Is There A Link Between Saddam & Al Quaeda?

If Saddam had no connection with 9/11, why in HELL did we attack Iraq? The equivalent would have been attacking Argentina after Pearl Harbor. In the meantime, Ben Sargent nails the W rhetoric about normalizing Iraq. This is ALL nuts. If this be (fair & balanced) treason, make the most of it.

Fighting Bob Fest?

Tom Terrific — Up North — reported the gathering of old Progressives in Barbaroo, WI for the Fighting Bob Fest. A Fighting W Fest? All of the Village Idiots gather in Crawford, TX? Hell, it just gets worse and worse. Two-income families cannot make it — let alone enjoy the Good Life — any longer. $87B to maintain Iraq? If this be (fair & balanced) treason, so be it.

[x (Madison) Capital Times
Wow! Gap between rich and poor is shocking, sad
By Ed Garvey
September 16, 2003

Forty-one percent of Dane County renters cannot afford the $700 rent for a two-bedroom apartment. This startling fact was reported last week by The Capital Times.

Madison is supposed to be invulnerable to recession, a city where employment is high and we live the good life. But the Coalition for Low Income Housing finds that a person would need a job paying $14 per hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment to remain within the guideline of spending no more than 30 percent of income on housing.

Ask yourself, where are the $14-per-hour jobs in Madison for what we once called blue-collar workers? How about Wal-Mart, where they offer low wages and few benefits but a nice title called "associate" instead of employee? Think you could convince the local Wal-Mart or Sam's Club human resources person to pay you $14 per hour because you need two bedrooms? Fat chance.

The minimum wage is $5.15 per hour, and most minimum wage workers are not even close to having a regular job. They are "temps" who go from job to job in the hope of finding something with a future. Not exactly the tenant a landlord is looking for. Think about it. At the minimum wage, they are a full $9 per hour below the wage required for a two-bedroom apartment. A single mother with two kids would have to work three full-time minimum wage jobs in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment. Whoa, Nelly!

So, when our pals at Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce say that an increase in the minimum wage would be a negative factor for the Wisconsin economy, what are they thinking about? Is WMC just mean-spirited?

In his speech at Fighting Bob Fest, Congressman Bernie Sanders warned that the middle class is being destroyed and that the poor are in worse shape than ever, while those at the top who benefited from President Bush's tax breaks are doing quite well. How well? A few days after the story appeared about Dane County renters, the New York Times reported on high-end apartments for sale in New York City. The article reports that brokers used to say "Wow" when they sold a $10 million apartment, but the cost has risen and "Wow" is reserved for apartments that sell for $20 million or more. A mere $10 million apartment warrants only a lower case "wow."

The highest price for an apartment thus far was $45 million. Now, that is a "WOW!" in my book, but could we get serious for a moment? One broker said, "Five million or 6 million can buy you a great location, a terrific apartment, a beautiful home, but they are not palaces." He added, "It's like the difference between driving a Mercedes and a Rolls-Royce."

That should make the Dane County poor person feel better - they have never had to compare the driving experience between a Mercedes and a Rolls.

A two-bedroom apartment in New York's AOL Time Warner Center starts at $2.5 million, and they boast that this provides five-star living.

Have we gone mad? Can you imagine what the hourly wage rate would be for the person who can pay $2.5 million for a two-bedroom apartment, not to mention the Wowsers at $20 million? Do they really need tax breaks?

We have CEOs earning 280 to 400 times the average salary of their workers. Talk about sacrifice! About 41 million people do not even have health insurance.

The bottom line is that we are in trouble. Deep trouble. We don't have good jobs available for the 9 million unemployed people or the 5 million discouraged workers. We have no policy on housing for the needy. We tax the poor and the middle class while not offering educational opportunities to help the poor get out of poverty.

Remember when we thought our goal was to get people out of poverty? NAFTA, GATT and WTO are robbing us blind to make money for those who can afford to pay millions for an apartment in New York and millions more on their second home in Cancun.

While we face this mounting toll of unemployed, the deficit is out of sight. Imagine half a trillion dollars in the hole in order to help the brokers of New York sell "Wow" apartments while the number of homeless living in shelters just below them increases every week.

As we move toward the presidential race, we must ask about the economic policies of the Democratic candidates. Which candidates will raise the minimum wage to a "livable" wage? Will any limit CEO compensation? How about saying that all people must pay payroll income taxes on all income no matter how derived? Do you think Donald Trump could still go out to dinner if he paid payroll taxes on all his cap gains?

Bernie Sanders had a lot to say on this topic. Check www.fightingbob.com. to read Sanders' speech at Fighting Bob Fest. He said that progressives should focus on economic fairness, not just the liberal social agenda.

Don't know about you, but I am tired of Democrats who say, "I am a social liberal but an economic conservative." What are they saying? Is the gap between rich and poor, the rich and the rest of us, not of interest, and if not, why not? Or do those noises soothe the campaign contributors?

Ed Garvey was the Democratic candidate for governor in 1998 and is editor of the Web magazine FightingBob.com. E-mail: comments@fightingbob.com.

Copyright © 2003 Capital Times