LIFE-NET NEWS

by Ret Z.

Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices

2003 July 30	No Profit; No Proceeds
Volume 7 Number 8	All-Volunteer

"Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal;  give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life."

The Myth of Mobility

In the supposedly meritocratic USA, a good predictor of a person's future earnings is the income (and earnings) of his/her parents. Caste and class still stalk the American economic landscape.       A number of recent economic studies have corroborated the intuition that the United States is not the free-wheeling rags-to-riches capitalism of lore. These are generally done by trying to estimate the impact of parental income on child's income, or, in economese, the "intergenerational income elasticity". This measures the percent change of a child's income correlated with a 1% change in the parent's income, holding as much as we can fixed.       The latest estimate by Bhaskar Mazumdar finds that this number is around 0.6%, which is extremely high relative to both past studies and other OECD countries. Say Anna and Alice are identical in every measurable way, except that Alice's parents make 10% more money. If Mazumdar is right, then Alice is expected to have 6% more money than Anna, despite the fact that they are otherwise statistically indistinguishable. What's worse is that this number itself varies by income; the very rich and very poor are unusually good at passing along their economic characteristics to their kids.       There is still a large amount of work to be done in revealing the mechanisms that propagate poverty and affluence between generations. The latest studies, accounting for cognitive ability, educational attainment, direct tranfers of wealth, and even certain personality traits, do not explain even half of the observed correlation. Yet the data clearly show that the formal "equality of opportunity" touted as unique to American capitalism masks a system that keeps pedigree and pocket depth shamefully intertwined.       Source:  Center for Popular Economics

More Precious than a Gem

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him.       She did so without hesitation.       The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. "I've been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious:       "Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone."       Author Unknown       Source:  ChristiansOfTheUnitedStates

NJ to Fund College for Foster, Homeless Kids

Boosted by a surprise $800,000 federal windfall, New Jersey will launch a program that will pay tuition at state and community colleges for teenagers who are in foster care or are homeless. Gov. James E. McGreevey signed legislation on July 17 that will waive college costs for these children, saying it would be the most wide-ranging program of its kind in the nation. Although 14 other states waive college costs for foster children, New Jersey will be the only state to also cover homeless teenagers living in state-funded shelters who were not in foster care.       The future is often bleak for New Jersey foster children who turn 18 and are no longer the responsibility of the state. A 2001 study on New Jersey by an advocacy group found that after leaving the supervision of the state Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS), half were unemployed, 37% had dropped out of high school, and 32% depended on welfare. Of the 1,500 youths who passed through the Covenant House shelter in Newark last year, only 15 went on to college, said the shelter's executive director, James White.       "Today we are sending a loud message to hundreds of children whose families cannot or will not care for them: We believe in you," McGreevey said at a bill-signing ceremony attended by 200 people at Covenant House, a Newark homeless shelter. "And you must believe in you, too."       One student, Ester Lopez, 16, said the new law will give her a brighter future. She said she was broke and on the run from an abusive home in Oregon when she found the telephone number for Covenant House more than two years ago. With the state helping to pay her tuition, she wants to return to the shelter someday to work as a nurse practitioner. "I am really excited about this bill because it will help me through my college career," said Lopez, now a student at Essex County College.       Source:   Newark Star-Ledger

Workers Taking Over Argentinian Factories

When Cristalux SA went out of business three years ago, some 300 workers lost their jobs producing glassware strong enough to be hurled against a wall without breaking. Vandals destroyed assembly line machinery in the company's abandoned factory, huge glassmaking ovens were carted away, and rain started leaking through the roof. But after the country's economy entered a Great Depression-style slump and no buyers emerged for the plant, a group of former employees joined a trend taking hold in Argentina by forming a cooperative and starting production again at their old workplace.       The Cristalux workers figured they had nothing to lose. Job opportunities evaporated after Argentina's economy fell apart in 2001 and contracted 11% last year, leaving one out of every six Argentines unemployed and more than half the country in poverty. Across this nation of 37 million, at least 10,000 laid-off workers have reopened their bosses' failed businesses over the last two years. "They're not getting rich, but they are starting to make enough money to get by," said Hector Garay, who leads an association that advises 22 reopened cooperative businesses employing 2,000 workers.       After being paid nothing the first few months, the cooperative's workers still don't have benefits but are making about $13 per day. While that's about the same salary they received from their old bosses, it's far less in dollar terms because the peso lost about 70% of its dollar value last year. "I'm making enough to eat meat at home about once a week," said Ruben Massias, who builds and maintains the plant's new glass ovens. "But before this, I was just doing odd jobs, and now I think I have a future."       If Argentina's economy recovers, the owners of plants taken over by workers may mount legal battles to reassert property rights.       Source:  Associated Press

Arts Group Opens Storefront Center

The Walt Whitman Cultural Arts Center not only puts on impressive shows of performing and fine arts for the public, but it has brought serious arts programs to city churches, community clubs and schools. Hemmed in by a lack of facilities, those outreach programs have taken place in lobbies, basements, and even church kitchens.       Now, thanks to a $100,000 grant from PSE&G, the Whitman Center will open its first storefront community arts center in the former Veterans of Foreign Wars headquarters at 2808 Federal St. Renovation of the dilapidated, two-story structure begins next month. The first classes in visual and performing arts will be offered in September.       "Wherever we've taken our outreach programs, people have wanted us to stay in their communities," said Pamela Bridgeforth, the Whitman Center's executive director, noting she hopes this is the first of five or six storefront art centers.       "This arts center will be an asset to our community," said Betty Young, an art fan who lives around the corner from the new center. "It's going to enrich the lives of young people. They need to be exposed to art and encouraged to develop their talents."       The storefront center also will exhibit the work of local artists and provide a meeting place for community groups. It will install two sculptural works in front of the building. City children will create a mural around its base.       Source:  Courier-Post (Camden)

Reservist Doctors Deployed For America's Poor

For reservists who are doctors, this is their two weeks of service--a time of traveling to the Texas-Mexico border with X-ray machines and portable dental chairs to care for long lines of America's poor. For patients ranging from infants to the elderly, it may be the first time they've had a check-up or had their teeth cleaned.       Now in its fifth year, the two weeks called Operation Lonestar started July 21. The response has grown every year from media publicity and word-of-mouth. The lines start forming outside the elementary school staging areas at dawn. Moms and dads round up the kids for back-to- school immunizations, and the grandparents come to get medicines they can't afford.       Funded by the Department of Defense, Operation Lonestar is considered an exercise in front-line medical care for participants from the Texas National Guard, Marine reserves and Navy reserves. "We really don't need so much the training, they're all professionals already," said Col. Marin Garza, Operation Lonestar's commander. "It's more the coming together, the planning, the deploying--setting up, rendering aid, and then withdrawing."       In the first two days of operation for the three makeshift clinics, the 87 reservists performed 3,322 medical and dental procedures and refilled 2,152 prescriptions, mostly medications for diabetes and high blood pressure.       An alarming number of patients find out for the first time that they have diabetes, said Jean Naya, an Army National Guard physician assistant. "I don't think people understand the ramifications," she said. "It can kill you, you can go blind, on dialysis ... A lot of the problem is just the diet down here, a lot of tortillas and fatty foods."       Lt. Cmdr. Jim Kaszuba was repairing a crown and filling a tooth in an elementary school classroom. A child-size table was laden with vacuum-wrapped dental instruments, and the patients reclined on collapsible dental chairs. "You don't need a fancy office to provide basic dental care," said the 47-year-old dentist from Munster, Indiana. "You can do dentistry in a garage with a chair and a light and some sterile tools."       Still, many of the consultations end in frustration because all the doctor can do is recommend that the patient go see a high-priced specialist.       Source:  Associated Press

Letter from a Green Beret in Baghdad

Hey Guys, sorry it's been so long since I've sent anything but a quick note to you individually. However things have been pretty hectic since the end of hostilities and the start of the real war. Despite what the assholes in the press like to say over and over: 1) We did expect some armed resistance from the Ba'ath Party and Feydaheen; 2) It isn't any worse than expected; 3) Things are getting better each day; and 4) The morale of the troops is A-1, except for the normal bitching and griping. ...       I'm no longer baby-sitting the pukes from CNN and the canned hams from the networks, but have a combat mission coordinating a bunch of A teams, seeking, finding and rooting out the mostly non-Iraqis that are well-armed, well-paid (in US dollars) and always waiting to wail for the press and then shoot some GI in the back in the midst of a crowd. The only reason the GIs are pissed (not demoralized) is that they cannot touch, must less waste, those taunting bags of gas that scream in their faces and riot on cue when they spot a cameraman from ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN or NBC. If they did, then they know the next nightly news will be about how chaotic things are and how much the Iraqi people hate us. Some do. But the vast majority don't and more and more see that the GIs don't start anything, are by-and-large friendly and very compassionate, especially to kids and old people.       I saw a bunch of 19-year-olds from the 82nd Airborne not return fire coming from a mosque until they got a group of elderly civilians out of harm's way. So did the Iraqis. A bunch of bad guys used a group of women and children as human shields. The GIs surrounded them and negotiated their surrender fifteen hours later and when they discovered a three year-old girl had been injured by the big tough guys throwing her down a flight of stairs, the GIs called in a MedVac helicopter to take her and her mother to the nearest field hospital. The Iraqis watched it all, and there hasn't been a problem in that neighborhood since.       How many such stories, and there are hundreds of them, ever get reported in the fair and balanced press? You know, nada. The civilians who have figured it out faster than anyone are the local teenagers. ... The younger kids are going back to school again, don't have to listen to some mullah rant about the Koran ten hours a day, and they get a hot meal. They see the same GIs who man the corner checkpoint, helping clear the playground, install new swingsets and create soccer fields. ...       The Hospitals are open and are in the process of being brought into the 21st Century. The MOs and visiting surgeons from home are teaching their docs new techniques and one American pharmaceutical company (you know, the kind that all the hippies like to scream about as greedy) donated enough medicine to stock 45 hospital pharmacies for a year. ...       How many and hundreds of other small towns have not had riots or shootings? The vast majority. ...       Our search and destroy missions are largely at night, free of reporters and generally terrifying to those brave warriors of Allah. The only thing that frightens them more is hearing the word "Gitmo". The word is out that a trip to Guantanimo Bay is not a Caribbean vacation and they usually start squealing like the little mice they are, when an interrogator mentions "Gitmo". No wonder the International Red Cross, the National Council of Churches and the French keep protesting about the place. They know it has proven to be very effective in keeping several hundred real fanatical psychopaths in check. ...       It's going to be a long haul (remember it took 10-15 years in Japan and West Germany) but if we don't stick with it, nobody else will, and we'll have some other looney running the place again. ...       God Bless America       Mark       Source:  Rinah Shalom

Life-Net News Extras

UN Development Report: Many Countries Worse Off

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) issued its annual Human Development Report for 2003 on July 8. The report documents the progress of the world's poorest countries in implementing eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed to at the UN General Assembly summit in 2000.       The MDGs were ostensibly designed by the UN as a means of halving poverty, hunger and illness in poorer countries by 2015 and encouraging the so-called "mutual responsibilities of developing and rich countries." But seven of the eight Millennium Goals are directives aimed towards the economies of poorer countries, underscoring the fact that the UN's thrust is in line with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.       The UNDP report notes that 54 nations are poorer now than they were in 1990. Twenty of these countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa, while 17 are in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.       Life expectancy has fallen in 34 countries due primarily to HIV/AIDS. Of 59 priority nations 24 suffer from a high incidence of HIV/AIDS and 31 have "unusually high foreign debts."       The populations of 21 countries are hungrier today than in 1990. In 14 countries more children are dying before the age of five and primary school enrollment is declining in 12 nations.       According to the BBC the UNDP says of its own report that it documents "an unprecedented backslide... in some of the world's poorest nations", and, "More than one billion people still live in extreme poverty, and for many living standards are getting steadily worse."       Deputy Director for the UN Development Program Jean Fabre told reporters, "Economic and political developments in past years have enabled considerable increases in the world's wealth," but "at the same time, many countries have completely regressed in the past 10 years."       The report notes that in 31 of the poorest countries listed progress towards the MDGs has stalled or begun to reverse. On an assessment of current financial trends some countries would not overcome poverty until the year 2165, and it would take 20 Sub-Saharan African nations until 2147 to halve extreme poverty and until 2165 to cut child mortality rates by two-thirds.       Fabre admits that "the richest countries have established various barriers to the entry of goods on their own territories. There are also important subsidies given to agriculture, artificially maintaining these rich countries' agriculture (sectors) above world prices." He went on, "There is, even worse, a dumping of agricultural products from rich countries on countries having weaker economies."       The UN report states that current foreign aid is up from $52.3 billion in 2001 to $57 billion but still falls well short of the $100 billion minimum needed annually to meet its declared goals. The UNDP's administrator, Mark Malloch Brown, told BBC News Online that he felt the situation concerning foreign aid was in fact getting worse and quite critical: "Italy, France, Germany, Japan--even the Netherlands, one of the most generous donors--are all making cuts in spending. ... Development assistance is the first to go when public spending faces cuts."       Source:  BBC

South Korea's Working Poor in Precarious Position

The lives of people who exist just above the poverty line in South Korea are in jeopardy as the economy continues to slump and they are mostly ineligible for welfare benefits. The working poor, defined as people who earn up to 20% more than the poverty line ($850 US per month for a four-member family) generally receive no protection from the social safety net; they are excluded from the various benefits the very poor receive, such as government payouts for living, housing, education and health care costs.       As of May, the number of working poor was 3.20 million, or about 7% of the population, while the number of poor was 1.35 million. Some of the poor and many of the working poor are excluded from the social safety net, even though they have paltry incomes, because they own a car or live in a leased house that is larger than 20 pyung (66 square meters).       The 34-year-old mother who jumped off an apartment building with her three children on July 17 also was excluded from social welfare because her family had a used car registered under the husband's name. Such rules were amended this year but experts say that most of the working poor think they still exist.       Professor Lee Tae-soo at the Hyundo University of Social Welfare said, "The working poor could always slip into the extreme poor category, depending on the economy."       Source:  Chosun Ilbo

Tax Increase A Tough Sell In Alabama

Alabama's new governor is trying to persuade voters to approve the biggest tax increase in state history by telling them it is their Christian duty. And for a state in the Bible Belt, that might seem like a winning strategy.       Instead, Republican Governor Bob Riley's $1.2 billion tax package is alienating even the Christian Coalition. Riley consistently opposed new taxes while he was in Congress.       Riley says the tax increase is needed to erase Alabama's biggest deficit since the Depression and improve education. The plan also seeks to help the poor by raising the income level at which people have to begin paying state taxes.       Alabama's threshold for paying state taxes is the lowest in the nation, at just $4,600 for a family of four, and has remained unchanged since 1982. Riley, a Southern Baptist, says Alabama has taxed its poorest too harshly for too long. "According to our Christian ethics, we're supposed to love God, love each other and help take care of the poor," he said. "It is immoral to charge somebody making $5,000 an income tax."       Source:  Boston Globe

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