Dec. 16, 2013

Watt Appointment Seen as Major Boost to U. S. Housing Market
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire) - U. S. Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), initially snubbed by U. S. Senate Republicans for the position of director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), has now been confirmed by the Senate after a partisan political battle.

“I am elated that after months of uncertainty and obstruction, the U.S. Senate has finally confirmed Congressman Mel Watt to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Mel has over 40 years of experience on issues related to housing – 20 as my friend and colleague on the Financial Services Committee and 22 as an attorney dealing largely in real estate. He is highly respected on both sides of the aisle, and well-regarded as a legislator focused on openness, collaboration and good public policy. Moreover, he knows how to get things done,” says Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) in a statement.

“I believe Mel Watt has the vision, experience and temperament necessary to ensure the FHFA remains focused on the long-term stability of the economy and the housing finance system. This is particularly needed as Congress begins to consider reforming the $10 trillion secondary mortgage market,” Waters said.

The day before the confirmation, Waters led all 27 of Watt’s Democratic colleagues on the House Committee on Financial Services in a letter to Senate leaders Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pushing for his confirmation.

The Watt followed a major disappointment Oct. 31 when President Obama’s nomination of the 21-year Democratic congressman was rejected by the Republican members of the Senate who refused to support advancing the nomination to a vote. Following this fight, the Senate altered its rules to require only a simple majority to approve executive branch officials and most judicial nominations instead of 60 votes.

President Obama, obviously delighted by the confirmation, has great expectations of Watt as the housing market continues to heal five years after it nearly brought the U. S. economy.

“Home values and sales are rising.  Construction is up, foreclosures are down, and millions of families have come out from underwater on their mortgages.  Earlier this year, I laid out my strategy to help more middle-class families buy a home, offer more relief to responsible homeowners, and more options for families who aren’t yet ready to buy.  And as we turn the page on the bubble-and-bust mentality that created this mess, we have to build a housing system that’s rock-solid and rewards responsibility for future generations of American homebuyers so that a home is what it’s always been: a source of pride and middle-class security. That’s where Mel Watt comes in,” the President said in a statement. “Seven months ago, I nominated Mel to lead the agency charged with looking out for hardworking families by enforcing rules of the road for the mortgage industry.  And today, he’s finally been confirmed to do that job.  Mel comes from humble roots.  He’s represented the people of North Carolina in Congress for 20 years.  He’s the right person to protect Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day, and he’ll be the right regulator to make sure the kind of crisis we just went through never happens again.”

The Congressional Black Caucus and civil rights leaders chimed in.

“Congressman Watt will be an exceptional leader of this agency, safeguarding policies that protect consumers and ensuring lender accountability,” says Congressional Black Caucus Chair Fudge in a statement. “Congressman Watt has a long history of advocating against predatory lending and the mortgage practices that caused millions of families to lose their homes. Through his leadership and with his vision for the FHFA and for this country, Watt will work to reverse the policies that have led to the disintegration of many neighborhoods across our nation.”

Watt, a Yale Law School graduate, specializes in corporate and real estate law. He is a member of the House Committees on Financial Services and the Judiciary.

“Congressman Watt is an advocate for struggling homeowners. With 40 years of experience in the housing sector, he has the depth of knowledge to grasp the problems that plague Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the skills to work with all stakeholders to right the housing market,” said Wade Henderson, president/CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, in a statement. “This long-awaited confirmation is welcome news to millions of homeowners across the country who need a responsible and vigilant housing regulator.”

Dec. 15, 2013

Mandela Showed the Power of Unearned Suffering
By Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.  

 (TriceEdneyWire.com) - Leaders gathered from across the world to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela last week, just as South Africans gathered from across the country to say goodbye to “Madiba.”

Nelson Mandela had no financial fortune. He led no armies, won no victories on the battlefield. He was, perhaps, at his most powerful when he was not in the presidential office but in a cell at Robben Island.

Mandela, like Jesus, Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, met external prosecution with internal character, indomitable will and stoic sacrifice. Jailed for 27 years, he spent his time learning and teaching, even mastering the language of his oppressors to be able to communicate with them.

He showed the power of unearned suffering and untarnished vision. He wouldn’t allow his persecutors to bring him down to their level. He knew that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth would leave all blind and toothless.

Political power can come from the support of voters. Entertainment power comes from the applause of crowds. Economic power comes from money, military power from guns. But those who serve and sacrifice for a cause greater than themselves accrue power from their honor, their example, and their inspiration.

Dr. King argued that this power is available to all of us. All of us cannot be famous or well known. All of us cannot be great, but all of us can serve. In celebrating Mandela, we focus on his willingness to forgive, but pay too little attention to those who did the persecution or what needed to be forgiven.

The same is true of Dr. King. We focus on his willingness to sacrifice, but less on who forced that sacrifice. Against apartheid, Mandela and the African National Congress had few allies in the West. Fixated on the Cold War, America and Britain appreciated the “stability” and anti-communism offered by the apartheid regime.

Ronald Reagan adopted “constructive engagement” with apartheid while dismissing Mandela as a communist and adding the African National Congress to the terrorist list. America turned, but only because Americans, and particularly African Americans, exposed and opposed the moral disgrace of constructive engagement with apartheid. Dr. King and Nelson Mandela were both arrested in 1962. Each was aware of the other.

Each saw their national struggle in an international context. Both were living under apartheid. Both were facing the same economic, political and exploitative alliances. Both were attacked as communists and terrorists. In America, Dr. King rallied a minority that was locked out.

In South Africa, Mandela roused the vast majority. The Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. advanced first. We used our new strength to help end apartheid in South Africa. We had the right to vote, to petition and to protest. Harry Belafonte engaged South African artists and musicians to spread the word.

TransAfrica and the Free South Africa Movement organized civil disobedience that led to jailings for over a year. Randall Robinson, Roger Wilkins, Mary Berry, Rev. Walter Fauntroy and Eleanor Holmes Norton inspired thousands to join the protests. Rep Barbara Lee, Ronald Dellums and Maxine Waters pushed the fight for sanctions in the Congress.

The union movement — led by Bill Lucy and the Coalition for Black Trade Unions, by the American Federation of State, Country and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and by the AFL/CIO — mobilized to demand change. In 1984 and 1988, my presidential campaigns called for sanctions on South Africa as a rogue nation.

At the Democratic conventions, I called our kinship with South Africa a moral disgrace, forcing Democrats finally to speak clearly. As legislators began to get arrested in front of the South African embassy, colleges and pension funds began to disinvest.

Businesses felt the heat. Finally, Congress overturned a Reagan veto and imposed sanctions. And the apartheid regime realized that the future was largely in the hands and heart of Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela and Dr. King are no longer here to lead, but their example and their vision continue to show the way.

Now in the U.S. and in South Africa, apartheid has been defeated, but racial exclusion is supplanted by economic disparity. We are free but not equal. There is a growing gulf in income, opportunity, education, health care and access to capital. Nelson Mandela and Dr. King led us a long way, but we have miles to go before we rest. 

Dec. 15, 2013 

The Correct Answer
By William E. Spriggs

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - This time of year college students cram for final exams. They get graded in a very stark right-or wrong fashion. Splitting the difference between a bad guess and the right answer is not rewarded.

Unfortunately, Washington is locked in such a crazy struggle. Five years after Wall Street's fall, the economy still is more than 1 million payroll jobs short of where things stood at the last peak of the labor market. Median household income is still below the peak, meaning more than half of America's households are behind where they were five years ago.

The poverty level of America's children is higher, and state and local revenues only recovered last fiscal year, leaving hundreds of thousands of fewer teachers and larger class sizes for our children. Our nation's total output is more than $1 trillion less than where it would be if we could get to full employment. Clearly, the right answer to this set of problems is for massive government action to kick start the economy to address the woes of the American people.

But what we have is a Washington elite preoccupied by its fetish with federal deficits, and a Republican party blinded by ideology to shrink the government to the size the 1 percent is willing to pay for (meaning not very much at all). There is such a disconnect between Congress and the problems of America's households that whatever President Barack Obama might do is stuck in the muck of policy group-think.

The last employment numbers only encourage a group-think that believes the economy is doing well. November's numbers boosted the average monthly job growth to a level that could get private-sector jobs back to their January 2008 peak within six months-in mid-2014. But rising to the job levels of more than six years ago means that would leave the deficit of all the new job entrants over that six-year period-almost 8 million jobs needed! Unemployment is like landing on fly paper. It is easy to get stuck.

From one month to the next, the majority of the unemployed remain unemployed. Of the nearly 10.7 million people looking unsuccessfully for work in October, 6.7 million remained unemployed in November. More give up and drop out of the labor force, quitting their searches-2.4 million-than leave unemployment by finding a job, 2.1 million; and unfortunately, 1.6 million people who had been employed in October joined the rank of the unemployed in November.

For millions of people we are simply not addressing the immediate need to create job opportunities. After weeks of deliberating, Congress appears to have reached a budget compromise. Fortunately, it makes a sizable portion of the sequestration cuts in federal spending go away, making the federal government less a drag on the economy. It will help create more jobs but only a tiny dent.

And it is being done by punishing federal workers-both civilian and military-by reducing their retirement benefits. And federal unemployment benefits are set to expire for 1.3 million still stuck in the unemployment queue, leaving them with no relief.Back in October, there were 2.87 unemployed workers for each job opening. This is why more than 4 million Americans remained unemployed for more than 27 weeks.

The loss of income for these families is a strain and part of the reason household incomes remain below their peak of five years ago. The Congressional Budget Office has shown that unemployment benefits help stimulate the economy more than any other government program. It is only common sense.

Unemployed workers need to make rent or mortgage payments, buy groceries and pay utilities. With the fall in income from a job loss, all unemployment benefits are put to use. And, unlike a tax cut that a Wall Street broker might use to go take a ski trip to St. Moritz, those grocery bills and utilities are dollars that circulate in the local economy.

A compromise that splits the difference between not extending unemployment benefits and choosing to extend them is moving away from the right answer. As the bumper sticker says, "I'd agree with you, but then we would both be wrong."

Follow Spriggs on Twitter: @WSpriggs. Contact: Amaya Smith-Tune Acting Director, Media Outreach AFL-CIO 202-637-5142

Dec. 15, 2013

Blackonomics

Political Poverty Pimps
By James Clingman                 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - An article published on nky.com, titled, "Running for Senate not job for paupers", cited: “The average household in the United States has a net worth of $69,000, but the average wealth of a U.S. senator is about $12 million, according to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and Center for Responsive Politics.”

To me, it illustrated the fact that we are far removed from the original intent of serving in Congress; no longer are “regular” people going off to serve for a few years and returning home to their jobs as farmers, shopkeepers, and factory workers, and the like.

Washington, D.C. has become a veritable money pit, and candidates are doing and saying some of the dirtiest hypocritical things in order to set up residence there.  At the likely prospect of becoming millionaires, it’s no wonder those running for office are quite willing to forget about “the people” and get to work immediately to maintain their lucrative jobs in Congress.  They spend more time running and campaigning than they do governing, and they end up staying in their positions for ridiculously long periods of time, which is why we have such dysfunction in Congress.

But, there is also a high level of dysfunction among “the people” because we are the ones who elect and keep them in office, despite their horrendous record of working on our behalf.  They become multi-millionaires and we keep losing ground economically.  You would think, in light of the current debate over raising the minimum wage and the sad financial situations affecting a huge number of American families, “the people” would decide to do something about the disparity and the utter disregard some of these nouveau poverty pimps have for us.

Now let’s be real here.  It takes two to tango, right?  If some of our elected officials are pimps, what does that make us?  You know the word, no need to say it here.  Question is, “Why do we allow ourselves to be treated this way?”  We are obviously mesmerized by what we perceive as “royalty” and celebrity in this country, but to allow our penchant for person-worship to bleed over into the political arena is very dangerous—and we are seeing the results of having done that for so long.  We respond to some of our politicians in ways that mimic idol worship, and pay them quite well in the process.

Since award shows are in vogue now, we should have a Political Players Ball and give an award for the best “playa.”  They could dress in their best playa outfits—pinstripe suits with red or blue ties, that is, and strut their stuff down the runway while they rattle off their promises and claims, and tell us how bad they feel for the poor and for disabled veterans.  Of course, the one who has the most money would have a leg up on the competition and would probably get the most votes for “Political Playa of the Year.”

Amos Wilson wrote, “The irrational economy of…America, based as it is on irrational consumption, requires a high level of impulsivity and economic stupidity in its population, all the more in its lower classes and subordinated African American population.”  Of course, Wilson was referring to economic empowerment and the lack thereof within our ranks, but the same principle applies to political empowerment, not only for Black voters but for the entire U.S. electorate.  This nation’s elite relies and thrives on the necessary “stupidity” of consumers and the electorate to keep them in their positions of power.  Political pimps, with an average wealth of $12 million versus $69,000 for those over whom they rule, are definitely slapping us around and making us pay them for doing so.  What’s that famous line Huggy Bear and other pimps used to say?  “…better have my money.”

I encourage the bi-polar electorate and the blind consumers to be more aware and active around these issues.  If we act like sheep, we will be treated like sheep, right?  We must stop getting so fired up about politicians who are only interested in having a sweet job as a result of our voting for them.  We must stop being so emotional about politics and start being more practical. 

We major in the minors and get fighting mad because someone calls our President a name, and we spend an inordinate amount of time allowing the talking heads to stir the flames, which keeps our attention diverted from important issues.  President Obama is a multi-millionaire too; believe me, he is not the least bit concerned about folks calling him names.  He and his family are going to be just fine.  What about you and your family?

Stop working for the political pimps; they are supposed to be working for us.