US intelligence predicts poverty plumment by 2030

By KIMBERLY DOZIER
AP Intelligence Writer

ASPEN, Colo. -- Poverty across the planet will be virtually eliminated by 2030, with a rising middle class of some two billion people pushing for more rights and demanding more resources, the chief of the top U.S. intelligence analysis shop said Saturday.

If current trends continue, the 1 billion people who live on less than a dollar a day now will drop to half that number in roughly two decades, Christoper Kojm said.

"We see the rise of the global middle class going from one to two billion," Kojm said, in a preview of the National Intelligence Council's global forecast offered at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. 

"Even if some of the most dire predictions of economic upheaval" in the coming years prove accurate, the intelligence council still sees "several hundred million people...entering the middle class," Kojm said.

The National Intelligence Council analyzes critical national security issues drawing from all U.S. intelligence agencies. The unclassified global forecast, which is due out by the end of the year, tries to "describe drivers of future behavior" to help government agencies from the White House to the State Department plan future policy and programs, Kojm said.

The rising middle class will have little tolerance of authoritarian regimes, combined with the economic resources and education needed to challenge them.

"Governance will be increasingly difficult in countries with rising incomes," he said, adding "middle-class people have middle-class values and aspirations" for greater individual empowerment and are now armed with social media and other technological tools to bring that about, including the overthrow of repressive governments.

Education levels are also rising, with graduation rates for women set to exceed that of men if current trends continue.

On the negative side, Kojm predicted food demand will rise by 50% in the next 18 years, though global population will only rise from 7.1 to 8.3 billion. Middle-class people want middle-class diets, which are heavy in meat, requiring more water and grain to produce, he said.

Adding to that, "nearly 50% of humanity will live in water-stressed regions by 2030," he said.

But Kojm also predicted that new technological developments could help close the gap between food and water shortages and need.

More people will migrate to cities, he said. Some 50% of the world lives in urban areas now, rising to 60% by 2030.

The growth of the Asian economies, such as China, is expected to continue, but Kojm said the rising median age of China's workers means it may be overtaken by countries with cheaper labor like India, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/07/28/4669552/us-intelligence-sees-poverty-plummet.html#storylink=cpy

via SacBee

Caltrans: LA freeway expansion project could improve public health

Expanding a major Los Angeles freeway in an area known for traffic-related air pollution could improve public health, according to a draft environmental impact report issued last month by the California Department of Transportation.

The project, known as the I-710 Corridor Project, could increase the number of lanes on the nearly 25-mile freeway, which runs north to south from East Los Angeles to Long Beach. Every day, it serves as a crucial route for 120,000 commuters and 30,000 trucks that use the freeway to transport goods from Southern California ports to nearly every corner of the country.

Caltrans said in its report that the project aims to resolve the freeway’s chronic congestion and reduce its high accident rate, especially as the region continues to grow.

“The project would improve air quality and public health, improve traffic safety, modernize the freeway design, and accommodate projected growth for population, employment, and economic activities related to goods movement,” the report stated.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the project could cost up to $7 billion.

Community advocates and residents who live along the I-710 corridor ­– 70 percent of whom are low-income and minorities, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ­– agree that the freeway needs improvements. But they were skeptical that they would see air quality improvements where they live.

“I’ve been in the area for a long time, and I’m especially concerned with health issues,” said Isella Ramirez, co-director of the Commerce-based East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. “My family has suffered a lot of health impacts; it’s hard to see them fight against cancer and struggle with asthma. It’s important that that doesn’t continue to happen to families in this area and that we don’t multiply the effects just so that (businesses) can get their products in time to Chicago.”

Construction on the project is slated to begin in 2020, and several variations of the freeway expansion are being considered. The most large-scale option involves adding up to 10 lanes and four additional truck-only lanes. There is also a “no-build” option where scheduled improvements would be made without expanding the freeway.

The environmental impact report noted that public health would improve as a result of the freeway expansion partly because air quality would get better. Air pollution would be reduced “by improving traffic flow as well as the use of low/zero emission trucks, when the technology becomes available,” Judy Gish, a Caltrans spokeswoman, wrote in an email.

Some public health experts said the report lacked clarity when it came to its description of air quality improvements.

“The draft EIR (environmental impact report) for the I-710 corridor has thousands of pages, and Caltrans does not always make its underlying assumptions easy to understand,” Andrea Hricko, a professor of clinical preventive medicine at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, wrote in an email. “The health risk analyses are confusing, with some of the alternatives for expansion showing increased PM (particulate matter pollution) levels, yet decreased health risks.”

USC researchers have looked closely at the health impacts of traffic-related air pollution on kids by tracking the health of thousands of children in Southern California for 20 years.

“The studies have shown that children growing up in communities with high particle pollution are more likely to have reduced lung function,” Hricko wrote in an email. “Children in communities with high ozone levels are more likely to miss more school through absences. 

… There are now lots of papers published on this topic, with results showing that children who live or go to school near busy roads and freeways are more likely to have asthma and reduced lung function.”

A March letter to Caltrans from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also raised concerns about the air quality impacts on communities near the 710 freeway, and on children’s health in particular.

“This project will result in a high level of community-wide impacts, in an area that is already heavily burdened from poor air quality related to the goods movement sector,” the letter said. “Because of the anticipated impacts from this project in this setting, it is critical that the EIS (environmental impact statement) include a robust analysis of the air quality, environmental justice, and children's health impacts that will result.”

The South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates Los Angeles air pollution along with the California Air Resources Board, said it could not yet fully evaluate the potential air quality impacts of the 710 corridor project because Caltrans has failed to supply the underlying documentation to support its analysis.

To address air quality concerns related to the project, the agency “would like to see and strongly support zero-emission transport technologies and need these technologies in this region to meet federal air quality goals,” Tina Cherry, a spokeswoman for the district wrote in an email.

Ramirez of the East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice said that she supports improvement to the 710 freeway, but she preferred some options over others.

“We are working hard to make sure that air quality is our number one priority for this improvement project and to me, that means not expanding the general purpose lanes,” Ramirez said. “It means let’s separate the trucks from the regular traffic, add four lanes for a freight corridor, and make them zero-emission. If we are going to depend on goods movement for the economic livelihood of these cities, at the very least, let’s be responsible about the health of the communities living directly in the clear vicinity of the 710.”

City of Commerce Councilwoman Denise Robles agreed that the freeway improvements needed to be balanced with residents’ well-being. In addition to air quality impacts, the report described other repercussions, including noise. Additionally, some houses in Commerce, Bell Gardens and Compton may need to be demolished and residents relocated to make way for the expansion.

“This project is needed because of traffic congestion. However, we need to ensure that the quality of life for our residents in Commerce and how they will be affected will be handled properly – everything from their houses, air quality, everything needs to be taken care of for them,” she said.

Robles said that if she could call the shots, she’d like to see more investment in public transportation.

“If I were the ultimate authority to come up with a solution, I would say, ‘Get more and better public transportation so we don’t need to continue to widen our roads for private cars,’” she said. “Then we can deal with the truck traffic as a separate issue. If we had better public transportation it would help out quite a bit.”

The first in a series of public meetings related to the draft environmental impact report will be held next Tuesday. The final day for public comment on the draft environmental report is Aug. 29.

“Community input is going to be a big element of the decision-making process,” said Caltrans’ Gish.

Bernice Yeung

Via California Watch

California health care reform goes into overdrive

By Kathy Robertson

Senior Staff Writer- Sacramento Business Journal

The U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold most of the Affordable Care Act hasn’t changed much in California — except to put the reform effort into overdrive.

While the National Federation of Independent Business remains undeterred from efforts to unwind the law, health industry experts who spoke on a Business Journal panel Thursday see the court decision as a catalyst that will escalate change.

“We’re on a burning platform with a medical rescue system that does a good job repairing folks,” said Darryl Cardoza, CEO at Hill Physicians Medical Group. “When we created universal coverage, we poured gasoline on it — and that’s a good thing.”

There’s widespread support for expanded coverage, but look for fireworks as major decisions are made before California Health Benefit Exchange kicks off enrollment Oct. 1. 

The new insurance pool for individuals and small businesses is expected to launch Jan. 1, 2014 — and it’s unclear at this point what it will look like, who will be in it, and whether plans and providers will be winners or losers.

“The only thing predictable in health care is it lies ahead,” said Anne McLeod, senior vice president for health policy for the California Hospital Association. “It’s seismic change at a escalating rate.”

This raises questions about the aggressive timeline.

NFIB, the plaintiff in the lawsuit at the heart of the Supreme Court decision, still opposes the requirement that everybody buy insurance, but the group supports the notion of an insurance exchange.

(Click here to keep reading the whole story past the Storify article)

“The federal government is missing deadline after deadline. We are concerned (the California program) will be implemented in the right way. The concept of greater choice is a good thing, but it needs to be done right.”

via http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2012/08/02/health-care-reform-panel-what-now.html?page=all

California's budget greatly impacted by Facebook stock

UNDATED (CNN) -- Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has the fate of California's budget on his shoulders. Facebook stock plunged to an all-time low Thursday. But, it's not just investors feeling the pinch. California could lose hundreds of millions of dollars. 

The opening excitement has faded fast as Facebook's stock continues to tumble with hundreds of millions of dollars now at risk, according to a report this week from the legislative analyst's office. Governor brown's budget is based on a Facebook sales price of $35 a share, yet the stock closed at $20.04, well below the benchmark that California is banking on to bring in $1.9 billion. Jon Coupal with Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assoc. says, "We have to rely on steady, predictable sources of revenue and not believe that we're going to have pink unicorns pooping gold nuggets to solve the budget problem." 

The initial public offering from Facebook was supposed to generate big revenues from capital gains taxes that investors pay after they sell a stock, but it could end up being phantom revenue. Political analyst Kevin Riggs says, "We saw that last year. The governor depended on an assumed $4 billion in extra revenue to balance the budget. The $4 billion never materialized and so the budget was out of balance almost as soon as he signed it."

But the brown administration says, the stock price for Facebook is no reason to panic. H.D. Palmer with the California State Finance Department says, "The issue isn't where the Facebook stock is today. It's where it's going to be in November that counts." 

November is when the state expects Facebook employees to begin selling their shares, but a low sales price could be a critical hit to California's coffers. Also in November, the governor's tax initiative, Brown's Budget, assumes his tax measure will pass in November. 

If so, Facebook's shares will be taxed at a higher rate, but if it fails, California will have $400 million less than what's now on the books.

Via TodaysTHV.com

SB 1190 - Wic Modernization

Municipal bankruptcy: The lessons of California

By Thomas Ferguson and Robert A. Johnson

July 31, 2012

In California, the names of the latest victims are well known. San Bernardino, Stockton and Mammoth Lakes all filed for bankruptcy within the last few weeks. And Vallejo emerged from Chapter 9 protection just last year. The questions appear to be "Why all in California?" and "Who will be next?"

Although California's problems are extreme, the state is hardly alone in financial difficulties. Towns and counties in Alabama, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island are all having trouble meeting their financial obligations. If these conditions continue to spread, the United States will be facing a crippling debt crisis at the state and local levels, which is where Americans receive much of what matters for their quality of life.

This was a central point in a report released July 17 by the State Budget Crisis Task Force headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch.

PHOTOS: California cities in bankruptcy
Simply put, in the aftermath of the financial crisis emanating from Wall Street, the federal financial mess is bleeding over into state budgets in profound ways, adding enormous costs to already overburdened state coffers. That spillover, in conjunction with broader national crises in finance and healthcare, is overwhelming state and federal finances.

California has added challenges that make the problem even trickier. It must maintain massive education, infrastructure and prison programs with limited ability to raise money. The prison expenditures are particularly onerous. The state prison population is more than 160,000, and Sacramento spends roughly $50,000 annually to house each inmate. Not surprisingly, California has the costliest prison system in the country.

Despite the protests of powerful interest groups in the corrections business, California cannot afford to continue to crowd out other essential services to pay that group so handsomely. The state government must act now to overcome the prison interests' lucrative campaign contributions to legislators — and outsize influence — and bring that sector back into line.

Additionally, local governments are limited in the amount of revenue they can raise by notoriously strict property tax caps set by Proposition 13. The state's capacity to raise money also is hindered by its stagnant political system, which sets up the dynamic in which the only answers to an economic shock or shortfall are to vigorously restrict services or sell them off. Too many elements of California's budget are protected by legislative decree or political muscle to allow balanced decisions in times of distress.

Taken together, California's state and local governments are systemically set up to be financial disasters. That's why California is an outlier nationally in the fiscal crunch and why it has become ground zero for municipal debt crises and bankruptcies. California is a prosperous state. It is the political constraints that are crippling it.

But other states, like New York and Illinois, should pay attention. If they don't take action, the extremes of California will ultimately become a reality in those states too.

So what can be done? We can start by asking why the Federal Reserve cannot refinance municipalities to preserve essential services at interest rates comparable to what it gave to rescue the insolvent banks that created this mess. And it is high time officials moved boldly to force the banks to break off the chain of disastrous swap contracts that have cost local authorities and states so much money.

Another key point to keep in mind is the importance of strong regulatory policies. In a world in which financial institutions can receive zero-interest loans from the Federal Reserve and then lend out the capital at much higher interest rates, the opportunities for financial mischief are plentiful.

For years, bankers have used municipal bonds from California and elsewhere as playthings. Wall Street has consistently helped elected officials mask budgetary problems with complex derivatives that create the appearance of cash flow today by selling years of future revenue. The only purpose for these securities is to deceive the public and create fees for the financial firms.

Financial chicanery in these realms is demoralizing, harmful, expensive and dangerous. California experienced this type of treachery firsthand in the 1990s when Orange County declared bankruptcy after being sold highly risky securities by Merrill Lynch. That's why it's important to listen to the Vocker-Ravitch task force's call for reforming budgetary systems in the states to make them accountable and transparent and expose financial scams to deter their widespread use. The people of California have a right to know how their fiscal accounts are managed.

Thomas Ferguson is a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston; Robert A. Johnson is executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Both are senior fellows at the Roosevelt Institute.

Via LATimes

$2.3 billion accounting gap in hundreds of California special funds triggers calls for reforms

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The state controller and the Department of Finance are $2.3 billion apart in their calculations of how much money is in hundreds of special funds kept by various state agencies, officials acknowledged Friday.

By the state controller’s accounting, the special funds held $11.1 billion during a financial tally a year ago. The state Department of Finance says the funds held $8.8 billion.

The accounting gap came to light after finance officials last week discovered nearly $54 million in two Department of Parks and Recreation special funds that had been deliberately hidden from the governor’s budget office but showed up on the controller’s books. The finding forced the resignation of the parks department’s director and prompted an investigation by the state attorney general.

Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer said auditors won’t know if there is additional surplus money in any more of the 560 accounts until next week, when they finish matching the controller’s figures with their own.

Much of the difference is because the controller’s and finance offices often use different accounting methods, said Palmer and Hallye Jordan, a spokeswoman for Controller John Chiang. For instance, a $460 million discrepancy in two transportation special funds is because the controller’s office accounted for the money in one fiscal year, while the Finance Department counted it toward the next fiscal year.

The situation is triggering new debate over the state’s budget crisis at a time when Gov. Jerry Brown is trying to convince voters the situation is so dire they need to approve a sales tax hike and increase the income tax on people making more than $250,000.

Brown and the Legislature used the Finance Department’s lower $8.8 billion figure when they approved the California budget last month.

“I’m concerned about the lack of communication between the controller’s office and the Department of Finance. It became obvious when the controller said, ‘Well, if Finance had talked to me about the parks figures, this would have come to the forefront,’” said Sen. Bill Emmerson, R-Redlands, vice chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “Something needs to be done right away because this is just not acceptable to have this type of discrepancy in California’s budget process.”

For instance, Emmerson said lawmakers thought they borrowed all the money they could from the state’s beverage container recycling fund as they worked to avoid deeper cuts to schools and other vital programs. Now they find that there may be another $113 million in that account, according to the state controller.

At least 17 of the 560 special accounts have significantly more reserve cash based on the controller’s figures than what was reported to the Finance Department, according to the San Jose Mercury News, which first reported the discrepancies. The violent crime victim restitution fund, for instance, was off by $29 million, and a low-cost child health insurance fund was off by $30 million.

No matter how much unexpected money might be in the special funds, state law bars most of it from being used for other purposes such as closing the state’s budget deficit, said Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, the Senate budget chairman.

Special funds generally include fees or other revenue dedicated to specific purposes. For instance, the parks department’s off-highway vehicle fund is generated from registering ATVs and similar types of vehicles. That money is intended to support development and operation of off-road recreation parks. The fund held $33.5 million more than reported.
All told, $33.4 billion was spent from the special funds in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2011.

“This is just another example of how much out of control the bureaucracy is,” said Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, vice chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee. “It is the hiding of funds, it’s the redirecting of funds to things the bureaucracy thinks is important rather than the Legislature or the governor’s office.”

He and Assemblywoman Beth Gaines, R-Roseville, released a letter to Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Sherman Oaks, saying that the parks department budget scandals “have undermined the public’s faith in government.”

Rhys Williams, spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said the administration took swift action in replacing the parks department’s director and investigating the accounting discrepancies statewide.

“You see the branches of power looking at what happened and taking action, I think that will ultimately be the bar by which this is measured,” Williams said.

___
Information from: San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, http://www.mercurynews.com
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Via Washington Post