Taiwan may provide a health care model for the U.S.

A National Public Radio profile from last year points out that Taiwan has one of the world's best health care systems and it is cost efficient too.

All Things Considered, April 15, 2008 · At the end of the 20th century, Taiwan became a rich country, almost overnight. But it still had a poor country's health care — about half the population had no coverage at all. So Taiwan set out to design a national health care system from scratch. What makes Taiwan unique is the way the country figured out how to cover everyone.

Follow the Oxcart

Hongjen Chang was one of the officials in charge back then. Walking through Taipei's imposing Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park, he recalls how they did it.

"Taiwan is a small island," he says. "We always look abroad internationally for ideas."

Chang quotes a Chinese saying: "'The track of the previous cart is the teacher of the following cart.'"

In other words, if someone else's oxcart has found a good route to universal health coverage, follow those tracks. "If they were trapped in trouble, avoid that track. Find a new track," Chang says.

The government consulted experts from around the world, like Taiwanese American health economist Tsung-mei Cheng.

"In the end, the program that they finally set up in 1995 really is like a car that was made of different parts, imported from overseas, but manufactured domestically," Cheng says.

A Consolidated System

They wanted a system that gave everybody equal access to health care — free choice of doctors, with no waiting time — and a system that encouraged a lot of competition among medical providers.

To finance the scheme they chose a national insurance system: a single, government-run fund that forces everybody to join in and pay.

The result is a system that works a lot like Canada's, or like the U.S. Medicare system, but with more benefits.

"It has drug benefits, vision care, traditional Chinese medicine, kidney dialysis, inpatient care, outpatient care, just about everything under the sun," Cheng says.

To satisfy the patients in Taiwan, there's no gatekeeper who controls access to specialists and no waiting lines.

If you woke up in Taiwan with shoulder pain, for example, Chang says that you would be able to see an orthopedic specialist the same morning, no recommendation from a general practitioner required.

"Our people don't like the idea of gatekeepers. They want to decide by themselves," Chang says.

Don't Forget Your Smart Card

By consolidating so much — one government plan that covers everybody — Taiwan achieves remarkable efficiency.

Everybody here has to have a smart card to go to the doctor. The doctor puts it in a reader and the patient's history and medications all show up on the screen. The bill goes directly to the government insurance office and is paid automatically.

So Taiwan has the lowest administrative costs in world: less than 2 percent.

They also use that smart card to track patterns of use.

"If a patient goes to see a doctor or hospital over 20 times a month, or 50 times in a three-month period, then the IT picks that person out. The person then gets a visit from the government, the Bureau of National Health Insurance, and they have a little chat. And this works very well," Cheng says.

That may be too much like Big Brother for some people in the United States, but surveys show the Taiwanese are highly satisfied with their health care.

Plus, no one goes bankrupt because of medical bills, Chang says.

A Strained System

So the patients are safe from bankruptcy. But the system itself is under strain. Chang says that Taiwan spends 6.23 percent of its GDP on health care, compared to 16 percent in America.

So the United States spends too much on health care, and doesn't even cover everybody. But the Taiwanese don't bring in enough money to pay for all the services they offer.

"So actually, as we speak, the government is borrowing from banks to pay what there isn't enough to pay the providers," Cheng says.

Taiwan's politicians are reluctant to increase premiums: they're afraid the voters will punish them.

So that's the problem here. And frankly, the solution is fairly obvious: increase the spending a little, to maybe 8 percent of GDP.

Of course, if Taiwan did that, it would still be spending less than half of what America spends.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89651916

Link to Dissent Magazine article from Winter 2008, Health Care in Taiwan: Why Can’t the United States Learn Some Lessons?

http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=985

Lew Daly - Unjust Deserts: How the Rich Are Taking Our Common Inheritance

Here is some information from The New Press about a new book titled "Unjust Deserts" which challenges long-held assumptions about wealth and inequality.

UNJUST DESERTS
HOW THE RICH ARE TAKING OUR COMMON INHERITANCE
AND WHY WE SHOULD TAKE IT BACK
WEALTH AND INEQUALITY IN THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY
by Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly
The New Press

As our financial system lurches into an unknown future, traditional views of wealth and personal rewards are being questioned. Consequently, there is no better time for a conversation about the creation of wealth today—who is entitled to it and who will control it. As our national financial crisis puts into stark relief, aren’t we are all in the economy together, whether rich or not?

With a bold salvo challenging the status quo, authors Professor Gar Alperovitz and Demos fellow Lew Daly tip the scales with the answers to these questions in what will be one of the most talked about books of the season: UNJUST DESERTS: How the Rich Are Taking Our Common Inheritance and Why We Should Take It Back.

Alperovitz and Daly are in good company when they write that culture has more to do with individual success than we generally acknowledge. One of the wealthiest men on the planet, Warren Buffett,with a current net worth of $60 billion, acknowledges that “society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I’ve earned.” Bill Gates, Sr. agrees when he writes, “Success is a education and research are subsidized, where there is an orderly market, where the private sector reaps enormous benefits from public investment. For someone to assert that he or she has grown wealthy in America without the benefit of substantial public investment is pure hubris.”

Drawing on cutting-edge research as well as their knowledge of philosophy and economics, Alperovitz and Daly prove that up to 90%—or even more—of private earnings are the result not of individual ingenuity, effort or investment, but of what they describe as the “unjust” appropriation of our collective inheritance. In other words, the cumulative or aggregate knowledge that we all inherit is key to individual achievement.

The authors demonstrate that if the market rewarded people according to their contributions it would make up only 10-20% of their income. The rich don’t work harder and are not morally justified in deservingness, or “deserts” as philosophers describe it than the rest of us. We get the commonly held viewpoint that we are entitled to own whatever wealth we create from philosopher John Locke. In his
agrarian society and that of our Founding Fathers, wealth was mostly based on physical labor. In our knowledge-based society, Locke’s argument doesn’t work, since all knowledge that we receive from previous generations is a social contribution.

The individual’s role in advancing art, science and technology again is mostly based on our common heritage, too. The authors make a historically-based case for the wave of cultural and scientific knowledge that pushes a few people to the next level, the “geniuses” who create what happens next.

Alperovitz and Daly rightly conclude that the individual isn’t really important in the case of each breakthrough. Instead, the development of knowledge is society’s forward-moving catalyst. And the reader understands that there has always been this debate about what society owns and what is rightly owned by the individual.
Alperovitz and Daly suggest reforms that could begin the process of income redistribution along the lines of social justice including: income taxation for the top 1-2% should be increased, raising the current cap on Social Security taxes, increasing corporate taxes—especially on windfall gains in connection with oil industry profits, and increasing inheritance taxes on large estates would be a
beginning. Proceeds from the new taxes could be used for the common good, such as instituting universal health care or propping up decaying infrastructures like bridges and tunnels. In addition, education and research could receive additional funds. There is a promising plan put forth by Yale law professors Bruce Ackerman and Anne Abbott that suggests and “capital stake” or allocation of $80,000 to every citizen upon reaching adulthood—to be used most likely for a college education.
The capital stake would be recouped at death through an inheritance tax.

Bound to be a flashpoint of discussion and contention, UNJUST DESERTS will be the talk of the political circles this fall and to come.

About the Authors

Gar Alperovitz is the Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland and a Founding Principal of the Democracy Collaborative. His previous books include The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and America Beyond Capitalism. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Lew Daly is senior fellow at Demos, the New York City progressive think tank, and the author of God and the Welfare State. He lives in New York City.

UNJUST DESERTS:
How the Rich Are Taking Our Common Inheritance and Why We Should Take It Back
By Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly
The New Press
Hardcover | $24.95 | 230 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59558-402-1

The New Effort To Steal Social Security

In Defense of the New Deal

Scott Lehigh demolishes the right-wing arguments against the New Deal in an column at Boston.Com:

The New Deal and right-wing revisionism
By Scott Lehigh
Boston Globe
February 18, 2009

ONE OF THE most diverting aspects of the debate over President Obama's stimulus plan has been the concerted conservative attack on the New Deal.

One might have thought that voters of that day had pretty much settled the question of whether the New Deal worked by enthusiastically reelecting FDR, and not once but three times. But since right-wing revisionism is really an arrow aimed at the current stimulus plan, the effort to discredit the New Deal is worth examining.

The argument that the New Deal failed is easy to make.

You start with unemployment figures that exclude those who labored in work-relief programs like the WPA or its various cousins. Yes, that's passing strange, given the many worthwhile tasks those public employees accomplished, but sophistry has its demands.

Next you present a misleading juxtaposition of that exclusionary unemployment data, noting that the 19 percent joblessness rate in 1938 wasn't all that much better than the 25 percent of 1933, FDR's first year in office.

Then you add the well-worn 1939 quote from Henry Morgenthau Jr., FDR's treasury secretary, that government spending hadn't produced a recovery, and, for professorial effect, perhaps even toss in George Santayana's observation about those who cannot learn from history.

Presto: You've got yourself a paint-by-numbers conservative polemic.

But what do unemployment figures from the era actually show? The best regarded data excluding public-works employees traces a steady decline in joblessness through the first five years of the New Deal, from 25 percent when FDR took office to 14.3 percent in 1937. Then, however, joblessness rose, hitting 19.1 percent in 1938 before dropping back to 14.6 percent in 1940 and 9.9 percent in 1941.

Include work-relief employees, and unemployment declined more steeply, falling to 9.2 percent in 1937. It then rose to 12.5 percent in 1938 before dropping back to 6 percent in 1941.

Given that pattern, comparing 1938 with 1932 to argue that the New Deal didn't work is akin to claiming that the economy scarcely recovered under Ronald Reagan because unemployment, which hit 9.7 percent in 1982, was at 7.5 percent in 1992 under George H.W. Bush. It ignores the larger drop in joblessness in between.

Still, the New Deal debate does raise an interesting question: Why did Roosevelt's recovery falter?

Unfortunately for conservatives, the evidence cuts against their conclusions. The rise in unemployment followed FDR's cutback in government spending in 1937. The resulting spike in unemployment prompted him to shift courses and expand spending again, whereupon unemployment again fell.

Gross Domestic Product tracks the same way, notes economist Dean Baker, who has matched the increase in federal spending during each Depression year with the following year's growth in GDP. A 23.7 percent increase in federal spending in 1933 was followed by a 10.8 percent increase in GDP in 1934, for example, while a 34.2 percent increase in 1934 was followed by an 8.9 percent GDP increase in 1935. But when FDR retrenched and spending fell by 10 percent in 1937, the next year's GDP shrank by 3.4 percent.

Interestingly, one scholarly criticism of the New Deal is that federal spending wasn't expansionary enough at a time when other levels of government were slashing budgets. "[I]f we take the seven years from 1933 on, in only two was the federal share significantly more than enough to offset state and local shrinkages," MIT economist E. Cary Brown wrote in his well-regarded study of the era.

There's virtually no disagreement that World War II gave the country the strong final tug out of the Depression. Yet that reality also argues for the efficacy of Keynesian remedies; economically, the war constituted a huge government stimulus, financed by massive deficit spending.

In sum, determined efforts at revisionism notwithstanding, the New Deal was hardly a failure. It's more accurate to say that it was a success, but a limited one - and that there are important lessons to be learned from its shortcomings.

But those lessons would be hard for conservatives to square with their beliefs.

And where ideology's amiss, 'tis jolly to revise.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/02/18/the_new_deal_and_right_wing_revisionism/

Employee Free Choice Act Rally

AFL-CIO: Buy American Will Create Jobs

Tula Connell defends Buy American in AFL-CIO's NOW Blog:

The Buy America provision in the economic recovery package Congress now is finalizing has some rich and powerful voices against it.

AT&T, Dow Chemical, Cisco Systems, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, the Computer and Communications Industry Association and the Consumer Electronics Association sent a letter last week to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) saying the provision “will harm American workers and companies across the entire U.S. economy, undermine U.S. global engagement, and result in mirror-image trade restrictions abroad that would put at risk huge amounts of American exports.”

Wrong. Such cries of protectionism are red herrings for the corporate search for the lowest-wage labor possible—at the expense of America’s workers and the U.S. economy.

United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard sums up Buy America this way:

This isn’t about a trade war. It’s about making sure we’re not putting our jobs out to bid for China.

Buy America would help ensure that our tax dollars funding the economic recovery package are spent on products that are made in America—to the maximum extent possible. When we buy products made in the United States, that creates jobs. And with 3.6 million jobs lost in this country since the recession started in December 2007, job creation is fundamental.

But if the big corporations can’t understand how that works, they can take a lesson from the president. The inauguration of President Obama was not just American-made, but union-made from start to finish. Here are just a few examples from the AFL-CIO Union Label & Service Trades Department about the inauguration:

Members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) employed by the all-union Hargrove Co., along with electricians, carpen­ters, Teamsters and assorted skilled building trades workers worked for weeks crafting parade floats, and designing and executing décor for 10 official inaugural balls, a prayer breakfast, dozens of formal dinners and 30 other “unofficial” inaugural events.

All official inauguration printed materials—programs, schedules, tickets—carried a union “bug,” indicating members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Teamsters Graphic Communications Conference or both produced them.

Except for the military bands, musi­cians performing on the official inaugural stand were members of the American Federation of Musicians. Performers entertaining at the various balls were union members as well, as were the sound and lighting engineers and backstage personnel.

Hundreds of thousands of spectators who opted for public transportation to the formal inauguration ceremony were served by members of the Amalgam­ated Transit Union who operate the city’s Metrorail and Metrobus systems.
So rather than yelling “trade wars,” Big Business should repeat the following: “Investing in America makes the nation stronger. Investing in America makes the nation stronger…”

It’s really not a hard concept.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/02/09/buy-america-will-create-us-jobs-we-need-lots-of-jobs/

Loudon Wainwright III - Times Is Hard

From NPR's All Things Considered

Songwriter and actor Loudon Wainwright III has composed numerous musical commentaries for NPR over the past two decades. He's sung about everything from the World Series to Christmas in besieged Sarajevo.

This time — like many people around the world — he's feeling hammered by all of the bad economic news. So he wrote "Times Is Hard." It's not intended to cheer us up. Read the lyrics below:

Times Is Hard

Times is hard. Times is tough.
Nothin's easy. It's all rough.
There's not much right; so much gone wrong.
All I can do is play this song.

You're watchin' the news. It all looks bad.
The worst half-hour you ever had.
What in God's name is goin' on?
All I can do is play this song.

You're losin' your job, your house and your car.
Hittin' rock bottom don't feel that far.
Nothin' good is gonna come along.
All I can do is play this song.

Folks are scared watchin' that news.
Folks feel bad. They're gettin' the blues.
My poor stomach, it ain't that strong.
All I can do is play this song.

Times is rough. Times is hard.
Take a pair of scissors to your credit card.
Circuit City just said, 'So long.'
All I can do is play this song.

Who's at fault? Who gets the blame?
Let's string up Bernie what's-his-name.
And ask Alan Greenspan to come along.
All I can do is play this song.

They want your gold, and they'll pay cash.
The only silver lining is the price of gas.
Money's short and the odds are long.
All I can do is play this song.

The factory's closed. The bank is bust.
On the money it says, 'In God We Trust.'
So pray for all your stocks and bonds.
All I can do is play this song.

Outta luck. Outta hope.
I'm wonderin' why I even cast that vote.
I took that sign offa my front lawn.
All I can do is play this song.

There's a new man down there in D.C.
They say he's gonna help you and me.
They sure know how to bang the gong.
All I can do is play this song.

Last man in D.C., he had eight years.
Now the whole damn country is in arrears.
We got two, three, four wars goin' on.
All I can do is play this song.

Times is hard. Times is rough.
I guess you folks need some cheerin' up.
Well it ain't me babe. You got that wrong.
All I can do is play this song.

You heard it here. I sang it first.
Don't feel so bad; things are gonna get worse.
Consider yourselves all strung along.
All I can do is play this song.

All I can do is ...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100261261

Listen at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=100261261&m=100256269

Democrats Discuss January Jobs Report

Washington, DC—Democratic Senators Robert Menendez and Bob Casey joined Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney at a press conference this morning to discuss the Labor Department’s release of its monthly jobs report and unemployment rate. This morning, the Labor Department reported that employers cut 598,000 jobs in January, the most since 1974, bringing the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent. Facing the most severe economic crisis in generations, Democrats are working quickly and responsibly to enact a bold plan that creates jobs and cuts taxes for the middle class.

“There is nothing more indicative of the economic condition of America’s families than how we are doing with respect to job creation and job losses,” Menendez said. “Today, the latest snapshot of our economic condition shows that more and more American families are falling on harder and harder times, plain and simple. We have to act on the economic recovery plan quickly because we are in a crisis, and we have a responsibility to the American people. It is our responsibility to enact a plan that is bold, fast-acting and effective enough that it gets people back to work, and does so in short order.”

Said Casey: "Today's report is the latest in a string of bad news for American workers. Years of bad policy during the Bush Administration has driven our economy off a cliff. We don't have time for endless debate and must act swiftly to enact a recovery package to create jobs and move our economy in the right direction."

“Today’s grim job loss numbers underscore the human toll of our economic crisis and add to the overwhelming evidence for getting a recovery package to the President’s desk fast,” Maloney said. “Even the bright spots are dim. The 3.6 million jobs erased since the recession started, including 598,000 last month, is why President Obama and Congressional Democrats are dedicated to acting in a bold and targeted way to revitalize the economy. We have a plan to create and save up to 4 million jobs while cutting taxes for middle class Americans. Democrats have tried to work with Republicans to find middle ground, but so far House Republicans seem intent on letting the economy slide off a cliff for political gain. Democrats must and will ensure that they don't take our country with them.”

American Worker Ad: It's Time to Protect American Jobs

Chamber of Commerce Leading Congress Astray

January 30, 2009
Economy in Crisis ww.economyincrisis.org
by Craig Harrington

The United States Chamber of Commerce is supposed to represent the best interests of American corporations and act as their legislative lobby. Unfortunately many of its efforts are counterproductive and effectively work to undermine the overall competitiveness and stability of U.S. companies. In the past week the Chamber of Commerce has petitioned Congress to drop “buy American” clauses from the newly approved Obama stimulus package – which is already wrought with wasteful spending. It has also increased its efforts to stimulate the development of new broader “free trade” agreements (FTAs) with nations around the world.

The reason the Chamber of Commerce is against so-called “buy American” clauses is due to its belief that such measures would increase the cost of projects while simultaneously creating a “trade war” with those nations who were left out of the bidding. The concept it fails to grasp is that there already is a trade war and the United States is being severely beaten.

The Chamber of Commerce's reasoning for even more FTAs is the misguided belief that the agreements actually result in surpluses for the United States. They highlight the fact that the U.S. is running surpluses with 9 of the 10 nations it entered into FTAs with since 2004. Unfortunately this statistic is misleading. The nations with whom we have established FTAs in the last four years are marginal developing economies; the nations which we run deficits with are massive and well developed economies. For example, the United States has a $10 billion surplus with Australia (one of the 9 successes) – and our largest surplus was $14.5 billion with the Netherlands in 2007. No export surplus exceeds $15 billion annually.

Meanwhile, the U.S. runs simultaneous import deficits with dozens of other countries and our 20th largest deficit (Thailand) roughly cancels out our largest surplus – our deficit to Thailand is $14.3 billion. We were in deficit $256 billion to China alone in 2007. If you add up our five largest surpluses you get roughly $58 billion gained. If you add up our five largest deficits you get roughly $522 billion lost. That is a net loss of $470 billion from just five countries. (Trade Stats Express)

The Chamber of Commerce also points out that nearly half of our trade is with countries that have FTAs with the United States. This statistic is meant to imply that we could make international exchange cheaper with the other half if we enter into FTAs with them. However, this overlooks the fact that our international trade is a net loss for the U.S. Why would we want to make a bad situation worse by giving nations even more reason to send their shoddy products here in exchange for our money?

The Chamber of Commerce has a strong voice in Washington and if history is any proof it will likely carry the day. “Free trade” will probably be the linchpin of American economic policy as long as the same old talking heads preside over the halls of Congress. The Chamber of Commerce is funded by business elites and these elites benefit from international economic liberalization. They have an agenda which serves them and they have the right to that self serving idealism. The United States government on the other hand should have only one agenda in mind – our best interests. It is being sold snake oil by the business interests of this country as well as those from overseas.

If we have no means of cutting off or drowning out this bad information we have to put people in office who know their way around the flashy sales pitches. They need to realize that the Chamber of Commerce represents just what its name implies – Commerce. Commerce has increased in the “free trade” era, but living standards have fallen and that is all that matters to the rest of us.

We Don't Ask - National Ad for the Employee Free Choice Act

Tim Shipe: A Child's Right to Thrive

Excellent column by Tim Shipe from Florida Today:

Pro-life advocates should back programs to aid children
Florida Today www.floridatoday.com
Tim Shipe, Guest Columnist
January 25, 2009

The issue of abortion was not the compelling concern for a majority of Americans in the last elections, but it is still a powerfully divisive legal and moral contest that pits pro-life versus pro-choice in a heated competition for hearts and minds.

It is tough to find common ground or fresh areas for public debate, but as a pro-life Democrat I am accustomed to thinking outside the pack.

Most pro-choice political leaders are quick to say that they are not pro-abortion, but are interested in abortion reduction without outlawing the procedures. Many pro-life leaders similarly claim they are also committed to reducing the numbers of abortion even as they seek a final legal solution of defining the right to life.

There are a couple of bills coming back for consideration in Congress that will test the truthfulness of these politicians’ claims.

The Pregnant Women Support Act is being promoted by Democrats for Life as a means of reducing abortions 95 percent over the next 10 years.

This bill would provide more adoption incentives, much needed funding for WIC programs that provide food for women, infants and children, and provide resources and support to help women continue their education if they keep their child or make an adoption plan for their child.

There is so much good in this bill I can only pray President Obama will seize upon it to demonstrate he isn’t going to be the most pro-abortion president in history, as is now claimed about him in pro-life circles.

The Feminists for Life organization has been spreading the word that “45 percent of women who have abortions are college age” and that “women with some college had the highest abortion rate of any educational group.”

They also tout statistics that 71 percent of 18-19 year olds and 58 percent of 20-24 year olds said they had abortions because having the child would interfere with their education or career. Feminists for Life have been promoting the “Elizabeth Cady Stanton Pregnant and Parenting Student Services Act” to address these sad realities.

I would like to introduce a fresh approach to the abortion wars. I like to say there is a right to thrive that encompasses the right to life and it addresses the fact that we have a societal obligation to all children.

When I hear fellow pro-lifers rage against social programs and government’s role in ensuring the common good, I cringe. When I hear fellow Democrats rage against traditionally religious folk who are trying to take responsibility to stop the killing of unborn human lives, I want to weep.

When I want to make the pro-life case to my students in the classroom, I don’t show shocking pictures of aborted fetuses. I show the National Geographic documentary “In the Womb.”

It is my belief the unborn will win their human rights when everyone opens their eyes to the fact that every human life passes through the same stages.

Pro-life must also be whole-life. For me economics, war, immigration, health care and education are all life issues, and children and pregnant mothers take priority over the rest of us.

Shipe is a teacher at Melbourne Central Catholic High School and serves on the board of advisors of Florida Democrats for Life.

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20090125/COLUMNISTS0205/90123037/1138/OPINION

NY Gov Paterson Announces Kirsten Gillibrand to Fill Senate Seat

NEW YORK, Jan. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a statement by Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU, UFCW):

The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) welcomes the choice of Kirsten Gillibrand as the new United States Senator from New York.

The labor movement worked hard to elect Ms. Gillibrand in both her previous races for Congress. Representative Gillibrand has a near perfect voting record on pro-worker legislation and is a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act.

As Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand will be a strong and vocal advocate for issues that are important to working families and the RWDSU looks forward to continuing our work with her.

SOURCE Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union http://rwdsu.info/

Barack Obama speech at the Lincoln Memorial

Digital Journal: Clean Energy Could Mean More Nuclear

From Digital Journal.Com
January 17, 2009
by Joan Firstenberg

Nuclear Energy - we haven't talked about it for 30 years in this country. But now it's the talk of the town as far as clean energy is concerned and it could be the perfect solution to President-Elect Obama's goal of reducing carbon emissions.

Nuclear power is back in vogue. A number of big U.S. companies are banking on President-elect Barack Obama's goal to reduce carbon emissions in this country by 80-percent by 2050 to propel the nation into a nuclear-power building boom. In fact, Barrons reports that nuclear plants produce the most amount of energy without emitting any greenhouse gases. And there are plans to build 26 new nuclear plants. No new plants have been built in the U.S. for 30 years.

Some scientists are approving of the idea. Tom Neff, a physicist and research affiliate at MIT's Center for International Studies says,
"Nuclear power is in a renaissance."

Nuclear energy has re-emerged as a good energy source as fears about its safety have eased. Exelon, the biggest nuclear-power generator in the U.S. and other operators have addressed the problem of nuclear-waste disposal with "dry-cask storage" -- high-tech sealed containers that they keep on their sites. Because of innovations like that, many of the safety concerns that arose after accidents at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 and Chernobyl in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union) in 1986 have eased.

Nuclear plants now have the stamp of approval from a founding member of Greenpeace. Patrick Moore, a scientist who began supporting nuclear energy a few years ago, says,

"It's safer to work in a nuclear plant than it is in real estate."

Moore points to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and says that a Columbia University study published in 2004, which followed 54,000 nuclear-plant workers for 15 years, found that they had fewer cancers, less disease and lived longer than the average person.

The only fly in the ointment of getting these plants going could be obtaining the financing necessary because of the recent credit crisis. But Sheila Slocum Hollis, a partner at the Washington law firm of Duane Morris, which specializes in energy law says,

"If you honestly believe that greenhouse gas is the seminal issue of the day, as world population and economic growth continue to expand, so will the need for electric capacity. Whether to power electric vehicles or for general manufacturing needs, ultimately people are looking toward nuclear as the big power source. I have seen a sea change in public acceptance of nuclear power. People have seen it for 35 years now, and it's working and it has a lot of jobs associated with it in many communities."

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/265396#tab=article&sc=0&local=

Jeff Madrick: The Case for Big Government

Make America Happen - Again

Senator Sherrod Brown: A Fighter for American Workers

Economy in Crisis pays a well-deserved tribute to Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. A leader in the fight for fair trade, Brown has worked tirelessly to protect American jobs.

Our Current Economic Environment is No Longer Sustainable
Published 01/15/09 Dustin Ensinger
www.economyincrisis.org

Editor's Note: American government officials are elected for one
purpose: To represent the best interest of their constituents. In
today's society more and more elected officials shun their duties
after taking office, and opt to pursue their own best interests to
the detriment of America as a whole. However, in the midst of a
politically corrupt sea of ill-willed politicians, a few individuals
remain fighting the good fight, these individuals are our "Free Trade
Foes."

If it were more than a mere symbolic accessory intended to signify
that "the struggle continues," the canary lapel pin worn by Sen.
Sherrod Brown might forewarn of the toxic air that is the modern day
American economy. Life is gradually sucked out by ill-conceived trade
policies like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World
Trade Organization, leaving a gigantic void in what was once the
backbone of America`s flourishing economy: its manufacturing base.

But, that emblematic gesture does indeed mean so much more.

You see, for centuries miners died by the thousands each and every
year because there were no safety laws or trade unions to demand
protections or lawmakers ordering more precautionary measures be
taken. It was just the hard-working men and a caged canary toiling
miles under the earth`s surface. The bird was no mascot, however, it
was the only tool the miners had to warn them of potentially
hazardous air conditions: if the bird croaked, it was time to get
out - and quickly. Today, the canary symbolizes the progress made by
working men and women over the intervening years - child labor laws,
mandatory safety regulations, 40 hour work weeks, collective
bargaining rights - and the ongoing struggle that continues today.

It is fitting then that the bird known for protecting the working men
of years past is now proudly worn by the one of the working men and
women's strongest advocates in Congress, the junior Senator from
Ohio, Sherrod Brown.

Throughout the course of his career Brown has been derided by critics
as "a demagogue on trade," a "protectionist" and as someone standing
in the way of progress in the perennially downtrodden economies of
Third World nations. Washington Post columnist David Broder once
described Brown as "a loud advocate of protectionist policies that
offers a false hope of solving all our trade and job problems."

The reality, however, is that Brown just gets It, writing in an April
Op-Ed piece "Eight times I have taken the oath of office to support
and defend the United States. My colleagues and I commit ourselves to
protecting our nation from all enemies, foreign and domestic. That
includes protecting our neighborhoods from unsafe products. And, yes,
that also means protecting our workers and businesses from unfair
competition."

Protecting American businesses and workers is how Brown made a name
for himself in the me-first world of American politics. An economic
populist with both a homespun, down-to-earth Midwestern style and an
Ivy League background, he rejects the conventional wisdom that "free
trade" is great for everyone involved and is not afraid to make
blunt, politically unpopular assessments of the consequences of
unfettered "free trade."

"This is what's at stake when we talk about trade policy: America`s
middle class and the American Dream" Brown wrote in a 2006 Washington
Post Op-Ed piece.

By rejecting the gospel of "free trade," Brown, in 2006, became the
first Democratic senator from the state of Ohio since John Glenn
retired in 1998. Brown's 2006 defeat of Republican incumbent Mike
DeWine was the pinnacle of a political career that began soon after
he graduated from Yale. State Democratic officials persuaded him to
run for a seat in the state legislature at the ripe old age of 21.
Showing the fight and determination that is readily evident in the
working men and women Brown has supported throughout his career, he
knocked on 20,000 doors in his district, helping him defeat a popular
incumbent Republican. By age 29, Brown was elected Secretary of
State. In 1992, he was elected to represent Ohio's 13th District in
the U.S. House of Representatives, where he would serve six terms.

It was here, during his time in Congress, that Brown built a
reputation as a fiery populist ready to fight tooth-and-nail for the
working-class families of his district. He fought on issues ranging
from minimum wage, to universal health care, to sick leave, but
especially on trade issues, which had become a political lightning-
rod in Rust Belt states like Ohio as good-paying jobs seemingly
disappeared faster than a field of snow in May. "Free trade" had
decimated the industrial base of Ohio and left its victims jobless
and demoralized, but Brown was there to fight the good fight.

His father a local physician and his mother a one-time civil rights
activist, Brown had been instilled with a sense of righteous justice,
and seeing none in America's trade policies he was determined to
deliver it.

In 1993, in a losing effort, Brown led the fight against NAFTA -
which since has cost Ohio manufacturing 200,000 jobs. Not to be
deterred, members of the Democratic leadership in the House would
appoint him liaison in trade policy fights because of his manifest
grasp and passion of the issue. In 2005, Brown was charged with
leading the opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement
Though CAFTA would pass, the fact that it was carried by just two
votes, 217-215, in contrast to the passage of NAFTA by 34 votes 12
years prior, heartened Brown. He decided to make a run for the U.S.
Senate, where he is now one of the upper chamber's leading advocates
of "fair trade," describing America's current trade policies as "a
global race to the bottom as corporations troll the world for the
cheapest labor, fewest health, safety and environmental regulations
and the governments most unfriendly to labor rights."

On nearly every major piece of trade legislation over the past 15
years, Brown has been there, fighting for the rights of American
workers against unfair trade policies. In addition to his opposition
to NAFTA and CAFTA, Brown has actively and vigorously opposed trade
bills with the Andean nations, Singapore, Chile and Oman among
others. He has twice voted for the immediate withdrawal of the U.S.
from the World Trade Organization. He opposed giving the president of
his own party fast-track authority, which would have effectively cut
Congress out of any negotiations on further trade deals. He has been
a proponent of country-of-origin labeling on imported food products.
He has railed against corporations' corrupting influence on
government. Until recently, after urging from his wife, Brown refused
to accept the Congressional health insurance. He paid for it out of
his own pocket because many hard working men and women are unable to
afford health insurance. And Brown is the author of Myths of Free
Trade: Why American Trade Policy Has Failed.

America needs more lawmakers like Sen. Sherrod Brown, fighting for
the working men and women of America. Without them, the canary-in-the-
cage may keel over and die, warning us that our current economic
environment is no longer sustainable.

To learn more, or to encourage Senator Brown to keep fighting the
Good Fight, click here.

To contribute to Senator Brown's campaign war-chest to ensure that he
remains one of the leading voices of the fair trade movement in
Congress, click here
http://sherrodbrown.com/pages/about

http://www.economyincrisis.org/articles/show/2333

Thom Hartmann - Conservative Economics Is Toxic

Obama Economic Plan: Create Made in America Jobs

From AFL-CIO Now Blog
by Tula Connell, Jan 10, 2009

President-elect Barack Obama today laid out some of the details of his economic recovery plan. While the current President focuses on giving the Medal of Freedom to the leader of a country that has the highest number of trade union murders in the world and on spending nearly $600,000 on new china for the White House days before leaving office, Obama is moving to clean up the Bush economic mess. Giving the Democratic radio address this morning, Obama said:

Our first job is to put people back to work and get our economy working again. This is an extraordinary challenge.

Obama said his plan was in part crafted by economist Jared Bernstein, an ally of the labor movement at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and now economic advisor to Vice President-elect Joe Biden.

We’ll create nearly half a million jobs by investing in clean energy–by committing to double the production of alternative energy in the next three years, and by modernizing more than 75 percent of federal buildings and improving the energy efficiency of two million American homes. These made-in-America jobs building solar panels and wind turbines, developing fuel-efficient cars and new energy technologies pay well, and they can’t be outsourced.

“Made-in-America jobs.” What sweet words after eight years of an administration bent on giving endless corporate incentives to move U.S. jobs overseas. Here’s more from Obama’s radio address:

Put nearly 400,000 people to work by repairing our infrastructure–our crumbling roads, bridges and schools.
Build the new infrastructure we need to succeed in this century, investing in science and technology, and laying down miles of new broadband lines so that businesses across our nation can compete with their counterparts around the world.
Work to achieve bipartisan extensions of unemployment insurance and health care coverage; a $1,000 tax cut for 95 percent of working families; and assistance to help states avoid harmful budget cuts in essential services like police, fire, education and health care.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/01/10/obama-economic-plan-create-made-in-america-jobs/