From the vantage point of the pancaked fields of Illinois, it is easy to wax nostalgic about Ohio’s rolling hills. I spent four years there as an undergraduate and for many years thereafter I returned for several months each year. But my decades of AAUP activism have added a new and more telling element to my fondness for the state: respect for Ohio’s brand of faculty activism and union solidarity.

All this was first brought home to me when I spoke at the 25th anniversary of the AAUP collective bargaining chapter at the University of Cincinnati years ago. The chapter’s history, celebrated and retold, included the distinctive respect and affection across departments that faculty members forged during their union job actions. Ordinarily isolated in their individual programs, faculty members in a union can be brought together to find common cause and define a common mission. That is why unions can bring more faculty members into dialogue with one another until they form a genuine democratic community for the first time.

I saw the same phenomenon over the last year when faculty members at Bowling Green were joined by colleagues from Akron and throughout Ohio to win the right to bargain over their working conditions. No one had to ask my AAUP colleagues to work hand-in-hand with their Bowling Green comrades. The effort was stunningly spontaneous. They couldn’t resist. They just got in their cars and drove over to join the campaign.

Read more »

What’s happening in Wisconsin is not complicated. At the beginning of this year, the state was on course to end 2011 with a budget surplus of $120 million. As Ezra Klein explained, newly elected GOP Governor Scott Walker then ” signed two business tax breaks and a conservative health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues (among other things). The new legislation was not offset, and it turned a surplus into a deficit.”

Walker then used the deficit he’d created as the justification for assaulting his state’s public employees. He used a law cooked up by a right-wing advocacy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC likes to fly beneath the radar, but I described the organization in a 2005 article as “the connective tissue that links state legislators with right-wing think tanks, leading anti-tax activists and corporate money.” Similar laws are on the table in Ohio and Indiana.

Walker’s bill would strip public employees of the right to bargain collectively for anything but higher pay (and would cap the amount of wage hikes they might end up gaining in negotiations). His intentions are clear — before assuming office, Walker threatened to decertify the state’s employees’ unions (until he discovered that the governor doesn’t have that power).

Read more »

The movement of Wisconsin workers and youth against budget-cutting and attacks on government workers continued to spread on Friday, with tens of thousands more teachers and students walking out of their classrooms, while the major demonstration in Madison continued unabated.

Demonstrations that began on Monday with an unexpectedly large march of 1,200 University of Wisconsin graduate and undergraduate students have since drawn hundreds of thousands more into struggle. The crowd surrounding the capitol building on Tuesday grew to between 13,000 and 20,000, and demonstrations have been estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000 on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Read more »

Twenty-first century science and technology make it possible for all the world’s people to have good food, good health, good education, a good job and a fulfilling life.

What stands in the way? Capitali$m – an economic and political system that puts profits before people.

Q: What’s wrong with capitalism?

A: It puts profits before people.

The heart of capitalism is the drive for more and more profits for banks and corporations no matter what happens to our nation’s people and environment. The results of this built-in greed are horrible:

• 20 million people out of work, including 25% of our young adults.
• Exporting jobs to wherever workers get paid the least. Wiping out American industry.
• Draining the public treasury with tax breaks and bailouts for the super-rich and giant corporations.
• People’s needs go down the toilet. Public schools, health services, parks, libraries, and transit systems are cut back or closed.

• Poisoning our drinking water, air, food supply and oceans.
• Cutting workers’ pay and benefits, stealing pensions.
• Corruption of Congress and our democratic institutions by corporate dollars and lobbyists.
• Denying workers the right to join unions.
• Record levels of inequality.
• Greed for profits is the impetus for war – for oil, for domination of other countries’ markets and profits of military contractors.

• Capitalism foments racism, sexism, homophobia and anti-immigrant campaigns.

Capitalism is un-American. Instead of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it traps us in a political system and economy focused on greed and the pursuit of private profits.

FACT: The richest 400 people in America have more wealth than 155 million other Americans combined!

FACT: The average corporate executive makes $500 for every $1 paid to the average worker even though it is the workers who actually create our nation’s wealth.

IN A SOCIALIST ECONOMY, PEOPLE COME FIRST, NOT PROFITS

Socialism means re-structuring our economy to be fairer and more democratic.

Right now Americans already produce our nation’s wealth socially. We work together in factories, offices, schools, stores, laboratories, hospitals and on farms and construction sites.

What’s not decided together is how the wealth we create could be fairly distributed. In a socialist economy, there would be social ownership and social control instead of private ownership and control.

The people would decide. The deciding factor would no longer be what’s best for corporate profits.

• Banks, oil companies, utilities and key sectors of the economy such as steel and transportation would be publicly owned and operated.

• Small business would still be a vital part of the process
• There would be enough resources freed up to fully fund public education, health care, mass transit, child care and any other priorities the American people decide on.

• In a socialist society, people would get paid for the work they do and rewarded for the initiatives they take. The difference? No corporate big shots getting paid billions for the work others do.
• War, racism, sexism and homophobia would lose their corporate sponsors.
• Reversing climate change, developing green industries, and sustainability would be top priorities. No doubt millions of young people would lead the way with such initiatives.
• The rich and diverse multi-cultural American heritage could flourish in music, literature, dance, sports, film and art.

BILL OF RIGHTS SOCIALISM

Socialism in the United States would be built on the strong foundation of our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, guaranteeing freedom of speech, freedom of religion and equality for all. Other fundamental rights, such as the right to a job, health care and education could be added.

A socialist society would need to create organizations at the grass roots level to assure democratic controls.

Americans already have great traditions of such grass roots organizations such as town hall meetings, PTAs, unions, churches and charitable organizations. In a socialist society, we could expand those traditions to make our country’s economic life more democratic.

Another world is necessary – and possible!

HOW DO WE GET THERE?

Capitalism in the United States can and will be replaced with a people-first socialist system. This will happen when a majority of our country’s people are convinced of the need for such revolutionary change and are ready to make it happen.

To make that change will require a very broad coalition, a movement with workers, including unemployed workers, at its heart. This coalition must also include small business people, students and professionals. The union movement as well as African American, Latino, Asian American, immigrant and Native American communities will be central parts of that alliance. The involvement of youth, women, seniors, the LGBT community, environmentalists and people of faith is vital. It will be the same kind of people’s movement that is fighting for progress today, but even bigger and broader.

We can gain this majority by uniting for people’s needs. That means combating racism, sexism, anti-immigrant hysteria, and homophobia. It means showing in the course of grass roots struggles how these are used to divide and conquer the movement for progressive change. In the fight for jobs, education, the environment, health care, peace and human rights, at the workplace, at the polling place and in the community, this unity can be built.

AMERICANS ALREADY HAVE LOTS OF EXPERIENCE WITH PUBLIC OWNERSHIP

Here are some examples:

• Bank of North Dakota – founded in 1919, its profits go to benefit the people of that state.

• Credit union – 87 million Americans participate in these local financial institutions that are owned and controlled by their members.

• Cleveland Public Power – which provides electricity at affordable rates to that city.

• Cooperative societies – farmer co-ops, housing, co-ops, food co-ops, etc.

• Union pension funds.

• Social Security.

• Veteran’s Administration health care network.

• 16,000 municipally owned and operated sewage treatment systems.

• Tennessee Valley Authority – provides electrical power for 8.5 million Americans in 7 states.

Some famous American socialists: Angela Davis, Juan Chacon, W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Helen Keller, Woody Guthrie, Eugene Debs, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Albert Einstein.

More on socialism and social change on the People Before Profits Network:

Communist Party USA | cpusa.org

By Zoltan Zigedy

http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/

Debt hysteria is undoubtedly the most disgusting, lie-infested scam since George W. Bush launched his propaganda blitz leading up to the unprovoked invasion of Iraq. Like the Bush offensive, the debt scam has drawn public attention away from the critical issues facing the world – especially working people – at this critical moment. Unlike the Bush-era deceptions, debt hysteria has thoroughly infected policy throughout the world.

It is a supreme irony that the debt fears now provoked by government deficits are construed as excessive, while the decades of growth of personal debt and speculative debt in the private sector were seen as benign. Where all government debt grew roughly 8.5 times from 1978 to 2008, US mortgage debt grew 11.5 times, non-financial business debt grew by over 10 times, and debt in the financial sector by nearly 50 times! (Estimates from Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression, Jack Rasmus, p. 33) Yet few alarms were triggered as these vast sums of debt served to sustain and grow the profit margins of monopoly corporations. As long as the debt energized profit taking, the level of indebtedness was of no consequence. All of this changed – or should have changed – after the mountains of debt accumulated in the financial sector collapsed, bringing the global economy to its knees two years ago.

It is equally ironic that a quasi-governmental body – the Federal Reserve – pumped, with no transparency, $9 trillion in loans into the private sector to rescue corporations from the consequences of their collapsing debt load, as recent revelations have shown. We now know that the private sector, primarily the financial industry, hung by a slender thread thanks to years of promiscuous borrowing to fuel scandalously risky speculation.

Despite this indictment of private sector abuse of debt, policy makers have offered few guarantees that private sector debt will not again paralyze the global economy. Nor is there any hysterical concern over private debt with the opinion makers who protest so loudly over public sector debt.

US Debt: A Dose of Terrorism

With the federal deficit reaching $1.5 trillion in 2010, it is understandable that some would react to the figure with alarm. It is formidable figure, but what does it mean?

Actually, it means very little. There have been Federal budgets that have shown more percentage growth of the deficit or more growth against other measures such as GDP. Some of these budgets have correlated with good times, some with bad times. There is no strict relationship between budgetary frugality or generosity and prosperity.

Some deficits have resulted from reduced tax revenues, some from leaps in government spending. Interestingly, some of the biggest recent boosts in government spending – the great sin of debt scolds – have occurred under the Presidential stewardship of professed archenemies of deficits (Reagan, Bush I, Bush II).

Without exploring the details of government spending, there is no factual basis for alarm with the absolute or relative size of a Federal deficit. In the case of the current deficit, there are good reasons to examine why the US deficit is growing. As Jeff Madrick points out (NY Review of Books, 12-23-10), “…almost all of the projected deficit through 2020 will be the result of three factors: the recession, the tax cuts of the early 2000s under George W. Bush, and the hundreds of billions of dollars of war spending.” I would add that the continued growth of the costs of private medical services passed on to the public sector also adds substantially to these projections. All are social evils worthy of attacking, but not because they add to the deficit.

Other liberal economists, like Dean Baker and James K. Galbraith, have demonstrated loudly and conclusively why there are no theoretical reasons to fear an expanding Federal deficit or higher levels of public debt (apart from state and municipal budgets that are limited statutorily to balancing revenues and expenditures). They vigorously dispute the inappropriate parallel with family budgets and the catastrophic consequences of individuals spending more than they make. The Federal government does not endure the pain of the profligate neighbor who runs the credit card to the limit. Instead, the Federal government can borrow extensively through the sales of Treasury securities, particularly at a time when interest rates are at an historic low. Moreover, the Federal Reserve’s QE2 program is currently attempting to drive those interest rates down further through $600 billion in Treasury purchases, but with a different goal in mind.

Sane people will find no plausible explanation for the intensifying debt scare in the US, beyond political manipulation. And crude political manipulation it is: a ruse akin to the hysteria generated by the “war on terrorism.” With fear piled upon fear, politicians and policy makers are exploiting the ensuing panic to vigorously attack both the already inadequate safety net and working class living standards.

Political elites and their minions have taken to heart the slogan “every crisis presents an opportunity” by turning it on its head through a campaign of disinformation and fear mongering. Instead of taking up the cause of the twenty-five million unemployed and underemployed, they have seized the moment to impose even greater hardships on the vast majority of US citizens.

It took very little to rouse President Obama and his Administration to join the baying dogs of debt hysteria. With the creation of the Bowles-Simpson Debt Commission, he embraced the hypocrisy of debt terrorism. And his recent freezing of the wages and salaries of Federal workers justified by deficit concerns only underlines both his dishonesty and his callousness. His sharp right turn from his already right leanings should chasten those still star-struck with “change that you can believe in…” And those who still posture Obama as a progressive champion should be boiled in oil. His recent agreement to establish a NAFTA-clone trade pact with Korea has stirred great anger in the upper echelons of the AFL-CIO, the same labor leaders who hailed his pledge to revisit NAFTA and make it more labor-friendly.

The plain and simple truth is that the debt hysteria has no sound basis in economic theory or experience. Instead, it is a political ploy to raise fears to justify imposing austerity on workers, youth, minorities and the elderly. Its quick and ready acceptance by opinion makers demonstrates a callous dishonesty.

European Debt: Plundering the Weak

The European debt fears that have brought panic to the EU leaders and a wave of austere budget cuts has a real villain, but it’s not the profligate spending and big deficits that the media shrilly reports. Instead, it is hedge fund managers and a motley crew of other powerful financial pirates – Barron’s magazine cleverly calls them “bond vigilantes” -who understand the dynamics of international debt markets and prey on the weakest players. The wondrous thing about the new financial instruments devised in the late-twentieth century is that they allow and invite as much or more money to be made betting on failure as betting on success. Moreover, the financial predators have the weight in the market to force panic and reap profit from the chaos they produce.

These vultures ply on the fact that the weaker economies in the European Union are caught in a deadly vise: they owe much of their debt to foreign banks and they have surrendered monetary powers by replacing their sovereign currencies with the euro. First, Greece came under fire beginning in the fall of 2009 with a massive campaign driving the cost of insuring debt and acquiring loans. Of course these pessimistic bets further stressed Greece’s ability to muster funds, leading to even further aggression on the part of vulture capitalism through even more pessimistic bets against Greece’s ability to repay debt. And thus the noose tightened around the Greek economy.

As a result, Greece was forced to surrender its sovereignty and economy to the leaders of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. In return for loans and guarantees that dispersed the vultures, the EU and IMF dictated an austerity program that drastically lowered the standard of living of the Greek people. Only the most militant sector of the Greek working class – the Communist Party and PAME – offered any real alternative to this devastating aggression.

The debt vultures turned next to Ireland later in 2010: same process, same result. With the EU and IMF now effectively ruling Ireland, the already shrunken Irish public sector is further squeezed with a drastic cut in jobs and public services piled onto an existing unemployment rate of 14%.

With the Greek and Irish carcasses picked clean, the aggressors are turning to Portugal, another country carrying debt and hamstrung by the acceptance of the euro as its national currency. And Spain – perhaps even Italy – is vulnerable to future attack.

In an unusually candid admission, The Wall Street Journal wrote of this insidious process in late November (Traders’ Targets: Portugal and Spain). Author Cassell Bryan-Low concedes that “hedge-fund managers are cautiously setting their sights on potential problems in countries such as Portugal and Spain…[T]hey are expecting more bad news to come, predicting that borrowing costs elsewhere will become prohibitive, potentially forcing other countries to also seek a bailout or restructure their debt.” Bryan-Low notes that some traders are a bit gun-shy because “the notion of betting against Europe’s peripheral economies has… become an emotional topic amid debate whether such moves have contributed to those countries financial woes…” Some officials “have called for the banning of certain instruments, such as derivatives…” Several fund managers are cited who confirm “bearish bets” on Spanish debt, with one stating ominously, “I don’t think those issues are going to go away, which is why the euro is going to stay under pressure.” The carnage continues…

Vulture capitalism preys on countries outside of the euro-zone as well. As I have shown previously (IMF Debt Hypocrisy: Sticking it to the Hungarians http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2010/08/imf-debt-hypocrisy-sticking-it-to.html), the game is really not about reducing deficits or debt levels, but about imposing the will of international capital on vulnerable countries and hammering the conditions of life for working people. When the Hungarian government proposed raising taxes on banks to reduce the deficit, their international overseers became hysterical – threatening repercussions – despite the fact that Hungary would meet the targets set by the IMF. It was not defiance of debt-reduction goals that brought on censure, but the refusal to put the burden on the Hungarian people.

Since the article, the defiant Hungarian government has pledged to lower personal taxes and boost welfare spending while increasing taxes on banks, telecommunications, retail businesses and energy companies, to raise revenue by $2 billion. This defiance has brought on a severe downgrading of Hungary’s credit rating to near junk status by Moody’s credit rating service. The prime minister’s office bluntly, but accurately, characterized this move as a response to “measures that hurt the interests of international capital in the short term” as reported in the back pages of the WSJ (12-7-10). So there is another path to debt management, but one would never know it from the actions of the cowardly governments that rule in the rest of Europe. Instead, they surrender their national sovereignty with a whimper.

Today, the capitalist class leads with the debt card in its efforts to discipline and dominate the working class. The failure to understand this strategy disarms working people caught in the throes of a new offensive in the class struggle. Just as we exposed the hypocrisy of George W. Bush’s contrived invasion of Iraq, we must bring light on the hypocrisy and deceit of the debt scare.

Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com

By Zoltan Zigedy

As the number of Debt Commissions multiplies and media gasbags generate hurricane-like forces and hysterical fears of government insolvency, I’ve decided to surrender to the madness and propose a fresh, creative approach to debt reduction. My approach has the added value of requiring no budget cuts or tax increases. Instead, the solution will be found in cutting waste and acquiring new revenue sources hitherto unexplored.

And all of these revenues are generated by tapping the hidden potentials of the market place, a solution that will endear this plan to the vast majority of free-market economists and policy jockeys.

In its essence, my program exploits the vast assets currently wasted in our two-party political system. Instead of holding costly primary elections, I propose that we auction off the candidacies for the two parties with all proceeds going to the Federal budget. And instead of holding costly electoral campaigns, we adopt a system based upon cash votes: one vote for every dollar spent. The nine months currently devoted to canned speeches, staged rallies and meaningless debates could serve as an ongoing telethon with the dollars (votes) pouring in with a huge surge near the end. Again, all proceeds would go to the Federal budget. The beauty of this scheme is that the process is totally transparent and the results very likely close to the ones we usually get with the current electoral system.

But there is more: We could sell the naming rights to all of the House and Senate seats. The 18th Congressional District of state X might become the Halliburton or Goldman Sachs seat. The Delaware Senate seats could be sold to Dupont and the credit card industry. The possibilities are endless.

Likewise, the naming rights to departments, public buildings, airports, parks and roads might well generate millions to the Federal government. Admittedly, this might result in some awkward moments – the Richard Nixon Justice Department, the Strom Thurman Equal Rights Commission, etc. – but a small cost for market efficiency!

Instead of all the lobbying money currently wasted on campaign coffers and personal graft, we might consider installing turnstiles in government offices and agencies, charging lobbyists by the hour or earmark.

We might also consider marketizing the judiciary by selling judgeships and auctioning decisions. Undoubtedly, the legal profession would object since there would be little need for private attorneys, but the resultant revenues could go directly to the Federal budget, thus aiding widows and orphans.

The market-based solutions to the widely acclaimed deficit crisis are limited only by our imagination. Instead of slowly choking public education with privatization schemes (charter schools), why not simply construct a government fee schedule that allows youth to buy their way into a future career or profession? Of course, their fees would be refunded if they failed to meet the standards minimally necessary for performance in their fields. Doctors who consistently harm their patients would be asked to purchase a new profession more consistent with public welfare. Surely this would meet the requirements of market rationality.

For those without the funds to bid on prestigious professions, a government lottery could sort out those relegated to low-paying service jobs, those destined for prison, and those unhappily cast out as redundant. As always, the proceeds of this process would go to ease the deficit.

The beauty of this debt-reduction scheme lies in its total transparency. There are no hidden agendas, secret meetings, under-the-table deals; all transactions are in the open. While it produces virtually the same results that current practices deliver, it dispenses with the hypocrisy that infects the present political system. Moreover, the funds currently absorbed by our parasitic class of consultants, political staffers, office holders, campaign professionals, media moguls, etc. are shifted to debt reduction. It is no exaggeration that this market-based approach could produce billions of revenue to bolster the Federal budget.

Some may object, citing the absence of democracy in this approach. But this is a petty complaint, given that the results would most likely be the same as our current way of doing things. Social scientists call this an isomorphism: The processes may appear different, but operate the same and produce the same outcomes. Less kindly, Marxists call our current political system “bourgeois democracy,” a political doctrine that postures as democratic while functioning to produce and reproduce rule by wealth and power.

Undoubtedly, those who persist in defending the current two-party system will be outraged, condemning this proposal as cruelly cynical. Indeed it is. But the option is to reject the vulgar entertainment we accept as democracy and fight for a third peoples’ party or a new democracy. Anything less is rotten with hypocrisy.

Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com

–
Posted By zoltan zigedy to ZZ’s blog at 11/24/2010 08:15:00 AM

By Carl Bloice – BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board
Black Commentator
October 21, 2010

http://www.blackcommentator.com/398/398_lm_joblessness_new_normal.php

It’s possible that I just didn’t see it but one of the
most significant and alarming statistic in the nation’s
September employment report seems to have gone mostly
unnoticed. So here it is. The unemployment rate for
each of the major demographic groups remained about the
same last month, some even declined a tad. However, the
seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for African
Americans between the ages of 16 and 19 reached 49
percent, up from 45.4 percent in August and 41.7
percent for the same period last year.

It used to be that when people concerned with the
matter commented on the black teenage jobless rate,
they would put in a line about half, or nearly half, of
the young people were without work in major urban
centers. Now it’s the case from Boston to Bakersfield.
Is this the “new normal” we hear so much about?

Pointing to a somewhat different set of statistics,
here is what David Rosnick of the Center for Economic
and Policy Research wrote October 8:

The economy lost 95,000 jobs in September – 77,000
of which were temporary Census positions – while
the unemployment rate held at 9.6 percent.
Including downward revisions in payroll employment
for July and August, there are 110,000 fewer jobs
than reported one month ago.

Though the overall rate of unemployment did not
change in September, different populations were not
similarly affected by employment changes. The
employment-to-population ratio was unchanged at
58.5 percent. While white adults saw relatively
little change in their EPOPs (-0.1 percentage
points for men, 0.1 percentage points for women),
the EPOP for black men aged 20 and over fell 0.5
percentage points in the month and 2.6 percentage
points for African-American teens.

The fall in the latter is particularly striking as
only 16.2 percent of black teens were employed as
recently as May. Ten years ago, 29.5 percent of
black teens were employed compared to 11.7 percent
in September.

This cannot be considered acceptable. The Congress and
the White House should be told that this is
unacceptable. Those people out there trying to rally
the “hip-hop vote” ought to take the lead in saying
this situation cannot endure.

There is already far too much pain and economic
insecurity in the African American community which has
taken a big hit economically because of the system’s
most recent crisis. If it remains almost impossible for
a couple of generations of young women and men to earn
a decent living, it is calamitous for black people and
the country. They cannot become the personification of
the “new normal.”

And we don’t need to hear anymore misleading claims
that these young people have been “left behind by
history,” victims of technology and globalization.
Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke said the other day
that the country’s current jobless level reflects the
state of the economy, is not what some refer to as
“structural” and that little of it can be traced to
people having the wrong skills or being in the wrong
location. This view was echoed last week by labor
market expert Peter Diamond, recipient of this year’s
Nobel Prize for Economics.

The New York Times said editorially last Sunday that as
soon as the November election is over the President
“needs to fight harder for big stimulus projects – in
infrastructure or alternative energy. He has to keep
pushing until Congress and the public understand that
without more stimulus the best that can happen will be
years of only limping along.” For these unemployed
minority youth it’s much worse than limping along.

Last week, President Obama took questions from an
audience of young people, in person and by way of
Twitter, during a session streamed live on the Web. At
one point a young black man complained that despite all
the government recent spending “our unemployment rate
still rises” and that even though he is a college
graduate he’s having trouble finding a job. The
President responded with his now stock answer: the jobs
were lost before I was elected and the Administration
kept the country out of a real depression. These kids
know what a real depression feels like. It’s having
empty pockets in a madly consumerist society. It’s
being unable to plan for a family and things like
having children and sending them to school.

The question is where do we go from here?

The President recently laid out a proposal for a
moderate stimulus program involving a reasonable
project to see to the country’s real infrastructure
needs. But we didn’t hear much about it after that and
the trifling Congress adjourned to go home and try to
save their collective butts.

At the beginning of the year, the Economic Policy
Institute projected that unemployment for African
Americans would reach a 25-year high of 17.2 percent
this year with the rates in five states exceeding 20
percent. Three quarters into the year it stands at 16.1
percent, up from 15.5 percent a year ago. “These
sobering data show us that the nation must do more to
address the ongoing human tragedy brought on by this
recession,” EPI researcher Kai Filion commented at the
time. “There is no reason why we should tolerate such
outcomes – elected officials can and must put millions
of Americans back to work with bold, targeted job
creation policies.”

Among the consequences Filion predicted is a staggering
poverty rate of 50percent for African American
children.

When the International Monetary Fund met in Washington
October 9, its managing director, Dominique Strauss-
Kahn, issued a sobering warning. “We face the risk of a
lost generation,” he said. “When you lose your job,
your health is likely to be worse. When you lose your
job, the education of your children is likely to be
worse. When you lose your job, social stability is
likely to be worse – which threatens democracy and even
peace. So we shouldn’t fool ourselves. We are not out
of the woods yet. And for the man in the street, a
recovery without jobs doesn’t mean much.”
_________________

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Carl Bloice
is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National
Coordinating Committee of the Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly
worked for a healthcare union.

_____________________________________________

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