Tuesday August 4th 2009
By Louise
Hour One - Will Wilkinson www.cato.org Is inequality killing Americans?
Hour Two - Dan Gainor www.businessandmedia.org Why do conservatives want to put the brakes on cash for clunkers when it's working so well to stimulate the economy for car dealers and consumers alike??
Hour Three - Christine Holschlag www.teamster.org Union Busting at the Red Cross
Comments
#2
Fascinating website mentioned on MSNBC's "Morning Meeting," with a self-test:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
"It is well known that people don't always 'speak their minds', and it is suspected that people don't always 'know their minds'. Understanding such divergences is important to scientific psychology.
This web site presents a method that demonstrates the conscious-unconscious divergences much more convincingly than has been possible with previous methods. This new method is called the Implicit Association Test, or IAT for short."
#3
I happened to be passing by on the AM dial when I heard a man pathetically groveling for sympathy from his audience, begging for donations to aid his sad cause. It seems that contemporary right-wing purveyor of maniacal lunacy Michael Savage has something in common with Irish radical blast from the past Bernadette Devlin. Both are on no-fly lists. Savage (actual name: Weiner, which seems rather apt) was recently placed on a UK no entry list, meant to “name and shame” purveyors of extremist hate. He has taken his case to the airwaves, pleading in that annoying Glenn Beck-like whiner’s tone to convince listeners to contribute to his “defense fund” in order to rescind this order, as if he hasn’t already fleeced his audience enough with his hate-filled idiocy.
Bernadette Devlin was placed on the Bush administration’s “no-fly” list in 2003. Devlin was the radical Northern Irish Catholic activist who was called “Fidel Castro in a mini-skirt” and was the youngest Member of Parliament when she was a surprise election winner in 1969. Devlin has existed on the radical fringes since the mid-1970s, and her unrepentant militancy (she opposed the Good Friday agreement) has for the most part kept her a lonely voice in the wilderness in Irish politics. Why she was deemed a “national security” threat by the Bush administration when in the UK she was never more than an irritant with a temper—she once punched the Home Secretary for claiming that British soldiers only fired in self-defense on Black Sunday—is a measure of its paranoia and juvenile arbitrariness. Most people had never heard of or had forgotten who Devlin was. I suspect that the British putting an inconsequential booby like Weiner (err, Savage) on their own list was a bit of tit-for-tat.
#4
welcome to the new old world knew order... oligarchy? ruling class? self interest...freedom in the form of a killer jesus on his quest for gold....cato u r twisted see you on the flip side...
#5
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/vp/32277034#32277034
WOW, just when I was beginning to think that Keith Olbermann had been silenced or at least neutered. He comes back from two weeks off and lays into "The Corporation". Kudos to Keith! He & Rachel are still the only people in the MSM that I can tolerate.
#6
George Noory on Coast to Coast believes that the current trend in global warming has nothing to do with human interventions, but then again he takes seriously sightings of dogs and cows with human heads in southeastern Wisconsin.
#7
As they say, those who forget the past are bound to repeat it. This also goes for people who have no knowledge of history at all. Does inequality matter? The French and Russian revolutions proved that it does. In both of these countries, pre-revolution society was made-up of a ruling elite that paid little or no taxes at all; when Louis XVI's finance minister Jacques Necker attempted to impose on the nobility a token amount of tax, they violently objected. It was the small mercantile class and the impoverished "third estate" that made-up the vast majority of the population that was burdened with financing the maintenance of the state, while it was the upper classes who solely benefitted. We know in this country who the upper classes are--corporations, financial institutions and their Republican and blue-dog backers. The question today is just how much inequality this country can stand before it reaches that critical point where the the people become not merely observers, but actors.
#8
I have to correct myself in the last comment. Necker's predecessor, Turgot, advocated taxing all three estates in France, but was forced out of office after strong opposition by the nobility and a weak king. Necker was obliged not to bring-up the subject again.
#9
Mark,
Re: The question today is just how much inequality this country can stand before it reaches that critical point where the the people become not merely observers, but actors.
I think it's starting. People in this country are angry, though many don't understand what's behind it all (i.e., the corporations.) I experienced this in real time when I picked up an RX yesterday.
The pharmacist (whom I slightly knew) was in one of his frequent irritable moods. I started talking with him to try to figure out what was bothering him. He said he thought this country was going to have a revolution. I agreed with him (tho who knows what form that will take.)
He started telling me about watching the Mike Huckabee's show on Fox. (Immediately, my heart sank.) He said that Huckabee had a very interesting segment about our "founding fathers." He told me that all ot them were ministers (!)
Of course, my mouth opened before my brain told it not to. I told him that was not correct --- that many of the founding fathers were deists, and that Thomas Jefferson even cut out all the parts of his Bible which referred to miracles, the divinity of Christ, etc., and that that Bible is still published today.
I told him that I am angry, too, and explained about corporations, Wall Street, etc. That was alot for him to absorb (and he had another customer by then.) I walked away and wished him well.
My mind was slightly blown by this exchange.
#10
Interesting discussion re: "Cash for Clunkers," "too-big-to-fail," etc. on MSNBC's "Morning Meeting" yesterday:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32269388#32269388
(Making Progress, have you listened to this show? If so, what's your opinion?)
#11
mmm…. mmm… mmm, do you love you some Richard Wolffe, the frequent guest on MSNBC shows like (well, actually like all of them) Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow.
Last week, when Wolffe was filling in for Keith Olbermann, Wolfe made a passing reference to the fact that he was no longer with Newsweek. I thought about that last night and wondered, “Wassup wit dat?” So I decided to look into it this morning.
Holy guacamole, amigos y amigas! It appears that Wolffe left Newsweek to become a “senior strategist” in the Washington, D.C., office of Public Strategies, Inc. (PSI), a lobbying firm, but he has maintained his 2nd job as a commentator on MSNBC
Politco posted an article yesterday, August 3rd titled “MSNBC admits erring on Richard Wolffe” ( http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/25760.html ) that states that MSNBC will begin identifying commentator Richard Wolffe as a strategist for a top Washington public affairs firm Public Strategies Inc.. (Note: Wolffe isn’t registered as a lobbyist. He’s a strategist for a lobbying company.)
Below is an excerpt from the article quoting Glenn Greenwald:
Liberal Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald recently summed up the situation thusly: “Wolffe's role in life is to advance the P.R. interests of the corporations that pay him, including corporations with substantial interests in virtually every political issue that MSNBC and Countdown cover.” That, Greenwald asserted, “is a conflict so severe that it's incurable by disclosure: who wouldn't realize that you can't present paid corporate hacks as objective political commentators?”
#12
B Roll,
It's interesting that Keith, Rachel and Ratigan are more and more talking about corporations.
I thought Richard Wolffe was smarter than that. Maybe he's a stealth Tory "plant!"
btw, I love it when you speak Spanish to me...
#13
Chris Kofinis, Edwards' former campaign advisor, has some suggestions about how to go against the Dick Armey town hall meeting "embeds:"
#14
B Roll - re: "who wouldn’t realize that you can’t present paid corporate hacks as objective political commentators?”
Ummmm - Fox, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN - in short the whole freakin' MSM. They ALL present paid corporate hacks as objective political commentators, with painful regularity.
Walter Cronkite may have died last month, but the kind of Journalism that he practiced has been dead since the Reagan administration.
#15
Oh - BTW ...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PRESIDENT OBAMA!
#16
Thom,
I have listened to you describe health insurance corporations as "leeches on our backs." I vehemently disagree with this characterization. As a citizen, I feel compelled to come to the defense of the lowly medicinal leech. Medicinal leeches, unlike health insurance corporations, actually have medical value. Comparing leeches to health insurance corporations casts an unfair stigma on the poor leech.
For some background, here is a link to a 2004 USA Today article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-07-07-leeches-maggots_x.htm
Now, if you want to undo this libel committed on leeches, you might read this article and feature a segment on leeches on "Geeky Science." You could even do a side-by-side comparison of leeches and insurance corporations as to which provides a legitimate service!
On a more serious note:
As you've mentioned on your show, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States spends more money on PR and advertising than it spends on actual research (beyond that needed to force a drug back under patent monopoly protection). The bulk of pharmaceutical research, as you also point out, is paid for by We the People as taxpayers. I think we can safely assume that this same problem applies to a greater or lesser degree to the medical equipment industries and medical research in general. That should be enough to set up my argument.
I would like you to consider the following proposition and, if you agree with the premise, raise it and hammer away at it on your show.
1. Taxpayers heavily subsidize medical research (this term for my purposes includes pharmaceutical, treatment, and equipment research as appropriate) through their payment of federal income taxes, state income taxes, property taxes at the state level, and other taxes. The federal government subsidizes research and development through various grants to researchers and medical schools. State income and property taxes fund the operation of state universities where the bulk of this research and development occurs (even if this subsidy is simply providing lab space and time).
2. The cost of medical treatment has driven many people (insured and uninsured) into bankruptcy or worse, and has locked many people out of the health care system due to cost.
3. The vast majority of those driven into bankruptcy, or those who are uninsured or otherwise unable to afford medical treatment in the United States, are or were U.S. and state taxpayers or their dependents.
4. The purpose of taxes is to provide services such as police and fire protection, military protection against invasion, maintain the infrastructure, care for those unable to care for themselves, and generally run and protect the commons. Thus, taxpayers have either direct or indirect access to the fruits of their tax payments. (Direct access would, for example, include police, use of the roads, etc. Indirect access would mean things like the military -- I can't walk onto an Air Force base and demand to pet one of "my" missiles, but those missiles are supposed to be there for my protection nonetheless.)
5. Many taxpayers, insured or uninsured, cannot afford the medications or treatments they need, even though their taxes subsidize or have subsidized the development and implementation of these very treatments. Therefore, they forego treatment or are denied treatment by providers for inability to pay.
6. Therefore, these taxpayers are being denied any form of access, direct or indirect, to the fruits of their tax payments which have subsidized medical research as defined above!
7. The question therefore is, Can taxpayers be denied access, direct or indirect, to the fruits of their taxes? The answer should be an emphatic "NO!"
8. This also raises another question: Should taxpayers who are denied access to the fruits of their taxes refuse to pay that part of their taxes that is used to fund medical research? I'm thinking of something similar to those who refuse to pay a "war tax" for moral reasons.
I don't think I've ever heard this aspect raised on your show, or anywhere else for that matter, and it is perhaps overdue to be raised, and raised again. You might also raise this with Bernie Sanders this Friday.
Looking forward to your answer to these topics!
#17
Ben Siepmann,
Leeches and health care corporations have one thing in common: they suck!
#18
'CLUNKERS FOR CARS' WAS A TEST PROGRAM YOU FARGING IDIOT.
#19
Dan Gainor is weasiling. A true weaselor.
#20
TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK.TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK. TAX BREAKS DON’T WORK.
#21
The average fuel efficiency savings exchange is 65% per CBS-
#22
Quark,
But the leech doesn't deny treatment, either.
Ben
#23
Ben,
You've just shown that the lowly leech is far superior to the corporation! LOL
#24
Quark,
I think we're in complete agreement!
Ben
#25
Where was Texas tea bagger during Bush's spending spree
#26
Should we profit off sickness, Texas
#27
Doesn't a profit incentive make it so Drs want to kill you and keep you sick?
#28
Re: Big government is bad. Big business is good.
People just can't seem to realize that the reason the elite want to privatize government is that they want to make a profit.
#29
TFF,
An interesting question to ask health care corporate enablers would be, "Show me one example of where the profit motive has HELPED the health care system in this country.'
I can't think of any argument an "enabler" could make that I couldn't have a response that would negate the enabler's statements.
#30
Trucker has great point, lets call it Health Care Direct.
#31
YES!!!! Re:
TFF
Trucker has great point, lets call it Health Care Direct.
#32
Caller- great idea! Televised debates! yes!
#33
Good points today from callers! Try tea bagging at Goldman Sachs.
did Exxon ever make reparations for the Valdez - corporations no compassion
#34
Quark,
¡No Problema!
#35
Thom,
This disruption of the democratic process bears a striking parallel to the act of flag burning. I think it is interesting to see the difference between what actions set off people from each side of the aisle. This may be one of the most revealing differences between idealistic virtues of both parties.
Keep it up.
West
#36
Thom,
I stopped believing in The Red Cross when Elizabeth Dole became its head.
#37
Is there a link to the announcement given before the health care meeting re the tradition on democracy etc that headed of the teabaggers?
#38
re: Elizabeth Dole and the Red Cross
There was a book published in the late 90s called "Bad Blood" by Judith Reitman. It was about the Red Cross, how its practices and lack of safe procedures helped spread HIV/AIDS and Elizabeth Dole's role, as head of the Red Cross, in suppressing the story.
The book was suppressed. I heard Reitman interviewed on Pacifica Radio. She talked about the story and said that she had been booked on several TV shows to talk about it, but that all the interviews were canceled after the shows received phone calls from the Red Cross.
One thing I remember from the interview was that the Red Cross was eventually made to operate its blood bank operations under the standards and scrutiny of the FDA or some other government agency. With entrepreneurial creativity, the Red Cross turned the fact that they were under government supervision into a selling point. The Red Cross advertised itself as “the only government approved blood bank.”
#39
The problem with coming up with a plan for town-hall presenters is that most Republican representatives and not a few blue dogs would welcome the "input" of tea-baggers so that they can go on the media and back to work and say that they met with constituents who were so forcefully opposed to any reform of the for-profit health insurance industry.
#40
re: Elizabeth Dole and the Red Cross
There was a book published in the late 90s called "Bad Blood" by Judith Reitman. It was about the Red Cross, how its practices and lack of safe procedures helped spread HIV/AIDS and Elizabeth Dole's role, as head of the Red Cross, in suppressing the story.
The book was suppressed. I heard Reitman interviewed on Pacifica Radio. She talked about the story and said that she had been booked on several TV shows to talk about it, but that all the interviews were canceled after the shows received phone calls from the Red Cross.
One thing I remember from the interviews I heard was that the Red Cross was eventually made to operate its blood bank operations under the standards and scrutiny of the FDA or some other government agency. With entrepreneurial creativity, the Red Cross turned the fact that they were under government supervision into a selling point. The Red Cross advertised itself as “the only government approved blood bank.”
#41
oooops.... I posted the wrong comment.. therefore posting the same comment twice.. my bad
#42
mstaggerlee
Media Culpa
The various media organizations have their favorite sources to go to on topics. I’ll include the Thom Hartmann Show and other progressive shows in that.
They have people they’re comfortable with, who know how to deliver their messages in a way that is desired by the particular program and who won’t stray off the reservation into the wilds of uncomfortable reality and truth.
A lot of the stories aired on regular TV news shows are actually based on “video press releases” prepared by companies like Public Strategies, Inc.. I believe PSI has a division that creates these “video press releases”. The same goes for many newspaper stories which are based on press releases. There was brouhaha a few years ago when it was revealed that the Bush Administration was using “video press releases” with actors playing the role of a reporter. The networks promised that they would reveal the sources of such stories. I don’t know what’s happened to that.
Looking at it from the other end, I once heard that more people with degrees in journalism go into public relations than into journalism. I know that my goddaughter did that.
#43
I found the link on Dailykos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/4/761608/-Tea-Baggers-FAIL-to-disru....
#44
mstaggerlee,
The job for anyone interested in 'hard" news is to sift through the seeming "most reliable" sources (including newspapers, news magazines, etc., along with on-air, online sources) to try to get a glimpse of the "truth." (International sources add perspective to this, too.)
Was there EVER a completely reliable source of information --- including Walter Cronkite?
#45
#46
I can't find cuthecrap.com What is the correct address?
#48
I am a regular blood donor, I will not give to the Red Cross due to the controversy
surrounding the salaries paid to the CEO and others.
#49
#50
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Paul Krugman should be a sloganeer for the Progressive movement. The following article contains such quotables as: "social value ", "a society that lavishly rewards those who make us poorer", and "If you aren’t outraged, you haven’t been paying attention". I think that framing the arguement about our numerous societal woes in terms of "Social Value" would be helpful. - Making Progress
Rewarding Bad Actors
by Paul Krugman
Americans are angry at Wall Street, and rightly so. First the financial industry plunged us into economic crisis, then it was bailed out at taxpayer expense. And now, with the economy still deeply depressed, the industry is paying itself gigantic bonuses. If you aren’t outraged, you haven’t been paying attention.
But crashing the economy and fleecing the taxpayer aren’t Wall Street’s only sins. Even before the crisis and the bailouts, many financial-industry high-fliers made fortunes through activities that were worthless if not destructive from a social point of view.
And they’re still at it. Consider two recent news stories.
One involves the rise of high-speed trading [1]: some institutions, including Goldman Sachs, have been using superfast computers to get the jump on other investors, buying or selling stocks a tiny fraction of a second before anyone else can react. Profits from high-frequency trading are one reason Goldman is earning record profits and likely to pay record bonuses.
On a seemingly different front, Sunday’s Times reported on the case of Andrew J. Hall [2], who leads an arm of Citigroup that speculates on oil and other commodities. His operation has made a lot of money recently, and according to his contract Mr. Hall is owed $100 million.
What do these stories have in common?
The politically salient answer, for now at least, is that in both cases we’re looking at huge payouts by firms that were major recipients of federal aid. Citi has received around $45 billion from taxpayers; Goldman has repaid the $10 billion it received in direct aid, but it has benefited enormously both from federal guarantees and from bailouts of other financial institutions. What are taxpayers supposed to think when these welfare cases cut nine-figure paychecks?
But suppose we grant that both Goldman and Mr. Hall are very good at what they do, and might have earned huge profits even without all that aid. Even so, what they do is bad for America.
Just to be clear: financial speculation can serve a useful purpose. It’s good, for example, that futures markets provide an incentive to stockpile heating oil before the weather gets cold and stockpile gasoline ahead of the summer driving season.
But speculation based on information not available to the public at large is a very different matter. As the U.C.L.A. economist Jack Hirshleifer showed back in 1971, such speculation often combines “private profitability” with “social uselessness.”
It’s hard to imagine a better illustration than high-frequency trading. The stock market is supposed to allocate capital to its most productive uses, for example by helping companies with good ideas raise money. But it’s hard to see how traders who place their orders one-thirtieth of a second faster than anyone else do anything to improve that social function.
What about Mr. Hall? The Times report suggests that he makes money mainly by outsmarting other investors, rather than by directing resources to where they’re needed. Again, it’s hard to see the social value of what he does.
And there’s a good case that such activities are actually harmful. For example, high-frequency trading probably degrades the stock market’s function, because it’s a kind of tax on investors who lack access to those superfast computers — which means that the money Goldman spends on those computers has a negative effect on national wealth. As the great Stanford economist Kenneth Arrow put it in 1973, speculation based on private information imposes a “double social loss”: it uses up resources and undermines markets.
Now, you might be tempted to dismiss destructive speculation as a minor issue — and 30 years ago you would have been right. Since then, however, high finance — securities and commodity trading, as opposed to run-of-the-mill banking — has become a vastly more important part of our economy, increasing its share of G.D.P. by a factor of six. And soaring incomes in the financial industry have played a large role in sharply rising income inequality.
What should be done? Last week the House passed a bill setting rules for pay packages at a wide range of financial institutions. That would be a step in the right direction. But it really should be accompanied by much broader regulation of financial practices — and, I would argue, by higher tax rates on supersized incomes.
Unfortunately, the House measure is opposed by the Obama administration, which still seems to operate on the principle that what’s good for Wall Street is good for America.
Neither the administration, nor our political system in general, is ready to face up to the fact that we’ve become a society in which the big bucks go to bad actors, a society that lavishly rewards those who make us poorer.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by The New York Times