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Do You Have Some Ideas on What to Do?

November 12, 2016
chauvinism, economy, elections, history, politics, strategy, unions
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On the day after the election, small groups of demonstrators hit the streets in a number of American cities. I just got a request that I join a call for a general strike — a national work stoppage — on Inaugural Day. I call this kind of non-thinking acting-out “knee jerk activism.” It’s more traditionally called “ultra-leftism” and has been correctly labeled, “the infantile disorder.”

strike1877

We had a tremendous general strike in 1877

Union activists are used to hearing people call “strike!” when they have no idea whether or not the tactic would work. A lot of them don’t care. If a union called a strike every time some hothead wanted one, we’d get a lot of people fired for nothing. When my union ran a successful 15-month “work to rule” contract fight, there were people calling “strike” instead of doing the hard work of a long struggle. The three of them that I knew personally were all promoted to foreman immediately after the union won. They were company stooges, as it turned out. The company knew that the union might win the long battle, but we would almost certainly have lost a strike.

If you’re reading along in Facebook, you’ve seen lots of responses to the Trump election victory, and nearly all of them are way less than helpful. Some are silly, and some are outright dangerous!

First, Figure Out What Happened

Nearly all the pollsters were wrong about the election results. The best single explanation I’ve seen was in a “letter to editor” in today’s Dallas newspaper. A guy named, I think, Roland Young wrote that when the pollsters called, “We lied!” Some of Trump’s voters may have been too ashamed to confess.

But the best explanation of the pollsters’ failure is that their approaches are based on previous history, and the 2016 presidential race was, to state it modestly, unique.

Are Americans Mostly Chauvinists?

Elections are the best evidence we have of the national character. If the Electoral College puts Donald Trump in office, does that mean we’re mostly chauvinists like him? Actually, more than half the electorate voted against him, and only 56% of all eligible voters went to the polls at all. The ones that went voted for marijuana and higher minimum wages by much better margins than they voted for Trump.

Everyone who voted for Trump did not do so because they wanted to express their chauvinism. They surely didn’t vote for him because they think his far-flung ideas are actually going to solve America’s problems.

What They Wanted Was Change

I think it is fair to say that they voted for change. We see this in the unions all the time. Members who haven’t taken the time to investigate the candidates in union elections will nevertheless vote to “throw the bums out” against whoever is in office. Next election, you can’t find anyone who admits they voted for the incumbents and it’s “throw the bums out” again. After a lifetime in the public eye, and because of the outright duplicity of the national Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton was a perfect target for that kind of sentiment.

People voted for Trump over Clinton for the same reason that they had voted, in 2008, for Obama over Clinton. Change.

People voted for Donald Trump because they are dissatisfied with life in America and they don’t know what else to do about it.

I don’t exactly blame them. I’m dissatisfied too, but I know what to do about it.

Educate and Organize the Working People

Media pundits are blaming “white blue-collar workers” for electing Donald Trump. His voters were probably Anglos all right, but they didn’t represent the working class. The working class is the solution, not the problem. The progressive leadership of the AFL-CIO is head and shoulders above any Democratic or Republican Party politician. For now, it’s better to follow them than Bernie Sanders, too.

If we’re willing to do the long hard work of educating and organizing America’s workers, we could win elections. We could win strikes, even general strikes!

But it will take some work.

–Gene Lantz

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Failing Equality, Women Get Revenge!

October 30, 2016
art, chauvinism, politics
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Movie Review: “The Dressmaker,” Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse, 2 hours

katewinslet

Since I saw her in “The Reader,” maybe even before that, I have been going around saying that Kate Winslet is our best living movie star. Some people might say it’s Judy Davis, but we wouldn’t have to argue about “The Dressmaker” since both talented actresses, playing mother and daughter, are in almost every scene.

The movie is more enjoyable if we think of it as a fable rather than a true-to-life drama. A wronged woman returns to her backward and tiny hometown to clear up any misunderstandings and settle all scores.

Texas Women Need Fairness or Maybe Revenge!

We’ve seen the idea several times before. What makes it doubly pertinent to me now is that I live in Texas, where new records for maternal deaths are being set and where battered children can’t even get a visit from state authorities. Like the rest of the nation, we also suffer from the wage disparity that Economic Policy Institute is covering so thoroughly today. Did I mention, too, that the state politicians are in court to tighten restrictions on women’s reproductive rights? Oh yeah, the Governor of Texas is planning even more state-sponsored misogyny in the next legislature!

Then there’s the woman-basher planning to become President of the United States. If it isn’t time for women to get some fairness, maybe it actually is time for them to savor some revenge! At least, we can enjoy a movie about it, can’t we? It’s surely time for that!

The Story and the Problem

In the faraway outback Down Under, an overdressed fashion designer returns to her hick town where she has been considered to be a murderess since the age of 10. Her mother, the town crackpot, is just as happy to accuse her as the rest of the eccentrics there. That’s the beginning and it’s very promising. The ending is fine, too. Kind of spectacular.

It’s the middle of the movie where the problems lie. It was the same with the recent civil rights film about Nat Turner’s rebellion, “Birth of a Nation.” Great beginning, fine ending, saggy middle. I like to think the problem is with the movie money-men, not with the artists involved. They just can’t make a film without attaching a romantic love story in it somewhere, even if it has nothing to do with anything else. In both movies, the sex and groping slathered on to the middle of the story is a distraction.

I liked “The Dressmaker.” The real critics in Dallas gave it a “D.” But Kate Winslet never made a “D” in her movie career. Go see it. When you get to the middle part and the virile characters start making goo-go0 eyes at each other, that’s a good time to go get your popcorn.

–Gene Lantz

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Worry Now, Worry After the Election!

October 23, 2016
elections, history, politics, strategy
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I can’t kid you, there’s a lot to worry about. To begin with, I’m worried that Mrs Clinton might stumble and fall before November 8. A Trump presidency would be a disaster for working people! But I’m also worried about what both major candidates are going to do after November 8.

Nuclear War

Voting for More War?

Mrs Clinton’s saber rattling toward Russia during the debates reminds me that she’s a hawk and  has always been a hawk on foreign affairs. She keeps asserting that Russia is working against her election and threatening them with cyber war. She also wants to escalate the war in Syria with a “no-fly” zone. If she shot down a Russian plane in Syria, wouldn’t there be hell to pay? They have nukes! Those of us who would like to see fewer hostilities and less war are likely to be very uncomfortable during her presidency.

Voting for Unfair Trade Deals?

It’s good that Mrs Clinton says  she won’t push the Trans Pacific Partnership unfair trade deal. Mr Trump doesn’t believe she will stick to opposing it, and I don’t believe either one of them would. I can still remember when candidate Obama was going to fix NAFTA and oppose other unfair trade, now all of us have to worry that President Obama will try an end-run during the lame duck Congress. He’s already working on it!

Unfair trade deals are essential to the big money guys, and few politicians would even try to resist them. Obama doesn’t, and he has a lot more of my respect than either Mrs Clinton or Mr Trump!

Voting for an Openly Fascist Movement in America?

The pundits and newspersons seem to think Mr Trump is stupid. They think he is throwing away his political chances by bashing immigrants, encouraging violence at his meetings, skipping over facts to appeal to emotions, catering to the  crudest kind of people, claiming the entire electoral process is “rigged,”  and, especially, refusing to abide by the decision of the voters after the election (unless he wins).

I’m hoping that stupidity explains his political actions, but I don’t honestly think we can count on it. Like most analysts, Mr Trump already knows he isn’t likely to win over the Electoral College. I think he’s going to try to start an openly fascist movement, the first one since the 1930s in America.

Trump is already a skillful media person, far more skillful than the hate radio manipulators like Rush Limbaugh that have already gained considerable following. He’s already floated the rumor that he may be starting his own television network. We have to assume it would be even less truthful and more sensationalist than Fox News!

A billionaire with his own television network and millions of followers from among the most volatile and least sensible ranks of people could create an anti-worker movement that would dwarf the fascists now operating in Europe. And don’t give me “It can’t happen here” because it can and has before.

So let’s get worried together, and start figuring out what we’re going to do about it!

–Gene Lantz

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Compliments for the Radio

October 8, 2016
art, elections, politics, strategy, unions
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A caller on my radio show on KNON.org at 9AM this Saturday morning paid us a great compliment.

me-bonniemathias

Bonnie Mathias and I are on knon.org, 89.3FM, every Saturday at 9AM Central Time

He said that we were passing on worthwhile knowledge, just a little drop at a time. He compared the “drip drip drip” of our contribution to water eroding away a big hard rock of ignorance.

The “Workers Beat” program has been on KNON since it started in Dallas 30 or so years ago as a part of the ACORN community organizing group. When it had to go independent, and even after the government cut all funding for community talk radio, KNON managed to keep “Workers Beat” on the air.

It is one of three pro-labor radio shows in the entire southern half of the United States! As I put on the KNON web site, “Almost everything you see and hear comes from the bosses, or was approved by them. Employees don’t control the movies, the book publishers, TV, or the radio stations. Bosses do. The outlook and opinions of the bosses are expressed, everywhere and all the time. The outlook and opinions of workers get almost no expression. KNON “Workers Beat” talk show is an exception.”

Should We be Proud?

I guess that Bonnie Mathias and I can be proud that we prepare for the program and show up every Saturday without getting paid, but we can’t take credit for the wisdom in today’s caller’s compliment. The truth is that we don’t say a lot. KNON wants us to run an open mike talk show, not spout off our own opinions.

Even though today’s topic was the way that the City of Dallas is joining in the international game of sacrificing the right to retire, and even though I have very strong feelings about our losing the right to retire, I didn’t actually say “Vote NO on Proposition One on the Dallas ballot.” I just outlined what Proposition One would do and asked the radio audience for their opinions.

Callers were against Proposition One, by the way.

But the point is that the wisdom that working people get from the “Workers Beat” radio program isn’t coming from the hosts. It’s coming from the workers themselves! KNON just provides the forum, and working people call in, each with their own wise observations. Their observations are the “drip drip drip” of knowledge that is eroding away the rock of mass ignorance.

We’re just proud we could help!

–Gene Lantz

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“Runaway Inequality” Has a Missing Chapter

September 29, 2016
economy, history, politics, strategy, unions
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I’ve been raving about this book for months, but it has a giant hole in it. There’s no treatment of what’s happening to the right to retire!

emmettseniorcrowd

Senior Day at the Texas Capitol

I’ll put some of my notes about his fine book at the end. In a nutshell it explains that inequality went wild once the American workers movement — especially the unions — allowed themselves to be isolated and neutralized. Around 1980 — after the unions had chased away all the communists and all the international friends and all the progressive movement and, finally, each other — the corporations and their government lackeys were able to privatize, deregulate, un-tax themselves, attack progressive organizations and subvert democracy at will. They’re still doing it even though the weakened unions started wising up in 1995.

Conquerors attack their enemies at their weakest point. That means that the general attack against all working Americans tended to focus on the most vulnerable. In our case, the most vulnerable are the children and the seniors. The book talks a little about the corporate onslaught against public schools, but it doesn’t mention seniors at all!

Fight for the Right to Retire

The right to retire was put on firm footing in America with the passing of the Social Security Act in 1935. Medicare/Medicaid was added before 1980 Reaganomics became policy. In the 1960s, Americans could look forward to resting their “golden years” on a three-legged stool of personal savings, pensions, and Social Security. Now in 2016, the first two have been decimated and Social Security is under multiple threats every time Congress is in session.

In 2002, the new and progressive AFL-CIO leadership put together the Alliance for Retired Americans. It consists of a lobbying office in Washington DC and far-flung supporters here and there around the nation. We usually meet in union halls and most of our initial supporters are union retirees, but we reach out to all seniors and, for that matter, anybody and everybody who wants to save the right to retire in America before it’s too late!

In 2006, we faced a major challenge because President Bush made it his top priority to privatize Social Security. He came close, but we stopped him. Since 1980, there have been a succession of crazy proposals to do this and do that with retiree benefits. All of them are obscured in language, but in the final analysis they all mean cuts for seniors.

Around 1986, it became possible for corporations to disregard their responsibility for pensions in bankruptcy proceedings. In 2015 Congress decided that trustees of multi-employer pensions could solve their budget problems by cutting retiree benefits. The budget for administering Social Security has been cut so severely that many offices had to be shut down and many counselors laid off. Corporations and anti-worker politicians come up with some new attack every few weeks.

Here in Dallas, voters will find on their November 8 ballot a proposal to slash the pensions of City employees. The Dallas newspaper already endorsed it as sound policy!

It’s fight or die!

–Gene Lantz

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Some notes from the book:

Leopold, Les, “Runaway Inequality. An Activist’s Guide to Economic Justice.” Foreword by Chris Shelton, President of CWA. Labor Institute Press, 817 Broadway, NY NY 10003, 2015

I think I put 3 references to this book on genelantz.org. I found it very exciting that CWA was holding classes and giving away copies of a book on more-or-less radical economics.

pg2 (shelton) “We’ll see data showing that elected officials rarely act on the agenda most Americans support.”

pg4: “Most of all, the media turns a blind eye to the fact that we live in a capitalist system.”

pg4: “…there is, in fact, a fundamental conflict between employees and owners, between the rich and the rest of us.”

pg5 “Economic elites will only give up power and wealth when they’re forced to do so by a powerful social movement.”

pg29-30 (Leopold) list of reasons for economic crisis of late 1970s, including competition from industrialized countries.

pg194 “…American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts.”

pg204 “This policy of military Keynesianism led to an unofficial partnership between the government, large corporations and labor unions. These groups worked together (more or less) to prosecute the Cold War.”

pg 288 “…Wealth inequality and unionization levels are intertwined.”

pg288: List of “what happened to unions” begins, “The decline of unionism started when unions started cooperating with the government ‘anti-red’ efforts during the McCarthy era.”

The book doesn’t actually generalize, but it does show that the entire process of rising  inequality was a result of union isolation —  first from the world movement, then from the domestic progressive movements here at home (anti-war, civil rights, etc) and finally, with the merger of the AFL and the CIO, from one another. “Solidarity” was still a good song, but it wasn’t really practiced 1947-1995 in the American union movement.

pg 289: “…Unions and the rest of us are on the losing side of a gigantic class war — a war that we have to recognize, discuss and address if unions are to grow again.”

 

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Suing Saudi Arabia and Snowden

September 28, 2016
civil rights, politics, strategy, unions
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Two big questions are in the news: Should mega-whistleblower Edward Snowden be pardoned? Should 9/11 victims be allowed to sue Saudi Arabia?

snowden

Both questions have to do with the nature of the state. By “state” I mean what most people call “nation” or “government,” not the kind of state we say when we talk about the sorry state we’re in.

Do You Love Snowden?

The new Oliver Stone movie “Snowden” makes a strong case for national hero status. In it, the central actor talks to journalists and directly into a TV camera. The earlier movie, “Citizen Four” was a documentary consisting almost entirely of those recordings that Snowden actually made with the journalists while all of them hid in his Hong Kong hotel room. Of the two films, the documentary is the better movie and makes the stronger case for hero status because Snowden explains, in his own words, why he did it.

It was for love and respect. He says he loves and respects himself and thus has the same regard for all others. We are, in plain truth, all pretty much alike. If we care about anybody, we have no excuse for not caring for everybody. Snowden realizes that. He explains it well to the camera. When he did, I was in love!

It’s Harder to Love the Saudis

A bill to allow 9/11 victims to sue any country that they think was involved in the attack on the Twin Towers in New York sailed through both houses of Congress. Then President Obama vetoed it. Then the congresspersons, whose collective wisdom has earned them the lowest regard of any Congress in American history, decided to override the veto. They did it, too, just today! (Click here).

Their argument was that the victims should get more compensation. The President’s argument was that they’re opening a can of worms that will end up with the United States being sued all the time by foreigners. The real question is whether or not individuals in a given state should be allowed to conduct negotiations with other states.

In Snowden’s case, the real question is whether or not an individual can reveal state secrets.

Unions Prohibit Individual Negotiations

If one were a union member, he/she would be discouraged from negotiating with any entity outside the union — especially not with management. Union members are also expected to keep silent about union business. If one were helping negotiate a contract, for example, one would be sworn to secrecy until negotiations had concluded and formal announcements were made. There’s really no other way to run a union!

So, if the analogy between a union and the United States holds up, citizens shouldn’t be suing Saudi Arabia and Brother Snowden should have kept his mouth shut.

It Depends on the State

Socialists believe that states will eventually wither away because they won’t be necessary once class divisions are finally behind us. So far, that has never happened, but it’s still the general idea. Socialists may be all in favor of unions, but not in favor of states.

So, if you love your state the way I love my union, Congress and Snowden are both wrong. But if you don’t think so much of this government, the opposite opinions prevail.

Let ’em sue anybody they want to! Let’s join the movement to pardon Edward Snowden! I wouldn’t call him a “national” hero, but definitely a world hero!

–Gene Lantz

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Labor Day Weekend in Dallas — Wow!

September 6, 2016
politics, strategy, unions
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The best part of my Labor Day weekend was when City Councilman Phillip Kingston told the AFL-CIO Labor Day Breakfast crowd that Dallas is experiencing a “progressive upsurge!”

ldkingstonphillip

Councilman Kingston at the Breakfast. More photos at Gene Lantz Facebook

He’s absolutely right, I’m proud to have been part of it over the last decades and proud of how it’s all coming about. I’d also like to tell him and all, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”

My weekend

I can’t separate everything that happened from my own experiences, so I’ll just tell it from a personal point of view. Labor Day weekend started at 9 AM on Saturday, Sep 3, for me. That’s when my radio show “Workers Beat” proudly hosted Arthur C Fleming, President of the Dallas NAACP, on the air. Fleming talked about some of the things the great civil rights organization is doing here. He sounded very practical, very businesslike.

It started getting really good when he talked about taking Confederate monuments off taxpayer-provided property. Now that’s a subject that I love! But I had to leave the show with my buddy Bonnie Mathias while I ran for the Martin Luther King Jr center in South Dallas.

Reverend Ed Middleton and Lauren Tenney had organized the annual Workers Rights Board Forum and march at the King Center. They let me host the show because I guaranteed them that I am the most strict chairman in all the progressive movement. Overstated as usual, but I’m pretty strict.

All the speakers were great. The high point, for me, was when Herb Keener of CWA 6215 gave a short summary of the wonderful new book, “Runaway Inequality,” which I’ve been raving about on this blog. Herb announced that he and I were organizing a class on the book. Later, we decided to call it for noon on Saturday, September 17, at 1408 N Washington.

After all 4 speakers and a short Q&A, we marched. Lauren led us about 4 blocks away and then back. All on the sidewalk. We’re scared of the Dallas police of course, but not really that scared. I carried my guitar and led “Solidarity Forever” as we marched. Lots of passersby honked and waved their approval!

The AFL-CIO breakfast was the best ever. They sold out of tickets! They honored women in labor and came up with the Linda Bridges award. Bridges led the Texas teachers union until she died. My dear friend Sherron Molina won the award.

Next came the Democrats’ picnic. It was great big, extremely diverse, and confusing all around, just like the Democrats. County Judge Clay Jenkins got a tremendous ovation when he was introduced, but the biggest ovation of all came for my friend Sheriff Valdez.

What’s It Mean to Me?

There really is a progressive upsurge in Dallas. I’ve been there watching it grow. When Sheriff Valdez first ran for office, I was the one who made the motion that the AFL-CIO support her. She got the support and is now one of the most famous sheriffs in America.

The Democrats didn’t always have a picnic on Labor Day. Long before they turned Dallas County blue, Dr Theresa Daniels organized the first picnic. She asked me to lead “Solidarity Forever,” and I did. The Democrats actually took over the idea from a much smaller one in Kiest Park run by the Jobs with Justice group which Elaine Lantz and I had started and run.

The Dallas AFL-CIO didn’t always have a Labor Day Breakfast. There were a couple of years in the 1990s when the unionists just didn’t think it was worth doing. During those years, Jobs with Justice put on Labor Day events just to make sure something happened. The AFL-CIO started it up again and it’s been a growing success since then.

Dallas didn’t always have a Workers Rights Board hearing and a march on the Saturday before Labor Day. Jobs with Justice started that, too.

What’s the Progressive Upsurge in Dallas?

There are several good reasons that Dallas is now a blue county with a successful labor movement. One small contributor is the 25 or so years of steady solidarity work by North Texas Jobs with Justice. Another one is the Texas Organizing Committee, which started as ACORN even before JwJ. Another one is the recent addition of the Workers Defense Project to the Dallas progressive milieu. Another is the great organizing work done by the Dallas Democratic Party. Another is the big change in the national labor movement that came in the leadership elections of 1995. Another one is the three-year-old local leadership of Mark York of the Dallas AFL-CIO.

Put them all together, you get a progressive upsurge!

What’s Next?

Elaine Lantz has proposed, and Mark York has agreed, that Dallas needs some kind of labor/community mobilization committee. We need to consult with a lot of people to decide exactly how it should work, but I’ve found a darned good place to start that discussion: Herb Keener’s class on the book, “Runaway Inequality” by Les Leopold at noon on Saturday, September 17, at 1408 N Washington in East Dallas.

Be there, and let’s keep up the momentum of the progressive upsurge in Dallas!

–Gene Lantz

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What’s Wrong with Voting Green Party?

September 6, 2016
elections, environment, history, politics, strategy
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Like a lot of unionists, like all materialists, I’m not really so crazy about the Democrats nor the Republicans. So why not vote Green Party?

exxon-me-nytimes

After all, they’re a progressive party on environmental issues and environmental issues really matter. Since I don’t know much of anything about their candidates, I don’t know anything bad — and the 2016 campaign is smearing both of the major party candidates terribly.

It’s not because, not exactly because, the Green Party took enough votes away from Al Gore in Florida to make George Bush president. It’s not exactly because Texas Greens took half a million dollars under the table from the  Republicans in 2010. By the way, I ran across a good old friend the other day who didn’t even believe it, or maybe he couldn’t remember back that far, so I had to look up a bunch of references for him. I’ll put them down below.

So What’s My Problem?

More than anything else, my whole purpose in doing this blog is to get people to think through their strategy for progressive change. What’s your theory?

My theory is that the entire progressive battle can be boiled down to employers against employees. The employers are what’s holding us back, and the employees are what’s impelling us forward. It’s a matter of choosing sides and sticking with it.

Voting for the Green Party in 2016 is not going to help the employee side. If it means anything at all in this awful two-party system we’re straddled with, it means some help for the wrong side.

People are confused because they don’t know the difference between the American two-party (ugh) system and the parliamentary systems of Europe and other countries. In those other countries. one votes for the party that one loves, and that party gets offices roughly in proportion to the votes they get. In the American system, that isn’t what happens. One of the two parties takes power; the other loses out. Everybody that votes their heart (or their stomach or their endocrine glands) instead of their brain has, at best, wasted their time and everybody else’s. Actually, it’s worse than that.

You’re a leader, even when you don’t want to be. Please realize that whatever you decide is going to affect others. We’re all listening to one another. People are listening to you.So — think!

 

  1. We’re in a two party system
  2. One, just one, of those two parties is going to take the critical offices
  3. Other people are watching what you do and are influenced by it
  4. Therefore, the right vote is the vote that will advance your theory of progressive change

As I’ve said before in this blog, it isn’t the candidates and it isn’t the parties that matter. It’s the progressive movement. It’s the workers.

–Gene Lantz

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Some old articles about how the Republicans financed the Greens in Texas

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/state-politics/20100610-Texas-Democrats-take-Green-Party-to-8824.ece

Texas Democrats take Green Party to court over ballot funding

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/state-politics/20100625-Judge-blocks-Green-Party-candidates-from-4442.ece

Judge blocks Green Party candidates from Texas ballot

  • By WAYNE SLATER / The Dallas Morning News

Published: 25 June 2010 06:33 AM

Updated: 26 November 2010 02:41 PM

A state judge blocked Green Party candidates from Texas’ general election ballot Thursday, ruling that illegal corporate money was used in a Republican attempt to put them there to benefit Gov. Rick Perry.

District Judge John Dietz said he expected his injunction would be stayed by a higher court.

He issued the injunction after a day of testimony in Austin that implicated a former top Perry aide in efforts to field Green Party candidates in November.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_Texas

The Green Party’s efforts to get its candidates on the ballot for the 2010 elections was challenged when it was revealed that the Green Party’s petition drive had been funded by corporate interests linked to Republican operatives.[1] Republican operatives linked to the reelection campaign of Governor Rick Perry helped to fund the signature drive for ballot access.[2][3] A court challenge resulted in the Green Party candidates being allowed to remain on the ballot, and the near 92,000 signatures gathered in support of the Green Party from registered Texas voters were validated.[4][5]

GOP ties bind Green Party candidates in Texas case

GARY SCHARRER , AUSTIN BUREAU

Published 5:30 am, Tuesday, June 29, 2010

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/GOP-ties-bind-Green-Party-candidates-in-Texas-case-1702618.php 

AUSTIN — Even if allegations about an illegal petition drive are true, knocking Green Party candidates off the November general election ballot before they can be proven imposes “a death penalty,” lawyers for the party argued Monday in a written appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.

The party has until Friday to certify its candidates for the fall election, but a judge last Friday ordered it not to proceed because of an “unauthorized illegal contribution” by a corporation with Republican links.

“This case matters because voters should have an alternative to entrenched career politicians. Despite the signatures of over 90,000 Texans, entrenched career politicians and their lawyers want to deny voters the right to choose in November,” said David Rogers, one of the Green Party lawyers.

A GOP front group — with help from Texas Republicans — raised $532,500 in anonymous contributions to help the Green Party get enough signatures to make the ballot. Democrats assume the liberal Green Party gubernatorial candidate, Deb Shafto, would siphon votes from Democrat Bill White and help GOP incumbent Rick Perry.

 

Why No Inflation?

September 2, 2016
economy, politics
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Why has inflation been so low in the past few years?

money

If interest rates are near zero, and they have been for some years, doesn’t that mean that corporations can borrow pretty much all the money they want? Since the lenders only keep a small “reserve” of what they lend, wouldn’t all this borrowing result in a big increase in the total supply of money?

If we have more or less the same things to buy, and there’s a lot more money floating around, wouldn’t that mean high inflation?

The Money Supply Is Increasing

The Federal Reserve publishes their estimate of the total amount of money in the U.S. They call it “M2” and it includes everything, bank accounts as  well as currency. In July of 2011 it was $9,232.6 trillion, or $9,232,600,000,000. At the end of June 2013, it was $10598.4 trillion. That’s an increase of $1,365.8 trillion in 2 years. I didn’t pick the years, they were just the first ones I found. Probably, the money supply increased a lot more in the 2007-2009 recession period, so the change would be even more dramatic than this recent 15% increase.

That’s Monetary Policy

The operations of the federal reserve are usually made to sound pretty dark and unfathomable, but essentially all they do is increase the money supply in hard times. They have a number of ways to do it, but it’s still just about all they do. I don’t think they can even constrict the money supply — they can just make it grow faster or slower.

Fiscal policy is actually a lot more important. That’s government spending. If the people running the American government had really wanted to get out of the 2006 recession quickly, they would have turned on the spigots of government spending. They didn’t because they didn’t want to. That left the entire problem up to the Federal Reserve and the expansion of the money supply. They fell to their task mightily.

They lowered interest rates to near zero so that businesses could basically get all the money they might want. They started “buying” treasury bonds with money they basically manufactured. Trillions of dollars went into the economy and the goods and services didn’t actually change that much. If something was worth $10 when there were $5 trillion in the economy, it makes sense that its price would inflate to $20 when the money supply doubled. But it didn’t.

So, why no inflation?

Money Has to Move

The velocity of money is how fast it moves through the economy. If it doesn’t move through the economy, it has practically no effect on prices. If the government gives trillions of dollars to fat cats who just sit on it, store it in overseas accounts, or just use it to buy back their own stock, which is what they did, prices don’t change much.

If the government had fought the recession with fiscal policy, inflation would likely have been more of a problem. If the government had hired some of the many unemployed to fix some of the infrastructure, teach the children, or prepare for the future, the new money would have gone into wages — and those wages would have been quickly spent. More money and more velocity at the same time would have resolved the recession more quickly, but there would have been more inflation.

So, the short answer to “why no inflation?” is that the new trillions of dollars went to very wealthy people who just kept it.

Why is Economics so Dark and Illogical?

In olden days, a “philosopher” was someone who generalized from a great deal of knowledge. Today, we divide up all knowledge into various “disciplines” with geniuses in one field completely ignorant of any other field. We divided politics from economics for Heaven knows what reason, and neither one of them makes any sense without the other. The Polysci grads don’t know beans about economics and the Econ grads don’t know politics.

The Polysci profs snow everybody with statistics because they don’t really want anybody to know their arcane secrets. The Econ profs do the same thing. My friend Jorge Rieger compared them to the secretive priests of old, and it’s a pretty good comparison. If you’re interested in a simpler explanation of economics, click here for the Little School.

–Gene Lantz

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