Owing to personal events, I'm spending the next two weeks trapped without a car in the middle of a city of 150,000 people. Yesterday I borrowed a neighbor's car, and mindful of my checking account, drove to the supermarket and attempted to buy enough food to survive should a James Cameron movie suddenly break out.
Today was this week's opportunity fresh veggies. On my way to the farmers' market, I braved streets that largely serve as on-ramps for the two highways that bisect downtown Syracuse. I crossed at lights that didn't have pedestrian signals, stepping onto uneven sidewalk ramps. Because I'm currently able-bodied, young, athletic, and it's not winter (people here don't really shovel sidewalks), I was able to make the trip in about twenty minutes. As an added bonus, I didn't get sent to jail after watching my child get hit by a car.
After walking through a stretch of my route where the sidewalk inexplicably gave way to dirt, I encountered the site where a group of environmental consultants and entrepreneurs is rehabilitating a long-abandoned building, complete with a row of shiny new charging stations for electric cars.
In fairness, Syracuse isn't unaware of the difficulty of getting around town sans cars. The city recently released a master plan of hypothetical bike routes. It was also involved in recent discussions about the future of one of our two interstates.
However, the charging stations were the first sign of the newer, greener Syracuse that I keep hearing about.
In reality, during these times of austerity, it's gotten harder to get around town. There are fewer, more expensive buses. Sidewalks are going unrepaired and yes, unshoveled.
So it's with bitter irony that I welcome these new charging stations. I'm not particularly impressed by a future in which some of the cars I'll be dodging will presumably be powered by the local nuclear plant.
This is what tends to happen. Too often, the solutions to environmental problems tend to reinforce a broken status quo.
In the case of Syracuse's newest electrical outlets, I believe most of them will be used to charge vehicles for a community car sharing service. I can certainly think of worse uses.
However, I'm not entirely sure how some people are supposed to get to the nearest car share location. I'm also not sure how some folks are going to pay to rent these wonderful green cars.
Don't get me wrong, I actually think a green car share program is a great idea, and a welcome initiative. However, I'm frustrated and unsurprised that the movers and shakers in my city have the capital to invest in putting more cars on the road, while efforts to improve things for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders flounder.
Showing posts with label Two Americas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Two Americas. Show all posts
This is what privilege looks like.
Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks and Hispanics:
The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009.The piece cites "plummeting house values" as the "principal cause of the recent erosion in household wealth among all groups," which disproportionately affected Latin@s, but, of course, there are other reasons: Whites are more likely to be invested in the stock market (even if merely through a retirement account like a 401k), which recovered its value in a way home equity has not; people of color are more likely to have been targeted by predatory lending; whites are more likely to have inherited wealth; etc.
These lopsided wealth ratios are the largest since the government began publishing such data a quarter century ago...
From 2005 to 2009, inflation-adjusted median wealth fell by 66% among Hispanic households and 53% among black households, compared with just 16% among white households.
...Moreover, about a third of black (35%) and Hispanic (31%) households had zero or negative net worth in 2009, compared with 15% of white households. In 2005, the comparable shares had been 29% for blacks, 23% for Hispanics and 11% for whites.
...Household wealth is the accumulated sum of assets (houses, cars, savings and checking accounts, stocks and mutual funds, retirement accounts, etc.) minus the sum of debt (mortgages, auto loans, credit card debt, etc.). It is different from household income, which measures the annual inflow of wages, interest, profits and other sources of earning. Wealth gaps between whites, blacks and Hispanics have always been much greater than income gaps.
All of which is a function of privilege.
[Related Reading: Can't Vs. Won't.]
There's a Lot of Depressing News Today
And here's some more: Ryan Seacrest made $61 million last year.
Number of the Day
Zero: Massachusetts special education paraprofessional Kathy Meltsakos' take-home pay after benefits and taxes come out of her $10.74 an hour salary.
Initially earning $13.74 for a 35-hour week with the Pentucket schools, Meltsakos paid 20 percent of her insurance, which was manageable, and she did that for 10 years until laid off in June 2010. While looking for work she received unemployment benefits. She was later rehired at a lower pay rate, with five less hours, and with a higher contribution for her healthcare.[H/T to @Brunocerous.]
"I was placed at the bottom of the scale at $10.74 an hour for a 30-hour week. After taxes, I paid 60 percent of my medical insurance. My pay stubs from February to June 24 (the end of the school year) show no net take home pay since February. Oh – and the insurance rates went up in May."
By April she was frustrated with no take home pay and knew she had to get a second job. "My husband is doing everything he can but we have kids in college and of course the regular bills to pay. I tried a pizza shop, then found work with a discount store, twenty hours a week during school, and a few more now that school is out. They pay a little more per hour but no benefits." For the summer she landed a job with special ed kids for 20 hours a week at $14 an hour.
"I'm not the only ESP worker in the position of working two or three jobs to try to make ends meet," Meltsakos said. "We are not looking for a free ride. But we have to question a system that forces workers in any profession to stitch together several pay streams to make ends meet. ... We're taught from an early age not to talk a whole lot about earnings and comparing our salaries. It's not 'polite'. Well, we've had about thirty years of being polite about work and paychecks and look where that has got us."
Quote of the Day
"If they show me a serious plan, I'm ready to move, even if it requires some tough sacrifices on my part."—President Barack Obama, on the ongoing debt negotiations with Congressional Republicans.
It's good that he's classifying the Republican plans as unserious, which they are, but I really wish that he would stop pretending that choosing to spend his political capital for no good reason is a "sacrifice."
It's not.
And that sort of language is an insult to the millions of USians who have to make sacrifices like "giving up the blood pressure medication I pay for out of pocket to keep paying my mortgage" or "skipping dinner because I can't afford a meal for myself and my kids" or "working overtime again instead of spending any quality time with my spouse so I don't get shit-canned" or infinite variations thereof which have become the cacophonous death rattle of the American middle class.
It's good that he's classifying the Republican plans as unserious, which they are, but I really wish that he would stop pretending that choosing to spend his political capital for no good reason is a "sacrifice."
It's not.
And that sort of language is an insult to the millions of USians who have to make sacrifices like "giving up the blood pressure medication I pay for out of pocket to keep paying my mortgage" or "skipping dinner because I can't afford a meal for myself and my kids" or "working overtime again instead of spending any quality time with my spouse so I don't get shit-canned" or infinite variations thereof which have become the cacophonous death rattle of the American middle class.
Can't Vs. Won't
Paul Krugman's has written an excellent column that cuts through all the bullshit and speaks plainly to the reality that jobs creation isn't a matter of "can't," but a matter of "won't."
The reality of "won't" is that economically and institutionally disenfranchised populations are further marginalized. Maya Wiley, director of the Center for Social Inclusion, says that, although "we're not done writing history," it will nonetheless "say the black middle class was decimated" over the past few years, reversing the economic gains hard-won over decades of civil rights activism.
This is why I'm an economy voter: Social justice is inextricably tied to the economy, for better and for worse, for will and for won't.
The truth is that creating jobs in a depressed economy is something government could and should be doing. Yes, there are huge political obstacles to action — notably, the fact that the House is controlled by a party that benefits from the economy's weakness. But political gridlock should not be conflated with economic reality.Meanwhile, the disproportionately devastating effects of that problem on Black USians in particular is highlighted in a piece in the Chicago Sun-Times on "The disappearing black middle class."
Our failure to create jobs is a choice, not a necessity — a choice rationalized by an ever-shifting set of excuses.
...The economy isn't fixing itself. Nor are there real obstacles to government action: both the bond vigilantes and structural unemployment exist only in the imaginations of pundits. And if stimulus seems to have failed, it's because it was never actually tried.
Listening to what supposedly serious people say about the economy, you'd think the problem was "no, we can't." But the reality is "no, we won't." And every pundit who reinforces that destructive passivity is part of the problem.
In 2004, the median net worth of white households was $134,280, compared with $13,450 for black households, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by the Economic Policy Institute. By 2009, the median net worth for white households had fallen 24 percent to $97,860; the median net worth for black households had fallen 83 percent to $2,170, according to the institute.Unemployment and foreclosure numbers show just as stark a disparity.
[Algernon Austin, director of the Economic Policy Institute's Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy] described the wealth gap this way: "In 2009, for every dollar of wealth the average white household had, black households only had two cents."
The reality of "won't" is that economically and institutionally disenfranchised populations are further marginalized. Maya Wiley, director of the Center for Social Inclusion, says that, although "we're not done writing history," it will nonetheless "say the black middle class was decimated" over the past few years, reversing the economic gains hard-won over decades of civil rights activism.
This is why I'm an economy voter: Social justice is inextricably tied to the economy, for better and for worse, for will and for won't.
Number of the Day
$7.38 trillion: The amount of wealth that's been lost by US homeowners from the bursting of housing bubble.
[H/T to Iain.]
[T]he middle class has been ruined: Its wealth has been decimated, its income isn't even keeping pace with inflation, and its faith in the American economy has been shattered. Once, the middle class grew richer each year, grew more comfortable, enjoyed a higher living standard. It was real progress in material terms.From an excellent, if upsetting, article by Rex Nutting, "How the Bubble Destroyed the Middle Class." I highly recommend reading the entire thing.
But that progress has been halted and even reversed. In some respects, the middle class has made no progress in a generation, or two.
This isn't just a sad story about a few losers. The prosperity of the middle class has been the chief engine of growth in the economy for a century or more. But now our mass market is no longer growing. How could it? The middle class doesn't have any money.
There are a hundred different ways of looking at the economy, and a million different statistics. But if you wanted to focus on just one number that explains why the economy can't really recover, this is the one: $7.38 trillion.
That's the amount of wealth that's been lost from the bursting of housing bubble, according to the Federal Reserve's comprehensive Flow of Funds report. It's how much homeowners lost when housing prices plunged 30% nationwide. The loss for these homeowners was much greater than 30%, however, because they were heavily leveraged.
Leverage is an amazing thing: When prices go up, the borrower gets all the gains. And when prices go down, the borrower takes all the losses. Some families lost everything when the bubble collapsed, others lost very little. But, on average, American homeowners lost 55% of the wealth in their home.
Most middle-class families didn't have much wealth to begin with — about $100,000. For the 22 million families right in the middle of the income distribution (those making between $39,000 and $62,000 before taxes), about 90% of their assets was in the house. Now half of their wealth is gone and it will never come back as long as they live.
[H/T to Iain.]
Quote of the Day
This morning's release of the June 2011 Employment Situation report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed a labor market in retreat. Virtually every single measure was devastatingly weak: only 18,000 payroll jobs were added, average hours declined, nominal wages fell, unemployment was up in almost all age groups, more than 250,000 workers dropped out of the labor force altogether, and the public sector continued to bleed jobs. Furthermore, a downward revision to last month's data means that this is the second month in a row with job growth at 25,000 or less. This is a remarkable, across-the-board backslide. The President and Congressional leaders need to stop talking about deficit reduction and start talking about job creation.—EPI Economist Heidi Shierholz. Emphasis mine.
OMGLOLWTF WHUT?!
As those on the left of the political spectrum in the US react with outrage to the report that Obama is willing to treat Social Security and Medicare as bargaining chips with the Republicans, Obama has responded by acknowledging that "there is going to be pain involved politically on all sides" during debt negotiations.
Yep. That was definitely my biggest objection. That it might be politically unwise to dismantle the nation's social safety net.
Blink.
I mean, that is some profoundly clueless shit, right there.
Don't get me wrong. It is politically unwise. But I think most of us are rather more concerned about leaving people to eat dog food until they die in abject poverty without heat or healthcare, than concerned about whether the assholes who refuse to tell the rich and corporations that kicking a little bit more into the kitty is JUST PART OF LIVING IN A DECENT SOCIETY get reelected.
Let them eat bootstraps!
Yep. That was definitely my biggest objection. That it might be politically unwise to dismantle the nation's social safety net.
Blink.
I mean, that is some profoundly clueless shit, right there.
Don't get me wrong. It is politically unwise. But I think most of us are rather more concerned about leaving people to eat dog food until they die in abject poverty without heat or healthcare, than concerned about whether the assholes who refuse to tell the rich and corporations that kicking a little bit more into the kitty is JUST PART OF LIVING IN A DECENT SOCIETY get reelected.
Let them eat bootstraps!
I'm So Glad We Elected a Democrat, Part One Billion and Five
Hell to the no:
For the record, although I sincerely doubt there's any confusion about this outside the White House: All the times I've written some variation on, "I hope Obama is a more successful president than Bush," that did not mean, "I hope he is more successful at DISMANTLING THE SOCIAL SAFETY NET."
President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue.What the everloving fuck. That was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad plan when George W. Bush proposed it, and it's a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad plan now.
At a meeting with top House and Senate leaders set for Thursday morning, Obama plans to argue that a rare consensus has emerged about the size and scope of the nation's budget problems and that policymakers should seize the moment to take dramatic action.Yes, it would be a real mistake for Democrats to let pass the opportunity to unwind all that socialist claptrap instituted by that loser FDR. Why let the Republicans get all the credit for ruining the country?!
As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal. The move marks a major shift for the White House and could present a direct challenge to Democratic lawmakers who have vowed to protect health and retirement benefits from the assault on government spending.
"Obviously, there will be some Democrats who don't believe we need to do entitlement reform. But there seems to be some hunger to do something of some significance," said a Democratic official familiar with the administration's thinking. "These moments come along at most once a decade. And it would be a real mistake if we let it pass us by."
For the record, although I sincerely doubt there's any confusion about this outside the White House: All the times I've written some variation on, "I hope Obama is a more successful president than Bush," that did not mean, "I hope he is more successful at DISMANTLING THE SOCIAL SAFETY NET."
Must-Read: "BMW Layoffs Exemplify the Evisceration of the Middle Class"
BMW layoffs exemplify the evisceration of the middle class:
Every working American should be dismayed by — and afraid of — what BMW is doing.The Corporation rules all. Just go read the whole thing.
These employees exemplified the best qualities of the American worker. They devoted their working lives to BMW, at a time when it was building and solidifying its U.S. beachhead. Their wages, with benefits, paid for a reasonable middle-class lifestyle if they managed it carefully. Throw in the job security they were encouraged to expect, and they had the confidence to make sacrifices and investments that contributed to the economy for the long term, like college education for the kids, an addition on the house, a new baby. Then one day they were handed a mass pink slip, effective in a matter of weeks.
Dispatches from CGI America
As I mentioned, I've been attending the Clinton Global Initiative America conference the last two days, in a press capacity, and it's been a very interesting experience. If you don't know anything about the Clinton Global Initiative, it's an outgrowth of the William J. Clinton Foundation, which is an organization founded by former president Bill Clinton with a mission to "strengthen the capacity of people throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence." CGI is the economic component of that vision, and its objective is to convene international leaders in the public and private sectors, as well as NGOs, to strategize innovative ideas to solve urgent global economic problems and to find commitments (financial donations) to fund those ideas. This conference was the first CGI meeting to focus on the United States.
I was really glad to have had the opportunity to attend; my thanks to Peter Daou. I also had such a good time meeting and having a chance to shoot the breeze (and breezy it was, sitting along the Chicago River!) with Vanessa Valenti, who is really warm and so nice.
Frequent guest contributor Shaker BrianWS came with me, and he'll have his own follow-up on the educational session we attended on Wednesday afternoon. I'm going to do a broader overview, with some specifics about Wednesday morning's session about "Jobs Jobs Jobs" and Thursday morning's session on "American Success Stories."
* * *
The conference is expertly branded and is generally very well organized. It definitely has the feeling of a place where Important Things are happening. When Clinton takes the stage at the opening plenary session on Wednesday morning, he is a total rock star. His charisma is legendary—and what you've heard about how he's even more electric in person is absolutely true. The guy is unbelievable.
And he is, of course, just the smoothest smooth talker in all of smoothdom: He has a way of saying things that allows everyone in the room to hear exactly what they want to hear: If you lean left, and want to hear him talking about improving the economy for the betterment of workers, that's what you'll hear, and, if you lean right, and want to hear him talking about improving the economy for the betterment of corporations, that's what you'll hear—and you're both listening to the same damn sentence. Guy's a fucking wizard.
Even a wizard has his limits, though, and, despite Clinton's ability to project concern for people who are struggling across this nation, it becomes evident very quickly that what is meant by "the public and private sectors working together" is "let's figure out what the government can do for corporations." This is not the typical theme of CGI meetings addressing global needs, but, this ain't the globe: This is America.
And, in the US, it's taken as read that capitalism trumps socialism, that everything has to be run through corporations, that every investment has to be profitable. Even investing in education, in healthcare, is framed in terms of a better educated workforce, healthier employees.
I remark to BrianWS that the difference between CGI Global and CGI America is like the difference between socialized medicine and Obama's healthcare reform: Elsewhere in the world, the government just guarantees and provides its citizens healthcare; here, we've got to run it through the insurance companies and make sure corporations still have the opportunity to profit.
* * *
I took a lot of detailed notes during the open session, intending to share them, but now I've got so much to pass on that I'll just note a couple of quick things:
1. Clinton noted that the US can't be scared to measure itself against the global competition and see if someone's doing something better than we are, which I thought was a very good point. So much of the "USA! Number One! USA! BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!" rah-rah patriotism favored by the rightwing is really born of fear and insecurity, and refusing to self-reflect and explore the rest of the world with humility really does stand in the way of innovation.
2. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who also spoke during the opening session, made the point that investment in cities requires confidence in those cities, which I also thought was a good observation. One of the reasons Chicago has always done well is because its mayors are absolutely ga-ga for their city: There's plenty of criticism to be made of Emanuel (and Mayor Daley before him), but when Emanuel says he believes Chicago should be the capitol city of the world, lol, he actually believes that shit.
(The difference between Daley and Emanuel is that Daley believed the city was its people; Emanuel believes the city is its industry.)
3. Emanuel introduced the idea that the government's role is not to create jobs; the public sector's role is to create the circumstances in which the private sector can best create jobs. The public sector's role, he argued, is to create an educated workforce and to build the roads and the public transportation and the infrastructure so they can get to work. This would be a recurring theme throughout the conference.
4. Clinton, who spoke again after Emanuel, noted that China spends as much as 9% of its income annually on infrastructure investments; the US spends about 3%. We need to invest to be competitive, he said.
5. Laura Tyson spoke after Clinton. She had many interesting facts like median wages have not increased since 1973 (holy shit!), and some less interesting facts like how the recession has been "particularly hard for men." (Nope and nope and nope and nope and nope! And there's way more nope where those came from.) But she was very insistent on this point. BrianWS passed me a note with his artistic interpretation of her address:
6. There followed a panel discussion (about which I observed in my notes: "Clinton reclines in his chair like Bacchus"), and during which I was struck how much less this CGI conference focused on empowering individuals than have others. Here, the focus was empowering businesses, because the US is so corporate-focused, so intractably certain of the infallible nature of The Market, that even the private sector must be designed to serve corporations.
* * *
After the morning session, we were sitting in the press room when Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger introduced himself to us. Karger is not the typical Republican presidential candidate: For a start, he is openly gay. For another, he supported Hillary Clinton in the last election. He is pro-choice, pro-marriage equality, pro-legalizing weed, pro-energy independence, pro-immigrant, and anti-war. He is to the left of Democratic President Barack Obama on virtually every social issue—and his "fiscally conservative" economic policies are essentially the Democratic Party's current economic platform.
"Fred," I asked him, "why are you a Republican?"
He laughed and told me that he wanted to change the Republican Party from the inside, to move it back to a party that actually believed in privacy and freedom and civil rights and individual choice.
Fred Karger is the sort of candidate people call a crank. I don't know if he's a crank, but I'm pretty sure he's one of the nicest and most earnest politicians I've ever met—and I'm really glad to have met him.
And Dudley really likes the Fred Karger Frisbee he gave me.
The afternoon session was "Education in America: Regaining Our Edge." As I mentioned, BrianWS is writing a more detailed piece on that session, so again I'll just quickly note a few things:
1. Someone on the introductory video whose name I didn't catch observed that, although we wouldn't put up with our Olympic teams being 24th or 25th, we seem to be content with our students being 24th or 25th in maths and sciences. Oof. It hurts because it's true!
2. Again, Clinton's star power is remarkable and everything he says sounds like what everyone wants to hear. Do you want to hear this is good for workers? Do you want to hear it's good for business? Done and done.
3. The unemployment crisis is an education crisis: 62% of Americans without high school diplomas aren't working.
4. Stephanie A. Burns, chair of the Dow Corning Corporation (because no doy that's who should be involved in education reform), explains that manufacturing has changed not just in that it demands more technical competency, but also in that workers make "critical decisions" on the floor. Good observation. I write in my notes: "Sooooooo...undermining the type of education that gives students critical thinking skills is pretty fucking stupid. And yet Corporate America almost unilaterally supports the GOP, which treats hostility toward intellectualism as a sacred oath."
5. There is discussion of social deficits in "soft skills," like the abilities to understand what's written in front of you, stay focused, finish tasks, control anger, and work well with others on a team. Roger Ferguson, CEO of TIAA-CREF, says that such social deficits are already evident as children enter school. Kaya Henderson, Chancellor of the DC Public Schools, notes that achievement gaps don't get closed in part because we still do school like we did 100 years ago.
6. Ferguson and Henderson, who are the only two people of color on the panel, seem more focused on educating individual people, as opposed to educating "a workforce." They make observations like how empathy and communication are important job skills.
7. During the debate about poverty not being "an excuse," I'll give you one guess which two members of the panel are able to successfully navigate the space in which poverty is not an excuse, but an explanation that creates disadvantages that need to be accommodated.
At the end of this session, BrianWS and I are depressed by how little focus there is at this conference in helping individual people, except as a by-product of creating a populace who can best serve corporations. It's not surprising, but it is nonetheless depressing how nakedly indifferent most of the participants are toward anything that isn't demonstrably profitable.
In good news, I note the diversity of participation. There are a lot of women here, many of whom are women of color.
* * *
Thursday morning, ugh, I wake up with a cold. One day among the humanoids and I'm sick!
The morning session is the one I've been looking forward to—my garbage governor Mitch Daniels is on the panel, which will be discussing "American Success Stories" over breakfast.
Former Democratic Governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, is the moderator. She explains they'll be sharing "replicable and scalable success stories" that created job in their region.
Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor of Los Angeles, starts the session, noting that the economies of the biggest 3 US cities—NY, LA, and Chicago—approximately equal the GDP of France. The 10 biggest cities combined form an economy which is only surpassed by the US as a whole and China. Thus, investment in US cities is important. Currently, he says, there is a $2.1 trillion need for infrastructure investment currently in the US—and, by the way, it's a good return on your investment!
Mitch Daniels is next. I can barely hear him over the sound of my head exploding as he waxes proudly about the fifth anniversary of the privatization of the toll road, resulting in the "best toll road we've ever had." Barf etc. He explains that his government's primary goal has always been to write regulations and rewrite law to make Indiana as attractive as possible to business. (Except, of course, where it is unattractive to businesses to not be able to extend same-sex partner benefits and trans* protections and know that their employees can get an abortion to save their lives if they need one.) "We do everything we can to make it attractive and profitable to do business in Indiana." Yep. Like undermining workers' collective bargaining rights.
Granholm says: "I think we all agree that small businesses are sparkly unicorn farts" or whatever.
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, says very interesting things about building an arts community and a tech community and urban gardens. It's the first thing that's been said about investing in culture. But he then immediately argues that the best thing to replicate their success in Las Vegas is to deregulate and get rid of red tape and make it easy for private sector innovators and entrepreneurs to do what they want to do. He jokes how he doesn't pay attention to politics, which is maybe why he doesn't understand that deregulation tends to come at the expense of worker and/or consumer protections. Or possibly he doesn't care.
He wraps up by saying one of the best phrases he's heard is that failing to deregulate to allow speed to market and also speed of expansion, etc. "slows down the metabolism" of a place. Great fat metaphor. This is getting better by the minute.
There is a lot of talk of private and public partnerships, but it's basically just private enterprise wanting the public sector to deregulate everything to maximize profitability.
Tanya Fiddler, Executive Director of the Four Bands Community Fund, who works with tribal communities in the poorest county in the nation, tries to inject some humanity into the discussion: "I know a lot of the focus here is on urban environments, but what do you do with the rural 70% of the rest of the country? We have value, too." There need to be meaningful jobs to move people out of "chronic and persistent" poverty, she notes.
No one responds meaningfully to what Fiddler says. Hsieh immediately follows by saying something about how entrepreneurs need to follow their passion, not money. Follow your passion and money will come. Granholm: "How can government grease the wheels for passion?"
It's painful at this point.
Michael E. Porter, Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School, says government has to invest in infrastructure, invest in establishing R&D at local universities, facilitate connecting like-minded businesses regionally, but then get out of the way so that they can do business. Robert J. McCann, CEO of UBS Wealth Management Americas, says government needs to provide the sandbox for the natural creativity and entrepreneurship that exists in this country.
Et cetera.
This morning session seems to sum up the overarching theme of the conference: Government's role, it seems, is to build a business-friendly environment most conducive to for-profit enterprises and then get the fuck out of the way.
And, in theory, that sounds pretty good. But, in reality, deregulation and the subversion of both consumer protections (predatory lending) and worker protections (union-busting) is one of the contributing factors to the shitty economic situation we're in. We don't need more of that; we need less.
The whole premise of government providing for corporations so corporations can provide for the people also seems predicated on a fantasy that corporations give a fuck about the quality of life of its workforce. This has not been proven to be the case. In fact, the precise opposite has been demonstrably true for 40 years and counting. We're a long, long way from Mr. Ford and his philosophy about building cars his employees could afford.
I have no doubt that some very good ideas for genuinely progressive innovations will emerge from this conference, because there are many progressive policies that are also profitable.
But I did not walk away feeling optimistic about this nation's future. I walked away feeling more than ever that our democracy has been replaced by a corporatocracy—and I'm profoundly cynical about our ability to reclaim ownership of this state.
I was really glad to have had the opportunity to attend; my thanks to Peter Daou. I also had such a good time meeting and having a chance to shoot the breeze (and breezy it was, sitting along the Chicago River!) with Vanessa Valenti, who is really warm and so nice.
Frequent guest contributor Shaker BrianWS came with me, and he'll have his own follow-up on the educational session we attended on Wednesday afternoon. I'm going to do a broader overview, with some specifics about Wednesday morning's session about "Jobs Jobs Jobs" and Thursday morning's session on "American Success Stories."
The conference is expertly branded and is generally very well organized. It definitely has the feeling of a place where Important Things are happening. When Clinton takes the stage at the opening plenary session on Wednesday morning, he is a total rock star. His charisma is legendary—and what you've heard about how he's even more electric in person is absolutely true. The guy is unbelievable.
And he is, of course, just the smoothest smooth talker in all of smoothdom: He has a way of saying things that allows everyone in the room to hear exactly what they want to hear: If you lean left, and want to hear him talking about improving the economy for the betterment of workers, that's what you'll hear, and, if you lean right, and want to hear him talking about improving the economy for the betterment of corporations, that's what you'll hear—and you're both listening to the same damn sentence. Guy's a fucking wizard.
Even a wizard has his limits, though, and, despite Clinton's ability to project concern for people who are struggling across this nation, it becomes evident very quickly that what is meant by "the public and private sectors working together" is "let's figure out what the government can do for corporations." This is not the typical theme of CGI meetings addressing global needs, but, this ain't the globe: This is America.
And, in the US, it's taken as read that capitalism trumps socialism, that everything has to be run through corporations, that every investment has to be profitable. Even investing in education, in healthcare, is framed in terms of a better educated workforce, healthier employees.
I remark to BrianWS that the difference between CGI Global and CGI America is like the difference between socialized medicine and Obama's healthcare reform: Elsewhere in the world, the government just guarantees and provides its citizens healthcare; here, we've got to run it through the insurance companies and make sure corporations still have the opportunity to profit.
I took a lot of detailed notes during the open session, intending to share them, but now I've got so much to pass on that I'll just note a couple of quick things:
1. Clinton noted that the US can't be scared to measure itself against the global competition and see if someone's doing something better than we are, which I thought was a very good point. So much of the "USA! Number One! USA! BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!" rah-rah patriotism favored by the rightwing is really born of fear and insecurity, and refusing to self-reflect and explore the rest of the world with humility really does stand in the way of innovation.
2. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who also spoke during the opening session, made the point that investment in cities requires confidence in those cities, which I also thought was a good observation. One of the reasons Chicago has always done well is because its mayors are absolutely ga-ga for their city: There's plenty of criticism to be made of Emanuel (and Mayor Daley before him), but when Emanuel says he believes Chicago should be the capitol city of the world, lol, he actually believes that shit.
(The difference between Daley and Emanuel is that Daley believed the city was its people; Emanuel believes the city is its industry.)
3. Emanuel introduced the idea that the government's role is not to create jobs; the public sector's role is to create the circumstances in which the private sector can best create jobs. The public sector's role, he argued, is to create an educated workforce and to build the roads and the public transportation and the infrastructure so they can get to work. This would be a recurring theme throughout the conference.
4. Clinton, who spoke again after Emanuel, noted that China spends as much as 9% of its income annually on infrastructure investments; the US spends about 3%. We need to invest to be competitive, he said.
5. Laura Tyson spoke after Clinton. She had many interesting facts like median wages have not increased since 1973 (holy shit!), and some less interesting facts like how the recession has been "particularly hard for men." (Nope and nope and nope and nope and nope! And there's way more nope where those came from.) But she was very insistent on this point. BrianWS passed me a note with his artistic interpretation of her address:
6. There followed a panel discussion (about which I observed in my notes: "Clinton reclines in his chair like Bacchus"), and during which I was struck how much less this CGI conference focused on empowering individuals than have others. Here, the focus was empowering businesses, because the US is so corporate-focused, so intractably certain of the infallible nature of The Market, that even the private sector must be designed to serve corporations.
After the morning session, we were sitting in the press room when Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger introduced himself to us. Karger is not the typical Republican presidential candidate: For a start, he is openly gay. For another, he supported Hillary Clinton in the last election. He is pro-choice, pro-marriage equality, pro-legalizing weed, pro-energy independence, pro-immigrant, and anti-war. He is to the left of Democratic President Barack Obama on virtually every social issue—and his "fiscally conservative" economic policies are essentially the Democratic Party's current economic platform.
"Fred," I asked him, "why are you a Republican?"
He laughed and told me that he wanted to change the Republican Party from the inside, to move it back to a party that actually believed in privacy and freedom and civil rights and individual choice.
Fred Karger is the sort of candidate people call a crank. I don't know if he's a crank, but I'm pretty sure he's one of the nicest and most earnest politicians I've ever met—and I'm really glad to have met him.
And Dudley really likes the Fred Karger Frisbee he gave me.
The afternoon session was "Education in America: Regaining Our Edge." As I mentioned, BrianWS is writing a more detailed piece on that session, so again I'll just quickly note a few things:
1. Someone on the introductory video whose name I didn't catch observed that, although we wouldn't put up with our Olympic teams being 24th or 25th, we seem to be content with our students being 24th or 25th in maths and sciences. Oof. It hurts because it's true!
2. Again, Clinton's star power is remarkable and everything he says sounds like what everyone wants to hear. Do you want to hear this is good for workers? Do you want to hear it's good for business? Done and done.
3. The unemployment crisis is an education crisis: 62% of Americans without high school diplomas aren't working.
4. Stephanie A. Burns, chair of the Dow Corning Corporation (because no doy that's who should be involved in education reform), explains that manufacturing has changed not just in that it demands more technical competency, but also in that workers make "critical decisions" on the floor. Good observation. I write in my notes: "Sooooooo...undermining the type of education that gives students critical thinking skills is pretty fucking stupid. And yet Corporate America almost unilaterally supports the GOP, which treats hostility toward intellectualism as a sacred oath."
5. There is discussion of social deficits in "soft skills," like the abilities to understand what's written in front of you, stay focused, finish tasks, control anger, and work well with others on a team. Roger Ferguson, CEO of TIAA-CREF, says that such social deficits are already evident as children enter school. Kaya Henderson, Chancellor of the DC Public Schools, notes that achievement gaps don't get closed in part because we still do school like we did 100 years ago.
6. Ferguson and Henderson, who are the only two people of color on the panel, seem more focused on educating individual people, as opposed to educating "a workforce." They make observations like how empathy and communication are important job skills.
7. During the debate about poverty not being "an excuse," I'll give you one guess which two members of the panel are able to successfully navigate the space in which poverty is not an excuse, but an explanation that creates disadvantages that need to be accommodated.
At the end of this session, BrianWS and I are depressed by how little focus there is at this conference in helping individual people, except as a by-product of creating a populace who can best serve corporations. It's not surprising, but it is nonetheless depressing how nakedly indifferent most of the participants are toward anything that isn't demonstrably profitable.
In good news, I note the diversity of participation. There are a lot of women here, many of whom are women of color.
Thursday morning, ugh, I wake up with a cold. One day among the humanoids and I'm sick!
The morning session is the one I've been looking forward to—my garbage governor Mitch Daniels is on the panel, which will be discussing "American Success Stories" over breakfast.
Former Democratic Governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, is the moderator. She explains they'll be sharing "replicable and scalable success stories" that created job in their region.
Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor of Los Angeles, starts the session, noting that the economies of the biggest 3 US cities—NY, LA, and Chicago—approximately equal the GDP of France. The 10 biggest cities combined form an economy which is only surpassed by the US as a whole and China. Thus, investment in US cities is important. Currently, he says, there is a $2.1 trillion need for infrastructure investment currently in the US—and, by the way, it's a good return on your investment!
Mitch Daniels is next. I can barely hear him over the sound of my head exploding as he waxes proudly about the fifth anniversary of the privatization of the toll road, resulting in the "best toll road we've ever had." Barf etc. He explains that his government's primary goal has always been to write regulations and rewrite law to make Indiana as attractive as possible to business. (Except, of course, where it is unattractive to businesses to not be able to extend same-sex partner benefits and trans* protections and know that their employees can get an abortion to save their lives if they need one.) "We do everything we can to make it attractive and profitable to do business in Indiana." Yep. Like undermining workers' collective bargaining rights.
Granholm says: "I think we all agree that small businesses are sparkly unicorn farts" or whatever.
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, says very interesting things about building an arts community and a tech community and urban gardens. It's the first thing that's been said about investing in culture. But he then immediately argues that the best thing to replicate their success in Las Vegas is to deregulate and get rid of red tape and make it easy for private sector innovators and entrepreneurs to do what they want to do. He jokes how he doesn't pay attention to politics, which is maybe why he doesn't understand that deregulation tends to come at the expense of worker and/or consumer protections. Or possibly he doesn't care.
He wraps up by saying one of the best phrases he's heard is that failing to deregulate to allow speed to market and also speed of expansion, etc. "slows down the metabolism" of a place. Great fat metaphor. This is getting better by the minute.
There is a lot of talk of private and public partnerships, but it's basically just private enterprise wanting the public sector to deregulate everything to maximize profitability.
Tanya Fiddler, Executive Director of the Four Bands Community Fund, who works with tribal communities in the poorest county in the nation, tries to inject some humanity into the discussion: "I know a lot of the focus here is on urban environments, but what do you do with the rural 70% of the rest of the country? We have value, too." There need to be meaningful jobs to move people out of "chronic and persistent" poverty, she notes.
No one responds meaningfully to what Fiddler says. Hsieh immediately follows by saying something about how entrepreneurs need to follow their passion, not money. Follow your passion and money will come. Granholm: "How can government grease the wheels for passion?"
It's painful at this point.
Michael E. Porter, Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School, says government has to invest in infrastructure, invest in establishing R&D at local universities, facilitate connecting like-minded businesses regionally, but then get out of the way so that they can do business. Robert J. McCann, CEO of UBS Wealth Management Americas, says government needs to provide the sandbox for the natural creativity and entrepreneurship that exists in this country.
Et cetera.
This morning session seems to sum up the overarching theme of the conference: Government's role, it seems, is to build a business-friendly environment most conducive to for-profit enterprises and then get the fuck out of the way.
And, in theory, that sounds pretty good. But, in reality, deregulation and the subversion of both consumer protections (predatory lending) and worker protections (union-busting) is one of the contributing factors to the shitty economic situation we're in. We don't need more of that; we need less.
The whole premise of government providing for corporations so corporations can provide for the people also seems predicated on a fantasy that corporations give a fuck about the quality of life of its workforce. This has not been proven to be the case. In fact, the precise opposite has been demonstrably true for 40 years and counting. We're a long, long way from Mr. Ford and his philosophy about building cars his employees could afford.
I have no doubt that some very good ideas for genuinely progressive innovations will emerge from this conference, because there are many progressive policies that are also profitable.
But I did not walk away feeling optimistic about this nation's future. I walked away feeling more than ever that our democracy has been replaced by a corporatocracy—and I'm profoundly cynical about our ability to reclaim ownership of this state.
MYOB, Peasants
It's hard out there for the uber rich. Sure, Obama may be keeping Dubya's tax cuts for the wealthy, and sure, you can fill your coffers while still fucking over the American people, and sure, your money gives you access to an obscene amount of political power, but doggone it, those darn whiny poor people just can't stop picking on you about your grossly huge salary. Can't someone make krajillions of dollars without everyone sticking their nose where it doesn't belong? Huh? Huh? Won't someone help the poor wealthy?
Okay, player.
Here’s one financial figure some big U.S. companies would rather keep secret: how much more their chief executive makes than the typical worker.Of course, this has nothing to do with unchecked greed and smokescreening gross inequality.
Now a group backed by 81 major companies — including McDonald’s, Lowe’s, General Dynamics, American Airlines, IBM and General Mills — is lobbying against new rules that would force disclosure of that comparison.
The lobbying effort began more than a year ago. It involved some of the biggest names in corporate America and meetings with members of both parties on the House Financial Services Committee and Senate banking committee.
The companies and their Republican allies in Congress call comparisons between the chief and everyone else in the company “useless.”
Disclosing such comparisons “can mislead or confuse investors,” said Rep. Nan A.S. Hayworth (R[edonkulous]-N.Y.), who filed the bill to repeal the disclosure. “It creates heat but sheds no light.”Ah, I see, it's so we don't get our widdle bwains all confused.
Okay, player.
Enough Is Enough
The brilliant Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) on the floor of the Senate yesterday. To read the full text of the 90-minute speech, go here. To sign the letter (please sign the letter!), go here.
Mr. President, this is a pivotal moment in the history of our country. In the coming days and weeks, decisions will be made about our national budget that will impact the lives of virtually every American in this country for decades to come—and the time is now for the American people to become significantly involved in that debate and not leave it to a small number of people here in Washington.
Mr. President, at a time when the wealthiest people and the largest corporations in our country are doing phenomenally well, and in many cases have never had it so good, while the middle class is disappearing and poverty is increasing, it is absolutely imperative that any deficit-reduction package that passes this Congress not include the horrendous cuts, the cruel cuts, in programs that working people desperately need, that are utilized every day by the elderly, by the sick, by our children, and by the lowest income people in our country, that the Republicans in Congress, dominated by their extreme rightwing, are demanding.
America is not about giving tax breaks to billionaires and attacking the most vulnerable people in our country. We must not allow that to happen.
In my view, the President of the United States needs to stand with the vast majority of the American people and say no to the Republican leadership and make it clear that enough is enough! No, we will not balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable people in this country—on our children, on our seniors, on the sick. No, we will not do that. Working families in this country have already sacrificed enough in terms of lost jobs, lost wages, lost homes, lost pensions. The working families of this country are hurting right now. Enough is enough.
But, Mr. President, now is the time to say to the millionaires and the billionaires in this country, and to the largest corporations, who in many ways have never had it so good, that they must participate in deficit reduction—that there must be shared sacrifice, that deficit reduction cannot be based on cutting back on the needs of working families and the middle class, but the rich and large corporations have also got to participate in this process.
Furthermore, it is absolutely necessary, if we are talking about a sensible deficit-reduction package, that we take a hard look at unnecessary and wasteful spending at the Pentagon.
And, Mr. President, let us make it very clear that we will not be blackmailed again by the Republican leadership in Washington who are threatening to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States government so that, for the very first time in our nation's history, we might not pay the bills we owe. That is their threat. We will destroy the record of always paying our bills, never failing to do that, unless they get everything they want.
Instead of yielding to the incessant, extreme Republican demands, as the President in many respects did in last December's tax cut agreement and this year's spending negotiations, the President has got to get out of the beltway. He has to connect with the needs of working families and ordinary Americans, and rally the overwhelming majority of our people who believe that deficit reduction must be based on shared sacrifice, that the wealthy and the powerful and the large corporations cannot continue to get everything they want while we wage a cruel and unprecedented attack on the most vulnerable people in this country.
It is time for President Obama to stand with the millions who have already lost their jobs, their homes, their life savings, instead of the millionaires, who in many cases have never had it so good.
Unless the American people in huge numbers tell the President not to yield one inch to Republican demands to destroy Medicare and Medicaid while continuing to provide tax breaks to the wealthy and the powerful, unless the American people rise up and say enough is enough, I am afraid that what will happen is the President will yield once again, and the wealthy and the powerful will laugh all the way to the bank, while working people will be devastated.
So, today, I am asking the American people that, if you believe deficit reduction should be about shared sacrifice; if you believe the wealthiest people in our country and the largest corporations should be asked to pay their fair share as part of deficit reduction; if you believe that, at a time when military spending has almost tripled since 1997, that we begin to take a hard look at our defense budget; and if you believe the middle-class and working families have already sacrificed enough, I urge you to make sure that the President hears your voice—and he needs to hear it now.
I would urge the American people to go to my Web site, sanders.senate.gov, and sign a letter to the President letting him know that enough is enough…
Gilded Age News
Whoooooooooooooooooops this is why pretending that global corporations have even the tiniest shred of patriotism is a terrible idea:
Anyway, over at the Atlantic, Daniel Indiviglio makes the point that Goldman Sachs is eliminating the same sort of jobs here that it's taking to Singapore, where the standard of living doesn't make the reorganization a cost-saving maneuver. So why the move? Well, one issue is the shitty US economy. (You didn't actually think global corporations would stick around and help rebuild the economy they ransacked for profits, did you?) The other is the possibility of tougher regulations. Faced with the terrible specter of being forced to do business with some semblance of responsibility, accountability, and ethics, Goldman Sachs is taking its jobs and going somewhere else.
The Invisible Hand is hailing a cab.
Less than three years after receiving $10 billion in bailout money from American taxpayers, Goldman Sachs informed its employees recently that it will fire 1,000 workers in the United States and elsewhere, shifting their jobs to the cheaper Singaporean labor market.Ha ha remember when President Obama nominated Judd Gregg to serve as Commerce Secretary? GOOD TIMES!
...Goldman Sachs has also worked to [inoculate itself from the impending blowback] by hiring former Republican Sen. Judd Gregg (NH) as an "international advisor." It is not unreasonable to assume that Gregg's 26 years in Washington will help the investment firm's attempts to placate critics.
Anyway, over at the Atlantic, Daniel Indiviglio makes the point that Goldman Sachs is eliminating the same sort of jobs here that it's taking to Singapore, where the standard of living doesn't make the reorganization a cost-saving maneuver. So why the move? Well, one issue is the shitty US economy. (You didn't actually think global corporations would stick around and help rebuild the economy they ransacked for profits, did you?) The other is the possibility of tougher regulations. Faced with the terrible specter of being forced to do business with some semblance of responsibility, accountability, and ethics, Goldman Sachs is taking its jobs and going somewhere else.
So this move may be best characterized as a bet against the U.S. economy and a way to escape some new U.S. regulation. Put simply: the U.S. is not the place to be anymore for big banking profits.Awesome.
Seeing Goldman begin to take these steps isn't great news for the U.S. The bank tends to be out in front of the economic trends, as it was with its bet against mortgages in the final days of the housing bubble. If Goldman is right, then the U.S. is going to be in for a rough time over the next decade or so. And other Wall Street firms moving more workers overseas will make matters worse, as the U.S. will lose out on some of its highest paying jobs and the contribution to GDP growth that some lost banking profits would have provided.
The Invisible Hand is hailing a cab.
Phew!
If you were worried that the Obama administration might insist that any deal to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by Aug. 2 would include an end to former President George W. Bush's controversial tax rates on the wealthy, don't worry! IT WON'T!
The entire middle class is a small price to pay for a modern Gilded Age.
The White House, seeking an agreement to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by Aug. 2, on Monday said it would not insist that any deal include an end to former President George W. Bush's controversial tax rates on the wealthy.See?
The White House said the president is pushing the GOP to agree to eliminate some tax breaks for businesses and loopholes for wealthier taxpayers, but is not seeking to eliminate the across-the-board rates introduced by President Bush. That means taxpayers who earn more than $250,000 annually have gotten a reprieve.It's about time that taxpayers who earn more than $250,000 annually get a reprieve from the unrelenting threat of having to pay slightly more taxes during an economic crisis caused by deregulation of businesses they disproportionately run while the nation is at five wars they disproportionately support!
The entire middle class is a small price to pay for a modern Gilded Age.
Trickle Down Economics Rulezzz
Firms Have Record $800 Billion Of Cash But Still Won't Hire:
Also! I propose a vice tax on bootstraps!
Companies are hoarding a record amount of cash as fears of another Lehman-like credit crisis, weak demand and a lack of incentives from the Obama Administration cause chief executives to choose a negative real return on their money over hiring workers or building a new plant.Lower corporate tax rates! Cut payroll taxes! Let's make those corporations filthy rich so they can KEEP NOT HIRING PEOPLE.
The current members of the S&P 500 are sitting on about $800 billion in cash and cash equivalents, the most ever, according to data by Birinyi Associates, even as the unemployment rate has ticked back above 9 percent.
Also! I propose a vice tax on bootstraps!
Meanwhile...
...as the Democrats bomb Yemen and the Republicans continue their war on uteri, jobless claims are up again:
Here's me in Jan. 2006, for example:
It also underlines why maintaining a functional democracy while selling out the government to corporations who have been granted personhood is impossible.
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, suggesting little improvement in the labor market this month after employment stumbled in May.Yeah. A couple months now.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits climbed 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 429,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists had expected claims to come in at 415,000.
..."Again no quick rebound in employment. We're still in the soft patch that we have had for a couple of months now," said Sean Incremona, an economist at 4CAST in New York.
The number of people on emergency unemployment benefits rose 5,728 to 3.30 million in the week ended June 4, the latest week for which data is available. A total of 7.54 million people were claiming unemployment benefits during that period under all programs.Long-time readers will recall my writing, oh, I dunno, a million times or so in the last seven years about the ubiquitous corporate practice of not filling jobs when people leave and simply redistributing their work among remaining staff, who aren't compensated for the additional duties.
Here's me in Jan. 2006, for example:
This is the big secret behind American productivity going up with fewer workers, especially in small companies: Someone quits, or someone gets fired, and they don't get replaced. Their work gets divided up among the remaining staff, and the extra cash goes in the coffers. Everyone I know at a corporate job complains about how they're part of a skeleton crew—and don't get paid for overtime.Mother Jones' Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery have a great piece [TW for ableist language] this week about that very despicable practice, the "speedup." I highly recommend reading it, because the speedup is a huge part of the underlying reason for our protracted unemployment rate and wage stagnation, as well as the explanation for why productivity and profits keep rising despite high unemployment.
It's a despicable practice, largely ignored in discussions of workers' rights, which is, in itself, an issue that barely gets lipservice even from our allegedly liberal Senators and Reps these days.
It also underlines why maintaining a functional democracy while selling out the government to corporations who have been granted personhood is impossible.