The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s recent data on college graduates has been a gift that keeps on giving. The plethora of information has provided great insight into the millennial generation’s current economic predicament.

In their most recent report, Jaison Abel and Richard Dietz of the New York Fed found that only 27 percent of college graduates have a job related to their major. Their report also confirms that much of America’s youth is underemployed: only 62 percent of graduates had a job that required a college degree in 2010. This comes as no surprise, since 58 percent of jobs created during the recovery have been in low-wage occupations.

Given that reality, and student loan debt that now exceeds $1 trillion and surpasses credit card and mortgage debt, many have begun to question the value of a college education. Graduates under 30 years old now carry an average of more than $21,000 in debt. College enrollment is already 2.3 percent lower than it was this time last year.

On July 1, this argument will be strengthened if Congress allows student loan interest rates to double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has proposed a bill that would resolve this issue by allowing students to receive the same rock bottom interest rates as big banks, currently at 0.75 percent. (By contrast, House Republicans have passed a student loan bill that would actually raise rates above 4 percent. President Obama has vowed to veto the bill.)

The last thing struggling families and students need is another blow to their pockets. Millennials are less likely to buy a car or a home, becoming permanent renters. What we are burdening them with is weighing down the entire economy and hindering our recovery.

The employment situation has already scarred a generation and robbed them from a decade’s worth of wealth. Similar to the housing crisis, student loans may be the next bubble to burst. As tuition rises and unemployment remains high, students are right to feel they are being tricked into purchasing a “lemon.”

The predicament America’s youth has fallen into resembles the 1980’s song “Should I Stay or Should I Go Now.” Students must decide if they should be improvident for a degree that will land them a job as a barista and large monthly loan payments, or ride the economic wave until times are better and get a job that relates to their degree.

No one knows the correct answer. The only thing we know for certain is that the government needs policies that support students, create jobs and invest in our country.

As the song goes: “Should I stay or should I go now? If I go there will be trouble. An if I stay it will be double.”

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB), an independent federal body charged with investigating industrial accidents, has accused a federal law enforcement agency of interfering with its probe of the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas last month.

In a letter to Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, CSB’s top official wrote that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Texas state fire marshal had blocked CSB investigators from examining the accident site.

“To date, the CSB has experienced significant obstacles that potentially compromise and delay our ability to complete the ‘comprehensive investigation’ that you have rightly demanded, and that we would very much like to produce,” Rafael Moure-Eraso, CSB’s chairman, wrote.

Moure-Eraso also wrote that the “incident site was massively and irreversibly altered under the direction of ATF personnel, who used cranes, bulldozers and other excavation apparatus in an ultimately unsuccessful quest to find a single ignition source for the original fire.”

CSB believes the cause of the fire was likely an accident, making it unnecessary to treat the site as a crime scene. But that’s how ATF and the Texas fire marshal have proceeded, preventing CSB officials—including two presidential appointees to its board—from entering the former plant.

ATF has said it was the fire marshal’s decision to bar CSB from the site.

“We have to protect evidence,” Fire Marshal’s Office spokeswoman Rachel Moreno told the Austin American-Statesman. “We need to have one report, one set of interviews; it all has to be clear cut.”

CSB claims ATF and the fire marshal have not taken care to protect company documents left at the plant, saying papers have been seen “blowing around” the area and being exposed to rain.

Boxer plans to hold hearings on the accident, which left 15 people dead and more than 200 injured.

LONDON (AP) — British police say two men have been arrested on suspicion of endangerment of an aircraft after an incident on a civilian plane flying from Pakistan to England.

A jet was launched to divert the Pakistan International Airlines plane carrying nearly 300 passengers to Britain’s Stansted Airport on Friday. It was originally supposed to have landed in Manchester.

Essex Police said that two men have been arrested and removed from the plane, which is on an isolated runway at the airport.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

The defense team for George Zimmerman, the man accused of killing unarmed teenager Travyon Martin, released dozens of photos and text messages of the 17-year-old murder victim in a seeming effort to portray him as a “gangsta” troublemaker.

It is unclear whether the texts and photos will be permissible in court, though attorneys for Martin’s family claim they represent “irrelevant red herrings.” Zimmerman’s attorneys are expected to use the “evidence” to make insinuations about Martin’s character, as the Zimmerman can be heard in a 911 call accusing the teen of being “up to no good” and “on drugs or something.”

The “evidence,” posted on a website run by Zimmerman’s attorneys, includes text messages from Martin discussing cannabis, a school suspension and a troubled home life, as well as several texts expressing interest in guns. The defense also posted 25 photos of Martin, some previously released on the internet, which include photo of the teen wearing gold teeth and flicking the camera off, as well as a photograph in which he appears to be smoking cannabis.

Benjamin Crump, an attorney representing Martin’s family, noted the irony of Zimmerman’s defense pushing a stereotypical image of Martin in a case already fraught with racial implications.

“Is the defense trying to prove Trayvon deserved to be killed by George Zimmerman because of the way he looked?” Crump said in a statement obtained by NBC. “If so, this stereotypical and closed-minded thinking is the same mindset that caused George Zimmerman to get out of his car and pursue Trayvon, an unarmed kid who he didn’t know. The pretrial release of these irrelevant red herrings is a desperate and pathetic attempt by the defense to pollute and sway the jury pool.”

One of many striking example of an apparent “red herring” released by Zimmerman’s defense is text messages referring to Martin’s homelife. In one text, from Nov. 22, 2011, he writes, “My mom just told me i gotta mov wit my dad … She just kickd me out.”

Some legal experts say Zimmerman’s defense will have a hard time using the texts and photographs in court, as it resides in the legally murky area of character evidence.

“What does his mom saying he needs to live with his dad for a while say about why he was shot? Nothing,” Jeff Deen, a former state attorney in Florida, told NBC. “Generally, reputation evidence is not admissible in court.”

A big new revelation in the ongoing controversy about the Department of Justice’s targeting of journalists: Attorney General Eric Hold personally signed off on a sealed search warrant for Fox News reporter James Rosen, who was targeted in an investigation looking into the leak of a secret report on North Korea. That according to NBC News investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, citing an unnamed law enforcement source:

Rosen, who has not been charged in the case, was nonetheless the target of a search warrant that enabled Justice Department investigators to secretly seized his private emails after an FBI agent said he had “asked, solicited and encouraged … (a source) to disclose sensitive United States internal documents and intelligence information.”

The affidavit supporting that search warrant even listed Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act. Most reporters caught in leak investigations are never accused of breaking the law. No charges have been filed currently in Rosen’s case yet either.

Continue Reading…

Today, on a muggy afternoon in Grapevine, Texas, members of the Boy Scouts of America‘s National Council voted 61-38 percent to stop discriminating against kids in the program on the basis of sexual orientation, overturning a national ban on gay Scouts that the organization has enforced for decades. The BSA will continue barring gay adults from serving as scoutmasters and volunteers, meaning that teenagers who come out during their time with the program could be booted after they turn 18. The decision is seen as a compromise between church groups that partner with the Scouts and those eager to see the program fully end its discrimination against gays.

“No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone,” states the new resolution, acknowledging that “[y]outh are still developing, learning about themselves and who they are, developing their sense of right and wrong, and understanding their duty to God to live a moral life.”

“It’s an incomplete step, but still a step in the right direction,” Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout raised by two lesbian mothers, and founder of Scouts for Equality, tells Mother Jones. His organization, along with Scouts, parents, and volunteers who support overturning the ban, have been rallying in Texas for days, across from the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center, where more than 1,400 BSA voting members from across the United States cast their votes this afternoon. Scouts in uniform faced off against about two dozen protesters supporting than ban—and “a couple local guys driving by in trucks, saying anti-gay stuff,” Wahls says.

Controversy over the ban picked up last fall, when major backers like the Intel Foundation and UPS stopped funding the program because of its discriminatory policy. In January, the BSA said it would vote on the issue. The following month, President Obama said he supported overturning the ban, and celebrities like Carly Rae Jespen and Dr. Phil followed suit. There have been over 1.8 million signatures submitted in favor of overturning the ban, according to Rich Ferraro, vice president of communications at GLAAD, a gay right group, in contrast to 19,000 signatures in favor of it, delivered by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian organization.

The Boy Scouts, which was founded in 1910 with an oath promising that Scouts would be “morally straight,” have a long history of discriminating against gay members. In 1980, an Eagle Scout and aspiring Scout leader was kicked out for attending his prom with a male date. In June 2000, the US Supreme Court affirmed in a 5-4 decision that the Boy Scouts could continue barring gay Scout leaders. And as recently as April, 2012, an Ohio mom and den leader named Jennifer Tyrrell was forced out of the organization for being gay.

The new policy, which kicks in January 1, makes it so that member troops can no longer discriminate against gay youth. But anyone who is gay and over 18 years old still won’t be allowed to be a Scout leader or volunteer. (The Boy Scouts’ coed Venturing program, aimed at young adults, will allow gay members until they are 21.) This means that gay Scouts like 16-year-old Pascal Tessier can continue to participate in the program without fear of being kicked out, and will have the opportunity to earn the prestigious rank of Eagle Scout like his older brother has. But under the new policy, he would still be banned from the program when he turns 18.

When Mother Jones asked BSA whether or not it would eventually consider voting on the ban on gay adult members, a spokesperson said: “This is not about a step or progression…It is the option that did not, in some way, prevent kids who sincerely want to be a part of Scouting from experiencing this life-changing program and to remain true to the long-standing virtues of Scouting.”

Tyrrell, the mom ousted for being gay and still unwelcome under the new policy, said in a press release, “I’m so proud of how far we’ve come, but until there’s a place for everyone in Scouting, my work will continue.”

The upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is using a process that is rigged from the start. It is not being negotiated by governments for the benefit of their people, it is being negotiated by executives (or future executives/lobbyists currently in government) largely for the benefit of the giant corporations they serve. The process has these giant corporations “in the loop” but groups citizens, working people, consumers, the environment, human rights groups and especially democracy are not part of the process. That can only go one way: if you don’t have a seat at the table you are on the table — the meal.

Chile’s TPP Negotiator Quits, Warns Citizens

Rodrigo Contreras, Chile’s lead TPP negotiator recently up and quit to warn people of the dangers this agreement poses to everyone except the giant multinational corporations. In The New Chessboard, (English translation) Contreras warns that the TPP is solidifying multinational corporate control over the Internet, copyrights, patents (especially drug patents), and in particular warns that the giant financial interests are solidifying their current control over the regulatory process. He writes that this will block countries that are trying to “restore the space for applying financial safeguards. In these circumstances it does not makes sense to further liberalize capital flows, depriving us of legitimate tools to safeguard financial stability.”

In particular Contreras warns that smaller countries face a threat from this agreement’s solidifying of the con trol of the giant multinationals, concluding,

It is critical to reject the imposition of a model designed according to realities of high-income countries, which are very different from the other participating countries.Otherwise, this agreement will become a threat for our countries: it will restrict our developmentoptions in health and education, in biological and cultural diversity, and in the design of public policiesand the transformation of our economies. It will also generate pressures from increasingly active socialmovements, who are not willing to grant a pass to governments that accept an outcome of the TPPnegotiations that limits possibilities to increase the prosperity and well-being of our countries.

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism, in Chile’s Recent Lead Negotiator on Trans-Pacific Partnership Warns It Could Be a “Threat to Our Countries”, gives us a look at the context of what it means for a country’s TPP negotiator to quit and sound the alarms. She writes that this is “a statement of principle that comes at considerable personal cost” and that “his call to Latin American negotiators has deep-sixed his chances of getting another senior government role or being retained by large companies as a lobbyist or advisor.”

A job as a lobbyist or advisor to the multinationals is the golden goose that drives the negotiators. The last US negotiator, Ron Kirk, recently left that post to join the law firm Gibson Dunn where he will advise giant multinationals, probably for free. (Just kidding, he isn’t doing it for free.) The Financial Times notes that “Other former US trade representatives, including Charlene Barshefsky and Mickey Cantor under President Bill Clinton, also joined law firms after their tenures in government.” They probably also are not advising giant multinationals for free, either.,

Smith at Naked Capitalism notes that, “Some of Asian participants in the negotiations (particularly Japan) are also believed to have serious reservations about the provisions of the TPP that would weaken national sovereignity by allowing corporations to challenge laws and regulations as violations of the TPP.”

Americans are also reacting to the threat that the TPP poses to national sovereignty — government’s ability to control the wealth and power of the giant multinationals. Bloomberg News yesterday, in Wall Street Seeks Dodd-Frank Changes Through Trade Talks warns that, “U.S. bankers and insurers are trying to use trade deals, which can trump existing legislation, to weaken parts of the Dodd-Frank Act designed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.”

The Bloomberg report gets into some specific problems that watchdog groups see. For example, “The trade talks could easily become a Trojan Horse,” said Marcus Stanley, the policy director for Americans for Financial Reform, a group that includes labor unions, civil rights organizations and consumer advocates.

Trade agreements, once signed, override national sovereignty and limit a country’s ability to regulate giant corporations. The Bloomberg report noted that the financial industry is already trying to use existing trade agreements to roll back regulations required by the 3-year-old Dodd-Frank law,

The financial services industry has already invoked international trade rules in its bid to weaken proposed regulations, notably the Volcker rule that would ban proprietary trading. Named after former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, the rule is a signature part of Dodd-Frank.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sought a review of the rule by U.S. trade authorities, arguing it violated existing agreements.

So the financial industry is trying to use the upcoming TPP to overturn portions of Dodd-Frank and other rules in other countries they see as restricting their power.

Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke of this at a recent Senate hearing:

Fix The Process

The process that we use to negotiate our “trade” agreements needs to be changed to relect that this country is supposed to be run by We, the People. The current secrecy must give way to an open, transparent participative process that serves citizens, workers, the environment, consumers, human rights and other considerations of all the stakeholders.

The way the process is currently set up, the giant multinationals have a seat at the table, and they are salivating as they await the main course. We the People and our silly laws and regulations that are in the way of the profits of the 1% are being prepared to be served up. And a fine meal we will be.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dismissing a veto threat from President Barack Obama, lawmakers in the House passed legislation that links student loan rates to the ups and downs of the financial markets in a vote largely along party lines.

The Republican-backed bill would allow students to dodge a scheduled rate hike for students with new subsidized Stafford loans next month, but rates could rise in coming years. Democrats largely opposed the measure — which they branded the “Making College More Expensive Act” — while the Republican chairman of the Education Committee labeled the legislation a starting point for negotiations with the Senate and White House.

“The American people sent us here to tackle tough issues, not kick the can down the road. The time to act is now. Students, families and taxpayers cannot afford further delay,” House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline said after the vote.

Interest rates on new subsidized Stafford loans are set to double, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, on July 1. Lawmakers from both parties say they want to avoid the increase but were divided on how.

Some Democrats are seeking a two-year extension of the current rates until Congress takes up a higher education bill later. Republicans have rejected that proposal — expected to cost taxpayers $9 billion — as costly and irresponsible.

The House measure passed by a vote of 221-198. Eight Republicans and four Democrats broke from their party.

“It kind of goes without saying that you’re going to be paying on your student loans for quite a while,” said Ron Burruss, who will be a junior at Kentucky’s University of Louisville in the autumn.

By some counts, student loan debt has topped $1 trillion and surpasses credit card debt in size. Only mortgage debt is larger.

Under the GOP proposal, student loans would be reset every year, pegged to 10-year Treasury notes with added percentage points. For instance, students who receive subsidized or unsubsidized Stafford student loans would pay the Treasury rate, plus 2.5 percentage points starting for loans issued after July 1.

Current subsidized Stafford loans are offered at a fixed 3.4 percent rate and unsubsidized Stafford loans are offered at 6.8 percent. The interest rate on loans to parents and graduate students is 7.9 percent.

Using Congressional Budget Office projections, the GOP plan would translate to a 5 percent interest rate on all Stafford loans in 2014, but the rate would climb to 7.7 percent for loans in 2023.

“We’re ripping off kids,” said Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt.

Stafford loan rates would be capped at 8.5 percent, while loans for parents and graduate students would have a 10.5 percent ceiling under the GOP plan.

In his budget proposal, Obama included flexible rate student loan rates pegged to 10-year Treasury bills. The president did not limit interest rates but included a smaller added interest rate. His plan also expanded income-based repayment options and loan forgiveness.

Even so, many students said they were frustrated by the current rates.

“It’s ridiculous that students are being charged 6.8 percent interest, when you can get a mortgage on a house for 3.5 percent,” said Zach Nostdal, a 28-year-old graduate student at Seattle’s University of Washington.

The House proposal faces a steep climb in the Senate despite some similarities to the White House’s offer.

“The Senate is not going to pick this up,” said Rep. Caroline McCarthy, D-N.Y.

The Senate planned to take up its own measure after it returns from Memorial Day holiday. Even then, it’s not clear lawmakers will be able to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions before the July 1 deadline.

“We are focused on making college more affordable while they seem focused on making it more expensive,” said Sen. Tom Harkin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “The bill they passed today fails the first test of any policy: do no harm. It’s worse for students than if the rate doubles.”

Students who max out their subsidized Stafford loans over four years would pay $8,331 in interest payments under the Republican bill, and $3,450 if rates were kept at 3.4 percent, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Services. If rates were allowed to double in July, that amount would be $7,284 over the typical 10-year window to repay the maximum $19,000.

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Associated Press writer Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Ky., and Donna Blankinship in Seattle contributed to this report.

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Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: www.twitter.com/philip_elliott
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

 

The average CEO salary broke records in 2011 at $9.6 million — and now, that record high has been topped by 2012 salaries, which averaged out to $9.7 million. Health care and media CEOs enjoyed the highest pay, while utility CEOs had the lowest at $7.5 million. Sixty percent of CEOs got a raise last year.

Though CEO pay dropped slightly after the financial crisis, it quickly rebounded to reach new heights in 2010, 2011, and now 2012. Simultaneously, the pay gap between CEOs and workers has also broken records, as the average CEO in 2012 earned 354 times more than the average worker.

During the recession, some companies changed their compensation formulas to incorporate more stock as a way to tie executives’ salaries to the company’s performance. As the stock market enjoys all-time highs, CEO pay has also soared. Yet the stock market’s rally has not been felt by most middle and low income families, as the housing market recovers in fits and starts. As a result, income inequality has beenexacerbated in the first two years of the recovery.

Skyrocketing executive salaries since deregulation in the 1980s helped the top 1 percent of Americans expand their share of income, even as worker pay hasstagnated.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law tried to address this phenomenon by ordering public companies to reveal the exact disparity between their CEO and worker pay. Three years later, many big businesses are lobbying to kill the requirement in the rule-making process. Transparent payrolls can help keep executive compensation within the stratosphere and help investors get a sense of employee morale and company reputation. Even so, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon compared efforts to tamp down executive pay to Communist Cuba. Whole Foods, which tracks pay to ensure that no employee makes more than 19 times the median company salary, has dismissed claims that the rule burdens businesses, noting it only takes a few days to track.

Skewed executive compensation levels made some CEOs iconic villains after the financial crisis. Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit got a $6.7 million pay-out after driving the bank to near ruin, while a Duke Energy CEO received $44 million for one day of work.