The tortilla is a staple of the Mexican diet. But the price of corn – a key ingredient in tortillas – has soared in the past year. In the second report of Al Jazeera’s ‘Cost of Living’ series, Franc Contreras examines how the rising cost of corn has affected Mexican households.
Continue reading …I’m not clear on whether this is something that will be lifted when things calm down, or if this will be in effect until elections are held. If the latter, that means unions will be forbidden from organizing for an election slate : CAIRO – Egypt’s new military rulers will issue a warning on Monday against anyone who creates “chaos and disorder”, an army source said. The Higher Military Council will also ban meetings by labor unions or professional syndicates, effectively forbidding strikes, and tell all Egyptians to get back to work after the unrest that toppled Hosni Mubarak. The army will also say it acknowledges and protects the right of people to protes t, the source said. Protesters argued heatedly in Tahrir Square over whether to stay or comply with army orders to leave. “The people want the square cleared,” one group chanted. “We will not leave, we will not leave,” replied another. Police officers, emboldened by Mubarak’s downfall, gathered outside the Interior Ministry to demand higher pay. Warning shots were fired in the air. No one was hurt. Workers from the health and culture ministries staged demonstrations as Egyptians began venting pent-up frustrations. Thousands of workers have staged strikes, sit-ins and protests over pay and conditions at firms and government agencies in fields such as steel, textiles, telecoms, railways, post offices, banks and oil and pharmaceutical companies. Egypt declared Monday a bank holiday after workers disrupted operations at the country’s main state banks. Protest organizers were forming a Council of Trustees to defend the revolution and urge swift reform from a military intent on restoring law and order during the transition. Mahmoud Nassar, a youth movement leader, said: “The army has moved far along to meet the people’s demands and we urge it to release all political prisoners who were taken before and after January 25 revolution. Only then will we call off the protests. ”
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Click here to view this media Jamie Dimon kicked off his Sunday morning appearance on Fareed Zakaria’s show with a bit of whine about how mean, mean, mean we all are to bankers. He kicks things right off by blaming the victims: DIMON: OK. In the United States of America, only one-third of credit is provided by banks. Bank lending actually went up after Lehman Brothers failed, not down. It’s a huge misconception. Two- thirds of credit is provided by individuals, corporations, pension plans, you know, et cetera. The huge reduction in credit supplied was the credit supplied in directly to the marketplace. In fact, if you go to any place around the world, you ask people, did you do something more conservative with your money after Lehman went down? Which everyone says, yes. I would say, well, you caused the crisis. You got scared. You ran. It’s perfectly legitimate as an individual protecting yourself. And JPMorgan last year lent or financed $1.4 trillion for corporations, individual around the world, up pretty substantially from the year before and I believe substantially from the year before that. Really, Jamie Dimon? REALLY? We caused the crisis how? Were we the ones playing high stakes games with mortgages, lending money to people based on fraudulent, jacked up valuations and credit histories and then selling them off to the likes of YOU to gamble? Um no. Not so much. [video here when available] Funny how the story changes. When he testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, he said this: “Reflecting on the causes of the crisis, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan testified to the FCIC, “I blame the management teams 100% and…no one else. (Page 18) ” Or here, where he realizes what gambling with those brokered subprime loans cost JP Morgan (Page 91): “JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon testified to the FCIC that his firm eventually ended its [mortgage] broker-originated business in 2009 after discovering the loans had more than twice the losses of the loans that JP Morgan itself originated.” Of course, 2009 was too late. Everything had gone to hell in handbasket by then, so rippy-rah-hoo for Jamie Dimon’s stellar fiduciary standards. Or here, where he’s talking about how they were shocked — SHOCKED — to discover that home prices just don’t keep rising when markets collapse (Page 111): “Jamie Dimon…told the Commission, ‘In mortgage underwriting, somehow we just missed, you know, that home prices don’t go up forever and that it’s not sufficient to have stated income.” Gosh darn it. They just “missed it.” Really. Well, here’s what the FCIC had to say about that (page 111): In the end, companies in subprime and Alt-A mortgages had, in essence, placed all their chips on black: they were betting that home prices would never stop rising. This was the only scenario that would keep the mortgage machine humming…” They needed to keep that mortgage machine humming to stuff their pockets full of money, of course. FCIC report, page 113: “For commercial banks such as Citigroup, warehouse lending was a multibillion-dollar business. From 2000 to 2010, Citigroup made available at any one time as much as $7 billion in warehouse lines of credit to mortgage originators…” And finally, another example of self-confessed cluelessness (page 295): Before Bear’s collapse, the market had not really understood the colossal exposures that the tri-party repo market created for these clearing banks…In an interview with the FCIC, Dimon said that he had not become fully aware of the risks stemming from his bank’s tri-party repo clearing business until the Bear crisis in 2008. The report goes on to say that once Dimon and his cohorts realized what their exposure was, they put the squeeze on tri-party repo borrowers by forcing them to overcollateralize, which left them with less to lend, which poured down on businesses, and individuals, and anyone else who might have needed to borrow money. But hey, it’s all our fault because we didn’t really like losing nearly half of what we had in investments we thought were “safe”. Way to state it there, Jamie. (h/t Digby ) Full transcript follows: JAMIE DIMON, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, JPMORGAN CHASE: Not all bankers are the same. And I just think this constant refrain — bankers, bankers, bankers, it’s just — it just doesn’t — it’s really an unproductive and unfair way of treating people. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) ZAKARIA: At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, I presided over a panel of some of the world’s top businessmen. They were all extremely thoughtful, but I was most taken by what Jamie Dimon said. He’s, of course, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase. Dimon and his company emerged unscathed from the financial crisis, in fact, with both their reputations enhanced. If you want to hear what Jaime Dimon had to say about the state of the U.S. economy, the job problem, Europe and why he thinks he and his fellow bankers get a bad rap. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ZAKARIA: There is still, as you know, if you look at polls — polls in the United States, still a widespread feeling in the United States that the taxpayers bailed out the banks and the banks are not helping the taxpayers, they’re paying themselves big bonuses, but that lending has actually contracted in aggregate. You may be up over the last year, but overall, if you look at the amount of lending, which is $7 trillion, you’re still at about 2005 levels. What do you say to the average American taxpayer who says, guys, we bailed you out, now — now give us, you know, do something in return? DIMON: OK. In the United States of America, only one-third of credit is provided by banks. Bank lending actually went up after Lehman Brothers failed, not down. It’s a huge misconception. Two- thirds of credit is provided by individuals, corporations, pension plans, you know, et cetera. The huge reduction in credit supplied was the credit supplied in directly to the marketplace. In fact, if you go to any place around the world, you ask people, did you do something more conservative with your money after Lehman went down? Which everyone says, yes. I would say, well, you caused the crisis. You got scared. You ran. It’s perfectly legitimate as an individual protecting yourself. And JPMorgan last year lent or financed $1.4 trillion for corporations, individual around the world, up pretty substantially from the year before and I believe substantially from the year before that. Most banks are lending quite a bit. But remember, some of them are gone. The ones who are gone are no longer lending. So obviously there’s been a reduction. So you may talk to people saying, I can’t get money and they be that standards have loosened up in the last year, but they have not — they have not tightened up. So banks are — we are lending aggressively into corporates, to middle market, small business lending up 30 percent. There is, if you talk to most, there’s a demand issue. A lot of them don’t need the money because they’re not — because they’re not building inventory, not building plans, they’re not building – You know, a lot of these people have tons of cash. They’re not — they don’t need to call up their banks because they’ve got plenty of money right now. So – ZAKARIA: Let me ask you about one more consequence of the crisis, if I may, which is – DIMON: There’s a huge misconception, in which not all banks needed that T.A.R.P. You know, not all banks would have failed. And right here, a lot of policy makers and regulation makers — that one assumption drive so much the anger that they would have failed. I can tell you a lot of banks were stabilizing this problem. JPMorgan bought Bear Stearns because the United States government asked us to. We bought — we bought not because we wanted to. Wells Fargo bought Wachovia. HSBC was (INAUDIBLE). And I can go bank after bank who’s a stabilizing force, trying to make up for the fact that there are other failures. So we — we lump everyone together like — and I think it is a terrible thing to do. I don’t lump all media together. There’s good and there’s bad. There’s irresponsible and ignorant and there are really smart media. Well, not all bankers are the same. And I just think this constant refrain — bankers, bankers, bankers, it’s just — it just doesn’t — it’s really an unproductive and unfair way of treating people. And I just think people should stop doing that. I think that denigrates everything. Not all companies are the same, not all CEOs are the same, not all media is the same. And so I — we try to do the best we can every day. ZAKARIA: Let me ask you about another consequence of this — of this crisis. It has been to concentrate assets among the top banks. JPMorgan, Citigroup, Bank of America now represent 30 percent of all assets. You have about $2 trillion in deposit. It strikes me that the net effect of the — of what has happened, is you’re not too big to fail, you’re way too big to fail. DIMON: Yes. So it’s 30 percent of all deposits in America. America is far less concentrated than Europe, Asia, Canada, Australia, France, U.K., Italy, I mean, way less concentrated. There are reasons for — it kind of just scale (ph), stuff like that. I wish — I believe that when we start talking about resolution authority, that we should, the governments, the regulation should be able to take down a JPMorgan in a way that doesn’t damage citizens of the world. I also think the banks should pay for that. Like in the FDIC, when banks fail, the FDIC takes them over and kind of liquidates them and the rest of the banks pay for that. We’re going to pay $5 billion, the FDIC, if a failure of other banks. I — instead of calling it resolution, I think we should have called it minimally damaging bankruptcy for big dumb banks. Take them down, wipe them out, full bankruptcy, unsecured creditors pay. And that’s — that’s what they’re trying to get to, which is a little complex. It can be done. That’s what the FDIC did with big banks for many years. Now we’ve become global. So I understand, if you’re a regulator, you need to say, OK, what can I do in the U.K.? What can I do in France? Can I protect myself? The answer is you can. It’s a little complicated, but it can be done and that’s the better way to do it. Let these companies fail. Put them in a position they can all fail and the world is fine. ZAKARIA: Could JPMorgan fail without systemic risk in the United States today? DIMON: Yes. If it’s set up properly, the answer is yes. So — and the other thing I remembered, Lehman — if the Lehman Brothers had failed in 2000 — there’s the thing about complex systems. If Lehman Brothers have failed in 2005, I don’t think it would have caused this crisis. I guess it was cumulative trauma after — you had problems in Germany, you had problems in Britain, you had problems in the United States, and the United States was the epicenter. I’m not going to deny that. But it was — AIG, WaMu, mortgage brokers and it was around the world. And so things would be very different if — if they were set up so that they could be handled. Lehman Brothers had $200 billion of unsecured debt. If at the point of failure that unsecured debt had been turned into equity, Lehman would have 200 billion of equity and 600 billion of assets and it would have been fine. ZAKARIA: Larry Summers on my program said financial industry fought this reform tooth and nail. They’ve spent a million dollars on each congressman, four lobbyists for every congressmen. Is this financial reform change things? DIMON: You know, I love Larry. A ridiculous statement, OK? First of all — first of all, it’s a free — I remind these people all the time that’s it’s a in a democracy you have the right to petition your government. It’s in the number one amendment in the U.S. Bill of Rights. Most of that lobbyists are own people. When I go to Washington, it counts as lobbying time and they have to add it up and, you know, whatever — how they would calculate and stuff like that. We didn’t fight financial reform, OK? We wanted resolution authority. We thought there should be oversight committees. We thought (INAUDIBLE) should go to clearing houses. We thought there should be better consumer protection. We fought the parts of the reform we thought were irrational. That’s all. You know, it’s not like you were for or against reform. There’s a — I complete — we completely acknowledge (ph) the need for massive reform after what happened. Totally, absolutely. But, you know, some of the stuff that got done which is not rational. So we at first to say we’re supposed to bend down and accept it because we’re a bank, I say that’s not fair. So — and Larry knows the detail too. He knows some of these things. That he didn’t support all of the reform. If he would stand up here, he would agree with me, there are a lot of things that — that had nothing to do with him, which is, you know, people in Congress coming up with their own ideas and what would make sense. ZAKARIA: All right. Jamie Dimon’s proposed resolution authority, for those of you who didn’t catch it is the MDBBDB, minimally damaging bankruptcy for big dumb banks. Somehow I feel, Jamie, that you’re a great banker, but you haven’t come up with a good acronym for legislation. h/t Heather at Video Cafe for the clip.
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The frustrated generation at the heart of the protests tell how their progress is being stifled by unemployment and corruption Interactive: read more about young people in the Arab world They live with their parents, hang out in cafes, Facebook their friends, study in their spare time, listen to local rappers – and despair about ever being able to get a good, fulfilling job and start a family. The young people at the vanguard of the protests sweeping the Arab world are an exasperated demographic, the lucky ones stuck in poorly paid jobs they hate, the unlucky ones touting degrees that don’t get them anywhere, an entire generation muzzled by tradition, deference and authoritarian rule. From the first protests that rippled across the Maghreb after a marginalised young Tunisian set himself on fire in December to the confrontation in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, Arab youths have provided the animus for revolt. The raw statistics speak of a tipping point: more than half of the 350 million Arabs in the world are under 30. A great majority of these have slender prospects of finding good jobs or building a prosperous future. Youth unemployment rates are as high as 80% in some areas. Few can travel; emigration is just a frustrating dream. Rime Allaf, a fellow at Chatham House, which monitors international affairs, says: “Young people are stuck. It is very difficult especially when the rest of world is not exactly receptive to Arab people. Where would they go? It’s a vicious circle. They are stuck where they are. Unemployment is in double digits in most of Arab world. There is very little chance to prosper.” “Things are made worse by cronyism and corruption. The despots who have ruled their fiefdoms have done little to stimulate investment or jobs away from the easy money of tourism. Whole industries are controlled by the elite. It’s a matter of mismanagement. “There has been a focus on a number of industries such as tourism at the expense of other industries, a lot of people not bothering any more to learn to go because they know nothing is coming their way.” But there are also deeper cultural factors at play in a region where respect for elders is a sacrosanct value and where young people feel their ideas, their creativity, their energy is stifled. The biggest problem is the lack of jobs. At her private English classes in Damascus last week, Selma, 23, and her classmates made presentations on job prospects. The lesson got heated. “It’s impossible for us to get ahead here – there are no opportunities,” says Selma, drawing deeply on her cigarette in a courtyard in Damascus. “I want to leave; I want to emigrate to Canada.” Dressed in tight jeans, with perfectly manicured hair and makeup, Selma is typical of the aspirational urban Damascene youth. Living at home after splitting up with her fiance, she is determined to live independently. But after working 13-hour night shifts as a nurse, earning just 9,000 Syrian pounds (£125) a month for the last three years, she is pessimistic about the future. “I work so hard here for nothing. I want to get an education, I want to do a master’s degree, but the degrees here are not regarded anywhere else – the courses here are worth nothing.” Rashid, 22, an economics student at the University of Damascus agrees life is more expensive now in Syria, but says he remains optimistic. Like others his age, the Syrian-Palestinian lives at home with his parents who rent their apartment in the Palestinian camp area of Yarmouk, on the outskirts of Damascus, contributing to the family income until he can afford to support himself. “I have to do so many extra courses to have even the chance of finding work, but I know I’ll do it.” Between semesters, Rashid, dressed in jeans and jacket and smoking heavily, works part time for the Red Crescent. He plans on taking a series of extra courses, including English and accounting once he completes his degree. “If you ever get a job in the public sector the salaries are terrible, and most people are working in the public sector,” he explains. “Everyone wants to find a job in the private sector, but it’s competitive.” “I’d be happy to find something for 30,000 SP ($600) a month.”Almost 2,500 miles away, in a backstreet cafeteria in the Moroccan capital Rabat, Rachid Chaoui feels the same frustrations. The 25-year-old would-be archaeologist and his friends console each other: seven years at university and no job to show for it. “So we keep studying and, when we have to, we protest outside the parliament,” he says. A gloved hand hides a bone broken by a policeman at one protest that reached the gates of the walled royal compound, Morocco’s main centre of power. Chaoui’s home is a cold, damp, tiny rented room in the narrow, meandering streets that lead to the centre of the city’s ancient medina. “That is not what you dream of when you are studying,” says his friend Charifa. Her postgraduate degree in biology has also not been enough to get her a job in a country where one in five people under 25 is unemployed. “And for girls it is worse,” she says. “By this stage, your family thinks you should be getting married, not still studying or looking for work in a city far from your home.” “A lot of graduates get to the age of 30 and they still don’t have a job,” says another friend, Amine, explaining that they expect the government to stick to a decade-old pledge that all postgraduates would automatically be employed the state. “And if you don’t have a job when you are 30, then society looks down on you.” In Egypt, the epicentre of this youth-inspired revolt, Shady Alaa El Din also feels his university degree was barely worth the paper it was printed on. “We get nothing from our education system – university was four years of wasted time. We learnt by repetition; there was no room for creativity, no room for independent thought. You just had to repeat what the professor said exactly, and then you got good grades; if you deviated slightly, you would fail.” He says many of his peers work in jobs they hate – usually customer-service and call-centre positions at multinational companies such as Vodafone and Etisalat. Compared to many of his generation in Egypt, he has a lot going for him – and he knows it. Every year 700,000 new graduates chase 200,000 jobs, but thanks to the wasta (an Arabic word meaning influence or connections) from his retired father’s former career in the military, he was one of the lucky ones. “I was given a relatively easy time during my own year-long army conscription, and then our family connections landed me a job in the business centre of an upmarket hotel,” he says. “But it’s not what I want to be doing. I love creating stuff: art, design – I make my own cartoons – and I’d also like to start my own business. But there’re very few creative jobs available and there’s no stability to that kind of work; here I have a reliable income.” Oppressed Less tangible than the lack of jobs, but no less important, is the sense of sullen oppression, the stifling of creativity and energy and freedom. In Tunis, Ghazi Megdiche says that the psychological impact of two decades of repression run deep. “What defined us was not lack of job prospects, but lack of the most basic freedoms: being a teenager in a police state,” Megdiche says. “It was absolute stress at all times: we were contorted by nerves and fear and living on edge every day. Anything you did, you were watched. You couldn’t talk about politics even in your own home. If a young guy went out to pray, he’d be lifted by police. If you went for a drink, you’d be lifted by police. If you went out on Saturday night, you had to think of taking extra cash in case you were stopped by police. Even my parents at home whispered. We never knew our neighbours, never said hello in the entrance hall, for fear everyone was spying and an informer. You trusted no one.” Megdiche briefly worked in a CD shop. Like most young Tunisians, he’s a fan of the local rapper Balti and the underground hip-hop scene which alluded to the mental horrors of life under a north African Stasi. At the shop, Megdiche and some friends got round internet censorship to download some coverage of the Iraq war. Plainclothes police swooped and he was arrested for being a would-be Islamist terrorist planning jihad. “I’d never even prayed in my life. I was held for two days in a detention centre,” he said. Mariem Chaari, 21, an arts student, took part in the demonstrations that toppled ex-president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and considers herself a symbol of women’s freedoms in Tunisia. She wears what she wants and once lived with a boyfriend. “The revolution isn’t over. The [ruling] RCD party is still everywhere and I’m not sure what role the Islamists want to play, even though Tunisians don’t want an Islamist state. It will take a while for our psyches to adapt. I still can’t believe police in the streets are smiling, I still think I’ll be woken up and find it’s all a dream and there are hidden cameras everywhere.” Facebook The wave of Arab protest has acquired some lazy epithets: the WikiLeaks revolution, the Facebook uprising, the Twitter revolt. In reality, it’s more complex than that. But social media does play a big role in the lives of young Arabs. Some estimates put at more than 100 million the number of new media users across the Arab world. In Tunisia, around one in five young people use Facebook. To circumvent the state’s cyber-oppression, finger-length memory sticks, which allowed users to connect to the internet anonymously, began being distributed by local Pirate party activists. Blocked sites suddenly became accessible, and a virtual veil protected those sharing images, videos and information on the ground. In Egypt, Facebook pages dedicated to single-issue causes, such as the brutal death of an Alexandrian man, Khaled Said , at the hands of the police last year, attract hundreds of thousands of supporters. At the cybercafe in Rabat, Rachid checks Facebook and swaps commentaries with unemployed graduates like himself. More than three million Moroccans are signed on to Facebook. “Social media is very important,” said one young Jordanian woman, who didn’t want to give her name. “The worlds of dialogue and information you are exposed to are crucial. They are both enriching and enlightening. Most of all, they allow you to find people all over the world that share the same views and opinions, which effectively demonstrates that no man is an island. This is what galvanised these movements we are witnessing today.” Rap IIt’s perhaps not surprising that in a region where youth disaffection is so strong, rap music is a recurring leitmotif. In Sana’a, Mohammed, Jamal and Ismail, all Yemenis in their early 20s, sit in a semicircle, their eyes fixed on a computer screen. Every few seconds they pause the video and an argument breaks out. They’re listening to a 90s rap song by Nana and trying to write subtitles for it in English. Jamal, 25, has a boy of six months and shares a house with his wife, five brothers and parents who are paying for him to study English at a nearby institute. He graduated with a degree in computer science from Sana’a University two years ago and has been looking for a job ever since. “I spend my time alternating between learning English, driving my father’s taxi and chewing qat,” he said as flecks of green spit fly out of his mouth. Young Arabs share many of the passions that excite western youth: music, football and hanging out with friends. In Cairo, that means cruising up and down Gameat El-Dowal street in the brash suburb of Mohandiseen, and hanging out in western-style coffee shops. Summer weekends in Morocco are characterised by a sudden avalanche of young Rabatis through the tiny casbah and down to the beach and the cool Atlantic waves. Football, hip-hop and rap may be all the rage among his contemporaries, but Rachid Chaoui prefers to keep studying. Then there are the visits home to his family further north up the coast in Kenitra. They keep asking anxiously why they still have to support their son. “After a while, this affects everything,” he says. “It is hard to look at anything positively.” “You ask me how I have fun? The answer is that I don’t. How can I be happy if I can’t find a job, and a job is what gives you value as a person?” he asks. Many dream of moving abroad. In Tunis, Soria Jabri wants to find a job in Europe, despite the great changes ushered in by the jasmine revolution. Mourhene Sahraoui, 21, nurtures the same hopes. “My father’s unemployed so can’t pay a bribe to get me a position,” says Sahraoui. “So I’ve got little choice but to go abroad.” But some believe that change is coming and that their best bet is to stay at home and see it through. Shady is back at work now and he won’t be getting on an international flight anytime soon. “What we’ve done in Tahrir [Square], what you can see there – it’s perfect,” he says. “Before I wanted to leave Egypt, and I asked myself ‘Where can I go? Where can I live like a human?’ Now I realise this place is Egypt, this place is in Tahrir Square. I think that feeling is spreading to the rest of the country, and I want to be a part of it.” Middle East Syria Yemen Tunisia Egypt Morocco Jordan Martin Chulov Jack Shenker Angelique Chrisafis Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Karl Rove flip-flops on reconciliation: Now he’s all for using it to undo health-care reform
February 14, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media If the name of my site, CrooksandLiars, refers to anyone in the world, Karl Rove would be among the top 10. He just wrote an op-ed in the WSJ saying that Republicans can use “reconciliation” to repeal our new health care law: Former Bush strategist Karl Rove is urging congressional Republicans to use Democrats’ own tactics against them to force the repeal of President Barack Obama’s landmark health care law. Rove said Thursday that he wants to see the Senate GOP use the budget reconciliation process to repeal the law with a simple majority, not the 60-plus votes they would need to pass a separate repeal bill. “Democrats cannot complain if the GOP uses reconciliation after Democrats used it to pass ObamaCare through the Senate,” Rove wrote on The Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page . If Republicans are able to pick up at least four seats in the 2012 election — which would give them a simple majority of 51 and allow them to take the chairmanships of all Senate committees — Rove said he thinks the party will be able to roll back health care reform. Under reconciliation, “the Senate Budget Committee could instruct the Senate Finance Committee to reduce mandatory spending on insurance subsidies and Medicaid expansion. These two items make up more than 90 [percent] of spending in ObamaCare,” he wrote. “All the changes from all the committees” could then be “bundled into one measure and voted upon” as a budget bill, meaning it would only need 51 votes to pass. Because reconciliation is protected by the rules of the budget process, it doesn’t take 60 votes to overcome a filibuster threat, and it requires a simple majority to pass. Jonathan Chait finally writes something that I agree with: Karl Rove has an op-ed column in the Wall Street Journal today — and, yes, I admit that merely typing those words involuntarily triggers my saliva glands — that is entirely dedicated to urging Republicans to use the budget reconciliation process to repeal the Affordable Care Act: Fear not, sayeth Speaker Pelosi, all will be fixed with the magic dust known as “reconciliation”—a process that allows budget and spending bills to move through the Senate with 51 votes instead of 60…House Democrats would be foolish to trust a process that has deeply alienated the American public. No, wait, sorry! That’s his March 11, 2010 column entitled “The Trouble With ‘Reconciliation.’” Here is Rove’s pro-reconciliation column: Legislation that looks anything like the bill moving through the House will contain deeply unpopular provisions — including massive deficit spending, tax hikes and Medicare cuts — and create enormous ill will on Capitol Hill. This will be especially true if Democrats rely on parliamentary tricks to pass a bill in the Senate with 51 votes. Argh. Whoops. That turns out to be a Rove column from September, 2009 denouncing the use of reconciliation. Let’s see if this is it: MR. BROKAW: But the fact of the matter is we don’t know the exact definition of the final bill because it’ll go through this complicated process, get to reconciliation, some of the costs will be addressed then. MR. ROVE: Right. And, and isn’t that amazing? We’re asking people of the U.S. House, House of Representatives not to vote on the bill but to vote on a placeholder. And the final terms of this huge measure affecting one-sixth of our economy will be defined later, perhaps in a, in a bill in the Senate designed to circumvent the normal order of business. That’s a pretty remarkable way to try and go pass a big piece of legislation without bipartisan support. Darn it! That’s Rove appearing on “Meet the Press” last March. Republicans like Rove lie with impunity, and it’s up to us to always try and set the record straight. The MSM should do the same, but since conservative misinformation is permitted they usually don’t. I did think David Gregory sufficiently called out John Boehner over his refusal to set the record straight for the Birthers.
Continue reading …Yesterday afternoon veteran Time reporter Joe Klein hacked out a three-paragraph blog post that practically complained that young conservatives at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) are selfish spoiled brats, at least in contrast to altruistic veterans of the Teach for America (TFA) program. Noting that the annual TFA alumni conference was going on across town in Washington, D.C. from CPAC, Klein praised attendees of the former while dismissing the political concerns of the latter: Both crowds were pretty young, but they could not have been more different. The CPAC crowd was full of grievances–America was falling apart, into a European-style socialism, the tax burden “crushing” entrepreneurs. The TFA crowd was full of questions–how do you educate more kids and teach them better, how do you deal with the stultifying education bureaucracies, how do you take the rigor and excellence that marks TFA into the broader society? If the most important question at CPAC was the one that Ron Paul asked of his young supporters–if we offer you 10% tax rates for the rest of your life, would you agree to ask nothing of the government?–the TFA alumni would answer Paul's question with another question: What would a plan like that do for us as a society? And another question: Do you really believe that this is the most important question you can ask of citizens in a democracy? And another: Does the level of taxation have anything to do with the pursuit of happiness? Were people less happy in the 1950s and 1960s, when the marginal rates could reach as high as 70%–or in the 1990s, when the top rate was six points higher than it is today? Teach for America is a predominantly privately-funded charitable initiative that puts young college graduates in two-year stints teaching in low-income disadvantaged public schools. In other words, it's a private effort aimed at addressing failed and failing public schools in America. Of course, Klein has no questions probing how entrenched liberal policies have had a role in ruining public education not to mention stifling economic opportunity and undermining the family with social welfare-induced intergenerational poverty. What's more, while the work and devotion of TFA teachers and alumni is admirable, it's incredibly simplistic for Klein to suggest that by contrast CPACers — perhaps some of whom are also or plan to teach for TFA — as unconcerned about the health of American society and perhaps even opposed to it by virtue of their conservative philosophy: This is the second time I've moderated a panel at the Teach for America conference–and both times I've come away exhilarated. Wendy Kopp, TFA's founder, has not only sent tens of thousands of college graduates to teach in America's poorest schools–where 60% of them remain after their two-year obligation ends–she's also built a movement that is political in only one crucial aspect: its adherents believe that what they do for their country is more important than what their country does for them. They understand, implicitly, that their own personal freedoms can only be exercised, in a satisfying way, within the context of a society that pays some mind to the common good. This may seem an old-fashioned principle in the flood-tide of self-indulgence that overwhelms our country, but it is an essential one.
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Frustrated Cairo graduate Shady Alaa El Din wanted to leave Egypt because of the lack of freedom and opportunity, but protests in Tahrir Square have made him feel he can help bring change Interactive: Read more about young people in the Arab world The day Shady Alaa El Din graduated with a degree in commerce and business administration from a private Cairo university, he resolved to get out of the country as quickly as possible. “I was never proud to be an Egyptian before, because we were such a negative people,” explains the 26-year-old. “We get nothing from our education system – university was four years of wasted time. We learnt by repetition; there was no room for creativity, no room for independent thought. You just had to repeat what the professor said exactly and you got good grades. If you deviated slightly, you would fail.” Compared with many of his generation in Egypt, Shady has a lot going for him – and he knows it. Every year 700,000 new graduates chase 200,000 jobs, but thanks to the decent wasta (an Arabic word meaning “influence” or “connections”) from his retired father’s former career in the military, Shady is one of the lucky ones. “I was given a relatively easy time during my own year-long army conscription, and then our family connections landed me a job in the business centre of an upmarket hotel,” he says. “But it’s not what I want to be doing. I love creating stuff: art, design – I make my own cartoons – and I’d also like to start my own business. But there are very few creative jobs available and there’s no stability to that kind of work – here I have a reliable income.” Shady says most of his friends – a middle-class, urban and educated set who spend their evenings driving up and down Gameat el-Dowal street in the affluent suburb of Mohandiseen and hang out at western-style coffee houses – have jobs they hate, usually in customer-service and call-centre positions at multinational companies such as Vodafone and Etisalat. “It’s a nothing job; the sort of thing a six-year-old can do if you train them. My guess is that around 70% of people my age in Egypt are in that position, doing jobs they don’t want and which don’t require you to think.” Shady knows that he is fortunate to have a comfortable lifestyle and a regular income, but that doesn’t stop him getting frustrated – he still lives with his parents, is yet to marry, and recently he’s grown increasingly angry with the corruption he sees around him, especially when dealing with the state. “The police are normally everywhere in Egypt, and they’re robbers,” he says baldly. He recounts being stopped by officers on the Imbaba bridge who tried to shake him and his companion down for cash. The experience was one of the things that made him take to the streets to join the protests. “I was never involved in politics before, not because I didn’t think things were in need of change, but just because there was nobody who convinced me that they could make a difference. None of the so-called opposition leaders really cared about the country; they were all just showing off and acting like the president but in a smaller way; lots of mini-dictatorships headed by guys who are out for themselves. The regime allows these people to exist deliberately, it prevents any genuine opposition from emerging,” says Shady. Then came Tunisia and Shady’s world exploded. “It showed us that something different was possible. I didn’t like what I saw before, but I didn’t think there was any way out of it. Tunisia completely changed my view.” Shady read on Facebook about a planned demonstration in Cairo on 25 January and, despite never being to a protest like it before, he persuaded his friends to go with him. “I wasn’t expecting a lot of people to attend. I had a bit of hope this would be different, but my head said no, it will be small like always. And the police thought the same, and they were wrong. When they were beaten back on Tuesday it encouraged us to come out stronger, and on Friday they were waiting for us.” On that day Shady was one of thousands caught up in fierce street clashes with Mubarak’s hated central security forces, an encounter that encouraged him to continue protesting. “It was murder, simple murder. They tried to kill us, using bullets and gas, and in many cases they succeeded,” says Shady. “They shot one gas canister a second. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe – my legs didn’t work, I couldn’t inhale or exhale. Even when I reached fresh air, my lungs were suffocating. I felt like I was dying. I’d lost my friends, and there was no way of contacting them because the mobile networks were switched off. And it made me all the more determined to go back and carry on the fight.” His mother and father – though supportive of the campaign to topple Mubarak – were worried about the danger their son was putting himself in. But Shady ignored their pleas to stay at home. “Our parents gave up on the idea that they could ever change things; they didn’t have the motive or the will to fight back. I’ve lived my whole life under Mubarak: why did our parents allow things to reach this point? Why didn’t they stand up for themselves before? I don’t know. “A few days later when I was in my home and we saw the F16 jets flying low towards Tahrir, I thought that the government might be about to massacre people. So I immediately headed towards the square, because this movement against Mubarak is about all people and I wanted to stand with my fellow Egyptians, even if that means dying with them.” Shady is back at work now, though he still travels to Tahrir Square whenever possible. And he won’t be getting on an international flight anytime soon. “What we’ve done in Tahrir, what you can see there – it’s perfect,” he says. “Before, I wanted to leave Egypt, and I asked myself, ‘Where can I go? Where can I live like a human?’ Now I realise this place is Egypt, this place is in Tahrir Square. I think that feeling is spreading to the rest of the country, and I want to be a part of it.” Egypt Protest Middle East Jack Shenker guardian.co.uk
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Egypt’s striking workers won’t entrust the transition to democracy to the generals who were the backbone of the dictatorship Since Hosni Mubarak fled from Cairo, and even before then, some middle-class activists have been urging Egyptians, in the name of patriotism, to suspend their protests and return to work, singing some of the most ridiculous lullabies: “Let’s build a new Egypt”, “Let’s work harder than ever before”. They clearly do not know that Egyptians are already among the hardest working people in the world . Those activists want us to trust Mubarak’s generals with the transition to democracy – the same junta that provided the backbone of his dictatorship over the past 30 years. And while I believe the supreme council of the armed forces, which received $1.3bn from the US in 2010, will eventually engineer the transition to a “civilian” government, I have no doubt it will be a government that guarantees the continuation of a system that never touches the army’s privileges, that keeps the armed forces as the institution that has the final say in politics, that guarantees Egypt continues to follow the much hated US foreign policy. A civilian government should not be made up of cabinet members who have simply removed their military uniforms. A civilian government means one that fully represents the Egyptian people’s demands and desires without any intervention from the top brass. I think it will be very hard to accomplish this, if the junta allows it at all. The military has been the ruling institution in this country since 1952. Its leaders are part of the establishment. And while the young officers and soldiers are our allies, we cannot for one second lend our trust and confidence to the generals. All classes in Egypt took part in the uprising. Mubarak managed to alienate all social classes in society. In Tahrir Square, you found sons and daughters of the Egyptian elite, together with the workers, middle-class citizens and the urban poor. But remember that it’s only when the mass strikes started on Wednesday that the regime started crumbling and the army had to force Mubarak to resign because the system was about to collapse. Some have been surprised to see workers striking. This is naive. The workers have been staging the longest and most sustained strike wave in Egypt’s history since 1946, one that began in the textiles city of Mahalla . It’s not the workers’ fault if the world hasn’t been paying attention. Every single day over the past three years there has been a strike in some factory in Egypt , whether it’s in Cairo or the provinces. These strikes were both economic and political in nature. From the first day of the January 25 uprising, the working class has been taking part in the protests. However, the workers were at first taking part as “demonstrators” and not necessarily as “workers” – meaning, they were not moving independently. The government had brought the economy to halt, not the protesters, with their curfews, and by shutting down the banks and businesses. It was a capitalist strike, aimed at terrorising the Egyptian people. Only when the government tried to bring the country back to “normal” on 8 February did the workers return to their factories, discuss the current situation and start to organise en masse, moving as an independent block. In some locations the workers did not list the regime’s fall among their demands, but they used the same slogans as those protesting in Tahrir and, in many cases, the workers put forward a list of political demands in solidarity with the revolution. These workers are not going home any time soon . They started striking because they couldn’t feed their families any more. They have been emboldened by Mubarak’s overthrowal, and cannot go back to their children and tell them that the army has promised to bring them food and their rights in I don’t know how many months. Many of the strikers have already started raising additional demands, including the right to establish free trade unions away from the corrupt, state-backed Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions. On Saturday I started receiving news that thousands of public transport workers were staging protests in el-Gabal el-Ahmar. The temporary workers at Helwan Steel Mills are also protesting. The railway technicians continue to bring trains to a halt. Thousands of workers at the el-Hawamdiya sugar factory are protesting and oil workers announced a strike on Sunday over work conditions. Nearly every single sector in the Egyptian economy has witnessed either strikes or mass protests. Even sections of the police have joined in . At this point, the Tahrir Square occupation is to be suspended. We have to take Tahrir to the factories now. As the revolution proceeds, an inevitable class polarisation will take place. We have to be vigilant. We hold the keys to the liberation of the entire region, not just Egypt. Onwards we must go, with a permanent revolution that will empower the people of this country with direct democracy from below. Egypt Middle East Protest Hossam el-Hamalawy guardian.co.uk
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The Arab world has high proportions of young people – and high proportions of youth unemployment – making for explosive levels of discontent from Morocco in the west to Syria and Yemen in the east Paddy Allen Paul Scruton Jenny Ridley Ami Sedghi
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