As part of its new “Days of Giving” program, Wells Fargo distributed $1,000 to eight local non-profits, including the Memphis Union Mission and the Vance Avenue Youth Development Center, at the Memphis Botanic Gardens this morning.

But demonstrators with the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center were on hand to ask the lending giant to pay the more than $60,000 it owes Memphis and Shelby County.

How is this possible?  Brad Watkins of MSPJC can tell you:

By looking at foreclosures, deed transfers, as well as board-ups, demolition, and grass cutting fees, the group found 30 homes and 15 properties that Wells Fargo owes money on.

The city of Memphis also has a lawsuit pending against Wells Fargo that alleges the company engaged in predatory lending practices.

“They owe $60,000 in back taxes, fines, and fees for grass cutting,” said Brad Watkins with the Peace & Justice Center. “That’s just the data we had. That’s not the whole of it. We don’t have any data from 2010.”

City taxes are due at the end of August. Since county taxes are due this month, the group chose not to include 2010 delinquencies.

“They just kind of left these open sores in our neighborhoods,” Watkins said. “Now they want to get around it with throwing a little money around.”

OOPS.

Wells Fargo, which took over Wachovia last year, came to town to give out several $1000 grants as part of their Days Of Giving program, and even brought their famed stagecoach.

Wells Fargo plans to make this an annual event, but I think they understand now that while all the organizations who received grants are delighted to get them, we will be watching them CLOSELY.

In four months, Memphis City Schools Supt. Kriner Cash expects to identify as many as 50 schools to close or consolidate next year as he cuts district expenditures and streamlines schools where enrollment has plummeted in some cases to less than half capacity.

Cash said Monday night that he has not identified any of the schools that will be affected among 190 in the district. He said the decisions will be made after parents have a chance to speak in public hearings from early December through early February.

They apparently plan to look for other organizations, (translation: CHARTER SCHOOLS) to take over some of the empty buildings.

This is a good start, but let’s not take our eyes off the prize here: how much of the savings will be given to reducing class size or will it just go to fatten administrator salaries?

It’s hell to be a skeptic, isn’t it?

Last night, Memphis City Councilwoman Janis Fullilove informed me that she had received four phone calls from unknown numbers threating her life.  Each death threat referenced Fullilove’s sponsorship of the LGBT-inclusive employment non-discrimination legislation supported by Tennessee Equality Project.  Following these calls, someone threw a dead cat in Fullilove’s front yard.  Memphis Police have responded with added presence at her home.  Fullilove and her family are safe for the moment.

Gutless punks. Fullilove has been a supporter of equality in the city for a long time, and deserves praise, not threats, for proposing the NDO.  Cole asks a relevant question:

If an elected Memphis City Council member can be threatened and intimidated with violence for having the courage to advocate as a straight ally for LGBT inclusive workplace protections, imagine what a city employee working in sanitation services, the Police Department, or the Fire Department might experience. Gender and sexual orientation bias in the community and in the workplace is real.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are not the only ones who suffer from homophobia and transphobia in our society. Yesterday’s threats prove that such irrational sickness and ugliness affects the whole community.

Enough said.  I hope they find these punks and throw them in the basement of 201 Poplar.

As two “Boycott Target” groups sprang up on Facebook on Tuesday, the giant retailer defended its $150,000 donation to a group helping a Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate who opposes same-sex marriage.

Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel assured employees at the company's Minneapolis headquarters that the retailer’s support of the gay community was “unwavering.” He said employees, some gay, had raised concerns that the money was helping state Rep. Tom Emmer, a fiery conservative and the party’s likely nominee for governor.

Target’s money went to MN Forward, which is running TV ads supporting Emmer.

OK, you say, Target is STILL a big corporation, if not like Wal-Mart, so what’s the surprise?

The contrast between Emmer’s outspoken conservatism and Target’s moderate image is striking. Emmer lauds Arizona’s strict approach to illegal immigration and once advocated chemical castration for sex offenders. Target is known in Minnesota for donating to public school programs, food pantries and the annual Twin Cities Pride gay festival.

Monica Meyer, interim head of the gay rights group OutFront Minnesota, said that the gay community had long viewed Target as a supportive employer, and that many are surprised by the donation. The group posted an open letter urging Target to take back its money.

“A lot of people feel betrayed,” she said.

The two “Boycott Target” Facebook groups together had more than 3,000 followers by Tuesday evening. Some people posted business phone numbers for Target and Steinhafel, who individually also gave Emmer $2,000, the maximum under state law.

Ruh-roh.  So why again did Target donate to this guy?

In an e-mail to employees, Steinhafel said Target’s political donations are intended to support business objectives such as job creation and economic growth.

He said the company doesn’t have a social agenda or necessarily agree with all of the positions of candidates it supports. “Let me be very clear,” he said, “Target’s support of the [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] community is unwavering, and inclusiveness remains a core value of our company.”

As of Tuesday, Target was the largest donor to MN Forward, which had raised more than $1 million from industry trade groups and companies including Best Buy Co., Pentair Inc., Hubbard Broadcasting Inc., Davisco Foods International Inc. and Polaris Industries Inc.

Oh, I see, they’re ignoring the homophobe part to get the corporate shill part, is that it?  Well, good look getting those of us who believe in equal rights for all citizens to go along with that.

And I was just getting excited about the renovation of Target on Colonial, so much for that now…

Let’s not waste time, I need coffee and so do you!

Wow! SEVEN in TEN voters in a statewide poll OPPOSE the idea of firearms in restaurants.  Anyone here think that Democrats should use this in the fall campaign for the legislature?  I do.

However, in other polling news, SEVENTY-TWO percent of voters apparently support the Arizona law allowing police to check for proof of citizenship at traffic stops and other police stops.  Ok, how many of YOU carry proof of citizenship?

The last thing Jacksonians needed to hear: Stanley Black & Decker is closing its distribution center there, with 80 more people joining the unemployment rolls.  What happened to the recovery.  Oh wait, they’re not BANKERS, though, are they?  Sad, sad, sad.

The Flyer’s John Branston discusses the districting plan that the Metro Charter Commission is proposing for a metro government.

All right then, time to get ready for work.  if you have not early-voted, you have until this Saturday at 4 PM to do so; if you insist on being a traditionalist, Election Day is one week from tomorrow!  Enjoy your day, folks!

With the first day in from the start of expanded early voting polling sites, it looks as if Republicans have all but eliminated the early voting lead held by Democrats in the first week of early voting.

Over 4,000 people voted yesterday alone, bringing the total from 2,529 to 6,625. Of those, 3,305 chose a Democratic ballot compared to 3,279 getting voting in the Republican primary. If those trends continue, it is likely that more people will have voted in a GOP primary in early voting than they have in the Democratic primary.

Well, the only hot Democratic race there is the one between Senator Douglas Henry and attorney Jeff Yarbro, and that affects a small part of the county. There is another race between Rep. Mary Pruitt and newcomer Steven Turner, but it’s not as fierce and there may be overlap between those districts.

One suspects that the majority of Democrats are crossing over to vote in the GOP Primary for Governor, as Mike McWherter is unopposed in the Democratic Primary.

There are two possible reasons for this, in my opinion.  First, it could be that Democrats are crossing over to vote for whomever they believe is the weakest possible opponent for McWherter, which would mean a boost for Zach Wamp or Ron Ramsey.

However, the second option is a scary one: it could be that they have determined that McWherter cannot win in November, and they are crossing over to vote for Bill Haslam, so as to prevent the more rabid aspects of the GOP from taking over the state.

I am hoping that it is the former; only time will tell.

Surging Republican turnout is setting a pace for early voting numbers in the Aug. 5 elections that would break the previous Shelby County early voting record in a summer election.

Through Thursday, 30,388 voters had cast ballots, 28,856 since voting expanded to satellite sites on Monday — for an average of 7,239 since the expansion of locations. If there are 7,500 votes on each of the final nine days of early voting, it would push the numbers past 90,000, with 100,000 or more early votes a possibility.

Heavy Democratic voting due to the hotly contested 9th District race between incumbent Steve Cohen and former mayor Willie Herenton, right?  Well, maybe not so much as we would think:

sTurnout reports reveal that Republican voters are taking up a much larger share of the vote than they did in 2006 or 2008, a development that, if it continues, could throw a big wrench in Democratic hopes of taking most — if not all — countywide positions.

In the first three days of satellite voting, 45.1 percent of voters asked for Republican ballots in state and federal primaries compared with 54.8 percent for Democrats. That’s up from 30.6 percent Republican ballots after one week of early voting in 2008.

Statistics also show that many more registered white voters have turned out (10,351, or 43.8 percent) than registered black voters (7,820, or 33.1 percent) and those classified as “other” (5,482, or 23.2 percent), which mostly includes people who did not disclose race.

In the August 2008 early-voting period, black registered voters made up 43.2 percent of the early vote, compared with 37.5 percent for white registered voters and 19.3 percent in the “other” category.

Of the top 25 precincts by turnout percentage, 24 of them were majority white and majority Republican.

Ruh-roh! Well, the GOP does have a hot gubernatorial primary (for which I envy them) and in North Shelby County, there is that 8th District GOP throwdown between the gospel-singing farmer and the Two Doctors.

Note, however, that there are still more Democratic primary ballots requested than GOP.  Given the numbers, why?

However, local Republicans said they are seeing many reliable Republican voters in the 9th Congressional District asking for Democratic ballots so they can have a say in the congressional primary between incumbent U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen and former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton.

“There’s no question about it — that is happening,” Wiseman said.

So, how did Democratic leaders not see this coming?

Some of the ambition from Democrats was based upon 2008 turnout, when a big Democratic wave helped give President Barack Obama 63 percent of the vote, with just 35 percent support for Republican John McCain.

County Democratic chairman Van Turner still believes Democrats will have big showings during the final week of early voting and, especially, on election day.

Well, I have my own thoughts on this (SELF-PROMOTION ALERT! SELF-PROMOTION ALERT!) at my other blog, LeftWingCracker.  I believe that many African-American voters in Big Shelby are conflicted about keeping the Congressman they appreciate and voting against a revered historical figure, and can’t bring themselves to choose.

If the Shelby CountyDemocratic Party’s Coordinated Campaign can help these folks overcome this and get them out to vote between now and 7 P.M. on August 5, then the County Democratic ticket will do all right.  If not, then the much-expected Democratic takeover of County offices will be pushed back to 2014.

The city’s troubled General Services Division is planning to celebrate the careers of three employees who have recently resigned under scandal.

Interim General Services Director Rebecca Kissinger has signed memos requesting mementos from the mayor’s office and the City Council for Arthur Adams, Annette Clay and John Love.

In addition, GS is planning “a celebration” for Adams and Love on July 25.

Really???  So why again are they leaving?

All three have been implicated in a city investigation into a Fleet Services contract with Around Town Tire and Trucking, which has drawn the interest of federal investigators.

A City Attorney’s Office investigation released several weeks ago focused on the Fleet Services contract with Around Town Tire.

The investigation by Asst. City Atty. Gerald Thornton shows several contractual violations by Around Town Tire, such as not maintaining proper facilities for tire repair and using city facilities and workers to fulfill its contract.

Wait, isn’t this also the situation where they were selling 42-inch flatscreen TVs???  Why, yes it is:

Adams had purchased three 42-inch flat-screen televisions through a vendor that had a city contract for auto parts, All Parts. Adams also ordered parts for his Cadillac Escalade through another city contract with a company called Union Auto Parts, according to the report.

The only thing anyone should be celebrating is that these folks are off the city’s payroll.  This is EXACTLY the sort of thing Rick Masson was brought in to fix, but it seems he still has much to do in changing the culture at GSD.

Councilor Fullilove explains why she is leading the fight to the CA:

“No one should be discriminated against based upon their color, their sexual orientation, not at all,” said Fullilove. “A number of states and businesses here in the Memphis area, including FedEx, put in place mechanisms that would prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation. No one should be discriminated against. Everyone should have the ability to work and take care of themselves and families.”

Councilman Edmund Ford Jr. added language that also protects individuals based on age, national origin and disability.

The ordinance would prevent the city from discrimination in hiring, promotion or demotion of employees based on sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression. (Gender identity or expression refers to a person’s decision to live as a gender other than that with which they were born.)

This is one of the top twenty cities in population in the US, so we’re metropolitan to push this through with little opposition, right?  Wrong, sadly:

Steve Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church, said he was not “trying to be hateful or mean” but opposed the ordinance because he felt Christians who believe homosexuality is a choice could be discriminated against, or forced to hire gay people.

“We believe this ordinance against discrimination discriminates against people of faith,” said Gaines. “Would a Christian child care center be forced to hire a transvestite?”

We all saw THAT coming up Appling Road, didn’t we?  Well, the good Councilor reminded us that this would only apply to workers of the City of Memphis, not every business.

Jonathan Cole of the Tennessee Equality Project lobbied for passage of the ordinance:

Jonathan Cole, board chairman of the Tennessee Equality Project, said the ordinance should be approved and would put the city in the mainstream of municipal policies.

“An equality gap exists for employees who may be gay, lesbian or transgender,” said Cole. “Employees should be judged on their ability to do their job. We believe Memphis can do better.”

Question: why the hell is equality for ALL people even a question that should be debated?  This ordinance should be passed as quickly as possible, we need to send the message that NO discrimination will be tolerated in Memphis.  Period.

If you drive less than a mile from Southwind High School you can be in Germantown, Memphis, or unincorporated Shelby County (or Mississippi if you drive two miles). The tax rates where you end up vary from $4.06 to $7.22. Same stores, same roads, same public school, same water and sewer, same distance from downtown or the airport.

This is what the would-be architects of consolidated metro government are up against. The numbers are really ugly, and there’s no way to spin it before the vote on November 2nd.

That’s it right there, folks, County residents are getting subsidized by Memphis taxpayers, and they obviously don’t want to give that up, and why WOULD they?  Memphis taxpayers desperately need County taxpayers to pay their fair share of the social costs that come with living in a major metropolitan area.  Branston has more:

I see two main problems with the comparisons the charter panel is making between Memphis and Nashville and Louisville and Indianapolis and Jacksonville.

One is that those cities consolidated decades ago and their demographics were and are different. Nashville doesn’t have the big differentials in tax rates between its “urban services district” ($4.13) and its general services district ($3.56) that we have between Memphis and, say, Collierville or Germantown or Lakeland. Its tax rate has gone down in the last 40 years because the city is phenomenally prosperous, among other reasons that may include consolidation.

And the fact that Nashville, Indianapolis, etc. have lower tax rates than Memphis and are therefore more attractive to families, mobile job seekers, and businesses begs the comparison between Memphis and its suburbs. Why would you want to live in the Richwood subdivision near Southwind High School, which was annexed by Memphis and pay $7.22, when you could live literally across the street from the high school and pay $4.06? Or in Germantown and pay $5.48?

Or, in the most outrageous inequity of all, in the plush Southwind gated community a mile north of the high school and pay no city taxes because your residents had enough political clout to talk their way out of a half-hearted annexation push in 2006 and forestall the day, supposedly, until 2013? So did Windyke. Under consolidation, annexation would require a yes vote from the majority of residents in the annexation target. I don’t see that happening if Memphis comes courting.

Memphis is being choked to death by its own suburbs, even if the Tiny Towns law was never allowed to go into effect.  The insanity of not having a regional group for development (and, frankly, for TAXATION) is destroying the core city of Memphis, without which there is NO economy.

Branston’s summation:

What I fear, instead, is Memphis continuing to lose its tax base not just because Nashville has more appeal and lower taxes but because our own suburbs, incorporated or not, have more appeal, more stores, more work places, more solvable problems, more private and high-performing public schools, AND lower taxes.

I believe in Freakonomics but I don’t see how this flies. The suburban mayors and their residents have been appeased so much that I am not even sure it is a good deal, strictly from a tax perspective, for Memphis residents although I buy the “one voice” argument.

To put it bluntly: Tax freeze? No thanks. I want a tax cut to go with my pay cut, and I want it soon.

Amen, brother, preach it long and preach it loud!

One has to give credit to former mayor Willie Herenton for even trying to spin President Obama’s endorsement of his congressional opponent, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, as a plus for himself. It’s as if the captain of the Titanic had thrown a deck party on that famously slippery slope (as, in a way, having the band set up and play, he did)..

By its nature, the Obama announcement has drawn more attention to itself than other endorsements garnered by the incumbent congressman, fore and aft. But that of Harold Ford Sr., subject of a news release by Cohen on Wednesday, a day after the Obama bombshell, is worthy of some special attention.

Well, while we knew this was coming, it takes JB back to those heady days of 1991 when, for you youngsters who may not believe it, Ford and Herenton were, well, FRIENDS, if not for long:

The two have a professional relationship, and that’s part of it. But there’s more — and it bodes ill for Herenton, whose call for “Just One’ African American — himself — to serve in Congress from Tennessee surely depends on being the kind of consensus black candidate that Herenton was in 1991 when he first ran for mayor.

As it happens, that 1991 election season was the one and only time Herenton and Ford had functioned as political cohorts, and their alliance, an ad hoc affair motivated by constituent pressure and by a joint service to history, was a tenuous and short-lived affair.

Ah, memories.  Since then, of course, they have gone at each other hammer and tong, and this endorsement can’t have lifted the former Mayor’s spirits in the slightest. As JB notes in the wrap-up:

Harold Ford Sr. was the closest thing to a godfather figure that Memphis’ African-American community has seen, and he was the nearest thing to a political boss in these parts since Boss Ed Crump.

Though he is no longer an active day-to-day force in Memphis, Ford Sr. keeps his hand in, and for Herenton to think that he can achieve anything like domination of the African-American electorate in the face of the Obama and Ford endorsements of Cohen — not to mention the several black city and county personages who have thrown in with the congressman — is arguably delusional.

Herenton is now at a pass where he is desperately short of avowed allies, and the five-times unbeaten mayoral candidate of yore is now potentially up against every adversary, of whatever kind, he has ever had.

It is not an enviable predicament, with early voting about to be under way and with less than a month before election day.

The last time former mayor Willie Herenton met with the assembled media in his South Third St. congressional campaign headquarters, he let that “free for all” sprawl for all of an hour and a half and answered every question under the sun.

On Tuesday, a good month later, the only subject the media wanted to hear about, and the only one Herenton dealt with, was the out-of-the-blue announcement from the camp of incumbent 9th District congressman Steve Cohen of his endorsement for reelection by President Obama.

snip

Given the general perception (disputed by Herenton and his supporters) that Cohen already had a commanding lead in the congressional race, that Herenton’s main campaign pitch has been an appeal to black voters to elect one of their own to Congress, and that Obama is very likely the most important African-American icon in American history, advance speculation in the media had been genuine wonder as to how Herenton could possibly spin Tuesday’s stunning development to his own benefit.

All things considered, Herenton did a reasonably good job of walking that tightrope, though he teetered dangerously from time to time on the brink of intemperate or impolitic remarks.

His basic approach was, first, to note that he disbelieved in the appropriateness or value of candidate endorsements; next, that he respected, even loved, President Obama, but doubted the value of his endorsement of Cohen — especially since the decision on a 9th District congressman would be made locally, by the district’s voters, not by “Washington, D.C.. or Chicago” and, finally, that the very fact that Cohen had sought an endorsement from the president signaled a “desperation” on the congressman’s part, an awareness, Herenton insisted, that “80 percent, minimum” of the black vote was committed to himself, along with a minimum of 5 percent of the white vote.

He’s not going to admit defeat, folks, because he can’t conceive of the idea that a majority of African-American voters will vote for a white incumbent over him.  He was the first superintendent, and the first elected African-American Mayor, and everyone comes up to him and tells him they love him.

Of course they do, he’s a historical figure, and lots of folks do love him.  However, when they turn around and vote for Steve Cohen because he does a great job for them, it’s going to be a stunner for the former Mayor.  Back to the article:

The former mayor strove mightily to avoid negative comments about Obama but was not entirely successful.

“Most recent polls reveal, 6 out of every 10 Americans feel that our country is moving in the wrong direction,” Herenton said, “As much as I admire the Obama administration, they’ve not moved this nation forward.”

Herenton noted the president’s “declining” popularity and at one point attempted to minimize the significance of the Cohen endorsement by saying, “Mr. Obama has got to look hard and long to really know where Memphis, Tennessee, is.”

The Cohen camp had “rolled the dice” in seeking Obama’s endorsement, Herenton said. “In many cases, where the President has recommended people, they lost. This strategy could cause many Republican voters and people who anti-Obama to join the Herenton coalition.”

As if to further such a prospect, Herenton characterized himself as “more of an independent thinker, not as much to the left as Steve Cohen.” He said, “Cohen has been loyal to the Democratic agenda, I think, almost 100 percent,” while he himself was “more moderate, in the middle.”

He’s a Blue Dog?  In the 9th District??  Really?  THAT ought to go over well.  No wonder he’s not spoken about issues lately!

For videos associated with this, please go click on the link to the article above.  They speak for themselves

We’re sure that before it’s over Mr. Gales will be treated by the attorney general’s office as if he’s a drug kingpin and not just a musician with a bad habit.  We’re past the point of expecting a dose of rationality in drug charges and prosecutions, but wouldn’t it make a lot more sense – not to mention save a lot of tax money – to get Mr. Gales the help he needs?

Come to think of it, isn’t it about time to come up with an “exit strategy” for the war on drugs?

If it is possible for the Wharton Administration and Memphis Police Department wisely to decide to issue more summonses for juveniles accused of minor offenses, let’s try showing equal  judgment about drug charges.  As for the juvenile summonses, researchers have said that if we want reduce criminal offenders, the first step is to keep teenagers out of the juvenile justice system in the first place.

As Memphis Mayor AC Wharton rightly said, the “introduction into Juvenile Court often makes the situation worse.”   The new policy about juveniles extends the police officer’s discretion on whether to arrest juveniles.   It would be just as wise to apply the same approach to drug charges.   When King County (Seattle) did it, it reduced jail population by 25% with no attendant outbreak in drug crimes.

The progress in King County didn’t come from politicians, who are petrified of looking soft on crime.  Instead, it came from the bar association there, which said it wanted to undercut the violent, illegal markets that spawn disease, crime, corruption, mayhem and death and to find wiser uses for scarce public resources.

Reduced jail population 25%?  But don’t we need to PUNISH those dirty hippies????  Actually, SCM makes the case for loosening our laws, and jail is most assuredly NOT the place to get someone off drugs:

Our country’s heavy-handed drug eradication campaigns in Columbia are just about as successful in our military ventures in the Middle East.  The truth is that after decades and hundreds of billions of dollars fighting drugs, we’re no closer to eradicating them than we were when we started.  Perhaps, just perhaps, we should consider a different approach.  Harsh punishment for minor drug crimes is packing jails and running up public costs.

This year, governments will spend about $110 billion on the “war” on drugs, and it has been reported that about half are for marijuana charges at a time when cannabis is seeing wide use and growing tolerance.  Nationwide support for legalizing marijuana is 44%, up 8% since 2005.

Already, signs of a breakthrough in thinking are being seen, notably in California where voters will decide later this year if it should be legal for any Californian 21 years or older to grow or use marijuana.  There would be no need to show medical need, and cannabis would be taxed with projections that it can produce billions of dollars in new taxes.

The California State Conference of the NAACP has issued an “unconditional endorsement” of the legalization initiative. Alice Huffman, the group’s president, attacked the current marijuana laws as a de facto way to criminalize young black men, citing a Drug Policy Alliance report showing that while total marijuana arrests in California spiraled from 20,000 in 1990 to 60,000 in 2008, arrests for “youth of color” rose four times faster.

The hysteria over drug use has exacerbated the problem, rather than solve it.  Treat it as a PUBLIC HEALTH issue and not a moral issue, and you’ll help get people off this.  There is more to the article, but you need to read it all, especially the ending.

Missing from almost all discussion of America’s dizzying rate of unemployment is the brute fact that hourly wages of people with jobs have been dropping, adjusted for inflation. Average weekly earnings rose a bit this spring only because the typical worker put in more hours, but June’s decline in average hours pushed weekly paychecks down at an annualized rate of 4.5 percent.

In other words, Americans are keeping their jobs or finding new ones only by accepting lower wages.

Meanwhile, a much smaller group of Americans’ earnings are back in the stratosphere: Wall Street traders and executives, hedge-fund and private-equity fund managers, and top corporate executives. As hiring has picked up on the Street, fat salaries are reappearing. Richard Stein, president of Global Sage, an executive search firm, tells the New York Times corporate clients have offered compensation packages of more than $1 million annually to a dozen candidates in just the last few weeks.

We’re back to the same ominous trend as before the Great Recession: a larger and larger share of total income going to the very top while the vast middle class continues to lose ground.

And as long as this trend continues, we can’t get out of the shadow of the Great Recession. When most of the gains from economic growth go to a small sliver of Americans at the top, the rest don’t have enough purchasing power to buy what the economy is capable of producing.

This is a long article, and I want you to go over there and read it, and ask yourself why a DEMOCRATIC President and a DEMOCRATIC Congress can’t seem to push hard enough to break through and turn this around.

Enjoy.

The consensus of almost everybody who was on site at the Union Avenue studios of Channel 5 was that interim mayor Ford put on one of his best performances ever, looking mayoral and confident and scoring especially well with several improvised sallies, while Luttrell looked and sounded cautious, sticking close — with one significant exception — to the safety of previously established responses.

It appears that Mayor Ford’s aggressive anti-consolidation push and the response of voters may have gotten Sheriff Luttrell to take a stand, and not FOR the consolidation, either:

Previously Luttrell, while stating for the record that he had never been a “proponent” of city/county consolidation, had carefully held on to his options on the matter. While not quite a sea change, the Shelby County sheriff’s new tack was a definite policy shift — potentially as comforting to the GOP suburban base as a recent misstep by Luttrell on the issue of illegal immigration had been disconcerting.

Hmm, I guess moving to Bartlett and holding those coffee meetings with County residents is starting to pay off for Mayor Ford.

Even though he apparently had his usual problems with language, he still made a strong case for his term as Mayor:

The fact was, Ford made a compelling case that he had run an efficient government — one symbol of which, besides the Med (whose final salvation Luttrell, perhaps with justice, continued to dispute) was his newly passed budget, a something-for-everybody affair without new taxes or layoffs and with a modest employee raise.

Beyond that, the interim mayor kept resolutely and with some ingeniousness to his major talking points — that he single-mindedly committed to the task of governing and that he was “mayor of all the people,” mentioning Germantown, Millington, and Collierville as objects of concern frequently.

Read more here: this race is only going to get more interesting as it goes on.

Back in 2002, a professor turned Federal Reserve official by the name of Ben Bernanke gave a widely quoted speech titled “Deflation: Making Sure ‘It’ Doesn’t Happen Here.” Like other economists, myself included, Mr. Bernanke was deeply disturbed by Japan’s stubborn, seemingly incurable deflation, which in turn was “associated with years of painfully slow growth, rising joblessness, and apparently intractable financial problems.” This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen to an advanced nation with sophisticated policy makers. Could something similar happen to the United States?

Not to worry, said Mr. Bernanke: the Fed had the tools required to head off an American version of the Japan syndrome, and it would use them if necessary.

Well, Dr. K notes, we’re not there yet, but we’re certainly knocking on the door of deflation.  So, what is the Fed doing about this?  Little or nothing, apparently:

It’s debating — with ponderous slowness — whether maybe, possibly, it should consider trying to do something about the situation, one of these days.

The Fed’s fecklessness is, to be sure, not unique. It has been astonishing and infuriating, as the economic crisis has unfolded, to watch America’s political class defining normalcy down. As recently as two years ago, anyone predicting the current state of affairs (not only is unemployment disastrously high, but most forecasts say that it will stay very high for years) would have been dismissed as a crazy alarmist. Now that the nightmare has become reality, however — and yes, it is a nightmare for millions of Americans — Washington seems to feel absolutely no sense of urgency. Are hopes being destroyed, small businesses being driven into bankruptcy, lives being blighted? Never mind, let’s talk about the evils of budget deficits.

Still, one might have hoped that the Fed would be different. For one thing, the Fed, unlike the Obama administration, retains considerable freedom of action. It doesn’t need 60 votes in the Senate; the outer limits of its policies aren’t determined by the views of senators from Nebraska and Maine. Beyond that, the Fed was supposed to be intellectually prepared for this situation. Mr. Bernanke has thought long and hard about how to avoid a Japanese-style economic trap, and the Fed’s researchers have been obsessed for years with the same question.

But here we are, visibly sliding toward deflation — and the Fed is standing pat.

Read more here.

Memphis City Schools Supt. Kriner Cash’s annual salary of $275,738 makes him the highest-paid public executive in the county.

Cash earns $100,000-plus more than Memphis Mayor A C Wharton and $125,000 more than Shelby County Interim Mayor Joe Ford.

A comparison of all city and county salaries shows four of the five highest-paid executives in local government are employees of Memphis City Schools.

The City Council raised questions about MCS pay when council members learned last month that Gerald Darling, the head of city schools security who’s in charge of fewer than 100 employees, earns $167,412, when Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin, who supervises nearly 3,000 employees, makes $120,180 following the council’s recent decision to cut the pay of the city’s top earners by 5 percent.

All righty then.  Well, just so you know, the other member of the top 5 was ALSO an educational administrator:

The No. 2 salary slot among local public executives belongs to the Shelby County Schools superintendent. Cash’s counterpart in Shelby County Schools, Supt. John Aiken, makes $193,800 in a district less than half the size of the city schools.

What the hell???  I believe in education as much as anyone, but this tends to confirm to me that the problems in our schools are NOT teacher-related, but empire-building administrator-related.

Our public-school teachers have to deal with children who are raising themselves, either because their parents are working multiple jobs to survive or because some (not most, mind you) have parents who don’t care.  Yet it’s the teachers who get the blame when Johnny or Jane can’t read, write or count.

And yet, the more the City Council looks into MCS (when the MCS Board takes a blind eye, except for Reverend Whalum), the more Dr. Cash stonewalls any investigation.  Dr. Cash, that’s NOT the way to win the trust of taxpayers or parents.

OK, enough of my rant, go read the rest of Jane’s article here!

I’m up late, as many of you are, but you have until one PM to hit the Downtown or Cooper-Young Farmer’s Markets, and until 5 PM to go to the Agricenter Farmer’s Market.

Like Improvisational comedy?  You have two chances tonight at 8: The Wiseguys are appearing at Cafe Eclectic, and Running Gag’s monthly show happens at The

Evergreen Theatre at Poplar and, well, Evergreen.

Geez, I need coffee first, let’s go!

Excellent news from Habitat for Humanity of Memphis! They are one of the programs that are going to start REPAIRING homes in addition to building homes, way to go!

The ugly bar brawl that involved several UT Vol football players takes its toll on new coach Derek Dooley.

OOPS.  Senator Doug Henry’s staff may be in trouble for misusing state resources to target one of his challenger’s supporters.

Uncle Dave Macon Days are going strong this weekend in the Boro.

All right, that’s enough excitement, and it’s the weekend, so go enjoy, or just sit home and do nothing, that’s MY plan!

It looks like Memphis Area Transit Authority has finally reached a long awaited point: put up or shut up.

For years, MATA has offered up numerous justifications for the sad state of public transit in Memphis. At a time when efficient, effective mass transit is a competitive advantage for cities attracting talented workers, ours does just the opposite.

For many students and young workers who come here, MATA becomes a symbol for a city that just can’t seem to get its act together. And it’s not a bus that they take getting out of here fast.

If you have been to other cities in this country, such as Chicago, Boston, New York, San Francisco, you appreciate the fact that you do NOT need a car to live and work there, there is wonderful public transportation.

Then you come home to Memphis and find MATA.  Ostensibly designed to get maids from North and South Memphis to East Memphis and back, the system has suffered from a stigma that public transportation is only for poor people.  I even remember some moron writing into the CA said she didn’t want to ride with “icky” people.

Yet, our lack of dependable, USABLE public transit is killing our ability to recruit and keep 25-34 year olds here, and let’s let SCM pick up the story:

In the decade between 1990 and 2000, Shelby County lost 14,205 25-34 year-olds, and that was troubling enough, but in the first six years of this decade, we lost 18,482. In these same periods, Memphis lost 6,814 and 14,508 respectively.

Said another way, from 1990 to 2006, Memphis lost 21,332 25-34 year-olds and Shelby County lost 32,687 (including Memphis). DeSoto County gained 11,146 of this demographic, so our area had a net loss of 25-34 year-olds of 21,541 people.

In other words, slightly more than three 25-34 year-olds have left Shelby County every day for the past 16 years.

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean said that improving mass transit is the top issue that he hears from young Nashville residents (and keep in mind that Nashville’s public transit includes trains while we’ve managed to have trolleys that pretend to be transportation). Mayor Dean said he plans to move assertively to leverage newly passed legislation about dedicated funding source for mass transit to attract more federal funding and to upgrade his city’s system.

The silence here is deafening.

Preach, brother, preach!  REAL CITIES have REAL PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, and if we are not going to wither and die on the vine, we HAVE to have dependable, usable public transportation.

SCM is not done yet:

Operating with the attitude that public transit is for poor peoples with no other choices, MATA is a significant obstacle to the kind of progressive image (and more important, reality) that other cities like Nashville are using as a lure for talented workers.

Focus groups with college-educated workers here tell us that they expected a city of Memphis’ size to have a modern, welcoming, efficient public transit system. Instead, they complain that the recruiters’ promise of a lower cost of living was misleading because “no one told us we’d have to buy a car.”

For example, workers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital come from around the world. Researchers have lived in Paris, Boston and San Francisco. In other words, they know what a first-class transit system looks like. One relatively new arrival from Africa said she felt home at Memphis because so much of Memphis felt like a third world country – such as its bus system.

In previous years, MATA has suggested that it can’t attract more riders, and that was certainly born out by polling of the Sustainable Shelby project. It was widely predicted that climbing gas prices would force suburbanites out of their cars and back to city neighborhoods.

It never happened here and it’s not likely to unless something dramatic changes. Shelby Countians say gas prices would have to be $6.69 before they’d get aboard a city bus.

Go back and re-read that last sentence again, I’ll wait.  Maybe it’s NOT all racism, folks:

The fact that gas prices will have to increase at least 50 percent for MATA to start looking attractive says as much about the transit system’s reputation as it does about Shelby Countians’ concern for their carbon footprints. It also indicates that the record public transit ridership that is occurring across the U.S. won’t happen here.

The poll results are backed up anecdotally by Leadership Memphis’ regular experiment requiring its members to travel to a class day using public transportation. The experience is always an eye-opener, because most of the class members are among the 92 percent of Shelby Countians who don’t travel in MATA. Comments from Leadership Memphis fall into broad categories like the need for better customer service for MATA and cleaner, better-maintained buses.

Ron Ramsey might be an appealing candidate for Democrats to run against, but as liberal, left-wing Democrats we cannot in good conscience recommend him. He would reduce the size of State Government, cut taxes, eliminate social welfare programs, and work aggressively with Tennessee’s Congressional delegation to fight federal involvement in such matters as health care, energy, and the environment. In short, he would be a disaster for the Obama-Pelosi agenda and everything liberals stand for.

So true, indeed.  He’s not done yet, though, he’s got some for Zach Wamp, too:

Zach Wamp seems like a nice enough fellow, although a little intense at times. But he’s been in Washington too long and gotten too much support for Tennessee jobs in the automotive and defense industries, which aren’t in line with our liberal, left-wing ideology. Not only that, he has voted to restrict abortions, voted against cap and trade, and voted against the stimulus bill. Wamp is clearly out of step with the progressive liberal agenda.

Again, preach it, brother Neal, you have the choir singing well.  So, let him speak of Haslam:

Haslam has brought millions of federal dollars to Knoxville to improve neighborhoods and appointed a known Democrat to oversee it. He has gotten millions more in federal funding for homeless housing and secured large development fees for non-profit builders to build it. He has gotten more federal funding plus committed millions more in future local property tax revenues to revitalize Knoxville’s blighted downtown and help out struggling real estate developers.

Although he recently joined the NRA, Haslam at one time supported more restrictions on gun ownership and only reluctantly allowed guns in parks and playgrounds out of concern that the laws banning them were too confusing. And he’s not afraid to raise taxes when it has to be done.

Raise taxes???  But, but, but, but how can he be a REAL Republican if he has RAISED TAXES??  Hmm, maybe Mr. Neal is trying to imply something here?

As best we can tell, the only reason he’s running as a Republican is because that’s what candidates in East Tennessee do to get elected. With recent endorsements by various Tea Party groups and all his anti-federal, states-rights posturing, Haslam is simply running hard to the right in the primary and will govern to the left if he gets elected. Democrats could do a lot worse. (See above.)

I won’t give away the ending, you need to read the rest of it, but this is brilliant, my applause to my mentor from the east!

I was on Good Morning America this not-so-good morning, doing what I could. But I was struck by something that George Stephanopoulos said: he claimed to have been speaking to an administration official who asserted that what we need to get businesses investing is for business to know that the government has stopped — presumably, that means no new spending, no new regulation, whatever.

Wonderful.  At a time when demand is tanking, the Obama White House seems to be buying the deficit hawk line, to the detriment of the country.  But wait, the Nobel Laureate is not done here:

It’s garbage, of course: businesses are refusing to invest because they don’t see enough demand for their products. And administration economists know that it’s garbage. But obviously some people in the WH — I’m guessing a political person, but who knows — have bought the right-wing line hook, line, and sinker.

We’ll never know what might have happened if Obama and co. had actually had the courage of their convictions; what we do know is that they have undermined their own message at every turn.

Great.  At a time when America needs a return to the policies of FDR, we elect a Democrat who channels Herbert Hoover.  The President must be feeling really confident that the GOP will nominate Palin in 2012; if he’s not careful and doesn’t start focusing on jobs, he will be turning the White House over to her in January 2013, and won’t THAT be pleasant?

That said, he is as wrong as wrong can be on the issue of districts for a proposed Metro Government Commission.

Bill Dries starts his article on Flinn’s appearance before the Metro Charter Commission innocently enough:

With a week off for the Fourth of July holiday, Metro Charter Commissioners have a break before diving into one of the more political decisions they will make.

What size should a metro legislative body be and how many districts should a metro council have?

Oh boy.  I was reading along enjoying the aeticle when I found THIS:

Memphis City Council member Shea Flinn warned against an all district council or a council that doesn’t have something like the super districts the council has or the multi-position districts the Shelby County Commission has.

“Politics warps everything,” he told the charter group.

The discussion is where “art meets the science of politics beyond the theater of campaigning to actual governance,” Flinn said.

“It just forces the micro view on everything,” Flinn said of the influence of single member council districts.

“There is so much parochialism that comes up through it,” he said citing the council’s recently completed budget deliberations. “Out of fear that something will be cut from their district, they’re not going to let anything be cut from anyone else’s district. … The only people in those debates willing to even discuss the issue were the super district representatives. By their population base … we’re forced to take a broader look – a big picture.”

Ah yes, the MICRO view.  You mean the one that each neighborhood takes, Shea?  In the places most affected by your decisions? Whatever happened to bringing government closer to the people?  I understand Flinn is a super-district councilor, and might not be thrilled to see his position eliminated in a Metro Government, But really, Shea?

Look, I am not opposed to a concept that includes at-large districts, as long as they are REALLY at-Large, where the entire county would vote for five out of a large pool; that makes sense.  But the vast majority of seats on any Metro Commission should be districts, and the smaller the better.  Why, do you ask?

1) Smaller, walkable districts brings the election CLOSER to each district, and candidates can walk them; it will require LESS money to ruin for Council, meaning we are more likely to get people not beholden to developers with $$$$. (No, I am NOT inferring that Flinn is like that; he is, if anything, the OPPOSITE, as independent as they come, which makes this doubly frustrating).

Don’t believe me?  OK, let me break out the writings of Steve Ross from his other blog, Vibinc:

Shelby County is the largest county in Tennessee, both geographically and by population. There are many counties in the state that have legislative bodies that are the same size or smaller than ours, but there are also some like Weakley County, with a population of just over 33k has 18 Commissioners over 9 districts, and they’re not dealing with the area, population, or economy that Memphis has. The second largest county in the state, Davidson, has been a metro government since the 60’s. Their population is 70% of ours, their land mass is 66%, and their Government has some 40 council members, 35 of which are single member districts.

It doesn’t take a math wiz to figure out that the people of Nashville, and Weakley County for that matter, have more direct representation than the people of Shelby Co. In Nashville, there is one Council member for every 18,000 citizens. Compare that to Memphis, 1:96K or Shelby Co., 1:70k.

And, Ross addresses one of Flinn’s concerns here:

But more direct representation isn’t necessarily a panacea. The Metro Council is fragmented. There are just 5 members that represent the entirety of Davidson Co. (12.5% of the Council). This means that getting things done for the good of the overall community can be more difficult due to a “what’s in it for my neighborhood” mentality. Lobbying for a project or something, like the non-discrimination ordinance that recently passed, requires interest groups to mobilize more broadly, and be more politically savvy than they might have been with a smaller council.

See?  It’s not impossible to get something done, it just makes interest groups work a little bit harder for what they do, and that is NOY a bad thing.

However, leave it to my Commissioner, Steve Mulroy, who also spoke before the Metro Commission, to bring things back into perspective:

“I think that you need to strike a balance between single member districts and multi member districts,” Mulroy told The Daily News. “I’m not opposed to having some multi member districts. I think the emphasis should be on single member districts.”

Mulroy added that he is not rejecting all of the points made by Flinn.

“I can see there’s some merit to what he was saying. The trade off is the more multi member districts you have, the larger the single member districts have to be,” Mulroy said. “The harder it then is for people to have constituent representative contact. And then the harder it is for new candidates to break into the political system. That’s the trade off.”

Flinn argues back:

Flinn is adamant that single member district council members on his body are about the politics of bringing in projects for their constituents from parks to roads.

“They don’t care. They just want their district to be taken care of. That’s not a knock on them,” Flinn told the Metro Charter Commission last month. “That’s there job. That’s good legislation. But if all you have is single member districts, all it becomes is horse trading.. You don’t close my library and I won’t close yours.”

Um, that’s what they’re SUPPOSED to DO.  Mulroy then finishes off the argument:

Mulroy counters that his experience since winning a seat on the county commission in 2002 is that parochialism isn’t that much of a factor. He said 90 percent of the issues both legislative bodies grapple with are county-wide or city-wide.

“I never did see that as being that big of an issue,” Mulroy said of parochialism. “It certainly wasn’t for me. … I didn’t see it happening as much or with as much force as Councilman Flinn said that it happened on the city council side.”

I don’t like going after people I support, but Flinn is just flat-out wrong here, and if we DO manage to create a Metro Government this fall, it needs to have a minimum of 25 seats on the Commission, with 19-20 of them being Districts.  For me personally, if they just try and create a mish-mosh of the Council and Commission jammed together, I will vote NO.

Your thoughts?

We started on June 1, 2000, with 125 kids in the lunchroom of an elementary school near the corner of McLemore Avenue and College Street. Rufus and Carla Thomas were among the many musicians who conducted workshops, and the kids “graduated” at the end of six weeks at LeMoyne-Owen College. (I was outside in the bushes, so no one would see me crying.) They had a big grand finale concert at the U of M. (And I was in the bathroom, so no one would see me crying.) We carried on this way until the beautiful Stax Music Academy building opened in 2002, followed by the Stax Museum next door in 2003. We opened the school first, because we weren’t going to build anything at the original site of Stax Records unless it did something for the young people in Soulsville, USA. From that time until now, it has been a little piece of magic on earth.

The Academy helps children in the community develop their skills, musically, and in building their confidence, then sends them to play in some pretty impressive places:

As time went by, we switched from serving very young children and started concentrating on high school students who showed musical talent. They played for the likes of Bill Clinton, Bono (who jumped from his seat and gave them a standing ovation), Oprah Winfrey, Isaac Hayes, Bootsy Collins, the Memphis Grizzlies and their fans (during games on the court at halftime), and a host of others. They began playing every year at the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and they opened for B.B. King in Indianola. They opened the festivities at the famed Porretta Soul Festival in Rufus Thomas Park in Porretta Terme, Italy. They played the Rock and Roll Fall of Fame in Cleveland and the Kennedy Center on July 4, 2007.

They bust their butts, these kids do, but it pays off in the end by showing them that there is hope, that hard work CAN pay off and that they have more talent than they realize.  It pays off, you say?  Just check this out:

In 2009 and 2010, every single one of our Stax Music Academy high school seniors was accepted to a college or university, some on full scholarships and some with special grants. Some got accepted to prestigious colleges but had to settle for something more within their families’ budget. This summer five of them will attend the Berklee College of Music Summer Music Program on full scholarships. They are all working as hard as they can to raise money to have pocket money while they are there. One academy graduate, who I have watched grow up for 10 years, is touring with the current incarnation of Con Funk Shun and just returned from a gig in the Cayman Islands. That’s a long way from his home in 38106 Memphis, one of the most economically depressed zips in the country.

Tim sums up this precious jewel for our city better than I could:

Next time someone asks how you can live in a city like Memphis, tell them about the Stax Music Academy. I can only imagine what the next 10 years have in store. I’m sure I’ll be doing plenty more hiding, so no one will see me crying.

Insert obligatory "cold, dead hands" comment

So, what do they do for an encore?

They have been behind the insane push to allow guns in bars, restaurants, and parks, which we in Tennessee know all too well.  Rural legislators are petrified of them, lest they be accused of being commies who want to take your guns away and keep you from shooting the terrorists as they come over the ridge.  Or not.

How do they keep legislators in line now when there is little a legislator can do now to affect the right of a citizen to possess a gun?  Is this the point where the NRA suddenly finds itself LESS powerful because they got what they wanted?  This is going to be interesting to see.

As a gun owner myself since childhood ( I got a 20-gauge shotgun for my 11th birthday, and my father was a part-time gunsmith), I am not enamored of this, as I firmly believe the Court over-reached with its initial ruling that said that the Second Amendment guaranteed the right to own a weapon.  This applied to a “well-regulated militia”, not a human, but I digress.  Since the initial ruling, that’s moot.

I am also not a fan of the National Rifle Association, as they care not one whit about gun owners; they are there to represent gun MANUFACTURERS.  Don’t believe me?  Why then would they try to legalize possession of automatic assault weapons, since you sure as hell can’t use them for hunting?  So the gun manufacturers could SELL them by playing on people’s fears, that’s why.  Hell, I live in supposedly one of the most dangerous cities in the country, and I don’t need one, so neither do YOU.

It’s one thing to want to own weapons, I have nothing against that, as the majority of owners are decent people who follow every law.  In cities, however, is where the proliferation of guns, particularly handguns, have contributed to the increase in crimes of all sorts.  Usually, sadly, these crimes happen between people who KNOW each other, have an argument, and shoot one another.

America is an increasingly urbanized country, and the state of Tennessee is no different, with 55% of its population in the ten most populous counties.  As more and more people choose to own weapons, more accidents are likely to occur.  Why?  Because most didn’t have a father who understood them, as I did.

The question becomes, as time goes on, how will the NRA be able to sell its’ gun fetishism to urban counties where crime is more prevalent because there are simply more PEOPLE? How will they be able to push legislators to go against their constituents’ best interests?  Only time will tell.

Millington Mayor Richard Hodges isn’t big on writing things down just to say they are written down.

So, if you ask – as The Assisi Foundation of Memphis Inc. did recently – for a copy of the city’s plan for dealing with the May Day flooding, he won’t have a thick binder with a contingency plan within.

“I said, ‘Well, you’ll have to come out there and look because we didn’t have a written plan,’” Hodges recalled. “It all came together far better than if we’d had a plan.”

Millington was hit harder by the flooding than any other part of Shelby County.

The story also notes that Hodges is using stimulus money to improve Navy Road between US 51 & Veterans Parkway, in order to improve retail development.

What really struck me about the story is learning about how quickly Hodges is moving to get the town back in shape:

Last week, Hodges met at City Hall with national Federal Emergency Management Agency director Craig Fugate.

“There were so many people that were going to need temporary assistance and getting the FEMA programs started up early was a lesson learned in these kinds of disasters,” Fugate said.

FEMA officials found Hodges was moving just as fast if not faster.

Hodges and his department heads began planning for the flooding recovery before the storms dumped enough rain to top levees in the area. They were tracking the storms two days before they arrived in the area.

“If you drive through over there right now, except for the storage pods in the front yards, you can’t tell there’s been a flood,” Hodges said. “It’s been remarkable how the community has pulled together.”

Hodges, the only suburban mayor on the Metro Charter Commission, has been given the assignment of improving intergovernmental relations, and with this track record, it’s easy to see why:

The work was interrupted by the flooding. When Hodges made his recommendations they were essentially what happened when the waters began to rise. Surrounding cities and towns responded without being asked in many cases.

The city of Millington is also forgiving water, sewer and sanitation charges for residents affected by the flood. The city’s bills include a line advising those with flood damage to bring their bill to City Hall to have it “zeroed out,” Hodges said. Millington is also foregoing charges for building permits to repair flood damage.

THIS, my metro brothers and sisters, is how you make government work for people.  THIS is how you restore their faith that government CAN work for people.

Bravo to Mayor Hodges for getting Millington back on track so quickly!

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman writes in his NY Times column today about a potential upcoming depression:

Recessions are common; depressions are rare. As far as I can tell, there were only two eras in economic history that were widely described as “depressions” at the time: the years of deflation and instability that followed the Panic of 1873 and the years of mass unemployment that followed the financial crisis of 1929-31.

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.

Dr. Krugman notes, rightfully, I believe, that the G-20 policymakers are channeling a prior US president, but not FDR, but Herbert Hoover:

After all, unemployment — especially long-term unemployment — remains at levels that would have been considered catastrophic not long ago, and shows no sign of coming down rapidly. And both the United States and Europe are well on their way toward Japan-style deflationary traps.

In the face of this grim picture, you might have expected policy makers to realize that they haven’t yet done enough to promote recovery. But no: over the last few months there has been a stunning resurgence of hard-money and balanced-budget orthodoxy.

As far as rhetoric is concerned, the revival of the old-time religion is most evident in Europe, where officials seem to be getting their talking points from the collected speeches of Herbert Hoover, up to and including the claim that raising taxes and cutting spending will actually expand the economy, by improving business confidence. As a practical matter, however, America isn’t doing much better. The Fed seems aware of the deflationary risks — but what it proposes to do about these risks is, well, nothing. The Obama administration understands the dangers of premature fiscal austerity — but because Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress won’t authorize additional aid to state governments, that austerity is coming anyway, in the form of budget cuts at the state and local levels.

The good doctor suggests that there is almost a kind of economic sadism on the part of the G-20 policy-makers:

It’s almost as if the financial markets understand what policy makers seemingly don’t: that while long-term fiscal responsibility is important, slashing spending in the midst of a depression, which deepens that depression and paves the way for deflation, is actually self-defeating.

So I don’t think this is really about Greece, or indeed about any realistic appreciation of the tradeoffs between deficits and jobs. It is, instead, the victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times.

And who will pay the price for this triumph of orthodoxy? The answer is, tens of millions of unemployed workers, many of whom will go jobless for years, and some of whom will never work again.

Re-read that last sentence: some workers will NEVER WORK AGAIN.  And all because our policymakers in Washington and around the world want to punish the non-wealthy for being non-wealthy.

Don’t think voters won’t remember this in November.

Uh-oh.  Right now, it looks like it will head toward South Padre Island and miss the areas of the Gulf affected by the oil spill, but just remember: these often turn northeast, which would put it right in the path of the spill.

Just what we needed.  For updates, go here.

So why is it not being run on the national newscasts?  It’s great that it’s a webcast, but damn, EVERYONE needs to see this.  If you don’t go big, who will know?

Howard Dean would have run this on TV.  Enough said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday that if Congress fails to reauthorize extended unemployment benefits and other domestic aid programs, the economy could head for a double-dip recession.

“If we really don’t address this in a very serious way, we could slip back and have another recession, and if we do it’s harder to come back,” said Pelosi.

Well, Madame Speaker, you are doing YOUR job, tell Ben Nelson, who joined Senate Republicans in stopping the bill on Thursday.  More:

Pelosi told HuffPost Friday that to meet the demands of deficit hawks, Democrats might agree to offset the cost of the spending. She didn’t offer specifics.

“It really has to happen,” said Pelosi of reauthorizing extended benefits. “One of the debates that goes on now — which I completely resist, but it’s one of the debates going on — is at the end of the day, these people have to have their benefits, and should we begin paying for unemployment benefits?”

The domestic aid package, known as the “tax extenders” bill, also includes tax breaks and aid to states. To appease conservative Democrats concerned about the bill’s deficit spending, party leaders in the House and Senate have whittled away at the bill, eventually reducing the 10-year deficit impact from $134 billion to just $33 billion in the Senate version. That remaining chunk represents the cost of reauthorizing the extended unemployment benefits through November.

While Republicans and conservative Democrats like Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) have insisted that the entire bill be offset, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have refused to cave so far. Historically, extended unemployment benefits in times of high unemployment are always classified as “emergency” spending and are not offset.

Shouldn’t someone make Nelson sit down and read Paul Krugman, who has been fighting deficit hawk-mania for months?  It makes sense to me, but not to the Republicans and the deficit hawks, who are trying to turn the world back to 1937.

jpg courtesy of Gale Jones Carson and LeftWingCracker.

Seriously, this has replaced the St. Peter’s Picnic as the go-to summer political event.  It is a blast, and everyone SHOULD be there, but may not, more on that later.

What, you want more????  Really?  Well, Shep Wilbun is opening his campaign headquarters at 3161 Poplar at 2 PM, which is supposed to last until 6 PM.

Oh, I know, you’re passing because of some game?  Well, then maybe you ought to join the hordes at Celtic Crossing to watch the USA-Ghana game in the Round of 16 at the World Cup.  Game starts at 1:30. but I’d get there earlier than that, because it will be jammed!

On Sunday, if you’ve recovered from Saturday, go hit the Hooks Library at 3 PM to hear a discussion on THE INFLUENCE OF MONEY ON OUR DEMOCRACY, with guest speakers Dr. Heather Larsen-Price of the U of M and County Commissioner, law professor, karaoke legend and all-around good guy Steve Mulroy.

It’s too late for coffee for me, I’ll have some when I wake up, see you later!!!!