The View From Inside a Depression
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/business/17nocera.html?emIn January 1931, a lawyer named Benjamin Roth, 38 years old, solidly Republican, a solo practitioner in Youngstown, Ohio, decided to start a diary. Realizing that he was “living through an historic thing that will long be remembered” — as he put it in one early entry — he wanted to keep a record for posterity.
Mr. Roth’s diaries have just been published in book form — “The Great Depression: A Diary” — edited by his son Daniel, who worked in his father’s law practice for many years, and James Ledbetter, the editor of The Big Money, a financial site run by Slate. It is an eye-opening read, though not necessarily in the ways you might think.
Bailout Helps Fuel a New Era of Wall Street Wealth
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/business/economy/17wall.html?em
Titans like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are making fortunes in hot areas like trading stocks and bonds, rather than in the ho-hum business of lending people money. They also are profiting by taking risks that weaker rivals are unable or unwilling to shoulder — a benefit of less competition after the failure of some investment firms last year.
So even as big banks fight efforts in Congress to subject their industry to greater regulation — and to impose some restrictions on executive pay — Wall Street has Washington to thank in part for its latest bonanza.
“All of this is facilitated by the Federal Reserve and the government, who really want financial institutions to get back to lending,” said Gary Richardson, a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. “But we have just shown them that they can have the most frightening things happen to them, and we will throw trillions of dollars to protect them."
http://horsesass.org
Prison Economy
I was going to post this as an update to my previous post, but the point is too important to leave as an afterthought.
I’m hearing that the Seattle Times endorsement of Susan Hutchison came directly from publisher Frank Blethen himself. This is his right, of course, not because he is particularly wise or well-informed or civic minded, but because he owns the newspaper. He signs their paychecks, so he gets to tell the editorial board to endorse whoever he wants, no matter how unqualified she is, or how out of step with the values of a majority of King County voters.
But… if in fact this blatantly irresponsible endorsement came at Blethen’s directive, then the Times arguably has an ethical obligation to reveal it as such.
One of the monotonously familiar knocks against bloggers like me is that we are just partisan shills, but if and when we are, at least we’re honest about it. So when an editorial board like the Times’ pretends that its endorsements come through candidate interviews and informed discourse, when in fact they merely reflect the anti-labor, anti-tax, pro-Republican views of their boss… well then… the entire endorsement process becomes just as much a lie as those of Hutchison which their paper has chosen to cover up.
Old media journalists love to attack the blogosphere for its supposedly destructive and uncivil anonymity, but it should be duly noted that I proudly hang my name on every stance I take and every word I write, rather than cowardly hiding behind the anonymity of an unsigned editorial. And if Frank Blethen has any sense of civic obligation, he will do the same.
I’m hearing that the Seattle Times endorsement of Susan Hutchison came directly from publisher Frank Blethen himself. This is his right, of course, not because he is particularly wise or well-informed or civic minded, but because he owns the newspaper. He signs their paychecks, so he gets to tell the editorial board to endorse whoever he wants, no matter how unqualified she is, or how out of step with the values of a majority of King County voters.
But… if in fact this blatantly irresponsible endorsement came at Blethen’s directive, then the Times arguably has an ethical obligation to reveal it as such.
One of the monotonously familiar knocks against bloggers like me is that we are just partisan shills, but if and when we are, at least we’re honest about it. So when an editorial board like the Times’ pretends that its endorsements come through candidate interviews and informed discourse, when in fact they merely reflect the anti-labor, anti-tax, pro-Republican views of their boss… well then… the entire endorsement process becomes just as much a lie as those of Hutchison which their paper has chosen to cover up.
Old media journalists love to attack the blogosphere for its supposedly destructive and uncivil anonymity, but it should be duly noted that I proudly hang my name on every stance I take and every word I write, rather than cowardly hiding behind the anonymity of an unsigned editorial. And if Frank Blethen has any sense of civic obligation, he will do the same.
I actually thought the Seattle Times wouldn’t endorse Susan Hutchison because whatever the ideological affinity, even they couldn’t bring themselves to endorse a candidate who is so spectacularly unprepared and unqualified to serve in such an important office.
I was wrong.
I often speak of the Times ed board as a single entity, but I know this decision wasn’t unanimous, so if those ed board members who opposed Hutchison’s endorsement retain at least a shred of self-respect, they will make public who voted for whom, or whether the decision ultimately came mandated from union-busting publisher Frank Blethen himself.
But institutionally, they should be ashamed of themselves.
I was wrong.
I often speak of the Times ed board as a single entity, but I know this decision wasn’t unanimous, so if those ed board members who opposed Hutchison’s endorsement retain at least a shred of self-respect, they will make public who voted for whom, or whether the decision ultimately came mandated from union-busting publisher Frank Blethen himself.
But institutionally, they should be ashamed of themselves.
Apparently, Joe Mallahan wants to arm kids at playgrounds, or something like that, at least according to Renee on the prerecorded robocall I just got. I’m against that, so I guess I’ll have to vote for Mike McGinn.
Can you find I-1033 on this sample ballot? If not, apparently you’re not alone, at least according to the folks at the No on 1033 campaign, who have been fielding phone calls today from confused voters who can’t locate the measure on the ballot.
Hidden beneath five boxes of instructions on the first page, many voters are apparently just dismissing the entire left column as instructions. Folks at the No campaign are particularly concerned that this unfortunate choice of layout might appear on the King County ballot only, thus depressing the vote in the county likely to go strongest against Eyman’s stupidest initiative ever.
So pay close attention when you get your ballot and be sure to vote No on I-1033.
Down here in Clark County it seems there may be a wee problem, and that the problem has gone on for a very, very long time:
The other thing worth noting is that the local NAACP is being very deliberate and sensible about how it approaches this. While Clark County has its share of problems, like anywhere, it also has some pretty terrific community leaders who will try to address these thorny issues in a positive manner. Nobody wants to squash anyone’s right to free speech, but there are limits regarding what is professional conduct in the workplace. Racial and sexual taunts are clearly out of bounds, no matter who makes them.
Allegations surrounding the firing of a black manager from Clark County’s jail portray a workplace where racism is tolerated or ignored, a state civil rights official said.And if you click through and read the entire Columbian article, it appears that it’s not just white people who are accused of saying and doing racist and sexist things.
The graphic charges were detailed in an internal investigation by the county sheriff’s office and a series of legal claims against the county last month.
The result: a “toxic climate” that has led employees of the county sheriff’s office to “take sides” against one another, said Earl Ford, a local NAACP leader.
The other thing worth noting is that the local NAACP is being very deliberate and sensible about how it approaches this. While Clark County has its share of problems, like anywhere, it also has some pretty terrific community leaders who will try to address these thorny issues in a positive manner. Nobody wants to squash anyone’s right to free speech, but there are limits regarding what is professional conduct in the workplace. Racial and sexual taunts are clearly out of bounds, no matter who makes them.
In defending her failure to report the use of a four bedroom Laurelhurst house as her campaign headquarters, Susan Hutchison merely shrugged off allegations by claiming it was “the residence of my campaign manager.” Of course, that’s neither here nor there, as she’s still required to account for the use of the house as either an expense or an in-kind contribution.
But as I previously pointed out, her dismissive explanation is also clearly a bald-faced lie, as there’s no way her young campaign manager could afford the $2300 to $4000 a month comparable homes in the neighborhood are renting for. Either he’s not paying rent at all, or… well… or this particular scam is part of a larger money laundering scheme Hutchison’s consultant, Dresner Wicker is using to funnel tens of thousands of dollars of illegal, excess contributions into the campaign.
Of course, there would be one way for Hutchison to help clear up the confusion. She could actually live up to her pledge of transparency and have her campaign manager make public both his pay stubs and his rent checks, so that we can see exactly how much he is earning compared to how much he is shelling out for his so-called “residence.”
Or, of course, Hutchison could just continue to lie the public and the press.
But as I previously pointed out, her dismissive explanation is also clearly a bald-faced lie, as there’s no way her young campaign manager could afford the $2300 to $4000 a month comparable homes in the neighborhood are renting for. Either he’s not paying rent at all, or… well… or this particular scam is part of a larger money laundering scheme Hutchison’s consultant, Dresner Wicker is using to funnel tens of thousands of dollars of illegal, excess contributions into the campaign.
Of course, there would be one way for Hutchison to help clear up the confusion. She could actually live up to her pledge of transparency and have her campaign manager make public both his pay stubs and his rent checks, so that we can see exactly how much he is earning compared to how much he is shelling out for his so-called “residence.”
Or, of course, Hutchison could just continue to lie the public and the press.
In the comments of my last post about the epic saga of the empty jail in Hardin, Montana, Jason Osgood asks:
One of the biggest misconceptions I hear when it comes to drug laws is that we can’t change them because of public opinion. This tends to be widely accepted as fact wherever you go, but it really isn’t true. Ron Paul continues to get re-elected in a conservative part of Texas every two years even though he has advocated for legalizing marijuana since the 1980s. The reality is that most people don’t pay much attention at all the drug war, and those who do overwhelmingly want it to end. Things like needle exchanges create mini-uproars from a small fringe of drug warriors, but after they’re enacted, they work exactly as expected to reduce the spread of diseases and no politician ever loses their job over them. Aside from small attempts to minimize the damage of drug prohibition, though, we still remain completely unable to shift away from one core aspect of the drug war – the idea that putting large numbers of people in prison will fix the problem.
This isn’t just a national mental block on the part of voters. We’re nearing a national majority of people being in favor of having marijuana sold legally to adults. In survey after survey, people tend to understand that putting people in jail for drug crimes doesn’t work. Instead, it’s the private corrections industry (and other special interests) that have a very strong interest in continuing the status quo. Prison overcrowding is their life-blood. The more people we arrest, the more prisons have to be built, and the more the American taxpayers can be soaked to house them all. This desire dovetails perfectly with the interests of law enforcement unions and prosecutors as well.
But in one way or another, all this insanity comes out of our pockets. Putting people in prison isn’t an investment. It produces nothing of value. In fact, it compounds taxpayer expenses in a number of ways, from the costs of trying to re-integrate former prisoners back into society to the downstream effects of having large numbers of single parent (or no parent) households in low-income communities. Putting people in prison should be seen as a necessary evil in society, an unavoidable side-effect of human nature that’s required to provide justice for the victims of crime. It shouldn’t be seen as an opportunity for government to invest in job creation. I believe that governments at all levels can and should provide stimulus for communities with high unemployment. But building a new prison that relies solely on the premise that we don’t have enough people locked up in our society already is the most counterproductive way of doing it.
Former Christian-right leader warns of Christian-right violence
Low-income workers are still far from able to afford basic necessities after the minimum wage increased this July from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour (New York State minimum wage increased from $7.15 per hour). This is especially true in New York City.
While the increase is a step in the right direction, research conducted by Columbia University’s National Center for Children in Poverty shows that a family of four in New York City needs an income of up to $65,000 or more per year to afford basic necessities such as rent, food, health care, child care and transportation. Two parents working full-time (40 hours per week) for a full year at minimum wage would earn just more than $30,000 before taxes. To make ends meet, families are often forced to go without food, prescriptions or doctor’s visits.
A couple weeks ago, I posted to this blog about how impressed I have been with the communal, supportive culture that the Food Bank has found on Twitter. And now I’m here again to tell you about our latest Twitter partnership — with Twitter For Food (@HungerNoMore).
Run by a Californian named Tim Blair, Twitter for Food is Tim’s personal project to encourage the Twitter community to skip lunch and donate the cost to their local food bank on the first of every month. And now Twitter for Food has become the Food Bank’s latest “Go Orange” partner!
Helping to raise awareness as part of NYC Goes Orange (#NYCorange) — the Food Bank’s biggest campaign of the year — Twitter for Food is turning their website and Twitter profile orange for a full month!
As he does every month, Tim is asking all of you Tweeters out there to post awareness-raising #twitterforfood messages to Twitter — to encourage people to donate to hunger relief and to spread orange and hunger-awareness.
Plus — check out my guest post on Twitter for Food and help spread the word by tweeting these blog posts!
p.s. I also wanted to give a shout out to another great Twitter partner — Fare a la Femme (@FarealaFemme). For the past two weeks, the Fare a la Femme blog has helped raise awareness by posting weekly NYC Goes Orange recipes! Orange Cake, Orange and Apricot Biscotti, mmmmm….
Mayor Mike Bloomberg has long had an office — NYC Service — to promote volunteering. Now, in conjunction with Americorps, the city expanding volunteering throughout the five boroughs with the newly created NYC Civic Corps. With their inaugural class now serving 60 nonprofits, the corps is designed to further promote volunteerism in our city while focusing on capacity-building by expanding the number of volunteers working at each organization.
As part of this new initiative, the Food Bank For New York City has been provided with a team of three Civic Corps members. Working to support Volunteer Services, this team has expanded the Food Bank’s volunteer department from two to five members — making a significant difference in our efforts to recruit and support the volunteers who are essential to our hunger-relief programs. Most specifically, this team is recruiting volunteers for our CookShop and Tax Assistance Programs as well as our Community Kitchen & Food Pantry of West Harlem.
by Justin Crum
Is anyone else disturbed that a new jail was someone’s idea of economic development and jobs creation?Yeah, me too. And while there was a lot in that story to gawk at, that was certainly a big one. Why the hell did a small town in Montana with no immediate need to house prisoners build a huge jail? TPM’s Justin Elliott looked into it:
But an investigation by TPMmuckraker into how Hardin ended up with the 92,000 square foot facility in the first place suggests that, long before “low-level card shark” Michael Hilton ever came to town, Hardin officials had already been taken for a ride by a far more powerful set of players: a well-organized consortium of private companies headquartered around the country, which specializes in pitching speculative and risky prison projects to local governments desperate for jobs.Elliott shines a welcome light on the way private prisons make their money. Private corrections firms aren’t talked about much as one of the industries that have tremendous power in this country, but they should be. As America has become the world’s most prolific jailer, this is an industry that has been driving it and profiting from it.
One of the biggest misconceptions I hear when it comes to drug laws is that we can’t change them because of public opinion. This tends to be widely accepted as fact wherever you go, but it really isn’t true. Ron Paul continues to get re-elected in a conservative part of Texas every two years even though he has advocated for legalizing marijuana since the 1980s. The reality is that most people don’t pay much attention at all the drug war, and those who do overwhelmingly want it to end. Things like needle exchanges create mini-uproars from a small fringe of drug warriors, but after they’re enacted, they work exactly as expected to reduce the spread of diseases and no politician ever loses their job over them. Aside from small attempts to minimize the damage of drug prohibition, though, we still remain completely unable to shift away from one core aspect of the drug war – the idea that putting large numbers of people in prison will fix the problem.
This isn’t just a national mental block on the part of voters. We’re nearing a national majority of people being in favor of having marijuana sold legally to adults. In survey after survey, people tend to understand that putting people in jail for drug crimes doesn’t work. Instead, it’s the private corrections industry (and other special interests) that have a very strong interest in continuing the status quo. Prison overcrowding is their life-blood. The more people we arrest, the more prisons have to be built, and the more the American taxpayers can be soaked to house them all. This desire dovetails perfectly with the interests of law enforcement unions and prosecutors as well.
But in one way or another, all this insanity comes out of our pockets. Putting people in prison isn’t an investment. It produces nothing of value. In fact, it compounds taxpayer expenses in a number of ways, from the costs of trying to re-integrate former prisoners back into society to the downstream effects of having large numbers of single parent (or no parent) households in low-income communities. Putting people in prison should be seen as a necessary evil in society, an unavoidable side-effect of human nature that’s required to provide justice for the victims of crime. It shouldn’t be seen as an opportunity for government to invest in job creation. I believe that governments at all levels can and should provide stimulus for communities with high unemployment. But building a new prison that relies solely on the premise that we don’t have enough people locked up in our society already is the most counterproductive way of doing it.
Former Christian-right leader warns of Christian-right violence
Frank Schaeffer isn’t exactly your typical bleeding heart liberal. He is the son of Dr. Francis Schaeffer, one of the founders of the religious right movement, and he followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a prominent speaker and writer on the evangelical political circuit. So when he warns of increasingly violent Christian right rhetoric escalating into actual violence, he well knows the sort of people he’s talking about.
( Side Note. To the best of my recollection, this theme has been pushed by Talk Shows ever since Obama was confirmed. It goes nicely with stimulating a run on ammunition sales by fabricating one.
Then there were oddities during the campaign
World champion boxer warns that Barack will be assassinated within months if he wins presidency
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/world-champion-boxer-warns-that-barack-will-be-assassinated-within-months-if-he-wins-presidency-780503.html
HILLARY RAISES ASSASSINATION ISSUE
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/hillary_raises_assassination_issue_kNjxV8eSTUdaPTh3LKot2K )
Bank on It: A Food Bank Blog
http://www.foodbanknyc.org/blog/index.cfm
“Since President Obama took office I’ve felt like the lonely — maybe crazy — proverbial canary in the coal mine,” Schaeffer said. “As a former right wing leader, who many years ago came to my senses and began to try to undo the harm the movement of religious extremism I helped build has done, I’ve been telling the media that we’re facing a dangerous time in our history. A fringe element of the far right Republican Party seems it believes it has a license to incite threatening behavior in the name of God.”No doubt with so many on the right inciting violence, there will be violence, whether it’s an assassination attempt or another Oklahoma City, or just some of your run of the mill hate crimes. The willingness to raise arms against perceived domestic enemies is, after all, what some on Left Behind inspired far Christian right imagine when they talk about God and country.
[...] ”Sadly that line from the ‘Godfather’ sticks in my brain about the fact that anyone can be killed,” Schaeffer told Raw Story. “The scary thing is that there are a number of pastors on record as saying they are praying for the President’s death. Can you imagine what some gun-toting paranoid who hears that in a sermon is thinking and might do? And to them the fact that ‘the world’ likes this black man is reason enough to hate him. You wait. The reaction to Obama winning the Nobel Prize will be entirely negative from the far Religious Right. ‘See the world, all those socialists like him that just proves he’s a — fill in the blank — communist, secret Muslim, the Antichrist, whatever.’”
( Side Note. To the best of my recollection, this theme has been pushed by Talk Shows ever since Obama was confirmed. It goes nicely with stimulating a run on ammunition sales by fabricating one.
Then there were oddities during the campaign
World champion boxer warns that Barack will be assassinated within months if he wins presidency
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/world-champion-boxer-warns-that-barack-will-be-assassinated-within-months-if-he-wins-presidency-780503.html
HILLARY RAISES ASSASSINATION ISSUE
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/hillary_raises_assassination_issue_kNjxV8eSTUdaPTh3LKot2K )
Bank on It: A Food Bank Blog
http://www.foodbanknyc.org/blog/index.cfm
Minimum Wage Increases Falling Short
by Ashley BaughmanLow-income workers are still far from able to afford basic necessities after the minimum wage increased this July from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour (New York State minimum wage increased from $7.15 per hour). This is especially true in New York City.
While the increase is a step in the right direction, research conducted by Columbia University’s National Center for Children in Poverty shows that a family of four in New York City needs an income of up to $65,000 or more per year to afford basic necessities such as rent, food, health care, child care and transportation. Two parents working full-time (40 hours per week) for a full year at minimum wage would earn just more than $30,000 before taxes. To make ends meet, families are often forced to go without food, prescriptions or doctor’s visits.
Twitter for Food
by Daniel BuckleyA couple weeks ago, I posted to this blog about how impressed I have been with the communal, supportive culture that the Food Bank has found on Twitter. And now I’m here again to tell you about our latest Twitter partnership — with Twitter For Food (@HungerNoMore).
Run by a Californian named Tim Blair, Twitter for Food is Tim’s personal project to encourage the Twitter community to skip lunch and donate the cost to their local food bank on the first of every month. And now Twitter for Food has become the Food Bank’s latest “Go Orange” partner!Helping to raise awareness as part of NYC Goes Orange (#NYCorange) — the Food Bank’s biggest campaign of the year — Twitter for Food is turning their website and Twitter profile orange for a full month!
As he does every month, Tim is asking all of you Tweeters out there to post awareness-raising #twitterforfood messages to Twitter — to encourage people to donate to hunger relief and to spread orange and hunger-awareness.
Plus — check out my guest post on Twitter for Food and help spread the word by tweeting these blog posts!
p.s. I also wanted to give a shout out to another great Twitter partner — Fare a la Femme (@FarealaFemme). For the past two weeks, the Fare a la Femme blog has helped raise awareness by posting weekly NYC Goes Orange recipes! Orange Cake, Orange and Apricot Biscotti, mmmmm….
Our NYC Civic Corps
As part of this new initiative, the Food Bank For New York City has been provided with a team of three Civic Corps members. Working to support Volunteer Services, this team has expanded the Food Bank’s volunteer department from two to five members — making a significant difference in our efforts to recruit and support the volunteers who are essential to our hunger-relief programs. Most specifically, this team is recruiting volunteers for our CookShop and Tax Assistance Programs as well as our Community Kitchen & Food Pantry of West Harlem.
What We’re Reading
by Justin Crum
Here are a few things that we’ve been reading around the office recently. Are there any stories you’d like to share? Leave a link in the comments!
The USDA projects free and reduced price lunches to reach a 41-year high for the 2009–10 school year, McClatchy reports.
Daily Dish, the LA Times food blog, writes about Food Bank partner Whole Foods and the “Renegade Lunch Lady” teaming up to help improve the quality of school lunches.
In the New York Times Magazine, David Leonhart discusses the policy implications of approaching obesity as a serious health risk like smoking. While we certainly don’t condone any form of employment discrimination — one rather extreme example — the article provides an outline for how to reshape the fight against obesity.
In an NPR story about migrant children’s health in China, they explore healthy eating in schools as a tool to better not only physical health, but also school performance .
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