Wall Street The Great Jobs Killer presented by Bill Black: UMKC Student Union Theatre. Nov 29th 2011

Police Brutality is Our Weapon Too.

Another victory for the Occupy movement!

The general sentiments of Occupy are certainly a radical departure from the status quo. Occupy is essentially an indictment of our recent cultural developments where the free market has been idealized to the point of dogma, the power elite has taken control of our democracy, and policies are judged by their philosophical and political "correctness" rather than their ability to achieve social justice. It is expected that those who benefit from the status quo will act irrationally to protect their status. Though police brutality is intended to demoralize and break up the Occupy Movement, I expect it will only galvanize the movement and bring new supporters to the protests.

So long as the police brutality has not totally suppressed the power of the people (think Nazi Germany) it is just another part of the process of radical reforms (think Civil Rights).  The moral high ground is very important to any social movement. Beating up and pepper spraying  kids, interfering with the freedom of the press, targeting young women, and using psychological intimidation are not generally tolerated or appreciated by the middle and lower classes. There aren't many issues that bring the 99% to consensus, I think the country still has the moral fiber to recognize the danger of police brutality and act/vote/protest accordingly.

Richard Wilkinson: How Economic Inequality Harms Societies

What is Money Anyway?

This week in my Institutional Economics class we pondered the question... What is Money Anyway? It turns out, this question occurs to most everyone who studies the economy long enough. This American Life and Planet Money correspondents published "The Invention of Money" where they came up with the answer that money is fiction.  L. Randall Wray argues in "An Irreverent Overview of the History of Money From the Beginning of the Beginning Through the Present" that the key to understanding money is recognizing its origins in the concept of debt. I have come to the conclusion that money is not fiction, but it is not exactly fact either. Money is what we make of it, and we have really made a mess!

Should Be Illegal, But It's Not

Members of Congress get financial information as part of their jobs. If they worked in the financial sector, using that information to improve their stock portfolios would be a crime. Instead, congressional stock portfolios significantly out perform the market, but this is just another perk on Capital Hill. Another example of how the market is not free, it is rigged.

How to Create a Job, How to Kill a Job, and Who is Doing What.

A "This American Life" investigation: How to Create Jobs.  This story calls to my mind the concept of Cognitive Dissonance and is evidence that the condition is pervasive in politics. Sadly, this story also explains why Oklahoma, my home state, is stealing more jobs than any other state.
 

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Wall Street, The Great Jobs Killer!  

Is Capitalism the Problem? and Debate Started by Big Oil Soccer Mom

What should the conversation be? Some say capitalism itself is the problem. I'm of the opinion that Capitalism doesn't exist, there has never been a functional capitalist economy. Subsidies, Bailouts are just two examples where the label capitalism does not apply to our economic system.

Also, today I saw a picture on my Facebook that was troublesome, and it brings me to discuss a point made by my Institutional Economics professor, Linwood Tauheed. The point is that Wall Street Occupiers should not be attacking the real economy, should not be striking against businesses and putting regular people out of work. Yes, historically, labor has had grievances with industry, and they should be able to engage in collective bargaining to get what they need to support their families.

But the financial system no longer needs industries to profit in order to make money, they can make money by betting against corporations (hedging) who make stuff when their workers go on strike. Tauheed's second point was that if the Occupy movement wants to grow, we must get regular people on our side, this will not be accomplished by attacking companies that provide good jobs (I am not talking about Walmart here) but real good jobs. Occupiers as a group need to know a lot more about how the economy works before we alienate the workers we want to help.

Our discussions need to take into consideration that the movement as it stands is not representative of the people we hope to help. There must be more community outreach and inclusion. We do not want the soccer moms against us. But we also need to find a way to reach out to transportation workers, employed persons, and minorities. 99% is a lot, but the spectrum of people included in the 99% have not yet been represented within the movement.

Another Tauheed suggestion: Occupiers should spend the winter using the Obama campaign techniques to organize house parties, discussion groups, library events etc. for the purpose of gaining popular support over the winter and showing up in force in the streets come spring.

An Institutionalist on World Food Markets

Notice the last part of this interview transcript about world food markets. Peter Timmer is what I think of as an institutionalist.  I have no idea if he identifies with that label. I but when I trace the underlying logic of his statements I categorize them under institutionalism.

Two Types of Corporations

There are those that make, and those that take. There are still decent people running corporations in this country. They leave their fortunes to socially productive non-profit organizations, they make cool stuff, and we mourn them when they die. We must remember them when we are inditing the other corporations, the ones that only take take take.

Who are the ones that take?

Mostly these corporations are banks and large insurance companies. Sometimes they are the Wal-Marts of the world; union busters who hold cities hostage in corporate welfare bidding wars for the 'good jobs' they will bring to the community, only to take them somewhere else when the tax abatement wears out. Sometimes they are chemical companies who patent genomes, intimidate farmers, and produce toxic food products. Sometimes they are pharmaceutical companies who knowingly manufacture drugs that cause more hurt than harm. Sometimes they are in mortgage financing, energy, telecommunications, publishing, or private military contracting; but they all have one thing in common... a powerful lobby with a mission to create government policy that supports profits above: families, public health, democracy, social justice, economic justice, education, civil rights, private property, security, prosperity, and every other American Value I can think of.

This country needs to make things again, To do so we need to form democratically controlled corporations, where the workers own the corporation, and every worker has a vote in all corporate policy decisions. I call for a political action to support the growth of 100% employee owned companies. Democratic control of production is proven to be a successful business model. I propose instituting government policies that reward employee and family owned businesses and penalize publicly traded companies and companies that get larger than a few thousand people (three thousand has been successful in the Basque region of Spain (see Mondragon).

Occupier Ammunition

More evidence that the American people were swindled.Who pays taxes? Not corporations.