Study: Occupation costs Palestinian economy $7 billion
Ma’an – 29/09/2011
BETHLEHEM — A Palestinian Authority ministry and national research institute released a joint study Thursday which estimates that the Israeli occupation cost the Palestinian economy around $7 billion in 2010.
“Without the occupation, the Palestinian economy would be almost twice as large as it is today,” the PA Ministry of National Economy and the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem said in a statement.
Losses sustained due to Israel’s occupation are equivalent to 85 percent of Palestinian nominal GDP, the study found.
Without Israel’s control of resources and access to Palestinian territories, the economy “would run a ‘healthy’ fiscal surplus, ending its dependence on donors’ aid,” the report said.
The research quantified, for example, Israel’s ban on Palestinian access to the Jordan River, Dead Sea and groundwater aquifers in the West Bank, as costing Palestinians $1.9 billion in lost agriculture revenues, $1.2 billion in mineral resources and $143 million in Dead Sea tourism.
Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip cost the Palestinian economy $1.9 billion, and restrictions on water another $1.9 billion, the study said.
Israel earns around $900 million per year through control of West Bank mining and quarrying, the research authors estimated, and $150 million from commercial Dead Sea products.
ARIJ and the national economy ministry said they had to under-estimate the figures due to a lack of data, leaving out costs which they could not quantify.
Relating to the issues of trade access and resources, the authors of the study said that the “majority of these costs do not have any relationship with security concerns,” and were motivated by Israel’s wish to restrict the development of a competitive Palestinian economy.
Minister of National Economy in the Ramallah-based government Hasan Abu Libdeh said the report backed findings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and demonstrated the case for taking Palestinian statehood to the UN through President Mahmoud Abbas’ membership bid, submitted Friday.
“No matter what the Palestinian people achieve by our own efforts, the occupation prevents us achieving our potential as a free people in our own country,” the minister said.
“It should be clear to the international community that one reason for Israel’s refusal to act in good faith as a partner for peace is the profits it makes as an occupying power.”
The PA will produce regular reports on the costs of Israeli restrictions on the Palestinian economy, the release said.
Saving the Rich, Losing the Economy
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS | CounterPunch | September 26, 2011
Economic policy in the United States and Europe has failed, and people are suffering.
Economic policy failed for three reasons: (1) policymakers focused on enabling offshoring corporations to move middle class jobs, and the consumer demand, tax base, GDP, and careers associated with the jobs, to foreign countries, such as China and India, where labor is inexpensive; (2) policymakers permitted financial deregulation that unleashed fraud and debt leverage on a scale previously unimaginable; (3) policymakers responded to the resulting financial crisis by imposing austerity on the population and running the printing press in order to bail out banks and prevent any losses to the banks regardless of the cost to national economies and innocent parties.
Jobs offshoring was made possible because the collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in China and India opening their vast excess supplies of labor to Western exploitation. Pressed by Wall Street for higher profits, US corporations relocated their factories abroad. Foreign labor working with Western capital, technology, and business know-how is just as productive as US labor. However, the excess supplies of labor (and lower living standards) mean that Indian and Chinese labor can be hired for less than labor’s contribution to the value of output. The difference flows into profits, resulting in capital gains for shareholders and performance bonuses for executives.
As reported by Manufacturing and Technology News (September 20, 2011) the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages reports that in the last 10 years, the US lost 54,621 factories, and manufacturing employment fell by 5 million employees. Over the decade, the number of larger factories (those employing 1,000 or more employees) declined by 40 percent. US factories employing 500-1,000 workers declined by 44 percent; those employing between 250-500 workers declined by 37 percent, and those employing between 100-250 workers shrunk by 30 percent.
These losses are net of new start-ups. Not all the losses are due to offshoring. Some are the result of business failures.
US politicians, such as Buddy Roemer, blame the collapse of US manufacturing on Chinese competition and “unfair trade practices.” However, it is US corporations that move their factories abroad, thus replacing domestic production with imports. Half of US imports from China consist of the offshored production of US corporations.
The wage differential is substantial. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of 2009 average hourly take-home pay for US workers was $23.03. Social insurance expenditures add $7.90 to hourly compensation and benefits paid by employers add $2.60 per hour for a total labor compensation cost of $33.53.
In China, as of 2008 total hourly labor cost was $1.36, and India’s is within a few cents of this amount. Thus, a corporation that moves 1,000 jobs to China saves $32,000 every hour in labor cost. These savings translate into higher stock prices and executive compensation, not in lower prices for consumers who are left unemployed by the labor arbitrage.
Republican economists blame “high” US wages for the current high rate of unemployment. However, US wages are about the lowest in the developed world. They are far below hourly labor cost in Norway ($53.89), Denmark ($49.56), Belgium ($49.40), Austria ($48.04), and Germany ($46.52). The US might have the world’s largest economy, but its hourly workers rank 14th on the list of the best paid. Americans also have a higher unemployment rate. The “headline” rate that the media hypes is 9.1 percent, but this rate does not include any discouraged workers or workers forced into part-time jobs because no full-time jobs are available.
The US government has another unemployment rate (U6) that includes workers who have been too discouraged to seek a job for six months or less. This unemployment rate is over 16 percent. Statistician John Williams (Shadowstats.com) estimates the unemployment rate when long-term discouraged workers (more than six months) are included. This rate is over 22 percent.
Most emphasis is on the lost manufacturing jobs. However, the high speed Internet has made it possible to offshore many professional service jobs, such as software engineering, Information Technology, research and design. Jobs that comprised ladders of upward mobility for US college graduates have been moved offshore, thus reducing the value to Americans of many university degrees. Unlike former times, today an increasing number of graduates return home to live with their parents as there are insufficient jobs to support their independent existence.
All the while, the US government allows in each year one million legal immigrants, an unknown number of illegal immigrants, and a large number of foreign workers on H-1B and L-1 work visas. In other words, the policies of the US government maximize the unemployment rate of American citizens.
Republican economists and politicians pretend that this is not the case and that unemployed Americans consist of people too lazy to work who game the welfare system. Republicans pretend that cutting unemployment benefits and social assistance will force “lazy people who are living off the taxpayers” to go to work.
To deal with the adverse impact on the economy from the loss of jobs and consumer demand from offshoring, Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan lowered interest rates in order to create a real estate boom. Lower interest rates pushed up real estate prices. People refinanced their houses and spent the equity. Construction, furniture and appliance sales boomed. But unlike previous expansions based on rising real income, this one was based on an increase in consumer indebtedness.
There is a limit to how much debt can increase in relation to income, and when this limit was reached, the bubble popped.
When consumer debt could rise no further, the large fraudulent component in mortgage-backed derivatives and the unreserved swaps (AIG, for example) threatened financial institutions with insolvency and froze the banking system. Banks no longer trusted one another. Cash was hoarded. Treasury Secretary Paulson, browbeat Congress into massive taxpayer loans to financial institutions that functioned as casinos. The Paulson Bailout (TARP) was large but insignificant compared to the $16.1 trillion (a sum larger than US GDP or national debt) that the Federal Reserve lent to private financial institutions in the US and Europe.
In making these loans, the Federal Reserve violated its own rules. At this point, capitalism ceased to function. The financial institutions were “too big to fail,” and thus taxpayer subsidies took the place of bankruptcy and reorganization. In a word, the US financial system was socialized as the losses of the American financial institutions were transferred to taxpayers.
European banks were swept up into the financial crisis by their unwitting purchase of the junk financial instruments marketed by Wall Street. The financial junk had been given investment grade rating by the same incompetent agency that recently downgraded US Treasury bonds.
The Europeans had their own bailouts, often with American money (Federal Reserve loans). All the while Europe was brewing an additional crisis of its own. By joining the European Union and (except for the UK) accepting a common European currency, the individual member countries lost the services of their own central banks as creditors.
In the US and UK the two countries’ central banks can print money with which to purchase US and UK debt. This is not possible for member countries in the EU.
When financial crisis from excessive debt hit the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) their central banks could not print euros in order to buy up their bonds, as the Federal Reserve did with “quantitative easing.” Only the European Central Bank (ECB) can create euros, and it is prevented by charter and treaty from printing euros in order to bail out sovereign debt.
In Europe, as in the US, the driver of economic policy quickly became saving the private banks from losses on their portfolios. A deal was struck with the socialist government of Greece, which represented the banks and not the Greek people. The ECB would violate its charter and together with the IMF, which would also violate its charter, would lend enough money to the Greek government to avoid default on its sovereign bonds to the private banks that had purchased the bonds. In return for the ECB and IMF loans and in order to raise the money to repay them, the Greek government had to agree to sell to private investors the national lottery, Greece’s ports and municipal water systems, a string of islands that are a national preserve, and in addition to impose a brutal austerity on the Greek people by lowering wages, cutting social benefits and pensions, raising taxes, and laying off or firing government workers.
In other words, the Greek population is to be sacrificed to a small handful of foreign banks in Germany, France and the Netherlands.
The Greek people, unlike “their” socialist government, did not regard this as a good deal. They have been in the streets ever since.
Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the ECB, said that the austerity imposed on Greece was a first step. If Greece did not deliver on the deal, the next step was for the EU to take over Greece’s political sovereignty, make its budget, decide its taxation, decide its expenditures and from this process squeeze out enough from Greeks to repay the ECB and IMF for lending Greece the money to pay the private banks.
In other words, Europe under the EU and Jean-Claude Trichet is a return to the most extreme form of feudalism in which a handful of rich are pampered at the expense of everyone else.
This is what economic policy in the West has become–a tool of the wealthy used to enrich themselves by spreading poverty among the rest of the population.
On September 21 the Federal Reserve announced a modified QE 3. The Federal Reserve announced that the bank would purchase $400 billion of long-term Treasury bonds over the next nine months in an effort to drive long-term US interest rates even further below the rate of inflation, thus maximizing the negative rate of return on the purchase of long-term Treasury bonds. The Federal Reserve officials say that this will lower mortgage rates by a few basis points and renew the housing market.
The officials say that QE 3, unlike its predecessors, will not result in the Federal Reserve printing more dollars in order to monetize US debt. Instead, the central bank will raise money for the bond purchases by selling holdings of short-term debt. Apparently, the Federal Reserve believes it can do this without raising short-term interest rates, because back during the recent debt-ceiling-government-shutdown-crisis, the Federal Reserve promised banks that it would keep the short-term interest rate (essentially zero) constant for two years.
The Fed’s new policy will do far more harm than good. Interest rates are already negative. To make them more so will have no positive effect. People aren’t buying houses because interest rates are too high, but because they are either unemployed or worried about their jobs and do not see a recovering economy.
Already insurance companies can make no money on their investments. Consequently, they are unable to build their reserves against claims. Their only alternative is to raise their premiums. The cost of a homeowner’s policy will go up by more than the cost of a mortgage will decline. The cost of health insurance will go up. The cost of car insurance will rise. The Federal Reserve’s newly announced policy will impose more costs on the economy than it will reduce.
In addition, in America today savings earn nothing. Indeed, they produce an ongoing loss as the interest rate is below the inflation rate. The Federal Reserve has interest rates so low that only professionals who are playing arbitrage with algorithm-programmed computer models can make money. The typical saver and investor can get nothing on bank CDs, money market funds, municipal and government bonds. Only high risk debt, such as Greek and Spanish bonds, pay an interest rate that is higher than inflation.
For four years interest rates, when properly measured, have been negative. Americans are getting by, maintaining living standards, by consuming their capital. Even those with a cushion are eating their seed corn. The path that the US economy is on means that the number of Americans without resources to sustain them will be rising. Considering the extraordinary political incompetence of the Democratic Party, the right wing of the Republican Party, which is committed to eliminating income support programs, could find itself in power. If the right-wing Republicans implement their program, the US will be beset with political and social instability. As Gerald Celente says, “when people have have nothing left to lose, they lose it.”
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Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. His latest book is How the Economy Was Lost (CounterPunch / AK Press).
BRICS Emphasize United Stance against Sanctions on Syria
Al-Manar | September 25, 2011
The BRICS group that consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa assured that it will express a united stance in the United Nations regarding the Syrian situation, and warned against increasing sanctions on Syria.
In a meeting the Foreign ministers of the BRICS group held on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting, they assured their united stance against increasing sanctions on Syria, considering that this would intensify and complicate the crisis, and would threaten peace and stability in the region.
In the same context, Russia stated its rejection to support the US in demanding the Syrian president to step down.
The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov clarified that the US demand comes in the framework of encouraging internal conflict in Syria, and warned that armed groups were taking advantage of the protests.
For its part, the Russian Senate Delegation that recently completed its visit to Syria said that the crisis in Syria is a result of internal and external elements.
“Some TV stations broadcasted protests in Syria as well as military actions that are very much far from reality… I say this as I was there. We have made sure that some TV channels are intentionally falsifying the events,” Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federal Council, Ilyas Umakhanov said.
On the other hand, the Foreign Ministers of the member countries in the Islamic Cooperation Organization considered that the US administration’s attempt to impose sanctions against Syria is an outrageous violation to the standards of the international law, and expressed their appreciation to the Syrian leadership’s call for dialogue.
Obama-Style Deficit Reduction
By Stephen Lendman | September 22nd, 2011
On September 8, Obama’s “American Jobs Act” address to Congress was a thinly veiled campaign speech. More on it below.
On September 19 came Act Two to enlist support for “Living Within Our Means and Investing in Our Future” by cutting $4 trillion over 10 years (for starters with more to come) from Medicare, Medicaid, public pensions, veterans’ benefits, unemployment insurance, the US Postal Service, and other social benefits.
It’s part of a bipartisan plan to destroy America’s middle class, good-paying jobs and benefits, the dream of homeownership for millions, and a nation once fit to live in but no longer.
Economist and regular Progressive Radio New Hour contributor Jack Rasmus commented on the minimum $4 trillion deficit reduction plan, saying:
It’s “not only the consensus deficit target but also the amount by which taxes have been cut for the rich and corporations.”
Moreover, it equals the amount banks and other large corporations “have been hoarding in cash since the bailouts,” instead of using it for economic growth and job creation.
In addition, out-of-control war spending and bailouts applied productively would make austerity cuts unnecessary.
“Who’s going to pay the next $4 trillion (and more trillions after that)….is the central issue,” according to ruling elites?
“It’s not jobs (not created), foreclosures, broke states and cities, students indentured for life, or seniors struggling to stay alive.”
At a time stimulus is needed to revive productive growth, infighting focuses on what more to cut, hitting working households, the poor, retirees and disabled hardest.
Notably, 25 million Americans wanting jobs have none. Nothing is being done to create them.
Instead, proposals focus on tax cuts for the rich, corporate handouts, and austerity to pay for them.
Welcome to America.
Obama’s America.
Land of permanent war, disproportionate wealth extremes, and spiraling debt.
With growing millions unemployed and impoverished.
With 11 million homes foreclosed and another 20 million under water.
Where 44 million seniors will soon pay double for Medicare and get no cost of living Social Security increases.
Where millions of poor children will lose Medicaid.
Where millions of students are debt entrapped for life.
Welcome to a land where most one day will be better off by leaving because no homeland opportunities exist.
Ask millions of downsized middle class Americans heading for working poor status.
Ask political Washington why members sworn to serve instead betray.
Expect no answer because you’ll get none.
Refuse to take anymore and resist, including about Obama’s shameless new wealth transfer scheme to corporate favorites and super-rich elites called “stimulus.”
On September 8, a New York Times editorial headlined, “The Jobs Speech,” saying:
Obama’s proposal was more “ambitious….robust and far-reaching than expected – that may be the first crucial step in reigniting the economy….”
“(H)e was authoritative in demanding that Congress pass his plan quickly….We hope Mr. Obama keeps his promise to take his proposals all over the country. The need to act is urgent.”
Only the last statement had merit in an editorial best rebuked for not explaining who benefits at whose expense.
On September 20, a Times editorial headlined, “A Call to Fairness,” saying:
Obama “issued an unabashed call for economic fairness in cutting the federal deficit, asking as much from those on the economy’s upper rungs as from those lower down whose programs may be slashed.”
Fact check
Programs for working Americans will be slashed en route to gutting them entirely in out years. “Economic fairness” won’t happen because Republicans and many Democrats won’t tolerate it. Neither will Obama.
Taxes for the rich won’t be raised because he opposes it. His plan, in fact, backs comprehensive “pro growth” tax reform.
It involves cutting top individual and corporate rates in exchange for eliminating loopholes clever accountants can devise ways to keep.
Yet Times editors call his austerity plan “a well-proportioned mix.”
In fact, it benefits corporate favorites and America’s aristocracy at the expense of working households.
A previous article called it a combination left hook, right cross haymaker, decking workers when they need help.
“It pays for desperately needed jobs” that won’t be created because tax cuts create none.
Recall last December. Despite pledging opposition to extending tax cuts for households earning over $250,000, Obama capitulated.
On December 6, a White House press release said:
While “disagree(ing)” with Republicans, he argued that “without a willingness to give on both sides, there’s no reason to believe (the current) stalemate won’t continue well into next year….I am not willing to let that happen….it would be the wrong thing to do.”
“As a result, we have arrived at a framework for a bipartisan agreement.”
Everyone got a tax cut on income, capital gains, dividends, and the Bush enacted federal estate tax that lapsed at the start of 2010, including the super-rich (who deserve higher, not lower taxes).
As expected, Obama caved to Republicans and deep-pocketed donors who’d likely give less if they paid more.
“Shared sacrifice” for him is transferring maximum wealth from working Americans to Wall Street, other corporate favorites, and super-rich elites already with too much.
Rhetoric aside, he’s got more of the same in mind now.
Times editors love it, saying only that “this plan was far too late in coming. But the public is listening now, and has demanded shared sacrifice. The burden is now on Mr. Obama to sell his plan, and on Congress to buy it.”
Fact check
He and Congress will indeed agree on a destructive austerity plan harming working Americans most to assure elitist interests know he’s the gift that keeps on giving.
It showed in his September 8 stimulus plan. It includes a laundry list of handouts instead of measures to create jobs, generate growth, reinvigorate Main Street, strengthen America’s middle class, and help growing millions of impoverished, disadvantaged households most in need.
No matter how it’s directed, $447 billion proposed won’t create jobs. It’s more of the same too little, too late for nation in serious trouble in the context of a sinking global economy.
In February 2009, when Obama proposed $787 in economic stimulus, unemployment was about 25 million. Two and a half years later, it’s the same. How then can half a loaf do now what double it earlier couldn’t. It won’t nor is that its intention.
In fact, it’s more a reelection than jobs plan if voters are foolish enough to buy it. Hopefully they’ll understand how it harms them.
Tax cuts can’t create jobs, yet they comprise about 60% of his plan. Despite well over $1 trillion for them in the last two years, zero jobs were created.
In fact, they’ve been less than zero when factoring in the replacement of full-time higher-paying jobs for uncertain lower wage/low or no benefit temporary or part-time ones.
Obama also proposed state subsidies as in 2009 to create jobs. Notably since then, hundreds of thousands of state and local government layoffs followed. They continue monthly.
In 2009, $100 billion was allocated for infrastructure spending to create four million jobs. It didn’t happen. In June 2009, 6.4 million construction workers were employed. Today it’s less than 5.5 million.
Obama’s new plan is no better. Immediate job creation is needed. Construction and infrastructure jobs are long-term and won’t help over any duration when boosted by minimal funding.
Moreover, Washington’s too-big-to-fail bailout didn’t restart lending. Major banks and other corporate giants are hoarding trillions of dollars instead of using them to stimulate growth and create jobs.
Today’s political Washington doesn’t prioritize them so expect none, Obama’s rhetoric notwithstanding. His agenda focuses on permanent wars and shifting maximum wealth to corporate favorites and America’s top 1%.
His new plans are old wine in new bottles, socking it to the constituencies that elected him.
Maybe next time they’ll have second thoughts and reject America’s duopoly entirely.
Unless they do, they’ll keep getting same old, same old no matter which party holds power.
Both represent institutionalized depravity responsible for turning America into a moral swamp.
Changing that is job one for people wanting something better.
It requires tearing down what doesn’t work and starting over.
What better time to start than now.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
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See also:
Supercommittee choice: hurting their donors or cutting your social security
Democrats on the committee have received far more money from Pentagon contractors
… Since 2007, Democrats on the supercommittee have received more than $1 million in defense industry donations, while contributions to the Republicans added up to only $321,000. Panel co-chair Sen. Patty Murray, for example, has received more defense industry dollars over that period than the combined total of the top four Republican recipients on the supercommittee. Even so, her haul from the Pentagon’s weapons-makers isn’t the largest by a panel Democrat, a distinction held by her colleague from South Carolina, James Clyburn.
An analysis of official government data paints a disturbing picture of big money, cozy relationships and potential influence that, alongside a concerted lobbying effort by the Pentagon and its powerful defense contractors, makes substantial reductions to the Department of Defense’s budget improbable and steeper cuts to entitlement programs, like Medicare and Medicaid, more likely. …
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Call committee co-chairs Sen. Patty Murray (202.224.2621) and U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (202.225.3484). Tell them that war spending costs jobs, and we expect them to cut the war budget.
Austerity strike hits Greek capital
Press TV – September 22, 2011
Protesters of the Greek trade union PAME march during a rally against the government’s plans for new austerity measures in Athens on Wednesday
Greeks in Athens have reacted angrily to the government’s tougher austerity measures by staging a strike in the capital over further taxes and public spending cuts.
Athens was brought to a standstill on Thursday by a 24-hour public transport strike while teachers and municipal workers also staged walkouts. A four-hour work stoppage by air traffic controllers also forced airlines to cancel or reschedule flights.
“We are obliged to resist. Not even Greece’s German and Turkish conquerors imposed such taxes,” AFP quoted the head of Athens’ subway employees Antonis Stamatopoulos as saying.
The Greek government has announced pension and tax break cuts and put 30,000 state employees on temporary layoffs after pledging to do ‘anything’ to stay in the Eurozone and unlock bankruptcy-saving EU-IMF loans.
On Wednesday, the government announced cuts to pensions above 1,200 Euros ($1,650) per month, a furlough for 30,000 state employees and a drastic reduction to revenue exemption on annual taxes to 5,000 Euros, from 12,000 Euros currently.
Greece has been struggling to convince the European Union and International Monetary Fund that it can bring its tough economic overhaul program back onto track despite delays and targets slipping due to a deeper-than-expected recession.
EU and IMF auditors have agreed to resume a review of Greek finances needed to unlock 8 billion euros in rescue funding.
The audit had been suspended in early September, with sources citing lack of progress with reforms, placing in jeopardy the release of funds needed to prevent Athens running out of cash next month.
The additional cuts, on top of a controversial property tax that could be extended to 2014, have raised dissent in the ruling party with backbenchers and former ministers doubting their effectiveness after two years of recession.
The main private sector union GSEE and the Adedy syndicate representing civil servants have called for strikes next month against the austerity measures.
The public sector will shut down on October 5 and a general strike will be held on October 19.
Obama’s Phony “Pivot” on the Budget: The Trickster is At It, Again
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford | September 21, 2011
President Obama remains as eager as ever to slash away at Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and every other social program despised by his corporate backers – his new tone of voice and body language notwithstanding. There has been no substantive “pivot” in his debt reduction policies, only a cynical, cosmetic change of posture.
Obama’s own words betray him, if only people would actually listen. A straightforward reading of his remarks on Tuesday shows the president has not altered one iota his intention to sacrifice the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society on the alter of deficit reduction. He simply asks that the Republicans make him look good doing it, by allowing some undetermined – and almost certainly token – taxes on the rich.
This supposedly “new Obama” –which he hopes resembles the much older Obama of his supporters’ imaginations – claims he will resist future reductions in Medicaid and Medicare – that is, unless the Republicans allow additional taxes on corporations and the wealthy. But he is perfectly willing to chop away if the Republicans budge from their position. Knowing Obama as we do after two and a half years, he will accept anything that can remotely be construed as a tax hike on some wealthy people as sufficient cause to return to his previous passion for savaging Medicaid and Medicare. All the president now insists upon is that the cuts not be one-sided.
Obama claims he is removing Social Security from the chopping block, if only temporarily. But he is the one who put Social Security there in the first place before he was even sworn into office, and has kept it in jeopardy ever since. Administration officials are telling reporters that Obama is not ruling out resurrecting the draconian cuts he proposed back in July – if only the Republicans would put a little grease on the wheels on the corporate tax side.
So, let us be clear about what has happened. The Republicans have consistently balked at any tax increases for the wealthy. Obama, who caved to Republicans on the Bush tax cuts for the rich late last year, and who had been perfectly willing to give away the whole social programs store this summer, now primps and postures as if he is defending those same social programs. But he’s not. All he wants is Republican cover to carry out his own deficit reduction massacre.
The whole conversation is out of whack. Progressives should not tolerate the bargaining away of programs that are vital to the health and welfare of the people, in return for taxes on the rich that will only go to reducing the deficit. Higher taxes on Exxon or Wal-Mart, even if they can be extracted from the Republicans, cannot make up for Social Security benefits or health care programs for those in need. The rich can spare some of their money. Medicaid beneficiaries cannot spare life-sustaining services. Obama is making this into an argument about notions of tax fairness, when the real struggle at hand is to maintain the meager social services that the United States still provides to its citizens.
The truth is, Obama is presenting the people with a losing proposition. If he somehow wins tax increases on the rich, then he will reciprocate, eagerly, with massive cuts to people’s programs, and then call it victory. Under those circumstances, the best we can hope for is gridlock. Any Obama deal, is a bad deal.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Is South Sudan’s Largest Land Deal a Land Grab?
A new study alleges that a land deal threatens local people in Central Equatoria, South Sudan.
By Michaela Rhode | Think Africa Press | September 7, 2011
50 million hectares of land, an area twice the size of the UK, have been acquired by foreign companies or governments in Africa over the last few years. From Brazil to China to Saudi Arabia, demand is widespread and this trend was recently continued in South Sudan. With almost 10% of the country already in foreign hands, a report by The Oakland Institute (OI) published details of its largest and potentially most divisive land deal to date, the 2008 agreement between Nile Trading and Development and the Mukaya Payam Cooperative.
Good intentions? – A question of perspective
How prominently did the needs of the local community feature in this deal? Think Africa Press spoke to two experts, Anuradha Mittal, founder of the Oakland Institute, an American think tank specialising in the exposure of land grabs, and Howard Douglas, head of Kinyeti Development, partners with Nile Trading and Development, to uncover the ramifications of this deal. Ms. Mittal is an expert on trade, development, human rights and agriculture and the author of numerous books on the subject. In 2008, Nation magazine named her ‘Most Valuable Progressive Thinker’ of the year. Howard Douglas is a former US ambassador and US Coordinator for Refugee affairs. He has worked extensively with the US government and with the Episcopalian Church in post conflict countries.
Earlier this year, The Oakland Institute reproduced a copy of the lease agreement along with a report identifying the worrying aspects of the deal. Both sides attest that the needs of the community are a priority. Mr.Douglas dismissed the report as “a piece of trash”, accusing the OI and NGOs of scandal-seeking and headline grabbing. Ms.Mittal was equally scathing, branding Mr.Douglas a “thief”.
The agreement in question is for a 49-year lease of 600,000 hectares of land with a possibility of another 400,000 hectares and full rights to exploit all natural resources of the land. The OI report draws attention to the astonishingly low price paid for the lease of the land; 75,000 Sudanese pounds ($25,000) which works out to $16 a hectare. Mr.Douglas argued that this figure was not the price paid for the land but a fee levied by the government. The figure in the lease is indeed attributed to a “land charge” and he asserts that the agreed price was for Nile Trading and Development to organise and finance the development of the land in return for a percentage of the profits. This would involve spending high, unspecified sums on infrastructure such as roads and schools for the community. However, this promise is not stipulated in the lease agreement and has failed to materialise in the past three years. The document published by OI provides no legal imperative for Nile Trading and Development to give anything back to the community in terms of infrastructure.
The report also points to another worrying aspect of this deal. It draws attention to the claims made by Sudan’s Agency of Independent Media that the Mukaya Payam Cooperative is a “fictitious cooperative” comprised of, “a group of influential natives from Mukaya Payam and the neighbouring payams…The influential natives leased out the land behind the backs of the entire community.” Ms.Mittal identifies the Cooperative as three individuals living in Juba who are totally disconnected from the people of Mukaya Payam. She affirms that, “the people did not even know about the deal until the OI report came out this year.” This is an allegation that Mr.Douglas vehemently denies. If true, then it would mean that land which has been used by the same communities for generations has been given away without their consent and the compensation they are supposed to receive for this put in the hands of an elusive entity. It would not then be surprising that the people are, as Ms.Mittal claims, “very very angry”.
The Mukaya Payam Cooperative is an elusive entity with only one name attached to it, the lease agreement being signed by Magistrate James Yosia Ramdalla, the Paramount Chief of the Cooperative. Although four other “payams” (communities) were involved in the deal, there is only one signature on the lease.
According to the terms of the agreement, “any profits generated by Nile Trading and Development in respect of the leased land shall initially and through 2012 be divided 60% to the company and 40% to the Mukaya Payam Cooperative.” Whether the cooperative, whoever they may be, will distribute the rents amongst the other payams and how they will do so is uncertain. Mr.Douglas claims that, “the intention was that every man, woman and child who was associated with the Mukaya Payam would be the beneficiaries of the agreement.” He claims that they intend to set up a Mukaya Payam Trust to administer the funds to the community members. However, intentions are not legally binding and there are no stipulations in the lease agreement concerning distribution of funds.
What remains unclear is how NTD plans to develop this land. Mr.Douglas claims that large scale agriculture is the long-term goal. He speaks of creating “agricultural cooperatives” with schools, clinics and facilities to produce enough food for export, giving farmers a disposable income and political security. This vision is one which, according to Ms. Mittal, is to be taken with a pinch of salt. She points to the fact that nothing in the lease agreement indicates that agriculture is on NTD’s agenda. The real detail in the document is afforded to exploration rights.
Plans for the future
Investment in South Sudan ought to be seen as a great opportunity. These companies should provide jobs and contribute to the development of the country. According to Jonathan Brooks of the OECD, an estimated $18 billion a year needs to be invested in agriculture in order for the world to be able to feed itself by 2050. Developing all available land is a necessary step for the world to take and Africa will not be able to meet this level of investment on its own.
Ms. Mittal makes it clear that OI is pro-investment in South Sudan. However, she adds that, “to assume that foreign investors coming in will lead to better job security or food security is a myth”. She claims that unscrupulous investors are jumping on the bandwagon of agricultural investment, to disguise an attempt to control resources. She points to the fact that there is no legal framework in place in South Sudan to protect the people leaving them with only, “the empty words and empty promises of these investors”.
It is important to look beyond the disagreement on both sides. As Ms. Mittal says, “in regard to Mr. Douglas and his lease in South Sudan it is really not about his word against OI’s word. It is about his word against the word of the community and more important their own documents such as the contract; they speak the truth.”
Some representatives of the community have spoken. A petition signed on the 23 July this year has been handed to the state governor in Juba. It states that, “we the chiefs, elders, religious leaders and the youth of Mukaya Payam, unanimously, with strong terms condemn, disavow and deny the land lease agreement reached on 11 March 2008 between the two parties.” The petition states that the lease agreement was reached without the knowledge of the community and that it is illegal. It is signed by seven chiefs, a reverend, two elders and two others. The President of South Sudan, H.E Salva Kiir, has subsequently given his support to the community stating, “you are the government and you have the powers”. The government must act quickly and decisively to produce stringent guidelines for investors in order to ensure that the rights of its people are protected. If done correctly, foreign investment could flourish. However, until those rights are guaranteed in law, land deals remain dangerous territory.
Chavez versus Obama: Facing Presidential Elections in 2012
By James Petras :: 09.15.2011
Introduction: Two incumbent presidents are running for re-election in 2012, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Barack Obama in the United States. What makes these two electoral contests significant is that they represent contrasting responses to the global economic crises:
Chavez following his democratic socialist program pursues policies promoting large scale long-term public investment and spending directed at employment, social welfare and economic growth: Obama guided by his ideological commitment to corporate financial capitalism, pours billions into bailing out Wall Street speculators, focuses on reducing the public deficit and slashes taxes and offers government subsidies to business in the hope that the banks will lend, the private sector will invest. Obama hopes the corporate sector will start to hire the unemployed. Chavez’s economic strategy is directed toward increasing popular demand by increasing the social wage. Obama’s strategy is directed toward enriching the elite, hoping for a “trickle down” effect. Chavez’s economic recovery program is based on the public sector, the state, taking the lead in light of the capitalist market induced crises and the failure of the private sector to invest. Obama’s economic recovery and employment program depends wholly on the private sector, utilizing tax handouts to stimulate domestic investments which generate employment.
According to the experts and politicians, the socio-economic performance of each President will be decisive in determining whether either President will be re-elected in 2012.
Measuring the Performance of Presidents Chavez and Obama in the Face of the Economic Crises
Over the past three years, both presidents faced deep socio-economic crises resulting in increased unemployment, economic recession and popular demands for political leadership in formulating an economic recovery program.
President Chavez responded via a large scale program in public spending on social programs. Billions were allocated in a massive housing program designed to create one million homes over the next several years. Chavez lessened military tensions and reduced frontier conflicts by negotiating a political agreement with the right-wing Santos regime in Colombia.
Chavez increased the minimum wage, social security and pension payments, increasing consumption among low income groups, stimulating demand and increasing revenues for small and medium size businesses. The state embarked on large scale infrastructure projects, especially highways and transport, creating jobs in labor intensive activities. The Chavez government sustained living standards by instituting price controls on food and other essentials, which sustained popular demand at the expense of profiteering by the owners of super markets. The Chavez government nationalized lucrative gold mines and repatriated overseas reserves in the course of financing its demand driven economic recovery program, eschewing tax concessions to the rich and bailouts of bankrupt banks and private businesses.
Obama rejected any large scale long term public investments to create jobs: his proposed “Jobs for America” proposal will at best temporarily reduce unemployment by less than five tenths of one percent. In pursuit of policies benefiting Wall Street bondholders, Obama became deeply involved in deficit reduction, meaning large scale cuts in public spending especially in social expenditures. Obama in agreement with the extreme right-wing agreed to regressive proposals to reduce tax payments for popular Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs. His proposals to fund “Jobs for America” depends on cuts in the Social Security tax which ensures a reduction in payments and a deficit or worse, which would facilitate privatization – handing social security to Wall Street, a trillion dollar plum.
Obama ignores mortgage foreclosures of over 10 million families – increasing homelessness and habitation downgrades, in favor of bailing out banks and home mortgage swindlers.
Obama increased military spending, multiplying overseas combat troops, clandestine terror operations and the domestic spy apparatus, increasing the deficits at the expense of productive investments in education, technology skill upgrades and export promotion.
Unlike Chavez who makes a point of highlighting positive job and education policies for Afro and Indo-Venezuelans, Obama ignores the 50% unemployed big city young (18-25) Afro-Americans and Latinos in favor of serving white Wall Street bankers.
In contrast to Chavez who pegged pensions and wages to inflation and enforced price controls, Obama froze federal salaries and social security payments resulting in a seven percent decline in real income over the past three years.
According to the latest US Census Bureau data (September 2011) under Obama over 46.2 million Americans live in poverty, the highest figure ever. Median household income dropped 2.3% between 2009-2010. The number of Americans in poverty increased from 13.2%in 2008 to 15.1%in 2010. Nearly one out of four children live in poverty in 2010, as over 2.6 million more US citizens were impoverished in a single year. In contrast, and in line with Obama’s trickle down economic policies, the number of wealthy Americans – earning over 100,000 dollars – have suffered little or no impact: luxury specialty stores , like Tiffany’s report a 15% increase in sales.
The lowest 10%of the population suffered the most, a fall in income of 12.1% between 2009-2010 while the 10% with the highest income saw a decline of 1.5%. Of the 34 members of the OCED the US along with Mexico, Chile and Israel has the worst social class inequalities. Obama’s top down stimulus policies saved the bankers by sacrificing the working and middle class.
Political and Economic Consequences of Top Down and Bottom Up Economics
The political and economic consequences of Obama’s “top down” and Chavez “bottom up” socio-economic polices are striking in every respect. Venezuela grew 3.6% in the first half of 2011 while the US stagnated at less than 2%. Worse still, during the second half of the year Obama and his advisers expressed fear that the US is heading toward a “double dip” recession – negative growth. In contrast the President of Venezuela’s Central Bank predicted accelerated growth for 2012.
While US unemployment remains above 9% and combined with underemployment rose to over 19%, Venezuela’s vast public housing and infrastructure investments are generating jobs and lowering the numbers of unemployed and under-employed in the formal and informal labor market. Obama’s pandering to Wall Street bankers and deficit reduction hawks and his vast increase spending on overseas wars and the domestic security apparatus, has bankrupted the treasury. In contrast, Chavez has nationalized lucrative private sector mines, banks and energy enterprises and decreased military tensions increasing resources for social programs such as food subsidies. Obama’s deficit reductions have led to massive firings in education and social services.
Chavez social expenditures have augmented the number of public universities, secondary and primary schools and clinics. Millions have lost their homes as Obama ignored the forced evictions of the mortgage banks, while Chavez has made a start in solving the housing deficit via one million homes.
Obama lends at virtually no interest to private banks who fail to lend to productive enterprises to create jobs, preferring speculation in overseas (Brazilian) bonds with higher interest rates. Chavez invests directly in productive labor intensive infrastructures programs, agricultural self-sufficiency projects and developing downstream processing plants, refineries and smelters.
As a result of the reactionary top down economics he practices and his overt threats to cut basic social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, Obama’s popularity has fallen over the past three year from 80% to 40% and is heading downwards. Moreover, his pro-Wall Street fiscal and militarist policies – deepening and extending Bush and Rumsfeld’s wars and terror operations – has turned the US political climate further toward the extreme right. As of the last quarter of 2011, Obama appears vulnerable to electoral defeat.
In contrast President Chavez, riding the wave of economic recovery, based on positive programs of social expansion and public investments, has seen his popularity rise from 43% in March 2010 to 59.3% as of September 7, 2011. The US backed opposition is fragmented, weak and unable to challenge the overwhelmingly positive popular perceptions of the housing and infrastructure projects benefiting the mass of workers, construction companies and contractors.
Chavez is vulnerable on issues of personal security, administrative corruption and inefficiency. But he is seen to have taken important steps to correct these problem areas. Graduates of a new police academy provide honest, efficient community linked policing, which, in pilot projects have reduced violent crime by 60%. Efforts to end bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency are still pending.
Conclusion
Comparing Chavez and Obama’s presidency presents a sharp contrast between a successful bottom up socialist informed economic recovery program and a failed top down capitalist stimulus program. While the American public expresses its hostility to private banking’s pillage of the treasury, government threats to the last remnants of the social safety net and Obama’s failure to lower persistent high levels of unemployment and under-employment, Chavez’s popularity rises along with the positive “good feeling” among three-fifths of the electorate to his presidency. If the Chavez government continues and deepens his ‘bottom up’ economic stimulus program and the economy continues to expand and he recovers from cancer he will in all likelihood be re-elected by a landslide in 2012.
In contrast if Obama continues to truckle to the corporate and financial elite and slash and burn social programs he will continue his downward slide into well-deserved defeat and oblivion.
Venezuela’s economic recovery via advanced social programs is a powerful message to the American people: there is an alternative to regressive ‘top down’ economic policies: it’s called democratic socialism and its advocate is President Chavez, who talks to and works for the people as opposed to the con-man Obama who talks to the people and works for the rich.
The Economic Crisis and the Labor Movement in America
The ILWU Rises to the Challenge
By Mark Vorpahl | Global Research | September 12, 2011
Anyone who still believes that U.S. workers and the labor movement are incapable of mounting a struggle against the conditions that the economic crisis is forcing on us has not been paying attention. Evidence to the contrary was vividly provided on the morning of September 8th, when 500 International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 21 members and their supporters took over the Port of Longview in the state of Washington. Railroad cars were damaged and the grain they carried was dumped in an effort by these workers to defend their jobs by resorting to the only tactic they had left, that is, using work site action to hurt the employers bottom line.
To do so they had to use their strength in numbers to overpower the police and security guards. Though the police attempted to make arrests, the workers pushed back and managed to release their brothers and sisters. The standoff that developed was explosively tense. As the hours rolled on the police began to bring out an arsenal of “non-lethal” guns and tear gas, demonstrating that they were prepared to inflict heavy casualties in order to secure the port and defend the bosses’ property and profits. The workers withdrew, for the time being, after having made their point by inflicting costs on the port bosses dearly. It is a credit to their unity that there were no successful arrests or injuries.
This action was accompanied by wildcat strikes (that is, strikes not sanctioned by the union) in Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. This shows how big the stakes are at the Port of Longview. For workers to sacrifice their wages and make such extraordinary efforts, the cost of such actions have to greatly outweigh the costs of not taking them.
Corporate Greed
In this case the corporation compelling the ILWU to take such dramatic actions is the multi-national consortium EGT Development. Last year alone they made $2.5 billion. In spite of these deep pockets, they want to bust the ILWU at the $200 million grain terminal in Longview. If they succeed, this will encourage other longshore employers to do the same.
Promising jobs, EGT got a state tax exemption and a sweetheart lease deal to build the grain terminal. However, rather than providing local construction jobs in a county with an August unemployment rate of 11.7 percent, they initially imported non-union lower paid workers. If anyone was expecting some gratitude towards the community from EGT for the breaks the company received, that illusion quickly evaporated.
Then EGT’s greedy behavior got even worse. For 70 years the Port of Longview has employed the members of ILWU Local 21. In May of 2010, EGT had stated that they would continue the practice. This appears to have been a stalling tactic, however. In following negotiations EGT made unreasonable demands, such as asking ILWU members to work 12 hour shifts without overtime pay in addition to an exemption from recognizing maintenance, repair, and master consul jurisdiction. After not getting their way, EGT refused to meet with the ILWU, which is, most likely, what they wanted to do all along.
ILWU Push Back
The ILWU began to hold rallies and picket EGT in an attempt to pressure them back to the negotiating table. EGT refused to budge. This arrogant stubbornness resulted in a protest on July 11 where ILWU members tore down a chain-link gate and stormed the EGT terminal. 100 union workers and leaders were cited for arrest.
On July 14th union workers successfully blocked a train from delivering grain to the EGT terminal. As a result, the train company suspended its shipments for safety reasons.
EGT was feeling the heat, but they weren’t burned yet. They had another cynical maneuver up their sleeve. They signed an agreement with the Federal Way-based General Construction Company to operate the terminal with union members from the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 701. Now they hoped they could portray the conflict as union against union rather than union against EGT.
However, because the members of IUOE 701 are employed by a general contractor, they can be replaced by non-union workers the moment EGT decides to take over the job itself. Seeing through this ruse, both the Oregon and Washington State AFL-CIOs have condemned the leadership of IUOE 701for their actions in assisting EGT’s attempts to divide the union movement.
Choosing Sides
In all of this, it is important to note, the role of the police and legal system. While there have been many arrests of union members and leaders with stiff sentences for charges as trivial as not moving quickly enough when asked, those acting against the union have consistently gotten off scot-free. For instance, one person drove his car through a picket line so carelessly that a picketer was sent to the hospital. Rather than arresting the driver, the police arrested a protester for allegedly denting the car with his knee. With this twisted logic, if the driver had gotten out of his vehicle and struck a protester in the mouth with his fist, the police would have arrested the protester for assaulting the driver’s hand with his face.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which was established in the 1930s ostensibly to protect union rights, has also been lining up with the employer. This board filed a temporary injunction against the ILWU, prohibiting union members from all traditional forms of protest. This moved ILWU International President Robert McEllrath to observe:
“The NLRB complaint and the motion seeking a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) and injunction were expected by the Coast Committee. The complaint itself has no legal significance unless sustained after a full trial and currently represents nothing more than mere allegations that are based on incorrect facts and bogus legal conclusions. This, unfortunately, is typical of the NLRB ever since the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 transformed its mission to restrict the union and civil rights of union members. The NLRB exists for one reason and that is to protect commerce at the expense of workers, and we are not surprised that EGT is employing the NLRB to put down a legitimate labor dispute.”
Fortunately, the ILWU defied this injunction on September 7, when they again clogged the railroad tracks to prevent grain from being delivered to the EGT terminal, and again on the morning of September 8 when they took over the terminal. Had they played by the rules of a game rigged in favor of the bosses, EGT would have no reason to settle the dispute. Consequently, the police and courts would have greater incentive to trample on the ILWU members’ rights.
On September 8th, a United States District Court Judge denied the NLRB’s motion to ban picketing at the EGT facility. It is more than likely that part of the motivation behind this was that such restrictions were not muzzling the ILWU membership, but emboldening them. If an unjust law is followed, it remains. If it is resisted and defied through mass collective action, there is a better chance of doing away with it.
The role of the corporate press should also be noted. Few, if any, articles have made a genuine attempt to give the union side in this conflict, though the ILWU has strong community support in Longview. The initial reports in the corporate websites and papers even claimed that security guards were held hostage by those who stormed the EGT terminal. Since these accounts came out, even the police have said they were false. Nevertheless, these claims still turn up uncorrected in the corporate media. This should surprise no one. The corporate media have more economic interests in discrediting labor and any actions that effectively hurt corporate profits than they do in providing the truth.
Changing Times
Even with the press, the legal system, as well as the political establishment lined up against us, labor can win. A new mood is rising from the ranks as a result of the attacks against all workers and the insatiable greed and power of those tiny few at the very top economic rung. This mood is turning into a mass force. We have already witnessed it in Madison, Wisconsin which, though not resulting in an immediate victory, showed that the political climate opposed to workers’ struggles can be turned around. The 45,000 member-strong strike at Verizon alone equaled all the unionists out on strike in 2010. Now the ILWU in Longview has introduced a new boldness in overcoming legal restrictions and hitting the employers where they are most vulnerable: their profits.
When ILWU International President Robert McEllrath urged members to end their standoff at the EGT Terminal take over, he stated:
“If we leave here, it doesn’t mean we gave up and quit. It means we’re coming back.”
And when they do come back, they need to do so with the active support of Longshore workers across the west coast. They also need to mobilize their community supporters in the streets. If this is done, the ILWU could again provide a watershed moment for Labor like they did in the 1934 San Francisco General Strike.
Mark Vorpahl is a union steward as well as an anti-war and Latin American Solidarity activist. He can be reached at Portland@workerscompass.org.
~
See also:
Blockade: Dockers respond to Israel’s Flotilla Massacre and Gaza Siege
09/07/10
and
Oakland Police Settle Lawsuits for Bloody Monday
4 April 2006
and
Police Violence Shocks Activists, Others at Port of Oakland Protest
April 7, 2003
and
Hawaii’s Bloody Monday – August 1, 1938
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