October 28, 2015

Noam Chomsky: Electing the President of an Empire

Abby Martin interviews world-renowned philosopher and linguist Professor Noam Chomsky. Prof. Chomsky comments on the presidential primary "extravaganza," the movement for Bernie Sanders, the US-Iran nuclear deal, the bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, modern-day libertarianism and the reality of "democracy" under capitalism.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/33409-noam-chomsky-electing-the-president-of-an-empire

October 27, 2015

Amtrak: It's Time To Build

Amtrak: It's Time To Build
SOURCE: AMTRAK OCT 26, 2015


Amtrak President & CEO Joe Boardman was joined by a panel of industry experts Oct. 26, at the National Press Club to highlight the need to make infrastructure planning and investment a national priority.

Joined by Chicago Gateway Blue Ribbon Panel members Thomas Carper, Amtrak Board of Directors member; Howard Learner, founder of the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago; and Jack Quinn, former chairman of the Railroads Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and president of Erie Community College, the group discussed the nation's infrastructure crisis, the growing problem of aging infrastructure and railway congestion, and most importantly funding.

"Amtrak is doing what it can. But the root of the problem is lack of funding needed to address the congestion challenge that contributes to these delays," said Boardman. "Persistent underinvestment leads to congestion – and the lack of investment threatens our national economy."

Nowhere are infrastructure problems worse than in the New York and Chicago regions.

As the majority owner of the Northeast Corridor (NEC), a complex commuter and intercity rail network, Amtrak depends on the infrastructure investments made today to help ensure it can deliver mobility, reliability and safety to its stakeholders in the future. Each day, 750,000 people board trains headed to work, school and other destinations making the NEC one of the largest economic drivers of our American economy. .....................(more)

http://www.masstransitmag.com/press_release/12130629/amtrak-its-time-to-build

October 27, 2015

NYT: Greenland Is Melting Away

(NYT) ON THE GREENLAND ICE SHEET — The midnight sun still gleamed at 1 a.m. across the brilliant expanse of the Greenland ice sheet. Brandon Overstreet, a doctoral candidate in hydrology at the University of Wyoming, picked his way across the frozen landscape, clipped his climbing harness to an anchor in the ice and crept toward the edge of a river that rushed downstream toward an enormous sinkhole.

If he fell in, “the death rate is 100 percent,” said Mr. Overstreet’s friend and fellow researcher, Lincoln Pitcher.

But Mr. Overstreet’s task, to collect critical data from the river, is essential to understanding one of the most consequential impacts of global warming. The scientific data he and a team of six other researchers collect here could yield groundbreaking information on the rate at which the melting of Greenland ice sheet, one of the biggest and fastest-melting chunks of ice on Earth, will drive up sea levels in the coming decades. The full melting of Greenland’s ice sheet could increase sea levels by about 20 feet.

“We scientists love to sit at our computers and use climate models to make those predictions,” said Laurence C. Smith, head of the geography department at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the leader of the team that worked in Greenland this summer. “But to really know what’s happening, that kind of understanding can only come about through empirical measurements in the field.”

.....(snip).....

Their research could yield valuable information to help scientists figure out how rapidly sea levels will rise in the 21st century, and thus how people in coastal areas from New York to Bangladesh could plan for the change. ................(more)

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/27/world/greenland-is-melting-away.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

October 27, 2015

An American (Idiot) in Paris

Looks like someone needs a lesson in manners.

The Hill reports that Sen. James Inhofe — noted climate change denier and author of such works of art as The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future — has threatened to crash the U.N. climate talks in Paris this December, along with Kentucky Republican Ed Whitfield. “We may send a group over to Paris, just to let them know that there’s another branch of government, in addition to the executive branch, on these issues,” said Whitfield.

The Paris climate talks — a meeting of over 190 countries seeking to create a global emissions pact and address the effects of climate change — won’t be the first time Inhofe has tried to derail efforts to lower carbon emissions. He also crashed the 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen. Back then, the senator planned to bring an entire anti-science entourage and barnstorm the international community with his breaking news that climate change is a conspiracy created by Barbra Streisand, PFLAG, and American communist scientists. .............................(more)

http://grist.org/article/climate-denying-senator-threatens-to-crash-climate-talks/

October 27, 2015

And Now Defaulted Leveraged Loans Go Kaboom

And Now Defaulted Leveraged Loans Go Kaboom
by Wolf Richter • October 26, 2015


“It’s been a rotten year for distressed and defaulted loan paper.” That’s how S&P Capital IQ LCD starts out its report on leveraged loans.

“Rotten” may be a euphemism. So far, 2015 has been the worst year for defaulted “leveraged loans” since 2008 when the US financial system imploded under its own excesses.

Leveraged loans are the loan-equivalent to junk bonds. They’re issued by junk-rated over-indebted companies often to fund M&A – such as the loans issued by junk-rated, over-indebted Valeant – or to pay a special dividend to the private equity firms that own the companies, which is a form of financial strip-mining. They’re an $800-billion market and trade like securities. But the SEC, which regulates securities, considers them loans and doesn’t regulate them. No one regulates them. This gives issuers and banks a lot of leeway.

Leveraged loans are too risky for banks to keep on their balance sheet. Instead, they sell them to loan mutual funds or ETFs so that they can be moved into conservative retirement portfolios, or they repackage them into Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLO) to sell them to institutional investors, such as mutual-fund companies.

But banks can get stuck with them when markets come out of their euphoria, as they did during the Financial Crisis. So the Fed and other regulators have been exhorting banks for two years to back off. With some success: issuance has started to decline. .................(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2015/10/26/and-now-defaulted-leveraged-loans-go-kaboom/

October 27, 2015

U.S. Plans to Sell Down Strategic Oil Reserve to Raise Cash

(Bloomberg) The U.S. plans to sell millions of barrels of crude oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve from 2018 until 2025 under a budget deal reached on Monday night by the White House and top lawmakers from both parties.

The proposed sale, included in a bill posted on the White House website, equates to more than 8 percent of the 695 million barrels of reserves, held in four sites along the Gulf of Mexico coast. Sales are due to start in 2018 at an annual rate of 5 million barrels, rising to 10 million by 2023 and totaling 58 million barrels by the end of the period. The proceeds will be “deposited into the general fund of the Treasury,” according to the bill.

The sale is the second time the U.S. has raised cash from the reserve, created as a counter-balance to the power of Arab producers after the first oil crisis of 1973-74. The U.S. may sell also additional barrels to cover a $2 billion program from 2017 to 2020 to modernize the strategic reserve, including building new pipelines.

The White House on Tuesday urged lawmakers to support the budget deal, including the proposed partial sale of the SPR, saying it was “a responsible agreement that is paid for in a balanced way.” ...............(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-27/u-s-plans-to-sell-down-strategic-oil-reserve-to-raise-cash

October 27, 2015

F*** a Wage, Take Over the Business: A How-To with Economist Richard Wolff

.....(snip).....

What is the place where most adults in the United States spend most of their life? Answer, workplace. 5 out of 7 days of the week from 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon, you’re at work. And then if you aren’t at work, you are driving to or from work, dressing for work. Work is the center of adult life of our people. When you go to work, here’s what we do in this “democratic” country. We avoid democracy. We give up democracy. Why?

Most Americans work in a corporation, a form of capitalist enterprise. A tiny group of people, the board of directors, typically 15 to 20 people, they make all the decisions governing where you work, what you produce, how you produce, and what is done with the profits you help to produce. Whose on the board of directors? Who are these 15-20 people? Answer, they are elected once a year by shareholders under the system of one share, one vote. If you own one share, then you have one vote. If you own a million shares, you get a million votes. And if you have no shares, then you get no votes!

Fact, 1% of shareholders in the United States own two-thirds of shares. Therefore, 1% of shareholders dominate and select the board of directors of American corporations [Wolff’s side note: 1% of shareholders is less than 1% of the population as a whole]. They’re called major shareholders. They’re big banks, big pension funds, various wealthy individuals, they’re big corporations, that’s who own the shares.

So, what do we know?

The mass of people in any corporation own no shares at all. The workers General Motors, General Electric, Microsoft, you name it, they don’t own any shares. Therefore, they have no votes at all. Meanwhile, whether or not they have a job, what they produce on their job, what technology is killing them on the job, and what is done with the profits their labor helped to produce, are all decisions made by people over whom they have no control. They have no participation whatsoever.

The place that most adults spend most of their lives is a place from which democracy has always EXCLUDED. Therefore, to call the United States a democracy is a mistake. To justify the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Syria, on the grounds that we are bringing to them democracy is an ignorant arrogance that leaves me speechless, especially once you understand the absurdity of what is being claimed here. ..................(more)

http://rdwolff.com/content/f-wage-take-over-business-how-economist-richard-wolff

October 27, 2015

And Now Defaulted Leveraged Loans Go Kaboom

And Now Defaulted Leveraged Loans Go Kaboom
by Wolf Richter • October 26, 2015


“It’s been a rotten year for distressed and defaulted loan paper.” That’s how S&P Capital IQ LCD starts out its report on leveraged loans.

“Rotten” may be a euphemism. So far, 2015 has been the worst year for defaulted “leveraged loans” since 2008 when the US financial system imploded under its own excesses.

Leveraged loans are the loan-equivalent to junk bonds. They’re issued by junk-rated over-indebted companies often to fund M&A – such as the loans issued by junk-rated, over-indebted Valeant – or to pay a special dividend to the private equity firms that own the companies, which is a form of financial strip-mining. They’re an $800-billion market and trade like securities. But the SEC, which regulates securities, considers them loans and doesn’t regulate them. No one regulates them. This gives issuers and banks a lot of leeway.

Leveraged loans are too risky for banks to keep on their balance sheet. Instead, they sell them to loan mutual funds or ETFs so that they can be moved into conservative retirement portfolios, or they repackage them into Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLO) to sell them to institutional investors, such as mutual-fund companies.

But banks can get stuck with them when markets come out of their euphoria, as they did during the Financial Crisis. So the Fed and other regulators have been exhorting banks for two years to back off. With some success: issuance has started to decline. .................(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2015/10/26/and-now-defaulted-leveraged-loans-go-kaboom/

October 27, 2015

Is there a more appropriately named person than Ken Ham?

Creationist Ken Ham launched another attack against Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye on Sunday after Nye released a short video explaining key things to remember about climate change, the Friendly Atheist reported.

“We don’t need to be concerned about drastic climate change,” Ham wrote on his blog. “Our climate, and the checks and balances that keep it operating within safe parameters, were designed by an all-wise Creator.”

In the video, released by National Geographic earlier this month, Nye identified five key points for viewers to remember about global warming, listed below in his words:

• “The atmosphere is thin. Barely 60 miles, 100 kilometers, in outer space.”
• “There’s 7.3 billion people breathing and burning.”
• “All this heat energy in the atmosphere is changing things. It’s not just getting warmer, it’s changing.”
• “This warmth is making the ocean get bigger. When the ocean rises [by a few inches], this whole area will be under water, and not just this area, that area, that’s Miami.”
• “But the main, main, thing, everybody, is the speed, it’s the rate at which things are changing. Oh yes, the world was once warmer, there was once more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there is today, but all of this never happened this fast. And that’s what you gotta get your heads around.”

Ham, who debated the “Science Guy” last year, tried to dismiss Nye’s first point by claiming that the world was already the “perfect size” for its type of atmosphere.

.....(snip).....

“Does he realize that, from his atheistic perspective, man is just an evolved animal and, in being consistent with an evolutionary ‘survival of the fittest’ worldview, population alarmists could suggest mass killings or forced sterilizations as possible solutions in reducing the population?” Ham argued. “I’m sure he would be aghast at such suggestions — but then on what basis does he anchor his morality and determine what is ultimately right and wrong in this world? It comes down to one’s worldview. What solutions are there in Nye’s game of ‘blame man and his increasing population’?” ..............(more)

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/creationist-ken-hams-bizarre-rebuttal-of-bill-nye-climate-change-alarmists-could-push-for-mass-killings/

October 27, 2015

How Civil Rights Groups Are Unraveling Illegal Bail Schemes That Fill Jails With Poor People

How Civil Rights Groups Are Unraveling Illegal Bail Schemes That Fill Jails With Poor People

Monday, 26 October 2015 00:00
By Mike Ludwig, Truthout | Report


Like the majority of the nearly 750,000 people stuck in local jails across the United States, Rebecca Snow was not held in the Ascension Parish jail in central Louisiana because she had been convicted of a crime. The 33-year-old mother of three, who was charged with two nonviolent misdemeanors in late August, simply could not afford to post bail.

If Snow had the $289 set for each charge, she could have gone home to her family instead of sitting in jail. Many others arrested in the parish are able to post bail and go home, but Snow didn't have the extra cash: She relies on public assistance and is indigent, according to a civil rights complaint filed against the parish's sheriff and top judge.

The US Supreme Court and the Justice Department have both said that incarcerating someone solely because they can't afford to post cash bail is unconstitutional, but that was the policy in Ascension Parish until just a few weeks ago.

Ascension sheriff deputies would set bail during booking using a court-issued "schedule" that matched the alleged offense with a generic bail amount, and some arrestees waited days before seeing a judge who could hear a motion to reduce it, according to the complaint. No individual factors such as prior record or employment were considered, and even those arrested for minor crimes like traffic violations were not released without posting bail. ................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/33378-how-civil-rights-groups-are-unraveling-illegal-bail-schemes-that-fill-jails-with-poor-people