Labor Union Blog

Economic Report:

By Jesse Russell

The majority of Americans now believe the U.S. is headed toward a recession and that it could hit us in the next three to six months. A survey by America’s Research Group found that only 40 percent felt a recession was not likely. One-third of consumers feel worse off then they did last Christmas season with 21.5 percent expecting to spend less this year.

The dollar hit a major peak in 2001 – but since then it has been all downhill with the steepest decline coming during the past six months. Jesse Russell takes a look:

By Jesse Russell

George Washington lost ground to a loonie on Wednesday as the Canadian dollar jumped two cents on Wednesday breaking the $1.10 value mark against the U.S. dollar. In the U.K. the dollar also hit a 26-year low against the pound which now is valued at $2.10. And as for the Euro, that is now valued at $1.47. The dollar had been enjoying a steady climb that started in 1996 until it hit a wall in February of 2002. Since that time the dollar has lost 35 percent of its value with 12.5 percent of that drop in the last year and 1.5 percent of the drop in the last week alone. Why? The sleeping dragon is awake and seeking a new way to finance its treasure. According to UK’s Guardian Unlimited, on Tuesday the Vice Chairman of China’s National People’s Congress told a conference in Beijing that the country would be favoring stronger currencies over weaker ones. That was followed by comments from the vice director of China’s central bank who said the dollar was “losing its status as a world currency. Economists also cite skyrocketing oil prices, the collapsing sub-prime mortgage market, and a dependency on credit as additional reasons for the fall.

By Doug Cunningham

[Sweeney]: “Hundreds of thousands of working families mobilized to change the state’s direction and oust anti-worker governor Ernie Fletcher.”

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. Steve Beshear, the labor-backed candidate for Kentucky governor, beat the incumbent Republican by a landslide and union voters provided that overwhelming margin of victory.

[Sweeney2]: “Candidates who don’t have working people’s best interests had better watch out, because I’ve never seen our members this enthusiastic and ready for change. And they want an America that works for working people.”

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is running a radio ad attacking Democratic health care proposals. In it, he says he was lucky to have gotten cancer treatment through the U.S. health care system, claiming the prostate cancer survival rate of 82 percent here is twice the rate in England.

The only problem: The claim he’s making is completely untrue. As economist Paul Krugman notes:

You see, the actual survival rate in Britain is 74.4 percent. That still looks a bit lower than the U.S. rate, but the difference turns out to be mainly a statistical illusion. The details are technical, but the bottom line is that a man’s chance of dying from prostate cancer is about the same in Britain as it is in America.

So Mr. Giuliani’s supposed killer statistic about the defects of “socialized medicine” is entirely false.

And what’s more, Giuliani’s treatment came while he was covered by a plan provided through the State of New York—a plan not unlike one proposed by several Democratic candidates, proposals that Giuliani is attacking in this very ad.