A Crisis of Public Morality, Not Private Morality

Robert B. Reich

At a time many Republican presidential candidates and state legislators are furiously focusing on private morality – what people do in their bedrooms, contraception, abortion, gay marriage – America is experiencing a far more significant crisis in public morality.

CEOs of large corporations now earn 300 times the wages of average workers. Insider trading is endemic on Wall Street, where hedge-fund and private-equity moguls are taking home hundreds of millions.

Inside climate politics

tudy: Pattern of winners and losers explains US policy on fuel subsidies

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The politics of climate change are often depicted as a simple battle, between environmentalists and particular industries, over government policy. That's not wrong, but it's only a rough sketch of the matter. Now a paper co-authored by MIT economist Christopher Knittel fills in some important details of the picture, revealing an essential mechanism that underlies the politics of the climate battle.

Specifically, as Knittel and his colleagues demonstrate, at least one climate policy enacted by Congress -- on transportation fuels -- contains a crucial asymmetry: It imposes modest costs on most people, but yields significant benefits for a smaller group. Thus, most people are politically indifferent to the legislation, even though it hurts them marginally, but a few fight hard to maintain it. The same principle may also apply to other types of climate legislation.

New Program Takes Rare Approach of Treating Homeless People Like Human Beings—And It Works

A new program moves homeless encampments into a safe, clean space with food, laundry, showers and case workers who care.

By Emily Wilson / AlterNet

Alan Nethe, who spent 15 years on the street, answers succinctly when asked what he likes about the new Navigation Center in San Francisco’s Mission District.

“Everything,” he says. “What’s not great about it? You’ve got food, laundry, showers, and everybody in here cares about the program and how it runs.”

The Douglass Option

Frederick Douglass believed there was an alternative. So should we.

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In February 1866, alarm was spreading through the Republican North over President Andrew Johnson’s Southern course. Politics in the occupied South seemed to be careening toward something like a neo-Confederate restoration.

Johnson’s entire career had fit the archetype of a hill-country Jacksonian: the Herrenvolk democrat, the striver from humble roots, the anti-monopoly champion of the poor white man — and therefore, the bitter enemy of the West Tennessee “slaveocracy.” Yet he believed with equal vehemence that the United States was and should remain “a country for white men.” And so under his reconstruction policy, white state governments in the South had imposed a series of draconian “Black Codes” on the freed slaves, and the planter oligarchy now seemed on the brink of a revival.

America's Oligarch Problem: How the Super-Rich Threaten US Democracy

By Markus Feldenkirchen

The two candidates currently attracting the most attention in the American presidential primaries seem to be polar opposites. First, there's self-declared socialist Bernie Sanders, who can pack entire arenas with as many as 20,000 supporters. And then there's a man who claims to possess $10 billion, Donald Trump, who is leading in the broad field of Republicans. The two do, however, have one thing in common: They reject the US campaign finance system. One out of conviction; the other because he has the resources to finance his own campaign.

One, Bernie Sanders, takes pride in stating that he doesn't want rich people's money. Some 400,000 largely middle class Americans have contributed to his campaign so far, donating $31.20 on average. The other, Donald Trump, proudly announced recently that he had rejected a $5 million donation from a hedge fund manager. And that he is prepared to pump $1 billion of his own wealth into the campaign. One of Trump's most popular arguments so far is that his rival Jeb Bush has managed to raise over $150 million. "Jeb Bush is a puppet to his donors," Trump says disparagingly. Sooner or later, he argues, they will call in their favors. "I don't owe anyone any favors." It's a message that is proving popular with potential voters. But is it really any more democratic that a billionaire can buy his own election instead of allowing himself to be bought by others?

As Vanguard for Climate Action, Low-Carbon Cities Could Save $22 Trillion

In 'urban era,' ramping up building efficiency and public transit in cities could help save money—and the planet

by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer

Compact, connected, and efficient "low-carbon" cities could generate global savings of up to $22 trillion, while sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions, alleviating poverty, and improving public health, says a new report out Tuesday from leading international economists.

Accelerating investment in building energy efficiency, public transit, and better waste management techniques "has the potential to generate sustained urban productivity improvements and a wide range of economic, social and environmental benefits," reads the document (pdf) from the New Climate Economy, the flagship project of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. The project was established by seven countries—Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, and the United Kingdom—as an independent initiative to examine how countries can achieve economic growth while dealing with the risks posed by climate change.

America’s silent-but-deadly billionaires: How our tight-lipped overlords are waging stealth campaigns against the middle class

New research reveals the surreptitious ways in which the richest of the rich try to influence politics

Sean McElwee

Teddy Roosevelt famously argued that, when it comes to foreign policy, one should “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.” Similarly, an apt summation of the political inclinations of billionaires might be, “Speak softly, and carry a big check.”

While some billionaires, like Warren Buffett, are outspoken on political issues, most tend to say very little, or speak in vague generalities. But a new working paper by political scientists Benjamin Page, Jason Seawright and Matthew Lacombe finds that what billionaires say and what they do are dramatically different. While billionaires rarely go on the record discussing Social Security and taxes, they work behind the scenes to oppose policies favored by average Americans. Often, there are deep disconnects between what billionaires say regarding policies and which organizations they fund.

Why Ending Homelessness Is Political Poison

By Bill Boyarsky

On a hot, sultry day in July, I walked through Los Angeles’ Skid Row, the largest and most infamous of the city’s numerous homeless encampments. It is a little-visited part of a city better known for its celebrities and showy materialism—a city where the very rich build mansions with a dozen or more bedrooms while the poorest of the poor live on sidewalks, under freeways or in parks.

Buildings trapped the street’s heat. Some residents sat in tents or under tarps in stifling conditions. Others were standing or sitting on the sidewalk, with their backs against the buildings. So packed were the sidewalks with people, tents and possessions that sometimes I had to walk in the street. I was so intent on observing the scene that at one point I stumbled and almost fell. A homeless man asked if I was OK. I assured him I was. He patted me on the back and told me to be careful.

Why Ending Homelessness Is Political Poison

By Bill Boyarsky

On a hot, sultry day in July, I walked through Los Angeles’ Skid Row, the largest and most infamous of the city’s numerous homeless encampments. It is a little-visited part of a city better known for its celebrities and showy materialism—a city where the very rich build mansions with a dozen or more bedrooms while the poorest of the poor live on sidewalks, under freeways or in parks.

Buildings trapped the street’s heat. Some residents sat in tents or under tarps in stifling conditions. Others were standing or sitting on the sidewalk, with their backs against the buildings. So packed were the sidewalks with people, tents and possessions that sometimes I had to walk in the street. I was so intent on observing the scene that at one point I stumbled and almost fell. A homeless man asked if I was OK. I assured him I was. He patted me on the back and told me to be careful.

How Austerity Economics Is Fraying Europe's Social Contract

It's a new kind of barbarism, one that sacks countries with fine print.

By Conn Hallinan

On one level, the recent financial agreement between the European Union and Greece makes no sense: Not a single major economist thinks the $96 billion loan will allow Athens to repay its debts, or get the economy moving anywhere but downwards. It’s what former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis called a “suicide pact,” designed to humiliate the left-wing Syriza government.

Why construct a pact that everyone knows will fail?

Paul Krugman: Other People’s Dollars, and Their Place in Global Economics

Sydney, Australia — Soon after arriving here, I stopped at an A.T.M.; I needed some dollars, and all I had were dollars.

O.K., weak joke. What I needed were Australian dollars — Aussies — not U.S. greenbacks. There are actually four English-speaking countries with dollars of their own; the others are the Canadian loonie and the New Zealand kiwi. And you can learn a lot about the global economy, busting some popular monetary myths, by comparing those currencies and how they serve their economies.

Paul Krugman: When the Default Is to Classify Everything

The Hillary Clinton email "scandal" continues - and there is still no sign that she broke any rules when she was secretary of state, and no sign that she sent or received anything labeled "classified" - but she may have received and even forwarded items that were later classified, or that "should" have been classified.

By normal human standards, this is a big nothing. But in this case Clinton Rules - under which malign behavior is the default assumption - apply: Where there's smoke there must be fire, even if everyone knows that the usual suspects are using big smoke machines.

Economic security requires new measures of well-being

UB researcher says personal savings, policy change are needed to achieve goals, economic stability

University at Buffalo

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Economic well-being for low-income families in the U.S. is often determined by federal measures that establish basic requirements for essentials such as food, shelter and clothing, but a new study by a University at Buffalo research team suggests that such a definition is unrealistically narrow.

To help families move out of poverty, the existing perspective of economic well-being and its short-term focus on basic needs should reflect possibilities for long-term stability, including a savings plan, rather than day-to-day survival, says Yunju Nam, an associate professor in the UB School of Social Work.

Michael Hudson’s New Book: Wall Street Parasites Have Devoured Their Hosts — Your Retirement Plan and the U.S. Economy

By Pam Martens

The riveting writer, Michael Hudson, has read our collective minds and the simmering anger in our hearts. Millions of American have long suspected that their inability to get financially ahead is an intentional construct of Wall Street’s central planners. Now Hudson, in an elegant but lethal indictment of the system, confirms that your ongoing struggle to make ends meet is not a reflection of your lack of talent or drive but the only possible outcome of having a blood-sucking financial leech affixed to your body, your retirement plan, and your economic future.

In his new book, “Killing the Host,” Hudson hones an exquisitely gripping journey from Wall Street’s original role as capital allocator to its present-day parasitism that has replaced U.S. capitalism as an entrenched, politically-enforced economic model across America.

Jonathan Kozol Explains What’s Wrong With Health Care And Education

Jeff Bryant

I don’t think anyone who read “Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools” by Jonathan Kozol would easily forget it. It took me, a child of the leafy suburbs of affluent North Dallas, to a place that was unimaginably cruel and dehumanizing, where schools go without basic needs, such as heat, textbooks, running water and functioning bathrooms; where there are holes in the floors and ceilings, dead rodents and roaches in classrooms, plaster falling from walls into the hallways, and sewage invading the lunchroom.

These were the schoolhouses I never knew existed, that low-income black and brown children attended in ghettoized cities across America – a sharp rebuke to a generally agreed-upon narrative in the media at the time that so much progress had been made in America on race.

Jonathan Kozol Explains What’s Wrong With Health Care And Education

Jeff Bryant

I don’t think anyone who read “Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools” by Jonathan Kozol would easily forget it. It took me, a child of the leafy suburbs of affluent North Dallas, to a place that was unimaginably cruel and dehumanizing, where schools go without basic needs, such as heat, textbooks, running water and functioning bathrooms; where there are holes in the floors and ceilings, dead rodents and roaches in classrooms, plaster falling from walls into the hallways, and sewage invading the lunchroom.

These were the schoolhouses I never knew existed, that low-income black and brown children attended in ghettoized cities across America – a sharp rebuke to a generally agreed-upon narrative in the media at the time that so much progress had been made in America on race.

Dean Baker | The China Syndrome: Bubble Trouble

The financial markets have been through some wild and crazy times over the last two weeks, although it appears that they have finally stabilized. The net effect of all the gyrations is that a serious bubble in China's market seems to have been at least partially deflated. After hugely over-reacting to this correction, most other markets have largely recovered. Prices are down from recent peaks, but in nearly all cases well above year ago levels.

But the stock market is really a side-show; after all back in 1987 the US market fell by almost 25 percent for no obvious reason, with little noticeable effect on the US economy. The more serious question is what is happening with the underlying economy, and there are some real issues here.

Brian Beutler: The Rehabilitationists

How a small band of determined legal academics set out to persuade the Supreme Court to undo the New Deal—and have almost won.

In November 2013, a who’s who of America’s conservative legal establishment descended on the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., for an annual meeting of the Federalist Society, the most influential conservative legal organization in the country. Current presidential candidates Scott Walker and Ted Cruz each made appearances, ingratiating themselves with the influence peddlers in attendance. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was a featured speaker at the event’s black-tie-optional dinner.

One of the biggest stars of the conference, however, was neither a Senate-confirmed official nor an elected politician, but a libertarian law professor at Georgetown named Randy Barnett. This wasn’t Barnett’s first turn as a Federalist Society eminence, but his reception that year was especially rapturous.