terça-feira, 30 de setembro de 2008

Wrecking,

Wrecking, Wrecked
Posted September 29, 2008 on The Huffington Post
The great fear that hung over the business community in the 1970s was death by regulation, and the great goal of the conservative movement, as it rose to triumph in the 1980s, was to remove that threat--to keep OSHA, the EPA, and the FTC from choking off entrepreneurship with their infernal meddling in the marketplace.

Defunding those agencies was one way to stop the killer bureaucrats; another was to stuff them full of business-friendly personnel who would go easy on regulated. The signature conservative regulatory idea became "voluntary enforcement", because everyone now knew that efficient markets regulated themselves. Bad practices or tainted products drove away consumers; therefore firms had an incentive to behave, an incentive far more powerful than some top-down scheme in which big brother told them what to do.

Whether people ever truly believed this nonsense or not, its application over the years makes up the basic story of conservative governance as I tell it in my book, The Wrecking Crew. This is the philosophy by which conservatives gutted the EPA and the Labor Department, turned over the Interior Department and the FDA to the industries they were supposed to regulate, let the CEO of Enron advise the vice president on energy policy, and generally came to regard business, not the public, as government's "customer" (a word that crops up with disturbing frequency in conservative regulatory history).

But it is only now, as we watch the financial system crumble around us, that we can really see the devastating consequences of this folly. It turns out the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which was responsible for regulating investment banks, did a significant part of its job through a voluntary program which firms could participate in or not as they saw fit. As the New York Times told the story on Saturday, this system had--of course--been pushed for by the investment banks themselves, who wanted it in order to avoid the stricter rules from European governments that they would otherwise have had to obey.

And now, as a consequence, the SEC has almost no industry left to regulate. Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley: All of them are gone or restructured. At business's urging, business was left up to its own devices; its own devices turned out to be precisely the things that our grandparents set up regulatory agencies to guard against: euphoria that leads to panic; perverse incentives that lead to fraud; boom that leads to bust.

As you watch the world crumble, try taking your Armageddon with this sprinkling of irony: Over the last three decades, business has got virtually everything it wanted, and its doomsday scenario from the 1970s has come true because of it. The regulators have indeed killed the regulated--not by intrusive meddling but by doing nothing, by taking a nap while the financial sector puffed up the bubble and blew itself to pieces.

segunda-feira, 29 de setembro de 2008

What Are the Origins of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae?

HNN Article by Rob Alford
HNN Hot Topics: Financial Meltdown 2008

Mr. Alford is a student at the University of Washington and an HNN intern.

Editor's Note: This article was published in 2003.

In recent months, the nation's two largest mortgage finance lenders have come under increasing scrutiny at the hands of Congress, the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Federal National Mortgage Association, nicknamed Fannie Mae, and the Federal Home Mortgage Corporation, nicknamed Freddie Mac, have operated since 1968 as government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). This means that, although the two companies are privately owned and operated by shareholders, they are protected financially by the support of the Federal Government. These government protections include access to a line of credit through the U.S. Treasury, exemption from state and local income taxes and exemption from SEC oversight. A recent accounting scandal at Freddie Mac that resulted in the replacement of three of the company's top executives has led to mounting concerns over the privileged status these GSEs enjoy in the marketplace.

Fannie Mae was created in 1938 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. The collapse of the national housing market in the wake of the Great Depression discouraged private lenders from investing in home loans. Fannie Mae was established in order to provide local banks with federal money to finance home mortgages in an attempt to raise levels of home ownership and the availability of affordable housing.

Initially, Fannie Mae operated like a national savings and loan, allowing local banks to charge low interest rates on mortgages for the benefit of the home buyer. This lead to the development of what is now known as the secondary mortgage market. Within the secondary mortgage market, companies such as Fannie Mae are able to borrow money from foreign investors at low interest rates because of the financial support that they receive from the U.S. Government. It is this ability to borrow at low rates that allows Fannie Mae to provide fixed interest rate mortgages with low down payments to home buyers. Fannie Mae makes a profit from the difference between the interest rates homeowners pay and foreign lenders charge.

For the first thirty years following its inception, Fannie Mae held a veritable monopoly over the secondary mortgage market. In 1968, due to fiscal pressures created by the Vietnam War, Lyndon B. Johnson privatized Fannie Mae in order to remove it from the national budget. At this point, Fannie Mae began operating as a GSE, generating profits for stock holders while enjoying the benefits of exemption from taxation and oversight as well as implied government backing. In order to prevent any further monopolization of the market, a second GSE known as Freddie Mac was created in 1970. Currently, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac control about 90 percent of the nation's secondary mortgage market.

GSEs such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae, with their combination of private enterprise and public backing have experienced a period of unprecedented financial growth over the past few decades. The current assets of these two companies combine for a total that is 45 percent greater than that of the nation's largest bank.

On the other hand, their combined debt is equal to 46 percent of the current national debt. It is this combination of rapid growth and over leveraging that has lead to the current concerns of Congress, the Justice Department and the SEC with regards to the financial practices of these GSEs.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the only two Fortune 500 companies that are not required to inform the public about any financial difficulties that they may be having. In the event that there was some sort of financial collapse within either of these companies, U.S. taxpayers could be held responsible for hundreds of billions of dollars in outstanding debts. A recent investigation by the Justice Department and the SEC into the accounting practices at Freddie Mac revealed accounting errors in the amount of 4.5 to 4.7 billion dollars and resulted in the termination of three of the company's top executives. Ongoing investigations by Congress, particular the House Finance Services subcommittee that oversees the activity of GSEs, will determine the future role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the secondary mortgage market that they dominate.

sexta-feira, 26 de setembro de 2008

Economic Fascism Coming

to America
By Robert Scheer, Truthdig. Posted September 25, 2008.

Smell a rat if Congress approves the Paulson plan without major modifications that might help Main Street as well as Wall Street.

Does it really matter which party is in charge when it comes to bailing out the Wall Street hustlers whose shenanigans have bankrupted so many ordinary folks? Not if the Democrats roll over and cede power to the former head of Goldman Sachs, the investment bank at the center of our economic meltdown.

What arrogance for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson -- who the year before President Bush appointed him Treasury secretary was paid $16.4 million for heading the company that did as much as any to engineer this financial travesty -- to now insist we must blindly trust him to solve the problem. Paulson is demanding the power to act with "absolute impunity," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who admonished the Treasury chief: "After reading this proposal, it is not only our economy that is at risk, Mr. Secretary, but our Constitution as well."

Clearly, it's a vast improvement to have Dodd in the chairman's seat of the Senate Banking Committee, asking the right questions, rather than his predecessor, Texas Republican Phil Gramm, who presided over the committee in the years when the American economy, long the envy of the world, was viciously sabotaged by radical deregulation legislation.

Gramm, whom Sen. John McCain backed for president in 1996, pushed through the financial market deregulation that has brought the U.S. economy to its knees. Maybe this time Congress won't give the financial moguls everything they want, including a bailout for foreign-owned banks like Swiss-based UBS, where Gramm now hangs out as a very well-paid executive when he's not advising the presidential campaign of McCain, his old buddy and partner in crime. Oops, sorry, no crimes were committed because the deregulation laws Gramm pursued and McCain faithfully supported decriminalized the financial scams that have proved so costly.

Just check out the language of Gramm's pet projects, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. By preventing mergers between the various branches of Wall Street, the former act reversed basic Depression-era legislation passed to prevent the sort of collapse we are now experiencing.
Read more

quinta-feira, 25 de setembro de 2008

ECONOMIC DIS-EQUILIBRIUM

Can You Have Your House And Spend It Too?
By George Dyson, a historian among futurists, is the author Baidarka; Project Orion; and Darwin Among the Machines. George Dyson's Edge Bio Page

The breakthrough was in money being duplicated: the King gathered real gold and silver into the treasury through the Exchequer, with the tally given in return attesting to the credit of the holder who could enter into trade, manufacturing, or other ventures, eventually producing real wealth with nothing more than a notched wooden stick. So what's the problem? Aren't we just passing around digital versions of the tallies we've been using for almost one thousand years? Aren't mortgages, whether prime or sub-prime, just a modern version of paying for houses with fraud-resistant sticks?

Introduction

George Dyson writes: "Readers of Nassim Taleb's The Fourth Quadrant may enjoy the following piece on fraud-resistant financial instruments of the 13th century—progenitors of a multitude of derivatives that are plaguing us today."—John Brockman

"What remedy is there if we have too little Money?" asked Sir William Petty (the author of Political Arithmetick, designer of an ill-fated high-speed sailing catamaran, and cofounder of the Royal Society) in his brief Quantulumcunque Concerning Money in 1682. His answer, amplified by the founding of the Bank of England in 1694, resonates to this day: "We must erect a Bank, which well computed; doth almost double the Effect of our coined Money: And we have in England Materials for a Bank which shall furnish Stock enough to drive the Trade of the whole Commercial World."

Gut Check Time:

Will Congress Stand up to Wall Street?
By Robert L. Borosage (The Huffington Post)
Posted September 23, 2008

It's gut check time.

The attempt by Treasury Secretary Paulson to put a gun to the head of Congress and terrify them into forking over a $700 billion blank check to the Bush administration in 48 hours has failed. Now what?

Most Americans would just as soon the Masters of the Universe were allowed to sink in their own folly. They had the party; let them clean up the mess. But, looking at sinking housing values and shaken retirement accounts, most Americans know something has to get done.

Banks and investment houses carry weapons of financial mass destruction. Last week, they looked into the abyss. If nothing is done, the chances for a deep and long depression are very great. So stocks skied around the world when Paulson announced his support for a massive bailout of Wall Street. And stocks and the dollar plummeted, and oil and gold soared when it became clear on Monday that the Congress wouldn't simply salute and go along. Doing nothing is not an option.

Leaders from unions, consumer and citizen groups have weighed in, demanding strict conditions on any bailout. On Monday, Sen. Chris Dodd put forth a draft bill that called for an independent board to run the bailout, required that taxpayers get partial ownership in any firm bailed out, and mandated steps to forestall foreclosures and work out mortgages, helping to keep people in their homes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demands a kickstart for the real economy - extension of unemployment benefits, aid to states and localities, investment in green jobs and basic infrastructure. (But at only $50 billion, a relative pittance for the real economy compared to the sums demanded to rescue Wall Street). Rep. Barney Frank insists on limits on the compensation of executives of any firm that gets bailed out. Together, these conditions begin to make some sense out of a bad fix.
Read more

quarta-feira, 24 de setembro de 2008

Now Is the Time to Resist

Wall Street's Shock Doctrine
by Naomi Klein
Published on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 by the Huffington Post

I wrote The Shock Doctrine in the hopes that it would make us all better prepared for the next big shock. Well, that shock has certainly arrived, along with gloves-off attempts to use it to push through radical pro-corporate policies (which of course will further enrich the very players who created the market crisis in the first place...).

The best summary of how the right plans to use the economic crisis to push through their policy wish list comes from Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. On Sunday, Gingrich laid out 18 policy prescriptions for Congress to take in order to "return to a Reagan-Thatcher policy of economic growth through fundamental reforms." In the midst of this economic crisis, he is actually demanding the repeal of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which would lead to further deregulation of the financial industry. Gingrich is also calling for reforming the education system to allow "competition" (a.k.a. vouchers), strengthening border enforcement, cutting corporate taxes and his signature move: allowing offshore drilling.

It would be a grave mistake to underestimate the right's ability to use this crisis -- created by deregulation and privatization -- to demand more of the same. Don't forget that Newt Gingrich's 527 organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, is still riding the wave of success from its offshore drilling campaign, "Drill Here, Drill Now!" Just four months ago, offshore drilling was not even on the political radar and now the U.S. House of Representatives has passed supportive legislation. Gingrich is holding an event this Saturday, September 27 that will be broadcast on satellite television to shore up public support for these controversial policies.
What Gingrich's wish list tells us is that the dumping of private debt into the public coffers is only stage one of the current shock. The second comes when the debt crisis currently being created by this bailout becomes the excuse to privatize social security, lower corporate taxes and cut spending on the poor. A President McCain would embrace these policies willingly. A President Obama would come under huge pressure from the think tanks and the corporate media to abandon his campaign promises and embrace austerity and "free-market stimulus."

We have seen this many times before, in this country and around the world. But here's the thing: these opportunistic tactics can only work if we let them. They work when we respond to crisis by regressing, wanting to believe in "strong leaders" -- even if they are the same strong leaders who used the September 11 attacks to push through the Patriot Act and launch the illegal war in Iraq.

So let's be absolutely clear: there are no saviors who are going to look out for us in this crisis. Certainly not Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of the companies that will benefit most from his proposed bailout (which is actually a stick up). The only hope of preventing another dose of shock politics is loud, organized grassroots pressure on all political parties: they have to know right now that after seven years of Bush, Americans are becoming shock resistant.
Copyright © 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.naomiklein.org/

terça-feira, 23 de setembro de 2008

A Note from Naomi

I wrote The Shock Doctrine in the hopes that it would make us all better prepared for the next big shock. Well, that shock has certainly arrived, along with gloves-off attempts to use it to push through radical pro-corporate policies (which of course will further enrich the very players who created the market crisis in the first place…). But here’s the thing: these tactics can only work if we let them. They work when we give in to our fear and our desire for “strong leaders” – even if they are the same strong leaders who used the September 11 attacks to launch the Disaster Capitalism Complex. Sadly, there are no saviors in this crisis, and the only hope of preventing another dose of shock politics is loud, organized grassroots pressure on all political parties.

In this newsletter, Debra Levy, who runs www.shockdoctrine.org and was my closest colleague in researching The Shock Doctrine, has compiled my recent writing and interviews on the crisis, as well as information about an upcoming protest in New York. We also have the gory details of how the right wing think tanks are already using the market shock to push for some old fashioned economic shock therapy.

We send this with an urgent request: please, don’t be silent. If you have read the book, you know that this is precisely the kind of moment in which we stand to lose (or gain) it all. If we are slow, the radical changes will be locked in; if the Bush Administration gets its way, the actions taken this week will not be subject to repeal or to any legal challenge. So write letters to the editor, call your elected representatives, contact the Obama campaign, and let them know: the way to solve a crisis born of deregulated capitalism is not with more gifts and giveaways for Wall Street!

School Children Thrown Overboard into Commercial Sea

Eleventh annual report examines schoolhouse commercialism trends

TEMPE, Ariz and BOULDER, Colo.
September 22
Childhood is now defined by advertising. "At Sea in a Marketing-Saturated World," the eleventh annual report on schoolhouse commercialism released by the Arizona State University Commercialism in Education Research Unit (CERU), finds that children live, breathe, and play with branded products in and outside of school.

"School-based marketing is coming to share the dominant characteristics of marketing to children outside of school," says the report's co-author, Alex Molnar, ASU professor of education policy. "Advertising is entwined with content and often demands the active engagement of its targeted audience."

The CERU report, based on an analysis of a year's worth of articles in the advertising and popular media, finds that schools and classrooms are subjected to numerous advertising campaigns utilizing a variety of marketing tools ranging from ads on schools buses to teachers working at local fast food restaurants to raise extra cash for schools.

"School-based marketing is now a global phenomenon," add co-authors Gary Wilkinson of the University of Hull, in England, and Joseph Fogarty, an Irish school headmaster. They point to marketing programs by a PepsiCo subsidiary in Great Britain and by Allied Irish Bank in Ireland as examples.

Regardless of how marketing campaigns are organized or the products or services advertised, social psychologist and report co-author Faith Boninger notes that their influence extends into the broader realm of cultural values: "Although children may ignore or dismiss a particular marketing message, in the larger scheme of things, the total advertising environment creates a materialistic atmosphere that encourages more buying, more identification with brands, and more commercialized values."

The stakes are high and dangers are real, according to Molnar. He points out that research suggests that higher materialistic values are related to factors such as lower self-esteem, chronic physical symptoms, and higher rates of anxiety, depression and psychological distress. In teenagers, materialistic values correlate with increased smoking, drinking, drug use, weapon carrying, vandalism and truancy. Other research, he notes, belies the argument that children benefit when their schools make money from commercial contracts. One national study of marketing for food products found that 87.5 percent of elementary school officials reported that their schools would not be forced to reduce programs if such marketing were prohibited.

It is, according to Molnar, past time for schools to be ruled off limits to marketers. He argues, "In light of the destructive consequences of marketing to children, policy makers have an obligation to put the interests of school children ahead of the interests of marketers."

The Commercialism in Education Research Unit (CERU) and Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University partners with the Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder to produce policy reports, policy briefs and think tank reviews. These centers provide a variety of audiences, both academic and public, with information, analysis, and insight to further democratic deliberation regarding educational policies.

Visit their website at http://educationanalysis.org.
CERU and EPIC are members of the Education Policy Alliance(http://educationpolicyalliance.org).

segunda-feira, 22 de setembro de 2008

The Dark Side : The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals

Written by Jane Mayer

About this book
A dramatic and damning narrative account of how America has fought the "War on Terror"

In the days immediately following September 11th, the most powerful people in the country were panic-stricken. The radical decisions about how to combat terrorists and strengthen national security were made in a state of utter chaos and fear, but the key players, Vice President Dick Cheney and his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington, used the crisis to further a long held agenda to enhance Presidential powers to a degree never known in U.S. history, and obliterate Constitutional protections that define the very essence of the American experiment.

THE DARK SIDE is a dramatic, riveting, and definitive narrative account of how the United States made terrible decisions in the pursuit of terrorists around the world-- decisions that not only violated the Constitution to which White House officials took an oath to uphold, but also hampered the pursuit of Al Qaeda. In gripping detail, acclaimed New Yorker writer and bestselling author, Jane Mayer, relates the impact of these decisions—U.S.-held prisoners, some of them completely innocent, were subjected to treatment more reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition than the twenty-first century.

THE DARK SIDE will chronicle real, specific cases, shown in real time against the larger tableau of what was happening in Washington, looking at the intelligence gained—or not—and the price paid. In some instances, torture worked. In many more, it led to false information, sometimes with devastating results. For instance, there is the stunning admission of one of the detainees, Sheikh Ibn al-Libi, that the confession he gave under duress—which provided a key piece of evidence buttressing congressional support of going to war against Iraq--was in fact fabricated, to make the torture stop.

In all cases, whatever the short term gains, there were incalculable losses in terms of moral standing, and our country's place in the world, and its sense of itself. THE DARK SIDE chronicles one of the most disturbing chapters in American history, one that will serve as the lasting legacy of the George W. Bush presidency.

About the Author
Jane Mayer is the co-author of two bestselling and critically acclaimed narrative nonfiction books, LANDSLIDE: THE UNMAKING OF THE PRESIDENT, 1984-1988, and STRANGE JUSTICE: THE SELLING OF CLARENCE THOMAS, the latter of which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Mayer was also awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in connection with THE DARK SIDE.

She is currently a Washington-based staff writer for The New Yorker, specializing in political and investigative reporting. Before that, she was a senior writer and front-page editor for The Wall Street Journal, as well as the Journal's first female White House correspondent.

She lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her husband, Bill, and their daughter, Kate.

domingo, 21 de setembro de 2008

Whose Freedom?

The Battle Over America’s Most Important Idea
By George Lakoff

Introduction to Whose Freedom?
Ideas matter. Perhaps no idea has mattered more in American history than the idea of freedom. The central thesis of this book is simple. There are two very different views of freedom in America today, arising from two very different moral and political worldviews dividing the country. The traditional idea of freedom is progressive. One can see traditional values most clearly in the direction of change that has been demanded and applauded over two centuries. America has been a nation of activists, consistently expanding its most treasured freedoms:

  • The expansion of citizen participation and voting rights from white male property owners to non-property owners, to former slaves, to women, to those excluded by prejudice, to younger voters
  • The expansion of opportunity, good jobs, better working conditions, and benefits to more and more Americans, from men to women, from white to nonwhite, from native born to foreign born, from English speaking to non-English speaking

  • The expansion of worker rightsÑfreedom from inhumane working conditions–through unionization: from slave labor to the eight-hour day, the five-day week, worker compensation, sick leave, overtime pay, paid vacations, pregnancy leave, and so on

  • The expansion of public education from grade school to high school to college to postgraduate education

  • The expansion of knowledge through science from isolated figures like Benjamin Franklin to scientific institutions in the great universities and governmental institutions like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health

  • The expansion of public health and life expectancy

  • The expansion of consumer protection through more effective government regulation of immoral or irresponsible corporations and class action suits within the civil justice system

  • The expansion of diverse media and free speech from small newspapers to the vast media/Internet possibilities of today

  • The expansion of access to capital from wealthy landholders and bankers to all the ways ordinary people–more and more of them–can borrow money today

  • The expansion, throughout the world, of freedom from colonial rule– for the most part with the backing of American foreign policy.

Read the full introduction »

sábado, 20 de setembro de 2008

"The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."-Milan Kundera

Toyota:

Cartoon by Khalil Bendib

Auto Industry Race to the Bottom
by Barbara Briggs, Special to CorpWatch September 16th, 2008

Beneath Toyota’s buffed shine lies a dark undercoat. The Toyota Corporation enjoys a fine reputation for well-built cars, environmental innovation, flexible production lines and effective management practices. But in its quest for ever-increasing efficiency, profitability and growth, the world’s largest auto manufacturer has sparked a race to the bottom that, like its car sales, is global in scope.

Around the world, the company has been complicit in union busting in the Philippines, and engages in cozy relationships with Burma/Myanmar’s military dictatorship.

In the U.S. – where Toyota has 13 facilities employing some 36,000 people, and sells an average of 56,923 vehicles each week – the need of the Big Three (General Motors, Ford and Daimler Chrysler) auto companies to compete is causing profound changes in the industry.

And in Japan, at its flagship operation in Toyota City, some 30 percent of the workforce is temporary workers who earn as little as half what permanent employees do. In the surrounding area, a network of closely-related supplier companies utilizes thousands of foreign guest workers under conditions that, by many definitions, qualify as human trafficking.

Toyota Japan has also created a work environment so stressful that, each year, an estimated 200 to 300 employees are incapacitated or killed from overwork and stress related illness.

Prius in the Making
Read more

Barbara Briggs is assistant director of the National Labor Committee in Support of Worker and Human Rights. In June 2008, the New York-based NLC released a 60 page report, The Toyota You Don’t Know: The Race to the Bottom in the Auto Industry. The full report can be accessed via the NLC’s website: http://www.nlcnet.org/reports.php?id=562

sexta-feira, 19 de setembro de 2008

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. -Elie Wiesel



segunda-feira, 15 de setembro de 2008

Perils of Empire:

The Roman Republic and the American Republic
By Monte L. Pearson

Rome: The Growth of an Underclass
The instability brewing in the countryside compounded the chaotic growth of Rome, the political capital and economic hub of Italy. A significant number of displaced farmers moved to Rome where they lived on handouts and part-time jobs. Former soldiers took up residence in the city, as did thousands of freed slaves. Those slaves who had practiced a trade in their homeland became craftsmen, traders, and shopkeepers (tabernarii). The rich, who mainly lived on the Palatine hill, were heavy consumers of all types of consumer goods and services, many of which could be satisfied by workers in the city. The city was known for manufacturing a variety of products including clothing, jars and bowls, locks, keys, heavy ploughs, yokes, and baskets.
In spite of this bustling economic activity, there was not enough work for the people who poured into the city; in this period before the industrial revolution, there were no large factories to absorb the labor of thousands of unskilled migrant workers. Vast slum neighborhoods sprang up to house the new urban poor.
The city had no urban planning or publicly provided housing, so the poor were crammed into dirty, unhealthy tenement buildings called insulae (literally: islands) that frequently fell down or burned.
Marcus Crassus, one of the wealthiest men in Rome in the 1st century, enhanced his wealth by creating a private fire department. When an insula caught fire, his fire wagons would show up and, for a significant fee, put out the fire. If the owner could not pay for the service, Crassus offered to buy the site from the hapless owner at a price that steadily declined as more and more of the building was consumed in the flames.
A large, unemployed underclass developed that made the city dangerous and created an unruly social world. Many people in the city struggled to pay for food on a daily basis; when there was a bad harvest in Sicily or an economic downturn, hunger became a burning political issue. We have one demographic gauge for the scale of the problem. In 58 BCE, Rome had grown to somewhere between 750,000 and one million people. That year more than 320,000 hungry people, 32 to 40 per cent of the population depending on which total is used, participated in the free corn ration implemented by the radical Tribune Publius Clodius Pulcher.
In a city with 500,000 residents in 140 BCE, a similar ratio of hungry people would mean 150,000 to 200,000 individuals living on the edge of starvation. There were no social services or public programs for the poor. In general, a new phenomenon in the ancient world was forming: a proletariat.

Inequality in America
It would be foolish to think of inequality in America today as being comparable to the situation that developed in Republican Rome. The standard of living is much higher for the average person in the United States and there is a social safety net that takes care of many people. However, an interesting parallel is occurring in the distribution of wealth as the American empire grows and becomes a more dominant aspect of American life.
The first period of the American empire, from the Spanish American War up through the Vietnam War, brought rising prosperity for the average citizen. This mirrors the experience of the Roman Republic during the 4th and 3rd centuries. The Progressive Era and then the Roaring Twenties gradually increased the income of many sectors of the urban population. The Great Depression was an enormous setback, but after World War II, there was a 25-year period of growth that lifted incomes at every level of society.
The spread of unions, the growth of Social Security and later Medicare and Medicaid, the use of policies like the minimum wage to ensure the bottom fifth of the population shared in economic growth, the rapid increase in professional jobs, and the slow improvement in civil rights for African-Americans all created an unprecedented level of material prosperity for the average person. The most visible feature of this economic expansion was the explosive growth of suburban America where millions of people were able to own their own homes for the first time.
Economic growth was stimulated by a combination of factors. The low gas prices secured by American oil corporations made it inexpensive to operate the millions of autos being produced by thousands of well-paid union workers and mid-level auto executives. The rise of the automobile made it possible to build those new suburbs and stimulated public investment in highways, streets, and bridges.
Government spending for a permanent military establishment operated as an engine of growth; research, production, and deployment of thousands of nuclear missiles, airplanes, and submarines provided good jobs for thousands of well-paid workers in California, Texas, and other Sunbelt states. Consumers outside of the Soviet-Chinese bloc were eager to buy sophisticated products from American factories. This was the era when “Made in Japan” was shorthand for cheap, flimsy products, a political and cultural put-down as rooted in imperial dominance as Sardi venales in Rome.
The economics of the American empire began to change in the late 1960s. Military spending during the Vietnam War, combined with increased social spending on the “Great Society,” touched off a steady rise in inflation. The resurgence of industrial economies in Western Europe and Japan posed greater competition for American exporters and led to a rapid decline in the US trade surplus. Then, in 1974, came the first oil price shocks and the creation of OPEC. During President Carter’s term “stagflation,” a combination of inflation and stagnant growth entered our vocabulary. Automakers grappled with lagging auto sales as a result of high gasoline prices and inexpensive, high quality Japanese cars. Elected in reaction to Carter’s economic failures, President Reagan reversed earlier trends by curtailing social service spending, cracking down on unions, opposing civil rights measures, cutting taxes on the wealthy, and blocking increases in the minimum wage.
Since the early 1970s, inequality has grown slowly but surely, accelerating during periods of recession, with the entire population’s real income growing only during the boom years of the late 1990s.
This income stagnation has affected even affluent white-collar professionals and managers. Between 1972 and 2001, the real wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th percentile of income distribution only rose 34 percent, barely one percent per year.
By contrast, households at the 99th percentile of income distribution (in 2005 this corresponded to an income of $402,306) enjoyed an increase of 87 percent between 1972 and 2001; households with incomes in the 99.99th percentile (over $6 million) had a rise in income of 497 percent between 1972 and 2001.
Since 2001, the gap between the top one percent of the population and everyone else continued to grow. For example, between 2003 and 2004, real average income for the top one percent of households grew by nearly 17% while the remaining 99% of the population averaged a gain of less than three percent before inflation.
Much of this startling gain was due to the unprecedented salaries, bonuses, and stock options collected by top corporate executives. In a related statistic, the top one percent of households received 57.5 percent of all income from dividends and capital gains in 2003, a significant increase from 53.4 percent just a year earlier. An interesting historical note is that, in 2004, “the top one percent [of households] held a bigger share of total income than at any time since 1929.”
There is also a stark echo of statistics quoted earlier about the Roman Republic. In 2006, the average US army private made $25,000 a year while the average CEO of a defense firm made $7.7 million.
David Lesar, CEO of Halliburton, was paid a total of $79.8 million, about $16 million per year, from 2002 to 2006.
The growth of a new group of super rich people would not be notable if the rest of America was also prospering. However, the cumulative effect of decades of income stagnation is beginning to place painful stresses on American families. At the bottom of the income pyramid, the number of Americans without health coverage went up by 1.3 million in 2005, with a record 46.6 million people facing financial disaster whenever a major illness or injury occurred.
One measure of the impact of not having health coverage is that almost half of all personal bankruptcies in the US are now the result of medical debts. In the area of wages, the federal minimum wage, which directly benefits 6.5 million workers, was increased in 1997 (to $5.15 per hour) and then lost about 20 percent of its value until it was increased by the new Democratic Congress in 2007. By way of contrast, the top rate for the estate tax (affecting only 8,200 very large estates) has been reduced every year since 2002.
While we might search the Internet each day for the latest trend, real changes in the tide of human affairs often require a decade or even a generation to take hold. In 63 BCE, Cicero was the senior consul of the Roman Republic, chief spokesman for the nobility and an orator who could sway the minds of juries and crowds. A generation later, in 43 BCE, he was a hunted man, proscribed by Antony and Octavian while the Republic collapsed into monarchy. In 1774, Louis XVI, at the age of 20, became the King of France, the exalted ruler of the largest and most powerful country in continental Europe, rivaled only by the English Empire. A generation later, in 1793, he was found guilty of treason and executed by the revolutionary National Convention. In 1900, Queen Victoria presided over a lavish centennial celebration, secure in the notion that the sun never set on the British Empire. A generation later, in 1926, a few years after the First World War left two and a half million young Englishmen dead or wounded, the country was paralyzed by a general strike. Two million workers from the coal, railroad, printing, docks, and steel industries defied the government for nine days, a sign of England’s declining economic vitality and a harbinger of her inability to hold together the world’s largest empire.
These sharp changes of fortune in seemingly invincible nations lead us to the question, where will the United States be in 20 years? What kind of country will today’s young adults and school children live in? The dire examples in the previous paragraph ring a bell with us because people in this country are concerned and pessimistic about the future. Since Hurricane Katrina battered New Orleans in September of 2005, between 60 and 70 percent of the people responding to the Newsweek poll question, “Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?” have said they are dissatisfied.
The Gallup poll has tracked similar findings of unhappiness.
We should not be surprised that the percentage of Americans who are dissatisfied went up after Katrina. For many people, the events surrounding the disaster were a clear signal that first, global warming will mean more than extra time at the swimming pool, and second, that the Bush administration’s failures in Iraq might be as deep and long lasting as the bungled response to the plight of New Orleans. The concern is not just about the severity of these problems but the deep roots they have in the American way of life and the American empire.
Global warming is just one threat to the energy intensive, petroleum based economy that is the dominant feature of American life. The prosperity and long-term growth of the US economy has been based on inexpensive oil since Theodore Roosevelt was president. At the beginning of the 20th century, booming domestic oil production fueled the initial wave of automobile, steel, and rubber industry growth that made the United States the largest economy in the world by the 1920s. After the Second World War, as US production peaked, inexpensive foreign oil became essential to the energy intensive growth symbolized by the development of suburbs, strip malls, and inter-state highways. Because of this domestic demand for inexpensive fuel, a powerful dimension of the American quest for empire since the 1940s has been the desire to secure long-term control over supplies of oil.
The search for oil brought United States corporate and political leaders to the Middle East. America’s relationships with Arab nations have always been based on our preoccupation with securing inexpensive supplies of oil for the US economy. As we have seen, the quest for cheap oil eventually led to the invasion of Iraq. This bold attempt to make the one last, great source of oil a reliable part of the American empire has failed. That failure has both driven up the price of oil and called into question the United States’ ability to secure inexpensive oil in the future.
The Roots of Terrorism
Less obvious to most Americans is the way in which roping oil-producing Arab nations and pulling them into the empire has alienated large segments of the Moslem world and spawned the al-Qaeda terrorist movement. The claim that America is the object of terrorist attacks because Osama bin Laden and his allies hate American freedoms and the American way of life is wrong. As a former CIA analyst puts it, “There is no record of a Muslim leader urging his brethren to wage jihad to destroy participatory democracy, the National Association of Credit Unions, or the coed Ivy League universities.”
He goes on to say:
The focused and lethal threat posed to US national security arises not from Muslims being offended by what America is, but rather from their plausible perception that the things they most love and value — God, Islam, their brethren, and Muslim lands — are being attacked by America. What we as a nation do, then, is the key causal factor in our confrontation with Islam.

Perils of Empire:

The Roman Republic and the American Republic
By Monte L. Pearson - Algora Publishing

Sound Bite
In Perils of Empire: The Roman Republic and the American Republic, the author traces how the Roman Republic gained an empire and lost its freedoms, and he ponders the expansionist foreign policy that has characterized the American Republic since Teddy Roosevelt led the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill.

This well-researched study of both long-term trends and current events highlights the difficulties of balancing the demands of ruling an empire and protecting democratic political institutions and political freedoms.

About the Author
Monte Pearson holds a Masters Degree in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and has been involved in politics since 1978. A grant-writer for nonprofit organizations, Mr. Pearson also teaches a course on the "Perils of Empire" at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the late 1990s he began to research the history of the Roman Republic; this book is the result of that research.

About the Book
Many articles in the media examine contemporary American issues and compare them to the problems that led to the fall of the Roman Empire. But before the rise of the Empire, a time of one-man rule and limited freedoms, there was the Roman Republic — 500 years of free elections, civil liberties, and conquering armies. Pearson shows that in fact it was the Republic that was destroyed, and the implications are alarming for Americans today. At first the successful armies brought wealth and glory; then the Republican institutions began to groan under the strain of running an empire. There were feuds, then riots, then civil wars, and the Republic was gone. During this turbulent period some of the most famous people in ancient history vied for power and glory — Caesar, Cleopatra, Cicero, and Octavian, Caesar’s nephew, who became Augustus, Rome’s first Emperor.The fall of the Roman Empire was caused by a dramatic loss of economic and military power and it led to barbarian invasions — a problem that may be starting to affect the United States, but it is hard to visualize the US being formally invaded and occupied by foreign enemies. However, the fall of the Roman Republic led to a severe loss of political and social freedoms at home — a trend that is already underway in America and that is a threat to our basic values as a people.With US forces occupying Iraq and fierce debates over which civil liberties must be restricted in order to prosecute a never-ending war on terrorism, now is a good time to look into the historical mirror and examine the perils for democratic institutions when republics acquire empires.

Introduction
Rome: The Growth of an Underclass
"The instability brewing in the countryside compounded the chaotic growth of Rome, the political capital and economic hub of Italy. A significant number of displaced farmers moved to Rome where they lived on handouts and part-time jobs. Former soldiers took up residence in the city, as did thousands of freed slaves. Those slaves who had practiced a trade in their homeland became craftsmen, traders, and shopkeepers (tabernarii). The rich, who mainly lived on the Palatine hill, were heavy consumers of all types of consumer goods and services, many of which could be satisfied by workers in the city. The city was known for manufacturing a variety of products including clothing, jars and bowls, locks, keys, heavy ploughs, yokes, and baskets."

Excerpt
As we strive to create a better world, we should draw strength and resolution by remembering the sad fate of the citizens of the Roman Republic. Their libertas was washed away in a swirl of cataclysmic events — but we do not have to follow their path of imperial misadventure. It is our turn to challenge history, and the future is unwritten. When we do save the Republic, when we do restore balance to an unstable world, somewhere in the mists of time, their spirits will be cheering for us.

Synopsis of Perils of Empire
The first section describes the Early Republic, from 510 B.C.E. to 365 B.C.E., the period when the Romans overthrew their foreign-imposed king and began creating a unique combination of political institutions including free elections, civil liberties, a citizens’ army, and a complex legal system.
Discussions about these institutions include evaluating similarities between Roman and American political values and practices. This first Republic influenced the founding generation of the American Republic, men who read Latin and knew a great deal about the Roman Republic’s leaders and political ideas.
The second section covers the Middle Republic, from 365 to 146 B.C.E. During this period the city’s political institutions flourished. The Senate, composed of senior leaders of the aristocracy, dominated the city’s elections and foreign policies. After taking over Italy, the Roman Republic’s citizen army conquered Spain, Greece, Asia Minor, and Syria.
While the expanding empire brought great wealth and culture into the city, it also led to great inequalities and social unrest. The Romans suddenly found themselves entangled in a series of wars to preserve the newly won empire. Most strikingly, the guerilla war in Spain, like the war in Vietnam, led to draft dodging and open conflict between the city’s residents and the Senate. This section ends with an historical discussion of American foreign policy and proposes a way of thinking about today’s American empire, an empire of military bases and oil rights, not colonies.
The final section covers the Late Republic, from 146 B.C.E. to 31 B.C.E., when a series of attempts at reform led to bloody conflicts. An endless series of revolts against the empire set up an on-going clash between reformers and those who wanted to preserve the city’s traditional distribution of wealth and power. During the final stages of the Republic Caesar, Cicero, Cato, and Cleopatra vied for power. The book explains why Caesar led his army against the Senate and examines the collapse of the Republic. This section ends with a discussion of the War on Terrorism, its roots in the American empire, and the threat the empire poses to our basic liberties.

Free Speech and the War on Terror

John Pilger was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He has been a war correspondent, filmmaker and playwright. Based in London, he has written from many countries and has twice won British journalism's highest award, that of "Journalist of the Year," for his work in Vietnam and Cambodia. His new book, Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and Its Triumphs, is published by Jonathan Cape He can be reached through his website: http://www.johnpilger.com/

Thomas Friedman's Blacklist; Tony Blair's Censorious Proscriptions
By John Pilger

August 19, 2005
If those who seek to understand what drives people to commit terrorist acts are vilified as "just one notch less despicable" themselves, we can say goodbye to freedom of speech.

Thomas Friedman is a famous columnist on the New York Times. He has been described as "a guard dog of US foreign policy". Whatever America's warlords have in mind for the rest of humanity, Friedman will bark it. He boasts that "the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist". He promotes bombing countries and says World War Three has begun.

Friedman's latest bark is about free speech, which his country's constitution is said to safeguard. He wants the State Department to draw up a blacklist of those who make "wrong" political statements. He is referring not only to those who advocate violence, but to those who believe US actions are the root cause of the current terrorism. The latter group, which he describes as "just one notch less despicable than the terrorists", includes most Americans and Britons, according to the latest polls.

Friedman wants a "War of Ideas report" which names those who try to understand and explain, for example, why London was bombed. These are "excuse-makers" who "deserve to be exposed". He borrows the term "excuse-makers" from James Rubin, who was Madeleine Albright's chief apologist at the State Department. Albright, who rose to secretary of state under President Clinton, said that the death of half a million Iraqi infants as a result of a US-driven blockade was a "price" that was "worth it". Of all the interviews I have filmed in official Washington, Rubin's defence of this mass killing is unforgettable.

Farce is never far away in these matters. The "excuse-makers" would also include the CIA, which has warned that "Iraq [since the invasion] has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of 'professionalised' terrorists". On to the Friedman/Rubin blacklist go the spooks!
Read more on CounterPunch

domingo, 14 de setembro de 2008

US$ 10 12 de resgate para os jogadores da Wall Street

Quadro: George Grasz "Eclipse of Sun", 1926. Oil on canvas. 210 x 184 cm. Heckscher Museum, Huntington, NY, USA.










Nada para as famílias e os reformados
por Michael Hudson

Se o movimento para um Executivo Unitário com um poder presidencial sem peias já o assusta, a viragem da direita radical dos EUA para a Finança Unitária deveria assustá-lo ainda mais — e aumentar as suas dívidas também. Os acontecimentos financeiros das últimas duas semanas de Março de 2008 demonstraram que o "realistas económicos" e os "mercadores de dinheiro", que Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) expulsara do templo das finanças, voltaram para maltratar a nossa economia conduzindo-a aos horrendos apuros da inédita criação do risco-dívida, eufemisticamente chamado "alavancagem" e "criação de riqueza".

As poucas limitações que subsistem para o cada vez mais centralizado planeamento do sector financeiro, especialmente ao nível do Estado, estão a ser varridas para o lado com o pretexto de "salvar o sistema". Os poucos beneficiários da Wall Street que utilizam esta frase explicam simplesmente o que é este sistema. Em primeiro lugar, seus administradores políticos são indústrias de lobbies indicadas para altas posições administrativas e de planeamento nas agências públicas que supostamente regulamentam estas indústrias. Sua ideia de planeamento financeiro é colocar um milhão de milhões (trillion) de dólares em fundos de agências governamentais e em garantias de créditos em risco. Esta agência de financiamento era suposta que fosse utilizada para ajudar famílias americanas médias a obter habitação e cuidados de saúde, e para proteger suas poupanças e proporcionar as suas aposentadorias. Ao invés disso, ela está a ser mobilizada para apoiar banqueiros e administradores financeiros da economia. Na verdade, as últimas poucas semanas assistiu-se a milhões de milhões de dólares serem comprometidos na economia de guerra e no apoio aos bancos.

A livre criação de crédito do sistema bancário, que duplica aproximadamente a cada cinco anos para a economia como um todo, ameaça culminar na escravização de muitas famílias americanas através da dívida, bem como de indústrias e governos estaduais e locais. O excedente económico está a ser rapidamente absorvido por uma combinação de serviço da dívida e planos de emergência (bailouts) governamentais para credores cujos esquemas Ponzi estão a entrar em colapso por todo o lado, desde o imobiliário residencial até o comercial, assim como os empréstimos para tomadas de controle (takeover) de corporações por bolhas económicas de crédito estrangeiro.

Este é o contexto no qual devem ser vistas as perturbações financeiras das últimas semanas envolvendo o Bear Stearns, o JPMorgan/Chase e a paisagem da dívida em mutação rápida. "O sistema" que o Tesouro, o Federal Reserve a as agências do New Deal capturadas pela administração Bush está a tentar salvar é uma vasta economia Ponzi. Quero dizer com isto que o plano de negócios é os credores emprestarem aos devedores dinheiro suficiente para que eles paguem os custos dos juros de modo a que se mantenham em dia nos seus empréstimos.

Nos últimos anos este sistema dependia de os preços de activos como imobiliário, acções e títulos serem inflacionados o suficiente a fim de permitir aos devedores penhorarem estes activos como colateral ao mais alto preço do mercado para mais e mais novos empréstimos. Mas agora que a bolha do imobiliário se rompeu (e na verdade, quando as acções afundam), o problema é como salvar o topo do nosso iceberg económico que mergulhou numa situação líquida negativa – uma situação em que as dívidas ligadas à propriedade excederam seu valor de mercado. Alguém deve assumir uma perda – mas quem?

Normalmente é o banqueiro ou o investidor que assumem a perda. Mas agora supõe-se que eles sejam "resgatados" e isto está a ser apresentado como um retorno à estabilidade. Mas era um sistema que, para começar, nunca fora estável.. De facto, para este resgate funcionar a maior parte dos americanos terá de possuir menos e dever mais, apesar de se lhes dizer que tudo isto faz parte do caminho para a criação de riqueza – como se fosse sua riqueza, não aquela dos seus credores. A dádiva do seguro ao Bear Stearns/JPMorgan Chase para "salvar o sistema financeiro" proporcionou uma ilustração viva de como as Finanças Unitárias desenvolveram um relacionamento parasítico com o trabalho americano no seu papel como contribuidor das pensões, do consumidor e dos proprietários de casas. O sistema que está a ser subsidiado permite ao sector FIRE (Fire, Insurance and Real Estate) dirigir e viver fora dos esforços produtivos dos outros – as pessoas que fabricam coisas reais e proporcionam serviços reais.

Este artigo encontra-se em http://resistir.info/ .

sábado, 13 de setembro de 2008

Global Lies

Propaganda, the UN and World Order

By Mark D. Alleyne
Palgrave Macmillan

About the Book
Mark D. Alleyne explains why the UN has run a propaganda program, why it has been defensive about it, and the role that project plays in international relations. Through the use of critical theory, the book makes a fascinating connection between a range of seemingly unconnected international phenomena, such as the Olympic Games, the celebration of Human Rights Day, UN peacekeeping, Hollywood movies, the campaign to free Nelson Mandela, and soccer’s World Cup. Alleyne’s incisive analysis is the needed tool for understanding how modern international relations is as much about the manipulation of symbols and ideas as about war.

About the Author

Mark D. Alleyne is Assistant Director in charge of Research at the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African-American Studies, UCLA. He has taught at a number of universities, including The University of Illinois, The University of Lagos, and the American University, Washington DC. Previous publications include International Power and International Communication and News Revolution.

Table of Contents

Introduction * Propaganda for Peace? * Global Information Machine * Polishing the Tarnished Image * Good Propaganda, Bad Propaganda * Lubricating the Wheels * Using the Tool * UN Ideological Work and International Change * Appendices * Bibliography

Rodney Barker : Making Enemies

http://us.macmillan.com/makingenemies/RodneyBarker

About the Book
Whom a prime minister or president will not shake hands with is still more noticed than with whom they will. Public identity can afford to be ambiguous about friends, but not about enemies. Rodney Barker examines the available accounts of how enmity functions in the cultivation of identity, how essential or avoidable it is, and what the consequences are for the contemporary world.

About the Author
Rodney Barker is Professor of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Gresham Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College. He broadcasts frequently, and has been opera critic of Tribune. Recent publications include Legitimating Identities: The Self-presentations of Rulers and Subjects and Political Ideas in Modern Britain In and After the Twentieth Century.

Table of Contents
Accounts of Enmity in Politics and Government * Competition, Antagonism and Enmity * Patterns of Enmity: Varieties of Narrative * Contexts of Enmity Narratives * The Language and Imagery of Enmity * Telling the Enmity Narrative * Enemies of the People * Demonization: The Frenzy of Enmity * Narratives of Contention * Enmity Narratives, Politics and Peacefulness

The Scientists : A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors


By John Gribbin
Random House

About this book
In this new and landmark history of modern science, author and trained astrophysicist John Gribbin recounts the development of science over the past five-hundred years—as seen specifically through the lives and achievements of individual scientists.

John Gribbin has written extensively before on scientific subjects such as the theory of everything, the existence of reality, and Schrödinger's cat. However, in The Scientists, he shifts his focus to the people who have conceived and produced modern science's theories, inventions, and innovations. He examines the times in which these scientists lived and worked and how their particular contributions influenced the overall development and direction of scientific inquiry. In the process, Gribbin not only re-evaluates the significance of such venerable icons as Galileo, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Linus Pauling, but he also examines lesser lights whose stories have been undeservedly neglected.

Invaluable for those studying the history of science, and useful for those considering the impact of science on stages of history from the Renaissance and up to the present-day, The Scientists is ultimately a completely original, expansive, and nuanced survey of the most important scientific figures of the past half-millennium.

"Well written and scholarly, it is still accessible....[Gribbin] also clearly understands the important role that technology played in making science's greatest discoveries possible....Highly recommended for public and academic libraries or as a text for the history of science."—Library Journal

"As expansive (and as massive) as a textbook...explores the development of modern science through the individual stories of philosophers and scientists both renowned and overlooked."—Publishers Weekly

"Admirably ambitious in scope.... Highly recommended." M. Schiff, CUNY College of Staten Island for Choice Magazine (American Library Association)

“Essential reading...tells the story of science as a sequence of witty, information-packed tales...complete with humanizing asides, glimpses of the scientist’s personal life and amusing anecdotes.” —London Sunday Times, Books of the Year
Table of Contents

Last Chapter
Coda: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
The book ends this way: "And what motivates the great scientists is not the thirst for fame or fortune (although that can be a seductive lure for the less-than-great scientists), but what Richard Feynman called 'the pleasure of finding things out', a pleasure so satisfying that many of those great scientists, from Newton to Cavendish and from Charles Darwin to Feynman himself, have not even bothered to publish their findings unless pressed by their friends to do so, but a pleasure that would hardly exist if there were no truths to discover."

Science : A History - 1543-2001 by John Gribbin

Book Review
PD Smith
The Guardian,

Saturday September 21 2002
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), Thomas S Kuhn tried to break free from the traditional view of scientific discovery as resulting from the heroic achievements of the great men of science. Kuhn announced a "historiographic revolution", arguing that the history of science was not merely the story of a steadily accumulating body of facts, but a complex activity embedded in a historical, social and philosophical context.
In his latest book, the astrophysicist and prolific science writer John Gribbin rejects Kuhn's view and reverts to exploring the progress of science through the lives of scientists. He admits that such an "old-fashioned" approach will be unpopular among "professional historians", but argues that "the two keys to scientific progress are the personal touch and building gradually on what has gone before. Science is made by people, not people by science."
His journey through the history of science begins in 1543, the publication date of two seminal texts: Vesalius's On the Structure of the Human Body and Copernicus's On the Revolutions of Celestial Bodies. Both works radically transformed our view of ourselves and our place in the universe: they caused (to use Kuhn's apt phrase) a paradigm shift in our understanding of the world.
From the origins of western science in the Renaissance, Gribbin plots his course for the present day, travelling via the Newtonian and Darwinian revolutions, astronomy, chemistry, geology, and atomic theory, before arriving in the modern era with the New Physics, genetics and the Big Bang.
Gribbin aims at giving his reader "a feel for the full sweep of science", and he succeeds brilliantly. There are some omissions though: the attempts of Freud and others to explain the workings of the mind are ignored, and meteorology (charted so wonderfully in Richard Hamblyn's The Invention of Clouds) is barely mentioned. But even scientists have to be selective in their choice of data.
Gribbin presents science as a cumulative process. He agrees with Newton that scientists make their discoveries "by standing on the shoulders of giants". But as the story behind this phrase shows, the history of science can also be a very human, not to say petty, affair.
The comment appears in what was supposed to be a letter of reconciliation to Robert Hooke, who had been justifiably annoyed by Newton's failure to acknowledge his contribution to the theory of light. Newton's ambiguous phrase also implies he was a "mental pygmy" and definitely not one of the giants of science on whose shoulders Newton stood. But Hooke recognised the true value of science when he told Newton that, despite their personal animus, they were united in their commitment to "the discovery of truth" and had "minds equally inclined to yield to the plainest deductions of reason from experiment".
As in the arts, individual achievement is undoubtedly an important part of science. But it is the scientific method for discovering the truth through rational discourse and experiment that makes science (to quote Gribbin) "arguably the greatest achievement" of the human mind. It seems Newton, "a nasty piece of work" who "always harboured grudges", rather missed the point.
Einstein once tried to warn off biographers by saying that what is essential in the life of a scientist is "what he thinks and how he thinks, and not what he does or suffers". Surprisingly, given his biographical approach, Gribbin is also rather dismissive of personal details, commenting brusquely at one point that Darwin's family life "is not what matters". As Randal Keynes showed in Annie's Box, Darwin's family life can cast light on his science.
But if he is rather unadventurous in exploring individual psychology, Gribbin excels at making complex science intelligible to the general reader. His chapter on atoms and molecules is a model of clarity. Similarly, his account of Faraday's ground-breaking exploration of electricity is charged with the excitement of discovery. Gribbin has a real passion for his subject, and is at his best describing the development of physics. If you're looking for a book that captures the personal drama and achievement of science, then look no further.

Naomi Klein Strikes Back at Critics

of Her 'Shock Doctrine' Book
Responding to critics from the libertarian Cato Institute and The New Republic.
One year ago, I set off on a book tour to promote The Shock Doctrine. The plan was for it to last three months, quite long by publishing standards. Twelve months later, it is still going. But this has been no ordinary book tour. Everywhere I have traveled- from Calgary, Alberta to Cochabamba, Bolivia -- I have heard more stories about how shock strategies have been used to impose unwanted pro-corporate policies. I have also been part of stimulating debates and discussions about how the current round of crises -- oil, food, financial markets, heavy weather -- can be transformed into opportunities for progressive change.
And there have been other kinds of responses too. The Shock Doctrine is a direct attack on the intellectuals and institutions that have disseminated corporatist ideology around the world. When I wrote the book, I fully expected to get hit back. Yet for eight months following publication, there was an eerie silence from the "free-market" ideologues. Sure, a few dismissive reviews appeared in the business press. But not a word from the Washington think tanks that I name in the book. Nothing from the University of Chicago economics department. Even The Economist magazine, which used to attack me gleefully and with great regularity, never mentioned the book in print. An American television producer, who was trying to find an opponent to debate me on-air, confided that she had never been turned down so consistently. "They seem to think if they ignore you, you'll go away."

Well, the silence from the right has certainly been broken. In recent months, several articles and reports have come out claiming to debunk my thesis. The most prominent are a "background paper" published by The Cato Institute, extended into a full length book in Swedish (!), and a lengthy essay in The New Republic by senior editor Jonathan Chait.

Several readers have written to asking me to respond to these attacks, if only to help them defend the book more effectively. I resisted at first (clinging to my summer vacation) but I appreciate the feedback and several points do need correcting. Since the reports by Cato and The New Republic -- though purporting to come from radically different points on the political spectrum -- share some marked similarities, I've decided to tackle them together. Here goes.

Sorry Boys, Milton Friedman Supported The War

Both Jonathan Chait and The Cato Institute claim that the late economist Milton Friedman was a staunch opponent of the invasion of Iraq. The Cato paper states of me that, "She claims that Friedman was a 'neoconservative' and thus in favor of an aggressive American foreign policy, and she argues that Iraq was invaded so that Chicago-style policies could be implemented there. but nowhere does she mention Friedman's actual views about the war. Friedman himself said: 'I was opposed to going into Iraq from the beginning. I think it was a mistake, for the simple reason that I do not believe the United States of America ought to be involved in aggression.' And this was not just one war that he happened to oppose. In 1995, he described his foreign policy position as 'anti-interventionist.'"

'American Theocracy,' by Kevin Phillips

Clear and Present Dangers

The New York Times Book Review, March 19, 2006
by Alan Brinkley

Four decades ago, Kevin Phillips, a young political strategist for the Republican Party, began work on what became a remarkable book. In writing "The Emerging Republican Majority" (published in 1969), he asked a very big question about American politics: How would the demographic and economic changes of postwar America shape the long-term future of the two major parties? His answer, startling at the time but now largely unquestioned, is that the movement of people and resources from the old Northern industrial states into the South and the West (an area he enduringly labeled the "Sun Belt") would produce a new and more conservative Republican majority that would dominate American politics for decades. Phillips viewed the changes he predicted with optimism. A stronger Republican Party, he believed, would restore stability and order to a society experiencing disorienting and at times violent change. Shortly before publishing his book, he joined the Nixon administration to help advance the changes he had foreseen.
Read more
American Theocracy Homepage

sexta-feira, 12 de setembro de 2008

Carlyle Group May Buy Major CIA Contractor: Booz Allen Hamilton

Cartoon by Khalil Bendib

by Tim Shorrock , Special to CorpWatch March 8th, 2008

The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity funds, may soon acquire the $2 billion government contracting business of consulting giant Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the biggest suppliers of technology and personnel to the U.S. government’s spy agencies. Carlyle manages more than $75 billion in assets and has bought and sold a long string of military contractors since the early 1990s. But in recent years it has significantly reduced its investments
in that industry. If it goes ahead with the widely reported plan to buy Booz Allen, it will re-emerge as the owner of one of America’s largest private intelligence armies.

Reports of a potential Carlyle acquisition of Booz Allen’s government unit began circulating among U.S. military contractors in December 2007, after Booz Allen’s senior partners and board members – a group of 300 vice presidents who own the privately-held firm – gathered at company headquarters in McLean, Virginia, for an extraordinary two-day meeting.

According to a December 15 letter to Booz Allen employees from CEO Ralph W. Shrader that was released by the firm, the vice presidents signed off on a “new strategic direction” that would involve separating the company’s commercial and government units and operating them as separate companies. That was widely seen, both inside and outside the company, as a sign that a sale of one or both of the units was imminent. Shrader said the company hoped to come to a resolution of the issues involved by March 31, 2008.

In January 2008, major newspapers – each quoting unnamed people close to the situation – reported that discussions between Booz Allen and Carlyle about the sale of the government unit were underway. According to the Wall Street Journal, the deal will be “centered on Booz Allen’s influence in defense and intelligence contracting. If an agreement is reached the sale price will likely be around $2 billion.”

Christopher Ullman, Carlyle’s chief spokesman, could neither confirm nor deny that a deal was in the works, and declined to comment to CorpWatch about the reports. Because of Carlyle’s long experience in the defense sector, he added, such companies “would be a priority for us when the price is right and it’s the right fit for us.” George Farrar, a Booz Allen spokesman, said his company “has refused to discuss particulars of any ongoing discussions” and would not comment beyond what Shrader wrote in his December 15 missive to Booz Allen’s workforce.

Who Is Booz Allen Hamilton?
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The Party Police by Amy Goodman

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Published on Thursday, September 11, 2008 by TruthDig.com

The Democratic and Republican national conventions have passed, but controversy surrounds how they were funded and how they were run. Mass arrests of peaceful protesters, excessive police violence, wholesale disregard for the Bill of Rights and the targeting and arrest of journalists marred what should have been celebrations of democracy. The "host committees," the legal entities that organize and pay for the conventions, act as large party slush funds, outside of campaign-finance restrictions. Scores of major corporations (and a couple of unions), barred from giving unlimited funds to political parties, could give whatever they wanted to the host committees of Denver and St. Paul, Minn.

According to a recent article in National Underwriter magazine, "Both the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee refused to comment on their insurance purchasing decisions, or even reveal who was providing coverage for their respective conventions." Bruce Nestor, president of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, who organized scores of legal observers around the Twin Cities to protect citizens' legal rights, told me: "St. Paul actually negotiated a special insurance provision with the Republican host committee so that the first $10 million in liability for lawsuits arising from the convention will be covered by the host committee. The city is very proud of this negotiation. It's the first time it's been negotiated between a city and the host committee. But it basically means we [the city] can commit wrongdoing, and we won't have to pay for it." According to the Minnesota Independent, more than 40 journalists were arrested or detained during the Republican National Convention.

Like what happened to "Democracy Now!" producer Nicole Salazar, videotaping protests in downtown St. Paul. She was violently forced to the ground, her nose bloodied, was held down with a man's knee or boot on her back, with another person pulling on her leg. Fellow producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous was thrown against a wall and kicked in the chest and back. The police might normally intervene and arrest the perpetrators. Except here, it was the police who were the assailants. And they arrested their victims. Arriving on the scene, I tried to have my colleagues freed, as we were all accredited journalists, and the police arrested me. And we were not the only ones.

As the mayors and police of St. Paul and Minneapolis patted each other on the back for a job well done, the nonprofit group FreePress, the head of the local chapter of the Newspaper Guild and other media advocates and reporters delivered more than 50,000 signatures to the mayor's office demanding that the charges against the journalists be dropped. We were met by St. Paul Deputy Mayor Ann Mulholland. Free Speech TV CEO Denis Moynihan asked about the Republican host committee indemnification of the city, "Isn't that just giving a $10 million ticket to the police to violate civil rights?" Mulholland countered, "We are very proud of that ... the $10 million was critical for our city. We would not have been able to host the convention otherwise."

The two major-party conventions have become protracted, expensive advertising spectacles for the presidential candidates. It makes sense that Democrats and Republicans would want to control the message. But democracy is not an advertisement, nor is it under the sole dominion of the two parties. People were engaged in Denver and St. Paul in a vast array of civic dialogue, public gatherings, marches, protests, concerts, art openings-in fact, there was more democracy happening outside the convention halls than inside them. The convention center names tell the story: It was the Pepsi Center in Denver, the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. Xcel, which pushes nuclear power, gave $1 million to each convention. Both top candidates support nuclear power as a viable option.

In Denver, but particularly in St. Paul, dissent was crushed with a massive array of paramilitarized police, operating under the U.S. Secret Service, granted jurisdiction over the "National Special Security Events" that the conventions have been dubbed. Corporations pay millions to the host committees, earning exclusive access to lawmakers and candidates. The host committees, in turn, unleash police on the public, all but guaranteeing injuries, unlawful arrests and expensive civil litigation for years to come. More than just a campaign-finance loophole that must be closed, this is a national disgrace.

Throughout the convention week, one of the 25 remaining typeset copies of the Declaration of Independence was on display at St. Paul City Hall-not far from where crowds were pepper-sprayed, clubbed, tear-gassed and attacked by police with concussion grenades. As the clouds clear, it is instructive to remember the words of one of the Declaration's signers, Benjamin Franklin:

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

quinta-feira, 11 de setembro de 2008

Playing with Children's Lives: Big Tobacco in Malawi


















Cartoon by Khalil Bendib

by Pilirani Semu-Banda, Special to CorpWatch
February 25th, 2008

Sickly and malnourished, Kirana Kapito began his working life on a large commercial tobacco estate in Malawi's northern region. The farms sell their produce on the country's auction floors directly to international corporations including Limbe Leaf Tobacco, majority owned by the Swiss-registered Continental Tobacco Company and U.S.-based Alliance One Tobacco.

Kirana is one of 250 million children across the world involved in work that is damaging to their mental, physical and emotional development. Some 57 million of these endangered children live in Sub-Sahara Africa. And with an estimated 1.4 million child laborers, the small, southern African nation of Malawi has the highest incidence of child labor in southern Africa, according to the Olso, Norway-based, FAFO Institute for Applied Social Science.

Kirana was eight years old when he first went to work in the fields. Estate owners transported him and his parents from their home village, Mulanje, along with 45 other families. The truck journey covered more than 1,000 kilometers and ended in the tobacco fields in Rumphi in northern Malawi.

Kirana's mother, Jane Kapito, 45, says the family left home seeking a better life. “Four years later, my whole family is still struggling with poverty. My son has to work as hard as everyone else if we have to afford the basic necessities. The money that my husband and I receive from the tobacco estate is not enough,” she says.

Now 12, Kirana has never been to school. For the past six months, his health has been failing and he can no longer work as hard as he used to. His mother says her little boy is malnourished and therefore contracts different infections easily. The family often goes without a proper meal for up to three days.

“Just in the past two months, Kirana has been afflicted by malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia,” Jane Kapito said. “He's my only child and I am so scared of losing him.”

This family's struggle is repeated throughout Malawi's tobacco industry, where poverty ensures that every member must contribute to the workload.
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