The following are my notes from this morning’s radio show, Eat The Airwaves, which you can find on KEXP 90.3 FM in Seattle, every Saturday morning. It’s also available online at KEXP.org as the last half hour of Mind Over Matters.
1) A general analysis of the elections – you can find my notes written up as an article entitled “The Real Reasons the Republicans Won,” on the Eat The State! website at www.EatTheState.org
2) Dino Rossi vs. Patty Murray for U.S. Senate
Rossi was the second biggest recipient in the U.S. of money from 501(c)(4) organizations which aren’t required to disclose their donors. He received a total of $5.4 million from them, and the largest chunk came from Karl Rove’s group Crossroads GPS ($3.6 million total). Rossi’s total haul from outside the state: $11 million; yet, he still couldn’t defeat Democratic incumbent Patty Murray, who received $8 million in funds from outside the state, and less than a million from 501(c)(4) groups. This is probably Rossi’s last hurrah. I can’t imagine the national Republican Party would be willing to waste any more money on him.
3) Voters defeated any initiative to increase taxes, but also stopped privatization initiatives in their tracks
It’s no surprise that voters didn’t want to tax themselves during a recession, and even voted down Initiative 1098 to impose an income tax on the wealthy. But the shocker was watching the two liquor privatization initiatives 1100 and 1105 and the initiative to privatize the state’s workers’ compensation program go down in flames. How can we explain this?
More conservative voters come to the polls during midterm elections and, while they tend to support conservative goals like privatizing government services, this time they clearly bought into the negative advertising that privatizing liquor sales would make hard alcohol more available to underage drinkers. They also mistrusted evil insurance companies to handle the state’s workers’ comp system—proving that conservatives can also have a healthy dose of common sense.
4) Regional Transit Task Force
The 28-member Regional Transit Task Force issued its report on the state of the Metro Transit bus system. The taskforce was formed 8 months ago by the King County Council to find ways to retain bus services with dwindling tax revenue.
Their biggest recommendation: ditch the 40/40/20 rule for new bus service. That rule was formed as a compromise to get rural council members to support taxes for transit service. It specifies that any new bus services be allocated 40% to East King County, 40% to South King County, and 20% to the City of Seattle. Unfortunately, most of the ridership—hence, most of the demand for new or increased service—is in Seattle.
Also, they recommended getting rid of the 60/20/20 rule for service cutbacks. Because cuts are spread evenly throughout the system and most of the routes are in Seattle, the cutbacks tend to be as follows: 60% in Seattle and 20% each in East and South King County.
Instead, the taskforce recommends that the county council and Metro draft a new, transparent policy for service changes based on population densities, job concentration, geographic coverage, and integration with other transit agencies. Hmm. It took them 8 months to figure that out?
5) Good news for Metro
Metro Transit received two grants from the Federal Transit Administration. The first is $4.7 million to test a prototype electric-battery powered bus. Currently, Metro has an aging fleet of electric trolley buses that run on overhead wires, and are due for replacement. The electric-battery powered buses would not need overhead wires, which are expensive to maintain; they would plug into charging stations. They’re popular in other countries around the world, especially in Europe, but are brand new in the U.S., and Metro was lucky enough to get a grant to test them here.
The second grant is for $6 million to buy hybrid diesel-electric buses to replace old diesel-only buses. This is another step forward in eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the heavy vehicle transportation system, which is the fastest growing source of emissions in the U.S. Hurray for Metro!
6) Stop patenting my genes!
This past week, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a friend of the court brief that said genes should not be eligible for patents unless they are significantly altered. This is a major change in U.S. government policy: the Patent and Trade Office has issued thousands of patents on genes, including about 20% of human genes.
The brief was filed in a case brought by the ACLU, The Public Patent Foundation, and various medical researchers and groups against Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah Research Foundation, who hold two patents on genes implicated in breast cancer: BRCA1 and BRCA2. In March, Judge Robert W. Sweet of U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, saying that merely isolating a gene doesn’t change its nature and make it eligible to be patented. Myriad and the University of Utah are appealing.
7) QE2 has arrived
This week, the Federal Reserve announced a second round of quantitative easing, nicknamed “QE2” in the European press. Quantitative easing refers to a process whereby the Fed prints more money and uses it to by longer term government bonds in an attempt to lower long-term government interest rates. Long-term government interest rates determine mortgage rates and the rates for many corporate bonds.
The idea is that lower long-term rates will make it easier for more people to refinance their mortgages (of course, that won’t help anyone going through foreclosure). It’s also supposed to raise stock prices (investors will get out of bonds and buy stocks, which have a better rate of return, thereby increasing stock prices). This is supposed to increase the value of people’s portfolios and make them more willing to spend money, which will stimulate the economy (consumer spending makes up about 2/3 of all economic activity).
However, the Fed hasn’t taken into account a few important lessons from the recent recession:
First, not enough Americans hold stock to make this an effective spur for consumption. With record levels of income disparity and a shrinking middle class, the whole stock ownership thing has bypassed most Americans.
Second, stock prices have fallen dramatically and have a long ways to go to make up for the losses of the last two years. It’s going to take a while for even folks with substantial portfolios to feel like spending again.
And finally, Most Americans who do own stocks own them in a retirement fund, which makes up only a small portion of their “wealth”…with the biggest portion being the value of their home. Until house prices recover, consumer confidence will continue to sag.
8) QE2 is pissing off the whole world.
Printing more U.S. dollars means a greater supply of them, which weakens the value of the dollar relative to other currencies in the world. Other nations’ goods become more expensive for U.S. consumers to buy.
Americans are the world’s main consumers—except for China’s enormous population, and their consumption is limited by their limited buying power. (China keeps the value of its currency low so that the whole world can continue to afford its products, but that also limits what Chinese people can buy.)
By printing more U.S. dollars, the Federal Reserve is creating inflation on an international scale, which is pissing off some of our major allies. They look at us and say, “Why can’t you be more fiscally responsible? Why can’t your government cut military spending, manage healthcare costs, and do more stimulus spending to create jobs? That’s what you need. Instead, you’re printing more money? What’s wrong with you?”
I have to agree.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment