China's Chance to Be Our Economic Savior

The US is no longer capable of pulling the world out of economic crisis. Only China has the resources – if it chooses to use them

by Dean Baker

Can China save the world economy? That is a question that people should be asking as the other potential candidates withdraw from the race. At the moment, the economies of the United States, Europe and Japan are all suffering from weak growth or worse. The debt crisis of eurozone countries threatens another financial crisis that could lead to another plunge in output, not just in Europe but throughout the world.

Meanwhile, the actors who could, in principle, take steps to reverse this dismal course of events are largely paralyzed. The eurozone countries are struggling with efforts to form the necessary fiscal union to support their currency. This requires creating a new legal structure, while also confronting intense political opposition in Germany and other better-off countries that will be asked support the debt of the Greece and other struggling economies.

Fear of Repression Spurs Scholars and Activists to Build Alternate Internets

By Jeffrey R. Young

Washington

Computer networks proved their organizing power during the recent uprisings in the Middle East, in which Facebook pages amplified street protests that toppled dictators. But those same networks showed their weaknesses as well, such as when the Egyptian government walled off most of its citizens from the Internet in an attempt to silence protesters.

That has led scholars and activists increasingly to consider the Internet's wiring as a disputed political frontier.

Tax expenditures: a boring thing you should be outraged about

by David Roberts
22 Sep 2011 3:16 PM

Compare the following two simplified scenarios.


A. An oil company pays $1 million a year in taxes. Congress gives it a yearly cash grant of $200,000 to explore for new wells.

B. An oil company pays $1 million a year in taxes. Congress gives it a yearly tax break of $200,000 for exploration expenses.

As you can see, A and B are equivalent. In both cases, the federal government was going to get $1 million a year, but instead will get $800,000. In both cases, the federal government is foregoing $200,000 in revenue in order to favor a particular business or industry.
 

A Billionaires' Coup in the US

The debt deal will hurt the poorest Americans, convinced by Fox and the Tea Party to act against their own welfare

by George Monbiot

There are two ways of cutting a deficit: raising taxes or reducing spending. Raising taxes means taking money from the rich. Cutting spending means taking money from the poor. Not in all cases of course: some taxation is regressive; some state spending takes money from ordinary citizens and gives it to banks, arms companies, oil barons and farmers. But in most cases the state transfers wealth from rich to poor, while tax cuts shift it from poor to rich.

The Hidden Hands in Redistricting: Corporations and Other Powerful Interests

by Olga Pierce, Jeff Larson and Lois Beckett
ProPublica, Sep. 23, 2011, 10:03 a.m.

Their names suggest selfless dedication to democracy. Fair Districts Mass. Protect Your Vote. The Center for a Better New Jersey. And their stated goals are unarguable: In the partisan fight to redraw congressional districts, states should stick to the principle of one person, one vote.

But a ProPublica investigation has found that these groups and others are being quietly bankrolled by corporations, unions and other special interests. Their main interest in the once-a-decade political fight over redistricting is not to help voters in the communities they claim to represent but mainly to improve the prospects of their political allies or to harm their enemies.

Paul Krugman: The Social Contract

This week President Obama said the obvious: that wealthy Americans, many of whom pay remarkably little in taxes, should bear part of the cost of reducing the long-run budget deficit. And Republicans like Representative Paul Ryan responded with shrieks of “class warfare.”

It was, of course, nothing of the sort. On the contrary, it’s people like Mr. Ryan, who want to exempt the very rich from bearing any of the burden of making our finances sustainable, who are waging class war.

As background, it helps to know what has been happening to incomes over the past three decades. 
Detailed estimates from the Congressional Budget Office — which only go up to 2005, but the basic picture surely hasn’t changed — show that between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted income of families in the middle of the income distribution rose 21 percent. That’s growth, but it’s slow, especially compared with the 100 percent rise in median income over a generation after World War II.

Ron Paul, Rick Perry and Other Right Wingers Want to Turn Back the Clock to 1900 -- What Was Life Like Back Then?

By J.A. Myerson, AlterNet
Posted on September 22, 2011, Printed on September 24, 2011

Wednesday's 230-195 vote in the GOP-controlled house against Speaker John Boehner's special funding measure to keep the government running past September 30th showed how far the far-right of the already far-right Republican Party will push a principle. They refuse to pass the bill (containing much-needed disaster relief, which is meager enough that the Democrats largely declined to vote for the bill) without deeper budget cuts written in. Boehner will have to rewrite the thing either to placate recalcitrant Democrats, intent on helping the vulnerable, or recalcitrant Republicans, intent on depriving the government of the means to help the vulnerable. One wonders what the odds are regarding his decision.

Weeks earlier, the destruction wrought by Hurricane Irene had provided an excellent opportunity to examine the real-life implications of arguments over the size of government in relation to the quality of liberty. Conservatives have always held that a government’s growth implies freedom’s decline and vice versa, but disaster relief has historically been an area where that formulation acquires the flavor of angels dancing on pinheads: when Americans are suffering and their local communities are ill-equipped to mitigate their despair, the federal government has routinely stepped in with aid.

Conservatives Say It Out Loud: They Hate Democracy

By Dave Johnson

September 22, 2011 - 7:27am ET

The roots of today's toxic conservative movement lie in Ayn Rand's teaching that wealthy "producers -- now called "job creators" -- should be left alone by the government, namely the rest of us. The rest of us are "freeloaders," "moochers," "leeches" and "parasites" who feed off these producers and who shouldn't be allowed to make decisions to collect taxes from them or regulate them or interfere in most other ways. The Randians hate democracy, and say so, declaring that "collectivism" sacrifices individual rights to majority wishes. (See Concern Over Republican Embrace Of The Ayn Rand Poison.)

For decades these selfish, childish, "you can't make me" beliefs stayed largely below the radar, because conservatives understood that voicing them in public risked alienating ... well, anyone with any sense at all. But for various reasons sense has departed the country and conservatives are finally saying it out loud, for everyone to hear: they hate democracy. They want to limit the country's decision-making and the rewards of our society and economy to those they feel "deserve" to be on top, namely the "producers" and "job-creators."

Middle Class Death Watch -- 33 Frightening Economic Developments

By David DeGraw, Amped Status
Posted on September 18, 2011, Printed on September 24, 2011

Middle-Class Americans Often Fall Down Economic Ladder: Study – nearly a third of Americans who were part of the middle class have fallen out of it

“The promise of the American dream has given many hope that they themselves could one day rise up the economic ladder. But according to a study released those already in financially-stable circumstances should fear falling down a few rungs too. The study…  found that nearly a third of Americans who were part of the middle class as teenagers in the 1970s have fallen out of it as adults…  its findings suggest the relative ease with which people in the U.S. can end up in low-income, low-opportunity lifestyles — even if they started out with a number of advantages. Though the American middle class has been repeatedly invoked as a key factor in any economic turnaround, numerous reports have suggested that the middle class enjoys less existential security than it did a generation ago, thanks to stagnating incomes and the decline of the industrial sector.”

Downward Mobility from the Middle Class: Waking Up from the American Dream

“The idea that children will grow up to be better off than their parents is a central component of the American Dream, and sustains American optimism. However, Downward Mobility from the Middle Class: Waking up from the American Dream finds that a middle-class upbringing does not guarantee the same status over the course of a lifetime. A third of Americans raised in the middle class—defined here as those between the 30th and 70th percentiles of the income distribution—fall out of the middle as adults.”

Rich People and Corporations: The GOP's Trillion-Dollar "Failed Stimulus"

By Richard Eskow

"Class warfare!" Whenever you heard those words, it's a pretty sure bet whoever's saying them is the one who's really conducting class warfare.

And that you're the target.

The Fast and the Spurious

The Republican responses to President Obama's moderate plan for jobs creation have been fast and furious - and really, really repetitive. "Class warfare" is getting thrown around a lot, but other rhetorical warhorses are getting even more of a workout.

"This is another failed stimulus that will not stimulate the economy," said Texas Republican Rep. Francisco Canseco. (Well, a failed stimulus, wouldn't, would it?)

Debt deal: anger and deceit has led the US into a billionaires' coup

The debt deal will hurt the poorest Americans, convinced by Fox and the Tea Party to act against their own welfare

George Monbiot
Monday 1 August 2011 16.29 EDT

There are two ways of cutting a deficit: raising taxes or reducing spending. Raising taxes means taking money from the rich. Cutting spending means taking money from the poor. Not in all cases of course: some taxation is regressive; some state spending takes money from ordinary citizens and gives it to banks, arms companies, oil barons and farmers. But in most cases the state transfers wealth from rich to poor, while tax cuts shift it from poor to rich.

So the rich, in a nominal democracy, have a struggle on their hands. Somehow they must persuade the other 99% to vote against their own interests: to shrink the state, supporting spending cuts rather than tax rises. In the US they appear to be succeeding.

What Does Rupert Murdoch Want With America's Schools?

Posted on September 23, 2011, Printed on September 24, 2011

Rupert Murdoch's reputation precedes him—but one thing he's not well known for is his education reform advocacy. But that could soon change. Next month, Murdoch will make an unusual public appearance in San Francisco, delivering the keynote address at an education summit hosted by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has lately been crisscrossing the country promoting his own version of education reform.

The high-profile speech to a collection of conservative ed reformers, state legislators, and educators is just the latest step in Murdoch's quiet march into the business of education, which has been somewhat eclipsed by the phone-hacking scandal besieging his media empire. (On Tuesday, word of Murdoch's appearance at Bush's conference came just hours after reports that News Corp. had agreed to pay more than $4 million to the family of a 13-year-old British murder victim, Milly Dowler, whose voicemail was hacked by reporters for Murdoch's News of the World. ) But Murdoch has made it very clear that he views America's public schools as a potential gold mine.

The Truth about 'Class War' in America

The Truth about 'Class War' in America

Republicans claim, in Orwellian fashion, that Obama's millionaire tax is 'class war'. The reality is that the super-rich won the war

by Richard Wolff

Republicans and conservatives always fight back against proposals to raise taxes on corporations and rich individuals by making two basic claims. First, such proposals amount to un-American "class warfare", pitting the working class against corporations and the rich. Second, such proposals would take money for the government that would otherwise have been invested in production and thus created jobs.

Young, Poor, and Desperate

Young, Poor, and Desperate

The poverty crisis is devastating young Americans. Here's what the president can do about it.

By Eliot Spitzer 
Posted Monday, Sept. 19, 2011, at 7:12 AM ET

America excels in dramatic crises: When a bank goes bust, when a tornado strikes, there's no country in the world that rises to the occasion better. But we don't do so well with the accretive and perhaps more widely destructive social shifts that creep up on us, which is why the realization that we have a full-fledged poverty crisis is so troubling. 

Harvesting 'limitless' hydrogen from self-powered cells

Harvesting 'limitless' hydrogen from self-powered cells

By Mark Kinver 
Environment reporter, BBC News

US researchers say they have demonstrated how cells fuelled by bacteria can be "self-powered" and produce a limitless supply of hydrogen.

Until now, they explained, an external source of electricity was required in order to power the process.

However, the team added, the current cost of operating the new technology is too high to be used commercially.

How to Prevent a Depression

How to prevent a Depression

Eight drastic policy measures necessary to prevent global economic collapse. None of them will be popular.

By Nouriel Roubini 
Posted Monday, Sept. 19, 2011, at 12:29 PM ET

The latest economic data suggest that recession is returning to most advanced economies, with financial markets now reaching levels of stress unseen since the collapse of Lehman Bros. in 2008. The risks of an economic and financial crisis even worse than the previous one—now involving not just the private sector, but also near-insolvent governments—are significant. So, what can be done to minimize the fallout of another economic contraction and prevent a deeper depression and financial meltdown?

First, we must accept that austerity measures, necessary to avoid a fiscal train wreck, have recessionary effects on output. So, if countries in the Eurozone's periphery such as Greece or Portugal are forced to undertake fiscal austerity, countries able to provide short-term stimulus should do so and postpone their own austerity efforts. These countries include the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the core of the Eurozone, and Japan. Infrastructure banks that finance needed public infrastructure should be created as well.

Paul Krugman: The Bleeding Cure

Paul Krugman: The Bleeding Cure

Doctors used to believe that by draining a patient’s blood they could purge the evil “humors” that were thought to cause disease. In reality, of course, all their bloodletting did was make the patient weaker, and more likely to succumb.

Fortunately, physicians no longer believe that bleeding the sick will make them healthy. Unfortunately, many of the makers of economic policy still do. And economic bloodletting isn’t just inflicting vast pain; it’s starting to undermine our long-run growth prospects.

Some background: For the past year and a half, policy discourse in both Europe and the United States has been dominated by calls for fiscal austerity. By slashing spending and reducing deficits, we were told, nations could restore confidence and drive economic revival.

The theft of the American pension

The theft of the American pension

In the last decade, the country's biggest companies have raided worker benefits for profit. An expert explains how

By Thomas Rogers

America is in the midst of a retirement crisis. Over the last decade, we've witnessed the wholesale gutting of pension and retiree healthcare in this country. Hundreds of companies have slashed and burned their way through their employees' benefits, leaving former workers either on Social Security or destitute -- and taxpayers with a huge burden that, as the baby boomer generation edges towards retirement, is likely to grow. It's a problem that is already affecting over a million people -- and the most shocking part is, none of this needed to happen.

As Ellen E. Schultz, an investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal, reveals in her new book, "Retirement Heist," it wasn't the dire economy that led these companies to plunder their own employees' earnings, it was greed. Over the last decade, some of the biggest companies -- including Bank of America, IBM, General Motors, GE and even the NFL -- found loopholes, abused ambiguous regulations and used litigation to turn their employees' hard-earned retirement funds into profits, and in some cases, executive compensation. Schultz's book offers a relentlessly infuriating look at the mechanisms they used to get away with it.

America's Costly War Machine

America's Costly War Machine

Fighting the war on terror compromises the economy now and threatens it in the future.

by Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz

Ten years into the war on terror, the U.S. has largely succeeded in its attempts to destabilize Al Qaeda and eliminate its leaders. But the cost has been enormous, and our decisions about how to finance it have profoundly damaged the U.S. economy.

Many of these costs were unnecessary. We chose to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan with a small, all-volunteer force, and we supplemented the military presence with a heavy reliance on civilian contractors. These decisions not only placed enormous strain on the troops but dramatically pushed up costs. Recent congressional investigations have shown that roughly 1 of every 4 dollars spent on wartime contracting was wasted or misspent.

How Perry Pushed Donor's Nuclear Waste Dump

—By Josh Harkinson | Thu Sep. 1, 2011 3:46 PM PDT

Texas Gov. Rick Perry tried to remove a state commissioner who opposed expanding a West Texas nuclear waste dump run by one of his largest political donors, Reuters reports today. When it became clear that Bobby Gregory of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission might be able to block the dump from accepting out-of-state nuclear waste, Perry's office offered him an alternative job—a prestigious post on the board of regents of a state university.

The news is certain to fuel the longstanding political scandal over the dump, which was licensed in 2008 by Perry's top environmental regulator, Glenn Shankle, over the objections of his staff, three of whom resigned rather than sign off the on the deal (Shankle later left to become a lobbyist for the dump's parent company, Waste Control Solutions). WCS is owned by Harold Simmons, a billionaire corporate raider who has given Perry's campaigns at least $1.2 million.

Paul Krugman: A Constant Flow of Bad News for Europe and the US

In the United States, we have zero job growth, with unemployment still at nosebleed levels, according to a recent government report. Meanwhile, the interest rate on 10-year bonds is down to 2.04 percent, and it’s negative on inflation-protected securities.

Aren’t you glad we pivoted from jobs to deficits a year and a half ago?