Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Kucinich: Gaming The Financial Crisis - ‘Is Wall Street Headed for Collapse?’

(Ignore the previous email - this one has additional information.)

The net result is financial firms' books look better and they need to hold less capital against those assets, even though they are the same assets they held before the transaction.
+++

Kucinich: ‘Is Wall Street Headed for Collapse?’
Questions Repackaging of Complex Financial Instruments, Calls for Additional Hearings
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/09/30-29

WASHINGTON - September 30 - Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today questioned whether the U.S. would be headed for another financial crisis if Wall Street continues to sell the same old products, with new names, that got us into trouble in the first place. The former Managing Director of Moody's Investor Service, Mr. Ilya Eric Kolchinsky, agreed there is a danger. The admission came during an Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing examining the role of credit rating agencies in the financial crisis. Following the admission, Kucinich called for further Committee hearings to examine the renamed investment instruments.

"I have been extremely troubled by the increasing popularity of the Resecuritization of Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits (Re-Remics). It basically amounts to repackaging original investment instruments that no investor will touch, into a more complex investment vehicle.

"The total resecuritization market right now is approximately $664 billion. Of that total, only $60 million is considered registered transactions. That means that the Securities and Exchange Commission has looked at only $60 million. The vast majority of the transactions are exempt from registration with the SEC," said Kucinich.

"...seeing as that Re-Remics are more complex, more opaque than the Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) that came before them, what is to stop Re-Remics from bringing the whole system to the brink once again? What does the SEC have to do to protect against a new disaster in the securities market?" asked Kucinich.

Mr. Kolchinsky answered, "I agree that these Re-Remics ... are potentially dangerous. Some have a purpose. That purpose may be a gaming of capital requirements, accounting requirements or what have you... I recently saw a (Re-Remic) proposed that had, to my view, no discernable economic value. Substantial costs would be incurred, but to my knowledge, there would be no value you added. To me, that is a sign that somebody is playing a game with some regulation somewhere."

Kucinich: "So, You agree there is a game here?"

Kolchinsky: "Yes, Sir."

Congressman Kucinich has previously brought the potential threat of Re-Remics to Ms. Mary Shapiro, Chairman of the SEC, in an August 26, 2009. Discussions resulting from the letter are ongoing.
===

Wall Street Wizardry Reworks Mortgages
Repackaged Investments Are Good for Bankers and Ratings Firms, but the Regulators Scoff

By LESLIE SCISM and RANDALL SMITH

A new wave of financial alchemy is emerging on Wall Street as banks and insurers seek to make soured securities look better. Regulators are pushing back, saying the transactions don't have enough substance and stand to benefit bankers and ratings firms.

The deals come as Wall Street firms, buoyed by surging markets, are seeking to profit from the unwinding of the complicated securities that helped fuel the credit crisis. Regulators, meanwhile, are struggling to prevent a recurrence of the crisis.

The popular deals are known as "re-remic," which stands for resecuritization of real-estate mortgage investment conduits. The way it works is that insurers and banks that hold battered securities on their books have Wall Street firms separate the good from the bad. The good mortgages are bundled together and create a security designed to get a higher rating. The weaker securities get low ratings.
[re-remic]

The net result is financial firms' books look better and they need to hold less capital against those assets, even though they are the same assets they held before the transaction.

Some state insurance regulators worry that current ratings are flawed -- perhaps even too harsh -- for determining the capital that should back up residential-mortgage securities. But they are chafing at the re-remic strategy. That's partly because of the fees and partly because re-remics rely on ratings firms -- faulted for failing early on to identify problems with mortgage-backed bonds -- to rate the new securities.

At hearings Wednesday on Capitol Hill focused on the ratings firms, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) raised concerns about the mounting number of re-remics, saying, "The credit-rating agencies could be setting us up for problems all over again."

New York and some other key regulators are considering an alternative to re-remics that doesn't entail insurers paying millions in fees to investment banks and the ratings firms; they also have debated possibly unfavorable accounting treatment for the re-remic deals.

Regulators would like "a lot fewer dollars" paid to Wall Street, as well as "less reliance on the ratings agencies," said Kermitt Brooks, first deputy insurance superintendent in New York. The state is an important voice on financial matters at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, or NAIC.

The alternative solution, proposed by trade group American Council of Life Insurers, calls for hiring an analytical firm with expertise in residential mortgage-backed securities to help regulators determine the value of deteriorated holdings on insurers' books, bypassing the ratings providers. This firm would help size up potential losses and how much capital the insurers need to hold.

The re-remic accounting treatment, meanwhile, is expected to be taken up at a meeting of NAIC regulators in December.

It is unclear how big a concern this is for banking regulators. Alabama Deputy Banking Superintendent Trabo Reed said he has seen only a few examples of re-remics. His concern is that banks engaging in this practice account for it correctly.
From a Trickle to Flood

Wall Street analysts said activity in re-remics has ramped up this year, from a trickle in January to several billion dollars from March to June, with a big increase in volume in July, partly thanks to reviving credit markets.

Estimates of volume this year range from $30 billion to more than $90 billion. The transactions are typically done as private placements and aren't disclosed publicly.

A hypothetical example cited in research by Barclays Capital said that a $100 million asset that required $2 million in capital at a triple-A rating may require $35 million if downgraded to double-B-minus. At triple-C, the capital requirement might rise to 100%, or $100 million.

In a re-remic, three-fourths of the same asset may regain a triple-A rating, requiring just $1.5 million in capital, Barclays said. The remaining one-quarter may require 100% capital, but the total capital requirement would fall to $26.5 million.

Wall Street bankers and analysts said a minority of re-remics, perhaps as little as 10% to 30%, are aimed at helping firms like insurers manage capital requirements. The general goal, as one banker put it, is to help "create buyers for orphan securities that otherwise would have languished."

"There is $350 billion to $400 billion in market value of securities with no natural buyer due to their rating," Barclays said in a June report. "The re-remic market provides a way out of this gridlock by creating new AAA securities, which are likely to be viewed as attractively priced."

Wall Street firms that have acted as middlemen in re-remics include J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Credit Suisse Group, Jefferies & Co., Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, as well as Barclays PLC, according to a Barclays tally.

Citigroup Inc., meanwhile, is pursuing its own re-remic strategy, to repackage some toxic real-estate securities on its balance sheet, according to people familiar with the bank.
'Not Cheap'

Insurance executives estimate that insurers pay 0.35% or so of a deal's size in investment banking, ratings firm, legal and other costs.

American Equity Investment Life Holding Co. has told analysts that it is considering a re-remic. Recent downgrades of its mortgage bonds overstate their risk by a wide margin, its executives said.

Still, a re-remic is "not cheap," John Matovina, the company's finance chief, said in an interview.

On Sept. 15, an executive at American Financial Group Inc. noted to investors that re-remic transactions there involving about $1.2 billion of mortgage bonds provide "flexibility." And Protective Life Corp. said in August that its re-remics, totaling about $1.4 billion, improve the company's capital standing "in the ballpark" of $75 million.

At an NAIC hearing last week, ratings firms described changes over the past year to improve their analytical, compliance and corporate-governance processes. But they also generally agreed that their ratings weren't ideal as a sole basis for determining insurers' capital levels.
—Dan Fitzpatrick contributed to this article.

Write to Leslie Scism at leslie.scism@wsj.com and Randall Smith at randall.smith@wsj.com

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Kucinich: Gaming The Financial Crisis - ‘Is Wall Street Headed for Collapse?’

Kucinich: 'Is Wall Street Headed for Collapse?'
Questions Repackaging of Complex Financial Instruments, Calls for Additional Hearings
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/09/30-29

WASHINGTON - September 30 - Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today questioned whether the U.S. would be headed for another financial crisis if Wall Street continues to sell the same old products, with new names, that got us into trouble in the first place. The former Managing Director of Moody's Investor Service, Mr. Ilya Eric Kolchinsky, agreed there is a danger. The admission came during an Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing examining the role of credit rating agencies in the financial crisis. Following the admission, Kucinich called for further Committee hearings to examine the renamed investment instruments.

"I have been extremely troubled by the increasing popularity of the Resecuritization of Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits (Re-Remics). It basically amounts to repackaging original investment instruments that no investor will touch, into a more complex investment vehicle.

"The total resecuritization market right now is approximately $664 billion. Of that total, only $60 million is considered registered transactions. That means that the Securities and Exchange Commission has looked at only $60 million. The vast majority of the transactions are exempt from registration with the SEC," said Kucinich.

"...seeing as that Re-Remics are more complex, more opaque than the Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) that came before them, what is to stop Re-Remics from bringing the whole system to the brink once again? What does the SEC have to do to protect against a new disaster in the securities market?" asked Kucinich.

Mr. Kolchinsky answered, "I agree that these Re-Remics ... are potentially dangerous. Some have a purpose. That purpose may be a gaming of capital requirements, accounting requirements or what have you... I recently saw a (Re-Remic) proposed that had, to my view, no discernable economic value. Substantial costs would be incurred, but to my knowledge, there would be no value you added. To me, that is a sign that somebody is playing a game with some regulation somewhere."

Kucinich: "So, You agree there is a game here?"

Kolchinsky: "Yes, Sir."

Congressman Kucinich has previously brought the potential threat of Re-Remics to Ms. Mary Shapiro, Chairman of the SEC, in an August 26, 2009. Discussions resulting from the letter are ongoing.

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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Kucinich to Obama: ‘We Need a Federal Jobs Program, See for Yourself’

Kucinich to Obama: 'We Need a Federal Jobs Program, See for Yourself'

Congressman Extends Invitation
http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentPrint.aspx?DocumentID=146964

Washington, Sep 29 -

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today sent a letter asking President Barack Obama to support a massive new jobs program in order to combat the growing ranks of the poor and near-poor in Northeast Ohio and the nation. In the letter, Kucinich calls for a Works Progress Administration-type of plan to put America back to work and to help achieve the work begun by the Stimulus package. Kucinich also invited the President to visit Northeast Ohio to see the reality of the effects of poverty in Northeast Ohio.

"The foreclosure crisis has drained any equity in homes, jobs are precarious and can be lost at any time, and dollars that pay for less and less have to be stretched further and further," writes Kucinich.

September 29, 2009

The Honorable Barack Obama

President of the United States

The White House

Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

In recent weeks, data coming out of the Census Bureau have revealed a disturbing trend of increasing economic insecurity throughout this nation. An article in today's Cleveland Plain Dealer titled, "Ranks of the near-poor grow in NE Ohio, census data show" confirms what I have witnessed and what my constituents have been telling me for over a year: they feel they are being pulled toward the economic precipice. The foreclosure crisis has drained any equity in homes, jobs are precarious and can be lost at any time, and dollars that pay for less and less have to be stretched further and further.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the bailout, it has become abundantly clear that our communities are not enjoying the fruits of the recovery that Wall Street has enjoyed. As the $787 billion stimulus continues to trickle out to states and localities, banks enjoy the enormous flow of billions of dollars in financial support from the bailout as well as trillions of dollars of spending and liabilities from the numerous initiatives of the Federal Reserve.

I believe the angst expressed throughout the country at health care public meetings over the summer reflects a larger, underlying concern about economic security. The private sector simply is not providing the jobs and economic opportunities for my constituents. The government must fill that gap. Our communities desperately need a massive jobs program focused on rebuilding our country's infrastructure. I urge you to do more to reinforce the economic security of American families like those in Cleveland who find themselves being pulled closer to poverty. I urge you to sponsor a massive, WPA-style program to put millions of Americans back to work to revive our economy.

I commit to work with you towards this end. I further invite you to tour my Cleveland-area district with me to see first-hand the physical reality of poverty that the Census information reveals.

Sincerely,

Dennis J. Kucinich

Member of Congress
==

Congress, Kucinich, Obama »
http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2009/09/kucinich_asks_obama_to_create.html

Rep. Dennis Kucinich asks Obama to create new federal jobs program

By Sabrina Eaton, The Plain Dealer

September 29, 2009, 5:59PM

Cleveland Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich sent a letter to President Barack Obama on Tuesday asking him to establish a new "Works Progress Administration" type of plan to create jobs in Northeast Ohio and around the country.

In the letter, Kucinich argues that the $787 billion stimulus package designed to boost employment through government-funded public works projects hasn't been enough to reduce economic insecurity in areas like Northeast Ohio, while Wall Street and banks have prospered from the bailout Congress approved last year. He also invites Obama to tour his district "to see first-hand the physical reality of poverty" revealed by newly released Census bureau data.

"The private sector simply is not providing the jobs and economic opportunities for my constituents," Kucinich's letter says. "The government must fill that gap. Our communities desperately need a massive jobs program focused on rebuilding our country's infrastructure ... I urge you to sponsor a massive, WPA-style program to put millions of Americans back to work to revive our economy."

White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said Ohio families have been among the hardest hit by the economic crisis, but aggressive steps by Obama, such as the stimulus package, saved the economy "from freefall."

"We have a long way to go in rebuilding this economy, and President Obama won't stop fighting until every Ohio worker has a good paying job, a good home, and our nation is solidly back on a path to prosperity," said Brundage.

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Monday, September 28, 2009

Vandana Shiva - Seed Saving, Local Food In India & World, Also No Mandatory Vaccinations

September 28th, 2009

click here to listen!

CONVERSATIONS WITH REMARKABLE MINDS

Dr. Vandana Shiva is an internationally renown environmental and social activist, and was formerly one of India’s top nuclear physicists. She has been credited as the principle founder leader of India’s ecological an eco-feminism movement. In 1982, Dr. Shiva founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in New Delhi, which led to the creation of Navdanya - an organization dedicated to the restoration of organic farming across India and the preservation of the indigenous knowledge and culture. She is also one of the leaders on the board of the International Forum on Globalization with Ralph Nader, Maude Barlow and Jerry Mander.

Dr. Shiva has received numerous international awards, including the Alternative Nobel Prize (the Right Livelihood Award), the UNEP’s Global 500 Award and the UN’s Earth Day International Award. Among her more important books are “Earth Democracy: Justice Sustainability and Peace”, “Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed”, and her most recent, “Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis”.

===

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Saturday, September 26, 2009

"There is a Crack, a Crack in Everything/That's How the Light Gets In"

View Leonard Cohen singing Anthem for the Palestinian/Israilis Letting The Light In and eveyone else too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvcX5RMBwbk&feature=player_embedded#t=138

The birds they sang at the break of day
"Start again"
Don't dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Ring the bells that still can ring

There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

Every heart, every heart to love will come

A Concert for Reconciliation, Tolerance and Peace"
donate its $1.5m to $2m proceeds to a new fund he is behind to promote coexistence projects.

Parents Circle - Families Forum, a unique organisation of bereaved Israeli and Palestinians who have lost close relatives in the conflict

those gathered here tonight know what we have inflicted upon each other and the price we have paid. Leonard Cohen, through his art, indicates that he understands this suffering."

"It's not our destiny to keep dying,"
I am proud that Leonard Cohen is supporting us
+++

"There is a Crack, a Crack in Everything/That's How the Light Gets In"

Leonard Cohen Defies Critics with Israeli Gig

by Donald Macintyre
Published on Saturday, September 26, 2009 by The Independent/UK
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/26-1

"Anthem" by L. Cohen

The birds they sang at the break of day
"Start again", I seemed to hear them say
Don't dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Now the wars they will be fought again
The holy dove, she will be caught again
Bought and sold and bought again
The dove is never free

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

We asked for signs, and the signs were sent
The birth betrayed, the marriage spent
Yeah, the widowhood of every single government
Signs for all to see

I can't run no more with that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places say their prayers out loud
But they've summoned up a thundercloud
And they're going to hear from me

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

You can add up the parts, but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march on your little broken drum,
Every heart, every heart to love will come
But like a refugee

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in
---

It was vintage Leonard Cohen. "We don't know when we'll pass this way again," he told the sell-out audience at the Ramat Gan football stadium: "But we promise to give you everything we've got tonight." And he did.

Any worries fans had after the 75-year-old Canadian poet-singer-songwriter collapsed while performing "Bird on the Wire" in Valencia last week (apparently from food poisoning) quickly dissipated.

Disbelieving laughs rippled through the crowd at those familiar lines in "Chelsea Hotel", the beguiling elegy to his late Sixties fling with Janis Joplin: "You told me again you preferred handsome men/but for me you would make an exception". And certainly the maestro, in customary suit and fedora, looked as good as he sounded in the still warmth of this Tel Aviv September night, his first concert in Israel for more than 25 years.

He - literally - danced off the stage before each of three encores, one of which charmed the enraptured crowd to their feet in an excited singalong, thousands waving their green glow sticks in time to "So Long Marianne". He and his gravelly bass baritone voice were at peak form, from a gloriously funky "I'm Your Man" to the dark and haunting "Famous Blue Raincoat" and, of course, "Hallelujah" (which served as a reminder that none of the many cover versions are as good).

But this is Israel, and the political context cannot be ignored.

Mr Cohen, Jewish like the vast majority of his audience, had billed the gig on Thursday night as "A Concert for Reconciliation, Tolerance and Peace". And this was not the usual vacuous platitude. For he had also agreed to donate its $1.5m to $2m proceeds to a new fund he is behind to promote coexistence projects.

One of these is the Parents Circle - Families Forum, a unique organisation of bereaved Israeli and Palestinians who have lost close relatives in the conflict and who meet regularly together to share their painful experiences across the divide.

In the face of protests by proponents of a cultural boycott of Israel that he was playing Tel Aviv at all, Mr Cohen had planned a similar concert in the West Bank city of Ramallah, with proceeds earmarked for a Palestinian prisoners' charity. But that was successfully blocked by boycott campaigners - including, according to his American manager, Robert B Kory, a number of "British academics" - who argue that concerts like this and Paul McCartney's last year validate Israel as a "normal country" as it tramples Palestinian rights.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) said that such attempts at "balance" not only "immorally equate the oppressor with the oppressed ... [but] are conscious acts of complicity in Israel's violation of international law and human rights".

The campaign has been given fresh impetus by Israel's winter offensive on Gaza, which left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead.

But the Parents Circle was undeterred. At a reception before the concert, the writer and long-time peace campaigner David Grossman said: "It seems so easy to believe that war is the only possibility and that Israelis and Palestinians will continue to kill each other." But Mr Grossman, whose tank commander son was killed on the last weekend of the 2006 Lebanon war, added: "But those gathered here tonight know what we have inflicted upon each other and the price we have paid. Leonard Cohen, through his art, indicates that he understands this suffering."

Another of the 47,000 at the concert was Ali Abu Awwad, a 37-year-old Palestinian who was jailed for four years for his part in the first intifada, and whose brother Yusef was shot and killed at the outset of the second.

Mr Awwad has since toured mosques and synagogues in Europe and the US on behalf of the Parent's Circle with Robi Damelin, a 65-year-old Israeli, who has complained that the occupation is "killing the moral fibre of Israel" and whose son David was killed by a Palestinian sniper while serving in the Army in 2002.

"It's not our destiny to keep dying," Mr Awwad said. "I can't boycott a great heart like Leonard Cohen. I was jailed for four years, my mother was jailed for four years. I lost my brother. I am proud that Leonard Cohen is supporting us."

For PACBI, "those sincerely interested in defending Palestinian rights ... should not play Israel, period". But for Mr Cohen, grassroots reconciliation, however modest in its reach, reflects the words of "Anthem", the song he pointedly sang straight after plugging Parents Circle work from the stage: "There is a crack, a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in."

View Leonard Cohen singing Anthem for the Palestinian/Israilis Letting The Light In
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvcX5RMBwbk&feature=player_embedded#t=138

* * *

Friday, September 25, 2009

Costa Rica Creates Department of Peace

for the Promotion of Peace and the Peaceful Coexistence of Citizens.

Changing the language and speaking about ‘promotion of peace'
peace promotion, violence prevention (for example, by targeting a recent increase of juvenile offenders), and an emphasis on conflict resolution.

Peace is not something which exists independently of us, any more than war does.
Those who are responsible for creating and keeping the peace are members of our own human family, the society that we as individuals participate in and help to create.
Peace in the world thus depends on there being peace in the hearts of individuals.

shifted to promotion of peace
a culture of peace has positive effects in the reduction of violence and crime."

Nepal and the Solomon Islands have similar ministries.

the commitment to a culture of peace

Costa Rica has a long history of being aligned with peace."
1877, when President Tomás Guardia abolished the death penalty.
In 1948, Costa Rica became the first country to formally abolish its armed forces; the Constitution still forbids a standing military.
President Oscar Arias won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership on the Esquipulas II Peace Accords, which promoted regional reconciliation, democratization, free elections, and arms control in Central America.

In 1997, Costa Rica passed a law requiring that peace education be offered in every school and created a place for peaceful conflict resolution in the legal system, which endorses mediation.

In 2004, the National Directorate of Alternative Conflict Resolution was created

Global Alliance Summit for Ministries and Departments of Peace, held in Costa Rica September 17-21.
The Global Alliance comprises organizations, citizens, and government officials from 35 countries, who work together to establish governmental structures that support a culture of peace.
+++

Costa Rica Creates Department of Peace

by Susie Shutts
Published on Friday, September 25, 2009 by YES! Magazine
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/25-6

On Monday, September 14, the Costa Rican legislature passed a law changing the name of the country's justice ministry to the Ministry of Justice and Peace, making the department the first of its kind in Latin America and only the third in the world.

Costa Rica's justice ministry was created to oversee the country's penitentiary systems and supervise research on criminal behavior, but had no responsibility for crime prevention. A 1998 executive decree addressed this lapse by creating the National Directorate for the Prevention of Crime. The recent legislation takes crime prevention in a new direction, replacing the old directorate with the newly formed Directorate for the Promotion of Peace and the Peaceful Coexistence of Citizens.

"While we talk about prevention of violence, we are experiencing its effects every day. Changing the language and speaking about ‘promotion of peace' lead[s] us to the roots of the problem," states the legislation.

The ministry will take on new responsibilities, including peace promotion, violence prevention (for example, by targeting a recent increase of juvenile offenders), and an emphasis on conflict resolution.

Days after the official creation of its Ministry of Justice and Peace, Costa Rica hosted an international summit for others working to create similar ministries. The Dalai Lama wrote a letter endorsing the summit: "Peace is not something which exists independently of us, any more than war does. Those who are responsible for creating and keeping the peace are members of our own human family, the society that we as individuals participate in and help to create. Peace in the world thus depends on there being peace in the hearts of individuals. Peace based merely on political considerations or prompted by other compulsions will only be temporary and superficial."

"With this change in name, the focus on prevention of violence has been shifted to promotion of peace," says Kelly Isola of the Rasur Foundatio n, the Costa Rican nongovernmental organization that proposed the law in 2005. Having a department of peace, she said, will enable Costa Rica "to benefit from international experiences, which demonstrate that a culture of peace has positive effects in the reduction of violence and crime."

Although campaigns for peace-oriented government departments are underway in 32 countries, including the United States, only Nepal and the Solomon Islands have similar ministries.

"This Ministry was not born out of war and conflict, but rather through the commitment to a culture of peace," Isola says. "Costa Rica has a long history of being aligned with peace."

The country's tradition of peace-oriented firsts dates back to 1877, when President Tomás Guardia abolished the death penalty. In 1948, Costa Rica became the first country to formally abolish its armed forces; the Constitution still forbids a standing military. President Oscar Arias won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership on the Esquipulas II Peace Accords, which promoted regional reconciliation, democratization, free elections, and arms control in Central America. In 1997, Costa Rica passed a law requiring that peace education be offered in every school and created a place for peaceful conflict resolution in the legal system, which endorses mediation.

In 2004, the National Directorate of Alternative Conflict Resolution was created, and two years later the National Commission for the Prevention of Violence and Promotion of Social Peace was established. The newly overhauled Ministry of Justice and Peace will work with both.

Legislation for the new law was passed just in time for the fourth annual Global Alliance Summit for Ministries and Departments of Peace, held in Costa Rica September 17-21. The Global Alliance comprises organizations, citizens, and government officials from 35 countries, who work together to establish governmental structures that support a culture of peace.

Susie Shutts wrote this article for YES! Magazine. Susie is a web editorial intern at YES!

YES! Magazine encourages you to make free use of this article by taking these easy steps.

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Sunday, September 20, 2009

Grace Lee Boggs Redefining Democracy

we’ve got to redefine democracy,
we have been stuck in concepts of representative democracy,
Who wants to be equal to these guys?
we have to be thinking much more profoundly.

“All that is sacred is profaned, all that is solid melts into air, and men and women are forced to face with sober senses our conditions of life and our relations with our kind.” We’re at that sort of turning point in human history.

what happened in 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, when people gathered to say another world is necessary, another world is possible, and another world is happening,

I think that that’s what’s happening.

the
way
is by taking care of one another, by recreating our relationships to one another,

evolved as human beings.

advocacy of a radical revolution of values of Martin Luther King in 1967
+++

Excerpts below. The full interview is here:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/17/philosopher_grace_lee_boggs_and_sociologist

Philosopher Grace Lee Boggs and Sociologist, Monthly Review Editor John Bellamy Foster on the Financial Meltdown, Social Change and Redefining Democracy

While Wall Street appears to be recovering from the financial meltdown, Main Street has not. We speak to two guests who for decades have advocated for a radical rethinking of how the nation’s economy is structured: Grace Lee Boggs, a ninety-four-year-old Detroit-based philosopher and activist involved with the civil rights, black power, labor, environmental justice, and feminist movements for the past seven decades; and John Bellamy Foster, editor of the socialist journal Monthly Review and a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. [includes rush transcript]

LISTEN
WATCH

Guests:

Grace Lee Boggs, 94-year-old philosopher and activist based in Detroit. She has been involved with the civil rights, black power, labor, environmental justice, and feminist movements over the past seven decades. Her autobiography Living for Change was published in 1998. Monthly Review Press has just republished two books by her late husband Jimmy Boggs with new introductions written by Grace.

John Bellamy Foster, Editor of the journal Monthly Review and a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is the author of several books, including The Great Financial Crisis and The Ecological Evolution: Making Peace with the Planet.

...

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well, I think we’re in a time of great hope and great danger. I think that the danger is largely underestimated. I think that at a time when thousands of people descend on Washington saying we want our country back and calling, denouncing Obama as a socialist, that it has become very important for us not to talk about a recovery, but to talk about how do we create a new society of hope.

And I think that’s why Monthly Review is so important, because it’s been for six years trying to create an independent approach to socialism that is not bogged down in ideas that come from the nineteenth century or from the 1917 revolution.

And I think that the only answer to the counterrevolution, which Bertha Lewis and others are trying to defend ourselves against, is to begin creating a new concept of hope, not to talk about recovery. We don’t need to go back to a society that is concentrated on economic growth, that dehumanizes us, that makes us consumers only and is threatening all life on this planet. We need to be thinking about something new.

And we need to have a deeper appreciation of the witch hunts that are taking place, and that—Van Jones and Bertha Lewis, and understand that these are taking place at a time of great danger to the powers that be, that the powers that be have lost two wars, that the situation is much more comparable to that of Germany in the ’30s than to anything that the American people have experienced up to now.

...

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well, I think it’s fortunate that we have Obama in power, not because he’s going to do very much. I think the contradiction between his rhetoric and his practice is very profound. I think it’s very tied into his personality. But what he does is, by virtue of his—actually, in the White House, carrying on the policies, essentially, of the previous administration, especially with regard to war, is that he’s forcing us really to go beyond him to understand his limitations. He’s—in a sense, he’s an opportunity; he’s also a danger, as every crisis is.

...

GRACE LEE BOGGS: ... I think to go back to the ’30s and expect comparable uprisings or demonstrations or protest is a mistake. I think in the ’30s production machinery was still intact. I think that the population was very different. It was recently come from the country; it was not an urbanized population. I think that the—you know, I know the United States was not yet a superpower, let alone a waning superpower. I mean, conditions—the World War II was still ahead of us, was the means by which Roosevelt tried to solve the Depression and bring back full employment. And to think that we’re going to—that we can expect that sort of thing today, I think, is a historical mistake.

...

GRACE LEE BOGGS: Well, I would say that we’ve got to redefine democracy, that we have been stuck in concepts of representative democracy, that we believe that it’s getting other people to do things for us that we progress. And I think that we’ve reached the point now where we’re stuck with a whole lot of concepts, so that when Michael Moore speaks about the number of people who make all this money and other people who don’t, it sounds as if we’re struggling for equality with them. Who wants to be equal to these guys? I think we have to be thinking much more profoundly.

Actually, if you go back to what Marx said in The Communist Manifesto over a hundred years ago, when in talking about the constant revolutions in technology, he ended that paragraph by saying, “All that is sacred is profaned, all that is solid melts into air, and men and women are forced to face with sober senses our conditions of life and our relations with our kind.” We’re at that sort of turning point in human history.

And I think that, talking about recovery, talking about democracy, we too easily get sucked into old notions of what we want. And when I—so we’re expecting protest. I’m not expecting so many protests. I don’t mind protests, and I encourage them at times. But what happened in 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, when people gathered to say another world is necessary, another world is possible, and another world is happening,

I think that that’s what’s happening.

In Detroit, in particular, we—people are beginning to say the only way to survive is by taking care of one another, by recreating our relationships to one another, that we have created a society, over the last period, in particular, where each of us is pursuing self-interest. We have devolved as human beings.

advocacy of a radical revolution of values of Martin Luther King in 1967

Early Morning Bounding Across the Wheat Fields - Seen Along My Way To Odessa Saturday

Elk on the way toward the Columbia River after a visit through the wheat fields of the Palouse and the pine valleys along the way.

Stopped to look back.

And then the massive body with full antlers on the way.

Bird cruising along too.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Public Option Health Care Can Be Available For Everyone - Pass This On Until It Is

Pass it on, until the public option is available for everyone.
===

From: Robert Greenwald <info@bravenewfoundation.org>
1. Watch this video 2. Forward to a friend		Dear A, Watch this video of former Labor Secretary Robert Reich explaining what a public option for healthcare coverage really means for working people. Then pass it on to everyone you know. We can't let the insurance companies decide who gets care and who doesn't. Yours, Robert Greenwald and the Brave New Films team

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Friday, September 4, 2009

The Virtues of Deglobalization

The current global downturn, the worst since the Great Depression 70 years ago, pounded the last nail into the coffin of globalization.

global poverty and inequality increasing
globalization has been terminally discredited in the last two years.

no returning to a world centrally dependent on free-spending American consumers
restrictions will almost certainly be imposed on finance capital,
the untrammeled mobility of which has been the cutting edge of the current crisis.

"The integration of the world economy is in retreat on almost every front,"

deglobalization is an opportunity.

There are 11 key prongs of the deglobalization paradigm:

Production for the domestic market [local markets]
become the center of gravity of the economy
The principle of subsidiarity
enshrined in economic life by
production of goods at the level of the community
to preserve [local] community.
protect the local economy from destruction by corporate-subsidized commodities with artificially low prices.
revitalize and strengthen the manufacturing sector [of local economies - with focus of overlapping market regions irrespective of national boundaries].
equitable income
distribution
and land redistribution (including urban land reform)
create a vibrant internal market [local markets] that
serve as the anchor of the economy and produce local financial resources for investment.
upgrading the quality of life
maximizing equity
reduce environmental disequilibrium.
development and diffusion of environmentally congenial technology in both agriculture and industry
economic decisions
expanded so that all vital questions - such as which industries to develop or phase out, what proportion of the government budget to devote to agriculture, etc. - become subject to democratic discussion and choice.
Civil society must constantly monitor and supervise the private sector and the state, a process that should be institutionalized.
The property complex
transformed into a "mixed economy"
that includes community cooperatives, private enterprises, and state enterprises, and
excludes transnational corporations.
Centralized global institutions like the IMF and the World Bank
replaced with regional institutions built
on principles of cooperation

An effective economics
strengthen social solidarity
values of equity, justice, and community by enlarging the sphere of democratic decision making.
embedding" the economy in society

diversity
expected and encouraged, as it is in nature. Shared principles
concretely articulated will depend on the values, rhythms, and strategic choices of each society [Local community].

an increasingly wide range of industrial products, and
agricultural products
bringing the producer and the consumer within the ambit of the same
economic and financial organization

Ideas, knowledge, art, hospitality, travel - these are the things which should of their nature be international.

let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible
+++

The Virtues of Deglobalization

by Walden Bello

Published on Friday, September 4, 2009 by Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF)

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/04-4

The current global downturn, the worst since the Great Depression 70 years ago, pounded the last nail into the coffin of globalization.

Already beleaguered by evidence that showed global poverty and inequality increasing, even as most poor countries experienced little or no economic growth, globalization has been terminally discredited in the last two years. As the much-heralded process of financial and trade interdependence went into reverse, it became the transmission belt not of prosperity but of economic crisis and collapse.

End of an Era

In their responses to the current economic crisis, governments paid lip service to global coordination but propelled separate stimulus programs meant to rev up national markets. In so doing, governments quietly shelved export-oriented growth, long the driver of many economies, though paid the usual nostrums to advancing trade liberalization as a means of countering the global downturn by completing the Doha Round of trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization. There is increasing acknowledgment that there will be no returning to a world centrally dependent on free-spending American consumers, since many are bankrupt and nobody has taken their place.

Moreover, whether agreed on internationally or unilaterally set up by national governments, a whole raft of restrictions will almost certainly be imposed on finance capital, the untrammeled mobility of which has been the cutting edge of the current crisis.

Intellectual discourse, however, hasn't yet shown many signs of this break with orthodoxy. Neoliberalism, with its emphasis on free trade, the primacy of private enterprise, and a minimalist role for the state, continues to be the default language among policymakers. Establishment critics of market fundamentalism, including Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, have become entangled in endless debates over how large stimulus programs should be, and whether or not the state should retain an interventionist presence or, once stabilized, return the companies and banks to the private sector. Moreover some, such as Stiglitz, continue to believe in what they perceive to be the economic benefits of globalization while bemoaning its social costs.

But trends are fast outpacing both ideologues and critics of neoliberal globalization, and developments thought impossible a few years ago are gaining steam. "The integration of the world economy is in retreat on almost every front," writes the Economist. While the magazine says that corporations continue to believe in the efficiency of global supply chains, "like any chain, these are only as strong as their weakest link. A danger point will come if firms decide that this way of organizing production has had its day."

"Deglobalization," a term that the Economist attributes to me, is a development that the magazine, the world's prime avatar of free market ideology, views as negative. I believe, however, that deglobalization is an opportunity. Indeed, my colleagues and I at Focus on the Global South first forwarded deglobalization as a comprehensive paradigm to replace neoliberal globalization almost a decade ago, when the stresses, strains, and contradictions brought about by the latter had become painfully evident. Elaborated as an alternative mainly for developing countries, the deglobalization paradigm is not without relevance to the central capitalist economies.

11 Pillars of the Alternative

There are 11 key prongs of the deglobalization paradigm:

Production for the domestic market [local markets] must again become the center of gravity of the economy rather than production for export markets.
The principle of subsidiarity should be enshrined in economic life by encouraging production of goods at the level of the community and at the national level if this can be done at reasonable cost in order to preserve [local] community.
Trade policy - that is, quotas and tariffs - should be used to protect the local economy from destruction by corporate-subsidized commodities with artificially low prices.
Industrial policy - including subsidies, tariffs, and trade - should be used to revitalize and strengthen the manufacturing sector [of local economies - with focus of overlapping market regions irrespective of national boundaries].
Long-postponed measures of equitable income redistribution and land redistribution (including urban land reform) can create a vibrant internal market [local markets] that would serve as the anchor of the economy and produce local financial resources for investment.
Deemphasizing growth, emphasizing upgrading the quality of life, and maximizing equity will reduce environmental disequilibrium.
The development and diffusion of environmentally congenial technology in both agriculture and industry should be encouraged.
Strategic economic decisions cannot be left to the market or to technocrats. Instead, the scope of democratic decision-making in the economy should be expanded so that all vital questions - such as which industries to develop or phase out, what proportion of the government budget to devote to agriculture, etc. - become subject to democratic discussion and choice.
Civil society must constantly monitor and supervise the private sector and the state, a process that should be institutionalized.
The property complex should be transformed into a "mixed economy" that includes community cooperatives, private enterprises, and state enterprises, and excludes transnational corporations.
Centralized global institutions like the IMF and the World Bank should be replaced with regional institutions built not on free trade and capital mobility but on principles of cooperation that, to use the words of Hugo Chavez in describing the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), "transcend the logic of capitalism."

From the Cult of Efficiency to Effective Economics

The aim of the deglobalization paradigm is to move beyond the economics of narrow efficiency, in which the key criterion is the reduction of unit cost, never mind the social and ecological destabilization this process brings about. It is to move beyond a system of economic calculation that, in the words of John Maynard Keynes, made "the whole conduct of life...into a paradox of an accountant's nightmare." An effective economics, rather, strengthens social solidarity by subordinating the operations of the market to the values of equity, justice, and community by enlarging the sphere of democratic decision making. To use the language of the great Hungarian thinker Karl Polanyi in his book The Great Transformation, deglobalization is about "re-embedding" the economy in society, instead of having society driven by the economy.

The deglobalization paradigm also asserts that a "one size fits all" model like neoliberalism or centralized bureaucratic socialism is dysfunctional and destabilizing. Instead, diversity should be expected and encouraged, as it is in nature. Shared principles of alternative economics do exist, and they have already substantially emerged in the struggle against and critical reflection over the failure of centralized socialism and capitalism. However, how these principles - the most important of which have been sketched out above - are concretely articulated will depend on the values, rhythms, and strategic choices of each society [Local community].

Deglobalization's Pedigree

Though it may sound radical, deglobalization isn't really new. Its pedigree includes the writings of the towering British economist Keynes who, at the height of the Depression, bluntly stated: "We do not wish...to be at the mercy of world forces working out, or trying to work out, some uniform equilibrium, according to the principles of laissez faire capitalism."

Indeed, he continued, over "an increasingly wide range of industrial products, and perhaps agricultural products also, I become doubtful whether the economic cost of self-sufficiency is great enough to outweigh the other advantages of gradually bringing the producer and the consumer within the ambit of the same national, economic and financial organization. Experience accumulates to prove that most modern mass-production processes can be performed in most countries and climates with almost equal efficiency."

And with words that have a very contemporary ring, Keynes concluded, "I sympathize...with those who would minimize rather than with those who would maximize economic entanglement between nations. Ideas, knowledge, art, hospitality, travel - these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible; and, above all, let finance be primarily national."

Walden Bello, a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist, is professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines and senior analyst at the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South. He is the author of, among other books, Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire (New York: Henry Holt, 2005).