Switzerland Now in Recession

Although their economy has contracted less than 2 percent since late last year, Switzerland is now officially in a recession.

. . . official figures showed that the country's economy shrank by 0.8% in the first three months of 2009.

The decline came after a contraction of 0.3% in the last quarter of 2008.

Switzerland's economic woes have been led by its major banks which, like lenders around the world, have reported significant losses linked to bad debts.

A country is generally considered to be in recession following two successive quarters of economic decline.

Who Killed the Newspaper?

Traditional newspapers are dropping like flies -- the Rocky Mountain News, the Tucson Citizen -- and many more are laying off staffers and cutting costs wherever they can. Who killed the newspaper?

According to the late John Waller, once executive editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a founding editor of USA Today, the blame rests squarely on three people: A.J. Liebling, a layout editor at The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal named Arnold (first or last name is not clear in Waller's essay), and Al Neuharth.


Read Waller's essay published at Poynter Online for the details.

Bailed Out Bank Buys Jets

From ABC News:

Embattled bank JPMorgan Chase, the recipient of $25 billion in TARP funds, is going ahead with a $138 million plan to buy two new luxury corporate jets and build "the premiere corporate aircraft hangar on the eastern seaboard" to house them, ABC News has learned.

The financial giant's upgrade includes nearly $120 million for two Gulfstream 650 planes and $18 million for a lavish renovation of a hangar at the Westchester Airport outside New York City.

No word yet if Chase will offer rides to taxpayers.

Call Center Workers Take A Stand

TPM reports:

Some three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents.

Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being "dangerously weak on crime," "coddling criminals," and for voting against "protecting children from danger."

Williams' daughter told her that up to 40 of her co-workers had refused to read the script, and had left the call center after supervisors told them that they would have to either read the call or leave, Williams says. The call center is called Americall, and it's located in Hobart, IN.

"They walked out," Williams says of her daughter and her co-workers, adding that they weren't fired but willingly sacrificed pay rather than read the lines. "They were told [by supervisors], `If you all leave, you're not gonna get paid for the rest of the day."

Judges Order Voting in Georgia

Federal judges have taken the side of the voters in Georgia:

The state of Georgia must allow persons whose citizenship has been questioned in a new voter verification system the opportunity to cast a ballot in the Nov. 4 elections, a three-judge court ruled Monday.

The state must also notify the voters that their registrations may have a discrepancy.

New Web Site To Fight Bailout

A new web site has sprung up to oppose the proposed taxpayer funded bailout of the banking system.

Check out VoteNoBailOut.org.

From their site:

Demand that the Bailout Legislation Be Rejected

We are witnessing a bankers' coup d’etat. In the name of saving the economy from a crisis created by their own greed and immense profits, the biggest bankers have taken a country and a people hostage.

“Give us your money and tear up what’s left of your Constitution or we will sink your economy,” is the message from Wall Street and the Bush Administration. “Give us the power and money we demand or you will be left jobless from a new economic depression."

Under the pretext of the banking crisis, the Bush Administration is changing the way this country operates. This is not simply taking trillions of dollars from the people and giving it to the richest bankers to do with as they see fit.

Click here to send your letter to Congress

Congress is poised to vote to give the Executive Branch of government, and specifically the White House’s political appointees in the Treasury Department, the absolute right to take our money and give it to domestic and foreign banks and corporations without any oversight of elected officials, from the courts, or from the people.

The new legislation states: “Decisions by the Secretary [of the Treasury] pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” The Legislation allows the Treasury Department to appoint the same bankers who created the crisis to administer and dictate the use of trillions of our tax dollars.

We will not stand by and let the Bush Administration formalize its vision of a “government of, by and for the richest bankers."

The new system institutionalizes theft on a grand scale. Lehman Brothers bankers will receive $2.5 billion in bonuses after their company went bankrupt last week, but the new dictatorial authority under the White House and Treasury Department has ruled out any relief for the millions of working families who are being foreclosed.

Sarah Palin to Avoid Reporters

John McCain's presidential staff will attempt to keep Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, away from taking direct questions from reporters.

From Jay Carney of Time magazine:

According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads.

Why?

I bet there are a lot of undecided voters out there who were intrigued by Sarah Palin last night, but who don't yet know enough about her -- what she believes, what she knows -- to be comfortable with the idea of her as vice president of the United States. It's important to them to know if Palin can handle herself in an environment that isn't controlled and sanitized by campaign image makers and message mavens. Maybe she can, maybe she can't. As far as Wallace is concerned, it's none of their -- or your -- business.

After eight years of failure, Republicans still think they know what is best for America, so just shut up and vote.