As we note, the heightened attention to the crisis, and hopefully proposals for Congressional action, the alarming jobless figures will be repeated over and over. The employment situation is dire and from all indications it is going to get worse.
Think First About the Unemployed, Not the Politicians … and Act
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What’s happening to the lives of the legions out of work – particularly the young men and women – has to take second place to the fortune of the President and his party. The human crisis would be real regardless of who is in the Oval Office and is what should move the President and the Congress to do the right thing.
Obama, the Karzai Brothers and the Ghost of Najibullah
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In any case, the proper path for the U.S. must not involve continuing to bed down with the feudal warlords and the likes of the Karzai brothers. That puts us on the wrong side of history and decency.
The Next Nasty Attack from the Right
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The global warming debate is going to be painful, particularly if the make-Obama-fail crowd has its way, and if the major media does its usually sloppy job of defining the issue. Nonsense like “death panels” come to mind.
Surprise: The Left Is Not Going Away
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The much touted decline of the European left turned out to be pretty much of a mirage. The continent’s politics are being realigned not in spite of but because of the economic crisis. And the much of the gain has gone to the left – taken as a whole.
Racism and Reaction Must Be Confronted
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Rightwing populism is dangerous but the greatest potential peril lies not in the presence of some loony or deluded, irrational people parading through the streets. It arises from the certainty that there will always be someone lurking about in a trench coat to fan the flames for their own cynical purposes.
Goodbye Luis, Welcome to the Jobless Ranks
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Job cuts in August were lower than they’ve been in recent months. But a deeper look at the data shows why it will take millions of new jobs to dig American workers out of this recession’s deep pit.
Michael Steele’s Impossible Mission
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I can’t summon up any empathy for Michael Steele. Trying to rescue the Republican party while is sinks in a morass of scandal and historical irrelevancy is a task I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Message to Obama: We Need a New Deal
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One of the striking aspects of the job stats so far this year is the number of out-of-work college graduates. It keeps on growing.
Illusion, Reality & Courage in Iran
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In the movie “The Year of Living Dangerously,” the little guy Billy Kwan, brilliantly played by Linda Hunt, gives a news reporter Guy Hamilton, played by Mel Gibson, a talk about Indonesian puppets — the kind on sticks, which you can now sometime find in import shops in this country. The figures as shown are [...]
New Jobless Stats: Still “Less Terrible”? Not for Some
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The Lex Column in the Financial Times got it right: “… ‘less down’ is now the new ‘up’ as media watchers search for stabilization in the overall market.” The writer was referring to the world of advertising where some analysts were putting a hopeful spin on revenue that fell 18% over the first three months [...]
What’s Not Being Said About the Obama-Netanyahu Talks
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The day after the White House talks between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the news agency AFP (Agence France-Presse) sent out an unusual story. It seems to have noticed what some of the rest of us did, that the story was being downplayed. The talks, it said, had “earned only [...]
Putting a Smiley Face on the Job Picture Can’t Evade the Growing Tragedy
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Michael T. Darda, chief economist at the research and trading firm MKM Partners, probably summed up last week’s message from Washington best, telling the New York Times, “Less bad is always a prelude to good.” The things one learns. We are being asked to believe that the results of the “stress tests” were “not as [...]
The Hush-Hush Story: Why They Tortured
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It’s like a can of worms from which a few are slithering out. Most of the major media have avoided even approaching it. But if it is as is being suggested the implications are enormous, touching not only on the real reason prisoners were tortured but, as well, into the real origin of the war [...]
African Americans and the Economic Crisis
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Joe Biden was quite out front about it. On the same day the newspapers were trumpeting the news that President Obama had felt a “glimmer of hope” in the economic situation, the Vice-President was telling CNN that we can expect unemployment to increase each month for the rest of the year. Joblessness stands at 8.5% [...]
U.S. Economic Policy Faces a Defiant Planet
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As President Obama begins his first European tour this week, starting with the G20 economic summit, he’s finding that much of the rest of the world has suddenly become quite uppity. If all goes as planned, by the time these word are published, floats will have departed in late morning April 1 on a “Financial [...]
The Rich Countries’ Faltering “United Front”
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By now we’ve heard “The worst economic crisis since the 1930s” – or words to that effect – so many times it’s become like a mantra. But as the days roll on it begins to appear that it might just be an understatement and that not only does the economic situation appear more like the [...]
Obama Rescuing Capitalism: That’s a Lot of Weight for One Brother
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Back in December, when it was obvious that the economy was in bad shape and before we knew how precarious it could get, Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International and columnist for Newsweek and the Washington Post, wrote, “For Obama to be remembered as a great president, he has to do nothing less than rescue [...]
The Stimulus and the “Threat to Stability”
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Well, now it appears that, as the New York Times put it Monday, the “Rise in Jobless Poses Threat to Stability Worldwide.” This comes just after the new United States Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, told Congress instability caused by the global economic crisis had become the biggest security threat facing the United States, [...]
From Davos to Belem: A Take of Two Spirits
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This years’ gathering at Davos appears to have been a complete dud. It’s hard for one who wasn’t there to say how complete but if President Obama is reading the reports from the celebrated Swiss mountaintop he has to be glad he didn’t go and that he didn’t send a high powered delegation. And the [...]
Dissing Rice
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Let’s see if I got this right. The prime minister of an allied government disses the U.S. Secretary of State, says he went over her head and got her boss, the President of the United States, to countermand her intention to vote for a resolution at the United Nations and gloats over the fact that [...]
Goodbye Condi
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Of all the outrageous statements coming out of the Bush Administration over the course of its eight year reign, perhaps the most odious came from the Secretary of State. It was the summer of 2006. Israel troops had entered Lebanon to wage war against the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and the Israeli Air Force was raining [...]
States’ Budget Crises: Share the Pain, Share the Dough
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by Carl Bloice – It’s probable that by the time this is read, officials in San Jose, California, will have eliminated athletic programs from all 11 of the city’s high schools. It might not seem like much to some, given the declining economic situation in the country and the kinds of budget cuts being made [...]
Holiday Gloom in Silicon Valley
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by Carl Bloice – A couple of days before Thanksgiving one of my downstairs neighbors matter of factly told me he had lost his job. He’d been abruptly laid off by a local information technology startup company. “They let go so many people I don’t know how they are going to get the work done,” [...]
Prescription for an “Ailing” Industry: Take It Over
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by Carl Bloice – It is hemorrhaging fast and no end to the blood-letting seems to be in sight. No question, something has to be done about the auto industry. But what?
Who Woulda Thought?
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by Carl Bloice – Just a small group of brothers sitting around at my place watching the Oakland Raiders lose again. During a commercial break, the subject of the next week’s election came up. “Seriously, would you have ever thought, in your wildest imagination, that an African American could be elected President in your lifetime?” [...]
It Makes You Want to Cry: Economy Hits Seniors Hard
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He caught me by the elevator. “Do you know how much peanut butter costs at Safeway now as compared to two months ago?” John asked. I didn’t but I had been aware of the recent cost of berries, which were rising out of sight. Joe wanted to know if I had, as requested, written to [...]
The Black Jobless Picture – From Bleak to Bleaker & Out of Sight
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When I heard there was a sizable increase in black community joblessness between April and May I mentioned it to a few people and in return got that so-what-else-is-new? stare. “Every month, when unemployment rate data are released, the news for African Americans is bleak,” wrote educator Julianne Malveaux four years ago. Some things change, [...]
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