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Shades of Bush v. Gore

Monday, June 30, 2014

Well, we knew this was coming. Corporations are not only people, they have religions, and their right to practice that religion trumps the rights of their employees.

Except, maybe not.

When I was in law school I learned, or thought I learned, that when a court, particularly an appellate court, ruled on a case, it was implicitly ruling on like cases as well; i.e., offering guidances to other courts as to how a similar case should be decided. But that was jurisprudence from the 20th, 19th, 18th, 17th, 16, 15th, 14th, 13th, 12th, and 11th century. Times have changed.

Some might have thought that Bush v. Gore was an anomaly. In that case, you will recall, the court announced a new rule of 14th Amendment jurisprudence, but hastened to add that it only applied in the case at hand, and no one should presume that the rationale of the decision should ever be applied in any other case. (The truth is that the lawless decision in Bush v. Gore might, if followed in other contexts, have led to decisions with which our right wing genetic relatives would be distinctly uncomfortable.) But the new jurisprudence is now firmly embedded (to the extent anything can be considered embedded in the context of a court that lacks all intellectual honesty), for how else can one interpret this quote, culled from the Hobby Lobby decision:

This decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to mean that all insurance mandates, that is for blood transfusions or vaccinations, necessarily fail if they conflict with an employer's religious beliefs.

No indeed, for there is a distinction between contraceptives and vaccinations, in that men get vaccinations. I haven't read the entire decision, but I'm morally certain that the five male authors would go on to explain that the courts must distinguish between medical devices and procedures that the state has a compelling interest in fostering, and those in which its interest is less than compelling. It just so happens that the only medical procedures or devices that are less than compelling are those that primarily affect women. Funny about that.

But, perhaps I am wrong. In the interests of total fairness, I would venture to say that if the proper case came along, even this Supreme Court would feel the need to be somewhat consistent, so if any religiously inclined employer feels compelled to deprive its male employees of Viagra, the five flaccid old men on the court would probably reluctantly allow it. After all, they have government provided insurance, so, like their other rulings (think buffer zones around abortion clinics and around the Supreme Court) it won't affect them.

Oh, wait, after writing this, I see I was wrong about something. The court did find that the government had a compelling interest in providing contraceptive coverage, it just wasn't compelling enough.

Filed in Equal Justice | | Comments (1)

Yet another book report

Friday, June 27, 2014

For a number of reasons, blogging has been infrequent here lately. I offer my humble apologies for depriving the world of my reactions to such events as the Cochran victory. Amazingly, the world appears to be getting on, but I know how much I've been missed.

In those snatches of time I've had available to me, I have managed to read James K. Galbraith's The Predator State. It's not a new book, but it's well worth reading. The subtitle tells much about the basic theme:

How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too

The last book I reviewed on this illustrious blog was Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century. The contrast between the two books puts me in mind of an aphorism that I first heard applied to Jefferson and Hamilton back in my college days:

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing., first uttered, apparently by a Greek philosopher named Archilochus. Jefferson was the hedgehog by the way.

The “but” in the quote implies that the hedgehog's knowledge is somehow superior, but one must question that. There's something to be said for knowing a lot of little things, since if you know but one big thing, you tend to be led astray if you run into a situation where you come up against something new. And again, if I had to bet, I'd guess that the fox is more able to think his way out of a fix than a hedgehog.

Anyway, back to my book report. The one big thing that Piketty knows, at least for purposes of his book, is that inequality is growing and it's inherited wealth that we most must fear. That is a very big thing, and it is well worth documenting, even though most of us foxes knew it instinctively, though we might not have had the data on hand to prove it.

But Galbraith's book is about many little things, though there is an overarching theme, and it should be required reading for every Democratic politician, and every Democrat for that matter. The overarching theme is that Republicans have propagated a meme to the effect that “free markets” are the answer to all questions. The corollary to this is the equally evidence free assertion that governments are always and everywhere incompetent to do anything that a private actor with his snout to the trough offers to do in its stead. They have created an environment in which any deviation from “free market” ideology in our public discourse is easily squelched. Liberal politicians (if not liberals themselves) have, after years of being beaten with this stick, largely bought into the premise that the role of government is to enable markets to do their magic. They are afraid to utter the obvious truth that “free markets” don't always work, and, in many areas, don't even exist. Meanwhile, while conservatives pay lip service to free markets they have abandoned the idea in practice. The system they have created consists of rent seeking and diversion of money from the general populace to the corporations. An example: Free market ideology suggests that a purchaser in bulk (think Walmart) can negotiate for lower prices. And, that's precisely what Walmart does (See also, Amazon). But the government has, at the behest of conservatives, tied its own hands when it comes to the Medicare prescription drug benefit. The drug companies get retail prices for their goods, thus transferring our money to the drug companies in a way that should shock free market ideologues. But, surprisingly, it doesn't. And, of course, there's the implied government guaranty of “too big to fail” banks, that Republicans are so eager to protect.

Fox that he is, Galbraith gives multiple examples of the ways in which the “free market” is anything but, and goes on to give examples of instances in which modern Democrats feel compelled to find solutions to social problems that are “market based”. The book was written before Obamacare, but it makes an obvious point that, despite the “success” of that program, cannot be denied: that any market based (i.e., insurance company subsidizing) approach to the provision of health care will be more expensive and less efficient than one simply provided by the government. In the case of health care he makes the same point that I've made on occasion: that the basic math of insurance is well known, that there are no efficiencies that can be introduced into the system by “competition”, and that the only innovations that today's insurance companies can possibly come up with would involve new ways of rejecting claims, and that a “market based” health care system amounts merely to a government subsidy to insurance companies and their overpaid CEOs..

Altogether he makes a powerful case for looking at issues from a new perspective, which is really an old liberal perspective of believing that there are some things government can do better than the private sector; indeed there are some things the private sector can't do at all without sinking into the type of corruption we see in our big banks and other entities such as the nascent charter school industry and for-profit colleges, which leads me, as a coda, to take note of this story in today's Times:

A decade ago, Corinthian Colleges was a Wall Street darling — a company that seemed to be able to coin money from the federal government and from desperate students. Now it is on the brink of collapse.

You may have never heard of Corinthian, but it is a principal beneficiary of federal student loans, taking in $1.4 billion a year from the government. It operates schools under the names Heald, Everest and WyoTech. A week ago it said it would be unable to finance its operations past the end of this month and disclosed that the Education Department had slowed the flow of federal money, pointing to what it said was admitted fraud at Corinthian in reporting both grades and job placements. But Corinthian persuaded the department to keep pumping in federal money, at least temporarily.

The department initially said it would hold up funding of student loans for as long as 21 days to give it time to check on whether the students were eligible for the loans. Corinthian responded that such a delay would be fatal and damage its 72,000 students on 107 campuses. It said its finances were so perilous that it could not operate for more than a few days without an inflow of cash.

Even before the government action, Corinthian had violated covenants on loans from Bank of America, leading the bank to reduce the amount it could borrow and to demand faster repayment. While the company’s financial statements showed it had a sizable net worth, a chief asset was the money it would save on taxes on future profits because of past losses, and it has been forced to write off much of that asset. Other assets included money owed by students who had already defaulted on their loans.

Confronted with warnings it would be responsible for hurting so many students, the department blinked. In negotiations over the last weekend, it agreed to pump in an immediate $16 million, with more expected to follow, even though Corinthian has not provided many of the documents the department demanded months ago.

via The New York Times

Those 72,000 students would be better off if the Department stuck to its guns. In any event, Corinthian College is yet another example of “market based” businesses whose true business plan involves diverting taxpayer money into its coffers while providing a “service” that could never survive in a real free market and which is far better delivered by non-profits or public institutions. To date, no one has ever accused a for-profit school of providing a quality education.

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How to run an Empire

Monday, June 23, 2014

 

Senator Tim Johnson says we can't afford to provide good health care to vets:

 

. Johnson said that he couldn’t support the bill because of its cost—$35 billion the first two years and $50 billion per year after that, according to a preliminary estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

This is the same Sen. Johnson who said in a recent MSNBC interview that the current crisis in Iraq was caused because President Obama was not forceful enough about keeping troops in the country when the war ended. I am sure he would have found the money for that. I wonder if Senator Johnson would whine about the costs of the VA if just one of his three children had spent a year or more in some godforsaken hellhole like Afghanistan or Iraq.

 

via Daily Kos

Well, I hate to disagree with a Kosite, but Senator Johnson is right. In the entire history of the world, has there ever been a self respecting empire that wasted money on the men it chewed up and spit out to impose its will on its imperial subjects?

 

One of the reasons the U.S. has been unsuccessful at Empire is our insistence on paying lip service to democratic values and providing our soldiers with some modicum of economic security after we throw them away. Here's the proper way for an empire to operate:

 

 

Now, you didn't see the Romans providing medical care or benefits to their retired veterans, or the British either, when they were on top of their game. Let's face it, the British empire began its decline when the British Navy got rid of the cat'o'nine tails.

 

So, if you want to run an Empire right, ask yourself WWTRD (What would the Romans Do?). Senator Johnson could answer that question for you, and in suggesting we follow their example he's only doing his best to make sure our Empire is as long lasting and powerful as its predecessors. Of course, there was that inevitable decline, happening much faster here than in Roman times, but while times were good nobles like Johnson did very well indeed.

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Pigs fly

Saturday, June 21, 2014

There are moments in our national discourse that the narrative seems to change, and there are even moments when sanity, or as close to sanity as we can get, appears to have a chance of prevailing. We may have reached such a moment in the reaction to the reaction of the neo-cons to the events currently taking place in Iraq, events that war opponents predicted before the war even started.

A question is being asked of these people that they have never been asked before: “Why should we listen to you now, when you've been wrong about everything in the past?” This is a stunning development in a culture in which being wrong is usually a path to career advancement, no matter how many dead bodies one leaves in one's wake.

A slight diversion now, but I will get back to my point. I have always assumed that the people on Fox are smarter than the people they play on television. They are amply rewarded for saying very silly and stupid things, but, so far as I know, aren't required to believe anything they say. After all, they can turn on a dime anytime it suits the anti-Obama purpose, so intellectual honesty, not to mention consistency, is not a job requirement. Nonetheless, they know from whence their paychecks come, and what they are being paid to do (hint: journalism optional). So, it is always a surprise when one of them strays off the reservation. When one does it two times (three if you count a takedown of convicted criminal Dinesh D'Souza), it starts one must take notice.

So, to get back to my main point, it is more than emblematic of the media's extraordinary somewhat turnabout that Megyn Kelly, called out Dick Cheney, John Bolton, and D'Souza last week, while other somewhat journalists were piling onto Wolfowitz and others. Since she did it three times, it must be true. You can watch the video of Cheney here. Dick looks like a deer caught in the headlights about to get shot in the face. Remember, these guys are used to getting a free ride on Fox. They go on Fox precisely because they will not be asked the very obvious questions that Kelly put to Cheney. It's such an ironclad rule that Cheney may well have an action against Fox for breach of contract. I love when he insists that he wasn't wrong about weapons of mass destruction in spite of the fact that he was wrong about weapons of mass destruction because all his friends agreed with him at the time.

Why did Kelly slip the leash (at least for a while, she starts throwing softballs near the end)? It would be interesting to know. I'm not buying her claim that she's not an ideologue. That might very well be true, but most days she plays one on television. Has she had some sort of life altering experience? A crisis of conscience in which she realized that what she does has corrosive effects in the real world; that, in short, it matters? Perhaps someone she cared about (she probably does care about some people) was killed in Iraq. It would be interesting to know. Unfortunately, this media pushback on Iraq is likely to be an anomaly; fruit so low hanging that even Megyn Kelly can't resist. But, there's always hope.

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License to cheat

Friday, June 13, 2014

The New York Times reports that the financial industry is upset that the Labor Department is considering making it illegal for them to cheat people out of their retirement savings.

Amid fierce pushback from the financial services industry, the Labor Department, which oversees retirement plans, recently delayed releasing a revised proposal that would require a broader group of professionals to put their clients’ interest ahead of their own when dealing with their retirement accounts. The department said it would release the proposed rule in January, according to its regulatory agenda, instead of this August. (Phyllis C. Borzi of the Labor Department, had signaled that it could miss the deadline.)

“They have really been stymied by the financial industry, which is spending millions of dollars to fight this rule,” said Karen Friedman, executive vice president and policy director at the Pension Rights Center, a nonprofit consumer group. “All the Labor Department is trying to do is modernize a rule that is out of date.”

The agency is trying to amend a 1975 rule, part of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, known as Erisa, which outlines when investment advisers become fiduciaries — the eye-glazing legal term describing brokers who must put their customers’ interests first. The rules are stricter for fiduciaries who handle consumers’ tax-advantaged retirement money compared to fiduciaries under federal securities law.

But it is easy to avoid becoming a fiduciary under Erisa, consumer advocates say, because brokers must first meet a five-part test before they are required to follow the higher standard: If the advice is provided on a one-time basis, for instance, the rule does not apply. On top of that, the consumer and the broker must also “mutually agree” that the advice was the main reason for the investment decision.

They'll probably win this round; they always do. This brought to mind some cases I've had involving ERISA where this same industry adamantly maintains that it is a fiduciary.

For reasons I won't go into, employee's medical and disability benefits are subject to ERISA. The perverse, and I think unintended, consequence of this is that the administrators of the retirement plans-and this responsibility is often offloaded onto insurance companies- are considered “fiduciaries” when they decide whether an employee is or is not disabled.

Now, in the ordinary case of a privately purchased disability policy, the insured has certain advantages. If he or she is denied coverage, he or she can sue. The judge or jury will then decide the issue, and any ambiguity in the policy is construed in favor of the insured.

Enter ERISA. Because the insurance companies are considered “fiduciaries” of the employees retirement plan, their decisions prevail unless they have “abused their discretion”. In other words, instead of a tie going to the insured, as in the regular case, the umpire has to call the insured out in an ERISA case as long as the insurance company doesn't throw the ball out of the park.

Now, a few judges took the position that this couldn't possibly be the rule where the insurance companies had a built in conflict because their own money was on the line. So they ruled that the “abuse of discretion” rule applied only when the company was administering a plan funded by the employer, rather than a policy in which the employer merely paid premiums, and the company paid the benefits.

But the Supreme Court would have none of that. We must, it ruled, leave no employee un-screwed. The insurance companies maintained their fiduciary status, despite the obvious conflict, though the conflict could be considered as a factor in deciding whether the company had abused its discretion. But that requires proof that the conflict was a factor in the decision, something it is almost impossible to prove in any given case.

So now we have the same type of scum running from fiduciary status when it suits their needs. No doubt our Supreme Court will oblige them if the Labor Department won't.

Filed in Corporate Crime | | Comments (0)

Another take on Cantor

Thursday, June 12, 2014

There's been a lot of speculation about why Eric Cantor went down in flames. The basic reason may be the main: the man is an asshole. But I'm persuaded by this view that this is the argument that clinched the deal with the voters:

But there’s no question that conservative economics professor David Brat succeeded in channeling a strain of right-wing populism to target Cantor, and plausibly so, as a corporate stooge and progenitor of crony capitalism. Lee Fang at Republic Report did the most thorough work on this:

“All of the investment banks, up in New York and D.C., they should have gone to jail.”
That isn’t a quote from an Occupy Wall Street protester or Senator Elizabeth Warren. That’s a common campaign slogan repeated by Dave Brat, the Virginia college professor who scored one of the biggest political upsets in over a century by defeating Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the Republican primary last night […]
Brat told Internet radio host Flint Engelman that the “number one plank” in his campaign is “free markets.” Brat went on to explain, “Eric Cantor and the Republican leadership do not know what a free market is at all, and the clearest evidence of that is the financial crisis … When I say free markets, I mean no favoritism to K Street lobbyists.” Banks like Goldman Sachs were not fined for their role in the financial crisis — rather, they were rewarded with bailouts, Brat has said.
Brat, who has identified with maverick GOP lawmakers like Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, spent much of the campaign slamming both parties for being in the pocket of “Wall Street crooks” and D.C. insiders. The folks who caused the financial crisis, Brat says, “went onto Obama’s rolodex, the Republican leadership, Eric’s rolodex.”
In particular, Brat took aim at Cantor’s work on the STOCK Act, which was prompted by a conservative economist who found major stock gains from members of Congress and staffers in industries where they had inside knowledge. Cantor openly watered down the STOCK Act before passage. If you’re trying to paint your opponent as a corporatist who looks out for himself and his buddies over his constituents, this would top the list.

The oft-repeated claim that Brat won by framing Cantor as somehow pro-immigration (which comes from a couple off-hand remarks and not any real actions) actually goes together with this. Brat made an economic argument on immigration about how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wants to import cheap labor to take away “your” jobs. This has a nativist element to it, and it was certainly used as a rallying cry by right-wing radio talk show hosts. But even when Brat says that immigration won the race for him, he says it in terms of Cantor “supporting the U.S. Chamber agenda.” The key ad on this showed Cantor in a picture with Facebook’s Marc Zuckerberg. It’s all coherent with the idea of Cantor as handing corporate America whatever they want.

…

I hope we can agree that Brat’s campaign strategy of playing on the resentments of a handful of voters who aren’t getting by in this economy means nothing for the policies he’ll actually pursue. Given Brat’s ideological leanings, he will probably react to regulatory capture and Wall Street corruption by arguing that financial institutions need to be freed from burdensome government oversight and have the market discipline any untoward behavior.

Via Naked Capitalism

A few days ago I noted a similar phenomenon in Europe. There, as here, the right plays on working and middle class (actually everyone but the .01%) resentments with no intention of actually addressing the root causes of the problems once they get in. In fact, Brat's “libertarian” philosophy would only exacerbate the problem. But here, as in Europe, the allegedly left party (and yes, that would be the Democrats) has neither attempted to capitalize on those resentments or do anything about them. In fact, the party is almost apologetic about backing programs like Social Security, which at least provide minimal protections against the predations of Wall Street.

The Democrats appear to be figuring that Hillary will skate into office in 2016, and that the country will be safe in her corporatist hands for four to eight years. That may, in fact, be what happens in 2016, but it may just be putting off the inevitable day when the right will capitalize on Democratic inaction by sweeping into power. They already control the courts, and Pat Leahy is making sure that won't change. Come 2020 they'll no doubt steal some more states through gerrymandering, since the Democrats historically lose big in years ending in zero. (Funny about that). It is more likely to happen in Europe, but it can happen here.

Filed in Creeping Totalitarianism, Republicans | | Comments (0)

Krugman, wishful thinking, and the fall of the House of Cantor

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

I don't normally take issue with Paul Krugman, and I heartily wish I could buy into his take on the Cantor defeat, but I don't think the evidence is there:

In other words, being a hard line conservative, which to be fair involved some career risks back in the 60s and into the 70s, became a safe choice; you could count on powerful backing, and if not favored by fortune, you could fall back on wingnut welfare.

And Eric Cantor, who got into politics long after the Reagan revolution and for the most part made his career post Gingrich, came across very much as a movement conservative apparatchik. He took very hard line stances, but never seemed especially passionate; he was, arguably, basically a careerist, and as such was fairly typical.

Maybe that’s what the primary voters sensed.

Whatever the reason, it turns out that being a movement conservative apparatchik is no longer a safe career choice. This is a very big deal. Conservatives, as I said, will always be with us. But the structure that shaped them into a cohesive movement is now starting to unravel, at a time when movement progressivism — which is much less cohesive and much less lucrative, but nonetheless now exists in a way it didn’t 15 years ago — is on the rise.

via Conscience of a Liberal

We'll probably find that there were local reasons for Cantor's fall, but the fact of his fall does not bode ill for movement conservatism, or even for Cantor. He will be on wingnut welfare as soon as he leaves office, so there's no change there. He will make more money than he did as a Congressman; or at least he will make more money legally than he did. He will be replaced by a man who will be as subservient to the puppet masters as was Cantor, assuming the Republican wins. The puppets may change, but the people pulling the strings remain the same, and as long as the puppets perform to their liking, the show will go on.

I note that a number of commenter's on Krugman's website have made the same point.

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Just another day

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

There was another school shooting yesterday; this time in Oregon.

Mass shootings have now become such a regular event that it takes something special to get them on the front page. The Arizona shooters made it, but they had to work on it. Maybe it was draping that “Don't tread on me” flag on their victims.

As these events become routine the response becomes more and more predictable. The act is dismissed as that of a mentally unstable individual, and no attention is paid to the fact that he or she (usually he, but we just had a she) would have been unable to wreak such havoc were not the technological means of wreaking so easily obtained.

The NRA has won, not by diminishing the number of such incidents, but by creating conditions that make them so commonplace that we don't give them a second thought. Hey, shit happens-what are you gonna do?

The only thing likely to change this is if someone brings a gun to the Supreme Court and starts spraying. But, of course, our “Second Amendment rights” are not operative in those hallowed halls.

Filed in American Life | | Comments (0)

Charter School Madness

Monday, June 9, 2014

The swine belly up to the trough:

Tax benefits and real estate investment may also explain why Wall Street is so hot on raising money for charter schools. On Monday night, April 28, 2014, hundreds of Wall Streeters gathered at Cipriani in Midtown Manhattan to raise funds for Success Academy Charter Schools. Former Florida Governor and GOP presidential contender Jeb Bush gave the keynote address. The dinner was chaired by hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb. Loeb is the founder of Third Point LLC and chairman of the board for Success Academy. The gala raised at least $7.75 million for Success Academy. Also attending were Kyle Bass of Hayman Capital Management, Joel Greenblatt of Gotham Asset Management, Boaz Weinstein of Saba Capital, John Paulson of Paulson & Co. and Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater USA.

According to The New York Times, the ten highest paid hedge fund operators with close ties to charter schools also includes David Tepper (number 1 at $3.5 billion in 2013), founder of founder of Appaloosa Management and New Jersey based “Better Education for Kids”; Steven A. Cohen (number 2 at $2.4 billion) of SAC Capital Advisors, which was forced to pay a $1.2 billion dollar penalty for insider trading, who has given over $10 million to the Achievement First charter school network; and Paul Tudor Jones II (tied for tenth at $600 million), founder of the Tudor Investment Corporation who has supported charter schools through his Robin Hood Foundation.

via Huffington Post

We will inevitably be paying tribute (in the oldest sense of that word) to Wall Street to educate our kids to be compliant serfs. It's already happening:

One month ago Dr. Steve Ingersoll and his wife Deborah were both charged with several counts of fraud, including defrauding Chemical Bank, the United States and tax evasion by a federal grand jury. The optometrist and wife team, along with his brother and another couple who owned a construction company engaged in a dizzy dance of money transfers and check writing to each other that eventually moved most of a business loan for renovating a church into a school in Bay City, Michigan, into Steve Ingersoll’s personal bank account. The reason for doing this appears to be avoiding paying taxes, and also covering up for money paid by him to him through advances taken from Grand Traverse Academy’s school funds, another charter school managed by Ingersoll.

…

Steve Ingersoll embodies the most glaring problem with charter schools in Michigan; too much taxpayer money being siphoned into management companies with very little oversight and for very poor returns. Bay City Academy did very poorly in achievement scores compared to other school districts in Bay City. Parents and politicians need to reconsider whether charter schools really offer an alternative for better education. What is mostly being revealed about the people who start and manage charter schools is it’s a quick way to make money at taxpayer expense. Public Schools have always been the better investment for educating Michigan’s children, and it’s time to put our money back into the institution dedicated to education rather than profits.

via Daily Kos

Once they get their snouts in, it's almost impossible to get them out. Our current governor is poised to hand our schools to Wall Street, and he'll no doubt get no arguments on that score from his opponent.

Filed in Corporate Crime, Education | | Comments (0)

Bad Moon Rising

Monday, June 9, 2014

Michael Hudson on the recent European elections:

The US press and newscasts make it appear that Europeans have voted against poor immigrants and foreigners. What they voted against the super-rich, the oligarchy. The “foreigners” being opposed include the United States insisting on drawing NATO into its wars in Libya,Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan – and now, subsidizing Ukraine to confront Russia. The “nationalist” parties voted against the EU constitution written by the oligarchy to favor the banks against labor. It is a neoliberal constitution that prevents governments from running budget deficits of more than 3% of GDP – except of course to bail out banks and bondholders. It centralizes foreign policy in a US- and NATO-appointed bureaucracy of “technocrats.”

The US press characterized Sunday’s May 25 vote opposing this bureaucratic circumventing of democracy as a vote against “democratic Europe.” This is an Orwellian description of what happened.

….

This is not democracy. It is oligarchic extremism. And yet the anti-EU voters seeking to recover power for their national governments to run budget deficits to lower the unemployment rate below its current 10.5% is called extremist.

The underlying issue on May 25 was whether voters would support more economic austerity and privatization sell-offs. It is obvious that they didn’t.

They also didn’t want a new Cold War with Russia, or yet more contributions to NATO to support US unipolar world. So when the nominally Socialist parties joined with the right-center to support more financial austerity, and centralization of Eurozone policy in the hands of unelected bankers, they suffered a resounding defeat.

…

A century ago the socialist, labor and social democratic parties had an economic program. It included progressive taxation, taxation of land and natural resources, and public infrastructure investment so as to prevent monopolies from occurring. This included a public banking system.

Today, the left wing has reversed all these policies. Tony Blair led the British Labour Party to make a right-wing run around the Conservatives, even to the point of privatizing railways and the Public/Private Partnership giveaway to the City of London. In America, Bill Clinton abolished Glass Steagall and deregulated derivatives trade. Then Barak Obama achieved what a Republican president could not have done: He is leading the fight for the Trans-Pacific Partnership to dismantle financial regulation altogether, along with public environmental regulation. He has escalated the Cheney-Bush military policy seeking to grab foreign oil and gas resources, most recently in Ukraine where Secretary of State Kerry’s and Joe Biden’s families have taken a kleptocratic position in that poor country’s gas resources.

So where is the left?

Today’s political situation is much like 1968, when George Wallace – a “southern cracker” – was the only candidate talking about economic policy and urged withdrawal from Vietnam. He was shot.

via Michael Hudson

All true, and while it may be true that most Europeans were not voting against immigrants or foreigners, the only candidates on offer that are addressing their actual concerns are primarily interested in advancing a right wing agenda, which is very much, as always with the right, bottomed in racism. They can't cause too many problems if they hamstring the toothless European Parliament, but if the oligarchs do nothing about the recession (and they won't), then we can all look forward to a right wing lurch in European countries when it comes to voting for national Parliaments that do, indeed, have power.

It is truly amazing that our government, along with the European governments, seems oblivious to the dangers posed by the austerity regime. Cue John Fogarty.

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