Alfred Woody's Kewl Blog [ 椼森 ]

Friday, April 8, 2011

Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz: Assault on Social Spending, Pro-Rich Tax Cuts Turning U.S. into Nation "Of the 1 Percent, by the 1 Percent, for the 1

This week Republicans unveiled a budget proposal for 2012 that cuts more than $5.8 trillion in government spending over the next decade. The plan calls for sweeping changes to Medicaid and Medicare, while reducing the top corporate and individual tax rates to 25 percent. We speak to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who addresses the growing class divide taking place in the United States and inequality in a new Vanity Fair article titled "Of the 1, by the 1, for the 1%." Stiglitz is a professor at Columbia University and author of numerous books, most recently Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy. "It’s not just that the people at the top are getting richer," Stiglitz says. "Actually, they’re gaining, and everybody else is decreasing... And right now, we are worse than old Europe." [includes rush transcript]

http://tinyurl.com/3j4nhez

Joe Nocera on "All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis"

As federal agents raid the offices of three major hedge funds amidst news of a sweeping probe of insider trading at Wall Street firms, we speak with New York Times business columnist Joe Nocera about his new book All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis. The book describes how most of the underlying structures and key players behind the financial crisis have emerged relatively unscathed. [includes rush transcript]

http://tinyurl.com/3mh3dbt

FDR: Executive Order 6102 Banning Gold Ownership

Yesterday marked the 78th anniversary of FDR's decree.

It remained the law of the land for more than four decades. Only on Dec. 31, 1974, was it finally repealed by President Nixon.

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Executive Order 6102

Forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion and Gold Certificates

By virtue of the authority vested in me by Section 5 (b) of the Act of October 6, 1917, as amended by Section 2 of the Act of March 9, 1933, entitled ‘‘An Act to provide relief in the existing national emergency in banking, and for other purposes,’’ in which amendatory Act Congress declared that a serious emergency exists, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do declare that said national emergency still continues to exist and pursuant to said section do hereby prohibit the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States by individuals, partnerships, associations and corporations and hereby prescribe the following regulations for carrying out the purposes of this order:

Section 1.

For the purposes of this regulation, the term ‘‘hoarding’’ means the withdrawal and withholding of gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates from the recognized and customary channels of trade. The term ‘‘person’’ means any individual, partnership, association or corporation.

Section 2.

All persons are hereby required to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, to a Federal Reserve Bank or a branch or agency thereof or to any member bank of the Federal Reserve System all gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates now owned by them or coming into their ownership on or before April 28, 1933, except the following:

(a)		Such amount of gold as may be required for legitimate and customary use in industry, profession or art within a reasonable time, including gold prior to refining and stocks of gold in reasonable amounts for the usual trade requirements of owners mining and refining such gold.
(b)		Gold coin and gold certificates in an amount not exceeding in the aggregate $100 belonging to any one person; and gold coins having a recognized special value to collectors. of rare and unusual coins.
(c)		Gold coin and bullion earmarked or held in trust for a recognized foreign Government or foreign central bank or the Bank for International Settlements.
(d)		Gold coin and bullion licensed for other proper transactions (not involving hoarding) including gold coin and bullion imported for reexport or held pending action on applications for export licenses.

Section 3.

Until otherwise ordered any person becoming the owner of any gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates after April 28, 1933, shall, within three days after receipt thereof, deliver the same in the manner prescribed in Section 2; unless such gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates are held for any of the purposes specified in paragraphs (a), (b), or (c) of Section 2; or unless such gold coin or gold bullion is held for purposes specified in paragraph (d) of Section 2 and the person holding it is, with respect to such gold coin or bullion, a licensee or applicant for license pending action thereon.

Section 4.

Upon receipt of gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates delivered to it in accordance with Sections 2 or 3, the Federal Reserve Bank or member bank will pay therefor an equivalent amount of any other form of coin or currency coined or issued under the laws of the United States.

Section 5.

Member banks shall deliver all gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates owned or received by them (other than as exempted under the provisions of Section 2) to the Federal Reserve Banks of their respective districts and receive credit or payment therefor.

Section 6.

The Secretary of the Treasury, out of the sum made available to the President by Section 501 of the Act of March 9, 1933, will in all proper cases pay the reasonable costs of transportation of gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates delivered to a member bank or Federal Reserve Bank in accordance with Section 2, 3, or 5 hereof, including the cost of insurance, protection, and such other incidental costs as may be necessary, upon production of satisfactory evidence of such costs. Voucher forms for this purpose may be procured from Federal Reserve Banks.

Section 7.

In cases where the delivery of gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates by the owners thereof within the time set forth above will involve extraordinary hardship or difficulty, the Secretary of the Treasury may, in his discretion, extend the time within which such delivery must be made. Applications for such extensions must be made in writing under oath, addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury and filed with a Federal Reserve Bank. Each application must state the date to which the extension is desired, the amount and location of the gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates in respect of which such application is made and the facts showing extension to be necessary to avoid extraordinary hardship or difficulty.

Section 8.

The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and empowered to issue such further regulations as he may deem necessary to carry out the purposes of this order and to issue licenses thereunder, through such officers or agencies as he may designate, including licenses permitting the Federal Reserve Banks and member banks of the Federal Reserve System, in return for an equivalent amount of other coin, currency or credit, to deliver, earmark or hold in trust gold coin and bullion to or for persons showing the need for the same for any of the purposes specified in paragraphs (a), (c) and (d) of Section 2 of these regulations.

Section 9.

Whoever willfully violates any provision of this Executive Order or of these regulations or of any rule, regulation or license issued thereunder may be fined not more than $10,000, or, if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than ten years, or both; and any officer, director, or agent of any corporation who knowingly participates in any such violation may be punished by a like fine, imprisonment, or both.

This order and these regulations may be modified or revoked at any time.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The White House,

April 5, 1933.

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Bill Moyers Essay: The Health Care Lobby

http://dailybail.com/home/bill-moyers-essay-the-health-care-lobby.html

Truth and transparency of the highest order.

Video - Oct. 15, 2009

Out Of Service: Milwaukee Budget Cuts Hit Bus Lines -- And Keep Residents From Jobs

MILWAUKEE, Wis. -- Peggy Schulz was fed up. In March, after being unemployed for nearly two years, she performed an experiment: She went to a job-search website, limited the search to the Milwaukee area and typed in a simple term: "bus line."

The results displayed what had long been plaguing her. Job posting after job posting featured similar caveats: "this is not on a bus line," "need reliable transportation not on bus line," "positions are NOT on a bus line," "our client that is not located on a bus line is interested in having you work ..."

"Here it was in black and white," she later recalled with a bitter laugh. "It's been very frustrating to look through the want ads, look online, think about places I could work and realize, 'Nope, can't get there on the bus.'"

Schulz is 53. She has years of experience as a legal secretary. But she does not own a car.

Over the last decade, as Milwaukee County has inflicted relentless cuts to public transit, she has watched her primary means of transportation decay. After she was laid off in June 2009, a pattern emerged: She'd find what seemed like the perfect job opportunity, only to discover that bus service cuts had rendered it inaccessible.

Working people like Schulz bear the strain of a crisis that has struck municipalities nationwide. As revenues fall and expenses balloon in the wake of the economic downturn, local officials have cut essential services in a frenzied attempt to balance budgets. Communities have closed libraries and schools. Governments have laid off workers and imposed deep pay cuts to those who remain. Some of the nation's statistically most dangerous cities have axed significant portions of their police forces.

Many local officials are pushing an inevitable reckoning further into the future as they delay certain payments. Here in Milwaukee, though, policymakers have been unusually diligent. They have funded pension benefits -- which eventually have to be funded -- almost fully. But with limited dollars, putting money behind those promises has forced the local government not to fund other things, prompting the type of cuts that may loom on other municipalities' horizons. Milwaukee County's day of reckoning, to a large extent, has already arrived.

The pain has spread over a range of departments. Since 2001, the public workforce has shrunk by nearly a third, as security officers have been laid off and nurses, frustrated by anemic compensation, have quit. After years of limited funding, the parks system now needs repairs that would exceed $200 million. Bus service has been reduced by a fifth in the last decade, preventing Milwaukeeans from accessing tens of thousands of potential jobs.

The financial crisis and economic downturn put millions of Americans out of work. Now, those same forces are making the job search even more difficult by weakening a vital link between workers and workplaces -- public transportation. Milwaukee has reached a point at which cuts, necessitated by a weak economy, make the local economy even weaker.

"We're going to start bleeding red ink," county executive Marvin Pratt said while sitting at a heavy wooden table in his stately office on the third floor of the county courthouse. "If you're talking about getting people to jobs and creating jobs, we have to maintain that transit system. We have to make it better."

'UNRAVELED'

Not long ago, the future seemed brighter. Buoyed by the surging stock market and the tight labor dynamics of the late 1990s, Milwaukee County entered the millennium flush. It seemed prosperous days would last -- or, at least, that's what local policymakers were banking on.

Milwaukee County, a metropolitan community of 950,000 on the coast of Lake Michigan, was busy adorning itself with symbols of its success. Miller Park, home of the Brewers baseball team, opened in the spring of 2001. A new addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum, featuring a pair of sail-like wings on top, opened that same year, immediately becoming an international icon of contemporary architecture.

And transit worked. The American Public Transportation Association, a national advocacy group, bestowed its Outstanding Achievement Award on Milwaukee County transit in 1999. Buses carried residents not only throughout the downtown area but also between the city and the suburbs, traversing the entire county and beyond.

"Milwaukee was really coming alive," said Mike Kostiuk, 58. After living in a suburb for two decades, he moved back to the city in 2000, looking forward to taking advantage of the bus system.

And the county government decided to share the wealth. During two sessions, in late 2000 and early 2001, the county Board of Supervisors approved a hike to pension benefits for public workers. The package included an increase in the pension multiplier, which is used to determine the percentage of final average salary that an employee, upon retirement, gets as an annual pension payment. The deal applied to all categories of county employees, including the elected officials who had approved it.

"They rolled out the retirement package to us, which far exceeded anything we had proposed," said Richard Abelson, executive director of District Council 48 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a public sector union that represents more than two-thirds of county workers here. "It was a bad deal. It was a bad deal for taxpayers. It was a bad deal for union members. The impact it would have on the budget in the future was dramatic."

But excluding special lump-sum payments, retirees' pensions are not particularly rich. In 2009, the average annual pension payout was less than $19,000, according to county records.

Rather, the pension fund has been victim to the same economic forces that are eroding municipal finances nationwide. When the financial crisis struck, these relatively modest benefits suddenly required an outsized contribution from taxpayers -- money that the government otherwise would spend on things like public transportation.

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Al Gore Ambushed On Climategate By New World Order Activists (WATCH)

http://tinyurl.com/3dmxqjf

Video: Al Gore ambushed on Climategate by activists at Chicago Bookstore

The day was November 29, a few weeks after Climategate broke. Gore was doing a signing at a Chicago bookstore. We Are Change Chicago was prepared. It's some of the best pure live footage I've ever seen. Do not miss the final 45 seconds. Someone screams out "You're a piece of shit Al Gore" and then it begins.

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Video: We Are Change goes after Al Gore in April of 2009 -- this is definitely worth watching as well...some confrontations in the second minute.