Blog For Arizona

The Way Forward: Tax and Spend

Posted by Bob Lord

[Distributed via OtherWords.org]

The Way Forward: Tax and Spend

This strategy would reduce joblessness and inequality while stimulating the economy.

By Bob Lord and Emily Schwartz Greco

Have you heard? Our economic policy debate is getting some spring cleaning.

President Barack Obama has signaled that he’s had it with all that talk about America being broke and the belt-tightening austerity measures that went along with it. His proposed budget for the 2015 fiscal year will reflect this reality.

You know what he should try? A tax-and–spend strategy.

Yes, conservatives have tried for years to turn that simple solution into an epithet. But it’s the best way forward.

Taxing more and spending more would stimulate a $17 trillion U.S. economy that’s not producing at full capacity and dogged by high unemployment. It wouldn’t expand the budget deficit. And it would reverse the concentration of income and wealth that’s hollowing out our middle class and denying most Americans a fair shot.

Changing tax rates and spending levels are two of the three standard tools policymakers have at their disposal to goose the economy. The other is monetary policy.

The Federal Reserve’s expansionary monetary policy that began in 2008 is unprecedented. It may have helped get our financial system back on its feet and unleashed a multi-year bull market. But our economy is still staggering.

Unemployment still stands at 6.6 percent and typical American workers are earning less than they did before the Great Recession.

That means it’s time to give targeted tax increases and higher government spending a shot.

In the United States of Inequality, Arizona Ranks High

Posted by Bob Lord

The Economic Policy Institute is out with a study that looks at inequality in America state-by-state: The Increasingly Unequal States of America: Income Inequality by State, 1917 to 2011.

So, how does Arizona rank? All in all, it's one of the more unequal states, but the data don't suggest there's any pernicious reason for that. The worst statistic for Arizona is that 84.2% of our income growth between 1979 and 2007 went to the top 1%. Only four states, Nevada, Wyoming, Michigan and Alaska, did worse. In each of those states, 100% of the income growth went to the top 1%.

If you're seeking to break into the top 1% in your state, Arizona is a good place to be, because its threshold for the top 1% income group is only $267,667, lower than all but 10 of the other states. 

In terms of percentage of total income going to the top 1%, we're at exactly 20.0% as of 2007. That places us at 12th worst. The worst are Wyoming, Connecticut, New York, Nevada and Florida, ranging from a 28% share to a 33.4% share of income going to the top.

Do the data really tell us anything? Perhaps. On the surface, there is no apparent correlation between governmental policy at the state level and the states' statistical outcomes. The largest driver of inequality for a state seems to be whether it has places rich people like to live, not anything it does policy-wise. California, New York, Washington and Texas all show relatively high levels of inequality, even though two are high tax states and two are low tax states. The only states that have places where the rich like to live and are relatively low in inequality are Maryland and Virginia, but that may be attributable to their proximity to DC and the large number of well-paying middle class jobs in the area.

So, the takeaway it seems is that high income earners really are not that sensitive to income tax rates. The rich people who live in Seattle live there because they like Seattle, not because Washington lacks a state income tax, or so it seems. The rich people who prefer a city that never sleeps live in New York, despite its relatively high tax rates. 

Print Newspapers' Smear of Kavanagh Reeks of Desperation

Posted by Bob Lord

Let's hope this is one of the last gasps of a dying snake.

The pathetic print newspaper industry, in a desperate attempt to preserve a statutorily-mandated revenue stream that lost its justification decades ago, maliciously attacked Arizona House Rep. John Kavanagh in some of the most despicably self-serving and deceptive editorial pieces I've ever read.

Unfortunately, few members of the public likely understand what really is going on. 

Let's be clear: Kavanagh and I are not exactly political chums, although I have nothing personal against him and do admire his willingness to comment here under his real name. But he's a right-wing conservative and I identify as Green. So I have no motive to shill for Rep. Kavanagh.

But I'm willing to give credit where credit is due, and John has introduced a piece of legislation, HB 2554, which is outstanding and long overdue. HB 2554 eliminates the requirement that newly formed corporations and limited liability companies publish their formation information in a print newspaper of general circulation. 

The Arizona print newspaper industry collects millions in fees from business start-ups each year for printing these statutorily mandated notices. The notices appear in separate sections of numerous local newspapers. Nobody reads them. They go straight to the recycling bin or, worse yet, the landfill.

And it's been that way for decades.

It's what's referred to as a private tax.

A long time ago, when local print newspapers were the best way to disseminate this information and far, far fewer corporations were formed, most states had publication requirements.

No longer. All but four states have eliminated the publication requirement because it no longer serves any purpose. From the way the Arizona print newspaper lobby is squealing like a stuck pig, you would never guess this to be the case, but it is.

In the past weeks, a spate of wildly deceptive editorial pieces have appeared in Arizona newspapers, led of course by our Arizona Republic in What's this? John Kavanagh wants larger government? 

At the heart of the deception is the conflation of (a) the legitimate and necessary practice of providing online access to information about corporations and limited liability companies to the public; and (b) the completely wasteful and valueless practice of publishing information about new corporate and limited liability company formations in print. Those two practices are not naturally connected. The newspaper lobby, however, justifies the continuation of the giant revenue stream it derives from wasteful print publication on the basis of the public's need for online access.

Practically each line from the Republic either is misleading or is an outright lie, starting out with the glaring omission of the fact that the list of states retaining the publication requirement is down to four, and shrinking.

Thucky: Textbook Case of a Neo-Religious Conservative

Posted by Bob Lord

One of our readers and frequent commenters, Bess, suggested that we just ignore ole Thuckarooskie. That would be the conventional approach. But I actually think we may be on to something, so let's not stop just yet.

In Thing Two About Thucky, I guessed that the Thuckster is a religious dude, based on his conservatism and his blind faith in the economists he reveres. Turns out I likely nailed it, because he would have been the first to tell me if I had not. 

Upon further reflection and discovery (Thucky gives us new insights into his pathology on a regular basis), I realize the religious aspect of him is tied far more closely to his persona than I first surmised. 

The economists Thucky cites are not the only humans to whom he ascribes God-like qualities. He speaks of the "titans of industry" and the so-called "job creators" with similar reverence. In a recent comment, he actually defended the wealth accumulation of both Cornelius Vanderbilt and Sam Walton. By all appearances, Thucky is so enamored of Sam Walton that he thinks it okay that his bratty great-grandchildren live in opulence because of old Sam's great deeds. 

To Thucky, imposing stiff taxes on folks like Sam Walton and Cornelius Vanderbilt would be blasphemy. He wants to lower the capital gains tax rate to a measly five percent. Yet he rarely speaks out against taxes that apply to little people, such as sales taxes and employment taxes.

So what's going on here? Follow me after the jump.

Inequality Cartoon Says it All

Posted by Bob Lord

From Tom Tomorrow at Daily Kos (click to enlarge) --

When Truth is Marginalized

Posted by Bob Lord

Even those on the political left (not the ideological left) consider Chris Hedges to be on the fringe.

That's scary. It's scary because when those making sense are marginalized, the end is near. Here are the closing paragraphs in Hedges' column tody, Our Sinister Dual State:

Societies that once had democratic traditions, or periods when openness was possible, are often seduced into totalitarian systems because those who rule continue to pay outward fealty to the ideals, practices and forms of the old systems. This was true when the Emperor Augustus dismantled the Roman Republic. It was true when Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized control of the autonomous soviets and ruthlessly centralized power. It was true following the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazi fascism. Thomas Paine described despotic government as a fungus growing out of a corrupt civil society. And this is what has happened to us.

No one who lives under constant surveillance, who is subject to detention anywhere at any time, whose conversations, messages, meetings, proclivities and habits are recorded, stored and analyzed, can be described as free. The relationship between the U.S. government and the U.S. citizen is now one of master and slave. Yet the prerogative state assures us that our rights are sacred, that it abides by the will of the people and the consent of the governed.

The last paragraph follows after the jump. 

Inequality: Narrowing the Focus

Posted by Bob Lord

There seems to be an awakening of sorts in the writing on inequality recently. It's really not about the top one percent. The top one percent (and its counterpart, the 99 percent) is a useful frame, but it's imprecise at best, and I would say inaccurate.

Check out this piece by Barry Ritholtz of Bloomberg: There's Rich, Then There's the 0.01%.

Ritholtz depicts, with a simple graph, the vast chasm between the one percent and the 0.01%. 

And he's correct. A professional or small business owner making half a mil a year is not the source of the economic injustice we face and he's within the range of inequality that has a redeeming quality for the economy -- the reward of hard work. More importantly, and this part does not get the play it should, the folks at the lower reaches of the top one percent are not creating vast fortunes. They may wind up with a few million in savings by retirement, but year-to-year they're spending most of their earnings on living expenses and the taxes imposed on their labor.

The folks at the very top are in an entirely different class. They're either absurdly overpaid (CEOs) or have income through stock ownership, or both. Their effective tax rates are lower than the rest of the population. And as Thucky has pointed out here in comments (yes, correctly), they don't pay tax at all as their portfolio values increase. Most importantly, their income or, more accurately, their rate of increase in wealth, vastly outstrips their living expenses. The result? A larger and larger share of our wealth pie flows to this tiny slice of the population.

Will we stop referring to the one percent? No, it's a convenient frame to which others can relate. But if it weren't so clumsy, the better reference would be the top .1% or the top .01%. 

Thing Two About Thucky

Posted by Bob Lord

I remember reading a piece by Matt Taibbi which he opened by apologizing to himself and his readers for succumbing to the temptation to blast away at David Brooks, after promising not to. Matt, buddy, I'll never be one-tenth the writer you are, but I feel your pain. 

On to the Thuckster.

This second thing about Thucky follows logically from the first, so I need to develop the first just a little further. I recently had an exchange with Thucky in which he ventured out of his comfort zone and tried to do his own analysis. He got it absolutely dead wrong, reaching the opposite conclusion that logic would dictate. I'll reprint the exchange at the end of the post.

So, I'm going to go out on a limb here, and guess that Thucky's a religious dude. I have no specific knowledge here. I've not seen any references to his faith, although there may be some in the comments he posts to posts of my colleagues.

But here's the thing. Thucky idolizes the conservative economists he cites. But he's demonstrated over and over again here that he doesn't have the intellectual wherewithal to understand how they reach their conclusions, or to test their logic with any real rigor. 

So, how does Thucky "know" the supply-siders he worships are right, despite all the evidence to the contrary? How does he disregard plain logic presented to him that undermines his supply-side view? Because he has religion, and that allows him to have faith that his supply-side heroes are not leading him astray.

For that exchange, follow me after the jump.

Are The Plutocrats Doing Themselves In?

Posted by Bob Lord

In a word: Yes.

Recently, there's been a spike in the number of plutocrats whining about their negative press and/or demonizing the poor. Tops on the list of course is billionaire Tom Perkins. A few weeks back, Perkins made headlines for likening the top one percent to German Jews. He retracted that, sort of, but now is saying that Americans ought to vote in proportion to how much they pay in income tax. 

He's not alone. We had another billionaire say, effectively, that if the 99% would just work harder, they could be in the 1% too. Get that? We can all be in the 1%. Even Thucky wouldn't buy that baloney. 

If you want to read more about these folks, go to inequality.org and sign up for Sam Pizzigati's weekly newsletter "Too Much," which includes a piece on the "Petulant Plutocrat of the Week." 

So, what's happening here? It seems like we're watching the plutocrats self-destruct. They could maintain a low profile. If they did, they likely could continue to wield the massive power they have in Washington and state capitals for years to come. But they can't help themselves. Their egos won't let them. Egos aren't rational, you see.

A useful analogy is the way nonviolence achieves its desired result. Nonviolent resistance itself doesn't accomplish the intended result. It's when those in power over-react by engaging in violence to put down the resistance that things move in the desired direction. The general public, offended by the brutality of those in power, sides with the resistance. That's the development that dooms those in power. And their own actions are what bring it about. 

So it is with the ultra-rich. As they react in such an ugly fashion to questions about their wealth, the numbers opposed to them increase. When the class war finally erupts in full, the ranks of those willing to defend the rich will be too thin, largely because of the actions of the rich themselves. 

The Thing About Thucky

Posted by Bob Lord

Okay, actually there are several things about Thucky, but I liked the alliteration so I went with it. 

The thing about Thucky for this post is that he purports to be really well read, and perhaps he is, but the synapses just don't fire for him the way they fire for the right-wing economists he worships. In my school days, he would have been referred to as a "dummy try hard." He works really hard. He reads about Rogerson and Prescott. He believes they're really smart. He reads everything they churn out. He knows their conclusions, but doesn't truly grasp how they got there. Nor does he have the mental strength or the intellectual curiosity to challenge anything his heroes throw out there for him. 

Let me digress for a second. I use the male pronoun to refer to Thucky, and have no real basis for doing so. Perhaps it's because most of us tend to assume anonymous people are the same gender as we are, or perhaps it's because the real Thucydides actually was male. I don't know, but I recognize the possibility that when I say Thuckmeister I perhaps should be saying Thuckstress.

Anyhow, I've been having this ongoing debate with ole Thuckarooskie about the effect of tax policy on tax revenue, and I've realized that Thucky doesn't really grasp fundamental concepts. 

He's on safe ground when he just parrots what Rogerson and Prescott and others have concluded. But when he engages in his own analysis, he gets into trouble. 

This gets a bit geeky, but try to hang in here for this example.

Did Thucky Lie Again?

Posted by Bob Lord

I almost missed this whopper by the Thuckmeister in a comment to a BlueMeanie post:

You are running the Roosevelt play book in using Hoover as a metaphor for Bush. But, that doesn't cut it any more. Thanks to Lee Ohanian's (top ranked economist) work we know that a modest recession was turned into the Great Depression by Roosevelt's destructive regulatory schemes. [emphasis mine]

So, you be the judge. The unemployment rate hit 25% in 1932, before Roosevelt took office. How, then, could Roosevelt have turned a "modest recession" into the Great Depression? If unemployment had hit 25% before he took office, it already was a Great Depression before Roosevelt could implement any "regulatory schemes." 

If Thucky knew this at the time he commented, he's pretty clearly a liar.

What if he didn't know it? In other words, what if he remained willfully ignorant of the truth while purporting to have knowledge of the subject about which he spoke? I'd say that is tantamount to lying, but I'm sure ole Thuckenheimer will claim otherwise. 

An Open Letter to the Second Nine Percent

Posted by Bob Lord

Dear Second Nine Percent (and those of you in the lower reaches of the top one percent): 

I know the debate about inequality in America troubles you, but I assure you that it really isn’t about you. I have a friend who shares your feelings. He expressed to me his concern that he had worked hard to get to where he is, making substantial sacrifices when he was younger. He’s afraid he’s the target of efforts to redistribute wealth and income and he doesn’t think he should be taxed at a higher rate in order to “even things out.” 

He has no need to worry, and neither do you. Quite the contrary. A more equal society will be better for you as well. 

Can Christie Survive BridgeGate?

Posted by Bob Lord

No, I don't mean politically survive; I mean survive survive. 

Look, having your lies scrutinized is stressful stuff. You have to be really careful of everything you say. You have to worry about who might turn on you. You have to feign outrage at the actions you instructed your subordinates to take.

And it's extra stressful when you have Rachel Maddow scrutinizing everything you and anyone involved says. I'm watching her show as I write, and her dissection of Christie's actions is very, very good. 

This is not for the faint of heart. You better be in good shape going into a scandal like this one.

Scandals raise blood pressure, even if you start out with normal blood pressure.

Is Christie fit enough physically to get through this ordeal?  

I'll confess. I've been enjoying watching Christie try to wriggle out of the jam he got himself into, being near certain he can't survive politically. 

But now, I'm just hoping it ends soon. I'm concerned if it goes on much longer Christie may implode -- literally.

Maddow is killing it. I often disagree with her politically, but she's one damn good investigative journalist.

Israel-Palestine: BDS Movement Gaining Momentum

Posted by Bob Lord

An interesting pair of opinion pieces in today's NY Times, Losing the Propaganda War, and Why Israel Fears the Boycott. It's not clear if they were intended as point and counter-point. They're juxtaposed in a manner suggesting they are and one is written by an Israeli while the other is written by a Palestinian. But in important ways they're somewhat aligned. Both are sharply critical of Israel. Both acknowledge the increasing effectiveness of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement.

Decades ago, the economic boycott of South Africa was crucial in bringing an end to apartheid. So it is with apartheid in Israel. 

Omar Barghouti, the Palestinian writer, reaches a logical conclusion about the survival of Israel if the BDS movement succeeds in brining an end to apartheid in Israel:

Would justice and equal rights for all really destroy Israel? Did equality destroy the American South? Or South Africa? Certainly, it destroyed the discriminatory racial order that had prevailed in both places, but it did not destroy the people or the country.

Likewise, only Israel’s unjust order is threatened by boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

Hirsh Goodman, the Israeli writer, ultimately arrives in a similar place:

LIes, Damned Lies, and Thucky's Statistics

Posted by Bob Lord

Oh, Thucky, you poor, pathetic, intellectually dishonest, little gnome. 

In my last post, Thucky On Double Secret Probation, I called Thucky out for this statement in a comment:

You ought to be concerned, we now have three years without any increase in government revenues in the United States. All these tax increases have yielded nothing.

Because Thucky was speaking of tax increases, I figured his reference to government revenues was to tax receipts. And, because the tax increases were federal tax increases (many of the states have been reducing their tax rates), I figured the reference was to federal tax receipts. After all, if federal tax increases had the effect of increasing federal tax receipts, you would think they had yielded more than nothing. 

Alas, Thucky was not referring to federal tax receipts, or even total federal, state and local tax receipts, but to actual revenues, including, as we'll see, a category of state revenue that by its nature fluctuates wildly from year to year. 

When you drill down into the government revenue numbers upon which Thucky relies and make appropriate adjustments for the revenue numbers that not only are unrelated to tax policy but are random in the short-term, the result is the same: The picture Thucky painted is wildly misleading and dishonest.

The complete analysis follows after the jump. 

Thucky On Double Secret Probation

Posted by Bob Lord

I've placed Thucky on double secret probation. It seems he's taken to just making stuff up (i.e., lying) in his comments.

In a recent comment, he tried to pass this off as accurate: 

You ought to be concerned, we now have three years without any increase in government revenues in the United States. All these tax increases have yielded nothing.

The actual numbers show significant growth in yearly U.S. tax receipts, both in nominal dollars and inflation adjusted dollars. The actual numbers can be found here, and probably a couple hundred other places as well. Government revenues have grown substantially in the past three years. There simply was zero truth to what the Thuckmeister attempted to pass off as fact. 

So, Thuckarooskie's breached our trust, and the trust of our readers. For that, double secret probation is the only option.

To be continued...

A Watershed Book in Economic Thinking

Posted by Bob Lord

I don't know whether to wait until Thomas Pikkety's new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, comes out in English in March or brush up on my French so I can read it now. According to this review by Thomas Edsall in today's NY Times, Capitalism vs. Democracy, Pikkety's book has the potential to be a game changer in economic thinking on inequality. 

I sure hope so, because based on Edsall's review Pikkety has shone a light on some inconvenient truths about capitalism, inequality and taxation.

I'll get to the substance after the jump, but here's how Branco Milanovic of the World Bank described the book:

I am hesitant to call Thomas Piketty’s new book Capital in the 21st Century one of the best books in economics written in the past several decades. Not that I do not believe it is, but I am careful because of the inflation of positive book reviews and because contemporaries are often poor judges of what may ultimately prove to be influential. With these two caveats, let me state that we are in the presence of one of the watershed books in economic thinking.

According to another review, Pikkety's book defies left and right orthodoxy by arguing that worsening inequality is an inevitable outcome of free market capitalism."

The centerpiece of Edsall's argument appears to be based on the relationship between the return on capital and the rate of economic growth:

Economic Mobility: Latest Ruse of the Rich

Posted by Bob Lord

Great piece by Sean McElwee in Salon yesterday, Listen up, talking heads: Upward mobiity isn't the answer. McElwee identifies and exposes the latest ruse of the rich, implemented through their proxies in the punditocracy and Congress: It's not inequality, but upward mobility, that we need to address. In other words, if we can just improve the odds of going from rags to riches, it would be just fine if most Americans were in rags. McElwee:

A new “bipartisan consensus” is brewing: 2014 will be the year in which Very Serious People argue that America’s primary economic goal should be increasing social mobility, not decreasing inequality. “Shame on Obama and De Blasio for talking about class, and trying to divide us,” they’ll smarm. “Let’s focus on something everyone can agree on: upward mobility.”

It’s already happening. At the Brookings Institution, Richard Reeves argues that while inequality is important, the defining issue of our era is “the shocking, illiberal, immoral transmission of poverty and affluence from one generation to the next.” Social mobility is the new deficit reduction, and luminaries from the left (Kirsten Gillibrand) and right (Paul Ryan) can both agree it’s a problem. Even David Brooks is concerned. Marco Rubio has already sketched out the battle lines: “It is this lack of mobility, not just income inequality, that we should be focused on.” At the core, the question about whether our society should focus on inequality or mobility gets to a significant schism built around one central question: Is inequality fundamentally immoral?

McElwee's piece is thought provoking, to say the least. He demolishes the underlying premise of those promoting the "it's not inequality, but upward mobility" position, that markets are inherently just and a society where property is distributed according to merit is optimal.

In Defense of Snowden, Part 4: Obama Administration Blinks

Posted by Bob Lord

Very interesting development in the Snowden case. From Huff Po:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday he would "engage in conversation" with National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden in search of some sort of resolution for his case. But he stopped short of considering clemency, telling MSNBCthat "would be going too far."

Holder's carefully phrased remarks come after both the New York Times and The Guardian published editorials in favor of granting Snowden clemency from the Espionage Act charges the Justice Department laid against him following Snowden's revelations last June about the NSA's widespread surveillance programs. Some members of Congress -- mostly liberal Democrats -- have also said they would welcome a deal.

So, Holder wants a resolution, but clemency would be "going too far." And he would "engage in conversation." That's called blinking in a negotiation. It happens when one side recognizes it must make a concession in order to avoid an unfavorable result. 

The "conversation," which I'll bet will take place, will start along these lines:

Holder: "Edward, we can't offer clemency, and we need you to acknowledge some wrongdoing in order for us to save face, but we're not seeking retribution, so here's what we have in mind...."

This is a welcome development. Stay tuned. 

In Defense of Snowden, Part 3

Posted by Bob Lord

Still getting blowback for not being on board with Obama and Feinstein, so, what the heck, here's Robert Scheer from No Place To Hide: We're All Suspects in Barack Obama's America:

Barack Obama’s speech Friday on surveillance was his worst performance, not as a matter of theatrical skill, though he clearly did not embrace his lines, but in its stark betrayal of his oft proclaimed respect for constitutional safeguards and civil liberty. 

His unbridled defense of the surveillance state opened the door to the new McCarthyism of Mike Rogers and Dianne Feinstein, the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees, who on Sunday talk shows were branding Edward Snowden as a possible Russian spy.

[snip]

Some will read my criticism of Obama and Feinstein and say trust these good liberal Democrats, who would never condone misusing government power to undermine individual freedom. It is a rationalization difficult to accept on a day when we celebrate the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., a man blackmailed with information collected by the FBI and the NSA when Democrat Lyndon Johnson was president.

“In the 1960s, the government spied on civil rights leaders and the critics of the Vietnam War,” Obama noted in his speech, before quickly abandoning that caution and falling back on the lame “trust us” refrain of every overreaching government.

Apparently, some have the impression I'm siding with Republicans here. That's laughable, but I'll address it after the jump.

Our Freshmen Blue Dogs

Posted by Bob Lord

I'm a little late to the party with this one, but it looks like none of my BfAZ posted on it either. Apparently, two our freshmen reps, Ron Barber and Kyrsten Sinema, in their infinite wisdom, have joined the Blue Dog caucus in the house. It's just a tiny little itty bitty caucus at this point, down to 19 members even after the addition of Ron and Kyrsten. 

Here's the report from last week's WaPo:

Now, the Blue Dog Coalition is a shell of its former self, shrunken to just 15 members because of political defeat, retirements after redrawn districts left them in enemy territory and just plain exhaustion from the constant battle to stay in office. Several are not running for reelection in November, and a few others are top targets of Republicans.

In danger of losing even more clout, the leading Blue Dogs are regrouping and rebuilding. They are adding four members to their ranks this week — Reps. Ron Barber (Ariz.), Cheri Bustos (Ill.), Nick J. Rahall II (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) — and angling to play a key role in bipartisan talks over the next few years in the belief that the polar tension in the Capitol will thaw.

My first thought on seeing this about our two illustrious freshmen was Dana Carvey's old line on SNL: "Well, isn't that special."

Hedges: What Obama Really Meant on NSA Surveillance

Posted by Bob Lord

I received a little pushback on Debate on Snowden Over, So Why No Pardon? My only suggestion to those who don't see it my way is to check out Chris Hedges post today, What Obama Really Meant Was...

The post, written as if Obama is the writer, is long, but awesome. It's too long to summarize, so you'll need to read it for yourself. Here's a sample:

The bottom line is that people around the world, regardless of their nationality, can be assured that the United States follows everything they do or say. It does not matter if they are ordinary people or foreign leaders. I am not going to apologize for monitoring the communications of friends and allies. We know what we are doing. We know why this is important. The effects of declining incomes for working men and women, the massive debt peonage that keeps people trapped, the slashing of government assistance programs, the chronic, long-term unemployment, and the effects of climate change will eventually trigger volatile unrest. We are ready. The likelihood of totalitarianism no longer comes from fascism or communism. It comes from corporations. Corporations, for which I work, fear those who think and write and speak out and form relationships freely. Individual freedom impedes their profits. And the surveillance system I am protecting today is designed to keep these corporations in power. [emphasis mine]

You can find the entire post here. Enjoy.

Israel: Keep Questioning The Premises

Posted by Bob Lord

This may be a long one. I recently finished two lengthy books on Israel-Palestine, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, by Ari Shavit, and Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, by Max Blumenthal. In addition, I had an interesting exchange of emails with a Jewish friend who is a self-proclaimed moderate.

I've posted previously on Goliath. It's a masterpiece. Is it one-sided? Absolutely, as it was intended to be. But the case it makes is compelling. Many in the "Israel can do no wrong" community are demonizing Blumenthal, but the great majority have not read the book. Nor will they. As Larry Gross of Truthdig so aptly noted, Goliath contains many inconvenient truths. Actually, the better term may be "uncomfortable truths." 

My "moderate" friend provides a great example on that front. He'd read a negative review of Goliath and emailed it to me for my thoughts. I emailed back Larry Gross' review, and suggested that he should have the intellectual curiosity to read Goliath himself and form his own conclusions. His response was that he didn't have time to read many books, so he only could read one on Israel-Palestine, and that would be Shavit's My Promised Land, because it was reported to be balanced. He didn't take kindly to my teasing him about his fearing inconvenient truths, but his explanation regarding his limited capacity to read brought to mind that old expression, "the lady doth protest too much."

More on my email exchange later, but let me turn to My Promised Land. Please join me after the jump. 

Debate On Snowden Over, So Why No Pardon?

Posted by Bob Lord

From today's lead NY Times editorial:

In the days after Edward Snowden revealed that the United States government was collecting vast amounts of Americans’ data — phone records and other personal information — in the name of national security, President Obama defended the data sweep and said the American people should feel comfortable with its collection. On Friday, after seven months of increasingly uncomfortable revelations and growing public outcry, Mr. Obama gave a speech that was in large part an admission that he had been wrong.

So there it is. Snowden was right and our leaders, including Obama and Diane "we need the information in case they become terrorists" Feinstein, were dead wrong. 

Could there be any better evidence of the decay in our society than Snowden still being treated as a fugitive?

In corrupt, decaying societies, the rich and powerful, no matter how corrupt, are lionized, while the truly courageous who speak out are demonized.  

New Right-Wing Email: The Affordable Golf Club Act

Posted by Bob Lord

So, how would I describe the latest right-wing email I received? In a word: Adorable. Adorable in the way a pre-teen discovering and clumsily experimenting with sarcasm is adorable. Check it out:

The administration has passed a new law titled: "The Affordable Golf Club Act" declaring that every citizen must purchase a new set of golf clubs, before April 2014. 

This law has been passed, because until now, typically only the wealthy or financially responsible have been able to purchase new golf clubs without the assistance of their government. 

This new law ensures that every American can now have "affordable" golf clubs of their own, because everyone is equally entitled to new golf clubs. And if you want to keep the golf clubs you already have, you can do that, until April 2014.

Dr. King's Nightmare

The wealth possessed by our nation's 400 richest billionaires is equal to the collective net worth of  all African-American households.

By Bob Lord

As we commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.’s 85^th birthday, we’ve all come to know his dream. Above all else, he dreamed that one day this nation would rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

Yet here’s the grim reality facing black America today:

The net worth of just 400 billionaires, a group that could fit into a high school gym, is on par with the collective wealth of our more than 14 million African- American households. Both groups possess some $2 trillion, about three percent of our national net worth of $77 trillion.

We chose to honor Dr. King by making his birthday a national holiday because of his tireless work for justice. And MLK stood not only for social justice, but for economic justice as well.

Back in 1951, he told his future life partner, Coretta Scott, that a small elite should not “control all the wealth.” “A society based on making all the money you can and ignoring people’s needs, is wrong,” Dr. King explained.

And the “March on Washington” was “for jobs and freedom.” At the time of his assassination in Memphis in 1968, Dr. King was standing with striking sanitation workers in their fight for economic justice.

How would MLK view the Forbes 400 controlling as much wealth as our entire African-American population of about 41 million people? Could that state of affairs co-exist with his dream?

More Momentum For Progressive Populism?

Posted by Bob Lord

It's not all good news on the progressive populist front, but it's mostly good. This week, the NY Times indulged the zero corporate tax rate crowd with this piece by economist Laurence Kotlikoff. When economists with little knowledge of how our tax system works spout off, they tend to get it wrong, as Citizens for Tax Justice makes amply clear here. I'll be writing more on Kotlikoff and the zero corporate tax rate in the near future.

But Kotlikoff is a lightweight, and his insipid op-ed is small stuff.

It's a bit more troubling that Andrew Cuomo is looking to slash New York's estate tax rate. More on that soon as well.

But the larger developments are going in the right direction. From Salon yesterday: Move over de Blasio: Meet the Big-City Mayor Vowing to Get His City a $15 Minimum Wage. The "big city" would be Seattle, and Mayor Ed Murray seems dead set on implementing his plan to pay city workers no less than $15 per hour.

So, what's going on? Paul Krugman sums it up well in The War Over Poverty:

Inequality Denialists

Posted by Bob Lord

By now, we're all familiar with the pseudo-science of climate change denial. Exxon Mobil, the Koch brothers, or someone of that ilk funds a think tank, which hires a dishonest "scientist" to concoct a "study" to tell us all the peer reviewed papers documenting climate change are wrong. 

Now, we have climate change denial's twin brother, inequality denial. The principle is the same: Find an intellectually dishonest "economist" to manipulate the data and claim that things really aren't that unequal. 

Paul Krugman recently took an inequality denialist to task in his blogpost, Disinformation on Inequality. The denialist, Bret Stephens, had engaged in rank intellectual dishonesty in a piece written for the Wall Street Journal. 

Among other things, Stephens used income figures that had not been adjusted for inflation in order to claim that incomes were up substantially for all Americans. In other words, if the cost of living had doubled and your income doubled, he'd say your income was up 100%, rather than saying it was unchanged. Wow! And the Journal was only too happy to publish Stephens' masterpiece.

Here's Krugman's conclusion:

We could have a debate about whether rising inequality is a problem, and whether measures intended to curb it would do more harm than good. But we can’t have that kind of debate if the anti-populist side won’t acknowledge basic facts – and it won’t. In his piece Stephens trashes Obama, accusing him of making a factual error when he did no such thing; then proceeds to commit just about every statistical sin you can imagine in an attempt to minimize the rise in inequality. In the process he leaves his readers more ignorant than they were before. When this is what passes for argument, how can we have any kind of rational discussion?

Expect to see a whole lot more inequality denial. America's economic royalists will pull every stunt possible to keep the masses under heel. 

Jewish State? Please Explain

Posted by Bob Lord

Israel-Palestine has percolated to the surface for me. Tammy wanted to read a "balanced" book on the subject, so she purchased Ari Shavit's My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, then persuaded me to get it as well, so we could discuss. Today, I read Roger Cohen of the NYT's op-ed, My Jewish State, then turned to Truthdig and found Stanley Kutler's post, Israel Can Do No Wrong. 

Cohen and Kutler both mention Israel's demand for recognition, which has evolved from the Palestinians recognizing Israel's right to exist, to recognizing Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. Why the change?

And what the hell does that mean? It's an easy concept to slide by most people, as we tend to connect Israel and Judaism. Even J Street, the supposedly moderate pro-Israel, pro-peace lobbying group, contends that the two-state solution is the only way Israel can have a future as both a "majority Jewish state and a Democracy." 

Does "Jewish" refer to the religion, the race, or a nationality? Whichever of those options you choose, there are logical dead ends. If the reference is to the religion, how do you square it with the fact that most Israeiis are secular and that is home to 1.6 million Palestinians? What happens if over time less than half the populace are practicing Jews? And what is the significance of being a Jewish state in this context? Do Jews have rights that others don't and, if so, can others achieve those rights through conversion? Is this the equivalent of America being a "Christian nation" and, if so, why do American Jews reject the notion of a Christian nation, yet demand Israel be a Jewish state?

In Print in Arkansas; Who'da Thunk It

Posted by Bob Lord

This is kind of hilarious, at least to me. My syndicated op-ed piece at OtherWords, The Trillion Dollar Question, was picked up in, of all places, Baxter County, Arkansas, home state of the Walton family, albeit with a changed title: Bob Lord: Wealth Concentration in America Has No Visible Limit.

This piece is similar to a blog post from earlier in the year, but we decided to improve and update it as a a syndicated piece. If you're curious, click on the link to the OtherWords version. It has a great cartoon by the OtherWords cartoonist to accompany it. 

Populism Rising?

Posted by Bob Lord

I love it when really smart people see things the way I do. Bob Borosage of Campaign for America's Future describes how the stars are aligning for a populist movement in his Truth-out piece, Populism Rising? If you're a progressive and you want to be uplifted, read Borosage's piece.

A few tibits:

Populist movements grow out of popular discontent. For over thirty years, inequality has been growing. Profits and productivity and CEO salaries have risen, but workers haven't shared in the growth. But hard times, as Lawrence Goodwyn, the great historian of the Populist Movement notes, do not generate democratic movements. Times have been "hard" for most people for a long time. When families lose ground, people tend to believe that they are at fault, that their luck has been bad, that they made the wrong choices. They work harder; they take on debt; they get by. Resignation and deference are normal. Movements start only when reality – and organizers – begin to open people's eyes.

[snip]

Decay In The Center Left

Posted by Bob Lord

We're seeing the beginning of what's promising to be quite the war between the so-called center-left and a re-energized populist progressive left. It's a war we need and a war progressives must win, even if we lose a few battles in the early going.

The recent Third Way attack on Elizabeth Warren and Bill deBlasio was a sure sign of how concerned the Democratic establishment is. The Third Way stumbled badly, but this fight only is beginning. 

Another pathetic salvo was fired by Bill Keller in Sunday's NYT: Inequality For Dummies. Keller tried mightily to explain the wisdom of what he called the "center-left" (translation: the Democratic establishment), as compared to the "left-left" (progressives). He failed miserably.

In one of the best take-downs I've read, Dean Baker rips Keller to shreds in Bill Keller's Center-Left is the Reason We Are Growing Less Rapidly. But Baker's piece is more than a great take-down. Baker exposes the utter depravity of center-left policy, which makes his piece an important read without regard to the entertaining take-down of Keller. Baker builds an airtight case for his conclusion:

In sum, it is actually fairly easy to summarize the distinction between Keller's center-left and his left-left. His center-left wants to continue the policies that have led to a massive upward redistribution of income over the last three decades. The left-left wants to reverse these policies and replace them with policies that will lead to more equitable and more rapid growth.

That is the essence of why progressives ultimately must prevail over centrists. You can follow Baker even if you don't have time to read Keller's piece first.

Or, if you're really short on time, follow me after the jump for a few highlights.

Our Callous Game of Musical Chairs

Posted by Bob Lord

The BlueMeanie pointed me to Kathleen Geier's piece at the the Washington Monthly, Deserving vs. undeserving poor -- for the love of God, here we go again, which contains this brilliant analogy explaining the way in which we conflate two separate and distinct aspects of poverty:

Rumors of My Demise...

Posted by Bob Lord

I'm 11 days out from my last post here at BfAZ. My day job is killing me right now. 

It's too bad...there's lots going on, and a lot of it good. We just may be getting to the point where the 90%, or at least the sane members of the 90%, say enough to the 1%, while the 9% in between wring their hands. 

It's late and I don't have enough gas left in the tank for any thorough analysis, but I did see this laugher from David Brooks this in this morning's NYT: The Tragic Situation. I'd quote from it, but it's just wire to wire bad. Brooks tries mightily to explain away Israel's atrocities towards the Palestinians (without bothering to directly acknowledge them first). Instead, he winds up going from platitude to platitude. The piece is devoid of substance, as is ... Brooks. 

Happy Holidays to all (even you, Thucky!)

Bob

As Income Disparity Grows, Tucsonans Protest Low Wages at Walmart & McDonalds

by Pamela Powers Hannley

Protests against the low wages paid by multinational corporate giants have been sweeping the country, since the Occupy Movement raised the consciousness of the 99%. On Black Friday, Nov. 29, at Walmart stores nationwide and again Thursday, Dec. 5 at McDonald's restaurants nationwide, workers, unionists, progressives, and other liberal activists protested unfairly low wages and barriers to unionization for millions of US workers.

With profits, CEO pay, and wage disparity at all time highs, isn't it time to raise the minimum wage to a living wage?

Here in Tucson, protesters chanted and waved signs in front of the Walmart on Valencia and the McDonald's in midtown. (For more on the Walmart protest, check out the video here.)

At McDonald's, approximately 80-100 citizens braved chilly temperatures and intermittent rain to protest low wages. In the days before the local protest, right wing radio host Jon Justice shared PDA Tucson's Facebook announcement about the event and urged his Facebook followers to come to the midtown McDonald's, show their support for the fast food chain, and eat some good food. (Excuse me, but McDonald's hasn't served "good food" in decades-- if ever.) This resulted in a flurry of comments on the PDA page and Justice's page about the "entitlement mentality", people being "paid what they're worth", and the fast food industry being "one key stroke away from 80% automation"-- justifying Arizona's $7.80/hour minimum wage and offering support to McDonald's franchisees who make millions on the backs of workers.

Starter Kit on Child Abuse

Guest Post by Donna Gratehouse

Lots of local politicians and pundits are weighing in on Arizona’s unfolding Child Protective Service crisis, mostly blasting department head Clarence Carter and top CPS administrators for incompetence in allowing thousands of child abuse and neglect reports to go uninvestigated. And, okay, I’ll stipulate to the conclusion that the people running CPS are the most incompetent managers ever and their clients would be well served by them being replaced.  Perhaps CPS should be spun off from the state’s Department of Economic Security and run as a stand-alone department as many observers have suggested as well. Perhaps doing those things would lead to more thorough investigations and quicker resolutions of some cases.   

AZ Republic columnist Bob Robb’s suggestion to sweep funds from First Things First (Arizona’s early childhood education program funded by cigarette taxes) and put them toward “more fundamental needs for children”, is simply laughable but I do have to hand it to him for having the chutzpah to exploit this opportunity to push for his heart’s desire on that subject yet again.

AZ Capitol Times has been doing extensive coverage on the CPS situation and for their Tuesday piece they interviewed a couple of state legislators, including my own Rep. Kate Brophy McGee (R-N. Phoenix).

           Too big to manage?

Winds of Change?

Posted by Bob Lord

I'm more optimistic right now about our future than I've been since Occupy.

Inequality is the defining issue of our time. And I have this feeling we're living through a dramatic quickening in the movement against inequality. 

Consider what we've seen in just the past few months:

First, the development of real movements in support of fast food workers and Walmart workers, with no signs of dissipation.

Then, a dramatic progressive victory in the 2013 elections. Yes, Chris Christie won re-election against a virtually unknown and woefully underfunded challenger, but, as The Nation magazine noted, that was not the real story. The real story was Bill deBlasio's landslide victory and the SeaTac ballot initiative creating a $15 minimum wage.

Then, noises about a potential Elizabeth Warren candidacy in 2016.

Then, a message from the Pope about the immorality of inequality and, in that message, a blistering attack on trickle down economics. The Pope was not alone. The Dalai Lama issued a similar statement just a few days ago. And of course President Obama has chimed in as well, stating, unequivocally, that inequality is the defining issue of our time. 

Last, there's a significant development that most Americans didn't notice. But BlueMeanie did in his post, The Democratic wing of the Democratic Party fights back against the corporatist Third Way, and Paul Krugman did in his post, Badge of Seriousness Watch. The Third Way, a "centrist" Democratic Party establishment think tank, launched an unprovoked attack against Elizabeth Warren and Bill deBlasio, which backfired badly.

Balancing the Budget on the Backs of Soldiers

Posted by Bob Lord

Will the effort to trim the military budget devolve into another screwing of the many to benefit the few?

Sunday's NY Times lead editorial, Putting Military Pay on the Table, opened with this: 

Big-ticket weapons like aircraft carriers and the F-35 fighter jet have to be part of any conversation about cutting Pentagon spending to satisfy the mandatory budget reductions known as the sequester. But compensation for military personnel has to be on the table, too — even though no other defense issue is more politically volatile or emotionally fraught.

Somehow, I doubt the brass will see their pay cut. We're talking soldiers and sailors here. The ones who make the real sacrifice. The ones who lose limbs and lives. The ones whose PTSD precludes them from leading productive lives when they return. 

Those overpaid grunts whose compensation starts in the high teens upon enlistment. 

How convenient that the"liberal" New York Times is beating the drum for these cuts:

... many Washington-based think tanks, spanning all ideologies, are also pushing reform. In June, a group of them — including the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the liberal Center for American Progress — called for a comprehensive review and modernization of the military compensation system, which has been largely unchanged for 40 years.

Get that? The "liberal" Center for American Progress? Actually, CAP is the least progressive of the left of center DC think tanks. Heck, it's arguably not even left of center. It's the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. But CAP was the best the Times could find on the left.

How will our Reps, who are always "thinking of the troops," handle this if forced to choose between the troops they purport to love and bacon for their districts in the form of contracts for local military contractors to build armaments we'll never need? 

I'm bettin' on the bacon.

Whose Op-Ed Is That In Today's Republic?

Posted by Bob Lord

Well, okay, it might be the slowest news day of the year, but still...

I had titled this piece "The Trillion Dollar Club." The AZ Republic picked it up, but changed the title to Absurd Inequity Is Threatening U.S.

I kind of liked my title better, but they left the rest of the piece alone, which is great. Here are the first few paragraphs:

By Bob Lord

Special for The Republic

Have you ever tried visualizing America’s increasing concentration of wealth?

Well, try this: Imagine the entire population lined up in order of wealth, measured by net worth. Bill Gates, the wealthiest American, would stand at the front of the line, and the poorest American at the back.

Now, imagine a gate at the front of the line. Finally, imagine that Americans walk through the gate, one by one, starting with Microsoft’s billionaire founder, until the collective wealth of those who have passed through totals $1 trillion.

How many people belong to this trillion-dollar club?

Right now, according to the latest Forbes magazine calculations, just 51 Americans.

If you have a few, click through here to read the rest.

Thanksgiving Thoughts (It's All About The Food)

Posted by Bob Lord

Okay, let's get the obligatory Happy Thanksgiving out of the way. Happy Thanksgiving.

So, what better day to write about our screwed-up food industry than Thanksgiving, and who better to do so than Ellen Brown? Her post at Truthdig today, Monsanto, the TPP and Global Food Dominance, is packed with information we all should know, but probably would be happier in the short-term if we didn't. 

Don't make my mistake -- wait until after your Thanksgiving meal to read it. Ditto for the rest of this post. 

The essence of Brown's post is that Monsanto is stealing years of life and quality of life from all of us in America. It's all about the herbicide glyphosate, a chemical commonly known as Roundup. Roundup is Monsanto's cash cow. It kills all vegetation in its path, and a good bit of animal life as well, except the genetically modified crops grown from the seeds Monsanto sells. Those crops are glysphosate resistant. But there's a catch. Although the glyphosate does not kill those genetically modified crops, it accumulates in their tissue at a much higher level than it does in non-modified crops.

And how much of our food is genetically modified? Only between 60 and 70 percent, according to Brown. 

If you've already finished your Thanksgiving meal, follow me after the jump for the impact of glyphosate (Roundup) on our health.

Anti-Atheism

Posted by Bob Lord

I wanted the title to read "Anti-SemitAtheism," but couldn't get the strikethrough function to work for the title.

This is anecdotal, so take it for what it's worth, but there's quite a parallel here, which I think actually is consistent with a change in our culture. A sideways change, if you will. 

I'm an Atheist. I've never believed in a supreme being. Even as a kid in religious school I'd laugh at the stuff we were supposed to believe. But I was born Jewish and still identify as a Jew to some extent culturally.

Since neither my last name nor my appearance give away my Jewishness (or Atheism), I get to hear the slurs first-hand, sometimes.

And ignorance in America seems to have evolvedchanged. 

A decade or so ago, I was having a conversation with an older guy. He expressed concerns about his daughter-in-law. When I inquired why, his explanation started with, "Well she's Jewish," before he pivoted to her various character flaws. The obvious implication was that those character flaws were tied to her Judaism. 

Fast forward to last week. I had a conversation with a much younger guy, who was telling me about a cousin of his. He started with "Well, she's Atheist," before pivoting to her various character flaws. It was as if you took the older guy, knocked a few decades off him, and replaced "Jewish" with "Atheist." 

Looks like Atheist is the new Jew, or so it seems. 

Israel: Keep Iran Down

Posted by Bob Lord

Pretty insightful analysis by Roger Cohen in today's NYT piece, Israel's Iran Dilemma. It's actually short enough to quote:

The United States is prepared to conceive of an Islamic Republic fully reintegrated in the community of nations, with equal rights. 

[snip]

Not Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu, who wants to keep Iran down. “Push us down, that is all I hear when I listen to Netanyahu,” one Stanford and Harvard-educated Iranian businessman told me. He has a strong belief that drawing Iran closer to the world is essential, a strong dislike of the Iranian regime, and a strong sense of outrage at Israel’s contempt for Iran’s national aspirations.

Diplomacy involves compromise; risk is inherent to it. Iran is to be tested. Nobody can know the outcome. Things may unravel but at least there is hope. Perhaps this is what is most threatening to Netanyahu. He has never been willing to test the Palestinians in a serious way — test their good faith, test ending the humiliations of the occupation, test from strength the power of justice and peace. He has preferred domination, preferred the Palestinians down and under pressure.

Obama and Kerry have invited Netanyahu to think again — and not just about Iran. Nothing, to judge by the hyperventilating Israeli rhetoric, could be more disconcerting. Nothing is more needed. Cheap allusions to 1938 are a poor template for Israel in the 21st century.

I'd go a step further.

Iron Reps: A Sorry Statement on Congressional Dysfunction

Posted by Bob Lord

Let's be perfectly clear: This post is not in any way a knock on Kyrsten Sinema for having completed an Iron Man triathlon. If you read it that way, you're misreading it. I have trouble with many of the votes Kyrsten has cast, but I totally applaud her completion of the Iron Man. It's an awesome accomplishment, I milestone I wish I had achieved myslef, but never did.

How do I know it's an awesome accomplishment? Because I actually completed a half Iron Man myself, a quarter century ago. To do that, I spent months putting in three hours or so a day training. A full Iron Man doesn't require twice that much time, but it's awfully close. It requires incredible dedication.

Which, when you think about it, tells us how broken our Congress really is. If the House were working remotely as it should, the job duties of a Rep would be far too demanding to allow the time needed to train for an Iron Man on the side. Kyrsten sits on the House Financial Services Committee, the one responsible for banking legislation. It's time consuming work, both in committee and out. Unless of course you're not legislating.

Blame The Rich Elites

Posted by Bob Lord

This one may make ole Thuckarooskie's head explode when he reads it: Blame Rich, Overeducated Elites as Our Society Frays, from Bloomberg yesterday. Yes, those wonderful "job creators" he admires so much are not really our saviors, they're our destroyers. Who would have guessed? 

The author, Peter Turchin, focuses on inequality, but not from the rich vs. poor perspective. He observes that there is a proliferation of elites associated with inequality, which by itself causes problems. 

Increasing inequality leads not only to the growth of top fortunes; it also results in greater numbers of wealth-holders. The “1 percent” becomes “2 percent.” Or even more. There are many more millionaires, multimillionaires and billionaires today compared with 30 years ago, as a proportion of the population.

Let’s take households worth $10 million or more (in 1995 dollars). According to the research by economist Edward Wolff, from 1983 to 2010 the number of American households worth at least $10 million grew to 350,000 from 66,000.

Rich Americans tend to be more politically active than the rest of the population. They support candidates who share their views and values; they sometimes run for office themselves. Yet the supply of political offices has stayed flat (there are still 100 senators and 435 representatives -- the same numbers as in 1970). In technical terms, such a situation is known as “elite overproduction.”

And, along with elite overproduction, we have lawyer overproduction:

Krugman Fallible After All

Posted by Bob Lord

I rarely have trouble with something Paul Krugman says. And I don't today, but I do have a little trouble with what he didn't say. 

His piece in today's NY Times, A Permanent Slump?, was half great, half disappointing. He starts out on fire, pointing out that those economists who believe the new normal is one where demand is inadequate and the typical state is one of mild depression are now mainstream. Commenting on Larry Summers' remarks at the IMF annual research conference, Krugman explains:

Nailed It! (Or So It Seems)

Posted by Bob Lord

Back in July, I predicted here that George Zimmerman would serve time eventually for another violent act. My prediction:

Zimmerman right now is telling himself he better clean up his act, because next time he may not be so likely. His father, his older brother and his wife likely are telling him the same thing. But deep down inside, Zimmerman knows he just got away with murder. And in his mind of minds, he thinks he can get it away with it again. 

Remember, this was not Zimmerman's first brush with the law, or even his second. Zimmerman has a criminal bent. Short term, his trial will cause him to be more careful. Long term, it will cause him to be more brazen. One day, the animal in Zimmerman will act out again. It may not be another murder, but it will involve violence.

It may take awhile, but one day Zimmerman will spend time behind bars.

I actually was quite confident of the prediction, but thought it could take a few years to be proven correct.

Probably not

From today's Huff Po:

Eyes on Switzerland

Posted by Bob Lord

A week from today, history may be made. In Switzerland.

The Swiss, you see, will vote next Sunday on the "1:12" initiative. Effectively, this sets a maximum wage, something that's never been done before in a developed country. Under 1:12, no Swiss company may pay an executive more than twelve times the pay of its lowest paid worker. 

As Sam Pizzigati of Institute for Policy Studies reports, the Swiss plutocracy is apoplectic. The initiative movement was started by young activists in Switzerland's Social Democratic Party, who sensed public outrage at CEO pay, which is the highest in Europe, but a bit less than in the US. Ballot initiatives require 100,000 signatures in Switzerland, a requirement that was satisfied last spring.

Since then, Corporate Switzerland has been working feverishly to defeat the initiative. Reportedly, it has outspent the initiatives proponents by 50 to 1, but the race is tight. 

Last Thoughts on Phoenix City Council Races

Posted by Bob Lord

Okay, this one is really late, but I've been traveling a bit. 

I thought the results in both the CD8 and CD4 races were exactly right. 

In CD8, it was important that Kate Gallego win in a blowout, as she did. As I wrote previously, the attacks on Kate were vicious and baseless. In that sort of race, the candidate who engaged in those tactics not only should lose, but should lose big. There were many young people involved in the Gallego campaign. What a great experience for them to prevail taking the high road. For them and others to see brass knuckle tactics fail so miserably provides at least a little hope that our wretched election system could one day work better. 

CD4 was a hard fought race. It got nasty at times, but nothing like CD8. In the end, Justin Johnson's unfortunate answer to a question at a forum likely cost him the election. If so, it's the right result, but it should go no further than this election. Justin is young. He's entitled to make mistakes along the way, as long as he learns from them. If he learns from this one, there's no reason why he shouldn't earn our trust in the future. From that perspective, it's good this race was close. And, speaking of learning from mistakes, that's exactly what Laura Pastor did. Six years ago, the reports were that she lost because she was outworked on the ground. Reports this time are that her ground game was excellent. Good for her.  

Deconstructing Propoganda in the Age of Empire

Posted by Bob Lord

Patrick Smith has a wonderfully instructive piece up at Salon, Chomsky's Right: New York Times' Latest Big Lie, showing, at the micro level, how the American public's misperceptions originate. 

Do you know why the recent talks with Iran broke down? You wouldn't if you'd relied on the NY Times' reporting.

On this one, it's all in the Times' use of quotation marks. First, some background, which Smith provides:

As all know, a deal with Iran over its nuclear program is the biggest game going these days — an historic opportunity, as previously asserted in this space. Fumble this, and the Obama administration will go down as hopelessly moronic on the foreign-relations side.

You may know, too, that a round of talks between six world powers and the Iranians just hit a pothole. It is essential to understand why.

The paradox is apparent, not real. Knowing why reveals what a nation with imperial ambitions looks like when it is nearing exhaustion and would rather decline than shape up, re-imagine itself, and take a new and constructive place in the global community. Not knowing why encourages Americans to preserve their righteous self-image even as the moths of history chew holes in it.

Best, in Washington’s view, that we do not know why talks in Geneva last weekend failed.

So, how does our supposedly progressive beacon of mainstream media handle this one?

The Other Nine Percent

Posted by Bob Lord

I've said repeatedly that we're living through a grand experiment: How much wealth and how much income can we jam into the top one percent before the bottom 90% explodes? I've written a good bit about both the top one percent and the bottom 90%.

But what about the other nine percent? The ones in the middle.

In The 21st Century Silver Spoon, Elizabeth Currid-Haldett sheds some light on the other nine percent. She refers to them as the "aspirational class," for their desire to join the top one percent. They're our status seekers: