Meg Whitman's Nannygate. Former Secretary of Labor and author Robert Reich on America's economic future. President Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel announces he's stepping down on Friday. Connecting LA's trains. What to do with all that free time provided by techno gadgets, and the lastest news.
Whitman’s undocumented housekeeper: did Meg know and does it matter?
A woman who worked as a housekeeper for Meg Whitman has filed a lawsuit alleging that not only did Whitman know she was an illegal immigrant, but she mistreated her and owes back wages. Controversial media-savvy attorney Gloria Allred is representing Nicandra Diaz Santillan. In a news conference in Allred’s office, Diaz Santillan said Whitman ignored a 2003 letter from the Social Security Administration informing her that the employee’s name did not match the number provided. Whitman says she only learned that Diaz Santillan was an illegal immigrant in 2009, and let her go immediately. Have you employed a person with questionable legal status? When hiring someone for a domestic job, what steps should you take to confirm his or her work eligibility? And, given Whitman’s tough stance on immigration, does this show hypocrisy on her part?
America’s economic future
In his new book Aftershock, Robert Reich details what caused the recession, why the recovery is so anemic and what awaits us if we don’t take steps to reverse the present economic trends. Professor Reich, a former Secretary of Labor under Clinton, argues that the U.S economic recovery is slow because of the record level of inequality between the rich and the poor. He contends that for the past decade, economic gains have benefited only a small fraction of America’s wealthiest and that in order to maintain purchasing power, the middle class has had to go deeply into debt, using rising home values as a convenient ATM. Now that those values have plummeted, Reich says citizens feel angry, anxious and disenfranchised. What is Robert Reich’s prescription for our ailing economy? Re-examine our fundamental principles and create a greater safety net for the middle class.
Guest:
Robert Reich, author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future. He is the former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, and current Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.
Rahm Emanuel to step down Friday
President Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is expected to step down Friday in order to begin a campaign for the mayor's race in Chicago. Obama's chief of staff for his tenure in the Senate, Pete Rouse, is expected to be named as Emanuel's successor.
Guest:
Peter Nicholas, White House correspondent for the Tribune Washington Bureau, which serves the LA Times, Chicago Tribune and other papers
Connecting all of LA’s trains
Take a light rail train from Pasadena, and the farthest west you can get is Alameda Street, east of downtown. Ditto if you take a train from the Eastside Extension. Take a train from Long Beach, or, in another few years, from Santa Monica, and you face the same problem in reverse: the farthest east you can get is Flower Street. That means someone going from Pasadena to Long Beach has to take three different trains just to get across downtown. There’s got to be a better way. And there is—at least on paper. It’s called the “regional connector”: a two-mile track through downtown that would let trains run directly from Pasadena or Boyle Heights to Santa Monica or Long Beach. The question: where and how to build it? Metro is currently holding public meetings to discuss routes. The first one was Tuesday at the Japanese American National Museum. The next one is Monday, Oct. 4th, at 11:30 am at the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters.
Guest:
Steve Hymon, former transportation reporter for the Los Angeles Times
Clay Shirky on the free-time revolution
Internet guru Clay Shirky doesn’t care what’s on TV. Just how much time Americans waste watching it – about 200 billion hours collectively, every year. But there is a quiet revolution taking place. For the first time, young people are watching less television than their elders. They’re substituting computers, mobile phones and other internet-enabled devices, and generating media instead of just consuming it. Shirky calls this change a “cognitive surplus,” a vast amount of time and talent that could be applied to shared problems and civic action. What would the world look like if more of us quit TV? Has technology given you more free time? If so, what are you doing with it?
Guest:
Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age; Professor at New York University's graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program