Stealing From Social Security to Pay for Wars and Bailouts

The Greatest Rip-Off
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The American Empire is failing. A number of its puppet rulers are being overthrown by popular protests, and the almighty dollar will not even buy one Swiss franc, one Canadian dollar, or one Australian dollar. Despite the sovereign debt problem that threatens EU members Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, it requires $1.38 dollars to buy one euro, a new currency that was issued at parity with the US dollar.

The US dollar's value is likely to fall further in terms of other currencies, because nothing is being done about the US budget and trade deficits. Obama's budget, if passed, doesn't reduce the deficit over the next ten years by enough to cover the projected deficit in the FY 2012 budget.

Indeed, the deficits are likely to be substantially larger than forecast. The corporate military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned Americans a half century ago, is more powerful than ever and shows no inclination to halt the wars for US hegemony.

The cost of these wars is enormous. The US media, being good servants for the government, only reports the out-of-pocket or current cost of the wars, which is only about one-third of the real cost. The current cost leaves out the cost of life-long care for the wounded and maimed, the cost of life-long military pensions of those who fought in the wars, the replacement costs of the destroyed equipment, the opportunity cost of the resources wasted in war, and other costs. The true cost of America's illegal Iraq invasion, which was based entirely on lies, fabrications and deceptions, is at least $3,000 billion according to economist Joseph Stiglitz and budget expert Linda Bilmes.

The same for the Afghan war, which is ongoing. If the Afghan war lasts as long as the Pentagon says it needs to, the cost will be a multiple of the cost of the Iraq war.

There is not enough non-military discretionary spending in the budget to cover the cost of the wars even if every dollar is cut. As long as the $1,200 billion ($1.2 trillion) annual budget for the military/security complex is off limits, nothing can be done about the U.S. budget deficit except to renege on obligations to the elderly, confiscate private assets, or print enough money to inflate away all debts.

The other great contribution to the US deficit is the offshoring of production for US markets. This practice has enriched corporate management, large shareholders, and Wall Street, but it has eroded the tax base, and thereby tax collections, of local, state, and federal government, halted the growth of real income for everyone but the rich, and disrupted the lives of those Americans whose jobs were sent abroad. When short-term and long-term discouraged workers are added to the U.3 measure of unemployment, the U.S. has an unemployment rate of 22%. A country with more than one-fourth of its work force unemployed has a shrunken tax base and feeble consumer purchasing power.

To put it bluntly, the $3 trillion cost of the Iraq war, as computed by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, is 20% of the size of the U.S. economy in 2010. In other words, the Iraq war alone cost Americans one-fifth of the year's gross domestic product. Instead of investing the resources, which would have produced income and jobs growth and solvency for state and local governments, the US government wasted the equivalent of 20% of the production of the economy in 2010 in blowing up infrastructure and people in foreign lands. The US government spent a huge sum of money committing war crimes, while millions of Americans were thrown out of their jobs and foreclosed out of their homes.

The bought-and-paid-for Congress had no qualms about unlimited funding for war, but used the resulting "debt crisis" to refuse help to American citizens who were out of work and out of their homes.

The obvious conclusion is that "our" government does not represent us.

The US government remains a champion of offshoring, which it calls "globalism." According to the US government and its shills among "free market" economists, destroying American manufacturing and the tax bases of cities, states, and the federal government by moving US jobs and GDP offshore is "good for the economy." It is "free trade."

It is the same sort of "good" that the US government brings to Iraq and Afghanistan by invading those countries and destroying lives, homes and infrastructures. Destruction is good. That's the way our government and its shills see things. In America destruction is done with jobs offshoring, financial deregulation, and fraudulent financial instruments. In Iraq and Afghanistan (and now Pakistan) is it done with bombs and drones.

Where is all this leading?

It is leading to the destruction of Social Security and Medicare.

Republicans have convinced a large percentage of voters that America is in trouble, not because it wastes 20% of the annual budget on wars of aggression and Homeland Security porn-scanners, but because of the poor and retirees.

Pundits scapegoat the middle class and blame the struggling middle along with the poor and retirees. Fareed Zakaria, for example, sees no extravagance in a trillion dollar military budget. The real money, he says, is in programs for the middle class, and the middle class "will immediately punish any [politician] who proposes spending cuts in any middle class program." What does Zakaria think the military/security complex will do to any politician who cuts the military budget? As a well-paid shill he had rather not say.

Andrew Sullivan also has no concept of reductions in military/security subsidies: "they're big babies I mean, people keep saying they don't want any tax increases, but they don't want to have their Medicare cut, they don't want to have their Medicaid [cut] or they don't want to have their Social Security touched one inch. Well, it's about time someone tells them,you can't have it, baby."

Niall Ferguson thinks that Americans are so addicted to wars that the U.S. government will default on Social Security and Medicare.

Republicans tell us that our grandchildren are being saddled with impossible debt burdens because of handouts to retirees and the poor. $3 trillion wars are necessary and have nothing to do with the growth of the public debt. The public debt is due to unnecessary "welfare" that workers paid for with a 15% payroll tax.

When you hear a Republican sneer "entitlement," he or she is referring to Social Security and Medicare, for which people have paid 15% of their wages for their working lifetime. But when a Republican sneers, he or she is saying "welfare." To the distorted mind of a Republican, Social Security and Medicare are undeserved welfare payments to people who over-consumed for a lifetime and did not save for their old age needs.

America can be strong again once we get rid of these welfare leeches.

Once we are rid of these leeches, we can really fight wars. And show people who is boss.

Republicans regard Social Security as an "unfunded liability," that is, a giveaway that is interfering with our war-making ability.

Alas, Social Security is an unfunded liability, because all the money working people put into it was stolen by Republicans and Democrats in order to pay for wars and bailouts for mega-rich bankers like Goldman Sachs.

What I am about to tell you might come as a shock, but it is the absolute truth, which you can verify for yourself by going online to the government's annual OASDI and HI reports. According to the official 2010 Social Security reports, between 1984 and 2009 the American people contributed $2 trillion, that is $2,000 billion, more to Social Security and Medicare in payroll taxes than was paid out in benefits.

What happened to the surplus $2,000 billion, or $2,000,000,000,000.

The government spent it.

Over the past quarter century, $2 trillion in Social Security and Medicare revenues have been used to finance wars and pork-barrel projects of the US government.

Depending on assumptions about population growth, income growth and other factors, Social Security continues to be in the black until after 2025 or 2035 under the "high cost" and "intermediate" assumptions and the current payroll tax rate of 15.3% based on the revenues paid in and the interest on those surplus revenues. Under the low cost scenario, Social Security (OASDI) will have produced surplus revenues of $31.6 trillion by 2085.

When I was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, Deputy Assistant Secretary Steve Entin worked out a way to put Social Security on a sound basis with the current rate of payroll tax without requiring one cent of general revenues. You can read about it in chapter 9 of my book, The Supply-Side Revolution, which Harvard University Press has kept in print for more than a quarter century. Entin's solution, or a variation of it, would still work, so Social Security can easily be saved within the current payroll tax rate. Instead of acknowledging this incontrovertible fact, the right-wing wants to terminate the program.

Treasury was blocked from putting Entin's plan into effect by the fact that other parts of the government and the Greenspan Social Security Commission had agendas different from ensuring a sound Social Security system.

Wall Street insisted that the Reagan tax rate reductions would explode consumer spending, cause inflation and destroy the values of stock and bond portfolios. When inflation collapsed instead of exploding, Wall Street said that the deficits, which resulted from inflation's collapse, would cause inflation and destroy the values of stock and bond portfolios. This didn't happen either.

Nevertheless, the Greenspan commission played to these mistaken fears. The "Reagan deficits" could not cause inflation, because they were the result of the unanticipated collapse of inflation (anticipated only by supply-side economists). As I demonstrated in a paper published in the 1980s in the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Italy, and other countries, tax revenues were below the forecast amounts because inflation, and thus nominal GNP, were below forecast. The collapse of inflation also made real government spending higher than intended as the spending figures in the five-year budget were based on higher inflation than was realized.

The subsidy to the US government from the payroll tax is larger than the $2 trillion in excess revenue collections over payouts. The subsidy of the Social Security payroll tax to the government also includes the fact that $2.8 trillion of US government debt obligations are not in the market. If the national debt held by the public were $2.8 trillion larger, so would be the debt service costs and most likely also the interest rate.

The money left over for war would be even smaller. More would have to be borrowed or printed.

The difference between the $2 trillion in excess Social Security revenues and the $2.8 trillion figure is the $0.8 trillion that is the accumulated interest over the years on the mounting $2 trillion in debt, if the Treasury had had to issue bonds, instead of non-marketable IOUs, to the Social Security Trust Fund. When the budget is in deficit, the Treasury pays interest by issuing new bonds in the amount of the interest due. In other words, the interest on the debt adds to the debt outstanding.

The robbed Social Security Trust Fund can only be made good by the US Treasury issuing another $2.8 trillion in US government debt to pay off its IOUs to the fund.

When a government is faced with a $14 trillion public debt growing by trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, how does it add another $2.8 trillion to the mix?

Only with great difficulty.

Therefore, to avoid repaying the $2.8 trillion that the government has stolen for its wars and bailouts for mega-rich bankers, the right-wing has selected entitlements as the sacrificial lamb.

A government that runs a deficit too large to finance by borrowing will print money as long as it can. When the printing press begins to push up inflation and push down the exchange value of the dollar, the government will be tempted to reduce its debt by reneging on entitlements or by confiscating private assets such as pension funds. When it has confiscated private assets and reneged on public obligations, nothing is left but the printing press.

We owe the end-time situation that we face to open-ended wars and to an unregulated financial system concentrated in a few hands that produces financial crises by leveraging debt to irresponsible levels.

The government of the United States does not represent the American people. It represents the oligarchs. The way campaign finance and elections are structured, the American people cannot take back their government by voting. A once proud and free people have been reduced to serfdom.

When is It Time for a General Strike?

Standing Up to a Power Grab
By LAURA FLANDERS

Sometimes things fall apart and sometime they flow together.

As the Wisconsin State Senate rammed through their union-busting bill Wednesday night, people in the capitol chanted "General strike!" And I heard an echo. Not of 1934, the last time there was a general strike in the US, but earlier.

It was 1909, in the crowded Great Hall at New York's Cooper Union; a big union boss was talking about talks and a 16-year-old girl shouted out from the back: "WALK OUT."

More than 30,000 shirtwaist factory workers walked off their jobs after that. This week's International Women's Day celebrates the anniversary of that strike, by mostly young, immigrant women like 16 year old Clara Lemlich. 700 women were arrested, many more beaten and spat on for being "On strike against God."

They struck for eleven weeks. It was the first successful uprising of women workers in this country--but their success didn't go far enough.

Had, it, the 1911 Triangle Factory fire that killed 146 of these workers two years later might never have happened. A documentary about the fire is available now from PBS's website, another one's coming from HBO. At the March 25 centennial commemoration, the names of all the dead will be read.

But fewer Americans remember the demands these women and girls made... Not just for wage increases, but for the ability to have a say in the conditions of their workplace--the workplace that killed them. Those are the rights that will be taken from American workers if the Republicans' power grab is allowed to stand.

Imagine, a century ago, if the rest of New York had stood with the women of the factories. Imagine if instead of 20,000, it had been 2 million workers marching. Or if it were to be today.

The Wisconsin Effect

Union Power Rediscovered
By BRIAN TIERNEY

Only four months ago the consensus among the political establishment was that of a right-wing resurgence in U.S. politics. After relegating the Republican Party into the political wilderness in 2008, the Democratic Party managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory, conceding a midterm electoral sweep to the GOP which now had the wind of the tea party "movement" at its back.

The left, it seemed, was on the retreat and workers were bracing for further attacks while Corporate America returned to prosperity.

Four months later and the picture could not be more different. Suddenly state capitols are being swarmed with protesters and workers are taking action to stop the ideological assault on their union rights.

After decades of decline in the private sector, the relatively stronger but dwindling strength of unions in the public sector has long been a target of the right. But under the pretext of solving budget crises across the nation, politicians – including Democrats – have accelerated the agenda of austerity, calling for a kind of "shared sacrifice" from which the wealthy are exempt.

The beleaguered labor movement has been on the defensive for decades. Its numbers and power have diminished dramatically as business gained the upper hand.

In Wisconsin, however, Governor Scott Walker's anti-union "budget repair" bill, which threatened to strip public workers of their collective bargaining rights, has touched a raw nerve. It appears that the waning labor movement has arisen from its slumber.

The latest move this week by Republicans to split the budget bill and ram the union-busting measure through the State Senate has now thrown even more fuel onto the fire. By removing the fiscal elements from the bill, Republicans were able to avoid the quorum requirement that until now Democrats were able to use to prevent the bill's passage by leaving the state. For weeks the Republicans framed the attack on unions as a purely fiscal issue. But their most recent underhanded maneuver is a shameless admission that the motive behind the assault on collective bargaining has been ideological all along.

From the start, Walker's union-busting bill was more than just the usual attack on public sector union pensions and benefits; workers have been losing ground on these issues for years. The governor's original budget bill was replete with punishing austerity measures and posed an existential threat to unions in the state of Wisconsin and beyond.

Thankfully, his anti-worker crusade backfired profoundly.

The attempt to divide and conquer workers by pitting private sector workers against the supposedly lavish lifestyles of public sector workers has failed. A study by the Economic Policy Institute last September exposed the myth of the overpaid public employee, finding that on average public sector workers actually earn less than their private sector counterparts when controlling for education and experience levels.

The images of tens of thousands of workers and their supporters – including teachers, students and firefighters – who took part in the occupation of the Capitol Rotunda in Madison, Wisconsin for more than two weeks have reignited the morale and militancy of the labor movement. Even beyond labor, the scenes from Wisconsin have shown ordinary people the power they possess when they are organized and take bold action. Many who visited Madison in the first two weeks of the struggle commented on the breathtaking spirit of solidarity among the protesters, the efficient operation of self-organized demonstrators, and the display of democracy come to life.

Who could have predicted in those days of tea party triumphalism back in November that unions and labor solidarity would soon come to dominate national discourse?

Having suffered low popularity in opinion polls for years, the labor movement has gained sympathy throughout the country because of Wisconsin. Forty-two percent of Americans side with the unions compared to 31 percent who side with the governor, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. And when it comes to stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights, 64 percent oppose taking away those rights.

"We've never seen the incredible solidarity that we're seeing now," said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

That solidarity has been more than just a national phenomenon. Statements of solidarity and other support have come from as far away as Egypt, where for the past decade workers have been staging strikes in key industries that opened the way for the revolution that ousted a US-backed dictator from power last month.

The 14 Democratic state senators who stalled the passage of Walker's bill by leaving the state prompted many media pundits to see the fight in Wisconsin as one between Republicans and Democrats. It was a rude wake-up call, but Democrats are finally remembering their base and have chosen to stand on the side of workers this time – so goes the liberal analysis. But in reality the Democrats – particularly at the national level – have marched shoulder to shoulder with Republicans in targeting public sector workers to reign in deficits.

Consider that the fight in Wisconsin was thrust into the national spotlight in part because tens of thousands of teachers called out sick for up to four days, bringing out the critical mass of protesters that made the Capitol feel like Tahrir Square.

Teachers have been a focal point of this battle for the simple reason that they represent the largest unionized force in the public sector and have therefore been a prime target for the union-busters. And, despite some of their recent words of sympathy, Democrats are well-represented among the forces attacking teachers unions.

Under the guise of school reform and cutting budgets, Democratic leaders in major cities and nationally – included President Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan – have been among the loudest proponents of policies that aim to weaken teachers unions. Through the federal Race to the Top program, the Obama administration has enticed states with extra funding in exchange for the proliferation of charter schools and merit-based pay schemes that undercut fundamental union protections for teachers in public education.

In the labor movement, most leaders have been in lockstep with Democrats in arguing that their members need to make more concessions to address the very real fiscal crises facing states and municipalities around the country.

But if union leaders are having a hard time convincing members that there simply isn't enough money and that concessions and cuts need to be made, it's because working people see corporations recording some of the largest profits in history while the top one percent of households that are now worth more than $19 trillion continue to enjoy tax breaks.

In Wisconsin, many Democrats and labor leaders are eager to counsel union members on the necessity of accepting further cuts to benefits and pensions, but they are prepared to fight hard when it comes to eliminating collective bargaining and automatic dues deductions which would directly impact their own paychecks and campaign coffers. So while the "Wisconsin 14" who fled the state are understandably viewed as heroes, there are some undeniable economic and political calculations for self-preservation that motivate them, beyond just pure principles of solidarity.

But rank-and-file workers have seen in the last few weeks the power they have with the strength of unions at their side. Unions are the most formidable organizations on the side of workers that have any hope of beating back the naked class offensive being waged by politicians and bosses like Walker and the billionaire Koch brothers.

Wisconsin has become a proving ground for the full-scale assault now underway, but the battle lines have extended across the Midwest and the spirit of fighting back has reverberated as well. Protests have halted similar anti-union efforts in Indiana for now, and though the gauntlet has already nearly fallen in Ohio with the imminent passage of Senate Bill 5, the attempt there to strip public workers of collective bargaining rights just barely made it through the State Senate thanks to Republican defections that were undoubtedly influenced in part by the surge of mass protests in Columbus.

Governors elsewhere are closely watching the union battles in the Midwest as states like New York and California prepare to address even bigger budget gaps. And surely governors like Chris Christie in New Jersey, who has declared an all-out war on teachers and other public workers in that state, are emboldened by the anti-union attacks in Wisconsin and Ohio.

After more than two weeks of being occupied by protesters, the nerve center for the union fightback at the Capitol in Wisconsin was illegally closed off to most of the public. But after Republicans forced the split anti-union bill through the Senate this week, protesters retook the building. That the stakes could not be higher at this point is crystal clear to the protesters in Madison who rapidly responded to developments on Wednesday night by descending on the Capitol in the thousands.

While on the legal front Democrats are mounting recall efforts and challenging the legality of the Republicans' latest affront to democracy and union rights, student walkouts and a massive demonstration on Saturday are being planned. And although this country has not seen a general strike since 1934, that option is reportedly being discussed by some union leaders. A few weeks ago the South Central Federation of Labor in Madison voted to endorse a general strike if one were called in the event that Walker signed the bill.

In Wisconsin and beyond, the continuation of protests and occupations of state capitols, especially the "people's house" in Madison, will be essential for victory in the struggle against Walker and politicians in other states who are bent on stamping out the unions.

The hope of a revived labor movement and stronger unions will vanish quickly though if union leaders continue to parrot the demands for "shared sacrifice" and necessary cuts. Workers have made enough concessions, as the ever widening gap between the rich and the rest of us illustrates so eloquently.

The reality is that the labor movement has been on the defensive for decades and even if unions ultimately win this fight in Wisconsin, they will only have held onto a status quo that is a far cry from what the movement should be aiming for.

If unions are to seize on this moment, the movement will need to figure out not only how to defeat Walker and his ilk, but also how to translate this new vibrancy of struggle from a defensive front to an offensive one.

In order for the movement to take advantage of this moment, protests need to be coupled with job actions. That, of course, will entail an arduous struggle by rank-and-file workers who will need to go up against not only the anti-union forces, but also at times against their own leadership which will try to put the breaks on more militant actions.

History has already been made over the last few weeks, but what happens in Wisconsin over the next few days will be decisive for the labor movement

Whatever the outcome in Madison, however, there is a strong sense that the long-awaited period of labor's resurgence is finally upon us.

Back in November, Civil Rights Act opponent and right-wing libertarian Representative Rand Paul of Kentucky declared that a tidal wave had swept the nation. He was talking about the tea party "movement."

Four months later, a very different tidal wave representing a very different movement is on the horizon, from the Middle East to the Midwest. If union power is riding this new wave and giving it momentum, it can utterly drown the corporate-backed tea party and reanimate the labor movement for decades to come.

What Rightwingers Mean When They Talk About Freedom

One Nation, Two Universes 
By SAUL LANDAU

Listen to right wing talk radio – and tens of millions do – and you’ll hear about an alternative universe where bitter aliens describe a different reality than the one experienced by most -- thank god -- Americans.

My friend scowls. “How can you listen to that crap?”

“Limbaugh’s bombastic boasts are less painful than wearing scrapers between your thighs,” I explain, not daring to admit to the dolorous feelings in my ears and brain,  “and how else does one learn about what the new Republican Party and some Tea Partiers -- not all -- propose in their political agendas. Fanatic right talk radio has become the oral parchment of this alternate world view.”

For example, the words “freedom” and “liberty” don’t relate to the UN Covenants on Human Rights. Jimmy Carter signed those Covenant in 1979 but didn’t demand the Senate’s “advice and consent” that would make it a Treaty. Reagan and Bush I viewed economic, social, and cultural rights as goals and not the meat of the Covenants. Clinton never denied the obligation toward these rights but avoided fighting the right wing in Congress over them. So thanks to continuous opposition from the right, food, shelter, clothing, and medical care never gained the status of enforceable rights, even though they originated in Franklin Roosevelt’s January 6, 1941 speech to the 77th Congress.

FDR referred to “the basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems.” His goals: “Equality of opportunity for youth and for others. Jobs for those who can work. Security for those who need it. The ending of special privilege for the few.”

His four freedoms: “freedom of speech and expression –everywhere … freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-- everywhere … freedom from want, [meaning] economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere … freedom from fear, [meaning] a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor --anywhere in the world.”

For Roosevelt “a moral order” or freedom meant “the supremacy of human rights everywhere.”

For right wing Republicans freedom first and foremost means no taxation of billionaires and no regulation of their largest corporations and banks. Freedom for women means choosing abortion, murder of the unborn that deserve universal love. Once born they get what’s coming to them. (Adultery, coveting – well, forget those commandments).

God intended some to have wealth; others, without wealthy parents or luck, get screwed. That’s God’s will. “God intended you to be successful in business,” preached the late Rev. Jerry Falwell in his Lynchburg Virginia church.” Falwell indicated he had a special communication system with God and Jesus – or maybe even a business partnership. (Filmed interview by author with Falwell in “Quest for Power” 1982)

Recall Ray Stevens’ lyrics.

“Would Jesus be political if he came back to earth
Have his second home in Palm Springs, but try to hide his worth
Take money from those poor folks when He comes back again
And admit He's talked to all those preachers who said they'd been-a talking to Him”
(“Would Jesus Wear a Rolex on his Television Show?”)

Polluting corporations and fraud-infested banks count on religious pretenders to distract voters from their class interests. Two of three white men – mostly poor and middle class -- vote Republican because they support more muscularly God’s intentions: people should carry guns; government should not interfere with their veterans’ benefits or food stamps.

God hated welfare cheats (look what he did to Adam and Eve when those loafers cheated). And He didn’t approve of homosexuals -- or “race-mixing.”

This fogging of “issues” has indeed obscured clarity. Tens of millions of voters cast ballots for their class enemies. According to Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, “the middle class is collapsing. Median family income has gone down. Poverty is going way up. And the gap between the very, very rich and everybody else is growing wider.”

Beneficiaries of government programs vote for Republicans who pledge to remove those very programs that provide the thin cushion protecting those who lose jobs and homes. President Obama plans to reduce deficits by cutting back a bit on Social Security and Medicare. Republicans would privatize social security and leave pensions to the Free Market. “That makes no sense,” said Sanders. “The Social Security trust fund today has a $2.6 trillion surplus. It can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 27 years.” (Talk in Berkeley California February 26)

The far right demands government stop punishing (taxi and regulate) the selected few and rewarding (unemployment insurance and food stamps) the lazy (mostly non-white unemployed). They accuse liberal lawmakers of transferring good people’s money to welfare cheats to buy booze and drugs. 

What’s mine is mine! Selfishness is good, or God wouldn’t have inserted that trait into his finest (richest) specimens. If not for liberal government the wealthy would be wealthier – as God intended. But don’t worry: these ideas have only captured the majority in the House of Representatives and 17 governorships!

On the Brink of a Meltdown (3 articles)

The Japanese Earthquake and the Fukushima II Reactor
By ROBERT ALVAREZ

We shouldn't need yet another major nuclear power accident to wake up the public and decision-makers to the fact that there are better, much safer ways to make electricity.

In the aftermath of the largest earthquake to occur in Japan in recorded history, 5,800 residents living within five miles of six reactors at the Fukushima nuclear station have been advised to evacuate and people living within 15 miles of the plant are advised to remain indoors.

Plant operators have not been able to cool down the core of one reactor containing enormous amounts of radioactivity because of failed back-up diesel generators required for the emergency cooling. In a race against time, the power company and the Japanese military are flying in nine emergency generators. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton announced today that the U.S. Air Force has provided cooling water for the troubled reactor. Complicating matters, Japan's Meteorological Agency has declared the area to be at high risk of being hit by a tsunami.

The plant was operating at full power when the quake hit and even though control rods were automatically inserted to halt the nuclear reaction, the reactor core remains very hot. Even with a fully functioning emergency core cooling system, it would take several hours for the reactor core to cool and stabilize. If emergency cooling isn't restored, the risks of a core melt, and release of radioactivity into the environment is significantly increased. Also, it's not clear if piping and electrically distribution systems inside the plant have been damaged. If so, that would interfere with reactor cooling. A senior U.S. nuclear power technician tells me the window of time before serious problems arise is between 12 and 24 hours.

Early on Japanese nuclear officials provided reassurances that no radiation has been released. However, because of the reactor remains at a very high temperature, radiation levels are rising on the turbine building – forcing to plant operators to vent radioactive steam into the environment.

But the devastating Japanese quake and its outcome could generate a political tsunami here in the United States. For instance, in California it may become impossible for the owners of the San Onofre and Diablo Canyon reactors to extend their operating licenses with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The quake is also likely to further deflate the "nuclear renaissance" balloon.

These two reactors are sitting in high seismic risk zones near earthquake faults. Each is designed to withstand a quake as great as 7.5 on the Richter scale. According to many seismologists, the probability of a major earthquake in the California coastal zone in the foreseeable future is a near certainty. The U.S. Geological Survey reports the largest registering 8.3 on the Richter scale devastated San Francisco in 1906.

"There have been tremblers felt at U.S. plants over the past several
years, but nothing approaching the need for emergency action," Scott Burnell, a spokesman at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Reuters today.

As the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe approaches next month, the earthquakes in Japan serve as a reminder that the risks of nuclear power, when things go seriously wrong. The Chernobyl accident required nearly a million emergency responders and cleanup workers. More than 100,000 residents from 187 settlements were permanently evacuated because of radioactive contamination. And area an equal to half of the State of New Jersey was rendered uninhabitable.

Fortunately, U.S. and Japanese reactors have extra measures of protection that were lacking at Chernobl, such as a secondary concrete containment structure over the reactor vessel to prevent escape of radioactivity. In 1979, the containment structure at the Three Mile Island reactor did prevent the escape of a catastrophic amount of radioactivity after the core melted. But, people living nearby were exposed to higher levels of radiation from the accident and deliberate venting to stabilize the reactor. Also, within one hour the multi-billion dollar investment in that plant went down the drain. In the meanwhile, let's hope that the core of the Japanese reactor can be cooled in time. We shouldn't need yet another major nuclear power accident to wake up the public and decision-makers to the fact that there are better, much safer ways to make electricity.

+++++++++

First the Quake, Then the Lies
Don't Worry, It's Just a Little Radiation

By KARL GROSSMAN

And with the major malfunction at the Fukushima nuclear power plant comes the lies…

That’s the way it’s always been when it comes to nuclear technology: deception has always been a central element in the push for it.

As desperate efforts were made Friday to keep coolant flowing—to prevent a nuclear meltdown—“radioactive vapor” was being released from the plant, reported the Associated Press. It quoted Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano as saying the amount of radioactivity was “very small.”

And it “would not affect the environment or human health,” added AP.

Really.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the U.S. nuclear industry trade group, presented a page on its website devoted to the post-earthquake situation involving nuclear plants in Japan which opened with pronouncement: “The Japanese prime minister and the industry’s safety agency say all plants in the country are safe and that there has been no radiation release from any reactors. Utilities there are managing issues with cooling water systems at the Fukushima plant…”

To sweeten its tale further, the NEI page featured a quote from the chief PR man at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Eliot Brenner: “In fact, all nuclear power plants are built to withstand environmental hazards, including earthquakes. Even those plants that are located outside of areas with extensive seismic activity are designed for safety in the event of such a natural disaster."

Don’t worry.

And CNN Friday posed this question in a dispatch on its website: “Do nuclear plants have failsafe systems?” The answer: “Yes. They are designed with an inter-connected system of fail-safes that ensure there are multiple ways of counteracting a malfunction.”

In fact, like any machinery, nuclear plants can—and regularly do—undergo accidents.

The big difference with atomic energy: the malfunctions can end up killing large numbers of people and impact on other life as well.

If the attempt now going on in Japan to keep the coolant flowing fails, a loss-of-coolant or meltdown accident could occur—a disaster that could have catastrophic impacts on Japan and much of the world.

Radioactive material is used in a nuclear plant as a heat source—to boil water and produce steam that turns a turbine that generates electricity. Huge amounts of radioactive material are made to go through a chain reaction, a process in which atomic particles bombard the nuclei of atoms, causing them to break up and generate heat.

But to keep the nuclear reaction in check—to prevent the material from overheating—vast amounts of coolant are required, up to a million gallons of water a minute in the most common nuclear plants that have been built (“light water” reactors). That is why nuclear plants are sited along rivers and bays, to use the water as coolant.

If the water which cools the reactor “core”—its 200,000 to 300,000 pounds of radioactive fuel load—stops flowing, the “emergency core cooling system” must send water in. If it fails, a loss-of-coolant or meltdown accident can occur.

In such an accident, the core of nuclear fuel, which in less than a minute can reach 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, burns through the cement bottom of the nuclear plant and bores into the earth. This is what U.S. nuclear scientists have dubbed the “China syndrome”—based on a nuclear plant on their side of the planet undergoing an accident seemingly sending its white-hot core in the direction of China.

In fact, the radioactive core doesn’t—in any location—go to China but it descends to the water table underlying a plant. Then, in a violent reaction, molten core and cold water combine, creating steam explosions and releasing a plume of radioactive poisons.

The problem at Fukushima Diachi nuclear facility is that one of its six reactors lost all its power as a result of the earthquake. Back-up diesel generators didn’t work, so battery power became necessary to keep coolant water flowing. If the battery power is depleted and electric power is not otherwise restored, a loss-of-coolant accident or meltdown would ensue.

“The emergency shutdown has been conducted but the process of cooling down the reaction is currently not going as planned,” explained Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano.Friday.

Thus Japan declared a state of “atomic power emergency” and people living within three kilometers of the Fukushima facility were advised to evacuate.

But if the coolant flow is not maintained and a loss-of-coolant accident with a “breach of containment” occurs, people way beyond three kilometers around Fukushima would be impacted. The radioactive releases in the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident affected the entire northern hemisphere, as a book published last year by the New York Academy of Sciences documents. And Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, authored by Dr. Alexey Yablokov, Dr. Vassily Nesterenko and Dr. Alexey Nesterenko, finds that medical records between 1986, the year of the accident, and 2004 reflect 985,000 deaths as a result of the radioactivity released. Most of the deaths were in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, but others were spread through the many other countries the radiation from Chernobyl struck.

Where the radioactivity spreads after a nuclear plant meltdown is largely a function of where winds take the radioactivity and of the rain that causes it to fall out.

Perhaps the biggest lie ever regarding nuclear power has been the claim by the International Atomic Energy Agency—created to boost and somehow at the same time regulate nuclear power—that perhaps 4,000 people will die as a result of Chernobyl.

Where the radioactivity spreads after a nuclear plant meltdown is largely a function of where winds take the radioactivity and of the rain that causes it to fall out.

The Japanese nuclear crisis comes amid a global drive to “revive” nuclear power. After the Chernobyl disaster, good sense—and the survival instinct—caused people all over the world to say no to new nuclear power plants.

A leader in this is U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a nuclear scientist. He came to his DOE post after being director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, part of the U.S. government’s chain of national nuclear laboratories. Some got their start during the Manhattan Project of World War II creating atomic weaponry. All have since pushed commercial nuclear power, too.

In a speech last month to President Obama’s “Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nature Future,” Chu declared: “The Obama administration believes that nuclear energy has an important role to play as America moves to a clean energy future.” He declared that nuclear power is “carbon free energy"—disregarding the reality that the “nuclear cycle,” from mining and milling to fuel enrichment and so on, contributes to global warming. And he spoke, in his February 12th address, of “upgrades to our existing reactor fleet” and a move to “speed the development of next generation reactors.”

Japan’s jump into nuclear power is especially ironic considering it was on the receiving end of the bombs built by the Manhattan Project. Furthermore, it is situated on a string of volcanic islands vulnerable to earthquakes. Of course, Japan is not alone on this score: in the U.S., the Diablo Canyon nuclear facility in California was built less than three miles from the Hosgri earthquake fault.

Nuclear power plants are, in fact, life-threatening wherever they are—they represent the most dangerous way to boil water ever devised.

Wind, solar and geothermal energy and other forms of safe, clean power would not cause massive deadly damage because of an earthquake.

But don’t tell that to the atomic Pinocchios pushing nuclear technology.

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Nukes on a Faultline
Japan's Quake Could Have Irradiated the Entire United States

By HARVEY WASSERMAN

Had the violent 8.9 Richter-scale earthquake that has just savaged Japan hit off the California coast, it could have ripped apart at least four coastal reactors and sent a lethal cloud of radiation across the entire United States.

The two huge reactors each at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon are not designed to withstand such powerful shocks. All four are extremely close to major faults.

All four reactors are located relatively low to the coast. They are vulnerable to tsunamis like those now expected to hit as many as fifty countries.

San Onofre sits between San Diego and Los Angeles. A radioactive cloud spewing from one or both reactors there would do incalculable damage to either or both urban areas before carrying over the rest of southern and central California.

Diablo Canyon is at Avila Beach, on the coast just west of San Luis Obispo,wasser between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A radioactive eruption there would pour into central California and, depending on the winds, up to the Bay Area or southeast into Santa Barbara and then to Los Angeles. The cloud would at very least permanently destroy much of the region on which most Americans rely for their winter supply of fresh vegetables.

By the federal Price-Anderson Act of 1957, the owners of the destroyed reactors---including Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison---would be covered by private insurance only up to $11 billion, a tiny fraction of the trillions of dollars worth of damage that would be done. The rest would become the responsibility of the federal taxpayer and the fallout victims. Virtually all homeowner insurance policies in the United States exempt the insurers from liability from a reactor disaster.

The most definitive recent study of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster puts the death toll at 985,000. The accident irradiated a remote rural area. The nearest city, Kiev, is 80 kilometers away.

But San Luis Obispo is some ten miles directly downwind from Diablo Canyon. The region around San Onofre has become heavily suburbanized.

Heavy radioactive fallout spread from Chernobyl blanketed all of Europe within a matter of days. It covered an area far larger than the United States.

Fallout did hit the jet stream and then the coast of California, thousands of miles away, within ten days. It then carried all the way across the northern tier of the United States.

Chernobyl Unit Four was of comparable size to the two reactors at Diablo Canyon, and somewhat larger than the two at San Onofre.

But it was very new when it exploded. California's four coastal reactors have been operating since the 1970s and 1980s. Their accumulated internal radioactive burdens could exceed what was spewed at Chernobyl.

Japanese officials say all affected reactors automatically shut, with no radiation releases. But they are not reliable. In 2007 a smaller earthquake rocked the seven-reactor Kashiwazaki site and forced its lengthy shut-down.

Preliminary reports indicate at least one fire at a Japanese reactor hit by this quake and tsunami.

In 1986 the Perry nuclear plant, east of Cleveland, was rocked by a 5.5 Richter-scale shock, many orders of magnitude weaker than this one. That quake broke pipes and other key equipment within the plant. It took out nearby roads and bridges.

Thankfully, Perry had not yet opened. An official Ohio commission later warned that evacuation during such a quake would be impossible.

Numerous other American reactors sit on or near earthquake faults.

The Obama Administration is now asking Congress for $36 billion in new loan guarantees to build more commercial reactors.

It has yet to reveal its exact plans for dealing with a major reactor disaster. Nor has it identified the cash or human reserves needed to cover the death and destruction imposed by the reactors' owners.

‘US Uncut’ crashes Bank of America ‘Tax Dodger Conference’

By David Edwards - RAW Story
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

Several demonstrators crashed Bank or America's Investor Conference Tuesday to make the point that when corporations don't pay taxes, governments are forced to lay off public workers.

A blog posting by the anti-austerity group U.S. Uncut called for protesters to gather Tuesday morning at what they called Bank of America's "Tax Dodger Conference."

"Call your broker- if you have any shares in BofA, you're free to come inside to the conference and tell everyone you see about BofA's tax dodging," the statement said.

After the conference had gotten underway, demonstrators unfurled a banner reading "Tax Dodger."
"When corporations like Bank of America don't pay their fair share of taxes, we have to 'cut' teachers, firefighters, and public servants," one protester shouted. "Do you pay your taxes? So do we. Why don't corporations pay their fair share, just like everyone else?"

"Bank of America is Bad for America," the added. "Bank of America pockets billions in profits and bailouts, but $0 in American taxes - that's immoral and un-American."

Last month, the same group organized demonstrations at 40 different Bank of America branches.

U.S. Uncut credited an article in The Nation by John Hari called "How to Build a Progressive Tea Party" with calling the group to action.

"Imagine a parallel universe where the Great Crash of 2008 was followed by a Tea Party of a very different kind," he wrote. "Instead of the fake populism of the Tea Party, there is a movement based on real populism."
The group takes their name from the British group U.K. Uncut, which seeks to use public protests to shame corporations into paying taxes.

A list compiled by Forbes showed that Bank of America paid no taxes on $4.4 billion in income in 2009.

Senate fails to pass two budget bills, shutdown looms

By Sahil Kapur - RAW Story
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

WASHINGTON – The Senate on Wednesday struck down two separate budget measures for fiscal 2012, raising the stakes of an ongoing stand-off as the government's solvency hangs in the balance.

The GOP House bill H.R. 1, which cuts spending by over $60 billion, was defeated by a vote of 44-56.
The other, a White House-backed measure that cuts $6.5 billion in spending, failed 42-58.

Both required a 60-vote threshold for approval. Neither was expected to pass.

Congress failed to pass a budget for fiscal 2011 last year and since then has approved three continuing resolutions to keep the government solvent. The latest one expires on March 18, and the signs of a deal appear increasingly grim.

The failed Senate votes mean a fourth stop-gap measure is perhaps Congress's best chance to avoid a shutdown, which leaders of both parties say they do not want.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), a member of the Republican leadership, predicted Tuesday that another continuing resolution was the most likely course of action.

Illinois repeals the death penalty

By Stephen C. Webster - RAW Story
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

The Governor of Illinois has signed a bill repealing the death penalty and commuting the sentences of 15 men

Today, Illinois is expected to officially end the practice of state-sanctioned murder. It only took them 232 years.

Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, a supporter of capital punishment, was reportedly on track to sign a bill abolishing the death penalty. The bill has been on his desk since early January, after it cleared the state's Senate by a vote of 32-25.

Confirmation that the governor would sign the bill came from Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D), who told The Chicago Tribune that the governor's people said it would happen Wednesday.

"They point-blank told me they were signing the bill (Wednesday)," she reportedly said.

The move to end the state's long history of official murder was reportedly praised by President Barack Obama, who met with Gov. Quinn last week in the White House.
"The governor said Barack had complimented him and the state on our work on civil unions and the death penalty," state Sen. Kwame Raoul (D) told The Chicago Sun-Times.

Capital punishment has been on hold in Illinois for the last 11 years, after a Republican governor, George Ryan, suspended it.

"We have now freed more people than we have put to death under our system -- 13 people have been exonerated and 12 have been put to death," he said at the time, in prepared remarks. "There is a flaw in the system, without question, and it needs to be studied."

Contacted by the Sun-Times, a spokesperson with the governor's office refused to confirm that the governor would be signing the bill.

He has until March 18 to either sign it or issue a veto.

Illinois has executed 360 prisoners since the state was incorporated.

Gingrich says he cheated on his wives because he felt so ‘passionately’ for ‘this country’

(SCUMBAG! That's the worst excuse I've ever heard! The truth is, his first two wives got seriously ill, and Gingrich was out of there, rather than standing by either of his sick wives. If there is a hell, there is a special place being saved there for ol' Scumbag Newt.--jef)

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Newt Gingrich is a Sorry Sack of Shit
By David Edwards
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

Newt Gingrich (R-GA) loves the country so much that it has caused him to stray from his marriages.

At least, that what the former House speaker seemed to be saying in a recent interview with CBN's David Brody.

"There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate," Gingrich said.

"What I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn't trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them," he said.

Gingrich has been married three times and divorced twice.

His second wife, Marianne, revealed to Esquire last year how the former speaker had presented his first wife with the terms of their divorce while she was in the hospital recovering from surgery for uterine cancer in 1980.

Rumors about Gingrich's fondness for oral sex with other women have circulated for some time. A 1995 Vanity Fair profile explained how Anne Manning had claimed she had been intimate with him.

In 1999, over the Mother's Day weekend and on the same day his second wife had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Gingrich informed her he had found someone else.

In fact, he had reportedly been having an affair with Callista Bisek for six years.

Gingrich divorced his second wife in 2000 and married Callista that same year.

The Georgia Republican has launched a website to take donations for a possible 2012 presidential bid, but he will have to work hard to get conservative votes.

"He's the last person I'd vote for for president of the United States," Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) told the Tulsa World in August. "His life indicates he does not have a commitment to the character traits necessary to be a great president."

Gingrich "doesn't know anything about commitment to marriage," he added.

The Republicans' Immoral Budget

 (My mother is a teacher's aid. If the Republican budget goes through, she'll lose her job at age 62. Her retirement was decimated by the Wall Street bankster theft, so like many other middle class people, she is fucked by the soulless dicks in the Republican party. And of course, none of the Democrats will lift a finger to try and stop them, either. They are just as bad.--jef)

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If Republicans get their way, billions will be cut from vital programs that millions of Americans count on -- while tax cuts for the richest are protected.
By , MoveOn.org
Posted on March 8, 2011

Editor's note: The following is part of a MoveOn.org campaign to publicize the true cost of the GOP's budget cuts.

This week, Congress could cut a deal on the budget. And if Republicans get their way, billions will be cut from vital programs that millions of Americans count on—while tax cuts for the richest are protected.

But most people don't have any idea what's at stake—and how devastating these cuts would be to their communities—even though the cuts could take effect within weeks. So we're launching an emergency campaign to spread the word. Republicans want to gut programs with enormous public support, and hope no one notices. So it's up to all of us to spark a public outcry before it's too late.

The devastating impact these cuts will have on our country—and on your community—is unprecedented. Check out the list below. If we can get it out to a million people, we can start to sound the alarm and stop the GOP.

The Republican budget would:

1. Destroy 700,000 jobs, according to an independent economic analysis.

2. Zero out federal funding for National Public Radio and public television.

3. Cut $1.3 billion from community health centers—which will deprive more than 3 million low-income people of health care over the next few months.

4. Cut nearly a billion dollars in food and health care assistance to pregnant women, new moms, and children.

5. Kick more than 200,000 children out of pre-school by cutting funds for Head Start.

6. Force states to fire 65,000 teachers and aides, dramatically increasing class sizes, thanks to education cuts.

7. Cut some or all financial aid for 9.4 million low- and middle-income college students.

8. Slash $1.6 billion from the National Institutes of Health, a cut that experts say would "send shockwaves" through cancer research, likely result in cuts to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's research, and cause job losses.

9. End the only federal family planning program, including cutting all federal funding that goes to Planned Parenthood to support cancer screenings and other women's health care.

10. Send 10,000 low-income veterans into homelessness by cutting in half the number of veterans who get housing vouchers this year.

Wisconsin Senate Passes Bill Stripping Collective Bargaining Rights from Teachers and Public Workers

(And the corrupt will of the corporate agenda triumphs over the people. Democracy is dying, folks. Freedom dies with it.--jef)

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Crowd Chants "Shame, Shame, Shame"
By Chris Bowers, Daily Kos
Posted on March 9, 2011

Wisconsin Senate Republicans have passed a bill stripping collective bargaining rights for state workers. This was done by removing everything except the portions concerning collective bargaining rights from the "budget repair bill." The bill passed 18-1, with all Democrats absent, and only Senator Dale Schultz voting no. In one of the most anti-democratic procedural moves of all times, it passed out of committee only 14 minutes before it passed on the floor of the Senate. The way it was done was possibly illegal, too.

As I wrote earlier tonight, changing the bill in this way has laid bare the Republican lie that the bill could no longer be changed. It revealed Republicans were lying all along when they said collective bargaining rights were a budgetary matter, and as such had to be passed through a budget bill that required 20 Senators to be present.

Here is how the crowd reacted:

The Corporate/GOP Attack on America's Middle Class

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 by Creators.com
by Jim Hightower

The most revealing comments by politicians are rarely revealed. This is because they're made in unrecorded conversations, when politicos let their guard down.

However, in a recent sting, blogger Ian Murphy recorded a revealing phone call he made to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Murphy pretended to be David Koch, the far-right-wing billionaire who pumped more than a million dollars into Walker's election last year. The governor is very busy, but he spent 20 minutes regaling the fake David Koch with details of his effort to kill the collective bargaining rights of state workers.

For example, Walker's power play was being blocked by 14 Democratic senators, who have left the state to prevent any Senate action. Walker giddily told "Koch" that his legislative troops were ramming through a rule to require all senators to pick up their paychecks in person, apparently assuming the 14 absentees would care as much about money as he does and rush back.

The governor was especially excited about his scheme to use state workers as political pawns: "I've got layoff notices ready (for five or six thousand employees)," he exulted, delighted to sacrifice them as pressure on the senators to return.

"Beautiful," responded the Koch masquerader, who then suggested "planting some troublemakers" among the crowds protesting the governor's union-busting.

"We thought about that," Walker assured him, but dropped the idea because "the public is not really fond of this." Besides, he said, the public's protesting is "not going to affect us."

"Well, good," said the billionaire imitator, adding, "Once you crush these bastards, I'll fly you out (to California) and really show you a good time."

Now this offer from his super-rich corporate co-conspirator really excited the guv. "All right," he replied, "that would be outstanding. Thanks a million!"

Actually, Scott, Koch is into you for more than a million, which explains why Walker's autocratic attempt to abrogate the democratic right of public employees to bargain with their governmental bosses is not wearing well with the public.

Recent polls show that a mere one-third of Wisconsinites favor his blatantly political power play and that if he had told voters in the last year's election that he intended to do this, he would've lost.

After only one month in office, Walker's approval rating has plummeted, and he's become a national poster boy for right-wing anti-union extremism — indeed, he's so out of step that he's even being jeered by democracy fighters in Egypt!

Yet, Walker is but one of a flock of far-right, corporate-crested Republican governors and congress-critters who're waging an all-out class war on unionized workers. It's a shameful effort to bust the wage structure and legal protections that support America's already endangered middle class.

In Washington, for example, loopy GOP leaders are out to abolish the legal mechanism through which workers can form a union and have their bargaining rights protected. Meanwhile, war-whooping Republican governors in Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana and elsewhere are slashing the health care and pension benefits owed to public employees, blaming these middle-class workers for their states' fiscal messes.

But state budgets have been depleted by the economic crash caused by Wall Street greed and massive tax giveaways to wealthy elites — not by a firefighter's pension or a teacher's health plan.

And check out Nevada, where the Chamber of Commerce is even pushing to eliminate the minimum wage. This corporate-funded Republican assault is not about fiscal responsibility. The corporate powers intend nothing less than to dismantle the entire framework of America's economic democracy and return us to the dark days of Robber Baron plutocracy.

To the barricades, people!

Drilling Companies Agree to Suspend Operations After Work at Wells in Arkansas Linked to Causing Earthquakes

Drilling linked to earthquakes
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
by the Daily Mail/UK

Two gas drilling companies have agreed to suspend specific operations at wells near Arkansas after their work was linked to nearby earthquakes.

Two gas drilling companies have agreed to suspend specific operations at wells near Arkansas after their work was linked to nearby earthquakes. Both Chesapeake Energy, based in Oklahoma, and Clarita Operating of Little Rock, informed the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission that they have halted operation of the wells near Greenbrier and Guy.

Arkansas geologists are continuing their search for answers and the drilling companies have stopped their work pending the AOGC panel's next regular meeting on March 29.

On Friday AOGC voted unanimously to order the two companies to halt their drilling - and they did not object. Both of the wells are directly in the seismic hot spot of hundreds of recent quakes.

The commission believes that it is highly likely there is a link between the wells and the earthquakes.

Some 800 earthquakes have hit the area in the past six months and a magnitude 4.7 quake – the strongest in Arkansas in 35 years – struck yesterday.

Local resident Linda Winfrey told ozarksfirst.com: 'I'm just so stressed with the whole thing, it's just been an ordeal for everyone.'

Another resident, Chad Rozanski, added: 'It's definitely a step in the right direction but much more needs to be done.'

A Chesapeake spokesman said: 'We do not agree with the conclusions. We believe there is a lot of natural seismicity in this area and there's a lot more data, facts and science that need to be brought to bear.

'And we look forward to a more thorough evaluation of all of that.'

The work at the high-pressure wells, which are used to dispose of waste water from natural gas drilling, will be halted for the time but Chesapeake and Clarita plan to fight more permanent actions at the meeting later in the month.

At the end of last year, the AOGC imposed a temporary ban on new permits for disposal wells. The following month, the board extended the moratorium until July 28th, pending an investigation.

Demystifying Our Economic Predicament

Lost in Theoretical FiligreeBy MICHAEL BRENNER
March 8, 2011

Transcendental mystery is of a bygone era. Yet our profane secular world also contains extraordinary things that are baffling and defy logical comprehension. Economics is especially rich in these mystifying puzzles. This despite the omnipresence of the experts who declare themselves wizards of the premier social science. Here are a few bewitching mysteries that bedevil us.

Number one is the gross discrepancy between a reviving national economy and public penury. Unprecedented deficits are exacting a painful price in austerity. Budgets of states and municipalities across the land are under the knife. Libraries have become luxuries, schools stepchildren, and even police and fire departments are endangered. In aggregate, the 50 states are running deficits of $175 billions. Cities in aggregate suffer a deficit of between $30 – 40 billion. In Washington, tax revenues are flat so that the deficit continues to mount despite the curtailment of stimulus spending and other austerities, e.g. a freeze on federal employee salaries. However, the numbers tell us that our stuttering recovery has succeeded in bringing GDP very close to where it was before the financial crisis broke in 2008. At that time, state and local governments enjoyed fiscal good health and Treasury revenue was much higher than it is today. How is this possible? Doesn't GDP today measure what it measured three years ago? Aren't local and state tax rates set where they were three years ago? Haven't the one-time federal tax cuts of 2009 expired? 'Yes' to all those questions. Indeed, real estate taxes in most jurisdictions have been kept level or actually increased – as in N.Y.C. and in Austin where they were raised by 10% despite stable housing prices.

So what's going on? Intervention by the capricious gods on Mount Olympus? Looking for an answer from the community of economists is frustrating. Rare is the specialist who addresses the question squarely. Certainly, a scouring of the financial press is a fruitless hunt for edification.

No need to consult either the Delphic Oracles or the economic seers. For there are clues that point to the solution of this mystery – a deeply unsettling solution. One glaring truth is that those who pay taxes in a manner commensurate with income now are reduced in number relative to those who routinely elude tax by means fair or foul. That latter category includes corporations and very wealthy individuals. Warren Buffett's secretary is in a higher tax rate than IS the maestro of Omaha – as he himself has pointed out. Of the Fortune 500 companies, 123 pay less than 23% on corporate revenues even though the official corporate tax rate is 35%. (Tim Geithner urges that the nominal rate drop to 25%), Corporate taxes as a fraction of GDP are at their lowest level in history. Those taxable earnings themselves represent only a fraction of profits given all the dodges built into tax code that invite accounting antics to hold official profits to a minimum. Then there are the special tax breaks for the oil and gas industry. Then there are the off-shore tax havens that allow corporations to locate their fictive headquarters in places with low or no taxes, e.g. Cayman Islands. Those havens are also available to the super rich. Then there is the infinite variety of financial shenanigans that befuddle underfunded, under motivated so-called regulators. The games that have shifted so much national wealth into the accounts top 2% are almost all still permitted despite their having brought the global economy to the brink of the precipice.

Then there is ever more extensive outsourcing of jobs and facilities abroad. G.E., whose CEO Mr. Jeffrey Immelt is now Mr. Obama's chief economic advisor, cut its payroll by some tens of thousands over the past decade. Its revenues have soared over this period as more and more of its corporate activity takes place in other countries. According to the numbers, much of the ensuing G.E. revenues are recorded as increases in national GDP. But foreign workers don't pay taxes to the IRS. Nor do they or GE contribute to FICA. The downward effect on government tax revenues if twofold: GE is in a better position to 'hide' earnings by showing the greatest profits in whichever of its locations have the lowest tax rates (between 2000 and 2007 GE's combined U.S. and foreign tax bill amounted to less than 3% of total revenue); and the earnings of American employees (who do file IRS returns) have become a smaller and smaller fraction of GE's corporate wage bill. A similar logic applies to the growing practice of raising 'productivity' by forcing white collar workers to work uncompensated overtime and by the reliance on part-time or temporary workers who are paid less and receive few if any benefits. Consequently, the inflation-adjusted income of the median household—smack in the middle of the populace—fell 4.2% between 2007 and 2010 (even worse than the 1970s, when median income rose 1.9% despite high unemployment and inflation).

GDP numbers themselves are distorted. The methodology for their calculation is a simple tabulation of transactions. Every time players in the financial money game trade 'products' of dubious value to the 'real economy,' like the notorious Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) or Credit Default Swaps (CDSs), the national cash register records the transaction as an addition to GDP. Those sorts of pseudo financial transactions have increased as a fraction of all financial dealings. The financial sector as a whole has grown to about 20% of the overall national economy and an even larger share of corporate profits. If we were to assume that 50% of financial transactions fall into the fictive category, then 10% of nominal GDP growth is also fictive. The American economy that allegedly grew at an annual rate of 2.8% in the fourth quarter may actually have grown by only 2.5%. There are other distortions of this kind that tend to overstate the rate of increase in GDP.

All of this could be inferred from the stubbornly high rate of unemployment coincidental with record corporate profits. Too, those profits are coincidental with a continuing decline in mean hourly wages for American workers – another telltale sign. Moreover, connivance with the 1990s reformulation of unemployment measures masks the fact that today's unemployment as stated in 1980 terms is more like 15% than the official 9%. These disparities are incomprehensible if we insist on taking at face value the numbers that are thrown at us about the state of the national economy.

A related mystery in embedded in the headline stories about the dire budgetary straits in which the country finds itself. The 'age of austerity' has become a commonplace in our public discourse on why America no longer can afford this, that or another thing. The concrete referents are everything from social services for the poor and elderly, to school counseling services, to public transportation on a par with any other reasonably prosperous country, to unemployment benefits, to decent health care. By any logical standard this is literally non-sense. The United States today is as rich as it ever has been – according to the numbers. And far richer than in earlier periods when we could afford most of those things – not to mention that other developed countries can afford them. Yet our political life accepts these apocalyptic assertions as Gospel Truth. Indeed, the economics priesthood provides the added reassurance of a scientific laying on of hands. Some of its luminaries actively proselytize in promotion of this creed. They are the intellectual mainstays of think tanks that go a step further to send forth the Word that we cannot even afford some basic things that we've had for 75 years – like Social Security. These numerologists are so deft that the obvious is cast into oblivion and the unreal is sealed in supposedly incontrovertible mathematical equations. The cultural equivalent of shamans speaking in tongues.

The United States does not pay for things of social value because IT chooses not to – not because it cannot afford them. IT has multiple antecedents: society as a whole; elected representatives; government officials; political parties; all those powerful interests that distort the process in every facet to their own advantage. The choices made in recent years include expending $1 trillion to $2 trillion to hunt spectral terrorists in the far corners of the globe to little effect. It includes the $87 billion spent annually on our intelligence agencies. It includes the huge tax breaks given by the Bush administration concentrated on those in the upper 2% income bracket. Between 2002 – 2010 that diverted approximately $2.4 trillion dollars out of the Treasury into the pockets of the wealthy (adding the debt servicing of resulting deficits). Barack Obama's ready acquiescence in their extension means that over the next decade another $3.1 trillion will be similarly diverted. As someone said, "a trillion here, a trillion there, and soon you're talking about real money." $ 7 – 8 trillion could pay for all the state/municipal budget cuts, the rebuilding of the country's infrastructure, a serious energy program, environmental clean-up, aid to the elderly. As for health care, we could pay for first rate coverage of every citizen at a cost one-third lower than what we now spend were we to switch to the kind of single payer system that works nearly everywhere else in the developed world – freeing another trillion or so for other purposes.

Think of higher education. When I began graduate school at Berkeley, I paid $104 per annum. That was not even tuition; it was a fee that covered maintenance of the student union and the pool complex in Strawberry Canyon. My total debt after receiving my PhD was $300 owed to the federal government for an interest free loan that I wisely invested in a vintage Pontiac convertible. Today, students at state universities pay tuition of between $10,000 – 20,000 per annum. They accumulate heavy debts on which they pay market rates. The Obama administration now has declared that Perkins Loans will start accumulating interest from Day 1 rather than upon the start of employment – adding to students' financial burden. Small wonder that the percentage of American high school graduates attending college is declining to the point where we rank below most developed countries. This did not happen because of 'hard times' or inexorable economic forces. Rather, it is due to social choices that the country has made.

This also is why the last subway system of any consequence in the United States was built when Nixon and Ford were presidents (D.C. and the San Francisco Bay area). So we suffer dilapidated transport while the residents of better endowed places ride efficient, clean trains in Calcutta, New Delhi, Recife (Brazil), Medellin (Columbia), Cairo, Baku (Azerbaijan); Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Yerevan (Armenia), Busan (South Korea), Izmir, Yekaterinburg, Naha (Okinawa) and Mecca (yes, that Mecca) – not to speak of the state of the art systems that speed on their way residents of every major city in China. It is concrete realities like this, and those noted above, that should be the starting point for serious intellectual and political discourse about the American economy – not the supposed economic verities that require 'fiscally responsible' government officials to make draconian teacher layoffs and to deprive the aged of a decent life.

Reality based assessments of the United States' economic predicaments should begin with a set of bedrock questions. What is the country's actual wealth? How is it distributed? Why is it distributed in this way? What is the role of government in producing that distribution? What are the consequences of that distribution? What are the reasons for a possible reallocation of national resources? How might it be done? Is that a desirable or undesirable goal? How could the transitions be made at minimal frictional cost while maintaining a smooth functioning of the economy? Some economic tools are useful to refine the answers. And most certainly Keynes should be required reading for all those who adhere to the flat-earth proposition that austerity is the curative for recession. But much of the rest is ritual, theoretical filigree for scholarly archives or mere distraction.

The Oil Trap

Bernanke's Version of Trickle Down
By MIKE WHITNEY

Rising oil prices threaten to derail the recovery. Oil at $106 per barrel (Monday's price) is not a problem, but oil at $160 is. With fighting increasing in Libya and social unrest spreading across the Middle East, no one knows where prices will settle. That leaves Fed chairman Ben Bernanke with a tough decision. Should he call off QE2 prematurely and let the stock market drift sideways or go-til-June and hope for the best? If the Fed tightens too early, deflationary pressures will reemerge further straining bank balance sheets and consumer spending. Housing prices will fall sharply and foreclosures will mushroom. But if Bernanke holds-firm with his zero rates and bond buying program--especially when the ECB is raising rates--he could trigger a bond market rout and send the dollar into freefall.

Bernanke has shrugged off the inflationistas saying that core inflation is still hovering at a safe 1 percent. But if oil keeps climbing, consumers will have to cut back on spending just when Obama's fiscal stimulus is winding down and just as the states are trimming their budgets. That will be a drag on economic activity and slow growth. Business investment will shrink, hiring will sputter, stocks will retreat, and the economy will head back into negative territory. It all depends on the price of oil. Here's Gluskin Sheff's David Rosenberg providing a little context to the fact that oil has "doubled" in just two years:

"There have been only five times in the past 70 years when this has happened within a two-year time frame: January 1974, November 1979, September 1990, June 2000, and August 2005. And now, December 2010. . . .

Of the five instances cited above, all but one involved a recession for the U.S. economy and that was in 2005 during the height of the credit and housing boom, which acted as a huge offset. But oil prices did keep rising and managed to outlast the euphoria in credit and residential real estate, so the recession may have been delayed at the peak of the 'growth rate' in the oil price, but it was not derailed as history shows." (The Big Picture)

So spiking oil prices and recessions go hand-in-hand. Accordingly, bond yields have been trending lower anticipating deflation while the shriveling dollar has been steadily slipping for more than a month. All of this is adding to investor anxiety. Wall Street is on tenterhooks waiting to see whether Obama will tap the National Oil Reserve to stop the bleeding or just cross his fingers and hope that the violence subsides before the economy nosedives. And then there's Bernanke. What will Bernanke do?

Most likely, the Fed chair will stay-the-course as long as possible convinced that deflation is still enemy Number One. But he's bound to take a lot of heat from critics who point to the tumbling dollar and higher prices at the pump. If the troubles in Libya spread to Saudi Arabia, as now seems likely, all bets are off. Bernanke will have to pull out all the stops to keep the economy from tanking.

Bernanke does have alternatives, although none that assure that the smooth transfer of wealth from worker to banker. (like QE2) He could, for example, appeal to congress for a second round of fiscal stimulus to increase employment, reduce the output gap, and show trading partners that the US is eager to generate more demand for global exports. That would increase goodwill among US allies while building a stronger foundation for growth. To hell with the deficits. When the economy is firing on all 8 pistons and revenues are poring in, the deficits will vanish by themselves.

And there are other options, too, even if Bernanke chooses to stick with monetary policy alone. Here's a clip form a recent report by Richard Wood titled "Deflation, Debt and Economic Stimulus":

"The US, Japan, and Ireland are suffering from deficient private demand, rising debt, and a tendency to deflation.....The alternative approach (to quantitative easing) involves the central bank printing new money to directly finance fiscal stimulus. This neglected policy option – apparently largely overlooked by officials during the global economic crisis – is likely to be appropriate for countries where prices are falling (or inflation drops toward zero), private demand is deficient, interest rates are already too low and where public debt is excessive.

If monetary policy is considered on its own then there could be a case for terminating current quantitative easing programmes. This would steer Japan and the US away from the shoals of triple jeopardy (Leijonhufvud 2011).

Quantitative easing could be replaced with a policy of printing new money with an explicit objective to assist in the financing of future budget deficits (see suggested money-financed tax cut: Bernanke 2002 and analysis by Corden 2010). The deployment of new money creation in this manner would take some pressure off the need for severe fiscal austerity measures (at a time when continued stimulus is still required); minimize further increases in public debt; provide clear signals of policy intent (in relation to interest rate objectives, the method of financing deficits and the approach to delivering economic stimulus); and be more effective, have fewer adverse side-effects, and deliver stronger economic stimulus than further quantitative easing." ("Deflation, Debt and Economic Stimulus", Richard Wood, VOX)

Ahh, the dreaded monetization of the debt. It's a bad choice compared to fiscal stimulus, but vastly superior to QE2.

Ask yourself this question: Who benefits from QE2? Bernanke even admitted in an op-ed in the Washington Post that the program was aimed at boosting stock market prices. And former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan was even more explicit in an article that will be published in an upcoming issue of International Finance. Here's what Maestro has to say:

"I still embrace the view I held a couple of years ago, that '[w]e tend to think of fluctuations in stock prices in terms of "paper" profits and losses somehow not connected to the real world. But, the evaporation of the value of those "paper claims" can have a profoundly deflationary impact on global economic activity. … [such] that much of the recent decline in global economic activity can be associated directly and indirectly with declining equity values....

'When we look back on this period, I very much suspect that the force that will be seen to have been most instrumental to global economic recovery will be a partial reversal of the $35 trillion global loss in corporate equity values that has so devastated financial intermediation. A recovery of the equity market driven largely by a receding of fear may well be a seminal turning point of the current crisis.'...

Equity values, in my experience, have been an underappreciated force driving market economies. Only in recent years has their impact been recognized in terms of 'wealth effects'. This is one form of stimulus that does not require increased debt to fund it....

Despite the surge in corporate cash flow over the last two years and expectations of security analysts of continued gains in profitability, equity premiums remain near a half-century high. This indicates an exceptionally large and presumably unsustainably high discount rate applied to expected future earnings. If the latter holds up, and activism recedes, stock values, of course, would move higher and carry with them a significant wealth effect that should enhance economic activity.

Short of a full-blown Middle East crisis affecting oil prices, a euro crisis and/or a bond market (budget) crisis reminiscent of 1979, the 'wealth effect' could effectively substitute private 'stimulus' for public." ("The costs of government activism", Alan Greenspan, EurekAlert)

There you have it; Fed policy in a nutshell. If you want to reverse deflation and ignite a "global economic recovery"; pump up stock prices. In other words, if we just make the rich even richer, our problems will be solved. What could be simpler?

How is this any different from "trickle down" economics? It's the same thing, which is to say that QE2 is the same thing. The goal is to increase the "wealth effect" for the investor class to such an extent that the spillover lifts the rest of the economy back to prosperity and growth. It's baloney. QE2 has done nothing to increase demand or help consumers patch their battered balance sheets. The economy is more vulnerable than ever and skyrocketing oil prices could be the shock that sends the economy skittering back into recession.

Bernanke has other options. It's just a matter of whose interests he chooses to serve.

The Marketing of Madness: Are We All Insane?

The Marketing of Madness: Are We All Insane? (2009)

Psychotropic drugging - it's business. This is the story of the high-income partnership between psychiatry and drug companies that has created an $80 billion psychotropic drug profit center, and millions of patients addicted to these drugs or developing worse health problems due to the use of these drugs.

This movie will break your heart.

vidlink (if video doesn't show)

Obama creates indefinite detention system for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay

By Peter Finn and Anne E. KornblutWashington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 8, 2011

President Obama signed an executive order Monday that will create a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who continue to pose a significant threat to national security. The administration also said it will start new military commission trials for detainees there.

The announcements, coming more than two years after Obama vowed in another executive order to close the detention center, all but cements Guantanamo Bay's continuing role in U.S. counterterrorism policy.

Administration officials said the president is still committed to closing the prison, although he made no mention of that goal in a short statement Monday. The administration's original plans to create a detention center in the United States and prosecute some detainees in federal court have all but collapsed in the face of bipartisan congressional opposition.

The executive order recognizes the reality that some Guantanamo Bay detainees will remain in U.S. custody for many years, if not for life. The new system allows them the prospect of successfully arguing in the future that they should be released because they do not pose a threat.

"Today, I am announcing several steps that broaden our ability to bring terrorists to justice, provide oversight for our actions and ensure the humane treatment of detainees," Obama said in statement. "I strongly believe that the American system of justice is a key part of our arsenal in the war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and we will continue to draw on all aspects of our justice system - including [federal] Article III Courts - to ensure that our security and our values are strengthened."

But activists on either end of the debate over closing the prison cast the announcement as a reversal.

"It is virtually impossible to imagine how one closes Guantanamo in light of this executive order," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "In a little over two years, the Obama administration has done a complete about-face."

Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the order vindicated Obama's predecessor. "I commend the Obama Administration for issuing this Executive Order," he said in a statement. "The bottom line is that it affirms the Bush Administration policy that our government has the right to detain dangerous terrorists until the cessation of hostilities."

The executive order applies to at least 48 of the 172 detainees who remain at Guantanamo Bay. An inter-agency panel led by Justice Department lawyers determined that this group could not be prosecuted in military commissions or in federal court because evidentiary problems would hamper a trial. But intelligence assessments also concluded that these detainees remain a serious threat and could not be safely repatriated or resettled in a third country. The administration said it will hold reviews for detainees it plans to prosecute but has not charged.

The administration argues that it has the legal authority to continue to hold all of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay under the laws of war. Federal courts have backed that assertion, although they have found that some detainees should be released for a lack of evidence against them. The detainees will continue to have the right to petition the federal courts under the doctrine of habeas corpus.

"The new executive order doesn't change the legal authority for detention at all," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies. "It simply provides additional reviews for individuals who have been found by the habeas courts to be lawfully detained under the laws of war."

Under the order, each detainee will receive within a year a written, unclassified review of the factors that justify his continued incarceration. A government representative will be appointed to advocate on behalf of the detainees, who will have the right to hire private counsel, but not at the government's expense, the executive order says.

A Periodic Review Board, composed of military, intelligence, Homeland Security, State and Justice Department officials, will consider each case. A detainee will have the right to appear before the board, introduce his own evidence and call witnesses "who are reasonably available," the order says.

Each detainee will receive a full review before officials every three years, and a paper review every six months.

But David Remes, an attorney who represents 20 detainees, including 16 Yemenis, said he sees no substantive difference between the new system and the review process under the George W. Bush administration, just "a new cast of characters" sitting on review boards. In light of the current administration's decision not to release any Yemenis, even those cleared for repatriation, Remes questioned whether the new system will be valid.

"What good will this do for a Yemeni?" he said. The administration has said Yemen does not have the capacity to reintegrate and monitor any returned detainees.

Moreover, recent legislation now makes it extremely difficult to transfer any detainee out of Guantanamo Bay even if he is believed to be no threat, and it is unclear how the administration will confront that congressional barrier.

The administration said that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will issue an order rescinding the suspension of new military commission cases.

The administration is expected to charge three detainees: Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Yemeni accused of planning the October 2000 al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors; Obaidullah, an Afghan accused of storing anti-tank mines; and Ahmed Darbi, a Saudi accused of planning an attack on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz that never took place.

But the case against Guantanamo Bay's most prominent detainee, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, remains in limbo. The administration had planned to Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and four co-defendants on trial in New York. But intense political and public opposition scuttled the prosecution and it is unclear where - or whether - Mohammed will be tried.

"Unfortunately, some in Congress have unwisely sought to undermine this process by imposing restrictions that challenge the Executive Branch's ability to bring to justice terrorists who seek to do Americans harm," Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement Monday. "We oppose those restrictions, and will continue to seek their repeal."

Japan halts Pfizer, Sanofi vaccines after four die

Published on 03-07-2011
Source: Reuters

Japan's health ministry has halted the use of vaccines made by Pfizer Inc and Sanofi-Aventis SA to prevent meningitis and pneumonia following the deaths of four children.

The infants died shortly after receiving the vaccines and while it was unclear if there was link between the deaths and vaccines, use of Pfizer's Prevenar and Sanofi's ActHIB will be suspended while the deaths are investigated, the ministry said in a statement.

A ministry safety panel is scheduled to discuss findings in the investigations on Tuesday.

In February last year health authorities in the Netherlands said no relation was found between Prevenar and the deaths of three infants who had received the vaccine.

Three of the children that died in Japan were administered Prevenar together with ActHIB. In addition, three of the children also received a mixed vaccine against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus on the same day they received the other vaccines.

Three of the four children died a day after being immunized. The deaths happened between March 2 and March 4.

Representatives for Pfizer and Sanofi in Tokyo said the companies were cooperating with the investigation.

A spokesman for Sanofi said that the company has shipped more than 3 million doses of ActHIB in Japan since 2008 while a spokesman for Pfizer said the firm has distributed more than 2 million doses of Prevenar in Japan since last year.

Make Wall Street Pay! Angry Homeowners Shut Down B of A and Boehner's Office

A new campaign kicked off with a splash as hundreds of fed up homeowners brought business to a halt at a major bank and the House speaker's office. 

By Stephen C. Webster, Raw Story
Posted on March 7, 2011

A new campaign by a national network of activists kicked off Monday morning with a splash as it led hundreds of fed up homeowners in a series of protests that brought business to a halt at a major bank and the House speaker's office.

The National People's Action network picked Monday to launch the "Make Wall Street Pay" campaign thanks to another show in town: the National Association of Attorneys General's Convention in Washington, D.C.

But they didn't stop there.

Moving from the meeting of all 50 Attorneys General, the crowd made their way to a Bank of America branch on Pennsylvania Ave. While about 300 stood outside, another 300 moved indoors, filling up the lobby and bringing business to a stand still.

Then, they went to see if Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) was available, filing into his Capitol Hill offices to send an unambiguous message: Wall Street must pay.

"They delivered the message that we have a revenue crisis and that Wall Street must pay its fair share," George Goehl, executive director of National People's Action, told Raw Story in an exclusive interview.

"Attorneys General from all 50 states have launched an investigation into annual foreclosure fraud," he continued. "American homeowners need this opportunity to save people's homes, so people have been organizing all across the country, really heavily in about 15 states, to put pressure on AGs to get them to push for strong settlements on this stuff. That means principle reductions on mortgages and criminal penalties for bankers that are breaking the law."
Activists inside the bank presented tellers with their own past-due notice, chanting for them to "pay your bills."

In a report issued by National People's Action and the non-profit corporate watchdog group Public Accountability Initiative, banks are blasted for using tax loopholes to avoid paying into public revenue coffers.

That's all due to a "revenue problem" and not an entitlement or deficit problem, the protesters insist.

There were no arrests, Goehl added.

The group's website encourages visitors to calculate the income they've lost since the onset of America's financial crisis in 2008, then send their own bill to their representatives in Washington. They also call upon activists of similar economic status to launch their own "Make Wall Street Pay" efforts.

This video was published to YouTube on Monday, March 7, 2011.