Holly Sklar on "The Great Rip-Off"

"Times are tough: Only $140B for Wall St. banksters"
By Holly Sklar, Sunday, November 8, 2009 - www.bostonherald.com - Columnists

Taxpayer bailouts saved Wall Street from choking on its own greed. Now, as the Wall Street Journal reports, “Major U.S. banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their employees about $140 billion this year - a record high.”

Folks, $140 billion is more than the combined budgets of the U.S. departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Typical workers, meanwhile, make less today adjusting for inflation than they did in the 1970s. Wall Street rewarded CEOs who cut employee wages and benefits and offshore manufacturing, services and research and development; turned mortgages into loan sharking; and sucked home equity, college funds, retirement funds and other private and public investments into their rigged casino.

Goldman Sachs, for example, “peddled billions of dollars in shaky securities tied to subprime mortgages on unsuspecting pension funds, insurance companies and other investors when it concluded that the housing bubble would burst,” McClatchy News Service reports in a new investigative series.

The Great Depression gave way to the New Deal. The Great Recession has become the Great Ripoff.

Believe it or not, oversight officials say “the firms that were ‘too big to fail’ are in many cases bigger still, many as a result of government-supported and sponsored mergers and acquisitions.”

Enabled by the Bush and Obama administrations, the megabanks are lending less and gambling more - using taxpayer money to pay bonuses, float a new stock market bubble and make even riskier bets. The Treasury and Federal Reserve have become Wall Street’s ATMs, while unemployment, foreclosures and homelessness rise, states slash services, average citizens are priced out of health care, and small businesses are starved of credit.

Trillions of dollars are flowing to the banksters in the form of near-zero interest loans, bond guarantees and extreme leverage for toxic assets. You can follow the money at nomiprins.com. (Nomi Prins, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, is author of “It Takes a Pillage.”)

The megabanks are not too big to fail. They’re too big and irresponsible to exist. By 2002, the four major bank holding companies - Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup - had 27 percent of FDIC-insured bank assets. Now, reports the Economic Policy Institute, they have half. They overlap with derivatives dealers JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup.

The government heavily subsidizes the megabanks, but it’s the small banks that provide higher savings interest, lower fees, lower loan and credit card rates, and do much of the lending to small business, who create most new jobs.

Behind their Main Street rhetoric, Congress and the Obama administration have been the nonchange Wall Street can believe in.

Make your voices heard. We need to enact tough regulations and bust the banks who busted our economy before they do it again.

Sara Hathaway is a woman scorned by the Good Old Boys of Pittsfield Politics

SARA HATHAWAY

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"Don't be fooled again by Ruberto"
The Berkshire Eagle, Letters to the Editor, October 29, 2009

"What is my salary?" This was Jim Ruberto's first question to me when I met with him at City Hall right after the November 2003 election. To me, this question was clear but sad evidence of Jim's first priority as mayor-elect: himself. It also showed me that this was a man who had never looked at a city budget -- the mayor's salary is always the first line item on page one, and could hardly be missed by anyone who had taken the time to crack the front cover of this essential document.

Flash forward to 2009. At the debate on Oct. 26, the moderator asked a question about the "Jobs for Pittsfield" task force that Jim had put in place during his first term. The chair of this task force, Bill Hines, had indicated that 150 jobs per year was a realistic goal for the group, according to the moderator. "Mr. Hines' numbers are not mine," said the current mayor, attempting to distance himself from the claims of his appointee. Indeed. Jim Ruberto had constantly promised voters in 2003 that there would be 200 new jobs, not 150. Although he claimed that he had kept his promises to the people of Pittsfield, I know I am not alone in recognizing that Jim's "straight talk about taxes" and the suitcase he would take on the road to recruit new businesses have helped form a trail of broken promises.

I recognized Jim's hollow promises for what they were in 2003. After he took office, I know that many voters quickly became aware that their new mayor had sold them a bill of goods. Don't be fooled again. Please join me on Nov. 3 in supporting Dan Bianchi, the candidate for Pittsfield's mayor who will bring integrity, know-how and intelligence to City Hall.

SARA HATHAWAY
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
The writer is a former mayor of Pittsfield.
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www.topix.net/forum/source/berkshire-eagle/THVBAM7HSAVUVLLAJ
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Michael Moore takes on capitalism while I take on the myths of labor

October 3, 2009

Re: My thoughts on Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A love story" & understanding of labor

My Dad & I went to see Michael Moore's political satire movie, "Capitalism: A love story", earlier today (Saturday, October 3, 2009). I thought it was a good movie that sent the message that the poor and middle class are getting screwed by Wall Street/Capitol Hill.

Companies not only make obscene profits, but also, they find ways to cash in on their workers. Moore pointed out that many wealthy corporations profit off of the early deaths of their workers through life insurance policies that do not go to the families of the deceased. Health insurance companies deny coverage to working people to keep their profit margins up. When companies lose money, the government bails them out without regard for the law and fiscal accountability.

The following are my thoughts on labor.

Jonathan Melle's understanding of Labor in America:

Rooted in many hundreds of years of law, labor has never been a means to private property. Rather, labor is really only an established custom from times long ago before legal contracts. From a historical perspective, there was no such thing as a working class prior to the Industrial Revolution. Poor people were servants to the wealthy aristocracy or landed gentry. In the South, white property owners used black slaves as free labor. When immigrants came to the U.S. during and after the Industrial Revolution, the factory owners placed them in great numbers in substandard housing units, used bells and whistles to socialize them into factory workers, and regulated them through low wages. The Industrial Revolution immigrants and their offspring were taught the false myth that work or labor granted them property. The poor families knew nothing of legal contracts and entitlement to property and were lead to create families of working class people through multiple generations to come. Their children were pulled from school around the sixth to ninth grade and put into factories to help with the family's bills. They were indoctrinated with the affirmation of labor to earn their keep. Social reforms and socially just people in power worked to change the system to pull families out of poverty and into a middle or professional class of citizens. This worked from the late-1930's to the mid-1970's, but the pendulum started to swing back to regulating people into the socially engineered working class. When the industrial factories began shuttering their doors and moving to foreign lands, the regulation of the working class transformed into the underclass, which is a demographic of poor people who will never have any social mobility or will never have the ability to achieve the American Dream of a middle class life. As the underclass proliferates, America is becoming desolate with a record number of foreclosed homes, uninsured healthcare patients, and disadvantaged families. The regulated people are being stripped of all of their entitlements from quality public education, to affordable healthcare insurance, to their living wages and pensions. The legal contracts that entitle working people to property and wealth are being taken away by both the government and corporations.

Labor has never been a means to property or wealth under our legal system of contract law and entitlements. The myth of the American work ethic was made up by the Industrial Revolution who put the poor and immigrant populations into a newly formed group called the working class. As this was all invented in the mid-19th century by wealthy factory owners, there was no legal protections under the law for labor. The legal protections to entitlements to a living wage, affordable healthcare, quality public education, pensions, and the like, were passed as reform measures as the labor population grew, formed unions and demanded equity from their work. These legal protections were never placed on the law, but attached to labor to be taken away over time.

The fact is that the main ways to wealth throughout the many hundreds of years of legal contracts have been family marriages and education. By this, I mean wealthy families who married other wealthy families to grow their estates, and Ivy League colleges like Harvard and Yale. For example, Bill Weld was born with an $80 million trust fund, his family derived from Edmund Weld arriving in America via the Mayflower, and he married Susan Roosevelt (now divorced) after graduating from Harvard University. Governor Weld represents a wealthy person who married another wealthy person and went to an elite educational institution with a building named "Weld Hall".

When are we as Americans going to stop the propaganda about labor? When are we going to teach the poor and middle class that corporations via the government are their to regulate us into socially invented classes that will ensure that we are controlled and indoctrinated by a system that does not protect our legal interests? When are we going to learn that the means to property or wealth is through legal contracts that entitle us to families, education, healthcare insurance, living wages and pensions? When are we going to demand that the legal system of contract law entitles us to our basic human needs as citizens and stop believing the myths of labor that were all made up during and after the Industrial Revolution?

Sincerely,
Jonathan A. Melle

The State of New Hampshire slashes medicaid funds for mental illness!

"Mental Health Providers Struggle With Budget Cuts: Officials Say Demand For Services Growing As Budgets Cut"
wmur.com - September 29, 2009

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Some of New Hampshire's largest mental health care providers will have a lot less money to render services soon.

State and federal Medicaid revenue funds make up between 65 percent and 85 percent of the budget for 10 private centers that help the mentally ill. Now, that budget has been reduced, while demand for such services is on the rise.

The nonprofit groups that are affected by the cuts said they will impact about 8 percent of their total budgets.

The Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester serves about 9,000 people who are considered severely and persistently mentally ill. Budget cuts will cost the organization about $1 million out of its $20 million total operating budget, and officials said some tough decisions are going to be made.

"There's very little question that there's going to be some impact on services, and there'll have to be some reductions and we hope no program closings, but that's certainly not out of the question," said Ken Snow of the Mental Health Center.

Last year, the 10 mental health centers received almost $93 million in state and federal Medicaid funds. This year's budget is about $91 million.

The cuts are coming while demand for services is skyrocketing. In 2008, there was a 10 percent jump in the number of mentally ill patients seeking services. This year, there has been an 11 percent jump.

State officials said that with more patients and less money the nonprofits will have to decide where to spend and where to cut.

"We'll likely see an increase in wait periods for people to access services," said Erik Riera of the Department of Health and Human Services. "We may see some specific program closures, but we're hoping providers continue to prioritize services to those who need it most."

Roland Lamy Jr. works with the New Hampshire Community Behavioral Health Association, which represents the nonprofits. He said the cost of cutting services will be passed along to someone else.

"We suspect that people will end up in the emergency room setting and other types of care," he said. "It's really difficult to anticipate what will happen, but we know people will not be getting the appropriate care in the appropriate setting because of this."

The cuts take effect on October 15, 2009.

Source (with video):
www.wmur.com/news/21152011/detail.html?treets=man&tid=2653687483813&tml=man_dailyforecast&tmi=man_dailyforecast_1_05450209302009&ts=H

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September 29, 2009

NH Governor John Lynch is the biggest phony in the World! He has indebted the state government by borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars to spend future tax money on operating costs. Lynch is both a tax & spend AND a borrow & spend politician. The people of New Hampshire get the worse of both political parties in one man!

Keeping true to his management style, Lynch is displacing the needs of poor people on Medicaid who depend on mental health social services. During this time of increased demand for mental health social service, Lynch is cutting another one million dollars in the middle of October 2009.

Where does Lynch think these mentally ill poor people on Medicaid are going to end up?

Of course, they'll end up in Emergency Rooms dehydrated from homelessness and hunger. They may end up self-medicating on alcohol and drugs. They may end up in jail from domestic violence and other crimes. In any of these scenarios, the costs of E.R.s, homelessness, hunger, alcohol, drugs, domestic violence, crime, incarceration, and the like, will be much higher than the one million dollar cut to Medicaid services to mental health!

BUT, I do not believe that the NH Governor cares. After all, he keeps raising taxes and borrowing more and more and more money to pay today's bills without regard for the future. In summary, NH Governor John Lynch is penny wise, but pound foolish!

In Dissent!
Jonathan Melle

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"Lynch, lawmakers use fear, intimidation"
The Concord Monitor, Letter, October 2, 2009

I was quoted in the Sunday Monitor as saying, "After serving in Iraq, in the fight against terrorism, I didn't appreciate coming back and being terrorized by the governor and Legislature" ("Lynch, union on the outs," front page, Sept. 27). Also on Sunday, a commentator on WMUR's Closeup program said I had no business comparing the governor's actions to those of a terrorist.

As an explanation for my remarks, I believe that when the State Employees' Association wouldn't give up the 5.5 percent raise last January - which the governor asked us to forego even before negotiations started - the governor and legislators enacted retribution by passing House Bill 2 in June, forcing $25 million in personnel cuts. He painted targets on our backs and got his revenge through negotiations and with the threat of massive layoffs.

The governor and Legislature have chosen to use fear and intimidation to force their will on a large group of state employees with the intent to deprive them of financial gains they have worked for and the dignity and respect that comes with those gains.

They have disregarded our ability make these sacrifices in our personal finances to help balance their deficit budget. They have chosen to use mass destruction rather than selective targeting to achieve their means. As a military witness to the oppression in Iraq, I believe their actions seem like the characteristics of a terrorist regime, or at least an oppressive governing body, to be capable of such thoughtless acts.

BRUCE VANLANDINGHAM
Alexandria
(The writer is an auto repair technician for the state Department of Transportation and a construction mechanic for the U.S. Naval Reserve.)

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Chris McKeown on "How we can fix Beacon Hill". He is the founder of FixBeaconHill.com

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The Boston Globe, Op-Ed, CHRIS MCKEOWN
"How we can fix Beacon Hill"
By Chris McKeown, September 29, 2009

IN THE PAST several months Massachusetts citizens have witnessed the indictment of their third consecutive speaker of the House, learned of decades of pension system abuse, observed numerous lobbying scandals, and watched a senator allegedly stuff a bribe into her bra. It doesn’t take much digging to discover that issues such as these are not unique to this legislative session, but are merely symptoms of the broader disease - the absence of deliberative, representative democracy in the Legislature.

How did it get this way? Sixty years of single-party domination has allowed a slow, steady, incremental accumulation of power within the office of the House speaker and Senate president. Today, these two people control all leadership and committee chair appointments, thereby controlling the extra pay these positions receive.

They also control all committee appointments, drafting of their chamber’s rules, the daily schedule, when (and if) bills come out of committee, and whether a bill ever sees a vote on the floor. When a bill does make it to the floor for a vote, it often happens within hours after it is reported out of committee. As a result, no legislators, regardless of their work ethic or staff size, can possibly review what’s in the legislation upon which they are being asked to vote.

As if all this were not enough, the speaker and president control members’ office assignments, budgets and staff size, where members sit in the chamber, where they park, how much party PAC money they receive, and so on. If legislators do not “go along to get along’’ they find themselves, quite literally, in the basement; enduring the retribution that comes with failing to follow their chamber’s leader.

Over the past five decades there have been several attempts to change the way the Legislature operates, including the efforts of Governor Dukakis and Representative Barney Frank in the 1960s, and Representative George Kevarian’s floor revolt in 1983 when Speaker Tom McGee was overthrown. These efforts had a minor impact for a short period. Ultimately, though, the Legislature writes its rules, waives them as it sees fit, and exempts itself from the laws that would make members act otherwise.

So how do we restore the Legislature to the deliberative, representative, democratic institution that the framers of the world’s oldest continuously functioning constitution intended?

Earlier this month, a citizen-led initiative petition for a constitutional amendment was certified by the Massachusetts attorney general, and a grassroots signature drive, organized by FixBeaconHill.com, is now underway.

The proposed amendment seeks to reform the Legislature by requiring the speaker of the House and Senate president to be elected by secret ballot, just as all legislators are elected by us; allowing the speaker and the Senate president to each appoint four leadership positions; requiring both bodies to elect, by secret ballot, a Committee on Committees, which serves to assign committee membership, establish rules for the chamber, establish a consistent formula for members’ budgets, and assign members’ offices; requiring all committees to elect their own chairman, keep minutes, record all votes, and make such records available to the public; precluding the Legislature from exempting itself from the Massachusetts Open Meeting Laws; and requiring the House and Senate to produce and publish line item budgets for the operation of their respective chambers.

Too often, hardworking and committed lawmakers are unable to affect change because of the concentration of power at the top. This amendment would allow all 200 legislators to speak their minds in the best interest of their constituents and the entire Commonwealth, without fear of retribution.

Isn’t it time to fix Beacon Hill?
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Chris McKeown, founder of FixBeaconHill.com, lives in Westwood, Massachusetts.
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www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/09/29/how_we_can_fix_beacon_hill/
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www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/09/29/how_we_can_fix_beacon_hill/?comments=all
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