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Fixing Flint

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Water is a public good provided by public institutions

By Donald Cohen / Capital & Main

Flint was a failure of government — but it didn’t have to be so. And government wasn’t the root of the problem. It was about the people, and ideas they advocate, who have taken control of governments across the country.

Water is a public good provided by public institutions — i.e. governments. It should be clear now that “running government like a business” (the privatizers trope) means you don’t invest in places that don’t have markets that can afford to buy your products. It didn’t work for Flint and it doesn’t work for America. Government needs to be run like a government — clear about its mission, run by competent people (yes, bureaucrats) committed passionately to the public good.   [Read more…]

Get Ready for the Market Crash and Recession of 2016

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Oil is less than $30. a barrel. This is over three times less than what it costs just to buy the barrel itself! Iran has been accepted back into the world community and is revving up to sell its oil on the world market which will bring down the price of oil even more. Frackers and oil producers in the US have taken on a huge amount of debt under the assumption that it would pay off down the road. They hadn’t counted on the price of oil plummeting. What will they do when we convert 100% to renewables?

The debt overhang in the US economy is, as The Donald would say, UUUUGE! All the Wall Street banks and hedge funds, which have bet on the US becoming oil independent and have bought derivatives up the ying yang, are on the losing end of their bets. This presages a crash similar to the mortgage based crash of 2008. Then the Big Banks will ask for another bailout. Or maybe they won’t ask; they’ll just tell us that we’re bailing them out because, after all, they run the government.   [Read more…]

A Beach, Burb, and Billionaire “Citizens’ Plan” for San Diego’s Urban Neighborhoods

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Editor’s Note: Some months ago Attorney Cory Briggs and others rolled out the “Citizens’ Plan for the Responsible Management of Major Tourism and Entertainment Resources,” better known as the Citizens Plan. They are hoping to have this on the November 2016 ballot as an alternative to the current tourism/development scheme, which is dominated by hotel industry’s financial interests. 

UrbDezine’s Bill Adams raises serious questions in the article below about just what it is would be accomplished should the Citizen’s Plan be adopted. Cory Briggs is writing a response we hope to publish next Monday. What is important about this debate about the future of San Diego’s downtown is that neither author is assuming the status quo is acceptable. I urge you to read both essays before passing judgment. 

By Bill Adams / San Diego UrbDeZine

They’re calling it the “Citizens’ Plan” initiative. Like all such initiatives, the name is misleading. Said citizens are an alliance of a billionaire and a few advocates for a limited selection of  public interests. Not included are the citizens who are most impacted nor the economic interests of the City’s working populace. Citizen Kane Plan might be a more appropriate name for the way it attempts to manipulate public opinion into believing it is a grassroots plan.   [Read more…]

Excerpt From Sunshine/Noir II: Living and Working In Poverty

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Grim Reality in “America’s Finest City”

By Susan Duerksen

“Living in poverty” is one of those shorthand terms that rolls easily off the tongues of news anchors and politicians before they turn to the next topic. We all tend to glaze over the full meaning of the phrase, the grinding day-to-day misery of hunger, worry, discomfort, exhaustion, and despair.

In the city of San Diego, the proportion and number of people living in poverty edged up in 2013. It should have gone down. Instead, 7,000 more people in the city live in poverty now, in addition to the 202,000 who remain in that dire situation from the previous year.

Statistically, it was a small increase, nothing drastic. When the Center on Policy Initiatives reported it in an analysis (63) of data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the main response from local media and others was a yawn.

But consider what that statistic means. It counts only the people whose household income is below the federal poverty threshold, an absurdly low measure in high-cost places like San Diego. The threshold is the same everywhere in the U.S. and varies only by family size; for example, it’s about $12,000 for a single person and about $24,000 for two adults with two children. That’s per year.   [Read more…]

San Diego: Two Expeditions — Enter Father Serra

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Part Two of Seven. Part One can be found here. Source: History of San Diego by William E. Smythe. All quotes are from this book.

By John Lawrence / From the original San Diego Free Press, circa 1969

A land and sea expedition set out from Mexico in 1769. After major navigational difficulties, two ships, the San Antonio and the San Carlos, landed at San Diego on April 11 and April 29, 1769, respectively.

It seems that the incompetent Cabrillo had reported that San Diego was at 34 degrees latitude whereas actually it is at 32 degrees. The result of this bungling was that most of the sailors were sick or dying when they reached San Diego. In fact all the seamen on the “San Carlos” died except for one and the cook. We can see that the plight of sailors in San Diego hasn’t changed much in 200 years.   [Read more…]

Six Years After Citizens United, Call to ‘Reclaim Democracy’ Louder than Ever

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Reformers are hopeful President Barack Obama will issue an executive order requiring current government contractors to disclose their political contributions.

By Deirdre Fulton / Common Dreams

On the sixth anniversary of Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that unleashed the scourge of dark and unlimited election spending into the political process, campaign finance reform advocates are spotlighting the tangible solutions that could loosen the stranglehold of corporate interests on U.S. democracy.

“The ruling has given voters fed up with the political system a concrete focus for their anger, and helped push the issue of money in politics from the margins to the mainstream,” Eliza Newlin Carney wrote for the American Prospect on Thursday. “The surging popular concern over political money has set the table for a serious discussion of what’s wrong with the system and how it can be fixed.”   [Read more…]

Ultra-Rich ‘Philanthrocapitalist’ Class Undermining Global Democracy: Report

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As foundations and wealthy individuals funnel money into global development, what “solutions” are they pursuing?

By Sarah Lazare / CommonDreams

From Warren Buffett to Bill Gates, it is no secret that the ultra-rich philanthropist class has an over-sized influence in shaping global politics and policies.

And a study (pdf) just out from the Global Policy Forum, an international watchdog group, makes the case that powerful philanthropic foundations—under the control of wealthy individuals—are actively undermining governments and inappropriately setting the agenda for international bodies like the United Nations.   [Read more…]

It’s Official: Rising Global Temperatures Set Record in 2015

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The numbers have been crunched, and the results are in: independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirm Earth’s 2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record-keeping began in 1880.

All in all, global temperatures in 2015 rose by 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit over the 20th-century average. Last year’s temperatures surpassed the 2014 record by a 0.23-degree margin. Only once before, in 1998, has the new record been greater than the old record by this much.

These observations were confirmed by scientists at Great Britain’s Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit.   [Read more…]

Boom! Sempra’s SoCal Gas Leak Gets More Dangerous by the Day

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The man made disaster in progress at Southern California Gas Co.’s Aliso Canyon underground facility is getting worse by the day. The company is a subsidiary of San Diego-based Sempra Energy.

According to the Environmental Defense Fund, the more than 80,000 tons of methane emissions since October 23rd have created the greenhouse gas equivalent on the Earth’s atmosphere of burning nearly 800 million gallons of gasoline.

Today’s Los Angeles Times says the attempts to plug the leaking natural gas well have created a crater 25 feet deep, 80 feet long and 30 feet wide, destabilizing the well-head and increasing the danger of a blowout.

Don’t Forget! Weekly Calendar of Progressive Events Inside   [Read more…]

Uber’s Immigrant Drivers Look Forward to Better Pay—and Bigger Voice

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A union for Seattle Uber drivers means finally having the right to a two-way conversation with their multibillion-dollar employer.

By Ana Sofia Knauf / Yes! Magazine

Takele Gobena left Ethiopia in December 2009 in hopes of finding better education and job opportunities in the United States. He settled in Seattle where his only U.S. relative, a niece, had lived for many years.

Nearly six years later, he is a senior at the University of Washington where he studies business. After he graduates in June, Gobena plans to apply to graduate school to study public policy. His goal: to advocate for workers’ rights.   [Read more…]

Hasta Luego, San Diego

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By Doug Porter

Forty-eight hours of discussion among National Football League team owners have begun, and the betting is this gathering in Houston, Texas will mark the end of the Chargers tenure in San Diego.

Commissioner Roger Goodell set the stage last week by sending a letter to the Chargers, Raiders and Rams organizations indicating they are all eligible for relocation consideration. It’s safe to say his view was that nothing offered by those teams’ current cities matched up with the possibilities for profit in La-La Land.

The six-owner Los Angeles Opportunities committee, according to various media reports, is expected to make an official recommendation putting both the Chargers and Rams in Inglewood. Momentum for the Rams/Chargers deal has been building in the wake a written proposal submitted by influential Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

UPDATE: Media reports were wrong, though I doubt this is the final answer. LA committee recommended Carson site 5-1. Lone exception: Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, who said it should be 1 team or none.   [Read more…]

“The Big Short” and Bernie’s Plan to Bust Up Wall Street

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By Robert Reich / RobertReich.org

If you haven’t yet seen “The Big Short” – directed and co-written by Adam McKay, based on the non-fiction prize-winning book by Michael Lewis about the housing and credit bubble that triggered the Great Recession — I recommend you do so.

Not only is the movie an enjoyable (if that’s the right word) way to understand how the big banks screwed millions of Americans out of their homes, savings, and jobs – and then got bailed out by taxpayers. It’s also a lesson in why they’re on the way to doing all this again – and how their political power continues to erode laws designed to prevent another crisis and to shield their executives from any accountability.

Most importantly, the movie shows why Bernie Sanders’s plan to break up the biggest banks and reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act (separating investment from commercial banking) is necessary – and why Hillary Clinton’s more modest plan is inadequate.   [Read more…]

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