Obama State of The Union Address; Geitner and Summers should go

In his great, second State of The Union Address (SOTU), President Barack Obama kept his focus on creating new jobs, and called for a new sprit of bipartisanship, but without caving in on Heath Care Reform. But left out of the SOTU was what would have been his boldest stroke of all: firing Treasury Secretary Tim Geitner and Chief Economic Advisor (title: Director of the National Economic Council) Larry Summers.

Larry Summers

This blog post is more directed at Larry Summers than Tim Geitner, because according to The New Yorker's January 28th edition, Larry Summers failed to present the $1.2 trillion Economic Stimulus Plan Option to President Obama, even though his colleague, Berkeley Professor Christine Roemer said that all of the models she ran pointed to that size of stimulus as the best plan:

The most important question facing Obama that day was how large the stimulus should be. Since the election, as the economy continued to worsen, the consensus among economists kept rising. A hundred-billion-dollar stimulus had seemed prudent earlier in the year. Congress now appeared receptive to something on the order of five hundred billion. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate, was calling for a trillion. Romer had run simulations of the effects of stimulus packages of varying sizes: six hundred billion dollars, eight hundred billion dollars, and $1.2 trillion. The best estimate for the output gap was some two trillion dollars over 2009 and 2010. Because of the multiplier effect, filling that gap didn’t require two trillion dollars of government spending, but Romer’s analysis, deeply informed by her work on the Depression, suggested that the package should probably be more than $1.2 trillion. The memo to Obama, however, detailed only two packages: a five-hundred-and-fifty-billion-dollar stimulus and an eight-hundred-and-ninety-billion-dollar stimulus. Summers did not include Romer’s $1.2-trillion projection. The memo argued that the stimulus should not be used to fill the entire output gap; rather, it was “an insurance package against catastrophic failure.” At the meeting, according to one participant, “there was no serious discussion to going above a trillion dollars.”

“There was no serious discussion to going above a trillion dollars," even as economists were talking about a stimulus package that had to be over $1 trillion. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research was quoted as saying "You're talking about a gap on the order of twelve-hundred-fifty billion dollars, and we're trying to plug that with four-hundred-something, so we've got a long way to go."

Paul Krugman said "I'd like to see it bigger." Krugman said. "I understand that there's difficulty in actually spending that much money, and I--they're also afraid of the--of the T word."

The "T" word is "Trillion" but with the economic stimulus package already close to that number, and the country in deep trouble, worrying about what Congress would think - rather than letting Congress deal with the truth - was a big mistake.

China's Economic Stimulus Package was 20 percent of GDP, and many eonomic observers used that as the benchmark for what the size of a U.S. Economic Stimulus Plan would be. Instead, it came in at just about 5 percent of U.S. GDP. The problem feared the most: of doing too little, too late is now facing America, just as it did Japan in the 90s.

Fears of the "T" word and the total U.S. Debt have backed us into this corner. The misunderstanding is that GDP growth guarantees a smaller percentage of GDP that is debt. The Economic Stimulus Package is supposed to jump-start growth. The fact that even the $800 billion version did is proof that the theory is sound, but it didn't boost American Economic Growth to levels that would reduce the record high unemployment rates around the country.

Larry Summers is to blame for this problem:

Summers brought a third argument to the debate, one that echoed his advice to Bill Clinton sixteen years earlier, when his Administration was facing persistent budget deficits that Summers believed were suppressing economic growth. He, like Romer, was guided by an understanding that in financial crises the risk of doing too little is greater than doing too much. He believed that filling the output gap through deficit spending was important, but that a package that was too large could potentially shift fears from the current crisis to the long-term budget deficit, which would have an unwelcome effect on the bond market. In the end, Summers made the case for the eight-hundred-and-ninety-billion-dollar option.

If Larry Summers had done the opposite: that is make an argument for the trillion-dollar option, there's clear evidence America's economic recovery would have been larger and more robust, as the extra $400 billion could have gone to a temporary injection of, say, $5,000 for every American taxpayer under $100,000, thus buying time for the other parts of the stimulus plan to take effect, and boosting consumption at the same time.

But that did not happen, and now America still has its employment problem and a Congress shy to spend more money, even though its badly needed. America has lost $976 billion in wealth due to jobs moving overseas over the last 30 years; over $400 billion just in the last eight years. Turning that problem around is going to take a lot of money.

Stay tuned.

Journey To Haiti With DocGurley!

14 days and counting. I got the message yesterday that a group would like me to go to Haiti. I'd already thrown my name in the hat in the beginning, but they all needed (appropriately) surgeons. Or nurses. But now the situation has morphed, and when the call came my insta-gut response was "yes." Afterward, a tiny flicker of stomach-butterflies set it. Maybe it was the fact that I don't (and maybe won't) have a confirmed return flight home. The estimated time for being there is a week (very do-able), but no guarantees on that estimate (um, less do-able?). Or maybe the butterflies were in part because of the way the lead doctor emphasized (three times!) the fact that we would always have Security with us (clearly said with a capital S). But I knew I wanted to go. When it comes to Haiti, so many of us want to do something. And so I thought you might like to go with me. Which is why I'm going to write about the trip, probably more openly and personally than anything I've written to you before. But first, just so we're all clear, here are the rules:



Doc Gurley's Haiti Manifesto



Rule #1: Why me? Altruism is a gift that benefits the giver. Never more so than when despair hovers. It is amazing how, when I told family, friends and co-workers that I was going to a life-threatening disaster zone, rife with disease and unspeakable deprivation, the uniform first response has been a blurted out: "You're so lucky!" followed a shocked moment of horror-filled realization as they heard their own words, then "Not lucky, I mean, it's going to be hard, really hard, it's just that I wish I could do something like that, well, you know what I mean..." Sometimes it's even difficult to verbalize exactly why we feel that spike of jealousy. I think it's because we all wish we could do something tangible. Something with our hands and our backs. Heavy lifting. Hey, we all know the checks are important (VERY important), but after a while they feel the same as handing your kid a twenty on her birthday. Like something crucial is missing in the act. Could that urge to do something, anything, be the reason I'm going? I've thought about it - am I taking the place of someone else who should go instead (keeping in mind that it can be too easy to think that maybe someone else ought to go, and, if we all do that - no one goes). But I don't think I am taking someone else's place. Here's why: a) I'm an internist, a grunt, a flea, a sickest-of-the-sick-adults'-doctor, one with extensive ER and hospitalist experience, the type of doctor (after the surgeons have left) that they need now, and b) I currently see patients in a homeless clinic with a strong culture of collaborative care so - while it's admittedly still not Haiti - I don't tend to have the typical easily-offended doctor amount of either ego or fastidiousness, and c) I speak good-enough French to have worked for three months in a monolingual medical environment, and d) I did those French-speaking healthcare months in a Third World country in Africa, a place somewhat like Haiti in that the generators turned off every night and mosquito netting and hungry bats were our major malaria interventions, and e) frankly I am lucky enough to have the job/benefits/luxury of being able to go on short notice while not paid to do so like a disaster team is, and f) while the fact is that I'm not a nurse (okay sure, I ran an IVAC once, but all I remember of the experience is a panic-filled blur of jabbing buttons while machines beeped at me in a decidedly contemptuous fashion), and would never claim to be a nurse, I can honestly say that if there's a bandaging, dosing, vital-sign-taking, bedpan-changing, spongebath giving, floor-mopping job to do, well, like most of us peri-menopausal moms, I'm your Gurley. All of which leads to Rule #1 - the better candidate goes. That means if someone more qualified or adept can take my slot, I step out. Even at the eleventh hour (that would be 4:30 am, February 15, in a United terminal at Chicago's O'Hare, in case anyone's keeping track).

Rule #2: We go there to work. There will be NO ethically weird moments when the camera swings, Gupta-like, in my direct and I orthodontially blind you while simultaneously performing surgery. I'm going there to work. As a doctor. I'll be sweaty, I won't waste suitcase space on make-up, and God knows what my hair will be doing. Sweaty doctor - that's it. There is no sub-clause, no asterisk, no employer, no other job title. There is no conflict-of-interest. The Chronicle/SFGate is not paying me anything, not transport, nada. Heck, I can't even get a satellite cell-phone out of them to make sure I can send and/or upload posts (but maybe! they're working on it!). Any sharing of the experience from me to you happens after the work is done. But as much as is humanly possible, we'll go together. Every step we can. Because whether you're frustrated, or despairing, or hungering to do something, or rage-filled about our own neglected problems at home, there are moments when it's best to share. And an epic disaster is one of them. Join me. We'll go together and do what we can to help.

Rule #3: HIPPA goes to Haiti. People the world over deserve their medical privacy. And no one - especially the very desperate - should have to wonder what their doctor's motivation really is. If I write/blog/video/audio record about a patient, or a situation, either that person will NOT be one of my patients, or their identity will be so changed that no one will ever be able to know exactly who that 12-year-old girl with a head injury really was.

Rule #4: It takes a village to help a village. It's been less than 24 hours since I found out I was going and friends have already stepped up. An Eagle Scout mom has an ultra-small sleeping bag for me (so I'll have more room for medical supplies in my luggage). Colleagues are pitching in to cover shifts they have NO obligation to work (thank you, Barry! thank you, Mary!). Churches - here and there - are helping with logistics and food. Total strangers are coming forward with airline miles for me to use, and a place for me to bunk in Chicago while I wait for my flight out. You too are welcome to go with me to Haiti in spirit. And if you would like to go with me in a more tangible way, I'll let you know of opportunities. But, when it comes to "stuff," I am limited to one 50-lb checked bag. In contrast, there is no limit on goodwill, or funds for those suffering there. I am not wasting time or energy picking apart anyone who wants to help - I don't care about your politics, religion or cash reserves. You want to roll up your sleeves too, well, you're my kind of Gurley...



So here we are, Day 14 and counting:

1) Told my kids I was going. Squeals, hand-flapping, "I'm so jealous," then silence while it sunk in. They're teens, they'll be fine. But I notice how the 15 year old wants to sit closer to me on the couch than she has in years, virtually sinking into my right side. I don't say anything about it, of course. I just let her sink into me too.

What is WRONG with these DPH Travel Clinic people? Don't they know medical visits aren't supposed to be (gasp) pleasant?

2) Shots today. I went to the phenomenal folks at the Traveler's Clinic at the Department of Public Health (conflict-of-interest disclosure: NONE. They don't pay me, I never saw them before today). Dropped in without an appointment at 12:45 pm, was asked by the receptionist in a stricken voice "Would 1:10 work?" After a stunned silence, I squeaked out a "You mean today?" and when she nodded (apologetically) "yes," I had to do a double-take to make sure I was actually standing in an American medical clinic. Who are these people? This is so NOT how medical care works. I got three shots - a hepatitis A, tetanus, and typhoid shot ("ooh, those are going to ache" the lovely NP said, as well as "too bad there's not time for the rabies series - you know it's rampant there, don't you? Just be sure and get airlifted out if anything furry breaks your skin"). The ooh-that's-going-to-hurt shots didn't seem to hurt at all. Being a macho internist, I nodded in agreement while thinking to myself good thing I'm stoic and not a big weeny like their other patients are. Three hours later, I promise you, I'm so sore I would not lift my arms up from my sides unless my hair caught fire. Even then I'd have to think about it. I'm getting a little panicky, in fact, about which side I'm going to sleep on - I'm imagining a night ahead of me composed of "ow" and then "ouch" muttered in the dark as I roll endlessly from side to side in my sleep.

3) Am now panicked about my "functional" French. I have been known on two prior occasions, when I spoke French in Paris, to provoke, from Gauloises-smoking, too-cool-to-sneer citoyens, a shocked guffaw of snorted laughter. One Parisienne laughed so hard she hiccuped. Apparently I tend to speak French with a thick West African accent. But see, French is the only foreign language it's almost impossible to use in the Bay Area (at least medically). Oh God, what if I've forgotten it all? So I ran to my town's fabulous library and checked out every single (non-beginner) French language item (yes, I am the pig who took them all, staggering out of the library under a teetering skyscraper of perilously stacked books): four textbooks - including one Haitian-Creole dictionary - and five massive boxed sets of CDs. Including one two-disc set from The Language Teacher To The Stars - Mel Gibson! Barbra Streisand! Woody Allen! Which makes me wonder what will happen if I visit Paris and speak french to sneering Gauloises-smokers in a thick Mel Gibson accent?

So, in the few moments while I'm not going ow and then ouch during the night tonight, I plan to be subliminally absorbing the nasal tones of a total 189 hours of French audio-lessons I checked out ("ne mange pas ce gateau"...).

But who am I kidding? Sleep is unlikely to occur. Because I've already started fretting over Ethical Haiti Dilemma #1. Let me lay it out for you:

Exhibit A: The supplies MOST in need in Haiti now are wound care, debridement/incision kits, rehydration and dressing supplies, as well as antibiotics and analgesics.

Exhibit B: Most of those supplies are too bulky for me to bring many of them in a suitcase. Except for pills (which are surprisingly heavy, but compact).

Exhibit C: Expiration dates on drugs are arbitrarily set by pharmaceutical companies (who have an obvious conflict of interest), and reliable sources have studied the issue and found that almost all pills and powders are still completely effective years after they "expire."

Exhibit D: I have a legion of eager-to-give-something neighbors, friends and acquaintances with bathroom medicine cabinets bulging with leftover pills.

Ergo: Should I take a half-suitcase of potentially expired, but still-effective antibiotics to Haiti? And...

Algebra Problem of the Day: If I board my connecting flight to Chicago, hurtling at 31,267 feet for 3.87 hours, while carrying a 4-liter grocery bag of donated 2 oz. pill-bottles labeled with 34 different individual names, and each bottle is 3/4 full of highly regulated narcotics, then please calculate how many DEA agents, on arrival at O'Hare, will force me to undergo how many body-cavity searches? Please express your answer in mucosal centimeters. Extra Credit: And, more importantly, given an estimated factor of X minutes per search will those body-cavity searches cause me to miss my Haiti flight? Hmm...

Should I "recycle" drugs for Haiti? Or is it ethically wrong to dump them on a people who have no choice? Share in the comments section - and tune in for the next in the series to get details about the Haiti trip - what will I panic about next? What DO they advise you to bring to a disaster? Keep up on the Haiti trip and the latest health issues in the news by signing up for a Doc Gurley RSS feed by clicking here. Look for future pics and other articles at Doc Gurley! Also check out Doc Gurley's joyhabit and iwellth twitter feeds - so you can get topic-specific fun, effective, affordable tips on how to nurture your joy and grow your wellth this coming year.

Megan A. Fox on Rush Limbaugh Haiti tampons comment

Since his insensitive comments on Haiti, including his blast on "April" a female caller who he told to take the tampon out of his ears, Rush Limbaugh has gained a firestorm of criticism and has been silent for a week (that is, no blasts). The Daily Beast commenters were all over Rush.

Amanda Terkel took up the Rush Limbaugh blast at Think Progress. Reid Report wondered what was wrong with Rush Limbaugh.

At Zennie62.com, we wondered what Megan Fox would say about Rush Limbaugh's comments. To that end, Megan Avalon and this blogger came up with Megan A. Fox, a mix of a female bodybuilder and Megan Fox, who's middle name starts with a "D" and not an "A", but we're calling our hero Megan A. Fox.

Megan's a composite of the angry comments and emails and videos I've gotten from viewers, like this one sent to Zennie62 from a woman who actually put tampons in her ears!:




Megan A. Fox got rather heated about Rush Limbaugh's comments and took it out on the host, but given what Rush Limbaugh said, that's OK. Rush Limbaugh really should apologize for what he said as it offended women and good people everywhere. Of course, since that's one of the many ugly ways Rush Limbaugh justifies his $400 million contract, Megan A. Fox and others aren't holding their breath.

Stay tuned.

Apple iPad tablet called iTampon on Twitter; women tweet

The Apple iPad was introduced today at a presentation by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and with a cost below $600, the iPad price is sure to move inventory. While the iPad's 9.7 inch ips display is certainly bright, and the iPad specs are attractive to all but video-bloggers, the one problem is a glaring one: it's name. The Apple iPad tablet is called "iTampon" on Twitter.

The name "Apple iPad" name was around even before today's announcement of the Apple iPad. In 2006, Mad TV created a satirical skit around the then-new iPhone, calling it "iPad" and advancing it as a clear replacement for the 'common tampon'.

Apparently that idea was fresh in the mind of women this week, because when the Apple Tablet's name was introduced as "iPad", almost immediate references to tampons sprouted up all over the Internet, especially on Twitter where the iPad has become the butt of tweet jokes calling it iTampon:

ChelleC79 RT @helenrazer: Can your docking bay accommodate an iPad, ladies? #iTampon #Apple
less than 10 seconds ago from Seesmic

michelleleung @sunvictoria oh look, itampon is actually a trending topic. lulz
less than 20 seconds ago from Digsby

xhelloxgoodbyex RT @DazzlinSN: itampon? really... did everyone on twitter take an immature pill this morning? such B.S.

Linda_Lum RT @WewillroastU: Steve, I'ma let you finish, but Moses had the greatest tablet announcement of all time #iPad #Apple #iTampon

Guroftw RT @bmxr761: Haha the iTampon trend is more popular then the iPad
less than 20 seconds ago from web

xddlovatoo Wtf is an itampon is that like a computer tampon? Eww maybe nerds could use them xD
half a minute ago from UberTwitter

cassiet1123 iPad = Fail. #iTampon
half a minute ago from web

fiosalvo Just in case you haven't already noticed, just wanted to point out that #iTampon is the top trending topic in the US haha
half a minute ago from web

And the vast majority of tweets referencing the iTampon are issued or retweeted by women. And adding Apple's self-inflicted insult to that injury is the Apple iPad video itself, presented by three white male Apple senior level employees and including no women, and one very provocative segment where a man is using the iPad, where it's placed between his legs and at his crouch, and the woman points to a feature on the iPad right near his crouch.

All of this leads women to wonder, as Boo Jarchow did at Shewired.com, if Apple Computer has any women in its marketing department. Well, the head of Apple Marketing is Phil Schiller, who's featured in Apple's iPad video, and there's no indication of a powerful female voice or staff in Apple's Marketing department.

Equally disturbing is the almost total lack of concern for the name of the device among the ranks of male bloggers and vloggers. Again, women are leading the charge here like Ann Althouse:

When you make something light, you should think about how important the product will be to women, who are touchy about carrying things. Anyway, for our light days, we have iPhones. For our heavy days, we have the iPad? The iMaxiPad? Come on, guys!

With all the attention Apple's getting from the name, and given Internet marketing tricks like the one used around Emma Watson's missing leg a while back, it's possible this was a deliberate trick.  If so, it was a very nasty one and could work against Apple's to-this-day all-accepting cultural image.

Stay tuned.

NY Newsday's pay for news fails: draws 35 people in 3 months

The idea of paysites - where subscribers has been touted as the model that would save Old Media. A recent study claimed that news consumers would spend $500 per year for online news. Tell that to New York Newsday.

Placed behind a pay wall last fall, New York Newsday.com only attracted 35 people at $5 per person. The reason for this awful performance, according to Newsday, is that the website's offered for free to "Millions of Cablevision customers in the New York tri-state area and 75 percent of Long Island households, including all Newsday home delivery subscribers, now have exclusive access to newsday.com at no additional charge," Newsday said in a statement reported at Paid Content.

Watching the listed reasons why Newsday got only 35 people in three months is totally funny, and shows to what lengths people will go to protect a dumb idea. All of the points made miss a common fact of Internet life: people pay to be entertained, not informed. It's easy to click from one site to the other to get what the user considers is the same information. A report on the Iranian resistance in the New York Times is hampered by the free, and real-time reporting that Twitter offers.

Moreover, the next Twitter-level-impact social network is just around the corner. And that proves why the news organizations just don't get what's happening. Media is in a constant state of flux; to spend millions of dollars on new sites without some understanding of how technological change will impact them is a waste of money.

Pay walls do not work for news. But it will take more and more news organizations spending millions on new websites with pay walls that do not attract enough subscribers to pay for the site before they get it. By then it may be too late.

Stay tuned.

Obama State of The Union Address: Obama need to reclaim his course

The Obama State of The Union Address is tonight, and presents what could be the beginning of the end of his problems depending on his course of action. President Barack Obama, normally politically brilliant, has made a critical intellectual error in the decision to place a freeze on discretionary spending for three years.

It's a proposal President Obama claims will save $250 billion. The problem with his proposal is its timing; there's no evidence that the freeze is needed now. While U.S. debt level is high at 11.4 trillion, the country's debt load capacity is by no means threatened. The need is to increase economic production, thus lowering the percentage of Gross Domestic Product that is the U.S. Debt.

That's the objective missing in the Congressional Budget Office's irresponsible debt statement today.  Irresponsible because it failed to discuss the need to grow the economy to reduce the debt.

What President Obama and his economic team needs is a refresher course in basic economics. Aggregate Demand (AD) is Consumption plus Business Investment, plus Government Spending, minus Imports, plus Exports. Right now, Consumption, Business Investment, and Exports are all lower than they were even three years ago; so low the overall economy contracted where GDP was less than that three years before, thus the recession. The need is to rapidly increase AD and the only way to do that is via Government Spending.

The problem is that the Economic Stimulus Package was not large enough; it should have been $2 trillion in size. It is focused too much on maintaining the social safety net and helping local government infrastructure. But the vast majority of America's economy is based on small service businesses. We now have the cottage-industry economy futurists like Daniel Bell predicted decades ago in The Coming of Post-Industrial Society.

In a 21st Century America where technical jobs and services have been creamed by the credit-crunch, the Obama path ignores the post-industrial sector purely in favor of construction. Even as roads and bridges are built, the small business service sector goes without assistance. The idea was for service firms to be helped by spending in infrastructure, but that trickle-down concept does not have the same wide-spread impact as in saving an auto plant or General Motors.

The Economic Stimulus package is missing direct subsidies for firms that make products in the United States, and a basic "tax-payer bailout" of $5,000 for every American taxpayer below $100,000 in income. That amount, even if some use it to pay off credit card debt, will result in improved credit ratings.

The President could issue a controversial executive order establishing credit card rate controls. The end result would be a dramatic spending spur that would save jobs, create new ones, and fuel business development investment. The consumer is key but needs Government's help to be effective.

Somewhere in the course of the first year of his first term, President Obama got bad advise, probably from Larry Summers, who has no business being the head of Obama's Economic Team. Larry Summers and U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geitner should be fired and replaced by Princeton Economist Paul Krugman and TIAA-CREF CEO Roger Ferguson, respectively.

It's time for Obama to right his ship and get back on course. The President will not do it with the State of The Union Address, but he can do it before the year is over.

Stay tuned.

City of Oakland stupidity: parking meters cost more than revenue gain

In this dramatic example of City of Oakland fiscal stupidity: the proposed 250 parking meter locations for new meters will cost more to install than the $146,000 revenue gain expected.

The previous Oakland Parking blog post on this focused on this email sent out by Oakland Councilmember Nancy Nadel's (District 3 - downtown Oakland, West Oakland) Office:

From: Todd, Amber On Behalf Of City Administrator's Office
Subject: RE: Locating additional parking meters per Council direction on
October 6, 2009

Dear Council Members:

To realize $146,000 in additional revenue in FY 2009-10, the Oakland
City Council directed staff at the October 6, 2009 meeting to identify
250 possible locations to install additional parking meters. Staff in
Parking Administration and Public Works worked together and produced the
attached list which suggests possible locations where additional meters
could be installed. To give flexibility in generating revenue, the
attached list contains 470 possible locations for additional meters.

Staff plans to return to the Finance and Management Committee in
February to obtain approval for installing additional meters. During
the month of January, Parking Administration and Public Works staff
would like to work with members of your staff to reach out to and seek
feedback from potentially impacted merchants and other stakeholders.
Parking staff will contact members of your staff this week to discuss
the development and implementation of outreach efforts related to
installing additional parking meters.

Should you have any questions, you may contact Tom DiSanto in Parking
Administration at 986-2687.

Sincerely,

City Administrator's Office

At the same Oakland City Council meeting of October 6, Councilmember Desley Brooks asked for an estimate of the cost to install parking meters; she did not receive an answer to her question that night.

Here's the answer:

In 2007 the City of Oakland arranged $4.8 million in financing to purchase 500 parking meters. At $4.8 million, it costs $2.4 million to install 250 new parking meters. That means the City of Oakland will spend $2.4 million just to raise $146,000.

That's stupid.  There's no other kinder word for this, and its time for tough, no-holds-barred talk here.  If the City has $2.4 million to spend, that means it does need to raise $146,000, it just needs to reassign the $2.4 million in spending.   What's going on in Oakland City Hall?

Stay tuned.

City of Oakland Parking Issue: Oakland wants more parking meters

The City of Oakland's desire to earn more revenue on the backs of Oakland's poor continues. This email, sent out by Oakland Councilmember Nancy Nadel's Office, reveals the first hand insensitivity of the City of Oakland during what many are still calling an economic recession and in a city with 17 percent unemployment and even more not working or underemployed. 

Oakland City Council squeezes Oakland

The email below calls for locating additional parking meters "as Per Council Direction" on October 6, 2009. This is in reverse of the desires of Oaklanders for fewer parking meters.


Parking meters call for the same kind of draconian ticketing and enforcement practices that have overloaded Oaklanders with parking tickets and resulted in the towing of cars after five tickets were accumulated. Here's the email that shows the City of Oakland's irresponsiblity toward Oaklanders, and why the Oakland City Council should reconsider its policies or risk losing office, one-by-one, when each councilmembers reelection time comes up.

From: Todd, Amber On Behalf Of City Administrator'
s Office
Subject: RE: Locating additional parking meters per Council direction on
October 6, 2009

Dear Council Members:

To realize $146,000 in additional revenue in FY 2009-10, the Oakland
City Council directed staff at the October 6, 2009 meeting to identify
250 possible locations to install additional parking meters. Staff in
Parking Administration and Public Works worked together and produced the
attached list which suggests possible locations where additional meters
could be installed. To give flexibility in generating revenue, the
attached list contains 470 possible locations for additional meters.

Staff plans to return to the Finance and Management Committee in
February to obtain approval for installing additional meters. During
the month of January, Parking Administration and Public Works staff
would like to work with members of your staff to reach out to and seek
feedback from potentially impacted merchants and other stakeholders.
Parking staff will contact members of your staff this week to discuss
the development and implementation of outreach efforts related to
installing additional parking meters.

Should you have any questions, you may contact Tom DiSanto in Parking
Administration at 986-2687.

Sincerely,

City Administrator's Office

Note the email does not consider Oaklanders, and impacted merchants don't want the meters either. As this blogger calmly told one Oakland Councilmember after that person yelled in my ear, there are other ways to raise $146,000, but on the other hand, the City Council will have to do what President Obama's doing, and ordering a spending freeze where possible. That should include a reduction in salaries.

It's about time the City of Oakland adjust to economic realities and stop trying to act like some thuggish gangster, throwing a fiscal choke-chain around Oaklanders, shaking them down and forcing them to cough up money they don't have.

Stay tuned.

Haiti Earthquake update: the human trafficking problem

In this Haiti Earthquake update: the human trafficking problem. As Haiti works to recover from the 7.0 Earthquake an the estimated 50 aftershocks (many over 5 on the Richter Scale), another problem has surfaced: fears of human trafficking.

"Human Trafficking" is the inhumane process of kidnapping primarily women and children for the sex trade, "forced" marriages, or bonded labor markets like domestic servitude, sweat shops, and agricultural plantations. Since the Haiti Earthquake, UNICEF has reported incidents of child trafficking in the wake of the thousands of newly orphaned kids after the Haiti Earthquake.

Human trafficking was a problem even before the Haiti Earthquake. With an 80 percent poverty rate in Haiti, a poor family sending or "trafficking" its children to wealthier families was common. With the new family the child would live often in substandard, unsupervised or policed abusive conditions.

Now, with escaped Haitian prisoners (because of the quake), little security infrastructure relative to the population, and again a large number of unaccounted for, but living minors, the fear and reports of allegations of child trafficking are on the rise.

UNICEF is not the only organization or person complaining about the poor state of security for kids in Haiti. On CNN's Larry King Live, Anderson Cooper reported from Haiti, explaining that many kids are in what he calls "ad hoc" groups, with little or no established organizational oversight. That has led to the kind of reported activity that was the basis of UNICEF's to this writing unsubstantiated charges.

I called and emailed UNICEF Communications Representative Alissa Pinck in the hope that more light could be shed on this problem. The question is, does UNICEF know who was doing the alleged trafficking and were they brought to justice? It's reported that 15 children were unaccounted for as of this writing in Haiti hospitals. But if those children belonged to wayward parents who survived the Haiti Earthquake, is it possible their parents may have simply arrived to get them?

With all of the uncertainty and chaos, it's hard to tell which end is up with this terrible issue in Haiti. But given Haiti's past, human and child trafficking is likely to remain a problem unless international forces step in.

Stay tuned.

R.T. Rybak: How money warps politics, and campaigns.

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision freeing up corporations to spend freely on political advertising campaigns one can only imagine the slander, innuendo, and deliberate misinformation will be getting worse -- more diverse and numerous -- right through Election Day in November. In Minnesota, it's already begun as a shadowy smear campaign evidently intended to convince Minnesotans to stay home on caucus night, February 2, 2010 -- especially if they’re thinking of supporting Minneapolis Mayor Raymond "R.T." Rybak in his bid to secure the party endorsement to run for Governor of Minnesota in November.

The facts are chasing the lies in Minnesota, and nobody's quite certain who paid to send the misinformation - yet.

In brief: For years Minneapolis taxpayers had been overcharged by two pension funds that have been closed to new members for almost 30 years. No police officer or firefighter hired since 1980 draws any benefit from these funds — but all Minneapolis taxpayers contribute to it.

Follow the money

Mayor Rybak and other city leaders stepped up to put a stop to the overcharging by the pension funds after the State Auditor alerted them to the problem. They approached the fund managers and the MN Legislature, but ended up taking the pension funds to court — and they won.

One can only infer that high-priced lawyers and lobbyists who represent those who've been overcharging Minneapolis taxpayers are smear-mongering to get revenge for the money they lost.

To read more, and get links to Star-Tribune investigative reports, visit: Rybak Targeted for Recovering Taxpayer Money!

And remember, it's all about following the money.

Nancy Kerrigan's father dies, brother held on bail - by Cat

Nancy Kerrigan is in the middle of devastating family issues. Although there are conflicting reports, authorities say there was a violent struggle at her home which resulted in Daniel Kerrigan, Nancy's father,  dead and her brother, Mark Kerrigan, arrested. 

What is known for a fact is that family members reported a large dispute on Sunday between father and son resulting in Daniel having "a massive heart attack." There is uncertainty as to whether or not the argument had anything to do with his death. There are conflicting reports.

Police said that Mark Kerrigan appeared intoxicated and belligerent upon arrest. Mark Kerrigan is being held on $10,000 bail.

Stay tuned.

posted by Cat of someredcat.tumblr.com

The Hurt Locker wins Producers Guild Best Picture Award - Oscar Buzz

The widely celebrated movie The Hurt Locker won the Producers Guild "The Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures" Award on .

The Hurt Locker, directed by Katheryn Bigelow and about a risk-taking bomb disposal group during the Irag War , beat Avatar, District 9, An Education, Inglourious Basterds, Invictus, Precious, Star Trek, Up, and Up In The Air for the Producers Guild award. All of these movies are considered as possible Best Picture nominees for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards.

Oscar Nominations are scheduled for Tuesday, February 2, 2010, at 5:30 a.m. And this blogger will continue to mention that the Oscar Press Credential process needs a metric system to be considered fair, measuring web traffic, TV ratings (where applicable), subscription reach, and views.

As I state in my video below, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a non-profit organization. A firm that gets government help, and invites bloggers to apply for a press credential, should have a more "name blind" system of press credential submissions. The criteria should be media "reach".



Stay tuned.