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Undernews: January 9, 2012

Since 1964, the news while there's still time to do something about it

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW

What I learned from four hours of GOP debate

Sam Smith

Barney Frank is right. The Democrats may not be perfect but at least they’re not nuts.

The Republican candidates believe that slashing government is a good way to increase jobs. But one of the biggest government budget cuts occurs following wars and in almost every case we have had a recession. The only way that cutting government increases jobs would be if private industry does the same work less efficiently and thus with more employees. But, of course, this doesn’t happen thanks to people like Mitt Romney who display their business creativity by firing thousands of people whenever they get a chance. The GOP candidates were thus basically arguing for a more prolonged and deeper recession.

The same Republicans who argued for smaller government also argued that “we” created X number of jobs when “we” were in office. Newt Gingrich even claimed to have created millions of jobs. You can’t have it both ways. Either government hurts the economy or it helps it. Unless, of course, they’re saying that government only works when, say, Gingrich or one of the Rick dicks is in it.

Anti-gay politicians like those in the debate should probably be a bit more careful, given that their purported religion was started by a guy who never got near that "sacrament of marriage," never dated any women, and hung out mainly with twelve close male buddies.

The Perry-Santorum-Gingrich view of Christianity is so deviant that it made a couple of Mormons seem like the most theologically normal candidates.

If, however, the Perry-Santorum-Gingrich view of Christianity is correct, maybe I better become a Jew.

Morning Line

Sam Smith – I keep having this unfashionable notion that what we’re seeing on the right may be the last gasp of a culture that is on its way out. Still noisy, still powerful, it also feels much like the segregationist southerners of the 1960s desperately try to hold their rotten system as history cranked up the gears against them

One of the ways you can test out such a notion is to look at the young. Evangelical churches, for example, are having a harder time attracting the young. And this, from The Hill, provides another hint:

Amid boos and occasional cheers, Santorum defended his views on same-sex marriage and legalized marijuana, as he was peppered with questions by a crowd of college students. Santorum's support among independents, who can vote in New Hampshire's Republican contest, dropped from 6 percent to 3 percent after the college event, according to Suffolk's findings. His support from 18 to 34 year olds dropped from 9 percent to 2 percent.

That said, beyond the Occupiers, there are few signs yet that we’re on the cusp of a big change such as the 1960s. For one thing, the Democratic Party doesn’t have an alternative, its president is the weakest of their party in over a century, and liberalism has become more a private club than a public cause.

In fact, the real change may be between the selfishness and cruelty of individuals – epitomized by the GOP right – and a corporatized and more sophisticated version of the same thing, featuring equal opportunity employment and equal opportunity oppression at the same time. Only the language will have changed.

24 states put 92 more restrictions on abortions

Alternet - Lawmakers across the nation pursued a record number of reproductive health and rights-related provisions in 2011, a new report from the Guttmacher Institute finds, enacting 135 measures in 36 states “an increase from the 89 enacted in 2010 and the 77 enacted in 2009.” Sixty-eight percent of the provisions 92 in 24 states restricted access to abortion services:

Teachers at Philly-area district plan walkout

17 million Americans who really didn't need to go to college, including 80,000 bartenders and 5,000 janitors with PhDs.

Click for big version.
Chronicle of Higher Education based on Bureau of Labor Statistic data

Free speech now costs $355 (to a private corporation) in Los Angeles

LA Times - Many Occupy L.A. protesters arrested during demonstrations in recent months are being offered a unique chance to avoid court trials: pay $355 to a private company for a lesson in free speech.

Los Angeles Chief Deputy City Atty. William Carter said the city won't press charges against protesters who complete the educational program offered by American Justice Associates.

He said the program, which may include lectures by attorneys and retired judges, is being offered to people with no other criminal history and who were arrested on low-level misdemeanor offenses, such as failure to disperse.

There have been more than 350 arrests at Occupy demonstrations in Los Angeles since protesters first set up camp outside City Hall in October.

How not to get the economy moving

Center on Budget & Policy Priorities - Local governments cut 14,000 jobs last month, today’s Labor Department report finds, the 34th month out of the last 41 in which total state and local employment shrank. (State employment was flat in December.) States and localities have cut 656,000 jobs since employment peaked in August 2008.

Click for big version.
The job cuts, which states and localities are imposing to help close their budget gaps, have been widespread. Since the recession started in December 2007, state and local governments have cut a net 464,000 jobs. They include:
Local school districts have cut 214,000 positions.

Cities, counties, and other local governments have cut 188,000 jobs.

State governments have cut 62,000 jobs.

These job losses have happened at a time when demand for the services that state and local governments provide has risen sharply. For example, an estimated 5.6 million more people will be eligible for Medicaid in 2012 than were enrolled in 2008, mainly because so many families lost their health insurance when they lost their jobs. And states expect to have 350,000 more public school students and 1.7 million more public college and university students in the school year that starts later this year than they did when the recession began. The numbers of senior citizens, young children, and unemployed individuals three groups that tend to use more public services also have grown.

Engineers call for world's largest passenger aircraft to be grounded

Daily Mail, UK - Australian aircraft engineers have called for Airbus A380 - the world's biggest passenger aircraft - to be grounded, after Singapore Airlines and Qantas found cracks in the wings of their super-jumbos.

'We can't continue to gamble with people's lives and allow those aircraft to fly around and hope that they make it until their four-yearly inspection,' said Steve Purvinas, secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association.

Both airlines, and Airbus, admitted that they had discovered cracks, but maintained that the aircraft were safe. In total, 67 Airbus A380s are in use worldwide, on seven airlines.The aircraft are in use by Qantas, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Air France, Lufthansa, Korean Airlines and China Southern.

Australian engineers say that Airbus A380s should be grounded, rather than flying around for four years before their next inspection, after cracks appeared in the wings of Singapore Airlines super-jumbos and one from Qantas

'We confirm that cracks were found on non-critical wing attachments on a limited number of A380s,' an Airbus spokesperson said today. 'We've traced the origin of these hairline cracks, and developed an inspection and repair procedure which can be done during routine maintenance.'

Read more

How the flighty have fallen

Progressive Review - Two previous polls in Florida had Gingrich leading Romney by 15 points. The latest Quinnipac has Romney ahead by 12

Romney, the job destroyer

ABC News - GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: [Romney] started to take some fire last night on his tenure at Bain Capital. ...You saw him last night, Governor Romney saying his team at Bain Capital is responsible for creating 100,000 jobs. Do you have any qualm with that number?

AXELROD: Absolutely. Not me, forget about me -- every independent fact checker who's looked at it, including the Associated Press last night, after the debate, said he can't back up that number. Here's what they did. They closed down more than 1,000 plant stores and offices. They outsourced tens of thousands of jobs, and they took 12 companies to bankruptcy. And on those bankruptcies, he and his partners made hundreds of millions of dollars. He's not a job creator, he's a corporate raider.

Wall Street Journal - The Wall Street Journal, aiming for a comprehensive assessment, examined 77 businesses Bain invested in while Mr. Romney led the firm from its 1984 start until early 1999, to see how they fared during Bain's involvement and shortly afterward.

Among the findings: 22% either filed for bankruptcy reorganization or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested, sometimes with substantial job losses. An additional 8% ran into so much trouble that all of the money Bain invested was lost.

Another finding was that Bain produced stellar returns for its investors¬yet the bulk of these came from just a small number of its investments. Ten deals produced more than 70% of the dollar gains.

More stats on income inequality.

Public Intelligence - The inequality of income among American taxpayers has grown markedly in recent years, the Congressional Research Service confirmed in a new study of U.S. tax records.

After-tax income for the top 1% of taxpayers soared 74%, on average, between 1996 and 2006. The top 0.1% benefited even more, nearly doubling their income over that decade.

By comparison, the bottom 20% of taxpayers saw their income fall by 6%, while the middle quintile experienced a meager 10% gain.

Drug research routinely suppressed

Tony Blair Inc profits up 40% last year

Chris, America Blog - Not bad for a recession. He certainly learned a few tricks from his own friend Bill Clinton. They both know how to cash in enormously on their public service while keeping the details murky. Jimmy Carter may not have been the best president but the man has done a lot more for the world than Blair or Clinton since leaving office. He also hasn't had a shameless money grab. Why is cashing in on influence so acceptable these days? The spin-masters can spin it however they like, but this is not much different from the corruption around the world that people like to complain so much about. The big difference is, this is the First World, they're white and considered respectable political elders.

Billionaire gives $5 million to Gingrich's super PAC

Bribe: Something, such as money or a favor, offered or given to a person in a position of trust to influence that person's views or conduct. - Online Dictionary
Rick Perry wants troops back in Iraq

Catholic archbishop says abortion a bigger problem than the economy

El Paez, Spain - Cardinal Archbishop Antonio Rouco Varela used an open-air gathering in Madrid's Plaza Colón on Friday to attack the policies of the previous Socialist Party government, calling for a repeal of legislation that provides for abortion on demand, as well as same-sex marriage.

"The family is under attack in Spain," said the archbishop, who is also the chairman of the Spanish Bishops Conference, insisting that abortion and euthanasia in Europe was a deeper crisis than the economy or politics...

The Spanish Catholic Church is also concerned about homosexuality. During his Boxing Day sermon, the Bishop of Córdoba, Demetrio Fernández, said there was a conspiracy by the United Nations. "The Minister for Family of the Papal Government, Cardinal Antonelli, told me a few days ago in Zaragoza that UNESCO has a program for the next 20 years to make half the world population homosexual. To do this they have distinct programs, and will continue to implant the ideology that is already present in our schools."

Polls

One in three say climate change is not a serious problem

Bookshelf

A biography of Cesar Chavez and the farm workers

Furthermore...
Insider's e-mail alleges Scientology misdoings

David Bowie turns 65

Stats. . .
Number of young shrinks for first time since 1970s

Pocket paradigms

Sam Smith, 2004 - Soon after September 11, people began talking about Pearl Harbor. Our leaders and much of our media then drew the conclusion that our salvation lay in world dominance, in empire.

Within just days we moved from tragic reality to delusional myth. Empires don't have their major military and economic icons damaged or destroyed by a handful of young men with box cutters. Empires don't turn suddenly phobic at everything foreign, everything sharp, every place crowded. Empires don't jettison their Constitution and turn on their own people out of blind fear. Empires don't get hopelessly bogged down invading two small countries they have invaded...one which had a military budget less than two percent of ours, the other with a gross domestic product smaller than the cost of the bombs we were dropping on it.

No, it wasn't Pearl Harbor. It was more like Dien Bien Phu. The journalist Bernard Fall early in our Vietnam conflict noted that the French, after their failed battle at Dien Bien Phu, had no choice but to leave Southeast Asia. America, with its vast military, financial, and technological resources, was able to stay because it had the capacity to keep making the same mistakes over and over. Our war against "terrorism" has been in many ways a domestic version of our Vietnam strategy. We keep making the same mistakes over and over because we can still afford to. Or think we can.

History shows presidents get re-elected when unemployment is high- so long as it’s falling

Washington Post - Going back to 1956 no incumbent president has lost when unemployment fell over the two years leading up to the election. And none has won when it rose.

British economists urge dramatically shorter work week

Guardian, UK - In London on Wednesday, experts will gather to offer a novel solution to all of these problems at once: a shorter working week.

A think tank, the New Economics Foundation, which has organised the event with the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics, argues that if everyone worked fewer hours – say, 20 or so a week – there would be more jobs to go round, employees could spend more time with their families and energy-hungry excess consumption would be curbed.

Many economists once believed that as technology improved, boosting workers' productivity, people would choose to bank these benefits by working fewer hours and enjoying more leisure. Instead, working hours have got longer in many countries. The UK has the longest working week of any major European economy.

Seniors with walkers shut down Bank of America branch

SF Weekly - KCBS reports that a small group of senior citizens between the ages of 69 and 82 successfully shut down a Bank of America in Bernal Heights with nothing more than walkers and oxygen tanks. That's right: No shouting, chanting, tear gas, or window-smashing.

The group, which dubbed itself "Wild Old Women" set up camp right outside the BofA, holding signs in what they were calling "a run on the bank."

While the protesters said they had no intention (or oxygen) of storming the bank, as occupiers in other communities have done, officials at Bank of America shut the doors and locked them as they spotted the slow-moving group make its way to the front of the bank.

Community time banks

Former regulator warns of fracking danger

Alternet - A former staffer at a state government agency responsible for regulating hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has warned that allowing the controversial gas drilling method in New York would lead to contamination of the state's aquifers and would poison its drinking water.

These stark warnings, issued by Paul Hetzler in a letter to an upstate newspaper, came as a current employee and union representative at the Department for Environmental Conservation sounded alarm bells over the under-staffed agency's ability to monitor the industry and to deal with any emergencies if the plan goes ahead.

Arts and architecture degrees least useful in getting a job

Washington Post - Recent college graduates with bachelor’s degrees in the arts, humanities and architecture experienced significantly higher rates of joblessness, according to a study by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce.

Among recent college graduates, those with the highest rates of unemployment had undergraduate degrees in architecture (13.9 percent), the arts (11.1 percent) and the humanities (9.4 percent), according to the study.

The recent college graduates with the lowest rates of unemployment had degrees in health (5.4 percent), education (5.4 percent), and agriculture and natural resources (7 percent.) Those with business and engineering degrees also fared relatively well.

States take on Citizens United

Santorum calls for immediate cuts in Social Security

Huffington Post - Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum called or immediate cuts to Social Security benefits, risking the wrath of older voters and countless others who balk at changes to the entitlement program.

"We can't wait 10 years," even though "everybody wants to," Santorum told a crowd while campaigning in New Hampshire and looking to set himself apart from his Republican rivals four days before the New Hampshire primary.

Politicians typically suggest phase-in periods of up to a decade when broaching the topic of changing Social Security to avoid grievous consequences from angering older voters.

Clearly aware of the risks, Santorum argued that everyone must sacrifice now because the nation's "house is on fire" with soaring federal debt. He argued that he is being courageous and honest by telling Americans they can't afford to wait to rein in Social Security's growing costs. And he said he anticipated possible attack ads on his position.

Movie industry fought technology that now brings it two thirds of its revenue

Steve Blank, Atlantic - This year the movie industry made $30 billion (1/3 in the U.S.) from box-office revenue. But the total movie industry revenue was $87 billion. Where did the other $57 billion come from? From sources that the studios at one time claimed would put them out of business: Pay-per view TV, cable and satellite channels, video rentals, DVD sales, online subscriptions and digital downloads.

The music and movie business has been consistently wrong in its claims that new platforms and channels would be the end of its businesses. In each case, the new technology produced a new market far larger than the impact it had on the existing market.

• 1920s - the record business complained about radio. The argument was because radio is free, you can't compete with free. No one was ever going to buy music again.
• 1940s - movie studios had to divest their distribution channel - they owned over 50% of the movie theaters in the U.S. "It's all over," complained the studios. In fact, the number of screens went from 17,000 in 1948 to 38,000 today.
• 1950s - broadcast television was free; the threat was cable television. Studios argued that their free TV content couldn't compete with paid.
• 1970s - Video Cassette Recorders (VCR's) were going to be the end of the movie business. The movie businesses and its lobbying arm MPAA fought it with "end of the world" hyperbole. The reality? After the VCR was introduced, studio revenues took off like a rocket. With a new channel of distribution, home movie rentals surpassed movie theater tickets.
• 1998 - the MPAA got congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), making it illegal for you to make a digital copy of a DVD that you actually purchased.
• 2000 - Digital Video Recorders (DVR) like TiVo allowing consumer to skip commercials was going to be the end of the TV business. DVR's reignite interest in TV.
• 2006 - broadcasters sued Cablevision (and lost) to prevent the launch of a cloud-based DVR to its customers.
• Today it's the Internet that's going to put the studios out of business. Sound familiar?

Why was the movie industry consistently wrong? And why do they continue to fight new technology?...

More

U.S. music sales up for first time since 2004

BBC - US music sales increased last year for the first time since 2004, figures from Nielsen Soundscan have revealed.

Album sales rose by 1.3% in 2011 - largely thanks to British star Adele, who shifted 5.8m copies of her award-winning second album, 21.

Michael Buble sold 2.4m copies of his Christmas album, while Lady Gaga's Born This Way was bought by 2.1m fans.

In total, 4.4m more albums were bought in 2011 than in 2010, with CD remaining the most popular format.

Only one in three albums were purchased digitally, figures show.

For the last few years, the top-selling records in the US have sold about 3.5m copies. You have to go back to 2004, when Usher sold 8m copies of his Confessions album, to find an artist who has beaten Adele's tally.

However, in the 1990s, the most popular albums rarely dropped below her 5.8m total. In 1999 and 2000, the Backstreet Boys and 'NSync managed to sell in excess of 9m copies of their albums.

2011 weather disasters costliest in history

Common Dreams - Live Insurance News, an online insurance industry publication, reports: "2011 has become widely recognized in the insurance industry as the costliest year in recent history in regards to natural disasters. While estimates varying regarding the total cost of disasters, Munich Re, a reinsurance and risk modeling organization, claims that 2011 generated more than $380 billion in worldwide insured losses, only a third of which was paid by insurance companies. The disasters have caused the global insurance industry to raise prices, but Munich Re suggests that the pricing surge may be due to climate change. Though Munich RE is a German company, it maintains a US group and included US weather events in its 2011 analysis.
Insider's e-mail alleges Scientology misdoings

The December jobs report brought down to earth

Dean Baker - Eonomists tend not to be very good at economics. We know this because almost none of them were able to see the $8 trillion housing bubble that was driving the economy from 2002 to 2007. This was an oversight of astonishing importance, sort of like a physicist not noticing gravity.

Their failure to understand the economy has led to enormous misreporting of the December jobs data. There are two basic problems. They fail to accurately put the job growth numbers in the context of the economic downturn and they badly misread the December data leading them to overstate the true growth path we are now on.

Taking the two in turn, the reports were full of the good news that the economy had created 200,000 jobs and the unemployment rate had dropped to 8.5 percent. Creating 200,000 jobs is undoubtedly better than creating 100,000 jobs and much better than creating no jobs at all, but is this good?

From December of 1995 to December of 1999 the economy generated more than 250,000 jobs a month, and that was starting from an unemployment rate of under 6.0 percent. We expect more rapid job growth following a steep downturn like the one we saw in 2007-2009.

In the two years following the 1981-82 recession the economy generated over 300,000 jobs a month. Following the 1974-75 recession, the economy generated more than 340,000 jobs a month in the two years from December 1976 to December 1978, and this was with a labor force that was only 60 percent of the size of the current labor force. So we're supposed to be happy about 200,000 jobs in December?

Another way to think about this is that we currently have a shortfall of around 10 million jobs. If we generate 200,000 jobs a month, then we are cutting into this shortfall at the rate of 100,000 a month, since we need 90,000-100,000 jobs a month just to keep pace with the growth of the population. This means that in 100 months we should expect to be back to full employment. So the champagne bottles for that happy occasion will be dated 2020.

Okay, but this puts too bright of a picture on the data. The 200,000 jobs number reported for December was distorted by unusual seasonal factors, the most obvious of which was the 42,200 job growth reported in the courier industry. This is primarily companies like Fed Ex and UPS who hire additional workers to deal with holiday demand.

In principle seasonal adjustments should remove the impact of seasonal fluctuations, however these adjustments are always based on historical experience. When there is a sharp departure from historical patterns, like the explosion of Internet sales, the seasonal adjustments will not pick this up. We have good reason for believing this to be the case here because in 2010 the Labor Department reported an increase of 46,300 jobs in the courier industry, all of which disappeared the next month. In 2009, it was 30,100 jobs reported in December that all disappeared in January.

What should we infer from this? We should assume that most, is not all of these 42,200 jobs reported in December will disappear in January. That puts our jobs number around 160,000...

Obama and Congress want to censor Twitter

Electronic Frontier Foundation - EFF has witnessed a growing number of calls in recent weeks for Twitter to ban certain accounts of alleged terrorists. In a December 14th article in the New York Times, anonymous U.S. officials claimed they “may have the legal authority to demand that Twitter close” a Twitter account associated with the militant Somali group Al-Shabaab. A week later, the Telegraph reported that Sen. Joe Lieberman contacted Twitter to remove two “propaganda” accounts allegedly run by the Taliban. More recently, an Israeli law firm threatened to sue Twitter if they did not remove accounts run by Hezbollah.

Twitter is right to resist. If the U.S. were to pressure Twitter to censor tweets by organizations it opposes, even those on the terrorist lists, it would join the ranks of countries like India, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Syria, Uzbekistan, all of which have censored online speech in the name of “national security.” And it would be even worse if Twitter were to undertake its own censorship regime, which would have to be based upon its own investigations or relying on the investigations of others that certain account holders were, in fact, terrorists.

While the unnamed U.S. official was mum about where the “legal authority” to censor would come from, the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center, an Israeli advocacy law firm, wrote a letter to Twitter saying they may be liable for criminal and civil prosecution for hosting accounts run by Hezbollah and other groups designated by the US Department of State as foreign terrorist organizations under the “material support” provisions of the Patriot Act.

Let’s start with the threat from the law firm, since it’s easily disposed of. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." In other words, Twitter cannot be held liable in a civil action for the speech of other parties using their site. While Section 230 provides an exception for federal criminal prosecutions--meaning websites can still be prosecuted by the government for violating federal law--the 2006 case Doe v. Bates held that private parties, like the law firm, are prevented from circumventing Section 230 by premising their civil claims on criminal statutes.

Next, let’s look at Senator Lieberman. Of course a member of Congress has no actual censorship power, so he cannot himself require Twitter to block anyone. In addition, the Taliban is not on the State Department FTO list, so the Executive branch cannot demand that Twitter take any actions to censor the Taliban under the FTO laws either. According to the Telegraph, aides for Lieberman said the move was “part of a wider attempt to eliminate violent Islamist extremist propaganda from the internet [sic] and social media.” But luckily Twitter pays more attention to the First Amendment than Senator Lieberman, and has so far refused to bow to his desires. The Constitution, and a long line of judicial authority is clear that it’s not the place of a single Congressman to decide what constitutes free speech online.

For Lieberman, calling for Internet censorship is nothing new. He is the same senator who in 2010 called upon Amazon to block WikiLeaks from its servers, even though the U.S. government was constitutionally barred from censoring WikiLeaks in court. Despite having no formal power in that situation either, Lieberman set off a chain reaction that resulted in nearly a dozen intermediaries denying service to the whistle-blowing site. Since then, Lieberman has called for an Internet “kill switch,” which would hand the president unchecked power in a “cybersecurity emergency,” also to be defined by the president, and recently called on Google to institute a terrorism “flag” system to be implemented on all their blogs.

Two government watchdogs hired by those they were watching

Neil Gordon, Project on Government Oversight - The two latest ex-government officials to land jobs with private companies formerly served as very high-profile watchdogs of those companies.

The first revolver is Michael Thibault, former co-chairman and commissioner of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The CWC released its final report in August and officially sunset a month later¬with all of its internal records sealed from public view until 2031, unfortunately. Last month, Thibault joined DynCorp International as its vice president of government finance and compliance. Thibault worked for many years at the Defense Contract Audit Agency, serving as Deputy Director from 1994 until 2005. Between his government postings at the DCAA and CWC, Thibault briefly worked for federal contractors Navigant Consulting and Unisys.

DynCorp, one of the three primary LOGCAP IV contractors, is currently the 32nd largest contractor in POGO’s Federal Contractor Misconduct Database. It has nine instances of misconduct since the early 2000s and $19.6 million in penalties. Readers of POGO’s blog are probably familiar with some of DynCorp’s checkered history, as are those who saw the 2010 movie “The Whistleblower”, which was based on the harrowing experiences of former DynCorp employee Kathryn Bolkovac.

The second revolver is Gordon Heddell, who resigned as the Pentagon’s Inspector General on Christmas Eve. POGO has learned that Heddell also landed a job with a top-tier federal contractor, the global consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton.

Booz Allen, the 29th largest contractor in POGO’s database, has two misconduct instances and $3.7 million in penalties. Although it has a relatively blemish-free history, it should be noted that Booz Allen derives a substantial amount of business from contracts with the Defense Department.

Booz Allen confirmed with POGO that Heddell was hired last month as a Senior Executive Advisor.

Paul Krassner's predictions for 2012

From Metroactive

Politics

Paul Krassner - The electoral college will be replaced by a system where voters will choose the polling firm they trust the most. Barack Obama will be re-elected because his vice-presidential running mate Joe Biden will be replaced by Hillary Clinton, thereby gaining the women's vote. Failed Republican campaigners will all take other jobs. Mitt Romney will start smoking a pipe and portray the character Bob Dobbs in a movie about the cultish Church of the SubGenius. Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain will form the Adultery Party to run in 2016, joined by Democrats John Edwards and Bill Clinton. Ron Paul will unite with RuPaul, and they'll perform on Dancing With the Stars. Rick Santorum will be caught in an airport bathroom stall having a gay encounter. Michele Bachmann will launch a lie-detector company. Rick Perry will copyright the word "Oops." And it will be revealed that Donald Trump was actually born on Mars; he will have a birth certificate to prove it, along with a photo of him as a Martian baby with the first comb-over ever.

Show Business

Vegetarian converts will include Lady Gaga, who will wear a dress made entirely of heirloom tomatoes, and Meatloaf will change his name to Tofuloaf. Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy will win Academy Awards for best male and female actors. Angelina Jolie will legally adopt Brad Pitt. Kim Kardashian will get married and divorced on the same day. The Tea Party will become a popular sitcom. Capital-punishment executions will become a top-rated reality-TV series. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur live on a three-hour special to be telecast on every single channel simultaneously, with an offstage voiceover narration by God. Atheists and agnostics will picket the production, only to be struck by lightning. Howard Stern will expose himself on America's Got Talent. The Taliban and al-Quaeda will be the final competitors on The Biggest Terrorists. Hulu and Netflix will merge as Huflix.

Much more

About 200 million people worldwide use illegal drugs

Web MD - Between 149 million and 271 million people worldwide used an illicit drug at least once in 2009, according to a new review of studies attempting to estimate the extent of the problem. That translates to 1 in 20 people aged 15 to 64 taking an illegal drug.

But this global figure is likely to underestimate the number of users, the researchers warn, since people might not want to admit to illegal use in surveys, and data from the poorest countries is limited.

Marijuana and hashish (cannabis) use topped the list with between 125 million and 203 million users worldwide in 2009.In North America, nearly 11% of the population aged 15 to 64 used cannabis that year.

Cocaine use was highest in North America, and it had 14 million to 21 million users worldwide.

Although illicit drug use was linked with about 250,000 deaths worldwide in 2004, alcohol claimed roughly 2.25 million lives globally during that same time period, while tobacco use led to an estimated 5.1 million deaths.

Number of young shrinks for first time since 1970s

Beyond capitalism: what's possible

Parents, teachers organizing against corporatized testing

Government assistance slashes poverty by half

Greg Kaufmann, Nation - According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities the poverty rate would have been nearly twice as high¬just under 30 percent¬if not for government assistance programs. That’s 40 million more people who would be in poverty. Six initiatives in the Recovery Act alone prevented nearly 7 million people from falling into poverty. But those provisions are set to expire and many of the programs that are working (or at least minimally working) are now slated for deep cuts at the federal and state levels.

Kaufmann is now doing a weekly column on poverty in America

What America looked like before the EPA

A portrait of the George Washington Bridge in 1973 shot by Chester Higgins Jr.
NY Times - In January 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency asked nearly 100 freelance photographers to roam the country in the pursuit of a single goal: documenting “the environmental happenings and non-happenings” of the decade. By 1977, the photographers had submitted more than 80,000 images for the project, known as Documerica. About one-quarter of the photographs were shown in public exhibitions but then filed away and largely forgotten.

Rediscovered by Jerry Simmons, an archives specialist at the National Archives and Records Administration, the collection has been unearthed in time for its 40th anniversary. More than 15,000 images have been digitized and posted at the National Archives Web site, and a selection is also available on Flickr.

Great campaign ads of Rick Santorum

Romney tax plan mainly aids wealthy

Political Wire - The non-partisan Tax Policy Center analyzed Mitt Romney's tax proposals and, according to the Wall Street Journal, "concluded that Mr. Romney's plan would reduce taxes significantly for high-income earners (by 6.9% or $146,000 for households making more than $1 million), and increase federal deficits by $180 billion in 2015 compared to current tax levels." And despite Romney's claims, his plan would also raise taxes slightly for low-income families.

Santorum's history as a Washington insider

Romney: Son of Citizens United

Robert Reich -In the last weeks before the just-completed Iowa caucuses, Romney spent over $3 million relentlessly torpedoing Newt Gingrich with negative ads cutting Gingrich’s support by half and hurtling him from first place to fourth. But Romney kept his fingerprints off the torpedo. Technically the money didn’t even come from his campaign.

It came from a Super PAC called “Restore Our Future,” which can sop up unlimited amounts from a few hugely wealthy donors without even disclosing their names. That’s because “Restore Our Future” is officially independent of the Romney campaign although its chief fundraiser comes out of Romney’s finance team, its key political strategist was political director of Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign, its treasurer is Romney’s former chief counsel, and its media whiz had been part of Romney’s media team.

“Restore Our Future” is to Mitt Romney’s campaign as the dark side of the moon is to the moon. And it reveals the grotesque result of the Supreme Court’s decision a year ago in Citizen United vs the Federal Election Commission, which reversed more than a century of efforts to curb the influence of big money on politics.

Romney and Citizens United were made for each other. Other candidates have quietly set up Super PACs of their own, and President Obama has his Super PAC already busily tapping into whatever reservoirs of big money it can find. But Mitt’s unique ties to the biggest money pits enable him to take unique advantage of the Court’s scurrilous invitation.

The New York Times reports that New York hedge-fund managers and Boston financiers contributed almost $30 million to “Restore Our Future” before the Iowa caucuses. And “Restore Our Future“‘s faux independence has allowed Romney to publicly distance himself from them, their money, and the dirty work that their money has bought.

More than anyone else running for president, Mitt Romney personifies the top 1 percent in America actually, the top one-tenth of one percent. It’s not just his four homes and estimated $200 million fortune, not just his wheeling and dealing in leveraged-buyouts and private equity, not even the jobless refugees of his financial maneuvers that makes him the Gordon Gekko of presidential aspirants.

It’s his connections to the epicenters of big money in America especially to top executives and financiers in the habit of investing for handsome returns. And there are almost no better returns than those found in tax benefits, government subsidies, loan guarantees, bailouts, regulatory exemptions, federal contracts, and trade deals generating hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars a year.

Romney, in other words, is the candidate Citizens United created, the creature given life by Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito all playing Dr. Frankenstein.

Obama plans to wreck military retirement program with 401Ks

Talking Points Memo - In a rare joint appearance with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the National Defense University, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirmed a CBS News report that the Pentagon is considering a dramatic plan to overhaul the military's once sacrosanct retirement plan. According to CBS, the plan "would eliminate the familiar system under which anyone who serves 20 years is eligible for retirement at half their salary. Instead, they'd get a 401k-style plan with government contributions."

CBS News - The effects of the current economic crisis have touched everyone. Even if you still have a good job and a paid up mortgage, chances are your monthly 401(k) statement will remind you that you've lost a good chunk of your savings.

Trillions of dollars have evaporated from those accounts that have become the prime source of retirement funds for a majority of American workers, affecting their psyche and their future. If you are still young enough, there's time to rebuild and recover, but if you are in your 50s, 60s or beyond the consequences can be dire, and its drawing attention to the shortcomings of a retirement system that has jeopardized the financial security of tens of millions of people...

In fact the 401(k) plans that have become the primary source of retirement income for 60 million Americans were never designed to be retirement plans in the first place. They were created in the late 1970s as a savings plan and tax shelter for ordinary Americans.

The idea was that workers would make voluntary contributions and employers would match a portion of them. The taxes would be deferred until the employee reached the age of 59 and a half.

It was supposed to supplement the two traditional income streams for retirees - Social Security and pensions. One leg of a three legged stool that would support American workers into their golden years. But it didn't turn out that way.

"The three-legged stool, if you will, has gone to two legs and it's wobbly. And it's wobbling, and I'm not sure that it's gonna support anything. And that's the scary part and people are afraid," Brooks Hamilton, who has helped design retirement plans for some of the country's largest corporations, told Kroft.

Hamilton says 401(k)s turned out to be so much cheaper than funding pensions, that many companies decided to freeze their pension plans and replace them with 401(k)s. The decision created millions of new employee investors for Wall Street and the financial community. And they pounced on the opportunity.

"If you go back and track the mutual fund growth and assets, and you track the growth in 401(k) plans, it looks like a railroad track leading to the sky. They are parallel tracks," he told Kroft.

The big beneficiaries were the mutual funds, Hamilton said.

When employers began turning 401(k)s into retirement plans, the financial community was not shy about promoting them as such. The prospect of trillions of dollars in the hands of unsophisticated investors opened the door for all sorts of potential abuses.

"The fact is that the typical 401(k) investor is a financial novice. They don't know a stock from a bond. And we give 'em a list of 20 or 30 mutual funds with really, really powerful names, you know, they sound like, 'Gee, that's where I want to have my money,'" Hamilton said,

"What are the, generally, the quality of the mutual funds in 401(k) plans?" Kroft asked.

"Mediocre," Hamilton replied. "I'm being real honest with you, with half the funds on the list really dogs, what people would characterize as dogs shouldn't be on the list to start with."

"There clearly has been a raid on these funds by the people of Wall Street. And it's cost the savers and the future retirees a lot of money that would otherwise be in their account, independent of the financial collapse," Rep. George Miller [D-CA] said.

Congressman Miller is chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, and a staunch critic of the 401(k) industry, especially its practice of deducting more than a dozen undisclosed fees from its clients' 401(k) accounts.

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