Tag: Economics

Wall St. Occupations

September 26, 2011: J. Rosencrantz

Inspired in part by popular uprisings in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe, the “Occupy Wall St.” has managed to maintain a presence in NY’s financial district for 10 days. Meanwhile, corporatist/nationalist “mainstream” media ignores the movement as the police brutally crack down on the non-violent mostly young protesters.

Anthropologist and Activist David Graeber (whose books I highly recommend) has an essay in the Guardian suggesting that what we are watching are “the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans” who are demanding “a conversation we were all supposed to have back in 2008″:

There was a moment, after the near-collapse of the world’s financial architecture, when anything seemed possible…

It seemed the time had come to rethink everything: the very nature of markets, money, debt; to ask what an “economy” is actually for. This lasted perhaps two weeks. Then, in one of the most colossal failures of nerve in history, we all collectively clapped our hands over our ears and tried to put things back as close as possible to the way they’d been before.

Meanwhile, members of the emerging defiant generation who take action against Wall St. crime are met, predictably, with the heavy cloven hoof of the pigs — witness this video of these peaceful young women getting corralled and pepper-spayed for daring to express their 1st Amendment Rights:

NYPD spokesliar Paul Browne asserted that this use of pepper spray was “appropriate“.

Various other coverage on the Web:

A solidarity movement is starting to manifest in Los Angeles (#OccupyLA), with a demonstration planned today (Monday) at 2Pm at Santa Monica and Crescent Heights to coincide with Obama’s fundraising visit.

Local Activists are also planning an occupation of Downtown beginning October 1.

Capitulations

August 8, 2011: J. Rosencrantz

With the recent capitulation in the face of small government, “free-market” ideologues, Obama continues in the grand tradition of corporate spokesliars like Ronald Reagan, who use popularly endearing personalities as cover for regressive transferals of wealth.

Nothing encapsulates the subservience of these U.S. Presidents to their corporate financiers like the moment, captured in a brilliant segment of M. Moore’s Capitalism, in which then-chairman of Merrill Lynch literally whispers directives into Reagan’s ear.

Reagan went on to preside over the “wholesale dismantling of our industrial infrastructure” for the “sake of short term profits.”

Reagan began with the evisceration of the labor unions, infamously firing every member of the air traffic controllers union after they had been on strike for two days. Moore identifies this moment as “The Day the Middle Class Died“.

But he lays ultimate responsibility for the calamity not on Reagan or his puppet-masters — they were just looking after their own interests after all  — but on the lack of solidarity among the other labor unions who refused to fight:

The biggest organization of unions in America told its members to cross the picket lines of the air traffic controllers and go to work. And that’s just what these union members did. Union pilots, flight attendants, delivery truck drivers, baggage handlers — they all crossed the line and helped to break the strike. And union members of all stripes crossed the picket lines and continued to fly.

Reagan and Wall Street could not believe their eyes! Hundreds of thousands of working people and union members endorsing the firing of fellow union members. It was Christmas in August for Corporate America.

And that was the beginning of the end. Reagan and the Republicans knew they could get away with anything — and they did.

(At MotherJones, btw, Kevin Drum looks at the numbers over the past decades to show why unions matter, not only for unionized employees but for non-unionized workers as well. The punchline: Sociological studies show that in the absence of strong labor unions, income inequality grows and the political clout of the middle class shrinks.)

Popular capitulation in the face of this rightward shift took a brief respite as a result of the outrageous excesses of the most recent Bush presidency — millions took to the streets in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, for example. And while Democratic Party leaders, fearful of not “supporting the troops”, colluded with the Bush regime at every dark step, there was at least the pretense that they stood in opposition to aggressive war, secret prisons, government surveillance and the like.  And when Bush tried to gut new deal social programs by privatizing them, the Unions, as weak as they had become relative to the decades preceding Reagan, blocked his plans.

“But since 2008 a Democratic president has neutralized all these constituencies,” laments A. Cockburn at Counterpunch.

Indeed, those to the left of pro-war free-market ideologues who run this country have no appetite for taking the current imperial spokesmodel to task. Why? Because he is “the first black president”, or because “he is doing the best he can”, or because they fear who might succeed him if he is defeated in the next election.

This reflexive support for Obama leads Cockburn to the ironic conclusion that “the best outcome for the left in 2008 would have been a victory for McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent”:

McCain! But, you wail, he would have plunged America into new wars, kept Guantanamo open, launched an onslaught on entitlements, surrendered to Wall Street and the banks…

McCain would have tried all these things, but maybe he would have quailed amid a storm of public protest.

The lesson, I think, is that what is essential is a principled, rather than partisan, opposition to Imperial theft and violence.  And this means an opposition that remains alive even when the office of the President is filled by a person whose surface qualities — their party affiliation, their skin tone, their oratory skill — one finds appealing.

Ultimately it is this popular capitulation of principle that allows officeholders to betray their constituencies. If they can take your vote for granted, there is no need to be concerned about your interests.

Winners

August 1, 2011: J. Rosencrantz

Congressional Leaders and the U.S. President have worked out the framework of a deal to lower the Federal deficit by slashing certain kinds of spending while doing nothing to increase revenue by taxing corporations or the rich.

Economist Paul Krugman calls the deal a “disaster” which “amounts to an abject surrender on the part of the president” to “raw extortion”, and wonders why Obama didn’t utilize any of the tools he had at his disposal to avoid this “catastrophe”.

The Young Turks Cenk Uygur, recently ushered from the insider’s club for his insufficiently partisan critical stance, remembers how President Clinton was able to avoid a debt ceiling challenge from Gingrich republicans in his day. Why didn’t Obama use this or any of the other available methods to avoid a similar challenge now?

Constitutional Lawyer cum Journalist G. Greenwald isn’t buying the myth of Obama’s weakness, and points to the president’s own pronouncements and actions to argue that brutal cuts to Social Security and Medicare is precisely what the corporatist Obama want.

The whole debt ceiling debate has been a political show — a display of tooth and nail fighting between parties that agree on fundamentals:

Ballooning war spending? Significant cuts are off the table.

Taxing corporations the rich? Don’t hold your breath.

In a DN interview, Economist Richard Wolf puts the debt agreement disaster in historical perspective:

In the ’50s and ’60s, the top bracket, the income tax rate that the richest people had to pay, for example the ’50s and ’60s, it was 91 percent. Every dollar over $100,000 that a rich person earned, he or she had to give 91 cents to Washington and kept nine. And the rationale for that was, we had come out of a Great Depression, we had come out of a great war, we had to rebuild our society, we were in a crisis, and the rich had the capacity to pay, and they ought to pay. Republicans voted for that. Democrats voted for that. What do we have today? Ninety-one percent? No. The top rate for rich people today, 35 percent. Again, nobody else in this society—not the middle, not the poor—have had anything like this consequence.

So, over the last 30, 40 years, a shift from corporate income tax to individual income tax, and among individuals, from the rich to everybody else. To deal with our budget problem without discussing that, putting that front and center, making that part of the story, that’s just a service to the rich and the corporations. There’s no polite way to say otherwise. And there’s something shameful about keeping all of that away and focusing on how we’re going to take out our budget problems by cutting back benefits to old people, to people who have medical needs. There’s something bizarre, and the world sees that, in a society that has done what it has done and now proposes to fix it on the backs of the majority.

Even worse this not-so-sleight-of-hand robbery comes at a time when globalizing corporations are achieving liberty from any merely national interests — expanding overseas and laying off domestic labor.

The Associated Press reports that “strong second-quarter earnings from McDonald’s, General Electric and Caterpillar on Friday are just the latest proof that booming profits have allowed Corporate America to leave the Great Recession far behind.”

Again Richard Wolf traces the historical trajectory:

You know, 30, 40 years ago, we spoke about corporations moving production jobs out of the United States. Ten or 15 years ago, we began to talk about outsourcing, moving white-collar jobs out. The most recent addition to that is the decision of corporations, as they look around the world, to say, you know, the growth of our market, the growth of demand, it’s in Asia, it’s in Latin America, it’s in parts of—it’s not here. The American people are exhausted. Their wages are going nowhere. We have high unemployment. And the fact is, no one is going to lend them much more money because they’re tapped out. So they’re not a growing market. So you see American corporations literally focused, for production and for consumption, elsewhere. That means they’re going to take care of themselves in the world.

Taxes for Chumps

April 18, 2011: J. Rosencrantz

As corporations and the rich become expert at tax avoidance, the bill for Washington’s Imperial Swan Song gets passed along to chumps like you and me. Consider these stats:

Over the past 12 years income for the richest U.S. Americans quadrupled as their tax rate was almost cut in half.

Corporations and the wealthy use offshore banks and tax havens to avoid paying taxes and other government regulations.

Many of the largest corporations avoid paying any taxes at all.

Half of your income taxes go to pay for the Imperial military machine.

And here is 9 other things the rich don’t want you to know about taxes.

Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings asks a relevant question:  What if we all stopped paying taxes?

Here are some charts come (from a collection at Mother Jones and the WRL) to help visualize:

PS: Here are ways to resist war tax, from the War Resisters League.

Contagion

February 19, 2011: J. Rosencrantz

National Security and Surveillance State, Inc.

July 23, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

Even though “alternative media” has been covering the story for years, the increasingly vast, inefficient and unaccountable post 9-11 national security and surveillance apparatus is so out of control that now even war-enabling, torture denying, neocon propaganda rags are sounding alarms about it…

The Washington Post published a three part series entitled “Top Secret America”. Part 1, focuses on the explosion of government funding on surveillance and security, Part 2 focuses on the government’s dependence on profit-driven private enterprise, and Part 3 describes one particular office park filled with (privileged and out-of-touch) spys.

Here are some of the highlights of the report:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings – about 17 million square feet of space.

* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.

* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year – a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.

Here is a map illustrating the proliferation of public and private work locations in “Top Secret America”:

The report reveals that the situation is so out of control that even Defense Secretary Gates and CIA Director Panetta worry about it in front of reporters – they admit it is out of control. But of course their interests are not the same as the rest of the country.

One of the worst things about the situation is that this secret, inefficient bureaucracy is that it is payed for by taxpayers – in a time of starving schools and home foreclosures, it is basically a jobs program designed to help out people who specialize in surveillance, killing and propaganda services to the government.

I say “one of the worst” because the worst thing is clearly this:

Relying upon profit-driven industry for the defense and intelligence community’s “core mission” is to ensure that we have Endless War and an always-expanding Surveillance State.  After all, the very people providing us with the “intelligence” that we use to make decisions are the ones who are duty-bound to keep this War Machine alive and expanding because, as the Post put it, they are “obligated to shareholders rather than the public interest.”

Above are images from some of the “anti-deception” toys developed by private “defense” contractors.

On the left, “a thermal-imaging camera to measure changes in facial temperature, which can help determine whether a person is lying. Some data suggests that a person who is lying may register a temperature increase near the inside corner of the eye. The scientists hope to use such cameras for security screenings at airports, train stations, border crossings, stadiums or large events.”

On the right, “A computer-generated avatar is being developed to test how interviewees respond to different interviewers. Scientists at the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment (DACA) can manipulate the avatar’s physical attributes, including hair and eye color, complexion, skull and forehead shape, and even the sound of the avatar’s voice to create an interviewer of any age, race and gender.”

This is a fruitful line of research because, they claim,  “young Hispanic males have a very difficult time lying to older Hispanic females.” So, you know, if you want to do “credibility assessment” on a young Mexican man, you should make the Avatar be a older Mexican woman.

PS: Here are some follow-ups to this story:

the lack of impact this story has had, on

Yes We Can Drill Baby Drill

April 3, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

WGP_Obama_DrillingOn the heels of his pushes for so-called “clean coal” technology and guaranteed loans for nuclear power  plants, President Obama this week decided to reverse a longstanding ban on offshore drilling and “announced an expansive new policy that could put new oil and natural gas platforms in waters along the southern Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and part of Alaska.”

This move by Obama-the-President is to be expected by now insofar as it completely reverses the position of Obama-the-Senator and Obama-the-campaigner. (See for example here, although he did begins to capitulate as the campaign wore on.)

This is the latest latest expression of Obama’s deep seated bipartisanism fetish, which absurdly seeks to curry favor with those “conservatives” who do will not cooperate with him on principle by selling out those progressives who can be taken for granted because they have no principle. But regardless of the political value of the decision, the Economist argues it is bad environmental / engergy policy:

The problem runs deeper than David Roberts’s point (“The impact on oil prices will be ‘insignificant,’ says the Energy Information Administration, and it won’t make America any less dependent on foreign oil, either”). It runs deeper than Frances Beinecke’s point (“Better running cars and more efficient use of existing oil fields can help us make the transition into the 21st century without harming marine life or marine jobs.”) It runs deeper than John Broder and Clifford Krause’s point (“Risk Is Clear in Drilling; Payoff Isn’t“). The fundamental problem is this: there is a finite amount of fossil fuel. The more of it we find and burn, the more carbon we put into the atmosphere, and the more severe the greenhouse effect becomes. Once the carbon is in the atmosphere, it stays there. If we want to limit climate change, what we have to do, one way or another, is to leave fuels in the ground wherever possible, not find and burn them.

Environmental groups are angry, of course, and kool-aid drinkers are finally waking up:

“Its like a kick in the face” says Jonathan Ruiz of Florida International University.  Jonathan campaigned for Obama for fourteen months, and now he’s livid about today’s announcement by the administration to open half the east coast to offshore drilling.

(By the way, thanks to Stephen Colbert for the title of this post.)

“If anyone has a better [corporate friendly] approach… let me know.”

February 10, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

WGP_better_approach

As a Senator campaigning for the Presidency, Obama called himself “a proponent of a single payer universal health care program.”

Even after being elected Obama admitted, in passing, that single payer would be the only way to insure every U.S. citizen – but moved instead to strike (not-so-secret) deals with big PhRMA and completely drop any challenge to the for-profit, private health “care” system.

This is what makes his recent State of the Union request for “a better approach” to healthcare reform so completely disingenuous:

OBAMA: “If anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen medicare for seniors and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Let me know. I’m eager to see it.”

WGP_better_approach-2Pediatrician Dr. Margaret Flowers took Obama at his word and went to the White House the next day with a letter urging the revival of the idea of  a “single payer” or a “medicare-for-all” system.

The Secret Service turned her away, but she tried to respond to the president’s request again the next day in Baltimore where she was arrested for trespassing.

Congratulations, Dr. Flowers, you are The World’s Got Problems Undersung HeroTM of the Month!

Hear her interviewed by Bill Moyers here.

Haiti

January 14, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

WGP_Haiti_Quake_1Tens of thousands of people, perhaps more, have been killed if the devastating earthquake in Port-au-Prince, where “the sound of screaming is constant.”

Alternet provides links to ten aid organizations if you are motivated to send money.

I would add Artists for Peace and Justice to that list, due to personal connections to some of the organizers.

The Guardian has a rich minute by minute live blog here. (Yesterday’s is here.)

For historical background on the reasons for Haiti’s poverty and weak infrastructure, see this discussion here or this essay here.

Naomi Klien warns that this will be used as another opportunity for disaster capitalism.

For an essay on the U.S. debt to this indebted nation, see here.

The original image of the girl on the right came from the fine photojournalism analysis blog, BagNewsNotes.

Copenhagen, Epilogue

December 28, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

WGP_COP15_2As expected, COP15 failed to reach a legally binding agreement on climate change, and was marred by the barring of civil society groups from the proceedings, the police suppression of environmental activist groups.

The fault line of the talks fell between rich and poor countries – that is, between rich industrialized countries responsible for the vast majority of carbon emissions and the poor and developing countries that stand to lose the most from climate change.

(Naomi Klein explicates the notion of “Climate Debt” here.)

Rich polluting countries disrupted the U.N. negotiations by means of a secret deal presided over by the host country. The end result was a non-binding “Accord”.

Click here to read reactions from some of the major environmental groups, and here to see how the non-binding accord doesn’t even come close to addressing the problem.

Despite the failure of the talks to reach a legally binding agreement, some see silver linings in the end of climate change denial, the chance to move beyond cap and trade schemes, and the explosion of activism with regard to climate justice.

Democracy Now! was reporting from within the COP15 convention center for the entire course of the talks, and you can check our their exclusive and extensive coverage here.

WGP_Obama_Sorry