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Employment recession

11 January 2010 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

Quoted from Silicon Alley Insider, the chart above by Calculated Risk…

… shows the decline in jobs as a percentage of the work force at the peak.

To date in this recession, we’ve lost more than 8 million jobs.  The decline as a percentage of the workforce is the worst since the Great Depression, matching the sharp but short drop in 1948, as the war machine wound down.

Equally important, the duration of these job losses, as well as the lack of a sharp recovery (at least so far), suggests that the problem will be with us for a long while.  We’re now 24 months into this decline, and we’re still at the bottom.  By this point in most previous recessions, we had already recovered all of the lost jobs.

Wow.

Filed Under: Interests, Life Tagged With: employment, recession, US

a magazine “for people who give a damn”

25 November 2009 by Nathalie Abejero 2 Comments

Above is a great series of videos from the YouTube GOOD channel. This one was taped last year, and is quite timely for starting this year’s holiday season.

I love data visualisation blogs. There are so many infographics published every day, and these data scientists critique the transparency and fairness of the data, as well as the presentation of the message. One of the blogs I came across is GOOD, which is a quarterly US general-interest magazine founded in 2006 with a focus on social issues, politics, and sustainable living. Check out their website. It’s chock full of questions and features to stimulate dialogue and collaboration for solving some of the world’s biggest problems.

Billed in its first release as a “free press for the critical idealist”, it was launched in 2006 by Ben Goldhirsh, son of the creator of Inc. Magazine. Departing from the normative industry strategy, Good’s subscription fees go entirely to charity, and their marketing budget go to throwing block parties in large cities rather than to direct mail. While critics charge that this model is not viable– it has yet to break even after two years– the magazine has attracted a lot of attention and press, particularly from NPR, Foreign Policy, Washington Post and NYTimes. It’s also been nominated for several national magazine awards.

I’ll be giving a subscription to some friends this Christmas, before I leave again for Cambodia.

Filed Under: Interests, Life Tagged With: GOOD, magazine, social causes, US

on the Public Option in US health reform

6 November 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

With the complexity of health reform, dialogue often strays into tangential issues including some intentionally confusing ones like immigration, government, political ideology etc. We need to focus on the need for public option in the first place. Here’s Gillian Hubble’s take on Change.org, 03 Nov 2009:

Political games are alive and well in Washington, D.C. First the House releases HR 3962, a disappointing bill with an optimistic and completely misleading name – the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Then the GOP decides it’s an opportune time to release its own bill, which House leader John Boehner says will lower cost and expand access by “making the current system work better” with less government intrusion into the private sector. Sounds great John, only, well, there is no system … and that whole government intrusion line? Well, that brings me to my point. Why do we need a public option again?

It seems politicians on both sides of the aisle have lobbyist-induced amnesia on that aspect. Democrats hope including a public option – no matter how weak and ineffective (a more expensive alternative to private plans that covers 2% of the population? Please!) – is all it takes to please the public, even if it’s designed to fail. Meanwhile, Republicans decry government intervention and propose tweaks around the edges of our disastrous healthcare mess that conveniently avoid touching the profit-driven culprits themselves. In other words, the US has heart disease and our D.C. representatives suggest blood transfusions, an artificial knee replacement and a flu shot.

Case in point: the central aspects of the GOP bill are tort reform, insurance pools, and inter-state policy purchases. Two of the three are already in place in many states – they haven’t budged healthcare costs significantly (tort reform achieves 10% reductions in malpractice insurance, per the CBO.) Tort reform is a good idea anyway, but not for cost curve reasons. The third proposal, while useful, doesn’t help much when insurance costs are out of control nationwide.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior policy adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign, knows that now. The same man who touted a $5,000 insurance tax credit per family as the answer to our insurance woes now remains unemployed and his $1,000 per month COBRA is running out. He’s shopping the individual insurance market at age 51 and with a pre-existing condition that insurers cite in denying coverage. Think he’s a bit worried? All politicians should be placed in that situation; maybe they would get a clue.

Anyone familiar with T.R. Reid’s body of work on international universal healthcare systems knows that a public option isn’t a part of many of them (gives “socialized medicine” a rather hollow ring, doesn’t it?) There is a single public payer in some (Canada), multiple private insurance payers in others (Germany, Switzerland) and some countries use a combination (England.) What’s the difference then? Very simply, their ‘private insurers’ are non-profit corporations governed by iron-clad regulations: no loopholes, no kickbacks, no lobbyist favors, no profit or surplus beyond required reserves.

Why is that? Insurers are there to provide payment for the care of country residents, with no deliberate and systematized waste and no tricks. Patients are not pawns in a giant profit mill. Now, does this sound like the situation in the US? It seems like the banks and the healthcare industry own Washington, D.C. While Joe Public pays for congressional salaries and benefits (with fantastic health plan choices), lawmakers actually work for Joe Lobbyist. So whatever regulations are placed around the health insurance industry, we can rest assured they will be weak and full of holes by design.

Making sure people are covered and making sure that coverage is affordable are two different things, a distinction neither party has addressed satisfactorily. A strong public option is just one of two methods to keep private insurer prices and practices in line, regulation being the other. But if regulation is to be the answer, we need a representativectomy and a lobbyist exterminator to spray the capital. That seems unlikely. As Nancy Pelosi “mistakenly” left Kucinich’s state single payer amendment out of HR 3962 (as of scheduling this post, it hadn’t been reinstated), we can’t vote with our feet by becoming interstate medical refugees. So I’m still pushing for a strong public option.

Filed Under: Interests, Life Tagged With: health reform, public option, socialism, socialist, US

The Socialist-Free Purity Pledge!

18 September 2009 by Nathalie Abejero 2 Comments

Please print and sign the below pledge from DailyKos. Ask all your teabagger/libertarian friends and family to sign it!

The Teabagger Socialist-Free Purity Pledge

I, ________________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:

I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.

I will complain about the destruction of my 2ndAmendment Rights in this country, while I am duly >being allowed to exercise my 2ndAmendment rights by legally but brazenly brandishing unconcealed firearms in public.

I will forswear the time-honored principles of fairness, decency, and respect by screaming unintelligible platitudes regarding tyranny, Nazi-ism, and socialism at public town halls. Also.

I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life. I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:

*Social Security
*Medicare/Medicaid
*State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)
*Police, Fire, and Emergency Services
*US Postal Service
*Roads and Highways
*Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)
*The US Railway System
*Public Subways and Metro Systems
*Public Bus and Lightrail Systems
*Rest Areas on Highways
*Sidewalks
*All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., see Iowa 2009 federal senate appropriations) [Read more…] about The Socialist-Free Purity Pledge!

Filed Under: Interests, Life Tagged With: health reform, socialism, socialist, teabagger, US, wingnut

Happy Burfday America!!

5 July 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

_MG_1645 me sm fuzz by you.

Cheers from this side of this rock’s molten core! I was decidedly NOT too enthused about joining an event where Americans by the thousands gather at the American Embassy to celebrate this American holiday. (Seems like putting a bull’s eye on ya, eh?)

But it was ok! We were safe! North Korea even kicked the celebrations off with dud scuds all throughout the morning (A for Effort!). And sheesh the number of Americans in Phnom Penh always astounds me :-)

_MG_1434 girls sm by you.

Naturally I was there on task for the Democrats Abroad Cambodia. I was politically unaffected throughout the election season of two years until Sarah Palin grabbed the VP nomination and ended John McCain. Our little Cambodia team kicked butt of all DA groups all over the world with 100x our budget and number of expatriates. We rock, dude! And Americans abroad? You rock, cuz your votes gave the Dems six seats, plus handed the presidency to Obama!
Actually, more accurately: the vote-from-abroad reforms that were put into place in time for POTUS elections 2008 allowed overseas ballots to be counted from the get-go instead of placing them in a pile to be opened ONLY if a tie needed to be broken! We have a great team, and even though I’m not a Democrat I’m happy to work with them to change some things that adversely affect American expatriates.

_MG_1480 nat DA sm by you.
4th of July Party at the US Embassy by you.
_MG_1550 corndogs sm by you.

This is the first time I’ve ever had a corndog can you believe it? The Embassy special-imported these from the US. I now know why I never bothered to try them in the first place :-)

_MG_1768 stage sm by you.

Keith’s basketball buddy here onstage rallying the crowd. That was an awesome crowd (over 1500!). Great event, good to get in touch with Americana. Got my homesickness over with for a little while :-)

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: 4th July, America, Independence Day, July 4, US

Has the entertainment factor gone, post-Bush?

24 January 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

When the prevailing social constructs are blown to hell and back with the election of a black man to the White house [sic], there are social repercussions of a most disturbing kind, namely, what the heck do we do for entertainment now?? It was totally within the realm of political correctness to poke fun at Palin, who embodied the stupid white bimbo persona to a tee, and of course we had eight years of Bush, the perfect caricature of the cowboy simpleton we’ve come to love (or not) from decades of Westerns. Ditto with all the other white males (and females) whose daily grind and spiel are immortalised in the reels of Saturday Night Live and the late night cadre of satire and wit.

But what do we do with Obama? Granted, he doesn’t provide much fodder for wit in the gaffes and boneheaded blunders department that Bush was so obliging with. But why can’t we get a good laugh at the expense of this Commander-in-Chief? As with any unchartered territory, this massive ideological shift presents extremely dangerous grounds for comedians of any color and progressives of all objections. Someone of such historical significance can be brought down for the sake of a simple joke, sure, but it’s a colossal gamble just beyond the ability of our prevailing cultural zeitgeist –just yet.

And a telling commentary on progress in race relations…

Unprecendented heights of popularity worldwide and mammoth support for Obama aside, I hope we can move past this social hiccup where comedy runs smack into race, cuz it’s only been four days and all the seriousness is gettin’ kinda dull…
.

Filed Under: Interests, Life Tagged With: bush, obama, US

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Those little feet pitter-pattering about rule our lives lately. But on the occasional free moment I get to tap out scatterbrained bursts of consciousness about raising toddlers in Cambodia, traveling with them and working abroad. These posts are my personal updates to friends and family. But since you’re here, have a look around. Thanks for stopping by…

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