commentary on "Obama on unemployment and energy" by Erich

Like you, I too worry about the plummeting unemployment rates and the extremely competitive job market that has developed. It scares the hell out of just about everyone. Established workers share in the worry and might ask themselves, “when will my job be removed because of financial implications?” Recently I learned about a new category of worker, the underemployed, that are also affected by the unemployment crisis. These are the workers who have been laid off and are rehired into positions which they are over qualified. For example, a 4 year Cornell College graduate who majored in Business might have to settle as a mail room associate, just for pay. However, no matter how much media attention the unemployment rates have received, it is very important that you brought it up. It reminds your audience, college students, to be aware of the jobs we have, or heads up for the ones who are looking. Yet, you also reminded us that their is a light at the end of the tunnel and Obama is carrying the torch. As you have noted, he is formulating a plan to recover 2 million jobs. What I would like to know is how? What kind of labor? In what area of employment? Hopefully, it involves harnessing energy and creating trash fuels. Another good addition is noting Obama's has plans to help in other areas too, like replacing insufficient light bulbs with the new energy saving ones, and his plan for educating youth about the internet. It leaves your audience on a good note.

Garbage into gas

Living in a generation striving for a “green” America, a few brave souls have been aiming to formulate a new shade of “green”, and might I suggest a murky shade of “green”. Although supported by a limited number of pioneering industries, future innovators have begun proposing initiatives to create motor fuel from garage. Fulcrum Bioenergy was reported in the Times to say, “it would start construction later this year on a $120 million dollar plant at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial center” and committing to “make 10.5 million gallons of ethanol a year from 90,000 tons of garbage.” These modern entrepreneurial corporations have envisioned something revolutionary to live up to. But hindering those aspirations is the uncertainty of who will fund the venture. It is really sad that potential corporations have “dreams may be bigger than their bank accounts” and also shouldn’t just count on hopes“ They are counting on billions in taxpayer subsidies”. For this reason federal government is not the most charitable because most of the companies have only the potential to create garbage fuels. Little has been achieved as far as its completion. However if the company has produced a successful batch it must next develop a cost efficient method of producing mass quantities, meant to reach automobile gas tanks everywhere. Yet, the federal government has shown a spirited desire to help get plants off the ground by offering grants.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/business/24fuel.html?pagewanted=1

Commentary on The Politics of Education by Julie

I really enjoyed reading your article due to the real information that you provided. Thank you for generously bringing up the often overlooked, however very important issue of U.S education. Education is very important. We all need something to challenge us and provide an outlet for gaining knowledge. I agree that it is ridiculous that the media provides the audience with frivolous celebrity news on Sarah Palin’s spending spree, and Obama's relations instead of providing vital information on the candidates policies. Regarding your observation of the loss of potential teachers due to poor salary, I totally agree. From middle school on up I have heard from teachers themselves say they don't make a lot of money, and thought that it must be some joke. To spend all day teaching, and inspiring the most non-responsive students is to me heroic, and should garner the same pay as say, a fireman’s' salary. Its certainly about time that a presidential candidate, like Obama provides monetary incentives to potential teachers and offers incentives for established teachers also. Good for you to expose the quite opposite McCain plan that offers little for under privileged children and offers more for the already privileged children. How is that going to help the overall population meet educational goals? Your article helped to further solidify my hope for the educational opportunity's that president Obama will offer the U.S.

McCain’s Supportive Nature

Oh how fast we have come to the last five days until election day, when either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain will become the new President of the United States. Although some Texan’s have exercised the use of early voting, some registered voters prefer the sense of excitement and comradely that comes with voting on election day. These are not the people that I seek to sway in support of Barack Obama before ballots are submitted November 4th , however, I do wish shed some greater insight into Barack Obama and John McCain’s policy plans regarding America’s dependence on foreign oil.
Similar to the different views that each one holds on such issues as healthcare reform and the economy, Obama and McCain approach the issue of our dependence on foreign oil differently. First, McCain has encouraged the consumers to purchase a more environmentally friendly automobiles, “He will commit a $5,000 tax credit for each and every customer who buys a zero carbon emission car…” John McCain’s strategy is indeed a step in the right direction, however it is sub par to Obama’s commitment to, “create a new $7000 tax credit for purchasing advanced vehicles”. His method adheres to less strict requirements, expanding profitability to lower income families who cannot afford zero-carbon emissions automobiles. You might think that Obama’s avoiding the opportunity to improve carbon emissions by lenient vehicular requirements, but “ Obama and vice-presidential candidate Biden will establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) to reduce the carbon in our fuels 10 percent by 2020. Obama and Biden will also require 60 billion gallons of advanced biofuels to be phased into our fuel supply by 2030”. Despite John McCain‘s proposal for “a $300 million prize to improve to improve battery technology for full commercial development of plug-in hybrid and fully electric automobiles”, he fails to do much else. The rest of McCain’s plans to reduce our foreign oil dependency are limited to promises, non-vital promises. “John McCain has long supported CAFÉ standards - the mileage requirements that automobile manufacturers’ cars must meet”, although it compels auto manufacturer’s to produce fuel-efficient cars it is merely a promise. He believes in alcohol based fuels but doesn’t offer any incentives or financial compensation for its manufacturers’.
The section which expresses John McCain’s stance on flex fuel vehicles deceives readers who are first confronted by statistics, “In just three years, Brazil went from new car sales that were about 5 percent FFVs to over 70 percent of new vehicles that were FFVs”.
This tactic is aimed to persuade readers that a foreign country is benefiting from increased FFV sales, so we need to do that too. What it fails to do, is inform the readers of John McCain's full fledged commitment to attain the same statistics He is merely suggesting that he will pursue the means to attain those statistics for the U.S, “John McCain calls on automaker to make a more rapid and complete switch to FFVs”.
If actions speak louder that words, then Obama projects volumes over McCain’s whispers, “Obama and Biden will require oil companies to develop the 68 million acres of land (over 40 million of which are offshore) which they have already leased and are not drilling on”. By insuring that millions of acres of land get used, resulting in the correction of profit-making scandals from corrupt oil companies, Obama achieves far greater feats than McCain’s supportive nature would achieve.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy_more#oil

http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/17671aa4-2fe8-4008-859f-0ef1468e96f4.htm

To Judge or Not to Judge

In less than one month Americans will have a new president, and tensions are running high to discredit presidential candidates before election day. As you know, up until now mass media, T.V stations, national newspapers, and radio-talk shows, have eagerly jumped at the chance to publicize political scandals and accusations. While most recent reporting has honed on the V.P candidates, most notorious Sarah Palin, others have resorted to digging up past allegations. I came across one these gravedigger articles, in the Washington Post by Charles Krautrammer. In it he attempts to make the audience, more specifically voters who are still speculating, suspicious of presidential candidate, Barack Obama, bringing back to life old alleged ties with three sketchy characters, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The first Obama associate is convicted felon of political corrupt activities Tony Rezko. The second Obama associate is Bill Ayers, a once radical leader directly involved in a string of government building bombings, and highlighted by his contribution to fund Barack Obama’s campaign. The third and most publicized associate is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, criticized for his view of evil America and race-baiting. The core intention of this article is to cause suspicion of Obama’s affiliation with U.S degenerating, and politically corrupt characters. It sparks fear into Americans who love to celebrate and honor past presidents characterized by their impact while in office. To many Americans, JFK is a hero, perfect husband, and honest guy. We carry a common presidential identity through political discussions years after their time in office. To motivate voters to re-think Obama’s underlying character, the author relies on assumptions. One much relied on, is the assumption that Barack Obama was aware of his associates wrong doing. Just because he knew them, does this mean he knew what they were doing? Krauthammer assumes Obama was aware of Rev. Wrights, extremist views when he says, “Would you attend church whose pastor was spreading racial animosity from the pulpit”? If you know someone who smokes, does that mean you support smoking. Or more relative if you knew someone, but didn’t know they smoked would you become a bad guy? Does re-introducing past allegations reflect new suspicion of bad character? To prevent character degradation, I believe the government should put pressure on other presidential issues. Also to continue to allow the mass media to present both sides of the story, such as the CNN Barack Obama interview after Rev. Wright video leaked. Overall the public was given a chance to hear Obama’s position. I didn’t think the article was convincing because of the lack of verifiable evidence. In order to prove Obama’s acknowledgement of associates’ wrong doing, the author had better rely on T.V interviews, or video accounts. But in fact there was no mention of such tapes. No such footage of Obama taking part in the highly publicized church service. Where was he in the audience? I didn’t see him! To further disprove this authors opinion, I did research of my own. The most supportive media I found was the CNN interview where Obama announces the church service was not appropriate. Although I thoroughly disagree with most of the article, I do agree with his point of McCain. He thinks that McCain missed the opportunity to strike Obama supporters with associations while the issue was hot. “McCain has only himself to blame for the bad timing. He should have months ago have begun challenging Obama’s associations….” “McCain had his chance back in April when North Carolina Republican Party ran a gubernatorial campaign ad that included linking of Obama with Jeremiah Wright”.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/09/AR2008100902328.html

Wam Bam What a Plan

Currently, congress has endured a whirlwind of pressure by the public about the economic crisis. Who will bail out big corporations and wall street? And what type of measures will be the best fit to re-energize our failed economy? These questions are just a few that force the government to contemplate a solution to the bigger picture, where can we pull more money from? Consequently, this question works against a proposed bill by the house to require mental health parity for individuals with group health insurance.
Let me break it down for you. The bill if passed would not require that insurance companies cover mental illness, drug, and alcohol abuse, but if the insurance company does partake in mental illness coverage than the bill would require mental parity or equality. To help push equality, a law was created in 1996 that required insurance companies to provide parity in annual spending limits and lifetime spending limits. The result was not a successful as people had thought, as insurance companies found paths to navigate around the new law, by increasing co-payments, deductibles, and in setting the number of doctor visits and treatments significantly lower than physically ill members. For example, if one were to break their leg, and was treated in a local emergency room, one would pay about fifty dollars for the co-payment. Depending on the individuals specific insurance plan, say the same individual had a mental break down and were admitted into a emergency mental facility. Their co-payment might be one hundred dollars. Similarly, if one were diagnosed with depression, the maximum number of therapist visits per month might be four, but if one were to be diagnosed with cancer the maximum number of doctor visits might be 10 per month. Essentially the new bill would plug up loopholes requiring insurance meet the same medical provisions for physical and mental illness.
One assumption that the argument relies on is that people view mental illness the same as they do physical illness. Not all people view cancer in the same ball park as schizophrenia. In cases of drug or alcohol dependency some people conclude that it is a choice, and not medical because the individual brought it upon themselves. Another assumption is that mentally ill patients will abuse the increased medical benefits. Maybe one claims to be chemically dependent on Caffeine, or sleep disorders related to jet lag, both of which would be covered under their provider. That is where some argue against the new bill, that will include a immense configuration of mental health conditions listed in the updated version of Diagnostic and Statistical of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association. This argument is meant to encourage more people to support mental health equality and inform the public on mental health coverage. Prominent agendas introduced by the author drive the reader to ask questions about their medical insurance coverage. It Forces the reader to also be aware of the diminished concern insurance companies have for medical equality.
This argument is constructed with several underlying values, one the more prominent and complex being the mind and body. Democrat of California and speaker, Nancy Peloski, simplifies this value in New York Times article saying “Illness of the brain should be treated just like illness anywhere else in the body”. Despite what Peloski thinks, not everybody feels the same way. The standard attack method used is the separation of mind and body, a notion that they are not connected. Another underlying value is formed by insurance companies who argue that mental illness is hard to diagnose. How can one be diagnosed with depression? Depression can’t be revealed in blood tests or cat scans, its something that is based on purely observation alone, and insurance companies are taking that into much consideration. I believe the evidence that supports the argument is the effects of the 1996 law requiring insurance companies apply equally fixed annual and lifetime spending limits of both physical and mental illness. Simply the evidence is clear, concrete, and logically makes sense. The law created a problem with insurance companies who did not want the extra cost, and they maneuvered around it. Yet another underlying value is government hesitation to back the bill because of reduced tax revenue. What I understand is that insurance companies pay taxes to the government reflected by how much they make. If the insurance company profits two billion a year then more taxes would come out than if they were to profit one billion a year. If the bill passes then insurance companies would pay out more for both mental and physical coverage, and therefore would not profit as much, and be taxed less. Government backing is critical to ensure that people that suffer with mental illness be no longer treated unfairly. Although it will hurt the government financially it will hurt the public even more. And it can be evolved in this point to what is morally right and wrong. Should we as citizens ask the government to sacrifice monetary?
One fantastic conclusion one can draw is that if the bill is enacted then all people with group health insurance that provide mental illness coverage will be backed by the same coverage as physical. The argument does convince me because it is not overly ambitious, when looking at how many people have or know someone with a mental illness. Before reading this editorial I took the side of the insurance companies grateful that they were paying for hundreds of dollars worth of my medical expenses. I’ve seen the medical bills and thankfully the proportion is very lopsided with the insurance always carrying the hefty load. Now I think that insurance companies are discriminating against the medically insured, like someone would discriminate about race. People can be stricken with depression just as they can be stricken with the flu. We all should be concerned because mental illness can hit you at anytime, and we should feel the same security as we already do with physical health coverage.
This argument makes a big difference to everyone who has health insurance, and more significantly to the people in that group who suffer from mental illness. In a broader sense it could reduce the records of people living with mental illnesses, such as bulimia, depression, and sociological disorders by treating them effectively. Having unlimited visits to Dr. John as oppose to three or four before the bill passed, will likely help patients overcome illness. It will finally end the battle over physical illness and mental illness fairness and equality.
A couple of political implications arise over this proposed bill in the form of Senate Vs. House. The senate also propose a similar bill but the difference is the limited mental health illness that insurance would cover, most likely outing caffeine addiction, what some could call a minor illness, and for example, bulimia. On the other hand the house proposed bill would include everything listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical of Mental Disorders, here it is all or nothing. Both groups are part of the chain created by our governments system of checks and balances, where in this case the senate is checking the house. Its political significance is to prove that the traditional version of democracy “ people-power” still exists. Sometimes it seems as though government may not be doing what benefit’s the citizens but themselves. By backing the bill government would give people the security and civil rights that everyone wants. Because of this argument existence it furthers my belief that the government may not be always benefiting the people. My reasoning is that other tax breaks could be reduced elsewhere like the big oil companies profiting billions more than what they already pull before government tax breaks. The government would be receiving the scarce resources meaning money here from taxing insurance companies; the reason for them not being in total agreement. If the house wins the people will win. If the senate wins the people will win also but with reduced mental health coverage.

HP relieving employees of jobs

HP-Hewlett Packerd has recently reported a plan to remove 24,600 jobs within the next 3 years. Much of the idea is due to the combination of hp and EDS-electronic data systems group, a company that HP acquired. Before the two company's combined, hp was estimated to have 178,00 people and EDS is estimated to have 142,00 people, most certainly a reason supporting the large employment cut back. Jordan Robertson, journalist from the Austin American Statesman says, "After the restructuring is completed, H-P expects the cuts to save the company $1.8 billion a year." Local cities will also see reductions like the Dallas hub that employs some 7,200 EDS workers. Although companies like HP will be soon reaping the monetary benefits of employment reduction, former employees will have a difficult road ahead competing for jobs related to their field. It is something that we, as Americans should be informed about because HP is a popular brand of computer. In fact, it is probably one of the most well-known computer companies right now, in light of the merchandise availability and relatively cheap cost. Owners and future owners of HP computer products would generally like to be informed of the company's status to delve into the economics of big corporation. We might ask ourselves, Is is against our ethics to purchase an HP product or opt for Mac were they have made no claims of job cut backs? Another question we might ask is what are some other ways to increase finance of big business?How much of the portion of the American working class is employed by HP competitors like Dell, Compaq, and Mac,? and how have those companies resolved financial concerns without employment cut backs?