Stephen Biddle, Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) senior fellow of defense policy, believes that Afghanistan’s economy is too weak to create and maintain a security force large enough to protect the country (0:36).
Robert Greenstein, Founder and Executive Director of the research organization The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, announced the center’s predictions on the recent economic crisis’ impact on poverty in the U.S.
“With unemployment projected to reach 9%, the number of people in poverty will rise by between 7.5 and 10.3 million. The number of poor children will increase by between 2.6 and 3.3 million,” said Greenstein during a telephone conference.
The center also predicted an increase in 4.5-6.3 million of those within “deep” poverty, wherein people live below half of the poverty line, marked at around 8,300 dollars a year for a family of three.
“The number of children living in deep poverty will rise between 1.5 and 2 million,” said Greenstein.
Greenstein warned that the center’s predictions may be too hopeful since the economic safety nets provided in previous recessions for the very poorest citizens have been eroded as a result of massive cuts in unemployment insurance and other assistance programs.
According to Greenstein, there are several steps that policy makers can take to mitigate these predictions.
“Helping struggling families is among the most effective stimulus measures that can be taken on a dollar for dollar basis because it [puts] resources in the hands of people who are most likely to spend all of those resources rather than saving them,” said Greenstein.
While Stephen Biddle, Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) senior fellow of defense policy, believes the situation in Afghanistan is better on the ground than it has been portrayed in the U.S., he holds concern over the country’s ability to achieve its long term goal of creating a large, sustainable Afghan security force capable of protecting the population and suffocating insurgency.
“That recipe would work if there was a plausible chance that the Afghan economy could support the kind of A security forces that will be necessary in order to secure the population and I can’t see how they will ever be able to do that,” said Biddle during a telephone CFR conference with Daniel Markey, senior fellow of India, Pakistan, and South Asia on the two senior fellows’ week-long visit to Afghanistan.
Biddle discussed the importance of maintaining peacekeeping forces in Iraq for a number of years, but also stated that in order to help Afghanistan there will need to be a future reallocation of resources
“In the long term, there’s going to have to be a resource swing from Iraq to Afghanistan in order to bring about success in Afghanistan given the limits that I see in the ability of the Afghan security forces to solve the problem themselves.”
According to Biddle, if the creation of the security force was funded by the international community during a war time scenario it would run the risk of establishing a half a million person security apparatus that could not be supported by Afghanistan or receive adequate international funding during peacetime, thus further threatening the stability of the country.
Biddle suggested using a large number of non Afghan troops to negotiate a long term power sharing strategy for the country that would eventually be enforced my smaller, local Afghan forces.
Markey discussed the influence of Pakistan in U.S. dealings in Iraq, claiming that relations between U.S. forces and Pakistan’s military was more positive than what has been reported recently. “In a number of important instances they have actually been able to coordinate fire with their Pakistani counterparts. They have essentially gotten calls from the Pakistani side identify militants that were getting ready to cross across the border,” said Markey.
Markey reported that recent discussion regarding a reconciliation between Moderate Taliban elements and the Afghan government is actually political maneuvering by Afghan President Hamid Karzai rather a realistic approach. “There was a desire by Karzai to push this in order to try and win greater unity within the Pashtun community to help him in his reelection bid,” said Markey.
President-elect Barack Obama officially announced nominees for his economic team and his intention to pursue an economic stimulus package.
The team will consist of Tim Geithner, current President of the New York Federal Reserve, as treasury secretary; Lawrence Summers, formerly Treasury Secretary under the Clinton administration, as Chief of the National Economic Council; Christina Romer, UC Berkley economics professor, as the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers; and Erika Barnes, Executive Vice President for Policy at the Center for American Progress, as Director of the Domestic Policy Council.
Also nominated was Heather Higginbottom, policy director for Obama for America, as Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council.
President-elect Obama announced that the first duty of his economic team will be to craft an economic stimulus package aimed at creating 2.5 million American jobs, rebuilding the national infrastructure, and undertaking reforms that will provide long-term economic stability. While Obama was reluctant to reveal how much the rescue package was expected to cost, the President-elect expected that Congress will pass the stimulus package when they resume session in January.
“Even as we face great economic challenges, we know that great opportunity is at hand – if we act swiftly and boldly. That’s the mission our economic team will take on,” said Obama during the press conference held at the Chicago Hilton Hotel.
Jay Tamboli speaks with PCMag.com Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff about the new BlackBerry Storm. (7:26)
When I was growing up my mother belonged to an investment club. Every week the ladies would gather and invest $10. In between meetings they would do their stock market research and carefully watch how their money was doing. In that far away place and time, before opportunities opened for women in the workplace, the ladies would also pay careful attention when their husbands talked about stocks. The idea was to make some money.
Most of all, they loved investing in blue-chip stocks in general, and General Motors and Ford in particular. It wasn’t just the money – every time they bought a share they felt like they were buying part of America. It seemed patriotic. Looking back on it, and how much my mother and her friends loved this country, I must say that it was a patriotic act.
If my mother were alive today she would have been shocked by last week’s Capitol Hill hearings. She would have recalled that the Detroit whose auto museums we used to visit (a three-hour drive from my hometown Cleveland) was peopled by industrious workers, great management and the promise of America. These were the men (and women) who built the tanks and the trucks that won World War II and who kept supplying our country’s defense needs right through the Cold War.
But last week in Congress was a humiliating spectacle. The three fat-cat CEOs, so politically tone deaf that they each flew in on separate corporate jets, testified about their troubles. It was a poster-sized moment of our country’s sad decline as a manufacturing power. And it was a moment that I never would have believed could happen.
But it did happen. The sheer stupidity of Detroit’s management lo these 40 years has also happened. The public’s understandable temptation is to wish a pox on all their houses and let them go bankrupt. I have also had those thoughts. And the truth is nonpartisan, for there is plenty of blame to go around. Was the UAW too greedy for too long? Has management been bloated, greedy and completely lacking vision while being outdone by our foreign competitors? The answer to both questions is yes, of course.
And yet, and yet and yet … I’ve also had to grow up and face another hard truth: These companies cannot be allowed to go bankrupt, period. Here’s why:
We have allowed our manufacturing base to go overseas and with it, our national security. Suppose we ever got into a major land war elsewhere. Who will manufacture our tanks and trucks now? Our international rivals? Perhaps the countries we are fighting?
During World War II and Korea, our auto plants turned on a dime and cranked out war machines by the tens of thousands. Then we had the capacity to make what we needed to win the war. If American auto manufacturing is owned by the likes of Honda, we will no longer own and control the necessary means of production to protect ourselves.
Many automobile workers have worked for decades on assembly lines, not exactly a fun-filled job. Those assembly lines put generations of kids through college, bought houses, supported our larger economy. And the people – we shouldn’t call them simply workers, because for many Americans, they are our grandparents and parents – expected health care and some retirement in exchange for long, tough hours. And here’s another truth: If Detroit doesn’t provide for these folks, the taxpayers must. Better to leave the Big Three in business than overburden our already overburdened doles.
There’s also a question of double standards. Do we bail out the white-collar schnooks at AIG (and the like) whose stupid executives are still taking luxury retreats on the taxpayers’ dime and not do right by our own Detroit workers? That’s not fair. And in the world’s eyes, the Big Three are so connected to American wellbeing that if they are allowed to fail, the effects on the dollar and U.S. standing in the global economy could be catastrophic.
Read me straight, here – there should be no blank checks. There must be management and union accountability here, and that means concessions from everyone: the fat cat boss, the current workers and the retirees. Some plants may have to be closed, and there must also be political accountability – just like closing military bases, we must avoid the “not in my state” congressional mentality. An up or down vote on a comprehensive plan is a prerequisite.
We need some economy of scale here and more green cars rather than making tens and tens of different models, all guzzling gas. There must be a plan for profitability.
All of this is possible. Perhaps the first project of President-elect Obama will be to unite the country around saving this critical industry. American blue chips have recently turned rusty brown. It’s time to make them blue again.
The Washington bureau is covering a discussion on “Medvedev’s Challenges in Governing Putin’s Russia: What a New American President Should Know” at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a presentation on the 2009 Hunger Report on “Global Development: Charting a New Course” with Bread for the World, and a discussion on “The Big Lies about America: Combating Destructive Distortions about Our Nation” at the Heritage Foundation
Pentagon Correspondent S. Dawn Casey will be attending briefing at the Pentagon from Iraq. The Washington bureau will also be covering the Council on Foreign Relations’ conference call on their week-long visit to Afghanistan and a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities conference call to discuss the economic downturn’s potential impact on poverty and “deep poverty” in the United States.
Author Ron Suskind asked people “on the edge of Islamic radicalism” about the U.S. election at various points during the election. (2:58)
Executive President of the Dubai School of Government Nabil Ali Alyousuf says the the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has great economic prosperity and the stats to prove it. (1:28)
President of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan Aitzaz Ahsan says an independent justice system in Pakistan would be a be good tool against the war on terror. (2:53)
