An Upside for the Middle Class
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton declares, “The economy is not working for middle-class and working families,” noting the typical American family earns less now than it did seven years ago. Citing the same trend, her Democratic presidential rival, Sen. Barack Obama, promises “to put America back on the path to prosperity.” Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, says, “It is harder for families to weather hard economic times.” The candidates’ pitches are aimed at wooing the vast majority of Americans who consider themselves middle class. Those people tell pollsters that they are increasingly anxious about their financial security, a feeling that has intensified in recent years because of flattening wages, rising income inequality, increasing consumer debt, soaring health-care costs, spiraling energy prices and, now, declining home values. But as Americans’ wage growth has slowed, their rate of consumption has accelerated, leaving some economists dubious about claims that the middle class is worse off than before.
Read the story from Washington Post | No Comments | Posted February 28, 2008 at 9:06 PM by Alex Tievsky
There is not another industry in the United States that has been more vilified in the past few years than the Oil Industry. To many Americans, these companies represent corporate greed and the stranglehold that “special interests” have on politics in Washington. Driven first by the populist message of John Edwards’ campaign, the Oil Industry, ExxonMobil specifically, has proven an easy and popular target for Democratic presidential hopefuls. Barack Obama often announces at large campaign stops:
I know that it won’t be easy to change our energy policy. ExxonMobil made $11 billion last quarter. They don’t want to give those profits up easily.
Hillary Clinton has been no more gentle, saying:
Now, ExxonMobil had, you know, the highest profits in corporate history. Yet when CEO Lee Raymond was asked about how much his company had invested in alternative energy over the last decade, his reply was, and I quote, “a negligible amount.” Well, that’s unexcusable. You know, the oil industry is making $300 million a day, not because they planned on it, not because of great managerial expertise, but because of escalating world demand and therefore increasing prices for this commodity that they didn’t create in the first place. I think it’s time that we made sure they put a fair share of their profits toward a sound energy future.
There is no shortage of criticism against the Oil Industry. What we don’t often hear, is a response. How does the Oil Industry justify such high profits? Given these profits, why are companies like ExxonMobil still receiving government subsidies? One of our users, who works for an oil company, forwarded me an email sent to company employees in response to these exact questions. Click here to continue reading…
In the last five years, we’ve witnessed a significant shift in the focus of the U.S. public education system. The shift is perhaps best illustrated by the proliferation of the public high school rankings appearing in national publications. U.S. News & World Report, well known for its university rankings, now publishes a ranking of best high schools as well. Unlike the university rankings, which take many factors into account (yet remain of dubious value), the high school ranking considers essentially one statistic: standardized test scores.
The massive movement towards standardized tests as a barometer for education has its roots in the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act. The act is a well-intentioned piece of legislation as its purpose is to improve the overall quality of American public education. It does so partially by attempting to measure schools’ success, as President Bush explained when he signed the bill into law:
The story of children being just shuffled through the system is one of the saddest stories of America….The first step to making sure that a child is not shuffled through is to test that child as to whether or not he or she can read and write, or add and subtract. The first way to solve a problem is to diagnose it. And so, what this bill says, it says every child can learn. And we want to know early, before it’s too late, whether or not a child has a problem in learning. I understand taking tests aren’t fun. Too bad. We need to know in America. We need to know whether or not children have got the basic education.
One of the most interesting conversations we have going on the site so far is about creating universal health care. Here are the facts: nearly 47 million people in this country are currently uninsured; of those 47 million, more than 80% come from working families; while in 1987, 70% of people had employer-based insurance, that number is down to 59.5%; and, finally, 40% of America’s uninsured live in households that earn more than $50,000 a year. The reason for the increasing number of uninsured Americans is simple: insurance premiums are rising at just about 5 times the rate of inflation.It’s an incredibly important issue, and our users are doing a great job tackling a lot of important questions. Some of them are skeptical:
Gagarin wants to know how we would pay for a universal health care program:
UHC would be very peachy and nice, but someone has to tell me how they’re going to pay for it, WITHOUT saying they’re going to “tax the rich people ’cause they don’t need the money” because thinking that will increase revenue rather than reduce it is wishful thinking.
Lobachevsky thinks the government might be overstepping its role:
The government should be involved in situations that individuals cannot control. I do believe that the state of our current health care system is not satisfactory, and that it requires some government involvement, but not to the extent of national health care. The national government should put its time and effort, and our money, into stimulating competition in the health insurance market as to make it more affordable to all Americans.
In my opinion, universal health care is a moral imperative. While stephendolenc compares health care to “universal cell phone ownership [and] universal fitness club memberships,” I think the comparison to public education is much more apt. I don’t believe we have any more of a right to deny an American citizen the ability to be treated by a doctor than we have to deny them the services of the Fire Department should their home catch fire. Click here to continue reading…
Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig Explores Bid for Congress
Digital rights crusader Larry Lessig said Tuesday that he’s considering a bid to take over the late Rep. Tom Lantos’ (D-Calif.) congressional seat. He has given himself a March 1 deadline to make the decision. In a video released on the web late Tuesday, the Stanford law professor formally launched what he calls the “Change Congress Movement,” and he put out feelers to check support for his candidacy. The professor’s goal is to tackle a problem that has dogged politics since perhaps the beginning of time: the corrupting influence of money. In the video, Lessig called on members of Congress to form a bipartisan coalition whose participants would take three pledges he says would change the system: Take no money from political action committees, ban earmarks and agree to public financing of campaigns.
Read the story from Wired | 2 comments | Posted at 10:43 PM by Sam Bear
A (Super)Delegate Guide
A lot of people have questions about how the delegate and superdelegate process works. Here are your answers courtesy of The Page:
Read the story from The Page | No Comments | Posted February 19, 2008 at 11:12 PM by Sam Bear
Happy Presidents Day, W!
Click here to continue reading…
For ‘EcoMoms,’ Saving Earth Begins at Home
Move over, Tupperware. The EcoMom party has arrived, with its ever-expanding “to do” list that includes preparing waste-free school lunches; lobbying for green building codes; transforming oneself into a “locovore,” eating locally grown food; and remembering not to idle the car when picking up children from school (if one must drive). Here, the small talk is about the volatile compounds emitted by dry-erase markers at school. Perhaps not since the days of “dishpan hands” has the household been so all-consuming. But instead of gleaming floors and sparkling dishes, the obsession is on installing compact fluorescent light bulbs, buying in bulk and using “smart” power strips that shut off electricity to the espresso machine, microwave, X-Box, VCR, coffee grinder, television and laptop when not in use… Part “Hints from Heloise” and part political self-help group, the alliance, which Ms. Pinkson says has 9,000 members across the country, joins a growing subculture dedicated to the “green mom,” with blogs and Web sites like greenandcleanmom.blogspot.com and eco-chick.com.
Read the story from NY Times | No Comments | Posted February 17, 2008 at 3:47 PM by Sam Bear
Lake Mead Could Be Within a Few Years of Going Dry, Study Finds
Lake Mead, the vast reservoir for the Colorado River water that sustains the fast-growing cities of Phoenix and Las Vegas, could lose water faster than previously thought and run dry within 13 years, according to a new study by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The lake, located in Nevada and Arizona, has a 50 percent chance of becoming unusable by 2021, the scientists say, if the demand for water remains unchanged and if human-induced climate change follows climate scientists’ moderate forecasts, resulting in a reduction in average river flows. Demand for Colorado River water already slightly exceeds the average annual supply when high levels of evaporation are taken into account, the researchers, Tim P. Barnett and David W. Pierce, point out. Despite an abundant snowfall in Colorado this year, scientists project that snowpacks and their runoffs will continue to dwindle. If they do, the system for delivering water across the Southwest would become increasingly unstable. “We were really sort of stunned,” Professor Barnett said in an interview. “We didn’t expect such a big problem basically right on our front doorstep. We thought there’d be more time.”
Read the story from NY Times | No Comments | Posted February 13, 2008 at 1:51 AM by Sam Bear
Writers vote to end 3-month strike
Striking Hollywood writers are going back to work. The Writers Guild of America said its members voted Tuesday to end their devastating, three-month strike that brought the entertainment industry to a standstill. Writers will be back on the job Wednesday after voting in Beverly Hills and New York. “At the end of the day, everybody won,” Leslie Moonves, chief executive officer of CBS Corp., told The Associated Press. “It was a fair deal and one that the companies can live with, and it recognizes the large contribution that writers have made to the industry.”
Read the story from AP | No Comments | Posted at 1:40 AM by Sam Bear
