Issue 47 Vol II, September 15, 2007

T H I S  O U R  N O R T H  A M E R I C A

Yes; Salt Water Can Burn – an accidental but remarkable discovery
Khushwant Toor

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Poverty in a Rich Land

These facts may startle those Asians and others who wish to rush to America for greener pastures. A Record numbers of people lack health insurance and poverty remains largely unchanged five years after the U.S. economy began its way back from recession. Overall, some 36.5 million people were deemed poor in 2006, about as many as in 2005.

In recent years, government and charitable agencies have issued reports describing the economic life of U.S. citizens as a precarious affair. More than 25 million are forced to resort to donations of food to sustain themselves and their families, according to the country's largest network of food banks. Among them, about 30 percent lived above the federal poverty line.

The latest U.S. government data show that modest gains in household income have failed to lift significant numbers out of poverty, The national poverty rate fell to 12.3 percent in 2006, down from 12.6 percent the year before, but remains well above the 11.3 percent mark recorded in 2000, the last year in which it dropped. The U.S. Census Bureau said family earnings had risen modestly because more members were working and contributing to household income. Not everyone has benefited, however.

In the countryside, poverty has stagnated at 15.2 percent, three percentage points above the national average. In all, nearly 7.2 million inhabitants of rural areas fell below the poverty line last year despite rising agricultural prices. The pay gap between workers and employers in the U.S. remains enormous, with the typical chief executive officer (CEO) of a top firm earning more in a single workday than the average U.S. worker takes home in an entire year, according to a new study on executive compensation released Wednesday.

meanwhile, a study released by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and United for a Fair Economy (UFE) to coincide with the Labour Day  found that CEOs of the 500 largest U.S. companies earned an average of 10.8 million dollars in total compensation in 2006, and the CEOs of the 20 largest companies earned an average of 36.4 million dollars. By comparison, the average worker in the U.S. earned 29,544 dollars in the same time period.

The 36.4 million dollars earned by the top 20 U.S. CEOS also far exceeded the average earnings of the 20 highest-paid European CEOs (12.5 million dollars), U.S. non-profit leaders (965,698 dollars), members of the U.S. executive branch of government (198,369 dollars), and generals in the U.S. military (178,542 dollars).

The elderly accounted for much of last year's improvement and, as a group, are better off than they were in 2001. By contrast, poverty rates for children and for adults of working age remained statistically unchanged from 2005 and higher than in 2001, when the last recession bottomed out.

Five years into an economic recovery, the country has yet to make progress in reducing poverty, raising the typical working-age family's income, or stemming the rise in the ranks of the uninsured, compared even to where we were in the last recession. Median income, found at midpoint on the U.S. earnings scale, rose to 48,200 dollars last year, a gain of 0.7 percent or 356 dollars for households in general.

Asian households recorded the highest median income, 64,200 dollars, followed by non-Hispanic whites with 52,400 dollars, Hispanics with 37,800 dollars, and blacks with 32,000 dollars. Incomes levels for these groups were statistically no different in 2005 and 2006.

The official definition of poverty varies with family size and composition. For a family made up of two adults and two children, the poverty level is set at around 20,400 dollars. People living in official poverty become eligible for health, housing, food, and child care entitlements from the federal government.  In fact, the  poverty level is set too low because the government uses a formula based on food costs and ignores other significant expenses.

The Census Bureau cited the rising cost of medical attention was a disturbing and that a record number of U.S. residents lack health insurance.  Faced with rising health insurance costs, employers have trimmed or terminated coverage or insisted that workers find the money to pay higher premiums and deductibles, the Census Bureau said. Low-wage employees simply have been unable to keep up: more than one in six full-time workers now lack health insurance. Government health insurance provisions also have been reduced. As a result, the number of people without health insurance increased from 44.8 million in 2005 to 47 million in 2006. The percentage without coverage rose to 15.8 percent in 2006 from 15.3 percent the previous year. Both figures rose for the second consecutive year and were the highest since the government established comparable records dating back to 1998.

The problem was worst among children and minorities; 8.7 million or 11.7 percent of children younger than 18 lacked insurance in 2006. The figures rose from eight million or 10.9 percent in 2005. Among poor children, 19.3 percent had no health insurance. Children make up 25 percent of the U.S. population but 35 percent of those living in poverty. Last year 34.1 percent of Hispanics lacked insurance, as did 20.5 percent of blacks and 10.8 percent of whites.

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives passed bills last month that would dramatically increase financing for SCHIP. The measures could reduce the number of uninsured children by 3-4 million by 2012, according to the Congressional Budget Office.  But President George W. Bush has said he would veto the measures because they would lead people to drop out of private coverage in favour of children's coverage financed with public money.

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Bush makes World more Dangerous

America’s powerful policy makers are disappointed with the George W. Bush administration's troop surge in Iraq. A majority agrees that the world is becoming more dangerous for the United States.

A nonpartisan poll, called The Terrorism Index and released by the Centre for American Progress and Foreign Policy magazine, surveys more than a hundred foreign policy experts, including former secretaries of state, top commanders in the U.S. military, senior intelligence professionals and academics, to assess the effectiveness of how the United States is fighting the "war on terror". But the Bush administration has rejected the polls. It finds the surge succeeding and hence small pull out of troops in order.

In this year's results, 91 percent of participants said the world is becoming more dangerous for the United States, while only 2 percent said it was safer and 84 percent of poll participants disagreed that the U.S. is winning the war on terror.

The ongoing war in Iraq appeared to be the cause of the experts' pessimism, with 92 percent of them saying the war was negatively affecting U.S. national security, up 5 percent from a year ago.

Opposition to the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq was most noticeable in the 53 percent of respondents who now say that the surge of about 165,000 troops is having a negative impact, up 22 percent from six months ago.

How to withdraw troops from Iraq brought mixed reactions from the bipartisan group of experts, with a majority -- 68-percent -- supporting a redeployment of troops from Iraq in the next 18 months while most of the experts opposed an immediate withdrawal.  Surprisingly, slightly more conservatives -- 25 percent of conservative respondents -- called for an immediate withdrawal than liberals or moderates.

It's rare to see foreign policy experts in this sort of agreement on such a politicised issue. The sentiment on the surge is shared across party lines. In terms of national security, the war in Iraq and the war on terror, the foreign policy communities agree that all three are on the wrong track.

Despite claims from Bush administration officials and presidential candidates that a withdrawal from Iraq will lead to further terrorist attacks in the United States, 88 percent of experts polled agreed that a troop withdrawal from Iraq would have no correlation or was unlikely to lead to future terrorist attacks within the U.S. there is an administration that says we need a victory in Iraq or suffer consequences at home but experts say that's just not so. Foreign policy experts really don't see a correlation between being in Iraq or leaving and terrorist attacks at home.

Fifty-eight percent of poll respondents said that in 10 years' time, Sunni-Shiite tensions will have increased; 35 percent believe that Arab dictators will have been discouraged from reforming; 5 percent believe that al Qaeda will be weaker; and only 3 percent believe Iraq will be a "beacon of democracy" in the Middle East.

More than half of the experts surveyed believe that the current U.S. policy of providing aid to Pakistan -- which has dramatically increased since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan -- is having a negative impact on national security.  35 percent of those polled thought that Pakistan is most likely to become the next al Qaeda stronghold, and 74 percent believed that Pakistan is the country most likely to transfer nuclear technology to terrorists in the next three to five years.

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Turban Controversy: Congressman Lantos Steps in to Help

Congressman Tom Lantos says the Transportation Security Administration's new policy of screening turbans at airport security checkpoints is "rampant religious discrimination and profiling."

He hoped that the administration agreed “that such practices are not only illegal and inconsistent with American values, but also ultimately detrimental to national security. I am very skeptical that a policy targeting particular religious head coverings, such as turbans, can be effective. And I am alarmed about the way this policy has been abused and inappropriately implemented by Transportation.

Lantos is the head of the House Foreign Affairs committee (and reps the 12th District of California - San Francisco and San Mateo counties) He  was contacted by members of the Sikh Coalition, who have been waging a campaign against the  turban-screening policy, along with other Sikh groups. According to this list of concerns, they say the policy, which was instituted on August 4, needs to be made public and explicit.

The Sikh Coalition has started mobilizing people by asking them to report specific accounts of being screened - so far 50 incidents have been recorded and sign a petition to Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff. An excerpt from their letter to Chertoff, which was endorsed by dozens of Sikh and non-Sikh groups reads “ TSA officials have admitted that the new policy, which specifically cites turbans as an example of headwear that could be used to conceal "threat items," was not thoroughly researched.

Nobody responsible for this policy thought it necessary to familiarize them with the turban, or even confirm that a "threat item" could indeed be hidden in a turban. Nevertheless, without consulting the concerned communities, and with minimal guidance offered to their TSA screeners, the TSA's new procedures were implemented nationwide.”

According to over two doze reports received by the Sikh Coalition so far, it is clear that TSA field officers nationwide are interpreting the new procedures broadly to target Sikh turbans. This religious profiling also puts an official stamp of approval on the public's stereotyping of Sikhs, Muslims, Arabs and South Asians as terrorists. There have been protests in India and particularly in Delhi and Punjab where several organisations including the SGPC have vehemently protested against this.

Newspapers too have criticised the move that makes the U S administration look silly. With a turbaned Sikh prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh[ for President  Bush he is his bet friend ] at the helm of affairs, the U S   administration has to be more sensitive to the religious feelings of the Sikhs and others who wear turbans not just as a religious symbol but as part of their cultural identity.

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