The Obama team and Democrats are acknowledging that an economic stimulus plan equal to 4%-5% of US GDP is needed.  In other words 500-700 Billion dollars are needed for investing toward infrastructure as a means of creating jobs to stimulate the economy.

If there is anything of value that we may have learned from the previous local discourse on the global economic crises I would hope that it is: it is healthy to read between the lines of the national discourse mainstream setting media (i.e. NPR, The New York Times, CNN, and all mainstream corporate media to the right of these). 

Before taking another message and echoing and parroting again, lets take stock of where the financial bailout has put us.

I am new to this Internet community and surprised that there appears to be no conversation about human service needs or human service programs  in Orange County. We certainly seem to have many examples of both.

Last month Orange County government sponsored a day long retreat for the directors of all non-profit human service agencies that receive partial funding from the County. The purpose of the event was to facilitate discussion among non-profit leaders regarding the impact of the economic downturn on the non-profit sector and on the people it serves. The organizers hoped that non-profit leaders would discover new ways to anticipate future challenges and to collaborate on common goals. The meeting was facilitated by experts from the UNC School of Government.

While I was out (since the last post) this email appeared in my email box. 

The country has been getting ransacked over the last couple of weeks.  On August 4th 2008  both houses of congress (Rep. David Price included) sanctioned  H.R. 3221 and the conservatorship of Fannie and Freddie  essentially saddeling the U.S. government with 5.4 trillion in debt that it is now responsible for!!! 

Had we had a debate and expressed the outrage over this back then, gone into the streets banging our pots and pans .... the latest outrage, the  proposed bail-out bill, would now be something that our Congressman David Price might think twice about before voting  ...  we should have broken down his door back in August!

The very wise, prophetic, yet ignored,  Catherine Austin Fitts has summed this bill up:

With the fate of the transfer tax not even decided, CH town manager Roger Stancil is already calling for an 11% tax rate hike for Chapel Hill. He warns that property tax rate increases of 3 to 10 cents (per $100 valuation) will not be uncommon in local jurisdictions. (And my guess is that this is a trend that will continue for the forseeable future. )

http://tinyurl.com/45cqlc

The CH Herald reports that Somerhill Gallery's lease has been terminated: Owner Joe Rowand received a notice that his lease was being terminated by center owner Federal Realty two weeks ago. "There was no rationale given," Rowand said Tuesday of the notice, which gave him 45 days to vacate the location. "It was a three-paragraph notice of termination. If you dig deeper, there are other merchants here that have been told they are not being renewed."

Is the implication that Federal Realty, having upgraded the mall area, now wants to churn the tenant population to charge higher rent? Anyone know any thing about this? Aside from my own admiration of Somerhill and my feeling that it's an asset to both mall and town, I have to wonder about efforts to change the nature of Eastgate in a volatile and perhaps failing economy. Has Federal Realty not noticed the unoccupied spaces on Franklin St. and University Mall?