U.S. Economic/Financial News
Kerry Backs Investment in Water & Sewer Infrastructure
Presidential candidates George W. Bush and John F. Kerry responded to a series of questions from Pollution Engineering magazine, published in its Oct. 1 issue. Here are their responses to a question on water and sewer infrastructure:
Q: "Our water and sewer infrastructure is in need of repair. As many of these systems, especially those in areas where rate-payers are too poor to finance renovations, will need to be fixed in the next four years, what plans or ideas do you have to help Americans receive quality water and how will we pay for it?"
Bush: Talked about a "new water-quality monitoring initiative" through "information-based management," adding that he would relax regulations on issuing permits for pollution discharge elimination.
Kerry: "Federal infrastructure resources should be focussed on critically needed projects that allow us to spur the economy, replace jobs, increase future productivity, and improve our quality of lifeincluding water and sewer infrastructure projects. I would work to leverage federal resources for these projects through state-federal partnerships and guaranteed financing and bonding. Investing in infrastructure jobs is a 'win-win' strategy that is part of my economic recovery plan."
Multi-State Conference To Discuss Ohio River Water System
Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) is planning a multi-state conference in January, to expand the waterway system in the Ohio River Region, according to local news reports. "The goal of this conference is to create the forum for promoting and protecting our region's vital contribution to the national transportation system through its rivers, ports, terminals, and workforce," he said. "This region's maritime workforce and facilities are a national security and economic asset, and are positioned to play even a larger national role in the future. Expanding this role will help increase the number of well-paid transportation jobs in the region." Rahall is the top Democrat on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure's subcommittee on ground transportation.
A steering committee meeting was held on Oct. 12 with Federal and state officials, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the West Virginia Department of Transportation. The focus was on the port of Huntington, WV, the nation's busiest inland port, and seventh-largest overall in tonnage shipped.
Temporary, Contingent Work at Record Level in U.S.
The Nazi labor-recycling model has become a feature of the U.S. labor force. Rather than maintain a permanent workforce and pay decent wages, with full workmen's compensation, pensions, and benefits, businesses have been hiring what the Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies as "contingent workers," which includes temporary workers, "independent contractors," on-call workers, and contract company workers. For example, many laid-off telephone workers now offer their services as "independent contractors," working often the same job they held before, but at lower wages, having to foot the bill themselves for their health costs and other benefits, the Washington Post reported Oct. 11, in an article entitled, "Permanent Job Proves an Elusive Dream," by Jonathan Weisman. In 2001 (the last year that records were available), the BLS reports, 16.2 million American workers12.1% of the labor forcewere thrust into the "contingent workforce."
The fastest-growing segment of the "contingent" workforce is "temporary workers," whose number has increased from 417,000 in 1982, to 2.5 million today. While nearly half of temps work in the traditional venue of clerical work, an increasing number are being shunted into manufacturing. Tens of thousands of industrial plants now use temporary workers, often to replace permanent employees. Typical is the case of Philipp Hicks, who, desperate for work, hired on at the Toyota auto plant in Georgetown, Ky., four years ago. Toyota told Hicks that after two years he would be folded into the regular, permanent workforce. The difference in pay between a temporary and permanent worker at this plant is significant$12.60 per hour versus $24.20 per hour. Plus, Hicks's earnings are insufficient to allow him to purchase health insurance. But, Hicks was never offered the permanent job. After a while, workers like Hicks will be fired, and they may work at the nearby E.D. Bullard Company making fire helmets, and then perhaps at an auto-parts supplier, before they go back to work for Toyota.
As for George Bush's fraudulent claim that the economy added 96,000 "new jobs" during September: Temporary workers accounted for one-third of these jobs.
Millions of Jobless Are Without Any Benefits
One of the pre-Presidential debate flurry of economic reports, a study released Oct. 13 by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, finds that since late December 2003, a record number of jobless workers have exhausted their regular 26 weeks of state-funded benefits, gone without Federal aid, and received neither a paycheck nor an unemployment check. Three million jobless workers are now in this predicamentthe highest level ever for a 10-month period, based on official data going back to the early 1970s.
In late December, Congress declined to renew the Federal Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation program, which provided 13 extra weeks of aid to jobless workers who had used up their 26 weeks of state-funded benefits.
In Ohio, for example, some 91,600 unemployed workers have exhausted regular benefits without finding work, and are now not receiving a paycheck or unemployment benefits.
The official number of long-term unemployed workers rose in September to 1.747 millionthe 24th straight month that more than 20% of the unemployed have been without a job for at least 27 weeks.
Nobel Economics Prize Goes To 'Certified Idiots'
In perhaps a quaint intervention into the U.S. election debate, the Nobel Prize Committee on Oct. 11 gave the Economics prize to Edward Prescott of Arizona State University at Tempe (the site of the third and final Presidential debate Oct. 13), who then told CNBC that the U.S. still hasn't cut taxes enough: "If you want to have more employment, you'd better cut taxes."
Lyndon LaRouche commented on these awards in general, "The difference between an idiot and a Nobel Prize winner, is that the Nobel Prize winner is a certified idiot."
Prescott shared the prize with his former graduate student at Arizona State-Tempe, Finn Kydland. Their work, which has concentrated on how central banks, including the Federal Reserve, should work, is a very strong advocate for deflationary "inflation-fighting" central bank policies.
Otherwise, Prescott and Kydland, in their articles and papers have insisted that the development of economies arises from "push-pull" in the very smallfrom the individual consumer, businessman, or inventorand certainly not from any long-term, Keplerian "orbital principles" of the physical economy as defined by Lyndon LaRouche. Said the Nobel Academy in awarding the prize, "The laureates laid the groundwork for more robust models by regarding business cycles as the collective outcome of countless forward-looking decisions made by individual households and firms regarding consumption, investments, labor supply, etc. [They] have been widely adopted in modern macroeconomics."
Bush Backs Dismantling of Federal Gov't Safety Net
Speaking to the National Association of Home Builders at a campaign event in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 2, President George W. Bush declared, "The fundamental systems of governmentthe health-care plans, the pension plans, the tax code, the worker-training programswere designed for yesterday, not for tomorrow."
Cheney's Halliburton Loots Its Pensioners
Halliburton Corp. has used a loophole in pension laws governing mergers, to cheat its employees out of millions of dollars in early retirement pension benefits, the New York Times reported Oct. 15. Compared to the retirement package that Dick Cheney got, "worth millions of dollars ... through a special vote of the board," employees of Dresser Industries, which was acquired by Halliburton in 1998, have been robbed. Cheney presided over the Dresser acquisition in 1998, which included a pension fund which was far larger than Halliburton's fund. But in 2000, Halliburton sold off its stake in a unit in Olean, N.Y., that had been Dresser's, and through a loophole, was able to categorize workerswho remained at the same job, at the same deskas "terminated employees." Halliburton did not inform its employeesfor two years!that this meant they were no longer building up funds in their pension for early retirement.
Halliburton only informed the employees after a Federal law, passed after Bush-Cheney had come into office, made it legal for Halliburton to drastically cut the benefits, by tens of thousands of dollars per employee. One head draftsman was offered only $28,000, when his fund should have been $60,000. He took it, saying, "if I stayed ... what would keep them from stealing more?" Other early retirees who received full benefits are being hounded with letters telling them to repay thousands of dollars back to Halliburton. Pensioners in Texas are demanding a Congressional investigation.
Columbus Schools Told To Pull the Plug on Small Appliances
Columbus, Ohio teachers have been told to get rid of small appliances because the school district cannot afford to pay for the electricity to run them anymore, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Oct. 13. Anticipating a $420,000 shortfall in the district's electricity budget, Columbus officials have issued an edict demanding teachers unplug the microwaves, coffee pots, mini-refrigerators, toaster ovens, space heaters, and other small appliances they keep in their classrooms. Columbus Education Association president Rhonda Johnson denounced the measure as "idiotic."
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