the Youth Climate Justice movement, Power Shift '09 and Capitol Climate Action

The fight for a green economy and address the urgent danger of global warming has become one of the defining fights of our generation. This weekend around 12,000 youth have come to DC for Power Shift '09, a conference organized by the Energy Action Coalition, with an overall goal to push the White House and Congress to adopt comprehensive energy and climate legislation. This Monday, March 2nd around 5,000 participants will be involved in the largest citizen lobby day to storm Capitol Hill with their message.

On that same day Washington DC 2500 youth will be involved in a more direct action approach to put pressure on Congress through the largest act of mass civil disobedience for climate change in US history to shut down the Capitol Coal Plant. According to their website:

"The Capitol Power Plant — a plant that powers Congress with dirty energy and symbolizes a past that cannot be our future. Let’s use this as a rallying cry for a clean energy economy that will protect the health of our families, our climate, and our future. "

Already powerful members of Congress have responded to this looming large scale action. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recently released a letter asking the Capitol Architect to switch the Capitol Power Plant from 100% coal to 100% natural gas by the end of 2009. The Capitol Climate Action coalition responded in a press release to reassure that the action was still on and that:

“Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid’s dramatic action shows that Congress can act quickly on global warming when the public demands it,” said Greenpeace Deputy Campaigns Director Carroll Muffett. “This move demonstrates that they recognize the urgency of the climate crisis and the need for a switch to cleaner energy sources.”

Power Shift and Capital Climate Action are coordinated by different groups and seemingly different views about how to get our government to address global warming in a systematic fashion. I feel that both lobbying and direct action are good to do in tandem as a general strategy to put pressure on lawmakers and decisionmakers. Its exciting to see this kind of energy and sheer numbers in DC from people my age taking on this hugely important issue. With a new administration there is alot of potential for expanding this movement and getting more involved to get results. If Congress still moves slowly in the next few months on this issue, I have a feeling there will be more large scale direct action across the country among youth.

I will be at the Capitol Climate Action on Monday and I will post the pictures from the even on this blog.

SOLE and the cut Russell Contract

Props to SOLE (Students Organizing for Labor and Economic equality), my former student activist group at Michigan for being mentioned in the recent New York Times article about the University of Michigan cutting its contract with Russell Apparel over documented anti-union tactics in its Honduras factory in violation of their code of conduct:

The University of Michigan announced on Monday that it was ending its apparel licensing agreement with the Russell Corporation, becoming the 12th university to do so in response to the company’s decision to close a unionized factory in Honduras.

University of Michigan officials said an agreement under which Russell made T-shirts, sweatshirts and fleeces with university logos would end as of March 31 because Russell had violated the university’s code of conduct calling on licensees to guarantee the basic rights of workers.

...

Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, said, “Over a period of two years, Russell engaged in the systematic abuse of the associational rights of its workers in Honduras, thereby gravely and repeatedly violating the universities’ codes of conduct.”

....

“This is a toxic company,” said Leigh Wedenoja, a University of Michigan senior who is a member of the president’s advisory committee as well as Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality. “We feel that if the university is serious about encouraging human rights, then we could not keep Russell as a licensee.”

Unfortunately, such conditions in garment factories across the world sourced by major apparel and clothing companies are the rule rather than the exception and University code of conducts that most major colleges across the US currently have are inadequate. They fail to address the global supply chain in the garment industry that create these sweatshop conditions. As Scott Nova of the WRC explained it in 2006:

While colleges and clothing companies have agreed on such measures, it has
become apparent that they alone won’t work, said Scott Nova, executive director
of the consortium. He said that the problem is that factories in developing
nations are desperate for the work. So if an American clothing company with a
contract to produce thousands of sweatshirts with a college logo seeks bids, the
factories will bid low. Even when that company includes a code of conduct as a
requirement, the factories will claim that they will comply, get the contract
(at prices that would make it next to impossible to comply with the code) and
assume no one will notice. Because the contracts are short-term, he said, even
if someone did notice, the contract would be over soon enough.

"The basic underlying supply chain model of jumping from factory to factory, of pushing prices down, is simply incompatible with a reasonable level of worker rights," said Nova.

As a result, since 2005, students on campuses across the country (including SOLE) have been fighting for the adoption of a systematic, anti-sweatsop measure known as the Designated Supplier Program (DSP) at their universities. The DSP addresses the structural problems of the global apparel market by creating a fair trade model for the factories manufacturing collegiate apparel. Under the program " university licensees are required to source most
university logo apparel from supplier factories that have been determined by universities, through independent verification, to be in compliance with their obligation to respect the rights of their employees." In order to do this, university licensees are required to meet several obligations to their suppliers:

• pay a price to suppliers commensurate with the actual cost of producing under applicable labor standards, including payment of a living wage
• maintain long-term relationships with suppliers;
• ensure that each supplier factory participating in the program receives sufficient orders so that the majority of the factory’s production is for the collegiate
  market

There has been some progress in getting universities to adopt the DSP and get started on implementing it. Atleast 30 colleges including the entire University of California state colleges, the University of Wisconsin. Indiana University, University of Miami and Georgetown University have adopted the DSP. But there has been alot of resistance as well to it at major universities that carry alot of weight in the collegiate apparel market like my alma mater the University of Michigan.

In 2007, after a two year long campaign and the formation of a sweatfree coalition over the DSP, I and 12 other students engaged in a sit-in in the President's office to have our voice heard and get this proposal adopted. Unfortunately instead of talking with us, the President (Mary Sue Coleman) had us arrested. In past achievements towards sweatfree UMich apparel had come through sit-ins such as to get the University adoption of a code of conduct (1999) and its membership in the WRC (2000) . Thus our own effort seemed like a continuation in this struggle. Unfortunately it didn't turn out that way due to a President who readily claimed that she "doesn't take demands from students."

Only when we can address the structural problems of the global apparel industry that create sweatshop conditions, which the DSP is the only measure out there that does, can we end the kind of problems that happened at the Russell factory in Honduras.

the NYU student occupation and its aftermath

I wanted to cross-post the official Take Back NYU statement regarding their recent student occupation in solidarity with their effort to bring about democratic accountability and transparency at their school. I hope there are more of those to come in the US as it has become widespread throughout Europe (from Greece to the UK):

Take Back the Balcony!, Thursday night, Bob Burdalski

From 10 pm on February 18th 2009 to 2 pm on February 20th, students of Take Back NYU! occupied the Kimmel Center for University Life in a historic effort to bring pressure on NYU for its administrative and ethical failings regarding transparency, democracy and protection of human rights.

During the occupation students rallied hundreds of supporters to the streets of New York, drew national and international press coverage, and sparked a long-needed discussion about the NYU community. For these reasons and more, Take Back NYU! believes the occupation represents a historic moment, and by many measures a success.

However, we also recognize that our occupation was not a full success. When we succeeded, we did so because the passion of our movement shone through the smoke and mirrors cast by the NYU administration. When we failed it was only because we underestimated the lengths NYU will go to in order to deter any real criticism of its policies.

The administration demonstrated their steadfast commitment to ignoring its students. Members of Take Back NYU! didn’t even see the face of NYU negotiator Lynne Brown until 26 hours into the occupation. Throughout, the administration only gave disingenuous offers of discussion without negotiation, which the students readily rejected. NYU’s refusal to negotiate contrasts sharply with good-faith negotiations made by other universities during similar occupations.

We believe that our occupation gave NYU the opportunity to become a leader among universities and to build our community around strong commitments to democracy, transparency and respect for human rights. Instead, NYU said ‘pass’ and chose to stick to its narrow interests at the expense of genuine discussion.

In the course of defending its secrets, NYU put students and its security guards at risk by encouraging the use of physical force to end a non-violent protest. NYPD officers used billy-clubs and mace against demonstrators outside the building. These acts of aggression have gone unmentioned and unquestioned in the course of NYU’s handling of the occupation.

This protest is just a beginning to what is to come. The action made national and international news, and showcased the real power of the new student movement sweeping the globe. Here in New York, a City Council member, Charles Barron, has publicly endorsed our campaign and shamed the University for its mishandling of student protest. Actions at universities around the city will continue in the weeks to come.

No doubt NYU will begin attempting disciplinary action, but no suspensions, expulsions or arrests can contain what began in the last two days. This fight will carry on in the hands of the dozens of people who made it inside, and the hundreds more who came out to support the occupation. NYU showed its irrational need to defend secrecy and its exclusive hold on power, and that alone will drive this movement forward.

In the immediate future, we hope to have the opportunity to discuss the core issues of the occupation with the NYU community, including the administration. Take Back NYU! remains willing to open negotiations about these issues, should NYU decided to come forth in good-faith. In the mean time, we encourage supporters to contact administrators to ask that NYU end suspensions, drop threats of expulsion and that students be allowed to remain in their residences on campus. The willingness to express and act on dissent should not result in the disruption of students’ education or housing.

For everyone showing support: the real lesson here is that you can act and you can make a difference. Take the lessons from the occupation on to your own struggle, and begin to act yourself.

Getting back into it

So its been a while since I've updated and I'm contemplating how I'm going to do this. Before I had written some long columns on specific relevant topics that I found interesting. That proved a little too work intense and difficult to keep up regularly so I now I'm gonna scale it back a bit. I'll post bits of articles and news stories that I find interesting and write a little bit about them and my opinion.

Also, I'm gonna start writing about political organizations that I find interesting and highlight what they do as well as new books too.

Universal Health Care and Health Care for America Now (HCAN)

The urgency of rising health care costs in the US has become increasingly clear. Michael Moore's film Sicko, which revealed the cruelty of our health insurance that denies 50 million people access to basic medical treatment, struck a chord with many Americans. But besides the real moral and human cost of the US' lack of universal health care is the economic one.

A recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, entitled "Long Term Federal Fiscal Challenge Driven Primarily by Health Care" found that:

"Rapidly rising health-care costs are not simply a federal budget problem," said the report, prepared by Gene Dodaro, acting U.S. Comptroller General. "Growth in health-related spending is the primary driver of the fiscal challenges facing state and local governments as well."

"Unsustainable growth in health-care spending also threatens to erode the ability of employers to provide coverage to their workers and undercuts their ability to compete in a global marketplace."

"Health-care costs are growing much faster than the economy, and the nation's population is aging," the GAO report says. "These drivers will soon place unprecedented, growing and long-lasting stress on the federal budget. Absent action, debt held by the public will grow to unsustainable levels."

That need for health care reform has sparked a national coalition of over 100 national and local organisations representing labour unions, doctors, nurses, women, small businesses, religious groups, racial minorities, and think tanks called Health Care for America Now (HCAN). This group has launched a new campaign in 53 U.S. cities to demand quality, affordable health care for every United States citizen. They are advocating a multi-payer health care system which allows for both a private (with stiff regulations) and a public system through advertisement on corporate media outlets. Organized labor, despites its declining membership and clout, is a crucial part of this coalition with the lobbying capacity, funding capability and grassroots activity that outmatches any other public interest organization. As Professor Marie Gottschalk writes in Dissent magazine::

For well over a century now, labor has been instrumental in the development of the U.S. health system. It established some of the first prepaid group practices and health maintenance organizations, was the leading voice for national health insurance up until the mid-1970s, and was decisive in the establishment of Medicare and in the expansion of other major social programs, like Social Security and the Great Society. The employment-based system of health benefits is largely the product of a collective-bargaining regime established during and immediately after the Second World War. That system is under siege today. Without unions to act as a brake, today’s downward spiral in health benefits for union and nonunion workers would be even faster.

But organized labor itself is now divided over health care reform. Their position, especially that of the AFL-CIO and its "Medicare for all", reflect the "compromise" of HCAN to advocate a multi-payer plan rather than a single payer plan to create universal health care coverage. Andy Stern, president of SEIU, has been the leading proponent within organized labor, of a business friendly approach to health reform that stresses economic competitiveness. He has sought out partners in the business sector including "The Bully of Bentonville" Walmart, the Business Roundtable (who helped kill Clinton's health care initiative) and the AARP to promote this issue and rely on their willingness to cooperate. On the other hand, a growing number of national unions, locals, labor councils and rank and file members have endorsed the single payer solution, most notably the National Nurses Organizing Committee.

But the emphasis of economic competitiveness as an impetus for health reform, that GAO points out and Stern has championed, is overstated. Gottschalk points out that:

It is true that employer spending on health care, measured as a percentage of after-tax profits, did jump in the late 1990s. But the rise in health care costs as a percentage of profits was due partly to a drop overall in corporate profits as the dot-com and high technology sectors went bust in the late 1990s. Spending on health care measured as a percentage of after-tax corporate profits declined steadily from 1986 to 2004, except during the 1998–2001 period. More significantly, employer spending on wages and salaries and on total compensation as a percentage of after-tax profits has dropped precipitously since 1986, except during the 1998–2001 period. [1]
Marie Gottschalk, “Back to the Future? Health Benefits, Organized Labor, and Universal Health Care,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 32 no. 5 (December 2007), pp. 946-47, Figures 1 and 2.

While health care costs continue to escalate, employers have had great success at squeezing wages and other forms of compensation and shifting more health care costs onto their employees. Wages and salaries make up the smallest portion of the country’s gross domestic product since the government began collecting such data in 1947. In 2006, on the eve of the subprime crisis and the recession, corporate profits were at their highest level in four decades.
......

The fact is that many European and Japanese firms are highly competitive even though their workers enjoy more generous health, vacation, maternity, and other benefits.

In most other Western industrial democracies like Canada, they have a single payer universal health care system. The single payer term, according to Physicians for a National Health Program, refers to a particular financing system in which "one entity—a government run organization—would collect all health care fees, and pay out all health care costs" as opposed to the thousands of health care organizations that currently exist in the US which would reduce administrative costs which according to a 2003 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, makes up 30 percent of American health care spending, about $294 billion. Under a single payer system, reducing such exhorbitant waste would be enough to fund universal health care without increasing costs Americans currently pay for insurance. Thus only a single payer system of universal health care can seriously tame and streamline spiraling costs in the US. Currently there is a bill proposed for such a single payer plan in Congress introduced by John Conyers and has 92 co-sponsors.

The moral necessity for universal health care done in the proper fashion through a single payer program cannot be understated though. If we are going to face down the combined lobbying forces of opposition from pharmaceutical and insurances, the push for such a plan has to be backed by a strong grassroots social movement. As Gottschalk points out:
...

we need to resist the temptation to reduce this mainly to a question of dollars and cents. As Uwe Reinhardt recently said, the health care debate really boils down to one question: “Should the child of a gas station attendant have the same chance of staying healthy or getting cured, if sick, as the child of a corporate executive?” Reinhardt notes that it would cost about $100 billion in additional government spending to provide health care coverage for every man, woman, and child in the United States—or about what the country spends every nine months to fund the war in Iraq.

Successful reform movements in the United States—the abolitionist movement, the New Deal, the civil rights movement—have always had strong moral overtones. President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not invoke the dollars-and-cents language of an accountant to spur the country to support the landmark social insurance programs that became known as the second New Deal.

There is evidence that the moment is ripe for such a social movement with an increasingly economically populist sentiment spreading through the US as Gottschalk notes:

Recent public opinion data show strong public support for a government guarantee of health care. Moreover, a revealing new study of voter discontent by the Democracy Corps found the most commonly chosen phrase to characterize what’s wrong with the country was, “Big business gets whatever they want in Washington.” Instead of attempting to ride what New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has characterized as the “strong populist tide running in America right now,” [Andy] Stern is flying against it.

Rick Shenkman and "American Stupidity

Shenkman, a historian at George Mason University, just published a book called "Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth about the American Voter" . Though I haven't read the book, much of what he's written online indicates general aspects of what is argued in the book.

He believes that there are "five defining characteristics of [American] stupidity" including sheer ignorance ("Ignorance of critical facts about important events in the news"), negligence ("the disinclination to seek reliable sources of information about important news events"), wood-headedness ("the inclination to believe what we want to believe regardless of the facts"), shortsidedness ("The support of public policies that are mutually contradictory, or contrary to the country's long-term interests") and boneheadedness ("The susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes, irrational biases, and simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears").

The fact is, Shenkman's argument of the "ignorance" of the American voter is unconstructive. In demonstrating American ignorance, he describes with polls and studies how little many people in the US know about basic American history and aspects of our government. But Shenkman provides little explanation behind this lack of knowledge; instead he seems set on simply pointing out American ignorance.

If many Americans are "ignorant," this phenomenon didn't emerge in a vacuum. There has to be factors within our society that shape this trend for which Shenkman chooses to ignore and instead points to it as practically an inherant trait for many Americans. Shenkman doesn't discuss how significant issues like class (besides a few passing remarks), race, and/or gender may play in this "ignorance" or even the role of public education and its teaching of American history and civics.

This is especially true about youth whom Shenkman singles out as especially ignorant and disaffected by politics (minus the surge in recent youth vote during the Presidential primaries that he mentions) and news. But the level of civic and political knowledge youth receive in public school is heavily dependent on one's background. A recent report from CIRCLE, a nonpartisan research center on youth civic engagement and civic education, about public schools and civic education concluded "that a student’s race and academic track, and a school’s average socioeconomic status (SES) determines the availability of the school-based civic learning opportunities that promote voting and broader forms of civic engagement." According to the report:

students in higher-income school districts are up to twice as likely as those from average-income districts to learn how laws are made and how Congress works, for example. They are more than one-and-a-half times as likely to report having political debates and panel discussions.

Such varied access to school-based civic education correlates with levels of political knowledge and participation among youth.

But, overall in Western industrialized democracy, youth political knowledge and engagement has been in decline in the past years, though more significantly among Americans. Yet the emphasis for political participation is much different in the US than other Western democracies which, according to another CIRCLE report, is important in understanding differences in political knowledge. American youth are encouraged through school to do more voluntary, nonpartisan activities such as community service which is believed to be the "seedbed for political participation" as opposed to engagement in the political process through party membership and mobilization among youths in other Western countries. As a result, the former inculcates less political knowledge than the latter. Thus if we're going to consider American "ignorance," as voters and citizens, we should try to improve how we're taught civics and encourage political engagement through school.

American ignorance, Shenkman claims, extends to many increasingly not seeking out various outlets of news in print, TV and on the internet. But if we're talking about our mass media, the corporate run entity that controls much of the news, how much do we actually learn about important issues. The most obvious failure of our mainstream news to inform the public was during the lead up to the 2003 Iraq invasion. These outlets, in print and on TV, all practically fell in line with the Bush administration's propaganda effort to build up public support for the war. Despite this fact, Shenkman has the nerve to blame the initial popular support for the 2003 US invasion on American ignorance.

But this inability of our mainstream media to adequately inform the public doesn't just stop with this notable disaster. During the Presidential primaries, a Harvard report of the mainstream media's political coverage in print, TV and radio, found that it "offered Americans relatively little information about [candidates] records or what they would do if elected" with a predominant coverage of fundraising and tactics despite the fact that, in spite of what Shenkman contends of American ignorance, an overwhelming "eight-in-ten of Americans say they want more coverage of the candidates’ stances on issues, and majorities want more on the record and personal background, and backing of the candidates, more about lesser-known candidates and more about debates." So if less people are seeking out mainstream news outlets, it may be less abt their ignorance and more about an uninformative media that alienates their consumers.

Grassroots Journalism and the International Network of Street Papers

I'm a big fan of alternative, independent media especially because such outlets allow for more perspectives, insights and opinions to come forth as opposed to the narrow range of discourse broadcasted on corporate media. This is why I found this article "Reporting From the Ground" in In These Times so interesting.

Its about an organization called International Network of Street Papers, whose affiliate publications are focused on "self-sustaining, skill-building, advocacy journalism for the poor, disenfranchised, and homeless." Founded in 1994, affiliate publications of INSP and their street papers, reach about 32 million in 38 countries around the world.

These street papers cover issues such as "Class structure, poverty, housing, homelessness, the drug war, incarceration, infectious diseases, gang life, racial/ethnic/religious discrimination, police brutality, sex trafficking and prostitution" from the perspective of marginalized portions of the population with the support of street news service as well as big name media outlets like Reuters, InterPress Service and Al-Jazeera English.

Spent several months through a college doing community organizing work at a soup kitchen in Detroit and just from talking to the people there and getting to know them, gained a new understanding of the people there struggling in difficult situations to get back on their feet. I would've liked to publicize their voices and issues in a street paper through INSP. I think its important for us as a society to actually understand the daily experiences of those facing poverty and homelessness by listening to what they have to say rather than judging them with our biases against the poor inflated by the right wing and corporate media.

The Power of the Pharmaceutical Lobby in the Federal Government

The Center for Public Integrity, which sponsors investigative journalism for the public interest, just released a report entitled "Pushing Prescriptions" which found that :

Washington's largest lobby, the pharmaceutical industry, racked up another banner year on Capitol Hill in 2007, backed by a record $168 million lobbying effort, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of federal lobbying data. ...

The spending represents a 32 percent jump over 2006. Driven in part by a busy legislative calendar dominated by issues critical to the industry, the effort raised the amount spent by drug interests on federal lobbying in the past decade to more than $1 billion. Pharmaceutical, medical device, and other health product manufacturers, together, spent more than $189 million on lobbying last year, another record and nearly three times the $67 million they spent in 1998, the first full year for which complete records and totals are available.

More than 90 percent of the total was spent by 40 companies and three trade groups: the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and the Advanced Medical Technology Association.

This sudden increase in lobby spending from pharmaceutical followed the 2006 Democratic takeover of Congress:

The spending binge last year may have also been fueled by the previous November's Democratic takeover of Congress. After the Democratic sweep of the House of Representatives, several long-standing critics of the industry, such as Representative Henry Waxman of California, assumed leadership roles of powerful committees. Intent on closer oversight of the industry, they conducted a series of hearings on issues such as drug safety, pharmaceutical pricing, and availability of generic medicines. Waxman and some fellow Democrats also tried to give more regulatory power to the Food and Drug Administration and revisit the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, a law that came into being in 2003 after heavy industry lobbying. The legislation, which resulted in the largest overhaul of Medicare in its history, provides prescription drug coverage through the program.

From then on, they had to hire more Democratic lobbyists to deal with this " difficult political environment."

But the best quote was from an official from PhRMA who said "We don't look at [lobbying] through the prism of Democrats and Republicans. We look at it in terms of those who support free market policies and those who don't." It seems ironic that these lobbyists claim to be supporting "free market policies" when they get the federal government to protect them with favorable legislation that support their bottom line.

Among their most notable legislative accomplishments with all the money pharmaceutical companies spent in the past year include :

• blocking the importation of inexpensive drugs from other countries;
• protecting pharmaceutical patents both within the United States and abroad
  
• ensuring greater market access for pharmaceutical companies in international free trade agreements.
• keeping Congress from limiting advertising aimed directly at the public

To be fair, they did also lobby for the reauthorization and expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, for five years and expand it to cover an additional 4 million children because, in the words of a pharmaceutical analyst, "More children insured means using more drugs." But overall pharmaceutical companies lobbying efforts managed to keep up the already high costs of medicine.

the reality of our economy

The Washington Post, recently published an article called "Why We're Gloomier Than The Economy." In the article, the author points out how Americans are overwhelmingly pessimistic about the state of our economy: " Consumer confidence is at its lowest level in almost 30 years [and]Only 12 percent of Americans think the economy is in good shape."

But at the same the article asserts that " according to most broad measures of how the economy is doing, it's not all that grim." The article claims that "employers haven't shed as many jobs, the unemployment rate is still relatively low, and gross domestic product has kept rising" and inflation hasn't been as bad as compared to previous recessions. Thus setting up the crux of the article why their is this supposed divide between the reality of the economy and people's perception of it. The article concludes that "coming off two decades of prosperity and low inflation, Americans have come to treat low unemployment and inflation as givens. We have gotten so used to things being good, in other words, that even when conditions become somewhat bad, it feels terrible."

Yet the fact is, though the indicators the Washington Post article, make the economy seem not so bad using those numbers compared to previous recession, in other ways its much worse. The article doesn't mention the fact that people are losing their homes in record number because of subprime crisis. Moreover, the formula of the Consumer Price Index which is supposed to measure inflation in the US actually understates it. So, as Kevin Phillips describes it, "the federal government's CPI measurement doesn't capture the pain many Americans are feeling today." Furthermore, as economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research states, "most of the last two decades have not been especially prosperous. Wages did not keep pace with inflation over most of this period, with the notable exception being the years from 1996 to 2001." Even before the subprime collapse, many Americans were hampered with debt due to such stagnation of wages that forced them to rely more heavily on credit to get by. Thus the economic downturn reinforces and exacerbates the financial squeeze many Americans had been already feeling for a while.

So if there is a disconnect between reality and the perceptions of the economy, it lies with the Washington Post and this article that downplays the economic crisis we're facing now. As the Mcclatchy News reported recently, "the soaring cost of core essentials like gasoline, food and housing now account for 57 cents of each consumer dollar spent" which "leaves Americans with a record-low 43 cents out of each dollar for discretionary spending." Such a trend "helps explains why new vehicle sales in the U.S. are at a 10-year low and why consumers are buying less clothing, shoes and big-ticket items like furniture and computers." According to the Boston Globe, food prices have risen at the fastest rate since 1990. Prices for staples such as bread, milk, eggs, and flour are rising sharply, surging in the past year at double-digit rates. But these increases in the cost of food as well as oil aren't as much about a lack of supply but that of speculation in the global markets of commodities. According to a report called "making a killing from hunger" about the current global food crisis by an international NGO called GRAIN:

"hedge funds and other sources of hot money are pouring billions of dollars into commodities to escape sliding stock markets and the credit crunch, putting food stocks further out of poor people’s reach. According to some estimates, investment funds now control 50–60% of the wheat traded on the world’s biggest commodity markets. One firm calculates that the amount of speculative money in commodities futures – markets where investors do not buy or sell a physical commodity, like rice or wheat, but merely bet on price movements – has ballooned from US$5 billion in 2000 to US$175 billion to 2007."

Thus this shift from stocks to commodities by investment firms in speculation have driven up the cost of food along with oil. That change is a result of the financial crisis stemming from the subprime mortgage collapse which has, according to a report by Bank of America, caused a loss $7.7 trillion worldwide in stock market value. Worse than the financial crisis of 1929 and the crises since then. The economic downturn both in the US and globally are quite deep and interrelated, more than even the the Washington Post is willing to admit.

Clinton/Obama and the Democratic Presidential Nomination

I want to prefix this entry with the fact that I have strong objections with the current structure of the American political system. I think we're stuck in a two party-straight jacket because of a winner take all electoral system which, besides the obvious overwhelming influence of corporate and wealthy interests, limits the range of solutions and voices in the political process. With a country so large and diverse as the United States, its impossible for two political parties to adequately represent the various interests that exist within it. The fact that third political party challenges are viewed as threats that "take away" votes from mainstream candidates demonstrates the narrow options that exist within our political system. Its inherently undemocratic that our electoral system doesn't allow for more than two political parties and especially alienating to voters when in recent years the difference in policies between the Democratic and Republican Party has become increasingly negligent on key issues like the War in Iraq, the economy, trade, and military spending. As a result, its not surprising that America has on average one of the lowest voter turnout rates among Western industrialized democracies. If we really want to break out of a corporate dominated federal government, along with measures like more campaign finance reform ,it has to start with restructuring our electoral system that allow for independent political parties to have a legitimate chance to compete.

That being said and with few viable alternatives in this present Presidential campaign, I lean towards the Democratic Party just because there is no way in hell I'd ever vote for a conservative politician. But watching the progression of this marathon Democratic nomination that just came to an end as the candidates I actually liked were forced to drop out (Kucinich and Edwards), I began to favor Obama over Clinton for the nomination.

Clinton ran a despicably vicious negative campaign that utilized a variety of smear tactics against Obama similar to those George Bush regularly used in 2000 and 2004. This, as Robert Parry calls it, "War on Obama" was planned by the Clinton political strategist far in advance of the Democratic primary and sought to promote guilt-by-association, red-baiting, McCarthyism and racial messaging against Obama through, among other things, his relationship with controversial figures such as Vietnam-era radical Bill Ayers and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In doing this, she allied with right-wing media figures and outlets such as media mogul Richard Scaife, Fox News and even Rush Limbaugh.

The Clinton campaign harped regularly on the race issue to brand and marginalize Obama as the "black candidate" to, as Parry puts it, build "animosity toward him by fanning white unease about this little-known black [man] with the exotic name."

Example of this strategy include:
"Clinton supporters have dropped comments about his acknowledged drug use as a young man, sent around photos of him in African garb, and referenced his family ties to Muslims. Most memorably, Bill Clinton likened Obama’s electoral victory in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson’s, and more recently, the former President played the role of white victim to reverse discrimination by accusing Obama’s people of playing the race card on him."

She also drew on the politics of fear toting her experience and willingness to be "tough" on foreign policy issues like threatening to "obliterate" Iran in a highly unlikely scenario that it attacked Israel. Such rhetoric reinforces the strong ties she has to the military-industrial complex that was one her main financial backers and as a member of the armed services committee in the Senate. As the Independent (UK) reported, in October of 2007,: "The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party." Her hawkish foreign policy record has been labeled as "Bush lite." When she spoke before the Council of Foreign Relations she called for a "tough-minded, muscular foreign and defense policy."

Though her campaign was no doubt historic for future potential female presidential candidates and that there was plenty of sexism in the media surrounding her candidacy. But as Barbara Ehrenreich, puts it, Hilary's campaign "revealed that women can be nasty, deceptive politicians too." I personally hope Obama picks a woman to be on his ticket for vice president, just not Hillary Clinton.

Despite his talk of change and hope, Obama's candidacy upon close scrutiny doesn't correlate in some ways with that rhetoric. Despite claims that he relied on Internet "netroots" fundraising instead of "traditional Washington-centric Democratic donors and corporate checkbooks" for his campaign funds, in many areas he's only second to Clinton in corporate donations received. According to opensecrets.org, Obama's one of his biggest donors has been Wall Street securities and investment companies. He's received the most money of any candidate Republican or Democrat with $7.9 million in campaign contributions from these firms as well as from hedge fund managers. Hows that going to reflect on his economic policies if he becomes President to deal with this severe recession, especially the sub prime crisis of which Wall Street had a large part in creating? Whose interests and voices are going to play a predominate role in shaping such solutions? If the money Obama has received from Wall Street is any indicator, I think its quite obvious. Some might make the argument that you can't be a mainstream presidential candidate these days without taking such money which unfortunately may be true. But Obama's self image as a candidate of "change" is extremely disingenuous while he's raising funds from traditional corporate sources.

Besides the obvious financial contributions, Obama has stealthily been building up connections to K Street corporate lobbyists in DC for "campaign support" and "advice" including:
former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), a consultant for Alston & Bird; Broderick Johnson, president of Bryan Cave Strategies LLC; Mark Keam, the lead Democratic lobbyist at Verizon; Jimmy Williams, vice president of government affairs for the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America; Thomas Walls, vice president of federal public affairs at McGuireWoods Consulting; and Francis Grab, senior manager at Washington Council Ernst & Young. It seems like Obama is trying to balance a public image of a reform candidate while creating an Washington insider presence.

While Clinton tried to play up the issue of race, Obama has done everything to be a race neutral candidate. He's gone out of his way to claim that race is no longer an issue in America and should be a low priority of the next President. When speaking in Selma, Alabama, Obama declared that blacks "have already come 90 percent of the way" to equality in the US. I find such a statement disturbing and quite out of touch with the reality of institutional racism still quite rampant in the US in a variety of areas. This is especially true in wake of not only the Hurricane Katrina relief debacle, the "War on Drugs" but the sub-prime mortgage crisis as well. "United for a Fair Economy" in its yearly State of the Dream report that documents racial wealth gaps in the United States, stated that the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the foreclosure its created has caused "the greatest loss of wealth for communities and individuals of color in modern US History."

Obama's move to court AIPAC , the Israel lobby that promotes a far right Likkud stance in US foreign policy, doesn't seem like a sign of much change, especially when it comes to creating a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians and, in turn, peace in that region. Moreover, it doesn't suggest a new even handed approach to the situation but rather a similar one-sided Israel stance that blames everything on the Palestinians and other countries in the region which Bush despite his "road map" did quite regularly, especially in terms of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006 and attempts to isolate the fairly and democratically elected Hamas government in the Palestinian territories.

Obama's claim in his speech to AIPAC that Jerusalem will always be the "undivided" capital of Israel belies any effort to create a two state solution in the region since East Jerusalem, of which Israel has illegally occupied since the 1980s, is crucial to creating a Palestinian state. Moreover, despite the fact that Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, it remains, as the Israel human rights group B'tselem describes it, "the biggest prison on Earth" through tight Israeli military control of its borders but at the same time Israel "renounces its responsibility for the lives and welfare of [Gaza's] residents." As of now, Israel is causing a humanitarian crisis and committing a war crime through collective punishment in Gaza Strip in response to mortar fire from the territory by restricting fuel, medicine, water and UN food aid to the whole population. Such a blockade has been especially devastating to pregnant women and newborn babies who lack access to adequate health care supplies. At the same time, Israel has recently expanded illegal settlements in the West Bank, demonstrating a lack of respect for any attempt at creating a Palestinian state. Thus, if Obama ever becomes president, following the AIPAC line in terms of US foreign policy towards that region will not result in peace.

But what makes me hopeful about Obama is his ability to inspire people with his speeches, especially those of my age. His inclusive rhetoric that emphasizes the ability of ordinary people to make change is great to hear from a politician. I hope such rhetoric reinvigorates political engagement not just for this election, but for people to take action on a local level and organize for change. Many people my age talk about Obama as if was the American messiah. Such talk is delusional. No significant change in American politics or public policy in our nation's history came about because of certain individuals. Change comes from grassroots mobilization and the social movements that ferment them. I hope that Obama's candidacy galvanizes such potential for Americans to rise up and take action because we can never rely on politicians alone to bring about a better, more just, democratic world we want to make.

post Hurrican Katrina/Rita reconstruction, guest workers and exploitation

Indian guest workers have been on a hunger strike since May 14th in Washington DC to protest the injustice that Signal International, a subcontractor of Northrop Gruman, has committed against them.

According to an article in Foreign Policy in Focus:

"The workers were promised [by an Indian recruiter hired by Signal International] the ability to bring over their families, permanent residency and green cards (the magic word) if they agreed to work for Signal International in its shipyards in Mississippi and Texas. In exchange for this bonanza, the workers need only pay the “paltry” sum of $20,000 U.S. up front and in cash.

These workers were not spring chickens and they knew enough to get such guarantees written down and to get receipts for every dollar they paid. Even then, some began to suspect that these dealings may not be above board and demanded their money back. The response of Sachin Dewan and others was that they had entered into a legal process that could not be revoked and so unless the remaining money was paid, their passports (which were with the recruiter to expedite the visa application process) would not be returned. In some cases, Dewan even threatened to burn their passports.

To raise the money needed to participate in this scheme, workers mortgaged their houses, sold family heirlooms, and took out high-interest loans."

The workers were brought in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and Rita to do reconstruction work in shipyards of the Gulf Coast by corporations already lavished with government contracts and incentives in the region.

The conditions at the labor camps that these skilled welders worked at were atrocious:

" Workers were living 24 to a room with only two toilets and one bathroom between them. They were given poor quality food in the morning, and by the time they took their lunch break in the evening, the food had already started to spoil.

For the lodging and food services, Signal charged each worker $1,050 per month.

Furthermore workers were under constant threat of deportation; often deportation was used as an incentive to get the workers to work harder. They were already doing more welding every day than they ever had (a tactic that may have been used to reduce their hours and hence their wages). The threat of deportation often made them pick up that already brisk pace. Phrases like, 'we know what life is like back in India, and this is better than that so you better not complain' were common."

When these Indian guest workers tried to organize for better conditions, Signal "hired a security company to send in armed guards to intimidate the workers and took aside four of the key organizers and threatened them with deportation." One of the intimidated organizers even tried to commit suicide as a result.

Finally the workers walked out of the labor camp and , with the assistance of the New Orleans Worker Center for racial justice, reported that they were a victim a labor trafficking ring and formed. They have continued to publicize their cause, adopting tactics and rhetoric of the civil rights movement. Eventually these workers traveled to Washington DC to pursue their case through a subsequent hunger strike. The New Orleans Worker Center is profiling their struggle through an online blog and In January 2007 organized Alliance of Guest Workers for Dignity for others in the Gulf Region facing similar exploitation through the Hurrican Katrina reconstruction effort.

Its not surprising that one of the Indian guest worker organizers has called the American guest worker program H2B that gave them temporary visas to enter the country a "modern-day form of slavery"Unfortunately this case is just a microcosm of worker exploitation takes place under this system. As the non-profit organization Farm Worker Justice puts it, H2B ( for nonagricultural workers) and H2A (for agricultural workers) are "rife with exploitation and abuse." Under both programs guest workers "suffer from an imbalance of power with their employers because their temporary, non-immigrant status ties them to particular employers and makes their ability to obtain a visa dependent on the willingness of the employer to make a request to the U.S. government." But the H2B program unlike H2A provides minimum protections for workers such as the 3/4 minimum work guarantee, free housing, the special adverse effect wage rate, and eligibility for federally funded legal services.

MSNBC "leaning left" ?

Today in the Washington Post, there was an article in the style section called "MSNBC, Leaning Left and Getting Flak from Both Sides" Here's a taste of some of the criticism from Republicans in the article:

" 'It's an organ of the Democratic National Committee,' says Steve Schmidt, a senior strategist for John McCain's campaign. 'It's a partisan advocacy organization that exists for the purpose of attacking John McCain.'

Ed Gillespie, President Bush's counselor, says there is an 'increasing blurring' of the line between NBC News and MSNBC's 'blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann.' "

9 days days earlier, the same charge came out of Fox News on "The O'Reilly Factor." Laura Ingraham, the guest host, said that at NBC "there is no line between news and commentary. It’s all blurred." Karl Rove, during that same episode, added that “journalistic standards of MSNBC, which are really no standards at all,” are now “creep[ing] into NBC.” Its interesting that Rove , a political analyst for Fox News, would say that considering his network has covered up the fact that he also has been an informal advisor and avid supporter of the McCain campaign.

Moreover, Fox News appears to fighting back against MSNBC and the criticisms of its news commentator Keith Olbermann against Fox News. According to the Washington Post, Roger Ailes, chairman of Fox News "warned that if Olbermann didn't stop such attacks against Fox, he would unleash O'Reilly against NBC and would use the New York Post as well." I guess its hard to be anything left of Fox News without receiving criticism these days. Olbermann is one of the few news commentators that openly criticizes not only the Bush Administration but Fox News and politicians like Hilary Clinton for her statement about the possibility of Obama being assasinated like Robert Kennedy in justification for continuing her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

But the Clinton campaign also criticized MSNBC as the article points out: " Terry McAuliffe, chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign, says Matthews has been 'in the tank' for Barack Obama 'from Day One' and is practically 'the Obama campaign chair.' " If anything McCain has gotten the easiest treatment from the mass media. On all the news networks, McCain is regularly casted as a "maverick" despite the fact that, according to a recent CQ analysis, he's voted 100 percent of the time in 2008 in the Senate with same position as President Bush.

Defense Secretary Gates on Iraq: We're staying!

Its amazing how divorced from reality Defense Secretary Gates and the Bush administration is when it comes to Iraq. His plan for the US in Iraq is a a protracted U.S. troop presence along the lines of the military stabilization force in South Korea. According to him, this "would assure allies in the Middle East that the United States will not withdraw from Iraq as it did from Vietnam." Lt. General Raymond T. Odierno agreed with this plan stating that it would help "the Iraqi security forces and the government to continue to stabilize itself, and continue to set itself up for success for years to come."

Yet the fact is the US presence in Iraq is the real obstacle to stabilization. Our military presence is increasingly resented by the Iraqi people which isn't surprising considering over 600,000 have died since the beginning of this war. A recent poll from the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes found 71 percent of Iraqis want the withdrawal of U.S. troops regardless of the short term breakdown in security. Even the Iraqi Parliament has turned against the US. Early in May a majority of the Iraqi Parliament (144 members) signed a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for military withdrawal. Just recently, they passed a binding resolution requiring parliament to approve an extension of the UN mandate of US and British occupation in Iraq.

Furthermore, the long tours forced on the troops in Iraq with this "surge" has diminished their morale. According to a recent study released by the Office of the Surgeon General of the US Army Medical Command on soldiers' ethics and mental health, 10 percent of the Soldiers and Marines interviewed reported "mistreating noncombatants damaged/destroyed Iraqi property when not necessary or hit/kicked a noncombatant when not necessary)." Those suffering mental health problem (anxiety, depression or acute stress) were twice as likely to engage in such acts. Such issues among soldiers stemmed from the long periods of deployment in Iraq (over a year). Thus "the surge, as implemented by [General] Petraeus, is doing everything exactly wrong for the soldiers and Marines described in this study, namely:

• The surge has increased the frequency of soldier deployments; it requires them to serve 15 months in Iraq on each deployment, rather than 12, and it reduced to 12 months the period they can expect to be at home with their families to recuperate.
• Most importantly, for both soldiers and Marines, the surge exacerbates their already prolonged exposure to combat. It is not just a question of operations being more intense; a fundamental aspect of the surge is to locate soldiers and Marines outside their base camps and garrisons into forward locations, in the middle of towns and cities, in civilian neighborhoods."

So the chance for Iraqi civilian abuse by the US military will increase and lead to further atrocities with this prolongued "surge."

By ignoring the interests of the Iraqi people and that of the US troops supposed to be protecting them, the Bush administration will never have any success in Iraq. Instead they will create more resentment and more violence with their blatant attempt to turn this fight for (what the Bush administration claims as) democracy in Iraq into a permanent occupation existing to steal their oil. As the US constructs the largest embassy in the world in Iraq and several permanent "super-bases" (described as big "enough to have its own 'neighborhoods' ") while putting pressure on Iraq to pass an Oil Law privatizing that industry, such intentions become increasingly clear.

Starbucks and "Ethical Coffee"

It appears that Starbucks is trying to remedy its image by giving some of those that grow their coffee a better deal. According to Corp Watch: Starbucks is creating a deal with the Ethiopian government to create a "a licensing, distribution and marketing" agreement for three of their specialty coffees.

For over a year the Ethiopian government has pushed Starbucks to recognize their legal ownership of the names of its coffees. In the place where coffee was born, 11 million Ethiopians (about 1/5 of the population) depends on this crop for their livelihood and makes up 2/3 of the country's export earnings. Through ownership rights over its coffee, Ethiopia has the potential to increase income in their coffee industry by $88 million.
As of now, Ethiopian farmers as well as other coffee growers across the world make on average 3 cents for every cup of coffee sold. Its bean is considered one of the finest in the world where people pay 26$/lb but those in Ethiopia that grow the crop only get 6 percent of that profit resulting in horrible poverty.

Check out Oxfam's report for more information

Even with this possible "agreement" to help benefit Ethiopian coffee farmers, Starbucks is far from a socially responsible corporation they claim to be. Despite being listed on Fortune's 100 best companies to work for in 2007, they have a record of union-busting both in their shops (against the IWW Starbucks Worker Union) as well as in their US roasting plants.
Strikes against Starbucks in their coffee shops:
- scheduling manipulation ensures that every barista is a part-time worker and isn't guaranteed any work hours per week. For example, a Starbucks employee can get 35 hours of work one week, 22 hours the week after, and 10 hours the following week. As a result Starbucks workers in the United States earn as little $6, $7, or $8 per hour depending on the location, far from a living wage.

- Though Starbucks touts a health care plan for its employees, it covers only 42% of its workforce which is less than Walmart (47%)- a company notorious for its inadequate health care plan among other things

The barriers to health care for employees are two-fold. First, employees must work 240 hours per quarter to qualify to purchases health care through the company. With no full-time workers and no guaranteed work hours, qualifying to purchase health care is far from assured. Second, workers must pay significant premiums, co-pays, and deductibles to participate in the health care plan. With inadequate wages

- inadequate staffing during shifts as well as ergonomic issues put Starbucks employee's safety and health at risk.

If management scheduled an appropriate numbers of workers on the shop floor, workers would not have to work at such an unsafe speed with very hot beverages. The combination of the unduly brisk pace and the ergonomic inadequacies result in repetitive strain injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome for many Starbucks workers.

This is what democracy looks like...

Well I went to the January 27th Anti-War March on Washington DC on a bus from Ann Arbor. Coming into it I didn't really know what to expect (especially since I had never been to one of these) but I was hoping it was going to be big. In Ann Arbor, we had filled up 3 coach buses with both college students and adults and teenagers from the surrounding community. This had exceeded previous expectations for such a trip and seemed like a good sign of things to come at the actual march. Also, I had read a Washington Post article beforehand that said it was expected be one of the biggest anti-war marches since the beginning of the Iraq War.

We left Ann Arbor around 7:30 pm on Friday night for a 8-9 hour drive to Washington DC. After a ride in which I didn't get very much sleep, we arrived at Shady Grove Metro Station at 7 am. I rode in with some other people on the trip to Washington Mall to do some sightseeing before the actual rally and march that started at 11 am. Being from the DC metro area, I had seen many of these sites before but it still was nice to be back, even for a little bit. The weather that morning was below freezing which made it hard to walk around.

We got to the march around 11 am to a large crowd of people right near the Capital. The weather helped out as it became sunny, cloudless day with a high of 50 degrees. Diversity, along with its sheer size, marked the character of this crowd. People of various political groups, the young (even little kids) as well as the old, those of different races and ethnicities, and even war veterans were present. It wasn't just "aging hippies" or "college radicals" supporting this anti-war cause. There were people at the march who didn't look like the typical "activist" which was heartening to see. It made me realize that there really is a broad base of support moving against this War in Iraq. Its one thing to see the poll numbers but to actually see such a variety of people in the streets protesting made me happy. I just hope that Congress responds and does the right thing (though I remain skeptical of most Democrats taking a tough stance against the Iraq War). Apparently there were over 500,000 people present at the march.

Also notable was the small counterdemonstration near where people were marching in support of the Iraq War. One woman was on a megaphone stating that "if you don't support the mission, you don't support the troops." That statement really bothered me and I started chanting "bullshit" which others joined in with me. Someone else was holding up a poster that said "hippies smell." Though I definitely respect their right to free speech and assembly, such an ignorant embrace of this War in Iraq really annoys me.

The actual march began around 1 pm, which was suppose to be a loop around the Capital, and I followed the college student contingency which included people from the newly revamped Students for a Democratic Society as well as the Campus Anti-War Network. The chanting and energy from the people in the group got me real excited. Even though I enjoyed being in that crowd, the group was moving real slow and I was starting to lose my voice. Then, I bumped into a friend from back home who I knew was gonna be there but I didn't actually think I would see him in the large crowd. We ended up walking ahead of the college student group and quickly finished the loop (by that time it was around 4 pm and I was starving and my feet were killing me). After that we got something to eat, talked some politics, and then he had to leave to go back to his school.

When he left, I didn't know where the rest of my group was. I only had one other person's phone number who was on the trip and she was very far from where I was. So I went back to the site of the rally and it was getting darker at the time. Then I noticed a group of you people marching in the actual street on Pennsylvania avenue right in front of the Capital. They had stopped traffic and police were driving behind them. Apparently earlier that day, 300 college students rushed the Capital building, only to be rebuffed by police. I don't think anyone was arrested. I hung out with some other girls that I knew on the trip after that. Then we went back to the bus and left around 8 pm. Luckily I was able to actually pass out and sleep most of the way home. We finally got back into Ann Arbor at 5 am. All in all, it was a great experience and I would definitely want to go to more of them.

Injustice in 2006

A nice little review of economic injustice in this country brought to you by the Drum Major Institute:

Wages that an average CEO earns before lunchtime: more than a full-time minimum wage worker makes in a year

Ratio of the average U.S. CEO’s annual pay to a minimum wage worker’s: 821:1

Year when this ratio reached its highest so far: 2006

Total compensation in 2005 of Barry Diller of IAC/Interactive, the highest paid CEO in the US today: $469 million

Additional amount that Mr. Diller received in new stock options “to motivate Mr. Diller for future performance”: $7.6 million

Percentage of Americans who feel chronically overworked: 30

Years of unused vacation time that American workers collectively give back to their employers each year: 1.6 million

Percentage of women earning less than $40,000 per year who receive no paid vacation time at all: 37

Payment per episode that Donald Trump receives to host The Apprentice:

$3,000,000

Average amount that companies spend to recruit a new CEO from outside the company: $2,000,000

Probability that the newly hired CEO will either quit or be fired within the first eighteen months: 1 in 2

Estimated number of people lined up outside the new M&M store set to open in Times Square responding to ads for “on-the-spot” hiring for 200 jobs, 65 of which were fulltime: between 5,000 and 6,000

Starting salary that drew them there: $10.75 per hour

Fee Paris Hilton is seeking to host a New Year’s Eve party in NYC, Miami, or L.A.: $100,000 plus a private jet

Amount that Ms. Hilton is set to inherit from the Hilton Hotel fortune: $350 million

Number of times that Congress has reduced the estate tax since it last raised the federal minimum wage: 9

Longest period in which the federal minimum wage has not been increased: 1997–2006

Number of workers who would directly benefit from an increase in the minimum wage: 5.6 million

Number of very large estates that would directly benefit from a reduction in the estate tax: 8,200

Highest price per custom-fitted, handmade power suit in Armani’s new line, which hopes to respond to what ex-Gucci head designer Tom Ford calls “a lot of pent-up demand for true luxury [from men who] are getting rich first, and they want to deck themselves out before they deck out their wives”: $20,000

Number of households using credit to cover basic living expenses: 7 in 10

Amount in tax breaks and subsidies that last year’s energy bill paid out to the gas and oil industry during a period of record profits and higher prices at the pump: $6 billion

Campaign donations that Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who voted for the energy bill, received from the oil and gas industry: $500,000, making her the top recipient of oil contributions in the 2006 election cycle

Percentage of U.S. workers who are confident they will be able to live comfortably after retirement: 68

Percentage who have saved less than $25,000 toward their retirement: 53

Percent of African-American and Latino families that have zero or negative net worth, respectively: 31 and 38

Date on which USA Today reported that Dr. Anthony Griffin of the Beverly Hills Cosmetic Surgery Institute, who appears on the ABC program Extreme Makeover, predicted that CEOs will lead a surge in male cosmetic surgery because, he says, “for instance, executives on trial for corporate scandals would improve their chances for acquittal with a makeover just before trial”: November 4, 2006

Date on which the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its all-time high:

October 26, 2006

Decrease in percentage of Americans who own stocks from 2004 to 2006, the first such decline on record: 51.9% to 48.6%

Total Wal-Mart received in government subsidies, sometimes called “corporate welfare” by activists, in 2005: $3.75 billion

Percent of the decline in welfare caseloads that is due to TANF programs failing to serve families that are poor enough to qualify, rather than due to a reduction in the number of families poor enough to qualify for aid, in the ten years since “welfare reform”: 57

Percentage of the GDP that went to wages and salaries in the first half of 2006: 51.8

Time when the percentage of GDP belonging to wages and salaries was lower than in 2006, out of the 77 previous years for which these data are available: never

Projected total in Christmas bonuses that the five largest investment banks in New York City will pay out in 2006: $36 billion

Estimated additional amount U.S. workers would receive annually if all employers obeyed workplace laws: $19 billion

Ratio of compensation of CEOs of publicly traded defense companies to privates before September 11th, 2001: 190 to 1

Ratio in 2006: 308 to 1

Percentage increase in out-of-pocket medical expenses for the average American in the past 5 years: 93

Estimated amount the U.S. would save each year on paperwork if it adopted single-payer health care: $161,000,000,000

Date on which incoming Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson announced “Amid this country’s strong economic expansion, many Americans simply aren’t feeling the benefits. Many aren’t seeing significant increases in their take-home pay. Their increases in wages are being eaten up by high energy prices and rising health care costs, among others”: August 2, 2006