socialist-economics

What if Bernie Wins? https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/what-if-bernie-wins-by-james-k-galbraith-2020-01 text only content: Jan 31, 2020 JAMES K. GALBRAITH After creating a massive movement of younger Americans in the 2016 Democratic primaries, Bernie Sanders can no longer be ignored. The democratic socialist US senator from Vermont has offered a comprehensive economic-policy program that has already expanded the public's notion of the possible. AUSTIN – US Senator Bernie Sanders has emerged as a plausible Democratic nominee for president in 2020. This has been clear for some time to those paying attention to his organization and fundraising, and to the sequence of the early primaries, where small states (New Hampshire) favor him by geography and large ones (California) favor him by name recognition. The New York Times, Politico, and quotable Democratic Party insiders all now admit that Sanders may well be the party's nominee to face President Donald Trump in November. C...

From Bernie's 'chief economist.'... What if Bernie Wins? https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/what-if-bernie-wins-by-james-k-galbraith-2020-01  -- via my feedly newsfeed

I very much like Summers recent focus on tax evasion --it is in the TRILLIONS, and the "Public good" service that is incorporated in every corporate charter, but that has been reduced to simply "serve stockholder wealth".  It points toward a needed reform of corporate charters, especially where the public and employee stakeholders interests are also "at stake". I suspect, in the long run, that corporate charter reform will be more important than anti-trust mechanisms in the era where ability to scale is as vital to abundance, as competition is alleged to be for innovation. If business leaders are serious about doing good, they can start by paying their taxes http://larrysummers.com/2020/01/30/if-business-leaders-are-serious-about-doing-good-they-can-start-by-paying-their-taxes/ By Natasha Sarin and Lawrence H. Summers Over the past year, the concept that corporations owe a responsibility to the broader society beyond their responsibility to their sharehold...

via Simon Johnson Inequality and Economic Growth https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/inequality-impeding-economic-growth-by-simon-johnson-2020-01 text only Jan 30, 2020 SIMON JOHNSON Economic policymakers can no longer afford to view inequality as an issue separate from boosting employment and incomes. Addressing it through a wealth tax, combined with more effective antitrust policies and enforcement, has become essential to sustaining economic growth, including by encouraging the creation and growth of new business. WASHINGTON, DC – In previous eras, top economic decision-makers considered inequality to be distinct from the main concerns of macroeconomic policy. Since the Industrial Revolution, the general view has been that, on average, people want higher incomes and a larger number of good jobs – and that the best way to achieve these goals is through faster economic growth. Not surprisingly, therefore, much thought has been devoted to the question of how to design and run ...

From my friend and former colleague, Joel Wendland-Liu, a good, but dreadful summary of negative possibilities in the mass knowledge industries, especially unde "communicative capitalism", a phrase I will have to research before judging. However, the technology potential will exist (in China already does exist and growing) for state accumulation of "private" information as well. So what is the game? Back to the 19th century, and start over? I suspect privacy itself, including property, and commodities, will ultimately lose their value in the services and intangible domains under both capitalism and "socialism". I have no idea the destiny of humanity, except this: I predict its SOCIAL, as opposed to private, nature will advance at the expense, and perhaps, we can hope, the burdens of 'privacy'. Predictive analytics: How capitalism's "knowledge economy" profiles us all https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/predictive-analytics-how-capita...

The Coronavirus: State Capacity and Crisis Response in China https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/29/01/2020/coronavirus-state-capacity-and-crisis-response-china Mega-quarantines, large hospitals built within a week, and sharing information with the global scientific community! The outbreak of the coronavirus (nCov2019) in China that has infected thousands of people and killed over 100, provides an illustrative example of the challenges facing the powerful Chinese state as it strives to contain the epidemic within its borders while limiting the effects of  "stagflation"  and further damage to its reputation abroad. Crisis response Over the past few weeks, China has been  widely praised  for the unprecedented accomplishment of its scientists in identifying the coronavirus in record-time (one week!) and sharing its DNA sequence with the rest of the world. Indeed, the country has not only developed a diagnostic test but also provided considerable clinical information about t...

Wisconsin Imposing Nation's Harshest Medicaid Premiums on People in Poverty https://www.cbpp.org/blog/wisconsin-imposing-nations-harshest-medicaid-premiums-on-people-in-poverty In a move that will likely have deeply harmful effects, Wisconsin next week will become the first state to implement a policy to take Medicaid away from people in poverty who don't pay premiums — and the latest to impose  harmful barriers  on health coverage for those in or near poverty. Federal law requires that a state waiver of Medicaid law, like the one Wisconsin obtained, "promote the objectives of the Medicaid program." But evidence shows that Wisconsin's policy will almost certainly do the opposite by taking coverage away from eligible low-income individuals and sowing confusing among beneficiaries and providers. Wisconsin should follow the lead of  other states  that are reconsidering harmful Medicaid changes and repeal the state law requiring the policy along with  other harmful re...

G.M. Making Detroit Plant a Hub of Electric and A.V. Efforts https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/business/gm-detroit-electric.html General Motors said Monday that it was investing $2.2 billion in a Detroit plant where it will produce all-electric trucks and sport utility vehicles, fulfilling a key promise made during last year's union negotiations. The investment will fund upgrades like new machines and tools at the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant's paint shop, body shop and general assembly area. The plant had been scheduled to close this month, but was spared in the October deal that ended the longest G.M. strike in half a century. As part of that agreement, G.M. vowed to commit $3 billion to the plant's overhaul. The company says that promise is met by the investment in upgrades and an additional $800 million for supplier tooling and related projects. Once in full operation, the plant will employ more than 2,200 people, the company said. Production is scheduled to begin ...

Essence of the puzzle, via Sherlock Holmes: Inspector Gregory asks Holmes,  " Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." "The dog did nothing in the night-time." "That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes. The Inflation Puzzle: Why Has it Move So Little for 25 Years? http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-inflation-puzzle-why-has-it-move-so.html  -- via my feedly newsfeed

The Trump administration's new housing rules will worsen segregation https://www.epi.org/blog/the-trump-administrations-new-housing-rules-will-worsen-segregation/ In " The Neighborhoods We Will Not Share,"  an article published online at  The New York Times , I describe how the Trump administration has proposed a rule that will make it virtually impossible to challenge many policies that reinforce residential racial segregation. This is no small matter. Segregation underlies many of our most serious social problems. Educators can't seem to make significant progress in their efforts to close the racial gap in academic achievement that persists in large part because we enroll the most socially and economically disadvantaged children in poorly resourced schools, located in poorly resourced neighborhoods. Health disparities by race stem, in part, from so many African Americans consigned to areas where they have less access to healthy air and healthy foods, and are more su...