In 2002 the Bush administration along with the FED made a deliberate decision to prop up the US economy not with solid infrastructure type investments like alternative energy, high tech or manufacturing, the type of investments which provided 23 million new jobs under Clinton, but rather on a scheme of loose credit that was used to inflate the real estate bubble we have today. This led not only to obscene profits on Wall Street but also to falling wages and a sluggish economy on Main Street as people used borrowed money to do what the president and Alan Greenspan were telling them to do: buy just as much of a home as those with plenty of cash and impeccable credit.
“And so what are the barriers that we can deal with here in Washington? Well, probably the single barrier to first-time homeownership is high down payments. People take a look at the down payment, they say that's too high, I'm not buying. They may have the desire to buy, but they don't have the wherewithal to handle the down payment. We can deal with that. And so I've asked Congress to fully fund an American Dream down payment fund which will help a low-income family to qualify to buy, to buy. (Applause.)”
“And so, therefore, I've called -- yesterday, I called upon the private sector to help us and help the home buyers. We need more capital in the private markets for first-time, low-income buyers. And I'm proud to report that Fannie Mae has heard the call and, as I understand, it's about $440 billion over a period of time. They've used their influence to create that much capital available for the type of home buyer we're talking about here. It's in their charter; it now needs to be implemented. Freddie Mac is interested in helping. I appreciate both of those agencies providing the underpinnings of good capital.”
Remarks by the President on Homeownership, June 18, 2002
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020618-1.html
"Freddie Mac recently began 25 initiatives around the country to dismantle barriers and create greater opportunities for homeownership. One of the programs is designed to help deserving families who have bad credit histories to qualify for homeownership loans."
"The other thing Kirbyjon told me, which I really appreciate, is you don't have to have a lousy home for first-time home buyers. If you put your mind to it, the first-time home buyer, the low-income home buyer can have just as nice a house as anybody else. "
Remarks by the President on Homeownership, October 15, 2002
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021015-7.html
“Indeed, recent research within the Federal Reserve suggests that many homeowners might have saved tens of thousands of dollars had they held adjustable-rate mortgages rather than fixed-rate mortgages during the past decade, though this would not have been the case, of course, had interest rates trended sharply upward. “
“American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage. To the degree that households are driven by fears of payment shocks but are willing to manage their own interest rate risks, the traditional fixed-rate mortgage may be an expensive method of financing a home.”
Remarks by Chairman Alan Greenspan , February 23, 2004
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2004/20040223/
http://www.newsweek.com/id/160713
KS Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Lt.Governor Barbara Lawton of WI visited the Obama Team Headquarters in Waukesha to kick off the Women's Week of Action canvassing and phonebank campaign.I had the chance to tell the governor how much I admire her work in KS from the day I first heard that a small time government official, the Health Insurance Commissioner of KS stopped 2 corporate giants Blue Cross and Blue Shield from merging in KS. That was the first time since Ronald Reagan declared "laissez faire" an official economic religion in this country that anyone dared to challenge corporate mergers in any meaningful way. I also expressed my hope that we'll see her in an Obama administration because we need the lady who can clean up the republican mess in this country and she is one of the rare experts in that. Republicans are already out there telling the American people that we will probably have to privatize SS and just about every social program because given these recent economic hardships we can't afford them. A president Obama will probably have to deal with their endless whining about how we can't afford government programs that are designed to help the American people.They want us not to pay attention to the fact that last weekend they just socialized one of the the biggest insurance companies on the planet along with its $587 billion CDS portfolio and all the risks and hidden costs associated with this giant financial lemon. It happened in 24 hours without any discussion or debate with the American people who are being told since FDR came up with the idea, that you can't socialize the insurance business, especially not health insurance!
The governor gave really helpful tips for all of us who are canvassing and phone banking the next couple of weeks. I liked the way she turned the Reagan line on the republicans: "Are you better off today than you were 8 years ago?"
Indeed Ronald Reagan is on the ballot this season, not just mental minions like Palin and McSame. The whole conservative philosophy of free market fundamentalism is on trial in front of the American people this fall and we need to be able to lay it down for them in simple plain English what the essential difference between the 2 party philosophy is: government that works for the rich only vs. government that works for all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1D60jFF2Lc
http://www.governor.ks.gov
http://www.ltgov.state.wi.us
http://www.orchidforchange.com/parties/waukeshadems.com
The good folks out of the Waukesha office did a great job this last weekend on the 100th day before election. I shot a couple of videos of Obama field organizers doing the good work and this is the 1st of them. Please get out there and help them!
Today, moveon.org reported that almost 50% of all platfrom meetings up to date adopted the "100% renevable electricity in 10 years" challenge as a recomendation 4 the official party platform. Here is their emai, in case you haven't seen it yet:
Last week, 288,000 MoveOn members took Al Gore's challenge and signed a petition urging our leaders to commit to producing 100% of our electricity from cheap, clean renewable energy sources, like solar and wind, within 10 years.
Then, hundreds of us took the challenge to the next level—bringing Gore's plan to Democratic Party Platform Meetings around the country to encourage the party to make the bold proposal a part of its issue platform.
The results were overwhelming: Of the parties where MoveOn members made the case for Gore's challenge, 88% voted to include the challenge in their recommendations to the Party. This means that almost half of all meetings nationwide asked the national Democratic Party to make 100% clean electricity within 10 years part of the official Party platform.
Thanks for making it happen, and thanks for all that you do.
–Noah, Patrick S., Laura, Matt and the rest of the team
Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 3.2 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.
To all of you out there trying to come up with contributions to the Democratic Party Platform:
I've been to a very inspiring healthcare platfrom meeting over the weekend on the UWM campus where heath care professionals from all areas of expertise came together in agreement that the current situation is grave and untenable and that the only solution is universal healthcare that emphasizes prevention over costly invasive procedures.
In Obama's plan it is specified that health care should be universally available but it doesn't require universal participation. That's a fatal flaw in my opinion since a system like that will favor what insurrance companies call "adverse selection", that is if you don't want you don't need to participate in the system, meaning you will participate only when you are close to an age that the likelyhood of you getting sick makes it risk prohibitive not to get insurred. Please correct me if I am missunderestimating Obama's plan.
Another problem with this non mandatory approach is that it favors expensive invasive procedures over prevention. That's how it is in the current system too, so it's not a big improvement in this regard. If health care is available to everyone but not mandatory that will assure that doctors will be much better payed for taking care of those who opted out of the system as long as they could than those who were responsible and followed up on their checkups. Currently a cardio specialist makes about $1/2 million while a primary care physician $160k. That's also how profedssional prestige and curtesy is handed out by the system.
That means that all decisions of how federal dollars are spent and HMO incentives are made by people who regard the human body as a machine with parts to be replaced, ie. specialists. That philosophy in my opinion is the crux of the problem. Until we have a profit motive in the system that will prevail in 1 form or another. The very idea of market forces and competition encourages the wrong types of innovation in this field. Medical science is not computers. the object of this industry is human life, not consumer electronics.
If an HMO can make more money by investing in what the market percieves as good as opposed to what academia thinks society needs, based on solid statistical analysis of actual results, you will always have massive missallocation of resources and a pull towards medical hype rather than patient care.
In my opinion the only shortcoming of this meeting was that we failed to agree upon the words "single payer" because the general feeling was that it's A) politically untenable and B) the goal of right incentives can be attained by other means too. But I believe that's the only way to really address this issue. I am curious if any one else has an opinion on this.
In any case, here is the video I shot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fQnMU98gvM&feature=PlayList&p=02DFE790786A3937&index=0&playnext=1
I relied in my connclusion on the fact that no other country on earth managed to come up with a system other than "single payer" and have a humane health care system. Switzerland is one exception, although if you look at the details, Swiss society is much different from US society:
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34175_20070917.pdf
That's why I support John Conyers HR 676:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Health_Insurance_Act
The Diane Rhem show also took on this issue yesterday, no mention of single payer at all:
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/08/07/28.php#21831
For those who attend platform meetings it might be interesting to mention this as an argument for all those "mainstream" people who often wonder about the meaning of the word "change"...don't you just love that?! "Sure he stands for change, but that's just an empty word, besides: things are going fine!"
Two Chinese schools, Tsinghua University and Beijing University, moved ahead of the University of California-Berkeley between 2004 and 2006 as the leading sources of students who earned doctorates at American institutions. According to the National Science Foundation's latest "Survey of Earned Doctorates" report, the top five feeder schools to American PhD programs in 2006 were: Tsinghua, Beijing, UC-Berkeley, Seoul National University, and Cornell University.
http://www.norc.org/projects/survey+of+earned+doctorates.htm
I guess the socialist education system is not as bad as it's made out to be ;)
In July 2005, 15 of America’s most prominent business organizations1 joinedtogether to express their deep concern about the ability of the United States tosustain its scientific and technological leadership in a worldwhere newly energized foreign competitors are investing inthe capacity for innovation — the key driver of productivityand economic growth in advanced economies.
http://www.tap2015.org/news/tap_2008_progress.pdf
If you are interested in policy discussions about education, foreign policy, the environment and the economy, sign up for our weekly platform meetings which will be peripatetic sessions held in Sussex area parks and on trails, good workout plus stimulating discussions.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/44ffd
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/SussexWIforObama
Got me very excited lately. I noticed that Obama's goals, 25% renewable electricity by 2025, or 80% CO2 reduction by 2050 as well as some of his plans of renewables, such as "clean coal" are not ambitious enough. I am determined to convince people in my area that we need to influence our leaders through teh Democratic Party platform as wel as my.barackobama.com to do the right thing and raise up to Al Gore's challange.
Did you know for instance that 1 solar thermal array of 94 km2 in the Mojave desert could supply the US with 100% renewable power?! What's the technology used? Very simple: mirrors concentrating solar radiation and boiling water which then moves turbines the same way it does in nuclear power plants. Astonishing that a nuclear or coal power plant is nothing more than a fancy, expensive, inefficient and polluting water boiler that can be built much cheaper using simple mirrors.
There is enough wind energy in the midwest to power the whole United States. T Boone Pickens, head of BP Capital Management wants to build windfarms himself. The question however is: do we want taxpayer handouts to oil company billionaires, or do we want what Germany is doing: highly distributed, decentralized power production with ample incentives to generate local power through townships, communities and individuals.
This and similar issues will be discussed if you show up at the Bugtrail Walk For Obama in Sussex on the 24th and the 31st of July 6:20pm.
Also sign Al Gore's petition and join the more than 1 million people who demand real solutions!
http://www.wecansolveit.org/
