the Sugar Conspiracy 

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Friday, February 11, 2005 Get lucky! John Marshall brings up another point about the President's plan to destroy Social Security: "While the real rate of return of the stock market has averaged 6.6 percent over the past 100 years," the study notes, "its average rate of return over 35-year periods has fluctuated between 3 percent and 10 percent." That of course does not take into account that you specifically have to cash out at a specific time, i.e., when you retire, and that could come in a trough. (I say you're forced to do so because under the president's plan you have to use your account to purchase an annuity when you retire.) What all of this boils down to, of course, is that whatever the average rates of return over time, some folks will do a lot better than others. Some will end up doing poorly enough that they simply won't have enough to support themselves in retirement. And there will be immense -- probably irresistible -- political pressure to at least bring those folks up to the survival level, if not up to a generous benefit. Needless to say, the government isn't going to be able to take the high earnings of the lucky folks to make up for the shortfall of the unlucky folks. So where does the money come from? It's another cost of the whole plan -- though not one it's proponents will make any mention of. Those costs are treated in this study. And the author of the study says they'll amount to another "$600 billion and $900 billion in present value terms to the costs of privatization over the next 75 years." posted by chris at 1:27 PM   Strings attached Jeanne at Body and Soul notes that despite the Bush Administration's pledge to increase the United States' tsunami relief pledge to $950 million, it's still all about US. The U.S. government places conditions on its foreign aid that require most relief and development assistance materials and services to be purchased from U.S. companies and agencies. The last time the the government revealed any data on this issue—back in 1996—72 cents out of every U.S. foreign aid dollar was spent on U.S. goods and services. This arrangement might strike most U.S. taxpayers as a fair and just arrangement. Why shouldn’t the nation’s economy and its companies get something out of money the government spends on foreign aid? For starters, this arrangement makes aid less productive. Requiring that foreign aid benefit U.S. companies often means that precious resources are used buying more expensive goods or services; while valuable time is wasted transporting these goods to the region. This hurts poor countries, including those devasted by this disaster of monumental proportions. Countries that receive aid also have less control and decision-making on how to spend aid money. For example, countries like Malaysia or Sri Lanka, where the staple diet is rice may get shiploads of sorghum, or wheat, because these items are available from U.S. company stockpiles. What’s worse, goods like sugar or roofing sheets that may have been secured in the region, injecting much-needed vigor into the regional economy, are ignored as U.S. materials are imported at top dollar. posted by chris at 1:11 PM   Facts all come with points of view Facts don't do what I want them to* More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they have been directed to alter official findings to lessen protections for plants and animals, a survey released Wednesday says. -clip- More than half of the biologists and other researchers who responded to the survey said they knew of cases in which commercial interests, including timber, grazing, development and energy companies, had applied political pressure to reverse scientific conclusions deemed harmful to their business. Business and religion trumps science in this Administration every time. *Lyrics from "Crosseyed and Painless" by the Talking Heads. posted by chris at 11:24 AM   ------------------ Thursday, February 10, 2005 If you can't beat 'em, close 'em Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says it will close one of its Canadian stores, just as some 200 workers at the location are near winning the first-ever union contract from the world's largest retailer. Wal-Mart said it was shuttering the store in Jonquiere, Quebec, in response to unreasonable demands from union negotiators that would make it impossible for the store to sustain itself. Of course, this isn't the first time... The closest a U.S. union has ever come to winning a battle with Bentonville, Ark.-based company occurred in 2000 at a store in Jacksonville, Texas, where 11 workers in the store's meatpacking department voted to join and be represented by the UFCW. That effort failed when Wal-Mart eliminated the job of meatcutter companywide, and shifted from in-store meatcutting to stocking only pre-wrapped meat. Story. posted by chris at 10:18 PM   Americans don't believe the Bushitt From a Washington Post survey: Seven in 10 Americans agree with President Bush that Social Security eventually will go bankrupt if Congress fails to act, though most predict that the system will not do so for at least two decades. Yet while Bush has warned of a crisis in Social Security, barely one in four Americans believes that a crisis exists. More broadly, the polls raise serious doubts about whether Americans are willing to make the choices necessary to fix the system's financial problems. Solid majorities reject both increases in payroll taxes and decreases in retirement benefits, except for the wealthy What't that old story about the Boy Who Cried Wolf? posted by chris at 10:13 PM   Condi's bad memory, part II Eight months before the September 11 attacks the White House's then counterterrorism adviser urged then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to hold a high-level meeting on the al-Qaeda network, according to a memo made public today. "We urgently need such a principals-level review on the al-Qaeda network," then White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke wrote in the January 25, 2001 memo. -clip- However, Ms Rice wrote in a March 22, 2004 column in The Washington Post that "No al-Qaeda threat was turned over to the new administration". It's so hard to keep all this stuff straight, isn't it, Dr. Rice? Oh, and congratulations on your promotion. You deserve it. More. posted by chris at 10:06 PM   Early warnings Condoleeza Rice, referring to an August 6, 2001 intelligence briefing: [I]t did not raise the possibility that terrorists might use airplanes as missiles. The 9/11 Commission, in a previously undisclosed report: In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission. But aviation officials were "lulled into a false sense of security," and "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures," the commission report concluded. The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable." -clip- The F.A.A. "had indeed considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon," and in 2001 it distributed a CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports that cited the possibility of a suicide hijacking, the report said. Previous commission documents have quoted the CD's reassurance that "fortunately, we have no indication that any group is currently thinking in that direction." Aviation officials amassed so much information about the growing threat posed by terrorists that they conducted classified briefings in mid-2001 for security officials at 19 of the nation's busiest airports to warn of the threat posed in particular by Mr. bin Laden, the report said. (emphasis added) Good thing Ashcroft stopped flying in 2001. posted by chris at 9:26 PM   What to do? What to do? In a surprising admission, North Korea's hard-line Communist government declared publicly today for the first time that it has nuclear weapons. It also said that it will boycott United States-sponsored regional talks designed to end its nuclear program, according to a North Korean Foreign Ministry statement transmitted today by the nation's wire service. More. posted by chris at 9:21 PM   ------------------ Wednesday, February 09, 2005 There will be no trees at the Rapture In an interesting essay, Bill Moyers shows how those waiting for the Apocolypse don't have much need for environmentalism: A 2002 Time-CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations, or in the motel turn on some of the 250 Christian TV stations, and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?" (via Bob Harris.) posted by chris at 3:59 PM   And ideology simply becomes policy... During President Bush's first term, outsiders often suspected that Karl Rove was really behind virtually everything. Now it's official. Rove, the political mastermind behind two presidential elections, yesterday was named White House deputy chief of staff in charge of coordinating domestic policy, economic policy, national security and homeland security. Let the decimation of our society begin. posted by chris at 3:55 PM   ------------------ Monday, February 07, 2005 In his own words Bush explains his Grand Plan: Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red. Okay, better? I'll keep working on it. Yeah, thanks. It's crystal clear now. (via Atrios.) posted by chris at 5:23 PM   Game over? Dick Cheney on "fixing" Social Security: "We're going to borrow $758 [b]illion over the next 10 years to set up the personal retirement accounts. We think that's a manageable amount ... Trillions more after that," Cheney said, acknowledging that the personal accounts will help younger workers but will not solve all the problems of solvency. John Marshall takes Cheney's quote and runs with it: As we've noted repeatedly here, the biggest threat to Social Security is our accumulated national debt -- actually, even more our accumulating national debt. If we only had the debt load we have now and weren't adding hundreds of billions of dollars every year because of the president's policies, we could probably grow our way out of it. In any case, indebtedness is our problem. And Cheney's solution is to borrow many trillions more dollars over the next two or three decades, in addition to our existing structural budget deficits which are likely themselves unsustainable. And he and the White House now admit this will do nothing to improve the financial condition of Social Security. Following any reasonable calculation the entire debate should end right there -- though I concede that rational calculation ain't what it used to be. Look what we hear from the administration's own collective mouth. Their solution to the problem does nothing to solve the problem -- not me saying it, them saying it. However, it does cost trillions of dollars. In fact, it will cost -- by their own estimation -- much more over the next 20 years than it would to keep Social Security going strong for the next 75 years. At what point does this proposed policy collapse under the weight of its own ridiculousness? posted by chris at 4:17 PM   This must be that "new math" I've heard people talk about From the Center for American Progress: President Bush is relying on some highly manipulative math tricks to meet his far-reaching goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009. To begin with, though he has vowed to cut the 2004 deficit in half, he is not starting with the actual 2004 deficit but rather "the projected $521-billion deficit" from the OMB's year-old estimate. By using the estimated figure, President Bush conveniently is dealing with a deficit that is $54.5 billion less. Another example is that the proposed deficit halving is "not in dollars but as a share of the economy," which makes the incredible shrinking deficit decline when the economy grows, as it is expected to, "even if it does not shrink by a single dollar." On top of all this, the budget does not include the $80 billion supplement for Iraq and Afghanistan nor the $754 billion costs of the proposed Social Security private investment accounts. As Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution puts things, "It doesn't quite compute." CAP has much, much more. posted by chris at 1:32 PM   Starve the beast "In every program, and in every agency, we are measuring success not by good intentions, or by dollars spent, but rather by results achieved," Mr. Bush said in his budget message. The president has already vowed to cut or eliminate entirely about 150 non-military programs that he says have fallen far short. The most incredible thing about this deficit that the Administration is now "focused on reducing" is that Bush created it with his war on Iraq, tax cuts for the rich and other irresponsible fiscal policies. And now, they're saying that everyone must suffer to help bring down the deficit. Like who? Well, how about veterans, the poor, and police and firefighters? You know, that people that can afford drastic cuts in their benefits and livlihoods. posted by chris at 1:24 PM   ------------------

    

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