movement? Are you concerned about a sustainable future? Climate change? Economic justice? If so, you should know about the Labor Network for Sustainability.

The LNFS was launched in October, 2009 by labor activists who are concerned about a more just and sustainable world.

Reflecting the growing concern within organized labor and its allies not only with climate change but with an array of issues that threaten our long-term future, the LNFS will bring together activists from many different labor organizations to make labor a more effective force for sustainability. It will address the issues -- from water resources to food security, from economic justice to corporate accountability, from climate protection to renewable energy -- that will determine whether we have a just and sustainable future.

Control Spending Now Act

• Chapter 1: Reforming the Budget and Spending Process
• Chapter 2: Making Congress Tighten its Belt
• Chapter 3: Ending Corporate Welfare
• Chapter 4: Reducing Taxpayer Subsidies for Big Agribusinesses
• Chapter 5: Ending Taxpayer Subsidies for the Use of Public Resources and Government Services
• Chapter 6: Targeting Wasteful or Unnecessary Government Spending
• History: A Record of Deficit Reduction, a Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility

By David Swanson

The US Chamber of Commerce blew a mere $39 million on lobbying in Washington in the past three months. Lobbying for the promotion of global warming, the denial of healthcare, the further deregulation (if possible) of the financial "industry", blockage of the right to unionize, the lowering and elimination of minimum wage laws, maintenance of tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, and protection of the "right" of corporations to bribe politicians. Money well spent: all minority positions, all adhered to by our government.

You've Seen the Movie -- Now It's Time to ACT!

From Michael Moore

It's the #1 question I'm constantly asked after people see my movie: "OK -- so NOW what can I DO?!"

You want something to do? Well, you've come to the right place! 'Cause I got 15 things you and I can do right now to fight back and try to fix this very broken system.

Here they are:

FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:

By Marcy Winograd

Let’s thank Congressman Anthony Weiner, our single payer champ, for taking to the streets of New York again, this time to protest the Social Security Administration’s policy decision to freeze the cost of living adjustment (COLA) on Social Security benefits. Unlike last year, when seniors and the disabled received a 5.8% increase in their monthly benefit checks, Social Security checks in 2010 and 2011 will remain flat.

The Arctic freeze, the first one in the 35 years since the automatic COLA went into effect during the Nixon administration, comes at a politically bad time, when Wall Street executives, high off their no-strings-attached bank bail-out, are skipping around the conference room with $140-billion in salaries and bonuses, a three-year high in compensation.

Compare that to the average senior’s Social Security check -- $1100 per month.

Ouch!

Watch the entire PBS Frontline report online.

Not Too Big to Jail - Protest in Chicago

Last week, we got a slew of submissions to our "Foundation for Reform" paper! Consensus starts to crack. We just need to keep building the momentum.

So, have you heard about what promises to be the largest protests against the banks yet - Showdown in Chicago on October 25th? All ANWF members who want to go and need more details should contact us. As much as we can, we need to show up! We expect thousands of people to show, we hope you will too. The protest is being organized by dozens of organizations, including ANWF, and will take place outside of the American Bankers Association's annual meeting. You can help at this critical moment, find rides, organize a contingent and go. We'll help you meet up with other ANWF members. We'll have even more info for you next week, but the time to make a decision about going is now.

Our friends at the Center for Media and Democracy recently started working on bank reform too with a new go-to site for updates on the fight: www.BanksterUSA.org. Their "Action Center" is a hotbed of popular campaigning on the crisis, helping us to ramp up the campaign to demand the Federal Reserve fix what's broken (see the ANWF petition):

Fight the Big Boys on Wall Street at www.BanksterUSA.org.

New Numbers of Just How Many Americans Are Living in Poverty | ABC News Newser

The new, revised numbers are troubling. Here’s the deal: there is a new measure out of just how many Americans are right now living in poverty. And the number is vastly higher than we thought. 7 million more than we thought.

According to a new measure by the National Academy of Science 1 in 6 Americans are now in poverty. They put the overall number at 47.4 million Americans. That is 7 million more than the Census Bureau’s calculation. According to the Associated Press the Census number “does not factor in rising medical care, transportation, child care or geographical variations in living costs.”

An eye opening aspect of the new measure says that 18.7 percent of Americans over the age of 65 are in poverty. As for children – they find that 17.9 percent are living in poverty.