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U.S.
Stock Futures Fall on Debt-Crisis Concern
September 18, 2012
From: The Federation of
Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations
Contact: Susan Kniep,
President
Website: http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032
Connecticut's economy may face new challenges: report
Ct Post - Olivia Just - 13 hours ago
Economists are offering a slightly pessimistic
assessment of where Connecticut's
economy will find itself in a year's time, predicting overall growth of 8,000
jobs in the state by the end of next year.
This
forecast, along with other recent findings from The Connecticut Economy's Fall 2012 Quarterly
Review, published by the University of Connecticut's Department of Economics, was presented on Tuesday
at the offices of KPMG LLP in Stamford. Steven Lanza, executive editor of The Connecticut Economy, along with Dennis Heffley,
co-editor, and Daniel Kennedy, contributing editor,
discussed the journal's research and forecasts. The Fairfield County Information Exchange, an
initiative of the Business Council of Fairfield County,
presented the event, which was co-hosted by KPMG and the Ashforth Company.
Connecticut
lost 4,000 jobs in the second quarter of 2012 as the U.S. economy slowed to a
1.7 percent pace, the report found. According to a survey of economists
conducted by the Wall Street Journal, predictions are that U.S. GDP growth
will pick up, but only to an average of about 2.3 percent over the next
six quarters.
"This
picture represents some new pessimism that we haven't seen in previous
forecasts," Lanza said, citing concerns about
the European debt crisis and the so-called fiscal cliff -- a combination of
spending cuts and tax hikes that will go into effect on Jan. 1 if Congress
doesn't act.
If the
forecast holds, Lanza said, Connecticut's job growth could be
"agonizingly slow." Nevertheless, Connecticut's position isn't as terrible as
it could be given the sluggishness of the national economy, Lanza
said. The state is third in GDP per capita, and is 56 percent recovered in
terms of the value of goods and services produced in the economy, where
financial services contributed most of the 5 percent growth over a
two-year period. Read complete article at http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Connecticut-s-economy-may-face-new-challenges-3872343.php
The Invention of Political Consulting :
The New Yorker
The Lie Factory How politics became a
business.
by Jill Lepore September
24, 2012
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/09/24/120924fa_fact_lepore
Opinion: Mayor Emanuel is fighting just battle for future of
Chicago schools Juan Williams - 09/17/12 08:36 AM ET Excerpt from Article: Obama’s Secretary
of Education, Arne Duncan, used to be the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools.
The Chicago
trio has risked alienating the unions by championing national school reform.
Republicans get a lot of money from big business, but they are not tied to the
union dollar. As a result they have been aggressive advocates of school reform,
charter schools and vouchers for private schools. But Democrats, such as Mayor
Emanuel, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, New
York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and President Obama are now
at the breaking point with bad schools and unions that support the status quo.
That is why this moment is so critical and will have national
implications. Will Democratic
politicians be intimidated by this strike? The Chicago
Teachers Union is making a show of its power
to punish any big city politician, mostly Democrats, who decide to make a cause
of reforming public schools that remain the shame of this American generation. The
strike also comes at a time when membership in labor unions is at an historic
low. The Chicago union’s leadership wants to show the leaders of other
teachers’ unions around the nation that they can end this rush of Democratic
politicians calling for reform by creating a crisis that makes parents lose
sight of problem schools as they worry about what to do with their children
during a long strike. Since he took office in May
2011, Emanuel has tried his best to work with the union to change the system so
that it actually educates its 414,000 students. The Chicago
Teachers Union has battled him every step of
the way — fighting his efforts to increase the length of the school day and to
expand charter schools. In the first year of Emanuel’s leadership, 2012, the
Chicago Public Schools had a record high graduation rate of 60 percent. Yes, 40
percent still don’t graduate, but given the circumstances, this is clearly
improvement. Under Emanuel, the average ACT standardized test score for Chicago high school
students has risen to 17.6, the highest in a decade. That, too, is still not great. A student has to score 18
out of 36 on the ACT to be considered college ready. The mayor has wanted the
union to agree that teachers will be evaluated on the basis of their success in
getting students to achieve. And he has sought longer school days. Read this
article in its entirety at http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/juan-williams/249773-opinion-mayor-emanuel-is-fighting-just-battle-for-future-of-chicago-schools
U.S. launches auto case against China, Beijing fires back |
Reuters By Jeff Mason and Tom Miles CINCINNATI/GENEVA | Mon Sep 17, 2012
3:52pm EDT (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday said the
United States was challenging Chinese auto and auto-parts subsidies that
threatened American jobs as he campaigned in Ohio, an auto manufacturing state
that could be decisive in the November presidential election. Beijing fired back with a complaint against
U.S. duties on many Chinese exports, in the latest example of trade tension
between the world's two largest economies. U.S. trade officials said their
World Trade Organization case goes after Chinese government grants and other
subsidies that have helped the Asian giant rise to the fifth-largest auto and
auto parts exporter in 2011, from 16th in 2002. "These are subsidies that
directly harm working men and women on the assembly lines in Ohio
and Michigan and across the Midwest,"
Obama told a campaign rally. "We are going to
stop it. It is not right, it is against the rules, and we will not let it
stand." Read complete article at http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/17/us-obama-trade-idUSBRE88G02420120917
Gates, Mullen call on lawmakers to act like 'adults' on
budget - The Hill By Jeremy Herb Two former top officials in the Pentagon
slammed Washington on Monday for its inability to grapple with the budget and
debt problems facing the country, calling on “adults” to come back to
Washington after the election in order to compromise. Former Defense Secretary
Robert Gates and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen delivered a
stinging indictment of Washington politics — and in particular Congress —
during an event on national security and the debt Monday, hosted by the Center
for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Gates and Mullen echoed
warnings from their successors in the Pentagon that the sequestration cuts to
defense would be devastating and lead to a hollow force, as they pleaded for
more compromise in a political atmosphere that has become hyper-partisan. “The
inability of so many political leaders today to step outside their ideological
cocoons or offend their most partisan supporters has become the real threat to America’s
future,” said Gates, who was speaking at the event via satellite. “Too many
politicians are concerned about winning elections and scoring ideological
points than saving the country,” he said. “My hope is following the
presidential election, whatever adults remain in the two political parties will
make the compromises necessary to put the country back in order.” Both
Republicans and Democrats are opposed to the sequestration cuts, which would reduce
the Pentagon budget as well as domestic spending by $55 billion in 2013 and
nearly $500 billion in the next decade. But the two sides have been deadlocked
since the congressional supercommittee failed last
year to find a solution to fix the problem, and there have not been any
proposals that received bipartisan support.
Read complete article at
http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/budget-appropriations/249917-gates-mullen-lash-out-at-congress-over-budget-impasse
Connecticut Ethics Agency Shreds The Financial Records Of Public Officials It's Supposed To
Shine The Light On
A political wunderkind now second-guessed By Mark Pazniokas CTMirror.org Why didn't the Senate
campaign of Democrat Chris Murphy follow a cardinal rule of politics that it is
always better for a candidate to break bad news, rather than wait for an
opponent or the media to do so? Nor will
the campaign say why Murphy is refusing to release loan documents that could
rebut insinuations by his opponent, Linda McMahon, that he and his wife
couldn't have obtained a $43,000 line of home-equity credit after missing
mortgage payments without political favoritism.
But most damaging to Murphy's campaign, perhaps, is that his silence
allows his opponent to fill in the blanks. Continue reading this article at http://ctmirror.org/story/17492/crisis-candidate-second-guessed
Brownfields Can Be Found In
Every Connecticut Community Posted by CtHealth i Team on Sep 16, 2012 | Written by
Gwyneth K. Shaw Nearly every Connecticut community is laced with sites tainted
by contaminants like lead, mercury, asbestos, PCBs, or petroleum. These sites,
mostly vacant and abandoned, were once bustling gun, textile or hat mills, car
repair shops—even the neighborhood dry cleaners – that employed locals and kept
the economy sizzling. Since 1994, close to $60 million has been spent by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency to help rid communities of these so-called brownfield sites, including close to $12 million for
removing or containing pollutants. But to date only 19 have been
completely cleaned and the cases closed, according to the EPA, hardly making a
dent in a vast inventory estimated to be in the thousands………….Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has pledged $50 million over two years to
identify and clean brownfield sites – with a promise
to continue funding. The EPA, which budgeted roughly $170 million nationwide
this year, offers help to states, cities, towns and regional partnerships to
get projects moving with grants, loans and other funding. Experts say the new
state money and programs are signs of progress. But they remain wary about the
way the money is spent and monitored. Recently, in Seymour, how a $200,000 state loan
for a brownfield project is being spent has drawn fire from town
officials.
Continued at ….. http://cttalking.com/government/connecticut/brownfields-can-be-found-in-every-connecticut-community/
DEP: Brownfield Sites in Connecticut
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