Benedict XVI's Message for World Day of Peace 2011
"Freedom of religion, path to peace"
CITY 'OF ROME, Thursday, December 16, 2010 (ZENIT.org) .- Here is the text of the message of the Holy Father for the 44th World Day of Peace, which will be celebrated on 1 January 2011 on the theme "Freedom of religion, way to peace. "
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1. At the beginning of a New Year is my wish to be achieved each and every one, is a wish for peace and prosperity, but is primarily a wish for peace. Also the year that closes the door was marked, unfortunately, persecution, discrimination by terrible acts of violence and religious intolerance.
My thoughts turn in particular to the beloved land of Iraq, which in its progress towards the desired stability and reconciliation continues to be the scene of violence and attacks. They are reminded of the recent sufferings of the Christian community and, especially, the cowardly attack against the Syrian Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help "in Baghdad, where, on October 31 last year, two priests were killed and more than fifty people, while they were gathered for the celebration of Holy Mass. It was followed in subsequent days, other attacks, including private homes, causing fear in the Christian community and the desire on the part of many of its members, to emigrate in search of better living conditions. To them I express my closeness and that of the whole Church, feeling that he saw a concrete expression in the recent Special Meeting for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops. From this came an Assize encouragement to the Catholic communities in Iraq and throughout the Middle East to live in communion and continue to provide a courageous witness of faith in those lands.
I warmly thank the Governments that seek to alleviate the suffering of these fellow human beings and urged Catholics to pray for their brothers in faith who suffer violence and intolerance and to show solidarity with them. In this context, I felt particularly strong opportunity to share with you some thoughts on religious freedom, the way to peace. In fact, it is sad to note that in some regions of the world you can not profess and express their religion freely, without risking life and liberty. In other regions there are more quiet and sophisticated forms of prejudice and opposition to the believers and religious symbols. Christians are now the religious group that suffers the greatest number of persecution because of their faith. Many suffer daily insults and often live in fear because of their quest for the truth of their faith in Jesus Christ and of their sincere appeal for religious freedom is recognized. This can not be accepted, because it is an affront to God and to human dignity is also a threat to peace and security and prevents the realization of authentic human development integrale.1
Religious freedom, in fact, is the specific expression of the human person, for it can order their personal and social life to God, in whose light we fully understand the identity, meaning and purpose of the person. Arbitrarily deny or limit that freedom means to cultivate a narrow view of the human person, darken the public role of religion means creating an unjust society, because that is disproportionate to the true nature of the human person, which means to make impossible the establishment of a genuine peace and lasting for the whole human family.
I urge, then, men and women of good will to renew its commitment to build a world where all are free to practice their own religion or belief, and to experience their love for God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind (cf. Mt 22:37). This is the feeling that inspires and guides the XLIV Message for World Day of Peace, dedicated to the theme: Freedom of religion, path to peace.
Sacred right to life and a spiritual life
2. The right to religious freedom is rooted in the dignity of the human person, 2 whose transcendent nature should not be ignored or neglected. God created man and woman in His image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:27). For this reason, every person is the holder of the sacred right to life also incorporates the spiritual point of view. Without the recognition of his spiritual being, without opening to the transcendent, the human person folds in on itself, can not find answers to the questions of his heart about the meaning of life and gain lasting values and ethical principles, and fails even to experience true freedom and to develop a company giusta.3
Sacred Scripture, in harmony with our own experience, reveals the profound value of human dignity: "When I see your heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which you set, what is man that you remember him, the son of man that you care for him? Really you did a little less than a god, glory and honor you crowned him. You gave him dominion over the works of your hands, put all things under his feet "(Ps 8, 4-7).
Before the sublime reality of human nature, we can experience the same awe expressed by the psalmist. It manifests itself as an opening to the mystery, as the ability to ask themselves about themselves and about the origin of the universe, as an intimate resonance Love Supreme God, the beginning and end of all things, of every person and of peoples. 4 The transcendent dignity of the person is a core value of the Judeo-Christian wisdom, but with the right, may be recognized by all. This dignity, understood as the ability to transcend its materiality and to seek the truth must be recognized as a universal good, which is essential for building a society geared to the creation and the fullness of man. Compliance with the essential elements of human dignity, such as the right to life and the right to religious freedom is a condition of the moral legitimacy of every legal and social norm.
Religious freedom and mutual respect
3. Religious freedom is the source of moral freedom. In fact, the openness to truth and goodness, the opening to God, rooted in human nature, gives full dignity to every individual and is the guarantor of full mutual respect between people. Therefore, religious freedom must be understood not only as an immunity from coercion, but more importantly the ability to order their choices according to the truth.
There is an unbreakable bond between freedom and respect, in fact, "in exercising its rights, individual human beings and social groups, by virtue of the moral law, are required to have regard both to the rights of others, their own duties toward others and towards the common good ".5
A freedom hostile or indifferent to God, ends up denying itself and does not guarantee full respect for others. A will that is believed to radically incapable of seeking truth and goodness has no objective reasons for acting, if not those imposed by temporary and contingent interests, has no "identity" to preserve and build through genuinely free and informed choices . Thus can not demand respect from others "will," also dropped from their innermost being, which can then rely on other "reasons" or no "reason." The illusion of moral relativism find the key to peaceful coexistence, is actually the source of division and negation of the dignity of human beings. It therefore includes the need to recognize two dimensions into the human person: the religious and social. In this regard, it is inconceivable that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves - their faith - to be active citizens should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy their rights ".6
The family, a school of freedom and peace
4. If religious freedom is the path to peace, religious education is a privileged way to enable new generations to recognize in his brother and his sister, with whom walk together and work together because everyone feels living members of a same human family, from which no one should be excluded.
The family founded on marriage, the expression of intimate union and complementarity between a man and a woman fits into this context as the first school for training and social growth, cultural, moral and spiritual formation of children, which should always find in the father in the mother and the first witnesses of a life-oriented search for truth and love of God His parents should always be free to transmit without constraints and responsibilities of its assets of faith, values and culture to their children. The family, the human society, remains the primary area of training for harmonious relationships at all levels of human society, nationally and internationally. This is the way to go wisely to build a solid social fabric and solidarity, to prepare young people to assume their responsibilities in life, in a free society, in a spirit of understanding and peace.
A common heritage
5. One could say that among the rights and freedoms rooted in human dignity, religious freedom enjoys a special status. When religious freedom is recognized, the dignity of the human person is respected in its root, and reinforce the ethos and institutions of peoples. Conversely, when religious freedom is denied when you try to prevent manifest one's religion or belief and to live according to them, it offends human dignity and, together, they threaten the peace and justice, which is based on that right social order constructed in the light of the Supreme Truth and Highest Good.
Religious freedom is, in this sense, an acquisition of political and legal culture. It is an essential commodity: every person must be able to exercise the right freely to profess and to demonstrate, either individually or communally, to manifest his religion or belief, whether in public or private, in teaching, practice, publications in worship and observance. It should not face barriers if you could possibly join another religion or not profess any. In this context, the international legal system is symbolic and is an essential reference for the States, because it does not allow for any derogation from the freedom of religion, unless the legitimate needs of public informed giustizia.7 The international legal order that recognizes the rights of a religious nature the same status as the right to life and personal liberty, as evidenced by their membership in the core of human rights, those rights and universal human nature that the law can never deny.
Religious freedom is not the exclusive patrimony of believers, but for the whole family of peoples of the earth. It is an essential element of the rule of law, you can not deny the same time without affecting the rights and fundamental freedoms, being short and top. It is "the litmus test to verify compliance with all other human rights" .8 While favoring the exercise of human faculties, more specifically, creates the conditions necessary for the realization of a comprehensive development, which concerns the whole of the person in every dimensione.9
The public dimension of religion
6. Religious freedom, like any freedom, while moving from the personal, is realized in relation to others. A report without freedom is not complete freedom. Religious freedom is not confined to one individual dimension, but is implemented in their communities and in society, be consistent with the relationship of the person and the public nature of religion.
Relationality is a crucial component of religious freedom, which pushes the community of believers to practice solidarity for the common good. In each community this size is unique and unrepeatable person and at the same time, is completed and is fully realized.
And 'the undeniable contribution that religious communities make to society. There are many charitable and cultural institutions that attest to the constructive role of believers in the social life. More important is the ethical contribution of religion in politics. It should not be marginalized or forbidden, including but as a valuable contribution to promoting the common good. In this context we must mention the religious dimension of culture, woven through the centuries thanks to contributions from social and ethical issues of particular religion. This dimension is in no way discrimination of those who do not share the belief, but strengthens, rather, social cohesion, integration and solidarity.
Freedom of religion, a force for freedom and civilization: the dangers of his manipulation
7. The instrumentalization of religious freedom to disguise vested interests, such as the subversion of the established order, hoarding of resources or the maintenance of power by a group, can cause extensive damage to society. Fanaticism, fundamentalism, practices contrary to human dignity can never be justified and may be even less if made in the name of religion. The profession of a religion can not be manipulated or imposed by force. We need, therefore, that the States and the various human communities may never forget that religious freedom is a precondition for the pursuit of truth and the truth is not imposed by force but with "the power of truth itself" .10 In this sense, religion is a positive force for driving and building civil society and politics.
How can we deny the contribution of the great religions of the world in the development of civilization? The sincere search for God has led to greater respect for human dignity. The Christian communities, with their heritage of values and principles, have greatly contributed to the awareness of individuals and peoples about their identity and dignity, and the conquest of democratic institutions and the affirmation of human rights and its corresponding duties.
Even today Christians in an increasingly global society, they are called, not only with a responsible civic engagement, economic and political, but also with the testimony of their love and faith, to make a valuable contribution to the painstaking and stimulating work for justice, integral human development and the right ordering of human affairs. The exclusion of religion from public life exempt from this living space opening to transcendence. Without this primary is difficult to guide the society towards universal ethical principles and becomes difficult to establish national and international order in which the rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully recognized and implemented, how they propose goals - unfortunately still rejected or contradicted - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.
A question of justice and civilization:
fundamentalism and hostility against the believers
undermine the positive secularism Member
8. The same determination with which they condemned all forms of fanaticism and religious fundamentalism, must inspire the opposition to all forms of hostility against religion, which limit the public role of believers in the civic and political life.
We can not forget that religious fundamentalism and secularism are symmetrical and extreme forms of denial of legitimate pluralism and the principle of secularism. Both, in fact, make absolute a partial and narrow view of the human person, promoting, in the first case, forms of religious fundamentalism and, in the second, of rationalism. The company that wants to impose or, conversely, to deny religion by violence, it is unfair to the person and God, but also of herself. God calls humanity to himself with a pattern of love, and involves the whole person in their natural and spiritual, needs to respond to it in terms of freedom and responsibility, with all your heart and with all one's being, individual and Community. The company, therefore, as an expression of the person and of all its constituent dimensions, must live and organize in order to promote openness to transcendence. For this reason, laws and institutions of a society can not be configured by ignoring the religious dimension of the citizens or so regardless of everything. They must be commensurate - through the work of democratic citizens aware of their high calling - to being the person to be able to indulge in its religious dimension. As this is not a creation of the state, can not be manipulated, rather than having to receive recognition and respect.
The legal system at all levels, national and international level, if it allows or tolerates anti-religious or religious fanaticism, fails in his mission, which is to protect and to promote justice and the right of everyone. These realities can not be placed at the mercy of the legislature or a majority, because, as taught by Cicero, justice consists in something more productive than a mere act of law and its application. It implies one needs to recognize his dignity, 11 who, while religious freedom is guaranteed and lived in its essence, is maimed and injured, at risk of falling into the dominance of the idols of goods processed in its absolute. All this exposes the company to the risk of political and ideological totalitarianism, which emphasize the public power, while they are denigrated or coerced, as if they were competitive, freedom of conscience, thought and religion.
Dialogue between civil and religious institutions
9. The heritage of principles and values expressed by genuine religiosity is an asset to the people and their ethos. It speaks directly to the conscience and reason of men and women, recalled the imperative of moral conversion, motivates them to cultivate the practice of virtue and to approach each other with love, in a sign of fraternity, as members of the great family umana.12
In compliance with the positive secularity of state institutions, the public dimension of religion must always be acknowledged. To this end it is essential to a healthy dialogue between the civil and religious institutions for the development of the human person and harmony of society.
Live in love and truth
10. In the globalized world, characterized by a society that is increasingly multi-ethnic and multi-denominational, the great religions may be an important factor of unity and peace for the human family. On the basis of their religious convictions and the rational search for the common good, their followers are called to live with its commitment to accountability in a context of religious freedom. In many religious cultures, and must be rejected everything that is against the dignity of man and woman, should instead build on what is positive for the civil society.
The public space, the international community makes available for religions and their proposal for a "good life", emergence of a shared measure of truth and goodness, as well as a moral consensus, essential for a just and living peaceful. The leaders of great religions, for their role, their influence and their authority in their communities, are the first to be called to mutual respect and dialogue.
Christians, for their part, are urged by the same faith in God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live as brothers who meet in the Church and helping to build a world where individuals and nations "will not act, no harm, [...], because knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea "(Isaiah 11: 9).
Dialogue as joint research
11. For the Church, the dialogue between the followers of different religions is an important instrument to work with all religious communities to the common good. The Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in many religions. "She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men." 13
Indicated that is not the way of relativism or of religious syncretism. For the Church, "proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ" the way, truth and life "(Jn 14:6), in which men find the fullness of religious life in which God has reconciled himself all things ".14 This does not exclude dialogue and common search for truth in other vital areas, because, as stated in an expression often used by St. Thomas Aquinas," every truth, by whomever it is said from the Holy Spirit ".15
In 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of World Day of Prayer for Peace, convened in Assisi in 1986 by Venerable Pope John Paul II. On that occasion, the leaders of the great religions of the world have witnessed how the religion is a factor of unity and peace, not of division and conflict. The memory of that experience is a reason for hope for a future in which all believers feel and make it truly work for justice and peace.
Moral truth in politics and diplomacy
12. Politics and diplomacy should look to the moral and spiritual heritage offered by the major religions of the world to recognize and affirm the truth, principles and universal values that can not be denied without denying them with the dignity of the human person. But what does that mean in practical terms, to promote the moral truth in the world of politics and diplomacy? It means to act responsibly on the basis of objective knowledge and full of facts; means deconstruct political ideologies that eventually supplant the truth and human dignity and seek to promote pseudo-values under the guise of peace, development and human rights; means to encourage continued efforts to establish the positive law on the principles of law naturale.16 This is necessary and consistent with respect for the dignity and worth of human person enshrined in the peoples of the earth in the Charter of the United Nations 1945, which has universal moral principles and values of reference for the rules, institutions, systems of coexistence at national and international levels.
Beyond the hatred and prejudice
13. Despite the lessons of history and commitment of States, international organizations worldwide and local non-governmental organizations and all men and women of good will that every day is spent to protect the rights and fundamental freedoms, in the world today there are persecution, discrimination, violence and intolerance based on religion. In particular, in Asia and Africa, the main victims are members of religious minorities, who are prohibited to practice their religion freely or to change it through intimidation and violation of rights, fundamental freedoms and essential goods reaches even to the deprivation of liberty or of life itself.
There are also - as I said - more sophisticated forms of hostility against religion, which sometimes express themselves in Western countries with the denial of history and religious symbols which reflect the identity and culture of the majority of citizens. They often stir up hatred and prejudice and are not consistent with a serene and balanced vision of pluralism and the secular nature of the institutions, not to mention that the younger generation may not come into contact with the invaluable spiritual heritage of their countries.
The defense of religion through the rights and freedoms of religious communities. The leaders of major world religions and leaders of the nations renew, then, commitment to the promotion and protection of religious freedom, especially for the defense of religious minorities, which do not constitute a threat to the identity of the majority, but are instead an opportunity for dialogue and mutual cultural enrichment. Their defense is the ideal way to strengthen the spirit of benevolence, openness and reciprocity which protect the rights and fundamental freedoms in all areas and regions of the world.
Religious Freedom
14. I turn finally to the Christian communities who suffer harassment, discrimination, violence and intolerance, particularly in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and especially in the Holy Land, the place chosen by God and blessed them As I renew my paternal affection, and assure you of my prayers, I ask all leaders to act quickly to end all abuses against Christians, who live in those regions. May the disciples of Christ, before the present adversity, not to lose heart, because the testimony of the Gospel is and always will be a sign of contradiction.
Let us meditate in our heart the words of the Lord Jesus: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted [...]. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they shall be satisfied [...]. Blessed are you when men revile persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven "(Mt 5.4 to 12). Makeover time "the commitment we made to indulgence and forgiveness, we invoke the Lord's Prayer from God, because we have placed the same condition and the extent of desired mercy. In fact, let us pray thus:" Forgive us our debts , as we forgive our debtors "(Matt. 6:12)" .17 The violence is not overcome by violence. Our cry of pain is always accompanied by faith, hope and witness to the love of God I also express my hope that in the West, especially in Europe, an end to hostility and prejudice against the Christians because they wish to direct their lives in a manner consistent with the values and principles expressed in the Gospel. Europe, rather, to know peace with its Christian roots, which are essential for understanding the role that he had, what has and will have in history, will thus experience justice, harmony and peace, cultivating a sincere dialogue with all peoples.
Freedom of religion, path to peace
15. The world needs God has need of ethical and spiritual values, universal and shared, and religion can make a valuable contribution in their quest to build a just and peaceful social order, both nationally and internationally.
Peace is a gift from God and at the same time a project to realize, never totally achieved. A society reconciled with God is closer to peace, which is not mere absence of war is not merely the result of military or economic dominance, nor cunning deception or skilled manipulation. The result is peace instead of a process of purification and elevation cultural, moral and spiritual life of every person and people, in which human dignity is fully respected. I invite all those who wish to be peacemakers, and especially young people, to listen to the inner voice, to find God in the stable reference for the achievement of genuine freedom, the inexhaustible power to direct the world with a spirit Again, not able to repeat the mistakes of the past. As shown by the Servant of God Paul VI, to whose wisdom and foresight we owe the establishment of the World Day of Peace: "Peace must first be given to other weapons, not those designed to kill and exterminate mankind. We need above all moral weapons, which give strength and prestige of international law, those were the first observance of the terms ".18 Religious freedom is a true weapon of peace, with a historic mission and prophetic. In fact, it enhances and leverages the deeper qualities and potentialities of the human person, able to change and make a better world. It allows to hope for a future of justice and peace, even in the face of grave injustices and material and moral misery. That all men and society at every level and in every corner of the Earth will soon experience the freedom of religion, way to peace!
From the Vatican, December 8, 2010
BENEDICTUS PP XVI
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1 See Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter. Caritas in Veritate, 29.55-57.
2 See Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae, 2.
3 See Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter. Caritas in Veritate, 78.
4 See Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions Nostra Aetate, 1.
5 Id, Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae, 7.
6 Benedict XVI, Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations (April 18, 2008): AAS 100 (2008), 337.
7 See Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae, 2
8 John Paul II, Address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) (October 10, 2003), 1: AAS 96 (2004), 111.
9 See Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter. Caritas in Veritate, 11.
10 See Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter. Caritas in Veritate, 11.
11 See Cicero, De invention, II, 160.
12 See Benedict XVI, Meeting with Representatives of Other Religions in the UK (17 September 2010): L'Osservatore Romano (18 September 2010), p. 12.
13 Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions Nostra Aetate, 2.
14 Ibid.
15 Super Evangelium Joannis, I, 3.
16 See Benedict XVI, Address to the civil authorities and the diplomatic corps in Cyprus (June 5, 2010): L'Osservatore Romano (June 6, 2010), p. 8, International Theological Commission, In Search of a universal ethic: a look at the natural law, Vatican City, 2009.
17 Paul VI, Message for World Day of Peace 1976: AAS 67 (1975), 671.
18 Ibid., P. 668.
The Vatican Lobby: Pope: Religious Freedom the Key to World Peace
Biden Condemns Attacks on Iraqi Catholics at UN Meeting
Biden Condemns Attacks on Iraqi Christians at UN Meeting
Addressing the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden expressed optimism about the future of Iraq but said the attacks against faith groups, including Iraqi Christians, were among security challenges in the country.
His comments were delivered at a high-level meeting in New York during which the Security Council passed resolutions that would lift key sanctions on the Republic of Iraq.
Biden, who chaired the special session, reported that the Iraqi forces "have proved themselves more than capable" of securing their own country. He said the frequency of violent attacks have reached its lowest level since the U.S. government entered Iraq in 2003.
More than 100,000 American troops have exited Iraq, he noted, as the remaining 50,000 troops work with the Iraqi government to advise and assist their efforts.
But the vice president stated that "Iraq faces further challenges on the road to security and prosperity."
"Attacks by extremists remain an unacceptable aspect of daily life in Iraq," said Biden.
"We’re particularly concerned about recent attempts to target innocents because of their faith, including both Christians and Muslims, and to lash out at security forces working to keep the country safe."
Religious communities, including Iraqi Christians, have found themselves the target of a recent wave of violent attacks. The biggest attack occurred on Oct. 31 when at least 58 people, mostly worshippers, were slain at a Catholic Church in Baghdad.
There are only about 600,000 Christians in Iraq now, down from about 1.2 million before the U.S-led invasion in 2003, by some estimates. More and more Christians continue to flee the to the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq to escape religious persecution.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has called on the U.S. government to "redouble its efforts" on protecting the religious rights and safety of Iraqi Christians.
Earlier this week, the independent federal group issued a statement calling on the government to use the Security Council meeting to highlight the plight of Christians and other small religious minorities in Iraq.
Responding to Biden's comments made Wednesday, Elizabeth K. Cassidy, USCIRF Deputy Director for Policy and Research, told The Christian Post, "We were pleased that he mentioned that issue in his statement although it was a fairly general statement,"
"The tenor of the meeting there was on other issues. So we would still like to see the efforts of the U.S. and Iraqi government to concretely provide upgraded security and focused development opportunities there."
USCIRF has made three recommendations on how the U.S. can protect vulnerable religious communities in Iraq, including having U.S. troops collaborate with Iraqi military and police on providing security to areas where vulnerable populations reside and work.
The commission also urges the U.S. development assistance to prioritize areas where vulnerable communities are concentrated, including the Nineveh Plains area.
"We'd like to see dedicated, operated security for these particularly vulnerable communities, representative community policing, and that the U.S. development program prioritize minority areas," said Cassidy.
The USCIRF commissioner said that there is a real concern as to the existence of these religious groups, including Christians, Mandaeans and Yazidis, in Iraq since many have fled due to the ongoing violence.
"We think it would bad for the Iraqi future to lose these communities which have been part of Iraq for centuries," she said.
Meanwhile, during the surge of the deadliest attacks, leaders of 16 Christian political parties and groups have issued a call for greater protection. They recently met to discuss plans to form a self-governing Christian province in the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq.
Critics, however, say the plan to isolate Christians in one area would only make them an easy target for terrorists.
Cassidy said USCIRF will continue to monitor the religious freedom issues in Iraq on an ongoing basis as it has done for years.
"There is still a lot more that the Iraqi government needs to do to protect the religious freedom for all of its people."
Pinning Down a Deadly Shape Shifter: Progress against the Malaria Parasite
Pinning Down a Deadly Shape Shifter: Progress against the Malaria Parasite
A parasite's genome is yielding clues to how malaria kills
One step ahead: P. falciparum (purple) attacking red blood cells (yellow).
Image: Cecil H. Fox Photo Researchers, Inc.
More people have died from malaria than from any other disease in history. If we look at the African parasite that causes its most severe form, it is obvious why the pathogen is so deadly. Plasmodium falciparum has a multistage life cycle and highly mutable genes. It’s already widely resistant to one of the most common medications used to treat it, chloroquine, and it is starting to evolve around a newer drug, artemisinin. Falciparum is also a shape shifter, presenting different proteins on its surface as it develops in the body and remaining one step ahead of the immune system.
All this complexity is bad news for victims. But, in a sense, it may be good news for scientists, who sequenced the organism’s genome in 2002 and are starting to figure out what malaria’s intricate biology says about its natural history. Until recently, for instance, researchers thought falciparum had jumped into humans from chimps. But in September a team from Alabama—known for its work on the origin of HIV—showed that all falciparum parasites are descended from a single lineage that jumped from gorillas millions of years ago. Since then, the parasite has been furiously evolving. Drug resistance is part of that. But a much more important factor, according to researchers at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, is the human body itself. The malarial genes under the most intense selection pressure—those with the most variation, generated over a millennium-long cat-and-mouse game with the immune system’s antibody response—are the ones that encode the identifying proteins on the surface of the parasite. Scientists have struggled to explain why some people get very sick from falciparum, whereas others suffer only mild symptoms; early work suggests that some of these “var” genes are behind serious cases in children.
One of the crucial next steps in understanding malaria’s genome will be assessing how it differs from parasite to parasite and region to region. “Knowing the amount of variation within an individual is crucial,” says Dominic Kwiatkowski, who leads malaria genomics research at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge, England. “Fortunately, we can quantify that with extraordinary precision.” Kwiatkowski’s group and others recently built MapSeq, an interactive database of genotyped samples from several hundred patients around the world. Researchers can use it to look for mutations unique to their areas—and to tailor their control strategies around them.
Manhunt Intensifies in Border Patrol Officer's Slaying
Manhunt Intensifies in Border Patrol Officer's Slaying
By David A. Patten
The shootout prompted Napolitano to move up a planned visit to Arizona. She reportedly will meet on Thursday with border patrol officers in Nogales near the U.S.-Mexican border.
The deadly fusillade is “a stark reminder of the very real dangers our men and women on the front lines confront every day as they protect our communities and the American people,” Napolitano said Wednesday.The firefight broke out after Border Patrol officer Brian A. Terry, 40, and three of his colleagues received intelligence indicating that several bandits were headed their way, sources tell Newsmax.
The five suspects opened fire when the Border Patrol officers tried to apprehend them at about 11 p.m. Tuesday.
Terry, a former U.S. military member and a three-year veteran of the Border Patrol, was wounded in the exchange of gunfire. He died of his wounds early Wednesday morning.
Four suspects were arrested, one of whom was wounded. Police are searching for a fifth bandit also believed to have been involved in the deadly shootout.
The bandit gangs, which sources say are composed in most cases of Mexican nationals, rob illegal immigrants after they cross the border because they know the victims will not be able to report the crimes to authorities.
T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council union representing about 17,000 border guards and support staff, rejected the administration’s assertion that border security has improved substantially.
“There are still numbers of people who make that journey, and enough of them are getting by us at the border that we have bandits encouraged to set up shop, deep into the United States, trying to rip those people off,” Bonner tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview. “So you tell me: Is our border secure?”
The violence on the border appears to be growing despite the weak U.S. job market that has reduced the number of illegals crossing the border. “I think that the violence is definitely spreading,” Bonner says.
Bonner tells Newsmax that the heavily armed bandits and drug smugglers increasingly appear to have no compunction about opening up on uniformed officers.
“The one difference that we’re seeing now is much more of a willingness among the criminal element to go toe-to-toe with law enforcement and engage in shoot outs,” Bonner tells Newsmax. “They just don’t seem to have any fear of consequences.”
Bonner said the visit by Napolitano, who had planned to come to the border area this week anyway but is now leaving a day early, appears at least partly political.
“I think they’re scrambling right now to figure out a way to spin this so that it doesn’t derail their plans to hoodwink the American people into supporting another amnesty,” he says. “Granted, the DREAM Act isn’t the massive amnesty that they want, but it’s a foot in the door for them.”
Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Alan Bersin appeared on local television vowing “to do everything possible to bring to justice those responsible for this despicable act.”
Bonner says Terry’s fellow officers understand the risks that they face each day.
“The first thought beyond the initial sorrow is the feeling for mortality: There but for the grace of God, that could have been me out there,” Bonner tells Newsmax. “Every time you put the uniform on, you know there’s a chance you may not come home.
“Things like this just serve as a grim reminder that’s not just rhetoric, it’s the reality of being a police officer,” Bonner adds.
Terry is the 111th Border Patrol officer to die in the line of duty. It was the first fatal shooting involving one of the agents since July 2009, when officer Robert Rosas, 30, was killed near Campo, Calif.
In May, President Barack Obama announced the deployment of 1,200 National Guard troops to the border region to help keep the peace there.
Asked what further steps the administration should take to enhance border security, Bonner said: “If they’re really sincere about securing the borders, the most important step they could take is to crack down on employers of illegal aliens. That’s the major draw.”
He said Terry’s slaying “wouldn’t have happened, if that were the case, because people wouldn’t be coming across in search of employment, and the bandits would have no victims.”
Bonner added: “Instead of trying to convince the Congress to pass the DREAM Act, this administration should be trying to convince Congress to pass meaningful reforms in the employment verification and sanction system,” he said.
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Calif. Set to Adopt Sweeping Cap-and-trade Rules
Calif. Set to Adopt Sweeping Cap-and-trade Rules
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California air quality regulators are poised to adopt the nation's most sweeping regulations to give power plants, refineries and other major polluters a financial incentive to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
The Air Resources Board was expected to pass this key piece of the California's 2006 climate law, called AB32, at its meetings Thursday or Friday, with the hope that other states and nations will follow the lead of the world's eighth largest economy.
"AB32 was passed primarily to fill the vacuum created by the failure of Congress to pass any kind of climate or energy legislation for many years now," said Mary Nichols, the air board's chairwoman. "The goal was to lead by example, and being a leader you have to bring others along with you."
California's cap-and-trade rules would set up the largest U.S. carbon trading market as the way to enforce the state's gradually tightening cap on emissions.
"It's a critical piece because it's the tool we're using to make sure we reward businesses that invest in efficiency and renewable technologies, and that we are pushing and creating the right incentives," Nichols said.
Grouped with strict renewable energy mandates for utilities, tighter fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles and low-carbon fuel standards, California has enacted the strictest climate-related regulations in the U.S.
Under the new rules, regulators would enforce limits on heat-trapping gas emissions beginning in 2012, ultimately from 85 percent of the state's worst polluters.
The amount of allowed emissions would be reduced over time, and the regulations would expand in 2015 to include refineries and fuel distributors like oil companies. The cap would reach its lowest level in 2020, when California wants its greenhouse gas emissions reduced to 1990 levels.
Each polluter would receive permits, called allowances, for the amount of emissions allowed under the cap. The sum of the allowances — which each represent 1 ton of carbon dioxide or the equivalent of another pollutant — would equal the cap amount.
Ninety percent of the allowances would be free in the first years of the program to give industry time to upgrade to cleaner equipment or account for increased future costs.
The regulations are meant to reward polluters that cut emissions by investing in cleaner technologies. Facilities that emit less pollution than legally allowed can sell their unneeded credits in a carbon market being set up for the purpose.
Over time, as the cap gets lower and fewer allowances are available, costs would rise.
"The idea is to incentivize clean technology over fossil fuels by putting a price on carbon," said Jon Costantino, an attorney in Sacramento, who formerly served as the climate change planning manager at the Air Resources Board.
Buying allowances from other polluters on the carbon market wouldn't be the only way companies can comply with the strict emissions standards.
Up to 8 percent of companies' emissions reductions can also be fulfilled by buying so-called carbon offsets — credits for forestry or other projects that reduce greenhouse gases.
These offset credits have been criticized by some environmental groups, which argue that they allow polluters to comply with the cap while continuing to belch harmful substances into the air. Also, under the regulations, polluters could buy offsets from lands owned by timber companies that clear-cut up to 40 acres of trees, another sticking point for some conservationists.
Industries regulated under the cap say it could put California at a competitive disadvantage with states and countries that do not require such strict — and expensive — emissions reductions.
The state's budget currently has a $28.1 billion revenue shortfall through June 2012, and industry leaders have voiced concern that the program's increased costs could further weaken the economy.
But Californians have shown widespread support for AB32. Voters last month soundly rejected a proposition backed largely by oil companies and refiners that sought to delay implementation of the law until the state's economy improves.
Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association, said California has to ensure the cap-and-trade program gets linked with other states and countries that plan to do the same thing, so that the market broadens and becomes more robust.
"California can't do it alone, we won't help fix climate change alone," Reheis-Boyd said. "If we're the only ones doing cap-and-trade, it will be a huge competitive disadvantage for California when compared to other states, and a huge competitive disadvantage globally."
Nichols said other states, the European Union, and Chinese and Canadian provinces are all in various stages of discussions with California to link their carbon markets. New Mexico's Environmental Improvement Board narrowly approved its own cap-and-trade program last month and OK'd the state's participation in a regional market.
Liberals: Payroll Tax Cut Threat to Social Security
Liberals: Payroll Tax Cut Threat to Social Security
Liberal Democrats seem never to have met a tax cut that they like. Many argue that the payroll tax decrease included in the compromise reached between the White House and congressional Republicans will damage Social Security, The Hill reports.
“Behind Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, the Democrats maintain the one-year payroll-tax holiday will likely be extended in future years, leaving Social Security to compete with other programs for funding — and threatening seniors' benefits over the long haul,” the news service states.
"There's a very good reason why people pay Social Security taxes — so they'll get Social Security," Doggett said at a press conference in the Capitol. "I'd rather have nothing done in this area than to do great harm."
Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., says the tax cut may ultimately destroy Social Security's funding system, in which workers pay into the program while they’re employed, so they can receive payments after retiring.
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SPECIAL REPORT: Is America the Sick Man of the Globe?
SPECIAL REPORT: Is America the Sick Man of the Globe?
SAGINAW, Mich., (Reuters) - Not long ago, if you wanted steak for lunch at the Texan Restaurant, less than two minutes drive from the Nexteer Automotive assembly plant, you had to be in the door by 11 o'clock in the morning. If you arrived any later, you joined a long line with other laggards and waited for a table to open up.
With noon fast approaching on a recent day, however, only a handful of customers sat in one of the restaurant's two sections and the other was closed.
Asked how the decline in the U.S. auto industry has affected the local economy, Tammy Maynard, a waitress here since 1988, waved a hand around at the empty tables and said: "You're looking at it, sugar."
Regulars and retirees keep the restaurant in business, while workers at the nearby auto supplier plant buy steak at the beginning of the month when they get paid — if they come at all — and then dine on specials over the next four weeks.
"I just keep praying every day that we've hit the bottom and that things are going to get better," Maynard said, "because it doesn't seem like it could get any worse."
The U.S. government may have bailed out General Motors, the country's largest automaker, but it hasn't begun to tackle the broader problems that led to the city's implosion. Doing so, experts say, would require the kind of political will that has not been in great evidence in the country recently.
To the few remaining auto workers left in a city half the size it was in 1960, the America they knew growing up is long gone and things can only get worse.
"We have made concession after concession on wages and benefits and there is no end in sight," said Dean Parm, a worker and union committeeman at Nexteer Automotive, whose hourly wages have been cut to around $17 an hour from $28. "It feels like we're dinosaurs. And we're on the verge of extinction."
This is the point of the story where many Americans typically glaze over because they see Michigan as a long-standing financial basket case of a state thanks to the shrinking U.S. auto industry. But the problem is that the broad decline of the manufacturing sector that has been underway in this country for decades now may threaten not just the long-term health of the economy but also the living standards of all but the wealthiest Americans.
"The whole country is now seeing the story that Michigan has been living with for a long time," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial. "We have kicked the can so far down the road that now all we have is a cliff to fall off."
"The recession merely revealed a reality that has been with us for a long time. We faced a growing gap in education and skills that we tried to fill with debt and credit, which gave us the illusion of growth."
After World War II, unskilled blue-collar jobs in manufacturing — typified and in many ways defined by the auto sector — became America's easy path to the middle class.
As U.S. manufacturing declined, starting in the 1980s Congress and successive administrations focused instead on the financial sector and relied on debt — its own and that of the U.S. consumer — to foster economic growth.At the same time, U.S. companies faced a growing competitive challenge, largely from Asia — both in terms of manufacturing prowess and lower wages and legacy costs — that hastened the nation's exodus from the sector.
That in turn created lopsided trade imbalances, with the U.S. invariably in the red. The U.S. trade deficit with China, for instance — a nation that tightly controls its imports — hit a record of $268 billion in 2008 and could reach $270 billion this year.
At the other end of the spectrum, deregulation and a laissez-faire attitude toward financial institutions culminated in the housing "boom" that former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray (who failed to win re-election in November) has aptly described as a "Roman orgy" of debt.
The subsequent downturn, the deepest and longest since the 1930s, merely exposed the extent of the hollowing out of America's manufacturing sector. By one estimate, since 2003 up to 20,000 manufacturing plants have shut down. The trend is leaving the country with a legion of unskilled workers stuck on long-term unemployment benefits.
"Over the past 20 years we have simply borrowed more money in order to prosper," said Bill Gross, co-chief investment officer of the world's biggest bond fund manager PIMCO. "We forgot that the more stable and safe way to go is to make things."
"Now we're paying the price."
America now faces "structural" unemployment. Which means unless the world's largest economy changes in a fundamental way, millions of unskilled workers will remain jobless and economic growth will be sluggish, at best.
"The financial sector and America's wealthiest classes can help grow the economy, but not enough to bring down unemployment," said Harm Bandholz, chief U.S. economist at UniCredit Research in New York.
None of this means a death spiral is inevitable. A growing number of economists and investors like PIMCO's Gross say a fix exists: a comprehensive overhaul of America's education system and retraining programs for the unskilled.
Some point to the example of how Germany's manufacturing has rebounded a decade after the country was derided as the "sick man of Europe," though they add the German experience shows reform is a long, hard road.
America is now the "sick man of the globe," says John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo. "The good news is the illness is not terminal."
But fixing America's education system for jobs of the future plus retraining unskilled workers would require bipartisan consensus, a long-term commitment by America's political class and funding to make it happen. In today's bitterly divided Washington, that is a tough sell.
In the recent midterm elections Democrats were pummeled less than two years after President Barack Obama's triumphal arrival in Washington and American voters remain in a volatile mood. Steven Schier, a politics professor at Carleton College in Minnesota, said unless the job mess is repaired more wild swings lie ahead.
"It's entirely possible we're going to see voters flip the switch every two years until both Republicans and Democrats get the message," he said.
Besides ensuring national paralysis, such swings would be bad for investors and financial markets, which abhor political risk. Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital, who predicted the housing-fueled crash (and made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate this year), is among the skeptics who fear that Washington isn't owning up to the problem.
Schiff said he favors ending long-term unemployment benefits because he says they prevent Americans from taking low-paid jobs. "Nobody wants to tell the truth and say that lower paying jobs are here to stay," he said. "One way or another, America is going to be poorer. Basically, we're doomed."
Olen Ham lived through the rise of organized labor alongside American manufacturing and has witnessed its painful decline. Born in rural Arkansas in 1917, his family moved to Michigan, where the auto industry beckoned.
"They were hiring every hick and hillbilly they could find, so off we went," said Ham, now 93 and living at his daughter's house in Grand Blanc, Mich.
In 1914 Ford Motor Co founder Henry Ford had instituted a daily wage of $5 for workers — more than doubling their wages — to reduce turnover and enable workers to afford the cars they made.
In his 1922 book "My Life and Work" Ford, who was staunchly anti-union, dismissed the notion this was an act of charity. "We wanted to pay these wages so that the business would be on a lasting foundation," he wrote. "A low-wage business is always insecure."
In 1936 Ham found work at a General Motors plant in Flint straight out of high school, where he started out "pushing a broom" in the foundry at 52 cents an hour. "It was hotter than Hades with no ventilation," Ham said. "You had to use the bathroom quick because if you were away from your spot too long you'd be fired."
Paid holidays, pensions, healthcare, and other benefits were nonexistent. Amid the Great Depression's high unemployment and declining standards of living, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 made it easier for private sector unions to exist.
Founded in 1935, the United Auto Workers union targeted GM first, arguing that if the biggest automaker had to accept a union, the others would follow suit.
In December 1936 the "sitdown" strike began in two plants in Flint then spread to others. The strike got its name because workers occupying the plants sat on seats destined for the cars they made. Ham is one of the last surviving "sitdowners."
Events took a violent turn when the police attempted to storm one plant with tear gas and guns. Eventually Michigan Governor Frank Murphy called in the National Guard to keep the peace. He ordered GM and the UAW to negotiate and the strike ended in February 1937, resulting in the union's first, one-page contract with GM.
Within weeks, Olen Ham's hourly wage doubled to $1.04. "The other automakers were forced to follow suit on pay and benefits, as was the rest of the manufacturing sector," he said. "We built the middle class in this country."
Ham retired more than 30 years ago and in his lifetime has owned more than 25 GM cars (the latest is a 2008 Chevy HHR). He looks hurt when asked if he ever bought a used car, responding "I only buy new cars."
He owns an RV, which he still drives, and he and one of his sons (who retired from Boeing) bought a small airplane between them. Like millions of other Americans, Ham made it into the middle class with a high school education and few skills.
Manufacturing as a percentage of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) peaked in 1953 at 28.3 percent. By 2009 it was 11 percent. Employment in manufacturing continued a roller coaster ride for a couple more decades, peaking in 1979 at just over 14.5 million workers. But by 1979 the oil shocks began to threaten the middle-class status of manufacturing workers.
The 1970s stand as a "bookend to the New Deal era: that which was built in the thirties and forties — politically, economically and culturally — was beginning to crumble," writes Jefferson Cowie in his book "Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class."
From the 1980s onward, manufacturing jobs and the sector's contribution to U.S. GDP declined, a process accelerated by productivity enhancements and increasing competition from lower-cost markets. Now there are just over 8 million manufacturing workers in a population of 300 million.
"The post-World War II paradigm that allowed unskilled workers to go straight from high school into the middle class died in the 1980s," Mesirow's Swonk said.
Instead of seeking a solution to the sector's woes, America's political class sought a different way out, she added. "We decided as a nation to issue debt and focus on the financial sector to counter what was becoming a major structural issue in the 1980s," Swonk said.
That decision would have far-reaching implications for the structure of the U.S. economy.
While manufacturing's contribution to U.S. GDP had declined since 1953, the financial sector's steadily increased. The two sectors crossed paths but once — in 1986 during President Ronald Reagan's second term in office — with finance on its way up and American manufacturing on history's down escalator.
"This mess has been a long, long time coming," PIMCO's Bill Gross said. "We should have been getting people out of the unemployment line, re-educating and retraining them for the future. We failed to do that."
The consequences of what happened when, as Swonk says, credit in America went "from being a privilege to a right" are well documented.
Thanks to low interest rates and the spurious promise that property prices could only go up, U.S. consumers in the first decade of the 21st century bought into the property market hook, line, and sinker in order to profit and afford a better lifestyle.
They also drew down home equity in order to fund that lifestyle, spending money they did not have.
This is a phenomenon John Hoffecker of restructuring advisory firm AlixPartners LP refers to as "pulling forward" purchases. In just one example, Hoffecker said his firm estimated that U.S. consumers pulled forward 17 million car purchases from 2001 to 2007.
Based on average vehicle transaction prices over the past year provided by automotive information web site Edmunds.com, that gives a ballpark figure of around half a trillion dollars ($504 billion).
When the real estate boom began to show signs of unraveling in 2006, lenders used ever more exotic products to get people into homes they could not afford, such as stated-income or "liar" loans where the borrower merely stated how much they earned without verification.
It is interesting to note that on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's web site the definition of a Ponzi scheme (a type of fraud also known as a pyramid scheme) includes the following line: "Ponzi scheme organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk."
"With little or no legitimate earnings, the schemes require a consistent flow of money from new investors to continue," the web site says. "Ponzi schemes tend to collapse when it becomes difficult to recruit new investors or when a large number of investors ask to cash out."
The crumbling housing market brought the U.S. financial system to the brink of collapse in 2008, requiring an unpopular bailout by the government and emergency action by the U.S. Federal Reserve to prop it up.
"Obviously the last two years have made it clear that finance has its limits," PIMCO's Gross said. "We have seen the end of the magic era of finance as opposed to making things."
For more than two decades, Jon Clark has been buying and selling machinery, primarily generators, from defunct American manufacturing plants.
When a manufacturing plant dies, for a while it becomes a hive of activity as a "multibillion dollar industry" strips it of equipment to be "rebuilt, recycle and reused elsewhere."
Based in Texas, the 63-year-old originally hails from Liberal, Kansas ("I'm the most conservative thing ever to come out of Liberal") and says after years of seeing a consistent number of plants shutting down, he was urged in 2003 to open a bimonthly publication that would document those closures in the United States and Canada.
"We figured we could have maybe anywhere up to 25 plant closings around the country per issue," Clark said. "It turns out we grossly underestimated the scale of the closures."
Since then Plant Closing News (PCN), as the publication was named, has regularly featured 75 or more plant closings per issue, or 150 per month. Clark said PCN has seen around 10,000 plant closings since 2003, which is "probably not even half the real total."
The machinery that comes out of those plants often ends up being shipped to developing countries, representing a gradual hollowing out of America's manufacturing capacity.
"The only thing that doesn't get recycled or reused is the people," Clark said. "What do you do with someone who is 50 years old who has been doing the same thing for 30 years? We treat people now like disposable resources and just like that we throw them away."
"All of a sudden we decided that it was more economically viable to shut all these plants down," he added. "I'm sorry, but I think we've taken this too far."
"The golden rule used to be do unto others as you would have them do unto you," said the born-again Christian. "Now the rule is he who has the gold, makes the rules."
In downtown Saginaw, a few miles from the fading sign in the Texan Restaurant's parking lot there is a handful of architecturally impressive but mostly dead high-rise buildings, a reminder of the high tide of manufacturing-based prosperity that crested here in the 1960s and has receded ever since.
Spray-painted on one building are the words "All gone to look for America," a riff on Paul Simon's song "America": "Michigan seems like a dream to me now, it took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw, I've gone to look for America."
The Great Recession took a chunk out of America that is unlikely to come back.
Manufacturing generates just over a tenth of America's economic output and employs less than 9 percent of the workforce. Yet it accounted for more than 26 percent of the 8.4 million layoffs in the downturn, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
There are pockets of strength in the sector, including construction and mining equipment makers like Caterpillar Inc or the world's largest farm equipment maker Deere & Co.
But executives in those areas have been candid about the fact that fresh improvements in productivity during the downturn mean many of the 2.2 million manufacturing workers who lost their jobs will not be rehired. And much of the hiring they plan to do will be overseas to serve developing markets.
For instance, construction, quarrying and shipping machinery maker Terex Corp laid off 35 percent of its global workforce during the recession. Back in May Terex CEO Ron DeFeo said frankly, "we're trying not to hire anyone back."
During the real estate bonanza of the past decade construction, primarily residential, provided a temporary safe haven for unskilled workers as homebuilders fell over themselves to meet the demand for new housing stock.
The foreclosure mess brought most residential construction to a halt. Employment in the sector has fallen to 5.6 million from a high of 7.7 million in 2006.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 6.3 million vacant homes on the market for sale or rent. David Crowe, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, said that the "more normal" level should be around 4 million.
Ken Simonson, chief economist at the Associated General Contractors of America, says apart from a few potential bright spots such as North Dakota and the Appalachians where natural resource stories may fuel residential housing projects, the housing glut means little job creation can be expected.
"It does seem like we have enough housing stock to last us quite a while," he said.
Incidentally, the housing mess also hurt labor mobility. According to real estate website Zillow.com, in the third quarter nearly 1 in 4 single-family homes in America had negative equity, with the home worth less than the mortgage.
"Labor mobility has always been a difference between America and Europe, and has worked in America's favor," said David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff & Associates. "The housing market has now become a constraint on the labor market."
Despite government stimulus, the U.S. unemployment rate has not been below 9 percent since April 2009 and now stands at 9.8 percent. A review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics conducted for Reuters by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University found the rate of blue-collar workers who are unemployed or underemployed hit 19.5 percent in the third quarter (compared with 15.1 percent for all occupations), up from 7.2 percent in the same period in the year 2000.
"For blue collar workers it is a depression," said Andrew Sum, the center's director. "Why are people having such a hard time? The answer is their jobs don't exist any more, they have nowhere to go."
Though Wall Street has posted hefty profits this year and the economy officially grew at 2.5 percent in the third quarter, that has not created many jobs.
"We're not very far from the level where the economy is not self-sustaining," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a rare television interview on CBS's "60 Minutes" on Dec 5. "It's very close to the border. It takes about 2.5 percent growth just to keep unemployment stable and that's about what we're getting."
In November the long-term unemployed (jobless for 27 weeks or more) hit 6.3 million, or 41.9 percent of the total of 15.1 million. As part of a deal to extend tax cuts implemented by President George W. Bush, President Obama and the resurgent Republican Party agreed on a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, without that extension more than 6 million people would have lost their benefits by the end of 2011.
Gluskin Sheff's Rosenberg says the problem is extending unemployment benefits alone means in 13 months those same workers will merely need them extended again.
"The last thing America needs is a class of permanently unemployed people," he said. "They will lose their drive and lose their ability to gain and maintain future employment."
Brian Bovee used to make $28 an hour back when auto steering supplier Nexteer Automotive was part of GM — before it was spun off to Delphi Corp in 1999.
Bovee, 42, saw his wage cut to $17.55 well before the company was returned to GM's ownership in 2009 as part of Delphi's restructuring. "I've looked back through old UAW contracts and I'm now making what I would have made in the 1980s," he said. "Once you give up pay or benefits, they never come back. They've sent us back 30 years."
Bovee is at Dean Parm's house in Saginaw along with co-workers Steven Deets and Jeannie Castell. They have agreed to talk despite expressing concerns about retribution by the UAW or Nexteer, which was recently sold to a Chinese investment group backed by Beijing's municipal government.
Prior to the sale, workers at the plant rejected a new contract that would have new workers starting at $12 an hour, then approved it 10 days later under what workers describe as scare tactics by the UAW (a shareholder in GM since its bankruptcy) and Nexteer.
Deets makes $16.28 an hour working by the plant's furnace which reaches temperatures of 1,600 degree Fahrenheit (870 degrees Celsius) and he takes as much overtime as he can.
"Overtime is the only way to get by," he said, with barely contained frustration. "But it gets very tiring very quickly."
A widely accepted definition holds that wages of about $20 an hour -- $41,600 a year -- is the minimum needed for a family of four to obtain middle-class rank in America.
UAW members have traditionally bought the cars they made thanks to their middle-class wages. Now there are many small, used Asian brand cars in the parking lot at Nexteer because they are more fuel efficient and low-paid workers can afford them.
Unlike during the Great Depression, the latest downturn has weakened America's manufacturing sector unions. A sign of that weakness has been the growth of the two-tier wage system, whereby newer workers make far less than their more senior co-workers.
That two-tier system is already firmly entrenched at manufacturers like Caterpillar and has recently been adopted at others such as Harley Davidson. It has also become part of the landscape at the Big Three automakers. The number of lower-wage workers has grown in the wake of the government-led bankruptcy and restructuring of GM and Chrysler during the downturn.
The UAW is down to about 400,000 members from its glory days of nearly 1.5 million workers in 1979. Despite the decline, union president Bob King insists the two-tier system had been necessary to help U.S. automakers survive and he was bullish ahead of contract talks with the automakers in 2011.
"We are obviously in a really positive environment," he said. "There is a lot more stability in the industry and... the relationships -- the UAW and the employers -- I think is excellent."
It is difficult to find rank-and-file UAW members who share King's enthusiasm.
Janet Townsend has worked at GM for 34 years and has been through 21 plant closings. Employees at the plant where she works in Indianapolis recently rejected a contract that they say the UAW negotiated without their consent which would have halved their wages to $14 an hour as part of a deal to sell the facility to an investor. The plant will close in 2012.
"I am beginning to think I don't need a union," Townsend said. "Why do I need a union to get me a job paying $14 an hour? I can find a job like that myself."
Her colleague Rondo Jabbar described the attempted deal as class warfare. "All I have left is my pay and my benefits," he said. "I'm the one who's worried about gas at $3. Not the rich executives at GM."
Up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Marc Amante, 61, is just holding on for retirement. As a journeyman and machine repairman at GM Component Holdings LLC (like Nexteer, formerly part of Delphi), he is a skilled tradesman and still commands a wage of $34 an hour.
He owns nine cars, has paid for his two children's university education and bought his daughter a house. But he says those days are over and he is glad he will retire before skilled trades workers have their wages slashed.
"I'm really happy I've made it to the end of my career and I feel really sorry for those behind me," he said. "Because I don't see any way for them to make it into the middle class." Even more, he laments the fact that GM has apparently abandoned the old practice of attaching apprentices to old hands like him.
"They have never taken my skillset and transferred my 40 years of experience to the next generation," he said. "When I walk out the door all that experience goes with me."
Although Bob King says he hopes the UAW can address the two-tier wage system at contract talks in 2015, retired activist Gregg Shotwell describes it as a "prepaid funeral arrangement" for the union because it has pitted workers against each other.
"To have solidarity and a functioning union everyone has to be in the same boat," he said. "But if one group has first-class tickets and the other is sitting in steerage, you're doomed."
Thomas Stallkamp, an industrial partner at private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings, says the two-tier system has enabled U.S. automakers to become globally competitive and is here to stay. But he frets about the long-term implications.
"If it benefits employment and manufacturing comes back, it's a very positive benefit," he said. "If it doesn't result in a resurgence in U.S. manufacturing that will be very bad because all we will have done is lowered the standard of living for lots of people."
"I don't see any other answer than wage reduction because we're in a global market," he added. "But I also feel very strongly that we need to make things in this country."
"We can't all flip hamburgers at McDonald's."
According to the Census Bureau, income inequality has reached the highest level since it began tracking household income in 1967.
"The aggregate (GDP) numbers are biased by a relatively small number of immensely wealthy people making unbelievable amounts of money," UniCredit's Bandholz said. "When you build a house if you don't place enough emphasis on solid foundations, the result is a structure that is unstable."
"Unless this structural problem is fixed we will continue to see sluggish economic growth of around 2 to 2.5 percent," he added.
(For a special report on income inequality see: http://link.reuters.com/qen69p )
Economists like Bandholz say America could learn from the experience of Germany over the past decade.
By the time Germany passed its Agenda 2010 reform package in 2003, the country had been suffering from double-digit unemployment and mostly anemic growth for a decade. The reforms included draconian cuts in pensions and unemployment benefits, increased labor flexibility and wage cuts.
Harm Bandholz's Munich-based colleague Andreas Rees is UniCredit's chief German economist and says that the country's road to recovery from being the "sick man of Europe" has been anything but easy.
"The road to higher GDP growth was long and hard," he said. "It involved cutting wage costs for about 10 years and consumer expenditures have simply been a disaster."
"We've been through massive uncertainty and for many Germans it was a really painful period."
The reforms also resulted in the formation of the new Left socialist party, altering Germany's political landscape.
But thanks to the country's more flexible work force and "also partly good luck" in the form of demand from China for quality manufactured products, Rees said the "reforms have clearly paid off."
Driven by its manufacturing sector, the German economy is expected to grow by anywhere up to 3.7 percent in 2010, while unemployment fell to an 18-year low of 7.5 percent in October. Rees said he is upbeat about future consumer spending. But even seven years after reforms began, Rees said they are not over.
"The next step that the government was supposed to take was to improve the qualifications of the work force," he said. "We have a serious lack of skilled workers, but now that things are looking alright German politicians do not appear to be in a hurry to follow through on this."
"This is not a positive development. But we have come a long way."
America is now seen at a similar crossroads to Germany a decade ago.
Wells Fargo's Silvia said the first thing the country needs is an "honest conversation" about the fact that unskilled manufacturing work will be done wherever labor is cheapest.
"America cannot compete when it comes to low-skilled, low-cost labor," he said. "Those jobs are few and far between and the idea that we can bring back those American jobs that have gone is not realistic."
Silvia argues America needs to retrain and retool its unskilled, unemployed workers for jobs of the future.
"The type of workers that are needed in manufacturing has changed dramatically, where workers frequently operate laptops," he said. "The people who run American companies are smart. If we provide workers with skills, the jobs will come."
Gluskin Sheff's Rosenberg says that if he were in charge "I'd have a shovel in the hands of the long-term unemployed from 8am to noon and from 1pm to 5pm I'd have them studying algebra, physics and geometry."
In the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey released Dec 7, American 15-year-olds performed below the OECD average in mathematics (Chinese students in Shanghai topped the rankings) and just average in science and reading.
One third of American college students require remedial mathematics classes because they have not taken those classes at the high school level. A sound knowledge of mathematics is apparently exactly what America's children need.
Achieve, a Washington-based bipartisan education reform organization, says math-intensive science and engineering jobs are growing three times faster than overall job growth. Through 2016, professional occupations will add more new jobs -- at least five million -- than any other sector, and within that category, computer and mathematical occupations will grow the fastest.
But education reform and retraining jobless workers for skilled jobs of the future will be painful, last many years and require long-term thinking that PIMCO's Bill Gross says is lacking thanks to America's unending election cycle.
"The problem we have is that our politicians are focused only on the next 12 to 24 months."
Another factor that does not favor reform is that it would cost money. Christopher Koch, state superintendent of Education at the Illinois Board of Education, says school districts are not keen on having the federal government leading the charge on education reform. But the government could play a supporting role by providing research into best practices and funding to help cash-strapped states overhaul their school districts systems.
"I confess I am not optimistic that funding will be forthcoming from Washington given the current political environment," he said.
America's fiscal mess was a major focus of conservatives during the midterm elections. Cutting the size of the government, reducing spending and lower taxes were rallying cries of the Tea Party movement, which helped Republicans win the House of Representatives.
The new conservative members of Congress rail against increases in spending of any variety and some even advocate defunding the Department of Education.
Mesirow's Swonk says rather than acknowledge the depths of the country's problems or the cost of fixing them, Democrats and Republicans have retreated into "faith-based ideological views of economics that do not reflect reality."
"We're still a nation in denial," she said. "If we had a 10-year deficit reduction plan we could include spending on necessary reforms. But America's political class is not willing to do that because the incoming Congress has decided gridlock is good and our politicians keep lying to us by telling us we can get out of this without pain."
"So we're going to get a double whammy of adding insult to injury by not focusing on a pro-growth fiscal policy and creating a very wealthy class of people," she added.
"What we've chosen as a country is the hard way, which means more heartache and hunger lie ahead."
After serving a tour in Iraq from 2004 to 2005, Nick Waun struggled to find work back home in Michigan, in part because he said many private firms are reluctant to hire Reservists who can be called up for duty.
But then an aunt who worked at the GM plant in Lake Orion managed to get him a job in the body shop there.
"I was extremely, ex-treme-ly lucky," he said, with heavy emphasis on every syllable, "to get hired at the plant."
Waun's luck continued when he was bumped up from a second-tier wage to $28 an hour, enabling him to pay for part-time college tuition in combination with GI Bill funding (he is studying economics and pre-law).
His luck ran out when the plant closed down in 2009 during the recession. He managed to hold onto his small car, but "lost about everything else from a year of being unemployed" and had to move in with his father in Lapeer, Michigan, when he lost his apartment.
In October the UAW and GM negotiated a deal whereby the automaker would make a small car, the Chevrolet Aveo, at the plant. But 40 percent of the workers would have to work for $14 an hour, including Waun because he has no seniority, a plan that angered many workers because they did not get to vote on the new contract.
The only option for Waun to keep making $28 an hour was to take a job at a GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio, a four-and-a-half hour drive away from home. At first he slept in his car there until he could get an apartment.
Speaking during a visit home to Lapeer, he said he hopes to study law and get out of the auto industry because he has no doubt the second-tier wage will continue to spread and will catch up with him eventually if he does not.
"I'm just trying to stay one step ahead of the decline," he said. "I'll keep moving if it means I can hang onto a job paying $28 an hour. It's the only way I'll be able to pay for a law degree and get out."
"If I end up being shoved down to a $14 an hour job, I'll be stuck there for the rest of my life," he added.
Stuxnet ‘Virus’ Could Be Altered To Attack US facilities, Report Warns
Stuxnet ‘Virus’ Could Be Altered To Attack US facilities, Report Warns
The Christian Science Monitor
By Mark Clayton
Stuxnet, a computer worm that hit and may have severely damaged Iranian nuclear facilities, is the type of cyberweapon that could broadly harm the United States, undermining both society and government ability to defend the nation, says a strongly worded report to Congress.
A successful broad-based attack on the US, using new variants of the Stuxnet weapon, could do enough widespread damage to critical infrastructure – including water, power, transportation, and other services – that it “threatens to cause harm to many activities deemed critical to the basic functioning of modern society,” said the little-noticed report issued by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) Dec. 9.
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Switzerland considers legalizing incest
In another step that demonstrates conclusively the dangers that descended on a society that no longer fear God, Swiss politicians intend to legalize incest. They consider repeal the laws against incest by considering the "obsolete". The upper chamber of the Swiss parliament has completed a law that seeks to decriminalize consensual sex between family members. This bill will now be assessed by the government. There were only three cases of incest in the country since 1984. At least the cases reported. Switzerland, which recently had a referendum which approved a law that punishes immigrants with the practice of extradition for certain crimes, insists that children in families will continue to be "protected by the laws governing abuse and pedophilia." It is not known how the leftists will do that, but for sure they have everything under control.
Daniel Vischer, a member of the Party "The Greens", said he did not see anything wrong with consensual sex between adults - even if they are of the same family. This statement is not surprising since the leftists support any measure that aims to destroy the institution of the family. The liberal says, "Incest is a delicate moral issue, but not one that can be answered by criminal law."
Barbara Schmid Federer, Christian People's Party of Switzerland, said the upper chamber's proposal is "totally abhorrent". Protestant People's Party is also in opposition to the bill. One of the spokesmen said: "The murder is also quite rare in Switzerland, but no one suggests removing from our statute laws that punish."
Conclusion: For those Christophobia they thought would be possible to maintain social order even after the disappearance of Christian morality, reality will be painful. What will you have is the total subversion of morals and customs that provided the basis for the social and economic success of the Western world. God is the essential foundation for a functioning society and history demonstrates this. If we reject what He says (and created our own moral), the company invariably degenerates. Happened to Israel in biblical times, it happened with England and will happen to the U.S. if they continue to descend to the normalization of Christophobia. There is no single world society that has been created, maintained and elevated to the position of prominence on the basis of anti-Christian ideologies or anti-God. Religion in general and Christianity in particular, have been guiding forces and control over the passions and failings of men. Removing these limits, the man is at the mercy of demons and sin.
"Actually they have the grounds to overturn, which can the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:3).
"The Lord is in His holy temple: the Lord's throne is in heaven: His eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. The LORD tests the righteous, but His soul hates the wicked and him that loveth violence. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and stormy: this is the portion of their cup "(Psalm 11:4-6).
(Darwinism)