Category Archives: Democracy and Community

China Didn’t Take American Jobs

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Trump says other countries took advantage of the US. He says they “took” manufacturing and jobs from the US. This is just not what happened.

American Companies Did This

American democracy gave workers good wages and protections. It passed laws restricting the ability of companies to pollute.

“Investors” and executives running Amereican companies wanted more money. They wanted bigger profits, and saw America’s unions and resulting good wages and benefits as obstacles to greater profits – for themselves. They saw democracy’s protections and regulations and pollution controls as obstacles to greater profits – for themselves.

American investors and exeucites found a way around the borders of American democracy. The companies moved manufacturing to lowest-common-denominator places: lowest wages, minimal protection of workers, low regulation, allowing pollution etc. American companies did this, not evil foreign plots to take American jobs and companies.

The weaknesses of American democracy allowed American companies to move jobs out of the US. Those companies used this as a lever to force wages, taxes and regulations down INSIDE the US. This is a lot of what led to the inequality the US has now.

And they used the great profits to buy politicians who moved American democracy out of their way.

Foreigners didn’t do this to the US, American companies were allowed to do this.

THAT is what needs fixing. The weakness of American democracy, allowing government to be controlled by wealthy interests did this. The only way to undo this is to fully restore American democracy.

Healthcare CEO Killed

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United Healthcare apparently was the worst of the insurance companies for profiting from systematically denying claims. You pay an insurance company to cover you if you get sick, then when you get sick they refuse to cover you. As Bernie said about Wall Street, the business model is fraud. Except Wall Street takes away your house and life savings. Health insurance companies take away your health and sometimes your life.

These companies continue to be allowed, even encouraged to operate this way. Everyone knows this is because they pay politicians to do nothing that might keep the profits rolling in. Everyone knows this.

Top executives who pay politicians have impunity. Everyone saw this with Wall Street, when not one Wall Street executive was prosecuted after financial fraud caused the 2008 crash. (The ‘W’ administration got more than 2600 convictions of bankers for the S&L Crisis and 1706 bankers went to prison.)

Even when government is obviously and visibly absolutely corrupted, and refuses to prosecute the most horrific, egregious crimes, giving citizens no justice and no recourse, it remains wrong to “take the law into your own hands.” 

Even when the entire system is corrupted and everyone sees executives enriching themselves at the expense of the public and the planet, and “public servants” refusing to do anything about it and then when they leave “public services” they get lavishly compensated “jobs” or “consulting fees” “speaking fees” or “book advances” or other methods of payoff, it still is wrong to “take the law into your own hands.”

HOWEVER,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

PS Trump SAID he was that, but he ain’t that.

Campaign Donations Should Be ‘Secret Santa’

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Campaign “donations” to fund politics are necessarily and obviously corrupting. Massive amounts are “donated” with the clear expectation of receiving something in return. Normally that is called “bribery” but the corrupt recipients of the bribes call it “free speech.”

And everyone knows this. Everyone sees the political finance system as corrupt. Everyone.

“Public financing” is one proposed solution. Campaign donations would be banned. Government finances political campaigns. But aside from the complexity of such a system, there are legitimate “free speech” arguments that people should be able to support candidates and parties they favor.

Secret Santa Donations

Here is an alternative that preserves “free speech.” Set up a “Secret Santa” system that prevents recipients from knowing where donations come from. You want to help a candidate or party? Fine! Sure, give all you can. But don’t expect anything in return because they won’t know where the money came from!

The point of a Secret Santa donation system is to stop the obvious bribery. So of course for this to work it must be difficult and illegal for donors to tell who they donated to and how much they gave, and for the candidates or parties to find out where money comes from.

Democracy Was Lost Decades Ago

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1) Trump got 2 million fewer votes than 2020. This election turned on the 12 million who voted for Biden in 2020 but not Harris. I guess there’s historical value in finding out why they didn’t vote. Gaza was clearly one factor in this. I’m not saying it was all Gaza but Michigan would have gone to Harris except for Gaza. This is very clear when you look at Michigan’s vote count, Fewer than 100,000 votes would have given Michigan to Harris. But this doesn’t account for the 12 million nationwide.

2) As I wrote, this was inevitable Dems have been fighting a holding action for decades, and the dam broke. I wrote about how this loss is the culmination of the long-term, strategic, billionaire/corporate-funded “Conservative Movement” plan that has played out since the 70s. The Master Plan podcast does an excellent job of showing how this played out. If you want to know what has happened, please listen to this podcast. You can’t fight that with short-term efforts at election time. The country was lost long before this election.

3) I think if there is a root of this loss during the Biden admin it was that big Build Back Better bill was split in half, with the social spending split from the infrastructure part. The Chamber of Commerce wanted the infrastructure part. Biden promised not to allow that part to pass without the other part. They passed the first part. Manchin/Sinema worked with the right to kill the social spending. Progressives refused to vote for one but not the other, then corporate Dems used that as a cudgel to defeat progressives.

That social spending was what would have made people FEEL that the economy was working for them. That’s why the Chamber got it knocked out of the bill.

4) But really it is #2, which many of us “dirty hippies” have been warning about since the early 2000s at least, trying to get ANYONE to set up a counter-effort. Democracy Alliance was an attempt…

5) I do not see a way to overcome this. The world has entered a new era of oligarchal control. Democracy was defeated some time ago. Just look at all the studies showing that literally nothing has been passed in the US without the support of the wealthy, regardless of population support.

6) If it is as bad as we think the “blue” states will have to decide their own way forward apart from the rest of the country. California and others should become countries and try to fight off what is happening.

My Prescription For The UK Economy

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This post first appeared at Imagine Democracy.

Building on Public Investment Is The Way Forward For The UK:

The first task of the new government is get people back on their feet. (And get them fed.) Fast. Send “stimulus” checks ASAP. Then inject funds into the economy through public investment, rebuilding infrastructure (including potholes). Seriously invest in rebuilding the NHS and in a big hurry. Get things moving. Fast. Big.

That will bring the return that “funds” it.

The alternative is to fail, and usher in fascism, which is happening in so many countries that refuse to “spend” on making people’s lives better.

I have spoken.

Public Investment Is The Way Forward For The UK

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This post originally appeared at Imagine Democracy.

The UK has ended an experiment in “conservative” governance. Backed by private investors, the government withdrew support for public services, public investment, public everything. They pretended “private” investment would pick up the slack. Instead and of course the wealthy staged a “bust-out” of the country. “A fraud tactic, commonly used in the organized crime world, wherein a business’ assets and lines of credit are exploited and exhausted to the point of insolvency.”

The privatized water companies are a good example of how the country was managed under conservative governance. Public assets were turned over the private “investors.” The “investors” borrowed heavily with those assets and their income stream as collateral. They paid themselves handsomely with minimal investment in maintenance and capacity. Eventually there was insufficient water supply to support increasing housing stock and raw sewage was being dumped into the country’s rivers. Of course there was no government enforcement of rules that would have prevented this – or prevented the resulting pollution. That would be labeled “interference” in the private sector.

Private investment does not provide public returns. The only interests of private investors is private return.

The Only Way Forward For UK Governance Is Public Investment

The way forward for UK governance is public investment in infrastructure, education, healthcare, services, law enforcement, addressing inequality. Investment.

Over time public investment will result in a booming economy and a prosperous public. It always does, everywhere. Look at the countries that follow this formula. The infrastructure is maintained and modern; education and healthcare are first-class, the economies prosper. The people are more equal, happier and prosperous.

Take all the propaganda labels (socialism, capitalism, neoliberalism, etc) out of this equation and look at it for what it is. PUBLIC investment pays off for the PUBLIC. Private investment only pays the already-wealthy private investors.

For The Many, Not The Few

Investment pays dividends down the road. Let the public collect those dividends.

Easier Than Governing

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This post originally appeared at Government Cheese: Chronicling the collapse of democracy

Modern society is complex, vast, complicated. Governing modern society is hard. Getting it right requires a lot of hard work doing the managing, measuring, forecasting, planning, consulting, regulating, making & enforcing rules and all that boring hippie crap. Getting the details right is difficult. All of it means attending endless meetings. The skills needed take decades to master. And it all requires dedication and commitment.

Instead Of Doing The Actual Work

US Republicans and UK Tories have found a way around doing the actual, difficult work: Just don’t do it! Problem solved!

“Conservatives” espouse “The magic of the market.” Instead of governing, why not simply “unleash” the “market” to do everything.

Kill off the rules and regulations. Fire the enforcers. Skip the planning. Cancel the meetings. Demonize the “experts.” Turn it all over to “the magic of the market.”

Above all else, nurture the “market.” Allow any entity calling itself a “corporation” to engage in any scheme that can be imagined.

So Many Good Things

Protect people from disease? The market will do that.
Protect people from fraud? The market will do that.
Make sure the food is safe? The market will do that.
Maintain and improve the standard of living? The market will do that.
Provide shelter? The market will do that.

The Invisible Hand Will Do The Work

After you have dismantled the entire governing process (“the Deep State”) you can just sit back and party while everything is taken care of by an invisible hand engaging in creative destruction. The Lord will work in mysterious ways. Disruption is the key.

It’s magic!

Cash Bonus

This approach comes with a huge bonus. “The Market” rewards those who “unleash” it.

And Here We Are

And here we are. Infrastructure falling apart. Health care systems in shambles. Education systems not educating. Etc. Etc. Etc. Everywhere you look everything in society is falling apart.

Don’t forget the big one: The planet’s climate is disintegrating and could very well wipe out society itself.

The Magic of the Market at work!

Capitalism And Privatization

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On the benefits of privatization – turning public assets over to the “private sector”:

Capitalism – “the private sector” – does not invest in the pubic interest. That is not what it is for. It exists to enrich the few “owners,” and even that only in the short term.

Everything else is propaganda to convince the public to let them get away with that.

Capitalism And ‘The Private Sector’ Aren’t What We Think They Are

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I hear a lot of “capitalism can work if it is regulated.” This misunderstands what capitalism -IS-.

Govt everywhere makes society’s decisions. In OUR system govt decided to “contract out” to the “private sector” to do lots of things. THAT is what “capitalism” is. We HIRED the private sector. We LET private capital invest, and pay them a bit of the profits as a management fee. We are the boss of them.

We are the boss of them.

We all have a misunderstanding of the relationship between government and “private” capital. We (government) ALLOW private capital to exist at all. “Regulation” is too mild a term for the relationship between government and the “private sector.” The “private sector” -IS- govt, just contracted out. The RULEs for that contract aren’t strong enough. We are the boss of them. Period.

This is about our OWN understanding of the relationship between government (us) and “private” businesses. We have lost sight of this.

See Understanding What a Corporation Actually Is Can Help Restore Democracy

Also The “Private Sector” Is Government “Contracting Out” Its Functions

The “Private Sector” Is Government “Contracting Out” Its Functions

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This was originally posted at Imagine Democracy

We live in a society, and getting things done for society is what government is for. Government is society’s way to make decisions about society’s resources, economy and future. Period. Anyone who tells you you don’t need government, or that government shouldn’t do this or that, is actually just trying to BE the government, for their own benefit.

EVERY decision about society’s resources, econony and future is made by government, one way or another. Period. Every. Single. One. Socialism, capitalism, communism, dictatorship, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy, etc are just descriptions of how that decision-making is divided up. It’s about who makes the decisions and who gets the benefits. All the “ideological” battles are really just all about keeping the public from understanding that.

In the US, supposedly a democracy where the decisions are ultimately made by “We the People,” we hear about the “public sector” and the “private sector” of our economy. What we call “the private sector” is really just the government “contracting out” the functions of managing society. Corporations are those contracts. From the recent post about corporations, Understanding What a Corporation Actually Is Can Help Restore Democracy,

We the People want to have factories to build cars or toasters. We the People could do this – build the factory, hire the managers, organize supply chains, provide insurance. etc. – ourselves but instead we have come up with corporations as a way to “contract it out” to private investors to accomplish these jobs for us.

Corporations are the contracts government makes when it “contracts out” its functions. Period. Government charters corporations to do things government doesn’t want to do itself. Those charters come with conditions and rules.

Except our currently captured government doesn’t enforce the agreements.

A Currently ‘Hot’ Example

Government contracts out money creation. We charter banking corporations to do that function of government for us. The Post Office could do that as well, but we, for various reasons, choose to let a few “capital” holders – wealthy people – do that and reap the returns.

Why Minting the Coin Is A Threat To The Established Order

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I really think the upcoming Debt Ceiling fight is going to be a turning point of some kind. The right intends to let the country default to stop “government spending.” They mean it.

Biden’s choice is to let that happen, cave like Obama did, or enforce the Constitution, which says the govt has to pay its bills.

Gimmicks

For those insisting that “Mint the Coin” as a solution to this is a “gimmick” – (as if the debt ceiling wasn’t just a gimmick) – compare that to what we do now:

Our Government Issues Currency

Our federal budget is not like a family “kitchen table” budget. We stopped using gold as our currency a long time ago. We don’t mine or “round up” money at the federal level. Our government does not get “revenue” from taxes. It does not “borrow” money, it prints it.

(In this clip economist Stephanie Kelton explains that our government does not operate like a family “kitchen table” budget):

We (representative democracy through our Congress) decide that we’re going to allocate our resources toward accomplishing something, and we issue dollars as an exchange medium toward that. There are things Congress should do along with issuing currency (which we are not doing because of neoliberalism): Make sure we allocate resources we have (allocate toward steel increasing capacity before allocating toward using more steel than we have) and tax enough to balance the distribution (tax the rich) and soak up some of those circulating dollars.

This is the modern way of understanding money: Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT.

MMT Is A Paradigm Shift

Breaking away from the idea that the federal govt operates with “kitchen table economics” is a paradigm shift. You see it completely one way (deficits, debt, govt spending are bad), and then when something clicks you can’t see it that way anymore, only the new way (MMT, govt issues currency), and then you are frustrated seeing so many getting it so wrong.

Our government issues currency. So of course we could just “mint a coin” to issue dollars to pay off bondholders. But if we did that, the most dangerous question arises: If we can just issue money to pay bondholders, why can’t we issue money to … do things that people want and need?

Shake The Foundation

Minting platinum coins with a face value of $1 trillion and depositing them with the Federal Reserve is Constitutional and solves the problem. But it brings up questions that shake the foundations of neoliberalism. If we can “mint coins” to pay bondholders, why can’t we mint coins to do things that people want and need? Instead of just relying on private capital (the rich) to make investment decisions and get things done in our economy?

So Biden can do the right thing and just … pay our bills. But then the neoliberal order breaks down. If We (through Congress) can decide to … you name it, then why are we depending on “the investor class” (capital) and “market solutions” etc to decide where to invest, allocate resources, do the planning and everything else?

PS We CAN Have Nice Things!

What Happened At Southwest Airlines Is What Is Happening To Every American Company

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Everyone please read this Facebook post “from inside Southwest.” It is spot on. It describes how the meltdown happened because the company had been stripped for two decades by executives looking for short-term profits at the expense of the company.

What it describes is not just happening at this airline, though, and not just at airlines. This is what has been happening at HOW MANY companies for a long time! But more than that, it is of a piece with what has been happening to our democracy.

All the incentives are for squeezing everything out of a company to get the appearance of profit THIS QUARTER to get the STOCK PRICE UP to get the EXECUTIVE QUARTERLY BONUS and it is all at the expense of everything else – the customers (obviously) , the suppliers, the employees, and the future of the companies.

Our government is supposed to oversee the way companies operate. They operate under RULES set up by our government.

Rather than get into the specifics of those rules, ask yourself if a government operating in the interests of the people of the country and the long-term good of the companies of the country would allow what we are seeing at SWA and so many other companies to continue? Of course not!!!
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