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Post: Enlighten Radio Update - August 27, 2017
Link: http://www.enlightenradio.org/2017/08/enlighten-radio-update-august-27-2017.html
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Sunday, August 27, 2017
ReDistribution or growth -- Why don't we do both? -- apparently, we can't
Recent posts have noted an emergent, and intensifying, split between Democratic party trends favoring "pro growth" vs. "reversing inequality" (the meaning of the economists' term 're-distribution') having the top spot for solutions to winning elections and defeating Republicans.
The split tends to follow the lines of the Sanders-Warren vs Clinton/Obama economic policy debate, but is more nuanced and complex than that (which is complicated enough!! :) ).
Some years ago I would have answered "Why don't we do both?". Its much easier to get everyone on board to correct discrimination and reduce/erase poverty if all boats are rising. Saying "much easier" is sugar-coating it of course. The 50's and 60's civil rights movements swelled to historic levels on such a rising tide, but at no cheap price in blood, tears, courage, and sacrifice. Median wages rose proportionally to profits and overall GNP throughout the post war years until 1972. But NOT for African-Americans!
Nonetheless, the strength of the 60's campaigns and movements won the REAL, not fake, support of the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson. Hope was in the air. When Walter Reuther walked the walk with Dr. King, a new era of possibility opened, a view from the Mountaintop, so to speak.
45 years later, the median family hasn't gotten a raise worth spit, and most of the working class is scrambling for crumbs. Divisions on race and nationality are taking on terroristic dimensions reminiscent of past fascist movements for which half million Americans laid down their lives to suppress. Unions are being exterminated. A fascist jackass is president of the US.
I think the "Why don't we do both?" approach won't work anymore. Neither Clinton nor Obama -- despite both being brilliant politicians -- could get growth rates that could come close to matching the post-war (WW II) boom, and thus could not reach the "rising boats" heights that would even admit the REAL, not hype, possibility of correcting austerity. (my one word for the so-called neo-liberal mess). 45 years is too long, nearly three generations, for the majority to go nowhere while the 1% streaks to the heavens
Both growth AND productivity rates are now way below parallels to the New Deal -- shared prosperity -- era. There is a growing and diverse trend among economists that inequality IS a big factor in an overall slowdown in both growth and innovation because both depend on growing demand -- the latter requires CASH in WORKERS POCKETS!.
If our political system -- increasingly riddled with vast inequities -- can't solve the growth problem with either Keynesian or Monetary policy methodologies, we have to move on, even if into unknown territory.
And it is unknown territory. Regardless what kind of progressive, socialist, liberal, communist, anarchist, conservative (in the sincere not fraudulent sense) you may be, there are few certainties -- an no true model -- for democratic alternatives to rule by billionaires and multinational corporations in the globalised world, and on the scale of the US. Much trial and error, science IF you will, must inform the process.
But values, lessons learned, may be the most reliable guides at important times. Among the important lessons, IMO, is the observation that values themselves are changed by the fulfillment of rising aspirations. Self actualization replaces solidarity against adversaries, as the prime want of life. In the globalized world -- the only world in which peace may be promised -- the brightest path to self actualization as a more human human being embraces internationalism in favor of nationalism at each possible opportunity.
Growth is important. We have to figure it out. But there's no figuring anything out with the divisions and impoverished futures stoking fascist fires around the world.Unfortunately, or perhaps fatefully, the same questions must be put before the whole world, for any to sustainably advance.
Growth is important. We have to figure it out. But there's no figuring anything out with the divisions and impoverished futures stoking fascist fires around the world.Unfortunately, or perhaps fatefully, the same questions must be put before the whole world, for any to sustainably advance.
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John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV
Harpers Ferry, WV
The Winners and Losers Radio Show
7-9 AM Weekdays, The Enlighten Radio Player Stream,
Sign UP HERE to get the Weekly Program Notes.
Check out Socialist Economics, the Enlighten Radio website, and
Out on the road with Sanders and Warren: Will the Democrats follow them to the left?
Out on the road with Sanders and Warren: Will the Democrats follow them to the left?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/27/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-democratic-party-move-left?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Gmail
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/27/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-democratic-party-move-left?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Gmail
Saturday, August 26, 2017
number of billionaires by country
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John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV
Harpers Ferry, WV
The Winners and Losers Radio Show
7-9 AM Weekdays, The Enlighten Radio Player Stream,
Sign UP HERE to get the Weekly Program Notes.
Check out Socialist Economics, the Enlighten Radio website, and
Friday, August 25, 2017
Should-Read: Matthew Yglesias : Steve Bannon’s “economic nationalism” is total nonsense : "'Economic nationalism' has g... [feedly]
Should-Read: Matthew Yglesias : Steve Bannon's "economic nationalism" is total nonsense : "'Economic nationalism' has g...
http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/08/should-read-matthew-yglesias-steve-bannons-economic-nationalism-is-total-nonsense-economic-nationalism-has.html
-- via my feedly newsfeed
http://www.bradford-delong.com/2017/08/should-read-matthew-yglesias-steve-bannons-economic-nationalism-is-total-nonsense-economic-nationalism-has.html
Should-Read: Matthew Yglesias: Steve Bannon's "economic nationalism" is total nonsense: "'Economic nationalism' has grave flaws as an ideology beyond Trump's racism, lack of policy knowledge, and personal indiscipline... https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/21/16165348/steve-bannon-economic-nationalism
...The idea that the United States as a whole is locked in zero-sum economic competition with other countries or that average Americans could become wealthier at the expense of foreigners is simply wrong. At best, it's an analytical error... At worst, it's a con job... to distract middle- and working-class Americans from very real questions about the domestic distribution of economic resources by casting aspersions on foreigners.... The extent of expert consensus on the economic impact of both trade and immigration is important to understand.... Both sides of the argument agree that the typical American was made better-off by trade with China. By the same token, the entire bitter argument among labor economists about immigration and wages is about whether or not immigrants have depressed the incomes of native-born high school dropouts.... But... only 8 percent of the native population lacks a high school diploma. Both sides agree that most Americans are benefitting from immigration....
Globalization is, fundamentally, an enormous opportunity for almost everyone in the world.... The United States has... taken advantage of it in order to obtain cheaper manufacturing goods for domestic consumers.... But note that just as manufacturing-focused globalization hasn't been bad for most Americans, shifting emphasis to professional services would hardly hurt foreigners. Creating broad and clear pathways for foreigners to train to US standards and then move here to work as doctors, dentists, and nurses would be great for most Americans while also creating great new economic opportunities for foreigners. All policy choices involve winners and losers, but the tradeoff is almost never the kind of strict country versus country battle that Bannonism implies....
While Americans who follow politics were obsessing over the latest ups and downs of the Trump Show this summer, real policy changes that are important to wealthy business interests continued to roll out of DC.... Nestlé is not particularly nationalistic, but they do enjoy selling bottled water. Luckily for them, last Thursday the Interior Department decided to reverse restrictions on bringing bottled water into national parks. The Trump administration was also hard at work last week on making it easier for nursing homes that provide substandard care to avoid legal liability. Like Trump's effort to let Sinclair Broadcasting violate longstanding media concentration rules, make workplaces less safe for the people who work in them, reduce workers' overtime pay, and make it easier for financial advisers to rip off their clients, there hasn't been a lot of tweeting about these two regulatory actions.
Instead, Trump feeds the public a steady diet of racial conflict hoping that if he punches nonwhite America hard enough, white America will be so busy gawking they won't notice their pockets are being picked too. This is a time-honored hustle in American politics, and Trump grasps its operation intuitively. And he also grasps in a way that Bannon may not that "economic nationalism" is useful as an extension of the hustle and no further. Adding immigrants and the Chinese to the scapegoat list alongside the traditional African-American targets makes for a more compelling narrative, and it's let him bring the scam to parts of the urban North that have traditionally been too overwhelmingly white for the standard race hustle to seem compelling.... There's nothing to mourn in the failure to build a more substantive vision of "economic nationalism" because the vision itself never made sense...
-- via my feedly newsfeed
Why Explaining Internal Strife in the United States through “Russian influence” is Lazy and Unhelpful [feedly]
Why Explaining Internal Strife in the United States through "Russian influence" is Lazy and Unhelpful
http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/21/08/2017/why-explaining-internal-strife-united-states-through-%E2%80%9Crussian-influence%E2%80%9D-lazy-and-un
-- via my feedly newsfeed
http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/21/08/2017/why-explaining-internal-strife-united-states-through-%E2%80%9Crussian-influence%E2%80%9D-lazy-and-un
When you find yourself doing the same thing Putin and his propaganda machine does, you're doing something wrong.
On 11-12 August, violent clashes erupted between the far-right Unite the Right movement and anti-fascist counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. One woman died when an alleged neo-Nazi sympathizer rammed a car into a crowd of counter-protesters. There were numerous injuries and a major national crisis erupted in the United States resulting from and inspired by the rapid rise of white nationalist, neo-Nazi and other similar sentiments far to the right of the political spectrum.
As it often happens these days, numerous people on Twitter immediately jumped in, pitching the so-called "hot takes" — rapid, hastily weaved together series of tweets with often outlandish theories of what really happened. These instant experts, who have come to prominence in the wake of the Trump presidency, have carved out a niche for themselves by taking the most tangential or non-existent connection to anything Russian and "connecting the dots" or "just asking questions". The most egregious example is Louise Mensch, a former UK conservative pundit (and sometime MP) now residing in the US. Mensch is the most extreme example of a Twitter-age conspiracy-mongering populist. But there are other people, with more credible credentials, who are also prone to demanding that "ties with Russia" (via individuals, events and institutions) be investigated.
Immediately following the events in Charlottesville, the writer and consultant Molly McKew and Jim Ludes of the Pell Center, among others, chimed in with their "hot takes", repeating each other almost word for word: "We need to closely examine the links between the American alt-right and Russia." These particular expressions ("links between X and Russia", "ties with Russia", "Russian connections" or "close to Putin/Russian government") are, essentially, weasel words, expressions so elastic that they could mean anything — from actively collaborating with senior Russian officials and secretly accepting large donations from to the vaguest, irrelevant connections mentioned simply for the sake of name-dropping Russia in an attempt to farm for more clicks.
Almost every person of Russian origin involved in the Trump drama is "Putin-connected", although in Russia that definition only applies to a tiny power circle of trusted aides and advisors, a select group of oligarchs running state-owned enterprises and close personal friends from before Putin's presidency. The exaggerated tone of reporting often suggests something more far-reaching, coordinated and sinister than a loose collection of unconnected factoids.
So, what do "links between the American alt-right and Russia" actually mean? Much of the allegations of American alt-right's "collusion" with Putin's regime rely on the fact that Richard Spencer, a divisive figure in this already quite loose movement, was once married to a woman of Russian origin, Nina Kupriyanova. Their current marital status is unclear and, frankly, irrelevant. Kupriyanova, a scholar of Russian and Soviet history with a PhD from the University of Toronto, is also a follower of Alexander Dugin, a larger-than-life figure in contemporary Russian media and politics. Because of Dugin's outsized presence in the western media where he is often, and quite erroneously, presented as "Putin's mastermind" or "Putin's Bannon", this connection is often enough to be declared the smoking gun in the crowdsourced investigation.
Dugin has been many things to many people over his decades-long, zig-zagging career as an underground occult practitioner in the Soviet years: philosopher, lecturer, one of the founding fathers of a radical movement, public intellectual, flamboyant media personality. But he is not a "Putin advisor" and never has been. Although Dugin is a vocal fan of the Russian president, has repeatedly professed his loyalty to Putin and has orbited the halls of Russian power for more than a decade, he hasn't accumulated enough influence to even keep a stable job.
In 2014, Dugin was fired from his position as a guest lecturer at the department of sociology of Moscow State University. Students and academic staff had complained for years about the "anti-scientific, obscurantist" atmosphere Dugin had created within the department (one petition filed by the students mentions Dugin "performing extrasensory experiments" on them during lectures). But the final straw was Dugin's interview where he agitated to "kill, kill, kill" Ukrainians in June 2014 — the early stages of Russia's war campaign in Ukraine. Both Dugin and his patron, the dean of the sociology department, were promptly fired after a major media scandal.
Later, Dugin was quite unceremoniously removed from his position as a host on Tsargrad TV — a right-wing, reactionary private network funded by "Orthodox oligarch" Konstantin Malofeyev and launched with the help of a former Fox News executive. All mentions of Dugin's show on Tsargrad simply disappeared from the network's website.
Although Richard Spencer's own writings for his Radix Journal do have visible Dugin inspirations, it's inconceivable that Dugin has any significant influence on the American right. His teachings are just too eclectic, esoteric and over-intellectualised for an average American neo-Nazi who just wants to see more white faces around him. In fact, Dugin's overarching idea of "Eurasianism" goes against the grain of "keeping America white and ethnically pure": at its core is an obscure early 20th century Orientalist school of thought which accentuated Russia's civilisational continuity with Mongolian and Turkic ancestors, as opposed to the spiritually alien West.
Russia's conservatives of all shades of right have indeed been long cultivating links with their brethren to the west of Moscow — well before Putin appeared on the scene. These have been well documented by scholars of the far right such as Anton Shekhovtsov. After Putin's onslaught in Ukraine, Russia, in dire need of new allies, intensified efforts to strengthen those links.
A trove of leaked emails released by the hacker group Shaltai Boltai ("Humpty Dumpty") in December 2014 did indeed uncover a sinister plot to place Russia in the centre of a wide-ranging alliance of right-wing, far-right, pro-life, pro-"family-values", hardcore Christian and other similar organisations in Europe and both Americas. But there's little evidence that anything resembling the coveted "Black International" ever came to fruition. Only temporary, tactical alliances have been more or less successful, aimed at promoting shared common interests — such as Italy's pro-Kremlin Lega Nord party lobbying for lifting EU's sanctions against Russia — or values.
In the latter case, the dynamic is reversed: it's not Russia influencing the West and exporting its values, but vice versa. It's Russia's parliamentary ultra-conservatives like Yelena Mizulina (now a senator) who have been inspired and supported by the American religious right.
Russia's last public attempt to unite the European and American far-right ended in a major media scandal in early 2015 when the "International Russian Conservative Forum" in Saint Petersburg was widely criticised in the press. The forum's Russian official supporters from the "traditionalist" Rodina (Motherland) party allied with the ruling United Russia were forced to withdraw their endorsement, and no further attempts to organise the forum have been made. Propaganda outlets like RT are quietly shedding commentators with far-right sympathies like Manuel Ochsenreiter or Richard Spencer mentioned above in an attempt to cleanse their image as a safe haven for Holocaust deniers and white power enthusiasts. Only a couple of days after Charlottesville, Russian authorities banned The Daily Stormer, a virulently anti-Semitic "alt-right" website, which had temporarily sought refuge on Russian web space after having been refused service in the US.
There is little to no evidence that any of the above had anything to do with the tragic events in Charlottesville. The resurgence of murderous, hateful ideologies in the United States is a home-grown issue. Young men with identical haircuts and matching, uniform-like attires chanting "Blood and soil!" in the streets of American cities are inspired and influenced by many things, but a bearded Russian mystic is hardly one of them. Attempting to explain internal strife in your country by "Russian influences", hastily put together disjointed and exaggerated phenomena, is intellectually lazy. It distracts from getting to the root of the problem by offering quick, easy answers to complicated questions.
Ironically, it's also a very Putin thing to do. Explaining Russia's internal issues by blaming the West's machinations is the Russian president's shtick. When you find yourself doing the same thing Putin and his propaganda machine does, you're doing it wrong.
Alexey Kovalev is an independent journalist living and working in Moscow. Follow him on Twitter: @Alexey__Kovalev. This post first appeared on:
-- via my feedly newsfeed
Vast number of Americans live paycheck to paycheck
Vast number of Americans live paycheck to paycheck
By MONEYWATCH August 24, 2017, 12:01 AM
Last Updated Aug 24, 2017 1:46 PM EDT
With unemployment in the U.S. at its lowest level in 16 years, experts are prone to talk about the economy as if it has fully recovered from the housing crash. But other measures of how Americans are doing reveal a darker picture.
Almost 8 out of 10 American workers say they live paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet, according to a new survey from CareerBuilder. That can force people to take on debt or otherwise struggle when an unexpected bill arises. It also raises questions about the stability of the broader economy given that consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of activity.
The survey highlights a troubling trend in household finances: More than eight years since the end of the recession, the share of Americans who are living on the financial edge is growing, said Mike Erwin, a spokesman for CareerBuilder. While some may want to blame Americans' spendthrift ways, Erwin pointed to two trends that continue to put financial stress on households: stagnant wages and the rising cost of everything from education to many consumer goods.
"Living paycheck to paycheck is the new way of life for U.S. workers," he said. "It's not just one salary range. It's pretty much across the board, and it's trending in the wrong direction."
A year ago, about 75 percent of U.S. workers said they were living from payday to payday, a number that has grown to 78 percent this year. The study, conducted by Harris Poll, surveyed nearly 2,400 hiring and human resource managers and 3,500 adult employees who worked full-time in May and June.
With the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting about 122 million full-time workers, the poll suggests 95 million of those adults could be living paycheck to paycheck. Through July, average hourly earnings were up 2.5 percent, according to labor data -- that's still below the 3 percent to 4 percent gains seen before the recession.
Inflation stood at 1.7 percent last month. That means workers' "real" wages were running only slightly ahead of inflation, another obstacle to putting money away.
Not only less affluent people are struggling. Almost one of 10 workers who earn more than six figures annually said they are living paycheck to paycheck, according to CareerBuilder. That may seem surprising, but families who live in regions with a high cost of living may feel almost as strapped as lower-income households.
The findings add to research about the fragile state of household finances. When the Pew Charitable Trusts recently asked Americans whether they'd rather have more income or economic stability, 9 of 10 chose stability.
Weak wage growth is partly to blame for the financial stress felt by many Americans. Median household income is still stuck in low gear, with the U.S. Census reporting only one year of income gains since 2007, the year the recession officially started.
The end result: American households are still earning 2.4 percent below what they brought home at their income peaks in 1999. At the same time, expenses for food, fuel, education, housing and other costs have risen.
"Jobs have come back, but we haven't seen salaries rebound," Erwin said. "Right now we are in a time when the cost of living is way outpacing the amount of money that people are getting through raises."
Meanwhle, the labor market is increasingly rewarding workers with higher levels of education and skills, which is borne out in CareerBuilder's survey and other recent research.
About 40 percent of adults with a high school degree or less said they are scrambling to keep afloat, or more than twice the number of Americans with at least a college degree, according to the Federal Reserve. CareerBuilder found that about half of workers who earn less than $50,000 per year are always living paycheck-to-paycheck, compared with 28 percent of those earning between $50,000 to $100,000.
Aside from the insecurity of living without a financial cushion, the phenomenon has another downside: It hampers Americans' ability to save for retirement, CareerBuilder noted. About 18 percent of workers said they cut back on their 401k contributions or personal savings in the last year, and more than one-third don't put away money for retirement, the survey found.
"That should concern a lot of people," Erwin said. "If you don't put money away now, you will rely more on government programs" in retirement.
Personal responsibility does play a role in Americans' financial problems, with the survey finding that only a third of workers stick to a budget. Asked what spending items they wouldn't give up, more than half said they'd never cut back on their internet connection or mobile devices.
That might seem like an extravagance to some, yet the truth is many Americans can't work effectively without internet service at home or a smartphone, with employers increasingly expecting workers to check their email while they're out of the office or be available for a call.
"We need all of those things," Erwin noted. Yet there are ways to pare spending on those essentials, such as renegotiating contracts with mobile carriers.
He added, "Everything is negotiable."
© 2017 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.
John Case
Harpers Ferry, WV
Harpers Ferry, WV
The Winners and Losers Radio Show
7-9 AM Weekdays, The Enlighten Radio Player Stream,
Sign UP HERE to get the Weekly Program Notes.
Check out Socialist Economics, the Enlighten Radio website, and
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