enlarge Credit: http://aroundtheworldblog.blogspot.com I’ve written about Delta Airlines’ anti-union positions earlier: Anti-union campaign goes to Washington — helped by airlines like Delta From mcjoan of Dkos: The House will vote on the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization and the provision in it which would essentially codify vote fraud in organizing elections. A recap: last year the the National Mediation Board that oversees those elections ruled that the railroad and airline industries would have to end their practice of counting non-votes in these elections as no votes. Previously, any eligible worker who chose not to vote was automatically counted as a no. Which would be fraud in any other election in the United State. The industries, and most House Republicans, want the rule back. Fast forward. The anti-union push is building, in part fueled by one particular airline’s zeal to kill fairness in the workplace . I’m at the point that I will never fly Delta again. I think you should consider it too. Air travel is no day in the park and many people want to book a flight and be done with it, but there comes a time when even if it causes us more inconvenience, we have to do the right thing…. read on Since I wrote this, Delta has only upped the ante and become the Scott Walker in the skies airline: Around The World Blog: Delta has been the #1 worst U.S. airline every year in a row since the founding of this blog– and that’s just based on their service. Turns out, though, there’s more to Delta’s unsuitability as a reliable travel partner than how badly the management runs their operations. As yesterday’s Wall Street Journal pointed out, the airline is a bastion of right-wing anti-worker extremism . No wonder their employees always seem so down in the dumps and resentful! The National Mediation Board is now investigating charges by flight attendants that Delta, the only non-Union U.S. airline, illegally interfered in unionization elections by pressuring employees to vote against the unions. As Joe Sudbay observed at AmericaBlog yesterday, “Delta is like the Scott Walker of airlines. It wants to be known as anti-worker.” We can probably expect even more skullduggery from Delta in the coming weeks as they double down in their anti-union jihad. They’ve been a lead driver in pushing Republican extremists in the House to rescind fair election rules for air/rail workers for elections conducted under the National Mediation Board. For progressives who care about keeping elections fair, giving workers the choice whether or not they want to join a union, and supporting companies who operate under basic standards of decency, there are a number of reasons for progressives to be outraged about Delta Airlines: • Open advocacy against fair American elections: Delta issued a press release commending the news that Darrell Issa’s deranged Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will investigate the NMB’s 2010 decision to conduct union elections for air/rail workers the same as all other types of American elections . Mike Campbell, Delta’s executive vice president of H.R. and Labor Relations said, “This investigation is an important victory for Delta people because it will finally allow the facts to speak for themselves.” Unfortunately for Delta, the facts aren’t on their side– there’s no reason to conduct NMB elections differently from every other form of election, union or non-union, in the nation. If congressional and Senate elections were conducted under such rules, in which non-participating eligible voters were counted as having voted, then zero Members of Congress would have won their last election. • Bumping paying customers…so Delta employees can lobby: Delta is so committed to its anti-union ideology that it offered its employees the chance to travel to Washington to lobby against fair union elections under a provision that may bump paying customers. Talking Points Memo reported that the group No Way AFA, “a coalition of Delta employees who want to deliberalize union rights,” came to Washington the week of the House vote on the FAA Reauthorization bill to lobby against fair election standards… and potentially bumping paying Delta customers in the process. According to the article, “A Delta spokesperson said No Way AFA operates separately from the company itself, but that the company “allow[s] employees to travel positive space to D.C. when supporting legislative efforts that the company supports.” According to TPM, this means that “the “positive space” fly-in could squeeze out seating space for regular travelers.” • Free upgrades and lining the pockets of policymaker friends: An investigative journalism piece in Georgia recently found that leading Republican lawmakers in Georgia’s state legislature received free upgrades from Delta to platinum status, valued at approximately $10,000 to $15,000 per year. Valued as campaign contributions, the piece noted that Delta low-balled the reported value of the platinum upgrades in state ethics records. Unsurprisingly, Delta has a long history of being generous to lawmakers like Rep. John Mica, who have voted the right way in Delta’s eyes by seeking to return NMB union elections to the old, undemocratic rules. I’ve long been going out of my way to look for alternatives to flying on Delta just because of the lousy service and their refusal to let people use frequent flier miles, but now I can see there are even more reasons to avoid the worst airline in the skies. If you’re not like Stuart Varney of Fox News and disapprove of Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting tactics in Wisconsin, you should take a stand against Delta Airlines. Just fly anyone else.
Continue reading …Kevorkian’s Attorney on MSNBC: He Will Be Remembered as a ‘True Hero’ and ‘Martyr’
June 3, 2011 No Comment
As news broke of Dr. Jack's Kevorkian death on Friday, MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing invited on defense attorney and friend Geoffrey Fieger to praise the convicted criminal known as 'Dr. Death': “Dr. Jack Kevorkian will be looked at as a hero, a true hero, and as a martyr for what they did to him for nine years. Putting him in prison…” [ Audio available here ] Jansing began the interview by wondering about Kevorkian's legacy: “Was he a dying patient's savior or a cold-blooded killer?” As soon as she introduced Fieger, he immediately argued: “I doubt very many people will ever remember him as a cold-blooded killer. Obviously there's some on the fringe, but I think most of us would recognize his, not only his greatness and his kindness and his beneficence and his importance.” View Video Below Even Jansing seemed to buy into Fieger's apologist rant: “There is still an ongoing debate, though, about assisted suicide….What was it about this cause that made him [Kevorkian] willing to go to prison?” Fieger proclaimed: “Well, he was a historic man who believed absolutely from the bottom of his soul in the right of the patient before him to make decisions about his or her own life and to be able to make decisions about ending one's own suffering, even if that meant ending the patient's life. He thought that was the role of the physician and he was right.” Fieger further asserted that opponents of assisted suicide had been “marginalized” and even suggested that efforts to reform Medicare would mean that “you can't just spend money limitlessly to keep people alive based upon a philosophical or religious belief.” Here is a full transcript of the June 3 segment: 10:42AM CHRIS JANSING: Was he a dying patient's savior or a cold-blooded killer? Those questions will probably always be asked about Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the man known as 'Dr. Death,' who allegedly assisted in as many as 130 suicides. Kevorkian died this morning at the age 83 and the man who defended him at trial, Geoffrey Fieger, joins us live from Detroit. Geoffrey, good to see you. I'm so sorry for your loss. Thanks for being with us. GEOFFREY FIEGER: Thank you, Chris. JANSING: You know- FIEGER: And I doubt very many people will ever remember him as a cold-blooded killer. Obviously there's some on the fringe, but I think most of us would recognize his, not only his greatness and his kindness and his beneficence and his importance. JANSING: There is still an ongoing debate, though, about assisted suicide, as you well know, and I remember our conversations when he went to prison and when he was released. And you knew him so well. What was it about this cause that made him willing to go to prison? FIEGER: Well, he was a historic man who believed absolutely from the bottom of his soul in the right of the patient before him to make decisions about his or her own life and to be able to make decisions about ending one's own suffering, even if that meant ending the patient's life. He thought that was the role of the physician and he was right. And I really think that the debate about it, at least in terms of his opponents, has been marginalized. There hasn't been the slippery slope that was predicted. Oregon and Washington state have permitted it for years and there haven't been any of the dire predictions. And now with the Medicare and Medicaid debate, the fact that you can't just spend money limitlessly to keep people alive based upon a philosophical or religious belief. In the coming decades, Dr. Jack Kevorkian will be looked at as a hero, a true hero, and as a martyr for what they did to him for nine years. Putting him in prison, in the deepest holes of Michigan's prison system, and holding him incommunicado. JANSING: And he had been in the hospital for the last couple of weeks. I wonder, Geoffrey, when the last time was that you spoke with him and did you talk to him about his legacy? FIEGER: No, he didn't – Jack was never a guy who liked to look back and as a result, neither he nor I have ever written about it. He and I were together a lot during the making most recently of the Al Pacino movie and the documentary. He had entered the hospital several weeks ago and gotten out and I spoke to him just before he went back in. Since he's been in the hospital, no one's spoken to him. The doctors wanted him to be, to not have any guests. I spoke to his physician everyday, his personal physician Stan Levy, but I had not spoken to him since he went back in the second time. He's been there about ten days. JANSING: Again, Jack Kevorkian died this morning at the age of 83. Geoffrey Fieger, his defense attorney and friend, good to see you again. Thanks so much for coming on and again, our sympathies. FIEGER: Thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me. Thank you.
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Proposals include ban on sale of ‘adult’ pre-teen clothes, and requiring ‘lads mags’ to sell in brown covers David Cameron is to back a plan to stop retailers selling inappropriate clothes for pre-teens and shield children from sexualised imagery across all media, including selling “lads magazines” in brown covers and making the watchdog Ofcom more answerable to the views of parents. Retailers would be required to sign up to a new code preventing the sale of items for pre-teens with suggestive slogans, which the prime minister has repeatedly criticised. The proposals come in a long-awaited report, leaked to the Guardian, on the commercialisation of childhood. It was commissioned by Cameron and is due to be published on Monday with strong support from Downing Street. Recommendations in the review, entitled Let children be children, include: • The Advertising Standards Authority to discourage placement of billboards with sexualised imagery near schools and nurseries or other areas where children are likely to view it. • A clampdown on sexualised and violent images shown before TV’s 9pm watershed and curbs and cinema-style age rating for music videos. • A single website to be created, to act as “an interface between parents and the variety of regulators across the media, communications and retail industries”. • Making it easier for parents to block age restricted material on the internet. • Lads magazines to be moved to the top shelf in shops or sold in covers. The report, which was prepared by Reg Bailey, the chief executive of the Christian charity Mothers’ Union, finds “sexualised and gender stereotyped clothing, products and services for children are the biggest concerns for parents and many non-commercial organisations”. In response to his recommendations on clothing, it is expected that the British Retail Consortium, following consultation with Mumsnet , the web-based parents’ forum, will announce a new code next week. It is expected to advise retailers against suggestive or gender-specific slogans on clothes, black or enhanced bras, and will propose modest swimwear for pre-teens. Carrie Longton, the co-founder of Mumsnet, which has campaigned against suggestive children’s clothes, welcomed the principle of the code. “We launched our ‘Let Girls be Girls’ campaign to ask retailers to commit not to sell products which play upon, emphasise or exploit their children’s sexuality. Now it’s great that the industry as a whole, through the British Retail Consortium, has recognised their responsibility and drafted their own guidelines to encourage more responsibility up and down the high street.” The Bailey report says the internet industry must also be ordered to “act decisively to develop and produce effective parental controls” with “a robust means of age verification” for any content that is age restricted. It says the government should legislate for parental controls over children’s use of the internet “within a reasonable timescale” if voluntary action from the industry is not forthcoming Some Labour politicians have, however, called for regulation to be put in place faster, and in evidence to the review the Advertising Association federation pointed out: “There is no existing mechanism to verify the age of a child … which means children can lie about their age and register as a user”. Overall, the report gives the impression that the advertising, retail, music and internet industries have been too complacent and need to show greater willingness to engage with deep parental anxiety at what they are collectively producing for young consumers, both intentionally or inadvertently. The report finds that “some parts of the business world and sections of the media seem to have lost their connection to parents. We are living in an increasingly sexual and sexualised culture although it is far from clear how we arrived at this point. Many parents feel this culture is often inappropriate for their children and they want more power to say no”. It condemns what it describes as the “sexualised images used in public places and on television, the internet, music videos, magazines, newspapers”, and calls for public space to become more family friendly, so changing “the wallpaper of children’s lives”. On the TV watershed, the report recommends that Ofcom revise its guidelines to give greater weight to the views and attitudes of parents, rather than viewers in general, as to what is shown on TV before the watershed. It also directs Ofcom to seek out the views of parents and report back annually on their attitudes. Ofcom has dismissed previous complaints at the way in which programmes like X Factor, watched by millions of children, feature huge stars such as Christina Aguilera and Rihanna wearing few clothes and posing suggestively. Ofcom ruled that Rihanna’s routine “featured some gentle thrusting”, but it was “suitably limited”. Ofcom currently has no figures on the number of complaints made about pre-watershed material by parents. It insisted that “we take the views of parents very seriously”, but said it will co-operate with any proposals. The Bailey report also calls for a website to act as “an interface between parents and the variety of regulators across the media, communications and retail industries”. It would be a means of launching complaints and gauging parental reaction to products. “Results of regulators’ decisions and their reactions to any informal feedback should be published regularly on the site”, the report says. Mumsnet offered to host the site. Key measures • Retailers to ensure magazines with sexualised images have modesty sleeves. • The Advertising Standards Authority to discourage placement of billboards near schools and nurseries. • Music videos to be sold with age ratings. • Procedures to make it easier for parents to block adult and age restricted material on internet. • Code of practice to be issued on child retailing. • Define a child as 16 in all types of advertising regulation. • Advertising Standards Authority to do more to gauge parent’s views on advertising. • Create a single website for parents to complain to regulators. • Change rules on nine o’clock television watershed to give priority to views of parents. • Government to regulate after 18 months if progress insufficient. David Cameron Children Regulators Child protection Internet Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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Proposals include ban on sale of ‘adult’ pre-teen clothes, and requiring ‘lads mags’ to sell in brown covers David Cameron is to back a plan to stop retailers selling inappropriate clothes for pre-teens and shield children from sexualised imagery across all media, including selling “lads magazines” in brown covers and making the watchdog Ofcom more answerable to the views of parents. Retailers would be required to sign up to a new code preventing the sale of items for pre-teens with suggestive slogans, which the prime minister has repeatedly criticised. The proposals come in a long-awaited report, leaked to the Guardian, on the commercialisation of childhood. It was commissioned by Cameron and is due to be published on Monday with strong support from Downing Street. Recommendations in the review, entitled Let children be children, include: • The Advertising Standards Authority to discourage placement of billboards with sexualised imagery near schools and nurseries or other areas where children are likely to view it. • A clampdown on sexualised and violent images shown before TV’s 9pm watershed and curbs and cinema-style age rating for music videos. • A single website to be created, to act as “an interface between parents and the variety of regulators across the media, communications and retail industries”. • Making it easier for parents to block age restricted material on the internet. • Lads magazines to be moved to the top shelf in shops or sold in covers. The report, which was prepared by Reg Bailey, the chief executive of the Christian charity Mothers’ Union, finds “sexualised and gender stereotyped clothing, products and services for children are the biggest concerns for parents and many non-commercial organisations”. In response to his recommendations on clothing, it is expected that the British Retail Consortium, following consultation with Mumsnet , the web-based parents’ forum, will announce a new code next week. It is expected to advise retailers against suggestive or gender-specific slogans on clothes, black or enhanced bras, and will propose modest swimwear for pre-teens. Carrie Longton, the co-founder of Mumsnet, which has campaigned against suggestive children’s clothes, welcomed the principle of the code. “We launched our ‘Let Girls be Girls’ campaign to ask retailers to commit not to sell products which play upon, emphasise or exploit their children’s sexuality. Now it’s great that the industry as a whole, through the British Retail Consortium, has recognised their responsibility and drafted their own guidelines to encourage more responsibility up and down the high street.” The Bailey report says the internet industry must also be ordered to “act decisively to develop and produce effective parental controls” with “a robust means of age verification” for any content that is age restricted. It says the government should legislate for parental controls over children’s use of the internet “within a reasonable timescale” if voluntary action from the industry is not forthcoming Some Labour politicians have, however, called for regulation to be put in place faster, and in evidence to the review the Advertising Association federation pointed out: “There is no existing mechanism to verify the age of a child … which means children can lie about their age and register as a user”. Overall, the report gives the impression that the advertising, retail, music and internet industries have been too complacent and need to show greater willingness to engage with deep parental anxiety at what they are collectively producing for young consumers, both intentionally or inadvertently. The report finds that “some parts of the business world and sections of the media seem to have lost their connection to parents. We are living in an increasingly sexual and sexualised culture although it is far from clear how we arrived at this point. Many parents feel this culture is often inappropriate for their children and they want more power to say no”. It condemns what it describes as the “sexualised images used in public places and on television, the internet, music videos, magazines, newspapers”, and calls for public space to become more family friendly, so changing “the wallpaper of children’s lives”. On the TV watershed, the report recommends that Ofcom revise its guidelines to give greater weight to the views and attitudes of parents, rather than viewers in general, as to what is shown on TV before the watershed. It also directs Ofcom to seek out the views of parents and report back annually on their attitudes. Ofcom has dismissed previous complaints at the way in which programmes like X Factor, watched by millions of children, feature huge stars such as Christina Aguilera and Rihanna wearing few clothes and posing suggestively. Ofcom ruled that Rihanna’s routine “featured some gentle thrusting”, but it was “suitably limited”. Ofcom currently has no figures on the number of complaints made about pre-watershed material by parents. It insisted that “we take the views of parents very seriously”, but said it will co-operate with any proposals. The Bailey report also calls for a website to act as “an interface between parents and the variety of regulators across the media, communications and retail industries”. It would be a means of launching complaints and gauging parental reaction to products. “Results of regulators’ decisions and their reactions to any informal feedback should be published regularly on the site”, the report says. Mumsnet offered to host the site. Key measures • Retailers to ensure magazines with sexualised images have modesty sleeves. • The Advertising Standards Authority to discourage placement of billboards near schools and nurseries. • Music videos to be sold with age ratings. • Procedures to make it easier for parents to block adult and age restricted material on internet. • Code of practice to be issued on child retailing. • Define a child as 16 in all types of advertising regulation. • Advertising Standards Authority to do more to gauge parent’s views on advertising. • Create a single website for parents to complain to regulators. • Change rules on nine o’clock television watershed to give priority to views of parents. • Government to regulate after 18 months if progress insufficient. David Cameron Children Regulators Child protection Internet Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Scott Walker claims to be a Christian. Yet he is constantly cutting services for the working poor and unemployed. Which raises the question: What would Jesus do? Remember, this was a cat who hung out with prostitutes and assorted people of ill-repute. Wonder how he’d feel about Scott “I loves me some Jesus!” Walker throwing the poor to the wolves to pay for tax cuts for businesses? Greg Hartman was waiting tables to support himself through college in the fall of 2010 when his hometown of Manitowoc, Wisc., experienced an outbreak of HIV and the hepatitis C virus. After finding out his best friend had been infected with hepatitis, the uninsured 22-year-old decided he needed to get checked out as well — but the tests were going to cost him more than $300 out of pocket. “There’s no way I could have afforded it on my own,” said Hartman, who brings in only $150 to $200 a week from his restaurant job. Hartman said he went to the University of Wisconsin’s campus health care center and applied for BadgerCare — the state’s Medicaid-funded family planning program, which reimburses low-income men and women for sexually transmitted disease testing, birth control services, cancer screenings and other preventative reproductive care. Through BadgerCare, Hartman was able to afford to get tested for both HIV and hepatitis C — he tested positive for the latter. “If I didn’t qualify for BadgerCare, I would have just said ‘[screw] it’ and not gone into the clinic in the first place,” he told HuffPost. “I would never have known I had hepatitis.” Although the BadgerCare family planning program doesn’t cover Hartman’s treatment, he was able to afford two different HIV tests, a liver panel and potentially life-saving hepatitis tests through the subsidized program. But the nearly 7,000 other low-income Wisconsin men who use BadgerCare may soon be out of luck. Scott Walker, the state’s Republican governor, has proposed eliminating men entirely from the program in his latest budget bill. That move could cost Wisconsin all of its federal family planning funds, policy experts warn. Abortion rights advocates in Wisconsin are convinced that Walker and the GOP lawmakers are just looking for underhanded, politically acceptable ways to change the BadgerCare program so significantly that the U.S. government is forced to cut all federal family planning funding to the state. “Taking men out of the program not only serves to remove critical health care for men, but it puts us out of compliance with our agreement with the federal government and puts the entire BadgerCare program at risk,” said Tanya Atkinson, the executive director of Planned Parenthood Wisconsin. “It’s a politically palatable way of systematically dismantling Wisconsin’s family planning program.”
Continue reading …Scott Walker claims to be a Christian. Yet he is constantly cutting services for the working poor and unemployed. Which raises the question: What would Jesus do? Remember, this was a cat who hung out with prostitutes and assorted people of ill-repute. Wonder how he’d feel about Scott “I loves me some Jesus!” Walker throwing the poor to the wolves to pay for tax cuts for businesses? Greg Hartman was waiting tables to support himself through college in the fall of 2010 when his hometown of Manitowoc, Wisc., experienced an outbreak of HIV and the hepatitis C virus. After finding out his best friend had been infected with hepatitis, the uninsured 22-year-old decided he needed to get checked out as well — but the tests were going to cost him more than $300 out of pocket. “There’s no way I could have afforded it on my own,” said Hartman, who brings in only $150 to $200 a week from his restaurant job. Hartman said he went to the University of Wisconsin’s campus health care center and applied for BadgerCare — the state’s Medicaid-funded family planning program, which reimburses low-income men and women for sexually transmitted disease testing, birth control services, cancer screenings and other preventative reproductive care. Through BadgerCare, Hartman was able to afford to get tested for both HIV and hepatitis C — he tested positive for the latter. “If I didn’t qualify for BadgerCare, I would have just said ‘[screw] it’ and not gone into the clinic in the first place,” he told HuffPost. “I would never have known I had hepatitis.” Although the BadgerCare family planning program doesn’t cover Hartman’s treatment, he was able to afford two different HIV tests, a liver panel and potentially life-saving hepatitis tests through the subsidized program. But the nearly 7,000 other low-income Wisconsin men who use BadgerCare may soon be out of luck. Scott Walker, the state’s Republican governor, has proposed eliminating men entirely from the program in his latest budget bill. That move could cost Wisconsin all of its federal family planning funds, policy experts warn. Abortion rights advocates in Wisconsin are convinced that Walker and the GOP lawmakers are just looking for underhanded, politically acceptable ways to change the BadgerCare program so significantly that the U.S. government is forced to cut all federal family planning funding to the state. “Taking men out of the program not only serves to remove critical health care for men, but it puts us out of compliance with our agreement with the federal government and puts the entire BadgerCare program at risk,” said Tanya Atkinson, the executive director of Planned Parenthood Wisconsin. “It’s a politically palatable way of systematically dismantling Wisconsin’s family planning program.”
Continue reading …My prediction: Paul Ryan will jump into the 2012 GOP nomination race right after Iowa and South Carolina, in time for Super Tuesday. That’s been my intuition for awhile, but it’s beginning to switch from a hunch to full-fledged radar alerts. The latest one sounded when I got a look at this preview of a foreign policy address Ryan delivered to the Alexander Hamilton Society yesterday. My first reaction: It’s unusual for Representatives to be giving speeches on foreign policy unless they’re…contemplating a run for the nomination. Right? Digby : He’d be a fool to do it in this go-round, but if the people are calling … could he refuse? After all, yesterday he faced down the President in the White House and the Republicans gave him a standing ovation . He’s their leader. Huffington Post : On Thursday evening, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan said yet again that he is not considering a run for the GOP presidential nomination. But when asked by Fox News’ Neil Cavuto whether he would change course from past rejections of a presidential bid, Ryan hesitated before saying, “Look, I think I want to see how this field develops.” “I think there are going to be other people getting into the race,” he continued. “You know I was hoping Mitch Daniels would get into the race. He obviously didn’t do that. But there’s such a long way to go. Obviously I believe Republicans need to retake the White House.” Jonathan Chait has more , too: Yesterday, Ryan delivered a speech outlining his foreign policy vision, an important step for a candidate lacking foreign policy experience, and especially crucial to secure the support of Kristol, who cares deeply about foreign policy and approaches all other questions instrumentally. Ryan leaked his speech in advance to — da dum — the Weekly Standard. Ryan’s leak carefully name-checked the Standard and stroked Kristol’s ideological erogenous zones: Karoli’s crystal ball says: Paul Ryan will run and he’ll enter the race this year. Of course, primaries are a bit easier to win than general elections. Ryan is a harbinger of doom — if you don’t believe, have a look at the advance copies of his speech. He’ll run on the tea party/Scott Walker/Rick Scott/Rick Snyder platform and I’m betting he’ll win the nomination, locking it up by the time Super Tuesday hits. He is the Golden Boy, the Great White Republican hope, and he will run and he will lose, at least if I have any say in the matter.
Continue reading …MSNBC Gives Disgraced Fmr. Obama Car Czar Platform to Hail Success of Auto Bailout
June 3, 2011 No CommentImagine, if you will, that in 2003 Fox News brought on a disgraced Bush administration official who had been barred from Wall Street trading to talk up the president's economic policies. Imagine also that the anchor doing the interview failed to disclose that fact to viewers. Well, that's pretty much what happened in the 2 p.m. Eastern hour of MSNBC coverage today, when anchor Thomas Roberts interviewed former Obama car czar Steven Rattner.
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• Non-farm payrolls show job creation weak • New jobs 96,000 below predicted figure The White House admitted on Friday that unemployment in the US was “uncomfortably high” after the latest set of figures for the American labour market showed only 54,000 new jobs were created by the world’s biggest economy last month. Amid signs that growth has slowed markedly during the first half of 2011, the closely watched figures for non-farm payrolls showed an across-the-board weakening in hiring during May. The news led to an immediate sell-off in shares on Wall Street amid speculation that the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, would be forced into a third round of electronic money creation, known as quantitative easing, to bring down unemployment. The report from the US labour department was the weakest since last September. Private-sector jobs grew by 83,000, the smallest rise since June 2010, while government payrolls fell by 29,000. Employment growth in March and April was revised down by a total of 39,000, while the jobless rate rose in May from 9% to 9.1%. In the London, share prices shrugged off the poor US figures, bouncing back from an earlier decline prompted by a drop in the latest CIPS/Markit report on the UK service sector from 54.3 to 53.8 in May. Although the cut-off point of 50 separates expansion from contraction, economists said the survey was consistent with quarterly growth in services, which account for about three-quarters of UK national output, of about 0.3%. John Lewis fuelled concerns that the recovery is weakening after turnover at its stores fell at the end of May. Wall Street economists expected payrolls to rise 150,000 and private hiring to increase by 175,000 but had been revising down their estimates since the release of a downbeat survey of private sector employment earlier this week. The economy has regained only a fraction of more than 8m jobs lost during the recession and analysts believe payroll growth above 300,000 a month is needed to make significant progress in shrinking the pool of 13.9 million unemployed Americans. Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, which advises the president, said of the non-farm payrolls: “There are always bumps on the road to recovery but the overall trajectory of the economy has improved dramatically over the past two years. “While the private sector has added more than 2.1m jobs over the past 15 months, the unemployment rate is unacceptably high and faster growth is needed to replace the jobs lost in the downturn. “The initiatives put in place by this administration – such as the payroll tax cut and business incentives for investment – have contributed to solid employment growth overall this year, but this report is a reminder of the challenges that remain. We will continue to work with Congress to responsibly reduce the deficit and live within our means.” The US labour department said last month’s tornadoes and flooding in the midwest and the south did not materially affect data collection. It said that while some workers in those areas may have been temporarily displaced from their jobs, it found “no clear impact of the disasters” on the employment data. Wall Street economists said supply chain problems for US industry after the Japanese earthquake had been a factor in the drop of 5,000 in manufacturing jobs. Paul Ashworth, chief US economist at Capital Economics, said: “It is now pretty clear that the economy ran into a brick wall last month. We probably will see growth rebound in the second half of the year, as commodity prices drop back and any Japan-related disruptions unwind. For that reason we don’t expect the Fed to act immediately. Nevertheless, the extent of this slowdown is becoming a big concern, particularly with a potentially big fiscal consolidation on the way and we wouldn’t rule out a QE3 either later this year or in early 2012.” James Knightley at ING said the figures were “undeniably weak” but saw reasons for optimism. “In terms of what is driving the weakness in the labour market we feel that the lagged effects of rising energy costs plays a major part,” he said. “This has hurt household spending power since they are spending more of their income on fuel and gasoline, leaving less money to spend on other goods and services. This is damaging businesses from the revenue side, while their costs too have been increasing because of higher fuel bills. Aidan Manktelow, of the Economist Intelligence Unit, said: “The job creation figure for May was very disappointing. It is clear now that the weak patch in the economy has fed into the labour market. We still think this is likely to be a temporary soft patch – the result of high oil prices, some disruption to the manufacturing sector related to Japan’s disasters, and firms being spooked by recent weak data. “In underlying structural terms the recovery is now further advanced than in 2010, and more positive sentiment could come back pretty quickly, for example as the recent fall in the oil price feeds through”. US unemployment and employment data US economy United States Financial crisis Global recession Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
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Experts claim disease is on the wane as Merkel and Zapatero attempt to limit diplomatic row over infection’s source Cases of infection by the deadly E coli bacterium have continued to spread around the world from its source in northern Germany, reaching a dozen countries by Friday evening . The Czech Republic and the US have joined the list of those dealing with cases amid concern that some of those infected had not visited Germany and so must have been infected elsewhere. Meanwhile the German chancellor and Spanish prime minister moved to calm a diplomatic row over the source of the infection. Angela Merkel has said she would push for EU help for farmers in Spain – whose cucumbers were wrongly blamed by German authorities for the outbreak. Germany reported a further 200 cases diagnosed on the first two days of the month as the total number of people infected worldwide rose above 1,600. The total number of reported deaths in Germany is 17. Just 11 cases have been confirmed in England. “All these cases except two are in people who reside in or had recently visited northern Germany during the incubation period for the infection … or, in one case, had contact with a visitor from northern Germany,” said the World Health Organisation in a statement. The spread of cases in Germany has begun to slow, however, raising hopes that the outbreak might be controlled as Germans heed warnings to wash and prepare vegetables carefully and avoid raw cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce. “There is no reason for hysteria because it’s not spreading and it’s not increasing, it is decreasing,” said Dr Reinhard Brunkhorst of the German Nephrology Society. Scientists are still working to understand the new strain better. Professor James Paton, director of the Research Centre for Infectious Diseases at the University of Adelaide, said the O104:H4 strain causes disease by colonising the human gut and releasing a toxin called Shiga into the intestines. “The toxin is then absorbed into the blood and then attacks the kidneys and the small blood vessels, resulting in a life-threatening condition called haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS). Damage to the blood vessels supplying the gut is also largely responsible for the severe, often bloody diarrhoea suffered by patients with … infection,” he said. Typically, fewer than 5% of patients with diarrhoea caused by this type of bacterium develop HUS but in the current European outbreak, the proportion of people with HUS is very much higher, around 25%, indicating that it is extremely virulent, said Paton. Possible explanations for this could include higher production of the Shiga toxin, or better absorption of the toxin by the gut. The E coli O104:H4 strain is also resistant to several antibiotics. “But this is not an issue in the current outbreak, because antibiotics are not used to treat patients with … infection or HUS,” said Paton. “Indeed, such therapy may make the disease worse … massively increasing the amount of toxin released into the gut.” According to the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases , German scientists have recommended to doctors that antibiotics should not be withheld in all situations, and that a type of antibiotic called carbapenem can probably be used without putting the patient at additional risk. Spain wants its farmers to be compensated for losses of €200m a week as fresh vegetables are left to rot. Zapatero said the EU “should have reacted quicker and more vigorously” as soon as tests showed Spanish vegetables were not to blame. E coli Germany Europe Spain Infectious diseases Medical research Microbiology Giles Tremlett Alok Jha guardian.co.uk
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