Profile: People of Occupy Boston – John Murphy
BLAST Magazine: What do you do?
JM: Making sure the movement moves forward. Putting a foot to people’s asses when need be. Simple as that. I would rather be part of history than read about it.
Occupy Harvard’s walkout on introductory economics class still reverberating
The great irony and tragedy of “intro econ” is that it is at its introductory level that economic theory is both most broadly consumed and most malignantly simplistic. In a recent study, economists at the University of Washington found there to be an “indoctrination effect” for non-majors who take an economics course: on average, they behave more selfishly and hold less regard for others after taking such a course.
Generations of the world’s business people and public policy makers have been nursed on such courses. To gain some insight into why our economies and institutions are crumbling beneath us, then, imagine an engineer equipped with a rudimentary understanding of physics that omits gravity, and a certain above-average disregard for human life not his own. Now imagine him building all the major bridges in the world.
Congress Set to Cut Heating Assistance Funds Just as Temperatures Plummet
How many people the United States government is willing to allow to freeze to death this winter remains to be seen, but it is a slap in the face to know that federal funds are apparently available to bail out banks, but not to heat the homes of the American people. It’s going to be a long, hard winter in many parts of the US, and some of us are not going to make it to the other side.
http://tinyurl.com/7mtkaa6
RAP NEWS X – #Occupy2012 (feat. Noam Chomsky & Anonymous)
(video)
A tale of two systems
American autoworkers are constantly told that high-wage work is an unsustainable relic in the face of a hyper-competitive, globalized marketplace. Apostles of neo-liberal economic theory – both in the public and private sectors – have stressed the message that worker adaptation is necessary to survive. Indeed, Steven Rattner, President Obama’s “car czar” during the restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler in early 2009, spoke last week of his regret that the federal government had not required the United Auto workers to take a wage cut at that time to enhance the competitiveness of those companies, comments similar to those he made in a recently published book.
. . .
In 2010, over 5.5 million cars were produced in Germany, twice the 2.7 million built in the United States. Average compensation (a figure including wages and employer-paid benefits) for autoworkers in Germany was 48.97 Euros per hour ($67.14 US), while compensation for auto work in the United States averaged $33.77 per hour, or about half as much as in Germany, all according to 2007 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For Germany-based auto producers, the U.S. is a low-wage country. Despite German companies’ relatively high labor costs in their home markets, these firms are quite profitable.
http://tinyurl.com/7w4jlrq
Stop Picking on the Poor Plutocrats
I’ve just read a forthcoming book whose publisher I doubt will pay to place it in prominent display among the breathless coverage of the coming commie apocalypse. It’s called “Pity the Billionaire” by Thomas Frank. On its surface, the book is a rather blatant argument for self-publishing, since the delay that traditional publishers create has rendered the book out-of-date before it’s publication. Frank’s book treats the Tea Party as the latest thing and has never heard of Occupy.
. . .
Frank compares the response to the crash of 1929 with the response to our latest Great Recession and suggests that, “should you happen to hear an homage to the spirit of the Boston Tea Party nowadays, the demands that follow will be the opposite of those striking farmers of 1932. What makes the rebel’s blood boil today is not the plight of the debtor but the possibility that such ‘losers’ might escape their predicament – that the government might step in and do the things those Iowa farmers wanted it to do eighty years ago.”
If the Occupy movement did not exist, we would have to invent it. Frank, writing when it did not yet exist, was pointing out the need for its invention.
http://tinyurl.com/cgr9seu
First survey of the 1 percent reveals how they’re different from you and me: They’re more politically active (among other things)
Political Activities: Wealthy Americans are far more active in politics than less affluent citizens. Nearly all respondents said they voted in the 2008 elections; half of the respondents said they had contacted at least one type of government official in the past year; 41% reported attending a campaign speech or event and 68% said they donated to a political cause or campaign in the past four years. Roughly one of five respondents said they “bundled” contributions from other people for a party or political cause; on average, respondents reported giving $4,633 to political campaigns and organizations in the past year.
Political Attitudes: When asked to focus on how they would advance the common good, respondents often tended to argue for “getting government out of the way” in favor of free markets or private philanthropy. Of those respondents who considered deficits the most pressing problem, 65% mentioned only cutting spending as the way forward, compared to 35% who favored both spending cuts and revenue increases. No one mentioned only increasing revenue. Most respondents also favored cutting back most federal government programs, including Social Security and health care.
Arts Funding Is Supporting A Wealthy, White Audience: Report
A large portion of funding goes to more traditional institutions such as major museums, operas and symphonies. But recent surveys show attendance at those institutions is declining, while more people are interested in community-based arts groups. “We’ve got the vast majority of resources going to a very small number of institutions,” said Aaron Dorfman, executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. “That’s not healthy for the arts in America.”
According to the study, the largest arts organizations with budgets exceeding $5 million represent only 2 percent of the nonprofit arts and culture sector. Yet those groups received 55 percent of foundation funding for the arts in 2009. Only 10 percent of arts funding was explicitly meant to benefit underserved populations. However, the study’s author acknowledged the report may not account for every dollar granted to help reach diverse audiences at larger institutions.
http://tinyurl.com/432satb
Is giving to Harvard charity? The trouble with charitable tax deductions
What counts as “charity? Andrew Carnegie defined it as the “surplus wealth of the few becoming, in the best sense, the property of the many, because administered for the common good.” He said men of wealth should be trustees and agents “for his poorer brethren.”
Nowhere does Carnegie say charity is about rich people helping other rich people. Yet that’s exactly what so many of today’s charitable donations have become: wealthy people giving money to symphonies, art museums, business schools and elite health-care centers that really just benefit themselves and their friends, rather than the huddled masses.