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One Bad Energy Subsidy Expires – NYTimes.com

7 Jan

The corn ethanol subsidy is gone. Now cut the oil subsidies and put money into renewables:

Congress should now focus on the oil industry, which has long enjoyed a web of arcane and unnecessary tax breaks — deductions for well depletion and intangible drilling costs. They are unique to the industry and, when combined with other subsidies, cost roughly $4 billion a year.

President Obama has tried twice to kill these subsidies, without success. We hope he tries again in his coming Budget Message. The Congressional Research Service says that ending the subsidies would have no effect on gas prices for consumers and only a trivial effect on industry profits, which have been at record highs.

via One Bad Energy Subsidy Expires – NYTimes.com.

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The biggest threat to Citizens United – Campaign Finance – Salon.com

6 Jan

Montana has had on its books since 1912, which was passed by citizens initiative, a law called The Corrupt Practices Act. And what The Corrupt Practices Act did is essentially said that corporations cannot make expenditures or contributions in the political system. And we got there because our history was rooted in corporate domination of elections. It was in 1906 that a paper in Montana said, “the greatest living question of the day is whether corporations shall control the people or the people shall control the corporations.” And at the time the Copper Kings as they were called, those mine (owners) that mined copper in Montana literally owned our legislature, our judges, our local county planning boards. It was all throughout and it was at one point called “the Montana situation.”

So we have a real background in the unfortunate effects of unlimited corporate expenditures in elections and as a result when Citizens United came down dealing with federal law and federal elections it wasn’t something that I wanted to just give up on the last hundred years in Montana. We defended out laws, right before New Year’s Eve the Montana Supreme Court said that our ban on corporate expenditures remains constitutional.

via The biggest threat to Citizens United – Campaign Finance – Salon.com.

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Land of (unequal) opportunity — Crooked Timber

6 Jan

A little late to the game, the NY Times has quite a good piece by Jason DeParle on the well-established finding that the US is not only the most unequal of developed societies but is also at the bottom of the scale for social mobility.

I’ve been arguing since the Triassic era of blogging that this isn’t a coincidence – a society with highly unequal outcomes can’t sustain equality of opportunity, but until this year (in fact, until the emergence of the Occupy movement) I didn’t see any evidence that the facts were sinking in, even among the majority liberals. Now it’s as if a dam has broken. Some thoughts, cautionary and otherwise over the fold.

via Land of (unequal) opportunity — Crooked Timber.

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New York City Council Votes Against Corporate Personhood, Citizens United | Truthout

5 Jan

Missoula, Montana; Boulder, Colorado; and South Miami, Florida, have all done it, but you know it’s really catching on when the Big Apple jumps on board. The New York City Council voted Wednesday to get rid of corporate personhood in a growing nationwide backlash against the much-maligned Citizens United ruling.

via New York City Council Votes Against Corporate Personhood, Citizens United | Truthout.

Panetta’s Sacred Hippopotamus | The Nation

3 Jan

Fact is, to reduce spending, major defense systems will have to end, the size of the U.S. Army and Marines will have to be dramatically reduced, enormous cuts will have to be made on salaries, pensions and health care benefits for troops and military retirees, and America’s vast worldwide system of bases oversea must be slashed. In slow-motion recognition of that fact, the Defense Department is already planning to shrink the army and Marines, and to shift planning away from land wars and counterinsurgency wars to power-projection via the air force and navy. Some of that, naturally, will be designed to build up U.S. forces in the Pacific to counter China, a fool’s errand if there ever was one – especially since China’s military is unable to do much outside its borders and lacks anything close to American technology. Far better to find a peaceful accommodation with China that recognizes Beijing’s legitimate national security interests and that doesn’t seek to sustain American hegemony in the Far East.

via Panetta’s Sacred Hippopotamus | The Nation.

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Nobody Understands Debt – NYTimes.com

2 Jan

Now, the fact that federal debt isn’t at all like a mortgage on America’s future doesn’t mean that the debt is harmless. Taxes must be levied to pay the interest, and you don’t have to be a right-wing ideologue to concede that taxes impose some cost on the economy, if nothing else by causing a diversion of resources away from productive activities into tax avoidance and evasion. But these costs are a lot less dramatic than the analogy with an overindebted family might suggest.

And that’s why nations with stable, responsible governments — that is, governments that are willing to impose modestly higher taxes when the situation warrants it — have historically been able to live with much higher levels of debt than today’s conventional wisdom would lead you to believe. Britain, in particular, has had debt exceeding 100 percent of G.D.P. for 81 of the last 170 years. When Keynes was writing about the need to spend your way out of a depression, Britain was deeper in debt than any advanced nation today, with the exception of Japan.

via Nobody Understands Debt – NYTimes.com.

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World on the verge of a nervous breakdown

31 Dec

The economies of nations are now interconnected so tightly that trouble in one place will  propagate throughout the system. There’s not enough flexibility and resilience,

The inescapable conclusion: Our modern high-tech markets, in which more money than ever before swirls around the globe in a blink of an eye, are better at transmitting panic and fear than anything heretofore created by humans. If civilization is supposed to imply progress, then something has gone very awry: In the second decade of the 21st century, our infrastructure is increasingly fragile, increasingly prone to disruption. The sword of Damocles hangs above everyone’s head, and the thread that keeps it from falling is fraying perilously thin.

What is perhaps most fascinating about this state of affairs is how it has arisen as a consequence of global capital’s relentless quest for lower operating costs and greater efficiency and flexibility. The better we get at extending supply and production chains across the globe, the more vulnerable those chains become to a disruption at any given point. The faster we enable the transmission of information around the world and through the financial markets, the more volatile those markets become, as every new headline sends a different trading signal.

via World on the verge of a nervous breakdown – Globalization – Salon.com.

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Paul’s Foreign Policy Stance Divides Many G.O.P. Voters – NYTimes.com

30 Dec

But Mr. Paul’s national security positions draw raves from many veterans, students and others who believe his noninterventionism would curtail a dangerous trend toward military adventurism and strengthen America’s influence and prestige while diverting resources to pay down the national debt. In interviews at Paul campaign events this week, many said they embraced his national security proposals, rather than reluctantly accepting them.

via Paul’s Foreign Policy Stance Divides Many G.O.P. Voters – NYTimes.com.

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Hawks who learned nothing – Salon.com

30 Dec

… let’s take a moment to remember some of the people who got the Iraq War completely wrong. This is important not only as a historical matter, but also because many of these same people are now calling for escalation against Iran, from the same perches and sinecures whence they helped get our country into Iraq. And, as former general Anthony Zinni said in regard to the consequences of a war with Iran, “If you like Iraq and Afghanistan, you’re gonna love Iran.”

via Hawks who learned nothing – Salon.com.

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Revolution Through Banking? | The Nation

27 Dec

It’s easy to list the characteristics of an ideal “Occupy” bank. Setting one up is rather harder. The legal and institutional obstacles to establishing a new (or de novo) bank are formidable and would require years of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. One alternative therefore might be for Occupy to partner with or even acquire a bank that is already established and that shares our vision. Indeed there are many small banks around the country which might be amenable—community banks, or so-called “triple bottom line” banks, which aim for community development and positive social and environmental impacts as much as profit.

Our group works on, and we are well aware that we may not succeed. But there are other groups around the country thinking about this problem: Occupy San Francisco is already setting up its own credit union. Perhaps our work will inspire someone else to set up a bank like the one we are imagining. If many attempts are made, there is a greater chance that one will succeed.

via Revolution Through Banking? | The Nation.

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