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October 08th, 2012

10/8/2012

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THIS BLOG GOES TO THE HEART OF PUBLIC ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND HOW THE MEDIA FAILS TO REPORT IN AN ACCURATE WAY.  BALTIMORE HAS THE LAW FROM TWO YEARS AGO THAT STATE CAMERAS AND A TV PUBLIC ACCESS  WILL OPEN THE BOARD OF ESTIMATE MEETINGS TO THE PUBLIC, YET, SOMEHOW THAT NEVER HAS HAPPENED.  INSTEAD WE DEPEND ON WHAT IS PRINTED BY CAPTURED MEDIA.



This morning the news today is the astounding figure of 93% of US earnings these few years having gone to the 1%.  This has been the trend for years, but it has reach a pinnacle.  Believe that they intend to keep this % with the incumbents they have in place.  Top reasons for this %:  Failure to end Bush Tax Cuts; failure to bring back trillions in fraud; Bernanke's Fed policy giving free money; trillions in tax breaks to corporations in the guise of 'job creation' simply used to build corporate infrastructure, to have taxpayers pay corporate R and D expenses and Human Resources expenses.  Your corporate Third Way Democratic politician is legislating all that.  AND YOU THOUGHT THEY WERE DEADLOCKED AND POLARIZED!   

A local Maryland example can be seen with 2 items from this week:  Baltimore's last Board of Estimates meeting and O'Malley holding his head low as he announced his tax surcharge on Maryland's utility rate payers to pay Exelon's operational and capital development costs.  THESE TWO EXAMPLES SHOW HOW THE TOP 1% ARE MAKING 97% OF THE WEALTH.  THEY ARE ALLOWING THE PEOPLE 3% BECAUSE, AFTER ALL, WE HAVE TO EAT IN ORDER TO WORK.

So, BGE is at the Board of Estimate meeting to protest a 3% rate hike the city charges BGE for doing business.   BGE's protest was this:  We note that the city had a $600,000 surplus last year from this 'doing business' account and has never had instances where this account has not been adequate.  There is no demonstrated need for an increase.  To which Rawlings-Blake flunkies say 'we have plans for that money that haven't been listed on accounts'.....capital expenditures roll from year to year.  BGE states 'we have a criteria for approval agreement' with the city that states we have the right to know and approve how those funds in this 'doing business' accounts are used.  Rawlings-Blake flunkies say 'we aren't required to get your approval for anything'.

RAWLINGS-BLAKE SAYS SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHY BGE IS WORRIED ABOUT THIS RATE HIKE BECAUSE ALL THEY NEED TO DO IS PASS IT ON TO THE RATEPAYER.

It comes out in conversation that the $600,000 looks to be heading to the Enterprise Zone development in Dundalk to build utility conduits for underground cables for these wealthy developments.  This is the underground cables that everyone in Maryland has been shouting for because of the multiple power outages.  THE REASON THIS IS NOT DOCUMENTED IS THAT WE SEE HOW THIS MONEY COLLECTED FROM RATEPAYERS IN THE FORM OF RATE HIKES WILL BE FUNNELLED.  THE GRID UPGRADES ARE ALREADY TARGETING WEALTHY DEVELOPMENTS AND COMMUNITIES.

I asked the Baltimore Sun reporter covering the Board of Estimate meeting if he was going to write an article on this and he says ' I didn't hear anything' and indeed, there was no press.  I HAVE WRITTEN THE BOARD OF ESTIMATES TWICE ASKING THEM TO GET MEETING ROOM CAMERAS UP AND RUNNING ON PUBLIC ACCESS TV STATION 25 AS PER CITY LEGISLATION PASSED TWO YEARS AGO.REQUIRING THIS AND EACH TIME I AM TOLD IT WILL HAPPEN IN A MONTH....AND DOESN'T.

BELOW YOU SEE MY LETTER TO BALTIMORE'S PUBLIC JUSTICE CENTER REGARDING THE FAILURE TO OPEN THE BALTIMORE BOARD OF ESTIMATES TO PUBLIC SCRUTINY BY FULFILLING CITY COUNCIL LEGISLATION STATING THESE MEETINGS WILL BE TELEVISED.



VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!

Now we hear O'Malley telling us that his tax surcharge on BGE ratepayers to pay for the grid upgrades we all demanded of the corporation is necessary and will be 'just a few dollars a month'.  Remember, it was O'Malley that assured us this BGE/Exelon merger would not bring rate increases and it was O'Malley that assured us a few years back that a 75% rate increase requested by Constellation/BGE would not happen.  Well, this is it.  This 'small rate increse' will be close to this 75% number.  We already know that O'Malley's hand-picked Maryland Public Service Commission will approve those increases.  It happened in Exelon's home of Chicago just a few years ago.  These Third Way corporate Democrats are writing laws and policy that has you and I constantly paying all aspects of corporate business expense while letting them openly defraud us with no consequences.

THIS IS WHY THEY HAVE 93% OF THE WEALTH CREATED!  DO YOU HEAR YOUR MEDIA OUTLET TELLING YOU THIS?

NOT IN MARYLAND YOU DON'T!!!

I SENT THIS BLOG TO THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS FOR PUBLIC JUSTICE/INTEREST.  THESE ORGANIZATIONS ARE TASKED WITH PUBLIC SERVICE.  DO YOU HEAR THEM?  DO YOU WANT THEM SHOUTING PUBLICLY ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING BEHIND CLOSED DOORS?  YES WE DO!  I'M GOING TO INCLUDE THE OPEN MEETING BLOG AS WELL:


The Public Justice Center
works with people and communities to confront the laws, practices, and institutions that cause injustice, poverty, and discrimination. We advocate in the courts, legislatures, and government agencies, educate the public, and build coalitions, all to advance our mission of “pursuing systemic change to build a just society.”




Civil Justice Inc.
Phillip Robinson, Executive Director
Civil Justice Inc.
520 West Fayette Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
http://www.civiljusticenetwork.org/
probinson@civiljusticenetwork.org
(410) 706-0174
(410) 706-3196 (Fax)
Civil Justice Inc. is a Maryland not-for-profit corporation formed for the purpose of increasing the delivery of legal services to clients of low and moderate income while promoting a statewide network of solo, small firm and community based lawyers who share a common commitment to increasing access to justice through traditional and non-traditional means. Civil Justice is an affiliated program of the University of Maryland School of Law and works closely with the School of Law to promote public interest legal careers for students and graduates. This partnership includes work with the School of Law's clinical programs where Civil Justice Network attorneys mentor students and assist clients served by the program. Civil Justice network attorneys routinely speak at School of Law functions and programs for alumni and students alike. Civil Justice also sponsors a "Consumer Law Clerkship" position for qualified University of Maryland School of Law students. This clerkship provides students with hands-on experience in the area of consumer law which includes litigation, research, and client contact.


A Message from the Maryland People’s Counsel   Welcome to the Official website of the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel. Maryland OPC is an independent State agency. Our mission is to represent the interests of residential consumers of electricity, natural gas, telecommunications and private water services in Maryland.   NEW EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS FOR UTILITY CUSTOMERS and ADVOCATES [CLICK HERE FOR WELCOME MESSAGE]  CONSUMER CORNER HAS THE FULL LIST OF VIDEOS    We are very active in a variety of PSC cases right now.  OPC staff is working every day on a variety of cost, service and consumer protection issues, like Standard Offer Service (SOS) administrative charges, service reliability standards, supplier licensing and marketing issues, smart meter deployment, and energy efficiency programs.  You can do a quick check of important issues in our HOT TOPICS list, and find the dates for HEARINGS.  We also post energy supplier price information every month.     If you have any suggestions or comments, please use the Contact Us link to share your thoughts with us.     ~Paula M. Carmody

_________________________________________________
THIS IS THE NEWS FROM WHEN REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR EHRLICH WAS DOING THEN WHAT THIRD WAY DEMOCRAT O'MALLEY IS DOING NOW.  O'MALLEY USED THIS TO CAMPAIGN AGAINST EHRLICH JUST AS O'MALLEY FOUGHT AGAINST GAMBLING INTERESTS FOR THE GOOD OF MARYLAND FAMILIES.  YOU DO NOT HEAR ANY REFERENCE TO THIS FLIP-FLOPPING FOR POLITICAL GAIN DO YOU?

Baltimore takes right steps against BGE rate hikes
By THE ANNAPOLIS CAPITAL EDITORIAL BOARD

We have to give credit to the people in Baltimore city who apparently have more backbone than state officials to do something serious about the 72 percent rate hike executed by Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.

Mayor Martin O’Malley and city officials convinced a Circuit Court to halt BGE’s plan to give ratepayers an option of spreading out the increase over a year. The ruling blocks the plan only temporarily, but buys the city time to convince the court to order the state’s largest utility back to the drawing board. One can only hope elected officials and the Public Service Commission will get another crack at doing this right. And doing it right means stopping the merger and retrieving BGE’s profits as a regulated utility.

If there is a need for more evidence that the present PSC doesn’t get it, note the reaction of chairman Kenneth Schlisler. He said in a press release that the city’s action isn’t about helping ratepayers, but about “petty partisan politics.”

Here’s what it is about: cleaning up the mess you left BGE’s customers. Frankly, we don’t care which political party gets the credit, as long as residential electric customers get a break. Constellation Energy Group, BGE’s parent company, bamboozled the governor and his hand-picked Public Service Commission. Ratepayers got stuck with an obscene rate increase while profits and dividends soared for Constellation. While ratepayers began to count their pennies to prepare for higher electric bills, Constellation executives counted their millions to prepare for a merger with Florida Power and Light.

The General Assembly tried to derail the rate hike, first by reconstituting the inept PSC and then by blocking the merger. In one of the most inexplicable political decisions ever, the governor vetoed those efforts and the Senate was unable to come up with a rate-relief compromise. Without a threat to the lucrative merger, the state lost its primary bargaining chip. Now the rate increases and the merger are on a fast track.

The court’s decision prevents the utility from educating its customers about the phase-in of rates, which could become a Pyrrhic victory if the court eventually relents and BGE gets its way. However, times are desperate and any roadblock thrown in the way of this train wreck is good news to us. We would hope, as Sen. John Astle suggests, that Annapolis and Anne Arundel County join in the suit. In fact, every jurisdiction should join.

Constellation says it has a right to pass along any increases caused by rising fuel prices. But it does not have a right to pass along tens of millions of dollars in obscene executive bonuses, or the billions in stock profits that will be reaped as a result of the sale of the company. The state has an obligation to protect its citizens from such gouging, and should re-regulate BGE and stop this merger.

We wish Baltimore good luck.
________________________________________________
REPORTS PUT THIS INCREASE EVEN HIGHER.....CLOSER TO $16 EACH MONTH ALMOST DOUBLING ENERGY BILLS IN MARYLAND.

BGE requests rate increase for electric, gas distribution Proposal would add $11.80 a month to typical residential bill By Steve Kilar, The Baltimore Sun 9:45 p.m. EDT, July 27, 2012


Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. is seeking to raise distribution rates for electricity and natural gas, a move that would add about $11.80 a month to the median residential bill.

The rate increase is needed to pay for updated infrastructure, utility officials said Friday. If the proposal is approved by the Public Service Commission, the median bill would rise each billing cycle by about $7.20 for electricity and $4.60 for natural gas.

It's a particularly tricky time to seek a rate increase, as BGE faces consumer backlash and a regulatory probe stemming from its response to a powerful derecho storm last month. High winds knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of customers in broad swaths of Central Maryland, and critics said BGE and other utilities weren't prepared and failed to repair lines quickly.

"There's never a good time for a rate increase," said Mark D. Case, BGE's vice president for strategy and regulatory affairs. "We are trying to deliver on higher customer expectations."

But consumer advocates balked. Companies such as BGE should find other sources of income to strengthen their grid and invest in cost-cutting technologies before requesting rate increases, said Jenny Levin, state advocate for the Maryland Public Interest Research Foundation, a consumer advocacy group.

"If they want rate increases, they need to show they can provide reliable energy," Levin said. "They need to be looking at alternatives ... before they come asking for more money from ratepayers."

Even if the increases are approved, BGE's rates would still be lower than those of most regional peers, Case said. And the company offers a number of ways to help keep customer costs down, including energy efficiency programs, he said.

A bill stabilization adjustment, which makes up for revenue lost to such efficiency programs, raised the ire of customers this month when they learned they would be charged the small fee even though many were without power after the storm.

The rate increase proposed Friday would enable the utility to recover money already spent on updating aging poles and wires, Case said. Last year, BGE spent $594 million on construction investments.

The company projects that the rate increases would bring in $204.2 million per year, according to the application with the commission. That money also would help BGE leverage the money to cover about $3 billion in updates to its electricity and gas distribution system over the next five years.

BGE serves about 1.2 million electricity customers and 650,000 natural gas customers in Maryland. The proposed rate increase relates only to the cost of distribution, not commodity costs. Distribution charges typically make up about a quarter of a residential bill.

The company's last distribution rate increase took effect in December 2010, raising the typical residential customer's monthly bill by $1.34 for electricity and 85 cents for natural gas. BGE has asked for electricity distribution increases only twice in nearly two decades; gas delivery rates have gone up five times in that period, Case said.

"We've been looking at this closely over the last year or so," Case said. The increase is not a reaction to recent weather-related outages, he said.

In early June, executives of the local utility's new owner, Chicago-based Exelon Corp., told stock analysts during a meeting in New York that BGE had delayed filing the rate increase request. BGE wanted to wait until its former parent company, Constellation Energy Group, finalized its merger with Exelon.

The $7.9 billion deal, which closed in March, included a rate increase as part of the merger plans.

"It's pretty startling that they think the filing of a rate case is a sign of a successful merger," said People's Counsel Paula M. Carmody, whose office is an independent state agency that advocates for consumers on utility issues. Her office plans to "vigorously challenge" the rate increase request, she said.

Though her office knew the request was coming, Carmody said, she was surprised at the submission's timing. Her office and the Public Service Commission have launched investigations into BGE's performance in the aftermath of the June 29 storm.

Gov. Martin O'Malley, also in response to the storm, set up a work group this week to come up with ways to improve the ability of the state's electrical grid to withstand storms. O'Malley asked for recommendations within 60 days.

The Public Service Commission could choose to approve only a portion of BGE's proposed rate increase. Last week, the commission rejected the full requests submitted by Pepco, the utility that serves the Washington region, and Delmarva Power & Light Co.

The commission approved $18 million of the $68 million distribution rate increase requested by Pepco and less than half of the $25 million rate increase sought by Delmarva Power. Both utilities, subsidiaries of Pepco Holdings Inc., filed their requests in mid-December.

Copyright © 2012, The Baltimore Sun
__________________________________________________


BGE overdue on $5.5 million in bills to Baltimore, officials say City says BGE hasn't made payments for use of its conduit system By Luke Broadwater, The Baltimore Sun 6:09 p.m. EDT, October 7, 2012


Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. is past due on nearly $5.5 million in payments owed to the city for use of a conduit system that carries power and telecommunications lines, according to city officials.

The late payments are causing "cash flow" issues for city government and could delay the start of capital projects, said Jamie Kendrick, deputy director for administration in the city's Transportation Department, which manages the conduit system. Kendrick said the city will either try to negotiate a payment plan with the company or refer the matter to Solicitor George Nilson for possible litigation.

"We are consulting with the Law Department to determine the collection method," Kendrick said. "One option is to go to court, another is to try and negotiate something."

BGE spokesman Rob Gould said the company is disputing a bill it received last year and that it only recently received the second bill that city officials say is past due. In fact, he said, company officials only learned of the second bill when The Baltimore Sun inquired about it.

"We have no record of receiving one of these bills," Gould said.

BGE pays the city for access to Baltimore's elaborate conduit system that consists of 3.9 million feet of concrete casing, at a cost of 90 cents per foot of power cable. The system's conduits carry wires for electricity, telephone service, fiber optics and street and traffic lights. The system is accessed from more than 14,000 manhole structures and stretches throughout most of the city, except its outskirts.

The city relies on payments from BGE and other users to help upgrade the system. Kendrick said the company's late payments have caused "no operational impact yet, but there soon will be."

BGE critics seized on the company's unpaid bills, saying it is quick to cut off residents' power when they miss payments.

"It's very shocking that they're doing that since they're so insistent on everyone else paying," said Chris Bush, a Catonsville accountant and frequent critic of the company who has battled BGE in court over rate hikes. "They cut off people all the time. I'm amazed they have the gall to not pay their bills."

BGE has not paid a bill for $590,000 that was due in August of 2011 or a $4.9 million bill due in May, according to city officials. The company has until the end of October to pay a third bill for $5.4 million, officials said.

Gould said the company disputes the first bill, hadn't received the second and has requested supporting documentation before paying any of the invoices.

"We're going to review the bills," he said.

City officials pointed out that the company should be aware it is billed twice a year.

Community activist Leo Burroughs, who helped organize a coalition to protest BGE rate hikes, encouraged the city to get tough with the company. He also noted a recent Baltimore Sun report that showed businesses, nonprofits and government offices were past due on more than $10 million in water bill payments as well.

"The city has an obligation to collect revenue from big businesses and fat cats, just as they do from lower-income and middle-income people," Burroughs said. "It is outrageous that the city would not take the appropriate legal action to bring to court those big businesses that fail to honor their legal obligations to pay for the services provided by the city."

In June, BGE announced it was seeking to raise distribution rates for electricity and natural gas, a move that would add about $11.80 a month to the median residential bill and must be approved by the Public Service Commission. The company projects that the rate increases would bring in $204.2 million per year.

A related dispute between BGE and city officials flared Wednesday before the Board of Estimates, when the panel voted to raise the rate it charges BGE for access to the conduit system by nearly 3 cents per foot of cable to 92.7 cents.

Kimberly Curry, senior counsel for BGE, spoke out against the increase at the meeting, calling it unnecessary and saying it could end up saddling the company's customers with higher bills.

Gould said the $1.5 million in charges would be passed on to the company's 1.2 million customers across central Maryland, so that the increase to each customer's bill would be minimal. Any rate increase, he added, would need regulatory approval.

Kendrick said much of the rate increase would be spent on improvements to the conduit system on Washington Boulevard, Dundalk Avenue, Charles Street and Broening Highway — some of the system's major corridors.

luke.broadwater@baltsun.com

_________________________________________________


Actually it was Mayor Rawlings-Blake and her team that told BGE to send the 3% rate increase the city wants from BGE on to taxpayers.  Gould did not mention this possibility.  That is a very different take on this story.

BGE's protest has to do largely with the city's unwillingness to comply with the 'criteria for approval' clause that gives companies that pay into this 'doing business account' the right to know what to which projects these funds are being allocated.  Just as the citizens of Baltimore are being kept in the dark regarding the how their tax money is being spent by the Board of Estimates, we see the Board doing the same to businesses, in this case BGE.

Now BGE is not fighting for the ratepayer as they do indeed intend to have ratepayers pay for their operational/infrastructure costs in a rate hile that will reach almost 75% (remember the similar attempt that O'Malley fought off for political gain against Ehrlich?)....it is back. They are simply trying to position their interests above the Wall Street developers of the Enterprise Zones.

It revealed that money is very 'fungible' in the city and the $600,000 that Gould used as an example as money not spent was actually going to the Dundalk Enterprise Zones to bury their cables.  Grid upgrades and these rate hikes look to fund wealthy development. 

We all want these expenditures to be public and open to public input.





Elizabeth1925 at 9:14 AM October 8, 2012 The Mayor relies on the  Department of Tranportation to handle this.   Mr Kendrick, you stood at the Board of Estimates  last week to seek a rate increase for the conduit in the City's right of way.  Did you not know BG&E was past due and owed the City $5 Million?   It is hard  to believe that the past due fees never came up or that no one in your very large City agency watches over the billing and collection of BG&E conduit fees since it important to your agency's capital projects.  It is you, Mr. Kendrick, who misrepresented what  was really happening at the Board of Estimates last week.  And  it is your agency that has not done its job in ensuring the City receives what is due.  Council President Young and Comptroller Pratt:  everyone understands that you hold only two of the five votes at the Board of Estimates.  But you must learn to us that limited power to find out what the city agenies are up to and  to force the city agencies to tell you what is really happening.  The city agencies-- be it MOIT about telephones or DOT about conduit fees--  think that they can withhold information or indeed make up things.  One thing you have the power to do right now: when an agency has misbehaved, none of their action items should be on routine agenda at the Board of Estimates.  Make the agency heads come and stand in front of you every Wednesday until they learn to be truthful.




I thank Elizabeth for speaking of holding people accountable, but her indication that these leaders on the Board of Estimates may somehow be kept in the dark is not realistic.  As someone who always attends these Board meetings, I knew these things were happening as does everyone else attending these Board meetings.

I would suggest that the Baltimore Sun and other city organizations push the Board of Estimates to enact the legislation from 2 years ago to place these meetings on public access TV.  The cameras are in the meeting room and only need to be turned on and tuned into by the public.....but then the local media would not be able to control the information coming from the meetings?


 
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October 01st, 2012

10/1/2012

0 Comments

 
IT WILL TAKE FAR LESS TIME TO DISMANTLE THIS 'NEW GOVERNANCE' THEN IT TOOK TO BUILD....DO NOT THINK IT TOO ENTRENCHED.....YOU JUST NEED TO KNOW FOR WHOM YOU VOTE AND VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT!

I'D LIKE TO TAKE TODAY JUST TO SUMMARIZE THE MASTER PLAN THAT LED US TO THIS POINT.  YOU WILL NOT HEAR IT IN MAINSTREAM MEDIA....THEY GIVE US CANNED LANGUAGE ABOUT BANKS GONE WILD AND GREED. THIS IS A DECADES OLD PLAN THAT WAS WELL ORCHESTRATED, NOT JUST SOME CHAOTIC DEBAUCHERY. 

IN THE 1980s A PLAN BY THE THEN 1% TO REVERSE THE GAINS OF THE 1950s -1970s THAT CREATED MIDDLE-CLASS WEALTH AT THE EXPENSE OF CORPORATE PROFIT MELDED  WITH A BRITISH-STYLE EMPIRE BUILDING AND TOOK 3 DIRECTIONS:

FIRST, GLOBAL/MEGA-CORPORATIONS WOULD BE NEEDED FOR EMPIRE BUILDING AND WEALTH PROTECTION.

SECOND, THE WEALTHY WOULD NEED TO RETAKE URBAN CENTERS TO ALLOW STRONGER SECURITY PROTECTIONS FROM MASS INEQUITY IN A ONCE FIRST WORLD COUNTRY.

THIRD, THE EDUCATION SYSTEM THAT GAVE WORLD CLASS EDUCATION AND THE BEST EDUCATED CITIZENS IN THE WORLD WOULD NEED TO BE DISMANTLED.....THE MASSES CAN'T BE EDUCATED.

THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE SEEN FROM REAGAN, CLINTON, AND BUSH AND ALL WORKED FOR THESE OBJECTIVES.  REAGAN LAID THE GROUNDWORK WITH THATCHER,  CLINTON MOVED THIS PLAN FORWARD BY SETTING THE POLICY AND BUSH PROVIDED THE ENVIRONMENT AND OVERSAW MASSIVE FRAUD.  SO, IT IS NO ACCIDENT THAT WE SAW URBAN DECAY THESE FEW DECADES AND NOW A RENAISSANCE; IT IS NO ACCIDENT THAT CHILDREN CAN'T READ AND HAVE LIMITED EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS AND THAT THE EDUCATIONAL REFORMS ARE DESIGNED TO 'CENTRALIZE' ALL LEARNING; AND IT IS NO ACCIDENT THAT MASSIVE FRAUD OVER THESE FEW DECADES MOVED HISTORIC AMOUNTS OF MONEY TO THE TOP WHILE IMPOVERISHING THE MIDDLE/LOWER-CLASS.  IT IS ALSO NO ACCIDENT THAT THE ELITE SCHOOLS HAVE POSITIONED THEIR GRADUATES IN GOVERNMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL POSITIONS THAT CONTROL ALL CIVIC FUNCTIONS AND ARE EXPANDING THAT CONTROL BY BRINGING THE 1% OF THE WORLD (MANY GRADUATES OF THESE ELITE SCHOOLS) INTO OUR COMMUNITIES AND INTO HIGH LEVEL POSITIONS.

WHAT PEOPLE WOULD THINK OF AS CONSPIRACY THEORY WE ALL KNOW TO BE TRUE.  IT IS TALKED ABOUT QUIETLY IN ALL ACADEMIC CIRCLES.  I WILL SUGGEST TO YOU THAT AS ACADEMICS/GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES ARE FEARFUL FOR THEIR JOBS TO SPEAK OF THIS OPENLY......WE HAVE AN AUTOCRACY.......MOST CALL IT A KLEPTOCRACY.  YOUR THIRD WAY DEMOCRAT INCUMBENT BUILT THIS.....THEY WEREN'T 'FORCED' TO DO THIS......THIS WAS THEIR GOAL.

THIS GUTTING OF PUBLIC SERVICES AND ASSETS; THIS SLOW DISMANTLING OF ENTITLEMENTS, RETIREMENTS, AND SOCIAL PROGRAMS; THE ELIMINATION OF TAXES DIRECTLY AND INDIRECTLY ON WEALTH.....ALL PLANNED AND ALL UNNECESSARY.  WE SIMPLY NEED TO BE RID OF CORPORATE POLITICIANS AT ALL LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT......

WE MUST VOTE FOR OBAMA AS THE BEST CHOICE, BUT WE MUST WORK TO BE RID OF THE FARM TEAM!!!!!!!

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!


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The Collapse of the American Political Economy—By the Numbers: USA! USA! We’re Number 28?

By Ted Becker

Is the USA really still #1? In military might, sure it is. In Gross Domestic Product (GDP), yes (but not for long). In basketball, you bet. Football, too, since almost no one else plays the U.S. brand of it. But what about America’s general political economy, how are we doing there—since that’s what most everyone cares the most about?

On February 19, 2011, The New York Times ran the chart at the bottom of this blog called “American Shame.” It is a compilation of 8 political economic indicators that compare the IMF’s 33 “advanced economies” – a comparison one might expect the USA to dominate.

The data sets came from a variety of sources including: The CIA’s World Factbook; the U.S. Department of Labor; The Economist’s “Intelligence Unit”; The Gallup Poll; UNICEF; King’s College London “World’s Prison Brief”; The OECD’s Program for Student Assessment. They are all highly regarded institutions that provide top quality comparative international statistics.

Here are the 8 categories in which all 33 nations were compared:

• Income Inequality

• Most recent unemployment rate

• Level of democracy

• Gallup Poll “Level of Well-Being Index”

• Life Expectancy at Birth

• Prison Population

• Student Performance: Math

• Student Performance: Science

Obviously, on some of these you don’t want to be Number One. Unfortunately, on the two you’d rather score low, the U.S. was indeed Number One. Guess which? You probably got them right: Income inequality and prison population. We, however, rank the U.S. as 33rd on them, as does the New York Times.

America was also tied for dead last with Portugal on Student Math Scores and was—in a 9th category for which data were only available on 16 of the countries—also the “best”: “Food Insecurity.” In other words, out of that list, the U.S. was tied with Korea for the highest percentage of its citizens who stated that in the past year, they didn’t have enough money to buy food for themselves and their family. Tied with Korea on a hunger quotient? Not good.

So we decided to do an averaging out of all these rankings and found that out of the 33 countries: The USA was 28th!!

Given the fact, that I grew up in a United States–after World War II–where America was probably Number 1 on all the good indicators and last on all of the bad ones, I know that my country has gone from a Standard of Excellence to a Standard of Pathos Along with the New York Times, I believe that these numbers are, indeed, a crying shame…and it is clear that, if anything, these numbers will only get worse in years to come.

In the early 1960s, the tax rate on the richest Americans was…90% and the big corporations had to pay big taxes. Too bad, there were still plenty of millionaires and big and small companies were all making decent profits.

Under this highly successful system of American capitalism, the U.S. government was funding the largest construction project in the world: The Interstate Highway System. At that time, the University of California was pretty much free to the best students in that state…as was my home state university: Rutgers. Plus, it was customary that when a company made profits, they would give wage hikes and bonuses to all their employees. Adam Smith would have been pleased.

This was The Age of the Great American Working Middle Class—which propelled America to an exalted stature of world wide admiration. Its functional and humane ethos was well stated by Jimmy Stewart in the movie classic: “It’s a Wonderful Life” as the small community banker tells off the big banker and his Board. Watch it (again). It’s very short and moving. It may seem “corny” under the present mass media value system, but it summed up how America felt at the time…and is still far better than what poses as American capitalism today.

Then, along came Ronnie Reagan….and his “War on Drugs”…and the U.S.A.’s prison population has quintupled. “Reaganomics” chopped the tax on the rich in half and the corporate guys got the green light to outsource factories to Mexico (and beyond) and off-shore their HQs to avoid taxes. He spent hundreds of billions to drive the Soviets into bankruptcy so The American Empire could be a monopoly. At the left is an Associated Press photo at the time, with President Reagan signing off on the gigantic government giveaway of tax revenues to the upper 1% . It’s from Forbes Magazine at www.forbes.com (whose owners are in the upper upper upper .0001%). It was the beginning of the end of decent American capitalism.

By doing all this, RR managed in 8 years to triple the national debt to over $3 Trillion…more than the cumulative debt of all of his predecessors put together and without having to finance two world wars and The Civil War. George W. Bush was a worthy successor to old Ronny Reagan, and by the time he left office, the U.S. was in debt for over $13 Trillion…and The American Empire had fallen into the same trap as all other empires before it.

The essence of this self-absorbed political economic philosophy (formerly known as “Social Darwinism”) was captured in a speech made by Michael Douglas in the movie “Wall Street.” Here it is in 1 minute

Many state governments followed this brand of “Reaganomics” to the current ruination—cutting taxes/cutting higher education/funding all the new state and private prisons still crammed with people for recreational drug use.

This chart shows where the U.S.A. is today among its industrialized “peer” nations thanks to this delusional or insidious pathology and its policies. Unfortunately, it’s still the “thinking” of those who run Washington, D.C. and most state governments. So, we can expect to be a political economic Zombie for years to come.

THE AUTHOR OF THE ARTICLE ABOVE IS NOT A RADICAL......HE IS AN MAINSTREAM ACADEMIC:


Dr. Ted Becker Ted Becker is a lawyer, with his J.D. from Rutgers and a political scientist, with his Ph.D. from Northwestern University. Earlier in his career, he was on the staff of the Attorney General of New Jersey and a consumer research analyst for Benton and Bowles Advertising Agency on Madison Avenue in New York City.


He is currently the Alumni Professor of Political Science at Auburn University, is the former head of that department and former Chairman of the Department of Political Science at the University of Hawaii.


Becker is the author of 12 other books in the fields of law and politics, American government, teledemocracy and now this one, in political economy. He has been on the faculties of the University of Maryland, Northwestern, Hawaii, NYU (Department of Politics and the School of Law),San Diego State, Cal State at Los Angeles, Wayne State University, CCNY, Brooklyn College and Victoria University of Wellington, NZ.


He has also been a paid lecturer at Harvard, Brown, Pembroke, Oberlin, Reed, Bowdoin, San Francisco State University, the Universities of Washington, Oregon, Missouri, California at Santa Cruz, Kentucky, Texas Tech, New Mexico, The University of West Indies (Trinidad), Seoul National University, Technology University of Sydney, Salzburg University, Turku School of Economics, the University of Stockholm, and many others.
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THERE HAS BEEN A CONCERTED EFFORT TO HIDE THE DUPLICITY OF CLINTON AND THIRD WAY IN THIS SCHEME TOWARDS EMPIRE....AFTER ALL THEY NEED THE DEMOCRATIC BASE TO CONTINUE TO VOTE FOR CORPORATE POLITICIANS.  THE FACTS ON CLINTON ARE THIS:  HIS ADMINISTRATION RODE A WAVE OF RECOVERY FROM REAGAN'S MILITARIZATION ......THE JOBS AND GROWTH WERE FUELED BY THE MILITARY COMPLEX.....A MINI-WORLD WAR STIMULUS BY REAGAN.  IF YOU LOOK CLOSELY, CLINTON'S ADMINISTRATION REALLY SET THE STAGE FOR THE DEPTHS OF POVERTY, DEREGULATION, AND THE INCOME INEQUITY WE SEE TODAY.

The Clinton economy, in charts
Posted by Dylan Matthews on September 5, 2012 at 6:39 pm Washington Post

  •  
Former president Bill Clinton is speaking at the Democratic National Convention tonight, and is sure to spark a lot of commentary about the contrast between the economic boom times of the Clinton administration and the rough economy of the last decade. But what actually was Clinton’s economic record?

The labor market was strong

Clinton came into office as the 1991 recession was subsiding and oversaw the subsequent recovery. But even given what you’d expect from a recovery, unemployment fell dramatically between January 1993 and January 2001, dipping to 3.9 percent at the end of Clinton’s term:



What’s more, labor force participation trended upward, from 66.2 when Clinton took office to 67.2 percent when he left. One percent may not seem like much, but given that in 2000 it amounted to 2.8 million people working who were previously outside the labor force, it’s notable.

 Economic growth was strong

Clinton averaged 3.8 percent growth in real GDP:

Of the post World War II presidents, only Truman (4.8 percent), Kennedy (5.2 percent) and Johnson (5.1 percent) achieved higher average growth rates. Reagan, by contrast, averaged 3.5 percent, Carter 3.3 percent, Nixon 3.1 percent, Bush I and Ford 2.2 percent, and Bush II 1.65 percent.

Poverty shrunk, but extreme poverty grew

Poverty declined dramatically under Clinton’s tenure, buoyed by the growing economy and the expanding labor force. What’s more, the traditional metric excludes transfer payments from welfare food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Perhaps due to Clinton’s expansion of the latter programs, poverty including transfers fell by 3.6 points, whereas poverty without transfers fell by 3.4 points:


An important caveat is in order, though. While poverty in general fell, Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform caused extreme poverty — that is, the number of households living on less than $2 a day — to skyrocket, as this paper (pdf) by Luke Schaefer and Kathryn Edin found:

Source: H. Luke Schaefer and Kathryn Edin

The beige line is not including food stamps, while the blue line includes them. While most of the increase came during the Bush years and the recession, extreme poverty was rising by the end of Clinton’s term, and to some extent the rise during the Bush years can be attributed to Clinton’s welfare policy. It’s worth noting that most of these households had multiple children, so the actual number of children in extreme poverty is about double the numbers in the chart above.

Inflation was stable

Inflation was generally under control during the Clinton years. Both the total inflation rate and the “core” rate, which excludes food and gasoline, averaged precisely 2.6 percent over Clinton’s term:

That’s slightly higher than the Fed usually likes it, but then again it contributed to unemployment going lower than many observers thought it even could go, as Chris Hayes noted in this 2009 paper.

Income inequality skyrocketed

The Clinton years saw the top 1 percent and top 0.1 percent pull away from the rest of the country more aggressively than they had before. Here’s how the richest Americans’ share of income grew during Clinton’s term, using the Piketty/Saez dataset:

What’s more, taxes didn’t grow more progressive to combat this. According to data from the CBO, taxes and transfers at the end of Clinton’s term did no more to reduce inequality than they did at the start of his term:



But median wages grew

The top income groups fared very well under Clinton but the median household also saw wages increase, from $661 a week to $700 a week, in inflation adjusted terms. But that number varies quite a bit by education level, as high school dropouts saw wages fall from $424 to $407 a week, according to Census data:



The financial industry exploded

The trend of finance taking up a greater and greater share of the economy continued apace during the Clinton years, as Bureau of Economic Analysis data shows:
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I HOPE YOU WILL TAKE TIME TO READ WHAT MAY BE BORING TO MOST.  NOTE THAT THIS IS FROM 1999 AND ABOUT THE ENGLAND, BUT REMEMBER, WHETHER REAGAN-THATCHER, OR BLAIR/CLINTON-BUSH, THE POLICY OF EMPIRE WAS SHARED BY THE TWO COUNTRIES.  WHAT IS STRIKING IS THE IDEA OF CITY AS NATION WHICH DRIVES THE COMPETITION BETWEEN URBAN GROWTH.  IF YOU THINK ABOUT HOW THESE  NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMPANIES; EXTENSIONS OF WALL STREET; HAVE CAPTURED URBAN AND STATE GOVERNMENTS AND ARE FOCUSED ON BEING THE BEST GLOBALLY AS RAWLINGS-BLAKE ALWAYS SAYS, YOU WILL SEE WHAT DROVE THE ECONOMY THROUGH THE 1990s-2000s.  NOW REMEMBER, IT WAS THESE SAME CITY STATES THAT EXISTED IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES AND THROUGH THE RENAISSANCE......VENICE, ROME, GENOA, MARSEILLES, LYONS, PARIS, BRUGES, LIEGE......ALL OF THESE CITY-NATIONS WERE RUN BY POWERFUL FAMILIES AND IT WAS THIS PEASANT/LANDOWNER DYNAMIC THAT GAVE RISE TO THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT WHEN PEASANTS FOUGHT TO BECOME CITIZENS.  ALSO THINK ABOUT WHO IS BEING GIVEN LARGE BLOCKS OF BALTIMORE'S URBAN AREAS......A FEW DEVELOPMENT COMPANIES HEADED BY JOHNS HOPKINS AND WALL STREET......HAVE CONTROL OF ALL NEW URBAN GROWTH. 

WE SEE THE US AND UK TAKING THIS COURSE NOT BECAUSE IT IS WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TO CREATE JOBS.  IT IS HAPPENING BECAUSE FREE-MARKET GLOBALIZATION CREATED EXTREME WEALTH THAT NOW WANTS TO CENTRALIZE POWER.  THIS IS NOT DEMOCRACY.......IT IS PLUTOCRACY AND IS AUTOCRATIC.  IT IS WHY YOU HAVE ENTRENCHED INCUMBENTS THAT INTEND ON STAYING IN POWER AND INDEED HAVE FAMILY IN LINE TO 'SUCCEED'.

IT IS NOT RADICAL.....IT IS NOT FAR-FETCHED......IT IS WHAT IS HAPPENING.

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT!!!

The Brazilianisation of Britain's cities The impact of globalisation on urban development

Part Two By Simon Wheelan    29 July 1999

The Blair government's Urban Task Force report, “Towards an Urban Renaissance”, states that England's regions require regional capitals or groups of regional capitals that are economic and cultural powerhouses and display a strong European identity. This is in order to promote urban regeneration as the basis for increasing urban competitiveness. Strong local government is necessary by means of further devolution and regionalism, is the report's advice.

A Urban Task Force paper released earlier in the year, entitled “Sharing The Vision”, advocates “the principal tiers at which decisions about urban areas should be made is at the level of the city or town, combining strong local strategic government with neighbourhood delivery and management.” The head of the Urban Task Force, city planner Lord Richard Rodgers, adds: “Entering the post-industrial age brings with it radical change. The emphasis of the new global economic order is on strong city regions operating under huge competitive pressures.”

But success is elusive for the city and region. Any regeneration efforts have to overcome the constant downward pressure of the world market and the footloose nature of inward investment. Not all cities can be successful; some might be, but only at the expense of others. For every winner there must be a loser.

The government would like to direct jobs and investment to Britain's northern cities in order to take the pressure off the southeast of the country. But regional planning is far more problematic in the era of the globalised economy. The north is much more dependent upon manufacturing and has been most adversely effected by the strong pound and the financial crisis that began in southeast Asia two years ago. Only one in ten of London's workers are employed in manufacturing, compared to a ratio of one in five in the north.

There are great differences between large cities in the north, some of which have lost their original industrial rationale. While some have been more successful in emulating cities in the south at attracting the new services and technologies that proliferate in the private sector, the industrial cities with mono-economies were slow to recognise the significance of the decline of the manufacturing sector. In periods of recession, companies tend to consolidate around their headquarters, so de-facto regional capitals like Leeds and Manchester have suffered less than Liverpool, Sheffield and Glasgow. Sheffield, for example, has lost approximately 60,000 jobs in manufacturing in the last 20 years.

Britain's manufacturing is fighting for survival in the global economy. Order books are empty and there is little sign of an increase in demand at home or in export markets. The Confederation of British Industry predicts another 100,000 manufacturing jobs will go by the end of 1999. Most redundancies are expected in sections of the economy that are most exposed to global competition and are reliant on export markets or threatened by cheap imports, like steel and textiles.

In Newcastle, one of the largest profile employers, Siemens, closed a £1 billion semiconductor plant in the wake of the Asian crisis last year. Job losses are expected to reach 3,000 once lack of demand hits suppliers too. Nationally, factory jobs fell by 45,000 in the last three months. Low pay, low skill, and flexible contract jobs in retail, entertainment and call centres have replaced them. A city without jobs that pay decent wages cannot be regenerated, other than in a superficial manner. And the government can no more guarantee well-remunerated work and adequate investment for a certain region, in the age of global competition, than King Canute could stop the tide advancing.

The southeast of the country currently enjoys the benefits of being intrinsically coupled to those forms of investment that bring the best profit margins, through specialised products and services for a worldwide market. This is exacerbating the already protracted disaggregation of the British economy between regions and furthering disparities of income and employment. London is the driving force behind the success of the southeast. Its growth rates are far above the national average, largely because business and financial service employment provides jobs for a higher proportion of the population. It could almost be said that London breathes a different supply of oxygen to the rest of the country. Its economy enjoys effective autonomy from the rest of the nation, whose growth rates are sluggish due to a reliance on industry.

The strength of the pound has effectively priced British goods out of many export markets, simultaneously drawing in inexpensive imports. Whilst the overpriced currency causes job losses and depression in northern areas, the wealthy in the south are blissfully unaware of what all the fuss is about. Britain's rich have barely noticed the continued recession affecting large numbers of the population. The Financial Times recently reported that never has so much cash been splashed out on champagne and sports cars than in the last year.

London's economy is far less tangible, consisting of insurance, computers, software, expertise, legal and financial services. However, the greatest paradox, which defies simplistic north/south analysis and underlines the two-tier nature of the service economy, is the fact that London has some of the highest poverty rates in the nation. Tony Travers from the London School of Economics described the injustice thus: “Some areas with the highest unemployment are a stone's throw away from areas with the highest employment rates.”

The Barcelona model
The report's recommendation to create regional capitals reaches its climax in a call for British cities to emulate the model of Barcelona. A veritable cult of Catalonia is emerging. Lord Rodgers urges British cities to learn from the example of the Mediterranean city, claiming that the Catalan capital is a more egalitarian and well-functioning place due to its radical facelift.

It is not simply the merits of beautiful design and architecture (much of it courtesy of the artist Gaudi) that endear Barcelona to the planners. Neither is it the attractive boulevards and café culture. More fundamentally the reason the city inspires British planners and the task force is the region's semi-autonomous status inside the nation of Spain. Catalonia is increasingly a nation inside a nation. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Barcelona feels less and less like a Spanish city to the general public. The editor of Granta publications wrote in the Independent newspaper in April that “Catalonia is to Madrid what Scotland will soon be to London: a semi-autonomous province within a kingdom that is no longer quite so united.”

It is fitting that Barcelona-based architect, Enric Miralles, has designed the new Scottish Parliament. The parallels are echoed in an advertisement campaign presently running in Glasgow, the venue for this years City of Architecture and Design symposium—“Glasgow, the lattitude of Smolensk, the attitude of Barcelona.” Scottish nationalists point to Spain's “asymmetrical federalism” as a desirable model because it grants considerable authority and autonomy to Catalonia, more so than to other Spanish regions. Currently cities like Manchester and Leeds are planning “Barcelona projects” for cultural consumption. How much longer before they are adopting the “Barcelona model” for their own devolved regional ends?

England's provincial cities do not yet quite share Scotland's political ambitions, but they do resent London's political, cultural and economic power. Regionalism will get an enormous boost as the government continues its plans for regionally devolved assemblies and councils with accompanying budgets. Added to this, the task force recommendations for further autonomy is a recipe for unleashing the most damaging regional sentiments and aspirations.

Barcelona inspires them because it is a provincial city in the throes of becoming a more powerful rival to Madrid—the Spanish capital. But beyond its shiny new city centre, Barcelona is still ringed by desolate highrise developments where workers reside and unemployment is above the European average. This donut-style city is ironically very similar to Glasgow. In France these peripheral located slums are known balefully as the “rings of fire” due to their reputation for poverty and civil disturbances.

Competition between cities and regions
The competition between cities has already begun in earnest. Cities have become salesmen for themselves. All the major cities in England, and not a few of the smaller ones, who wish to emulate their larger rivals have already embarked in the last decade upon regeneration campaigns. Not one of them has reduced the incidence of poverty and inequality inside their boundaries or reduced social and spatial segregation.

The realisation that regional economies are no longer linked through the production process to other regions in the same nation-state has acted as a spur for cities to establish their own relations with international capital and to lobby independently for European Union financial aid. By offering their regions as cheap labour stations, they are capable of tapping into the rich vein of foreign direct investment from around the world. This intensifies inter-regional and international competition to attract capital. The battle for investment and jobs engages the city in a ruthless war against its rivals, where the weapons are booster crusades, tax breaks and incentives for international finance. This must be paid for through cuts in social services and attacks on social conditions and living standards.

Museums, sporting facilities and events, airports, hotels, exhibitions and conference areas are constructed because they are the “quality of life” structures the “cosmopolitan” global investor expects if they are going to make an investment. Liverpool and Birmingham are contemplating the building of skyscrapers to raise their international profiles. The construction of such a symbolic project will cry from on high, “Look at me! Invest in me, not my rivals!” Cities frequently attempt to besmirch the image of other cities and steal “landmark” prestige projects before construction, in order to gain advantage in terms of image.

A war of each city economy against every other—and by extension every city against its working class population—entails a relentless upbeat marketing of the city's image. The workforce is always skilled and responsive, and investment is always inward. Design consultants are employed to conjure up some pizzazz and to reinvent failing cities. Every city has “directors of regeneration”, who would be more candidly described as directors of self-promotion. Publications are full of the ubiquitous business school language of “challenges” and “opportunities”. A unifying, forward-thrusting theme is fabricated, a totem around which to rally the troops ever onwards and upwards.

The cities market themselves like a commodity in order to cut a niche. Councillors and business leaders from the northern port of Hull have just got back from a visit to Brooklyn, New York to pick up tips about urban regeneration. One shudders to think of the advice they received from the Guiliani administration.

Sir Norman Foster, the eminent architect and planner, has been brought on board to add his expertise to Hull's campaign. The lengths to which city promotion campaigns will go know no limits. This month billboards around the country were plastered with the glitzy new campaign for Swindon, currently a booming town in the southeast. The Wiltshire town displayed its fierce ambition to become a new city with posters that make it appear like a modern-day Shangri-La. The ads remind one of the way the Land of Oz appears to Dorothy at the end of the yellow brick road, all heavenly sunbeams and angelic choirs. In the foreground of the ad are two Honda cars and a message that reads, “Swindon. For a better quality of life”.

Honda has paid for the ad campaign in return for the local council allowing the company use of the town's coat of arms. The firm faces the dilemma of an inability to fill 1,000 vacancies at its assembly plant. The sharpest criticism for the campaign has come from neighbouring Reading, which shares Swindon's location on the M4 corridor. Both towns share the aspiration of achieving city status. Towns living in the shadows of big cities wish to forge themselves an independent image and are fighting to receive a royal charter in the next year. They all want the status of being titled the “Millennium City” to add some glamour to their future campaigns. Milton Keynes, in existence for only 32 years, has commissioned a poem to further its cause, but it is Swindon that has stolen a march on the competition with the announcement of an extra £450 million investment by Honda. City status is eagerly coveted because it is seen as a panacea for courting foreign investment. No location wishes to appear small-time when the rewards are so big and second best means nothing.

Social exclusion in Millennium Village
The very same day as the Urban Task Force report was released, the government's showpiece Millennium Village project at Greenwich in south east London, with which Rodgers is involved, was thrown into chaos. This has direct implications for his urban recommendations. Rodgers has made it clear he wishes to encourage private finance and entrepreneurs into the inner cities. He has said it is these go-getters who will rescue the districts. He calls for “A new generation of urban champions, private sector promoters, social entrepreneurs to help communities grow in social and economic strength.”

Reliance on market forces will only exacerbate social tensions. Business is not an altruistic operation. The developers lauded by Rodgers are not interested in issues of equality and justice. They intend to create cities out of which more money can be made.

The main architect for the Millennium Village resigned, claiming conservative forces in the building and development fraternity undermined his designs. The homes to be constructed were supposed to pioneer steel and prefabricated concrete construction methods, eliminating the need for environmentally damaging traditional brick.

But the fundamental schism occurred over the “social mix” of the housing. The architects wanted private and rented housing to appear indistinguishable, to be side by side in an ostensibly egalitarian mixture. Developers and planners argued against these plans, asserting that the people they wished to attract to the privately owned homes, people of a certain income bracket, would not want to live amidst the hoi polloi. The contract for the prestige project was won partly on the merits of the supposed progressive “social mix”, whereby high earners would reside alongside lower income families in rented accommodation. Now it comes to the crunch the private developers are going back on the deal. Private finance hasn't put this much money into the project just to see slower profit generating social housing lower the tone. They want to eradicate all traces of the lower income residents from the core of the project and isolate them on the development's edge, closer to the main thoroughfares, traffic, pollution and noise. And this when there is only 200 such residences planned on the estate, out of a total of 1400 homes. Architects pay lip service to “social mix” regulations, but in many London boroughs planners prefer to pay the relatively small financial penalty for not integrating an element of social housing into newly constructed developments.

Rodgers himself is the head of an architects practice that has designed a £38 million 20-storey apartment block on the banks of the Thames. Montevento Towers contains some of the most expensive apartments in the country; property ranges from the basic £200,000 flat to £4.5 million penthouses. Residents will enjoy private tennis courts, a gymnasium and sauna, undisturbed by the council house residents who live in the shadow of the towers, kept out of the grounds by a state of art security system. This is rich, coming from the man who advocates in Urban Task Force publications the end of social segregation and exclusion. Future urban development should “encourage social cohesion to prevent growing concentrations of excluded or marginalised communities”, according to Lord Rodgers of Riverside.

His hypocrisy is totally in keeping with the orthodoxy of governmental “social exclusion” theory and rhetoric. Emphasis on “social exclusion” implies that the problem of the poor is a uni-polar dynamic—the poor are poor because they have a deficient culture and therefore fail to access existing ladders to social mobility. They are not poor because of a systematic process of wealth redistribution over the last two decades, away from workers towards the very rich. An honest assessment would characterise the dynamic as bi-polar, addressing the broader social context of rapidly accentuating divisions across society, from top to bottom, in all spheres of life. This assessment would define developments in terms of social polarisation, rather than simply exclusion. The stress upon ending social exclusion always falls upon the actions of the poor doing something for themselves. Cabinet ministers are unlikely to descend upon the gated communities of the rich and famous and give them a lecture on exclusion and inequality, or berate them for their insulated wealthy lifestyles and love of private provision.

In London's Docklands, a whole new mini-city of gated apartments has arisen along the banks of the Thames. Apartment blocks stand with their backs turned on the impoverished communities that surround them. Each block exists in a constructed and policed sterile zone. The locals who reside in public housing nearby are not even allowed to park their cars near the walls of the developments. Demand for this style of living has risen along with the numbers of rich people in the country. In the last decade the number of people with annual incomes above £100,000 has risen five-fold. The desire of the rich to secure exclusivity for their places of residence is propelled by abhorrence towards those who can not afford such lifestyles. The proliferation of gated communities and CCTV is emblematic of social classes that fear and despise the world and its inhabitants outside. The more their lives are removed from those of the population at large, the more these layers become desensitised and indifferent to the condition of humanity. The market for security gates is rising by 25 percent per year and for CCTV systems by 30 percent per year. These are the new “stylish” moat and portcullis for the 21st century bourgeois urban castle.

Blair and Brazilianisation
Tony Blair promised to do away with the symbolically loaded “Thatchergate” security entrance to 10 Downing Street, on his coming to power. It still stands today, a symbol of the administration and its isolation from the electorate. The more his government talks about “inclusiveness” and accessibility, the more cities become exclusive and inaccessible. Rodgers' call for the reintroduction of the middle classes back into the city centres through a process of gentrification and modernisation is not accompanied by a similar call for the movement of working class people in the opposite direction—to live in the comfortable suburbs. If the government are successful in gentrifying inner-city areas, it would lead to rises in property and land prices and the likely expulsion of the poor. The re-zoning of cities throughout the world is known as “Brazilianisation”, as it mirrors the South American nation's privatisation of public space and pernicious division of housing and lifestyle between the minority rich and the rest of the population.

The fuelling of a speculative land market would mean more London properties being bought by the upper middle classes as second homes and investments—especially as the council tax on a second property is half that levied upon homes occupied all year round. Presently there are an estimated 400,000 homeless people in the UK while the number of households reporting a second home is 760,000.

The promise of massive profits to be made in the inner cities has not been lost on developers, who have wised up to the allure of a “downtown” residence (In the “funkiest” area, of course). The Berkeley group of developers who specialise in city centre properties have just released their yearly report. The average price of one of their developments is £232,000 and they expect their sales to increase by 15 percent in the coming year on their exclusive housing developments, along with accompanying “lifestyle”-appropriate shopping and restaurant outlets.

One of Blair's most respected Downing Street advisers, Charles Leadbetter, has recently released a new book entitled Living on Thin Air. Peter Mandelson one of Blair's closest allies, said the book, “sets out the agenda for the next Blair revolution.” In it Leadbetter calls for more “earmarked local hypothecated taxes” and “social capital banks” to renew rundown areas. Local hypothecated taxes are an American inspired innovation. They involve Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), in which a group of private property owners raise an additional tax to provide supplementary services within their area—a shopping area or town centre perhaps—rather than local authority taxation being spent on the development needs of the entire city or town. Why, after all, would BIDs wish to pay for the upkeep of a rundown area? In America the introduction of BIDS has been coupled with a reduction in the direct tax burden upon businesses.

Blair's recent vitriolic attack on the inflexible “dinosaurs” in the public sector leave no doubt as to how seriously he takes the arguments in Leadbetter's book. The next Blair revolution for public provision will consist of a further squeeze upon public spending, privatisation and competitive tendering of the public sector. Beyond the showpiece landmark constructions and the politicians” hot air, what does “Urban Regeneration” amount to other than further moves towards surveillance, military-style policing and social control? How else are they going to police growing inequality and social hardship? How can regional development agencies and local government who are determined to promote economic competitiveness and attract inward investment meet the needs of deprived communities?

The so-called 24-hour city is simply commercialism spread over the entire calendar. Forcing the economy into the small hours is driven primarily by licensing and restaurant interests. Consequently it is targeted at those with money to spend. An area of high consumption is created for the same people who reside in the wealthy city centre enclaves. Impoverished inner-city estates, whose occupants can not afford to set foot inside the new glittering emporiums, surround these oases of luxury.

There can be no genuine inner city revival under the present social set-up. Global economic competition leads to the impoverishment of the vast bulk of the population, while a small minority live in islands of fantastic prosperity. It is sobering to reflect that the areas in Britain's towns and cities that had the worst social and housing conditions at the turn of the last century are still, one hundred years later, the areas of greatest deprivation. Governments have come and gone, but urban rot continues to blight the lives of city inhabitants. Cities embody and reflect the social conditions and physical health of its inhabitants. A city's dire predicament is only a metaphor for those who reside within. Urban decay, after all is said and done, is a question of poverty and social polarisation. If urban life and infrastructure are disfigured and social relations fractured, then it is because unemployment, poverty and inequality have been allowed to fester and breed.







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June 12th, 2012

6/12/2012

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THE OPENING OFFICIAL FOR THIS 'NEW ECONOMY MEETING WAS, AS I SAID, MAGGIE MCINTOSH AND HER FELLOW HOPKINS POLITICO ODETTE RAMOS FOLLOWED AFTER.  THEY ARE BOTH SOLIDLY BEHIND THIS MOVEMENT!  CARL STOKES, AS HEAD OF THE FINANCE AND BUDGET IS THE ONE WHO MOVES THE LEGISLATION DEVELOPED BY THESE NON-PROFITS THROUGH THE LEGISLATURE SO IF YOU LIKE THIS FUTURE, THESE ARE THE ELECTED OFFICIALS FOR YOU!

SPEAKING OF THE WEALTHY IMMIGRANTS BEING RECRUITED FOR THEIR JOB CREATING TALENTS, I WAS THINKING OF A POSTER-CHILD FOR THIS CROWD WHEN THE PERFECT EXAMPLE CAME TO ME.......THE INDIAN STUDENT AT RUTGERS WHO EXPOSED HIS GAY ROOMATE ON THE INTERNET.  I THINK HE CAPTURED THE ESSENCE OF THESE 1% BY SAYING EARLY ON, WHEN ASKED IF HE WAS SORRY HIS ACTIONS LED TO A DEATH.......'I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING BUT MONEY.....MAKING MONEY IS WHAT I CARE ABOUT'.  HE WAS OBVIOUSLY BUILDING HIS WALL STREET RESUME!  HE IS THE POSTER-CHILD FOR THIS IMMIGRANT PUSH.  LATER, WHEN SOMEONE TOOK TIME TO EXPLAIN TO HIM WHAT THE WORD 'CONTRITE' MEANS AND THAT IT WOULD GET HIM OUT OF JAIL.....HE DISCOVERED CONTRITION
.

Kaliope Parthemos, a former social worker and public defender and long-time aide to Baltimore Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake, as Deputy Mayor for Economic and Neighborhood Development is leading the immigration stage of the 'New Economy'.  She demonstrated the fact that she spoke several languages as did some of her international staff.  You see, the 1% no longer see America as a nation, they see it as a development zone and you will need to talk in tongues to move these financial giants! 

OR JUST VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!

I'M LOOKING AT A HUMMINGBIRD ON MY TERRACE.....OR IS THAT A DRONE.....IS WHAT I'M SAYING AN ACT OF TERRORISM?  I THINK I'M TURNING CHINESE, I REALLY THINK SO!

So, these private non-profits like the Giving groups are simply NGOs and are structured just the same as ones found in Pakistan or the Congo for the same purpose.  We can now relate to those countries wanting these groups out.  These non-profits are also the same as ALEC as I said yesterday....we have a hybrid of the two.  I just want to introduce you to them below:


Non-governmental organization
 
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

. (January 2012) A non-governmental organization (NGO) is a legally constituted organization created by
natural or legal persons that operates independently from any form of government. The term originated from the United Nations (UN), and is normally used to refer to organizations that are not a part of the government and are not conventional for-profit business. In the cases in which NGOs are funded totally or partially by governments, the NGO maintains its non-governmental status by excluding government representatives from membership in the organization. The term is usually applied only to organizations that pursue wider social aims that have political aspects, but are not openly political organizations such as political parties.

The number of
internationally operating NGOs is estimated at 40,000.[1] National numbers are even higher: Russia has 277,000 NGOs;[2]India is estimated to have around 3.3 million NGOs in year 2009, which is one NGO per less than 400 Indians, and many times the number of primary schools and primary health centres in India.[3][4

_____________________________________________________
NOW, DO YOU HEAR YOUR THIRD WAY DEMOCRATIC POLITICIAN SHOUTING LOUDLY AND STRONGLY AGAINST THIS TENDENCY TOWARD CORPORATE WRITING OF CONGRESSIONAL LAWS THROUGH ALEC?....AND IN FACT WRITING FINANCIAL REFORM WHICH WE KNOW IS GOING BADLY FOR THE PEOPLE.  NO, YOU WON'T HEAR THEM , BECAUSE THEY ARE HERE IN BALTIMORE/MARYLAND WELCOMED BY GOV. O'MALLEY, MAYOR RAWLINGS-BLAKE, YOUR MARYLAND ASSEMBLY AND BALTIMORE CITY COUNCIL.

THIS IS THIRD WAY.....CLINTON, OBAMA, AND O'MALLEY/CUOMO...THEY AREN'T CENTRISTS....THEY ARE CORPORATE POLITICIANS.

AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL 
Limited Government · Free Markets · Federalism
ALEC’s national Task Forces serve as public-policy laboratories where legislators develop model policies to use across the country. The eight Task Forces commission research, publish issue papers, convene workshops and issue alerts, and serve as clearinghouses of information on free market policies in the states.

Unique to ALEC Task Forces is the public-private partnership, a synergistic alliance that identifies issues and then responds with common sense, results-oriented policies. Legislators welcome their private sector counterparts to the table as equals, working in unison to solve the challenges facing our nation.

The centerpiece to the Task Forces is ALEC’s model legislation. To date, ALEC has considered, written, and approved hundreds of model bills, resolutions, and policy statements. To learn more about one of our nine Task Forces, contact any of our Task Force Directors.

Civil Justice Public Chair: Senator Bill Seitz, Ohio

Private Chair: Victor Schwartz, Esq., Shook, Hardy & Bacon, L.L.P.

Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development Public Chair: Representative Glenn Vaad, Colorado

Private Chair: Emory Wilkerson, State Farm Insurance

Communications and Technology Public Chair: Representative Blair Thoreson, North Dakota

Private Chair: Bartlett Cleland, Institute for Policy Innovation

Education Public Chair: Representative David Casas, Georgia

Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Public Chair: Representative David Wolkins, Indiana

Private Co-Chair: Martin Shultz, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck

Health and Human Services Public Chair: Senator Leah Vukmir, Wisconsin

Private Chair: Marianne Eterno, Guarantee Trust Life Insurance Company

International Relations Public Chair: Representative Harold Brubaker, North Carolina

Private Chair: Brandie Davis, Philip Morris International

Tax and Fiscal Policy Public Chair: Senator Jim Buck, Indiana

Private Chair: Bob Williams, Evergreen Freedom Foundation


_________________________________________________
Now, when you are building a military complex for an autocratic government Israel is a good place to go for immigrant recruits.  After all, Manhatten and Israel are the two most heavily militarized zones in world history.......makes you think they might be doing something bad........I'M JUST SAYING!!!!  So with domestic drones flying overhead and NGOs everywhere, one has to think, there is something undemocratic happening here. 

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!
_____________________________
Congress approves visas for Israeli investors Congress adds Israel to list of countries eligible for investor visas

By Associated Press | Associated Press – Fri, May 25, 2012 11:34 AM EDT WASHINGTON
 
(AP) -- Congress has passed legislation adding Israel to the list of more than 75 countries eligible for temporary visas given to foreign nationals who invest in U.S.-based businesses. The Senate approved the measure by voice vote on Thursday, sending it to President Barack Obama for his signature. E-2 investor visas are given to foreign nationals who come to the United States in order to develop businesses in which they have invested. Rep. Howard Berman, sponsor of the bill that passed the House last March on a 371-0 vote, said Israel is a global leader in such areas as defense technologies, medicine, agriculture and clean energy, and its investments would create American jobs. The California Democrat said that between 2000 and 2010, direct investment from Israel totaled $58.5 billion.
 
____________________________________________________
UNLIKE MANHATTAN, BALTIMORE IS JUST STARTING ITS SECURITY BUILDUP, SO LOCAL POLITIANS ARE OPENED TO MORE PHYSICAL DANGER.  HERE IN BALTIMORE YOU'LL SEE THE MAYOR'S BODYGUARD ENTERING THE WHOLEFOODS GROCERY TO DO A COMPLETE CHECK OF THE STORE BEFORE THE MAYOR CAN ENTER AND OUR BALTIMORE CITY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT ALONZO HAS A BODYGUARD/DRIVER THAT PAYS  A SALARY PLACING HIM IN THE 5% BRACKET.........THAT'S HOW YOU GET INTO THE TOP NOW THAT THE MARKET WILL BE ENDING MOST PUBLIC OFFERINGS!  SUPPLIANTS WILL DO AS WELL.

NEWS City deputy mayor's Mercedes defaced outside her Baltimore County home

By Justin Fenton and Julie Scharper | January 23, 2012
 
The personal vehicle of Baltimore's deputy mayor was vandalized over the weekend while it was parked outside of her Baltimore County home, county police said. Baltimore County police confirmed that Baltimore Deputy Mayor Kaliope Parthemos contacted police at the White Marsh precinct Sunday afternoon to report that her 2011 Mercedes E-350 had been defaced with red magic marker and an expletive directed at "Kelly," which is a nickname. The incident occurred sometime between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, she told police.


____________________________________________________
I WOULD SUGGEST THAT PRIVATIZING PUBLIC EDUCATION AND USING CHARTER SCHOOLS AS SOCIAL ENGINEERING TOOLS MAY BE THE REASON ALONZO HAS A BODYGUARD........I THINK IT OBVIOUS THAT A PROBLEM EXISTS WHEN OUR LEADERS FEEL THEY NEED BODYGUARDS!

Alonso needs a driver
 
March 10, 2012 Your editorial criticizing Baltimore schools CEO Andrés Alonso for his driver's pay is misleading ("Driving Mr. Alonso," March 6).  Baltimore Sun

As
Philadelphia's former superintendent, who also worked 12 to 15 hours a day, I know having a security officer who provides transportation is more effective and less expensive than hiring additional staff with benefits.

 A driver permits the CEO to answer scores of emails and phone calls and save time looking for parking spaces. It is far more productive to pay attention to things that matter to our children's
education.

You acknowledge these reasons but then suggest that Dr. Alonso drive himself more often. What proportion of emails or phone calls should he leave unanswered? How does he decide which stops should include the extra time to look for a parking space? Which trips do not require security? The little amount that might be saved is not worth the loss in productivity and safety as the CEO works on behalf of our children.

Editorial space on a trivial topic does not improve education. Use your influence on strategies that have demonstrated improved outcomes — three-year-old prekindergarten; extra instructional time; support for quality teaching; home visitors for at risk families with newborns; and community schools.

Or, take editorial space to say thanks again to Mr. Alonso for supporting policies that have reduced dropouts; improved academic achievement; moved cash from the central administration into schools; created an imaginative $1.2 billion
school construction program; and negotiated a model teacher contract.

Finally, as an urban superintendent (with a driver) and twelve years as Maryland's state superintendent (without a driver), I know from experience that there is a significant difference between the daily activities of the two, justifying the additional support for
Baltimore's superintendent.

Ultimately, we should judge the CEO by the success of our students. Editorials like the one you wrote verge on being whiny. The Sun has been and should be better than that.

David Hornbeck, Baltimore

The writer is the former state superintendent of schools, the father of two Baltimore City principals and the grandfather of four Baltimore public schoolchildren.

~

 

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

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