Unemployment, Poverty and the “Great” Recession
with
Avis Jones-DeWeever, Exec. Dir., National Council of Negro Women,
Marc Morial President & CEO of the National Urban League, and
former Mayor of New Orleans,
Dean Baker, Co-director, Center for Economic and Policy Research

Signs of economic recovery, well, maybe for Wall Street, and the banksters,
but what about our street? Where’s the beef, where’s the jobs? The United
States is still experiencing its worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression.
Officially in of May 2011 the unemployment rate increased to 9.1%. In 2009
there were 43.6 million people living in poverty, the largest figure in the 51
years for which poverty estimates are available, and the numbers have been
climbing. This national crisis demands a bold plan to put people back to work
and to prevent those wielding the ax from chopping more jobs and cutting
further holes in the safety net and jeopardizing entitlement programs.

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Robin Hood In Reverse: Presidential Commission Outlines $3.8 Trillion Theft From The Workers, Seniors, The Disabled, And The Sick
with
Dean Baker, co-director, Center for Economic and Policy Research

A presidential commission’s leaders outlined a $3.8 trillion deficit-cutting plan that would trim among other things Social Security and Medicare, reduce income-tax rates and eliminate tax breaks including the mortgage-interest deduction, the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit. Deficit reduction would also make it harder to emerge from the recession, causing tax revenues to fall further setting the stage for further budget cuts. The Social Security retirement age would rise to 68 in about 2050 and 69 in about 2075. AFL-CIO Pres. Richard Trumka said the panel chairmen “just told working Americans to ‘drop dead.’” In an e-mailed statement, Trumka said, “The very people who want to slash Social Security and Medicare spent this week clamoring for more unpaid Bush tax cuts for millionaires.” While the Commission’s Allan Simpson said the plan was designed to give members of the panel something to “chew on” for further discussions, it’s enough to choke the rest of us.

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Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report
National Edition 27:41
**************************************
An Occupation and On the Picket Line At The Visteon
Plants In Belfast And Enfield, London
with
Phil Wilson, machine setter, Visteon Ensfield plant
Jerry Campbell, retiree, Visteon, Belfast plant

Are Attacks on Social Security Coming Soon?
with
Dean Baker,
Co-Director,Center for Economic & Policy Research,
and author of Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of
the Bubble Economy

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click below for more information or to post to this blog



An Occupation and On the Picket Line At The Visteon
Plants In Belfast And Enfield, London

with

Phil Wilson, machine setter, Visteon Ensfield plant

Jerry Campbell, retiree, Visteon, Belfast plant

More than 600 Workers in Visteon car parts plants in Belfast,
Northern Ireland and Enfield and Basildon, England were given
6-minutes notice before their factories would be closing leaving
them without jobs and without contractually agreed upon layoff
benefits.The workers staged spontaneous sit-ins, first in Belfast
on March 31st that spread to two other plants. The workers in
Enfield stopped their occupation after being threatened with long
jail sentences. They are now picketing the plant around the clock.
The occupation continues in Belfast.
*********************
Are Attacks on Social Security Coming Soon?

with

Dean Baker,
Co-Director,Center for Economic & Policy Research,
and author of Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of
the Bubble Economy

Baker had warned for years about the coming recession due to
the real estate bubble and unregulated financial markets. Now that
we are in the middle of the crisis , the geniuses that got us into
the mess have been appointed to get us out of it, How smart is that?
But we can think of few better to outline what went wrong and how to
begin to set it right than Dean Baker who now warns us that some
in the the Obama Administration and Congress are planning attacks
in this year's budget on the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for the
bank bailouts.

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Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor ReportNational Edition
Produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
********************************************
159,000 Jobs Lost in August,
600,000 to loose homes this year by foreclosures What is to be done?
with
Dean Baker, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research
William Tabb, Economist and Author

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Will bailing out the banks to the tune of 700 billion dollars fix the liquidity crisis or will we need to nationalize the banks?And, what about the growing threat of home foreclosures, unemployment and contraction of the real economy. What is to be done?**********************************************************
for more information contact Ken Nash - knash@igc.org

Building Bridges is regularly broadcast live over WBAI, 99.5 FM in the N.Y.C Metropolitan area on Mondays from 7-8pm EST and is streamed, archived and pod cast at www.wbai.org .

Our website is http://www.buildingbridgesradio.org/

Building Bridges National Edition is regularly broadcast over: WGOT - Gainesville, Florida.WUOW - Oneonta, N.Y.WWUH, - West Hartford, CTWVJW- Benwood, WV KRFP, Moscow, ID KCSB, Santa Barbara, CA WXOJ, Northampton, MAKSOW,Cottage Grove, Oregon WKNH ,Keene, NHCKDU, Halifax, N.S., Canada KRFC, Fort Collins, Colorado WRPI, Troy, New York WNRB, Wausau, WI KRBS, Oroville, CA WHLD, Buffalo, NY Radio Free Olympia,Olympia,WAKQRP Salida, California East Hill Radio, Snoqualmie, WAKSKQ, Ashland, Oregonas well as internet stations: Radio Veronica,West Point, PAThe Journey Radio WXXESeattle Radical Radio Radio for Peace International Radio Labourstart AmericanFM.orgRadioDriftless.orgGrateful Dread Public Radio

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