How Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Helped Iceland — And Could Do The Same In The U.S.

By Guest Blogger on Jun 14, 2012 at 6:35 pm

Though only a tiny country of 320,000, Iceland made international headlines in 2008 when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, exemplifying the dangers of financial deregulation. But this year, Iceland’s economy will outgrow the euro area and the developed world on average.

And as difficult as it may be for conservatives here in the U.S. to stomach, at least some of the credit for Iceland’s expeditious recovery is due to its astonishing debt relief agreement.

Since the end of 2008, Iceland’s state-controlled banks have forgiven loans for more than a quarter of the population, a total equivalent to 13 percent of its annual gross domestic product. Despite shrinking 6.7 percent in 2009, Iceland’s economy is projected to expand 2.4 percent this year and next, compared with 0.2 percent in the euro area. And while Iceland’s recovery does not provide a complete parallel to U.S. economic woes, the island’s nascent success does demonstrate how loan forgiveness can help reignite a struggling economy. According to Icelandic economist Thorolfur Matthiasson:

“The lesson to be learned from Iceland’s crisis is that if other countries think it’s necessary to write down debts, they should look at how successful the [forgiveness of debt exceeding] 110 percent [of home values] agreement was here. It’s the broadest agreement that’s been undertaken.”

Some U.S. lawmakers are trying to follow Iceland’s example. Three members of Congress — in an exceedingly rare act of bipartisanship — have introduced a bill with the potential to help hundreds of thousands of struggling homeowners while also saving taxpayer dollars.

The bill would mandate principal-reduction pilot programs at government-controlled mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Essentially, the bill allows “underwater” home owners to reduce their monthly payments in exchange for a portion of the future price appreciation on the home, known as “shared appreciation.” With the extra equity, homeowners would greatly reduce the chance of foreclosure. Principal reductions would also save these government-run companies — and thus taxpayers — billions of dollars compared to other foreclosure-prevention measures.

– Steven Perlberg

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NEWS FLASH

Anti-Immigrant Activists Place Attack On Maryland DREAM Act On November Ballot | A Maryland state court ruled Thursday that a referendum on the Maryland Dream Act will be on the November ballot. In 2011, Maryland lawmakers approved the legislation to let undocumented students pay in-state tuition at state colleges so long as they attended Maryland high schools for at least three years and their parents or guardians have filed taxes. Immigration advocates made one last attempt to stop the referendum on Tuesday, arguing before the court of appeals that the Dream Act is a fiscal issue and ineligible for referendum. The law’s supporters, including Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), are building a campaign to push for voters to affirm the law.

Climate Progress

Report: Cost Of UK Offshore Wind Projected To Drop One Third By 2020

By Climate Guest Blogger on Jun 14, 2012 at 6:17 pm

by Max Frankel

A new study released by The Crown Estate and the Offshore Wind Cost Reduction Task Force predicts that the cost of offshore wind generation in the UK will drop by one-third by the year 2020.

The Crown Estate licenses offshore wind projects and the Offshore Wind Cost Reduction Task Force is a division of the UK’s Department of energy and Climate Change.

The UK wants the technology to account for as much as one-fifth of total electricity needs — about 18GW by 2020. But because of the high cost of the technology and a lack of transmission infrastructure, the pace of adoption has been modest. The European debt crisis has also stalled development.

The current cost of offshore wind energy in the UK is much higher than the current cost of natural gas. This is one reason the conservative Tory party has shifted focus to gas — to the chagrin of some in the wind industry. Despite this emerging conflict, the government report argues that wind needs to play a crucial role:

“Ours is an island nation, blessed with copious wind and shallow seas. If we are to match our clean energy ambitions, we must take full advantage of this potent natural resource.We believe that the offshore wind industry can and must evolve to be more competitive and forward looking. That in turn will boost the security of our energy supplies, create jobs, and attract further inward investment.”

Europe is already the leader in offshore wind development. According to estimates by the European Wind Energy Association, wind energy could account about 14 percent of Europe’s cumulative electricity demand by 2030. The Association also projects that as many as 170,000 Europeans could be employed in the sector by 2020. The experience of European companies has put the industry on a pathway to continued cost reductions, according to the chief executive of RenewableUK, Maria McCaffery:

Security

Romney Adviser Lays Out Iran Policy Nearly Identical To Obama’s: ‘Romney Will Seek A Negotiated Settlement’

By Ali Gharib on Jun 14, 2012 at 5:45 pm

Romney adviser Richard Williamson

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign studiously avoids calls for war with the Islamic Republic. While some advisers have been hawkish on Iran in the past, only John Bolton has called for an attack since the campaign got underway. Instead, on a recent press call, Romney adviser Dan Senor went out of his way to twice state that he was “not suggesting the military option should be used” (even as he admonished the Obama administration for openly discussing potential consequences of an attack).

In an interview with journalist Barbara Slavin published yesterday on Al-Monitor, another top Romney adviser made abundantly clear that there are very few differences between Romney’s Iran policy and President Obama’s.

Ambassador Richard Williamson told Slavin that “President Romney will seek a negotiated settlement,” which incidentally the Obama administration also considers the “best and most permanent way” to end the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program. Williamson even commented on the possible costs and consequences of attacking Iran, noting, as myriad others have, that an attack would only delay — not stop — a potential Iranian nuclear weapon:

SLAVIN: You’ve talked about a credible threat of military force yet much, if not all, of Israel’s intelligence and defense establishment oppose a strike, saying that would push Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

WILLIAMSON: You can degrade their quest for nuclear breakout. It would be expensive, it would be costly; it’s something we should avoid if possible but it’s not something we should take off the table. If you do, then you will have no chance to get a negotiated settlement.

Because he views a potential Iranian nuclear weapon as a threat to the security of the U.S., its allies in the region and the nuclear non-proliferation regime, Obama’s vowed again and again to keep all options “on the table.”

That leaves Williamson’s endorsement of a “zero enrichment” policy — lining up with hawkish Member of Congress declaring that Iran cannot be allowed to maintain any domestic uranium enrichment — as the main difference. Officially, that’s U.S. policy under the Obama administration, though officials have hinted a compromise might be possible to strike a deal. Perhaps that’s because domestic enrichment, as reiterated yesterday, is the firmest of Iranian demands in negotiations.

The hardest of the hard-line neoconservatives ramped up a campaign for war with Iran today, putting them at odds with not just Obama but Romney as well. Perhaps that’s why Romney tends to avoid focusing on foreign policy issues. As Vice President Joe Biden recently said, “Governor Romney has called for what he calls a ‘very different policy’ on Iran. But for the life of me it’s hard to understand what the governor means by a very different policy.”

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NEWS FLASH

Nashville Man Relates Lessons After A Year Pretending To Be Gay | Nashville resident Timothy Kurek had long understood homosexuality to be sinful, but when a friend was rejected by her family for coming out, he sought to understand how gay people are treated in society through an unusual experiment. After a full year in which he posed as gay to everyone in his life, he is now writing a book about how much he learned about anti-gay discrimination and stigma. Today, Kurek explained to MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts that the book is not about what it’s like to be gay, but about how gay people are treated. He said the experience “altered my faith and challenged my beliefs,” apologizing for his past disapproval of homosexuality. Watch it:

(HT: Towleroad.)

Justice

Republican Judge Blocks American Airlines Unionization Election

By Ian Millhiser on Jun 14, 2012 at 5:10 pm

Last December, the Communications Workers of America filed a request for a union election endorsed by 35 percent of American Airlines’ ticket agents and airport workers, which at the time was the percentage necessary to trigger an election to decide whether those workers could be unionized. Two months later, Congress changed the law to require 50 percent of the union-eligible workers in an airline to call for an election before one could happen, raising the question of whether a valid election request filed under then-valid law must still be honored. Yesterday, George H.W. Bush-appointed Judge Terry Means effectively said no, issuing a temporary restraining order against an election campaign that was supposed to begin today.

Whatever the merits of Means’ thinly-reasoned decision — nearly all of Judge Means’ legal reasoning on the merits of this case is confined to a brief footnote contained in a separate three-page order — his orders leave little doubt about his hostility towards unions. At one point, Judge Means opines that merely allowing American’s workers to vote on whether they want to exercise their right to organize will “irreparably” injure the company “by damage to its reputation among its employees and loss of marketplace goodwill likely to result from a contentious election campaign.”

Ultimately, however, this decision is far more of an indictment of the absurdity of American labor law — especially in the context of airlines — than it is of a single judge’s order. The entire purpose of a union election is to determine whether a majority of the workforce wishes to organize under a particular union or not. If 50 percent of the workforce have already answered that question in the affirmative, there’s absolutely no reason why a redundant election such be necessary.

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Alyssa

Media, Pop Culture, Youth of America Blamed for National Incivility

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jun 14, 2012 at 5:08 pm

An annual survey of Americans on the civility of our national life is out, and once again, the media’s high up on the list of folks people apparently blame.

55 percent of the 1,000 people surveyed said they thought that the country was getting less civilized. And of those people, 50 percent said the media was a contributor, just behind Kids These Days at 55 percent, and above celebrities at 42 percent. (Only 29 percent of respondents said they thought sports figures were helping make America less civil.) 65 percent of overall respondents said that the tone of American popular culture was generally uncivil, while 62 percent said that the tone of the media was generally uncivil. Fox News was perceived to be less civil than MSNBC by a narrow margin: 35 percent of respondents said the former was generally uncivil in tone, while 31 percent said the same about the latter.

There’s no question that people perceive some level of incivility to be a negative: in the 2012 study, 81 percent of respondents told the folks who conducted the survey said they thought incivility in government was a danger to the country’s future, and 72 percent said incivility was turning potential public servants away from government. And they self-report tuning out political advertising at a rate of 66 percent, election coverage at a rate of 54 percent, and opinion journalism at a rate or 49 percent and reported news at a rate of 45 percent, though that doesn’t mean those numbers are an accurate depiction of their actual behavior.

But when it comes to media and popular culture, I tend to think that we find incivility exciting. Conflict is a great driver of narrative, whether it’s the kind of nastiness that leads people on the same side of a war to try to off each other in the midst of a battle in Game of Thrones or high school meanness to be overcome through song in Glee. Tyrion Lannister and Coach Sylvester are fan favorites (or were, prior to their gross overuse) in part because they’re good with zingers. In Tyrion’s case, his verbal slaps are generally aimed at worthy targets, but that doesn’t make him a paragon of sweetness and light. We love mean people on reality television as long as they seem smart rather than delusional. And when it comes to celebrity gossip, our consumptive habits suggest we’re giant hypocrites: we adore nothing more than to destroy someone and then cheer their rise so we can do it all over again. It’s fun to condemn incivility in principal, but everything about our choices suggests that a lot of the time, we have an enormous amount of fun with it.

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Economy

Former Romney Adviser: Republicans Are ‘Rooting Against The Economy’

By Travis Waldron on Jun 14, 2012 at 4:45 pm

A media strategist who was a senior adviser to Mitt Romney when he ran for governor in 2003 said that he thinks Republican lawmakers are “rooting against the economy” to ensure that President Obama doesn’t win re-election.

Rob Gray, a senior adviser on Romney’s gubernatorial campaign, is a Republican media strategist who owns Gray Media, which lists an assortment of Republican officials among its past clients. Gray worked for Arizona Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and, according to Gray Media’s web site, has advised former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld (R), Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey (R), the Republican National Committee, and Romney. He did not respond to inquiries from ThinkProgress about whether he currently advises Romney or his campaign.

Appearing on Boston’s Fox 25 news channel this morning, Gray said he bought the idea that congressional Republicans were “rooting against the economy somewhat” because they believed “short-term pain” between now and November would be better than four more years under Obama:

HOST: Plenty of pundits, Rob, are suggesting that GOP lawmakers might be dragging their heels when it comes to trying to turn it around in fears that it might actually help the president. Are you buying that?

GRAY: Well, I’m not buying that they’re dragging their heels. I am buying that they’re rooting against the economy somewhat because they think that the short-term pain of, you know, the next four months is much better than having additional four years of pain under Obama. They believe the government should spend less and that they have better economic ideas than the president does. So, you know, if we have to suffer between now and November to get a better president for four years, they’re all for it.

Watch it:

Democrats have made similar allegations of congressional Republicans in the past. After Republicans blocked the American Jobs Act last October, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said Americans were “tired of Republicans in Congress rooting for the economy to fail instead of working with us to secure our economic future.”

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LGBT

Republican Vice Presidential Frontrunner Thinks Businesses Should Be Able To Fire Someone For Being Gay

By Scott Keyes and Annie-Rose Strasser on Jun 14, 2012 at 4:40 pm

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH)

WASHINGTON, DC — Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), best known as the “boring” choice atop Mitt Romney’s vice presidential list, told ThinkProgress today that he doesn’t believe it should be illegal to fire someone for being gay because doing so would make businesses less “comfortable.”

In an interview at the Faith & Freedom Conference, Portman explained why he opposes the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, which would ban firing someone because of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity. “What I’m concerned about in Paycheck Fairness and other legislation like that is the fact that it will spawn a lot of litigation the way the legislation is written,” the Ohio Senator said. He worried that the legislation “would make it more difficult for employers to feel comfortable.”

KEYES: The Senate’s going to be taking up the Employee Non-Discrimination Act. Do you think that it ought to be illegal to fire someone for being gay in the United States?

PORTMAN: I don’t believe in discrimination…

KEYES: But whether or not it should be legal.

PORTMAN: What I’m concerned about in Paycheck Fairness and other legislation like that is the fact that it will spawn a lot of litigation the way the legislation is written. So you don’t want it to be a boon to lawyers, you want it to actually help people. But no one should discriminate.

KEYES: So you’re worried that people might actually take up claims that they were discriminated against?

PORTMAN: [...] A lot of them would create a lot of legal rights of action that would make it more difficult for employers to feel comfortable, to be able to hire, and to keep this economy moving. So you have to be careful how you do it.

Watch it:

Portman’s principal objection to making it illegal to fire someone for being gay, in other words, is that people who are discriminated against might have the gall to take legal action.

Portman was correct about one thing: if Congress were to finally make it illegal to fire someone because of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity, a lot of lawsuits could ensue. That’s only a bad thing if one wants to preserve businesses’ ability to discriminate. Lawsuits are the sole mechanism by which most laws are enforced in this country. Without lawsuits, the South would still be segregated, ten year-olds would still work in mines, and there would be no minimum wage. Research shows that 42 percent of LGB workers and 90 percent of transgender workers have experienced workplace discrimination. Unless people can take action in court, Portman’s feel-good belief that “no one should discriminate” is meaningless.

Over 70 percent of Americans support legislation protecting LGBT people from workplace discrimination, and 9 in 10 mistakenly believe that a federal law doing so already exists. Unfortunately, the frontrunner to be the Republican vice presidential nominee is not among them.

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Climate Progress

The Road To Rio Goes Through Mexico: Connecting the G-20 Summit to the Rio+20 Conference

By Climate Guest Blogger on Jun 14, 2012 at 4:39 pm

by Andrew Light and Rebecca Lefton

The Group of 20 developed and developing nations will meet Monday in Los Cabos, Mexico, for their seventh meeting since the initial G-20 summit in November 2008, hosted by the George W. Bush administration in Washington, D.C. What will be the role of climate and energy issues at this latest summit?

This is an especially intriguing question since this G-20 meeting, unlike those that came before it, starts a week that will end with the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil—more commonly known as the Rio+20 Earth Summit. This once-in-a-decade event brings together thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, and civil society to focus on addressing poverty and sustainable development.

President Barack Obama will attend the G-20 meeting but not Rio+20, and other G-20 leaders are expected to make the same decision. For this and other reasons, some fear that the G-20 could upstage the Rio meeting.

But can the G-20, a relatively closed but highly influential meeting of the world’s largest economies, help set the stage for the Rio meeting, which, at this late date, is suffering from a lack of consensus on agreed goals? Yes. The best thing the G-20 leaders can do to help Rio succeed is to double down on their core climate and energy commitment—phasing out fossil-fuel subsidies—and creating a concrete roadmap to making it a reality. This will demonstrate that what the world needs now is concrete steps to real commitments instead of another series of empty proclamations.

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