http://www.zcommunications.org/FCKFiles/image//oct09zmoimages/Corbett-GlassHalfFull-Big.jpg
Friday, October 9, 2009
What are you complaining about? My glass is only half-full, too.
http://www.zcommunications.org/FCKFiles/image//oct09zmoimages/Corbett-GlassHalfFull-Big.jpg
Fla. appeals court chastises judge over compassion in foreclosure cases
October 8, 2009
The Associated Press
MIAMI — A judge who routinely granted extensions in foreclosure cases for compassionate reasons has been chastised by a state appeals court, which said her rulings amounted to an abuse of discretion.
The Third District Court of Appeal said “benevolence and compassion” were not legally sufficient grounds for Circuit Judge Valerie Manno Schurr to allow a Miami couple an extra month to try and sell their home before a foreclosure sale.
The appeals judge’s called her decisions “an abuse of discretion in the most basic sense of that term.”
Schurr had granted the one-month extension in the case of Joseph and Blanca Doyle because, she explained in court, “I give extensions on these because I don’t want anybody to lose their house.”
She went on: “Businesses are failing. People are losing money in the stock market.
You know, unemployment is high. It’s just everybody knows that we are in a bad time right now and I hate to see anybody lose their home.”
The bank involved, Republic Federal Bank, appealed in part because officials there hoped the court would give Miami-Dade County judges “some guidance” on granting extensions, bank attorney Charles M. Rosenberg told the Daily Business Review for a story published Thursday.
In its ruling for the bank, the appeals judges quoted from a well-known 1921 judicial process work by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo, who wrote that a judge must not “yield to spasmodic sentiment, to vague and unregulated benevolence” and is “not a knight-errant roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness.”
“He is to draw his inspiration from consecrated principles,” Cardozo wrote.
Schurr declined comment, citing judicial rules preventing her from discussing specific cases.
The Doyles’ house sold at foreclosure auction last week for $1.3 million.
http://www.news-press.com/article/20091008/NEWS01/91008064/1002/RSS01
The Associated Press
MIAMI — A judge who routinely granted extensions in foreclosure cases for compassionate reasons has been chastised by a state appeals court, which said her rulings amounted to an abuse of discretion.
The Third District Court of Appeal said “benevolence and compassion” were not legally sufficient grounds for Circuit Judge Valerie Manno Schurr to allow a Miami couple an extra month to try and sell their home before a foreclosure sale.
The appeals judge’s called her decisions “an abuse of discretion in the most basic sense of that term.”
Schurr had granted the one-month extension in the case of Joseph and Blanca Doyle because, she explained in court, “I give extensions on these because I don’t want anybody to lose their house.”
She went on: “Businesses are failing. People are losing money in the stock market.
You know, unemployment is high. It’s just everybody knows that we are in a bad time right now and I hate to see anybody lose their home.”
The bank involved, Republic Federal Bank, appealed in part because officials there hoped the court would give Miami-Dade County judges “some guidance” on granting extensions, bank attorney Charles M. Rosenberg told the Daily Business Review for a story published Thursday.
In its ruling for the bank, the appeals judges quoted from a well-known 1921 judicial process work by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo, who wrote that a judge must not “yield to spasmodic sentiment, to vague and unregulated benevolence” and is “not a knight-errant roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness.”
“He is to draw his inspiration from consecrated principles,” Cardozo wrote.
Schurr declined comment, citing judicial rules preventing her from discussing specific cases.
The Doyles’ house sold at foreclosure auction last week for $1.3 million.
http://www.news-press.com/article/20091008/NEWS01/91008064/1002/RSS01
Dem-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee extends PATRIOT Act provisions
Thursday, October 8th, 2009 -- 10:21 pm
Key US lawmakers passed legislation Thursday extending three key provisions of the PATRIOT Act, the sweeping intelligence bill enacted after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Backing a White House request, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the measure 11 votes to 8 to extend until 2013 three clauses that would have expired by 31 December. The bill now heads to the full Senate for a vote.
The provisions include the "roving wiretap" clause, used to monitor mobile communications of individuals using multiple telephone lines, and the "lone-wolf" provision, which enables spying on individuals suspected of terrorist activity but with no obvious connection to extremist groups.
Lawmakers also extended the life of controversial section 215, known as the "library records provision" that allows government agencies to access individual's library history.
The committee had earlier met in a closed-door meeting with members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the intelligence community on ensuring their actions would not impede investigations already underway.
Story continues below...
The senators also debated freeing up law enforcement actions that have been hampered by legislation and court rulings since the first program was launched by former president George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11, which enabled collecting sensitive information for years without a court order.
Republicans senators have remained critical of placing restrictions on the intelligence community, saying they should more of a free hand in the early stages of investigations.
But their Democratic counterparts have decried the fact that the provisions still do not in their view adequately respect the privacy of ordinary Americans.
Democratic Senator Russ Feingold said he feared handing a "blank check" to law enforcement agencies and criticized the Democrat-controlled committee for not passing safeguards that even Republicans supported during the Bush administration.
"Among the most significant problems is the failure to include an improved standard for Section 215 orders, even though a Republican controlled Judiciary Committee unanimously supported including the same standard in 2005," he said in a media advisory.
"But what was most upsetting was the apparent willingness of too many members to defer completely to behind the scenes complaints from the FBI and the Justice Department, even though the administration has yet to take a public position on any of the improvements that I and other senators have proposed. ... [While] I am left scratching my head trying to understand how a committee controlled by a wide Democratic margin could support the bill it approved today, I will continue to work with my colleagues to try to make improvements to this bill."
Michael Macleod-Ball, acting director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office said the rights group was "disappointed" that further moves were not made to protect civil liberties.
"This truly was a missed opportunity for the Senate Judiciary Committee to right the wrongs of the PATRIOT Act," he said.
"We urge the Senate to adopt amendments on the floor that will bring this bill in line with the Constitution."
With AFP.
http://rawstory.com/2009/10/dem-controlled-senate-judiciary-committee-extends-patriot-act-provisions/
Key US lawmakers passed legislation Thursday extending three key provisions of the PATRIOT Act, the sweeping intelligence bill enacted after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Backing a White House request, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the measure 11 votes to 8 to extend until 2013 three clauses that would have expired by 31 December. The bill now heads to the full Senate for a vote.
The provisions include the "roving wiretap" clause, used to monitor mobile communications of individuals using multiple telephone lines, and the "lone-wolf" provision, which enables spying on individuals suspected of terrorist activity but with no obvious connection to extremist groups.
Lawmakers also extended the life of controversial section 215, known as the "library records provision" that allows government agencies to access individual's library history.
The committee had earlier met in a closed-door meeting with members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the intelligence community on ensuring their actions would not impede investigations already underway.
Story continues below...
The senators also debated freeing up law enforcement actions that have been hampered by legislation and court rulings since the first program was launched by former president George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11, which enabled collecting sensitive information for years without a court order.
Republicans senators have remained critical of placing restrictions on the intelligence community, saying they should more of a free hand in the early stages of investigations.
But their Democratic counterparts have decried the fact that the provisions still do not in their view adequately respect the privacy of ordinary Americans.
Democratic Senator Russ Feingold said he feared handing a "blank check" to law enforcement agencies and criticized the Democrat-controlled committee for not passing safeguards that even Republicans supported during the Bush administration.
"Among the most significant problems is the failure to include an improved standard for Section 215 orders, even though a Republican controlled Judiciary Committee unanimously supported including the same standard in 2005," he said in a media advisory.
"But what was most upsetting was the apparent willingness of too many members to defer completely to behind the scenes complaints from the FBI and the Justice Department, even though the administration has yet to take a public position on any of the improvements that I and other senators have proposed. ... [While] I am left scratching my head trying to understand how a committee controlled by a wide Democratic margin could support the bill it approved today, I will continue to work with my colleagues to try to make improvements to this bill."
Michael Macleod-Ball, acting director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office said the rights group was "disappointed" that further moves were not made to protect civil liberties.
"This truly was a missed opportunity for the Senate Judiciary Committee to right the wrongs of the PATRIOT Act," he said.
"We urge the Senate to adopt amendments on the floor that will bring this bill in line with the Constitution."
With AFP.
http://rawstory.com/2009/10/dem-controlled-senate-judiciary-committee-extends-patriot-act-provisions/
White House-backed plan to slash health care costs advances in Senate
By Jerry White
8 October 2009
People wait outside the North entrance of Cobo Hall
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/heal-o09.shtml
8 October 2009
An estimated 50,000 residents of Detroit filed into Cobo Hall convention center on Wednesday seeking assistance to pay utility bills and keep from being evicted from their homes. City officials, who expected around 3,000 people to apply for the aid, were overwhelmed by the turnout.
In a scene reminiscent of the crowds of jobless workers who lined up for free soup during the Great Depression, a queue of tens of thousands of workers and unemployed people wound around the downtown arena. Young mothers pushing baby carriages, disabled workers in wheelchairs, senior citizens and throngs of young workers and youth stood for hours waiting. Many had slept on the streets the previous evening to be the first served.
Several people fainted during the wait and were treated by medical personnel on the scene. By 11:30 a.m., Detroit’s mayor, David Bing, made a public appeal for citizens to stop coming to Cobo Hall. Hundreds of police, including officers from Detroit’s special Gang Unit, stood guard at the entrances to hold back the crowd.
Several people were reportedly injured in the rush to enter the building after the police finally opened the doors around noon. Those in line were funneled through the glass doors and quickly sped toward a table where they were handed applications and told they had to fill them out and deposit them in boxes before a 2 p.m. deadline.
Wednesday was the last day for residents to apply for the city’s Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP). The program, funded by a $15.2 million grant from the Obama administration's stimulus program, will provide assistance to only about 3,400 people, according to Constance Bell, a spokesperson for the program. In addition to the 50,000 applications given out Wednesday, an additional 30,000 were distributed previously, Bell said. This means that only about one out of 23 people who applied will see any money.
The large turnout was based on fast-spreading rumors that the city was providing $3,000 to low-income families in need of aid. Such is the level of economic desperation in the city—where the official jobless rate is 29 percent and more than one-third of the population lives below the official poverty line—that tens of thousands showed up.
The vast majority will not qualify for the aid, the city spokesperson admitted. The HPRP program only provides temporary assistance to pay utility bills for those who are already homeless or facing pending evictions or foreclosures. Moreover, it will be paid only to those who are able to keep up their housing payments after receiving the aid. No money will be used to make mortgage payments.
People wait outside the North entrance of Cobo HallRather than informing those who showed up that their efforts were likely to be in vain, city officials continued to hand out and collect applications for the program. Their overwhelming concern was to prevent an angry outburst from people who had suffered the indignity of waiting for hours and being manhandled by the cops.
The lack of preparation and disorganization at the event is an indication of how distant government officials are from the reality confronting the working class and the extent of the social crisis. The 80,000 households that applied for assistance represent roughly a third of the city’s population.
The real jobless rate in Detroit is much higher than the official figure of 29 percent, due to the tens of thousands who have given up looking for nonexistent jobs. This crisis has been exacerbated by the forced bankruptcies and restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler by the Obama administration, which, with the support of the United Auto Workers, destroyed thousands of jobs and slashed the wages and benefits of auto workers and retirees.
Particularly striking were the thousands of young workers lining up for assistance. Thirty years ago, a large number of these young people would have been employed in city’s many auto factories. Since 1970, however, the city has lost three-quarters of its manufacturing jobs, wiping out the jobs of 250,000 workers. Today, there is nothing but low-paying jobs for young workers, without the slightest economic security.
Last month, tens of thousands of workers lined up at the state fair grounds in Detroit after the regional gas and electric company, DTE Energy, announced it was offering help to distressed homeowners and renters. According to a report last month in the Detroit News, Michigan’s two largest power companies, DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, last year cut off heating to a total of 181,000 customers. DTE has already shut off energy to 115,000 households, a pace that will far surpass last year’s 142,000 cutoffs.
Detroit—which used to boast one of the highest rates of home ownership in the nation--had the top home foreclosure rate in 2006 and 2007, and still ranks among the highest in the US.
Detroit’s economic decline has been long in the making. The living standards won by auto workers gave the Motor City the highest per capita income in the nation in the 1950s. The last three decades, beginning with the Chrysler bailout of 1979-80, has seen an unrelenting assault on the working class by big business and the government, culminating in Obama’s restructuring of GM and Chrysler. The deindustrialization of Detroit was symbolic of the shift by American capitalism from manufacturing to the most parasitic forms of financial speculation.
At 15.2 percent, the state of Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the US. Over the past decade, as the auto industry was downsized, Michigan lost 870,000 jobs. The number is expected to rise to one million by late next year.
Even as the demand for social services increases, state and city governments are slashing spending for housing, education and health care to cope with large budget deficits. The Obama administration, which handed trillions to Wall Street, has offered no similar bailout to the states or the estimated 15 million people who are now unemployed.
The state of Michigan—facing a $2.8 billion deficit—is slashing programs across the board. On the same day that thousands lined up for housing assistance, Detroit’s Democratic Mayor David Bing, a multi-millionaire businessman, announced a “turnaround” plan to cut $500 million over the next two years by permanently shrinking city government, selling off public assets, privatizing and cutting services, and laying off more than 1,000 city workers.
The economic crisis is bringing much of the rest of the country to similar straits as in Detroit and Michigan. Scenes of economic desperation are increasingly common throughout the country, with free clinics attracting crowds of thousands in California, Texas and other states, and thousands of people lining up for a handful of available jobs.
The US is experiencing a social crisis unparalleled since the 1930s. In the face of this crisis, the Obama administration is offering no serious relief to the tens of millions of working people who face economic ruin.
The tragic scene that unfolded Wednesday in Detroit underscores the derisory character of Obama’s so-called “stimulus” and “recovery” schemes. The White House has rejected out of hand any public works program to put the unemployed to work. Instead, all of its policies—from the Wall Street bailout, to the attack on auto workers, to its plans to slash health care costs—are designed to protect the wealth and power of the financial elite.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/heal-o09.shtml
White House-backed plan to slash health care costs advances in Senate
By Kate Randall
9 October 2009
President Obama’s push for a cost-cutting overhaul of the US health care system that will slash benefits for millions of workers and retirees moved forward Wednesday, with the release of a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on legislation drafted by the Senate Finance Committee.
The CBO reported that the Baucus plan, named for committee Chairman Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, would cost $829 billion over 10 years, but would reduce the national deficit by $81 billion in the decade starting next year.
The CBO report was praised by White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, who commented Wednesday that the finance panel’s bill “demonstrates that we can expand coverage and improve quality while being fiscally responsible.”
In reality, the legislation, if enacted, will leave millions of Americans without coverage, slash billions from Medicare and other federal programs, and ration care through a series of cost-cutting “efficiencies.” At the same time, individuals and families will be required to purchase coverage—funneling billions into the coffers of the insurance companies—or pay a fine.
Of the five bills in Congress, the Baucus bill is the version most closely tailored to the demands of the insurance industry. Obama has welcomed it, saying it contains “80 percent” of what he is looking for.
During his presidential campaign, Obama claimed that he would fight for universal health care for all Americans. This campaign rhetoric has now been ditched in favor of legislation that, according to CBO estimates, will leave 25 million people without any health insurance at all, or about half the present number of uninsured.
Under the Baucus bill, individuals and families will be forced to obtain insurance or pay a fine, up to $750 for individuals and $1,500 for families. Those without employer-sponsored insurance, or insurance provided through a federal health program, will be required to purchase coverage from private companies on an insurance “exchange.”
Businesses are not required to provide coverage for their employees. Employers with more than 50 full-time workers will pay a nominal fee if the government ends up providing subsidies for their employees to purchase coverage on the exchange. The CBO estimates that about $23 billion in penalties will be collected from businesses.
The federal government will pay out more than $460 billion over 10 years to private insurers to subsidize coverage for low- and middle-income people.
Although insurers offering coverage on the exchange will not be allowed to deny coverage for preexisting conditions, there are no restrictions on what insurers can charge. Insurance companies can be expected to hike premiums to offset any inroads into their profits. They can also tailor the features of plans to discourage higher risk segments of the population from signing up for coverage, and cherry-pick healthier individuals through marketing and other techniques.
Businesses with more than 50 workers that self-insure, paying health care claims out of their own revenues rather than utilizing a private insurer, will not be barred from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions. It is estimated that about 70 million people are covered by such plans.
Under intense pressure from the health care industry lobby, the Finance Committee did not include a government-run “public option” as part of the exchange. Obama and other White House officials have stated that the lack of a public option will not stop the president from signing a health care bill.
The plan calls for the expansion of so-called nonprofit health care cooperatives. These co-ops will provide little competition to private insurers. As the CBO report put it, they will not establish “a significant market presence in many areas.”
The $829 billion cost of the legislation is to be financed in large part by deep cuts to Medicare and other federal programs for the elderly, poor and disabled, which will be slashed by about $400 billion over the next decade.
About $200 billion will be cut by lowering Medicare payments to hospitals, nursing homes and other providers. Medicare Advantage (MA), the program through which more than 10 million seniors receive Medicare benefits via private health insurance plans, will see a $113 billion reduction.
The Medicare program will see overall reductions in spending of about 5 percent from 2010 to 2019. Contrary to claims that such cuts can be made without affecting care, they will result in real reductions in quality and availability of care for seniors.
Further cuts to Medicare will be made through the utilization of “comparative effectiveness research” (CER). The Baucus plan will establish an Innovation Center within the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services to test health care models “that transition primary care practices away from fee-for-service based reimbursement.”
Talk of moving away from “fee-for-service” reimbursement is a euphemism for setting caps on the cost of health care that doctors can provide for their patients. It is a formula for denying more expensive tests, drugs and procedures currently available under Medicare and many employer-sponsored plans, or requiring patients to pay for such services out-of-pocket.
An independent Medicare Commission, appointed by the president, will have the power to enact measures to reduce “excess cost growth.” Measures ordered by the commission—an unelected body—will take effect unless overridden by Congress. The CBO estimates that this commission will slash $22 billion in spending over 10 years.
The plan seeks to reduce Medicare payments to doctors by penalizing those who administer the most tests and treatments. Those falling in the top 10 percent cost category will face a 5 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements.
Doctors will also be called upon to submit data to the government to measure the quality of the treatment they dispense. Eligible doctors who choose not to participate will be penalized 1.5-2 percent on certain Medicare payments, while those who are judged successful will get a 1 percent bonus. This is nothing other than a financial incentive for doctors to ration care to their elderly patients.
Under the Baucus bill, Medicaid, the health care program for the poor jointly funded by the federal government and the states, will be expanded to cover an additional 14 million people by raising the income threshold for eligibility. This will cost an estimated $345 billion in federal outlays. Individuals and families insured under Medicaid will generally receive the lowest quality of care.
Under an amendment introduced by Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, states will be required to maintain coverage levels for children currently on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), rather than pushing them onto the exchange.
The CBO estimates that already cash-strapped states will see spending on Medicaid rise by $33 billion over 10 years. The real dollar amount will most likely be much higher, as the impact of the recession forces more and more families into joblessness and poverty. There are no provisions in the bill to pay for this.
About a quarter of the costs of the Baucus bill are to be covered through taxes on so-called Cadillac insurance plans—those costing more than $8,000 for individuals or $21,000 for a family. These plans will be taxed at a 40 percent rate for the coverage exceeding the cutoff levels. The CBO estimates that the tax will raise about $201 billion over 10 years.
Portrayed as high-end policies purchased by the wealthy, in reality such plans are most common among unionized workers. Workers have gained these insurance plans—which provide lower co-pays and deductibles and coverage such as optical and dental—in bitter contract struggles, often at the expense of wages and other benefits.
While the insurance companies providing these policies will be taxed, they can be counted on to pass this penalty on to the insured in the form of higher premiums and/or reductions in coverage.
The tax on “Cadillac plans” amounts to an indirect tax on health benefits received by workers covered by employer-sponsored health insurance. During last year’s presidential election, Obama attacked his opponent, Republican Senator John McCain, for advocating such a tax.
Overall, the provisions of the Baucus bill are the most regressive of the congressional health care plans currently working their way through Congress. The Finance Committee could vote on the bill as early as Friday, but Senator Baucus is expected to delay the vote until some time early next week.
The legislation has yet to gain the backing of a single Republican on the committee, but Democrats hope to enlist the support of Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican who has expressed any support for the measure.
Once adopted, the Baucus bill will go to the full Senate, where it must be reconciled with a proposal from the Senate health committee. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, expects full debate in the Senate to begin in mid-October. The Senate plan must then be brought together with legislation being drafted in the House.
The Obama administration will be closely involved in this process. Reid will begin closed-door meetings next week to discuss the legislation with Baucus, Senator Christopher Dodd (Democrat of Connecticut), and senior White House officials, including Budget Director Orszag, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior health adviser Nancy-Ann DeParle.
In recent weeks, Obama has enlisted the support of a number of right-wing Republicans to back his health care initiative. Included among them is Bill Frist, former Republican Senate majority leader and a physician, whose family founded the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the largest private operator of health care facilities in the world.
Frist, a multimillionaire who owes his fortune to his holdings in HCA, stated that if he were still in the Senate he “would end up voting for” the Baucus bill, in particular because it mandates individuals to buy insurance.
Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (technically an independent, but running for reelection on the Republican and Independence party tickets) also publicly support a health care overhaul, although they do not support a specific plan. Both Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg have been responsible for massive budgets cuts in their respective jurisdictions, and their support is indicative of the reactionary character of the health care legislation being promoted by Obama.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/heal-o09.shtml
9 October 2009
President Obama’s push for a cost-cutting overhaul of the US health care system that will slash benefits for millions of workers and retirees moved forward Wednesday, with the release of a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on legislation drafted by the Senate Finance Committee.
The CBO reported that the Baucus plan, named for committee Chairman Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, would cost $829 billion over 10 years, but would reduce the national deficit by $81 billion in the decade starting next year.
The CBO report was praised by White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, who commented Wednesday that the finance panel’s bill “demonstrates that we can expand coverage and improve quality while being fiscally responsible.”
In reality, the legislation, if enacted, will leave millions of Americans without coverage, slash billions from Medicare and other federal programs, and ration care through a series of cost-cutting “efficiencies.” At the same time, individuals and families will be required to purchase coverage—funneling billions into the coffers of the insurance companies—or pay a fine.
Of the five bills in Congress, the Baucus bill is the version most closely tailored to the demands of the insurance industry. Obama has welcomed it, saying it contains “80 percent” of what he is looking for.
During his presidential campaign, Obama claimed that he would fight for universal health care for all Americans. This campaign rhetoric has now been ditched in favor of legislation that, according to CBO estimates, will leave 25 million people without any health insurance at all, or about half the present number of uninsured.
Under the Baucus bill, individuals and families will be forced to obtain insurance or pay a fine, up to $750 for individuals and $1,500 for families. Those without employer-sponsored insurance, or insurance provided through a federal health program, will be required to purchase coverage from private companies on an insurance “exchange.”
Businesses are not required to provide coverage for their employees. Employers with more than 50 full-time workers will pay a nominal fee if the government ends up providing subsidies for their employees to purchase coverage on the exchange. The CBO estimates that about $23 billion in penalties will be collected from businesses.
The federal government will pay out more than $460 billion over 10 years to private insurers to subsidize coverage for low- and middle-income people.
Although insurers offering coverage on the exchange will not be allowed to deny coverage for preexisting conditions, there are no restrictions on what insurers can charge. Insurance companies can be expected to hike premiums to offset any inroads into their profits. They can also tailor the features of plans to discourage higher risk segments of the population from signing up for coverage, and cherry-pick healthier individuals through marketing and other techniques.
Businesses with more than 50 workers that self-insure, paying health care claims out of their own revenues rather than utilizing a private insurer, will not be barred from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions. It is estimated that about 70 million people are covered by such plans.
Under intense pressure from the health care industry lobby, the Finance Committee did not include a government-run “public option” as part of the exchange. Obama and other White House officials have stated that the lack of a public option will not stop the president from signing a health care bill.
The plan calls for the expansion of so-called nonprofit health care cooperatives. These co-ops will provide little competition to private insurers. As the CBO report put it, they will not establish “a significant market presence in many areas.”
The $829 billion cost of the legislation is to be financed in large part by deep cuts to Medicare and other federal programs for the elderly, poor and disabled, which will be slashed by about $400 billion over the next decade.
About $200 billion will be cut by lowering Medicare payments to hospitals, nursing homes and other providers. Medicare Advantage (MA), the program through which more than 10 million seniors receive Medicare benefits via private health insurance plans, will see a $113 billion reduction.
The Medicare program will see overall reductions in spending of about 5 percent from 2010 to 2019. Contrary to claims that such cuts can be made without affecting care, they will result in real reductions in quality and availability of care for seniors.
Further cuts to Medicare will be made through the utilization of “comparative effectiveness research” (CER). The Baucus plan will establish an Innovation Center within the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services to test health care models “that transition primary care practices away from fee-for-service based reimbursement.”
Talk of moving away from “fee-for-service” reimbursement is a euphemism for setting caps on the cost of health care that doctors can provide for their patients. It is a formula for denying more expensive tests, drugs and procedures currently available under Medicare and many employer-sponsored plans, or requiring patients to pay for such services out-of-pocket.
An independent Medicare Commission, appointed by the president, will have the power to enact measures to reduce “excess cost growth.” Measures ordered by the commission—an unelected body—will take effect unless overridden by Congress. The CBO estimates that this commission will slash $22 billion in spending over 10 years.
The plan seeks to reduce Medicare payments to doctors by penalizing those who administer the most tests and treatments. Those falling in the top 10 percent cost category will face a 5 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements.
Doctors will also be called upon to submit data to the government to measure the quality of the treatment they dispense. Eligible doctors who choose not to participate will be penalized 1.5-2 percent on certain Medicare payments, while those who are judged successful will get a 1 percent bonus. This is nothing other than a financial incentive for doctors to ration care to their elderly patients.
Under the Baucus bill, Medicaid, the health care program for the poor jointly funded by the federal government and the states, will be expanded to cover an additional 14 million people by raising the income threshold for eligibility. This will cost an estimated $345 billion in federal outlays. Individuals and families insured under Medicaid will generally receive the lowest quality of care.
Under an amendment introduced by Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, states will be required to maintain coverage levels for children currently on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), rather than pushing them onto the exchange.
The CBO estimates that already cash-strapped states will see spending on Medicaid rise by $33 billion over 10 years. The real dollar amount will most likely be much higher, as the impact of the recession forces more and more families into joblessness and poverty. There are no provisions in the bill to pay for this.
About a quarter of the costs of the Baucus bill are to be covered through taxes on so-called Cadillac insurance plans—those costing more than $8,000 for individuals or $21,000 for a family. These plans will be taxed at a 40 percent rate for the coverage exceeding the cutoff levels. The CBO estimates that the tax will raise about $201 billion over 10 years.
Portrayed as high-end policies purchased by the wealthy, in reality such plans are most common among unionized workers. Workers have gained these insurance plans—which provide lower co-pays and deductibles and coverage such as optical and dental—in bitter contract struggles, often at the expense of wages and other benefits.
While the insurance companies providing these policies will be taxed, they can be counted on to pass this penalty on to the insured in the form of higher premiums and/or reductions in coverage.
The tax on “Cadillac plans” amounts to an indirect tax on health benefits received by workers covered by employer-sponsored health insurance. During last year’s presidential election, Obama attacked his opponent, Republican Senator John McCain, for advocating such a tax.
Overall, the provisions of the Baucus bill are the most regressive of the congressional health care plans currently working their way through Congress. The Finance Committee could vote on the bill as early as Friday, but Senator Baucus is expected to delay the vote until some time early next week.
The legislation has yet to gain the backing of a single Republican on the committee, but Democrats hope to enlist the support of Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican who has expressed any support for the measure.
Once adopted, the Baucus bill will go to the full Senate, where it must be reconciled with a proposal from the Senate health committee. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, expects full debate in the Senate to begin in mid-October. The Senate plan must then be brought together with legislation being drafted in the House.
The Obama administration will be closely involved in this process. Reid will begin closed-door meetings next week to discuss the legislation with Baucus, Senator Christopher Dodd (Democrat of Connecticut), and senior White House officials, including Budget Director Orszag, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior health adviser Nancy-Ann DeParle.
In recent weeks, Obama has enlisted the support of a number of right-wing Republicans to back his health care initiative. Included among them is Bill Frist, former Republican Senate majority leader and a physician, whose family founded the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the largest private operator of health care facilities in the world.
Frist, a multimillionaire who owes his fortune to his holdings in HCA, stated that if he were still in the Senate he “would end up voting for” the Baucus bill, in particular because it mandates individuals to buy insurance.
Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (technically an independent, but running for reelection on the Republican and Independence party tickets) also publicly support a health care overhaul, although they do not support a specific plan. Both Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg have been responsible for massive budgets cuts in their respective jurisdictions, and their support is indicative of the reactionary character of the health care legislation being promoted by Obama.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/heal-o09.shtml
The Global Oil Depletion Report: Launched 08.10.09
Full Report
Executive Summary
Press Release
Technical Papers
If you would like a hard copy of the report, please contact Angela Knight
http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.php?page=Global+Oil+Depletion
Dead Man Walking
Welcome to the US Economy
By MIKE WHITNEY
Credit is everything. Without credit expansion there's no recovery because there's no pick-up in overall demand. But credit growth is going backwards. The banks have tightened lending standards and the pool of credit-worthy applicants has vanished. Bank lending is off 14 per cent since October 2008. Private credit is presently decreasing at a 10.5 per cent annual rate. The situation is getting worse, not better.
From the UK Telegraph:
"Both bank credit and the M3 money supply in the United States have been contracting at rates comparable to the onset of the Great Depression since early summer, raising fears of a double-dip recession in 2010 and a slide into debt-deflation...
“Similar concerns have been raised by David Rosenberg, chief strategist at Gluskin Sheff, who said that over the four weeks up to August 24, bank credit shrank at an ‘epic’ 9pc annual pace, the M2 money supply shrank at 12.2pc and M1 shrank at 6.5pc.
"’For the first time in the post-Second World War era, we have deflation in credit, wages and rents and, from our lens, this is a toxic brew,’he said. (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, "US credit shrinks at Great Depression rate prompting fears of double-dip recession", UK Telegraph)
Foreclosures, delinquencies and defaults are all up. Foreclosure activity is currently at 300,000-plus per month and rising. A huge shadow inventory is being kept off-market to maintain prices. The drip, drip, drip-effect of excess inventory dumped onto the market will keep housing in the doldrums for a decade. Homeowners are unable to borrow on underwater homes. Everything points to a long-term slump in spending.
Corporations are finding it harder to roll over their debt, bank loans are defaulting at a historic pace, and commercial real estate is imploding. Credit destruction is unprecedented, massive and ongoing. The capital hole is bigger than the Fed and bigger than the Treasury. It can't be plugged with liquidity alone.
For now, the government can fiddle GDP with $800 billion infusion of stimulus, but what happens when the political will for more deficit spending dissipates? What happens when foreign investors demand the Fed stop writing checks on an overdrawn account?
The Fed has fixed nothing. The banks are still underwater, output is at record lows, and unemployment is climbing towards 10 per cent. Fed chair Ben Bernanke's multi-trillion dollar rescue programs have kept a wobbly system upright, but nothing more. The economy's underlying problems are still the same. The Fed's quantitative easing (monetization) program has sent stocks surging, but done nothing to stimulate the economy. That's because equities bubbles have negligible impact on aggregate demand; there's no knock-on effect. The real economy is still flatlining while Wall Street parties on. Bernanke's plan has been a total wash.
The government cannot deficit spend forever. Eventually, GDP will have to depend on wage growth and credit expansion. Given the political and institutional bias against labor, (and opposition to wages that rise with productivity) the only way to fuel the economy is through credit growth. And there's the rub. Households have lost nearly $14 trillion in wealth since the crisis began and are in no position to resume borrowing at pre-crisis levels. Consumers are cutting back on spending and paying down debt. They have no other choice.
This is from Bloomberg News:
"Americans plan to refrain from boosting their spending even after the biggest drop in consumption since 1980, signaling concern about the direction of the economy over the next six months.
“Only 8 per cent of U.S. adults plan to increase household spending, almost one-third will spend less, and 58 per cent expect to ‘stay the course,’ a Bloomberg News poll showed. More than 3 in 4 said they reduced spending in the past year.
“Underscoring consumers’ austere attitudes, 77 per cent of respondents said they have cut back on spending during the past year, 59 percent said they have made a bigger effort to pay off debts and 48 percent have put more money aside as savings." (Bloomberg News)
Savings are up and spending is down. The economy is headed into a long-term funk; the "new normal". The Fed's sleight-of-hand programs and Obama's stimulus elixir haven't changed the prevailing downward trend. If anything, they have made matters worse. Consider this from Janet Tavakoli, author of "Dear Mr. Buffett" in an interview with Max Keiser:
"Regarding the outlook, my analysis is grim. I am not a doomsayer, I follow the cash, and so far, I’ve been correct, and the government has been wrong. Here’s the situation. We are at greater risk of a total meltdown due to a deflationary collapse than we were in 2007. After the greatest Ponzi scheme in the history of the capital markets, we’ve seen history’s greatest fiscal and monetary expansion, but it hasn’t worked. Debt levels of consumers and business exceed the capacity to repay." (Janet Tavakoli On The Edge With Max Keiser)
The Fed has done nothing to restructure the financial system so the same problems which killed Lehman and thrust the global economy into a tailspin, persist today. When the stimulus runs out and the Fed ends its $1.25 trillion purchase of (Fannie and Freddie) mortgage-backed securities and $300 billion in US Treasuries, interest rates will rise, housing prices will tumble, and the economy will nosedive. Bernanke will be forced back to the printing presses, the only hope for reversing the deflationary spiral. This will trigger the next crisis, a run on the dollar.
This is from an article by Alice Schroeder of Bloomberg News:
"In all the talk of inflation because the Treasury is printing so much money versus deflation because it may not print enough, there is one type of inflation that is rarely discussed. This is the mega-inflation caused by a sudden currency devaluation. Currency is like any financial innovation, an obligation secured by assets. When the obligation is perceived to have increased far beyond the level justifiable by the assets, which in this case make up a country’s economy, a bubble has formed......Right now, the American economy is worth less than the value implied by the market value of its obligations." (Gold Tells You U.S. Bubble Hasn’t Popped Yet: Alice Schroeder, Bloomberg)
The system crashed because it was built on the false assumption that an unregulated shadow banking system could generate an infinite amount of credit without sufficient capital. This proved to be wrong. Capitalism requires capital. The trillions of dollars in loans, complex debt-instruments, off-balance sheet operations and derivatives contracts were all stacked atop a tiny scrap of capital which eventually collapsed beneath the weight of the debt. This system (securitization) which created the mess, cannot be restored. It required a strong currency, artificially low interest rates, and credulous investors who were unaware of the inherent risks of illiquid assets. Those conditions no longer exist, nor have they for more than two years. Even so, the Fed continues to pump blood into a corpse hoping for some fleeting sign of life. This is why an even bigger crisis cannot be too far off.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state, and can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com. Looks like he got back from France in one piece.
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney10052009.html
By MIKE WHITNEY
Credit is everything. Without credit expansion there's no recovery because there's no pick-up in overall demand. But credit growth is going backwards. The banks have tightened lending standards and the pool of credit-worthy applicants has vanished. Bank lending is off 14 per cent since October 2008. Private credit is presently decreasing at a 10.5 per cent annual rate. The situation is getting worse, not better.
From the UK Telegraph:
"Both bank credit and the M3 money supply in the United States have been contracting at rates comparable to the onset of the Great Depression since early summer, raising fears of a double-dip recession in 2010 and a slide into debt-deflation...
“Similar concerns have been raised by David Rosenberg, chief strategist at Gluskin Sheff, who said that over the four weeks up to August 24, bank credit shrank at an ‘epic’ 9pc annual pace, the M2 money supply shrank at 12.2pc and M1 shrank at 6.5pc.
"’For the first time in the post-Second World War era, we have deflation in credit, wages and rents and, from our lens, this is a toxic brew,’he said. (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, "US credit shrinks at Great Depression rate prompting fears of double-dip recession", UK Telegraph)
Foreclosures, delinquencies and defaults are all up. Foreclosure activity is currently at 300,000-plus per month and rising. A huge shadow inventory is being kept off-market to maintain prices. The drip, drip, drip-effect of excess inventory dumped onto the market will keep housing in the doldrums for a decade. Homeowners are unable to borrow on underwater homes. Everything points to a long-term slump in spending.
Corporations are finding it harder to roll over their debt, bank loans are defaulting at a historic pace, and commercial real estate is imploding. Credit destruction is unprecedented, massive and ongoing. The capital hole is bigger than the Fed and bigger than the Treasury. It can't be plugged with liquidity alone.
For now, the government can fiddle GDP with $800 billion infusion of stimulus, but what happens when the political will for more deficit spending dissipates? What happens when foreign investors demand the Fed stop writing checks on an overdrawn account?
The Fed has fixed nothing. The banks are still underwater, output is at record lows, and unemployment is climbing towards 10 per cent. Fed chair Ben Bernanke's multi-trillion dollar rescue programs have kept a wobbly system upright, but nothing more. The economy's underlying problems are still the same. The Fed's quantitative easing (monetization) program has sent stocks surging, but done nothing to stimulate the economy. That's because equities bubbles have negligible impact on aggregate demand; there's no knock-on effect. The real economy is still flatlining while Wall Street parties on. Bernanke's plan has been a total wash.
The government cannot deficit spend forever. Eventually, GDP will have to depend on wage growth and credit expansion. Given the political and institutional bias against labor, (and opposition to wages that rise with productivity) the only way to fuel the economy is through credit growth. And there's the rub. Households have lost nearly $14 trillion in wealth since the crisis began and are in no position to resume borrowing at pre-crisis levels. Consumers are cutting back on spending and paying down debt. They have no other choice.
This is from Bloomberg News:
"Americans plan to refrain from boosting their spending even after the biggest drop in consumption since 1980, signaling concern about the direction of the economy over the next six months.
“Only 8 per cent of U.S. adults plan to increase household spending, almost one-third will spend less, and 58 per cent expect to ‘stay the course,’ a Bloomberg News poll showed. More than 3 in 4 said they reduced spending in the past year.
“Underscoring consumers’ austere attitudes, 77 per cent of respondents said they have cut back on spending during the past year, 59 percent said they have made a bigger effort to pay off debts and 48 percent have put more money aside as savings." (Bloomberg News)
Savings are up and spending is down. The economy is headed into a long-term funk; the "new normal". The Fed's sleight-of-hand programs and Obama's stimulus elixir haven't changed the prevailing downward trend. If anything, they have made matters worse. Consider this from Janet Tavakoli, author of "Dear Mr. Buffett" in an interview with Max Keiser:
"Regarding the outlook, my analysis is grim. I am not a doomsayer, I follow the cash, and so far, I’ve been correct, and the government has been wrong. Here’s the situation. We are at greater risk of a total meltdown due to a deflationary collapse than we were in 2007. After the greatest Ponzi scheme in the history of the capital markets, we’ve seen history’s greatest fiscal and monetary expansion, but it hasn’t worked. Debt levels of consumers and business exceed the capacity to repay." (Janet Tavakoli On The Edge With Max Keiser)
The Fed has done nothing to restructure the financial system so the same problems which killed Lehman and thrust the global economy into a tailspin, persist today. When the stimulus runs out and the Fed ends its $1.25 trillion purchase of (Fannie and Freddie) mortgage-backed securities and $300 billion in US Treasuries, interest rates will rise, housing prices will tumble, and the economy will nosedive. Bernanke will be forced back to the printing presses, the only hope for reversing the deflationary spiral. This will trigger the next crisis, a run on the dollar.
This is from an article by Alice Schroeder of Bloomberg News:
"In all the talk of inflation because the Treasury is printing so much money versus deflation because it may not print enough, there is one type of inflation that is rarely discussed. This is the mega-inflation caused by a sudden currency devaluation. Currency is like any financial innovation, an obligation secured by assets. When the obligation is perceived to have increased far beyond the level justifiable by the assets, which in this case make up a country’s economy, a bubble has formed......Right now, the American economy is worth less than the value implied by the market value of its obligations." (Gold Tells You U.S. Bubble Hasn’t Popped Yet: Alice Schroeder, Bloomberg)
The system crashed because it was built on the false assumption that an unregulated shadow banking system could generate an infinite amount of credit without sufficient capital. This proved to be wrong. Capitalism requires capital. The trillions of dollars in loans, complex debt-instruments, off-balance sheet operations and derivatives contracts were all stacked atop a tiny scrap of capital which eventually collapsed beneath the weight of the debt. This system (securitization) which created the mess, cannot be restored. It required a strong currency, artificially low interest rates, and credulous investors who were unaware of the inherent risks of illiquid assets. Those conditions no longer exist, nor have they for more than two years. Even so, the Fed continues to pump blood into a corpse hoping for some fleeting sign of life. This is why an even bigger crisis cannot be too far off.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state, and can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com. Looks like he got back from France in one piece.
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney10052009.html
ENVIRONMENT: Back to Traditional Farming to Beat Climate Change
By Anil Netto
PENANG, Malaysia, Oct 9 (IPS/IFEJ) - When organisers of an international conference on climate change and the food crisis first scheduled the event here for late September, little did they realise the event would be sandwiched by two typhoons buffeting the region. Ironically, the first typhoon, ‘Ketsana’, delayed the arrival of conference delegates from the Philippines.
A week after Ketsana struck the Philippines on Sep. 26 and then Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, it was the turn of Typhoon Parma to wreak havoc in the Philippines on Oct. 3. Now downgraded to a tropical storm, ‘Parma’ is still lingering over the region and initially entangled with another Pacific super typhoon, ‘Melor’, which then headed towards Japan.
Ketsana left a devastating trail after it dumped the equivalent of one month's rainfall over Manila within six hours. Although Parma largely spared the country, it flooded large tracts of rice fields in northern Philippines and destroyed crops ready for harvest.
The typhoons in the region brought into sharp relief the issue of climate change as farmers struggle to cope with changing weather patterns. It is not just the sudden storms and heavy rainfalls that are disrupting farming but also the blurring of the seasons.
"If it rains, it rains heavily. In the past, there was less rainfall in September and October, but now there are heavy rains and strong winds," says Che Ani Mat Zain, a rice farmer in Kedah in northern Malaysia.
"Our yield is fine if the weather is okay, but not if it is unpredictable," he observes, adding that December and January used to be fairly dry months in Kedah, but now farmers experience more rain.
That is a pattern of disorientation that is being felt across the region. "The dry season and wet seasons are now blurred," concurs Dr Charito Medina, national coordinator for the Farmer-Scientist Partnership for Development (or ‘MASIPAG’, its Filipino acronym), a Philippine-based organisation bringing together 642 farmer organisations, representing 35,000 farmers, 60 non- governmental organisations and 15 scientists.
"Farmers can't rely on a dependable rainfall. For planting you need the soil to be wet, so that when you sow seeds, it will germinate," he noted at the sidelines of the conference organised by the Pesticide Action Network's Asia Pacific office on Sep. 27 to 29 in Penang.
Droughts and rainy periods seem to be longer and more intense now. "Typhoons are becoming stronger and more frequent, and strong winds may damage crops, which could cause 100 percent damage," he told IPS days before Typhoon Parma struck.
Unpredictable rainfall can disrupt the rice-planting season. If the rain stops for two weeks, there is crop failure and farmers have to replant. But they may not have any more seeds and may need to buy more from agricultural suppliers, which they may not be able to afford, points out Medina.
In Indonesia, Erpan Faryadie, secretary-general of the Alliance of Agrarian Reform Movement (or AGRA), a national peasants' organisation representing 40,000 landless peasants, farmers and agricultural workers, sees a similar dismal pattern.
Droughts and floods have become more noticeable in the last decade, after swathes of Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi were heavily deforested and converted to monoculture farming. More floods have been seen in these provinces, which rarely happened before, notes Faryadie.
The situation in Java, which accounts for more than half of national rice production and where forests were lost much earlier, is more pronounced. During the rainy season, rice fields and agricultural lands in north Java are sometimes flooded. "The Green Revolution rice strains couldn’t withstand the flooding, and the farmers couldn't get their harvests after the flooding," he says.
The Green Revolution, a program begun in 1960s to avert a global food crisis, is based on the use of high-yielding seed varieties using modern inputs of fertilizers and pesticides.
"The biggest problem was the destruction of traditional farming, which was enough for farmers’ subsistence and national sufficiency if they used traditional varieties," he laments, pointing out that some of the traditional rice seeds are more resistant to drought and heavy rains, with stalks still standing after floods.
The blurring of seasons has also hit farmers in the mountains of the Central Himalayas, where the predictable climate previously ensured food security. But summer this year produced record temperatures, as the Henwal stream dried up over a two-kilometre stretch for the first time in living memory. The droughts persisted even during the monsoon season, disrupting the planting cycle.
Meanwhile, the Gangroti Glacier, the source of the Ganga River in Uttarkashi district of Garhwal Himalaya, continues to retreat by 15 to 20 metres a year. Some farmers are now trying to adapt to climate change by taking another look at traditional seeds and farming practices.
MASIPAG in the Philippines adopts a "farmers’ empowerment" approach: it encourages farmers to collect, breed and select such traditional varieties of seeds to produce organic food.
Farmers carry out experiments themselves, with up to 50 varieties planted side-by-side in trial farms, measuring 600 to 800 square metres. Traditional seed varieties are selected as they are the most adaptable, the products of selection over time. These are then collected and improved through breeding and selection.
Some traditional varieties can survive dry spells better; others are more resistant to pest and diseases, which are themselves influenced by climate change. For instance, greater humidity and moisture result in more microorganisms, which can cause diseases, whereas a prolonged dry season could lead to more insect pests.
Each organisation comprising the farmers’ network then selects the top 10 varieties for the locality under organic conditions — with zero chemical inputs — and these are distributed by the members among themselves.
"(These trials determine) the survival of the fittest (among traditional varieties)," says Medina. "In contrast, conventional agriculture creates the ideal environment by using expensive chemical inputs."
MASIPAG also promotes a diversified and integrated farming system. Farmers are encouraged to plant other crops such as tubers, which are more resistant to environmental changes because the edible portion lies below the surface of the soil. Cassava, sweet potato and cooking banana are also planted as "survival crops to fill the stomach". Biomass is composted for use as organic fertilizers.
Native chickens are reared, and these are regarded as "ATMs in the backyard": if there is a typhoon, chickens can be sold in the market to raise emergency funds to buy supplies. "You can withdraw (from these ‘ATMs’ when you need it," quips Medina. Similarly, goats and cows, which convert weed into food and produce manure for the farm, can be sold during emergencies.
Such initiatives are precisely what may be needed. A new report published by GRAIN , an international group working to support community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems, shows that more sustainable agriculture can put much of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere back into the soil.
Evidence in the report shows that industrial agriculture, and the global food system of which it is part, has sent large amounts of this carbon from the soil into the atmosphere, the group said in a press release.
And calculations reveal that policies supporting small farmer-centred agriculture, which also focuses on restoring soil fertility, would play a big role in resolving the worsening climate crisis. "In 50 years the soils could capture about 450 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is more than two thirds of the current excess in the atmosphere," says the report.
But that is only if agricultural sovereignty is returned to millions of small farmers and farming communities, and policies are formulated to support their livelihoods.
"The evidence is irrefutable. If we can change the way we farm and the way we produce and distribute food, then we have a powerful solution for combating the climate crisis. There are no technical hurdles to achieving these results, it is only a matter of political will, says GRAIN coordinator Henk Hobbelink.
*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS – Inter Press Service and IFEJ – International Federation of Environmental Journalists, for the Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development (www.complusalliance.org).
(END/2009)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48783
PENANG, Malaysia, Oct 9 (IPS/IFEJ) - When organisers of an international conference on climate change and the food crisis first scheduled the event here for late September, little did they realise the event would be sandwiched by two typhoons buffeting the region. Ironically, the first typhoon, ‘Ketsana’, delayed the arrival of conference delegates from the Philippines.
A week after Ketsana struck the Philippines on Sep. 26 and then Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, it was the turn of Typhoon Parma to wreak havoc in the Philippines on Oct. 3. Now downgraded to a tropical storm, ‘Parma’ is still lingering over the region and initially entangled with another Pacific super typhoon, ‘Melor’, which then headed towards Japan.
Ketsana left a devastating trail after it dumped the equivalent of one month's rainfall over Manila within six hours. Although Parma largely spared the country, it flooded large tracts of rice fields in northern Philippines and destroyed crops ready for harvest.
The typhoons in the region brought into sharp relief the issue of climate change as farmers struggle to cope with changing weather patterns. It is not just the sudden storms and heavy rainfalls that are disrupting farming but also the blurring of the seasons.
"If it rains, it rains heavily. In the past, there was less rainfall in September and October, but now there are heavy rains and strong winds," says Che Ani Mat Zain, a rice farmer in Kedah in northern Malaysia.
"Our yield is fine if the weather is okay, but not if it is unpredictable," he observes, adding that December and January used to be fairly dry months in Kedah, but now farmers experience more rain.
That is a pattern of disorientation that is being felt across the region. "The dry season and wet seasons are now blurred," concurs Dr Charito Medina, national coordinator for the Farmer-Scientist Partnership for Development (or ‘MASIPAG’, its Filipino acronym), a Philippine-based organisation bringing together 642 farmer organisations, representing 35,000 farmers, 60 non- governmental organisations and 15 scientists.
"Farmers can't rely on a dependable rainfall. For planting you need the soil to be wet, so that when you sow seeds, it will germinate," he noted at the sidelines of the conference organised by the Pesticide Action Network's Asia Pacific office on Sep. 27 to 29 in Penang.
Droughts and rainy periods seem to be longer and more intense now. "Typhoons are becoming stronger and more frequent, and strong winds may damage crops, which could cause 100 percent damage," he told IPS days before Typhoon Parma struck.
Unpredictable rainfall can disrupt the rice-planting season. If the rain stops for two weeks, there is crop failure and farmers have to replant. But they may not have any more seeds and may need to buy more from agricultural suppliers, which they may not be able to afford, points out Medina.
In Indonesia, Erpan Faryadie, secretary-general of the Alliance of Agrarian Reform Movement (or AGRA), a national peasants' organisation representing 40,000 landless peasants, farmers and agricultural workers, sees a similar dismal pattern.
Droughts and floods have become more noticeable in the last decade, after swathes of Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi were heavily deforested and converted to monoculture farming. More floods have been seen in these provinces, which rarely happened before, notes Faryadie.
The situation in Java, which accounts for more than half of national rice production and where forests were lost much earlier, is more pronounced. During the rainy season, rice fields and agricultural lands in north Java are sometimes flooded. "The Green Revolution rice strains couldn’t withstand the flooding, and the farmers couldn't get their harvests after the flooding," he says.
The Green Revolution, a program begun in 1960s to avert a global food crisis, is based on the use of high-yielding seed varieties using modern inputs of fertilizers and pesticides.
"The biggest problem was the destruction of traditional farming, which was enough for farmers’ subsistence and national sufficiency if they used traditional varieties," he laments, pointing out that some of the traditional rice seeds are more resistant to drought and heavy rains, with stalks still standing after floods.
The blurring of seasons has also hit farmers in the mountains of the Central Himalayas, where the predictable climate previously ensured food security. But summer this year produced record temperatures, as the Henwal stream dried up over a two-kilometre stretch for the first time in living memory. The droughts persisted even during the monsoon season, disrupting the planting cycle.
Meanwhile, the Gangroti Glacier, the source of the Ganga River in Uttarkashi district of Garhwal Himalaya, continues to retreat by 15 to 20 metres a year. Some farmers are now trying to adapt to climate change by taking another look at traditional seeds and farming practices.
MASIPAG in the Philippines adopts a "farmers’ empowerment" approach: it encourages farmers to collect, breed and select such traditional varieties of seeds to produce organic food.
Farmers carry out experiments themselves, with up to 50 varieties planted side-by-side in trial farms, measuring 600 to 800 square metres. Traditional seed varieties are selected as they are the most adaptable, the products of selection over time. These are then collected and improved through breeding and selection.
Some traditional varieties can survive dry spells better; others are more resistant to pest and diseases, which are themselves influenced by climate change. For instance, greater humidity and moisture result in more microorganisms, which can cause diseases, whereas a prolonged dry season could lead to more insect pests.
Each organisation comprising the farmers’ network then selects the top 10 varieties for the locality under organic conditions — with zero chemical inputs — and these are distributed by the members among themselves.
"(These trials determine) the survival of the fittest (among traditional varieties)," says Medina. "In contrast, conventional agriculture creates the ideal environment by using expensive chemical inputs."
MASIPAG also promotes a diversified and integrated farming system. Farmers are encouraged to plant other crops such as tubers, which are more resistant to environmental changes because the edible portion lies below the surface of the soil. Cassava, sweet potato and cooking banana are also planted as "survival crops to fill the stomach". Biomass is composted for use as organic fertilizers.
Native chickens are reared, and these are regarded as "ATMs in the backyard": if there is a typhoon, chickens can be sold in the market to raise emergency funds to buy supplies. "You can withdraw (from these ‘ATMs’ when you need it," quips Medina. Similarly, goats and cows, which convert weed into food and produce manure for the farm, can be sold during emergencies.
Such initiatives are precisely what may be needed. A new report published by GRAIN , an international group working to support community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems, shows that more sustainable agriculture can put much of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere back into the soil.
Evidence in the report shows that industrial agriculture, and the global food system of which it is part, has sent large amounts of this carbon from the soil into the atmosphere, the group said in a press release.
And calculations reveal that policies supporting small farmer-centred agriculture, which also focuses on restoring soil fertility, would play a big role in resolving the worsening climate crisis. "In 50 years the soils could capture about 450 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is more than two thirds of the current excess in the atmosphere," says the report.
But that is only if agricultural sovereignty is returned to millions of small farmers and farming communities, and policies are formulated to support their livelihoods.
"The evidence is irrefutable. If we can change the way we farm and the way we produce and distribute food, then we have a powerful solution for combating the climate crisis. There are no technical hurdles to achieving these results, it is only a matter of political will, says GRAIN coordinator Henk Hobbelink.
*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS – Inter Press Service and IFEJ – International Federation of Environmental Journalists, for the Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development (www.complusalliance.org).
(END/2009)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48783
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