January 29, 2007
January 27, 2007
Visa to Hell,...Living and Dying in America
Your MasterCard or your life
By Bob Herbert
AMERICANS are increasingly living in a house of cards — credit cards.
A disturbing new report shows that with health care costs continuing their sharp rise, low- and middle-income patients are reaching for their credit cards with alarming frequency to cover treatment that they otherwise would be unable to afford.
This medical debt, to be paid off in many cases at sky-high interest rates, is being loaded onto consumer debt that is already at dangerously high levels. Many families have been crushed by the load, driven from their homes, forced into bankruptcy and worse.
The report, released last week, was jointly compiled by Demos, a public policy group in New York and the Access Project, which is affiliated with a health policy institute at Brandeis University and is trying to broaden the availability of health care in the United States.
Imagine for a moment the seriously ill patient who needs to be hospitalized. In the cold new world of health care, the primary message to such patients is often "Show me the money!"
In many instances, of course, the patient does not have the money. What the report found is that even people with health insurance are being drained by health care costs to the point where the credit card seems the only option.
"As deductibles and co-payments increase," the report said, "hospitals are finding more patients unable to pay their medical bills.
Some hospital management analysts are expecting an increase in self-pay patients and are bracing for higher levels of bad debt.
"In recognition of the evolving payment landscape and the risk of hospital bad debt, health care providers are more aggressively seeking upfront collection of co-pays and deductibles.
A component of this strategy is to encourage patients to use third-party lenders like credit cards to pay for medical expenses they cannot afford, which families frequently do to meet high medical bills."
It's one thing to reach for your Visa or MasterCard to pay for a Barbie doll or flat-screen TV.
It's way different to pull out the plastic because you've just learned you have cancer or heart disease, and you don't have any other way to pay for treatment that would prevent a premature trip to the great beyond. A society is seriously out of whack when legalized loan sharks are encouraged to close in on those who are broke and desperately ill.
This medical indebtedness is hardly surprising.
Health care costs continue to rise much faster than family income and inflation, and Americans (who have stopped saving altogether) were already mired in staggering amounts of personal debt.
Some families have been putting their groceries on credit cards. Many have taken the financially disastrous step of using home equity loans to bring down credit card balances.
A serious illness for people already in shaky economic circumstances can be the final push into bankruptcy.
According to the report, called "Borrowing to Stay Healthy," about 29 percent of low- and middle-income families with credit card debt reported using their credit cards to pay medical expenses — in most cases for major medical problems.
Overall, a full 20 percent of low- and middle-income families with credit card debt said they had used their cards to cover major medical expenses over the prior three years.
This indebtedness — subject to monthly late fees and penalties, and interest rates that can reach 30 percent — only adds to the trauma of serious illness.
It's believed that 29 million Americans are burdened with medical debt of one form or another.
Individuals who are already saddled with medical bills that they can't pay are much more likely to avoid further medical treatment and to leave drug prescriptions unfilled. Such decisions often have life-threatening consequences.
There is an epidemic of personal bankruptcies in the United States and medical factors are believed to play a role in as many as half of them.
These are problems that cry out for reform — of the American health care system and the American way of debt, both of which seriously threaten the American way of life.
At the very least, in the short term, we need to protect financially vulnerable patients from a credit card universe in which there are no legal limits on fees or interest, and where the abuse of customers is the norm.
Bob Herbert writes for the New York Times
January 26, 2007
As Jobs Leave America's Shores...
The New Face
of Class War
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The attacks on middle-class jobs are lending new meaning to the phrase "class war". The ladders of upward mobility are being dismantled. America, the land of opportunity, is giving way to ever deepening polarization between rich and poor.
The assault on jobs predates the Bush regime. However, the loss of middle-class jobs has become particularly intense in the 21st century, and, like other pressing problems, has been ignored by President Bush, who is focused on waging war in the Middle East and building a police state at home. The lives and careers that are being lost to the carnage of a gratuitous war in Iraq are paralleled by the economic destruction of careers, families, and communities in the U.S.A. Since the days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, the U.S. government has sought to protect employment of its citizens. Bush has turned his back on this responsibility. He has given his support to the offshoring of American jobs that is eroding the living standards of Americans. It is another example of his betrayal of the public trust.
"Free trade" and "globalization" are the guises behind which class war is being conducted against the middle class by both political parties. Patrick J. Buchanan, a three-time contender for the presidential nomination, put it well when he wrote1 that NAFTA and the various so-called trade agreements were never trade deals. The agreements were enabling acts that enabled U.S. corporations to dump their American workers, avoid Social Security taxes, health care and pensions, and move their factories offshore to locations where labor is cheap.
The offshore outsourcing of American jobs has nothing to do with free trade based on comparative advantage. Offshoring is labor arbitrage. First world capital and technology are not seeking comparative advantage at home in order to compete abroad. They are seeking absolute advantage abroad in cheap labor.
Two recent developments made possible the supremacy of absolute over comparative advantage: the high speed Internet and the collapse of world socialism, which opened China's and India's vast under-utilized labor resources to first world capital.
In times past, first world workers had nothing to fear from cheap labor abroad. Americans worked with superior capital, technology and business organization. This made Americans far more productive than Indians and Chinese, and, as it was not possible for U.S. firms to substitute cheaper foreign labor for U.S. labor, American jobs and living standards were not threatened by low wages abroad or by the products that these low wages produced.
The advent of offshoring has made it possible for U.S. firms using first world capital and technology to produce goods and services for the U.S. market with foreign labor. The result is to separate Americans' incomes from the production of the goods and services that they consume. This new development, often called "globalization," allows cheap foreign labor to work with the same capital, technology and business know-how as U.S. workers. The foreign workers are now as productive as Americans, with the difference being that the large excess supply of labor that overhangs labor markets in China and India keeps wages in these countries low. Labor that is equally productive but paid a fraction of the wage is a magnet for Western capital and technology.
Although a new development, offshoring is destroying entire industries, occupations and communities in the United States. The devastation of U.S. manufacturing employment was waved away with promises that a "new economy" based on high-tech knowledge jobs would take its place. Education and retraining were touted as the answer.
In testimony before the U.S.-China Commission, I explained that offshoring is the replacement of U.S. labor with foreign labor in U.S. production functions over a wide range of tradable goods and services. (Tradable goods and services are those that can be exported or that are competitive with imports. Nontradable goods and services are those that only have domestic markets and no import competition. For example, barbers and dentists offer nontradable services. Examples of nontradable goods are perishable, locally produced fruits and vegetables and specially fabricated parts of local machine shops.) As the production of most tradable goods and services can be moved offshore, there are no replacement occupations for which to train except in domestic "hands on" services such as barbers, manicurists, and hospital orderlies. No country benefits from trading its professional jobs, such as engineering, for domestic service jobs.
At a Brookings Institution conference in Washington, D.C., in January 2004, I predicted that if the pace of jobs outsourcing and occupational destruction continued, the U.S. would be a third world country in 20 years. Despite my regular updates on the poor performance of U.S. job growth in the 21st century, economists have insisted that offshoring is a manifestation of free trade and can only have positive benefits overall for Americans.
Reality has contradicted the glib economists. The new high-tech knowledge jobs are being outsourced abroad even faster than the old manufacturing jobs. Establishment economists are beginning to see the light. Writing in Foreign Affairs (March/April 2006), Princeton economist and former Federal Reserve vice chairman Alan Blinder concludes that economists who insist that offshore outsourcing is merely a routine extension of international trade are overlooking a major transformation with significant consequences. Blinder estimates that 42-56 million American service sector jobs are susceptible to offshore outsourcing. Whether all these jobs leave, U.S. salaries will be forced down by the willingness of foreigners to do the work for less.
Software engineers and information technology workers have been especially hard hit. Jobs offshoring, which began with call centers and back-office operations, is rapidly moving up the value chain. Business Week's Michael Mandel4 compared starting salaries in 2005 with those in 2001. He found a 12.7 per cent decline in computer science pay, a 12 per cent decline in computer engineering pay, and a 10.2 per cent decline in electrical engineering pay. Marketing salaries experienced a 6.5 per cent decline, and business administration salaries fell 5.7 per cent. Despite a make-work law for accountants known by the names of its congressional sponsors, Sarbanes-Oxley, even accounting majors, were offered 2.3 per cent less.
Using the same sources as the Business Week article (salary data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers and Bureau of Labor Statistics data for inflation adjustment), professor Norm Matloff at the University of California, Davis, made the same comparison for master's degree graduates. He found that between 2001 and 2005 starting pay for master's degrees in computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering fell 6.6 per cent, 13.7 per cent, and 9.4 per cent respectively.
On February 22, 2006, CNNMoney.com staff writer Shaheen Pasha5 reported that America's large financial institutions are moving "large portions of their investment banking operations abroad." Offshoring is now killing American jobs in research and analytic operations, foreign exchange trades, and highly complicated credit derivatives contracts. Deal-making responsibility itself may eventually move abroad. Deloitte Touche says that the financial services industry will move 20 per cent of its total costs base offshore by the end of 2010. As the costs are lower in India, the move will represent more than 20 per cent of the business. A job on Wall Street is a declining option for bright young persons with high stress tolerance as America's last remaining advantage is outsourced.
According to Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin, even McDonald jobs are on the way offshore. Augustine reports that McDonald is experimenting with replacing error-prone order takers with a system that transmits orders via satellite to a central location and from there to the person preparing the order. The technology lets the orders be taken in India or China at costs below the U.S. minimum wage and without the liabilities of U.S. employees.
American economists, some from incompetence and some from being bought and paid for, described globalization as a "win-win" development. It was supposed to work like this: The U.S. would lose market share in tradable manufactured goods and make up the job and economic loss with highly educated knowledge workers. The win for America would be lower-priced manufactured goods and a white-collar work force. The win for China would be manufacturing jobs that would bring economic development to that country.
It did not work out this way, as Morgan Stanley's Stephen Roach, formerly a cheerleader for globalization, recently admitted. It has become apparent that job creation and real wages in the developed economies are seriously lagging behind their historical norms as offshore outsourcing displaces the "new economy" jobs in "software programming, engineering, design, and the medical profession, as well as a broad array of professionals in the legal, accounting, actuarial, consulting, and financial services industries". The real state of the U.S. job market is revealed by a Chicago Sun-Times report on January 26, 2006, that 25,000 people applied for 325 jobs at a new Chicago Wal-Mart.
According to the BLS payroll jobs data, over the past half-decade (January 2001 - January 2006, the data series available at time of writing) the U.S. economy created 1,050,000 net new private sector jobs and 1,009,000 net new government jobs for a total five-year figure of 2,059,000. That is seven million jobs short of keeping up with population growth, definitely a serious job shortfall.
The BLS payroll jobs data contradict the hype from business organizations, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that offshore outsourcing is good for America. Large corporations, which have individually dismissed thousands of their U.S. employees and replaced them with foreigners, claim that jobs outsourcing allows them to save money that can be used to hire more Americans. The corporations and the business organizations are very successful in placing this disinformation in the media. The lie is repeated everywhere and has become a mantra among no-think economists and politicians. However, no sign of these jobs can be found in the payroll jobs data. But there is abundant evidence of the lost American jobs.
During the past five years (January 01 - January 06), the information sector of the U.S. economy lost 644,000 jobs, or 17.4 per cent of its work force. Computer systems design and related work lost 105,000 jobs, or 8.5 per cent of its work force. Clearly, jobs offshoring is not creating jobs in computers and information technology. Indeed, jobs offshoring is not even creating jobs in related fields.
U.S. manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17 per cent of the manufacturing work force. The wipeout is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job.
The declines in some manufacturing sectors have more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing during war than with a "supereconomy" that is "the envy of the world." In five years, communications equipment lost 42 per cent of its work force. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37 per cent of its work force . The work force in computers and electronic products declined 30 per cent. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25 per cent of its employees. The work force in motor vehicles and parts declined 12 per cent. Furniture and related products lost 17 per cent of its jobs. Apparel manufacturers lost almost half of the work force. Employment in textile mills declined 43 per cent. Paper and paper products lost one-fifth of its jobs. The work force in plastics and rubber products declined by 15 per cent.
For the five-year period, U.S. job growth was limited to four areas: education and health services, state and local government, leisure and hospitality, and financial services. There was no U.S. job growth outside these four areas of domestic nontradable services.
Oracle, for example, which has been handing out thousands of pink slips, has recently announced two thousand more jobs being moved to India. How is Oracle's move of U.S. jobs to India creating American jobs in nontradable services such as waitresses and bartenders, hospital orderlies, state and local government, and credit agencies?
Engineering jobs in general are in decline, because the manufacturing sectors that employ engineers are in decline. During the last five years, the U.S. work force lost 1.2 million jobs in the manufacture of machinery, computers, electronics, semiconductors, communication equipment, electrical equipment, motor vehicles, and transportation equipment. The BLS payroll jobs numbers show a total of 69,000 jobs created in all fields of architecture and engineering, including clerical personnel, over the past five years. That comes to a mere 14,000 jobs per year (including clerical workers). What is the annual graduating class in engineering and architecture? How is there a shortage of engineers when more graduate than can be employed?
Of course, many new graduates take jobs opened by retirements. We would have to know the retirement rates to get a solid handle on the fate of new graduates. But this fate cannot be very pleasant , with declining employment in the manufacturing sectors that employ engineers and a minimum of 65,000 H-1B work visas annually for foreigners plus an indeterminate number of L-1 work visas.
It is not only the Bush regime that bases its policies on lies. Not content with moving Americans' jobs abroad, corporations want to fill the jobs remaining in America with foreigners on work visas. Business organizations allege shortages of engineers, scientists and even nurses. Business organizations have successfully used pubic relations firms and bought-and-paid-for "economic studies" to convince policymakers that American business cannot function without H-1B visas that permit the importation of indentured employees from abroad who are paid less than the going U.S. salaries. The so-called shortage is, in fact, a replacement of American employees with foreign employees, with the soon-to-be-discharged American employee first required to train his replacement.
It is amazing to see free-market economists rush to the defense of H-1B visas. The visas are nothing but a subsidy to U.S. companies at the expense of U.S. citizens. Keep in mind this H-1B subsidy to U.S. corporations for employing foreign workers in place of Americans as we examine the Labor Department's job projections over the 2004-2014 decade.
All of the occupations with the largest projected employment growth (in terms of the number of jobs) over the next decade are in nontradable domestic services. The top ten sources of the most jobs in "superpower" America are: retail salespersons, registered nurses, postsecondary teachers, customer service representatives, janitors and cleaners, waiters and waitresses, food preparation (includes fast food), home health aides, nursing aides, orderlies and attendants, general and operations managers.9 Note than none of this projected employment growth will contribute one nickel toward producing goods and services that could be exported to help close the huge U.S. trade deficit. Note, also, that few of these job classifications require a college education.
Among the fastest growing occupations (in terms of rate of growth), seven of the ten are in health care and social assistance. The three remaining fields are: network systems and data analysis with 126,000 jobs projected, or 12,600 per year; computer software engineering applications with 222,000 jobs projected, or 22,200 per year; and computer software engineering systems software with 146,000 jobs projected, or 14,600 per year.
Assuming these projections are realized, how many of the computer engineering and network systems jobs will go to Americans? Not many, considering the 65,000 H-1B visas each year (bills have been introduced in Congress to raise the number) and the loss during the past five years of 761,000 jobs in the information sector and computer systems design and related sectors.
Judging from its ten-year jobs projections, the U.S. Department of Labor does not expect to see any significant high-tech job growth in the U.S.The knowledge jobs are being outsourced even more rapidly than the manufacturing jobs. The so-called "new economy" was just another hoax perpetrated on the American people.
If outsourcing jobs offshore is good for U.S. employment, why won't the U.S. Department of Commerce release the 200-page, $335,000 study of the impact of the offshoring of U.S. high-tech jobs? Republican political appointees reduced the 200-page report to 12 pages of public relations hype and refuse to allow the Technology Administration experts who wrote the report to testify before Congress. Democrats on the House Science Committee are unable to pry the study out of the hands of Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. On March 29, 2006, Republicans on the House Science Committee voted down a resolution (H.Res. designed to force the Commerce Department to release the study to Congress. Obviously, the facts don't fit the Bush regime's globalization hype.
The BLS payroll data that we have been examining tracks employment by industry classification. This is not the same thing as occupational classification. For example, companies in almost every industry and area of business employ people in computer-related occupations. A recent study from the Association for Computing Machinery claims, "Despite all the publicity in the United States about jobs being lost to India and China, the size of the IT employment market in the United States today is higher than it was at the height of the dot.com boom. Information technology appears as though it will be a growth area at least for the coming decade."
We can check this claim by turning to the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics. We will look at "computer and mathematical employment" and "architecture and engineering employment".
Computer and mathematical employment includes such fields as "software engineers applications," "software engineers systems software," "computer programmers," "network systems and data communications," and "mathematicians." Has this occupation been a source of job growth? In November of 2000 this occupation employed 2,932,810 people.14 In November of 2004 (the latest data available), this occupation employed 2,932,790, or 20 people fewer. Employment in this field has been stagnant for four years.
During these four years, there have been employment shifts within the various fields of this occupation. For example, employment of computer programmers declined by 134,630, while employment of software engineers applications rose by 65,080, and employment of software engineers systems software rose by 59,600. (These shifts probably merely reflect change in job title from programmer to software engineer.)
These figures do not tell us whether any gain in software engineering jobs went to Americans. According to professor Norm Matloff, in 2002 there were 463,000 computer-related H-1B visa holders in the U.S. Similarly, the 134,630 lost computer programming jobs (if not merely a job title change) may have been outsourced offshore to foreign affiliates.
Architecture and engineering employment includes all the architecture and engineering fields except software engineering. The total employment of architects and engineers in the U.S. declined by 120,700 between November 1999 and November 2004. Employment declined by 189,940 between November 2000 and November 2004, and by 103,390 between November 2001 and November 2004.
There are variations among fields. Between November 2000 and November 2004, for example, U.S. employment of electrical engineers fell by 15,280. Employment of computer hardware engineers rose by 15,990 (possibly these are job title reclassifications). Overall, however, over 100,000 engineering jobs were lost. We do not know how many of the lost jobs were outsourced offshore to foreign affiliates or how many American engineers were dismissed and replaced by foreign holders of H-1B or L-1 visas.
Clearly, engineering and computer-related employment in the U.S.A. has not been growing, whether measured by industry or by occupation. Moreover, with a half million or more foreigners in the U.S. on work visas, the overall employment numbers do not represent employment of Americans.
American employees have been abandoned by American corporations and by their representatives in Congress. America remains a land of opportunity but for foreigners not for the native born. A country whose work force is concentrated in domestic nontradable services has no need for scientists and engineers and no need for universities. Even the projected jobs in nursing and school teaching can be filled by foreigners on H-1B visas.
The myth has been firmly established here that the jobs the U.S. is outsourcing offshore are being replaced with better jobs. There is no sign of these jobs in the payroll jobs data or in the occupational employment statistics. When a country loses entry-level jobs, it has no one to promote to senior level jobs. When manufacturing leaves, so does engineering, design, research and development, and innovation itself.
On February 16, 2006, the New York Times reported on a new study presented to the National Academies that concludes that outsourcing is climbing the skills ladder. A survey of 200 multinational corporations representing industries in the U.S.and Europe found that 38 per cent planned to change substantially the worldwide distribution of their research and development work, sending it to India and China. According to the New York Times, "More companies in the survey said they planned to decrease research and development employment in the United States and Europe than planned to increase employment."
The study and the discussion it provoked came to untenable remedies. Many believe that a primary reason for the shift of R&D to India and China is the erosion of scientific prowess in the U.S. due to lack of math and science proficiency of American students and their reluctance to pursue careers in science and engineering. This belief begs the question why students would chase after careers that are being outsourced abroad.
The main author of the study, Georgia Tech professor Marie Thursby, believes that American science and engineering depend on having "an environment that fosters the development of a high-quality work force and productive collaboration between corporations and universities." The dean of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks the answer is to recruit the top people in China and India and bring them to Berkeley. No one seems to understand that research, development, design, and innovation take place in countries where things are made. The loss of manufacturing means ultimately the loss of engineering and science. The newest plants embody the latest technology. If these plants are abroad, that is where the cutting edge resides.
The denial of jobs reality has become an art form for economists, libertarians, the Bush regime, and journalists. Except for CNN's Lou Dobbs, no accurate reporting is available in the "mainstream media."
Economists have failed to examine the incompatibility of offshoring with free trade. Economists are so accustomed to shouting down protectionists that they dismiss any complaint about globalization's impact on domestic jobs as the ignorant voice of a protectionist seeking to preserve the buggy whip industry. Matthew J. Slaughter, a Dartmouth economics professor rewarded for his service to offshoring with appointment to President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, suffered no harm to his reputation when he wrote, "For every one job that U.S. multinationals created abroad in their foreign affiliates, they created nearly two U.S. jobs in their parent operations." In other words, Slaughter claims that offshoring is creating more American jobs than foreign ones.
How did Slaughter arrive at this conclusion? Not by consulting the BLS payroll jobs data or the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics. Instead, Slaughter measured the growth of U.S. multinational employment and failed to take into account the two reasons for the increase in multinational employment: (1) Multinationals acquired many existing smaller firms, thus raising multinational employment but not overall employment, and (2) many U.S. firms established foreign operations for the first time and thereby became multinationals, thus adding their existing employment to Slaughter's number for multinational employment.
ABC News' John Stossel, a libertarian hero, recently made a similar error. In debunking Lou Dobbs' concern with U.S. jobs lost to offshore outsourcing, Stossel invoked the California-based company, Collabnet. He quotes the CEO's claim that outsourcing saves his company money and lets him hire more Americans. Turning to Collabnet's webpage, it is very instructive to see the employment opportunities that the company posts for the United States and for India.
In India, Collabnet has openings (at time of writing) for eight engineers, a sales engineer, a technical writer, and a telemarketing representative. In the U.S. Collabnet has openings for one engineer, a receptionist/office assistant, and positions in marketing, sales, services and operations. Collabnet is a perfect example of what Lou Dobbs and I report: the engineering and design jobs move abroad, and Americans are employed to sell and market the foreign-made products.
Other forms of deception are widely practiced. For example, Matthew Spiegleman, a Conference Board economist, claims that manufacturing jobs are only slightly higher paid than domestic service jobs, so there is no meaningful loss in income to Americans from offshoring. He reaches this conclusion by comparing only hourly pay and leaving out the longer manufacturing workweek and the associated benefits, such as health care and pensions.
Occasionally, however, real information escapes the spin machine. In February 2006 the National Association of Manufacturers, one of offshoring's greatest boosters, released a report, "U.S. Manufacturing Innovation at Risk," by economists Joel Popkin and Kathryn Kobe.16 The economists find that U.S. industry's investment in research and development is not languishing after all. It just appears to be languishing, because it is rapidly being shifted overseas: "Funds provided for foreign-performed R&D have grown by almost 73 per cent between 1999 and 2003, with a 36 per cent increase in the number of firms funding foreign R&D."
U.S. industry is still investing in R&D after all; it is just not hiring Americans to do the research and development. U.S. manufacturers still make things, only less and less in America with American labor. U.S. manufacturers still hire engineers, only they are foreign ones, not American ones.
In other words, everything is fine for U.S. manufacturers. It is just their former American work force that is in the doldrums. As these Americans happen to be customers for U.S. manufacturers, U.S. brand names will gradually lose their U.S. market. U.S. household median income has fallen for the past five years. Consumer demand has been kept alive by consumers' spending their savings and home equity and going deeper into debt. It is not possible for debt to forever rise faster than income.
The United States is the first country in history to destroy the prospects and living standards of its labor force. It is amazing to watch freedom-loving libertarians and free-market economists serve as apologists for the dismantling of the ladders of upward mobility that made the America of old an opportunity society.
America is seeing a widening polarization into rich and poor. The resulting political instability and social strife will be terrible.
Related articles:
http://choice.blog.com/1477936/
http://choice.blog.com/1477838/
January 24, 2007
State of the Union
Off the Rails:
Big Oil, Big Brother
Win Big in the State of the Union
by Greg Palast
There was that tongue again. When the President lies he's got this weird nervous tick: He sticks the tip of his tongue out between his lips. Like a little boy who knows he's fibbing. Like a snake licking a rat.
In his State of the Union the President did his tongue thing 124 times -- my kids kept count.
But it wasn't all rat-licking lies.
Most pundits concentrated on Iraq and wacky health insurance stuff. But that's just bubbles and blather. The real agenda is in the small stuff. The little razors in the policy apple, the nasty little pieces of policy shrapnel that whiz by between the appearances of the Presidential tongue.
First, there was the announcement the regime will, "give employers the tools to verify the legal status of their workers." In case you missed that one, the President is talking about creating a federal citizen profile database.
There's a problem with that idea. It's against the law. The law in question is the United States Constitution. The Founding Fathers thought the government had no right to keep track on a citizen unless there is evidence they have committed, or planned to commit, a crime.
But the Founding Fathers didn't imagine there were millions and billions of dollars to be made by private contractors ready to perform this KGB operation for the Department of Homeland Security, tracking each and every one of us to keep tabs on our "status."
These work databases will tie into "voter verification" databases required by the Help America Vote Act. And these will tie to the databases on citizenship and so on.
Will Big Brother abuse these snoop lists? The biggest purveyor of such hit lists is Choice Point, Inc. – those characters who, before the 2000 election, helped Jeb Bush purge innocent voters as "felons" from Florida voter rolls. Will they abuse the new super-lists? Does Dick Cheney shoot in the woods?
There were several other little IEDs (improvised execrable policy devices) planted in the State of the Union. Did you catch the one about doubling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? If you're unfamiliar with the SPR, it is supposed to be the stash of oil we keep in case the price of crude gets too high.
Well, the price of oil has been horribly high but Dick Cheney, the official who sits on the Reserve's spigots, has refused to release the oil into the market.
Instead of unleashing the Reserve and busting Big Oil's price gouging Bush will double the Reserve, which will require buying three-quarters of a billion barrels of oil. This is a nice $40 billion pay-out to Big Oil from the US Treasury. Compare this to the President's health insurance plan which will be "revenue neutral" -- that is, have a net investment of zero.
But the $40 billion in loot the oilmen will get from us taxpayers for doubling the Reserve is nothing compared to the boost in the worldwide price of crude caused by this massive, mad purchase. While the Congressional audience didn't even bother polite applause for the reserve purchase plan, there's no doubt they were whooping it up in Saudi Arabia. Clearly, the state of the Saudi-Bush union is still pretty good.
But why end on a cynical note? I must admit I was moved by the President's praise of Wesley Autrey, a New Yorker who, last month, threw himself on top of a man who had fallen on subway tracks -- and held him between the track rails as the train passed over them.
While the President properly acknowledged Autrey's courage in saving the man who fell on the subway tracks, Mr. Bush still did not explain why Dick Cheney pushed the man in the first place.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller: Armed Madhouse: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War. Choice America Network encourages you to subscribe to Palast's investigative reports, please visit www.GregPalast.com
January 22, 2007
Have we no privacy anymore?,....
Why The Military, CIA?
Military, CIA intruding into domestic gathering of intelligence
Military, CIA intruding into domestic gathering of intelligence
The Pentagon and CIA have no business conducting intelligence operations within the United States. Yet that's what's been happening.
The Pentagon, under former Defense Secretary Donald R. Rumsfeld, started five years ago to aggressively gather intelligence on suspected terrorists or espionage suspects within the United States. So has the CIA. Neither agency should be interfering with the role of the FBI, which traditionally has done covert intelligence gathering within the U.S.
The disclosure of these expanded and self-promoted actions by the military and CIA warrant hearings by the Congress. Otherwise, the two agencies will be tempted to further advance their intelligence operations within the United States, and this is not a wise situation.
As much as Bush administration officials deny any danger to the public's rights in their intelligence operations, the simple fact is that the USA Patriot Act has made the CIA and Pentagon more bold in what they believe they can do.
Congress has intended to restrict the CIA's role to foreign intelligence gathering. And the military, far from being a domestic intelligence agency, should rely on the FBI. This is important, if for no other reason than the fact that three agencies, doing separate intelligence work, can easily trip over one another, possibly blow an agent's cover or, in other ways, harm the effectiveness of the information gathering. For example, the FBI says military officials frequently have dealt directly with local police without the FBI's knowledge of cases.
The military has been issuing national security letters that allow it to obtain financial records and other confidential data on people. The CIA long has been restricted from doing domestic intelligence. In both cases, federal agencies seem to have expanded their probes beyond traditional roles as they aggressively react to efforts to intercept and stop terrorists.
Secretary Rumsfeld's Pentagon has been particularly zealous in using the authority it believes was given in legal interpretations decades ago and has been emboldened by the Patriot Act. Thus, Congress has an obligation to re-examine and put into statute what the Pentagon and CIA can do. Using these agencies for domestic spying is a bad idea.
January 21, 2007
Why America Must Stop Bush/Cheney Now,...
How Congress Can Stop the Iran Attack
or be complicit in nuclear war crimes
By Jorge Hirsch
President Bush is invoking his "commander in chief" authority to escalate the war in Iraq, and he will likely also invoke it to launch an aerial attack against Iran. Congress has long ago abdicated and delegated to the President its constitutional responsibility to initiate wars. Yet Congress still has one surefire way to influence events: it has the constitutional authority to make the "nuclear option" against Iran illegal. In so doing, it would stop the relentless drive to war against Iran dead in its tracks.
Notwithstanding Joe Biden's threat of a "constitutional confrontation" if Bush attacks Iran without Congressional authorization, the fact is that such an attack would be perfectly legal: the War Powers Act gives the US President legal authority to wage war against any country for 60 days. It would also be legal for Bush to order nuclear strikes against Iran: under NSC-30 of 1948, "the decision as to the employment of atomic weapons in the event of war is to be made by the Chief Executive". Neither nor votes to withold funding will have any effect on preventing such events.
However, Congress could pass a law making a nuclear attack on a non-nuclear nation in the absence of Congressional authorization illegal. In so doing, Congress would effectively be preventing Bush from launching any attack against Iran without its authorization, thus reclaiming its broader constitutionally assigned duties. Because Bush will not dare putting 150,000 American lives in Iraq at risk of Iranian retaliation without having the nuclear option on the table. By removing the nuclear option from the Bush toolkit, Congress would be forcefully imposing its will and that of the American people on an administration gone mad.
If Congress chooses not to face the fact that US military action against Iran is likely to lead to the first US use of nuclear weapons since Nagasaki, each one of its members will share responsibility for the nefarious chain of events that is likely to follow, and should be preparing to face his/her very own nuclear Nuremberg trial.
Preparations for the Iran attack
The following recent events have led to widespread suspicions that a US/ Israeli attack on Iran is imminent:
- Additional aircraft carriers deployed to the Persian Gulf.
- US Patriot missiles just deployed to the Persian Gulf.
- F16 fighter planes just deployed to the Incirlik base in Turkey.
- Increased number of US nuclear submarines in Persian Gulf.
- Admiral Fallon named Centcom commander.
- Israeli pilots training for Iran bombing mission.
- Increased rethoric and provocations against Iran.
A conventional aerial attack against Iran will not destroy the underground facilities that Israel and the US have set their sight on. And it will provoke a violent Iranian response, with missiles targeting US forces in Iraq and Israeli cities. The US administration will argue that these missiles could potentially carry chemical or biological warheads as "justification" for nuclear strikes on Iran, as anticipated in the new US nuclear weapons policies, to achieve "rapid and favorable war termination on US terms".
How Congress can act
Congress can pass a law that will have a real, immediate and historic effect: outlaw the US use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states . Article I, Sect. 8, Clause 14 of the US constitution empowers Congress to regulate the Armed Forces. Congress cannot micromanage the conduct of war, that is up to the President, the Commander in Chief. But Congress can outlaw broad war practices, such as torture, or the use of nuclear weapons in any or all circumstances, by regulating what US Armed Forces can and cannot do. An example of such a bill, vetted by prominent constitutional law experts, is given here.
Critics will say that nuclear weapons may be necessary against countries on the verge of acquiring them. The law can allow for it: it should specify that Congress has the authority to designate any country it chooses as a "nuclear weapon state", not subject to this restriction.
Congress could even outlaw the US "first use of nuclear weapons" against anybody without "the prior, explicit authorization of Congress". Such legislation was considered and voted down by the US Senate in 1972, and it was considered again in hearings in the House of Representatives in 1976: "First use of nuclear weapons: preserving responsible control". We are suggesting here a much milder restriction on presidential authority.
Would the passage of such a law implicitly condone a conventional attack on Iran? In no way. On the contrary, it would instantly bring the drive to attack Iran to a screeching halt, because Bush will not dare attacking Iran without having his "nuclear option" on the table. Such a law will absolutely constrain the choices the President has. No matter how much "Commander in Chief" power President Bush thinks he has, he would not be able to ignore such a law without committing an impeachable offense. If Congress decides that attacking Iran is a good idea, Congress can vote to declare that Iran is a nuclear-weapon state, subject to US nuclear attack, putting the nuclear option back on the table (and by showing its determination, making the "nuclear option" a more credible "deterrent"). The President, however, would be forced to bring his case to Congress.
Would the passing of such a law "embolden" Iran? Not likely. Iran has not been deterred from continuing enrichment by US threats, UN sanctions, nor statements that the "nuclear option" is on the table. A forceful statement by the US that it will use overwhelming conventional force against Iran if necessary, and reserving the right to declare Iran a nuclear country subject to US nuclear attack at any time, should be more than enough to keep Iran in check.
Such a bill would put the momentous decision to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states in the hands of Congress, closer to the American people, where it belongs, rather than at the sole discretion of an Executive gone mad. More sweeping measures such as "abolishing nuclear weapons" are unrealistic and have no chance of succeeding, hence they are counterproductive.
Majority vote of both chambers, then overturning the presidential veto: a mere 2/3 of Congress willing to avert a course of action that would bring humanity to the brink, is all that's needed. Which Congressperson will have the courage to step up to the plate and get the ball rolling? Dennis Kucinich? Ron Paul? Robert Byrd? Chuck Hagel? Russ Feingold? John Murtha? Jim Webb?
Or, Congressmembers can choose to continue the posturing, make lofty speeches, write letters to the President, resolutions, even cut funding, all the while balancing their individual aspirations for 2008. None of it will stop this administration.
US nuclear weapons use
This column and others have been exposing for many months the evidence that this administration has been carrying out a deliberate plan to set up the conditions that will lead to the US use of nuclear weapons against Iran, and its motivations for it [1], [2], [3].
Congress is on notice and cannot claim ignorance. The President has publicly refused to take the "nuclear option" against Iran off the table. US nuclear weapons policies have undergone sweeping changes in the last 6 years, laying the doctrinal foundations that invite US nuclear strikes against non-nuclear adversaries under a variety of easily satisfied conditions. Military command structure and Pentagon guidelines have been "transformed" by Rumsfeld for that purpose. The B61-11 nuclear bunker busters are in the stockpile, ready to be used. The President has sole full authority to order their use, Congress has no say.
Congress knows full well what this President is capable of doing. By not acting, Congress is condoning this state of affairs, effectively putting its seal of approval on what is about to happen. America will hold each member of Congress fully responsible for it.
The German Reichstag in 1933 formally voted to transfer its powers to the Executive, thus avoiding being complicit in the impending war crimes. The US Congress has not had such good sense, even while abdicating its powers in practice, and it will face the consequences of its inaction. Time is running out.
Crimes against humanity
Using nuclear weapons against Iran, even just destroying one Iranian underground facility with nuclear bunker busters, with minimal "collateral damage", is a crime against humanity because:
- It will break the 60-year old taboo against the use of nuclear weapons. Once a nuclear weapon is used again, it will invite use by others. There is no sharp line dividing small from large nuclear weapons, nor between nuclear weapons targeting facilities and those targeting humans, civilians or military.
- Iran is years away from the capability of acquiring nuclear weapons by any estimate, hence it is a "non-nuclear-weapon state" (NNWS).
- A US or Israeli use of a nuclear weapon against a NNWS will instantly destroy the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and lead to widespread nuclear proliferation.
- " Weight for weight, the energy produced by a nuclear explosion is millions of times more powerful than a conventional explosion". So is the number of people it kills.
- With no NPT and many more nuclear countries the potential for escalating nuclear war will be exponentially enhanced.
- Nuclear war can lead to hundreds of millions of deaths, to the destruction of civilization and to the destruction of all life on earth.
The American Physical Society, representing the community of scientists that brought nuclear weapons into existence, has recently for the first time in its history issued a statement of deep concern about "the possible use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states" and its consequences for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and some of America's most eminent scientists recently wrote to President Bush that such action would be "gravely irresponsible" and lead to "disastrous consequences".
Does Iran share responsibility?
Iran is pursuing a civilian nuclear program, allowed under the NPT. There is no evidence whatsoever that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, only "suspicions". It is always possible to interpret any action by Iran in a negative way. If Iran slows down its enrichment activity, the press reports that "diplomats in Vienna began to worry that there was so little activity at Iran's main nuclear site that perhaps work had started on a secret site elsewhere in the country". (Of course no mention on who those "diplomats in Vienna" are). If Iran accelerates its enrichment activity, "Iran heightened international concerns by announcing April 11 that it had enriched uranium with 164 centrifuges". Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Saddam Hussein "chose war" by not being able to allay "concerns" that he didn't have the weapons he didn't have.
Vice-President Cheney stated last Sunday on national TV "There's no reason in the world why Iran needs to continue to pursue nuclear weapons". This is the same Vice-President that stated in 2002 "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." His statements then were as categorical and as unsubstantiated as his statements today, and the 2002 statements were proven categorically false. Why doesn't Congress demand that Cheney substantiate his statements today or else shut up or else step down? Isn't lying on matters of national security an impeachable offense?
Iran bears no responsibility for the rising tensions. When Cheney states "Iran's a problem in a much larger sense. At the same time, of course, they're pursuing the acquisition of nuclear weapons. They are in a position where they sit astride the Straits of Hormuz, where over 20 percent of the world's supply of oil transits every single day, over 18 million barrels a day. So the threat that Iran represents is growing, it's multi- dimensional, and it is, in fact, of concern to everybody in the region" he is candidly stating the Bush administration agenda, just as he did in 2002. And Fox news' Chris Wallace is happy to spell it out: "In fact, it was the basis of the Bush doctrine: You will not allow the world's most dangerous powers to get access to the world's most dangerous weapons. Can you pledge that, before you and the president leave office, you will take care of the threat of Iran?" Cheney's ominous answer: "I think we're working right now, today, as we speak, on key elements of that problem", as America is massing up its military power in the Persian Gulf, just like it did at this same time of the year in 2003.
On March 6, 2003, when asked whether or not the US would attack Iraq, President Bush answered "we're days away from resolving this issue at the Security Council", and "we're working with Security Council members to resolve this issue at the Security Council". 14 days later the US attacked Iraq, without Security Council's approval. Watch for a similar script in the weeks ahead.
Congress' guilt
Each member of Congress knows that the US President has full legal authority today to launch a nuclear attack against any country in the world. Each member of Congress knows that the Constitution assigns Congress the responsibility to regulate the Armed Forces, and that Congress has the authority to regulate the use of nuclear weapons. Each member of Congress knows the sweeping changes in US nuclear weapons policies and planning undertaken during this administration.
Any private assurances that Bush may have given to members of Congress that he will not order the use of nuclear weapons against Iran without congressional authorization are worthless. He can legally do it, and he will.
Any arguments the administration may put forth that legislating over nuclear weapons use will have a detrimental effect on the diplomatic effort vis-a-vis Iran will be as disingenuous as the arguments in September 2002 that Congress should authorize the use of force against Iraq so that diplomacy could succeed: "I've asked for Congress' support to enable the administration to keep the peace"; "If you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force. But it's -- this will be -- this is a chance for Congress to indicate support. It's a chance for Congress to say, we support the administration's ability to keep the peace. That's what this is all about."
Crimes of omission are punishable under international [1] and US domestic law. Principle VII of the Nuremberg tribunal stated "Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law."
If Congress doesn't legislate on the US use of nuclear weapons, and President Bush orders the use of nuclear weapons against Iran, he will be doing it in the name of each and every member of the 110th Congress.
The United States will have instantly offered the world 535 new defendants for future war crimes tribunals. Nuclear weapons are million-times more powerful than conventional weapons. If 535 million people die in ensuing nuclear conflicts, each member of the 110th Congress will have 1 million human lives on his/her own personal account.
Saddam Hussein and Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti went to the gallows for a mere 148.
Jorge Hirsch is a Professor of Physics at the University of California at San Diego, a fellow of the American Physical Society, and organizer of a recent petition, circulated among leading physicists, opposing the new nuclear weapons policies adopted by the US in the past 5 years. He is a frequent commentator on Iran and nuclear weapons. Email to: jorgehirsch@yahoo.com
January 19, 2007
Internet providing solid choice,...
Internet as Political Force
Grows, Poll Finds
Shift Away from TV, Papers Continues
by Frank Davies
Candidates and those who run their campaigns have known for some time how the Internet has energized politics and reshuffled the old rules of how office-seekers, the media and the public operate. A survey released Wednesday about online activities and the 2006 election shows just how dramatic that shift has been.
Americans who received most of their political information online (15 percent) has doubled since the previous midterm election in 2002. And almost a third of the public -- 31 percent -- used the Internet during the 2006 campaign to get political news and discuss the election through e-mail.
Those findings came from a telephone survey of 2,562 adults, conducted for the Pew Internet and American Life Project between Nov. 8 and Dec. 4, and included interviews with 200 people who use cell phones only, to reflect the growing number of people without traditional land lines.
Spurred by greater broadband use, a growing number of Internet political activists -- about 14 million people, according to the survey -- are generating and sharing political content, including video clips that had a major impact on some races.
"There's a viral, grass-roots system for sharing information now that gets around the traditional gate-keeping function of the mainstream media,'' said Lee Rainie, director of the project for the non-partisan Pew Research Center, which reports on trends and attitudes.
A classic example from the 2006 campaign was the widely circulated video clip of Sen. George Allen, R-Va., disparaging a videographer for his rival's campaign, calling him "macaca,'' an apparent ethnic slur. The clip circulated for days on the Web before newspapers and TV networks picked up the story. Allen narrowly lost to Democrat James Webb, and the ``macaca moment'' was a turning point in the race.
Age matters
One Internet analyst, John Palfrey, said a key finding of the Pew survey was how younger people interested in politics are relying on information online. Asked to list their two primary sources of election news, broadband users under 36 ranked the Internet (35 percent) behind television (57 percent), with newspapers at 18 percent.
For broadband users 51 and older, television ranked first with 73 percent, followed by newspapers (45 percent) and the Internet (17 percent).
"It's not a news flash about younger people, but it underscores the trend away from dependency on television and newspapers,'' said Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. "This week it was no accident that Sen. Barack Obama announced his exploratory campaign for president in a high-resolution video on his Web site.''
The survey showed that mainstream news sites on the Web -- including those run by broadcast networks, newspapers and other periodicals -- dominated online activity, but that other sources are catching up.
Respondents were allowed to cite multiple sources of information, and as many as 60 percent of Internet users said they got information from local or national newspaper sites, network TV sites or large news portals such as Google and Yahoo News, which often link to mainstream news sites.
But 24 percent said they got news from issues-oriented sites. Another 20 percent said they got information from blogs, international news sites or candidate Web sites. And 19 percent said they used satirical sites, including "The Daily Show'' and "The Onion.''
The Pew survey also includes some intriguing data on a key question: Has better, wider online access boosted civic activism and helped democracy?
It certainly has helped fundraising. The survey found that 3 percent of Internet users contributed to a campaign in 2006, which Rainie said tracks the activity of the last two presidential campaigns, when John McCain (in 2000) and Howard Dean (in 2004) relied on donations online.
Next step: activism
The survey indicates that 11 percent of Internet users have become online political activists, defined as users who posted their own commentary to a newsgroup, Web site or blog, or posted or forwarded someone else's commentary, video or audio recordings.
And as broadband access grows and applications become easier to use, those activists are less likely to be older, white men with high incomes -- the traditional source of political movers and shakers -- Rainie said.
But Palfrey said the ``jury is still out'' on whether more people are engaged in civic activism because of the Internet, or whether it is transforming the way people organize.
"It may be too early to tell if that's a full-blown trend,'' he said.
The survey also indicated that for users interested in politics, the Internet is an echo chamber for their own attitudes and positions for many, but not all. In the survey, 64 percent of the activists said they use sites that share their point of view, or have no point of view, and 24 percent said they use sites that challenge their viewpoints.
At the same time, Palfrey said the Internet has the potential to broaden perspectives -- and possibly change minds -- because it is so easy to find diverse points of view, often discovered while searching for something else.
The Pew survey found that Democrats and Republicans rely on the Internet as a source of news about equally, but there's a difference in their preference for other news sources.
Democrats were more likely to cite newspapers and a broad range of broadcast and cable outlets for news. Republicans tended to favor Fox cable TV news and radio.
© 2007 MercuryNews.com and wire service sources
January 18, 2007
Not without an American Revolution,...
Bloggers Who Criticize Government May Face Prison
Bill would allow rounding up and imprisoning of non-registered political writers
By Steve Watson
Infowars.net
You'd be forgiven for thinking that it was some new restriction on free speech in Communist China. But it isn't. The U.S. Government wants to force bloggers and online grassroots activists to register and regularly report their activities to Congress in the latest astounding attack on the internet and the First Amendment.
Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of GrassrootsFreedom.com, a website dedicated to fighting efforts to silence grassroots movements, states:
"Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself."
In other words Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats may redefine the meaning of lobbying in order that political communications to and even between citizens falls under the same legislation.
Under current law any 'lobbyist" who 'knowingly and willingly fails to file or report." quarterly to the government faces criminal charges including a possible jail term of up to one year.
The amendment is currently on hold.
This latest attack on bloggers comes hot on the heels of Republican Senator John McCain's proposal to introduce legislation that would fine blogs up to $300,000 for offensive statements, photos and videos posted by visitors on comment boards.
McCain's proposal is presented under the banner of saving children from sexual predators and encourages informants to shop website owners to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who then pass the information on to the relevant police authorities.
McCAIN - THE BUSH WAR ESCALATOR
Despite a total lack of any evidence that children are being victimized en mass by bloggers or people who leave comments on blog sites, it seems likely that the proposal will become legislation in some form. It is well known that McCain has a distaste for his blogosphere critics, causing a definite conflict of interest where any proposal to restrict blogs on his part is concerned.
In recent months, a chorus of propaganda intended to demonize the Internet and further lead it down a path of strict control has spewed forth from numerous establishment organs:
During an appearance with his wife Barbara on Fox News last November, George Bush senior slammed Internet bloggers for creating an "adversarial and ugly climate."
- The White House's own recently de-classified strategy for "winning the war on terror" targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to "diminish" their influence.
- The Pentagon recently announced its effort to infiltrate the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror.
- In a speech last month, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a "terror training camp," through which "disaffected people living in the United States" are developing "radical ideologies and potentially violent skills." Chertoff pledged to dispatch Homeland Security agents to local police departments in order to aid in the apprehension of domestic terrorists who use the Internet as a political tool.
- A landmark legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations seeks to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web - and their argument is supported by the U.S. government.
- A landmark legal ruling in Sydney goes further than ever before in s