Letters...we've got letters (2015)

Just FYI (and because I really like the latest one), I'll post several recent attempts to get actual information out via the Sacramento Bee, and throw in an unpublished Sacramento News & Review letter too.

As part of the campaign to steer public discourse rightward, the Bee, like our "Kenyan Socialist" president (who happens to be governing to the right of Richard Nixon), is often criticized for slanting things in a "liberal" or "lefty" direction. Unsurprisingly for a paper with a multimillionaire CEO and a history of labor trouble, that "leftiness" is window dressing. For example, the Bee promotes the same neoliberal trade policy that gave us NAFTA (and proposes to give us SHAFTA, or TPP), and fairly regularly publishes right-leaning editorials from the likes of Charles "dumber than a bag of" Krauthammer[s]. The closest thing to a left-leaning columnist you're likely to read is the occasional column from (pseudo-lefty) Paul Krugman, or a labor leader's answer to Ami Bera's betrayal and endorsment of fast track authority for TPP.

This is in line with the neo-liberal ("liberal" as in "free markets solve everything") philosophy that reduces all of humanity to marketable labor, all of nature to marketable land, and all human interaction to a financial transaction. For such thinking, profit excuses any bad behavior.

Despite the evidence of America's own history to the contrary, you'll often read about 18th/19th century economist David Ricardo's "comparative advantage" as the ultimate justification for these "free trade" pacts, saying that everyone profits from them. Notice that all such current Ricardo citing never mentions his assumptions: labor and capital are fixed in place and do not migrate with the internationally traded goods--things manifestly untrue in current circumstances. But who cares if it's blatant propaganda?! It's profitable!

The neoliberal undercurrent is to a) sabotage the workings of democracy and any government it produces, and b) after states and their democratic legitimacy are undermined, leave any economic contest to multi-national corporations who don't need to respect any locally-made restriction on corporate profits. The "b)" part of that sentence refers to the supra-national courts that can overthrow national laws despite any election or local government actions; the one proposed for TPP is called ISDS.

Meanwhile, the following letters represent the kinds of things not published in mainstream media. (Actually, I've marked the one of these letters that was published):

5/29/15 Re: Pension payments are starving basic services, by Lawrence J. McQuillan of the "Independence Institute."

Bee editorial writer McQuillan believes money is scarce, so pensions deprive local governments of services. But government literally makes the money. Meanwhile, China can fund 10,000 miles of high speed rail while the wealthiest nation on earth can't afford to give its civil servants a defined benefit pension--you know, like the ones corporate America looted back in the ‘70s.

McQuillan is party to the same kind of thinking that believes a 55% reduction in Federal funding for higher education since 1972 was necessary… (gosh! I wonder why tuition keeps going up?).

Deprive local governments of revenue sharing and the plutocrats can buy public assets for cents on the dollar. Turning the entire economy into a gigantic toll booth, extracting all economic surplus for our plutocratic masters is the design. Revoking previously negotiated pensions that “require” service cutbacks serves this larger purpose. It's a feature, not a bug.

5/4/15

Re: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article20036433.html#storylink=cpy

Ami Bera writes that he's supporting the Trans Pacific Partnership to remove export barriers, decrying Japan's rice tariffs that "top 778 percent."

Someone needs to tell Congressman Bera that such tariffs mean their government is insuring Japan will always be self-sufficient in rice, and their democracy will control environmentally-damaging farming practices. This is exactly the opposite of American public policy that continues to ship jobs and critical technology overseas, permitting repeated environmental disasters, so some plutocrat can make a profit.

America's pursuit of globalization has damaged its economy and its sovereignty. Remember that economic boom NAFTA was supposed to produce? Public policies encouraging globalization have removed American workers' bargaining power, and crushed the population into debt peonage even though the (still un-prosecuted) lenders turned out to be crooks.

I regret to say that, like the Sierra Club, I supported Bera with money and time last election. Not again.

4/28/15

Re: 4/26 “Haunted by the nightmare of Vietnam” by Alan Miller

Alan Miller writes to say “58,272 who died [in Vietnam] must not be forgotten” and recounts the reprehensible American side of that conflict. But let’s not forget the three million Vietnamese casualties, or the ten million refugees.

The war with Vietnam began when Eisenhower declined to honor a treaty ending a (U.S.-funded)  war with its French colonial masters. He stopped the agreed-on election to decide who would rule a united Vietnam. The U.S. also declined to honor its peace treaty *after* the Vietnam war too, refusing to pay billions in promised reparations to a country it had bombed and poisoned mercilessly.

Between a trade embargo and financial penalties, despite losing the war, the U.S. actually beat Vietnam into submission. Vietnam now provides cheap, sweatshop-made clothing for the world with little to improve the lives of its citizens. The lesson: democracy bows before profit *always.*

See this for details.

4/19/15

Re: Opinion: Income gap the widest in nation’s blue cities

Dan Walters goes off the rails in saying California’s higher rents come from high building fees.

Reagan’s ‘86 tax law removed a large subsidy for rentals. Meanwhile, local governments continue to subsidize land speculators by approving development on agricultural land without taxing the enormous profit that stems from that zoning change. A loophole in Proposition 13 allows many commercial properties to continue being assessed at 1978 prices even after they have changed hands. The estimated loss to tax collectors: $5 billion a year. Property tax collections that were 70/30 commerce/housing are now reversed

But it’s those darn building fees that raise rents! (Please ignore all the subsidies to corporate America, and the reduction of funding for affordable housing.)

I say Walters could make a fortune just endorsing whatever he’s been smoking, because it’s strong enough to make a corporate shill out of a Bee columnist.

3/15/15

Re: Dan Walters’ “Capitol sees poverty, but does little”

Dan Walters says “Poverty is … a difficult issue, but...the Capitol is just talking about applying bandages...It will be overcome only if California attracts private investment that creates...jobs.”

And that’s the rub. Never mind economist Lester Thurow’s observation that, if you count teachers, 41% of good jobs are government jobs. Walters has succumbed to the propaganda that only the private sector can create jobs.

Only the beatified CEOs can save us! Why Steve Jobs (great name!) single-handedly invented the smartphone! (Please ignore the government-funded research that produced the transistor, integrated circuit, internet, GPS, etc!)

Walters is correct in saying government is sitting on its hands, not employing people directly. Government direct employment has declined since 2007. But expecting the private sector, currently more interested in stock buybacks and derivative speculation than in productive work, to show the way back to full employment is propaganda.

[FYI: An edited version of the above appeared in the Bee]

2/19/15

Re: “Every child left behind” a letter from F. Paul Brady, Davis

Let’s end the war on students, shall we?

F. Paul Brady praises Dan Walters’ condemnation of ending the current testing fad at schools, concluding that “[a] good test evaluates knowledge of all that is being taught.”

Unfortunately, Professor Brady has succumbed to the MBA mentality, believing we can measure everything. Science supports none of the faddish conclusions of school “reformers” like Brady, or Michelle Rhee. Neither testing, nor (union-busting) charter schools, nor merit pay leads to better educational outcomes.

What does correlate with educational outcomes? Childhood poverty. In the “reformers’” ideal  educational system--Finland, where, ironically, teachers are well paid and unionized--childhood poverty is 2%. In the U.S. it’s 23%.  Furthermore, the U.S. reduced funding for higher education 55% since 1972, and recently revised the bankruptcy code to make students who borrow to compensate for the funding reduction into debt peons for life.

That amounts to a war on students. Debates about test scores are misdirection.

2/13/15 (SN&R)

I was surprised to see you published letter writer Nick Schrier’s “View from the right” that accused government “expanding.” Says Mr. Schrier, government (“they” not “us”) produces nothing profitable, “They just spend and piss it away!”

This is the typical neoliberal line: Government is pretty useless; it’s the beatified CEOs who will actually produce what’s beneficial. Why Steve Jobs single-handedly invented the smartphone! (Please ignore the much larger collaborative effort at Apple, or the government-funded research that produced the transistor, the integrated circuit, the internet, and GPS.)

Meanwhile, back here on planet earth government hasn’t been expanding. Government employment is down. (Publish the graph if you can)

Mr. Schrier is understandably confused since the American propaganda machine runs 24/7. There’s even a poll showing Fox News viewer know less about current events than people who watch no news--a sure sign propaganda, not information, is what’s being peddled.

But Shrier really goes off the tracks when he condemns immigrants. The policies leading to NAFTA (i.e. neoliberalism) say trade is always good, but that treaty led to a $20 billion bailout (a lot for our banks in Mexico) and shipping a bunch of subsidized Iowa corn down south put lots of subsistence corn farmers out of business. That produced a 34% decline of Mexican real incomes, a figure you’d have to go back to the Great Depression to see in the U.S.

So they’re not “illegal aliens.” They’re economic refugees, and the U.S. is largely responsible for making conditions south of the border so harsh.

The propaganda continues to persuade people like Mr. Shrier to weigh in, even if the points they make don’t support their own interests. Sad, really.

1/18/15 (SN&R)

In your recent issue, letter writer Allan Weissman points out that public employees might take lower wages because they have more job security (and he’s a private sector employee).

This ignores a few things:

First, before civil service restrictions on firing, the U.S. relied on political patronage for employing bureaucrats. Is there a new President? That meant everyone got new postmasters too, and that  federal bureaucracies became the refuge of political cronies. Everyone in civil service had some skin in the game for elections, and the motivation for corruption and underhanded electioneering was large. Would Mr. Weissman rather have that?

Second, publicity about the envy of civil service jobs is frequently in the service of our current plutocracy. For example, the effort to “reform” education and kick those lazy, good-for-nothing teachers out of their cushy jobs is a prime example of the divide-and-conquer tactics the plutocrats tirelessly promote. Such tactics a) thwart real education (agnotology!) b) crush some of the last unions with real power, and c) eliminate the last bastion of defined benefit pensions (roughly twice as remunerative as the defined contribution pensions like 401Ks). After all, our big corporations have already looted the well-funded defined-benefit plans that were previously available to 70% of the workforce (see Ellen Schultz’s Retirement Heist). Of course that was when unions had some real power too.

The real public service here would not be complaining how good life is for public employees, it would be in giving everyone good jobs with good job security. Or is that a bridge too far?

1/5/15 Responding to: Gov. Jerry Brown pressed to increase safety-net spending from 1/3/15 (published)

Your recent article about the "fiscally responsible" governor omits one area where his vaunted stinginess went the other way, for the sake of Wall Street, no less. He has kept California from emulating North Dakota's  state bank. That bank, not oil, is what saved North Dakota from the ill effects of the Great Recession.

If California had a state bank, among other things, it could keep the interest payments for its debt in-state. Not only could a public bank fund infrastructure and safety-net projects, it might manage California’s cash flow problem so it wouldn’t need “rainy day” reserves. Why have a reserve when  line of credit from a public bank would accomplish the same purpose without reducing funds for the elderly, disabled and school children?

To their credit, the legislature did fund a study of public banking. Jerry Brown vetoed it.

1/5/15 (Tulsa World)

Your article about state senator Sandridge's proposed "balanced budget" amendment suggests "fiscally responsibility" means treating national "debt" like household debt; but they are fundamentally different. Government creates dollars; households use them.

Theoretically government spending could bid up prices, competing with the private sector (inflation!) but who else is bidding if government employs the unemployed? Hint: no one.

National "debt" equals, to the penny, the dollar financial assets government has spent into the economy without retrieving them with taxes. In other words, government "debt" equals people's savings. Reducing "debt" crushes debtors, making assets cheap for the financial vultures to purchase.

History validates that assertion. U.S. governments have significantly reduced "debt" seven times since 1776, most recently with the Clinton surplus. The "debt" reduction before that occurred in 1929. Each time it occurred, withdrawing dollar financial assets from circulation had a devastating effect. We're still feeling the "Great Recession" emanating from that Clinton surplus, and following 1929 we experienced the Great Depression. Andrew Jackson was rewarded for paying off the "debt" entirely in 1835 with the Panic of 1837.

So sure, we can prohibit government "debt," but it would be self-defeating.

And if this is just obscure economics blather to you, ask yourselves where the "fiscal responsibility" talk was when the conversation turned to prosecuting wars or bailing out Wall Street's frauds. Yet when the conversation is about the orders-of-magnitude smaller social safety net or pension expenses... Whoops! We're out of money!

It doesn't pass the sniff test.

12/14/14

Responding to Bradley J. Hudson’s “County is a leader on issues of homelessness”

The County exec, Bradley J. Hudson writes that the County has many programs addressing homelessness, and is therefore a "leader." Since the Federal government de-funded housing subsidies back in the '80s, every local government needs to deal with homelessness.

Why just recently, the Supervisors demonstrated their "leadership." Local churches shamed them into withdrawing a proposal to limit churches' help for the homeless.

The Supervisors also voted to end the inclusionary zoning rule, requiring low-income housing be a portion of any new development. Instead, at the builders' request (and because poor people are *icky*) they opted to charge a per-square-foot building fee to fund low-income housing.

When told $6 per square foot would be the equivalent of the previous inclusionary zoning requirement, they "lead" by opting for a fee of $2.50 (after the churches begged them to increase it from $2.25).

Yep. That's leadership for ya.

11/16/2014

Responding to Dan Walters’ “Opinion: What will it cost to cut our carbon?”

Dan Walters is probably correct in asserting that we don't know the *exact* costs in dollars or jobs to cut humanity's dependence on carbon. But while that sounds like a reasonable request, in reality, Walters avoids asking the most relevant question.

What he doesn't ask is the cost to *not* cut carbon dependence. This is an especially big question since carbon levels continue to increase despite lots of talk about reducing them, and lots of well-funded hand-wringing about the potentially large costs to reduce those levels.

But we’ve already been paying (in part) the orders-of-magnitude larger costs of drought, hurricanes and flooding, and these are simply preludes to climate events that could literally threaten the survival of the human species.

How bad does it have to get before Walters stops focusing on minutiae? As the Bible aptly puts it Walters is: “straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel.”

10/31/2014

Responding to: “Leaky borders led to murder” from Lennie Chancy of Roseville

The idea that “leaky borders” caused some recent murders ignores a lot. Never mind that the Obama administration has tripled deportations and massively increased border security, it ignores that for literally centuries the U.S. has been attacking our southern neighbors, militarily, economically and politically.

It ignores Secretary of State Clinton blessing the recent military coup in Honduras, which overthrew a democratically-elected government, and favored the drug cartels. Gosh! I wonder why Honduras has so much social turmoil!

The “Washington Consensus” also embraced NAFTA, de-industrializing the U.S. while allowing subsidized Iowa corn to put Mexican subsistence farmers out of business. After NAFTA, real incomes in Mexico declined 34% (think “Great Depression”). Gee, I wonder why those Mexicans economic refugees keep coming here!

So...undocumented humans are stealing *our* jobs, and are criminals? Right! It’s not for nothing Gore Vidal calls us “the United States of Amnesia.”

10/21/2014

Responding to: "A voice against Prop 47" (George Alger, Placerville) and "Gascon misguided on Prop.47" (Steven G. Conover, El Dorado Hills)

Some Bee letters say Proposition 47 will "weaken our justice system," but they ignore the injustice of our current situation.

If the U.S. had an average per-capita incarceration rate, 80% of those in jail now would be free. This is primarily the result of 50 years of the drug war. During that time U.S. crime rates have differed only insignificantly from Canada's. With identical demographics, Canada incarcerates people roughly one seventh as often. Incarceration may satisfy an understandable desire for vengeance, but it clearly does not reduce crime.

As a "drug treatment," jailing addicts is seven times more expensive than rehab, and has worse outcomes. It represents an expensive recipe for failure, and oddly enough has not been imposed on the Wall Street's fraudsters whose crimes cost trillions, not hundreds, of dollars.

So when people plead for harsh justice for petty crime please remember the context.