Maybe Eric Schmidt, Sheryl Sandberg, and Elon Musk Just Really Like Butte, Montana

BY DAVID DAYEN

The CEOs of the nation’s largest companies typically don’t have a reason to fly to Butte, Montana. But that’s where they are this week, a who’s who of corporate America, participating in the Montana Economic Development Summit, billed as an effort to “boost our state’s economy by finding Montana solutions for Montana jobs.” That may sound like a regional concern, but the non-Montana titans of industry in attendance include Google CEO Eric Schmidt; Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg; Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk; and many more, including executives from Ford, Boeing, Hewlett-Packard, ConocoPhillips, Oracle, FedEx and Delta Airlines. Sponsors of the event include even more behemoths, like Walmart, Pfizer, Pepsi, Microsoft, Nike, Lockheed Martin and dozens more.

How can a local Montana jobs summit attract the giants of American commerce, few of whom have any business interests in the state? Well, the convener of the event, Max Baucus, happens to chair the Senate Finance Committee, the key tax-writing panel in the upper chamber. And when he throws an event, nominally about “bringing jobs to Montana,” corporate America recognizes that this gives them another opportunity to dole out favors to the senator who wants to lead a massive rewriting of the nation’s tax laws, designed to lower corporate rates and allow companies to bring back money stashed overseas with impunity. In fact, every corporation associated with the Montana Economic Development Summit has a stake in the tax reform debate, and most have officially lobbied for favorable treatment. Considering the tens of billions that these companies stand to gain if they are successful, a couple days in Butte doesn’t sound like such a bad trade.

Dean Baker: The Simple Reason for the Long Downturn: Housing Bubble Burst

Monday, 16 September 2013 10:58  
By Dean Baker, Truthout | News Analysis 

Many economists and business writers view the duration and severity of the downturn as being a mystery. They argue that it has something to do with the financial crisis, although the exact nature of the relationship is often not quite clear, with the financial crisis looming as a dark cloud hanging over the head of an otherwise healthy economy.

Fortunately, for arithmetic fans the story was never very difficult. In the last business cycle the economy was being driven in large part by a housing bubble. The unprecedented run-up in nationwide house prices lead to booms in both residential construction and consumption.

My grovelling apology to Herr Schäuble

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
September 17th, 2013

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has been vindicated.

For my part, I have been wrong about everything. German discipline policies for the eurozone have been a tremendous success. I am ashamed for suggesting otherwise.

[...]

I apologise for mentioning that unemployment is 27.8pc in Greece, 26.3pc in Spain, 17.3pc in Cyprus, and 16.5pc in Portugal, or for pointing that it would be far worse had it not been for a mass exodus of EMU refugees. Nor was is proper to mention that Greek youth unemployment in 62.9pc. These are trivial details.

I apologise for pointing out that the EU-IMF Troika originally said the Greek economy would contract by 2.6pc in 2010 and then recover briskly, when in fact it contracted by roughly 23pc from peak-to-trough, and will shrink another 5pc this year according to the think-tank IOBE. This slippage is well within the normal margin of error.

 

The Money Behind the Shutdown Crisis

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: September 17, 2013

Representative Aaron Schock is a conservative Republican from Illinois, but not conservative enough for the hard-right activist group Club for Growth, which is seeking someone to run against him in next year’s primary.

His crime? In 2011, he voted to increase the debt ceiling, and, in 2012, he voted for a stopgap spending bill that prevented a government shutdown. In neither case did he demand the defunding of health care reform.

Nanocrystal Catalyst Transforms Impure Hydrogen into Electricity

Brookhaven Lab scientists use simple, 'green' process to create novel core-shell catalyst that tolerates carbon monoxide in fuel cells and opens new, inexpensive pathways for zero-emission vehicles

September 18, 2013

UPTON, NY—The quest to harness hydrogen as the clean-burning fuel of the future demands the perfect catalysts—nanoscale machines that enhance chemical reactions. Scientists must tweak atomic structures to achieve an optimum balance of reactivity, durability, and industrial-scale synthesis. In an emerging catalysis frontier, scientists also seek nanoparticles tolerant to carbon monoxide, a poisoning impurity in hydrogen derived from natural gas. This impure fuel—40 percent less expensive than the pure hydrogen produced from water—remains largely untapped.

USDA Seeks to Expand Pilot Program Which Leaves Meat Contaminated With Fecal Matter

Tuesday, 17 September 2013 09:50  
By Candice Bernd, Truthout | Report 

Half of the USDA inspectors in industrial meat plants will be replaced with inspectors employed by the very same companies whose meats they are inspecting if plans by the US Department of Agriculture are allowed to go forward.

Is there poop in your pork and poultry? It’s a serious question.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has plans to expand a privatized meat inspection model that has been in place for 14 years at five hog plants in the United States and which has been found to fail time and time again at preventing contamination of meat - with fecal matter.

Global Power Project, Part 10: TransCanada Corporation, Kings of the Keystone Pipeline

Saturday, 07 September 2013 09:46 
By Andrew Gavin Marshall

TransCanada Corporation describes itself as “a leader in the responsible development and reliable and safe operation of North American energy infrastructure." Beginning in 2005, the company announced plans for the Keystone XL pipeline. In 2010, Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) approved the full pipeline project, stating that it was in the “public interest” to transport Canadian tar sands oil to the Gulf Coast in the United States.

If approved, the Keystone XL pipeline would transport oil from Alberta through six U.S. states: Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Russ Girling, President and CEO of TransCanada, said the project would “improve U.S. energy security and reduce dependence on foreign oil from the Middle East and Venezuela.”

First-time measurements in Greenland snowpack show a drop in atmospheric co since 1950s

Cleaner auto combustion appears to have driven the improvement

A first-ever study of air trapped in the deep snowpack of Greenland shows that atmospheric levels of carbon monoxide (CO) in the 1950s were actually slightly higher than what we have today. This is a surprise because current computer models predict much higher CO concentrations over Greenland today than in 1950. Now it appears the opposite is in fact true.

In a paper recently published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vasilii Petrenko, an assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, concluded that CO levels rose slightly from 1950 until the 1970s, then declined strongly to present-day values. This finding contradicts computer models that had calculated a 40 percent overall increase in CO levels over the same period.

Breathing better, living longer

• Deseret News
•  

Arden Pope’s students know him as an excellent economics teacher, but some would be surprised to learn that, thanks to him, the air they breathe today is cleaner than the first breath they ever took.

In fact, a new study by this BYU professor concludes that improvements in U.S. air quality since 1990 have sparked a 35 percent reduction in deaths and disability specifically attributable to air pollution. Pope was a member of a large research team who co-authored the study for the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Dean Baker: Anniversary Present for Wall Street Banks: A Financial Speculation Tax

A tax on financial transactions will reign in banks and other financial institutions, and may prevent another crisis.

As we mark the fifth anniversary of the Wall Street bailouts, it is clear that little has changed in the way they do business. They are still engaging in the same sorts of market manipulation and tax gaming as they did before the crisis. 
 
The weak conditions on the bailout money had no lasting effect in areas like executive compensation. The industry itself is more concentrated than ever as the big banks used the crisis to merge with other banks, making them even bigger. And the Dodd-Frank reforms have been watered down to the extent that many are now pointless.

What we get wrong when we talk about ‘the financial crisis’

By Mike Konczal, Updated: September 14, 2013

This week is the five-year anniversary of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. That’s being taken to mean it’s the five-year anniversary of the financial crisis.

Wrong. Or, at the least, terribly incomplete. The focus on Lehman obscures the fact that there were really three crises. Sure, there was the crisis in the financial markets in late 2008. But there was also the ongoing financial crisis that would have happened even if Lehman’s failure didn’t cause any troubles. Meanwhile, there’s still a crisis of confidence over whether or not our financial markets are actually benefiting the economy as a whole.

This isn’t just academic. Emphasizing Lehman biases the conversation over financial reform in a subtle but powerful way. The implication is that if Dodd-Frank can prevent the events of fall 2008 from happening, then our work here is done. That view is dangerously wrong.

We've Got a Billionaire Bailout Society—And the 99% May Never Recover From It In Our Lifetimes

By Les Leopold

September 12, 2013  |  The odds are that we in the bottom 99 percent may never see a recovery in our lifetimes. That's because our nation has evolved into something entirely new: a billionaire bailout society.

We are entering a disastrous new era in which all the economic gains go to the top 1 percent, according to data from economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. They report [3] that, "Top 1% incomes grew by 31.4% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.4% from 2009 to 2012. Hence, the top 1% captured 95% of the income gains in the first three years of the recovery....  In sum, top 1% incomes are close to full recovery while bottom 99% incomes have hardly started to recover." (In 2012, $394,000 is the cutoff to make it into the top 1 percent.)

The hidden truth behind Teach for America’s political empire

Working for more charter schools and fast-tracked teachers, the organization's growing — whether you like it or not

By James Cersonsky

Teach for America, well known for recruiting high-achieving college graduates to teach in urban and rural areas for two years, has expanded to 48 regions, built an alumni base of 32,000 and piled up $350 million in assets.

Now, as the school year begins, it’s planting seeds to grow further — but not without controversy and intrigue.

Government Hands More Than $1 Trillion to Wealthy While Deficit Is $642 Billion

Tuesday, 17 September 2013 10:32  
By Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future | News Analysis 

While our government is laying off hundreds and hundreds of thousands and cutting services in the name of cutting deficits, a new report exposes that taxpayers are handing more than $1 trillion a year to the wealthiest.

DC Focused On Deficits Not Jobs

Instead of focusing on jobs, Congress and the White House obsess on how to cut the budget -– the things We the People do to make our lives and economy better. While the “sequester” has already cost 900,000 jobs — 1.6 million thru 2014 — Republicans are threatening to shut down the government and force the country to default on its debt as leverage to force even more cuts.

The Most Depressing Discovery About the Brain, Ever

By Marty Kaplan

September 16, 2013  |  Yale law school professor Dan Kahan’s new research paper [3] is called “Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government,” but for me a better title is the headline on science writer Chris Mooney’s piece [4] about it in Grist:  “Science Confirms: Politics Wrecks Your Ability to Do Math.” 

 

Kahan conducted some ingenious experiments about the impact of political passion on people’s ability to think clearly.  His conclusion, in Mooney’s words: partisanship “can even undermine our very basic reasoning skills…. [People] who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs.”

Study: Trade Deal Would Mean a Pay Cut for 90% of U.S. Workers

By Susie Madrak

I think most of us realize by now what a bad deal these trade agreements are. This study proves that our suspicions are correct. More important, the agreement gives multinational corporations the ability to override a country's environmental laws. What could possibly go wrong?

The verdict is in: most U.S. workers would see wage losses as a result of theTrans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a sweeping U.S. "free trade" deal under negotiation with 11 Pacific Rim countries. That's the conclusion of a reportjust released by the non-partisan Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

TPP's corporate proponents have tried to sell the NAFTA-style deal to the U.S. public and policymakers by claiming that it will result in gains for the U.S. economy. They often cite a study from the Peterson Institute for International Economics that used sweeping assumptions to project a tiny benefit from the TPP. We brought that study down to size back in January, showing that, even if one accepts the pro-TPP authors' litany of optimistic assumptions, the much-touted "benefit" from the TPP would amount to an extra quarter per person per day.

How Detroit went broke: The answers may surprise you - and don't blame Coleman Young

By Nathan Bomey and John Gallagher/Detroit Free Press Business Writers

Detroit is broke, but it didn’t have to be. An in-depth Free Press analysis of the city’s financial history back to the 1950s shows that its elected officials and others charged with managing its finances repeatedly failed — or refused — to make the tough economic and political decisions that might have saved the city from financial ruin.

Instead, amid a huge exodus of residents, plummeting tax revenues and skyrocketing home abandonment, Detroit’s leaders engaged in a billion-dollar borrowing binge, created new taxes and failed to cut expenses when they needed to. Simultaneously, they gifted workers and retirees with generous bonuses. And under pressure from unions and, sometimes, arbitrators, they failed to cut health care benefits — saddling the city with staggering costs that today threaten the safety and quality of life of people who live here.

How Millions in America Get Entrenched in Poverty

By Sasha Abramsky

September 4, 2013  |  The following are excerpts from Sasha Abramsky's new book The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives (Nation Books [3], 2013): 

In the fall of 2011, with hunger rearing up across America, the large freezer bins at the Port Carbon Food Pantry (PCFP), in the small, gritty, Appalachian town of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, were empty. The shelves next to the freezers were also largely barren. A few boxes of egg noodles provided about the only sign that this was a place in the business of giving out food to those who could no longer afford to buy it. An adjacent room was doing slightly better, displaying stacks of canned fruit, canned corn, beans, and bags of pasta. But, taken as a whole, these were slim pickings. Clients who walked or drove up the hill, the remnants of an unseasonably early snow storm still on the ground, from the center of town to the two-story building were eligible for six to ten days of food, but that food was all they’d be able to get from the pantry for the next two months.

Three years earlier, explained PCFP’s coordinator, Ginny Wallace, the rooms were filled to bursting with food. Then the economy tanked; demand for the free food soared; and at the same time, locals’ ability to donate to the pantry crumbled.

They Know Much More Than You Think

James Bamford

In mid-May, Edward Snowden, an American in his late twenties, walked through the onyx entrance of the Mira Hotel on Nathan Road in Hong Kong and checked in. He was pulling a small black travel bag and had a number of laptop cases draped over his shoulders. Inside those cases were four computers packed with some of his country’s most closely held secrets.

Within days of Snowden’s documents appearing in The Guardian and The Washington Post, revealing several of the National Security Agency’s extensive domestic surveillance programs, bookstores reported a sudden spike in the sales of George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984. On Amazon.com, the book made the “Movers & Shakers” list and skyrocketed 6,021 percent in a single day. Written sixty-five years ago, it described a fictitious totalitarian society where a shadowy leader known as “Big Brother” controls his population through invasive surveillance. “The telescreens,” Orwell wrote, “have hidden microphones and cameras. These devices, alongside informers, permit the Thought Police to spy upon everyone….”

Paul Krugman: Rich Man's Recovery

A few days ago, The Times published a report on a society that is being undermined by extreme inequality. This society claims to reward the best and brightest regardless of family background. In practice, however, the children of the wealthy benefit from opportunities and connections unavailable to children of the middle and working classes. And it was clear from the article that the gap between the society’s meritocratic ideology and its increasingly oligarchic reality is having a deeply demoralizing effect.

The report illustrated in a nutshell why extreme inequality is destructive, why claims ring hollow that
inequality of outcomes doesn’t matter as long as there is equality of opportunity. If the rich are so much
richer than the rest that they live in a different social and material universe, that fact in itself makes
nonsense of any notion of equal opportunity.