Business/Financial « Tikkunista!

10. New York City: The Past, The Future, The Alternative

May-04-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: From the archives, the good people at In Focus narrowed 2.2 million images of New York’s past down to 53. From the future, we offer a time lapse video of the rise of the new World Trade Center (not quite finished; that lies in the future.) And from an alternative time-stream, a set of New Yorker covers that we never got to see here, more’s the pity.

* Historic Photos From the NYC Municipal Archives - In Focus – The Atlantic

The New York City Municipal Archives just released a database of over 870,000 photos from its collection of more than 2.2 million images of New York throughout the 20th century. Their subjects include daily life, construction, crime, city business, aerial photographs, and more. I spent hours lost in these amazing photos, and gathered this group together to give you just a glimpse of what’s been made available from this remarkable collection.

* Time-Lapse Video Of Rising World Trade Center The Presurfer

* New Yorker Covers You Were Never Meant To See The New Yorker

Next week marks the publication of Françoise Mouly’s “Blown Covers,” a book whose subtitle says it all: “New Yorker covers you were never meant to see.” Mouly, who is the art editor at the magazine, describes how iconic New Yorker covers came to be, and also, how some covers never came to be. Here, she shares a selection of those new classics plus the cover ideas that were either too naughty, too crazy, or simply too ahead of their time.

April 13th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 14

Apr-13-2012 | Comments (1)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: Two pieces followup on last week’s Death of Freedom section. Naomi Wolfe is clear and cogent about what’s happening. And the New Yorker is the last piece we’ll run on the Apple and Foxconn issue. It points, eloquently, out just how solipsistic it is to pretend this issue is about us. (Besides, it’s a great title!)

* How The US Uses Sexual Humiliation As A Political Tool Naomi Wolf Guardian

In a five-four ruling this week, the supreme court decided that anyone can be strip-searched upon arrest for any offense, however minor, at any time. This horror show ruling joins two recent horror show laws: the NDAA, which lets anyone be arrested forever at any time, and HR 347, the “trespass bill”, which gives you a 10-year sentence for protesting anywhere near someone with secret service protection. These criminalizations of being human follow, of course, the mini-uprising of the Occupy movement.

Is American strip-searching benign? The man who had brought the initial suit, Albert Florence, described having been told to “turn around. Squat and cough. Spread your cheeks.” He said he felt humiliated: “It made me feel like less of a man.”

In surreal reasoning, justice Anthony Kennedy explained that this ruling is necessary because the 9/11 bomber could have been stopped for speeding. How would strip searching him have prevented the attack? Did justice Kennedy imagine that plans to blow up the twin towers had been concealed in a body cavity? In still more bizarre non-logic, his and the other justices’ decision rests on concerns about weapons and contraband in prison systems. But people under arrest – that is, who are not yet convicted – haven’t been introduced into a prison population….

* In Michigan, Cops Copy The Contents Of Iphones In 2 Minutes The Next Web

It has emerged that Michigan State Police have been using a high-tech mobile forensics device that can extract information from over 3,000 models of mobile phone, potentially grabbing all media content from your iPhone in under two minutes.The CelleBrite UFED is a handheld device that Michigan officers have been using since August 2008 to copy information from mobile phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The device can circumvent password restrictions and extract existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags.

* Do Chinese Factory Workers Dream of iPads? The New Yorker

What’s wrong with a world in which a worker on an iPhone assembly line can’t even afford to buy one? As “This American Life” host Ira Glass put it at the end of the episode retracting the original Daisey broadcast, “As somebody who owns these products, should I feel bad?”

The simple narrative equating American demand and Chinese suffering is appealing, especially at a time when many Americans feel guilty about their impact on the world. It’s also inaccurate and disrespectful. We must be peculiarly self-obsessed to imagine we have the power to drive tens of millions of people on the other side of the world to migrate and suffer in terrible ways. China produces goods for markets all over the world, including for its own consumers, thanks to low costs, a large and educated workforce, and a flexible manufacturing system that responds rapidly to market demands. To imagine that we have willed this universe into being is simply solipsistic. It is also demeaning to the workers. We are not at the center of this story—we are minor players in theirs. By focussing on ourselves and our gadgets, we have reduced the human beings at the other end to invisibility, as tiny and interchangeable as the parts of a mobile phone.

5. The Cost of the 1%

Mar-30-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: The increasing economic inequality is a double problem; there’s the injustice itself, and there’s the fact it’s self-reinforcing. The more money the very rich have, the less possible it becomes to change the system that they want. We hear about a few people like Warren Buffet who recognize this problem, but there are many like the Koch brothers who want to reinforce that inequality. And as the media is owned by the very rich, we get to hear a lot more about the need to cut social benefits than about the need to increase taxation. This needs to change, and it will. The question is how.

* 93% Of Income Growth Went To The Wealthiest 1% Harold Meyerson Washington Post

In 2010, according to a study published this month by University of California economist Emmanuel Saez, 93 percent of income growth went to the wealthiest 1 percent of American households, while everyone else divvied up the 7 percent that was left over. Put another way: The most fundamental characteristic of the U.S. economy today is the divide between the 1 percent and the 99 percent.

…While never putting a premium on economic equality, America has always prided itself on being the preeminent land of economic opportunity. If all of this nation’s wealth is captured by a narrow stratum of the very rich, however, that claim is relegated to history’s dustbin. Research by Julia Isaacs of the Brookings Institution, as part of the Economic Mobility Project, has shown that intergenerational mobility in the United States has fallen far below the levels in Germany, Finland, Denmark and other more social democratic nations of Northern Europe. Now, Saez’s analysis of income data provides further evidence that mocks America’s self-image as a land where hard work yields rewards.

* Inequality Offensive MIT

At an MIT forum on Tuesday night, however, economists suggested the issue matters for an overarching reason that’s slightly harder to quantify: Inequality, they said, constitutes a threat to America’s values and political system.

“If there’s any national religion that we have, it’s the religion of meritocracy, the belief that people get where they end up in life because of hard work and playing by the rules,” said moderator David Autor, professor of economics and associate head of MIT’s Department of Economics. “That’s a very powerful belief system to have … it makes people say, fundamentally, ‘I can accept the outcome I get, because it’s not arbitrary, it reflects some kind of justice.’”

By contrast, Autor noted, a decline in opportunities for advancement threatens to undermine that confidence. “If rising inequality makes our society more dynastic, less determined by what you do and more determined by choosing the right parents, that’s harmful … the system is not rewarding [those] values and virtues.”

Inequality can also distort the ways political decisions are made, noted Peter Diamond, Institute Professor and professor emeritus of economics at MIT. “Given the way we organize Congress and the presidency, [corporations and individuals] with a lot of money … have a lot more of an impact on policies,” Diamond said at the event…. In this sense, he added, inequality is not just a symptom of larger economic or social problems, but a problem in itself.

* Attack of the Billionaires Jim Hightower NationofChange

Hosted by the billionaire Koch brothers at the posh Renaissance Esmeralda golf resort in California’s Palm Springs desert in early February, the confabulees were mobilizing and monetizing what Charles Koch called the “mother of all wars.” That would be their self-proclaimed war to enthrone their ilk over workers, consumers, the environment, and democracy itself.

Who are these “warriors?” Billionaire casino baron Sheldon Adelson, Newt Gingrich’s sugar daddy, jetted in — as did Rick Santorum’s main money squeeze, Foster Friess, a hedge-fund richie and an extremist evangelical, as well as Mitt Romney donor Ken Griffin, a Wall Street speculator. How much monetizing of their “war” against you and me did these elites pledge? More than $100 million, including $40 million promised by Charles Koch and $20 million from his brother David.

We can thank five corporatists on the Supreme Court for enabling this elite few to put up unlimited, secret, corporate dollars to buy our democracy out from under us. They are the wealthiest .0000063 percent of Americans who — so far — have poured at least $100,000 each into SuperPACs to pervert our elections.

3. The Morality of Financiers

Mar-16-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: The Guardian explores the morality of how the .1% live with themselves, in a painful piece. Some can’t, which is why Greg Smith, ex–Goldman Sachs executive, made the headlines this week with his scathing letter of resignation from the firm, a letter well worth reading in full. Andy Borowitz offers a very funny mock reply.

* So, How Can Bankers Live With Themselves? Joris Luyendijk The Guardian

So what would you like to know about bankers, I like to ask people, and most answer: how can they live with themselves? How can bankers take home those salaries and bonuses when the rest of us are facing austerity and very painful cuts in public services?

A little while ago I put this to a financial recruiter. I’ll call him Philippe. Philippe is working with the well-paid bankers everyone else seems so angry with….Philippe continued, “Many of my clients simply don’t seem to care a whole lot about what the general public think. These are extremely well-educated and multilingual professionals. Many are in mixed marriages with kids who have lived on two or three continents. These people don’t belong anywhere and don’t feel beholden to any national project. …It’s quite ironic how postmodernists and many contemporary social thinkers on the left will tell you that all sense of belonging is a construct, tradition is invented and nations are simply fantasies or imagined communities. Well, the global financial elite agrees.”

* Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs Greg Smith New York Times

TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.

To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.

… I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all. It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail.

* A Response from Goldman Sachs Andy Borowitz Borowitz Report (humour)

By now, many of you have probably read the regrettable resignation letter published in today’s New York Times by former Goldman executive Greg Smith, explaining why he is leaving the firm after twelve years.

In the letter, in which he excoriates Goldman and his practices, Mr. Smith comes across as a man of conscience, ideals, and high moral standards. And as you read his words, you no doubt asked yourself this troubling question: how could Goldman have hired such a person?

At Goldman, we pride ourselves on our ability to scour the world’s universities and business schools for the finest sociopaths money will buy. Once in our internship program, these youths are subjected to rigorous evaluations to root out even the slightest evidence of a soul. But, as the case of Mr. Smith shows, even the most time-tested system for detecting shreds of humanity can blow a gasket now and then. For that, we can only offer you our deepest apology and the reassurance that one good apple won’t spoil the whole bunch.

5. The Power of Money

Feb-24-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: It’s 40 years since Alan Price sang “We all want justice, but you’ve got to have the money to buy it.” (in Lindsey Anderson’s epic film: O Lucky Man!) But things have changed, and now you can buy anything with money, not just justice. We start with a look at who the players are, the six mediopolies that control what we see and hear. We look at two pieces on how the very rich, the .01%, buy the presidency; and we end with a look at how they control the “facts” taught in school.

* Illusion of Choice Nation of Change (click through to enlarge chart)

Media has never been more consolidated. 6 media giants now control a staggering 90% of what we read, watch or listen to.

* Casino King Provides 84 Percent of Funds for Pro-Gingrich Super PAC NationofChange

Casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson and his family have pumped $11 million into the pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC “Winning Our Future,” about 84 percent of the $13.1 million the group has raised so far.

And that doesn’t include the additional $10 million sources say the multibillionaire is expected to kick in to help his political ally and friend Gingrich become competitive again. Gingrich has fallen behind the two frontrunners, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and ex-Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, in national polls….

Without the Adelsons’ largesse, the PAC has raised $2.1 million.

* Super PACs Out-Raise Candidates, Thanks to Super Donors NationofChange

Thanks to a small number of wealthy individuals, the outside spending groups known as “super PACs” that are working to put the four leading GOP candidates in the White House collectively raised more than the candidates themselves in January.

Candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul raised a combined $21.1 million for the month, according to Federal Election Commission records, while the four primary super PACs backing them raised $22.1 million. Donors to candidates number in the thousands, but they may only give $2,500 per candidate, per election. Super PAC donors, thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and a lower-cour ruling, can give unlimited amounts.

* From the Heartland: The Extreme Right’s War on K-12 Climate and Environmental Education Wildlife Promise

America’s extreme right has been attacking climate change and environmental education in schools for decades using a variety of tactics aimed at keeping it from becoming core knowledge our children have upon graduation.

The recent revelation that the Heartland Institute was pledged $100,000 in anonymous funds to develop a K-12 school curriculum to inject how controversial climate change science is is just one of these tactics.

It has been alleged, per a set of leaked internal documents, that the Institute, a free-market policy and advocacy organization, is again working to undermine K-12 climate change education. The leaked documents, which Heartland claims were illegally leaked and faked, are not needed to examine consistent tactics used by the extreme right to keep sound and needed climate change education out of America’s K-12 classrooms.

…The National Wildlife Federation today received a cease and desist letter from the Heartland Institute demanding that all references to Heartland’s so-called “Denialgate” leaked internal documents be scrubbed from the National Wildlife Federation website. However, the letter makes no specific legal accusations and the Heartland Institute continues to refuse to say whether the documents are legitimate, whether its reported plan to infiltrate America’s schools is true, or who is funding it.

6. Media: You are the Target

Feb-24-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: There’s a fine old saying, “If you’re not paying for a service, you’re the product, not the customer”. As the ways that information about your habits can be gathered and electronically massaged increases, that information becomes an exceedingly valuable commodity. We look at how that works, starting with Target (to “celebrate” their opening in Canada yesterday), then looking at Google (on which you can to something to control your history) and Facebook (on which you can’t). And, in a “little brother watches back” mode, we pass on useful information about a free and useful program (for making your own personal backups only of DVDs you already legally own, of course.)

* How Companies Learn Your Secrets New York Times

Take a fictional Target shopper named Jenny Ward, who is 23, lives in Atlanta and in March bought cocoa-butter lotion, a purse large enough to double as a diaper bag, zinc and magnesium supplements and a bright blue rug. There’s, say, an 87 percent chance that she’s pregnant and that her delivery date is sometime in late August. …In the past, that knowledge had limited value. After all, Jenny purchased only cleaning supplies at Target, and there were only so many psychological buttons the company could push. But now that she is pregnant, everything is up for grabs. In addition to triggering Jenny’s habits to buy more cleaning products, they can also start including offers for an array of products, some more obvious than others, that a woman at her stage of pregnancy might need.

Pole applied his program to every regular female shopper in Target’s national database and soon had a list of tens of thousands of women who were most likely pregnant. …About a year after Pole created his pregnancy-prediction model, a man walked into a Target outside Minneapolis and demanded to see the manager. He was clutching coupons that had been sent to his daughter, and he was angry, according to an employee who participated in the conversation.

“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”

[Later] on the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”

* Google and Your Web History

As of March 1st all searches you’ve done on Google become accessible data to marketeers. If you’re okay with that, no problem. If you’d rather that your deep interest in 18th century hand-forged horseshoes (for example) did not become accessible, go to google.com/history and remove all your web history. If you never log into Google, (i.e. you don’t have a gmail account), you’re safe.

* Facebook Tracking Is Under Scrutiny USA Today

Facebook officials are now acknowledging that the social media giant has been able to create a running log of the web pages that each of its 800 million or so members has visited during the previous 90 days. Facebook also keeps close track of where millions more non-members of the social network go on the Web, after they visit a Facebook web page for any reason…..Facebook’s efforts to track the browsing habits of visitors to its site have made the company a player in the “Do Not Track” debate, which focuses on whether consumers should be able to prevent websites from tracking the consumers’ online activity.

* VLC hits 2.0 - Boing Boing

Freeware. Mac and Windows compatible.

After many years of work, Video LAN Client (VLC), the all-powerful free/open video-player, has hit 2.0, with an amazing roster of new features. The new version is called Twoflower,” and it cuts through DRM like butter, disregards patents and plays and converts pretty much any video you throw at it….Completely reworked Mac and Web interfaces and improvements in the other interfaces make VLC easier than ever to use.

2. Austerity Fail

Feb-17-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: There is an overwhelming push to cut benefits, vacation time, pensions, and medical support across much of the Western world. But why? How much of this is just the 1% pushing for more in the bonus packet? Where is the evidence that this “tough medicine” offers any likelihood of a cure? We look at two perspectives on Greece, and then to Ontario, where massive cuts to the social net have been proposed to offset the massive cuts to taxes. For historical context, watch 4 minutes of Huey Long, fighting the same battle in 1934.

* European Doubts Growing over Greece Debt StrategyDer Spiegel

The plan to save Greece, it turns out, is based on assumptions that have proven to be hopelessly optimistic. Europe’s leaders had assumed that Greece would quickly return to economic growth. But the severity of the austerity measures demanded makes that doubtful. Cuts in salaries and social spending have resulted in a dramatic drop in demand, which has accelerated the economy’s contraction. Tax revenues have plunged as a result, leading to the need for even more spending cuts.

That is hardly a recipe for coming to terms with the country’s debt problem, particularly given the lack of clarity regarding the degree to which Greece’s private creditors will participate in the new bailout package….Yet even as international investors are hesitant, the Greek population has passed its judgment. Greeks, it would appear, no longer want to be rescued if it means even lower minimum wages and yet more pension cuts.

The Athens-based left-leaning daily To Vima urged its government last week to break off the talks “immediately” and negotiate an alternative arrangement with the United States. Greece still had the “power to blow everything up,” the paper said, adding that this was “the only remaining path.”

* What passes for smart on the Greek Debt Crisis Ian Welsh

Westerners thought that they could have consumer democracy: they didn’t have to participate in it except at election time, when they would vote for parties and platforms paid for and produced by someone other than them. Coke™/Pepsi™ politics – you have a choice, you can choose either Coke or Pepsi! Politicians aren’t paid by you (their salaries are the least part of their real income) why would you think they care about your concerns?

You don’t pay for politicians or politics. This is the Facebook rule: if you don’t pay the freight, you aren’t the customer, you are the product. Politicians compete for the money and favors of the rich, and what they sell is the ability to wrangle you: to pass the austerity bills, to cut the benefits, to privatize the jewels of the public system, to force through the multi-trillion dollar bailouts. They control government for the benefit of the rich.

And the rich pay all the way down the line. They control the media, right down to the bottom, to make sure that what is discussed is what they want discussed, in the terms they want it discussed. That default isn’t that bad: forbidden. That currency controls mitigate damage in these circumstances: forbidden. That lenders will lend to defaulting countries almost immediately: forbidden.

* Drummond Report To Cut Deeper And Last Longer Than Harris Reforms Of 1990S rabble.ca

According to Drummond, eliminating the deficit by 2018 will require cutting program spending in real terms by 16.2 per cent over the next seven years. The Conservative government of Mike Harris cut program spending by 4.7 per cent in the first four years, but was forced to raise spending in the second term for a total increase of 5.6 per cent over the 8-year period.

Drummond’s report has drawn fire for recommending increased privatization, including of health care and education services, despite the Commission’s mandate explicitly forbidding it.

…..The report is based on assumed GDP growth of only 2 per cent annually from 2014-18 –lower than the Ministry of Finance projections — and the goal of eliminating Ontario’s deficit by 2018.

The Commission was prohibited from considering revenues, but a recent report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has shown that Ontario’s deficit is largely equal to the cuts to capital, corporate and income taxes under the Liberal and Conservative governments of the last 15 years. In the last year for which calculations were available, Ontario had forgone $15 billion in revenues due to these tax cuts.

* Huey Long: Share the Wealth YouTube, 4 minutes, 1934

2. Economic Inequality & US Politics

Feb-03-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: If nothing else, one major success of the Occupy movement was to move the issue of income inequality to centre stage. It seems increasing likely that it will form the basis of the Democrats attack on the Republicans in this year’s election. We start with the view from the Guardian on this political shift, offer a 13 question quiz on economic inequality in the US (quiz hint: assume things are really bad), and end by examining Romney’s assertion that the very poor have a safety net. If they do, it’s too tattered to be any use.

* America Has The Opportunity To Usher In Radical New Political Era Michael Cohen The Observer

A year ago, American politics was abuzz with talk of out-of-control government spending and rising budget deficits. A year later, that has been replaced with discussions of inequality, declining middle-class income and even class warfare. David Axelrod, a key adviser to President Obama, has even gone so far as to say that these issues are the “central challenge of our time”. He’s not necessarily wrong, but perhaps just a bit late. Indeed, since the late 1970s, the disparity between rich and poor has exploded. Over the past three decades, the top 1% of families in the US has seen its income jump by a whopping 278%; for the middle 60% of Americans, its increase in income is less than 40%. Today, that top 1% earns 21% of all pre-tax income; 35 years ago, it was around 9%.

…For decades, Republicans have successfully portrayed the bogeyman of big government as the enemy of America’s middle class. The emerging focus on America’s glaring economic disparity – and its direct and deleterious impact on the middle class – suggests that Democrats are willing to use their own bogeyman of Wall Street greed in response. Indeed, it’s quite likely that the election will be a struggle between these two conflicting views. If Democrats are successful in such an endeavour, it has the potential to make 2012 more than just another election, but one that could shift the very narrative of American politics.

* A Social Justice Quiz Counterpunch (13 questions)

Q1. The combined pay of the 299 highest paid CEOs in the US is enough to support how many median salary jobs?

45,000? 83,000? 102,325?

Q2. The median net worth of black households in the US is $2,200. What is the median net worth of white households in the US?

$4,400? $44,000? $97,000?

* Romney: “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” Juan Cole Informed Comment

Romney says, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair , I’ll fix it.”

•Nearly 47 million people were in poverty in the US in 2010, up from 37.3 million in 2007. That was the 4th year in a row in which the number of people in poverty increased. In the 52 years that poverty rates have been being published, this is the largest number ever.

•20.5 million Americans are in “extreme poverty.” That is, their family income is $10,000 or less a year for a family of 4, about half that of the poverty line.

• There were 17.2 million households or about 1 in 7 that were food insecure in the US in 2010, the highest number ever recorded. (“Food insecure” means “at risk of going hungry.”)

3. Economic Inequality & World Politics

Feb-03-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Other countries have faced the problem of huge income inequality. Some have won the battle against it; some are currently engaged; some are taking up arms. We look at five different countries in three different continents, and how they managed the struggle against plutocracy.

* How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’ Common Dreams

While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.

Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.

* Could Ecuador Be The Most Radical And Exciting Place On Earth? Jayati Ghosh The Guardian

Ecuador must be one of the most exciting places on Earth right now, in terms of working towards a new development paradigm. It shows how much can be achieved with political will, even in uncertain economic times. Just 10 years ago, Ecuador was more or less a basket case, a quintessential “banana republic” (it happens to be the world’s largest exporter of bananas), characterised by political instability, inequality, a poorly-performing economy, and the ever-looming impact of the US on its domestic politics.

…A major turning point came with the election of the economist Rafael Correa as president. After taking over in January 2007, his government ushered in a series of changes, based on a new constitution (the country’s 20th, approved in 2008) that was itself mandated by a popular referendum. A hallmark of the changes that have occurred since then is that major policies have first been put through the referendum process. This has given the government the political ability to take on major vested interests and powerful lobbies.

The government is now the most stable in recent times and will soon become the longest serving in Ecuador’s tumultuous history. The president’s approval ratings are well over 70%. All this is due to the reorientation of the government’s approach, made possible by a constitution remarkable for its recognition of human rights and the rights of nature, and its acceptance of plurality and cultural diversity.

*Dilma Rousseff, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, and Brazil’s Growth The New Yorker (abstract of article only)

Until recently, Brazil has been one of the most uneducated, economically imbalanced countries in the world. Now its economy is growing much more rapidly than that of the U.S. Twenty-eight million Brazilians have moved out of severe poverty in the past decade. The country has a balanced budget, low national debt, nearly full employment, and low inflation. It is, chaotically, democratic, and it has a free press. Brazil operates in ways we have been conditioned to think are incompatible with a successful free society. It isn’t just that Brazil is ruled by unapologetic former revolutionaries, many of whom—including the President—were imprisoned for years for being terrorists. The central government is far more powerful and intrusive than it is in the U.S. It is also far more corrupt. Crime is high, schools are weak, roads are bad, and ports barely function. And yet, among the world’s major economic powers, Brazil has achieved a rare trifecta: high growth, political freedom, and falling inequality.

* “Walking with the Comrades,” by Arundhati Roy The Washington Post

For over a decade now, the writer Arundhati Roy has served as India’s most powerful and articulate dissident, tearing that broad consensus to shreds. Through a slew of acerbic and impassioned essays, speeches and books, Roy has attacked both the country’s religious right wing and the barons of big business, and excoriated the Indian state’s political, economic and military policy. At times, Roy’s uncompromising hostility, penchant for tendentious theses and juxtapositions, and appropriation of multiple causes have earned her as much notoriety as respect.

4. The Rise and Fall of the €

Jan-27-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Hey, I hear you cry, isn’t it enough that I’m looking at Tikkunista, and now you expect me to listen to a 60 minute audio about financial policy? Well, here’s why you should. 1) It’s hugely entertaining. 2) it explains the core conflict that underlies the current crisis, and how that’s been there since the Euro was created. 3) When the € crashes, as it will, this will affect you. Knowing why this is going to happen is going to be really useful. The Vincent Browne video is what was once called “journalism”, in which a reporter tries to get real answers to hard questions, in this case why the Irish should bail out banks. The obfuscation is impeccable.

* Continental Breakup This American Life (60 minute audio)

If you’re like us, when the words “European debt crisis” pop up in the news you feel a little worried, and a little like taking a nap. Turns out, there’s a story behind this story. One that’s filled with guilt, and drama, and betrayal, and 100-year-old dreams come true. Alex Blumberg of Planet Money guest hosts.

* Vincent Browne v The ECB YouTube, 10 minutes

Vincent Browne (Irish reporter) takes on Klaus Masuch over the issue of the Irish people having to foot the bill for unguaranteed bondholders.

5. Apple, Foxconn, and Economics

Jan-27-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: As Apple set all-time records for profit this week, we learned that in the last quarter year Apple made more iphones made than humans made babies. The process of making them appears to be a lot less fun, however. The lead This American Life is their most downloaded podcast, and has been linked to all over the net in the past month. It’s about how Foxconn, the Chinese company, makes iStuff, and about the lives of the people who work there. Brilliantly presented (Mike Daisey does stand-up) and memorable. The Times has a follow up article, and we offer Apple’s reaction. Worth noting is that while this focuses on Apple, most other computers (Sony, HP, Dell, Samsung, etc…) are made in the same factory under the same conditions. If you need a piece for your next ideas discussion group, this might be a good one to consider.

* Mr. Daisey And The Apple Factory This American Life (60 minute audio)

Mike Daisey was a self-described “worshipper in the cult of Mac.” Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered: Who makes all my crap? He traveled to China to find out.

* Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class New York Times

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

* Apple ‘Attacking Problems’ At Its Factories In China Telegraph

In an email allegedly sent to Apple’s 60,000 or so employees, Tim Cook, the company’s chief executive said that Apple “cares about every worker in its supply chain”. The letter appears to be in response to a series of articles in the New York Times cataloguing the company’s problems in China and divisions within Apple about how to handle the issues.

Mr Cook’s letter, which was reproduced on the website 9to5mac.com, promised that Apple would “continue to dig deeper” into problems in China and that it would “undoubtedly find more issues”. “What will not do, and never have done, is stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain,” he added. “Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us. As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values. It’s not who we are,” he said.

2. Followups: Durban, Ron Paul, Canada’s Kyoto Cut

Dec-23-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: A trio of followups to last week: Monbiot contrasts governments swift action to save banks as opposed to their reluctance to save the planet. Curious, that. Ron Paul, currently leading Iowa polls, was omitted last week from our GOP smackdown. While the good doctor is rational, he is no less insane than his partners in grime, and Monbiot explores where his policies lead us. And while we covered Canada’s flight from Kyoto, we didn’t fully dissect Harpo’s claim that this would save Canada money. Well, it won’t.

* Why Is It So Easy to Save the Banks – but So Hard to Save the Biosphere? George Monbiot Common Dreams

They bailed out the banks in days. But even deciding to bail out the planet is taking decades.

Nicholas Stern estimated that capping climate change would cost around 1% of global GDP, while sitting back and letting it hit us would cost between 5 and 20%. One per cent of GDP is, at the moment, $630bn. By March 2009, Bloomberg has revealed, the US Federal Reserve had committed $7.77 trillion to the banks. That is just one government’s contribution: yet it amounts to 12 times the annual global climate change bill. Add the bailouts in other countries, and it rises several more times.

This support was issued on demand: as soon as the banks said they wanted help, they got it. On just one day the Federal Reserve made $1.2tr available – more than the world has committed to tackling climate change in 20 years.

* This Bastardised Libertarianism Makes ‘Freedom’ An Instrument Of Oppression George Monbiot The Guardian

Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?

In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws; big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.

* Canada’s Kyoto Math Doesn’t Add Up Pembina Institute (Thanks, Dave!)

It wasn’t particularly surprising to hear that Canada is withdrawing. Minister Kent’s painful efforts to neither confirm nor deny rumours of Canada’s intentions made it perfectly clear what those intentions were. Nor was it news that Canada will miss its Kyoto commitments to reduce emissions by a wide margin: a complete lack of effort on the part of Liberal and Conservative governments alike gave our country no chance of meeting them.

What was surprising was the Minister’s attempt to spin this withdrawal as a positive step for Canada’s economy. While taking action on climate change does come with costs, they are entirely manageable. The costs of inaction — in Canada, let alone on a global scale — are not….“Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment avoided before 2020, an additional $4.3 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”

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