In contrast to calls for debt "forgiveness," canceling odious and illegitimate debts is a matter of justice. These debts were given to despicable regimes, often simply to reward them for some kind of support for the "national interest" of more-industrialized countries. As the document states, international debts should be rigorously audited and odious and illegitimate debts in particular should be canceled immediately.
Please fix the link on this one. This represents an important and rarely articulated set of views for the administration to engage.
In this document, the corporate representatives pledged to "provide whatever additional assistance is necessary" toward corporate support for working families. Yet they offer no new ideas about how corporations should be helping working families. Rather, they only say that they have *already* done the work to support working families. I would suggest the following, among others, that they should concentrate on. First, reduce the immoral gap between executive and worker pay, which has grown so much during the past three decades. This economic crisis shows that executives aren't as smart/innovative/entrepreneurial as they think they are. Secondly, the financial corporations should commit to usury caps on their consumer financial products, and streamline their products so that they are not purposefully trapping consumers in high-interest credit card debt. Elizabeth Warren's work would be helpful in this regard, such as The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke. Thirdly, commit to subsidies for child care when necessary and include business processes for backing up parents on leave. The latter have already been mentioned by the great comments so far, but the former also are important and seem to be off the radar screens of these corporate folks.
I agree. Very good point. There is politics, and then there is active citizenry holding politicians to account.
Who is "our side"? Has Obama reached out to Code Pink? Has Obama reached out to the American-Arab Anti-discrimination Committee? Has Obama reached out to Nader? Has Obama reached out to the Green Party? Has Obama reached out to the American Friends Service Committee? It seems that Obama is selecting center/center-right for his cabinet and then reaching rightward for reconciliation. Perhaps this is necessary for the first term, or hopefully only the first half of the first term. Then maybe he can reach leftward.
Thank you so much for raising this very important position, and bdave I look forward to reading the rest of your post. Please also address this question. How is it that imperial states at their peak (like Britain in the 1800s, and the U.S. in the mid-1990s) are the ones that push "free trade" the hardest? Even then, they push "free trade" of those items in which they have an advantage, and yet subsidize items (like cotton and corn) that they do not have an advantage in? To use the household example, is it free trade if I prevent you from selling me clothes made from your own cotton (requiring that you buy my subsidized cotton before you can sell clothes back to me), if I dump food on you so that your garden goes to waste, and then allow you and everybody like you to sell only cut flowers back to me? This is necessarily simplistic and slanted, but it is important to get beyond the elegant structures of neoclassical economics to explore how "free trade" takes place in reality.
I tend to agree with those who say Warren's is a three-minute prayer, and not judge Obama's entire administration on this. However, when I look at the breadth of his cabinet appointments (Clinton appointments, Robert Gates, followers of Robert Rubin) I see that Warren is not his only nod rightward. Unless this is simply crisis management and the second half of his term is going to be transformative, I see Obama being a great speaker and efficient manager who only perpetuates the errors of past administrations. After all, who was it who said that the definition of insane is to try the same things again and again and expect a different outcome? I'm happy right now I didn't vote for Obama, but hopefully I can vote for him in four years. However, if time allows I will work to make the Green Party a viable alternative.
It is important to remember that farming is not only a business. It is a lifestyle, as evidenced by the strong support for U.S. government farm subsidies. It is also a way for people, for example in Mali, to make a subsistence income. However, when government subsidies are given to largescale cotton farmers in the U.S. (or corn farmers, at the expense of Mexican corn farmers), then it is the poor that get hurt.
Good work, but make sure you do not overextend yourself. Educate yourself about the structures that organizations work within and seek to change. That way you can work smart as well as hard.
I am a little surprised that there are no comments as yet in this platform. I would like more energetic response to those such as George McGovern who disagree with "card check" and call it anti-democratic. Why is open voting/card check not undemocratic?
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Medley