January 1, 2014

Centrists Have No Right to Lecture Anyone on Growth

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dean-baker/53420/centrists-have-no-right-to-lecture-anyone-on-growth

Centrists Have No Right to Lecture Anyone on Growth
by Dean Baker | December 31, 2013 - 10:35am

Last week former New York Times editor Bill Keller had a column that distinguished the "left-left" and the center-left. His left-left included people like Senator Elizabeth Warren and incoming New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, while his center-left included President Obama, most of the Democratic Party leadership and the D.C.-based policy group Third Way.

Keller's left-left might more appropriately be called center-left (these are not radicals pushing for the overthrow of capitalism) and his center-left should probably just be called "centrists." However, what's more important than the labeling is the main line of distinction Keller tries to draw.

Keller tells us that his left-left is just concerned about distribution whereas as his center-left recognizes the need to focus on growing the size of the pie so that there is more for everyone to share. Keller's left-left is certainly concerned about distribution, but his center-left seems more concerned about promoting upward redistribution than pushing policies that actually will lead to growth.

Keller may not remember, but his center-left were in the driver's seat putting in place the policies that gave us the stock bubble in the 1990s and the housing bubble in the last decade. The collapse of the second bubble gave us the downturn from which the country is still suffering. It has cost us millions of jobs and already more than $5 trillion in lost output, more than $15,000 for every person in the country. This economic collapse is the opposite of growth.

January 1, 2014

NAFTA At 20: 1 Million Lost Jobs, 580% Increase In Trade Deficit

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/53418/nafta-at-20-1-million-lost-jobs-580-increase-in-trade-deficit

NAFTA At 20: 1 Million Lost Jobs, 580% Increase In Trade Deficit
by Dave Johnson | December 31, 2013 - 10:30am

~snip~

NAFTA was not just a “trade” agreement. Trade agreements focus on cutting tariffs and easing quotas and barriers to goods moving across borders. The report points out that NAFTA was much more, giving corporations special rights, incentivizing offshoring and limiting regulation. As the report puts it,

“NAFTA created new privileges and protections for foreign investors that incentivized the offshoring of investment and jobs by eliminating many of the risks normally associated with moving production to low-wage countries. NAFTA allowed foreign investors to directly challenge before foreign tribunals domestic policies and actions, demanding government compensation for policies that they claimed undermined their expected future profits. NAFTA also contained chapters that required the three countries to limit regulation of services, such as trucking and banking; extend medicine patent monopolies; limit food and product safety standards and border inspection; and waive domestic procurement preferences, such as Buy American.”

Some of the effects of NAFTA that are highlighted in the report include,
* $181 billion U.S. trade deficit with NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada,
* one million net U.S. jobs lost because of NAFTA,
* a doubling of immigration from Mexico,
* larger agricultural trade deficits with Mexico and Canada,
* and more than $360 million paid to corporations after “investor-state” tribunal attacks on, and rollbacks of, domestic public interest policies.

The data also show how post-NAFTA trade and investment trends have contributed to:
* middle-class pay cuts, which in turn contributed to growing income inequality;
* how since NAFTA, U.S. trade deficit growth with Mexico and Canada has been 45 percent higher than with countries not party to a U.S. Free Trade Agreement,
* and how U.S. manufacturing and services exports to Canada and Mexico have grown at less than half the pre-NAFTA rate.

January 1, 2014

Thom Hartmann: For Economic Stability, Follow the French

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/53429/for-economic-stability-follow-the-french

For Economic Stability, Follow the French
by Thom Hartmann | December 31, 2013 - 11:43am

For the past 32 years, Americans have been living a lie. It's a lie that helps out rich people and screws working people, and it's a lie that needs to be called out.

The people promoting this lie - most all of them rich people themselves - have been so good at promoting this lie that pretty much everybody believes it. It's even asserted as fact, without contradiction, in the mainstream media. But it's a lie.

The lie is that raising income taxes on rich people and hugely profitable companies hurts economies and even leads to unemployment. The truth is that raising income taxes on rich people and hugely profitable companies actually helps economies and causes companies to hire more and more people, thus lowering unemployment.

What makes this lie particularly relevant right now is that the French Constitutional Council - their court that decides what's constitutional and what's not - has just agreed with the new socialist government that it's totally legal to raise the very top income tax rates on very wealthy individuals and hugely profitable corporations to 50 percent (effectively 75 percent when you add in their other taxes like our FICA that funds healthcare and retirement).

January 1, 2014

Ted Rall: Will Polygamy, Adult Incest, Prostitution, Masturbation, Adultery and Obscenity Be Legaliz

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/ted-rall/53430/will-polygamy-adult-incest-prostitution-masturbation-adultery-and-obscenity-be-legalized-next-lets-hope-so

Will Polygamy, Adult Incest, Prostitution, Masturbation, Adultery and Obscenity Be Legalized Next? Let's Hope So.
by Ted Rall | December 31, 2013 - 11:48am

~snip~

Many arguments in support of moralizing legislation focus on the effect of targeted behavior on the vulnerable, including women and children. Moralizers miss that their proscriptions increase abuse by driving victims underground. For example, polygamous religious cults use their illegal status to isolate children, forcing some to marry against their will. Because they’re in secret compounds, they can’t call the police. Prostitution is most dangerous in states and countries where the oldest profession is illegal.

As gays and lesbians marry, there is zero sign of Scalia’s “massive disruption of the current social order.” To the contrary: morals laws are the disruptive force. Laws against victimless crimes subvert the primary purpose of law: to promote the common good. Laws that ban behavior that is widespread (such as adultery and masturbation) effectively criminalize the majority of citizens, which undermines respect for government.

Society can and will debate morality. It should not enforce moral judgments about personal behavior through the courts.

Moral laws are immoral.

January 1, 2014

Former NSA Chief: Obama Should Keep Spying, Ignore Panel Recommendations

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/31-5



Agent Mike giving USA Today's Susan Page the stinkeye

Former NSA Chief: Obama Should Keep Spying, Ignore Panel Recommendations
- Andrea Germanos, staff writer
Published on Tuesday, December 31, 2013 by Common Dreams

General Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and the former NSA chief who launched illegal, warrantless domestic spying programs, said in an interview that none of the NSA's dragnet surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden was wrong, and that the keys to the agency's effectiveness are power and secrecy.

Speaking to USA Today's Susan Page, Hayden rejected a recommendation by the White House-appointed NSA review panel that the NSA should obtain individual court orders to search the data held by the NSA, saying it didn't make sense in "a post-9/11 world," and that the system orchestrated under Bush was "far more agile."

Hayden said that "since there have been no abuses" of the NSA's surveillance "and almost all the court decisions on this program have held that it's constitutional, I really don't know what problem we're trying to solve by changing how we do this."

It's only under discussion now, Hayden said, because "somebody stirred up the crowd," referring to the NSA whistleblower.

January 1, 2014

Questions Remain After Massive Oil Train Explosion Forces Town to Evacuate

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/31-10



'Its time to have a conversation' about the dangers of transporting oil by rail

Questions Remain After Massive Oil Train Explosion Forces Town to Evacuate
- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer
Published on Tuesday, December 31, 2013 by Common Dreams

Nearly 24 hours after a massive oil train collision and explosion led to the evacuation of a small North Dakota town, residents are still not allowed to return to their homes and the extent of the damage had not yet been tallied.

"Once I can stand up, look you in the eye and say they're safe to come home, that's exactly what we're going to do. We're just not there yet," Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney told a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

The collision involved a 106-car BNSF Railway Co oil train, which slammed into a derailed grain train on Monday afternoon, setting off large-scale explosions and a plume of toxic smoke that could be seen for 25 miles near the small town of Casselton.

As of Tuesday afternoon, all of the fires had not yet been put out and the majority of residents closest to the accident were told to stay away from their homes.

January 1, 2014

What the End of 2013 Didn't Bring: An End to the Occupation of Afghanistan

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/31-9



'The war was doomed to fail before it began, and I fear we've still learned nothing.'

What the End of 2013 Didn't Bring: An End to the Occupation of Afghanistan
- Andrea Germanos, staff writer
Published on Tuesday, December 31, 2013 by Common Dreams

2013 is drawing to a close, but the war in Afghanistan—now in its 13th year—continues, with the prospect of a 23-year occupation being added to the annals of U.S. militarism.

~snip~

As of the end of November 2013, 2,730 Afghan civilians had been killed in violence during the year, a 10 percent increase compared to the same period of 2012, according to United Nations figures.

NATO casualties during the year, in contrast, dropped from 394 in 2012 to 151 in 2013, according to a tally by the Associated Press.

Results of a CNN poll published Monday showed that 82 percent of Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan, a percentage higher than any Gallup poll showed for opposition to the Vietnam war.

January 1, 2014

Biggest Threat to World Peace: The United States

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/31-6



U.S. soldiers stop traffic on the road to the governor's compound in Kandahar, scene of a deadly battle on April 28, 2012

Biggest Threat to World Peace: The United States
- Sarah Lazare, staff writer
Published on Tuesday, December 31, 2013 by Common Dreams

Over 12 years into the so-called "Global War on Terror," the United States appears to be striking terror into the hearts of the rest of the world.

In their annual End of Year survey, Win/Gallup International found that the United States is considered the number one "greatest threat to peace in the world today" by people across the globe.

The poll of 67,806 respondents from 65 countries found that the U.S. won this dubious distinction by a landslide, as revealed in the chart below.



The BBC explains that the U.S. was deemed a threat by geopolitical allies as well as foes, including a significant portion of U.S. society.

January 1, 2014

President Obama claims the NSA has never abused its authority. That's false

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/31/nsa-powers-have-been-abused

The facts that we know so far – from Fisa court documents to LOVEINT – show that the NSA has overstepped its powers

President Obama claims the NSA has never abused its authority. That's false
Trevor Timm
Tuesday 31 December 2013 10.40 EST

Time and again since the world learned the extent of what the NSA was doing, government officials have defended the controversial mass surveillance programs by falling back on one talking point: the NSA programs may be all-powerful, but they have never been abused.

President Obama continually evokes the phase when defending the NSA in public. In his end-of-year press conference, he reiterated, "There continues not to be evidence that the [metadata surveillance] program had been abused". Former NSA chief Michael Hayden says this almost weekly, and former CIA deputy director and NSA review panel member Mike Morrell said it again just before Christmas. This mantra is likely to be repeated often in 2014 as Obama is set to address the nation on government surveillance, and Congress and the president debate whether any reforms are necessary.

There's only one problem: it's not true.

We don't have to look further than the Fisa court opinions that have been released in the past few months (thanks to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits by Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union). One of the opinions from 2009 deals directly with the phone metadata surveillance program that has caused so much controversy – the same program a Washington DC district court recently ruled is likely unconstitutional (a federal court in New York just reached the opposite conclusion.)

January 1, 2014

A Tectonic Shift in Eurasion -- How the New Great Game Will be Played

http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-Tectonic-Shift-in-Eurasi-by-Pepe-Escobar-2014_Change_Iran_Israel-140101-173.html



A Tectonic Shift in Eurasion -- How the New Great Game Will be Played
OpEdNews Op Eds 1/1/2014 at 01:14:15
By Pepe Escobar

The big story of 2014 will be Iran. Of course, the big story of the early 21st century will never stop being US-China, but it's in 2014 that we will know whether a comprehensive accord transcending the Iranian nuclear program is attainable; and in this case the myriad ramifications will affect all that's in play in the New Great Game in Eurasia, including US-China.

As it stands, we have an interim deal of the P5+1 (the UN Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany) with Iran, and no deal between the US and Afghanistan. So, once again, we have Afghanistan configured as a battleground between Iran and the House of Saud, part of a geopolitical game played out in overdrive since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 along the northern rim of the Middle East all the way to Khorasan and South Asia.

Then there's the element of Saudi paranoia, extrapolating from the future of Afghanistan to the prospect of a fully "rehabilitated" Iran becoming accepted by Western political/financial elites. This, by the way, has nothing to do with that fiction, the "international community"; after all, Iran was never banished by the BRICS, (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the Non-Aligned Movement and the bulk of the developing world.

Those damned jihadis

Every major player in the Barack Obama administration has warned Afghan President Hamid Karzai that either he signs a bilateral "security agreement" authorizing some ersatz of the US occupation or Washington will withdraw all of its troops by the end of 2014.