by Tony Wikrent
Economics Action Group, North Carolina Democratic Party Progressive Caucus
North Carolina AFL-CIO 2019 Labor Legislative Conference (LLC) will be held at the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel, 421 S. Salisbury St, Raleigh, NC on February 12-13, 2019. REGISTER & PAY ONLINE. This conference combines training on our legislative agenda with a Labor Lobby Day to advocate for working people. Registration is open to members of AFL-CIO affiliates and community allies. Register by February 1st to get our discounted, "Advanced" ticket pricing! Read more.
Martin Luther King on BASIC INCOME
[via Naked Capitalism 1-21-19]
Panic is on the agenda at Davos – but it’s too little too late
[Guardian 1-23-19, via PDOC member Kim Piracci]
[SplinterNews 1-22-19]
Pity the poor billionaire, for today he feels a new and unsettling emotion: fear. The world order he once clung to is crumbling faster than the value of the pound. In its place, he frets, will come chaos. Remember this, as the plutocrats gather this week high above us in the ski resort of Davos: they are terrified....
In its pretend innocence, its barefaced blame-shifting, its sheer ruddy sauce, this is akin to arsonists wailing about the flames from their own bonfire. Populism of all stripes may be anathema to the billionaire class, but they helped create it. For decades, they inflicted insecurity on the rest of us and told us it was for our own good. They have rigged an economic system so that it paid them bonanzas and stiffed others. They have lobbied and funded politicians to give them the easiest of rides. Topped with red Maga caps and yellow vests, this backlash is uglier and more uncouth than anything you’ll see in the snow-capped Alps, but the high rollers meeting there can claim exec producer credits for the whole rotten lot. Shame it’s such a downer for dividends.
This week’s report from Oxfam is just the latest to put numbers to this hoarding of wealth and power. One single minibus-load of fatcats – just 26 people – now own as much as half the planet’s population, and the collective wealth of the billionaire class swells by $2.5bn every day. This economic polarisation is far more obscene than anything detested by Davos man, and it is the root cause of the social and political divide that now makes his world so unstable.
No natural force created this intense unfairness. The gulf between the super-rich and the rest of us did not gape wide open overnight. Rather, it has been decades in the widening and it was done deliberately. The UK was the frontline of the war to create greater inequality: in her first two terms as prime minister, Margaret Thatcher more than halved the top rate of income tax paid by high earners. She broke the back of the trade unions. Over their 16 years in office, Thatcher and John Major flogged off more public assetsthan France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Australia and Canada put together....
Where Thatcher’s shock troops led, the rest of the west more or less followed. Political leaders across the spectrum gave the rich what they wanted. It didn’t matter whether you voted for Tony Blair or David Cameron, Bill Clinton or George W Bush, either way you got Davos man. They cut taxes for top earners and for businesses, they uprooted the public sector to create opportunities for private firms, and they struck trade deals negotiated in secret that gave big corporations as much as they could ever dream of.
At last, more than a decade after the banking crash, the regime has run out of road. Hence the popular anger, so ferocious that the political and financial elites can neither comprehend nor control it.
Hamilton Nolan [SplinterNews 1-22-19]
One thing that very rich people are good at is managing risk. If they make a judgment that the political tide is turning against them, they will seek to make a deal. Now is the time to mentally prepare ourselves to reject that deal.
Once people reach a certain level of wealth, their full time job becomes, in essence, maintaining that wealth....
They will tend to do everything they can to maintain what are euphemistically known as “business-friendly” or “pro-growth” elected officials, which in America means Republicans; when the pendulum swings left, they will attempt to do the next best thing: pull the Democratic party to the center, by discrediting the left and empowering “moderates.”
This is coming. Be ready.
The crisis of economic inequality has destabilized a decades-long set of accepted conventional wisdom about national politics. Anti-establishment sentiment is strong. That got us Donald Trump. Donald Trump, a buffoon, is unpopular. Leftist politics are experiencing an upsurge in popularity.
Another billionaire investor, Seth Klarman, is warning that “constant protests, riots, shutdowns and escalating social tensions” are increasing investment risk. Rich people know that we have entered an era of populism; they know that right wing populism as practiced by Donald Trump and the Brexiteers is proving to be not so popular; and they see socialists gaining real traction in the political left in America.
Going into the 2020 presidential election season, the rich will have to make a risk-based calculation. The Republican party, traditionally their safe harbor, is now led by Trump, who is racist, narcissistic, stupid, unpopular, and—worst of all, from their perspective—unpredictable. He can do dumb things that will fuck up their money. And if they back him and he loses, they lose influence. It is becoming fairly clear that for the majority of the very rich, who care about politics more in terms of a business proposition than an ideological one, the smart move will be to try to get in with the Democrats and soften the blow. If you truly believe in fighting inequality, know this: the siren song of the billionaires is coming. The offer to help you defeat Trump is coming. And it will come with very meaningful strings attached....
The billionaires’ compromise offer will come. It will come in a handsome, well-designed package, with the best marketing that money can buy. It will sound superficially attractive. It will be made to sound like a win for those on the left—at last, you have forced the rich and powerful to compromise. It will be presented as the best deal that we can get. All of the moderate, responsible pundits will be for it. As will the moderate, responsible power brokers of the Democratic party. They will tell you that you are crazy if you let this opportunity slip through your fingers.
Don’t fall for it. Any deal that lets billionaires continue to have a billion dollars is a scam.AOC: A Society With Billionaires Cannot Be Moral
[SplinterNews 1-22-19]
On Monday, author Ta-Nehisi Coates interviewed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on stage at MLK Now, at an event hosted by the organization Blackout for Human Rights....
The entire conversation is fascinating and extremely worth watching. But one of the highlights came when Coates asked Ocasio-Cortez to talk about her proposal for a 70% marginal tax rate on people who earn over $10 million a year. Her response spoke volumes about what separates her from almost every other politician today.
“The question of marginal tax rates is a policy question but it’s also a moral question,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “What kind of society do we want to live in? Are we comfortable with a society where someone can have a personal helipad while this city is experiencing the highest levels of poverty and homelessness since the Great Depression?”
Cutting right to the point, Coates asked if it’s possible to live in a moral society that includes billionaires.
“No, it’s not,” she responded. “I’m not saying that Bill Gates or Warren Buffet are immoral, but a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they don’t have access to public health is wrong.”
[LSE Review of Books, via Naked Capitalism 1-25-19]
Making shareholders the primary focus of corporations and capital markets leads to deep distortions in the measurement of business performance and the culture of its people and services. Shaxson challenges the fundamental notion of ‘investment’ in modern finance, showing that what is really happening under its guise is the extraction of wealth, rather than its replenishment or wider distribution. In stark contrast, finance textbooks rarely mention the power and exploitation of finance or the concept of extraction, and celebrate tax avoidance and ‘optimisation’ as a means of profit maximisation. The book opens a serious fight with the very fundamentals of finance and its so-called expert institutions and cultures.Decades of Financial Deregulation & Racist Housing Policy Brought Us 2007 Meltdown, with More to Come (Pt 1/3)
January 24, 2019 [Real News Network]
Carter, Reagan, Clinton, the Bushes, Obama, and now Trump deregulated Wall Street and did nothing to help Black and Brown homeowners in America. White collar criminologist Bill Black discusses the social structure of mortgage discrimination. Part 1: The History
When North Dakota has budget woes, it simply takes a dividend from its state-owned bank
[Public Banking Institute 1-26-19]
[Public Banking Institute 1-26-19]
Early this month, the North Dakota Legislature lowered the amount of revenue the state can expect to collect from oil taxes by $600 million for the next two year budget cycle. Oil is a major contributor to the state’s wealth and the significant drop in energy tax revenue (despite record levels of oil production) would be expected to have significant effects on state spending. North Dakota, however, has a state bank. Eyeing the trend, they have built into their budget the transfer of a $140 million dividend from the Bank of North Dakota’s record profits (p24 of link). These dividends are funds the state can tap in lieu of a rainy day fund — one of the major benefits of having a state-owned public bank.
AOC’s Green New Deal as Politics
by Lambert Strether [Naked Capitalism 1-21-19]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Crusher of Sacred Cows
Matt Taibbi. January 21, 2019 [Rolling Stone]
....the ongoing freakout over newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Lest anyone think any of the above applies to “AOC,” who’s also had a lot to say since arriving in Washington, remember: she won in spite of the party and big donors, not because of them.
That doesn’t make anything she says inherently more or less correct. But it changes the dynamic a bit. All of AOC’s supporters sent her to Washington precisely to make noise. There isn’t a cabal of key donors standing behind her, cringing every time she talks about the Pentagon budget. She is there to be a pain in the ass, and it’s working. Virtually the entire spectrum of Washington officialdom has responded to her with horror and anguish....
The Beltway press mostly can’t stand her. A common theme is that, as a self-proclaimed socialist, she should be roaming the halls of Rayburn and Cannon in rags or a barrel. Washington Examiner reporter Eddie Scarry tweeted a photo of her in a suit, saying she didn’t look like “a girl who struggles.”
If your career relies on monetizing your relationships with people in power, then you have a financial interest in destroying any political candidate who threatens to toss your monetizeable contacts out of power.
Bill Black: AOC# and MMT Spook the AEI
by Yves Smith [Naked Capitalism 1-22-19]
Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman [New York Times, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19]
“[The] root justification [for higher top marginal income tax rates] is not about collecting revenue. It is about regulating inequality and the market economy. It is also about safeguarding democracy against oligarchy. It has always been about that.”Ocasio-Cortez is right: Rich must pay more to help close America’s wealth and income gaps
[USA Today, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
“What has been lost in the dust-up is that the wealthy pay relatively little in taxes compared with their peers in other developed countries, and the congresswoman is correct that they will need to pay more if we are going to continue to provide the quality public services, infrastructure, health care and economic equity all Americans truly deserve.”I agree with Lambert Strether: "Hard to imagine this appearing in USA Today even two or three years ago."
New rule: Anyone who opposes investments for a Green New Deal has to tell us how they will pay for the damage from intense hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires, rapid sea level rise and ecological devastation.
World’s Billionaires: Taxing Us Our Fair Share Would Be “Disastrous”
[Vanity Fair, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
Ann Pettifor [New Statesman, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19]
“Until we fully understand how the monetary system functions, a wealthy elite will continue to extract rent from publicly produced collateral. Economic inequality will continue to widen across the world, while public anger and discontent deepen…. Roosevelt had the understanding, political will and ballast to confront the interests of Wall Street. Any international movement for a Green New Deal will have to summon the same courage. Campaigners in countries across the world will have to discover, and then deploy, their latent power to subordinate global finance to the interests of society and the environment. Only then will we discover that another world really is possible.”
Stoller on Democrats (2). The hook is an AOC attribution remark re: Jason Furman — gotta get the detail right — but Stoller places Furman in context:
1. So talking Jason Furman for a sec, because @AOC criticized a paper he wrote in 2005 titled "Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story" as sponsored by Walmart and she's getting blowback for it. Let me just offer a couple of observations about what is and isn't fair.
213 people are talking about this
The whole thread is important, but especially the conclusion:
15. This Democratic culture of deference must end. It simply must. We do not have time for this anymore. We get one more shot at governing, and if we screw that up like we did the Obama administration, we'll get a competent authoritarian. It'll be over.
228 people are talking about this
Yes, imagine if Trump were disciplined, and had political operatives as good as, say, Karl Rove.
[via Naked Capitalism 1-25-19]
Senate Energy Democrats Hire Former Industry Lobbyist to Lead Staff
January 24, 2019 [Real News Network]
As House Democrats grapple with demands for a Green New Deal, Senate Energy Committee Democrats hired former fracking lobbyist Sarah Venuto Perez.
Wall Street on Parade
Dark Pools function as unregulated stock exchanges inside the bowels of the largest Wall Street banks. Making the situation even more dicey, some of the big banks own more than one Dark Pool, raising the possibility that there could be cross-trading between those pools to artificially inflate or depress stock prices.
JPMorgan Chase owns two Dark Pools; Citigroup currently owns at least two although it owned a lot more in the past; Morgan Stanley owns three; and then there is the Dark Pool that a consortium of Wall Street banks quietly own together. That one is called Level ATS. According to Wall Street’s self-regulator, FINRA, Level ATS is owned by Citigroup, Credit Suisse, LB I Group, Merrill Lynch LP Holdings, and Fidelity Global Brokerage Group.
After being repeatedly charged with collusion, should global banks be allowed to team up on the darkest of trading markets, i.e., Dark Pools? Should felon banks like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase be allowed to trade the stocks of their own bank? Should any Wall Street bank be allowed to trade its own stock in darkness?MasterCard Fined $648 Million for High EU Card Fees
[Bloomberg, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19]
Warren demands details on Mnuchin’s December calls to bank CEOs
Warren demands details on Mnuchin’s December calls to bank CEOs
[American Banker, via Naked Capitalism 1-22-19]
“Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is asking Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin why he called chief executives of the six largest U.S. banks to confirm they had adequate liquidity in the midst of market turmoil in December. ‘The public announcement of these calls was a rare step for a Treasury Secretary to take,’ Warren said in her letter to Mnuchin dated Jan. 18. ‘Moreover, your calls sought to assuage a concern — the liquidity of banks — that neither banking regulators nor executives had publicly indicated was a problem.’…. ‘Given the outsized role of liquidity problems in the 2008 financial crisis, we would like to better understand the nature of the call you had with Secretary Mnuchin regarding risks to the U.S. banking system,’ Warren said.”BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Tells Corporate CEOs to Engage in Better Eyewash
by Yves Smith [Naked Capitalism 1-21-19]
Today’s object lesson is Larry Fink, the Chairman and CEO of the ginormous fund manager BlackRock (not to be confused with the private equity/alternative asset manager Blackstone). BlackRock, with $6.2 trillion under management as of October, 2018, is the largest asset manager in the world....
Nowhere does Fink mention the elephant in the room: high levels of income and wealth inequality. Heavens no. All that populist revolt and decline in faith in globalization is due to the great unwashed masses wanting companies to step in because governments haven’t responded adequately. No, I am not making that up. Fink never acknowledges that the sustained war on New Deal safety nets and labor protections, and the resulting rise in insecurity and lack of class mobility are fueling this legitimacy crisis.
Dimon, Schwarzman and Other Davos A-Listers Add $175 Billion in 10 Years
[Bloomberg, via Naked Capitalism 1-20-19]
Venture capital money kills more businesses than it helps,’ says Basecamp CEO Jason Fried [Recocde, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19]
Americans stopped buying homes in 2018, mortgage lenders are getting crushed, and an economic storm could be brewing
[Bloomberg, via Naked Capitalism 1-20-19]
Venture capital money kills more businesses than it helps,’ says Basecamp CEO Jason Fried [Recocde, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19]
“Fried told Recode’s Kara Swisher that venture capital ‘kills more businesses than it helps’ because the pressure to grow crazy-fast means companies keep raising money to keep their growth rate up. That, in turn, means they rarely have the opportunity to learn how to spend money in a disciplined, sustainable way. ‘If you have a bunch of money in the bank, you’re encouraged to spend it because no one ever … Well, I shouldn’t say no one, but hardly anyone ever goes for one round,’ he said. ‘It’s round A, round B, it’s like, you’re going back to the drug dealer. Lots of businesses could be great $10 million, $20 million businesses, but they’re not allowed to be,’ he added. ‘[They’ve] got to be $200 million or $500 million or a billion … One of the reasons you get into entrepreneurship is to control your own destiny to some degree, to not have to go work for somebody else, to not have to collect a paycheck from somebody else. And so the thing is, when you go take money, you’re working for someone else again, instantly.'”
Americans stopped buying homes in 2018, mortgage lenders are getting crushed, and an economic storm could be brewing
[Business Insider, via Naked Capitalism 1-25-19]
“As 2018 headed toward its close, Americans’ appetite for buying homes fell off a cliff. In December, US existing-home sales cratered to 4.99 million, 10.3% below the mark from the year-ago period, according to data released earlier this week by the National Association of Realtors.That’s the steepest decline in more than seven years… At Wells Fargo, mortgage-banking income fell by 50%, to $467 million, in the fourth quarter, while originations declined by 28%, to $38 billion. JPMorgan, meanwhile, saw mortgage income fall to $203 million, a 46% drop from the same period last year. Originations fell by 30%, to $17.2 billion…. Significant housing declines have foreshadowed nine of the 11 post-World War II recessions in the US, according to another note by UBS from December examining the housing slowdown.”Bottom Suddenly Falls Out of Demand in China in Many Sectors
Wolf Richter [via Naked Capitalism 1-20-19]
Global shipping rates slump in latest sign of economic slowdown
[Reuters, via Naked Capitalism 1-26-19]
Forget the Trade War. China Is Already in Crisis
Forget the Trade War. China Is Already in Crisis
[Bloomberg, via Naked Capitalism 1-20-19]
China reportedly made an app to show people if they’re standing near someone in debt — a new part of its intrusive ‘social credit’ policy
China reportedly made an app to show people if they’re standing near someone in debt — a new part of its intrusive ‘social credit’ policy
[Business Insider, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19]
Yet more evidence of the conservative / neoliberal fallacy that free market capitalism will lead to political democracy.
[Business Insider, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
[Bloomberg, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
“During the Obama administration, the National Labor Relations Board broadened employees’ rights to use their workplace email system to organize around issues on the job. In a 2014 case, Purple Communications, the agency restricted companies from punishing employees for using their workplace email systems for activities like circulating petitions or fomenting walkouts, as well as trying to form a union. In filings in May 2017 and November 2018, obtained via Freedom of Information Act request, Alphabet Inc.’s Google urged the National Labor Relations Board to undo that precedent.”
[The Register, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19]
[Politico, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
[New Statesman, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
“I immediately called Deliveroo to say that it wasn’t, in fact, me who ordered £100 worth of food in the space of ten minutes in three separate orders; and told them that the fraudsters had changed my email address, so I couldn’t even get into my account to look at where it was sent. I was told that they would investigate, and I would be sent an email asking for more information immediately. I was not… so I did what any journalist with a modest Twitter following would do, and tweeted. What I thought would happen was that my case would be bumped on the list, and maybe I’d get my money back sooner (or, indeed, at all). What actually happened was that my replies, DMs and email were all immediately flooded with people who had been a victim of the same fraud, saying, yes, this had happened to them too and no, Deliveroo had never refunded them. Of the roughly 40 people I spoke to, not a single one had been refunded by the delivery service; those who did get their money back had got it from their bank.”
[The Nation, via Naked Capitalism 1-20-19]
When Teachers Win the People Win & Put Privatization on the Run
January 24, 2019 [Real News Network]
When Teachers Win the People Win & Put Privatization on the Run
January 24, 2019 [Real News Network]
LA Teacher’s strike shows that unions can win more support for students and can open a battle against the unchecked creation of charter schools. Arlene Inouye, the Chair of the UTLA Bargaining Team discusses the result.Second Former L.A. Charter School Official Facing Federal Charges
[My News LA, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
“The former CEO of Los Angeles charter school network Celerity Educational Group is expected to be arraigned next month on federal charges of conspiracy to misappropriate and embezzle public funds. Grace Canada, 45, of Torrance is the second ex-Celerity official to be charged with corruption by Los Angeles federal prosecutors. Celerity founder Vielka McFarlane pleaded guilty earlier this month to a conspiracy charge that she misspent $2.5 million in public education funds intended for students.”
[Safe Haven, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
“Membership in labor unions fell to just 10.5 percent last year to arrive at a figure that is the lowest since 1983, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) started tracking it for the first time…. The public has had an increasingly positive view of labor unions in recent years. A 2018 Gallup poll showed that 62 percent of Americans approve of labor unions today, a 15-year high.”
Durham City Council supports workers’ rights, wants to change N.C. labor laws
[NC AFL-CIO 1-21-19]
Durham Wants to Form a Workers’ Rights Commission. What Can It Actually Accomplish?
[NC AFL-CIO 1-21-19]
Durham Wants to Form a Workers’ Rights Commission. What Can It Actually Accomplish?
[NC AFL-CIO 1-21-19]
[McClatchy, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
“Unionizing. Paying interns $15 an hour. Ensuring time off. Institutionalizing salary transparency. To staffers on presidential campaigns past, who were long accustomed to brutal hours and low pay, that was the stuff of liberal fantasies. But this cycle, there is an intensifying conviction among progressive operatives that internal campaign culture should reflect the very values that 2020 Democratic hopefuls passionately tout on the trail.”Despite the government shutdown, Trump’s efforts to gut Obamacare go full speed ahead
Michaek Hiltzik [Los Angeles Times, via Naked Capitalism 1-20-19]
[Health Affairs, via Naked Capitalism 1-21-19]
Antipoverty Impact Of Medicaid Growing With State Expansions Over Time
Antipoverty Impact Of Medicaid Growing With State Expansions Over Time
[Health Affairs, via Naked Capitalism 1-22-19]
25 Ways the Canadian Health Care System Is Better Than Obamacare
Ralph Nader [Common Dreams, via Naked Capitalism 1-22-19]
Cancerous Growth: US cancer death rate drops, but not for the poor
Cancerous Growth: US cancer death rate drops, but not for the poor
[Jacobin, via Naked Capitalism 1-22-19]
A new study reveals that the US cancer death rate has dropped 27 percent since 1991. This is fantastic news: the nation’s number-two cause of death is getting less deadly by the year. For some people, that is. At the same time, the gap in cancer mortality between the rich and the poor is actually widening. The concurrence of these trends can mean only one thing: we’re making breakthroughs in medicine, but our deeply unequal system means that not everyone is benefiting from them....
The main reason for the disparity in cancer death rates among the rich and the poor is no secret to medical professionals. “Poverty has been a relentless obstacle to receiving cancer care because of lack of, or low insurance coverage,” one doctor told CNN after reading the new study. “No insurance or low-coverage insurance also reduces the incentive to visit the doctor for symptoms and even more for preventive health practices, such as smoking cessation, yearly physicals, and immunizations against cancer-causing viruses.”
If you’re uninsured, you’re not going to the doctor unless you absolutely have to. But the problem is even bigger than that. Twenty-nine percent of Americans reported delaying medical treatment last year because of the cost. That is triple the share of Americans who are uninsured, which means that private health insurance isn’t actually synonymous with regular access to treatment for an additional tens of millions of people. Meanwhile, profit-motivated private insurers deny claims all the time. Claims denials for cancer treatment are common enough that GoFundMe has a how-to for crowdfunding your own cancer treatment.Experts Declare Physician Burnout ‘a Public Health Crisis’ – and Health IT a Significant Pathogen
Yves Smith, January 24, 2019 [Naked Capitalism]
Yves here. Replying on the work of the health care and IT experts writing at Health Care Renewal, we have been writing about how electronic health care records are a danger to sound medical practice. Among other things, they are designed for billing, not diagnosis or treatment, force doctors to waste time dealing with pages of mechanical drop-downs, and distract them from paying attention to patients. One of many examples over the years: the ECRI Institute puts health care information technology as the top risk in its 2014 Patient Safety Concerns for Large Health Care Organizations report. Note that this ranking was based on the collection and analysis of over 300,000 events since 2009.Medicare For All — The Democratic Party Audition for 2020
Gaius Publius, January 21, 2019 [DownWithTyranny]
The next two years will present multiple tests of the soul of the Democratic Party, just as have the last 10 years. But two of those tests have "high profile" written all over them. The outcome of these tests could determine the Party's future, and consequently the nation's, in the 2020 presidential election.The Healthcare Industry's Coordinated Attack on Medicare for All Has Begun
One test is the Green New Deal. The other is Medicare For All. Both are mere proposals for now, and neither is as well defined as it needs to be in order to become law. But that day is coming for both, and the first time either comes before the House as an bill, the soul of the Democratic Party will be tried and judged, in full public view, with the bright 2020 klieg lights fully upon them.
How will the Democratic Party, in the aggregate, respond when those bills present Party leaders with a moment of decision — to support or not to support; to sabotage in secret or to show their approval in plain sight and by their actions?
[SplinterNews 1-24-19]
Last year, the healthcare industry formed a non-profit called Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, designed to fight Medicare for All. It’s a coalition of pharmaceutical companies, health insurance companies, and hospitals. It is big, bad, and very nasty.
As Mark Blyth says: The Hamptons are not a defensible position.
I slept on a sofa in a driveway for three months. I lived in an RV on a driveway for one month. I actively fought to keep people's houses from being stolen from banks. We were fighting AGAINST #KamalaHarris to save homes. YES I WILL actively do everything I can to expose her!
The Malign Incompetence of the British Ruling Class
Pankaj Mishra [New York Times, via Naked Capitalism 1-20-19]
And, the malign incompetence of the American ruling class: a look at Harvard Business School
“When You Get That Wealthy, You Start to Buy Your Own Bullshit”: The Miseducation of Sheryl Sandberg
[Vanity Fair, via Naked Capitalism 1-21-19]
...remember Jeff Skilling? Like Sandberg, he graduated from H.B.S. and went to work at McKinsey. And like Sandberg, he left McKinsey for a C-suite gig—in his case, Enron—that took him to the stratosphere. Again like Sandberg, he basked in adulation over his ability to deliver shareholder returns. Skilling had done so, of course, by turning Enron into one of the greatest frauds the world has ever seen.
One of Skilling’s H.B.S. classmates, John LeBoutillier, who went on to be a U.S. congressman, later recalled a case discussion in which the students were debating what the C.E.O. should do if he discovered that his company was producing a product that could be potentially fatal to consumers. “I’d keep making and selling the product,” he recalled Skilling saying. “My job as a businessman is to be a profit center and to maximize return to the shareholders. It’s the government’s job to step in if a product is dangerous.” Several students nodded in agreement, recalled LeBoutillier. “Neither Jeff nor the others seemed to care about the potential effects of their cavalier attitude. . . . At H.B.S. . . . you were then, and still are, considered soft or a wuss if you dwell on morality or scruples.”
More malign incompetence of the American ruling class:
Activists Call on Harvard to Strip Art Museum of Sackler Name
I'm finally reading through the court filing in the Massachusetts Sackler case. It is staggering. The Sacklers wanted to sell OxyContin as an *uncontrolled substance*. The INVENTOR of the drug had to persuade them that - while profitable - this would be a dangerous idea
Activists Call on Harvard to Strip Art Museum of Sackler Name
[Harvard Crimson, via Naked Capitalism 1-22-19]
“Local activists and at least one public official are calling on Harvard to remove the Sackler family’s name from their buildings after a memorandum filed in federal court Tuesday alleged the family knowingly understated the risks of its company’s addictive opioid product… For years, members of the Sackler family have sought to distance themselves from Purdue and its addictive narcotic, which many have blamed for its role in spurring the opioid crisis…. But this week’s filing sheds new light on the extent to which multiple members of the family remained involved in the company and its efforts to deceive the public about the risks associated with OxyContin, even after they agreed to a Justice Department settlement in 2007.”How much can forests fight climate change?
[Nature, via Naked Capitalism 1-20-19]
Greenland is approaching the threshold of an irreversible melt, and the consequences for coastal cities could be dire
Greenland is approaching the threshold of an irreversible melt, and the consequences for coastal cities could be dire
[Business Insider, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
[Wired, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
[Bloomberg, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
“Most of the largest U.S. companies by market capitalization submitted information to [CDP, a U.K.-based nonprofit that asks companies to report their environmental impact], and the vast majority say the [climate change] threat is real and serious: Of the 25 companies whose submissions were reviewed by Bloomberg, 21 said they had identified ‘inherent climate-related risks with the potential to have a substantial financial or strategic impact’ on their business. Many of those risks related to the effects of climate change on companies’ ability to operate. One of the most commonly cited risks was not enough water.”Earth’s 39 Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters of 2018: 4th-Most on Record
[Weather Underground, via Naked Capitalism 1-25-19]
[Scientific American, via Naked Capitalism 1-25-19]
Eight examples. The conclusion: “Despite all of this, it is also important to realize that tackling climate change presents “the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century” and that the barriers to achieving this are primarily sociopolitical (rather than economic or technical). Actions to mitigate climate change offer a wealth of immediate and local health benefits that include reducing air and water pollution from fossil fuel combustion, designing cities to include more green spaces and with active commuters in mind, avoiding massive costs in health care and emergency relief, and ensuring energy, food and water security. Put simply, if you care about your health, you should care about climate change too.”
[Science Daily, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19] (original).
“For a while now, the scientific community has known that global warming is caused by humanmade emissions in the form of greenhouse gases and global cooling by air pollution in the form of aerosols. However, new research published in Science by Hebrew University of Jerusalem Professor Daniel Rosenfeld shows that the degree to which aerosols cool the earth has been grossly underestimated, necessitating a recalculation of climate change models to more accurately predict the pace of global warming…. The fact that our planet is getting warmer even though aerosols are cooling it down at higher rates than previously thought brings us to a Catch-22 situation: Global efforts to improve air quality by developing cleaner fuels and burning less coal could end up harming our planet by reducing the number of aerosols in the atmosphere, and by doing so, diminishing aerosols’ cooling ability to offset global warming.”Expect more extreme hurricanes on the East Coast due to faster ice melts in Greenland, study says [CBC, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19]
“Ice is melting in an unexpected region of Greenland at a rate that is unprecedented in the past century… which could lead to rising sea levels and increasingly wild weather on the East Coast… Ice loss in Greenland’s southeast and northwest regions has been well-documented as glaciers have been dissolving into the ocean, contributing to rising sea levels and threatening communities. The southwest region, on the other hand, doesn’t have many glaciers and its ice sheet wasn’t typically known to contribute to rising sea levels. But now, it may become a major contributor… What the study found was the ice loss data correlated with a weather phenomenon called the North Atlantic Oscillation, which affects air temperature. The “unusual melting” and accelerated ice loss is thanks to the combination of global warming and the oscillation.” • More on the North Atlantic Oscillation.
IEA Chief: EVs Are Not The End Of The Oil Era
Tsvetana Paraskova [Oil Price, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19]
Electric vehicles (EVs) today are not the end of global oil demand growth, nor are they the key solution to reducing carbon emissions, Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said during the ‘Strategic Outlook on Energy’ panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday.
According to Birol, analysts need to put things into perspective and consider that five million EVs globally is nothing compared to 1 billion internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. “This year we expect global oil demand to increase by 1.3 million barrels per day. The effect of 5 million cars is 50,000 barrels per day. 50,000 versus 1.3 million.”Party Is Over For Dirt-Cheap Solar Panels, Says China Executive
[Reuters, via Naked Capitalism 1-26-19]
“Solar panel prices tumbled around 30 percent last year after China, the world’s largest producer, cut subsidies to shrink its bloated solar industry, pushing smaller manufacturers to the brink of collapse. To raise cash and stay afloat, manufacturers cleared inventory and diverted sales offshore, sending prices into a downward spiral – offering up a windfall for solar power generators and investors in solar farms… Luo said solar panel prices were already stabilizing and he expected them to rebound by 10 to 15 percent as the Chinese industry consolidates over the next year or two. Given panels represent close to half of a solar farm’s installation costs, that threatens to eat into the returns of investors. China is home to almost a third of the world’s cumulative installed solar capacity and its manufacturers dominate the industry, despite being slapped with anti-dumping tariffs and getting caught up more recently in the U.S.-China trade war.”Analysis: 2018 was a big year for clean energy in the US
[WRI Insights, via American Wind Energy Association 1-25-19]
Clean energy is undergoing a revolution in the US and will likely continue to expand with the support of progressive gubernatorial leaders, utilities, corporate buyers and cities, write Emily Kaldjian and Priya Barua of the World Resources Institute. "We expect that the quiet clean energy revolution will only pick up more steam in 2019," they write.Environment America calls for 100% clean energy in 9 states
[North American Windpower online, via American Wind Energy Association 1-25-19]
Environment America helped California enact a 100% by 2045 goal for clean energy and now hopes to do the same for nine other states, including Massachusetts and Michigan. "Renewable energy technologies are gaining momentum because they're pollution-free, which means they're healthier for both us and the earth," Clean Energy Program Director Rob Sargent says.100% by 2032 renewables bill signed into law for D.C.
[North American Windpower online, via American Wind Energy Association 1-21-19]
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser signed the Clean Energy D.C. Omnibus Act of 2018 into law on Friday, established a 100% by 2032 renewables target. The bill also calls for the district to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 50% by the same year.
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser signed the Clean Energy D.C. Omnibus Act of 2018 into law on Friday, established a 100% by 2032 renewables target. The bill also calls for the district to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 50% by the same year.
[CleanTechnica, via American Wind Energy Association 1-24-19]
Wind is expected to account for 45% of new capacity additions in 2019, with companies expected to bring 22.4 gigawatts of new installed capacity online, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.Scientists turn carbon emissions into usable energy
[PhysOrb, via Naked Capitalism 1-21-19]
[Bloomberg, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19]
“A Boeing Co. flying car designed to whisk passengers over congested city streets and dodge skyscrapers completed its first test flight on Tuesday, offering a peek into the future of urban transportation the aerospace giant and others are seeking to reshape. The Chicago-based plane maker and arch rival Airbus SE are among a slew of companies racing to stake a claim on flying cars and parcel-hauling drones, which have the potential to be the next disruption to sweep the aerospace industry. Boeing’s push was boosted by a 2017 acquisition of Aurora Flight Sciences, whose projects include a new flying taxi it is developing with Uber Technologies Inc… Future flights of the 30-feet-long and 28-feet-wide PAV prototype will test forward, wing-borne flight and the transition phase between vertical and forward-flight modes, according to the Boeing statement. The company will also continue testing to advance safety and reliability of the aircraft, it said.”First Istanbul Line M7 driverless train delivered
[Railway Age 1-25-19]
A milestone was reached in the construction of the first driverless metro line on the European side of Istanbul this week with the delivery of the first vehicles for Line M7 to Tekstilkent depot in the north of the city. The 1.5kV dc overhead trains are being assembled at the Eurotem facility in Adapazari in northwest Turkey and the contract calls for 50% local content.Chilean president inaugurates Santiago metro Line 3
[Railway Age 1-23-19]
The Chilean capital Santiago celebrated the opening of its sixth metro line on January 22 when the country’s president Mr Sebastian Piñera attended the inauguration ceremony for the 21.7km Line 3.
After 40-plus years, Amfleet I replacements sought
[Railway Age 1-23-19]
[Railway Age 1-23-19]
[Railway Age 1-23-19]
Amtrak on Jan. 18 released a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a new fleet of single-level passenger cars to replace its dependable but decades-old, 470-unit stable of Amfleet I and ex-Metroliner cars, which were converted from electric-multiple-units years ago. The Amfleet I cars date to 1975, while the ex-Metroliner equipment entered service in January 1969 for Amtrak predecessor Penn Central (PC predecessor Pennsylvania Railroad ordered this equipment in 1966)Major capital expenditures planned in older USA transit and commuter systems
[Railway Age 1-23-19]
There’s an enormous amount of money out there for contractors, vendors and others willing to take on work in some of the nation’s oldest subway and commuter systems during the next few years. Extensive renovations, complex modernization projects, and far-reaching extensions appear in capital spending forecasts for Boston, Chicago and New York.
....The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will dedicate more than $8 billion to capital expenditures during the next five years.... Metra, which operates 11 rail lines over 1,155 track miles in the Chicago area, is seeking $5 billion from the state of Illinois during the next few years for much-needed infrastructure work.... the Chicago subway system has proposed a five-year rolling capital improvement budget of $2.9 billion.... In April of 2018, New York’s MTA approved a series of amendments to a five-year capital plan [$15.2 billion] that runs through the end of 2019.3D Printing With Two Lights Build Speed by a Factor of 100
[Machine Design Today 1-25-19]
[Machine Design Today 1-25-19]
Irene Klotz, January 25, 2019 [Aviation Week & Space Technology]
Graham Warwick, January 25, 2019 [Aviation Week & Space Technology]
Rather than building up plastics layer by layer, a new approach to 3D printing developed at the University of Michigan lifts complex shapes from a vat of liquid at up to 100 times faster than conventional 3D printing processes.Natural Membrane Extracts Hydrogen from Water
[Machine Design Today 1-25-19]
Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory have adapted a chemical reaction pathway central to plant biology to form the backbone of a new process that converts water into hydrogen fuel using energy from the sun.Vignettes From Vostochny
Irene Klotz, January 25, 2019 [Aviation Week & Space Technology]
Scenes from the visit of the first U.S.-based journalist to cover a launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome [a Russian spaceport under construction on the 51st parallel north in the Amur Oblast, in the Russian Far East].Boom Advances Overture Supersonic Airliner As Demonstrator Takes Shape
Graham Warwick, January 25, 2019 [Aviation Week & Space Technology]
Startup works to balance high- and low-speed requirements for Mach 2.2 airliner, aiming to approach subsonic noise standards.Army’s long-awaited Iraq war study finds Iran was the only winner in a conflict that holds many lessons for future wars
[Acquisition Talk, via Naked Capitalism 1-22-19]
Kennedy and King Family Members and Advisors Call for Congress to Reopen Assassination Probes
[via Naked Capitalism 1-20-19]
The Young Left’s Anti-Capitalist Manifesto
Its goal is to remake our economic system — and the Democratic Party.
Clare Malone, Jan. 22, 2019 [FiveThirtyEight, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19]
[Googledocs, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
Kennedy and King Family Members and Advisors Call for Congress to Reopen Assassination Probes
[via Naked Capitalism 1-20-19]
Who.What.Why. “A group consisting of relatives of the Kennedy and King families, as well as their confidantes and other prominent voices, is calling for a Truth and Reconciliation Committee to get to the bottom of these tragic murders.” Includes the group’s letter, with an impressive list of signatories.
Signers of the joint statement include Isaac Newton Farris Jr., nephew of Reverend King and past president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Reverend James M. Lawson Jr., a close collaborator of Reverend King; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, children of the late senator.
Other signatories include G. Robert Blakey, the chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which determined in 1979 that President Kennedy was the victim of a probable conspiracy; Dr. Robert McClelland, one of the surgeons at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas who tried to save President Kennedy’s life and saw clear evidence he had been struck by bullets from the front and the rear; Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower who served as a national security advisor to the Kennedy White House; Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and a leading global authority on human rights; Hollywood artists Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner and Oliver Stone; political satirist Mort Sahl; and musician David Crosby.
[Unherd, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19]
“Birth rates of well below replacement level are now commonplace in the developed world. For instance, Italy’s is about 1.4. If such a rate is maintained over three generations then that means the second generation will be 70% of the size of the first, and the third generation half the size of the first. That’s quite the demographic slide, but consider what happens if the birth rate drops even lower to approximately 1. If that is maintained over three generations, then the second generation will be half the size of the first, and the third a mere quarter. In other words a fall in the fertility rate from 1.4 to 1, which South Korea shows is possible, doubles the rate at which new generations halve in size.”Yet more evidence that British imperialist economists such as Thomas Malthus -- the foundation of modern neoclassical economics -- are wrong, wrong, wrong.
The Young Left’s Anti-Capitalist Manifesto
Its goal is to remake our economic system — and the Democratic Party.
Clare Malone, Jan. 22, 2019 [FiveThirtyEight, via Naked Capitalism 1-23-19]
“For a few years now, Democratic voters have shown they’re primed for a leftward shift, and this rising group of activists and politicians wants to push them even further. At the heart of the young left’s project is a discomfort with the free market capitalist system under which we live. It’s a system deeply ingrained in many Americans’ identities, though increasingly less so: 2016 was the first year since Gallup started tracking the question that it found Democrats had a more positive view of socialism than they did of capitalism.”Southern Maine Democratic Socialists of America 2018 Annual Report
[Googledocs, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
This is a very impressive group effort document, and Progressive Caucus members should study it carefully and weigh its use as a model for our own efforts in North Carolina.
Biden and Beto’s Aid to GOP Candidates Is Disqualifying
Biden and Beto’s Aid to GOP Candidates Is Disqualifying
[New York Magazine, via Naked Capitalism 1-24-19]
There is no liberal counterweight to the Federalist Society because liberalism is not republicanism. Liberals believe that the Constitution created a flawed system of government because it included slavery and excluded women and minorities. Liberals therefore ignore the intellectual traditions of republicanism and the Enlightenment that led to the Constitution and the creation of the American republic. This creates a philosophical vacuum in which conservatives and libertarians can falsely claim they are defending "original intent" when in fact what conservatives and libertarians are promoting is the Anti-Federalism of the original opponents of ratification.
[via Naked Capitalism 1-25-19]
For those who aren’t quite sure why these media layoffs keep happening, or think “it’s the internet!” or “people don’t pay to subscribe,” there’s a lot more going on. Though that is part of that. Here’s a cliffs notes version - not exhaustive but it hits the highlights:
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