I saw this video at Suburban Guerrilla and thought of all the people I know who probably didn’t see it…
In his travels, journalist and author David Cay Johnston talked to a dozen tour-bus drivers in beautiful downtown Stockholm and discovered that each of them owned two homes free and clear. After his WTF! moment passed, Johnston put together a few thoughts on why Sweden is such a civilized place to live:
It’s because [Swedes] organize their economy to provide what Adam Smith said in The Wealth of Nations an economy should do. [Smith thought] any policy that benefits the majority must be good policy.
We organize our economy on the theory that the very, very richest among us, the multibillionaires, don’t have enough, and that unless we give them more, our economy can’t grow. That’s just nonsense!
There’s a reason you don’t read or see stories like Johnston’s in the corporate media: The billionaires and their stooges long ago decided that what we don’t know can’t hurt them.
Footnote: This post corrects an earlier post in which I referred to David Cay Johnston as an economist.
Uneducated = ignorant and apathetic, which is just fine with Romney and his cronies
Many politicians and business leaders these days think the public education system is overvalued. After all, you don’t need to read The Great Gatsby to operate a power mower. You don’t have to know the atomic weight of carbon to empty bedpans or flip burgers. So why the fuss over the fact that Congress might allow the fixed interest rate on Stafford government-subsidized loans for college students to double this summer?
We know why the yahoo wing of the Republican Party — Rick Santorum is in the vanguard — thinks college educations are for snobs. It’s because colleges are staffed by the sort of people who teach evolution and contraception, and make you read things like Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man.
But many of us don’t understand why savvy businessmen such as Mitt Romney are just as likely as the yahoos to take a stand against government-subsidized education of the working classes. Paul Krugman explained today:
… Over the past 30 years, there has been a stunning disconnect between huge income gains at the top and the struggles of ordinary workers. You can make the case that the self-interest of America’s elite is best served by making sure that this disconnect continues, which means keeping taxes on high incomes low at all costs, never mind the consequences in terms of poor infrastructure and an under-trained work force.
And if underfunding public education leaves many children of the less affluent shut out from upward mobility, well, did you really believe that stuff about creating equality of opportunity?
So whenever you hear Republicans say that they are the party of traditional values, bear in mind that they have actually made a radical break with America’s tradition of valuing education. And they have made this break because they believe that what you don’t know can’t hurt them.
Krugman might have added that Romney and his CEO cronies — cheered on by media agents for globalization, such as the New York Times’ Tom Friedman — care nothing about fixing America’s education system because they care nothing about Americans. Once the global economy became a reality, they no longer had a reason to invest in education. They could outsource jobs that require advanced education, or import highly skilled workers. Anything but pay taxes to help educate Americans to do those jobs!
Yes, it’s true that college education isn’t for everybody, and that the need for trades people of all sorts is as important as the need for college-educated workers. But the ruling class’s antipathy to public education is about more than this. It’s about belief in government for the few rather than the many, and about the arrogant assumption by bloodless drones like Romney that the majority of Americans are going to passively accept serfdom as their lot in life.
It looks like Rush Limbaugh might have to stoop to using Ted Nugent’s music as soundtracks for his rants. I can’t think of any other rocker who might be a good fit. From USA Today:
Peter Gabriel doesn’t want Rush Limbaugh’s radio show to use his music, in the wake of the Sandra Fluke controversy.
Gabriel’s song Sledgehammer played in the background while Limbaugh called Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” after she testified at a congressional hearing about contraception, reports CBS News.
On his Facebook page, a note was posted from Gabriel’s reps saying the rocker was “appalled to learn that his music was linked to Rush Limbaugh’s extraordinary attack.”
The statement adds, “It is obvious from anyone that knows Peter’s work that he would never approve such a use. He has asked his representatives to make sure his music is withdrawn and especially from these unfair aggressive and ignorant comments. “
What a surprise. It seems those those CEOs from Business Roundtable who met behind closed doors with Barack Obama Tuesday and with “Blue Dog” Democrats on Capitol Hill yesterday were much more interested in pushing for lower corporate tax rates than in discussing job creation. The CEOs argued that Congress “tax reform” shouldn’t be delayed until after the November elections. One of them, quoted in Roll Call, repeated an oft-heard complaint about corporate tax rates in America:
Procter & Gamble’s president and CEO Bob McDonald, who chairs the Roundtable’s tax and fiscal policy committee, said that the country’s corporate tax rate will become the highest in the world when Japan lowers its rate three weeks from now. The Obama administration recently released its own proposal for lowering the corporate tax rate from about 35 percent to about 28 percent. The CEOs said they support lowering it to about 25 percent.
McDonald is a liar, and Roll Call should have said so — politely, of course — by citing, as Salon did in November, the results of a study conducted by Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy:
The authors looked at the tax filings from 2008-2010 of 280 of the nation’s biggest, most successful corporations. These companies reported $1.4 trillion worth of profit during a period when most Americans were struggling to stay afloat. The authors discovered that the average effective tax rate — what the companies really paid after government subsidies, tax breaks and various tax dodges were taken into account — was only 18.5 percent, less than half the statutory rate. Fully a quarter of the 280 companies paid under 10 percent.
Remember that fact, the next time someone tries to tell you that American corporations pay the highest income taxes in the free world. The only number that counts is the “effective tax rate.” One of the interesting tidbits provided by the authors is that in many cases, the tax rate on foreign income for many of these companies is actually higher than the effective U.S. rate…
Think about it: Corporate tax rates in America are at a 40-year low, and still the CEOs bitch and lie about them. If only we had a president and Congress that would call them on their lies and greed.
'Job creation' can mean all sorts of things, as Paul Muni demonstrates.
How comforting that Barack Obama was scheduled to have another closed-door meeting last night with CEOs from America’s largest companies. Did he talk to them about job creation? Did he go so far as to urge them to “start hiring,” as he allegedly did at previous meetings?
I guess we’re supposed to feel good about these meetings, even though they’re always held in private, and with no representatives of working people present. What sorts of jobs were discussed, and what pay rates? Was there talk about narrowing the wide gap between rich and poor?
As John Wayne and Buddy Holly would say, “That’ll be the day.”
For decades the one percent has complained that speaking out against income inequality is tantamount to engaging in class warfare. They’re right — we are in a class war, and the one percent is winning, arguably because both major political parties are on their side.
The significance of this war is all but ignored by the corporate media and, of course, by most politicians. Not only by the Republican establishment, which unequivocally believes in government by big business, but also by Democrats such as Obama, who aren’t even talking about saving or replacing the decent jobs that middle- and lower middle-class Americans once took for granted.
… When neoliberal pundits and policymakers talk about “job creation,” they’re rarely talking about a specific sort of job. Instead, they’re using the word job as a generic indicator to mean “a state of affairs in which some individual is somehow compensated to do something for whatever length of time under whatever conditions…” This is the danger of talking about “jobs” in the abstract: It can mean forcing people into precarious, temporary, low-wage, nonexistent-benefit work that will most likely land them back on the welfare rolls in a couple of months. Emphasis here belongs on the word forcing, because employers — faced with an oversupply of labor in the broader job market — have the upper hand in negotiations. These same employers can feel free to deprive their employees of the basic security needed to stay off welfare for good…
Like Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca, I’m shocked — shocked! — to hear National Football League players are being paid to injure players on opposing teams. From Steve Coll of the New Yorker:
On Friday, the National Football League disclosed some of the results of its self-directed investigation of “bounty” payments made to players on the New Orleans Saints. Some of the payments, the N.F.L. said, were handed out to Saints players as rewards for “inflicting injuries on opposing players that would result in them being removed from a game.”
I must be missing something. Aren’t all NFL players — all those who play defense, that is — rewarded for “inflicting injuries on opposing players” while trying to keep the opposing team from scoring points? All the better, from the defensive point of view, if the injuries knock opposing players out of the games. Some of the most lauded players in NFL history — Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants, for one — are those who excelled at injuring players.
Oh, I see… The fuss is about the fact that players were offered monetary incentives to injure particular players. As if the head hunters on defense don’t always try to direct their violence toward certain players — most obviously, the opposing team’s quarterback. As if there isn’t always a monetary incentive — it’s called a contract — for using violence effectively while playing defense.
Coll speculates about the particulars of the payoffs. Were they made in cash from a special pool kept by Gregg Williams, the former Saints defensive coordinator? Were they added to paychecks, with taxes deducted?
There is something foggy-headed about Coll’s response to this so-called scandal. He singles out Williams for bringing “ugliness” into the game, but later on mentions “that more than two dozen Saints players, the general manager, and the head coach knew what Williams was doing.” He states that pro football’s long-term survival from violence-related litigation might depend on it becoming “a fast, acrobatic, spread-out passing game with fewer full-speed hits and much more athleticism.” But then he admits that no one “has quite figured out how to make a passing-driven version of the game work without at least some controlled violence.”
In the end, Coll reveals that he’s been trying to make a moral argument: “In any event, any business that evolves a workplace culture where dozens of people from top to bottom collectively lose sight of the difference between fair competition and corruption deserves to fail.”
And what is the difference between “fair competition and corruption” in an organization that became extraordinarily wealthy by rewarding players for effective use of so-called controlled violence? Coll doesn’t say, so I’ll say it for him: There is no difference.
Benjamin Netanyahu is a lot like former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo, who once bragged he would “make Attila the Hun look like a faggot.” The Israeli PM has not only publicly scolded Barack Obama, he has warned him. He is giving him orders. Or at least he thinks he is:
Israel is pressing Barack Obama for an explicit threat of military action against Iran if sanctions fail and Tehran’s nuclear programme advances beyond specified “red lines”…
… Netanyahu… is expected to raise the issue at a White House meeting on Monday after weeks of intense diplomacy in which Obama has dispatched senior officials – including his intelligence, national security and military chiefs – to Jerusalem to try and dampen down talk of an attack.
Diplomats say that Israel is angered by the Obama administration’s public disparaging of early military action against Iran, saying that it weakens the prospect of Tehran taking the warnings from Israel seriously.
The two sides are attempting to agree a joint public statement to paper over the divide but talks will not be made easier by a deepening distrust in which the Israelis question Obama’s commitment to confront Iran while the White House is frustrated by what it sees as political interference by Netanyahu to mobilise support for Israel’s position in the US Congress.
Is Netanyahu taking heat from U.S. legislators for publicly disrespecting Obama? Are you kidding? Congress is too busy bowing to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group, which just happens to be meeting in Washington this weekend.
Obama mildly admonished Netanyahu in a speech to AIPAC today: “Already, there is too much loose talk of war.” But he also said, “I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And as I’ve made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests.”
How long before Iran is attacked? Take a look at Obama’s record and ask yourself how often he has withstood pressure to make major concessions on policy issues. Then ask yourself how likely he is to stand up — or even pretend to stand up – to AIPAC in an election year.
Not long ago, the people of Wisconsin were dumb enough to elect Gov. Scott Walker, a dull-eyed lapdog for a group of billionaires that wants to destroy organized labor and do business without paying taxes. Now Wisconsin citizens are trying to undo their mistake with a recall movement that faces strong opposition from, oddly enough, a group of billionaires.
A story about Walker is featured in this week’s New Yorker. You can’t read the whole piece on the Internet unless you subscribe to the magazine, but don’t fret, I excerpted a passage that draws a stark contrast between the two sides:
In mid-January, United Wisconsin submitted more than a million signatures to recall Walker… On the snowy Tuesday when the petitions, weighing three thousand pounds, were filed with the Accountability Board, in Madison, Scott Walker was on Park Avenue, in New York, attending a five-thousand-dollar-a-couple fund-raiser for the anti-recall effort. The event was hosted by Maurice Greenberg, the billionaire former chairman of American International Group, the insurance company that was rescued from bankruptcy in 2008 by the largest federal bailout for a single institution in United States history — $182 billion.
That pretty much says it all. In this corner are the poor schmucks who belatedly realized the only way to save jobs, decent salaries and benefits is through sheer force of numbers. In that corner is the small group that wants to retain government for the billionaires, with built-in provisions for limitless corporate welfare. I hope it’s clear to most Americans what the battle is about, and that it ultimately will be fought on a national scale. It’s certainly clear to the piggies on Park Avenue.
A new book by Gary Weiss details Ayn Rand’s profound influence on generations of right-wing ideologues. Her most prominent contemporary acolyte might be the smug U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, whose goals include abolishing Medicare and Social Security.
However, I’m guessing the most interesting stuff in Weiss’s book focuses on further revelations about Rand’s guru-like power over the now discredited Alan Greenspan. In a recent article, Pam Martens notes that Greenspan…
… the man who chaired the Federal Reserve Board for 18 years, guiding U.S. monetary policy under four presidents, was a member of Rand’s Collective in New York City, which Weiss likens to a cult: “For much of its existence the Collective was for all intents and purposes a cult. It had an unquestioned leader, it demanded absolute loyalty, it intruded into the personal lives of its members, it had its own rote expressions and catchphrases, it expelled transgressors for deviation from accepted norms, and expellees were ‘fair game’ for vicious personal attacks.”
More troubling about Greenspan, who during his term as Fed Chair, aided in the gutting of critical Wall Street regulations, including the repeal of the depression-era Glass-Steagall Act which barred the merger of insured deposit banks with investment banks and brokerage firms, was his blind loyalty to Rand’s cultish propaganda.
Weiss produces a gem from The New York Times Book Review from 1957. Greenspan was defending his idol after her most famous work, Atlas Shrugged, had been thrashed in multiple reviews. Greenspan dutifully makes his case in Randian-speak: “Atlas Shrugged is a celebration of life and happiness,” he wrote. “Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.”
Rand wrote bad fiction and invented a faux philosophy that touted the “virtue of selfishness” and laissez faire capitalism. Greenspan is living proof that Rand was a much more dangerous hustler than Charlie Manson or even Jim Jones. It’s largely thanks to her that Greenspan became a zealot for the unregulated free-market economy that has brought “Main Street” America to its knees.
A new ethics handbook released by National Public Radio would seem to indicate the network is reacting in a positive way to persistent criticism of its “he said, she said” approach to the news. According to Jay Rosen of PressThink, the new handbook bluntly states that “a report characterized by false balance is a false report.” It calls for reportage that rejects false balance in favor of reportage that’s “fair to the truth.”
Rosen reprints two key passages from the new handbook:
In all our stories, especially matters of controversy, we strive to consider the strongest arguments we can find on all sides, seeking to deliver both nuance and clarity. Our goal is not to please those whom we report on or to produce stories that create the appearance of balance, but to seek the truth.
and….
At all times, we report for our readers and listeners, not our sources. So our primary consideration when presenting the news is that we are fair to the truth. If our sources try to mislead us or put a false spin on the information they give us, we tell our audience. If the balance of evidence in a matter of controversy weighs heavily on one side, we acknowledge it in our reports. We strive to give our audience confidence that all sides have been considered and represented fairly.
Fair to the truth — what a concept! New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued for the same approach to the news back in July while criticizing the corporate news media:
News reports portray the [major political] parties as equally intransigent; pundits fantasize about some kind of ‘centrist’ uprising as if the problem was too much partisanship on both sides. Some of us have long complained about the cult of ‘balance,’ the insistence on portraying both parties as equally wrong and equally at fault on any issue, never mind the facts. I joked long ago that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read “Views Differ on Shape of Planet.”
Is there a trend in progress? Will mainstream media outlets begin printing stories that are fair to the truth rather than constructed to present opposing sides of a story as equally true, regardless of what the facts indicate?
Probably not, but the NPR directive at least calls for reporters to strive for accuracy rather than report the “spin” that publicists and propagandists always prefer. Think how far the George W. Bush team would have gotten in pushing for a war in Iraq if the corporate news media had been fair to the truth. Imagine all the lives that might have been saved.
Footnote: From Jawbone, in Suburban Guerrilla: “I appreciate what the NPR guidelines say — but I will believe it when I see the principles in action and affecting actual reporting.”
Odd Man Out 