Sunday, November 18, 2018

Week-end Wrap - November 17, 2018

Week-end Wrap - November 17, 2018
by Tony Wikrent
Economics Action Group, North Carolina Democratic Party Progressive Caucus+


To say that Michael Hudson’s new book And Forgive Them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure, and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year (ISLET 2018) is profound is an understatement on the order of saying that the Mariana Trench is deep. To grasp his central argument is so alien to our modern way of thinking about civilization and barbarism that Hudson quite matter-of-factly agreed with me that the book is, to the extent that it will be understood, “earth-shattering” in both intent and effect. Over the past three decades, Hudson gleaned (under the auspices of Harvard’s Peabody Museum) and then synthesized the scholarship of American and British and French and German and Soviet assyriologists (spelled with a lower-case a to denote collectively all who study the various civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, which include Sumer, the Akkadian Empire, Ebla, Babylonia, et al., as well as Assyria with a capital A). Hudson demonstrates that we, twenty-first century globalists, have been morally blinded by a dark legacy of some twenty-eight centuries of decontextualized history. This has left us, for all practical purposes, utterly ignorant of the corrective civilizational model that is needed to save ourselves from tottering into bleak neo-feudal barbarism. 
This corrective model actually existed and flourished in the economic functioning of Mesopotamian societies during the third and second millennia B.C. ... It is the necessary and periodic erasure of the debts of small farmers — necessary because such farmers are, in any society in which interest on loans is calculated, inevitably subject to being impoverished, then stripped of their property, and finally reduced to servitude (including the sexual servitude of daughters and wives) by their creditors, creditors. The latter inevitably seek to effect the terminal polarization of society into an oligarchy of predatory creditors cannibalizing a sinking underclass mired in irreversible debt peonage. Hudson writes: “That is what creditors really wanted: Not merely the interest as such, but the collateral — whatever economic assets debtors possessed, from their labor to their property, ending up with their lives” (p. 50). 
And such polarization is, by Hudson’s definition, barbarism. For what is the most basic condition of civilization, Hudson asks, other than societal organization that effects lasting “balance” by keeping “everybody above the break-even level”?
“Mesopotamian societies were not interested in equality,” he told me, “but they were civilized. And they possessed the financial sophistication to understand that, since interest on loans increases exponentially, while economic growth at best follows an S-curve. This means that debtors will, if not protected by a central authority, end up becoming permanent bondservants to their creditors. So Mesopotamian kings regularly rescued debtors who were getting crushed by their debts. They knew that they needed to do this. Again and again, century after century, they proclaimed Clean Slate Amnesties.”
Hudson also writes: “By liberating distressed individuals who had fallen into debt bondage, and returning to cultivators the lands they had forfeited for debt or sold under economic duress, these royal acts maintained a free peasantry willing to fight for its land and work on public building projects and canals…. By clearing away the buildup of personal debts, rulers saved society from the social chaos that would have resulted from personal insolvency, debt bondage, and military defection” (p. 3). 
Marx and Engels never made such an argument (nor did Adam Smith for that matter). Hudson points out that they knew nothing of these ancient Mesopotamian societies. No one did back then. Almost all of the various kinds of assyriologists completed their archaeological excavations and philological analyses during the twentieth century. In other words, this book could not have been written until someone digested the relevant parts of the vast body of this recent scholarship. And this someone is Michael Hudson. 
....For us freedom has been understood to sanction the ability of creditors to demand payment from debtors without restraint or oversight. This is the freedom to cannibalize society. This is the freedom to enslave. This is, in the end, the freedom proclaimed by the Chicago School and the mainstream of American economists. 
....Hudson quotes the classicist Moses Finley to great effect: “…. debt was a deliberate device on the part of the creditor to obtain more dependent labor rather than a device for enrichment through interest.” Likewise he quotes Tim Cornell: “The purpose of the ‘loan,’ which was secured on the person of the debtor, was precisely to create a state of bondage”(p. 52)
The entire review should be read carefully: what Hudson has written utterly annihilates the legitimacy of modern theory and practice of finance, banking, and government. 



Though I think it is not entirely accurate to argue that the idea of a debt jubilee has been completely forgotten for over 2,200 years. The slaves of the American South clung desperately and tenaciously to the hope of a Biblical year of Jubilation. Indeed, it would be a very interesting historical question to investigate: was the rise of the agrarian populist movement in the 1870s through 1880s (best chronicled by Lawrence Goodwyn in his book The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America), which demanded systemic reform of the monetary and banking systems, in some part motivated by the dismay of southern tenant farmers finding that emancipation from bondage alone had failed to terminate systemic economic exploitation and plunder? Even those who had fled the Carolinas, Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama and moved to Texas and Kansas found that the predations of local bankers, merchants, and landowners were almost as onerous and degrading as those by their former masters.

Also, as Bernard Bailyn and other scholars of the American Revolutionary period have found, the original tenets of republicanism that guided the Founders included a decidedly unfavorable view of creditors and debt peonage. In his 1968 Pulitzer Prize-winning Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Harvard University Press), Bailyn noted that “To the colonists the most important of these publicists and intellectual middlemen were those spokesmen for extreme libertarianism, John Trenchard (1662-1723) and Thomas Gordon (d. 1750).”  Gordon’s and Trenchard’s second collaboration, Cato’s Letters, was “a searing indictment of eighteenth-century English politics and society written in response to the South Sea Bubble crisis…”

In the colonies, the entire corpus of Gordon’s and Trenchard’s work “were republished entire or in part again and again, ‘quoted in every colonial newspaper from Boston to Savannah,’ and referred to repeatedly in the pamphlet literature." The writings of Trenchard and Gordon, Bailyn concluded, "ranked with the treatises of Locke as the most authoritative statement of nature of political liberty and above Locke as an exposition of the social sources of the threats it faced.”  (Emphasis mine.)

In The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition,(Princeton University Press, 1975) J. G. A. Pocock agreed that Cato’s Letters “formed some of the most widely distributed political reading of the contemporary American colonists," and argued that "Cato was mainly bent on diagnosing and proposing to remedy the state of national corruption revealed by the failure of the South Sea Company…”  (p 468) The fury of Trenchard at the monied interests should be noted, and compared to how gingerly and solicitously the leadership of both the Republican and Democratic parties today treat the Wall Street masters of the universe.
Nations should be quick in their Resentments, and severe in their Judgments. As never Nation was more abused than ours has been of late by the dirty Race of Money Changers; so never Nation could, with a better Grace, with more Justice, or greater Security, take its full Vengeance, than ours can upon its detested Foes. Sometimes the Greatness and Popularity of the Offenders make strict Justice unadviseable, because unsafe; but here it is not so; you may, at present, load every Gallows in England with Directors and Stock Jobbers, without the Assistance of a Sheriff's Guard, or so much as a Sigh from an Old Woman, though accustomed perhaps to shed Tears at the untimely Demise of a common Felon or Murderer. A thousand Stock Jobbers, well trussed up, beside the diverting Sight, would be a cheap Sacrifice to the Manes of Trade; it would be one certain Expedient to soften the Rage of the People; and to convince them, that the future Direction of their Wealth and Estates shall be put into the Hands of those who, will as effectually study to promote the General Benefit and Publick Good, as others have, lately, most infamously sacrificed Both to their own private Advantage. Something is certainly due to both the former. The Resurrection of Honesty and Industry, can never be hoped for, while this Sort of Vermin is suffered to crawl about, tainting our Air, and putting every thing out of Course, subsisting by Lies, and practising vile Tricks, low in their Nature, and mischievous in their Consequences. 
 … A free People are kept so by no other Means than an equal Distribution of Property; every Man who has a Share of Property having a proportionable Share of Power; and the first Seeds of Anarchy, which for the most part ends in Tyranny, are produced from hence, that some are ungovernably rich, and many more are miserably poor; that is some are Masters of all Means of Oppression, and others want all the Means of Self-defence. (page 11) 

What is the financialisation of food and why should we care? 
[Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute, via Naked Capitalism 11-11-18]
In their new book, Clapp and Isakson argue that the financialisation of food has three key dimensions. Firstly, there is the targeting of agriculture as a new area for capital accumulation. In essence, more actors are investing in food and agriculture than ever before. As the authors argue, agricultural markets were highly regulated for most of the twentieth century to enable hedging by those involved in them, and to prevent financial speculation (i.e. betting on prices) by those who were not. However, these markets were deregulated in the 1980s, allowing for a boom in speculation on agricultural commodity prices and the development of new financial investment instruments linked to food and agriculture, such as index funds that track groupings of agricultural commodity prices.... 
The second dimension of financialisation that Clapp and Isakson point to is that we are witnessing a shift in traditional business practices towards the prioritisation of shareholder value... With the search for profit we are increasingly seeing the consolidation of wealth and power in fewer hands in food and agricultural markets. Due to increasing levels of corporate restructuring and mergers (think Bayer’s recent acquisition of Monsanto, or the Asda-Sainsbury merger), ownership is becoming more concentrated, with competition being squeezed out, which also leads to reduced choice, job losses and the externalisation of costs. It is also not uncommon for financial investors to have shares in lots of companies across the same sector.... 
Thirdly, Clapp and Isakson argue that, as both consumers and citizens, we are also experiencing the financialisation of everyday life. With savings interest rates at an all-time low, responsibility for savings and investments is becoming individualised. Risk has increasingly shifted from banks and governments to citizens who now have to navigate a bewildering suite of financial products to get the best returns on their savings.
[Los Angeles Review of Books, via Naked Capitalism 11-14-18]
Right now, over half of India’s population, perhaps 600 million people, are under the age of 25, making them the largest number of young people for any country on earth. This generation’s male population, Poonam writes, are the most desperate since India’s independence. Every month, one million Indian youths enter the workforce, yet only 10,000 of them get jobs — a staggering statistic. The rest feel left behind and abandoned by their own country, so they turn to scams and violence to make money. 
....Since India’s infrastructure still operates on a foundation of bribery, scams, and corruption from bottom to top — so much, that corruption is often viewed as a virtue — this generation of young Indian men, Poonam writes, will cheat their way to their dreams because it’s all they ever see from politicians, businessmen, and celebrities.
An intro to China’s policymaking process: from national plans to local directives 
[Trivium China, via The Big Picture 11-16-18]


Freedom Rider: The Legacy of 1918
Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist [Black Agenda Report 11-15-18]
Donald Trump is a racist boor, but the European leaders he snubbed are unreconstructed imperialists whose nations have enslaved and slaughtered tens of millions.
I am always glad to see any reminder that a privileged, wealthy, hereditary oligarchy continues to exist in Europe. I was extremely disgusted by the fawning reaction of many Americans to the wedding of Meghan Markle to Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. 


Tim Wu [New York Times, via Naked Capitalism 11-11-18]
In the aftermath of the Second World War, an urgent question presented itself: How can we prevent the rise of fascism from happening again? ...Common answers to the question stress the importance of a free press, the rule of law, stable government, robust civic institutions and common decency. But as undoubtedly important as these factors are, we too often overlook something else: the threat to democracy posed by monopoly and excessive corporate concentration — what the Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis called the “curse of bigness.”  
....From a political perspective, we have recklessly chosen to tolerate global monopolies and oligopolies in finance, media, airlines, telecommunications and elsewhere, to say nothing of the growing size and power of the major technology platforms. In doing so, we have cast aside the safeguards that were supposed to protect democracy against a dangerous marriage of private and public power. 
Unfortunately, there are abundant signs that we are suffering the consequences, both in the United States and elsewhere. There is a reason that extremist, populist leaders like Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Xi Jinping of China and Viktor Orban of Hungary have taken center stage, all following some version of the same script. And here in the United States, we have witnessed the anger borne of ordinary citizens who have lost almost any influence over economic policy — and by extension, their lives. The middle class has no political influence over their stagnant wages, tax policy, the price of essential goods or health care. This powerlessness is brewing a powerful feeling of outrage.

After Trump's Tax Cuts, Companies Eliminated More Jobs Than They Created
Sophie Weiner, November 13, 2018 [SplinterNews 11-13-18]
According to a new examination of the policy’s effects by the New York Times.... “The results of a survey published in late October by the National Association for Business Economics showed that 81 percent of the 116 companies surveyed said they had not changed plans for investment or hiring because of the tax bill,” the Times writes.

JPMorgan Chase analysts estimate that in the first half of 2018, about $270 billion in corporate profits previously held overseas were repatriated to the United States and spent as a result of changes to the tax code. Some 46 percent of that, JPMorgan Chase analysts said, was spent on $124 billion in stock buybacks.
The flow of repatriated corporate cash is just one tributary in what has become a flood of payouts to shareholders, both as buybacks and dividends. Such payouts are expected to hit almost $1.3 trillion this year, up 28 percent from 2017, according to estimates from Goldman Sachs analysts. 
Despite frequent claims from the administration that the tax cuts would “pay for themselves,” tax revenue from companies has decreased by 3.6 percent since the cuts took effect, even as corporate profit grew, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The deficit, once a favorite Republican talking point, has exploded as a result.

Hamilton Nolan [SplinterNews 11-13-18]
So, after leading America’s desperate cities around by the nose for a year, an $800 billion company has at last selected the winners of the contest to have the right to shower it with taxpayer subsidies. If only there was a way to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening again.... 
The only way for public—you and me and every other taxpayer and city and state government who all have much more pressing things to spend money on than bribes to Fortune 500 companies—to win this game is not to play. Nobodycan play. The way to accomplish this is simple: We need a federal law banning these sorts of subsidies.
And, from the comments:
It was really cool how Seattle wanted to tax enormous businesses just a liiiiiiittle bit to help fix our shameful, soul-crushing homelessness epidemic and Amazon (read: Bezos) threw all their weight behind the opposition. So cool. I love having an enormous parasite in my hometown. Like a tapeworm, it helps keep us thin by choosing between paying the rent that was just raised as much as legally possible and buying food.

This time, Amazon has gone too far: Jeff Bezos’s company is profiting and taxpayers are paying the price
Matt Stoller [New York Daily News, via Naked Capitalism 11-14-18]
“Fundamentally, Amazon is simply too powerful. It isn’t just about subsidies. It isn’t that merchants, or local businesses, or warehouse workers, or communities are being mistreated or misled. It’s that Amazon has so much power over our political economy that it can acquire government-like functions itself. It controls elected officials, acquired the power to tax, and works with government to avoid sunshine laws. It’s time to recognize the truth about this company. Two-day shipping might be really convenient, but at least in its current form, Amazon and democracy are incompatible.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: "Cuomo: We don't have the money to fix our subways. But we have plenty of money to build Jeff Bezos a new helipad." 

 And don't forget that Bezos used part of his fortune to purchase total control of The Washington Post.

 Amazon’s Last Mile 
[Gizmodo, via Naked Capitalism 11-12-18] 
“Near the very bottom of Amazon’s complicated machinery is a nearly invisible workforce over two years in the making tasked with getting those orders to your doorstep. It’s a network of supposedly self-employed, utterly expendable couriers enrolled in an app-based program which some believe may violate labor laws. That program is called Amazon Flex, and it accomplishes Amazon’s “last-mile” deliveries—the final journey from a local facility to the customer…. Flex is indicative of two alarming trends: the unwillingness of legislators to curb harmful practices of tech behemoths run amok, and a shift towards less protected, more precarious opportunities in a stagnant job market.’ • Read for the detail. It sounds as hellish as Amazon’s warehouses.

[The New Food Economy, via Naked Capitalism 11-14-18]

“Since 2013, national retailers have successfully sued local governments in Midwest states to lower their property taxes. They claim that assessors shouldn’t determine their stores’ property value based on what they cost to build, or how much money the stores are taking in. In other words, they shouldn’t be taxed like occupied, functioning stores. Instead, say the stores (which also include supermarkets like Meijer, hardware stores like Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Menards, and pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens), the tax assessments should be based on what comparable stores sold for elsewhere. And that’s where things get tricky. For comparison, they’re pointing to so-called “dark stores”—those empty supercenters that blight small-town America…. The retailers were collectively seeking over $700 million in tax revenue.”

A Blueprint for Linking Trade to Full Employment and Domestic Industrialization (Pt 2/2)
[Real News Network 11-16-18]
Think hard about the relevance of the 1948 Havana Charter for addressing the imbalances and inequities of the 21st century global economy says Richard Kozul-Wright noting that with the rise of neoliberalism the aim of trade rules has moved in the opposite direction

The Corporate Top 1% Control Over 50% of International Trade (Pt 1/2)
[Real News Network 11-15-18]
Taking an ever rising share of global income, the real benefits of global trade go to the profits of the top 2,000 TNCs. The flip-side is falling wages and government revenues, says Richard Kozul-Wright discussing UNCTAD’s 2018 Trade and Development Report
Companies keep losing your data because it doesn’t cost them anything 
[Boing Boing, via Naked Capitalism 11-15-18]
“If companies were paying out damages commensurate with the social costs their data recklessness imposes on the rest of us, it would have a very clarifying effect on their behavior — insurers would get involved, refusing to write E&O policies for board members without massive premium hikes, etc. A little would go a long way, here.”
Companies struggling to fill jobs ‘should try paying more,’ Fed’s Kashkari says
[CNBC, via Naked Capitalism 11-12-18]
“‘I oftentimes hear businesses saying I just can’t find the workers that I need,’ the central bank official said during a conference on immigration in his home district. ‘Now, I’m not entirely sympathetic with that view, because I’ve been saying you should try paying more, and you may be able to attract more workers.'”

 Jury delivers $25.5 million ‘statement’ to Aetna to change its ways
Wayne Drash, November 10, 2018 [CNN, via Naked Capitalism 11-12-18]
An Oklahoma jury has awarded $25.5 million to the family of a cancer patient denied coverage by Aetna, with jurors saying that the insurer acted "recklessly" and that the verdict was meant as a message for Aetna to change its ways.... 
The case revolved around the 2014 denial of coverage for Orrana Cunningham, who had stage 4 nasopharyngeal cancer near her brain stem. Her doctors wanted her to receive proton beam therapy, a targeted form of radiation that could pinpoint her tumor without the potential for blindness or other side effects of standard radiation. Aetna denied her coverage, calling the therapy investigational and experimental....
"I just felt like Orrana Cunningham was failed at every turn," forewoman Ann Schlotthauer said. She said the verdict "was definitely a message to Aetna. We discussed that in jury deliberations -- that we wanted to make a statement. We wanted to make a point and get their attention." 
Schlotthauer said it was clear from expert testimony that proton beam therapy was not experimental at all. She said jurors were turned off by one Aetna medical director who acknowledged handling 80 cases a day and by the fact that all three medical directors acknowledged they spent more time preparing for the lawsuit than on Orrana's medical case.

Massive global health study reveals “disturbing” trends
Rich Haridy, November 11th, 2018 [New Atlas, via Naked Capitalism 11-13-18]
Coordinated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle, the GBD study offers a fantastically detailed snapshot of the current state of the world's health, involving over 3,500 researchers from 140 countries around the globe.

This year, for the first time, the study measured population and fertility data and revealed some pretty fascinating stats for the data nerds out there. Overall, the study found the world's population was increasing annually by over 87 million between 2007 and 2017, however global fertility rates are on the downturn.

Average births per woman have dropped by half since 1950, and over 90 countries are registering rates of less than two births per woman. This generally means that these countries are registering current birth rates at below replacement levels to maintain current populations. 
"Although total fertility rates are decreasing," notes Christopher Murray from IHME, "the global population continues to grow as death rates decline and because of population 'momentum' in previous decades."
When low-income families can meet their basic needs, children are healthier
[Boston Medical Center, via Naked Capitalism 11-13-18]
Ya think? More: “The study team created a composite measure of hardships that included a family’s ability to afford food, utilities, and health care, and maintain stable housing. All hardships described in the study have previously been associated with poor child and caregiver health. This study, however, examined the differences between children living in hardship-free families versus those in families with any or multiple hardships. In all cities, living in a hardship-free family was associated with good overall health for children and caregivers, positive developmental outcomes for young children, and positive mental health among mothers.”
[The Hill 11-13-18]
“Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane,” the gun rights group warned medical professionals last week in a tweet that also linked to a blog post that criticizes the American College of Physicians over a recent paper on gun violence prevention.
Doctors post blood-soaked photos after NRA tells them to pipe down over gun restrictions
[abc.net.au, via Naked Capitalism 11-14-18]
The NRA is getting thousands of well deserved rebukes for its callous remark that doctors should stop demanding studies which frame gun violence as a disease. The physicians' rebukes are often graphic, very disturbing, and pointed. 
[Washington Post, via The Big Picture 11-15-18]


White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making
[Democracy, via Naked Capitalism 11-11-18]
...members of Congress returning to their districts were more likely to hear from friends and neighbors—typically lawyers, bankers, and other professionals—about the looming tax increase than the jobs crisis facing the working and middle class. Indeed, the difference between what representatives said at public events and what they emphasized in their social networks was notable. 
The failure to pass a tax deal before the 2010 election resulted in the compromise package that extended the Bush tax cuts. That legislation eventually amounted to $300 billion in lost revenue over the following decade—enough to pay for, say, universal pre-kindergarten and triple the stimulus’s spending on infrastructure and transportation over the next ten years. Should a tax cut on income greater than $250,000 have been a higher priority than these or other alternatives? 
This same gap between congressional and working-class priorities played out during the debate over the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—the 2009 stimulus bill. Over that three-week baptism by fire, headlines focused on the size of the stimulus, but the deepest policy fights were over the nature of the economic response needed. A contingent in the Democratic-controlled House pushed vociferously for a stimulus focused on regaining America’s competitive advantage, with a major emphasis on building and making things in the United States again. This more populist bloc lost to those who argued for a short-term injection in the form of tax credits to stabilize the economy and were willing to sacrifice most of the “rebuilding” elements in the bill to reduce the price tag (partly to get Republican votes that never came). A depression was prevented—a historic feat—but the transformational opportunity was missed.

Even for Local Taxes, the Rich Pay Far less Than the Poor
[Real News Network 11-14-18]
While much attention has been paid to Republican-backed tax cuts for the wealthiest, a new report reveals that even local levies take a greater share of income from the poor than the rich.

George Mobiot [via Naked Capitalism 11-14-18]



[Yahoo News, via Naked Capitalism 11-14-18]
“When you have no safety net, the tiniest issue—an unexpected medical bill, an illness or injury, a lost wallet—quickly balloons into an emergency that can make you homeless, or if you’re already homeless, make your life infinitely worse. An example I like to share is when I was living in my car. One day it got towed for a parking violation and once you’re towed, you’re done. There are towing fees, impound fees, parking fees… before long you owe $2,000 on a $600 car. So now you don’t have a car or any of your stuff that was in it and you’re stuck sleeping out in the elements. Sleeping outside makes you get sick which leads to other problems… One tiny mistake can spiral into a life-ending problem….. I can’t tell you how many people I saw die from a lack of simple medical care. A cut, a broken bone, or an illness left untreated can become infected and deadly very quickly.”

The Narrowness of Mainstream Economics Is About to Unravel 
Richard D. Wolff [TruthOut, via Naked Capitalism 11-14-18]
....mainstream economics mostly evades an honest confrontation with the social costs of such economic instability. Worse, it evades a direct debate with the Marxian critique that links those costs to an argument that system change would be the best and most “efficient” solution.

In economics courses these days, most US professors praise the “free market.” They insist that its outcomes (prices, incomes, interest rates, and so on) flow from self-interested individuals bargaining freely over their economic interactions (buying, selling, borrowing, lending, working, and so on). Market outcomes, they teach, are uniquely stable, efficient and, indeed, optimal in some overarching social sense (or at least in Vilfredo Pareto’s sense). The economy works well if we let markets work their magic, according to this ideology.

Good teachers explain that many assumptions are required — about social conditions that need to be in place — for free markets to have these wonderful outcomes. But the vast majority of students walk away from their economic courses with little more than free-market ideology. They walk away believing that the market works badly when governments interfere by influencing prices, incomes, interest rates and so on.
This is a good example of how both mainstream and radical economists falsely present a binary choice by ignoring the actual history of the ideas and ideology on which the USA economy was built. Capitalism is not a political system; it is an economic system. And it has been allowed to dictate much of politics. But that was not always the case. Alexander Hamilton structured the USA economy explicitly and deliberately on active government involvement in the economy, based on his observation that most people tend to resist new ways of doing things. Therefore, one purpose of government must be to purposefully aid entrepreneurs in adopting and advancing new technologies and new machinery. Readers will hopefully recognize immediately that this is a flat out rejection of the conservative and libertarian argument that "government should not be picking winners and losers." And, government encouragement of agriculture, industry, and transportation -- the state creating and promoting new means of production -- is an obvious reversal of the way Marx said the world worked

But there is more. The United States was established as a republic - and there is nothing in the Constitution or in The Federalist Papers that indicates capitalism is the preferred type of economic system. In fact, reading many of the ideas of the founders regarding the nature of a republic, it sounds much more like socialism than capitalism:
“In a republic “each individual gives up all private interest that is not consistent with the general good, the interest of the whole body.” For the republican patriots of 1776 the commonweal was all encompassing—a transcendent object with a unique moral worth that made partial considerations fade into insignificance. “Let regard be had only to the good of the whole” was the constant exhortation by publicists and clergy. Ideally, republicanism obliterated the individual. “A Citizen,” said Sam Adams, “owes everything to the Commonwealth.” “Every man in a republic,” declared Benjamin Rush, “is public property. His time, his talents—his youth—his manhood—his old age—nay more, life, all belong to his country.” “No man is a true republican,” wrote a Pennsylvanian in 1776, “that will not give up his single voice to that of the public.”
..... In the minds of the most devoted Commonwealthmen it was the duty of a republic to control "the selfishness of mankind ... ; for liberty consists not in the permission to distress fellow citizens, by extorting extravagant advantages from them, in matters of commerce or otherwise." Because it was commonly understood that "the exorbitant wealth of individuals" had a "most baneful influence" on the maintenance of republican governments and "therefore should be carefully guarded against...."  
(“Republicanism" Chapter 2, from Gordon Wood's The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, 1969, pages 60-64)
Portugal Dared to Cast Aside Austerity. It’s Having a Major Revival.
[New York Times, via Naked Capitalism 11-13-18]

Raising Minimum Wages Reduces Recidivism
by Yves Smith [Naked Capitalism 11-10-18]

Homelessness in New York Public Schools Is at a Record High: 114,659 Students
[New York Times, via Naked Capitalism 11-13-18]

Boeing, Crapification, and the Lion Air Crash
Yves Smth, November 13, 2018 [Naked Capitalism]
....the difficulty in designing automated safety controls for airplanes bodes ill for fully autonomous self-driving cars. The variables involved in navigating planes are much simpler than in driving cars. For starters, planes are kept well away from each other, so you don’t have anything like dealing with left turns, bicycles riding in your lane, someone making a dangerous pass that puts them head on in your lane, or people opening a car door right into your path. Recall that this Boeing design disaster occurred despite the airline industry having a very strong safety culture. Silicon Valley has nothing of the kind, yet they want us to entrust our lives to them.

Fox News Is Poisoning America. Rupert Murdoch and His Heirs Should Be Shunned.
Peter Maass, November 4 2018, [The Intercept, via The Big Picture 11-11-18]
The latest terror attacks in America have provoked a new wave of indignation against the network, culminating in a widely noted call by the U.S. editor of the Financial Times, Edward Luce, for an advertiser boycott. “The most effective thing Americans can do is boycott companies that advertise on Fox,” Luce tweeted. “They bankroll the poison that goes from the studio into Trump’s head.” It’s a worthwhile idea, but its impact will be limited, because as a Bloomberg article pointed out, the network’s main source of revenue is from cable subscribers, not advertisers. Some sponsors, heeding public pressure, have withdrawn from Laura Ingraham’s show after she mocked a survivor of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, but the show’s ratings have surged since then — a condition that can lead, theoretically, to more subscriber revenue.
How can Fox News be pressured?
...

What would ostracism of the Murdochs look like? To begin with, it would probably involve the rescinding of invitations to all the conferences and galas they regularly attend. They would become as toxic to business-as-usual as Bannon has become. Their presence and their money would not be accepted by any organization that aspires to stand against the poison that Fox News continues to unleash on the country, including the Democratic Party, which has reportedly received a number of contributions from James Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn....

Here’s another potential scenario for ostracism. 
Kathryn and James Murdoch have established a foundation, Quadrivium, that provides funding to organizations that are involved in and, among other issues, environmental protection. Kathryn Murdoch is also on the board of trustees of the Environmental Defense Fund, which fights climate change. Yet Fox News is the only major media institution that regularly expresses skepticism about the science of climate change (it told one guest, an editor from Scientific American, to not discuss it), and the network cheered the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. 
Should organizations dedicated to fighting climate change accept money from the owners of a company that’s uniquely devoted to lying about it?
At the founding of the United States, it was understood that an informed and active citizenry was essential to the maintenance and success of a republic. It is still generally accepted that participatory democracy requires an educated and informed citizenry. Why then is misinformation and sensationalism so easily tolerated, and even protected as "free speech"? If the purpose of "free speech" is to ensure that citizens have all the information they need to make good political decisions, shouldn't we be straining to develop some way to evaluate and judge the effects of some speech and determine if it is doing what it is supposed to be doing? The social sciences have become much more powerful since the 1908 Brandeis Brief, the first legal brief brought to the Supreme Court that relied more on scientific information and social science statistics and insights, than on legal citations.

The problem, of course, is the old one of "who will watch the watchers"? Who will decide what "free speech" fulfills the task of informing citizens? Added to this is the fact that in the beginning of each human thought, it reposes in one, single individual mind. Students of the history of science understand this quite well. When Albert Einstein formulated his theories of relativity in 1905-1911, the idea of relativity resided in the minds of just Einstein and a few other physicists with whom he had conversed. Would a court in 1905 or 1906 have ruled that Einstein should not have his speech rights protected because the overwhelming evidence was that his ideas of relativity were shared by a small number of eccentric cranks?

So it might be that the idea of social ostracism brought forward by Maass and Luce may be a remedy. It does not solve the problem of "who will watch the watchers", but at least it does no damage to the constitutional standing of free speech. It is precisely the mechanism of social ostracism that I think needs to be developed to limit the free speech and political activity of the rich, in much the same way the free speech and political activity of military officers is limited. It is not that they are strictly prohibited from speaking out, but that they, because of who they are and the fact that they have immensely more power -- military by the one, economic by the other -- at their command, that the rest of society is more sensitive to their exercise of these rights, and more willing to impose sanctions when they are perceived to have crossed certain hazy boundaries.

The other approach that could be applied is to investigate the Murdochs and Fox News and agents of foreign influence. But this would require a revival of the popular dislike of the British empire and its ruling elites that characterized the American people in the nineteenth century. Then, the sort of restrictions and opprobrium that  last year were placed on RT TV for being tied to Russia, could be placed on the Murdochs and Fox News for being agents of the British empire.

Because, seriously, is it any coincidence that that rise of Fox News occurred at the very same time the USA as a functioning republic was impaired and crippled, and a descent into oligarchy became a real danger?


Democrats Say Their First Bill Will Focus On Strengthening Democracy At Home
[NPR, via Naked Capitalism 11-13-18]
“The bill would establish automatic voter registration and reinvigorate the Voting Rights Act, crippled by a Supreme Court decision in 2013. It would take away redistricting power from state legislatures and give it to independent commissions. Other provisions would overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which declared political spending is First Amendment free speech; they would mandate more disclosure of outside money and establish a public financing match for small contributions.”

Start the Voter Suppression Hearings Now and Don't Stop
Hamilton Nolan [SplinterNews, via Avedon's sideshow.me.uk/ 11-8-18] 
The House can hold hearings on voter suppression. They can start immediately. They can subpoena every fucking Republican secretary of state who can reasonably be judged to have assisted in the suppression of minority voters. They can subpoena law enforcement officials. They can subpoena campaign staffers. They can subpoena poll workers. They can call in all types of political science professors and statisticians and sociologists to explain in detail what is happening. They can invite Michelle Alexander to read the entirety of The New Jim Crow into the Congressional record. They can draw attention. They can make noise. They should, and they must. The more you let the overt oppression slide, the more it will be seen as the standard playbook for the next election. 
Donald Trump is an idiot savant who understands one single thing about politics: the theater. He does not know about laws. He does not know the Constitution. He does not know ethics, or conservative principles, or budgets. He knows how to put on a show. The fact that he is now the fucking president demonstrates how important a show is in politics. Democrats can also put on a show—one that has the added benefit of being righteous, and using true facts. Subpoena Brian Kemp and his entire campaign staff and drag them before Congress and harangue them for being racists and if they don’t come, harangue an empty fucking chair with a Brian Kemp name tag in front of it, live on CNN. Besides making a very salient point, do you know who might appreciate such a spectacle? The people whose votes are being suppressed.
Emphasis is mine. This is an idea everyone should urge on their Congressmen, if they are Democrats. Do it now!

It wasn’t just Trump: How the DFL harnessed a massive get-out-the-vote effort to win the ’burbs 
[Minnesota Post, via Naked Capitalism 11-14-18]
Planned Parenthood was another big practitioner of door-to-door politics during Minnesota’s 2018 election. It raised and spent $2 million, an amount it said is triple previous campaigns, and its combination of paid staff and volunteers made nearly 128,600 door knocks and phone calls this year, compared to around 22,000 in 2016....
The targeting also resulted in thinking about who are the people who have used Planned Parenthood health clinics or knew people who did. He estimates that one of five women in the state have been a patient. “We thought, ‘These are the people who we served,’” he said. 
Among those they serve are also two demographics — young people and people of color — that tend to be less active in midterm elections. “We really wanted to make sure that we brought a program to those communities and made sure that they understood what was at risk on the ballot,” Stanley said.
How Did Medicare for All Candidates Fare in the Midterms?
[Splinter News, via Naked Capitalism 11-13-18] 
“This year, a majority of House Democratic candidates endorsed Medicare for All, according to the union National Nurses United. If you had told me in 2014, or even 2016, that this would happen, I would have frowned at you, walked away, and possibly tried to contact someone who cares about you out of concern for your mental health. This was pretty damn huge….Only seven candidates in the 30 races Cook labeled as toss-ups endorsed Medicare for All; of those candidates, two won, three lost and two races are still undecided, but only one reduced the vote share over 2016. Harley Rouda, who supports Medicare for All, increased the Democratic share of the vote by 10 percent to beat Dana Rohrabacher, per current totals. Incredibly, a district that previously looked at Dana Rohrabacher and said yes, I want him, now wants a guy who supports single-payer instead.”
A Democrat Ran on Climate Change in a Republican Stronghold—and Won
[Illinois 6th CD - Henry Hyde's district from 1975 to 2007; so this is a very symbolic loss for the Republicans]
[The New Republic, via Naked Capitalism 11-14-18]
“‘After years fighting climate change as an entrepreneur, I’m now determined to fight it as the next member of Congress,’ reads Casten’s Twitter bio, updated to reflect his victory on Tuesday. A scientist, environmental writer, and the founder of a successful renewable energy business, Casten talked repeatedly about global warming on the campaign trail and regularly called out his opponent—six-term incumbent Republican Representative Peter Roskam—for being weak on the subject. Casten’s focus on climate was mostly overlooked in the widespread coverage of his five-point upset of Roskam, who once referred to climate change as ‘junk science.’ But it’s an important factor, considering the Democratic Party’s prevailing logic on the subject. Knowing that global warming can be a polarizing issue, most Democrats running in red or purple districts this year strategically avoided talking about it.”
Ocasio-Cortez gets in closed-door fight with veteran lawmaker over climate change
[Politico, via Naked Capitalism 11-16-18] 

David Sirota [Guardian, via Naked Capitalism 11-16-18]

New effort promises 1,000 trained Democratic staffers for 2020
[Politico, via Naked Capitalism 11-15-18] 
“Anticipating a sprawling Democratic presidential field and a shortage of experienced, high-quality campaign professionals, a left-leaning group is launching a $4.5 million effort to train 1,000 staffers to be ready in time for 2020 combat. The group, called Arena, will begin holding training academies across the country in 2019, with a goal of deploying at least 450 of those trainees onto Democratic presidential primary campaigns or in state legislative races.” 
Get a load of who's on the board. It includes California ant-Bernie Democrat Buffy Wicks (see “New Anti-Berner Model Test In California’s 15th Assembly District Election” at Down with Tyranny). I expect not a single board member has a clue what a working class life is like, and have no interest in learning. 


51 Percent Losers
[Matt Karp, Jacobin, via Naked Capitalism 11-15-18] 
“In the long run, the Democrats’ 51 percent solution, depending crucially on the votes of wealthy suburbanites, is a formula for disaster. It cannot repair our broken politics, much less transform our savagely unequal society. In fact, even in its short-term triumphs, it obscures (when it does not outright scorn) the one mode of struggle that can break the cycle: a political revolution driven by the needs and aspirations of the broader working class.” Lambert Strether added: "Also the only way to arrest fascism, if you care about that sort of thing. Princeton’s Karp wrote the excellent This Vast Southern Empire."
Norman Solomon [Truthdig, via Naked Capitalism 11-16-18] 
Nancy Pelosi will probably be the next House speaker, a prospect that fills most alert progressives with disquiet, if not dread. But instead of fixating on her as a villain, progressives should recognize the long-standing House Democratic leader as a symptom of a calcified party hierarchy that has worn out its grassroots welcome and is beginning to lose its grip. 
Increasingly at odds with the Democratic Party’s mobilized base, that grip has held on with gobs of money from centralized, deep-pocket sources—endlessly reinforcing continual deference to corporate power and an ongoing embrace of massively profitable militarism. 
Pelosi has earned a reputation as an excellent manager, and she has certainly managed to keep herself in power atop Democrats in the House. She’s a deft expert on how Congress works, but she seems out of touch—intentionally or not—with the millions of grassroots progressives who are fed up with her kind of leadership. 
Those progressives should not reconcile with Pelosi, any more than they should demonize her. The best course will involve strategic confrontations—nonviolent, emphatic, civilly disobedient—mobilizing the power of protest as well as electoral activism within Democratic primaries. 
Such well-planned actions as Tuesday’s “Green New Deal” sit-in at Pelosi’s Capitol office serve many valuable purposes. (Along the way, they help undermine the absurd right-wing Fox News trope that portrays her as some kind of leftist.) Insistently advocating for strong progressive programs and calling Pelosi out on her actual positions despite nice-sounding rhetoric can effectively widen the range of public debate. Over time, the process creates more space and momentum for a resurgent left.

The photo of Democratic women that sets conservatives off
SemDem, November 17, 2018 [DailyKos]
Just some of the incoming Democratic freshmen for the 116th Congress. 


Note on an acceptable definition of fascism
Lambert Strether [Naked Capitalism 11-15-18]
Finally came across an analysis of fascism I may be able to accept, because it’s from a historian, and isn’t a simple-minded checklist (or liberal yammering). I’d also like to cross-check it with Robert Evans’ magisterial The Coming of the Third Reich, which is also very textured, including diaries for example. From an Amazon review of From Robert Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism:

But rather than come up with a proposed theoretical definition of fascism at the beginning and then trying to defend it, Paxton starts by examining what fascism looks like in the real world—how fascist movements actually began, how they took root and attracted a mass following, how fascist parties then rose to power and took control of the machinery of government, how they governed, etc.—and only after thoroughly considering all of these things does he finally, in the last few pages of the book, draw conclusions about what fascism really is.

I highly recommend that you read the entire book for yourself before considering Paxton’s definition of fascism—it’s the only real way to do justice to his approach to the subject. But for those of you who don’t mind spoilers, here is how Paxton ultimately defines fascism, on the antepenultimate page of his book:

“Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”

Suggestive… And in terms of “democratic liberties,” the rot has been setting in for quite some time, and in a thoroughly bipartisan fashion. Ditto “community decline” (deindustrialization). So our immune system, as it were, was (and is) already weak. (A competing definition, the merger of corporations and the state, might be subsumed under “uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites.”)

Also, quoting Paxton on the KKK:

[I]t is further back in American history that one comes upon the earliest phenomenon that seems functionally related to fascism: the Ku Klux Klan. Just after the Civil War, some Confederate officers, fearing the vote given to African Americans by the Radical Reconstructionists in 1867, set up a militia to restore an overturned social order. The Klan constituted an alternate civic authority, parallel to the legal state, which, in its founders’ eyes, no longer defended their community’s legitimate interests. In its adoption of a uniform (white robe and hood), as well as its techniques of intimidation and its conviction that violence was justified in the cause of the group’s destiny, the first version of the Klan in the defeated American South was a remarkable preview of the way fascist movements were to function in interwar Europe.

(That’s been my thought on the KKK.) From the reviews and excerpts, I think that Paxton isn’t taking into account population-wide trauma, as from the Civil War (the KKK) and the trenches of World War I (Germany and Italy). I don’t know the causality, but the commonality is suggestive. It may be that the Recessions (“deaths of despair”) played a similar role in this country. 
Back to the definition: The big missing piece, fortunately, is “mass-based party of committed nationalist militants.” So far! We are nowhere near having anything like the KKK either during Reconstruction or the 1920s. Even Trump didn’t show Birth of a Nation in the White House (unlike progressive icon Woodrow Wilson). However, it doesn’t seem to me that liberal tactics of shaming and virtue signaling are going to be of much use preventing the emergence of such an entity (and the enormous monopolies and those productive and dynamic blue cities seem to be amplifying these entities, if anything. YouTube, in particular, is a cesspit, into which its algos are designed to suck you).
As Silent Sam deadline looms, UNC officials quietly debate a difficult decision 
[Herald-Sun, via Naked Capitalism 11-16-18].  
“The university spent $390,000 on Silent Sam security in the 2017-18 fiscal year.”
Lambert Strether asks:
$390,000 is what? 20 adjuncts? 5 full professors? What are the priorities here?
Researchers Created Fake ‘Master’ Fingerprints to Unlock Smartphones 
[Motherboard, via Naked Capitalism 11-16-18]. 
“In most cases, spoofing biometric IDs requires making a fake face or finger vein pattern that matches an existing individual. In a paper posted to arXiv earlier this month, however, researchers from New York University and the University of Michigan detailed how they trained a machine learning algorithm to generate fake fingerprints that can serve as a match for a “large number” of real fingerprints stored in databases.” • And you can’t change your fingerprint the way you can change a password. It’s almost like biometric IDs had some other purpose than security…

Watch the warming ocean devour Alaska’s coast in this striking time-lapse video 
[Washington Post, via Naked Capitalism 11-15-18]

Israel Aims To Ban Gasoline, Diesel Vehicles By 2030 
[ars technica, via Naked Capitalism 11-13-18]

Gov.-elect Grisham: "I climbed a wind turbine and won"
[USA Today, via American Wind Energy Association 11-16-18]
Voters used the midterm elections to select leaders who are focused on ending climate change and doing it, in part, with the use of wind and other clean energy sources, writes governor-elect and Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, D-N.M. "By embracing clean energy across the country, we can create more and better jobs, protect the air our children breathe and the water they drink, and keep electricity more stable over time," she writes.
Governors' coalition: Feds must begin updating power grids
[The Sun (Lowell, Mass.) (11/13), via American Wind Energy Association 11-14-18]
The US electrical grid is severely outdated and it's time for the federal government to take action, wrote the Governors' Wind & Solar Energy Coalition in a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week. The governors argue that regional grids could help the nation's electrical system become "more resilient, efficient, reliable, competitive, and less vulnerable to cyber-attack."
Report: 98% of Scotland's energy came from wind in Oct.
[The Scotsman (Edinburgh) (11/12), via American Wind Energy Association 11-13-18]
Scotland's wind farms provided 98% of the nation's energy needs in October, according to WWF Scotland. On Oct. 23, Scotland generated enough wind power to meet 234% of its needs.
What will Calif.'s transition to 100% renewables look like?
[The San Diego Union-Tribune (tiered subscription model) (11/11), via American Wind Energy Association 11-13-18]
California, like Germany, will likely face a series of challenges as it overhauls its energy mix and moves toward completely zero-carbon electrical generation, writes Rob Nikolewski. "Europe seems more expensive in a lot of ways that are not necessarily going to be issues for California," says James Bushnell, an University of California at Davis economics professor. "But I think a common theme is that both (places) are trying to go where electric systems have not gone before."
[Railway Age 11-15-18]
Construction of the 183km Tangiers – Kenitra line was officially launched in September 2011 and was originally due for completion in December 2015, but the project suffered a number of setbacks including land acquisition delays and subsidence. 
Dynamic testing began in February 2017 and an African rail speed record of 357km/h was set on May 4 this year. 
The total cost of the project was around €1.8bn. The Moroccan government provided €500m from the state budget and the Hassan II Fund for Economic and Social Development. The French government contributed €625m in the form of a concessional loan and a €75m grant, with the French Development Agency (AFD) providing a further €220m. Financing was also drawn from sources in Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia Fund for Development (€144m), the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (€70m) and the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (€100m).


The Boring Company’s Loop Set to Debut in LA
[Machine Design 11-12-18]
Elon Musk’s high-speed subway loop is almost complete with its test tunnel and looking to have an official opening date of Dec. 10th.

This Is Aurora's Massive Solar-Powered Stratospheric Unmanned Aircraft
Graham Warwick, November 14, 2018 [Aviation Week & Space Technology]
Designed to stay aloft in the atmosphere up to three months, the 243-ft.-span Odysseus is in ground testing, split into three sections because it is too big to fit in the hangar at Aurora’s headquarters in Manassas, Virginia.
[NASA, via Naked Capitalism 11-14-18]
NASA's Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander is scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet at approximately 3 p.m. EST Nov. 26, and viewers everywhere can watch coverage of the event live on NASA Television, the agency's website and social media platforms.

Launched on May 5, InSight marks NASA's first Mars landing since the Curiosity rover in 2012. The landing will kick off a two-year mission in which InSight will become the first spacecraft to study Mars' deep interior. Its data also will help scientists understand the formation of all rocky worlds, including our own.



Pioneering Kepler Telescope’s Nine-Year Run Comes To An End
Irene Klotz, November 13, 2018 [Aviation Week & Space Technology]
....Kepler Space Telescope, a relatively low-cost spacecraft that ran out of fuel in October after more than nine years in orbit. The mission had a straightforward goal: survey a small region of the sky to determine how many stars harbor Earth-size planets.

“Before we launched Kepler we didn’t know if planets were common or rare,” says Paul Hertz, chief of NASA’s astrophysics division. “Now we know that planets are more common than stars in our galaxy. We know there are billions of planets that are rocky like the Earth and are orbiting their stars in the habitable zone . . . where their temperatures might be conducive to water on the surface,” bolstering the chances for life.  
Launched in 2009, Kepler collected data showing that, statistically, every star in the galaxy contains at least one planet, including ancient worlds that predate the Solar System by billions of years....
Analysis of the data sometimes revealed slight dips in the amount of light caused by a planet passing across the face of its parent star, relative to the telescope’s line of sight. After several cycles, computer algorithms could recognize timing patterns indicating the planet’s distance from its host star, from which temperature measurements could be derived. 
Follow-on observations by ground-based telescopes confirmed Kepler’s findings by measuring a star’s gravitational wobble, caused by the tugging of its orbiting companions. That data also revealed a planet’s mass, giving scientists insight into its composition.

What was surprising, says Borucki, is the diversity of worlds unearthed by Kepler, including the discovery of so-called “super-Earths”—planets bigger than Earth and smaller than Neptune that don’t exist in the Solar System.
Scientists also found a wide array of configurations in which planets orbit their parent stars, such as Jupiter-size worlds that circle their star in one day, compared to the 12 years it takes Jupiter to orbit the Sun. Kepler also found planets with two parent stars, and stars with a half-dozen planets all orbiting closer to their host star than Mercury circles the Sun. “In some sense, our own planetary system is quite atypical,” says Borucki.

[PhysOrg, via Naked Capitalism 11-14-18]

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