Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – March 5, 2023

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – March 5, 2023

by Tony Wikrent

[TW: Sorry this week’s wrap is light. I was in the hospital overnight for a medical procedure and my energy has been sapped. I’m tired and sore, but otherwise fine.]

 

Living on a Deadline in the Nuclear Age. Some Personal News From Daniel Ellsberg 

[Antiwar.com, via Naked Capitalism 3-31-2023]

 

War

Transcript: CIA director William Burns on “Face the Nation,” Feb. 26, 2023 

[CBS, via Naked Capitalism 2-27-2023]

 

The Reckoning That Wasn’t: Why America Remains Trapped by False Dreams of Hegemony

Andrew J. Bacevich, February 28, 2023 [Foreign Affairs, March/April 2023, via Naked Capitalism 3-31-2023]

 

House panel lays out ‘existential struggle’ with China in primetime debut 

[The Hill, via Naked Capitalism 3-1-2023]

 

US Dollar Primacy in an Age of Economic Warfare 

Michael St-Pierre and Michael Kao [Kaoboy Musings, via Naked Capitalism 2-27-2023]

Part one of four. Parts two, three, and four.

 

Restoring balance to the economy

President of Mexico nationalizes lithium

[Green Car Congress, via Naked Capitalism 2-26-2023]

 

The pandemic

“Estimated Airborne Decay of SARS-CoV-2 (virus that causes COVID-19)”

[Department of Homeland Security, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 3-3-2023]

“Use the sliders to select the UV index, temperature and relative humidity of interest. Information on how long SARS-CoV-2 would be expected to remain stable in aerosols (airborne) will be displayed in the table below. Users can find the environmental conditions for a specific location by accessing general weather resources online.”

 

The carnage of mainstream neoliberal economics

Losing Out in Critical Technologies: Cisco Systems and Financialization

[via Naked Capitalism 3-1-2023]

Once the global leader in telecommunication systems and the Internet, over the past two decades, the United States has fallen behind global competitors, including China, in mobile-communication infrastructure—specifically 5G and Internet of Things (IoT). This national failure, with the socioeconomic and geopolitical tensions that it creates, is not due to a lack of US government investment in the knowledge required for the mobility revolution. Nor is it because of a dearth of domestic demand for the equipment, devices, and applications that can make use of this infrastructure. Rather, the problem is the dereliction of key US-based business corporations to take the lead in making the investments in organizational learning required to generate cutting-edge communication-infrastructure products.

No company in the United States exemplifies this deficiency more than Cisco Systems, the business corporation founded in Silicon Valley in 1984 that had explosive growth in the 1990s to become the foremost global enterprise-networking equipment vendor in the Internet revolution. In our Institute for New Economic Thinking Working Paper, “The Pursuit of Shareholder Value: Cisco’s Transformation from Innovation to Financialization”, we provide an in-depth analysis of the corporate resource-allocation decisions that have underpinned Cisco’s organizational failure.

Since 2001, Cisco’s top management has chosen to allocate corporate cash to open-market share repurchases—aka stock buybacks—for the purpose of giving manipulative boosts to the company’s stock price rather than make the investments in organizational learning required to become a world leader in communication-infrastructure equipment for the era of 5G and IoT. From October 2001 through October 2022, Cisco spent $152.3 billion—95 percent of its net income over the period—on stock buybacks for the purpose of propping up its stock price. These funds wasted in pursuit of “maximizing shareholder value” were on top of the $55.5 billion that Cisco paid out to shareholders in dividends, representing an additional 35 percent of net income. Besides absorbing all its profits over the 21 years, Cisco took on debt and dipped into the corporate treasury to fund these two types of distributions to shareholders.

 

[Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 3-2-2023]

 

Consultants Gone Wild: The real reason it costs so damn much to build new subways in America.

[Slate, via The Big Picture 2-26-2023]

There’s a lot going wrong with American transit projects—more on this in a moment—but many of the problems can be traced to a larger philosophy: outsourcing government expertise to a retainer of consultants. “What I’ve heard from consultants, which is surprising because they make so much money off this stuff, is, ‘Agencies don’t know what they want, and we have to figure it out.’ ”

 

The Build-Nothing Country 

Noahpinion, via Naked Capitalism 3-1-2023]

What matters is not how big America’s spreadsheet numbers are, but how much physical stuff we get. And yet as a society we’ve decided to award people with stasis instead of stuff. In many dysfunctional societies, the government’s guarantee of economic inclusion comes in the form of a specific physical good — usually, cheap fuel. In the United States, the in-kind subsidy we provide our people is the option to keep their world from changing.

Spiraling housing costs in any city with real economic opportunity, a floundering energy transition, and the inexorable migration of manufacturing to more development-friendly countries have become so severe that we must dispense with our collective illusion that America will always look like it looked in 1975. Slashing the thicket of red tape that prevent development, and subordinating local interests to the needs of the nation itself, are no longer idle dreams — they are immediate necessities.

 

Green colonialism is flooding the Pacific Northwest 

[High Country News, via Naked Capitalism 3-1-2023]

“Is it green energy if it’s impacting cultural traditional sites?”

Yakama Nation Tribal Councilman Jeremy Takala sounded weary. For five years, tribal leaders and staff have been fighting a renewable energy development that could permanently destroy tribal cultural property. “This area, it’s irreplaceable.”

The privately owned land, outside Goldendale, Washington, is called Pushpum, or “mother of roots,” a first foods seed bank. The Yakama people have treaty-protected gathering rights there. One wind turbine-studded ridge, Juniper Point, is the proposed site of a pumped hydro storage facility. But to build it, Boston-based Rye Development would have to carve up Pushpum — and the Yakama Nation lacks a realistic way to stop it.

 

“America Is Trying to Electrify. There Aren’t Enough Electricians.”

[Wall Street Journals, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 3-1-2023]

“Electricians, the essential workers in the transition to renewable energy, are in increasingly short supply. They are needed to install the electric-car chargers, heat pumps and other gear deemed essential to address climate change. Electricians say they are booked several months out and struggling to find enough workers to keep up with demand. Many are raising wages and prices and worried that they won’t be able to keep up as government climate incentives kick in…. The median age of electricians is over 40 years old, in line with the broader workforce. But nearly 30% of union electricians are between ages 50 and 70 and close to retirement, up from 22% in 2005, according to the National Electrical Contractors Association. The average annual electrician salary rose from roughly $50,000 to about $60,000 from 2018 to 2022, an increase roughly in line with the national average, according to the BLS.”

 

Health care crisis

The Insulin Pricing Wars Are Just Getting Started 

Charlotte Kilpatrick, March 3, 2023 [The New Republic]

Don’t let Eli Lilly’s latest P.R. stunt fool you: Private companies shouldn’t be allowed to set prices for these lifesaving drugs in the first place….

Insulin was invented over 100 years ago, and the researchers sold the patent to the University of Toronto for $1 each. At the time of the sale, the chief scientist noted, “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.” The rights were then sold to Eli Lilly and Co. so that the company could mass-produce the medicine. Over the past century, Eli Lilly—along with Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, who together manufacture 90 percent of the world’s insulin—have raised prices continuously….

In 1996, Humalog, an insulin developed by Eli Lilly, sold for $21 for a month’s supply. By 2019, the cost had risen 1,200 percent to $275 per month. In 2021, the drug company announced it would reduce the price of its generic version of Humalog to $137 for an individual vial, down from $275. This was welcome news, but Eli Lilly sold the same insulin to Germans at an even lower price of $55 for a vial. That same year Humalog was Eli Lilly’s bestselling drug, raking in $2.7 billion in sales.

Information age dystopia

Future Fords Could Repossess Themselves, Drive Away If You Miss Payments 

[The Drive, via Naked Capitalism 2-28-2023]

 

Neoliberalism requires a police state

Bristling Under Progressive Mayor, St. Louis Police Seek State Takeover 

[The Intercept, via Naked Capitalism 2-27-2023]

 

Disrupting mainstream politics

Eight Lessons From Bernie Sanders’s New Book 

[Jacobin, via Naked Capitalism 2-28-2023]

3. The Problem of Inequality Is Systematic
“The fight against American oligarchy — and the plutocratic arrangements that foster it — has nothing to do with personalities. Inequality isn’t about individuals; this is a systemic crisis.”

There is an ongoing class war in the United States, and the billionaire class is unquestionably on the offensive. In Sanders’s view, it’s important not to get bogged down in the individual quirks and idiosyncrasies of men like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, but rather to stay focused on the very system that allows them to accumulate their wealth in the first place. It is a system that exploits the worker, it’s a system that erodes democracy, and it’s a system that, as Bernie argues, goes against values of human decency….

5. You’re Either on the Side of Workers or You’re on the Side of Their Bosses

“Which side are you on? These days, corporations like Starbucks and Amazon don’t hire gun-toting thugs. Instead they hire anti-union consultants and pollsters and politically connected lobbyists — many of them Democrats — to thwart union organizing. But the fundamental premise remains: you’re either on the side of workers and organized labor, or you’re not.”

 

There’s Never Been a Better Time to Take on Fox News

Alex Shephard, March 3, 2023 [The New Republic]

As Rupert Murdoch’s brainchild reels from legal disclosures, Democrats have a big opportunity to take their fight against the network right to its airwaves….

But the Dominion disclosures have forced Democrats’ hands in ways that the tidy status quo failed to provoke. In a letter sent to Fox’s leadership on Wednesday, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries demanded its hosts publicly acknowledge that they deliberately misled their viewers about the outcome of the 2020 election. ​​“Though you have acknowledged your regret in allowing this grave propaganda to take place, your network hosts continue to promote, spew, and perpetuate election conspiracy theories to this day,” they write. As The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent noted, Democratic criticisms of Fox News are sharper and more direct than they’ve ever been before: The letter refers to its content as “propaganda”—a term that Democrats have largely avoided in the past.

 

Democrats’ political malpractice

[Twitter, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 3-1-2023]

[TW: According to Wikipedia, Goldman “served as lead majority counsel in the first impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump and lead counsel to House Managers in Trump’s subsequent impeachment trial.[3][4] Goldman is among the wealthiest members of Congress, with an estimated personal net worth of up to $253 million…. He is an heir to the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune.” Now, I think noblesse oblige is good and all, but I think it’s past time for the Democratic Party to adopt diversity goals based on income and wealth, besides the already widespread racial and gender diversity goals. Goldman knocked out much more progressive incumbent Mondaire Jones.]

 

“The biggest election of 2023 reaches final sprint”

[Politico, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 3-1-2023]

“Millions of dollars are flowing into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, as the state rockets toward an election that could decide the future of abortion rights, redistricting and more in the key battleground state. The court has a 4-3 conservative majority, with one swing conservative justice who has broken with the rest of the ideological bloc on some major cases. The April 4 election could flip that dynamic to a liberal-leaning majority. The contest is poised to be the most expensive state Supreme Court race ever, with major outside groups — particularly those focused on abortion — rushing in funds.

[Lambert Strether comments: “ I’m so old I can remember when the national Democrats and Obama didn’t give the Wisconsin state Democrats a dime when they were first fighting Scott Walker.”]

 

Conservative / Libertarian Drive to Civil War

The GOP’s Addiction to Culture War May Cost It in 2024

Eric Levitz [New York Magazine, via DownWithTyranny]

“The urban, liberal college graduates who dominate the Democratic political class have distinct cultural sensibilities and social-policy preferences when compared to the middle-age, working-class rust belters who often play kingmaker in the Electoral College. Progressive ambition plus right-wing demagoguery has been a formula for electoral backlash more than once in modern history. And yet if hyper-political Democrats don’t always see eye to eye with the U.S.’s ‘low-information‘ normies, the same is at least as true of their counterparts in the GOP. For every Ivy League–educated nonprofit executive who believes in open borders and police abolition, there are two car-dealership owners who think the 2020 election was rigged by a cabal of pedophiles…. Meanwhile, in order to sustain the attention of their ideologically self-selecting audiences amid competition from other journalistic outlets, cat photos, video games, porn, and virtually every movie and TV show ever made, news purveyors have a strong incentive to keep consumers in a constant state of agitation…. As a result, strong partisans can find themselves locked in seemingly epochal political struggles that don’t even register on swing voters’ radar. This state of affairs creates problems for both parties. When your base lives in a distinct informational universe from your persuasion targets, finding messages that animate the former while placating the latter can be difficult. Nevertheless, that balancing act is far more challenging for Republicans than it is for Democrats…. Last week, a group of Democratic strategists released a report on public opinion in working-class, postindustrial counties of Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — areas where Biden will likely need to hold down Republican margins in order to win reelection. The researchers found that while ‘working-class folks find urban and intellectual ‘wokeism’ annoying,’ they are far more concerned with Democrats’ alleged failures in economic management.”

 

How big Christian nationalism has come courting in North Idaho

[Religion News Service, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 2-28-2023]

“North Idaho has long been known for its hyperlibertarians, apocalyptic ‘preppers’ and white supremacist groups who have retreated to the region’s sweeping frozen lakes and wild forests to await the collapse of American society, when they’ll assert control over what remains. But in recent years, the state’s existing separatists have been joined by conservatives fleeing bluer Western states, opportunistic faith leaders, real-estate developers and, most recently, those opposed to COVID-19 restrictions and vaccines. Though few arrived carrying Christian nationalist banners, many have quickly adopted aspects of the ideology to advance conservative causes and seek strength in unity. The origin of North Idaho’s relationship with contemporary Christian nationalism can be traced to a 2011 blog post published by survivalist author James Wesley, Rawles (the comma is his addition). Titled ‘The American Redoubt — Move to the Mountain States,’ Rawles’ 4,000-word treatise called on conservative followers to pursue ‘exit strategies’ from liberal states and move to ‘safe havens’ in the American Northwest — specifically Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and eastern sections of Oregon and Washington. He dubbed the imagined region the ‘American Redoubt’ and listed Christianity as a pillar of his society-to-be.”

 

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Civil War

[The Atlantic, via The Big Picture 2-26-2023]

The congresswoman is too influential within the GOP—and too representative of its views—for her calls for secession to be dismissed.

 

“See No Evil”  (Ron Desantis)

[Harpers, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 3-3-2023]

[Mansoor Adayfi:] As you know, Guantánamo was created out of the legal zone, out of the legal system. Torture was the mechanism of Guantánamo. Torture, abuse, and experimenting on prisoners. We went on a massive hunger strike in 2005. And there was force-feeding. It was torture.

I saw a fucking handsome person come in and he said, “I’m here to ensure that you are treated humanely.”

m[Mike Prysner:] It was Ron DeSantis?

[Adayfi:] Yes. And, “If you have any problems, if you have any concerns, just talk to me.” We were drowning in that place. So I was like, “Oh, this is cool. This person will raise the concerns.” But it was a piece of the game. What they were doing was looking for what hurts us more so they could use it against us. In 2006, when DeSantis was there, it was one of the worst times at Guantánamo. The administration, the guards, all of them were the worst. They cracked down on us so hard. When they came to break our hunger strike, a team came to us. The head of the team, he was a general. He said, “I have a job. I was sent here to break your fucking hunger strike. I don’t care why you are here. I don’t care who you are. My job is to make you eat. Today we are talking. Tomorrow there will be no talking.” The second day, they brought piles of Ensure and they started force-feeding us over and over again.

[Prysner:] For those who don’t know, Ensure is a thick milky nutritional shake mainly marketed on daytime television to elderly people. It is very hard to drink.

[Adayfi:] Yes, and Ron DeSantis was there watching us. We were crying, screaming. We were tied to the feeding chair. And he was watching. He was laughing. Our stomachs could not hold this amount of Ensure. They poured one can after another. So when he approached me, I said, “This is the way we are treated!” He said, “You should eat.” I threw up in his face. Literally on his face.

[Prysner:] Ron DeSantis?

[Adayfi:] In his face. Yeah.

 

“Florida bill would require bloggers who write about the governor and legislators to register with the state”

[NBC, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 3-3-2023]

“A Republican state senator in Florida has introduced a bill that, if passed, would require bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, his Cabinet or state legislators to register with the state. Sen. Jason Brodeur’s bill, titled ‘Information Dissemination,’ would also require bloggers to disclose who’s paying them for their posts about certain elected officials and how much. ‘If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register’ with the appropriate office within five days of the post, the legislation says. It defines ‘elected state officer’ as ‘the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature.’ Failing to register would result in a fine of $25 a day, and the penalty would be capped at $2,500 per posting, NBC affiliate WFLA of Tampa reported. The bill says the bloggers’ reports to the state ‘must include’ the ‘individual or entity that compensated the blogger for the blog post, and ‘the amount of compensation received from the individual or entity.’”

 

“New bill would eliminate Florida Democratic Party”

[WESH, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 3-3-2023]

“Spring Hill Republican Senator Blaise Ingoglia has filed SB 1248, which would be called ‘The Ultimate Cancel Act.’ While it does not mention the Democratic party’s name, it would direct the Florida Division of Elections to ‘immediately cancel the filings of a political party, to include its registration and approved status as a political party, if the party’s platform has previously advocated for, or been in support of, slavery or involuntary servitude.’”

[TW: Ingoglia is trafficking in half-truths by arguing the Democratic Party supported slavery. What actually happened is that the Democratic Party split in the years before the Civil War, and ran two candidates in 1860, allowing Abraham Lincoln to win with only a plurality of 39.8 percent of the vote.]

 

The (Anti)Federalist Society Infestation of the Courts

“Dark money and special deals: How Leonard Leo and his friends benefited from his judicial activism”

[Politico, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 3-3-2023]

“A network of political non-profits formed by judicial activist Leonard Leo moved at least $43 million to a new firm he is leading, raising questions about how his conservative legal movement is funded. Leo’s own personal wealth appeared to have ballooned as his fundraising prowess accelerated since his efforts to cement the Supreme Court’s conservative majority helped to bring about its decision to overturn abortion rights. Most recently, Leo reaped a $1.6 billion windfall from a single donor in what is likely the biggest single political gift in U.S. history. Fundraising reports for 2022 have yet to be filed but spending by Leo’s aligned nonprofits on his for-profit business in 2020 and 2021 demonstrates the extent to which his money-raising benefited his own bottom line. And it shows how campaign-style politics — and the generous paydays that go along with it — are now adjacent to the Supreme Court, the