Working Class and Voters

Working-class people are underrepresented in politics. The problem isn’t voters. Nicholas Carnes October 24, 2018 VOX Our government is run by rich people — and it benefits them the most.

The U.S. Economy is Rigged ! Stiglitz

Joseph E. Stiglitz October 22, 2018 Scientific American We are already paying a high price for inequality, but it is just a down payment on what we will have to pay if we do not do something—and quickly. It is not just our economy that is at stake; we are risking our democracy. , Andrea Ucini Americans are used to thinking that their nation is special. In many ways, it is: the U.S. has by far the most Nobel Prize winners, the largest defense expenditures (almost equal to the next 10 or so countries put together) and the most billionaires (twice as many as China, the closest competitor). But some examples of American Exceptionalism should not make us proud. By most accounts, the U.S. has the highest level of economic inequality among developed countries. It has the world's greatest per capita health expenditures yet the lowest life expectancy among comparable countries. It is also one of a few developed countries jostling for the dubious distinction of having the lowest measures of equality of opportunity.

The China toll deepens: Growth in the bilateral trade deficit between 2001 and 2017 cost 3.4 million U.S. jobs, with losses in every state and congressional district

The China toll deepens: Growth in the bilateral trade deficit between 2001 and 2017 cost 3.4 million U.S. jobs, with losses in every state and congressional district: The growing U.S. trade deficit with China has eliminated 3.4 million U.S. jobs between 2001 and 2017. U.S. jobs lost are spread throughout the country but are concentrated in manufacturing. Not surprisingly, the hardest-hit congressional districts include districts where manufacturing jobs are concentrated.

White House Sees Threat to Economy : Socialists

What Could Kill Booming U.S. Economy? ‘Socialists,’ White House Warns

A report from the Council of Economic Advisers compares Bernie Sanders to Chairman Mao, and warns that pickup trucks cost more in Sweden.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/us/politics/socialist-democrats-trump-elections.html

When was the last time anyone talked about the Council of Economic Advisers? We are certainly far from the days when Walter W. Heller, chairman of the CEA under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, appeared on the cover of Time magazine twice in two years. On Tuesday, the CEA made its first newsworthy move of the Trump presidency, releasing a seventy-two-page “report” warning that “socialism is making a comeback in American political discourse.” The reaction has been universal mockery, which the report and its authors richly deserve. Most of the pages are given over to a potted discussion of the failures of state socialist agriculture and the decline of Venezuelan oil production under Chavismo. There is a confusing discussion of the Scandinavian countries, which are presented variously as being nonsocialist, suffering lower standards of living because of socialism, and benefiting from the inborn tendency of Nordic stock to high incomes. These lessons in comparative history are tenuously connected to U.S. politics through constructions like, “The socialist narrative names the oppressors of the vulnerable, such as the bourgeoisie (Marx), kulaks (Lenin), landlords (Mao), and giant corporations (Sanders and Warren).”

The report has drawn comparisons to “a middle school book report assigned by the Heritage Foundation” and “a Red Bull–addled college freshman’s attempt to parse their introductory economics course through a first-response paper.” The resemblances are certainly there, right down to an appeal to “the Oxford English Dictionary, which defines socialism as…” and the caveat that certain socialists are “different in these important ways.” But reading the document and following the citations, you find a range of references that goes beyond casual Google searches and chain-email folk memory, to include serious socialist thinkers like John Roemer and Alec Nove. There are also references to the work of two CEA staffers, Tyler Goodspeed and Casey Mulligan, perhaps a clue to the authorship of the collectively attributed document.

Alternative economics- Co Ops

Alternative economics: Co ops

https://portside.org/2018-10-22/union-co-op-initiative-seeks-create-union-jobs-democratic-workplaces

Trump and Capitalism ( Neoliberalism)

Trump, capitalism, neoliberalism and crime. Details.
https://jacobinmag.com/2018/10/donald-trump-lumpen-capitalist-class-elections

Financing the Anti Proposition 10 Campaign

California NAACP Leader Opposes Rent Control Measure While Taking Real Estate Money Sam Levin October 16, 2018 The Guardian The President of the NAACP’s California chapter has a history of leveraging the NAACP brand to line her own pockets. This year she is slated to reap at least $800,000 to oppose a statewide rent control measure on the November statewide ballot. Like the pharmaceutical and tobacco industries before it, the real estate industry is paying California NAACP President Alice Huffman lots of money to get the NAACP stamp of approval. , Jeff Chiu/AP [Moderators Note: In recent years in California, serious ethical issues have placed the local and statewide leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the national spotlight. In 2014, the National Office of the NAACP forced the resignation of Leon Jenkins, then President of the Los Angeles Chapter, when it was revealed the branch, in exchange for a significant donation, was prepared to give a humanitarian award to Donald Sterling, real estate mogul and owner of the Los Angeles Clippers professional basketball franchise.  Sterling, who had been successfully sued on several occasions for housing discrimination and sexual harassment, had made racist comments so egregious the NBA levied fines of more than $2 million and forced him to sell his franchise.  At that time, Lorraine Miller, Interim President and CEO of the NAACP responded to NAACP members who demanded action, writing, “We will determine the shortcomings that enabled Donald Sterling to receive or be considered for any awards. We will prevent this from happening again.” She added, “We must not allow that need (for resources) to compromise our founding principles.”  But by 2014, the President of the statewide NAACP chapter, Alice Huffman, had already turned selling the NAACP brand to the highest bidder into an art. In 2005, the pharmaceutical industry paid Huffman $375,000 in consulting fees. That year the California NAACP sided with the drug companies against two statewide ballot measures designed to lower prices for prescription drugs.  In 2006, the state NAACP opposed a statewide tobacco tax increase and Huffman was paid $210,000 in campaign fees by the cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris.  And in 2016, the drug companies were back. The “No on 61” committee, funded by the pharmaceutical industry in opposition to that statewide drug pricing measure, paid Huffman $108,500 for consulting work. “Among the political class in Sacramento, it’s very well known that Alice essentially applies the NAACP good housekeeping seal to special interest causes in return for money,” said Garry South, the Democratic consultant leading the campaign to cap drug prices, told the Sacramento Bee’s Taryn Luna at the time. “I don’t know how she gets away with it.” Huffman gets away with it in part because the national leadership of the NAACP has not honored its pledge “to prevent this from happening again.”

Robert Reich: Another Tax Scam for the Rich

Trumpka on the Trade Deal

Richard Trumpka-n it seems every talking head in Washington has been in a frenzy recently, rushing to either glorify or condemn the new North American Free Trade Agreement, known as the United States Mexico Canada Agreement. But the truth is that it is still too early to pass any final judgment.

It helps to understand that for a quarter of a century, NAFTA has wreaked havoc on the lives of working people across North America. More than 850,000 jobs in the United States have been shipped overseas. Mexican workers have toiled under poverty wages and repressive conditions, while large corporations have used that labor abuse as a twisted justification to slash pay and reduce benefits in the United States and Canada.

Working people are not standing for it anymore. We have demanded a trade regime that prioritizes those who work the hardest. We have marched and mobilized to build the fairer economy and more just society that we deserve. That is how we fought and defeated the Trans Pacific Partnership. That is how we brought NAFTA back to the negotiating table.

But before anyone can pat themselves on the back, working people need clear answers. We have already suffered long enough under the broken promises of NAFTA. Too many lives have been destroyed, too many jobs have been lost, too many families have been hurt, and too many communities have been devastated by corporate written and unfairly enforced trade deals. We are not interested in shaky promises or standards that rise and fall depending on who sits in the Oval Office.

To be sure, the draft agreement includes some improvements on labor protections, foreign investment, and American content standards. Yet, it is also apparent that the new NAFTA further cedes ground to corporate interests on a range of issues, from food labeling requirements and environmental protections to data privacy and affordable medicine.

There are also significant unknowns. For example, we do not know whether or how Mexico will raise labor standards. If these reforms are advanced and strictly enforced, Mexican workers will be able to join unions and negotiate for better pay, relieving some of the downward pressure on American wages. If the new NAFTA fails to secure those improvements, the entire agreement is a nonstarter for us.

Moreover, we do not know whether or how the parties will monitor and enforce the rest of the labor rules in the agreement. We also do not know how the automobile rules of origin, which are key to protecting industry jobs, will be enforced. These things matter to thousands of people. New rules are meaningless without swift and certain enforcement.

Working people are watching closely. As this trade deal is finalized, we will continue to make our voices heard. We are under no illusion that this new agreement will be perfect. Any grand promise to restore every job lost under NAFTA is as cynical as the rhetoric surrounding the original deal.

However, if negotiators can clearly demonstrate that this new agreement will change the terms of trade, by codifying the fundamental economic rights of Mexican workers and lifting up all North American workers, then it will represent an important step forward. If the new NAFTA ultimately advances the needs and rights of working families, we will fight to make it law. If, instead, it continues to sacrifice our livelihoods to enrich a few chief executives, we will fight tooth and nail to defeat it.

For now, one thing is clear. Working people have flipped the debate on trade. The fact that the national conversation is focused on fixing a bad agreement rather than passing a new one is a victory in itself. It offers real promise that future trade policies will finally put working families first.

Richard Trumka is the president of the AFL-CIO. He previously was its secretary treasurer and is a past president of the United Mine Workers.

TAGS INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT BUSINESS AMERICA MEXICO CANADA LABOR TRADE

LOAD COMMENTS (78)

Elizabeth Warren's family story

The Reality Check: “MIGRATION IS A FORM OF FIGHTING BACK”

The Reality Check: “MIGRATION IS A FORM OF FIGHTING BACK”: “MIGRATION IS A FORM OF FIGHTING BACK” Looking at the Root Causes of Migration By David Bacon Dollars and Sense | September/October 2018 ...

International Trade - Sanders

Bernie’s New Internationalist Vision Meagan Day October 10, 2018 Jacobin Magazine In a new speech, “Building a Global Democratic Movement to Counter Authoritarianism,” Sanders spells out that we must develop a global movement against unaccountable state and corporate power, which are mutually reinforcing. , Gage Skidmore / Flickr Bernie Sanders has been called “bad on foreign policy” by just about everyone under the sun. Coming from those to his right, it typically means insufficiently deferential to the hawks of the foreign policy establishment. Sanders vocally opposed and voted against the Iraq War, is more critical of Israel than any other major American politician, has proposed drastic cuts in military spending, sought to terminate the US nuclear weapons program, opposes US support for the Saudi-led offensive in Yemen, and has expressed strong opposition to past CIA-backed coups in Latin America and Iran, among other unorthodox foreign policy positions. Coming from the Left, criticisms have often been founded in legitimate concern that Sanders’s foreign policy hasn’t departed from the bipartisan consensus as much as his domestic economic policy has. For example, while all of the above is true, he doesn’t support the movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, and he has cast his vote for US military intervention several times during his decades-long tenure in the Senate. He has spoken on occasion about the need to preserve American military might, even while he inveighs against the waste and the abuses of the US military at other times.

Tariffs , Trade and Development

What’s the Deal with Tariffs? Stephanie Luce October 2, 2018 Organizing Upgrade

NAFTA, Neoliberalism, and Unions in Mexico

Election Landslide Raises Hopes for Mexican Labor Jeffery Hermanson October 4, 2018 Labor Notes Independent unions have formed a new federation. They hope to win progressive labor law reform and finally end the reign of corrupt, pro-employer unions. Workers hold a banner calling for union democracy outside a Goodyear tire factory in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. Goodyear dismissed 50 workers in July for trying to set up an independent union., Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de Goodyear México The landslide victory of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (“AMLO”) in the Mexican presidential election in July has raised workers’ hopes for a revitalized and democratized labor movement. Independent unions have formed a new federation. They hope to win progressive labor law reform and finally end the reign of corrupt, pro-employer unions. The coalition led by AMLO’s National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) won not only the presidency but also the majority in both houses of the Mexican congress. Till now, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had dominated Mexican politics for decades. The pro-employer unions that make up Mexico’s main labor federation, the Congress of Labor (CT), especially the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), have historically been part of the PRI’s popular base. Top union leaders were nominated as the party’s senators and congresspersons. 'PROTECTION UNIONS’ The CT unions are the largest in Mexico, representing around 10 percent of the formal workforce, though they have been in decline in recent years. These unions were enthusiastic cooperators in the low-wage neoliberal economic strategy adopted by the Mexican political and economic elite in the 1990s— including signing on to NAFTA. Their plan was to grow the Mexican economy by attracting U.S. and Canadian investors with cheap labor. The CT unions have supported the government’s low-wage development strategy by signing sweetheart “protection contracts” with employers before any workers are hired. They use their relationships with employers and with the Mexican federal and state governments to prevent any real negotiations or strikes. The absence of authentic worker representation in most sectors has kept Mexican workers’ wages low and even declining in real terms over the past decade. Meanwhile CT union leaders have grown incredibly wealthy through their corrupt alliances with employers and government. Other practitioners of protection unionism are the “gangster unions” of the industrial belt surrounding Mexico City and the employer-controlled “white unions” of Monterrey, a center of industrial growth. UNDERDOG UNIONS In 1997, several unions broke with this trend and established a federation of independent and democratic unions, the National Union of Workers (UNT). Among them were the unions of telephone workers, social security workers, university workers, and Volkswagen workers. The UNT has supported labor law reform, pushing for secret-ballot union representation elections, a public registry of union contracts, and workers’ right to vote on strikes and contract ratifications. However, the UNT has remained a loose grouping unable to seriously challenge the domination of the corrupt CT unions. Other unions broke with the CT but remained independent, notably the National Mineworkers and Metalworkers Union (Los Mineros). After a mining disaster in 2006 cost the lives of 65 miners, the union waged a bitter campaign against Mexico’s most powerful mining and rail conglomerate, Grupo México. The company and the government then brought false charges of corruption against the union’s leader, Napoleon Gómez Urrutia, leading to his 12-year exile in Canada. There he was supported by the United Steelworkers, with whom Los Mineros have an affiliation agreement. Now Gómez Urrutia has been elected senator on MORENA’s ticket and has returned to Mexico to take his seat—giving the independent labor movement a powerful voice in the Senate. DISASTROUS POLICIES The neoliberal economic model enshrined in NAFTA has been a disaster for the Mexican people. The rural economy collapsed, forcing millions to emigrate to the cities, the northern border, or the U.S. Wages declined in both domestic industries and maquiladora (export) factories. Corruption and violence grew to unprecedented levels. Little wonder then that the Mexican people defied the political establishment and media to vote for AMLO and MORENA, who have promised to end corruption and violence and to institute a transformation that puts poor and working people first. As his Secretary of Labor, AMLO has appointed Luisa María Alcalde, a 31-year-old former federal legislator with close ties to the independent labor movement. Alcalde has pledged to increase the minimum wage (currently $4.57 a day) and to work to pass labor legislation to outlaw protection contracts and implement much of the independent labor movement’s agenda. In 2017, Mexico passed a reform of the labor provisions of the Mexican Constitution, under pressure from the Obama administration. The motive was to comply with International Labor Organization rulings against protection unionism in order to gain entry to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The reform calls for the elimination of the corrupt tripartite labor boards now dominated by the CT unions and employers, and for the establishment of independent labor boards as part of the judiciary. However, the secondary legislation necessary to implement these reforms has yet to be passed. AN INDEPENDENT FEDERATION In July the three most important independent Mexican auto unions—at Volkswagen and Audi in Puebla, and Nissan in Morelos—announced they were joining with independent unions in auto parts, rubber, and aerospace to form a new industrial federation. The Volkswagen, Audi, and Nissan unions are single-factory unions, each with several thousand members. The new federation aims to influence labor law reform and to bolster the growth of independent and democratic unions in the auto industry. This is an important development. Auto, auto parts, tires, and aerospace together make up one of the biggest and most advanced industrial sectors of the Mexican economy. There are around 85,000workers in the country’s auto assembly plants and as many as 850,000 in parts and component suppliers. The newly formed Independent Union of Goodyear Workers (SINTG) is a part of the new federation. Workers struck for a day at Goodyear’s six-month-old factory in San Luis Potosí in April to protest poor wages, benefits, and working conditions negotiated behind their backs in a protection contract signed in 2015, two years before the factory opened. “We’ve never seen these so-called [union] representatives,” operator Francisco Javier Cuestas told global union federation IndustriALL. “They don’t know the first thing about us. Because we have nobody to speak for us, the company gets away with paying very low wages—less than a dollar and a half per hour—for what is very dangerous and difficult work.” In July Goodyear fired 50 workers, allegedly in retaliation for forming an independent union. Many of the unions in the new federation have gone through similar struggles. The federation is organizing solidarity support for the Goodyear workers for what is likely to be a long fight. FIGHTING HARD The role of the Volkswagen workers union (SITIAVW) in the new federation is important, given the union’s militant history and the fact that the Puebla plant is the largest manufacturing complex in Mexico. Originally VW workers were forced to join a protection union established before the plant opened its doors. But they fought for decades against the corrupt CTM, and ultimately established their independence. The union requires secret-ballot votes for leadership, strike authorization, and contract ratification. It has waged militant strikes and negotiated the best wages and benefits in Mexico’s manufacturing sector. Also important are Los Mineros, whose jurisdiction includes aerospace and auto parts. The union has aided efforts to form independent unions at auto parts manufacturers like Johnson Controls and PKC, and has won representation at a Bombardier subway car plant in Hidalgo. One of the weaknesses of Mexico’s independent labor movement is that many of the unions are confined to single employers or single factories. In this new federation, the unions are joining together to influence national politics and to confront the auto industry, including its parts and component suppliers, with a united voice and the power of thousands of workers. Jeff Hermanson is an organizer who has worked since 1977 with the ILGWU (later UNITE), Carpenters, Writers Guild, and AFL-CIO Solidarity Center. He is currently working with the International Union League, an organization of garment and textile unions in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. For news on Mexico’s labor movement (in both English and Spanish), follow the Facebook page Mexico Labor Update. A version of this article appeared in Labor Notes #475. Don't miss an issue, subscribe today.

Sanders: Banks Remain Too Big To Fail

Sanders:  Banks still too big to fail.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/taibbi-bernie-sanders-banks-732633/

Trump's Tax Dodges

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2018/10/4/nyt_expose_self_made_billionaire_donald" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe>

Funding U.S. Senators

ACTIVISTS, LED BY Ady Barkan, have now raised over $1.9 million in pledges for a future Democratic opponent of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, promising to only make good on the pledges if the senator votes in favor of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Collins is expected to announce her decision on whether to back Kavanaugh’s confirmation at 3 p.m. EDT.

In stark contrast to the typical corporate campaign finance model, the activists’ innovative effort aims to send a message to the senator via a large number of small contributions. A source close to the campaign recently told The Intercept that the average donation is $28.40.

Collins is not responding well to the campaign. She went to the conservative website Newsmax to call the effort a “bribe.”

Read Our Complete CoverageSupreme Privilege

“I consider this quid pro quo fundraising to be the equivalent of an attempt to bribe me to vote against Judge Kavanaugh,” she said. “I think it demonstrates the new lows to which the judge’s opponents have stooped.”

In this claim, Collins has been joined by others on the right who have similarly condemned the effort and called it “bribery.” Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, both went on the attack.

Inequality for All

·       Ready To Make A Difference?: Take Action – Follow the Inequality for All film website link to find how you can take action >http://inequalityforall.com/

+ Raise The Minimum Wage > http://inequalityforall.com/take-action/raise-the-minimum-wage/

+ Strengthen Workers’ Voices > http://inequalityforall.com/take-action/strengthen-workers-voices/

+ Invest In Education > http://inequalityforall.com/take-action/invest-in-education/

+ Reform Wall Street > http://inequalityforall.com/take-action/reform-wall-street/

+ Fix The Tax System > http://inequalityforall.com/take-action/fix-the-tax-system/

+ Get Big Money Out Of Politics >  http://inequalityforall.com/take-action/get-money-out-of-politics/

Trump Family Tax Schemes

Donald Trump,  Fred C. Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html

President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

Mr. Trump won the presidency proclaiming himself a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, the legendary New York City builder Fred C. Trump, provided almost no financial help.

But The Times’s investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records, reveals that Mr. Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.

Much of this money came to Mr. Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes. He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents, records and interviews show. Records indicate that Mr. Trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more. He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.

These maneuvers met with little resistance from the Internal Revenue Service, The Times found. The president’s parents, Fred and Mary Trump, transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million under the 55 percent tax rate then imposed on gifts and inheritances.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-wealth-fred-trump.html

Trump’s Tax Schemes

David Kay Johnson

https://www.dcreport.org/2018/10/03/the-trump-family-tax-thieves-in-chief/

Crisis After Crisis:

Crisis After Crisis: 10 Years After the Crash, There’s No ‘Reforming’ Global Capitalism

The real battle is now between two post-globalization camps: democratic socialists… and fascists.

By Walden Bello, September 17, 2018. Originally published in Transnational Institute.

Print

Trump and the New Nafta

Trump and the new NAFTA

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/us/politics/nafta-deal-trump-canada-mexico.html?

Revised Nafta sets up a showdown with China. NYT: “A jubilant Mr. Trump celebrated the new Nafta agreement as the fulfillment of a bedrock campaign promise. He claimed it was a vindication of his aggressive use of tariffs and vowed to keep imposing them to extract deals from other trading partners, like the European Union and Japan. The updated Nafta, which will be called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or U.S.M.C.A., represents Mr. Trump’s biggest trade achievement to date, and it comes after more than a year of intense negotiations that frequently fell into personal rancor between Mr. Trump and the leaders of Canada and Mexico. Like some of Mr. Trump’s other accomplishments in business and government, the deal is partly a step forward and partly an exercise in rebranding. Canada will ease longstanding protections on its dairy market and provide access greater than what the United States would have gained through the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade treaty negotiated by President Barack Obama, from which Mr. Trump withdrew last year. The United States relented on its demand to eliminate an independent tariff dispute settlement system that Canada had said was a red line. Preserving it was a major concession for the United States, which had eliminated the mechanism, known as Chapter 19, as part of its deal with Mexico. The pact also makes a series of changes to areas like intellectual property and the digital economy, including protections for patents and domain names — all of which refresh Nafta, a 25-year-old pact that had become somewhat outmoded in the digital age. But many of these innovations were drawn from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which included Canada and Mexico, and it prompted a senior Trump adviser to offer a rare endorsement of an Obama legacy achievement that Mr. Trump delighting in dismantling.”