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CINDY WALSH FOR MAYOR OF BALTIMORE----SOCIAL DEMOCRAT
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November 30th, 2012

11/30/2012

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I let Maryland's media outlets including WYPR our public media station that WE KNOW YOU KNOW THESE CREDIT BONDS ARE BAD FOR THE PUBLIC!!!!  I also let ACLU-MD and BUILD know that they are pushing a good cause the wrong way.  Remember, it is not only the public sector that will be devastated by a bond blowup, almost all private sector pensions and non-profits are heavily invested in municipal bonds.  This massive fraud will place the US in the same position of these southern European nations today.

Why would the 1% place the country at such great risk?  They are growing overseas and are now global entities and have no intent on giving back the wealth stolen over these few decades.  They intend to take the US to the point of the Middle Eastern nations like Bahrain as one financial analyst described it.  THAT IS WHY IT IS VERY IMPORTANT NOT TO ALLOW THIS MASSIVE MORTGAGE FRAUD TO GO UNADDRESSED.  We could pay off the entire $14 trillion in national debt by just recovering corporate fraud over this one decade.

Returning now to public schools, for those of us decrying this charter school setup that allows schools designated as public to act as private (it really is a situation in which the 1% are telling all of us to suspend reality and accept the difference....JUST GET OVER IT AS FRASER SMITH SAYS!) Across the country Third Way corporate democrats like O'Malley, Cuomo, and Biden (running for President in 2016) are allowing schools to be funded differently, staffed differently, and to have data shielded from the public as is convenient.  As we in Baltimore know the data released to the public to show improvements are often not accurate in many cases.  Just take a look at the student achievements on standardized tests for one school......Johns Hopkins' Dunbar High School.  You will see achievement high in 2009 and then drop to a 50% plus/minus achievement success in most test areas.  Yet, 100% of students are listed as 'passing' to the next grade.

It is important for the students that these kinds of disconnect stop.  If Baltimore and Maryland are going to create a statistic that makes them look good on paper while the students are not achieving, we are not Moving Forward as O'Malley and Anthony Brown like to say.  The problem in this case may be that a historically black and underserved neighborhood school was handed to Johns Hopkins and made an AP high school.  This will change the class dynamic as most underserved students in the city are not AP ready.  So the schools statistics are not accurate and the children are being placed in a position making it harder for them to achieve.  I want to say again that Dunbar is an example of a school designated as 'public' that has been given so many resources over and above other schools because of its connections with Johns Hopkins as to fail the 'public' equal access/equal opportunity principle.  Below you see most schools in Baltimore do not even have a health aid as Dunbar has a medical unit.  FUNDING EQUITY DEFINES PUBLIC SCHOOLS!!!!! 


Paul Laurence Dunbar High School 601 North Central Ave, Baltimore, MD 21202 10 Overall School Rating Grades:9 to 12

Level:High

District:Baltimore City Public Schools

Phone:(410) 396-9478

Students:449

Teachers:26

The shaded area denotes the school attendance zone

Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Key Metrics Paul Laurence Dunbar High School is located in Baltimore, MD.

The high school is part of the Baltimore City Public District. The school serves grades 9 through 12. Approximately 449 students attend the school and 26 teachers provide instruction. The student-teacher ratio is 17 to 1. The average annual expenditure per student is $16,689. Based on test scores and other factors, the relative quality of education provided at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School is rated a 10 out of 10.

Ethnicity Free/Reduced Lunch
9th Grade104
10th Grade82
11th Grade137
12th Grade126
Students By Grade $16,689   Spending Per Student
17 TO 1 Student:Teacher Ratio

____________________________________________________

School Clinics November 30, 2012  WYPR

In Baltimore city, health officials say that increasing numbers of public school students are suffering from complex health problems, such as asthma, epilepsy, diabetes and allergies. However, health care still consists mainly of health aides in most local schools. This month, a pilot program kicked off that will give students who have minimum health care at their school access to a neighboring school’s fully-staffed, health center. WYPR’s Gwendolyn Glenn has more.

Gwendolyn Glenn: This blood pressure machine is used often at Dunbar High’s health center. The school is one of only 17 in the city and 71 statewide that have a fully-staffed health center. In addition to a registered nurse, a medical assistant, health aide and a mental health professional, it has a full-time nurse practitioner. School principal Kristina Kyles.

Kristina Kyles: Our nurse practitioner can do sports physicals, so our students can come here and get a full physical work up for their athletics. Another nice thing about our clinics is our students can do things like family planning.

Glenn: The nurse practitioner also writes prescriptions for the more than 800 students,, does immunizations, handles major illnesses, such as asthma attacks and consults with a part-time, on site physician. But the National Academy Foundation Middle/High School. NAF has only two nurses and two part-time health aides for its more than 800 students. Through the pilot program, NAF’s students can now take a short walk across the schools’ shared courtyard to get preventive and comprehensive care at Dunbar’s health center.

Ayanna Rodgers: What it means for us is anytime our nurses are either busy with students, those students if they have an immediate need, they are able to can get the care they need in a timely manner.

Glenn: NAF’s assistant principal Ayanna Rodgers says it will also mean fewer students with serious health issues will end up in emergency rooms. That would have been the normal procedure last week when a NAF student had an asthma attack and the school nurse was out of the building.

Rodgers: That student was sent over to Dunbar and they didn’t have to wait for our nurse to return and we didn’t have to call our local Fire Department or thel EMTs to come out.

Glenn: State regulations require all schools to have at a minimum a health aide. However, if a school has more than 750 students it must have a full-time registered nurse.

Nicole Johnson: A health aide can do a lot and provide some support, but the health disparities we’re seeing in East Baltimore and across the city, young people need more than that.

Glenn: Nicole Johnson sits on the Maryland Association of School-Based Health Centers board and is senior director for Elev8 Baltimore. Elev8 is working to turn around low-performing schools in East Baltimore. They upgraded the clinics in their schools with full-time registered nurses and part-time nurse practitioners. Johnson thinks all schools should have this type of health care.

Johnson: We have to look at ways to go beyond the policies and really look at the needs of young people and making sure young people have ongoing support for prevention rather than just emergency care.

Glenn: According to an Annie E. Casey Foundation study, in 2009 more than six percent of Baltimore city students did not have health care. That’s a reason Karen Ndour, the district’s executive director for student support thinks the pilot program is so important.

Ndour: We assume that students have services that they don’t have. Every child does not have a private physician, every child doesn’t go to the doctor once a year for a check-up, so if those school resources exist in certain schools, we just want it to have a broader reach.

Glenn: The city and school district spent about 17 million dollars on school health care last year. They say there’s no funding for new clinics, but hope the pilot program will provide ammunition to attract outside funding. I’m Gwendolyn Glenn reporting in Baltimore for 88 1, WYPR.


______________________________________________
My Teach for America rants are famous, but this article below really shows how this program does not work for the most part especially in poor neighborhoods where they are most often placed.


MY COMMENTS TO THE ARTICLE BELOW. 

cwals99 at 2:11 PM November 30, 2012For those of us fighting the Teach for America push that Superintendent Alonzo embraces, this kind of story is an example of how people with no background and life experience comes into urban schools and stay for a few years and leave for alternate careers.  That is overwhelmingly the statistic for Teach for America.  The revolving door environment this creates is the last thing schools in underserved schools need and a cultural understanding may have created a different experience.

As an educator, albeit old school, one of the basic tenets of learning is the ability to form a bond/trust with the students and an understanding of the communities in which you are to teach.  There is no way to be successful if you do not have these two things. This is especially true of underserved students/neighborhoods.  So, as I regularly decry at Baltimore City School Board meetings this Teach for America push in poor schools, academics can only wonder why a school leader would fail in meeting these basic tenets of learning.

Baltimore City School children have gotten the wrong end of the education funding stick for decades and now that school reform is at hand we expect that these underserved children will receive their day of fair and balanced funding and access to resources.  Having this Teach for America person in the classroom shows the failure to meet these requirements.


I wanted to give one example of how critical it is to have experience in the communities in which you are to work.  Baltimore has truly deep poverty and with it the social ills that come with living in survival mode.  It is not sadly unusual, it is the fabric of life.  Violence and crime permeate as a result.  So to teach at an inner city school and not be prepared for these challenges is naive at best.  Here is an example:

When I listen to the recent report of children in schools with knives and school administrators explaining how protecting children from juvenile records is important to them, I see someone who has that experience and knowledge of environment that will move the school forward.  Do we want these incidences hidden with no response?  NO.  Is the current legal framework regarding these infractions adequate?  NO.  The answer is to change the legal framework to allow for reporting so children have no record.  Then the administrators can effectively work to protect and correct these incidences.  These children and the teachers assigned to give them all the opportunities needed for success need all the resources necessary to achieve this goal.  More adults in each classroom to help with discipline is a no-brainer.  More family counseling units are required.  Educators with personal experience with at-risk populations is a must.

'Terrordome' describes teaching at a West Baltimore high school Heather Kirn Lanier describes death threats, administrators who sabotaged their staffs, and students who did — and did not — defy the odds

Heather Kirn Lanier, author of "Teaching in the Terrordome: Two Years in West Baltimore with Teach for America." (Justin Lanier, Baltimore Sun / November 17, 2012)

By Mary Carole McCauley, The Baltimore Sun November 17, 2012

During Heather Kirn Lanier's two years in Baltimore as a neophyte teacher, she taught at a city high school that backed up against Mount Olivet Cemetery.

She could clearly see tombstones from her classroom window. Each time Lanier took in the view, she could practically watch another one of her illusions being buried.

She's written about her experience at the former Southwestern High School from 2000 to 2002 in a new book called "Teaching in the Terrordome: Two Years in West Baltimore with Teach for America." (Southwestern closed in 2007.)

Lanier, 34, writes that, for better or worse, her two years with Teach for America were a defining experience in her life. After leaving the program, Lanier earned a master's degree in creative writing from Ohio State University, taught remedial reading and writing to non-native speakers at the University of California at Berkeley, and moved to Vermont with her husband and their toddler. She recently chatted by phone about her book, which details death threats, administrators who sabotaged their staffs, and a few students who defied the odds and managed to thrive.

How did you join Teach for America?

I was nearing graduation at the University of Delaware, and I didn't know what I was going to do with myself. I loved learning and thought I might enjoy being on the other side of the classroom.

I'd read about this huge achievement gap between students at the middle-class suburban schools and those attending low-income schools. They were the kind of places teachers were trying to get out of, and I felt that's where I could do the most good. Private-school students would be fine whether I taught there or not.

The introduction notes that your book reconstructs some dialogue. In addition, the names of all students and most adults have been changed. How accurately can you remember things that were said 10 years ago?

All the conversations in my book really happened. I had an idea even then that I might write a book some day, and I was keeping notes. Most of the raw material went into my journal right after those events took place. I also was part of a group of four other teachers from Teach for America. I showed a draft of the book to them, and they didn't have any corrections.

What was your most memorable experience at Southwestern?

I didn't put this in the book, but I'll always remember this one day: I was teaching a difficult lesson during fourth period. It went really, really well and I felt great. But after class, this kid stood in the door and exposed himself to me. It was 4 o'clock, there was nobody in the hallway and it was traumatizing.

That [kind of sequence] would happen all the time. There'd be this great victory and —boom! — something would go wrong and undercut it. I had to remind myself, "I just work here seven hours a day, and then I go home to a nice neighborhood. But, my students live here." And we wonder why they're three grade levels behind.

Your book describes your reaction to a series of articles exposing conditions at Northern that ran in The Baltimore Sun beginning in December 2000.

[In my experience,] there were slight differences between the zone schools. Northern had a lot of knives, while Southwestern had a very high arson rate. Fires were set in the hallways every other day, it seemed. The bulletin boards were flammable, and the students figured that out.

Despite those regional differences, all across the city, teachers told each other, "That sounds just like my school. It sounds just like your school."

[The Sun wrote] a great expose, but the result was a glossing over. Someone got fired, and it was assumed that would take care of the problem. But, it didn't fix my school or Dunbar. [In 2002, Northern was split into two smaller schools.]

Have you received any push-back from the Baltimore school system, Teach for America or your former colleagues?

Not yet, but the book just came out. We'll see.

I know you think there isn't just one all-purpose fix for Baltimore's school system, because there isn't just one cause for all the problems. But what are some of the steps that you think should be taken?

From my experience teaching at Southwestern, I thought smaller communities were important. A place like Southwestern was so big and institutional. Even after it was divided into smaller schools, the building had all these nooks and crannies where students could hide.

A small, close-knit community, where the principal knows every single student by name and where the teachers work in teams, would have been helpful. It wasn't until I got to know my students and their problems that things started to click.

I'm also very pro-teacher. Teachers are getting a lot of blame right now because students aren't performing. But people aren't asking teachers what they need to do their jobs better. People always say that teachers have it easy and only work 10 months of the year. But I don't know any teachers who work seven hours a day. They work 10, 12 hours a day. Their summers are spent in professional development and in what little time is left, they detoxify.

They grew up in these communities, they're still living there, and they're not burned out quite yet. They're not movie star-worthy or turning out impressive statistics. They're just doing the job that no one wants to do but that everyone thinks they should do better. They're the real heroes.

mary.mccauley@baltsun.com




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November 29th, 2012

11/29/2012

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WE ARE TELLING OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS......WE KNOW YOU KNOW THAT THESE CREDIT BOND DEALS ARE NOT NECESSARY AND JEOPARDIZE OUR PUBLIC FINANCES.



Make no mistake, this school building funding plan is all about imploding municipalities with debt.  Think about the teacher's pensions sent down to local levels......think of all public pensions.  The state and city's ability to pay entitlements and social programs are all tied with municipal health.  Look at Spain, Italy, and Greece as their politicians loaded the governments with debt.  THIS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MARYLAND AND IT IS BEING ALLOWED TO HAPPEN, NOT OUT OF NECESSITY, IT IS HAPPENING TO ACHIEVE A GOAL.

In Baltimore, we have a public media outlet....WYPR that is a mouthpiece for all of these shenanigans.  Fraser Smith has been emboldened by the re-election of all incumbents to simply tell 80% of Marylander's to JUST GET OVER IT if you don't like what comes out of Annapolis......they have the power after all.  We even have Marketplace on NPR state publicly that Congress  is working on policy for the shareholder (the 5%) interest, saying capital gains and dividends will be protected from much increase.  Remember, to reverse wealth inequity we need progressive taxation.  Keeping these two tax levels at 20% means wealth inequity is protected.  As we see below all tax policy is now very obviously protecting wealth to a startling degree.  I thing 95% of the general public can manage to simply VOTE THEIR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!

There will come a time when these fraudsters won't even try to hide the fraud with these 'complex financial instruments'.  If left unchecked, they will simply take it.

Public education is the cornerstone of democracy.  If we do not shout loudly and strongly to protect this and I dare say health care from Wall Street profit, we will be positioned closer to the Egyptians in our ability to turn this autocracy around.

SHOUT LOUDLY AND STRONGLY AND MAKE 'DEMOCRACY NOW' YOUR HOBBY!

DON'T THINK YOUR CITY COUNCIL MEMBER OR MAYOR RAWLINGS-BLAKE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND THIS.  DON'T THINK YOUR STATE ASSEMBLY MEMBER AND GOVERNOR O'MALLEY DOESN'T UNDERSTAND THIS.

Maryland is a mini-California.  All of its wealth is concentrated around the beltway and all other outward areas are being impoverished by policy that lavishes all revenue streams towards the beltway.  Where are all the companies doing business in Baltimore connected?  THAT'S RIGHT....THE BELTWAY.

Municipal Bond Credit Is Imploding NOV. 7, 2011

By CHRISS STREET  Cal Watchdog

Moody’s Credit Rating Service just announced the ominous trend that credit quality in the municipal bond market is falling at the fastest rate since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.  Data released showed that 5.3 times as many municipal bonds were credit downgraded over the three last months than were upgraded.

“Downgrades dominated rating revisions across all public finance sectors except for healthcare,” said Assistant Vice President-Analyst Dan Steed, author of the Moody’s report. “A rapid deterioration in credit metrics led to a higher-than-average 14 multi-notch downgrades.”

Often sold to individuals as “conservative investments with tax-free income”, munis in such states as California, Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are increasingly looking like high-risk rolls of the dice.

This credit implosion comes after a sustained period when muni bonds were performing much better than corporate bonds.  During the credit crisis, corporate bonds prices dropped by 30 percent, while muni bonds suffered modest losses.

The main reason for this stability was bailout money showered on state and local governments by the Obama Administration.  But federal money has dried up and property reassessments are falling for the first time since the 1970s.

Strains on core operating expenses and revenue sources will likely persist, according to Moody’s. “This will be mostly due to economic stagnation, high unemployment, declining home values, and low consumer confidence,” said Steed.  “We expect downgrades to continue exceeding upgrades in upcoming quarters.”   This is polite ratings speak for: “duck and cover.”

State revenues fell by $14.3 billion, even as the national economy has seemed to stabilize.  The quarter ending September 30 saw 163 ratings reductions, the second highest 90-day total in history.  Over 100 of those downgrades were cities and school districts where falling property-tax collections are playing catch-up on the downside to the 30 percent fall in real estate values.

John Dillon, chief municipal-bond strategist at Morgan Stanley, said after a downgrade, “Usually management snaps to attention.”

Costs and Revenues To stay solvent, states and localities have tried to cut costs and raise revenues. Most have delayed infrastructure projects, increased garbage collection fees and even closed parks.  But raising property taxes awakens taxpayer vengeance and threats of recalling local politicians.

Anne Van Praagh, managing director at Moody’s, said fiscal conditions of some local governments can deteriorate more quickly now than in previous recessions.  Moody’s recently cut seven states or localities by three grades or more.

Fresno, California’s fifth most populous city, two weeks ago had $477 million of its debt “super-downgraded” three levels by Moody’s and is under a “negative” outlook for the risk of further downgrades.  Moody’s emphasized the city’s budget gap is so large due to a “weak economic base, with unfavorable demographic and economic trends,” and the city lacks the “ability to absorb additional budgetary pressure…. Like all California cities, Fresno’s ability to raise revenues is highly constrained; its primary budget balancing option is cost reduction.” This is ratings speak for: property collection may fall 20 percentand the city must fire police and firemen.

Stockton Could Default The neighboring city of Stockton looks even worse.  Following a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the city admitted it will probably be the first in California to default on redevelopment agency bonds.

Long criticized as crony capitalist honey-buckets, developers lavished huge donations across the state to gain access to the tax-free city financing of mega-projects with no-money-down.  After the agency debt was downgrade to “junk,” Stockton optimistically stated they only expect a 3.17 percent drop in property values for 2012.  Good luck on that number!

With muni bonds generally in the hands of older citizens, there has not been the panic-selling by institutions when bonds are downgraded.  But many individuals have their entire life savings in municipal bonds.

When defaults become a reality, the press will run endless stories of tearful traumatized seniors and cringing corrupted politicians.  Then there will be panic!

Chriss Street’s latest book, “The Third Way,” is now available on Amazon.  If you would like to order a signed copy, contact The Forum Press at:  www.theforumpress.com.




________________________________________________
The public can now see the pattern of market/wealth protection by our Third Way corporate democrats.  Where we elected our officials and then thought they were working for us, we now know they are working for the shareholders....the 5%.  Here is yet another sign of where the next massive fraud will be......remember, developers are basically Wall Street now as they are pouring all those trillions in fraudulent gains into urban development.  Once blighted property to become a world-class city with real estate values having record prices.......what profits will be had.

So, your Third Way Democratic incumbent is laying the groundwork for this scheme.  Tax-free profits from bonds....allows yet another wealth money source to go untaxed.  So as Wall Street floods cities with all kinds of municipal bond debt, they will be protected when the market collapses and they will have all those gains tax free.  This is even better than the subprime mortgage fraud.


Build America Bonds Wikileaks

Build America Bonds are a taxable municipal bond created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that carry special tax credits and federal subsidies for either the bond holder or the bond issuer. Many issuers have taken advantage of the Build America Bond provision to secure financing at a lower cost than issuing traditional tax-exempt bonds. The Build America Bond provision is open to governmental agencies issuing capital expenditure bonds before January 1, 2011.[11][12][13]

______________________________________________________
If your plan is to blow up municipal governments with high levels of leveraged debt you will need a credit default swap (CDS) to protect you against any loses from these bad financial tools.  Think CDS and AIG......nationalized and all insurance bets paid in full by taxpayers.....you and I. 

Below you see this new kind of credit default swap designed for this new municipal bond implosion......municipal bond insurance.  THINK IT IS A GOOD SIGN WHEN AN INDUSTRY IS CREATED JUST TO INSURE AGAINST DEFAULT??????  THAT'S RIGHT.......IT IS A SETUP!!!!

WHEN YOUR INCUMBENT TELLS YOU THAT BONDHOLDERS TAKE ALL THE RISK IF THERE IS A DEFAULT........THEY ARE TELLING YOU THAT TAXPAYERS WILL YET AGAIN TAKE ALL THE RISK.  WHO WILL END UP WITH HIGHLY-LEVERAGED SCHOOLS WHEN THE PUBLIC IS YET AGAIN SOAKED WITH ALL OF THE DEBT FROM THIS LATEST FRAUD.......AND IT IS FRAUD BECAUSE IT IS BEING CONSTRUCTED WITH THE INTENT TO HARM.....


U.S. Public Finance Assured Guaranty is the leading provider of municipal bond insurance in the United States.

Our municipal credit enhancement products include:

  • Municipal bond insurance policies covering principal and interest, for both new issues and those already trading in the secondary market
  • Surety policies that take the place of cash-funded reserves in municipal bond transactions
  • Specialized financial guaranty policies, such as swap sureties guaranteeing a municipal issuer’s obligations under a swap agreement with a broker-dealer 
We guarantee a wide range of municipal bond types supported either by tax revenues or revenues from essential public projects or services. We insure both tax-exempt and taxable municipal bonds, such as Build America Bonds.

While we have two platforms – AGM, a municipal-only bond insurer, and AGC, a diversified provider -- we are one team, applying a uniform underwriting standard and dedicated to the highest level of customer service. In addition to our large municipal bond insurance department in our New York headquarters, we maintain a fully staffed western regional office in San Francisco.

Additionally, through our Sure-Bid program, we simplify administrative procedures for qualified bidders in the competitive-bid market for both insured and uninsured municipal bonds.

Follow the links below for information on recent insured municipal bonds guaranteed by AGM or AGC.

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November 28th, 2012

11/28/2012

0 Comments

 
As an extension of private investment in public projects and to segue into education policy I want to highlight what Third Way pols are trying to do in Baltimore and I know it is happening across America.  It has to do with the privatization of K-12 with charter schools.  First, I want to show two articles that shed light on how systemic the criminal nature of US markets are still.  As I said there is a flurry of growth overseas and that is where all the economic news is as a result.  Domestic news sounds like elevator music as they say the same thing over and again.  Now that Obama is reelected financial reporters openly say that he protects Wall Street from regulations as he has and with the announcement of SEC's replacement for Shapiro, Obama is sending a message that Wall Street will be just as dangerous and unaccountable as ever.  No laws have been made that make convicting fraud easier and all caps on awards that allow little penalty and no admission of guilt are still there.  So your incumbent is sitting silently as Wall Street is gearing up to do the exact same thing.

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!

Most people in the US do not know the details of Europe's woes but they are about to be caught in the same scheme.  Europe's collapse was not only from subprime mortgage fraud but for the southern Europeans there was sovereign debt fraud as well with a scheme by Goldman Sachs and DeutschBank of Germany.  The idea was to create such a debt level as to force these social governments to disband Europe's social programs, privatizing the public sector as much as possible.  So Goldman Sachs created a fraudulent financial vehicle to hide sovereign debt so these countries could take more and more debt until these fraudsters knew the governments would not be able to pay the debt......that is where the troika comes in and takes over the government-----AKA the rape of Europa.  That is why you are hearing of catastrophic poverty and it was all based on fraud.

Well, these past few years have the financial columns filled with talk of the next bubble since Wall Street has impoverished everyone and no one wants to invest in the market because it is criminal.  THAT BUBBLE IS MUNICIPAL BONDS......GIVING CITY AND STATE GOVERNMENTS CREDIT BEYOND THEIR BUDGETS TO LEVERAGE BONDS WELL BEYOND THEIR MEANS.......SOUND FAMILIAR TO THE STORY ABOVE?  YOU BETCHA!!!!

Municipal bonds have always been the safest of investments and indeed many of people's pension plans are invested there for that reason.  Now, Wall Street is going to make the Muni-market high risk as they create these instruments called credit bonds that leverage governments to high risk levels at a very dangerous economic time......sound like sub-prime loans and the House of Cards?  IT IS THE SAME.

Baltimore and Maryland have been all in on all financial instruments that end in fraud and lost taxpayer/citizen money.  O'Malley, Rawlings-Blake and Baltimore City Council have served Baltimore residents to Wall Street time and again.  So this election saw several bond issues on the ballot and now we are seeing the announcement of this massive $2.4 billion school construction bond that will be a credit bond leveraged to the max.  Wall Street needs the business and our Third Way pols are there to provide.  What will happen if the recession returns and the economy collapses again as has been predicted in strong likelihood?  Wall Street will control the schools finance with a city default and would be able to sell the schools to a private entity.......charter schools.  THIS IS A SCENARIO THAT MAKES MORE SENSE THAN ANY.


VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!

THIS IS A LOOK AT HOW UGLY THINGS HAVE GOTTEN IN FINANCE.  NO ONE TRUSTS ANYONE BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL CRIMINAL.  BELOW IS A COMMENTER TO THE ARTICLE THAT HITS ON THE RIGHT IDEA.

Sounds more like the crook has finally acknowledged his defeat.  It's easy to see his pattern:  short on a Chinese company, openly question the company's financial statements, then make $million as investors flock from the company's stock. 

It's a simple formula and it feeds on fear that people have on Chinese companies due to widespread Western media coverage of corporate corruption in China.  When frantic selling occurs, it has the same effect as mass cash withdrawal on banks and can technically knock down a company -- saved the few that have generous cash reserves.



Block Gives Up on China Shorts, Says State Protects Fraud By Ye Xie, Tom Keene and Stephanie Ruhle - Nov 27, 2012 1:05 PM ET Bloomberg Financial

Carson Block, founder of Muddy Waters LLC, said he’s lost interest in betting against Chinese stocks and speculates the government is protecting fraudulent companies.

“China has gotten harder in the sense that the government has really taken the side of the fraud,” Block said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Market Makers” program today. “The government is working with a number of these companies to try to conceal records that are public. When you are up against that sort of strength of the ability to revise history, it becomes difficult. That is one of the reasons we’re not that interested in China anymore.”

HOW DOES THAT DIFFER FROM AMERICA?

This is my comment to the article below:

Isn't it odd that given the history of systemic fraud in the financial sector that Baltimore wants to place its citizens again in the hands of Wall Street banks; more importantly regarding our schools? Baltimore has billions of dollars needing to come to the city that will easily pay for all schools to be renovated, no closing needed. Maryland courts ruled the state owes Baltimore and HBCU $800 million for decades of missing funds; the $25 billion mortgage fraud settlement, an interest payment towards hundreds of billions in Wall Street fraud brought $1 billion to Maryland of which the AG simply placed close to $700,000 in the state's general fund. These frauds were perpetrated overwhelmingly on communities now needing school renovation and as such that $700,000 needs to come to Baltimore and Prince George's County. A second round of subprime mortgage settlements will bring billions more to the area.  We already have financial resources to easily pay all costs for renovating all Baltimore schools. Why enter into yet another agreement with a dubious character at a time when the economy is shaky and municipal budgets strained?
If Baltimore's mayor and city council enter this kind of agreement and the US falls into another recession, which is likely, Wall Street will receive control of these schools as the city defaults and Wall Street will sell ownership to private entities. That is why this credit bond leveraging is happening. Privatization of public schools.

WE NEED TO BE VERY PUBLIC ABOUT THE FACT THAT ALL PUBLIC OFFICIALS KNOW THIS IS A HUGE RISK AND BAD DEAL FOR THE CITIZENS OF BALTIMORE!!!!  WE WILL BE PROSECUTING THIS ISSUE SOON!!!


City schools unveil 10-year renovation plan Twenty-six buildings to close; more than 100 to be rehabbed

By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 11:38 p.m. EST, November 27, 2012

In the next 10 years, Baltimore's school system will have a leaner, modernized look under a proposed $2.4 billion facilities plan that calls for closing 26 school buildings and upgrading 136 others in a large-scale face-lift of Maryland's oldest school infrastructure.

The plan, announced by CEO Andrés Alonso on Tuesday, would orchestrate the relocation of some schools to different buildings; others would cease to exist.

The first schools affected are four recommended to close at the end of the current school year: Baltimore Rising Star Academy, Garrison Middle, Patapsco Elementary/Middle, and William C. March Middle.

"There will be many difficult decisions, but all will place students in better buildings than they are in today," Alonso said in a news conference attended by the mayor and other political leaders. "Big picture: The plan is right for kids and necessary to take their progress to the next level."

The revamped system will allow for a more efficient use of space, Alonso said, adding that "every single one of those buildings will be equal to the need of our students."

But as news spread across the city, parents and educators in schools that could face closures grappled with the uncertainty of their students' futures.

"I'm totally shocked," said Dana Jones-Hines, who has a junior and a freshman at Northwestern High School, which is recommended for closing in 2015-2016. "I had anticipated my kids graduating from here. I am just mind-boggled right now."

The school board is expected to vote on the 10-year plan in January, and will also have to approve any school closures slated in a given year.

School board members who attended the news conference held at Calvin M. Rodwell Elementary School -- a school at 119 percent of its rated capacity and slated for a renovation -- supported the plan.

Board President Neil Duke said that the plan's announcement wasn't the time to "take a victory lap."

"A decade is too long," Duke said. "We have to hustle, folks."

"This is a day of reckoning," echoed School Board Commissioner Bob Heck. "This is our shot. There's no question about that."

The four schools recommended for 2012-2013 closures had building utilization rates between 20 percent and 50 percent, and have also struggled academically, school officials said. Fewer than 1,000 students will be affected by this year's proposed closures, officials said, and teachers will be shifted around to accommodate students who disperse to different schools next year.

The view from Garrison

As students and staffers at Garrison Middle School poured out of the building into a chilly afternoon after the final bell at 4:05, the community was just starting to digest the news.

Debra Powell, a special education paraprofessional, said the news shocked and unnerved her a bit -- she's two years from retirement and expected to finish her career at Garrison. Still, it wasn't a complete surprise.

Since joining the staff a year and a half ago, she'd heard rumors this might be coming.

"I guess I just didn't believe it would ever really happen," she said.

Powell was guardedly positive about the choice of Garrison. Although she said it is much safer than in the 1980s, when her nephews attended it, she also said it lacks the variety of after-school programs that students deserve.

Copyright © 2012, The Baltimore Sun


The American people are becoming more sophisticated in the politics of Wall Street and they know when the status quo is being maintained. It is why many democrats went to the polls to vote against their conscience in November…there were no choices. We have a severe case of the 3 monkey syndrome in our government now….see no evil; speak no evil; hear no evil and one would not expect Obama to change in mid-course. As you say he worked hard to make sure Wall Street remained unregulated, even going to Europe to decry tougher regulations on derivatives and even a bank tax to recover trillions in bank fraud. That is a team player!

So the American people are looking past the slate of candidates already put forward by the DNC…..candidates that are the status quo. We will be looking for and voting for new faces to lead the country back to first world status and free of the 3 monkey syndrome!

IS YOUR INCUMBENT SHOUTING LOUDLY AND STRONGLY AGAINST THIS?  IF NOT, SHE/HE IS NOT WORKING FOR YOU AND ME!!!


Obama chooses SEC official Walter to lead agency Posted: 12:22 pm Mon, November 26, 2012
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has chosen Elisse Walter, one of five members of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to head the agency. Chairman Mary Schapiro will leave next month after a tumultuous tenure in which she helped lead the government’s regulatory response to the financial crisis.

Walter will take over at a critical time for the SEC, which is finalizing new rules in response to the 2008 crisis. She can serve through 2013 without Senate approval because she’s already been confirmed to the commission.

Obama will need to nominate a permanent successor before Walter’s term ends in December 2013. News reports have suggested that Mary John Miller, a top Treasury Department official, might be a potential candidate.

Walter, 62, a Democrat, was appointed to the SEC in 2008 by President George W. Bush. Earlier, she was a senior official at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the securities industry’s self-policing organization. She served under Schapiro at FINRA, who led that group before becoming SEC chairman in January 2009.

“I’m confident that Elisse’s years of experience will serve her well in her new position,” Obama said in a statement.

Walter is likely to follow the path Schapiro established at the SEC, experts suggested.

At FINRA, Walter was Schapiro’s “right-hand person,” said James Cox, a Duke University law professor and expert on securities law. And as an SEC commissioner, Walter consistently voted with Schapiro on rule makings and other initiatives.

Cox said he wasn’t surprised that both of Obama’s choices to lead the SEC have come from an industry self-regulatory organization.

The Obama administration “is not an eager regulator of the securities markets,” he said.

Still, Schapiro’s challenges have probably been the most difficult any SEC chairman has faced, said John Coffee, a professor of securities law at Columbia University.

Schapiro took office after the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme and the financial crisis had eroded public and congressional confidence in the SEC. Since then, the agency has struggled with budgetary shortfalls.

“The Madoff scandal made Congress reluctant to fully fund the agency,” Coffee said.

Coffee said he thought Walter’s leadership of the SEC would closely resemble Schapiro’s.

Schapiro “has to be commended for working incredibly hard and against high odds” to maintain the agency’s budget, Coffee added. Still, the agency is “underfunded and overworked, and that’s not about to change.”

Reshaping the SEC

Schapiro will leave the SEC on Dec. 14. She was appointed by Obama in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. She also took over after the agency failed to detect the Madoff scheme.

Schapiro, 57, is credited with helping reshape the SEC after it was accused of failing to detect reckless investments by many of Wall Street’s largest financial institutions before the crisis. And she led an agency that brought civil charges against the nation’s largest banks.

In a statement Monday, Obama said, “The SEC is stronger and our financial system is safer and better able to serve the American people — thanks in large part to Mary’s hard work.”

But critics argued that Schapiro failed to act aggressively to charge leading individuals at those banks who may have contributed to the crisis. Consumer advocates questioned Schapiro’s appointment because she had led FINRA.

Under Schapiro, the SEC reached its largest settlement ever with a financial institution. Goldman Sachs & Co. agreed in July 2010 to pay $550 million to settle civil fraud charges that it misled investors about mortgage securities before the housing market collapsed in 2007. Similar settlements followed with Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and others.

The Goldman case came to symbolize a lingering critique of Schapiro’s tenure: No senior executives were singled out. The penalty amounted to roughly two weeks of earnings at Goldman. And Goldman was allowed to settle the charges without admitting or denying any wrongdoing, as were other large banks that faced similar charges.

Among the leading critics was U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, who questioned how the SEC could allow an institution to settle serious securities fraud without any admission or denial of guilt. Rakoff later threw out a $285 million deal with Citigroup because of that aspect of the deal.

Lawmakers and experts say Schapiro made the SEC more efficient, and they note that she fought for increased funding needed to enforce new rules enacted after the crisis. She often clashed with Republican lawmakers who had opposed the 2010 financial overhaul law and wanted to cut the SEC’s budget.

Schapiro also faced criticism over a key decision she made in response to the Madoff scandal. Madoff had been arrested a month before Schapiro took over at the SEC in January 2009.

Schapiro allowed her general counsel at the time, David Becker, to help craft the SEC’s policy for compensating victims. It was later discovered that Becker had inherited money his mother had made as a Madoff investor. Schapiro acknowledged in 2011 that she was wrong to have allowed Becker to play a key role in setting the policy.

The SEC’s inspector general concluded in a report that Becker participated “personally and substantially” in an issue in which he had had a financial interest. Some lawmakers complained that the affair further eroded the public’s trust in the SEC.

Cox, the Duke professor, said that after a strong first two years, the SEC under Schapiro became less effective.

“The wind was really taken out of (Schapiro’s) sails” by the political fallout from the Becker episode, Cox said. “I don’t think she really got her legs back under her after that.”

For example, Cox said Schapiro should have fought harder against legislation enacted in March that makes it easier for small start-ups to raise capital without having to comply immediately with SEC reporting rules.

Critics say the law went too far in removing SEC oversight, and might open the door to corporate scandals or to the sorts of deceptions that contributed to the financial crisis.

0 Comments

November 27th, 2012

11/27/2012

0 Comments

 
We are watching as the 1% build a system in America that not only is geared towards corporate profits, but it is geared towards building a pipeline through elite universities and corporations and into  employment that will have no access for most of Americans......and they are using our retirements, our health care, our wages and benefits to do it.  Add massive fraud and this is a well-financed deal.  Obama even passed legislation that will allow students of elite schools to write-off much of the high tuition at our expense as well.  IT IS BIZARRE FOLKS....THEY ARE CREATING A PROTECTED CLASS.

We need to start reversing this trend by working against global markets and corporations.  You cannot control or hold accountable businesses this size...everyone knows that.  So that means all of the incumbents must go!!! When you listen to the news with all of the corporate angst regarding Congressional actions......as if that is the reason for stagnation, look at the international news to see US businesses are expanding in leaps and bounds....there is no stagnation, they are doing just as they planned.  Domestically we never hear that because the intent is to hand all that is public over to private hands and they need the drama of this deficit to do it.  ALL OF THIS IS A LONG PLANNED SCHEME AND THERE IS NO CRISIS....ONLY BAD POLICY AND BAD PEOPLE IN LEADERSHIP.

NPR has now become the harbinger of things to come.  They slowly expose the public to the next phase of the 'New Economy' by highlighting the next phase....in this case it is transportation.  Here in Maryland we have already been exposed to high speed rail and the need to raise gas taxes 6% to pay for more road infrastructure...and we cannot manage it without partnerships.  Taxpayers build the ICC at such a leverage as to require private companies to build others and collect tolls at a profit.

THE RECURRING THEME IN MARYLAND AND BALTIMORE IS MARTIN O'MALLEY'S SIGNATURE AND WHY HE WAS TAPPED FOR NATIONAL OFFICE:

LEVERAGE THE HECK OUT OF ALL GOVERNMENT TRANSACTIONS AND MAKE THE PUBLIC TIED TO WALL STREET DEBT.  IT IS VERY SIMPLE.  THINK OF WHAT THEY ARE TRYING TO DO WITH THE SCHOOL BONDS IN BALTIMORE AND ALL THAT LEVERAGE.

The last article shows Veola yet again.  This is an example of how Maryland is not only being sold to Wall Street, but is being used in this global game of quid pro quo in corporate expansion.  Take a look at this global corp and its history to see that, like the sale of BGE energy company to Exelon, O'Malley has literally blown Maryland's public out of the water.


Local transportation observers say that if Maryland motorists want new or wider highways, the state’s next alternative would be allowing private companies to build and operate roads for a profit. That, of course, would lead to motorists paying more tolls.

ICC puts strain on Maryland’s transportation funds
The Washington Post -
By Katherine Shaver, Published: November 21, 2011 | Updated: Tuesday, November 22, 6:42 AM

The 18.8-mile Intercounty Connector, which opened in full Tuesday, could be the last publicly funded highway built in Maryland for a generation, as the state’s tolling agency, which financed its $2.56 billion construction, reaches its debt limit, local transportation experts said.

Financing for the six-lane toll road linking Interstate 270 in Montgomery County with Interstate 95 in Prince George’s County leveraged the Maryland Transportation Authority’s statewide toll collections.



But the transportation authority’s debt capacity is tapped out from borrowing to build the ICC and $1 billion in express toll lanes on I-95 northeast of Baltimore, state budget analysts said. Mounting debt recently prompted the authority to raise tolls statewide as the authority also struggles to maintain its aging bridges, tunnels and roads.

“You’re probably looking at another 20 years before we see another major road like this be built,” said Lon Anderson, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic.

Supporters say the ICC provides a vital east-west link long missing from Maryland’s highway network, but some critics worry about the toll road’s long-term financial effects. They say the ICC’s hefty price — it’s the most expensive road Maryland has ever built — has hamstrung the state’s transportation finances for years.

“The state has mortgaged its transportation future in many ways to the ICC,” said Montgomery County Council member Phil Andrews (D-Gaithersburg-Rockville), a longtime critic of the highway. “The opportunity cost of building the ICC has been huge, because it’s foreclosed improving many other roads.”

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HERE IS NPR PREPARING US FOR THE MUST-NEEDED PARTNERSHIPS IN TRANSPORTATION.  REMEMBER......WE ARE OWED TRILLIONS IN FRAUD FROM THESE VERY DEVELOPMENT CORPS WHO WILL BE BROUGHT IN TO BUILD THIS INFRASTRUCTURE AND THEN THEY WILL PAY FOR IT BY CHARGING EVER HIGHER TOLLS.  CAN'T AFFORD THE TOLLS?  MOVE OUT OF MARYLAND IS THEIR MOTTO!!!  THEY USED ALL OF YOUR TRANSPORTATION TRUST FOR TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS IN WASHINGTON SUBURBS AND NOW ALL OTHER STATE CONSTRUCTION WILL BE PRIVATIZED AND TOLLED

Below you revisit the Mass Trans as it is a model for Maryland....Baltimore just inherited Boston's development person.... just like Maryland after two decades of record growth and profit (albeit fueled by fraud) no investment in infrastructure happened.  Now the roads and bridges are like Baltimore's defunded, blighted neighborhoods in need now of corporate rescue.  Boston on the other hand is still trying to recover from the Big Dig and public losses to massive fraud there.

WE DON'T NEED DEVELOPERS INVESTING AND DECIDING WHERE AND WHAT OUR TRANSPORTATION WILL BE.....WE SIMPLY NEED CORPORATIONS TO REPAY FRAUD AND PAY THEIR TAXES INTO OUR GENERAL FUND.

Prospering Public Transportation Air Date: Week of November 23, 2012

Urban walkers (photo: bigstockphoto.com)

With more and more people riding the train, public transportation systems are becoming increasingly crowded. Yet many are deep into debt; for instance Boston's system, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is 130 million dollars in the red. George Washington University Transportation researcher Christopher Leinberger discusses his plan to revitalize public transportation and curb climate change with host Steve Curwood.

Transcript CURWOOD: It’s Living on Earth, I'm Steve Curwood. As more and more people move into walk-able city centers, public transit ridership is on the rise - and under stress.

Nowhere is the trend more stark than Boston, home of the nation’s first subway system.

[BACKGROUND NOISE, SUBWAY]

WOMAN: This morning I was on the 6:00am Heath Street train and there was a broken down car ahead of us and we had to get off of three different trains and back on, and everyone on the train was late for work. They did a lot of service cuts recently, I feel like they’re just short on people or something. I don’t know, but it’s definitely been way worse than what I’ve experienced in the past few years.

MAN: I actually waited last week for like a half an hour for a B-line train, I think. I saw a bunch of other trains go by and then mine came and it was so full that I had to wait for the next one. And then the next one came and that was even still full so I just squeezed my way on, shoved my way on.

CURWOOD: Despite the boom in ridership and a recent fare hike, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is in deep financial trouble, with some routes strained to the breaking point. The combination of debt, operating deficits, long deferred maintenance, and growing ridership looks like an intractable problem, especially with governments' budgets squeezed.

But there is a way to finance operations and expansion that taps the profits that transit can bring to business, according to Christopher Leinberger, a George Washington University transportation researcher. He says - think of transit attached to walkable districts as a means of sustainable economic development that then helps pay the transit tab, and fights climate change.

LEINBERGER: Transportation, whether it be roads or rail transit, or bike lanes, have always been subsidized. The airlines have been around 100 years, and the net profit that those airlines have made in that 100 years, is zero, the few good years get offset by crushing losses. The question is – who pays? We have a situation where the federal government is not going to play its historic role funding a significant amount of mass transit, the state governments are in the same situation, so where does that money come from?

And I’m suggesting, and Locus is suggesting, and a lot of developers are suggesting that we need to learn from how we used to build our transit systems 100 years ago. This country 100 years ago had the finest rail transit system on the planet. And the vast majority of it was paid for by real estate developers, and it’s not as if the economics were different then than now – those rail transit systems, those trollies, those subways in New York, lost money. So why did developers build them?

They built them to get their customers out to their land, so land profits subsidized the transit, and that’s what we’re proposing with value capture as well. Value capture is capturing the value that’s created by transportation improvements. And it’s not as if you can just assume that developers are just going to pay for it all, that’s not going to happen. Think of it as a layer cake of different financing sources.

Some is going to be from the federal government, some is going to be from the state government, and some will be from the developers that will commit a portion of their profits, a portion of their up-sides that pay off the bonds that build those transit systems.

CURWOOD: So, tell me, how could this concept of value capture work for existing transit systems? Consider Boston for example, the fare box just pays for the debt, but businesses have been getting the MBTA for free, so why would they now want to pay?

LEINBERGER: Because they could get increased density, possibly. So that you could go to the existing property owners and say, ‘we will zone a higher density for you. In exchange, we want a piece of that upside to help pay for either the operations of or the capital improvements of the rail system.’

CURWOOD: Let’s focus for a moment more on new transit systems – how does value capture work exactly for those new routes of mass transit?

LEINBERGER: With a new system, such as the new line that’s going out to Tyson’s Corner in northern Virginia from downtown DC, about a third of that cost is being paid for by the property owners at Tyson’s. Tyson’s, 25 years ago, led the market in DC, the highest rents, the highest absorption, they were the king of the hill. Today, they’re near the bottom, and that’s because the market wants more walkable, urban, higher-density places.

So, the Tyson’s developers, very intelligently, said they have to bring metro out to Tyson’s. And so they taxed themselves to pay for about a third of the cost of that very expensive rail system. Another way is the New York Ave. metro station in DC, a bunch of developers got together and said: We’d like to build a station, and we so need this station that we’re willing to pony up, again, about a third of the cost, and they put the money upfront.

And I’ve talked to one of them recently and he says it’s the best investment he’s ever made because money in that metro station increased the value of his land so much that he made a phenomenal return on that investment.


The Washington DC tube (photo: bigstockphoto.com)

CURWOOD: What about Boston? Boston wants to extend its green line out from the Lechmere area out to Somerville. How could value capture work for that new route?

LEINBERGER: Well, there’s a number of new developments that are being proposed along that green line, and there are some very substantial developers that are proposing it. They too could help pay for the stations and they could also cut a deal with the MBTA to maybe share a piece of their financial upsides to help pay for the operations.

Because, with transit, you’ve got both the issue of capital costs and operating costs – most systems, the operating costs are not even covered by the fare box and then you have to find separate sources of funding to pay for the capital costs, and that’s just the way it is, so we have to deal with that.

CURWOOD: What’s the formula for having this economic success. If you bring a transit line to a certain place, what needs to be there to get the development that you say, and how critical is walkability?

LEINBERGER: Walkability is driving this. Walkable urban places have a significant price premium over drivable suburban, and so much so that the variability in economic performance, about 2/3s of it is explained by how walkable it is. It’s a major economic driver. The other two, by the way, happen to be job density and work force education level, how many people have their college degrees. That explains over 90 percent of the reason why these walk-able urban places perform so well economically.


A passenger waits for the T in Boston (photo: bigstockphoto.com)

CURWOOD: How does Boston move forward? What do you recommend?

LEINBERGER: Think of it as a baseball team. Think of it as the Boston Red Sox. And the infielders are the walkable urban places, whether they be in the suburbs or the city. The outfielders are the 128 drivable suburban places. They’re both important, but you have pent up demand for more walkable urban places and the market wants a lot of those to be in the suburbs.

The center city is growing and the suburbs are not just not growing, they may be shrinking.

_______________________________________________________


WONDER IF O'MALLEY, ANTHONY BROWN, MAGGIE MCINTOSH, AND RALWINGS-BLAKE IS WORKING FOR THE CITIZENS OF MARYLAND, OR FOR THE 1% WITH GLOBAL INTERESTS?

SINCE VEOLA HAS TAKEN OVER MARYLAND TRANSPORTATION WORKERS FROM TAXI DRIVERS TO BUS DRIVERS HAVE BEEN FORCED TO TAKE WAGE CUTS AND LOSS OF BENEFITS.  TAXI DRIVERS WERE MADE INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS WHO NOW CAN'T AFFORD HEALTH INSURANCE.

THESE GLOBAL CORPORATIONS ARE CUT THROAT AND HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL OF HOW SERVICES ARE DEVELOPED AND RUN. THEY ARE BROUGHT TO THE STATE TO DO THE DIRTY WORK OF IMPOVERISHING WORKERS THAT USED TO BE MIDDLE-CLASS.  WITH TAXPAYERS PAYING ALL THE CAPITAL COSTS......SHAREHOLDERS ARE ON EASY STREET.  NOW, AFTER EXPANDING FROM WASTE MANAGEMENT AND WATER SYSTEMS, TO TRANSPORTATION, I HEAR THEY ARE GOING INTO THE ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE BUSINESS.

WHY WOULD WE WANT THESE KINDS OF BUSINESS CONNECTIONS?  WE DON'T!!!  IT IS JUST PITIFUL!!!

Veolia Rejects Federal Mediator's Proposal, PG County Bus Service Continues to Suffer   Veolia Management Refuses to Allow Workers to Return WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

Members of Teamsters Local 639 working for Veolia/TheBus remain on strike today after the company refused to agree to a settlement proposed by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service that would have resulted in an end to the current job action and an immediate restoration of regular bus service to the residents of Prince George's County, Md.

Late Wednesday night, the union agreed to a proposal by Federal Mediators to end the strike, return to work and extend the current contract another six months to allow for additional bargaining between the two sides. Veolia negotiators refused to immediately agree to the proposal, promising to give their answer to the Federal Mediators the morning of Thursday, Sept. 30. Late Thursday night the mediator was informed that Veolia completely rejected an extension and refused to allow drivers back to work.

"We have done all we can to settle this dispute," said Tommy Ratliff, President of Local 639 in Washington D.C. "The County Executive has been notified that the company is refusing to agree to a six-month extension, and is effectively refusing to negotiate. Our members are ready to get back to work, but the company is stonewalling."

Company representatives have made it clear that they are unwilling to accept even the most reasonable offers during negotiations, turning down every proposal the union put on the table – even those that would have saved Veolia more than $150,000 in health care costs.

"When the Federal Mediators are stunned by the company's behavior you know something is wrong,"
Ratliff said. "We received nothing but compliments from the mediators for our efforts to resolve the dispute. The only way I can describe Veolia's actions during bargaining is bizarre, and that may be an understatement."

Veolia is a French Multi-national company with operations throughout the US and Canada. The Teamsters represent thousands of Veolia members at all three of its North American subsidiaries. Veolia derives over $1 billion in revenue from its U.S. operations and more than $7.6 billion worldwide.

In contentious contract negotiations in Phoenix, Arizona yesterday, hundreds of workers at Teamsters Local Union 104, Amalgamated Transit Union Local No. 1433, and the International Union of Operating Engineers 428 agreed to a contract extension through midnight Sunday. All three unions are preparing for strike action, while the company has indicated that they intend to lock workers out if there is not an agreement by Sunday. In Phoenix, Veolia's maintenance staff is represented by Teamsters Local 104, Amalgamated Transit Union Local No. 1433 represents the more than 600 bus operators, and the International Union of Operating Engineers 428 is the bus mechanics' union.

Local 639 represents more than 8,000 workers in the Washington Metro area, a large number who reside in Maryland. Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents more than 1.4 million hardworking men and women in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

SOURCE Teamsters Local Union 639



THIS IS FROM BEFORE VEOLIA CAME TO MARYLAND/BALTIMORE.  THERE IS A LITANY OF LAWSUITS ET AL THAT YOU CAN READ ABOUT WITH THE LINK BELOW.

Terminate Indianapolis's Contract with Veolia Don't let Veolia into your town or city

  Excerpts from http://www.polarisinstitute.org/files/veoliapdf.pdf   Return to Home

Introduction

Since the late 1990’s, the multinational corporation Vivendi (now known as Vivendi Universal) has gone through a number of fundamental shifts in operational focus. Moving away from the environmental services management business and towards communications and media, Vivendi Universal has almost completely retreated from its roots in the water services industry where it began operations in France 1853. The Vivendi legacy, however, synonymous with water privatization and corruption, lives on in a new corporation created in 2002 out of their water and wastewater services division. The new company, Veolia Environment, which was known as Vivendi Environment until 2003, carries all of Vivendi’s history and reputation into its new corporate entity.

Vivendi, the notorious water services privateer, originally called Compagnie Générale des Eaux, was formed in the 1850s in France as a private water services provider. After more than a hundred years of global expansion in the water and wastewater services business, they expanded its business in the 1980’s with the acquisition of a waste management services and transportation provider  and an energy services provider. In 1998, following the acquisition of several communications and media companies they changed its name to Vivendi. The same year Vivendi continued to extend its global environmental services activities with the acquisition of  the leading water and wastewater treatment services company in the US, United States Filter Corporation.
In 1999, Vivendi created Vivendi Environment to conduct all of its environmental management activities. At this point, because of its now huge scope, Vivendi began to fall into some serious financial difficulties. Investors began to believe that the company was overstretched, causing a major sell-off of shares and a drop in Vivendi’s share price. They had to write off almost $17 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2002 and took $4.85 billion charge on their 2nd quarter earnings statement, because the value of their assets had dropped after the stock tumbled.

In April 2003 Vivendi Environment changed its name to Veolia Environment (VE).4

At the same time VE became a limited liability company under French law with a Board of Directors, replacing a Management Board and Supervisory Board structure used under its former core shareholder VU. This move essentially split VE from its former majority shareholder.

Like its predecessors, Veolia Environment profits from pro-privatization policies. VE has allied itself with international institutions and capitalized on its extensive links with the French government to ensure that the use of public private partnerships is a widely promoted and accepted economic development initiative. VE makes money managing privatized water utilities and it is in their interest to influence governments and institutions to privatize public services.

VE has also been charged with corruption, bribery and anti-competitive business practices on a number of occasions.

002 – 2004: Indianapolis, Indiana – Indianapolis authorities are realizing the mistake they made when they bought a 130-year old water utility from NiSource in 2002 and handed it over to US Filter instead of keeping it a public utility. Since US Filter was awarded the contract, lawsuits have been filed and customer complaints have gone up by 250% for the water utility, which serves over 1 million.

Within one month of requesting management proposals, US Filter was granted a contract. Opponents criticized the excessive secrecy and “fast-tracking” surrounding the agreement. At its first opportunity, the company, limited by the contract from firing employees in the first two years, began to cut corners by slashing employee benefits. A report by Public Citizen, member of the Indianapolis Citizen’s Water Coalition, states that “non-union employees lost their valuable "defined benefit" pension; health care coverage was reduced, vacation time, personal days, sick days and holidays were all reduced.85 The employees claim that over $9000 in annual benefits have been lost or $4.3 million per year. Employees are angry and fearful as talk of the first layoffs in 130 years circulate. CEO Jim Keene told employees, ‘Being fair does not mean having a job for life’.” The employees have brought a federal lawsuit against the City charging breach of contract.
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November 26th, 2012

11/26/2012

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Every state in America is under siege by this innovation mantra that is driven by the fact that America is somehow needing to redouble its efforts in corporate innovation because it is competing with the world for global business.  This is why public universities are being hijacked, it is why we are seeing Maryland transportation being run by a French business, and it is used as the reason corporations can no longer pay taxes as they must be competitive with other nations. ALL OF THIS IS HYPE USED TO EXPLAIN THE USE OF OUR TAXPAYER MONEY FOR BOOSTING CORPORATE PROFITS.  American jobs are not dependent on the growth of these businesses globally......domestic jobs are hindered by this global growth.  This growth only grows profits and it makes these companies unaccountable to anyone other than shareholders.

Third Way corporate democrats are making these changes.  It is why Maryland's policy is moving this way.  It is not good for the democratic base because as we know, it is killing the middle/lower classes.  THEY ARE TELLING US......TOUGH LUCK.  WE ARE TELLING THEM.....NO YOU DON'T!!!!

O'Malley made his political career moving Maryland Forward as his campaign slogan shows.  Below I want to show you where these pols want to take us.  We see an article on MIT that is in full corporate swing and is the prototype of other public universities.  You can see that they amount of public and student money that goes into these 'corporate programs' enriches a few within these departments and simply serves as a corporate laboratory.  IT DOES NOT BENEFIT MOST PEOPLE AND IT COSTS ALL OF US DEARLY AS ACCESS TO A BASIC EDUCATION IS DISTORTED SIMPLY TO MEET THESE CORPORATE GOALS.

Why the French company of Veola in Maryland rather than growing our own industry-players?  IN ORDER TO OPEN MARKETS IN OTHER COUNTRIES, THE US MUST ALLOW OTHER COUNTRIES TO OPEN THEIR MARKETS HERE.  Are we getting good service or best practices?  NO.  We are simply opening a door for whomever O'Malley and the Maryland Assembly is promoting.  So, Maryland taxpayers paid for all of the new buses and public transport vehicles tied to Veola......that is where our Transportation Trust fund went.  Contracts will have those buses owned by whom at the end of the term?

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!

BELOW YOU SEE KOCH BROTHERS AND TEA PARTY GOVERNOR SCOTT WALKER PROPOSING JUST WHAT IS ALREADY HAPPENING IN MARYLAND.  UMBC IS A KOCH BROTHER'S DREAM. U OF M IS ON ITS WAY.  IT IS EASY TO SEE HOW THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS ARE JUST AS CORPORATE AS ANY REPUBLICAN.  IT'S HARD TO BE A DEMOCRAT WITH GOALS OF WEALTH AND GLOBAL CORPORATIONS LIKE THAT.

Wisconsin Governor Seeks Shift in Higher Ed November 19, 2012 - 4:20am Higher Ed


Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a Republican, announced in a speech Friday night at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California that he plans to propose major changes in the funding of technical colleges and University of Wisconsin System, The Wisconsin State Journal reported. Walker said that funding needs to shift so that higher education institutions are funded not on enrollment or even completion, but on completion in programs that train students for jobs that the state needs.

"We’re going to tie our funding in our technical colleges and our University of Wisconsin System into performance and say if you want money, we need you to perform, and particularly in higher education, we need you to perform not just in how many people you have in the classroom.

"In higher education, that means not only degrees, but are young people getting degrees in jobs that are open and needed today, not just the jobs that the universities want to give us, or degrees that people want to give us?"

"We’re going to tie our funding in our technical colleges and our University of Wisconsin System into performance and say if you want money, we need you to perform, and particularly in higher education, we need you to perform not just in how many people you have in the classroom.

"In higher education, that means not only degrees, but are young people getting degrees in jobs that are open and needed today, not just the jobs that the universities want to give us, or degrees that people want to give us?"

"We’re going to tie our funding in our technical colleges and our University of Wisconsin System into performance and say if you want money, we need you to perform, and particularly in higher education, we need you to perform not just in how many people you have in the classroom," he said. "In higher education, that means not only degrees, but are young people getting degrees in jobs that are open and needed today, not just the jobs that the universities want to give us, or degrees that people want to give us?"

Senate Minority Leader Chris Larson, a Democrat, said that Walker's plan sounds like "social engineering" that would force students to study "what industry wants" rather than what students want.

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THIS STUDY SHOWS THAT ALL OF THESE EFFORTS AT RECREATING SCHOOL STRUCTURES ARE NOT GIVING THE PUBLIC BETTER QUALITY........WHY IS IT THAT MARYLAND IS ALWAYS PLOWING AHEAD WITH POLICY THAT IS PROVING TO BE INEFFECTIVE IF NOT BAD FOR THE PUBLIC?  THESE POLS ARE WORKING FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS......NOT YOU AND ME.

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!

Study: Deregulated Universities Don't Have Better Outcomes October 18, 2012 - 3:00am  Inside Higher Ed

A study released Wednesday by Policy Matters Ohio, a nonpartisan think tank, found that deregulating the governance structure of public higher education institutions -- a primary component of Ohio Governor John Kasich's higher education agenda -- doesn't have a significant effect on outcomes such as enrollment, graduation rate and the number of low-income students who graduate, but could lead to higher tuition rates, at least in the states examined. The study looked at three classes of institutions: "highly deregulated" (Virginia and Colorado), "partially deregulated" (Illinois, New Jersey and Texas), and "coordinated" (Kentucky, Maryland and Minnesota) and compared their outcomes to that of the nation and Ohio over the past decade.

"Given the track record of deregulation in other states, we have little reason to think that this approach will make tuition more affordable, increase access for low- and moderate-income students, or increase graduation rates," the report's authors write. "The primary factor affecting access and affordability is state support for higher education and state targeting of support for low- and moderate-income families."

The report's authors readily acknowledge that most of the deregulation took place about halfway through the decade and that confounding variables in the states selected might have an effect on the overall outcomes.


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WONDER WHY WE ARE NOT SEEING JOB CREATION AS ALL OF THIS TAXPAYER MONEY IS SUNK INTO THESE ECONOMIC TROUGHS?  ALL OF THESE SCHEMES TO MARKET THE STATE ARE MET WITH A WORLD OF SIMILAR MARKETING AGENTS THAT ARE LOST IN THE HYPE.  WE ALL KNOW HOW TO MAKE JOBS.......WE HAVE PEOPLE IN OFFICE BENT ON MAKING THOSE BUSINESSES INTERNATIONAL.  WE WATCH AS O'MALLEY GOES TO INDIA AND ISRAEL ON ECONOMIC JUNKETS.......WE ARE PAYING FOR HIS NATIONAL CAMPAIGN SPOTLIGHTS

Report: DBED just a ‘marketing agency’  Posted: 9:00 am Mon, November 26, 2012
By Alexander Pyles
Daily Record Business Writer

Maryland’s economic development agency uses more resources to market the state than it does to develop the state’s job market, according to a report by an anti-tax group that is frequently critical of the O’Malley administration’s business acumen.

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WHO ARE THESE STUDENTS GETTING INTO ELITE SCHOOLS AND COMING AWAY WITH FUTURE CORPORATE JOBS ALL FINANCED BY FEDERAL AND STATE TAXPAYERS?  LOOK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS ARTICLE TO SEE THE CITIZENS OF MASSACHUSETTS DEALING WITH A BUDGET DEFICIT.


Polaris Venture Partners BUYS MIT RESEARCH AND MAKES BILLIONS.  MASSACHUSETTS CITIZENS CAN'T EVEN GET GOOD HEALTH CARE.  YOU CAN TELL THIS MAKES ME HOT!!!!!

IT IS ABSOLUTELY ABSURD TO THINK THAT THIS CORPORATIZATION OF UNIVERSITIES IS A GOOD THING FOR THE PUBLIC OR FOR ACADEMICS.  MAKING MILLIONAIRES OF UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS WHO ARE PAID BY TAXPAYERS AND ARE GETTING FREE LABOR FROM STUDENTS.  RATHER THAN BASIC RESEARCH WHICH HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE VENUE FOR UNIVERSITIES, WE ARE NOW SEEING APPLIED PRODUCT ORIENTED RESEARCH THAT SHOULD BE IN CORPORATE R AND D.

HOW WILL THESE START-UPS, WHICH TO ME ARE JUST LIKE APPS ON MOBILE PHONES OR CABLE CHANNELS OFFERED BY A SATELLITE DISH.....HOW WILL THIS AFFECT OVERALL COMPETITIVENESS OF THE US WHEN BASIC RESEARCH FAILS TO PROVIDE THE NECESSARY GROUNDWORK?  THESE PROFESSORS ARE MERELY EMPLOYEES OF THE CORPORATIONS SEEKING ANSWERS AND PRODUCTS.

THE PUBLIC DOES NOT GET THE PATENT.....THAT IS ALL PROPRIETARY.  AS AN ACADEMIC I AM FINDING IT HARDER TO FIND OUT FOR WHAT TAXPAYER MONEY IS BEING USED AND WHAT RESEARCH IS BEING DONE.  WE DON'T HEAR OF THE FAILED RESEARCH THAT IS FOOTED BY THE TAXPAYER AS CORPORATIONS WIN BIG WITH WINNING RESEARCH.  WHO GETS ALL OF THIS SUCCESS AND MONEY?  WHO HIRES THESE PROFESSORS THAT BECOME MILLIONAIRES?
THE PUBLIC WILL HAVE NO CONTROL ON THE TYPE OF RESEARCH IS DONE.  WHEREAS THE STUDENT WOULD PURSUE HIS/HER INTERESTS WE NOW HAVE AN ASSEMBLY LINE...........VOCATIONAL CAREER COLLEGE.

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!!

Hatching Ideas, and Companies, by the Dozens at M.I.T.

By HANNAH SELIGSON Published: November 24, 2012 New York Times

HOW do you take particles in a test tube, or components in a tiny chip, and turn them into a $100 million company?

Dr. Robert Langer, 64, knows how. Since the 1980s, his Langer Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has spun out companies whose products treat cancer, diabetes, heart disease and schizophrenia, among other diseases, and even thicken hair.

The Langer Lab is on the front lines of turning discoveries made in the lab into a range of drugs and drug delivery systems. Without this kind of technology transfer, the thinking goes, scientific discoveries might well sit on the shelf, stifling innovation.

A chemical engineer by training, Dr. Langer has helped start 25 companies and has 811 patents, issued or pending, to his name. That’s not too far behind Thomas Edison, who had 1,093. More than 250 companies have licensed or sublicensed Langer Lab patents.

Polaris Venture Partners, a Boston venture capital firm, has invested $220 million in 18 Langer Lab-inspired businesses. Combined, these businesses have improved the health of many millions of people, says Terry McGuire, co-founder of Polaris.

Along the way, Dr. Langer and his lab, including about 60 postdoctoral and graduate students at a time, have found a way to navigate some slippery territory: the intersection of academic research and the commercial market.

Over the last 30 years, many universities — including M.I.T. — have set up licensing offices that oversee the transfer of scientific discoveries to companies. These offices have become a major pathway for universities seeking to put their research to practical use, not to mention add to their revenue streams.

In the sciences in particular, technology transfer has become a key way to bring drugs and other treatments to market. “The model of biomedical innovation relies on research coming out of universities, often funded by public money,” says Josephine Johnston, director of research at the Hastings Center, a bioethics research organization based in Garrison, N.Y.

Just a few of the products that have emerged from the Langer Lab are a small wafer that delivers a dose of chemotherapy used to treat brain cancer; sugar-sequencing tools that can be used to create new drugs like safer and more effective blood thinners; and a miniaturized chip (a form of nanotechnology) that can test for diseases.

The chemotherapy wafer, called the Gliadel, is licensed by Eisai Inc. The company behind the sugar-sequencing tools, Momenta Pharmaceuticals, raised $28.4 million in an initial public offering in 2004. The miniaturized chip is made by T2Biosystems,  which completed a $23 million round of financing in the summer of 2011.

“It’s inconvenient to have to send things to a lab,” so the company is trying to develop more sophisticated methods, says Dr. Ralph Weissleder, a co-founder, with Dr. Langer and others, of T2Biosystems and a professor at Harvard Medical School.

FOR Dr. Langer, starting a company is not the same as it was, say, for Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook. “Bob is not consumed with any one company,” says H. Kent Bowen, an emeritus professor of business administration at Harvard Business School who wrote a case study on the Langer Lab. “His mission is to create the idea.”

Dr. Bowen observes that there are many other academic laboratories, including highly productive ones, but that the Langer Lab’s combination of people, spun-out companies and publications sets it apart. He says Dr. Langer “walks into the great unknown and then makes these discoveries.”

Dr. Langer is well known for his mentoring abilities. He is “notorious for replying to e-mail in two minutes, whether it’s a lowly graduate school student or the president of the United States,” says Paulina Hill, who worked in his lab from 2009 to 2011 and is now a senior associate at Polaris Venture Partners. (According to Dr. Langer, he has corresponded directly with President Obama about stem cell research and federal funds for the sciences.)

Dr. Langer says he looks at his students “as an extended family,” adding that “I really want them to do well.”

And they have, whether in business or in academia, or a combination of the two. One former student, Ram Sasisekharan, helped found Momenta and now runs his own lab at M.I.T. Ganesh Venkataraman Kaundinya is Momenta’s chief scientific officer and senior vice president for research.

Hongming Chen is vice president of research at Kala Pharmaceuticals. Howard Bernstein is chief scientific officer at Seventh Sense Biosystems, a blood-testing company. Still others have taken jobs in the law or in government.

Dr. Langer says he spends about eight hours a week working on companies that come out of his lab. Of the 25 that he helped start, he serves on the boards of 12 and is an informal adviser to 4. All of his entrepreneurial activity, which includes some equity stakes, has made him a millionaire. But he says he is mainly motivated by a desire to improve people’s health.   TAXPAYERS ARE PAYING MIT SALARIES!!!!

Operating from the sixth floor of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research on the M.I.T. campus in Cambridge, Mass., Dr. Langer’s lab has a research budget of more than $10 million for 2012, coming mostly from federal sources.

The research in labs like Dr. Langer’s is eyed closely by pharmaceutical companies. While drug companies employ huge research and development teams, they may not be as freewheeling and nimble, Dr. Langer says. The basis for many long-range discoveries has “come out of academia, including gene therapy, gene sequencing and tissue engineering,” he says.

He has served as a consultant to pharmaceutical companies. Their large size, he says, can end up being an impediment.

“Very often when you are going for real innovation,” he says, “you have to go against prevailing wisdom, and it’s hard to go against prevailing wisdom when there are people who have been there for a long time and you have some vice president who says, ‘No, that doesn’t make sense.’ ”

Pharmaceutical companies are eager to tap into the talent at leading research universities. In 2008, for example, Washington University in St. Louis announced a $25 million pact with Pfizer to collaborate more closely on biomedical research.

But in some situations, the close — critics might say cozy — ties between business and academia have the potential to create conflicts of interest. REALLY?????

There was a controversy earlier this year when it was revealed that the president of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center owned stock in Aveo Oncology, which had announced earlier that the university would be leading clinical trials of one of its cancer drugs.  Last month, the University of Texas announced that he would be allowed to keep his ties with three pharmaceutical companies, including Aveo Oncology; his holdings will be placed in a blind trust.

“One question is how much is the commercial interest driving the research,” Ms. Johnston says. “I think that universities and the public policy makers are a little unsure where they think the balance should be. Does this opportunity skew the research agenda in terms of commercial application instead of the public interest?” She was speaking generally, and not commenting on any particular institution.   CONFLICT OF INTEREST AND CORPORATE CONTROL?  REALLY????

Dr. Langer says that there is no pressure at his lab for students to turn their research into a business. In fact, he says, about half of his students stay in academia. “I feel like one of our successes is that we trained so many great people who are now teaching at universities,” he says, adding that strict ethics rules are in place to prevent conflicts.

If they remain in academia, scientists at M.I.T. can still take equity stakes in the companies that their discoveries helped form. But they are barred from owning shares in any company that provides a research grant to their lab. They also cannot be executives of a company, although they can serve as paid advisers.

One issue at the crux of technology transfer is: How do universities protect the public good?
THEY DON'T!!!!!

“M.I.T. always reserves rights for all nonprofit institutions, noncommercial research and education,” says Lita Nelsen, director of M.I.T.’s Technology Licensing Office, who has helped the Langer Lab file for hundreds of patents, close to 80 percent of which have been approved.

As an example, a controlled-release polio vaccine developed in the Langer Lab was financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for use in the developing world. The foundation has also arranged to use, through Seventh Sense Biosystems, a rapid way to draw blood with a microneedle patch that could be used outside the confines of a medical center. (The approach is still in human trials.) The Langer Lab has also been working with the United States Army on a regenerative-tissue project that would help wounded soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

When a discovery is licensed at M.I.T., the university splits the profit three ways — among the department where the discovery was made, the university and the inventors. Who determines who these staff that will be millionaires or students who will go to work for these spin-offs will be?

“The founding principle in 1861, when M.I.T. was created, was to provide and support the industrialization of America. I always say we were founded on the principle of tech transfer,” says Susan Hockfield, who served as M.I.T.’s president from December 2004 until June of this year.

David H. Koch, executive vice president of Koch Industries, the conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., wrote in an e-mail that “innovation and education have long fueled the world’s most powerful economies, so I can’t think of a better or more natural synergy than the one between academia and industry.” Mr. Koch endowed Dr. Langer’s professorship at M.I.T. and is a graduate of the university.

YES, many of the Langer Lab’s discoveries are helping to fight disease. But you can’t say that about a hair-thickening product that is made by a company called Living Proof. The product is sold at stores like Nordstrom and Sephora; Dr. Langer serves on the company’s board and holds a small equity stake.

How did he end up in the hair care business? That discovery actually came from a way to create new materials, the original intent of which was to treat prostate and ovarian cancer. Various chemical compounds, however, could be fished out from the discovery for many different purposes, including a hair thickening product.

Of course, not everything that comes out of the lab is a sure bet. A drug may not make it past clinical trials, or an alternative treatment may prove more effective.

Dr. Langer is still assessing the commercial potential of a project involving the vocal cords. He and Dr. Steven M. Zeitels, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation, who has operated on singers like Adele and Julie Andrews, developed a gel that can be used on vocal tubes to make them more pliable. The gel had promising results in clinical trials on dogs, according to Dr. Langer. “I don’t know if it’s a company, though,” he says.

But he favors the kind of research that takes chances. As Dr. Bowen of Harvard says of Dr. Langer’s students: “They all come away thinking nothing is impossible.”



Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed the the state budget into law on July, 8, 2012, 10 days after lawmakers sent it to him on June 28, 2012.[1] FY2013 began on July 1, 2012, and with no budget signed into law, legislators passed a temporary spending measure to keep the state government operational.[2]

The state operates on an annual budget cycle and is currently in FY2013.[3] The state's fiscal year begins July 1.

Massachusetts has a total state debt of approximately $102,258,050,000, when calculated by adding the total of outstanding official debt, pension and other post-employment benefits (OPEB) liabilities, Unemployment Trust Fund loans, and the FY2013 state budget gap.[4] The total state debt is higher than the prior year's total of $97,940,986,000.[5]

Massachusetts's total state debt per capita is $15,522.96.[6]



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November 24th, 2012

11/24/2012

0 Comments

 
I normally do not blog on weekends but I do sometimes do political action notification.  First I'd like to wish everyone a happy holiday and welcome all the new Facebook friends to the website.  I hope you visit the archive for information.

We have lots of actions coming this week outside of normal community meetings I hope all are attending.  First I'd like to comment on the Walmart protests across the country.  I encourage people to view labor websites for actions that happened as mainstream media will not cover these actions beyond a 15 second clip..  Here in Maryland, we had one of the biggest in the country and Baltimore is teaming with union/labor actions.  Please look below at the growing alliances of labor groups.

'I CAN'T PROTEST BECAUSE I KNOW THEY WILL FIRE ME....IF NOT TODAY, THEN LATER.' 

'I AM FEARFUL OF PROTESTING BECAUSE LAWS AND POLICE ARE MORE RESTRICTIVE.....I DON'T WANT TROUBLE'.

'I HATE SHOPPING TODAY BUT I NEED THE SALES AS I DON'T EARN ENOUGH MONEY TO HAVE WHAT I NEED'.

These are all of what you hear as you talk to people around Walmart.  So, when you hear news telling you the protests were small or that Walmart employees weren't involved.....this is why.  The story you don't hear is that the purpose of these events is to give voice to these people who are being SILENCED.

WHAT KINDS OF COUNTRIES HAVE CITIZENS WHO FEEL THIS WAY?   AUTHORITARIAN COUNTRIES!   THIS IS NOT A FEELING A FREE, DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY EXUDES.

Remember, we are looking to alternative media for our news and we are creating our own web or newsletters that are shared in our communities.  We are finding political candidates from our labor and justice organizations to run against
incumbents.


Walmart Employees Protest Retail Giant On Biggest Shopping Day Of Holiday Season
November 23, 2012 2:47 PM   WJZ TV Baltimore


BALTIMORE (WJZ) — As customers race to Walmart for Black Friday deals, some of the store’s employees are walking off the job. Demonstrations spark up in Maryland and across the county.

Monique Griego was there as protesters made their voices heard.

Sky Eye Chopper 13 was there as a line of hundreds of protesters stopped traffic with a March against Walmart in Prince George’s County.

“Walmart, Walmart you’re no good. Treat your workers like you should!” protesters chanted.

The demonstration continued in Laurel.

“Oh how sad it is our plight to work for crappy pay,” protesters chanted.

Walmart workers and their supporters are demanding the retail giant improve working conditions.

“Better wages respect from the managers,” one employee said.

Employees are taking a stand on the busiest shopping day of the year.

“It’s when Walmart makes the most profits, and we want to send a strong message to the community and consumers that we expect better for them,” an employee said.

The demonstrations here in Maryland were part of a bigger movement nationwide.

In California, as shoppers lined up for Black Friday deals outside, angry workers formed a picket line.

Greg Fletcher is among the workers demanding cheaper benefits.

He’s worked at Walmart for six years and makes $10.70 an hour.

“Unfortunately for my wife and two kids, we can’t afford the benefits package from Walmart. If we bought it, we couldn’t afford a roof over our heads, so it’s frustrating,” Fletcher said.

Union-backed groups helped organize these protests, and representatives told us this is just the beginning of a pressure being put on Walmart.

A Walmart spokesman called the protests a union publicity-stunt and says many of the demonstrators don’t even work at Walmart.


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SUPPORT THESE GROUPS WITH TIME AND DONATIONS!!!!!!

Celebrate United Workers’ 10th Year Anniversary! Posted in Events, Fight for Fair Development, Unity on November 9th, 2012 by Mike –

Join the United Workers on December 1 as we celebrate 10 years of movement building in Baltimore and across Maryland. We will be remembering key moments in the United Workers’ struggle and looking forward to the next ten years with an amazing and diverse panel of civic and cultural leaders from throughout Baltimore.

Panelists include Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author Taylor Branch, WEAA radio host and local politics expert Anthony McCarthy, human rights activist Lea Gilmore, and United Workers leaders.

Following the panel there will be a reception with light food and soft drinks. Baltimore’s Labor Chorus, folk musician Ryan Harvey, and other guest musicians will be performing.

Visit unitedworkers.org in the coming weeks, where we’ll be remembering our past, celebrating the present, and looking forward to the future with words from our leaders and archival pictures and video.

What: 10th Year Anniversary Celebration

When: Saturday, December 1, 3-6pm

Where: James McHenry Recreation Center (911 Hollins Street, Baltimore, MD 21223)

Bus routes: 1, 8, 10, 15, 20, 35, 36, 48, and orange circulator

To purchase tickets email us at info@unitedworkers.org or go to http://unitedworkers10th.eventbrite.com/#
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IF YOU GO TO ADVOCATES FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH YOU WILL NOT SEE THIS MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT.  I RECEIVE IT BECAUSE I AM ON A MAILING LIST......SO WHY WOULD THIS ADVOCACY GROUP NOT HAVE THESE MEETINGS LISTED?  IT IS NOT ON MARYLAND EDUCATION COALITION'S OR BALTIMORE EDUCATION COALITION WEBSITES EITHER.

IT IS  BECAUSE IT IS NOT AN OPEN MEETING.  YOU ATTEND IT ONLY IF YOU ARE INVITED.


You have successfully registered for MEC's Annual Meeting 2012.  We look forward to seeing you Wednesday, November 28th from 6:00 - 9:00 at the Charles I. Ecker Business Training Center at the Gateway Campus of Howard Community College in Columbia. 

For directions: http://coned.howardcc.edu/business_and_workforce_development/meeting_facilities/gateway.html
 
Sincerely,
Advocates for Children and Youth



________________________________________________
Rally to Support the Hyatt Baltimore Workers

Thursday, December 13, 2012
4:30-6pm
Meet at McKeldin Square
(Corner of Light St. and Pratt St., Baltimore MD)


The General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) has issued a complaint against the Hyatt Regency Baltimore for
violating federal labor law. The federal agency is prosecuting Hyatt,
alleging a variety of unlawful activities, such as unjustly firing union
supporters, threatening workers with arrest for lawfully leafleting
customers on Hyatt property, threatening workers for supporting the union,
disciplining union supporters unjustly, and surveilling union activity. A
trial is set for January.

Workers at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore have been organizing since early June
2012. The majority of hotels in Baltimore are nonunion, and the effort by
Hyatt Regency workers to organize is the first of its kind at that hotel in
decades. City leaders hoped to revive the Baltimore economy by investing in
the hospitality industry, and the Hyatt Regency was the first heavily
subsidized major hotel project in Baltimore. Sadly today, many jobs at the
Hyatt are subcontracted to workers earning poverty wages with no benefits.

Please join us at this important rally to support the Hyatt workers!

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EVERYONE CONCERNED WITH THE DEVELOPMENT, SCHOOLS, AND POLICE BRUTALITY IN BALTIMORE SHOULD COME TO THIS EVENT.  THESE ARE THE LEADERS WHO ARE JOINING THE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATIONS OF THE ENTERPRISE ZONES AS AFFLUENT COMMUNITIES BY MOVING THE LOWER/WORKING CLASS OUT OF THESE COMMUNITIES.  COMMUNICATE WITH THESE LEADERS.....ASSOCIATED BLACK CHARITIES, BUILD, AND MICHAEL SARBANES........ALL SUPPORTING CHARTER SCHOOLS AND CHOICE THAT ARE MARGINALIZING AND MOVING THE UNDERSERVED FROM URBAN AREAS, ALL SUPPORTING THE DEMOGRAPHIC RATIO OF 20 UNDERSERVED FAMILIES PER AFFLUENT SCHOOL/COMMUNITY AS THE MASTER PLAN FOR HOUSING DICTATES, AND ALL SUPPORTING THE USE OF PRIVATE NON-PROFITS TO REPLACE PUBLICLY RUN COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS, THE NATURE OF WHICH UNDERMINES A COMMUNITY'S ABILITY TO BUILD ITS OWN LEADERS AND MOVE ITS OWN AGENDAS AND ALLOWS CORPORATIONS TO CIRCUMVENT GOVERNMENT COFFERS AND GENERAL FUNDING TO TARGET DONATIONS THAT SUIT PERSONAL GAINS.

THAT IS WHAT THESE 3 GUESTS REPRESENT AND I WILL BE INTERESTED TO HEAR HOW THEY FRAME THE ISSUE OF RACE GIVEN THESE PUBLIC STANCES THEY HAVE CHOSEN TO TAKE. 

"Race: The Power of an Illusion" PLEASE NOTE! WE'VE POSTPONED THIS SCREENING BECAUSE OF THE STORM. IT WAS SCHEDULED FOR MONDAY, OCTOBER 29. IT'S BEEN RESCHEDULED FOR TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4.

Please join us Tuesday, December 4 at 6:30 p.m. for a screening and panel discussion of Race: The Power of an Illusion. This free event will be in the Wheeler Auditorium at the Pratt Central Library.

Race: The Power of an Illusion - free screening and panel discussion
NOTE NEW DATE: Tuesday, December 4, 6:30 p.m.
Wheeler Auditorium
Enoch Pratt Free Library
400 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201

This powerful hour-long documentary traces the effect of public policy—particularly in housing—on inequality in America. It features law professor john a. powell, a guest for the October 26 "Lines Between Us" segment about public housing, and it lays out at the national level many of the issues that our series is grappling with at the regional level.

Maryland Morning host Sheilah Kast will serve as moderator for the post-screening discussion. Panelists include:
- Diane Bell-McKoy, President & CEO, Associated Black Charities
- Bishop Douglas Miles, organizer of Baltimore's Koinonia Baptist Church and Clergy Co-Chair of Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD)
- Michael Sarbanes, executive director, Baltimore City Public Schools' Office of Engagement and co-chair, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland

Are you going? Head over to Facebook to "join" the event and share it with your friends!

This event is presented in partnership with the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Race: The Power of an Illusion was produced by California Newsreel.





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THANKS FOR THIS SUPPORTIVE MESSAGE FROM OUR MARYLAND TEACHER'S UNION!!!!!


Message from BTU President, Marietta English Week at a Glance. . .
 
- Many of us will travel to different places to celebrate Thanksgiving with our loved ones.  Some will remain at home. However as you celebrate the holiday, please keep in your thoughts those members and their families that won’t be together for the holidays because they are serving our great nation and protecting our freedom.
 
- Black Friday is the biggest sales day for many retailers.  I would like to leave you with this message from Randi Weingarten our national president. “Before you consider hitting Walmart for Black Friday deals, consider this:  The workers who ring up all those mega-deals are suffering.  And now they are risking everything to make a change.  Some Walmart workers will put their jobs on the line this Friday and stand up to the giant-big box store, going on strike to protest poor, unsafe working conditions; low wages; irregular hours and the company’s retaliation against workers who speak out.”
Help Walmart employees win the respect they deserve.
·       Take the Black Friday Pledge to stands with workers at your local Walmart
·       Sponsor a brave striker with a $50 grocery gift donation
·       Visit share for respect on Facebook and keep Walmart workers you know informed
·       Spread the word on the Black Friday Walmart Strike
·       Use hashtag #walmartstrikers and follow Making Change at Walmart on Twitter
Help Walmart workers secure decent wages, a safe workplace, manageable hours and the respect they deserve.  Send a message to Walmart. Shop made in America on Black Friday.
 
- I would like to thank all of our members, their families and friends who went to New York the past two Saturdays to help stuff book bags for students who were displaced because of Hurricane Sandy. Your generosity is appreciated.
 
- I am holding a meeting for all secretaries on Thursday, December 6, 2012 at the BTU Office at 5 p.m. I am looking forward to meeting with you.
 
- The Metro Council AFL-CIO is currently taking requests for Christmas baskets. If you know a member who might need a Christmas basket, please send the application to the AFL-CIO, 2701 W. Patapsco Ave., Suite 110 Baltimore, MD 21230 no later than December 7, 2012. The application is available on our website, www.baltimoreteachers.org. We are also accepting can goods and non-perishable food items for the Food Pantry. You can drop them off at the Baltimore Teachers Union. Safe travels and have a very Happy Thanksgiving!
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November 21st, 2012

11/21/2012

0 Comments

 
IT IS CRITICAL FOLKS.....WE MUST DEMAND THE CAPTURE OF MEDIA OUTLETS END!!!!!!!!

DON'T THINK YOUR POL CAN'T MAKE CHANGE....DO YOU HEAR THEM SHOUTING ABOUT THE PROBLEM????

Does anyone other than me get a creepy feeling watching Scott Pelley of CBS News lately?   It isn't just him as it is true across all media, but for some reason the visuals his news programs show makes me think 'authoritarian regime'. I feel he will be saluting The Great Leader anytime soon.  A few weeks ago he sat in the foreground with a huge image of the IMF LaGarde looking down saying Europe will cut social programs to cut debt.  Pelley said nothing.  This week we watch as a string of corporate leaders parade on screen to tell us entitlements are unsustainable and must be cut.....get used to the idea.  The camera zoomed onto their faces making them larger than life. These were heads of Goldman Sachs, United Parcel Service, and a company called Honeywell.  Then, at the end of the election coverage, Pelley stood in front of a great big sign that repeated the word 'INCUMBENTS' over and over.  Goldman and Honeywell are the kings of fraud in the financial and defense industries respectively and could pay some of the national debt by returning fraud.  Yet they are letting us know you and I will be doing that.

I am in constant fight with public media as it becomes Wall Street driven.  I listened to a favorite of mine.....The Splendid Table on American Public Media and there were 4 commercial ads during the hour and when she went to local break there were 2 more commercial ads.  Garrison Keillor is no longer thanking Powder Milk Biscuits and Catsup.....he is thanking the Wall Street Journal.  If you look at Baltimore's WYPR their funding totals for last year had 2/3 of funding by corporate/foundation and 1/3 by membership.  They even curtailed the much hated fundraising drives last year because they didn't need members with all that private funding.  THE POINT IS THAT PUBLIC MEDIA MUST BY THEIR CHARTER MEET MEMBERSHIP FUNDING RATIOS THAT THIS DOES NOT REFLECT.  Now, I have seen WYPR return to fundraising more this year, but for those who love NPR/APM....you had better take these funding numbers to court.  The 1% has control and we are getting corporate/global interests all the time with NO fiscal progressive views.

TAKE YOUR PUBLIC MEDIA STATION TO COURT IF THEY ARE ALLOWING IT TO GO CORPORATE.

We are hearing that Warren Buffet is buying Media General and that includes many media outlets across the south.  TV, radio, and print.  What makes America a democracy is free press and what keeps press free is strong, independent and regional ownership so that news is not homogenized across the country.  We had mighty newsmen like Salzberger of the New York Times or Hurst of San Francisco but you did not have these people buying all other media outlets.....they only peddled their papers to a wider audience.

IT IS A VERY, VERY,VERY BAD THING TO HAVE THESE BILLIONAIRES BUYING ALL OF MEDIA AND IT IS HAPPENING UNDER OBAMA'S WATCH.  NOW, WHEN OBAMA RAN IN 2008 HE PROMISED HE WOULD STOP THE MERGERS AND THE MONOPOLIES.........BUT FOR THE MOST PART.......HE HAS ALLOWED FOR EVER MORE.

This is Third Way corporate policy not fiscal Progressive.  Do you hear your incumbent shouting loudly and strongly against this??????

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!


Warren Buffett buys into 'declining' newspapers
By Aaron Smith @CNNMoney May 29, 2012: 5:10 PM ET


Warren Buffett has signed a deal to buy 63 newspapers from Media General.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway announced a deal on Thursday to purchase 63 newspapers from Media General -- an industry that Buffett recently referred to as "declining."

Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, Fortune 500) said it will purchase most of Media General's (MEG) daily and weekly newspapers for $142 million in cash.

Separately, Berkshire Hathaway has also signed a credit agreement with Media General for a $400 million term loan and a $45 million revolving credit line.

"In towns and cities where there is a strong sense of community, there is no more important institution than the local paper," said Buffett, a former paper boy who owns Omaha World-Herald and other publications.

Buffett's statement seems to run counter to statements that he made on May 5, at Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder gathering in Omaha. At that event, Buffett referred to the newspaper industry as a "declining" industry with "problems."

When a member of the audience asked him how to deal with a declining industry, Buffett replied, "Generally it pays to stay away from declining businesses. [The] newspaper business is a declining business and we will pay a price to be in that. That is not where we will make real money at Berkshire."

But speaking about the newspaper industry in general, Buffett also said, "I think the economics will work out OK. It's nothing like the old days, but I think it will work out OK."

Buffett also said that newspapers have "lost primacy," though he added that "they are still primary in a great many areas. They still tell me something primary that I can't find elsewhere."

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Below you see why here in Maryland we cannot get free and fair coverage of issues and elections.  It is a basic problem.  One media company owns all of the media outlets and that media company espouses a political bent.  In the Baltimore Sun's case, as with all of the small town local papers and with WJZ TV all under its ownership.... this is the Third Way corporate stance.  You can see the Headquarters for the Tribune is Chicago.......home of Obama and corporate politics.

This is why incumbents are the only voice as they are all Third Way corporate.  It is why we cannot get coverage of major news events like public school privatization and the massive business frauds in Maryland.

So, we must write the FCC and ask why they allowed this consolidation of the media industry and demand it be reversed. WE MUST SHOUT THAT THIS POLICY OF CONSOLIDATION IS KILLING FREE PRESS IN AMERICA AND AS SUCH DEMOCRACY. Do you hear your incumbent shouting against this?????

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!



In a 2007 statement of principles published in the Tribune's print and online editions, the paper's editorial board described the newspaper's philosophy, from which is excerpted the following:

The Chicago Tribune believes in the traditional principles of limited government; maximum individual responsibility; minimum restriction of personal liberty, opportunity and enterprise. It believes in free markets, free will and freedom of expression. These principles, while traditionally conservative, are guidelines and not reflexive dogmas.


The Tribune Company is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Baltimore Sun, Daily Press and The Morning Call, among others.

The 2000s Ann Marie Lipinski was the paper's editor from February 2001 until stepping down on July 17, 2008. Gerould W. Kern was named the paper's editor in July 2008.[1] In early August 2008, managing editor for news Hanke Gratteau resigned, and several weeks later, managing editor for features James Warren resigned as well.[38] Both were replaced by Jane Hirt, who previously had been the editor of the Tribune's RedEye tabloid.[38]

In June 2000, Times Mirror merged with Tribune Company making The Baltimore Sun and its community papers Baltimore Sun Media Group / Patuxent Publishing a subsidiary of Tribune.[39][40]

Tribune's Baltimore Community papers include Arbutus Times, Baltimore Messenger, Catonsville Times, Columbia Flier, Howard County Times, The Jeffersonian, Laurel Leader, Lifetimes, North County News, Northeast Booster, Northeast Reporter, Owings Mills Times, and Towson Times.

The Howard County Times (www.explorehoward.com) was named 2010 Newspaper of the Year by the Suburban Newspaper Association.[41]

The Towson Times expands coverage beyond the Towson area and includes Baltimore County government and politics


tribune wins fcc approval On Nov. 16th, the Federal Communication Commission announced that it has approved Tribune’s request for the assignment of its broadcast licenses and has granted the company waivers in the five markets where it owns both a television station and a newspaper. This decision by the FCC enables Tribune to continue moving forward toward emergence from Chapter 11, a process it expects to complete over the course of the next several weeks. Tribune will emerge in a strong financial position, as a multi-platform media company with great assets and industry-leading brands in major markets across the country

BELOW YOU SEE THE AFFECTS OF THIS CLOSED MEDIA.  WE ARE SEEING PRESS FROM OUR BALTIMORE CITY COUNCIL AND MAYOR THAT SOUNDS GOOD......AND WE ARE GLAD THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT IT......BUT THESE BILLS ARE ONLY WINDOW-DRESSING THAT WILL BE USED FOR CAMPAIGN HEADLINES. IF WE HAD A HEALTHY MEDIA THESE QUESTIONS WOULD BE APART OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT.  AS IT IS ....ALL WE GET IS WHAT THESE POLS SAY.

REMEMBER YESTERDAY'S HEADLINE BY JACK YOUNG OF 51% CONTRACTS WITH LOCAL HIRING????? WITH LOOPHOLES YOU CAN DRIVE A TRACTOR THROUGH AND NO OVERSIGHT???

We applaud a first step towards building small business in Baltimore after years of national chains and contractors being top dog.  I would like to highlight that the few hundred thousand designated is far less than the plated sidewalk ornaments on just a few blocks in Harbor East.....it is an interest payment.

This is a time to highlight that the banks stopped lending to any and all individuals and businesses at the time of the collapse and still has very low lending rates to anyone not a major corporation.  This despite all of these Federal programs that sent taxpayer money to spur lending.  The Small Business Administration(SBA) can insure them.....first they have to happen.  A few years ago the Federal government slashed SBA funding in half making its future survival questionable.  My point is we have a much larger hole to fill and this only highlights the problem.

What we see is a move by corporate pols to create the conditions of all business revenue going to national corps and as such smaller businesses which compete for consumers are not welcome.  Today, a handful of mega-corps own all of registered businesses through a succession of mergers. 

The people spoke when 80% said they want wealth inequity reversed and corporate accountability.  Both necessitate a return to regional and local business structure.  Let's encourage this trend by voting our incumbents out of office.


Mayor launching micro-loan program for Baltimore small businesses Small businesses eligible for up to $30,000 loan

By Gus G. Sentementes, The Baltimore Sun 7:19 p.m. EST, November 20, 2012

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is launching a micro-loan fund for small businesses in Baltimore, to help them hire and stabilize their businesses.

The effort, called BaltimoreMICRO, will enable small businesses with under $1 million in annual revenue to apply for loans ranging from $5,000 to $30,000. Retailers, service providers and contractors based in Baltimore are eligible.

The program appears to be targeting small businesses, including stores and restaurants, in city neighborhoods.

New stores and restaurants in neighborhoods "bring residents together and create a buzz that attracts people from throughout the region," Rawlings-Blake said in a statement. "We want that to happen in more of Baltimore's neighborhoods, and we must do what we can to support that."

Under the program, the business owner must have a minimum credit score of 650 to be considered for a loan.

Micro-lending programs are sprouting up around the country. Starbucks, the coffee retailer, launched its own micro-lending effort to support U.S. small businesses. Other nonprofits, such as Kiva.org, which allows people to make micro-loans to others in developing countries, is launching similar programs in U.S. cities, such as Detroit and Los Angeles.

In Baltimore, the initial cost of the micro-loan program will be borne by city and state taxpayers. It will be administered by the Baltimore Development Corp., the city's quasi-public development arm.

The Board of Estimates approved the city's $125,000 contribution to the fund, and also approved the city's application to the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development for a $250,000 grant.

The city's program would be in addition to the U.S. Small Business Administration's loan guaranty programs for small firms. The SBA program will guarantee loans made by a lender to a small business, up to $5 million.

gus.sentementes@baltsun.com


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November 20th, 2012

11/20/2012

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I'll end with labor by saying that we must be sure to identify and run candidates against incumbents this next election.  We have democrats in office who's vision is global and as such all policy for them must strengthen that goal and all these policies kill the middle/lower class and workers.  So it is critical to shout out at events like WalMart or the Hyatt when workers rights are an issue.

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!

The headline below sounds good doesn't it?  As those who follow the Board of Estimates knows, the wording is such as to allow the law to be circumvented at every turn.  We have Living Wage laws that almost never kick in, Minority/women contractors fighting continuous failure to meet set goals, and business tax breaks that almost never involve actually meeting hiring objectives set in the contracts.

If Mr. Young wants to address a huge disparity in hiring in the city, he can start by writing well-defined, strong laws that will see little circumvention.  Please go back to those I highlight above.  Then, fund and execute oversight of all the city's contracts to verify compliance and penalize when there is none.

I think the trade unions would agree that the problem is with allowing right-to-work employees from out of state brought in by national developers seeking the lowest wage.  This policy has the unions walking in circles on picket lines other states get the benefit of Baltimore wages.

I'm going to give Mr. Young an I for incomplete on this one.  Bringing a problem to the forefront is always good....we want to make sure the solutions are real.

Young pushes bill to fuel local hiring on city contracts 51 percent of new hires on city contracts must be Baltimore residents, proposed law says
Any business that gets a city contract or major financial help from City Hall could be required to hire 51 percent of new workers from within the city limits or face a criminal sanction.

Those are the terms of a new bill proposed by City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young, who believes such legislation is needed to reduce what he calls Baltimore's "stubbornly high unemployment rate."

Young introduced the "local hiring mandate" legislation Monday night to the City Council.

"We must ensure that our tax dollars invested in our city-funded projects are invested back in the community," Young said at the council hearing.

The proposal comes as Baltimore struggles to shake off the effects of the economic downturn. The city's unemployment rate was 10.2 percent in September, the most recent month available from state figures. Five years ago, the city's unemployment rate was 5.4 percent for that same month, state figures show.

Promoting local hiring has been a key issue at City Hall. Last year, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake issued an executive order — called "Employ Baltimore" — that assisted companies that hired city residents on their contracts with the local government.

Young's legislation would require 51 percent of new jobs to go to residents of Baltimore. The ordinance would apply to a business receiving any city contract of at least $300,000 or any project that benefits from at least $5 million in city assistance.

Only a handful of city-supported projects topped that $5 million mark in 2010, according to the most recent annual report from the Baltimore Development Corp., the city's quasi-public economic development arm.

Under Young's proposed law, businesses that do not comply could be barred from receiving city contracts for one year and face a $500 fine.

Waivers may be issued, on a case-by-case basis, under certain conditions, Young said. For instance, if the company can demonstrate it made a "good faith" effort to hire city residents but couldn't find those with the right skills, it could avoid a penalty, the legislation states.

Businesses that are located — and perform their work — outside the area also may be eligible for waivers, according to the proposed legislation. For instance, American Eurocopter Corp., which has supplied the Police Department's helicopters, wouldn't fall under the proposed law because its headquarters and production facility are outside Maryland.

Young cited similar local hiring programs in Boston and San Francisco as models for Baltimore.

Rod Easter, president of the Baltimore Building and Construction Trades Council, said the Boston and San Francisco programs involve local trade unions. But he said that Young never consulted his organization, which is an umbrella group that represents 15,000 people in various unions in the Baltimore area.

"Normally, we have good communications with the council president," said Easter. "I'm just confused I see it in the paper and I didn't hear it from him."

Easter said training and apprenticeship programs exist, and he'd like to see those supported more by the city, to encourage people to develop their skills for hire.

He feared that Young's proposal may be a temporary fix that would encourage companies to hire and fire workers as they need them to comply with a city law, rather than figure out a long-term employment solution for workers.

"When people have careers, they can have some pride," said Easter, an electrician. "They're not hanging on the corners."

Through a spokesman, Young said that his legislation would not harm the city's unions, and that "Mr. Easter will certainly have a seat at the table to offer suggestions concerning the bill."

Michael Theriault, secretary-treasurer of San Francisco's Building and Construction Trades Council, said that city's law is in its second year and will be up for review next year. Under the law, the city increases the residency requirement by 5 percent each year. The law will face a review, and it could be revised in negotiations next year, he said.

Theriault said it's important that the companies that are awarded contracts and hire workers have "relief valves" in the process, so they are not overly penalized if they can't find workers within city limits. If contractors spend too much money hiring workers, or pay too many penalties, they end up declining to bid on city projects, or building those extra costs into their bids, he said.

Copyright © 2012, The Baltimore Sun
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THIS IS THE PRESSING ISSUE FOR AMERICAN WORKERS AS IF LABOR DOESN'T ALREADY HAVE PRESSING ISSUES.  THIS IS A BIG ONE.  HERE IN MARYLAND, O'MALLEY AND THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS ARE PUSHING IMMIGRANT LABOR ISSUES AS THE 'NEW ECONOMY' REQUIRES THAT THE BEST OF THE BEST IN THE WORLD'.  WE KNOW THERE IS NO SHORTAGE THAT IS NOT MANAGEABLE.  WE HAVE TONS OF MATH AND SCIENCE GRADS THAT GO TO WALL STREET AND WE HAVE PLENTY OF CURRENT GRADS LOOKING FOR JOBS.  WHAT THESE POLS WANT WILL CREATE UNFAIR ADVANTAGE FOR PEOPLE NOT EVEN CITIZENS OF THE US.  THESE CORPORATE PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES ARE MARKETING OVERSEAS FOR THESE INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS AS THE AVERAGE FAMILY FIGHTS TO AFFORD TUITION.  WE NEED TO WORK ON MAKING OUR STUDENTS THE BEST OF THE BEST.

IT IS NOT ONLY BAD FOR US WORKERS, IT IS HOSTILE TO OTHER COUNTRIES WHO NEED THESE GRADS HOME TO BUILD AND BECOME LEADERS THERE.  WE WILL GIVE THE WORLD ONE MORE THING FOR WHICH TO DISLIKE AMERICA AS IF WE NEED TO.

PLEASE SHOUT LOUDLY AND STRONGLY TO LEAVE IMMIGRANT STUDENT LAWS ALONE!!!  WORK ON UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT LAWS@!!!!!

BELOW YOU SEE A COMMENT FROM A STUDENT WHO STATES THE FACTS:



dmm19:45 AM EST Engineering and science absolutely do NOT need immigrant labor. There is not enough money in R&D to support those currently in the labor pool. Companies are closing down their research divisions right and left, colleges are closing their science departments, and government is not taking up the slack. Many of our brightest AMERICAN students are spending 4, 6, 8, 10, even 12 years training post-highschool in science or engineering, then graduating to find there are no job opportunities. This has been going on for a decade. Now employers are screaming, as they see fewer American students in the R&D training pipeline.

Posted at 01:56 PM ET, 11/19/2012
Will Obama ‘seize’ skilled-immigrant moment?
By Emi Kolawole Washington Post

President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012. (Joshua Roberts - Bloomberg)

Now that President Obama is fresh off of his reelection victory, immigration reform, while somewhat overshadowed by the impending “fiscal cliff,” is among the first issues he has said his administration will tackle. In his first news conference after the election, the president said that it was time to “seize the moment” and realize comprehensive immigration reform. Talk of such reform, however, has centered around how to tackle the challenge of illegal immigration. Talk of skilled immigration is not conducted at nearly the same decibel-level in Washington even as tech company chiefs continue to express their frustration over the apparent lack of qualified talent.

Kojo Nnamdi, host of the eponymous show, had Vivek Wadhwa on air Monday to talk skilled immigration — a topic Wadhwa has written about often and at length both for The Washington Post and elsewhere.

The author of the “The Immigrant Exodus,” has, along with others, advocated for a change to the nation’s immigration policy to give skilled immigrants, many of whom are educated in the United States, a more efficient pathway to permanent residency or citizenship. If changes to the system are not enacted soon, the United States, he fears, may lose its competitive edge.

”It’s a big loss for the U.S.,” said Wadhwa of the phenomenon where skilled immigrants, many of whom are educated in the United States, get frustrated with the immigration system and return to their home countries to start companies or look for permanent employment.

Demetrios Papademetriou, President and Board Member of the Migration Policy Institute cautioned against hyperbole, since the United States is, after all, “still the major immigrant-receiving country on Earth.”

“So, this is not about a catastrophe that is upon us. This is about being smart,” he said. “I think everybody agrees that we must do something about it.”

The radio program, a call-in show produced out of American University in Washington, D.C., showed that not everybody was in agreement about what exactly needed to be done. At least one caller phoned in to express his frustration with those who advocate expanding the visa pipeline when more resources should be directed to training students in the United States. Wadhwa, who said he supported improvements in education and training, said it needn’t be an either/or question.

And Papademetriou again pushed for calm.

“It is okay for people to be going back. That’s what education is all about. That’s what a cultural exchange is all about. But I don’t think the United States should be doing anything to push these people to go back,” he said.

But the question remains whether the Obama administration’s promised immigration overhaul bill will stop the pushing or let it continue.

What do you think? Should the United States change its immigration laws to make it easier for skilled immigrants to stay in the United States, or should the emphasis be placed on training U.S. students and workers? Is it even an either/or question?
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As Governor O'Malley knows, 90% of democrats and 80% of all voters say they want wealth inequity reversed and they want corporate accountability as pertains to Rule of Law.  These are the top issues for voters in his own party. Not just a majority.....not a supermajority.....but overwhelming consensus.  This leads to my point.....why do these pols who think they can take stands that work against their constituents in favor of wealth run as democrats?

How do you reverse wealth inequity?  You bring back trillions of dollars in corporate fraud in the defense, health care, and financial industries....enough to pay the entire $14 trillion debt with no taxpayer money involved.  You hire millions of unemployed so it is a job creating stimulus and you reinstate Rule of Law in America.  There is no downside to that and it meets the priorities of the democratic voters.  So, let the Bush Tax cuts end for all and then come back to reinstate middle-class breaks and you have a plan to end the debt in a decade.

Why does O'Malley insist on compromise from a middle/lower class that was shattered by this massive fraud that brought economic collapse?  He is a Third Way Reagan Liberal who works for wealth and corporations, or as we say profits over people. Take a look at who is going in order to see for whom not to vote.


Bipartisan group seeks collective compromise to ‘fix the debt’ November 20, 2012 at 7:37 am

At microphone, Michael Enright, left, and Chip DiPaula.

By Len Lazarick

Len@MarylandReporter.com

Anne Arundel County Council member Jamie Benoit is taking off the entire second half of December from his day job as CEO of Federal Data Systems, not to get ready for Christmas or go skiing, but to lobby the many members of Congress he knows to “fix the debt.”

“This is the time that kicking the can (down the road) has got to stop,” Benoit said at Monday’s launch of the Maryland chapter of “Fix the Debt.” This bi-partisan group has been set up to urge members of Congress to “compromise” and come up with “a grand bargain” that will avoid driving over the “fiscal cliff” of massive tax hikes and budget cuts scheduled for Jan. 1.

The goal is “comprehensive and long-term solution to the debt problem,” said Michael Enright, former chief of staff of Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley. “The math involved in this is inescapable” and “it will involve pain and sacrifice for all of us.”

Pain and sacrifice for all

“Everyone’s going to have to give a little bit,” said Chip DiPaula, former chief of staff for Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich.

“This is really the seminal issue of our day,” said Tom McMillen, who left Congress 20 years ago when Democrats and Republicans “worked better together than they do today.”  Back then the national debt was 65% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), and now it is heading toward 100% of the output of goods and services, said the former Democratic congressman.

The group is not offering any specific proposals for a solution, but it was founded by Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson, who co-chaired President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. The commission did present a detailed plan for tax reform and budget cuts.

Fix the Debt nationally is chaired by former Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.

There are now Fix the Debt chapters in 15 states including Ohio, Florida, Maine, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Colorado and Tennessee.

“We’re not presenting any answers,” Enright said, but seeking “a collective will to come to a solution.”

“What we’re talking about is a compromise,” said DiPaula. “It’s going to be a collective solution.”

Impact on contractors

If Congress and the president do not agree to a solution by the end of the year, all the Bush tax cuts will expire and large cuts in spending will go into effect, particularly affecting the defense budget and contractors.

“I won’t have to close my doors” as a federal IT contractor, Benoit said, but “I know many in my business that will.”

In an interview, Benoit said he knows smaller contractors who are “walking around ignorant” about the potential impact of the budget cuts. He said most federal contracts have a provision for “termination for convenience” that would allow the government to stop contracts all together or renegotiate them on more favorable terms.

Other members  

Other members of Fix the Debt Maryland are Anirban Basu, chairman & CEO Sage Policy Group; Sean Creamer, chief operating officer and executive vice president of Arbitron Inc.; Richard Cross, former speechwriter for Gov. Bob Ehrlich and columnist; Michael Cryor, public relations consultant and former Maryland Democratic Party chairman; Lin Eagan, owner, Lakeview Title Company; Donald Fry, president & CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee; Wayne Gilchrest, former Republican member of U.S. House of Representatives.

Mary Kane, 2010 Republican nominee for lieutenant governor and former Maryland Secretary of State; Martin Knott, president of Knott Mechanical and chairman, Maryland Economic Development Corporation; Timothy Maloney, attorney and former Member Maryland House of Delegates; Bruce Poole, former majority leader, Maryland House of Delegates; Nicolas Ramos, owner, Arcos Restaurant and CEO, Casas Y Comunidad; Martin Richardson, part-owner, Verde Group; Paul Sheehy, director, Sheehy Auto Stores; Jim Smith, former Baltimore County Executive; Ben Wu, vice chair, US-Asia Institute and former assistant secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce.




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November 19th, 2012

11/19/2012

0 Comments

 
THEY ARE TAKING YOUR WAGES....YOUR BENEFITS......YOUR PUBLIC EDUCATION.....IT'S TIME TO GIVE THEM......................HECK!!!
WE MUST HAVE HIGH TOP TAX RATE TO  REVERSE WEALTH INEQUITY!!!!!


AS US CORPORATIONS ARE BUSY HAVING THEIR CORPORATE POLS SENDING TAXPAYERS ALL OF CORPORATE COSTS TO BOOST PROFITS.....EUROPE IS INCREDULOUS THAT THE US WOULD ALLOW THEIR CORPORATIONS TO GET AWAY WITH SO LITTLE.

WHY IS AMERICA ALONE IN KEEPING TAXES FAIR?  BECAUSE WE HAVE POLS THAT TELL US THAT US CORPORATIONS ARE PAYING MORE IN TAX AND THAT MAKES THEM LESS COMPETITIVE...........THEY ARE TELLING YOU AND ME A LIE!!!! US CORPORATIONS PAY INCOME TAX WHILE OTHER NATIONS PAY A VARIETY OF CORPORATE TAXES WHICH AD UP TO MORE THAN THE US RATE IN MANY CASES.  THE US IS IN THE MIDDLE FOR ALL NATIONS IN WHAT WE TAX OUR CORPORATIONS.  THAT DOESN'T EVEN COUNT ALL THE DEDUCTIONS THAT BRING THE AVERAGE RATE TO 17% THESE LAST FEW YEARS.  THE PUBLIC IS GETTING SOAKED BY A THIRD WAY CORPORATE PRESIDENT AND CAPITOL  DEMOCRATS.

BELOW YOU SEE HOW ALL OF THE INCUMBENTS IN MARYLAND......THE RULERS FOR LIFE......ARE PLEASED THEY NOT ONLY GOT THE CASINOS RAKING IN REGRESSIVE PUBLIC REVENUE......THEY GOT TO LOWER THE PERCENTAGE THAT THE STATE GETS AS RELATES THE CASINO.  O'MALLEY KNEW WHEN HE ORIGINALLY STATED THAT GAMBLING PROCEEDS OF 70% MADE IT WORTH IT FOR SCHOOLS AND NOW IT IS ONLY SLIGHTLY ABOVE 50% WITH AN APPOINTED COMMISSION THAT WILL FIND WAYS TO LOWER THE STATE'S TAKE FURTHER.

NOW, IF YOU RAISED TAXES AND FEES LIKE NO TOMORROW ON THE MIDDLE/LOWER CLASS AND YOU HAVE GAMBLING......YOU CAN LOWER CORPORATE TAXES SAYS MARYLAND CORPORATE POLS.  THAT IS WHAT THIS IS ABOUT.  DON'T FORGET THERE WERE LARGE CUTS IN MEDICAID THIS YEAR.  SO WHY DOES MARYLAND VOTERS ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN? 

IT IS APATHY, PURE AND SIMPLE.  MARYLAND HAS BEEN CAPTURED SO LONG PEOPLE WILL NOT GET TOGETHER TO PROTESTS AND SHOW OUTRAGE.  WE HAVE FEW UNIONS THAT ARE ALREADY ORGANIZED AND ALL OF THEM DO NOT WANT TO MAKE WAVES....

MARYLAND NEEDS A PUSH INTO ACTIVISM AND WE ARE GOING TO GIVE THAT PUSH!!!!


DO YOU THINK THAT YOUR MARYLAND INCUMBENT IS GATHERING THESE BUSINESS LEADERS TO TALK ABOUT REVENUE GENERATION INVOLVING BRINGING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CORPORATE FRAUD BACK TO THE CITIZENS OF MARYLAND.....NO, THEY ARE GOING TO TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH IN CORPORATE TAX CUTS WOULD PLEASE THE CORPORATIONS?

DO YOU HEAR YOUR MARYLAND AND BALTIMORE INCUMBENTS SHOUTING LOUDLY AND STRONGLY AGAINST ALL THESE GIFTS TO CORPORATIONS?

Md. board to hear from business leaders
November 15, 2012 02:19 EST  WBFF Fox News



ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- The Maryland Board of Revenue Estimates is holding a forum to hear from business leaders.

The board is holding the forum on Thursday in Annapolis to get a better sense of the current economic conditions and challenges facing the state's economy.

It will include business leaders from a variety of Maryland industries and leaders from every region of the state.

The forum also will include representatives from banking and financial services industries. It also will include representatives from real estate, consumer services, utilities and manufacturing industries

THIS FROM A COMMENTER IN THE ECONOMIST:

Okay, I'm not a tax accountant and I don't even play one on TV, but let me ask: why is this so hard? Why are closing loopholes AND raising the rate mutually exclusive? Why do lobbyists get to decide what we do in the face of the commitments/deficit situation we face? This per Paul Krugman today:

"Yet in the 1950s incomes in the top bracket faced a marginal tax rate of 91, that’s right, 91 percent, while taxes on corporate profits were twice as large, relative to national income, as in recent years. The best estimates suggest that circa 1960 the top 0.01 percent of Americans paid an effective federal tax rate of more than 70 percent, twice what they pay today."

Why is not simple to raise the rate to what it was under Clinton and attack the glaring inefficiencies of the tax code? A lot of voices here sound like raising rates will plunge us into an economic tar pit. But that's simply not been the case and we have a bill to pay. What?

Just askin.


Governor Brown is not the liberal of his early years.  He slashed and burned pensions, social programs, and education with the best of them all while holding on to high-speed rail and loosening environmental protections.  HE DID MAKE A SIZABLE ACCOUNTING FOR THE RICH AND BUSINESSES TO PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE UNLIKE O'MALLEY!!!

We need to keep pushing for higher corporate/wealth taxes to fix that structural deficit!!!

Californian politics Brownian motion The passage of a tax measure and a political realignment have left California’s unpredictable governor in a strong position Nov 17th 2012 | LOS ANGELES | from the print edition  The Economist


ON NOVEMBER 6th Americans voted for the presidential and congressional status quo. But Californians decided to set their state on what may be a new course. Proposition 30 became the first tax-raising measure to win the support of a majority of voters since 2004, averting planned deep education cuts and bringing California closer to fiscal health. The state’s Democrats, already dominant, were returned to both houses of the legislature with supermajorities of more than two-thirds that grant them sweeping new powers, including the ability to raise taxes unilaterally. The scene was set, feared some, for a particularly gruesome episode of what the Wall Street Journal called “the Liberals Gone Wild video that is Sacramento”.

Unions certainly wasted no time urging their newly empowered Democratic allies to begin reversing some of the deep cuts of recent years. But the state’s leaders tried to dampen their expectations. A victorious Governor Jerry Brown, his voice gruffer, his pate sparer and his metaphors more florid than during his first stint in office over 30 years ago, called for California to adopt “the prudence of Joseph” in the coming years. His legislative colleagues warned that they were not about to jack taxes up further.

That is wise. Prop 30, or something like it, may have been necessary to stanch California’s budgetary bleeding. But it leaves the state with the highest top income- and sales-tax rates in the country. Most of its revenues will come from high earners, which will do little to ease California’s business-unfriendly reputation.

On November 14th the independent Legislative Analyst’s Office declared that the “budget situation has improved sharply.” But the state’s fiscal problems are hardly over. Borrowing costs are high, and the credit rating dreadful. An over-reliance on income- and capital-gains taxes on the wealthy makes revenues highly volatile: when the Dow sinks, so do revenues

Still, the success of Prop 30, which had looked to be in trouble in polls, leaves Mr Brown looking strong. Asked about his priorities for the two remaining years of his first term, he reels off a list that includes infrastructure schemes such as high-speed rail and water-diversion projects, as well as education and green-energy plans.

He acknowledges that work remains to be done on the long-term liabilities of the state pension system, but seems less keen on tax reform: economists would like to see the state’s tax base broadened and sales tax extended to services. “What is the justification for going through all that turbulence?” Mr Brown asks. (The last attempt to reshape the tax code came from a commission appointed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr Brown’s predecessor. It was completely ignored.)

Then there is Proposition 13. A populist measure passed in 1978, during Mr Brown’s first governorship but against his wishes, the initiative slashed property taxes, introduced the two-thirds legislative requirement for tax rises and reshaped the relationship between state and local government. Nationally, it began a tax revolt that helped lift Ronald Reagan to the presidency. California’s liberals have long wanted to reform (or remove) it, but politicians have considered it untouchable.

That may now change. A full-throated assault on Prop 13, whose basic precepts remain popular, is unlikely. But two provisions may come under attack. First, the two-thirds voter approval requirement for the passage of “parcel taxes”—essentially measures designed to work around the constraints of Prop 13 at local level, including school districts. Some, including Darrell Steinberg, president pro tempore of the state Senate, want to reduce that to 55%. Second is Prop 13’s failure to distinguish between residential and commercial properties. At the moment all property values (and hence tax bills) are reassessed only when ownership is transferred. Many favour a “split roll”: annual reassessment of commercial property value, which in a rising market would mean higher revenues.

Many businesses supported Prop 30, at least in public. Yet even minor tweaks to the totemic Prop 13 would spark anger. If the Democrats go for the split roll, says Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, “the business community will have to fight.” Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a lobby group named after the man behind Prop 13, says the organisation will exert “whatever political pressure we can” to head off threats to Jarvis’s creation.

For his part, Mr Brown appears to want to get things done rather than to get into scraps. But much will depend on how restive the victorious Democratic lawmakers prove to be. The tightness of the elections of some, and the brevity of their terms, should deter their more radical ambitions. But precisely because the supermajority is unlikely to hold for longer than two years, interest groups will want to exploit an opportunity they may not soon see repeated.

If it does prove fractious, the big Democratic tent could, paradoxically, provide an opening for the few Republicans still limping around Sacramento. Some items on Mr Brown’s to-do list, including pension reform and a softening of environmental rules, will alienate some of his party allies. Republicans could stem their slide into oblivion by working with the governor on such issues. Whether they choose to is another question; as the party has shrunk it has hardened, and after its latest reversals it may turn out to have calcified.

Mr Brown has positioned himself well to take advantage of the new political dispensation, says Raphael Sonenshein of the Pat Brown Institute of Political Affairs (named after Mr Brown’s father, another former governor). The political capital he earned with the passage of Prop 30 means that Democrats, Republicans, business and unions alike must, in practice, go through him if they want to get anything done. And if his unpredictability, what Mr Sonenshein calls his “Brownian motion”, once made it hard for him to form alliances, it now grants him a useful flexibility.

For many Americans, California has become a byword for debt, dysfunction and decline. Mr Brown says he will make it his business to refute such notions. Few governors of California leave office unscathed. Mr Brown has not even said whether he will run for a second term. But if he can find a way to exploit this moment this most protean of politicians may find a way to leave the legacy he craves.



European Countries Seek More Taxes From U.S. Multinational Companies


By ERIC PFANNER Published: November 18, 2012  New York Times

PARIS — Google reported sales of more than $4 billion in Britain last year. It paid less than $10 million in taxes.

Enlarge This Image Peter Muhly/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Google’s European base in Dublin, where its tax rate is much less than in some parts of Europe.

Some tax collectors, lawmakers and competitors of Google in Europe say this is unfair.

As governments throughout the region seek to close gaping holes in their budgets, they are taking aim at United States multinational companies, especially Internet giants like Google and Amazon.com, which pay little or no taxes in Europe, despite generating billions of dollars in revenue on the Continent.

“Why on earth do you manipulate your accounts so that you get away with not paying corporation tax in the U.K.?” Margaret Hodge, a member of Parliament, asked representatives of Google, Amazon and Starbucks last week, during a heated committee hearing in London.

In France, tax collectors have gone further. Amazon says it has received a bill from France for taxes and penalties related to the “allocation of income between foreign jurisdictions” from 2006 through 2010. Other companies, including Google, are also reportedly in the French authorities’ sights.

“Even if the Internet is a zone of freedom, it shouldn’t be a lawless zone,” Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, a spokeswoman for the French government, said last week. “Fiscal rules should be able to be applied to those activities as well.”

Google, Amazon, Starbucks and other American companies facing tax scrutiny say they are doing nothing wrong. They use complex accounting strategies to exploit national differences across Europe in corporate tax rates, which range from less than 10 percent to more than 30 percent, and loopholes that can reduce their effective European tax levies to almost nothing.

Google, for example, records most of its international revenue at its European headquarters in Ireland, where the corporate tax rate is 12.5 percent. Across Europe, customers who buy advertising, Google’s primary source of revenue, sign contracts with the company’s subsidiary in Ireland, rather than with local branches.

Google ends up paying Irish taxes on only a fraction of the billions of euros that course through its Dublin office. That is because the company uses a variety of methods, including royalty payments to a unit in Bermuda, to reduce further the amount of money exposed to tax liability.

So, while Google told the Securities and Exchange Commission that it generated more than $4 billion in sales in Britain last year, it reported revenue of only £396 million, or $629 million, in its official filings there. The total, the company said, reflected the amount that Google’s British unit billed Google Ireland for promotional work, consulting and other activities. Google declared a profit of £31 million in Britain, resulting in a British tax bill of only £6 million.

“We pay the tax we are required to pay in every country in which we operate,” Matt Brittin, Google vice president for North and Central Europe, told the parliamentary panel.

Ms. Hodge, chairwoman of the Public Accounts Committee, acknowledged that she thought Google, Amazon and Starbucks were probably complying with the law. “We are not accusing you of being illegal, we are accusing you of being immoral,” she said.

In France, more than morality is at stake. In his testimony to the parliamentary panel, Andrew Cecil, director of public policy for Amazon in Europe, confirmed that the company had received a demand for $252 million from the French tax collection agency. He said Amazon was contesting the claim, which was originally disclosed in an American regulatory filing.

Amazon, which has European headquarters in Luxembourg, another small country with favorable tax conditions for multinational companies, reported 9.1 billion euros, or $11.6 billion, in revenue across Europe last year. It posted an after-tax profit of 20 million euros on those sales, and paid about 8 million euros in tax, Mr. Cecil said.

Mr. Cecil told the parliamentary committee that when customers across Europe bought books from Amazon, they were actually buying them from the Luxembourg-based Amazon entity, rather than their local subsidiaries. That response was met with incredulity by Ms. Hodge, who noted that when she ordered a book from the company, she used a British Web site, Amazon.co.uk, and the goods were delivered from a British warehouse via the British Royal Mail.

News reports in France note that French fiscal authorities are also seeking back taxes and penalties from Google, amounting to 1.7 billion euros. Ms. Vallaud-Belkacem told reporters that she could not comment on individual companies for privacy reasons. Google, in a statement, said the reports were premature.


“Google has not received any tax assessment from the French tax administration,” the company said. “We have and will continue to cooperate with the authorities in France.”

Europe is not the only place where the complex tax arrangements of United States multinationals are being questioned. The authorities in Australia have sent Apple a bill for 28.5 million Australian dollars, or about $29.5 million, in back taxes, according to news reports Friday. Apple could not be reached for comment.

In an era of globalization, determining the tax liability of multinational companies has long vexed policy makers and tax collectors. International agreements generally state that commerce should be taxed in the physical location where profit-making activity occurs, not necessarily where a customer is based or where a transaction takes place.

Determining the appropriate jurisdiction for taxation is especially difficult with Internet businesses, because of the intangible nature of many of the goods and services that change hands and the ease with which transactions can cross borders.

Google says that most of the economic value it creates is generated in Silicon Valley, where its engineers toil away at the computer algorithms behind its search engine and other services. So the company says it is fair that most of what it pays in taxes goes to the United States Treasury, not its foreign counterparts.

While Google’s United States taxes have come under scrutiny, too, the company pays substantially more in the United States. In 2011, the company’s annual report shows, it made a provision of $2.6 billion for income taxes, all but $248 million of that going to the state and national treasuries in the United States. Based on pretax income of $12.3 billion, that amounted to an effective rate of 21 percent.

“If Google was a British business, if Google had been founded in Cambridge by Larry and Sergey, I think we’d be in a very different place here, because the profitability would rightly sit where all the technology and innovation take place, which is not here,” Mr. Brittin said. He was referring to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google.

Though Google employees across Europe advise clients on the use of the company’s services, advertisers sign contracts with the company’s subsidiary in Ireland. This has shielded Google from tax liability in France, Britain and other European countries, at least so far.

“Google is saying, ‘We just float around freely above this useful aircraft carrier, Ireland,’ ” said Richard Murphy, founder of the Tax Justice Network, an independent organization that campaigns against what it calls tax “loopholes and distortions.” “What France is saying is, ‘We don’t think you float around over Ireland, we think you are in France.’ ”

If Google believes that its profit-making activity — that is, its taxable work — occurs in the United States, Mr. Murphy said, then it ought to take its European earnings home and expose them to the Internal Revenue Service. Yet, like many other American multinationals, it has been reluctant to do so.

Instead, Google said it had accumulated $24.8 billion as of the end of 2011 outside the United States — part of a cache of stored American corporate cash that Citizens for Tax Justice, an American advocacy group, estimates at more than $1.5 trillion. The money has been accumulating in Bermuda and other offshore havens since a 2004 United States tax holiday for the repatriation of corporate profits.

While some American corporate leaders have been lobbying in Washington for another tax holiday, lawmakers in Europe are moving to collect a greater share of multinationals’ taxes.

Last spring, the European Parliament threw its support behind a proposal to create a single set of European Union-wide accounting rules for calculating multinational corporations’ tax liabilities. But policy makers are divided over whether the standards should be voluntary or mandatory.

Ms. Vallaud-Belkacem said last week that the administration of President François Hollande of France was discussing with other European governments ways to crack down on tax avoidance by international companies.

After a meeting this month, George Osborne, the British chancellor of the Exchequer, and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble of Germany called for “concerted international cooperation to strengthen international standards for corporate tax regimes.”

Mr. Osborne said in a statement, “We want competitive taxes that say Britain is open for business and that attract global companies to invest in and bring jobs to our country, but we also want global companies to pay those taxes.”

_______________________________________________________
REMEMBER THE BANK TAX THAT WAS MEANT TO BE THE FIRST STEP IN HOLDING BANKS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR FRAUD AND TO CURB EXCESSIVE ROLLOVER THAT BRINGS FEES?  REMEMBER IT WAS OBAMA AND GEITHNER WHO CRISS-CROSSED EUROPE SHOUTING AGAINST THIS BANK TAX.......YOU HEAR NOTHING IN THE US ABOUT THIS AS THEY TALK OF SPENDING CUTS AND LOWER CORPORATE TAXES.

HOW DID WE REELECT THESE INCUMBENTS? 

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE.


Italy and Spain Add Support to a Tax on Financial Trades in Europe
By JAMES KANTER Published: October 9, 2012  New York Times

LUXEMBOURG — Italy and Spain joined nine other European Union countries on Tuesday in backing a tax on financial trades, bringing the most significant attempt at such an initiative a step closer to success.

Enlarge This Image John Thys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images George Osborne, center, British chancellor of the Exchequer, greeted the finance ministers Wolfgang Schäuble, right, of Germany, and Pierre Moscovici, of France, Tuesday in Luxembourg.

The levy, also known as a Robin Hood tax, or Tobin tax, gained momentum in Europe in better economic times. It was originally expected that the revenue would mostly go to humanitarian and environmental causes, including ways to combat climate change. Since the outbreak of the financial crisis, the emphasis has shifted.

European officials now mainly see the tax as a way of penalizing the financial sector and returning some of the money that was spent on bank bailouts to citizens squeezed by austerity and the economic slowdown.

“I think that taxpayers have legitimate expectations that they will be paid back for what was used in the bailouts, and the financial transactions tax can provide for this,” Algirdas Semeta, the European commissioner for taxation, said Tuesday after a monthly meeting of European Union finance ministers, where a number of nations pledged their support.

“Many citizens are angry about these problems over the causes of the financial crisis, and this small contribution of very tiny rates could help rebuild confidence in the financial sector,” Mr. Semeta said.

A qualified majority of all 27 European Union finance ministers would have to approve the measure for the tax to take effect among those nations that support it. Mr. Semeta said that step could be taken at the next meeting of the finance ministers, in November.

Such a tax has been under discussion for decades, and the idea is closely associated with James Tobin, an economist who proposed a version of it in the 1970s and received a Nobel in economic science in 1981.

In the United States, the tax has become a rallying point for labor unions, nongovernmental organizations and the Occupy Wall Street movement, which view it as a way to claw back money from the top wage earners. Last year, demonstrators urged the leaders of the Group of 20 nations to do more to help the poor, including passing a tax on financial transactions.

Mr. Semeta has already proposed legislation that would impose a tax of 0.1 percent on the value of all stock and bond trades, and of 0.01 percent on all derivatives trades. That could raise 57 billion euros ($74 billion) annually, or about 0.5 percent of European Union output, if it were applied across the bloc.

But with fewer than half of those countries expected to participate — and without the revenue from the tax that could be generated by Britain — the amount would probably be significantly less.

Britain opposes the measure, fearing that it could drive business from the City of London, a world financial center.

But Britain would probably have a partial exemption because only trades between British banks and those in countries that adopted the system would be taxed. Many specialists contend this would push even more financial business toward the City, as banks seek a base in a no-tax country.

“This is giving a present to London, the best present you can imagine,” said Karel Lannoo, the chief executive of the Center for European Policy Studies, a research organization.

The drive for investment bankers, hedge fund managers and high-frequency traders to pay for the economic difficulties had become a paramount concern, Mr. Lannoo said. Politicians “see there is pressure to do something about the financial sector,” he said.

European officials said Tuesday that George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, would not oppose the measure as long as Britain was allowed a partial exemption from the plan.

Sweden and the Netherlands also have shown no interest in applying a new European tax.

“We still think that the financial transaction tax is a very dangerous tax,” Anders Borg, the Swedish finance minister, said. “It will have a negative impact on growth.”

The Dutch finance minister, Jan Kees de Jager, said his country was “not in favor of a financial transaction tax” and was “even reluctant about introduction in other countries.”

Mr. Semeta acknowledged on Tuesday that the countries seeking to introduce the tax did not agree on how, exactly, the revenue would be spent.

“Of course the big question is how the money will be used, but first we need to agree on the tax itself,” he said.

Mr. Semeta said some countries still would like to use some of the money to supplement financing for overseas aid projects, while others want to use it to help offset their contributions to the annual European Union budget of about 140 billion euros.

The opposition from Britain and Sweden led the biggest supporters of the tax, Germany and France, to push hard for a procedure known in European Union jargon as enhanced cooperation. It allows a core group of European nations to proceed with policies that other nations oppose. A minimum of nine nations is required for the commission to write legislation.

In recent days, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal and Slovenia pledged their support for the levy. On Monday, they were joined by Greece. On Tuesday, Italy, Spain, Slovakia and Estonia pledged support.

____________________________________________________
WE DO NOT WANT TO BECOME APATHETIC OVER THIS.....WE WANT TO SEE PEOPLE MOVE WITH OUTRAGE.  AS YOUR WAGES FALL YOUR INCUMBENTS SAY IT IS THE HIGH TAX RATE THAT IS CUTTING INTO YOUR PAYDAY.  IT IS YOUR WAGES!!!!!!!  THE DEFICIT IS A FAILURE TO COLLECT CORPORATE TAXES AND FRAUD......PERIOD!  WE MUST TAKE THE LESSONS FROM EUROPE IN STANDING FIRM AS THE INJUSTICE GROWS.

Editorial Spanish Protests, German Prescriptions Published: October 1, 2012  New York Times



Demonstrators have been filling the streets of southern Europe’s capitals in numbers too large for politicians to safely ignore, protesting the latest economic austerity measures. Hundreds of thousands have turned out in Lisbon, Madrid and Athens, and more such protests are likely in coming days.

The public’s patience is running out on austerity policies demanded by the German government and European Union leaders, which have conspicuously failed in their stated goal of reducing debt burdens and paving the way for economic revival. Instead, it’s clear that these measures will accelerate depression-levels of unemployment and damage social safety net programs when they are most needed.

The spotlight is now on Spain, where Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is struggling to make new budget cuts, without provoking further explosions of anger at home and fueling secessionist talk in restive regions like Catalonia, the country’s economic powerhouse. But the harsh mix of new public service cuts, pay freezes and tax increases that Mr. Rajoy announced last week will almost certainly make both the political and economic situations worse. Experts now forecast a second straight year of negative growth in Spain for 2013, while unemployment, at more than 25 percent, is more than double the European Union average.

Yet unless Spain goes through with those self-defeating measures or the Spanish economy miraculously produces new tax revenues to meet unrealistic budget targets, Germany threatens to hold up a desperately needed new European banking union that would help recapitalize foundering Spanish banks. Unlike Greece and Portugal, Spain has, so far, avoided a formal European Union bailout. That gives it a little more freedom to set its own economic course. But Mr. Rajoy is not really a free actor. Without German approval for the European banking union, Spain, too, could soon be forced into a binding debt bailout deal.

Spain’s current debt problems are not the result of profligate government spending during the boom years. They came from the abrupt collapse of a reckless housing bubble in the private sector, fueled by artificially cheap credit. The bursting of that bubble wiped out millions of Spanish jobs, dragging down tax revenues and consumer spending. It also forced the government to pledge billions of euros that it did not have and could no longer raise to rescue its tottering banking system. New cuts to remaining jobs and spending power will not bring recovery. It would only bring further misery and turmoil.

Mr. Rajoy also wants to rein in spending by Spain’s 17 regional governments, which pay a large share of education and health care costs. Regional governments squandered billions on wasteful public-works projects during the boom years. But that money is lost, and health and education should not be subject to big cuts even in hard times.

Nor is a deep recession the right time to tackle the long-term problem of pension costs and the demographics of an aging population. With unemployment benefits ending for many of the long-term unemployed, pension payments are the main remaining source of income for hundreds of thousands of extended families.

There are no easy places left for Mr. Rajoy to cut services or spending without risking social disaster. The story is much the same in Greece and Portugal.

Time is running out. Only a sharp change in economic policies can save the euro. European leaders — most of all Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany — need to recognize that returning the euro zone to solvency will require renewed efforts to encourage economic growth through less rigid budget targets, not continued austerity imposed on desperate governments by Berlin and Brussels.


0 Comments

November 17th, 2012

11/17/2012

0 Comments

 
REMEMBER, ALL THIS POLICY IS REVERSIBLE SO DO NOT GET DISCOURAGED BY THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT.......WE SIMPLY NEED GOOD PEOPLE IN OFFICE.

I DON'T USUALLY BLOG ON THE WEEKEND BUT I MISSED YESTERDAY...

We know Maryland is not a union state but let's look nationally at how corporations that now feel empowered at having all their corporate pols reelected are now moving to crush the unions and push you and I further into poverty.  We have union news across the nation.....some good, bad, and ugly.  As I said, people are beginning to see that the organized efforts given by unions are a must and I think unions are beginning to admit to abuses on their own part.  We want to be clear......where unions may compromise it is corporation's objective to crush unions so do not think you will reach a common ground.  I want to take a few of the headline cases to highlight the issues.  Labor is at a disadvantage because we have fewer pols in office working for us......but we have voice and numbers and that does matter.



You see below that Hostess was brought to its knees by a private equity firm that loaded it with debt and now the company will go out of business and restructure as a new company minus the union labor and benefits.  This is the same strategy used by private equity companies like Romney's Bain Capital  since the 1980s and yet your Third Way corporate democrat did nothing to protect workers from these abuses.  These workers were right to stand firm even as the business collapsed because the circumstances would have been just as bad if not.  Now that the election is over and Obama is through using Bain Capital as the bad guy you will not see this Third Way democrat offering any solutions for these actions.  When Obama talks of the middle-class, he is talking of the upper-middle class.....the shareholder class that works for profits over people.  That is why everyone keeps asking 'why is a democrat supporting this policy'?  Well, it is because they are Reagan Republican Liberals and we keep reelecting them!!!!

Restructuring & Bankruptcy November 16, 2012, 8:23 am
As Labor Talks Collapse, Hostess Turns Out Lights By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED and STEVEN GREENHOUSE
  • Twinkies and Ding Dongs could find new life under a different owner, once Hostess begins an auction of its brands and assets.What might be the last Twinkie in America — at least for a while — rolled off a factory line Friday morning. It was just like the millions that had come before it, golden, cream-filled empty calories, a monument to classic American junk food.

But it is likely to be the last under the current management. After not one but two bankruptcies, Hostess Brands, the beleaguered purveyor of Twinkies, Ho Hos, Sno Balls and Wonder bread, announced plans to wind down operations and sell off its brands.

Since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January, Hostess has been trying to renegotiate its labor contracts in a bid to cut costs. But the talks fell apart, and last week one union went on strike.

The so-called liquidation will probably spell the end of Hostess, an 82-year-old company that has endured wars, countless diet fads and even an earlier Chapter 11 filing. Although the company could theoretically negotiate a last-minute deal with the union, Hostess is moving to shut factories and lay off a large majority of its 18,500 employees.

But Twinkies and the other well-known brands could eventually find new life under a different owner. As part of the process, Hostess is looking to auction off its assets, and suitors could find value in the portfolio.

“The potential loss of iconic brands is difficult,” said the company’s chief executive, Gregory F. Rayburn. “But it’s overshadowed by the 18,500 families that are out of work.”

The company’s current problems stem, in part, from the legacy of its past.

An amalgam of brands and businesses, the company has evolved over the years through acquisitions. In the 1960s and 1970s, the company, then called Interstate, bought more than a dozen regional bakeries scattered across the country. A couple of decades later, it paid $330 million for the Continental Baking Company, picking up a portfolio of brands like Wonder and Hostess.

As the national appetite for junk food waned, the company fell on hard times, struggling against rising labor and commodity costs. In 2004, it filed for bankruptcy for the first time.

Five years later, the company emerged from Chapter 11 as Hostess Brands, so named after its most prominent division. With America’s new health-conscious attitude, it sought to reshape the business to changing times, introducing new products like 100-calorie Twinkie Bites.

But the new private equity backers loaded the company with debt, making it difficult to invest in new equipment. Earlier this year, Hostess had more than $860 million of debt
.

The labor costs, too, proved insurmountable, a situation that has been complicated by years of deal-making. The bulk of the work force belongs to 12 unions, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union.

The combination of debt and labor costs has hurt profits. The company posted revenue of $2.5 billion in the fiscal year 2011, the last available data. But it reported a net loss of $341 million.  You don't hear of the concessions made by labor with the last contract.

With profits eroding, the company filed for Chapter 11 in January. It originally hoped to reorganize its finances, seeking lower labor costs, including an immediate 8 percent pay cut.

The negotiations have been contentious.

The Teamsters, which has 6,700 members at Hostess, said it played an instrumental role in ousting Hostess’s previous chief executive, Brian J. Driscoll, this year after the board tripled his compensation to $2.55 million. The union also hired a financial consultant, Harry J. Wilson, who had worked on the General Motors restructuring.

While highly critical of management missteps, the Teamsters agreed in September to major concessions, including cuts in wages and company contributions to health care. As part of the deal, the union was to receive a 25 percent share of the company’s stock and a $100 million claim in bankruptcy.

“The objective was to preserve jobs,” said Ken Hall, the Teamsters’ general secretary-treasurer. “When you have a company that’s in the financial situation that Hostess is, it’s just not possible to maintain everything you have.”

But Hostess reached an impasse with the bakery union. Frank Hurt, the union’s president, seemed to lose patience with Hostess’s management, upset that it was in bankruptcy for the second time despite $100 million in labor concessions. He saw little promise that management would turn things around.

“Our members decided they were not going to take any more abuse from a company they have given so much to for so many years,” said Mr. Hurt. “They decided that they were not going to agree to another round of outrageous wage and benefit cuts and give up their pension only to see yet another management team fail and Wall Street vulture capitalists and ‘restructuring specialists’ walk away with untold millions of dollars.”   Thank you for standing firm regardless of the closure.....the work environment would have been exploitation.

About a month ago, Mr. Rayburn said, the bakers union stopped returning the company’s phone calls altogether. For its part, the bakery union said the company had taken an overly aggressive approach. David Durkee, the union’s secretary-treasurer, said Hostess had given an ultimatum. “They said, ‘If you do not ratify this, we are going to liquidate based on your vote.’ ”

With the company standing firm, the bakery union struck last week, affecting nearly two-thirds of the company’s factories across the country. The Teamsters drivers honored the picket line, further shutting down the operations. The company gave union members until 5 p.m. on Thursday to return to work.

Mr. Rayburn said the financial strain of the strike was too much for the company, which had already reached the limits of its bankruptcy financing. Over the last week, Hostess lost tens of millions of dollars as many customers’ orders went unfilled. And its lenders would not open their wallets one more time.

By Thursday morning, Hostess’s executives were ensconced in the company’s headquarters in Irving, Tex., still hoping that enough employees would return to work to resume production. A small number of workers had already crossed the picket lines that had sprung up at most of the baker’s factories, but more than 10 plants remained well below their necessary capacity.

Mr. Rayburn’s deadline of 5 p.m. passed without either side backing down. Soon after, executives asked the company’s legal advisers to finish the court motions that would begin the liquidation. Papers had been drawn up well before that afternoon.

Around 7 p.m., Mr. Rayburn had his final discussions with the company’s board and his senior managers and made the call to begin winding down.

“We were trying to focus on where people were having success, but I had to make a call,” Mr. Rayburn said.



____________________________________________________________________________
WALMART IS EXPANDING OVERSEAS AND HAD NET REVENUES OF $114 BILLION AS THEY PUSH WORKERS UNDER $9 AN HOUR AND DISMANTLE HEALTH CARE BENEFITS.  HERE IN BALTIMORE IT WAS JOHNS HOPKINS WHO PRESSURED CITY COUNCIL NOT TO REQUIRE A $10 AN HOUR BASE WAGE FOR THE STORE TO BE BUILT IN BALTIMORE.  DO YOU HEAR YOUR INCUMBENT SHOUTING LOUDLY AND STRONGLY AGAINST PROFITS OVER PEOPLE?  IF NOT......

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE?


ARE YOUR LABOR AND JUSTICE LEADERS RUNNING CANDIDATES AGAINST INCUMBENTS NEXT ELECTION?

Wal-Mart Workers' Black Friday Strike

By Elizabeth Dwoskin | BusinessWeek – 23 hours ago  Nov 16, 2012


 America’s biggest retailer may be in for an unexpectedly painful holiday season. Protesting low wages, spiking health care premiums, and alleged retaliation from management, Wal-Mart Stores workers have started to walk off the job this week. First, on Wednesday, about a dozen workers in Wal-Mart’s distribution warehouses in Southern California walked out, followed the next day by 30 more from six stores in the Seattle area.

The workers, who are part of a union-backed employee coalition called Making Change at Wal-Mart, say this is the beginning of a wave of protests and strikes leading up to next week’s Black Friday. A thousand store protests are planned in Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., the group says.

In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, workers who were either planning to strike or already striking explained their situation. “We have to borrow money from each other just to make it to work,” said Colby Harris, who earns $8.90 an hour after having worked at a Wal-Mart in Lancaster, Tex., for three years. “I’m on my lunch break right now, and I have two dollars in my pocket. I’m deciding whether to use it to buy lunch or to hold on to it for next week.” He said the deduction from his bimonthly pay check for health-care costs is scheduled to triple in January. In 2013, Wal-Mart plans to scale back its contributions to workers’ health-care premiums, which are expected to rise between 8 percent and 36 percent. Many employees will forgo coverage, Reuters reports.

Sara Gilbert, a manager who was striking in Seattle, called in on her cell phone: “I work full-time for one of the richest companies in the world, and my kids get state health insurance and are on food stamps,” she said.

Along with Target and Sears, Wal-Mart has plans to open retail stores at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving night. Employees said they weren’t given a choice as to whether they would work on Thanksgiving and were told to do so with little warning. “They don’t care about family,” said Charlene Fletcher, a Wal-Mart associate in Duarte, Calif. She said she is expected to report for work at 3 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. The workers said that when they complain about scheduling and other problems, management cuts their hours or fires people.

With 1.4 million U.S. workers, the Bentonville (Ark.)-based company is the U.S.’s largest private employer. For years, Wal-Mart has been targeted by unions and workers complaining about low wages, scant benefits, and retaliation against those who speak out.

Until now, the company has crushed attempts by employees to organize. So it’s unusual that Making Change at Wal-Mart has been able to organize a number of strikes—the first in the company’s history, they say. The first strike occurred in Los Angeles in October. That strike spread to 28 stores in 12 states, organizers say.

In an e-mail, Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg called the strike “just another exaggerated publicity campaign aimed at generating headlines to mislead” the retailer’s customers and employees. “The fact is, these ongoing tactics being orchestrated by the UFCW are unlawful and we will act to protect our associates and customers from this ongoing illegal conduct,” he wrote, referring to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

The workers intend for next week’s protests to be much bigger. They say their goal is not to shame the company, but to improve conditions. “Wal-Mart needs to know,” said Harris, “that if we didn’t want to work with them, we would have quit.”

Yet the strikes—timed to coincide with the holiday shopping rush—are clearly intended to put pressure on the company during the busiest time of the year, when Wal-Mart most needs its employees. Holiday cheer is a tough sell if your workers are picketing in the parking lot.


_________________________________________________
I listened as NPR News......all Wall Street all the time, spoke of the Long Island utility that performed so badly during the Sandy recovery.  LIPA is a public-private partnership with a UK corporation and is not a public utility.  NPR is determined to make you think so, as are proponents of these partnerships....think charter schools.  We know what public-private partnerships do......look at the Fannie-Freddie debacle; look at the military with private contractors; look at federal student loans when privatized; and look at THE BIG DIG IN MASSACHUSETTS......A HUGE PROJECT GIVEN OVER TO PRIVATE CONTRACTORS WITH A LOSS OF PUBLIC OVERSIGHT THAT WAS A TAXPAYER NIGHTMARE.

In today's article, NPR is set on making the unions the criminal element in the utilities history and indeed there were problems with labor in that respect.  What NPR doesn't tell you is that this partnership with the UK firm led to revenue loss and failure to reinvest.  What happened with LIPA is happening all across the country with utilities.......the profits are privatized and the costs made public.  I don't have to convince Maryland citizens of this as we battle our own BGE/Exelon.......all private.....as they do just the same with Maryland elected official's blessing.  So, whether  the media badmouths Freddie and Fannie as rogue government programs, we know that it was the private partnership that blew the organization up.  Here in Maryland, Maryland Transit Authority (MTA) is defunding public transportation in the form of MTA buses and trains as it sends all funding to the private partner Veola in their expansion.  Public transit riders are left with terrible service due to lack of funds while Veola offers free service downtown and impoverishes taxi/bus drivers.

Maggie McIntosh, Anthony Brown, and O'Malley love privatizing profits and having taxpayers cover costs!!!!

Lt. Governor Brown, Joint Committee on Oversight of Public-Private Partnerships Submit Recommendations to Governor and General Assembly
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (January 10, 2012) – Today, the Joint Legislative and Executive Commission on Oversight of Public-Private Partnerships, chaired by Lt. Governor Anthony G. Brown, submitted to Governor Martin O’Malley and the General Assembly a series of recommendations for streamlining and enhancing the framework for establishing public-private infrastructure projects in Maryland.

Initial estimates by Maryland departments overseeing capital projects have found that additional utilization of public-private partnerships could contribute between six percent and ten percent, or $205 million and $315 million respectively, of Maryland’s $3.1 billion annual capital budget while creating as many as 4,000 jobs.  This includes an estimated $160 million to $240 million annually that could be invested in Maryland transportation projects through public-private partnerships.

“Creating jobs and putting Marylanders back to work is our highest priority, and investing in infrastructure projects is one of the most effective ways to spur job creation and encourage economic growth,” said Lt. Governor Brown.  “Through well structured public-private partnerships we can increase investment in our infrastructure, ensure accountability, and create more jobs. I commend the members of the Commission for their hard work in bringing stakeholders together to develop these comprehensive recommendations.  I look forward to working with the Governor and General Assembly to encourage public-private partnerships that will strengthen Maryland’s infrastructure while retaining the State’s control of critical assets.”  Do you feel in control of the State's critical assets?

The fifteen member Commission was established in 2010 under HB 1370/SB 979 to evaluate and improve the State’s framework for and oversight of public-private partnerships.  Under Lt. Governor Brown’s leadership, the Commission held six public meetings, as well as a Maryland Forward policy forum attended by over 200 representatives from the labor, business, transportation, construction, and other infrastructure-related communities, in order to fulfill its responsibilities and increase the potential for private investment in public infrastructure projects.

As prescribed by law, other members of the Commission include Senator James E. DeGrange (D), District 32; Senator Richard F. Colburn (R), District 37; Delegate Tawanna P. Gaines (D), District 22; Delegate Stephen W. Lafferty (D), District 42; Nancy K. Kopp, State Treasurer; Alvin C. Collins, Secretary of General Services, Beverley K. Swaim-Staley, Secretary of Transportation; William E. Kirwan, Ph.D., Chancellor, University System of Maryland; Carolane Williams, Ph.D., President, Baltimore City Community College; David Wilson, Ed.D., President, Morgan State University; Joseph R. Urgo, Ph.D., President, St. Mary's College of Maryland; Robert C. Brennan, Executive Director, MEDCO; Michael J. Frenz, Executive Director, Maryland Stadium Authority; and Robert Brams, Partner, Patton Boggs LLP.

“Our experience with the Seagirt Marine Terminal project has demonstrated that public private partnerships can succeed in our state,” said Transportation Secretary Beverley K. Swaim-Staley.  “These recommendations will help us build the foundation needed to broaden our scope and better utilize public private partnerships as another tool to address our infrastructure needs in the future.” 

“It has been a pleasure to work with Lt. Governor Brown and all the members of the Commission throughout these past months, and I believe the recommendations we have put forward will greatly improve the process for developing public-private partnerships for infrastructure projects in Maryland,” said Senator James E. DeGrange. “I look forward to working with the Administration and my General Assembly colleagues to put these recommendations into action.”

The recommendations made by the Commission addressed numerous issues, including the definition of a public-private partnership, the role of State financing, the use of proceeds and revenue sharing, workforce considerations, the process for legislative oversight of future public-private partnerships, and the process for identifying and evaluating potential public-private partnerships.  The Lt. Governor will lead legislative efforts during the 2012 Legislative Session to address the Commission’s recommendations. The full report from the Commission can be accessed at http://mlis.state.md.us/other/Public-PrivatePartnerships/index.htm.

Lt. Governor Brown leads the O’Malley-Brown Administration’s economic development portfolio. In his role as Chair of the Joint Legislative and Executive Commission on Oversight of Public-Private Partnerships, the Lt. Governor has held numerous hearings, as well as a policy forum for over 200 attendees, in recent weeks to evaluate the State’s framework for public-private partnerships in order to increase the potential for private investment in public infrastructure projects. Additionally, Lt. Governor Brown chairs Maryland’s FastTrack initiative – part of Maryland Made Easy (www.easy.maryland.gov) – to streamline the state permitting process for businesses and developers and serves as Chair of the Governor’s Subcabinet on Base Realignment and Closure

__________________________________________________
BELOW WE SEE WHAT IS A TEMPLATE FOR PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS AND IT IS OF COURSE COURTESY OF WALL STREET/HARVARD'S HEADQUARTERS AND TAKES ON ALL THE ELEMENTS OF A COMPLEX FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT......FULL OF DELIBERATE CRIME AND CORRUPTION.  I CAN'T SHOW THE ENTIRE ARTICLE, BUT FOR MARYLAND WHO IS CAPTURED BY THESE SAME WALL STREET POLS........YOU CAN BET THE SCENARIO WILL BE THE SAME WITH WHAT ANTHONY BROWN/O'MALLEY, AND MAGGIE MCINTOSH HAVE IN STORE FOR MARYLAND'S TRANSPORTATION PARTNERSHIPS. 

MARYLAND CITIZENS CAN'T GET ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THEIR TRANSPORTATION TRUST NOW......EXPAND IT WITH PRIVATIZATIONS?   OH REALLY?

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!

Big Dig
From Wikipedia,

The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the U.S. and was plagued by escalating costs, scheduling overruns, leaks, design flaws, charges of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal arrests,[2][3] and even one death.[4] The project was scheduled to be completed in 1998[5] at an estimated cost of $2.8 billion (in 1982 dollars, US$6.0 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2006).[6] The project was not completed, however, until December 2007, at a cost of over $14.6 billion ($8.08 billion in 1982 dollars)[6]as of 2006.[7] The Boston Globe estimated that the project will ultimately cost $22 billion, including interest, and that it will not be paid off until 2038.[8] As a result of the deaths, leaks, and other design flaws, the consortium that oversaw the project agreed to pay $407 million in restitution, and several smaller companies agreed to pay a combined sum of approximately $51 million.[9]




Lessons of Boston’s Big Dig
Nicole Gelinas  City Journal

America’s most ambitious infrastructure project inspired engineering marvels—and colossal mismanagement

......................................................

Leave it to Massachusetts, though, to turn the Big Dig’s reputation from resounding success to humiliating failure—first in terms of the project’s cost. From day one—even after accounting for politicians’ erring on the low side to gain public approval—the Big Dig was fated to cost more than its 1982 price tag of $2.6 billion.

That number didn’t include much of the project’s mitigation, including big changes like the billion-plus extra to remake the Zakim Bridge. Nor did it include the real costs of staying on schedule. The Big Dig often let its contractors start work on pieces of the project before designs for other key parts were complete. This approach—part of the project’s philosophy of getting things done now and asking questions later—meant expensive changes to contracts. By the early 1990s, as the state added new work, and as its consultants and contractors looked underground to see what was actually there, the Big Dig’s price tag had ballooned to nearly $8 billion.

True, critics aren’t being entirely fair when they compare the project’s final cost, $14.8 billion, with the initial estimate; $2.6 billion in 1982 is $5.6 billion today, thanks to inflation. And inflation has similarly distorted the cost of the many expensive changes made to the project—because the more realistic cost estimates that accounted for those changes were also calculated in then-current dollars, rather than in the dollars that the state eventually had to pay. Still, there’s a lesson here for managers of other infrastructure projects: be careful with that first number, because it can become a permanent benchmark against which to measure success or failure.

Perhaps it’s understandable that inflation and massive increases in scope would swell the project’s price tag. But the Big Dig’s planners truly failed the public through a deliberate decision: for years, they used dubious accounting methods that hid true costs.

In 1994, two years into construction, Bechtel and Parsons officials compiled convincing evidence that the Big Dig would cost nearly $14 billion in completion-year dollars—far more than public officials were disclosing—and took their findings to the state, says former state inspector general Bob Cerasoli, who supervised a 2001 report on the Big Dig’s finances. But the state didn’t tell the public, so alarming Bechtel that its president flew to Boston to see then-governor William Weld. Afterward, according to Cerasoli’s report, “state managers directed state and [Bechtel and Parsons] staff to . . . maintain the fiction of an . . . $8 billion project. . . . They did so by applying a largely semantic series of exclusions, deductions, and accounting assumptions that covered up the $6 billion difference,” often with the knowledge of federal highway officials.

Some state officials thought that if they delayed disclosing money woes, the public would be so thrilled with early improvements like the Ted Williams Tunnel, which opened in 1995, that they wouldn’t pay attention to boring finances. But as an internal “pros and cons” document noted, if the state didn’t inform bondholders, it risked fraud charges—and, in fact, federal securities regulators later reprimanded Weld’s Big Dig boss, James Kerasiotes, for “misleading” investors. Even more pressing, the state needed actual money to continue its project, so it had to come clean despite worries that “we could become the central controversy of the next year in Massachusetts.” It was after the state finally fessed up that the feds imposed their permanent funding cap on the project.

Massachusetts’s desire to insulate the public from the Big Dig’s costs also led to a fateful decision by Governor Weld. Weld needed a ready source of money for the project, without hiking taxes or cutting spending elsewhere. So he transferred the Big Dig’s assets to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, an unaccountable public entity akin to New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in return for some of the authority’s future toll revenue, which would back Big Dig bonds. This costly trade added a new layer of bureaucracy to the project, which needed, more than anything, one elected person to be ultimately accountable. After last year’s fatal ceiling collapse, Mitt Romney, governor for nearly four years, could point to the fact that his predecessor’s appointee still ran the Big Dig.

But the Big Dig’s biggest pitfall was that Massachusetts never understood a basic fact: that it couldn’t pay someone else to assume its own responsibility for an immensely complex, risky project. As the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) would later say in its report on the 2006 ceiling collapse, Bechtel and Parsons, the state’s long-term consultants, were “performing the role that would normally be carried out by a government agency, specifically, the state highway department.”

Since costs turned the Big Dig into a scandal, the public has often seen Bechtel and Parsons as its villains. The perception in Massachusetts—never dispelled by state officials—is that the duo’s thousand-plus white-collar workers, dwarfing their few dozen public-sector counterparts, ran the Big Dig, expertly controlling and manipulating designers, contractors, and information, without letting anyone else have much say, from colleagues at lowly engineering firms to meddling public officials. But even assuming the worst—and the reality is more complicated—people usually can’t manipulate you unless you let them. As early as 1991, the state’s inspector general warned of the “increasingly apparent vulnerabilities . . . of [Massachusetts’s] long-term dependence on a consultant” whose contract had an “open-ended structure” and “inadequate monitoring.” The main deficiency, as later IG reports detailed, was that Bechtel and Parsons—as “preliminary designer,” “design coordinator,” “construction coordinator,” and “contract administrator”—were often in charge of checking their own work. If, say, the team noticed in managing construction that a contract was over budget because of problems rooted in preliminary design, it didn’t have much incentive to speak up.

The state should also have known that when consultancy work will last years and when consultants plan to introduce technologies so sophisticated that they can overwhelm the state’s ability to oversee them, the state’s going to wind up in a vulnerable position. Massachusetts would have been smart to introduce some checks and balances early on—perhaps splitting the work that Bechtel and Parsons were doing into smaller parts, having separate consultants for preliminary design and for “project management” work, or keeping some of the “management” in house. Instead, in the name of cost efficiencies, the state further blurred the distinction between public and private sectors by folding Bechtel and Parsons employees and its own workers into one “integrated project organization” in 1998. And though the state’s Massachusetts Turnpike Authority was at the top of the new organization chart—which was immensely complicated by multiple layers of theoretical oversight, including supervision from federal highway officials as well as the feds’ General Accounting Office—the state designated Bechtel and Parsons its “owner’s representative” in some areas, complicating even further the answer to the straightforward question: Who was in charge?

Massachusetts’s laissez-faire attitude followed from a fundamental misapprehension: that Bechtel and Parsons were their partners, not outside consultants, and were thus assuming some performance risk. In a 1994 interview, Kerasiotes, then the state’s transportation secretary, argued that Bechtel’s incentive to perform its job properly was its reputation: “Go to San Francisco, walk in the lobby” of Bechtel’s headquarters, he suggested. “What you’re going to see [are] prominent pictures of the Central Artery. . . . If they are causing this project to screw up, . . . they’re not going to market themselves that way.”

But Bechtel and Parsons never took on any performance risk—risk that the public sector carries as the ultimate funder and manager. If the project were an investment-banking deal, Bechtel would have been an advisor counseling a company on whether to undertake a merger, not an investor in that merger. “Our contractual responsibility as management consultant was to deliver a professional standard of care, not to guarantee the contractors’ work,” says Keith Sibley, Bechtel and Parsons’s longtime Big Dig director. It’s a crucial distinction: Bechtel and Parsons promised not perfect results but professional advisory and management work—and reasonable people may differ about what constitutes “professional.” It’s particularly difficult to assess decisions made under an “integrated project organization,” where everything is opaque about who was responsible for which decisions, or whether particular decisions were the result of public and private collaboration.

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    Cindy Walsh is a lifelong political activist and academic living in Baltimore, Maryland.

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