Friday, October 19th, 2012
BILL MOYERS and MICHAEL WINSHIP, - AlterNet (U.S.)
Stephan: Greed above all is leading to attacks on the fundamental institutions of our civil life. Here's what I mean.
When the National Football League ended its lockout of the professional referees and the refs returned to call the games, all across the country players, fans, sponsors and owners breathed a sigh of relief. Fans were grateful for the return of qualified judges to keep things on the up and up.
After the now infamous Seattle Seahawks-Green Bay Packers game, when questionable calls by the replacement refs led to a disputed 14-12 win by the Seahawks, even union-busting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, the pride of Janesville, Wisconsin, became – briefly – fans of organized labor, calling for a negotiated peace and bringing the real refs back on the field.
In Baltimore, when the professional referees returned for their first game of the season, fans gave them a standing ovation. One held a sign: ‘Finally! We get to yell at real refs! Welcome back!
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Friday, October 19th, 2012
, - Agence France-Presse (France)
Stephan: I have been warning my readers for the past several years that nothing meaningful is going to be done by governments about climate change, and that the question now is: How can individuals, families, and communities get through what is coming while maintaining a decedent quality of life. Here is one reason I think as I do.
Governments are ‘not on track
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Thursday, October 18th, 2012
KEVIN G. HALL, - McClatchy
Stephan: Here is the latest in the ethanol trend, and I think we are moving in the right direction. If the combustion engines for hybrids were ethanol it would be better, and replacing corn with stover (corn stalks after corn removed) is also good. What the story does not reveal is that 90 per cent of this corn is GMO.
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration must decide in coming weeks if it’ll temporarily lift requirements to blend ethanol into the nation’s gasoline supply. The issue has been largely dormant on the campaign trail, but it’s critical to the success or failure of the next generation of bio-fuel plants under construction today that won’t rely on corn to make fuel.
A public comment period ended in early October, and now the administration must decide by Nov. 13 whether or not to temporarily suspend the Renewable Fuel Standard, created in 2005 and modified in 2007 to help the ethanol industry get off the ground by requiring its use in gasoline.
Ethanol is required to be blended into gasoline to help keep pollution down, and it has the added benefit of lowering dependence on crude oil, about half of it imported and the other half drilled domestically.
The governors of Arkansas, North Carolina and several other states want the ethanol mandate suspended amid rising corn prices brought about by this summer’s punishing drought. Governors of corn states are opposed.
The administration is widely expected to reject the request for a one-year suspension of ethanol mandates, but the move is actually just an opening salvo in a […]
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Thursday, October 18th, 2012
Paul Craig Roberts, PhD, - Center for Research on Globilization
Stephan: This is a good exegetic essay on what happened to jobs and the effects this had on the middle class. It makes clear that it is outsourcing by Virtual Corporate States with no national allegiance that is a key culprit.
During the second half of the 20th century the United States was an opportunity society. The ladders of upward mobility were plentiful, and the middle class expanded. Incomes rose, and ordinary people were able to achieve old-age security.
In the 21st century the opportunity society has disappeared. Middle class jobs are scarce. Indeed, jobs of any kind are scarce. To stay even with population growth from 2002 through 2011, the economy needed about 14 million new jobs. However, at the end of 2011 there were only 1 million more jobs than in 2002.
Only 426,000 of these jobs are in the private sector. The bulk of the net new jobs consist of waitresses and bartenders and health care and social assistance. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over the 9 years, employment for waitresses and bartenders increased by 1,188,000. Employment in health care and social assistance increased 3,087,000. These two categories accounted for 1,000% of the net private sector job growth.
As for manufacturing jobs, they not only did not grow with the population but declined absolutely. During these nine years, 3.5 million middle class manufacturing jobs were lost.
Over the entire nine years, only 48,000 new jobs were created […]
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Thursday, October 18th, 2012
Stephan: This is the latest in the Marijuana trend. Obama broke his campaign pledge on Marijuana by creating the Federal prosecution effort against medical Marijuana. Now he is feeling the push back and it may cost him Colorado and, possibly, the election.
He used Federal powers to trump the state level movement toward regularizing and legalizing. If that were to happen the Marijuana industry could do for Mendocino what vinoculture did for Nappa. Medical marijuana could then be tuned in specialized ways based on research to be useful as a palliative and treatment. Instead what Obama has produced is confusion, and a partial return to the violent illegal market of the past. If propositions in California, Oregon, and Washington pass, however, as well as this one in Colorado, the entire West coast of the United States will have lifted state prohibition; a direct challenge to Federal prohibition, backed by votes. Marijuana will mirror alcohol. States have been dry or wet over alcohol for decades.
In open states it will allow a safe, regulated, and taxed Marijuana industry to arise producing thousands of jobs, and millions in tax revenues which will, in turn, finance better schools, healthcare and infrastructure rehab. Just as with alcohol wet states will prosper and dry wither.
The term ‘perfect storm
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