The study, authored by Professor Kenneth Sherrill of Hunter College-CUNY and Professor Patrick J. Egan of New York University, was funded by the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund and released in collaboration with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Freedom to Marry and Equality California Institute’s Let California Ring campaign.
Based on polling data funded by Equality California Institute and conducted by David Binder Research, the study found that voters who supported Prop 8 were primarily influenced by:

• Ideology – 82% of voters who identify as conservatives voted “Yes”
• Party – Republicans voted more than 80% in favor of Prop 8
• Religiosity – 70% of weekly church goers voted “Yes”
• Age – 67% of voters born before World War II voted “Yes”

The study also showed that race was not a driving factor in the election, as was purported by the National Election Pool (NEP) poll which said 70% of African-Americans voted for Prop 8. Our study found the number closer to 57% to 59%.
One of the most important–and rewarding–findings was the movement in all groups, except Republicans, toward support for full marriage equality. From 2000 to 2008 we moved Californians 9% in support of same-sex marriage – an amazing change in such a short time!

Find out more about voters and Proposition 8 and download the study at the Let California Ring website.

In a move that provides relief to thousands of renters who face eviction but draws the federal government even deeper into the housing market, the loan giant Fannie Mae said Sunday that it would sign new leases with renters living in foreclosed properties owned by the company.

It is the first nationwide effort to provide widespread relief to renters ensnared by the unfolding mortgage crisis, and it will effectively transform Fannie Mae — a government-controlled mortgage finance company — into a national landlord. It may also increase pressure on private lenders to establish similar programs and on lawmakers to pass renter relief…

…In recent months, skyrocketing foreclosure rates have exposed as many as 70,000 renters to evictions, even though many never missed rent payments, according to analysts who track housing data…

…Fannie Mae’s initiative is expected to initially benefit as many as 4,000 renters living in foreclosed homes owned by the company…Fannie Mae will now offer renters in foreclosed properties month-to-month leases until the property is resold…A spokesman for Freddie Mac said that the company was looking at a number of options, including a program similar to Fannie Mae’s, but that no decisions had been made…

…“We’re not in the business of managing rental properties, and we’re not in the business of being a landlord,” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which owns about two million loans. “Clearly the renter is caught in the middle in cases like this. When a property is in foreclosure, we follow the law.”

Some lawmakers and housing advocates say such policies are unjust.

“If your loan is owned by Fannie Mae, you get to stay in your home. If your loan is owned by someone else, you’re on the street,” said Mr. Taylor of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. “These banks need to realize they’re in the property management business now, whether they like it or not.”

Last year, the House passed a measure that would require the new owner of a foreclosed property to inform renters at least 90 days before an eviction. That bill failed to pass the Senate. Law enforcement officers in some states have refused to evict residents of foreclosed properties.

But Yadilka Torres, who rents a home in New Haven, Conn., for $775 a month, had no such protection. Fannie Mae took possession of her house in September, when it went into foreclosure. Even though she was current on her rent, she received an eviction notice saying that she and her two young children would have to leave.

She looked for another apartment but could not find anything affordable. Under Fannie Mae’s new policy, she will now be allowed to stay. “I was feeling so nervous,” Ms. Torres said. “I’ve tried very hard to pay the rent and to pay all my bills, and it seemed unfair this was happening. I’m very grateful we won’t have to move.”

Read the full article on NY Times

Proponents of these market solutions assume that poor people are fully capable and willing participants in free market economies…On its Web site Nextbillion.net, WRI emphasizes the “potential of the world’s poorest citizens as entrepreneurs, employees, and discerning consumers.” The United Nations’ Web site declares that microentrepreneurs are using small loans “to grow thriving businesses … leading to strong and flourishing local economies.”

Beneath these beliefs in the market readiness of poor people lies a more basic assumption: people in dire straits are well-informed and rational economic actors...And so romanticized views of BOP people as value-conscious consumers and resilient entrepreneurs are not only false, but also harmful. These views lead states to build too few legal, regulatory, and social mechanisms to protect the poor, as well as to rely too heavily on market solutions to poverty…

…Many advocates of market-based solutions to poverty view poor people as rational consumers who, if given more options, would make better choices—that is, choices that would increase their economic welfare. They see no problem with encouraging the poor to spend their already meager incomes on low-priority products and services. They further argue that the poor have the right to determine how to spend their limited income and are in fact the best judges of what is in their best interests…

…In addition, poor people more often encounter stressors—including hunger, pollution, crowding, and violence—that lead them to act in ways that may alleviate suffering in the short term, but hinder economic prosperity in the long term…

…The consequences of bad choices are bad for everyone, but even worse for the poor, who lack the resources—financial, psychological, social, and political—to compensate for their errors. Consider the story of Hasan, a rickshaw puller in Bangladesh who spends 20 cents per day on tobacco. When public health experts Debra Efroymson and Saifuddin Ahmed asked Hasan whether his three children ever eat eggs, he exclaimed: “Eggs? Where will the money come from to buy them?” But if Hasan didn’t buy tobacco, each of his children could eat an egg a day, and be healthier as a result…

…For example, the typical poor household in Udaipur could spend up to 30 percent more on food if it did not spend money on alcohol, tobacco, and festivals…

…Another reason that poor people suffer disproportionately for their bad choices is that corporations, governments, and nonprofits offer them fewer services and protections than they offer richer people. The annual report of virtually every large company claims its mission is to serve some larger social purpose besides making profits. Yet in a recent article about corporate social responsibility (CSR), The Economist concludes that for most large public companies, “CSR is little more than a cosmetic treatment.” Even nonprofits and foundations skew their offerings to better-off people, finds Stanford University political scientist Rob Reich (see “A Failure of Philanthropy” in the winter 2005 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review). In addition, many corporations exploit poor people’s vulnerabilities, such as their lack of education and their desire for cheap relief from chronic distress…

…Corporations not only work around existing protections to sell poor people things that they do not need, but also work with governments to rewrite laws in their own favor. For example, SABMiller has enjoyed great success in Africa with Eagle, a cheap beer made from locally grown sorghum rather than imported malt, reports The Economist. In Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, SABMiller can price the beer lower than mainstream clear beers because governments reduced the taxes the corporation has to pay. Meanwhile, these countries pass up valuable alcohol taxes that other countries would likely use to support public education and rehabilitation programs…

…Governments have a responsibility to guard their most vulnerable citizens from unsavory practices. Yet governments in all countries have problems regulating markets. This is all the more true in developing countries with corrupt governments that are in cahoots with firms. And even when governments in poor countries have good intentions, they often lack the resources and competence to design and administer appropriate regulations…

…Despite the many disadvantages that indigent people face in the marketplace, nonprofits, governments, and businesses are flocking to market-based poverty alleviation programs. For instance, microcredit, the newest silver bullet for reducing poverty, has attracted many billions of dollars in funding. Microcreditors make small loans to poor individuals or groups of borrowers—called microentrepreneurs—whom mainstream financial institutions have traditionally snubbed. Many people have made grand claims about the impact of microcredit, including Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, who said, “We will make Bangladesh free from poverty by 2030.”

As I argued in an earlier article in this magazine, however, microcredit does not significantly alleviate poverty (see “Microfinance Misses Its Mark” in the summer 2007 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review). The problem with microfinance is that it romanticizes poor people as creative entrepreneurs. Most microcredit clients are not entrepreneurs by choice; they would gladly take a job at reasonable wages if one were available. This should not be too surprising. Most people do not have the skills, vision, creativity, and persistence to be an entrepreneur. Even in developed countries with high levels of education and access to financial services, about 90 percent of the labor force is employees, not entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, as borrowers struggle to repay loans that are unlikely to lift them out of poverty, some microfinance institutions earn handsome returns—such as the 100 percent compounded annual rate of return that investors in Banco Compartamos received (see “Microloan Sharks” in the summer 2008 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review)…

...Another BOP strategy for alleviating poverty is to create, package, and market products to poor people. Not only will these BOP businesses bring the world’s most isolated, impoverished people into the fold of the marketplace, the thinking goes, they may also make multinational companies a fortune. Prahalad argues that the poor, defined as people living on less than $2 per day, represent a market size of $13 trillion. Other economists make even grander assertions; Hammond once asserted that the BOP harbored $15 trillion in commerce.

Yet these estimates of market size are gross exaggerations. Using calculations from World Bank data available in 2006, I estimated elsewhere that the BOP market was $300 billion in 2002. And then once again, using data from a 2007 report coauthored by Hammond and called The Next Four Billion, I estimated a global BOP market size of only $360 billion, which is quite close to my earlier estimate…

…[Y]et corporations, governments, and NGOs romanticize the poor. As a result, they continue to rely too heavily on market solutions to poverty.

This is not to deny that free markets can help reduce poverty. In fact, the private sector must play a critical role. Rather than viewing the poor primarily as consumers, people interested in economic development should approach the poor as producers. The best way to alleviate poverty is to raise the real income of the poor by creating opportunities for steady employment at reasonable wages. Firms can do this by creating more employment opportunities in labor-intensive industries and investing in upgrading the skills and productivity of poor people, thus increasing their income potential.

For their part, governments need to help create and grow private enterprises in labor-intensive sectors of the economy through appropriate policies (such as deregulation), infrastructure (such as transportation), and institutions (such as capital markets). They must also protect poor consumers through legal and regulatory mechanisms. NGOs and social activists can help by exerting pressure on governments and companies.

Poverty cannot be defined only in economic terms; it is also about a much broader set of needs. But many market approaches to reducing poverty focus solely on economic ends, viewing social, cultural, and political benefits as by-products. In contrast, I think that social, cultural, and political benefits are desirable in and of themselves. We should emphasize the role of governments and public policies in cultivating and safeguarding these other noneconomic ends. By emphatically focusing on the private sector, market-based poverty alleviation programs distract people from correcting the frequent failures of governments to fulfill their traditional and accepted functions of ensuring safety, providing education, protecting health, and building infrastructure. No alternative to government has proven able to serve these functions.

The entire article can be read HERE.

If you would like to read the whole article but cannot view it on the website, please EMAIL me (cacutie[at]gmail.com) and I will send you the pdf file.

A new report analyzes how far advanced top companies are in addressing climate change and adopting environmentally friendly policies.

Some of the world’s biggest consumer and tech companies, ranging from Intel (INTC) to Nike (NKE), are making strides to reduce their businesses’ impact on global warming. But plenty of others, including Apple (AAPL), Estée Lauder (EL), and even Whole Foods (WFMI), still have a long way to go…

Titled Corporate Governance and Climate Change: Consumer and Technology Companies, the report rates companies on several fronts: slashing greenhouse gas emissions; becoming more energy-efficient; and providing leadership at the highest levels for climate-change initiatives. The results rank companies in 11 industry sectors, including apparel, big-box retail, technology, and real estate. IBM (IBM), Tesco (TESO), and Dell (DELL) topped the list, while Burger King (BKC), Tim Hortons (THI), and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) were at the bottom. More than half of the companies scored less than 50 points out of a possible 100..

Read the rest of the article HERE.

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama committed Saturday to the largest public works construction program since the creation of the interstate highway system a half-century ago as he seeks to put together a plan to resuscitate the reeling economy…

…Mr. Obama’s remarks sought to expand the definition of traditional work programs for the middle class, like infrastructure projects to repair roads and bridges, while also pushing a federal effort to bring in new-era jobs in technology and so-called green jobs…

…Although he put no price tag on it, he said he would invest record amounts of money in the vast infrastructure program, which also includes work on schools, sewer systems, mass transit, electric grids, dams and other public utilities…

…Conservative economists have also long derided public works spending as a poor response to tough economic times, saying it has not been a reliable catalyst for short-term growth and instead is more about politicians gaining points with constituents…

…[Obama said,] “We won’t do it the old Washington way,” Mr. Obama said. “We won’t just throw money at the problem. We’ll measure progress by the reforms we make and the results we achieve — by the jobs we create, by the energy we save, by whether America is more competitive in the world.”

Read the rest of the article on NYTimes.

So what does this all mean? The $700 billion proposal, if implemented, would be the biggest government intervention on financial markets since the Great Depression. The problem, however, lies in that we won’t know the effects on American taxpayers of this $700 billion until later, since “this is money that is being used to purchase illiquid mortgage assets that are very difficult to value,” according to Paulson from NBC’s Meet the Press.

To get the bigger picture, $700 billion “would roughly be what the country has spent so far in direct costs on the Iraq war and more than the Pentagon’s total yearly budget appropriation. Divided across the population, it would amount to more than $2,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States” (NY Times).

Congress is currently debating on this bill. Democrats are calling for a proposal with more provisions to make sure that ordinary Americans will be helped, not more hurt, by this proposal. Meanwhile, President Bush is emphasizing the importance of passing the proposed bill (with very, very few provisions — the bill itself is only 3 pages long!) as quickly as possible, with Republicans also pushing a bill be passed soon.

Republican leader Mr. Boehner called for Democrats not to over-reach, warning that “[e]fforts to exploit this crisis for political leverage or partisan quid pro quo will only delay the economic stability that families, seniors and small businesses deserve” (NY Times).

Again, I am no expert nor am I an economist, but a $700 billion “blank check” to the government is scary, to say the least. Let’s tell Congress to pass a proposal that will help our economy and ordinary Americans as well, by signing the petition!

If you’d like to read more in-depth articles about the crisis and the proposals, here are some links:
An overall Market Report of what’s going on in our economy: CNN Money Market Report

Article about the $700 billion proposal: $700 billion bailout: the latest

Lehman Brothers filed the largest bankruptcy in history of U.S.: The meltdown

New York Times in depth article about the proposal: Administration is seeking..

Water is a human resource, a natural right. It should not be bottled and resold to those who can afford to buy water while parts of the world have trouble finding and getting water every day.

The documentary coming out this fall, Flow, discusses this issue and exposes the insides and workings of the bottled water industry. Watch the trailer, and watch the movie when it comes out!

View the trailer here.

Here are the showing places/times. I got this from the youtube video’s description.

There are so many movies that look realllly amazing that are coming out in theaters soon from Participant Media. Some include [click on the links to see previews] –

Standard Operating Procedure (DVD Oct. 14): examines the Abu-Ghraib photographs and post-9/11 government policies. Includes discussion of the Geneva Conventions.

Darfur Now (now on DVD): six stories dealing with the genocide in Darfur.

The Soloist (in theaters Nov. 21): a true story chronicling the life of a former musician who is homeless. This movie explores issues such as “homelessness and mental illness, as well as the healing nature of music.”

Here is one that is coming out in theaters soon. The date is still undisclosed but here’s a synopsis from the website:

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of e coli–the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farms’ Gary Hirschberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising — and often shocking truths — about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

Sounds interesting to me… I will post more about this when I know the release date!

Please visit their website for more movies as well as social actions we can participate in!