Sunday, July 31, 2011

Free trade talks put U.S. shoe jobs in balance

Free trade talks put U.S. shoe jobs in balance

Now, however, comes what may be an insurmountable challenge. The Obama administration is negotiating a free-trade agreement with Vietnam and seven other countries, and it is unclear whether the plant can stand up to a flood of shoes from that country, already one of the leading exporters of footwear to the United States.

"We are deeply concerned by the inclusion of Vietnam in a potential free-trade agreement," said Rob DeMartini, president and chief executive of New Balance.

...The shoe tariff, by pushing up the cost of importing shoes, means a pair of athletic shoes made in the Norridgewock factory or anywhere else in the U.S. is more competitive than it otherwise would be, and partially offsets the costs of higher wages paid here. On a pair of shoes that comes into the country valued at $30, for example, a typical 20 percent duty amounts to $6. (In many cases, the markup amounts to 100 percent, meaning those shoes would sell to consumers for $72.)

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Jeffrey Sachs: Budgetary Deceit and America's Decline

Jeffrey Sachs: Budgetary Deceit and America's Decline - Americans for Political Change

Ron Paul polls just 4 points below Obama if the two ran head-to-head

Jobrny's Rant: Ron Paul polls just 4 points below Obama if the tw...: "This is embarrassing for the President. Ron Paul is a fringe candidate with no chance of being the nominee of the Republican Party. This sho..."

Gunmen kill Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran

Jobrny's Rants: Gunmen kill Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran:

"Gunmen kill Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran Gunmen on a motorcycle assassinated an Iranian nuclear physicist on Saturday, Iranian medi..."

U.S. wastes $34 billion in Afghan and Iraq contracting

That's money that could have gone towards reducing the debt.
http://ping.fm/bElIN

Friday, July 22, 2011

Federal Spending In Ron Paul’s District Quadrupled In The Last Ten Years

Federal Spending In Ron Paul’s District Quadrupled In The Last Ten Years
THINK PROGRESS | JULY 22, 2011
http://pulse.me/s/NOHd

Federal spending in anti-government Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) district has quadrupled since 1999 to more than $4 billion, ... read more

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REPORT: Number Of Tea Party Events Down More Than 50 Percent In 2011

REPORT: Number Of Tea Party Events Down More Than 50 Percent In 2011
THINK PROGRESS | JULY 22, 2011
http://pulse.me/s/NVqs

Last September, Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin answered critics who predicted that the movement would soon ... read more

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Thursday, July 21, 2011

Harry Reid: House Taking A Weekend Off Could Cause Catastrophe

Harry Reid: House Taking A Weekend Off Could Cause Catastrophe
HUFFINGTON POST: POLITICS | JULY 21, 2011
http://pulse.me/s/MPm3

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are setting up a catastrophic U.S. default by deciding to take a weekend off while time to ... read more

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Friday, July 15, 2011

94-year-old upset by TSA pat down

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news%2Flocal&id=8250625

A 94-year-old wheelchair-bound Florida woman says a search she went through at Raleigh/Durham International Airport went too far.

Marian Peterson said it happened July 6 as she went through a TSA security checkpoint before boarding a flight home.

Peterson said she was selected for extra screening. First, security officers lifted her out of her wheelchair and helped her stand in a full body scanner. Then, she was given a physical pat down.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Mystery of twin's brain damage tied to wipes

Mystery of twin's brain damage tied to wipes
MSNBC | JULY 11, 2011
http://pulse.me/s/CZzO

For nearly four years, no one knew what caused the rare bacterial infection that left Myles Massey brain-damaged while his twin ... read more

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Bad bug: Gonorrhea strain resists all drugs

Bad bug: Gonorrhea strain resists all drugs
MSNBC | JULY 11, 2011
http://pulse.me/s/D04d

For several years, public health officials have been concerned that gonorrhea, one of the most prevalent STDs in the world, ... read more

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Pawlenty blasts Bachmann's 'nonexistent' record

Pawlenty blasts Bachmann's 'nonexistent' record
MSNBC | JULY 11, 2011
http://pulse.me/s/CViz

Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty said Sunday that 2012 rival Michele Bachmann has a "nonexistent" record of ... read more

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Bush Tax Cuts Cost $2 Trillion in Revenues

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Labor Angered by Obama's willingness to cut Social Security in Debt ceiling Deal

http://www.facebook.com/Powor/posts/232826750071494

Unions are making it known that Social Security cuts are unacceptable to them and say they will lobby against any cuts to the popular entitlement program.

“I think this is a huge political mistake for Democrats,” Chuck Loveless, legislative director for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), told The Hill.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

NY Times Column: The Unemployed Don't Matter to the Politicians

http://www.facebook.com/Powor/posts/182258555169249

What gives? And where, if anywhere, is the outrage?

The United States is in the grips of its gravest jobs crisis since Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House. Lose your job, and it will take roughly nine months to find a new one. That is off the charts. Many Americans have simply given up.

But unless you’re one of those unhappy 14 million, you might not even notice the problem. The budget deficit, not jobs, has been dominating the conversation in Washington. Unlike the hard-pressed in, say, Greece or Spain, the jobless in America seem, well, subdued. The old fire has gone out.

Wisconsin GOP Running Fake Democrats to Undermine Recall Elections

http://www.facebook.com/Powor/posts/109139399181199

It looks like allies of Wisconsin Republicans are growing so desperate that they’re resorting to sleazy dirty tricks in their last-ditch bid to help the GOP hang on to the state senate.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Scientist: NKorea paid Pakistanis for nuclear tech

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PAKISTAN_NKOREA_NUCLEAR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

The founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program claims that in the late 1990s North Korean officials paid kickbacks to senior Pakistani military figures in exchange for critical weapons technology.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Union Workers Replaced With Prison Labor Under Scott Walker’s Collective Bargaining Law

Union Workers Replaced With Prison Labor Under Scott Walker’s Collective Bargaining Law

While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it’s helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Polifact: Gov. Scott Walker's Statement that “the largest deficit ever in Wisconsin” was 2 years ago, is false.

http://www.facebook.com/Powor/posts/213411672034845

Appearing on a national cable TV show viewed by some 269,000 people, Walker said the state’s largest structural deficit had come two years earlier, under his Democratic predecessor. He was off by seven years and a political party.

We rate his statement False.

Since 2009, 88 Percent Of Income Growth Went To Corporate Profits, Just One Percent Went To Wages

http://www.facebook.com/Powor/posts/184152794975276

“Between the second quarter of 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2010, real national income in the U.S. increased by $528 billion. Pre-tax corporate profits by themselves had increased by $464 billion while aggregate real wages and salaries rose by only $7 billion or only .1%. Over this six quarter period, corporate profits captured 88% of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1% of the growth in real national income. …The absence of any positive share of national income growth due to wages and salaries received by American workers during the current economic recovery is historically unprecedented.”