Tuesday Morning

Everything you wanted to know about bad retail companies but were afraid to ask!

Google

Saturday, December 24, 2005

What's wrong with the economy?

December 21, 2005 | EPI Policy Memorandum

What's wrong with the economy?

by EPI President Lawrence Mishel and Policy Director Ross Eisenbrey

1. Profits are up, but the wages and the incomes of average Americans are down.

Inflation-adjusted hourly and weekly wages are still below where they were at the start of the recovery in November 2001. Yet, productivity—the growth of the economic pie—is up by 13.5%.


Wage growth has been shortchanged because 35% of the growth of total income in the corporate sector has been distributed as corporate profits, far more than the 22% in previous periods.


Consequently, median household income (inflation-adjusted) has fallen five years in a row and was 4% lower in 2004 than in 1999, falling from $46,129 to $44,389.
2. More and more people are deeper and deeper in debt.

The indebtedness of U.S. households, after adjusting for inflation, has risen 35.7% over the last four years.


The level of debt as a percent of after-tax income is the highest ever measured in our history. Mortgage and consumer debt is now 115% of after-tax income, twice the level of 30 years ago.


The debt-service ratio (the percent of after-tax income that goes to pay off debts) is at an all-time high of 13.6%.


The personal savings rate is negative for the first time since WWII.
3. Job creation has not kept up with population growth, and the employment rate has fallen sharply.

The United States has only 1.3% more jobs today (excluding the effects of Hurricane Katrina) than in March 2001 (the start of the recession). Private sector jobs are up only 0.8%. At this stage of previous business cycles, jobs had grown by an average of 8.8% and never less than 6.0%.


The unemployment rate is relatively low at 5%, but still higher than the 4% in 2000. Plus, the percent of the population that has a job has never recovered since the recession and is still 1.3% lower than in March 2001. If the employment rate had returned to pre-recession levels, 3 million more people would be employed.


More than 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since January 2000.
4. Poverty is on the rise.

The poverty rate rose from 11.3% in 2000 to 12.7% in 2004.


The number of people living in poverty has increased by 5.4 million since 2000.


More children are living in poverty: the child poverty rate increased from 16.2% in 2000 to 17.8% in 2004.
5. Rising health care costs are eroding families' already declining income.

Households are spending more on health care. Family health costs rose 43-45% for married couples with children, single mothers, and young singles from 2000 to 2003.


Employers are cutting back on health insurance. Last year, the percent of people with employer-provided health insurance fell for the fourth year in a row. Nearly 3.7 million fewer people had employer-provided insurance in 2004 than in 2000. Taking population growth into account, 11 million more people would have had employer-provided health insurance in 2004 if the coverage rate had remained at the 2000 level.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Bush - Constitution 'Just A Goddamned Piece Of Paper'

Bush - Constitution
'Just A Goddamned
Piece Of Paper'

By Doug Thompson
Capitol Hill Blue
12-9-5

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.

Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

"I don't give a goddamn," Bush retorted. "I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."

"Mr. President," one aide in the meeting said. "There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

I've talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution "a goddamned piece of paper."

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that "goddamned piece of paper" used to guarantee.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the "Constitution is an outdated document."

Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn't matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine ­ in the end ­ if something is legal or right.

Every federal official ­ including the President ­ who takes an oath of office swears to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a "living document."

""Oh, how I hate the phrase we have-a 'living document,'" Scalia says. "We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake."

As a judge, Scalia says, "I don't have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than anything else."

President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a "union between a man and woman." Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.

Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.

"We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones," Scalia warns. "Don't think that it's a one-way street."

And don't buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.

But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just "a goddamned piece of paper."
© Copyright 2005 by Capitol Hill Blue

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

No Thank You, Members Of Congress

No Thank You,
Members Of Congress
By Frosty Wooldridge
12-9-5

Ever been offered something you didn't like? Did you say, "No thank you."

You might like to stand in that person's face to say it. What if you were face to face with every senator and House member in the United States Congress? What if you didn't like a number of things they had done to you and your family in the past five years? Would you like to tell them to their faces? What would you say?

Here is what I'd say if I could speak face to face with my Colorado Senator Allard or Salazar and Representative Mark Udall. You can fill in the names of your senators and representative:

No thank you, for so many unanswered questions and so little practical action after 9/11. I would have closed the borders with Mexico the next day with troops and airplane surveillance. I would have tightened up the borders with Canada. We've got 37,000 troops guarding South Korea's border. That begs an answer as to why our troops aren't guarding our borders. It begs a further answer as to why you allow this president to pretend that we're safer today than before 9/11. The fact is-we are in greater danger. A December 5, 2005 NBC Brian Williams report from the 9/11 Commission said "The U.S. is in imminent danger of another attack."

You, Senator Allard and Salazar, chase your coattails by pretending to protect us at airports while you allow, at our borders, an invasion unprecedented in American history. Over 20 million illegal aliens operating in our country-against Federal Laws. More sobering is the fact that an untold number of them are Muslim terrorists operating in our country because of sanctuary laws, non-enforcement of immigration laws and outright fraud at the Federal level. Who in America will be the next 'Madrid train bombing' victims or 'London subway' bombing because the majority of you, save Congressman Tom Tancredo, refuse to close our borders with Mexico?

No thank you senators and congressmen for ignoring Article IV Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution that demands that you protect American citizens from foreign invasion. Instead, you assist it at every turn by your silence and inaction. You are in violation of your oath of office. We've suffered five deaths at the hands of illegal aliens in Colorado in the past year from execution style killings of our police officers and traffic deaths by Mexican drunks.

No thank you for supporting a cowboy war in Iraq that has killed thousands of people on both sides of the equation. It's killed and maimed thousands of our finest men and women. No thank you for not standing against a war based on non-existent weapons of mass destruction. No thank you for supporting dropping depleted uranium bombs on Iraqi civilians who will suffer birth defects for decades from the radiation. 'NO THANK YOU' for our naïve US soldiers being exposed to the same radiation which will cause horrific birth defects and cancers in them and their children in the coming years.

No thank you House and Senate members for being duped into thinking that you can force democracy on an area where a stone age and violent religion has worked via a theocracy for hundreds of centuries. Our form of government cannot work in such a setting as over 50 percent of Iraqis suffer illiteracy. A democratic form of government can't survive people who vote with dye on their finger tips and no literate knowledge of their choices.

No thank you for losing California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico back to Mexico via colonization through illegal migration. Along the way, no thank you for all American citizens who have been killed, raped, burglarized, lost jobs and suffered medically from the illegal alien invasion. No thank you for National Parks Ranger Kris Eggle's death, Los Angeles Police Officer David Marsh, Denver Police Officer Donald Young, Dallas Police Officer Jackson and other police officers' deaths by illegal aliens in our country at your behest.

In Georgia, Senator Saxby Chambliss is a major player in the effort to grant amnesty and grant virtually unlimited "guest worker" status. Last summer he tried to sneak an unlimited "guest worker" program into an appropriations bill (See: Georgia Senator Chambliss speaks out of both sides of mouth on immigration and you will foot the bill!). He voted for CAFTA which will only increase the effects of immigration. Last month he spoke in favor of and supported a bill that would sell American jobs for $500.00 to H-1B (and L) visas and increase the numbers. (See:Georgia US Senator Chambliss PROPOSES selling 30,000 American jobs for $500.00 each). Senator Arlan Specter added a bill last week that increases our legal immigration to 1.8 million annually. What kind of a bone-head idiot is he?

No thank you for millions of Americans who suffered crimes committed by illegal aliens. No thanks Congress for our having to pay for your mistakes. We pay room and board for 30 percent of our prisons filled with illegal alien felons who raped, killed, robbed and otherwise destroyed tens of thousands of American families' lives. That bill is $1.6 billion annually and could have been spent on our schools nationwide.

A BIG no thank you for endorsing corporate interests resulting in rape and pillage our tax system to the tune of billions lost in IRS income taxes because of an underground economy of non-paying illegals who work off the books. We can't stand the fact that you allow them to send a whopping $56 billion in cash back to their home countries while we legal American citizens pay the bills. Damn you Congress for your fraud and incompetence and down right disregard for American citizens.

No thank you for collapsing our school systems across America with a horde of Third World kids who can't speak English. This forces our kids into compromised educations in every classroom in America affected by illegal alien children who go back to functionally illiterate parents who can't and won't speak English. No thanks this past May for the 65 percent drop-out/flunk-out rate experienced in Denver, Colorado high schools loaded with 30,000 illegal alien students. California is worse and other states who suffer this invasion like North Carolina, Illinois, Georgia, Florida, New York, Arizona and Texas!

No thank you Congress for the $128 billion drug trade you assist with your cooperation with Mexico's Vicente Fox. While you neglect putting troops on the border, drugs continue addicting our kids, creating unprecedented crime and misery for our population. Added to that, your war on drugs at $70 billion annually has done NOTHING to stop this nightmare. Why not use the $70 billion to put troops along the border? Why do we have to contend with 11,000 MS-13 Gang members in 33 states while you sit in your air conditioned offices?

No thank you for destroying the American Dream not only for Americans but for legal immigrants who came here for a better life, L-E-G-A-L-L-Y. What a concept! Do you understand the definition of LEGAL or has it ceased to have any meaning for you with your dealings in the corporate and political world?
With Representative Duke Cunningham's recent admittance of bribery for $2.5 million from contractors, he's the tip of the iceberg in the House and Senate when it comes to corruption that takes our tax dollars for a ride on your yachts.

No thank you for adding to the $7.9 trillion debt as a legacy from you to our children. What do you do all day in the Halls of Congress? You don't have to answer because your results speak louder than your words.

No thank you for creating in cities across America an atmosphere of arrogance by millions of illegal aliens who do not, will not and otherwise refuse to be a part of America. You in Congress are the reason I receive letters like this: "Mexicans feel no fear crossing your border. They look and see an American people terrified of their government and its media attack dogs. When human animals see weakness they attack immediately. Mexicans see weakness; that's why your nation is under attack from within and without. The main reason your country is being shit on by Mexico and the rest of the world is because you guys are now viewed as scared sheep that won't lift a finger for fear of retaliation."


It sickens me that Congress allows Fox to place 56 Mexican consulates in our major cities to assist illegals to further entrench themselves unlawfully in our country. No thank you for condoning them, their crimes, their diseases and their disregard for our laws. No thank you for my inability to walk down the streets of Los Angeles without fear of being killed or demeaned by over three million illegal aliens who have taken over the city and turned it into a crime-infested, trashed out, Third World slum-like Mexico City.

No thank you Mr. Mark Udall, my congressman, for helping introduce 16,000 cases of TB into our country by unscreened illegal aliens crossing our borders at will. No thank you for 7,000 new cases of leprosy in three years and spreading. No thank you for tens of thousands of cases of hepatitis 'A' now spreading among our citizens from illegal aliens operating all over our country. We give him this documented information at town meetings and he ignores. I'd like to slap him upside his head to get his attention.

No thank you for stealing jobs away from America's working poor by flooding those jobs with illegal aliens while single handedly condoning this lawlessness by the majority of members of Congress.

No thank you senators for building Iraq at the expense of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We suffer over one million adult homeless in this country and at least one million homeless children according to "60 Minutes" recently. Maybe you could have built a lot of housing and provided for their needs as citizens of the United States over a deadly country like Iraq where our soldiers continuing dying daily in that endless war of attrition. Bush says, "We must stay the course on terrorism." He sounds like the Captain of the Titanic in 1912, "We must stay this course because we'll get to New York faster." Yeah, right!

Congress, no thank you for the million high tech jobs taken away from our citizens as you disperse H-1B, H-2B, H-2A and L-1 visas to foreigners. Your support of outsourcing, insourcing and offshoring is a pathetic example of your ethics. No thank you for NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA and other policies that hurt American citizens. All 85 of you who voted for another 350,000 H-1B visas given to foreigners in that S.B. 1932 last month shows you work more for foreigners in other countries than you work for your own citizens.

I don't appreciate my English language being disrupted, discounted, disrespected and trashed at the hands of illegal aliens who do not respect nor do they EVER intend to honor our country. In short, no thank you Congress for your non-service. How many of you are like Representatives Cunningham, Delay, Chambliss, Hatch, Cannon and others in your corrupt service to all Americans affected by your policies?

That's what I'd say to my senators and congressman if I could stand in their faces. I'd tell President Bush the same thing. How about you calling your senators and congressmen and telling them over the phone or at a town meeting. Call Senator Arlan Specter from Pennsylvania who is trying to add to legal immigration by 1.8 million annually in his recent bill. His office phone is: 1-202-224-4254. Specter is as incompetent and out of touch as the Captain of the Titanic. But so is the rest of the Congress!

Write for that 25-point action letter to stop this nation-destroying madness at www.frostywooldridge.com.

Another "Yo, Anonymous"!

Anonymous said...
"Now is the time to write letters, make phone calls, fax your congress person...tell them what you ,as the average citizen, want the direction of America to be. We deserve better than this, that is for sure."

II am afraid that if I write to the government, then they will be watching me.

10:38 PM


Anonymous said...
>I have stated here before and >I'll say it again....the cowboy >president is screwing this >country and the world just to >enrich his and his pal's pockets.

Clint Eastwood is president?

3:59 PM


Hmmmm....seems Anonymous is a shallow person who trolls blogs and makes useless comments to entertain him/herself. Just want to see your intelligence at work there Sparkie?

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Yada, Yada, Yada

I have stated here before and I'll say it again....the cowboy president is screwing this country and the world just to enrich his and his pal's pockets. All those people who touted him as such a good president hopefully can see the forest now!!! I also hope each and every one takes a little time to really think the next election through and doesn't vote for some personality that will screw everyone after election. This has been the norm for quite a few years now and I think a message should be sent loud and clear by the citizens of the United States...no more 'business as usual'...no more Republicans, Democrats, yada...vote for the 'QUALIFIED' candidate. Really check out their voting record in Congress or where ever they crawled out from and make sure they are not there just for big business. We ,as the people, need to get all that money out of the political process (geez, I sound like a broken record).
I would also like to thank Mo for bringing to our attention the very change to the Workmans Comp laws that caused all this BS and I think if everyone wrote to their congress person about it things just might get taken back out of the insurance industries hands. We have a lot of broken laws in this country and they will only be fixed if the average individual gets involved. To all those running around saying "What difference will my vote make?", supposedly Bush got elected and reelected by thousands of votes, not millions. If we sent a message loud and clear exactly what us citizens want out of our government maybe we could stop or slow all this 'official' corruption. I just kept stating here that the problem with Workmans Comp was much bigger than each individuals case or circumstance, although I was not trying to belittle each individuals efforts at a fair chance at receiving benefits. For each and every one of you the stakes are now higher...their is a problem with America that has to be addressed and the problem is the detachment of the citizens from the political process. We need campaign reform and accountability by our elected officials for whatever decisions they make affecting our citizens. No More Business As Usual. Now is the time to write letters, make phone calls, fax your congress person...tell them what you ,as the average citizen, want the direction of America to be. We deserve better than this, that is for sure.