1 billion hungry this year

In the best of times the rich countries of the world struggle to live up to their commitments. Now that we're in a recession, it will only get worse. Imagine how many people could be fed with even a fraction of the bloated Wall Street bonuses?

Food aid is at a 20-year low despite the number of critically hungry people soaring this year to its highest level ever, the United Nations relief agency said Wednesday.

The number of hungry people will pass 1 billion this year for the first time, the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) said, adding that it is facing a serious budget shortfall.

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Should smoking bans be extended to the outdoors?

NY is considering it. I can say that in Paris, which banned smoking in public places two and a half years ago, all the smokers have moved outside, so that it's now impossible to sit and breathe at an outdoor cafe, or outdoor restaurant seating. While it's at least now breathable inside a restaurant or bar, and it was not before, during the summer at least, it's a bit annoying to not be able to sit at any outdoor cafe or outdoor restaurant, which is what Parisians do all summer long (save but a few restaurants that actually have outdoor non-smoking seating). I realize this is a touchy issue for smokers, but imagine having to sit next to my BO during your entire dinner, and then multiply it by another 20 people with BO all surrounding you, and having this happen at every single restaurant you visit every single day. That's what it's like for a non-smoker to sit with smokers. Same problem in the park, same problem at the beach. It simply is not a habit that you can keep to yourself. When I eat a brownie, I don't force you to eat half of it. Read the rest of this post...

OECD predicts up to 25 million jobs lost during recession

Yet somehow, Wall Street is bouncing back stronger than ever. How is this possible? Even if the 25 million (from OECD countries) is at the high end, the numbers to date are horrible.

The economic downturn will likely cost as many as 25 million people their jobs by end-2010 as the unemployment rate nears a record 10 percent in the OECD group of countries, according to a report released on Wednesday.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said 15 million jobs were lost between end-2007 and July 2009 and 10 million more could go by the end of next year despite signs that the economy is picking up.

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Rockefeller fears Obama will settle for "anything" as health care reform

This is a rather amazing public admission of something that most elected Democrats have kept to themselves, up until now: the growing concern that Obama will settle for anything and call it victory. From The Hill:

Rockefeller emerged from the Senate Democrats' weekly luncheon Tuesday afternoon, which featured an appearance by President Barack Obama's communications guru David Axelrod, wondering aloud (perhaps rhetorically) whether the White House's get-it-done message to Congress wasn't bold enough.

"David’s in there -- Axelrod -- saying we’ve got to try to get ‘something.’ So, the new benchmark is, ‘Well, if we can do something, if we can do anything, then we can say we did healthcare reform,’" Rockefeller said.

"Are we getting to the point where, if we do anything, we’ve achieved our purpose?" he said, less than an hour before announcing on a conference call with reporters that he would not vote to support the healthcare reform bill being drafted by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.).

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MIT kids do the darndest things - like sending cameras 100,000 feet into space with $150 worth of material

Some kids at, you guessed it, MIT, thought it would be neat to see if they could spend $150 and send a balloon with a Canon camera into space to take some photos. And they did. It's simply astounding. Wired has more:

The two students (from MIT, of course) put together a low-budget rig to fly a camera high enough to photograph the curvature of the Earth. Instead of rockets, boosters and expensive control systems, they filled a weather balloon with helium and hung a styrofoam beer cooler underneath to carry a cheap Canon A470 compact camera. Instant hand warmers kept things from freezing up and made sure the batteries stayed warm enough to work.

Of course, all this would be pointless if the guys couldn’t find the rig when it landed, so they dropped a prepaid GPS-equipped cellphone inside the box for tracking. Total cost, including duct tape? $148.

You can find more on the kids' Web site here. Read the rest of this post...

WH spokesman Robert Gibbs responds to the GOP's fake "czar" controversy - Wikipedia says Bush had more czars than Obama

Republicans are concerned that President Obama's "czars" may be working in violation of the Constitution. Of course, as White House spokesman Robert Gibbs notes during his briefing, those same Republicans didn't mind when previous Republican administrations had czars. (In fact, one press account says czars went al the way back to FDR, and Reagan and the Bush boys had em too). And even GOP Senators themselves had proposed more czars.

Then the GOP said, it's not having czars per se (though some of them think it's unconstitutional - now), rather it's that you have too many czars. Funny, then, that Wikipedia counts George W Bush as having more czars than Barack Obama (and they list them by name on the page).



The Washington Post confirms it.

I think what's going on here is that the GOP realizes, unfortunately for us and them, that the only traction they've gotten lately has been with their crazy teabaggers - the people who think Obama wasn't born in the US, who yell during joint sessions of Congress, who think the administration is full of communists, etc. And what a perfect way to gin up the crazies even more than to suggest that Obama is the first president to have czars. After all, the Russians had czars, and the Russians were communists. I'm actually quite serious. Nothing makes the crazies crazier than talking about communists. And the GOP, realizing that all it has left are the crazies, is feeding their frenzy in a rather dangerous manner. At some point, some Republican nutjob, who's been told repeatedly that his government is being handed over to the Soviets, is going to pick up a gun.

Here is Gibbs:

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Dollar hitting one year lows

Which of course means oil prices are higher. Earlier this week CNBC's Cramer thought Obama ought to be talking up the economy including the "strong dollar." Maybe it's strong against some imaginary currency that the world is not aware of yet. The dollar gained earlier in the year but lately it's become the global punching bag again.

Oil shed early losses and hovered near $71 on Wednesday as the dollar's fall to one-year lows and Asian equities' climb to 2009 highs drew investors back to risky assets on brightening signs of a U.S. economic recovery.

Investors drew strength from data showing strong growth in U.S. retail sales, New York State manufacturing activity and U.S. producers' prices -- factors that outweighed numbers showing a sharp jump in U.S. distillate stocks.

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The hemorrhaging over ACORN continues

Last week, the Obama administration cut ACORN off as a contractor, or something, working with the US Census, following complaints from FOX News' Glenn Beck. Yesterday, the Democratically controlled US Senate went one step farther, and overwhelmingly passed a Republican amendment, 83-7, barring HUD from working with ACORN.

So, you're thinking, all that appeasement must have gotten the Republicans to back off, right? Because, after all, all we have to do is give the Republicans what they want and they'll stop being mean to us.

You might be surprised to learn that in fact, the plan didn't work. Rather than take their pound of flesh and walk away, the Republicans - oddly - seemed to have taken the Obama administration's, and the congressional Democrats', cave on ACORN to be a sign of weakness, rather than a bipartisan gesture of our common humanity and purpose, cumbaya my Lord. It's almost as if you threw that troublesome great white shark some bleeding chum in the hopes it would satiate itself and go the heck away, and then the bastard actually wanted more!

How many times do we have to go through this exercise? Post-partisan doesn't work when the other guy is still partisan. Read the rest of this post...

McConnell won't support health care reform

Big surprise there. What's interesting, however, is that McConnell is showing us a perfect example of the GOP negotiating stance that has worked pretty well in the Congress to date. Just say no, and eventually the Democrats come around because they really really really really want to have some Republicans on the bill. When you telegraph up front that you place bipartisanship over substance, this is what happens.

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Racism

MoDo thinks it is.

Jimmy Carter thinks it is.

Cynthia Tucker thinks it is.

President Obama will obviously disagree, because he has to. He doesn't want to be seen as the "angry black man" president. And if anything, the recent brouhaha over Obama's comments about the Harvard professor and the cop will only make the President that much more determined to stay away from accusations of racism in the future.

But isn't it telling that President Obama has to avoid any mention of race, lest he come off as an "angry black man." Do I have to avoid coming off as an angry white man, or an angry Greek? I do try, however, to be a "reasonable gay man" when I go on TV and talk about gay rights issues. And I do it because of the same societal constraints that make President Obama avoid talking about racism. Namely, there still is bigotry in America, and the President and I both watch what we say in order to avoid being on the receiving end of it.

Which kind of ends up proving MoDo's, Carter's, and Tucker's point in the first place. (Attytood has more.) Read the rest of this post...

George Bush on Sarah Palin

An oddly lucid analysis from our former president. (As an aside, read this entire article - it's an excerpt from the book I link to below. It's written by a former White House speechwriter, and is the funniest, and saddest, thing you'll have read in a while. It's all about the economic crisis and the last few months in the Bush White House.)

I was about to be engulfed by a tidal wave of Palin euphoria when someone—someone I didn’t expect—planted my feet back on the ground. After Palin’s selection was announced, the same people who demanded I acknowledge the brilliance of McCain’s choice expected the president to join them in their high-fiving tizzy. It was clear, though, that the president, ever the skilled politician, had concerns about the choice of Palin, which he called “interesting.” That was the equivalent of calling a fireworks display “satisfactory.”

“I’m trying to remember if I’ve met her before. I’m sure I must have.” His eyes twinkled, then he asked, “What is she, the governor of Guam?”

Everyone in the room seemed to look at him in horror, their mouths agape. When Ed told him that conservatives were greeting the choice enthusiastically, he replied, “Look, I’m a team player, I’m on board.” He thought about it for a minute. “She’s interesting,” he said again. “You know, just wait a few days until the bloom is off the rose.” Then he made a very smart assessment.

“This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for,” he said. “She hasn’t spent one day on the national level. Neither has her family. Let’s wait and see how she looks five days out.” It was a rare dose of reality in a White House that liked to believe every decision was great, every Republican was a genius, and McCain was the hope of the world because, well, because he chose to be a member of our party.

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Insurance costs have increased 131% since 1999, but my premiums have gone up 300%

How much have your insurance premiums gone up since 1999? More than 131%?

I seem to recall that the insurance industry keeps sending me letters every year, when they inform me that they've increased my premiums by 25%, that it's because of the increasing cost of medicine. Now we find out that this is a lie. Can the government go after them for fraud? I mean, with Max Baucus and his former staffers' permission, of course - they are, after all, in the pocket of Big Pharma.

The average cost of job-based family health insurance climbed 5 percent to $13,375 in 2009, making this the 10th straight year that health care premiums have increased faster than workers' wages and overall inflation have. Insurance costs have increased 131 percent since 1999, when a year of family coverage cost about $5,791, according to the 2009 Employer Health Benefits Survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust .

That supercharged growth rate far outpaces the 38 percent increase in wages and 28 percent growth of inflation over the same period.

My premiums have gone up around 300% since 1999, and my benefits didn't go up a dime. I still only get $1500 a year in prescription benefits (even though I have the most expensive self-employed plan that CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield offers). And now I find out that the increases appear to have all been outright robbery. What is health care reform going to do specifically to stop these kind of practices from happening? Not to mention, unless the President's plan addresses the now-phony current "cost" of our health care premiums, we'll be locking in these outrageous rates forever.

It would have been so easy to put the insurance industry on the defensive in this debate. Yet, oddly, they're the ones working out backroom deals with Max Baucus and the President himself, both Democrats. Read the rest of this post...

If the Baucus plan has no Republicans on board, then there goes the justification for making the plan so GOP- and "Big Pharma"- friendly

An odd thing happened on the way to health care reform. Somehow, the House became irrelevant, as did all the other committees of jurisdiction in the Senate. The only person who mattered, for some inexplicable reason, was Democratic Senator Max Baucus, who, along with his former staff, had been bought off by the insurance industry long ago. It was an odd choice for the Obama administration, that promised to get rid of the lobbyist influence in lawmaking.

In any case, somehow Baucus' plan became the only plan that mattered. And just as strange, Baucus was permitted to pick 5 other Senators, Dem and Republican, who would magically come up with a "bipartisan" plan that was supposed to represent all of our votes. Baucus, rather than coming up with a true bipartisan plan, let it be known that his goal was to come up with a plan that met the Republicans' goals, rather than the Democrats on his own committee - Democrats who weren't invited to be part of the magical group of six, even though they represented the President's own plan as detailed during his campaign, and only two months ago as well.

And today, we learn that Baucus GOP health care plan doesn't even have a single Republican sponsor. That means Baucus failed, and it's time to go back to the original plan.

A reader just wrote in the comments to my earlier post:

How has it been possible that a single senator from a small state (Max Baucus) has single-handedly run this legislation into the ground? How has it been possible that this senator, who was elected by a miniscule percentage of the US population, managed to defy the will of the people and give the Republicans - elected to a 40% minority in the Senate - a 50% voice in this powerful committee?

50%? He handed them the bill.

So, to review, for some reason no one can explain, we've (they've) put all of our (their) faith in Max Baucus, who has chucked President Obama's promises to have a single payer plan, and then the fallback, a public option, and instead included lots of Republican proposals in order to woo Republican votes, but now there are no Republican votes. So why isn't Baucus' plan now moot, since it was only intended to woo Republicans? If Democrats are going to go it alone, then why not go with a Democratic plan? And here's a crazy idea, why not go with the plan the President promised when he was running for President?

It's hard to argue with the plan that got the man elected? Per se the public voted for it. Read the rest of this post...

Health care reform expert calls House "rebate" provision "absurd"

I was reading last night about the House health care reform bill in the Ways and Means Committee, and came upon this point:

Officials in both houses said fulfilling Obama's request on Medicare prescription drug benefits would be considerably more difficult, citing the cost.

The measure Baucus is expected to unveil would cut the so-called "doughnut hole" in half by 2019, but any additional benefit would have to come later, he told reporters.

In the House, Beck said draft legislation called for closing the gap in 15 years, "using drug manufacturer rebates to cover the cost."

Drug manufacturer rebates? You mean those things that businesses use, instead of simply offering discounts up front, since they know lots of people won't ever submit the rebate form? Those rebates? Not to mention, rebates are a massive database marketing scheme. Have you noticed how you always have to fill out all your personal information when you apply for a rebate? That's because they just bought your name, and now you're in a big telemarketing database for life. It's a rather massive giveaway to corporate America.

Don't rely on my account, here's what a health care reform expert I contacted about this had to say:

The rebate issue is everything [Aravosis] says it is and worse. Rebates are a way for the Rx industry to say it's doing something, while not helping the most vulnerable who can barely function, let alone complete forms, address and stamp envelopes and collect and deposit rebate checks. Absurdity.

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Your president is meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada this morning. I know they've got a lot of foreign relations-type issues to discuss, including Afghanistan and trade. But, perhaps they could take a minute or two to talk about health care and the fact that Canadians have universal health care and really seem to like it. The PM should also be prepared to rebut the right-wing lies about his country, too.

Later tonight, the President is speaking at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s Awards Gala.

Max Baucus will finally reveal his long-awaited health care reform bill. It was supposed to be a bipartisan bill, but has no GOP support. And, it won't have a lot of Democratic support. This legislation is already a failure. What a waste of time.

And, it does seem like more and more people are willing to acknowledge that racism is playing a role in the anti-Obama hysteria and the hatred oozing from the teabaggers and other extremists. It looked pretty obvious to me on Saturday.

Let's get started... Read the rest of this post...

Is the US a consequence-free society?

Whether Bush or Obama, the end result is very much the same. Billions upon billions were wiped out yet somehow nobody is in jail. One year after the Lehman failure and three after the subprime bubble burst, no executives have been charged. Talking with schoolchildren about responsibility is great but actions would be much better. Asking those involved in the crisis to work through the crisis sounds like wishful thinking. CNBC on the "one year since Lehman" questions:

One year after the collapse of Lehman, the bailout of AIG, and the near-implosion of the U.S. financial system, not a single Wall Street CEO has been called to account by criminal authorities. Some are starting to ask why.

"Investors expect to see the feds prosecuting top executives who committed securities fraud and misled investors," said New York attorney Jacob Zamansky, who represents investors in various claims against Wall Street firms.

And from CNNMoney, what has happened since the real estate bubble popped.

Three years after the housing bubble popped, federal prosecutors have yet to bring a case against the executives whose firms took part in some of the worst excesses of the subprime mortgage market.

It's not like there's a shortage of abuses to investigate. The landscape is littered with the wreckage of financial institutions that crashed under the weight of bad loans, costing shareholders and taxpayers billions of dollars.

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Yankees ticket prices to drop for 2010 season

If ever there was a sign of the recession at work it's this. The Yankees lead MLB in attendance this season. Wow.

CNBC has exclusively obtained the 2010 ticket price list that the Yankees will send out to its season ticket holders in the coming days and prices for more than 80 percent of the stadium will remain the same.

Some of the highest price seats will see reductions of up to 40 percent, including those in the Legends area and the Delta Sky 360 Suite. The first level of non-premium suites, which are one level up behind home plate, will be reduced from $325 to $250 or $235 per game per seat, depending on the location. To account for the challenging environment, the Yankees had already given some fans in these areas extra tickets to each game.

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Doctors: climate change is bad for your health

As bad as it is, somehow it's hard to see countries stepping up on this. The recession will certainly be used as an excuse. In the US, maybe it's better to focus on the business opportunity side of the problem or else there will be a reluctance to take on a fight with the GOP who doesn't believe climate change exists. The Independent:

Malaria, dengue fever and other tropical diseases would increase, the study predicted, spelling out how rising temperatures will cause health crises in half a dozen areas: there will be increased problems with food supplies, clean water and sanitation, especially in developing countries. Meanwhile, the migration of peoples will combine with extreme weather events such as hurricanes and severe floods to make for disastrous conditions in human settlements.

The doctors make their appeal as momentum begins to build for the UN conference, which will be held in the Danish capital from 7-18 December, and which will see the world community attempt to draw up a comprehensive new climate treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto protocol. Its crucial objective will be drastic worldwide cuts in the emissions of industrial gases such as carbon dioxide which are causing the atmosphere to warm.

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I didn't remember this quote from 2003

Me too.

“I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal health care plan,” then-U.S. Senate candidate Obama said at an AFL-CIO event in 2003, using the terms that commonly refer to a government-run health insurance system.

“Everybody in, nobody out, a single-payer health care plan, universal health care plan — that’s what I’d like to see,” he said. “But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately, because first we’ve got to take back the White House. And we got to take back the Senate, and we got to take back the House.”

Obama has said repeatedly that he doesn’t now support a single-payer system — where the government is the sole provider of health insurance across the country.

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