Day: December 29, 2008

Will Obama’s Plan Really Help The Middle Class?

From an article that appears in the Christian Science Monitor.

America remains a “yes, we can” kind of nation, but the aspirations of the vast middle class are under strain – enough to be the subject of a presidential task force.

President-elect Obama made it official earlier this week. Come January, a key job of Vice President Joseph Biden will be to come up with ways to boost middle-class incomes and to address related concerns about job and retirement security.

Of course, the very phrase “middle class” is a fuzzy one, and a topic perennially on the minds of politicians. But ordinary Americans are confronting a real economic squeeze.

Pay isn’t rising as fast as it used to, relative to economic growth. And over the past decade, households have stretched their debt loads to historic highs. Now an economic downturn is amplifying concerns about the security of careers, health insurance, and pensions.

In November, consumers pulled back on their spending for the fifth straight month, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Polls suggest widespread feelings of financial insecurity among working families – not just the direct impact of job losses – are a big reason.

The American public now appears to be on the fence about which way the country is headed. Six in 10 consumers who are cutting back say the reason is worry that things might get worse, according to a Pew Research Center poll taken earlier this month. Half that many said they had curbed spending because their financial situation actually is worse.

But can-do optimism endures. Some 68 percent of poll respondents agreed with the statement, “As Americans, we can always find ways to solve our problems and get what we want.” That number is higher than it was in 2004.

Mr. Obama announced the so-called White House Task Force on Working Families on Dec. 21. The selection of his vice president to head it suggests that Biden, known also for his foreign-policy expertise, will have a big role on domestic policy as well.

Biden said the task force would look to set policies that will improve basic benchmarks: “Is the number of these [middle-class] families growing? Are they prospering? President-elect Obama and I know the economic health of working families has eroded, and we intend to turn that around.”

The task force identified five areas for new policies:

•Expanding education and lifelong training opportunities.

•Improving work and family balance.

•Restoring labor standards, including workplace safety.

•Helping to protect family incomes.

•Protecting retirement security.

Policies on health insurance, another middle-class concern, will be crafted by Obama’s Health and Human Services secretary, Tom Daschle.

Similarly, the job-creating stimulus plan – expected to involve massive government spending – isn’t being crafted by this task force.

Taleban Exacts Revenge

Four months ago, the people of the Pakistani mountain village of Shalbandi gained national repute after a village posse hunted down and killed six Taliban fighters who had tied up and killed eight local policemen. The posse displayed the Taliban corpses like trophies for other residents to see, and the village was celebrated as a courageous sign that the Taliban could be repelled.

On Sunday morning, the Taliban struck back.

A suicide car bomber set off an explosion at a school in Shalbandi that was serving as a polling place, as voters lined up to elect a representative to the National Assembly. More than 30 people were killed and more than two dozen wounded, according to local political and security officials. Children and several policemen were among the dead.

The attack was the latest demonstration of the Taliban’s bloody encroachment eastward and deeper into Pakistan from the lawless tribal areas on the western border. Shalbandi is less than 100 miles northwest of Islamabad, the capital, and lies just south of the lush Swat Valley, a onetime ski resort known as the “Switzerland of Pakistan” that has been largely taken over by the Taliban despite large-scale army operations.

Is this a growing problem?  If so then Pakistan will have their hands full and will probably weaken the government even more than it is now.

War Comes To Gaza–Day 3

Israeli air raids have pounded the Gaza Strip for a third day, hitting key sites linked to militant group Hamas.

Foreign minister Tzipi Livni said Israel was determined to “change realities” in Gaza, amid expectations it might launch a ground invasion.

Three hundred Palestinians, including 56 civilians, are reported to have died since Saturday. In Israel, a second person was killed by a militant rocket.

Gaza’s interior ministry and Islamic University are the latest targets.

Other centres of Hamas strength, including security compounds, government offices and tunnels into Egypt, have been hit since Israel started its massive bombing campaign on Saturday morning.

At the UN, the Security Council joined international calls for restraint by urging an end to all violence between Israel and Gaza.

The US, Israel’s strongest ally on the council, said the onus was on Hamas to stop rocket fire.

Israel says Palestinian militants have fired more than 110 rockets from the coast territory since Saturday.

The strikes began on Saturday less than a week after the expiry of a six-month-long ceasefire deal with Hamas.

On Sunday, rockets landed in Ashdod, Israel’s largest southern city – which is 38km (23 miles) away – the deepest strikes inside Israel from Gaza so far, Israeli media said. No injuries were reported.

Stalin Third Best Russian

This is scary, that aperson who killed millions of his own countrymen could be a popular person.

Former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was beaten by medieval prince Alexander Nevsky in a poll held by a TV station to find the greatest Russian.

Stalin came third, despite being responsible for the deaths of millions of Soviets in labour camps and purges.

Alexander Nevsky fought off European invaders in the 13th century to preserve a united Russia.

In second place was reformist Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin, who was assassinated in 1911.

More than 50 million people voted by phone, the internet or via text messages in the poll held by Rossiya, one of Russia’s biggest television stations.

The voting took place over six months as 500 original candidates were whittled down to a final 12

Stalin – born an ethnic Georgian – was riding high for many months and was in the number one slot at one point until the show’s producer appealed to viewers to vote for someone else, says the BBC’s Richard Galpin in Moscow.

Stalin sent millions of people to their deaths in the work camps of the Gulag. Millions more perished in political purges or during the forced collectivisation of farms during his rule from the 1920s to his death in 1953.

Many in Russia do still revere Stalin for his role during World War II when the Soviet Union defeated the forces of Nazi Germany.

Can anyone explain this reasoning to me?  Please.