• Today is the day that if you want to hire cheap foreign labor, you need to apply for H1-B visas.
• Why do we have to import educated foreign workers instead of educating Americans?
• Investment in education.
• Economics.
• Guest: Byron Myres, ING Direct. Subprime Mess - Why are we bailing out the big guys instead of the little guys?
• Guest: Corey Powell, Executive Editor, Discover Magazine. "20 Things You Didn't Know About Mating".

Topics, guests, upcoming events, quotes, links to articles, audio clips, books & bumper music.

Tuesday 01 April '08 National show

• Bumper Music: Crazy, Gnarls Barkley.
• Article: Hillary Vows to Stay in Race 100 Years.
• Article: Bill Clinton hits a rare high note.
  "Though Bill Clinton extolled his wife's candidacy, he skipped the superficial campaign rhetoric for a serious analysis of economic and health care reform. He spent 50 minutes making the connection between the two, 50 minutes with barely a glance at his prepared notes, 50 minutes that reminded the overflow crowd at the Old Library Auditorium how much of the campaign has focused on matters of style, not substance...

  The average middle-class family is already feeling the recession, Clinton said, noting that, adjusted for inflation, "the median family income is $1,000 lower than when I left office," sending another 5 million families below the poverty line.

  You can't bring the American economy back without creating new jobs, he argued, and you can't generate health care reform without replenishing an educated work force and restructuring a system in which 30 cents of every health care dollar is spent on paperwork.

  "We need a president who understands this," said Clinton, which sounded less like a condemnation of Hillary Clinton's current opponent than the current occupant of the White House.

  "
• Article: Brief description of the higher education system in India.
  "To finance higher education expansion, the government has consistently increased its share in the total expenditure on higher education, from 49.1 percent in 1950-51 to more than 90 percent in 1999 (Chitnis, 1999, 26). Students pay a nominal fee that constitutes 10 to 15 percent of the budget of the institution (Maiti, 2001; Tilak, 1997). However, some data suggests that fee contributions may vary considerably between Central and state institutions with student fees contributing a significant amount to university income in the state universities. For example, in 1990, in the University of Madras, nearly half of the total income was from student fees (Tilak, 1997:11). Several universities offer fee waivers to women students."
• Article: USA 2008: The Great Depression.
  "We knew things were bad on Wall Street, but on Main Street it may be worse. Startling official statistics show that as a new economic recession stalks the United States, a record number of Americans will shortly be depending on food stamps just to feed themselves and their families."
• Today is the day that if you want to hire cheap foreign labor, you need to apply for H1-B visas. Last year all 65,000 were gone in the first day, the same is likely this year. A large number go to companies based in India. Thom's experience in 1998 getting somebody for his newsletter. Bill Clinton is in town, Steve Duin of the Oregonian was there. India is investing heavily in education. More Americans are reliant on food stamps in the USA.
• Bumper Music: Stand, Rascal Flatts.
• McCain is re-embracing supply side economics.
• Why import educated workers? Invest in intellectual, human infrastructure.
• Article: Don't trust this gang with our state's future.
  "The panel of wizards assigned to fix Florida's gross tax inequities has impulsively broadened its scope to a social issue in which its expertise is even more dubious.

  By a margin of 17-7, the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission voted last week to place on the November ballot an amendment that would erase from the constitution a long-standing ban on subsidizing religious institutions with public dollars.

  If the measure passes, Florida would be the first state in the country to formally trash the concept that the roles of church and government should be separate.

  The unseen hand behind this crusade belongs to former Gov. Jeb Bush, who was stung when his overhyped school-voucher program was struck down as unconstitutional -- a judicial decision that surprised hardly anyone except Bush.

  Under his plan, students at underperforming schools could receive tax dollars to switch to private schools, many of which are run by churches and teach religious doctrine.

  The vouchers basically amounted to a public payout, and the First District Court of Appeal properly nixed the idea as a blatant breach of church-state separation.

  "
• Clip:
  "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

  This world in arms is not spending money alone.

  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

  The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

  It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

  It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

  It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

  We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

  We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

  This is, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

  This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

  "

  Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953 "The Chance for Peace" speech (mp3).

• Bumper Music: The Way Life's Meant to Be, ELO.
• "Greed is good" rant.
• Quote: "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." "One Third of a Nation": FDR’s Second Inaugural Address, January 20, 1937.
• Truckers and strikes.
• Bumper Music: Forty Hour Week (For A Livin'), Alabama (video).
• Article: UBS plans $19 bln write-down.
  "Morgan Stanley analysts see crisis as worst in 30 years
  The financial services industry "is facing the most severe investment banking crisis in 30 years," according to a report by analysts at Morgan Stanley on Tuesday, which added earnings in the sector may take close to two years to recover. As many as six quarters' worth of industry earnings may have been wiped in the period up to Easter, the broker said.

  UBS plans $19 bln write-down, capital injection
  UBS 32.61, -0.40, -1.2%) on Tuesday revealed a further $19 billion hit from the credit crisis, doubling its write-downs so far, and said it will have to issue around 15 billion Swiss francs ($15.1 billion) in new shares to shore up its capital base.

  Deutsche Bank to take $3.9 billion hit
  DB 118.78, +1.03, +0.9%) joined Swiss rival UBS in announcing a fresh write-down on Tuesday, citing a shuttered leveraged-loan market as well as exposure to U.S. mortgage-related securities as key factors behind a hit amounting to 2.5 billion euros ($3.9 billion).

  "
• Subprime Mess - Why are we bailing out the big guys instead of the little guys?
• Article: ING's deep freeze.
• Article: Chase mortgage memo pushes 'Cheats & Tricks'.
• Guest: Byron Myres, ING Direct. I N G stands for International Netherlands Group. The banking side in the USA has seen minimal losses. They have adjustable rate loans that can only go up by 6% over the lifetime of the loan. What does he think of the huge bailout for a company which is not even insured by the FIDC? There is such upheaval. Who's at fault? Consumers who were buying things that they shouldn't have and not reading disclosures. Some were hoodwinked, which is the fault of the mortgage brokers who were only interested in their fee. The JP Morgan Chase memo was terrible. Pension funds, governments etc. were chasing yield when interest rates were low. Everyone looked the other way on the risk. A lot of players got us into this mess. It's going to take time. Time will tell if the Fed is doing the right thing. Looking at 1929, the government not intervening led to an awful lot of suffering. The Glass Steagall Act. Similarities. Repealing it, with hindsight, was not good. PhDs in larceny. Why aren't we bailing out the little guys, many of whom would have qualified for prime loans? Redlining. Fine print.
• Bumper Music: Oh Mastercard, Will Barkley.
• Article: McCain Warns Against Hasty Mortgage Bailout.
• Article: FDR Solves the Mortgage Crisis, September 14, 2007.
  

  Here should be an objective of Government itself, to provide at least as much assistance to the little fellow as it is now giving to the large banks and corporations."

  --Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 7, 1932.

• Mortgage history. The Home Owners' Loan Corporation.
• Bumper Music: America, Jewel.
• Bumper Music: Dizzy, Tommy Roe.
• Clip:
  "I have talked to Negro mothers. I have heard them explain, try to explain how they tell their children how they can go into a store and buy a loaf of bread, but then can't go into that store and sit at the counter and get a Coca Cola. This is wrong and we have to do something about it.

  So, under the circumstances, what do we do? Well, what we do is what the Attorney General of the United States did under the direction of the President: Call in the owners of chain stores and get them to take action.

  "
  Richard M. Nixon. Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon Second Joint Radio-Television Broadcast.
• Clip:
  "Well, Mr. Nixon hasn't discussed the two basic questions: What is going to be done and what will be his policy on implementing the Supreme Court decision of 1954? Giving aid to schools technically that are trying to carry out the decision is not the great question. Secondly, what's he going to do to provide fair employment? He's been the head of the Committee on Government Contracts that's carried out two cases, both in the District of Columbia. He has not indicated his support of an attempt to provide fair employment practices around the country, so that everyone can get a job regardless of their race or color. Nor has he indicated that he will support Title III, which would give the Attorney General additional powers to protect Constitutional rights.

  These are the great questions. Equality of education in schools. About 2 percent of our population of white people is illiterate; 10 per cent of our colored population. Sixty to seventy percent of our colored children do not finish high school.

  These are the questions and these areas that the North and South, East and West are entitled to know what will be the leadership of the President in these areas to provide equality of opportunity for employment, equality of opportunity in the field of housing, which could be done on all Federal supported housing by a stroke of the President's pen.

  What will be done to provide equality of education in all sections of the United States? Those are the questions to which the President must establish a moral tone and moral leadership. And I can assure you that if I'm elected President we will do so.

  "
  John F. Kennedy. Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon Second Joint Radio-Television Broadcast.
• Book: When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management, Roger Lowenstein.
• Bumper Music: Radio, Paul Wright.
• To meet with Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill said, "with all his buoyant sparkle, his iridescence," was like "opening a bottle of champagne".
• Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. NATO today. Bush support for Georgia and Ukraine joining, others against. Hillary for both. Additional forces to Afghanistan, restrictions, wants 3-10,000 more. Why are Bush and Hillary for? Putin not happy. Expensive to join. What is the purpose of NATO anymore? Steny Hoyer pen and pad, gave reporters lots of information, economy an unmitigated disaster, unemployment etc. Statistics. Dan Abrams does a daily "Teflon John". Pelosi this morning on TV, Clinton has the right to continue.
• The strange notion of taking your hands off the steering wheel of the economy. Predators run it aground and run off with the loot, Republicans say 'we've got ours'. Obama and Hillary both have strong programs for dealing with the problem, McCain is walking away, he's got nothing, just ask banks to voluntarily help mortgagees, and economists to get together and talk. Like Nixon.
• Bumper Music: Talk to me, Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac.
• Everything you know is wrong: Guest: Corey Powell, Executive Editor, Discover Magazine. Book: "20 Things You Didn't Know About Everything" including a chapter, "20 Things You Didn't Know About Mating". Eliot Spitzer. Cheating in the animal kingdom. Portland Fossil Fools day, infidelity offsets from cheatneutral. Sex in space.
• Bumper Music: Fire It Up, Modest Mouse.
• Article: Bush Tied to Child Prostitution - Resignation or Impeachment Expected!
• The book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins, is being made into a movie. Read it then "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" by Naomi Klein and Naomi Wolf's "The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot".
• Book: War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges.
• Book: The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve (article).
• Bumper Music: Have You Had Enough?, Rickie Lee Jones, Tom Maxwell and Ken Mosher.
• Clip:
  "We are not a warlike people. We have never sought glory as a Nation of warriors. We are not interested in aggression. We are not interested—as the dictators are—in looting. We do not covet one square inch of the territory of any other Nation."
  Franklin D. Roosevelt, Labor Day Radio Address, September 1st, 1941.
• Bumper Music: I'm A Nazi, Rush Limbaugh / WNNX-FM (Atlanta, GA).
• Clip:
  "Can I translate that for you? "I don't know why the B-I-itch is staying in. I feel like a damn hostage here. But I can't say it because she's a woman. And if I say that, they're going to jump down in my throat for being a sexist." "
  Limbaugh's purported translation of Obama statement on Clinton: "I don't know why the B-I-itch is staying in".
• Clip: Limbaugh: "We created this whole concept of a testicle lockbox in connection with Mrs. Clinton".

• Women, are you fed up with men calling the shots? Are you looking for a new weapon in the war of the sexes? You need the Hillary Clinton testicle lock box. You can finally grab the power that's keeping Hillary Clinton safe from tough media questions. The Hillary Rodham Clinton testicle lock box.

  Rush Limbaugh ad.

• Clip:
  "I have long told you, for example, Undeniable Truth of Life No. 24, written back in 1987: Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society. And even to this day, people pooh-poohed this and say it's insensitive: "How can you possibly say something like that?" Well, because I mean it, because I believe there's something to it."
  The "Truth" according to Limbaugh: Feminism established "to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society".
• Clip:
  "Eisenhower knows how to deal with the Russians. He has met Europe's leaders, has got them working with us. Elect the number one man for the number one job of our time. November 4th vote for peace. Vote for Eisenhower." 1952, 'The Man from Abilene'.