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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.”

4. People versus Corporations

Dec-02-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: We start big scale, looking at the overthrow of democratically elected leaders and the policies their people voted for in favour of the economic policies banks want. Two medium shots look at fights between people and corporations, the first by by Zellers’ employees, (targeted by Target); the second by New Hampshire residents. And we end with a heart-cheering video of something we’ve all always wanted to do: turn a slew of venomous snakes loose in the office of a bureaucrat who wouldn’t listen. (Not herpetophobic safe!)

* The Markets Distrust Democracy. Jonathan Freedland The Guardian

Democracy’s humbling has been most dramatically visible in Greece and Italy, where elected leaders have been pushed aside in favour of technocrats and fixers, elevated without so much as shaking a single voter’s hand. Their mission will include the surrender of much economic sovereignty, putting those decisions further out of the reach of their own citizens. What Greeks and Italians endure today, other eurozone nations might well face tomorrow as they are told to make similar sacrifices of autonomy to save their economic skin.

Whether in Europe or beyond, democratic leaders have seemed powerless to beat back the engulfing global crisis, the failure of the G20 at Cannes exposing their weakness for all to see. And yet, according to one who was there, the leaders of the world’s authoritarian states – China, Russia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia – had a spring in their step in Cannes, confident that they could face down whatever the economic meltdown threw at them.

… 2011 has punctured the sense of easy supremacy democratic societies used to enjoy. To reassert themselves they might have to break from the rules now choking them, and insist that it is people, not markets, that are sovereign.

* Target Canada Is Going To Fire Zellers Employees At 135 Stores, To Break The Union At 15 Stores. Globe & Mail

Target Corporation is locked in a fight to prevent Zellers employees from maintaining their union status, as the discount giant pushes to keep its costs down for its foray into the competitive Canadian retail field. Target’s blueprint for Canada entails converting about 135 Zellers stores to the Target name by 2013 after letting go all the Zellers employees and starting fresh with newly hired staff – and no union. Currently about 15 of the Zellers stores are unionized. But now, in a test case, the union has applied to the B.C. Labour Relations Board to declare Target as the “successor employer” to Zellers at an outlet in Burnaby, B.C., and keep the employees unionized.

* Unions Beat GOP Candidates as New Hampshire Blocks Anti-Labor Law NationofChange

On Wednesday, after months of wrangling over the issue, the New Hampshire House of Representatives killed a plan promoted by the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council to make New Hampshire a so-called “right-to-work” state. The law was blocked because not just Democrats but almost two dozen Republicans rejected the counsel of presidential candidate Perry — who addressed the legislature Wednesday morning — and voted with organized labor and community groups that rallied to defend collective-bargaining rights.

* Snake Charmer Releases Cobras In Tax Office 2 minute video, via Boing Boing

A snake charmer in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh was angry that the government did not grant him a plot of land to keep his reptiles. So he went into the state’s tax office and released a slew of snakes, including poisonous cobras.

5. European Economic Chaos

Dec-02-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: We start with a closeup on Greece and Spain, then try to look at the overall problem and the proposed solution. (Personal prediction: it won’t work.Countries will pull out of the EU rather than surrender sovereignty.) But Western leaders have less and less power… and that’s when right wing demagogues with simple scapegoating solutions traditionally arise.

* Nearly 50% of the Young People in Greece and Spain Are Unemployed The Atlantic

Why is unemployment in Spain so unbelievably high? Three reasons. Europe is an utter disaster zone. It’s a banking crisis wrapped in a sovereign debt crisis wrapped in a mystery: How the heck do we unwind all of this?
…. While Germany chugs along with 5.5% joblessness, Spain and Greece are battling unemployment around 20%. This year along, those countries’ jobless rates have put on an additional 2% and 3.5%, respectively. Put another way, Greece already suffers from twice the U.S. unemployment rate and most economic observers think the worst is yet to come.

* Eurozone Crisis: European Union Prepares For The ‘Great Leap Forward’ The Observer

November 2011 will be remembered as the month when Italy nearly went under as the bond markets targeted its sovereign debt, when the Greek government came perilously close to exiting the euro altogether, and when France, for five decades in the vanguard of European integration, saw its own economic credibility questioned.

The counter-offensive is to be a risky route march to a form of economic and political union; it is likely to be deep, far-reaching and for many, whether on the political left or right, deeply problematic. Brussels officials will exercise unprecedented powers of intervention over national budgets, tax policies, labour markets. The scrutiny may extend even to a country’s schools, universities and courts. Dissent, whether expressed through referendums, elections or the debating chambers of national parliaments, will have only a limited impact. The direction of travel is non-negotiable. For “Europe” – the idea rather than the geographical entity – it is now or never.

* The Only Power World Leaders Have Is To Frustrate Each Other Andrew Rawnsley The Observer

Forbes magazine has just published its annual list of the “World’s Most Powerful People”. At the top of the supposed premier league is Barack Obama, a man so powerful that he can get almost nothing past an obstructive Congress which will not work with him to address America’s huge problems, never mind those of the rest of world. At number two, Forbes places Vladimir Putin, which strikes me as plain wrong…. Russia has long since surrendered to China its status as America’s principal global rival and its economic strength, such as it is, depends riskily on the price of commodities. At number three is Hu Jintao, the president of China. That sounds more like it, because just about everyone buys into the Rise of the East thesis… Only one Brit makes the Forbes list – David Cameron just scrapes into the top 10. This is not the most patriotic observation I have ever made, but 10th most powerful person in the world is probably over-generous to the prime minister of the United Kingdom.

For some onlookers, the G20 was a snapshot which captured the shift in global economic clout from a declining west to an ascendant east and south…. A symbolic visual image was supplied: the French president waiting on his red carpet for a late-running Dr Hu to turn up. Who then brushed off the plea for help. To look like a supplicant is unfortunate; to be a spurned one is humiliating. China does indeed have a bulging wallet thanks to its enormous reserves of foreign exchange…You can see why the Chinese (average income about $5,000 a year) are reluctant to write a cheque to save the Greeks ($28,000 a year) when the Germans ($40,000) don’t want to pony up any more.

* Far Right On Rise In EuropeThe Guardian

The far right is on the rise across Europe as a new generation of young, web-based supporters embrace hardline nationalist and anti-immigrant groups, a study has revealed ahead of a meeting of politicians and academics in Brussels to examine the phenomenon. Research by the British thinktank Demos for the first time examines attitudes among supporters of the far right online. The study reveals a continent-wide spread of hardline nationalist sentiment among the young, mainly men. Deeply cynical about their own governments and the EU, their generalised fear about the future is focused on cultural identity, with immigration – particularly a perceived spread of Islamic influence – a concern.

The report highlights the prevalence of anti-immigrant feeling, especially suspicion of Muslims. “As antisemitism was a unifying factor for far-right parties in the 1910s, 20s and 30s, Islamophobia has become the unifying factor in the early decades of the 21st century,” said Thomas Klau from the European Council on Foreign Relations, who will speak at Monday’s conference.

8. Black Friday Shopping Tips

Nov-25-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: We’ll start with Adbusters, as today is “Buy Nothing Day”. Not sold on buying nothing? Here are the top 100 highest rated products on Amazon, worth a scan (Vox pop, click shop as the Romans almost said.) Still not sure. Well, what every Tikkunista reader needs is … ok, maybe not every, maybe only a few, or even none. But look at it. Ain’t nothing like it, nowhere.

* Buy Nothing Day + Buy Nothing ChristmasAdbustersCulturejammer Headquarters

You’ve been sleeping on the streets for two months pleading peacefully for a new spirit in economics. And just as your camps are raided, your eyes pepper sprayed and your head’s knocked in, another group of people are preparing to camp-out. Only these people aren’t here to support occupy Wall Street, they’re here to secure their spot in line for a Black Friday bargain at Super Target and Macy’s.

Occupy gave the world a new way of thinking about the fat cats and financial pirates on Wall Street. Now lets give them a new way of thinking about the holidays, about our own consumption habits. Lets’ use the coming 20th annual Buy Nothing Day to launch an all-out offensive to unseat the corporate kings on the holiday throne.

This year’s Black Friday will be the first campaign of the holiday season where we set the tone for a new type of holiday culminating with #OCCUPYXMAS. As the global protests of the 99% against corporate greed and casino capitalism continues, lets take the opportunity to hit the empire where it really hurts…the wallet.

* 100 of Amazon’s best, highest-rated products

* What You Want in BedYoutube 30 seconds

2. The Sticky Issue of the Tar Sands

Nov-18-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: An excellent article from MIT’s Technology Review explores the tar sands issue in intelligent and unbiased (ymmv) detail. Two key points it argues: the question is when and how the development will happen, not if; the Canadian government can control the amount of pollution and carbon released by setting penalties for doing that. At present, there is no penalty for pollution, so it doesn’t make economic sense to invest money in finding ways to reduce it. We follow up with an amusing etymological piece exploring why you may say “oil sands” and I say “tar sands”, and end with Peter Kent, Canada’s environment minister, accusing those who oppose the tar sands of being traitors to Canada.

*Alberta’s Oil Sands Heat Up Technology Review

The question for oil-sands innovators is whether the financial risk of developing new types of in situ technologies will pay off. Cenovus needs a global oil price of just $45 to $50 per barrel to turn a profit on its Christina Lake investments; with prices now above $75 per barrel, it is making good money. In an era of cheap natural gas and pricey oil, Canada’s bitumen producers will need an extra push before they commit billions of dollars to alternatives to mining and SAGD…. Says Heather MacLean, a professor of engineering and public policy at the University of Toronto, “There has to be some type of a policy push … to really motivate the most efficient production and reduction of greenhouse gases and other environmental impacts.” What is needed, she says, is a price on carbon. Two years ago, Alberta introduced a carbon tax of $15 per ton, but that covers only a portion of industrial emissions, and even oil executives dismiss its impact on investments. “It’s in the tens of cents per barrel,” says Zieglgansberger.

* You Say Oil Sands, I Say Tar Sands… OpenFile

Type in “Alberta tar sands” into Google, and you get 852,000 results. Perform a search for “Alberta oil sands” instead, and you end up with 334,000 results—not even half that. And if you change “Alberta” to “Alberta’s,” the gap widens even further.

So why do most media outlets tend to default to the phrase “oil sands”? Is “tar sands” pejorative? Or do both terms carry their own bias?

* Oil Sands Opponents Treacherous: Canadian Environment Minister Reuters

In a sign of the strain the Canadian government is feeling over development of the tar sands, Environment Minister Peter Kent said on Wednesday that opposition legislators who campaigned in Washington against the idea were treacherous…. Much to Kent’s anger, two members of Parliament from the opposition New Democrats went to Washington this week to argue the pipeline should not go ahead until Canada has come up with a better plan to combat climate change. “One of the opposition parties has taken the treacherous course of leaving the domestic debate and heading abroad to attack a legitimate Canadian resource which is being responsibly developed and regulated,” Kent told reporters.

5. OMG! The 1% Aren’t Monolithic!

Nov-18-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: If I have any problem with the OWS movement it would be the attribution of a single set of characteristics to “the 1%”. Some of them are deserving, some are lucky, some are psychotic: Monbiot explores the details. But some want economic justice, and some would pay a lot of money to avoid it. Just another bag of trail mix – some sweet stuff, and some nuts.

* The Self-Attribution Fallacy George Monbiot

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren’t responsible. Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.

The findings of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel economics prize, are devastating to the beliefs that financial high-fliers entertain about themselves(1). He discovered that their apparent success is a cognitive illusion. For example, he studied the results achieved by 25 wealth advisers, across eight years. He found that the consistency of their performance was zero. “The results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill.” Those who received the biggest bonuses had simply got lucky.

Such results have been widely replicated. They show that traders and fund managers across Wall Street receive their massive remuneration for doing no better than would a chimpanzee flipping a coin. When Kahneman tried to point this out they blanked him. “The illusion of skill … is deeply ingrained in their culture.”

* US Millionaires Say ‘Raise Our Taxes’Al Jazeera

Nearly 140 millionaires have asked a divided US congress to increase their taxes for the sake of the nation.

“Please do the right thing, raise our taxes,” the entrepreneurs and business leaders wrote to President Barack Obama and congressional leaders on Wednesday, noting that they benefited from a sound economy and now want others to do so.

The letter was signed by 138 members of “Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength”.

* Koch Brothers: Secretive Billionaires To Launch Vast Database With 2012 In Mind The Guardian

The secretive oil billionaires the Koch brothers are close to launching a nationwide database connecting millions of Americans who share their anti-government and libertarian views, a move that will further enhance the tycoons’ political influence and that could prove significant in next year’s presidential election.

The database will give concrete form to the vast network of alliances that David and Charles Koch have cultivated over the past 20 years on the right of US politics. The brothers, whose personal wealth has been put at $25bn each, were a major force behind the creation of the tea party movement and enjoy close ties to leading conservative politicians, financiers, business people, media figures and US supreme court judges.

3. Our Economic Death Spiral

Nov-11-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Leonard Cohen sang it, “Your servant here, he has been told to say it clear, to say it cold: It’s over, it ain’t going any further.” Unless there is unenvisioned and unprecedented major structural change in the US, the economy isn’t coming back. The Eurozone may be breaking up, as it becomes clearer that its expectations are unreachable.That Eurocrisis shows where the new economic power lies: look at the change in “percentage of world GDP” on the linked chart over the next 40 years. North America 26% => 10%, Europe 28% => 10%, Developing Asia 18% => 46%.

* Ten Million Families Sliding Toward Foreclosure Counterpunch

Of the 55-million families with mortgages, 10.4-million of them “are sliding toward failure and foreclosure”—a tragedy that will depress the U.S. housing market for years to come, a result of too many houses for sale and too few buyers. That’s the blunt conclusion of distinguished economics journalist William Greider… “The more housing supply exceeds demand, the more prices fall. The more prices fall, the more families get sucked into the deep muddy. The vicious cycle is known in the industry as the death spiral. So far, there’s no end in sight.” Greider says the solution is to forgive the debtors: “Write down the principal they owe on their mortgage to match the current market value of their home, so they will no longer be underwater. Refinance the loan with a reduced interest rate, so the monthly payment is at a level that the struggling homeowner can handle.

* European Debt Crisis Spiralling Out Of Control The Guardian

Fears that Europe’s sovereign debt crisis was spiralling out of control have intensified as political chaos in Athens and Rome, and looming recession, created panic on world markets. Reports emerging from Brussels said that Germany and France had begun preliminary talks on a break-up of the eurozone, amid fears that Italy would be too big to rescue. Despite Silvio Berlusconi’s announcement that he would step down as prime minister once austerity measures were pushed through parliament, a collapse of investor confidence in the eurozone’s third-biggest economy sent interest rates in Italy to the levels that triggered bailouts in Portugal, Greece and Ireland.

* How the Eurocrisis laid bare world’s new economic order The Observer

The French Riviera in November conjures up images of ageing playboys eking out the last rays of autumn sunshine on the Croisette over a pastis. So it may be fitting that Nicolas Sarkozy has chosen Cannes as the venue for this week’s G20 summit, where the fading power of Europe’s old world economies will be thrown into sharp relief by the nouveau riche arrivistes from China, India and Brazil.

Sarkozy’s humiliating call to Beijing last week, asking if the Chinese would care to invest in the European financial stability facility, the huge euro bailout fund, was portrayed within China as grovelling. Guido Mantegna, Brazil’s finance minister, rapidly issued a statement saying his country had no intention of taking part.

* Graphic Of Predicted Change In World Economies Over Next 40 Years

4. OWS: How we Got here, Where We’re Going

Nov-11-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Certain things are clearer from the bird’s perspective, such as that the protests world-wide in the occupy movement, and the protests called the “Arab Spring” and the protests in Tel-Aviv are all focussed on the same thing: the policies that have lead to the extreme concentration of wealth. Juan Cole looks at the commonalities; ex-NY Gov. Spitzer looks at where OWS needs to go from here, and we end with a cheering and true story about a protester and his confrontation with the Man.

* From Tunisia to Oakland, How a New Age of Activism Was Born Juan ColeMother Jones

From Tunis to Tel Aviv, Madrid to Oakland, a new generation of youth activists is challenging the neoliberal state that has dominated the world ever since the Cold War ended. The massive popular protests that shook the globe this year have much in common, though most of the reporting on them in the mainstream media has obscured the similarities.

Whether in Egypt or the United States, young rebels are reacting to a single stunning worldwide development: the extreme concentration of wealth in a few hands thanks to neoliberal policies of deregulation and union busting. They have taken to the streets, parks, plazas, and squares to protest against the resulting corruption, the way politicians can be bought and sold, and the impunity of the white-collar criminals who have run riot in societies everywhere. They are objecting to high rates of unemployment, reduced social services, blighted futures, and above all the substitution of the market for all other values as the matrix of human ethics and life.

* Occupy Wall Street: Eight Ideas For Making The Protests Even More Successful. Eliot Spitzer Slate Magazine

Those of us who have written and spoken vigorously in support of OWS and for its capacity, almost unparalleled in today’s political environment, to shift our political focus, have an obligation to contribute our answers to the question of what OWS should do. We should answer not because there is any reason for this organic movement—which has done just fine without advice from outsiders—to listen to any of the advice rendered, but because it will help those of us outside the movement clarify our own political ideas. So here are my answers:

From an organizing perspective, OWS should…

* “He has a right to speak,” said the cop to the banker Daily Kos

Like most bullies, the banks are cowards. They talk a big game, but if confronted with their crimes, they run for cover and go whining to “mommy”. Today, I walked up and down a sidewalk, in front of a branch of Chase and a branch of BofA. I handed out about 250 flyers during lunch hour.

They panicked and called their private security people, then more private security and finally the cops. That’s when they found out that they didn’t have a leg to stand on.

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