http://www.opednews.com/articles/Safe-Motherhood-Revisited-by-Elayne-Clift-091231-686.html
January 2, 2010
Safe Motherhood Revisited
By Elayne Clift
In a village in rural Indonesia, a woman lies dying from infection after giving birth, unattended, two days earlier. Last year the daughter she delivered prematurely was stillborn and the low-birth weight baby she had before that died when he was a week old. In Sub-Saharan Africa another mother labors for two days and nights. When her baby is finally born, she suffers a hemorrhage and dies.
Scenes like these are repeated around the developing world with stunning regularity. Every minute a woman dies in pregnancy and childbirth; every year nearly 540,000 women los their lives to complications during pregnancy and childbirth. The vast majority of these deaths are preventable when women have access to vital health care before, during and after childbirth.
Most of this maternal morbidity and mortality could be stopped with coordinated action, sufficient resources, strong leadership and political will. Providing access to comprehensive reproductive health services (including family planning and safe abortion), ensuring skilled care by midwives during pregnancy and childbirth, and providing emergency care for all mothers and newborns with complications, would dramatically impact outcomes. So why has the international community not been more successful in reducing the maternal mortality rate over the last two decades?
Jeremy Shiffman, a political scientist at SyracuseUniversity, attempted to answer that question two years ago on the 20th anniversary of the Safe Motherhood Initiative. In an article in The Lancet (Oct. 2007), Shiffman suggested four key factors were at play: the need for strong leadership; the need to frame maternal health appropriately; the need for greater political will; and the need to understand the issue itself.
Recently, Dr. Shiffman noted that there is growing policy cohesion but reiterated problems around leadership, weak mobilization of civil society, and the lack of a unifying "frame" aimed at political commitment and action. Increasingly that frame is an economic one: Every year an estimated $15.5 billion in potential productivity is lost when mothers and newborns die.
When a number of United Nations agencies launched the Global Safe Motherhood Initiative in 1987, its goals were to raise awareness about the half million women dying every year from childbearing and to inspire efforts to reduce maternal mortality by half by the year 2000. Over the next decade, maternal mortality reduction remained high on the rhetorical agenda of the international public health community. Articles were written, conferences held, grants awarded.
In 2000 the United Nations announced the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at poverty alleviation by 2015. Maternal health got its own MDG: Goal five was the reduction of the global maternal mortality ratio by 75 percent over 1990 levels by 2015. The consensus today is that MDG-5 has shown the least progress of all the MDGs.
The MDGs did foster dialogue among competing entities such as abortion advocates, AIDS activists, human rights feminists, and those who focused on public health policy on behalf of women vs. newborns. Development agencies and other donors increased funds for maternal and newborn health. Political leaders in India and Nigeria talked publicly about MDG-5. And still women died in the face of funding shortfalls and lagging political will.
As pressure built to address the continuing tragedy of maternal mortality, critical alliances were formed, among them in 2005, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, an amalgam of groups committed to the continuum of care.
In 2007, a global Women Deliver Conference took place in London. Attended by 1500 parliamentarians, donors, public health professionals, and others, it helped establish key linkages between maternal health, reproductive health and choice, education, economics, gender issues, and human rights.
In 2008, UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank agreed to organize a strategic alliance aimed at harmonizing approaches by UN agencies to improve maternal and newborn health at the country level, and to jointly raise necessary resources.
The White Ribbon Alliance (WRA), an international coalition established in 1999 to advocate for quality health care before, during and after childbirth, recently announced its "Mothers Day Every Day" campaign in partnership with CARE. Sarah Brown, wife of the British prime minister, is an active force in WRA.
EngenderHealth, an international reproductive health organization, just received a three-year, $11 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to coordinate the Maternal Health Task Force Project. Its mandate is to shape collective efforts in improving maternal health worldwide by facilitating dialogue and consensus around programs and policies, research and evaluation, and advocacy. "We must find ways to translate knowledge into action and to build communities that work well together," says Dr. Ana Langer, President of EngenderHealth. "Governments are feeling the pressure."
Ann Starrs, executive vice-president of Family Care International, agrees. "While some regions have experienced declines in their maternal mortality rates since 1990, it is nowhere near enough. Donors and governments haven't invested sufficient resources in the programs and strategies that are essential to reducing maternal mortality. These strategies need to be implemented along with efforts to improve health services overall, and be linked to efforts addressing factors like gender inequality and poverty."
Despite continuing challenges including the fact that "this is still seen as a women's issue," Starrs is optimistic. "There is greater internal cohesion and collaboration around this issue than I've seen in the past twenty years," she says. "The last 12 to 18 months have seen a significant change in terms of awareness, high-level political attention, and celebrity engagement. We're at the cusp of real change."
"The challenge today," she adds, "is how to get the money to where it needs to go. It is unconscionable that one woman out of every seven in Niger will die from pregnancy-related complications compared to one in 48,000 in Ireland. Yes, we're facing a global economic crisis. But an investment of $7 billion per year will save the world $15 billion in lost productivity. That's not charity; it's a smart investment."
Monday, January 4, 2010
What Is Patriarchy?
http://thesacredcircle.net/Patriarchy.html
Patriarchy is the insidious cultural force governing our planet today;
a hierarchal system supporting male domination and elite supremacy;
rooted in all religious & political belief systems that patronize a male GOD,
give MAN dominion over the Earth or appoint MAN head of household.
Patriarchy has dominated and ruled the world for many centuries now
keeping the numerous powers and gifts of the female under its control.
Since the Goddess as Divinity, Earth, Mother & Life-Giver has been deliberately
suppressed, supplanted & diminished by patriarchal religions & social systems,
along with the feminine powers of birthing & sustaining all life on earth,
it has sadly resulted in the sick and dysfunctional world we live in today!
Patriarchy creates illusions of male supremacy, power & importance.
Of course, the idea of male supremacy is absurd, but when we uphold this
delusion we are actually supporting & sustaining a hierarchal system that
keeps many people oppressed, sick, dependent, poor or powerless.
We must also realize that by relinquishing our power to Patriarchy
we actually justify, condone or rationalize condescending or
abusive treatment toward females, children, animals, Nature,
any other life-form considered less valuable!
Patriarchy stifles our true essence by creating a false sense of reality.
It perpetuates shame and deterioration of the soul because it goes
against natural forces & cycles of life. It is also a root cause of wars,
misogyny, racism, sexism, homophobia, codependency, alcoholism,
addiction, workaholism, eating disorders, violence, crime, genocide
& many other abuses and diseases we see in the world today.
The truth is, we are all spiritual beings, one with Nature, one in Spirit,
valuable and complete in the framework of our design, and we
must reclaim our divinity, our own unique mysteries, and our
connection with the natural world in order to fully recover.
The laws and forces that govern life, yin and yang, are balanced,
flowing harmoniously and equally between polarities.
If we are not aligned with the natural forces of life
we stay imbalanced ... therefore unhealthy.
Males as well as females are gravely affected by Patriarchy
because it teaches males to be god & females to serve god...
thereby defining roles for us that are impossible to emulate
without creating conflict and confusion in our basic natures and
in our relationships with one another. Patriarchy creates wars
within the SELF, and when there's conflict and stress within
there is always discord, dis-ease & dysfunction without.
In the Sisterhood of the Sacred Circle...
We are reclaiming our feminine power, unique mysteries,
rites of passage & celebrations to heal and recreate our lives.
We are also freeing ourselves from the mental and emotional
bondage of Patriarchy because it lies at the core of our diseases,
dysfunctions, compulsions, addictions & codependency...
and true recovery isn't possible until we are restored
to sanity & wholeness as true children of the Earth.
Patriarchy is the insidious cultural force governing our planet today;
a hierarchal system supporting male domination and elite supremacy;
rooted in all religious & political belief systems that patronize a male GOD,
give MAN dominion over the Earth or appoint MAN head of household.
Patriarchy has dominated and ruled the world for many centuries now
keeping the numerous powers and gifts of the female under its control.
Since the Goddess as Divinity, Earth, Mother & Life-Giver has been deliberately
suppressed, supplanted & diminished by patriarchal religions & social systems,
along with the feminine powers of birthing & sustaining all life on earth,
it has sadly resulted in the sick and dysfunctional world we live in today!
Patriarchy creates illusions of male supremacy, power & importance.
Of course, the idea of male supremacy is absurd, but when we uphold this
delusion we are actually supporting & sustaining a hierarchal system that
keeps many people oppressed, sick, dependent, poor or powerless.
We must also realize that by relinquishing our power to Patriarchy
we actually justify, condone or rationalize condescending or
abusive treatment toward females, children, animals, Nature,
any other life-form considered less valuable!
Patriarchy stifles our true essence by creating a false sense of reality.
It perpetuates shame and deterioration of the soul because it goes
against natural forces & cycles of life. It is also a root cause of wars,
misogyny, racism, sexism, homophobia, codependency, alcoholism,
addiction, workaholism, eating disorders, violence, crime, genocide
& many other abuses and diseases we see in the world today.
The truth is, we are all spiritual beings, one with Nature, one in Spirit,
valuable and complete in the framework of our design, and we
must reclaim our divinity, our own unique mysteries, and our
connection with the natural world in order to fully recover.
The laws and forces that govern life, yin and yang, are balanced,
flowing harmoniously and equally between polarities.
If we are not aligned with the natural forces of life
we stay imbalanced ... therefore unhealthy.
Males as well as females are gravely affected by Patriarchy
because it teaches males to be god & females to serve god...
thereby defining roles for us that are impossible to emulate
without creating conflict and confusion in our basic natures and
in our relationships with one another. Patriarchy creates wars
within the SELF, and when there's conflict and stress within
there is always discord, dis-ease & dysfunction without.
In the Sisterhood of the Sacred Circle...
We are reclaiming our feminine power, unique mysteries,
rites of passage & celebrations to heal and recreate our lives.
We are also freeing ourselves from the mental and emotional
bondage of Patriarchy because it lies at the core of our diseases,
dysfunctions, compulsions, addictions & codependency...
and true recovery isn't possible until we are restored
to sanity & wholeness as true children of the Earth.
Health Screening: What's a Woman to Do?
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Health-Screening-What-s-a-by-Elayne-Clift-091231-133.html
January 2, 2010
Health Screening: What's a Woman to Do?
By Elayne Clift
If it's not foods that are good for you and then aren't, it's drugs like hormone replacement therapy, handed out like vitamin pills to midlife women until we learned they could cause breast cancer. Now, controversy and confusion swirls around screening for breast and cervical cancer. Women are understandably "bothered and bewildered." Is there a way to sort out how to take care of ourselves?
The debate over when and how often to get mammograms has actually been ongoing for years. In the 1960s, randomized controlled studies were conducted but the complex data they provided led to different interpretations and recommendations. In 1971 a large-scale study found that mammograms were of limited benefit to women under fifty. In 1997, a consensus conference at the National Institutes of Health concluded that there was insufficient evidence to recommend screening for women under age fifty. Still, the Senate voted unanimously in support of women under fifty getting mammograms so the National Cancer Institute endorsed screenings for women in their forties.
Meanwhile, women's health education and advocacy organizations were making their position clear. Breast Cancer Action (BCA), the National Women's Health Network, and others, stated that pre-menopausal women should not have regular screening mammograms. Everyone, they said, should know the benefits and risks of all screening methods (mammograms, breast self-exam, clinical breast exam) so they could make the best decisions for themselves based on individual risk assessment.
BCA argues that we need to put aside individual situations in favor of public policy decisions that affect large numbers of people. "Emerging science tells us that we need to try to do that if we're going to get to the best place in terms of reducing deaths from breast cancer and minimizing the harms that occur when we do mammography screening." Among those harms, says BCA, are false negative results, or false positive results that lead to unnecessary invasive procedures. There is also the risk of cumulative exposure to radiation. Often, cancers that will not progress and are not life-threatening will be diagnosed and treated even though they pose no real problem.That's why risks must be balanced against benefits of finding breast cancer early enough to effectively treat the disease. ""Early detection' doesn't really mean what we've been led to believe -- that finding breast cancer early is the key to survival. It's not that simple," says Barbara Brenner, executive director of BCA.
Women diagnosed with "early" breast cancer fall into one of three categories: those with breast cancer that responds to currently available treatments; those with breast cancer that will never become life-threatening; and those with very aggressive disease that can't be effectively treated with available therapies. The only people who benefit from early detection are those in the first group because their lives can be saved if they get timely and appropriate treatment. It is these women who need screening.
Last November the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended that women begin regular breast cancer screening at age fifty rather than forty. Dr. Robert Aronowitz, an internist at the University of Pennsylvania, supports that recommendation. "You need to screen 1,900 women in their forties for ten years in order to prevent one death from breast cancer," he wrote on NYTimes.com. "In the process you will have generated more than 1,000 false positive screens and all the overtreatment they entail." Noted breast cancer surgeon Dr. Susan Love concurs. "There are no studies that indicate mammograms will reduce deaths from aggressive tumors in young women," she says. "It's not whether women under fifty get breast cancer. They do. The question is whether mammography is the best way to find them and really change the outcome."
While cancer groups like The American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute are split on guidelines issued by the Task Force, its recommendations are consistent with international findings and standards. The World Health Organization recommends starting screening at age fifty. In Europe, mammograms are given to post-menopausal women bi-annually. Detection rates are similar to those in the U.S.
Just after the Task Force recommendations for breast cancer screening were presented, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) announced a similar revision to its screening guidelines for cervical cancer. ACOG now advises women to get their first Pap test at age twenty-one. (Previously they advocated a pap test three years after sexual activity began or at age twenty-one.) The new recommendation also promotes testing biannually instead of annually for women under thirty. According to Dr. Alan Waxman of the University of New Mexico, "the evidence to date shows that screening at less frequent intervals prevents cervical cancer just as well, has decreased costs and avoids unnecessary interventions that could be harmful."
Changing health behavior, especially when it reverses prevailing norms, is not easy. Patients and providers alike will struggle with these new recommendations as they begin to think differently about risk and disease reduction. Some will question the timing of these recommendations given the current political climate regarding health care financing and reform. Certainly we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater, especially since women often receive routine health screening only when they visit their gynecologists for pap smears and breast exams.
Still, marrying evidence-based protocols to intuitive risk assessment is not a bad idea. As Barbara Brenner says, "We have suffered from oversimplification of the early detection message for far too long. The new recommendations on screening may help us move to a more nuanced understanding of cancer, and ultimately a better place for all of us."
January 2, 2010
Health Screening: What's a Woman to Do?
By Elayne Clift
If it's not foods that are good for you and then aren't, it's drugs like hormone replacement therapy, handed out like vitamin pills to midlife women until we learned they could cause breast cancer. Now, controversy and confusion swirls around screening for breast and cervical cancer. Women are understandably "bothered and bewildered." Is there a way to sort out how to take care of ourselves?
The debate over when and how often to get mammograms has actually been ongoing for years. In the 1960s, randomized controlled studies were conducted but the complex data they provided led to different interpretations and recommendations. In 1971 a large-scale study found that mammograms were of limited benefit to women under fifty. In 1997, a consensus conference at the National Institutes of Health concluded that there was insufficient evidence to recommend screening for women under age fifty. Still, the Senate voted unanimously in support of women under fifty getting mammograms so the National Cancer Institute endorsed screenings for women in their forties.
Meanwhile, women's health education and advocacy organizations were making their position clear. Breast Cancer Action (BCA), the National Women's Health Network, and others, stated that pre-menopausal women should not have regular screening mammograms. Everyone, they said, should know the benefits and risks of all screening methods (mammograms, breast self-exam, clinical breast exam) so they could make the best decisions for themselves based on individual risk assessment.
BCA argues that we need to put aside individual situations in favor of public policy decisions that affect large numbers of people. "Emerging science tells us that we need to try to do that if we're going to get to the best place in terms of reducing deaths from breast cancer and minimizing the harms that occur when we do mammography screening." Among those harms, says BCA, are false negative results, or false positive results that lead to unnecessary invasive procedures. There is also the risk of cumulative exposure to radiation. Often, cancers that will not progress and are not life-threatening will be diagnosed and treated even though they pose no real problem.That's why risks must be balanced against benefits of finding breast cancer early enough to effectively treat the disease. ""Early detection' doesn't really mean what we've been led to believe -- that finding breast cancer early is the key to survival. It's not that simple," says Barbara Brenner, executive director of BCA.
Women diagnosed with "early" breast cancer fall into one of three categories: those with breast cancer that responds to currently available treatments; those with breast cancer that will never become life-threatening; and those with very aggressive disease that can't be effectively treated with available therapies. The only people who benefit from early detection are those in the first group because their lives can be saved if they get timely and appropriate treatment. It is these women who need screening.
Last November the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended that women begin regular breast cancer screening at age fifty rather than forty. Dr. Robert Aronowitz, an internist at the University of Pennsylvania, supports that recommendation. "You need to screen 1,900 women in their forties for ten years in order to prevent one death from breast cancer," he wrote on NYTimes.com. "In the process you will have generated more than 1,000 false positive screens and all the overtreatment they entail." Noted breast cancer surgeon Dr. Susan Love concurs. "There are no studies that indicate mammograms will reduce deaths from aggressive tumors in young women," she says. "It's not whether women under fifty get breast cancer. They do. The question is whether mammography is the best way to find them and really change the outcome."
While cancer groups like The American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute are split on guidelines issued by the Task Force, its recommendations are consistent with international findings and standards. The World Health Organization recommends starting screening at age fifty. In Europe, mammograms are given to post-menopausal women bi-annually. Detection rates are similar to those in the U.S.
Just after the Task Force recommendations for breast cancer screening were presented, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) announced a similar revision to its screening guidelines for cervical cancer. ACOG now advises women to get their first Pap test at age twenty-one. (Previously they advocated a pap test three years after sexual activity began or at age twenty-one.) The new recommendation also promotes testing biannually instead of annually for women under thirty. According to Dr. Alan Waxman of the University of New Mexico, "the evidence to date shows that screening at less frequent intervals prevents cervical cancer just as well, has decreased costs and avoids unnecessary interventions that could be harmful."
Changing health behavior, especially when it reverses prevailing norms, is not easy. Patients and providers alike will struggle with these new recommendations as they begin to think differently about risk and disease reduction. Some will question the timing of these recommendations given the current political climate regarding health care financing and reform. Certainly we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater, especially since women often receive routine health screening only when they visit their gynecologists for pap smears and breast exams.
Still, marrying evidence-based protocols to intuitive risk assessment is not a bad idea. As Barbara Brenner says, "We have suffered from oversimplification of the early detection message for far too long. The new recommendations on screening may help us move to a more nuanced understanding of cancer, and ultimately a better place for all of us."
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Feminomics: Top Five Heroines of Financial Reform
http://www.newdeal20.org/
Feminomics: Top Five Heroines of Financial Reform
By Joe Costello, NewDeal 2.0
Posted on December 30, 2009, Printed on December 31, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/144881/
From an economic standpoint, will 2010 be the year of the woman? As part of the Roosevelt Institute's ongoing 'Feminomics' series, running on the New Deal 2.0 blog, I was asked to reflect on women's changing roles in the economy. Here's my take on how the New Deal advanced the cause of women's equality.
1) First, I'll start with Yves Smith, who I came across end of last summer. She has 25 years in financial services, worked for, amongst others, Goldman, McKinsey, and Sumitomo, and is also a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Business School. Her must-read blog is Naked Capitalism. She has shown great knowledge and greater courage -- and from my experience, these two traits are too rare together. Her writing is exceptional, and if you want a good overview of the financial mess and what's gone on over the past year and half, I highly recommend paging through her blog's archive. The president should replace Geithner with her. Time we had our first woman Treasury Secretary.
2) Next, Elizabeth Warren. Either mistakenly, which I believe is the case, or purposefully, in which case I'd have to reevaluate my opinion of Harry Reid, Warren was appointed by Reid to head the Congressional Oversight Panel for all the money being handed to the banks. Warren is Professor of Law at Harvard and wrote the excellent book The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke. So, she documented the great underbelly of Wall Street's debt bubble -- particularly its destruction of a big chunk of working America. I don't know if Reid thought he was getting some doddering academic when he appointed her, but instead he got a strong and energetic public advocate. There's been a pretty hard effort to discredit Ms. Warren, and Yves Smith takes a look at the hatchet job done by NPR here. I've been nothing but impressed when I've heard her talk, and strongly second the motion by William Greider to give her subpoena powers.
3) In October 2007, working for Oppenheimer, Meredith Whitney wrote a report calling Citi the pile junk it is. Amazingly, she was pretty much the only one in the whole industry to do so. Since then, Whitney has been straight at the big banks, holding nothing back on what bad shape they're in. She's the Anti-Geithner. In the middle of latest pop in the stock market, which has gotten the banks $50 billion in new capital over the past couple months, Whitney appeared on CNBC and called the banks' profits "manufactured" by the government, and stated things would begin heading south again. She's an eagle above the weasels scurrying below on Wall Street.
4) Gretchen Morgenson writes for the NYT business section. In the last year and half, she has written far and away some of the best coverage of the financial crisis in the mainstream media. Most importantly, she put Mr. Blankfein at the meeting with Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke when the bailout of AIG was decided to the advantage of Goldman for at least 14 billion. Again, if you want to read some good things on the last year and half, scroll through her articles in the Times' archive (The Nation did an ok piece on her, but unfortunately, it suffers from the author's "objective journalism" disease).
5) Finally, I'd throw in Sheila Bair, who was appointed head of the FDIC by none other than George W. Bush. Ms. Bair has frequently tangled with the boys in the government, taking on Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner, and Summers. She's stated repeatedly the banking crisis is not over, tried to slow the foreclosure tsunami, and most recently stated again Citi is a pile of crap and needs to be placed into receivership.
These women are inspiring! Citizens all, helping to breathe life into this old republic.
Editor's note: AlterNet nominates Nomi Prins as a 6th heroine of financial reform: Before becoming a journalist, Nomi worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, and ran the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London. Prins regularly takes on the banks in her articles in the independent and progressive media. Read some of her work from this year here. It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street.
This post originally appeared on New Deal 2.0.
Joe Costello has been involved in communications, energy and political economy for three decades. He was communications director for Jerry Brown's innovative 1992 presidential campaign and was a senior adviser for Howard Dean's effort in 2004. He's spent two decades thinking and acting on the confluence of information technologies and democratic political economy. Read his writing at Archein.
Feminomics: Top Five Heroines of Financial Reform
By Joe Costello, NewDeal 2.0
Posted on December 30, 2009, Printed on December 31, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/144881/
From an economic standpoint, will 2010 be the year of the woman? As part of the Roosevelt Institute's ongoing 'Feminomics' series, running on the New Deal 2.0 blog, I was asked to reflect on women's changing roles in the economy. Here's my take on how the New Deal advanced the cause of women's equality.
1) First, I'll start with Yves Smith, who I came across end of last summer. She has 25 years in financial services, worked for, amongst others, Goldman, McKinsey, and Sumitomo, and is also a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Business School. Her must-read blog is Naked Capitalism. She has shown great knowledge and greater courage -- and from my experience, these two traits are too rare together. Her writing is exceptional, and if you want a good overview of the financial mess and what's gone on over the past year and half, I highly recommend paging through her blog's archive. The president should replace Geithner with her. Time we had our first woman Treasury Secretary.
2) Next, Elizabeth Warren. Either mistakenly, which I believe is the case, or purposefully, in which case I'd have to reevaluate my opinion of Harry Reid, Warren was appointed by Reid to head the Congressional Oversight Panel for all the money being handed to the banks. Warren is Professor of Law at Harvard and wrote the excellent book The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke. So, she documented the great underbelly of Wall Street's debt bubble -- particularly its destruction of a big chunk of working America. I don't know if Reid thought he was getting some doddering academic when he appointed her, but instead he got a strong and energetic public advocate. There's been a pretty hard effort to discredit Ms. Warren, and Yves Smith takes a look at the hatchet job done by NPR here. I've been nothing but impressed when I've heard her talk, and strongly second the motion by William Greider to give her subpoena powers.
3) In October 2007, working for Oppenheimer, Meredith Whitney wrote a report calling Citi the pile junk it is. Amazingly, she was pretty much the only one in the whole industry to do so. Since then, Whitney has been straight at the big banks, holding nothing back on what bad shape they're in. She's the Anti-Geithner. In the middle of latest pop in the stock market, which has gotten the banks $50 billion in new capital over the past couple months, Whitney appeared on CNBC and called the banks' profits "manufactured" by the government, and stated things would begin heading south again. She's an eagle above the weasels scurrying below on Wall Street.
4) Gretchen Morgenson writes for the NYT business section. In the last year and half, she has written far and away some of the best coverage of the financial crisis in the mainstream media. Most importantly, she put Mr. Blankfein at the meeting with Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke when the bailout of AIG was decided to the advantage of Goldman for at least 14 billion. Again, if you want to read some good things on the last year and half, scroll through her articles in the Times' archive (The Nation did an ok piece on her, but unfortunately, it suffers from the author's "objective journalism" disease).
5) Finally, I'd throw in Sheila Bair, who was appointed head of the FDIC by none other than George W. Bush. Ms. Bair has frequently tangled with the boys in the government, taking on Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner, and Summers. She's stated repeatedly the banking crisis is not over, tried to slow the foreclosure tsunami, and most recently stated again Citi is a pile of crap and needs to be placed into receivership.
These women are inspiring! Citizens all, helping to breathe life into this old republic.
Editor's note: AlterNet nominates Nomi Prins as a 6th heroine of financial reform: Before becoming a journalist, Nomi worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, and ran the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London. Prins regularly takes on the banks in her articles in the independent and progressive media. Read some of her work from this year here. It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street.
This post originally appeared on New Deal 2.0.
Joe Costello has been involved in communications, energy and political economy for three decades. He was communications director for Jerry Brown's innovative 1992 presidential campaign and was a senior adviser for Howard Dean's effort in 2004. He's spent two decades thinking and acting on the confluence of information technologies and democratic political economy. Read his writing at Archein.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Diners Club Ends Relationship with Mail Order Brides Service
http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/diners_club_ends_relationship_with_mail_order_brides_service
Diners Club Ends Relationship with Mail Order Brides Service
BY AMANDA KLOER
PUBLISHED JUNE 12, 2009
I am thrilled to report that Diners Club International has officially agreed to end their relationship with Vietnam Brides International, including the "payment plan" that Diners Club Singapore offered so that men could charge women to their credit cards. This is a true victory for the Change.org community and for all of us who work to prevent the exploitation and sale of women.
Thank you and congratulations to the over 800 of you who signed the online petition and sent messages to Diners Club asking them to end their support for an industry which is rampant with human trafficking and exploitation of women. Here is the official response we received from Mai Lee Ua, representative of Discover Financial Services, which owns Diners Club:
“On behalf of Diners Club International, which is part of Discover Financial Services, we appreciate [your] bringing this specific merchant relationship with a Diners franchisee to our attention. Formal steps have been taken to terminate the relationship [with Vietnam Brides International].”
This statement is telling, and it says that you all made a huge difference. Your letters made Diners Club aware of the partnership one of their frachisees had made with a mail order bride service. You helped keep an important financial protection in place for women at risk of trafficking and abuse via the mail order bride industry. You refused to accept that an international company can treat and finance women like objects. This is one of those rare moments when you can see the important changes your actions bring, and the difference you make in the world.
Thank you for bringing this issue to Diners Club's attention. And thank you Diners Club International for making the important decision to protect women and girls from exploitation. Together, we are the change we wish to see.
Diners Club Ends Relationship with Mail Order Brides Service
BY AMANDA KLOER
PUBLISHED JUNE 12, 2009
I am thrilled to report that Diners Club International has officially agreed to end their relationship with Vietnam Brides International, including the "payment plan" that Diners Club Singapore offered so that men could charge women to their credit cards. This is a true victory for the Change.org community and for all of us who work to prevent the exploitation and sale of women.
Thank you and congratulations to the over 800 of you who signed the online petition and sent messages to Diners Club asking them to end their support for an industry which is rampant with human trafficking and exploitation of women. Here is the official response we received from Mai Lee Ua, representative of Discover Financial Services, which owns Diners Club:
“On behalf of Diners Club International, which is part of Discover Financial Services, we appreciate [your] bringing this specific merchant relationship with a Diners franchisee to our attention. Formal steps have been taken to terminate the relationship [with Vietnam Brides International].”
This statement is telling, and it says that you all made a huge difference. Your letters made Diners Club aware of the partnership one of their frachisees had made with a mail order bride service. You helped keep an important financial protection in place for women at risk of trafficking and abuse via the mail order bride industry. You refused to accept that an international company can treat and finance women like objects. This is one of those rare moments when you can see the important changes your actions bring, and the difference you make in the world.
Thank you for bringing this issue to Diners Club's attention. And thank you Diners Club International for making the important decision to protect women and girls from exploitation. Together, we are the change we wish to see.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Feminomics: Women and Bankruptcy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-warren/feminomics-women-and-bank_b_395667.html
Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the banking bailouts
Posted: December 17, 2009
Feminomics: Women and Bankruptcy
From an economic standpoint, will 2010 be the year of the woman? As part of the Roosevelt Institute's ongoing 'Feminomics' series, running on the New Deal 2.0 blog, I was asked to reflect on women's changing roles in the economy. Here's my take on the pernicious effects of bankruptcy on women -- especially those in the middle class.
Why is bankruptcy an issue of equal justice and fairness to women?
Bankruptcy exposes the economic vulnerability and insecurity of middle class women. The women in bankruptcy, like the men who file for bankruptcy, are a fairly representative cross-section of the American middle class. Their education levels are slightly higher than the population generally, with women in bankruptcy more likely to have attended college than their counterparts. Most are employed when they file. They work in a representative cross-section of industries and occupations. More than half are homeowners. By the most overt criteria, the women who file for bankruptcy are, as a group, solidly middle-class. But at the time they file for bankruptcy, their incomes tend to hover only slightly above the poverty level, and they are deeply mired in debt. The women who file for bankruptcy played by all the rules, but they are still in economic freefall.
How has the financial crisis impacted women experiencing debt and insolvency?
Based on projected figures, more than a million women will find their way to the bankruptcy courts this year -- more women than will graduate from college, receive a diagnosis of cancer, or file for divorce. The numbers are staggering.
How do current bankruptcy laws place special burdens on women?
For many women, the on-time payments of domestic support obligations are essential to economic survival. Until 2005, the bankruptcy of those who owed the obligations actually helped women because the bankruptcy wiped out credit card debts and other obligations, while leaving domestic support obligations intact. This gave women a clear field to collect from their ex-husbands. But the credit card companies got the laws changed in 2005, making it harder for these men to declare bankruptcy and harder to discharge credit card debt. That puts women trying to collect domestic support obligations and credit card companies in direct competition for the ex-husband's resources. Credit card companies can hire lawyers and develop extensive debt collect departments, something that is really tough for women. When the credit industry controls the bankruptcy rules, women lose.
Twenty-nine women's groups -- a diverse collection that included the Y.W.C.A., Hadassah, American Association of University Women, Church Women United, the NOW Legal Defense Fund and the Feminist Majority-publicly opposed the bankruptcy legislation.
What groups of women are especially at risk?
Women with children are particularly vulnerable, both because of the economic challenges faced by single-parent households and because bankruptcy now gives credit card companies greater capacity to compete with women in collecting past-due debts.
How can women protect themselves from bankruptcy?
Most women file for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious medical problem, a job loss or a family break up. It is hard to protect against those. But women can help themselves if they keep their fixed expenses (rent, car payment, student loans) to half of their incomes, and if they put aside some savings. My daughter and I wrote a book with more detailed advice, called All Your Worth, that some women have found helpful.
What legal reforms are necessary moving forward to ease the burden on women?
Anything that eases the burden on hard-working, middle class American families will provide great help to women. One thing the financial crisis taught us, though, is the extent to which the broken consumer credit market has fueled the insecurity of the middle class. Today, lenders operate in what is really a Wild West environment. They face little regulation, and they can get away with almost anything that pushes up profits. In the years leading up to the crisis, the broken market affected women disproportionately. Women were 32 percent more likely than men to have received subprime loans and 41 percent more likely than men to have received higher-cost subprime loans, regardless of income.
There are a number of causes of the rising insecurity of the middle class, but one of the biggest problems right now is that the largely unregulated consumer credit industry has preyed on customers by burying tricks and traps in the fine print and concealing true costs. This is why I believe it is so important for Congress to act on the President's proposal to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. We need to make the market competitive again and to get rid of the tricks and traps. This will empower families to make good choices and will increase their economic security.
Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the banking bailouts
Posted: December 17, 2009
Feminomics: Women and Bankruptcy
From an economic standpoint, will 2010 be the year of the woman? As part of the Roosevelt Institute's ongoing 'Feminomics' series, running on the New Deal 2.0 blog, I was asked to reflect on women's changing roles in the economy. Here's my take on the pernicious effects of bankruptcy on women -- especially those in the middle class.
Why is bankruptcy an issue of equal justice and fairness to women?
Bankruptcy exposes the economic vulnerability and insecurity of middle class women. The women in bankruptcy, like the men who file for bankruptcy, are a fairly representative cross-section of the American middle class. Their education levels are slightly higher than the population generally, with women in bankruptcy more likely to have attended college than their counterparts. Most are employed when they file. They work in a representative cross-section of industries and occupations. More than half are homeowners. By the most overt criteria, the women who file for bankruptcy are, as a group, solidly middle-class. But at the time they file for bankruptcy, their incomes tend to hover only slightly above the poverty level, and they are deeply mired in debt. The women who file for bankruptcy played by all the rules, but they are still in economic freefall.
How has the financial crisis impacted women experiencing debt and insolvency?
Based on projected figures, more than a million women will find their way to the bankruptcy courts this year -- more women than will graduate from college, receive a diagnosis of cancer, or file for divorce. The numbers are staggering.
How do current bankruptcy laws place special burdens on women?
For many women, the on-time payments of domestic support obligations are essential to economic survival. Until 2005, the bankruptcy of those who owed the obligations actually helped women because the bankruptcy wiped out credit card debts and other obligations, while leaving domestic support obligations intact. This gave women a clear field to collect from their ex-husbands. But the credit card companies got the laws changed in 2005, making it harder for these men to declare bankruptcy and harder to discharge credit card debt. That puts women trying to collect domestic support obligations and credit card companies in direct competition for the ex-husband's resources. Credit card companies can hire lawyers and develop extensive debt collect departments, something that is really tough for women. When the credit industry controls the bankruptcy rules, women lose.
Twenty-nine women's groups -- a diverse collection that included the Y.W.C.A., Hadassah, American Association of University Women, Church Women United, the NOW Legal Defense Fund and the Feminist Majority-publicly opposed the bankruptcy legislation.
What groups of women are especially at risk?
Women with children are particularly vulnerable, both because of the economic challenges faced by single-parent households and because bankruptcy now gives credit card companies greater capacity to compete with women in collecting past-due debts.
How can women protect themselves from bankruptcy?
Most women file for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious medical problem, a job loss or a family break up. It is hard to protect against those. But women can help themselves if they keep their fixed expenses (rent, car payment, student loans) to half of their incomes, and if they put aside some savings. My daughter and I wrote a book with more detailed advice, called All Your Worth, that some women have found helpful.
What legal reforms are necessary moving forward to ease the burden on women?
Anything that eases the burden on hard-working, middle class American families will provide great help to women. One thing the financial crisis taught us, though, is the extent to which the broken consumer credit market has fueled the insecurity of the middle class. Today, lenders operate in what is really a Wild West environment. They face little regulation, and they can get away with almost anything that pushes up profits. In the years leading up to the crisis, the broken market affected women disproportionately. Women were 32 percent more likely than men to have received subprime loans and 41 percent more likely than men to have received higher-cost subprime loans, regardless of income.
There are a number of causes of the rising insecurity of the middle class, but one of the biggest problems right now is that the largely unregulated consumer credit industry has preyed on customers by burying tricks and traps in the fine print and concealing true costs. This is why I believe it is so important for Congress to act on the President's proposal to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. We need to make the market competitive again and to get rid of the tricks and traps. This will empower families to make good choices and will increase their economic security.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
