Posts Tagged ‘economy’
Why we need a second party
Watching the Republican Party struggling to agree on a presidential candidate, one wonders whether the G.O.P. shouldn’t just sit this election out — just give 2012 a pass…
…The party has let itself become the captive of conflicting ideological bases: anti-abortion advocates, anti-immigration activists, social conservatives worried about the sanctity of marriage, libertarians who want to shrink government, and anti-tax advocates who want to drown government in a bathtub.
Sorry, but you can’t address the great challenges America faces today with that incoherent mix of hardened positions. I’ve argued that maybe we need a third party to break open our political system. But that’s a long shot. What we definitely and urgently need is a second party — a coherent Republican opposition that is offering constructive conservative proposals on the key issues and is ready for strategic compromises to advance its interests and those of the country.
Without that, the best of the Democrats — who have been willing to compromise — have no partners and the worst have a free pass for their own magical thinking. Since such a transformed Republican Party is highly unlikely, maybe the best thing would be for it to get crushed in this election and forced into a fundamental rethink…
Because when I look at America’s three greatest challenges today, I don’t see the Republican candidates offering realistic answers to any of them.
The US population ages, elder abuse and need for shelters grows
They’re weak, physically or mentally disabled or both, and often at the mercy of people they depend on the most: relatives and caretakers. They’re the nation’s fast-growing elderly population, and many are prime targets for abuse — physical, financial, sexual or emotional. Concern among the elderly and their advocates is mounting as the number of seniors soars and more of them live longer.
The Cedar Village Retirement Community in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason this month opened a long-term care facility to victims of abuse. It is the first elder abuse shelter in Ohio and one of only a half-dozen in the country, all of them funded by non-profit groups.
“There is a genuine recognition by those who are concerned by the abuse of elders that there need to be appropriate safe houses for them to get them out of immediate harm’s way,” says Sally Hurme, AARP’s senior project manager in education and outreach. “Nationally, we’ve been aware of the need for elder abuse shelters, but they’ve been slow in coming into fruition…”
The number of people who live to age 90 and beyond has tripled in the past three decades to 2 million and is projected to quadruple by 2050, according to the Census Bureau. The number of 65-plus grew 15.1% since 2000 to 40.3 million or 13% of the total population.
As their numbers grow, the dismal economy has forced many to live with children and grandchildren, a situation that may tempt the unscrupulous to take advantage of the old in their care…
Eyewitness: building an Airbus A350 from the inside-out
Click on photo to enlarge
Employees work on an A350 Airbus plane at the company’s facility near Saint-Nazaire, western France. The company is to hire 4,000 staff in 2012, about half of them in France.
The growth at Airbus is matched pretty much one-for-one at Boeing. As the global economy shuffles forward from the joys brought to us by an unregulated Wall Street, an underfunded SEC, a total disregard for oversight, honesty and integrity for a decade or more – some aspects continue to grow slowly and steadily – especially in capital goods.
In spite of 19th Century ideologues who prefer to return us to Bush-league standards.
One year of owning the Chevy Volt + work, commuting = 237mpg
Chevy Volt belonging to Lyle Stuart, founder of GM-Volt.com
My Chevrolet Volt was delivered on December 17th 2010, and as of today I have owned and operated the vehicle for a full year.
It is nearly five years in fact since I first founded this website in an effort to gain and sustain national attention on electric cars and this vehicle in particular, and to push GM to develop it…
To this day I still get a thrill when I jump in and power it up. I drive often with a smile on my face. I thoroughly love not using gas almost of of the time, and having the safety and freedom to kick in the gas generator when needed.
I have found the car of impeccably high quality and 100% reliable performance in all kinds of driving situations and environments. The car is worthy of all the awards it has received.
Thus far I have put on 8,635 miles and used a paltry 36.6 gallons of gas with a lifetime fuel efficiency of 237 miles per gallon…
My oil life still says 56% and I haven’t changed it. I rotated the tires at 7,500 miles and had a software upgrade performed…
Though perhaps not important, I am a bit surprised GM won’t meet its first year target of 10,000 cars. Considering all the attention and robust discussion I observed while running this site, and the calls by many for great volumes, I was sure demand would be higher. Eventually I still think it will. A lot of it is economic. In these tough financial times with gas prices stable, the $41,000 without tax break price tag remains out of reach for many. It is great though that the car is on the road so that in the future, through economies of scale the price will drop and more will be sold. As well, surely some are waiting for the first generation to work out its kinks and are watching on the sidelines eventually planning to buy a next generation model.
There were naysayers ever since the Volt concept was announced in January 2007, and many are still here today and will be ad infinitum. They may never be silenced, but the reality is GM has made the dream come true of a mass production electric car with range extender and it is an awesome thing indeed. I also think its fair to say the company ushered in a new era of accessible electric transportation as essentially every automaker has followed suit with electric cars of their own.
Lyle is right about the price. Certainly in my family. I’d love to have a Volt be our next car; but, the cost/benefit ratio just ain’t worth it – yet. We’d need an extra 10 years beyond the 10 year minimum we look at when purchasing a vehicle. Even though – we buy good enough designs and practice sufficient maintenance – we have gone well beyond that 10 year number with our existing passenger car and pickup truck. The Volvo has almost 30 years and 280,000 miles on it. The Dodge pickup is a 1994 and has gone over 220,000 miles.
Right now, the leading contenders to replace the Volvo are the Prius Aqua – landing next year, the VW Golf diesel and the electric Mitsubishi i-Miev. After federal tax credits – we get squat from the state of New Mexico – they would cost $9-14K less than the Volt.
And the winning Republican ticket for the White House is….
America is beginning the process of electing another Texan to be president. Gigantic tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, a trumped up war and a ruined economy from the last Texan seem incapable of dissuading supporters of Rick Perry.
His Saturday speech in South Carolina will make clear that he is entering the race for the White House and will spawn the ugliest and most expensive presidential race in U.S. history, and he will win. A C and D student, who hates to govern, loves to campaign, and barely has a sixth grader’s understanding of economics, will lead our nation into oblivion…
The big brains gathered east of the Hudson and Potomac Rivers believe that Mitt Romney is the candidate to beat. But they are unable to hear what Rick Perry is saying. The Christian prayer rally in Houston was a very loud proclamation to fundamentalists and Teavangelicals, which said, “I am not a Mormon…”
Michele Bachmann, who is from Iowa, and is Perry in Prada, has the same appeal among Teavangelicals. Her husband’s reparative gay therapy sessions, the Newsweek cover and a few speeches that were not reality based will, eventually, make even the GOP primary voters realize she is bound for the desert and not the Promised Land.
Romney and Bachmann are the only serious impediments to the Perry nomination…Because presidential politics tend to be more visceral than intellectual, Perry’s coyote-killer good looks, $2,000 hand-tooled cowboy boots, supernova smile and Armani suits, combined with podium skills to embellish the mythology of Texas, all will create a product Americans will want to believe and buy.
After he wins the nomination, protocol will require Perry to have discussions with Bachmann about the vice presidential slot, but he will, eventually, turn to Sarah Palin. The general election will force the Texan back toward the middle and he will stop talking about faith and abortion and gay marriage; Perry will campaign on jobs and the economy. Palin, who is loved by the tea party as much as Perry, will keep the Teavangelicals animated while he tries to talk to the adults to win the election on a single issue: the economy, stupiderest!!!
When the cold rains fall in early November next year, unemployed voters in places like Ohio will step into the booth and dream of a minimum wage job in the Texas sun selling fishing rods at big box sporting goods stores or working in call centers; they will vote against Barack Obama.
And in the process, they will write the epitaph to set upon the tombstone of history’s greatest democracy: Perry-Palin, 2012.
James Moore is a Texas-based Emmy award-winning former national TV news correspondent and co-author of the best-seller, “Bush’s Brain.” He’s witty and way too subtle for Kool Aid Party hacks.
View from outside the United States? America’s rightwing nutters are the biggest threat to the world economy!
Vince Cable never has learned to be polite to idiots
Vince Cable has launched an extraordinary attack on “rightwing nutters” in America who are trying to block the raising of the US government’s debt ceiling and who are, he said, a bigger threat to the world economy than problems in the eurozone…
He said: “The irony of the situation at the moment, with markets opening tomorrow morning, is that the biggest threat to the world financial system comes from a few rightwing nutters in the American Congress rather than the eurozone.”
Negotiations on raising the US government’s debt limit above its current level of $14.3 trillion collapsed in acrimony late on Friday over details of a package of spending cuts and tax rises that would help to pay for such a move…
A visibly angry Barack Obama attacked the Republican speaker of the house, John Boehner, for refusing to return his phone calls and said he had been “left at the altar” in trying to reach an agreement. Most experts agree that if the US were to default on its debt payments, stock and bond markets worldwide would plunge, threatening a new great recession. The deadline for agreement is just over a week away, on 2 August.
On the crisis in the eurozone, Cable said the coalition government wanted to see the euro succeed, even though Britain was not a part of it.
With GDP figures this week expected to suggest that growth has stalled, the senior Liberal Democrat conceded that the state of the economy was “not great”.
“It is not surprising that it isn’t great because of the problems we inherited,” he said, while dismissing the idea of easing the coalition’s austerity measures. The UK was in a “German rather than Greek” position because there was confidence in the country’s finances, he said…
The same fools who think the United States operates in a vacuum are twins to those who think nothing should change in how the American economy functions, e.g., they want dependence on consumer spending, ballooning housing prices, reliance on credit spending to continue to rule the way our nation lives.
That many people have begun to increase savings is a sin. That many of us realize that actually being able to qualify to buy a house benefits the economy and the home-building trade. That many have learned to pay down their credit cards balances to zero ASAP is not only good for your credit rating – it leaves you in control of your finances. That bigger isn’t better by any sensible definition – whether you’re buying a car or a home. And that home is something you and your family intend to live in for the foreseeable future – not something to be flipped as a business investment.
Just us folks, that’s all. No Wall Street analysts or Congressional/White House campaign organizers. Not anymore.
Fareed Zakaria/Tom Keene – on Global Economy, U.S., Middle East
The quick description of this video is: Fareed Zakaria, editor-at-large at Time Magazine and host of CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” program, discusses his book “The Post American World” and the U.S. economy.
Zakaria, speaking with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance Midday,” also discusses U.S. policy in the Middle East and the sovereign debt crisis in Europe.
Is that enough for your brunch plate?
An example of why I record Tom Keene’s SURVEILLANCE MIDDAY, every day. Some days only a few minutes is interesting, some days the hour flies by and I have to rewind a few times to absorb the complete spectrum of ideas and analysis – from economics to politics, history to baseball – that’s offered in 3 or 4 segments.
I saved this interview with Fareed Zakaria to discuss after supper, last night, with my wife. An advantage of having this on a recorder is that as a point offered by either of these scholars prompts a response – we can stop the playback and discuss it together.
One of the brightest facets in the life we share.
Euro politicians vote to keep world’s best salaries and perks
European politicians rejected three cost-cutting measures, which would have seen salaries frozen and travel allowances cut, in a move branded as “shameful”.
The first amendment to be voted down called for MEPs and senior EU staff to fly economy class for journeys of less than four hours around Europe instead of business class – a proposal that would have saved an estimated £20m a year.
They then rejected an amendment which recommended that “savings in the Parliament should start by its own members”, which called for no further increases in MEP salaries and their various parliamentary allowances in 2012.
Finally they rejected a third amendment which stated MEPs should not be paid for both being in the Parliament and travelling to or from it. MEPs receive an average flat rate allowance of £168 to cover the cost of travelling from their homes to either Brussels or Strasbourg.
MEPs are paid an average £83,000 per year, compared to MPs in Britain, who have an annual salary of £65,738.
They also receive a daily “subsistence allowance” of £265, they can be refunded up to £3,600 per year for other travel outside their own country, and be reimbursed for up to 24 return journeys within their own country. Members also receive up to £242,000 annually in staff salaries and office expenses and benefit from a generous health care and pension system. It is estimated that an MEP can cost around £400,000-a-year…
Marta Andreasen said: “This proves categorically and unambiguously that when the European Parliament speaks of austerity measures it applies to everybody else except the institution itself…
At the same time, MEPs gave their blessing to the multi-million-pound House of European History museum project and also voted to approve a 2.3 per cent increase in the Parliament’s budget for 2012 to £1.5bn.
I’m certain everyone who gets to contribute to the maintenance of politicians to this standard feels just tip-top about the expense. Right?
Ideas shaping a new India
Puja for a new car
This new year will bring the 20th anniversary of that shimmering, amorphous thing, the new India.
Like China and South Africa and other made-over nations, India has more than one birth date. There is that midnight hour in 1947 when Jawaharlal Nehru proclaimed the end of British rule and spoke of India’s “tryst with destiny.” But it is to 1991, when India began to open its doors to the world and loosen the economic controls on its own citizens, that the present form of the country can most easily be traced…
Who is this new India? Its character is coming into ever sharper focus, and it is becoming clearer which ideas have most shaped its remaking.
Here, based on my own years of traveling in and reporting on the country, are five ideas that have done much to turn the new India new — out of a larger pool of ideas that could be mentioned.
Class is a situation. Every society has distinctions of class. But in an earlier India, these distinctions were taken to be intrinsic and eternal and heritable; class was not circumstance, but identity.
The ancient caste system was the most obvious symbol of this idea. But it had many subtler expressions, too.
Businessmen made a point of hierarchically noting that “he came to meet me” or “I went to meet him,” rather than simply saying, “We met.” Waiters hunched and bowed and obsequiously overdosed on the word “sir” or “sahib” when serving.
A rising group of young Indians conceives of class very differently: not as a fixed identity, but as a transient situation, and a situation that can change…
The next three areas of change are Family, English language, Gold is old. RTFA.
Modernity is best served traditional. Changes of this kind have been disruptive, to say the least, in many parts of the developing world. India is often faulted for modernizing too slowly and chaotically. But there is perhaps another way of seeing its journey over the past 20 years: as a different model of modernization.
It is a model of forward movement in which the past retains the upper hand and the future stands on the defensive. Change, however inevitable it might seem, must prove itself before being allowed to work on India.
But the Indian model is more than just cautious. It tends to assume, against all odds, that the traditional and the modern are ultimately compatible.
I don’t think that’s so unusual, although not necessary. Where it might be considered a requirement, say, in Mainland China – much, much less so on Taiwan. For a direct comparison.
Time will tell. Indians will make the decision. How much of the nation is involved is still a key question.
Audi’s entire lineup to have diesel option by 2015
At the end of August, we reported that Audi would “more than double” its lineup of clean diesel models in the U.S. within the next year, or maybe two. Those words rolled from the lips of Audi U.S.A’s chief marketing officer, Scott Keogh, who adamantly claimed that the company’s highly efficient TDI engine was key to the company’s “growth and success in the [U.S.] marketplace.” Keogh’s admission that the automaker would unleash more TDI-equipped models on U.S. turf was the first time in which we recollect an Audi official uttering such words.
Now, here’s take number two. Audi of America spokesperson Brad Stertz attended a panel to discuss Green Car Journal’s 2010 Green Car of the Year tour. Stertz reinforced Keogh’s statement and added that Audi’s successful TDI-powered A3 model has encouraged the automaker to quickly move forward with plans to bring additional clean diesel vehicles to the U.S. According to Stertz, six out of ten A3 hatchbacks sold in the U.S. are of the oil-burning variety. Stertz added, “We thought we’d be lucky if (A3 sales in the U.S.) would be 18 percent TDI. We’re only limited by the fact that we can’t import any more.”
Stertz reconfirmed that no less than a pair of new diesel models bearing the four-ringed emblem will hit American showrooms by the end of 2012 and additional reports suggest that an oil-burning option will be available on every Audi model by 2015. Clearly, Audi, and even partner Volkswagen, have made tremendous strides in eliminating the American belief that diesels are smoky, stench-filled vehicles of the past. In doing so, both automakers discovered the key to oil-burning success.
I can understand someone like Ford sticking with their turbo-ized small-displacement gasoline engines. They’ve made a commitment to that solution for that part of the potential market. Just as Toyota did with hybrids. Like Toyota, sticking with the drill for significant period of time is required.
At the same time, when you have production vehicles already being sold worldwide – with a successful diesel option – I think it’s foolish not to offer the choice here in the States. Audi’s workingclass better half – Volkswagen – is another proof of the same solution.
So far, the result seems to be sales increasing faster than available product. Not exactly a bad problem.
