Carla Marinucci takes a look at how the four major statewide candidates would create jobs and, although she provides a good discussion of the details, her article seems to miss the bigger picture.

Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina's approach to job creation is quite different from that of Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer. These differences have a number of aspects, but can be boiled down to this:

Brown/Boxer believe that the government has a clear role to play in creating jobs by providing by investing in both working people and in creating the 21st century infrastructure they need to prosper - whereas Whitman/Fiorina believe mass unemployment and further concentration of wealth in the hands of the small elite that already dominate the economy will provide "growth," even at the expense of our basic social and physical infrastructure.

Here's how Marinucci describes the Whitman/Fiorina approach:

Republicans Whitman and Fiorina, two former CEOs, decry what they say has been California's unfriendly business climate and call AB32 a job killer. They emphasize tax cuts and regulatory reforms to help small and large businesses and argue that they have direct experience creating jobs.

Both Whitman and Fiorina are calling for voodoo economics tax cuts - slashing capital gains and other taxes for the wealthy in the belief, in spite of the evidence, that this will create jobs. In fact, all it will do is fuel the collapse that is starting to occur, especially since Whitman and Fiorina both oppose new government spending and have pledged to make deeper cuts to core government services.

They both also pledge mass layoffs, a tool they employed at their own companies to try and produce more profit. In Fiorina's case it failed; in Whitman's case the success is more uneven. Either way, in a state with over 12% unemployment, mass layoffs - whether of public or private workers - is an extremely bad and reckless idea.

Further, both Whitman and Fiorina believe we should actively undermine efforts to position California for the 21st century economy. Whitman doesn't want to fund the high speed rail project and like Fiorina believes that action on climate change, which creates and sustains a green jobs economy, is bad - both preferring to instead prop up the failed 20th century economy and the oil companies that are vehemently opposed to new innovation.

In contrast, Brown and Boxer both prefer to invest in working Californians and in the infrastructure and policies needed to spur a 21st century economy. As Marinucci describes it:

Democrats Brown and Boxer argue for green-tech and clean-energy jobs that they say represent California's best hope for employment for decades to come.

They say their government experience is a plus. Brown said he put Californians to work in his two terms as governor as the state led the way in alternative energy. Boxer touts her efforts to secure funding and jobs for major projects such as BART extensions, and her co-authorship of legislation to give small businesses more access to credit, capital and tax advantages.

There's more to it than just that, of course. Boxer voted for the stimulus and to extend unemployment benefits, both of which have helped many Californians avoid the worst during this long recession - whereas Fiorina has said she opposes both and would have done nothing at all to help the unemployed and the suffering, instead focusing her efforts on making the rich richer.

Jerry Brown's jobs plan is fundamentally oriented around positioning California for the 21st century, pledging to accelerate development of clean technologies from solar panels to high speed rail, while ensuring our schools have the support and resources they need.

The choice this November could not possibly be clearer. Whitman and Fiorina are determined to channel even more wealth and power to their CEO friends, at the expense of the jobs and prosperity the rest of us desperately need. Brown and Boxer are proposing to continue investing in us and in our infrastructure so that California is well-positioned for the 21st century.

San Francisco Mayor and California Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor Gavin Newsom is no stranger to adversity. He grew up in a single-parent household where he pulled his weight to help make ends meet and in school he struggled with a profound learning disability. Gavin’s upbringing instilled in him a strong work ethic coupled with an intimate understanding of some of today’s most complex social and economic issues. Above all, the obstacles that Gavin faced growing up taught him to live his life with confidence and optimism-two attributes that he strives each day to help his constituents find within themselves.

Contrary to popular belief, Gavin Christopher Newsom was not born and raised in a world of wealth and privilege. His mother, Tessa Newsom gave birth to Gavin in San Francisco when she was eighteen and to his sister Hilary when she was twenty. Gavin’s mother (who died in 2002 after a five year battle with breast cancer) and his father, Judge William Newsom, who lived together in Cole Valley and the Marina District of San Francisco, separated when Gavin was two and divorced when Gavin was just five years old. After the divorce, Gavin was raised by his mother in Corte Madera and Larkspur, California, where she worked hard at three jobs (secretary, paralegal and waitress) to support Gavin and his sister. Growing up, both Gavin and Hilary worked on the weekends as well as every summer to help their family make ends meet.The family also took in several foster children over the course of Gavin’s childhood. Gavin has  said that “I have always understood you can’t take things for granted. You have to fight hard every day” and he credits his mother with being a “model of that, of sacrifice and hard work.”

From his father, Gavin learned about the complicated world of politics. Judge Newsom is good friends with the Getty family and has familial ties to the Pelosi family. In 1975 then-governor (and current Democratic nominee for governor) Jerry Brown appointed Judge Newsom to the Superior Court of Placer County and later to the State Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Unlike his powerful friends, however, Judge Newsom did not have much money due to what Gavin refers to as Judge Newsom’s “extraordinary selflessness.” Gavin recalls that his father “helped more people financially, people in need to a degree that is unimaginable to me.” As a child Gavin did spend time with the Getty’s, going with them on exotic vacations which exposed Gavin to a totally different environment than the one he knew at home with his mother and sister. Gavin has said that his mother “had a way of not making us feel privileged. If we had the privilege of going on a summer trip with the Getty family, we would come back and my mother would remind us real quick: ‘That was great, but here’s reality.’ ” These experiences traveling between two drastically different worlds caused Gavin to become sensitive to the stark differences between the lives of  those who have plenty and those who do not.   Read More »

Carla Marinucci and Lance Williams have a long and in-depth article today on Meg Whitman's connections to reviled investment banking house Goldman Sachs, which has played a leading role in the European debt crisis and is accused of being at the center of asset bubbles and their subsequent crashes.

The article goes into depth on both Whitman's time on the Goldman Sachs board in 2001-02, relations between eBay and Goldman Sachs, and Goldman Sachs' role in state bond issuances. An excerpt:

From 1998 to 2002, while she was CEO of eBay, Whitman helped steer millions of dollars of her company's investment banking business to Goldman, court records show.

In 2001, Goldman put Whitman on its corporate board, paying her an estimated $475,000 for little more than a year of part-time service. The company also gave her insider access to the initial public offerings of hot stocks worth millions, according to the records.

Whitman left the board in 2002 after she was singled out in a congressional probe of bond underwriters and "spinning" - a financial maneuver, now banned, in which Goldman and other firms allegedly traded access to hot IPOs for bond business. Whitman later settled a shareholder lawsuit related to profits she and other execs made from buying the IPOs.

In recent years, Whitman has kept part of her fortune, estimated by Forbes magazine to be $1.2 billion, in investment funds managed by Goldman, her financial disclosure report indicates. For her campaign, she's received $105,500 in donations from Goldman executives, state records show.

But it's not just that Whitman has ties to GS, from serving on its board to raking in campaign contributions from them. Goldman Sachs has been implicated in urging bets against California bonds it helped to sell. The firm basically was advising clients to profit off of the state's budget crisis, driving up the cost of borrowing and potentially contributing to the state's cash flow problems in the spring of 2009.

State bonds are big business for Goldman Sachs, and can only be expected to grow if Whitman gets elected. Her campaign pledge to increase the budget deficit through higher taxes will lead to a greater reliance on bond debt to fund programs, unless Whitman plans to destroy those programs in their entirety and never spend another dime on infrastructure. Although the state treasurer has the key role in selling the bonds, the governor appoints members of key commissions overseeing these sales.

Meg Whitman represents the Goldman Sachs "vampire squid" approach to governance, extracting wealth for the elite by pillaging public services and picking the pockets of taxpayers. This has been going on under Arnold Schwarzenegger, but would likely rise to a new level under Whitman, who further plans to reward Goldman Sachs and their investors by eliminating the state's capital gains tax, regardless of the cost.

Jerry Brown has his own familial connections to Goldman Sachs - his sister Kathleen Brown, former state treasurer and candidate for governor in 1994, serves as a vice president for Goldman Sachs in LA. But Brown himself has no ties to Goldman Sachs and owns no Goldman stock, according to the Marinucci and Williams article.

Jerry Brown has already been staking out a position as a populist critic of Wall Street, as seen on a memorable CNBC appearance last October. Whitman's Goldman Sachs ties do indeed make for an important campaign issue, one that Brown would do well to exploit.

After all, one of the key political and economic needs this country faces is to get the vampire squid of Goldman Sachs off our backs. If Brown is willing to lead the charge, he would find many Californians willing to back him in doing so.

California's leading politicians jumped all over themselves to become environmental leaders, right on schedule as Earth Day has come and gone once again. Mayors Gavin Newsom and Antonio Villaraigosa offered bold new initiatives at the local level as State Attorney General, Jerry Brown challenges federal regulation which would limit the state's global warming policy.   Read More »