New Stock Market Terms & investment advice

New Stock Market Terms




CEO - Chief Embezzlement Officer




CFO - Corporate Fraud Officer



BULL MARKET - A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius



BEAR MARKET - a 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.




VALUE INVESTING - The art of buying low and selling lower.




P/E RATIO - The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.




BROKER - What my financial planner has made me.




STANDARD & POOR - Your life in a nutshell.




STOCK ANALYST - Idiot who just downgraded your stock.




STOCK SPLIT- When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.




MARKET CORRECTION - The day after you buy stocks.




CASH FLOW - The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.




YAHOO - What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.




WINDOWS - What you jump out of when you're the sucker who bought Yahoo at $240 per share.




INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR - Past year investor who's now locked up in a nuthouse.



PROFIT - an archaic word no longer in use.




# # # # #




If you had purchased $1000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49.00 today.




If you had purchased $1000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today.



If you had purchased $1000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0.00 today.


But---- if you had purchased $1000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund,


you will have received $214.00.


Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle.


It's called the 401-Keg.

The United States has 800 military bases on foreign soil...

What we need--- instead--- is 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States where people can universally access, for free, all their health care needs from pre-natal care, to general health care to eye, dental and mental care right through to burial.

Instead of moving in this progressive direction, President Barack Obama and the United States Congress are moving in a most reactionary direction towards establishing military bases in outer space as they seek to insure the profits of both the merchants of death and destruction and the profit-driven health care industries... talk about skewed priorities and your wacky ideas devoid of common sense.

In addition to these 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil, Barack Obama and the United States Congress continue funding--- with our tax-dollars--- the Israeli killing machine to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.

A network of 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States would create over four-million good-paying, decent jobs--- talk about your "economic stimulus" package!

We would be planting the seeds of socialism while helping to eradicate poverty as we keep people healthy and get them well when sick.

Think about this kind of solution in relation to what Barack Obama, the U.S. Congress and the Wall Street bankers and coupon clippers are offering the American people, and the peoples of the world... just what is the reason for bailing out the banks and AIG and maintaining more than 800 expensive U.S. military bases of foreign soil?

The Mt. Carmel Clinic in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada offers us a glimpse at what militarization and wars continue to rob us of.

The problems created by Wall Street will not be solved as long as the military-financial-industrial complex is allowed to squander human and natural resources on militarism and wars... we might just as well be dumping these resources out into the ocean... at least no one would die in wars.

These merchants of death and destruction must be stopped if humanity is to survive in a livable world.

The time has come to talk about the working class Marxist politics and economics of livelihood... capitalism has failed humanity miserably and left us a real mess.

Something for working people to think about and discuss around the dinner table... the capitalist sooth-Sayers certainly are not going to broach such solutions to the problems of working people as they hide behind the skirt of Rosy Scenario as this global capitalist economic depression intensifies.

Alan Maki

The big lie about AIG

The big lie about AIG:

From---

U.S.News & World Report (see complete article following my comments)


What's Good, What's Bad About the AIG Bailout

“It's keeping AIG's insurance businesses stable. Here's something that's really startling: The entire problem at AIG was caused by one unit, the Financial Products division, whose employees constituted less than one percent of AIG's overall workforce. AIG's insurance units - the core of its business - essentially had nothing to do with the fiasco. But if AIG had been forced to liquidate, it could have affected the insurance units and millions of policyholders. With a more orderly process underway, the policyholders are now completely protected.”

This is the truth:

The entire problem at AIG was caused by one unit, the Financial Products division

But if AIG had been forced to liquidate, it could have affected the insurance units and millions of policyholders. With a more orderly process underway, the policyholders are now completely protected.



Question:

Who are these AIG “policyholders?”

Answer:

These AIG “policyholders” are the largest multi-national corporations in the world… and include corporations from every industry, from media to banking/mortgage to auto and steel to toys.





Question:

What kind of insurance policies have the multi-national corporations purchased from AIG?

Answer:

These “policyholders” have purchased insurance from AIG to protect their profits.





Question:

What kind of “claims” are they filing?

Answer:

These multi-national policyholders are making claims based upon their loss of profits due to the recession/depression.





Comment:

Our tax-dollars are paying on “claims” being filed by these multi-national corporations for losses in profits as the economy goes south.



Comment:

While the disgraceful tens of millions of dollars in executive “bonuses” paid by AIG are now the justified topic of wide-spread discussion; these “bonuses” are being used a “Trojan Horse” of sorts by the media and politicians who don’t want to disclose to the American people where the hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars are going.



Comment:

Make no mistake, the $170,000,000,000.00 (one-hundred seventy billion dollars) paid out to AIG is just the beginning… as the depression deepens these multi-national corporations will continue filing claims and AIG will have to honor the policies these corporations purchased to protect their profitability… our tax-dollars are going directly into the pockets of the Wall Street coupon clippers and the very mortgage company crooks who ripped off the American people.



Comment:

For the American tax-payer, there is nothing “good” about the bailout of AIG… except to the stock and bondholders and bankers and mortgage companies and the big industrialists and investors who will continue to pocket profits at tax-payer expense, everything about the AIG “bailout” is bad.



Conclusion:

The “bailout” of AIG with our tax-dollars is doing nothing but stabilizing Wall Street “profits.”

AIG’s insurance business is the business of protecting multi-national corporations against a loss in profits.

Once the tax-dollars stop flowing into the coffers of AIG and flooding out to the multi-national corporations, the world stock markets will collapse and we will be in the midst of the worst capitalist economic depression humanity has ever known--- complete with all the accompanying human misery and social strife one would expect--- now being widely predicted by many diverse voices.

On top of all of this, the American dollar will become worthless and we will be forced to purchase oil with Euros and Rubles… then what?

And if the Chinese aren’t dumb enough to buy into the American capitalist economic mess… then what?

In spite of what the highest-paid capitalist sooth-Sayers are telling us, capitalism as an economic system is finished… it is time to explore a socialist solution where production takes place to solve human needs rather than for profit… there is no other solution.

The multi-national corporations purchased insurance policies to protect their profits against recession/depression incurred losses from AIG, a private--- for profit--- insurance company, which assumed the risk in underwriting such policies.

The multi-national corporations did not purchase insurance policies from the United States government; so why should tax-payers be the ones paying out on these claims?

This is the biggest corporate swindle in history… in comparison, Bernie Madoff is a piker… we are being played for suckers.

We need a national “people’s bailout” based on the “Minnesota People’s bailout.”

The time has come to take a “left turn” to get us off this road to perdition as the capitalist system collapses.

Big-business created this economic mess as they reaped the profits while leaving working people with ALL the problems.

Alan L. Maki





U.S.News & World Report
What's Good, What's Bad About the AIG Bailout

http://biz.yahoo.com/usnews/090317/17_whats_good_whats_bad_about_the_aig_bailout.html?.&.pf=insurance


Tuesday March 17, 1:52 pm ET
By Rick Newman

"There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce."

The latest surreal twists in the AIG bailout bring to mind Mark Twain, who could spot folly as if he were hunting for it with a spyglass. Had Twain had AIG to work with as raw material, we'd probably have another couple dozen enduring epigrams skewering the greedy and the foolish.

Many Americans would like to finish the farce and simply cut AIG off, especially now that the company has paid $165 million in bonuses to executives at the very unit that nearly caused the firm's downfall and triggered an unprecedented taxpayer bailout that now totals $170 billion. To almost everybody, it seems self-evident that traders shouldn't be rewarded for wrecking their company and then burning through vast amounts of public funds. Yet AIG insists it is legally obligated to pay the bonuses, because of contracts signed before the damage occurred and taxpayers got involved. There have also been suggestions that the rascals who devised these complex derivatives deals may be the only ones who know how to unwind them, so AIG has no choice but to keep them around - and pay for the privilege of their company. In other words, the bonuses amount to extortion.

Okay. Breathe deep. Think calming thoughts. Find your center. Amidst this outrage, it's worth keeping in mind that the AIG bailout is actually doing some good. It's also a kind of learn-as-you-go experiment that's never really been done before. Here's a rough scorecard of what's working and what's not:

What's working

The AIG bailout has helped stabilize the financial markets. Take a moment to revisit September 2008. That's when Lehman Brothers failed, Merrill Lynch almost did, and AIG would have been forced into a chaotic bankruptcy if the feds didn't arrange an emergency $85 billion loan. With a bit of hindsight, it's starting to seem that AIG, which brokered more than $2.5 trillion worth of derivatives known as credit-default swaps held by many of the world's biggest banks, was the death star of that troubled troika.

We've survived the Lehman bankruptcy, after all, and Merrill found a buyer. "The real surprise wasn't Lehman Brothers, it was AIG," Frederic Mishkin, a Columbia Business School professor and former member of the Federal Reserve Board, said in a recent speech. "Who would have thought that an insurance company would have been affected by all this? When that happened, all bets were off."

All that federal money has helped AIG redeem some of those derivatives contracts, getting them off its books and out of the system. The financial markets still aren't back to normal, but they're heading in that direction. Forestalling another industrial-strength financial failure, and the chain reaction it would have triggered if AIG had collapsed, has certainly helped.

It's also helping AIG unwind itself. AIG's problems snowballed in September when suddenly it had to produce billions of dollars worth of collateral to back up those credit-default swaps. The collateral call was triggered by an unexpected drop in AIG's credit rating, along with the plunge in value of mortage-backed securities around the world. AIG didn't have the cash, and to come up with it, the only option would have been to sell off illiquid assets like its highly profitable insurance divisions or its aircraft leasing company. Try doing that in a week.

Had AIG been forced to liquidate those assets, it would have had to accept fire-sale prices, which would have led to a sudden collapse in the prices of other similar assets and companies throughout the world. AIG would have gotten pennies on the dollar for valuable assets and many other businesses would suddenly have been devalued, too.

AIG is still in the process of selling off assets, to pay off the government loans that effectively served as its collateral. But it's doing that in a more orderly way, seeking the highest bidders and the best terms. That's generally good for everybody, and it's also the best way for taxpayers to get most or all of their money back.

It's keeping AIG's insurance businesses stable. Here's something that's really startling: The entire problem at AIG was caused by one unit, the Financial Products division, whose employees constituted less than one percent of AIG's overall workforce. AIG's insurance units - the core of its business - essentially had nothing to do with the fiasco. But if AIG had been forced to liquidate, it could have affected the insurance units and millions of policyholders. With a more orderly process underway, the policyholders are now completely protected.

What's not working

Revolting bonuses. It simply goes without saying that giving bonuses to the people who brought down AIG is a perversion of justice. Officials at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Dept. should have put terms into the original bailout agreement that prevented this. They didn't. It was a chaotic time, and legitimate worries about a global financial collapse obviously clouded thoughts about rules to prevent rapacious traders from holding the government hostage. If it's any consolation, the $165 million bonus pool is relatively small. Still, it grates.

Counterparty payouts. AIG has used much of the $170 billion in government aid to basically refund money to big banks and other "counterparties," to cash out some of those credit-default swaps and reduce AIG's massive liabilities. That's sensible, and it's basically the original idea behind the "Troubled Assets Relief Program," which was intended to get the worst derivatives and other securities off the market.

The problem is that the government has apparently agreed to $105 billion worth of payouts - at the full face value of the securities. That means that banks like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Societe General and Deutsche Bank - among the world's most sophisticated investors - are taking no loss at all on securities that had a market value of half their face value or less when AIG redeemed them in full. It's like house prices falling in your neighborhood by 50 percent, and somebody coming in and buying one house for what it was worth at the market peak a couple years ago. And using a government loan to finance it.

Regulators at the Fed, Treasury, and other departments still haven't explained why the counterparties got all their money back. They're certainly going to be asked at upcoming Congressional hearings. But in a situation where just about everybody is taking a loss - taxpayers and consumers especially - it will be tough to make a case that the world's richest banks deserve full redemption.

Secrecy. We keep learning the terms of the AIG bailout well after the fact. Obviously there are times when the feds need to move quickly and can't have a 60-day comment period. But it's not the same crisis atmosphere as last fall. In general, we should learn the details of the bailout as they occur.

AIG strongly resisted releasing the list of counterparties that have been paid back with bailout money, for instance. As recently as March 5, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn defended that secrecy, saying that firms might be reluctant to deal with AIG in the future if they knew their dealings could become public.

Then a week later, under mounting pressure, AIG released a list of counterparties. The world didn't end. AIG is also refusing to release the names of individuals in the Financial Products division who are getting bonuses. They may lose that battle too, since New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has asked for the names and started an investigation, much as he has with Merrill Lynch. Information is going to come out one way or the other, and AIG and its regulators should stop trying to protect the failing company any more than they already are. When AIG pays back that $170 billion in taxpayer money, they can keep all the secrets they want. In fact, once we've got our money back, the less we hear about AIG the better.





Alan L. Maki

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net



Check out my blog:



Thoughts From Podunk



http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Nationalization, Socialism, and the U.S. Banks

North Dakota has a state owned bank. Benny

Nationalization, Socialism, and the U.S. Banks

By Jim Genova

Associate Professor of History

The Ohio State University-Marion



In the midst of the unfolding global economic crisis politicians, pundits, and bankers have engaged in much hyperbolic discussion about the prospect that major banks in the U.S. may be “nationalized.” On 27 February the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it was converting its “preferred shares” in Citibank into “common shares” giving it a 36% ownership in one of the world’s largest financial institutions. This and other actions taken on the part of the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department since the crisis began to accelerate last Autumn has led hardened neo-liberal ideologues to exclaim that this is “creeping socialism.” The proclamations of many anchors across the business channels, Conservatives gathered in Washington on 28 February, and Republicans in Congress during the debate over the stimulus bill have elevated to the level of mainstream discourse a conversation over the meaning of the terms “nationalization” and “socialism,” even if the purpose of such right-wing defenders of unbridled global capitalism is to induce ideological confusion and a sense of panic.


On 25 February, members of the House Financial Services Committee asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to explain what he understood to be the definition of “nationalization.” In response, he said it is when “the government ‘seizes’ a company, ‘zeroes out the shareholders and begins to manage and run the bank.” He reassured the anxious Congressmen that “we don’t plan anything like that.”[1] Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner seconded Bernanke’s comments, describing nationalization as “the wrong strategy for the country and I don’t think it’s a necessary strategy.”[2] Sen. Charles Schumer, member of the Senate Banking Committee, also tried to reassure a nervous investor class stating that a “federal takeover of the banks should be avoided at all costs. No one intends, ever, to have the government running these banks or insurance companies for a long period of time.” His goal, somewhat more ambitious than that proposed by either Bernanke or Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is to have the government “come in, clean them out, take out the bad assets, put in new management.”[3] Despite such reassurances from those at the center of power, howls from the right and from brokers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and Chicago Mercantile Exchange continue to charge that the U.S. beginning under the Bush Administration and continuing at an accelerated pace is heading down the road to “socialism.”



None of the half-measures, abrupt shifts in policy, or tenuous interventions in the financial sector over the past year at least (Bear Stearns went under on 17 March 2008) have been effective at stemming the ever deepening global financial crisis. Banks continue to fail, large monopolistic financial institutions are reeling around the world, and the global economy is spiraling into perhaps its worst crisis ever. Events, as the recent contorted interventions to rescue Citibank have shown, are forcing the leaders of U.S. capitalism to make very difficult and, to them, unpalatable decisions. Neither former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (a supposed expert on the Great Depression of the 1930s) nor current Treasury head Tim Geithner (Governor of the New York Fed when Lehman Brothers went down in September 2008) appear to have to will to carry off what is historically necessary – the outright seizure of the major financial institutions of this country. This should not surprise us as they are “true believers” in the neo-liberal capitalist world order. For them, the current crisis is perplexing since it should not be happening at all. At the very least, the market should have shown the way out by now. This led former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan to recently acknowledge before Congress that the theory to which he (along with Paulson, Bernanke, and Geithner) ascribed was “deeply flawed.” No such statement of contrition has as of yet come forth from Bernanke and Geithner.


Ultimately, many analysts believe that the U.S. government will have no choice but to nationalize some of the largest financial firms, including Citibank, Bank of America, and some large regional banks.[4] Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz recently echoed calls from leading economists Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Taleb to nationalize the U.S. banks telling German television network Deutsche Welle “the banks have failed. Nationalization is the only answer.”[5] Stiglitz has much experience at the center of global finance having served as a member of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors (1993-1997) and as Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank (1997-2000). During those terms he witnessed the LTCM and East Asia currency crises (1996-1998) that some economists like Paul Krugman warned was a prelude to a global economic depression.[6] What has happened in the meantime is that trillions of dollars have been thrown down the bottomless chute of fundamentally insolvent institutions beyond hope of rescue.[7] Moreover, for all of this public money used to prop up badly run speculative private institutions not once has the government forced the management to resign (the recent move at Citibank showed the first signs of the Treasury making demands about the composition of corporate boards) nor has it called for any “claw back” provisions of the bonuses and extravagant pay for executives who ran their enterprises into the ground. Instead, public wealth is being transferred on a rapidly moving conveyor belt into the hands of unscrupulous and failed bankers. This is becoming one of the greatest thefts in world history. As Stiglitz told Deutche Welle, “separation of ownership from control is a recipe for disaster.”[8]


What is called for is an emergency solution not unlike that confronting Russia in the summer of 1917 when the Bolshevik leader V. I. Lenin wrote The Threatening Catastrophe and How to Fight It. In that pamphlet, Lenin described an unfolding crisis where the wheels of the Russian economy were grinding to a halt. Banks had ceased lending, railroads were shutting down, food supplies were dwindling, and unemployment was mounting. Lenin also noted that there was much public discussion among politicians and leaders of industry that something dramatic had to be done to salvage the situation. “Everybody says that. Everybody recognizes that. Everybody has agreed to that. And nothing is being done.”[9] Even more recently, Sweden’s experience in the early 1990s has been held up as analogous to the broad parameters of the current U.S. situation. There a housing boom in the late 1980s led to speculation on mortgage-backed debt that eventually ended badly leading to the government taking effective control of the largest banks. Sweden then forced the banks to create two institutions under one roof – a good bank and a bad bank. All of the “toxic assets” were concentrated in the bad banks, which gradually (over four years) sold them off.[10] The problem with using Sweden’s banking crisis as a model for understanding our own is that not only is Sweden’s economy a fraction of the size of that in the U.S. but its institutions are not at the epicenter of the global capitalist system. Institutions like CitiGroup, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and others are global monopolistic enterprises with branches, partners, and subsidiaries throughout the world. Moreover, they are the vehicles through which the leaders of U.S. government pass on their way to political power. Consequently, there is an incestuous relationship between the “too big to fail” banks and the officials in charge of their oversight. There was nothing analogous in Sweden’s case. Finally, the U.S. crisis does not stem entirely from a decline in home prices (the much vaunted bursting of the housing bubble). Rather, for decades there has been a mounting structural weakness in the U.S. economy and by extension global capitalism. That is the overwhelming dependence for the survival and expansion of the system on debt of all kinds – credit cards, mortgages, auto financing, leveraged stock trading, and greatly expanded issuing of public debt of many varieties. Since the early 1970s there has been a widening disconnect between the real wages of workers in the industrialized world and the accumulation of public and private debt.[11]


We are at a crossroads in the current crisis. Every leading politician, pundit, and financial analyst acknowledges that the situation requires urgent action. On financial, ethical, and political grounds it is imperative that the U.S. government nationalize the major financial institutions, place them under federal control, unify them into one central bank to provide for more efficient management, and completely dispatch the executive management of those firms that have been seized. Only through that device can the process of daily pumping billions upon billions into dead institutions be stopped. Only through such bold moves can the government gain the leverage it needs to control the credit markets, make interest rates meaningful, and aggressively restructure mortgages. Only through the decisive action of seizing, controlling, and re-directing the functioning of the banks to serve the immediate and long-term needs of the people can the rate of decline be slowed and some stability be restored to the financial sector of the economy.[12]


This should not be confused with socialism. Such labeling is an effort on the part of those ideologues still committed to the failed neo-liberal policies of the Washington Consensus dating to Reagan and Thatcher years of the early 1980s to derail any meaningful assistance to those workers, farmers, and middle class people who are suffering because of the greed of the capitalist elite. Moreover, it is the same callousness that those practitioners of gung-ho capitalism displayed in guiding IMF and World Bank policies on a path to crippling and impoverishing developing countries around the world through “Structural Adjustment Programs.” Lenin clearly delineated the difference between “state monopoly capitalism” and socialism, but argued that it was imperative in the period of impending catastrophe that responsible officials of any government take the decisive measures necessary to save people from mass unemployment, famine, and deep social dislocation. That the global economic crisis portends widespread political upheaval has been attested to by analysts and researchers who work in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.[13] In describing the 1917 crisis in Russia, Lenin wrote that nationalizing the banks would improve “the accessibility and the easy terms of credit, particularly for small owners [and] for the peasantry.” Further, the state would “be in a position to survey all the main monetary operations without concealing them, then to control them, then to regulate economic life, and finally to obtain millions and billions for large state operations.”[14] This addresses many of the most salient aspects of the crisis in the financial sector: transparency, accountability, assistance for those who actually need it, saving funds that will be needed for further stimulus, and it resolves the fatal disconnect Stiglitz identified in the current approach between having ownership without control. Beyond the current crisis, though, since the capitalist ideologues have raised the specter of socialism in the U.S., it is an opportunity for progressive forces to intervene in the public conversation and offer a real understanding of what socialism is while also highlighting the ultimate flaws of capitalism that can never be overcome or resolved from inside the system. This is an historic opportunity for the government to act on behalf of the people to mitigate the effects of a dying system and for progressives to make the case for socialism. The fate of millions of people around the world depends on the abilities of both to do what is historically necessary.




[1] Craig Torres and Bradley Keoun, “Bernanke Rejects ‘Anything Like’ Bank Nationalization,” Bloomberg.com 25 February 2009.

[2] Robert Schmidt, “Geithner Calls Nationalizing Banks ‘Wrong Strategy’ for Economy,” Bloomberg.com, 25 February 2009.

[3] Torres and Keoun, “Bernanke Rejects ‘Anything Like’ Bank Nationalization.”

[4] Matthew Richardson, “The Case for and against Bank Nationalisation,” VoxEU.org, 26 February 2009.

[5] Michael Knigge, “Stiglitz: Nationalized Banks are ‘Only Answer’,” Deutche Welle, 16 February 2009. Reprinted in the People’s Weekly World.

[6] Paul Krugman, The Return of Depression Economics and The Crisis of 2008, New York: W. W. Norton, 2008.

[7] On 27 February Bloomberg Financial Group provided an assessment of the entire contribution made by the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department to prop up the financial system since the beginnings of the crisis in August 2007. Its conclusion was that to date $11.6 trillion has been either spent or taken on as liabilities in the process. This includes cash injections into the trading markets, the TARP and other emergency programs, loans to banks facilitating their takeover of other even worse off financial institutions, the seizures of AIG, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae, loans to the Auto Industry, and the expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet to facilitate the commercial paper market that seized in September and October 2008.

[8] Knigge, “Stiglitz: Nationalized Banks are ‘Only Answer.””

[9] V. I. Lenin, The Threatening Catastrophe and How to Fight It, New York; International Publishers, 1932, p. 5. The essay was written 23-27 September 1917.

[10] Edward Harrison, “Did Sweden Really Nationalize Its Banks?” online blog post, 25 February 2009.

[11] Federal Reserve Table 100.B Data for 1945-2005, published by AutoDogmatic.com.

[12] Binyamin Appelbaum, “What Is Nationalization? Depends Who You Ask,” Washington Post, 25 February 2009. See also Robert Griffiths, “Why Nationalization Isn’t Socialism,” Politicalaffairs.net, 3 November 2008, reproduced from the Morning Star.

[13] Nelson D. Schwartz, “Job Losses Pose a threat to Stability Worldwide,” New York Times, 15 February 2009.

[14] Lenin, The Threatening Catastrophe and How to Fight It. Italics in the original.

Obama talks but where is The People's Bailout?

Working people in this country need a bailout. From Obama we get the shaft.

I listened to Obama's speech before Congress. He didn't have anything of substance to offer working people.

Doesn't Barack Obama know about the Minnesota People's Bailout?

Someone should tell him because we need a peoples bailout at the national level.

The time has come to put this country to work.

Benny

The People's Bailout

State Senator David Tomassoni is one of the few real "people's representatives" in the Minnesota State Legislature.

When working people need help Tomassoni is always there.

The Duluth-Superior Club of the Communist Party USA joins with the Iron Range Club in supporting this most needed legislation brought forward by Minnesota State Senator David Tomassoni.

Not only Minnesotans have a stake in seeing this life-saving legislation enacted. Workers in Wisconsin and all over this country have a huge stake in this legislation because this is just the beginning of a lot bigger fight as workers fight for survival.

If you are short a few fingers like some of my fellow tin knockers you might be able to count on two hands the real progressive public officials workers can count among their real friends in the Cities. David Tomassoni is definitely among the few.

Alan Maki makes some very good suggestions on what we need to do if Tomassoni's people's bailout is going to make it through the committee process where I hear the DFL Blue Dog majority is already scrambling to knock this legislation down.

If we had more union leaders like Maki not afraid of being labeled "red," workers would stand a better chance of getting this kind of anti-business, pro-people legislation into law.

By the time we hit "bottom" there will probably be a lot of hungry, jobless and homeless workers wishing that we had state legislatures full of "reds" like Alan Maki. Maki understands it takes a struggle to win and he isn't afraid to speak his mind.

Workers should read the letter Maki sent to Tomassoni and figure out how they can plug into this fight for "The People's Bailout."

Like Maki says here, we need to learn from the failed legislation aimed at saving the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant. Not surprising, Tomassoni stepped forward on that one too.

Leave it to an old hockey player like Senator David Tomassoni not to be afraid to get into the fight on the side of the working class.

Check out Maki's blog for the complete dope on "The People's Bailout:"

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

You can't miss the info on "The People's Bailout" on Alan Maki's blog. Tomassoni's picture is at the top of the blog with all the info under it.

When Alan Maki spoke at our Club meeting I think he made a very important point. He said, and I quote:

"Capitalism is on the skids to oblivion and we are all on the road to perdition. The Wall Street coupon clippers and bankers created this mess in quest of greater profits leaving the working class with nothing but problems, poverty, polluted iron ore pits and our forests are nothing but clear cuts. The bosses took the profits and left us with the pits and clear cuts. For working people a co-operative form of socialism is the only alternative to dog-eat-dog capitalism. This system is rotten to the core; like a rotten apple we need to chuck the whole damn thing. We are living in a Marxist moment and we need to strike while the iron is hot. We need to take our struggles for a better life out into our neighborhoods, into the workplaces, into the streets and into the electoral arena. We need to put an end to that circus in the Cities by bringing the working class to power. No matter what the capitalist sooth-Sayers have to say, this economic mess, this depression, is the result of working people not being able to buy back the necessities of life they have been paid far too little to produce. We can't cope and our communities can't survive."

David Tomassoni made what I consider a very important contribution to this discussion about "stimulus." The Senator said:

"We can't spend our way out of this problem. We need to work our way out."

Workers need jobs to survive. Workers need jobs paying living wages.

Enacting "The People's Bailout" will help the working class tone up its muscles for the bigger struggles ahead.

Where will the money come from for "The People's Bailout?" It should come from a good hefty increase in the taconite tax and stumpage fees.

The fight for reforms helping working people cope with their problems during this depression is part of the struggle for working class power.

Gus Hall always talked about the need for working people to lead the movement to build a massive "anti-monopoly coalition." Now is the time to do just that.

The front cover story of Newsweek magazine this week is: We Are All Socialists Now. I sure the hell am one. The capitalist system made me a Red.

Benny



Support S.F. 542 "The People's Bailout" by Minnesota DFL State Senator David Tomassoni

Support and follow this legislation:

https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/revisor/pages/search_status/status_detail.php?b=Senate&f=SF0542&ssn=0&y=2009

-----Original Message-----

From: Alan Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]

Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 8:53 PM

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Subject: Re: People's Bailout (SF 542)

Re: SF 542; The People’s Bailout

Senator David Tomassoni;

First, let me commend you for having the courage to bring this legislation forward; I am sure the opposition will be enormous even from your DFL colleagues, not to mention from Republicans and Governor Pawlenty.

I hope you intend to call for roll call votes at each step of the process on (SF 542) The People’s Bailout so there is more accountability than we had on S.F. 607 to save the Ford Plant; legislation you so courageously brought forward in the Senate Committee on Business, Industry and Labor where your fellow DFL'ers so shamefully let you, and more importantly, Ford Workers and Minnesotans, down. We need to keep in mind in the struggle ahead over The People's Bailout--- S.F. 542, that it was in this same Senate Committee where you failed to get help from your DFL colleagues in moving S.F. 607 forward--- out of Committee and through the Minnesota State Legislature and onto the Governor's desk.

We need to keep in mind that Senator Jim Metzen, while being a DFL'er, is also a banker--- an officer with Key Community Bank known for its very dirty deeds against working people. It is up to you and the rest of us to push Senator Metzen to do his job as Chair of the all-important, heavily DFL dominated Committee on Business, Industry and Labor and twist the arms needing twisting to get The People's Bailout through the Committee... again, I stress the need for a roll call vote to assure Minnesotans have complete accountability--- unlike with S.F. 607 where you received no support from your DFL colleagues yet none of the other Democrats or Republicans would acknowledge their very dirty and shameful role in sending S.F. 607 down to defeat.

Why haven’t you included something along the lines of SF 607 to automatically apply to any business closing which has received any kind of local, state or federal subsidies, tax abatement or public assistance of any kind in your People’s Bailout? This would be particularly important in trying, again, to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

I am very leery that this is one more gimmick the DFL is using to make it appear the DFL is trying to do something when the intent is all show since the DFL did nothing to push SF 607 through the legislature; hopefully I am wrong about this since many, many Minnesotans will need such assistance.

Might I also suggest that you include rescinding “at-will hiring, at-will firing” legislation as part of The People’s Bailout since this would place Minnesota workers in line to benefit from the Employee Free Choice Act.

Also, might I suggest that you include a provision in this legislation that would establish the minimum wage in Minnesota to be in accordance with the calculations of the United States Department of Labor and its Bureau of Labor Statistics based upon the scientific facts pertaining to real cost of living factors and the minimum wage should be recalculated every time these cost of living factors are recalculated.

I agree with you that we can not spend our way out of this economic crisis and instead we need to work our way out of this mess which obviously requires all working people to be paid real living wages as a way to completely and thoroughly redistribute wealth in this country.

At the heart of this economic mess is the fact that wealth created by the working class has in fact been stolen in the form of huge profits by corporations not paying workers real living wages in accordance with cost of living factors; common sense tells us that depressions occur when working people cannot purchase back the goods they have produced which are required for human survival.



Common sense also dictates that we cannot allow the Ford Motor Company to start bringing Ford Rangers produced in Thailand into the United States instead of continuing production at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

Hopefully you will include something in this legislation protecting the rights of Minnesota’s 30,000 workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry who are forced and compelled to work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws… I am sure you understand with so many workers employed under these deplorable conditions these workers serve to drive down the standard of living of all workers in Minnesota. I am sure you are aware that casino workers, such as the thousands of workers employed at casinos like Mystic Lake Casino are forced to sign their names to statements that they know they will be terminated should they engage in union organizing. I think you should include something in this People’s Bailout directing the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development that casino workers fired for union organizing cannot be denied unemployment benefits as they presently are.

In order to protect the rights of all workers in Minnesota to unemployment compensation which you want to extend (and your proposal for such extension is not long enough in my opinion given the fact that this economic mess is going to be with us for many years--- perhaps you should include unemployment coverage from time of layoff/firing to time of re-employment); but, getting back to the rights of workers to receive unemployment benefits in the first place, you need to eliminate the right of employers to challenge a worker’s right to unemployment benefits without having to provide a reason for the challenge.

Combined with “at-will hiring, at-will firing” this places workers in a real bind… fired without reason and then subjecting workers to the further injustice of being denied unemployment compensation due to an employer’s challenge without that employer having to provide a reason… this process can drag on for many months leaving workers without any income or public assistance--- meager as public assistance is in Minnesota… not to mention leaving workers and their families without health care. But, it does little good to extend unemployment compensation if employers are allowed to challenge a worker’s right to compensation without reason or just cause.

Without massive mobilization of members from the unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO and Change To Win this legislation has no chance of passing as you fully know and understand.

Have you heard from labor’s registered lobbyists concerning this legislation?

What have you heard from the Chamber of Commerce and other organizations representing employers and the business community regarding this legislation?

When will the first reading of this People’s Bailout take place? I can’t find anything on the legislature’s on-line calendar.

Please keep me informed of any hearings on this legislation as I would like to testify in support of this legislation.

Don’t forget; request there be recorded roll call vote at each step in the process so Minnesotans have full accountability; this not only assures accountability, but will cause those business oriented DFL’ers in the Summit Hill Club to think twice should they decide they want to join with their Republican colleagues in opposing this legislation.

Might I suggest you develop a newsletter--- printed in hard copy and e-mail format--- pertaining solely to SF 542 (The People’s Bailout) to keep its supporters in and out of the legislature fully and completely informed; a newsletter which requests supporters to do specific tasks in bringing the full weight of Minnesota’s working class--- organized and unorganized--- into support for this important piece of legislation… we certainly don’t want a repeat of only a handful of proponents showing up like what happened with SF 607. We should do everything possible to make sure that Minnesota’s working class “owns” this legislation and that we work together to mobilizes huge turn outs of working people supporting this legislation at each and every stage in the legislative process.

In my opinion, we should be looking at organizing Minnesota’s workers to mobilize fully in support of this important piece of legislation, S.F. 542 The People's Bailout, you are bringing forward.

You are most certainly aware that your legislation can serve as a model in winning new needed reforms comprising an extension of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal; just as the struggles for Roosevelt’s New Deal received powerful, decisive support from Minnesota’s socialist Governors Floyd Olson, Elmer Benson and John Bernard and other Farmer-Labor Party elected officials along with Minnesota’s working class--- especially the “red” Finns of the Iron Range. Let “The People’s Bailout” become a rallying point for the working class movement, and become a model for Barack Obama and the United States Congress along with other states to emulate and follow through on.

I assume you have spoken with Congressman Jim Oberstar and U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar about developing similar legislation in Congress.

Might I suggest you request an appearance on Amy Goodman’s television program--- “Democracy Now!” to promote national working class unity in support of The People's Bailout.

I hope you will suggest to the Minnesota AFL-CIO and Change To Win they bring all their affiliated unions into support for this legislation and these unions in turn fully mobilize their memberships to every extent possible.

Your final item regarding state employees is very weak given the intent of leading Republicans to push for things like using the powers of state government to abrogate union contracts. As you know, Barack Obama and Congress are already doing the same thing with autoworkers; whereas, in France the government is prohibiting the abrogation of union contracts and requiring those businesses receiving government bailouts not to cut employment. You might want to take a look at what the French government is doing to protect the rights and jobs of working people.

I would encourage you to look at what action can be taken to make the Minnesota government the employer of choice for road building, bridge repair and maintenance so more jobs are created rather than contractors and engineering firms reaping huge profits, keeping in mind the reason for New Deal make work projects being so successful was that the government was the employer--- not private industry and corporations… again, common sense dictates that when you cut out profits more can be paid out in wages for more workers thus, as you say, and I agree, we work our way out of this mess rather than trying to spend our way out of this most severe crisis.

In conclusion, I would encourage you to consider some type of resolution calling on President Obama to discontinue his wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as cutting all funding for Israel since it makes little sense to pump three-quarters of a trillion dollars into economic “stimulus” while continuing to squander the exact same amount on wars and militarization, which is like taking our human and natural resources and tossing them into one of those polluted, water-filled, abandoned mining pits on the Iron Range or into U.S. Steel’s “Clear Water Reservoir” in Mountain Iron.

Also, as much as I am for road-building and repair to create jobs… I can’t see spending millions of dollars building a road from Minnesota Highway 71 out into the Big Bog for a Canadian peat mining operation to truck away the profits… you might want to mention to Congressman Oberstar that Franklin Roosevelt spent hundreds of thousands of dollars putting the Civilian Conservation Corps to work trying to protect this very sensitive ecosystem; it just destroys our credibility advocating for public works programs when Oberstar has spent millions destroying the good work the CCC did in trying to protect and save the Big Bog. I find it rather ironic this peat mining boon-doggle is taking place right at the site of the Civilian Conservation Corps camp site in the Pine Island State Forest in the Big Bog.

S.F. No. 542, as introduced - 86th Legislative Session (2009-2010) Posted on Feb 06, 2009

1.1A bill for an act
1.2relating to economic development; extending MFIP assistance; modifying
1.3unemployment compensation; augmenting foreclosure provisions; establishing a
1.4jobs creation program; limiting certain layoffs; appropriating money;amending
1.5Minnesota Statutes 2008, sections 256J.42, by adding a subdivision; 268.035,
1.6subdivisions 4, 21a; 268.07, subdivision 1; 268.085, subdivision 15; 504B.151;
1.7proposing coding for new law in Minnesota Statutes, chapter 582.
1.8BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:

1.9 Section 1. Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 256J.42, is amended by adding a
1.10subdivision to read:
1.11 Subd. 1a. Temporary 60-month time limit extension. For assistance units that
1.12have reached the 60-month time limit under subdivision 1 or assistance units that will
1.13reach the 60-month time limit under subdivision 1 before the sunset of this subdivision,
1.14MFIP benefits are extended to eligible assistance units until the sunset of this subdivision.
1.15This subdivision sunsets July 1, 2011.

1.16 Sec. 2. Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 268.035, subdivision 4, is amended to read:
1.17 Subd. 4. Base period. (a) "Base period," unless otherwise provided in this
1.18subdivision, means the last four completed calendar quarters before the effective date of
1.19an applicant's application for unemployment benefits if the application has an effective
1.20date occurring after the month following the last completed calendar quarter. The base
1.21period under this paragraph is as follows:
1.22
1.23
1.24 If the application for unemployment
benefits is effective on or between these
dates: The base period is the prior:
1.25 February 1 - March 31 January 1 - December 31
2.1 May 1 - June 30 April 1 - March 31
2.2 August 1 - September 30 July 1 - June 30
2.3 November 1 - December 31 October 1 - September 30
2.4 (1) (b) If an application for unemployment benefits has an effective date that is
2.5during the month following the last completed calendar quarter, then the base period is
2.6the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters before the effective date of an
2.7applicant's application for unemployment benefits. The base period under this paragraph
2.8is as set forth below follows:
2.9
2.10
2.11 If the application for unemployment
benefits is effective on or between these
dates: The base period is the prior:
2.12 January 1 - March January 31 October 1 - September 30
2.13 April 1 - June April 30 January 1 - December 31
2.14 July 1 - September 30 July 31 April 1 - March 31
2.15 October 1 - December October 31 July 1 - June 30
2.16 (2) (c) If the applicant has insufficient wage credits to establish a benefit account
2.17under clauses (1) and (3), and paragraph (a) or (b), but during the base period under
2.18clause (1) paragraph (a) or (b) an applicant received workers' compensation for temporary
2.19disability under chapter 176 or a similar federal law or similar law of another state, or
2.20if an applicant whose own serious illness caused a loss of work for which the applicant
2.21received compensation for loss of wages from some other source, the applicant may
2.22request an extended base period as follows:
2.23 (i) (1) if an applicant was compensated for a loss of work of seven to 13 weeks, the
2.24base period is the first four of the last six completed calendar quarters before the effective
2.25date of the application for unemployment benefits;
2.26 (ii) (2) if an applicant was compensated for a loss of work of 14 to 26 weeks, the
2.27base period is the first four of the last seven completed calendar quarters before the
2.28effective date of the application for unemployment benefits;
2.29 (iii) (3) if an applicant was compensated for a loss of work of 27 to 39 weeks,
2.30the base period is the first four of the last eight completed calendar quarters before the
2.31effective date of the application for unemployment benefits; and
2.32 (iv) (4) if an applicant was compensated for a loss of work of 40 to 52 weeks, the
2.33base period is the first four of the last nine completed calendar quarters before the effective
2.34date of the application for unemployment benefits;.
2.35 (3) if the applicant has insufficient wage credits to establish a benefit account under
2.36clause (1), an alternate base period of the last four completed calendar quarters before the
2.37date the applicant's application for unemployment benefits is effective will be used. This
3.1base period can be used only 30 calendar days or more after the end of the last completed
3.2quarter, when a wage detail report has been, or should have been, filed for that quarter
3.3under section 268.044; and
3.4 (4) (d) No base period under clause (1), (2), or (3) paragraph (a), (b), or (c) may
3.5include wage credits upon which a prior benefit account was established.
3.6(e) Notwithstanding paragraph (a), the base period calculated under paragraph (b)
3.7using the first four of the last five complete calendar quarters before the effective date of
3.8the applicant's application for unemployment benefits must be used for an applicant if the
3.9applicant has more wage credits under that base period than under the base period in
3.10paragraph (a).
3.11EFFECTIVE DATE.This section is effective for applications for unemployment
3.12benefits filed effective on or after July 1, 2009.

3.13 Sec. 3. Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 268.035, subdivision 21a, is amended to read:
3.14 Subd. 21a. Reemployment assistance training. (a) An applicant is in
3.15"reemployment assistance training" when:
3.16 (1) a reasonable and opportunity for suitable employment for the applicant does not
3.17exist in the labor market area and it is necessary that the applicant receive additional
3.18training in order to obtain will assist the applicant in obtaining suitable employment;
3.19 (2) the curriculum, facilities, staff, and other essentials are adequate to achieve the
3.20training objective;
3.21 (3) the training is vocational in nature or short term academic training vocationally
3.22directed to an occupation or skill for which there are reasonable that will substantially
3.23enhance the employment opportunities available to the applicant in the applicant's labor
3.24market area;
3.25 (4) the training course is considered full time by the training provider; and
3.26 (5) the applicant is making satisfactory progress in the training.
3.27 (b) Full-time training provided through the dislocated worker program, the Trade
3.28Act of 1974, as amended, or the North American Free Trade Agreement is considered
3.29"reemployment assistance training," if that training course is in accordance with the
3.30requirements of that program.
3.31 (c) Apprenticeship training provided in order to meet the requirements of an
3.32apprenticeship program under chapter 178 is considered "reemployment assistance
3.33training."
3.34(d) An applicant is considered in reemployment assistance training only if the
3.35training course has actually started or is scheduled to start within 30 calendar days.
4.1EFFECTIVE DATE.This section is effective for determinations and appeal
4.2decisions issued on or after the day following final enactment.

4.3 Sec. 4. Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 268.07, subdivision 1, is amended to read:
4.4 Subdivision 1. Application for unemployment benefits; determination of benefit
4.5account. (a) An application for unemployment benefits may be filed in person, by mail,
4.6or by electronic transmission as the commissioner may require. The applicant must be
4.7unemployed at the time the application is filed and must provide all requested information
4.8in the manner required. The commissioner shall accept a valid individual taxpayer
4.9identification number from an applicant who is applying for benefits. If the applicant is
4.10not unemployed at the time of the application or fails to provide all requested information,
4.11the communication is not considered an application for unemployment benefits.
4.12 (b) The commissioner shall examine each application for unemployment benefits to
4.13determine the base period and the benefit year, and based upon all the covered employment
4.14in the base period the commissioner shall determine the weekly unemployment benefit
4.15amount available, if any, and the maximum amount of unemployment benefits available, if
4.16any. The determination is known as the determination of benefit account. A determination
4.17of benefit account must be sent to the applicant and all base period employers, by mail or
4.18electronic transmission.
4.19 (c) If a base period employer did not provide wage information for the applicant as
4.20provided for in section 268.044, or provided erroneous information, the commissioner
4.21may accept an applicant certification as to wage credits, based upon the applicant's records,
4.22and issue a determination of benefit account.
4.23 (d) The commissioner may, at any time within 24 months from the establishment of
4.24a benefit account, reconsider any determination of benefit account and make an amended
4.25determination if the commissioner finds that the determination was incorrect for any
4.26reason. An amended determination must be promptly sent to the applicant and all base
4.27period employers, by mail or electronic transmission.
4.28 (e) If an amended determination of benefit account reduces the weekly
4.29unemployment benefit amount or maximum amount of unemployment benefits available,
4.30any unemployment benefits that have been paid greater than the applicant was entitled
4.31is considered an overpayment of unemployment benefits. A determination or amended
4.32determination issued under this section that results in an overpayment of unemployment
4.33benefits must set out the amount of the overpayment and the requirement under section
4.34268.18, subdivision 1 , that the overpaid unemployment benefits must be repaid.

5.1 Sec. 5. Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 268.085, subdivision 15, is amended to read:
5.2 Subd. 15. Available for suitable employment defined. (a) "Available for suitable
5.3employment" means an applicant is ready and willing to accept suitable employment in
5.4the labor market area. The attachment to the work force must be genuine. An applicant
5.5may restrict availability to suitable employment, but there must be no other restrictions,
5.6either self-imposed or created by circumstances, temporary or permanent, that prevent
5.7accepting suitable employment.
5.8(b) Unless the applicant is in reemployment assistance training, to be considered
5.9"available for suitable employment," a student who has regularly scheduled classes must
5.10be willing to quit school discontinue classes to accept suitable employment when:
5.11(1) class attendance restricts the applicant from accepting suitable employment; and
5.12(2) the applicant is unable to change the scheduled class or make other arrangements
5.13that excuse the applicant from attending class.
5.14(c) An applicant who is absent from the labor market area for personal reasons, other
5.15than to search for work, is not "available for suitable employment."
5.16(d) An applicant who has restrictions on the hours of the day or days of the week
5.17that the applicant can or will work, that are not normal for the applicant's usual occupation
5.18or other suitable employment, is not "available for suitable employment." An applicant
5.19must be available for daytime employment, if suitable employment is performed during
5.20the daytime, even though the applicant previously worked the night shift.
5.21(e) An applicant must have transportation throughout the labor market area to be
5.22considered "available for suitable employment."
5.23EFFECTIVE DATE.This section is effective for determinations and appeal
5.24decisions issued on or after the day following final enactment.

5.25 Sec. 6. Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 504B.151, is amended to read:
5.26504B.151 RESTRICTION ON RESIDENTIAL LEASE TERMS FOR
5.27BUILDINGS IN FINANCIAL DISTRESS; REQUIRED NOTICE OF PENDING
5.28FORECLOSURE; RIGHTS OF TENANTS OF FORECLOSED PROPERTY.
5.29 Subdivision 1. Limitation on lease and notice to tenant. (a) Once a landlord
5.30has received notice of a contract for deed cancellation under section 559.21 or notice of
5.31a mortgage foreclosure sale under chapter 580 or 582, the landlord may only enter into
5.32(i) a periodic residential lease agreement with a term of not more than two months or
5.33the time remaining in the contract cancellation period or the mortgagor's redemption
6.1period, whichever is less or (ii) a fixed term residential tenancy not extending beyond the
6.2cancellation period or the landlord's period of redemption until:
6.3(1) the contract for deed has been reinstated or paid in full;
6.4(2) the mortgage default has been cured and the mortgage reinstated;
6.5(3) the mortgage has been satisfied;
6.6(4) the property has been redeemed from a foreclosure sale; or
6.7(5) a receiver has been appointed.
6.8(b) Before entering into a lease under this section and accepting any rent or security
6.9deposit from a tenant, the landlord must notify the prospective tenant in writing that the
6.10landlord has received notice of a contract for deed cancellation or notice of a mortgage
6.11foreclosure sale as appropriate, and the date on which the contract cancellation period or
6.12the mortgagor's redemption period ends. The landlord must also inform the prospective
6.13tenant of the tenant's right to continued utility services if the landlord defaults on utility
6.14payments during the foreclosure process.
6.15(c) This section does not apply to a manufactured home park as defined in section
6.16327C.01, subdivision 5 .
6.17 Subd. 2. Exception allowing a longer term lease. This section Subdivision 1
6.18does not apply if:
6.19(1) the holder or the mortgagee agrees not to terminate the tenant's lease other than
6.20for lease violations for at least one year from the commencement of the tenancy; and
6.21(2) the lease does not require the tenant to prepay rent for any month commencing
6.22after the end of the cancellation or redemption period, so that the rent payment would be
6.23due prior to the end of the cancellation or redemption period.
6.24For the purposes of this section, a holder means a contract for deed vendor or a
6.25holder of the sheriff's certificate of sale or any assignee of the contract for deed vendor or
6.26of the holder of the sheriff's certificate of sale.
6.27 Subd. 3. Transfer of tenancy by operation of law. (a) A tenant who enters into a
6.28lease under subdivision 2 is:
6.29(1) deemed by operation of law to become the tenant of the holder immediately upon
6.30the holder succeeding to the interest of the landlord under the lease; and
6.31(2) bound to the holder under all the provisions of the lease for either the balance of
6.32the lease term or for one year after the start of the tenancy, whichever occurs first.
6.33(b) A tenant who becomes the tenant of the holder under this subdivision is not
6.34obligated to pay rent to the holder until the holder mails, by first class mail to the tenant at
6.35the property address, written notice that the holder has succeeded to the interest of the
7.1landlord. A letter from the holder to the tenant to that effect is prima facie evidence that
7.2the holder has succeeded to the interest of the landlord.
7.3 Subd. 4. Holder not bound by certain acts. A holder succeeding to an interest in
7.4a lease lawfully entered into under subdivision 2 is not:
7.5(1) liable for any act or omission of any prior landlord;
7.6(2) subject to any offset or defense which the tenant had against any prior landlord; or
7.7(3) bound by any modification of the lease entered into under subdivision 2, unless
7.8the modification is made with the holder's consent.
7.9 Subd. 5. Rights of tenant of foreclosed property. (a) When a holder takes over a
7.10rental property as the result of a foreclosure:
7.11(1) a tenant is deemed by operation of law to become the tenant of the holder; and
7.12(2) all leases, verbal or written, and all terms and conditions of those agreements
7.13shall be transferred to the holder.
7.14(b) A holder shall:
7.15(1) maintain as rental property, property that was used as rental property by the
7.16landlord;
7.17(2) offer renewal leases to tenants of the foreclosed property; and
7.18(3) keep affordable rent levels in place.
7.19 Subd. 6. Eviction. Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, a holder must not
7.20begin an eviction action against a tenant without cause.
7.21 Subd. 7. Termination of tenancy. Except for lease violations, a holder must not
7.22terminate the tenancy of a tenant of foreclosed property without cause.
7.23 Subd. 8. Periodic leases. A holder must offer a fixed-term lease option to a tenant
7.24with a periodic lease in place at the time the tenant becomes a tenant of the holder.
7.25 Subd. 9. Applicability. The provisions of subdivisions 5 to 8 apply to all tenants
7.26regardless of when a tenant entered into a rental agreement with the property owner or at
7.27what stage the foreclosure process was in when the rental agreement was entered.

7.28 Sec. 7. [582.33] FORECLOSURE MORATORIUM.
7.29 Subdivision 1. Emergency declared to exist. The legislature of the state of
7.30Minnesota declares that a public economic emergency exists in the state of Minnesota
7.31due to the increase in foreclosure rates. The legislature declares that these conditions
7.32have created a housing emergency that justifies legislation creating a moratorium on
7.33mortgage foreclosures.
7.34 Subd. 2. Court stay. In an action to foreclose a mortgage upon residential property
7.35under chapter 580 or 581, in which a judgment of foreclosure has not been entered by the
8.1effective date of this section, the district court having jurisdiction over the matter, upon
8.2motion of a defendant, shall order the action stayed for two years after the entry of the
8.3stay. The court may order that certain conditions relating to the property are met during
8.4the stay, including, but not limited to, possession of the property, payments by the person
8.5in possession, and preservation of the property.
8.6 Subd. 3. Application. This section applies only to mortgages executed before
8.7the effective date of this section.
8.8EFFECTIVE DATE.This section is effective the day following final enactment.

8.9 Sec. 8. SPECIAL STATE EMERGENCY UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION
8.10PROGRAM.
8.11 Subdivision 1. Purpose. Federal law currently provides for a federally funded
8.12extension of unemployment insurance benefits for applicants who have exhausted
8.13entitlement to regular Minnesota unemployment insurance benefits. But, because federal
8.14law contains a special requirement that an applicant has earned a certain amount of base
8.15period insured wages, a significant group of applicants who exhausted their regular
8.16Minnesota unemployment insurance benefits do not qualify for the federally funded
8.17extension. The purpose of this section is to provide a state-funded extension to that group.
8.18 Subd. 2. Eligibility. (a) Special state emergency unemployment insurance benefits
8.19are payable to an applicant who does not qualify for a federally funded extension
8.20of unemployment insurance benefits solely because the applicant does not meet the
8.21requirement under section 4001(d)(2)(a) of the federal Supplemental Appropriations
8.22Act of 2008 that an applicant have wage credits of not less than 40 times the applicant's
8.23weekly benefit amount.
8.24(b) Except as provided in paragraph (a), all requirements for federally funded
8.25extended unemployment benefits and all requirements of Minnesota Statutes, chapter
8.26268, must be met in order for the applicant to be eligible for special state emergency
8.27unemployment insurance benefits.
8.28(c) Special state emergency unemployment insurance benefits are payable in the
8.29same amounts, the same duration, and for the same time period as provided for under the
8.30federal Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2008, and any later amendments, but shall
8.31be no less than 13 times the applicant's weekly special state emergency unemployment
8.32insurance benefit amount.
8.33 Subd. 3. Payment from trust fund. Special state emergency unemployment
8.34insurance benefits are payable from the Minnesota unemployment insurance trust fund.
8.35Special state emergency unemployment insurance benefits will not be used in computing
9.1the future unemployment insurance tax rate of a taxpaying employer nor will they be
9.2charged to the reimbursing account of government or nonprofit employers.
9.3 Subd. 4. Expiration. This section expires on June 30, 2010, and no benefits shall be
9.4paid under this section for a week beginning after that date.
9.5EFFECTIVE DATE.This section is effective the Sunday following final enactment
9.6and applies only to weeks of unemployment after that date.

9.7 Sec. 9. JOBS CREATION GRANT PROGRAM.
9.8 Subdivision 1. Establishment. The commissioner of employment and economic
9.9development shall develop and implement a jobs creation grant program to make grants
9.10available to cities and towns for public and private projects that will generate new jobs
9.11and produce a stronger state economy.
9.12 Subd. 2. Fund distribution. In distributing funds, the commissioner shall give
9.13priority consideration to projects that are available to begin immediately and to projects
9.14that promote environmental sustainability and a green economy.
9.15 Subd. 3. Funding. To the extent that the commissioner receives funds for this
9.16purpose in fiscal year 2009, funding for the jobs creation grant program shall be done
9.17through federal stimulus dollars. If federal stimulus dollars are not available, funds shall
9.18come from state sources.
9.19 Subd. 4. Appropriation. $....... is appropriated from the general fund to the
9.20commissioner of employment and economic development to develop and implement
9.21a jobs creation grant program. This appropriation is only available if federal stimulus
9.22dollars are not available. This appropriation is available until expended.
9.23EFFECTIVE DATE.This section is effective the day following final enactment.

9.24 Sec. 10. STATE EMPLOYEE LAYOFFS.
9.25For the 2010 and 2011 biennium, in order to prevent increased unemployment and to
9.26protect jobs, the legislature shall not mandate layoffs of state employees, including, but
9.27not limited to, employees of the University of Minnesota.
9.28EFFECTIVE DATE.This section is effective the day following final enactment.

Please direct all comments concerning issues or legislation
to your House Member or State Senator.
For Legislative Staff or for directions to the Capitol, visit the Contact Us page.
General questions or comments.
last updated: 01/30/2009



Again, thanking you for having the moral and political courage in standing up and fighting for the rights and livelihoods of Minnesota's working class, and for having the common sense and intelligence to know that we cannot spend our way out of this economic crisis; rather, understanding and explaining that for working people and the working class the way out of this crisis, and the way to a better future, will be found in working our way out of this crisis.

In full support of your leadership in bringing forward The People's Bailout--- Senate File 542...

For a living wage job, justice and equality along with a voice at work for each and every worker in Minnesota...

On behalf of Minnesota's 30,000 workers in the Indian Gaming Industry organizing and struggling to survive while employed in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages, without any rights under state or federal labor laws...

Sincerely,

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
Posted by Alan L. Maki

Obama and the "middle class"

Barack Obama established a "middle class task force" and organized labor cheers.

Union members who are less than 12% of the labor force will not advance because the more than 60 million workers living in poverty in this country and billions more workers around the world are a brake on all working class advance in this country.

If organized labor wanted to advance the AFL-CIO & CTW would have insisted that Obama first establish a "task force for the elimination of poverty."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that as this depression worsens and poverty grows tens of millions of poverty stricken unemployed workers will be willing to take jobs if unions strike.

These desperate workers will not be scabs. They will be trying to survive.

Organized labor will be very sorry they didn't consider the elimination of poverty first before looking out for their own skins before those suffering most.

These unemployed workers will tell unions where to go because the unions have not insisted poverty be eliminated.

Barack Obama is knowingly setting the stage for a bitter and spiteful dog-eat-dog type working class infighting with workers fighting among themselves for meatless scraps and bones.

Organized labor will have fun trying to organize any workers without or with card check.

Working people simply do not trust these unions anymore to defend their interests after years and years of setbacks and concessions resulting in the loss of millions of union jobs.

Workers are not going to want to pay union dues to union leaders who give away everything that has been won.

Just because workers might not be speaking up against Obama's anti-labor policies doesn't mean that working people are stupid.

Workers saw the way these union leaders bullied and badgered people into supporting Barack Obama. This kind of atmosphere where union leaders act like company thugs is not conducive to workers expressing their views. We will pay a terrible price for coercing silence. Did we learn nothing from McCarthyism?

Barack Obama simply is not the pro-worker guy these union leaders made him out to be. One more lie that will make workers not trust these union leaders when it comes to organizing unorganized workers.

Barack Obama's rise was packaged in marketing lies. The number one lie is that Barack Obama is pro-worker and pro-union. Obama is pro big business.

Benny