Pacific Progressive

Offshoring Manufacturing Has Broad Implications for National Security

from the Alliance for American Manufacturing

The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) announced today that it is partnering with two former Department of Homeland Security officials, former Secretary Tom Ridge and former Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection Colonel Robert B. Stephan, to review the national and homeland security risks posed by the decline of America’s manufacturing base and assess what steps are necessary to ensure adequate domestic production capacity to protect our nation’s security interests.

AAM will publish the findings of this assessment in a report due out at the end of this year, which will include specific recommendations for enhancing national security, preparedness and resiliency through a strong domestic manufacturing sector.

“Ten years have passed since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and during that time the U.S. has seen the loss of over 50,000 manufacturing plants and over 5.7 million jobs,” said AAM executive director Scott Paul. “This report will raise awareness of the need to rebuild our industrial base to ensure that Americans are safe and secure.”

Paul added, “Both Governor Ridge and Colonel Stephan are eminently qualified to review weaknesses in our domestic manufacturing sector that could inhibit our ability to both prepare for and respond to a terrorist attack or naturally occurring disaster.”

"The AAM report will look at what's working, where gaps still remain and how to address those vulnerabilities," said Ridge. "Such a review is important because although great progress has been made in the ten years since the 9/11 attacks, evolving threats continue to pose risks to U.S. critical infrastructure preparedness and resilience."  

"One key aspect of preventing and mitigating disastrous events is hardening critical infrastructure," said Stephan. "This includes nuclear power plants, refineries, chemical facilities, pipelines, and transportation systems. A robust, diverse, and resilient domestic manufacturing sector is vital to these protective efforts."

The report will also address the risks associated with growing U.S. dependence on a range of manufactured goods, from steel to microchips, that are made in China or other nations. Risks may include protracted delivery times, sub-grade quality and lack of access to necessary materials and components from potentially hostile trading partners. China recently surpassed the U.S. as the leading manufacturing nation – a position held by the U.S. for more than a century.

Tom Ridge is the president and CEO of Ridge Global, an international security and risk management firm headquartered in Washington, DC. He served as the 43rd Governor of Pennsylvania and the first Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 

Colonel Bob Stephan is managing director of Dutko Global Risk Management and served as the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection from 2005 to 2008. In this capacity, he spearheaded development of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP).

High Levels of Latino and African American Seniors Lack Retirement Security

From Demos

The Institute on Assets and Social Policy and the national policy center Demos released a report revealing that only four percent of Latino seniors and eight percent of African-American seniors have the resources to maintain economic security for the duration of their lives. The report, "The Crisis of Economic Insecurity for African-American and Latino Seniors," underscores how the nation's seniors were experiencing declining economic security even before the Great Recession.

While only one in four white seniors currently have adequate resources for a secure retirement, the disparity between whites and people of color reveals that, for seniors of color, retirement insecurity is the norm and security is the exception.  This report looks to the history of racial discrimination in the housing and labor markets to explain this condition of insecurity among seniors of color: the extensive practice of redlining, segregation and workplace discrimination has inhibited the ability of today's seniors of color to accumulate the asset wealth needed for a secure retirement. Inequality experienced over the course of one's lifetime is compounded in later years and can continue with ripple effects over generations..

In response to these findings, the report makes the following recommendations:

--Ensure the strength and adequacy of the Social Security program.

--Sustain funding for senior support services, which help seniors meet basic needs.

Student Loan Default Rate Soars at For-Profit Schools

This material was created by Campus Progress.

 by Brian Stewart

More people are defaulting on student loan payments than in the past decade—with the largest spike in default rates coming in the high-cost, low-benefit for-profit education industry.

According to new data released today by the Department of Education, 8.8 percent of all student loan borrowers in fiscal 2009 defaulted on their loans, an increase from just 7 percent of borrowers in fiscal 2008. The figures are for those whose initial loan repayments were due between October 2008 and September 2009 and had defaulted by this September 2010.

What’s most troubling is the impact of for-profit colleges on the national student loan default rate. A whopping 15 percent of student borrowers at for-profit institutions—or one in six—failed to repay their loans, up from 11.6 percent. At some for-profit schools, default rates exceeded 20 percent.

In hard numbers: Out of about 3.6 million students who entered repayment during the window, 320,000 defaulted after two years—81,000 more than in fiscal 2008, with more than half from for-profits.

Hunger in America - Suffering We All Pay For

By Donald S. Shepard, Elizabeth Setren, Donna Cooper

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

Download this report (pdf)

Download the introduction and summary (pdf)

Read the full report in your web browser (Scribd)

See also: Interactive Map: Costs of Hunger by Donna Cooper

The Great Recession and the currently tepid economic recovery swelled the ranks of American households confronting hunger and food insecurity by 30 percent. In 2010 48.8 million Americans lived in food insecure households, meaning they were hungry or faced food insecurity at some point during the year. That’s 12 million more people than faced hunger in 2007, before the recession, and represents 16.1 percent of the U.S. population.

Yet hunger is not readily seen in America. We see neither newscasts showing small American children with distended bellies nor legions of thin, frail people lined up at soup kitchens. That’s primarily because the expansion of the critical federal nutrition assistance program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, helped many families meet some of their household food needs.

What Role for Labor in the Progressive Uprising? A Conversation With Stephen Lerner

by: Amy Dean, Truthout | Interview

No force did more to build the American middle class than organized labor. In recent decades, however, unions have been decimated. Despite concerted efforts to turn the tide, the movement now represents only 7 percent of workers in the private sector. Never have working people in this country been more in need of a collective voice. Yet, we must ask, can labor alone create the change we need? If it can't do it by itself, what role can unions play in supporting a wider progressive uprising?

Few individuals are offering more interesting, credible and challenging views on this question than veteran labor strategist Stephen Lerner. Ezra Klein recently wrote in The Washington Post: "Ask union types who the smartest labor organizer is and they're likely to point you towards [SEIU] organizer Stephen Lerner, who planned the legendary Justice for Janitors campaign." In the most recent issue of New Labor Forum, Lerner has an essay titled "A New Insurgency Can Only Arise Outside the Progressive and Labor Establishment." It is a must-read for all those who wish to think seriously about creating change in this country.

On a recent trip to Washington, DC, I had a chance to sit down with Lerner on his back porch and have a conversation about his article. I walked away with the resolve that never before has it been so important for labor to have an inside-outside strategy. This means that unions can't just work to get better politicians elected, but must also help foster a wider grassroots insurgency that can directly challenge the forces that have undermined the American middle class.

Report: Race, Gender Still Barriers to High Earnings, Education Best Factor

This material was created by Campus Progress.

 by Yana Kunichoff

Despite rising youth unemployment, a recent study indicates that hitting the books is still the best way to predict future earning power. But future economic achievement is also heavily dependent on race and gender.

Women continue to make less at every level of education than men, according to the authors of “The College Pay-Off,” a study by the Georgetown University Center of Education and the Workforce. And minorities follow a similar pattern with fewer earnings.

Even weighing gaps in wages and the availability of full-time work for different demographics, Anthony Carnevale, the center’s director and co-author of the report,argues that education remains the best bet for securing future earning power.

The earnings gap between an individual with a bachelor’s degree and an individual with only a high school education has continued to increase, jumping from a 75 percent difference in 1999 to 84 percent today, according to the study. In dollar terms, that’s an average of $2.3 million in median lifetime earnings for those with bachelor’s degrees compared to about $1.3 million for Americans with high school diplomas.

Voluntary Standards for For-Profit Colleges Don’t Measure Up - Standards Must Address Serious Issues at For-Profit Schools

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Julie Margetta Morgan 

Léalo en español

The Coalition for Educational Success, an advocacy group representing several for-profit colleges, released a set of voluntary standards for responsible conduct to govern for-profit colleges. The standards require ethical recruitment practices and transparency on key pieces of information such as graduation rates, employment outcomes, and financial aid procedures.

Self-regulation is an admirable goal but it only works if the scope of the standards matches the scale of the problem they seek to address. In this case, the coalition’s standards do no more than tinker around the edges of the deep dysfunctions evident at some for-profit colleges.

The following chart reflects the percentage of students who enrolled at a four-year for-profit college in 2003 that had achieved any type of postsecondary credential within six years, by selected racial and ethnic groups.

China’s Currency Problem Isn’t the Only Problem - The United States Needs to Invest to Remain Globally Competitive

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Adam Hersh 

Legislation to pressure China on its undervalued exchange rate is wending its way through the Senate this week. Addressing China’s undervalued currency would be a good thing: China’s exchange rate policies are partially to blame for the United States’ growing trade deficit, erosion of jobs providing middle-class livelihoods, and international financial imbalances that threaten to destabilize the world economy—and China’s economy, too. Policymakers should not pretend, however, that tackling the exchange rate issue will be a panacea for our economic growth, jobs, and competitiveness challenges.

China’s undervalued exchange rate policy in effect subsidizes its exports, while at the same time making exports from the United States that much more expensive in terms of China’s money, the renminbi (sometimes referred to as yuan). But China’s economic modernization and transformation from an inefficient agricultural producer to a nimble, technologically advancing, and globally competitive manufacturing economy rests on a much broader foundation of national economic strategy than just its exchange rate management.

China is making massive public investments in modern infrastructure and renewable energy systems, science and technology, education, and (more recently) social protection. The United States used to know such public policies are critical in providing a foundation for robust private-sector economic growth, and could do these things again today irrespective of China’s exchange rate—were it not for obstructionist politics in Congress.

Ohio Business Roundtable Study of Public Compensation is Flawed

From the Economic Policy Institute.

A recent Ohio Business Roundtable study critiqued a February Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study that found that public sector employees are neither over- nor undercompensated.  In a new paper, Dr. Jeffrey Keefe of Rutgers University, the author of EPI’s paper, explains how the Ohio Business Roundtable study’s analysis is faulty and why its central finding—that Ohio public sector workers are overcompensated by 43%–is wrong.  The study was done for the Ohio Business Roundtable by Andrew G. Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute and Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation.

In their study, Biggs and Richwine double count retiree health benefits and inflate the costs of employee pensions, among other errors.  They also create a “job security premium” for public sector workers even though more than 40,000 Ohio public employee jobs have been lost in the last five years.  In addition, Biggs and Richwine use calculations in their study that cannot be replicated.

 

Gas Company Strike Looms - Contract Ends on October 14

Sempra Energy, parent of your local gas company, hasn't signed a new contract with their utility workers even though contract expires  tomorrow.  Representatives of the Utility Workers Union of America say that Sempra wants concessions from the workers - no raises, ending pensions, ending current retiree health care benefits among other items - while giving management paychecks in the tens of millions of dollars.

More details to follow.

How Does This Create Jobs - 'Women Will Die Act'

Today, the House passed restrictions on abortion coverage under the Affordable Care Act.  HR 430  which brought HR 358 'Protect Life Act' to a vote, restricts the ability of women to buy insurance coverage which includes paying for abortions - if full reproductive health care for women is covered, the plan can't be included in the federal health insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act.  The bill  has been called the 'Women Will Die Act' because there are loopholes that allow health care providers who object to abortion prevent transferring a woman to a medical facility that will do the procedure.  If a woman comes bleeding out from an incomplete miscarriage, she can be left to die instead of being treated.

Can anyone tell me how this creates jobs?  Why is the House, with 20 days left on the legislative calendar, moving into women's uteruses instead of moving on jobs?  

The bill will most likely die in the Senate but a significant amount of time was wasted on this bill that could be used to create jobs for Americans to get us back to work.

Who Voted for Not Creating Jobs -  Call them up and ask them how this bill creates jobs.

Dana Rohrbacher

Ed Royce

John Campbell

Gary Miller

Darrell Issa

Ken Calvert

Community Groups, Labor and 'Occupy Chicago' Protest Mortgage Bankers Association, Seven Thousand Strong

by: Yana Kunichoff, Truthout | Report

 

Protesters gather for the Occupy Chicago General Assembly. Click to view larger.(Photo: Mario Garcia-Baeza)

When the Mortgage Bankers Association decided to hold their annual conference in Chicago, they weren't counting on a welcome committee. What they got was more than 7,000 protesters taking over the road underneath their downtown rooftop reception at the city's Art Institute, chanting, "We are the 99 percent" and "How to fix the deficit? Tax, tax, tax the rich."

Take Back Chicago, a coalition of labor unions and community groups, were joined by Occupy Chicago in the first of a three-day series of demonstrations around the Mortgage Bankers Association meeting.

Too Many Crooks in the Kitchen—Spoiled the Broth

This material was created by Campus Progress.

by Jon Christian

A number of culinary school students who filed a class-action suit against the San Francisco-based California Culinary Academy may have caught a break against the for-profit college charged with misleading tuition-paying students.

The students alleged that they were misled by the for-profit institution, which advertised a 97 percent job placement rate despite the fact that many graduates were working as waiters and baristas at Starbucks. And in some cases, the suit claims, the college invented culinary positions which graduates never held, according to California Watch, a nonpartisan investigative reporting outlet.

In a pending $40 million settlement, school officials have agreed to offer rebates of up to $20,000 to 8,500 former students.

The story of misleading information is not a new one in the world of for-profit education.

The California Culinary Academy, owned by for-profit education company Career Education Corp., is just one of a number of California for-profit educators offering culinary degrees being investigated for dishonest recruiting. Students often feel pressured into enrolling in programs without access to sufficient employment information, according to critics of the schools.

Think Again: The Era of the 'One Percent'

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Eric Alterman

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the tactics of the Occupy Wall Street movement, it’s easy to understand the inspiration for its anger as well as its impatience.

“Historical movements,” the historian Mary Jo Buhle rightly notes, “are rarely judged solely in the light they cast themselves.” In that sense it is a decidedly risky business to try to draw too many hard and fast conclusions about the present moment in history. Even so, I think the Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz was as accurate as anyone is likely to be when he pronounced our age—and our government—to be one “of the one percent, by the one percent, for the one percent.”

Think about it: In 1974 the top 0.1 percent of American families enjoyed 2.7 percent of all income in the country. By 2007 this same tiny slice of the population had increased its holdings to fully 12.3 percent—roughly five times as great a piece of the pie as it had enjoyed just three decades earlier. Half the U.S. population owns barely 2 percent of its wealth, putting the United States near Rwanda and Uganda and below such nations as pre-Arab Spring Tunisia and Egypt when measured by degrees of income inequality.

Unemployment Insurance Dollars Create Millions of Jobs - Benefits Help Plug the Demand Hole in the Economy

This material was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Heather Boushey, Matt Separa

The unemployment insurance program is our economy’s first line of defense when unemployment is high. Workers who lose jobs through no fault of their own get needed support, which helps families and preserves a customer base for local businesses. In this way, unemployment insurance provides a safeguard that prevents the economy from entering a free fall.

Over the past few years, unemployment benefits have played a key role in helping unemployed workers pay their bills while they search for a new job. There are fewer people living in poverty in the United States because of these benefits. The Census Bureau has reported that unemployment benefits pulled 3.2 million people out of poverty in 2010, on top of 3.3 million in 2009.

Unemployment benefits also boost the economy. They provide the biggest bang for the buck of the various kinds of government spending. Over the Great Recession, for every $1 spent on unemployment insurance benefits, the economy grew by $2, since recipients typically spend—not save—those dollars. That spending helps boost local economies as the unemployed can continue to pay their mortgage or rent and put food on the table.