THE 2009 HHS POVERTY GUIDELINES

The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) publishes annual poverty guidelines. According to the 2009 HHS poverty guidelines:

There are two slightly different versions of the federal poverty measure:

The poverty thresholds, and
The poverty guidelines.

The poverty thresholds are the original version of the federal poverty measure. They are updated each year by the Census Bureau (although they were originally developed by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration). The thresholds are used mainly for statistical purposes — for instance, preparing estimates of the number of Americans in poverty each year. (In other words, all official poverty population figures are calculated using the poverty thresholds, not the guidelines.) Poverty thresholds since 1980 and weighted average poverty thresholds since 1959 are available on the Census Bureau’s Web site. For an example of how the Census Bureau applies the thresholds to a family’s income to determine its poverty status, see “How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty” on the Census Bureau’s web site.

The poverty guidelines are the other version of the federal poverty measure. They are issued each year in the Federal Register by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The guidelines are a simplification of the poverty thresholds for use for administrative purposes — for instance, determining financial eligibility for certain federal programs. The Federal Register notice of the 2009 poverty guidelines is available.

The poverty guidelines are sometimes loosely referred to as the “federal poverty level” (FPL), but that phrase is ambiguous and should be avoided, especially in situations (e.g., legislative or administrative) where precision is important.

Key differences between poverty thresholds and poverty guidelines are outlined in a table under Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). See also the discussion of this topic on the Institute for Research on Poverty’s web site.

The 2009 Poverty Guidelines for the 48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia
Persons in family / Poverty guideline
1 $10,830
2 14,570
3 18,310
4 22,050
5 25,790
6 29,530
7 33,270
8 37,010
For families with more than 8 persons, add $3,740 for each additional person.

2009 Poverty Guidelines for Alaska
Persons in family / Poverty guideline
1 $13,530
2 18,210
3 22,890
4 27,570
5 32,250
6 36,930
7 41,610
8 46,290
For families with more than 8 persons, add $4,680 for each additional person.

2009 Poverty Guidelines for Hawaii
Persons in family / Poverty guideline
1 $12,460
2 16,760
3 21,060
4 25,360
5 29,660
6 33,960
7 38,260
8 42,560
For families with more than 8 persons, add $4,300 for each additional person
.
SOURCE: Federal Register, Vol. 74, No. 14, January 23, 2009, pp. 4199–4201

The separate poverty guidelines for Alaska and Hawaii reflect Office of Economic Opportunity administrative practice beginning in the 1966-1970 period. Note that the poverty thresholds — the original version of the poverty measure — have never had separate figures for Alaska and Hawaii. The poverty guidelines are not defined for Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Palau. In cases in which a Federal program using the poverty guidelines serves any of those jurisdictions, the Federal office which administers the program is responsible for deciding whether to use the contiguous-states-and-D.C. guidelines for those jurisdictions or to follow some other procedure.

The poverty guidelines apply to both aged and non-aged units. The guidelines have never had an aged/non-aged distinction; only the Census Bureau (statistical) poverty thresholds have separate figures for aged and non-aged one-person and two-person units.

Programs using the guidelines (or percentage multiples of the guidelines — for instance, 125 percent or 185 percent of the guidelines) in determining eligibility include Head Start, the Food Stamp Program, the National School Lunch Program, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Note that in general, cash public assistance programs (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Supplemental Security Income) do NOT use the poverty guidelines in determining eligibility. The Earned Income Tax Credit program also does NOT use the poverty guidelines to determine eligibility. For a more detailed list of programs that do and don’t use the guidelines, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

The poverty guidelines (unlike the poverty thresholds) are designated by the year in which they are issued. For instance, the guidelines issued in January 2009 are designated the 2009 poverty guidelines. However, the 2009 HHS poverty guidelines only reflect price changes through calendar year 2008; accordingly, they are approximately equal to the Census Bureau poverty thresholds for calendar year 2008. (The 2008 thresholds are expected to be issued in final form in August 2009; a preliminary version of the 2008 thresholds is now available from the Census Bureau.)

The computations for the 2009 poverty guidelines are available.

The poverty guidelines may be formally referenced as “the poverty guidelines updated periodically in the Federal Register by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the authority of 42 U.S.C. 9902(2).”

Report: Students need more veggies, fewer calories

In the October 20, 2009 article "Report: Students need more veggies, fewer calories," Associated Press education writer Libby Quaid says students need to eat more vegetables and fewer calories:

WASHINGTON -- School lunches need more fruits, veggies and whole grains and a limit on calories, said a report urging an update of the nation's 14-year-old standards for cafeteria fare.

But the changes won't come cheaply.

Schools can't put just anything on a kid's lunch tray. They must follow federal standards, because the government's school lunch program subsidizes lunch and breakfast for needy kids in nearly every public school and many private ones.

Yet those standards are lacking, according to an Institute of Medicine report released Tuesday. They don't restrict the number of calories kids are offered, even though childhood obesity keeps climbing.

And they don't match up with the government's own dietary guidelines, which serve as the basis for the familiar Food Pyramid and were updated in 2005. They call for lots of fresh fruit and veggies and more whole grains.

"Today, overweight children outnumber undernourished children, and childhood obesity is often referred to as an epidemic in both the medical and community settings," Virginia Stallings, who chaired the report committee, wrote.

The proposed standards won't be cheap. The committee said breakfast prices could soar 20 percent, and lunch prices could rise by 4 percent.

That's daunting for school kitchens, which get less from the government, $2.68, than it actually costs to make each free lunch, about $2.92, according to a recent survey done by the School Nutrition Association. Combine that with rising food and fuel prices, and school kitchens are feeling the squeeze. Many have been raising prices for full-price meals.

The federal dollars "simply do not keep pace with rising costs on everything from food and labor to napkins and spoons," Dora Rivas, president of the association and head of food and nutrition in Dallas public schools, said in a statement last week.

The group is pressuring Congress to boost spending on school lunches. The Institute of Medicine committee agreed, saying the reimbursement should be raised to cover the cost of adding more fruits and veggies to the menu and substituting healthier whole grains for refined grains.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the Obama administration would review the report as it writes new rules for school meals.

The report proposed new standards according to grade levels -- kindergarten through five, six through eight and nine through 12. Among the recommendations:

* Each week, kids should be offered 2 1/2 to 5 servings of fruit for lunch, depending on their grade, and at least five servings of fruit for breakfast. No more than half the fruit servings should be juice.

* Kids should be offered 1 1/4 to 2 1/2 servings of vegetables for lunch, according to the report, which says that a half-cup of dark green and bright orange veggies and legumes like beans should be offered at lunch.

* And kids should be offered nine to 13 servings of grain for lunch and seven to 10 servings of grain for breakfast, the report said. At least half of those servings should be whole whole grains such as whole wheat bread, oatmeal and brown rice.

That is what they should be offered -- under the proposed standards, a kid would be allowed to turn down some items in the cafeteria line as long as they still took a certain number of fruits, juices or veggies to their seats.

The current standards only set minimum calorie levels, but the report says there should be a ceiling on calories, too. Lunch should be no more than 650 to 850 calories, and breakfast should be no more than 500 to 600 calories, depending on grade, the report said.

The Institute of Medicine is part of the National Academies, an independent organization chartered by Congress to advise the government on scientific matters.

Higher jobless rates could be new normal

Higher jobless rates could be new normal

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer
Mon Oct 19, 2:29 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Even with an economic revival, many U.S. jobs lost during the recession may be gone forever and a weak employment market could linger for years.

That could add up to a "new normal" of higher joblessness and lower standards of living for many Americans, some economists are suggesting.

The words "it's different this time" are always suspect. But economists and policy makers say the job-creating dynamics of previous recoveries can't be counted on now.

Here's why:

• The auto and construction industries helped lead the nation out of past recessions. But the carnage among Detroit's automakers and the surplus of new and foreclosed homes and empty commercial properties make it unlikely these two industries will be engines of growth anytime soon.

• The job market is caught in a vicious circle: Without more jobs, U.S. consumers will have a hard time increasing their spending; but without that spending, businesses might see little reason to start hiring.

• Many small and midsize businesses are still struggling to obtain bank loans, impeding their expansion plans and constraining overall economic growth.

• Higher-income households are spending less because of big losses on their homes, retirement plans and other investments. Lower-income households are cutting back because they can't borrow like they once did.

That the recovery in jobs will be long and drawn out is something on which economists and policy makers can basically agree, even as their proposals for remedies vary widely.

Retrenching businesses will be slow in hiring back or replacing workers they laid off. Many of the 7.2 million jobs the economy has shed since the recession began in December 2007 may never come back.

"This Great Recession is an inflection point for the economy in many respects. I think the unemployment rate will be permanently higher, or at least higher for the foreseeable future," said Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody's Economy.com.

"The collective psyche has changed as a result of what we've been through. And we're going to be different as a result," said Zandi, who formerly advised Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and now is consulted by Democrats in the administration and in Congress,

Even before the recession, many jobs had vanished or been shipped overseas amid a general decline of U.S. manufacturing. The severest downturn since the Great Depression has accelerated the process.

Many economists believe the recession reversed course in the recently ended third quarter and they predict modest growth in the nation's gross domestic product over the next few years. Yet the unemployment rate is currently at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent — and likely to top 10 percent soon and stay there a while.

"Many factors are pushing against a quick recovery," said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute. "Things will come back. But it's going to take a long time. I think we will likely see elevated unemployment at least until 2014."

At best, many economists see an economic recovery without a return to moderate unemployment. At worst, they suggest the fragile recovery could lose steam and drag the economy back under for a double-dip recession.

"We will need to grind out this recovery step by step," President Barack Obama said earlier this month.

Obama and congressional Democrats are having a hard time agreeing on how to keep the recovery going and help millions of unemployed workers — short of another round of stimulus spending amid rising voter alarm over soaring federal deficits.

So far, they've been unable to win even a simple three-month extension of unemployment insurance for people in states with jobless rates above 8.5 percent.

The extension easily passed the House earlier this month but is bogged down in the Senate over disputes over which states would get the funds. Hundreds of thousands of people have already lost their benefits or are about to lose them.

The White House credits the president's $787 billion stimulus plan passed in February for keeping job losses from becoming even worse. Since Obama took office in January, the economy has lost 3.4 million jobs.

Republicans argue that the stimulus program has not worked as a job producer and is a waste of tax money. And last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a multimillion advertising campaign to celebrate small business entrepreneurs — and to argue that further government intervention will not spur permanent job growth.

Chamber leaders called for creation of more than 20 million new private-sector jobs over the next decade, saying it's needed to replace jobs lost in the recession and to keep pace with population growth.

"The government can support a few jobs in the short-run" while free enterprise is the only system that can create 20 million of them, said Thomas Donohue, the chamber president.

To many economists, such a goal seems unreachable given today's altered economic landscape.

"It's a new normal that U.S. growth is going to be anemic on average for years. Right now, the prospect is bleak for anything other than a particularly high unemployment rate and a weak jobs-creating machine," said Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics Inc. He says he doubts that unemployment will dip below 7 percent anytime soon.

Many economists consider a jobless rate of 4 to 5 percent as reflecting a "full employment" economy, one in which nearly everyone who wants a job has one. After the 2001 recession the rate climbed to 5.8 percent in 2002 and peaked at 6.3 percent in 2003 before easing back to 4.6 percent for 2006 and 2007.

Will unemployment ever get back to such levels?

"I wouldn't say never. But I do think it's going to be a long time," said Bruce Bartlett, a former Treasury Department economist and the author of the book "The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward."

"The linkage between growth in the economy and growth in jobs is not what it was. I don't know if it's permanently broken or temporarily broken. But clearly we are not seeing the sort of increase in employment that one would normally expect," said Bartlett.

Drinking Your Way to Health? Perhaps Not

Drinking Your Way to Health? Perhaps Not

By Dennis Thompson, HealthDay Reporter - Sun Oct 18, 8:48 PM PDT
- SUNDAY, Oct. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Just about every month -- if not every week -- a new study emerges touting the health benefits to be gained from a daily glass of wine or a pint of dark beer.

The benefits related to cardiovascular health have become well-known. A study released in mid-July, for instance, found that moderate alcohol consumption reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease in women by increasing the amount of "good" cholesterol in the bloodstream and reducing blood sugar levels.

But other studies have linked a daily drink, most often wine, to reduced risk of dementia, bone loss and physical disabilities related to old age. Wine also has been found to increase life expectancy and provide potential protection against some forms of cancer, including esophageal cancer and lymphoma.

But don't invest in that case of Pinot noir just yet.

Experts with the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association say that though these studies do show some benefits to moderate drinking, the health risks from alcohol consumption far outweigh the potential rewards.

Drinking any alcohol at all is known to increase your risk for contracting a number of types of cancer, said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society. These include cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colon/rectum and breast.

"At the end of the day, if you are at very high risk for cancer, you might want to limit your alcohol consumption even further," Gapstur said. "It's a lifestyle modification you can make, and we don't have as many lifestyle modifications for preventing cancer as we do for coronary heart disease."

There also are other health risks from moderate drinking, including liver damage and accidents caused by impaired reflexes, said Dr. Jennifer Mieres, director of nuclear cardiology at the New York University School of Medicine and an American Heart Association spokeswoman.

The health benefits from drinking generally are related to the antioxidants and anti-inflammatories found in red wines and dark beers, Mieres said, but those substances can be found in a number of different fruits and vegetables.

"When it comes to disease prevention, you're better off changing your diet to include fruits and vegetables and get your antioxidants and anti-inflammatories from natural sources," she said.

For example, people can get resveratrol -- the antioxidant found in red wine that's believed to provide most of the drink's health benefits -- from drinking grape juice just as well as from drinking wine, Mieres said.

"For people that don't drink, not drinking is important," Mieres said. "You can get the same benefits of drinking from leading a heart-healthy lifestyle. To me, it's not worth the risk to start drinking. But for people who enjoy a glass of red wine or enjoy drinking, the key is to stick to the definition of moderation," she said.

Moderate drinking is defined as one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men. What counts as one drink are:

12 ounces of regular beer or wine cooler
8 ounces of malt liquor
5 ounces of wine
1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits or liquor

Drinking anything more than that on a daily basis is known to lead to a host of health problems that can reduce your life expectancy, Mieres and Gapstur said.

"I think the take-home message is, if you don't drink, don't start to help protect yourself from coronary heart disease because there are so many other things you can do," Gapstur said. "If you already drink, you might want to limit your consumption."

Though the studies touting the positive health effects of alcohol are scientifically accurate, they also appear to play into people's desires for quick fixes to complex problems, Mieres said.

"To prevent heart disease, 50 percent of the work has to come from you," she said. "Prevention is a big piece, and you have to be accountable. You have to make lifestyle changes, and that's very tough to do. People look for easy ways to get heart-healthy benefits, and drinking is an easy way to do that. It's a known human tendency: Let's find an easy way out that doesn't involve a lot of thought or work."

More information

The Harvard School of Public Health has more on alcohol and your health.

Revised formula puts 1 in 6 Americans in poverty

Revised formula puts 1 in 6 Americans in poverty

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer Hope Yen, Associated Press Writer
Tue Oct 20, 8:49 am ET

WASHINGTON – The level of poverty in America is even worse than first believed.

A revised formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations show that approximately 47.4 million Americans last year lived in poverty, 7 million more than the government's official figure.

The disparity occurs because of differing formulas the Census Bureau and the National Academy of Science use for calculating the poverty rate. The NAS formula shows the poverty rate to be at 15.8 percent, or nearly 1 in 6 Americans, according to calculations released this week. That's higher than the 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million, figure made available recently under the original government formula.

That measure, created in 1955, does not factor in rising medical care, transportation, child care or geographical variations in living costs. Nor does it consider non-cash government aid when calculating income. As a result, official figures released last month by Census may have overlooked millions of poor people, many of them 65 and older.

According to the revised NAS formula:

_About 18.7 percent of Americans 65 and older, or nearly 7.1 million, are in poverty compared to 9.7 percent, or 3.7 million, under the traditional measure. That's due to out-of-pocket expenses from rising Medicare premiums, deductibles and a coverage gap in the prescription drug benefit.

_About 14.3 percent of people 18 to 64, or 27 million, are in poverty, compared to 11.7 percent under the traditional measure. Many of the additional poor are low-income, working people with transportation and child-care costs.

_Child poverty is lower, at about 17.9 percent, or roughly 13.3 million, compared to 19 percent under the traditional measure. That's because single mothers and their children disproportionately receive non-cash aid such as food stamps.

_Poverty rates were higher for non-Hispanic whites (11 percent), Asians (17 percent) and Hispanics (29 percent) when compared to the traditional measure. For blacks, poverty remained flat at 24.7 percent, due to the cushioning effect of non-cash aid.

_The Northeast and West saw bigger jumps in poverty, due largely to cities with higher costs of living such as New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The Census Bureau said it expedited release of the alternative numbers for this month because of the interest expressed by lawmakers and the Obama administration in seeing a fuller range of numbers. Legislation pending in Congress would mandate a switch to the revised formula, although the White House could choose to act on its own.

Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that because the revised formula factors in non-cash government aid, the amount of increase in poverty from 2007 to 2008 was generally smaller compared to the current measure.

"Food stamp participation rose during the first year of recession and appears to have softened what could have been an even greater increase in financial hardship," he said.

Sherman said the revised formula could take on greater importance in measuring poverty for 2009 as more Americans take advantage of tax credits and food stamps under the federal stimulus program. Food stamp assistance currently is at an all-time high of about 36 million.

___

On the Net:

Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov

Fox News blurs the distinction between news and opinion

Critics of Fox News claim the organization does not distinguish between the ideas expressed in its news and editorial programs. An October 20, 2009 video prepared by the liberal watchdog group Media Matters For America shows that opinions from Fox's editorial programs are repeated and reported on its news shows that it claims are "fair and balanced."

U.S. must live within its means: Geithner

In the October 17, 2009 article "U.S. must live within its means: Geithner," Glenn Somerville and Walter Brandimarte report:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States must live within its means once its economy recovers if it is to preserve global confidence in the U.S. dollar's status, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Friday.

The comments came as the Obama administration reported a record U.S. budget deficit for the fiscal year ended September of $1.4 trillion. At 10 percent of gross domestic product, it was the biggest U.S. fiscal shortfall since World War Two.

Rescuing the economy and some of the country's biggest banks from the worst recession since the Great Depression took a toll on U.S. finances, and the White House has forecast deficits of more than $1 trillion through fiscal 2011.

"Future deficits are too high, and the president is committed to working with Congress to bring them down to a sustainable level as the economy recovers," Geithner said in a statement accompanying the fiscal data.

Separately, White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers said financial firms that helped precipitate two years of economic crisis are going to have to bow to stiffer oversight of their activities to prevent it happening again.

Geithner and other policymakers will discuss the U.S. economic and budget outlook, and prospects for financial regulatory reform, at the Reuters Washington Summit on October 19-21.

FISCAL OUTLOOK AFFECTS U.S. DOLLAR

On Friday, Geithner said the U.S. dollar's status as a key reserve currency carries special responsibilities that include keeping spending under control, Geithner said earlier on Friday in an interview on CNBC television.

"It is very important that Americans understand that we need to do everything possible to sustain confidence in our ability to keep inflation low and stable over time and to make sure we're getting our fiscal house in order," Geithner said.

Developments over the past year, when many investors put their money into U.S. Treasury securities and the dollar rose at times, showed there was still a great deal of confidence in U.S. economic management.

"The world wanted to be in Treasuries, in the safest and most liquid markets, and you saw the dollar rose when people were most concerned about the future of the world," he said.

"That is a very important thing. It's not something you can count on. It's something we can understand, and we can continue to foster, and we're going to do that," Geithner added.

The administration has to be careful not to withdraw economic stimulus too fast though, Geithner added. But he denied that the administration was ready to consider a second economic stimulus program.

Geithner said access to credit in the overall economy has improved dramatically but many small businesses that typically create many jobs still face borrowing constraints.

The Obama administration is working on measures to help small businesses get easier access to credit -- possibly by diverting some bank bailout funds to them -- but hasn't yet announced a program to do so.

BANKING NEEDS TO CHANGE

Summers also argued for change to the banking system.

After two years of economic crisis and government rescue efforts, he said the banks at the center of the credit debacle had a moral imperative to be part of the solution.

"Financial institutions that have benefited from government support can, should, and must use this moment to think about what they can do for their country -- by accepting the necessary regulation to protect the American people," Summers told an audience of financial market participants. "Wall Street was no small part of the cause of the crisis and Wall Street needs to be part of the solution."

Summers, chairman of the National Economic Council, suggested banks had little choice in the matter.

"There is no financial institution that exists today that is not the direct or indirect beneficiary of trillions of dollars of taxpayer support," he said. "This has direct relevance on the changing nature of the social compact between the financial sector and the broader economy."

The Obama administration has been pressing for wide-ranging reforms in U.S. financial regulations. It scored a victory on Thursday when a House of Representatives' panel passed a bill to tighten regulation of financial derivatives -- contracts derived from existing securities or transactions that are blamed for amplifying the 2008 crisis.

New, tighter regulation doesn't mean, however, that financial firms will never go bust again. In fact, Summers said that such firms must be able to fail for market discipline to work.

In addition to that, though, profitability and prudence should be reconciled under any framework of financial regulation.

"The financial system has to be safe for failure," said Summers.

Summers also said officials need to avoid prematurely withdrawing measures meant to stimulate the economy after the worst recession in decades, noting discussion of any "exit strategy" would be different on Main Street than it would on Wall Street.

EU officials warn of disappearing cod

In the October 17, 2009 article "EU officials warn of disappearing cod," Associated Press writer Raf Casert provides an example of how public resources (such as fish in the ocean) are subject to exploitation.

BRUSSELS – The European Union's executive body is calling for sharp cuts in the amount of cod fishermen can catch next year, pointing to estimates that the fish is close to extinction in some major fishing areas around Europe.

Officials warned Friday that only steep catch cuts will prevent the disappearance of a species prized for centuries for its flaky white flesh.

The European Commission said recent studies showed cod catches in some areas are far outstripping the rate of reproduction. It is calling for up to 25 percent cuts in some areas.

"We are not that far away from a situation of complete collapse," said Jose Rodriguez, a marine biologist with the environmental group Oceana. He and other environmentalists said pressure from the fishing industry had kept quotas at levels too high to sustain a viable populations around Europe, while lack of enforcement meant illegal fishing made the problem worse.

Scientists estimated that in the 1970s there were more than 250,000 tons of cod in fishing grounds in the North Sea, eastern English Channel and Scandinavia's Skagerrak strait. In recent years, however, stocks have dropped to 50,000 tons.

The European Commission said Friday it would seek in 2010 to cut the catch in some fishing grounds around Britain, France, Spain and much of Scandinavia from 5,700 tons to 4,250 tons.

In the Mediterranean, bluefin tuna has been overfished for years to satisfy increasing world demand for sushi and sashimi. The tuna population is now a fraction of what it was a few decades ago, but the EU's Mediterranean nations last month refused to impose even a temporary ban.

Oceana estimated that illegal fishing doubled the amount of tuna caught.

Meanwhile cod, which once sustained vibrant fishing communities from Portugal to Britain to Canada, is increasingly consumed by the ton as salt cod and fish-and-chips.

"People don't ask for fish and chips, they ask for cod and chips," said Mike Guo, a manager at Great Fish and Chips in Essex, England. "It's a traditional dish."

The depletion of the species has caused the decay and disappearance of hundreds of fishing villages on both sides of the Atlantic.

Overfishing off Canada's maritime provinces exhausted the world's richest cod grounds and forced the government to impose a fishing moratorium. The collapse wiped out more than 42,000 jobs, and 18 years later the fish have still not returned.

"It was devastating," said Tom Hedderson, minister of fisheries in Newfoundland. "This affected whole communities ... all up and down the coast here in Newfoundland and Labrador."

He welcomed the EU call to cut catches by 25 percent, but suggested more drastic cuts may be needed.

Some Canadian scientists believe the collapse of cod stocks off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia changed the marine ecosystem so dramatically that it may be impossible for cod to recover. Off Newfoundland alone, cod stocks once exceeded more than 400,000 tons but now scale only 5,500 tons, Hedderson said.

There are signs of recovery of Atlantic cod off New England, however, after years of conservation efforts. And international regulators have reopened some areas off Canada for limited fishing, Canada's Fisheries and Oceans Department spokesman Scott Cantin said.

The fishing industry in Europe, however, is in decline. The number of vessels in the 15 nations that were part of the EU in 1995 has dropped from 104,000 then to 81,000 in 2006. In Britain, employment in the fishing sector sank from 21,600 in 1990 to 16,100 in 2006.

The EU Commission's demand for cod cuts will be discussed by the bloc's 27-member states in a Dec. 14-15 meeting, when the fishing quotas for 2010 will be finalized.

"The scientific prognosis for most stocks is not encouraging, with many in a worse state than last year," Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said Friday. "This, combined with the difficult economic climate, will mean that the negotiations will be even more challenging this time around."

Keeping fishermen in port with excessive quotas will add to their economic woes, said Bertie Armstrong of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation.

Norway and the EU jointly oversee cod stocks in North Sea, with each party regulating the stocks in its waters.

Norway and the EU will begin annual negotiations on cod stock management in November. Ann Kristin Westberg, deputy director-general of Norway's Fishery Ministry, said her country was unlikely to accept a 25 percent quota.

"We probably want to have it lower," she said. "We would like to point out that stock the EU are involved in managing are in terrible shape."

The cod harvest from the Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine fishing grounds, the two primary New England fishing grounds, in 2007 totaled 3,868 metric tons, the biggest catch since 2003 but far under the landings of the 1980s when fishermen often caught more than 20,000 tons annually.

"The Gulf of Maine stock is responding to the recovery plan, and the Georges Bank stock is recovering but not as much," said Teri Frady of NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachussets.

The Fun Theory - An Example of Applied Behavioral Economics

TheFunTheory.com is a website "dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or something entirely different, just so long as it’s change for the better."

There is a Fun Theory Award of € 2500 (approximately $3721) for the best idea submitted by November 15, 2009. For example,
”Take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator and feel better” is something we often hear or read in the Sunday papers. Few people actually follow that advice. Can we get more people to take the stairs over the escalator by making it fun to do? Go to the fun theory website to see several ideas for ways to nudge people into certain positive behaviors.

This is part of a field of study known as behavioral economics. Is it possible to improve the world by structuring society in a way that encourages people to make better choices?

Politicians are adept at deception by telling only part of the story.

Politicians are adept at deception by telling only part of the story. A good example is provided by the redesigned website for the Republican National Committee that portrays baseball legend Jackie Robinson as a Republican hero:

Jackie Robinson

In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play major league baseball in the United States, as a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Not only was he a great athlete, Jackie Robinson was also a great Republican. He campaigned for Richard Nixon's presidential campaign in 1960 and then supported Nelson Rockefeller (R-NY) for the Republican nomination in 1964. Robinson worked as a special assistant in Governor Rockefeller’s administration.

The general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey, who hired Jackie Robinson, was also a Republican. The Missouri Republican Party later offered Rickey the nomination for Governor and Senator, but he preferred baseball to politics.

The Framingham (Massachusetts) Democratic Town Committee provides a more complete perspective of Robinson's political views in its excerpt from his autobiography:

JACKIE ROBINSON, Political life after baseball

Below is an excerpt from baseball great Jackie Robinson's autobiography.

Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson turned a page in history when he became the first African American player to cross baseball's "color barrier" and play in the Major Leagues in 1947. Robinson played 10 stellar seasons for the Brooklyn Dodgers before retiring from a Hall of Fame career.

After baseball Robinson went to work for Chock Full O' Nuts as a spokesman then continued his efforts to advance civil rights. He became actively involved in the campaign for Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the 1960 Presidential elections. Robinson opted to support Nixon over John F. Kennedy because he liked the work that Nixon had done in the area of civil rights during Nixon's years as Vice President. However Robinson later described his regret on having supported Nixon.

Two incidents during the 1960 campaign were quite disillusioning to Robinson. In one incident Nixon was asked to comment on a statement by running mate Henry Cabot Lodge who stated that in a Nixon Administration a black would be named to the Cabinet; Nixon commented that Lodge was speaking on his own behalf. Later during the campaign Nixon refused to speak out when civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was locked in a full-security prison for a minor motor vehicle infraction.

Further Nixon refused to campaign in Harlem (while Kennedy did). These incidents drew Robinson a great deal of criticism from the African American community for his support of the Nixon campaign. By the end of the campaign the Kennedy ticket was looking more attractive to Robinson, but he had already committed to Nixon.

Jackie Robinson did establish good ties with New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller (who later became Gerald Ford's Vice President). Robinson supported Rockefeller's bid during the 1964 Republican Primiaries. However after the GOP ticket went to Barry Goldwater, Robinson was disgusted at what he saw during the 1964 Republican National Convention.

Chapter XV of Robinson's autobiography I Never Had It Made has been transcribed below. This chapter, titled "On Begin Black Among The Republicans" describes the eye-opening experiences of Robinson within the Republican Party. Many of the sentiments he expressed in 1964 were heard again some four decades later following the 2004 Republican convention.


I NEVER HAD IT MADE
Jackie Robinson

Chapter XV: On Being Black Among The Republicans

My first meeting with Nelson Rockefeller occurred in 1962 during a public event at which we were both speakers. The Nelson Rockefeller personal charm and charisma had now become legendary. It is almost impossible not to like the man. He gives two distinct impressions: that he is sincere in whatever he is saying and that, in spite of his fantastic schedule, power, and influence - at that specific moment of your contact - he has shut everything else out and is focusing his complete and concentrated attention on you.

While I admired his down-to-earth manner and outgoing ways instantly, I was anything but overwhelmed at our initial meeting. I am aware that the enormously wealthy have time to spread charm as they like. They have their worries, but survival is not one of them. I wasn't about to be taken in instantly by the Nelson Rockefeller charm. After all, Richard Nixon had turned the charm on me too (although his is a bit brittle compared with Rockefeller's) and look how that had turned out.

I knew that Rockefeller's family had given enormous sums to black education and other philanthropic causes for black people and that at that time (nearly twenty years ago) a significant number of black college presidents, black professionals, and a significant number of leaders of national stature had received a college education, financed by Rockefeller gifts. While I have no need to detract from the contributions of the family to black education, I felt it certainly must be weighed in terms of what went into amassing one of the world's greatest fortunes.

As for Nelson Rockefeller himself, I knew little or nothing about his politics. As far as I was concerned, he was just another rich guy with politics as a toy. Our first chat had nothing to do with politics. In fact, the governor took advantage of the occasion to tell me about a private problem. Since I was an officer of the Chock Full O'Nuts Restaurant chain at that time, he thought I might be able to help him. It seemed the Rockefeller family was unhappy about one of our advertising jingles which assured the public that our coffee was as good as any "Rockefeller's money can buy." Representations about the family's feeling in the matter had been made through legal and diplomatic channels, but the offensive jingle was still being aired on radio and television commercials. I promised to mention the matter to Bill Black, Chock's president. I was surprised at Mr. Black's reaction. When I reported the Rockefeller concern, he snapped, "Good! Let them sue. We can use the publicity."

As far as I was concerned, that was the end of that. As far as I knew, I'd probably never be in contact with the governor again. However, I began to change my mind about Rockefeller, when I learned that the extent of his support for a man I admired deeply, Martin Luther King.

When student sit-ins began in the South and many so-called liberals criticized them, Governor Rockefeller told the press that he believed the protesting youngsters were morally justified. I also learned that, unlike Richard Nixon, who failed to speak out about the Georgia jailing of Dr. King, the governor had promptly wired the President asking for his protection.

I also learned of some of the governor's unpublicized actions. Before Rockefeller became governor, the world was stunned by the attempted assassination of Dr. King by a black woman in a Harlem department store. Rushed to Harlem Hospital, Dr. King, who had been wounded by a letter opener plunged into a spot just below the tip of his aorta, immediately was put in the care of a team of crack surgeons headed by Dr. Louis Wright. The newspapers gave intensive publicity to the fact that the then-Governor Harriman had sped to the hospital escorted by police convoy with shrieking sirens. Harriman ordered every available facility utilized to save Dr. King. He then stayed at the hospital for several hours, keeping vigil and awaiting word of the civil right's leader's condition. Governor Harriman deservedly got credit for his concern about a beloved black leader. But it was Nelson Rockefeller who quietly issued orders to have the hospital bill sent to him.

I learned that the governor had made frequent gifts to Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. I was on the scene a few hours after hate-crazed bigots burned Georgia churches to the ground. Dr. King asked me top head a national fund-raising drive to restore the churches. Two of the first substantial donations were made by my then-boss Mr. William Black and by Governor Rockefeller. We did rebuild those churches.

Yet with all his goodwill gestures and philanthropies, there was one fact which bothered me deeply about the Rockefeller Administration in 1962. Although New York has, for many years, enjoyed a reputation as a liberal state, the higher echelons of the state government were all white. There were no blacks at top-level, policy making positions. There was not even one black man or woman who had a direct line to the governor and who could alert him to the concerns and grievances of black people. I wondered if Nelson Rockefeller's generosity to black causes was a compartmentalized activity of his private life, and I was sufficiently curious to write him a letter.

My letter to the governor was a harshly honest letter. I said I felt no self-respecting black man could respect an administration that had no blacks in significant jobs. Governor Rockefeller met my honesty head on. He telephoned me personally and told me how much he appreciated my truthfulness. He admitted that things were not as they should be for blacks in state government and that he wanted to take steps to correct this; he suggested we meet and talk things over within the next few days.

In the course of that telephone call, I bluntly said, "If you don't want to hear the down-to-earth truth about how you are thought of in the black community, let's just forget about it."

He assured me that he wanted and needed unbiased advice. The meeting, unadvertised in the press and unreported after it took place, was held in a private room at the top of Radio City Music Hall. About a dozen to fifteen people whom I had invited attended. For some three hours we told the governor our grievances about the failure of his administration to include blacks in the political and government action. The people there didn't hesitate to recite harsh facts. He was aware of some of the facts we gave him; other facts seemed to shock him. He accepted our criticism, our recommendations for change, and he acted to bring about reforms. He did not bring any apologists or token black leaders into the meeting to justify himself. He brought an open mind and someone to take notes.

Within a few months after that meeting, the governor had implemented virtually all the recommendations that the ad hoc committee had made. Out of that one meeting came some sweeping and drastic changes, some unprecedented appointments of blacks to high positions, ensuring influence by blacks in the governor's day-to-day policy decisions. Some of the governor's top-level people were very unhappy about these changes.

In 1964 Governor Rockeller asked me to become one of six deputy national directors of his campaign. I had spent seven years at Chock Full O'Nuts. I decided to resign from my job rather than ask for leave. The knowledge I had acquired about the business world, I considered invaluable. I had been criticized by some of my fellow officers in the company who genuinely felt I took the part of the employees to often, that I was too soft on them. Even so I had been given generous raises and benefits, allowed to purchase a healthy bundle of stock, and been elected to the board. I was becoming restless; I wanted to involve myself in politics as a means of helping black people and I wanted my own business enterprises. I had been increasingly convinced of the need for blacks to become more integrated into the mainstream of the economy. I was not thinking merely of job integration. A statement Malcolm X made was more impressive. Referring to some college students who were fighting to be served in Jim Crow restaurants, Malcolm said he wanted not only the cup of coffee but also the cup and saucer, the counter, the store and the land on which the restaurant stood.

I believed blacks ought to become producers, manufacturers, developers, and creators of businesses, providers of jobs. For too long we had been spending much too much money on liquor while we owned too few liquor stores and were not even manufacturing it. If you found a black man making shoes or candy or ice cream it was a rarity. We talked about not having capital, but we needed to learn to take a chance, to be daring, to pool capital, to organize our buy power so that the millions we spent did not leave our communities to be stacked up in th downtown banks. In addition to the economic security we could build with green power, we could use economic means to reinforce black power. How much more effective our demands for a piece of the action would be if we were negotiating from the strength of our own self-reliance rather than stating our case in the role of a beggar or someone out for charity. We live in a materialistic society in which money doesn't only talk - it screams. I could not forget that some of the very ballplayers who swore the most fervently that they wouldn't play with me because I was black were the first to begin helping me, giving me tips and advice, as soon as they became aware that I could be helpful to them in winning the few thousand more dollars players receive as world champs. The most prejudiced of the club owners were not as upset about the game being contaminated by black players as they were by fearing the integration would hurt them in the pocketbooks. Once they found out that more - not fewer - customers, black and white, were coming through those turnstiles, their prejudices were suppressed.

When Governor Rockefeller invited me on board his campaign ship, I had no idea of any long-term relationship in politics. I saw this as a sign that now was the time for me to enter into a new world of political involvement with a man I respected. At the same time I could be free to pursue some business endeavors that had been proposed to me. I had been approached about becoming a key organizer in a projected, new insurance company, an integrated firm that, I hoped, could be a force in correcting some of the unjust practices of some insurance firms that treat blacks unfairly. At this time the group organizing a new bank in Harlem - Freedom National - had asked me to help put it together and to become chairman of the board, and there were other business ventures in which I felt I might be able to play a vital role. When I submitted my resignation to Bill Black, he understood my aspirations. He didn't want me to leave, and he was genuinely concerned as to whether I was making the wisest move. He tried to persuade me to stay. I appreciated his attitude, but my mind was made up. I joined the Rockefeller headquarters.

One of the first things that became clear to me was that I had not been called on to be the black adviser to the campaign. Often white politicians secure the services of a black man and slot him only for appearances and activities within the black community. Sometimes they do this to avoid letting whites know that they are making a strong pitch for black support. During the Rockefeller campaign I met with groups and made appearances before audiences which were sometimes predominately black, and other times mainly white. On several occasions, when the governor came into town for a meeting with politicians or community people, I would accompany him. At some of the larger meetings, I would be asked to introduce the governor.

I was not as sold on the Republican party as I was on the governor. Every chance I got, while I was campaigning, I said plainly what I thought of the right-wing Republicans and the harm they were doing. I felt the GOP was a minority party in term of numbers of registered voters and could not win unless they updated their social philosophy and sponsored candidates and principles to attract the young, the black, and the independent voter. I said this often from public, and frequently Republican, platforms. By and large Republicans had ignored blacks and sometimes handpicked a few servile leaders in the black community to be their token "niggers". How would I sound trying to go all out to sell Republicans to black people? They're not buying. They know better.

I admit freely that I think, live, and breathe black first and foremost. That is one of the reasons I was so committed to the governor and so opposed to Senator Barry Goldwater. Early in 1964 I wrote a Speaking Out piece for The Saturday Evening Post. A Barry Goldwater victory would insure that the GOP would be completely the white man's party. What happened at San Francisco when Senator Goldwater became the Republican standard-bearer confirmed my prediction.

I wasn’t altogether caught of guard by the victory of the reactionary forces in the Republican party, but I was appalled by the tactics they used to stifle their liberal opposition. I was a special delegate to the convention through an arrangement made by the Rockefeller office. That convention was one of the most unforgettable and frightening experiences of my life. The hatred I saw was unique to me because it was hatred directed against a white man. It embodied a revulsion for all he stood for, including his enlightened attitude toward black people.

A new breed of Republicans had taken over the GOP. As I watched this steamroller operation in San Francisco, I had a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.

The same high-handed methods had been there.

The same belief in the superiority of one religious or racial group over another was here. Liberals who fought so hard and so vainly were afraid not only of what would happen to the GOP but of what would happen to America. The Goldwaterites were afraid – afraid not to hew strictly to the line they had been spoon-fed, afraid to listen to logic and reason if it was not in their script.

I will never forget the fantastic scene of Governor Rockefeller’s ordeal as he endured what must have been three minutes of hysterical abuse and booing which interrupted his fighting statement which the convention managers had managed to delay until the wee hours of the morning. Since the telecast was coming from the West Coast, that meant that many people in other sections of the country, because of the time differential, would be in their beds. I don’t think he has ever stood taller than that night when he refused to be silenced until he had had his say.

It was a terrible hour for the relatively few black delegates who were present. Distinguished in their communities, identified with the cause of Republicanism, an extremely unpopular cause among blacks, they had been served notice that the party they had fought for considered them just another bunch of “niggers”. They had no real standing in the convention, no clout. They were unimportant and ignored. One bigot from one of the Deep South states actually threw acid on a black delegate’s suit jacket and burned it. Another one, from the Alabama delegation where I was standing at the time of the Rockefeller speech, turned on me menacingly while I was shouting “C’mon Rocky” as the governor stood his ground. He started up in his seat as if to come after me. His wife grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“Turn him loose, lady, turn him loose,” I shouted.

I was ready for him. I wanted him badly, but luckily for him he obeyed his wife.

I had been very active on that convention floor. I was one of those trying to help bring about a united front among the black delegates in the hope of thwarting the Goldwater drive. George Parker had courageously challenged Goldwater in vain and Edward Brooke had lent his uncompromising sincerity to the convention. I sat in with them after the nomination as they agonized about what they should do. Some were for walking out of the convention and even out of the party. Others felt that, as gloomy as things looked, the wisest idea was to remain within the party and fight. Throughout the convention, I had been interviewed several times on network television. When I was asked my opinion of Barry Goldwater, I gave it. I said I thought he was a bigot. I added that he was not as important as the forces behind him. I was genuinely concerned, for instance, about Republican National Committee Chairman William Miller, slated to become the Vice Presidential candidate. Bill Miller could have become the Agnew of his day if he had been elected. He was a man who apparently believed you never said a decent thing in political campaigning if you could think of a way to be nasty, insinuating, and abrasive. What with the columns I had written about Goldwater, The Saturday Evening Post article, and the television and radio interview, I had achieved a great deal of publicity about the way I felt about Goldwater.

Although I know it is the way of politicians to forget their differences and unify around the victor, it disgusted me to see how quickly the various anti-Goldwater GOP kingpins got converted. Richard Nixon, who hadn’t really fought Goldwater and had in fact been an ally, naturally became one of his most staunch supporters. You could expect that. Governor Romney, who had fought the Goldwater concept so vigorously, got religion. The convert who around the most cynical feelings in my mind was Governor William Scranton. When Governor Rockefeller had withdrawn from the race, during the primaries, Rockefeller supporters turned to Scranton because he had become the governor’s choice. At the request of the governor I had a meeting with Scranton in his beautiful home in Pennsylvania.

Governor Scranton welcomed me graciously, introduced me to his family, and conducted me to a veranda where we sat and sipped iced tea. The governor pledged that he was going to put up a terrific fight against Goldwater. He expressed his gratitude for Governor Rockefeller’s support and for my agreeing to come to see him. For at least ten minutes he orated about Barry Goldwater, what a threat Goldwaterism is to the country and the party. I didn’t ask him for it, but he gave his solemn oath that even if Goldwater won the nomination, he, Bill Scranton, could never conceivably, under any circumstances, support him. Even if he wanted to, which he said he didn’t, it would be political suicide in his state for him to join a Goldwater bandwagon. He was unequivocal about this, and months later, when I saw on television how quickly Governor Scranton pledged his loyalty to nominee Goldwater, how eagerly he engaged in some of the most revolting high-level white Uncle Tomism I’ve ever seen – fawning on Goldwater and vigorously campaigning for him around the country – I had to wonder if this was, indeed, the same man who had nearly sworn on the Bible that he could never do what he was doing.

In marked contrast to the Scranton flip-flop, there were some Republicans who proved themselves true to their principles, party loyalty not withstanding. Senator Jacob Jarvits stated flatly that he could not support Goldwater; Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, who had sounded off early about the Goldwater threat, announced that he would be running his own campaign in that same states where Bill Scranton had had a change of heart. Scott, whom I had admired for years because of his liberal words and legislation, took his chance of letting it be known he was snubbing the head of his party’s national ticket. As for Governor Rockefeller, while he did not publicly reject Goldwater, it was no secret that he didn’t break his back to try to help elect him. No doubt, the Senator and his campaign manager, Bill Miller, had things more comfortable for the governor symbolically to go fishing by not going down on their hands and knees to beg for his participation. There was a great business of calling unity meetings of all prominent Republicans. Unity, it appeared, meant to Goldwater and Miller, “Let’s cooperate. You do it my way.”

Apparently, I was one of the preconvention opposition who Senator Goldwater thought he could unify into his campaign. Although I had let it be widely known that I intended to do all I could for LBJ, Candidate Goldwater sent me an invitation early; in August to come to Washington to have breakfast with him. He suggested that I really didn’t know him well enough to condemn him and that he felt we might be able to learn something from each other.

Some people will say I should have accepted the invitation. I did not reject it in hasty anger. My instinct simply told me immediately that the only way the Senator could sell me his candidacy was if he repudiated the John Birchers, the dirty campaign tactics of Bill Miller who was his running mate, and some of the basic standards he and his crowd had set. I knew he wasn’t about to do all that simply to get my support.

I resolved that I should not allow myself to get boxed into the image of being a hothead, unwilling, for no good reason, to talk things over. Consequently, I released the text of my reply to the Goldwater invitation to the press. In that letter I told the Senator I was releasing my reply to the national press. The letter said in part:

“You say to me that you are interested in breaking bread with me and discussing your views on civil rights. Senator, on pain of appearing facetious, I must relate to you a rather well-known story regarding the noted musician, Louis Armstrong, who was once asked to explain jazz. “If you have to ask,” Mr. Armstrong replied, “you wouldn’t understand.”

What are you going to tell me, Senator Goldwater, which you cannot or do not choose to tell the country – or which you could not have told the convention which you controlled so rigidly that it booed Nelson Rockefeller, a distinguished fellow-Republican?

What are you going to say about extremism now? You called for it and the answer came in the thudding feet and the crashing store windows and the Molotov cocktails and the crack of police bullets and the clubbing of heads and the hate and the violence and the fear which electrified Harlem and Rochester and Jersey. I am solidly committed to the peaceful, non-violent mass action of the Negro people in pursuit of long-overdue justice. But I am as much opposed to the extremism of Negro rioters and Negro hoodlums as I am to the sheeted Klan, to the sinister Birchers and to the insidious citizens’ Councils.

If, in view of these questions, which I raise in absolute sincerity and conviction, you still think a meeting between us would be fruitful, I am available at your convenience.”


My letter to the Senator did not receive any response from him. It did get a response from many people who read it in the newspapers. The fan mail ran about half and half, with some people giving me a hard time for not accepting Senator Goldwater’s invitation and other declaring that I told him off.

I joined the national headquarters of Republicans for Johnson, based in New York, and accepted speaking assignments wherever I could to tell black and white and mixed audiences how deeply I felt that Goldwater must be overwhelmingly repudiated. It was during the Johnson-Goldwater campaign that I had one of my confrontations with the articulate, eyebrow-raising William Buckley, owner of National Review magazine and star of the controversial Firing Line television show.

I was booked on a television Conservatism panel which included Bill Buckley, Shelley Winters, and myself. When my friends and family learned I had consented to participate, they were aghast.

“Send a telegram and say you can’t make it”, one friend told me. “Bill Buckley will destroy you. He really knows how to make people look foolish.”

I was glad to receive these warnings. I didn’t have the slightest intention of backing out, although I already had a healthy respect for Buckley’s craft as debater. These apprehensions of my friends made me create an advance strategy which I otherwise might have not employed. I lifted it strictly out of my sports background. When you know that you are going to face a tough, tricky opponent, you don’t let him get the first lick. Jump him before he can do anything and stay on him, keeping him on the defensive. Never let up and you rattle him effectively. When the show opened up – before Buckley could get into his devastating act of using snide remarks, big words, and the superior manner – I lit right into whim with the charge that many influential Goldwaterites were racists. Shelley Winters piled in behind me, and Buckley scarcely got a chance to collect his considerable wit. A man who prides himself on coming out of verbal battle cool, smiling, and victorious, he lost his calm, became snappish and irritated, and, when the show was over and everyone else was shaking hands, got up and strode angrily out of the studio.

It was a small victory, but an important one for me. There didn’t seem to be much to win in those days on the political scene but I have always believed in fighting, even if only to keep the negative forces back. That is why I had some measure of satisfaction in helping Johnson win in ’64.

514K new jobless claims; inflation remains muted

In the October 15, 2009 article "514K new jobless claims; inflation remains muted," Associated Press economics writer Christopher S. Rugaber reports:

WASHINGTON – New jobless claims dropped to the lowest level since January and the prices of many household goods stayed low last month, positive signs of stability for the fledgling economic recovery.

The decline in jobless claims shows companies are cutting fewer workers, though the drop isn't yet steep enough to signal new hiring, economists said. And the low level of inflation is holding down prices as Americans slowly regain their appetite to shop despite rising unemployment and tight credit conditions.

The Labor Department said Thursday that first-time claims for jobless benefits dropped to a seasonally-adjusted 514,000 from an upwardly revised 524,000 the previous week. The fifth decline in six weeks was below Wall Street economists' forecasts, according to Thomson Reuters.

The four-week average, which smooths fluctuations, fell for the sixth straight time to 531,500. That's the lowest since January and about 125,000 below the peak reached in early April.

Economists closely watch initial claims, which are considered a measure of layoffs and the willingness of companies to add jobs.

"Claims are not yet low enough to indicate rising payrolls, but they certainly suggest" that net job cuts will be lower in October than last month, Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a note to clients.

The tally of people continuing to claim benefits dropped by 75,000 to 5.99 million, its first time below 6 million since the week of March 28. Continuing claims data lags initial claims by a week.

Many economists expect that job losses will fall below 200,000 in October from 263,000 in September. That's still a large amount, but would be the lowest total since August 2008.

In a separate report, the Labor Department said consumer prices rose 0.2 percent last month, matching analysts' expectations. Prices excluding the volatile energy and food categories also rose 0.2 percent, slightly higher than the 0.1 percent increase analysts had forecast.

Over the past 12 months, consumer prices fell 1.3 percent, reflecting a severe recession that has kept a lid on inflation across a wide range of products and services. Excluding food and energy, prices rose 1.5 percent.

Food costs slipped 0.1 percent in September, reflecting lower prices for meat and fresh vegetables. Clothing prices rose only 0.1 percent, and housing costs were flat compared with August.

Gas prices rose 1 percent, though they are down 21.6 percent from last year when prices at the pump moved above $4 per gallon in the summer.

The lack of inflation has given Federal Reserve policymakers the room to leave interest rates at a record low near zero since December in an effort to give the economy a boost.

The absence of price pressures also has been good news for cash-strapped households, but it means no cost-of-living increase next year for the more than 57 million Americans receiving Social Security and other government benefits, the first time that's happened in over 30 years.

However, President Barack Obama on Wednesday urged Congress to provide a one-time payment of $250 to help senior citizens cope with the absence of higher benefit checks next year. Such a payment would cost the government about $13 billion.

The stock market fell in morning trading. The Dow Jones industrial average lost about 15 points, and broader indexes also slipped. The decline pushed the Dow to the 10,000 mark that it had topped Wednesday for the first time in a year.

Employers have eliminated a net total of 7.2 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, sending the unemployment rate to a 26-year high of 9.8 percent.

Despite the improvement, the more than 500,000 jobless claims remain above the roughly 425,000 that many economists say would indicate the economy is adding jobs.

Many recipients have moved onto extended benefit programs. Congress has added about 53 weeks of emergency benefits on top of the 26 weeks typically provided by states. When extended programs are included, a total of 8.87 million people received benefits in the week ending Sept. 26, the latest week data is available. That's down about 40,000 from the previous week.

Meanwhile, businesses that received federal contracts under the Obama administration's $787 billion economic stimulus are reporting more than 30,000 jobs saved or created in the first months of the program.

The numbers released by a government watchdog Thursday only reflect jobs linked to federal contracts, such as construction at military bases or within national parks. Broader data won't be available until late this month.

The reports come as consumers are showing some signs of life. Retail sales fell in September due to a sharp drop in auto sales, according to a government report Wednesday. But excluding autos, sales rose 0.5 percent in September. That was better than analysts expected and followed a 1 percent gain in August.

Auto sales had been inflated in August by the government's Cash for Clunkers program, which provided $4,500 rebates to consumers who traded in older vehicles for newer, more fuel-efficient models.

Consumer demand, which accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity, is being watched closely by economists who worry that any recovery from the recession could stall due to rising unemployment, tight credit and other headwinds that households still face.

Most economists forecast the economy will grow at about a 3 percent pace in the second half of 2009. But they warn that won't be fast enough to bring down the unemployment rate. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has said that even with 3 percent growth, the jobless rate will remain above 9 percent through next year.

Some companies are still shedding workers. Ebay Inc. said Wednesday that it would lay off several dozen employees as part of an internal restructuring.

Among the states, Pennsylvania had the largest increase in claims, with 3,618, which it attributed to layoffs in the construction, primary metals, furniture and food industries. The next largest increases were in Washington, Wisconsin, Missouri and Texas. The state data lag initial claims by one week.

Florida reported the largest drop in claims, with 5,178, which it attributed to fewer layoffs in the construction, service and manufacturing industries. California, Tennessee, Illinois and Arkansas had the next largest drops.

Social Security makes it official: No cost of living adjustment (COLA) in 2010

In the October 15, 2009 article "No Social Security COLA could prod $250 payments," Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher reports:

WASHINGTON – Social Security recipients won't get a cost-of-living increase next year for the first time in more than a third of a century, and that could boost President Barack Obama's plan to send seniors another round of $250 payments before the congressional elections.

Democratic leaders in Congress have signed onto the plan, greatly improving its chances, even as some budget hawks say the payments are unwarranted and could add to the federal budget deficit. Republican leaders said they, too, favor the payments but don't want to increase the deficit to pay for them.

More than 50 million Social Security recipients will see no increase in their monthly payments next year, the government said Thursday, the first year without an increase since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.

Blame it on falling consumer prices. By law, cost-of-living adjustments are pegged to inflation, which is negative this year because of lower energy costs. Social Security payments do not go down, even when prices drop.

Social Security recipients at a senior center in Pembroke Pines, Fla., a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, took it in stride that come January they won't see an increase in their benefits.

"At my age, I've got a nice bedroom, I have clothes, I have anything I want, I got a walker, what else do I need?" said Marie Arrasate, 83, who ran a restaurant and candy shop with her husband in Washingtonville, N.Y., and now lives with her daughter in Pembroke Pines.

"You have to make do with whatever you get. What are you gonna do? You can't do nothing about it," said Ed Nunez, 69, a retired truck driver from Miami.

The White House said the stimulus payments would cost $13 billion, though a congressional estimate put the cost at $14 billion. Obama didn't say how the payments should be financed, leaving that up to Congress. The president is open to borrowing the money, increasing the federal deficit, just as Congress did with the first round of stimulus payments.

Government analysts have been forecasting for months that there would be no increase next year in monthly Social Security payments because of falling consumer prices. In anticipation of Thursday's announcement, Obama said Wednesday he supported $250 payments to about 57 million senior citizens, veterans, retired railroad workers and people with disabilities.

Seniors groups applauded the proposal, saying the recession has reduced home values and diminished retirement funds. Recipients would be limited to one payment, even if they qualified in more than one category.

"Without relief, millions of older Americans will be unable to afford skyrocketing health care and prescription drug costs, as well as other basic necessities," said Tom Nelson, chief operating officer for AARP.

The payments would match the ones issued to seniors earlier this year as part of the government's economic recovery package. They would be equal to about a 2 percent increase for the average Social Security recipient.

Social Security has been the backbone of the nation's safety net for older Americans since it was enacted in the 1930s. Together with Medicare, the government health insurance program for the elderly, it helps keep millions of seniors out of poverty.

The poverty rate for U.S. residents 65 and older is below the rates for other age groups and has been for much of the past two decades. In 2008, the rate for seniors was 9.7 percent, according to the Census Bureau. That same year it was 11.7 percent for 18-to-64-year-olds and 19 percent for minors.

The average monthly Social Security payment for all recipients is $1,094.

Some Social Security experts say recipients shouldn't get a raise or an extra payment next year because their purchasing power has already increased with falling consumer prices.

They note that Social Security payments increased by 5.8 percent this year, the biggest rise since 1982, largely because of a spike in energy prices in 2008.

Over the past 12 months, gasoline prices have fallen 29.7 percent, and overall energy costs have decreased 21.6 percent, the Labor Department said Thursday. Consumer prices in general have declined 2.1 percent since the third quarter of 2008. The cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security, or COLA, is based on the change in consumer prices from the third quarter of one year to the next.

"The real purchasing power of their benefits is actually higher today than it was last year," said Andrew Biggs, a former deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration and now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

"Nevertheless, there will be a big political price to pay if no COLA is granted," Biggs said.

Obama's proposal has picked up support from key members of Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said he wanted to use unspent funds from last year's stimulus legislation to offset the cost.

Advocates for seniors argue that they deserve a raise because they spend a disproportionate amount of their incomes on health care costs, which rise faster than other consumer prices.

"Any senior living in the real world knows that the cost of living has gone up over the last year," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Obama's plan also picked up an endorsement from Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue, who was appointed to a six-year term by former President George W. Bush.

The lack of a monthly increase in payments triggers several provisions in the law. Among them, the amount of wages subject to Social Security payroll taxes will remain unchanged. The first $106,800 of a worker's earned income is currently subject to the tax.

Also, Medicare Part B premiums for the vast majority of Social Security recipients will remain frozen at 2009 levels. However, premiums for the Medicare prescription drug program, known as Part D, will increase.

STIMULUS WATCH: Construction drives up new jobs

In the October 15, 2009 article "STIMULUS WATCH: Construction drives up new jobs," Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo and Brett J. Blackledge report:

WASHINGTON – Businesses reported creating or saving more than 30,000 jobs in the first months of President Barack Obama's stimulus program, according to initial data released Thursday by a government oversight board. Military construction led the way, and states in the South and Southwest saw the biggest boost.

The new job numbers — in line with expectations for such an early accounting — offer the first hard data on effects of the $787 billion stimulus program.

The figures are based on jobs linked to less than $16 billion in federal contracts and represent just a sliver of the total stimulus package. But they represent a milestone of sorts for an administration that promised uprecedented real-time data on whether the program was working.

Until now, the White House has relied on economic models to argue that the program created jobs and eased the recession. The numbers help shift the discussion from whether the program is creating jobs to whether it is creating enough to justify its enormous price tag.

"These are the most thankful employeees you'll ever want to see," said Robert Del Riego, majority owner of Frederick, Md.-based Re-Engineered Business Solutions, who said he hired 33 new employees, mostly skilled laborers looking for work in the dismal construction market.

He expects to hire six more to help with water and sewer projects in Arkansas and North Carolina and small construction jobs at other sites. His company won $1.9 million in Army Corps of Engineers contracts.

"It's extra work and with work, hopefully you make a profit," he said. "But the main thing is, it's putting real guys back to work."

The White House said the new numbers were validation that the administration was on track to hit Obama's goal of creating or saving 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

"The early indications are quite positive," said White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein, who said the report "exceeds our projections."

The construction industry showed the strongest numbers in Thursday's report, accounting for about a third of the jobs thanks to contracts to repair military bases.

"It's kind of carrying us, allowing us to retain employees until the economy makes a rebound," said Matt Rathsack, director of operations at the Kentucky engineering firm, TetraTech, which reported saving 71 jobs thanks to an Army Corps of Engineers construction project at the Detroit Arsenal facility in Michigan. "We've already pared back and cut back. The staff is on reduced hours. The feeling is we're coming around the corner. We're optimistic."

Environmental jobs also provided a big boost. CH2M Hill, the contractor in charge of cleaning the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, said nearly 2,200 jobs, from carpenters to engineers to secretaries, had been created in southwest Washington state.

On paper, Colorado posted the largest increase of any state, more than 4,700 jobs, largely thanks to a contract to set up a call center to field questions about a change to digital cable. But the jobs were spread across multiple states, underscoring one of the many hiccups in the data. Like most contracting jobs, these were temporary, and most are already over.

California, Florida, Tennessee and Texas also showed strong gains.

New England fared poorly, with fewer than 750 jobs reported across the region. Rhode Island, which has the third-highest unemployment rate in the country, reported the weakest job numbers, both overall and per capita. Businesses there reported creating or saving about six jobs.

Broader numbers on local stimulus spending, for everything from repairing public housing and building schools to repaving highways and keeping teachers off the unemployment lines, won't be available until late this month. Those figures are expected to show early stimulus money saving thousands of teaching jobs and creating construction work for highway projects nationwide.

Thursday's numbers represent such a small snapshot, they are unlikely to significantly change the debate over whether the stimulus law was the right prescription for an ailing economy. Until more money is spent and more data come in, it is impossible to accurately calculate how much the government is spending per job.

House Republican leader John Boehner said the numbers don't change the fact that unemployment has climbed higher than the White House ever expected. Since signing the stimulus in February, Obama has watched the economy shed millions of jobs. The White House says things would have been far worse without the stimulus.

"The administration's continuing assertion that the stimulus is working flies in the face of the harsh reality being faced by Americans outside the Beltway every day," Boehner said. "While the administration spins its illusion, Americans are asking, 'Where are the jobs?'"

In the short term, the most significant thing about the job numbers may be that they exist at all. The government has never before attempted to track the effects, in real time, of such a huge government program. The data released by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board allow taxpayers to see not just where their money is going, but what the government is getting in return and how many people are on the job.

The reporting does not attempt to measure jobs created by $288 billion in tax cuts or the sizable increases in spending on Medicaid and unemployment benefits. The White House has said that, when considering those factors and estimating the ripple effect through the economy, more than 1 million jobs have been created or saved so far.

Auditors, fearing businesses would use part-time jobs to inflate the numbers, required companies to convert all jobs numbers to full-time. That means a 20-hour-a-week roofing job is counted as half one job.

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On the Net:

Interactive map showing job creation by county: http://bit.ly/4oQLIW

Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board: http://www.recovery.gov

Workers in Brazil, Lithuania receive most vacation days

In the October 14, 2009 CNNMoney article "Workers in Brazil, Lithuania receive most vacation days," Jessica Dickler reports a wide disparity in leisure around the world. Gross domestic product (GDP), the most common measure of economic prosperity and the standard of living, does not account for how leisure contributes to happiness, fulfillment, and the quality of life.

Here's one reason to move to Lithuania: Eight weeks of time off.

Workers in the Baltic state tied with Brazil for the most days off in the world: a whopping 41 a year, according to a report released Wednesday by global consulting firm Mercer.

"People take a lot of time, especially in the summer, because a lot of them own places outside the cities, in villages and by the sea," said Dina Kopilevic, a Lithuanian citizen working for the consulate in New York. "We take it for granted, probably."

In Lithuania, the minimum annual leave is 28 days plus 13 public holidays. Brazil has a statutory minimum of 30 vacation days plus 11 public holidays.

Ade Umhey is from Belo Horizonte, a city in southeastern Brazil, but is working temporarily in upstate New York. She said that in her country, there's a real appreciation for time spent outside of work.

"Being with family and friends is important," she explained. "You spend weekends dancing, going to clubs and barbecuing." Workers also take extended vacations at the beach or to other parts of the country, she said.

"It's a healthier attitude, because even though you don't work as long, you do work hard and then you get great time off."

Employees in Finland, France and Russia post a close second in time off, thanks to 40 vacation days and holidays.

Meanwhile, U.S. workers receive 25 days total. Although vacation policies vary widely, according to Mercer, many businesses in the U.S. give employees only 15 days, or three weeks of vacation, plus 10 holidays a year.

Employees in Singapore also get 25 days, while Chinese employees get 21 and Canadian employees only get 19. Excluding public holidays, workers in Canada and China each get just 10 days, the lowest allotment of any countries in Mercer's study.

Anthony Brown, a Canadian citizen who currently works in New York, argued that the lack of time off there is mitigated by other pluses. "The social benefits, including both welfare and unemployment benefits, should be factored in," he said. "Maybe there are fewer days but in reality you get paid a lot more for doing a lot less."

In addition to annual leave and public holidays, employers in some countries are also required by law to give additional leave for special circumstances such as getting married, having a baby or bereavement.

The Mercer report was based on mandatory vacation time for an employee working five days a week after 10 years service

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FACT CHECK: Health insurers cherry-pick facts

In the October 14, 2009 article "FACT CHECK: Health insurers cherry-pick facts," Associated Press writer Alan Fram explains health insurance companies are misleading the public in the debate over health insurance reform:

WASHINGTON – In its assaults on a Democratic health care overhaul bill, the insurance industry uses facts selectively and mixes accurate assertions with misleading spin and an embrace of worst-case scenarios.

Take the 30-second TV spot that America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's trade group, was running this week in six states as the Senate Finance Committee approved overhaul legislation.

With a series of beleaguered-looking elderly people on camera, a soothing female voice says accurately that Congress has proposed cutting more than $100 billion from Medicare Advantage. The program, administered by private companies that provide extra services like eye and dental care, serves about a quarter of Medicare beneficiaries, more than 10 million people.

Then the announcer adds, "The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says many seniors will see cuts in benefits." Words flash on the screen for three seconds saying, "50 percent reduction in extra benefits."

The announcer's words are true — but could be easily misunderstood to mean that basic Medicare coverage is at risk.

The budget office's director, Douglas Elmendorf, has said that as a result of the proposed cuts, the extra benefits Medicare Advantage recipients receive would be halved over the next decade. But the ad leaves unspoken the fact that under the Finance bill, Medicare coverage for doctors, hospitals and other basic services would remain fully intact, with no reduction in benefits.

The ad also fails to mention the reason senators targeted Medicare Advantage for savings: The program is expensive for the government to administer, costing about 14 percent more per recipient than regular Medicare.

Robert Zirkelbach, the trade group's spokesman, says the ad does not attack anyone.

"Seniors have a right to know how the current legislation will impact their health security," he said.

Even so, the ad illustrates a favored tactic of Washington interest groups, which is to arouse worry about a bill among a key constituency — in this case, elderly voters.

"Call your senators. Tell them we need health care reform that protects seniors," the announcer concludes.

A study the health insurers released earlier this week takes similar liberties. It concludes that Democrats' health care effort would drive up premiums for insured people, based on cherry-picking convenient facts and perspectives. It's an example of the classic lobbying tactic of commissioning a report that, predictably, reinforces an interest group's views.

The study only examined four parts of the Finance bill that it said would boost consumers' costs. It ignored provisions aimed at making health care more affordable, such as exchanges whereby companies would compete for customers and subsidies to help lower-income people afford policies.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the financial analysis firm the insurance industry commissioned to write the report, issued a statement this week noting it had been asked to only focus on four aspects of the bill: its weak enforcement mechanisms for the requirement that everyone buys insurance, an excise tax on expensive insurance policies, cuts in overall Medicare spending and fees on health care providers.

Provisions aimed at reducing costs, if successful, "would offset some of the impacts we have estimated," the accounting firm acknowledged.

One conclusion the report draws was mirrored by a fresh study released Wednesday by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association: For the health overhaul to work, there must be strong ways to enforce the requirement that people buy insurance.

Before the Finance Committee approved its bill, senators reduced the fines uninsured people would have to pay. The insurers argue that means many young, healthy people would remain uninsured, driving up costs for everyone else who purchases insurance — a conclusion that analysts generally agree is valid.

"Gee golly whiz. I could pay a $400 fine and get insurance when I need it, or pay $8,000 in premiums" per year, said Robert Laszewski, a private health policy analyst. He said the choice many families would make is "blindingly obvious."

The insurers' study concludes that insurance companies, medical device makers and other providers will pass on to consumers all the new taxes and fees the Finance bill imposes. It also assumes that doctors, hospitals and other health care providers would fully pass on the cuts lawmakers would make in Medicare, which total about $500 billion over 10 years.

It's an economic fact of life that businesses generally pass on the costs of taxes by raising prices. It's also fair to assume that when doctors and other providers see a reduction in income from their Medicare patients, they seek to make it up, if possible, from the rest of their patients.

Yet concluding that providers will pass the full cost of these changes to their customers ignores a basic assumption of the health overhaul effort. The goal is to increase competition and reduce the rate of growth currently assumed in medical costs. If the overall legislation succeeds in doing that, there would be less incentive for providers to pass on those costs — and more incentives for them to compete by keeping prices low.