Policies and Regulations

Dr. Sowell draws parallels with the economic policies of President Obama and those of FDR. http://www.LibertyPen.com

Duration : 0:6:33

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http://www.thegrio.com/2009/12/cornel-west-obama-is-for-big-business-not-the-jobless.php

Educator Cornel West sat down with theGrio to discuss how unemployment is affecting African-Americans.

TheGrio asked West about national unemployment trends for African-Americans. He called on President Barack Obama to implement a comprehensive jobs policy — a program that would mirror former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, and focus primarily on creating jobs for people without a college education.

“[It's] the same way we had an investment banker policy when they were in trouble,” West said of what he views as a double-standard in current economic policy. “All AIG needed was a push. So let’s help push these poor people, these working people into jobs with a living wage.”

West, who has been outspoken in both his support and criticism of Obama, said the current administration has not made poor people a priority.

“Obama has an economic team that’s composed of persons who have no history whatsoever of being concerned about poor people,” West said. “Obama’s been doing a good job of reassuring the establishment. But there’s many of us who believe the establishment is on our necks.”

The Princeton University professor is busy promoting his new book, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. The memoir is a departure from West’s previous books, where he focused primarily on issues such as race and social justice.

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Duration : 0:4:27

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Lost in the economic crisis, the lousy horserace numbers for McCain, and the personal attacks of the McCain camp is the ongoing health care crisis in the United States. With our current system, there remain 47 million without care and millions more who are underinsured. Cost issues exist alongside inequalities of care access. And now, with unemployment rising, the issue is becoming more acute.
Paul Krugman: Conservative Republicans still hate Medicare, and would kill it if they could — in fact, they tried to gut it during the Clinton years (thats what the 1995 shutdown of the government was all about). But so far they havent been able to pull that off.

So John McCain wants to destroy the health insurance of nonelderly Americans instead. But but Not good. Obama’s idea is different. Today, he signed on to the Health Care for America Now principles, which do not endorse specific legislation, but are compatible with single payer and other approaches. From a press release:

Today, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) signed the Health Care for America Now statement declaring that he is on the side of quality, affordable health care for all and opposed to leaving Americans on their own with unregulated health insurance.

There’s still plenty of room to argue about the best way to get there, but with a recession looming and people in danger of losing their jobs, this is not an issue that can be ignored any more. Expect it to be brought up in the town hall debate tomorrow – unlike the phoney stuff being brought up by McCain’s campaign and his increasingly shrill VP candidate, who caters only to the shrinking Republican base, this is an issue that all Americans actually care about.

“Health Care for America Now’s goal this year is to get the next President and a majority of Congress committed to the principles of quality, affordable health care for all and opposed to policies that would tax our benefits at work and leave us on our own with the unregulated, bureaucratic private insurance industry,” said Richard Kirsch, National Campaign Manager, Health Care for America Now. “With Senator Obama’s signature, we are taking a major step towards getting the next President and Congress to make comprehensive health care reform a priority in 2009.”

John McCain’s plan is anything but acceptable. Since it’s all about saving money and nothing else, he proposes, according to the WSJ: McCain Plans Federal Health Cuts…Medicare, Medicaid Spending Would Be Reduced to Offset Proposed Tax Credit
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Sen. McCain’s senior policy adviser, said Sunday that the campaign has always planned to fund the tax credits, in part, with savings from Medicare and Medicaid. Those government health-care programs serve seniors, poor families and the disabled. Medicare spending for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 is estimated at $457.5 billion.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/6/124346/441/758/621648
Those of us who analyze health policy and trends for a living have struggled to follow John McCain’s health plan through its many seemingly-improvised changes. First he was taxing health benefits through both payroll and income tax. Then he said he only intended to apply income tax, which meant that his plan would create even larger deficits. Now he says there won’t be deficits, because he’s going to make up the cost of those tax credits by slashing Medicare and Medicaid.

When a candidate suddenly, almost whimsically changes the way he proposes to handle $1.3 trillion – which is the amount of money his plan puts in play over the next ten years – it’s time to get nervous.

We already knew the McCain plan was going to cost most Americans money (in at least three different ways.) Now we know it could jeopardize their medical care when they get older, too. The end result of this off-the-cuff planning could change the way Americans receive, or don’t receive, medical care in this country…at least three kinds of health “tax increases” (more accurately described as increased personal cost) under the McCain plan: a “slow bleed” for people who retain coverage as the tax credit falls behind inflation, a $,7000-plus spike for people who lose their coverage immediately, and an increase in out-of-pocket costs (and denials, etc.) for people who still have insurance. What do we get in return? According to that neutral study, three million uninsured would gain coverage – briefly. After five years the number of uncovered would go up.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/mccains-erratic-health-st_b_132242.html

Duration : 0:10:47

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What will become of the industry when Americans are trading in their policies? For more, click here: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/life-insurance-securitization-wall-street-bet-life-expectancy/story?id=8757456

Duration : 0:2:21

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The Stench of Truth 224
Letters I’ve written on these issues. Use them as you see fit.
Reject Bernanke:
Dear Senator Casey:

In your new legislative session you will be asked to confirm Ben Bernanke as the Federal Reserve chairman for another term of office. I strongly urge you to reject his nomination and force him out of office. His policies have done nothing but prop up failing banks and financial institutions, most notably Goldman Sachs, at the expense of the people of this country and other rival firms.
Mr. Bernanke has utterly failed to put forth a policy which gets help to people in this country who are struggling under massive debt, loss of jobs, foreclosures, etc. It is about time that someone takes the initiative and tells these appointees that it is time for them to go home.
As my Senator I expect that you will do everything in your power while in office to see to it that your constituents needs are met and that in these trying times policy will be geared toward helping working families and individuals.
The Federal Reserve under the direction of Bernanke has embarked on a dangerous road that could lead to hyperinflation or some other calamity. It is time that we stop rewarding failure in this country.
Reject Bernankes re-nomination and appoint someone who has a new policy that will directly aid people in this country and not prop up failed banking houses that will give multimillion dollar bonuses to their CEOs and upper management. We need sound fiscal policy and we need a Federal Reserve chairman who is completely devoid of ties to Wall Street which has completely dominated all financial policy in this country for too long and which has led us into the economic mess that we are in.
You can take a step in the right direction towards getting the country out of the hands of Wall Street speculators by rejecting Bernankes reappointment to the FED chair.

Thank You:

Napolitano needs to go:
Dear Senator Casey:

I am writing today to urge you most strongly to admonish or ask for the dismissal of Janet Napolitano from her position as head of Homeland Security as she has supported the Homegrown Terrorism report which was a cobbled together mess compiled from outdated sources by the Southern Poverty Law Center which styles itself as an anti-hate group but which is in reality an anti-free speech group which uses outdated and erroneous information to justify its labeling of groups as hate groups.
For Napolitano to rely upon the work of this group which itself relied on outdated and bogus information contained on websites which contained no original research and which subsequently labeled war veterans as potential domestic terrorists as well as those who support the constitution. This is shameful and a disgrace. This woman should hold no public office, let alone an office which purports to provide security for the homeland from terrorists when she has totally given up on her duties to rely upon accurate information to compile reports which would be used by the government and police groups.
Please take action on this matter as it is a very important matter, which should not go unnoticed.

Sincerely:

Duration : 0:10:39

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Watch more Freedom Watch episodes here = http://freedomwatchonfox.com/category/show-archives/

Also check me out on http://www.facebook.com/schiffreport and http://www.twitter.com/PeterSchiff

Duration : 0:10:17

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http://www.informedtrades.com/
A lesson on the business cycle and how the government uses fiscal policy to try and keep growth going and inflation in check and what this means for traders of the stock, futures, and forex markets.

Fiscal policy can be defined for our purposes very simply as anything relating to government spending and taxation. Before looking at the fiscal policy role of government in trying to influence the economy, one must first have an understanding of the business cycle. For a number of reasons which are widely debated the economy goes through repeated periods of growth and contraction over time which can be broken down into the following phases.

1. A Contraction where economic activity and growth slows and can turn negative
2. Trough where the economy stops contracting and a new expansion begins
3. An Expansion or the speeding up of economic growth.
4. A Peak where the growth of the economy maxes out and begins to turn downward

We could spend many months going over and debating why this is but for our purposes it is simply important to understand that, while the timing and length of each of these phases has varied widely, the above pattern repeats itself over and over again throughout history. This is important for us as traders to understand as different phases of the business cycle and changes in peoples forecasts of where the economy is in those cycles is arguably the greatest factor which effects the price level of every market.

Prior to the great depression the US Government had a pretty hands off approach in regards to the business cycle. Since the great depression however the government has played a much more active role in the economy with its stated goals being to act to facilitate full employment and price stability. To help understand these goals and the balancing act that goes on between them as they often conflict, lets look at how each relates to the different phases of the business cycle.

1. During an expansion we start to see more people employed as companies begin to sell more goods and services and need to hire more people to keep up with the demand. As economic growth picks up and more people are employed there are more people spending their paychecks which can cause prices to rise, something also known as inflation. Because of this effect on prices the government’s primary concern here will normally be trying to keep prices stable and inflation in check without hurting economic growth. The two things they can do in regards to Fiscal Policy to try and keep prices in check and inflation at bay are:

a. Raise Taxes: By raising taxes money is taken away from the consumer who now has less money to spend helping to counteract the demand that is pushing prices up and causing inflation.

and/or

Duration : 0:8:37

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http://www.informedtrades.com/
A lesson on the business cycle and how the government uses fiscal policy to try and keep growth going and inflation in check and what this means for traders of the stock, futures, and forex markets.

Fiscal policy can be defined for our purposes very simply as anything relating to government spending and taxation. Before looking at the fiscal policy role of government in trying to influence the economy, one must first have an understanding of the business cycle. For a number of reasons which are widely debated the economy goes through repeated periods of growth and contraction over time which can be broken down into the following phases.

1. A Contraction where economic activity and growth slows and can turn negative
2. Trough where the economy stops contracting and a new expansion begins
3. An Expansion or the speeding up of economic growth.
4. A Peak where the growth of the economy maxes out and begins to turn downward

We could spend many months going over and debating why this is but for our purposes it is simply important to understand that, while the timing and length of each of these phases has varied widely, the above pattern repeats itself over and over again throughout history. This is important for us as traders to understand as different phases of the business cycle and changes in peoples forecasts of where the economy is in those cycles is arguably the greatest factor which effects the price level of every market.

Prior to the great depression the US Government had a pretty hands off approach in regards to the business cycle. Since the great depression however the government has played a much more active role in the economy with its stated goals being to act to facilitate full employment and price stability. To help understand these goals and the balancing act that goes on between them as they often conflict, lets look at how each relates to the different phases of the business cycle.

1. During an expansion we start to see more people employed as companies begin to sell more goods and services and need to hire more people to keep up with the demand. As economic growth picks up and more people are employed there are more people spending their paychecks which can cause prices to rise, something also known as inflation. Because of this effect on prices the government’s primary concern here will normally be trying to keep prices stable and inflation in check without hurting economic growth. The two things they can do in regards to Fiscal Policy to try and keep prices in check and inflation at bay are:

a. Raise Taxes: By raising taxes money is taken away from the consumer who now has less money to spend helping to counteract the demand that is pushing prices up and causing inflation.

and/or

Duration : 0:8:37

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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2008/01/25/Strengthening_the_Middle_Class_Pt__1

Economist, author and commentator Robert Kuttner contrasts U.S. economic policies with those found in most Scandinavian countries.

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Urban Conversations Conference: Strengthening the Middle Class with opening remarks from Congressman Jerry Nadler and featuring speaker Robert Kuttner.

As income disparities between wealthy and working-class families become more pronounced, middle-class neighborhoods are disappearing from many American cities. How are leaders working to make their cities livable for middle-income families and affordable for the millions aspiring to gain a foothold in the middle class?

Urban Conversations brings together elected officials and leading thinkers from across the nation to foster fresh perspectives and new insights into the key challenges facing urban America and to discuss strategies for addressing them. – The New School

Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect. He writes regularly for the magazine on political and economic issues. He has just completed a book, to be published in 2007, on the connection between political and economic inequality and systemic risks facing the economy. He is pursuing these issues as a distinguished senior fellow at Demos.

Kuttner is the author of six previous books: Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets (1997); The End of Laissez-Faire (1991); The Life of the Party (1987); The Economic Illusion (1984); Revolt of the Haves (1980); and Family Re-union (2002), co-authored with his late wife, Sharland Trotter. His syndicated weekly editorial column originates in The Boston Globe and appears Mondays on the Prospect website.

He is also one of five co-founders of the Economic Policy Institute, and currently serves on its board of directors.

Duration : 0:6:6

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An overview of Margaret Thatcher’s first term in office, during which her government pursued a rigorous policy of economic monetarism. In response to calls for a change in policy from the political left and right, Mrs. Thatcher delivered one of the most famous speeches in modern Political history in which she declared – “The lady’s not for turning…”

Duration : 0:3:32

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