Job loss: another sign of capitalist decay

By Kathy Durkin

Published Apr 12, 2008 9:50 AM

Last month, 300,000 workers lost their jobs. When offset by the number of new jobs, 80,000 jobs were eradicated in March.

Since 2008 began, there has been an overall net job loss of 232,000 (Dept. of Labor report, April 4). Private industry shed nearly 300,000 jobs in that same period. This is the largest number of job losses in five years. The “official” unemployment figure is now 5.1 percent of the workforce, but the real story is much worse than that.

In the last year, nearly one million workers have lost their jobs.

Last week, 407,000 workers filed for unemployment insurance. For many this was the first time.

Although the Department of Labor says joblessness rose to 7.8 million in March, many more people have been affected. The “hidden unemployed” include nearly five million workers who desperately need full-time jobs with benefits, but are working part time “involuntarily” because of cuts in hours or lack of full-time jobs. At least another 4.5 million people want jobs but can’t find work at all. Many have given up looking for work.

An estimated 127,000 new jobs must be added monthly to keep unemployment at 4.8 percent, the rate one year ago. (Economic Policy Institute) But that still means that more than 7 million are “officially” out of work. This figure may be acceptable to the capitalist bankers, bosses and economists, as unemployment is inherent in the capitalist system, but it’s misery for those workers and their families, and for the many not even counted.

Though the current crisis was set off in the housing and financial markets, it is winding its way through almost every sector of the economy.

Who has lost jobs? Construction workers who build homes, apartment and commercial buildings—often without safety equipment—lost 51,000 jobs last month. Due to capitalist overproduction of homes and buildings—not being sold for profit—sales fell. Then the industry contracted, and the workers paid the price.

The manufacturing sector, including those companies making building materials such as lumber and drywall, felt the impact. Companies lost sales, and then cut 48,000 jobs last month.

Those who work behind store counters or stock shelves lost 13,000 jobs in March. Retail store owners cut back when profitable sales weren’t high enough for them.

Employment services lost 42,000 jobs last month, with half of them temporary workers, as employers cut back on hiring. Jobs were also wiped out in the auto industry, at garment and textile companies, banks, real estate offices, hotels, airlines and communications and other industries.

Rippling impact of job cuts

All sectors of the working class feel the impact of a declining economy, as all genders of all ages are damaged by the current wave of layoffs. Those in the oppressed communities are the hardest hit.

Although the Department of Labor says that unemployment has reached 9 percent among African-American workers and 6.9 percent among Latin@ workers, the real rates are much higher, especially in the big cities. The percentage of African-American youth who are unemployed is now 19.7 percent, but these figures don’t tell the whole truth.

With more workers unemployed with less or no income, they are purchasing less, which leads to a downward spiral. As companies lose profits—the prime goal of capitalist production—they react by contracting and laying off more workers.

Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist for MFR Inc. in New York, warned, “With the consumer’s only source of support for spending coming from job-related income growth, a rapidly weakening labor market is the worst possible news for the economy.” (Los Angeles Times, April 5)

It’s also getting harder for workers to pay their bills, as real wages are not keeping up with inflation, another bad sign.

More workers won’t be able to pay mortgages or rent, so they will lose housing. Many more will join the 47 million people without health insurance. Pensions will be lost. College educations will be unobtainable. As more people have to take part-time or low-wage jobs, more will need food stamps, and more will be impoverished.

Lives are being thrown into insecurity and uncertainty. Yet this devastation is all intrinsic to capitalism.

The latest job loss figures have set off alarm bells nationwide among business owners and bankers, but not because of any concern about workers or their families. They’re afraid of the “R” word—recession—as they fear a further economic downturn and lost profits.

Jared Bernstein, of the Economics Policy Institute, noted, “Three months in a row of payroll job losses and a sizable negative revision: these are clear signs that the job market is in recession.” (The Telegraph, April 5) He also predicts more job losses are coming.

Congress’ meager tax rebates to individuals and humongous tax cuts for big business will not help workers keep their homes. Nor will they create jobs.

Why doesn’t the government declare a moratorium on layoffs to stem the growing crisis for the workers?

This is a demand that all progressive forces should make loud and clear in the streets.

---

Articles copyright 1995-2008 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php
Page printed from:
http://www.workers.org/2008/us/job_loss_0417/

Olympic Torch Toasts US Candidates

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN, COUNTERPUNCH

Looking for the Olympic torch in San Francisco last Wednesday was every bit as uncertain as a snark hunt and by the end of a bleak day for Chinese dignity the likelihood of a US boycott of the opening ceremony in Beijing in August had markedly increased.

San Francisco was selected for transit by the torch on its tumultuous journey from democracy's cradle to the people's republic because the city has many Chinese. No doubt the majority of these turned out to cheer the torch's passage, and many Chinese students at university campuses across California rushed north to cheer for the motherland. But the Bay Area also holds many passionate supporters of Tibet's rights.

The trans-Pacific China trade is a very significant factor in California's economy and Gavin Newsom, the city's mayor, supervised an intricate plan to avoid any politically embarrassing confrontation with over the torch, as happened most recently in Europe, where Brown, Sarkozy and Merkel have all been dissing Beijing.

After landing at San Francisco airport the torch appeared briefly at an opening ceremony, then scuttled into a warehouse and was rushed off in a car, away from a scheduled event on the Embarcadero, next to the east bay, where large crowds of protesters and counter-protesters had gathered. It popped up the other side of the city, near the Golden Gate bridge where relay runners carried it south, back towards the airport. One such bearer, 41-year old Majora Carter, whipped a small Tibetan flag from her sleeve, but was swiftly pounced upon by San Francisco cops and ejected from the relay.

Soon the torch was back at the airport and airborne. Mayor Newsom wiped the sweat from his brow and Jiang Xiayou, executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic torch relay committee, thanked San Francisco, saying "we all have felt the passion of the Olympic movement."

The Chinese press said the torch's San Francisco touch-down was "a harmonious journey". This was an overly rosy assessment since likely Democatic presidential nominee Barack Obama chose that same day to inch closer to his rival Hillary Clinton's call upon President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies.

Obama said a boycott "should be firmly on the table," but that a decision should be made closer to the Games. "If the Chinese do not take steps to help stop the genocide in Darfur and to respect the dignity, security and human rights of the Tibetan people, then the president should boycott the opening ceremonies."

The Republican nominee, John McCain, had thus far been playing for time, caught between popular dislike for China and the fact that a Republican president, George Bush Jr., has declared that sports and politics are differing realms. Before San Francisco McCain's spokesman said his boss condemns "the brutal oppression" of Tibet by the Chinese , and advises the president to "keep his options open." But now he's shifted, to a position almost akin to his souklmate, HRC's. "If Chinese policies and practices do not change, I would not attend the opening ceremonies," McCain now says.

Bush, a big sports fan, clearly yearns to go off to Beijing. Such outings are among the few pleasures left for a deeply unpopular president who will at that point be four months shy of retirement.

Pious talk from the White House about keeping sports and politics apart will certainly raise a snigger in the Kremlin, whose denizens well certainly remember that in 1980 President Jimmy Carter led an international campaign which in the end prompted 62 nations -- including the United States, Canada, West Germany, Japan, and Israel ­- to boycott the Olympics in Moscow because the previous year the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan.

In 1984, a year after the US had invaded Grenada, with President Reagan denouncing the island (population 80,000) an unendurable affront to American security , the Olympics were held in Los Angeles. No western nation felt the need to boycott, though Russia and 13 of its allies did stay away, citing only "security concerns".

The official position of the U.S. government has long been that Tibet is part of China. Cheap goods from China sold through Wal-mart and other chains are a vital prop for lower-income Americans reeling at the inflation in basic prices for fuel, milk and other essentials. It wouldn't take more than a slight uptick in the exchange value of China's currency to have a huge political impact here. A boycott of the opening ceremonies by Bush could lead to reprisals by a furious Chinese leadership. Which can make life difficult for the US in any number of ways. Life is not as simple as it was in 1980.

Bill Clinton Just Can't Keep his Mouth Shut

These past few months have been agreeably bad for Bill Clinton, disclosing him as a a corrupt lobbyist for top-tier scum, including Uribe's blood-sodden camarilla of butchers in Colombia. His capacity for serial lying continues at full stretch. Furthermore, he cannot stop opening his mouth, each time dropping his wife another couple of feet through the trapdoor of public disesteem.

Now he's managing to reignite Hillary's Bosnian disaster, where she converted a pleasant outing into an anecdote of courage under fire unexampled since Audie Murphy took on the Japanese single-handed. Bill says that Hillary came up with this fictional packet because it was late in a long day and she was kind of tired and not thinking straight. So, as my coeditor Jeffrey St Clair, asks, what happens four hours later when that 3am phone call comes?

The item on San Francisco ran last week in The First Post

Islamic schools, Christian schools, so what? Same damn indoctrination!

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/82123/

By PZ Myers, Pharyngula

I've been getting a lot of email about this putatively Islamic public school in Minnesota, Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy. It's a wretched situation -- this is a school associated with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, and clearly all the students and families involved are Muslims who want a little bit of cultural isolation, and I suspect there is a lot of religious indoctrination going on behind closed doors -- and I think it's a bad thing that this school is receiving state tax dollars.

I've been reluctant to jump on this story, though, for a couple of reasons. The main person fanning the hysteria is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Katherine Kersten, who is a far right-wing kook with a history of hypocrisy, and this is just another example. I am actually quite happy to see her and her fellow Christianists tearing their hair out in anxiety over the existence of a culturally Islamic school in our midst -- maybe (but I doubt this a bit) they are actually getting a vague idea of what it feels like to be non-Christian in America, and watch as the schools are blithely used as organs of theological propaganda while the administrators claim they are not.

For instance, Kersten is outraged at this report:

Afterward, Getz said, "teachers led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day," was preparing to lead prayer. Beside him, another man "was prostrating himself in prayer on a carpet as the students entered."

We are about to go through the various graduation ceremonies out here in Morris. There will probably be a student speaker who will be trotted out to tell everyone how much he or she loves Jesus. We will witness a man dressed all in black with a funny collar who will be given a place of honor in the event, and who will close his eyes, bow his head, clasp his hands, and lead everyone in attendance in prayer to the Christian deity. What's the difference? One chooses white, the other black? I don't think Kersten will be going on a rampage to get baccalaureate ceremonies shut down all across the state.

Our local high school had Youth for Christ assemblies on campus, during school hours. This is just as insane and distasteful to non-Christians (as well as many Christians who didn't care much for an airhead braying about abstinence-only education and how wicked gay people are) as having an imam preach during school hours, but of course it was welcomed by our fundie community. Where was Katherine Kersten then?

Andy Birkey points out more Kersten hypocrisy: she has nothing but praise for a "classical curriculum" that contains Christian nonsense and was implemented in a school run on the grounds of a Catholic church in Minneapolis. You could argue, of course, that you can teach religion from a secular perspective and just exposing kids to their historical roots is not in itself a forbidden act by a public school, but the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy may be doing exactly the same thing … just from a minority Islamic perspective rather than a majority Catholic one. Their website is carefully non-sectarian and secular, at any rate, not that I wouldn't put it past the liars for Jesus or Mohammed to scrub the crazy talk from their public face.

So, yeah, I don't like any of it, but I find it hard to get irate at a school of 300 students which may be subverting the secular mission of the public school system, when we've got over 800,000 students in this same system who take Christianity for granted. Let's get it all out. The main virtue of this little episode is that we'll be able to use it to our advantage next time some school administrator tries to infuse Christian values into our schools -- we'll be able to point out that if it's not OK to peddle Islam in school, then Christianity should be getting equal treatment.

The other good outcome here is that the ACLU is on the case, and has sent a letter demanding explanations and accountability. I like the ACLU; I'll abide by their findings. What will the wingnuts say, I wonder?

© 2008 Pharyngula All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula//82123/

Media Matters Dispatch

From Media Matters For America

On last night's Hardball, host Chris Matthews and David Shuster focused like a laser on the things that really matter:

MATTHEWS: He's [Sen. Barack Obama] not that good at that -- handshaking in a diner.

SHUSTER: No --

MATTHEWS: Barack doesn't seem to know how to do that right.

SHUSTER: -- he doesn't do that well. But then you see him in front of 15,000 people in some of these college towns, and that's why, Chris, we've seen Chelsea Clinton and Bill Clinton in Bloomington and South Bend and Terre Haute. I mean --

MATTHEWS: What's so hard about doing a diner? I don't get it. Why doesn't he go in there and say, "Did you see the papers today? What do you think about that team? How did we do last night?" Just some regular connection?

SHUSTER: Well, here's the other thing that we saw on the tape, Chris, is that, when Obama went in, he was offered coffee, and he said, "I'll have orange juice."

MATTHEWS: No.

SHUSTER: He did.

And it's just one of those sort of weird things. You know, when the owner of the diner says, "Here, have some coffee," you say, "Yes, thank you," and, "Oh, can I also please have some orange juice, in addition to this?" You don't just say, "No, I'll take orange juice," and then turn away and start shaking hands. That's what happens [unintelligible] --

MATTHEWS: You don't ask for a substitute on the menu.

SHUSTER: Exactly.

MATTHEWS: David, what a regular guy. You could do this. Anyway, thank you, David Shuster. I mean, go to the diners.

The mind-blowing inanity of this conversation can't properly be appreciated through the transcript. When Matthews said "No" in response to Shuster's revelation that Obama ordered orange juice in a diner, he sounded as though he had just been told that Obama had punched a nun in the face. Watch for yourself.

When CNN's Candy Crowley suggested after the 2004 election that John Kerry's attempt to order green tea in an Iowa restaurant showed a "disconnect" between the presidential candidate and "most of America," it seemed unlikely that we would see a sillier attempt to find meaning in a candidate's beverage choice. Not only was Crowley taking the elitist attitude that simple Iowans couldn't possibly be familiar with green tea, she was also wrong. The Kmart in Dubuque, Iowa, stocked Lipton's green tea.

But last night's exchange between Matthews and Shuster was far worse. Offered coffee, Barack Obama asked for orange juice instead. And Chris Matthews and David Shuster pounced, aghast that he would dare do such a thing as ask for orange juice. A preference for orange juice was supposed to demonstrate that Obama is out of touch with "regular" people. (For what it's worth, neither Matthews nor Shuster so much as hinted that a single, actual voter who was in that diner was put off by Obama's interest in orange juice. But Matthews and Shuster were upset enough for everyone.)

MSNBC runs commercials for itself in which Tim Russert solemnly explains why MSNBC covers politics: "It's about the war. Our sons and daughters. It's about the economy. Our jobs. It's about education. Our schools. It's about health care. Our families' well-being. It's about everything that matters."

MSNBC doesn't run any ads that claim that what really matters is whether the candidates choose to drink coffee or orange juice. But that's what the cable channel's brightest stars (Matthews is reportedly paid $5 million a year for this nonsense) chose to spend their time discussing last night.

Orange juice -- and bowling.

Immediately after his exchange with Shuster, Matthews hosted Obama supporter Sen. Bob Casey. Here's the very first question Matthews asked this United States Senator:

MATTHEWS: Isn't that interesting, Senator Casey, that Barack Obama, your candidate, can walk before 15,000 people with complete calm and assurance, but he seems a little out of place in A) a bowling alley and B) a diner? What is the problem with your guy?

Obama ordered orange juice in a diner and isn't a very good bowler -- and based on these facts, which can only aspire to qualify as trivia, Chris Matthews demanded to know "[w]hat is the problem with your guy?"

Matthews has been positively obsessed with Obama's lack of bowling skills. He talked about it on Hardball on March 31 -- in two separate segments -- and announced, "[T]his gets very ethnic, but the fact that he's good at basketball doesn't surprise anybody, but the fact that he's that terrible at bowling does make you wonder." And again on April 1 -- this time bringing it up in three separate segments and opening his interview with Obama supporter Sen. Claire McCaskill: "[D]id you advise Obama to go out and try to bowl the other day?" On April 2, Matthews interviewed Obama himself -- and his very first question was about the presidential candidate's bowling. On April 8, Matthews said, "I'm actually surprised by the fact that neither Barack or Hillary have bowled much in their lives. Maybe that tells you something about the Democratic Party." He referenced Obama's bowling again on April 9.

A profile by Mark Leibovich in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine suggests that Matthews thinks his other television show -- The Chris Matthews Show airs on Sundays -- disproves the notion that he isn't serious. Leibovich writes:

When I asked Matthews about the bloviator stigma, he dismissed it as jealousy or at the very least ignorance among those who don't know him or who don't regularly watch his Sunday show or who have not read his books or who are not aware that he is a student of history and film or that he is on the board of trustees of the Churchill Center or that he has received -- did he mention? -- 19 honorary degrees.

Leibovich also quotes the executive producer of The Chris Matthews Show describing that program's audience as "smart people who want smart analysis."

But even on a show that purports to offer "smart analysis," Matthews can't resist focusing on Obama's inability to bowl well; he included a segment on the topic in last week's broadcast.

These discussions of bowling and beverages may be stupid, but they aren't pointless. They are part of a broader pattern of media portraying prominent progressives as elitists.

Matthews routinely asks if Obama can "connect with regular people." Apparently, all those people who have been voting for Obama are irregular. And, just so you don't have to wonder exactly who it is Chris Matthews considers irregular, he spelled it out for you, continuing: "Or does he only appeal to people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees?"

New York Times columnist Gail Collins said Obama "can be disturbingly Ivy League." Candy Crowley, doubling down on her green tea comments, refers to Obama supporters as "latte liberals." The Chicago Tribune refers to Obama supporters as "wine-track" voters and chides the senator for referencing arugula while in Iowa. Obama's arugula reference drew a barrage of (inane) media criticism, with Glenn Beck falsely claiming "arugula is not even grown in the state." In fact, it is -- and it is readily available in Iowa supermarkets, too. Apparently they even having indoor plumbing in much of the state, despite what Candy Crowley a nd Glenn Beck seem to think. Even George Will got in on the act, mocking Obama for mentioning arugula to Iowans. Yes, George Will wants you to think Barack Obama is an out-of-touch elite.

And, of course (according to the media) John Edwards' big house and expensive haircut showed that he was out of touch with "regular people," as did John Kerry's windsurfing and Al Gore's childhood attendance of a private school and his decision to occasionally wear brown clothing.

Most people who are no longer in middle school understand that it isn't a great idea to judge people based on things like their haircuts, their wardrobe choices, or what beverage they drink. Most people understand that we shouldn't choose a president based on these things. Most people -- but not political journalists.

Most people understand that in a time of war, with the nation teetering on the edge of recession (if one hasn't already started), and the housing market collapsing, and an administration that views the Geneva Conventions as "quaint" and the Bill of Rights as optional, assessing candidates based on who would be the most fun to have a beer with is not the way out of this mess; it's the way we got into it in the first place. Most people -- but not political journalists.

Which isn't to say that there is nothing candidates can do to avoid having reporters relentlessly mock them as out-of-touch elitists: They can run for office as Republicans.

George W. Bush and Al Gore were both sons of successful politicians, both attended private schools and Ivy League colleges, but only one was portrayed by the media as an out-of-touch elite; the other was a "regular guy." Bush owns $13,000 worth of bicycles -- a fact that never seemed to come up when the media were portraying John Kerry's windsurfing as the pastime of the wealthy. Kerry was skewered for ordering a cheesesteak with Swiss cheese -- and when Bush lied about ordering his with Cheez Whiz, the news media politely stayed silent. John Edwards' expensive haircut was endlessly portrayed by the media as evidence that he was an out-of-touch elitist dandy --but how often have you seen a reporter menti on that George W. Bush handpicks the cloth for his $2,000 suits?

During the height of the media frenzy over Edwards' haircut, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd made fun of him for visiting "the Pink Sapphire spa in Manchester, which offers services for men that include the 'Touch of Youth' facial, as well as trips 'into the intriguing world of makeup.' " But, as Bob Somerby pointed out, John McCain has also taken a trip "into the intriguing world of makeup" at the Pink Sapphire. Somehow, Dowd forgot to include that in her column -- and the rest of the media (except for the New Hampshire Union Leader) forgot as well. (A Nexis search for "John Edwards AND Pink Sapphire" returns 71 hits. One news report available on Nexis mentions McCain's visit to the salon. One.)

Last year, CNN's Wolf Blitzer called Hillary Clinton a "flip-flopper" because she sometimes drinks her coffee black, and sometimes with cream. The very same Associated Press article from which Blitzer learned this completely irrelevant fact also reported that Rudy Giuliani drinks his coffee with "Sweet'n Low or Equal, whichever is available," and that John McCain likes "[c]appuccino or coffee with cream and sugar." Blitzer saw no troubling insecurity in Giuliani's or McCain's preferences (and, to be clear: He shouldn't have. Just as he shouldn't have branded Clinton a flip-flopper because she sometimes puts cream in her coffee and sometimes does not).

And that same AP article also reported that Mitt Romney doesn't drink coffee at all -- but "has been known to have hot chocolate." Try to imagine how Chris Matthews would react if he found out that Barack Obama doesn't drink coffee -- and that, instead, he drinks hot cocoa.

Now imagine how Chris Matthews would react if Obama didn't drink coffee -- and was as rich as Mitt Romney is.

Bush Crash Hurting Many Local Governments

WASH POST In Illinois' Cook County, women in poor neighborhoods no longer have access to free mammograms from two mobile vans testing for breast cancer. In Michigan, hikers will find about 20 campgrounds closed, and scientists are ending their studies of fish populations in the Great Lakes. In New Jersey, state workers are being laid off, and at least one town is canceling its traditional Fourth of July fireworks. And in California's San Fernando Valley, Everardo Orozco, 53, who has AIDS, exhausted his medical benefits and can no longer afford the drugs that are keeping him alive. . .

State budgets have been hit hard by a worsening national economy, including rising costs for energy and health care. In addition, fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis -- declining home sales, deflated property values and mounting foreclosures -- has caused a slide in states' anticipated tax receipts. Revenue from property taxes, sales taxes and real estate transfer taxes is affected.

At least half of the nation's states are facing budget shortfalls, some of them severe, and policymakers in most of the states affected are proposing and passing often-painful measures to trim costs and close the gaps. Spending on schools is being slashed, after- school programs are being curtailed and teachers are being notified of potential layoffs. Health-care assistance is being cut for the elderly, the disabled and the poor. Some government offices, such as motor vehicle department locations, will start closing on weekends, and some state workers are receiving pink slips.

The Fading American Economy

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US economy lost 98,000 private sector jobs in March, half of which were in manufacturing. Today 13,643,000 Americans are employed in manufacturing, of which 9,849,000 are production workers.

Government employs 22,387,000 Americans, 8,744,000 more than manufacturing. Even the category leisure and hospitality employs 13,682,000 Americans, slightly more than manufacturing. There are as many waitresses and bartenders as production workers.

Wholesale and retail trade employ 21,467,000 Americans. Professional and business services employ 18,036,000 Americans of which 8,368,000 are in administrative and waste services. Education and health services employ 18,699,000 Americans.

Financial activities employ 8,228,000 Americans. The information sector employs 3,010,000. Transportation and warehousing employ 4,532,000. Construction employs 7,338,000, and natural resources, mining and logging employ 751,000. Other services such as repair, laundry, and membership associations employ 5,516,000 Americans.

This is the portrait of the US economy according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is an economy in which government is the largest employer. Manufacturing employment comprises just under 10% of total employment and about 12% of private sector employment. Everything else is services, and not particularly high level services.

Is this a portrait of a super economy?

To help answer the question, consider that US imports in 2007 were 17% of US GDP, according to the National Income and Product Account tables provided by the Bureau of Economic Affairs. In contrast, the BEA industry tables show that in 2006 (2007 data not yet available) US manufacturing comprised only 11.7% of US GDP.

If US imports actually exceed total US manufacturing output by 5% of GDP, it does not seem possible that the US can close its massive trade deficit. Even if every item manufactured in the US was exported, the US would still have a large trade deficit.

The NIPA and industry tables from which the percentages come are not calculated identically, and I do not know to what extent differences might exaggerate the differences between the percentages. However, it seems unlikely that mere calculation differences would account for US imports exceeding US manufacturing output.

If the US cannot close its trade deficit, it is unlikely that the US dollar can remain the world reserve currency. If the dollar were to lose the reserve currency role, the US government would not be able to finance its annual red ink budget by borrowing from foreigners, as the US saving rate is about zero, and the US would not be able to pay its import bill in its own currency. The rest of the world continues to hold depreciating US currency, because the dollar is the world reserve currency. The dollar is certainly not a good investment having declined dramatically against other traded currencies.

From March 2007 to March 2008 the US economy created 1.5 million new jobs (in services). Legal and illegal immigration and work visas for foreigners exceed US job creation.

During the current school year, 3.3 million high school students are expected to graduate. If we assume that half will go on to college, that leaves 1.6 million entering the work force. College enrollment in 2007 totaled 18 million. If we assume 20% graduate, that makes another 3.6 million job seekers for a total of 5.2 million. Clearly, immigration, work visas, and high school and college graduates exceed the 1.5 million jobs created by the economy. Unless retirements opened up enough jobs for graduates, the unemployment rate has to rise.

The US unemployment rate is creeping up, and according to John Williams, the official unemployment rate greatly understates the real rate of unemployment. Williams has followed the changes that government has made to the official indices over the years in order to spin a more politically palatable picture. Williams uses the original methodology prior to the decades of spin. The original way of measuring unemployment indicates the current rate of unemployment in the US to be 13%, much higher than the 5.1% official number.

Williams also calculates the CPI according to the same way it was officially calculated prior to the recent decades of spin. Williams estimates the current CPI at 12%, three times higher than the official 4% figure.

Williams reports that upward growth biases built into GDP modeling since the early 1980s "have rendered this important series nearly worthless as an indicator of economic activity." Williams estimates that US GDP growth has been in negative territory during almost all of the 21st century. The notion that the US is just now entering a recession is nonsense if we have in fact been in recession for most of the 21st century.

America's post-World War II economic dominance was based on the destruction of other economies by war and socialism. It is a different world now, and Americans have given little thought to the economic challenges of the 21st century.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Judge ok's examination of voting machines Sequoia didn't want checked

These are the same brand of machines that will be used in the Pennsylvania primary

DIANE C. WALSH, STAR-LEDGER, NJ Subpoenas were issued in six New Jersey counties today, demanding that officials turn over for testing all voting machines where discrepancies were found in the presidential primary tallies. . . Activists trying to persuade Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg that electronic voting machines should be discarded succeeded in convincing her that examining these counties' machines is critical to their case.. . . Clerks in the six counties uncovered discrepancies in 60 machines when they doubled check the vote tallies after the Feb. 5 presidential primary.

Sequoia maintained the errors found in the presidential primary were due to poll workers pushing the wrong buttons on the control panels. The company resisted calls for independent testing of the machines.

IMF Says Mortgage Crisis Largest Financial Shock Since Great Depression

GUARDIAN, UK America's mortgage crisis has spiraled into "the largest financial shock since the Great Depression" and there is now a one-in-four chance of a full-blown global recession over the next 12 months, the International Monetary Fund warned. The US is already sliding into what the IMF predicts will be a "mild recession" but there is mounting pessimism about the ability of the rest of the world to escape unscathed, the IMF said in its twice-yearly World Economic Outlook. Britain is particularly vulnerable, it warned, as it slashed its growth targets for both the US and the UK. The report made it clear that there will be no early resolution to the global financial crisis.

"The financial shock that erupted in August 2007, as the US sub-prime mortgage market was derailed by the reversal of the housing boom, has spread quickly and unpredictably to inflict extensive damage on markets and institutions at the heart of the financial system," it said.

After warning earlier this week that the world's financial firms could end up shouldering $1 trillion worth of losses from the credit crunch, the IMF said it expects the US to achieve GDP growth of just 0.5% this year, and 0.6% in 2008, with the housing crash getting even worse.

Scared White Guy Shoots Black Teens: No Charge; Scared Black Guy Shoots White Teen: Manslaughter

An example of institutionalized legal bigotry--Pete

By Rend Smith, ColorLines RaceWire
Posted on April 8, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/rights/81704/

Friday night, ABC's 20/20 ran a piece on John White, the African-American Long-Islander convicted of killing Daniel Cicciaro Jr, a white 17-year-old.

If you're not familiar with the case, here's a quick and dirty summary. Cicciaro, known to his friends and family as Dan-o, showed up in front of White's house one night, spoiling for a fight with White's son, evidently over a girl.

Cicciaro, drunk and angry, was accompanied by 4 friends.

The Whites maintain that the teenagers blocked the driveway of their suburban home while making threats and using the N-word, and that the group of teens resembled a lynch mob, prompting father and son to grab weapons and attempt to drive them off.

During the confrontation, White's unregistered, heirloom pistol -- passed down to him from his grandfather -- was fired, and Cicciaro fatally shot. White says it was an accident.

The jury didn't agree, the 54 year-old was convicted of manslaughter. Later, a seemingly sympathetic judge sentenced the construction worker to 2 to 4 years in prison. His lawyers are appealing.

Evidently, some black activist believe that the amount of years White should spend in prison are exactly 0. 20/20's b-roll showed a substantial crowd of African-American protesters chanting "Free John White."

But for us black, liberal, anti-violence-rally-types, White, like all other 2nd amendment cowboys, is guilty of a personal militant-ism that we prefer our courts stamp out(even if it has to be done one case at a time).

That is, as long as it's done with fair impartiality.

Much has been written about White's case, nothing better, in my opinion, than Calvin Trillin's New Yorker article, Letter from Long Island, The Color of Blood: Race, memory, and a killing in the suburbs.

"To convict someone of second-degree manslaughter in the state of New York," Trillin writes, "the prosecution has to prove that he recklessly caused the death of the victim--"recklessly" being defined as creating a risk so substantial that disregarding it constitutes "a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe"--and that he had no justification. In its decision in the case of Bernard Goetz, the white man who in 1984 shot 4 young black men who had approached him on the subway demanding money, the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, ruled that justification could have a subjective as well as an objective component--fears raised by the defendant's past experiences, for instance."

We forgot about that Subway Vigilante guy: the white dude who shot 4 black teens who may or may not have been trying to rob him, who mowed them down with an unregistered Smith and Wesson (that wasn't inherited from his grandfather) and who said a whole bunch of cavalier things afterwards.

In 1984 Goetz became a kind of perverted, "Mcgruff the crime dog" mascot for paranoid New Yorkers. Following the shootings, he did 250 days on a weapons charge.

We thought White got off easy.

Human life is invaluable, and nothing to become too politically clever (or flippant) about. But what do we do, we anti-gun liberals, when faced with the behaviors of a legal system, that, when it comes to race, displays all the scruples of a psychopath unloading bullets into a horrified crowd? I say we do the only thing we can do in situations of contradicting values and paradoxical facts: we slowly come to the defense of sanity, even if at our next anti-violence-rally, we're forced to chant something convoluted and clunky like, "Free John White ... or either er ... arrest Bernard Goetz ... "

Rend Smith is a freelance writer who has been employed by the Antioch Review, the Dayton City Paper, and the Hill Rag. He has won several awards and two grants in connection with his work.

© 2008 ColorLines RaceWire All rights reserved.

Legislator Flips out at Atheist During Hearing: 'Your Philosophy's a Danger to our Children!'

By PZ Myers, Pharyngula
Posted on April 8, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/rights/81724/

The governor of Illinois has been playing some games with state money, shuffling a million dollars to benefit a Baptist church, and an atheist dared to testify to the legislature against this. The response from one legislator was unsurprising: she shrieked at the atheist to get out.

Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) interrupted atheist activist Rob Sherman during his testimony Wednesday afternoon before the House State Government Administration Committee in Springfield and told him, "What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous . . . it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!

"This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God," Davis said. "Get out of that seat . . . You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon."

Disbelief in religion means you have "no right" to speak to members of government? Wow. And note the "D" after her name -- she's a member of the party most (but definitely not all!) American atheists lean towards.

There's more on this exchange: it looks like Sherman kept his cool, while Davis spewed her hate.

Chicago atheists, you know what to do: next election, campaign against Monique Davis. Get someone who is not a raving nutbag to run. Right now, her district needs to flood her mailbox with letters of protest. You can find her contact information online; let her know that you do not appreciate her efforts to disenfranchise and discriminate against you.

PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris. He runs the science blog, Pharyngula.

© 2008 Pharyngula All rights reserved.

Satire Alert!

Iraq War Memorial Planners Forced To Revise Length Again

WASHINGTON—With so many more patriots to honor, the memorial has been extended past the Washington Monument and into the southbound lane of 14th Street.

Everything His President Wants to Hear

Truthdig Report

By Robert Scheer

General Betray Us? Of course he has. MoveOn.org can hardly be expected to recycle its slogan from last September, when Gen. David Petraeus testified in support of escalating the U.S. war in Iraq, given the hysterical denunciations that worthy group received at the time. But it was right then—as it would be to repeat the charge now.

By undercutting the widespread support for getting out of Iraq, Petraeus did indeed betray the American public, siding with an enormously unpopular president who wants to stay the course in Iraq for personal and political reasons that run contrary to genuine national security interests. Once again, the president is passing the buck to the uniformed military to justify continuing a ludicrous imperial adventure, and the good general has dutifully performed.

So why are we surprised? Why do we expect the generals to lead us on the path to peace when that is the professional task of statesmen and not warriors? It is an abdication of civilian control of the military, the basic principle of American constitutional governance, to assign a central role to an active duty general to make the decision to end the war. It betrays the legacy warnings of our two most famous wartime generals, George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

American history offers no greater heroes, not because of their considerable success in battle but because they gained the wisdom to sound the alarm against unbridled militarism so passionately and effectively. The farewell addresses of both those departing generals-turned-president still stand as the essential bookends for what has been written about the limits on military adventure required for democracy’s survival. Washington’s plea to the nation “to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism” sets the standard for enlightened political discourse. A close second is Eisenhower’s warning that, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

We have had many other examples of retired military officers asserting the need for informed and rational public decision making as to matters of war and peace. Republican presidential candidate John McCain was one of those voices when, as a senator, he led the fight, along with fellow Vietnam War veteran John Kerry, to normalize relations with the same Communist leadership in Hanoi that had once been our enemy. Does anyone, McCain included, now think we were wrong to bring the troops home from Vietnam—and just why are the dire consequences that McCain now predicts for a withdrawal from Iraq any more plausible?

McCain says we have to back the president and his generals, even though he concedes that “four years of mismanaged war had brought us almost to the point of no return.” Who mismanaged that war if not Bush and the generals he picked for the task? But don’t blame the generals, for as long as a president demands victory, they will pretend to deliver it. If they demur, they will be replaced, as recently occurred with the sudden retirement of Petraeus’ boss, Admiral William Fallon, for his suggestion in Esquire magazine that he might favor a more restrained approach in a conflict with Iran.

No such dissension from Petraeus - his faithful testimony, at least to the president if not the truth, on Tuesday was a particularly painful performance. Civilian deaths in March were 50 percent higher than in February, and there were a score of recent American deaths, and there is no evidence of political progress to support Petraeus’ stab at optimism over the “fragile” situation in Iraq. Most absurd was the suggestion that the problem would all go away if Iran would only behave, when in fact American troops are being sacrificed on the pro-Iranian side of an internal Shiite power dispute. The Shiites in charge of “our” government in Iraq are exiles trained for decades in Iran.

Not so Moqtada al-Sadr, who stayed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, the killer of his father. Al-Sadr now opposes what he clearly labels as the U.S. occupation out of an Iraqi nationalism that is also in conflict with Iran. Now he’s the bad guy, and the Sunnis, who hate us even more, are being temporarily paid off by the United States to stop killing Americans. They, too, will turn against us, but it will not stop Petraeus or some other general in charge from telling Congress a few months from now what the president wants them to hear.

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

Another day at the office: Gen. David Petraeus prepares to give his Iraq war update on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

---

THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE ERISTOCRACY

I'm feeling the need to sing praises to the goddess. Sing to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.--Pete.

by Lord Omar, Principia Discordia

VERSE
Mine brain has meditated on the spinning of The Chao;
It is hovering o'er the table where the Chiefs of Staff are now
Gathered in discussion of the dropping of The Bomb;
Her Apple Corps is strong!

CHORUS
Grand (and gory) Old Discordja!
Grand (and gory) Old Discordja!
Grand (and gory) Old Discordja!
Her Apple Corps is strong!

VERSE
She was not invited to the party that they held on Limbo Peak;*
So She threw a Golden Apple, 'sted of turn'd t'other cheek!
O it cracked the Holy Punchbowl and it made the nectar leak;
Her Apple Corps is strong!

* "Limbo Peak" refers to Old Limbo Peak, commonly called by the Greeks "Ol' Limb' Peak."

Wall Street Cracks Down on Bloated CEO Pay (Yes, That's a Joke)

By Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog
Posted on April 7, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/81569/

Merrill Lynch, after an $8.4 billion writedown on subprime mortgages, let CEO Stanley O'Neal retire rather than resign, so he could walk away from the job with $161.5 million. And that left Merrill flat broke when it came to paying a new CEO, right? Er, no:

It is too soon to know whether John A. Thain, who now has the top spot, can restore Merrill's former glory. But thanks in large part to a hefty sign-on bonus, he was the highest-paid executive in [a recent executive compensation] survey, with a compensation package that totaled almost $83.8 million.

Whew! For a minute there I thought Merrill might respond to a multi-billion-dollar loss by forcing its new CEO to settle for a measly $20 or $30 million. But I guess that would be un-American! So, not to worry.

Oh, but I'm being too negative, as usual. This comes from an article in today's New York Times that says CEO pay packages are actually becoming more realistic, with real penalties if goals aren't met.

Here's an example, at a formerly high-flying home-building company:

Robert Toll, the chief at Toll Brothers, received no bonus in 2007.

Good for Toll Brothers! A round of applause!

Er...

-- but the company has rewritten the compensation plan so that he will probably get one this year even if home building does not recover.

OK, let's try another example -- David Steiner of Waste Management, Inc.:

... Last year, 75 percent of Mr. Steiner's long-term incentive plan was tied to specific targets for earnings growth and return on invested capital....

Mr. Steiner's pay is now linked entirely to achieving those targets. And some perks he used to get -- about $35,000 worth of items like car allowances and country club dues -- are gone...

Bravo!

...though their value will be added to his base salary or bonus.

Oh.

Read the article. There actually do seem to be a few signs of hope. (For instance, last year, "only 73 percent of the chiefs got performance bonuses, down from 78.6 percent in 2006." Feel better now? I know I do!)

Steve M. is the proprietor of No More Mister Nice Blog.

© 2008 No More Mister Nice Blog All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://nomoremister.blogspot.com//81569/

The New Pot Dealers

Buds of Change
by Susan Block, Counterpunch

I received a house call from my doctor the other day. Well, one of my doctors. I have had a few since that little episode when I almost died last year. And yes, my doctors sometimes make house calls, at least with me, they do. If you had me as a patient, you'd make house calls too. After all, my house is the Speakeasy.

But this was the first doctor that's ever visited me with an entourage. This was a medical show-on-the-road. This was Dr. Roger A. Barnes of the MediMar Clinic, retired anesthesiologist turned MediMar physician with the ability to write prescriptions for medical marijuana. With him came an affable guy carrying a printer, a lawyer who resembled a Creole shaman, and the business brains behind the operation, Nathan.

They don't usually do house calls, unless you're "housebound," and though I rarely leave home, I'm hardly housebound. But when we described the Speakeasy to Nathan, he said the doctor would be over in a couple of hours. I thought it would be one guy, maybe two. But four guys? It was a MediMar team. Or actually more of a party.

First, Dr. Burke and I went into the bar and discussed my Near Death Experience, as well as a bit about "what goes on here." He took my blood pressure. I filled out a medical questionnaire. We talked about sexology and hemp, why we both do what we do, to help people find the pleasures in life and heal the discomfort and pain.

While we chatted in the bar, Nathan talked on his cell, the guy with the printer set up the printer and the lawyer chewed the fat. Next thing I knew they were signing up people, printing laminated licenses to inhale. And why not? We the people should be entitled to make personal use of the healing power of hemp, just like we are free to take aspirin and grow our own organic tomatoes, without legal persecution.

We fed the MediMar team lunch, and let me tell you, working in the pot business must give you the munchies; these guys were hungry. Then damned if they didn't fire up a big doobie right there of fine strawberry flavored ganja with some of that cool transparent organic rolling paper, to celebrate our first legal puff on a jay.

So here I was getting high with my doctor and his entourage, the New American Pot Dealers, except that they weren't actually dealing pot. They were dealing in prescriptions so that law-abiding citizens can enjoy their pot without harassment.

We all gathered around in the commissary and talked about the joys of smoking Afghan, and the way William Randolph Hearst brought the Yellow Peril into our lives. Before that, our forefathers grew it as a crop like tobacco or corn. The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution are rumored to have been written on hemp paper (though other experts say it's parchment). I would venture to guess these great documents were also inspired by the smoking of it. Don't tell me Tommy Jefferson didn't puff on a little homegrown, maybe to ease some pain, in bed with Sally Hemings, while debating democracy with Alex Hamilton, or perhaps to loosen up a little writer's block on that Declaration. And what could be wrong with that?

The New American Pot Dealers are anathema to Big Pharma, the folks who freely dispense Prozac and Vicodin, but don't want to let you heal your pain with a little herb. Why not? Because it cuts into their profits, of course. Pain is big business. Got pain? Whatever pain you've got - mental or physical ­ have they got a costly pharmaceutical for you.

Anyway, now that I'm legal, I just want to "come out" with my hemp smoking, to lend more personalized support to decriminalizing it. As long as we're not hurting someone else, it should not be a crime to heal ourselves when we're sick, or relax ourselves when we're stressed, or inspire ourselves when we get writer's block.

Thank God and Goddess that our laws are evolving. It's happening a little too slowly for sick people who need medicine now, such as my friend with a rare form of cancer who has a Hawaiian medical marijuana license, which is great while he's at home in Hawaii; the problem is that he can't buy pot legally while he's getting his treatments in California. Now how inhumane and ridiculous is that?

We've a long road ahead of us before full nationwide decriminalization. But Dr. Burke's house call is a sign o' the times. The New American Pot Dealers are on the rise. Change is in the air, and it's intoxicating.

Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, cable TV host and author of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure. Visit her BRAND NEW BLOGGAMY & POST COMMENTS at http://www.drsusanblock.com/blog/blog.asp Send comments to liberties@blockbooks.com.

Recovered History

APRIL 4, 1968

KEVIN MERIDA, WASH POST Back in Memphis on April 3, the night before he was killed, King decided to skip a rally at Bishop Charles Mason Temple. The weather was stormy, there were early reports of a thin crowd, and King was not in the best of moods. He sent a close friend and adviser, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, to speak for him. But when Abernathy and other King aides arrived, and felt the energy in Mason Temple and the mounting anticipation by sanitation workers of a King speech, Abernathy phoned King and told him to get over to the rally quickly.

It was there that King gave his final speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop," which many have described as prescient. He mentioned the threats against his life, the talk about "what would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers." But he went on to say: "It really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. . . . And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we as a people, will get to the Promised Land."

The Rev. Samuel "Billy" Kyles, a local minister and King friend who was there that night, believes King was forecasting his own death. "I am so certain he knew he would not get there," Kyles said. "He didn't want to say it to us, so he softened it -- that he may not get there." Later, Kyles would tell people that King "had preached himself through the fear of death."

What is often unremarked upon about that speech, however, is how resolute King was in his prescriptions for fighting the injustices suffered by the poor. He urged those at the meeting to tell their neighbors: Don't buy Coca-Cola, Sealtest milk and Wonder Bread. Up to now, only the garbage workers had been feeling pain, King noted. "Now we must kind of redistribute the pain."

The next day, King was in a good mood, almost giddy, Kyles remembered. Kyles was hosting a dinner for King at his home that evening. "I told him it was at 5 because he was never in a hurry." But when Kyles knocked on King's door, at Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel, to hurry him along, King let him know he had uncovered the little ruse: He had found out the dinner was actually at 6. So they had some time, and King invited Kyles to sit down. Abernathy was there, too. King liked to eat and was anticipating a lavish soul-food feast, so he couldn't resist razzing Kyles. "I bet your wife can't cook," King told his friend. "She's too pretty."

Just to tease a little more, King asked Kyles: Didn't you just buy a new house? He then told the story of an Atlanta preacher who had purchased a big, fancy home and had King and Coretta over for dinner. "The Kool-Aid was hot, the ham was cold, the biscuits were hard," Kyles recalled King jiving. "If I go to your house and you don't have a decent dinner, I'm going to tell the networks that the Rev. Billy Kyles had a new house but couldn't afford to have a decent dinner."

It was about 5:45 when King and Kyles left the room and stepped onto the second-floor balcony. Abernathy stayed put. King leaned over the rail to gaze at a busy scene in the parking lot eight feet below, exchanging words with his young aide Jesse Jackson, among others. Kyles was just about to descend the steps, with King behind him, when he heard the shot. "And when I looked around, he had been knocked from the railing of the balcony back to the door," Kyles recalled. "I saw a gaping hole on the right side of his face."

Kyles ran back into the room and tried to call for an ambulance, but no one at the motel switchboard answered. He took a bedspread and draped it over King's body.

King was pronounced dead at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph's Hospital.

Who's A Patriot?

LAWRENCE KORB AND IAN MOSS, CHICAGO TRIBUNE In 1961, a young African-American man, after hearing President John F. Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the Marines. In 1963, this man, having completed his two years of service in the Marines, volunteered again to become a Navy corpsman. (They provide medical assistance to the Marines as well as to Navy personnel.)

The man did so well in corpsman school that he was the valedictorian and became a cardiopulmonary technician. Not surprisingly, he was assigned to the Navy's premier medical facility, Bethesda Naval Hospital, as a member of the commander in chief's medical team, and helped care for President Lyndon B. Johnson after his 1966 surgery. For his service on the team, which he left in 1967, the White House awarded him three letters of commendation.. . .

While this young man was serving six years on active duty, Vice President Dick Cheney, who was born the same year as the Marine/sailor, received five deferments, four for being an undergraduate and graduate student and one for being a prospective father. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both five years younger than the African-American youth, used their student deferments to stay in college until 1968. Both then avoided going on active duty through family connections.

Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies to serve his country for six years or our three political leaders who beat the system? Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?

After leaving the service of his country, the young African-American finished his final year of college, entered the seminary, was ordained as a minister, and eventually became pastor of a large church in one of America's biggest cities.

This man is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the retiring pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, who has been in the news for comments he made over the last three decades.

The Ego Has Landed...With No Regrets

Sam Smith, Undernews

No, not the Robbie Williams album and song, but real life as played out by a growing number of stunningly ambitious and self centered figures ranging from the capital's school superintendent to the head of Bear Stearns and Barack Obama.

I first noticed it when I realized I had voted for the wrong candidate for DC mayor: Adrian Fenty. Son of longtime shopkeepers, child of the city, popular in all its parts although few could really tell you why, he seemed like the best of the lot. I put aside the qualms I had after he paid a visit to our neighborhood and stood talking to me one foot away as if there was a 37" HD screen between us. And the I'm the boss manner he handed an assistant his ringing cell phone as he spoke.

In office, Fenty began to treat everyone the way he treated that assistant. As I described it later:

Fenty sometimes reminds us of a fresh MBA trying to prove his leadership by following all the bullet points in some management book he picked up at an airport news stand. He has put an excessive emphasis on proving his decisiveness and virtually none on demonstrating judgment, working well with a variety of constituencies and understanding that certainty has no particular connection with competence.

It has only been a few months and he has already thrown the school system for a loop, ended all democratic participation in it, launched a direct assault on the city's home rule charter, made a number of lousy appointments and agreed to a sweetheart deal for a suite at the Verizon Center that would be illegal if anyone in power in DC gave a damn.

Add to Fenty's misdirected ego is the fact that he was far more beholden to downtown business interests and their guides, the Washington Post and the Federal City Council, then he ever let on during the campaign. There is a reasonable issue of integrity here. Fenty has not only failed us; he also fooled us.

At the time I thought it was just a character flaw. But now it looks more like a pattern. In February, his school superintendent, Michelle Rhee - who has proved just as carelessly arrogant - was on PBS with this exchange:

JOHN MERROW: Have you done anything that you regret?

MICHELLE RHEE: You know, I'm a very unusual person in that, in my entire life, I don't have any regrets.

And then this from Dana Milbank's coverage of the Senate hearing at which Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz testified:

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) asked the corporate-welfare recipient whether he shares any blame for his indigent circumstances. "Do you believe that your management team has any responsibility for the company's collapse?"

Schwartz could think of no missteps -- not even his decision to remain at a conference at the Breakers in Palm Beach while his firm was imploding. "I just simply have not been able to come up with anything, even with the benefit of hindsight," said the blameless chief executive, escorted into the hearing room by superlawyer Robert Bennett.

Then we have the man who was, until four years ago, an undistinguished state senator from Illinois being presented to us - with no little help from his spin machine - as the new John F Kennedy, if not Jesus himself. There is something about Obama's self absorbed self confidence, total lack of humility or even great consciousness of those around him - that reminds me of Fenty. And if he came to our neighborhood, I suspect that 37" HD screen would come between us, too.

What has he done? Not much. What are the policies he proposes that evoke such a passionate response? Still to be revealed. The other night I watched his Chris Matthews interview with the screaming students backed by cheerleaders at West Chester University and then, not long after, caught the latest American Idol. The grossly disproportionate enthusiasm of the audience was almost identical, but in the end I felt closer to Brooke White, David Archuleta, Kristy Lee Cook and Michael Johns - even Chris Matthews - than I did to Obama. I can't get over that sense that there's something not quite real going on in our relationship. After all, if David Archuelta wins, I don't have to listen to him. If Obama wins, I'm in for four years of something I don't know much about at all.

If you watch Obama, you can easily slip into the illusion that he has actually done something, that he has some great ideas, and that he can solve problems better than his opponents when, in fact, you're going to wake up some night at 3 a.m. and realize that he never really explained how to get out of the Iraq war, how he was going to solve the current fiscal crisis and so forth.

A while back I drew a parallel between Obama and Tony Robbins. It may not have been so far off. Obama's pal and mentor, Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts, will be taking time off from his public responsibilities to hustle a self improvement book. Here's how Matt Viser of the Boston Globe describes the project:

Governor Deval Patrick isn't merely penning his memoirs. The book proposal he submitted to publishers reads like the roadmap for a self-help manual, one in which he will celebrate optimism, rail against cynicism, and seek to inspire a nation with his own life story.

The 65-page pitch letter that led to his $1.35 million advance last week from a Random House imprint reveals, in its overflowing optimism and aggressive marketing plan, just how high the freshman governor is aiming when the book is published in 2010.

It details a strategy to sell at least 150,000 copies through a "vigorous media campaign," a nationwide book-signing tour, multiple speaking engagements, and efforts to persuade big corporations to buy the book by the carton, activities that promise to pull Patrick away from Massachusetts and the State House during the last year of his term. . .

The document describes an unusual business arrangement in which A Better Chance, the charity that lifted Patrick out of the South Side of Chicago and sent him to Milton Academy, will play an integral role in promoting and marketing the book through a ready-made network of national leaders, corporate supporters, and pre-scheduled events.

Patrick writes that major corporations are likely to buy tens of thousands of books.

"A Better Chance has numerous top-drawer corporate sponsors - GE, Sony, Coca-Cola, Toyota, Verizon, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, American Express (and many others) - who are capable of making significant bulk purchases of the book and distributing these copies among employees, business contacts, community leaders, students and others," the governor wrote.

In his proposal, Patrick dangles the promise of celebrity endorsers, saying he has the connections to persuade high-profile figures to put promotional blurbs on the book, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, former Clinton adviser Vernon Jordan, Harvard Medical School professor Alvin Poussaint, and Senator Barack Obama, who by then could be president.

Patrick portrays himself as an inspirational figure who is already getting Massachusetts residents to see their world in a new way and is ready to carry his message to a broader audience. While he boasts that he is able to draw big crowds and energize young people, he says that America is tired of a culture of self-centeredness.

"No matter who or what may try to stop us, we can reshape this world together," he writes. "My life is a living testament to that truth."

Which is okay until you read the actual news about what's been happening in Massachusetts, such as Dan Kennedy's description in the Guardian:

Patrick, a former Clinton administration official and corporate lawyer, has been stumbling since his inauguration. Some of it has been over silliness, such as Patrick's decision to replace his state car with a Cadillac SUV and to order $10,000 drapes for his statehouse office. Some of it involved his inability to bend a recalcitrant legislature to his will on such good-government issues as closing corporate tax loopholes.

A lot of it, though, was about his misguided proposal to build three gambling casinos in Massachusetts. The House speaker, Sal DiMasi, had been signaling for months that he wouldn't go along with the "casino culture" and its concomitant increases in crime, traffic and various social ills. Late last month, DiMasi finally brought down the hammer, as the House defeated Patrick's casino bill by an overwhelming 108 to 46.

And here's where it went from bad to worse for Patrick. The governor failed to stick around for the vote, choosing to travel to New York on unspecified "personal business" rather than stand with those who'd stood by him. That, in turn, led to a story in the New York Times on March 27 - on page one, above the fold! - accompanied by the understated headline "Early dazzle, then tough path for a governor.". . .

In DC, Michelle Rhee, one of the new group of rock star school superintendents who typically come in at extraordinarily large salaries and stay an extraordinarily short time, isn't off to a good start, either - thanks in part to a tyrannical approach to matters general, telling one group of students they couldn't leave their high school during lunch, as well as proposing to close 23 schools and turning an uncertain number of them over for uncertain purposes, presumably some of which will make someone an awful lot of unearned money.

These examples only suggest a pattern, admittedly without proving it. My hunch is here are products of a generation that has sadly been given Clinton, Bush and Trump as role models and so - being among the most ambitious of their ilk - they sally forth with such guides and without the restraints and wisdom that gave power some balance before the second robber era - things like parents who had gone through the depression, moral pointers from both religion and a political activism that no longer exits, connections made through community rather than through Ipod and text messaging.

In each case, there is capacity for good and for evil. There is talent, yet there is an absence of a context for it. There is the ability to lead but only if those around them follow. And they come from a culture and live in a time when a failing Massachusetts governor can get $1.5 million to write a book to inspire others to be just like him. A time when logic doesn't play much of a role, but getting people to forget about logic certainly does.

In the end, if we had more leaders capable of regrets over the past, we might have less cause to have fears over the future.