Tag: Obama Administration

Study: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Will Cost US a Half Million Jobs

One of Obama’s signature policies will be the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).  A piece of CRAP!

There are some that think this deal which was conceived and passed in secret will not be the end all for the economic problems of the US.  To me it smells like just another NAFTA which cost millions of jobs and our manufacturing base, but Clintonites still cling to this failed policy as if it were the second coming.

The TPP has promised to revitalize our economy with jobs and trade…..but is it the benefit that the admin boyz are selling?

One study says that its is NOT the benefit that is being promised.

A group of economists studying the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) have concluded that the sweeping trade agreement will have a net negative impact on the US economy.

Economic researchers with Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute said Monday that widely cited projections claiming the TPP will boost economic activity in the US are “based on unrealistic assumptions.”

Instead, the economists noted, the 12-nation Pacific Rim trade deal will likely lead to the loss of 448,000 jobs from the US workforce, while lowering GDP by more than a half-percentage point over the next decade.

Source: Study: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Will Cost US a Half Million Jobs, Drag Down GDP – Linkis.com

Good deal for those people with more money than principles….not so much for the working stiff……

Yet another nail in the coffin of the middle class.

I am so proud!

Rats Leaving A Sinking Ship?

First it was the Director of National Intelligence and then it was the head of the Office of Budget, Orzag and now it is Obama’s economics adviser, Romer….what is going on in Washington?

Are these rats leaving a sinking ship?  Or is it just the usual turn over in any administration?

A case could be made that these people are trying to distance themselves from the Prez…..I mean look at the economy…..jobs suck……housing sucks…..credit sucks….all the stuff that makes the Middle class vibrant….and the Repubs will be milking the woes of our nation to their advantage…..and these people could be trying to put as much distance between them and the WH as to NOT tarnish their reps…..The Dems will be trying to distance themselves from any of the bad stuff and will try to accentuate the good….whatever that might be…..the oil spill or the rise of the auto makers or FinReg, which was NOTHING like what was intended……

All in all….the upcoming election will be a sprint away from the downside of their ideology and tagging out to the stuff that gives them the most positive bang for their buck.

The economy is NOT doing well and the economic advisers are trying to get as far away from the election as possible…..conservs, if they are smart, will hit the prez on the economy as much and as often as possible and stay the hell away from the social crap that will NOT get them elected.  Maybe it the economy gets better then they can return to the social issues that have helped them in the past…but NOW is NOT the time!

Who is the next rat to leave?

The Economy Is In Slow Recovery

At least that is what is being championed by the Obama mouthpieces on the Sunday talk shows and by the Prez himself in his radio address.

The Prez used his speech to pat themselves on the back.  Obama used his weekly address on Saturday to hail the GDP figures as a vindication of his economic policies. He said that his stimulus package and his “other difficult but important steps” had “put the brakes on this recession.”

“We took unprecedented action,” he continued, “to stem the spread of foreclosures by helping responsible homeowners stay in their homes and pay their mortgages. We helped revive the credit markets and open up loans for families and small businesses. And we enacted a Recovery Act that … provided relief to struggling states to prevent layoffs of teachers and police officers and made investments that are putting people back to work rebuilding and renovating roads, bridges, schools and hospitals.”

Tom Eley observed:

One can only wonder: What country is Obama talking about? State and city governments are slashing jobs and social programs to meet the most crippling budget deficits in modern history. New data released this week reveal that bailed-out banks continue to deny loans to consumers and are hoarding cash more now than at the beginning of the year. As for helping “responsible” homeowners, foreclosures in the first six months of this year hit a record 1.5 million.

The supposed success of his policies, Obama suggested, vindicated his unquestioning support for the profit system and his drive to relieve businesses of their health care obligations to workers. That this is the underlying aim of his health care proposals was made clear by his call for “a health care system that makes it possible for entrepreneurs to innovate and businesses to compete without being saddled with skyrocketing insurance costs.”

All of the policies of the Obama administration have been focused on protecting the interests of a financial aristocracy that exercises a de facto dictatorship over the social and political life of the country. Now, the crisis which the bankers precipitated is being used to effect a permanent reduction in the living standards and social position of working people.

There will be no return to the already depressed wage levels and paltry social benefits that existed prior to the crash of 2008. Instead, a further redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top will be carried out through the destruction of all that remains of past social gains and an immense intensification in the exploitation of the working class.

Mr. Eley sounds a bit radical in his observations, but I will have to agree with him….I see nothing on Main Street that says we are doing any better now than we were a year ago.  In the same vein, Wall Street is doing just fine, so much so that they are handing bonuses.  The stimulus money is well spent if you happen to be in the Wall Street clic.  Unfortunately, most of us live on Main Street and that road is full of potholes and speed bumps.

Could There Be A Greenhouse Gases Plan?

In a landmark move that countered eight years of inaction by the Bush administration, the Environmental Protection Agency determined yesterday that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare because they contribute to climate change.

The ruling set the stage for the agency to regulate emissions from a spectrum of sources, including automobiles, ships, airplanes, power plants, oil refineries, steel mills, and more.

The finding, which includes carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases, is subject to a period of public comment, after which the agency has no timetable and broad leeway in how to proceed.

“This finding confirms that greenhouse-gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said yesterday.

Sen. James Inhofe (R, Okla.), the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee and a leading skeptic on global warming, said the decision would “unleash a torrent of regulations that will destroy jobs, harm consumers, and extend the agency’s reach into every corner of American life.”

The EPA’s analysis also found that climate change has “serious national-security implications” because of the potential for political and social upheaval related to food shortages, environmental refugees, and clashes over fuel, water, and other resources.

The Obama Admin has made a first step…..will they keep walking or is it just that …one lone step?

Obama’s Trade Policy

During the campaign, Obama said he generally supports free-trade policies but also signaled a tougher approach that is only now beginning to be outlined. Both in Kirk’s testimony yesterday and in a policy statement issued by new Obama appointees at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the administration vowed to make tougher labor and environmental standards prerequisites for trade deals. Rather than stressing the signing of new agreements, the administration indicated that it will instead prioritize stricter enforcement of existing ones before the World Trade Organization — the Geneva-based body that arbitrates global trade.

The Obama administration is aggressively reworking U.S. trade policy to more strongly emphasize domestic and social issues, from the displacement of American workers to climate change.

Even as world trade takes its steepest drop in 80 years amid the global economic crisis, the administration is preparing to take a harder line with America’s trading partners. It will seek new benchmarks before supporting already-written trade agreements with Colombia and South Korea and is suggesting that it will dig in its heels on global trade talks, demanding that other countries make broader concessions first.

Those divides appear to be more unbreachable than ever as world leaders move to protect their domestic industries from the ravages of the financial crisis, embracing new trade barriers aimed at imported goods and other measures meant to restrict the flow of capital outside their borders. In the United States, more Americans are blaming cheap imports for job losses at home and congressional leaders pressed successfully to include a “buy American” provision in the $787 billion stimulus program to give an edge to U.S.-made products.

Yet the administration still appears to be toeing a line, saying it will move to address the concerns of American workers while also carefully avoiding words and deeds that directly smack of protectionism.

Though Obama said before the elections that he would seek to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, he has since backed away from that statement, vowing during his recent trip to Canada to avoid protectionism. Obama’s opposition to a stronger version of the “buy American” provisions added to the stimulus bill last month by congressional Democrats is also viewed as a major reason it was eventually watered down before the bill reached his desk for signing.

The “New Deal” Was A Failure!

From a piece written in the NY Times by Adam Cohen.

Repubs are grasping at straws as usual trying desperately to find anything that will stop their party’s erosion.  This time the new talking point is the the New Deal of FDR was a failure and did little to help the country.  Sounds more like revisionists trying to rewrite history.

Conservatives have railed against the New Deal from the start. In 1934, H. L. Mencken was already decrying it as “a saturnalia of expropriation and waste.” When F.D.R. ran for re-election in 1936, a headline in William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers insisted that “Moscow Backs Roosevelt.”

But Americans were not fooled. They knew F.D.R. was on their side in a way that Herbert Hoover and his fellow free-marketers hadn’t been. They could see first-hand the good that Roosevelt’s jobs programs were doing for the Depression’s victims and the slow but unmistakable improvements in the economy.

Anti-New Deal rhetoric has never disappeared from American political life. When Barry Goldwater ran for president in 1964, he attacked President Dwight Eisenhower for having presided over a “dime store New Deal.” But in recent years, the attacks have heated up.

At the start of the Bush administration, conservatives talked openly about rolling back the New Deal. They were trying to unravel the regulatory state, including protections for workers, consumers and investors. They were also promoting a favorite cause of Wall Street’s: privatizing Social Security, the crown jewel of the New Deal.

These days the public is in no mood, given the high costs of deregulation in the mortgage industry and the Bernard Madoff scandal, for more talk about dismantling regulations and federal oversight. But today, the new focus is Mr. Obama’s stimulus package. If F.D.R.’s New Deal spending made things worse, it follows that the Obama administration should not make the same mistake.

The anti-New Deal line is wrong as a matter of economics. F.D.R.’s spending programs did help the economy and created millions of new jobs. The problem, we now know, is not that F.D.R. spent too much priming the pump, but rather that he spent too little. It was his decision to cut back on spending on New Deal programs that brought about a nasty recession in 1937-38.

The second problem is that the criticism overlooks the relief Roosevelt’s programs brought to millions. When F.D.R. took office, unemployment was 25 percent, and families were losing their homes, living in shantytowns, even fighting one another for food at garbage dumps.

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.

Obama’s War

This is an article written by Patrick J. Buchanan.  In the past I have had little to agree on, but I find myself ever closer in my views with Mr. Buchanan.  This article illustrates how he sees the Obama war in Afghanistan and I agree on some points.  It is well written and makes some very good points.

Just two months after the twin towers fell, the armies of the Northern Alliance marched into Kabul. The Taliban fled.

The triumph was total in the “splendid little war” that had cost one U.S. casualty. Or so it seemed. Yet, last month, the war against the Taliban entered its eighth year, the second longest war in our history, and America and NATO have never been nearer to strategic defeat.

So critical is the situation that Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in Kandahar last week, promised rapid deployment, before any Taliban spring offensive, of two and perhaps three combat brigades of the 20,000 troops requested by Gen. David McKiernan. The first 4,000, from the 10th Mountain, are expected in January.

With 34,000 U.S. soldiers already in country, half under NATO command, the 20,000 will increase U.S. forces there to 54,000, a 60 percent ratcheting up. Shades of LBJ, 1964-65. Afghanistan is going to be Obama’s War. And upon its outcome will hang the fate of his presidency. Has he thought this through?

How do we win this war, if by winning we mean establishing a pro-Western democratic government in control of the country that has the support of the people and loyalty of an Afghan army strong enough to defend the nation from a resurgent Taliban?

We are further from that goal going into 2009 than we were five years ago.

What are the long-term prospects for any such success?

Each year, the supply of opium out of Afghanistan, from which most of the world’s heroin comes, sets a new record. Payoffs by narcotics traffickers are corrupting the government. The fanatically devout Taliban had eradicated the drug trade, but is now abetting the drug lords in return for money for weapons to kill the Americans.

Militarily, the Taliban forces are stronger than they have been since 2001, moving out of the south and east and infesting half the country. They have sanctuaries in Pakistan and virtually ring Kabul.

U.S. air strikes have killed so many Afghan civilians that President Karzai, who controls little more than Kabul, has begun to condemn the U.S. attacks. Predator attacks on Taliban and al-Qaida in Pakistan have inflamed the population there.

And can pinprick air strikes win a war of this magnitude?

The supply line for our troops in Afghanistan, which runs from Karachi up to Peshawar through the Khyber Pass to Kabul, is now a perilous passage. Four times this month, U.S. transport depots in Pakistan have been attacked, with hundreds of vehicles destroyed.

Before arriving in Kandahar, Gates spoke grimly of a “sustained commitment for some protracted period of time. How many years that is, and how many troops that is … nobody knows.”

Gen. McKiernan says it will be at least three or four years before the Afghan army and police can handle the Taliban.

But why does it take a dozen years to get an Afghan army up to where it can defend the people and regime against a Taliban return? Why do our Afghans seem less disposed to fight and die for democracy than the Taliban are to fight and die for theocracy? Does their God, Allah, command a deeper love and loyalty than our god, democracy?

McKiernan says the situation may get worse before it gets better. Gates compares Afghanistan to the Cold War. “(W)e are in many respects in an ideological conflict with violent extremists. … The last ideological conflict we were in lasted about 45 years.”

That would truly be, in Donald Rumsfeld’s phrase, “a long, hard slog.”

America, without debate, is about to invest blood and treasure, indefinitely, in a war to which no end seems remotely in sight, if the commanding general is talking about four years at least and the now-and-future war minister is talking about four decades.

What is there to win in Afghanistan to justify doubling down our investment? If our vital interest is to deny a sanctuary there to al-Qaida, do we have to build a new Afghanistan to accomplish that? Did not al-Qaeda depart years ago for a new sanctuary in Pakistan?

What hope is there of creating in this tribal land a democracy committed to freedom, equality and human rights that Afghans have never known? What is the expectation that 54,000 or 75,000 U.S. troops can crush an insurgency that enjoys a privileged sanctuary to which it can return, to rest, recuperate and recruit for next year’s offensive?

Of all the lands of the earth, Afghanistan has been among the least hospitable to foreigners who come to rule, or to teach them how they should rule themselves.

Would Dwight D. Eisenhower – who settled for the status quo ante in Korea, an armistice at the line of scrimmage – commit his country to such an open-ended war? Would Richard Nixon? Would Ronald Reagan?

Hard to believe. George W. Bush would. But did not America vote against Bush? Why is America getting seamless continuity when it voted for significant change?

What To Spend The Money On

President-elect Obama’s announced intention to create 2.5 million jobs through a recovery package focuses on infrastructure investment, aid to states, and tax cuts targeted at working families. Though the Obama team has not discussed the cost of such a package, it clearly has to be both large enough and long enough to offset the deepening problems noted above. At this point, a two-year plan costing more than $300 billion is necessary. How much more depends on the length and the depth of the ongoing downturn. Some economists and policy makers have suggested the need for investments of up to $700 billion.1

In the interest of getting the biggest bang for the buck in terms of job growth, the package should focus less on tax cuts, which tend to have smaller multiplier effects and more on direct spending. We recommend the following:

  • Aid to states. In an economic downturn, state and local governments are forced to cut services, increase taxes, or both. Such changes would make the recession both deeper and longer. A survey of state governments indicates that shortfalls will reach $72 billion in 2009,2 and the outlook for 2010 is no brighter.
  • Infrastructure spending. Rebuilding our national roads, bridges, schools, and water systems should be a high priority. By focusing on repair and “ready-to-go” projects, we can create new jobs now while investing in the economy’s future. Several areas of investment have already been identified as ready-to-go:
    • Ongoing transit projects: 246 projects totaling more than $3.6 billion could be implemented within 90 days of federal funding (American Public Transportation Association).
    • New transit projects: Approximately 400 projects totaling $248 billion are proposed, with 58 of those—totaling $25.2 billion—far along in the planning process. Most of the 58 projects have already completed the environmental review process and could be started within 4 months to a year (Reconnecting America).
    • Highway: 3,000 projects totaling $18 billion are ready and waiting for financing (American Association of State and Highway Transit Officials).
    • Bicycle/pedestrian projects: $325 million in ready-to-go projects have been identified (America Bikes).
    • Fleet Greening: $3.9 billion could be spent quickly for clean vehicles and retrofitting existing vehicles with green technology (Transportation for America).
    • Wastewater treatment projects: $4 billion in ready-to-go projects have been identified (National Association of Clean Water Agencies).
    • School repair and maintenance: $10 billion could be spent this summer (Economic Policy Institute).
  • Assistance to those hardest hit by the recession. Congress has already worked to extend unemployment benefits to many people who have lost their jobs. Expansion of food benefits would also help stimulate the economy by providing additional purchasing power to those most likely to spend it quickly.

Down payment on long-term reforms. Moving the economy to a low-carbon platform will require extensive investments in energy efficiency and alternative fuel production. Investing today will both create jobs and secure our nation’s energy future.

If there is to be a new stimulus package then let it do more than prop up Wall Street and the CEO’s ridiculous salaries.

Obama’s No Ideology

The ideology of no ideology is nifty. No matter how tilted in favor of powerful interests, it can be a deft way to keep touting policy agendas as common-sense pragmatism — virtuous enough to draw opposition only from ideologues.

Meanwhile, the end of ideology among policymakers is about as imminent as the end of history.

But — in sync with the ideology of no ideology — deference to corporate power isn’t ideological. And belief in the U.S. government’s prerogative to use military force anywhere in the world is a matter of credibility, not ideology.

Along the way, the ideology of no ideology can corral even normally incisive commentators. So, over the weekend, as news broke about the nominations of Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers to top economic posts, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote an article praising “the members of Obama’s new economic team.” Reich declared: “All are pragmatists. Some media have dubbed them ‘centrists’ or ‘center-right,’ but in truth they’re remarkably free of ideological preconception. … They are not visionaries but we don’t need visionaries when the economic perils are clear and immediate. We need competence. Obama could not appoint a more competent group.”

As for competence, it seems that claims of non-ideology often go hand-in-hand with overblown claims of economic mastery. “Geithner and Summers are credited with expertise in crisis management,” economist Mark Weisbrot pointed out on Monday, “but we better hope they don’t manage the current crisis like they did in East Asia, Russia, Argentina or any of the other countries that Treasury was involved in during the 1990s with their help. They helped bring on the East Asian crisis in 1997 by pressuring the governments in the region to de-regulate international financial flows, which was the main cause of the crisis. Then they insisted that all bailout money go through the IMF, and delayed aid until most of the damage was done. Then they attached damaging conditions” to the aid.

After all is said and done, the ideology of no ideology is just like any other ideology that’s apt to be much better at promoting itself than living up to its pretenses. No amount of flowery rhetoric or claims of transcendent non-ideology should deter tough scrutiny. And Judge Judy’s injunction should apply to the ideology of no ideology as much as to any ideology that owns up to being one: “Don’t pee on me and tell me it’s raining.”

From an article written by Norman Solomon.