Channel: Economy
No Housing Crisis for Bush, McCain’s Got No Plan to Improve Economy
 |
|
- Housing crisis? What housing crisis? Looking out the White House window, Bush can't see one, so it must not be there. Because why else would he threaten to veto Democrats' housing rescue plan, aimed at preventing foreclosures and stabilizing the housing market? Even congressional members of his own party are signaling support for the measure (not that it's an election year or anything). Yet the Lame Duck-in-Chief is calling the plan to help troubled homeowners "a burdensome bailout that would open taxpayers to too much risk." Unlike the $5 trillion experts predict we'll spend on the Iraq war. Or the $30 billion bailout to Bear Stearns.
- If Bush doesn't think the nation's homeowners and consumers need help getting by, maybe he should talk with retiree Josephine Powe, a member of the Alliance for Retired Americans. Says Powe: “An extra dollar or two per gallon may not seem like a lot of money to a big oil executive, but to a senior on a fixed income, it is everything. When our costs go up and our income does not, that dollar means you don't know if you're going to have enough money to buy food after you fill up the tank.” Powe testified this week on Capitol Hill in favor of the Consumer-First Energy Act, introduced by Senate Democrats, which would lower prices by placing a 25 percent windfall profit tax on any energy company that doesn’t invest in new energy sources and end $17 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil.
Score 1 for Darwin, 0 for Wal-Mart
 |
|
Experts Offer Tips on Avoiding Home Foreclosure
 |
|
The mortgage foreclosure crisis, fueled by years of unchecked predatory lending practices and a speculative bubble in real estate prices, has resulted in a disaster for millions of America’s homeowners. Not since the Depression of the 1930s have so many U.S. homeowners owed more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.
Defaulting on the Dream, a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, projects that one in 33 current U.S. homeowners may be headed toward foreclosure in the coming years because of subprime loans. But the crisis affects not just homeowners. Communities suffer as families move out, decreasing the tax base that funds vital local services.
Electrocuted at Age 22
 |
|
This is a cross-post from the firedoglake blog.
Every day, most of us go to work and then come home. Next day: Rinse, repeat.
But some U.S. workers go to work and never come home.
In April 2005, Donald Wilcher Smith was one of them. The 22-year-old central Texas man was electrocuted at the Sanderson Farms processing plant.
This week, his father, Donald Coit Smith, described what it's like to lose his son.
I do not possess the capacity to adequately describe the horror that possesses my soul from my son’s death. To lose him caused me to reflect on faith in my God.
Wal-Mart: Poster Store for Greed
 |
|
One of the first things that comes to mind when thinking about Wal-Mart is the mega-retailer's shoddy treatment of workers, including its sorry job safety record.
Over the years, Wal-Mart has been fined for blocking emergency exits, and so endangering workers, and for several years, implemented a "lock-in" policy at night so no one could enter or leave the building, leaving workers inside trapped.
But while Wal-Mart may not always follow federal job safety and health laws, the $315-billion-a-year corporate behemoth never would turn down the opportunity to make a buck. Even if that means selling posters that highlight federal and state labor laws.
Like workplace safety and health.
U.S. Jobs Down 20,000 in April. Don’t Bring Out the Party Hats Yet
The economy shed another 20,000 jobs in April, the fourth monthly decline this year, further confirming that a recession is under way. However, because many economists had predicted an April job loss in the 75,000 range, news headlines and broadcasts are breathing big sighs of relief.
But an improvement in excessively low expectations does not necessarily result in good news. Looking a bit deeper into the report, more troubling signs emerge:
Employees also appear to be working fewer hours, and for less pay. Among rank-and-file workers, who make up about three-quarters of the workforce, average weekly salaries fell 0.2 percent in April, and average hourly earnings rose an anemic 0.1 percent. [snip]
Let’s Celebrate: Exxon Mobil Is Making Record-Breaking Profits
Trying to keep up with the bad economic news can take up most waking hours these days.
Just in the past few days, the following have been reported:
- U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a miniscule rate in the past quarter—0.6 percent, giving the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) cause to frame the data this way: "GDP flashing recession."
Blame the Little Miss
 |
|
This is a cross-post from the Firedoglake blog.
If you're a U.S. woman and aren't getting paid for doing the same work as men, it's your fault.
If you're a woman and are overweight or smoke, you're personally responsible for contributing to the sinking U.S. life expectancy rate.
If you're a woman and you ask for the same pay for doing the same job as your male co-worker, you only have a small window of time to do so. Otherwise, you're to blame if you don't figure out real fast the game is rigged against you.
African Trade Unions Stop ‘Shipment of Death’
 |
||||
 |
||||
|
A Chinese cargo ship packed with rocket grenades, mortar rounds and 3 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition destined for strife-torn Zimbabwe is now reported to be returning its cargo to China. South African trade unionists refused to unload the ship Friday and other African unions have made similar vows in other ports.
Zimbabwe and its president Robert Mugabe have a long record of worker and human rights violations. On March 29, Zimbabwe held a presidential election where the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, is reported to have received more votes.
More than three weeks after the balloting, the results have yet to be released and independent observers and human and worker rights leaders say that's because Mugabe's ruling party—in power for 28 years—lost. There has been a new wave of violence and arrests against unions and other regime opponents in the past several weeks following the elections. The arms on the Chinese ship would have arrived just as a crackdown against those demanding democracy in Zimbabwe is occurring.
Pay Discrimination OK by McCain
So it seems Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) thinks it's just fine if women workers can almost never get redress for pay inequities they suffer on the job.
Yesterday, the U.S. Senate failed to get the 60 votes needed to vote on a bill that would have enabled women who are paid less than their co-workers doing the same job to challenge the inequity. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama took time from their campaigns to vote for the Fair Pay Restoration Act.
McCain didn't show up. But he did make it a point to say that had he bothered to vote (McCain has cast the fewest votes in the Senate of any senator not seriously ill), he would have opposed it.
