13Feb

Howard Dean to Lead DNC

Filed in USA politics

Democratic National Committee

Howard Dean takes the helm of the DNC amid much speculation. Here is his message along with a few other opions.

“A message from Chairman Dean

Today your representatives elected new Party leadership. But more importantly they endorsed the idea that our Party must always be led by the people — because your participation makes the Democratic Party a powerful force for change.

Our success depends on every single one of us taking responsibility for our Party’s future. We have to commit to an active role in the political process. And we have to grow the Democratic Party in every single state so we can protect the values that bring our Party — and the vast majority of Americans — together.

We have new leadership and new energy. And thanks to your hard work and Terry McAuliffe’s solid leadership we have enormous opportunities.

Please read my plan for our Party — and send me a note about yours. Together our work will make our Party stronger. Thank you. Chairman Howard Dean”

Economist.com | Lexington

“How on earth did it happen?

BACK in 2003, with Howard Dean way ahead of the pack in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, the cover of the conservative National Review pleaded “Please, nominate this man”. The Democratic caucus-goers of Iowa were sensible enough to ignore this advice, consigning Mr Dean to third place. Earlier this month, with Mr Dean once again way ahead of the pack, this time in the race for the chairmanship of the Democratic Party, the National Review tried again: “Pretty please”. Yet on Saturday the Democratic National Committee is almost certain to elect Screamin’ Howard as its new chairman.

This is an extraordinary turn of events, particularly for Bill Clinton and pragmatic New Democrats. Five years ago the Democratic Party was so firmly in the grip of those oh-so-sensible types that Jesse Jackson, the chief screamer of the time, pronounced himself a “New Democrat”. The Dean chairmanship shows how little Mr Clinton actually managed to change his party. The fact that Mr Dean is replacing Mr Clinton’s lapdog, Terry McAuliffe, makes this even clearer.

Dean named Democratic Party chief
Former presidential candidate rips Bush’s plans for America

“WASHINGTON (CNN) — Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean took the helm of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday, vowing, ‘Today will be the beginning of the re-emergence of the Democratic Party.’

Dean, 56, won the chairmanship on a voice vote of the 447-member committee after six other candidates dropped out in recent weeks.

He immediately laid out his vision for rebuilding a party clobbered in recent elections, leaving it out of power in the White House, both chambers of Congress, and a majority of governorships.

‘Republicans wandered around in the political wilderness for 40 years before they took back Congress.

‘But the reason that we lost control is because we forgot why we were entrusted with that control in the first place,’ Dean said in his acceptance speech.

‘The American people cannot afford to wait for 40 more years for us to put Washington back to work for them.’

‘It won’t take us that long — not if we stand up for what we believe in, organize at the local level, and recognize that strength does not come from the consultants down. It comes from the grass roots up.’”

13Feb

North Korea Concerns Increase

Filed in International Politics

Yahoo! News – North Korea Boasts It Has Nuclear Weapons

As North Korea announces its possession of nuclear weapons, various experts discuss the evidence.

Economist.com | Dealing with North Korea

“Tests by America’s Department of Energy have convinced American officials that North Korea may well have supplied the uranium hexafluoride gas—partly-processed uranium which can be spun in centrifuge machines to make enriched uranium for either civilian or military uses—that Libya turned over to inspectors a year ago when it abandoned its once secret nuclear-weapons programme. The evidence is not irrefutable, but the conclusion is also based on traces of plutonium found on the canisters concerned, as well as a third piece of evidence not so far made public. Earlier this month, America put its case to China, South Korea and Japan—possibly the real reason for Mr Kim’s latest tantrum. If the analysis is correct, it puts North Korea just one step away from one of the Bush administration’s red lines: the export of weapons-useable material itself.

Until recently, Chinese officials in particular had expressed scepticism that North Korea even had a uranium-enrichment programme. They and others have wanted America to focus on North Korea’s known plutonium-making. America accepts that North Korea has probably finished extracting the plutonium (enough for half a dozen bombs) from spent fuel-rods previously stored under the 1994 deal near its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon; it will soon be able to unload more rods from the reactor for reprocessing.

But the idea that America should set aside its uranium concerns is given a bipartisan rebuttal in the current issue of Foreign Affairs by Robert Gallucci, who negotiated the 1994 plutonium deal with North Korea under the Clinton administration, and Mitchell Reiss, the just departed head of policy planning in the Bush administration’s State Department. Turning a blind eye to evidence of North Korea’s enrichment work would, they argue, leave Mr Kim with a covert supply of fissile material, whether for bomb making or for export, including to terrorist groups.”

09Feb

Right to Speak and a Right to Disagree

Filed in Colorado

Ward Churchill’s Banality of Evil
The right to free speech doesn’t mean you’re right
by Anthony Lappé

“The storm around Churchill’s statements has many on the far left coming to his defense. As a Native American activist, he has a long record of fighting injustice (see my interview with his frequent co-author Jim Vander Wall here), and I too support his right to free speech. Ruffling feathers is what good professors do. It’s a shame that the controversy has cost him his chairmanship of the Ethnic Studies Department at Colorado (he resigned this week). Now his troubles have reached all the way to New York, where an appearance at Hamilton College was cancelled due to what administrators said were security concerns over a flood of death threats.

But there’s a big difference between the right to speak your mind, and being right. And I think he’s dead wrong.

Maybe it’s because I was blocks away when the towers fell. Maybe it’s because I’m more of a wussy pacifist than my more radical brothers. But I cannot find it in me to find what he wrote anything other than completely reprehensible.

Consider the professor’s twisted logic. First one has to ignore the fact that the main crime he accuses the U.S. of – the embargo of Iraq under Saddam which resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths – was an act of the U.S. government and was likely unpopular, as most limits on commerce are, with the financial community. Let’s grant him that the bankers are complicit in America’s global corporate domination. We can all agree on that. But where do you draw the line when it comes to doling out the professor’s brand of tough justice? What about the secretaries who serve coffee to the little Eichmanns? They keep the evil system caffeinated, should they die? What if you own stock? Does earning dividends on GE mean your apartment building should be leveled with you in it? What if you keep your money at Chase or Citibank? Buy stuff at Wal-Mart? Pay federal taxes? Or better yet, what if you work for the government? Churchill himself works for a state university. He takes a paycheck from an institution that in all likelihood does military research and is probably ten times more complicit in the actual machinery of war than any junior currency trader.”

You can find the essay in this article, Ward Churchill’s Essay and Statement: Updated…Feb 9 on Bob Hoffman’s “Political Gateway” site.

09Feb

Optimism in the Middle East

Filed in International Politics

Economist.com | The Middle East peace summit:

Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas have declared an end to all hostilities after their first summit, in Sharm el-Sheikh. So, after four years of bloodshed, can the uprising be over? There is cause for optimism, though we have been here before.

“THE calm which will prevail in our lands starting from today is the beginning of a new era,” declared Mahmoud Abbas after his first summit as Palestinian leader with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. “For the first time in a long time there exists in our region hope for a better future for us and our grandchildren,” concurred Mr Sharon. Beautiful words but, as Mr Sharon pointed out, given the failure of previous Middle East summits’ grand declarations to put an end to the bloodshed, only “deeds, not words” will achieve two states living side-by-side in peace.

08Feb

Truth in Political Advertising – or not!

Filed in USA politics

FactCheck.org Social Security Ads: Risk or Protection?

In this the first round of what will surely be a contentious issue for the congress, FactCheck.org weighs in on the accuracy of current ads.

“A pro-Bush TV ad gets the central fact right about Social Security: by the time today’s young workers retire there are projected to be only two workers paying Social Security taxes for every one person receiving Social Security Benefits. Today there are 3.3 workers per beneficiary.

But a different ad opposed to Bush’s efforts uses a misleading photograph. It shows wild trading in commodities like cocoa futures to depict the risk that workers could face with private Social Security accounts. Actually, what’s being proposed is not investment commodities, but in far less risky stock and bond mutual funds, which would be broadly diversified.”

08Feb

Don’t blame trade for US job losses

Filed in Economy

The McKinsey Quarterly

The US recession officially ended in late 2001, and ever since, despite recent gains, aggregate job creation has been extremely weak—weaker even than during the “jobless recovery” that followed the 1990–91 recession (Exhibit 1). Contributing most to the overall number of US jobs lost since 2000 has been the manufacturing sector, which shed 2.85 million of them from 2000 to 2003, notwithstanding the relatively mild nature of the recent downturn in the economy as a whole.

05Feb

Social Security: Some Facts

Filed in Economy | USA politics

NCPA – Social Security – Facts About Social Security

Social Security reform has emerged as one of the defining issues of the 2000 election, but a number of myths and half-truths have clouded the dialogue.

Fact #1: The System Is in Trouble. Social Security is structured as a pay-as-you-go system. That means today’s workers pay the benefits for today’s retirees. In 1940, there were 42 workers per retiree; today there are three. By 2040 there will be only two (see figure). This means higher taxes for future workers.

Fact #2: The Social Security Trust Fund Cannot Pay Benefits. The trust fund only exists to perform a record-keeping function. Technically, it holds interest-bearing bonds that represent the accounting surplus of payroll taxes collected minus benefits paid. But the only way the Treasury can redeem them is if it first collects taxes or borrows money.

Fact #3: Benefits Are Not Guaranteed. In two major cases, Helvering v. Davis (1937) and Flemming v. Nestor (1960), the Supreme Court ruled that individuals have no legal claim to Social Security. As a result, Congress can reduce Social Security benefits at any time. Indeed, it already has by raising the retirement age (leading to fewer benefit checks) and imposing a special tax on benefits. Workers have no projected right in Social Security benefits simply because they have paid Social Security taxes.

Fact #4: Social Security Is a Poor Investment. In general, workers born before World War II paid significantly less in taxes than they will receive in benefits – and can expect a higher rate of return than subsequent generations. By contrast, baby boomers can expect a rate of return of less than 2 percent, and Generation Xers can expect less than 1 percent. Children born today can expect a rate of return from Social Security of almost zero, assuming that the program can pay full promised benefits.

Fact #5: Reform Works. A system that divorces us from the pay-as-you-go system, such as one with personal retirement accounts, could provide future retirees with a benefit that could provide them choice, control and security in their retirement, while protecting the government’s long-term solvency.

Source: Matt Moore, “Facts about Social Security,” Brief Analysis 341, September 26, 2000, National Center for Policy Analysis.

04Feb

Social Security and Your Finances according to AARP

Filed in Economy | USA politics

The Role of Social Security in Your Financial Planning

“Fact 1: Social Security is the guaranteed part of your retirement plan.

There have been lots of questions raised about Social Security lately. And granted, it isn’t perfect. We at AARP know that it was never intended to be the sole solution to financial security in retirement. But it has been the guaranteed component of retirement. And that hasn’t changed.

The fact is, with no change at all, Social Security will be able to pay 100% of promised benefits that keep pace with the cost of living until the year 2042. After that, it will still be able to pay three-quarters of promised benefits.

Getting three-quarters wouldn’t be okay today and it won’t be fair tomorrow. At AARP, we want to be sure you reach your retirement goals. And we know that Social Security plays an important role in getting you there. Think about the role of Social Security in your own retirement planning. Then let’s start thinking about ways to fill that one quarter gap to make sure your financial security goals are within reach when you retire.

Fact 2: With Social Security in your retirement plan, you’re starting at about midfield.

Financial planning for retirement is like a football game. And you’re the one who has to go the distance and carry the ball. Only you’re not starting at zero. Thanks to the years you’ve worked, when you retire, you’re starting with about half the field already behind you.

That’s because Social Security isn’t based on your future prospects, but on your past performance. No matter who you are, Social Security is there for you because it’s based on your work history—and that just won’t change. Social Security promises that when you stop working, you’ll still have a guaranteed stream of income that, for most people, is about 40 percent of the pay you received when you were working.

One nice thing to know is that Social Security follows you wherever you go. It’s not tied to a specific job, again making it something you can count on when you retire.

Plus, it’s protected against inflation. Year after year, Social Security rises with the rising cost of living. And when you choose to retire, Social Security will continue to keep pace with the times, preventing erosion of your purchasing power. That’s why there’s a cost of living increase every year—so 20 years from now, you aren’t stuck trying to make up for the fact that what used to cover a mortgage doesn’t even cover a car payment.

You may outlive your savings, but your Social Security is always there. It gives you a safe, unshakable financial base to complement a private pension, an IRA, a 401(k), or other savings, all of which, together, put you solidly in the scoring position when you retire.

Fact 3: Social Security is on the sidelines, backing you up, while you’re working.

If you’re still working, you probably don’t realize Social Security is protecting you right now. Thanks to Social Security, you have disability and survivor insurance for you and your family. No one likes to think about the unexpected realities life can bring, but we all know bad things can happen to good people. In the event of a worker’s death or disability, Social Security is there to step in and provide for that worker and his or her family.

With Social Security, you’re that much closer to your goals and that much more secure. Today. And every day.”

04Feb

A Plan for Reforming Social Security

Filed in Economy | USA politics

The 6.2 Percent Solution: A Plan for Reforming Social Security:

“For the past several years there has been a growing consensus about the need to reform Social Security. Now, however, the debate has advanced to the point where it becomes important to move beyond generalities and provide specific proposals for transforming Social Security to a system of individual accounts. The Cato Project on Social Security Choice, therefore, has developed a proposal to give workers ownership of and control over their retirement funds.

Under this proposal:

* Individuals would be allowed to divert their half (6.2 percentage points) of the payroll tax to individually owned, privately invested accounts. Those who chose to do so would agree to forgo all future accrual of retirement benefits under the traditional Social Security system.
* The remaining 6.2 percentage points of payroll taxes would be used to pay transition costs and to fund disability and survivors’ benefits.
* Workers who chose the individual account option would receive a ‘recognition bond’ based on the accrued value of their lifetimeto- date benefits. Those bonds, redeemable at the worker’s retirement, would be fully tradable in secondary markets.
* Those who wished to remain in the traditional Social Security system would be free to do so, accepting a level of benefits payable with the current level of revenue.”

The full text of the argument Tanner makes for this proposal can be found in
SSP No. 32.

03Feb

Managing next-generation IT infrastructure

Filed in Technology

The McKinsey Quarterly

In recent years, companies have worked hard to reduce the cost of the IT infrastructure—the data centers, networks, databases, and software tools that support businesses. These efforts to consolidate, standardize, and streamline assets, technologies, and processes have delivered major savings. Yet even the most effective cost-cutting program eventually hits a wall: the complexity of the infrastructure itself.

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02Feb

Facts Don’t Line up for Bush or MoveOn

Filed in Economy | USA politics

FactCheck.org Bush’s State of the Union: Social Security “Bankruptcy?”:

FactCheck.org MoveOn.org Social Security Ad

The folks at FactCheck.org are equally critical of Bush’s use of agressive projections and language as he pushed his plan to revamp Social Security in his State of the Union address and MoveOn.org’s use of false claims regarding cuts in benefit payments.

“In his State of the Union Address, President Bush said again that the Social Security system is headed for ‘bankruptcy,’ a term that could give the wrong idea. Actually, even if it goes ‘bankrupt’ a few decades from now, the system would still be able to pay about three-quarters of the benefits now promised.

Bush also made his proposed private Social Security accounts sound like a sure thing, which they are not. He said they ‘will’ grow fast enough to provide a better return than the present system. History suggests that will be so, but nobody can predict what stock and bond markets will do in the future.”

Moveon.org
“MoveOn.org launched a false TV ad in the districts of several House members, claiming through images and words that President Bush plans to cut Social Security benefits nearly in half. Showing white-haired workers lifting boxes, mopping floors, shoveling and laundering, the ad says ‘it won’t be long before America introduces the working retirement.’”

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