construction

We learned all too late about the disaster brewing in domestic real estate that helped destroy our economy the first time around. Now, the city is dotted with new commercial buildings standing empty, no one can afford to rent them. GRITtv took a trip around the city to look into the reasons why we're building huge towers--and how we can get better at matching the allocation of resources with need. Distributed by Tubemogul.

Amidst all the hullabaloo over the health care bill in the past week, President Obama quietly signed the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act, otherwise known as the HIRE Act or the jobs bill. But is the bill, mostly a collection of temporary corporate tax breaks, really going to put people to work--or will it bypass those most in need, often communities of color and urban residents? Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Nation columnist and Princeton professor, and Judith Browne-Dianis, executive director of The Advancement Project, join us to discuss jobs, race, and whether the White House has already missed some big opportunities. Continuing the theme of jobs and work for those worst off, veteran journalist and professor Dick Reavis joined Laura in studio recently. Reavis had done day labor in his younger days, but when his pension from teaching didn't cover costs, he went back to work, taking a reporter's skills and turning his experience into a book. Catching Out: The Secret World of Day Laborers tells the story of Reavis's experiences in day labor halls doing all sorts of odd jobs, and looks at the people who often get stuck doing day labor--the bottom of the workforce, as he notes. Last weekend, Rev. Jesse Jackson came to New York to speak at the Left Forum. While he was there, he took some time to chat with Laura about the health care bill--now the health care reform law--and the forces fighting against it. The veteran of the civil rights movement told us, "The way not to be marginalized is to be in the streets."

Guest host Esther Armah is joined by Rosalind McLymont and and Akiba Solomon to  discuss Black History Month and Raina Kelley's Newsweek piece, The Nation's piece on the media-lobbying complex, and Ishmael Reed's New York Times op-ed about the film Precious. In the Kurdish region of Iraq, the people faced horrendous atrocities under Saddam Hussein, including in some villages the murder of nearly all men and boys. The Kurdish women, however, have been rebuilding and redefining their roles. A film by Mary Ann Smothers Bruni looks at three women who are working to strengthen their region and their nation. "No one could've seen this coming." We heard that line over and over again as the economy crumbled around our ears. Yet many people DID see it coming, and Dean Baker was one of them. Co-Director of the Center for Economic And Policy Research, blogger at Beat the Press, and author of a new book, False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy, Baker is in studio to explain the causes of the crisis, the reasons the stimulus wasn't big enough, and why Ben Bernanke should've been fired, not reconfirmed. Yesterday, we aired the first part of activist and author Herb Boyd's recent trip to Haiti. Here is part 2 of "Haiti's Cri de Coeur" or "Cry from the Heart." Thanks to Free Speech TV for the video. Finally, in a video from Street Films, we take a bike ride to work with Mayor Mike McGinn of Seattle.