SEE ALSO: Take That! Walmart Shopper Punches Greeter For Checking Her Receipt

The closings are the latest and most visible in a long series of moves to try to fix a retailer that has struggled with falling sales and shabby stores.

In an internal memo Tuesday to employees, CEO and President Lou D’Ambrosio said that the retailer had not “generated the results we were seeking during the holiday.”

Sears Holdings Corp. said it has yet to determine which stores will close but said it will post on http://www.searsmedia.com when a final list is compiled. Sears would not discuss how many, if any, jobs would be cut.

The company has more than 4,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada. Its stock dropped $8.67, or 18.9 percent, to $37.18 in morning trading. The shares dipped to their lowest point in more than three years at $36.51 during the first few minutes of trading.

The company’s revenue at stores open at least a year fell 5.2 percent to date for the quarter at both Sears and Kmart, the company said Tuesday. That includes the critical holiday shopping period.

Sears Holdings said the declining sales, ongoing pressure on profit margins and rising expenses pulled its adjusted earnings lower. The company predicts fourth-quarter adjusted earnings will be less than half the $933 million it reporter for the same quarter last year.

Sears Holdings also anticipates a non-cash charge of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion in the quarter to write off the value of carried-over tax deductions it now doesn’t expect to be profitable enough to use.

Sears said it will no longer prop up “marginally performing” stores in hopes of improving their performance and will now concentrate on cash-generating stores.

“These actions will better enable us to focus our investments on serving our customers,” D’Ambrosio said.

The weaker-than-expected performance reflects what analysts say is a deteriorating outlook for the retailer.

The results point to “deepening problems at this struggling chain and renewed worries about Sears survivability,” said Gary Balter, an analyst at Credit Suisse. “The extent of the weakness may be larger than expected but the reasons behind it are not. It begins and some would argue ends with Sears’ reluctance to invest in stores and service.”

Balter also said Sears’ weakening performance may lead its vendors to start to worry about their exposure.

The company has seen rival department stores like Macy’s Inc. and discounters like Target Corp. continue to steal customers. It’s also contending with a stronger Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, which has hammered hard its low-price message and brought back services like layaway, which allows financially stressed shoppers to finance their holiday purchases by paying a little at a time.

The tough economy hasn’t helped, either. Middle-income shoppers, the company’s core customers, have seen their wages fail to keep up with higher costs for household basics like food.

But the big problem, analysts say, is Sears hasn’t invested in remodeling, leaving its stores uninviting.

“There’s no reason to go to Sears,” said New York-based independent retail analyst Brian Sozzi, “It offers a depressing shopping experience and uncompetitive prices.”

Sears Holdings Corp., based in Hoffman Estates, Ill., said that the store closings will generate $140 to $170 million in cash from inventory sales. The retailer expects the sale or sublease of real estate holdings to add more cash.

Sears Holdings appeared to stumble early in the holiday season, as it opened its Sears, Roebuck and Co. stores at 4 a.m. on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Rivals including Best Buy Co., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Toys R Us opened as early as Thanksgiving night. Sears stores had opened on Thanksgiving Day in 2010. Kmart has been opening on Thanksgiving for years.

A hint that trouble might be brewing came in mid-December when Sears Holdings unexpectedly announced that 260 of its Sears, Roebuck and Co. locations would stay open until midnight through Dec. 23.

Kmart’s 4.4 percent decline in revenue at stores open at least a year was blamed on diminished layaways and a drop in clothing and consumer electronics sales. Part of Kmart’s layaway softness likely stemmed from competitive pressure. Wal-Mart had said that its holiday layaway business had been popular. Toys R Us expanded its layaway services to include more items. Kmart’s grocery sales climbed during the period.

Sears cited lackluster consumer electronics and home appliance sales for its 6 percent dropoff. Sears’ clothing sales were flat. Sales of Lands’ End products at Sears stores rose in the mid-single digits.

Sears Holdings said it also plans to lower its fixed costs by $100 million to $200 million and trim its 2012 peak domestic inventory by $300 million from 2011′s $10.2 billion at the third quarter’s end.

D’Ambrosio acknowledged in his internal memo that criticism over Sears Holdings’ performance was likely to come, but that the company was prepared for the days ahead.

“We will bounce back and become stronger than ever,” he said.

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The latest census data depict a middle class that’s shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government’s safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

“Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too `rich’ to qualify,” said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty.

“The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal,” he said. “If Congress and the states make further cuts, we can expect the number of poor and low-income families to rise for the next several years.”

Congressional Republicans and Democrats are sparring over legislation that would renew a Social Security payroll tax cut, part of a year-end political showdown over economic priorities that could also trim unemployment benefits, freeze federal pay and reduce entitlement spending.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, questioned whether some people classified as poor or low-income actually suffer material hardship. He said that while safety-net programs have helped many Americans, they have gone too far, citing poor people who live in decent-size homes, drive cars and own wide-screen TVs.

“There’s no doubt the recession has thrown a lot of people out of work and incomes have fallen,” Rector said. “As we come out of recession, it will be important that these programs promote self-sufficiency rather than dependence and encourage people to look for work.”

Mayors in 29 cities say more than 1 in 4 people needing emergency food assistance did not receive it. Many middle-class Americans are dropping below the low-income threshold – roughly $45,000 for a family of four – because of pay cuts, a forced reduction of work hours or a spouse losing a job. Housing and child-care costs are consuming up to half of a family’s income.

States in the South and West had the highest shares of low-income families, including Arizona, New Mexico and South Carolina, which have scaled back or eliminated aid programs for the needy. By raw numbers, such families were most numerous in California and Texas, each with more than 1 million.

The struggling Americans include Zenobia Bechtol, 18, in Austin, Texas, who earns minimum wage as a part-time pizza delivery driver. Bechtol and her 7-month-old baby were recently evicted from their bedbug-infested apartment after her boyfriend, an electrician, lost his job in the sluggish economy.

After an 18-month job search, Bechtol’s boyfriend now works as a waiter and the family of three is temporarily living with her mother.

“We’re paying my mom $200 a month for rent, and after diapers and formula and gas for work, we barely have enough money to spend,” said Bechtol, a high school graduate who wants to go to college. “If it weren’t for food stamps and other government money for families who need help, we wouldn’t have been able to survive.”

About 97.3 million Americans fall into a low-income category, commonly defined as those earning between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level, based on a new supplemental measure by the Census Bureau that is designed to provide a fuller picture of poverty. Together with the 49.1 million who fall below the poverty line and are counted as poor, they number 146.4 million, or 48 percent of the U.S. population. That’s up by 4 million from 2009, the earliest numbers for the newly developed poverty measure.

The new measure of poverty takes into account medical, commuting and other living costs. Doing that helped push the number of people below 200 percent of the poverty level up from 104 million, or 1 in 3 Americans, that was officially reported in September.

Broken down by age, children were most likely to be poor or low-income – about 57 percent – followed by seniors over 65. By race and ethnicity, Hispanics topped the list at 73 percent, followed by blacks, Asians and non-Hispanic whites.

Even by traditional measures, many working families are hurting.

Following the recession that began in late 2007, the share of working families who are low income has risen for three straight years to 31.2 percent, or 10.2 million. That proportion is the highest in at least a decade, up from 27 percent in 2002, according to a new analysis by the Working Poor Families Project and the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit research group based in Washington.

Among low-income families, about one-third were considered poor while the remainder – 6.9 million – earned income just above the poverty line. Many states phase out eligibility for food stamps, Medicaid, tax credit and other government aid programs for low-income Americans as they approach 200 percent of the poverty level.

The majority of low-income families – 62 percent – spent more than one-third of their earnings on housing, surpassing a common guideline for what is considered affordable. By some census surveys, child-care costs consume close to another one-fifth.

Paychecks for low-income families are shrinking. The inflation-adjusted average earnings for the bottom 20 percent of families have fallen from $16,788 in 1979 to just under $15,000, and earnings for the next 20 percent have remained flat at $37,000. In contrast, higher-income brackets had significant wage growth since 1979, with earnings for the top 5 percent of families climbing 64 percent to more than $313,000.

A survey of 29 cities conducted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors being released Thursday points to a gloomy outlook for those on the lower end of the income scale.

Many mayors cited the challenges of meeting increased demands for food assistance, expressing particular concern about possible cuts to federal programs such as food stamps and WIC, which assists low-income pregnant women and mothers. Unemployment led the list of causes of hunger in cities, followed by poverty, low wages and high housing costs.

Across the 29 cities, about 27 percent of people needing emergency food aid did not receive it. Kansas City, Mo., Nashville, Tenn., Sacramento, Calif., and Trenton, N.J., were among the cities that pointed to increases in the cost of food and declining food donations, while Mayor Michael McGinn in Seattle cited an unexpected spike in food requests from immigrants and refugees, particularly from Somalia, Burma and Bhutan.

Among those requesting emergency food assistance, 51 percent were in families, 26 percent were employed, 19 percent were elderly and 11 percent were homeless.

“People who never thought they would need food are in need of help,” said Mayor Sly James of Kansas City, Mo., who co-chairs a mayors’ task force on hunger and homelessness.

SEE ALSO: If Obama Loses, What Will He Do Next?

According to the report one in every 45 children in the U.S. are homeless.

“Throughout the country we see a man made disaster caused by financial speculation and the collapse of the housing market.” According to the study, the recession period between 2007 and 2010 lead to a 38 percent spike in homelessness amongst children. 1.6 million American children go to bed at night without a permanent place to call home, roughly one hundred thousand more than in 2006, in the immediate aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Read more at the Grio.

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In a grassroots effort to get back at these institution, communications firm Fearless Revolution has created a step-by-step guide to leaving your big bank and joining a credit union.

Fearless Revolution reports:

3. Stop using your deposit accounts ASAP. You need to allow everything to clear the accounts completely before you close them. This clearing process takes about two weeks to complete. Keep close tabs online to see which transactions are still outstanding.

If you currently have checking and savings accounts (deposit accounts) with a big bank, the organizers encourage you to remove all of your funds, close your accounts, and place your money in a new deposit account with a not-for-profit credit union.

Read more at fearlessrevolution.com.

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A housing market that has 1 out of 4 owing more than what their house is worth, with millions who are at least 90 days late on paying their mortgage; record levels of foreclosure; banks afraid to give loans to individuals and businesses for fear of default; and an employment market that has over 1 of 5 in this country either out of work or working part time just to make ends meet, are just a few of the economic problems faced by many in this country.

NewsOne and I are concerned about the economic destinies and know that it is almost impossible for taxpayers to stay afloat without an organized financial strategy. This is why we have launched a series of posts and webisodes, sponsored by Toyota, to make sure that we are giving you tangible solutions to help you in navigating the financial obstacles presented in this volatile economy.

So take time to watch the videos, read the posts, leave comments, and send us messages about the issues that you would like to discuss.

This is your forum and opportunity to learn some valuable information and we want to be sure you get the most out each entry. I look forward to talking to you each week as we continue to rebuild this country and lead the way to an economic recovery through the teaching and implementing of fiscal responsibility!

Ryan Mack, Author of Living in the Village and President of Optimum Capital Management, LLC

Read all of the Your Money In The Black posts here, including:

11 Tips For The Unemployed

Seven Tips For Families During The Financial Crisis

At the same time, America is facing similar peril _ joblessness, deficit, and national sense that things are not getting better.

The Grio explores the relationship asking is America in danger of becoming Detroit.

Read more at The Grio.

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New applications for unemployment insurance reached the half-million mark last week for the first time since November, a sign that employers are likely cutting jobs again as the economy slows.

The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 12,000 last week to 500,000, the fourth increase in the past five weeks. Wall Street economists forecast that claims would drop.

The four-week average, a less volatile measure, rose by 8,000 to 482,500, the highest since December. There were no special factors that distorted the numbers, a Labor Department analyst said.

RELATED: Black Women See Consecutive Unemployment Decrease In June

The increase suggests the economy is creating even fewer jobs than in the first half of this year, when private employers added an average of about 100,000 jobs per month. That’s barely enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising. The jobless rate has been stuck at 9.5 percent for two months.

Stock futures fell on the news. The Dow Jones industrial average futures had risen more than 50 points before the report was released. They dropped quickly and were down as much as 20 points afterward.

Jobless claims declined steadily last year from a peak of 651,000 in March 2009 as the economy recovered from the worst downturn since the 1930s. After flattening out earlier this year claims have begun to grow again.

The number of people continuing to receive benefits fell by 13,000 to 4.5 million, the department said. The continuing claims data lags initial claims by one week.

But that doesn’t include millions of people receiving extended unemployment insurance, paid for by the federal government. About 5.6 million unemployed workers were on the extended unemployment benefit rolls, as of the week ending July 31, the latest data available. That’s an increase of about 300,000 from the previous week.

During the recession, Congress added up to 73 extra weeks of benefits on top of the 26 weeks customarily provided by the states. The number of people on the extended rolls has increased sharply in recent weeks after Congress renewed the extended program last month. It had expired in June.

RELATED: Black Female Unemployment Has Steepest Decline In May

Private employers added only 71,000 jobs in July. But that increase was offset by the loss of 202,000 government jobs, including 143,000 temporary census positions.

July marked the third straight month that the private sector hired cautiously. Economists are concerned that the unemployment rate will start rising again because overall economic growth has weakened significantly since the start of the year.

In a healthy economy, jobless claims usually drop below 400,000. But the recent increases in claims provide further evidence that the economy has slowed and could slip back into a recession. Many analysts are worried that economic growth will ebb further in the second half of this year.

After growing at a 3.7 percent annual rate in the first quarter, the economy’s growth slowed to 2.4 percent in the April-to-June period. Some economists forecast it will drop to as low as 1.5 percent in the second half of this year.

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Evidence is mounting that the longest recession since World War II is losing its grip on the U.S. economy.

The latest hint is due Friday when the government releases data onconsumer spending and income for July.

Personal spending is expected to have posted a modest gain last month, driven higher by the popular Cash for Clunkers program. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect personal spending rose 0.2 percent in July after a 0.4 percent gain in June.

Economists believe that personal incomes, the fuel for future spending increases, probably rose 0.2 percent as well, following a 1.3 percent decline in June.

On Thursday, a report confirmed that the economy shrank at an annual rate of just 1 percent in the spring.

Many analysts say growth likely returned in the current quarter. Smaller dips in consumer spending and other areas during the April-June period led some economists to raise their forecasts for the July-September quarter.

But with unemployment aid claims stubbornly high, Americans may benefit little from a recovery if jobs remain scarce and spending stays too low to fuel a strong rebound.

The Commerce Department estimated that the U.S. gross domestic product, the broadest gauge of economic health, shrank at an annual rate of 1 percent in the second quarter. The new estimate of the nation’s output of goods and services was the same as an earlier estimate released last month.

The negative figure marks a record fourth consecutive quarterly decline. But it was far smaller than the nosedive the economy had taken during the previous two quarters.

Businesses did slash inventories at an even greater rate than had been expected in the spring. But economists were encouraged by upward revisions to consumer spending, exports and housing construction. Analysts had expected the second-quarter economic figure to show a drop of 1.5 percent.

“The big surprise in this report was that there was enough spending in the consumer sector and elsewhere to offset all the loss from inventory reductions,” said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight.

Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of total economic activity, fell at an annual rate of 1 percent in second quarter. It was a slight improvement from the 1.2 percent decline reported last month.

Gault predicted the economy will gain momentum in the current quarter and final three months of this year as businesses switch from trimming stockpiles to rebuilding inventories. He expects the GDP to jump to above 3 percent in the July-September quarter, boosted by the Cash from Clunkers auto program.

Growth likely will remain around 3 percent in the fourth quarter, Gault said. But then it could slip in the first half of next year as the support from inventory rebuilding begins to fade. Consumers, faced with bleak job prospects, won’t likely be able to take up the slack, he said.

Unemployment is not expected to peak until next spring, probably somewhere above 10 percent. The jobless rate is now 9.4 percent.

White House economic adviser Christina Romer earlier this week said the unemployment rate is likely to hit 10 percent this year. Economists think the unemployment rate will inch back up to 9.5 percent for August, with 220,000 more jobs lost, down a bit from 247,000 in July. That report is scheduled for release next week.

The 1 percent dip in GDP in the April-June quarter followed declines of 6.4 percent in the first quarter and 5.4 percent in the final three months of 2008, the sharpest back-to-back declines in a half-century. The four straight quarterly declines in GDP mark the first time that has occurred on government records dating to 1947.

The recession that began in December 2007 is the deepest as measured by the drop in GDP, which is down 3.9 percent from its previous peak.

Even though economists expect the economy to start growing again in the current quarter, signaling the end of the recession, that won’t mean the end of job losses. Businesses likely will continue to keep tight control over labor costs until they see more evidence that the recovery will not falter.

Some analysts worry the country could face a double-dip recession in which growth returns for a while, only to falter again as beleaguered consumers remain reluctant to increase spending.

First-time unemployment claims fell to a seasonally adjusted 570,000, from an upwardly revised 580,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. The number of those continuing to claim benefits dropped to 6.13 million from 6.25 million, the lowest level since early April.

The weekly figures remain far above the roughly 325,000 claims that analysts say is consistent with a healthy economy. New claims last fell below 300,000 in early 2007.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week that the economy appeared to be “leveling out” and was likely to begin growing again soon. President Barack Obama appointed Bernanke to another four-year term Tuesday.

The education bubble is going to burst. It has to happen. On a daily basis, we hear about the bursting of the housing bubble. Housing values were over inflated. Millions of people found themselves with mortgages they could not afford to pay-whether through hard times and job loss, racial profiling and predatory lending by unscrupulous, avaricious banking institutions, or other reasons.

But neither can many Americans pay their college loans. Few people really talk about the unholy alliance made between institutions of higher learning and educational lenders to create a travesty in American education-that hot mess known as the student loan hustle.

Here is yet another reason why American capitalism is the scourge of the global community.

Colleges, grad schools and professional schools have become profit centers, cash cows and vocational processing plants, rather than places to expand one’s mind and understanding of the world.

And each year, the cost of a college education increases far in excess of the rate of inflation, twice the rate of inflation to be exact. Private law school tuition increased nearly three times the rate of consumer prices between 1990 and 2003. In this time of economic gloom, parents-financially straightjacketed, perhaps unemployed or underemployed, no savings, or their investment portfolios eviscerated- cannot afford to send their children to school.

According to the College Board, the average cost of four years at a private college is $136,000, $57,000 at a public university. Meanwhile, the student loan industry makes $85 billion a year. Federal loans are at $544 billion, up $42 billion from 2008. And students borrowed a record $17.3 billion in private student loans in 2005-6, a 913% increase from a decade earlier. In 2008, according to FinAid.org, there was nearly $131 billion in outstanding private student loans. These private loans, the fastest segment of the student loan market, often have exorbitant and variable interest rates, highly punitive late fees and charges, and are based on the borrower’s credit rating rather than his or her need. Thanks to the power of the student loan industry- and hack politicians who believe we must leave no corporation behind-these loans, unlike mortgage foreclosures, are not covered by bankruptcy protection.

And then there are those unscrupulous and unduly influenced university officials who accept kickbacks, gifts, trips, revenue sharing agreements and other goodies from the lenders (who are eager to earn even more profits on the backs of students), in exchange for access to students. Andrew Cuomo, New York State attorney general, uncovered much of this scandal in a 2007 investigation. For example, the financial aid director at the University of Southern California owned 1,500 shares of Education Lending Group, parent company of the university’s preferred lender, Student Loan Xpress. In addition, the financial aid directors at Columbia University and University of Texas owned stock in that company, with the former selling his shares at a $100,000 profit. All three officers were terminated by their respective universities. The director of student financial services at Johns Hopkins University resigned after Cuomo’s probe revealed that she had received $65,000 from Student Loan Xpress, giving the impression that she was an employee of the lending company rather than of the university. And Matteo Montana, a Bush Department of Education official, held at least 10,500 shares (at least $100,000) of the company’s stock, and he was supposed to be overseeing that lender, as well as others who participated in the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP).

When greed rules the student loan process-not unlike financial deregulation and the Wall Street meltdown, the Madoff scandal, and the subprime mortgage mess- no one is looking out for the interests of ordinary students. The result is that students get shafted, and the banks and their enablers get rich. People of meager or modest means, just hoping for education as a way up and a way out, are crushed under the weight of loans they cannot afford to pay when they graduate. They emerge no better, or even worse off, than the previous generation, with six-figure, mortgage-sized indebtedness, and monthly payments that exceed all other expenses, if not their entire paycheck. Some young people must forego homeownership because they cannot afford a mortgage, or must live with their parents until things get better, if they ever get better.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member David A. Love, JD is a journalist and human rights advocate based in Philadelphia, and a contributor to the Progressive Media Project and McClatchy-Tribune News Service, among others. He contributed to the book, States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons (St. Martin’s Press, 2000). Love is a former Amnesty International UK spokesperson. His blog is davidalove.com.

As the song goes, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere, it’s up to you, New York, New York.” The problem is that if you are counting on making it in New York City, you could be setting yourself up for disappointment.

A recent report by The Center for an Urban Future, a public policy organization dedicated to dealing with the problems facing low-income and working-class neighborhoods in New York City, suggests that the Big Apple is too expensive for most people to live. The report, called Reviving the City of Aspiration: A study of the challenges facing New York City’s middle class, confirms what many New Yorkers already knew anecdotally – with an ever-widening gap between earning power and expenses, New York is unable to sustain a middle class. In a city where even many upper middle class families are stretched to their limits, the cost of living is beyond the reach of most working families. The city lost more than its fair share of blue collar manufacturing jobs over the years. There are no new jobs to create or sustain a middle-class lifestyle, and there is little hope of upward mobility. New York City never was cheap, but it was once perceived as a city of aspiration, a place where people could live, work, scratch their way up the ladder, and raise a family. But people are leaving, and the path from poverty to the middle class is proving far more elusive.

These days, the city is losing a number of demographic groups, including people with a bachelor’s degree, families, immigrants, municipal workers, and the Black community of Eastern Queens, one of the country’s largest African American middle class populations.

Meanwhile, the ranks of the poor are rising. In 2005, 46% of New Yorkers living in poverty held regular jobs, a 17 point increase from 1990. And 31% of New Yorkers over age 18 work in low wage jobs.

There are a number of challenges facing working families. First and foremost, of course, is the high cost of living, particularly exorbitant housing costs. In addition, the price New Yorkers pay for electricity, phone service, auto insurance, parking, milk, home heating oil and state and local taxes are among the highest in the nation. While most families require two working parents to make ends meet, child care is prohibitively expensive, averaging $13,000 to $25,000 per year, per child. Then there are the inferior quality schools and the long, uncomfortable commutes on public transportation for people who live outside Manhattan, in one of the outer boroughs. And there was the housing boom which led to haphazard construction, diminishing the aesthetic qualities of many New York City neighborhoods, and straining the infrastructure of many communities.

Just to understand how bad things are, consider this: in Manhattan, the nation’s most expensive urban area, it takes an annual salary of $123,322 to enjoy the same standard of living as someone making $50,000 in Houston. In San Francisco, the nation’s second most expensive place, you would need $95,489 to live like that person in Houston. In Queens, NY (the fifth most expensive area in the nation) $85,918. In Nassau County, NY, $83,168. In Los Angeles, $80,583. In Boston, $72,772. What about Philadelphia? You would require $69,196. Chicago, $63,421. In Atlanta, only $53,630.

As for those who are leaving New York, where are they going? Well, it should be no surprise that they are moving to places such as Philadelphia. I’m not surprised because I am a New Yorker who moved to Philadelphia. I was born and raised in New York, and although I had lived in a number of places – as diverse as Boston, Detroit and Tokyo – I was a New Yorker. You can never really get the New York out of your system, even if you try, and you probably wouldn’t want to do it in any case. A New York community activist and journalist, I came to Philly for law school, where I met my wife, a Philadelphian turned New York activist. We had grand ideas of moving to Brooklyn after law school. But we were pulled back to Philadelphia, in no small measure, because we had expensive college and law school education, but with public interest careers with modest salaries serving underserved communities. You do the math. And besides, Philadelphia is a great city with a distinctive, down-to-earth character, a thriving arts community and public parks, and a sizable progressive community, albeit with its problems and challenges like any other city.

Meanwhile, New York, the capital of American capitalism and global capitalism, has become a city that only AIG executives, hedge fund managers, art dealers, and hotshot corporate lawyers can afford. The rest are poor, strangled and struggling. This is a scenario that would make Dickens blush. Yet, this was in the works for years before the economic crisis, in a city and a nation that has witnessed the dramatically widening gap between rich and poor, via public policy. And how telling that the titans of capitalism – who have brought down Wall Street through their own unchecked greed, and have no qualms about taking their corporate stimulus welfare payments – are now fighting vigorously to kill the Employee Free Choice Act and other initiatives that would help average working New Yorkers earn a living and raise their families.

As the report notes, there are a number of things that should be done to save New York: better-paying jobs, upgrades to infrastructure, diversifying the economy to include green jobs, and utilizing community college as a path to upward mobility. And there is the need to move away from the construction of luxury developments and sports stadiums, towards building affordable homes for everyday families, people with middle incomes, and professionals.

In the end, New York City provides a reality-based cautionary tale about the future of America, mired in poverty, about its priorities, what it has become and what it can become. This city that never sleeps, and other cities as well, will experience economic and social death without a vibrant middle class and viable opportunities to earn a living.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member David A. Love, JD is a journalist and human rights advocate based in Philadelphia, and a contributor to the Progressive Media Project and McClatchy-Tribune News Service, among others. He contributed to the book, States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons (St. Martin’s Press, 2000). Love is a former Amnesty International UK spokesperson. His blog is davidalove.com.

Constant news coverage of President Barack Obama since he took office less than three months ago is warranted considering the economic crisis facing the country, panelists at a media symposium said Wednesday.

“Obama’s doing it all at once so our judgments are coming at a fast and furious rate,” New York Times columnist David Brooks said before a panel discussion called “Obama and the Press: Is the media doing its job?” at Texas Christian University.

TCU graduate Bob Schieffer, CBS News’ chief Washington correspondent and “Face the Nation” moderator, said he ran out of time for his questions during an interview with Obama recently.

Schieffer, who moderated the fifth annual Schieffer Symposium, said it reminded him “how serious the problems are that we face today, and how many different problems that this president is having to deal with.”

Mark Shields, a nationally syndicated columnist and commentator on PBS’ “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” said he didn’t feel coverage of Obama was biased.

“People are fascinated by the press because it has become a recurring theme by the opposition that he’s had too favorable of a press,” Shields said before the symposium. “I personally believe the press has a serious bias when it comes to politics in favor of winners. … If you win, you’re a genius.”

Shields reminded the crowd that Obama was an underdog when his presidential campaign started.

“I don’t think he’s getting a free ride,” he said.

Brooks said he believes the press has a subconscious liberal bias, but that “for all the adulation, I think that there’s been a level of scrutiny” on the stimulus package and problems with some of his initial Cabinet choices.

“Most reporters are motivated by a desire to get on page one” and not any political leanings, he said.

Gwen Ifill, moderator and managing editor of PBS’ “Washington Week,” said the media has been “completely overwhelmed” in covering Obama during his short time in office. She said it wasn’t a “bias as much as intensity” from voters anxious to hear about changes.

“You name it — there’s just this obsession. And so we just try to keep up by covering it,” Ifill said.

Ifill came under fire last fall when she moderated the sole vice presidential debate because she was writing a book, “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.” She said at the time that she had not written her chapter on Obama, and the book was not released until his inauguration in January.

In a discussion this past week on FOX News, commentators expressed indignation over this New York Times analysis of the roots of the financial crisis. The FOX commentators’ beef? The article failed to mention the role of liberals, government intervention and the pernicious effects of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Originally passed in 1977 and expanded, in part, during the 1990s, the purpose of the CRA was to compel banks to expand opportunities for home-ownership for lower income Americans, including minorities. During the just-concluded presidential campaign, as the economic crisis mushroomed into a catastrophe, the CRA became a central element in a right-wing narrative about the sub-prime meltdown, the bursting of the housing bubble and the larger crisis. Desperately trying to deflect responsibility from their own blind fealty to the power of unfettered and unregulated markets, conservatives used the CRA to argue that liberal do-gooderism, government interference in otherwise always well-functioning markets and forced lending to irresponsible minority home-buyers were the real roots of the crash.

And, as Media Matters reported this past week, FOX News is still trying to push this bogus narrative despite the fact that it has been thoroughly debunked. Since we are likely to continue hearing it, below are five points (with plenty of links if you’re interested) to help parry conservative nonsense about the collapse of the housing bubble, its origins and its connection to the current economic collapse.

1) 1) The vast majority of subprime loans were originated by institutions not subject to CRA oversight. In other words, the vast majority of subprime loans were issued by financial institutions that had one over-riding incentive to make these loans – they were the most profitable.

But, don’t take it from me. Take if from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, appointed by President Bush to replace Alan Greenspan in 2006. In a letter to Senator Robert Menendez on November 19, Bernanke wrote: “Our own experience with CRA over more than 30 years and recent analysis of available data, including data on subprime loan performance, runs counter to the charge that CRA was at the root of, or otherwise contributed in any substantive way to, the current mortgage difficulties.”

For a thorough analysis of the flaws in this argument, see the Congressional testimony by Eric Stein, of the Durham-based organization Center for Responsible Lending (especially pp. 26-30).

I2I 2) If you add up to the total value of all subprime loans, not just those in default, but all of them, the figure you get is about $1.5 trillion. That’s a lot, but it’s a relatively small fraction of the many trillions of dollars of now bad mortgage-fueled securities. According to journalist and former Wall Street Banker Nomi Prins: “Subprime mortgages have been blamed for the financial crisis, but we’re spending more than five times more money (in Fed loans, injections, bailouts and guarantees) than the value of every subprime loan in the country combined.”

So, not only is CRA not a cause of the subprime meltdown, but the subprime meltdown itself is only a relatively small part of a much larger real estate bubble whose bursting is a key reason for the current economic crisis.

(For a good dissection of the mortgage feeding frenzy as it played out at the now failed Washington Mutual, see this New York Times article).

And, here’s a great analysis about the “boiler room” mentality more generally, how it drove that feeding frenzy and the business press’ failure to report it.

3) Sub-prime mortgages actually governed by CRA did relatively well in the current crisis – the rate of loan default in CRA-generated mortgages is much lower than the national average. That’s a hard piece of data to accept when you’re trying to spin a familiar yarn of liberal social policy in cahoots with irresponsible poor people screwing it up for everybody else. But for understanding reality, it’s important to keep in mind. According to the CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Janet Yellen, “studies have shown that the CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households”

4) 4) Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were followers, not leaders.

This is worth keeping in mind because a key part of the right-wing effort to obfuscate the true source of the current economic crisis is to blame those two (formerly) quasi governmental institutions. But it was a lack of regulation at those two institutions that contributed to their serious problems and they, in any event, were not leaders in the mortgage-security frenzy that helped take down the economy – they were followers – trailing the private institutions that were most aggressively pushing mortgages and their securitization in the critical 2002 to 2007 period.

5) 5) The subprime crisis has hit minority homeowners, particularly Blacks, especially hard, as greedy lending institutions did sell bad loans using unsavory sales pitches as aggressively as they could to the most vulnerable borrowers. They didn’t do this because of CRA, whose regulations make such conniving loan practices much harder to pull off or because of larger government mandates to make sure that minorities became home-owners, regardless of their means. Financial institutions pushed bad mortgages because an insatiable appetite for ever-greater profits in a nearly regulation-free lending environment allowed them to.

In nearly every way imaginable, the current economic crisis is a devastating blow to the Reaganite fantasy about unfettered markets. But right-wingers have grasped desperately for a straw man comprised of their favorite bogeymen – liberal social policy, poor people, minorities and ACORN (the right’s favorite new bogeyman). Basic facts are an important tool for tearing apart that straw man.

The Senate this week is expected to take up a bill, already passed by the House, that would extend unemployment insurance checks for up to 13 additional weeks for jobless people whose benefits have run out. The Senate vote could occur as early as Thursday evening and would require support from 60 senators to pass.

White House press secretary Dana Perino, discussing the worsening economic environment, said Bush is “always concerned” when people lose their jobs and is eager to help.

More than 1.2 million jobs have been lost so far this year and the civilian jobless rate is at a 14-year high of 6.5 percent of the labor force.

The White House earlier had threatened to veto a much broader, $61 billion stimulus bill that included aid to help states maintain Medicaid benefits and new spending for public works projects, in addition to the jobless benefit extension.

Bush’s advisers had taken no position on the stand-alone jobless benefits bill costing about $6 billion, other than to say they were firmly opposed to Democratic efforts this week to combine it with a $25 billion bailout of the auto industry that would be drawn from the financial rescue package.

Republicans blocked Senate consideration of the unemployment aid bill in October, but that was before a nearly quarter million additional layoffs that month. The Senate vote occurs at a time when the economy is taking its worst beating in a quarter century.

“The recent financial and credit crisis has slowed the economy, and it’s having an impact on job creation,” Perino said. “The president is always concerned when anybody loses their job and wants to ensure that anybody who wants to work can find employment.”

Perino’s statement came after the Labor Department reported that claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to the highest level since July 1992 when the U.S. economy was emerging from a recession. The report provided more evidence of a rapidly weakening job market that expected to get even worse next year.

The House bill would provide seven additional weeks of payments to those who have exhausted their benefits. Those in states where the unemployment rate is above 6 percent would be entitled to an additional 13 weeks above the 26 weeks of regular benefits. The benefit checks average about $300 a week nationwide.

Without the legislation, the authors say, 1.1 million people will have exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits by the end of the year.

Congress has enacted federally funded extensions seven times in the past 50 years during economic slumps — in 1958, 1961, 1972, 1975, 1982, 1991 and 2002.

The House also voted in June to extend unemployment benefits for three months, but that bill stalled in the face of opposition from Senate Republicans and a White House veto threat.

The Bush administration contends that past extensions occurred only when the unemployment rate was considerably higher and that it was fiscally irresponsible to provide extra benefits in states with low unemployment.

Unemployment insurance is a joint program between states and the federal government that is almost completely funded by employer taxes, either state or federal.

Republican John McCain says he’s directing his staff to work with Barack Obama’s campaign and the debate commission to delay Friday’s debate because of the economic crisis.

In a statement, McCain says he will stop campaigning after addressing former President Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative session on Thursday and return to Washington to focus on the nation’s financial problems.

McCain also said he wants President Bush to convene a leadership meeting in Washington. Both he and Obama would attend the session.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain met Wednesday with a panel of business executives to seek their opinions on the Bush administration’s proposed 0 million bailout of U.S. financial markets.

McCain said he wanted to discuss “how we can make sure that the American people regain confidence on Main Street so that they can regain their confidence in Wall Street and in Washington.”

McCain renewed his insistence that the bailout deal have greater transparency, oversight and CEO accountability to make it acceptable to voters.

“Most Americans feel very strongly this isn’t their fault. It’s Wall Street and Washington and the cozy insider relationships that have caused a great part of the problems,” he said.

Flanking McCain were former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, his one-time rival for the GOP presidential nomination, and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Others in the meeting were John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, and John Thain, the CEO of Merrill Lynch before it was acquired by Bank of America earlier this month for a much-reduced value.

A survey by The Associated Press found that Thain was the best-paid corporate executive in the U.S. in 2007, receiving approximately .1 million in salary and bonuses that year.

McCain has stated repeatedly that the bailout package should not allow large payouts, called “golden parachutes,” for executives at failing firms like Merrill Lynch. Asked whether he believed the panel of business titans agreed with him on that principle, McCain said, “I think this group of people are as knowledgeable on the financial status of America as any group of Americans that I can find.”

McCain planned to meet later Wednesday with foreign leaders in town for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. His running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, was set to join him in a meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko.

McCain was also scheduled to meet with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and with Bono, the lead singer of U2 and an activist on global poverty and AIDS. He was scheduled to tape an appearance on “Late Night with David Letterman.”

McCain scheduled a session with Lady Lynn de Rothschild, a former supporter and fundraiser for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential run who announced last week that she was supporting McCain.