29
Apr
HOLD ON TO YOUR WALLETS: GAS PRICE MAY CLIMB TO $10 A GALLON
NY SUN: ANALYSTS SAY GAS MAY SOON BE $10 A GALLON
Do you think a temporary relaxation of the gas tax–for the summer–will do much about this?
Get ready for another economic shock of major proportions — a virtual doubling of prices at the gas pump to as much as $10 a gallon.
That’s the message from a couple of analytical energy industry trackers, both of whom, based on the surging oil prices, see considerably more pain at the pump than most drivers realize.
Gasoline nationally is in an accelerated upswing, having jumped to $3.58 a gallon from $3.50 in just the past week. In some parts of the country, including New York City and the West Coast, gas is already sporting a price tag above $4 a gallon. There was a pray-in at a Chevron station in San Francisco on Friday led by a minister asking God for cheaper gas, and an Arco gas station in San Mateo, Calif., has already raised its price to a sky-high $4.62.
In Manhattan, at a Mobil gas station at York Avenue and East 61st Street, premium gas is now $4.03 a gallon. Two days ago, it was $3.96. Why such a high price? “Blame the people at STOPEC (he meant OPEC) and the oil companies,” an attendant there told me.
These increases are taking place before the all-important summer driving season, signaling even higher prices ahead.
Mark Schuller: Haitian Food Riots Unnerving But Not Surprising
Beginning early April, Haiti was gripped by a nation-wide mobilization to protest high food prices, reaching a crescendo on Thursday the 10th, as thousands of people took to the streets. Clashes with police and UN troops resulted in an official count of five dead.
The media covered these events during the days of the crisis but offered little information to explain the protests. As awful as the loss of life, property damage, and the resulting climate of fear are, the “rioters” in the street are only the most visible manifestation of a crisis with deep roots. Both the Haitian government and the international community played important roles in creating the current crisis.
These so-called “food riots” are really the first flares shot up to signal the need for significant changes to the economic model. What is to be done? First, take heed. Second, take action. Long-term solutions will have to address both our dependence on oil and the inequalities in distribution within the world system.
WHY SO MUCH POLITICS IN OUR MEDIA?
Think of this number: $3 BILLION. Thats what the networks expect the campaigns will have spent in political advertising this year. Up from $2.4 Billion in 2006 and $1.7 Billion in 2004. Source: Campaign Media Analysis Group as reported in Broadcasting & Cable.
MEDIA HEADLINES FROM IWANTMEDIA.COM
Google: No Economic Slowdown on Internet
The Internet is defying a sluggish economy and continuing its robust growth, according to experts at a forum held at Google’s new Washington, D.C., office. Online advertising spending is predicted to catch up with TV ads. The Internet is “looking strong compared to other sectors.”
WHERE YOUR CABLE MONEY GOES: Comcast Joins Media Titans With New HQ
The Comcast Center in Philadelphia, the new headquarters of the U.S. cable giant, is almost finished. The 56-story skyscraper, at a cost of $750 million, is the tallest building between New York and Chicago. CEO Brian Roberts describes the building as “understated high-tech.”
Cablevision Set to Buy Sundance Channel
Cablevision is believed to be the highest bidder to acquire Robert Redford’s Sundance Channel but still faces competition from Time Warner and Viacom. “It’s a tight race,” says one source. Cablevision’s stable of cable networks includes IFC, AMC and WE: Women’s Entertainment.
MTV Accused of Cheating Staffers in Lawsuit
Viacom’s MTV Networks cheats employees out of meal breaks and overtime pay, says a lawsuit filed by two production assistants for the MTV television series “The Hills” and “Next.” The suit claims the assistants were forced to turn in pre-filled out time sheets that did not reflect forced overtime.
Re: MTV Cheats Employees Out Of Overtime
I was just thinking this morning about all the ways in which working people in this country have lost income, benefits, job security, rights, during the past 30 years. It started with the neo-fascist musings of Ronald Reagan, and has been continued by the worst segments of our society, like Grover Norquist, who can’t believe they’ve actually managed to decimate the working people of the U.S. with virtually no resistence. Here are just a few that came to mind:
1. Overtime: There have been many lawsuits against WalMart, among others, for cheating workers out of overtime. There are several ways to do this. First, give the low-level employee a title, then claim they are exempt from overtime. Second, give the employee a raise but make everyone work a 60-hour week. I knew people in aerospace manufacturing who were making $60,000+/year and felt happy with their salary. But they worked a minimum of 60 hours/week, and often 70-80 hours/week, so if you look at the overtime they were not paid (because they were given a title and salaried) their real salary was about $45,000-$50,000, not so good given how brutal their jobs were. At some WalMart stores and Sam’s Club stores, employees testified that they were told almost daily they must complete a certain task during their shift, and overtime was prohibited. The task often could not be completed during their shift. They would clock out, and finish the task off the clock, without pay.
2. Cuts in holidays and sick leave: it used to be standard people had 10 days vacation to start, 10 days sick leave, and at least 10 holidays (Lincoln, Washington, Memorial, 4th of July, Labor, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and day after, Christmas, New Years). Then companies started eliminating sick days, telling people they have 16 “personal” days they can take (loss of 4 days). And companies stopped giving both presidents and veterans’ day, and some shut down between Christmas and New Years without pay, so the employees had to use their vacation days if they wanted to get paid (loss of 3 holidays and 2 vacation days). (Company gives employees 9 fewer paid days off per year).
3. Job security: it used to be that people with seniority were protected against layoffs. The newer employees went first. And protected against firing. Most courts recognized that if someone had been with a company for 20, 30 years, they had a vested interest in remaining, and the business could not lay them off at least not in front of younger employees. Then the conservatives took over the courts and came up with the theory of “employment at will,” which says any business can fire anyone at any time for no reason whatsoever, without any legal consequences.
4. Pensions: a thing of the past. It used to be every business had a pension for their employees. No more. Now they tell working people that if they ever want to retire, they’d better start saving.
5. Health care: it used to be most businesses provided health insurance with no charge to employees, often including dental and sometimes vision. Then gradually they started making employees pay for part of the insurance, and now many provide nothing at all. 40% of people over 65 do not have any of their own teeth. Dental problems are often associated with other serious health problems. But people who don’t have extra money often just do not go to the dentist because they can’t afford it.
6. Unions: Ronald Reagan started the direct assault on unions by simply locking out the air traffic controllers and giving their jobs to other people. That great liberal Bill Clinton turned the anti-union movement into a Democratic cause by convincing Democrats that they too could receive massive bribes from corporate America if they would help destroy unions. So that’s what they did, along with packing the courts with conservatives. Laws were passed allowing workers in union shops to drop out of the union, not pay dues, but receive the benefits. Then we had courts prohibit pickets (if you can believe that) near the business, prohibit solidarity boycotts, and authorize business-sponsored “workers’ groups” designed to destroy the real unions. Businesses can fire any employee who is perceived as pro-union and maybe, years down the road, that employee can get a hearing before a labor board, but by then the employee is broke and moved on to another job.
7. Outsourcing: another Bill Clinton contribution. This should simply be illegal to send jobs out of the U.S. to be done by slave labor, prison labor, and children. The whole fuss among liberals today about including environmental standards in outsourcing agreements is ridiculous: an out-of-work factory guy in Ohio is not benefitted by clean water in India. Our politicians should prohibit outsourcing and/or tax everything in the amount of labor savings to the employer, and give that money to the people who have lost their jobs.
8. Imported crap: same thing. Again, Bill Clinton celebrated the fact that Americans could buy cheap shit because everything is imported from China. 3 T-shirts for $10.00. Okay, but when we look at the people who have been thrown out of work because of these policies, it’s not even close to being a good deal for Americans.
9. Agriculture: we should be self-sufficient in food production. Instead, the agribusiness uses slave labor without sanitation, tons of pesticides, in Mexico and further south, then brings everything into the U.S. and sells it at astonishing mark-ups. Agribusiness is subsidized by the government, and they take over and put out of business all the smaller American farms. I have strawberry fields near me, but when I go to the store all the strawberries were trucked up from Mexico. And every year we have the outbreaks of disease from produce grown in unsanitary and possibly deadly conditions, then sold to the American public.
April 29th, 2008 at 2:37 pm