Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Corporations are people too?

Corporate Personhood is a pretty dry and obtuse subject, but it's fundamental to our broken government.

Legal scholars claim corporate personhood is required to allow corporations to enter into contracts, sue and be sued for contract violation, etc. It also simplifies tax collection from a snigle entity rather than from all persons within the corporation. All that makes sense.  

The US Supreme Court established corporate personhood in a ruling based on the 14th Amendment - an amendment that was supposed to apply to freed slaves after the Civil War. The Courts decided this concept of "personhood" could apply to corporations as well. Mystifying in retrospect. 

This metaphor of corporations as people has crept into our national consciousness (the danger of metaphors explained eloquently) and we are a weaker democracy for it. The right to free speech was granted to corporations. And campaign contributions were deemed speech - so now corporations can give enormous donations to political organizations. Far larger contributions than the average citizen can afford. 

And so corporate personhood has irrevocably corrupted our political process. All based on a metaphor. 

But Jon Stewart said something pretty enlightened the other day in an interview with Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (about the 1:35 mark). "As Mitt Romney would say, 'Corporations are people..." but they're not Americans."

And there you have it. The funadmental fallacy in the corporate personhood argument for free speech and corporate campaign financing. Corporations are not citizens of the United States. Corporations lack the right to vote. We prohibit foreign campaign contributions. Why then are corporations given outsized influence in our electoral process?

The answer, of course, is that they've already bought and paid for our government. Our president. Our representatives. Our Supreme Court. All are beholden to the powers of these corporate intersts.  

That needs to end now.  

Corporations are people too?

Corporate Personhood is a pretty dry and obtuse subject, but it's fundamental to our broken government.

Legal scholars claim corporate personhood is required to allow corporations to enter into contracts, sue and be sued for contract violation, etc. It also simplifies tax collection from a snigle entity rather than from all persons within the corporation. All that makes sense.  

The US Supreme Court established corporate personhood in a ruling based on the 14th Amendment - an amendment that was supposed to apply to freed slaves after the Civil War. The Courts decided this concept of "personhood" could apply to corporations as well. Mystifying in retrospect. 

This metaphor of corporations as people has crept into our national consciousness (the danger of metaphors explained eloquently) and we are a weaker democracy for it. The right to free speech was granted to corporations. And campaign contributions were deemed speech - so now corporations can give enormous donations to political organizations. Far larger contributions than the average citizen can afford. 

And so corporate personhood has irrevocably corrupted our political process. All based on a metaphor. 

But Jon Stewart said something pretty enlightened the other day in an interview with Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (about the 1:35 mark). "As Mitt Romney would say, 'Corporations are people..." but they're not Americans."

And there you have it. The funadmental fallacy in the corporate personhood argument for free speech and corporate campaign financing. Corporations are not citizens of the United States. Corporations lack the right to vote. We prohibit foreign campaign contributions. Why then are corporations given outsized influence in our electoral process?

The answer, of course, is that they've already bought and paid for our government. Our president. Our representatives. Our Supreme Court. All are beholden to the powers of these corporate intersts.  

That needs to end now.  

Monday, September 26, 2011

OccupyWallStreet - 9/24 @ University & 12th

I'm not sure how or when exactly, but I was made aware of the plan to occupy Wall Street sometime before last Saturday's occupation by a group simply calling itself #OccupyWallStreet - a handy twitter hashtag that makes use of the social media site to keep each other informed and organized. You can also stay informed via their webiste (OccupyWallStreet.org)

It started off innocuously enough last Saturday with a few hundred people decending on Liberty Plaza to stage a sit-in at Zuccotti Park. The occupation entered its 2nd week yesterday and up until then it had met with little controversy - a few daily arrests by the growing police presence around the park and a couple of videoed confrontations between police and protesters. 

There'd also been little press coverage and there had been the claim that the corporate controlled media was intentionally ignoring the protest in hopes it would dissipate without their attention. My personal belief is that the protests were too small and new to draw media attention. The group is also truly grassroots, having started in the forums of adbusters.com. They don't have the deep pockets and media presence of the tea party, because they haven't had the support of insiders who could get the word out easiliy. Instead they have relied on their own media efforts. That's probably the right approach, but the lack of media attention was clearly frustrating to the organizers. 

All of that changed yesterday.

On Saturday, September 24th, around noon several thousand people began a march from Zuccotti Park to ... well, the destination didn't appear to be entirely clear - but the people began marching. The police, with the advantage of motorized transport and coordinated radio communications were able to stay one step ahead of the protesters and made the march very difficult to follow as the group zig-zagged through lower Manhattan, eventually arriving at Union Square. 

Union Square is where I caught up with the marchers having chased them uptown along their route, always a few blocks behind. And in Union Square, that's where things got surreal. 

The police blocked the marchers from heading East out of ths square, so the protesers switched to Southwest, streaming across 14th Street and around police fencing that had been set up to pen them in. We followed down University - behind a mass of probably 30-40 police officers who were following several hundred marchers.

Upon reaching 12th & University things got real. At least a dozen people were arrested, two women were pepper sprayed by an overzealous NYPD officer. One protester was bleeding from a head wound. A woman was shoved to the ground by an officer dragging an arrested protester away. All of the violence was instigated by the NYPD. The protesters remained peaceful throughout. Agitated once the police began using violence, no question, but at no time did I see a protester initiatve a physical altercation with a police officer. 

A block away another 50+ protesters were arrested while sitting peacefully on the sidewalk - where they'd been told to sit by the police. Including a PBS reporter who was trying to interview one of the women who was pepper sprayed. 

 

To see my photos from the altercation at University & 12th Street in Manhattan.

The unclear part of this whole thing, to me, is why didn't the police simply allow the protesters to return to Zuccotti Park? Why the show of force? What are they afraid of? 

I'm deeply ashamed to see such indiscriminate force used against peaceful proteters in my city. This isn't supposed to happen in the United States. Since when is it okay for the authorities to deny our citizens their first amendement rights? 

I attended this march mostly out of curiosity. Now I'm engaged. Word is that thousands of others have been similarly outraged and are now flooding the park with support and plenty of new activists. These are our children, our friends, our neighbors out there putting their freedom at risk for our country. You should too. 

Friday, September 16, 2011

Tired of High Gas Prices? Blame Wall Street.

[[posterous-content:pid___0]]

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the man I'd most like to be president, wrote an editorial in The Washington Post about oil speculation. 

Now I get the point of commodity futures trading. A transportation company can buy oil futures to in effect gaurantee that they won't spend more than they futures price for any oil they buy in the time period they speculate about. While sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, at least they get a set price so they can budget, figure out their fees, etc. It's a positive development to reduce volatlity in the prices of plane tickets, train tickets, bus tickets, shipping, and other big users of transportation. That provides stability to the markets so it's worthwhile.

There's just one problem. Oil futures trading no longer reflects the bets of transportation companies, but rather then bets of Wall Street speculators who work together to artificially push up the price of oil futures in order to turn a profit. And of course, who pays the difference? We do. Average citizens pay higher prices for goods that are transported, for plane tickets, for heating oil, for all sorts of things that are sensitive to movement in the energy markets.   

How big is the speculation? To quote Senator Sanders:

Goldman Sachs alone bought and sold more than 860 million barrels of oil in the summer of 2008 with no intention of using a drop for any purpose other than to make a quick buck

Aware of the rampant speculation, Congress has chosen to do nothing. As per usual. 

Of, by, and for the people, right? 

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Sobering Statistics

14 million able bodied Americans are out of work. That's a robust 9.1%. It's worst in Nevada (12.9%) and California (12.0%). It's 10% or above in 8 other states plus the District of Columbia. 

As if that news weren't sobering enough, the U.S. Census Bureau released their annual report Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States (2010).  

46 million Americans now live in poverty, an addition of 2.6 million impoverished since last year's count. That's 15.1% of all Americans live in poverty. 15.1%. That's more than 1 in 7 Americans. 

50 million Americans are without health care coverage. That's 16.3%, or nearly 1 in 6 Americans. 

Nationally, median household incomes have declined -2.3% since last year, or $1,154 per family. 

The Congressional response to these trends in employment, income, poverty, and lack of healthcare coverage is startling. Slash federal spending, push to reduce benefits from entitlement programs, challenge legality of the health care reform law, all while steadfastly refusing to raise taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations in order to cover the revenue gap. 

Our country is hurting ... badly. And Congress is more interested in protecting special interests than in helping our citizens weather this storm. Shame on them. And shame on us for electing them. 

Voters get what they deserve. 

 

 

Friday, September 9, 2011

President Obama Steps Up

Whether you think President Obama has been a disappointment (liberals) or is out to destroy America (conservatives), he stepped up last night with his jobs speech

He proposed a plan in which he'd:

1. Put construction workers back to work with direct investment in infrastructure, particularly roads, bridges, airports, railways, and schools. Huge and much needed investment that would greatly help one of the hardest hit job sectors. 

2. Put teachers back to work in the classroom so our kids can get an adequate education. Given the systematic GOP effort to destroy teacher's unions, I don't think this will be popular. 

3. Create tax incentives for businesses to hire the long-term unemployed. Not sure if the incentive ($4,000 per new employee) is strong enough, but it can't hurt, but it's a tax break so the GOP will love it. 

4. Develop a jobs program for veterans. After they've risked their lives for our country, they shoudln't have to fight for a job when they get back. 

5. Create incentives for companies to innovate here and keep jobs here. 

6. Extend unemployment benefits again. Probably the least popular idea of the night for the Republicans in the room, except for .... 

7. Pay for this by eliminating tax loopholes and having the rich pay their fair share. 

 

Predictably, Rand Paul's response was hyper-critical of the president and devoid of any ideas. After briefly blaming the president for the current economy, he gets on his deficit reduction horse, which is completely comical. He then lays out 5 ideas:

1. Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. How this creates jobs is anyone's guess outside of teaville. It's also an absolutely moronic idea since deficit spending actually increases growth when our interest rate on our debt is so absurdly low.

2. "The Penny" Plan. Cut federal spending by 1% per year for 6 years and then freeze spending for 2 years. At this point, according to his math, the deficit will be eliminated. But about 30% of the GDP is government spending, so a 1% reduction would put a 0.3% drag on GDP. At 6 years that would be a full 2% drag on GDP. Great idea, huh?

3. Half the Corporate Income Tax & Eliminating Capital Gains Taxes (So Warren Buffett would pay ZERO taxes). As I've previously explained, corporate income taxes do not affect jobs. A lower corporate income tax actually incentivizes thrift by corporations. 

4. Regulatory Moratorium. No new regulations (apparently ever). And repeal one regulation every week until the economy starts recovering. Yes it might help, because we could start raping the environment at wll, which would certainly create jobs. So in other words, get ready for an unsafe environment, unsafe roads, unsafe food, unsafe drugs. What an insipid "idea". Fortunately, most Americans and most of Congress aren't as stupid. 

 5. Entitlement Reform. So I guess this spells out how he's planning on achieving a "Penny" Plan. On the backs of retirees, the unemployed, and the ill.

Nice work, Senator. Give huge tax breaks to the wealthy and screw the rest of us. 

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Warm Green Tea?

Thanks to The Economist for summarizing this Yale University data about climate change skepticism by political affiliation

20110910_woc571

It seems that compared to Democrats, Independents, and Republicans, the Tea Party is:

  • Least likely to beleive in Global Warming
  • Most likely to believe they are "very informed" about Global Warming
  • Most likely to believe they need no more information about Global Warming

I think what's striking is the size of the differences here. 

~50% of Tea Partiers don't believe in global warming compared to just 30% of Republicans (and <15% of Independents/Democrats). 

~30% of Tea Partiers consider themselves "very informed" compared to <10% of any other affiliation. 

>50% of Tea Partiers think they have all the information they need to make an informed judgment about Global Warming compared to ~20% for all other affiliations. 

So not are they ignorant about Global Warming, they are convinced they know more than anyone else.

It would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic. 

 

Screwflation!

I just had to give kudos to hedgie Doug Kass for coining the term "Screwflation" .... granted, he first defined the term back in June, but since I do everything I can to avoid reading mainstream financial pages, I missed it until now. 

Nevertheless, it's brilliant and exactly reflects why the current economic downturn is so troubling and troublesome. 

To use his own words: 

In the 1970s, when growth was stagnant and inflation was high, economists spoke of "stagflation." Four decades later, there's another threat to a sustainable trajectory of economic and corporate profit growth. It's "screwflation," which combines inflation with the screwing of the struggling middle class. Like stagflation, screwflation also threatens the general health and valuation of the U.S. stock market.

 

While the U.S. economy, in real terms, has more than doubled in the past 30 years and corporate profits will soon attain a new peak, median real wages have made little recent progress, and surging food and energy prices (among other cost pressures) now eat up middle-class incomes. Moreover, the lost decade of flat stock prices and an unprecedented four years of declining home prices have further weakened the confidence and purchasing power of the middle-class screwees.

The structural weakness in the labor market also makes this cycle unusual, and far worse for many, long-term, than the downturns of the 1970s. Unemployment has exacerbated screwflation's impact on all but the wealthiest Americans.

 

So we have structural weakness in the labor market and a plutonomy dominating the profit taking and wealth accumluation.

What he doesn't say, of course, is that we've also got a radical right committed to preventing the government from doing anything about it. Instead, they're committed to eroding worker's rights (further hurting labor), slashing budgets for safety net programs (further hurting labor), and deregulating industries (further helping the pluotocrats).  

Thursday, September 1, 2011

AZ-GOP raffles Glock in Giffords District

In perhaps the most insenstive move in the history of U.S. politics, the Pima County GOP is having a raffle for a glock pistol in the district of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. As you know, Rep. Giffords was shot in the head in January 2011 with ... a glock. 

Here's the image from the PDF in case the assholes have the good sense to take down the flyer. 

Glockraffle

The GOP Hates Free Elections

Rolling Stone reports the GOP has been making a big push to disenfranchise voters leading up to the 2012 elections. They use the myth of widespread voter fraud as a justification, but it would be hard to determine exactly how most of these would reduce the nearly nonexistent fraud. 

Rock_the_vote_300

- Creating Barriers to Voter Registration. In Florida a voting drive organization can be subject to $1,000 fine and criminal charges if they do not turn in the required paperwork within 48 hours of obtaining the voter registration. Why in a "free" democracy would a state make it harder to get citizens to register? Because as Republicans themselves have admitted, when voters turn out in great numbers, Republicans lose their ability to win elections.

- Reducing Early Voting Opportunities. Several states have reduced the duration of early voting and in both Ohio & Florida, it is now illegal to vote early on the Sunday before the election. Why? Because that's the day black churches mobilize their members to be active particpants in our democratic process. And, of course, African Americans are more likely to vote Democratic.  

- Photo ID Requirements. This is a red herring issue, because federal law already requires a photo ID, but in several states they are making the ID requirement even more strict than federal law. Why? Students and minorities are less likely to have proper photo IDs (in Texas university student IDs don't qualify) and are more likely to vote Democratic.

- Disenfranchisement of Former Convicts. Several states have overturned laws allowing ex-cons to vote. Why should they be denied their right as a citizen if they've already paid their debt to society? Because they tend to vote Democratic. 

This is systematic crminal activity on the part of the GOP as they attempt to deny American citizens the right to vote. And yet they dress it in the defense of freedom. 

Remember, Rock the Vote. Love the Little Guy.

 

Updated Blog

I'm sure you've noticed the new format. The black with graffiti was wearing on me.

I've also begun using this site for my blog posts (http://egalitarian.posterous.com/), but they are  automatically posted to this link a well so no need to update your browser unless you'd like to. Also, all of the old posts from this blog have been moved over there so one stop shopping is available on either site.

I've also decided to change the format a bit - I'm going to be posting short commentaries on recent articles rather than longer explorations of topics - more of a news aggregator for progressive political issues than a soap box for my beliefs.

I may go back to the longer posts periodically when something really gets me riled up, but I think more shorter posts will be more useful than infrequent longer posts.

CEOs making more than companies paying in taxes?

A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies finds that the 25 of the top firms in the U.S. paid their CEOs more, and spent more in lobbying, than they paid in taxes to the federal government. At a time when tax revenue is very low and we face massive deficits that are being used to erode protections for the poor and middle class, we've got cash flush corporations dodging taxes, lobbying for new tax loopholes, and paying their CEOs a king's ransom for their tax evasion. The plutonomy continues unabated and much of our country blames poor people for the state of affairs.