Barack Obama urges Russia not to interfere in neighbouring states
By Luke Harding
Tuesday 7 July 2009 15.07 BST
. . .
In a keynote speech during his first trip to Russia as US president, Obama called on Moscow to stop viewing America as an adversary. The assumption that Russia and the US were eternal antagonists was "a 20th-century view" rooted in the past, he said.
Obama delivered a tough, though implicit, critique of Kremlin foreign policy, rejecting the claim it has "privileged interests" in post-Soviet countries. He said the 19th-century doctrine of spheres of influence and "great powers forging competing blocs" was finished.
"In 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonising other countries. The days when empires could treat sovereign states as pieces on a chessboard are over," he said, speaking to graduates from Moscow's New Economic School. |
|
'These steps are covered with blood'
By Ed Pilkington
Tuesday 7 July 2009
Her 1973 supreme court case, Roe v Wade, gave every US woman the right to have an abortion. Yet now, Norma McCorvey is prepared to go to prison to help reverse that law. The figurehead of America's anti-abortion movement tells Ed Pilkington what caused this extraordinary change of heart.
. . .
She is, or was, the Jane Roe of the US supreme court's most famous and contentious ruling, Roe v Wade. In 1973, as the anonymous pregnant plaintiff, her plight was presented to the court so that American women could win the constitutional right to an abortion.
. . .
For 36 years, Roe v Wade has also been the great divider for McCorvey personally. Abortion has come to dominate her life, carving it into two blocks that are so wildly at odds with each other that it is hard to imagine them being squeezed into the same human frame.
. . .
Yet here is McCorvey today, on the steps of the supreme court where those rights were laid down: "These steps are covered in blood! 'Equal justice under the law' - what crock! If there is no right for a child to be born, there is no justice at all." |
|
US adds to its cost burden
By Martin Hutchinson
Jul 8, 2009
The Waxman-Markey "cap and trade" global warming bill passed by the US House of Representatives on June 26 introduces what are essentially government price controls on energy, which at present represents about 9% of the US economy. The impending healthcare legislation, if passed in one of its more extreme forms, will extend government price controls over healthcare, 16% of the US economy. Given what we know about the supreme efficiency of the price mechanism in allocating resources, one is forced to ask: are we in danger of reaching the point at which the US economy stops working?
The current level of price controls in the US economy is quite small, significantly smaller than in most European or Asian economies. . .
. . . at present, the price-controlled sectors of the US economy represent no more than about 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) outside the direct government sector. That adds about 15% to the price controlled share of output, making the total around 20% (government transfer payments such as social security and unemployment benefits should be excluded, since those resources are subject to market forces once in the hands of the recipient.) |
|
US may limit energy speculation
By (BBC)
18:51 GMT, Tuesday, 7 July 2009 19:51 UK
A US regulator is to hold hearings to decide whether it should clamp down on speculation in the energy market.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) imposes limits on trading positions in agricultural commodities but not on oil or gas.
Gary Gensler, who took over as CFTC chairman in May, wants to look into why commodities are treated differently.
The hearings are being seen as part of the Obama administration's attempts to stabilise financial markets. |
|
US loan defaults hit record level
By (BBC)
15:27 GMT, Tuesday, 7 July 2009 16:27 UK
The level of people falling behind with consumer loans in the US hit a new high in the first three months of 2009, the American Bankers Association said.
Rising unemployment was behind the missed payments, it suggested. |
|
US 'serial killer' shot by police
By (BBC)
09:21 GMT, Tuesday, 7 July 2009 10:21 UK
A serial killer who terrorised a town in South Carolina has been shot and killed by officers, US police say.
Patrick Tracy Burris, 41, was killed when officers investigating an attempted burglary tried to arrest him.
Bullets in his gun reportedly matched those used in the murders, which saw five residents of the town of Gaffney shot and killed within a few days.
Police said Burris had a long criminal record and had been released on parole in April after serving eight years. |
|
Troubled waters
By Nick Miroff
July 7, 2009 09:06 ET
In their diplomatic relations, the U.S. and Cuba are like a bitterly divorced couple, whose shared history is so marred by grudges and recriminations it's hard to figure out how to start talking again.
So with the Obama administration offering a fresh start and an open hand, and Cuba welcoming the overtures, the two sides are preparing to meet for talks on a topic of common concern: migration. The discussions are widely viewed as potential building blocks for a broader dialogue between the two countries.
. . .
Central to Havana's ire is the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, the U.S. law allowing most Cuban migrants who reach American soil to become permanent residents and receive government assistance — a privilege, in the words of a recent U.S. congressional report, "that no other group or nationality has." According to the report, some 50,000 Cubans became permanent U.S. residents in the 2008 government fiscal year, making the island the fifth-largest source of legal permanent residents to the U.S., after Mexico, China, India, and the Philippines. |
|
Obama Backs Helping Hand For Long-Term Care
By Joseph Shapiro
July 7, 2009
Until recently, it looked like long-term care was not going to be a serious part of any potential health care overhaul. But that changed when the Obama administration this week endorsed a new government social insurance program that would help people put aside money to pay for the high costs of going to a nursing home, assisted living or getting services needed to live at home as they age.
As the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee marked up the long-term care part of a health care change bill Tuesday, Health and Humans Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to committee Chairman Ted Kennedy with an endorsement. She signaled the Obama administration's support for something called the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act (CLASS Act). |
|
Can Expanding Food Stamps Jolt The Economy?
By Kathy Lohr
July 7, 2009
The federal food stamp program is being beefed up in hopes that it will help jolt the sagging economy back to life. However, economists are conflicted over how big an impact this increase will ultimately have.
The government is spending $20 billion to expand the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, by about 13 percent. For Charmaine McCauley, a single mother of two in suburban Atlanta, this increase translates into an extra $45 a month.
. . .
"This injection of funds ends up being spent on food, and that has a multiplier effect through the economy," explains Ray Hill, professor of finance and economics at Emory University. "As more people are employed in grocery stores, more people are employed to make the food, more people are employed to grow the food as a result of that stimulus."
Most economists say every dollar spent on food will result in $1.50 to $2 in stimulus. The problem, Hill says, is that $20 billion is not enough. |
|
NYC Eviction Business Good As Foreclosures Persist
By Ailsa Chang
July 7, 2009
For the third month in a row, more than 300,000 homes went into foreclosure. And for those who have to carry out evictions, throwing people out of their homes is a stressful and dangerous job. In New York City in recent years, two marshals have been shot, and one was set on fire and killed trying to evict a woman in Brooklyn. |
|
States Look To Cigarettes To Bridge Budget Gaps
By Debbie Elliott
July 7, 2009
So-called sin taxes are always popular in a recession, and this year is no different.
Higher tobacco taxes have been part of the budget debate in nearly half the states this year, and in some surprising places. Eleven states, including tobacco-growing Kentucky, have raised their cigarette levies. Mississippi did so twice. |
|
Gore says climate deal needs more public pressure
By Peter Griffiths
Tue Jul 7, 2009 11:03am EDT
Public awareness about the "catastrophe" of climate change is not high enough to pressure politicians into taking action, former Vice President Al Gore said on Tuesday.
Gore, who shared a Nobel Prize in 2007 for his environmental campaigning, said politicians will only do more once the people who elect them force the issue.
Voters need to tell leaders they must act on the environmental concerns if countries are to strike a new deal on global warming at U.N. climate talks in Denmark later this year. |
|
Emerging El Nino set to drive up carbon emissions
By David Fogarty
Tue Jul 7, 2009 8:35am EDT
Across the globe an emerging El Nino weather pattern threatens to cause droughts and floods and trigger a spike in planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from burning forests.
El Nino is a warming of tropical Pacific waters that affects wind circulation patterns. Its effects on the global climate vary from one event to the next. |
|
Oil, Gas Market Speculation May Face Restrictions
By Tina Seeley
July 7
U.S. regulators say they may clamp down on oil and gas price speculators by limiting the holdings of energy futures traders, including index and exchange-traded funds.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will hold hearings this month and next to explore the need for government-imposed restrictions on speculative trading in oil, gas and other energy markets, Chairman Gary Gensler said today in a statement. |
|
Congressional Smokescreen Blown With Oil
By Karl Denninger
Tuesday, July 7. 2009
. . .
REINSTATE Glass-Steagall in its entirety, and return commercial banking to the utility function that it is and should be, as it is both regulated and protected by the government against the full consequences of failure.
Demand that those who want the "hedging exception" demonstrate their actual use of the commodity in question in amounts that correspond to the hedged positions held, with nightly reporting requirements to the CFTC. |
|
California - And by Extension the U.S. - Headed for Permanently Smaller Economy
By Gregor MacDonald
July 07, 2009
The June issue of Gregor.us Monthly, The Scholarship of Collapse, addresses several views of economic and systemic collapse from the works of Jared Diamond to Joseph Tainter, and then goes on to apply these views to the United States–and to its biggest state, California. Frankly, it’s not much fun to suggest that another leg down in housing is on the way. Or, that California is unlikely to see its GDP exceed its previous peak for quite some time. But without the two industries that characterized post-war growth in the US, housing and automobiles (and the financial industry that squatted on top of these) it’s hard to see how California–and the US by extension–does not become a permanently smaller economy. |
|
CFTC - Futures Position Limits on Energy?
By Nate Hagens
July 7, 2009 - 6:06pm
We have a monumental problem - a system whose claims on the future are higher than its real assets. Reducing positions sizes in energy futures is a step in the right direction to equilibriate paper markers with real wealth. But it will have immediate negative repurcussions (reducing liquidity, reducing confidence in system, increasing volatility etc.), which is why it ultimately won't happen. We will continue to borrow from all aspects of our socio-ecological system to keep the current paradigm intact (growth at all costs, marginal unit pricing, infinite substitutes, market will solve it, etc). Sooner, rather than later, a plan for re-linking scarce resources to what and how we execute social transactions is going to occur. Like M. King Hubbert, I am in favor of an energy based currency and no futures trading at all other than for producers and those taking delivery. But these ideas are so many steps beyond 'regulating oil futures in order to keep prices low' I expect I am wasting my breath. |
|
U.S. mortgage fraud "rampant" and growing: FBI
By Peter Henderson
Tue Jul 7, 2009 7:25pm EDT
U.S. mortgage fraud reports jumped 36 percent last year as desperate homeowners and industry professionals tried to maintain their standard of living from the boom years, the FBI said on Tuesday.
Suspicious activity reports rose to 63,713 in fiscal year 2008, which ended last September, from 46,717 the year before. California and Florida, centers of the housing bust, had the highest numbers of suspicious reports as foreclosures jumped, the stock market dropped and credit dried up. |
|
Next leader of large U.S. union may be more militant
By Andrew Stern
Tue Jul 7, 2009 6:35pm EDT
Labor unions are poised for a return to prominence, according to the likely next leader of the largest U.S. labor federation who promises to employ an aggressive and innovative strategy to promote workers' agenda.
Richard Trumka, the secretary-treasurer of the 11 million-member AFL-CIO, would not divulge in an interview with Reuters what specific tactics he may use, saying he did not want to lose the element of surprise.
"Here's the deal," the 59-year-old Trumka said. "For employers who want to work with us and want to work with workers, we'll be the best friend they ever had. For those that want to abuse people, take benefits away, jettison retirees, then we are going to do everything in our power to stop that from happening. |
|
|