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Calling All CounterPunchers!
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Today's Stories November 7 / 9, 2008 Jean Bricmont November 6, 2008 Frank J. Menetrez John Chuckman P. Sainath Joshua Frank Edna Canetti John Ross Norman Solomon Fawzia Afzal-Khan Robert Weissman Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day
November 5, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Chuck Spinney Ishmael Reed Chris Floyd Binoy Kampmark Michael Donnelly David Macaray Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. William Willers Website of the Day November 4, 2008 Kathleen Christison James Ridgeway Winslow T. Wheeler Mike Whitney Conn Hallinan Holly M. Barker Ashley Smith Andy Worthington Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Doug Lummis Carlos Fierro Website of the Day November 3, 2008 Patrick Cockburn John Kennedy O'Hara Peter Montague Steve Conn Andrew Gebhardt Ron Jacobs Ralph Nader Niranjan Ramakrishnan Uri Avnery Dave Lindorff Fred Gardner DC Larson David Michael Green Val Strange Tuli Kupferberg / Website of the Day
October 31 , 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Douglas Valentine Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Dr. Ignacy Nowopolski Alan Maass William P. O’Connor Patrick Irelan Brian Cloughley Mats Svensson Binoy Kampmark Steve Conn Alan Farago Morton Skorodin Robert Bryce Wajahat Ali David Yearsley Dennis Loo Pam Martens Stephen Martin Richard Rhames Ramzy Baroud Missy Beattie Howard Lisnoff Richard Neville Saul Landau / Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Stanley Heller William Loren Katz Joshua Frank James McEnteer Felice Pace Jonathan Cook Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
October 29, 2008 Arno J. Mayer Eric Toussaint Matt Gonzalez Steven Conn Jonathan Cook Patrick Bond Ramzi Kysia Douglas Valentine Stephen Martin Margaret Dooley-Sammuli Amee Chew Website of the Day
October 28, 2008 James G. Abourezk Andy Worthington Gary Leupp Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Gregory V. Button Ralph Nader P. Sainath Martha Rosenberg Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 27, 2008 Michael Hudson Barbara Rose Johnston John Dinges Mike Whitney Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power Alan Farago David Michael Green Andy Worthington George Wuerthner Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day October 24 / 26, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Ishmael Reed Mike Whitney Don Santina Scott Boehm Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Linn Washington Jr. Nicole Colson Bernard Chazelle Brian Jones Christopher Brauchli Benjamin Dangl Val Strange Steve Early David Macaray Allison Kilkenny Richard Rhames Jim Bell Kris De Welde Barry Clemson Adam Engel Mark Scaramella Tuli Kupferberg Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 23, 2008 Allan J. Lichtman Todd Chretien John Ross Peter Morici Mats Svensson Marlene Martin Robert Jensen / Margaret Kimberley Deepak Tripathi David Morris Website of the Day October 22, 2008 Brian Cloughley Heather Gray Jeff Birkenstein Ralph Nader DC Larson David Swanson Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth Larry Everest Robert Fantina Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Website of the Day October 21, 2008 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Corey D. B. Walker Steve Breyman Eric Toussaint Wajahat Ali Robert Weitzel Brendan Cooney Dave Lindorff Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing Patrick B. Barr Omar Barghouti Website of the Day October 20, 2008 Michael Hudson Anthony DiMaggio Tariq Ali Uri Avnery Bill Quigley Ben Rosenfeld David Michael Green William S. Lind Chris Genovali Stephen Martin Howard Lisnoff David Yearsley Website of the Day October 17 / 19, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Pam Martens Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whtney Michael D. Yates Suzanne Smith Carl Boggs Ralph Nader Fidel Castro Dave Marsh Saul Landau Jo Guldi Kevin Zeese Larry Everest Steve Early David Macaray Ben Terrall Missy Beattie Don Monkerud Helen Redmond Dan Bacher Wajahat Ali Farzana Versey Vladimir Frolov Kim Nicolini Poets Basement Website of the Day
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Weekend Edition Politics Among the RuinsObama Faces an Economic DisasterBy SAUL LANDAU
Barack Obama will inherit the financial meltdown that has begun to reach beyond the “developed” countries and into Russia, Korea and Brazil. As he makes plans to reissue New Deal measures to get people back to work and reinforce the crumbling infrastructure at home, he might hum Woody Guthrie songs of the Great Depression. One symptom of the economic malaise is the proliferation of yard sales in very middle class neighborhoods throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Indeed, the October 25 NY Times ran a story about what might become the unofficial yard sale capital of the country, Manteca, California. I drove the hour plus from the San Francisco Bay Area to see for myself. By the end of the day, my wife and I stopped counting to see if Manteca had more “for sale” or “yard sale” signs to go along with a record number of foreclosures. In the city itself, as many as 2,000 homes are in or going into foreclosure. According to REALTORS® web site, the Manteca area currently has 8,511 foreclosures, 3,269 pre-foreclosures, 1,469 bankruptcies, 15 for sale by owner (FSBO), 4,995 tax liens. This in a city of 67,000 souls. Unbelievable? Go to: http://www.foreclosure.com/) I assume this includes the surrounding towns and rural areas. Another web site offers typical American incentives to shark-like real estate sellers. “Make a Killing Selling Foreclosures!” reads the headline. “Foreclosure buyers are opportunity-seeking, quickly adapting, Web-savvy, real estate survivalists who are seeking expert professional help to navigate the choppy waters of foreclosure transactions.” (http://www.foreclosure.com/) Add to the number of foreclosures, the dropping value of homes in California’s Central Valley (about 45%), the rising level of unemployment (almost 11% officially) and worsening prospects for job seekers, especially in construction. Along California Highway 120, hundreds of unfinished and empty homes dot the landscape alongside ubiquitous billboards extolling the virtues of cars and gasoline brands. In San Joaquin County -- one of the world’s largest food producers -- the bright sun contrasts with the dark shadow of recession. Some old timers recall the early 1930s, when rickety trucks full of people and possessions arrived to pick fruit -- a dramatic reminder of the Joads (John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath) and how they met successive disappointments on their way from Oklahoma to the mythical Garden of Eden in the West. Many descendants of Okies still work on farms, or even own them. Some have just dropped into the growing homeless population. They also make up a substantial percentage of whites in California’s Central Valley jails and prisons. Latinos outnumber whites in several Valley towns. But not in Manteca, where whites are the majority. Almost half of its working population commutes to the San Francisco Bay Area. “Imagine what this has meant as gas prices rose over the last two years,” a clerk at a gas station said. “And how many of those jobs were in construction or marginal high tech industries! No wonder people can’t make payments! No jobs, no mortgage payments. You can use yard sales to survive, but not pay the bank for the house.” The man next to me nodded in agreement. In Ricardo’s Mexican Grill, in nearby Oakdale, the owner also waited on tables. She explained how her brother-in-law had bought a house in Manteca for $200,000 “just three years ago. And he only made about $25,000 a year. But the salesman told him not to worry, he wouldn’t pay no money down, his payments wouldn’t be expensive for three years and by the time they balloon you’ll sell it at a big profit. Well, it didn’t work that way. He got foreclosed and he lost his job to boot -- with his wife and kids to take care of.” She shook her head as if acknowledging the gloomy nature of our time as she served the sopas de carnitas. “My husband and I sold our house just in time, but I tell ya, the dream most of us had, ya know, we’d make it and our kids would make it, well, that don’t seem so possible any more. California’s not what it used to be.” In the 19th Century, before the Okies got lured into “Paradise,” caravans of miners and pioneers imagined they had found a short cut to the California gold area. Many of them died in Death Valley, 300 miles southeast of Manteca. Successive processions found silver deposits and other precious metals. With each strike they built settlements. But Nature -- extreme heat and dryness in summer -- drove these tough pioneers away or killed them. The shiny rocks enticed the greedy prospectors, an emotion they shared with contemporary “Greed is Good” Wall Street equivalents. The rocks contained traces of wealth-making metals, but the economics of extracting them did not coincide with the supply -- no comparison with how money gets made on Wall St. Today, metal has morphed into liquid. Chants of “drill baby drill” echo throughout the political world, implying a utopian hope that perforating technology will save the country. Screw the bears and birds! California’s Central Valley residents, however, might hope some genius figures out how to subdue the economic down cycle or magically turn dry, dusty towns into lucrative tourist sites. Even in the clean, cool air of the Sierra Nevada town, Twain Harte, the hotels and restaurants are more than half empty. During Fall, the mammoth pines and redwoods, the clear streams presumably loaded with trout, should lure city dwellers. Every other store window in Twain Harte adorns its windows with photos of bargain houses -- for vacation or retirement. Logging still exists, but isn’t expanding and, a resident tells me: “My husband works in Sonora. They have a hospital and Indian casinos there, and the Forest Service, the kind of places that still have jobs around here.” Manteca billboards still say it’s a great place to shop -- especially for fishing gear. Maybe the fishing market still lures people but the rest of the retail economy has gone yard sale. In these hard times, asking people to shop brings about the sound of checkbooks closing. It’s not just high gas prices -- driving for two hours to save $5? -- but hard times for consumers. The Conference Board, a New York based research organization that provides business with crucial research affirmed this dismal economic picture. Its board's trustees include chief executives of leading global corporations. Using the 1985 level of 100, it makes monthly judgments of consumer confidence. Five thousand U.S. households answer questions about their views of the economy, the nation’s and their own. In October, Board economists determined the “consumer confidence index” had fallen to 38, an all-time low. Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of the economy. As holiday sales season approaches, consider the following: Mervyn’s, the giant department store chain, filed for bankruptcy. Linens ‘n Things and Ann Taylor are closing their stores; Eddie Bauer has already closed 27. Cache, the women’s clothing chain, discontinued 23 stores; Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, and Catherine’s closed 150 “underperforming” stores nationwide. Gap will shut 85 stores plus some of its Old Navy and Banana Republic outlets. Foot Locker will abandon 140 outlets and Wickes Furniture is going out of business -- after 37 years. Levitz (since 1910) will close all 76 of its stores in December. Within two months, Home Depot will shut 15 outlets. Thirteen hundred employees will lose jobs. CompUSA closed all its stores. Macy’s will close 9 stores and Pacific Sunwear, 153. Movie Gallery filed for bankruptcy, and plans to close 400 of 3,500 video stores. Last fall, it shut 520. Sprint Nextel sealed 125 retail locations and will fire 4,000 employees after losing 639,000 customers. Last year, Sprint laid off 5,000. Wilson’s the Leather Experts plans to shut 158 stores. Bombay Company will close all 384 U.S.-based stores. Bankrupt KB Toys will close 356 stores. Whew! If alive, Guthrie might have sent the President the following song to sing to foreclosed and yard sale people -- (Tune of The Wabash Cannonball):
Saul Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow, author of A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD (A/K-Counterpunch) and producer of many films.
New in the Print Edition of CounterPunch For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederick Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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New in the CP Print Edition! For his 20-year stretch as Fed chairman, they all fawned on him – presidents, Congress, the press. Only a handful of left economists said he was pushing the economy over the cliff. Now Greenspan admits it in a humiliating confession. As the world’s financial structure tumbles in ruins, guess what? “I found a flaw in the model… To the extent that I figure out where it happened and why, I will change my views.” Read Frederick Claremont’s savage assessment of the fool who has plunged millions into misery. Also in our new issue: Bill Hatch on the story of one foreclosure; and Kristian Williams on police torture in Chicago. Only in CounterPunch newsletter! Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Waiting for Lightning
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