Category Archives: Social policy

Earth to Libertarians: Private Parties Have Coercive Power Too

I’m sick of the free pass given the libertarian blather, “The state is the only source of coercive power.” I doubt that many non-libertarians buy that assetion, but they too often remain silent because most libertarians are rabid on that issue and arguing with them is like talking to a wall. But since that bogus assertion has been showing up increasingly in comments here as right-wing plants are becoming more common, I might as well do a quick shred, since it does not take much effort to show this claim is nonsense.

Let’s look at some simple empirical examples of why this pet argument just ain’t so.

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Buzz Potamkin: Still Getting Away With Murder Manslaughter

By Buzz Potamkin, former studio executive and producer, in the biz for 40+ years, now a consultant

Today is the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

Readers of this blog will notice a certain resemblance between Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, proprietors of the Triangle Waist Company, and today’s financial industry titans: serial fires (at least 4 previously, apparently at times with excess inventory, all conveniently insured), disregard for risk, blatant violation of governmental regulations and codes, use of corporate veils, aggressive legal representation, friendly “powers that be,” and continued unaltered conduct after the fact. Neither of them ever went to jail: both were beneficiaries of Judge Thomas C.T. Crain’s overly limiting jury charge in their trial for manslaughter in the death of 24-year old Margaret Schwartz, and both were cleared in the death of 23-year old Jacob Klein by Judge Samuel Seabury’s instructions to that jury to find for the defendants. (If you, humble reader, notice a certain pattern in judges named Crain and Seabury presiding in the cases of victims named Schwartz and Klein, let me not dissuade you.)

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How the US Got in the Torture Business

Normally, I’d relegate an article that discusses torture to Links and let readers chat it up among themselves. But an article at TruthOut on the genesis of the US torture program needs to be read widely. And in many respects, it’s not as off topic as it might seem to be.

On one level, it is a troubling illustration of an Israeli saying, “Love your enemy, for you will become him.”

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Bill Maher Tells Poor People: Stop Thinking the Rich are On Your Side

From this week’s “New Rules” section of the Bill Maher show. The relevant part starts at 2:10 (hat tip Helaine Olen via Gawker). It is gratifyingly brutal.

Another sign of the MSM’s descent into Pravda-like irrelevance is that the only mass audience venues that regularly provide commentary within hailing distance of reality are comedy shows.

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Arrests Starting in Wisconsin

‘ve gotten messages but don’t see any news items yet (you can apparently find confirmation on Twitter, @AndrewKroll, @ddayen, and PRNewswatch for instance) that the police in Wisconsin have announced they will begin arrests to clear the capitol building. It’s to start at 4:00 PM Central, so it is now in process.

Hundreds have said they are willing to be arrested. Human chains were formed around the capitol.

Wonder what happens when they run out of local jail space.

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Guest Post: Cooking up trouble – Soaring food and fuel prices in North Africa and the Middle East

Yves here. I thought this post was useful not only in describing how high food prices posed a particularly difficult policy problem for North African countries, but also in providing important background.

By Ronald Albers and Marga Peeters; cross posted from VoxEU.

World food prices are now even higher than their peak just before the global crisis. During periods of high commodity prices, North African and Middle Eastern governments have a long tradition of subsidising food and fuel products. But this column shows that food price inflation and consequently subsidies were also high during periods when global commodity prices were falling. Now these countries have an opportunity to correct this.

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More Reasons to Be Leery of Infrastructure Sales: Abuses of Rights for Fun and Profit

Yesterday, we discussed a mundane reason to be leery of the sale of assets owned by the public to private parties: the outcome, almost without exception, is a ripoff. Even if the owners manage to orchestrate the bidding well enough to assure that the entity fetches a decent price, the cost of doing the deal and the investors’ return requirements assure that charges to the public will rise faster than if the property was left in government hands (and this does not preclude the owner scrimping on maintenance and service levels). Macquarie Bank has been the world leader in this business, and reader Crocodile Chuck gave some useful examples:

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Chamber of Commerce Law Firm Studied Disinformation, Smear and Coercion Campaign Against Opponents

On the one hand, it’s a badge of honor of sorts to see the most powerful political lobby, the Chamber of Commerce, have its operatives moving from the “ignore you” to the “fight you” stage of engagement. The flip side is that the tactics that they are willing to consider don’t reflect at all well on their commitment to principles like the rule of law or decency.

ThinkProgress today broke the story of the dirty works being considered. Readers may be aware of a massive leak of e-mails of the security firm HB Gary Federal which made the mistake of trying to hack the computers of Anonymous, the group that has taken to punishing organizations that cut off donations to Wikileaks.

Anonymous obtained and leaked the internal messages and rubbed HB Gary’s face in it a bit too.

The e-mail dump exposed some dirty laundry, namely that of a disinformation campaign that HB Gary plus two other “security” firms Palantir, and Berico Technologies (which together called themselves Team Themis had started to map out for a law firm the Chamber of Commerce works actively with, Hunton & Williams.

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Tom Ferguson: Memo to Obama – Anything but Democracy Now for Egypt is Building on Sand

By Tom Ferguson, Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and a Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow. Cross posted from New Deal 2.0

Food and oil prices are rising as tension in Cairo is soaring — time to get on board with the people’s demands.

Add Barack Obama to the long list of statesmen who couldn’t solve the Riddle of the Sphinx. For a while last week it looked like a miracle was happening: The United States was on the verge of doing right and doing well at the same time. After stumbling initially, the administration openly warned the Egyptian army and government not to slaughter the protesters. It also started lining up behind the Egyptian people’s demands for a swift transition to a new, more democratic regime. Neo-con lions like Robert Kagan and Elliott Abrams bedded down with liberal internationalist lambs in a “Working Group on Egypt” that called for reforms and Mubarak’s exit, while John McCain and other Republicans offered bipartisan cover for Real Change in the world’s oldest civilization.

But by Saturday, February 5, the wheels started coming off.

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Marshall Auerback: Plan B for Health Care Reform – It’s Called ‘Medicare for All’

By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and hedge fund manager who writes at New Deal 2.0. If we’re forced back to square one by the Supreme Court, why not get it right? My colleague, Bo Cutter, has noted the likelihood of continued challenges to health care reform in the wake of the recent Florida State […]

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Guest Post: The puzzle of China’s rising household saving rate

Yves here. I thought this post from VoxEU was worth featuring because it provides concrete support for one theory about how to reduce US/Chinese trade imbalances. As long as China has a high savings rate and low domestic consumption, it will have to also show a high level of exports, which in turn means other countries or countries wind up showing high levels of consumption and rising debt levels. And worryingly, China’s consumption as a percent of GDP has been falling, a very unusual pattern for a developing economy.

One common prescription is for China to improve its social safety nets. This analysis indicates that might have merit. Admittedly, there are practical obstacles to implementing it, one of the large ones being the level of corruption in provincial governments.

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NPR’s “Must Read”, As in Orthodoxy-Promoting, Economics Books

Reader Gary P sent me an e-mail about a Planet Money list of “must read” economics books. I had toyed with posting on it, held off because I have a wee conflict of interest as an an author of a book decidedly critical of mainstream economics, but the biases implicit in the NPR piece have been nagging at me.

If nothing else, this tally should dispel any idea that NPR is left-leaning:

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