Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Jim Stanford's financial literacy for bankers and money profiteers
Go to Rabble.Com for Jim Stanford's latest lesson on financial literacy for the bankers and money profiteers who drove the great financial crisis and turned it into a real economic crisis for tens of millions of people across the globe.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Amazing! Poll Shows Support for Socialism in the USA!
Capitalism vs. Socialism: Big Surprises in Recent Polls
By Charles Derber
CommonDreams
May 18, 2010
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/18-3
According to the conventional wisdom, the US is a center-Right country. But a new poll by Pew casts doubt on that idea. It shows widespread skepticism about capitalism and hints that support for socialist alternatives is emerging as a majoritarian force in America's new generation.
Carried out in late April and published May 4, 2010, the Pew poll, arguably by the most respected polling company in the country, asked over 1500 randomly selected Americans to describe their reactions to terms such as "capitalism," "socialism," "progressive,"
"libertarian" and "militia." The most striking findings concern "capitalism" and "socialism." We cannot be sure what people mean by these terms, so the results have to be interpreted cautiously and in the context of more specific attitudes on concrete issues, as discussed later.
Pew summarizes the results in its poll title:
"Socialism not so negative; capitalism not so positive." This turns out to be an understatement of the drama in some of the underlying data.
Yes, "capitalism" is still viewed positively by a majority of Americans. But it is just by a bare majority. Only 52% of all Americans react positively.
Thirty-seven percent say they have a negative reaction and the rest aren't sure.
A year ago, a Rasmussen poll found similar reactions.
Then, only 53% of Americans described capitalism as "superior" to socialism.
Meanwhile, 29% in the Pew poll describe "socialism" as positive. This positive percent soars much higher when you look at key sub-groups, as discussed shortly. A 2010 Gallup poll found 37% of all Americans preferring socialism as "superior" to capitalism.
Keep in mind these findings reflect an overview of the public mind when Right wing views seem at a high point - with the Tea Party often cast as a barometer of American public opinion. The polls in this era do not suggest a socialist country, but not a capitalist-loving one either. This is not a "Center-Right" America but a populace where almost 50% are deeply ambivalent or clearly opposed to capitalism. Republicans and the Tea Party would likely call that a Communist country.
The story gets more interesting when you look at two vital sub-groups. One is young people, the "millennial generation" currently between 18 and 30. In the Pew poll, just 43% of Americans under 30 describe "capitalism" as positive. Even more striking, the same percentage, 43%, describes "socialism" as positive. In other words, the new generation is equally divided between capitalism and socialism.
The Pew, Gallup and Rasmussen polls come to the same conclusion. Young people cannot be characterized as a capitalist generation. They are half capitalist and half socialist. Since the socialist leaning keeps rising among the young, it suggests-depending on how you interpret "socialism"-that we are moving toward an America that is either Center-Left or actually majoritarian socialist.
Turn now to Republicans and Democrats. Sixty-two percent of Republicans in the Pew poll view capitalism as positive, although 81 % view "free markets" as positive, suggesting a sensible distinction in their mind between capitalism and free markets. Even Republicans prefer small to big business and are divided about big business, which many correctly see as a monopolistic force of capitalism undermining free markets.
The more interesting story, though, is about Democrats.
We hear endlessly about Blue Dog Democrats. But the Pew poll shows a surprisingly progressive Democratic base.
Democrats are almost equally split in their appraisal of capitalism and socialism. Forty-seven percent see capitalism as positive but 53% do not. And 44% of Democrats define socialism as positive, linking their negativity about capitalism to a positive affirmation of socialism.
Moreover, many other subgroups react negatively to capitalism. Less than 50% of women, low-income groups and less-educated groups describe capitalism as positive.
So much for the view that Obama does not have a strong progressive base to mobilize. In fact, "progressive,' according to the Pew poll, is one of the most positive terms in the American political lexicon, with a substantial majority of almost all sub-groups defining it as positive.
You may conclude that this all add ups to little, since we can't be clear about how people are defining "capitalism" and "socialism." But in my own research, summarized in recent books such as The New Feminized Majority and Morality Wars, attitudes registered in polls toward concrete issues over the last thirty years support the interpretation of the Pew data, at minimum, as evidence of a Center-Left country.
On nearly every major issue, from support minimum wage and unions, preference for diplomacy over force, deep concern for the environment, belief that big business is corrupting democracy, and support for many major social programs including Social Security and Medicare, the progressive position has been strong and relatively stable. If "socialism" means support for these issues, the interpretation of the Pew poll is a Center-Left country.
If socialism means a search for a genuine systemic alternative, then America, particularly its youth, is emerging as a majoritarian social democracy, or in a majoritarian search for a more cooperativist, green, and more peaceful and socially just order.
Either interpretation is hopeful. It should give progressives assurance that even in the "Age of the Tea Party," despite great dangers and growing concentrated corporate power and wealth, there is a strong base for progressive politics. We have to mobilize the majority population to recognize its own possibilities and turn up the heat on the Obama Administration and a demoralized Democratic Party. If we fail, the Right will take up the slack and impose its monopoly capitalist will on a reluctant populace.
Charles Derber, professor of sociology at Boston College and author of Corporation Nation and Greed to Green. He is on the Majority Agenda Project's coordinating committee ( http://MajorityAgendaProject.org, info@majorityagendaproject.org).
By Charles Derber
CommonDreams
May 18, 2010
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/18-3
According to the conventional wisdom, the US is a center-Right country. But a new poll by Pew casts doubt on that idea. It shows widespread skepticism about capitalism and hints that support for socialist alternatives is emerging as a majoritarian force in America's new generation.
Carried out in late April and published May 4, 2010, the Pew poll, arguably by the most respected polling company in the country, asked over 1500 randomly selected Americans to describe their reactions to terms such as "capitalism," "socialism," "progressive,"
"libertarian" and "militia." The most striking findings concern "capitalism" and "socialism." We cannot be sure what people mean by these terms, so the results have to be interpreted cautiously and in the context of more specific attitudes on concrete issues, as discussed later.
Pew summarizes the results in its poll title:
"Socialism not so negative; capitalism not so positive." This turns out to be an understatement of the drama in some of the underlying data.
Yes, "capitalism" is still viewed positively by a majority of Americans. But it is just by a bare majority. Only 52% of all Americans react positively.
Thirty-seven percent say they have a negative reaction and the rest aren't sure.
A year ago, a Rasmussen poll found similar reactions.
Then, only 53% of Americans described capitalism as "superior" to socialism.
Meanwhile, 29% in the Pew poll describe "socialism" as positive. This positive percent soars much higher when you look at key sub-groups, as discussed shortly. A 2010 Gallup poll found 37% of all Americans preferring socialism as "superior" to capitalism.
Keep in mind these findings reflect an overview of the public mind when Right wing views seem at a high point - with the Tea Party often cast as a barometer of American public opinion. The polls in this era do not suggest a socialist country, but not a capitalist-loving one either. This is not a "Center-Right" America but a populace where almost 50% are deeply ambivalent or clearly opposed to capitalism. Republicans and the Tea Party would likely call that a Communist country.
The story gets more interesting when you look at two vital sub-groups. One is young people, the "millennial generation" currently between 18 and 30. In the Pew poll, just 43% of Americans under 30 describe "capitalism" as positive. Even more striking, the same percentage, 43%, describes "socialism" as positive. In other words, the new generation is equally divided between capitalism and socialism.
The Pew, Gallup and Rasmussen polls come to the same conclusion. Young people cannot be characterized as a capitalist generation. They are half capitalist and half socialist. Since the socialist leaning keeps rising among the young, it suggests-depending on how you interpret "socialism"-that we are moving toward an America that is either Center-Left or actually majoritarian socialist.
Turn now to Republicans and Democrats. Sixty-two percent of Republicans in the Pew poll view capitalism as positive, although 81 % view "free markets" as positive, suggesting a sensible distinction in their mind between capitalism and free markets. Even Republicans prefer small to big business and are divided about big business, which many correctly see as a monopolistic force of capitalism undermining free markets.
The more interesting story, though, is about Democrats.
We hear endlessly about Blue Dog Democrats. But the Pew poll shows a surprisingly progressive Democratic base.
Democrats are almost equally split in their appraisal of capitalism and socialism. Forty-seven percent see capitalism as positive but 53% do not. And 44% of Democrats define socialism as positive, linking their negativity about capitalism to a positive affirmation of socialism.
Moreover, many other subgroups react negatively to capitalism. Less than 50% of women, low-income groups and less-educated groups describe capitalism as positive.
So much for the view that Obama does not have a strong progressive base to mobilize. In fact, "progressive,' according to the Pew poll, is one of the most positive terms in the American political lexicon, with a substantial majority of almost all sub-groups defining it as positive.
You may conclude that this all add ups to little, since we can't be clear about how people are defining "capitalism" and "socialism." But in my own research, summarized in recent books such as The New Feminized Majority and Morality Wars, attitudes registered in polls toward concrete issues over the last thirty years support the interpretation of the Pew data, at minimum, as evidence of a Center-Left country.
On nearly every major issue, from support minimum wage and unions, preference for diplomacy over force, deep concern for the environment, belief that big business is corrupting democracy, and support for many major social programs including Social Security and Medicare, the progressive position has been strong and relatively stable. If "socialism" means support for these issues, the interpretation of the Pew poll is a Center-Left country.
If socialism means a search for a genuine systemic alternative, then America, particularly its youth, is emerging as a majoritarian social democracy, or in a majoritarian search for a more cooperativist, green, and more peaceful and socially just order.
Either interpretation is hopeful. It should give progressives assurance that even in the "Age of the Tea Party," despite great dangers and growing concentrated corporate power and wealth, there is a strong base for progressive politics. We have to mobilize the majority population to recognize its own possibilities and turn up the heat on the Obama Administration and a demoralized Democratic Party. If we fail, the Right will take up the slack and impose its monopoly capitalist will on a reluctant populace.
Charles Derber, professor of sociology at Boston College and author of Corporation Nation and Greed to Green. He is on the Majority Agenda Project's coordinating committee ( http://MajorityAgendaProject.org, info@majorityagendaproject.org).
Debt and Capitalism's Entrenched Crisis
Sydney's Politics in the Pub Friday week ago featured Jim Stanford (CAW economist) and Steve Keen (Australian economist specialising in debt economics). I arrived late from interstate work but caught the last ten minutes - full of insights and timely reminders (and Stanford's unique wit). The lot can be seen and read about at Steve Keen's blog.
"The Left" Party in Germany builds its unity - Grossman's latest
Portside presents Victor Grossman's latest news update on German politics:
From: moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG [mailto:moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG]
Sent: Tuesday, 18 May 2010 12:09 PM
To: PORTSIDE@LISTS.PORTSIDE.ORG
Subject: East Side, West Side at Congress in Rostock, Germany
East Side, West Side at Congress in Rostock, Germany
Berlin Bulletin 2010 No. 9
By Victor Grossman,
Wily media experts hunted breathlessly in the big congress hall for a split, either between delegates from East Germany and West Germany, between party currents of "Realo" realists versus "Fundi"- Fundamentalists, or maybe between personalities; just any old split weakening or even crippling this nasty young interloper which was causing so much trouble for Germany's four traditional parties.
In Rostock, a port city on the Baltic Sea, 558 delegates gathered for the second congress of the party, founded just three years ago, called Die Linke, The Left. It had been a hasty marriage; one partner was a large East German party which, in the years since it severed ties with its deceased parent, the old ruling party in East Germany's GDR, had moved into second place, sometimes first place in the five eastern states and the boroughs of East Berlin. The other far smaller partner was a mainly West German amalgam of disgruntled Social Democrats, militant union members and various leftist groups and grouplets. Under the leadership of the East's Gregor Gysi and Lothar Bisky and the West German Oskar Lafontaine, the two had joined together.
The charismatic Lafontaine from the far western state of Saarland, the Social Democratic candidate for chancellor in 1990 and its head for four years, had quit that party when it veered sharply to the right. He retired for a few years until the chance for a new party arose. In no small measure due to his popularity, this newcomer had overcome anti-GDR, anti- Communist emotions enough to win 11.6 percent of the vote in last September's nation-wide elections, placing
76 delegates in the Bundestag, more than the long- established Greens, and creating an unaccustomed, complicated five party situation. It was also able to overcome the five percent hurdle in 13 of the 16 German state legislatures thus far, most recently in the key state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
But now in Rostock the two co-presidents, in their mid-60s, bade their farewells, Lafontaine for health reasons after a cancer operation, Bisky because he is active in the European parliament and heads the European Left Party. Would the party break in two without them?
There were undeniably problems and disagreements, some based on the very different backgrounds of Westerners and Easterners (or "Wessies" and "Ossies"). Ironically, most East German leaders tend to be more reform-minded, or, as some would say, less revolutionary. The Left is already junior partner in the city-state of Berlin and in Brandenburg, the state surrounding Berlin. It just missed government leadership in Thuringia after the Social Democrats finally preferred a coalition with the Christian Democrats. Next year, after state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, both in the East, The Left has good chances of joining or even heading two more government coalitions.
But such successes are also a main source of problems and disagreements.
Once in government, tight budget pressures can cause The Left to take positions contradicting its own policies, like laying off government workers, reducing some social programs or continuing the open-pit mining of lignite coal to save jobs. Some party members, mostly in the generally more militant West, look askance at such compromises and stress opposition, extra-parliamentary actions, including civil disobedience, and even a possible future general strike, now forbidden in Germany.
Suddenly, after elections a week ago in North Rhine- Westphalia, this problem also arose in a West German state. The Social Democrats and Greens could now govern there, but only with The Left and its eleven legislature seats. Will they accept such an alliance?
And if so, should The Left accept it? Social Democrats and Greens used leftwing slogans and made progressive promises in the election campaign but have been known to forget such promises when in office. This also raises a deeper question: should The Left work for reforms here and now, tacitly accepting the present social system, or rather reject any role as "doctor at the death-bed of capitalism", as such a policy was once optimistically described. These and similar questions were discussed in a surprisingly militant draft program by Lafontaine and Bisky, now up for debate in the party. Not a few in the East are very critical of its unusual militancy. That too is where the media hunters searched for splits.
Not every "Realo" loves such strong positions of Oskar Lafontaine. But his half-hour farewell speech was so analytical, vigorous and moving that he brought the house down, for many, many minutes, making it difficult for anyone to say anything against him or, more important, against his views.
Yet Oskar, as everyone calls him, attacked no one in the party. His scorn was reserved for those financial speculators largely responsible for the economic woes in Europe, the USA and elsewhere. In recent years, he claimed, they have gained such immense power that "the parliaments and governments are now no more than marionettes panting to keep up with the finance markets". He spoke of athletes honest enough to wear the names of company sponsors on their jerseys and suggested that politicians do the same. Foreign Minister Westerwelle, for example, might wear the logo of the big hotel chain which paid for much of his campaign and was rewarded by special tax treatment.
Lafontaine demanded global regulation of the financial markets, whose international nature made it impossible to solve the problem on a purely national basis. He pointed out that when he and The Left warned of the crisis well in advance they were dismissed as fools or demagogues.
Oskar spoke of the party's goal, democratic socialism, meaning an end to exploitation and oppression and as much freedom as possible for every individual, limited only where it impinged on the freedom of others. The traditions of The Left, he maintained, did not only reach back to the history of the two German states with all their differences, or to the older working class movement, but also to the slave revolts in ancient Rome, peasant uprisings in the Middle Ages, the French Revolution, the November revolution in Germany and the freedom fight in the GDR in 1989.
This freedom struggle will never be ended, he stated.
He also outlined current goals of The Left: a minimum wage law, reversal of the increased pension age to 67, cancelation of laws forcing the unemployed to accept any and every job at ridiculously low wages. He called for the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan, saying with pride, "We are the only anti-war party in Germany!"
And like so many speakers he stressed the need to oppose Neo-Nazis wherever they showed their heads. He praised the achievements of the party in only three years, which often forced other parties to improve their programs. And he thought The Left might join coalition governments with Greens or Social Democrats, but only if they were willing to revert to their own principles, siding not with the shareholders, financiers and speculators who seize the wealth, but with the working people who create it, who must one day control their own labor. Not new words, perhaps, but daring ones.
There were other impressive speeches, especially by Gregor Gysi , who will remain leader of the party's Bundestag caucus. None of them dwelled on differences, all stressed the need for East and West members to grow, work and fight together, with a stress on the grass roots membership.
The first months of 2010 had seen difficult times for the party after both Lafontaine and Bisky announced they would resign. The vacuum needed a quick response.
There had been recrimination among some leaders, including Lafontaine.
Though not completely forgotten, these were now smoothed over in a conciliatory manner; all those involved got ovations. As a result of these tremors over 80 percent of the participants in a postal referendum had agreed to elect a new double leadership.
This was accomplished at Rostock. One new chairperson is the universally popular Gesine Loetzsch, a Bundestag delegate from the borough of Lichtenberg in East Berlin who, with one other woman delegate, spent three isolated and discriminated years as the lone party representatives in the Bundestag. In Rostock she received 92.8 percent of the separate vote. The other chairperson is Klaus Ernst, a metal workers union leader from Bavaria, more controversial than Loetzsch, whose total was 74.9 percent, far below that of Loetzsch but well above the 60 percent he received three years ago. A third largely unknown candidate got
13.9 percent and was applauded but not elected.
For the job of managing secretary this pattern was
maintained: a man from West Germany and a woman from East Germany (who had moved there from the West).
Elected as vice-chairs were a parliamentary delegate from West German Saarland and three women from East Germany, the fiery Sara Wagenknecht from the Communist Platform, Halina Wawzyniak from the reformist or Realo wing and the Dresdener Katya Kipping. A financial expert (whose father was from India) became treasurer, and the executive committee was a large mixed team, with 17 women, 17 men, and about the same East-West ratio. Election rules in The Left prescribe at least half women in elections; in the Bundestag caucus the ratio is 40 women to 36 men.
The problems and disagreements did not disappear; there is plenty to argue about in the draft program before it is voted on next year. But at the congress there was a constant call for respectful dialogue and for unity in working towards the main aims of The Left, a better life for all without war or poverty. The party defied some hopes and predictions and stayed together so the media hunters, in their persistent search for some kind of split, will have to settle this time for a banana split.
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Sunday, May 9, 2010
Campaign to Protect Workers Entitlements
Bankruptcies and job losses are endemic to the capitalist system.
Generally, when these occur workers' lose all of their accrued entitlements: redundancy pay, long service leave, annual leave and sick leave.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union is campaigning - as it has been for nearly ten years now - to reform Australia's industrial and corporate law to secure the protection of all workers' entitlements in the event of bankruptcy, job losses and redundancies.
At the same time it seeks to bargain new clauses into collective agreements that secure these entitlements into a trust fund account, in the name of each worker: the NEST scheme.
Click here to see the union's latest video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rh621RWKHQ and follow the links to more information about the campaign.
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