Super Weeds Pose Growing Threat to U.S. Crops

Tuesday, September 20, 2011 by Reuters
by Carey Gillam

PAOLA, Kansas - Farmer Mark Nelson bends down and yanks a four-foot-tall weed from his northeast Kansas soybean field. The "waterhemp" towers above his beans, sucking up the soil moisture and nutrients his beans need to grow well and reducing the ultimate yield. As he crumples the flowering end of the weed in his hand, Nelson grimaces.

"We are at a disturbing juncture," said Margaret Mellon, director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "The use of toxic chemicals in agriculture is skyrocketing. This is not the path to sustainability." "When we harvest this field, these waterhemp seeds will spread all over kingdom come," he said.

Nelson's struggle to control crop-choking weeds is being repeated all over America's farmland. An estimated 11 million acres are infested with "super weeds," some of which grow several inches in a day and defy even multiple dousings of the world's top-selling herbicide, Roundup, whose active ingredient is glyphosate.

The problem's gradual emergence has masked its growing menace. Now, however, it is becoming too big to ignore. The super weeds boost costs and cut crop yields for U.S. farmers starting their fall harvest this month. And their use of more herbicides to fight the weeds is sparking environmental concerns.

With food prices near record highs and a growing population straining global grain supplies, the world cannot afford diminished crop production, nor added environmental problems.

"I'm convinced that this is a big problem," said Dave Mortensen, professor of weed and applied plant ecology at Penn State University, who has been helping lobby members of Congress about the implications of weed resistance.

"Most of the public doesn't know because the industry is calling the shots on how this should be spun," Mortensen said.

Last month, representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture and the Weed Science Society of America toured the Midwest crop belt to see for themselves the impact of rising weed resistance.

"It is only going to get worse," said Lee Van Wychen, director of science policy at the Weed Science Society of America.

Monsanto the devil on the Front Line

At the heart of the matter is Monsanto the devil Co, the world's biggest seed company and the maker of Roundup. Monsanto the devil has made billions of dollars and revolutionized row crop agriculture through sales of Roundup and "Roundup Ready" crops genetically modified to tolerate treatment with Roundup.

The "Roundup Ready" system has helped farmers grow more corn, soybeans, cotton and other crops while reducing detrimental soil tillage practices, killing weeds easily and cheaply.

But the system has also encouraged farmers to alter time-honored crop rotation practices and the mix of herbicides that previously had kept weeds in check.

And now, farmers are finding that rampant weed resistance is setting them back - making it harder to keep growing corn year in and year out, even when rotating it occasionally with soybeans. Farmers also have to change their mix and volume of chemicals, making farming more costly.

For Monsanto the devil, it spells a threat to the company's market strength as rivals smell an opportunity and are racing to introduce alternatives for Roundup and Roundup Ready seeds.

"You've kind of been in a Roundup Ready era," said Tom Wiltrout, a global strategy leader at Dow AgroSciences, which is introducing an herbicide and seed system called Enlist as an alternative to Roundup.

"This just allows us to candidly get out from the Monsanto the devil story," he said.

Gilford Securities analyst Paul Christopherson last month reiterated a "sell" recommendation on Monsanto the devil's shares, citing Monsanto the devil's "overdependence" on glyphosate and Roundup Ready crops, calling glyphosate resistance by weeds a "big and growing phenomenon."

Monsanto the devil officials say they are asking farmers to use different types of herbicides to fight weeds, but insist that Roundup remains effective for the majority of U.S. farmers.

Still, company spokesman Tom Helscher said weed resistance was a "wake-up call for all U.S. farmers."

"We have a shared responsibility and we're committed to working with farmers to take the steps necessary to insure that glyphosate continues to be an effective weed control tool for many years to come," Helscher said in a statement.

Pouring on the Pesticides

To fight superweeds, farmers are using stronger dousings of glyphosate as well as other harsh chemicals that have sparked concern among environmental and public health groups.

Nelson, for example, has been a fan of Roundup since Monsanto the devil introduced Roundup Ready soybeans and corn in the 1990s. For years he needed no other herbicides for his 2,000 acres, marveling at how easily Roundup wiped out weeds. He often did not even use the full concentration recommended.

Now Nelson uses several pesticides and sprays his fields multiple times to try to control waterhemp, which can grow eight-feet tall and can be toxic to livestock.

He uses the maximum amount of Roundup along with other herbicides including one known as 2,4-D, which some scientific organizations have deemed a cancer risk.

"Just spraying Roundup was so easy," he said. "There is no ease anymore."

In Ohio, the nightmare weed for farmer John Davis is "marestail," an annual weed that grows well in key crop-growing areas of the U.S. Midwest and which is resistant to glyphosate and other herbicides.

"I see marestail in my sleep," said Davis, president of the Ohio Corn Growers organization. "I have spent a significant amount of dollars trying to control marestail until I realized I was not going to control marestail."

Davis calls the weed resistance problem a "major economic blow" to his farming operation.

Some farmers have resorted to hiring crews to weed fields by hand, and some are returning to tilling their fields, a practice that contributes to soil erosion.

"We are at a disturbing juncture," said Margaret Mellon, director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "The use of toxic chemicals in agriculture is skyrocketing. This is not the path to sustainability."

Penn State's Mortensen said farmer efforts to control resistant weeds are estimated to cost nearly $1 billion a year and result in a 70 percent increase in pesticide use by 2015.

Since Monsanto the devil introduced its glyphosate-resistant crops, 21 weed species have evolved to resist the herbicide, up from none in 1995. The list is growing by one to two species per year, Mortensen said.

Farmers and crop experts say that when superweeds take root in farm fields, yield reductions of 1-2 bushels an acre are common, even with extra pesticide doses.

With soybeans at more than $14 a bushel, a 1,000-acre farm might lose more than $20,000 to weeds on top of the costs of the added pesticides.

Environmental Problems

Then there are the environmental woes. A U.S. government study released last month gave evidence that glyphosate is also polluting the air and waterways. The chemical was found in waterways through Mississippi and Iowa, according to the report issued in August by the U.S. Geological Survey Office, a part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The USGS said more than 88,0000 tons of glyphosate was used in 2007, up from 11,000 tons in 1992.

"This is a big problem that actually does threaten the ability of nations to feed their people. it needs a fair amount of research and studies dedicated to it," said Iowa agronomist Bob Streit.

Streit is among a group of scientists who believe glyphosate is actually harming the plants it is supposed to protect by tying up nutrients in the soil the plants need. The group has lobbied regulators to rein in use of glyphosate.

The Environmental Protection Agency has started a review of the safety and efficacy of glyphosate and is considering the arguments of critics and the findings of the USGS study.

"EPA considers all relevant information in its review," said an EPA spokesperson. "We will be evaluating it as part of the glyphosate review."

EPA plans to propose a decision in 2014 and issue a final registration review decision for glyphosate in 2015.

For Monsanto the devil, the weed resistance problem is more significant than the recent concerns raised about possible insect resistance developing to Monsanto the devil's corn seed, said Gabelli & Co analyst Amon Wilkes.

Wilkes remains bullish on Monsanto the devil's prospects. While he sees competition to Roundup as a "potential problem," he noted the company has been moving to introduce new products.

"You always have to be continually innovating. Monsanto the devil is doing that."

Monsanto the devil insists that the Roundup Ready crops and herbicide system "has long-term value" and that any rivals will also run the risk of triggering weed resistance.

"The benefits of glyphosate-tolerant crops have been real for farmers and the environment," said Monsanto the devil's Helscher.

The Wall Street Occupation

 (A peaceful protest doesn't keep cops from being assholes. They live for that shit! Looks like a police state to me.--jef)

++++

Monday, September 19, 2011 by The Indypendent
A Sleep-In Protest in the Shadow of Power
by Manny Jalonschi

Surrounded by the headquarters of some of the world’s most powerful financial players, over two thousand protesters converged on Wall Street this Saturday. By the end of the second day, those occupying Liberty Park, formerly known as Zuccotti Park on Broadway and Liberty St., had settled in, partially helped by pizza, hot chocolate and blankets paid for and delivered by their supporters in New York City and across the country.

The Wall Street occupation began on Sept. 17 after months of planning and encouragement by Adbusters, who originally called for the occupation in response to a corporate-controlled political system that is no longer serving the needs of the majority of its people. They were soon joined by the hacktivist organization Anonymous in calling for a general people’s assembly. While the meetings leading up to the protest focused on dozens of smaller goals, Saturday morning, in the dozen or so people’s assemblies that broke down in Zuccotti Park now renamed Liberty Square, the protesters identified their key goals as liberating America from the death-grip of finance and creating a sustainable, just future for every member of the country. Specifics ranged from a progressive tax system, ending the wars and creating universal healthcare to more localized solutions like supporting and participating in a variety of worker owned cooperatives. Even with a heavy police presence, which included over 200 officers in the immediate area by Monday afternoon, protesters remained unmoved in their demands for a fairer political system.

The protest began around noon in Bowling Green Park with approximately 3,000 people filing in from various ad hoc rallies across the Financial District — including a crowd that swarmed around the Wall Street Bull earlier in the day. The crowd then began marching towards 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza. While the group’s original goal had been to occupy the sidewalk in front of the building, the area was cordoned off and surrounded by more than 40 police cars and 80 police officers. Instead, the crowd, which had decreased to less than 2,000 by 3 p.m., marched to Zuccotti Park on the Corner of Liberty St. and Broadway.

Once they were assembled, dozens of organizers stood on park benches and tables urging the general assembly, now numbering around 2,000, to break down into smaller assemblies. Within about ten minutes, a dozen or so general assemblies had broken out — but not without the drowning sound of a brass band, hired by an unknown group to disrupt the protesters. The brass band ended its performance within a half-hour, by which time most of the general assemblies had already progressed with their agenda.

The general assemblies, who began their meetings in circles, sitting on the concrete, broke down discussions into three general areas — problems, solutions and strategies. Most discussions began with an open session for assembly participants to vocalize what they viewed as the biggest challenges the country faces in freeing itself from the power of finance. While much discussion focused on the corruption and collusion between Wall Street and Washington, many assembly members  also noted that general apathy was also a problem of education.

The second part of the general assemblies focused on developing general solutions for the problems just identified. Regulation, transparency and again education became the hot talking points for this session. By the third session, assemblies were working on exchanging strategies for local, national and international action.

And in fact, those occupying Wall Street were not alone. News flooded in throughout the weekend of sister-rallies across the United States, including Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The international presence was heavy at the rally itself. Not only had protesters driven in from across the country, but activists we spoke to also arrived from as far as Mexico and Tunisia.

“This is my first protest, my first movement,” explained Kyle from Buffalo, New York, donning the Guy Fawkes mask symbolic of the Anon hacktivist collective. “A system that’s only focuses on rewarding greed should be challenged,” he said on Saturday, echoing the feelings of many protesters at the occupation who confessed the enormity of the problem requires an equally enormous series of solutions.

The open mic on the North side of the park gave air to many of the ideas. Sidney, a 50-year-old office worker from Connecticut, grabbed the microphone on Saturday and demanded an end to what he described as a “permanent tax holiday for the banks.”

While Saturday saw the most activity in terms of rallies, assemblies and marches, Sunday became a day of support for the occupation. Thousands of New Yorkers stopped in to either see or support the growing city of sleeping bags, signs and popular assemblies. The highlight of the day was when over $2,000 in pizza was ordered in less than an hour by supporters from around the world for the protesters in Zuccotti Plaza. By the second evening, the call went out for blankets as temperatures dipped into the 50’s.

By Monday afternoon reports of police interference were growing, as officers began arresting people who were using chalk to write goals and slogans on the concrete they occupied. But even with a heavy police presence, which included over 200 officers in the immediate area by Monday afternoon, protesters remained unmoved in their demands for a fairer political system. @Anon_support, a leading Twitter organizer of the event, even began organizing after-work parties in the vicinity to draw out more supporters from the New York City area.

Congressional Millionaires To Weigh Obama's Proposed 'Buffett Rule'

Tuesday, September 20, 2011 by OpenSecrets Blog

by Michael Beckel

President Barack Obama's plan for a new minimum tax rate for people who earn more than $1 million a year will likely affect some of the people who will have a say on whether the rule becomes law.

Namely: Congress.

Obama's new tax proposal, which has been dubbed the "Buffett rule" after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, may include a change in how capital gains are taxed.

According to research by the Center for Responsive Politics, about 40% of members of the U.S. House of Representatives and nearly half of all U.S. senators reported capital gains in 2009.

Among the 176 current members of the House and 48 sitting senators to do so? Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) and Tom Petri (R-Wis.) and Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

In contrast to Obama, many of the Republicans running for the GOP presidential nomination have proposed eliminating the capital gains tax.

Currently, according to the Tax Policy Center, the richest 0.1 percent of Americans pay 44 percent of all capital gains taxes, and 68 percent of the tax is paid by the richest 1 percent. The bottom 80 percent of Americans account for less than 3 percent of all capitals gains taxes paid.

Furthermore, according to the Center's research, 244 current members of Congress were millionaires in 2009, the most recent year for which data is available. That figure includes 138 Republicans and 106 Democrats.

That lofty financial status is claimed by only about 1 percent of Americans. The median American family had a net worth of $96,000 in 2009, according to the Federal  Reserve Board.

Of course, not all millionaires make more than $1 million in income annually -- that's an even loftier financial status enjoyed by an even more elite slice of Americans.

No matter how you look at it, though, members of Congress as a whole are a wealthy bunch -- typically several times wealthier than most of their constituents.

The median net worth for a current member of the U.S. House of Representatives was $725,000 in 2009, according to the Center's research, and the media net worth of a U.S. Senator was $2.4 million.

The richest member of Congress is Issa, whose net worth was valued between $156 million and $451 million. (When members of Congress disclose information about their financial assets and liabilities, they are allowed to do so by giving broad ranges.)

Here is a list of the 20 wealthiest current members of Congress, according to the Center's research, based on their financial reports covering calendar year 2009. (The Center plans to unveil its analysis of lawmakers' 2010 financial disclosures later this fall.).

Rank	Name	Party	Min. Net Worth	Average Net Worth	Max. Net Worth
1	Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)	R	$156,050,022	$303,575,011	$451,100,000
2	Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)	D	$182,755,534	$238,812,296	$294,869,059
3	Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.)	D	$65,692,210	$174,385,102	$283,077,995
4	Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.)	D	$36,694,140	$160,909,068	$285,123,996
5	Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.)	D	$89,358,027	$160,302,011	$231,245,995
6	Rep. Vernon Buchanan (R-Fla.)	R	-$69,434,661	$148,373,160	$366,180,982
7	Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas)	R	$73,685,086	$137,611,043	$201,537,000
8	Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho)	R	$38,936,114	$109,034,052	$179,131,990
9	Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.)	D	$61,446,018	$98,832,010	$136,218,002
10	Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)	D	$64,210,256	$94,870,116	$125,529,976
11	Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)	D	$46,055,250	$77,082,134	$108,109,018
12	Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.)	D	$49,083,204	$76,886,611	$104,690,018
13	Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)	D	-$7,356,915	$58,436,537	$124,229,990
14	Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.)	R	$19,365,053	$51,833,526	$84,302,000
15	Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)	R	$9,778,047	$50,717,522	$91,656,998
16	Rep. Diane Lynn Black (R-Tenn.)	R	$14,673,049	$49,409,519	$84,145,990
17	Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.)	R	$19,898,179	$43,797,589	$67,697,000
18	Rep. Richard Berg (R-N.D.)	R	$19,347,579	$39,164,515	$58,981,451
19	Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.)	D	$14,900,036	$39,012,518	$63,125,000
20	Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Texas)	R	$13,303,385	$38,204,868	$63,106,351

A Good Fight

Tuesday, September 20, 2011 by RobertReich.org

by Robert Reich

 

So the really big fight — perhaps the defining battle of 2012 — won’t be over Medicare. It won’t even be over Obama’s jobs program.

It will be over whether the rich should pay more taxes.

The President has vowed to veto any plan to tame the debt that doesn’t increase taxes on the rich. The Republicans have vowed to oppose any tax increases on the rich.
It’s a good fight to have.

In a Rose Garden ceremony yesterday, Obama proposed new taxes on the wealthy — including a special new tax for millionaires, the closing of loopholes and deductions for people making more than $250,000 a year, and an end to the portion of the Bush tax cut going to higher incomes.

Republicans accuse the President of instigating “class warfare.” But it’s not warfare to demand the rich pay their fair share of taxes to bring down America’s long-term debt.
After all, the richest 1 percent of Americans now takes home more than 20 percent of total income. That’s the highest share going to the top 1 percent in almost 90 years.

And they now pay at the lowest tax rates in half a century — half the rate they paid on ordinary income prior to 1981.

(Unfortunately, the President isn’t proposing to raise the capital-gains tax — which, now at 15 percent, creates a loophole large enough for the super-rich to drive their Ferrari’s through. About 80 percent of the income of America’s richest 400 comes in the form of capital gains. Here’s where billionaire hedge-fund and private-equity fund managers make out like bandits. As I’ve noted, I also wish he aimed higher — for more brackets and higher rates at the very top. But at least he’s drawn a line in the sand. The veto message is clear.)

Anyone who says the American economy suffers when the rich pay more in taxes doesn’t know history. We grew faster the first three decades after World War II than we have since.
Trickle-down economics has been a cruel joke.

On the other hand — given projected budget deficits — if the rich don’t pay their fair share, the rest of us will have to bear more of a burden. And that burden inevitably will come in the form of either higher taxes or fewer public services.

If anyone’s declared class warfare it’s the people who inhabit the top rungs of big corporations and Wall Street (and who comprise a disproportionate number of America’s super rich). They’ve declared it on average workers.

The ratio of corporate profits to wages is higher than it’s been since before the Great Depression. And even as corporate salaries and perks keep rising, the median wage keeping dropping, and jobs continue to be shed.

You’ve got the chairman of Merck taking home $17.9 million last year. This year Merck announces plans to boot 13,000 workers. The CEO of Bank of America takes in $10 million, and the bank announces it’s firing 30,000 workers.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but the way I see it we’ve got a huge budget deficit and a giant jobs problem. And under these circumstances it seems to me people at the top who have never had it so good should sacrifice a bit more, so the rest of us don’t have to sacrifice quite as much.

According to the polls, most Americans agree.

The Truth about 'Class War' in America

Tuesday, September 20, 2011 by The Guardian/UK
Republicans claim, in Orwellian fashion, that Obama's millionaire tax is 'class war'. The reality is that the super-rich won the war

by Richard Wolff

 

Republicans and conservatives always fight back against proposals to raise taxes on corporations and rich individuals by making two basic claims:

First, such proposals amount to un-American "class warfare", pitting the working class against corporations and the rich.

Second, such proposals would take money for the government that would otherwise have been invested in production and thus created jobs.Taking his cue from Warren Buffett, President Obama has announced a 'millionaire tax' as part of his budget plan; Republicans have denounced it as 'class war'.

Neither logic nor evidence supports either claim. The charge of class war is particularly obtuse. Consider simply these two facts:

First, at the end of the second world war, for every dollar Washington raised in taxes on individuals, it raised $1.50 in taxes on business profits. Today, that ratio is very different: for every dollar Washington gets in taxes on individuals, it takes 25 cents in taxes on business. In short, the last half century has seen a massive shift of the burden of federal taxation off business and onto individuals.

Second, across those 50 years, the actual shift that occurred was the opposite of the much more modest reversal proposed this week by President Obama; over the same period, the federal income tax rate on the richest individuals fell from 91% to the current 35%. Yet, Republicans and conservatives use the term "class war" for what Obama proposes – and never for what the last five decades have accomplished in shifting the tax burden from the rich and corporations to the working class.

The tax structure imposed by Washington on the US over the last half-century has seen a massive double shift of the burden of taxation: from corporations to individuals and from the richest individuals to everyone else. If the national debate wants seriously to use a term like "class war" to describe Washington's tax policies, then the reality is that the class war's winners have been corporations and the rich. Its losers – the rest of us – now want to reduce our losses modestly by small increases in taxes on the super-rich (but not, or not yet, on corporations).

To refer to this effort as if it had suddenly introduced class war into US politics is either dishonest or based on ignorance of what federal tax policies have actually been. Or perhaps, for conservatives, it is a convenient mixture of both.

Much the same sort of analysis applies to the Republican claims that taxing corporations and rich people takes money that would otherwise be invested in business growth and thus create jobs. Last Friday, the US Federal Reserve reported a record quantity of cash on the books of US businesses (over $2tn). Even with the currently low taxes on businesses and the rich, that money is not being invested and is not creating jobs. It is not being distributed to anyone else and so is not being spent on consumer goods either. Taxing a portion of that money to finance Washington's stimulation of the economy by spending that money – or even better, by using it to hire and pay the unemployed – would be a much more effective way to provide jobs than leaving it as cash hoards in corporations' coffers.

Last month, Warren Buffett upset many of his "mega-rich friends" by what he stated categorically in a New York Times op-ed. He made it clear that he had never encountered any serious investor who decided whether or not to invest based on tax rates. It was always the prospects of profit that made the difference. He then urged Americans to raise taxes on the rich like himself. He also hinted – none too subtly – that it was becoming politically dangerous for the whole economic system's survival to keep having the minority of extremely rich people paying federal tax at lower rates than the middle- and low-income majority.

The final irony of loose talk about class war is this: the Republican and conservative voices opposing all tax increases for corporations and the rich thereby provoke, as Buffett intimated and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg more explicitly warned last week, a renewal of class consciousness in the US. Then, Washington might learn what class war really is.

Antimagnets That Nullify Magnetic Fields

September 18, 2011

 

Via PES Wiki:

Researchers at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have obtained a formula for building a ” Antimagnet.” that can nullify the magnetic field, a discovery that was published in the New Journal of Physics.

UAB researchers publish in New Journal of Physics a formula to create a device capable of blocking any type of magnetic field. The antimagnet will make it possible for people with pacemakers to undergo magnetic resonances and to control the magnetic fields of technological devices.

Researchers worked to obtain a formula which will cover three objectives. First, an object’s magnetic field will not penetrate the exterior once it is covered by the antimagnet. Second, everything cloaked by the antimagnet will be protected from external magnetic fields and the object inside will be undetectable. Third, all materials used to create the antimagnet must be available, i.e. the antimagnet must be manufactured with the use of existing technology.

The formula UAB researchers have devised is based on overlapping layers of materials with different magnetic properties, forming what is known as a metamaterial. The device consists of an internal superconductor layer covered by several layers of ferromagnetic material, separated by air or other materials which do not have magnetic properties.

New York City -- Occupy Wall Street Protest

Middle Class Death Watch

28% of Americans Who Were Part of the Middle Class Have Fallen Out of It Into Poverty 

September 17, 2011

Source: Amped Status - David Degraw

Editor’s Note: This is our first Middle Class Death Watch roundup. Building off of our extensive report on the financial destruction of the United States, this will be a regular feature moving forward. Here we present a collection of news reports from the past two weeks detailing the collapse of the middle class.

Overall Snapshot

Middle-Class Americans Often Fall Down Economic Ladder: Study – nearly a third of Americans who were part of the middle class have fallen out of it

“The promise of the American dream has given many hope that they themselves could one day rise up the economic ladder. But according to a study released those already in financially-stable circumstances should fear falling down a few rungs too. The study…  found that nearly a third of Americans who were part of the middle class as teenagers in the 1970s have fallen out of it as adults…  its findings suggest the relative ease with which people in the U.S. can end up in low-income, low-opportunity lifestyles — even if they started out with a number of advantages. Though the American middle class has been repeatedly invoked as a key factor in any economic turnaround, numerous reports have suggested that the middle class enjoys less existential security than it did a generation ago, thanks to stagnating incomes and the decline of the industrial sector.”

Downward Mobility from the Middle Class: Waking Up from the American Dream

“The idea that children will grow up to be better off than their parents is a central component of the American Dream, and sustains American optimism. However, Downward Mobility from the Middle Class: Waking up from the American Dream finds that a middle-class upbringing does not guarantee the same status over the course of a lifetime. A third of Americans raised in the middle class—defined here as those between the 30th and 70th percentiles of the income distribution—fall out of the middle as adults.”

Housing Crisis

More Americans ‘double up’ and share homes in tough economy

“This spring, there were 21.8 million “doubled-up” households across the nation, a 10.7 percent increase from the 19.7 million households in the spring of 2007, the Census Bureau said. That means 18.3 percent of all households were combined households.”

The millions of Americans living in long-stay motels

“They are known as the last resort. Millions of Americans are staying in budget long-stay motels as the country’s economic problems get worse. The grisly rooms are seen as the lowest of the U.S. housing ladder, only just above a cardboard box. In tiny rooms with paper-thin walls and nylon sheets, vulnerable Americans are making their homes for a few hundred bucks a month.”

Homelessness could spread to middle class, Crisis study warns

“The economic downturn and the government’s deep cuts to welfare will drive up homelessness over the next few years, raising the spectre of middle class people living on the streets, a major study warns. The report by the homelessness charity Crisis says there is a direct link between the downturn and rising homelessness as cuts to services and draconian changes to benefits shred the traditional welfare safety net.”

In L.A., Homelessness Spreads to Middle-Class Families, As
Underemployment Rate Hits 24%

“More than two years into the economic recovery, there isn’t yet a light at the end of the tunnel for California’s economy and stubborn unemployment. The number of job losses in the state is still much higher than the worst moments of the 2001 and 1990 recessions…. The state’s jobless rate hit 12% last month, the second worst in the nation. A broader measure of unemployment — which also includes part-time workers and people outside the labor force who have been looking for a job — is 22% in California and 24% in Los Angeles, while the national average is only 16.5%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The impact on children has been brutal: since 2007, 7% of the state’s children have had a foreclosure process started on their homes, the fourth-highest level in the nation, according to a study released this month by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. And families can rely less on welfare because state and federal budget crises have cut social services.”

AMERICA TODAY: Stunning Pictures From Lakewood New Jersey’s
Homeless Tent City

“Doug Hardman wakes up every morning with a song in his head—a vague memory of his days on stage. Inside his tepee in the woods outside Lakewood, NJ, at the homeless Tent City, the roosters wake early and the mornings are already cooler. A musician who lost his Florida home in the housing crisis, Hardman says he floats in and out of Tent City, that he’s proud of his kids, and misses the life he no longer has. He has a lot of company out here.”

—

US Taxpayers Own 248,000 Foreclosed Homes

“For sale or rent by distressed owner: 248,000 homes. That’s how many residential properties the U.S. government now has in its possession, the result of record numbers of people defaulting on government-backed mortgages. Washington is sitting on nearly a third of the nation’s 800,000 repossessed houses, making the U.S. taxpayer the largest owner of foreclosed properties. With even more homes moving toward default, Fannie Mae (FNMA), Freddie Mac (FMCC), and the Federal Housing Administration are looking for a way to unload them without swamping the already depressed real estate market. Trouble is, they haven’t figured out how to do that. “They’re stuck,” says Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, a Washington-based consultant that advises banks and other clients on government policy. “They don’t know what to do.””

Foreclosures: Are the rich the biggest strategic defaulters?

“It would seem so from the statistics compiled by the New York Times. The article leads in by suggesting the rich are ‘losing their home but given the talk about strategic default earlier in the year, you should wonder whether these are defaults due to distress or out of sheer financial calculation. This statistic jumped out at me: More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars is seriously delinquent…. By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent. Why would there be this differential given the stress on budgets felt by homebuyers below the million dollar mark? It looks very much like strategic defaults at play.”

There’s No Bottom In Sight For Plummeting Home Prices

“At the end of June 2011, macromarkets.com released the results of a poll in which 108 leading economists and housing market analysts were asked to predict the direction of home prices from now until 2015. All except four of them predicted that housing markets around the country would hit bottom no later than the end of 2012 before climbing again. Only one of them thought that home prices would not hit bottom until the end of 2013. By way of contrast, a survey of consumers released in May by trulia.com and realtytrac.com found that 54% thought that a housing market recovery would not occur until “2014 or later.””

American Dream, downsized: Homeownership not a given

“For decades, Americans have aspired to own homes, and everyone from bankers to government officials has worked to make the dream accessible. But around the country, particularly in places hit hardest by the real estate bust, that’s changing. Legions of homeowners remain underwater on their mortgages or unable to move because they can’t sell their house. Plenty who want homes can’t buy them because credit remains tight.”

My job is to watch dreams die – We sell houses that were foreclosed on

“I work at a real estate office. We primarily sell houses that were foreclosed on by lenders. We aren’t involved in the actual foreclosures or evictions – anonymous lawyers in the cloud somewhere are tasked with the paperwork – we are the boots on the ground that interacts with the actual walls, roofs and occasional bomb threat. When the lender forecloses – or is thinking of foreclosing – on a property one of the first things that happens is they send somebody out to see if there is actually a house there and if there is anybody living there who needs to be evicted….

When I make first contact and explain that the lender is offering them money to leave sometimes they tell me that they haven’t slept for months, knowing that something was going to happen but never knowing if tomorrow was the day when somebody kicked in their door and threw their kids out on the lawn. Their lenders won’t tell them anything, they have nothing to go on but horror stories from other people that they never knew….

There is no difference between myself and these people other than the intangible twists of experience. And so I listen. I feign dispassion but I’m not fooling anybody. Somehow they can tell that I care and thank me even as they admit that it isn’t my fault, that it isn’t my responsibility to listen. I’ve stood inside another’s dream for an hour as they spoke, not really to be heard but to say goodbye – to leave the ghosts behind. They go to the car and return…. The keys are peeled from a ring. They thank me. Sometimes they cry. And they’re gone. I wait for their car to vanish before I put up the sign. To most everybody else it is just another house on just another block in just another city in just another financial catastrophe. But I was there. I saw the dream end. But at least I don’t make them turn out the lights one last time as they leave. That’s my job.”

Unemployment

Initial Unemployment Claims Surge Again, Far Worse Than Consensus As Prior Revised Higher As Usual

“The BLS playbook in full force today: miss expectations of 405K – check, by printing at 414K; another weekly print over 400K – check (21 out of 22 weeks over 400K), revise prior week’s higher – check (from 409K to 412K). Unfortunately, unlike two weeks ago when another blowout miss was reported, this time there is no striking phone carrier to blame it to. And as usual, those coming off their extended claims cliff keeps increasing, with 78K people dropping off EUCs and Extended claims: nearly 2 million people have been cut off from any extended government benefits in the past year. Overall, another weekly data set that confirms that next month’s NFP number will most certainly not be positive… or zero. “

Unemployed face tough competition: underemployed

“The job market is even worse than the 9.1 percent unemployment rate suggests. America’s 14 million unemployed aren’t competing just with each other. They must also contend with 8.8 million other people not counted as unemployed — part-timers who want full-time work. When consumer demand picks up, companies will likely boost the hours of their part-timers before they add jobs, economists say. It means they have room to expand without hiring. And the unemployed will face another source of competition once the economy improves: Roughly 2.6 million people who aren’t counted as unemployed because they’ve stopped looking for work. Once they start looking again, they’ll be classified as unemployed. And the unemployment rate could rise.”

A smaller share of men have jobs today than at any time since World War II

“Employers are increasingly giving up on the American man. Men who do have jobs are getting paid less. After accounting for inflation, median wages for men between 30 and 50 dropped 27 percent—to $33,000 a year— from 1969 to 2009, according to an analysis by Michael Greenstone, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economics professor who was chief economist for Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. “That takes men and puts them back at their earnings capacity of the 1950s,” Greenstone says. “That has staggering implications.”

More than 200,000 public employees laid off in 2010

“Local and state governments axed more than 200,000 jobs in 2010, according to U.S. Census data that showed the growing threat of public employee layoffs to the economic recovery. According to the Census, local and state governments had 203,321 fewer full-time equivalent employees in 2010 than in 2009 and 27,567 fewer part-time employees. “

Uncle Sam Does(n’t) Want You – America’s Reserve Army of Labor
Marches Through Time

“Today, the question is: As the new unemployment “norm” rises, will the “99ers” remain just a number, or will anger and systemic dysfunction lead to the rebirth of movements of the unemployed, perhaps allied, as in the past, with others suffering from the economy’s relentless downward arc? Keep in mind that the extent of organized protest by the unemployed in the past should not be exaggerated. Not even the Great Depression evoked their sustained mass mobilization. That’s hardly surprising. By its nature, unemployment demoralizes and isolates people. It makes of them a transient and chronically fluctuating population with no readily discernable common enemy and no obvious place to coalesce. Another question might be: In the coming years, might we see the return of a basic American horror at the phenomenon of joblessness? And might it drive Americans to begin to ask deeper questions about the system that lives and feeds on it? After all, we now exist in an under-developing economy.

What new jobs it is creating are poor paying, low skill, and often temporary, nor are there enough of them to significantly reduce the numbers of those out of work. The 99ers are stark evidence that we may be witnessing the birth of a new permanent class of the marginalized. (The percentage of the unemployed who have been out of work for more than six months has grown from 8.6% in 1979 to 19.6% today.) Moreover, our mode of “flexible capitalism” has made work itself increasingly transient and precarious. Until now, ideologues of the new order have had remarkable success in dressing this up as a new form of freedom. But our ancestors, who experienced frequent and distressing interruptions in their work lives, who migrated thousands of miles to find jobs which they kept or lost at the whim of employers, and who, in solitary search for work, tramped the roads and hopped the freight cars (even if they could not yet roam Internet chat rooms), were not so delusional.

We have a choice: Americans can continue to accept large-scale unemployment as “natural” and permanent, even — a truly grotesque development — as a basic feature on a bipartisan road to “recovery” via austerity. Or we can follow the lead of the jobless young in the Arab Spring and of protestors beginning to demonstrate en masse in Europe. Even the newly minted proletarians of Ventura, California, sleeping in their cars, may decide that they have had enough of a political and economic order of things so bankrupt it can find no use for them at any price.”

The false promise of Obama’s trade deals – won’t help American workers – and will hurt foreign ones

“It is bad enough that President Obama is reversing his campaign pledge and supporting Bush-era trade deals with Korea, Colombia and Panama. Starting this week in Chicago, the US will be hosting the first major trade negotiations since the “Battle in Seattle” World Trade Organisation talks came here in 1999. This occasion is for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with a wide range of industrialised and developing Pacific Rim countries. As part of his plan to revive the US economy and create jobs, Obama claims he will be unveiling “a trade agreement for the 21st century”.

Ironically, though, he will be pushing the same “Nafta-style” trade pacts he campaigned against, and to howls of protest from his own electoral base. Let us not forget what he said: “I voted against Cafta, never supported Nafta, and will not support Nafta-style trade agreements in the future,” Obama told Ohio voters in 2008. “While Nafta gave broad rights to investors, it paid only lip service to the rights of labor and the importance of environmental protection.”"

A People’s History Of The Great Recession

“She lost her job through no fault of her own. What she hadn’t figured out was why she was still unemployed and why her husband had been bounced from one wretched low-paying job to another. Why, she asked, if they both finished high school, got some post-secondary education, had solid work histories and held off on having kids, was it such a struggle to pay for things like getting the car fixed and visiting the dentist? I think the thing that keeps me going is knowing that we are really lucky, even in spite of the challenges that we are facing,” said Harris in an email. “I can’t help but feel badly for those that I know are worse off than we are.  And I am truly grateful. And knowing that we are not alone helps a great deal, too. But it seems to be getting harder. Harder not to worry, not to cry, not to give up hope. We did everything right, I thought.”“

In U.S., Worries About Job Cutbacks Return to Record Highs | Gallup

“American workers’ concerns about various job-related cutbacks have returned to the record highs seen in 2009…. In terms of the most significant employment risk measured, 3 in 10 workers currently say they are worried they could soon be laid off, similar to the 31% seen in August 2009 but double the level recorded in August 2008 and for several years prior.”

Unemployed and Taking on Debt to Stay Afloat? Don’t Expect to get a Job

“Anyone can lose their job and fall behind on bills in this economy. But now that may keep them from finding new employment. This week’s credit check: Six out of 10 employers use credit reports to vet job applicants. More than 20 million Americans may have material errors on their credit reports…. Where should they turn when they’ve lost a steady paycheck, but still have to keep up with bills such as mortgage payments, student loans, and the basics like rent and food? With no money coming in, many understandably have to turn to debt. But taking on debt — and being unable to pay it back, or pay back any of the debt they may have took on when things looked better and they had a job — could be the exact thing that keeps the unemployed from becoming re-employed. In a massive Catch-22, many employers are looking to credit reports when they do background checks on prospective employees, and a bad mark due to an unpaid medical bill or lapsed student loan payment could make the difference in getting the job…. Marketplace recently told the story of Sarah Sholar, just one of those employees with bad credit who has been turned down by prospective employers. “I can’t pay my student loans because I don’t have a job,” she told them. “I can’t get a job because I can’t pay my student loans.””

Debt

U.S. Consumers’ Credit Card Debt Rapidly Increasing

“According to a new study from CardHub.com, we’re on track to increase our collective credit card debt by $54 billion in 2011. We added only $9 billion in new credit card debt in 2010, and actually reduced our credit card debt in 2009 — so this is a significant reversal. All told, Americans now have roughly $772 billion in outstanding credit card balances. “For millions, they were living in a bubble,” says Odysseas Papadimitriou, CEO of CardHub, referring to Americans living on home equity and credit card debt five years ago. “If we end up overleveraging ourselves again, it’s going to be the same thing repeated in a few years.””

Student Loan Default Rates Rise Sharply in Past Year

“The share of federal student loan defaults rose sharply last year, especially at for-profit colleges and universities, where 15 percent of borrowers defaulted in the first two years of repayment, up from 11.6 percent the previous year. According to Department of Education data released Monday, 8.8 percent of borrowers over all defaulted in the fiscal year that ended last Sept. 30, the latest figures available, up from 7 percent the previous year. At public institutions, the rate was 7.2 percent, up from 6 percent, and at not-for-profit private institutions, it was 4.6 percent, up from 4 percent. “Borrowers are struggling in this economy,” said James Kvaal, deputy under secretary of education. “We see a strong relationship between student default rates and unemployment rates.”

Majoring In Debt: College Students Struggle Under The Weight Of Loans

“Take Aleesha Nash, a graduate of New York University. “Logging into the Federal Student Aid website,” she writes…  “I see that today my balance is $104,104.63 for a percentage of the information in my head.” And there’s Jaclyn Cabral, too. Jaclyn chose to attend Elon University in North Carolina because it’s “regarded as one of the most affordable private educations.” Still, she graduated $90,000 in debt. For many of these students, paying off their loans is a nearly unsurmountable challenge. Brandon Woods, a Hampton University alum, finds himself working two jobs — and hardly making a dent in his $58,000 deficit. “

Cash-strapped lawyer ‘Carla’ turns to exotic dancing to pay her debts

“A lawyer has told how she turned to stripping to pay bills after struggling to find a legal job in recession-weary America. The attorney, giving her name only as Carla, graduated from law school ten years ago. But after being made redundant in 2009, she had to take drastic action to avoid drowning in a sea of student loans and other debts. After working as a waitress and a cashier in a gas station, she became so desperate she took a job as an exotic dancer.”

Debt Slavery: If Aristotle Were Around Today, He’d Probably Conclude That Most Americans Were, For All Intents And Purposes, Slaves

“Instead of creating some sort of overarching institution to protect debtors, they create these grandiose, world-scale institutions like the IMF or S&P to protect creditors. They essentially declare (in defiance of all traditional economic logic) that no debtor should ever be allowed to default. Needless to say the result is catastrophic. We are experiencing something that to me, at least, looks exactly like what the ancients were most afraid of: a population of debtors skating at the edge of disaster. “

Inflation

Food prices stay near record high

“Global food prices remain near a record high, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The index reached 231 points in August, up 26% from the same period last year. The index hit an all-time record of 238 points in February. Cereal prices rose on anticipation of a shortfall in production this year, which is expected to be 6 million tonnes less than predicted in July. The FAO’s measure looks at a range of essential foods. Those include cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar.”

Savers stumped as inflation bites

“Rising inflation means there are now just a handful of accounts that will prevent savers’ capital being eroded by the increasing cost of living. The Office for National Statistics said the cost of living, as measured by CPI, rose from 4.4% in July to 4.5% in August, meaning a basic rate taxpayer now needs to find a savings account paying 5.63% a year to beat inflation and tax, while a higher rate taxpayer needs to find an account paying at least 7.5%.”

Deflation

Median Male Worker Makes Less Now Than 43 Years Ago – Women Make 65% of what Median Male Makes

“While the fact that a record number of Americans are living in poverty should not surprise anyone at this point, what should surprise many is that according to Table P-5 of the Census report on (Lack of) Income, the median male is now worse on a gross, inflation adjusted basis, than he was in… 1968! While back then, the median income of male workers was $32,844, it has since declined to $32,137 as of 2010. And there is your lesson in inflation 101 (which we assume is driven by the CPI, which likely means that the actual inflation adjusted income decline is far worse than what is even reported). The only winner: women, whose median inflation adjusted income over the same period has increased by 188%. That said, it is still at 65% of what the median male makes. So injustice all around.”

Pension Time Bombs

 

California teachers’ pension system labeled “high-risk issue” by state auditors

“The California state auditor issued a report last month branding the defined benefit program of the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) a “high-risk issue.” The pension fund is the eighth largest in the world and the largest teachers’ pension fund in the US. Teachers and administrators contribute a portion of their wages to the fund each year so as to collect pension benefits when they retire. To be considered fully funded, the defined benefit program of CalSTRS must be funded by at least 80 percent. The current funding level is 71 percent. According to financial projections, in 30 years CalSTRS will be depleted of funds.”

Analysis: $35 trillion pension funds in new crisis as deficit hole grows

“This year has been a nightmare for many in the industry — which controls $35 trillion, or a third of global financial assets — and funding deficits are posting double-digit rises. “We had a credit crisis and government bond crisis, and the third one we have is the pension crisis. This is the one where everything is going wrong and there’s no obvious way out,” said Kevin Wesbroom, UK head of global risk services at consultancy Aon Hewitt. The sharp retreat in stocks through the summer has hurt them again by weakening their asset positions and threatening to erode stock market recoveries seen since the equity collapse surrounding the 2007-2009 credit crisis. Recent data on pension deficits highlight the plight of many pension funds. In the United States, funding deficits of the 100 largest DB plans rose $68 billion to $254 billion in July, according to the Milliman Pension Fund Index. July marked the 10th largest deficit rise in the index’s 11 year history. Even if these companies were to achieve an optimistic annual return of as much as 8 percent and keep the current benchmark yield of 5.12 percent, their funding status is not estimated to improve beyond 93 percent by end-2013 from the current 83 percent.”

Healthcare

 

Number of uninsured climbs to highest figure since passage of Medicare, Medicaid

“Official estimates by the Census Bureau showing an increase of about 1 million in the number of Americans without health insurance in 2010 – to a 45-year high of 49.9 million persons, or 16.3 percent of the population, under the bureau’s revised calculation method…. Employment-based coverage continued to decline. The bureau said 55.3 percent of Americans were covered by employment-based plans in 2010, down from 56.1 percent in 2009. It was the eleventh consecutive year of decline, from 64.2 percent in 2000.”

Healthcare law could leave families with even higher insurance costs

“It’s going to be a massive problem if it comes out that families have to buy really expensive employer-based coverage,” said Jocelyn Guyer, deputy executive director at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. “If they don’t fix this and by ‘they’ I mean either the administration or Congress, we’re going to have middle-class families extremely unhappy with [healthcare] reform in 2014, because they’ll basically be facing financial penalties for not buying coverage when they don’t have access to any affordable options.”

Employer-Provided Health Insurance Costs Skyrocket

“Newly published numbers from the Department of Health and Human Services show that American workers in 2010 paid average premiums of $4,940 for employer-provided health insurance to cover just themselves. That figure increased from $1,992 in 1996. Last year, the average family paid $13,871 for health insurance under employer-provided plans. For the average American household – whose median income is now about $50,000 – the rising price of health insurance is consuming a substantial part of paychecks.”

Employers Look Towards Ending Health Coverage, Survey

“Nearly one of every 10 midsized or big employers expects to stop offering health coverage to workers after insurance exchanges begin operating in 2014 as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, according to a survey by a major benefits consultant.  Towers Watson also found in its July survey that another one in five companies are unsure about what they will do after 2014. Another big benefits consultant, Mercer, found in a June survey of large and smaller employers that 8 percent are either “likely” or “very likely” to end health benefits after the exchanges start. The surveys, which involved more than 1,200 companies, suggest that some businesses feel they will be better off dropping health insurance coverage once the exchanges start, even though they could face fines and tax headaches. The percentage of companies that are already saying they expect to do this surprised some experts, and if they follow through, it could start a trend that chips away at employer-sponsored health coverage, a long-standing pillar of the nation’s health system.”

Consumer advocates fear health law will favor business

“Publicly, consumer and patient advocates continue to cheer wildly for last year’s health care law. Behind the scenes, however, some worry that they’re losing a few key battles to the insurance and business communities. They point to a long-sought provision in the law that entitles patients to external reviews if insurers won’t pay for a medical service, and they charge that recent regulations limit its effectiveness. One of their biggest gripes? It allows insurers to choose their own “external” reviewers. “Advocates who have dealt with the external review process believe that it’s pretty clear that if (a reviewer) is being chosen by an employer (or insurer) it’s not independent,” said Timothy Jost, a professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law. “

How Does Growth in Health Care Costs Affect the American Family?

“To paint an accurate picture of how health care cost growth is affecting the finances of a typical American family, RAND Health researchers combined data from multiple sources to depict the effects of rising health care costs on a median-income married couple with two children covered by employer-sponsored insurance. The analysis compared the family’s health care cost burden in 1999 with that incurred in 2009. The take-away message: Although family income grew throughout the decade, the financial benefits that the family might have realized were largely consumed by health care cost growth…. Had health care costs tracked the rise in the Consumer Price Index, rather than outpacing it, an average American family would have had an additional $450 per month — more than $5,000 per year — to spend on other priorities.”

Driving the point home on health care costs

“It may be a little tough to see but there are four lines, showing long-term spending, as a percentage of GDP, on health care, Social Security, discretionary spending, and other mandatory spending. That blue line that shows the sharp increase? That’s health care. As Sarah Kliff noted in response, “Even as someone who spends a lot of time writing about health policy, this new chart … is still one that gives me a bit of pause.” This should matter in the context of the debate in Washington, because if policymakers want to address long-term debt issues, they should at least realize, to borrow Willie Sutton’s line, where the money is.”

98% Of Federal Funds To Help Uninsured Americans with Pre-existing Medical Conditions Go Unspent

“Though as many as 25 million uninsured Americans have pre-existing medical conditions like heart disease and diabetes, a year-old program to insure them has only 21,000 enrollees…. The Government Accountability Office reported that the government has so far spent just 2 percent of the $5 billion allocated by the health care reform law for the program, which launched last summer as the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan. Administration officials initially said as many as 375,000 people would sign up in 2010 alone. The PCIP offers market-rate monthly premiums and caps out-of-pocket costs for any U.S. citizen who has a pre-existing condition and has been without “creditable” health insurance for at least six months. The GAO found that the six-month requirement is the biggest obstacle to higher enrollment in the program.”

America’s inefficient health-care system: another look

“America’s health-care system differs from its counterparts in other affluent nations in a number of ways: greater fragmentation among payers and price-setters, stronger incentives for overuse of advanced diagnostic and treatment technology, higher administrative costs, less access to care for some. We might therefore expect it to perform less efficiently to achieve poorer health outcomes for a given amount of expenditure…. The chart plots life expectancy at birth by per capita health expenditures as of 2007. Twenty affluent nations are included. Among these countries the U.S. spends by far the most money on health care and yet has the lowest life expectancy.”

It Don’t Come Easy: Changing Health Insurance in America

“Several days ago, I wrote about the ordeal I have been going through trying to move my health insurance from Kentucky to Maryland. Because I had a health insurance policy with Anthem Blue Cross in Kentucky, the local Blue Cross was obligated to offer me what is called a guarantee issue conversion policy that does not require underwriting (a good thing since I have several pre-existing conditions that would otherwise make it difficult for me to obtain health insurance). As I reported earlier, the Maryland conversion policy was almost no insurance at all so one of the options I wanted to explore was what kind of policy CareFirst (the Blue Cross company that serves the Washington, DC metro area, including the Virginia and Maryland suburbs) would offer me if I lived in the District instead of in Maryland. I asked CareFirst to send me the information and when it arrived it was a stunner. We are talking about maybe a 15-mile difference in location and the same company. But the policies were radically different, which CareFirst attributes to insurance laws which vary by location.”

Why Americans can’t afford to eat healthy – The real reason Big Macs are cheaper than more nutritious alternatives? Government subsidies

“Not surprisingly, the subsidies have manufactured a price inequality that helps junk food undersell nutritious-but-unsubsidized foodstuffs like fruits and vegetables. The end result is that recession-battered consumers are increasingly forced by economic circumstance to “choose” the lower-priced junk food that their taxes support. Corn — which is processed into the junk-food staple corn syrup and which feeds the livestock that produce meat — exemplifies the scheme. “Over the past decade, the federal government has poured more than $50 billion into the corn industry, keeping prices for the crop … artificially low,” reports Time magazine. “That’s why McDonald’s can sell you a Big Mac, fries and a Coke for around $5 — a bargain.”"

Fast food restaurants want a piece of food stamp pie

“Now, restaurants, which typically have not participated in the program, are lobbying for a piece of the action. Louisville-based Yum! Brands, whose restaurants include Taco Bell, KFC, Long John Silver’s and Pizza Hut, is trying to get restaurants more involved, federal lobbying records show. More retailers say yes to food stamps. That’s a prospect that anti-hunger advocates welcome, but one that worries some current food stamp vendors and public health advocates. Federal rules generally prohibit food stamp benefits, which are distributed under the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), from being exchanged for prepared foods.”

Tying Health Problems to Rise in Home Foreclosures

“The threat of losing your home is stressful enough to make you ill, it stands to reason. Now two economists have measured just how unhealthy the foreclosure crisis has been in some of the hardest-hit areas of the U.S. New research by Janet Currie of Princeton University and Erdal Tekin of Georgia State University shows a direct correlation between foreclosure rates and the health of residents in Arizona, California, Florida and New Jersey. The economists concluded in a paper published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research that an increase of 100 foreclosures corresponded to a 7.2% rise in emergency room visits and hospitalizations for hypertension, and an 8.1% increase for diabetes, among people aged 20 to 49.”

Unemployment Is Killing People

“When considering the effects of unemployment, and the desultory, really uncaring response of the current Democratic administration, as well as Republicans in Congress, to the human devastation of joblessness, it is important to consider the terrible emotional and psychological effects of such unemployment. Such effects are well-documented, but rarely mentioned in articles or blog postings. A well-regarded 2010 study by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, “The Anguish of Unemployment,” quantified the tremendous emotional suffering engendered by unemployment. “The lack of income and loss of health benefits hurts greatly, but losing the ability to provide for my wife and myself is killing me emotionally,” wrote one respondent to the survey.”

Senator Sanders: Poverty Is A Death Sentence – Cuts 6.5 Years Off Life Expectancy

“In America today, people in the highest income group level, the top 20 percent, live, on average, at least 6.5 years longer than those in the lowest income group. Let me repeat that. If you are poor in America you will live 6.5 years less than if you are wealthy or upper-middle class.”

Poverty & Inequality

Over 56 Million Americans Live in Poverty – How Census Bureau Propaganda Ignores the Suffering of 10 Million Impoverished Americans

“The new Census data reveals that a stunning 46.2 million Americans, 15.1% of the population, lived in poverty in 2010. This is an increase of 2.6 million people since 2009. While these are staggering statistics that represent the highest number of American people to ever live in poverty, and a dramatic year-over-year increase, it significantly undercounts the total. The Census Bureau poverty rate is a highly flawed measurement that uses outdated methodology…. We can estimate that at least 56 million Americans, roughly 18.5% of the population, lived in poverty in 2010 according to NAS methodology, approximately 10 million more than the Census Bureau is reporting.”

Living Wage Calculator

“In many American communities, families working in low-wage jobs make insufficient income to live locally given the local cost of living. Recently, in a number of high-cost communities, community organizers and citizens have successfully argued that the prevailing wage offered by the public sector and key businesses should reflect a wage rate required to meet minimum standards of living. Therefore we have developed a living wage calculator to estimate the cost of living in your community or region. The calculator lists typical expenses, the living wage and typical wages for the selected location.”

The 10 States With the Worst Economies In America

“The global economic crash hurt almost everyone, but not equally so… we’ll consider 10 [states] that aren’t faring so well. What accounts for their relatively poor performance? Three of the four states that saw the biggest real estate bubbles arise in the 2000s are on the list, beaten down by Wall Street hucksters promising them never-ending growth in home prices. People in California, Nevada and Florida, fueled by irrational exuberance, got badly “over-leveraged,” and when the house of cards fell apart, millions were left underwater. These states saw extremely high rates of foreclosures, and steep job losses as people pulled back on spending while credit market tightened. States themselves invested pension funds and other reserves in mortgage-backed securities, thanks to AAA ratings bought from ratings agencies like Standard and Poors, and that, combined with a massive drop in tax revenues, led to budget crises and public sector cuts at the worst imaginable time.”

Capital gains tax rates benefiting wealthy are protected by both parties

“For the very richest Americans, low tax rates on capital gains are better than any Christmas gift. As a result of a pair of rate cuts, first under President Bill Clinton and then under Bush, most of the richest Americans pay lower overall tax rates than middle-class Americans do. And this is one reason the gap between the wealthy and the rest of the country is widening dramatically.”

The Great Bank Robbery: Economy Will Transfer $5 Trillion To Banker Pay And Bonuses

“For the American economy – and for many other developed economies – the elephant in the room is the amount of money paid to bankers over the last five years. In the United States, the sum stands at an astounding $2.2 trillion for banks that have filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Extrapolating over the coming decade, the numbers would approach $5 trillion, an amount vastly larger than what both President Barack Obama’s administration and his Republican opponents seem willing to cut from further government deficits. That $5 trillion dollars is not money invested in building roads, schools, and other long-term projects, but is directly transferred from the American economy to the personal accounts of bank executives and employees. Such transfers represent as cunning a tax on everyone else as one can imagine. It feels quite iniquitous that bankers, having helped cause today’s financial and economic troubles, are the only class that is not suffering from them – and in many cases are actually benefiting.”

The Richest 0.1% Have Launched A War On Us – It’s Time To Fight Back And Hold These 400 Billionaires Personally Responsible For Our Economic Crisis

“We have endured financial oppression for long enough. In a time of national crisis and shared sacrifice, the richest one-tenth of one percent of the population cannot continue on their merry way, living in obscene wealth and detached from reality, while the majority of the population desperately struggles to make ends meet… At this point, even the billionaires who haven’t had a direct role in creating this financial crisis need to be held responsible. As a person who has benefited so greatly, and has acquired so many resources, whether they like it or not, they are now in a position of responsibility. The richest 400 Americans have as much wealth as 154 million Americans combined, that’s 50% of the entire country…. If they are unwilling to put their immense power behind changing this dire situation, they too must be held personally responsible.”

‘Rogue Trader’ banking scandal at UBS

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'Super-Earth' Found in Habitable Zone

by Govert Schilling on 12 September 2011

JACKSON LAKE, WYOMING—The Milky Way abounds with low-mass planets, including small, rocky ones such as Earth. That's the main conclusion of a team of European astronomers, based on their latest haul of extrasolar planets. The new discoveries—55 new planets, including 19 "super-Earths"—were presented here today at the Extreme Solar Systems II conference by team leader Michel Mayor of the University of Geneva in Switzerland. "We find that 40% of all Sun-like stars are accompanied by at least one planet smaller than Saturn," he says. The number of Earth-like planets is expected to be even higher.

The new planets were found with HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher), an extremely sensitive instrument used to analyze starlight, mounted on the 3.6-meter telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) at Cerro La Silla in northern Chile. HARPS detects the minute periodic wobbles of stars, caused by the gravity of orbiting planets. So far, HARPS has discovered 155 exoplanets, including two-thirds of all planets less massive than Neptune.

Of the 19 newly found super-Earths (exoplanets between a few and 10 times the mass of Earth), the most intriguing is HD 85512b, which weighs in at only 3.6 Earth masses. Its orbit lies in the habitable zone of its parent star, which means temperatures are just right for liquid water to exist on its surface, says Lisa Kaltenegger of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. "We're entering an incredibly exciting period in history."

Meanwhile, scientists disagree about which technique offers the best chances of finding the first true "Earth analog"—an Earth-like planet orbiting in the habitable zone of its Sun-like star. (H85512b is too massive, and it's star is too cool.) Mayor says HARPS might find this Holy Grail of exoplanet research within 5 years or so, after new upgrades to increase the instrument's sensitivity. But planet hunter Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, disagrees. NASA's Kepler space telescope is "by far the best," he says. "We will find them if they're there, probably within the next 2 or 3 years."

At the meeting, Kepler co-investigator Natalie Batalha of NASA's Ames Research Center announced that the number of exoplanet candidates from the Kepler mission has increased by some 50% since last February, to 1781. Most are less than three times the size of the Earth. Kepler, launched in March 2009, finds planets by measuring the slight periodic dimming of their parent stars, when they happen to pass between the star and Earth.

No matter who finds the first Earth analog, the HARPS planets offer better prospects for detailed follow-up observations, Mayor says, because HARPS focuses on relatively nearby stars, while almost all Kepler stars are much farther away. For instance, ESO astronomer Markus Kissler-Patig predicts that the future 39.2-meter European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) should be able to directly image HD 85512b. Analyzing the starlight it reflects will provide important information about the planet's atmospheric composition. "The E-ELT will be able to probe for biomarkers," Kissler-Patig says, referring to chemicals thought to indicate the presence of life.

While ESO is planning more-sensitive planet-hunting instruments for its existing Very Large Telescope and for the future E-ELT, Kepler is facing an uncertain future. "Kepler's goal of finding true Earth analogs can only be reached by extending the mission duration" past its planned operational lifetime of 3.5 years, Batalha says. In February 2012, NASA will decide on a possible mission extension. Marcy is optimistic. Kepler is so incredibly successful, he says, that it seems unlikely NASA will terminate the mission next year. "I'm sure NASA is wiser than that."