Patt Morrison for Tuesday, August 3, 2010

PATT MORRISON SCHEDULE

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

1-3 p.m.

 

CALL-IN @ 866-893-5722, 866-893-KPCC; OR JOIN THE CONVERSATION ONLINE ON THE PATT MORRISON BLOG AT KPCC-DOT-ORG

 

 

1:06 – 1:19

OPEN

 

 

1:30 - 1:58:30

Looking ahead to a new consumer protection bureau and a world where company profits DON’T = more jobs

Despite last week’s second-quarter reports, showing corporate profits are up and big business has recovered almost 90% of what it lost in the recession, one would expect American corporations to create more jobs.  But they aren’t.  Economist Robert Reich says it’s for three reasons: companies are moving production overseas; they’re investing in labor-saving technologies; and they’re spending their impressive profits to buy back their stock from American taxpayers, all the while pushing up share prices.  Bottom line: maybe we’re in an era where higher corporate profits don’t correlate with higher employment.  A lack of new jobs means a lack of consumer confidence and all this sets the backdrop for the Obama administration’s very public debate over who should lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), charged with writing and enforcing consumer-protection rules on products ranging from mortgages to credit cards.  Liberal Democrats are pushing for Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren, who opponents see as too activist-y, while Republicans want someone they see as more neutral, like FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair.  What can the CFPB do to bolster consumer confidence if higher profits no longer mean higher employment? And how much will that be determined by who leads it?

 

Guests:

Robert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and former Labor Secretary during the Clinton Administration

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TBD:  Representative from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

 

2:06 – 2:30

Make less, pay more? Why do residents in L.A.’s poorest cities pay the highest property taxes?

It makes perfect sense--residents of working class cities with median household incomes below $50,000 should pay their elected officials six figure salaries and shell out more in property taxes.  Take the city of Bell, for example, their city manager gets an annual salary of $800,000, and the residents pay the second-highest property tax rate in the county.  Well it may be counterintuitive but a new L.A. County audit finds that it’s true.  The report shows that residents of Compton, El Monte and Inglewood pay some of the highest property taxes in the county, while people who live in Manhattan Beach, Rancho Palos Verdes and Rolling Hills pay some of the lowest.   How are property rates set and what do residents in some of the poorest cities in the county get for their money?

 

Guests:

TBD

 

 

2:30 – 2:39

OPEN

 

 

2:41 – 2:58:30

Dark days revisited—Grim Sleeper case brings back bad memories of South L.A. in the ‘80’s

The arrest of the Grim Sleeper, the serial killer who prayed on prostitutes in South L.A. for most of the 1980’s, brought back bad memories for a part of L.A. that had been plagued with drug-fueled lawlessness in the darkest days of the 80’s.  Plagued by the crack cocaine epidemic, witness to the rise of powerful streets gangs and mired in joblessness, South L.A. in the 1980’s was a bad place to live—on top of all of that it is also thought that there were at least five serial killers working the South L.A. streets for most of that decade.  We take a look back at a dark chapter of Los Angeles history and see if things have changed since the Grim Sleeper committed his first murder to when he was arrested last month.

 

Guests:

Andrew Blankstein, reporter for the Los Angeles Times

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Jonathan Serviss

Producer, Patt Morrison Program

Southern California Public Radio

NPR Affiliate for Los Angeles

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626.583.5171, office

415.497.2131, mobile

jserviss@kpcc.org / jserviss@scpr.org

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