If you are a current KPFK member, please cast your vote in the KPFK
Local Station Board election. You've likely received your ballot.
The deadline for turning in ballots is this Thursday, September 30th.
The 2nd largest ballot return period is almost always the final week.
It makes or breaks an election and this one is critical. If you fit into
this profile, please find that ballot, consider this, mark your ballot
and mail it in.
Ed
I recommend the candidates supported by the Committee to Strengthen
KPFK that can be seen at: www.CandidateSlate.org
Just click on the link above and it'll take you right there. If you click
on any of the pictures, it'll take you right to the candidate statement for
that person. If you want to listen to the one hour on-air forums between
the candidates, go to KPFK, audio archives, "Special Programming" from
Monday, September 20 through Friday, September 24 at 10 am
This is how I voted. Of course, it's your decision. Alter the order any way
you wish or vote otherwise, but vote. And don't hesitate to email me with
questions..
These elections are important to preserve free, people sponsored, DEMOCRATIC
media! AND PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO ANYONE YOU KNOW WHO MIGHT BE A
MEMBER OF KPFK!
1. Summer Reese (on the board - National Finance Committee Chair - very
important to re-elect her)
2. Lamont Yeakey (on the board - great board member)
3. Margie Murray (same as Lamont)
4. Fred Blair
5. Steve Brooks
6. Leonard Isenberg
7. Nancy Kazar
8. Chipasha Luchembe
9. Richard Vega
10. Jerry Van
11. Dennis McCoy
12. John De Simio
13. Richard Wittman
14. Lance Charles
15. Seth Andrews
***
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/opinion/27krugman.html?th&emc=th
Structure of Excuses
By Paul Krugman
NY Times Op-Ed: Sept. 27, 2010
What can be done about mass unemployment? All the wise heads agree: there
are no quick or easy answers. There is work to be done, but workers aren't
ready to do it - they're in the wrong places, or they have the wrong skills.
Our problems are "structural," and will take many years to solve.
But don't bother asking for evidence that justifies this bleak view. There
isn't any. On the contrary, all the facts suggest that high unemployment in
America is the result of inadequate demand - full stop. Saying that there
are no easy answers sounds wise, but it's actually foolish: our unemployment
crisis could be cured very quickly if we had the intellectual clarity and
political will to act.
In other words, structural unemployment is a fake problem, which mainly
serves as an excuse for not pursuing real solutions.
Who are these wise heads I'm talking about? The most widely quoted figure is
Narayana Kocherlakota, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of
Minneapolis, who has attracted a lot of attention by insisting that dealing
with high unemployment isn't a Fed responsibility: "Firms have jobs, but
can't
find appropriate workers. The workers want to work, but can't find
appropriate jobs," he asserts, concluding that "It is hard to see how the
Fed can do much to cure this problem."
Now, the Minneapolis Fed is known for its conservative outlook, and claims
that unemployment is mainly structural do tend to come from the right of the
political spectrum. But some people on the other side of the aisle say
similar things. For example, former President Bill Clinton recently told an
interviewer that unemployment remained high because "people don't have the
job skills for the jobs that are open."
Well, I'd respectfully suggest that Mr. Clinton talk to researchers at the
Roosevelt Institute and the Economic Policy Institute, both of which have
recently released important reports completely debunking claims of a surge
in structural unemployment.
After all, what should we be seeing if statements like those of Mr.
Kocherlakota or Mr. Clinton were true? The answer is, there should be
significant labor shortages somewhere in America - major industries that are
trying to expand but are having trouble hiring, major classes of workers who
find their skills in great demand, major parts of the country with low
unemployment even as the rest of the nation suffers.
None of these things exist. Job openings have plunged in every major sector,
while the number of workers forced into part-time employment in almost all
industries has soared. Unemployment has surged in every major occupational
category. Only three states, with a combined population not much larger than
that of Brooklyn, have unemployment rates below 5 percent.
Oh, and where are these firms that "can't find appropriate workers"? The
National Federation of Independent Business has been surveying small
businesses for many years, asking them to name their most important problem;
the percentage citing problems with labor quality is now at an all-time low,
reflecting the reality that these days even highly skilled workers are
desperate for employment.
So all the evidence contradicts the claim that we're mainly suffering from
structural unemployment. Why, then, has this claim become so popular?
Part of the answer is that this is what always happens during periods of
high unemployment - in part because pundits and analysts believe that
declaring the problem deeply rooted, with no easy answers, makes them sound
serious.
I've been looking at what self-proclaimed experts were saying about
unemployment during the Great Depression; it was almost identical to what
Very Serious People are saying now. Unemployment cannot be brought down
rapidly, declared one 1935 analysis, because the work force is "unadaptable
and untrained. It cannot respond to the opportunities which industry may
offer." A few years later, a large defense buildup finally provided a fiscal
stimulus adequate to the economy's needs - and suddenly industry was eager
to employ those "unadaptable and untrained" workers.
But now, as then, powerful forces are ideologically opposed to the whole
idea of government action on a sufficient scale to jump-start the economy.
And that, fundamentally, is why claims that we face huge structural problems
have been proliferating: they offer a reason to do nothing about the mass
unemployment that is crippling our economy and our society.
So what you need to know is that there is no evidence whatsoever to back
these claims. We aren't suffering from a shortage of needed skills; we're
suffering from a lack of policy resolve. As I said, structural unemployment
isn't a real problem, it's an excuse - a reason not to act on America's
problems at a time when action is desperately needed.
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