Job Creation: Green Investment vs. Defense Spending

Republicans believe government spending does nothing to create jobs, unless we're spending money on defense. Actually, we're better off spending money on green investments according to Robert Pollin, professor of economics.

In fact, the green-investment agenda is a highly effective engine of job creation, much more so, for example, than two favored Republican forms of spending, military outlay and the oil industry.

Thus, for a given billion dollars of spending, the Obama green-investment program will generate about 17,000 jobs. Spending the same amount on the military will produce only 8,500 jobs, 50 percent less than green investments. Spending an additional $1 billion on the oil industry -- the "drill, baby, drill" agenda advanced by the McCain/Palin campaign -- will produce only 4,500, about one-fourth the total created by green investments.

Pollin says three factors are at play to explain why investment spending devoted to the green economy creates more jobs than military or oil spending.

Relative labor intensity. This means more spending on people and less on machines, buildings, supplies, and energy. In weatherizing a home, the machinery and supplies needed are relatively low, while the demand for construction workers is high. Drilling for oil requires huge amounts of sophisticated machinery and relatively few people to operate that equipment. A military base employs lots of people. But it also involves heavy equipment purchases and consumes lots of energy.

Domestic production versus imports and spending abroad. With Obama's green-investment agenda, well over 90 percent of total spending will occur within the U.S. economy. Energy-efficiency measures, such as building retrofits, public transportation, and upgrading the electrical grid, can only occur on-site. Weatherization projects for buildings in North Dakota can only be done in North Dakota. The New York City subway system must be upgraded in New York. By contrast, the U.S. now imports about 50 percent of all the oil it consumes, and about 20 percent of total spending within the oil industry occurs abroad. The proportion of the military budget spent abroad is even higher.

Differences in pay levels. The average annual pay for employees associated with the green investment, including both wages and benefits, is about $52,000. This is roughly 20 percent below the $65,000 average for both the military and oil industries. This means that a given amount of spending for workers in the green-investment areas yields more job creation at lower average wages -- stretching out a given sum of wage and benefit payments.

That last point about lower average wages isn't actually a bad thing according to Pollin, because many more jobs overall are being created and more money is going into more workers' pockets.

All told, the green-investment agenda still creates far more jobs paying over $16 an hour than either the military or the oil industry does -- 75 percent more than the military and three times more than the oil industry.

And in the green economy, even many of the relatively low-paying jobs in construction and manufacturing offer decent job ladders for entry-level workers. There are fewer such prospects for advancement in even lower low-paying service-sector jobs, such as those of janitors, waiters, and health-care assistants.

President Obama's economic stimulus program includes between $50 billion and $140 billion in clean-energy spending. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the $1339 billion the world spent on the military in 2007, of which we're responsible for 45 per cent of that total, distantly followed by the UK, China, France, and Japan each with 4 to 5 per cent of the world share. Instead of increasing defense spending by 8 percent next year, the President should take the $40 billion or so difference and put it toward green investment. It'll create new industries and put more people to work, and we'll still be a superpower.

Afghanistan now deadlier than Iraq ever was

h/t Brandon Friedman at VetVoice

When the Iraq War reached its deadliest peak during a 10-week period in April, May, and June of 2007, 308 coalition troops died. That was 1 out of every 575 troops on the ground at the time.* It was a terrible period in which even the most die-hard Bush supporters began to question the sense in continuing the occupation. By contrast, 105 coalition troops have died in Afghanistan during the past 10 weeks. But because there are only 52,700 troops in Afghanistan, this represents 1 out of every 502 troops on the ground.

Memo to Pentagon: What more evidence do you need that Afghanistan is looking like an emergency?

* = The surge reached its peak in early summer 2007 and there were at least 177,000 coalition troops present.

We all suffer when journalists lower the bar

Christine is right, professional journalists should set a higher standard, and I'm not pointing a finger at any one journalist, I'm pointing a finger at all of them. People like Bob Schieffer, Rick Klein and others criticized General Wesley Clark (and his defenders) for attacking John McCain’s military service record when he actually only questioned the relevance of McCain’s combat experience as it relates to being president. A good journalist would have handled it differently according to the Columbia Journalism Review:

Clark’s comments may (or may not) have been impolitic. But that has no bearing on their validity or lack thereof — which is how the news media should be evaluating them.

In fact, if the media had bothered to look a little, they would have found that McCain himself has argued that military service is not sufficient alone to qualify a person to be president. The Wonkroom found these McCain statements:

During an interview with National Journal, John McCain was asked if “military service inherently makes somebody better equipped to be commander-in-chief.” McCain said, “Absolutely not…I absolutely don’t believe that it’s necessary.” [National Journal, 2/15/2003]

I believe that military service is the most honorable endeavor an American may undertake. But I’ve never believed that lack of military service disqualifies one from occupying positions of political leadership or as Commander and Chief. In America, the people are sovereign, and they decide who is and is not qualified to lead us. [American Legion Speech, 9/7/1999]

Earlier this year at Washington’s Gridiron Club, where humor is the required fare, McCain lay bare what underlies his candidacy. Wearing a jacket outlandishly festooned with dozens of fake military medals, McCain said, “The question I ask myself every morning while shaving in front of the mirror is: OK, John, you’re an incredible war hero, an inspiration to all Americans. But what qualifies you to be president of the United States?” [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 11/7/1999]

In fact, there's reason to believe McCain even questioned his own military accomplishments or lack thereof. The NY Times wrote in 2000 that McCain did a little soul searching back in 1979 and lamented that he would never make admiral like his father and grandfather. The Times said...

...he had always dreamed of doing something great, of imprinting his name on the history books, but at age 42 he found himself with a stuttering military career and no base from which to go into politics.

Shortly after that soul searching, McCain found a way to jump start his political career. He met Cindy at a cocktail party, divorced his first wife the following year, and then married Cindy, heiress to the one of the largest Anheuser-Busch beer distributors in the country. It was her father's business and political contacts that helped McCain gain a foothold into Arizona politics, and McCain's war hero status helped give him name recognition.

The media was so busy slamming Wesley Clark that they failed to mention those points. They also failed to mention that the General had actually been shot four times in Vietnam, and left the country on a stretcher. If anyone had a right to question McCain's military service, Clark did. A good journalist would have mentioned that.

In fact, a good journalist would have quoted McCain from an interview on NPR on May 1, 2004, when he said, “some of our greatest presidents have not [had military experience]. … And all of them turned out to be fine commanders in chief.”

(Cross-posted at Blogging for Michigan.)

Army Career Counselors Harass Parents

I know our military is stretched thin and recruiters are under a lot of pressure to sign people up, but what happened to Brandon Friedman's mother (Friedman is the Editor of VetVoice and a Captain in the Individual Ready Reserve) is unacceptable and way out of the bounds of common decency in my opinion. In Friedman's words (my emphasis):

My mom called me on Friday afternoon. She was slightly upset, but mostly angry. I asked her why.

She said that two soldiers had come to the house looking for me.

Now, this doesn't surprise me at all. It's not the first time that's happened. In fact, they'd shown up at my parents' house twice before. The Army is so desperate for warm bodies that recruiters and career counselors will pretty much go anywhere if they think they can get somebody to sign up. And I'm still in the IRR, so that makes me a prime target--even though I've already served two tours in combat. But that's not the issue here.

The issue is how these two guys acted. My mom--who rarely gets flustered--explained that the two NCOs who'd come to the house were Army Reserve Career Counselors from the 90th Regional Readiness Command. They had shown up at my parents' house in an attempt to lure me back into a unit. But they didn't just ask.

Instead, according to my mom, they proceed to play good cop/bad cop with her. Sergeant First Class M. played the good cop. He explained that they were just there to let me know what options were available to me, should I want re-join a unit. He handed her his card.

The task of playing bad cop, however, fell to Master Sergeant N. Hovering over her in the driveway, Sergeant N. leaned in and told my mother--at her house, in the absence of both me and my father--that he could "make it easy" on me, and that he could give me "alternatives" if she would put them in contact with me. The implication was clear to my mother: If she wasn't willing to put them in contact with me, it would not be "easy" for me. He wasn't saying it specifically, but, as we all know, he was suggesting that if I wasn't willing to come off the IRR and join a unit, then I'd likely be recalled to Active Duty involuntarily and deployed for a third time.

To a mother who doesn't understand how the Army works, it was easy for him to make her think that he had some sort of say in the process. This is a common technique.

Irritated by his vague threats and intimidation, my mom told them she didn't have any contact information for me. Then she expressed to them that they could leave her home. She called me a while later.

Now, I can tell you, my mom doesn't need the added stress of having soldiers appear at her door. She doesn't need these guys telling her that her twice-deployed son could be sent back to Iraq if she doesn't give out his personal information. And she certainly doesn't need it done in the moderately threatening tone she described.

The tactic is clear according to Friedman: "Use the threat of an involuntary mobilization to coerce a soldier into joining a unit."

As you might have guessed, Friedman didn't let the incident pass. He called the Sergeants and ended up giving them a piece of his mind, and he also read them e-mail messages from other soldiers who were victims of these tactics. This was not an isolated incident. You can read those e-mail messages online too.

The bottom line is that the Army needs to address these tactics. As a mother, I think the Army needs to make it clear that parents are off limits. Harassing and intimidating a soldier's parents is not only morally wrong, it's unprofessional and unethical. Our country deserves better.

Friedman has a few suggestions of his own too:

Get rid of policymakers who use the military so carelessly that the mission cannot be accomplished without sending the same soldiers back into combat over and over and over.

Get rid of policymakers who allow the Individual Ready Reserve and the National Guard to be used in non-emergency situations and in elective wars.

If a war is necessary, and none of the above actions work, then initiate a draft.

If it wasn't for those "policymakers" above, this problem wouldn't have existed in the first place.

(Cross-posted at BFM.)

U.S. awakens to "soft power"

Led by the military, war-weary US awakens to 'soft power'

After six hard years of war, the United States is awakening to the idea that "soft power" is a better way to regain influence and clout in a world bubbling with instability.

And nowhere is the change in thinking more advanced than in the US military, which is pushing for greater diplomacy, economic aid, civic action and civilian capabilities to prevent new wars and win the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hmm...I seem to recall diplomacy being recommend before we went into Iraq, before we lost all these lives, before we squandered all this money, and before Bush ruined our reputation and standing in the world.

At least the military isn't waiting on the Bush administration to change their thinking, which the article describes as a "a mixed bag."

The military wants civilian agencies to do more to prevent wars, but is not waiting for them to get their act together, analysts say.

Instead, it has stepped up thinking and planning for what it calls "phase zero," military jargon for conflict prevention.

"I think they've come to the conclusion that insurgencies are really hard to fight. And so it would be better if they could not have the conflict in the first place," said Robert Perito, an expert at the US Institute of Peace.

"In conflict prevention, of course, there is very little military component to that. It's mostly all political and economic.

Americans will be dealing with the ramifications of the Iraq war for decades to come. Maybe conflict prevention will be the one good thing that comes out of all of this.

Blackwater's plans for New Year's Eve

Blackwater sure is intent on putting themselves out there as equals to our military. Yesterday, we learned about their paratroopers parachuting onto the field during halftime at the SDSU "Fleet Week" game and today there's more news. Go read my post over at BFM: Blackwater at New Year's Eve Armed Forces Bowl

But before you go, check out this YouTube video of a Blackwater parachutist landing on the field at the Fleet Week SDSU game (around the 2:45 mark). He's holding the American flag and his parachute is emblazoned with the Blackwater logo. Eisenhower must be rolling over in his grave.

A reason to be thankful for Mike Bishop (snark)

I thought Sen. Mike Bishop (R-MI) was over-the-top when he censored BFM from senate computers for saying bad things about him, but Rep. Randy Kuhl (R-NY) makes him look almost rational. Kuhl has been under pressure from protesters lately for his continued support of Bush's war policy, but his thoughts on how to deal with them sends shivers down my spine.

From the Huffington Post:

In an interview yesterday with the editorial board of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Kuhl said he has "thought about packing" firearms to fend off protesters:

"Kuhl said that he wasn't at his offices when the protesters in Bath and Fairport were there. When I asked him if he had ever protested, he said "Yes, when I walked off the floor in Congress recently." I asked if that means he thinks the protesters have a right to do so and he again said "yes, just not over the line." He said that the types of protests have caused him to rethink security at his offices and that means securing doors. He said they are "more protective now" and that he "thought about packing."" [emphasis mine]

Just how "over the line" were those protesters that Kuhl is considering carrying a gun? You be the judge.

Forget Blackwater, Stick with the National Guard

Something I read on Libby's blog - The Impolitic - caught my attention. She was talking about Kansas' crippled efforts to conduct a proper search and rescue attempt after their tornado because of their strapped National Guard units, and she concluded with this:

Our National Guard should be here at home doing the job they signed up for, rendering service on the homefront, rather than being sent thousands of miles of away for years on end in the name of imperialistic follies. Instead, when the next disaster strikes a major metro area, the taxpayer will be footing the bill for Blackwater mercenaries at ten times the price.

Libby may be onto something with her comment about Blackwater. Consider this article:

Increasingly a magnet for controversy, Blackwater USA has encountered a bumpy road implementing its national and international expansion plans.

The Moyock, N.C.-based private military company's plans to open an Asian branch in the Philippines have been scrapped and one stateside proposal has drawn considerable heat.

"We are no longer pursuing a facility in the Philippines," Anne Tyrrell, a company spokeswoman, said this week. [...]

Closer to home, Blackwater's drive to open a West Coast outpost has run into a buzzsaw of public opposition. More than half the registered voters of a tiny rural community east of San Diego, the proposed site of "Blackwater West," have signed a petition opposing the project. [...]

Meanwhile, Blackwater's new northern base in Illinois - where the company had no local regulatory hurdles to overcome - opened quietly this week, offering a variety of courses in firearms use, law enforcement and military tactics.

It is curious that the company quietly goes around expanding their facilities when according to an article in the Metro Times they have an extensive training facility in North Carolina.

Blackwater has a private fleet of more than twenty aircraft, including helicopter gunships and a surveillance blimp division. Its 7,000-acre headquarters in Moyock, North Carolina, is the world's largest private military facility. It trains tens of thousands of federal and local law enforcement agents a year and troops from "friendly" foreign nations.

Maybe they're positioning themselves to be accessible as emergencies arise in the south, out west or in the heartland in order to secure government contracts like they did after Hurricane Katrina. Privatization is a big, big story, according to what Jeremy Schahill told Metro Times:

[...] "Blackwater is a company that's engaged to tell a much bigger story. We are living right now in the middle of the most radical privatization agenda in the history of this country," Scahill tells Metro Times. "The Bush administration has used the private sector to essentially double the size of the occupation using troops whose deaths don't get counted in the official death toll and are operating outside the official system of law."

Scahill was reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when he met several Blackwater "operatives" as he calls them. The company originally said its services were "donated" to the relief effort, but then it was awarded a no-bid contract with the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Protective Services to defend reconstruction projects and several private businesses, Scahill reports. [...]

"I feel like Hurricane Katrina provided us a window into the future of what could happen in this country with natural disasters or national emergencies," Scahill says. "Training and putting arms into the hands of private contractors who are accountable to no one, to me, is a very disturbing trend in this country."

If you don't find that disturbing, consider this statement from Metro Times:

"As one U.S. Congressmember observed, in strictly military terms, Blackwater could overthrow many of the world's governments."

I don't have a problem with privatization if it saves the taxpayer money, provides equal or better service, and is bid on in an open and honest matter. I do have a problem with no-bid contracts that end up costing us more. In Blackwater's case, the company has cost the taxpayers lots more money as I've posted before, and here's another example from Metro Times:

In contrast to active-duty soldiers who are poorly paid, Blackwater's guards were given six-figure salaries. "Standard wages for PSD (personal security detail) pros [in Iraq] were previously running about $300 [per man] a day," Fortune magazine reported at the time. "Once Blackwater started recruiting for its first big job, guarding Paul Bremer, the rate shot up to $600 a day."

I'm not sure what Blackwater's motivation is, but we don't need their services. We have National Guard troops available to help us in national emergencies that could use an infusion of cash to replace their missing equipment. Oh, and if the Bush administration really wants to spend more money, give the National Guard members a raise. They need it more than Erik Prince, millionaire owner of Blackwater.

Dale Kildee Opposed to Troop Escalation

Here's an update on Rep. Kildee's position on troop escalation that I wrote about a few weeks back. I'm impressed at the quick response I received. Thank you, Congressman.

I don't want to misquote him, so here's his letter word for word:

January 26, 2007

Thank you for expressing your opposition to President Bush's proposal to send thousands of additional U.S. combat troops to Iraq. I agree that our troops should be withdrawn from Iraq as soon as practical.

That is why I will support Congressional resolutions of disapproval of the President's proposed escalation of the American combat operations in Iraq. We should turn all combat operations in Iraq over to the Iraq security forces, leaving the minimum of U.S. troops needed to support and train the Iraq forces.

Moreover, I voted against the war resolution that authorized the President in October 2002 to use military force against Iraq. I did not believe the President and his advisors had provided the Congress and the American people with clear answers to several crucial questions which I asked during debate on the resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq:
** What was the nature and urgency of the Iraqi threat to the U.S.?
** What was the mission of our troops?
** How much international support would we have?
** What is the exit strategy to withdraw our troops from Iraq when their mission is concluded?
** Would U.S. military action against Iraq diminish terrorism or increase it?

Years later, and the President still has not adequately answered my questions. I am convinced that my vote against the war was and is the correct course. The occupation of Iraq was a mistake from the very beginning that was further exacerbated by incompetent leadership from the White House and the civilian officials in the Pentagon. You may be assured that I will continue to support efforts to bring our American troops home from Iraq at the earliest practical time.

Sincerely,
Dale E. Kildee, M.C.

That last paragraph says it all. Those GOP Senators who blocked debate on a bipartisan resolution opposing President Bush’s troop buildup should heed his words or pay the price in 2008.

A Profound Question

How much is a human life worth in the United States today?

Hat-tip to The Command T.O.C. for pointing us to the answer.

(We should be ashamed.)

This is What the Republicans Don't Want to Talk About

Michigan's Iraq casualties now number more than 100 as this map so graphically indicates. All those lives lost for what? Lies.

The public wants our troops home and the president claims he has a "timeline for Iraq," but this rhetoric is not accompanied by any change in strategy. The Bush administration has not imposed any consequences and there's been no mention of a drawdown of troops.

In the meantime, the war and all these senseless casualties are taking a backseat to campaigning. Here in Michigan, Dick DeVos keeps steering the discussion to jobs and the economy because he wants to deflect attention away from the fact that his brother-in-law Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater USA, a private security firm currently working in Iraq, is a war profiteer, and DeVos and his family are major supporters of Republican causes. Contrast that with Gov. Granholm who has worked [pdf file] to protect our soldiers' pay, ensure jobs for veterans, protect the parental rights of service women and men, and provide financial assistance to families of soldiers suffering financial hardships.

No, DeVos and the Republicans don't want to discuss the Iraq war because then the public might hear something like this:

An Iraq vet's thoughts on 100 dead Michigan troops.

Supporting the troops is not having a yellow-magnet ribbon on your car. It’s calling your congressman and complaining to them about why they decided to cut VA or TRICARE benefits for Soldiers. It’s making sure that they only go to war because it’s absolutely necessary, and when they do you complain to everyone if they aren’t given the resources to do the job! It’s taking care of the vets when they get home, and making sure they don’t end up broke and homeless. As of this writing over 500 OEF and OIF vets are homeless. Where is the outrage over this? Where are Hannity and Limbaugh, telling our Government to get their shit together and do something to help them? The only conclusion I can come up with is that they just don’t care. While they say “support our troops” they really mean “use our troops as an excuse to further our agenda.”

Supporting the troops is NOT about defending a political stance or an ideology.

Click on the link and read the entire post. This is reality. This is what the Republicans have done to our country and our children.

Update: Several veterans left notable comments at the link above that deserve your attention too.