Seven companies announce massive job cuts in a scary start to the week.
By Julianne Pepitone, CNNMoney.com contributing writer
Last Updated: January 27, 2009: 11:13 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The final week of January began with a bloodbath for the job market, as over 71,400 more cuts were announced on Monday alone.
At least six companies from manufacturing and service industries announced cost-cutting initiatives that included slashing thousands of jobs.
More than 200,000 job cuts have been announced so far this year, according to company reports. Nearly 2.6 million jobs were lost over 2008, the highest yearly job-loss total since 1945.
"It's all about the consumer, and the consumer's been hit hard," said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics. "It's a vicious circle as weakness begets layoffs, which beget more spending weakness."
Construction machinery manufacturer Caterpillar (CAT, Fortune 500) said Monday it will cut 20,000 jobs amid a "very challenging global business environment." The company had already planned to cut 15,000 workers since the fourth quarter of 2008, but added another 5,000, bringing the total to 20,000.
Pfizer (PFE, Fortune 500) said in an earnings report it would cut 10% of its staff of 81,900 and close five of its manufacturing plants. And a second round of cuts will shed about 15% of employees from the combined Pfizer/Wyeth staff of 120,000. That makes a total of 26,000 jobs lost. The company already cut 4,700 jobs in 2008.
Sprint Nextel Corp. (S, Fortune 500) will cut a total of about 8,000 jobs by March 31, the company said in a release. The telecommunications company's plan is to reduce internal and external labor costs by about $1.2 billion on an annual basis.
Home Depot (HD, Fortune 500), the world's largest home improvement retailer, announced Monday it will eliminate its EXPO design center business and cut 7,000 associates, or approximately 2% of the company's total workforce. The company blamed a lack of demand for big ticket design and decor projects.
Texas Instruments (TXN, Fortune 500) said it will slash its workforce by 3,400 employees to cope with weak demand and the slowing economy. More than half of those cuts will be layoffs while "voluntary retirements and departures" will make up the rest.
Dutch financial group ING said Monday it will take a 2008 loss of $1.3 billion and cut 7,000 jobs. The company could not comment on where the cuts would take place. ING employs around 130,000 people across 50 countries.
Deere& Co. (DE, Fortune 500) , the world's top farm-equipment maker, said it would cut nearly 700 jobs between factories in Brazil and Iowa.
The job cuts across sectors didn't surprise Brusca, as nearly all are weak, he said.
"The services sector is shedding jobs at a horrific pace, because that's where most of the jobs are," Brusca said. "When the consumer is in tough shape it's hard for business to do well, because it all depends on consumption or investments."
Continuing the scary trend
The cuts mark a horrific start to the week, and a brutal start to 2009. In the previous week, around 40,000 cuts were announced across multiple industries.
Wednesday, in particular, was littered with a slew of job cuts: BHP Billiton, Clear Channel Communications, Intel, Rohm and Haas Co., UAL Corp. and Williams-Sonoma all announced job cuts totaling over 27,000 positions.
Schlumberger said Friday that it will cut 5,000 jobs worldwide, with 1,000 of the cuts taking place in North America.
Also last week, Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. Entertainment said it would cut about 800 jobs, or 10% of its worldwide staff in the upcoming weeks, while Microsoft unveiled its plan to cut up to 5,000 jobs - 5.5% of its global workforce.
Outlook: A recovery in sight?
Brusca said he agreed with many economists' predictions that the recession will end after the second quarter of 2009. Americans might feel the job market start to bounce back a bit sooner than expected, he said.
"These recessions are like geometry," Brusca said. "It looks like we'll have a V-shaped cycle, in that we're going into this with very sharp losses. This intense-phase recession will probably recover fairly quickly, with the job market coming out it at the same angle it came in."
In the short term, the economy and the job market are in trouble, Brusca said. But "it doesn't look like the bottom is falling out of the economy," he said.
And there's a silver lining to the gloomy clouds over America's economy.
"The good news is it's so bad right now that we will have a definite, noticeable recovery when it comes," Brusca said. "We're getting a lot of adjustment out of the way early." To top of page
First Published: January 26, 2009: 1:03 PM ET
http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/26/news/economy/job_cuts/index.htm
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Torture Ban that Doesn't Ban Torture: Obama's Rules Keep It Intact, and Could Even Accord With an Increase in US-Sponsored Torture Worldwide.
If you're lying on the slab still breathing, with your torturer hanging over you, you don't much care if he is an American or a mere United States - sponsored trainee.
When President Obama declared flatly this week that "the United States will not torture" many people wrongly believed that he'd shut the practice down, when in fact he'd merely repositioned it.
Obama's Executive Order bans some -- not all -- US officials from torturing but it does not ban any of them, himself included, from sponsoring torture overseas.
Indeed, his policy change affects only a slight percentage of US-culpable tortures and could be completely consistent with an increase in US-backed torture worldwide.
The catch lies in the fact that since Vietnam, when US forces often tortured directly, the US has mainly seen its torture done for it by proxy -- paying, arming, training and guiding foreigners doing it, but usually being careful to keep Americans at least one discreet step removed.
That is, the US tended to do it that way until Bush and Cheney changed protocol, and had many Americans laying on hands, and sometimes taking digital photos.
The result was a public relations fiasco that enraged the US establishment since by exposing US techniques to the world it diminished US power.
But despite the outrage, the fact of the matter was that the Bush/Cheney tortures being done by Americans were a negligible percentage of all of the tortures being done by US clients.
For every torment inflicted directly by Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and the secret prisons, there were many times more being meted out by US-sponsored foreign forces.
Those forces were and are operating with US military, intelligence, financial or other backing in Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Jordan, Indonesia, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Colombia, Nigeria, and the Philippines, to name some places, not to mention the tortures sans-American-hands by the US-backed Iraqis and Afghans.
What the Obama dictum ostensibly knocks off is that small percentage of torture now done by Americans while retaining the overwhelming bulk of the system's torture, which is done by foreigners under US patronage.
Obama could stop backing foreign forces that torture, but he has chosen not to do so.
His Executive Order instead merely pertains to treatment of "...an individual in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government, or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States, in any armed conflict..." which means that it doesn't even prohibit direct torture by Americans outside environments of "armed conflict," which is where much torture happens anyway since many repressive regimes aren't in armed conflict.
And even if, as Obama says, "the United States will not torture," it can still pay, train, equip and guide foreign torturers, and see to it that they, and their US patrons, don't face local or international justice.
This is a return to the status quo ante, the torture regime of Ford through Clinton, which, year by year, often produced more US-backed strapped-down agony than was produced during the Bush/Cheney years.
Under the old -- now new again -- proxy regime Americans would, say, teach interrogation/torture, then stand in the next room as the victims screamed, feeding questions to their foreign pupils. That's the way the US did it in El Salvador under JFK through Bush Sr. (For details see my "Behind the Death Squads: An exclusive report on the U.S. role in El Salvador’s official terror," The Progressive, May, 1984 ; the US Senate Intelligence Committee report that piece sparked is still classified, but the feeding of questions was confirmed to me by Intelligence Committee Senators. See also my "Confessions of a Death Squad Officer," The Progressive, March, 1986, and my "Comment," The New Yorker, Oct. 15, 1990,[regarding law, the US, and El Salvador]).
In Guatemala under Bush Sr. and Clinton (Obama's foreign policy mentors) the US backed the army's G-2 death squad which kept comprehensive files on dissidents and then electroshocked them or cut off their hands. (The file/ surveillance system was launched for them in the '60s and '70s by CIA/ State/ AID/ special forces; for the history see "Behind the Death Squads," cited above, and the books of Prof. Michael McClintock).
The Americans on the ground in the Guatemalan operation, some of whom I encountered and named, effectively helped to run the G-2 but, themselves, tiptoed around its torture chambers. (See my "C.I.A. Death Squad," The Nation [US], April 17, 1995, "The Country Team," The Nation [US], June 5, 1995, letter exchange with US Ambassador Stroock, The Nation [US], May 29, 1995, and Allan Nairn and Jean-Marie Simon, "Bureaucracy of Death," The New Republic, June 30, 1986).
It was a similar story in Bush Sr. and Clinton's Haiti -- an operation run by today's Obama people -- where the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) helped launch the terrorist group FRAPH, the CIA paid its leader, and FRAPH itsef laid the machetes on Haitian civilians, torturing and killing as US proxies. (See my "Behind Haiti's paramilitaries: our man in FRAPH," The Nation [US], Oct 24, 1994, and "He's our S.O.B.," The Nation [US], Oct. 31, 1994; the story was later confirmed on ABC TV's "This Week" by US Secretary of State Warren Christopher).
In today's Thailand -- a country that hardly comes to mind when most people think of torture -- special police and militaries get US gear and training for things like "target selection" and then go out and torture Thai Malay Muslms in the rebel deep south, and also sometimes (mainly Buddhist) Burmese refugees and exploited northern and west coast workers.
Not long ago I visited a key Thai interrogator who spoke frankly about army/ police/ intel torture and then closed our discussion by saying "Look at this," and invited me into his back room.
It was an up to date museum of plaques, photos and awards from US and Western intelligence, including commendations from the CIA counter-terrorism center (then run by people now staffing Obama), one-on-one photos with high US figures, including George W. Bush, a medal from Bush, various US intel/ FBI/ military training certificates, a photo of him with an Israeli colleague beside a tank in the Occupied Territories, and Mossad, Shin Bet, Singaporean, and other interrogation implements and mementos.
On my way out, the Thai intel man remarked that he was due to re-visit Langley soon.
His role is typical. There are thousands like him worldwide. US proxy torture dwarfs that at Guantanamo.
Many Americans, to their credit, hate torture. The Bush/Cheney escapade exposed that.
But to stop it they must get the facts and see that Obama's ban does not stop it, and indeed could even accord with an increase in US-sponsored torture crime.
In lieu of action, the system will grind on tonight. More shocks, suffocations, deep burns. And the convergence of thousands of complex minds on one simple thought: 'Please, let me die.'
NOTE TO READERS: News and Comment is looking for assistance with translating blog postings into other languages, and also with fund raising and distributing the blog content more widely. Those interested please get in touch via the e-mail link below.
NOTE TO READERS RE. TRANSLATION: Portions of News and Comment are now available in Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, French, German and Spanish translation (click preceding links or Profile link above) but translation help is still needed -- particularly with older postings, in these and all other languages.
NOTE TO READERS RE. POTENTIAL EVIDENCE: News and Comment is looking for public and private documents and first-hand information that could develop into evidence regarding war crimes or crimes against humanity by officials. Please forward material via the email link below.
http://www.allannairn.com/2009/01/torture-ban-that-doesnt-ban-torture.html
When President Obama declared flatly this week that "the United States will not torture" many people wrongly believed that he'd shut the practice down, when in fact he'd merely repositioned it.
Obama's Executive Order bans some -- not all -- US officials from torturing but it does not ban any of them, himself included, from sponsoring torture overseas.
Indeed, his policy change affects only a slight percentage of US-culpable tortures and could be completely consistent with an increase in US-backed torture worldwide.
The catch lies in the fact that since Vietnam, when US forces often tortured directly, the US has mainly seen its torture done for it by proxy -- paying, arming, training and guiding foreigners doing it, but usually being careful to keep Americans at least one discreet step removed.
That is, the US tended to do it that way until Bush and Cheney changed protocol, and had many Americans laying on hands, and sometimes taking digital photos.
The result was a public relations fiasco that enraged the US establishment since by exposing US techniques to the world it diminished US power.
But despite the outrage, the fact of the matter was that the Bush/Cheney tortures being done by Americans were a negligible percentage of all of the tortures being done by US clients.
For every torment inflicted directly by Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and the secret prisons, there were many times more being meted out by US-sponsored foreign forces.
Those forces were and are operating with US military, intelligence, financial or other backing in Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Jordan, Indonesia, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Colombia, Nigeria, and the Philippines, to name some places, not to mention the tortures sans-American-hands by the US-backed Iraqis and Afghans.
What the Obama dictum ostensibly knocks off is that small percentage of torture now done by Americans while retaining the overwhelming bulk of the system's torture, which is done by foreigners under US patronage.
Obama could stop backing foreign forces that torture, but he has chosen not to do so.
His Executive Order instead merely pertains to treatment of "...an individual in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government, or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States, in any armed conflict..." which means that it doesn't even prohibit direct torture by Americans outside environments of "armed conflict," which is where much torture happens anyway since many repressive regimes aren't in armed conflict.
And even if, as Obama says, "the United States will not torture," it can still pay, train, equip and guide foreign torturers, and see to it that they, and their US patrons, don't face local or international justice.
This is a return to the status quo ante, the torture regime of Ford through Clinton, which, year by year, often produced more US-backed strapped-down agony than was produced during the Bush/Cheney years.
Under the old -- now new again -- proxy regime Americans would, say, teach interrogation/torture, then stand in the next room as the victims screamed, feeding questions to their foreign pupils. That's the way the US did it in El Salvador under JFK through Bush Sr. (For details see my "Behind the Death Squads: An exclusive report on the U.S. role in El Salvador’s official terror," The Progressive, May, 1984 ; the US Senate Intelligence Committee report that piece sparked is still classified, but the feeding of questions was confirmed to me by Intelligence Committee Senators. See also my "Confessions of a Death Squad Officer," The Progressive, March, 1986, and my "Comment," The New Yorker, Oct. 15, 1990,[regarding law, the US, and El Salvador]).
In Guatemala under Bush Sr. and Clinton (Obama's foreign policy mentors) the US backed the army's G-2 death squad which kept comprehensive files on dissidents and then electroshocked them or cut off their hands. (The file/ surveillance system was launched for them in the '60s and '70s by CIA/ State/ AID/ special forces; for the history see "Behind the Death Squads," cited above, and the books of Prof. Michael McClintock).
The Americans on the ground in the Guatemalan operation, some of whom I encountered and named, effectively helped to run the G-2 but, themselves, tiptoed around its torture chambers. (See my "C.I.A. Death Squad," The Nation [US], April 17, 1995, "The Country Team," The Nation [US], June 5, 1995, letter exchange with US Ambassador Stroock, The Nation [US], May 29, 1995, and Allan Nairn and Jean-Marie Simon, "Bureaucracy of Death," The New Republic, June 30, 1986).
It was a similar story in Bush Sr. and Clinton's Haiti -- an operation run by today's Obama people -- where the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) helped launch the terrorist group FRAPH, the CIA paid its leader, and FRAPH itsef laid the machetes on Haitian civilians, torturing and killing as US proxies. (See my "Behind Haiti's paramilitaries: our man in FRAPH," The Nation [US], Oct 24, 1994, and "He's our S.O.B.," The Nation [US], Oct. 31, 1994; the story was later confirmed on ABC TV's "This Week" by US Secretary of State Warren Christopher).
In today's Thailand -- a country that hardly comes to mind when most people think of torture -- special police and militaries get US gear and training for things like "target selection" and then go out and torture Thai Malay Muslms in the rebel deep south, and also sometimes (mainly Buddhist) Burmese refugees and exploited northern and west coast workers.
Not long ago I visited a key Thai interrogator who spoke frankly about army/ police/ intel torture and then closed our discussion by saying "Look at this," and invited me into his back room.
It was an up to date museum of plaques, photos and awards from US and Western intelligence, including commendations from the CIA counter-terrorism center (then run by people now staffing Obama), one-on-one photos with high US figures, including George W. Bush, a medal from Bush, various US intel/ FBI/ military training certificates, a photo of him with an Israeli colleague beside a tank in the Occupied Territories, and Mossad, Shin Bet, Singaporean, and other interrogation implements and mementos.
On my way out, the Thai intel man remarked that he was due to re-visit Langley soon.
His role is typical. There are thousands like him worldwide. US proxy torture dwarfs that at Guantanamo.
Many Americans, to their credit, hate torture. The Bush/Cheney escapade exposed that.
But to stop it they must get the facts and see that Obama's ban does not stop it, and indeed could even accord with an increase in US-sponsored torture crime.
In lieu of action, the system will grind on tonight. More shocks, suffocations, deep burns. And the convergence of thousands of complex minds on one simple thought: 'Please, let me die.'
NOTE TO READERS: News and Comment is looking for assistance with translating blog postings into other languages, and also with fund raising and distributing the blog content more widely. Those interested please get in touch via the e-mail link below.
NOTE TO READERS RE. TRANSLATION: Portions of News and Comment are now available in Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, French, German and Spanish translation (click preceding links or Profile link above) but translation help is still needed -- particularly with older postings, in these and all other languages.
NOTE TO READERS RE. POTENTIAL EVIDENCE: News and Comment is looking for public and private documents and first-hand information that could develop into evidence regarding war crimes or crimes against humanity by officials. Please forward material via the email link below.
http://www.allannairn.com/2009/01/torture-ban-that-doesnt-ban-torture.html
Yard Sale Nation: The Change Required to Salvage U.S Society Runs Much Deeper Than Most Imagine
By James Howard Kunstler, Kunstler.com
Posted on January 21, 2009, Printed on January 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/121146/
Barack has Obama stepped into the shoes of Lincoln, FDR, Millard Fillmore and forty other predecessors -- this time as the wished-for Mr. Fix it of a nation run into a ditch. Surely over the months of transition, someone with a clear head and a fact-laden portfolio has clued-in the new President about the reality-based state-of-the-Union -- as opposed, say, to the Las Vegas version, where Santa Clause presides over a whoredom of something-for-nothing economics, and all behaviors are equally okay, and consequence has been sliced-and-diced out of the game … where, in the immortal words of Milan Kundera, anything goes and nothing matters.
Mr. Obama deserves credit for a lot of things, but perhaps most amazingly his ability to see "hope" in a public so demoralized by their own bad choices that the USA scene has devolved to a non-stop Special Olympics of everyday life, where absolutely everybody is debilitated, deluded, challenged, or needs a leg up, or an extra buck, or a pallet on the floor, or a gastric bypass, or a week in detox, or a head-start, or a fourth strike, or a $150-billion bailout. There's a lot of raw material from sea to shining sea, admittedly, but how do you re-shape it into a population guided by a sense of earnest purpose, with reality-based expectations, with habits of delayed gratification and impulse control, and a sense of their own history? That will be quite a trick. Many of us -- myself included -- will be pulling for Barack. Maybe the power of his rhetoric and his sheer buff physical presence can whip this republic of overfed clowns into shape.
He inherits a government of superficially gleaming marble edifices -- all gloriously on view tomorrow -- but full of broken machinery within, infested with weevils, termites, and rats. The USA is functionally bankrupt. We have no money. The pixel "money" being emailed over to the insolvent banks has no basis in reality beyond the quiver in Ben Bernanke's voice as he announces each new injection. Yet all reports so far indicate that President Obama is bent on continuing the process one way or another.
Mr. Obama's first task taking stage in the lonely Oval Office should be to get right with his own credo of "change," meaning he'll have to persuade the broad American public that the "change" required to salvage this society runs much deeper, colder, and thicker than they'd imagine in their initial transports over hallelujah-Bush-is-Gone. Many of the familiar touchstones of the recent American experience have got to go.
Say goodbye to the "consumer society." We're done with that. No more fast money and no more credit. The next stop is "yard-sale nation," in which all the plastic crapola accumulated over the past fifty years is sorted out for residual value and, if still working, sold for a fraction of its original sticker price. This includes everything from Humvees to Hello Kitty charm bracelets.
It will be a very salutary thing if we stop even referring to ourselves as "consumers." This degrading moniker, used for decades unthinkingly by everyone from The New York Times Nobel Prize pundits to the Econ 101 section men of the land-grant diploma mills has been such a drag on our collective development that it has extinguished the last latent flickers of duty, obligation, and responsibility for the greater good in a republic of broken communities shattered by WalMarts.
The government will not have to do a thing to bring down the chain-stores. History and inertia is already on that case, with the easy credit racket terminated and new frictions arising over global trade, and even Peak Oil waiting to work its hoodoo behind the scrim of deceptively temporarily low pump prices. The larger question for President Obama is: how can we collectively promote the reconstruction of Main Street, including all the fine-grained layers of retail and wholesale trade. High tech "solutions" are not likely to avail in this.
In fact, techno-grandiosity and techno-triumphalism must be be sedulously monitored and guarded-against. They jointly amount to the great mass psychosis of our time and culture. This array of traps -- from proposed flying cars to "renewable" motor fuels -- is the ultimate Faustian "bargain." It will be at the heart of any campaign to sustain the unsustainable, sucking us ever more deeply into the diminishing returns of over-investments in complexity. Hence, the last thing this nation needs now is a stimulus plan aimed at the development of non-gasoline-powered automobiles -- married with extensive rehabilitation of the highway system. What I incessantly refer to as the Happy Motoring fiesta is drawing to a close as we have known it, whether we like it or not. Cars will be around for a while, of course, but as an increasingly elite activity. The owners of cars will be increasingly beset by grievance and resentment on the part of those foreclosed from the Happy Motoring life -- and it could easily degenerate to vandalism and violence, since the "right" to endless motoring was surreptitiously made an entitlement somewhere around 1957.
The "change" we face in agriculture dwarfs even the death throes of Happy Motoring (and is not unrelated to it either). A lot of people are likely to starve in America if we don't get our act together pronto in terms of how we produce the food we eat. Petro-agribusiness faces a set of disturbances that are certain to induce food shortages. Again, the Peak Oil specter looms in the background, for soil "inputs" and diesel power to run that system. But all of a sudden even that problem appears a lesser danger than the gross failure of capital finance now underway -- and petro-agriculture's chief external input is credit. Credit may be in extremely short supply this year, and hence crops may be in short supply as we turn the corner into spring and summer. Just as in the case of WalMart versus Main Street, the reform of farming in America is one of those "changes" much larger than most of us imagine. I'd go so far to say that a large proportion of young people now in college will find themselves not working in office cubicles, but in some way or other in farming or the "value-added" activities connected to it.
I don't see how America can confront the "change" represented by the stark fact that suburbia-is-toast. It is the sorest spot of all in the corpus of a culture beset by disease and debility. The salient manifestation of suburbia's demise is the remorseless drop of housing values in the places most representative of that development pattern. The worst thing the Obama team could do about this would be to attempt to prevent the fall of inflated house prices. Their real value needs to be clearly established before a picture emerges of which places have a plausible future, and which places are destined to be mere ruins or salvage yards.
Americans will have to live somewhere, of course, but the terrain of North America faces a very comprehensive reformation. The biggest cities will contract; the small cities and small towns will be reactivated, the agricultural landscape will be inhabited differently, and the suburbs will undergo an agonizing decades-long work-out of bad debt and true asset re-valuation. Since the loss of so much vested "wealth" is implied by the crash of suburbia, this may be a source of revolutionary political violence moving deeper into the Obama administration.
There's been plenty of buzz in the blogosphere about the imminent failure of the US "social safety net," including especially the social security program. Retirees are the biggest block of voters. They're not liable to foment riots -- that is best left to the youthful high-testosterone cohort -- but the older folks -- with Baby Boomers now coming aboard -- could be so distressed by the loss of their presumed entitlements that they will elect any maniac promising to bring back something that looked like the 1980s. We haven't begun to hear their war cries, and I hope they do not beat a path straight into some sort of crypto corporate fascism -- as, finally, every last failing scrap of American life is nationalized.
Some natural processes hide in the thickets ahead. A hyper-inflation could take this country in any weird and unappetizing direction, from scapegoating and persecution to a new kind of corporate fascism. But I'm inclined to see our tribulations governed more by weakness in high places than by real power. In a world of declining capital and depleting energy resources, the key to any successful venture will be smaller scale. I'm not convinced that any emergency could make the US government more effective at getting anything done. Our hopes really ought to be vested locally, since that is where the most effective action is likely to be in the years just ahead.
... There are many Americans of good will who would like to see the meaning of real "change" clearly articulated in a way that comports with reality, not just "dreams" and wishes. We'll hear a lot about dreams this week, anyway, of course, but then reality will set in and the heavy lifting will commence. Many Americans of good will also stand ready to face reality, to roll up our sleeves, ditch the video games and the Nascar and the microwaved cheese treats, and the internet porn and all the other noxious, narcolepsy-inducing distractions of our time, and put our shoulders to the wheel to haul this nation into a plausible future.
© 2009 Kunstler.com All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/121146/
Posted on January 21, 2009, Printed on January 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/121146/
Barack has Obama stepped into the shoes of Lincoln, FDR, Millard Fillmore and forty other predecessors -- this time as the wished-for Mr. Fix it of a nation run into a ditch. Surely over the months of transition, someone with a clear head and a fact-laden portfolio has clued-in the new President about the reality-based state-of-the-Union -- as opposed, say, to the Las Vegas version, where Santa Clause presides over a whoredom of something-for-nothing economics, and all behaviors are equally okay, and consequence has been sliced-and-diced out of the game … where, in the immortal words of Milan Kundera, anything goes and nothing matters.
Mr. Obama deserves credit for a lot of things, but perhaps most amazingly his ability to see "hope" in a public so demoralized by their own bad choices that the USA scene has devolved to a non-stop Special Olympics of everyday life, where absolutely everybody is debilitated, deluded, challenged, or needs a leg up, or an extra buck, or a pallet on the floor, or a gastric bypass, or a week in detox, or a head-start, or a fourth strike, or a $150-billion bailout. There's a lot of raw material from sea to shining sea, admittedly, but how do you re-shape it into a population guided by a sense of earnest purpose, with reality-based expectations, with habits of delayed gratification and impulse control, and a sense of their own history? That will be quite a trick. Many of us -- myself included -- will be pulling for Barack. Maybe the power of his rhetoric and his sheer buff physical presence can whip this republic of overfed clowns into shape.
He inherits a government of superficially gleaming marble edifices -- all gloriously on view tomorrow -- but full of broken machinery within, infested with weevils, termites, and rats. The USA is functionally bankrupt. We have no money. The pixel "money" being emailed over to the insolvent banks has no basis in reality beyond the quiver in Ben Bernanke's voice as he announces each new injection. Yet all reports so far indicate that President Obama is bent on continuing the process one way or another.
Mr. Obama's first task taking stage in the lonely Oval Office should be to get right with his own credo of "change," meaning he'll have to persuade the broad American public that the "change" required to salvage this society runs much deeper, colder, and thicker than they'd imagine in their initial transports over hallelujah-Bush-is-Gone. Many of the familiar touchstones of the recent American experience have got to go.
Say goodbye to the "consumer society." We're done with that. No more fast money and no more credit. The next stop is "yard-sale nation," in which all the plastic crapola accumulated over the past fifty years is sorted out for residual value and, if still working, sold for a fraction of its original sticker price. This includes everything from Humvees to Hello Kitty charm bracelets.
It will be a very salutary thing if we stop even referring to ourselves as "consumers." This degrading moniker, used for decades unthinkingly by everyone from The New York Times Nobel Prize pundits to the Econ 101 section men of the land-grant diploma mills has been such a drag on our collective development that it has extinguished the last latent flickers of duty, obligation, and responsibility for the greater good in a republic of broken communities shattered by WalMarts.
The government will not have to do a thing to bring down the chain-stores. History and inertia is already on that case, with the easy credit racket terminated and new frictions arising over global trade, and even Peak Oil waiting to work its hoodoo behind the scrim of deceptively temporarily low pump prices. The larger question for President Obama is: how can we collectively promote the reconstruction of Main Street, including all the fine-grained layers of retail and wholesale trade. High tech "solutions" are not likely to avail in this.
In fact, techno-grandiosity and techno-triumphalism must be be sedulously monitored and guarded-against. They jointly amount to the great mass psychosis of our time and culture. This array of traps -- from proposed flying cars to "renewable" motor fuels -- is the ultimate Faustian "bargain." It will be at the heart of any campaign to sustain the unsustainable, sucking us ever more deeply into the diminishing returns of over-investments in complexity. Hence, the last thing this nation needs now is a stimulus plan aimed at the development of non-gasoline-powered automobiles -- married with extensive rehabilitation of the highway system. What I incessantly refer to as the Happy Motoring fiesta is drawing to a close as we have known it, whether we like it or not. Cars will be around for a while, of course, but as an increasingly elite activity. The owners of cars will be increasingly beset by grievance and resentment on the part of those foreclosed from the Happy Motoring life -- and it could easily degenerate to vandalism and violence, since the "right" to endless motoring was surreptitiously made an entitlement somewhere around 1957.
The "change" we face in agriculture dwarfs even the death throes of Happy Motoring (and is not unrelated to it either). A lot of people are likely to starve in America if we don't get our act together pronto in terms of how we produce the food we eat. Petro-agribusiness faces a set of disturbances that are certain to induce food shortages. Again, the Peak Oil specter looms in the background, for soil "inputs" and diesel power to run that system. But all of a sudden even that problem appears a lesser danger than the gross failure of capital finance now underway -- and petro-agriculture's chief external input is credit. Credit may be in extremely short supply this year, and hence crops may be in short supply as we turn the corner into spring and summer. Just as in the case of WalMart versus Main Street, the reform of farming in America is one of those "changes" much larger than most of us imagine. I'd go so far to say that a large proportion of young people now in college will find themselves not working in office cubicles, but in some way or other in farming or the "value-added" activities connected to it.
I don't see how America can confront the "change" represented by the stark fact that suburbia-is-toast. It is the sorest spot of all in the corpus of a culture beset by disease and debility. The salient manifestation of suburbia's demise is the remorseless drop of housing values in the places most representative of that development pattern. The worst thing the Obama team could do about this would be to attempt to prevent the fall of inflated house prices. Their real value needs to be clearly established before a picture emerges of which places have a plausible future, and which places are destined to be mere ruins or salvage yards.
Americans will have to live somewhere, of course, but the terrain of North America faces a very comprehensive reformation. The biggest cities will contract; the small cities and small towns will be reactivated, the agricultural landscape will be inhabited differently, and the suburbs will undergo an agonizing decades-long work-out of bad debt and true asset re-valuation. Since the loss of so much vested "wealth" is implied by the crash of suburbia, this may be a source of revolutionary political violence moving deeper into the Obama administration.
There's been plenty of buzz in the blogosphere about the imminent failure of the US "social safety net," including especially the social security program. Retirees are the biggest block of voters. They're not liable to foment riots -- that is best left to the youthful high-testosterone cohort -- but the older folks -- with Baby Boomers now coming aboard -- could be so distressed by the loss of their presumed entitlements that they will elect any maniac promising to bring back something that looked like the 1980s. We haven't begun to hear their war cries, and I hope they do not beat a path straight into some sort of crypto corporate fascism -- as, finally, every last failing scrap of American life is nationalized.
Some natural processes hide in the thickets ahead. A hyper-inflation could take this country in any weird and unappetizing direction, from scapegoating and persecution to a new kind of corporate fascism. But I'm inclined to see our tribulations governed more by weakness in high places than by real power. In a world of declining capital and depleting energy resources, the key to any successful venture will be smaller scale. I'm not convinced that any emergency could make the US government more effective at getting anything done. Our hopes really ought to be vested locally, since that is where the most effective action is likely to be in the years just ahead.
... There are many Americans of good will who would like to see the meaning of real "change" clearly articulated in a way that comports with reality, not just "dreams" and wishes. We'll hear a lot about dreams this week, anyway, of course, but then reality will set in and the heavy lifting will commence. Many Americans of good will also stand ready to face reality, to roll up our sleeves, ditch the video games and the Nascar and the microwaved cheese treats, and the internet porn and all the other noxious, narcolepsy-inducing distractions of our time, and put our shoulders to the wheel to haul this nation into a plausible future.
© 2009 Kunstler.com All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/121146/
Prosecutor: Slain toddler said 'I love you' at end
By JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press Writer Juan A. Lozano, Associated Press Writer 28 mins ago
GALVESTON, Texas – A slain toddler tried to stop her mother and stepfather from beating her to death by reaching out to her mother and saying, "I love you," a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday. The pleas from 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers didn't stop her mother, Kimberly Trenor, from continuing to brutalize her, assistant district attorney Kayla Allen said in her opening statement at Trenor's murder trial.
But defense attorney Tommy Stickler Jr. told the jury that Trenor, 20, never intended to kill her daughter in 2007 and that things just "spun out of control."
The toddler was dubbed "Baby Grace" by investigators who worked to identify her decomposed remains after the body was found in a plastic container in October 2007 on a tiny island in Galveston Bay.
Trenor's 25-year-old husband, Royce Zeigler II, is to be tried separately on murder charges. His attorney points the finger at Trenor.
Prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty because they didn't think they could prove that either one would be a future danger, as required.
During her opening statement, Allen detailed for jurors the day that she said Riley Ann died for forgetting to say "please" and "yes, sir."
Allen said that on July 25, 2007, Trenor and Zeigler disciplined Riley by whipping her with a belt, pushing her head against a pillow and holding her head under water. She said Zeigler grabbed Riley and tossed her across the room, fracturing her skull. An autopsy concluded the skull fractures caused her death.
"To the very end, Riley said, 'I love you' to her mom. She's reaching out," Allen said. "That's her lifeline, to her mother. What does Kim do after hearing her say I love you? She starts beating her."
Allen said the adults did nothing to help even as Riley lay dying.
She said the pair bought a plastic container, stuffed Riley's body inside and stored it in a shed for a month or two before setting it out to sea, prosecutors said.
Stickler portrayed Trenor as a scared 19-year-old girl who had moved to Texas from Ohio to marry a man she met while playing an online game. She said Riley's father, her former boyfriend, had assaulted her and Zeigler was her "knight in shining armor, her Texas cowboy."
"I don't want to use the word accident, but this wasn't something that was intentional," Stickler said.
Trenor could receive an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of capital murder. The jury could also convict her of a lesser charge.
Riley's remains were unidentified for weeks until an Ohio woman, Sheryl Sawyers, saw an artist's sketch and told authorities she believed the girl was her granddaughter. Sawyers' son is Trenor's ex-boyfriend.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090128/ap_on_re_us/child_s_remains/print
GALVESTON, Texas – A slain toddler tried to stop her mother and stepfather from beating her to death by reaching out to her mother and saying, "I love you," a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday. The pleas from 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers didn't stop her mother, Kimberly Trenor, from continuing to brutalize her, assistant district attorney Kayla Allen said in her opening statement at Trenor's murder trial.
But defense attorney Tommy Stickler Jr. told the jury that Trenor, 20, never intended to kill her daughter in 2007 and that things just "spun out of control."
The toddler was dubbed "Baby Grace" by investigators who worked to identify her decomposed remains after the body was found in a plastic container in October 2007 on a tiny island in Galveston Bay.
Trenor's 25-year-old husband, Royce Zeigler II, is to be tried separately on murder charges. His attorney points the finger at Trenor.
Prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty because they didn't think they could prove that either one would be a future danger, as required.
During her opening statement, Allen detailed for jurors the day that she said Riley Ann died for forgetting to say "please" and "yes, sir."
Allen said that on July 25, 2007, Trenor and Zeigler disciplined Riley by whipping her with a belt, pushing her head against a pillow and holding her head under water. She said Zeigler grabbed Riley and tossed her across the room, fracturing her skull. An autopsy concluded the skull fractures caused her death.
"To the very end, Riley said, 'I love you' to her mom. She's reaching out," Allen said. "That's her lifeline, to her mother. What does Kim do after hearing her say I love you? She starts beating her."
Allen said the adults did nothing to help even as Riley lay dying.
She said the pair bought a plastic container, stuffed Riley's body inside and stored it in a shed for a month or two before setting it out to sea, prosecutors said.
Stickler portrayed Trenor as a scared 19-year-old girl who had moved to Texas from Ohio to marry a man she met while playing an online game. She said Riley's father, her former boyfriend, had assaulted her and Zeigler was her "knight in shining armor, her Texas cowboy."
"I don't want to use the word accident, but this wasn't something that was intentional," Stickler said.
Trenor could receive an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of capital murder. The jury could also convict her of a lesser charge.
Riley's remains were unidentified for weeks until an Ohio woman, Sheryl Sawyers, saw an artist's sketch and told authorities she believed the girl was her granddaughter. Sawyers' son is Trenor's ex-boyfriend.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090128/ap_on_re_us/child_s_remains/print
Fast action needed to avoid climate chaos: study
Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:27am EST
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Global temperature rises due to climate change could be kept below the critical 2 degree mark by fast international action to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2030, a report said on Monday.
Scientists say that if temperatures increase beyond 2 degrees, humanity faces severe environmental fallout, such as melting polar ice caps and rising sealevels.
Increasing numbers of scientists and politicians question whether the 2 degrees goal is achievable, given the slow progress of international negotiations so far.
But it is not too late to avert dangerous climate change, said the report by consultancy McKinsey and backed by ten organizations including energy companies, Enel, Vattenfall and Royal Dutch Shell.
"Achieving the deep emissions cuts required to keep global warming below the 2 degrees limit is possible but difficult," said McKinsey director Tomas Naucler.
Global investment of 530 billion euros ($686 billion) would be needed by 2020, and 810 billion by 2030, the report added.
Countries would offset much of the cost by simultaneously cutting their bills for oil, gas and coal, resulting in a net cost of less than 1 percent of gross domestic product.
The report comes one month after the European Union agreed ambitious measures to cut carbon dioxide and amid renewed optimism U.S. President Barack Obama will lend fresh momentum to global talks after having pledged to curb emissions at home.
Obama will start reversing former President George W. Bush's climate policies on Monday with steps to raise fuel efficiency standards and to grant states authority to limit emissions from cars, officials say.
Keeping climate change manageable would require fast global action, said the report.
A 70 percent cut in emissions by 2030 would see greenhouse gas emissions peaking at 480 parts per million (ppm), roughly the level scientists say would cause a 2 degree rise.
But a 10-year delay would make it difficult to keep greenhouse gas emissions below 550 parts per million (ppm).
"Every year of delay adds to the challenge, not only because emissions will continue to grow during that year, but also because it will lock the economy into high-carbon infrastructure," said the report.
(Reporting by Pete Harrison)
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE50P4E520090127
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Global temperature rises due to climate change could be kept below the critical 2 degree mark by fast international action to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2030, a report said on Monday.
Scientists say that if temperatures increase beyond 2 degrees, humanity faces severe environmental fallout, such as melting polar ice caps and rising sealevels.
Increasing numbers of scientists and politicians question whether the 2 degrees goal is achievable, given the slow progress of international negotiations so far.
But it is not too late to avert dangerous climate change, said the report by consultancy McKinsey and backed by ten organizations including energy companies, Enel, Vattenfall and Royal Dutch Shell.
"Achieving the deep emissions cuts required to keep global warming below the 2 degrees limit is possible but difficult," said McKinsey director Tomas Naucler.
Global investment of 530 billion euros ($686 billion) would be needed by 2020, and 810 billion by 2030, the report added.
Countries would offset much of the cost by simultaneously cutting their bills for oil, gas and coal, resulting in a net cost of less than 1 percent of gross domestic product.
The report comes one month after the European Union agreed ambitious measures to cut carbon dioxide and amid renewed optimism U.S. President Barack Obama will lend fresh momentum to global talks after having pledged to curb emissions at home.
Obama will start reversing former President George W. Bush's climate policies on Monday with steps to raise fuel efficiency standards and to grant states authority to limit emissions from cars, officials say.
Keeping climate change manageable would require fast global action, said the report.
A 70 percent cut in emissions by 2030 would see greenhouse gas emissions peaking at 480 parts per million (ppm), roughly the level scientists say would cause a 2 degree rise.
But a 10-year delay would make it difficult to keep greenhouse gas emissions below 550 parts per million (ppm).
"Every year of delay adds to the challenge, not only because emissions will continue to grow during that year, but also because it will lock the economy into high-carbon infrastructure," said the report.
(Reporting by Pete Harrison)
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE50P4E520090127
Britain told to publish Iraq war discussions
Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:55pm EST
By Tim Castle
LONDON (Reuters) - Records of British cabinet discussions over the legality of invading Iraq, held in the buildup to war in 2003, must be released to the public, a tribunal ruled Tuesday.
Publication of the documents could embarrass Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose predecessor Tony Blair was accused by critics of glossing over lawyers' initial reservations about launching the invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Brown's office said it was considering its response to the ruling, made by a tribunal which decides on requests for documents under freedom of information laws.
The tribunal said it was in the public interest to release minutes of the cabinet discussions.
The documents from two cabinet meetings in March 2003 may reveal whether ministers were aware of an apparent change of mind over the invasion's legality made by the government's then senior legal officer, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith.
Previously released documents have shown that Goldsmith had cast doubt on the legal grounds of war on March 7, days before Blair ordered British troops in.
Ten days later, when Britain had failed to get a new United Nations resolution authorizing an invasion, Goldsmith gave the cabinet and parliament short written advice that war was legal -- and mentioned no doubts.
Blair denied Goldsmith had bowed under political pressure but opposition parties accused the then prime minister of deceit.
"The release of these minutes could be critical in how history views this decision," said Edward Davey, a spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrat party.
"The Labor government has put a wall of secrecy over the years since 2003 to prevent the full facts coming out," he told BBC television.
Both the Liberal Democrats and the opposition Conservatives have called for a full inquiry into the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which the government has resisted as long as British troops remain in Iraq.
Britain has said it will withdraw almost all its remaining troops from Iraq by the end of July.
The minutes of cabinet meetings would normally be kept secret for 30 years.
Britain's Information Commissioner ruled last February that the government should release the documents.
The government appealed against this ruling but Tuesday the tribunal upheld the Commissioner's decision.
The government has until shortly before the end of February to decide whether to challenge the ruling in the High Court.
(editing by Dominic Evans)
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE50Q5GW20090127
By Tim Castle
LONDON (Reuters) - Records of British cabinet discussions over the legality of invading Iraq, held in the buildup to war in 2003, must be released to the public, a tribunal ruled Tuesday.
Publication of the documents could embarrass Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose predecessor Tony Blair was accused by critics of glossing over lawyers' initial reservations about launching the invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Brown's office said it was considering its response to the ruling, made by a tribunal which decides on requests for documents under freedom of information laws.
The tribunal said it was in the public interest to release minutes of the cabinet discussions.
The documents from two cabinet meetings in March 2003 may reveal whether ministers were aware of an apparent change of mind over the invasion's legality made by the government's then senior legal officer, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith.
Previously released documents have shown that Goldsmith had cast doubt on the legal grounds of war on March 7, days before Blair ordered British troops in.
Ten days later, when Britain had failed to get a new United Nations resolution authorizing an invasion, Goldsmith gave the cabinet and parliament short written advice that war was legal -- and mentioned no doubts.
Blair denied Goldsmith had bowed under political pressure but opposition parties accused the then prime minister of deceit.
"The release of these minutes could be critical in how history views this decision," said Edward Davey, a spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrat party.
"The Labor government has put a wall of secrecy over the years since 2003 to prevent the full facts coming out," he told BBC television.
Both the Liberal Democrats and the opposition Conservatives have called for a full inquiry into the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which the government has resisted as long as British troops remain in Iraq.
Britain has said it will withdraw almost all its remaining troops from Iraq by the end of July.
The minutes of cabinet meetings would normally be kept secret for 30 years.
Britain's Information Commissioner ruled last February that the government should release the documents.
The government appealed against this ruling but Tuesday the tribunal upheld the Commissioner's decision.
The government has until shortly before the end of February to decide whether to challenge the ruling in the High Court.
(editing by Dominic Evans)
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE50Q5GW20090127
To Support and Defend: A Message to US Senators and Representatives
Friday 23 January 2009
by: Phillip Butler, Ph.D., t r u t h o u t | Perspective
The Constitution of the United States of America.
"I, Phillip Neal Butler, having been appointed a Midshipman in the United States Navy, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter, so help me God." (Oath of Office, July 1, 1957.)
Upon graduation from the United States Naval Academy in 1961, I had the honor of repeating this oath to be commissioned an ensign in the United States Navy. I served 20 years as an active duty commissioned officer. During that time, I became a naval aviator, flew combat in Vietnam, was downed over North Vietnam on April 20, 1965, and became a prisoner of war. I was repatriated on February 12, 1973, having served 2,855 days and nights as a POW - just short of eight years. The Vietnamese were not signatories to any international treaties on treatment of prisoners. They pronounced us "criminals" and freely used torture, harassment, malnutrition, isolation, lack of medical care, and other degradations during our captivity. I was tortured dozens of times during my captivity. But I often thought of our Constitution and the higher purpose we served - a purpose that helped me resist beyond what I thought I'd ever be capable of. Ironically, we POWs often reminded each other "that our country would never stoop to torture and the low level of treatment we were experiencing at the hands of our captors."
This Oath of Office, the same one sworn to by all officers, government officials, presidential cabinet members, senators and representatives of our nation, has had a powerful effect on me. It has given me an over-arching purpose in life: to serve the greatest and most influential legal document ever written. The only different oath is specified for the president of the United States in Constitution Article II, Section 1 (8.) It mandates that he or she will "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution."
So, what in the world has happened during the past eight years of the George W. Bush administration? The only defensible answer is that he and his subordinates have trampled our precious Constitution and the rule of law into the ground, while our elected members of Congress have stood idly and complicitly by. Our highest elected officials have utterly failed in their duty of greatest responsibility.
During these years, we have seen gross attempts to institutionalize torture. Our Constitution, Article VI, (2), commonly known as the "Supremacy" clause, clearly states that treaties made shall become "the supreme law of the land," thus elevating them to the level of constitutional law.
The Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, ratified in 1949, states in Article 17, "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind." This and numerous other ratified treaties clearly stipulate that "prisoners" is an inclusive term that is not limited to any nation's uniformed combatants.
Other gross Bush administration crimes, in addition to authorizing torture, of general and constitutional law include: 1) the use of "signing statements" to illegally refrain from complying with laws, 2) authorization of the illegal suspension of Habeas Corpus, 3) authorization of wire tapping and other intrusive methods to illegally spy on American citizens, 4) unilateral declaration and pre-emptive conduct of war in violation of US Constitution Article I, Section 8 (11).
These violations of our Constitution and rule of law have resulted in reducing our nation to the level of international pariah. Our beacon of liberty and justice no longer shines throughout the world. We no longer set the example for other nations to follow. We no longer stand on a firm foundation. We have lost our national, moral gyro.
I despair when I think of the personal sacrifices made by so many in US wars and conflicts since 1776. If our forefathers were here to see, they would surely be angry and disappointed. And I think they would issue a clarion call for redress and setting an example for the world by punishing those who are guilty. The only way our nation can right itself is for Congress to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes.
I, therefore, call on my elected representatives in the Senate and House of Representatives to bring criminal charges against President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, legal counsel William J. Haynes, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former legal counsel David Addington, and potentially other high officials and uniformed officers. There is no other option if you are to carry out your responsibilities. Citizens of the United States and of the world are watching you. Do your duty. Support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
---------
Note: This article was written for and at the request of Sen. John Kerry, to use as leverage with his Senate colleagues.
http://www.truthout.org/012309A
by: Phillip Butler, Ph.D., t r u t h o u t | Perspective
The Constitution of the United States of America.
"I, Phillip Neal Butler, having been appointed a Midshipman in the United States Navy, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter, so help me God." (Oath of Office, July 1, 1957.)
Upon graduation from the United States Naval Academy in 1961, I had the honor of repeating this oath to be commissioned an ensign in the United States Navy. I served 20 years as an active duty commissioned officer. During that time, I became a naval aviator, flew combat in Vietnam, was downed over North Vietnam on April 20, 1965, and became a prisoner of war. I was repatriated on February 12, 1973, having served 2,855 days and nights as a POW - just short of eight years. The Vietnamese were not signatories to any international treaties on treatment of prisoners. They pronounced us "criminals" and freely used torture, harassment, malnutrition, isolation, lack of medical care, and other degradations during our captivity. I was tortured dozens of times during my captivity. But I often thought of our Constitution and the higher purpose we served - a purpose that helped me resist beyond what I thought I'd ever be capable of. Ironically, we POWs often reminded each other "that our country would never stoop to torture and the low level of treatment we were experiencing at the hands of our captors."
This Oath of Office, the same one sworn to by all officers, government officials, presidential cabinet members, senators and representatives of our nation, has had a powerful effect on me. It has given me an over-arching purpose in life: to serve the greatest and most influential legal document ever written. The only different oath is specified for the president of the United States in Constitution Article II, Section 1 (8.) It mandates that he or she will "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution."
So, what in the world has happened during the past eight years of the George W. Bush administration? The only defensible answer is that he and his subordinates have trampled our precious Constitution and the rule of law into the ground, while our elected members of Congress have stood idly and complicitly by. Our highest elected officials have utterly failed in their duty of greatest responsibility.
During these years, we have seen gross attempts to institutionalize torture. Our Constitution, Article VI, (2), commonly known as the "Supremacy" clause, clearly states that treaties made shall become "the supreme law of the land," thus elevating them to the level of constitutional law.
The Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, ratified in 1949, states in Article 17, "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind." This and numerous other ratified treaties clearly stipulate that "prisoners" is an inclusive term that is not limited to any nation's uniformed combatants.
Other gross Bush administration crimes, in addition to authorizing torture, of general and constitutional law include: 1) the use of "signing statements" to illegally refrain from complying with laws, 2) authorization of the illegal suspension of Habeas Corpus, 3) authorization of wire tapping and other intrusive methods to illegally spy on American citizens, 4) unilateral declaration and pre-emptive conduct of war in violation of US Constitution Article I, Section 8 (11).
These violations of our Constitution and rule of law have resulted in reducing our nation to the level of international pariah. Our beacon of liberty and justice no longer shines throughout the world. We no longer set the example for other nations to follow. We no longer stand on a firm foundation. We have lost our national, moral gyro.
I despair when I think of the personal sacrifices made by so many in US wars and conflicts since 1776. If our forefathers were here to see, they would surely be angry and disappointed. And I think they would issue a clarion call for redress and setting an example for the world by punishing those who are guilty. The only way our nation can right itself is for Congress to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes.
I, therefore, call on my elected representatives in the Senate and House of Representatives to bring criminal charges against President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, legal counsel William J. Haynes, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former legal counsel David Addington, and potentially other high officials and uniformed officers. There is no other option if you are to carry out your responsibilities. Citizens of the United States and of the world are watching you. Do your duty. Support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
---------
Note: This article was written for and at the request of Sen. John Kerry, to use as leverage with his Senate colleagues.
http://www.truthout.org/012309A
Road to Ruin: Twenty-Five People at the Heart of the Meltdown
Monday 26 January 2009
»
by: Julia Finch, Andrew Clark and David Teather, The Guardian UK
photo
Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan. (Photo: Reuters)
The worst economic turmoil since the Great Depression is not a natural phenomenon but a man-made disaster in which we all played a part. In the second part of a week-long series looking behind the slump, Guardian City editor Julia Finch picks out the individuals who have led us into the current crisis.
Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve 1987-2006
Only a couple of years ago, the long-serving chairman of the Fed, a committed free marketeer who had steered the US economy through crises ranging from the 1987 stockmarket collapse through to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, was lauded with star status, named the "oracle" and "the maestro." Now he is viewed as one of those most culpable for the crisis. He is blamed for allowing the housing bubble to develop as a result of his low interest rates and lack of regulation in mortgage lending. He backed sub-prime lending and urged homebuyers to swap fixed-rate mortgages for variable rate deals, which left borrowers unable to pay when interest rates rose.
For many years, Greenspan also defended the booming derivatives business, which barely existed when he took over the Fed, but which mushroomed from $100 trillion in 2002 to more than $500 trillion five years later.
Billionaires George Soros and Warren Buffett might have been extremely worried about these complex products - Soros avoided them because he didn't "really understand how they work" and Buffett famously described them as "financial weapons of mass destruction" - but Greenspan did all he could to protect the market from what he believed was unnecessary regulation. In 2003 he told the Senate banking committee: "Derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldn't be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so."
In recent months, however, he has admitted at least some of his long-held beliefs have turned out to be incorrect - not least that free markets would handle the risks involved, that too much regulation would damage Wall Street and that, ultimately, banks would always put the protection of their shareholders first.
He has described the current financial crisis as "the type ... that comes along only once in a century" and last autumn said the fact that the banks had played fast and loose with shareholders' equity had left him "in a state of shocked disbelief".
Politicians
Bill Clinton, Former US President
Clinton shares at least some of the blame for the current financial chaos. He beefed up the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act to force mortgage lenders to relax their rules to allow more socially disadvantaged borrowers to qualify for home loans.
In 1999 Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which ensured a complete separation between commercial banks, which accept deposits, and investment banks, which invest and take risks. The move prompted the era of the superbank and primed the sub-prime pump. The year before the repeal sub-prime loans were just 5% of all mortgage lending. By the time the credit crunch blew up it was approaching 30%.
Gordon Brown, Prime Minister
The British prime minister seems to have been completely dazzled by the movers and shakers in the Square Mile, putting the City's interests ahead of other parts of the economy, such as manufacturers. He backed "light touch" regulation and a low-tax regime for the thousands of non-domiciled foreign bankers working in London and for the private equity business.
George W. Bush, Former US President
President Clinton might have started the sub-prime ball rolling, but the Bush administration certainly did little to put the brakes on the vast amount of mortgage cash being lent to "Ninja" (No income, no job applicants) borrowers who could not afford them. Neither did he rein back Wall Street with regulation (although the government did pass the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the wake of the Enron scandal).
Senator Phil Gramm
Former US senator from Texas, free market advocate with a PhD in economics who fought long and hard for financial deregulation. His work, encouraged by Bill Clinton's administration, allowed the explosive growth of derivatives, including credit swaps. In 2001 he told a Senate debate: "Some people look at sub-prime lending and see evil," he said. "I look at sub-prime lending and I see the American dream in action."
According to the New York Times, federal records show that from 1989 to 2002 he was the top recipient of campaign contributions from commercial banks and in the top five for donations from Wall Street. At an April 2000 Senate hearing after a visit to New York, he said: "When I am on Wall Street and I realise that that's the very nerve centre of American capitalism and I realise what capitalism has done for the working people of America, to me that's a holy place."
He eventually left Capitol Hill to work for UBS as an investment banker.
Wall Street/Bankers
Abi Cohen, Goldman Sachs Chief US Strategist
The "perpetual bull." Once rated one of the most powerful women in the US. But so wrong, so often. She failed to see previous share price crashes and was famous for her upwards forecasts. Replaced last March.
"Hank" Greenberg, AIG Insurance Group
Now age 83, Hank - AKA Maurice - was the boss of AIG. He built the business into the world's biggest insurer. AIG had a vast business in credit default swaps and therefore a huge exposure to a residential mortgage crisis. When AIG's own credit-rating was cut, it faced a liquidity crisis and needed an $85bn (£47bn then) bail out from the US government to avoid collapse and avert the crisis its collapse would have caused. It later needed many more billions from the US treasury and the Fed, but that did not stop senior AIG executives taking themselves off for a few lavish trips, including a $444,000 golf and spa retreat in California and an $86,000 hunting expedition to England. "Have you heard of anything more outrageous?" said Elijah Cummings, a Democratic congressman from Maryland. "They were getting their manicures, their facials, pedicures, massages while the American people were footing the bill."
Andy Hornby, Former HBOS Boss
So highly respected, so admired and so clever - top of his 800-strong class at Harvard - but it was his strategy, adopted from the Bank of Scotland when it merged with Halifax, that got HBOS in the trouble it is now. Who would have thought that the mighty Halifax could be brought to its knees and teeter on the verge of nationalisation?
Sir Fred Goodwin, Former RBS Boss
Once one of Gordon Brown's favourite businessmen, now the prime minister says he is "angry" with the man dubbed "Fred the Shred" for his strategy at Royal Bank of Scotland, which has left the bank staring at a £28bn loss and 70% owned by the government. The losses will reflect vast lending to businesses that cannot repay and write-downs on acquisitions masterminded by Goodwin stretching back years.
Steve Crawshaw, Former B&B Boss
Once upon a time Bradford & Bingley was a rather boring building society, which used two men in bowler hats to signify their sensible and trustworthy approach. In 2004 the affable Crawshaw took over. He closed down B&B businesses, cut staff numbers by half and turned the B&B into a specialist in buy-to-let loans and self-certified mortgages - also called "liar loans" because applicants did not have to prove a regular income. The business broke down when the wholesale money market collapsed and B&B's borrowers fell quickly into debt. Crawshaw denied a rights issue was on its way weeks before he asked shareholders for £300m. Eventually, B&B had to be nationalised. Crawshaw, however, had left the bridge a few weeks earlier as a result of heart problems. He has a £1.8m pension pot.
Adam Applegarth, Former Northern Rock Boss
Applegarth had such big ambitions. But the business model just collapsed when the credit crunch hit. Luckily for Applegarth, he walked away with a wheelbarrow of cash to ease the pain of his failure, and spent the summer playing cricket.
Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin
Cioffi and Tanninn were Bear Stearns bankers recently indicted for fraud over the collapse of two hedge funds last year, which was one of the triggers of the credit crunch. They are accused of lying to investors about the amount of money they were putting into sub-prime, and of quietly withdrawing their own funds when times got tough.
Lewis Ranieri
The "godfather" of mortgage finance, who pioneered mortgage-backed bonds in the 1980s and immortalised in Liar's Poker. Famous for saying that "mortgages are math", Ranieri created collateralised pools of mortgages. In 2004 Business Week ranked him alongside names such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as one of the greatest innovators of the past 75 years.
Ranieri did warn in 2006 of the risks from the breakneck growth of mortgage securitisation. Nevertheless, his Texas-based Franklin Bank Corp went bust in November due to the credit crunch.
Joseph Cassano, AIG Financial Products
Cassano ran the AIG team that sold credit default swaps in London, and in effect bankrupted the world's biggest insurance company, forcing the US government to stump up billions in aid. Cassano, who lives in a townhouse near Harrods in Knightsbridge, earned 30 cents for every dollar of profit his financial products generated - or about £280m. He was fired after the division lost $11bn, but stayed on as a $1m-a-month consultant. "It seems he single-handedly brought AIG to its knees," said John Sarbanes, a Democratic congressman.
Chuck Prince, Former Citi boss
A lawyer by training, Prince had built Citi into the biggest bank in the world, with a sprawling structure that covered investment banking, high-street banking and wealthy management for the richest clients. When profits went into reverse in 2007, he insisted it was just a hiccup, but he was forced out after multibillion-dollar losses on sub-prime business started to surface. He received about $140m to ease his pain .
Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide Financial
Known as "the orange one" for his luminous tan, Mozilo was the chairman and chief executive of the biggest American sub-prime mortgage lender, which was saved from bankruptcy by Bank of America. BoA recently paid billions to settle investigations by various attorney generals for Countrywide's mis-selling of risky loans to thousands who could not afford them. The company ran a "VIP programme" that provided loans on favourable terms to influential figures including Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee, the heads of the federal-backed mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and former assistant secretary of state Richard Holbrooke.
Stan O'Neal, Former Boss of Merrill Lynch
O'Neill became one of the highest-profile casualties of the credit crunch when he lost the confidence of the bank's board in late 2007. When he was appointed to the top job four years earlier, O'Neal, the first African-American to run a Wall Street firm, had pledged to shed the bank's conservative image. Shortly before he quit, the bank admitted to nearly $8bn of exposure to bad debts, as bets in the property and credit markets turned sour. Merrill was forced into the arms of Bank of America less than a year later.
Jimmy Cayne, Former Bear Stearns Boss
The chairman of the Wall Street firm Bear Stearns famously continued to play in a bridge tournament in Detroit even as the firm fell into crisis. Confidence in the bank evaporated after the collapse of two of its hedge funds and massive write-downs from losses related to the home loans industry. It was bought for a knock down price by JP Morgan Chase in March. Cayne sold his stake in the firm after the JP Morgan bid emerged, making $60m. Such was the anger directed towards Cayne that the US media reported that he had been forced to hire a bodyguard. A one-time scrap-iron salesman, Cayne joined Bear Stearns in 1969 and became one of the firm's top brokers, taking over as chief executive in 1993.
Others
Christopher Dodd, Chairman, Senate Banking Committee (Democrat)
Consistently resisted efforts to tighten regulation on the mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He pushed to broaden their role to dodgier mortgages in an effort to help home ownership for the poor. Received $165,000 in donations from Fannie and Freddie from 1989 to 2008, more than anyone else in Congress.
Geir Haarde, Icelandic Prime Minister
He announced on Friday that he would step down and call an early election in May, after violent anti-government protests fueled by his handling of the financial crisis. Last October Iceland's three biggest commercial banks collapsed under billions of dollars of debts. The country was forced to borrow $2.1 billion from the International Monetary Fund and take loans from several European countries. Announcing his resignation, Haarde said he had throat cancer.
The American Public
There's no escaping the fact: politicians might have teed up the financial system and failed to police it properly and Wall Street's greedy bankers might have got carried away with the riches they could generate, but if millions of Americans had just realised they were borrowing more than they could repay then we would not be in this mess. The British public got just as carried away. We are the credit junkies of Europe and many of our problems could easily have been avoided if we had been more sensible and just said no.
Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England
When Mervyn King settled his feet under the desk in his Threadneedle Street office, the UK economy was motoring along just nicely: GDP was growing at 3% and inflation was just 1.3%. Chairing his first meeting of the Bank's monetary policy committee (MPC), interest rates were cut to a post-war low of 3.5%. His ambition was that monetary policy decision-making should become "boring".
How we would all like it to become boring now. When the crunch first took hold, the Aston Villa-supporting governor insisted it was not about to become an international crisis. In the first weeks of the crunch he refused to pump cash into the financial system and insisted that "moral hazard" meant that some banks should not be bailed out. The Treasury select committee has said King should have been "more pro-active".
King's MPC should have realised there was a housing bubble developing and taken action to damp it down and, more recently, the committee should have seen the recession coming and cut interest rates far faster than it did.
John Tiner, FSA Chief Executive, 2003-07
No one can fault 51-year-old Tiner's timing: the financial services expert took over as the City's chief regulator in 2003, just as the bear market which followed the dotcom crash came to an end, and stepped down from the Financial Services Authority in July 2007 - just a few weeks before the credit crunch took hold.
He presided over the FSA when the so-called "light touch" regulation was put in place. It was Tiner who agreed that banks could make up their own minds about how much capital they needed to hoard to cover their risks. And it was on his watch that Northern Rock got so carried away with the wholesale money markets and 130% mortgages. When the FSA finally got around to investigating its own part in the Rock's downfall, it was a catalogue of errors and omissions. In short, the FSA had been asleep at the wheel while Northern Rock racked up ever bigger risks.
An accountant by training, with a penchant for Porsches and proud owner of the personalised number plate T1NER, the former FSA boss has since been recruited by the financial entrepreneur Clive Cowdery to run a newly floated business that aims to buy up financial businesses laid low by the credit crunch. Tiner will be chief executive but, unusually, will not be on the board, so his pay and bonuses will not be made public.
Dick Fuld, Lehman Brothers Chief Executive
The credit crunch had been rumbling on for more than a year but Lehman Brothers' collapse in September was to have a catastrophic impact on confidence. Richard Fuld, chief executive, later told Congress he was bewildered the US government had not saved the bank when it had helped secure Bear Stearns and the insurer AIG. He also blamed short-sellers. Bitter workers at Lehman pointed the finger at Fuld.
A former bond trader known as "the Gorilla", Fuld had been with Lehman for decades and steered it through tough times. But just before the bank went bust he had failed to secure a deal to sell a large stake to the Korea Development Bank and most likely prevent its collapse. Fuld encouraged risk-taking and Lehman was still investing heavily in property at the top of the market. Facing a grilling on Capitol Hill, he was asked whether it was fair that he earned $500m over eight years. He demurred; the figure, he said, was closer to $300m.
... and Six More Who Saw It Coming
Andrew Lahde
A hedge fund boss who quit the industry in October thanking "stupid" traders and "idiots" for making him rich. He made millions by betting against sub-prime.
John Paulson, Hedge Fund Boss
He has been described as the "world's biggest winner" from the credit crunch, earning $3.7 billion (£1.9 billion) in 2007 by "shorting" the US mortgage market - betting that the housing bubble was about to burst. In an apparent response to criticism that he was profiting from misery, Paulson gave $15 millio to a charity aiding people fighting foreclosure.
Professor Nouriel Roubini
Described by the New York Times as Dr Doom, the economist from New York University was warning that financial crisis was on the way in 2006, when he told economists at the IMF that the US would face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, oil shock and a deep recession.
He remains a pessimist. He predicted last week that losses in the US financial system could hit $3.6tn before the credit crunch ends - which, he said, means the entire US banking system is in effect bankrupt. After last year's bail-outs and nationalisations, he famously described George Bush, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke as "a troika of Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the United Socialist State Republic of America".
Warren Buffett, Billionaire Investor
Dubbed the Sage of Omaha, Buffett had long warned about the dangers of dodgy derivatives that no one understood and said often that Wall Street's finest were grossly overpaid. In his annual letter to shareholders in 2003, he compared complex derivative contracts to hell: "Easy to enter and almost impossible to exit." On an optimistic note, Buffett wrote in October that he had begun buying shares on the US stockmarket again, suggesting the worst of the credit crunch might be over. Now is a great time to "buy a slice of America's future at a marked-down price", he said.
George Soros, Speculator
The billionaire financier, philanthropist and backer of the Democrats told an audience in Singapore in January 2006 that stockmarkets were at their peak, and that the US and global economies should brace themselves for a recession and a possible "hard landing". He also warned of "a gigantic real estate bubble" inflated by reckless lenders, encouraging homeowners to remortgage and offering interest-only deals. Earlier this year Soros described a 25-year "super bubble" that is bursting, blaming unfathomable financial instruments, deregulation and globalisation. He has since characterised the financial crisis as the worst since the Great Depression.
Stephen Eismann, Hedge Fund Manager
An analyst and fund manager who tracked the sub-prime market from the early 1990s. "You have to understand," he says, "I did sub-prime first. I lived with the worst first. These guys lied to infinity. What I learned from that experience was that Wall Street didn't give a shit what it sold."
Meredith Whitney, Oppenheimer Securities
On 31 October 2007 the analyst forecast that Citigroup had to slash its dividend or face bankruptcy. A day later $370bn had been wiped off financial stocks on Wall Street. Within days the boss of Citigroup was out and the dividend had been slashed.
Kathleen Corbet, Former CEO, Standard & Poor's
The credit-rating agencies were widely attacked for failing to warn of the risks posed by mortgage-backed securities. Kathleen Corbet ran the largest of the big three agencies, Standard & Poor's, and quit in August 2007, amid a hail of criticism. The agencies have been accused of acting as cheerleaders, assigning the top AAA rating to collateralised debt obligations, the often incomprehensible mortgage-backed securities that turned toxic. The industry argues it did its best with the information available.
Corbet said her decision to leave the agency had been "long planned" and denied that she had been put under any pressure to quit. She kept a relatively low profile and had been hired to run S&P in 2004 from the investment firm Alliance Capital Management.
Investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York attorney general among others have focused on whether the agencies are compromised by earning fees from the banks that issue the debt they rate. The reputation of the industry was savaged by a blistering report by the SEC that contained dozens of internal emails that suggested they had betrayed investors' trust. "Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters," one unnamed S&P analyst wrote. In another, an S&P employee wrote:
"It could be structured by cows and we would rate it."
http://www.truthout.org/012609S?print
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by: Julia Finch, Andrew Clark and David Teather, The Guardian UK
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Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan. (Photo: Reuters)
The worst economic turmoil since the Great Depression is not a natural phenomenon but a man-made disaster in which we all played a part. In the second part of a week-long series looking behind the slump, Guardian City editor Julia Finch picks out the individuals who have led us into the current crisis.
Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve 1987-2006
Only a couple of years ago, the long-serving chairman of the Fed, a committed free marketeer who had steered the US economy through crises ranging from the 1987 stockmarket collapse through to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, was lauded with star status, named the "oracle" and "the maestro." Now he is viewed as one of those most culpable for the crisis. He is blamed for allowing the housing bubble to develop as a result of his low interest rates and lack of regulation in mortgage lending. He backed sub-prime lending and urged homebuyers to swap fixed-rate mortgages for variable rate deals, which left borrowers unable to pay when interest rates rose.
For many years, Greenspan also defended the booming derivatives business, which barely existed when he took over the Fed, but which mushroomed from $100 trillion in 2002 to more than $500 trillion five years later.
Billionaires George Soros and Warren Buffett might have been extremely worried about these complex products - Soros avoided them because he didn't "really understand how they work" and Buffett famously described them as "financial weapons of mass destruction" - but Greenspan did all he could to protect the market from what he believed was unnecessary regulation. In 2003 he told the Senate banking committee: "Derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldn't be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so."
In recent months, however, he has admitted at least some of his long-held beliefs have turned out to be incorrect - not least that free markets would handle the risks involved, that too much regulation would damage Wall Street and that, ultimately, banks would always put the protection of their shareholders first.
He has described the current financial crisis as "the type ... that comes along only once in a century" and last autumn said the fact that the banks had played fast and loose with shareholders' equity had left him "in a state of shocked disbelief".
Politicians
Bill Clinton, Former US President
Clinton shares at least some of the blame for the current financial chaos. He beefed up the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act to force mortgage lenders to relax their rules to allow more socially disadvantaged borrowers to qualify for home loans.
In 1999 Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which ensured a complete separation between commercial banks, which accept deposits, and investment banks, which invest and take risks. The move prompted the era of the superbank and primed the sub-prime pump. The year before the repeal sub-prime loans were just 5% of all mortgage lending. By the time the credit crunch blew up it was approaching 30%.
Gordon Brown, Prime Minister
The British prime minister seems to have been completely dazzled by the movers and shakers in the Square Mile, putting the City's interests ahead of other parts of the economy, such as manufacturers. He backed "light touch" regulation and a low-tax regime for the thousands of non-domiciled foreign bankers working in London and for the private equity business.
George W. Bush, Former US President
President Clinton might have started the sub-prime ball rolling, but the Bush administration certainly did little to put the brakes on the vast amount of mortgage cash being lent to "Ninja" (No income, no job applicants) borrowers who could not afford them. Neither did he rein back Wall Street with regulation (although the government did pass the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the wake of the Enron scandal).
Senator Phil Gramm
Former US senator from Texas, free market advocate with a PhD in economics who fought long and hard for financial deregulation. His work, encouraged by Bill Clinton's administration, allowed the explosive growth of derivatives, including credit swaps. In 2001 he told a Senate debate: "Some people look at sub-prime lending and see evil," he said. "I look at sub-prime lending and I see the American dream in action."
According to the New York Times, federal records show that from 1989 to 2002 he was the top recipient of campaign contributions from commercial banks and in the top five for donations from Wall Street. At an April 2000 Senate hearing after a visit to New York, he said: "When I am on Wall Street and I realise that that's the very nerve centre of American capitalism and I realise what capitalism has done for the working people of America, to me that's a holy place."
He eventually left Capitol Hill to work for UBS as an investment banker.
Wall Street/Bankers
Abi Cohen, Goldman Sachs Chief US Strategist
The "perpetual bull." Once rated one of the most powerful women in the US. But so wrong, so often. She failed to see previous share price crashes and was famous for her upwards forecasts. Replaced last March.
"Hank" Greenberg, AIG Insurance Group
Now age 83, Hank - AKA Maurice - was the boss of AIG. He built the business into the world's biggest insurer. AIG had a vast business in credit default swaps and therefore a huge exposure to a residential mortgage crisis. When AIG's own credit-rating was cut, it faced a liquidity crisis and needed an $85bn (£47bn then) bail out from the US government to avoid collapse and avert the crisis its collapse would have caused. It later needed many more billions from the US treasury and the Fed, but that did not stop senior AIG executives taking themselves off for a few lavish trips, including a $444,000 golf and spa retreat in California and an $86,000 hunting expedition to England. "Have you heard of anything more outrageous?" said Elijah Cummings, a Democratic congressman from Maryland. "They were getting their manicures, their facials, pedicures, massages while the American people were footing the bill."
Andy Hornby, Former HBOS Boss
So highly respected, so admired and so clever - top of his 800-strong class at Harvard - but it was his strategy, adopted from the Bank of Scotland when it merged with Halifax, that got HBOS in the trouble it is now. Who would have thought that the mighty Halifax could be brought to its knees and teeter on the verge of nationalisation?
Sir Fred Goodwin, Former RBS Boss
Once one of Gordon Brown's favourite businessmen, now the prime minister says he is "angry" with the man dubbed "Fred the Shred" for his strategy at Royal Bank of Scotland, which has left the bank staring at a £28bn loss and 70% owned by the government. The losses will reflect vast lending to businesses that cannot repay and write-downs on acquisitions masterminded by Goodwin stretching back years.
Steve Crawshaw, Former B&B Boss
Once upon a time Bradford & Bingley was a rather boring building society, which used two men in bowler hats to signify their sensible and trustworthy approach. In 2004 the affable Crawshaw took over. He closed down B&B businesses, cut staff numbers by half and turned the B&B into a specialist in buy-to-let loans and self-certified mortgages - also called "liar loans" because applicants did not have to prove a regular income. The business broke down when the wholesale money market collapsed and B&B's borrowers fell quickly into debt. Crawshaw denied a rights issue was on its way weeks before he asked shareholders for £300m. Eventually, B&B had to be nationalised. Crawshaw, however, had left the bridge a few weeks earlier as a result of heart problems. He has a £1.8m pension pot.
Adam Applegarth, Former Northern Rock Boss
Applegarth had such big ambitions. But the business model just collapsed when the credit crunch hit. Luckily for Applegarth, he walked away with a wheelbarrow of cash to ease the pain of his failure, and spent the summer playing cricket.
Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin
Cioffi and Tanninn were Bear Stearns bankers recently indicted for fraud over the collapse of two hedge funds last year, which was one of the triggers of the credit crunch. They are accused of lying to investors about the amount of money they were putting into sub-prime, and of quietly withdrawing their own funds when times got tough.
Lewis Ranieri
The "godfather" of mortgage finance, who pioneered mortgage-backed bonds in the 1980s and immortalised in Liar's Poker. Famous for saying that "mortgages are math", Ranieri created collateralised pools of mortgages. In 2004 Business Week ranked him alongside names such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as one of the greatest innovators of the past 75 years.
Ranieri did warn in 2006 of the risks from the breakneck growth of mortgage securitisation. Nevertheless, his Texas-based Franklin Bank Corp went bust in November due to the credit crunch.
Joseph Cassano, AIG Financial Products
Cassano ran the AIG team that sold credit default swaps in London, and in effect bankrupted the world's biggest insurance company, forcing the US government to stump up billions in aid. Cassano, who lives in a townhouse near Harrods in Knightsbridge, earned 30 cents for every dollar of profit his financial products generated - or about £280m. He was fired after the division lost $11bn, but stayed on as a $1m-a-month consultant. "It seems he single-handedly brought AIG to its knees," said John Sarbanes, a Democratic congressman.
Chuck Prince, Former Citi boss
A lawyer by training, Prince had built Citi into the biggest bank in the world, with a sprawling structure that covered investment banking, high-street banking and wealthy management for the richest clients. When profits went into reverse in 2007, he insisted it was just a hiccup, but he was forced out after multibillion-dollar losses on sub-prime business started to surface. He received about $140m to ease his pain .
Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide Financial
Known as "the orange one" for his luminous tan, Mozilo was the chairman and chief executive of the biggest American sub-prime mortgage lender, which was saved from bankruptcy by Bank of America. BoA recently paid billions to settle investigations by various attorney generals for Countrywide's mis-selling of risky loans to thousands who could not afford them. The company ran a "VIP programme" that provided loans on favourable terms to influential figures including Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee, the heads of the federal-backed mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and former assistant secretary of state Richard Holbrooke.
Stan O'Neal, Former Boss of Merrill Lynch
O'Neill became one of the highest-profile casualties of the credit crunch when he lost the confidence of the bank's board in late 2007. When he was appointed to the top job four years earlier, O'Neal, the first African-American to run a Wall Street firm, had pledged to shed the bank's conservative image. Shortly before he quit, the bank admitted to nearly $8bn of exposure to bad debts, as bets in the property and credit markets turned sour. Merrill was forced into the arms of Bank of America less than a year later.
Jimmy Cayne, Former Bear Stearns Boss
The chairman of the Wall Street firm Bear Stearns famously continued to play in a bridge tournament in Detroit even as the firm fell into crisis. Confidence in the bank evaporated after the collapse of two of its hedge funds and massive write-downs from losses related to the home loans industry. It was bought for a knock down price by JP Morgan Chase in March. Cayne sold his stake in the firm after the JP Morgan bid emerged, making $60m. Such was the anger directed towards Cayne that the US media reported that he had been forced to hire a bodyguard. A one-time scrap-iron salesman, Cayne joined Bear Stearns in 1969 and became one of the firm's top brokers, taking over as chief executive in 1993.
Others
Christopher Dodd, Chairman, Senate Banking Committee (Democrat)
Consistently resisted efforts to tighten regulation on the mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He pushed to broaden their role to dodgier mortgages in an effort to help home ownership for the poor. Received $165,000 in donations from Fannie and Freddie from 1989 to 2008, more than anyone else in Congress.
Geir Haarde, Icelandic Prime Minister
He announced on Friday that he would step down and call an early election in May, after violent anti-government protests fueled by his handling of the financial crisis. Last October Iceland's three biggest commercial banks collapsed under billions of dollars of debts. The country was forced to borrow $2.1 billion from the International Monetary Fund and take loans from several European countries. Announcing his resignation, Haarde said he had throat cancer.
The American Public
There's no escaping the fact: politicians might have teed up the financial system and failed to police it properly and Wall Street's greedy bankers might have got carried away with the riches they could generate, but if millions of Americans had just realised they were borrowing more than they could repay then we would not be in this mess. The British public got just as carried away. We are the credit junkies of Europe and many of our problems could easily have been avoided if we had been more sensible and just said no.
Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England
When Mervyn King settled his feet under the desk in his Threadneedle Street office, the UK economy was motoring along just nicely: GDP was growing at 3% and inflation was just 1.3%. Chairing his first meeting of the Bank's monetary policy committee (MPC), interest rates were cut to a post-war low of 3.5%. His ambition was that monetary policy decision-making should become "boring".
How we would all like it to become boring now. When the crunch first took hold, the Aston Villa-supporting governor insisted it was not about to become an international crisis. In the first weeks of the crunch he refused to pump cash into the financial system and insisted that "moral hazard" meant that some banks should not be bailed out. The Treasury select committee has said King should have been "more pro-active".
King's MPC should have realised there was a housing bubble developing and taken action to damp it down and, more recently, the committee should have seen the recession coming and cut interest rates far faster than it did.
John Tiner, FSA Chief Executive, 2003-07
No one can fault 51-year-old Tiner's timing: the financial services expert took over as the City's chief regulator in 2003, just as the bear market which followed the dotcom crash came to an end, and stepped down from the Financial Services Authority in July 2007 - just a few weeks before the credit crunch took hold.
He presided over the FSA when the so-called "light touch" regulation was put in place. It was Tiner who agreed that banks could make up their own minds about how much capital they needed to hoard to cover their risks. And it was on his watch that Northern Rock got so carried away with the wholesale money markets and 130% mortgages. When the FSA finally got around to investigating its own part in the Rock's downfall, it was a catalogue of errors and omissions. In short, the FSA had been asleep at the wheel while Northern Rock racked up ever bigger risks.
An accountant by training, with a penchant for Porsches and proud owner of the personalised number plate T1NER, the former FSA boss has since been recruited by the financial entrepreneur Clive Cowdery to run a newly floated business that aims to buy up financial businesses laid low by the credit crunch. Tiner will be chief executive but, unusually, will not be on the board, so his pay and bonuses will not be made public.
Dick Fuld, Lehman Brothers Chief Executive
The credit crunch had been rumbling on for more than a year but Lehman Brothers' collapse in September was to have a catastrophic impact on confidence. Richard Fuld, chief executive, later told Congress he was bewildered the US government had not saved the bank when it had helped secure Bear Stearns and the insurer AIG. He also blamed short-sellers. Bitter workers at Lehman pointed the finger at Fuld.
A former bond trader known as "the Gorilla", Fuld had been with Lehman for decades and steered it through tough times. But just before the bank went bust he had failed to secure a deal to sell a large stake to the Korea Development Bank and most likely prevent its collapse. Fuld encouraged risk-taking and Lehman was still investing heavily in property at the top of the market. Facing a grilling on Capitol Hill, he was asked whether it was fair that he earned $500m over eight years. He demurred; the figure, he said, was closer to $300m.
... and Six More Who Saw It Coming
Andrew Lahde
A hedge fund boss who quit the industry in October thanking "stupid" traders and "idiots" for making him rich. He made millions by betting against sub-prime.
John Paulson, Hedge Fund Boss
He has been described as the "world's biggest winner" from the credit crunch, earning $3.7 billion (£1.9 billion) in 2007 by "shorting" the US mortgage market - betting that the housing bubble was about to burst. In an apparent response to criticism that he was profiting from misery, Paulson gave $15 millio to a charity aiding people fighting foreclosure.
Professor Nouriel Roubini
Described by the New York Times as Dr Doom, the economist from New York University was warning that financial crisis was on the way in 2006, when he told economists at the IMF that the US would face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, oil shock and a deep recession.
He remains a pessimist. He predicted last week that losses in the US financial system could hit $3.6tn before the credit crunch ends - which, he said, means the entire US banking system is in effect bankrupt. After last year's bail-outs and nationalisations, he famously described George Bush, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke as "a troika of Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the United Socialist State Republic of America".
Warren Buffett, Billionaire Investor
Dubbed the Sage of Omaha, Buffett had long warned about the dangers of dodgy derivatives that no one understood and said often that Wall Street's finest were grossly overpaid. In his annual letter to shareholders in 2003, he compared complex derivative contracts to hell: "Easy to enter and almost impossible to exit." On an optimistic note, Buffett wrote in October that he had begun buying shares on the US stockmarket again, suggesting the worst of the credit crunch might be over. Now is a great time to "buy a slice of America's future at a marked-down price", he said.
George Soros, Speculator
The billionaire financier, philanthropist and backer of the Democrats told an audience in Singapore in January 2006 that stockmarkets were at their peak, and that the US and global economies should brace themselves for a recession and a possible "hard landing". He also warned of "a gigantic real estate bubble" inflated by reckless lenders, encouraging homeowners to remortgage and offering interest-only deals. Earlier this year Soros described a 25-year "super bubble" that is bursting, blaming unfathomable financial instruments, deregulation and globalisation. He has since characterised the financial crisis as the worst since the Great Depression.
Stephen Eismann, Hedge Fund Manager
An analyst and fund manager who tracked the sub-prime market from the early 1990s. "You have to understand," he says, "I did sub-prime first. I lived with the worst first. These guys lied to infinity. What I learned from that experience was that Wall Street didn't give a shit what it sold."
Meredith Whitney, Oppenheimer Securities
On 31 October 2007 the analyst forecast that Citigroup had to slash its dividend or face bankruptcy. A day later $370bn had been wiped off financial stocks on Wall Street. Within days the boss of Citigroup was out and the dividend had been slashed.
Kathleen Corbet, Former CEO, Standard & Poor's
The credit-rating agencies were widely attacked for failing to warn of the risks posed by mortgage-backed securities. Kathleen Corbet ran the largest of the big three agencies, Standard & Poor's, and quit in August 2007, amid a hail of criticism. The agencies have been accused of acting as cheerleaders, assigning the top AAA rating to collateralised debt obligations, the often incomprehensible mortgage-backed securities that turned toxic. The industry argues it did its best with the information available.
Corbet said her decision to leave the agency had been "long planned" and denied that she had been put under any pressure to quit. She kept a relatively low profile and had been hired to run S&P in 2004 from the investment firm Alliance Capital Management.
Investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York attorney general among others have focused on whether the agencies are compromised by earning fees from the banks that issue the debt they rate. The reputation of the industry was savaged by a blistering report by the SEC that contained dozens of internal emails that suggested they had betrayed investors' trust. "Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters," one unnamed S&P analyst wrote. In another, an S&P employee wrote:
"It could be structured by cows and we would rate it."
http://www.truthout.org/012609S?print
Obama Sides With Bush in Spy Case
By David Kravets EmailJanuary 22, 2009 | 4:32:47 PMCategories: Surveillance
Spy The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.
In a filing in San Francisco federal court, President Barack Obama adopted the same position as his predecessor. With just hours left in office, President George W. Bush late Monday asked U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to stay enforcement of an important Jan. 5 ruling admitting key evidence into the case.
Thursday's filing by the Obama administration marked the first time it officially lodged a court document in the lawsuit asking the courts to rule on the constitutionality of the Bush administration's warrantless-eavesdropping program. The former president approved the wiretaps in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
"The Government's position remains that this case should be stayed," the Obama administration wrote (.pdf) in a filing that for the first time made clear the new president was on board with the Bush administration's reasoning in this case.
The government wants to appeal Walker's decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, a legal maneuver requiring Judge Walker's approval. A hearing in Walker's courtroom is set for Friday.
The legal brouhaha concerns Walker's decision to admit as evidence a classified document allegedly showing that two American lawyers for a now-defunct Saudi charity were electronically eavesdropped on without warrants by the Bush administration in 2004.
The lawyers — Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoo — sued the Bush administration after the U.S. Treasury Department accidentally released the Top Secret memo to them. At one point, the courts had ordered the document, which has never been made public, returned and removed from the case.
Torn_paper2_660x
The document's admission to the case is central for the two former lawyers of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation charity to acquire legal standing so they may challenge the constitutionality of the warrantless-eavesdropping program Bush publicly acknowledged in 2005.
The Friday hearing is needed, because disputes with pretrial decisions generally require the trial judge to permit an appeal.
The Obama administration is also siding with the former administration in its legal defense of July legislation that immunizes the nation's telecommunications companies from lawsuits accusing them of complicitity in Bush's eavesdropping program, according to testimony last week by incoming Attorney General Eric Holder.
That immunity legislation, which Obama voted for when he was a U.S. senator from Illinois, was included in a broader spy package that granted the government wide-ranging, warrantless eavesdropping powers on Americans' electronic communications.
A decision on the constitutionality of the immunity legislation is pending before Judge Walker in a separate case brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/obama-sides-wit.html
Spy The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.
In a filing in San Francisco federal court, President Barack Obama adopted the same position as his predecessor. With just hours left in office, President George W. Bush late Monday asked U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to stay enforcement of an important Jan. 5 ruling admitting key evidence into the case.
Thursday's filing by the Obama administration marked the first time it officially lodged a court document in the lawsuit asking the courts to rule on the constitutionality of the Bush administration's warrantless-eavesdropping program. The former president approved the wiretaps in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
"The Government's position remains that this case should be stayed," the Obama administration wrote (.pdf) in a filing that for the first time made clear the new president was on board with the Bush administration's reasoning in this case.
The government wants to appeal Walker's decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, a legal maneuver requiring Judge Walker's approval. A hearing in Walker's courtroom is set for Friday.
The legal brouhaha concerns Walker's decision to admit as evidence a classified document allegedly showing that two American lawyers for a now-defunct Saudi charity were electronically eavesdropped on without warrants by the Bush administration in 2004.
The lawyers — Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoo — sued the Bush administration after the U.S. Treasury Department accidentally released the Top Secret memo to them. At one point, the courts had ordered the document, which has never been made public, returned and removed from the case.
Torn_paper2_660x
The document's admission to the case is central for the two former lawyers of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation charity to acquire legal standing so they may challenge the constitutionality of the warrantless-eavesdropping program Bush publicly acknowledged in 2005.
The Friday hearing is needed, because disputes with pretrial decisions generally require the trial judge to permit an appeal.
The Obama administration is also siding with the former administration in its legal defense of July legislation that immunizes the nation's telecommunications companies from lawsuits accusing them of complicitity in Bush's eavesdropping program, according to testimony last week by incoming Attorney General Eric Holder.
That immunity legislation, which Obama voted for when he was a U.S. senator from Illinois, was included in a broader spy package that granted the government wide-ranging, warrantless eavesdropping powers on Americans' electronic communications.
A decision on the constitutionality of the immunity legislation is pending before Judge Walker in a separate case brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/obama-sides-wit.html
Are We Civilized Enough to Hold Our Leaders Accountable for War Crimes? The World Is Watching
By John W. Dean, FindLaw.com
Posted on January 24, 2009, Printed on January 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/122186/
Remarkably, the confirmation of President Obama's Attorney General nominee, Eric Holder, is being held up by Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn, who apparently is unhappy that Holder might actually investigate and prosecute Bush Administration officials who engaged in torture. Aside from this repugnant new Republican embrace of torture (which might be a winning issue for the lunatic fringe of the party and a nice way to further marginalize the GOP), any effort to protect Bush officials from legal responsibility for war crimes, in the long run, will not work.
It is difficult to believe that Eric Holder would agree not to enforce the law, like his recent Republican predecessors. Indeed, if he were to do so, President Obama should withdraw his nomination. But as MSNBC "Countdown" anchor Keith Olbermann stated earlier this week, even if the Obama Administration for whatever reason does not investigate and prosecute these crimes, this still does not mean that the Bush Administration officials who were involved in torture are going to get a pass.
With few exceptions, the discussion about what the Obama Administration will do regarding the torture of detainees during the Bush years has been framed as a domestic matter, and the fate of those involved in torturing has been largely viewed as a question of whether the Department of Justice will take action. In fact, not only is the world watching what the Obama Administration does regarding Bush's torturers, but other countries are very likely to take action if the United States fails to do so.
Bush's Torturers Have Serious Jeopardy
Philippe Sands, a Queen's Counsel at Matrix Chambers and Professor of International law at University College London, has assembled a powerful indictment of the key Bush Administration people involved in torture in his book Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values. He explains the legal exposure of people like former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, Dick Cheney's counsel and later chief of staff David Addington, former Office of Legal Counsel attorney John Yoo, the former Department of Defense general counsel Jim Haynes, and others for their involvement in the torture of detainees at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and CIA secret prisons.
After reading Sands's book and, more recently, listening to his comments on Terry Gross's NPR show "Fresh Air," on January 7, 2009 I realized how closely the rest of the world is following the actions of these former officials, and was reminded that these actions appear to constitute not merely violations of American law, but also, and very literally, crimes against humanity -- for which the world is ready to hold them responsible.
Here is what Professor Sands told Terry Gross on NPR: "In talking to prosecutors around the world, as I have done, they all recognize the very real political difficulties of taking on someone who has been Vice President of the United States, or President of the United States, or Secretary of Defense of the United States. But those arguments melt away as you go a little down the chain. And I don't think the same arguments would apply in relation to the man, for example, who was Vice President Cheney's general counsel, at the time the decisions were taken, David Addington ... I think he faces a very real risk of, you know, investigation for complicity in an act that amounts to torture ... " Later, referring to "international investigations," he added that Addington (and others) were at "serious risk of being investigated."
These are remarkable statements from a very well-informed man. Because we have a common publisher, I was able to contact him in London, and pose a few questions. I find his book, statements and responses to my questions chilling.
Q & A With Professor Philippe Sands
The following is my email exchange with Professor Sands:
John W. Dean: When talking to Ms. Gross you said you were not calling for such international investigations because we all need more facts. Given the fact that Judge Susan Crawford has now made clear that torture occurred, do you -- and others with your expertise and background -- have sufficient information to call for other countries to take action if the Obama Administration fails to act?
Philippe Sands: Last week's intervention by Susan Crawford, confirming that torture occurred at Guantanamo, is highly significant (as I explain in a piece I wrote with Dahlia Lithwick: "The Turning Point: How the Susan Crawford interview changes everything we know about torture"). The evidence as to torture, with all that implies for domestic and foreign criminal investigation, is compelling. Domestic and foreign investigators already have ample evidence to commence investigation, if so requested or on their own account, even if the whole picture is not yet available. That has implications for the potential exposure of different individuals, depending on the nature and extent of their involvement in acts that have elements of a criminal conspiracy to subvert the law.
JD: If yes, can you share what you and others might do, and when?
PS: I am in the process of completing the epilogue to my book Torture Team, which will be published in May 2009. That will set out, in detail, what I learned when I made a return visit to the European judge and prosecutor with whom I met in the summer of 2007, as described in the book. Watch this space.
JD: If no, what would it take for those like you to call for all countries with potential jurisdiction to take action?
PS: More than 140 countries may potentially exercise jurisdiction over former members of the Bush Administration for violations of the 1984 Torture Convention and the 1949 Geneva Conventions, including the standards reflected in their Common Article 3. Whether they do so, and how they might do so, turns on a range of factors, including their domestic procedural rules. In the United Kingdom, one criminal investigation is already underway, in relation to the alleged treatment of Binyam Mohammed, a Guantanamo detainee who is a British resident. I doubt it will be the last. That said, having set out the relevant facts in one case [in my book], to the best of my abilities, I feel it will now be for others to take this forward as they consider appropriate.
JD: Also, when talking to Ms. Gross you said that you did not think that David Addington and others involved in torture were likely to be travelling outside the United States. Do you know for a fact that any country might take action? Have you discussed this with any prosecutors who could do so?
PS: This will be addressed in the epilogue to Torture Team.
JD: Do you believe that a failure of the Obama Administration to investigate, and if necessary, prosecute, those involved in torture would make them legally complicit in the torture undertaken by the Bush Administration?
PS: No, although it may give rise to violations by the United States of its obligations under the Torture Convention. In the past few days there have been a series of significant statements: that of Susan Crawford, of former Vice President Cheney's confirming that he approved the use of waterboarding, and by the new Attorney General Eric Holder that he considers waterboarding to be torture. On the basis of these and other statements it is difficult to see how the obligations under Articles 7(1) and (2) of the Torture Convention do not cut in: these require the US to "submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution". What happens thereafter is a matter for the prosecutor, who may decide that, in accordance with applicable standards ("authorities shall take their decision in the same manner as in the case of any ordinary offence of a serious nature under the law of that State") and the facts of the case, including the prospects for a successful prosecution, that proceeding to actual prosecution is not justified.
JD: Finally, you mentioned the case proceeding in the UK regarding possible torture of a British national. Is it possible that even an American ally like Great Britain could seek extradition, and undertake prosecution, of U.S. officials like Addington and Yoo for facilitating the torture of a citizen of Great Britain -- if the U.S. fails to act?
PS: It is possible. The more likely scenario, however, is that which occurred in Senator Pinochet's case: the unwitting traveller sets foot in the wrong country at the wrong time.
What Will The Obama Administration Do?
As all who have followed this issue know, President Obama hedged after he was elected as to what he may or may not do. So too did his Attorney General nominee. After Eric Holder declared waterboarding to be unlawful, no one on the Senate Judiciary Committee truly followed up as to what he was going to do, but it appears they are going to now press him on that point.
My question is how can the Obama Administration not investigate, and, if appropriate, prosecute given the world is watching, because if they do not, other may do so? How could there be "change we can believe in" if the new administration harbors war criminals -- which is the way that Philippe Sands and the rest of the world, familiar with the facts which have surfaced even without an investigation, view those who facilitated or engaged in torture?
One would think that people like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Gonzales, Yoo, Haynes and others, who claim to have done nothing wrong, would call for investigations to clear themselves if they really believed that to be the case. Only they, however, seem to believe in their innocence -- the entire gutless and cowardly group of them, who have shamed themselves and the nation by committing crimes against humanity in the name of the United States.
We must all hope that the Obama Administration does the right thing, rather than forcing another country to clean up the mess and seek to erase the dangerous precedent these people have created for our country. A first clue may come when Holder resumes testifying.
© 2009 FindLaw.com All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/122186/
Posted on January 24, 2009, Printed on January 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/122186/
Remarkably, the confirmation of President Obama's Attorney General nominee, Eric Holder, is being held up by Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn, who apparently is unhappy that Holder might actually investigate and prosecute Bush Administration officials who engaged in torture. Aside from this repugnant new Republican embrace of torture (which might be a winning issue for the lunatic fringe of the party and a nice way to further marginalize the GOP), any effort to protect Bush officials from legal responsibility for war crimes, in the long run, will not work.
It is difficult to believe that Eric Holder would agree not to enforce the law, like his recent Republican predecessors. Indeed, if he were to do so, President Obama should withdraw his nomination. But as MSNBC "Countdown" anchor Keith Olbermann stated earlier this week, even if the Obama Administration for whatever reason does not investigate and prosecute these crimes, this still does not mean that the Bush Administration officials who were involved in torture are going to get a pass.
With few exceptions, the discussion about what the Obama Administration will do regarding the torture of detainees during the Bush years has been framed as a domestic matter, and the fate of those involved in torturing has been largely viewed as a question of whether the Department of Justice will take action. In fact, not only is the world watching what the Obama Administration does regarding Bush's torturers, but other countries are very likely to take action if the United States fails to do so.
Bush's Torturers Have Serious Jeopardy
Philippe Sands, a Queen's Counsel at Matrix Chambers and Professor of International law at University College London, has assembled a powerful indictment of the key Bush Administration people involved in torture in his book Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values. He explains the legal exposure of people like former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, Dick Cheney's counsel and later chief of staff David Addington, former Office of Legal Counsel attorney John Yoo, the former Department of Defense general counsel Jim Haynes, and others for their involvement in the torture of detainees at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and CIA secret prisons.
After reading Sands's book and, more recently, listening to his comments on Terry Gross's NPR show "Fresh Air," on January 7, 2009 I realized how closely the rest of the world is following the actions of these former officials, and was reminded that these actions appear to constitute not merely violations of American law, but also, and very literally, crimes against humanity -- for which the world is ready to hold them responsible.
Here is what Professor Sands told Terry Gross on NPR: "In talking to prosecutors around the world, as I have done, they all recognize the very real political difficulties of taking on someone who has been Vice President of the United States, or President of the United States, or Secretary of Defense of the United States. But those arguments melt away as you go a little down the chain. And I don't think the same arguments would apply in relation to the man, for example, who was Vice President Cheney's general counsel, at the time the decisions were taken, David Addington ... I think he faces a very real risk of, you know, investigation for complicity in an act that amounts to torture ... " Later, referring to "international investigations," he added that Addington (and others) were at "serious risk of being investigated."
These are remarkable statements from a very well-informed man. Because we have a common publisher, I was able to contact him in London, and pose a few questions. I find his book, statements and responses to my questions chilling.
Q & A With Professor Philippe Sands
The following is my email exchange with Professor Sands:
John W. Dean: When talking to Ms. Gross you said you were not calling for such international investigations because we all need more facts. Given the fact that Judge Susan Crawford has now made clear that torture occurred, do you -- and others with your expertise and background -- have sufficient information to call for other countries to take action if the Obama Administration fails to act?
Philippe Sands: Last week's intervention by Susan Crawford, confirming that torture occurred at Guantanamo, is highly significant (as I explain in a piece I wrote with Dahlia Lithwick: "The Turning Point: How the Susan Crawford interview changes everything we know about torture"). The evidence as to torture, with all that implies for domestic and foreign criminal investigation, is compelling. Domestic and foreign investigators already have ample evidence to commence investigation, if so requested or on their own account, even if the whole picture is not yet available. That has implications for the potential exposure of different individuals, depending on the nature and extent of their involvement in acts that have elements of a criminal conspiracy to subvert the law.
JD: If yes, can you share what you and others might do, and when?
PS: I am in the process of completing the epilogue to my book Torture Team, which will be published in May 2009. That will set out, in detail, what I learned when I made a return visit to the European judge and prosecutor with whom I met in the summer of 2007, as described in the book. Watch this space.
JD: If no, what would it take for those like you to call for all countries with potential jurisdiction to take action?
PS: More than 140 countries may potentially exercise jurisdiction over former members of the Bush Administration for violations of the 1984 Torture Convention and the 1949 Geneva Conventions, including the standards reflected in their Common Article 3. Whether they do so, and how they might do so, turns on a range of factors, including their domestic procedural rules. In the United Kingdom, one criminal investigation is already underway, in relation to the alleged treatment of Binyam Mohammed, a Guantanamo detainee who is a British resident. I doubt it will be the last. That said, having set out the relevant facts in one case [in my book], to the best of my abilities, I feel it will now be for others to take this forward as they consider appropriate.
JD: Also, when talking to Ms. Gross you said that you did not think that David Addington and others involved in torture were likely to be travelling outside the United States. Do you know for a fact that any country might take action? Have you discussed this with any prosecutors who could do so?
PS: This will be addressed in the epilogue to Torture Team.
JD: Do you believe that a failure of the Obama Administration to investigate, and if necessary, prosecute, those involved in torture would make them legally complicit in the torture undertaken by the Bush Administration?
PS: No, although it may give rise to violations by the United States of its obligations under the Torture Convention. In the past few days there have been a series of significant statements: that of Susan Crawford, of former Vice President Cheney's confirming that he approved the use of waterboarding, and by the new Attorney General Eric Holder that he considers waterboarding to be torture. On the basis of these and other statements it is difficult to see how the obligations under Articles 7(1) and (2) of the Torture Convention do not cut in: these require the US to "submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution". What happens thereafter is a matter for the prosecutor, who may decide that, in accordance with applicable standards ("authorities shall take their decision in the same manner as in the case of any ordinary offence of a serious nature under the law of that State") and the facts of the case, including the prospects for a successful prosecution, that proceeding to actual prosecution is not justified.
JD: Finally, you mentioned the case proceeding in the UK regarding possible torture of a British national. Is it possible that even an American ally like Great Britain could seek extradition, and undertake prosecution, of U.S. officials like Addington and Yoo for facilitating the torture of a citizen of Great Britain -- if the U.S. fails to act?
PS: It is possible. The more likely scenario, however, is that which occurred in Senator Pinochet's case: the unwitting traveller sets foot in the wrong country at the wrong time.
What Will The Obama Administration Do?
As all who have followed this issue know, President Obama hedged after he was elected as to what he may or may not do. So too did his Attorney General nominee. After Eric Holder declared waterboarding to be unlawful, no one on the Senate Judiciary Committee truly followed up as to what he was going to do, but it appears they are going to now press him on that point.
My question is how can the Obama Administration not investigate, and, if appropriate, prosecute given the world is watching, because if they do not, other may do so? How could there be "change we can believe in" if the new administration harbors war criminals -- which is the way that Philippe Sands and the rest of the world, familiar with the facts which have surfaced even without an investigation, view those who facilitated or engaged in torture?
One would think that people like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Gonzales, Yoo, Haynes and others, who claim to have done nothing wrong, would call for investigations to clear themselves if they really believed that to be the case. Only they, however, seem to believe in their innocence -- the entire gutless and cowardly group of them, who have shamed themselves and the nation by committing crimes against humanity in the name of the United States.
We must all hope that the Obama Administration does the right thing, rather than forcing another country to clean up the mess and seek to erase the dangerous precedent these people have created for our country. A first clue may come when Holder resumes testifying.
© 2009 FindLaw.com All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/122186/
Shrinking Glaciers Have Put Tibetans in the Path of Climate Chaos
By Christina Larson, Christian Science Monitor
Posted on January 22, 2009, Printed on January 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/121871/
For Tenzin Dorje, the road home keeps getting longer. Each year the Tibetan shepherd must walk farther to find streams where his sheep can drink.
"I am an old man," he says, clutching the neck of his cane. Sometimes he trudges six hours a day, twice his old route. He has contemplated learning to ride a motorbike like his grandson, but fears it might be too discomfiting for an 80-year-old man.
The problem is that streams in the province of western China where he lives are drying up, receding into the mountains.
As recent years have brought higher temperatures and altered how snowmelt trickles down from glaciers on the Tibetan-Qinghai plateau, water is becoming scarce.
Mr. Tenzin lives in a small village nestled amid dramatic mountains peaks. Strings of Tibetan prayer flags flap against a still-brilliant blue sky. Yet this apparent purity and timelessness masks another reality: He is living on the frontier of climate change.
Tenzin's village is on the slopes of the rugged Qilian mountains in western Gansu province. Glaciers on the mountains are the primary source of water for humans, farms, and industry in his village of Baijiaowan and for others north and south of the range.
The streams distinguish the landscape, including a string of oasis towns along the Old Silk Road, from the abutting Gobi Desert. Today, the desert is expanding.
"The climate is changing," says Zhang Mingquan, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at Lanzhou University, in the provincial capital. "Snow is the source of the stream water, and now the stream water is less than before."
Recent years have seen higher temperatures and less precipitation. As a result, mountaintop ice is receding.
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimates that the glacial area on the Tibetan-Qinghai plateau, the world's largest ice sheets outside the poles, is shrinking about 7 percent each year.
It might seem that melting glaciers would bring more water in the short term. But that isn't necessarily the case, says Michael MacCracken of the Climate Institute in Washington.
"Glaciers and snow on mountains serve as a storage mechanism for water, holding it for later," he says. "The area of the glaciers is an indication for how well that system is working." Think of glaciers as a bowl, and snowfall as rice – a shrinking bowl holds less rice. Receding glaciers capture less annual snowfall.
"Without the glaciers, snow and rainfall tend to seep into the soil – usually mountain soil is quite porous – and then it later evaporates," says Dr. MacCracken.
In nearby Minqing county, instead of walking farther for water, farmers dig deeper. Fifty years ago, wells tapped groundwater at 50 feet. Now they must drill 100 feet or more. With less snowmelt, groundwater is not fully replenished.
Glaciers stretching across the towering Tibetan-Qinghai plateau sustain all the great rivers of Asia – the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers in China; the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra in India; the Mekong and Salween in Southeast Asia.
"With climate change, all these rivers will have greatly reduced flows," says Carter Brandon, director of the World Bank's China environment program in Beijing. "There will also be much more seasonal variation – when flow is more dependent on rainfall, as opposed to the steady inflow of snowmelt from glaciers."
The glacier system delivers water to more than 300 million people in China – and 1 billion across south Asia.
The region is among the globe's most rapidly warming. Average annual temperatures on the "rooftop of the world" have climbed 2 degrees F. in two decades.
Chinese scientists expect the total area of the glaciers to halve every 10 years. By 2100, they predict, the glaciers may have largely vanished.
Those hit first and hardest by climate change, like Tenzin Dorje, tend to live in poor communities on the margins, on mountaintops or by the sea. Typically they have contributed little to global carbon emissions.
There is now a new push to address their concerns. In 2007, the Rockefeller Foundation established a five-year, $70 million "climate-change resilience initiative" to assist developing countries. In December 2007, during climate talks in Bali, Indonesia, United Nations negotiators drafted a framework for a new "adaptation fund" to aid poor countries and communities.
The critical issue of what practical measures can be taken remains. A team of scientists in Switzerland has begun to research the possibility of shielding glaciers from rising summer temperatures with blankets of insulating foam. But such investigations are only preliminary.
Other research on addressing global water shortages includes promising (if costly) ways to desalinize seawater and recycle wastewater. But such approaches will work better in coastal areas and cities, not landlocked villages like this.
Research into solutions is attracting more attention from scientists and policymakers today. "Now we're beginning to focus more seriously on these issues," says MacCracken, the climate scientist.
"I used to think adaptation subtracted from our efforts on prevention," former vice president Al Gore recently told the Economist magazine. "But I've changed my mind. Poor countries are vulnerable and need our help."
But who will foot the bill? According to the UN, by 2015 approximately $86 billion annually will be needed for adaptation efforts.
The small home of Zahxi Rangou is perched on a mountainside overlooking a snowy valley and a white pagoda temple. He is one of 15 lamas residing on the grounds of the Tibetan Midi Temple, tucked in the Qilian mountains in Gansu province. The young monk has two rooms: One is warmed by a stove for visitors. One is cold and full of books and a computer.
Here he spends his days in prayer and study. He has Internet access, and is well-read on climate science.
"The glacier is depleting," he says matter-of-factly. "It's melting in the summer. And the weather is getting drier." His knowledge is power, but there are limits on how he can use that power. Tibetans, an ethnic minority in China, are closely watched by the government. It is difficult for leaders of his community to organize around environmental or other issues in China.
He says he doesn't use e-mail, because it can so easily be monitored. Many Internet news sites are blocked.
At nearby Zhuanlong Temple, no one answers a knock at the door. The lama there has left on a special mission this winter: He will spend two weeks praying at the source of each stream for its bountiful return.
Christina Larson is a journalist focusing on international environmental issues. Her reporting has brought her to seven provinces across China, as well as cities and villages in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Greece. She now divides her time primarily between Washington, DC and Beijing. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, Christian Science Monitor, China Environment Series, and The Washington Monthly, where she is a contributing
editor.
Posted on January 22, 2009, Printed on January 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/121871/
For Tenzin Dorje, the road home keeps getting longer. Each year the Tibetan shepherd must walk farther to find streams where his sheep can drink.
"I am an old man," he says, clutching the neck of his cane. Sometimes he trudges six hours a day, twice his old route. He has contemplated learning to ride a motorbike like his grandson, but fears it might be too discomfiting for an 80-year-old man.
The problem is that streams in the province of western China where he lives are drying up, receding into the mountains.
As recent years have brought higher temperatures and altered how snowmelt trickles down from glaciers on the Tibetan-Qinghai plateau, water is becoming scarce.
Mr. Tenzin lives in a small village nestled amid dramatic mountains peaks. Strings of Tibetan prayer flags flap against a still-brilliant blue sky. Yet this apparent purity and timelessness masks another reality: He is living on the frontier of climate change.
Tenzin's village is on the slopes of the rugged Qilian mountains in western Gansu province. Glaciers on the mountains are the primary source of water for humans, farms, and industry in his village of Baijiaowan and for others north and south of the range.
The streams distinguish the landscape, including a string of oasis towns along the Old Silk Road, from the abutting Gobi Desert. Today, the desert is expanding.
"The climate is changing," says Zhang Mingquan, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at Lanzhou University, in the provincial capital. "Snow is the source of the stream water, and now the stream water is less than before."
Recent years have seen higher temperatures and less precipitation. As a result, mountaintop ice is receding.
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimates that the glacial area on the Tibetan-Qinghai plateau, the world's largest ice sheets outside the poles, is shrinking about 7 percent each year.
It might seem that melting glaciers would bring more water in the short term. But that isn't necessarily the case, says Michael MacCracken of the Climate Institute in Washington.
"Glaciers and snow on mountains serve as a storage mechanism for water, holding it for later," he says. "The area of the glaciers is an indication for how well that system is working." Think of glaciers as a bowl, and snowfall as rice – a shrinking bowl holds less rice. Receding glaciers capture less annual snowfall.
"Without the glaciers, snow and rainfall tend to seep into the soil – usually mountain soil is quite porous – and then it later evaporates," says Dr. MacCracken.
In nearby Minqing county, instead of walking farther for water, farmers dig deeper. Fifty years ago, wells tapped groundwater at 50 feet. Now they must drill 100 feet or more. With less snowmelt, groundwater is not fully replenished.
Glaciers stretching across the towering Tibetan-Qinghai plateau sustain all the great rivers of Asia – the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers in China; the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra in India; the Mekong and Salween in Southeast Asia.
"With climate change, all these rivers will have greatly reduced flows," says Carter Brandon, director of the World Bank's China environment program in Beijing. "There will also be much more seasonal variation – when flow is more dependent on rainfall, as opposed to the steady inflow of snowmelt from glaciers."
The glacier system delivers water to more than 300 million people in China – and 1 billion across south Asia.
The region is among the globe's most rapidly warming. Average annual temperatures on the "rooftop of the world" have climbed 2 degrees F. in two decades.
Chinese scientists expect the total area of the glaciers to halve every 10 years. By 2100, they predict, the glaciers may have largely vanished.
Those hit first and hardest by climate change, like Tenzin Dorje, tend to live in poor communities on the margins, on mountaintops or by the sea. Typically they have contributed little to global carbon emissions.
There is now a new push to address their concerns. In 2007, the Rockefeller Foundation established a five-year, $70 million "climate-change resilience initiative" to assist developing countries. In December 2007, during climate talks in Bali, Indonesia, United Nations negotiators drafted a framework for a new "adaptation fund" to aid poor countries and communities.
The critical issue of what practical measures can be taken remains. A team of scientists in Switzerland has begun to research the possibility of shielding glaciers from rising summer temperatures with blankets of insulating foam. But such investigations are only preliminary.
Other research on addressing global water shortages includes promising (if costly) ways to desalinize seawater and recycle wastewater. But such approaches will work better in coastal areas and cities, not landlocked villages like this.
Research into solutions is attracting more attention from scientists and policymakers today. "Now we're beginning to focus more seriously on these issues," says MacCracken, the climate scientist.
"I used to think adaptation subtracted from our efforts on prevention," former vice president Al Gore recently told the Economist magazine. "But I've changed my mind. Poor countries are vulnerable and need our help."
But who will foot the bill? According to the UN, by 2015 approximately $86 billion annually will be needed for adaptation efforts.
The small home of Zahxi Rangou is perched on a mountainside overlooking a snowy valley and a white pagoda temple. He is one of 15 lamas residing on the grounds of the Tibetan Midi Temple, tucked in the Qilian mountains in Gansu province. The young monk has two rooms: One is warmed by a stove for visitors. One is cold and full of books and a computer.
Here he spends his days in prayer and study. He has Internet access, and is well-read on climate science.
"The glacier is depleting," he says matter-of-factly. "It's melting in the summer. And the weather is getting drier." His knowledge is power, but there are limits on how he can use that power. Tibetans, an ethnic minority in China, are closely watched by the government. It is difficult for leaders of his community to organize around environmental or other issues in China.
He says he doesn't use e-mail, because it can so easily be monitored. Many Internet news sites are blocked.
At nearby Zhuanlong Temple, no one answers a knock at the door. The lama there has left on a special mission this winter: He will spend two weeks praying at the source of each stream for its bountiful return.
Christina Larson is a journalist focusing on international environmental issues. Her reporting has brought her to seven provinces across China, as well as cities and villages in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Greece. She now divides her time primarily between Washington, DC and Beijing. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, Christian Science Monitor, China Environment Series, and The Washington Monthly, where she is a contributing
editor.
Obama Lifts One of Bush's Most Damaging Policies for Developing Nations
By Barbara Crossette, TheNation.com
Posted on January 26, 2009, Printed on January 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/122795/
On Friday evening, a time favored by officials trying to avoid attention, President Barack Obama issued a statement reversing one of the most damaging policies ever visited on developing nations by Republican administrations. This was the "global gag rule," which forbade US government support for any organization that in any way fostered, provided or even advised women about abortion. It was a policy foisted on an unsuspecting world by the Reagan administration at, of all events, a United Nations conference on women and development held in Mexico City in 1984.
What became known as the "Mexico City policy" was always a political football. It was rescinded in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, then reimposed in 2001 by George W. Bush, who also proceeded to deal a second harsh blow to the world's poorest families by cutting off American assistance to the United Nations Population Fund, the largest global provider of family planning assistance. The reason, or excuse -- rejected by the administration's own internal report -- was that the Population Fund was linked to forced abortion practices in China. The fund has lost about $250 million in American aid since 2002.
Millions of women and their families were the direct victims of these shortsighted steps, taken in the name of people who called themselves "pro-family," but appeared to be woefully ignorant of the harm they caused in homes around the world. The International Planned Parenthood Federation, based in London, estimates that in the last eight years alone as much as $100 million in US aid was lost to its affiliates in 100 countries because of their refusal to accept an abortion ban. The federation estimates this lost aid could have prevented 36 million unintended pregnancies and 15 million abortions, often acts of desperation. More than 80,000 women and more than 2.5 million children might not have died.
Not surprisingly, the rate of unsafe abortions is highest in the poorest countries, where at least 200 million women cannot get contraceptives. The World Health Organization, which supports safe abortion as a tool of last resort, estimates that of 45 million abortions globally every year, 19 million take place under unsafe conditions, causing at least 68,000 deaths. Forty percent of those most dangerous abortions involve teens and women between the ages of 15 and 24. A woman in the developing world -- primarily in Africa and parts of Asia -- is at least 100 times more likely to die of a botched abortion than a woman in the industrial North.
Which raises the question why President Obama -- and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, once an outspoken champion of women's rights in the developing world -- made so little of this policy reversal. Is abortion still too skittish a topic to talk about in public? Even when a presidential order signals a promising new approach to development aid?
President Obama also pledged to work with Congress to restore contributions to the Population Fund, known as UNFPA. "By resuming funding to UNFPA, the US will be joining 180 other donor nations working collaboratively to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide family planning assistance to women in 154 countries," his statement said.
Not lost on Thoraya Obaid, the courageous Saudi woman who is executive director of UNFPA, was President Obama's focus on poverty reduction as a byproduct of family planning, giving millions of the world's poorest women some of the same reproductive choices and life opportunities enjoyed in richer nations.
"President Obama's decision could not have come at a more critical time," Obaid said in a statement hours after the White House announcement. It was, she added, "an essential step towards creating a world where all women have the opportunity to participate as equal members of society." The rate of death from pregnancy and childbirth -- 99 percent of which occur in developing countries -- has fallen just one per cent between 1990 and 2005 around the world, the UNFPA statement noted. "Every minute, a woman dies giving life, totaling up to 10 million women during a generation," it said.
UNFPA has argued tirelessly at the UN, where population growth is not a fashionable issue, that high fertility (mostly not a woman's choice) lowers per capita income, reduces education levels and consumes resources necessary to sustain healthy, productive lives. It also creates a generation of poorly educated, unemployable young people shorn of hope and open to recruitment by militant organizations of all kinds, threatening the stability of countries trying to make still-shaky democracies work.
Secretary of State Clinton, who has said she will focus on democracy and development, now has her mandate.
Steven Sinding, a former director general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, a Columbia University professor and advisor to the World Bank, was working on family planning in the US government in 1984 when the gag rule was first announced in Mexico City, taking American officials on the scene by surprise.
Sinding has been campaigning ever since against this destructive policy, which for the IPPF alone, he said in an e-mail, "necessitated clinic closures, staff layoffs and, ultimately, curtailment of family planning services to hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of women in developing countries.
He described President Obama's reversal of the order as something akin to "a glorious sunrise after a long and exceptionally dark night."
© 2009 TheNation.com All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/122795/
Posted on January 26, 2009, Printed on January 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/122795/
On Friday evening, a time favored by officials trying to avoid attention, President Barack Obama issued a statement reversing one of the most damaging policies ever visited on developing nations by Republican administrations. This was the "global gag rule," which forbade US government support for any organization that in any way fostered, provided or even advised women about abortion. It was a policy foisted on an unsuspecting world by the Reagan administration at, of all events, a United Nations conference on women and development held in Mexico City in 1984.
What became known as the "Mexico City policy" was always a political football. It was rescinded in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, then reimposed in 2001 by George W. Bush, who also proceeded to deal a second harsh blow to the world's poorest families by cutting off American assistance to the United Nations Population Fund, the largest global provider of family planning assistance. The reason, or excuse -- rejected by the administration's own internal report -- was that the Population Fund was linked to forced abortion practices in China. The fund has lost about $250 million in American aid since 2002.
Millions of women and their families were the direct victims of these shortsighted steps, taken in the name of people who called themselves "pro-family," but appeared to be woefully ignorant of the harm they caused in homes around the world. The International Planned Parenthood Federation, based in London, estimates that in the last eight years alone as much as $100 million in US aid was lost to its affiliates in 100 countries because of their refusal to accept an abortion ban. The federation estimates this lost aid could have prevented 36 million unintended pregnancies and 15 million abortions, often acts of desperation. More than 80,000 women and more than 2.5 million children might not have died.
Not surprisingly, the rate of unsafe abortions is highest in the poorest countries, where at least 200 million women cannot get contraceptives. The World Health Organization, which supports safe abortion as a tool of last resort, estimates that of 45 million abortions globally every year, 19 million take place under unsafe conditions, causing at least 68,000 deaths. Forty percent of those most dangerous abortions involve teens and women between the ages of 15 and 24. A woman in the developing world -- primarily in Africa and parts of Asia -- is at least 100 times more likely to die of a botched abortion than a woman in the industrial North.
Which raises the question why President Obama -- and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, once an outspoken champion of women's rights in the developing world -- made so little of this policy reversal. Is abortion still too skittish a topic to talk about in public? Even when a presidential order signals a promising new approach to development aid?
President Obama also pledged to work with Congress to restore contributions to the Population Fund, known as UNFPA. "By resuming funding to UNFPA, the US will be joining 180 other donor nations working collaboratively to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide family planning assistance to women in 154 countries," his statement said.
Not lost on Thoraya Obaid, the courageous Saudi woman who is executive director of UNFPA, was President Obama's focus on poverty reduction as a byproduct of family planning, giving millions of the world's poorest women some of the same reproductive choices and life opportunities enjoyed in richer nations.
"President Obama's decision could not have come at a more critical time," Obaid said in a statement hours after the White House announcement. It was, she added, "an essential step towards creating a world where all women have the opportunity to participate as equal members of society." The rate of death from pregnancy and childbirth -- 99 percent of which occur in developing countries -- has fallen just one per cent between 1990 and 2005 around the world, the UNFPA statement noted. "Every minute, a woman dies giving life, totaling up to 10 million women during a generation," it said.
UNFPA has argued tirelessly at the UN, where population growth is not a fashionable issue, that high fertility (mostly not a woman's choice) lowers per capita income, reduces education levels and consumes resources necessary to sustain healthy, productive lives. It also creates a generation of poorly educated, unemployable young people shorn of hope and open to recruitment by militant organizations of all kinds, threatening the stability of countries trying to make still-shaky democracies work.
Secretary of State Clinton, who has said she will focus on democracy and development, now has her mandate.
Steven Sinding, a former director general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, a Columbia University professor and advisor to the World Bank, was working on family planning in the US government in 1984 when the gag rule was first announced in Mexico City, taking American officials on the scene by surprise.
Sinding has been campaigning ever since against this destructive policy, which for the IPPF alone, he said in an e-mail, "necessitated clinic closures, staff layoffs and, ultimately, curtailment of family planning services to hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of women in developing countries.
He described President Obama's reversal of the order as something akin to "a glorious sunrise after a long and exceptionally dark night."
© 2009 TheNation.com All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/122795/
Kofi Annan warns against blinkers in crisis
Mon Jan 26, 2009 1:58pm EST
By Laura MacInnis
GENEVA (Reuters) - The world's economic woes cannot be allowed to eclipse other key priorities, including protecting people from climate change and feeding the hungry, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday.
In an interview ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Annan also condemned recent fighting in Gaza as "appalling" and said the piracy near Somalia served as another warning of the risks of letting simmering crises fester.
"One hundred million starving people are as urgent as some of the issues we are fully focused on," the WEF co-chair told Reuters in his office at the Kofi Annan Foundation in Geneva.
Humanitarian agencies have estimated that the global food crisis could push 100 million more people into hunger, increasing the global total to nearly one billion.
"I worry about the economy and the financial situation and its impact on the poor and the vulnerable," he said. "I accept that one needs to get the financial system right, and without credit flowing through the system, the economic recovery will be very slow. But I think we should broaden our approach."
Protests over last year's food price spike offered a glimpse into the instability that could result if the world's poorest see themselves sinking further into destitution while trillions of dollars are pumped into banks in rich countries, he said.
"Problems like climate change need to be tackled with equal urgency. We cannot see them sequentially," he said. "I don't think it is beyond human ingenuity to find an approach that tackles these issues across the board."
The soft-spoken Ghanaian said that world leaders needed to take care to ensure their discussions about fixing the economy also reflect basic concerns about jobs, nutrition, and health.
Foreign assistance pledges must also be honored in order to help vulnerable and marginalized people out of crisis, he said.
"We need to be able to tackle the issues in a way that sends a message to the dispossessed, and the poor, and the weak that their issues are equally important," he said.
"To tell them the problem of Wall Street is the problem of main street does not resolve their problems ... We need to get across a message to the people that those in positions of authority do care."
Annan said the piracy off the shores of Somalia was another illustration of the dangers of letting serious problems simmer too long while tending to other priorities.
"We have pockets in the world where either the crisis is forgotten or is deemed too protracted for anything to be done about it. We cannot leave crises to fester, even in situations of failed states," he said.
And Annan said the recent Israeli offensive in Gaza gave new urgency to finding a sustainable two-state solution to allow both Israelis and Palestinians the chance to live in peace.
"What we saw in Gaza was absolutely appalling," he said.
All parties to the conflict, including Hamas, need to be invited to the table to resolve their long-standing conflict "in an open-minded way," he said, adding the new U.S. administration under Barack Obama should help nudge along the process.
(Editing by Charles Dick)
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Davos2009/idUSTRE50P5DP20090126
By Laura MacInnis
GENEVA (Reuters) - The world's economic woes cannot be allowed to eclipse other key priorities, including protecting people from climate change and feeding the hungry, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday.
In an interview ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Annan also condemned recent fighting in Gaza as "appalling" and said the piracy near Somalia served as another warning of the risks of letting simmering crises fester.
"One hundred million starving people are as urgent as some of the issues we are fully focused on," the WEF co-chair told Reuters in his office at the Kofi Annan Foundation in Geneva.
Humanitarian agencies have estimated that the global food crisis could push 100 million more people into hunger, increasing the global total to nearly one billion.
"I worry about the economy and the financial situation and its impact on the poor and the vulnerable," he said. "I accept that one needs to get the financial system right, and without credit flowing through the system, the economic recovery will be very slow. But I think we should broaden our approach."
Protests over last year's food price spike offered a glimpse into the instability that could result if the world's poorest see themselves sinking further into destitution while trillions of dollars are pumped into banks in rich countries, he said.
"Problems like climate change need to be tackled with equal urgency. We cannot see them sequentially," he said. "I don't think it is beyond human ingenuity to find an approach that tackles these issues across the board."
The soft-spoken Ghanaian said that world leaders needed to take care to ensure their discussions about fixing the economy also reflect basic concerns about jobs, nutrition, and health.
Foreign assistance pledges must also be honored in order to help vulnerable and marginalized people out of crisis, he said.
"We need to be able to tackle the issues in a way that sends a message to the dispossessed, and the poor, and the weak that their issues are equally important," he said.
"To tell them the problem of Wall Street is the problem of main street does not resolve their problems ... We need to get across a message to the people that those in positions of authority do care."
Annan said the piracy off the shores of Somalia was another illustration of the dangers of letting serious problems simmer too long while tending to other priorities.
"We have pockets in the world where either the crisis is forgotten or is deemed too protracted for anything to be done about it. We cannot leave crises to fester, even in situations of failed states," he said.
And Annan said the recent Israeli offensive in Gaza gave new urgency to finding a sustainable two-state solution to allow both Israelis and Palestinians the chance to live in peace.
"What we saw in Gaza was absolutely appalling," he said.
All parties to the conflict, including Hamas, need to be invited to the table to resolve their long-standing conflict "in an open-minded way," he said, adding the new U.S. administration under Barack Obama should help nudge along the process.
(Editing by Charles Dick)
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Davos2009/idUSTRE50P5DP20090126
Challenges loom as Obama seeks space weapons ban
Sun Jan 25, 2009 11:14am EST
By Andrea Shalal-Esa - Analysis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's pledge to seek a worldwide ban on weapons in space marks a dramatic shift in U.S. policy while posing the tricky issue of defining whether a satellite can be a weapon.
Moments after Obama's inauguration last week, the White House website was updated to include policy statements on a range of issues, including a pledge to restore U.S. leadership on space issues and seek a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites.
It also promised to look at threats to U.S. satellites, contingency plans to keep information flowing from them, and what steps are needed to protect spacecraft against attack.
The issue is being closely watched by Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp, the biggest U.S. defense contractors, and other companies involved in military and civilian space contracts.
Watchdog groups and even some defense officials welcomed the statement, which echoed Obama's campaign promises, but said it would take time to hammer out a comprehensive new strategy.
Enacting a global ban on space weapons could prove even harder.
For instance, it was difficult to define exactly what constituted a "weapon" because even seemingly harmless weather tracking satellites could be used to slam into and disable other satellites, said two U.S. officials involved in the area who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Michael Krepon, co-founder of the private Henry L. Stimson think tank on space, cited recent reports that the Pentagon was using two smaller satellites launched in 2006 to fly near a dead missile-warning satellite and investigate what happened. The Defense Support Program satellite, DSP-23, built by Northrop, failed on orbit in mid-September.
"This incident clarified how important it is to have rules of the road for technologies that could have many different applications," Krepon said. "There are lots of benign reasons to have a closer look at an object in space. But we all know that when satellites make close passes they could also do things that are not benign."
Two years ago, China used a missile to destroy one of its own satellites in a test that raised worries about a new arms race in space. The incident may have created thousands of pieces of debris. Last year, the United States also destroyed one of its own satellites, saying its toxic fuel tank could pose a danger if it fell to Earth.
MORE COOPERATION?
A defense official, who also asked not to be named, said the Obama administration had not yet held briefings for top officials working on military space issues, but it was clear that the focus would shift toward more diplomatic initiatives.
Work on classified projects involving an "active" military response to attacks against U.S. satellites might be halted in favor of more monitoring and passive protection measures, he said. He declined to give any more details.
The Obama administration also faces tough decisions on many multibillion-dollar satellite programs facing cost overruns and schedule delays, particularly at a time when rapid increases in military spending are grinding to a halt.
"There's still a lot of wiggle room" in the administration's statement on military space, said analyst Victoria Samson with the private Center for Defense Information. "But just the sheer fact that they are discussing it represents a real shift from the Bush administration."
"It's not going to happen immediately, but it seems as though the wheels are in motion to initiate some sort of cooperative measure," Samson said.
Another defense official, who asked not to be named, said the new administration would work through the complex military space issues during a defense review to be completed by September, and as part of a space report due in December.
The new policy language used by the Obama administration was "impossibly broad," the official said. It also failed to acknowledge recent work by U.S. officials on guidelines for space debris and conduct by nations active in space.
Even Obama acknowledged during his election campaign that achieving a global treaty banning weapons in space could be a daunting challenge. A simpler and quicker solution, he suggested at that time, might be a "code of conduct for responsible space-faring nations."
In response to questions from the Council for a Livable World, Obama said one key element of any such code would be "a prohibition against harmful interference against satellites."
(Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50O15X20090125
By Andrea Shalal-Esa - Analysis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's pledge to seek a worldwide ban on weapons in space marks a dramatic shift in U.S. policy while posing the tricky issue of defining whether a satellite can be a weapon.
Moments after Obama's inauguration last week, the White House website was updated to include policy statements on a range of issues, including a pledge to restore U.S. leadership on space issues and seek a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites.
It also promised to look at threats to U.S. satellites, contingency plans to keep information flowing from them, and what steps are needed to protect spacecraft against attack.
The issue is being closely watched by Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp, the biggest U.S. defense contractors, and other companies involved in military and civilian space contracts.
Watchdog groups and even some defense officials welcomed the statement, which echoed Obama's campaign promises, but said it would take time to hammer out a comprehensive new strategy.
Enacting a global ban on space weapons could prove even harder.
For instance, it was difficult to define exactly what constituted a "weapon" because even seemingly harmless weather tracking satellites could be used to slam into and disable other satellites, said two U.S. officials involved in the area who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Michael Krepon, co-founder of the private Henry L. Stimson think tank on space, cited recent reports that the Pentagon was using two smaller satellites launched in 2006 to fly near a dead missile-warning satellite and investigate what happened. The Defense Support Program satellite, DSP-23, built by Northrop, failed on orbit in mid-September.
"This incident clarified how important it is to have rules of the road for technologies that could have many different applications," Krepon said. "There are lots of benign reasons to have a closer look at an object in space. But we all know that when satellites make close passes they could also do things that are not benign."
Two years ago, China used a missile to destroy one of its own satellites in a test that raised worries about a new arms race in space. The incident may have created thousands of pieces of debris. Last year, the United States also destroyed one of its own satellites, saying its toxic fuel tank could pose a danger if it fell to Earth.
MORE COOPERATION?
A defense official, who also asked not to be named, said the Obama administration had not yet held briefings for top officials working on military space issues, but it was clear that the focus would shift toward more diplomatic initiatives.
Work on classified projects involving an "active" military response to attacks against U.S. satellites might be halted in favor of more monitoring and passive protection measures, he said. He declined to give any more details.
The Obama administration also faces tough decisions on many multibillion-dollar satellite programs facing cost overruns and schedule delays, particularly at a time when rapid increases in military spending are grinding to a halt.
"There's still a lot of wiggle room" in the administration's statement on military space, said analyst Victoria Samson with the private Center for Defense Information. "But just the sheer fact that they are discussing it represents a real shift from the Bush administration."
"It's not going to happen immediately, but it seems as though the wheels are in motion to initiate some sort of cooperative measure," Samson said.
Another defense official, who asked not to be named, said the new administration would work through the complex military space issues during a defense review to be completed by September, and as part of a space report due in December.
The new policy language used by the Obama administration was "impossibly broad," the official said. It also failed to acknowledge recent work by U.S. officials on guidelines for space debris and conduct by nations active in space.
Even Obama acknowledged during his election campaign that achieving a global treaty banning weapons in space could be a daunting challenge. A simpler and quicker solution, he suggested at that time, might be a "code of conduct for responsible space-faring nations."
In response to questions from the Council for a Livable World, Obama said one key element of any such code would be "a prohibition against harmful interference against satellites."
(Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50O15X20090125
Halliburton to pay $559 million to settle bribery probe
Mon Jan 26, 2009 2:18pm EST
By Anna Driver
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Halliburton Co will pay a $559 million fine to end an investigation of its former KBR Inc unit if the U.S. government approves the settlement, the largest penalty against a U.S. company for charges of bribery under federal law.
Halliburton, once headed by former Vice President Dick Cheney, said it was awaiting final approval from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle claims that KBR violated anti-bribery laws by paying kickbacks to Nigerian officials.
Under the settlement, Halliburton would pay $382 million to the Department of Justice and $177 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission in "disgorgement."
KBR did not comment on the proposed settlement. Halliburton said in regulatory filings last July that it was in settlement talks with the government.
Dan Newcomb, a partner at law firm Shearman and Sterling in New York who specializes in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) law, said it was likely more companies involved in anti-corruption cases would settle with the U.S. government.
Under the FCPA, it is illegal for U.S. companies or their agents to use bribes to win foreign business.
Other oilfield service companies including Schlumberger Ltd and Transocean are being scrutinized by U.S. officials for possible FCPA violations. Both companies said they were cooperating with the U.S. government.
In April 2007, oilfield services company Baker Hughes reached a $44.1 million settlement with U.S. officials related to a bribery probe of its operations in Nigeria, Angola and Kazakhstan.
In December, German engineering conglomerate Siemens paid $800 million to U.S. officials to settle claims that it violated the FCPA.
The U.S. government's probe of Halliburton related to construction and expansion of a gas liquefaction facility at Bonny Island in Rivers State, Nigeria, and other projects dating back as much as 20 years, Halliburton has said in regulatory filings.
In July, Halliburton said it had "reason to believe" payments may have been made to Nigerian officials by agents of its TSKJ consortium, which built the Bonny Island Facility.
The TSKJ consortium includes France's Technip SA, Italy's Snamprogetti and Japan's JGC Corp.
As part of the settlement, Halliburton said it would not be required to have a monitor, but the company would have to retain an independent consultant to assess its compliance with anti-bribery laws.
Albert "Jack" Stanley, a former KBR chief executive officer, pleaded guilty in September to charges stemming from a scheme to pay $180 million in bribes to Nigerian government officials for work on the Bonny Island LNG plant.
Stanley, who had worked under Dick Cheney when he headed Halliburton, agreed to cooperate with U.S. investigators probing Halliburton's potential violations of the FCPA.
Shares of Halliburton were up 2.1 percent at $18.64 in afternoon trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Earlier on Monday, the company, headquartered in Dubai and Houston, reported a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit.
(Reporting by Anna Driver; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50P5ZE20090126
By Anna Driver
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Halliburton Co will pay a $559 million fine to end an investigation of its former KBR Inc unit if the U.S. government approves the settlement, the largest penalty against a U.S. company for charges of bribery under federal law.
Halliburton, once headed by former Vice President Dick Cheney, said it was awaiting final approval from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle claims that KBR violated anti-bribery laws by paying kickbacks to Nigerian officials.
Under the settlement, Halliburton would pay $382 million to the Department of Justice and $177 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission in "disgorgement."
KBR did not comment on the proposed settlement. Halliburton said in regulatory filings last July that it was in settlement talks with the government.
Dan Newcomb, a partner at law firm Shearman and Sterling in New York who specializes in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) law, said it was likely more companies involved in anti-corruption cases would settle with the U.S. government.
Under the FCPA, it is illegal for U.S. companies or their agents to use bribes to win foreign business.
Other oilfield service companies including Schlumberger Ltd and Transocean are being scrutinized by U.S. officials for possible FCPA violations. Both companies said they were cooperating with the U.S. government.
In April 2007, oilfield services company Baker Hughes reached a $44.1 million settlement with U.S. officials related to a bribery probe of its operations in Nigeria, Angola and Kazakhstan.
In December, German engineering conglomerate Siemens paid $800 million to U.S. officials to settle claims that it violated the FCPA.
The U.S. government's probe of Halliburton related to construction and expansion of a gas liquefaction facility at Bonny Island in Rivers State, Nigeria, and other projects dating back as much as 20 years, Halliburton has said in regulatory filings.
In July, Halliburton said it had "reason to believe" payments may have been made to Nigerian officials by agents of its TSKJ consortium, which built the Bonny Island Facility.
The TSKJ consortium includes France's Technip SA, Italy's Snamprogetti and Japan's JGC Corp.
As part of the settlement, Halliburton said it would not be required to have a monitor, but the company would have to retain an independent consultant to assess its compliance with anti-bribery laws.
Albert "Jack" Stanley, a former KBR chief executive officer, pleaded guilty in September to charges stemming from a scheme to pay $180 million in bribes to Nigerian government officials for work on the Bonny Island LNG plant.
Stanley, who had worked under Dick Cheney when he headed Halliburton, agreed to cooperate with U.S. investigators probing Halliburton's potential violations of the FCPA.
Shares of Halliburton were up 2.1 percent at $18.64 in afternoon trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Earlier on Monday, the company, headquartered in Dubai and Houston, reported a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit.
(Reporting by Anna Driver; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50P5ZE20090126
Home sales tick up but job cuts deepen gloom
Mon Jan 26, 2009 6:18pm EST
By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An unexpected improvement in U.S. home sales provided a rare dose of good economic news on Monday, but companies continued to wield the axe on jobs as the year-long recession inflicted more pain.
The pace of sales of previously owned homes rose for the first time since September and inventory declined, a bit of positive news amid a U.S. housing market crash that has chilled growth, sent unemployment soaring and sharply eroded household wealth.
The relentless wave of layoffs continued on Monday. Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar Inc announced nearly 20,000 job cuts and drugmaker Pfizer Inc, which announced plans to acquire rival Wyeth for $68 billion, said it would reduce its combined work force of about 130,000 by 15 percent.
Sales of previously owned U.S. homes increased 6.5 percent to a 4.74 million unit annual rate in December, the National Association of Realtors said. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected sales to set a 4.40 million unit pace.
Analysts said the uptick was encouraging and might be a signal the worst housing bust in decades was finally nearing a bottom following government steps to slow foreclosures and cut interest rates on home loans.
"Though unlikely to mark the bottom of the housing downturn, the report at least suggests the market is not spiraling downwards in response to mounting job losses and tightening credit standards," said Sal Guatieri, an economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto.
"An upward trend in home sales that gobbles up supply and stabilizes prices would be an important signpost of economic recovery, but that is likely still some ways off."
The surprise rise in home sales overshadowed steep job cuts from Caterpillar and other companies helped to lifted U.S. stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 38.47 points at 8,116.03, and the Dow Jones index of home builders' stocks rose 2.7 percent.
U.S. government bond prices and the dollar fell as the housing data eroded their safe-haven appeal, encouraging investors to seek riskier assets.
Stability in the U.S. housing market, the root cause of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, is seen key for any recovery in the domestic economy which has been stuck in recession since December 2007.
FORECLOSURES DRIVE SALES
December existing-home sales were largely driven by distressed sales, which dragged the median national home price down 15.3 percent from the year earlier to $175,400.
The chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, Lawrence Yun, said it was the largest price drop since NAR started keeping records in 1968 and probably the largest since the Great Depression.
"There is pent-up demand, which could be unleashed with the right stimulus. The Obama administration and Congress need to move fast ... to stabilize home prizes and set the foundation for a sustainable economic recovery," said Yun.
President Barack Obama is drumming up support for a $825 billion spending package, which he hopes will kick-start the economy and create or preserve 3 million to 4 million jobs.
Analysts were also heartened by the 11.7 percent drop in the inventory of existing homes for sale to 3.68 million units from 4.16 million in November.
That translated into 9.3 months of supply at December's sales pace. The supply stood at 11.2 months' worth in November.
"It suggests we are working through some of the inventory, which is the first thing to happen before we see any kind of housing recovery," said Frank Lesh, futures analyst at FuturePath Trading in Chicago.
"Until we work through the supply that's out there, it's going to be hard to see anything turn. The low rates the Fed has engineered is starting to create some demand, which is what we wanted to see."
Separately, the Conference Board said its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.3 percent, beating analysts forecast for a 0.3 percent decline.
Economists attributed the rise in the Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators to the improvement in credit markets thanks to action by the Federal Reserve.
The U.S. central bank has cut interest rates almost to zero and pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into financial markets to keep them operating.
The Fed meets on Tuesday and Wednesday and is expected to hold its target range for the key overnight federal funds rate steady at zero to 0.25 percent.
Tony Crescenzi, chief bond market strategist at Miller, Tabak & Co., reckons that given the recent uptick in government bond yields and mortgage rates, the Fed could place emphasis on its plans to buy mortgage securities and possibly Treasuries.
(Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert in Washington, Deepa Seetharaman and Franklin Paul in New York; writing by Lucia Mutikani and Alister Bull; Editing by Leslie Adler)
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE50L35320090126
By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An unexpected improvement in U.S. home sales provided a rare dose of good economic news on Monday, but companies continued to wield the axe on jobs as the year-long recession inflicted more pain.
The pace of sales of previously owned homes rose for the first time since September and inventory declined, a bit of positive news amid a U.S. housing market crash that has chilled growth, sent unemployment soaring and sharply eroded household wealth.
The relentless wave of layoffs continued on Monday. Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar Inc announced nearly 20,000 job cuts and drugmaker Pfizer Inc, which announced plans to acquire rival Wyeth for $68 billion, said it would reduce its combined work force of about 130,000 by 15 percent.
Sales of previously owned U.S. homes increased 6.5 percent to a 4.74 million unit annual rate in December, the National Association of Realtors said. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected sales to set a 4.40 million unit pace.
Analysts said the uptick was encouraging and might be a signal the worst housing bust in decades was finally nearing a bottom following government steps to slow foreclosures and cut interest rates on home loans.
"Though unlikely to mark the bottom of the housing downturn, the report at least suggests the market is not spiraling downwards in response to mounting job losses and tightening credit standards," said Sal Guatieri, an economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto.
"An upward trend in home sales that gobbles up supply and stabilizes prices would be an important signpost of economic recovery, but that is likely still some ways off."
The surprise rise in home sales overshadowed steep job cuts from Caterpillar and other companies helped to lifted U.S. stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 38.47 points at 8,116.03, and the Dow Jones index of home builders' stocks rose 2.7 percent.
U.S. government bond prices and the dollar fell as the housing data eroded their safe-haven appeal, encouraging investors to seek riskier assets.
Stability in the U.S. housing market, the root cause of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, is seen key for any recovery in the domestic economy which has been stuck in recession since December 2007.
FORECLOSURES DRIVE SALES
December existing-home sales were largely driven by distressed sales, which dragged the median national home price down 15.3 percent from the year earlier to $175,400.
The chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, Lawrence Yun, said it was the largest price drop since NAR started keeping records in 1968 and probably the largest since the Great Depression.
"There is pent-up demand, which could be unleashed with the right stimulus. The Obama administration and Congress need to move fast ... to stabilize home prizes and set the foundation for a sustainable economic recovery," said Yun.
President Barack Obama is drumming up support for a $825 billion spending package, which he hopes will kick-start the economy and create or preserve 3 million to 4 million jobs.
Analysts were also heartened by the 11.7 percent drop in the inventory of existing homes for sale to 3.68 million units from 4.16 million in November.
That translated into 9.3 months of supply at December's sales pace. The supply stood at 11.2 months' worth in November.
"It suggests we are working through some of the inventory, which is the first thing to happen before we see any kind of housing recovery," said Frank Lesh, futures analyst at FuturePath Trading in Chicago.
"Until we work through the supply that's out there, it's going to be hard to see anything turn. The low rates the Fed has engineered is starting to create some demand, which is what we wanted to see."
Separately, the Conference Board said its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.3 percent, beating analysts forecast for a 0.3 percent decline.
Economists attributed the rise in the Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators to the improvement in credit markets thanks to action by the Federal Reserve.
The U.S. central bank has cut interest rates almost to zero and pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into financial markets to keep them operating.
The Fed meets on Tuesday and Wednesday and is expected to hold its target range for the key overnight federal funds rate steady at zero to 0.25 percent.
Tony Crescenzi, chief bond market strategist at Miller, Tabak & Co., reckons that given the recent uptick in government bond yields and mortgage rates, the Fed could place emphasis on its plans to buy mortgage securities and possibly Treasuries.
(Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert in Washington, Deepa Seetharaman and Franklin Paul in New York; writing by Lucia Mutikani and Alister Bull; Editing by Leslie Adler)
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE50L35320090126
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