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General Electric is planning to move its 115-year-old X-ray division from Waukesha, Wis., to Beijing. In addition to moving the headquarters, the company will invest $2 billion in China and train more than 65 engineers and create six research centers. This is the same GE that made $5.1 billion in the United States last year. but paid no taxes-the same company that employs more people overseas than it does in the united States.
So let me get this straight. President Obama appointed GE Chairman Jeff Immelt to head his commission on job creation (job czar). Immelt is supposed to help create jobs. I guess the President forgot to tell him in which country he was supposed to be creating those jobs.
http://www.genewscenter.com/Press-Releases/GE-Healthcare-Global-X-ray-Business-Announces-Leadership-Move-to-China-324f.aspx
The Decline of the Public Good
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
05 January 12
eryl Streep's
eery reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady" brings to
mind Thatcher's most famous quip, "there is no such thing as
'society.'" None of the dwindling herd of Republican candidates has quoted
her yet but they might as well considering their unremitting bashing of
everything public.
What defines a society is a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions - public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.
Public institutions are supported by all taxpayers, and are available to all. If the tax system is progressive, those who better off (and who, presumably, have benefitted from many of these same public institutions) help pay for everyone else.
"Privatiize" means pay-for-it-yourself. The practical consequence of this in an economy whose wealth and income are now more concentrated than any time in 90 years is to make high-quality public goods available to fewer and fewer.
Much of what's called "public" is increasingly a private good paid for by users - ever-higher tolls on public highways and public bridges, higher tuitions at so-called public universities, higher admission fees at public parks and public museums.
Much of the rest of what's considered "public" has become so shoddy that those who can afford to find private alternatives. As public schools deteriorate, the upper-middle class and wealthy send their kids to private ones. As public pools and playgrounds decay, they buy memberships in private tennis and swimming clubs. As public hospitals decline, they pay premium rates for private care.
Gated communities and office parks now come with their own manicured lawns and walkways, security guards, and backup power systems.
Why the decline of public institutions? The financial squeeze on government at all levels since 2008 explains only part of it. The slide really started more than three decades ago with so-called "tax revolts" by a middle class whose earnings had stopped advancing even though the economy continued to grow. Most families still wanted good public services and institutions but could no longer afford the tab.
From that time onward, almost all the gains from growth have gone to the top. But as the upper middle class and the rich began shifting to private institutions, they withdrew political support for public ones. In consequence, their marginal tax rates dropped - setting off a vicious cycle of diminishing revenues and deteriorating quality, spurring more flight from public institutions. Tax revenues from corporations also dropped as big companies went global - keeping their profits overseas and their tax bills to a minimum.
But that's not the whole story. America no longer values public goods as we did before.
The great expansion of public institutions in America began in the early years of 20th century when progressive reformers championed the idea that we all benefit from public goods. Excellent schools, roads, parks, playgrounds, and transit systems would knit the new industrial society together, create better citizens, and generate widespread prosperity. Education, for example, was less a personal investment than a public good - improving the entire community and ultimately the nation.
In subsequent decades - through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War - this logic was expanded upon. Strong public institutions were seen as bulwarks against, in turn, mass poverty, fascism, and then communism. The public good was palpable: We were very much a society bound together by mutual needs and common threats. (It was no coincidence that the greatest extensions of higher education after World War II were the GI Bill and the National Defense Education Act, and the largest public works project in history called the National Defense Interstate Highway Act.)
But in a post-Cold War America distended by global capital, distorted by concentrated income and wealth, undermined by unlimited campaign donations, and rocked by a wave of new immigrants easily cast by demagogues as "them," the notion of the public good has faded. Not even Democrats any longer use the phrase "the public good." Public goods are now, at best, "public investments." Public institutions have morphed into "public-private partnerships;" or, for Republicans, simply "vouchers."
Mitt Romney's speaks derisively of what he terms the Democrats' "entitlement" society in contrast to his "opportunity" society. At least he still envisions a society. But he hasn't explained how ordinary Americans will be able to take advantage of good opportunities without good public schools, affordable higher education, good roads, and adequate health care.
His "entitlements" are mostly a mirage anyway. Medicare is the only entitlement growing faster than the GDP but that's because the costs of health care are growing faster than the economy, and any attempt to turn Medicare into a voucher - without either raising the voucher in tandem with those costs or somehow taming them - will just reduce the elderly's access to health care. Social Security, for its part, hasn't contributed to the budget deficit; it's had surpluses for years.
Other safety nets are in tatters. Unemployment insurance reaches just 40 percent of the jobless these days (largely because eligibility requires having had a steady full-time job for a number of years rather than, as with most people, a string of jobs or part-time work).
What could Mitt be talking about? Outside of defense, domestic discretionary spending is down sharply as a percent of the economy. Add in declines in state and local spending, and total public spending on education, infrastructure, and basic research has dropped from 12 percent of GDP in the 1970s to less than 3 percent by 2011.
Only in one respect is Romney right. America has created a whopping entitlement for the biggest Wall Street banks and their top executives - who, unlike most of the rest of us, are no longer allowed to fail. They can also borrow from the Fed at almost no cost, then lend the money out at 3 to 6 percent.
All told, Wall Street's entitlement is the biggest offered by the federal government, even though it doesn't show up in the budget. And it's not even a public good. It's just private gain.
We're losing public goods available to all, supported by the tax payments of all and especially the better off. In its place we have private goods available to the very rich, supported by the rest of us.
Even Lady Thatcher would have been appalled.
We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore
How did the Party of Lincoln and Liberty transmogrify into the party of Newt Gingrich’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk?
By Garrison Keillor
http://www.inthesetimes.com/main/article/979/
If you like this story, get more great articles and subscribe to In These Times magazine at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/subscribe
Democracy Convention
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October 2011
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Speakers counter media-fed misconceptions about immigrants’ impactsBy Stacey Kennelly
Antonio Arreguín-Bermudez was just 16 years old when he crossed the border illegally from Mexico to the United States. He clearly remembers a moment when he stood on a mountaintop near the border, looking down at the invisible line beneath him. “I stepped over the line, but I felt the same,” he said articulately with a Mexican accent. “I remember thinking, ‘Why do I want to go over there if they don’t want me?’ And then I remembered, it’s because I want to prove myself, I want to educate myself.” Nearly 30 years later, Arreguín-Bermudez, who holds a doctorate in Hispanic literature, is a Chico State professor. He told that story during a symposium in the Bell Memorial Union on Tuesday (Feb. 15) titled “Immigration Myths and Misconceptions.” The forum was organized by the campus’ Community Legal Information Center and the American Civil Liberties Union Chico chapter and is the first of three events intended to educate the public about immigration. Laurel Yorks, a paralegal and public-benefits specialist, kicked off the forum by discussing the myth that undocumented immigrants are a drain on the public-benefit system. She explained how the media have fed untrue information about immigration to the public, including the misconception that illegal immigrants are a strain on the welfare system. “It’s so easy to spread lies, and so difficult to undo them,” said Yorks, who has spent decades helping undocumented immigrants acquire the financial help they need. “We often use immigrants as scapegoats during tough financial times.” Contrary to popular belief, she said, most illegal immigrants are not eligible for welfare and other public-benefit programs, including SSI (supplemental-security income), CalFresh (formerly Food Stamps) and Medi-Cal. Professor Paul Lopez took the podium next to discuss the myth that undocumented citizens take jobs away from U.S. citizens. He cited his extensive research that shows a historical legacy of migration from Mexico to the United States that began during the Mexican Revolution and intensified after the Bracero Program ended in 1965, when temporary-contract laborers and their friends had learned how to dodge immigration obstacles. Lopez showed a slide featuring an image of Mexicans marching across the border with jugs of water. He noted that while many pioneer migrants (both documented and undocumented) fit this stereotype, other theoretical approaches about migration should be considered, such as the fact that when one member of a family or community migrates, others tend to follow. “They may come for jobs initially, but as time builds they must ultimately decide if they want to settle their family in the U.S.,” he said. Sacramento immigration attorney Bethania Maria discussed the ideal that undocumented immigrants should simply come to America legally. She noted why that ideal is almost impossible to achieve, including that immigration laws are contradictory. She described a number of laws that make it difficult to come to the U.S. legally, and used the example that many laws are intended to help families to reunite, but it can take decades to get permission to bring a relative to the U.S. “Not many people can stand that wait,” Maria said. “Some parents die in the process.” She noted other extreme requirements for gaining citizenship easily, such as having an unusual talent or needing refuge from a home country. Master’s candidate Rocio Guido-Ferns wrapped up the list of speakers with her story about crossing the Mexico-U.S. border in an old Cadillac in the ’80s, with only a suitcase and her 3-year-old son in tow. (For her story, see “Immigration, cross the great divide,” cover story by Jaime O’Neill, June 26, 2008). She eventually taught herself English, but her story of survival is one marked by an abusive American husband and instances of racial and sexual discrimination. She said immigrating taught her to reaffirm her love for her culture, but her experiences have changed her perception of America. “I used to think [America] was a place of people with a government that protected civil rights, where hard work gets recognized,” she said. “So that everyone, whether they had an education or not, could come here and become something. “Today, I’ve gone from wanting the American dream to a dream of America that respects its immigrants’ heritage.”  |
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Leslie Johnson ~ 530-518-9992
Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Here’s a thought: maybe Madison, Wis., isn’t Cairo after all. Maybe it’s Baghdad — specifically, Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence.
As many readers may recall, the results were spectacular — in a bad way. Instead of focusing on the urgent problems of a shattered economy and society, which would soon descend into a murderous civil war, those Bush appointees were obsessed with imposing a conservative ideological vision. Indeed, with looters still prowling the streets of Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, the American viceroy, told a Washington Post reporter that one of his top priorities was to “corporatize and privatize state-owned enterprises” — Mr. Bremer’s words, not the reporter’s — and to “wean people from the idea the state supports everything.”
The story of the privatization-obsessed Coalition Provisional Authority was the centerpiece of Naomi Klein’s best-selling book “The Shock Doctrine,” which argued that it was part of a broader pattern. From Chile in the 1970s onward, she suggested, right-wing ideologues have exploited crises to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises, and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society.
Which brings us to Wisconsin 2011, where the shock doctrine is on full display.
In recent weeks, Madison has been the scene of large demonstrations against the governor’s budget bill, which would deny collective-bargaining rights to public-sector workers. Gov. Scott Walker claims that he needs to pass his bill to deal with the state’s fiscal problems. But his attack on unions has nothing to do with the budget. In fact, those unions have already indicated their willingness to make substantial financial concessions — an offer the governor has rejected.
What’s happening in Wisconsin is, instead, a power grab — an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy. And the power grab goes beyond union-busting. The bill in question is 144 pages long, and there are some extraordinary things hidden deep inside.
For example, the bill includes language that would allow officials appointed by the governor to make sweeping cuts in health coverage for low-income families without having to go through the normal legislative process.
And then there’s this: “Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).”
What’s that about? The state of Wisconsin owns a number of plants supplying heating, cooling, and electricity to state-run facilities (like the University of Wisconsin). The language in the budget bill would, in effect, let the governor privatize any or all of these facilities at whim. Not only that, he could sell them, without taking bids, to anyone he chooses. And note that any such sale would, by definition, be “considered to be in the public interest.”
If this sounds to you like a perfect setup for cronyism and profiteering — remember those missing billions in Iraq? — you’re not alone. Indeed, there are enough suspicious minds out there that Koch Industries, owned by the billionaire brothers who are playing such a large role in Mr. Walker’s anti-union push, felt compelled to issue a denial that it’s interested in purchasing any of those power plants. Are you reassured?
The good news from Wisconsin is that the upsurge of public outrage — aided by the maneuvering of Democrats in the State Senate, who absented themselves to deny Republicans a quorum — has slowed the bum’s rush. If Mr. Walker’s plan was to push his bill through before anyone had a chance to realize his true goals, that plan has been foiled. And events in Wisconsin may have given pause to other Republican governors, who seem to be backing off similar moves.
But don’t expect either Mr. Walker or the rest of his party to change those goals. Union-busting and privatization remain G.O.P. priorities, and the party will continue its efforts to smuggle those priorities through in the name of balanced budgets.
