Democratic Talk Radio T-shirts, polo shirts, hats, etc.
Here is the link to see and order the merchandise http://www.multiprintstores.com/unionedge/category.aspx?cat=19
If you desire a link sent to your friends to view or purchase, email Stephen Crockett at demlabor@aol.com
No Recovery in Sight
By BOB HERBERT
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/opinion/27herbert.html?th&emc=th
How do you put together a consumer economy that works when the consumers are out of work?
One of the great stories you’ll be hearing over the next couple of years will be about the large number of Americans who were forced out of work in this recession and remained unable to find gainful employment after the recession ended. We’re basically in denial about this.
There are now more than five unemployed workers for every job opening in the United States. The ranks of the poor are growing, welfare rolls are rising and young American men on a broad front are falling into an abyss of joblessness.
Some months ago, the Obama administration and various mainstream economists forecast a peak unemployment rate of roughly 8 percent this year. It has already reached 9.4 percent, and most analysts now expect it to hit 10 percent or higher. Economists are currently spreading the word that the recession may end sometime this year, but the unemployment rate will continue to climb. That’s not a recovery. That’s mumbo jumbo.
Why this rampant joblessness is not viewed as a crisis and approached with the sense of urgency and commitment that a crisis warrants, is beyond me. The Obama administration has committed a great deal of money to keep the economy from collapsing entirely, but that is not enough to cope with the scope of the jobless crisis.
There were roughly seven million people officially counted as unemployed in November 2007, a month before the recession began. Now there are about 14 million. If you add to these unemployed individuals those who are working part time but would like to work full time, and those who want jobs but have become discouraged and stopped looking, you get an underutilization rate that is truly alarming.
“By May 2009,” according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, “the total number of underutilized workers had increased dramatically from 15.63 million to 29.37 million — a rise of 13.7 million, or 88 percent. Nearly 30 million working-age individuals were underutilized in May 2009, the largest number in our nation’s history. The overall labor underutilization rate in May 2009 had risen to 18.2 percent, its highest value in 26 years.”
If it were true that the recession is approaching its end and that these startlingly high numbers were about to begin a steady and substantial decline, there would be much less reason for alarm. But while there is evidence the recession is easing, hardly anyone believes a big-time employment turnaround is in the offing.
Three-quarters of the workers let go over the past year were permanently displaced, as opposed to temporarily laid off. They won’t be going back to their jobs when economic conditions improve. And many of those who were permanently displaced were in fields like construction and manufacturing in which the odds of finding work, even after a recovery takes hold, are not good.
Another startling aspect of this economic downturn is the toll it has taken on men, especially young men. Men accounted for nearly 80 percent of the loss in employment in this recession. As the labor market center reported, “The unemployment rate for males in April 2009 was 10 percent, versus only 7.2 percent for women, the largest absolute and relative gender gap in unemployment rates in the post-World War II period.”
Workers under 30 have sustained nearly half the net job losses since November 2007.
This is not a recipe for a strong economic recovery once the recession officially ends, or for a healthy society. Young males, especially, are being clobbered at an age when, typically, they would be thinking about getting married, setting up new households and starting families. Moreover, work habits and experience developed in one’s 20s often establish the foundation for decades of employment and earnings.
We’ve seen what happens when you rely on debt and inflated assets to keep the economy afloat. The economy can’t be re-established on a sound basis without aggressive efforts to put people back to work in jobs with decent wages.
We also need to consider the suffering that is being endured by these high levels of joblessness, including the profound negative effect on the families of the unemployed. Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, warned about the consequences for children. “What does it mean,” he asked, “when kids are under stress because there is no money in the household, or people have to move more, or are combining households, or lose their health insurance? I believe this is going to leave a permanent scar on a generation of kids.”
The first step in dealing with a crisis is to recognize that it exists. This is not a problem that will evaporate when the gross domestic product finally begins to creep into positive territory.
No Healthcare Reform Equals No Senate Job
It mystifies this writer that many Senate Democrats have failed to understand that killing the “public option” compromise position being pushed by the Obama will mean the end of their Senate careers. Politics has changed dramatically in the last few years and many Senate incumbents seem to have missed the size and intensity of the paradigm shift.
It is no accident that the Republican Party is in electoral meltdown. The Republican leadership is still stuck in the politics of the 1980’s and 1990’s. Unfortunately, the Democrats in power have not embraced the public sea change in attitudes completely. They do not understand that the Democratic wave does not threaten their hold on power. It does!
The Democratic shift is not based on partisan identity divorced from real changes in government policy. The Democratic election wins in 2006 and 2008 were strong rejections of both the Republican Right and the current unfair status quo in government policy.
If Democrats do nothing to reform the rigged economic system and fail to give American workers a fair shake, they are going to get replaced either in a primary or general election. If Democrats fail to protect civil liberties, they will be defeated. If Democrats start unnecessary wars, they will go down along with the already defeated Senate Republicans.
Of course, this is not good news for the Republican Right. The public is rejecting Republican Right politics and Republican-lite politics. Americans want real and meaningful reforms. Nothing less will do. Democrats who want to do the bidding of large corporations like the health insurance industry are going to get their backsides handed to them in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Senators from both major political parties better get with the program!
The public supports meaningful healthcare reform by huge margins. Depending on the wording and specific proposals, the public supports reform by percentile figures ranging from the mid-60’s to high 80’s. What the polls are missing is the intensity of this support.
Everyone is talking about healthcare. Even the majority of my highly partisan Republican friends are supporting universal government healthcare. Some are complaining that Obama’s plan does not go far enough and want single-payer universal healthcare like HR 676. More than a few have left the Republican Party over the healthcare issue.
Democratic activists in every state are actively looking to recruit primary challengers to Senators and House members who oppose significant parts of the Obama agenda. On the healthcare issue, this sentiment is so intense that even if Obama abandoned the “public option” compromise, he would lose the support of these activists. Democratic incumbents can be defeated in Democratic primaries and will be if they abandon the “public option” compromise.
Healthcare as currently organized is killing Americans! It is killing American jobs and businesses. It is grossly inefficient and unfair. Americans have been waiting for over 60 years for fundamental reform and will not wait another year without holding officeholders responsible. We are going to cost Senators their jobs if they block healthcare reform. This is a promise!
Corporate money can buy TV ads and slick mailers. It worked in the pre-Internet past. It will not work today. Obama is in the White House as proof. If Obama can win the White House largely thanks to the Internet, think what we can do around an issue that starts with around 2/3rds public support and Obama on our side.
Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com). Phone: 443-907-2367. Email: demlabor@aol.com. Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702.
Feel free to publish or print in full without prior approval.
The Letterman Joke Deception, Smears and Cynicism of Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin owes the American people of very sincere apology. She owes David Letterman an apology. She owes her own children an apology. Her actions and statements have been dangerous, exploitive, divisive and deceptive
I am disappointed that the media pundits commenting on this case did not point out that Sarah Palin conveniently used a 6 second joke by a non-political figure to divert the discussion away from the role Palin’s recent political rhetoric has played in creating a hostile and dangerous political climate in America over the past year. Palin’s outrageous comments falsely connecting Obama to socialism, falsely creating a completely unfounded fear of Big Brother government and stoking up political paranoia on the Right is dangerous and in poor taste. Her kind of rhetoric can directly be connected to the recent murders by Right-Wing extremists at the Holocaust museum in DC and in Kansas. She stoked the paranoia and inflamed their misguided passions and twisted political world view.
The Palin-type of extreme political rhetoric from the Republican Right has been feeding a growing domestic terrorist problem in America. This kind of dangerous rhetoric routinely comes not only from Palin herself, but also, from Right-Wing talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, extremist Right-Wing websites like Free Republic.com and, unfortunately, from many, many Republican Party officials and activists. Examples of Right-Wing political hate speech on talk radio are legion. Free Republic.com has thousands of posted comments of the most extreme nature. At about the same time that Palin was making her most recent inflammatory comments, the Republican Party held a political fundraiser that raised over $15 million dollars where a second rate actor called Obama “dangerous” and made many other hate-filled comments about our President.
We all remember the Sarah Palin rallies during the 2008 Presidential campaign where the crowd contained numerous Right-Wing nut jobs who shouted “kill him” when Obama’s name was mentioned. We all know about the Right-Wing conspiracy theories that contend Obama is a secret Muslim and/or not really an American citizen. We saw hundred if not thousands of signs to this effect at the McCain-Palin rallies in 2008 and at the Fox News/Republican sponsored anti-tax “tea parties” earlier this year. The man who committed the political murders at the Holocaust museum in DC wrote in support of these whack-job Right-Wing conspiracy theories on the Free Republic.com web site!
I have personal reasons to believe that the Anthrax Mail killer of 2001 was in part inspired by Right Wing talk radio shows like Neal Boortz and/or Right-Wing nut job websites like Free Republic.com. Sarah Palin intentionally taps into this political paranoia and Right-Wing political extremism with her over the top rhetoric. Her political career in Alaska has always been connected with extremist and political fringe groups. No other major political figure in America is as closely connected to political extremist groups as Sarah Palin.
Palin was certainly going to face a firestorm of political criticism over her rhetoric and extremist political connections in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust Right-Wing political murder! The criticism had just started when Palin made a huge political controversy over a 6 second David Letterman joke! It was an effective, intentional and cynical political move on her part.
Letterman apologized but Sarah Palin refused to accept the apology and let the matter drop. Doing so would not have helped her divert public attention from her rhetorical role in promoting Right-Wing extremism. It would have been the best outcome for her daughters but not for the political career of Sarah Palin. She placed her political ambition first over the emotional well-being of her daughters.
David Letterman did tell a rather crude joke, obviously referencing the 18 daughter of Sarah Palin, who is an unwed mother. It was in poor taste. Yes, it was a cheap shot. Comedians do that kind of thing every day to people in the public arena. Comedians go for the funny without regard to political correctness.
However, it is clear that Sarah Palin victimized her own daughter by putting her daughter in the public limelight just to advance Sarah Palin’s political ambitions without considering the possibility of the inevitable public humiliation that her daughter would face. Sarah Palin made her daughter’s unwed mother status and difficult relationship with her baby’s father front page news. This was done by Sarah Palin, not David Letterman. It was done for political reasons.
The controversial joke would never have been told if Sarah Palin had followed the example of President and Michelle Obama in how they insisted the media treat their daughters. The Obamas did not routinely exploit their daughters during the political campaign the way the Palin children were blatantly exploited by their mother. The Obamas continued to try to shield their daughters from excessive media attention once elected.
Comedians are not political operatives. They are not and should not be held to the same political standards of behavior as journalists, officeholders, candidates or political spokespersons. Behaving badly and pushing the envelope of social acceptability are the norms when it comes to comedians. Nearly all comedians tell less than politically correct jokes. While the jokes told by political figures should meet at least some minimum standards of political correctness, the same certainly does not hold true for comedians.
It is obvious that the remarks made by the Palins that strongly implied that a teenage girl would not be safe in the company of David Letterman were absolutely in poor taste and blatantly false. Using words like “perverted” were uncalled for by Sarah Palin. She used and continues to use them in reference to Letterman. Falsely stating that Letterman advocated underage sex and “rape” were beyond acceptable under any circumstances. Sarah Palin is smearing a popular comedian to drawn attention away from her role in creating a climate that promotes political violence by Right-Wing extremists.
Palin must know that late night talk show hosts are highly unlikely to write their own jokes. She knows the jokes are not meant to defame anyone. She must know the only goal is to draw laughter. Misconstruing the actions and motives of David Letterman tells us a great deal about the motives and character of Sarah Palin. While Palin clearly demonstrated that she has no sense of humor, media pundits should be connecting the dots concerning the clearly manipulative and political nature of the Palin-Letterman joke controversy.
Palin should apologize. If she does not apologize, we should all call for her resignation over this matter. Sarah Palin will seemingly do anything to promote her political ambitions including using her children, making false statements, engaging in character assassination and promoting a dangerous strain of political Right-Wing extremism. American political life and the Republican Party would be better off if Palin would retire from the public arena.
Written by Stephen Crockett (Host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com ). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Email: demlabor@aol.com. Phone: 443-907-2367. Feel free to publish without prior approval.
By Vi Ransel
5/21/09
Protectionism. Capitalists were all for it before they were against it. When manufacturing took place in America, when they paid workers enough to buy the products they produced, adding a tariff/tax/fee on to the cost of imported goods made by these same manufacturers’ competitors overseas, was fine. It just made sense. It was good business to prevent your domestic market from being flooded with cheaper goods from overseas, because that would lower domestic manufacturing’s ability to make enough money to stay in business. And this is exactly how the British and the Americans built their global empires.
But when “free trade” was elevated to the god of the marketplace, when American manufacturers had the ability to locate manufacturing overseas in order to take advantage (and I do mean take advantage) of “cheap labor platforms” – that is, to stand on the backs of poor people in other countries who had no choice but to work at a rate far below American workers, who, after all, were Americans and had come to expect a “fair” share of the wealth they created with their labor in the form of wages – well then, all bets were off.
And the downsizing of American industry and the outsourcing of American jobs were off to the race to the bottom in order to fatten the bottom line.
American industries became multi-nationals. They built their manufacturing plants in many countries with all the “cheap labor platforms” they could find to use as scaffolding. They lost the ability to think of themselves as American manufacturers, except when it came to branding their products (produced outside America via foreign, “cheap labor platforms”) as American, reaping the benefit of American manufacturing’s reputation without actually selling American-made products. Thus, many American manufacturers were American nationals in name only. There were TRANSnationals, manufacturers without a country, since they stood over/across – TRANS – all countries to make their profits. And in the process they abandoned America, Americans and their own American-ness. They abandoned loyalty to their own country and transferred it entirely to money.
As the rate of downsizing and outsourcing accelerated, American manufacturing on American soil was reduced to a hollowed-out shell of its former self. American factories stood empty, rusting away in The Rust Belt, initially in places like the former Motor City, Motown, and then all across America. And not only were American manufacturing facilities left to deteriorate into oblivion, so too, were American workers, who became collateral damage at “American” transnationals’ economic Donner Party.
Goods of all kinds were being produced in Mexico, East Asia and China, stamped with American brand names and sold all over the world, including America, in Big Box Stores which dictated low, low prices not just in their retail stores, but from the wholesalers from whom they purchased those goods, further spurring the race to the bottom. If you were an American manufacturer, and you wanted to sell your products to Big Box Store, you had to produce it cheap, cheap, cheap. So you left America and produced it on the backs of those “cheap labor platforms” overseas. And to do that you closed more and more American manufacturing plants and transferred more and more American jobs overseas.
This enabled what was left of American manufacturing to lower wages across the board in America (except those of union labor). In addition to the large pool of out-of-work, labor-in-waiting within America, which was created by all the downsizing and outsourcing, American workers who still had jobs were competing with desperately poor people in countries like Mexico, where NAFTA had decimated local farming by flooding the country with the American-taxpayer subsidized products of U.S. Big Ag. This drove Mexico’s ruined, rural farm population into American maquiladoras, or manufacturing plants, built conveniently all along the US/Mexico border by “American” transnationals.
And when these “American” transnationals found a cheaper “labor platform” on whose back to stand in China, the Mexican maquiladoras began to pay even less, or close, just like here in America. And this drove Mexican people left jobless to rush in a great stream across the border into America, much to the delight of American manufacturers still in America, who were looking for ways to slash their labor costs to better compete with the transnationals. This was a bonanza for them, cheap labor to whom they could really dictate wages and conditions by threatening to report them to La Migra and have them deported.
So now Americans with jobs were competing not only with other, out-of-work American workers and those “cheap labor platforms” in other countries. American manufacturers were building a cheap labor scaffold right under their noses, pulling even more scarce jobs out from under them, because American workers were just “too expensive” for American manufacturers to employ.
In addition, the transnational buzzards were circling American service jobs. They realized they could downsize their US operations into lean, mean service- job-outsourcing machines by transferring functions like accounting, billing, call centers, anything computerized, to India and Ireland. And there went a lot of our service jobs, out of America.
Workers in America were increasingly unable to buy “American” goods with their stagnant-for-30-years wages. American workers were increasingly unemployed workers. They needed to be able to buy food, healthcare, education, transportation, shelter, etc. Enter super-low interest rates, courtesy of Alan Greenspan’s Fed, and super-easy “credit” (a euphemisim for DEBT) from America’s homegrown financial buzzards. And the beat went on. American workers were “buying” things with money they didn’t have, spending it on those cheap goods made by “cheap labor platforms” which supported “American” transnationals. And since for many American workers the only equity they had was the roof over their head, they began borrowing against the value of their homes in order to live.
“American” manufacturers were loving it. “Free” trade agreements allowed them to sell their products all over the world without fear of these products being slapped with import fees/tariffs. And they sold these foreign imports in America without fear of cost added to these products by tariffs, which would normally be charged on goods made by foreign manufacturers. And make no mistake, these transnationals are “foreign” manufacturers with no particular interest in America except making money here. They made the goods in foreign countries with foreign workers and used American brands’ names and reputations to sell them, unconcerned with lead in toys, melamine in pet food or formaldehyde leeching into American homes from Chinese-made, particle board kitchen cabinets. All without fear of cost added to these products by tariffs. What’s not to love? At least for “American” manufacturers.
For American workers it’s another story. Up to their eyeballs in debt, they couldn’t even go bankrupt. Their “representatives” in Washington, excuse me, I mean the representatives of “American” transnationals and financial corporations, including our Vice President, who was known as the “Senator from Master Card”, saw to it that even those who did make it to bankruptcy would have the Credit Card Company vultures come first to pick at what was left of their financial corpse, before house or car or student loan payments. The Credit Card Companies have dibs on it. Now they want to be allowed to garnish Social Security checks.
But this STILL isn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to close plants in American and move them and our jobs overseas. It wasn’t enough to bankrupt us with medical bills and foreclose on our houses. It wasn’t enough to “extend” us “credit” to subsist on since our wages are insufficient. Oh no, no, no, dearie, no. “American” corporations need MORE………. (click on link below to read rest of article)
By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 18, 2009
You have to be rich to be poor.
That’s what some people who have never lived below the poverty line don’t understand.
Put it another way: The poorer you are, the more things cost. More in money, time, hassle, exhaustion, menace. This is a fact of life that reality television and magazines don’t often explain.
So we’ll explain it here. Consider this a primer on the economics of poverty.
“The poor pay more for a gallon of milk; they pay more on a capital basis for inferior housing,” says Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). “The poor and 100 million who are struggling for the middle class actually end up paying more for transportation, for housing, for health care, for mortgages. They get steered to subprime lending. . . . The poor pay more for things middle-class America takes for granted.”
Poverty 101: We’ll start with the basics.
Like food: You don’t have a car to get to a supermarket, much less to Costco or Trader Joe’s, where the middle class goes to save money. You don’t have three hours to take the bus. So you buy groceries at the corner store, where a gallon of milk costs an extra dollar.
A loaf of bread there costs you $2.99 for white. For wheat, it’s $3.79. The clerk behind the counter tells you the gallon of leaking milk in the bottom of the back cooler is $4.99. She holds up four fingers to clarify. The milk is beneath the shelf that holds beef bologna for $3.79. A pound of butter sells for $4.49. In the back of the store are fruits and vegetables. The green peppers are shriveled, the bananas are more brown than yellow, the oranges are picked over.
(At a Safeway on Bradley Boulevard in Bethesda, the wheat bread costs $1.19, and white bread is on sale for $1. A gallon of milk costs $3.49 — $2.99 if you buy two gallons. A pound of butter is $2.49. Beef bologna is on sale, two packages for $5.)
Prices in urban corner stores are almost always higher, economists say. And sometimes, prices in supermarkets in poorer neighborhoods are higher. Many of these stores charge more because the cost of doing business in some neighborhoods is higher. “First, they are probably paying more on goods because they don’t get the low wholesale price that bigger stores get,” says Bradley R. Schiller, a professor emeritus at American University and the author of “The Economics of Poverty and Discrimination.”
“The real estate is higher. The fact that volume is low means fewer sales per worker. They make fewer dollars of revenue per square foot of space. They don’t end up making more money. Every corner grocery store wishes they had profits their customers think they have.”
According to the Census Bureau, more than 37 million people in the country live below the poverty line. The poor know these facts of life. These facts become their lives…….
(Click on link below to read the rest of this article)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051702053.html
Wanted to alert everyone to the release of a new report from Cornell’s Kate Bronfenbrenner, “No Holds Barred,” that details the growing problem of management tactics that block workers’ ability to form unions.
here’s the report:
http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/upload/No_Holds_Barred.pdf
and our blog post on it:
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/05/20/corporate-anti-worker-tactics-on-the-rise/
A landmark study examining workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain shows that the problems the Employee Free Choice Act would address are getting worse.
“No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing,” authored by Kate Bronfenbrenner, the director of Cornell University’s School of Industrial Relations, documents a disturbing increase in corporate tactics to interfere with, block and delay workers’ attempts to form unions. Workers who want to form a union all too frequently are subject to harassment, mandatory meetings, threats and even illegal firings.
The study, released by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the American Rights at Work Education Fund, updates earlier studies by Bronfenbrenner. “No Holds Barred” examines more than 1,000 union representation campaigns over the past four years and finds that “intense and aggressive” tactics to block workers’ freedom to form unions are becoming more commonplace.
Coercive tactics to defeat attempts to form a union are all too common, with bosses threatening to close plants during 57 percent of union campaigns and threatening to cut wages and benefits in 47 percent of cases.
In more than 60 percent of union campaigns, workers are forced to attend mandatory one-on-one sessions with supervisors and given anti-union messages or interrogated about support for a union.
The use of negative tactics by employers during union campaigns, like threats of layoffs, has increased, while the use of positive tactics, like promises of wage hikes, has decreased.
The number of employers using 10 or more identified coercive tactics has doubled.
Even for those who do win the election, 52 percent still have no contract a year later, and 37 percent are still without a contract two years after they vote to join a union.
Brofenbrenner writes that these coercive tactics have a chilling effect on workers, which means they’re not able to exercise their basic freedom to form a union and bargain for a better life:
Our findings suggest that the aspirations for representation are being thwarted by a coercive and punitive climate for organizing that goes unrestrained due to a fundamentally flawed regulatory regime that neither protects their rights nor provides any disincentives for employers to continue disregarding the law. Moreover, many of the employer tactics that create a punitive and coercive atmosphere are, in fact, legal.
We’ll be covering the release of this report in greater detail later today, as Bronfenbrenner and other workplace experts discuss the findings today in a Capitol Hill briefing. It’s a critical study in why we so badly need reform that protects the freedom to form unions.
–
Seth D. Michaels
blog.aflcio.org
From the Los Angeles Times
Obama asks Congress for credit card reform bill
The president, speaking in New Mexico, decries what he calls abusive practices on rates and penalties. But he also cautions consumers against accumulating debt.
By Peter Nicholas
May 15, 2009
Reporting from Rio Rancho, N.M. - President Obama today called on Congress to send him a bill by Memorial Day that would curb what he described as abusive credit card practices in which lenders raise interest rates and slap consumers with high fees.
Obama said such industry tactics are exploitative and need to be stopped through new legislation.
“You should not have to worry that when you sign up for a credit card you’re signing away all your rights,” the president said at a town hall-style meeting in a high school gymnasium here.
Legislation aimed at preventing credit card companies from mistreating customers is moving through Congress. On a separate track, the Federal Reserve is coming out with new rules next year that would strengthen protections for those who use credit cards.
Obama met last month with representatives of the credit card industry, urging them to adopt more fair-minded practices amid the economic downturn.
Describing that meeting to an audience of 2,300 here, the president said, “We didn’t agree on anything.” Correcting himself, he said, “We didn’t agree on everything — that was a slip of the tongue.”
Obama decried practices such as promising people low interest rates “while keeping the right to raise those rates at any time for any reason — even on old purchases.”
Introducing the president was an Albuquerque resident who conveyed a frustrating encounter with her credit card company. The woman, Christine Lardner, has two daughters in college.
Pinched financially, she and her husband have started using a credit card to pay some college expenses. When the card neared its limit, they contacted the school and tried to switch to another card, but it was too late. After the old card was mistakenly charged, the credit card company tripled their interest rate — to nearly 30%.
Lardner had sent a letter to the White House describing her predicament, leading to her appearance at the event today. Obama said he empathized.
He laid out principles he believes to be important in creating a more responsible credit card industry. One was transparency. He said no one should need specialized legal expertise to understand the fine print of a credit card contract.
“We’re going to require clarity and transparency from now on,” he said.
Obama added: “Enough is enough. It’s time for strong, reliable protections for our consumers.”
According to the White House, total credit card debt has reached $963 billion, a 25% jump over the last 10 years. The average amount of credit card debt among families holding a balance was $7,300 in 2007.
Penalty fees comprise a fair chunk of industry revenues. Credit card issuers collect $15 billion each year in penalty fees, amounting to 10% of total revenues.
Obama also stressed that consumers may need to rethink spending practices.
“This is not free money; it’s debt,” he said. “And you shouldn’t take on more than you can handle.”
peter.nicholas@latimes.com
GOP barely hangs on in Maryland
Republicans all but extinct in the Northeast
By Paul West
May 4, 2009
Washington
Even before Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter switched to the Democratic side, Republican leaders were warning that their national party was in danger of becoming a regional one.
Specter’s departure, part of a larger Republican shift away from the Northeast, has left a hole on the political map. For the first time since the founding of the Republican Party in the 1850s, there is not a single Republican senator from Maryland or any of the four states that border it…..
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.gop04may04,0,7652975,print.story
Specter Deserves A Democratic Primary Opponent
Most Pennsylvania Democrats are Democrats for good reasons. It is not because they like the letter “D’ more than the letter “R”. They are Democrats because they support the Democratic approach on a wide array of issues more than they support the Republican policy positions on those issues.
While I welcome Specter to the Democratic Party, I am not convinced that he holds mainstream Democratic values. His record and stated policy positions remain largely Republican.
Specter has made himself a major obstacle to passing the Employee Free Choice Act. He supported almost all the Bush agenda for 8 years. Without Specter, we probably would not have Alito and Roberts on the Supreme Court.
Specter has not protected American jobs leaving the country because of unfair “free” trade deals. He has done almost nothing to help get us out of Iraq. He has opposed government provided universal healthcare. He has opposed the vast majority of Democratic policy positions during his long political career.
Pennsylvania Democrats should have a real Democrat running as the 2010 Democratic Senate candidate. Specter is an honorable man but hardly the best choice to represent mainstream Pennsylvania Democratic values in the 2010 Senate race.
It is highly unlikely that the winner of the 2010 Pennsylvania Democratic Senate Primary will lose the general election. Pennsylvania Democrats do not have to compromise their values to take this Senate seat and should not be pressured into making such a bad choice.
Pennsylvania politics has shifted dramatically in a Democratic direction. Fielding a Democratic candidate holding a majority of policy positions that are Republican Right in nature would in my opinion be a betrayal of all those Pennsylvania Democrats yearning for real change. Specter with his current policy positions cannot deliver the change those voters desire.
Organized labor and the progressive community in Pennsylvania are very strong and growing. Specter offers almost nothing to either group. Local Democratic activists are not fans of Arlen Specter. The core of the Democratic coalition in Pennsylvania deserves to have a mainstream Democratic Senate candidate who reflects their values and supports their policy positions on at least 80 to 90% of the issues. Complete political purity is not required but Specter currently fails the minimum test.
Specter needs to change his positions on a wide array of issues before he is given a clear field in the Democratic Primary. He needs to move toward the center in a major way. No candidate opposing the Employee Free Choice Act, supporting right-wing federal judges or job-destroying “free trade” deals and the like should go unopposed in any Democratic primary election.
Pennsylvania largely reflects the general values of America. While a candidate with Specter’s policy positions would be a big improvement over Senators like Corker and Alexander of Tennessee, Shelby and Sessions of Alabama or Vitter of Louisiana, he is not really at the center of the American political spectrum on a vast majority of issues. Specter is close enough to the center to shift his positions on enough issues to win a Democratic primary but has not indicated any willingness to do so!
Working class and middle class Pennsylvanians deserve a Senate candidate with values and policy positions that fully embrace the changes promised by the Obama Presidency. Nobody including the Senate Democratic leadership, the Democratic National Committee or even President Obama should attempt to keep Pennsylvania Democrats from having a choice in the 2010 Democratic Senate Primary that fully reflects Democratic values. Senator Specter should have the opportunity to compete but the field should not be cleared of major league Democratic competitors.
The Pennsylvania Democratic Party would be seriously harmed by any attempt to limit the field of Democratic Senate competitors in 2010. Union activists and progressives deserve an opportunity to field serious candidates who fully reflect their views. Specter does not currently fill that need although he can do so if he so desires by merely changing his policy positions.
Specter was definitely going to lose the Republican Senate Primary in 2010. It was in his interest to switch to the Democratic Party. However, adding a “D” after your name on a ballot does not make you a mainstream Democrat.
If Specter wants to win a Senate seat from Pennsylvania as a Democrat, he needs to become a mainstream Democrat. He is highly unlikely to do so without a strong Democratic Primary opponent. Certainly, Specter can be beaten in the 2010 Democratic Senate Primary by any serious challenger holding “real” mainstream Democratic values.
Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com). He can be reached by email at demlabor@aol.com or by phone at 443-907-2367.
Democratic Talk Radio airs Thursday mornings on WGPA SUNNY 1100AM in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The mailing address for Democratic Talk Radio is: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702.
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