By PAUL KRUGMAN - The New York Times
“If we don’t act swiftly and boldly,” declared President-elect Barack Obama in his latest weekly address, “we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment.” If you ask me, he was understating the case.
The fact is that recent economic numbers have been terrifying, not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing, in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren’t lending; businesses and consumers aren’t spending. Let’s not mince words: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression.
So will we “act swiftly and boldly” enough to stop that from happening? We’ll soon find out.
We weren’t supposed to find ourselves in this situation. For many years most economists believed that preventing another Great Depression would be easy. In 2003, Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago, in his presidential address to the American Economic Association, declared that the “central problem of depression-prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes, and has in fact been solved for many decades.”
Milton Friedman, in particular, persuaded many economists that the Federal Reserve could have stopped the Depression in its tracks simply by providing banks with more liquidity, which would have prevented a sharp fall in the money supply. Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, famously apologized to Friedman on his institution’s behalf: “You’re right. We did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.”
It turns out, however, that preventing depressions isn’t that easy after all. Under Mr. Bernanke’s leadership, the Fed has been supplying liquidity like an engine crew trying to put out a five-alarm fire, and the money supply has been rising rapidly. Yet credit remains scarce, and the economy is still in free fall.
Friedman’s claim that monetary policy could have prevented the Great Depression was an attempt to refute the analysis of John Maynard Keynes, who argued that monetary policy is ineffective under depression conditions and that fiscal policy — large-scale deficit spending by the government — is needed to fight mass unemployment. The failure of monetary policy in the current crisis shows that Keynes had it right the first time. And Keynesian thinking lies behind Mr. Obama’s plans to rescue the economy.
But these plans may turn out to be a hard sell.
News reports say that Democrats hope to pass an economic plan with broad bipartisan support. Good luck with that.
In reality, the political posturing has already started, with Republican leaders setting up roadblocks to stimulus legislation while posing as the champions of careful Congressional deliberation — which is pretty rich considering their party’s behavior over the past eight years.
More broadly, after decades of declaring that government is the problem, not the solution, not to mention reviling both Keynesian economics and the New Deal, most Republicans aren’t going to accept the need for a big-spending, F.D.R.-type solution to the economic crisis.
The biggest problem facing the Obama plan, however, is likely to be the demand of many politicians for proof that the benefits of the proposed public spending justify its costs — a burden of proof never imposed on proposals for tax cuts.
This is a problem with which Keynes was familiar: giving money away, he pointed out, tends to be met with fewer objections than plans for public investment “which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict ‘business’ principles.” What gets lost in such discussions is the key argument for economic stimulus — namely, that under current conditions, a surge in public spending would employ Americans who would otherwise be unemployed and money that would otherwise be sitting idle, and put both to work producing something useful.
All of this leaves me concerned about the prospects for the Obama plan. I’m sure that Congress will pass a stimulus plan, but I worry that the plan may be delayed and/or downsized. And Mr. Obama is right: We really do need swift, bold action.
Here’s my nightmare scenario: It takes Congress months to pass a stimulus plan, and the legislation that actually emerges is too cautious. As a result, the economy plunges for most of 2009, and when the plan finally starts to kick in, it’s only enough to slow the descent, not stop it. Meanwhile, deflation is setting in, while businesses and consumers start to base their spending plans on the expectation of a permanently depressed economy — well, you can see where this is going.
So this is our moment of truth. Will we in fact do what’s necessary to prevent Great Depression II?
by Dean Baker - Common Dreams
At least some Republicans are starting to muster an anti-stimulus drive, claiming that President-elect Obama's package will not help the economy. Their drive is centered on what they claim is a careful rereading of the history of the New Deal. According to their account, President Roosevelt's policies actually lengthened the Great Depression.
In their story, we would have been better off if we just left the market to adjust by itself. New Deal programs that directly employed people, or in other ways supported living standards, created an uncertain investment climate. They claim that this uncertainty slowed the process of market adjustment that was necessary for returning to high levels of employment.
The Wagner Act, which created the legal framework for the union organizing drives of the era, stands out as being especially pernicious in their story. The Fair Labor Standards Act, which created the 40-hour workweek and established the first national minimum wage, also gets singled out for criticism. In this new reading of history, what most people consider the great successes of the New Deal simply worsened the Great Depression.
In reality, any careful reading showed that the New Deal policies substantially ameliorated the effects of the Great Depression for tens of millions of people. The major economic failing of the New Deal was that President Roosevelt was not prepared to push the policies as far as necessary to fully lift the economy out of the Great Depression.
Roosevelt was too worried about the whining of the anti-stimulus crowd that he confronted. He remained concerned about balancing the budget when the proper goal of fiscal policy should have been large deficits to stimulate the economy. Roosevelt's policies substantially reduced the unemployment rate from the 25 percent peak when he first took office, but they did not get the unemployment rate back into single digits.
It took the enormous public spending associated with World War II to fully lift the economy out of the depression. The lesson that economists take away from this experience is that we should be prepared to run very large deficits in order to give the economy a sufficient boost to generate self-sustaining growth.
However, from the standpoint of Republicans, the more ominous lesson of the New Deal policies is that it left the Democrats firmly in power for more than 20 years. The Republicans did not regain the White House until 1952, 20 years after President Roosevelt was first elected.
Imagine how terrifying the prospect of 20 years of Democratic presidencies must be for the current generation of Republican leaders. This would mean that they would not retake the White House until 2028, just 20 years before the Social Security trust fund is first projected to face a shortfall.
In 2028, Newt Gingrich will be 85 years old; Mitt Romney will be 81; Mike Huckabee will be 73 and Senator McCain will be 98. Even Sarah Palin will be a less than youthful 64. In short, if President-elect Obama is allowed to carry through with his stimulus package and the rest of his ambitious domestic agenda, most of current leadership of the Republican Party can expect to spend the rest of their political career in the political wilderness, far removed from the centers of power.
For this reason, the Republicans can be expected to adopt a strategy aimed at delaying and diluting the stimulus. We can expect their leaders to find every conceivable argument to slow down the spending that the economy desperately needs right now to prevent further job loss. While some of their concerns may be legitimate - we should all support efforts to restrain wasteful pork barrel spending and rein in corruption - these concerns should not be the basis for obstructing stimulus. The public should be careful to distinguish legitimate concerns from simple delaying tactics.
In short, we should realize that the main concern of some of those opposed to stimulus may not be that it will fail, but rather that it will succeed. Most of us don't have the same set of concerns.
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer ( www.conservativenannystate.org) and the more recently published Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of The Bubble Economy. He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can find it at the American Prospect's web site.
David Corn - Mother Jones
It's an unusual choice, for Panetta, a former Democratic congressman who became President Bill Clinton's budget chief and then his White House chief of staff, has no direct intelligence experience, and the CIA in previous decades has been rather unwelcoming to outsiders. (Obama's first pick for the spy chief slot, John Brennan, a career CIA officer, withdrew his name, after bloggers and others raised questions about his involvement in the agency's post-9/11 detention and interrogation programs.) Panetta, if confirmed, will work closely with retired Admiral Dennis Blair, Obama's choice to be director of national intelligence.
Panetta is an even-tempered and highly regarded Washington player--kind of a Mr. Fixit in a nice suit. He is also a zero-tolerance critic of the use of torture, and he considers waterboarding--a tactic used by the CIA--to be torture. A year ago, he wrote in The Washington Monthly:
According to the latest polls, two-thirds of the American public believes that torturing suspected terrorists to gain important information is justified in some circumstances. How did we transform from champions of human dignity and individual rights into a nation of armchair torturers? One word: fear.
Fear is blinding, hateful, and vengeful. It makes the end justify the means. And why not? If torture can stop the next terrorist attack, the next suicide bomber, then what's wrong with a little waterboarding or electric shock?
The simple answer is the rule of law....
Those who support torture may believe that we can abuse captives in certain select circumstances and still be true to our values. But that is a false compromise. We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don't. There is no middle ground.
We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances..
It doesn't get much clearer than this. (Take that, Jack Bauer!) By picking Panetta, Obama is repudiating the waterboarding ways of the Bush-Cheney administration.
As a member of the Iraq Study Group, Panetta joined with other Establishment poohbahs to criticize George W. Bush's prosecution of the Iraq war. And in a newspaper op-ed, he noted that the Iraq war "could give al-Qaeda a base for terrorism throughout this critical region."
Panetta's views on torture and the Iraq war are unlikely to pose any problems for him during his Senate confirmation. But he has tangled with the agency in the past--and these tussles could emerge as confirmation issues. As Clinton's budget chief, he sought to cut the CIA's budget and clashed with then-CIA director R. James Woolsey. A 2007 study produced by the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence described this confrontation:
Leon Panetta, the Clinton administration’s first director of OMB, had indicated to Woolsey early in 1993 that OMB was considering providing the DCI with top-line guidance, perhaps with a publicly disclosed figure, and seeking sizable out-year cuts in intelligence spending....
....From [the Office of Management and Budget's] perspective, [Woolsey] came across as confrontational in his efforts to keep OMB from examining, and possibly cutting, his budget. One of Panetta’s senior staff officers commented on Woolsey’s approach in dealing with Panetta: “I’ve never seen a more graceless stonewall….” [CIA official] Richard Haver...recalled an episode in which the DCI and [Pentagon] leaders, in a personal meeting with President Clinton, gained the president’s agreement—over OMB objections—to a program and budget Woolsey had worked out in concert with DOD. [Woolsey] was almost euphoric about his success as he returned to CIA headquarters, but he soon received a message from Panetta that Woolsey would “pay” for his budget victory.
Will CIA veterans strike back at Panetta for his efforts to reduce their budget 16 years ago? Will GOPers in the Senate try to embarrass Panetta by bringing this up?
And there's this: in 1990, then-Representative Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced legislation that would have required the president to seek approval from the congressional intelligence committees before mounting most covert operations. (Under this legislation, the president could still stage secret ops to save American lives or rescue American hostages without asking permission from the committees.) The measure failed miserably. Only 70 members voted for it, but one was Panetta. Will that vote come up during his confirmation hearings? One wonders if Panetta still supports the idea of greater congressional oversight of CIA clandestine activities.
A CIA director who has denounced torture, advocated intelligence cuts, and backed greater congressional control of covert operations--that would be....different. This appointment certainly has the potential to spark opposition from inside and outside the agency. But if Panetta manages to make it to Langley without much fuss, that would indeed signal real change in Washington.
By DANIEL LOVERING - Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Indian navy has agreed to buy eight reconnaissance and anti-submarine planes from Boeing Co. in a $2.1 billion deal that signals the developing nation's drive to upgrade its military hardware.
The first of the aircraft, a variant of the P-8A Poseidon under development for the U.S. Navy, will be delivered within four years, and the remaining seven will be delivered by 2015, the defense unit of Chicago-based Boeing said Tuesday.
India will become Boeing's first international customer for the plane, known as the P-8I, which also is capable of performing search-and-rescue, surveillance and targeting missions, according to the company.
As its economic strength has grown, India has emerged as one of the world's largest buyers of military hardware, and global aviation and military equipment makers are seeking a share of defense contracts potentially worth billions of dollars.
In the current fiscal year, which ends March 31, India plans to spend $26 billion (1.05 trillion rupees) on defense, a 10-percent increase from a year earlier.
The planes "will bring the Indian navy advanced technology that is unmatched in maritime reconnaissance aircraft, and the reach and capability it needs to defend India's vast coastline and maritime waters," Vivek Lall, vice president and head of Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems unit in India, said in a statement.
In New Delhi, Sitanshu Kar, a spokesman for India's defense ministry, confirmed reports that the deal was worth $2.1 billion.
Shares of Boeing rose 14 cents to close at $46.31.
USA Today
Roman Polanski is living in exile in France. He's fighting for a dismissal of a 30-year-old conviction for raping a 13-year-old girl.
LOS ANGELES — Fugitive director Roman Polanski received a message from prosecutors in a sexually explicit court motion Tuesday that all is not forgiven and they will fight dismissal of a three-decade-old conviction for raping a 13-year-old.
The documents filed by the district attorney's office would be rated X in movie terminology and contained a reminder that the rape occurred at the home of Academy Award-winning actor Jack Nicholson.
In a footnote, the document said: "Jack Nicholson was not home at the time of the events and had no knowledge of the activities of Roman Polanski."
The motion, drawing on descriptions contained in transcripts of grand jury hearings in 1977, provided details of a photo shoot in which the young girl was given champagne and part of a Quaalude pill, was told to disrobe and was subjected to oral copulation, forced intercourse and sodomy by Polanski.
It said the victim asked him to stop several times and that she was in tears when Polanski drove her home.
"At some point, the defendant warned the victim not to tell her mother about what had happened, adding that 'This is our secret,"' the motion said.
The girl, now a 44-year-old woman, has said she never wanted Polanski to go to prison and feels the case should be dismissed. The 75-year-old Polanski, living in exile in France, wants to return to the United States.
His lawyers, prompted by a recent documentary alleging judicial and prosecutorial misconduct, filed a motion in December to dismiss the case.
Deputy District Attorney David Walgren argued in Tuesday's motion that Polanski's request can't be heard in court without his presence. If he returned, Polanski could be arrested. His lawyers have said the matter can be heard in his absence.
Walgren said he was not admitting judicial or prosecutorial error, but "the alleged misconduct occurred after the defendant pleaded freely and voluntarily to a felony, with the understanding that the judge would determine the appropriate sentence."
A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Jan. 21 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Walgren said the hearing should be canceled if Polanski doesn't plan to attend.
In a motion filed Monday, Polanski's lawyer asked to disqualify the entire staff of the Los Angeles County Superior Court from the case for bias against Polanski and said the California Judicial Council should appoint a neutral judge from another county to preside over the hearing. The prosecution's filing on Tuesday did not address that issue.
The details of Polanski's sexual activity with the girl had never been described in legal documents because he was permitted to plead guilty to a single charge of sexual intercourse with a minor and other charges were dismissed.
That decision was explained in Tuesday's motion, which said it was based on the teenager's concerns. The document said the victim "expressed in no uncertain terms that she wished to maintain her anonymity and avoid the further trauma that would accompany a full-blown jury trial. Based on these expressed concerns, on Aug. 8, 1977, the defendant was permitted to plead guilty to one felony count ... for having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. ... This was an open plea to the court, meaning that at the time of the plea, there did not exist any agreement as to what sentence may or may not be imposed."
Polanski was sent to prison for a diagnostic study, released after 42 days and scheduled to appear before the judge for sentencing on the day that he fled to France.
Polanski's life, which has been documented in books and film, has been a study in triumphs and tragedies. His mother perished in a Nazi prison camp in Poland and his first wife, actress Sharon Tate, was murdered by the Manson family in 1969 while pregnant with their child. As a movie director, he was lauded from the start of his career. He was nominated for an Oscar for directing Tess and Chinatown, and also for writing the adapted screenplay for Rosemary's Baby.
While in exile, he won the 2002 Oscar for directing The Pianist, a holocaust drama.
The issue of his rape case drew renewed interest in 2008 with the broadcast of an HBO documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired which suggested a pattern of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct in the handling of his case.
By Jason Leopold - Consortium News
It’s not uncommon for Presidents to embellish their accomplishments upon leaving office, but George W. Bush, who will exit the White House leaving the country in the worst shape since Herbert Hoover, has gone a step further, moving past exaggeration into outright lying.
Last month, trying to change the emerging historical consensus about a failed presidency, the White House published two lengthy reports, “Highlights of Accomplishments and Results of the Administration of George W. Bush,” and “100 Things Americans May Not Know About the Bush Administration Record.”
One of the surprising claims that stood out among the combined 90 pages of so-called accomplishments was the White House’s glowing assessment of Bush’s record on veterans’ issues. Bush claims he “provided unprecedented resources for veterans” over the past eight years and provided “the highest level of support for veterans in American history.”
“The President also increased the benefits available to those who have served our Nation and transformed the veterans health care system to better serve those who have sacrificed for our freedom,” both reports claim, adding that he “instituted reforms for the care of wounded warriors ... and dramatically expanded resources for mental health services.”
The White House made these claims in the face of what former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld might have called a “known known” – that the treatment of veterans returning from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan has been a national disgrace, highlighted most dramatically by the neglect and substandard care given wounded troops at Walter Reed and other military hospitals.
The budget increases that have occurred mostly were enacted over Bush’s opposition or related to the fact that injuries from the Iraq War far exceeded the administration’s rosy projections in early 2003. The Bush team especially underestimated how many cases of post-traumatic stress disorder to anticipate as well as the number of brain injuries, which have been endemic to the Iraq War where insurgents made effective use of “improvised explosive devices,” or IEDs.
Before Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, documents released by the Department of Veterans Affairs said it expected a maximum of 8,000 cases of post-traumatic stress disorder.
However, according to a study released last year by the RAND Institute, there are more than 320,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars suffering from major depression, PTSD and/or traumatic brain injury. The report found that the VA has been and continues to be ill-equipped to deal with these cases when soldiers return from combat, especially after multiple tours.
An Army task force last year also found major flaws in the way the VA treated and cared for veterans suffering from traumatic brain injuries.
Bush’s Record on VA Funding
For his part, Bush stacked the VA with political cronies, such as former Republican National Committee chairman Jim Nicholson, who as VA Secretary defended a budget measure that sought major cuts in staffing for healthcare and at the Board of Veterans Appeals; slashed funding for nursing home care; and blocked four legislative measures aimed at streamlining the backlog of veterans benefits claims.
Of the 84,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder by VA, only half, about 42,000, had their disability claim approved by VA. Instead of expediting PTSD claims, Bush's political appointees at VA actively fought against mental health claims.
Bush's appointees also obstructed scientific research into the causes of Gulf War illnesses dating back 18 years to Operation Desert Storm and opposed medical research on treatment for 210,000 of those veterans.
As for funding, Bush proposed a 0.5 percent budget increase for the VA for fiscal year 2006, which amounted to a “cruel mockery” of Bush’s promises to do everything to support veterans and soldiers, Rep. Lane Evans, D-Illinois, said at the time.
Evans called Bush’s proposed budget increase for the VA “grossly inadequate,” saying it would force the VA to “ration” healthcare to veterans.
VA officials had testified in 2005 that the agency needed at least a 13 percent increase to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of war veterans wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan and others who needed long-term mental health care.
In early 2007, the Washington Post put a spotlight on the human consequences resulting from the combination of Bush’s wars and the budget squeeze.
The Post published a series of articles documenting the substandard conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which is located only 4.7 miles from the White House. Wounded vets were housed in rooms with moldy walls, leaky plumage and an infestation of vermin, underscoring how out of touch Bush had become regarding the nation’s veterans.
In response to complaints that some veterans under VA care were being neglected, Nicholson said in March 2007 that such cases were “anecdotal exceptions.”
“When you are treating so many people there is always going to be a linen towel left somewhere,” he said.
In May 2007, the AP revealed that while Nicholson was pinching pennies on treatment costs and coping with a $1.3 billion budget shortfall, he awarded “$3.8 million in bonuses to top executives in fiscal 2006″ — many as much as $33,000.
Simultaneously, Bush was resisting congressional efforts to beef up the VA’s budget. In May 2007, Bush threatened to veto legislation that sought a 10 percent—$3.2 billion—increase, calling it too expensive. Bush proposed a 2 percent increase, far below what lawmakers and VA officials said was needed to treat a dramatic increase in traumatic brain injury and PTSD cases.
After Congress passed the legislation with the higher VA spending, Bush backed down on his veto threat but that was largely due to the fact that every Republican in the Senate with the exception of Jim DeMint of South Carolina, supported the measure.
Amid the growing scandals about substandard VA treatment and inept management, Nicholson resigned in July 2007.
Suicide Epidemic
Even after Nicholson’s resignation, the Department of Veterans Affairs continued to be buffeted by scandals, including a cover-up in an epidemic of veterans’ suicides and attempted suicides.
Last year, internal VA e-mails surfaced that showed how top agency officials tried to conceal the information from the public about the sudden increase in suicides and attempted suicides among veterans that were treated or sought help at VA hospitals around the country.
And last November, internal watchdogs discovered 500 benefits claims in shredding bins at the 41 of the 57 regional VA offices around the country.
Paul Sullivan, the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, a veterans’ advocacy group that sued the VA in federal court, said attempts by the White House to portray Bush as an advocate for veterans is beyond shameful.
“Bush is the worst failure for our veterans since Hoover,” Sullivan said, expressing shock that the President “would shamefully continue his legacy of lies to the American people as he and his political cronies are forced to leave office on Jan. 20.”
Sullivan disputed some of Bush’s claims as misleading, such as the assertion that he doubled funding for the VA. “However, President Bush failed to disclose that the number of veterans seeking VA healthcare doubled, from 2.7 million to 5.5 million, and that rising healthcare inflation actually resulted in a net decrease in spending per veteran by VA during the past eight years,” he said.
“If not for the intervention of Congress to substantially increase VA funding beyond Bush's inadequate budget requests, especially in the past two years, the situation would have deteriorated from a serious crisis to a catastrophe at VA.”
Sullivan, who worked at the VA for five years as a project manager, said Bush failed to the implement the VA’s proposed Mental Health Strategic Plan, a program aimed at identifying and quickly treating veterans suffering from major depression and were on the verge of suicide.
“Without implementation, funding, and oversight of the plan, several suicidal Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans were illegally refused emergency medical care by VA,” Sullivan said. “Veterans for Common Sense brought this issue to the attention of VA, and VA refused to act.
“Therefore, VCS sued VA for turning away suicidal veterans. After we filed our lawsuit, and only after we filed our lawsuit, the VA began a suicide prevention hotline. In the first 15 months of operation, the hotline received 85,000 calls and rescued more than 2,100 suicidal veterans.”
As of September 2008, 330,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have filed disability claims to the VA, according to the agency. Yet, 54,000 are still waiting for the VA to confirm their claims were received. The average wait for a disability claim is more than six months.
Additionally, according to VA's Inspector General, 25 percent of the VA's 5.5 million patients have to wait more than 30 days for a doctor’s appointment.
As costly as the treatment of Iraq and Afghan war veterans already has become, Bush is leaving an even greater budget hole for his successors.
In the book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, authors Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes wrote that future treatment of veterans would continue adding to the total cost of Bush’s conflicts and would put extraordinary stresses on the VA.
“Even in 2000, before the war,” they wrote, the VA was the subject of numerous Government Accountability Office studies that “identified long-standing problems, including large backlogs of pending claims, lengthy processing time for initial claims, high rates of error in processing claims, and inconsistency across regional offices.”
But the problems only have grown worse. “In a 2005 study,” Stiglitz and Blimes wrote, “the GAO found that the time to complete a veteran’s claim varied from 99 days at the Salt Lake City Office to 237 days in Honolulu. In a 2006 study, GAO found that 12 percent of claims were inaccurate.”
Homeless Veterans
The White House reports on Bush’s so-called accomplishments also claimed that Bush “reduced the number of homeless veterans by nearly 40 percent from 2001 to 2007. Established VA homeless-specific programs, which constitute one of the largest integrated networks of homeless treatment and assistance services in the country.”
That statement rankled Aaron Glantz, a journalist, author and the Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism at the Carter Center.
“What kind of President pats himself on the back with 200,000 veterans sleeping homeless on the street every night?” Glantz said in an interview. “What kind of administration puts out self-congratulatory press releases while over 6,000 veterans commit suicide every year?
“We can only hope that President elect Barack Obama takes a very different course once he's in office. Otherwise, our government will repeat the shameful disgrace that was its treatment of wounded veterans returning home from Vietnam.”
Glantz spent three years in Iraq reporting on the war and recently published The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle against America's Veterans, which documents the heart-wrenching stories of homeless Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and the plight of other veterans who, upon returning home, have been neglected by the country they served.
Last week, Glantz published a report, “Did You Know 200,000 Vets Are Sleeping on the Streets?,” that contradicts the Bush self-congratulations about veterans’ homelessness.
On his transition Web site, change.gov, Obama said he intends to “Fix the Benefits Bureaucracy: Hire additional claims workers, and improve training and accountability so that VA benefit decisions are rated fairly and consistently. Transform the paper benefit claims process to an electronic one to reduce errors and improve timeliness.”
To meet that challenge, Obama tapped retired Gen. Eric Shinseki, a Vietnam War veteran who sustained combat-related injuries, to lead the VA. Shinseki made headlines back in February 2003 when he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee and predicted that several hundred thousand soldiers would likely be needed to maintain order in post-invasion Iraq.
After facing public criticism from Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, Shinseki was forced into early retirement. His judgment has since been vindicated, both in regard to likely ethnic strife in Iraq and on the costliness of the war.
Yet, Bush’s White House is now hoping that its last-minute propaganda barrage will, if nothing else, cloud some of the memories about its failures and misjudgments. Bush’s critics, however, are not willing to so easily forget.
“Contrary to his Administration's latest spin, George W. Bush's legacy on veterans is one of shameful neglect,” author Glantz said. “Rather than care for the tens of thousands of American service members wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush Administration has thrown up a series of barriers to prevent veterans from getting the care they need.”
Simply put – White House propaganda aside – veterans’ healthcare has become worse, not better, under Bush’s leadership.
Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Alcoa Inc said on Tuesday it would slash more than 15,000 jobs, halve capital spending and sell four businesses as it reduces aluminum production in the face of the global economic downturn.
The largest U.S. aluminum producer said it imposed a global salary and hiring freeze as it seeks to cope with what Chief Executive Officer Klaus Kleinfeld called "extraordinary times."
The cuts, the third in as many months, come less than a week before Alcoa is scheduled to report its fourth-quarter results. Alcoa said it would take almost $1 billion in charges in the quarter. Analysts expect the company to post a 1-cent per-share loss, according to Reuters Estimates,.
In after-hours trading following the news, Alcoa's shares were down nearly 4 percent at $11.64.
"Alcoa is going to get hit by some really big metal price declines and the only way to fix it is to reduce output," said analyst Charles Bradford, of Bradford Research/Soleil. "I think they need to do more. That's the only thing you can do to get the price going."
Kevin Kruszenski, head of listed trading at KeyBanc Capital Markets in Cleveland, said the cuts could help Alcoa in the long run.
"As demand dropped off in the fourth quarter of 2008, steel companies were quick to cut production. I think the market will reward them for taking this capacity off line and cutting staff. It's smart in this environment."
Alcoa said targeted reductions, curtailments and plant closures and consolidations, mostly in the United States and Europe, including Russia, would reduce its headcount by more than 13,500 employees or 13 percent of the worldwide workforce by the end of 2009. An additional 1,700 contractor positions also will be eliminated.
Also, smelting reductions of more than 135,000 tonnes per year will be implemented, resulting in reduction of total primary aluminum output by more than 750,000 tonnes, or 18 percent of annualized output. In November, Alcoa said it would cut 350,000 tonnes of production and in October it curtailed output at its 265,000-tonne smelter in Rockdale, Texas.
Production of alumina, which is refined from bauxite and smelted into aluminum, also will be reduced accordingly to a total of 1.5 million tonnes in response to market conditions, Alcoa said. Curtailments will be fully implemented by the end of the first quarter 2009.
Alcoa said total charges for the fourth quarter due to restructuring, impairment and other special charges are expected to be between $900 million and $950 million after tax, or $1.13 to $1.19 per share, of which about 80 percent is non-cash.
The restructuring and divestiture program is expected to save about $450 million before taxes on an annualized basis, it said. Capital expenditures in 2009 are projected to be down to $1.8 billion, a 50-percent decrease from 2008.
Alcoa said it also intends to divest four non-core downstream businesses: Electrical and Electronic Systems; Global Foil; Cast Auto Wheels; and Transportation Products Europe. The businesses had 2008 combined revenues of $1.8 billion and an estimated after-tax operating loss of about $105 million. Expected net proceeds for the divestitures are estimated to be approximately $100 million.
The price of aluminum has slumped some 50 percent since peaking at $3,380 per tonne last July as the global economic downturn has hit demand for the metal which is used for aircraft and auto bodies and products such as kitchen foil and beverage cans. On Tuesday, aluminum was selling for around $1,600 per tonne.
Alcoa's shares hit a 52-week high on the New York Stock Exchange of $44.76 in May 2008 and a 52-week low of $6.82 in November. It was the second-weakest performer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average during 2008.
(Reporting by Steve James with additional reporting by Nichola Groom; editing by Carol Bishopric)
The Raw Story
Cyber attacks pose the greatest threat to the United States after nuclear war and weapons of mass destruction -- and they are increasingly hard to prevent, FBI experts said Tuesday.
Shawn Henry, assistant director of the FBI's cyber division, told a conference in New York that computer attacks pose the biggest risk "from a national security perspective, other than a weapon of mass destruction or a bomb in one of our major cities."
"Other than a nuclear device or some other type of destructive weapon, the threat to our infrastructure, the threat to our intelligence, the threat to our computer network is the most critical threat we face," he added.
US experts talk of "cybergeddon," in which an advanced economy -- where almost everything of importance is linked to or even controlled by computers -- is sabotaged by hackers.
Michael Balboni, deputy secretary for public safety in New York state, described "a huge threat out there" against everything from banking institutions to municipal water systems and dams.
Henry said that terrorist groups are working to create a virtual 9/11, "inflicting the same kind of damage on our country, on all our countries, on all our networks, as they did in 2001 by flying planes into buildings."
An online attack of that scale has not yet happened in the United States but computer hacking -- once something of a sport for brilliant delinquents -- is rapidly evolving around the world as a tool of war.
Russian hackers allegedly mounted huge assaults on Internet networks in Estonia and Georgia last year, while Palestinian sympathizers have orchestrated attacks against hundreds of Israeli websites in the last few days.
Following years of fighting online criminal groups, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other countries' security services know hackers as the most elusive and innovative of foes.
"It used to be we'd chase people around, literally carrying duffel bags of cash," said Donald Codling, the FBI's cyber unit liaison with the Department of Homeland Security.
"Nowadays the guy can use his SIM chip and he can move money all over the world and his confederates can withdraw that money from an ATM in a currency of his or her choice. It's extraordinarily difficult for us to catch them."
Codling, like other cyber crime fighters, expressed grudging admiration for the skills of his adversaries, who he said are highly motivated and often a step ahead.
"What the Internet has allowed you to do is make all the human frailities like greed, avarice and all those lovely things much more efficient," he said.
"We're seeing that the folks on the cutting edge of this tend to be the bad guys. There's a financial reason for them to be good at this."
Christopher Painter, an FBI specialist focused on building international cooperation, described another basic weakness in the fight for cyber security: the threat is largely invisible and therefore not always taken seriously.
"It's not like a fire," he said. "It's hard to get your head around the threat. We often discover a company has been attacked and we tell them that and they don't know."
REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun
By LORA PABST and MARY LYNN SMITH, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Wetterling photos and clippings were found in the home of a Wisconsin man who told his psychiatrist that he killed two children in 1958.
A barber from Milwaukee, Wis., who allegedly confessed shortly before his death to killing two children more than 50 years ago had numerous photos and newspaper clippings about the abduction of Jacob Wetterling in his home.
Court records obtained by a Milwaukee TV station show that 62-year-old Vernon Seitz told his psychiatrist that he had killed two children in 1958 and wanted to confess to the murders. The psychiatrist called Milwaukee police in mid-December, but they were not able to interview Seitz before he died.
When police searched his home, they found child pornography, paintings and drawings of nude boys, and maps, photos, letters and articles related to the Wetterling case and other missing children cases.
As news spread that there might be a possible connection between Seitz and Jacob's disappearance, Patty Wetterling offered a mother's voice of calm. Investigators have chased more than 40,000 leads since Jacob's abduction from St. Joseph on Oct. 22, 1989 and this is yet one more, she said.
"My gut tells me that [Seitz] isn't the one," Wetterling said Tuesday evening.
Wetterling said she learned about the possible lead when a television reporter called to tell her what Milwaukee police had found.
What police found seemed to be more disturbing than other leads, she said. "It sounds like [Seitz] was a very troubled soul."
She said Stearns County investigators are working with Milwaukee police and she'll wait until the investigation is finished.
"The good news is that people haven't stopped caring and following up on leads," Wetterling said.
The Milwaukee station said no human remains were found in the basement or yard of Seitz's home.
Al Jazeera
A senior Indian government official has suggested that leading figures in the Pakistani establishment must have known of the plot to carry out last November's deadly attacks in Mumbai, and hinted that some may have actively supported it.
Shivshankar Menon, India's foreign secretary said he found it "hard to believe that something of this scale ... could occur without anybody, anywhere in the establishment knowing that this was happening."
Speaking to reporters in New Delhi, Menon dismissed repeated Pakistani assertions that the attacks were carried out by "non-state actors" and said India was unimpressed by Pakistani pledges to crackdown on suspects.
The attacks on multiple targets in India's financial capital lasted for nearly three days and left 179 people dead with hundreds more wounded.
Menon's comments came after Indian officials handed Islamabad evidence they say clearly shows the attack originated in Pakistan.
New Delhi has previously been careful not to blame the attacks on the Pakistani government, and Monday's statement accused "elements in Pakistan" of being behind the plot.
'Establishment' blamed
However, Menon later pointed a finger of blame at the country's "establishment".
India has stepped up security around Mumbai since the attacks [GALLO/GETTY]
"Even the so-called non-state actors function within a state, are citizens of a state ... We don't think there's such a thing as non-state actors," he said.
He also called for Pakistan to extradite suspects linked to the attacks so they could be brought to "Indian justice.''
Pakistan has said any trials will take place in its own courts.
India has blamed the attacks on Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based group, but Islamabad has requested firm evidence showing the attacks were launched from across the border.
Indian officials said the dossier handed to Pakistan - as well as to officials from the foreign countries whose citizens were killed - will make their case, and it is now up to Pakistan to act.
Officials said the evidence handed to the Pakistani high commission on Monday included information on weapons used in the attacks, and data obtained from satellite phones.
Interrogation
The material also includes details of the interrogation of Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman also known as Mohammed Ajmal Kasab - the lone surviving gunman from the attacks who India says is a Pakistani national.
Pakistan has arrested at least two Lashkar leaders accused of planning the attacks and launched a nationwide crackdown on a charity believed to be a front for the group.
But Menon dismissed those moves as insufficient, saying the charity was still operating while Pakistani authorities had not informed India about the status of the two men they said had been arrested.
"What we have seen so far does not impress us,'' he said.
Michelle Andrews - U.S. News & World Report
The closely watched annual health spending figures released today by the federal government were published, fittingly enough, in the January/February issue of the journal Health Affairs. Fittingly, because this month's issue is devoted to chronic illness, and about 75 percent of the $2.2 trillion the United States spends on healthcare goes toward treating chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. That $2.2 trillion works out to $7,421 per person. The out-of-pocket cost, which is what individuals are most concerned about, comes to $889 apiece, 5.3 percent higher than it was in 2006, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which released the figures.
That overall out-of-pocket spending figure is interesting, but how does it vary if someone has a chronic condition, as nearly half of people do? A study in the same Health Affairs issue reports that people with one chronic condition spent an average $655 out of pocket in 2005, while those with two chronic conditions spent $1,039, and those with three or more spent $1,865. While it's true that many people, especially elderly ones, have more than one chronic condition to contend with, lumping together costs faced by cancer patients with those who have much less expensive conditions like high blood pressure isn't all that helpful.
As it turns out, disease-specific details are awfully hard to come by. Rand researchers examined private insurance claims for 55 health plans in 2004 and reported average annual out-of-pocket medical and drug costs for four chronic conditions. Here's what they found:
--Kidney disease: $8,878
--Cancer: $8,411
--Rheumatoid arthritis: $4,811
--Multiple sclerosis: $3,301
But that doesn't tell us anything about out-of-pocket costs for the most common chronic conditions: diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol.
The American Diabetes Association reports that in 2005, someone with moderate type 2 diabetes might rack up $9,646 in medical costs for insulin and other medications, blood-glucose testing equipment and supplies, and physician visits. But that figure represents total costs, not out-of-pocket expenses. If you have insurance, some portion of that total—perhaps a large portion—will be covered, and your out-of-pocket costs may be significantly lower than that total.
Likewise, a middle-aged person with easily controlled high blood pressure or high cholesterol might face virtually no out-of-pocket costs to treat his or her condition, says Robert Bonow, chief of cardiology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago and past president of the American Heart Association. A 30-day supply of 20-milligram tablets of lisonopril, a generic ACE inhibitor, runs just $13.99 on drugstore.com, for example. Simvastatin, the generic version of the lipid-lowering statin Zocor, costs $27.99 for a 30-day supply of 40-mg tablets.
Of course, out-of-pocket costs can swing widely in either direction depending on the severity of the illness and the coverage provided by the insurance policy, among other factors. What the averages don't show us is that "there are people out there, maybe 10 percent of them, who will have significant out-of-pocket costs," says Geoffrey Joyce, a senior economist at Rand and coauthor of the Rand study mentioned above.
By Michael Perry - Reuters
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian court has issued a blunt warning about the sexual predators a young driver faces in jail if he does not stop speeding, as authorities struggle to stop teenagers street racing.
"You'll find big, ugly, hairy strong men (in jail) who've got faces only a mother could love that will pay a lot of attention to you -- and your anatomy," said Magistrate Brian Maloney.
The 19-year-old male appeared in Sydney's Downing Center Court on Monday charged with driving without a license, failing to stop at a police alcohol check point and driving dangerously.
It was his third time before the courts for driving offences, prompting the magistrate's warning he would be jailed next time.
Maloney barred the teenager from driving until 2013, placed him on a 12-month good behavior bond and ordered him to do 150 hours of community work.
Breaching any of these conditions would see the teenager jailed where he would "shower with the gorillas in the mist down at Long Bay jail," said Maloney, his comments confirmed by the court on Tuesday.
"Out of control" was the frontpage headline in Sydney's The Daily Telegraph newspaper on Tuesday for a story on four teenagers either booked for street racing, speeding, driving without a license or crashing their car and killing a passenger.
The newspaper's editorial backed the magistrate's warning of life behind bars, saying his comments were "a vision in clarity" and gave the teenager "a reality check of his future."
"We can only hope this strategy helps. Hope it ends the slaughter of young innocents on the roads through stupidity...," said the Telegraph. "Road safety has become a war zone and any tactics are permissible..."
Police in the southern state of Victoria impounded 42 cars in the past six days after drivers were caught speeding.
One driver, aged 78, was clocked in Melbourne on New Year's Day at 170 kph (105 mph) -- 70 kph (44 mph) over the limit.
The 78-year-old was the "oldest hoon" in Victoria to have his car confiscated for speeding, local media said on Tuesday.
"It is disappointing to see a senior member of our community being so irresponsible," Acting Police Sergeant Carlo Visser told Melbourne's Herald-Sun newspaper.
"What example does this set for younger drivers?" said Visser.
(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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The Eyes Have It
You can improve your putting by proper use of your eyes during each stage of the putt; here’s how...
Eyes during setup: • When you set up to stroke a putt, one of the first things you must do is position your eyes over the golf ball and over your target line. Doing this will give you the best chance to start the ball headed on the target line.
• To help position your eyes over the ball, most putter heads have a top surface split into two separate elevations, with an indicator placed on each elevation. When used correctly, this mechanism ensures your eyes are directly over the ball.
• If your head/eyes drift outside or inside of the ball, the putter’s bi-level alignment indicators will no longer match up to each other, immediately indicating your eyes are not directly over the ball and target line. For example, if your putter has two indicator lines on the upper level and an indicator on the bottom level, you know your eyes are positioned correctly over the ball and target line when the indicator on the lower level appears between the two lines on the upper level.
Eyes during the stroke:
• Keep your eyes on the ball and over the target line during the stroke.
Eyes after contact:
• Keep your eyes over the target line during the stroke. If you have to peek toward the hole, try your best to only swivel your head down the target line rather then lifting your head, as this will change your spine angle and move your head off the target line.
• Try your best to keep your eyes over the target line by holding your focus on the grass that was under the ball, even long after contact. You’re not going to improve the putt by watching it roll, so don’t be in a rush to look up.
The Key to Eliminating Your Slice
Making a proper “full shoulder turn” is one of the most important fundamentals of the golf swing, yet it's one of the most common mistakes made by golfers; and why so many have slice problems. A proper shoulder turn is when you rotate the shoulders so the leading shoulder comes under your chin, without letting your hips turn much at all. Below we explain the ways this eliminates the slice:
• If your shoulder rotation is stopped too early, your arms will tend to continue by fling across the target line and causing an outside-to-inside swing path, resulting in the dreaded banana-ball. A full shoulder turn will help the club fall “on plane”, which greatly reduces the chance of cutting across the target line and slicing the golf ball.
• A full shoulder turn will promote proper weight shift. Remember too keep your lower body from moving laterally. Do not confuse the full shoulder turn as meaning you must get the club back to parallel at the top of the swing. Many great golfers have a compact swing that comes up far short of parallel at the top, but all great golfers take a full shoulder turn when executing a full shot.
• A full shoulder turn will bring you to the top of the swing and assist in getting the hands and arms into proper position.
• Keep your chin up and off your chest so the leading shoulder can rotate and pass under the chin. If the shoulder hits your chin, it will cut the shoulder rotation short and encourage a slice.
• When a golfer does not utilize a full shoulder turn, they tend to rely more on the small muscles (hands and arms) to swing the golf club. This leads to inconsistent ball striking and shots prone to slicing. With a full shoulder turn, you will use more of your big muscles, which are much more consistent, and help you square the club face and avoid a slice. Don’t be in a rush; taking the club back slow will help you to finish the back swing with a full shoulder turn. More body, less arms.
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