Not the messenger

TRNN has a good video of whistleblower advocates calling to 'Stop Targeting the Messenger'. My comment:

Yes. Controlling information and secrecy is pivotal to the imbalance of economic and political power at the root of many of today's problems. Current POTUS hides his tax returns, business relationships and even visitor logs. Former POTUSs prosecuted whistleblowers, spied on Americans, and lied to the world about weapons of mass destruction. Big pharma and chemical companies use patents and proprietary information to make enormous profits and hide injurious outcomes/information. Other industries profit from patent licencing and copyright of information. These all have costs to consumers, workers, voters, and citizens in various forms including purchase price, exposure to unknown chemicals, loss of right(s) to contest disputes (against private and public institutions) and loss of right(s) to make informed decisions. Not only should whistleblowers *not* be prosecuted, the single most transformative reform of the current economic/political morass would be universal whistleblower protection.

Circular reasoning

Historian and political economist, Gar Alperovitz, acknowledges the threat of climate change, but his idea to use the Federal Reserve in the form of "quantitive easing, i.e. create money, to take Big Oil companies out of the equation and finance a massive green infrastructure program" is circular reasoning. My comment:

Gar Alperovitz's proposition: A movement to eliminate/minimize the policy influence of the fossil fuel industry by giving them money which they can (and will) use to buy policy influence over another industrial sector... 

Transferring the economic power of the current fossil fuel sector to possibly increasing the economic power of another polluting industry (manufacture/disposal of chemicals, solar panels, agricultural wastes, and drugs are potentially polluting) creates/amplifies another set of pollutants in lieu of heat trapping pollutants.

The climate change issue is an economic issue; so long as profit can be had, the owners of that profit making industry will fight for the 'right to profit'. By maintaining a small group with concentrated power, they will eventually set up another economic imbalance of power that threatens the lives and livelihoods of many workers and their families - in the name of profit. The real solution is to avoid massive concentration of power.

Update: Personal care products are a looming source of water pollution. Prescription drugs are also an area of concern.

Sustainable businesses

Apparently, sustainability has become an teachable issue by one professor in at least one university. It needs to expand. My comment:

This post leaves out the relevant relationship between business and economics: business (in the context of business school) is applied economics. Issues of 'Climate change impacts every resource used by businesses: from agriculture, water, land and energy to workers and the economy' and sustainability are derived from economic principles. The strongest example is economic 'externalities' where economists do not factor the role of environmental services into their models. Thus far, neither business schools nor economists show any ability to evolve their thinking to correspond to the risk of loss of the environmental/ecological services necessary to human life and economies. If economists cannot incorporate sustainability into business, it may be time for other fields of endeavor to incorporate business into sustainability.

One independent reform would be to increase transparency. Consumption drives economic activity. Currently, businesses do not inform consumers of the wage and ecological consequences of goods and services they market; businesses determine the environmental impact of consumption. If consumers know and understand the human and environmental costs of their spending, their consumption decisions would determine the environmental consequences of consumption.

Culture of Harassment

NPR review Hulu's adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale ends with this:

In a country where sexual harassment scandals regularly land on the front page, the patriarchy of The Handmaid's Tale doesn't feel so far-fetched, which is the most horrific thing about it.

In light of the ousting of Bill O'Reilly from Fox News over sexual harassment, Alisyn Camerota of CNN recently talked about the harassment culture at Fox News. So three questions:

- Do news women have any responsibility to expose the news that they are subject to sexual harassment?

- Some these women at Fox News - Megan Kelly, Gretchen Carlson, Alisyn Camerota - were at the top of their careers at the time. Yet they did not feel they could safely challenge the harassment culture of Fox News. What about that culture made it so irresistible? 

- If women who are at or near the top of the power structure like the Fox News women can't challenge/expose sexual harassment, what tools do women with less power have to counter/defend from harassment?

Sexual harassment is also a mechanism of economic division - the divide and conquer strategy by demeaning women to a lesser status. United we stand, divided we fall.

Other than currency

Doug Henwood was interviewed on TRNN about the meaningfulness of unemployment statistics and he said something very interesting about what corporations are doing with their money:

[corporate profits are] shoveled out to shareholders who either pocketing the money in the form of capital gains or in portfolio management fees; so it’s an enormous racket in which very very flush corporations rather than investing in hiring like you’re suppose to are giving all their money to their shareholders or stashing it overseas in tax havens to avoid paying taxes here in the US... literally trillions of dollars stashed abroad… companies would rather let it sit there in some offshore account rather than bringing home because companies just hate paying taxes.

When corporations depress the economy by not expanding their hiring and increasing wages to avoid paying taxes, they depress the wellbeing of workers. Barter might be a way for workers to get around corporate driven economic activity. The primary reason barter is not a legal mechanism of exchange is the difficulty for government to levy and collect tax. But when corporations stash money in tax havens, the government is also not collecting taxes. In this case, barter would allow workers to (1) retain the value of their work in physical form (goods and services) without a corporation claiming a share as profit and (2) spur greater economic activity because workers have more income to spend. In a capitalist system skewed the way of modern capitalism, workers have few methods to oppose corporate/capitalist/owner power. Corporations have power over wages, hours, promotion opportunities and additional training. Aside from accepting and/or declining a job, workers have almost no ways to negotiate decisions passed down from above. Barter may enable a worker to worker driven economy that competes with corporations for workers. The tax situation doesn't change for the government; they aren't collecting from corporations anyway. Barter would never work as the primary means of economic exchange in modern economies, but it might be a good way to stimulate the economy at the grassroots.

Otherness divides

Comment at Truthout: Original post argues for legal representation on behalf of undocumented immigrants. In response to a comment emphasizing the 'Illegal Alien' label:

Yes, 'illegal alien'...
but other terms have also been used to divide-
undocumented alien
negro/n-word
chink
feminist
femnazi
spic
thug
muslim
catholic
jew...

These terms are all weapons to divide the larger '99%' into smaller groups to dilute our voices/votes and actions. Understanding and empathizing with our common humanity is the only way to defend from the rich elites who control the political process.

Individuals label themselves for self-identity - like ethnicity or profession or hobby/fandom. Take care in using labels to divide. The tactic of division is how politicians and the wealthy retain power. We should look for universal traits that bring us together.

Political hypocrisy

Examples of hypocrisy in the political sphere. All concern the Republican Party. [Note: I do not support the Democratic Party although I tend to have progressive positions. Spotlighting Republican hypocrisy does not let Democrats off the hook.]

POTUS DJT's Justice Department is threatening to withhold federal funding if state and/or local governments fail to comply with federal laws... What happened to the Republican Party's respect for local control/governance?

***

Comment at a C&L post about Ted Cruz blaming impending government shutdown on Democrats:

The ultimate hypocrite. He and his party don't believe in the Constitution. They use the law to defeat the spirit of the Constitution (promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity) to enrich themselves and the financial elites. They claim to be Christians yet they don't follow the Golden Rule often attributed to Jesus (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you). Just as Christianity is not about self interest, neither is patriotism promoting your best interest at the expense of your fellow citizens. 

BTW, an excellent example is in the NPR story about military families needing food aid to feed themselves.

***

Comment at C&L post where DHS head, General John Kelly, says "If lawmakers do not like the laws that we enforce — that we are charged to enforce, that we are sworn to enforce — then they should have the courage and the skill to change those laws, otherwise, they should shut up and support the men and women on the front lines.":

Everyday your party works to cut military pensions and Social Security benefits that support veterans and their families; everyday your party works to cut VA funding to give the rich tax cuts; everyday your party rants about repealing Obamacare which many veterans' families rely on; everyday your party wants more guns on the street that threaten the lives of veterans, law enforcement and everyone else. Practically every word on this video was disrespectful to the people you claim to serve.

Where Your Taxes Go

An article at Truthout about how taxes are spent. In the interest of transparency, we should know this and an even more fine grain breakdown.

A different metric

I am often confused by names of political/economic systems like fascism or oligarchy. This happened again at a recent Truthout post. My proposal:

Thanks for the historical perspective. But there is another metric which is rarely, if ever, used to define the spectrum of socioeconomic systems, one of power concentration.
democracy = power is determined by voters

capitalism = power concentrates in owners; owners game the system to determine who has the opportunity to own
slave capitalism = power of owner extends to owning workers/laborers
feudal capitalism = power concentrates in owners to extent they control many work/labor conditions including wages and residency
communism = power concentrates in members of single state party committee
oligarchic capitalism = power concentrates in small number of owners
monopoly = power concentrates in one corporation and their owners
fascism = power concentrates in one political party

The point is that the concentration of economic power has parallels in the concentration of political power. The terms/names used to describe each system often overlap in meaning and thus, can be confusing. It would be better to use a sliding scale to represent power concentration; something along the lines of the Kinsey sexuality scale. On a scale of 0-10 (low to high) how is political power distributed? How is economic power distributed? Based on Gillens and Page, political power score is roughly 7.6 in favor of the economic elites <http: www.vox.com="" 2014="" 4="" 18="" 5624310="" martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained="">. Based on stock ownership, the economic power scale is about 6.6 - top 5% owns about 2/3 of stocks <https: www.salon.com="" 2013="" 09="" 19="" stock_ownership_who_benefits_partner=""/>. The latter is not the best metric of economic power; actual score is likely significantly higher. This type of granular information is more useful in accurately describing power relationships than misleading names/titles/terms.

Owner rights

It seems to me that Trump's budget director, Mick Mulvaney, is of the opinion he and his socioeconomic class 'owns' the taxes paid by American workers to the government. My comment:

There is a presumption among Mulvaney and his ilk that ownership confers additional/special rights. Unfortunately, they've influenced legislators and judges to their side with court rulings like Citizens United which give owners additional rights of personhood through corporate proxies. The 'owners' responsible for the financial collapse of 2007/8 are protected from prosecution. Contrast this to low income and especially low income minorities who own very little and are prosecuted and jailed at much higher rates for less egregious crimes. 

Mulvaney is just expressing this doctrine more openly - owners control everything - wages, profits, spending, workers' health, workers' rights, workers' votes. everything. They should keep in mind what happened to Arthur William Hodge and the French Revolution.

The current administration really needs to figure out who owns what (American public owns the public lands) and who governs what (elected officials and unelected civil servants) and who's direction (voters).

Independent foreign policy

The former Australian Foreign Minister is so dismayed by Trump that he recommends a foreign policy independent of the U.S. I agree. More ideas/proposals/policies is how innovation occurs. To use my economy metaphor, evolution needs a wide array of memes to act on.

Comment at Crooks & Liars:

Trump is so awful, he's marginalizing U.S. foreign policy, even with close allies. With the U.S. no longer setting the 'moral compass/standard' of foreign engagement, perhaps a higher ethical standard can be established by another standard bearer.

Robert Pollin at Truthout

Comment at Truthout:

The minimum wage is better defined as a set percentage of average income (say 50-60% of average wage of prior year). Defining the minimum wage at a dollar amount sets the stage for constant battles over minimum wage; by the time the $15/hr wage is won, it will be obsolete. 

Low employment empowers owners/employers; they don't compete for workers and they pay less for more labor. High employment creates competition between owners/employers for workers. There is a need to create/increase competition between owner/employers and workers.

Entitled politicians

An Oklahoma Republican, Markwayne Mullin, actually said taxpayers do not pay his salary. Instead, representing his constituents is a 'service' he provides.

IMHO, this is deserves to be filed in the dictionary under 'entitlement'.

Capitalism - entitlement to everything (profits, wages, labor, taxes, subsidies, infrastructure, public services) workers produce and pay for.

Secrecy goes beyond Pharma

Economist Dean Baker recognizes the effect of government conferred monopoly to big Pharma by way of information control (patents) on consumers. He needs to expand this understanding to all the other ways information control affects power structures. A simple example: secrecy is essential to hide organized crime from authorities; 'blue wall of silence' is essential to shield illegal/immoral/unethical police and their actions from the public.

Note: Control of information is relevant to practically every label.

Interview with Michael Hudson

Here's economist Michael Hudson describing his new book, J is for Junk Economics. He also thinks orthodox economics is a big part of the problem.