see ya, steph

From the USA Today:

Stephen Friedman, chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, resigned Thursday, over questions about his ties to financial powerhouse Goldman Sachs.

In a letter to Fed officials, Friedman said, "Today, although I have been in compliance with the rules, my public service motivated continuation on the Reserve Bank Board is being mischaracterized as improper. The Federal Reserve System has important work to do and does not need this distraction."

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal raised questions about the influence of Goldman Sachs, whose board Friedman sits on, in shaping Washington's response to the financial crisis.

"The Federal Reserve Bank of New York shaped Washington's response to the financial crisis late last year, which buoyed Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other Wall Street firms. Goldman received speedy approval to become a bank holding company in September and a $10 billion capital injection soon after.

"During that time, the New York Fed's chairman, Stephen Friedman, sat on Goldman's board and had a large holding in Goldman stock, which because of Goldman's new status as a bank holding company was a violation of Federal Reserve policy," the Journal story said.

Cheers to the Wall Street Journal, among others, for bringing up the potential conflict of interest posed by New York Federal Reserve Chairman Stephen Friedman's relationship with Goldman Sachs, forcing him to resign.

can anyone say 'police state'?

Apparently, the Patriot Act is now being used to arrest and detain minors without due process of law according to a WRAL 5 News report. Constitution? What's that?

way to go, maine and new hampshire!

From the Boston Globe:

Maine and New Hampshire took steps toward the approval of gay marriage today, bringing to five the number of New England states that have moved to legalize marriage between same-sex couples in the past five years.

Governor John E. Baldacci of Maine became the first governor in the country to sign a gay marriage bill into law without being spurred to action by a court decision. In New Hampshire, legislators took the last of several votes approving a gay marriage law. Governor John Lynch, a Democrat like Baldacci, will have five days to veto the bill, sign it, or let it become law without his signature.

Way to go, Maine and New Hampshire!

seriously, merck?

Merck Makes Phony Peer-Review Journal

First, you make a hit list of doctors who had to be "neutralised" or discredited because they criticised your anti-arthritis drug, and now this? Are you fucking kidding me?

Why is this company still around?

re: another one bites the dust

My friend, Chris, comments:

You can't rely on manufacturing to save us when you are off shoring our manufacturing. The auto industry is simply the last area that hasn't entirely gone out of this country. Oh sure we may have toilet paper factories here and there, but they don't add up as much as you'd think. How much of that do we export? We lost our worth in the world economy by "switching over" to a service based economy instead of a product based economy. Too bad we off shore that too. So what do we have? Nothing. Even the IRS's 800 support line is in India. Fixing the auto industry is both good and bad in a sense that you can put a patch on it to stop the bleeding with funds, but will it help in the long run if we don't bring back what we've lost already in other industries? Think about how much is stamped with "Made in ..". So what do we do? Take a card from the socialists and let government intervene everywhere? A big pill to swallow, because how do we assure ourselves that those in DC aren't the same ones who made the decisions to off shore to begin with? It isn't a political party thing, it's a money thing.

My response:

Exactly. China is now one the world's manufacturing giants. Just look at the steel industry, for example. We used to be the world's largest producer of steel, now, according to the International Iron and Steel Institute, China is currently the leading producer while we are fourth in terms of metric tonnes. India is quickly becoming one of the new IT giants. The United States has very little left in the way of manufacturing and exports besides things like subsidized corn, which, thanks to NAFTA, we dump off in places like Mexico. The real question is, as you have already pointed out, What do we do?

One of the main problems I see is the fact that U.S. based multinational corporations are beyond borders. They can pack up and ship their capital and resources, like manufacturing and tech support, to almost anywhere in the world with cheaper wages and and lower taxes while still technically being headquartered in the U.S. One thing we need to do is to make this more difficult, otherwise there won't be anything left to outsource. It may be good for a company's profit margins, but it is devastating to our economy as a whole.

You posed the question of whether we should take a card from the socialists and let the government intervene everywhere, and then rightly pointed out that the very people in DC are quite possibly the ones who made is easier for domestic companies to offshore production to begin with. That is why I think a better solution is to give the workers a bigger voice in the decision-making process and more power in the work place, which is real socialism. The reason is that the workers themselves benefit by having manufacturing and other product based jobs stay here. CEOs and shareholders, on the other hand, generally get paid big bucks no matter where the jobs are located, and even benefit more when they are able to ship them offshore where wages and taxes are considerably lower.

I am not a big fan of all organized labour, and I think that many unions have become just as corrupt and greedy as any board of directors, but without greater government involvement or worker participation in the decision-making process we are never going to keep the jobs we still have or get the ones we lost back. Unless, of course, the U.S., becomes more like a developing nation than a developed one, with high rates of unemployment, and the jobs get shipped back here due to the massive pool of cheap labour and lower taxes, which will mean things like our quality of life and social safety nets like Medicaid and Medicare, Social Security, unemployment etc. will take even more of a beating.

another one bites the dust

Well, even if the potential GM deal with the government and the UAW doesn't go through, there's always Chrysler, who, according to the Detroit Free Press, has declared bankruptcy under a new deal that will give a health care trust fund for UAW retirees 55% ownership.

Can the workers really do a better job of running the company than the likes of Nardelli and LaSorda? It looks like we might just get the chance to find out. Or will we?

It certainly looks like workers own Chrysler when you read the papers, but as one blog proclaims: "Don’t be fooled by the figures. Worker’s don’t own Chrysler."

According to the Wall Street Journal, "55% of the auto maker will be owned by a retiree health care trust fund and not the union itself." According to another article, "The U.S. government will name four Chrysler board members, Fiat will name three, the UAW one and the Canadian governments one."

What's even more bizarre is the fact that "the UAW would be able to act independently, even strike if necessary, despite the fact that the union would own a critical piece of the company through the VEBA trust." Say what?

It all seems rather complicated to me, and I hope that the new Chrysler does well for the sake of Michigan's failing economy, but something tells me that it's going to be business as usual unless Fiat, the UAW and both the U.S. and Canadian governments can actually come together, recognize and fix the problems facing this industry.

¡si se puede!

Yesterday, I attended the May Day rally and march in downtown Portland. I ended up talking to some cool people and marching for a great cause. It felt good being a part of something that's trying to raise awareness about important issues that affect us all, especially when it comes to immigration.

Perhaps I'm a bit idealistic, but I don't see 'illegal' immigrants as criminals, I see them as human beings. Their situation is so desperate that they are willing to leave their friends, their families and their homes to live like fugitives in a country that exploits them for their cheap labour. Hell, I think some of them deserve to be here more than I do given the fact that they're willing to risk such hardships, even death, to live in this country while I simply have the luxury of being born here and often take that for granted.

I'm not sure exactly what immigration policies will best serve all the parties involved, but I'm positive that our current policies need to be reformed. I want to see an end to ICE raids and deportations, for example, especially when they deport U.S. citizens (such as the children born in the U.S. to parents who are here illegally or are here legally but denied residency) and tear families apart. Not only that, but I'm concerned about the fact that at least "83 people have died in, or soon after, [ICE] custody" since 2003 (Washington Post).

I'm also concerned about local 287(g) agreements around the country because of the potential for racial profiling and intimidation by law enforcement officials (e.g., Arpaio to be investigated over alleged violations), and would like to see an end to them as well.

I'm not sure what all the solutions are, but I'm sure that if we work together we can find them. ¡Si se puede!