DS9 Document EFTA01143161

From: To: Bcc: Subject: Date: Attachments: Gregory Brown undisclosed-recipients:; [email protected] Fwd: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 07/07/2013 Sun, 07 Jul 2013 17:15:52 +0000 The_Last_Mystery_of_the_Financial_Crisis_Matt_Taibbi_Rolling_Stone_June_19,_2013.pd f; War_On_the_Unemployed_Paul_Krugman_NYT_June_30,2013.pdf; U.S._Poverty,fly_the_Numbers_The_Nation_2011_data_07_03_2013.pdf; The_Gap_Between_SNAP_and_Basic_Economic_Security_John_Light_Moyers_&_Co_Jun e_28,_2013.pdf; Hunger_and_the_Sequestration_by_the_Numbers_Gregyaufman_Moyers_&_Companyiu ly_2,2013.pdf; Why_Is_SNAP_Part_of_the_Farm_Billioel_Berg_Moyers_&_Co_July_2,2013.pdf; Big_Companies_Paid_a_Fraction_ofCorporate_Tax_Rate_Nelson_Schwartz_NYT_July_l, _2013.pdf; Gregyaufinann_on_the_Truth_About_American_Poverty_Moyers_&_Companyiune_28, 2013.pdf; AltaVista._What's_That_Nick_Bilton_NYT_July_l ,_2013.pdf; Army_Ousts_Egypes_President,_Morsiis_Taken_Into_Mi_litary_Custody_David_Kirkpatr ick_NYT_July_3,_2013.pdf; 80%_of_Pre- Packaged_Foods_in_America_Are_Banned_in_Other_Countries_CNCBC_June_24,_2013.d ocx Inline-Images: image.png; image(1).png; image(2).png; image(3).png; image(4).png; image(5).png; image(6).png; image(7).png; image(8).png; image(9).png; image(10).png; image(11).png; image(12).png; image(13).png; image(14).png DEAR FRIEND There is a serious question that we Americans should ask ourselves. Here in the richest country on earth, 50 million of us — one in six Americans — go hungry — WHY? More than a third of them are children. Yet Congress can't pass a Farm Bill because our representatives continue to fight over how many billions to slash from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps. The debate is filled with tired clichés about freeloaders undeserving of government help, living large at the expense of honest hardworking taxpayers. A new documentary, A Place at the Table, paints a truer picture of America's poor. Last week Bill Moyers spoke with Kristi Jacobson, one of the film's directors and producers, and Mariana Chilton, director of the Center for Hunger- Free Communities, explain to Bill how hunger hits hard at people from every walk of life. EFTA01143161 611 .... its FROM THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT YOU t FOOD, INC. PLACE AT THE pG PASE141 AL CUOI.4.1 Stria.S113 • , YI Villa, Wit .JJ 'Alt I n. C•I:te• .•••••• C 4131 itlif YIP WU* C3PAIII EEO E P.A.70 recLUIL MN FIR CIPt.TS DX. HMV! RUC. DRITINAT MEN MD'S! fiVSIRITRBUSH,, !VI SilYntalnil VMS ,,*1 PIZ EDI IV:. I. 45-7;2PSH yd.N !if 'ORAN C.;:t :)):t1 I Al k I L.;:F. AIN : • mci Jun FKRi$11236SON lail SIMON pa rt mf ap riagricot•I Parts:pant L&diI Web site for Bill Moyer's interview: http://billmovers.com/segmentfkristi-jacobson-and-mariana-chilton-on-how-hunger- hurts-evervone/ EFTA01143162 In the film there is a rancher and a police officer in Colorado, each struggling to make ends meet. And to make ends meet they have to rely on the charitable food programs sponsored by the church of a local Colorado minister, Pastor Bob Wilson. In the film the police offer explains that until recently there use to be three officers but due to budget constraints only he is left and he hasn't received a pay raise in four years, while what he use to spend on a month in groceries now only lasts about two weeks. Hence, he uses a local minister, Pastor Bob Wilson's food bank to get by. In a second story, after working from dam to 3pm on his ranch, cowboy Joel goes immediately down to the local school to dean it up from 3pm to iipm, so that he can buy groceries to put food on the table for his kids. What is mind blowing is that a cop who doesn't make enough money to meet all of his food needs and a cowboy who has to take two jobs to help feed his children, are not the exception, in fact they're very representative. 8o% of people receiving government food assistance are working poor. That means their wages are so low that they're eligible for food stamps. There is a stereotype that food banks are for the unemployed or the disabled, people who can't go out and get a job or don't want one. Today, this isn't always the case, hard working people even with two jobs need a little extra help and for them the stigma is humiliating. They are hard working fathers of families, single-mothers, excellent parents. They want the best for their kids. They're often working two or three jobs. Sometimes they'll have to work under the table in order to make ends meet, trying to find side jobs. They're hustling really hard. And there's an enormous amount of shame that they experience when they run out of money before they can get more food. It really tests their sense of manhood, motherhood, their sense of citizenship, of belonging. It's very isolating. And not only for the parents, but for their children too, who when hungry they are always told, "Don't talk about it. Don't let anybody know how hard it is. Always put on a good face. Always look good," so that you are treated with a sense of dignity and respect. As a result, they often hide their own experiences of hunger or hide the fact that they can't feed their own children. Even worse is that hunger sometimes passes down as a legacy to the next generation. It gets transferred from generation to generation. Now, during an economic downturn when there are not enough good paying jobs, of course hunger will skyrocket. But people don't realize that hunger is very damaging to children, especially to young children. Food insecurity affects the cognitive, social and emotional growth of very young children. That means that by the time they arrive to kindergarten they're not ready for school. That means that when they're in school if they're hungry they won't be able to concentrate on what they're learning and they won't do as well on their math and their reading tests. That means they won't be as successful, won't get a good paying job so that when they have children they, too, will be poor. So poverty is an experience that is seared into the bodies and brains of children and possibly their children. What happens to someone who gets too little nutrition early in life? If you think about what's happening in the first three years of life the brain is growing so fast. They're the most important years of human development. So every moment those are the building blocks of good cognitive, social and emotional development. Neurons are growing and pruning and very active. boo neurons are growing a second for an infant. It's an important window of human development. So any type of nutritional deprivation during this time has a severe impact on the brain even if it's just episodic, even if it happens once or twice a month those are moments of lost opportunity to be able to interact with their family and their environment, to pay attention and to learn something new which helps to grow more neurons. It affects the cognitive, social and emotional development. It creates a certain kind of a stress on the child that's very toxic. And we know from experts that children who experience this kind of toxic stress can't learn as well, can't learn as fast. We know that this can turned around with food assistance programs, with a program called WIC, Women, Infants and Children or the food stamp program. The best investment of our dollars in this country is investing in very young children and their families because again those are the most important times when a child's brain is growing. So for every one EFTA01143163 dollar that you spend on a child you make seven dollars back when they become an adolescent. It's a beautiful investment. But more importantly, it's the right thing to do. The effects of hunger: You see it in school performance, their ability to get along with others, their ability to pay attention for children of school age. Attendance. You see it in the increased hospitalizations, showing up more to the emergency room when they don't-- with preventable diseases, or preventable exacerbation of asthma. If we treated poverty during childhood as a type of a disease, if we paid as much attention to poverty for children as we pay attention to infectious disease, we could definitely eradicate hunger in this country. The film — A Place at the Table — makes dramatically clear the relationship between malnutrition and obesity. As they are neighbors and that they happen often at the same time and often in the same family, in the same person is because they are both signs of having insufficient funds to be able to command food that you need to stay healthy. If you look at what has happened to the relative price of fresh fruits and vegetables -- they have gone up by 40 percent since 1980 when the obesity epidemic first began. In contrast, the relative price of processed foods has gone down by about 40 percent. So if you only have a limited amount of money to spend you're going to spend it on the cheapest calories you can get and that's going to be processed foods. Finally this has to do with our farm policy and what we subsidize and what we don't. Hunger and obesity are both forms of malnutrition. Obesity often means not getting the right kinds of nutrients for an active and healthy life. If you go back to the definition of food insecurity it means — not having enough food for an active and healthy life. So when people think about hunger they think, "Oh, it's just not enough food." But actually its food insecurity which is a much broader term, much more precise, captures a type of experience where families don't have enough money for healthy and fresh food so they will, in order to stretch their dollar.... they'll spend it on soda or on foods that have very high calories. Because they know that their kids are hungry, they have to be able to stretch their dollar in order to fill their own tummies and the tummies of their children. They know it's not healthy, but they're just trying to solve the immediate and the immediacy of hunger. The end is eating lots of high calories, salt, sodium. And those are the kinds of foods that are not good for an active and healthy life. It's another form of hunger. So you can look at people who are overweight and obese and think maybe they don't have enough money for food, maybe they're anxious about where their next meal is coming from. As a result there are 5o million people, one in six Americans who are food insecure, who do not have enough good nutrition to thrive. Conservatives who hate big government will tell you that charities should take the lead against hunger. When the fact is that we need government to take a leadership role as there are millions of people suffering from hunger and food insecurity in every county and in every state in our country. The 80's created the myth that A. hungry people deserved it and B. well we could really fill in the gaps with the charities. And we had a proliferation of emergency responses, soup kitchens, food pantries moving from literally a shelf in the cupboard of the pastor's office to an operation with regular hours. Something changed during that period of time. There developed this ethos that government was doing too much and more importantly, the private sector is wonderful and let's feed people through charity. Obviously this hasn't worked. If you want to talk about dependency in this country, let's talk about corporations and businesses that pay such low wages that they depend on the United States government to add money to those wages through the Income Assistance Programs, like SNAP. Lets take a company like Wal-Mart, who pays their workers so low that their workers are actually eligible for food stamps. And Wal-Mart has the chutzpah to have paid employees on staff help their own employees qualify for food stamps. When you look at the situation this way, who's dependent on the U.S. government? I'd have to say it's Wal- Mart is the welfare queen here. There are 48 million people are receiving food stamps. But it's also important to look at how many corporations and agribusinesses are collecting subsidies out of the same government bill, the farm bill. There is an ethos in Congress right now that assisting those EFTA01143164 individuals who need help via the food stamp program or WIC or school meals is big government and is going to put us into debt. But providing subsidies to large agribusinesses and big corporations is just business as usual. We have basically created a kind of secondary food system for the poor in this country. Millions and millions of Americans, as many as 5o million Americans rely on charitable food programs for some part of meeting their basic food needs. The churches and the community groups that hand out food are doing an incredible service to this country and to the children that are experiencing hunger, but that's just a quick fix, that's for today and tomorrow and maybe for next week. We call it emergency food? It's no longer emergency food. This should be called a chronic use of a broken system for which people cannot be held accountable. But as the actor Jeff Bridges says in A Place at the Table: "Charity is a great thing, but it's not the way to end hunger. We don't fund our Department of Defense through charity, you know. We shouldn't you know, see that our kids are healthy through charity either." The average food stamp benefit is $3 a day. I challenge you to go to your local supermarket and try to feed yourseif and your family on $3 a day. Children by family income, 2011 Above law-income 55% Less than 100% FPL 22% 100-199% FPL 22% Percentages may not odd to 100 due to rounding. Low- income 45% © National Center for Children in Powqty (www.nccp.org) Basic Facts Aixot Low-income Children: Children Under 18 Years, 2011 EFTA01143165 • Children in poverty: 1.6.1 million, 22 percent of all children, including 39 percent of African- American children and 34 percent of Latino children. Poorest age group in country. • Deep poverty (less than $11,510 for a family of four): 20.4 million people, 1 in 15 Americans, including more than 15 million women and children • People who would have been in poverty if not for Social Security, 2011: 67.6 million (program kept 21.4 million people out of poverty) • People in the U.S. experiencing poverty by age 65: Roughly half • Gender gap, 2011: Women 34 percent more likely to be poor than men • Gender gap, 2010: Women 29 percent more likely to be poor than men • Twice the poverty level (less than $46,042 for a family of four): 106 million people, more than 1 in 3 Americansobs in the U.S. paying less than $34,000 a year: 5o percent • Jobs in the U.S. paying below the poverty line for a family of four, less than $23,000 annually: 25 percent • Poverty-level wages, 2011: 28 percent of workers • Percentage of individuals and family members in poverty who either worked or lived with a working family member, 2011: 57 percent • Families receiving cash assistance, 1996: 68 for every 100 families living in poverty • Families receiving cash assistance, 2010: 27 for every 100 families living in poverty • Impact of public policy, 2010: Without government assistance, poverty would have been twice as high — nearly 3o percent of population • Percentage of entitlement benefits going to elderly, disabled or working households: Over 90 percent. • Number of homeless children in U.S. public schools: 1,065,794nnual cost of child poverty nationwide: $55o billion • Federal expenditures on home ownership mortgage deductions, 2012: $131 billion • Federal funding for low-income housing assistance programs, 2012: Less than $50 billion The Gap Between SNAP and Basic Economic Security There's a wide gap between the income cutoff for government food assistance and the income required to provide children with a nutritious diet. As of early 2013, nearly 48 million Americans received food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). That's about 15 percent of the country. Despite those numbers, a May 2013 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees SNAP, found that 21 percent of families with children experienced food insecurity in 2011 - meaning that at least some family members couldn't get enough to eat to lead `active, healthy lives." EFTA01143166 The SNAP gap for a family of three $8,000 $6,000 $4,000 2 $2,000 $0 L • I rj • E O tS t I ow co eo a a To 0 BEST index data supplied by Wider Opportunities for Women. Interactive chart by New Mexico ifi+ ++++ableaw To qualify for SNAP - which, until 2OO8, was called the Federal Food Stamp Program — a family can earn no more than 13O percent of the federal poverty guideline, which is established each year by the Department of Health and Human Services. Until October 2O13, that figure is set at $2,O69 per month ($24,828 @ year) for a family of three; after that, it will be bumped up by about $5O. But many antipoverty advocacy groups point out that 13O percent of the poverty guideline is hardly a comfortable income for a family with children. The nonprofit group Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) has developed its own indicator for economic security called the Basic Economic Security Tables index, or BEST index. The index differs from state to state, and even between cities within a state, because of differences in the cost of living, including the price of food and childcare. WOW found that across the country, the actual income required for a family of three (one adult and two children) to be economically secure is 2OO or 3OO percent of the federal poverty guideline, not the 13O percent the USDA uses as the cutoff for SNAP. That leaves many families — especially those headed by a single parent — in an uncomfortable place where they may not make enough money to buy quality food, but make too much to qualify for government assistance. The chart above shows that gap in a handful of states across America. Mouse over each bar for details. *0 *000 Hunger and the Sequester, By the Numbers EFTA01143167 SEQUESTRATION IMPACT ON MEALS ON WHEELS PROGRAMS BY THE NUMBERS 1 IN7SENIORS STRUGGLE WITH HUNGER are eliminating staff positions are reducing the number of seniors being served are cutting the number of meals served Over 70% are establishing or adding to existing waiting lists. Ift 1 IN 6 PROGRAMS 40% are closing congregate sites or home delivered meal programs. AIMS\ C\ (Th O O are reducing the number of days they deliver meals. VI al Meals On Wheels 1$300A0a0 or AVER/CA $0 SO Sestite r1 kyr& lte nun*/ wog caxlmool Aby 7-10. 2049. among Mods On Whoon atomomanco Monts* ono cvmety mans Wong VoSng trough to ago knoemaro Act Sequestration cuts will total $1.2 trillion through fiscal year 2021. This year there is a 5.3 percent cut, totaling $85 billion. The cuts are indiscriminate and will impact nearly every federal program.* Here are some of the ways this year's cut is affecting food and hunger programs, in America and abroad. Domestic Programs • Meals for needy seniors lost in programs like Meals on Wheels (MOW): 4 million • Savings from cut of 4 million meals: $10 million EFTA01143168 • Rise in Medicaid costs due to cut of 4 million meals: $489 million • Net cost to U.S. federal budget due to cut of 4 million meals: $499 million • Loss of senior meals, California: 750,000 • Loss of senior breakfasts, Palm Beach County, Fla.: 24o daily • Loss of senior meals in group dining facilities, Detroit suburbs and several counties: 86,000 • Loss of home-delivered and group dining senior meals, La Crosse County, Wis.: 6,000 International Programs • Cuts to global poverty-focused development assistance (PFDA) programs: $1.1 billion • People who will experience reduced or denied access to lifesaving food: 2.1 million • Children who will experience reduced or denied access to school feeding programs: 234,000 • Children who will be unable to receive nutritional interventions that save lives and prevent irreversible damage caused by malnutrition: 605,625 • Farmers and small businesses in poor countries that won't receive support from Feed the Future, a program to help them lift themselves and their communities out of poverty: 1.17 million Reflections • Ellie Hollander, president and CEO of the Meals on Wheels Association of America: "The real impact of sequester is that our programs don't have the ability to expand to meet the growing need. We should be investing in these programs to ensure our seniors have the nutritious meals they need to remain healthy and independent." • Patricia Hoeft, director of senior center nutrition, the Mid-East Area Agency on Aging (Missouri): "How do I decide which 300 seniors aren't going to eat that day?" • Meals on Wheels recipient, home delivery program, La Crosse County, Wis.: "These meals are sometimes the only meal that I have a day. I don't drive, so I have to rely on others to get around to doctors' appointments. I only get $16 a month for food." Some low-income programs are exempt from cuts, including Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps), the refundable tax credits and some child nutrition programs. by Greg Kaufmann July 2, 2013 As many of you know I am a big fan of TED which is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference on the West Coast each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer -- TED includes the award-winning TED Talks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize. Recently TED has join together with The Huffington Post to reach a broader audience through its TED Talks Weekends, and while perusing their offering this week, I ran across and interesting lecture (Talk) by former Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou - titled, Imagine A European Democracy Without Borders. EFTA01143169 Web Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tedglobal/george-papandreou-at-tedg_b_3428741.html Greece has been the poster child for European economic crisis, but Papandreou wonders if it's just a preview of what's to come. "Our democracies," he says, "are trapped by systems that are too big to fail, or more accurately, too big to control" -- while "politicians like me have lost the trust of their peoples." How to solve it? Have citizens re-engage more directly in a new democratic bargain. Talking about the failure of leadership in our globalizing economy. Papandreou believes that the failure of leadership is that people have been taking out of the process, based on the foundation of democracy that people working together could be masters of their own fate and democracy was the political innovation that protected this freedom, limiting the tendency of the powerful to maximize power and wealth at the expense of the greater good for everyone else. And although Greece triggered the economic crisis in the Eurozone but he says that today most people would agree that Greece was just a symptom of the greater structural problems in the Eurozone due to vulnerabilities in the wider global economic system, "vulnerabilities of our democracies, our democracies are trapped by systems too big to fail, too big to control. Our democracies are weaken by people in the global economy with players who can evade laws, evade taxes, evade environmental or labor standards. Our democracies are undermined by the growing inequality of power and wealth, lobbyist, corruption, the speed of the markets or sometimes when we fear an impending disaster which have constrained our democracies and our ability to use our potential in finding solutions." Papandreou says that Greece was only a preview and hopes that Greece, Europe and the world will make radical transformations in our intuitions. He says that in this new paradigm of globalization there is a collective ignorance and fears, which lead European leaders to fully invest in the "blind faith" of orthodoxy of austerity. And when austerity didn't work, they then blame the people for being lazy as a result of indulgent social policies. No one blamed the banks and bankers who made millions and billions writing loans that those profligate, idle, ouzo swilling, Zorba dancing Greeks they are the problem Papandreou warns that this is not just about Greece, as this could be the pattern that leaders follow again and again when we deal with these complicated cross-border problems, whether its climate change, migration or financial regulations, abandoning our collective power to imagine our potential, falling victim to our fears, our stereotypes or dogmas, taking our citizens out of the process instead of building the process around them and doing so will only test the faith of our citizens in their democracy. And although it appears that Greece and Europe has weathered the economic storm, if politics is the power to imagine then 6o% youth unemployment in Greece and in other countries is a lack of imagination if not a lack of compassion. So far Europeans have only used economics to solve the EFTA01143170 problem and mostly austerity, whereas they could have designed other strategies, such as investing in green jobs and new technologies. Without broad-based participation, we are losing trust in our democracies, especially when today we have globalize the markets but we have not globalized our democratic institutions. As a result, our politicians are limited to local politics while our citizens are prey to forces beyond their control. Papandreou says that because the EU is the largest and most successful cross-border peace experiment, we should use it as a model for more expansion with a common identity, where education is through participation, where participation builds trust and solidarity rather than exclusion and xenophobia. A Europe of and by the people, a Europe in deepen and widening democracy. As Papandreou confessed, it can sounds naive to put faith and power in the wisdom of the people. But something has to change. And this disruptive change won't be given easily, as it is the interest of those in power to keep the status quo. As such all of us will have to have to take a stand if we really want things to change. The means, everyone who stands up against justice and inequality, everyone who preaches racism instead of empathy, dogma rather than critical thinking, technocracy rather than democracy and everyone who stands up to the unchecked power whether they be authoritarian leaders, plutocrats hiding their assets in tax havens or powerful lobbyist protecting the powerful few. Again, I know that this sounds naive, but so did the dream of democracy when the Greeks first invented it in the 5th Century BCE Remember: if we collectively or individually don't reach for a higher place, we will never get there On Wednesday July 3, 2013 the Egyptian military announced the removal of Mohammed Morsi as President, presenting a roadmap for reconciliation in the country. In a televised statement Egyptian military chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced that the plan calls for the temporary suspension of the constitution and the institution of a technocrat government. The chief justice of the constitutional court will lead the country in the interim. Tahrir Square, where thousands of people had gathered during the day, erupted in celebrations as soon as the news was announced. It was announced that Morsi was under house arrest at a Presidential Guard facility where he had been residing, and 12 presidential aides also were under house arrest. The constitution, drafted by Morsi's Islamist allies, was "temporarily suspended," and a panel of experts and representatives of all political movements will consider amendments, el-Sissi said. He did not say whether a referendum would be held to ratify the changes, as customary. The armed forces announced they would install a temporary civilian government to replace Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, who denounced the action as a "full coup" by the generals. They also suspended the Islamist-drafted constitution and called for new elections. On July 4, 2013 Adly Mansour, Egypt's top judicial authority, is appointed as interim president during the transitional EFTA01143171 period. Millions of anti-Morsi protesters around the country erupted in celebrations after the televised announcement by the army chief. Fireworks burst over crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square, where men and women danced, shouting, "God is great" and "Long live Egypt." Fearing a violent reaction by Morsi's Islamist supporters, troops and armored vehicles deployed in the streets of Cairo and elsewhere, surrounding Islamist rallies. Clashes erupted in several provincial cities when Islamists opened fire on police, with at least nine people killed, security officials said. Beyond the fears over violence, some protesters are concerned whether an army-installed administration can lead to real democracy. The ouster of Morsi throws Egypt on an uncertain course, with a danger of further confrontation. It came after four days of mass demonstrations even larger than those of the 2011 Arab Spring that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Egyptians were angered that Morsi was giving too much power to his Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists and had failed to tackle the country's mounting economic woes. President Barack Obama urged the military to hand back control to a democratic, civilian government as soon as possible but stopped short of calling it a coup d'etat. The U.S. wasn't taking sides in the conflict, committing itself only to democracy and respect for the rule of law, Obama said. He said he was "deeply concerned" by the military's move to topple Morsi's government and suspend Egypt's constitution. He said he was ordering the U.S. government to assess what the military's actions meant for U.S. foreign aid to Egypt — $1.5 billion a year in military and economic assistance. On July 5th Islamist supporters of Morsi clashed with Egyptian security forces and fought brutal street battles with Morsi opponents deep into early hours of Saturday morning, as violence surged following Wednesday's military coup. The violence left at least 36 people dead, and more than 1,000 injured across the country, according to Egypt's health ministry. Frustrated, angry civilians divided themselves into warring camps that went after each other with clubs, rocks and gasoline bombs over a major bridge and thoroughfares in central Cairo, in scenes that recalled the revolution that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011. So chaotic and fast-moving were events that Egyptian television news broadcasters split their screens into not just two but often three competing scenes of violent unrest. Near midnight, government troops in armored personnel carriers roared up to protect state EFTA01143172 media offices from advancing crowds of Morsi supporters. Many of them were drawn from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood, which suddenly finds itself shoved out of power and into a more familiar role as an oppressed opposition group. The day's turbulent developments reflect an ominously divided country, and region. From beyond Egypt, radical Web sites called for jihad against the nation's military, even as most Arab governments continued to look on approvingly of the coup. The United States has expressed concern but has generally avoided taking sides. The fact that Egypt's first democratically elected president was overthrown by the military, just one year in office by the same kind of Arab Spring uprising that brought the Islamist leader to power, present its own new set of problems for supporters of democracy here and America and around the world . As Fareed Zakaria pointed out this week in an op-ed in The Washington Post - Egypt's lost opportunity - Over the past three decades, when American officials would (gently) press Egypt's Hosni Mubarak to stop jailing his opponents and initiate more democratic reforms, he would invariably snap back: "Do you want the Muslim Brotherhood in power?" Wednesday's events suggest that Egyptians continue to face this choice, between military dictatorship and an illiberal democracy. T o succeed, the new leadership in Egypt has to find a way to reject both. That's a task for Egyptians, not for the United States. Much of the Western media has tended to describe the divide in Egypt as between secularists and Islamists, portraying ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi as having pursued a radical Islamic agenda in his year in office. There is certainly a strand of truth to this narrative, though the story is more about grabbing power than enacting sharia. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have been deceptive, avaricious and venal. The party promised that it would neither run for the presidency nor seek a parliamentary majority. It reneged on both pledges. It rushed through a constitution that was deficient in many key guarantees of individual rights. It has allowed discrimination and even violence against the Coptic Christian minority in Egypt. It has tried to shut down its opposition, banning members of Mubarak's old party from all political offices in Egypt for life. But its biggest failing has been incompetence. Egypt is in free fall. In the year that Morsi was in power, the economy sunk, unemployment skyrocketed, public order collapsed, crime rose, and basic social services have stalled. This would by itself by enough to produce massive public discontent. Public discontent was first channeled against the army, which ruled Egypt for 16 months after the fall of Mubarak in 2011. Now it has been directed towards Morsi. If the objective situation does not improve in the country, this discontent might not easily dissipate. Egypt's military has presented this coup as a "sot" one, aimed at restoring democracy, not subverting it. If it succeeds, it could work like the Turkish military's removal of an Islamist government in 1997. If it fails, it could look like the Algerian coup of 1992, ushering in a decade of violence. For now, it has certainly preserved the army's immense power and perks, which have continued despite the formal end of military rule. The military budget, for example, remains a black box subject to no parliamentary or presidential scrutiny. And while Morsi's misrule galvanized liberal forces, it is an irony that they have sought a path to power on the backs of a fairly repressive military regime. In Egypt, we see the results of an unfortunate dynamic produced by decades of dictatorship. Extreme autocracy produced, as its counterpoint, extreme opposition. As the regime became more repressive, the opposition grew more Islamist and obstinate, sometimes violent. Arab lands have been trapped between repressive regimes and illiberal political movements, with little prospect than that from within these two forces, liberal democracy might breakthrough. Morsi and the Brotherhood had the opportunity to break this vicious cycle — to be the force for democracy and for a liberal order with a separation of powers and a constitutional government. They overplayed their hand resulting in a popular uprising that allowed the Egyptian military to ousted them for leadership. As Zakaria pointed out in his op-ed, there is a road map to democracy. It was the one that Nelson Mandela used when he and the African National Council (ANC) took control of South EFTA01143173 Africa — he did everything in his power to accommodate and reassure the Afrikaners that they had an important place in the new South Africa. Being in South Africa at the time, the pressures on Mandela from newly empowered blacks to treat these people, who had created apartheid was immense. Yet he resisted and did what was right for his country and history. I remember asking a white South African friend at the time what he liked best about Mandela, his response was, "his generosity." The United States has tried to chart a middle course, supporting the democratic process, working with the elected president, and yet urging him toward moderation. It's not enough to satisfy either side — and where once Washington was blamed for supporting the military, it is now blamed for supporting the Brotherhood. The reality is that leadership from Washington is largely irrelevant. What matters is leadership in Cairo. Morsi is not Mandela and most likely neither is his successor. Because of that difference, Egypt will follow a more difficult democratic course than did South Africa. And if Egypt doesn't carefully navigate this balance of tolerance, inclusion, fairness along with the rule of law, the fault will be theirs alone THIS WEEK's READINGS One of the most important investigative journalist in America covering Wall Street, financial markets, big banks and big business is RollingStone's Matt Taibbi who most recently wrote another expose on malfeasance in finance titled - The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis — exposing systemic wrong doings by the major rating agencies whose shady practices helped triggered the financial meltdown in 2008, as almost none of the fraud that swallowed Wall Street in the past decade couldn't have taken place without companies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's rubber- stamping it Thanks to a mountain of evidence gathered for a pair of major lawsuits by the San Diego-based law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, documents that for the most part have never been seen by the general public, we now know that the nation's two top ratings companies, Moody's and S&P, have for many years been shameless tools for the banks, willing to give just about anything a high rating in exchange for cash. In incriminating e-mail after incriminating e-mail, executives and analysts from these companies are caught admitting their entire business model is crooked. "Lord help our fucking scam ... this has to be the stupidest place I have worked at," writes one Standard & Poor's executive. "As you know, I had difficulties explaining 'HOW' we got to those numbers since there is no science behind it," confesses a high-ranking S&P analyst. "If we are just going to make it up in order to rate deals, then quants (quantitative analysts] are of precious little value," complains another senior S&P man. "Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of card[s] falters," ruminates one more. Ratings agencies are the glue that ostensibly holds the entire financial industry together. These gigantic companies — also known as Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations, or NRSROs — have teams of examiners who analyze companies, cities, towns, countries, mortgage borrowers, anybody or anything that takes on debt or creates an investment vehicle. Their primary function is to help define what's safe to buy, and what isn't. A triple-A rating is to the financial world what the USDA seal of approval is to a meat-eater, or virginity is to a Catholic. It's supposed to be sacrosanct, inviolable: According to Moody's own reports, AAA investments "should survive the equivalent of the U.S. Great Depression." It's not a stretch to say the whole financial industry revolves around the compass point of the absolutely safe AAA rating. But the financial crisis happened because AAA ratings stopped being something that had to be earned and turned into something that could be paid for. That this happened is even more amazing because these companies naturally have powerful leverage over their clients, as EFTA01143174 they are part of a quasi-protected industry that enjoys massive de facto state subsidies. Largely that's because government agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission often force private companies to fulfill regulatory requirements by retaining or keeping in reserve certain fixed quantities of assets — bonds, securities, whatever — that have been rated highly by a "Nationally Recognized" ratings agency, like the "Big Three" of Moody's, S&P and Fitch. So while they're not quite part of the official regulatory infrastructure, they might as well be. It's not like the iniquity of the ratings agencies had gone completely unnoticed before. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission published a case study in 2011 of Moody's in particular and discovered that between 2000 and 2007, the agency gave nearly 45,000 mortgage-backed securities AAA ratings. One year Moody's doled out AAA ratings to 30 mortgage-backed securities every day, 83 percent of which were ultimately downgraded. "This crisis could not have happened without the rating agencies," the commission concluded. Thanks to these documents, we now know how that happened. And showing as they do the back-and- forth between the country's top ratings agencies and one of America's biggest investment banks (Morgan Stanley) in advance of two major subprime deals, they also lay out in detail the evolution of the industry-wide fraud that led to implosion of the world economy — how banks, hedge funds, mortgage lenders and ratings agencies, working at an extraordinary level of cooperation, teamed up to disguise and then sell near-worthless loans as AAA securities. It's the black box in the American financial airplane. In April, Moody's and Standard & Poor's settled the lawsuits for a reported $225 million. Brought by a diverse group of institutional plaintiffs with King County, Washington, and the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank taking the lead, the suits accused the ratings agencies of conspiring in the mid-to-late 2000s with Morgan Stanley to fraudulently induce heavy investment into a pair of doomed-to-implode subprime- laden deals, called Cheyne and Rhinebridge. Stock prices for both companies soared at the settlement, with markets believing the firms would be spared the hell of reams of embarrassing evidence thrust into public view at trial. But in a quirk, an earlier judge's ruling had already made most of the documents in the case public. Although a few news outlets, including The New York Times, took note at the time, the vast majority of the material was never reported, and some was never seen by reporters at all. The cases revolved around a highly exotic and complex financial instrument called a SW, or structured investment vehicle. The SW is a not-so-distant cousin of the special purpose entity, or SPE, which was the main weapon of destruction in the Enron scandal. The corporate scam du jour in those days was mass accounting fraud, in which a company would create an ostensibly independent corporate structure that would actually be controlled by its own executives, who would then move their company's liabilities off their own books and onto the remote-controlled SPE, hiding the firm's losses. The SW is a similar concept. They first started showing up in the late Eighties after banks discovered a loophole in international banking standards that allowed them to create SPE-like repositories full of assets like mortgage- backed securities and keep them off their own books. These behemoths operated on the same basic concept as an ordinary bank, which borrows short-term cash from depositors and then lends money long-term in the form of things like mortgages, business loans, etc. The SW did the same thing, borrowing short-term from investors and then investing long- term on things like student loans, car loans, subprime mortgages. Like banks, a SW made money on the spread between its short-term debt and long-term investments. If a SW borrowed on the commercial paper market at 3 percent but earned 6.5 percent on subprime mortgages, that was an easy 3.5 percent profit. The big difference is a bank has regulatory capital requirements. A SW doesn't, and being technically independent, its potential liabilities don't show up on the books of the megabank that created it. So the SIV structure allowed investment banks to create and take advantage of, without risk, billions of dollars of things like subprime loans, which became the centerpiece of the EFTA01143175 new trendy corporate scam — creating and then selling masses of risky mortgage-backed securities as AAA investments to institutional suckers. Ratings agencies helped this game along in two ways. First, banks needed them to sign off on the bogus math of the subprime era — the math that allowed banks to turn pools of home loans belonging to people so broke they couldn't even afford down payments into securities with higher credit ratings than corporations with billions of dollars in assets. But banks also needed the ratings agencies to sign off on the safety and reliability of these off-balance-sheet SW structures. The first of the two SIVs in question was dreamed up by a London-based hedge fund called Cheyne Capital Management (pronounced like Dick "Cheney"), run by an ex-Morgan Stanley banker duo who hired their old firm to build and stock this vast floating Death Star of subprime loans. Morgan Stanley had multiple motives for putting together the Cheyne deal. For one thing, it earned what the bank's lead structurer affectionately called "big fat upfront fees," which bank executives estimated would eventually add up to $25 million or $3o million. It was a lucrative business, and the top dogs wanted the deal badly. "I am very focused on ... getting this deal done to get NY to stop freaking out" and "to make our money," said Robert Rooney, the senior Morgan Stanley executive on the deal. A spokesman for Morgan Stanley, however, told Rolling Stone, "Our sole economic interest was in the ongoing success of the SIV." But that wasn't Morgan Stanley's only motive. Not only could the bank make the "big fat upfront fees" for structuring the deal, they could also turn around and sell scads of their own mortgage-backed securities to the SW, which in turn would be marketed to investors like Abu Dhabi and King County. In Cheyne, 25 percent of the original assets in the deal came from Morgan Stanley - over time, $2 billion of the SIV's $9 billion to $10 billion portfolio of assets came from the bank as well. Internal Morgan Stanley memorandums show that the bank knowingly stuffed mortgages in the SW whose borrowers were, to say the least, highly suspect. 'The real issue is that the loan requests do not make sense," complained a Morgan Stanley employee back in 2005. He noted loans had been made to a "tarot reading house" operator who claimed to make $12,000 a month, and a "knock off gold club distributor" who claimed to make $16,000 a month. "Compound these issues," he groaned, "with the fact that we are seeing what I would call a lot of this type of profile." No matter - into the soup it went! Morgan sold mountains of this crap into Cheyne's SW, where it was destined to be sold off to other suckers down the line. The only thing that could possibly get in the way of the scam was some pesky ratings agency. Fortunately for the bank and the hedge fund, these subprime SIVs were a relatively new kind of investment product, so the ratings agencies had little to go on in the area of historical data to measure these products. One might think this would make the ratings agencies more conservative. In fact, caution in the face of the unknown was supposed to be a core value for these companies. As Moody's put it, "Triple-A structures should not be highly dependent on untestable assumptions." Years after the crash, it's a little insulting to see industry analysts blithely copping under oath to having traded science for market share, especially since the companies continue to protest to the contrary in public. Contacted for this story, Moody's and S&P insisted many of the documents in this case were simply taken out of context, and that their analysis throughout has been rigorous, objective and independent. It's a thin defense, but it's holding — for now. McGraw-Hill stock plunged nearly 14 percent when news of the Justice Department suit leaked, and dropped nearly 19 percent for February, but has since regained much of its value — its stock rose nearly 16 percent in March and April, as markets reacted favorably to, among other things, its recent settlement of the Cheyne and Rhinebridge suits. The markets clearly think the ratings agencies will survive. What's amazing about this is that even without a mass of ugly documentary evidence proving their incompetence and corruption, these firms ought to be out of business. Even if they just accidentally sucked this badly, that should be enough to persuade the markets to look to a different model, different EFTA01143176 companies, different ratings methodologies. But we know now that it was no accident. What happened to the ratings agencies during the financial crisis, and what is likely still happening within their walls, is a phenomenon as old as business itself. Given a choice between money and integrity, they took the money. Which wouldn't be quite so bad if they weren't in the integrity business. Thank you Matt Taibbi and shame on you Big 3 ***** This week a friend sent me a disturbing CNBC article written last week by Tracey Gaughran-Perez — 8o% of Pre-Packaged Foods in America Are Banned in Other Countries — based on a new book — Rich Food, Poor Food, authors Mira and Jason Calton provide a list of what they term "Banned Bad Boys" - ingredients commonly used in up to 8o% of all American convenience food that have been banned by other countries, with information about which countries banned each substance and why. And though it might not surprise you to hear that Olestra - commonly used in low/no-fat snack foods and known to cause serious gastrointestinal issues for those who consume it (understatement) - is on that list, having been banned in both the United Kingdom and Canada, you may be shocked to hear that Mountain Dew, Fresca and Squirt all contain brominated vegetable oil, a substance that has been banned in more than 100 countries "because it has been linked to basically every form of thyroid disease -from cancer to autoimmune diseases - known to man." You might also be upset to hear that the food coloring used to make your kid's delicious Mac & Cheese dinner visually appealing - yellow #5 and yellow #6, namely - is made from coal tar, which among other things is an active ingredient in lice shampoo and has been linked to allergies, ADHD, and cancer in animals. Then there's azodicarbonamide - commonly found in frozen dinners and frozen potato and bread products - which is used make things like bleach and foamed plastics like those found in yoga mats (tasty!). Azodicarbonamide has been banned in most European countries because it's known to induce asthma, and is in fact deemed so dangerous that in Singapore its use carries a hefty $500,00 fine and up to 15 years in prison. Yet, according to the FDA, it's SO TOTALLY FINE for us to keep shoveling it into our kid's face holes: "[Azodicarbonamide] is approved to be a bleaching agent in cereal flour and is permitted for direct addition to food for human consumption." Finally, there's butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) - found in Post, Kelloggs and Quaker brand cereals - which is made from petroleum and is a known cancer-causing agent. It's been banned in England and Japan, but those of us in the U.S. can keep right on serving up to our children for breakfast. If you or your kids enjoy pre-packaged convenience foods commonly found in grocery stores across the U.S. such as Froot Loops, Swanson dinners, Mountain Dew, and frozen potato and bread products, you may think twice before purchasing them when you truly understand what they contain: dangerous chemicals that other countries around the globe have deemed toxic to the point that they're illegal, and companies are fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for including them in food products. And anyone who doesn't find this disturbing is crazy, EFTA01143177 especially products openly marketed as meals for kids that contains chemicals known and recognized world-wide as completely toxic. Having suffered two serious strokes, to avoid a third I had to take a serious assessment of the foods that I eat and as follow up to last week where I identified a number of healthy foods that should be the staples of every diet, here are the 25 healthiestfoods for under $t. Tofu: A pack of Tofu costs about a buck and is packed with healthy soy protein. Sardines: Sardines offer heart-healthy oils. Where many larger fish populations are suffering from overfishing, the smaller fishes like mackerel, sardines, and anchovies, remain well regulated and highly healthful. Spinach: Spinach has a high nutritional value and is extremely rich in antioxidants, especially when fresh, steamed, or quickly boiled. Better yet, it's cheap! Whole-Grain Pasta: Whole Grain Pasta takes a classic dinner treat and pumps up the nutrition, without swapping out any of the taste at all! Almonds: Raw almonds can be purchased in bulk at most health food stores to offset the typically high prices of prepacked nuts. Full of essential nutrients and low in saturated fats, you can eat these sweet flavored nuts raw or mixed into a variety of meals. Canned Tomatoes: Canned Tomatoes are always at the ready when you have them in the pantry, and offer crazy amounts of lycopene which has been proven to fight some cancers. Lentils: Lentils are one of the best sources of vegan protein. They cook quickly and cost just a few cents per ounce. EFTA01143178 Yogurt: Yogurt offers a quick source of dairy and protein. It's cheap, healthful, and sweet enough to replace dessert. Green Tea: Green Tea is a mild drink, proven to offer significant cancer-fighting benefits. Look for boxes of bulk green tea packets in your grocery sotre that have been created in the U.S.A to ensure top notch food standards. Cauliflower: Cauliflower is low in fat and carbs, but high in dietary fiber, folate, and vitamin C. A head of cauliflower will set you back about 2 bucks, but it can easily serve up to 4 family members! Potatoes: Potatoes are filling and starchy, and full of phytochemicals, carotenoids, and natural phenols. Hummus: Garbanzo Beans can be purchased dried or in can form, and mixed into Indian dishes, salads, or pureed into homemade hummus for a filling, healthful meal. Peanut Butter: So it's the rare sale when you can find a whole jar for one dollar, but per serving, peanut butter is cheap and packs a protein punch. Look for the natural varieties that don't add sugar and other unnecessary preservatives in the mix. Popcorn: When air- popped, popcorn is high in fiber, low in calories and fat, contains no sodium, and is sugar free. Canned Tuna: Canned tuna is a fantastic protein source, and full of omega 3's — which is great for heart health, lowering triglycerides and cholesterol, and for brain function. It's also a great source of Vitamin B12, which is necessary for brain and cell functioning! Watermelon: Watermelon is filling and low in calories due to the amount of water it holds. It's also packed with a number of antioxidants and vitamins. ! Pinto Beans: Pinto Beans may just be the cheapest protein source you'll ever find. They are easy to prepare and versatile! Water: Water is available in great abundance, and it's easy to forget how vital it is to our health and diet. Try drinking a glass every time you feel hungry and see if you aren't just thirsty after all. Oatmeal: Oats are high in fiber and low in price. Cook up a pot of oatmeal in the morning or mix oats into homemade cookies for a nutritous treat. Eggs: A half-dozen eggs cost about a dollar and are one of the least expensive ways to add protein to your diet. Kale: With Michael Pollan's recent call to eat plants, mostly leaves, bunches of kale offer a cheap, versatile source of high-quality veggies to add to your diet. Bananas: Bananas offer a hefty dose of potassium, while also making snack time simple with it's fit- in-your-palm size. Broccoli: Broccoli has been shown a big-time cancer-fighting green. Better yet, it's filling and fibrous and easy to mix into any dinner. Wild Rice: Wild Rice costs just a few cents more than white rice, but is packed with more nutrients and vitamins. Stir it into any recipe that calls for white rice, but remember to plan on the extra cooking time. Wild rice takes longer to cook than white. EFTA01143179 Beets: Beets are cheap and offer unique antioxidants fight against coronary artery disease and stroke, lower cholesterol levels in the body and have anti-aging effect. ****** I have many Conservative (mostly Republican) friends who believe that most people who are unemployed are without a job because they are too lazy, want to or because it is easy to live off of largess of the government. In North Carolina which has an 8.8% unemployment rate many of the jobless have been out of work for six months or more, thanks to a national environment in which there are three times as many people seeking work as there are job openings. Nonetheless, the state's government has just sharply cut aid to the unemployed. In fact, the Republicans controlling that government were so eager to cut off aid that they didn't just reduce the duration of benefits; they also reduced the average weekly benefit, making the state ineligible for about $700 million in federal aid to the long-term unemployed. North Carolina isn't alone: a number of other states have cut unemployment benefits, although none at the price of losing federal aid. And at the national level, Congress has been allowing extended benefits introduced during the economic crisis to expire, even though long-term unemployment remains at historic highs. In an op-ed last Sunday in The New York Times - War On the Unemployed — Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman blasts members of the G.O.P., who believe that ¢y percent of Americans are "takers" mooching off the job creators, who in many states are denying health care to the poor simply to spite President Obama. And that the war on the unemployed isn't motivated solely by cruelty; rather, it's a case of meanspiritedness converging with bad economic analysis. In general, modern conservatives believe that our national character is being sapped by social programs that, in the memorable words of Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, "turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency." More specifically, they believe that unemployment insurance encourages jobless workers to stay unemployed, rather than taking available jobs. Let's be real. Yes, there are millions of people who game the system — you only have to watch several Judge Judy shows to see these guys. But the average unemployment benefit in North Carolina is $299 a week, pretax. So anyone who imagines that unemployed workers are deliberately choosing to live a life of leisure has no idea what the experience of unemployment, and especially long-term unemployment, is really like. I am sure that there is evidence that unemployment benefits make workers a bit more choosy in their job search. When the economy is booming, this extra choosiness may raise the "non-accelerating-inflation" unemployment rate — the unemployment rate at which inflation starts to rise, inducing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and choke off economic expansion. Krugman says that all of this is irrelevant to our current situation, since inflation is not a concern and the Fed's problem is that it can't get interest rates low enough. While cutting unemployment benefits makes the unemployed even more desperate, it does nothing to create more jobs. But wait — what about supply and demand? Won't making the unemployed desperate put downward pressure on wages? And won't lower labor costs encourage job growth? No — that's a fallacy of composition. Cutting one worker's wage may help save his or her job by making that worker cheaper than competing workers; but cutting everyone's wages just reduces everyone's income — and it worsens the burden of debt, which is one of the main forces holding the economy back. And let's not forget that cutting benefits to the unemployed, many of whom are living hand-to-mouth, will lead to lower overall spending — a gain, worsening the economic situation, and destroying more jobs. Krugman summarizes his argument by saying that the move to slash unemployment benefits, is both counterproductive and cruel; swelling the ranks of the unemployed even as it makes their lives ever more miserable. Like the War on Drugs, this "undeclared" War on the Unemployed has to stop, as it is only exists because it has been able to fly under the radar because too many fellow Americans unaware of what is going on and the pain that it is causing. EFTA01143180 This week Joel Berg who leads the New York City Coalition Against Hunger and is a Senior Fellow at the Center For American Progress posted a piece on his blog explaining how SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps) became part of the Farm BM, for those of us who didn't know. A long line of jobless and homeless men wait outside to get free dinner at New York's Municipal Lodging House in the winter of 1932-33 during the Great Depression During the Great Depression, Americans foraged through garbage cans for food and dug in public parks to find roots they could eat. Parents reluctantly sent their children door-to-door to beg. Ninety- five people were admitted to New York City's four largest hospitals due to starvation in 1931. Twenty of them died. That same year, the Municipal Lodging House for the homeless provided 408,100 lodgings and 1,024,247 meals. A year later, in 1932, it provided 889,984 lodgings and 2,688,266 meals, at a time when the entire New York City population was only 6.9 million people. Relief agencies nationwide lost their ability to prevent starvation. Local governments, expected to fund relief efforts themselves, began running out of money to do so. In May 1932, the average relief grant in Philadelphia (out of which people were expected to pay for food and all other basic expenses) was cut to $4.32 per family per week, equaling about $62 per week in today's money. In New York City, the average weekly relief grant fell to $2.39 (about $35 in today's money). Baltimore gave needy families an average of 8o cents and Atlanta provided 6o cents per week for whites and less for blacks. The nation was near the point of revolution. At times, armed men would go into stores in large groups to demand credit and, when refused, take food anyway. The term "food riot" became popular in the press. Adding fuel to the fire was the country's glut of unused food. Neither farmers nor factory workers had the money to buy each others' products. Oklahoma union activist and editor Oscar Ameringer wrote: "The farmers are being pauperized by the poverty of the industrial populations and the industrial populations are being pauperized by the poverty of the farmers." Today it seems obvious to most of us that government should have purchased some of the excess agricultural products and distributed them to the hungry, but at the time, opposition to government involvement in social welfare, as well as the belief in the unlimited abilities of American charities, was EFTA01143181 deeply ingrained in American thought. The idea of the government buying food and distributing it for free seemed radical, particularly to the Republicans in charge of the nation. In 1931, when Democratic leader William McAdoo suggested that surplus wheat be distributed to the unemployed, President Herbert Hoover rejected the idea, saying, "I am confident that the hungry and unemployed will be cared for by our sense of voluntary organization and community service." Ironically, Hoover had first become nationally known in America for his effective leadership in providing aid to starving Europeans following World War I, but he couldn't accept the reality that his beloved United States needed that same type of help. As America's crisis worsened, Hoover would not budge in his opposition to domestic relief. In a 1932 speech, he decried government aid, saying: "A cold and distant charity which puts out its sympathy only through the tax collector yields only a meager dole of unloving and perfunctory relief." He was clearly blind to the fact that millions of Americans on the verge of starvation would have been grateful for any sort of food aid, no matter how unloving and perfunctory. Two days before the election of 1932, which he lost in a landslide to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Hoover declared himself unable to "find a single locality where people are being deprived of food or shelter." Hoover was the nation's first significant right-wing hunger denier. Wealthy people who dominated the boards of charities complained that providing food aid would promote dependency and that private charity was more efficient than government aid. Even progressive social workers believed that food aid "was an antiquated form of relief, inconsistent with modern social work practice and the dignity of the client." Yet the severity of the crisis eventually sunk in for many of our nation's leaders, and necessity trumped ideology, as even staunch Republican Congressman Hamilton Fish supported a proposal to have the government buy excess wheat for distribution to the poor, saying, "It is a disgrace and an outrage that this country of ours, with overabundance of food stuffs, should permit millions of our own people to continue to be undernourished and hungry." Citing instances in which Congress had aided the victims of disasters abroad, Fish argued that the "first function of government is to take care of its own people in time of great emergency. " Permitting people to starve, he declared, was "creating a hotbed for communism." When Roosevelt took office, the controversy over whether to support food aid versus other kinds of aid remained unsettled. His agriculture department received widespread and withering criticism for slaughtering and then discarding hogs in order to reduce supply. In response, FDR ordered the department to start distributing the meat to the hungry. Today's liberals tend to forget that FDR repeatedly opposed giving out free money and food without requiring work (especially when they blasted Bill Clinton for supposedly betraying the New Deal tradition by supporting welfare reform). Roosevelt said direct relief was "a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit." Instead of continuing to sponsor a "spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber," he said, the government must find work for those in need and able to work "We must preserve not only the bodies of the employed from destruction but also their self-respect, their self-reliance and courage and determination. Therefore, the Federal government must and shall quit this business of relief." A pragmatist who sometimes contradicted himself in order to solve pressing national problems, Roosevelt also significantly expanded the efforts — begun in the previous administration, against Hoover's will — to distribute free commodities to low- income Americans. FDR included other goods in addition to wheat and significantly increased the volume of surplus food purchased and distributed by the federal government. FDR also supported creation of the first Food Stamp Program, in 1938. The program operated by permitting people on relief to buy orange stamps equal to their normal food expenditures; for every one dollar worth of orange stamps purchased, 5o cents worth of blue stamps were received. Orange stamps could be used to buy any food; blue stamps could only be used to buy food determined by the Department of Agriculture to be surplus. Over the course of nearly four years, the program reached approximately 20 million people in nearly half of the nation's counties, and cost a total of $262 million (about three billion dollars in 2006 dollars). EFTA01143182 So that is the story of how food aid was tied to farm aid from the start. Today, though many rural and suburban people rely on federal nutrition assistance programs (such as SNAP), they're perceived as urban programs. Thus, they've remained in Farm Bills in order to try to win votes from urban members of Congress. House Republicans now want to separate SNAP from the Farm Bill in order to make it easier to make cuts. In Berg's opinion, farm bills should be classified as 'food bills" and SNAP should continue to be part of them. Food producers and consumers are mutually dependent upon each other. When so many Americans are low-income and hungry or food insecure, that limits the amount of money they can spend on food, thus limiting income for food producers. When producers can't afford to stay on their land or face environmental threats, it threatens the availability of nutritious, fresh food for New York consumers. A true food bill would aid hungry Americans and small family farmers alike. This post is adapted from his book AU You Can Eat: How Hungry is America My personal beliefs differ from Joel Berg because I believe that the biggest problem with the Farm Bills are that the lobbyist representing big farma often hold feeding the poor hostage, in favor of farm subsidies that benefit big agriculture/farms. As a result -- although food producers are mutually dependent upon each other -- farm bills are often skewed to the benefit certain produce (oranges, wheat, milk, beef, chicken) and mega-large farm consortiums. And how to fix this I don't know how.... Other than for the government (local, state & federal) to do whatever it can to eradicate hunger and food insecurity in America, separate from anything else. ****** Last week Nelson Schwartz wrote an op-ed in the New York Times — Big Companies Paid a Fraction of Corporate Tax Rate - what many suspected - that the biggest, most profitable American companies paid only a fraction of the taxes they would owe under the official corporate rate, according to a study released on Monday by the Government Accountability Office. Using allowed deductions and legal loopholes, large corporations enjoyed a 12.6 percent tax rate far below the 35 percent tax that is the statutory rate imposed by the federal government on corporate profits. The findings come amid rising criticism of the tactics that some big companies use to lower their tax bills. In May, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations examined the practices of Apple, in particular how the technology giant had used overseas subsidiaries to sidestep billions in taxes. At a hearing in late May on Capitol Hill, Apple's chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, insisted that the company had fully complied with tax laws and had paid all it legally owed, both here and abroad. Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the subcommittee, and Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, requested the report to study the issue. The report by the G.A.O., which is the investigative arm of Congress, focused on companies with more than $3.0 million in assets and what they paid from 2008 to 2010, although it did not address the practices of specific companies. Even so, the findings, along with the earlier reports about Apple, could complicate the efforts to reform the federal tax code's treatment of companies. Chief executives argue that Congress needs to overhaul the corporate tax system because the rates in the United States are well above those of other developed countries. They add that their companies pay taxes around the world, so their federal rate doesn't offer a complete picture of their bill. But legislators like Mr. Levin say the issue is much more complex. The report found that even when foreign, state, and local taxes were included, the tax rate of large companies rose only to 16.9 percent of total income, still well below the official 35 percent. "Some U.S. multinational corporations like to complain about the U.S. 35 percent statutory tax rate, but what they don't like to admit is that hardly any of them pay anything close to it," Mr. Levin said in a statement. "The big gap between the U.S. statutory tax rate and what large, profitable U.S. corporations actually pay is due in large part to the unjustified loopholes and gimmicks that riddle our tax code." EFTA01143183 At the same time, big companies are shouldering a smaller part of the overall tax burden than in the past. As a percentage of federal tax revenue, corporate taxes have fallen to 9 percent from more than 3o percent in the 1950s. Overall, corporations paid about $242 billion in federal taxes in 2012, compared to $1.1 trillion taxes paid by individual taxpayers. Mr. Coburn said that he favors closing loopholes and eliminating tax breaks even as the overall rate is lowered. "An individual's or corporation's tax rate shouldn't be dependent on their ability to hire a tax lobbyist,"he said in a statement. "We would be better off with a code that eliminated these loopholes so we can lower rates for both corporations and individuals." With Democratic Conservatives and Republicans defending loopholes that favor companies that they are beholding to, eliminating loopholes is definitely not in our near future.... But at least the truth is out in the open for all to see.... And when you hear that corporate America is being overtaxed Its a lie If you read some of the earlier postings in today's Weekend Offerings, you know that hunger and food insecurity is at an epidemic proportion in America with 15 million children going to bed hungry each night, even though almost 5o million are receiving supplemental nutritional assistance with food stamps, school lunch programs and private charity programs. At the same time, the poor in America are stereotyped and demonized in an effort to justify huge cuts in food stamps and other crucial programs for low-income Americans. Last week on Moyers & Company, Bill Moyers spoke with Greg Kaufmann, poverty correspondent for The Nation, who said, "people are working and they're not getting paid enough to feed their families, pay their utilities, pay for their housing, pay for the healthcare... if you're not paying people enough to pay for the basics, they're going to need help getting food," Kaufmann tells Bill. "There are a lot of corporations that want to be involved in the fight against hunger. The best thing they can do is get on board for fair wages." And this probably won't happen without collective bargaining and/or unions. Bill Moyers, "food stamps were at the core of the monster farm bill that went down to defeat in the House of Representatives last week. That bill would have cut food stamps by some $20 billion over 10 years, but that was too little for House Republicans and too much for House Democrats, although Senate Democrats had already agreed to cuts of more than $4 billion." Web Link: http://billmoyers.com/segment/greg-kaufmann-on-the-truth-about-american-povertyi There are almost 48 million people using food stamps a day, and over recent years that's a 70 percent increase. Kaufmann: I think, is the proliferation of low-wage work. People are working and they're not getting paid enough to feed their families, pay their utilities and pay for their housing, pay for the healthcare. We had 28 percent of workers in 2011 made wages that were less than the poverty line. Poverty wages. Fifty percent of the jobs in this country make less than $34,000 a year. Twenty-five percent make less than the poverty line for a family of four, which is $23,000 a year. So, if you're not paying people enough to pay for the basics, they're going to need help getting food. And food stamps expanded because we went through the greatest the worst recession since the Great Depression. And it did what it's supposed to do. And now, you know, mostly Republicans are saying, "Why are there so many people on food stamps?" You know, they're claiming the recession's over, but we know that most people on food stamps are, if they're getting work, it's low-wage work that doesn't pay enough to pay for food. The farm bill that failed in Congress last week would've spent $743.9 billion on food stamps and nutrition over the next ten years. Republicans wanted to cut that by some $2o billion over the same period, ten years. Given that we're spending $75 to $78 billion a year now on food stamps, do they have a case? Maybe so if you are comfortable saying two million people should be thrown off food stamps, 200,000 low-income children should not have access to meals, to their meals in school. Hey, they can make that argument all they want. I think it's out of sync with the values of this country. EFTA01143184 Over the next ten years food stamps are projected to be one 1.7 percent of federal spending according to the Congressional Budget Office. And for those who are concern fraud is less than one cent on the dollar of food stamp spending is lost to fraud, less than one cent on the dollar. Food stamp recipients are often characterized as urban and welfare when the truth is Food Research and Action Center has shown that the percentage of households in rural districts participating in food stamps is the same as the percentage of households in urban districts. As Kaufmann points out, hunger in America is not about shortage of food, it is about poverty. Over one over one in three Americans, over too million Americans are living at just twice the poverty level — which is less than $36,000 for a family of three — defining poverty at $18,000 for a family of three. This is crazy if you think about poverty as access to the basics that everybody needs — food, housing, healthcare, education. You try to provide this on $18,000 a year. At the same, we have a vast inequality in America, whereby the richest 400 people on the "Forbes" list made more from the stock market gains last year than the total amount of the food, housing and education budgets combined. This is 400 people out of 312 million. And the Wal-Mart corporation made $17 billion last year and US major corporations are sitting on $2 trillion in cash. And the only reason that these companies can get away with this inequality is that tens of millions of people are using government programs to get by. Or as Moyers and Kaufmann say, taxpayers are ultimately subsidizing Wal-Mart, who actually have paid employees helping colleagues to sign up for food stamps. Think about it If you were like me in the early days of the Internet, you probably remember typing your search query into AltaVisa which went live in 1995. Alta Vista was the Cadillac of search engines until Google came along. It was created by researchers at Digital Equipment Corporation's Network Systems Laboratory and Western Research Laboratory who were trying to provide services to make finding files on the public network easier. Paul Flaherty was responsible for the original idea, and two key participants were Louis Monier, who wrote the crawler, and Michael Burrows, who wrote the indexer. The name Alta Vista was chosen in relation to the surroundings of their company at Palo Alto. Alta Vista was publicly launched as an internet search engine on December 15, 1995 at altavista.digital.com. United States Web Images Video Local Shopping News More Googlel google google search Search. At launch, the service had two innovations that put it ahead of other search engines available at the time: it used a fast, multi-threaded crawler (Scooter) that could cover many more webpages than were believed to exist at the time, and it had an efficient search-running back-end on advanced hardware. As of 1998, it used 20 multi-processor machines using DEC's 64-bit Alpha processor. Together, the back-end machines had 13o GB of RAM and 500 GB of hard disk space, and received 13 million queries every day. This made Alta Vista the first searchable, full-text database of a large part of the World Wide Web. Another distinguishing feature of Alta Vista was its minimalistic interface, lost when it became a portal, but regained when it refocused its efforts on its search function. EFTA01143185 AltaVista's site was an immediate success. Traffic increased steadily from 3OO,OOO hits on the first day to more than 8O million hits per day two years later. In 1995, when AltaVista made its debut, the company said it was processing 2.5 million search requests a day. (Today, Google, processes 5.1 billion searches each day.) The ability to search the web, and Alta Vista's service in particular, became the subject of numerous articles and even some books. AltaVista itself became one of the top destinations on the web, and in 1997 it earned US$5o million in sponsorship revenue. It was once one of the most popular search engines, but it lost ground with the rise of Google and was purchased in 2OO3 by Yahoo!, which retained the brand but based all AltaVista searches on its own search engine. On June 28, 2O13, Yahoo! announced that it would be shutting down AltaVista on July 8, 2O13. What went wrong? Two things led to Alta Vista's eventual demise. First, there was Google, a search engine everybody is familiar with today. In 1996, AltaVista became the exclusive provider of search results for Yahoo!. In 1998, Digital was sold to Compaq and in 1999, Compaq redesigned AltaVista as a web portal, hoping to compete with Yahoo!. Under CEO Rod Schrock, AltaVista abandoned its streamlined search page, and focused on added features such as shopping and free email. In June 1998, Compaq paid AltaVista Technology Incorporated ("ATI") $3.3 million for the domain name altauista.com - Jack Marshall, cofounder of ATI, had registered the name in 1994. Meanwhile, it became dear that AltaVista's portal strategy was unsuccessful, and the search service began losing market share, especially to Google. After a series of layoffs and several management changes, AltaVista gradually shed its portal features and refocused on search. By 2OO2, AltaVista had improved the quality and freshness of its results and redesigned its user interface. But by then it was too late as Google was growing at warp-speed. T. AltaViste The most powerful and useful guide to the Net Ask Altairistarm a question. Or enter a few words in any language • Help - Advanced Search Example: Where can I download mp3 files for instrumental music? Specialty Searches AV Family Filter -AV Photo & Media Finder -AV Tools & Gadgets Online Shopping -AV Finance - Health - Industrial Communities - Careers Maps - People Finder -Travel - Usenet -Yellow Pages - Entertainment CATEGORIES Automotive Business & Finance Computers & Internet Health & Fitness Hobbies & Interests Home & Family Media & Amusements People & Chat Reference & Education Shopping & Services Society & Politics Sports & Recreation Travel & Vacations NEWS BY l* American POWs Released P. Ex-Klansman Falls Short in Louisiana ► NATO: F-16 Crashes in Serbia P. Massive Protests at NRA Meeting ALTAVISTA HIGHLIGHTS ►'NYPD' Sings the Ratings Blues ► Dude Ranches Beat Boredom ►AltaVista Adds Relevant Paid Links ow New Altavista Photo & Media Finder OTHER SERVICES Get Internet Explorer 5 - Email AltaVista Discovery 1.1 Video Search Demo - Free Photo Albums AV Translation Services -Asian Languages Make Us Your Homepacie Prints. Posters & Cards Featured Sponsors BID-N-BUY - Auction Super-Site 20-50% off all art everyday Find your mate! FREE Shipping on all FLOWERS! Click HERE EFTA01143186 And secondly, around the time Google came into existence, Alta Vista began changing hands, starting with a sale to Compaq. In June 1999, Compaq sold a majority stake in AltaVista to CMGI, an internet investment company. CMGI filed for an initial public offering for AltaVista to take place in April 2000, but as the internet bubble collapsed, the IPO was cancelled. It would eventually end up in Yahoo's portfolio as part of a larger transaction (Yahoo purchased Overture Services, Inc. in 2003, which owned Alta Vista at the time). Fast forward to today and hardly anyone uses Alta Vista anymore. Last week, Jay Rossiter, executive vice president of platforms at Yahoo, which owns Alta Vista, said that the search engine would be closed on July 8. Its understandable that Yahoo would shut Alta Vista down, though one could argue that the once popular search engine deserved better than to be lumped into a blog post announcing several product closures. But then this is what happens when technology companies lose their visionaries and vision. By the way could this be the future of Apple THIS WEEK's QUOTES "Charity is a great thing, but it's not the way to end hunger. We don't fund our Department of Defense through charity, you know. We shouldn't you know, see that our kids are healthy through charity either." Actor, Jeff Bridges from the new documentary film "A PLACE AT THE TABLE" "Hunger in America is not about the shortage offood, it is about poverty." Greg Kaufmann, poverty correspondent for The Nation GREAT VIDEO KEVIN JAMES - BEST COMEDY ILLUSIONIST EVER! This Video Is Amazing .... Log On Below >>> Website: http://www.youtube.com/watch popup?vrAi4tPe80S6Q THIS WEEK's MUSIC For me the first great disco club with The Cheetah in New York and the undisputed pantheon of disco clubs was Studio 54 also in New York. And although elsewhere around the world, Tramp in London, Ministry ofSound also in London, Regines in Paris, Jimmy'z in Monaco, Byblos in St. Tropez, Pacha in Ibiza, Cavo Paradiso in Mykonos, Jackie 0 in Rome, The New York City Club in Johannesburg and Rctules in Johannesburg and Capetown and the home of house music, the famed Paradise Garage in New York (named after the garage that once occupied the 84 King Street EFTA01143187 space). It reign between 1976 and 1987 and proved to be hugely influential on budding nightlife impresarios. Megaclubs like Ministry of Sound have cited the former New York dance spot as the inspiration for their own wildly successful models. At the time Roxbury opened, there had been a number of famous clubs in Los Angeles Pips, the Roxy and Carlos & Charlie, but none captured the cache of clubbing in the 199os than Roxbury which opened in 1990 and ran until 1997. Roxbury inspired the 1998 comedy film, A Night at the Roxbury which was based on a recurring skit on television's long-running Saturday Night Live called 'The Roxbury Guys." Saturday Night Live regulars Will Ferrell, Chris 'Caftan, Molly Shannon, and Colin Quinn starred in the film. Is owners Brad Johnson (whose father owned the legendary Seller in New York's Upper Westside), Elie and Dimitri Samaha and (and former LA Laker) Norm Nixon and his wife (the actress) Debbie Allen created the West Coast's premier celebrity playhouses, hosting newsmakers such as Madonna, Prince, Kiefer Sutherland. Julia Roberts. Arsenio Hall. Eddie Murphy. Sly Stallone, Mickey Rourke, Wayne Gretzky, Tom Cruise and the entire roster of The Los Angeles Lakers. Although the dub claimed to have a non-discriminatory door policy, everyone inside seems to be (to put it mildly) facially gifted. Men tend to look like the models in the C&R commercials (both the before and the after), while the predominant female fashion influence is Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman" (the before and the after). The most important male fashion accessory is muscles and for females, it's legs. The dance floor is packed from the time it opened about to:3o, with couples turning the beat around with a mix of Top 40, R&B and Hip Hop tunes from the 1970s, '8os and '9os. One nice touch: The dance floor is dim, with no traditional disco lights. Weary dancers could rest up on the comfortable overstuffed couches in the hallway alcoves, shoot a game of pool or prepare to do battle to get into the VIP room. But the real action was the VIP room. Though the club may be packed with stars (one Tuesday turned up Prince, Gerardo, Elle MacPherson, Charles Fleischer and New York club fixture Nikki Haskell), they're hidden away from the hoi polloi and sometimes spirited in and out on a back staircase or escorted in by the bouncers. I remember one evening when Brad Johnson asked me and my cousin Jude, if a young Shaquille O'Neal could join our booth with his date the actress (21 Jump Street) Holly Robinson. This week, I would like to share some of the music that Roxbury rocked. Playlist Night at the Roxbury theme song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HocVKHcAyi Lenny Karvitz - American Woman -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKgYCgjP K4 Janet Jackson - Nasty - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldi9677mj60 MC Hammer — U Can't Touch This -- httpliwwwyoutube.comiwatch?viqpn2oyEaxa Young MC — Bust And Move -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Akd hAEeFE M.A.R.S. - Pump Up The Volume -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGPhUr-T6UM Tone Loc - Wild Thing - httpwwwwyoutube.comiwatch?v=387ZOGSKvSg Notorious B.I.G. - Big Poppa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phaJXp zMYM Warren G - Regulateft. Nate Dogg - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p1PyJca Vanilla Ice — Ice Ice Baby -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE EFTA01143188 Dr. Dre — Nuthin' But a G Thang http://wwwyoutube.com/watch?v=thr5U8ZhlrY Snoop Dogg — Drop it Like its Hot -- http://vAvw.youtube.comAvatch?v=RaCodgL9cvk DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince — Summertime -- http:/Avviwyoutube.com/watch?v=Kr0tTbIbmVA TLC - No Scrubs -- http://www.youtube.comAvatch?v=VyfLER3Z0-Q Tyga — Bitch Betta Have My Money -- http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cmWa2GyB5-M N.W.A. - Express Yourself -- http://vAvw.youtube.com/watch?v=u3 I FO 4d9TY Bobby Brown - Every Little Step -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0FKzPfsv1/44 Michael Jackson - Billy Jean -- littp://www.voutube.com/watch?v=Zi XLOBDo Y I hope that you enjoyed this week's offerings and wish you and yours a great week Sincerely, Greg Brown Gregory Brown Chairman & CEO GlobalCast Partners, LW US: Tel: Fax: Skvi EFTA01143189