Posts Tagged ‘Congress’
Documented and public, how climate is changing America
Observed US Temperature Change. The colours on the map show temperature changes over the past 20 years in °F (1991-2011) compared to the 1901-1960 average. The bars on the graphs show the average temperature changes by decade for 1901-2011 (relative to the 1901-1960 average) for each region. The far right bar in each graph (2000s decade) includes 2011. The period from 2001 to 2011 was warmer than any previous decade in every region. Graphic: US-NCADAC. (Figure source: NOAA NCDC / CICS-NC. Data from NOAA NCDC.)
A new draft report by the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee, which advises the government of the USA, has concluded that the evidence for a changing climate has strengthened considerably since the last such report written in 2009.
It noted that many more impacts of human-caused climate change have now been observed. “Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington State, and maple syrup producers in Vermont have observed changes in their local climate that are outside of their experience,” said an introductory ‘letter to the people’ and added, “So, too, have coastal planners from Florida to Maine, water managers in the arid Southwest and parts of the Southeast, and Native Americans on tribal lands across the nation.”
Major media organisations have begun reporting on the enormous study, which will be kept open for public scrutiny and comment for 90 days beginning next week. [The many chapters of the draft report can be found here.]
In the USA the National Climate Assessment is conducted under the auspices of the Global Change Research Act of 1990, which requires a report to the President and the Congress that evaluates, integrates and interprets the findings of the United States Global Change Research Program every four years.
Reuters headlined its report ‘Impact of climate change hitting home, U.S. report finds’ and said: “”The consequences of climate change are now hitting the United States on several fronts, including health, infrastructure, water supply, agriculture and especially more frequent severe weather, a congressionally mandated study has concluded.”
NBC News titled its report ‘ Massive draft report warns warming is changing life in US’ and said: “Global warming is already changing America from sea to rising sea and is affecting how Americans live, a massive new federally commissioned report says.”
In its report, ‘Climate change set to make America hotter, drier and more disaster-prone’, The Guardian said: “The report, which is not due for adoption until 2014, was produced to guide federal, state and city governments in America in making long-term plans. By the end of the 21st century, climate change is expected to result in increased risk of asthma and other public health emergencies, widespread power blackouts, and mass transit shutdowns, and possibly shortages of food.”
The National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee report placed the problem before its readers in a jargon-free introductory section that will appeal as much for its simplicity as for the effort made to encourage public participation.
“Americans are noticing changes all around them,” this section has said. “Summers are longer and hotter, and periods of extreme heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours, though in many regions there are longer dry spells in between. Hotter and drier weather and earlier snow melt mean that wildfires in the West start earlier in the year, last later into the fall, threaten more homes, cause more evacuations, and burn more acreage. In Alaska, the summer sea ice that once protected the coasts has receded, and fall storms now cause more erosion and damage that is severe enough that some communities are already facing relocation.”
The government that sold India
On 14 September, India’s ruling political coalition, the United Progressive Alliance, of which the Congress (the Indian National Congress is its full name) is a dominant member, decided to allow foreign investment into a number of sectors. These include what is called ‘multi-brand retail’ and aviation. This government in taking this decision has ignored and overlooked the views and fears of tens of thousands of small shopkeepers, small traders associations, consumer groups and citizens – representing the will of several millions of households – who have publicly expressed in many fora their opposition to permitting foreign control (or consolidated, large domestic control) of the processes of aggregating and selling food products.
The decision, which has been raucously welcomed by the three major industry associations (CII, Ficci and Assocham) and which has been uncritically hailed by the Indian (English-language) business press, represents the whole gamut of neo-liberal policies which have been pursued by the Congress-led UPA government since coming into office in 2004 (and since 2009, when its current term began).
In their shrill and utterly partisan acclaim of the foreign investment decision, the business and financial press – in particular the newspapers Economic Times, Business Standard, Financial Express and Mint – have further underlined their role as propaganda sheets for the industrial-political class and their global partners in the project to loot India.
There has been a differential impact of the more than 20 years of economic liberalisation on the various classes of Indian society. Inequalities have grown rapidly, and there are some sections who have been more adversely impacted. Some sections of the middle class have benefited, at the cost of rural landless labour and the urban poor. Under this neo-liberal regime a large section of the working class is now in the unorganised and informal sector. Those who are on contract work and other irregular forms of employment constitute the bulk of the urban poor. There is also a large section of self-employed persons in the services sector who eke out a subsistence living.
In India, there are substantial classes and sections of society most affected by the policies of liberalisation and the intensified exploitation in the countryside. Landlords, big farmers who are politically well-connected, contractors, moneylenders and regional politicians (those in state assemblies) constitute the rural rich and have intensified the exploitation of the peasantry, agricultural workers and the rural poor. It is this tendency that has deepened India’s agrarian distress, contributed to the food and agricultural crisis – and it is in these chronic circumstances that this Congress-led government has allowed the inflow of foreign investment into food retail, fully aware of all the consequences that decision will heap onto the struggling rural and urban poor.
To illustrate some of these, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in its Political Review Report in early 2012 had commented: “The issue of land acquisition has acquired a new dimension after the onset of the neo-liberal regime. As part of the capturing of natural resources the corporates and the real estate companies are out to grab land cheaply with the aid of the State apparatus. The peasantry, particularly the small peasantry sees this as a serious threat to its livelihood and especially when corporates and real estate speculators are going to make huge profits out of such lands.”
Can there be an alternative? As far as economic policies are concerned, most of the regional parties adhere to the policies of liberalisation. These regional parties represent mainly the interests of the politically astute and opportunist rural rich, the district bourgeosie who see themselves as brokers of every description to fit ‘reform’ decisions of every prescription. That is why most regional parties take no stand against the ‘liberalisation’ (or ‘reform’, to use the notorious International Monetary Fund-World Bank term) policies which have benefited regional rich too.
The very logic of neo-liberal reforms leads to and perpetuates the rapid growth of a labour force that is increasingly relegated to what is called the unorganised sector. The conversion of regular employment into casual and contractual labour, apart from generating higher profits, is part of the programme to ensure that working class unity remains divided. Larger and larger numbers – from the affected districts, such as the 320 drought-affected districts of 2012 – are joining the ranks of casual, temporary and self-employed workers, with few rights, uncertain wages, in the face of galloping food inflation, with no collective representation or honest political representation. These are the circumstances so ruthlessly exploited by India’s current government to usher predatory forces into our agriculture and food sector.
Stop SOPA and PIPA, protect the free flow of information and exchange
Hundreds of websites have gone dark to protest proposed legislation in the USA called the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). These proposed laws would place websites in legal jeopardy if they linked to a site anywhere online that had any links to copyright infringement.
This would unmake the Web, just as proposed in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and are a dangerous attempt to choke free speech, are a precursor to throttling the exchange of ideas and information which rely on the web. If you don’t want such legislation in the USA, visit AmericanCensorship.org for instructions. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has more information on this and other issues central to your freedom online.
18 January 2012 - Wikipedia goes dark
18 January 2012 - WordPress goes dark
Why corruption in India has grown, what must now be done
Supporters of fasting social activist Anna Hazare marching towards Ramlila Maidan from India Gate, in New Delhi on Sunday night. Photo: The Hindu/Sushil Kumar Verma
There has been no progress in the disucssions between the government in India and the leaders of the massive movement against corruption, led by Anna Hazare, who is still on a protest fast in New Delhi [see earlier post on the movement]. A meeting of all the political parties was held on the issue of the Lokpal, an institution proposed to redress public grievances on corruption and abuse of public office. An excellent summary of the matters before the citizens of India, and the best choices available to achieve probity and equity has been provided by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), in its note placed before the participants of the meeting of all political parties. Titled ‘Lokpal: For An Effective Anti-Corruption Body’, here is the full text of the note:
Introduction
Corruption has become a major public concern in the wake of successive scams unfolding over the past few years. In a country like India, where millions of people still suffer from acute poverty, hunger and lack of socio-economic opportunities, the pillage of public resources through corruption amounts to a crime of a very serious nature. Besides impeding economic development, accumulation of ill gotten wealth through corruption is widening the inequalities and ruining the moral fabric of our society.
The recent exposures in the 2G spectrum allocation case, CWG scam etc. have shown how thousands of crores worth of public resources have been illicitly cornered by a section of corporates, bureaucrats and ministers. What is worse, tainted ministers have been allowed to remain in office for months and the investigations manipulated, in order to obstruct the course of justice. While corruption in high places has been a feature of our political system for many decades, what has emerged as a dominant trend in the post-liberalization period is a thorough distortion of the policy-making process at the highest levels of the government. A nexus of big corporates, politicians and bureaucrats have matured under the neoliberal regime and is threatening to subvert our democracy. It is clear that the current economic regime has made our system more vulnerable to cronyism and criminality.
The battle against corruption, in order to be effective today, can be achieved only through a comprehensive reform of our political, legal, administrative and judicial systems and not through one-off or piece-meal measures. The establishment of an effective Lokpal institution is one such measure. This needs to be complemented by other measures. There has to be a grievance redressal set-up for citizens, based on a legislation. There has to be a National Judicial Commission to oversee the higher judiciary; there has to be electoral reforms to check the use of money power in elections which is another source of corruption. Urgent steps also need to be undertaken to reform our tax system to plug loopholes and unearth black money, much of which is stashed in offshore bank accounts and tax havens. Firm steps need to be taken to break the big business-politician-bureaucrat nexus. Only a comprehensive systemic reform can effectively curb corruption.
Lokpal Bill
The 74-year-old Gandhian has made it clear he will not end his hunger strike till his version of the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill is adopted. Photo: NDTV
The institution of Ombudsman, which exists in many countries across the world, has provided avenues to redress public grievances on corruption and abuse of public office. However, the fact that the Lokpal Bill could not be passed in the Indian parliament in four decades exposes the lack of political will to fight corruption. Several governments in the past have taken it up only to shelve it later under various pretexts. The present government has also been compelled to initiate discussion on this bill because of public outcry over successive corruption scandals. It is imperative that a Lokpal Bill which deals with corruption in high places is tabled in the forthcoming session of parliament.
In the wake of the on-going debate on what should be the scope and role of the Lokpal, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) wishes to set out its stand on the main issues concerning the constitution of a Lokpal.
1. Definition of Corruption
Corruption involves a whole range of activities from bribery, influence peddling, patronage or favour, nepotism, cronyism, electoral fraud, embezzlement, kickbacks to officials and involvement in organized crime. The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 has defined the offences that constitute a corrupt act. This definition requires to be widened. The linkage between misuse of public power for private gain or enrichment is a highly restrictive understanding of corruption. In many cases, power is misused to benefit an entity like a private company which is not a ‘person’ as required under the PCA 1988. Often, there may be no traceable kickbacks or embezzlement but there may be a huge loss to the public exchequer and breach of public trust for example through sale of PSUs due to a willful misuse of power. The definition of corruption has to be widened to include “willfully giving any undue benefit to any person or entity or obtaining any undue benefit from any public servant in violation of laws or rules”.
2. Clarity on Functions
The Lokpal should essentially be a fact-finding body that receives complaints, enquires, investigates and forward cases to Special Courts where prima facie there is a case of corruption for prosecution and punishment in a time bound manner. It should have powers to recommend an enquiry and investigation suo moto. It should oversee the entire machinery related to corruption cases at the Central level. Finally, it should have the powers to recommend executive action and to approach Courts when these are not accepted. The Lokpal should be entrusted with quasi-judicial powers and autonomy to fulfill these functions in an independent, accountable, transparent and time-bound manner. The separation of powers between legislature, executive and judiciary is a part of the basic structure of the Constitution. The institution of Lokpal should conform to this basic structure. An issue to be considered regarding the functions of a Lokpal is whether it will deal with corruption or will it also perform functions of grievance redressal. The CPI(M) favours separation of these functions. There must be a separate mechanism for grievance redressal. This should be set up by a separate legislation. The grievances of citizens about the citizens charter etc should be brought under this set up.
3. Selection & Composition of Lokpal
In a huge show of support for anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare and the Jan Lokpal on Sunday, over 100,000 people marched on the streets of Mumbai. Photo: The Hindu/AFP
The Lokpal Act should lay down an objective and transparent criteria such as competence, experience, qualification etc for the selection of candidates for appointment to the Lokpal. The selection committee should be broad-based consisting of members of the executive, leaders of parliament, members of the higher judiciary, jurists and academicians. The search committee constituted by the selection committee should also be broad-based. Composition: Apart from the chairperson, there should be 10 members in the Lokpal. Out of these four shall be judicial members, three can be persons with administrative and civil service backgrounds and the other three should be drawn from fields such as law, academics and social service. There should be no member drawn from commerce and industries just as there can be no politician.
4. Jurisdiction
While corruption in high places has to be tackled on a priority basis, for the ordinary citizen, it is the corruption faced by them in daily life and in dealings with public authorities that also needs to be urgently taken up. Much of this sphere of corruption falls in dealings with authorities at the states-level. The Lok Ayuktas set up on the lines of the Lokpal should bring all state government employees, local bodies and the state corporations under their purview. Further, a citizen’s grievances redressal machinery that we have proposed be set up separately, should address all grievances regarding delivery of basic services and entitlements for citizens.
a) Prime Minister: The Prime Minister should be brought under the purview of the Lokpal with adequate safeguards. The office of Prime Minister along with all public servants was brought under the purview of Lokpal by the V.P. Singh Government in 1989 and in all subsequent draft legislations, the Prime Minister has been placed under the Lokpal. In fact a Parliamentary Standing Committee headed by Shri Pranab Mukherjee had made precisely this point while examining the 2001 Lokpal Bill. For the first time since 1989, this government presiding over a large number of scams, is unwilling to ensure accountability of the highest executive office. Clearly, all public servants of the Union Government within the definition in the Prevention of Corruption Act, which includes the Prime Minister, must fall within the purview of the Lokpal.
b) Judiciary: The judiciary too needs to be brought under scrutiny and made more accountable, and the stringent requirement of prior permission and sanction from the Chief Justice to file FIRs and investigate corruption charges has resulted in a de facto immunity to them. But the proposals to bring them under Lokpal encroach upon the constitutionally guaranteed independence of the Supreme Court. If a mere allegation of mala fide is enough for the Lokpal to start an inquiry into the actions of judges, it may not allow judges to act without fear.
Complaints about corruption against the judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts should be handled by a separate body, the National Judicial Commission. This Commission should take care of the appointments in the higher judiciary and oversee their conduct and enquire into the complaints of corruption. For this, necessary legislation will have to be passed. The Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, 2010 is woefully inadequate for this purpose.
c) Members of Parliament: At present, the scrutiny of the conduct of Members of Parliament with regard to any corrupt practice is weak and unsatisfactory. For Members of Parliament, Article 105 of the Constitution provides protection with regard to freedom of speech and voting. The real issue is how to ensure that this freedom and protection does not extend to acts of corruption by Members of Parliament. This can be done through an amendment to Article 105, on the lines recommended by the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution. Alternatively, if feasible, there can be legislation that if any Member of Parliament indulges in any act of corruption that motivates his or her action in Parliament (voting, speaking etc.), then this act falls within the purview of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the IPC.
5. Lok Ayuktas
In the states, Lok Ayuktas should be set up on the model of the Central Lokpal.
6. Protection of Whistleblowers
Whistleblowers must be protected in order to combat corruption. Monitoring and ensuring protection of whistleblowers can be a part of the mandate of Lokpal, but this needs a comprehensive statutory backing. The provisions of the Public Interest Disclosure (Protection of Information) Bill, 2010 needs to be strengthened and the bill enacted expeditiously.
7. Big Business-Public Servant Nexus
It is necessary to recognise that an important source of corruption since liberalisation stems from the corrupt nexus between big business and public servants. It is necessary for the Lokpal to have investigations in cases which involve business entities to recommend cancellation of licences, contracts, lease or agreements if it was obtained by corrupt means. The Lokpal should also have the power to recommend blacklisting companies from getting government contracts and licences. Similarly, if the beneficiary of an offence is a business entity, the Lokpal should have the power to recommend concrete steps to recover the loss caused to the public exchequer. The government should normally accept these recommendations and act upon it.
Conclusion
The CPI(M) holds that along with a law for setting up an independent Lokpal, simultaneous measures to strengthen the legal and administrative framework
against corruption are required. These include:
(1) Setting up of a National Judicial Commission to bring the conduct of judiciary under its purview
(2) Law to protect citizens charter for redressal of public grievances
(3) Amendment of Article 105 of the Constitution to bring MPs under anti-corruption scrutiny
(4) Electoral reforms to check money power in elections
(5) Setting up of Lok Ayuktas in the states to cover all public servants at the state-level
(6) Steps to unearth black money and confiscate the funds illegally stashed away in tax havens.
Slow and sober – what credit and debt means to the US, and to us
Free tickets for the US debt train
Update: Here is the China view, from Xinhua:
China side-stepping U.S. financial crisis with innovative strategies – After watching Congress play politics and care not a whit about upholding the honor of United States, can the world assume that America is not about to become a deadbeat to beat all deadbeat nations in history?
Even if the United States Treasury eventually honors its obligations after undergoing the tortuous exercise between House, Senate and the White House, will the rest of the world continue to have faith and confidence in the value of the dollar? China, the country that holds more U.S. federal debt than any other foreign country, is taking action to sidestep potential future U.S. default. Full story
U.S. debt ceiling deal is double-edge sword for China – The roller-coaster debate over raising the US national debt ceiling finally concluded after the two parties made compromises. The Democratic Party-led administration removed the political restraint of debt default before the general election in 2012, and the Republican Party-led House of Representatives secured a promise to cut government spending over the next decade.
The two parties had threatened each other using the interests of global creditors, staging a preview of next year’s general election. Meanwhile, the hidden trouble in the global financial market and economic recovery has temporarily been avoided. Full story
Time to reconsider buying of US assets – While the Chinese government made it clear that it was unhappy about the possibility that the United States could default on its debt, it was also clear that China’s concerns are not a major factor in US politics. The United States has always been an incredibly insular country. The vast majority of the public has very little interest in or concern for what is going elsewhere in the world, except insofar as it directly affects the US. Full story
Earlier - Lots of outrage, vitriol and prognosis about the US credit rating downgrade. Does it affect anything in our real lives? What will it do to prices and household assets? What will it do to food inflation and the cost of living? At what point does credit rating become meaningless for an economy that’s deep in debt anyway (and exporting wars all over the planet)? Here are some signposts.
CEPR has savaged the New York Times for an article which asserted that members of the congressional panel will have to “mute ideological disagreements.” It is not clear that members of Congress have ideological disagreements. Members of Congress get elected because of their ability to appeal to powerful interest groups, said CEPR. “The differences around proposals to cut programs like Social Security and Medicare or to raise taxes on the wealthy most obviously stem from the different interest groups being represented. It is not obvious that the ideology of individual members of Congress matters, since their ability to keep their jobs will depend on the extent to which members of Congress can keep their backers satisfied.”
It also would have been useful to include the views of members of Congress who ridiculed the downgrade, pointing out that S&P had rated hundreds of billions of subprime mortgage backed securities as investment grade. It also had given top investment grade ratings to both Lehman and AIG until the day they collapsed. It also was off by $2 trillion in its calculations of U.S. indebtedness. In other words, there are very good reasons not to take S&P’s ratings seriously and there certainly many people who do not, including it seems investors in financial markets.
Take your money to new places indeed!
In Triple Crisis only a few days ago, C P Chandrashekar discussed the debt of Greece and what it means for Europe and its currency. “What is galling to most is the fact that at the end of all this, the problem remains unresolved. Greek public debt is still in excess of its gross domestic product. Servicing that even on slightly lighter terms seems near impossible in the midst of austerity that spells recession. Another bail-out is inevitable. The danger is that next time around governments across Europe and elsewhere may be overcome with bail-out fatigue and just risk wholesale default. The banks and private creditors would then get their due. But that is small comfort, since the fall-out for the rest may be too much to bear.”
In the Financial Times, Eswar Prasad and Mengjie Ding say that their analysis paints a sobering picture of worsening public debt dynamics and a sharply rising debt burden in advanced economies. These rising debt levels combined with heightened concerns about fiscal solvency now constitute a major threat to global financial stability.
It's all just a movie set, isn't it?
“Recent events in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and other economies on the periphery of the eurozone show the risks of debt buildups that are not tackled. Bond investors can quickly turn against a vulnerable country with high debt levels, leaving the country little breathing room to balance its fiscal books and precipitating a crisis. Overall, the worldwide picture of government debt is not pretty.”
Via Economists View, a veteran’s look at S&P’s competency to do anything at all:
Back when I was an in-house lawyer for an investment bank, I had extensive interactions with all three rating agencies. We needed to get a lot of deals rated, and I was almost always involved in that process in the deals I worked on. To say that S&P analysts aren’t the sharpest tools in the drawer is a massive understatement.
I’ve seen S&P make far more basic mistakes than the one they made in miscalculating the US’s debt-to-GDP ratio. I’ve seen an S&P managing director who didn’t know the order of operations, and when we pointed it out to him, stopped taking our calls. Despite impressive-sounding titles, these guys personify “amateur hour.” (And my opinion of S&P isn’t just based on a few deals; it’s based on countless deals, meetings, and phone calls over 20 years. It’s also the opinion of practically everyone else who deals with the rating agencies on a semi-regular basis.)
