Comments to Market Places “Obama's stimulus plan seeks tax cuts” (http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/01/05/pm_obama_stimulus/)Apparently, Instead of creating newer jobs, Green and Infrastructure, we’re now talking about giving huge Tax reductions on paycheck withholdings. i.e. giving letting you keep more money from your paycheck. This is great. But I have some problems with this.First off, is this a reduction from total paid over there year, or will I have to make it up in April?Secondly we're going to give "Working Class" people more money back on their Paycheck. So about $1 more per hour, 40 hours, $40 bucks. Great, so instead of buying the dirty ass cigarettes and the cheap ass beer (or whatever ails them), they can buy what they want. If they're not smart enough to hold onto that 40 bucks to provide some cushioning from their zeroed out bank account; while hoping that they don't get the pink slip next week. This “stimulus” isn’t really going to help the people struggling. They need better opportunities.Provide Jobs, Jobs equal Money, Money equals spending, Spending equals better economy. Obamanomics 101, why are we straying and toting party lines. If we wanted tax cuts and Same-Old solutions, we would have voted for the other guy. We voted Bold, now make it so!
Mr. Obama's commitment to change in the way the U.S. approaches "developing countries" can be judged in part by how he approaches the issue of odious debts procured by authoritarian leaders who aided in some aspect of U.S. "national interest" (Cold War, procurement of petroleum, etc.). He should change his issue paper to call for investigation and explicit cancellation of odious debts. At this time, the document reads the following:
Barack Obama and Joe Biden will lead a multilateral effort to address the issue of “odious debt” by investigating ways in which “loan sanctions” might be employed to create disincentives for private creditors to lend money to repressive, authoritarian regimes.
Without some reference to existing debts (is application of "loan sanctions" going to be retroactive?) This unfortunately sounds like a case of closing the barn door after the cows have already fled.
URBAN RENEWAL
Reviving America's urban areas is well within our reach and abilities. It may be amazing to some how simple my ideas are but simplicity is often a hidden blessing. No dobt congress has enacted many legislative efforts to solve the crisis of urban blight but after many millions spent and many failures we seem farther from a solution than ever before. Let me introduce to you a concept called "Privately Funded Urban Renewal". It can also be described as "bottom-up redevelopment" in the spirit of President elect Barak Obama's message that the "trickle-down" theory has failed. We must adapt his idea of the bottom-up approach which has always worked in America. After all it is the approach that worked to establish the early colonies. There were hundreds of acres of land given freely to european emigrants who had the will and ability to work it. This approach created the wealthy foundation for the American dream.
Unlike conventional redevelopment which is performed by a handful of well connected and funded people. Bottom-up redevelopment can be done by hundreds even thousands of people with small amounts of money. Unlike conventional redevelopment which profit's are shared by a handful of people, "bottom-up redevelopment" can spread profit to many Americans from any walk of life. Privately funded urban renewal can be as simple as one person buying one house in a blighted area. Renovating that house and selling it back to someone in the local community for about the same monthly payment as their rent. Or it can be a private real estate syndicate purchasing an old industrial building and converting it into a mall or building hundreds of high quality modular units to meet the pressing need for affordable housing.
Bottom-up redevelopment actully gives the middle class the power to change America's inner cities and it gives people who live in the community an opportunity to participate and profit from the redevelopment of their own community. It has to be a well coordinated effort between government, non-profit groups, private investors, churches, universities and community groups.
I represent a real estate investment company in the los angeles area and we are involved in urban renewal in East Saint Louis, Illinois. Our motto is "Profit Through Philanthropy". Our goal is to rebuild American inner cities one home at a time. One neighborhood at a time. One city at a time.
More to come. Cambridge Financial Consultants, El Monte, CA 91731. 626-618-0181
We are currently mobilizing funds for our projects in Haiti, if you can, please make a donation. If not, forward our request to your lists on our behalf.
Project 2000 International, Inc. has its core service as education. We believe that if people are educated, opportunities will result. We have now began to grow beyond our core service by providing health services, agricultural education, micro-credit and training schools in order to develop a sustainable entrepreneurial revolution in Haiti. Please, help us in securing funding for our programs.
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http://www.project2000international.org/eng_agriculture.htm
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Space policy made a pretty decent splash at Netroots Nation. We had an excellent panel on space policy, and an excellent platform meeting. For those of you who don't remember, we had Andrew Hoppin moderating, and Chris Bowers, Lori Garver, Patricia Grace Smith, and George Whitesides all speaking. You can about the panelists here.
Join me over the fold to read, and see it
Hey Everyone,
I figured now would be a good time to remind everyone (again) about some upcoming space events, that would be worth going to. We have a couple of major events this week, as well as future events upcoming. I promise reports to any and all I attend, and I suggest that you attend as well
This is being re-posted from my diaries over at dailykos
In many of my past diaries, I commented on Senator Obama, and his lack of a space policy, and the concern that he is anti human spaceflight. These diaries have ranged from long explanations, to something that was probably close to a rant.
Here is a note from a previous BLOG post.
http://heydeesmeet.blogspot.com/
Dear Barack Obama,I highly doubt you will read this, but hopefully one of your aides and campaign works will. What went wrong in Ohio, New York, and subsequently, Pennsylvania is that you need to hit home new economic solutions with low income workers. They care most about the economy. There needs to be a new policy suggestion to help the poor and downtrodden. That is what makes you a democrat and these people currently aren't seeing that. More effort needs to be given to these people directly. More than just changing healthcare, education and getting out of the war or appealing to their distrust in Bush. They are looking for a new approach for their economic blight. As much as I can see the booms in the 1990s was more attributed to new gadgets created by Microsoft and Apple than any industrial policy. I am a student in public administration in Miami, FL and I am interested in Local Economic Development. In the U.S. we have used the HUD's programs for engaging local communities but that is not enough. We need to refocus and launch a new attached on the less-fortunate communities and help them spur their economic competitiveness in the global economy.Barack, you have not talked about this sufficiently. It can't be just that we will reassess NAFTA and CAFTA--that is okay but its not sufficient to really look at how to help the small towns build up. Why not engage these communities in the same grassroots efforts as your campaign and engage them to find pro-poor portable solutions to their economic problems. Their ingenuity in assessing the lack of concrete a industrial policy will make the difference. Below is what I proposed when I wanted to have dinner with you. Today, I am not so sure, I'd like to have dinner with you! You need to reach out and talk about the economy straight-on and reach out to the disenfranchised, who don't care about party unity nor, black white divides, but about their pocket books.Now please, you are my hope to changing this around. Please focus on this section of the population that needs some solutions, especial now and into the future as these gas prices and foreclosures rates go up and up.Grassroots “Opportunity Zones” for Economic RevitalizationWhy not revitalize the HUD’s Renewal community program by providing block grants and technical assistance directly to Community Development Corporations (CDCs) for commercial activities and job-training programs? Such a policy will strengthen your grassroots political efforts by bring more financial services to the communities in-need. It will not only create a market-place effort for American communities to compete for federal financing (requiring private sector support for legitimacy and efficiency) but it will also provide direct technical assistance to strengthen the at-risk economy. Currently HUD’s Renewal community program is seeking congressional commitment for the third round of support. The CDBG, hosted separately, needs further revitalization for assisting American cities where the highest percentage of our poor resides. Your campaign could assist to strengthen America’s most prevailing community based programs CDC’s to perform better—by engaging citizens, assisting the poor and promoting economic development through urban revitalization. By transferring this public program to direct beneficiaries, instead of the government bureaucracies, this policy could make CDCs already successful role in development even stronger.The ultimate result would be like a low-income housing tax credit but for commercial activity and job-training programs to speed-up local economies. Grassroots “Opportunity Zones” for Economic Revitalization is a similar policy I am working to execute in Latin America, the area of my expertise.
Dear Senator Obama,
It is clear, through your statements, that you have questions about what role human spaceflight can and does play on our society. You have said that you want to have a full evaluation, and have a clear understanding about how and where we can have the most impact in our spending on space.
Part of the problem is how we've interacted with space, and how we view it. For a long time, space has been viewed as being beyond the reach of the average person, and that it can only provide us more scientific knowledge.
However, there is growing evidence that this is about to change, and that properly harnessed, space can have an incredibly positive effect on society - it can help with our economy, and it can help provide us with clean, cheap energy.
It is for this reason I have written these essays - so you can understand how human spaceflight can have a beneficial impact on society, why the time is now that it can have such a beneficial impact, and how best to capitalize on this.
In this second essay, I talk about the economy, and suborbital space businesses.
I was consulted to facilitate a seminar on diversity to a group of managers in the UK some time ago. With it being on human resource management and the treatment of diverse people in the workplace, I adopted my usual approach to check out perceptions. Plastic bag in hand, with a deliberate air of nonchalance, vulnerability and professionalism, I gingerly approached the receptionist at the venue. I asked for my contact and, while I waited for her, I explained that I was there for a seminar but deliberately did not say in what capacity.
I stumbled upon this posting from the non-partisan Center for Global Development today. Very elightened and inspirational. Go OBAMA!
http://blogs.cgdev.org/globaldevelopment/2007/12/obamas_uncommon_commitment_to.php
An excerpt from the blog:
"Obama's strategy reiterates a promise to double U.S. foreign assistance to $50 billion by 2012 several months ago. Also of note are commitments to:
