Bankruptcy

Jobless Organize to Remove Republican Royalists From Their Jobs

Leo Gerard — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:34:40 -0400

Glenn Beck made it official on Fox News last week: He’s seeking the office of 21^st Century Marie Antoinette.

The queen of France, beheaded during the revolution, attained infamy for insensitivity toward hungry peasants. Glenn Beck, the Fox talk show host, achieved celebrity for his callousness toward unemployed Americans.

Beck leads a pack of royalist Republicans who have spent the summer mocking, vilifying and denigrating the nation’s 14.5 million unemployed workers. It is the moneyed class smacking down the working class in an attempt to disempower and disenfranchise them. Dispirited workers are less likely to vote – which could give Beck and his gang of royalist Republicans control of Congress.

The unemployed, like France’s 18^th Century peasants, are fighting back, however. The Union of the Unemployed and Working America are organizing the jobless to vote this fall and to demand help from lawmakers. They’re not out to behead Beck and the royalist Republicans, just dethrone them.

Two and a half years after wanton recklessness by Wall Street banksters crashed the economy, the official unemployment rate remains stuck at 9.5 percent. It rises to 17 percent when statisticians add part-time workers seeking full-time jobs and the jobless who’ve abandoned the search out of hopelessness. With the help of a taxpayer bailout, Wall Street has recovered, and those banksters are taking home multi-million dollar bonuses again. But on Main Street, there still are five unemployed workers for every job vacancy, so no matter how hard the jobless try, there are no openings for 80 percent of them.

Routinely, crowds line up before dawn when job openings are announced. In June, in Longmont, Colo., hundreds queued up to vie for 100 low-paid clerk and stock jobs at a new SmartCo Foods. Hundreds of Louisville residents gathered in the dark on Aug. 9 at the Kentucky Exposition Center to apply for 450 state fair jobs paying $7.25 an hour and lasting a total of 20 days.

In addition to jobs, the people on Main Street are losing their homes and life savings at increasing rates. Bankruptcy filings nationwide reached the highest level in five years between April and June. Banks repossessed 92,858 homes in July, up 6 percent from July 2009. For too many, the situation is so desperate that they’re discussing plans for suicide on an on-line forum for the jobless.

Glenn Beck and the royalist Republicans don’t care about all that. Here’s Beck ranting about those who lose unemployment benefits at 99 weeks:

"Have you heard of the 99ers? These people, some of which I, frankly, I bet you would be ashamed to call them Americans, they think 99 weeks of unemployment benefists are not enough. . .Two years is plenty of time to have lived off your neighbors' wallets."


Video of Beck slamming the "99ers" begins at 2 minutes and 33 seconds into this clip.

Beck went on to argue that the jobless who protested last week on Wall Street were not "regular people," like him and his friends:

“Are they just regular people? . . They are socialists and anti-capitalists.”

Then, incongruously, Beck condemned a protestor seeking jobs for all unemployed workers with a sign asserting, “A job is a right.”

“No, a job is not a right,” insisted Beck, making it clear that in his world, the unemployed are “un-American” for not landing jobs, but, simultaneously, it’s perfectly moral and fair that the American economy has failed to produce enough jobs for them to fill.

Beck is the TV mouthpiece for the royalist Republicans who champion this view: a job is not a right, and it’s not right to aid the jobless. Republicans, virtually as a block, oppose extending unemployment benefits for the jobless while they support extending tax breaks for the moneyed class – themselves. They opposed legislation to save the jobs of 319,000 public servants – the people who educate our children and protect our lives -- teachers, police officers, firefighters. Democrats in Congress paid to preserve those jobs by eliminating $11 billion in tax loopholes for corporations that ship jobs overseas -- a provision that ultimately could create jobs in the United States.

Like Beck, they’ve announced their loathing for the unemployed. Royalists Sharron Angle, Jon Kyl, Andre Bauer, Tom Corbett and Orrin Hatch have derided the unemployed as lazy, spoiled, stupid drug users.

The jobless, however, are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore. They’re organizing. The Union of the Unemployed and Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, are mobilizing the jobless.

The Union of the Unemployed is launching a “Bite Back” campaign, targeting those in Congress who tried repeatedly to cut off unemployment insurance and other aid to the jobless. “They will never see us coming,” the first Bite Back ad says, “After all, the politicians whose policies destroyed our lives think we’re ‘lazy’ ‘drug users’ and ‘hobos.’ They are counting on us to be docile as lambs and so depressed we’ll stay in bed on election day.”

Working America, whose members are not in unions but align themselves with the political philosophy of the AFL-CIO, plans to organize hundreds of thousands of the jobless across the nation to vote in workers’ interests. Field organizers will ask the jobless to fill out “Help Wanted” petitions to send to their congressmen and senators asking exactly what they’ve done to create jobs and assist the unemployed.

The jobless removing the royalists from their jobs – nothing could be sweeter, unless this revolution also included dispatching Glenn Beck to his unemployment office.

House Hearing Shines Light on Student Bankruptcy Injustice

Armand Biroonak — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:53:42 -0400

Earlier this week the House held a hearing on private student loans and bankruptcy, shedding light for the first time on a rather unknown yet devastating aspect of student debt.

Did you know that because of legislation dating back to 1976 under the Higher Education Act private student loans are unable to be discharged through bankruptcy? In other words, feel free to run up the credit card and splurge, but take out loans to pay for education? That’s just reckless.

The number of students taking out private (or nonfederal) student loans has increased significantly over the past decade. Private student loans now make up nearly a quarter of the overall market, compared to just ten years ago when they made up a small fraction. This spike is not only due to skyrocketing tuition –the average four-year tuition has increased 30 percent from a decade ago –but also because of the complexity of the financial aid process that leaves many students vulnerable to take out the worst of loans. In fact, many students turn to private loans before even exhausting available federal aid and loan options.

Source: College Board

Meanwhile, private lenders capitalize on this confusion, even at times in cahoots with universities, preying on young adults, steering them towards more risky loans.

These loans pawned on students by private lenders are often downright predatory, offering little consumer protections. Private loan interest rates are normally variable, with average interest rates running between 9 and 13 percent, nearly double that of federal loans. On top of that, the flexibility of repayment for private loans are much less pliant, in almost all cases a missed monthly payment results in an automatic interest rate hike of 2 percent, with additional fines and fees to punish borrowers.

And you can imagine that with the toughest job market in decades, coupled with staggering student debt averaging $23,000, students are finding they can no longer keep up with repayment. But unlike federal loans, private lenders do not have to offer flexible payment plans or a forbearance option to struggling borrowers. Why should lenders? When they can maintain hefty profits.

While in truly tough times, students needing to discharge their private loans in bankruptcy are forbidden to. In other words, if you face chronic unemployment, a medical emergency or even die –tough luck, student loan debt will continue to be an albatross.

Congress though may finally be addressing this injustice. This week’s hearing was the first time the issue has been addressed since written into law in 1976! Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) announced he will soon file legislation to give private student loan borrowers more equitable treatment during the bankruptcy process. And in another good sign, House Chairman of Education and Labor Committee, Rep. George Miller is on board as well, stating, "There’s no justifiable reason that the lenders who provide them should be treated any differently than credit card companies, auto finance companies, utility providers, and other creditors.”

Bankruptcy Law Key To Obama's Foreclosure Fight

OurFuture.org Staff — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:35:38 -0500

R.I.P., Circuit City

Dmitri Iglitzin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:11:54 -0500

On November 10, 2008, Circuit City, the nation’s second-biggest electronics retailer, filed for bankruptcy. It’s going to have a lot of company in bankruptcy court. More than a dozen U.S. retailers filed for bankruptcy in 2008, including Linens ‘n Things and Sharper Image. Already in 2009, KBtoys.com has followed suit, and more such filings are expected following what may have been the worst holiday-shopping season in 40 years.

What makes Circuit City’s collapse worthy of some special note, however, however, is the fact that this company, en route to its financial meltdown, tried to balance its books at the expense of its workers, a tactic that other companies may yet be tempted to follow, despite Circuit City's evident lack of success.

In March of 2007, Circuit City decided to fire approximately 3400 senior store employees who were making, on average, about $15 per hour. Some of these workers were replaced by new hires, while others were actually invited to return to work at $10.22 per hour. These layoffs represented approximately 8% of the in-store work force, or on average, 5 staff members per store.

The job cuts were "one of the most brazen examples of corporate America run amuck,'' said Greg Tarpinian, executive director of Change to Win, a coalition of seven international unions representing about 6 million workers. "It's workers as disposable commodities, put in and put out based on whatever happens to the stock price.''

Not surprisingly, this heartless move not only damaged Circuit City’s reputation, it failed to provide any lasting benefit to the company’s bottom line. By replacing its most experienced salespeople, Circuit City lost effectiveness in both sales and customer services. As a result, Circuit City's customer satisfaction rating has steadily declined, dropping 5.5% overall since 2003, and it now trails competitors Best Buy, Costco, and Wal-Mart, the first two by a considerable margin.

Nor did Circuit City’s stock price benefit. It dropped from over $19 per share on the date of the layoffs to $4 per share a year later, and it had dropped all the way to a quarter before the company filed for bankruptcy.

None of this stopped Circuit City from generously rewarding its management team for their lack of success, of course. In 2006, according to Bloomberg.com, then-Chief Executive Officer Philip J. Schoonover (he was forced out last September) raked in $8,520,000 in total compensation. In addition, at around the same time as the layoffs, the company's board approved "retention awards" of $1 million for each of its 3 executive vice presidents and $600,000 for each of its 10 senior vice presidents. Circuit City said the awards were intended "to ensure the stability of the company's leadership team by providing an incentive" for the officers to stay.

In court documents, Chief Financial Officer Bruce H. Besanko said that three factors led to Circuit City’s bankruptcy filing: erosion of vendor confidence, decreased liquidity and the global economic crisis. Maybe. But he should have added one more factor: a fundamental lack of respect by Circuit City’s management for the company’s own workers, who were the one company resource that might have been able to restore its tarnished reputation and save it from failure.

Circuit City is still selling gift cards, and it is promising to do its best to honor those cards if customers actually try to use them. Had Circuit City been willing to match its own workers' level of commitment, instead of kicking those workers to the curb as soon as times got hard, perhaps its promises would not ring quite so hollow.

R.I.P., Circuit City

Dmitri Iglitzin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:10:51 -0500

BANKING INDUSTRY OPPOSES BILL TO PROTECT WORKING FAMILIES FROM PREDATORY STUDENT LOANS

Alex Carter — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:20:35 -0400

Working families and their college-bound children would get the information they need to protect themselves from predatory student loans under a bill by Assembly Speaker pro Tempore Sally Lieber (D-San Jose) facing heavy banking industry opposition at 1:30 p.m. today in the Assembly Higher Education Committee.

Student Loan Guarantor Faces Bankruptcy

Alex Carter — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:05:26 -0400

The Education Resources Institute Inc, which calls itself the largest not-for-profit guarantor of U.S. private education loans, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, saying rising defaults and credit market problems have damaged liquidity.

Open Columnist: A Call for Input

David Sirota — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:06:53 -0500

This is the third installment of what I have been calling Open Columnist - a call for reader input into the nationally syndicated newspaper column I write every week for Creators Syndicate. As the first nationally syndicated newspaper columnist with direct connections to the Netroots, I am working hard to make this column something very different on all sorts of levels, one of which is its use of new technologies to stay as close to readers - and thus, the real world - as possible.

In the four months since the column officially kicked off, readers and editors have sent me an incredible amount of valuable information and feedback - and my writing is all the better for it, and I hope you will take a moment to give me your input today.

Some updates before we get down to the feedback. Since my last Open Columnist installment in November, my column has been picked up by the Seattle Times, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, the Idaho Statesman, the Idaho Post Register, and the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. There is no doubt that expansion is due to tremendous reader support in getting in touch with local editors, and I appreciate it. The column now reaches a total audience of roughly 1.3 million newspaper readers a week, and has been cited in publications like Editor & Publisher for accurately predicting trends in the Iowa presidential caucus well before any other reporter/columnist was covering such trends.

Over the last six weeks since my last call for input, the presidential race has heated up to a boil, and I have tried to straddle the need to cover that national event with the more substantive work of investigative analysis that I want my column grounded in. I hope I hit the right balance and I will be interested to hear what you think in the poll and in the comments. Here is a short review of the last period of columns, from most recent to oldest:

Stay Classy, Mike Huckabee: Underneath all the rhetoric about race, gender and partisanship, economic class is being forced onto the presidential stage by a new kind of Republican exposing the rift's in the GOP coalition.
The Path to a National Popular Vote: Many Americans are asking why certain states like Iowa and New Hampshire have such disproportionate influence over national politics. They will be asking the same thing during the general election about Florida and Ohio thanks to the Electoral College - unless states pass an innovative plan to make presidential elections more democratic.
Fear, Loathing & the Crisis of Confidence: Recent polls show that the level of anger Americans are feeling toward their government is reaching historic highs. When you look at the mundane behavior of alphabet soup agencies like the FCC, is that anger really surprising?
When Barbarians Take Hostages: Private equity managers like Henry Kravis, who is the subject of a new Robert Greenwald film, are taking the American tax system hostage - and come April 15th, we'll all be paying the price.
The Last Row of the Plane: A holiday plane flight - and a seat pushed back into my lap - explain a lot about the human behaviors that lead to trampling the commons and ultimately, such ills as global warming.
Conservative, Or Just Plain Corrupt?: A group of Democrats calling themselves "Blue Dogs" are using the veneer of supposed "conservatism" to help big banks foreclose on thousands of homeowners. Since when did "conservative" mean corrupt?

Over at DailyKos, I have posted a poll asking you which column you think was the best. I hope you will vote in the poll and give me some feedback. The poll, of course, is a very blunt instrument, so for those who have a bit more time, please use the comments section either here or over at DailyKos to expand further on your vote. Which of the columns did you like and why? Which did you hate and why? Do you think my rationale about where to focus and where not to focus is sound? What issues do you think I should delve into? What issues should I avoid because they are too overexposed? And obviously, if you have specific column ideas, send them along to me.

As always - if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use Media Matters' directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site.

Weekend Watchdog

Rick Perlstein — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:22:25 -0400

Every Friday in our Weekend Watchdog feature, we post suggested questions for scheduled Sunday guests. You can add your own questions in the comment thread. We'll also include contact information for the shows, so we can let them know what their viewers want asked.

And on Sunday at 4 PM ET, tune in to Air America Radio's "Seder on Sundays" program, where I'll offer the Weekend Watchdog Wrap-Up.

Guest watchdog Rick Perlstein here, with a confession: I'm a politically junky of an unconventional sort. Specifically: I can't stand the Sunday political talk shows. I don't mean that, like many liberals, I watch them and shout angrily at the screen. I mean I don't watch them at all. The last episode of Meet the Press I saw was from 1966, three years before I was born. If you know that I'm a historian that sentence makes more sense. I saw it at the Museum of Broadcast Communications as part of the research for my next book, and the episode was a roundtable featuring Stokely Carmichael, Martin Luther King, and the NAACP's Roy Wilkins.

So who's up on on NBC's "Meet the Press this week? No Martin Luther King, that's for sure. It's none other than the newest passenger in the clown car that is the 2008 Republican presidential field: Fred Thompson. And here's what I, were I Tim Russert, would ask him:

"Mr. Thompson, last month, in an interview with Kay Henderson of Radio Iowa, you answered a question about what you would do as president about Iran by say, in part, 'I'm afraid that the Soviet Union and China are not ever going to do anything that's going to hurt them that badly but we need to ratchet those up if at all possible.'

"More recently, Mr. Thompson, you were asked a question about New Hampshire's civil unions law and responded, 'Soviet Union?'"

"My question: how would you answer critics who say someone who keeps referring to a nation that hasn't existed for sixteen years isn't sharp enough to be president?

"And a followup, if I may: what are you going to do about Siam, Persia, and the Holy Roman Empire?"

But seriously, folks. How about this one. "You believe abortion should be illegal. Do you believe women who have abortions should go to jail?"

Joe Biden is on CBS's Face the Nation. And were I able, to transpose myself, using some Harry Potterish magic, into Bob Schieffer's superannuated body, I would ask Biden about an astonishingly stupid and callous thing he once said—true story—to a friend of mine.

Me as Bob Schieffer: "Senator Biden, I know of a Florida man who asked you why you supported the bankruptcy bill, which he, like many Americans, believes punishes the most financially vulnerable members of society and only benefits predatory credit card companies headquartered in your home state of Delaware. You responded, this Florida man told me, 'so deadbeat dads like you can't get away with not paying child support.'

"Mr. Biden, you're an intelligent and morally serious man, with a Catholic education. Why would you say such a thing to a complete stranger asking you a perfectly reasonable policy question?"

But seriously, folks. Schieffer should ask him, "Considering that one Harvard study found that half of Americans who declared bankruptcy did so because of illness or medical bills, why did you help drive a bill that makes it easier for banks to seize such innocent Americans' assets?"

Last but not least. These week Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace inaugurates a new series they're calling "American Leaders" with an interview with former president George H.W. Bush.

"President Bush," Chris Wallace should ask him, "in 1999 you called those who exposed the identity of American covert agents 'the most insidious of traitors.' Now that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt tha the George W. Bush administration exposed the identity of covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson, do you plan on extending an invitation to your son for Thanksgiving?"

But seriously folks. Why not ask Chris Wallace to ask our 41st president how he thinks the 44th president, whomever that is, can rebuild some of the international trust the United States seems to have lost over the previous eight years?

Email CBS' Face The Nation at ftn@cbsnews.com

Email Fox News Sunday at FNS@foxnews.com

Contact NBC's Meet The Press by clicking here

Remember: always be brief, polite and respectful when contacting the media, so our voices will be taken seriously.

The Fed, The Enabler

Isaiah J. Poole — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 11:39:26 -0400