RobsRealNews

The headline said the Fed was targeting inflation. I'm not a student of economics but I don't understand how that could
work. Why doesn't the fed talk about the need to control the cost of every aspect of healthcare. Raising interest rates
crcreates unemployment and slows growth but it is incapable of controlling the costs of things like healthcare and energy.
Why doesn't the press ever express the opinion someone like Robert Kuttner on these issues.

Negraponte head of Intelligence. That makes sense. They select the person who organized right wing death squads to assasinate
Sandanistras who were trying to help the poor in Nacaragua. It's a perfectly logical choice if your a sick fuck like Bush.

Lets talk about the sick fucks in the CIA that were blowing up black churches and rigged the computerized voting
machines to fix the election for Bush. These same sick fucks who have made the media into an instrument of
conservative propaganda.

Now Bush is waisting tax payer's money going to Europe. The European people recognize him for what he is; ignorant
white trash from Texas. He's a fool if he thinks he's going to wow them. Maybe he'll impress them in the same manner as his father
did when he vomited in front of the Japanese. Like father like son. After Hitler the Eupopean's better recognize a tinpot
totalitarian leader. When Euopeans see Bush as the US president know democracy is dead in the US.

What I would do is use all the profits of the energy industry to buy up the healthcare industry at a fire sale stock price.
Then I would have the industry only have CEO's that will run the company as a not for profit. Once they have bought the
healthcare industry they should buy the railroads and use any profits from the combined energy, healthcare, rail industry
to improve those industries for the benefit of society.

While Bush is in Europe he should ponder the fact that because of him the Europeans hate the US a hundred times
more than the Chinese, N Koreans, Syrians, Iraqis and Iranians.

Page 2, February 24th, Financial Times

"Germany and Italy have reported unexpected falls in business confidence, highlighting the fragility and unevenness of
continental Europes economic recovery"
"Germany has also gone further in tackling labor market inflexibilities, which while boosting competitiveness, had
undermined consumer confidence."
"GDP fell in the last three months of last year in Germany and Italy , as well as in the Netherlands"
Structural Reforms "Italy to unveil plans for raising competitiveness"
Italy,"The economy contracted at a quarter on quarter rate of .3 per centin the last three months of 2004, putting last
years annual growth rate at 1.1 per cent after .4 percent in 2004 and .3 percent in 2003"

Why do I quote these statements. Because they express the madness of our conservative rulers. They force their
ideology on nations and they always fail. They always make things worse. The only thing they know how to do is comfort
the comfortable and afflict the afflicted. Their advice is always to impoverish labor more and cut taxes on the wealthy. The
result is always economic decline.Galbraith describing the even handed majesty of Reaganomics, "The poor need the
incentive of lower benefits, while the rich require the incentive of lower taxes." The result is always recession and
depression. Numbers are meaningless to our ruling barbarians. They will impose more of the same on the world till every
economy collapses.
P4 Canada pledges tax cuts,-"The corporate tax rate will fall over the next five years from 21% to 19%"

Page 2 continues, "Turk Telecom to head 7bn auction." As if privatizing monopolies so profiteers could feed off
monopolies and bankrupt their economy with monopoly prices is the answer. You see what it has done to healthcare in the states.

While the world struugles in global depression since conservatives have forced their economics on the world what is the
federal Reserves answer? Raise interest rates. The madmen have siezed the citadels of power and are impoverishing
the world.

I havn't really been following global events in more than a decade but I remember a time in the early nineties reading that
the Japanese economy was so strong they could leverage it and buy the United States. Then we forced structural
adjustments on them and they have been in recession ever since. Then we forced structural adjustments on SE Asia
impoverishing over a billion people. More recently we forced structural adjustments on Europe and they have little to no
growth since. Latin America has had little to no growth since Ronald Reagan forced trickle down on their economies. So
you wonder why the majority of people are opposed to globalism. It's because the system is ruled by a bunch of right
wing crack pots who should be lynched. China, the only country they can't tell what to do, is the only country benefitting
from the madness of our crack-pot conservative masters

The reason the media broadcasts the views of right wing think tanks instead of someone like Robert Kuttner is because
our rulers don't want to confront the fact that in their corrupt ignorance they have ruined the lives of billions of people.
They are so arrogant inhumane and corrupt they persist in their ideology in the face of all the human misery the statistics
prove they have sown.

Bush and his handlers know privatized pensions have been a disaster everywhere they have been tried. In light of that,
only a deranged sick fuck like Bush and Schwartzenegger would even bring the subject up.

Quote from 2/25 Financial Times
"Slovakia has shown itself to be an eager pupil of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank by implimenting
tough welfare reforms and introducing a 19 % corporate tax and a flat income tax. So this what the deranged sick fucks
who put Bush in power and chose the leaders of the IMF and World Bank are forcing on the world. And they wonder why
anyone would want to blow up the world trade building.

As many merge on Hollywood and Highland to see the Academy Awards I suggest they take a walk down Hollywood Blvd
and witness what the slum landlords who own the property on the Blvd have done to improve the property in the last 70
years. Absolutely nothing. They have reeped billions off the Hollywood name while preserving Hollywood as a giant slum.
These slum landlords have already recouped their investment many times over. For that reason the property on
Hollywood Blvd should be condemned and luxury condominiums should be built on the Blvd from the 101 to LaBrea.

With regards to "No Child Left Behind" I administered one of the test designed to measure student progress and used to
assess failing schools. It was at a school in South Central LA. Almost everyone in the class refused to take the test. They
signed their name, put their heads down and took a nap. So much for the tests

Now Bush wants to put a 250,000 cap on malpractice awards. I wonder what Bush will propose to do next in the name of
God on behalf of criminals.

THE TAXONOMIST
A Double-Barreled Attack

BY ROBERT S. McINTYRE

GEORGE w. BUSH'S Social Security proposals have come under heavy and deserved attack over the past few months.
But a few key points should be made clearer. First, repeat after me: Cutting Social Security benefits does not mean
“saving” Social Security. It means "cutting" Social Security. We can debate whether that's advisable, but we shouldn't let
anyone misname it.
Second, Social Security's most daunting problem isn't its small projected funding shortfall. The real crisis is that the rest
of the government stole the Social Security Trust Fund, spent it, and, because of Bush's tax cuts, won't be able to pay it
back (or, pretty soon, do much of anything else either).
On paper, saving Social Security is easy. A mere 7-percent increase in payroll taxes would allow the trust fund to pay
promised benefits all the way through 2075. Simply boosting the 6.2-percent Social Security payroll-tax rate on workers
and employers to 6.65 percent would do the trick. So would raising the earnings cap on Social Security taxes from
$90,000 to $175,000.
But making Social Security internally solvent won't ensure Social Security's future, as we may sadly discover when it
comes time to redeem the trust fund. One
way or another, taxpayers in the future will have to come up with the money to pay for Social Security benefits. Our job
today should be to try to ensure that's possible. President Bush's mission seems to be to make sure it isn't.
The Bush government has chosen to pay for close to a third of its non-Social Security spending with borrowed money. As
a result, Bush shamelessly asserts that by 2010, most of the national debt (including IOUs to Social Security) will have
accumulated on his watch. At the current pace, the debt will rise to more than three-quarters of the economy by 2015-up
from less than half (and declining) in 2001, when Bill Clinton retired. Of course, as the debt balloons, so do federal
interest payments.
Counting interest paid on the bonds held by Social Security, about a fifth of non-Social Security taxes paid this year will
go to interest payments. Unless Bush's mistakes are reversed, interest will devour 30 percent of our non-Social Security
taxes by 2015-and this frightening trend will continue to accelerate thereafter. As any one who's ever run up a credit-card
bill knows, interest means paying for past spending. It's never pleasant, and it some point it can become impossible.
Even if fiscal policy stabilizes somewhat after 2015, interest payments will continue to rise. By 2035 they would consume
37 percent of all non-Social security taxes-at the same time that another 8 percent of those taxes would have to be spent
to start redeeming Social Security's bonds. By 2075, a staggering two-thirds of all non -Social Security taxes would go to
interest (55 percent) and bond redemption (11 percent). Because that’s both unimaginable and unaffordable, everything
the government does will be endangered-including the a solvent Social Security system.
The obvious solution to this catastrophe would be to reinstate Clinton's policy of collecting enough taxes to balance the
regular budget. Then, instead of an ever-growing interest burden, we'd see interest, plummeting as a share of national
income. In fact, from now through 2075, only 14 percent of federal tax revenue would have to be devoted to paying
interest and redeeming Social Secuity IOUs. All the remaining tax dollars Americans pay would be available to support the
rest of the government.
Not surprisingly, our current president disdains any such morally responsible approach. Not only has he ruled out a
modest payroll-tax boost to sustain the Social Security Trust Fund, he's further bankrupting the rest of the government
with still more upper income tax cuts-at a likely price tag of 2.4 trillion over the upcoming decade.
One final point: What about Bush’s proposal to divert half of the tax revenues that support Social Security's retirement
fund into private investment accounts? Critics point to many huge problems with this scheme, but one insidious motive
behind it deserves more attention.        Currently, Social Security benefits are calculated on a progressive scale that give
the highest rate of return on contribution to lower wage workers. But private accounts would         by their very nature
offer everyone about the same rate of return. So Bush's plan would cause a dramatic shift in income away from those
who need it the most and toward those who need it the least.
Come to think of it, isn't that Bush’s trademark? TAP

Robert S. McIntyre is the director of Citizens for Tax Justice.

Conservative crack-pots fucked up the German economy before the Nazi's seized power and they are doing it again. The
March 1, Financial Times ran an article on how these conservative crack pots have many German doctors now working
on a cash basis. History always repreats itself but this time they probably won't be blaming their depression on the jews.
Considering they no longer have many jews and most jews are social-democrats. They can see the statistics on
economic decline in Germany since Agenda 2010. Do you really think the conservative crack-pots give a fuck if they ruin
the lives of everyone in Europe? Conservative propaganda ministers would impoverish the globe if they thought the
parasites would throw a few quarters their way in exchange for their service. Allan Greenspan serves the same role.

Robert Kuttner or Reich should pick the head of the World Bank. In one of my first letters I said Kuttner or Reich should
dictate any and all theings with economic implications

Shaw Quotes:
In his effort to escape from uglyness and unhapiness the rich man intensifies both. Every new yard of west end creates a
new acre of East End.

In an ugly and unhappy world the richest man can purchase nothing but ugliness and unhappiness.

Shaw on our conservative masters
"Your friends are the dullest gog I know. They are not beautiful: only decorated. They are not clean: they re only shaved
and starched. They're not educated, only college passmen. they are not religious: they are only pewrenters. They are
not moral: only conventional. They are not virtuous: they are only cowardly. They are not even vicious: only frail. They
are not artistic: they are only lascivious. They are not prosperious: they are only rich. They re not loyal: They are only
servile. not dutiful: only sheepish. not public spirited: only patriotic; not coragious: only quarrelsome. not determined: only
obstinate. Not masterful: only dominerring; not self controlled: only obtuse. not self respecting, only vain. not kind, only
sentimental. not social, only gregarious, not considerate, only polite; not intelligent, only opinionated; not progressive,
only factious; not imaginative, only superstitious; not just, only vindictive; not generious, only propitiatory; not disciplined,
only cowed; and not truthful at all-liars everyone of them, to the very backbone of their souls.

Tightening bank lending standards with Basel II could have retarded growth in the EU. Nationalizing them would have
helped growth. I havn't really followed the privatizations that took place in Europe in the 90's. Taking the profits out of big
business and industries like healthcare and energy by lowering prices can only help growth. FDR forced businesses to
open there books to see if they were over charging and consequently taking purchasing power from the economy.
Privatizing an industry usually leads to cuts in wages, which lowers consumption, and prices increases, which
subsequently reduce purchasing power to spend on things to promote growth. I dont know that what was privatized was
significant enough to lower growth. But I'm sure cuts in the price of health care and energy will stimulate growth.   These
two industrries have declared war on the people of the world. It's the people vrs the healthcare, energy and military
industrial complexes. Thats whats killing the people by stealing all their money.

Raising wages and a more progressive tax structure also promotes growth. Inequality slows growth. Keynsianism didn't
die because conservative crackpots wished it so.

The Bush administrations choice to represent the US at the UN is just another indication of the totalitarian nature of those
in power. Having the ability to exercise power to them is like the high from some type of drug. The choice is just one more
indication of the extent to which they have been corrupted by power and how unfit they are to be in a position of power.
It's as if we had ignorant unsuffisticated barbarians dictating their will on the mass of humanity. This UN choice's
comments indicate he has no respect for the opinions of other nations. The people of the world are suffering the
consequences of their quest for the american empire. It's mind boggling to imagine that after all their mistakes they don't
question their judgement and have so little respect for other people.

The ruling conservative parasites hate the fact that most German workers are paid well enough to support a family.
These parasites feel most superior when workers live in cronic financial insecurity and need to work three jobs to survive
and lick and faun for every little crum dropped to them should our twisted rulers deign them fit to survive. These
conservative crackpots have created hell on earth for the masses and need to be exterminated.

I'm waiting for the day I read that a company refused to build a new factory in a country because that countries labor laws
didn't force businesses to pay livable wages.

The Economic Illusion by
Robert Kuttner

Here he discusses the Phillips curve
"Intriguingly, a comparison of inflation-unemployment relationships in the major industrial nations shows that the best
bargains occurred in nations where unemployment was low. Surprisingly enough, some of the most successful records of
combining low unemployment and low inflation were made by countries with strong labor unions and powerful social
democratic parties.
One mechanism that improves the terms of tradeoff between unemployment and inflation is a social bargain sometimes
called an incomes policy: this means simply that average wage increases are politically bargained, equitably distributed,
and held roughly to the rate of real growth in the economy. It turns out that unions, where they have substantial political
legitimacy and influence, are often willing, if not eager, to trade the narrow goal of wage increases for the broader
"solidarity" goals of full employment and comprehensive welfare protections. As their part of the bargain, they refrain from
taking advantage of full employment to demand inflationary wage settlements. Paradoxically, therefore, strong unions, full
employment, and wage restraint can be mutually reinforcing. This particular social bargain has enabled countries like
West Germany and Austria, and to a lesser extent Norway and Sweden, to enjoy healthy inflation employment outcomes,
coupled with broad welfare entitlements and high savings rates as well.
Professor A. W. Phillips, in translating the unemployment and inflation data of many decades into a set of curves, looked
at the issue mechanistically. As a neoclassical economist, he naturally reasoned that tight labor markets would increase
labor's bargaining power and put upward pressure on wages; his graphs seemed to confirm the theory. He simply missed
the practical possibility that institutional and political variables and a more sophisticated social contract could make a
substantial difference in how inflationary tight labor markets had to be. In practice, the security afforded by full
employment can be conducive to wage restraint."

Once again a decision by Cheney/Bush proves they are dereanged sick fucks.
Dark Past
by Robert Parry
GEORGE W. BUSH'S CHOICE OF JOHN NEGROponte to be the first u.s. intelligence czar signals that Washington is
heading down the same road that has led to earlier American intelligence failures and controversies-from politicizing
analysis to winking at human rights abuses.
Although Negroponte's nomination is expected to sail through the Senate, one question that might be worth asking about
his tenure as u.s. ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985 is: "Were you oblivious to the Honduran military's human
rights violations and drug trafficking, or did you just ignore these problems for geopolitical reasons?"
Negroponte either oversaw a stunningly inept U.S. intelligence operation at the embassy in Tegucigalpa-missing major
events occurring under his nose-or he tolerated atrocities that included torture, rape and murder, while slanting
intelligence reports to please his superiors in Washington.
Whichever it is-incompetence or complicity-it is hard to understand how Negroponte, the current U.S. ambassador to Iraq,
can be expected to fix the intelligence flaws revealed by the Bush administration's failure to connect the dots before the
9/11 terror attacks or to avert the scandalous use of torture on Muslim suspects captured in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Despite the bipartisan praise Negroponte's nomination has elicited, a clear-eyed look at his record suggests that the
Bush administration intends to continue making two demands on the u.s. intelligence community: that analysts wear rose-
colored glasses when assessing u.S. policies and that field operatives turn a blind eye to atrocities committed by u.s.
allies or American interrogators.
A history of oversight
Given the human rights records of the Honduran military and the Nicaraguan contras who set up shop in Honduras
during Negroponte's tenure as ambassador the early '80S, he will have no moral standing as a public official who
repudiates abusive interrogation techniques and brutal counterinsurgency tactics. Indeed, some cynics might suggest
that's one of the reasons Bush picked him.
Negropontes work in Honduras means, too, that he will come to his new job with a history of forwarding inaccurate
intelligence to Washington and leaving out information that would have upset the upper echelon of the Reagan - Bush
administration. For his part, Negroponte, who is now 65, has staunchly denied knowledge of "death squad" operations by
the Honduran military in the '80S.
In 1983, in another move that helped the Honduran military and the contras, the Reagan-Bush administration closed
down the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) office at the u.s. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, as Honduras was
emerging as an important base for cocaine transshipments to the United States.
'\Elements of the Honduran military were involved in the protection of drug traffickers from 1980 on; is how a Senate
Foreign Relations investigative report, issued in 1989 by a subcommittee headed by Sen. John _Kerry, put it. "These
activities were reported to approiate U.S. government officials throughout the period. Instead of moving decisively to
close down the drug traficking by stepping up the DEA presence in the country and using the foreign assistance the
United States was extending to the Hondurans as a lever, the United States closed the DEA office in Tegucigalpa and
appears to have ignored the issue:'
It’s unclear what role Negroponte played in shutting down the DEA office in Honduras during his time as S. ambassador,
but it is hard to imagine that a step of at significance could have occurred without at least his acquiescence.
Negroponte's ambassadorship also coincided with the evolution of the Nicaraguan contra forces from a small band
under the tutelage of Argentine intelligence officers into an irregular army supported by the CIA, and later by a secret
operation inside the White House run by National Security Council aide Oliver North.
Recent revelations

Despite several investigations into what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal, many documents out Negroponte's
involvement remained classified,
outside public knowledge. Some of that information bubbled to the surface in September 2001 when Negroponte was
facing confirmation to be Bush's ambassador to the United Nations.
In a Senate floor speech before Negroponte won confirmation, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) said, "The picture that
emerges in analyzing this new information is a troubling one:' Summarizing the new documents from the State
Department and CIA, Dodd said the evidence pointed to the fact that from 1980 to 1984, the Honduran military committed
most of the country's hundreds of human rights abuses. The documents reported that some Honduran military units,
trained by the United States, were implicated in "death squad" operations that employed counterterrorist tactics, including
torture, rape, and assassinations against people suspected of supporting leftist guerrillas in El Salvador or leftist
movements in Honduras.
Dodd criticized Negroponte's earlier Senate testimony. In response to questions about one of these units, Battalion 316,
Negroponte had said, "I have never seen any convincing substantiation that they were involved in death squad-type
activities:'
"Given what we know about the extent and nature of Honduran human rights abuses, to say that Mr. Negroponte was less
than forthcoming in his responses to my questions is being generous:' said Dodd. "I was also troubled by Ambassador
Negroponte's unwillingness to admit that-as a consequence of other U.S. policy priorities-the u.s. Embassy, by acts of
omissions, end [ed] up shading the truth about the extent and nature of ongoing human rights abuses in the 1980s:'
"The Inter-American Court of Human Rights had no such reluctance in assigning blame to the Honduran government
during its adjudication of a case brought against the government of Honduras [in 1987]:' Dodd said. "The Court found
that 'a practice of disappearances carried out or tolerated by Honduran officials existed between 1981-84' ... Based upon
an extensive review of u.s. intelligence information by the CIA Working Group in 1996, the CIA is prepared to stipulate
that 'during the 1980-84 period, the Honduran military committed most of the hundreds of human rights abuses reported
in Honduras. These abuses were often politically motivated and officially sanctioned: "
However, when Bush nominated Negroponte to be ambassador to Iraq in 2004, Dodd and other Democrats largely
dropped their objections. The National Catholic Reporter, which had covered the right-wing persecution of Catholic clergy
in Central America during the '80S, was one of the few publications still questioning Negroponte's fitness.
In an April 2004 article, the magazine recounted a statement from Society of Helpers' Sister Laetitia Bordes, who had
gone to Honduras and approached Negroponte about the "disappearances" of 32 women who had fled to Honduras after
rightist death squads in El Salvador assassinated Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980.
Later, these women, including one who had been Romero's secretary, "were forcibly taken from their living quarters in
Tegucigalpa, pushed into a van and disappeared;' Sister Laetitia Bordes said. "John Negroponte listened to us as we
exposed the facts. ... Negroponte denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of these women. He insisted that the u.s.
embassy did not interfere in the affairs of the Honduran government:'
The National Catholic Reporter noted, "Years later, the Baltimore Sun would reveal that Negroponte apparently knew
more than he was letting on. In fact, charge his many critics, the ambassador oversaw an exponential increase
in military aid to the Honduran army, deceptively downplayed human rights violations, and played a key role in supporting
the activities of Battalion 316, a CIA-backed Honduran-based regional counterinsurgency unit subsequently found to be
among the cruelest of the cruel:'
Many congressional Democrats, as well as Republicans, consider those two-decade-old concerns about Central America
stale and irrelevant to Negroponte's nomination as the nation's first National Intelligence Director. But his tenure as
ambassador to Honduras raises questions not only about his moral judgment and integrity, but his capacity to assess
information and to ensure that political pressures don't influence intelligence reporting.
As the first person chosen to hold this post-with oversight responsibility for all u.s. intelligence activities- Negroponte
might legitimately be expected to represent something other than tolerance of death squads and politicization of
intelligence information.

With the implimentation of Hartz 4 in Germany the long term unemployed now get 300E a month to live on. One can't live
on 300E so this may be a death sentence. And we thought the Nazi's were cruel and sadistic. Maybe the US should have
trials in Neurenburg again and tr the conservatives who forced these policies on the German people. And then we should
do the same in this country. It's wrong morally and economically. A quote from Kuttner's book "The Economic Illusion"
illustrates the point. "On the one hand keynes recognized,excessive savings, by definition reduces spending and hence
the demand for goods: too little demand causes unemployment. On the other hand, it takes invetment to create jobs and
investment requires savings; "employment can only increase," he wrote, with an increase in investment" Most of this
unemployment is in East Germany where there are no jobs and the unemployed didn't grow up in a capitalist system so
they can't adapt. After WW2 their was no question that everyone should be taken care of by the government if they
couldn't make it on their own. People had empathy because so many people had suffered. For that reason I know the
majority of Germans would never approve of cutting monthly support below subsistence. They knew after thewar that
anyone couldhave ended up in such a predicament. This would never have happened if the Soviet Union existed and
they had real democracy. Cutting such benefits isn't going to increase efficiency one bit. It will just piss the Germans off.
German's are most productive if their is solidarity and concern for one another. It's such a small percentage of
government spending it should have just been left alone. Like the Japanese they don't mind giving everything for the
benefit of the company or the common good when they know if they should become unemployed or disable someone will
provide for them. I;d love to see a survey asking the german voters if they don't mind paying an extra percent in taxes so
that everyone has enough.

Keynes said "There is no clear evidence from experience," he wrote,'that the investment policy which is most socially
adventageous coincides with that that is most profitable." And again in a famous passage, "when the capital development
of a country become the by product of the activities of a casino,the job is likely to be ill done."
Keynes offered to way out of this box: a demand route and a supply route. First the new emphasis on full employment
and aggregate demand reduced the need to tolerate gross inequality in the name of maximizing capital formation. When
the economy is not at full employment he suggested "the growth of capital depends not at all on a low propensity to
consume, but is, on the contrary, held back by it." In this context, "the abstinence of the rich" is bad for the
economy, and the redistribution of purchasing power to those with greater propensity to consume is
beneficial." Thus concludes Keynes triumphantly, "One of the chief social justifications of wealth is, therefore removed."
The highlighted sentence by Keynes above makes my point. What better way to stimulate demand then to give it to the
poor long term unemployed that need it to survive. Conservatives did the opposite with Hartz 4 in the name of stimulating
growth. Corporate germany is awash in capital and makes no investment for lack of demand. If more of their profit was
taxed and spent on the poor their would be demand to warrent investment.

It appears the US has forced their style of Capitalist dictatorship style of economic system/sham democracy on Russia.
For that reason I believe they have every right to nuke the US back to the stone age.

'Managed' No More
Russians take to the streets to protest the privatization of their social welfare system.

MOSCOW - WHILE AMERICANS DEBATE THE
potential impact of Social Security privatization, Russians are already reacting to
a sweeping overhaul of their system. The protest wave began in early January, when thousands of angry pensioners in
several cities blockaded roads, occupied government buildings and scuffled with police over cancellation of their
traditional welfare benefits. By late February, students, trade unionists and academics were rallying over a wider range of
issues, and the five-year period of social calm, often credited
to President Vladimir Putin's strategy of "managed democracy," was in shambles.
Putin is not-at least not yet-in serious trouble. But many of his government's draconian plans to privatize Russia's social
sphere, including housing, education, health care and public transport, have been thrown into disarray. "They may call it
'adjustment; or going over to market mechanisms, but this is about slashing government expenditures and removing the
life-support systems for millions of people; says Mikhail Delyagin, president of the Institute of globalization Studies in
Moscow. "People are only beginning to realize how deeply affected they will be by these changes. We can expect much
bigger protests in the months to come:'
The trigger was a new law that kicked in January 1, replacing a multitude of in-kind benefits enjoyed by Russia's 30
million pensioners with a single cash payment. The canceled services included the right to ride free on public transport,
discount medicines, access to no-cost health clinics, housing subsidies and a range of other privileges. Retirees, who
took to the streets in rolling protests that were still going on in late February, complained that the compensation added to
their pensions barely made up a fraction of what they'd lost. The reform also impacted millions' of others, notably
disabled people who lost access to free wheel chairs, prosthetics and therapy, guaranteed since Solviet times.
Russian media reported on a spate of assaults by elderly passengers upon bus conductors who demanded fares,
highlighting the rage felt by some at losing the right to a ride for free. "Many older people will feel isolated now, like they
can't afford to travel!, to visit family and friends like they used' to;' says Valentin Makarov, an 84 year old World War II
veteran.        "
Makarov did the math and joined hundreds of others to blockade the main road into Moscow from the suburb of Khimki
in January. He says his monthly pension of 2,300 rubles (about $80 u.S.) was increased by 450 rubles ($15 u.S.). But his
apartment maintenance charges alone jumped by 35 per cent, or 300 rubles ($10 I
US), and he must now pay 600 rubles twice a month for medicine he needs. "If
we have to pay to use public transport, that will be another 600 rubles a month
at least;' he says. "There is no way to make ends meet, and the few things we could
rely on to be free have been taken away.”
According to a calculation made by Communist lawmakers, the full value
of promised state benefits to some 100 million needy Russians totaled one and
a half trillion rubles, or about $50 billion U.S. But last year only 550 billion rubles (about $18 billion U.S.) was actually paid
out to fund the system. "The budget for
2005 provides only 160 billion rubles        I (about $5 billion), or more than a three-
fold reduction;' says Vladimir Kashin, a leading Communist deputy of the Duma, Russia's parliament. "We are looking at a
full-scale attack on the needs of the majority of people.”
Russian authorities were quick to blame opposition agitators for the unrest. But, ironically, even the powerful Communist
Party-whose membership is mainly pensioners-appears to have been blindsided by January's initial wave of protest. The
Communists and other opposition groups, such as the liberal Yabloko ' party, are now involved and planning coordinated
nationwide actions.
The Kremlin has reacted by criticizing the government for its "clumsy" implementation of the reforms, increasing cash
payments and temporarily restoring some benefits. It's offered special compensation boosts for war veterans, whom Putin
hopes will join him on Red Square for a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the USSR's victory over Nazi Germany on
May 9. The vets have threatened a boycott, which could be politically devastating.
And discontent appears to be spreading. Students have held their own rallies over a proposed law canceling all military
deferments that the Kremlin hoped might stave off the Russian army's collapse. After the protests, the defense minister
postponed the measures until later this year. "There's a lot of ferment among students now, and not just over the threat
of being dragged into the army;' says Oleg Orlov, an organizer for the Students Defense League, one of several radical
movements said to be proliferating on Russian campuses.
'It's getting impossible to obtain the free education guaranteed in the Russian constitution. Everything is being
commercialized, with the result that poor
students are being forced out. We could see students pour into the streets this spring, just like they did in Ukraine.”
Scholars have demonstrated over meager state support for science, professional drivers rallied over the rising cost of
gasoline, and a quarter million Russians took part in a Communist Party/trade union-sponsored "day of protest" on
February 12 to demand the reforms be rolled back. A January survey conducted by the Defense ministry found that 80
percent of military personnel are "dissatisfied" over the reforms, which canceled their free rides on public transport and
curtailed their access to food rations and other non-cash benefits.
The Kremlin says it's still on track to introduce a sweeping housing reform at :he beginning of next year-potentially far
more explosive-that will privatize most municipal services and require tenants to pay market prices for utilities and
maintenance of their flats. Last year, the pro Kremlin majority in the Duma passed Russia's first-ever eviction law, so
people can now be dispossessed for chronic nonpayment of heat, electricity or other bills.
"People are expecting the worst;' says Valery Fyodorov, director of the state-run VTsIOM public opinion agency. "The
reforms have barely begun, but all our polls show that people are already deeply suspicious. They don't expect anything
good from government, and this is a very big problem.

A while back I read that the US government was forcing Bobby Fisher, America's chess champion who defeated the
Russians during the Cold War, to move back to the US. I wondered why the US would treat an american hero like this.
When I saw how the US tortured prisoners I realized that our conservative leaders are sadists who get their jollies
torturing people. Thats why they deny everyone social justice in this country. They reason for being is to reward criminals
and share in the spoils. When Cheney ran Halliburton,he cut the deal to buy Dresser Industries for a song knowing he
would personally gain when he denied all of Dresser Industries asbestos victims their right to compensation upon his
return to government. They know they not only can get away with murder, they can make money off it.

The US has been subverting democracy in Latin America for centuries. They like the status quo where almost everyone
lives in poverty and the region has had zero economic growth since Reagan forced trickle down economic policies on
their economies. Now the Bush administration accuses Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela of funding leaders in
other Latin American counties to run against the american backed corrupt dictators. The US has been funding these
corrupt sham leaders for decades. They do nothing for the people. The US put them in power to suppress the people so
that international companies can maximize the exploitation of labor and natural recources. Bush's attack on Chavez, the
first leader in decades in Latin America who has actually done something on behalf of the people, is just one more
indication of how twisted the minds are of the sick fucks in the Bush administration.

Conservatives behave just like the Nazi's. The Germans didn't learn their lesson in WW1 so they started WW2. The
conservatives deregulated energy only to see the debacle in California and Enron. Did they learn their lesson. No they
are forcing the Germans to deregulate their energy sector.

What minimum wage vote? We saw Michael's PJs

By Dante Chinni

WASHINGTON – Americans love a morality play, or at least that's what the media say. That's why we care that Martha
Stewart is home from jail and that Michael Jackson showed up late to court in his pajamas last week. These stories aren't
just about celebrity, they're about ourselves and our common national values. We see them as a window on our culture.
Of course, the celebrity factor doesn't exactly hurt either. Is the Jackson trial so important to the US psyche that we
should have reenactments of what happened in the courtroom replayed every night on TV?

In the Monitor
Tuesday, 03/15/05

What minimum wage vote?

While Martha was settling in at home and Michael was holding his courtroom pajama party, another morality play was
unfolding in Washington with far fewer cameras and commentary. The Senate last week shot down one bill and passed
another - and the fates of those respective pieces of legislation tell us more about ourselves than all the programming on
the E! network combined.

On Monday, the Senate defeated a bill that would have raised the nation's minimum wage by $2.10 over the next 26
months. The bill was defeated by the Senate Republicans, who argued that the increase would stifle job growth.

That's a legitimate concern, though one that doesn't seem to bear up to scrutiny. The last two times the minimum wage
was increased, in 1996 and 1997, the unemployment rate fell in the following months. And the wage is in need of a bump
- adjusted for inflation, the 1997 $5.15-an-hour wage is worth only $4.33-an-hour in 2005.

Senate GOPers noted that the nation was still coming out of hard economic times, and proposed a more moderate
increase of $1.10 over 18 months. That wasn't an unreasonable alternative, but they crammed their substitute bill with so
many antiworker provisions (restrictions on overtime pay and the ability of states to raises wages for restaurant workers,
for example) that they knew it would fail.

Then, fresh from defeating the minimum wage increase, the Senate on Thursday passed legislation that would change
bankruptcy rules, making it harder for the those who go broke to cancel their debts and start over. Not a bad idea, right?

Well, yes and no. Everyone is for making sure people don't abuse the system and simply declare bankruptcy to get rid of
credit-card bills that were run up on flat-screen TVs and trips to Paris. But the bill does nothing to exempt those who are
stuck with massive debt from healthcare costs - which Congress is doing little to control. It ignored the fact that one-third
of all personal bankruptcies are declared by families that meet the federal definition of poverty. And the legislation does
nothing to punish credit-card companies that offer cards to people they know to be bad risks.

Worst of all, the bill keeps intact the "millionaire's loophole," a provision of the current law used by wealthy individuals as
a shelter from creditors. There are five states that allow people who live anywhere in the country to establish trusts that
cannot be reached by federal bankruptcy proceedings. One amendment proposed limiting what could be sheltered to
$125,000. It was defeated.

So in one week you had the Senate saying, sorry, but the country just isn't in the position to give people working at the
bottom of the pay scale a raise because times are tough, while simultaneously telling those same people that times may
be tough but bankruptcy isn't an option. Oh, yeah, and if you are very wealthy, well, bankruptcy really is an option.

There are no former pop stars or domestic goddesses here, but if these political choices don't offer a revealing look at
our common national values, what does?

And with all the cameras sitting outside a courthouse in California and an estate in Connecticut, there are a few
questions to ponder. At what point does Michael Jackson doing something weird cease to be news? And what exactly can
the trials and tribulations of Martha Stewart - who emerged from prison with a TV deal, a still-massive fortune, and a court
order confining her to the horrors of a 153-acre estate - teach us about anyone other than herself?

Of course, C-SPAN will never have the glitz of E!. But the morality plays in Washington do have one advantage over the
events that are dominating the news today. They impact lives, lots of them. Now if they could just get the interest of the
people and the media.

Maybe Ted Kennedy could wear his pajamas to work next week.

• Dante Chinni is a senior associate with the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism. He writes a twice-monthly political
opinion column for the Monitor.

The US needs a gas tax to pay for the war in Iraq. I would call it something like tax for the war fought on behalf of Oil
interests. Those interests being represented by the two criminals in the White House.

Now Israel is building their wall on a route designed to enable them to steal more territory. So what is new. Jews are
genetically programed to steal everything they can get their hands on. It's not their fault. Jesus came into the world to tell
the jews they were fucked up. They didn't want to hear those things so they crusified him.

Since taking office Arnold didn't follow his campaign promise to follow the advice of his financial advisor Warren Buffet.
Instead he has proven to be just another sleezy brain dead conservative crack-pot. If he wanted to be fair he would
realize he was over paid to be a lousy actor in stupid violent films and he, and those in his class should be subject to a
special wealth tax to pay down the California deficit.

Bush's Assault on the middle class continues apace

President Bush didn't campaign on a promise to make it harder for average Americans to regain their financial footing
after filing for bankruptcy. Even if he had, he probably would have been re-elected anyway.
Most Americans haven't noticed the presidents relentless assault on programs and policies that protect the middle class
against the caprice of the market place. If average Americans are living with a higher degree of financial anxiety, they
blame out sourcing or taxes or illegal immigrants. They haven't recognized that the Republicans have middle America in
their cross hairs and that President Bush has
given the order to fire. The war on working- and middle-class America continued apace last week when apiece of
legislation favored by bankers and credit card companies - and pushed by the president - gained steam in the U.S.
Senate.        I
The new bankruptcy bill would make it harder for middle- income individuals to file under Chapter 7, which usually allows
some debt-forgivness. Under the new law, individuals (with very few exceptions) will have to keep working to pay off_their
debts, even if it takes several years.
Financial industry lobbyists claim they are only going after deadbeats who can afford to pay, but the research suggests
otherwise. A few deadbeats may file for bank - rupcy to get out of paying for cars or big-screen TVs they knew they
couldn't afford. But the vast majority, experts say, have been forced into substantial debt by some unforeseen personal
catastrophe - death of the major breadwinner, job loss or medical crisis, for example.
Meanwhile, the rich will not' be held to the same standard. !
senators defeated an amendment that would have closed I loopholes allowing the wealthy to hold onto mansions and
other assets when they file for bank
ruptcy. They also turned back an I amendment that would prevent I corrupt companies, like Enron, from sheltering
assets that ought' to go to former employees. And the Senate wouldn't accept an amendment to allow the not rich'
elderto_keep their houses if they go bankrupt
More than a hundred bankruptcy experts sent a letter to congress predicting that the people most likely to be hurt by the
new law live in the red states 'that always vote for the GOP, including Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama and
Mississippi. With many of their residents struggling to, stay a float, those states have a substantial number of personal
bankruptcy filings. The letter made not one bit of difference.
Years from now, sociologists and political scientists will explain how Republicans persuaded so many voters to act
against their own economic interests. Even as the GOP heaps more and more benefits on the wealthy and big business -
tax breaks, so-called tort reform, anti-union policies and strips them from average workers, the party continues to get
much of its support from those same workers.
It's a mystery. Perhaps it can e partly explained by the virtue of self-reliance, an ethic embedded in the American psyche
that often associated with conservatives. But a sense of invulnerability also has made it easier for the GOP led assault on
average Americans: Most people don't think they will be the victims of a financial crisis until the crisis befal1s them.
The rewrite of bankruptcy law comes after a series of other developments have frayed the safety net for average
families. Even as job security declines, unemployment compensation has been reduced. Guaranteed pensions are
disappearing, as is employer-provided health insurance. While wealthy Amercans are coddled, working americans are
being subjected to the whims of a rapacious capitalism.
But Bush didn't say that during the last campaign. Instead, he talked about an ownership society." He neglect_to explain
that most of the owning would be done by the very rich.
..@ 2005, Universal Press Syndicate

Senate near meltdown over judges

A vote on nominee William Myers may be a rehearsal for a next Supreme Court justice.

By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – Thursday's vote on the first of President Bush's blocked judicial nominees sets up a test of a "nuclear
option" whose fallout could effectively bring the US Senate to a stop for the balance of the 109th Congress - and affect
the balance on US courts for decades.
The pitched partisan battle revolves around a change in rules that seem arcane, but the impact could reach a wide range
of issues before US federal courts, from consumer and environmental protections to civil liberties and the role of
government in the post-9/11 era.

In the Monitor
Wednesday, 03/16/05

Senate near meltdown over judges

Congress as Umpire on Steroids

Given the high stakes, with activists on both sides ramping up this week to urge firmness in party ranks, it appears
unlikely that moderates can avert a showdown.

The focus, for now, is on the nomination of William Myers to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Judiciary Committee
is expected to send his nomination to the full Senate with a 10-8 party-line vote - a signal that Democrats plan to filibuster
the nomination on the floor. When they do, Republicans plan to use their Senate majority to change the rule for ending
debate - killing filibusters with a majority, not the 60 votes now required.

"Both parties understand that this is a dress rehearsal for the Supreme Court," says Sheldon Goldman, a political
scientist and expert on judicial nominations at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "It's been nicknamed the
nuclear option because the fallout would be radioactive as far as our politics goes."

With Chief Justice William Rehnquist expected to retire from the US Supreme Court, the Senate rules on nominations
have immediacy beyond the broader question of the ideological tenor of US courts.

Activists on both sides paint it as an epic event: "As Republican leaders prepare to overturn 200-year-old rules in the
Senate to eradicate the need for bipartisan support and stack the Supreme Court, we've got to show Democratic and
Republican senators that this is a grass-roots issue," said organizers for MoveOn PAC in the run-up to a rally on
Wednesday.

Congress watchers speculated that the defeat of Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle in 2004, largely over alleged
"obstructionism" on judicial nominees and other issues, would temper Democratic opposition to the president's nominees.
Instead, Democrats are closing ranks over the issue. In a March 1 letter, freshman Sen. Ken Salazar (D) of Colorado,
who had been expected to support the Myers nomination, called on Bush to withdraw him and other nominees who have
also been blocked previously on Capitol Hill.

"The decision to renominate these individuals will undoubtedly ... sidetrack our collective efforts to work on other crucial
matters," he wrote. Democratic leaders said Tuesday that if Republicans change filibuster rules, they will use other
procedures to effectively shut down the Senate.

Currently 43 seats lie vacant in the 871-member federal judiciary.

Myers is one of 10 Bush judicial nominees blocked in the 108th Congress by Democrats refusing to allow the nomination
to come to a vote on the floor of the Senate. It's the first time a filibuster has been used to block a judicial nomination
outside the Supreme Court.

"We have to reinstate majority rule in the Senate. The Myers nomination is the test," says Sen. John Cornyn (R) of
Texas. "It is wrong for a partisan minority to argue that a president's judicial nominees must receive a 60 percent vote of
the Senate to be confirmed - when throughout history only a 51 percent vote has been required," he said in remarks
prepared for an address to conservative activists at the Heritage Foundation Tuesday. When the Senate refuses to act
on nominations within a reasonable time, it violates the Senate's constitutional obligation to advise and consent, he adds.

But Republicans blocked dozens of President Clinton's judicial nominees by refusing to let them come to a vote in the
Judiciary Committee. "If you trace it back historically, both parties are at fault," said Senator Specter in a press
conference last month. Democrats, he said, held up the nominees of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. When
Republicans took control of the Senate in 1995, "we slow-walked [Clinton's] nominees," he added.

A former attorney for grazing and mining interests, Myers has fired up opposition from critics who say he is too hostile to
the environment. Specter says he chose Meyers as a first test because he is less controversial than some other
nominees.

Specter and other moderates oppose the nuclear option, arguing that minority rights in the Senate must be preserved.

The american media is silent about the issue of the oil companies failure to plan for sufficient refining capacity because
they're afraid of the criminals in the White House. From the article on the cover of the March 12 Financial Times, "The
reality is that oil consumption has caught up with installed crude and refining capacity." said the Paris based International
Energy Agency. They go on to say, "At the same time, the worlds spare refining capacity has shrunk as demand for oil
products has grown faster than the addition of new capacity.
They can't say the oil companies have intentionally reduced refining capacity in order to drive up gas prices in order to
make record profits.

3/16/05
Robert Reich has said there is nothing wrong with social security. I believe the US should impliment an energy tax and
use the proceeds to increase social security benefits.

Bush and Delay are just the latest in a string of white trash hillbillies to come out of Texas.

I heard Bush mention he talked to Silvio Berlasconi, the Italian puppet dictator put in power by the US. Because the
Italians always vote for a comunist government, Belasconi, who owns most of the media, is pushing though an agenda
that would give the prime minister absolute power, absolute power to do what the US tells him to do.

The parasite Allan Greenspan should cut his benefits and give all his stolen money to the poor.

You can't expect people like Cheny/Bush who are unfit for their positions to be able to make the right decisions when it
comes to appointing someone to do a job such as his selection of Wolfowitz to head the World Bank. He should have
been exterminated after pushing the country into Iraq. Instead he's given a new job where he can do more damage. What
does one expect out of these ignorant conservative barbarian criminals. I retract everything I've said about him if he
converts the loans to grants and writes off bad debt.

Robert Reich said there isn't a problem with social security. He said with normal growth rates the trust fund will be
adequately funded. Robert Kuttner suggested in the event there is a shortage that they be an income tax surcharge.
Robert Kuttner also suggested their be a cap on home mortgage deduction. Granting mortgage deductions up to 500,
ooo and anything past that there would be no deduction.

He also suggested the entile payroll be subject to the social security tax.

I would have gas tax to pay down the deficit. Conservative opposition would expose the price gouging on behalf of the oil
companies that the Bush administration has supported and the media has remained complicit. If they really wanted
people to conserve they would support a gas tax. Conservative opposition to such a proposal exposed the conservatives
real agenda. It simply is to rob everyone to maximize profits.

Allan Greenspans recent feigned emapthy for the poor is illusrative with regards to conservative hypocracy and their true
feeling about the poor. Greenspan says he would like to know viable alternatives to address poverty in this country while
every economic conservative economic initiative he has pushed the past thirty years has increased the poverty. It's a
fact that trickle down implimented under Ronald Reagan increased poverty. It's common sense that deregulation,
dismantling rent controls, failing to raise minimum wages, destroying organized labor, not controlling the cost of
monopolistic industries like energy and healthcare, all the things he has done and failed to do in order to adhere to his
conservative philosophy have perpetuated poverty. If he want to change his colors and puching the policies of FDR then
maybe I wouldn't find him a pure hypocrit. But then maybe the powers that be would treat him like Dan Rather.

Rumsfeld the Sadist
I believe the conservatives now say their reason for invading Iraq was to install democracy and overthrow a tyrannt.
American troops wouldn't be in Iraq if in fact the US hadn't done the opposite. I'm not exactly a student of history but The
little I know causes me to examine the lies of the US actions in the middle east. The US government has behaved like
authoritarian dictors and sought to assure middle-eastern countries serve our interest by installing authoritarian dictators
to do our will in the area. It started with the Shah of Iran. Then the people rose up against the american imposed
dictatorship and got the government the people Iran really wanted. They had to overthrow the US backed dictatorship to
get a government that served the Iranian people. Then we supported and armed the Saddam Huissans dictorship and
used him to attempt to reimpose a US backed dictatorship in Iran and encouraging him to use chemical weapons
on the Iranians. Rumsfeld should have beed prosecuted for genocide for this. Then our dictator in Iraq,
Saddam Hussain took offense to the treatment of the Palestinains by the jews. The jews who run this country don't want
anyone telling them who they can starve impoverish rob or kill so they have for quite a while been wanting to take
Saddam out. During the great depression, while the people were starving the jews hoarded all the money so the
Germans had no choice but to seek to exterminate them. It seems the Jews can't change their colors. I believe most jews
want peace with the Palestinians but our US conservative dictators back the Israeli conservative dictators who, like the
american dictators, enjoy terrorizing, torturing, impoverishing and robbing other peoples or countries. That's the reason
why american taxpayers are blowing billions and americans dying in Iraq is because of totalitarians like Rumsfeld and
Wolfowitz who have always in the past supported dictators like themselves in the region. In the absence of weapons of
mass destruction we now invade in the name of democracy. This wouldn't have happened if we had a real democracy in
this country.

Cheney and Bush's friends in the energy, healthcare and defense industries are robbing the american people blind to
the point a revolution is justified and these criminals hung from the rotunda of the Capital.Yet the media remains silent. If
US oil companies are paying so much for crude why are they making so much money. Because they're charging
monopoly prices at the pump and the criminals in the White House won't do anything about it. The same is true with
regards to healthcare and defense procurement. These criminals from companies like Halliburton get rich off military
contracts in the same manner as Howard Hughs in the hope someone will make a movie about them. We have a
dictatorship of criminals.

Terrie Schiavo is an interesting topic for the universal healthcare coverage debate. The country could easily afford to
provide quality healthcare for all if the profits was taken out of the system. Conservatives won't take the profit out of the
healthcare industry because thats all they really care about. They could care less if forty million people don't have any
healthcare. Now they feign sympathy with Terrie Schiavo and want her to continue getting the most expensive care when
millions of productive americans lives are ruined for want of care. That's the conservative mind all over.

The economic solution appears relatively simple after I had that econ course at the community college twenty years ago.
You raise capital gains taxes, corporate taxes, inheritance taxes, close loop holes on the wealthy, raise the top rate to
make the income tax more progressive. Then you control the prices of items that are causing inflation like healthcare,
and energy. And you cut defense in half. Keep interest rates low and the economy will take off and the deficit will go
down in no time.

With regards to the current account deficit. Bring those jobs back to the US and keep out imports that might threaten
those jobs by managing trade. This free trade stuff is rediculous.

The CIA just forced their proxy conservative government in France to end the mandatory 35 hour work week. A French
palimentary committee said it cost France 13 billion. With sixty two million people that means it cost every french person
only 208 dollars a year to have a 35 hour work week. The people of a real democracy would never give up such a deal.

The self serving conservatives probably are saying that have the oil companies gouge the consumers is in the best
interest of consumers because they have to learn how to conserve. This thinking is illustrative of the warped twisted
greedy minds of these criminals who run the oil industry. They are giving us European prices for gas but European
consumers have a choice with regards to consumption and most of the price of gas in Europe goes toward the most
efficient public transportation in the world. I used to spend five hours a day commuting to a job in LaBronx Manhattan
from Mont Clair NJ, It took 35 minutes to get there with the car. If every dime of profit went toward giving the US a public
transportation system that was a viable option to the driving then there would be less of a problem with the price of gas in
this country. Right now all the profits from the monopoly prices at the gas pump are going to criminals like Bush and
Cheney.

Raising interest rates to stem inflation caused by rising energy costs shows how brain dead the Fed is. How stupid can
they be.

We should call Dick Cheney Judas. He cut a deal for Halliburton to by Dresser industries with the intent that when he got
back into government he would pass laws to rid Dresser of its asbestos liability to the tune of hundreds of millions.
Millions of people whose only recourse would be to join class action suits will now be denied justice so Dick could make a
few extra million for Halliburton.

Here is an interesting case
I suppose if executives from these pharmacudical companies started to dissapear something might finally get
done.

Acting as special assistant attorney general, Hagens Berman founding partner Steve Berman has filed a suit on behalf of
the state of Nevada, challenging the drug companies’ practice of charging for Medicare drugs based on Average
Wholesale Price (“AWP”).

This case is brought as a representative action on behalf of thousands of patients and third party payors, and on behalf
of the State of Nevada to obtain equitable and injunctive relief.

Filed against several pharmaceutical manufacturers, including: Abbott Laboratories, Inc.; Baxter Pharmacudical Products,
Inc.; Bayer Corp.; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company; Dey, Inc.; Glaxosmithkline Corp.; Glaxo Wellcome, inc.; Pharmacia
Corp.; Pharmacia & Upjohn Company; Smith Kline Beecham Corp.; Tap Holdings, Inc.; Warrick Pharmaceuticals Corp.
and Does 1 through 100.

The complaint alleges that, in many instances, the purported AWP reported by the defendant pharmaceutical
manufacturers bears a minimal relationship to the prices actually paid by physicians or pharmacies and is “made up” by
corporate pricing committees literally out of “thin air” for the purpose of manipulating pharmaceutical markets and
increasing market share.

Similar to the historic tobacco litigation where Hagens Berman represented Nevada, 12 other states and Puerto Rico in
lawsuits against the tobacco industry, this lawsuit filed against major drug companies has nationwide implications, and
other states are expected to file similar litigation. Suits against the tobacco industry resulted in the recovery of $260
billion, the largest settlement in the history of litigation.

The failure of this government to regulate the cost of healthcare and energy on behalf of the people just means they are
intent on impoverishing the people on behalf of investors in these industries.

It appears the ruling barbarians have changed the constitution in Italy in order to establishe a dictatorship. They must
believe they are as infallible as the Pope to effect such change.

German corporations are swimming in profits yet they don't create jobs. What is the answer that our infallible
conservative crackpot CIA parasites recommend. They look in their conservative trickle down handbook and it says tax
cuts for the rich fix everything so they recommend more corporate tax cuts. I suppose to get in the CIA one has to take a
test to make sure your insane.

If there is to be any hope of payingdown the deficit the fed cannot slow down the economy. There is now no option but to
control inflation by increasing supply or price controls.

I think it great that Chavez is buying weapons. The US has been impoverishing the majority of the people of Latin
America for decades with their crack-pot ideology. They have behaved like brutal barbarians with their right wing
dictators and death squads. If they really care about the poor they should embrace marxism because their trickle down
has been a disaster for the majority. Maybe those weapons will give the impitus necessary to get things moving in the
right direction. The US was content to keep screwing venezuala by paying below market rates for their oil. They didnt
change their tune till forced to. You can never count on the US to do the right thing till they have to. You especially can't
count on americas oil industry to do the right thing until they are forced to. If the US isn't going to do anything to improve
the plight of the people the least they could do is not get in the way of the marxists who try.
For decades the US has stood by and allowed Korea and Japan to plan their economies for the benefit of their people.
Why did they go and ruin Latin America with forced trickle down when they wished to plan their economies like Japan or
Korea. Probably because they could get way with impoverishing the Latin American people so they did. This proves the
US is run by fuckin barbarians.

Conservatives killed Terrie Shivo by failing to take the profits out of healthcare. If they did this country could easily
provide for everyone and afford to keep Terrie Shivo alive indefinitaly. Years ago,before the US began imposing their
ideology on the world the cost of healthcare per capita in Japan was half the cost in the US with greater customer
satisfaction. The US government refuses to regulate the profiteers in the healthcare industry that have made healthcare
unaffordable for millions. Those opposed to regulation killed her. When Hillary Clinton sought national healthcare those
opposed to providing for everyone killed her program. These are the same people who killed Terrie Shivo.

The US puppet government in Germany hascut the corporate tax rate from 25% to 19% while cutting the monthly stipend
to the long term unemployed to 300E. It sounds to be that US sadist totalitarians are bringing back the sadistic policies of
Nazi Germany.

US conservative crackpots use the EU to force France to eliminate 30,000 hospital beds since 1999 while people need
healthcare and the conservative parasites say the would like to create jobs. These conservative american little dictators
who impose their ideology on the world are deranged. Their need to fuck up the world proves their insanity.

I'd like to comment on the EU Service directive and the fear of low cost social dumping by companies from eastern
Europe operating at lower standards. I'll site two pages from Robert Kuttner's book "The Economic Illusion" page 137 and
144. I believe if the directive passes it will destroy the social bargain that has built the middleclass in western europe. But
maybe thats the conservatives intent. In Kuttners words,"According to conventional economics, there is a common
remedy for unemployment, inflation, profit squeeze, and sagging productivity: lower wages. Yet a competitive race to
reduce wages must add up to a worldwide drop in purchasing power. It is as if the Keynesian revolution and the lessons
of the Great Depression never happened. "

\If we are to enjoy continuous near-full employment, without changing the institutions and habits of industrial bargaining,
we shall suffer from inflation. It is neither the fault of the trade unions, fulfilling their proper function of demanding a fair
share in rising profits, nor of businessmen trying to preserve profits by raising prices when costs go up. It is the fault of
an economic system inappropriate to the development of the economy. This seems to be dawning at last on official
opinion.
- Joan Robinson
LABOR
4KEYNES OBSERVED, in the famous last sentence of his General Theory, "But soon or late, it is ideas, not vested
interests, which are dangerous for good or evil." Ideas matter. As Keynes's colleague Joan Robinson suggests,
institutions also matter. The kind of industrial-relations culture in a given nation makes an enormous difference in that
nation's ability to broker positive-sum gains in productivity, employment, growth, and distribution. In this chapter, I will
suggest that societies with strong unions and highly refined social bargaining machinery do a much better job of
maintaining full employment, promoting distributive justice, reconciling technological progress with social needs, and
moderating inflation. This conclusion flies in the face of classical economic theory and much conventional wisdom about
the role of unions.
Economists habitually ignore institutions. Their professional training instructs them to pierce the institutional veil and look
beyond institutions to rational, "optimizing" individuals. Social institutions are messy; they resist rigorous quantitative
modeling. Most economists leave the study of institutions to-lesser disciplines, like sociology. However, when individuals
come together to form certain

137
LABOR institutions such as trade unions, economists suddenly take notice. Institutions matter after all, and their effect is
presumed to be negative..Despite their obvious interest in full employment, unions are said to be the enemy of full
employment. According to classical economics, this occurs because unions conspire to push wage levels beyond the
point where industry can afford to employ everybody who seeks a job.
When unemployment rates were high and profits low during the Great Depression, orthodox economists therefore
counseled wage reduction. Once wages fell to their natural "market-clearing" level, profit margins would be restored,
industry would resume hiring workers, and the economy would return to equilibrium. Trade unions were wickedly keeping
the market from enforcing necessary wage cuts; unions thus were pricing workers out of jobs and keeping unemployment
high. It fell to Keynes to point out tht wage reduction" in a climate of slack demand simply deepens depression.. In fact,
the Western nations climbed out of depression not by depressing wages, but by stimulating demand. In Germany, the
Nazi regime accomplished this via public works and rearmament. In Britain, a devaluation and controls on imports began
a recovery by the mid 1930s. In Sweden, the government engineered a recovery through domestic public works, budget
deficits, and exports to Germany. In / the United States, the Depression persisted until World War II revived purchase
orders. In all cases, the share of profits rose with recovery not because wages dropped, but because output increased.
Today, profits are again being squeezed and real wages have outrun productivity gains. And there are two new
elements. Unlike in the 1930s, when prices were falling, we now have inflation as well as slow growth (written in 1983);
and unions are held responsible for driving inflation, too. In addition, the rising specter of worldwide competition is said to
make wage discipline all the more urgent. In this context, unions are blamed for pricing the United States (or Britain, or
Germany fill in the name) out of world markets. According to conventional economics, there is a common remedy for
unemployment, inflation, profit squeeze, and sagging productivity: lower wages. Yet a competitive race to reduce wages
must add up to a worldwide drop in purchasing power. It is as if the Keynesian revolution and the lessons of the Great
Depression never happened.
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ECONOMfc ILLUSION

These labor movements exist in political cultures that are often called corporatist. The term refers not to the influence of
corporations but to a form of social bargaining in which large interest groups are very well organized, represented by
fairly centralized associations, and accorded quasi-official status. Thus, most of Northern Europe has highly developed
labor federations, employers' federations, farmers' associations, religious bodies, and other groups broadly accepted as
representatives of their members' interests, with a mandate and a capacity to bargain effectively with each other at the
national level.

Organized Labor and Corporatism
Corporatism has many faces. In the 1930s, Fascist Italy offered a model of totalitarian corporatism. Roosevelt's brief
experiment with tripartite industry committees through the NRA (National Recovery Administration) attempted to introduce
democratic corporatist institutions to the United States. japan now offers a more or less corporatist model but with weak
labor representation. In the democratic corporatism typical of Northern Euroe unions play a decisive role. Democratlc
corporatism operates not as substitute for parlamemary democracy but as a complement to it. By almost any standard
the nations of Northern Europe are among the world's most democratic. Voting participation is high; the press is free; the
political culture is vigorous and by American standards uncorrupted; democratic participation has been expanded to
economic institutions to a greater extent than in other political democracies; civil liberties are unparalleled. The
centralized nature of interest-group representation does not seem to take a toll on political liberty. Although a high
degree of centralism facilitates bargaining, the nations of Northern Europe are fairly skilled at leaving the details of
bargains to local affiliates; their unions are highly democratic internally. So the undemocratic aspects of centralized
bargaining are substantially leavened by accountability and participation.
In general, this social model seems to work best in countries that are relatively small, with parliamentary and unitary
systems of government. A small, unitary nation is more likely to engage in successful social bargaining for a variety of
reasons; most obviously, a small nation is more manageable; decision makers tend to know each other.
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And in a unitary and parliamentary system of government, bargains can be negotiated and carried out with a minimum of
extraneous politicking. More subtly, a small nation is liable to be more vulnerable to the international economic system
and doesn't have the luxury of domestic fractiousness. The vulnerability of Switzerland, though a nation that is highly
federated both ethnically and constitutionally, helps explain why that nation has many of the characteristics of corporatist
social bargaining. But the correlation between small size and corporatist characteristics is far from perfect. History and
politics also playa key role. Norway and Sweden have maintained successful social bargaining. But in Denmark, with just
5 million inhabitants, a compact geography, a uniform culture, and a unitary government,
corporatist bargaining has broken down almost totally. West Germany, with 62 million people and a federalist constitution,
is fairly successful at corporatist-style bargaining. So is japan, with a population of 119 million."
In recent years, a number of academic studies have quantified the relative success of different economies in the years
before and after 1973. All have concluded that the "labor-corporatist" or "neocorporatist" nations have been among the
most successful at reconciling high rates of employment, productivity growth, and social equality with low rates of
inflation. This is all the more surprising from the laissez-faire view, since these are the very nations with big public sectors
and strong unions. The success of democratic corporatist economies provides a key illustration of equality and efficiency
working in tandem and of the importance of social institutions in bringing that result about. It refutes the presumption that
the_ gains of "organized labor" must be losses for the larger society. These positive sum gains reflect the value of strong
and responsible unions as brokering and representational institutions, which look beyond the short term self-interest of
their members. In a society where organized and responsible labor unions are powerful, "efficiency" comes to be defined
as something social and collective as well as individual and economic.

.Japan's political structUre differs from Northern European corporatism in many respects - Japan's unions are weaker; its
private welfare state (which ties benefits to employment) is far more important. But the Japanese experience does
suggest that corporatist social bargaining can function in a fairly large country.

You may contact Robert Jastrebski at:
Rjastrebski@peoplepc.com