Obama Series

Transcript: President Obama’s Speech on the Economy, Excerpts

April 14, 2009

A future where prosperity is fueled not by excessive debt, reckless speculation, and fleeing profit, but is instead built by skilled, productive workers; by sound investments that will spread opportunity at home and allow this nation to lead the world in the technologies, innovations, and discoveries that will shape the 21st century.

The first step was to fight a severe shortage of demand in the economy. The Federal Reserve did this by dramatically lowering interest rates last year in order to boost investment.

In addition to the program to provide capital to the banks, we have launched a plan that will pair government resources with private investment.

New investments in education that will make our workforce more skilled and competitive; new investments in renewable energy and technology that will create new jobs and industries; new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses; and new savings in our federal budget that will bring down the debt for future generations.

The first step we will take to build this foundation is to reform the outdated rules and regulations that allowed this crisis to happen in the first place. Rules that protect typical American families when they buy a home, get a credit card or invest in a 401k.

We are investing in innovative programs that have proven to help schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps.

If businesses and entrepreneurs know today that we are closing this carbon pollution loophole, they will start investing in clean energy now. And pretty soon, we’ll see more companies constructing solar panels, and workers building wind turbines, and car companies manufacturing fuel-efficient cars. Investors will put some money into a new energy technology, and a small business will open to start selling it.

That’s why our Recovery Act will invest in electronic health records with strict privacy standards that will save money and lives. We’ve also made the largest investment ever in preventive care,

Each policy we pursue is driven by a larger vision of America’s future – a future where sustained economic growth creates good jobs and rising incomes.

Whether we like it or not, history has repeatedly shown that when nations do not take early and aggressive action to get credit flowing again, they have crises that last years and years instead of months and months – years of low growth, low job creation, and low investment that cost those nations far more than a course of bold, upfront action.

The truth is that a dollar of capital in a bank can actually result in eight or ten dollars of loans to families and businesses, a multiplier effect that can ultimately lead to a faster pace of economic growth.

We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity – a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest; where we consume less at home and send more exports abroad.

It’s a foundation built upon five pillars that will grow our economy and make this new century another American century.

In the 20th century, the GI Bill sent a generation to college, and for decades, we led the world in education and economic growth.

We are putting Americans to work making our homes and buildings more efficient so that we can save billions on our energy bills and grow our economy at the same time.

That’s how we can grow this economy, enhance our security, and protect our planet at the same time.

And many Americans are simply wondering how all of our different programs and policies fit together in a single, overarching strategy that will move this economy from recession to recovery and ultimately to prosperity.

Recessions are not uncommon. Markets and economies naturally ebb and flow, as we have seen many times in our history. But this recession is different. This recession was not caused by a normal downturn in the business cycle.

Because the infected securities were being traded worldwide and other nations also had weak regulations, this recession soon became global.

And to cushion the blow of this recession, we also provided extended unemployment benefits and continued health care coverage to Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

To begin with, economists on both the left and right agree that the last thing a government should do in the middle of a recession is to cut back on spending. You see, when this recession began, many families sat around their kitchen table and tried to figure out where they could cut back.

To coordinate a global response to this global recession, I went to the meeting of the G20 nations in London the other week.

The severity of this recession will cause more job loss, more foreclosures, and more pain before it ends.

And even after we emerge from the current recession, these challenges will still represent major obstacles that stand in the way of our success in the 21st century.

This coffee series excerpts heavily from Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast, 1999, Harvard, investigative journalist, and independent scholar, also the author of For God, Country, and Coca-Cola, excerpted in the Coca-Cola Series. Coffee is a global industry that is rich in history and conflict, defining much of the recent history of Central America and Brazil. Coffee is so desired that it may have been, and could still become, a form of money. For coffee lovers, Uncommon Grounds is a fascinating read.

Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast, 1999, Excerpts

Coffee has assumed a social meaning that goes far beyond the simple black brew in the cup. The worldwide coffee culture is more than a culture – it is a cult. Starbucks outlets populate every street corner, vying for space with other coffeehouses and chains. A good cup of coffee can turn the worst day tolerable, provide an all-important moment of contemplation, and rekindle romance. And yet, poetic as its taste may be, coffee’s history is rife with controversy and politics. 

Beginning as a medicinal drink for the elite, coffee became the favored modern stimulant of the blue-collar worker during his break, the gossip started in middle-class kitchens, the romantic binder for wooing couples, and the sole, bitter companion of the lost soul. Coffeehouses have provided places to plan revolutions, write poetry, do business, and meet friends. The drink became such an intrinsic part of Western culture that it has seeped into an incredible number of popular songs.

Coffee provides one fascinating thread, stitching together the disciplines of history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, medicine, and business, and offering a way to follow the interactions that have formed a global economy.

Coffee. May you enjoy its convoluted history over many cups.

Coffee Origins - Dancing Goats

Caffeine

Coffee Attributes

Coffee Series

Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast, 1999, Excerpts

The coffee industry has dominated and molded the economy, politics, and social structure of entire countries. On the one hand, its monocultural avatar has led to the oppression and land dispossession on indigenous peoples, the abandoning of subsistence agriculture in favor of exports, over reliance on foreign markets, destruction of the rain forest, and environmental degradation. On the other hand, coffee has provided an essential cash crop for struggling family farmers, the basis for national industrialization and modernization, a model of organic production and fair trade, and a valuable habitat for migratory birds.

Coffee is inextricably bound up in a history of inequity in which the haves took from the have nots. The drink, primarily a stimulant that helps keep the industrialized world alert, is grown in regions that know how to enjoy a siesta. There is no question that coffee laborers have been oppressed in the past; even now they are being murdered by paramilitary groups in Chiapas.

The coffee economy itself is not directly responsible for social unrest and repression; we should not confuse a correlation with a cause. Inequities and frustrations built into the economic system nonetheless exacerbate conflicts. Compared with many other products developed countries demand in cheap quantity, however, coffee is relatively benign. Laboring of banana, sugar, or cotton plantations or sweating in gold and diamond mines and oil refineries is far worse.

The inescapable irony of the coffee industry is that the vast majority of those who perform these repetitive tasks work in the most beautiful places on earth, with tropical volcanic peaks as backdrop in a climate controlled heaven. Most live in abject poverty without plumbing, electricity, medical care, or nutritious foods. The coffee they prepare travels halfway around the world and lands on breakfast tables, offices, and upscale coffee bars of the United States, Europe, Japan, and other developed countries, where cosmopolitan consumers routinely pay half a day’s Third World wages for a good cup of coffee.

Coffee Series

Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast, 1999, Excerpts

Caffeine is the most widely taken psychoactive drug on earth, and coffee is its foremost delivery system. “Coffee causes an excessive state of brain-excitation which becomes manifest by a remarkable loquaciousness sometimes accompanied by accelerated association of ideas.” – Lewis Lewin, Phantastica: Narcotic and Stimulating Drugs, 1931.

Caffeine doesn’t keep us awake in a positive sense – it just blocks the natural mental brake, preventing adenosine from making us drowsy. Experts in fact don’t agree on much when it comes to coffee and caffeine intake, partly because individuals exhibit remarkably different reactions Some people are wired for hours with a mere sip; others can drink a double espresso right before falling into a sound sleep. Thus, every coffee lover should determine his or her level of comfortable consumption, preferably no more two or three cups a day.

Although some bugs and fungi adapt to any chemical, it is quite likely that plants contain caffeine because it affects the nervous system of would-be customers, discouraging them from eating it. Of course, that is precisely the attraction of the human animal.

Caffeine causes the heart to beat more rapidly, constricts some blood vessels, and causes certain muscles to contract more easily. People with high blood pressure, as well as those with insomnia and anxiety disorders, should consult their physician about their caffeine intake.

At the same time, however, it can relax the airways of the lungs and open other types of blood vessels. Caffeine can help those who suffer from asthma and is given to infants suffering from neonatal apnea [cessation of spontaneous breathing]. Some adults with allergies find that caffeine allays symptoms. It can mitigate the pain of migraine headaches though withdrawal causes other headaches. For those who need diuretic or laxative, coffee provides relief. Some studies even commend the drink’s use as an antidepressant to prevent suicide.

Caffeine has been shown to increase sperm motility, so it may prove useful in artificial insemination programs though others fear it may harm the sperm while speeding it on its way. Combined with analgesics such as aspirin, caffeine appears to help alleviate pain. It may have therapeutic potential for some cancers, though evidence is weak. While coffee often is accused of providing no nutrition, it provides minute traces of potassium magnesium and manganese. Because it raises the metabolic rate, it may help with dieting, but the effect is slight. Like Ritalin, caffeine has a paradoxical effect on hyperactive children with attention-deficit disorder: letting such children drink coffee seems to calm them down. Caffeine is a diuretic, and small amounts of calcium float away in the urine, leading to concern over possible bone loss.

Many doctors have expressed concern about pregnant and nursing women who drink coffee. Caffeine readily passes through the placental barrier to the fetus, and it turns breast milk into a kind of natural latte. Because premature infants lack the liver enzymes to break down caffeine, it stays in their systems much longer. Research has failed to prove that caffeine harms the fetus or breastfed infants, but recent studies appear to implicate caffeine in lower lightweights. By the time they are six months old, most children eliminate caffeine at the same rate as adults, with a bloodstream half-life of around five hours.

Surprisingly, there is little evidence that caffeine harms children, despite widespread belief that it stunts growth, ruins health, and so. Like adults, however, children are subjects to withdrawal symptoms – from soft drink derivation more frequently than from coffee.

Caffeine Molecule