Yeah, can't you just feel it, doesn't it tingle in your shorts, this slow build to a new "movement?" Does it energize you who remember the 60s, and delight those sorry to have missed it?
Don't indulge yourselves. This is too important.
If you want to capture this opportunity, you will need to focus. This is not about sustainability or mass transit, Portlanders; stop calling every employer a "fat cat," AFL-CIO, that's just not true; it is not about gay marriage, carbon caps, dams and salmon.
If you dilute this by pulling every cause onto your wagon, you will have only the same old gang on board. And that is not enough. Haven't you learned anything from the last 20 years?
This is about power. This is about money. This is about a system systematically abused by powerful people who own our politics. Keep it focused, keep it tight, and do NOT give it up when they throw scraps from their table to the floor where you sit.
Corporations are not "We the people" written of in our Constitution. They should not have the "rights" of individuals. One man, one vote, how about one donation of one amount? Should the Koch brothers be able to buy $50 million of influence while the rest of us are stuck writing emails to our congressmen? Where is the "democracy" in that?
We need to fix it.
Goldman Sachs rules the world, along with 146 other entities that own 40% of the world's wealth. No, it was not illegal, but we can make it illegal, or at least the tactics they use to hold on to power. If those 147 control our governments, who controls the 147? A function of government is to protect the system of commerce. It can't do that if it is owned by commercial interests.
"Too big to fail" should become a footnote in history. Instead, a couple of short years after tax dollars flowed from Main Street to Wall Street, big banks are jacking us around and saying they will levy a surcharge for letting us use our own money (Bank of America: $5? Really?) while paying their CEOs millions.
Big banks need to be broken up so any of them can fail without taking down the system. That is a key element of "market" economics." There has to be a price for failure. At least, that seems to be the medecine the right is prescribing for the rest of us. If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for the Koch brothers.
Goldman Sachs? Whatever it takes to make that blood sucker less powerful should be done, now. The revolving door by which Goldman employees enter government and vice-versa is a door to corruption that needs to be slammed shut. The same rules apply to all such leviathans.
Including labor, by the way, OEA, AFL, etc. etc. etc.
Consolidation of economic power should be resisted, laws against monopolies and oligopolies rigorously enforced. No, that's not "anti-business." It is pro-business, because it establishes a fair and level playing field on which business can be openly conducted, especially small businesses on which most of our economy still depends.
And that brings the final point: transparency.
Oregon was once a leader of transparent government. Nothing is more critical today. If we don't know what's going on, if we don't know who the players are, we can't make informed opinions. That was one of the promises of the current administration. It has not been fulfilled.
Make a contribution, your name goes on it. If you want to buy an ad, fine, but let the rest of us know who foots the bill. An informed populace is a key requirement of democracy, according to Jefferson, ballots are only secret when they go in the box.
To the media: good reporting is not weighing words pro and con in mythical scales of "fairness" and distributing them evenly on page or screen. There is such a thing as truth. Deal with that, take the consequences of doing your best.
If this be a call to class warfare, the lower class did not start the fight. It started when the bankers blew up the economy after telling us to borrow as much as we could, lowering the standards and hiding the consequences. When pharmaceutical companies wrote the Bush prescription act. When Enron had the key to Dick Cheney's office. When Haliburton got the no-bid contract to run the war in Iraq.
But I don't think it is so much "class warfare" as it is "Main Street versus Wall Street." They have taken enough from us, and now it is time to take to our streets, since every other avenue has been closed to us.
The left needs to avoid being shunted downs its favorite side streets, too. There will be time for all that, if we ever get to our destination. That destination, after these several centuries, remains an allegence to "Liberty and Justice for All." We just need to keep focused.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
How will Oregon play the revolution?
Herman Cain says it's my fault that I don't have a job.
I hope he becomes the Republican candidate for President of the United States. I think it would be wonderful for America to be choosing between two Blacks of high intellect for the highest office in the land. It would prove, in many ways, that Herman Cain is right.
Except that he is not. I don't have a job because two industries in which I was employed have effectively been wiped out. No one wants to hire someone my age, and I look. Goldman Sachs destroyed the value of what were considerable investments and was then bailed out with my tax dollars. My insurance went away with my employment.
So I hang on, underwater, hoping that I can hold my breath for as long as it takes to pop to the surface. If not, I drown, and it was my fault, according to Herman Cain.
Opportunity is such a tricky concept. On the one hand, we all know personal effort is necessary for success. On the other, we also know that luck of birth and circumstance plays a major role.
That is why our founding father's sought to secure the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and why this country's system of public education, especially by including returning soldiers after WWII, figured so prominently in American economic dominance of the second half of the last century. It was a time when personal effort and public support and a sense of "justice for all"-- and a bit of geopolitical luck -- came together to create wealth beyond imagination.
But that was then. This is now. And to those, like Herman Cain, who want to roll back the clock and say we all just need to roll up our sleeves, I say they need a reality check. It's now, not then, and we have to fix what's wrong now, not protect a system that evolved in a different environment and that has become corrupt because that is the nature of power -- it always corrupts, and the corruption is becoming concentrated.
Our schools are broken by having become a safe haven for mediocrity and by a lack of realism on the part of students, parents and society. Opportunity starts with high expectations at home, but is nurtured by demands in the classroom. We lack both. Our schools are pretty good at turning out lawyers and bankers, neither offering a lot of societal value-add.
Our political system is broken. Pharmaceutical companies, telecoms, insurance companies, energy companies -- they own our representatives (political system). And they are focused on the short term, so next year's profits (elections) take precedence over long-term public good (wider distribution of income). They (corporations, politicians) do whatever they can to make the system less transparent, so we can't follow what's going on.
Not that we have the schooling to do so. Or a media with the teeth to do the job entrusted to them by Jefferson and the first amendment.
If they can charge me $214 today for a generic drug I bought last month for $40 (yes, really!), so much the better, according to Mr. Cain. It is not immoral, it is the natural outcome of a system where power is purchased. That is the message of the right these days, under the cover of false "market economics," and the left whimpers about it not being fair and takes a fall in the ring.
If you don't have a job, blame yourself. If you don't have schools, blame yourself. If you don't have healthcare, blame yourself. If you don't have power to make a change, blame yourself.
Okay, I accept his challenge. I assert my right for change, and if that means protesting on Wall Street against the kleptocracy, then I protest. If I insist that elected officials represent me and my neighbors and not giant corporations (Greg Walden), I shout and protest and work for the other guy. If I want better schools, I will ask teachers and administrators to deal with the incompetent.
Once, a long time ago, Oregon's first Governor Kitzhaber proposed a revolutionary approach to healthcare. Why so silent now? When I was in school, Oregon had one of the finest systems of public education in the nation. Where is that vision and courage today? Oregon once sent statesmen to Washington D.C. who were effective, outspoken and moral. Those we send now croak about compromise.
That is not to say that the left has all, or even any, of the answers. Many on the left simply advocate for a bigger share of an ever smaller pie. And they get so distracted by red herrings of "social injustice," real and imagined. We have some actual economic injustice going on, the other can wait. Yes, it can. It must.
No, Herman Cain and Barrack Obama would not have the opportunity to face off against each other were it not for the civil rights movement. But that was then, this is now, and the problems are not the same. Opportunity requires that the pie become larger, so everybody can have at least a small slice.
Which is why we need a revolution. Why we will have a revolution. Because the opportunity for a better life through hard work has been lost to special interests. They not only play the game against us, but they own the refs, they slope the field and choose who gets which end, they draw the lines. The game is rigged, and if you and your children or grandchildren aren't on the inside, you will lose. It's a sucker's game. It's time to change the rules.
Only a revolution can upset a status quo that has evolved to protect the powerful. According to a recent well-respected study, 147 organizations control 40% of the world's wealth. What do you suppose they talk about when they get together? We'll guess: more for themselves of what they already have.
They won't do anything else, unless they have to, unless driven by economic collapse or an "American Spring." It should should start now. It should start here.
I hope he becomes the Republican candidate for President of the United States. I think it would be wonderful for America to be choosing between two Blacks of high intellect for the highest office in the land. It would prove, in many ways, that Herman Cain is right.
Except that he is not. I don't have a job because two industries in which I was employed have effectively been wiped out. No one wants to hire someone my age, and I look. Goldman Sachs destroyed the value of what were considerable investments and was then bailed out with my tax dollars. My insurance went away with my employment.
So I hang on, underwater, hoping that I can hold my breath for as long as it takes to pop to the surface. If not, I drown, and it was my fault, according to Herman Cain.
Opportunity is such a tricky concept. On the one hand, we all know personal effort is necessary for success. On the other, we also know that luck of birth and circumstance plays a major role.
That is why our founding father's sought to secure the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and why this country's system of public education, especially by including returning soldiers after WWII, figured so prominently in American economic dominance of the second half of the last century. It was a time when personal effort and public support and a sense of "justice for all"-- and a bit of geopolitical luck -- came together to create wealth beyond imagination.
But that was then. This is now. And to those, like Herman Cain, who want to roll back the clock and say we all just need to roll up our sleeves, I say they need a reality check. It's now, not then, and we have to fix what's wrong now, not protect a system that evolved in a different environment and that has become corrupt because that is the nature of power -- it always corrupts, and the corruption is becoming concentrated.
Our schools are broken by having become a safe haven for mediocrity and by a lack of realism on the part of students, parents and society. Opportunity starts with high expectations at home, but is nurtured by demands in the classroom. We lack both. Our schools are pretty good at turning out lawyers and bankers, neither offering a lot of societal value-add.
Our political system is broken. Pharmaceutical companies, telecoms, insurance companies, energy companies -- they own our representatives (political system). And they are focused on the short term, so next year's profits (elections) take precedence over long-term public good (wider distribution of income). They (corporations, politicians) do whatever they can to make the system less transparent, so we can't follow what's going on.
Not that we have the schooling to do so. Or a media with the teeth to do the job entrusted to them by Jefferson and the first amendment.
If they can charge me $214 today for a generic drug I bought last month for $40 (yes, really!), so much the better, according to Mr. Cain. It is not immoral, it is the natural outcome of a system where power is purchased. That is the message of the right these days, under the cover of false "market economics," and the left whimpers about it not being fair and takes a fall in the ring.
If you don't have a job, blame yourself. If you don't have schools, blame yourself. If you don't have healthcare, blame yourself. If you don't have power to make a change, blame yourself.
Okay, I accept his challenge. I assert my right for change, and if that means protesting on Wall Street against the kleptocracy, then I protest. If I insist that elected officials represent me and my neighbors and not giant corporations (Greg Walden), I shout and protest and work for the other guy. If I want better schools, I will ask teachers and administrators to deal with the incompetent.
Once, a long time ago, Oregon's first Governor Kitzhaber proposed a revolutionary approach to healthcare. Why so silent now? When I was in school, Oregon had one of the finest systems of public education in the nation. Where is that vision and courage today? Oregon once sent statesmen to Washington D.C. who were effective, outspoken and moral. Those we send now croak about compromise.
That is not to say that the left has all, or even any, of the answers. Many on the left simply advocate for a bigger share of an ever smaller pie. And they get so distracted by red herrings of "social injustice," real and imagined. We have some actual economic injustice going on, the other can wait. Yes, it can. It must.
No, Herman Cain and Barrack Obama would not have the opportunity to face off against each other were it not for the civil rights movement. But that was then, this is now, and the problems are not the same. Opportunity requires that the pie become larger, so everybody can have at least a small slice.
Which is why we need a revolution. Why we will have a revolution. Because the opportunity for a better life through hard work has been lost to special interests. They not only play the game against us, but they own the refs, they slope the field and choose who gets which end, they draw the lines. The game is rigged, and if you and your children or grandchildren aren't on the inside, you will lose. It's a sucker's game. It's time to change the rules.
Only a revolution can upset a status quo that has evolved to protect the powerful. According to a recent well-respected study, 147 organizations control 40% of the world's wealth. What do you suppose they talk about when they get together? We'll guess: more for themselves of what they already have.
They won't do anything else, unless they have to, unless driven by economic collapse or an "American Spring." It should should start now. It should start here.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Steve Jobs changed our world.
Steve Jobs died today.
Steve Jobs changed our world with his designs. He did not create computers, he revolutionized them. He did not create music distribution, he revolutionized it. He did not create cell phones, he revolutionized what they are, what they do and how we use them.
He has altered the lives of all of us in significant ways. It is as if we lived during the time of Edison.
Read here a few of his words from six years ago. It's worth it. May his vision inspire others.
Steve Jobs changed our world with his designs. He did not create computers, he revolutionized them. He did not create music distribution, he revolutionized it. He did not create cell phones, he revolutionized what they are, what they do and how we use them.
He has altered the lives of all of us in significant ways. It is as if we lived during the time of Edison.
Read here a few of his words from six years ago. It's worth it. May his vision inspire others.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Greg Walden for Sale
Rep. Greg Walden is a representative for ATT. The telephone companies have bought themselves a congressman from Oregon.
Walden, Republican Representative for Oregon's second district, signed a letter designed to fire a shot across the bow of the United States Department of Justice for suing to block ATTs purchase of T-Mobile. Read more here.
The DOJ fears ATT's acquisition of T-Mobile would harm competition.
Walden isn't willing to let the DOJ lawsuit play out in courts. He wants to haul the DOJ and Federal Communications Commission before congressional staffers to explain “the extent to which each agency has been considering the impact on jobs and economic growth.”
How absurd. Should the DOJ also justify the extent to which they considered the impact on plate tectonics, or global warming? The issue is competition and the long term harm to the markets and consumers if ATT gobbles up the only other national GSM wireless provider.
Walden is the top recipient of cash from the telecom services and equipment companies AND telephone utilities. Verizon, Qwest, Comcast, ATT, they LOVE Greg Walden. Read more about that here. They give him a lot of money, so he does them favors. It is that simple.
Walden's letter is just a ploy to threaten the DOJ and FCC, force them to face more work, more explanations. He wants to let them know that he might look hard at their funding if they don't buckle under. Because he wants to protect the source of his income.
Oregon, one of our congressmen is back in Washington, threatening the justice department for trying to protect the market from a duopoly (Verizon and ATT are the remnants of old Ma Bell), because he is in their pocket and owes them big.
Would you like to give him a call?
Rep Greg Walden
2182 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Main: 202-225-6730
Fax: 202-225-5774
Central Oregon office:
1051 NW Bond St., Suite 400
Bend, OR 97701
Main: 541-389-4408
Fax: 541-389-4452
Southern Oregon Office:
14 N. Central Ave., Suite 112
Medford, OR 97501
Main: 541-776-4646
Fax: 541-779-0204
Toll free: 800-533-3303
Eastern Oregon office:
1211 Washington Avenue
La Grande, OR 97850
Main: 541-624-2400
Fax: 541-624-2402
Walden, Republican Representative for Oregon's second district, signed a letter designed to fire a shot across the bow of the United States Department of Justice for suing to block ATTs purchase of T-Mobile. Read more here.
The DOJ fears ATT's acquisition of T-Mobile would harm competition.
Walden isn't willing to let the DOJ lawsuit play out in courts. He wants to haul the DOJ and Federal Communications Commission before congressional staffers to explain “the extent to which each agency has been considering the impact on jobs and economic growth.”
How absurd. Should the DOJ also justify the extent to which they considered the impact on plate tectonics, or global warming? The issue is competition and the long term harm to the markets and consumers if ATT gobbles up the only other national GSM wireless provider.
Walden is the top recipient of cash from the telecom services and equipment companies AND telephone utilities. Verizon, Qwest, Comcast, ATT, they LOVE Greg Walden. Read more about that here. They give him a lot of money, so he does them favors. It is that simple.
Walden's letter is just a ploy to threaten the DOJ and FCC, force them to face more work, more explanations. He wants to let them know that he might look hard at their funding if they don't buckle under. Because he wants to protect the source of his income.
Oregon, one of our congressmen is back in Washington, threatening the justice department for trying to protect the market from a duopoly (Verizon and ATT are the remnants of old Ma Bell), because he is in their pocket and owes them big.
Would you like to give him a call?
Rep Greg Walden
2182 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Main: 202-225-6730
Fax: 202-225-5774
Central Oregon office:
1051 NW Bond St., Suite 400
Bend, OR 97701
Main: 541-389-4408
Fax: 541-389-4452
Southern Oregon Office:
14 N. Central Ave., Suite 112
Medford, OR 97501
Main: 541-776-4646
Fax: 541-779-0204
Toll free: 800-533-3303
Eastern Oregon office:
1211 Washington Avenue
La Grande, OR 97850
Main: 541-624-2400
Fax: 541-624-2402
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Google + Motorola + T-Mobile = ?
I can't be the only one thinking this.
Smart or stupid or ridiculous or common sense, someone with a lot more horsepower than me has thought of this. So why haven't I read anything about it?
Now that ATT's bid to stifle competition -- with Verizon's tacit if silent support -- has hit rough water, why doesn't Google tender a bid for T-Mobile? Say $25 billion or so? Google can afford it, and if my recently demised (not Google's fault, I dropped it corner-first to my concrete floor) Nexus S is any indication, the "pure Google" experience would draw many fans.
What a wonderfully disruptive party that could start.
I think a Google purchase of T-Mob should pass anti-trust concerns. It could increase competition in the market rather than diminish it, with Google cash shoring up T-mob's weak position. With software/hardware/network integration, it would possibly speed up the rate of innovation and lower prices across the market.
Why not? We could anticipate ATT, Verizon and Sprint would pretty much stop selling Android phones immediately. Since Google's business model has a primary strategy of market penetration, that would be a problem.
But the same argument could be made that Samsung and HTC would stop making Android phones after Google's purchase of Motorola's phone business. While that hasn't happened yet, it's still early. We also don't know what Google execs told the manufacturers to allay their concerns.
Still, it makes one smile to think of buying an Google Android phone made by Google Motorola to run on a Google T-Mobile.
I wouldn't be able to have one, though. T-Mobile reception sucks where I live in the mountains, even worse than ATT. And since I can't even have a land line ... where's my Bionic or Nexus Prime, Verizon?
Of course, now that I think about it, another contender for T-Mobile might be... oh no, it can't be ... might be ... I can't stand it ... he owns my music, his computers fill my house, he wants my TV ... oh, Mr. Jobs, please let go of my future ...
Smart or stupid or ridiculous or common sense, someone with a lot more horsepower than me has thought of this. So why haven't I read anything about it?
Now that ATT's bid to stifle competition -- with Verizon's tacit if silent support -- has hit rough water, why doesn't Google tender a bid for T-Mobile? Say $25 billion or so? Google can afford it, and if my recently demised (not Google's fault, I dropped it corner-first to my concrete floor) Nexus S is any indication, the "pure Google" experience would draw many fans.
What a wonderfully disruptive party that could start.
I think a Google purchase of T-Mob should pass anti-trust concerns. It could increase competition in the market rather than diminish it, with Google cash shoring up T-mob's weak position. With software/hardware/network integration, it would possibly speed up the rate of innovation and lower prices across the market.
Why not? We could anticipate ATT, Verizon and Sprint would pretty much stop selling Android phones immediately. Since Google's business model has a primary strategy of market penetration, that would be a problem.
But the same argument could be made that Samsung and HTC would stop making Android phones after Google's purchase of Motorola's phone business. While that hasn't happened yet, it's still early. We also don't know what Google execs told the manufacturers to allay their concerns.
Still, it makes one smile to think of buying an Google Android phone made by Google Motorola to run on a Google T-Mobile.
I wouldn't be able to have one, though. T-Mobile reception sucks where I live in the mountains, even worse than ATT. And since I can't even have a land line ... where's my Bionic or Nexus Prime, Verizon?
Of course, now that I think about it, another contender for T-Mobile might be... oh no, it can't be ... might be ... I can't stand it ... he owns my music, his computers fill my house, he wants my TV ... oh, Mr. Jobs, please let go of my future ...
Friday, August 5, 2011
Obama: America's greatest president since Lincoln
When he took office, Barrack Obama inherited two wars, banks suffering a near fatal hangover from a binge on power and greed, a meltdown in the financial system via a faltering economy and unrealistic expectations, unions that still fight for responsibility without accountability, a political system that trades integrity for mediocrity by promoting ignorance, and a population that believes each of us and all of us are entitled without consequence as the common good is trampled by shouts of "where's mine?!?"
And now, from left and the right, come accusations of him of not doing anything.
Health reform. Major economic calamities probably averted. Wars winding down. A shift in responsibility back to where the founding fathers intended it to be, to the Congress. Which just now is blaming Obama for not preventing them from spending too much money.
And he got Bin Laden. For a great account of that, read this story in The New Yorker.
Obama was coolly giving no hint of pressure that weekend as he participated in a black tie dinner and checked in on the operation. Our president has more cool than any 20 of the whiny pundits who are now throwing rotten tomatoes. And he ended the operation by thanking the men involved and without putting up a "Mission Accomplished" banner in a photo stunt on an aircraft carrier. Imagine that. The man also has class.
Oh. What? You weren't paying attention? You all need all those stunts to know what to think?
Obama has always held that Congress has a job to do and should do it. The left says this is lack of leadership, and the right says he is failing the country. In fact, his methods have accomplished much that is visible, and prevented some disasters that, because they were not experienced, tend to be discounted.
More importantly, he has forced some accountability back to the institution where laws are made and votes are taken. Just the way Jefferson and Adams and the others intended it to be. "Lead from behind" has become a way of mocking this president. It also may be his way of forcing others in this country and around the world, those acting like privileged adolescents, to step up and do what they need to do.
I believe Obama may go down in history as the greatest president since Lincoln, and I say this on another day of a severe stock market dive (long overdue, by the way, and reflecting many things, few of them overtly political.) Some medicine does not taste good, and it is time we stopped blaming the doctor.
Maybe not. Maybe all of you are right, that Obama can't lead, that we are doomed, and that it's always the other guy's fault. But I don't think so.
Time will tell. Not the headlines of this week or this year, but of several years, and decades. Because that is how long it takes to see the impact of actions on a country as vast and complicated as ours.
And now, from left and the right, come accusations of him of not doing anything.
Health reform. Major economic calamities probably averted. Wars winding down. A shift in responsibility back to where the founding fathers intended it to be, to the Congress. Which just now is blaming Obama for not preventing them from spending too much money.
And he got Bin Laden. For a great account of that, read this story in The New Yorker.
Obama was coolly giving no hint of pressure that weekend as he participated in a black tie dinner and checked in on the operation. Our president has more cool than any 20 of the whiny pundits who are now throwing rotten tomatoes. And he ended the operation by thanking the men involved and without putting up a "Mission Accomplished" banner in a photo stunt on an aircraft carrier. Imagine that. The man also has class.
Oh. What? You weren't paying attention? You all need all those stunts to know what to think?
Obama has always held that Congress has a job to do and should do it. The left says this is lack of leadership, and the right says he is failing the country. In fact, his methods have accomplished much that is visible, and prevented some disasters that, because they were not experienced, tend to be discounted.
More importantly, he has forced some accountability back to the institution where laws are made and votes are taken. Just the way Jefferson and Adams and the others intended it to be. "Lead from behind" has become a way of mocking this president. It also may be his way of forcing others in this country and around the world, those acting like privileged adolescents, to step up and do what they need to do.
I believe Obama may go down in history as the greatest president since Lincoln, and I say this on another day of a severe stock market dive (long overdue, by the way, and reflecting many things, few of them overtly political.) Some medicine does not taste good, and it is time we stopped blaming the doctor.
Maybe not. Maybe all of you are right, that Obama can't lead, that we are doomed, and that it's always the other guy's fault. But I don't think so.
Time will tell. Not the headlines of this week or this year, but of several years, and decades. Because that is how long it takes to see the impact of actions on a country as vast and complicated as ours.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Class warfare
In the Wall Street Journal last week, a writer whined that Republicans, at least, had not resorted to "class warfare" in the debt ceiling/budget debate. More of this sentiment can be had from Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.
Mr. Heninger is not opposed to class warfare, mind you: very recently, he blamed the working class' faltering morality for their lower-drifting standard of living. But Mr. Henninger is a hypocrite and a mouth piece, and what can one expect of an employee of a (formerly great) paper now owned by that ultimate advocate of class warfare , Rupert Murdoch?
Yes, teachers unions have harmed education. We all get that, Mr. Henninger. That does not mean that banks and insurance companies and big pharma have not abused the power of their purchasing power in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to declare war on their customers.
The fact is, there IS a class war going on, and banks that pushed "liar's loans" are no less at war with the general public than tobacco companies that used cartoons to sell cigarettes to poor children and lied under oath about the results of their own research into cancer, all the while shifting the health cost of the addiction onto the taxpayer.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
Or Golden Sacks, which managed to get taxpayers to bail them out (directly, and through AIG) into a year of great profits, while our local banks had to stop making car, house and business loans. Golden and others tranched their way into unforgivable risk with our money. Lost it. Then got us to pay them back. Some of them should be in jail, and that they are not is because they have wealth and power.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
That the wealthy class cries out that their victims should not indulge in "class warfare" is an old tactic, often employed: "Thou shalt not speak any truth that I label the speaking of which as immoral." This gives the wealthy ownership of the playing field, and the rules, while they rip us off and try to get us to stop talking about how they have rigged the system.
It is sophistry, casuistry and it should be confronted as such.
We call foul. Corporate kleptomaniacs are hurting America. It was George Bush and his gang, not Barrack Obama, who put this country into this great financial peril. It is the bitterness of the right wing, exposed too often as amoral extortionists (Enron was NOT the exception), that we hear now in these laments about class warfare.
Yes, we need education reform. We also need bank reform. We need campaign finance reform. We need Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court. And we need real journalism in America.
Mr. Heninger is not opposed to class warfare, mind you: very recently, he blamed the working class' faltering morality for their lower-drifting standard of living. But Mr. Henninger is a hypocrite and a mouth piece, and what can one expect of an employee of a (formerly great) paper now owned by that ultimate advocate of class warfare , Rupert Murdoch?
Yes, teachers unions have harmed education. We all get that, Mr. Henninger. That does not mean that banks and insurance companies and big pharma have not abused the power of their purchasing power in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to declare war on their customers.
The fact is, there IS a class war going on, and banks that pushed "liar's loans" are no less at war with the general public than tobacco companies that used cartoons to sell cigarettes to poor children and lied under oath about the results of their own research into cancer, all the while shifting the health cost of the addiction onto the taxpayer.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
Or Golden Sacks, which managed to get taxpayers to bail them out (directly, and through AIG) into a year of great profits, while our local banks had to stop making car, house and business loans. Golden and others tranched their way into unforgivable risk with our money. Lost it. Then got us to pay them back. Some of them should be in jail, and that they are not is because they have wealth and power.
You don't have to call that class warfare. But it fits.
That the wealthy class cries out that their victims should not indulge in "class warfare" is an old tactic, often employed: "Thou shalt not speak any truth that I label the speaking of which as immoral." This gives the wealthy ownership of the playing field, and the rules, while they rip us off and try to get us to stop talking about how they have rigged the system.
It is sophistry, casuistry and it should be confronted as such.
We call foul. Corporate kleptomaniacs are hurting America. It was George Bush and his gang, not Barrack Obama, who put this country into this great financial peril. It is the bitterness of the right wing, exposed too often as amoral extortionists (Enron was NOT the exception), that we hear now in these laments about class warfare.
Yes, we need education reform. We also need bank reform. We need campaign finance reform. We need Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court. And we need real journalism in America.
Friday, May 27, 2011
I want a dumb pipe
I don't want to be a captive of AT&T or Verizon. I want them to serve me.
In Europe, the owner of T-Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, prohibits its subscribers from using Skype in its terms and conditions. AT&T and Verizon would love to be able to impose the same terms and conditions here.
What's it going to be, Congress? Oregon representatives DeFazio, Wu, Walden, Blumenauer and Schrader need to stand up and protect the market from the power of the duopoly. You too, Wyden and Merkley. Be heard on this.
I love the iPhone, and I love my Evo 4G and my Nexus S. I think it is wonderful to be able to buy these phones with all the features preloaded and have a two-year contract and a high value added by Sprint or AT&T or Verizon. They should be able to sell that.
But I want more choice. I want to be able to use the phone I want in the way I want and pay a fair price for access that I control.
I don 't want AT&T or Verizon to dumb down my phone so I can't use it on my home's wifi network the way they do now. I want to use my home's broadband conveniently to make a call and not be forced to kludge a solution.
I don't want AT&T or Verizon to cut sweetheart deals with Samsung or HTC or Motorola so that I can't get the phone I want to work on the technology I want, the way they do now.
I want to pay for megabytes I choose to download and upload, and not be forced to pay for data sent by automatic programs that AT&T or Apple or Google have loaded on my phone that suck up my personal data and sneak it to their servers without my knowledge.
I don't want NFL or NASCAR or anybody else's bloatware on my phone, or at least be able to get rid of it, which I can't do now. At what point does "protect network security" become an excuse for "keep competition out?"
And by the way, I want to pay for my call minutes in tenths: a call that lasts two minutes and six seconds should be billed at 2.1 minutes, not three, which is nothing but a 30% theft by the phone company.
If the telecom's don't want to become "dumb pipes," then I want our government to ensure, through the mechanism of the free market, that I have the right to choose a "dumb pipe" for my mobile phone and data services.
In fact, I need to be able to choose between two dumb pipes, either GSM or CDMA technology. I want to be able to use any phone I want on whichever pipe that I choose. I want to own the phone, and be able to customize it in any way that I want, use it in any legal way that I want.
The current system is being abused, protections for the consumer are few, because the market has failed to be transparent enough to drive the abuses out through the mechanism of consumer choice.
That will get worse if the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile is approved.
We need competition in the market place and a government that has reduced barriers to entry into the market of access to airwaves, "spectrum," that is owned and licensed by "We the People."
Our founding fathers would have been as outraged by the threat of corporate power as they were of royal power had such a thing existed in their day. It is up to us to stand up and demand our rights in a this new world. We do this by protecting the free market, doing what we need to foster competition and freedom of choice.
It is time our representatives in government took the threat to the future of communications seriously. We cannot let the consolidation continue by those who seek a monopoly. It is bad for markets, bad for America.
Hooray for Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) who earlier this week held a news conference urging regulators to block the deal, and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). Thank you for your free market stance that helps small business and consumers.
Power corrupts, even the economic power of private enterprise. The best antidote for that corruption is competition, functioning markets, and effective oversight.
Wake up.
In Europe, the owner of T-Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, prohibits its subscribers from using Skype in its terms and conditions. AT&T and Verizon would love to be able to impose the same terms and conditions here.
What's it going to be, Congress? Oregon representatives DeFazio, Wu, Walden, Blumenauer and Schrader need to stand up and protect the market from the power of the duopoly. You too, Wyden and Merkley. Be heard on this.
I love the iPhone, and I love my Evo 4G and my Nexus S. I think it is wonderful to be able to buy these phones with all the features preloaded and have a two-year contract and a high value added by Sprint or AT&T or Verizon. They should be able to sell that.
But I want more choice. I want to be able to use the phone I want in the way I want and pay a fair price for access that I control.
I don 't want AT&T or Verizon to dumb down my phone so I can't use it on my home's wifi network the way they do now. I want to use my home's broadband conveniently to make a call and not be forced to kludge a solution.
I don't want AT&T or Verizon to cut sweetheart deals with Samsung or HTC or Motorola so that I can't get the phone I want to work on the technology I want, the way they do now.
I want to pay for megabytes I choose to download and upload, and not be forced to pay for data sent by automatic programs that AT&T or Apple or Google have loaded on my phone that suck up my personal data and sneak it to their servers without my knowledge.
I don't want NFL or NASCAR or anybody else's bloatware on my phone, or at least be able to get rid of it, which I can't do now. At what point does "protect network security" become an excuse for "keep competition out?"
And by the way, I want to pay for my call minutes in tenths: a call that lasts two minutes and six seconds should be billed at 2.1 minutes, not three, which is nothing but a 30% theft by the phone company.
If the telecom's don't want to become "dumb pipes," then I want our government to ensure, through the mechanism of the free market, that I have the right to choose a "dumb pipe" for my mobile phone and data services.
In fact, I need to be able to choose between two dumb pipes, either GSM or CDMA technology. I want to be able to use any phone I want on whichever pipe that I choose. I want to own the phone, and be able to customize it in any way that I want, use it in any legal way that I want.
The current system is being abused, protections for the consumer are few, because the market has failed to be transparent enough to drive the abuses out through the mechanism of consumer choice.
That will get worse if the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile is approved.
We need competition in the market place and a government that has reduced barriers to entry into the market of access to airwaves, "spectrum," that is owned and licensed by "We the People."
Our founding fathers would have been as outraged by the threat of corporate power as they were of royal power had such a thing existed in their day. It is up to us to stand up and demand our rights in a this new world. We do this by protecting the free market, doing what we need to foster competition and freedom of choice.
It is time our representatives in government took the threat to the future of communications seriously. We cannot let the consolidation continue by those who seek a monopoly. It is bad for markets, bad for America.
Hooray for Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) who earlier this week held a news conference urging regulators to block the deal, and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). Thank you for your free market stance that helps small business and consumers.
Power corrupts, even the economic power of private enterprise. The best antidote for that corruption is competition, functioning markets, and effective oversight.
Wake up.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Verizon is complicit
In a story (read it here) on May 24, 2011 in the Wall Street Journal, under the headline "These Companies Hate the AT&T/T-Mobile Merger," it was noted by reporter Shira Ovide that Verizon, which would drop from largest to second largest wireless company after AT&T swallows T-Mobile, has not come out against the proposed merger.
Duh.
Ovide notes the Verizon CEO is saying only “We’re not going to get distracted by this.”
Ovide refers to analysts who opine that the reason for Verizon's calm reaction is that "Verizon Wireless ... could get a lift if AT&T strips low-cost rival T-Mobile from the market. At the same time, AT&T could be distracted for a year or more securing all the necessary government clearances for the deal, and then integrating T-Mobile into the fold. The lull might help Verizon poach subscribers from its biggest competitor."
Sometimes it is hard to believe what passes for journalism. Distracted? Please.
One would think that a reporter from the Wall Street Journal would understand the value of a duopoly (like a monopoly, but with two) to one of the duopolists. In other words, if AT&T becomes the only GSM wireless company, and is able to hammer suppliers and gouge consumers, then Verizon, as by far the largest of the CDMA wireless group, would also benefit. Even without direct collusion.
Markets require competition to work effectively. AT&T and Verizon are doing everything they can in the media, in Texas, and before the U.S. Senate to cloud the issues.
"We don't know if the market is best served by three or four carriers," burbles one wireless exec. "If we don't have more spectrum, ambulances will be unreachable," growls another from AT&T.
Nonsense. This merger is about AT&T sucking up spectrum now, dollars and dollars later, from a distortion of a market that rides on licenses to use airways owned … by… us.
We need more choices of which carrier to use, not fewer choices. We need three or four GSM carriers, and three or four CDMA carriers, for there to be a truly competitive "free" market. There is less competition if there are only three, if Sprint hobbles along as a distant 3rd, or two if Verizon sucks up Sprint.
Verizon is sanguine about the AT&T and T-Mobile merger because Verizon executives know that even as number two, they will still get a larger slice of porker pie than they do now, even if it is not the largest one on the table.
The U.S. government should protect consumers and small business and refuse to go along with this merger. Communication is the economy's lifeblood now more than ever. Republicans should live up to their ideals of doing what is good for business, and that does not mean just doing good for one of their largest political donors. Where the hell is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?
AT&T was broken up once before. We should look at this power grab as a reason to consider doing it again.
Duh.
Ovide notes the Verizon CEO is saying only “We’re not going to get distracted by this.”
Ovide refers to analysts who opine that the reason for Verizon's calm reaction is that "Verizon Wireless ... could get a lift if AT&T strips low-cost rival T-Mobile from the market. At the same time, AT&T could be distracted for a year or more securing all the necessary government clearances for the deal, and then integrating T-Mobile into the fold. The lull might help Verizon poach subscribers from its biggest competitor."
Sometimes it is hard to believe what passes for journalism. Distracted? Please.
One would think that a reporter from the Wall Street Journal would understand the value of a duopoly (like a monopoly, but with two) to one of the duopolists. In other words, if AT&T becomes the only GSM wireless company, and is able to hammer suppliers and gouge consumers, then Verizon, as by far the largest of the CDMA wireless group, would also benefit. Even without direct collusion.
Markets require competition to work effectively. AT&T and Verizon are doing everything they can in the media, in Texas, and before the U.S. Senate to cloud the issues.
"We don't know if the market is best served by three or four carriers," burbles one wireless exec. "If we don't have more spectrum, ambulances will be unreachable," growls another from AT&T.
Nonsense. This merger is about AT&T sucking up spectrum now, dollars and dollars later, from a distortion of a market that rides on licenses to use airways owned … by… us.
We need more choices of which carrier to use, not fewer choices. We need three or four GSM carriers, and three or four CDMA carriers, for there to be a truly competitive "free" market. There is less competition if there are only three, if Sprint hobbles along as a distant 3rd, or two if Verizon sucks up Sprint.
Verizon is sanguine about the AT&T and T-Mobile merger because Verizon executives know that even as number two, they will still get a larger slice of porker pie than they do now, even if it is not the largest one on the table.
The U.S. government should protect consumers and small business and refuse to go along with this merger. Communication is the economy's lifeblood now more than ever. Republicans should live up to their ideals of doing what is good for business, and that does not mean just doing good for one of their largest political donors. Where the hell is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?
AT&T was broken up once before. We should look at this power grab as a reason to consider doing it again.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Republicans are anti-business
The right wing is still pushing the message, "government is bad, people are good." Less government, lower taxes, more freedom, let free markets work.
The message "government is bad" resonates because, since WWII, our government and wealth have often been directed toward doing things government does not do well. There has also been a successful effort on the part of unions to protect government jobs and paychecks while reducing accountability, which has not been good PR.
But the pointed message "government is bad" has been co-opted as propaganda by radical right wing think tanks that have an entirely different agenda which is being fed to the American people by political puppets. Simply stated, their goal is to reintroduce hardship as a means to improve productivity, and encourage corporate culture to become America's culture.
Which is not bad in and of itself, as long as we are able to have a discussion about what is involved. But we are lazy and we are easily misled and the issues take work and they are hard.
Before we throw out rules and regulations and limit government, we need a real conversation about what will take its place. What will limit the power of those who can and will take advantage of other people's weakness?
"Free markets" without rules that keep as many players as possible in the game aren't free at all. Markets are not "moral." They can't be nor should they be. At best, we hope they are efficient at providing the products and services we want at the lowest possible cost through the mechanism of competition.
Without enough players, and that number varies by industry, markets become captive to the most powerful. Then the powerful take advantage of the rest of us.
In some "markets," such as health care, even the lowest possible cost is probably still more than we can afford when we attempt to postpone death as long as possible. Everyone is being false when we debate only cost and affordability without acknowledging the spiritual issue that Death is inevitable and hard. Horrific manipulation from the right (death panels!) only served to hide the fact that the Republican agenda is a fast track to the same destination. Again, not to disagree with the direction, but the dishonestly is breathtaking.
Or the "markets" in communication. There has been more than one revolution in the telecommunications industry since AT&T, then called "Ma Bell," was broken up (by government regulation). These revolutions would have been far different, and less likely, had Ma Bell's monopoly continued.
Now we have different technologies, and different requirements. But monopolies, or duopolies, or oligopolies still seek power and profit and the power that profit provides. As they should. The corporation has a duty only to itself.
The entity that stands between abuse of corporate power is government. Our system of laws is the "playing field" on which we play the economic game. It doesn't work if one player is able to walk up to any other player at any time and say, "give me all your money."
Which is what AT&T and Exxon and UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Goldman Sachs and Pfeizer and Monsanto are trying to achieve.
They don't want "free" markets, they want your money. Truly efficient markets would mean competition, which would keep costs down and limit how much they could take. So they attempt to reduce the government that could keep markets healthy.
So the Republicans who do their bidding (Bohner, Bachmann, etc.) don't like "free markets" either. They undermine government's role, or work to prohibit government from regulating industries that seek to monopolize our life blood services such as fuel, communication, health care, money and food.
Yes, price controls and direct government interference can do more harm than good. And government screws it up often enough. But let's not forget that government is not the only power, and that many laws are designed first and foremost to protect the public from robbery, either by a thug in a hoody or a Harvard grad in an expensive suit.
Successful efforts (by conservatives and liberals) to repeal banking laws that were enacted after the Great Depression, along with a failure to regulate new financial instruments, and a cultural change ("Borrow money against your house to buy ... toys! You deserve it!") promoted by banks led to the deep recession we have not yet survived.
Look at how much is spent on lobbying, by whom, and how the supreme court (why hasn't Clarence Thomas been impeached?) allowed corporations to hide their influence and spend as much as they like to upend "democracy."
There is an incoherence among a population that wants less government but more services. That incoherence is being manipulated by some very smart and greedy people who know that government is the last warden protecting the average American from a corporatist culture that views our nest egg as food.
And they are being aided unintentionally by a Left Wing that hates other people's money and thinks that good intentions are more powerful than the laws of economics.
The message "government is bad" resonates because, since WWII, our government and wealth have often been directed toward doing things government does not do well. There has also been a successful effort on the part of unions to protect government jobs and paychecks while reducing accountability, which has not been good PR.
But the pointed message "government is bad" has been co-opted as propaganda by radical right wing think tanks that have an entirely different agenda which is being fed to the American people by political puppets. Simply stated, their goal is to reintroduce hardship as a means to improve productivity, and encourage corporate culture to become America's culture.
Which is not bad in and of itself, as long as we are able to have a discussion about what is involved. But we are lazy and we are easily misled and the issues take work and they are hard.
Before we throw out rules and regulations and limit government, we need a real conversation about what will take its place. What will limit the power of those who can and will take advantage of other people's weakness?
"Free markets" without rules that keep as many players as possible in the game aren't free at all. Markets are not "moral." They can't be nor should they be. At best, we hope they are efficient at providing the products and services we want at the lowest possible cost through the mechanism of competition.
Without enough players, and that number varies by industry, markets become captive to the most powerful. Then the powerful take advantage of the rest of us.
In some "markets," such as health care, even the lowest possible cost is probably still more than we can afford when we attempt to postpone death as long as possible. Everyone is being false when we debate only cost and affordability without acknowledging the spiritual issue that Death is inevitable and hard. Horrific manipulation from the right (death panels!) only served to hide the fact that the Republican agenda is a fast track to the same destination. Again, not to disagree with the direction, but the dishonestly is breathtaking.
Or the "markets" in communication. There has been more than one revolution in the telecommunications industry since AT&T, then called "Ma Bell," was broken up (by government regulation). These revolutions would have been far different, and less likely, had Ma Bell's monopoly continued.
Now we have different technologies, and different requirements. But monopolies, or duopolies, or oligopolies still seek power and profit and the power that profit provides. As they should. The corporation has a duty only to itself.
The entity that stands between abuse of corporate power is government. Our system of laws is the "playing field" on which we play the economic game. It doesn't work if one player is able to walk up to any other player at any time and say, "give me all your money."
Which is what AT&T and Exxon and UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Goldman Sachs and Pfeizer and Monsanto are trying to achieve.
They don't want "free" markets, they want your money. Truly efficient markets would mean competition, which would keep costs down and limit how much they could take. So they attempt to reduce the government that could keep markets healthy.
So the Republicans who do their bidding (Bohner, Bachmann, etc.) don't like "free markets" either. They undermine government's role, or work to prohibit government from regulating industries that seek to monopolize our life blood services such as fuel, communication, health care, money and food.
Yes, price controls and direct government interference can do more harm than good. And government screws it up often enough. But let's not forget that government is not the only power, and that many laws are designed first and foremost to protect the public from robbery, either by a thug in a hoody or a Harvard grad in an expensive suit.
Successful efforts (by conservatives and liberals) to repeal banking laws that were enacted after the Great Depression, along with a failure to regulate new financial instruments, and a cultural change ("Borrow money against your house to buy ... toys! You deserve it!") promoted by banks led to the deep recession we have not yet survived.
Look at how much is spent on lobbying, by whom, and how the supreme court (why hasn't Clarence Thomas been impeached?) allowed corporations to hide their influence and spend as much as they like to upend "democracy."
There is an incoherence among a population that wants less government but more services. That incoherence is being manipulated by some very smart and greedy people who know that government is the last warden protecting the average American from a corporatist culture that views our nest egg as food.
And they are being aided unintentionally by a Left Wing that hates other people's money and thinks that good intentions are more powerful than the laws of economics.
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