Category: Economy
Morales Government Generates Massive Jobs Growth in Bolivia
| January 17, 2015 | 8:24 pm | Analysis, Economy, International, Latin America, political struggle | Comments closed

TeleSUR English, January 15, 2015

Since being elected, Bolivian President Evo Morales has carried out policies to create employment throughout the country. 

Bolivian Minister of Labor Daniel Santalla announced Wednesday that Bolivia has generated a half a million jobs in both the private and public sectors since 2006.

“There was major increase in employment throughout the country since 2006, according to the data we have, in both the public and private sector have created more the 500,000 jobs in the country,” he stated.

Santalla attributed the increased employment levels to the policies carried out under President Evo Morales’ administration, which has aimed to expand employment opportunities, especially for economically marginalized communities.

However, the minister also noted that the creation of jobs must also include the generation of “decent and dignified” forms of labor in which workers should receive benefits from social security.

Since 2005, the Bolivian government has made considerable progress in terms of improving labor legislation, including:

• Prohibiting unlawful firings
• Legalizing strikes
• No longer allows employers to fire women with children less then a year old
• Allows women to have paid day to go the gynecologist
• Providing three months of paid benefits after a worker is fired or resigns

Most importantly, from 2005-2013 Bolivia has achieved an increase in real minimum wage of 104 percent, higher than any other Latin American country, according to the International Labor Organization.

 

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Morales-Government-Generates-Massive-Jobs-Growth-in-Bolivia-20150115-0032.html

Response to “Bernie Sanders Rips Republicans For Cutting Social Security For 1 Million Disabled Veterans”
| January 16, 2015 | 9:09 pm | Analysis, Bernie Sanders, Economy, National, political struggle, Social Security, Veterans | Comments closed
By A. Shaw
An alliance between GOP reactionaries and DP reactionaries now conspire to make huge 20% cuts in social security disability benefits for 1,000,000 disabled veterans and 11,000,000 disabled US citizens.
Sen. Bernie Sanders stands up for these workers who are about to get robbed.
Even without the assistance of DP reactionaries, GOP reactionaries already dominate the legislative and judicial branches of the bourgeois democratic regime in Washington DC. The DP however still dominates the executive branch of the bourgeois state in Washington DC.
While two branches of the exploitative and oppressive bourgeois regime in Washington plot to cut the financial benefits of disabled workers, these  legislative and judicial branches of the bourgeois regime conspire to cut taxes paid by rich individuals, big corporations, and banks. The regime allows the rich to pay a smaller percentage of their income than the percentage workers must pay.
So, proportionately, the workers bear a heavier load.
The benefit cuts that the reactionaries are pushing intensifies the exploitation of disabled workers.
When these disabled workers were able-bodied and employed, they earned their disability benefits by the deduction on a collective basis of social security taxes from their paychecks.
Now that disabled workers are unemployed, the reactionaries who occupy high places in bourgeois regime intend to renege the government’s promise to pay fair and reasonable benefits.
Of special interest are the cases of 1,000,000 disabled veterans.
Again and again, the bourgeois and imperialist regime in Washington oppresses US citizens, mostly workers, into waging unconstitutional and illegal wars of aggression against the innocent people of foreign countries. The most striking example is the war of aggression by US imperialists and their regime against the completely innocent people of Iraq who have now suffered well over a million war-related fatalities occasioned by an US imperialist invasion and occupation and rationalized by a gigantic and transparent lie that weapons of mass destruction were stored in Iraq.
The US people, including US troops, should have resisted and should now resist the imperial war of aggression against Iraq, just as, earlier, the US people, including US troops, heroically resisted the US imperialist war against the people of Vietnam.
Hundreds of thousands of US troops were oppressed by the  bourgeois regime in Washington into the aggression against Iraq. Thousands of US troops lost their lives and tens of thousands suffered and are suffering disabling injuries.
The disabled came and still come home from the wars, and are welcomed by the rotten, lowdown, filthy, reactionary GOP scum that dominates the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.
The GOP scum tells 1,000,000 disabled veterans, “Thanks suckers,” we, the GOP in the US Congress, are going to cut your money.
Contrary to the lies and rants of the GOP scum in Congress,  these 1,000, 000 veterans fully earned their full social security disability benefits by their lost and torn limbs, by their amputations, and by the destruction of their mental and emotional normality.
The Lord knows we need Sen. Bernie Sanders as Pres. Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders Rips Republicans For Cutting Social Security For 1 Million Disabled Veterans
| January 16, 2015 | 9:04 pm | Analysis, Bernie Sanders, Economy, National, political struggle, Social Security, Veterans | Comments closed
Friday, January, 16th, 2015, 1:23 pm
Source: PoliticusUSA
At a press conference today, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) shredded the Republican budget plans while taking Republicans to task for cutting Social Security benefits for 1 million disabled veterans.
During the press conference, Sen. Sanders said:
I must say that the budget passed last year by the Republican House which called for massive cuts in Medicare,Medicaid, education, nutrition, affordable housing, and other programs impacting the lives of working Americans, while providing huge tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations, is a budget approach which moves us in exactly the wrong direction. And, needless to say, I will do everything that I can to oppose a similar type of budget if that is what the Republicans will be proposing this year.
So, here we are. The middle class is in decline. Millions of seniors are struggling to pay for their food, their medicine and their heat. On the very first day of Congress, the Republicans in the House made a change in its rules that could lead to a 20 percent cut in Social Security disability benefits for 11 million Americans, including 2 million children, over a million veterans, and over 150,000 surviving spouses. In other words, in the midst of massive wealth and income inequality, the Republicans want to make massive cuts in a program that benefits some of the most vulnerable people in this country.
….
Let’s be clear, what the Republican plan is. What they are saying is that either there will be cuts to the disability program, or if that fund is to be replenished, the money will have to come from cuts to Social Security retirement benefits. And, House Budget Chairman Price is already talking about including Social Security cuts in the Budget Resolution that he will be writing. Needless to say, that is totally unacceptable. When we talk about Social Security today what we should be talking about is expanding benefits not cutting benefits. And, I and other members of the Senate are working on legislation to do just that. And, at a time when multimillionaires pay the same amount of money into the Social Security Trust Fund as someone making $118,500 that cap on taxable income must be raised.
The idea that Republicans are poised to cut benefits for 11 million disabled Americans was bad enough and repulsive to Americans on all ends of the political spectrum. What is even worse is that Republicans are planning to cut benefits for men and women who were disabled while risking their lives in service of their country. The Social Security Disability program is paid into by every worker in America. Sanders pointed out that a young worker has a 33% of receiving these benefits at some point in their life.
Veterans who sacrificed their country should not have their benefits cut. People who paid into the program should not have their benefits cut. Disabled Americans, who are living on a few dollars, can’t afford to have their benefits cut. Congressional Republicans don’t have the right to make these cuts to the disability program. The money that has been paid into the system doesn’t belong to them. Those funds were paid into the system by workers who expect their benefits to be there.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) recently tried to claim that half of the people who are receiving Social Security Disability benefits can work. The reality is that the Disability application process is a difficult one. Fifty-nine percent of those who apply for disability benefits are rejected.
Sen. Sanders was right to go on the attack against the Republican agenda. Veterans and all disabled Americans deserve better from their country than the treatment that they are receiving from Republicans. Liberals, conservatives, and everyone in the middle should stand up in united outrage against the Republican scheme to take from those who can least afford to lose precious resources.
Petition for a grand alliance of working people
| January 15, 2015 | 7:58 pm | Action, Economy, National, political struggle | Comments closed

http://pac.petitions.moveon.org/sign/petition-for-a-grand?source=s.fwd&r_by=8638452

Response to “Watch Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders Blast the Keystone Bill”
| January 12, 2015 | 8:22 pm | Analysis, Bernie Sanders, Economy, National | Comments closed
By A. Shaw
Warren questions the integrity of reactionary senators, both GOP and DP reactionaries, who picked Keystone as the first item on the agenda for deliberation.
Sanders states the fundamental principle of the scientific opposition to Keystone.
In June 2014, Clinton gave The Globe and Mail, the big  Canadian bourgeois newspaper, this answer when asked about Keystone:
“[But] this particular decision is a very difficult one because there are so many factors at play. I can’t really comment at great length because I had responsibility for it and it’s been passed on and it wouldn’t be appropriate, but I hope that Canadians appreciate that the United States government – the Obama administration – is trying to get it right. And getting it right doesn’t mean you will agree or disagree with the decision, but that it will be one based on the best available evidence and all of the complex local, state, federal, interlocking laws and concerns.”ritygrity of reactionary senators,both
In June 2014, Clinton gave The Globe and Mail, the big  Canadian bourgeois newpaper, this answer when asked about Keystone:
“[But] this particular decision is a very difficult one because there are so many factors at play. I can’t really comment at great length because I had responsibility for it and it’s been passed on and it wouldn’t be appropriate, but I hope that Canadians appreciate that the United States government – the Obama administration – is trying to get it right. And getting it right doesn’t mean you will agree or disagree with the decision, but that it will be one based on the best available evidence and all of the complex local, state, federal, interlocking laws and concerns.”
On Keystone, Clinton bullshits. She’s a bullshiter.
Why does she bullshit on Keystone?
She must either support or oppose or bullshit Keystone.
If she supports Keystone, she will infuriate the scientific and technical sector of  US intelligentsia and the environmental movement.
If she opposes keystone, she will infuriate big business and Wall Street.
If she bullshits, neither the scientific intelligentsia nor big business is likely to be furious. Rather both sides will likely be only disappointed with her.
Watch Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders Blast the Keystone Bill
| January 12, 2015 | 8:17 pm | Analysis, Bernie Sanders, Economy, National | Comments closed

January 10, 2015

As expected, a bill approving the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline sailed through the House of Representatives for the tenth time on Friday. The bill is predicted to pass the Senate next week, but Republicans may not have enough votes to override the veto Obama has promised.
On Wednesday we got a preview of the Senate debate when the Energy and Natural Resources Committee met to vote on the bill. Before the vote, which passed 13-9, Democrats used the opportunity to express their environmental concerns, question the bill’s job-creation numbers and propose that the steel piping must be American-made. Republicans touted the pipeline as an economy-boosting job creator that will give the US energy independence. The most striking moments came when the microphone went to Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who eloquently summed up the arguments against building a tar sands pipeline directly through the United States.
Taking the environmental angle, Sen. Bernie Sanders implored his fellow senators to think of their grandchildren, who will one day ask, “What were you doing? Did you not hear what the scientific community all over the world was saying?”
Later in the hearing, Sen. Sanders proposed a four-part amendment officially recognizing the following:
“One, climate change is real. Two, climate change is caused by human activity. Three, climate change has already caused devastating problems in the United States and around the world. And, four, it is imperative the United States transform its energy system away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy.”
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the lone committee Democrat in favor of the pipeline, responded that while he agrees with parts one, two and three, “the fourth one’s a killer, Bernie.” Eventually, Sanders’ amendment was tabled.
When Sen. Warren had a chance to speak, she immediately challenged: “I want to to know why the pipeline is the very first, number one item on the agenda in this new Congress. Who does this new Republic Congress work for? Foreign oil companies or the American people?”
Here’s a rundown of some other memorable statements from senators on both sides of the aisle:
1. Using what has become something of a go-to pro-pipeline argument, Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) questioned why the bill has been stalled in Congress for six years, when “Americans won World War II in a shorter amount of time.”
2. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) described the destruction caused by a 2010 tar sand spill in her home state’s Kalamazoo River: “We still can’t fish. People along the river can’t use their property, their backyards. This is going to take tens of years to clean up.”
3. Committee Chairperson Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) stated that although she believes in climate change, I don’t agree that all the changes are necessarily due solely to human activity.” She welcomed her fellow senators to visit the Permafrost Tunnel in Alaska, to view evidence of long-term climatic shifts.
4. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) is worried about precedent: “My fear is that by making tar sands the linchpin of American energy policy, we are literally locking ourselves into a policy that fully embraces energy imports and extremely high levels of relative carbon pollution for as long as 50 years. All at a time when we should have a national policy focused on domestic production and ever cleaner fuel sources. A vote to approve Keystone sends the signal that carbon pollution and climate change are not serious economic concerns.”
5. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) said the pipeline will keep electricity rates low in rural Montana: “As I was traveling one day to a rural co-op in Glasgow, Montana, there in my pickup, show up in my jeans and my jacket, they told me that if the Keystone pipeline’s approved, electric rate for their co-op will remain flat for the next 10 years. Why? Because they will supply electricity to the pump stations in the pipeline.”
6. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) spoke out for the “hundreds of communities that are home to millions of people” along the pipeline’s path. “These communities rely on the surrounding land for clean water. They also rely on the land for grazing, cattle and other economic activities … We owe it to the people and communities in this region to follow the process that’s been set in law to proceed. And that is the presidential review process … This bill short-circuits that process.”
7. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) argued that the pipeline could curb US dependence on Saudi Arabian and Venezuelan oil. “We already buy 2.5 million barrels a day from Canada … We’re being told right now that if we don’t build this line, that the price will go up. I’ve never — I don’t understand economics. I understand one thing. Security of our nation depends on us having the ability to have control of our own destiny.”
8. Sen. Angus King (I-ME) noted that the bill is “peculiar,” explaining: “I don’t know if I’ve ever recalled seeing a bill in any legislature that starts with the name of a particular company that’s the beneficiary … We’re supposed to be establishing policy here, not issuing building permits to individual companies. You know, why not write a bill to give money to Apple Computer?” King also noted that the US added 20,000 construction jobs in November, “and this project is talking about 4,000 jobs over the course of two years. They’re important jobs, absolutely, but let’s put them in the context of the overall national economy. Permanent jobs: 35. A new McDonald’s in Fargo, North Dakota, would add more than 35 jobs.
Katie Rose Quandt reports and produces for BillMoyers.com. She was previously a senior fellow at Mother Jones, and has written for America, In These Times, and Solitary Watch. You can follow Katie Rose on twitter @katierosequandt.
Capitol Hill Line Up Against TPP
| January 8, 2015 | 7:33 pm | Action, Analysis, Economy, Labor, National | Comments closed

By Angelo | – 5:55 PM | Economy

 http://nymetrocommunistparty.org/?p=811

CWA President Larry Cohen speaking today at a news conference called by a coalition opposing Fast Track and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. An alliance of Big Business and White House negotiators are scrambling to push fast track authority through Congress

An amazing line-up of Members of Congress, union activists, environmental leaders, people of faith, small business and community leaders stood together on Capitol Hill today to show the broad and growing opposition to Fast Track authority for trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“America will never see a raise for American working families if we continue to make trade deals like we have in 20 years since NAFTA,” CWA President Larry Cohen said. “80% of Americans have had no raise in 30 years. . . . We have to stop trade deals that only move in one direction.”

Watch President Cohen’s remarks.

More than 18 congressional representatives and leaders from the NAACP, Food and Water Watch, Sierra Club, Consumers Union, the National Catholic Social Justice Lobby NETWORK, and other groups joined the event, calling for the defeat of Fast Track.

NETWORK’s Executive Director Sister Simone Campbell, popularly known as the leader of “Nuns On The Bus,” said the effects of our past trade deals have been coming home to roost. She pointed out that children from Central America swarmed the U.S. borders last year directly because the Central American Free Trade Agreement disrupted the economies in rural areas of those countries.

“I’m here today to oppose fast track because we know from Catholic sisters in Central America, my sisters in Mexico, that these trade agreements create a huge imbalance and disequilibrium, especially in rural communities,” she said.

An alliance of Big Business and White House negotiators are scrambling to push fast track authority through Congress. Why Fast Track enables supporters to push through trade deals which no one in Congress has read with a majority vote. In the Senate, nearly all others bills require 60 votes and most of our issues have been blocked by this super majority requirement. Yet fast track only requires a simple majority of the House and Senate.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who is leading Democratic House members in the fight against Fast Track, said she is not going to stand for a bill that allows bad trade deals to be crammed down the throats of Americans without Congress examining them. American workers, she said, have suffered great harm under the North American Free Trade Agreement and other deals like it and their representatives in Congress have the Constitutional duty to consider carefully the consequences of future deals.

“This coalition exists because trade deals affect everything. We need to be able to scrutinize the text of these deals page by page, line by line, word by word. . . . We need to read this bill as we would any piece of legislation, let alone legislation with such far reaching implications,” DeLauro said.

CWA is part of a 100- group coalition that is fighting back against Fast Track, and the next 100 days are critical. Fast Track authorizing legislation is expected to come before Congress in March.

Cohen said the road forward is daunting but winnable if the coalition functions as one.

“We’re prepared in every district to work as a coalition, not silo-ed as labor, or farmers, or consumers, or environmentalists, but together to talk about what the global economy should be and how it could work for all of us,” he said. “We are humble about what we face but we are tens of millions of Americans and we are committed that we are not going to have another raw deal on trade. We’re going to come to the 21st Century and negotiate trade deals that work for tens and millions of Americans, not just for hundreds of corporations.”

CWAers and activists from coalition members will participate in National Call-In week, beginning Jan. 26, to let members of Congress know that Fast Track must be stopped. Check out www.stopthetpp.org for more information.


Now or Never: Fight Back Against Fast Track

An unholy coalition of President Obama, Majority Leader McConnell, Speaker Boehner, the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable are working together to pass Fast Track authorization for the largest trade giveaway ever, the Trans Pacific Partnership, in the next 100 days.

The president will focus on Fast Track, now known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), in his State of the Union address. McConnell will continue to announce that he will work with the White House. And make no mistake about it, the version of Fast Track or TPA that will pass the House will be Boehner Trade, acceptable to the Republican majority and its Speaker.

Overwhelmingly, House Democrats will fight back. More than three-quarters of the House Democrats have written to the president opposing Fast Track and the TPP for a multitude of reasons:

  1. Vietnam is the leading partner, with 90 million people, an average wage of 75 cents an hour, no worker rights or environmental or consumer protections and a command economy where the government and its allied organizations control virtually everything.
  2. Like NAFTA, TPP has much more to do with protecting the investment of multinational corporations, particularly those based in the US. Those investment issues dwarf lowering trade barriers. These are the very corporations that have moved millions of jobs out of the US because every trade deal since NAFTA has allowed them to sue nations that adopt legislation that limits future profits, not simply safeguards their initial investment. Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) virtually unchanged is in the TPP, and the WH defends it and brags about it to corporate audiences. Currently, multinationals have 500 pending secret arbitration lawsuits against governments regarding environmental protection, workers’ rights, health and consumer issues, to name a few.
  3. Brunei, with strict Islamic law, is another of the 12 nations in TPP. Republican conservatives are horrified by the treatment of Christians and other religious minorities there. Most of us would include homophobia, misogyny and other gross human rights violations as reason enough to avoid a major economic partnership.
  4. Currency manipulation, by central banks and controlled economies, has been a major concern of House and Senate Democrats. It is now virtually certain this will not be addressed at all in TPP.

Except for corporate management and their large shareholders, the rest of us will lose big if Fast Track is adopted, making TPP a certainty. Passing Fast Track means a guaranteed vote in the House and Senate on TPP within a short period of time and with no amendments allowed on a 2000 page Trade treaty that has been negotiated in almost total secrecy. In the Senate it means passage by a majority, not the 60 votes required on almost everything else that has blocked President Obama’s core agenda for six years, even when the House overwhelmingly supported real change from 2009-2011.

There is no point in speculating further on why the WH is collaborating with Boehner and others who have ruined the Hope and Change that the President ran on in 2008. Candidate Obama clearly stated his rejection of the Clinton and Bush trade deals, yet now he is promoting a TPP that is far more ruinous for our jobs and wage levels than its predecessors. Pay for tens of millions of Americans has been stagnant due to job export and direct pay comparisons with poorer nations, with no limits on the ability of GE or IBM, Microsoft or Amazon to export the tradable jobs or cut the pay of those that remain.
Time for action, not more talk!

  1. Virtually all Americans oppose Fast Track but we need to be organizing, shouting and fighting back, particularly with 75 swing House Democrats and Republicans. At least 190 House Democrats and Republicans will vote “No.” These 75 are key.
  2. Starting with the State of the Union address, in two weeks, we will face an avalanche from the president, Republican leaders and Big Business. We must mobilize now and like never before!
  3. Our coalition includes virtually every environmental group, labor union, and consumer organization. The WH says Walmart sells cheap goods thanks to these trade deals but most consumer groups know that TPP means less labeling and less safety for imports, and that when wages fall consumers are priced out. Immigrant rights activists know how NAFTA and CAFTA have devastated their home communities in Mexico and Central America. Community organizations and faith groups realize that the loss of millions of factory jobs has devastated most of our cities.
  4. But these broad coalitions, including conservatives who do not believe nations should trade their sovereignty for secret corporate tribunals, must mobilize now. We need Days of Action in the key communities in the swing districts. We need massive mobilization days in Washington. We need millions of emails reminding the president of what he said when he campaigned, versus the reality of this TPP, which is nothing different and in many ways is worse than NAFTA and other trade deals. We need to shout to the president, “Don’t roll your own caucus for Boehner Trade.”
  5. Organizations like my own need to commit real time and resources to this fight and not back up out of loyalty to President Obama. We have stood with him on nearly every issue but not this one. He needs to stand with us and the Democrats in Congress.

We are under attack!
What do we do?
We Stand Up and Fight Back!
Now!