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May 02nd, 2013

5/2/2013

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RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE THESE NEXT ELECTIONS!!!!  WE NEED THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS.....ALL MARYLAND DEMOCRATS.....OUT OF OFFICE!!

HOYER, CARDIN, SARBANES (SR), CUMMINGS.....ALL VOTED THE GLASS-STEAGALL WALL DOWN KNOWING IT WOULD CREATE THE BIG BANKS, MASSIVE WEALTH INEQUITY, KILL THE MIDDLE/CLASS AND UNIONS......AND THEY ARE STILL IN OFFICE FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!!  IT LISTEN TO UNIONS CAMPAIGN THAT THESE ARE FAMILY-FRIENDLY POLS!!!


The journal Nation headlined its latest magazine cover with the fact that there were over a 100 May Day events scheduled across the country.  Indeed, the social media outlets were filled with video of all kinds of union rallies and protests.  From nurses unions, to trade unions, teacher's unions, postal unions......streets filled with labor as anger grows at the war against the middle/lower class and labor gets stronger with a captured Capitol Hill.

If you notice, there were no news reports on main stream media about all of these protests/rallies in America.  The only shot at May Day protest came from Indonesia and other Muslim countries.  Why do you think the US media would show May Day overseas and not in America?  The answer is obvious....corporate media in America including NPR/APM want to keep quiet the growing movement.  They highlight May Day in the Muslim world because they use that to promote market-building in Muslim countries and it represents the idea of third world countries becoming second world.  They do not show pictures of massive protests in Europe and the US because it shows the movement of formerly first world countries down to second/third world status.  IT IS CAREFULLY PACKAGED MEDIA THAT HIDES THE DECLINE OF THE FIRST WORLD TO STANDARDS EQUAL TO SECOND AND THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES.

Labor and justice organizations across America are on the move.  Whereas I disagree with the union support for the kind of Immigration Reform that will come from Capitol Hill we do need to shout loudly about the need for citizenship for immigrants......NOW as there will be no honoring this 'path to citizenship'.  Here in Maryland/Baltimore the labor organizations Unite Here  and United Workers joined last week for a great march for worker's rights!!!!  They do a great job for low-wage workers.

Where was AFSCME, AFL-CIO, and SEUI MARYLAND?  There was not one major march or rally from them outside of the Immigration issue and that is a mainstream political issue now.  They are pushing O'Malley/Obama agendas in their protests but failing to shout out about these same political agendas killing labor.  MARYLAND'S MAIN LABOR UNIONS ARE SILENT AS THIRD WAY POLICY IS SLOWLY KILLING PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS AND PRIVATE SECTOR WAGES AND BENEFITS.  This is because Maryland's unions, as with all organizations are captured and often do not work in the interest of their membership.  WE NEED TO SHAKE UP MAINSTREAM LABOR UNIONS LEADERSHIP TO EXPOSE BAD LABOR PRACTICES IN A CORPORATE CONTROLLED GOVERNMENT!!!


We have Home Health Care and lower-income hospital staff in Maryland under great wage impoverishment and as these Affordable Care Act reform and austerity cuts take effect we will see even the solidly middle-class wages of what they call in Maryland the 'professional' job categories are going to see a nose-dive as well.  They are not out in front of this with all of this silence.  We know that adjunct faculty across the country are getting crucified by part time status and wages that are ridiculous but where are their unions.....the SEUI represents education workers.  With school closings and a move towards charters we know that it is only time when all these charters are allowed to go union-free because the purpose of charters is privatization and profit-making in education.  NOT A PEEP EVEN AS TEACHER'S UNIONS ACROSS THE COUNTRY TAKE TO THE STREETS.  Do you know what is happening as the MTA privatizes public transportation to VEOLA?  The unions are kept initially but then there is a concerted plan to force union members out and they are not replaced.  Do you know why Maryland passed the driver's license exception for immigrants?  So immigrants can take transportation jobs with no unions.  All of this effects the TEAMSTERS UNIONS but not a peep in Maryland.  State and City employees are seeing a crushing privatization of public sector jobs to private contractors and the Federal employee unions know that they are in line for ever more wage and benefit cuts as austerity plays out and this is a decade of cuts we are talking about.....it will not stop.  YET I DO NOT HEAR AFSCME  SHOUTING FOR ANYTHING OTHER THAN THE POLITICAL AGENDA OF IMMIGRATION REFORM.

What we see are 'bones' being tossed to these unions as union leadership negotiate to save the labor contracts.  We all know they are bones as further policies just devastate these same workers later.  Unions cannot keep supporting these Third Way corporate democrats every election as they work against the interests of labor and justice!!!



COME OUT THIS MONTH TO ALL OF THE PLANNED EVENTS SURROUNDING THE IDEA OF MAY DAY AND FREEDOM AND JUSTICE!!!!


VOTE YOUR THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRAT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!

More Than 100 US May Day Protests Planned, International Activists Arrested Allison Kilkenny on May 1, 2011 - 9:03 AM ET
It’s unfortunate that many Americans lost the memory of May Day because in failing to celebrate the holiday, US workers are deprived of the spirit of solidarity they used to share with international workers. However, that doesn’t mean that May Day is completely forgotten within the United States.

The San Jose May 1 Coalition is hosting a march for immigration rights, while the protests of Governor Scott Walker continue in Wisconsin. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will speak at Milwaukee’s May Day march today in one of more than 100 marches and rallies that will be held across the country.

The AFL-CIO is live-blogging May Day actions and also tweeting updates under the hashtag #MayDay. In a written statement, the union’s blog reads: “These rallies and marches will show workers’ rights and immigrant rights are connected.”

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, founder and executive director of Voces de la Frontera, says that there is now “an unprecedented alliance” between labor and immigrant rights communities in the wake of Walker’s bill that eliminate bargaining rights for public workers. “We want to send a message to corporate America, politicians and others that working people will not be divided,” she says.

VDLF’s website features a video in Spanish advertising the Wisconsin solidarity May 1 march.

Sheila Cochran, secretary-treasurer of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council, AFL-CIO, and its chief operating officers tells the Journal Sentinel that instead of blaming immigrants for lack of employment opportunities, workers should hold their employers accountable for encouraging a race to the bottom in a frenzy to maximize profits. Cochran says it’s in labor’s interest to see comprehensive immigration reform so wages and working standards aren’t driven down further.

Internationally, May Day protests are garnering much attention. Eight people were arrested during a protest in Brighton, and massive marches occurred in Russia and Turkey. More than 3,000 blue-collar workers took to the streets of Taipei for their May Day protest over low incomes, long hours, and the widening wealth gap, and in Kuala Lumpur twenty protesters were arrested for failing to disperse from an “illegal assembly.”

Footage from the police crackdown in Brighton:

Related Topics: Labor and Immigration | Activism | Labor

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Baltimore Rallies for Fair Development


Posted in Culture, Events, Fight for Fair Development, Media, Unity on April 29th, 2013 by Mike – Comments Off Baltimore Rallies for Fair Development from United Workers on Vimeo.

Last week’s Fair Development Rally, on April 20, was a huge success. Over 400 people came out. We had an amazing diversity of local musicians, performers, and speakers from across Baltimore. The unity of so many groups and issues under the banner of Fair Development was powerful.

Rich Armstrong, from Community Churches United, kicked the day off as the MC.

“What we’re here to do today is to let Caesars know, let the mayor know, and any other politician know, that we will not stand to be disrespected any more in Baltimore city,” he said.

The rally was held just a block from the site of Caesars’ future Horseshoe Casino. The Fair Development Campaign has been calling on the casino to hire locally, pay a living wage, and respect workers’ right to organize. An agreement for a fair process for unionization is expected any day between Caesars and UNITE HERE, which would be an important first step toward ensuring good jobs at the casino for Baltimore residents.

“This casino is going in – that’s clear!  Maryland voters voted for it last November. But they did so, in part, because of the promise of good jobs. Good, full-time jobs,” said Rev. Roger Powers, of Light Street Presbyterian, at the rally. “Our hope is that this project will be a showcase of what fair development looks like, and not just another example of development that fails our community.”

At the rally, hip-hop artists from Benjamin Franklin High School performed alongside low-wage workers who testified about Baltimore’s current development model.

“It’s not fair that we work on publically owned property, paid for by tax dollars, our tax dollars, but we are paid barely above minimum wage,” said Yaseen Abdul-Malik, a restaurant employee at BWI airport. “Our employers benefit from massive public assistance, assistance that comes off of our pay checks and off of our backs, but what is the benefit to our community?”

The rally closed with a lively street theatre performance with singing and people-size playing cards, made by members of the campaign. The crowd then marched to McKeldin Square, in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, where city and state officials have handed over more than $2 billion in subsidies and tax breaks to big developers since the 1970s, while workers are left struggling to survive in low-wage and temporary jobs. This is failed development.

Instead, we demand Fair Development, which produces living wage jobs and protects the workers’ right to organize. Development should prioritize communities most in need and provide public benefits and community resources. It should be transparent, accountable, and Baltimore residents need to be an active part of decisions made about their communities. Is this too much to ask? We don’t think so, and a movement is growing across the city to make it happen. The April 20 Fair Development Rally was the first joint action of the Fair Development Campaign, a collaboration between UNITE HERE, United Workers, and Community Churches United, that has been endorsed by AFSCME, IATSE, the NAACP, Interfaith Worker Justice, the Presbytery of Baltimore, and several other community groups.

If you missed the rally, you can still catch most of it here. By following the links in this article, you can check out longer testimony. Here are some links to the media coverage. A short video on the day is available above, two Flickr photosets are available here and here, and you can check out the complete audio from the stage here:







Washington Peace Center 50th Anniversary/May Day Celebration! Submitted by DonnaSimone on Tue, 04/09/2013 - 8:09am When: Saturday, May 4, 2013 - 9:00pmWhere: St Stephen's Church (auditorium)
1525 Newton St NW.
Washington DC

Dance the night away and celebrate 50 years of working for peace and justice. DJs, drinks and great company! View our interactive timeline of the past 50 years and record the moment in our photo booth. Limited tickets for dinner and program earlier in the evening are available. Contact 50th@washingtonpeacecenter.org if you'd like tickets for the dinner and program.

Tickets for the dance party are $5-50, payable at the door.

May Day is a holiday for all! Come celebrate with our community.

Saturday, May 4th, 9:00-midnight
St Stephen's Church (auditorium)
1525 Newton St NW.

MAKE SURE TO RSVP!

Did You Know?

1963: After leading a vigil against biological and chemical weapons, a small group of Quakers officially found the Washington Peace Center.

1965: WPC helps organize the SDS anti-Vietnam March.

1972: WPC is THE place to go in DC for draft counseling. FBI breaks into the office.

1987: WPC works against US intervention in Central America and Southern Africa.

1990: WPC leads local opposition to first Gulf War.

Today: WPC serves as a thriving hub for local activism and a force for peace and justice.

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POOR PEOPLES CAMPAIGN & MARCH FROM BALTIMORE TO WASHINGTON D.C. Submitted by DonnaSimone on Wed, 01/23/2013 - 9:11pm When: Saturday, May 11, 2013 - 9:00am to Monday, May 13, 2013 - 6:00pmWhere: Gather and leave from E Biddle and Montford in East Baltimore to National Mall in Washington DC

Message from the Baltimore Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Peoples Power Assembly

RECLAIM DR. KING JR’S DREAM DURING THIS HISTORIC YEAR
On the anniversary of the Poor Peoples Campaign help to ignite a fight for people’s rights and join the:
2013 POOR PEOPLES CAMPAIGN & MARCH FROM BALTIMORE TO WASHINGTON D.C.

Beginning on Sat., May 11th – the anniversary weekend of the Poor Peoples Campaign

Why we are marching?
• To end the epidemic of police terror and mass incarcerations.
• To protest austerity and end poverty - We need jobs or income now!
• To stop attacks on workers rights.
• For justice – to stop racism, end attacks on immigrants, women, & LGBTQ people.
• To end war and occupations and spend the trillions on education, jobs, and healthcare.

If Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today he would be calling for such an effort.

If you are interested in organizing your community, school, or union to be part of this effort call us for upcoming organizing meetings.

The campaign to reclaim this historic year and Dr. King Jr’s legacy; to fight back against police terror, austerity, attacks on workers and student rights was consented at the Dec 15, 2012, National Peoples Power Assembly.

If you were not at this important gathering, but want to be involved please call us at 410-500-2168 or 410-218-4835 or email BaltimorePeoplesAssembly@gmail.com. To sign on as an endorser of this effort please contact us by phone or email.

Initiated by: Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Baltimore and the Baltimore Peoples Power Assembly – 2011 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218

The facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/135867173240346/permalink/13630294319676...

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March Against Monsanto Washington, D.C Submitted by DonnaSimone on Tue, 04/09/2013 - 8:23am When: Saturday, May 25, 2013 - 2:00pmWhere: National Mall
900 Ohio Dr. SW
Washington, D.C.

Further information will be post soon. Thank you for all the support.
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March Against Monsanto Annapolis Maryland Submitted by DonnaSimone on Tue, 04/09/2013 - 8:34am When: Saturday, May 25, 2013 - 2:00pmWhere: TBA
Annapolis, Maryland

On May 25, activists around the world will unite to March Against Monsanto.

Why do we march??

Research studies have shown that Monsanto’s genetically-modified foods can lead to serious health conditions such as the development of cancer tumors, infertility and birth defects.

In the United States, the FDA, the agency tasked with ensuring food safety for the population, is steered by ex-Monsanto executives, and we feel that’s a questionable conflict of interests and explains the lack of government-lead research on the long-term effects of GMO products.

Recently, the U.S. Congress and president collectively passed the nicknamed “Monsanto Protection Act” that, among other things, bans courts from halting the sale of Monsanto’s genetically-modified seeds.

For too long, Monsanto has been the benefactor of corporate subsidies and political favoritism. Organic and small farmers suffer losses while Monsanto continues to forge its monopoly over the world’s food supply, including exclusive patenting rights over seeds and genetic makeup.

Monsanto's GMO seeds are harmful to the environment; for example, scientists have indicated they have caused colony collapse among the world's bee population.

What are solutions we advocate?

Labeling of GMOs so that consumers can make informed decisions.

Repealing relevant provisions of the US's "Monsanto Protection Act."

Calling for further scientific research on the health effects of GMOs.

Holding Monsanto-supporting politicians accountable through direct communication, grassroots journalism, social media, etc.

Continuing to inform the public about Monsanto's secrets.

We will not stand for cronyism. We will not stand for poison. That’s why we March Against Monsanto.

Join us!

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National Convergence & March on Washington for Equal Rights Submitted by DonnaSimone on Wed, 11/14/2012 - 9:00pm When: Friday, May 31, 2013 - 1:00am to Sunday, June 2, 2013 - 9:00pmWhere: National Mall
Washington, DC

National Convergence & March on Washington for Equal Rights

DAY 1 : The Convergence , getting every single leader in most movements and in the LGBT community, putting them in a ballroom sized conference room and hashing out and organizing how to win the American Equality Bill and fight for the 14th In this session of 2013-2014 Congress. Please feel free to add

Day 2 : The Gathering - Bringing community leaders, activists,bloggers and all the warriors needed to make a huge event organize workshops and networking to keep the national movement starting and the camp
aign going to push congress and senate and the president. Please feel free to add

Day 3 : The Rally The March The Action The Lobby The Music The Agitation



IN ORDER TO FULFILL the promises of life and liberty, and to ensure equal protection of the law as guaranteed by the United States Constitution;

TO PROTECT the inalienable human right to be safe from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity as required by international law and treaty; and

TO END the systemic stigmatization, cease the societal rejection and heal the suffering of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans as mandated by conscience;

WE, the undersigned, pledge our support for the passage of omnibus LGBT equality legislation that grants full non-discrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity equal to those accorded other statuses under existing civil rights laws and Supreme Court jurisprudence, specifically including:

Public Accommodations (Title II, 1964 Civil Rights Act)(e.g., restaurants, hotels, theaters)
Public Facilities (Title III, 1964 Civil Rights Act) (e.g., courthouses, jails, hospitals, parks)
Federally-Funded Programs (Title VI, 1964 Civil Rights Act) (e.g., adoption, police, schools, homeless youth, health care)
Employment (Title VII, 1964 Civil Rights Act; 1978 Civil Service Reform Act; 1991 Government Employee Rights Act; 1995 Congressional Accountability Act; 10 U.S.C. Ch. 37) (e.g., civilian and military government, private sector)
Housing (Title VIII, 1968 Civil Rights Act, aka the Fair Housing Act) (e.g., rental, purchase, finance)
Education (Title IX, 1972 Education Amendments Act) (e.g., schools, bullying)
Credit (1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act) (e.g., credit cards)
Federal Marriage Equality (based on gender, SO) (e.g., 1967 Supreme Court Decision, Loving v. Virginia)
Immigration, Disability, and Family Leave (Uniting American Families Act (proposed), the American With Disabilities Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act)
We call upon the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus to lead the way by filing an omnibus LGBT equality bill immediately that includes all of the provisions enumerated above.

We further call upon Congress, and all candidates for elected office, to sign this pledge to pass such omnibus LGBT equality legislation immediately, but no later than 2014 — the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act — fulfilling both their individual duty and that of the United States government to ensure justice, equality, and fundamental human rights protections for all Americans.

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April 12th, 2013

4/12/2013

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Below you will see how far this privatizing and downsizing is going.  America has never had a smaller government as relates to population in US history.  The tax revenue coming in is at an all time low......AND YET THEY FEEL THE NEED TO CUT SPENDING AND TAXES EVER FURTHER!  When Obama and Third Way corporate democrats allowed the Bush Tax Cuts expire for everyone.....it was a watershed moment.  It said that the democratic leaders will continue the decline the republicans started as regards quality of life and democracy.  Remember, people are sensitive to taxes because wages have fallen so much!!!!

Whether Obama sells another public utility or O'Malley gives Maryland's utility to an ever larger national corporation.....all public assets are moving to the top few families.....less than the 1%.....this is the .05%.  In the meantime we have no legal protections against corporate abuse.....no regulatory protections against practices that harm citizens.....and no control over business practices that are killing our ability to make a living and save.

THIS IS THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS.....CLINTON TO OBAMA AND ALL MARYLAND DEMOCRATS!

RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTIONS!!!!



The American people are moving back to public utilities and away from having citizens/ratepayers pay the costs for operations and infrastructure while these energy corporations make billions every year.  That's what we want......but we are getting the opposite.   In Maryland O'Malley handed our once public utility to a national energy company from Obama's Chicago area......soaking ratepayers already while raking in record profits!!!!

THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS WANT TO HAND ALL THAT IS PUBLIC OVER TO PRIVATE PROFITS!!! RUN LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTIONS!!!



Obama Budget Ponders Sale of Tennessee Valley Authority

By Mark Chediak & Julie Johnsson - Apr 11, 2013 4:22 PM ET Bloomberg Financial


Wade Payne/Bloomberg The Tennessee Valley Authority Power Plant stands in this aerial photo taken in Kingston. President Barack Obama is considering the sale of all or part of the Tennessee Valley Authority (3015A), the largest publicly owned U.S. power company, in a deal that may raise as much as $35 billion as the administration seeks to reduce the national debt.

11:02 April 10 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama speaks about his $3.8 trillion budget, which calls for more tax revenue and restraints on Social Security benefits. The president is proposing to replace across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration with what White House budget officials say is $1.8 trillion in additional deficit reduction over 10 years. Obama speaks at the White House. (Source: Bloomberg)

A potential sale is part of a “strategic review” of the Knoxville, Tennessee-based nonprofit, which faces increasing capital costs, according to the administration’s fiscal 2014 budget proposal released yesterday. A sale may yield $30 billion to $35 billion in cash and reduced government debt obligations, said Travis Miller, a Chicago-based analyst for Morningstar Inc. (MORN)

The 80-year-old authority, created during the Great Depression to bring electricity to rural communities, will probably exceed its $30 billion debt cap to pay for needed infrastructure improvements and meet new environmental rules, according to the budget proposal. U.S. utilities face rising costs to replace aging power lines and generators and install pollution controls to meet stringent air-quality standards.

“We expect potential buyers will have big concerns about the huge pension and asset retirement liabilities that TVA faces,” Miller said in an e-mail today. “That future uncertainty could depress the prices buyers are willing to pay.”

The power authority’s bonds fell on news of a potential sale, which was criticized as “one more bad idea in a budget full of bad ideas,” by Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican.

Rating Review TVA’s $1 billion of 3.5 percent bonds due December 2042 declined to 95.7 cents on the dollar from 98.6 cents yesterday to yield 3.74 percent, or 704.3 basis points more than similar- maturity Treasuries at 3:46 p.m. in New York, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The spread widened from 57.5 basis points yesterday.

Standard & Poor’s said it would review its AA+ rating on the debt if there was a “change in TVA’s role or link to the federal government.” S&P said its rating is based on the “very high likelihood” the U.S. government would support TVA if it got into financial distress.

The announcement was a surprise to the authority, which is self-financing. Chief Executive Officer Bill Johnson said TVA would work with the administration to provide requested information during the strategic review.

Third Largest “Reducing or eliminating the federal government’s role in programs such as TVA, which have achieved their original objectives and no longer require federal participation, can help put the nation on a sustainable fiscal path,” according to the budget proposal.

TVA was created in 1933 as part of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal to lift the nation out of an economic depression. The agency now provides power to 9 million people in parts of seven southeastern states including most of Tennessee, according to its website. TVA owns 29 hydropower plants, 11 coal plants and three nuclear plants.

By capacity, its 38,040 megawatts make TVA the third- largest U.S. power producer, according to a Bloomberg calculation. Duke Energy Corp. (DUK), the largest, has a market value of $51.6 billion and Southern Co., the second-biggest, is $41.4 billion.

“Depending on the price, I would expect a considerable amount of interest,” Paul Patterson, a New York-based utility analyst at Glenrock Associates LLC, said in a phone interview yesterday. “A possible sale sounds like an interesting idea, but as usual the devil will be in the details.”

Power Sales The authority funds its operations through power sales and bond financing. TVA recorded $11.2 billion in sales last year and had $25.5 billion in total debt as of Dec. 31, according to regulatory filings.

“It is unclear that the sale of TVA’s assets would bring significant additional revenues to the federal coffers once its debt and ‘debt-like obligations’ are repaid,” Stephen A. Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said in an e-mailed statement today. “It is extremely unlikely that this proposed strategic review will lead to any real desire by the Obama administration to pursue selling TVA.”

The authority paid the Treasury Department $27 million last year as part of annual payments it has made since 1961 to repay the federal government for $1 billion in power generation, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Costing Taxpayers The Treasury Department also provided TVA with a $250 million line of credit, which it hasn’t yet tapped, according to the filing.

A sale of TVA would cost taxpayers money and may boost electricity rates, Alexander said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Both of Tennessee’s Republican senators oppose a sale.

“There is by law no federal taxpayer liability for TVA debt,” the senator said. “And after deducting its debt, selling TVA would probably cost taxpayers money.”


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Below you see a snapshot of one state, Maryland, and how tax revenue has been decimated over the last 4 decades.  You see sharp declines in property taxes as the most affluent and corporate properties have become exempt  over time.  Add to that all the TIF and PILOT business breaks and you see why they are dismantling America!!


I'm not sure where the $17 billion in state tax revenue comes in your article but a quick look at the national tax registry shows this about Maryland and taxes.....

Maryland taxes in 2013.

Income Taxes $9.1 billion.
Social Insurance Taxes $1.9 billion.
Ad-valorem Taxes $18.1 billion.
Fees and Charges $6.3 billion.

Maryland Taxes in 1992.

Income Taxes $5.2 billion.
Social Insurance Taxes $1.0 billion.
Ad-valorem Taxes $8.1 billion.
Fees and Charges $2.5 billion.

Maryland Taxes in 1970.

Income Taxes $12.9 billion.
Social Insurance Taxes $9.4 billion.
Ad-valorem Taxes $35.0 billion.
Fees and Charges $9.5 billion.



Apr 12, 2013, 9:38am EDT

Maryland ranks 15th in U.S. for tax collections in 2012

Maryland collected more than $17 billion in taxes last year. 


  Gary HaberStaff Reporter- Baltimore Business Journal

Maryland ranked 15th among in the U.S. for the amount of state taxes collected in 2012, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

People living, working or visiting Maryland paid more than $17 billion in sales, income and other state taxes last year, the Census Bureau found. That was less than the $32.9 billion collected by neighboring Pennsylvania, which ranked sixth, or by Virginia, which collected $18.1 billion (13th). Delaware, with no state sales tax and a smaller population than Maryland, collected $3.3 billion in state taxes last year.

Overall, tax collections by the 50 states climbed $34.3 billion in 2012 to $794.6 billion. That surpassed the previous high in 2008, prior to the recession, when states collected a combined $779.7 billion in taxes.

California, the nation’s most populous state, had the highest tax collections at $112.3 billion, followed by New York ($71.5 billion) and Texas ($48.5 billion).


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We already know the meat industry is back to what Sinclair wrote in his novel 'The Jungle' .....it is an unregulated mix of abuse and a sanitation nightmare.  When ever more regulation is simply handed to the industries it basically ends all public protections.....which is the point for Third Way corporate democrats like Obama!



Obama Budget Plans on Replacing USDA Poultry Inspectors with Industry Self Regulation


Tony Corbo: Plan will put our food supply at risk in a move that will increase profits of poultry producers and save only 90 million dollars over three years -   2 hours ago


BioTony Corbo is the senior lobbyist for the food campaign at Food & Water Watch. He is responsible for food-related legislative and regulatory issues that come before Congress and the Executive Branch.



TranscriptPAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore.In President Obama's budget presented on Wednesday, one of the provisions calls for cutting back on food inspection, particularly of poultry, cutting back federal inspectors.Now joining us to talk about why this matters is Tony Corbo. He's a senior lobbyist for the food campaign at Food and Water Watch. He's responsible for food-related legislative regulatory issues that come before Congress and the executive branch.Thanks for joining us, Tony.TONY CORBO, SENIOR LOBBYIST, FOOD AND WATER WATCH: Well, thanks for having me on.JAY: So if I understand it correctly, the plan is--and the budget reflects this plan--to cut back on U.S. meat and poultry inspectors and let the industry essentially inspect itself. So what's wrong with that?CORBO: What's wrong with that is that having USDA inspectors in these plants provides an unbiased view of what is going on in those plants from a food safety standpoint, from a sanitation standpoint. And so what the administration is proposing is to turn over a major proportion of the inspection duties over to the companies, where the company employees will be doing the jobs of the USDA inspectors. There'll be a token USDA inspection force left in these plants.JAY: So what evidence is the government going on, is President Obama's administration going on that this is okay? There have been some pilot programs on this. What have they shown?CORBO: Well, the pilot programs have been running since the late 1990s. And what the pilots have shown is that in a lot of these plants--and there are 20 plants, 20 chicken plants where they've used this new inspection model where they turned over the inspection responsibilities over to the companies--and they've also increased the line speedsn in these facilities--that the company-paid inspectors really do not catch a lot of the quality defects that USDA alleges that the companies can do better than a USDA inspector. And the other thing is that the plants do not have lower salmonella rates than those plants that receive conventional inspection.What brought this whole regulation about, this proposed regulation, is the fact that Obama two years ago issued an executive order asking the federal government agencies to look at regulations that could be eliminated and to have industry weigh in as to which regulations they consider to be onerous or redundant. And, of course, the poultry industry stepped up to the plate and said, we want fewer inspectors in these plants.JAY: Now, but you just said that the self-inspected plants do not have lower rates of salmonella. But isn't the point do they have higher rates?CORBO: They do. I mean, when the administration proposed their regulation, they had a report doing an evaluation of these pilot plants. And it showed the last two years of data that they collected, that the pilot plants had actually higher salmonella rates than the conventionally inspected plants. And lo and behold, just this past month--USDA does a monthly report on the testing that the government does in these plants to test to see if the salmonella rates are either high or low, and two of the pilot plants showed up as failing the salmonella test. So here's the ultimate irony. The administration keeps on going around and saying that this new model, this new inspection model is going to be able to reduce salmonella, and yet all of the evidence points the other way.JAY: Now, if I understand it correctly--and to be transparent about this, I'm getting this from your press release--this is all--we have not had a chance to research this ourselves very far. But according to your press release, they're only--the federal government's only going to save about $90 million over three years with this self-inspection. I mean, that seems a complete pittance given the size of the budget. Yet this in theory could give rise to some danger. What is the logic here?CORBO: Well, I mean, that's one of the questions that we've raised all along, that, you know, when you're talking about a $1 trillion deficit and you're talking about saving $90 million over three years, you know, why go through all of this? And it just seems that what the administration, especially the White House--and there's been--and the office of management and budget is the one that's been driving this deregulatory move by the administration--is that the industry, by being able to increase production to 175 birds per minute, will stand to gain $260 million a year, adding to their bottom line, because they'll be able to increase production and have fewer regulations to deal with.JAY: But why can't they increase the lines and still have federal inspectors?CORBO: Well, because the argument is that you can't visually catch all of this stuff. Right now, the way the line speeds are regulated at USDA, each USDA inspector can only look at up to 35 birds per minute. And so if you're going to eliminate that particular regulation--they will have a token--they will have one inspector. They will have one inspector remaining at the end of the line under this new model they're talking about. But that one inspector will have to look at 175 birds a minute. That means every third of a second, a chicken will be buzzing by. You're not going to catch anything. I don't care how good you are as an inspector, whether you're a USDA inspector or a company inspector. You're not going to see anything.JAY: So I don't understand. Why don't they charge--if they're going to pay their own inspectors, why don't--and they want to save money, why don't they make the poultry companies pay for the federal inspectors, that at least there'd be independent inspectors?CORBO: Right. But the problem is is that in other places where that's been done, you compromise the work of the government inspector, because the companies will constantly remind you that you're being paid by them. And so you want to have a--this is a public health program. It's--to have USDA inspectors in these plants is to protect the public's health. And it should be funded through regular tax dollars, rather than having the industry pay for it.JAY: Now, I don't understand. From the point of view of the industry, doesn't it make them more liable? I mean, if there is salmonella and they get sued, at least now they can blame it on the federal inspectors to some extent. Now if there's a problem, they're going to have to take the whole blame.CORBO: Except for the fact that right now the government does not have the legal authority to regulate salmonella in these plants. The best they can do is to publish on a monthly basis the plants that have failed. Essentially it's a report card. You know, the government has these standards. If the companies fail the standards, all they get is this little slap on the wrist. They get their names published, you know, on a monthly report card. The USDA cannot shut these plants down. They don't have the legal authority. They've lost court cases in the past trying to regulate salmonella. And that's our argument. If you really want to regulate food-borne pathogens in these plants, then go to Congress and have those court decisions overturned, have the Congress give you the legal authority to shut down a plant that has high rates of salmonella that could cause food-borne illness, that could sicken, you know, thousands of people. That's our argument here.JAY: It boggles the mind. I would think most people think that's actually what's happening, that there is that kind of regulation.CORBO: It does. I mean, the thing is that the USDA has the legal authority to shut down a plant for e. coli and hamburger meat, but it does not have the legal authority to shut down a chicken plant for having salmonella. Actually, you can't even do that--we cannot shut down a beef plant that has high rates of salmonella. Salmonella, for some reason the courts have ruled that USDA does not have the authority to shut a place down for having high levels of salmonella.JAY: Alright. Thanks for joining us, Tony.CORBO: Alright. Thank you.JAY: Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.


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As I shout out to politicians and newspapers the fact that financial policy has US economy back to where we were in 2007....only worse....we are watching as Third Way corporate pols are allowing public assets and public services go private, public pensions thrown into this imploding market, and O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake are using credit bonds to hand Maryland to Wall Street as all this happens....just as with the last crash. SEE WHY THESE TWO ARE MOVING UP TO NATIONAL POSITIONS!!!! WHAT TEAM PLAYERS!!


Schiff: 2/3 of America to Lose
Everything Because of This Crisis


By Money Morning Staff Reports A record breaking stock market is distorting a frightening reality:  The U.S. is being eaten alive by a horrific cancer that will ultimately destroy the economy and impoverish the vast majority of its citizens.

That's according to Peter Schiff, the best-selling author and CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, who delivered his harsh warning to investors in a recent interview on Fox Business.

"I think we are heading for a worse economic crisis than we had in 2007," Schiff said.  "You're going to have a collapse in the dollar...a huge spike in interest rates... and our whole economy, which is built on the foundation of cheap money, is going to topple when you pull the rug out from under it."

Schiff says that, despite "phony" signs of an economic recovery, the cancer destroying America stems from a lethal concoction of our $16 trillion federal debt and the Fed's never ending money printing.

Currently, Bernanke and company is buying $1 trillion of Treasury and mortgage bonds a year. That's about $85 billion per month against a budget deficit that is about the same level.

According to Schiff, these numbers are unsustainable. And the Fed has no credible "exit strategy."

Eventually interest rates will rise... and when they do, Schiff says, stocks will tank and bonds dip to nothing. Massive new tax hikes will be imposed and programs and entitlements will be cut to the bone.

Editor's Note: As a service to our readers, we've arranged a way for you to get a copy of Peter Schiff's new best-selling book, The Real Crash: How To Save Yourself And Your Country, for free, including shipping. The book shows in plain language exactly what economic dangers ordinary Americans face right now and how you can protect yourself. Please go here for your free copy.  "The crisis is imminent," Schiff said.  "I don't think Obama is going to finish his second term without the bottom dropping out. And stock market investors are oblivious to the problems."

 "We're broke, Schiff added.  "We owe trillions. Look at our budget deficit; look at the debt to GDP ratio, the unfunded liabilities. If we were in the Eurozone, they would kick us out."

Schiff points out that the market gains experienced recently, with the Dow first topping 14,000 on its way to setting record highs, are giving investors a false sense of security.  

"It's not that the stock market is gaining value... it's that our money is losing value. And so if you have a debased currency... a devalued currency, the price of everything goes up. Stocks are no exception," he said.

"The Fed knows that the U.S. economy is not recovering," he noted. "It simply is being kept from collapse by artificially low interest rates and quantitative easing. As that support goes, the economy will implode."

Should American seniors who've been paying taxes their whole lives bear the price of Washington's folly? See the shocking facts by clicking on the video. A noted economist, Schiff has been a fierce critic of the Fed and its policies for years. And his warnings have proven to be prophetic.

In August 2006, when the Dow was hitting new highs nearly every day, Schiff said in an interview: "The United States is like the Titanic, and I'm here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship... I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States."

Just over a year later, the meltdown that became the Great Recession began, just as Schiff predicted.

He also predicted the subprime mortgage bubble burst, nearly a year before the real estate market fully crashed.

His recent warnings, however, have been even more alarming.  Will they also prove to be true?

In his most recent book, "The Real Crash" How to Save Yourself and Your Country", Schiff writes that
when the "real crash" comes," it will be worse than the Great Depression.

Unemployment will skyrocket, credit will dry up, and worse, the dollar will collapse completely, "wiping out all savings and sending consumer prices into the stratosphere."

Get a copy of Peter Schiff's new book here, courtesy of Money Morning.  Limited copies available. Click here to get yours.

Schiff estimates this "cancer" could consume a trillion dollars from consumers this year.

"Today we're the world's greatest debtor nation. Companies, homeowners and banks are so highly leveraged, rising interest rates will be devastating."

According to polls, the average American is indeed sensing danger. A recent survey found that 61% of Americans believe a catastrophe is looming - yet only 15% feel prepared for such a deeply troubling event.

Is Devastation The Ultimate Cure? Despite its bleak outlook, Schiff's book has become a real wake-up call for millions of readers.

While Schiff's predictions can be grim, he also offers step-by-step solutions that average Americans can follow to protect their wealth, investments and savings.

According to Schiff, "the crash and what follows" can be beneficial. But only for those who understand beforehand what is happening and have time to prepare for the devastation.

"All we can do now is prepare for the crash," Schiff said. "If we brace ourselves properly and control the impact, we will survive it."

Editor's Note: This sovereign currency and debt crisis is just a small part of the disease that's attacking America from within. When interest rates rise - and they will rise soon - it could cost Americans $1 trillion this year. But it doesn't have to affect you. For a limited time, Money Morning is supplying readers with a free copy of Peter Schiff's new book "The Real Crash" How to Save Yourself and Your Country.  Learn the steps you can take to prepare your wealth, investments and way of life for this looming catastrophe. Go here to secure a copy.


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April 11th, 2013

4/11/2013

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I am using examples from across the country because here in Maryland our media and literally all social organizations who would be talking of this are captured by the elite institution that would be the brunt of negative press.  I speak of the cost of this corporate takeover of universities as it moves public and student money towards corporate profits.....that is of course why corporations are now most profitable in history.  Let's look at the social impact this attempt by Third Way corporate democrats has on the greater society.

We know that labor and justice is being crushed under a corporate democratic party.  Law schools are dropping these legal directions from their curriculum and the public's ability to used these public university law clinics goes with that.  Below is an example of the extreme of this culture of destruction of US social values.

As I write about the corporatization of public universities and K-12 I want to remind people of how that directly affects society beyond the obvious. This article speaks of a true hero who used his academic position for social good.....just as universities have always done. He was fired because he used students and the classroom for actions that worked against the corporate and criminal environment that is Northwestern today. University of Chicago and Northwestern used to be solidly labor and justice in its approach to law....David Protess was one of the last remnants of Illinois as anything other than naked capitalism. See why we have Obama, Rahm, and Dick Durbin as Third Way Illinois?


Below you'll see how public policy is being corrupted at all levels of the socioeconomic ladder and schools are ground zero for this corruption.  We have plenty of college grads in STEM so why do they insist we have a shortage?  They want policy change and they are manufacturing a climate for change.  THIS WILL UNDERMINE WORKERS AT ALL LEVELS AND UNDERMINES DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES AS WELL AS A LARGER NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN THE WORKFORCE ARE NOT CITIZENS.....THEY HAVE NO RIGHTS AND WILL WORK IN WAYS THAT DO NOT RECOGNIZE THOSE RIGHTS!!!!


On the Firing of David Protess
  • Posted by Liliana Segura
  • March 18, 2011
  • 2:04pm
CHICAGO TRIBUNE/WILLIAM DESHAZERDavid Protess, of the Innocence Project at Medill School of Journalism

This story originally appeared on Liliana Segura's blog and is reposted here with her permission.

Days after the death penalty was abolished in Illinois, one of the key people who helped prove the innocence of men on the state's death row — thus setting into motion the political action that led to abolition — has lost his job.

David Protess, a professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism for 29 years, was dismissed this week, reportedly for no official reason. As the head of Northwestern's Innocence Project, Protess devoted himself to teaching journalism students investigative skills that, literally, had life-or-death impact. Under his direction, students uncovered evidence that saved five men from death row and at least another six from prison. While he will retain his position at the Innocence Project, his expulsion from the journalism school is a travesty — and a major loss for the countless students inspired by the work he pioneered.

The firing seems to have been rather cold for a professor who attracted so much admiration for his work. According to the Daily Northwestern, "Medill Dean John Lavine told Protess about the decision in an e-mail Monday, Protess said. No reason was given, and there have not yet been any conversations about the future, he added."

For well over a year, Protess and his students have been in the crosshairs of the Cook County DA's office, which, forced to grapple with the fallout of Protess's investigations when it would have preferred to keep its role in sentencing innocent people to die in prison under wraps, finally decided to begin an intimidation campaign against Northwestern. According to a long feature in Chicago Magazine, when confronted with the prospect of admitting to the innocence of Anthony McKinney, a man who has sat in prison for more than 30 years for a murder he did not commit, State's Attorney Anita Alvarez "turned the tables on Protess, challenging the motives and ethics of him and his students."

In a court filing, her office has given voice to deeply unflattering, sometimes personal accusations: that some students may have paid a witness to recant; that other students "flirted" with witnesses, in effect, to persuade them to make incriminating statements; and that students may have been so driven to get an A that they twisted or suppressed evidence to suit their cause of freeing McKinney.

Former students have jumped to the defense of their old professor. One is my friend and former colleague Ari Berman, who wrote this in 2009:

I took Protess's class in the spring of 2004 and worked on McKinney's case. The experience became the highlight of my time at Medill. My team and I were just twenty-one and twenty-two at the time, thrust into unfamiliar environs on the South Side of Chicago and elsewhere, trying to ferret out the facts of a murder that occurred before any of us were born. David's class, more than any other, taught me how to be a reporter, how to make make difficult decisions in a quick and decisive manner and how to always strive for justice and empathy in my work.

I was never a student of Protess. But I have known his name for years. His work made me want to be a journalist — and I remember writing to him to say so. (I would love to post his response, but it was back in my Hotmail days, which I no longer have access to.) While ultimately the people who stand to lose the most from his departure are the prisoners whose innocence claims might go uninvestigated, there is no way to know how many young people who may have been inspired in his classroom — or like me, from afar — will lose out. Just as we need journalists devoted to the cause of truth-telling, we need teachers devoted to the cause of justice. Northwestern just lost one, and it lost big.

Editor's note: David Protess was the 2003 recipient of the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship, which is an annual $100,000 that is awarded each December by The Nation Institute and the Puffin Foundation, given to an individual who has challenged the status quo through distinctive, courageous, imaginative and socially responsible work of significance. Ari Berman is a fellow at The Nation Institute.


Liliana Segura is an independent journalist with a focus on social justice, prisons, and harsh sentencing. She was, most recently, a writer and editor at AlterNet, where she was in charge of their Rights & Liberties section; prior to that, she worked at The Nation Institute.

    • Liliana Segura's full bio »
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    Below you see how the policy of immigration at the lower income reflects what is intended at the higher income levels.  In each case you have organizations recruiting people of color to take the lead in the exploitation so even what should be justice organizations are now tools of this Banana Republic policy.



  • Regarding Texas and immigrant criminal fraud:

    We know of course that the NPR report on practices in Texas mirror what is happening in Maryland and especially Baltimore.  NPR didn't present this info to inform us of something bad....it presented it as a way to understand why Congress and Maryland legislatures are working the way they are.  When you heard of the active avoidance of everything that is tax....payroll, state and local taxes that comes with criminal hiring of undocumented you get the idea that tons of money has been lost to the entitlement and Social Security Trusts as a huge swath of America and the workforce isn't paying into it.  This is why you hear Obama and Third Way corporate democrats trying to sound as if there is a shortfall.  We do not blame the undocumented worker of course, the crime is with the people hiring them and knowingly allowing law to be skirted.  Most importantly the blame is with the justice department and its stance of watching as laws are broken.  So, this money isn't lost....it simply needs to be retrieved from corporations who profited through this fraud.  I spoke at length about this concept of 'independent contractor' that does not meet the definition even as Maryland legislators try their hardest to write law that makes it all legal.  REMEMBER, MARYLAND IS A THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATIC STATE...YOUR INCUMBENT IS WORKING FOR CORPORATE PROFIT AGAINST WHAT IS BEST FOR SOCIETY!  

    As I said, we do not want undocumented workers to pay for the crimes of their bosses.....we want policy that makes undocumented workers paid as everyone else taking away the need to hire to exploit.  We won't make those changes without changing our political class.  Why does a media outlet refer to a pol like Doug Gansler for example as Attorney General when he is the anti-justice league?  You know your media outlet is captured when none of this is headline!!!



As we listen to how immigrant workers in Texas and Maryland among other states are openly exploited as Rule of Law is suspended in the US let's look at how the immigration policy Third Way corporate democrats are trying to implement is intended to work.  If you look at this Foundation you will see the Foundations that support this privatization and capture of US workforce through these attempts at immigration law.  Whether the Gates Foundation or as with this article, the Kauffman Foundation, these are corporations writing policy that makes for more profit at the expense of the American people.  Also note that these same foundations are highlighted as backers of public media.....American Public Media and National Public Media.  You will never hear a negative report on these education policies now that public media is bought by corporate trusts!!


Education, Entrepreneurship and Immigration:

America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Part II While the contribution of skilled immigrants to America's technology and engineering startups has been recognized for the past decade as critical to the emergence of many of America's most entrepreneurial companies and huge, new industries, little has been known about the backgrounds of these immigrant entrepreneurs. What types of education have these technology and engineering entrepreneurs received? Why did they come to the United States?

A report released by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation that tracked the educational backgrounds of immigrant entrepreneurs who were key founders of technology and engineering companies from 1995 to 2005 shows a strong correlation between educational attainment (particularly in science, technology, engineering and math) and entrepreneurship.

The study shows that 96 percent of immigrant founders of technology and engineering companies held bachelor's degrees and 74 percent held graduate or postgraduate degrees. Seventy-five percent of the highest degrees among immigrant entrepreneurs were in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Moreover, 53 percent of the immigrant founders of U.S.-based technology and engineering companies completed their highest degrees in U.S. universities.

Conducted by researchers at Duke University and the University of California, at Berkeley, the study is a follow-up to a report released in January that showed that in 25.3 percent of technology and engineering companies started in the United States from 1995 to 2005, at least one key founder was foreign-born. Nationwide, these immigrant-founded companies produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005. The majority of these immigrant entrepreneurs came from India, United Kingdom, China, Taiwan, Japan and Germany.

The study was based on a series of in-depth interviews with:

  • 144 immigrant company founders on their educational attainment, degree types, reasons for entering the United States and other factors related to their entrepreneurial activities;
  • 87 Indian, 57 Chinese and 29 Taiwanese company founders to ask where they received their undergraduate education, and;
  • 1,572 companies in 11 technology centers to determine whether a key founder was foreign-born and the founder's country of birth.
Among the findings:

  • More than half of the foreign-born founders of U.S. technology and engineering businesses initially came to the United States to study. Very few came with the sole purpose of starting a company. Almost 40 percent of immigrant founders entered the country because of a job opportunity, with only 1.6 percent entering the country with the sole purpose of entrepreneurship. They typically founded companies after working and residing in the United States for an average of 13 years.
  • Immigrant founders were educated in a diverse set of universities in both their home countries and across the United States. No single U.S. institution stands out as a source of immigrant founders. Similarly, those who received their undergraduate degrees in India or China graduated from a diverse assortment of institutions. Even the famed Indian Institutes of Technology educated only 15 percent of Indian technology and engineering company founders.
  • Immigrant entrepreneurs tend to move to cosmopolitan technology centers. The regions with the largest immigrant population also tend to have the greatest number of technology startups. On average, 31 percent of the engineering and technology companies founded from 1995 to 2005 in the 11 technology centers that were surveyed had an immigrant as a key founder. This compares to the national average of 25.3 percent.
  • Technology centers with a greater concentration of immigrant entrepreneurs in their state averages include Silicon Valley (52.4 percent), New York City (43.8 percent), and Chicago (35.8 percent). Three technology centers had a below-average rate of immigrant-founded companies: Portland (17.8 percent), Research Triangle Park (18.7 percent) and Denver (19.4 percent).
In a research and policy guide for transforming the U.S. economy toward an innovative entrepreneurial economy published earlier this year, Kauffman Foundation researchers said the nation could benefit from more enlightened immigration policies, designed to attract and retain highly skilled foreign workers and potential entrepreneurs.




About the research teamFor more information, visit the Global Engineering and Entrepreneurship at Duke research group, and the UC Berkeley School of Information.



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As we listen to Third Way corporate democrats led by Clinton and Obama tell us there is a need for foreign STEM workers and that is why they are creating this immigration policy that will harm all US workers......we know they are lying to us.  We know there are loads of US STEM grads among the unemployed wanting these jobs.  Why are they not getting them?  IS IT BECAUSE THEY AREN'T BEST OF THE BEST?  IS IT BECAUSE THEY ARE ESPECIALLY SKILLED?

IT IS BECAUSE THEY COME FROM WEALTHY OVERSEAS FAMILIES WHO SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO US ELITE SCHOOLS!!!  The goal is to have elite school grads leading all administrative offices in corporations and government and there aren't enough US grads to cover that.  If the culture of success is 'who you know' not what you know....think George Bush....it isn't about how smart you are intellectually, it is how willing you are to win at all costs and people coming from second and third world countries come already adapted!!!!



Diane Ravitch's blog
A site to discuss better education for all «  Why Are So Many STEM Graduates Unemployed?

By dianerav July 13, 2012 // 27 How many times have we heard the President, the Secretary of Education, and leaders of corporate America tell us that we must produce more scientists? That there are thousands of jobs unfilled because we don’t have qualified college graduates to fill them? That our future depends on pumping billions into STEM education?

I always believe them. Science, engineering, technology and mathematics are fields critical for the future.

But why then, according to an article in the Washington Post, are well-educated scientists unable to find jobs?

Three years ago, USA Today reported  high unemployment among scientists and engineers.

Some experts in science say there is no shortage of scientists, but there is a shortage of good jobs for scientists.

Some say that the pool of qualified graduates in science and engineering is “several times larger” than the pool of jobs available for them. And here is a shocker: The quality of STEM education has NOT declined:

Despite this nearly universal support for upgrading science and math education, our review of the data leads us to conclude that, while the educational pipeline would benefit from improvements, it is not as dysfunctional as believed. Today’s American high school students actually test as well or better than students two decades ago. Further, today’s students take more science and math classes, and a large number of students with strong science and math backgrounds graduate from U.S. high schools and start college in S&E fields of study. 

Why don’t our leaders tell us the truth? Why don’t they tell us that many of our highly trained young people will not find good jobs in research labs or universities or anywhere else?

I have said before on this blog that the economy is changing in ways that no one understands, least of all me.

Over the past century, whenever reformers told the schools to prepare students for this career or that vocation, the policymakers and school leaders were woefully inadequate at predicting which jobs would be available ten years later. When the automobile was first invented, there were still plenty of students taking courses to prepare them to be blacksmiths. The same story could be repeated over the years. We are not good at prognosticating.

My own predilection is to believe that all young people should get a full and rounded general education, which will teach them to think and evaluate new information. I prefer an education that includes the usual range of disciplines, not because of tradition but because each of them is valuable for our lives. We don’t know what the future will bring, but we all need to learn the skills of reading, writing, and mathematics. We don’t know what jobs will be available in ten or twenty years, but we all need to study history, so that we possess knowledge of our society and others; we need an understanding of science so we know how the world works; we need to be involved in the arts, because it is an expression of the human spirit and enables us to think deeply about ourselves and our world. I could make the same claims for other disciplines. The claim must be based on enduring needs, not the needs of the job market, because the only certainty is that the  job market will be different in the future.

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April 10th, 2013

4/10/2013

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WE MUST GET CORPORATIONS OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS!  WE DO NOT WANT THE PEOPLE FUNDING ALL OF CORPORATE COSTS......SUPPLYING FREE LABOR......HAVING ONLY THE CONNECTED STUDENTS RUN WITH THESE NEW STARTUPS.  THAT IS NOT PUBLIC EDUCATION.......LIKE K-12 CHARTERS, IT IS PRIVATE SCHOOLS SUPPORTED BY THE PUBLIC!!

WE WANT CORPORATE TAX PAYERS NOT PATRONS!!

Baltimore is as one writer put it a 'company town'.  Johns Hopkins is the 'decider' in all things public policy and it declares itself a private institution even as it receives trillions in public money.  It has built a complete network of quasi-governmental and community organizations headed by people it supports to move policy in its desired direction.  This is happening in all areas having these elite private schools.  In Maryland we have Hopkins writing our health care reform in which we are told most people will be moved to Medicaid public health preventative checkups and private health institutions are making profits.  The same happens with an elite school like Harvard that fuels Wall Street or Stanford that fuels the tech and education industries.  WE HAVE SINCE THE ENLIGHTENMENT HAD UNIVERSITIES AS PLACES FOR SOCIETAL GROWTH STEEPED IN HUMANITIES AND LIBERAL ARTS.  DEGREES LEFT STUDENTS WELL-ROUNDED TO BECOME VALUABLE TO A BUSINESS FOR DIVERSIFIED SKILLS.  Now, we have students attending universities that are extensions of business who are trained with a specific skill and if that person leaves a job......they must go back to school for more training to get a different skill all paid for with public money.  STUDENTS ARE GRADUATING WITH NO LIFE SKILLS, NO CITIZENSHIP SKILLS, AND NO SOCIAL SKILLS.  THIS IS NOT HOW TO MAKE CITIZENS.....IT CRIPPLES DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES.....which is the point.

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!

RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTIONS!!!



You will recognize that what is happening in Indiana is happening in Maryland.  If you look at the State Education Administration you will find employees brought from conservative states who are privatizing their public education systems.  Third Way corporate democrats have the same agenda as republicans.

Do you hear NPR constantly state that the republican party is dying?  IT IS BECAUSE THIRD WAY IS REPUBLICAN AND RUNS AS DEMOCRAT.....THEY ARE TAKING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY REPUBLICAN!

This means goodbye labor and justice......the 80% of the party's democratic base!!


What You Need to Know About the Indiana University Strike

James Cersonsky
and StudentNation on April 8, 2013 - 9:27 AM ET

Though Indiana University's March Madness is over, a generation of gutting and restructuring has left Hoosier country on its feet. This Thursday and Friday, the university will be the site of a statewide strike. As the Board of Trustees holds its annual meeting, many students and staff are expected to walk out of class and off the job.



As one poster states:

The goal is to contest the administration's efforts to make IU a more exclusive, costly institution, at the expense of students and staff. We have already forced the administration to acknowledge these issues, but through collective action, we want to push further so that we can imagine together a different future for IU.

In addition to a 45 percent increase in tuition and fees over the past six years, the strikers cite issues of diversity and racism:

Recent cuts at IU have disproportionately targeted international students and students of color, college education has been eliminated from Indiana prisons, and immigration laws have been implemented that make an IU education cost-prohibitive for undocumented Indiana students.

Rather than organizing solely around affordability, students list a slate of demands:

1. Immediately reduce tuition and eliminate fees.
2. Stop privatization and outsourcing at IU.
3. End the wage freeze [i.e., stagnant wages for faculty and staff].
4. The university must honor its promise to double the enrollment of African-American students to 8%.
5. Support the abolition of both HB1402 [which prevents undocumented students from receiving in-state tuition] and SB590 [an immigration law enforcement bill styled after Arizona's SB 1070].

They add:

These demands are obviously not exhaustive—there’s no way to concisely communicate all the things that need to change at IU. These demands are a starting point, a spark to foster discussion and encourage action. These demands are made not just of the Board of Trustees, but of the entire state bureaucracy that the Board is a part of.

Campus activists have spent six months organizing the strike. "We're trying to encourage a culture of resistance, where different people who are involved in the struggle can organize on their own," a student organizer, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Nation. While there are regular general assemblies for strikers and supporters, many participants "go back to plan things on their own basis." 

Public sector workers in Indiana aren't legally allowed to strike, and according to the university, faculty are prohibited from using “faculty LISTSERVs and emails to promote organization around the proposed student strike.” (It also remains to be seen just how much support the strike has in the student body generally.) On Monday, strikers held a noise demo landing at the provost's office, where they called for the university not to retaliate against non-student strikers. Meanwhile, more than 100 faculty have signed a petition in solidarity with striking students—and calling for the university not to punish them for walking out.

The strike will be accompanied by a number of actions, as well as "Free University Days" organized by graduate students and instructors. 

Not in Indiana? The strikers are asking students and allies from across the country to write letters of support to the Indiana Daily Student at opinion@idsnews.com.



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Below is a list of universities that have moved from private to corporate universities and who get a lions share of all public research money. Remember Obama's $750 billion in stimulus in 2009.......most went to these corporate universities to keep the global corporate R and D going!!!!

O'Malley is trying hard to make the University of Maryland system one of these corporate university systems and is well on that way.  Soon, Maryland citizens will not be able to afford to attend university campus studies....they will be relegated to online classes.

WE DO NOT WANT TO LOSE PUBLIC EDUCATION AND WANT TO KEEP IT EQUAL OPPORTUNITY.  TO DO SO WE MUST HAVE CORPORATIONS PAYING TAXES AND RECOVERING AND PROSECUTING CRIME!


University of Maryland system is trying hard to be a corporate research system.

Historically, many of the prestigious universities in the United States have been private. Some public universities are also highly prestigious and increasingly selective though; Richard Moll designated such prestigious public universities Public Ivies. At schools like the University of Michigan, UCLA, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the College of William and Mary, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a vast majority of the departments are consistently highly ranked.

10 Innovative Universities Shaking Up Education Added by Guest Writer on 2013-01-27

Edudemic

Every college and university in America is concerned with innovation. After all, that’s the whole point of education — giving young minds an understanding of our past and a grasp of current developments, and releasing them into the wild to shape the future with their creations. But a few schools in particular can be counted on as continuous sources of headline-grabbing material, from new cures to new companies. These 10 colleges can safely lay claim to the honor of being innovation factories.

  1. MIT: Though once overshadowed by Harvard, Boston Magazine recently proclaimed Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s ascension to “most important university in the world.” Its reasoning: “The amount of technological innovation and entrepreneurial activity taking place at any moment all over the campus is remarkable.” The article cited the fabric-based computers and robot skin coming out of the school’s famous Media Lab, but it might just as easily have referenced MIT’s established reputation for shaking up education, or its collaborations and projects for fostering new methods for solving persistent global problems. In short, in a world where new ideas are vitally needed to propel us forward, an innovation factory like MIT becomes king.

  2. Stanford University: A recent report enunciated what those in both the academic and business worlds already knew: Stanford is innovation central. Over 5.4 million jobs created since the ’30s and $2.7 trillion in annual revenue have Cardinal innovation and entrepreneurship to thank. In fact, there are some who believe Silicon Valley might not exist at all if not for Stanford University. Part of the reason the school produces so much innovation is that it encourages so much innovation. From Innovation Masters lectures to hefty prizes for innovation from the research libraries to a faculty stocked with out-of-the-box thinkers, the school is a hub for creative activity and research for students and the surrounding community alike.

  3. Northwestern University: Of the $1.8 billion earned by universities commercializing their research in 2011, Northwestern singlehandedly accounted for over 10%. NU’s students and alums routinely churns out revolutionary products and processes, like those that were honored at the 2012 Chicago Innovation Awards: an infant HIV test for the third world, a more efficient gas storage technique, and a safety tool for surgeons. The inventions came from the NUvention Medical Innovation program but also from campus institutions not bearing the innovation label, like the Kellogg School of Management and the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, proving the entire school is fertile ground for revolutionary thinking.

  4. Princeton University: The gothic, colonial, and Romanesque campus architecture reminiscent of bygone days belie this school’s firmly-established place as an innovator in the 21st century. To wit: the $115 million in revenue from licensing inventions in 2011. For seven years the annual Innovation Forum has been bringing good ideas to the surface and inspiring inventors, while the Innovation Garden is looking to do the same for entrepreneurs. Today Princeton folks are behind updated ways to cut the energy needs of big data providers and use nanotechnology to detect infrastructural damage before major collapses.

  5. Carnegie Mellon University: The word “innovation” pops up all over this Pittsburgh campus, from specialized degrees to conferences to institutions. But the heart of ingenuity at the school is the Robert Mehrabian Collaborative Innovation Center, where, for example, researchers work on government cybersecurity development and “capacitive touch sensing.” CMU has cemented itself as an innovation leader especially since the early ’90s, when cutting-edge projects like its Wireless Research Initiative and breakthrough work in computer science and search engines. Today the university is continuing this legacy by searching for ways to transform America’s energy sector and producing alums poised to give the world its next amazing invention.

  6. Olin College: As one student blogger put it, the enterprising Weasley twins should have gone to Olin, because they would have fit right in. Olin students have produced some fantastic devices, from ping-pong-playing robots to solar-powered trash compactors. The college is well-known for pedagogical innovation, the new Argosy Collaborative Faculty Exchange program being a perfect example. And thanks to a federal grant under the auspices of the selective new Higher Education Solutions Network, Olin will be able to put its considerable innovation prowess to work helping meet global development challenges.

  7. Columbia University: Whether compared with other Ivy League schools or the rest of America’s universities in general, Columbia is a top exporter of revolutionary ideas and products. Like Princeton, it was in the select club of earners of more than $100 million in licensing income in 2011. A noted top pick for journalism instruction, Columbia has joined fellow innovator Stanford to forge a path between journalism and technology. Creations like synthetic trees that capture 1,000 times more carbon dioxide than real trees are a natural byproduct of a school that’s ever ramping up its efforts to involve the entire university community in innovation.

  8. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: This is the place that’s given the world the integrated circuit, LED and plasma screens, MRIs, and Tesla Motors. In other words, it’s a discovery mecca. They literally celebrate innovation here, annually recognizing achievements in everything from tissue engineering to optical microscopy. Major accomplishments in recent years have been a cutting-edge HIV drug called Prezista and a less-harsh cancer treatment alternative to chemotherapy, while UIC’s Office of Technology Management 2012 winner of Inventor of the Year has created an exciting new insulation panel for heating and cooling houses with as much as 80% less energy wasted.

  9. University of Michigan: 2012 was a banner year for Wolverine innovation. The school was home to 368 new inventions and 101 awarded patents, which no doubt contributed in the state’s first promising innovation index results since 2008. UM has been steadily building a name for itself in entrepreneurship and innovation with offerings like TechArb, its student startup incubator, and MCubed, a new research program for funding “new initiatives with major societal impact.” The student body has also gotten on board with new ideas for campus sustainability through Planet Blue, with projects like a campus farm, a fruit and vegetable stand, and bike fix-it stations already implemented.

  10. Brigham Young University: Two years ago, Businessweek named BYU one of the most innovative colleges in the country, and that still holds true in 2013. Exciting ideas are kindled at the BYU Innovation Academy, and funded by the Crocker Innovation Fellowship, the latter of which recently helped a team of Cougars win the school’s Innovator of the Year challenge. The school also boasted a statewide innovation challenge winner in 2012. They were the tip of the iceberg, as the school’s Creative Works Office and Changemaker Week — for social innovation — continue to turn out fresh concoctions.
Here is one of these private research universities.  It is the same as Baltimore's Johns Hopkins et al in that it built itself on taxpayer money and it is now working as a corporate university just as Johns Hopkins is starting to do as a health care system.  Look at the price of the university tuition and then think of the trillion dollars in research public funding it gets.  The students work in these labs as part of their degree program for free......they aren't assured jobs after grad.....but the university and the corporations partnering with it run with the profits as successful research leads to startup and leads to merger with a global corporation.  ALL PAID FOR BY TAXPAYER AND STUDENT TUITION AND FREE LABOR.


Northwestern University
Cost of Attendance


The basic formula used to calculate the cost of attendance for the 2013-14 academic year is as follows:

Expense Amount Tuition $45,120 Fees (Health $200, ASG $162, Athletic $45) $407 Room and Board $13,862*

Books and Supplies $1,878 Personal Expenses $1,926 Loan Fee $35 Transportation Varies Cost of Attendance $63,228 *The cost of attendance for commuter students is $52,664, which includes $984 for transportation and $2,325 for room and board.



Article updated: 4/11/2011 6:12 PM

Public has right to question what’s happening at “private” Northwestern

By Chuck Goudie

Northwestern really isn't a "private" university.

This may come as a shock to parents who wrote checks for $53,000 this year to cover private tuition, room and board. It's not just Northwestern.

Advertisement DePaul, Loyola, Notre Dame and most other so-called "private" universities aren't private at all. They solicit and receive public funding from the government for research and also benefit from student

federal grants.

So, if you pay taxes, these "private" schools get lots of your money. (The most notable example of a truly private school is Hillsdale College in southern Michigan. It accepts and allows no federal funding for anything. That is another story.)

Despite the use of federal funds at Northwestern, the administration of the university is private. There is no oversight or regulation by a publicly-elected or appointed board, and no public accountability for most decisions.

So, this is about the only place to publicly ask these questions:

What in the world is going on at Northwestern?

Is there a management problem up there in Evanston?

Who's in charge?

The university's purple and white has been turned black and blue the past few months following three eye-opening missteps involving professors and administrators... the very people who are supposed to be

the experts.

The grouping of gaffes features:

• an explicit, live, in-class sex demonstration from exhibitionists hired by a controversial psychology professor.

• the public defrocking and professional dismemberment of successful, well-known Medill project head David Protess, who helped exonerate wrongly convicted death row inmates.

• volleys of nasty allegations and legal wrangling between Protess and university officials who charge each other with lying and covering up.

• the most recent embarrassment occurred at Northwestern's famous Kellogg School of Business when a son of Libyan dictator/terrorist Moammar Gadhafi was allowed to attend three days of graduate classes under an alias.

All of these events have one thing in common: they were terribly managed by Northwestern public relations officials and top administrators once they leaked out of the "private" campus and became public.

The case of Gadhafi's son visiting campus in February is the most egregious example of ineptness. When Northwestern/Kellogg officials were notified that Khamis Gadhafi wanted to sit in on an executive MBA class taught by Dr. Deepak Chopra, they went along with Gadhafi's request that he not be truthfully identified to the other students in the class.

The Mohammar protégé was on a cross-country trip, part of a corporate-sponsored "internship." It was at the same time that a revolution was stirring in Libya... a revolt that would lure him home just a few days later to lead an elite military unit accused of slaughtering countless innocent civilians.

Nevertheless, last week when the Northwestern/Kellogg public relations office was provided with questions about young Mr. Gadhafi's stealth campus visit, this was the reply: "Yes, he attended a three-day executive education course as a student. That's really all I can share" stated Meg Washburn, director of media relations.

I wrote back: "Why is that? We are talking about a "student" who supervised the beatings of unarmed civilians, military attacks on residential villages (using internationally banned weapons) and the executions of soldiers who refused to fire on demonstrators…just a few weeks after he was welcomed into a Northwestern classroom.

"Who arranged for him to be there and why did the university allow him to be falsely identified to unsuspecting students?

"Considering the atrocities that U.S. defense officials believe were committed by Khamis Gadhafi, why isn't Northwestern/Kellogg issuing a more definitive statement and someone at the university sitting down to do an interview with us? With all respect, the recent case of a sex demonstration in a Northwestern class received far more substantive responses from university officials."

In Northwestern's final statement on the matter, Kellogg Business School Dean Sally Blount did not respond to the substantive questions.

Blount said Gadhafi's "visit occurred prior to the uprising in Libya, and before the recent, very troubling allegations against him surfaced" and that Kellogg is committed to respecting human dignity and the integrity of the learning environment, and they promise to review all enrollment procedures and criteria and determine changes that need to be made.

If things continue, one thing that will need to be changed is Northwestern's motto, in Latin on the purple and white crest.

"Quaecumque sunt vera." It means "Whatsoever things are true."

What in the world is going on at Northwestern?

You deserve an answer too.

After all, they have some of your money.

• Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by e-mail at chuckgoudie@gmail.com and followed at twitter.com/ChuckGoudie




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Government-Supported Research Enables Their Profits, But Many Corporations Have Nearly Stopped Paying Taxes

PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Multinational corporations have built their businesses on the backs of American taxpayers. They've depended on government research, national defense, the legal and educational systems, and our infrastructure.

Yet they've turned around and mocked us with declining tax payments. They've cut workers. They've refused to invest their massive profits in job-producing research and development. And they've insulted existing employees with low wages and dwindling retirement support.

As a final disdainful act, many of them have tried to convince us that they LOSE money in the U.S. while only making profits overseas.

Here are the facts.

Business Built on Our Backs

(a) Research

The most essential aspect of business growth is the long-term basic research that is largely conducted with government money. Starting in the 1950s, taxpayer-funded research at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (the Internet), the National Institute of Health (pharmaceuticals), and the National Science Foundation (the Digital Library Initiative) has laid a half-century foundation for corporate product development. Even today 60% of university research is government-supported.

The tech industry is a special case, with many computer and communications companies coming of age in the 1990s, when industry funding for computer research declined dramatically and government research funding continued to climb. As of 2009 universities were still receiving ten times more science & engineering funding from government than from industry.

(b) Infrastructure

Thanks to the taxpayer-funded National Highway System, corporations have acquired access to markets across the country for over 60 years. Along with road construction came the water, electric, and telephone facilities needed to sustain their businesses.

Today, the publicly supported communications infrastructure allows the richest 10% of Americans to readily manipulate their 80% share of the stock market. CEOs rely on roads and seaports and airports to ship their products, the FAA and TSA and Coast Guard and Department of Transportation to safeguard them, a nationwide energy grid to power their factories, and communications towers and satellites to conduct online business. Private jets use 16 percent of air traffic control resources while paying only 3% of the bill.

(c) Law

A litany of advantages accrues to the business world through the legal system. The wealthiest Americans are the main beneficiaries of tax laws, property rights, zoning rules, patent and copyright provisions, trade pacts, antitrust legislation, and contract regulations. Their companies benefit, despite their publicly voiced objections to regulatory agencies, from SBA and SEC guidelines that generally favor business, and from FDA and USDA quality control measures that minimize consumer complaints and product recalls.

The growing numbers of financial industry executives have profited from 30 years of deregulation, most notably the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. Lobbying by the financial industry has stifled reasonable proposals like a sales tax on financial transactions.

More big advantages are enjoyed by multinational corporations through trade agreements like NAFTA, with international disputes resolved by the business-friendly World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization. Federal judicial law protects our biggest companies from foreign infringement. The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership would put governments around the world at the mercy of corporate decision-makers.

(d) Education

Public colleges have helped to train the chemists, physicists, chip designers, programmers, engineers, production line workers, market analysts, and testers who create modern technological devices. At the primary and secondary levels, the "equal opportunity" principle mandated by the Supreme Court in Brown vs. the Board of Education has contributed to business growth, building the math and language skills that until recently led the world.

(e) Defense

The U.S. government will be spending $55 billion on Homeland Security this year, in addition to $673 billion for the military. Most of their resources, along with local police and emergency services and the National Guard, are focused on crimes against wealth.


Belittling Us Instead Of Paying Us Back

Instead of paying for their decades of government-supported growth, corporations have nearly stopped paying taxes, leaving payroll deductions and individual income taxes as the main sources of federal revenue.

From 2003 to 2011 total corporate profits more than doubled from $900 billion to almost $2 trillion, but the corporate income tax rate dropped by more than half, from 22.5% to 10%.

On top of this, the most profitable corporations get the biggest subsidies. The Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in welfare assistance to financial institutions and corporations. According to U.S. PIRG and Citizens for Tax Justice, 280 top-earning Fortune 500 companies, which together paid only half of the maximum 35 percent corporate tax rate, received $223 billion in tax subsidies.

What have they been doing with their windfall profits? Anywhere from $2.2 trillion to $3.4 trillion in cash is being held by non-financial corporations, who have chosen to fatten stockholders rather than invest in new production facilities and the employees needed to make them functional. Worse yet, as reported by The Nation, Market Watch, and Business Insider, they've been steadily cutting jobs in order to 'streamline' their operations.

For the employees who remain, average real wages were $17.42 in 2007, down from $19.34 in 1972 (based on 2007 dollars). Wages as a percentage of the economy are at an all-time low.


An Added Insult -- Profits Declared Overseas, But Not in the U.S.


Multinational corporations use the vacuous argument of an excessive U.S. tax rate to defend their tax avoidance, although in reality the U.S. has the third-lowest rate of tax revenue per GDP among all OECD countries.

The biggest tax avoiders are not content to just shirk their tax responsibilities. To sustain the image of profitmaking for their investors, many of them claim hefty worldwide incomes while reporting little or no income in the United States. Pfizer, for example, just declared their fifth straight annual loss in the U.S., despite a five-year income total of over $50 billion.

A review of SEC data reveals more chicanery. In the last two years Citigroup reported $27.8 billion in foreign income, but a $5 billion loss in the United States. Exxon credits the U.S. for 1/3 of its revenue and 40% of its assets, but only 15% of its income. Apple has 2/3 of its employees in the U.S. but claims only 1/3 of its profits as U.S. income.


Summing Up the Absurdity: You Made Us the Best, But We Don't Have To Pay

Forbes responded to suggestions of American decline with this stirring defense: "We lead the world in Internet innovation, music, movies, biotech and many other technological fields that require out-of-the-box thinking. From Apple to DreamWorks Studios, from Amazon to Zynga, we are the world's innovators."

They might have added, "And we don't have to give anything back to the people who made it all possible."

Photo: An American flag hangs in the lobby of Citigroup Center in Chicago. (Source: jcsullivan24/Flickr)


Paul Buchheit is the founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

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The Corporations Colonizing our Public Schools April 10, 2013 - Chicago Daily Herald

In an era of corporate aggression into the public sphere, not even the classroom is safe. As the corporate reach extends into public schools, our kids are increasingly reshaped as products, as data to be collected, as pawns in the corporate fight to rid the country of unionized jobs. In our classrooms, the humanity and education of students is gradually being replaced with corporate systems and profit-values.

As if the only human activity with any meaning or moral relevance is the pursuit of money, corporate education transforms the entire scope of the education process into pre-employment training. Instead of investing in the future, corporate education looks to squeeze a profit from it before it arrives.

Rather than trying to educate evolved, modern adults, the corporate model seeks to profit off our tax-money while reshaping students as nothing more than future employees. The long process of raising our kids into responsible, active grown-ups is replaced by a process that openly places profit over progress, corporate values over human ones.

Joel Klein, the former Bloomberg favorite and Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, was hired by right-wing media tycoon Rupert Murdoch to help Amplify move desperately needed funding out of the classroom and into corporate hands. (Photo: via Amplify.com)

While there are many corporations, foundations, and individuals who have contributed to the infiltration of private corporate interests into publicly funded education, there are 3 that stand out.

The Walton Foundation, The Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation, known as the Big Three, have consistently threatened democratic processes in public education reform.They’re able to spend nearly $4 billion annually on anything from political campaigns to Astroturf organizations to funding research and studies that are in line with their goals.All three of these groups have heavily invested in School Choice reforms and voucher programs.

School choice, charter schools, and voucher programs are really ways to subsidize private education using public money. These failed, profit-driven policies are an extension of the corporate search for profit, an attempt to transfer public wealth to private hands under the pretense of “reforming” schools (whose failure, conveniently enough, was triggered and exacerbated in the first place by selective austerity policies driven by some of the same corporate groups now trying to profit from their failure).

Which groups, companies and individuals
are behind the corporate drive
to privatize public education? The Gates Foundation: while the Gates Foundation does great work in other areas, their work in US educational systems seems to be misguided at best. They fund Astroturf groups like Teach for America and Educators for Excellence, who recruit young professionals and basically pay them to undermine teachers unions. The Gates Foundation advocates data based compensation for teachers, as well as closing schools that perform poorly on data driven high stakes tests. They also support increasing class size.

However, reducing class size is one of  the only reforms that has repeatedly been proven to improve student performance(pdf). While the Gates Foundation claims to be open to all reform ideas, they tend to primarily fund and publicly support those based on test scores alone, ignoring teacher and parent input.

The Broad Foundation: Broad contributed millions of dollars to the campaign to extend mayoral control of the public schools in New York City under Michael Bloomberg. He also has an unusually close relationship to Joel Klein, Randi Weingarten and Arne Duncan.

The Broads got their money by building federally subsidized housing in suburbs of California and Texas. Apparently, there have been a number of chronic problems with those homes. The Broad Foundation Superintendents Academy trains management candidates in six intensive, four-day sessions spread over 10 months to become school superintendents in primarily urban areas.

These superintendents have a clear preference to charter schools over public. They also have a not-so-great record of corruption.

The Walton Family Foundation: this is the charitable arm of the Walton Family, owners of the middle class job killing, union busting company, Walmart.

They claim to want to improve public education through school choice. What they really support is the voucher system. As most aware New Yorkers know by now, this is nothing more than a ruse to siphon public money into private hands.

Teach For America: this is possibly the largest group trying to undermine public teachers unions in the country. Recruits for TFA are not encouraged to continue teaching, they are recruited to teach for 2 years, gain experience, then move on to something bigger and better.

For those trying to undermine unions, Teach for America is perfect. They can hire teachers for way less than a dedicated career educator, give them a whopping 5 weeks of training, put them in any classroom and after 2 years, get them out.

No long-term health benefits, no pension plans, nothing.

The “teacher” gets to bulk up their resume. Major corporations get to donate to an organization that looks like it cares about children. Everybody wins!…except the students.

A look at TFA’s donors list is another cause for concern. The Walton Foundation is one of its biggest contributors. Other contributors include Bain & Company, Monsanto, Bank of America, Exxon Mobile, and Goldman Sachs just to name a few. It’s like a “who’s who” of groups that caused the Great Recession.

They aren’t only receiving private money though. They also get your tax dollars. They receive money from the US Department of Education and NASA.

Amplify: Amplify Insight just won a 12.5 million dollar contract to develop assessments and teaching tools for Common Core tests. Amplify Insight is a division of Amplify, an education technology company whose CEO is Joel Klein.

Amplify is the education branch of News Corp, owned by notorious phone hacking, privacy invading, Rupert Murdoch. Besides the very real concern of keeping children’s personal information as private as possible, Murdoch’s involvement in education is especially disconcerting given that he has openly said he was mostly interested in the money. When he bought Wireless Generation, a Brooklyn based education tech company, he said

“When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching,” said News Corporation Chairman and CEO, Rupert Murdoch. “Wireless Generation is at the forefront of individualized, technology-based learning that is poised to revolutionize public education for a new generation of students.”

The Center for Educational Innovation – Public Education Association(CEI-PEA): a New York City-based “nonprofit” organization. Under the Re-Start program initiated in NYC in 2011, CEI-PEA was one of the organizations chosen to take over management of a few under-performing schools. One of those schools is J.H.S 166 George Gershwin, which is being closed due to poor performance. As previously reported by The BQ Brew, their Board of Trustees is full of supporters of TFA, hedge fund executives and New York City’s gentrifying elite.

inBloom: formerly known as Shared Learning Collaborative. New York is one of 9 states that will pilot inBloom’s technology. This is supposed to be a way of storing students personal learning needs and streamline information sharing for teachers, parents and administrators.

The concern is that students’ sensitive personal information will not only be stored on a database where security has not been established, but that that same info will be made available to third party companies. This will allow private corporations to access a school district’s student data so that the corporations will know what educational technology they can sell to specific schools. Parents have largely not been made aware of the change to the security of their children’s information.

Resistance, Never Futile:
Parents, Teachers and Communities Push Back Despite the seemingly endless number of corporate-sponsored deformers attempting to co-opt the educational system, there are a number of true grassroots organizations out there that are fighting for students. They are made up of teachers, parents, and members of the community who are tired of being excluded from the main stream pseudo debate on students’ futures. Movement Of Rank and file Educators(MORE): http://morecaucusnyc.org/
MORE is the social justice caucus of the United Federation of Teachers(UFT). They are working on fighting the single party representation that has had control of the UFT for decades, as well as fighting for social and community justice for both teachers and students. From their mission statement:

“8. We reject the corporate takeover of the public schools, and the wave of school closures in the city, which have particularly affected poor communities with high proportions of people of color.  We insist on a moratorium on the opening of new charter schools.  We seek to end the cuts to education which have led to increasing class sizes as well as inadequate social, health, guidance personnel and services.

9. The schools should be the people’s schools.  We stand for democratic governance and popular control of our school system that fully reflects the needs, aspirations and diversity of those who make up its parent and student body. Mayoral control, which is inherently undemocratic, must be abolished , and be replaced by an elected People’s Board of Education which represents the interests of teachers, students, parents, and community.”

New York Collective of Radical Educators(NYCoRE): http://www.nycore.org/
is a group of public school educators who believe that the struggle for fair education does not end at the end of the school day and that the struggle is an integral part of education. They believe in organizing with parents and communities for social change. New Yorkers for Great Public Schools(NY-GPS): http://www.nygps.org/
a true grassroots organization, NY-GPS has been very vocal about their opposition to Mayor Bloomberg’s educational agenda. With vast community support, they are fighting for a moratorium on school closures and to get the word out to all New Yorkers about the corporate interests trying to buy their public schools. Parent Voices NY: http://www.parentvoicesny.org/
is a group for parents who have been increasingly concerned with high-stakes testing in public schools. Their main purpose is to help parents organize against these tests and advocate for a more wholesome approach to educating our youth. Their site is a great tool to hook up with direct action groups city wide. Class Size Matters: http://www.classsizematters.org/
is a group that advocates for smaller class sizes in NYC and nation wide. They provide information and links to studies on why smaller class size has been prove time and again to have a positive affect on student improvements. United Opt Out: http://unitedoptout.com/
is a national movement to end corporate education reform. This is a group of parents, educators, students and activists who want to see the elimination of high stakes testing in public schools. Their site is a full of information on how to opt out of testing either on the individual level or school level. There is tons of information on direct actions in most areas of the US, and info on how to create your own opt out group if needed. Diane Ravitch’s Blog: http://dianeravitch.net/
while this is not a group you can join, Ms. Ravitch has been a great voice in the movement to protect public education in the US. Her blog is regularly updated with information from all over the country warning the public to be aware of what’s going on in our schools. She is a historian of education and Research Professor of Education at New York University.



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IN BALTIMORE IT IS NYC MAYOR BLOOMBERG THAT IS THE BILLIONAIRE FUNDING THE PRIVATIZATION OF BALTIMORE CITY SCHOOLS.  AS I HAVE SAID ALL SCHOOLS ARE BEING TAKEN TO CHARTER......TIED TO VOCATIONAL TRAINING AND DIRECTLY TO BUSINESSES.  THAT IS WHAT YOU SEE BELOW AS FACEBOOK'S ZUCKERBERG BUYS THE OPPORTUNITY TO BUILD HIS OWN SCHOOL SYSTEM ....FOLLOWING THE GATES MODEL.  IN BOTH CASES THE PROBLEM IS LOST CORPORATE REVENUE AND TAX BASE THAT HAS THE SCHOOLS IN RAGGED CONDITION.  SO, THE SOLUTION IS NOT TO HAVE BILLIONAIRES BUILD THEIR OWN SCHOOL SYSTEM.....IT IS TO PAY TAXES AND BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR CORPORATE FRAUD TO FUND PUBLIC EDUCATION AS IT IS.

WE DO NOT CALL THIS PHILANTHROPY ..... HE IS SIMPLY BUYING THE SCHOOLS SYSTEM.  IT IS THE SAME IN MARYLAND WHERE PRIVATE DONATIONS DETERMINE WHAT SCHOOL SUCCEEDS AND THRIVES.  NOTICE THAT GATES AND ZUCKERBERG ARE TWO TECH PEOPLE CONTROLLING INFORMATION AND EDUCATION BY MAKING IT ONLINE.....

GOOD FOR BUSINESS BAD FOR US!




Whatever Happened to the $100 Million Mark Zuckerberg Gave to Newark Schools? —By Maggie Severns

| Thu Mar. 28, 2013 2:23 PM PDT  Mother Jones
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Cory Booker, Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Christie discuss Zukerberg's $100 million donation to Newark, September 2010. Mike Derer/New Jersey Governor's Office Reports are surfacing that Mark Zuckerberg and other technology leaders are planning to launch a new, yet-to-be-named advocacy group that will push for immigration and education reform. The move is a big deal for Zuckerberg, who has mostly avoided politics in the past, but has a reported $13.3 billion to put into the game if he chooses to.

What would this influence look like? There could be clues from Zuckerberg's last foray into advocacy work, the high-profile $100 million he donated to Newark public schools in the fall of 2010. That September, Zuckerberg appeared with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker to announce the donation on the Oprah Winfrey Show. This was right before the premier of The Social Network, which portrayed Zuckerberg as a narcissist who stole the idea for Facebook.

News of the donation captured national attention for a moment, then faded. In Newark, a local foundation established by Zuckerberg and the state have spent more than two years deciding how to best create a schoolyard revolution with $100 million dollars. At first, the "Facebook money," as it's called in Newark, helped the state hire consultants and establish several new charter schools. But the reform effort has floundered at moments: The first million dollars went towards a poorly conducted community survey that had to be re-worked by Rutgers and New York University, and criticism was fierce when a foundation board established to decide how the Facebook money was spent included only one Newark resident: Cory Booker. ("Yes, it's their money. But it's Newark's kids," an op-ed that ran in the Star-Ledger read.)

Then last November, nearly $50 million of Zuckerberg's money went to pay for a new teacher's contract, the first in New Jersey to offer performance pay for teachers who are deemed as "highly effective." The contract offers up to $12,500 in bonuses for the teachers rated as the best in the district. It's the first contract in New Jersey to offer performance-based pay, a policy that's been instituted in a few cities such as Washington, DC. In DC, the plan was so controversial that it might have cost Mayor Adrian Fenty his job. "I think it helped—I know it helped—to be on our side of the table and have deeper pockets," one school district official said about the Newark negotiations.


The teacher's contract was negotiated relatively quietly. But the pushback continues from those in Newark who think it's wrong for the Christie administration to have access to so much extra money with no need to listen to the community or the public. "In my conversations with [school commissioner] Chris Cerf, it became abundantly clear to me that he saw the money to be a spigot for funding his school agenda," said Paul Tractenberg, a law professor at Rutgers University, who describes the donation as a catalyst for "a broader top-down strategy" towards public education.

Frustrated Newark parents and graduates, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, believe that Booker and others have been far too secretive about their agenda and how they're spending Zuckerberg's millions, so they fought and won a lawsuit to force the city to release emails from Booker that relate to the funds. The emails weren't groundbreaking, though they did reveal Sheryl Sandberg's deep involvement in orchestrating the donation and rolling it out. Meanwhile, Booker has raised at least $54 of the $100 million of the matching funds he needs, money that came from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and New York hedge fund donors.

With the merit pay contract, Newark used Zuckerberg's money as a lever in negotiations to create what one reform leader in Newark called a "higher level" of change. Zuckerberg's new group doesn't even have a name yet, much less a public agenda. But if reports that the group plans to get involved in education prove true, Zuckerberg, like Bill Gates before him, could become another tech giant stirring up the education world.


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April 08th, 2013

4/8/2013

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THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS ARE PRETENDING THIS BANK BAILOUT AND GIVE-AWAY TO THE RICH IS GOOD FOR YOU AND ME......

IT IS ANOTHER ASSAULT ON TAXPAYERS AS EDUCATION  FRAUD AND BAD BANK BUSINESS IS HANDED TO TAXPAYERS!!





I wanted to talk in depth about these schemes of student loan forgiveness.  We have real progressives pushing a return to the ability to discharge student loans in bankruptcy and then you have the Third Way corporate approach that brings a bank bailout and tons of money to the affluent.....again.  Remember, Bush took student loans from the public sector where loans were made to low-income families with much success.  It propelled many working/lower class families into the middle-class.  Along comes Bush and as was done with Freddie and Fannie the low-income housing agency that was blown up by subprime loans and now services $700,000 houses.....these student loans were handed to private banks with financial aid officers pushing students into these private loans just as the mortgage agencies were pushing the working class into mortgages they could not afford.  Bush also changed bankruptcy law knowing that most students would be unable to pay....as with housing to not allowing students to discharge these private loans in bankruptcy.  At the same time Bush allowed for-profit education businesses to go wild with public financial aid and we now know that as much as 70% of for-profit education student loans are fraudulent.  They did to these students what they did to the subprime mortgage families.Remember, the banks have always made it their duty not to lend money to people unless they are thought able to repay the money.  That was when banks were separated by the Glass Steagall Wall of investment.  Now, with the banking/investment wall broken the banks are crazy and becoming wealthy on simply moving loans of any kind.  So, give a working class student $100,000 worth of student loans......THEN THE BANKS NEED TO DISCHARGE THEM IN BANKRUPTCY AS NO ONE WOULD THINK SOMEONE SHOULD HAVE THAT MUCH DEBT!!!!
Much of the $1 trillion in student loan debt is tied to this behavior.

Here is the second piece.  The wealthy knew about this student loan scam and they also knew Congress would pass a Student Loan Forgiveness Act that moves all private bank debt to the Federal government and then allows students to discharge all debt after 10 years of paying a percentage of income.  So, a student loan bill that discharges student debt in bankruptcy wouldn't work for these affluent families because they have the money.....that is why this second Student Loan Forgiveness Act came into play.  This Act gives the middle/lower class almost no financial help in student debt but it gives affluent students who have $200,000-300,000 in debt loads of debt forgiveness.  You go to Harvard and the taxpayers will pay most of your college debt.  Go to University of Baltimore and none of your debt will be paid.

WE ARE DEALING WITH REAL LYING, CHEATING, STEALING UPPER CLASS POLITICIANS FOLKS.....THEY STOP AT NOTHING.

The next part of the legislation addresses the fact that the 1% want the middle/lower class tied to online colleges they are working hard to create.  By attaching a rule in this legislation that financial aid will in the future be tied to cost effective education programs you see they are setting the stage for all children from average families attending these online college/career classes and not state universities like U of Maryland or U of California Berkley and forget private universities.  Don't forget that Pell Grants are also disappearing.  These are the two ways the middle/lower class have funded education outside of scholarships.


STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS ACT-------THE BANKS GET A BAILOUT.......THE AFFLUENT GET A BAILOUT......THE MIDDLE/LOWER CLASS PAY THEIR WAY AND GET RELEGATED TO A SECOND-CLASS EDUCATION.




Regarding the Student Loan debt crisis:

What Applebaum and pols pushing this Student Loan Forgiveness Act are doing is bailing out the banks who have reaped billions in high interest and fees for this past decade on these private loans and now want to shed what they know students can't pay....so this bill moves all this debt from private to public taxpayers. Remember, all those subprime loans that landed in taxpayer Freddie and Fannie.....same thing. Don't forget this includes 70% of for-profit college tuition that has been found to be fraudulent. Private banks gave students loans of up to $60,000-150,000....WHO WOULD DO THAT? THEY NEED TO BE EXPELLED THROUGH BANKRUPTCY WHICH IS WHAT PROGRESSIVE POLS HAVE PROPOSED......
HR.532 Private Student Loan Bankruptcy Fairness Act of 2013

To amend title 11 of the United States Code to modify the dischargeability of debts for certain educational payments and loans.


 Do you know that parents having students in elite universities have opted to finance their children's tuition through these private student loans rather than pay with the cash they have because they knew this bill would be put forward? The average student $20,000-30,000 in debt will get little relief while the affluent families will write off huge amounts of student debt. Also, this bill ties future student financial aid to cost effective education.....code for online education.  The tiered access to education is tied to where students must go in order to receive this tuition aid.  

Remember, they are defunding Pell grants and state support to public universities because they have yet to recover tens of trillions of dollars in corporate fraud over just a few decades.  These cuts and policies are meant to replace  the money stolen through corporate fraud!!!

THIS BILL HURTS THE MIDDLE/LOWER CLASS AND BAILS OUT THE BANKS AND THE AFFLUENT. PUSH FOR THE STUDENT LOAN BANKRUPTCY BILL!!!


Below is an article that addresses these concerns....it was written a year ago when all this was proposed!!


Taxes | 4/25/2012 @ 8:47PM |5,176 views Student Loans - Beyond The Interest Rate Debate 

Congressman Clarke wins no prize from StudentLoanJustice.org.

President Obama is arguing to keep the interest rate on a class of student loans from increasing.  Alan Collinge is hunting bigger game, a complete systemic reform.  A recent proposal for a forgiveness program just does not cut it in his view.  Here are his thoughts.


Freshman Congressman Hansen Clarke (D-MI) recently introduced HR 4170:  The Student Loan Forgiveness Act.  The legislation has received quite a lot of media attention, and strong support from well-networked groups on Facebook, and other platforms.   Unfortunately, the bill looks far less like a forgiveness plan, and far more like yet another repayment/earned benefit plan combined with a bailout for banks who made highly risky loans without sufficient underwriting.  Unfortunately, I have to give it an unequivocal “thumbs down” from the citizen’s perspective.  Here is my take:

The Bill:  HR 4170 aims to accomplish a number of goals for student borrowers, including the creation of a new, 10-year forgiveness program, a permanent 3.4% cap on the interest rate for federal loans, a reduction in the length of the Public Service Forgiveness program from 10 years to 5, and the creation of a mechanism by which the Government purchases private loans, and brings them into the federal program.

I have all of the same reservations with the 10-year repayment plan that I’ve written about elsewhere in the past. Like the other repayment programs, this is fraught with risk, uncertainty, and clear downsides that could and certainly will prove to be life-wreckers for many, all things being equal.

Of particular concern: The Department of Education would absolutely attempt to kick as many people out of this program as possible to avoid having to forgive the large amounts that they would be liable for (Google “disability discharge”, and “Department of Education” if you have any doubts about the Department’s track record on granting discharges for other reasons).  As such, the completion rate of this or similar programs (like the existing IBR and PSLF programs) will ultimately be very small.

How Small?For example…earned benefits that banks and credit card companies routinely offer to their borrowers (ie interest rate reductions for ontime payments, etc) have a success rate of about 15%. For federal student loans, this is not going to get it done for the people.  Not even close. In the presence of bankruptcy protections, I would have more faith in the current and proposed repayment programs, but not in their absence. Not by a longshot.

What should concern the public generally about this bill is that it does nothing to address the systemic problems with the lending system such as inflation, predatory foundations in the absence of consumer protections, systemic corruption, and others.

Also, because of a maximum forgiveness on principal of $45,000 for new loans(consolidation loans, for example), this would not be very helpful for people with defaulted loans with large balances, and large fees attached.

What really angers me as an “Occupier” who is sick and tired of seeing the banks come out of every cesspool they create smelling like roses:  a private loan purchasing program in the legislation that is essentially another bank-bailout by which the lenders can get full book value (plus penalties and fees) for their worst performing loans. This is disgusting to me as a citizen.

I also have reservations about this from the borrowers perspective: I have heard others voice hesitancy about “federalizing” their loans because of the absence of consumer protections, strong collection powers of the government, etc. I agree with those concerns- they are not trivial.

Also very concerning- and this is why trying to codify a repayment program like this is so difficult- is the means for “paying” for this legislation. This bill calls upon a little known DOD fund used for overseas contingency operations (OCO) to pay for the costs associated with this legislation. This fund has had as little as $0.2 billion and as much as $168 billion in it in various years that I could find. This raises a plethora of new questions, and problems that you can imagine. This is beyond shaky.

The problems with this legislation really only underscore the need to restore bankruptcy and perhaps other fundamental consumer protections to student loans. The Department of Education would be far more likely to come up with a good workable set of forgiveness programs with fundamental protections in place. Conversely, history (decades of history) clearly demonstrates that the Department will not do anything to help students in their absence.

So I’m unfortunately having to call this bill a dog that won’t hunt for the citizenry. If someone steps up to argue for actual student loan forgiveness, there certainly is a strong, surprisingly realistic argument to be made for that, but we haven’t heard it yet from the politicians, advocates, or anyone that I have read to this point. This is unfortunate.

Alan Collinge is the founder of StudentLoanJustice.org.

_________________________________________________


We need to hold the banks responsible for yet another misuse of the loan system in pursuit of profit.  Bankruptcy brings into play economic hardship and will allow students who are really hurting to discharge while those affluent students able to pay will do so.

We also need to look at the for-profit education businesses in who pays for these bankruptcies.  Banks will go after these businesses to help defray costs!



Bankruptcy, Not Forgiveness, for Student Loans


December 7, 2012 - 3:00am By Jenna Ashley Robinson

Inside Higher Ed


Student loan debt is soaring. Since 1999, average student loan debt has increased by more than 500 percent, and in 2010, it exceeded outstanding credit card debt for the first time in history. Total outstanding student loan debt, by some counts, exceeded $1 trillion this year.

While many approaches have been taken to the problem (trying to cut university costs, for example), there seem to be just two proposals for lessening the burden on the students themselves. These are to allow the loans to be discharged in bankruptcy or to forgive the loans altogether. Both have been the subject of Congressional bills.

Only one of these has the proper long-term incentive effects, and even it should be hedged with some restrictions: restoring limited bankruptcy protection. That is, students should be allowed to get out of their student loan burden as part of bankruptcy proceedings, just as they are able to get out of car loans now. However, this option should be restricted to private loans and should be allowed only after a set amount of time, such as 5 or 7 years, as it was prior to 2005.

While Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has proposed the idea of restoring bankruptcy protection for borrowers of private student loans several times, it has gone nowhere. Instead, there’s a growing chorus in favor of loan forgiveness. U.S. Representative Hansen Clarke (D-Mich.) introduced H.R. 4170, the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, earlier this year.

The law would allow students to pay just 10 percent of their discretionary income for 10 years, whatever their total loan amount; then, the remaining debt would be canceled. This is the “10-10 standard.”

In addition, under this bill, the current 3.4 percent cap on undergraduate student loan interest rates (enacted by Congress as a temporary measure) would be made permanent. Private borrowers whose educational loan debt exceeded their income would be allowed to convert their private loan debt into federal Direct Loans, and then enroll in the “10-10” program.

A critical part of the bill is to reward graduates for entering public service professions -- like teaching and firefighting -- with even greater forgiveness. Already, under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness, some graduates can have their loans forgiven if they work in public service for ten years. Few students use the current programs, however, because the rules dictating structure of repayment are relatively restrictive, as Inside Higher Ed recently reported.

The Clarke bill would lower the public service requirement to five years. Similarly, medical graduates would be rewarded for working in underserved communities by reducing the service requirement to 5 years from its current 10 years.

While this bill would benefit the small proportion of students who have extremely high debt levels, it would enormously distort incentives for students and universities -- causing larger problems in the long run.

The problem is that loan repayments will be the same whether students borrow cautiously to attend a state school or borrow extravagantly to attend an exclusive private university. Their payments will be capped at 10 percent of discretionary income for ten years. Because future students will know about the option of loan forgiveness, it will destroy any incentive for them to borrow prudently. They will have no reason to consider the varying costs of higher education.

Their unfettered willingness to borrow will have a ripple effect. Because the federal government will ante up (until it runs out of money), more and more money will flow to the schools through these loans, spurring them to continue to raise tuition and minimizing pressure on cutting costs. (Greater demand typically leads to higher prices.) Students would be simply middlemen -- passing government largesse on to colleges and universities that can’t stop their habit of seeking revenue wherever possible.

Limited bankruptcy protections would send a better message to both graduates and lenders. In 2005, Congress prohibited private student debt from being discharged through bankruptcy, except in rare cases. Government student loans have not been subject to bankruptcy protection since 1976, when Congress exempted them following reports that new doctors and lawyers were filing for bankruptcy to avoid paying student loans.

Indeed, if bankruptcy were available, many young graduates -- who often have no major assets such as a house or a car -- would be tempted to walk away from loan obligations. The federal government lends money to any student who meets minimum standards; it does not evaluate whether the student is likely to pay the money back.

Thus, restrictions are needed to make bankruptcy “work.” First, there should be a waiting period before students become eligible for bankruptcy protection -- perhaps five years after beginning to make payments on student loans.

Second, only loans from private lenders would be dischargeable through bankruptcy. The famous cases of student debt in the $100,000-plus realm tend to include large amounts of private loans. Lenders were able to rely on federal laws preventing bankruptcy -- so the sky was the limit. Federal loans, on the other hand, are capped at $31,000 for dependent undergraduates and $57,500 for independent undergraduates.

By making private loans dischargeable in bankruptcy, there would also be a ripple effect -- a good one. Lenders would become much more cautious. They would actually consider the likelihood that the student would be able to pay back the loan. Instead of relying on government policy to guarantee their profits, banks would have to return to time-tested, responsible banking practices. In the end, fewer students would take private loans and total debt would decrease.

Current student loan policy has led young people down the wrong path -- away from frugality and prudence to profligacy. It’s time to start sending better signals.

Inside Higher Ed

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WHEREAS THE CURRENT LEGISLATION WILL CAP THE LOAN FORGIVENESS AT $45,000.......FOR CURRENT LOAN FORGIVENESS THERE IS NO CAP!!!!

October 16, 2012

Obama's Loan-Repayment Plan Will Be 'Windfall' for Wealthy, Report Says

By Michael Stratford

Washington

The Obama administration's changes in the income-based repayment program for federal student loans will offer only marginal benefits to low-income borrowers but will be a boon for high-income borrowers who have big debts, according to an analysis released on Tuesday by the New America Foundation.

The program allows borrowers of federal loans to cap their monthly payments at a percentage of their annual discretionary income and have the loans forgiven after making payments for a certain period of time. Under the current rules, borrowers must pay at least 15 percent of their discretionary income and the government will pay off their remaining federal loans after 25 years of payments.

In 2010, Congress, at the urging of President Obama, changed the program so that borrowers would pay less each month (10 percent of discretionary income) and obtain loan forgiveness sooner (after 20 years of payments). Those changes were originally slated to take effect in 2014, but the Obama administration is using its executive authority to accelerate that timetable, and the new terms could be available to borrowers as soon as this year.

Mr. Obama's re-election campaign has touted the program in advertisements and speeches, framing it as an important component of the president's policies to ease the burden of student debt on young graduates and to make college more affordable to middle-class families. Last month the campaign started a Web site where voters can enter their income and federal student-loan debt into a calculator to see how much lower their monthly payments would be under the new income-based repayment plan.

But looking only at those lowered monthly payments provides little insight into how the changes in the income-based program will affect borrowers over the entire course of repayment, according to Jason Delisle and Alex Holt, the authors of the New America Foundation report. Mr. Delisle and Mr. Holt calculated the impact of the changes over the entire course of repayment, running hundreds of scenarios for different borrower profiles.

They found that while the changes in the income-based program will affect all borrowers, those with higher incomes and larger debts stand to benefit the most.

"If left unchanged," the report says, "the program is set to provide huge financial windfalls to people who, far from being needy, are among the most financially well-off graduates in today's job market."

Helping People 'Most Able to Pay' Low-income borrowers—those earning less than $25,000 a year—will see their monthly payments shrink by $5 to $20, the report says. However, high-income borrowers with high debt loads from, say, graduate or professional school will see hundreds of thousands of dollars of their loan debt forgiven after making payments for 20 years.

For instance, according to the analysis, a law-school graduate who has nearly $122,000 in outstanding federal loans and a $65,000 starting salary that grows to about $200,000 in 20 years will end up having about $23,000 of his or her debt forgiven under the current program. Under the new program, though, the borrower will end up having to pay roughly half as much, and the government will forgive more than $160,000 of the outstanding debt.

"We don't think this program is going to do what it was intended to do," Mr. Holt said. "This is a back-loaded benefit, and it's helping people who are most able to pay. The question we need to ask is whether this is how we want the government appropriating money."

For example, Mr. Holt said, the maximum amount of Pell Grant money that the neediest undergraduate can receive is $23,000 over four years. But students who take out large loans for graduate school (which, unlike federal undergraduate loans, are limited only by the cost of attendance) and then get high-paying jobs would see hundreds of thousands of dollars of their loan debt forgiven.

With those changes, graduate and professional schools will have little incentive to keep costs low because their students will be able to take on large loan debts without ultimately incurring the cost.

The New American Foundation study found that under the new income-based repayment rules, high-income borrowers will not incur any incremental cost in borrowing an additional dollar after they reach $60,000 in loans even if they have a six-figure income over most of their repayment term.

"You've essentially created," Mr. Delisle said, "what is basically a risk-free proposition" for students wanting to take out huge loans to attend expensive graduate programs.

The report urges policy makers to adopt several recommendations, such as limiting the scope of some of the new, more generous income-based repayment provisions and tightening the eligibility for loan forgiveness for high-income borrowers.




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If you look you'll see that it was 2005 when Bush changed the bankruptcy law for student loans...now remember, corporate bankruptcy allows all kinds of bankruptcy benefit to businesses including shedding wages and benefits of workers!

Advocates Push Student Loan Forgiveness in Bankruptcy


September 11, 2012, By Howard Law, PC.

Prior to 2005, it was possible to discharge private student loan debts in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Unfortunately, as Los Angeles Bankruptcy Attorney Vincent Howard of HOWARD LAW has previously reported, it isn't possible anymore, except in rare circumstances.

However, advocates are now pushing harder than ever for the legislature to change this.

A spokesman for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, was quoted as saying that students with mounds of debt are essentially put in "a special circle of bankruptcy hell," typically reserved for deadbeat dads and people who don't pay their taxes. What he means by this is that those are a few of the other select debts that can't be discharged in a bankruptcy: child support payments and overdue taxes.

It's also true that even if private student loans were dischargeable under a Chapter 7, it's not as if you would have hoards of people seeking it out. That's because bankruptcy is not something people take lightly. It's a fresh start, yes, but it's not one that anyone enters blindly. It can temporarily impact your credit and your ability to obtain loans.

That said, the 2005 law was passed prior to the burst of the housing bubble and subsequent economic crisis. So what we have now are people who are burdened with student loan debt, are underwater on mortgage payments and can't find a job. If they are also battling an illness, they may literally be drowning in debt.

During the 2007-2008 school year, about half of all four-year students at for-profit schools held private loans for tuition. At the beginning of this year, national student loan debt reached over $1 trillion. That's more than credit cards. That's more than car loans. In fact, that's more than any other type of consumer debt.

No one ever enters school thinking they are going to be the one unable to find a job when they graduate. But it's happening more frequently than ever now - even to good students who work hard and do all the right things.

The 2005 change in the law was part of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. Legislators who passed the law have said that even if they did again allow private student loan debt to be discharged, it wouldn't tackle the issue of rising tuition and it would only account for about 15 percent of the overall student loan debt (the majority of which is federal). This is true, but here's the thing when comparing federal student loans to private loans:

  • Federal loans have income-based repayment options;
  • Federal student loans have far lower interest rates than private loans;
  • Federal and state loans allow a portion of loan forgiveness if the individual enters certain public service fields;
  • Federal loans allow forbearance and deferment periods not typically available for private loans.
Even the Obama administration has called for reform, and a number of proposals are on the table with regard to this issue. In the meantime, don't count bankruptcy out as an option to help you with debt. Freeing you from other debt burdens can give you the ability not only to stay afloat, but to excel.

Los Angeles Bankruptcy Attorney Vincent Howard at HOWARD LAW can help. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-872-5925 or send us a message online.




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Here is another solution that involves the Federal Reserve doing for students what it is doing for banks and their toxic mortgage loans......we would want banks to pay for their part in creating these bad/fraudulent loans as we want them to pay for creating the fraudulent mortgage loans.
 

Occupy Wall Street   TruthOut.org / By Ellen Brown 41 COMMENTS Toxic Student Debt Might Blow Up Our Economy --

Why the Fed Must Bail Out the Millions of Young People Crushed by Student Loans To prevent another disaster like the one caused by the toxic debts on the books of Wall Street banks, we need to defuse the student debt bomb before it blows. But how? October 21, 2011  |     Among the many ideas posed by different groups of protesters on Wall Street and around the nation is student debt forgiveness—a debt “jubilee.  Occupy Philly has a "Student Loan Jubilee Working Group," and other groups are studying the issue. Commentators say debt forgiveness is impossible. Who would foot the bill? But there is one deep pocket that could pull it off - the Federal Reserve. In its first quantitative easing program (QE1), the Fed removed $1.3 trillion in toxic assets from the books of Wall Street banks. For QE4, it could remove $1 trillion in toxic debt from the backs of millions of students.

The economy would only be the better for it, as was shown by the GI Bill, which provided virtually free higher education for returning veterans, along with low-interest loans for housing and business. The GI Bill had a sevenfold return. It was one of the best investments Congress ever made.

There are arguments against a complete student debt write-off, including that it would reward private universities that are already charging too much and it would unfairly exclude other forms of debt from relief. But the point here is that it could be done and it (or some similar form of consumer "jubilee") would represent a significant stimulus to the economy.

Toxic Student Debt: The Next "Black Swan"?

The Occupy Wall Street movement is heavily populated with students. Many without jobs, they are groaning under the impossible load of student debts that have been excluded from the usual  consumer protections. A whole generation of young people has been seduced into debt peonage by the promise of better jobs if they invest in higher education, only to find that the jobs are not there when they graduate. If they default on their loans, lenders can now jack up interest rates and fees, garnish wages and destroy credit ratings; and the debts can no longer be discharged in bankruptcy.  

Total US student debt has risen to $1 trillion - more than US credit card debt. Defaults are rising as well. According to Department of Education  data, 8.8 percent of recipients of federal student loans defaulted in fiscal year 2010, up from 7 percent the previous year. With an anemic recovery from a severe recession and a difficult job market, the situation is expected to get worse. The threat of massive student loan defaults requiring another taxpayer bailout has been called a systemic risk as serious as the  bank failures that brought the US economy to the brink of collapse in 2008. To prevent another disaster like the one caused by the toxic debts on the books of Wall Street banks, we need to defuse the student debt bomb before it blows. But how?  

The Federal Reserve could do it in the same way it defused the credit crisis of 2008: by aiming its fire hose of very low interest credit in the direction of the struggling student population. Since September 2008, the Fed has made trillions of dollars available to financial institutions at a fraction of 1 percent interest; and in audits since then, we've seen that the Fed is capable of coming up with any amount of money required or desired. To the Fed, it is all just accounting entries, available with the stroke of a computer key.

The Fed is not allowed to lend to individuals directly, but it can buy Treasury securities; and with the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) of March 2010, the Treasury is now formally in the business of  student lending. It can also buy asset-backed securities, including securitized student debt; and there is talk of another round of quantitative easing aimed at just that sort of asset.


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April 05th, 2013

4/5/2013

0 Comments

 
The attack on public schools from K-college is ever more apparent as parents, students, and communities shout they do not want these reforms!!!!  These Third Way corporate politicians will not stop.....this has been a goal since Clinton....but you can educate people in your community as to what is happening and you can RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE!!!

DO NOT ALLOW A THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATIC PARTY RUN A CANDIDATE FOR YOU.....


We have watched as public universities have been made into 'innovation centers' and now we are watching as legislation ending student loans and tracking the middle/lower class into cheapened online classes is moving forward......SEE WHERE THE PHRASE MOVING FORWARD TAKES US!!!!

Universities are the hotbed of any democracy and that is why the 1% have hit them first.  The underserved are the weakest politically and their politicians are co-opted and working against them.  Here in Baltimore we have nothing but bad policy for the working class and poor in a City Hall full of representatives with districts largely working class and poor!!!  THESE POLS ARE THROWING THEIR CONSTITUENTS UNDER THE BUS AS REGARDS EDUCATION AMONG ALL THINGS.

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!

Baltimore is a captured political environment but we are growing community networks that are separate from those put into place by O'Malley, Rawlings-Blake, and Johns Hopkins.  MOVE AWAY FROM THE FARM TEAM AND BECOME THE CHANGE YOU WANT.....

RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE!!!

SEE WHY BALTIMORE'S BOND DEAL WILL COME BACK TO HURT THE PEOPLE WITH WALL STREET GAINS!

School districts pay dearly for bonds

Trey Bundy and Shane Shifflett, California Watch Updated 11:49 pm, Thursday, January 31, 2013


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/School-districts-pay-dearly-for-bonds-4237868.php#ixzz2PV4vawVm


The Napa Valley Unified School District had a quandary: The district needed a new high school in American Canyon, but taxpayers appeared unwilling to take the financial hit required to build it.

So in 2009, the district took out an unusual loan: $22 million with no payments due for 21 years. By 2049, when the debt is paid, it will have cost taxpayers $154 million - seven times the amount borrowed.

School board member Jose Hurtado said he stands by the deal. But if it were a mortgage, he acknowledged, "we would run."

Napa is one of at least 1,350 school districts and government agencies across the nation that have turned to a controversial form of borrowing called capital appreciation bonds to finance major projects, a California Watch analysis shows. Relying on these bonds has allowed districts to borrow billions of dollars while postponing payments, in some cases for decades.

This form of borrowing has created billions of dollars in debt for taxpayers and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for financial advisers and underwriters. Voters are usually unaware of the bonds' high interest. At least one state, Michigan, has banned their use.

In California, where rules governing the loans are among the loosest, more than 400 school districts and other agencies have racked up greater capital appreciation bond debt in the past six years than agencies in any other state.

They have borrowed $9 billion that will cost taxpayers $36 billion to repay over the next 40 years, according to data compiled by California Treasurer Bill Lockyer. He called it "debt for the next generation."

"The average tenure of a school superintendent is about 3 1/2 years, so they aren't going to be around, in most instances, to worry about paying that off," Lockyer said. "Nor will the voters, probably, that enacted it in the first place."

Good for advisers The capital appreciation bond business in California has been lucrative for dozens of private financial advisers, banks and credit rating firms that have charged government entities nearly $400 million for financial services since 2007, state data show.

The bonds are unusual in public finance because they postpone debt far into the future. Typical school bonds require borrowers to begin making payments within six months and cost two to three times the principal amount to repay. But with deferred payments, districts have ended up paying as much as 23 times the amount borrowed.

The decision to issue these bonds instead of traditional bonds typically is made by district officials after voters have approved bond measures, and the public usually has no knowledge of how much they will cost to repay.

Earlier this month, Lockyer and Tom Torlakson, the state superintendent of public instruction, called for a statewide moratorium on capital appreciation bonds.

Widespread use Since 2007, school districts and government agencies in at least 27 states and Puerto Rico have financed projects with capital appreciation bonds.

In Texas, 590 districts and other government entities have issued these bonds over the past six years - more than any other state, according to a database maintained by the federal Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board. California was second, with 404, followed by Ohio, with 202.

Bay Area districts that have issued these bonds include:

-- The Hayward Unified School District, which issued $21 million in bonds that will cost $131 million to repay - 6.2 times the principal.

-- The Bellevue Union Elementary School District in Santa Rosa, which issued a bond worth more than $378,000 that will cost $4 million - 10.75 times the amount borrowed.

-- The West Contra Costa Unified School District, which sold $2.5 million in bonds that will cost $34 million - 13.5 times the principal.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/School-districts-pay-dearly-for-bonds-4237868.php#ixzz2PV4qCNi4



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THE ELITE UNIVERSITIES HAVE DECLARED AMERICAN POLITICS DEAD AND SO THEY DO NOT SEE THE REASON TO HAVE POLITICAL SCIENCE TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS.

IT IS UNIVERSITY POLITICS THAT FUEL DEMOCRACY AND JUSTICE.....THIS ATTACK ON UNIVERSITIES AND CORPORATE CONTROL IS AN ATTACK ON POLITICAL FREEDOM!!!



AAUP Condemns Plan to Ban Political Science Funding   Inside Higher Ed

April 5, 2013 - 4:29am The American Association of University Professors has issued a statement condemning the recent Senate vote to bar the National Science Foundation from supporting most work in political science. The statement said that "efforts by politicians to restrict research support for certain disciplines" are "misguided" and that they threaten "the integrity of the rigorous scientific review process used by federal agencies to fund research that advances knowledge."


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Who thinks the goal isn't eliminating all educators from the picture except licensed lecturers chosen by the Kleptocracy? Think Chinese autocratic messaging. Universities are the foundation of freedom and activism since classical times so it is very important for Third Way corporate democrats and the 1% to completely capture the university experience.

Essay-Grading Software Offers Professors a Break Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times EdX, a nonprofit enterprise founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will release automated software that uses artificial intelligence to grade student essays and short written answers.

By JOHN MARKOFF Published: April 4, 2013 New York Times

Imagine taking a college exam, and, instead of handing in a blue book and getting a grade from a professor a few weeks later, clicking the “send” button when you are done and receiving a grade back instantly, your essay scored by a software program.

And then, instead of being done with that exam, imagine that the system would immediately let you rewrite the test to try to improve your grade.

EdX, the nonprofit enterprise founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to offer courses on the Internet, has just introduced such a system and will make its automated software available free on the Web to any institution that wants to use it. The software uses artificial intelligence to grade student essays and short written answers, freeing professors for other tasks.

The new service will bring the educational consortium into a growing conflict over the role of automation in education. Although automated grading systems for multiple-choice and true-false tests are now widespread, the use of artificial intelligence technology to grade essay answers has not yet received widespread endorsement by educators and has many critics.

Anant Agarwal, an electrical engineer who is president of EdX, predicted that the instant-grading software would be a useful pedagogical tool, enabling students to take tests and write essays over and over and improve the quality of their answers. He said the technology would offer distinct advantages over the traditional classroom system, where students often wait days or weeks for grades.

“There is a huge value in learning with instant feedback,” Dr. Agarwal said. “Students are telling us they learn much better with instant feedback.”

But skeptics say the automated system is no match for live teachers. One longtime critic, Les Perelman, has drawn national attention several times for putting together nonsense essays that have fooled software grading programs into giving high marks. He has also been highly critical of studies that purport to show that the software compares well to human graders.

“My first and greatest objection to the research is that they did not have any valid statistical test comparing the software directly to human graders,” said Mr. Perelman, a retired director of writing and a current researcher at M.I.T.

He is among a group of educators who last month began circulating a petition opposing automated assessment software. The group, which calls itself Professionals Against Machine Scoring of Student Essays in High-Stakes Assessment, has collected nearly 2,000 signatures, including some from luminaries like Noam Chomsky.

“Let’s face the realities of automatic essay scoring,” the group’s statement reads in part. “Computers cannot ‘read.’ They cannot measure the essentials of effective written communication: accuracy, reasoning, adequacy of evidence, good sense, ethical stance, convincing argument, meaningful organization, clarity, and veracity, among others.”

But EdX expects its software to be adopted widely by schools and universities. EdX offers free online classes from Harvard, M.I.T. and the University of California, Berkeley; this fall, it will add classes from Wellesley, Georgetown and the University of Texas. In all, 12 universities participate in EdX, which offers certificates for course completion and has said that it plans to continue to expand next year, including adding international schools.

The EdX assessment tool requires human teachers, or graders, to first grade 100 essays or essay questions. The system then uses a variety of machine-learning techniques to train itself to be able to grade any number of essays or answers automatically and almost instantaneously.

The software will assign a grade depending on the scoring system created by the teacher, whether it is a letter grade or numerical rank. It will also provide general feedback, like telling a student whether an answer was on topic or not.

Dr. Agarwal said he believed that the software was nearing the capability of human grading.

“This is machine learning and there is a long way to go, but it’s good enough and the upside is huge,” he said. “We found that the quality of the grading is similar to the variation you find from instructor to instructor.”

EdX is not the first to use automated assessment technology, which dates to early mainframe computers in the 1960s. There is now a range of companies offering commercial programs to grade written test answers, and four states — Louisiana, North Dakota, Utah and West Virginia — are using some form of the technology in secondary schools. A fifth, Indiana, has experimented with it. In some cases the software is used as a “second reader,” to check the reliability of the human graders
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A SHOUT OUT FOR THIS BANKRUPTCY APPROACH TO STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS!!!!

Third Way corporate democrats are pushing the Student Loan Forgiveness Act which benefits the wealthy and banks......progressives are pushing the student loan bankruptcy which works best for the middle/lower class!!!!!


http://www.votetocracy.com/house_bills/hr532-...Bill to Restore Bankruptcy Protections to Private Student Loans Advances in House

Federal legislation that would restore bankruptcy protections to private student loans cleared a first hurdle today, passing 6 to 3 in a vote by a panel of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. The bill, which has been offered in several previous congressional sessions, still faces long odds, however. Many Republicans oppose the measure, warning that it would drive up interest rates and further shrink the market for private loans, and the congressional legislative session is winding down. Only four weeks remain before the House’s target date to adjourn.                          
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 The Student Loan Fairness Act of 2013
                                                                                                           
    “Creates a 10-10 standard for student loan repayment, in which an individual would be required to make 10 years of payments at 10% of their discretionary income, after which, their remaining debt would be forgiven

    Permanently caps the interest rate for all federal student loans at 3.4%, ultimately eliminating the need to enact temporary measures every year to prevent rates from doubling

    Allow those eligible to convert their private loan debt into federal direct loans

    Suspends interest rates while borrowers are un-employed

    Rewards graduates for entering into public service”
                                                                                                          Discretionary income, in this case, appears to be defined as any annual income exceeding 150 percent of the poverty line for an individual or family.  "While current borrowers would be eligible for full forgiveness under the plan, future borrowers would be subject to a $45,520 cap on forgiveness (based on the average overall cost of a four-year degree at a public university). The aim is to incentivize students to be mindful of educational costs and for colleges and universities to control tuition increases."     

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WHY THE STUDENT LOAN FAIRNESS ACT IS JUST A BANK BAILOUT THAT WILL HURT FUTURE MIDDLE/LOWER CLASS STUDENTS:

First, it will move all private loan debt to the Federal government (taxpayers) even the fraud-ridden for-profit schools:  ...see why the right to discharge student debt in bankruptcy was changed!!!!                                                                                                                      
 Loonin said that about 70 percent of the people she works with at the NCLC, most of who are already in default, attended for-profit colleges.

"There's rampant fraud in that sector, and deception," she said. "A lot of people are being deceived into signing up, deceived as to resources, equipment, faculties, and deceived about the prospects at the back end. The for-profit issue is really a consumer fraud issue."    

Second, this bill is designed to implement policy that affects future students in that it directs universities to lower costs....which sounds good, but the intent is to use this directive to move public universities and community colleges to online classes and degrees.  So, to get a Federal student loan you will have to attend a lower quality college/online degree program.  The purpose is to remove access to quality education for most students!    

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Raise your hand if you knew education funding would not happen in a recession!!! So, when education reformers spend billions of dollars on restructuring all kinds of administrative policy and remove all kinds of staff all for education quality and then cut resources, teacher's pay, and hand off funding to corporate donors......aren't you a little skeptical about their real goals? RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTIONS!!


US states cut higher education spending by nearly a third

By World Socialist WebSite (about the author)         (Page 1 of 1 pages)
General News 4/1/2013 at 01:25:33 Become a Fan

opednews.com




Since the recession began, state governments have cut funding to public higher education by 28 percent. This is the finding of a recent study published by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). What emerges is a devastating picture of the situation facing youth seeking an education, as over three quarters of undergraduate students in the US attend public colleges and universities. 
Titled "Recent Deep State Higher Education Cuts May Harm Students and the Economy for Years to Come," the CBPP report describes the deep cuts in state spending and student aid and the resulting increases in tuition, cuts in jobs and infrastructure, and curtailment of services at the affected colleges and universities.

Nationwide, states are spending $2,353 or 28 percent less per student on higher education in fiscal year 2013 when compared to 2008, just before the recession triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Individually, 48 states are spending less per student than in 2008, with most making severe cuts.

The amount of spending cut varies from state to state; in some areas it has been particularly drastic. Arizona and New Hampshire have cut spending per student by more than half, and nine other states have cut it more than one third; 36 states have cut funding by more than 20 percent. States and localities provide 53 percent of the funding for instruction at public colleges and universities in America.

In response to the cutbacks, schools have themselves cut spending, as well as raised tuition, resulting in education that is both more expensive and worse in quality. Individually, every single state has increased tuition at four-year public institutions faster than the rate of inflation since 2008.

Nationwide, tuition has risen by 27 percent or $1,850 per student, adjusted for inflation, since the 2007-2008 school year. In some states the tuition rise has been especially steep, with California and Arizona leading the pack with increases exceeding 70 percent.

Increases in federal assistance, such as an increase in the availability of Pell Grants and an expansion of some higher education tax credits, have fallen short of covering the decreases from the state end, adding up to about three quarters of the shortfall nationwide. And because these increases were applied basically equally among all states, the states with the worst state funding decreases, like Arizona and New Hampshire, are falling particularly short. The funding shortfall was further exacerbated due to the recent expiration of federal emergency funds at the end of the 2011 fiscal year.

<a href="http://ox-d.lanistaconcepts.com/w/1.0/rc?cs=51030f68dd793&cb=INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE" ><img src="http://ox-d.lanistaconcepts.com/w/1.0/ai?auid=332813&cs=51030f68dd793&cb=INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE" border="0" alt=""></a> In addition to increasing tuition, schools have responded by cutting spending through the elimination of faculty positions, discontinuation of many course offerings, the closing of facilities like computer labs, reduction of library services, and even the closing of entire campuses. In Arizona alone, more than 2,100 university positions were eliminated; eight "extension-campuses," which facilitate distance learning, were closed; and 182 schools, programs and departments were consolidated or eliminated.

The majority of state money used to fund higher education comes from tax revenue, which, adjusted for inflation, is down nationwide by 6 percent compared to 2008. At the same time, an increasing number of young people are attending public universities, partly as a result of the "baby boom echo," which resulted in a surge in people presently aged 18-24 years. Compared to the beginning of the recession, 1.3 million or 12.4 percent more full-time students were enrolled in public higher education in the 2011-2012 school year.

These cuts are all the more damaging to students and their families as they come at a time when the working class is still reeling from the officially ended recession. Additionally, $85 billion in sequester cuts signed into law by President Obama last week will affect programs providing housing assistance, early childhood education, nutrition assistance and unemployment insurance, among many others.

Compared to 2008, median household income is still down 8 percent. Unemployment remains high, officially at 7.7 percent, which is still a falsely rosy measurement as it does not include the underemployed and those who have stopped looking for work. Real estate values are still depressed as well.

All of this puts families of those seeking higher education in dire financial straits, and dissuades young people from attending college at all. The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce projects that by 2018, 62 percent of jobs in America will require some form of college education, which is up from 59 percent in 2007 and 28 percent in 1973. It also projects that by that time, the country's higher education system will produce 3 million fewer graduates than the labor market will demand.

The cuts to higher education are of a piece with broad attacks on public education by state governments, and especially the Obama administration's "Race to the Top" program. Under this policy, schools in poor districts are held to the same testing standards as those in affluent areas.

Under this policy, if students fall short of mandated standardized test scores, teachers may be fired and replaced with inexperienced and lower-paid new-hires. So-called "failing schools" may then be closed or turned over to charter companies, which run the schools for a profit, funneling public funds into the pockets of private shareholders. Some public school districts, including in Michigan's capitol, Lansing, are eliminating art, music and physical education classes, which do not factor into the standardized tests. 

The author also recommends: Wall Street turns profit on student loan debt [11 March 2013]




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Here we have yet another billionaire buying the Bill Gates education reform that no one wants and again they are targeting the urban schools because the poor have no political power to protect them. Once these school privatizers take these urban schools to charters and Teach for America they will use these school systems to spring board to all public schools. IF MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICA THINK THIS WILL ONLY TAKE POOR SCHOOLS .....THINK AGAIN.

REMEMBER, THIRD WAY ONLY PROTECTS THE 10%.


Mark Zuckerberg's money lays path for change in Newark schools

KIMIHIRO HOSHINO/AFP/Getty Images Most of Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million donation has been spent on brokering a new teachers contract that creates performance-based pay and opening new schools.

Joanne Rutherford’s first graders at Peshine Avenue Elementary School in Newark, N.J., start class by drawing constellations. The classroom is equipped with a smartboard and a fancy projector, but those weren't bought with the $100 million donated to the city's public schools in 2010 by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. In fact, you won't find any of Zuckerberg's largess in Mrs. Rutherford's classroom. At least, not obviously.

“In some ways it’s less tangible," explains Newark Public Schools Superintendent Cari Anderson, "but in many ways, it’s a lot more systemic and a lot longer lasting.” Anderson says Zuckerberg’s money isn’t buying things, it’s changing how things are done.

“Most significant from our standpoint," she says, "has been the support that he and other philanthropists gave to achieve a breakthrough labor contract with the Newark Teacher’s Union.”

Yes, a labor contract. Some $50 million helped broker an agreement with the union to accept a new teacher evaluation system and pay based on performance.

Kim McLain, who heads the Foundation for Newark’s Future -- the group in charge of doling out Zuckerberg’s money -- says this wasn't dictated by Zuckerberg, but it fits with the vision behind the donation.  

“One of the things that we firmly believe in is that in order to have a really good educational system, it starts with the teacher in the classroom,” she says.

Zuckerberg’s gift has also been used to help open several new schools, including charter schools, and to create a centralized system for tracking student progress.  

This doesn’t mean that everyone in Newark is toasting the founder of Facebook.

“It’s an agenda about which I have serious doubts,” says Paul Tractenberg, founder of the Institute on Education Law and Policy at Rutgers. He disagrees with the new approach, arguing that it will “weaken collective bargaining, weaken job security of teachers, [and] hold teachers accountable based largely on standardized test scores of their students.”

Superintendent Anderson says Newark’s underperforming schools need bold ideas and a break from the past.

“Private philanthropy can be a critical catalyst to remove systemic barriers that the system can’t remove," she says, because "the system is the problem sometimes.”

What will the changes mean for the first graders in Mrs. Rutherford’s class? It will be some time before these reforms can be judged on student preparedness and graduation. Like most investments, the returns aren’t instant.

Click here to see how the Foundation for Newark's Future has divied up Zuckerberg's $100 million donation so far.


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This should make everyone sick as these teachers.....no doubt wrong for what they did....are being treated like criminals while corporate criminals terrorizing our economy are pushing this education agenda!!!!!

WHO IS CRIMINAL? WHEN A SOCIETY DISTORTS THIS.....IT IS AUTOCRATIC!!!


Web Only// Features » April 3, 2013

The Need to Cheat Atlanta Public Schools might be guilty of cheating, but the real scandal is standardized testing.

BY Bill Ayers Teaching toward a simple standardized measure and relentlessly applying state-administered (but privately developed and quite profitable) tests to determine the “outcomes” both incentivizes cheating and is a worthless proxy for learning.

The road to the massive cheating scandal in Atlanta runs right through the White House.

The former superintendent, Dr. Beverly L. Hall, and her 34 obedient subordinates now face criminal charges, but the central role played by a group of un-indicted and largely unacknowledged co-conspirators, her powerful enablers, is barely noted.

Beyond her “strong relationship with the business elite” who reportedly made her “untouchable” in Atlanta, she was a national super-star for more than a decade because her work embodied the shared educational policies of the Bush and Obama administrations. In the testing frenzy that characterized both No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top Dr. Hall was a winner, consistently praised over many years by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for raising test scores, hosted at the White House in 2009 as superintendent of the year, and appointed in 2010 by President Obama to the National Board for Education Sciences. When the Atlanta scandal broke in 2011 Secretary Duncan rushed to assure the public that it was “very isolated” and “an easy one to fix.”

That’s not true. According to a recently released study by the independent monitoring group FairTest, cheating is “widespread” and fully documented in 37 states and Washington D.C.

The deeper problem is reducing education to a single narrow metric that claims to recognize an educated person through a test score. Teaching toward a simple standardized measure and relentlessly applying state-administered (but privately developed and quite profitable) tests to determine the “outcomes” both incentivizes cheating and is a worthless proxy for learning.

I recently interviewed leaders at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools—the school Arne Duncan attended for 12 years and the school where the Obamas, the Duncans, and the Emanuels sent their children—and asked what role test scores played in teacher evaluations there. The answer was none. I pressed the point and was told that in their view test scores have no value in helping to understand or identify good teaching. None.

ABOUT THIS AUTHOR Bill Ayers is a Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of Fugitive Days (Beacon) and co-author, with Bernardine Dohrn, of Race Course: Against White Supremacy (Third World Press).

More information about Bill Ayers






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March 30th, 2013

3/30/2013

0 Comments

 
PROGRESSIVES NEED TO LOOK AT HOW THIRD WAY IS PRETENDING TO  BE PROGRESSIVE ON ISSUES FROM HEALTH CARE TO ENVIRONMENT BUT IN EACH CASE THEY SELL OUT THESE ISSUES TO CORPORATE PROFIT.  MAINSTREAM MEDIA PLAYS ALONG AS IT CREATES HEADLINES THAT ARE THEN USED IN THE NEXT ELECTIONS!!!! 

STOP VOTING FOR THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS AND RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE!!!!

I was speaking to a Maryland Education Coalition member who was frustrated at the annual degradation of the Thornton Bill for education funding and with United Workers speaking of the total disregard of Baltimore's Living Wage bill passed a few decades earlier. I gave them this analogy showing them a pattern of deliberately behavior in public policy....the Seinfeld show had an episode in which Jerry and Elaine were at a car rental agency to claim a car they had reserved...a middle-sized car. The agency employee looked in the computer and stated 'Sorry Mr. Seinfeld we don't have a middle-sized car would you like a compact'? Seinfeld understandably said 'But I had a reservation, how can there be no car'? The rental agency employee told Seinfeld they know their business and Seinfeld famously said....'you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to keep the reservation'. The MEC person and the United Worker person knew immediately to what I refer.

Baltimore and Maryland are the greatest of states in passing 'progressive' legislation and then ignoring it. Whether turning their heads to outright criminal activity regarding legal infringements or by writing laws that circumvent existing law. It is all smoke and mirrors. Raskin famously said 'we will fight for our working-class and underserved citizens'. OMG

Baltimore is ground zero for the largest attack on housing law and equal protection under law in the nation. I had a real estate agent tell me the housing market in Baltimore is a ponzi scheme as the city works with wealthy developers to scoop up large sectors of housing no matter the legality. Whether city owned or whether handed to churches for later development by the chosen connected people, Baltimore's real estate is one long line of law-breaking with no justice all at the expense of the working-class and poor for which Maggie McIntosh and Raskin are pretending to work. Just enforcing laws on the books already would bring copious amounts of housing and financial penalty for fraud to rebuild all the housing for working-class and poor we need in this city.....LEARN HOW TO KEEP THE RESERVATION, NOT ONLY TAKE THE RESERVATION!


The laws regarding free trade are being released as votes necessary to make them permanent are being taken.  We just heard that Monsanto won as GM foods are given a platform in trade law.  All Third Way corporate pols including Obama campaigned on GM labeling ...... now they don't.


This appointment by Obama and Third Way signaled the stance they would take in trade agreements overseas. Did you hear Barbara Mikulski and all Maryland Third Way pols who voted for GMO say they didn't see the hidden rules as regards GMO?

THAT IS TYPICAL MARYLAND THIRD WAY ....


Pro-GMO chemical polluter becomes Obama's ag trade negotiator April 2nd, 2010

(PeoplesVoice) –

Despite declining bee and butterfly populations from agricultural chemicals, on Saturday the US Senate approved President Barack Obama’s nomination for chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Monsanto lobbyist Islam Siddiqui.

“Dr. Siddiqui’s confirmation is a step backward,” said Tierra Curry, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity (the “Center”). “His appointment ensures the perpetuation of pesticide- and fossil-fuel-intensive policies, which undermine global food security and imperil public health and wildlife.”

As undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Siddiqui oversaw the development of the first national organic labeling standards, which allowed sewage sludge-fertilized, genetically modified, and irradiated food to be labeled as organic, reports the Center. After a nationwide campaign spearheaded by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) in which the USDA was deluged with 280,000 irate letters and emails, Siddiqui, Monsanto, and the USDA backed off.



Apparently to no avail.

Siddiqui is a former pesticide lobbyist and is currently vice president of science and regulatory affairs at CropLife America, a biotech and pesticide trade group that lobbies to weaken environmental laws. He takes the absurd position that pesticides are not pollutants because they’re not intended to be pollutants.

He also posits that regulations of pesticide use in the name of human health and other concerns violates international trade laws. Spoken like a true corporatist: profits supercede health.

CropLife has lobbied to allow pesticides to be tested on children and to allow the continued use of persistent organic pollutants and ozone-depleting chemicals, like methyl bromide, Dr. Marcia Ishii-Eiteman reports. CropLife also petitioned Michelle Obama to use pesticides in the organic White House garden and fought county initiatives in California banning genetically modified foods.

Siddiqui vowed to further pressure the European Union to accept more genetically modified crops (GMOs). As an Indian-American, Siddiqui’s appointment will likely assist Monsanto’s spread in India, where the press already welcomes him. In February, we saw a dramatic power play between the biotech industry, along with its supporting governmental agencies, and a well-organized public resistance to the spread of GMOs.

Choosing Siddiqui, according to OCA, “signals to the rest of the world that the United States plans to continue down the failed path of high-input and energy-intensive industrial agriculture by promoting toxic pesticides, inappropriate seed biotechnologies and unfair trade agreements on nations that do not want and can least afford them.”

Third World Ag Experiment in Detroit

In a related current event, biotech ag developers and investors are buying up parcels of land throughout the economically depressed city of Detroit, Michigan, which was once the fourth most-populated city in the U.S. Lots are monocultured with genetically modified corn for use as a biofuel, or monocultured with organic vegies for food, or with trees.

Several questions arise with this plan. Is biotech the best use of that land, considering all the petro-ag chemicals that will toxify the lake and the groundwater? Also consider that that land and water table has suffered decades of industrial waste abuse, and now will endure chemical runoff. How lot owners plan to protect organic lots from contamination by petro-ag chemicals remains to be seen.

When biotech ag developers go after the land of poor folks (as in Africa or India, Brazil or Peru), poor folks lose. One has to wonder if in the Detroit experiment we see a recipe for Love Canal, Motown Style.


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This is about the most evil issue for Third Way corporate democrats in a long list of evils.  People are being made immune to antibiotics making them susceptible to death from even the simplest of infections AND THESE SAME POLS ARE REQUIRING THAT THIS AMERICAN MEAT BE SOLD AROUND THE WORLD. 



YOU SEE MARYLAND'S THIRD WAY CORPORATE POLS ARE JOINING IN ON ALL THESE ISSUES THAT ARE BAD FOR PEOPLE AND GOOD FOR PROFIT!!!!


RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTIONS!!!



Animal Antibiotic Legislation Reintroduced


Reps. Slaughter and Waxman continue push to improve transparency animal antibiotic use; ask FDA for better regulation Compiled by staff  Published: Mar 1, 2013 Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., Wednesday introduced legislation to provide more information on the amount and use of antibiotics and other antimicrobials given to animals raised for human consumption.

The bill, "Delivering Antimicrobial Transparency in Animals Act" (H.R. 820) will require drug manufacturers to obtain and provide better information to the Food and Drug Administration on how their antimicrobial drugs are used in the food-producing animals for which they are approved.  It will also alter the timing and quality of the data that FDA publicly releases.


"We are on the cusp of a monumental public health crisis in America:  the end of antibiotics as a tool for fighting disease," Slaughter said.

Slaughter said 80% of all antibiotics used in the United States are used not on humans, but on food-animals, a figure that has been disputed by several stakeholders in the ag and veterinary industry.

"Antibiotic-resistant bacteria now kill more Americans every year than HIV/AIDS," Slaughter continued. "We must bring more attention to this issue before one of the most important breakthroughs in medical science – the discovery of antibiotics – is rendered obsolete."

Farm groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, American Feed Industry Association, American Meat Institute, Animal Health Institute and American Veterinary Medical Association joined together last year to argue some of the issues in Rep. Slaughter's bill.

The groups said careful use of antibiotics are a key priority for the livestock industry, and urged public that policy decisions about antibiotics be based on science and risk assessment.

Democrats by Rank Tom Harkin (IA)
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)
Patty Murray (WA)
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)
Robert P. Casey, Jr. (PA)
Kay R. Hagan (NC)
Al Franken (MN)
Michael F. Bennet (CO)
Sheldon Whitehouse (RI)
Tammy Baldwin (WI)
Christopher S. Murphy (CT)
Elizabeth Warren (MA)


Republicans by Rank Lamar Alexander (TN)
Michael B. Enzi (WY)
Richard Burr (NC)
Johnny Isakson (GA)
Rand Paul (KY)
Orrin G. Hatch (UT)
Pat Roberts (KS)
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
Mark Kirk (IL)
Tim Scott (SC)


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HEAVEN FORBID IF MARYLAND ACTUALLY HAD A SYSTEM TO OVERSEE WHAT IS A BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY OF CORPORATE TAX BREAKS!!!!  EVEN AS WATCHDOGS STATE PUBLICLY THIS TAX CREDIT SYSTEM IS RIFE WITH FRAUD.

Tax credit oversight

Republican Anne Arundel delegate Herb McMillan's bill to require Maryland companies benefiting from tax credits of at least $25,000 to disclose specific data on how the money was spent. House Bill 1231, the Business Transparency and Financial Disclosure Act, would require the government agency issuing the credit to compile data and publish it online. The bill missed the March 25 deadline of passing one chamber of the Statehouse and is unlikely to pass.





R&D tax credit

Bill HB 386/SB 203 will expand the state's allocated research and development tax credits from $3 million to $18 million annually. This increase would allow more money to be distributed by the state to eligible businesses for R&D expenses.

It has passed the House of Delegates where it was amended to cap allocations at $8 million. It is still working its way through the Senate where it is expected to pass.



Biotech tax credit

The state's biotech tax credit is only available for the first 10 years a business is active. Filed bills SB 779/HB 328 amends that to 10 years after a business receives its first tax credit. It is on schedule to pass both houses.


Here you see yet another tax give-away to corporations all under the pretense of getting corporate headquarters to Maryland. Now, if the people are fighting to end corporate rule.....why do we want corporate headquarters that bring no tax base and usurp all public policy? WE HAD A LAW REQUIRING THE AUDITING AND OVERSIGHT OF BUSINESS TAX CREDITS FAIL, BUT MARYLAND IS BUSY GIVING COPIOUS TAX BREAKS IN WHATEVER WAY THEY CAN. Lockheed Martin is the biggest corporate tax evaders in the country paying very little income tax. Now they are trying to eliminate even the state and local taxes.


Friday, March 29, 2013

Hotel tax exemption moves to House committee Hearing focuses on public access by Holly Nunn Staff writer

Members of the House Ways and Means Committee questioned public access to a 180-room Bethesda lodging facility that would be exempt from hotel taxes under a bill proposed by Sen. Nancy J. King.

The bill would exempt corporate training facilities that provide accommodations to employees and others from paying county hotel taxes, and it sparked days of debate in the Senate before the chamber voted to send it on to the House.


Currently, defense firm Lockheed Martin’s Center for Leadership Excellence in Bethesda, where company employees and guests stay during retreats and training, is the only such corporate training facility that qualifies for exemption under the bill.

Committee members’ questions at a Thursday hearing revolved around the issue of public access to the facility and how the company charges those staying there.

King assured the committee that only employees and contractors participating in corporate training can stay at the facility. No one pays to stay there, though departments are billed internally, King said.

“We had someone, as a decoy, call the training center, just to find out if they could make a reservation, and they were immediately asked for their employee number before they would even talk to them any further,” King said.

Already the company is exempt from state sales tax on the use of the facility, per a 2010 law.

The county collects about $19 million each year from its 7 percent hotel tax, and $450,000 of that comes from Lockheed Martin.

The firm pays more than $100 million in state and local taxes each year, said King (D-Dist. 39) of Montgomery Village.

The bill is backed by Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), the Department of Business and Economic Development, the comptroller and the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce, who all say the hotel tax discourages companies from locating their headquarters and similar training facilities in the state.

Opponents, including progressive advocacy groups, some unions and the Montgomery County Council, call the bill “corporate welfare” and say it violates home rule to take taxing power from the county.




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You will hear all kinds of claims by Maryland's Martin O'Malley about being a friend to the environment. Each time these claims are spun on what is bad policy. Take fracking. He will tell you he did due diligence in delaying fracking for studies. They are refusing to pay the law to fund and complete baseline studies of the Marcellus Aquifer to document fracking chemicals aren't there. This is necessary for citizens to sue the fracking companies when the chemicals leech into the aquifer. He is also promoting Maryland as an export terminal for this fracked gas. THERE IS NO MEANINGFUL ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTIONS HERE....IT IS PURELY FINANCIAL.
 
MAGGIE MCINTOSH IS BEHIND THIS AS WELL!!!

AS ARE ALL THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS.

Natural gas 'fracking' test could come within a year in Md.
Posted: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 8:00 am

Capital News Service

Hydraulic fracturing test drilling could begin in Maryland within a year, according to  the chair of the House Environmental Matters Committee.

Delegate Maggie McIntosh, D-Baltimore, said drilling on a handful of test wells could potentially begin following the release of the Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Initiative Advisory Commission's next report, set to be issued Aug. 1.

The report, the second of three studies assigned to the commission, will recommend best practices for fracking in the state.

McIntosh testified at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing for HB 907, which would create a 15 percent severance tax on the wholesale market value of natural gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale region in Western Maryland.

The bill would also create a designated section in the Oil and Gas Fund to hold this revenue. Some studies estimate the natural gas industry in the state could be worth about $7.5 billion over 30 years.

The major debate over the legislation is not about whether there should be a severance tax, but what that rate should be.

Some argue the rate in McIntosh's bill, co-sponsored by Delegate Sheila Hixson, D-Montgomery, is too high.

Local severance taxes are already in place in both Allegany and Garrett counties, where the drilling would occur.

Garrett County has set the tax at 5.5 percent, and Allegany's is slightly higher at 7 percent.

Combining both local and state severance taxes, the cost to companies could be more than 20 percent of the wholesale market value of the natural gas they drill.

Sen. George Edwards, R-Garrett, has proposed his own legislation, which calls for a 2.5 percent severance tax.

Combined with local severance taxes, the overall price under Edwards' bill would hover at around 8 percent.

Maryland has not yet issued permits for drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation using the controversial gas extraction method known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." O'Malley's creation of the Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Initiative Advisory Commission introduced an effective moratorium on fracking in the state.

The commission's final report is set to be released in August 2014.

The Marcellus Shale cuts across much of northern Appalachia and underlies a portion of Maryland's western panhandle, including all of Garrett County and part of Allegany County.

If permits are approved, energy companies would drill horizontally into the shale layer and inject a pressurized mix of water, sand and chemicals to release the trapped gas - a process that some say endangers the environment.

McIntosh emphasized the importance of creating a severance tax before drilling commences. She said all other states with a severance tax have set it up beforehand.

After drilling for years, Pennsylvania is now having difficulty imposing a severance tax through its state legislature, McIntosh said.

"We do not want to do it like Pennsylvania," she said repeatedly.

Drew Cobbs, executive director of the Maryland Petroleum Council, said a 15 percent severance tax could make Maryland less attractive to the fracking industry.

A 15 percent rate is significantly higher than other states within the Marcellus Shale area, Cobbs said.

"We're sort of a captive audience here in Maryland because there isn't activity (yet)," Cobbs said. "The question is can we attract (companies) here?"

Fracking is being championed by 1st District Cong. Andy Harris. The Republican congressman has defended the drilling practice in committee hearings to the point of tossing out a film crew and also verbally attacking a scientist.  Harris' Eastern Shore District is a long distance from the western Maryland area where drilling would take place.


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Please make the State Attorney General position a priority all across the country.  We can make change if we have Rule of Law people in office.  IF A CANDIDATE FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL LIKE FROSH AND CARDIN IN MARYLAND ARE NOT SHOUTING AGAINST THE SUSPENSION OF RULE OF LAW AND PRETENDING THERE IS NO CORPORATE FRAUD.....IF THEY ARE LONG-TIME INCUMBENTS WHO HAVE WATCHED AND HELPED THIS SITUATION UNFOLD.......THEY ARE NOT THE RIGHT CANDIDATES.

In Maryland we have Michael Greenberger who from the earliest of Clinton era policies that broke the banking wall to start this wealth inequity and unaccountability spoke loudly and strongly against these policies and shout that fraud is systemic and reform needed.  LET'S GET GREENBERGER TO RUN FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL IN MARYLAND!!!

Read his books to see his commitment to Rule of Law!!!



... How high is [then-Federal Reserve Board Chair] Alan Greenspan riding in the mid-90s?

... In October, I think it was Oct. 22, '97, the stock market crashed again, went down I think 522 points, something like that. And boom, the President's Working Group is called together. ... So I attend the first meeting … and it's clear at that point that Greenspan is a very, very powerful person. He has got the attention of everybody in the room. He's held in great esteem. ...

And of course that problem, the failure and break in the stock market, wasn't a direct impact on the CFTC [Commodity Futures Tradition Commission], although when you have a crash of that kind it affects all markets. And what you're especially worried about is the ability of investors to make margin calls. The equities market, you can buy a stock on 50 percent margin. In other words, you can borrow 50 percent of the money. The futures market is you only have to put down 4 percent to 7 percent; the rest is all borrowed money. And the reason for that, in its best and most important phase, it's a risk-shifting market where people in the commercial businesses are hedging their risk. And it's more of an insurance policy than it is an investment. ...

So when this crash took place, somebody who's taking a beating in the stock market may not be able to make their margin calls in the futures market. And simply put, the burden that I had was checking with all the futures exchanges, "Are you going to make your margin calls? Are people reporting?," because if they don't, the exchangers are exposed. They're the ones who are effectively lending the money. And if they don't get paid the margin, they could go busto [sic], and that would cause systemic risk for the economy. And that's what everybody's worried about. Just as we know from the present credit crisis -- one big institution fails; it can't pay its obligations; it forces somebody else into a dangerous territory who can't pay their obligations; and pretty soon it's a falling domino effect through the economy. ...

... When you start, even knowing [then-CFTC Chair] Ms. [Brooksley] Born just a little bit, what could you tell fairly early on ... she was up against?

First of all, I knew she was very bright, but now I'm getting to see it firsthand. She's very bright; she knows everything. She's got a phenomenal memory. She manages people well. And you really feel like you're in the presence of somebody who's a very special person personality-wise, intelligence-wise and management-wise. And I can't emphasize enough, when the market goes down like it did then, which is a very substantial drop, there's panic in the streets. She is calm, cool and collected through the entire process. And it's not that she's delegating out responsibility. She is really managing the ship. ...

Did she know anything about the business? ...

Brooksley, who is a very well-established, broad-agenda lawyer at a very prominent firm, knows about commodities. She's been involved in the Hunt brothers' investigation, which is the famous cornering of the silver market. She's represented I think the London Stock Exchange or the London Futures Market, so she knows this statute, the Commodity Exchange Act, which is terribly written, very, very complicated. You can't just pick it up and read it. She knows it. She knows the players; she knows the people. So she comes into this job fully armed with the knowledge to be able to deal with it effectively.

But [the CFTC is] not a big agency. Is it overwhelmed in terms of what's out there that it needs to do, if it can do it?

That's an interesting thing. I never viewed us as being overwhelmed. ... What I did feel was, ... too often the agency was in a situation of being captured where instead of regulating the industry, the industry was regulating the commission. And ... there were exceptions to that, but that's the overall history.

It doesn't sound like Brooksley Born is somebody who wants to take a job and just kind of work for the industry. She wants to regulate?

Brooksley comes in; she wants to be an effective regulator. Part of her job was to bring in top-flight lawyers and other professionals, and she built an infrastructure that was very effective and smooth-working. So the only change here is not a sense that we're overwhelmed. The change is that the industry is saying: "Whoa, wait a minute. We can't tell these people to jump and then when they ask how high to tell them how high. Now they're telling us what needs to be done. They're enforcing the law."

In this vein, I don't want to take you too far off track, but in my division there was a policy that lawyers could come in and say, "Look, we have a question that we view as being ambiguous under the law, and we want to get a staff letter from you that tells us we can go ahead and do this, and we won't be subject to enforcement." And these are called no-action letters, "no-action" meaning the enforcement division will take no action if you commit to do what you tell us you're going to do.

One of the first things Brooksley tells me when I walk in the door, "You be very careful of this no-action process, because this is not a question of what the letter says; it's a question of who signs the letter." And there are a group of highly favored lawyers who whatever they say they want to do, arguably ambiguous, in many instances clearly in conflict with the law, they're going to get a letter back saying, "It's fine." ... So there's all this low-level favoritism going on.

Now, Brooksley and I look at this, and we say: "This is not the way the system is going to work. If you need these kinds of exemptions" -- we established a rule -- "here's the way it needs to be filed. Here are the set of facts you have to set out. Here's the law you have to cite. And this has to be a regularized, objective, neutral process." Before we got there, it was a matter of who signed the letter. ...

I read that she was one of the finalists for attorney general. True?

She had developed a very close relationship with Hillary Clinton when Hillary Clinton was a very prominent lawyer in Little Rock, Ark. ... When [President Bill] Clinton got elected, I remembered hearing the story that [Mrs. Clinton] and Clinton and a group were bandying about who would be the attorney general, and somebody said, "Well, Brooksley Born would be a good attorney general." ... And Brooksley went in for an interview with Clinton. The story comes back was that Clinton found her boring and that it never went anywhere. ...

I think to some extent you could view this [position as head of the CFTC] as a consolation prize. ... To the general world, people who knew Brooksley, the circles she traveled, the American Bar Association, the D.C. Bar, all the prestigious boards she served on, people were probably scratching their heads. ...

... [Former Treasury Secretaries Robert] Rubin, [Larry] Summers, [former Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Arthur] Levitt and Greenspan, I wonder what they thought of this woman who comes in and takes this job. ...

I don't think that either Rubin, Greenspan or Levitt or Summers knew who Brooksley Born was. And one of the messages of this story is that although they're 200-and-some miles apart, Wall Street and the D.C. Bar, the prominent lawyers in Washington, D.C., could be on opposite sides of the world. They just didn't know who she was. And moreover, they didn't really care. ...

Secondly, they don't have a real good understanding, from where I'm sitting, of what the CFTC does. They think it's backwater; they think it's pork bellies. ... And I think throughout the entire crisis we went through, they had no idea who they were dealing with. They never took the time to figure out that this was a very accomplished, smart, highly ethical and charming woman.

You mentioned, and we've read some about, this lunch that she has early on in her tenure with [Greenspan]. Tell me what you know about it.

When I went to work with her and she was telling me, "This is what you're up against," she told me that she had had this lunch with Alan Greenspan, and he had said to her probably that she and he were going to have a disagreement about something, and the subject was fraud. And he didn't believe that fraud was something that needed to be enforced or was something that regulators should worry about, and he assumed she probably did. And of course she did. I've never met a financial regulator who didn't feel that fraud was part of their mission, but that was her introduction to Alan Greenspan.

What does it tell you -- what did it tell her -- that he didn't believe fraud was a problem?

From what it told her and from what I could see in my observations of Alan Greenspan was that this was a man who was living almost in another era; that he was a total believer that the markets were self-correcting. For example, the reason he thought that fraud shouldn't be the worry of regulators is, well, if somebody committed fraud in the business community, the rational workings of the market would be that people wouldn't do business with that person, and therefore they would die on the vine. And so the free market self-corrects and takes care of fraudulent actors. ...

... Is [Greenspan] admired, elevated, unquestioned? Is there something about him by then -- is [he] just untouchable?

Yes. Look, the economy, by and large in this period, is booming. There are hiccups. You have the Asian financial crisis, the default on the Russian ruble. Later on, you have the Long-Term Capital Management [LTCM] fiasco. But basically it's an upward move. We're in the middle of the dot-com bubble. ... He is a force to contend with. He's very, very highly regarded, although there's an understanding that he's coming at issues from a very orthodox free-market view, and he's not happy with the regulatory structure. He's tolerating it. He's not happy about it. ...

Rubin spent a lot of time catering to Alan Greenspan's whims. ... But as much as he was inclined to cater to Greenspan, for one reason or another, he only dealt with Brooksley as a sort of foreign power, and maybe a banana republic foreign power, rather than somebody he needed to spend the same amount of time catering to.

Do you have any explanation for that?

A lot of people have guessed about it. Some people have said, "Oh, she was a woman," whatever. I don't put a lot of stock in the fact that she was a woman. I put a lot of stock in the fact he never took the time to understand who she was and that she was a person in her own right who should have been listened to, even if on first blush you didn't agree with the direction she was going in. I feel very confident Bob Rubin didn't agree with everything Alan Greenspan told him, but he made it a high priority to deal with and embrace and work with Alan Greenspan. Had he done the same thing with Brooksley Born, I think there's a good chance we would today be sitting here on a very healthy, thriving economy. ...

[What were the early warning signs about derivatives?]

In 1994, you have the failure of Orange County, [Calif.]; goes bankrupt dealing in these unregulated, over-the-counter derivatives. The financial officer of Orange County doesn't understand the products he's dealing with, gets taken to the cleaners by the banks he's dealing with. And if you go to the popular media, everybody knows Orange County has failed. Everybody knows they failed because they were dealing with these highly toxic, complex, unregulated instruments. And it's a source, almost, of common parlance: a county, at that point, a county had actually gone bankrupt. It was rather remarkable.

At the same time within the financial services industry, there's this major scandal at Bankers Trust, where they have taken two of their customers, Procter & Gamble and Gibson Greeting Cards, to the cleaners with these complex over-the-counter derivative products. And unfortunately for Bankers Trust, it's all caught on tape in the exchanges not only between Bankers Trust and their customers, but the laughing up the sleeves of the salespeople about how they've taken these Fortune 500 companies to the cleaners. ...

And in fact, legislation is introduced. They wanted to set up a derivatives regulatory commission that would focus expressly on this subject. But at the time, the urban legend is that Lloyd Bentsen, who was then-secretary of the Treasury, went up to the Hill and said: "Look, we have this thing called the President's Working Group on Financial Markets. This is really a problem of a lack of coordination between the Fed, the Treasury, the SEC and the CFTC. We will make this our highest priority. We can deal with this within the existing structure, and don't you worry your pretty little heads about this."

So '94 goes by; '95 goes by; '96 goes by; '97 goes by. By '98, nobody's done anything about it. And while there aren't the kinds of dramatic scenarios that Orange County and Bankers Trust revealed in '94, there's a series of school boards being taken to the cleaners, cities being taken to the cleaners, and Brooksley just finally said: "These guys are operating outside of the legal structure. Somebody has got to do something about it, because if they don't, there's going to be a calamity." ...

And when you guys take over, how big is [the over-the-counter derivatives] market?

When I first walk in the door, Brooksley said to me, "This is a $13 trillion market." ... By the time in May 1998 that we actually try to do something about it, it is a $27 trillion market. By the time Congress in December of 2000 deregulates it, it's an $80 trillion market. As we sit here today, the market has dropped from above $600 trillion to $592 trillion notional value. It's dropped because of the meltdown. ...

And obviously, it went from $13 to $27 to $80 to $600 trillion because nobody's watching the market. And in fact, as we went through the economic collapse, these products are exploding all over the place, coming to us in the form of, most prominently, credit default swaps. And the panic in the market and the tightness of credit is a direct reflection that these products are spread all over the place, and somebody who today looks highly profitable has got these products' off-balance sheets on things called structured investment vehicles, so they're hidden like land mines in a battlefield. Nobody wants to give money to anybody else because they don't know, are you sitting on top of products like AIG [American International Group] was sitting on top of that takes you from the biggest insurance company in the world to bust to 80 percent owned by the United States government?

... Here's a contagion that literally metastasizes exponentially across the '90s and the early part of the 2000s.

Absolutely. ... The template is clear. Crisis caused '94 Orange County-Bankers Trust. Panic in the streets, we're going to fix it. Time passes; it cures itself. Lobbying takes over by the financial [services industry]. All is forgotten.

It happens again in late '98 when Long-Term Capital Management fails. ... You have a crisis that now looks like a picnic. But at the time, everybody, including Alan Greenspan, was sobered by that episode. Even the conservative House Financial Services Committee: "What can we do to make sure this doesn't happen again?" Opportunity for regulation, time passes, problem solved, it solves itself, all is forgotten. ...

By [Jan. 1, 1998], there was stuff in The Wall Street Journal, school boards taken to the cleaners over these things, and I don't remember exactly how it developed within the agency, but Brooksley and I talked about it. Something needs to be done. I said, "Let me think about it." And I assembled a small team of people within the Division of Trading and Markets, and we sort of gave it the name the Manhattan Project.

And we put people to work on -- in the financial services regulatory system, there is a regulatory vehicle called a concept release, and essentially what it is, it's a very preliminary white paper delivered by the regulatory agency, most often used by the CFTC and the SEC. ...

Our two goals were, one, to present the problem, and two, to propose a broad range of possible solutions to the problem without reaching any conclusions. So we began working on this. Brooksley had the conception that she wasn't worried about the rest of the administration. She was worried about the financial services industry, that we were effectively now going to say swaps are futures, the dirty words, and that this would meet a lot of resistance.

Because?

Because it meant that this multitrillion-dollar market would now have to be traded transparently with capital reserves, with fraud and manipulation requirements, with the regulation of intermediaries, and on organized exchanges rather than this private little gamesmanship where it was. ...

We aren't going to take it over. It's not going to be government-run, but it's got to be done transparently. Everybody needs to know what's happening. It's got to be overseen by a regulator who ensures that fraud and manipulation are not conducted within those markets. We've got to make sure that when people make commitments, they have the capital to back those commitments up. ...

Now, we're not saying [in the concept release] we're going to put the full regulatory template in place. We have the authority to exempt it from the full regulatory template, but something's got to be done, and here's a list of questions and a list of proposals about what might be done. Should it be a transparent market? Should we ensure adequate capital reserves? Should it be subject to fraud? Should it be subject to manipulation? Should the intermediaries be regulated? Should there be adequate capital protections? That's what the concept release was. ...

One thing I think must be made very clear is we didn't do this in secret. Brooksley called in every representative of every leading financial trade association, institution. I sat in some of those meetings. She brought them into her personal office and said: "This market has caused problems. It's subject to the Commodity Exchange Act. It's supposed to be a transparent, protected market. It's not. We think the time has come to address it." And they were then called the International [Swap] Dealers Association -- it's now the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, a branding issue there -- they all came in, they all were explained this, and nobody said, "Oh, my God, you're going to cause the worst financial crisis." I mean, they either sat there and said nothing, or some people said, "You know, it's about time somebody's going to do this."

The second transparent thing we did is sometime in March, we had a draft of the concept release. We sent it far and wide. Whoever wanted it, we sent it to all the other regulators, all the financial institutions; we sent it to Congress. ...

There were two first shots across the bow, a double shot. One was I walk into Brooksley's office one day; the blood has drained from her face. She's hanging up the telephone; she says to me: "That was Larry Summers. He says, 'You're going to cause the worst financial crisis since the end of World War II'"; that he has, my memory is, 13 bankers in his office who informed him of this. "Stop, right away. No more." ... It was not done in a tactful way, I'm quite confident of that.

Why is he acting that way? What power do the 13 in his office have? What's that all about?

... A lot of this has to do with finance contributions, political contributions.

I mean, 1998 is an election year, right, a midterm election year?

Look, every two years is an election year, and what is a lot of campaign contributions to members of Congress is chump change to the financial services industry. There was a recent report in the House Ag[riculture] Committee, which is the committee of jurisdiction [for the CFTC], I think the figure was $27 million from financial services, $9 million from the agriculture community. Now, to them, $27 million is a lot of money. Do you think $27 million is a lot of money to Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley?

But these people speak with tremendous power, and we see the template -- crisis, worry, threatened reform, pull back from the crisis, 24/7 lobbying, all is forgotten. And as we sit here today, we're experiencing that, a feeling that the crisis of the fall of 2008/winter of 2009, [we've] now survived. Goldman Sachs just reported record profits, and the pushback is coming to the reforms that have been proposed.

But at that time, why do the banks have such clout inside the Clinton administration?

It's a very interesting question. But I think one of the driving forces, politically at that time, was that the financial services industry was essentially a Republican-captured institution and that these were the New Democrats that were going to prove to the financial services industry that they could do better. The economy is booming. You've never made so much money. Don't look to the Republicans as your saving grace. Look to the Bob Rubins of this world, who are melding Democratic politics with a growth economy. ...

When Born gets the call from Summers, what's her aspect and counsel to you and others? ...

Look, we're all grown people; we're all heavily experienced. We've all been around the block before. Each of us has gone through various crucibles in our lives. I was a litigator for 25 years; I appeared in courts across the country. I argued cases in the United States Supreme Court. My colleagues that she had brought in were the same way.

There was just a feeling -- it was an unspoken assumption -- we're going forward. We'll deal with whoever we need to deal with. We'll be open and candid, we'll make our best arguments, but this is the right thing to do.

Did you worry about how vociferous it could be?

I think the first thing that caused me to worry about it was the April 21 meeting [of the President's Working Group], which was a very, very, very tense meeting. But up until that point, I think we felt, look, this wasn't a matter of discretion. We were given the responsibility to regulate futures markets, to make sure they were transparent, that there were capital reserves, there was no fraud, no manipulation. Here's a market that's a futures market, it's got nothing, and it's up to $27 trillion notional value. You can tell us, "Don't do this," ... but this is our constitutional job. Brooksley took an oath to uphold the laws of the United States. These are the laws of the United States. And we didn't bat an eyelash about it. And frankly, she has the support of the other commissioners on the CFTC up to that point as well.

Republican and Democrat?

Republican and Democrat.

OK, so the meeting is called for the 21st. … Is it a walk? Where is the meeting?

The meeting is at the Treasury in this ornate conference room off the secretary's office where these meetings are held. The meetings are usually well attended. This was standing room only.

Why?

Because it was known this was going to be a major showdown, that Rubin, Greenspan and Levitt were going to try and stop Brooksley from doing this.

Shootout at the O. K. Corral?

... You would think that if this issue has reached the level it's reached that Bob Rubin would pick up the phone and say, "Brooksley, let's sit down and talk about this. I want to understand what you're doing. Let's see." No, it is the shootout at the O.K. Corral. No diplomacy, no picking up the phone. And by the way, during this period, Rubin would not take Brooksley's phone calls. He would not take Brooksley's phone calls. ...

So it's April 21, 1998. The players are arrayed.

... It was Brooksley, [then-CFTC General Counsel] Dan [Waldman], [then-Chief of Staff] Susan Lee and me go to this meeting. We're driven there. We get out at the entrance of the Treasury, go up to the room, everybody assembles. The secretary walks in; the meeting is called to order. And the subject of the meeting was to discuss the concept release, and the clear mission of it was to convince Brooksley that it shouldn't be issued.

What's she like at that moment? Is she tense? Was she nervous? How do you read her?

She's extremely professional. She has a capability of being a very charming and funny person, but I think quite appropriately in that setting, she's dealing with it as she would in litigation, or I would in litigation, as a very serious matter. So she is professional, organized, orderly and matter-of-fact about what she's doing. It was a very, very tense meeting. Nobody lost their temper; nobody shouted. But short of that, it was made absolutely clear that virtually everyone in that room wanted her to stop that concept release and used very strong terms in making those arguments, including that this would cause a financial calamity.

So you've told us before of an exchange you witnessed where Greenspan turns to her. Tell me about that.

Each of the principals in turn -- that is to say, Rubin, Greenspan and Levitt -- take their shot at telling Brooksley that she shouldn't do what she's doing.

I happen to be sitting behind Brooksley and behind Greenspan. They're sitting next to each other. Greenspan turns to her, she turns to him; his face is red, and he's clearly quite upset. He certainly did not in any way raise his voice or do anything that would be unprofessional, but he was very adamant that this was a serious, serious mistake, that it would cause untold damages to the financial services market and that she should stop and not do this; that it was unwise and would cause tremendous damage. ...

Did she fight back?

Oh, yeah. Well, fight -- I want to be careful. She, in a very professional, orderly fashion, met each argument head on and gave her response to it. ... But people were coming at her from all sides.

The point has been made by some of these gentlemen that she's strident or difficult to deal with. Many of them wouldn't talk to her on the phone. But in that meeting, she was not a charming, motherly person. She was a professional, and they may have been looking for something softer in their images. But she acted as anybody would act under those circumstances. And it was not a comfortable setting, because she had no allies at the table.

How long did it last?

My memory is that it was about an hour, hour and 15 minutes. The interesting exchange came at the very end. Rubin said to her, "I am told that you do not have the jurisdiction to do this." And Brooksley said: "Well, that's interesting. That's the first time I've ever heard that. All my lawyers at the CFTC have assured me that we have the exclusive jurisdiction to do this." And Rubin said: "Oh, you're listening to government lawyers. You shouldn't be listening to government lawyers; you should be listening to private lawyers. All the private lawyers representing the banks say you don't have the jurisdiction." ...

As someone who has spent five years in the federal government, I will tell you that you could give me a list of 500 lawyers from the Department of Justice, people I do not know, and I would take any of those 500 over the "private lawyers" he was referring to in terms of competence in understanding the law. It was a tremendous insult to the professional government-lawyer staff in the United States government at that point in time. ...

At the end of this lecture on listening to private lawyers rather than government lawyers, Rubin says to Brooksley, "Will you assure me that before you do anything with this concept release, you will discuss this with the Treasury Department lawyers?" And my remembrance is Brooksley said, "Of course." I was very comfortable with that, because I felt -- all four of us felt -- there was no doubt that there was nobody at the Treasury Department who was going to convince us that we didn't have jurisdiction.

Rubin physically relaxed at that point. It was as if he had won the major purpose of the meeting. And all I could intuit from that was he was convinced that when these hicks from the CFTC talked to the powerful lawyers at the Department of Treasury, we would see the light of day, and the concept release was done. ...

We go back to the CFTC and wait for the call from the Treasury Department. This is April 21. One week goes by, no call. Two weeks go by, no call. So Dan Waldman, who was the general counsel, my memory is, starts calling over there and saying, "Where's the meeting?" No response. May 6, 7 comes along, and I go to see Brooksley, and she says: "Look, we can't be slow-rolled into inaction by their refusal to talk to us. We're going to issue the concept release." I agreed completely. We had acted in the best of faith. They didn't call us; we tried to call them; they didn't call us back. We're an independent regulatory agency. This is our statutory mission.

So we issued the concept release. The release, my best memory is, is publicly released on May 8, doesn't appear at the Federal Register until May 12, the Federal Register being the government publication. It was released in the morning. By the afternoon, Rubin, Greenspan, Levitt put out a statement saying this is a very bad thing, and Congress should act with all deliberate speed to block it. ...

… This is really playing the next heavy card by them, I take it. Is that what that's about?

It was a serious card. Again, going back to that point in time, you're dealing with a group of people who were deemed to be the, as Time magazine said, "The Committee to Save the World." And they wanted Congress to stop us, and I think it was almost a foregone conclusion that that was going to happen.

Legislation was introduced to block us for one year from doing anything in the concept release. Hearings were held on it; Brooksley testified. She had no support anywhere. The people who had previously said, "This makes sense," or, "Let's look at it," or, "These are only questions," were now of the view that we were causing serious problems that would lead to a systemic break in the economy. And she started receiving hostile communications from every direction. ...

Bear in mind through all this, too, the Democratic Party is basically not a party highly skilled in the financial services sector. That was what Bob Rubin brought to the table, a Democrat who understood the sector and was going to deal with it. And so Brooksley is a person who fights for the homeless, women's rights, civil liberties, all sorts of issues that if she had been attacked on those grounds for doing any of those things, any number of Democrats would have said: "Hands off. She's doing the right thing." But here we're talking about a time when the Democratic Party, save these Rubinistas, don't know the first thing about these markets. This is like off everybody's radar screen, so there's no natural constituency anywhere to come to her defense. And the people who are being lobbied about it are angry as they could be, not returning phone calls, being mean to her, hostile. It's a very, very unfriendly environment. ...

And Brooksley's oft-repeated mantra [was] that: "If you're troubled by us doing this, fine. Someone's got to do it. You want the SEC to do it? Fine. You want the Treasury to do it? Fine. But this is a world-class problem." And she used to say she would lay awake at night turning in her bed because she could see coming down the road [that] the crisis kept building and building, and now we've seen [that] historically. ...

Were you amazed by the vehemence of the reaction? ...

What amazed me more than anything else when I became adjusted to it was the ... refusal to sort of sit down, get everybody in a room and sit down and say, "Let's work this thing out," the refusal to sort of let us explain ourselves. ...

How do you know about LTCM melting down? What are you thinking? How are you hearing about it?

You start seeing articles in The Wall Street Journal. LTCM, this market is private, opaque; nobody in the federal government knows what's going on. ... LTCM was like, wow. They had had 46 percent, 40 percent, 20 percent returns in the prior three years before the collapse. In January 1998, they're giving money back to their investors because they don't know how to invest it all. Those investors are suing LTCM for turning back money that they want them to invest.

So LTCM is a black box. But the Journal in September '98 starts reporting they're experiencing losses. I think they started in 1998 with $4.4 billion. I know by the time of the collapse they're down to $400,000. So somebody's lost $4.4 billion. What does that mean? Nobody knows that $4.4 billion, they're leveraged 125:1. It's not 4.4. It's 4.4 times 125. ...

If you want to invest in Long-Term Capital Management, you've got to walk into a conference room, abandon computers, abandon pencils, abandon yellow pads, no notes, and you're told there's a black box. Look at these returns: 46 percent, 40 percent, 20 percent. People are fighting to get in to invest. People are fighting to lend money to Long-Term. They know they're leveraged, but nobody knows they're leveraged like this. People are fighting to be their counterparties because they're transacting all these things in these swaps transactions. They need to have a counterparty to take the other end of the transaction. And banks will do that for a very nice price. There's a great commission that goes with that. ... But every bank thinks it's the sole lender to Long-Term; it's the sole counterparty. ...

It's Friday afternoon when ... the president of the New York Fed [receives a call]. ... What we know historically [is] that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the banks are informed. They're sitting around, again, another ornate conference table in the New York Fed, which is like a fortress on Wall Street. And look to your left, look to your right. Each of you has loaned enormous sums of money to Long-Term Capital Management. For every dollar they have now, they've borrowed $125. That is yours. If they collapse and go bankrupt, it's going to be a house of cards, and it is our belief that your financial stability is in jeopardy. And the way to solve this problem is for you each to pony up $400 million and buy the fund, prevent it from collapsing, and try and work the thing out.

And the fact that this happens between Monday morning and Wednesday morning is remarkable and only evidences the fact of how serious the problem was. The banks are shocked. They don't know that all these other banks are involved; they don't know all the other banks are lending, all the other banks are counterparties. But they agree, unhappily, because in those days, $400 million was a lot of money. They unhappily agree to buy the fund. ...

There is a conference call that is set up for the steering committee of the President's Working Group, and I believe we took the call in Brooksley's conference room off her office. And I believe she listened into the call. And the chief operating officer of the New York Fed made the call, and he articulated to the rest of the federal financial regulatory system what had happened. This was all unknown that [LTCM] had called [then-New York Fed Chair Bill] McDonough on Friday. They'd gone out, the world was going to come to an end, and they've saved the day by getting all the banks to agree to buy the fund out.

You mean you're all sitting there, and you had no idea this had happened?

No, nobody told anybody about it.

So stunning.

Very stunning. Very stunning. And of course it's clear that the transactions that Long-Term is involved in are the over-the-counter derivative transactions, which we say should not be hidden from the federal government, should not be leveraged 125:1; that there should be capital reserves to make sure payments are made; that this should not come as a surprise and require a -- thank God -- call from Long-Term that they're in trouble, because if they hadn't, it would have collapsed with nobody knowing about it. ...

This is a big earthshaking event, and they have dodged not a bullet but a nuclear weapon by getting the banks to buy this, propping it up. And they are very sobered and very worried about this.

… It's a Cassandra-like moment, yes?

... We all looked at each other. I mean, it was like, you know, vindication. Vindication. Yeah, it was a big event. …

Oct. 1, 1998, [then-House Banking Committee Chair Jim] Leach [R-Iowa] calls the mother of all oversight hearings, and Greenspan, McDonough, Levitt, Rubin and Brooksley are individually called to opine on what happened. And this is a Republican-controlled House Financial Services Committee.

The moment is ripe. They are angry as they can be. If you go back to the transcript, these Republicans are saying: "This is the savings and loan crisis all over again. How could this happen? This is a moral hazard. This is too big to fail." Do those words sound familiar? ...

The message that goes forth from that hearing is, to Rubin: "You are the chair of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets. We want right away a report from you on what happened and how we can prevent this from ever happening again. Fast." ...

Rubin now is trying to form a consensus within the four big players, and he's getting Greenspan to make a lot of compromises toward a regulatory posture. Not quite far enough, though, that he's not got to worry about Brooksley coming from the other side. ...

The bank financial services community is in a state of high panic at this point, and they get the idea, "We're going to be facing legislation; the game is going to be up." So the idea is that the financial services industry will start its own self-regulatory study of the problem. And they create a group called the Counterparty Risk Management [Policy] Group, and every big name on Wall Street is either on the board of overseers or the staff of this group, and they are going to mimic the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, and they are going to come up with their own report. It is clearly designed to head off any kind of mandatory regulation.

So the President's Working Group comes out in April '99 with a decent report (PDF) -- not a great report, but a decent report. That's probably Bob Rubin's last act as secretary of the Treasury. He steps down; Summers takes over.

In June '99, the Counterparty Risk Management Group -- that is, the banks -- issue their report, and it is a scathing discussion of how this market operates. There's a wonderful passage in it, which I have my students read, that says, "While oral contracts are enforceable, the better practice is to write these transactions down and execute them." And the tenor of the report is: "This market is the Wild West, and the problem is there's no adult supervision." And the industry commits itself to bringing this market under control and to put all these risk management controls to make sure that these 28-year-old salesmen who are selling these products are supervised by people who understand what's going on. No regulation is needed; we will take care of this ourselves, thank you very much.

Two things then happen. The bets that Long-Term Management placed that got them into trouble suddenly start paying off. So the banks who think they're losing all this money get all their money back, close the shop down, all is forgotten. ...

In November '99, the President's Working Group on Financial Markets issues a report (PDF). Brooksley is gone; I'm gone; Dan's gone. "These markets should be unregulated because there has been so much uncertainty about them. Because of the CFTC saying that they should be, this has been troubling to these markets. It hasn't allowed them to grow. The market will be limited henceforth to 'sophisticated investors,' not the widow and orphan. [They] won't be able to invest in it. But companies with names like Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, AIG, Merrill Lynch -- they're savvy -- will take control of these markets." And actually the thresholds are companies with over $5 million in assets are entitled to trade these unregulated.

They push the recommendation forward to Congress: Deregulate it. ...

On the very last day of the lame-duck Congress, Dec. 15, 2000, suddenly out of the conference committee report on the 11,000-page omnibus appropriation bill is a 262-page deregulatory bill for the over-the-counter derivative market. ... I doubt very much that there is one member of Congress or one staff member in Congress who read from end to end that legislation. I firmly believe it was written on Wall Street. When they suddenly saw that they had a chance to pass it, they just threw everything under the kitchen sink into this bill. There are little exceptions to regulation that are next to bigger exceptions to regulations that make the little ones irrelevant. It's a dog's breakfast. But that is the law that, as we sit here today, we operate under.

There's no doubt the CFTC cannot do anything about this. The SEC can do virtually nothing about it. This is an unregulated market -- no transparency, no capital reserve requirements, no prohibition on fraud, no prohibition on manipulation, no regulation of intermediaries. All the fundamental templates that we learned from the Great Depression are needed to have markets function smoothly are gone. ...

Back in the Oct. 1, 1998, House hearings that you talked about that Leach says Born has some reason to be vindicated --

To feel vindicated, I think he said.

Greenspan also testifies. And I think it's just an interesting point how stubbornly insistent Greenspan is at that point. He sees Long-Term Capital as proof that his philosophy is appropriate.

Yes. ... He had this utopian vision of markets working rationally the way gentlemen function in the best clubs in London. And the market blew up in his face. It's not self-regulating. ...

The big thing for me is the quandary that the Obama people now face. ... In a world where the banks contribute this much money, can anything ever be done?

Well, those are very good questions, and it's ironic, because Obama has essentiality brought back many of the actors who were unsympathetic to our point of view in 1998, 1999, 2000.

However, from my perspective, and I believe from Brooksley's perspective as well, the lessons have been learned. Recently, the Treasury proposed a white paper. It's confused and not as clear as one would like, but embedded within it is a program that comes in the direction of where Brooksley and I were 10, 11 years ago. And many progressives have now reached the point where after the bailout of the banks and the banks now profiting while everybody else is unemployed, they've become disenchanted with the Department of Treasury and Secretary [Timothy] Geithner and are not willing to give any credit to efforts that are being made. My view is, I believe Brooksley's view is right now, that they have put forward proposals that are meaningful and strong. ...

The benefit now, and the difference now, for Obama and the Treasury is, a, the understanding of what just happened; b, people like [CFTC Chair] Gary Gensler, who was a Goldman Sachs partner and a protégé of Bob Rubin, have come back into power, and they have given every evidence of the fact that they have learned their lesson. They are advocating the kinds of things that we advocated 10 or 11 years ago.

Right now, all I can tell you is that the battle is evenly matched. You would think after everything we've been through there shouldn't be a battle; it should be understood. No, no, the financial services industry has organized itself and will pitch very, very hard for continuing to have these markets be unobserved by anybody outside of the banking system or their customers. No capital requirements, no fraud controls, no manipulation controls and no regulation of the intermediaries. It's going to be a close-fought battle.


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March 28th, 2013

3/28/2013

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PLEASE WATCH HOW THESE THIRD WAY POLITICIANS MANIPULATE THE VOTERS BY PRETENDING TO SUPPORT ONE ISSUE THAT IS GOOD WHILE IGNORING THE BIG PICTURE THAT IS KILLING THE MIDDLE/LOWER CLASS.  WATCH AS WELL HOW THE MEDIA PLAYS IT ALL UP FOR THEM!




For those thinking that reforming health care is about making it work more cost effectively and no simply working to deny access to most people, the article below shows that once again Third Way corporate democrats led by Obama set parameters for reform that sound good buy never happen.....think the financial reform bill.  They lay out all the problems, they know the solutions, but because their goal is to increase profit and not making the system work efficiently, it punts on all the good policy and allows the environment for worst case scenarios.  You see here that the problem we all know exists with entitlements and health care in general is the fee to pay and the excessive use of procedures that are unnecessary and/or coded in a way that makes the bill considerably higher.  This is the massive fraud in which trillions of dollars were lost from entitlements.  People are literally dying from this lack of planning as all things stop and then all things are sent to individual states to handle.  THIS IS WHAT WAS DONE FOR MEDICAID AND NOW THEY ARE DOING IT FOR MEDICARE.  THIS IS THE REPUBLICAN PLAN TO SEND THESE TO STATES WHERE THEY BECOME VOUCHER PROGRAMS.  This shows you the plan is to dismantle entitlements.....not save them.  You see below Medicare is starting to look like Medicaid which is starting to look like public health in third world countries.


  RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTION!!!

The Obama Administration has stopped paying the bills from hundreds of health care companies, and it has nothing to do with sequestration.

This is a story of bureaucratic mismanagement at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the harm it’s visiting on the diagnostic testing industry.

At issue is the way that Medicare reimburses everyone from the big laboratory companies such as the Laboratory Corp of America (LH:NYSE) and Quest Diagnostics Inc. (DGX:NYSE), to the molecular diagnostic labs inside academic hospitals, and especially smaller firms that make proprietary tests used by doctors to more effectively target treatments to patients with conditions like cancer.


Hospitals Are Going On A Doctor Buying Binge, And It Is Likely To End Badly Scott Gottlieb Contributor The New Obamacare Insurance Is Looking More Like Medicaid Scott Gottlieb Contributor


Some of these proprietary tests — focused around the more accurate diagnosis of prostate cancer — are profiled in today’s edition of the New York Times. The incompetent manner in which Medicare has handled a change in the reimbursement of similar tests has the potential to stymie one of the most important and potentially cost-saving technologies in the pipeline.

The molecular diagnostics in question are used to screen for everything from genetic markers that predict disease to proteins that help diagnose illnesses and guide peoples’ response to treatments. These tests are transforming the treatment of cancer, among many other maladies.

The Medicare agency decided to change the way it reimburses these sorts of diagnostic tests. But it’s been slow to decide on its new approach. So in the absence of a policy, the Medicare program is simply not paying its bills.

Previously, these diagnostics were reimbursed through a method called “code stacking.” Under this old approach, adding up the “cost” of each discrete step needed to perform a particular test derived the price paid for molecular tests.

This “cost plus” approach to setting payment rates was familiar to government actuaries. But it had many problems. Not least of which, it didn’t necessarily correlate payment rates with value – but merely the complexity of the test.

Some labs grew more adept than others at exploiting the payment scheme. A handful of crafty labs would create more complex tests, or “stack” additional steps in their molecular panels in order to game higher reimbursement.

The result was a lot of variability in what was paid for similar diagnostics, depending on which lab ran the test, and how good it was at “stacking” codes.

Moreover, private insurers that reflexively piggy backed on the Medicare payment scheme complained that the bills they got only identified a series of molecular testing steps. These bills didn’t pinpoint the actual test that was being performed. So insurers often didn’t know what they were paying for.

The private health plans could have fixed this on their own, by demanding that labs provide more information. But many health plans, looked to Medicare to fix the billing system. Under pressure, the agency said it would develop a new scheme.

The prior payment system was far from optimal. But so is Medicare’s approach to replacing it. Moreover, under the new payment schemes, even when Medicare starts to pay its bills again, the rates for individual tests are likely to come down. That was the overriding impetus for changing the scheme in the first place – to save the government money. It’s another reason why big lab companies that make a lot of their margin on the complex, molecular tests could get pinched going forward.

To move away from the “code stacking” and to a system that paid diagnostics based on what each product was testing for, in 2010 Medicare asked the American Medical Association to come up with specific codes for the most common (and important) molecular tests. There were 116 of these new codes in the first tranche. These test-specific codes became effective in 2011. But Medicare chose to retain the existing “stacking codes” and not convert to the molecular codes until 2012.

Why wait? The idea was to give Medicare time to set prices for each of these new codes. Medicare was urged by the labs to cross walk some average price being paid to existing tests to the new codes (perhaps a median or weighted average of the stacks being used, which CMS would be able to measure).

But Medicare didn’t trust the current prices. It didn’t want to import any relic of the flawed stacking system into the new codes.

But instead of coming up with a new system, CMS took the full year to do largely nothing. The agency sat on its hands. Then, only after winding down the clock, the agency announced that it would let the local Medicare carriers figure out what prices to assign to each of the different diagnostic codes (through a byzantine process called “gap filling”). In other words, Medicare punted.

It basically means that the local carriers, which contract with CMS to administer the Medicare program for different regions of the country, now have wide discretion to come up with their own prices. The entire punt gave the local Medicare contractors no time – and no clear direction – on how to assign prices to the different diagnostic codes. The result is that no prices have been established for the vast majority of the marketplace. And so many tests simply aren’t being paid for.

This is having a profound impact on the market for developing new tests. Investors are shunning new investments as this gets sorted out. It says nothing about how these rates are ultimately going to be established, and whether the prices that the government assigns will reflect the value and innovation that these products offer.

There has also been little transparency around how the local Medicare carriers are coming up with their price schedules. There’s no right of appeal from affected companies. And no clear methodology on how this all gets done.


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MARYLAND DOES NOT OFFER EVEN THE BASIC PROTECTIONS FOR PEOPLE AS IT DECONSTRUCTS ALL HEALTH CARE AND ENTITLEMENT COVERAGE  FUNDING WE WILL SEE MORE NEGLECT AND ABUSE IN THE HEALTH SYSTEM.  THIS IS JUST THE START!!!



 FIRST ON FOX:
Sex Offenders Living and Working in Local Nursing Homes
Updated: Wednesday, March 27 2013, 10:37 PM EDT

No one expects a registered sex offender to be residing inside the same nursing home as their loved ones. But that is exactly what a Fox 45 Crime & Justice investigation uncovered. We found dozens of offenders living in nursing homes across the region. Under Maryland law, nursing homes as well as assisted living facilities don't have to disclose to residents or their guardian that a sex offender also resides there. Montgomery County Delegate Ben Kramer has been fighting on behalf of Maryland's aging population. Kramer's tried to have restrictions put in place but has faced opposition by colleagues as well as the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. So far 41 registered sex offenders have been tracked to addresses that belong to nursing homes or assisted living facilities.

Read More at: http://foxbaltimore.com/news/features/featured/stories/first-fox-sex-offenders-living-working-local-nursing-homes-829.shtml#.UVRANXeyKHs



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If Maryland media would share with the citizens of MD the goal of all these takeovers and reforms the people would be able to stand and fight what we all know no one wants....the privatization of America's public education system...that is what is happening with these policies.  As much as the Md Assembly pretends to be supporting public education all of its policies and all the education appointees by O'Malley have been education professionals trained in the policy of privatization.

We know that is what is happening in Baltimore City right now as charters and private funding of schools have completely upended any semblance of Brown vs Board of Education and public education.  Rawlings-Blake handed Baltimore schools to the state so O'Malley could turn Baltimore's school board into a business board with Alonzo leading the school as business mantra.  In Baltimore County the new superintendent shouts for technology in the classrooms and language in elementary school while promising this is not about eliminting teachers and cheapened classrooms.  Languages for elementary is not bad, but the objective of American citizens as emmigrants..shipped abroad to work as third world labor does now is not attractive.

The goal of Obama's education reform is a Wall Street privatizing that will tie all schools to businesses with vocational lessons and testing for tracking.  NO ONE WANTS THAT!


Say no to Prince George's schools takeover Our view: Handing over authority for Prince George's County schools to county executive would set a regrettable precedent for Maryland

Baltimore Sun Opinion   March 28, 2013


With its financial woes, low test scores, frequent leadership turnover and underperforming schools, Prince George's County's school system is failing its approximately 125,000 students, and its elected school board appears highly dysfunctional. Under these dire circumstances, it's not surprising that County Executive Rushern L. Baker III wants to intervene.

But what Mr. Baker seeks — direct control over the district's day-to-day operations and authority over its next superintendent — would be unprecedented in Maryland. The carefully constructed wall between public K-12 education and electoral politics would be torn down with potentially troubling, precedent-setting consequences for the state's other school systems.

Making matters worse, the county executive wants the General Assembly to authorize this historic shift of local authority in a matter of two weeks. That unreasonable timetable alone (authorizing legislation was submitted Monday, and the legislature's 90-day session ends April 8) should cause lawmakers to summarily reject it.

Mr. Baker and his allies have portrayed the bill as a local issue pertaining only to Prince George's County. But it's hard to believe that no matter how unique the circumstances of the state's second-largest school system, other county executives won't be watching anxiously to see if they may be able to seek similar authority.

After all, rare is the county executive who has not wanted to assert his or her will over the local school system. County governments (and Baltimore City's) must finance school systems but have limited opportunities to tell them how to spend that money or even hold those systems accountable. The arrangement is the bane of most every top elected official's existence.

Had anyone but Mr. Baker suggested such an accommodation, we seriously doubt it would go far. But as a former delegate and with powerful allies like Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and the clout that comes with managing one of Maryland's largest Democratic strongholds, Mr. Baker might be able to pull this off.

Those who doubted his political acumen last year may have been shocked when he and his allies virtually rewrote Maryland's gambling laws by advocating for a casino with table games at National Harbor. It required a special legislative session and a voter referendum, but Mr. Baker succeeded in both.

That's not to suggest Mr. Baker is engaging in some self-serving power-grab. It would be difficult not to share his frustration with a school system that has seen seven superintendents during the last 14 years. He wants a say in who is hired to be the next one, and we do not blame him. But there are also larger issues at stake.

Our preference would be to negotiate a compromise that would give Mr. Baker a say in who gets the top job (perhaps making it a joint appointment with the school board) but stops short of giving the county executive control of schools. If he wants to pursue this further, Mr. Baker would be better served advocating for new school board members who are sympathetic to his point of view in the next election.

What's a little scary is that Mr. Baker actually wants even more authority than the legislation pending in Annapolis would give him. He would like to have control over the budget, too, and leave the school board with a substantially smaller role. He has called making the superintendent a part of his staff (albeit one confirmed by the county council) a "nonnegotiable" position.

What's to stop some future county executive — one who may not have the interests of schoolchildren in mind — from abusing that authority? Or what if similar authority is granted county executives elsewhere who simply want to shrink school budgets or impose their will on curriculum or divide school resources like spoils to those who elected them? Individual school board members, whether chosen by voters or appointed by the governor, at least can't take such action unilaterally.

Ideally, Prince George's County could find itself a strong, reform-minded CEO like Baltimore has in Andrés Alonso and give that person the latitude to make the tough choices — and the time to see them through. This might be a good time for Maryland Superintendent of Schools Lillian Lowery to get off the sidelines and help the legislature find a better solution than to invest so much authority into the hands of someone who was never elected to run a single school, let alone a couple of hundred. Turning over an entire school system to a county executive is a precedent that must be avoided if at all possible
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I would also like to remind people that the state of education achievement in America was a direct consequence of education policy by the same elite institutions bringing us this education reform.  As an educator first coming out of college and hitting the classroom in the early 1990s (alright, I'm that old!) I was shouting with all teachers just as they are today that education policy that had teachers taking textbooks out of lesson plans because they 'stifled creativity' and that allowed calculators in math classes for the very youngest of students would bring education achievement down as it did.  THIS IS WHY ACHIEVEMENT IS BAD AND TEACHERS WERE TRAINED IN COLLEGE TO USE THESE BAD EDUCATION POLICIES.  So, this problem is not a teacher-created problem, it is an elite institution policy to transition from a powerful and top in the world public education with strong democratic education for all to what they are now trying to build....a Chinese-style vocational K-college job training program to build workers.

Now, if media explained this overall movement of education policy to people do you think you would see protest and politicians voted out of office?  Of course you would.  We want to move America back to being a democratic, Rule of Law country and we need well-educated people who know how to be citizens to do that!

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Let's see, we have a bill to raise the minimum wage out of the stone ages so people can pay for housing; you have massive mortgage fraud that took tens of thousands of Maryland homes to foreclosure yet to have justice as billions more need to come to Maryland and then to the victims of the fraud.....giving them homes; you have charter schools in underserved schools and development corporations using schools and housing to gentrify large swaths of urban communities all of which violates all equal housing/education laws. You have Enterprise Zone contracts that detail requirements for underserved families being built into projects being totally ignored by developers with no followup by justice because no oversight is given.....

WHO THINKS THIS BILL FORCING LANDLORDS TO TAKE SECTION 8 IS JUST A CAMPAIGN GIMMICK FOR MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLS WANTING HIGHER OFFICE? EVERYONE!!!!!


Senate sends housing discrimination bill back to committee

March 27, 2013 at 7:40 pm

By Ilana Kowarski

Ilana@MarylandReporter.com

A bill that would prohibit landlords from screening prospective tenants based on their source of income was sent back to a Maryland Senate committee after three days of floor debate over whether landlords should be allowed to exclude those on public assistance. The 23-22 vote likely dooms the bill this session.

Advocates of the legislation said that it would encourage poor Marylanders to move out of ghettos and into communities with greater resources and superior schools, giving them a head-start in the race towards the American Dream.

The law’s opponents said that it would herald an era where businesses were forced to participate in voluntary social welfare programs and that a universal mandate to accept government housing vouchers like those in the Section 8 program would place a heavy financial burden on landlords.

The vote to return SB487 to the Judicial Proceedings Committee was extremely close, with 23 in favor and 22 opposed. Senate President Mike Miller took the side of those who thought the legislation was not ready for passage.

“Members of my party are not happy with me right now,” Miller said, “but this is not the time to decide on this legislation.”

Sen. Thomas Mac Middleton

Bill needs work, Miller says

Miller said that senators needed to work out kinks in the bill, and that it was probably too late for them to correct all the problems with it, since the session ends in less than two weeks. He also questioned whether it was appropriate to pass statewide legislation requiring landlords to participate in Section 8 and other public assistance programs.

Charles County Democrat Thomas Mac Middleton said that the goals of the bill were laudable but that he could not support it in its current form, because landlords would not be allowed to evict Section 8 tenants if the federal government refused to pay rent increases, reduced housing payments, or halted the distribution of rent checks during the sequester.

Middleton said that the bill might even be counterproductive.

“If an apartment complex owner has 100 units and 100 people show up with Section 8 vouchers, the owner would be required to accept all of them, and you’d end up with a building that was 100% Section 8,” he said.  “One of the goals of this legislation is to decentralize poverty, but if this scenario happens, haven’t you defeated the purpose?”

Sen. James Rosapepe, D-Prince George’s, said that the authors of SB 487 set out to accomplish their goal in a backwards fashion. He acknowledged that needy Marylanders frequently had difficulty finding landlords that would accept their housing vouchers but argued that there is a better solution.

“The housing authority needs to find ways to attract landlords to the Section 8 program,” Rosapepe said.  “Instead this bill uses a very blunt instrument, forcing businesses to take part in a government program, and that’s unprecedented.  We don’t force doctors to participate in Medicaid, and we shouldn’t do this either.”

Bill not likely to return

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jamie Raskin (D-Montgomery), said that he was disappointed by the resistance of his fellow senators.

“The bill is unlikely to resurface this session because of the time crunch,” he said.

Raskin argued that his opponents’ arguments were misleading.

“The unfortunate part of the debate was that it was cast as a conflict between tenants and landlords, and we heard testimony from landlords in Montgomery County and other places with laws like this one, and they had positive experiences with Section 8.”

There were other senators who tried to stop SB 487 from being referred back to the Judicial Proceedings Committee, including committee chairman Brian Frosh, who urged senators to take a stand on the law rather than sending it back.

Sen. Roger Manno, D- Montgomery, also objected to the bill’s return.

“This bill is about discrimination,” he said.  “It’s unconscionable to send it back to committee.”


Read more: http://marylandreporter.com/2013/03/27/senate-sends-housing-discrimination-bill-back-to-committee/#ixzz2OqsOhC8v


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March 26th, 2013

3/26/2013

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I WANTED TO BEGIN WITH MY COMMENT TO OUR CORPORATE PUBLIC MEDIA WYPR AS THEY EXTOL THE VIRTUES OF THE BALTIMORE MAYOR'S BUDGET.  I'VE SPOKEN AGAINST SEVERAL ELEMENTS....THIS IS THE PLAN TO THROW PUBLIC PENSIONS INTO THE STOCK MARKET AND TURNING THEM TO  401Ks.  SHE ALSO SAYS THAT FUTURE EMPLOYEES SHOULD NOT HAVE PENSIONS ANYMORE....EVEN AS SHE SAYS THEY MUST HAVE DEGREES. KEEP IN MIND SHE IS A DEMOCRAT.....ALBEIT THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRAT.  THEY ARE DETERMINED TO MAKE SURE WE HAVE NO BENEFIT THAT TAKES AWAY FROM CORPORATE WEALTH.  DO YOU REALLY THINK THIRD WAY DEMOCRATS ARE FIGHTING FOR YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY AND ENTITLEMENTS!


Regarding Rawlings-Blake budget:

Sending the Firefighter's pensions to 401Ks and not offering pensions to future employees but requiring them to be college grads....sound republican? Yes, it is as is all Third Way corporate democratic policy. They are sending all working people to poverty no matter whether they have degrees or not...

The Atlantic Monthly had a good article in its Jan issue about the dubiousness of the banking industry and highlighted Wells Fargo which is being sold as a good bank. The article made clear that all sophisticated investors and academics like myself are now publicly calling Wall Street crony, criminal, and a harm to American society. We know trillions of dollars were stolen by banks in the massive frauds of last decade. Bill Clinton and Third Way corporate democrats are to thank for allowing Bush to super-size this mess. The article looks deep into the business operations of Wells Fargo and sees that there is absolutely no transparency or indications that anything legal is happening in this bank. It is telling the Wells Fargo looks right across from the Attorney General's office in downtown Baltimore. The article goes on to say that because the banks are ready to implode with just as much leverage and bad/risky debt as in 2008.....no one is investing in bank stock except the Federal Reserve which is feeding free money at 0% interest to keep them and the market looking solvent.

Guess who the main investors left holding bank stock are? That's right ......private and public pensions, municipal bonds, and insurance investments....ALL PUBLIC MONEY. See why Rawlings-Blake, Baltimore County exec and all of Maryland are placing ever more public assets like 401Ks in the market? To get a perspective the State of Maryland and the City of Baltimore pulled its pensions out of the then safe bond market and sent it to the stock market just before the crash...in 2007 where they are sitting ever since. They were used as fodder as they are now. Also, look at the Cyprus/PIGS European crisis where all that bank fraud is now being paid for with ....guess what....pensions and public assets! The Europeans are being taken for more because their retirements are in the banks and not in Trusts like our SS and entitlements. So when you hear depositors are going to pay on anything over $133,000.....that means on all these public assets. It is not only the Russian mafia that is paying as NPR/Marketplace...Wall Street all the Time....would have you believe. Third Way corporate democrats are allowing massive fraud to steal all of people's savings, retirements, and benefits.


THERE IS EVERY SIGN THAT THE ECONOMY IS GOING TO CRASH AND EVEN SO THESE CORPORATE POLS ARE LOADING PUBLIC ASSETS AND PENSIONS INTO THE MARKET..  THIS IS MALFEASANCE AND IT IS ILLEGAL.


Controversial Interview Exposes 5 Signs Stocks Will Collapse in 2013

Monday, 25 Mar 2013 02:05 PM

By Newsmax Wires

“After putting $803,436 in Obama’s re-election campaign, a media giant attempted to keep Americans from seeing the video by banning it from their sites,” stated Aaron DeHoog, the financial publisher who is unapologetic for the release of controversial footage that has gained international attention.

The video DeHoog is referring to is a stunning interview with famed economist Robert Wiedemer, author of the New York Times best-selling book Aftershock.

Wiedemer, best known for correctly predicting the collapse of the U.S. housing market, equity markets, and consumer spending that almost sank the United States during the “Great Recession”, provides disturbing evidence in the video interview for 50 percent unemployment, a 90 percent stock market crash, and 100 percent annual inflation . . . starting as soon as 2013.

When the host of the interview expressed disbelief in Wiedemer’s claims, he calmly displayed five indisputable charts to back up his predictions (click here to see those exact charts). 



The interview has become a wake-up call for those unprepared (or unwilling) to acknowledge an ugly truth: The country’s financial “rescue” devised in Washington has failed miserably.

The blame lies squarely on those whose job it was to avoid the exact situation we find ourselves in, including current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and former Chairman Alan Greenspan, tasked with preventing financial meltdowns and keeping the nation’s economy strong through monetary and credit policies.

At one point, Wiedemer even calls out Bernanke, saying that his “money from heaven will be the path to hell.”

But it’s not just the grim predictions that are causing the sensation in Wiedemer’s video interview. Rather, it’s his comprehensive blueprint for economic survival that’s really commanding global attention.

The interview offers realistic, step-by-step solutions that the average hard-working American can easily follow.

Editor’s Note: See the 5 signs the stock market will collapse in 2013. Click here now

“[The interview] was originally filmed for a private audience,” DeHoog explains. “People were sitting up and taking notice, and they begged us to make the interview public so they could easily share it.”

Since that day, over 40 million concerned citizens have tuned in to prepare for “the unthinkable.”

As for the media giant that wanted to ban the video, DeHoog was able to work out a compromise.

“We agreed to tweak the webpage some, but we didn’t change the content of the interview. That had to stay the same. The interview simply states the financial data as is, and then simple, practical advice is given that viewers can take to protect their wealth, and even profit, during the days ahead.” Asked if he is concerned if Wiedemer’s predictions don’t come true, DeHoog replied, “Absolutely not. The best-case scenario is that Wiedemer is wrong. .

“Unfortunately, he has been dead-on thus far. No, our real concern is this, and it’s the more likely scenario — what if just half of Wiedemer’s predictions come true? Bottom line, it is imperative that Americans be prepared, and that is why we will continue to air this powerful interview.”

Editor’s Note: For a limited time, Newsmax is showing the Wiedemer interview and supplying viewers with copies of the new, updated Aftershock book including the final, unpublished chapter. Go here to view it now.


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MY COMMENT TO ARTICLE BELOW:

Know that homeless were ticketed to death for things like loitering just so their inability to pay fines made them felons? Did you know this economy was blown up on purpose by the banks who committed massive fraud of trillions of dollars and have yet been made to repay their debt..these are big-time debtors needing big-time prison sentences. The millions of Americans whose lives were turned upside down because of this massive corporate fraud are themselves becoming the debtors unable to pay. You can believe that any government allowing open corporate fraud will not be protecting people victim of it. THESE ARE THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATIC POLICIES AND WE NEED TO RUN AND VOTE LABOR AND JUSTICE TO REVERSE THEM!

Now that we have a corporate leadership holding US politics you are seeing the removal of social safety nets, retirements, and access to legal justice. Think you will continue to shed credit card debt or medical debt now that corporate pols see the government coffers as cash for corporate profits? No way Jose! People will fall into deep credit debt just trying to survive and when this debt is no longer legal..they will be working on the chain gang. In MD that brings about $2 an hour to the prisoner and several more for the private prison contracting company.

Remember, Third Way democrats=Third world society. Don't think republicans will do any different!



Consumer groups fear that debtors' prisons are making a resurgence
Debtors can be arrested for ignoring court orders in small claims cases



By Eileen Ambrose, The Baltimore Sun

8:12 p.m. EDT, March 25, 2013

When a warrant for his arrest arrived at his mother's house, Bryan Bookman went to the district court in Essex to clear up the matter.

"That's when I was handcuffed and shackled, right on the spot, like I was a common criminal," said Bookman, who didn't have the money to post bail and spent the night in the Baltimore County Jail in Towson.

His crime? Failure to show up in court for a small claims case.

Debtors' prison, where people are incarcerated for owing money, seems like something out of another century. But consumer advocates say Bookman experienced a modern-day version in Maryland. When people with even small judgments against them fail to show up in court as ordered, the creditor can ask the judge to issue a so-called "body attachment" that allows the defendant to be arrested.

In the fiscal year ended June 30, 1,830 body attachments were issued by Maryland courts handling small claims of up to $5,000, according to the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition. And 39 defendants were incarcerated, including one person who spent 14 days in jail, the group reported.

"It's a de facto debtors' prison," said Marceline White, the coalition's executive director.

Most states permit body attachments and use them in a similar way to pursue consumers for small debts, she added.

But creditors and others say consumers aren't arrested for unpaid bills but for repeatedly ignoring court orders. Debtors easily can avoid arrest just by showing up in court, they say.

In Maryland, the process works like this:

A creditor wins a judgment against a consumer to collect on a debt. The creditor then asks the judge to bring the defendant into court to answer questions about available assets or employment so wages can be garnished. If the consumer fails to show up, the court may issue another summons to determine why the person shouldn't be held in contempt. And if the defendant is a no-show again, the creditor can ask the judge to issue a body attachment.

When defendants are arrested, a judge or commissioner might release them or set a bond. Defendants too poor to pay the bond end up in jail.

"People who owe money to creditors — guess what — they don't have money," said Peter Holland, who runs the Consumer Protection Clinic at the University of Maryland School of Law. "They have fallen on hard times. They are elderly. They are living on a fixed income. They are sick. They are jobless. Is it any surprise they are spending a night in jail because they don't make bail?"


Maryland lawmakers recently considered legislation that would prevent people from being arrested for failing to appear in court in small claims cases. The Maryland Bankers Association, the Maryland-DC Creditors Bar Association Inc. and the state judiciary all opposed it.

"No one is incarcerated for failure to pay a debt," said Kathleen Murphy, president of the bankers group. But "what we can't support is taking away the court's right to exercise some remedy when the judgment debtor ignores an order to appear."

The Maryland Judiciary also submitted testimony, saying: "By not allowing the arrest of an individual for failure to respond to a court order, that individual is essentially free to disregard the orders of the court, with no repercussion."

And Del. Luiz Simmons, a Montgomery County Democrat, showed little sympathy for defendants during a hearing on the legislation last month.

When he was a young lawyer, Simmons said, his mother-in-law hired him to collect on some of the hundreds of bad checks she received from customers at her dry cleaning business.

"People gave them for her dry cleaning and tailoring, knowing full well that it was very expensive to go to court" to collect, he said.

When a case reaches the stage of a body attachment, it means the defendant refused to show up twice, he said. "They have flouted the court."

Faced with stiff opposition, the legislation failed to progress in the legislature. But a related bill has broad support. This would require that a consumer arrested on a body attachment be immediately taken before a judge or commissioner. A hearing on that bill will be held Wednesday.

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The new policy to rid cities of the poor and working class is to make homelessness a crime so loitering, taking food from trash, or simply hanging out in affluent business districts will now lead to fines over fines. As these penalties accumulate without payment the homeless are then charged with felonies. All of this makes that person ineligible for public housing..so you see these policies leave homeless no choices.



Homeless Vet Ticketed For Looking For Food In Trash
get causes updates

Apparently, maintaining a proper trash can is apparently more important than feeding the homeless in Houston, Texas.

At least, that’s how it appears after James Kelly, a 44-year-old homeless vet, was so hungry that he was driven to digging into the trash to find his next meal. Earlier this month, he made the mistake of doing this in a trash bin near Houston City Hall. For that, he received a citation from a Houston police officer that charged him with “disturbing the contents of a garbage can in (the) downtown district.”

Really? Police officers in Houston have nothing better to do than issue citations to the homeless who are driven to desperately searching in the trash for food?

Houston Law: Don’t Touch The Trash

The Houston Police Department (HPD) later issued a short statement: “The ordinance is specific to the Central Business District. It is a violation for anyone to remove any contents of any bin, bag or other container that has been placed for collection of garbage, trash or recyclable materials. An officer has probable cause to issue such a citation when a person is seen opening a lid and rummaging through contents of a dumpster or trash can.”

Why on earth would anyone create such an ordinance?

According to Alternet,

The Chronicle traced the law back to 1942, when it was delightfully titled ”molesting garbage containers.” A 1988 rewrite expanded legal protection from molestation to recyclables, and over the last 2 decades it’s become increasingly restrictive as municipalities have become more and more committed to purging the homeless from city centers.

There’s another contributing factor: in 2012, Houston passed a law banning the feeding of the poor without proper registration. The homeless can no longer rely on the kindness of strangers because such acts are illegal, unless those strangers are registered.

Does this sound as crazy to you as it does to me?

Houston Law: Don’t Feed The Homeless

More from Houston’s News 92 FM:

The voluntary homeless feeding ordinance was passed last April  in a 11-6 vote by Houston City Council. The program moves for registration of formal and informal food service organizations, free food handling training by the city’s Department of Health and Human Services, and coordination of locations and times of feeding.

Registrants are also required to obtain the consent of public or private property owners before distributing food.

So, first Houston takes away the homeless person’s option of a helping hand from a stranger, and next the city turns the homeless into criminals when they search for food in dumpsters. Whatever happened to compassion and respect?

This criminalization of the homeless is not just happening in Houston:

*  The city of Atlanta conducted a sting operation in 2008, when police officers went undercover as tourists and office workers, to snag anyone begging. At that time, the city had banned panhandling within 15 feet of an ATM, bus stop, pay phone to public toilet, and anywhere at all after dark.

*  More than 50 cities, including Atlanta, Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, Oklahoma City have adopted some kind of anti-camping or anti-food-sharing laws, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.

*  Gary Williams just spent 30 days in jail, because on two occasions a San Francisco police officer found him slumped over, asleep, on a milk crate. Even though he had no camping gear with his, he was charged with unauthorized lodging and public nuisance, his lawyer, Andrea Lindsay, told AlterNet.

Laws that restrict panhandling are designed to target poor people living on the street. Other examples of such laws include bans on sitting or lying down on the sidewalk, eating in public, setting up camp or sleeping in a park or other public places. Most advocates for the homeless believe that these laws are created in order to push the homeless out of sight.

If you believe that searching in a trash can for food is not a criminal act, please sign our petition, asking the Houston Police Department to withdraw their citation. Kelly is due in court on April 10.

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We appreciate this opinion piece as it is true....it should not be chartered here. Did you know that MD allowed the debt consolidating industry to come to MD to handle all the foreclosures and people's personal bankruptcies caused by massive bank fraud knowing these debt consolidation companies have been riddled with..you guessed it massive claims of fraud. It seems that being guilty of fraud is a business plus in MD.

The Atlantic Monthly had a great article about the state of the big banks....even sophisticated investors are calling them crony, criminal, and to be avoided using Wells Fargo as an example. Wells Fargo absorbed some of the worst of subprime mortgage offenders and as such still owes tens of billions of dollars in fraud beyond Doug Gansler's parking ticket of $25 billion. A professional look into its business practices shows how ugly banking still is and how it is ready to bring down the economy once again. Wells Fargo sits right across from the Attorney General's office in Baltimore.

The laws protecting corporations from fraud oversight and prosecution are still in place in MD. It is impossible for the public to seek justice and if by chance they do, the caps on awards will barely pay legal expenses. Third Way corporate democrats and republicans share the policy of protecting wealth and profits over people...the democratic base needs to send them packing!



Money-laundering firm should get no welcome in Maryland HSBC may be 'too big to jail,' but it doesn't deserve to be chartered here

By Bartlett Naylor 6:00 a.m. EDT, March 25, 2013

When criminal prosecutors at the U.S. Department of Justice found that giant bank HSBC — whose American operation is chartered in Maryland — had violated money-laundering laws covering $200 trillion in transactions, and with customers including terrorists, sanctioned states and Mexican drug lords, one might reasonably have expected a criminal prosecution.

After all, other, much smaller money launderers are currently serving prison sentences. However, the DOJ chose instead to fine HSBC roughly 12 percent of last year's profits. No one faces jail in this case.

This month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress that the firm's size challenged the government's prosecution. He testified, "I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy. ... Some of these institutions have become too large."

Few are comfortable with Mr. Holder's rationale. Senators on both sides of the partisan aisle decry using an institution's size as a reason for deferring prosecution. Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Maryland bank regulator, observed that even bankers and those who follow banking may not support this rationale. She pointed to a poll of American Banker readers that "found that a mere 8 percent of readers who responded thought authorities took the right course in the case of enforcement against HSBC for money laundering violations. As many as 47 percent said the Justice Department should have prosecuted the bank, while another 45 percent said authorities should have gone after the individuals responsible for the violations."

In the case of HSBC, the public need not rely entirely on federal officials to do the right thing. Maryland officials can play an important role. Maryland law equips the state attorney general with a powerful tool to advance justice. According to the Maryland statute on corporations and associations, the attorney general "may institute a civil proceeding in the courts to forfeit the charter of any Maryland corporation and to revoke the authority of any foreign corporation to do business in this State," in cases where the corporation's activities serve to "aid, or abet the violation of criminal laws relating to ... illegal drug distribution."

In a situation where Marylanders and others in the country suffer because we've been held hostage to banks that are "too big to fail" (as President Barack Obama says), the chilling new policy of "too big to jail" adds another nightmarish dimension.

In January, Public Citizen wrote Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler and asked him to exercise his prerogatives in this matter. More than 600 Marylanders have joined 38,000 other Americans in a petition to the Maryland attorney general stating: "HSBC is a large corporation, but should enjoy no special privilege because of its size. A Maryland corporate charter should signal integrity, and we ask that you uphold this standard."

In a similar situation last year, New York's Department of Financial Services "determined that grounds existed for revocation of [Standard Chartered Bank's] license to operate in the State of New York and that interim measures must be taken to protect the public interest." Standard Chartered was accused of laundering some $250 billion in transactions involving Iran. The New York agency ultimately elected not to revoke the license, but the bank paid a substantial fine.

Mr. Gansler and Maryland alone can't resolve the problem of "too big to jail." Even if Maryland de-charters HSBC, it could recharter elsewhere. That other state, however, would suffer opprobrium for countenancing admitted money laundering operations.

Granted, pursuing the forfeiture of a charter of the world's fifth-largest company requires courage. That is all the more reason to move forward. My organization believes that that the attorney general should strongly consider forfeiting HSBC's Maryland charter, and we look forward to Mr. Gansler's response.

Bartlett Naylor, a Maryland native, is financial policy advocate for Public Citizen in Washington, D.C. His email is bnaylor@citizen.org.

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THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS SAY........WHO'S YOUR MASTER!!!!!


Corporate Welfare – Employees Paying Taxes Directly To Corporations

2013/03/24By Justin Acuff

Taxes have been a part of government for as long as there have been things to tax, and the general idea behind them is pretty well understood. The government takes a portion of everyone’s income and spends it in such a way as to improve things for everyone in one way or another. That could be defensive spending, such as military technology or troop wages, administrative costs will always factor in, educational funding, etc. And that’s the way it works in America. Or is it? In truth, corporate lobbyists have ensured that our convoluted tax code heavily favors corporations. The fact is that it’s even possible, if you’re employed by a large corporation, that you’re paying your taxes directly toward your employing company.

In his recent book, The Fine Print, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston explains the laws that allow corporations to go to war with the American working class. In an interview with Alternet, he said the following:

It’s now up to 21 states. In 21 states, they’ve passed a law that says that taxes withheld from your paycheck, for the state, can be kept by the company. Now, every employer doesn’t get this windfall — you have to have to get a deal from the government to do it — 2,700 big companies, every big company you’ve ever heard of, General Electric, Procter and Gamble, Deutsche Bank, you name it, they’ve got these deals, where they get to keep the taxes. Billions of dollars are diverted this way. You know the best thing for the companies about this?

The workers don’t know, because once the taxes are withheld, the state government treats you as having paid your taxes. You paid your taxes. They just then give a credit to let the company keep the taxes. I’ve called journalists. I’ve called union people who negotiate union contracts. And they say, “What are you talking about?” I showed them the work I’ve done. They go, “Oh my God!” They have no idea that this is what’s happening, and the fact that it’s spread from the 16 states when I first wrote about this and it’s now grown to 21 – eventually, all of the 44 states with income taxes are going to allow this, if we don’t put a stop to it.

He also addresses the fact that a lack of regulation is actually limiting to competition when it comes to capitalism, as more successful businesses will rapidly form industrial monopolies and oligarchies:

I want more competition. Here’s what really goes on, however. We put up barriers to competition, and in fact, Wall Street has institutionalized this concept. Morningstar, they’re a big financial advice firm. They tell people that they should grade companies and decide whether to buy their stock, based on something called a “moat index.” Moat, like around a castle? A moat index asks, “What barriers has the government erected to keep anybody else from competing against that company?” Indeed, as I show in my book, you could get rich if you invest in those companies that have regulatory moats — where under the name of deregulation, we have insulated them from the rigors of the market.

This is the real welfare in America. Corporate welfare. Where the rich get richer, and they pay other people to convince Republicans how important it is to vote for conservative puppet politicians that will vote for laws that allow “the American people” to keep more of their income tax dollars — which really benefits the rich. In reality, it’s the Republican Party that is engaging in wealth redistribution. The difference in their version? They’re redistributing wealth to the top.

UPDATE: Sixteen states with programs like this are Utah, South Carolina, Ohio, New Mexico, New Jersey, North Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas and Kentucky. We aren’t aware what the other five states in this group are at this time, and the article will be updated further when we have that information. Contact us if you are aware.

I would also like to add that the fight against corporate interests ruling our government is a bipartisan, because corruption reaches across the aisle. However, on this particular issue, conservative ideology promotes business interests no matter how harmful, and I think that the Democratic Party handles it slight better. Only slightly.




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March 25th, 2013

3/25/2013

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PLEASE LOOK AT WHAT THE POLITICIANS ACTUALLY DO AND HOW THESE LAWS ARE ENFORCED AND THEN HOW THE HEADLINES SELL THESE POLITICIANS.

DO NOT KEEP VOTING FOR THESE THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS....RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE!
!



Speaking more about the looting of America's public assets to enrich the few and the  impoverishing of American citizens I want to look locally at what is happening in all Third Way corporate democratic states.  Johns Hopkins as I said is trying to boot everyone out of the health care system that will cut health industry profits and now they are doing it to their own employees by making the lowest paid health care workers pay for their own health insurance.  As happens in Maryland in all labor deals involving negotiation over pensions and wages a small wage increase is followed by handing benefit costs that take more of the worker's check than the raise gives thus lowering their incomes even further.  Now, with all this 'people need to be responsible for some of their own health care costs mantra' that is Third Way democrat and republican speak that 80% of Americans will not access health care, we all know that paying a co-pay on expensive treatments like surgery or cancer treatments bankrupt average families right away.  These co-pay policies are designed to allow the 80% of American's access to only preventative care....all those lab tests and x-rays that allow lots of medical fraud.  JOHNS HOPKINS IS MAKING THEIR EMPLOYEES MAKE LABOR CHANGES THAT WILL ESSENTIALLY BANKRUPT OR END ACCESS TO CARE.  Remember, Hopkins has received trillions of dollars in taxpayer money over decades, it had copious land deals that have real estate quasi-public and tax-free, it is known to be a part of the massive fraud of entitlements.....HOPKINS IS A HEALTH INSTITUTION OWNED BY THE PUBLIC SO NEEDS TO SIMPLY GIVE ALL HEALTH CARE FREE TO ALL.

Below you see where this issue stood 2 years ago and Hopkins is moving to make this worse.  Think about how a state like Maryland gains headlines in mainstream media as having successes in health care reform and getting people covered.  Then look at how many people have been pushed into coverage that will keep them from access.  DO YOU REALLY THINK O'MALLEY, LT GOV ANTHONY BROWN, AND MARYLAND ASSEMBLY ARE REALLY MOVING HEALTH ISSUES FORWARD FOR THE CITIZENS OF MARYLAND?



Health care workers rally for better pay, more rights Many said they are currently barely making poverty wages and are unable to afford the health care benefits they provide for other patients.

Brew Editors June 24, 2010 at 10:48 pm Story Link 2

The crowd at Thursday’s 1199 rally.

Photo by: Elizabeth Suman

Around 400 people, joined by actor and activist Danny Glover and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, crowded Mt. Vernon Square yesterday afternoon for 1199SEIU’s “The Heart of Baltimore” rally to demand that all health care institutions allow workers to freely, without employer intimidation, vote on union representation.

Many area hospitals and nursing homes employ union-represented health care workers, with Johns Hopkins Medicine being the first to do so over fifty years ago. But many more, including the University of Maryland Medical Center and St. Agnes Hospital, are largely not unionized. Participants in the rally said some employers discourage their employees from pursuing unionization with fear campaigns and punishment.

“How much do I like my job?” Gary Miller, a technician at St. Agnes Hospital Emergency Department mused out loud, before deciding to answer why he supports unionization.

“St. Agnes Hospital is not yet unionized and we’re letting the union make the first move, otherwise we [workers] could get in big trouble.”



Gary Miller, a technician in the St. Agnes Hospital Emergency Department and a home nurse at the North Nursing Home (Photo by Elizabeth Suman)

Wade Hilton, a physical trainer who worked in a hospital for many years, shared similar sentiments, saying that some workers “are afraid it’s going to affect their jobs” if they demand unionization. They may not lose their job, Hilton said, but they could be demoted to a lower-paying one.

Why take that risk?

The crowd of nurse’s aides, technicians and laundry, food service and other workers — many of them still wearing their scrubs and carrying stethoscopes, all of them enduring the blistering heat — said they need to organize to improve their sector’s chronic problem of low pay and poor working conditions.

Many said they are currently barely making poverty wages and are unable to afford the health care benefits they provide for other patients. Organizers said the problem is disproportionately worse in Baltimore and that nurse’s aides here make less than their counterparts in every other major East Coast city.

They are two-and-a-half times more likely than other Maryland workers to be on food stamps, and more than half of them make so little, their children qualify for the state’s low-income health insurance plan, according to the union.

Since one in every five Baltimoreans works in the health care, the union argues that its campaign will not only improve workers’ lives by raising wages and guaranteeing health care benefits, but, in effect, heal the ailing Baltimore economy as well.

“It is about strengthening the economy for the entire city,” Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said to the crowd, a sea of people in purple shirts waving yellow inflatable batons. “When health care workers have a voice, we all win.”

Workers with a sense of ownership, control and say over their environment perform better Miller said: “With the union, when we voice our concerns we will have much better of a chance of controlling what will be implemented, which is good not only for us but for the patients too.”

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (Photo by Elizabeth Suman)

Rawlings-Blake echoed that sentiment, saying that every health care worker deserves a voice on the job and that when they do, “you can assure that every patient gets the right care.”

Less than 10 percent of Maryland health care workers belong to unions. Some institutions have a portion of their workforce represented by a union. The University of Maryland Medical Center, for example, has about 6,800 employees (not including 1,000 faculty physicians) and, of that group, the only union members are about 400 employees in housekeeping and food service, according to director of public affairs, Ellen Beth Levitt.

Levitt said the idea that hospital employees are intimidated or discouraged from seeking union representation is “ridiculous” and “couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“There are always going to be some exaggerations and false accusations,” Levitt said. “Truly, our employees are happy.”

Annie Henry, an instrument processor with Johns Hopkins Medicine, has been a member of the union for 41 years and said she joined in order to battle racism sees in the work place. Henry said that after working for Hopkins for only six months she was ready to walk out the door and that it was joining the union that gave her a “voice without retaliation.”

Since then she said the union’s strength increased but that subtle bias persists even in workplaces like hers where the union is allowed. When she was applying for a position a few years ago, she said, she was rejected on the basis of being a union member.

Annie Henry, an instrument processor at Johns Hopkins (Photo by Elizabeth Suman)

Still the benefits outweigh the setbacks. Laura Pugh, a cook and delegate also with Johns Hopkins Medicine, joined the union in 1970 and says she did so because she “wanted to see change.” She describes how at the time she could only go in one door because she was black and that she was afraid to speak back to white employees. But “we have gotten better” Pugh stated, “better wages, better health benefits, we got a pension.”

Despite successes, the campaign is far from over. The local Baltimore union, which had been in existence since 1969, merged with the regional 1199SEIU (Service Employees International Union) five years ago, launching the campaign for free and fair union election. Last fall the campaign got a show of support frmo government when the Baltimore City  Council and Baltimore County Council passed resolutions calling on all health care institutions and health care providers to free and fair union election. .

Enthusiastic tambourine shaker (Photo by Elizabeth Suman)

Thus the rally, advertisements in magazines and newspapers, radio support and other forms of publicity are needed, organizers said, to raise awareness about the Heart of Baltimore campaign and put pressure on health care CEOs to adopt a free and fair union election code of conduct.

“We have now learned that change is possible and we have to make [employers] realize that we are a partnership,” Pugh said. “We’re trying to get everyone involved because everybody should have health insurance.”

Henry explained that she urges health care workers to join the campaign for unionization because there is safety in numbers. “At some point in time everybody is going to want to make more money and why wouldn’t you want to pay workers to make a decent living?” she demanded.

People registering for 1199 (Photo by Elizabeth Suman)

John Reid, the Executive Vice President of 1199SEIU Maryland/D.C. invigorated the crowd declaring that Baltimore health care workers have long suffered in comparison with their fellow counterparts just down the road in D.C.

Reid addressed the audience urging health care workers to stand up and assert their rights saying “we are ready to make our voice heard because we are the heart of Baltimore.”


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THIS IS A CURRENT ARTICLE THAT SHOWS EMPLOYEES ARE IN THE SAME POSITION AFTER ALL THESE YEARS.  THEY ARE PROBABLY STILL MAKING CLOSE TO THAT $7-8 AN HOUR WAGE.  THIS SITUATION IS MADE HARDER WHEN THE IMMIGRANT LABOR IS BROUGHT IN HAVING NO RIGHTS BY LAW.

Tuesday Mar 12, 2013 6:59 pm

For Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore Is A ‘Company Town’
By Bruce Vail

Johns Hopkins' new $1.1 billion medical center, the biggest new investment in urban Baltimore in decades, is a potent symbol of Hopkins' wealth and power in the city.   (Photo courtesy of Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System)

BALTIMORE—Unionized workers at Johns Hopkins Hospital finalized a new labor contract this week in an episode that highlights the stark economic power of wealthy Hopkins in a city badly wounded by industrial decline and municipal neglect.

Late last week, members of 1199SEIU—the East Coast healthcare division of the Service Employees International Union—voted to approve a one-year contract covering maintenance workers, kitchen staff, nurse aides and other workers, says Armeta Dixon, an 1199SEIU vice president with experience dealing with Hopkins and other hospitals in the area.

Though it provides a welcome 2.25 percent wage increase without any big concessions, the contract is problematic in that it also defers for a year the resolution of a difficult issue that could prove very damaging to union members; Hopkins wants to impose a new health insurance system that “would be an economic hardship” on members, Dixon says, and there appears to be little room for agreement between the union and hospital managers on how to handle the issue.


In an interview with Working In These Times, Dixon was reluctant to discuss the economics of the Hopkins proposal, but an earlier estimate from the union had pegged the additional cost at $1,800 a year for each member. If imposed by the hospital at that level, the new health care costs will eat up all the gains from the wage increase, and will actually reduce the take-home pay of the largely low-paid union workers.  

The one-year contract, Dixon indicates, is essentially a stalling tactic that provides a little breathing room for further negotiation. Normally, Hopkins and two other Baltimore hospitals sign three-year contracts at about the same time, with similar wage and benefit provisions. But that pattern has now gone by the wayside, and the union faces an especially challenging year ahead.

Les Bayless, a Baltimore union activist who has worked for SEIU and other unions in the area, says that while the healthcare union has some real strengths, it is badly overmatched in its contest with Hopkins. As the second largest single employer in Baltimore—the university itself is the first—Johns Hopkins Medicine is a huge presence in the city. Unionized employees make up only a small portion of Hopkins Hospital employees, and the union has made no inroads at all into the well-paid technical and professional vocations that have made it famous at the national and international level.

Further, the hospital and its associated organizations have invested billions in medical facilities here in an era when industrial and commercial businesses have fled the city. Within the last year, the nearby Sparrows Point steel mill was closed permanently, and the city’s largest private corporation, Constellation Energy, was gobbled up by a Chicago-based conglomerate. In contrast, Hopkins Hospital opened a gleaming $1.1 billion medical complex in an economically depressed section of the city. Hopkins’ wealth and influence are unmatched in the region, Bayless says, and even the largest and strongest unions would be overpowered.

But Dixon says that this reality is not going to prevent 1199SEIU from fighting Hopkins over next year’s contract. Members are already “overburdened” with high heath care costs, she says, and have already begun mobilizing for a new contract fight.        

All of this comes at a time when 1199SEIU is developing its “Heart of Baltimore” campaign, a long-term effort to increase membership with new organizing initiatives at non-union hospitals and other health care facilities.

The campaign was launched in 2010 with a low-intensity effort to build political support at the grassroots level. Among other things, the union wants local politicians and public institutions to support a “Free and Fair” code of conduct for healthcare employers that would prohibit aggressive anti-union campaigns. It has some backing from influential politicians, such as Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

A focus for organizing is the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC), another large hospital that has long been in the union’s sights. UMMC spokeswoman Mary Lynn Carver confirmed that 1199SEIU organizers have been active recently at the Center’s facilities but declined any further comment. New organizing is never easy, Bayless observes, and it will be difficult for 1199SEIU to mount an effective UMMC effort with the Hopkins contract issue casting a shadow over developments.

But, Dixon says, the immediate next step for 1199SEIU is to reach new agreements with the two other Baltimore hospitals with union contracts, Greater Baltimore Medical Center and Sinai Hospital. Existing contracts have expired with both hospitals and temporary extensions are in place, says Dixon, adding that negotiations have already started but there is no target date for completion of the new agreements.

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Anyone who knows Maryland and especially Baltimore construction know of Whiting - Turner.  They receive almost all of the areas development business and they are very clear.....they don't do hire union contractors or labor.  Now you look at Hopkins and their stance with unions and their employees and you see how regressive the Baltimore labor market is.

Not only does this show the relationship between the movers of labor and development in the city....it shows the absolute pay to play environment as Hopkins decides development and uses that power to get all kinds of private donations.  This entire school of engineering for massive future contracts seems to make a scratch donation.


IF WE ARE TO END THIS CRONY CAPITALISM IT IS THIS LOCAL GRAFT THAT LEADS US TO THE POLITICIANS WHO CLIMB THE POLITICAL LADDER.....O'MALLEY AND NOW RAWLINGS-BLAKE FEEDS THIS CULTURE!!!
History
Originally known as the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering building, Maryland Hall was renamed in 1931 to recognize the Maryland General Assembly's role in establishing the School of Engineering.[2]

Engineering at Johns Hopkins was originally created in 1913 as an educational program that included exposure to liberal arts and scientific inquiry.[3] In 1919, the engineering department became a separate school, known as the School of Engineering. By 1937, over 1,000 students had graduated with engineering degrees. By 1946 the school had six departments.

In 1961, the School of Engineering changed its name to the School of Engineering Sciences and, in 1966, merged with the Faculty of Philosophy to become part of the School of Arts and Sciences. In 1979, the engineering programs were organized into a separate academic division that was named the G.W.C. Whiting School of Engineering. The school's named benefactor is George William Carlyle Whiting, co-founder of The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company.

Several departments at the school have been nationally and historically recognized. The Department of Biomedical Engineering is recognized as the top-ranked program in the nation. The Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering has consistently ranked as one of the top 5 programs nationally by US News and World Report [1] in recent years.

The Department of Mechanical Engineering is well-known for it's fundamental and historic contributions to the study of mechanics and turbulence. Although it has always been very small, a great number of famous scientists have been associated with it over the years. These include Clifford Truesdell, James Bell, Stanley Corrsin, Robert Kraichnan, John L. Lumley, Leslie Kovasznay, Walter Noll, K. R. Sreenivasan, Hugh Dryden, Shiyi Chen, Andrea Prosperetti, Fazle Hussein, Harry Swinney, Stephen H. Davis, and Mohamed Gad-el-Hak. Many of the landmark papers in the field of fluid mechanics (turbulence in particular) were written using data from the Corrsin Wind Tunnel Laboratory. The wind tunnel is still in operation today. The department was also home to the school of rational mechanics. It was recently ranked as one of the top 5 departments in the nation for research activity by the National Research Council (the department was ranked 13th by the generic US News and World Report rankings).





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MEANWHILE, LOOK AT CYPRUS AND THE EUROPEAN UNION AS WORKERS WITH GOOD LABOR BENEFITS SEE THE 1% PULLING THEIR RETIREMENTS AND BENEFITS APART UNDER THE GUISE OF GOVERNMENT DEBT.

THEY ARE DOING THE SAME THING IN PRIVATE BUSINESS.  THIS IS NOT DRIVEN BY NEED......IT IS DRIVEN BY GREED.



As regards this article:


Do you know who these bondholders are? That's right......public sector municipal bonds, public/private pensions, and insurance investments. The rich have totally exited bank investments and the public are the only ones taking these loses. The exact situation exists in all Western countries.....especially the US. The big banks in the US have been declared crony and criminal very publicly by sophisticated investors who would not place their money in this system.....yet for some reason pension funds, municipal bond funds, and insurance investments prop the whole banking system.  Do you hear the emphasis on Russian money launderers and none on who the shareholders are?  In Europe they do not have their retirements in Trusts separate from the banks and that is what the TROIKA are eliminating when they bring down these public banks.  See why Third Way and Republicans want Social Security and Entitlements in the banking system and  not in Trusts?

THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS = THIRD WORLD POLICIES.....RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTIONS!


Cyprus reaches last-minute deal on 10 billion euro bailout

By Jan Strupczewski and Michele Kambas | Reuters – 39 mins ago


By Jan Strupczewski and Michele Kambas

BRUSSELS/NICOSIA (Reuters) - Cyprus clinched a last-ditch deal with international lenders to shut down its second-largest bank and inflict heavy losses on uninsured depositors, including wealthy Russians, in return for a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout.

The agreement came hours before a deadline to avert a collapse of the banking system in fraught negotiations between President Nicos Anastasiades and heads of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Without a deal, Cyprus's banking system would have collapsed and the country could have become the first to crash out of the European single currency.

Swiftly backed by euro zone finance ministers, the plan will spare the Mediterranean island a financial meltdown by winding down the largely state-owned Popular Bank of Cyprus, also known as Laiki, and shifting deposits below 100,000 euros to the Bank of Cyprus to create a "good bank".

Deposits above 100,000 euros in both banks, which are not guaranteed under EU law, will be frozen and used to resolve Laiki's debts and recapitalize Bank of Cyprus through a deposit/equity conversion.

The raid on uninsured Laiki depositors is expected to raise 4.2 billion euros, Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijssebloem said.

Laiki will effectively be shuttered, with thousands of job losses. Officials said senior bondholders in Laiki would be wiped out and those in Bank of Cyprus would have to make a contribution.

An EU spokesman said no across-the-board levy or tax would be imposed on deposits in Cypriot banks, although the hit on large account holders in the two biggest banks is likely to be far greater than initially planned. A first attempt at a deal last week collapsed when the Cypriot parliament rejected a proposed levy on all deposits.

UNFORESEEABLE CONSEQUENCES

Cyprus government spokesman Christos Stylianides said: "We averted a disorderly bankruptcy which would have led to an exit of Cyprus from the euro zone with unforeseeable consequences."

Asked about the level of losses on uninsured depositors in Bank of Cyprus, he told state radio: "The assessment is that it will be under or around 30 percent."

The Cyprus central bank said the agreement had also avoided the disorderly default of Laiki Bank.

Among Cypriots, there was a mood of wariness about the deal.

"How long will it last?" asked Georgia Xenophontos, 23, a hotel receptionist in Nicosia. "Why should anyone believe anything this government says?"

But many in the capital appeared intent on enjoying a sunny holiday morning, drinking coffee at pavement cafes and watching camera crews filming people drawing money from bank machines.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Cypriot lawmakers would not need to vote on the new scheme, since they had already enacted a law on procedures for bank resolution.

At a news conference in Berlin, Schaeuble said the agreement was "much better" from Germany's perspective than the deal last week that would have hit small depositors and was rejected by the Cypriot parliament.

The new deal offers the country the best chance of getting back on its feet, Schaeuble said.

Anastasiades is expected to make a statement at some point after his return to Cyprus at 1:30 p.m. EDT.

Lefteris Christoforou, vice-chairman of the ruling Democratic Rally party, said it was important that Cyprus had avoided a chaotic bankruptcy. "It is a bad deal, but the extreme scenario we had to contend with was worse."

RESIGNATION THREAT

A senior source in the Brussels talks said Anastasiades threatened to resign at one stage on Sunday if pushed too far.

The Conservative leader, barely a month in office and wrestling with Cyprus's worst crisis since a 1974 invasion by Turkish forces split the island in two, was forced to abandon his efforts to shield big account holders.

Diplomats said the president had fought hard to preserve the country's business model as an offshore financial center drawing huge sums from wealthy Russians and Britons but had lost.

The EU and IMF required that Cyprus raise 5.8 billion euros from its banking sector towards its own financial rescue in return for 10 billion euros in international loans. The head of the EU rescue fund said Cyprus should receive the first emergency funds in May.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde said the agreement was "a comprehensive and credible plan" that addresses the core problem of the banking system.

"This agreement provides the basis for restoring trust in the banking system, which is key to supporting growth," she said in a statement.

With banks closed for the last week, the Central Bank of Cyprus imposed a 100-euro daily limit on withdrawals from cash machines at the two biggest banks to avert a run.

French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici rejected charges that the EU had brought Cypriots to their knees, saying it was the island's offshore business model that had failed.

"To all those who say that we are strangling an entire people ... Cyprus is a casino economy that was on the brink of bankruptcy," he said.

The euro gained against the dollar on the news in early Asian trading.

Analysts had said failure to clinch a deal could have caused a financial market sell-off, but some said the island's small size - it accounts for just 0.2 percent of the euro zone's economic output - would have limited contagion.

Cyprus's banking sector, with assets eight times the size of the economy, has been crippled by exposure to Greece, where private bondholders suffered a 75 percent "haircut" last year. 
Those bondholders again not the rich.....the public and their retirements!!

Without a deal by the end of Monday, the ECB said it would have cut off emergency funds to the banks, spelling certain collapse and potentially pushing the country out of the euro.

Under the bailout agreement, Laiki's ECB funds will pass to Bank of Cyprus, and the central bank will "provide liquidity to BoC in line with applicable rules".

Anticipating a run when banks reopen on Tuesday, parliament has given the government powers to impose capital controls.

On Tuesday, the 56-seat parliament had rejected a levy on depositors, big and small. Finance Minister Michael Sarris then spent three fruitless days in Moscow trying to win help from Russia, whose citizens and companies have billions of euros at stake in Cypriot banks.

The tottering banks held 68 billion euros in deposits, including 38 billion in accounts of more than 100,000 euros - enormous sums for an island of 1.1 million people that could never sustain such a big financial system on its own.


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PEOPLE IN MARYLAND UNDERSTAND THE CRONY AND CORRUPT POLITICS OF MARYLAND AND THE DAMAGE DONE TO THE AVERAGE CITIZENS BY POLICY THAT IS NEVER ENFORCED AND OVERSIGHT THAT ALLOWS FOR THE WORST OF EXPLOITATION.

LOOK AT HOW THE PRESS WILL MAKE O'MALLEY SEEM PERFECT.  NOW IS THE TIME TO WRITE ALL LABOR AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS ACROSS THE COUNTRY TO LET THEM KNOW WHERE O'MALLEY STANDS.


South Carolina Democrats see O'Malley 'rising' Governor is keynote speaker at state party event


By Erin Cox, The Baltimore Sun 9:48 p.m. EDT, March 23, 2013

CHARLESTON, S.C.— — Gov. Martin O'Malley took the stage Saturday at a high school in this early presidential primary state, telling an auditorium of South Carolina Democrats that his principles worked in Maryland — and they'd work elsewhere.

"We're investing more to improve public education, to hold down college tuition, to spur innovation and job creation," O'Malley said to a crowd of 150 party faithful. But he also said Maryland has "cut state spending big time," casting himself as a pragmatist who makes tough choices.

In a 20-minute speech focused largely on South Carolina's politics, O'Malley did not mention liberal social policies he has pushed, such as legalizing same-sex marriage and repealing Maryland's death penalty. Party officials here said that in a state with a Republican governor, the point was to showcase a successful Democrat who can boast of No. 1 ranked schools and an unemployment rate below the national average.

"We've been following him," George Temple, former chair of the Charleston County Democratic Party, said after he stopped O'Malley to shake his hand. "He's a rising star who is obviously on his way to bigger and better things, we hope."

O'Malley, who is considering a 2016 bid for the White House, was stumping for a possible Democratic gubernatorial candidate as he delivered an address that both sharply criticized South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley and proclaimed "the threshold of a new era of American progress."

As the keynote speaker at this conference for the South Carolina Democratic Party, O'Malley had a dual purpose, experts said: rallying Democrats in a state dominated by Republicans and introducing himself and his message.

"What Martin O'Malley is doing now is exactly the thing he needs to do," said political consultant Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee chairman who works in Charleston.

"You can go out here on the street in front of my office and ask 20 people who Martin O'Malley is," Fowler said before Saturday's event. "Someone will probably tell you he plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Nobody knows him, so he's working from a clean slate."

Charlie Cook of the "Cook Political Report" considers O'Malley one of four likely candidates for the 2016 nomination. The list is topped by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden. Alongside O'Malley on the second tier, Cook said, is New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.  IF YOU LIKE THE DIRECTION THE COUNTRY IS HEADING THESE THIRD WAY WILL CONTINUE THESE POLICIES!!

"Nobody outside of Maryland knows O'Malley's record. There is no impression" of him, Cook said. "We're talking about blank pieces of paper."

Cook called the records of O'Malley and Cuomo virtually identical. "You'd need a microscope to see the difference," he said.

In South Carolina, hours before O'Malley arrived at the event, college seniors Keegan Smith and Bryan Carter relied on Google to introduce them to Maryland's governor.

"The media is telling me he's the new up-and-coming Democrat, but that's all I know," said Smith, a political science major at the College of Charleston, the same university O'Malley's daughter Tara attends.

"He was mayor of Baltimore, right?" asked Carter.

After the speech, both young Democrats said they liked what they heard. "I see the charisma," Carter said. "I think his achievements in Maryland could really help in South Carolina."

The Maryland Republican Party's executive director took issue with the achievements O'Malley cited. David Ferguson drove his truck down to Charleston to stage an event outside the West Ashley High School where O'Malley spoke, giving local Republicans a playbook to attack him. Ferguson's talking points include enumerating the thousands of businesses that have left Maryland and the unemployment level.

"Just like Barack Obama was unknown in 2004, Martin O'Malley is unknown in 2016," Ferguson said. "He's able to invent whatever he wants to say, and someone needs to be around to tell the truth. … If you can't find a job when you graduate, what does it matter to keep the cost of college down?"

The Maryland General Assembly, which ends its annual session in two weeks, has been working toward giving O'Malley another set of accomplishments that appeal to a Democratic base. Lawmakers have already voted to repeal Maryland's death penalty and provide a subsidy for the development of offshore wind power.

He's also expected to get new gas taxes to pay for mass transit and highway projects, as well as some if not all of his gun control proposals. His past victories include legalizing same-sex marriage and extending in-state tuition rates to some illegal immigrants — issues that political consultants say appeal to most Democratic primary voters in any state, including South Carolina.

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

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