stimulus
President Promotes Renting
Published August 18, 2009 @ 04:33PM PT
At least $8B, and possibly more than $10B, in stimulus and federal budget funds will be used to (re-)invest in affordable renting housing in the U.S. The Boston Globe describes this as an "ideological shift" away from Bush's Wild West Ownership Society; Calculated Risk points out that the Obama Administration is harnessing an existing trend: the supply of rental housing has been increasing since 2004, mostly due to conversions of ownership properties.
There's two elements to this initiative that I like: $4B to upgrade existing public housing (a drop in the bucket, but a drop, nonetheless!) and the purchase of foreclosed homes to be converted into affordable rental units.
Commenter Lori raises an interesting point over at Suburban Guerilla in response to this announcement: why aren't we pursuing more radical, less costly innovations to seriously expand the stock of affordable housing - including homeownership - in the US? Her actual statement reflects why Bush's unregulated, overzealous ownership dream went so awry: "If you want to have a nation of home owners, you have to build housing that people on the bottom can afford to buy." And is it really a good idea to leave renters at the mercy of landlords? She voices support for the re-use of shipping containers as low-cost (and roomy by my condo's standards) rent-to-own housing.
Concerning landlords, I think tenants' rights is a related but separate issue here. One thing I would emphasize is that federally rental initiatives like this will partner mostly with local non-profits and municipalities to refurbish and improve rental housing, which to me is a necessary alternative to the current private market purchasers of foreclosures who are using them as investment properties (29% of the homebuying market). From living in a neighborhood with an owner-occupancy rate of only 25%, moving the rental inventory from the hands of absentee landlords to community-based non-profits sounds like a great idea to me.
(Photo by TheTruthAbout...)
"You Do Not Have Health Insurance"
Published August 09, 2009 @ 09:06AM PT
There's a great post up at The Baseline Scenario concerning the diffuse worry that healthcare reform will negatively impact those with health insurance in the US. It basically eviscerates the lie that "employer-subsidized health care for the duration of your employment" is health insurance: "as long as your health insurance depends on your job, your health is only insured insofar as your job is insured – and your job isn’t insured."
Unlike NycWeboy, who believes no one is paying attention to the needs to reform Medicaid for better coverage and care of the poor, James at TBS thinks "people remain convinced that health care reform is for poor people. [But] It’s for everyone – everyone, that is, who isn’t independently wealthy or over the age of 65. Because all of us could lose our jobs."
FYI: Medicare = health insurance.
More great links to while away your Sunday afternoon after the jump.
Is it Time to Protest Yet?
Published August 03, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
More on those unemployment #s: Corrente takes a look at the National Employment Law Project report on unemployment - 1.5M Americans will have exhausted their unemployment benefits by 12/31/09 - and wonders if this is what will finally "break" us. And by break I mean rise up and fight back against atrocious wealth inequality.
I'm skeptical. Almost one-third of unemployed workers haven't worked in six months. That's a long time to be home all day, surfing the internet, sending out resumes, playing with your kids, letting yourself go, feeling your self-confidence and sense of self-worth along with your "soft skills" just totally atrophy. And from this sense of desperation we're going to fight for our economic rights? Revolution doesn't come from desperation; it comes from a sense of entitlement that we deserve more. We have to recognize our own oppression before we can revolt against it. This idea that work = self-worth means that out-of-work Americans just aren't our go-to revolutionaries. We're nothing without our jobs, and we get nothing from our society without them. And we buy into this set-up.
We're coming on 6 months since we last had this conversation about worker protest. As 500,000 Americans gear up to lose their unemployment benefits next month, seems like now's the time to have this discussion again.
What's it going to take, people??
(Photo of strike threat by janitorial workers in Santa Monica by Steve Lyons)
A Nation of Hustlers?
Published August 03, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
(Photo of "Hunger Amidst Plenty" by Kamal H.)
I have to ask: why do so many of our public policies assume the worst of human nature? Check this out from a depressing NYT piece on how unemployment benefits are going to run out by year's end for a frightening # of unemployed Americans:
Traditionally, many economists have been leery of prolonged unemployment benefits because they can reduce the incentive to seek work. But that should not be a concern now because jobs remain so scarce, said Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard.
For every job that becomes available, about six people are looking, Dr. Katz said. “Unemployment insurance gives income to families who are really suffering and can’t find work even if they are hustling to look,” he said.
Look, $300 a week in unemployment benefits is nothing to sneer at, but honestly, is it really a negative incentive? It's slightly more generous than working full-time for a week at minimum wage, and it's about half of what the median hourly wage pays weekly in the US.
Why do we assume that by offering any shred of a safety net we're creating a nation of loafers, hustlers, thieves, layabouts, and their rapaciously needy offspring?
Seriously - what are the roots of these very disturbing assumptions? I don't get it.
Smile, If You Dare...
Published July 10, 2009 @ 05:48AM PT
Next time you chomp down on some chewy piece of meat or, tsk, candy, think about your choppers. Do you have good teeth? Or are you among those who suffer dental dismay?
I'm not going to make readers uncomfortable talking about dentists torturing patients with high-speed drills, nah, that's too much of a cliche. What I do want to toss out for discussion is the COST of dental care and the apparently limited access to the tooth doc for people without money. Some good news--the stimulus money covers some dental care for low-income persons, but I'd suspect not enough.
For a while I paid over $600 a month (oops, a year) for dental insurance, until I read an article about the futility of my "donation" to the dental insurance industry. Sure enough, when I examined what the policy covered, I decided to take my chances and go insurance-less.
Goldman Sachs Owns You
Published July 03, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone has a frightening takedown of the investment bank:
Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, selling investments they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast sums from the middle and lower floors of society with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies the bank throws at political patronage. Finally, when it all goes bust, leaving millions of ordinary citizens broke and starving, they begin the entire process over again, riding in to rescue us all by lending us back our own money at interest, selling themselves as men above greed, just a bunch of really smart guys keeping the wheels greased. They've been pulling this same stunt over and over since the 1920s — and now they're preparing to do it again, creating what may be the biggest and most audacious bubble yet.
Consider it your weekend reading as we celebrate Independence Day - freedom from Britain, not our corporate overlords, apparently.
In this patriotic spirit, Zero Hedge is looking for whistleblowers "to provide information they believe captures wrongdoing in the financial system - in the absence of objective, unbiased and fair external regulators, it is the responsibility of everyone, but most notably insiders, to cleanse the system." They will collect and sort the info and forward it on to the FBI and Attorneys General.
A way to channel our rage and anxiety over the latest, absolutely horrendous jobs report, no doubt. Did you know we're on track to erase ALL job gains since 1999? When Bush spoke of our "ownership society," we mistakenly thought we owned the place. The joke, painfully, is on us.
In light of our jobless recovery, Krugman wastes no time in asking for another stimulus.
Earlier this week: Bank of America accused of exploiting Latin@ customers.
(Photo of Goldman Sachs in Lower Manhattan by Spoon Monkey)
A Deadly Lack of Access to Healthcare
Published June 30, 2009 @ 06:42AM PT
A small but important success story is emerging from tales of stimulus spending: $500,000 of $2.5B allocated is already in use expanding health clinic access for poor and/or rural communities. The article contrasts homeless teens receiving dental care post-stimulus with the tragedy of a young man who died from an infected tooth that required only an $80 extraction, which he could not afford.
Unfortunately, these kids need to pack in as much care as they can as this $2.5b comes down, because it's a one-time infusion for our health clinic "system". By 2025, rural and poor areas should suffer from a shortage of doctors exceeding 150,000. Combined with "the drag of poverty" on these communities, it's perhaps not as much of a surprise, though shocking and horrifying still, that there is such disparate healthcare outcomes across the country:
