From: Rakesh Bhandari (rakeshb@STANFORD.EDU)
Date: Wed Sep 03 2003 - 17:22:54 EDT
Compiled by Les Schaffer on marxmail.org:
Headlines in the last week:
(mainly US news, how the rest of y'all making out???)
1.) Poverty levels are rising:
Census Shows Ranks of Poor Rose by 1.3 Million
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 -- The number of Americans living below the
poverty line increased by more than 1.3 million last year, even
though the economy technically edged out of recession during the
same period, a Census Bureau report shows.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/national/03CENS.html
2.) People are working longer hours:
New Workplace, Old Fight
Workers Struggle for Overtime Pay as Firms Seek to Boost
Productivity While Cutting Costs
By Kirstin Downey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 31, 2003; Page F01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2979-2003Aug30.html
... though our rulers say we are being more productive:
Report Says U.S. Workers Top World's Productivity
From Reuters
U.S. workers topped the world's productivity for 2002, with
annual output having risen much faster than in Europe and Japan
in recent years, according to a United Nations study to be
released today.
http://www.latimes.com/la-fi-labor1sep01,1,2770358.story
cf: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/02/business/02WIRE-MANU.html
3.) Meanwhile, emergency rooms, which are the frontline for health
care of poor in this country (US), are being told they can turn people
away (per Bush):
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/politics/03HEAL.html
... While the EPA is allowing sale of PCB-tainted sites (per Bush):
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pcbs3sep03,1,5527177.story?coll=la-home-todays-times
4.) No-one in gov't or leaders of industry wants responsibility for
power failures:
Utilities Point Their Fingers at Each Other Over Blackout
By MATTHEW L. WALD and CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 -- Five electricity organizations involved in
the Aug. 14 blackout have sent letters to the chairman of the
House Energy and Commerce Committee seeking to implicate one
another, to varying degrees, in the cascading failure.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/politics/03ENER.html
cf. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/politics/03CND-ENER.html?hp
5.) All the while, the cappie class purports to clean a little laundry
in public:
Mutual Funds Allowed Fraudulent Trading, Spitzer Says
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
Just six months after reaching a settlement with investment banks
over tainted research, Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney
general, said today that major mutual fund companies had engaged
in fraudulent after-market trading practices with privileged
institutional investors.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/03/business/03CND-FUND.html?hp
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Former WorldCom chief executive Bernie Ebbers
pleaded innocent today to the first criminal charges brought
against him in the long-distance company's $11 billion accounting
scandal.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-090303ebbers_wr,1,162027.story?coll=la-home-leftrail
Energy Dept. Probing Jump in Gasoline Prices
By REUTERS
Filed at 2:01 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Energy Department is
investigating a recent spike in gasoline prices to a record high,
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said on Wednesday.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/usreport-energy-gasoline-price.html
6.) Bush pretends to be an internationalist:
Powell: U.S. to introduce U.N. resolution
Proposes U.N.-sponsored force under U.S. command
Wednesday, September 3, 2003 Posted: 2:08 PM EDT (1808 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/09/03/sprj.irq.main/index.html
Poland Takes Control in Central Iraq
By REUTERS
Filed at 4:31 a.m. ET
BABYLON, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Marines handed over control of a
patch of central Iraq on Wednesday to a Polish-led multinational
force in a ceremony in ancient Babylon.
7.) And finally, what can one say???:
"Things are getting better," Mr. Bush told a subdued crowd here.
quoted in:
Bush Defends Tax Cuts and Announces Jobs Post
By DAVID E. SANGER
RICHFIELD, Ohio, Sept. 1 -- Since the last time President Bush
addressed a Labor Day picnic -- with carpenters in Pennsylvania
-- the economy has lost 700,000 jobs, most of them in
manufacturing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/02/politics/02BUSH.html
les schaffer
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