STOP AIG!

The American People have no control over how their money is spent. $165 million of our tax dollars is being lavishly distributed to the same people who recklessly set up the financial house of cards at the core of the current collapse of the global economy. As if the AIG bonuses in December—when 160 employees received between $92,500 and $4 million—weren't enough. And I guess the $444,000 California retreat featuring banquets, golf outings, and spa treatments one week after the September 08 bailout wasn't enough either. Not to mention the post-bailout $86,000 hunting trip the company later said they regret was never cancelled.

As if these executives demanding that their bonuses be paid weren't millionaires already. This puts to shame the old saying: "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer." The rich here are literally taking money directly out of the pockets of the poor with the U.S. Treasury overseeing the arrangement. Sometimes it feels like a giant Madoff scheme with taxpayer dollars.

Insurance giant AIG has now received $170 billion in taxpayer money because it is just "too big to fail." This amount exceeds any governmental disbursement of public funds into private hands the world has ever seen. Without our bailout money, AIG would have gone bankrupt, sending its executives to the streets. And yet they remain employed on our dime.

Washington refuses to abrogate the contractual bonuses of $165 million to AIG employees because we are a "country of law." The truth is, these contracts would have been washed out in bankruptcy proceedings or liquidation if we hadn't bailed them out in the first place. According to Robert Reich, AIG's debt obligations to creditors would have to be paid out way before the company's paltry assets would ever reach such low-priority internal bonus contracts.

And is it not true that because the American people now own 80 percent of AIG, the executives should be accountable to the government and not some old private contracts made at the height of the reckless financial activity? Why doesn't the government own the entirety of the corporation anyway? Isn't $170 billion enough for a company that was bound for destitution? We should have nationalized AIG from the very beginning, making the corporation fully accountable to the government while giving taxpayers the benefits instead of just the toxic debts of a dying company.

What then, I must ask, is the law of the land? Upholding unconscionable contracts for undeserving millionaires, or fulfilling the fiduciary duty of governmental leaders to the American People? Is there any higher law of the land than those resounding words in the preamble of our Constitution to establish justice and promote the general welfare? Why is our President, the enforcer of the law, powerless to do just that?

And what of the fiduciary duty required by the executives and board members of AIG? I can't help but be nearly certain that AIG continued selling financial insurance after they knew that the corporation was in financial ruins. (Has it not become standard for corporations to hide their bad balance sheets from the public as long as possible?) To sell a service that one does not have any capacity to fulfill most certainly satisfies the legal standard of fraud. I guess they were just hoping for a bailout all along. Surely this is not acting within the best interest of the actual owners of the corporation.

Where are the litigators and the shareholder lawsuits? Where are the indictments from the State's Attorney's office and the Attorney General? It is nothing but absurd and outrageous that our money is being thrown into the hands of people who already have more than the average person could ever conceive of, with no strings attached. It hurts too much to watch these injustices be allowed right before the eyes of the public. STOP AIG!

Chicago Big Box Wars - Round 2

Wal-Mart aims again at Chicago's once resistant retail sector - WSJ article.

If at first you don't succeed, try try again...especially when your enemy is weak. (Chicago city Rankings-Forbes)

My fears are no longer within site...they are now pounding on the door. I wondered if the current economic downturn could realize a positive effect for smaller local business in the long run. That possibly citizens and legislatures would realize that big box retailers sucked too much money out of the locality and into the select few shareholders in the upper tiers of the economic classes. I also feared that the impending depression would drown out local business and create monopolies for the very few retailers that have enough capital to sustain themselves through low consumption periods.

Well, the war has begun with Wal-Mart trying to capitalize on what may become a desperate and helpless consumer population. The wealthy know how to play the game of capitalism. They know how to hold on to their money and then invest it at dirt cheap prices when nobody else has any money of their own to take a risk with.

Cuba's Organic Farming Revolution: A Model for Sustainable Development

The 21st century realizes a moral precedent against the "ultra efficient" production capacities of capitalism: 1) Its destroying the planet, and 2) It creates extreme inequalities. A new model for sustainability and equality must be adopted. This documentary tells the story of an unlikely country that sets a precedent for the rest of the world.

"When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba's economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call "The Special Period." The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis – the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope." (The Power of Community Website)

The Film-- The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

Obama Race Speech

Watching this after Obama has been elected makes it all the more meaningful. Lets hope he watches it again himself.

Election Reflection

My idealism about the electoral process got pushed and pulled out of me a year ago. I did indeed vote today and that vote was cast for Obama. My vote was cast with confidence and yes, "hope for change." Only time will tell if these emotions prove warranted or not.

The sad thing is that in the event of being let down after 4 or 8 years of an Obama presidency, it may be difficult to figure out if it was Obama who failed me or the circumstances that Obama was thrown into.

One thing is undeniably exciting. The American people seem to care again. Actually caring can be the strongest power we have to prevent the abuse of power. Leaders can get away with a whole lot if the people they are leading don't pay attention to what they are doing. I fear that a potentially ineffective Obama presidency may once again lend itself to a detached populous. It could, on the other hand, get people to pay attention even more. Let's hope. (Obama will almost certainly make government more transparent than McCain.)

Will an Obama presidency further stifle the possibility of third party politics? Our two party system leaves millions of Americans and their issues entirely unrepresented. Will the radical left lose whatever momentum they have because "the most liberal Senator" is the president? Historically, radical left politics gets subsumed by progressive Democrats in crisis times, only later to be ignored once elections are won. And when the issues of the radical left are addressed, its often through ineffective agencies or poorly enforced statutes. If the democratic candidate was not as liberal as Obama, you probably wouldn't have seen Nader fall off a cliff like he did during the campaign process.

What will become of the Republican party? Many are predicting that they will be forced to reinvent themselves. I am concerned that this may not happen very soon. Krugman writes

Why will the G.O.P. become more, not less, extreme? For one thing, projections suggest that this election will drive many of the remaining Republican moderates out of Congress, while leaving the hard right in place. (Full Article--The Republican Rump)

Will Obama actually make government cool again? I think he has the capacity to promote local-level political organization. Is it possible that we might see the development of political branches rise up across the country which bring people together to talk about societal issues in the same way people get up on Sunday mornings to talk about spiritual issues?

My last concern then is this: Will an Obama presidency unify the country and loosen up the polarization of both politics and personal postures toward cooperation and change? I fear that instead we may see people ever more caught up in their ideologies, making them incapable of pragmatically tackling the very real problems we are all having to confront. I hope I am wrong, but the voices of the voters for each candidate seem pretty radical (love/hate). Extreme passion on either side promotes disgust for difference which crushes the spirit of cooperation.

Obama however, as an individual separate from his followers, does seem very capable of transcending polarization and radical ideologies. That is what I believe allowed him to get this far in the first place. He did it as president of the Harvard Law Review, lets hope he can do it as president of the United States.

Fukuyama for Obama--Obamacons

There is a growing number of conservatives supporting Obama. Colin Powell, Christopher Buckley, and to my surprise, Francis Fukuyama.

Fukuyama has been one of the leading contemporary neo-conservatives who wrote "The End of History and the Last Man," a book extolling the virtues of free markets and even the forceful spread of capitalism and democracy

"In my own thinking since I have to vote in this next election, I personally actually don't want to see a Republican re-elected because I have a general view of the way democratic processes should work and if your party is responsible for a big policy failure, you shouldn't be rewarded by being re-elected." Fukuyama for Obama

More conservatives for Obama in this article: Economist's piece on Obamacons.

The Bikester Bailout?

Folks who know me also know that I love bikes. If the bailout does not sit well with all you bikers out there, this may help. The Emergency Economic Stabalization Package (aka Bailout Bill), includes a clause which provides employers a tax credit for cyclists who commute to work.

"Come January, bike commuters will receive a monthly credit of up to $20 that can be spent on maintaining, repairing or buying bicycles."

“It’s a pretty small victory. But this gives a lot of people around the country the ability to walk into their human resources office or their manager’s office and ask for the credit. It helps move the conversation forward.”

From NY Times article.

To see the actual statute click below. It is section 211 located on pgs. 205-207.

Bailout Statute, Full Text

Krugman the Prophet

Paul Krugman, recent victor of the Nobel prize, giving a lecture on Google's campus about the state of the economy. Dec. 18th, 2007

Some History on Financialization

"The fact is, the markets work, and they are working...And people - some of the big companies obviously - have taken risks. Risk means risk. And there's an upside as well as a downside in some of the choices they've made. We have to be careful not to have this set of developments lead us to significantly expand the role of government in ways that may do damage long-term for the economy....We don't want to interfere with the basic, fundamental working of the markets."

Dick Cheney, November 2007

Throughout its history, capitalism has proven itself to be both remarkably adept, resilient, and ruthless in its never-ending pursuit of financial return on investment. It can rapidly shift capital into areas of greater demand, reduce the costs of production and labor, rebound back from financial collapse, and create entirely new markets and methods for generating profit. Capitalists have experienced times of both unprecedented freedom and binding regulation often depending on the quality of their political organization. In this essay I wish to discuss a brief history of free-market financialization which has led to directly exploitive and oppressive acts on the American public, creating the most unequal distribution of wealth since the 1920's and an economy whose foundation is at risk.

Capitalism and Its Distinctive Features

Production Capitalism
When I first began my research, I was under the impression that we were experiencing an entirely unique stage of capitalism unlike any in its past. While this may be true when looking at its size or cultural manifestations, the essential foundations of a capitalist economy have changed little. Capital is money invested into some project or activity with the hope of generating more money. In the early stages of mercantile capitalism, money was invested into the building of ships and the costs of a voyage to East India for spices. The initial return on investment, because supply was so low and demand so high, was 95%. Risks were high however because occasionally, a vessel would never return and the capital invested would be completely lost. To reduce such risk and generate more capital, stock markets evolved enabling one to invest in an entire industry or company instead of individual voyages (Fulcher 2004).

The shift to capitalist production had enormous trans-formative implications for society because it demanded wage labor and created two spheres of existence: production/consumption, work/leisure, labor/domestic. As individuals and families spent most of their time earning a wage in divided labor sectors, it became necessary to purchase in a market what was once self produced to survive. Though the initial investment returns on mass production were high, they could not be sustained however due to the introduction of competition. Keeping profits in mind, competition lead several tendencies to ensue. As other companies drove down prices in the market because of increases in supply, capitalists needed to keep returns high by lowering the costs of production. This was done in two ways: reducing labor wages and increasing efficiency of production through innovations in technology and micromanaging. Often this lead to exploitation of labor, what Karl Marx called "slave labor," as capitalism naturally drives wages to "stationary poverty" in attempts to maximize profits. These tendencies made risk an inherent presence in capitalist societies. As other companies employed the same techniques of cost reduction, the capitalists would reduce risk by buying out competition to create a monopoly or by establishing cartels in order to control supply and price levels. They also formed trade unions to create industry wide agreements on prices and labor costs. If the industry no longer seems profitable, capital will shift to new industries in hopes that speculation will generate greater returns at the total disregard for the real economic needs of the laborers within the production process of the industry where the capital is leaving. The laborers who experience this risk in the form of decreasing wages and unemployment would join worker unions to fight for better wages and working conditions.

Managerial Revolution
One distinctive feature of American corporations was the managerial revolution documented by Alfred P. Chandler. This shift lead by General Motors, put managers in charge of corporations who didn't actually own them and created a decentralized hierarchical structure with various divisions of operation. He argued that, this new "visible hand" was more of a driving force in capitalism than those usually cited in typical economic theory. Its success and adoption by other corporations is what gave the U.S. its world super power status (Chandler 1977). Management, with its Chief Executive Officer, called the shots of giant publicly traded corporations owned by masses of people (shareholders) through the purchase of shares. Since ownership became so widely distributed, corporations became republics in which a Board of Directors are the representatives elected by the owners. This board is intended to direct management to fulfill the corporations legal obligation of "maximizing shareholder value." While this change may have initially generated great efficiencies in the real workings of the corporation, during the final decades of the 20th century till now, this efficiency has deteriorated to a loss of agency not just on the part of the shareholders/owners, but mostly on the part of managers, accountants, lawyers, stockbrokers, underwriters, legislators and corporate boards of directors. This loss of agency is discussed thoroughly in The Modern Corporation and Private Property, which argues that a diffusion of ownership on all levels lends itself to a decline in fiduciary responsibility to owners (1991: Berle & Means). As a matter of fact, the notion isn't so new. Adam Smith, the father of capitalism wrote some two hundred years ago that "it can not be well expected that the directors of companies, being the managers rather of other people's money than of their own, should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own. Like the stewards of a rich man, they very easily give themselves a dispensation. Negligence and profusion must always prevail" (Smith 1776: 330).

Financialization
The corporate need to continually achieve greater returns on investment has created what has become known as the "bottom-line" society. It is simply not sufficient to have a stable and consistent market share with stable and consistent profits. Coca-Cola, for example, could maintain their current business practices and consistently create wealth and income year after year for its employees, owners, and investors. But stability is not sufficient and greater wealth must be sought after. They will not be satisfied until consumers are drinking Coke for breakfast in addition to lunch and dinner (its in their management literature). Not only must one create profits, one must increase profits continuously year over year, quarter over quarter. There are limits to growth however. Within industries, demand does stabilize, innovation becomes limited, costs reach their lowest levels, and no more competitors are available to take over.

When corporate growth began to stabilise in the midst of a slowdown in the economy during the 1970's, the hunger for consistent growth in profits did not go away. Creative corporations began to move their vast mountains of surplus capital into the industry of investment banking. This shift has been called the "financialization of capitalism." Instead of a corporation simply focusing on their primary business objective within the real economy, they realized that they could use their excess capital to invest in other corporations. In most cases, they hire financial institutions to do the work for them at the cost of managerial fees. This trend has since become the standard way of managing excess capital (Foster 2007). Ford for example, was able to offset losses in their production business because its investment division generated such huge profits.

Another major turning point leading to the massive increase in financialization occurred when GM invested its pension plan into its stock portfolio. It began a trend within corporations that has flooded the financial institutions with money to be managed by professional investors. In the pension plan, the risk of investment is placed on the corporation and not on the individual employee because a pension is contractually guaranteed. In realizing this risk, corporations have turned to defined contribution plans where individual employees have the option of contributing to retirement funds such as a 401K through major financial institutions. Because of reduced risk, even more corporations have these retirement fund options for their employees which has lead to even greater cash flows into the money markets. These financial institutions are now some of worlds largest corporations.

Market Theory

Money markets "are markets whose product is money itself...[which] serve the crucial function of joining investors with entrepreneurs" (Kuttner 1996: 159). While the financial industry is ideally intended to reflect perfectly the strength or weakness in the real economy, in actuality, it strays radically away from doing that because it lacks perfect information and has heavy psycho-social aspect to it. Money markets are more like spot markets whose prices represent educated guesses about the potential of an industry and the likelihood of other people investing in that industry. The consideration of how others will respond to industry news and information is more important to current investors than what it actually means for the profitable capacity of the corporations within the real economy. Assets have the tendency to move into new fad markets, displacing incumbents, and in the process greatly enriching middle men. The markets increased volatility in recent decades is the result of short-term investment strategies at the cost of long-term steady and stable growth. Investors see numbers, not people. While financial investment can provide needed capital for underfunded growth industries, it can also shift necessary capital away from more established and healthy markets causing major disruptions in communities and employment within the real economy.

The question is one of efficiency. Are the markets most efficient without regulation or are they more efficient if they are regulated. Commenting on Thorstein Veblen, Robert Kuttner suggests that "financiers were useful to the extent that they supplied capital; they were parasites to the extent that they were mere speculators" (Kuttner 162). If Veblen is right, then we should tax financial transactions or profits actualized through quick returns in order to tame the wild beast of speculative short-termism. Proponents of deregulation will proclaim the "Efficient Market Hypothesis," which insists that the stock market possesses perfect information about the value of any given company at any given time. Stock market crashes however (1929, 1987, 2000) seem to suggest otherwise. On October 19th 1987, the market lost almost a third of its entire value. To suggest that the prices in the market were accurate readings the real economy on both the day before and the day of the crash is quite preposterous. The truth is that it was way over-valued one day and then under-valued the next. In fact, had it not been for regulatory intervention, the "rationale" market would have continued its irrational plummet despite the fact that assets of the corporations had changed little.

The argument I wish to make is that the market fails when it no longer serves the purpose of providing needed capital to real corporations that employ real people resulting in sustainable economic growth. When on the other hand, in a unregulated environment, markets become a place for short term trading and gambling rather than long term investing, the economy will suffer in several ways. Corporations will become less efficient and profitable in the long run, wages and labor costs will be driven down, conflict of interest will be prevalent, inequality rises, and market crashes will cost taxpayers billions when the government bails out the abuses of money managers.

Lessons from the Past

Prior to the great depression there were rampant abuses which lead to grave inequalities and a complete market crash. "In the 1920's, speculative schemes, largely unregulated and increasingly reliant on dishonest books and borrowed money, drove up the price of stocks even as the insiders who organized the schemes pulled out their own money and gulled small investors" (Kuttner 2007: 83). Stock Pools and Holding Companies were the mechanisms to achieve these schemes in which organizers bought securities at cheap prices, than ran campaigns to sell more securities to outsiders. The outsiders were not only promised that it was a sure investment, but were also offered loans to buy them in the first place. When the insiders cashed in, the outsiders were cleaned out.

In 1934 the Securities and Exchange Commission was a federal agency established to enforce a series of financial reforms that were intended to prevent abusive practices used to manipulate stock prices and also to prevent bankers from risking other people's deposited money. Activity intended to deceive investors into purchasing securities was made illegal by requiring banks and corporations to fully disclose all pertinent information an investor would want to know. Financial statements had to be performed by independent auditing firms and corporations became subject to court hearings if they were suspected of not fulfilling their fiduciary duties to clients or shareholders.

During the 1920's, commercial banks were able to partake in just about any type of highly speculative investment to generate profits. After the crash of 1929, over four thousand banks collapsed, each holding over $900,000 in depositors money, causing millions of Americans to lose their life savings. At this point it became clear that banking was not just another type of business that involved risk like any other financial activity. In response, the Roosevelt administration implemented regulations on commercial banking so tightly that banks were almost seen as a public entity. The activity of a commercial bank was strictly forbidden from the more speculative and risky realms of investment banking. Not only did they have restrictions in the amount of interest they could charge borrowers, they also had caps on interest offered to depositors. This was designed to prevent bidding wars to attract customers. The logic was that higher interest rates on deposits would require bank investments to yield greater returns, thus leading to higher risk with the life savings of American citizens and the potential for another crash. Additionally, to prevent banks from over-lending, they were required to maintain minimum ratios of loans to total capital which was periodically examined (Kuttner 1996).

In return for these regulations, the government reduced competition and insured the depositor's money. A bank could not be opened without applying for a government charter, and if the region already appeared over-banked, the charter would be denied. Banks were also unable to branch out and become multi-state conglomerates, preventing monopolistic practices. The insured deposits came in the form of FDIC insured accounts which returned public trust in the banks helping to revitalize the economy. This however, did not reduce the benefits of competition all together. Banks maximized profits and gained customers through efficiency, high loan standards, and customer service, providing both a stable and quality environment for 40 years. A joke in the savings and loan industry followed the '3-6-3' rule, "take in deposits at 3 percent, make mortgage loans at 6 percent, and be on the golf course by 3pm" (Kuttner 1996: 21).

The intellectual justification for this mixed economy came from John Maynard Keynes, who argued persuasively that government regulation, federal spending, and a commitment to full employment would create the strongest economy with the greatest equality. To date, the 30 years following the war have been the most prosperous times in all of U.S. History. During the 70's, the combining effects of a more a vibrant individualism, with a stagflating economy lead to the election of right wing politicians who championed the free market policies of Milton Friedman. This was the beginning of the big shift away government involvement in the American economy.

Demise of the New Deal

Robert Kuttner argues that "the broad causes for the shift were the new prestige of laissez-faire markets, the globalization of the financial economy, and the invention of institutions that circumvented the tight regulatory strictures on banks and thrift institutions. The immediate cause was inflation" (Kuttner 1996: 169). The rise of inflation in 1974 was 11 percent and the interest rate limit was 5.25% causing depositers to complain. As pressure grew, interest was soon allowed to be paid on checking accounts, and the savings account interest rate caps were removed. Another innovation and threat to banks was the money-market mutual fund from Fidelity which was backed by investments in short-term money-market securities. Such funds were not insured but were "safe enough" and had 7% rather than 5% interest rates. This was problematic because the banks were losing customers to money market accounts which were the essential assets needed to back their mortgage liabilities. Soon enough, corporations were no longer taking their credit from traditional banks and even started financing divisions of their own with extremely low rates to promote sales. Banks too were finding loopholes to invest in securities by having unregulated off shore divisions or their corporation. The hands off policy by legislators in response to these innovations lead banks to invest in more speculative areas in light of their need to compete for higher interests rates on deposits.

"Congress behaved as if banks were just another entrepreneur, without special fiduciary duties, without taxpayer-insured deposits. In a spectacular lapse, Congress and the Reagan administration deregulated nearly everything but deposit insurance, effectively inviting bankers to gamble with government insured money...when the reckoning finally came, this experiment in the marketization cost the taxpayers $160 billion" (Kuttner 1996: 173). In other words, the Glass Steagal Act from the New Deal, which separated specific lines of business from commercial banks and investment banks was being assaulted and banks began engaging in any type business it saw as profitable. It was eventually completely repealed under President Clinton in 1999 and the emergence of financial conglomerates who possessed the same conflicts of interests as in the 1920's began to flower.

Sure enough, in the years of 2000 through 2002, financial scandals came to the forefront with Enron and Worldcom (assisted by the big banks) making the most headlines. The run up to their collapse was filled with insider deals, lack of transparency, hyping up stock values, unsound financial reports, and total lack of agency. Interestingly, much of the lack of transparency in accounting was the result of a new accounting standard authorized by the Bush Administration. Despite these scandals that cost taxpayers billions and hardworking employees their life savings, the bells of deregulation are still ringing. The Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002 has hardly had any effect as loopholes are being exploited and systemic risk only growing. In fact, pressure from lobbyists and Bush appointed financial regulators are already attacking the Act decrying its assault on the efficiency of the free markets. The following quote summarizes what is to follow.

In the 1980's and 1990's, however, every element of agency failed. Deregulation and lax enforcement of the regulations that remained eroded professional norms that had constrained rank opportunism. Supposedly independent auditors colluded with management to dress up corporate books. Ostensibly fair-minded securities analysts serving investors turned out to be stock touts looking to bring their firm underwriting business on their success in running up a client company's share price. Boards of directors that allegedly represented shareholders helped crony CEO's reap astronomical compensation packages largely disconnected from actual company performance. Corporate boards promoted stock options that gave executives incentives not to optimize true performance but to inflate the share price in the short run. Mutual funds, rather than serving as the agents of investors, took huge transaction fees and invariably voted their shares with management. Brokers and investment bankers helped themselves and their favorite clients to new stock issues (IPOs) at preferential prices not available to the public. Institutions of self-regulation, such as the National Association of Securities Dealers, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and the New York Stock Exchange, went after minor infractions but not the deeper corruption. What all of these insiders had in common was a self-interest in manipulating share prices (Kuttner 2007: 75).

Urban Policy and the Presidential Election

With over half of the population living in our rapidly growing urban centers, urban planning ought to be at the forefront of political concern. Here are some sections of a recent article by Neal Pierce on the presidential race and urban policy. (Full article: McCain Versus Obama: Who's Best for Cities?)

"With Obama, we’re likely to get an activist federal government in areas from transit and infrastructure to housing. But it won’t be the Democrats’ historic center-city “urban policy.” Instead, Obama’s looking for ways to shift and coordinate federal programs to help boost the fortunes of entire metro regions."

"McCain? One has to be a super-detective to discern any city-metro policy at all...But do we have even a hint of a federal partnership with urban/metro America under a McCain administration? So far no. The silence could be intentional. The Sarah Palin vice presidential selection, the Republican National Convention’s celebration of small towns and invective against “cosmopolitanism” and community organizing, smacks of a calculated anti-urban message."

"Obama[] pledge[s] to create the first-ever White House Office on Urban Policy. With a director reporting to the president, its role would be to get the federal government’s historically “siloed” cabinet departments and agencies to work collaboratively with cities and metro regions."

"For over 50 years, at least since President Harry Truman-- “We haven’t had a president who would be as grounded, as versed in urban and metropolitan matters” as Obama...An Obama presidency would at least aspire to deliver 21st century intellectual power, strong personal commitment to our cities and regions, and intent to appoint the most skilled administrators the country has to offer."

A more detailed look at Obama's urban policies can be found on his campaign website here:

Obama's Urban Policy Proposals

McCain's Urban Policy Proposals? -- There are none. See for yourself.

McCain - Issues

Should Water be Property?

FLOW: A new documentary on the world's fresh water resources.

"The film builds a compelling case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel."

Trailer for FLOW

State of Working America

The Economic Policy Institute just published its authoritative analysis on the U.S. labor market revealing the continuance of grim trends for America's working people

Some excerpts from the Press Release

"In their review of the current economic picture, five dominant factors emerge: strong growth in productivity, weak growth of jobs; stagnant or falling real household income for most families; increasingly unequal distribution of the benefits of economic growth; and the increasingly rigid economic stratification this inequality produces."

"When jobs are scarce, employees have little leverage to bargain for better wages and benefits. The share of involuntary part-timers (that is, those would want but cannot find full-time work) has continued to rise as employers cut costs by reducing work hours. As of June 2008, with the economy again shedding jobs at a recessionary pace, the number of people involuntarily working part-time has risen to about 5 million."

"Disproportionately large shares of the long-term unemployed in 2007 were more experienced workers (age 45 and older) and college educated."

"Although the economy has expanded by 18% since 2000, most Americans’ household income does not reflect that growth. Quite the opposite: real income for the median family fell by 1.1% from 2000-2006. A small increase in the median family’s hourly wages (1%) was more than wiped out by the 2.2% drop in annual work hours. Moreover, whatever wage growth occurred since 2000 was based on the momentum from the 1990s recovery—wages did not improve at all over the 2002-07 recovery."

“While most Americans were struggling, the good times were rolling among the top 10%,” said co-author Lawrence Mishel. “We have seen a large scale skimming of the benefits of growth from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 10%, and especially to the top one percent and, even more so, the top one-tenth of a percent.”

"But if another saying is true, that in America we can all work hard and “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps,” maybe we can count on upward mobility to get us a bigger share of the pie. But the authors’ exploration of data on income mobility shows that the “bootstrap” theory does not describe most peoples’ experience. While some mobility exists, significant shares of families remain near their same position in the income scale. For example, about 60% of families that start in the bottom fifth are still there a decade later. At the other end of the income scale, 52% of families that start in the top fifth finish there at the end of the decade."

"With the next recession underway, Americans now face fresh challenges. Over 400,000 jobs were lost in the first half of 2008 as the unemployment rate rose to 5.5% - up from its 4.4% low point in March 2007. Economists expect unemployment to reach 6.4% in 2009. For African-Americans and Hispanics the outlook is graver. While both groups made significant gains in employment rates during the full-employment recovery of the latter 1990s, those gains were reversed in the 2000-2007 cycle. Based on historic patterns, the authors expect unemployment among African-Americans to be around 11% - by the end of 2009. "

stateofworkingamerica.org

Debt Documentary: The U.S. Government's Spending Cancer

A new documentary was just released about the never ending and ever worsening United State's debt problem.  Shall we file a lawsuit against our Nation's leaders for breach of fiduciary duty?  This film makes a pretty good case.  

I.O.U.S.A. is the name of the film.

Marx's Capital Lectures Online

This is an invaluably rich resource if you want to learn about Marx's Magnum Opus, Capital. One of the greatest works combining Political Economy, Critical Philosophy, and Utopian Socialist thought.

Check it out, the Professor has been lecturing on the book for 40 years and his style and tone and rather engaging.

http://davidharvey.org/

Save money-Save the world

I love it when people create simplicity out of complexity. Its a scary thought to drop $10k on housing renovations when you are already struggling to pay the bills in the first place. Its a difficult thing to take the time to wisely invest $10k on housing renovations when all you want to do is relax during your free moments. In other words, I'm too lazy and too strapped financially to take the risk of green investing.

What if however, someone comes to your home, assesses your current energy expenses, proposes a green renovation plan, develops a financial map showing you when the investment will pay for itself and start saving you money, provides financing options, and completely manages all the contracting and paperwork? Seems like a no brainer right? If you stick around it will save you money in paying the bills. If you need to move, it will increase the value of your home. Plus, you are saving the world by reducing your carbon footprint.

Thats what these guys do. I guarantee this will become an international phenomenon. Check out the link.

Cambridge Energy Alliance