The Haves Certainly Have It

This from today's Letters To The Editor, to which I have nothing to add:

Re: Two richest men as wealthy as poorest 30 per cent, Jan. 16

It is telling that this news report was not a front-page headline in the Star.

As if the world needed any more data on the abject failure of capitalism and the neoliberal free market experiment, Oxfam has released yet another report once again documenting the egregious and unconscionable wealth of a minuscule number of individuals in Canada and around the world.

Report after report has documented the skyrocketing expansion of inequality around the globe and the inexorable march of wealth to the top of the social ladder. If capitalism were a new drug being developed to cure cancer and it failed in all but a few cases out of billions it would be abandoned immediately but we continue to prescribe the economic thalidomide of capitalism to the world’s population without remorse.

However, despite this overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence, the world media, economists and politicians seem blasé regarding its dismal and destabilizing failures and the deep and comprehensive reforms that are needed to ensure that global wealth is shared equitably. There are no front-page hue-and-cry headlines calling this an economic crisis or extended coverage of this issue on the news channels. This gross status quo inequality seems to be accepted and normalized as an inherent part of capitalism that cannot be changed.

In fact, with the election of Donald Trump in the United States, the American public has decided to firmly put on its rose-coloured glasses and double-down on the neoliberal nightmare of “cancer capitalism.”

Despite this political St. Vitas Dance, there is a desperate need for a government regulated, moderated and managed economic system that is actively structured to serve the needs of all in society as the historian and economist Karl Polanyi asserted. Such a system places clear limits on wealth accumulation and claws back excess wealth and profits through progressive taxation.

If we were smart enough to invent capitalism, we are smart enough to invent its replacement.

It is time to radically change our global economic system to serve the needs of humanity, not a few humans.

Robert Bahlieda, Newmarket

Do you find it amusing that we the public anxiously follow the media to be aware of the daily interaction between nations, cultures, religions, terrorists, politics and, oh yes, economies? Such a multitude of players in mankind’s unfolding history and future.

But perhaps there’s really only 16 – based upon the knowledge (and fact) that eight men own half the world’s wealth. Perhaps there are 16 players served by millions who accommodate them for reward while billions of others live in war and death and poverty and the rest of us are relegated to being blocks of pieces on an endless series of game boards that lead to millions of winners and billions of losers — just sayin’, perhaps.

But history says nations fade as empires rise. And our supposed representatives in governments are silenced by their parties who serve the players and their accommodators. Global democracy with globalization is sadly our “paradise lost” because globalization without global democracy is the globalization of poverty.

Ask yourself this. When it comes to big banks, big business, big oil, big money (non-pursuit of offshore accounts) and big talk, is Justin Trudeau really that much different than Stephen Harper?

Randy Gostlin, Oshawa

It Grows Slowly, This Revenue Loss

...but it grows unavoidably and becomes very large over time.

So says the author of a study on the effects of TFSAs (tax-free savings accounts), Rhys Kessselman, a School of Public Policy professor at Simon Fraser University. As the money accruing in those accounts grows, the revenue losses to both federal and provincial coffers grow commensurately over time. You will find other facts of interest here as well:

They're Buzzards, But You're Their Carrion.

We all know that average Americans have been reeling financially since the Great Recession. We know that the post-recession recovery has gone mainly to the richest of the rich and, this time, it's pretty clear there's been no 'trickle down' to the plebes.

A new study by the Russell Sage Foundation in conjunction with Stanford University shows the hit ordinary American families have taken since the recession. In 2003, the median American household wealth stood at $87,992. A decade later that figure had plummeted to just $56,335. In other words, ordinary Americans (the median family) became 36% poorer in the span of just 10-years.

Taking a longer view, from pre-recession 1984, wealth for the 95th percentile has doubled while for the 75th percentile it increased by a third. Median family wealth, however, has dropped 20% from 1984 levels while the 25th percentile has seen their wealth evaporate by a staggering 60%.

Two weeks ago, I wrote: The game today is for one select group of people to employ its considerable advantages to mine the remaining wealth out of everyone else. We've become the last, best natural resource and the system has been rigged to effect the greatest unearned transfer of wealth ever.

Thomas Pilger observed: "'Austerity' is the imposition of extreme capitalism on the poor and the gift of socialism for the rich: an ingenious system under which the majority service the debts of the few."

The rich are getting richer and they're doing it on the backs of everyone else. The poor are indeed getting poorer and the very poor are becoming economically eviscerated. Here's the thing. This isn't going to stop on its own. It's going to continue worsening until someone makes it stop. That's you. Don't expect any help from political parties that have already embraced neoliberalism. They're not in your corner. Clinging to them is like clutching an anchor while you’re trying to tread water.

Mos, The Disaffected Lib

Message From Orwell: "I Warned You" - A Mound Of Sound Guest Post

You don't have to dig very deep to get a pretty clear picture of the decline of today's global civilization. The good times are gone, over, finished. We're out of stuff, plain and simple. The game today is for one select group of people to employ its considerable advantages to mine the remaining wealth out of everyone else. We've become the last, best natural resource and the system has been rigged to effect the greatest unearned transfer of wealth ever. It has symptoms - inequality of income, of wealth and of opportunity; the wholesale theft of political power through "capture" of legislators and, in the US, even its courts; media organizations that now serve the power they once confronted; widespread and probably irreversible environmental degradation; secrecy and the triumph of the surveillance state.

Some of us have joined outfits such as Dark Mountain, a place for those tired of the lies civilization tells itself. It's a meeting place for people who know that the game is rigged and that most of the opposition is shadow boxing.

Alternet's John Pilger writes that, "The world we've constructed is far beyond George Orwell's worst nightmare."

"As advanced societies are de-politicized, the changes are both subtle and spectacular. In everyday discourse, political language is turned on its head, as Orwell prophesied in '1984.' 'Democracy' is now a rhetorical device. Peace is 'perpetual war'. 'Global' is imperial. The once hopeful concept of 'reform' now means regression, even destruction. 'Austerity' is the imposition of extreme capitalism on the poor and the gift of socialism for the rich: an ingenious system under which the majority service the debts of the few."

Go back and read that brief passage again. Do you seriously disagree with anything Pilger observes? If not, what does that tell you? Pilger continues:

"In politics as in journalism and the arts, it seems that dissent once tolerated in the 'mainstream' has regressed to a dissidence: a metaphoric underground. When I began a career in Britian's Fleet Street in the 1960s, it was acceptable to critique western power as a rapacious force. Read James Cameron's celebrated reports of the hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll, the barbaric war in Korea and the American bombing of North Vietnam. Today's grand illusion is of an information age when, in truth, we live in a media age in which incessant corporate propaganda is insidious, contagious, effective and liberal."

Do you honestly believe that the Liberals today are not committed vassals to corporatism? Hell, so is Mulcair's crowd. Here's the thing. Ask yourself whether a healthy democracy can co-exist with a corporatist state. It's no accident that the House of Commons is stuffed with petro-pols on both sides of the aisle. I'll conclude with one final passage from Pilger's excellent essay. In his concluding paragraph Pilger points out how easy it is for all of us - you and me - to be corrupted.

"In the 1970s, I met Leni Riefenstahl and asked her about her films that glorified the Nazis. Using revolutionary camera and lighting techniques, she produced a documentary that mesmerized Germans; it was her 'Triumph of the Will' that reputedly cast Hitler's spell. I asked her about propaganda in societies that imagined themselves superior. She replied that the 'messages' in her films were dependent not on 'orders from above' but on a 'submissive void' in the German population. 'Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie' I asked. 'Everyone' she replied, 'and of course the intelligentsia.'"

Are you part of a 'submissive void'? From what I've learned over the past seven years of many people who frequent these sites, there's a damned good chance you are. Think on it.

Inequality For All

I am a big fan of the documentary. Unlike the products of years gone by, today's films are engaging and provocative, frequently providing us with a window to a world we may previously have had only a passing acquaintance with. Whether political, social, or environmental in nature, documentaries are truly useful tools for educating us about the world we live in.

Much has been written about the decline of the middle class, that socio-economic stratum to which we were all taught to aspire. Yet, for a variety of reasons, that goal is now fast becoming unattainable for millions of people. While the reasons for this are many, a good starting point for understanding the problem is Inequality For All, a documentary by Jacob Kornbluth featuring Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labour under Bill Clinton.

In language and terms accessible to all, Reich makes an impassioned plea for a course correction in American politics that, not coincidentally, would also work well in Canada, given our current leaders' embrace of the neoliberal agenda that has caused so much misery for so many. While there is no simple solution to the woes we face because of that agenda, Reich offers a solid strategy, some of which is gleaned from other countries, for putting North America back on a solid economic footing that will benefit our increasingly imperiled populations:

Invest in Education: The countries that have fared best in the face of globalization are those that have encouraged and made accessible higher education and traning. Germany is one example cited in the film.

Strengthen Unionism There is a very interesting graphic in the film that shows an inverse relationship between income inequality and unions. When union membership is high, income inequality is low, and vice versa.

Raise the Minimum Wage This seems so obvious, but is always decried by the monied class as a job killer. The more money people earn, the more they spend, hence strengthening the economy. Henry Ford's wisdom has been forgotten.

Fix the Tax System Although we are constantly barraged with the propaganda that lower taxes on corporations and the wealthy are job creators, bitter experience shows us this is a falsehood. As one wealthy entrepreneur who makes upwards of $10 million per annum says in the documentary, "I don't buy $10 million worth of goods and services."

There are others suggestions Reich makes in his crusade to improve people's lives, but I will leave you with this poignant paraphrased comment from a woman in the film:

My wage and my benefits have been cut. I don't begrudge CEOs making millions of dollars, but why can't they leave me with a tiny slice of the pie?

Now available on DVD and ITunes, here is the film's official trailer:

A Faint Ray Of Hope?

Those of us who write blogs on a regular basis, I suspect, have a high tolerance for the uglier aspects of humanity that we regularly confront in our exploration of the political arena. Greed, deception, avarice and rampant egoism seem pervasive, concern for the collective good little more than a platitude. Yet we continue on, in part buoyed by the hope of a better future landscape where demagoguery and ideology are supplanted by reason and empiricism. One lives in hope.

Over at Northern Reflections, Owen, as usual, has an excellent post, this one on how the American politicos in their war on the poor seem to embrace an Old Testament avenging God, viewing victims of poverty and unemployment as having a moral failing.

On the other side of the coin, however, is the apparently positive effect that Pope Francis is having on some political leaders and commentators. In today's Toronto Star, Carol Goar writes the following:

Right-wing pundit Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, 2012 Republican presidential contender, inventor of workfare and forerunner of the Tea Party movement, issued this plea in a recent episode of CNN’s Crossfire: “I think every Republican should embrace the Pope’s core critique that you do not want to live on a planet with billionaires and people who do not have enough food.”

This was the man who advocated that poor people fend for themselves and Washington slash taxes on capital gains, dividends and inheritances. This was the inspiration for Preston Manning, Mike Harris, Jason Kenney and a host of other neo-conservatives.

She writes that Barack Obama gave a major speech on inequality that echoed what Pope Francis has been saying:

“How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?” Obama asked, echoing the pontiff. Within days, Senate majority leader Harry Reid pressed his colleagues to put inequality on their 2014 agenda.

Goar goes on to relate how Angela Merkel, David Cameron and others have been impressed and influenced by the Pope's direction. Notably absent, however, is any sign of a spiritual regeneration taking place within the Harper cabal:

Stephen Harper’s government shows no interest in narrowing the gap between rich and poor or reining in the excesses of capitalism.

As Parliament adjourned for its Christmas recess, its finance committee — dominated by Conservative MPs — tabled a report saying there was no need to change course. All the government had to do to address inequality was keep taxes low, remove disincentives to work (such as employment insurance benefits), boost the skilled trades and maintain an attractive investment climate — exactly the policies that fuelled the income disparities in the first place.

But as Goar also points out, with an election looming, Harper and his ilk cannot afford to ignore shifting public opinion nor their political rivals, who have made the fate of the middle class a mainstay of their rhetoric. (I can't say policies since they have none that are apparent to me.)

While the cynic in me cautions against putting too much faith in Damascene conversions changing the political landscape and conversation, the dormant optimist counsels me not to abandon all hope, either.

Joseph Stiglitz On Income Inequality

Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz recently gave a powerful speech at the annual AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles. Watching this video leaves one little choice but to feel a deep dissatisfaction with the status quo:

Puncturing Right-Wing Mythology

I hope everyone will take five minutes to watch this video, originally considered too controversial for TED Talks. The speaker, entrepreneur Nick Hanauer, very deftly cuts through the mythology perpetuated by the right wing that the super-rich are our job creators and hence must be treated with taxation kid gloves.