Minimum Wage Hike
The federal minimum wage will increase 70 cents per hour Thursday to $6.55 per hour.
JOHANNA CHAO KREILICK, jckreilick@uusc.org, http://uusc.org/
Kreilick is program manager for economic justice for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and member of the board of the national Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign. She said today: “The July 24 raise in the minimum wage to $6.55 will help millions of workers deal with the rapidly rising price of gas, food and other basic items. But it’s nowhere near sufficient. The value of the minimum wage is lower now in real dollars than 40 years ago when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis while fighting for living wages for sanitation workers. Raising the minimum wage is a workers’ rights issue, a women’s issue, a children’s rights issue, and a racial justice issue. The Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign is calling for a minimum wage of $10 in 2010 as the least we can do to make up lost ground and bring the minimum wage closer to an adequate living standard. Let Justice Roll believes ‘A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it.’ And we’re going to keep working to raise the minimum wage to a living wage in the states and at the federal level.”
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
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HOW WALL STREET WRECKED YOUR RETIREMENT
By Nicholas von Hoffman, The Nation
People are discovering they have been forced into a system in which others have gambled with their retirement savings and lost it.
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/92658/
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Home sales at 10-year low, jobless claims jump
24 Jul 2008
Jobless claims jumped last week and the pace of existing home sales tumbled to a 10-year low as slowing growth hit hiring and a glut of unsold homes weighed on the real estate market, data on Thursday showed. The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits jumped 34,000 last week, the Labor Department said.
At:
http://tinyurl.com/5bvwvs (http://www.reuters.com/)
From: CLG News
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State IG to look at U.S. role in Iraq oil deals
By Dan Friedman, CongressDaily
Responding to a request by four Senate Democrats, the State Department’s inspector general has announced an inquiry into the department’s policy on western oil company contracts in Iraq.
“I have initiated a review of the responses provided to Congress recently on issues surrounding oil contracts, oil field development and U.S. policy in Iraq,” Acting State Department Inspector General Harold Geisel wrote in a June 22 letter obtained by CongressDaily.
The letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., John Kerry, D-Mass., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., refers to material State gave the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for its investigation into a deal involving Texas-based Hunt Oil Co., as well as other potential oil contracts.
Full story: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=40544&dcn=e_gvet
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Iraq Oil Report – ‘Kirkuk oil exports resume following debt payment to Turkey’
Turkey restarted loadings of halted Iraqi oil exports on Tuesday after Iraq paid $50 million of a total $100 million debt, a senior source from the state pipeline company Botas told Reuters.
An Iraq oil ministry official had said earlier Iraq’s Kirkuk oil exports to Turkey had been halted after a Turkish court ordered the stoppage [...]
You may view the latest post at
http://tinyurl.com/56pmvh (http://www.iraqoilreport.com/)
Iraq Oil Report – ‘Firms line up for Iraqi oil, but outlook murky’
An oil refinery in the once restive and violent city of Haditha is working once again.
The reopening ceremony was attended by Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani who thanked the people of the Province of Anbar, of which Haditha is a major town, for their efforts to restore relative stability.
The refinery was shut due to mounting violence [...]
You may view the latest post at
http://tinyurl.com/6bzpkq (http://www.iraqoilreport.com/)
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CFTC.gov Enforcement Actions Update
The following enforcement action has been released:
Complaint: Optiver US, LLC, et al.
CFTC Charges Optiver Holding BV, Two Subsidiaries, and High-Ranking Employees with Manipulation of NYMEX Crude Oil, Heating Oil, and Gasoline Futures Contracts provides further details on this action.
http://tinyurl.com/5sakfs (http://www.cftc.gov/)
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EIA, the Nation’s clearinghouse for energy statistics – This Week in Petroleum (TWIP)
This Week in Petroleum (TWIP) has been updated to the EIA website:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip.asp
You might also be interested in the following product from EIA.
Petroleum Navigator:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_top.asp
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Monthly Energy Review (7/24/2008)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/contents.html
EIA’s primary report of recent energy statistics: total energy production, consumption, and trade; energy prices; overviews of petroleum, natural gas, coal, electricity, nuclear energy, renewable energy, and international petroleum; and data unit conversions. See “What’s New”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/wni.html
in the Monthly Energy Review for a record of changes. Over the first half of 2008, the average number of rotary rigs in operation in the United States (onshore and offshore) was up 4 percent compared with the first half of 2007 and up 15 percent compared with the first half of 2006; the total number of wells drilled was up 7 percent and 20 percent, respectively; and the total footage drilled was down 3 percent and up 20 percent, respectively.
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WSJ’s Drucker fails to note Obama would only increase capital gains taxes on individuals making more than $250,000
The Wall Street Journal’s Jesse Drucker wrote that Sen. Barack Obama has said he will “seek to raise” the capital gains tax to “at least 20%, the rate before the 2003 cut, and possibly higher.” In fact, Obama has said he would not raise the capital gains tax on individuals with income of less than $250,000 — a fact noted by WSJ reporter Tom Herman in an “Ask Dow Jones” Q-and-A.
Read More
http://mediamatters.org/items/200807240008?lid=469712&rid=11527407
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And now for the important news ….
By Argus Hamilton
President Bush and Prime Minister al-Maliki agreed to a time horizon for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq. Let the buyer beware. The trouble with a horizon is that you have to be a member of the Flat Earth Society to think you can ever reach it.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/all_headlines/91524
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three thousand words
Matt Davies: Alms For The Poor Money Managers
http://davies.lohudblogs.com/files/2008/07/0717davies.jpg
Trouble Town (Lloyd Dangle): pickleweed
http://troubletown.com/cartoons/cartoons/ttown.919.gif
Larry Wright: the good news is the guvermint raised the minimum wage …
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/WrighL/2008/WrighL20080725_low.jpg
