Hi. The Silent Scream of both articles is 'Out Now!' Why the fools in DC, all of them, don't make the connections is our major problem. An etherial thank you to Rachel Carson. -Ed
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/12/01/opinion/01krugman.html?th&emc=th Economic Storm Signals By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: December 1, 2006 "It's tough to make predictions," Yogi Berra is supposed to have said, "especially about the future." Actually, his remark makes perfect sense to economists, who sometimes have trouble making predictions about the present. And this is one of those times. We're now two-thirds of the way through the fourth quarter of 2006, so you might think we'd already know how the quarter is going. Yet, economists' assessments of the current state of the U.S. economy, never mind the future, are all over the place. And here's the bad news: this kind of confusion about what's going on is what typically happens when the economy is at a turning point, when an economic expansion is about to turn into a recession (or vice versa). At turning points, the various indicators that usually tell us which way the economic wind is blowing often point in different directions, so that both optimists and pessimists can find data to support their position. The last time things were this confused was early in 2001, when most economists failed to realize that the United States was sliding into recession. If that sounds ominous, it should: the bond market, which has a pretty good record of forecasting recessions, is pointing toward a serious economic slowdown next year. Before I explain what the bond market is telling us, let's talk about why the economy may be at a turning point. Between mid-2003 and mid-2006, economic growth in the United States was fueled mainly by a huge housing boom, which created jobs directly and made it easy for consumers to spend freely by borrowing against their rising home equity. That housing boom has now gone bust. But the optimists and pessimists disagree both about how bad the bust will get and about how much damage the housing slump will do to the economy as a whole. The optimists include Alan Greenspan, whom some accuse of letting the housing bubble get out of hand in the first place. On Tuesday, he told investors at a conference that the worst of the housing slump is over, saying that "it looks as though sales figures have stabilized." But the very next day the government released grim data on new home sales for October, and revised its estimates for earlier months downward. Most, though not all, of the other economic numbers that came out this week were also substantially weaker than expected. Pessimists feel vindicated by the downbeat data. Nouriel Roubini of Roubini Global Economics, who has been forecasting a housing-led recession for some time, now believes that the economy has already stalled: he predicts zero growth for the current quarter. Economists at Deutsche Bank say the same thing. But that's still a minority position; most forecasters are still telling us not to worry. So whom should you listen to? And how can you avoid believing what you want to believe? Maybe the best answer is to look at what the financial markets say. Not the stock market, which is a notoriously bad indicator of the economy's direction, but the bond market. (Paul Samuelson, the Nobel Prize-winning M.I.T. economist, famously quipped that the stock market had predicted nine of the last five recessions). Since last summer, when the housing bust became unmistakable, interest rates on long-term bonds have fallen sharply. They're now yielding much less than short-term bonds. The fact that investors are willing to buy those long-term bonds anyway tells us that these investors expect interest rates to fall. And that will happen only if the economy weakens, forcing the Federal Reserve to cut rates. So bond buyers are, in effect, betting on a future economic slowdown. How serious a slump is the bond market predicting? Pretty serious. Right now, statistical models based on the historical correlation between interest rates and recessions give roughly even odds that we're about to experience a formal recession. And since even a slowdown that doesn't formally qualify as a recession can lead to a sharp rise in unemployment, the odds are very good - maybe 2 to 1 - that 2007 will be a very tough year. Luckily, we've got good leadership for the coming economic storm: the White House is occupied by a man who's ideologically flexible, listens to a wide variety of views, and understands that policy has to be based on careful analysis, not gut instincts. Oh, wait. *** Commentaries are sent to Donors of Z/ZNet To learn more, consult ZNet at http://www.zmag.org Today's commentary: http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-11/29clement.cfm ================================== ZNet Commentary THE INSURANCE COMPANIES' PLAN FOR COVERING THE UNINSURED November 30, 2006 By Marilyn Clement In a plan revealed November 13th, less than a week after the historic election of a new Congress, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) called for more hundreds of billions of dollars to be provided by the federal government to pay for the uninsured - and to pay for them in ways that would continue to line their own pockets. They call it 'Hope for Millions.' Here are some of the questions that were not addressed. Why would the insurance companies who are raking in hundreds of billions of dollars in excess profits and basically standing in the way of a national non-profit healthcare program for all create a new plan to cover the uninsured? Why haven't they done it before? What do they stand to gain? What do they stand to lose? The follow-up story should explore the fact that a national healthcare program is the number one domestic priority of the voters. According to some statistics, 83% of the people want such a program and recognize that we are the only industrialized country in the world that doesn't have such a program. People expect Congress to take decisive action to provide a national healthcare system. Most of the people want such a program because the healthcare crisis isn't primarily about the uninsured. We are all close to being uninsured, and even when we are insured we face the growing costs of insurance policies, the co-pays and deductibles, the potential of losing our job, and worst of all, the fact that insurance companies cancel insurance policies when people get really sick. It doesn't have to be that way. Reporters ought to talk with Congressman John Conyers whose bill, the United States National Health Insurance Act, H.R. 676, was introduced during the last Congress and has 78 co- sponsors on it. There is a growing constituency of millions of people who understand and support this bill. It would provide comprehensive, quality healthcare for all residents of the United States including payment for all physicians and hospital costs, dental, optical, mental health, prescription drugs for all and long-term care, among other benefits. You would never receive another healthcare bill. There would be no co-pays, deductibles, or denials. There would never be any more bankruptcies caused by healthcare costs. Congressman Conyers has jurisdiction over bankruptcy as apart of his Judiciary Committee duties. About 50% of the bankruptcies in the U.S. are caused by healthcare crises. People are losing their homes and their jobs and their livelihood, children are missing a college education, and businesses are going bankrupt and/or cutting out healthcare coverage entirely because of the rising cost of insurance. It would be good for reporters to check out Conyers' bill and see how it would be financed by all of us, employers and employees, paying a small premium based on our income, and that all of us except 5%, the ultra rich, would be spending less money than we are now paying for healthcare. The cost of high-priced insurance companies would be eliminated because we wouldn't need them. They don't provide any healthcare at all. This would save almost $300 billion each year. Insurance companies just take the money, make a huge profit, and pay out a reduced amount, too little for the healthcare of the people. They are money-managers, not healthcare professionals. They even invest our money in tobacco and other detrimental corporations. They control the doctors, the Congress, and our healthcare at the moment. They want to keep that control. So they are scurrying about to try to get their own survival plan firmly entrenched in Congress. President Bush's Health Savings Accounts and ownership plans are also promoted in the AHIP plan. These would provide money to managers and put more money into Wall Street. The affluent who would then get tax breaks for saving money for future healthcare needs. Because of their tax-breaks, government money sorely needed for a healthy society would be used to further enrich the money managers. People would be urged to pay as much as possible out of pocket into the system before accessing their Health Savings Accounts. Healthcare-NOW is a national movement made up of hundreds of organizations challenging this kind of continuing government subsidy for the health insurance industry. We need healthcare not insurance companies. AHIP represents those 1300 insurance companies that would be replaced by a single payer such as an improved Medicare for All. At present, they benefit from the increasing privatization of Medicare Part D and Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements for their management costs. That's why they are proposing to 'help the uninsured' by providing more tax money to Medicare and Medicaid. The uninsured must be covered. It is a mandate. But the rest of us need a good healthcare system too. It could be so simple and so beneficial if we went for a single payer national non- profit healthcare system instead of more money to the insurance companies. Marilyn Clement is National Coordinator of Healthcare-NOW, www.healthcare-now.org *** HOLIDAY PARTY/SILENT AUCTION WITH KAMAU DAAOOD AND ALISON DE LA CRUZ SATURDAY, DEC. 2, 2006, AT SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LIBRARY An end-of-the-year event at the Southern California Library will feature performances by powerful spoken word artists Kamau Daaood and Alison De La Cruz, as well as music and tours. A gift table and silent auction will offer unique and hard-to-find items, including rare audio materials, prints, and photos reproduced from the Library's unique archives on L.A. history; poetry zines produced by South L.A. youth; and political and cultural books. It's all at the Southern California Library, 6120 S. Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles (between Slauson and Gage) on Saturday, December 2, 2006, 2 to 5 p.m. It is free and open to the public; families and children welcome. Refreshments will be offered. For more information and performance times, go to www.socallib.org or call (323) 759-6063. A pioneer of the spoken word movement, Kamau Daaod is a "word musician" and arts activist who began his early development as a member of the Watts Writers Workshop and later co-founded the World Stage Performance Gallery in Leimert Park with jazz drummer Billy Higgins. An inspired seer and seeker, Daaood speaks to and from the urgency of his times as captured in his critically acclaimed CD Leimert Park, and his long-awaited collection of poetry The Language of Saxophones: Selected Poems of Kamau Daaood. Alison De La Cruz is a poet, playwright, performance artist, event producer, and 'ate' (older sister) who explores a breadth of issues at the intersections of Filipino American, bi-queer, woman-of-color identities with humor and poignant honesty. She has performed her solo theatrical work, including Naturally Graceful and Sungka, in venues throughout the country. She is also the writer, narrator, and associate producer of Grassroots Rising, a documentary on low-wage Asian immigrant families in L.A. DJ Wendell Pascual (the "Ascetic Fish"), a student of "vinyl accupuncture and ayurvedic crate digging" who has produced shows for KPFK 90.7fm's Aziatik Rhythmz, will provide music for the soul. The event is sponsored by the Southern California Library, a people's library located in South Los Angeles, founded over 40 years ago. The Library has one of the largest archives of Los Angeles community history in the world and provides access to rare stories of L.A. history through its collections and community programming. "I believe that the right words offered in the right way can be music holding us together... that art in community is noble work that fosters beauty and meaning into our lives." These words from poet Kamau Daaood reflect the themes of this event: faith, hope, leadership, and change in action. In the urgency of these times, the event offers an opportunity to come together to celebrate the beauty of our communities that nourishes our hope and faith, sustaining our struggles to change the world for the better. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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