Subscribe to Dollars & Sense magazine. Recent articles related to the financial crisis. If guards organize, the terrorists win.The Associated Press reports today that "Bush and his Senate allies will kill an antiterror bill if Congress sends it to the White House with a provision to let airport screeners unionize, the White House and 36 Republicans said yesterday."Bush et al's argument is that unionized TSA screeners would pose a threat to national security. Once unionized screeners would presumably get better pay, benefits, and job security—all those things unions are famous for helping workers win—than they have now. So I'm not really seeing the connection—in fact, I'd be tempted to say that, if we're going to have screeners at all, the greater risk comes from them being less satisfied with their jobs. And it's not like this is even dirty politics, like Republicans' attempt last session to couple a minimum wage increase with cuts to the estate tax. Here the two issues—national security and the rights of the people who are, rightly or wrongly, delegated to protect it—seem very strongly connected indeed. And it's not like the right to organize has undermined security in any other part of Homeland Security. Said John Gage, president of American Federation of Government Employees, "Denying these people rights that everyone else has in Homeland Security is not based on any rational reason." Sounds about usual for the Bush administration. See Stephen Barr's coverage in the Washington Post: Effort to Give TSA Screeners Union Rights Advances Labels: labor, national security, unions Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Psst! Corporations Don't Pay Taxes! This tidbit appears in "The Short Run" column of the January/February issue of Dollars & Sense. Thanks to Barry Deutch for the 'toon, and to D&S stalwart Phineas Baxandall for the tip. An obscure state law allows any Wisconsin resident to find out the taxes paid (or owed) by any taxpayer—including any corporation. You just have to fill out a simple form, which is exactly what researchers from the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future (IWF) did to find out about taxes paid by dozens of corporations doing business in Wisconsin. What they found: among corporations with more than $100 million in revenue, more than 60% paid no state income tax. These included non-Wisconsin companies like Kraft Foods, McDonald’s, Microsoft, and PepsiCo, and Wisconsin-based companies like Johnson Controls, Manpower, Kohl’s, Harley-Davidson, and Rockwell Automation. They also found that of the total tax revenue in the state, only 3% came from corporations; in contrast 36% came from property taxes, 29% from sales taxes, and 26% from individual income taxes. Information about corporate tax payments is notoriously difficult to obtain, though it’s supposed to be public. Even Wisconsin’s relatively progressive law has some bizarre restrictions. “No person may divulge or circulate” the information obtained through the law, with two exceptions: publication by a newspaper or disclosure by a public speaker. So IWF couldn’t send out a press release, since this would have involved “divulging or circulating” the information. Instead the group had to hold a press conference, invite newspaper reporters, and give out the scandalous figures orally. Only when the story had circulated in the media could IWF even post the findings on its own website. The state’s largest business group, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, tried to discredit the report, claiming that IWF is “a very left-leaning institute that’s heavily funded by labor and public employee unions.” Meanwhile, an affiliate of the group, Forward Wisconsin, which tries to lure businesses to the state, boasts on its website about Wisconsin’s business-friendly tax policies and cites tax rates that are even lower than what IWF alleges. Seems like low corporate tax payments aren’t so much of a secret after all, depending on your audience. Labels: corporate taxes, IWF, Wisconsin Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Toles and The Onion on InequalityTom Toles' recent cartoon in The Washington Post lampoons (most, i.e. orthodox) economists' puzzlement over the growing income and wealth gap. The suggestion made by Toles' alter ego (the tiny cartoonist in the corner) that we "start outsourcing those economists' jobs" reminds us of Dean Baker's suggestion, in The Conservative Nanny State (excerpted in the July/August 2006 issue of Dollars & Sense): "If government policies ensure that specific types of workers (e.g. doctors, lawyers, economists) are in relatively short supply, then they ensure that these workers will do better than the types of [less-skilled] workers who are plentiful."The current issue of Dollars & Sense examines the income and wealth gaps: in John Miller's rejoinder to the editors of The Wall Street Journal that the wealthy are taxed, if anything, too much; in James Cypher's article on the growth of the income and wealth gaps since 2000; and in Ramaa Vasudevan's "Ask Dr. Dollar" column on the alleged "double-taxation" of corporations. See also Chuck Collins's article on Washington State voters' collective decision not to repeal the estate tax. And don't miss The Onion's incisive reportage on the structural issues underlying Sunday's Academy Awards cermony: Oscars Reveal Widening Gap Between Best, Worst Dressed. An excerpt:
Labels: Dean Baker, dividend tax, estate tax, Halle Berry, income inequality, Paula Abdul, Tom Toles, wealth inequality Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Laws and injustice: Fighting for human rights in MexicoLaws and injustice: Fighting for human rights in MexicoChris Tilly and Marie Kennedy February 2007 This is the second in a series of posts by D&S comrades Marie Kennedy and Chris Tilly, who are spending six months in Tlaxcala in central Mexico. Their first posting was about the recent increases in the price of tortillas in Mexico. In a February statement, Amnesty International described Mexico as a country with “laws but no justice.” They were talking about the criminal justice system, but the statement describes Mexico more broadly, in a couple of ways. First, the application of laws in Mexico is often arbitrary and driven by covert or overt economic and political interests. Second, Mexican society (like most others, including the U.S.) institutionalizes injustice toward a number of groups of second-class citizens—such as indigenous people, the poor, and women,. But the story is more complex. Mexico today also is registering some unexpected breakthroughs in civil rights, including gay/lesbian rights. And popular organizations, sometimes with allies in the mainstream parties and sometimes without, are continuing to push forward the struggle for social justice. Whose law? Totalitarianism, according to one description, is a situation in which laws are constructed so that absolutely everyone must violate them in the course of daily life, rendering everyone vulnerable to selective application of the law. Mexico does not meet this definition of totalitarianism, but the country certainly has some things in common with it. Tax evasion is virtually universal. There are often multiple land ownership claims based on conflicting government policies or actions—agrarian reform, indigenous reservations, patronage gifts by some governor or other, eminent domain, and so on. And politicians often interpret broadly written laws to their own advantage, as well as supplementing legal actions with extralegal and illegal ones. Perhaps the most celebrated recent example of arbitrary application of the law took place in 2004, in the political jockeying preceding the 2006 presidential campaign. The popular center-left mayor of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), was leading in early polls. The government of President Vicente Fox, of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) contrived charges against AMLO for taking a small slice of private land by eminent domain for a hospital access road. An open criminal proceeding would have barred López Obrador from being a candidate. AMLO responded by organizing a protest movement, and the federal prosecutor finally dropped the charges. Fox stirred up a furor a couple of weeks ago by commenting that López Obrador had beaten him that time, but “I got even when my candidate”—Felipe Calderón, the PAN’s presidential candidate—“won at the polls.” López Obrador and his supporters maintain the election was stolen with Fox’s collusion. AMLO’s plight is just one of many such cases. Journalist Lydia Cacho, who accused the governor of Puebla of shielding powerful political and business figures who were procuring sex with minors, spent a year in prison awaiting trial on libel charges before a judge finally ordered her released last month. In the case highlighted by Amnesty International, indigenous activists in Oaxaca languish in prison on trumped-up charges for taking part in the movement against that state’s governor. Environmental activists in Morelos and elsewhere have suffered a similar fate. Because Mexico’s laws do not include a presumption of innocence, people accused for political reasons have limited tools to fight their incarceration. Unjust imprisonment is bad enough, but those with political power sometimes go well beyond that in clamping down on dissidents. Mexico, historically a land of caudillos (regional political-military leaders) and caciques (local bosses controlling patronage and enforcement systems), has not completely escaped its legacy. In San Salvador Atenco (Mexico State) and Oaxaca, where governors savagely repressed demonstrations last year, human rights observers have documented cases of detention without charges, beating, torture, rape of women and men, disappearance, and assassination. Some such actions are targeted, others appear designed to indiscriminately sow terror—one account describes apolitical ice cream vendor Ismael Cruz, who was unlucky enough to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, was beaten and tortured, and remains under detention. In Chiapas, similar tactics have been used against the Zapatistas and communities suspected of being sympathizers. The National Human Rights Commission recently reported that in the last six years, 31 journalists have been assassinated and five disappeared in Mexico—more than a third of these in the last year—making it the second-most dangerous country for journalists after Iraq (some of the killings are presumed to be the work of organized crime). Typically the worst abuses are carried out by non-uniformed troops or police, paramilitaries, or thugs, giving government officials “plausible deniability.” Those ordering and carrying out such acts of violence generally enjoy impunity. In fact, it’s only in the last few years that the Mexican system of justice has begun to investigate the “dirty war” the Mexican government pursued against militants in the late 1960s and 1970s. Multiple jeopardy The most vulnerable groups suffer most. Indigenous people, many of whom are among Mexico’s poorest—start out with three strikes against them: race, class, and language. This combination disadvantages them in property rights—land thefts from indigenous communities are legion—and in the courtroom as well. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, the UN’s special rapporteur on indigenous people’s rights, issued a February report that condemned the state of Yucatán’s treatment of the indigenous, who make up the majority of the state’s population. Stavenhagen highlighted the case of Ricardo Ucán, currently serving 22 years in prison. Ucán, who speaks no Spanish, killed a man who was pointing a gun at him and his family. Because his court-appointed lawyer spoke only Spanish and the proceedings were never translated, the fact of self-defense was never raised. Women, who only gained the vote in national elections in Mexico in 1953, also suffer more violations of their rights. An anthropologist colleague commented that, “In Mexico, men can accept women being politicians, professionals, even their bosses—but they are machos in the home.” Domestic violence is a serious problem—suffered by 44 percent of women living with a partner, according to a survey by the National Institute on Women. The hundreds of killings in Juárez remain unsolved, leading many to suspect official complicity. And criminologist Rocío Santillan Ramírez characterizes the criminal justice system as “patriarchal and misogynist,” pointing out that women murderers receive longer sentences on average than men, even though they have often killed a partner after years of abuse and violence. In both substance and symbolism, Calderón’s government is giving off signs of worse things to come. Calderón has done a phenomenally large number of photo-ops with the military, including one occasion when he posed in fatigues (maybe he’s getting PR lessons from George W. Bush?). He gave troops a 46 percent raise while refusing to raise the minimum wage. The president’s most visible policy initiative has been a series of military raids—so far without significant success—against the organized criminals running the drug trade. The violent acts of these gangsters are indeed a serious public concern, but given the range of economic and social problems facing Mexico, making this priority number one sends a clear message (as well as winning points with the United States). Calderón is not alone in playing the law-and-order card. Marcelo Ebrard, current mayor of Mexico City and a stalwart of AMLO’s Party of the Democratic Revolution, has been carrying out mass evictions of public housing projects where drug-dealing is allegedly taking place. The state of Guerrero just authorized its state legislators to carry arms and is paying for bodyguards. Calderón’s rhetoric targets not just criminals, but dissidents. “In this country, we will no longer confuse illegality with respect for rights,” he intoned ominously in late January. It’s true that in Atenco and Oaxaca protestors broke the law by violating police orders to disperse. But one could argue that when protest and criticism are made illegal, protestors and critics will necessarily become criminals. In any case, Calderón’s Presidential Guard (Estado Mayor) went well beyond punishing illegal acts when he visited the National Governor’s Conference here in Oaxaca. The Estado Mayor roughed up seven reporters—all from mainstream publications—without warning, throwing one to the ground and kicking him in the head, breaking his nose and sending him to the hospital. “We’ve never known the Estado Mayor to act like this,” one friend commented. Calderón’s officials have also blocked AMLO’s TV talk show from going on the air. Meanwhile, the Assistant Attorney General for Human Rights, Juan de Dios Castro, as much as threw his hands in the air when he declared in mid-February that “We have a problem of violation of human rights that unfortunately the federal government…so far does not have in its hands the possibility of totally eliminating.” He blamed state governments, complaining that in some states, “a climate of impunity is facilitated because democracy doesn’t exist,” but claimed that Mexico’s federal system limits the central government’s ability to intervene. (If the U.S. federal government had adopted this view in the 1960s, we’d probably still have Jim Crow in the South today!) Human rights advocates slammed Castro the next day for abdicating federal responsibility. Though the actions of Calderón and his cabinet anger and worry government critics, they have gained favor in other quarters. Columnist Julio Hernández López reports that mega-capitalist Alberto Bailleres (major stockholder in financial, mining, commercial, and agribusiness interests), commented publicly in mid-February that the rule of law requires a strong government that compels all to obey, “even in the face of factional interests…. The civilizing way of law,” he continued, should not be detained by “the hesitations of any actor or any political tendency.” Interesting words coming from a major stockholder of Peñoles, in whose coal mine 65 miners perished in an explosion a year ago after years of safety violations. One year later, no action has been taken against the company. Surprising breakthroughs But the news on human rights from Mexico is not all bad. Mexico’s governments are naming domestic violence (violencia interfamiliar), and conducting educational campaigns to raise consciouness about it. The federal government passed a law criminalizing domestic violence last year, and is conducting a hard-hitting radio campaign to publicize it (“Señor Martínez, you are sentenced to two years in prison for hitting your wife!”). Perhaps even more surprising in a land where machismo is so deeply rooted, laws recognizing gay and lesbian rights are taking new strides. The first same-sex civil union in Latin America, between two lesbians, was celebrated at the end of January in the gritty border state of Coahuila, best known for coal mines (including the Pasta de Conchos mine were last year’s disaster took place) and maquiladoras. (Coahuila’s law was championed, not by the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution, but by the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000.) The Distrito Federal (the federal district containing Mexico City) passed a similar law that takes effect in March, and already hundreds of same-sex couples have symbolically registered their intentions. Of course, Mexicans have long had an ambivalent relationship toward homosexuality. On the one hand, there are few insults harsher than puto (faggot). On the other hand, perhaps the most popular marchers in the recent Carnaval parade in Santa Ana, where we are living, were the dozens of lindas marinas (drag queens)—a fixture in many Mexican Carnavals. Some were clownish objects of ridicule, but others were glamorous figures (including quite a few androgynous sylphs of ambiguous gender) who attracted appreciative whistles and propositions from male onlookers. Mexican laws and views on reproductive rights, the rights of the HIV-positive, and even ex-offenders’ rights are also changing. The morning-after pill was approved in Mexico in 2004, two years before the U.S. FDA finally gave it the nod. Abortion is illegal but tolerated. The Mexican Supreme Court just ruled that the Army may not discharge soldiers for being HIV-positive, and the Secretary of Health has initiated legal action for “crimes against public health” against the National Movement for the Refocusing of Science, which promotes a theory that the AIDS virus doesn’t exist. The state of Coahuila even passed a law prohibiting discrimination against ex-convicts in government employment (with the exception of the police). And in the shadow of brutal repression in Oaxaca and Atenco, in spite of the echoes of Calderón’s tough-guy speeches, Mexicans continue to organize for basic human rights. A “citizens’ jury” of well known cultural and political figures traveled to Oaxaca to hear testimony from victims of the government crackdown there. A crowded field of human rights organizations pursues its crucial work of documentation and denunciation. Brave journalists face down death threats and worse to tell the stories of Ismael Cruz, Ricardo Ucán, and many others. And ordinary Mexicans, including growing numbers of indigenous people and women, challenge arbitrary power by lobbying, litigating, meeting, demonstrating, and creating autonomous, community-based institutions—building alternative structures of power founded on recognizing the rights of all. Labels: AMLO, Atenco, Calderón, López Obrador, Mexico, Oaxaca, PAN Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Dollars & Sense not surprised by falling marketsThis morning, the New York Times is aflutter about sharp dips in global stock markets and a new report on the decline of U.S. manufacturing. Dollars & Sense has been following the economic developments that led to this situation for years. Excerpts from the NYT and links to Dollars & Sense coverage below.In the lead NYT story, Global Markets Fall Again on Fears About U.S. Economy, Keith Bradsher and Martin Fackler report: Stock markets fell sharply across most of Asia again today and continued declining in Europe as investors worried about weakness in the American economy. In Floyd Norris and Jeremy W. Peters' Wall St. Tumble Adds to Worries About Economies, Stuart Hoffman, chief economist of PNC Financial, adds that, since "global markets have been strong for years, 'We've had this 'What me worry?' mentality. And this is a little bit of a wake-up call.'" In January 2006, Dollars & Sense on the fragility of world markets' dependence on the dollar and the health of the U.S. economy: It's what lies behind the slide of the dollar that has even many mainstream economists spooked: an unprecedented current account deficit—the difference between the country's income and its consumption and investment spending. The current account deficit, which primarily reflects the huge gap between the amount the United States imports and the amount it exports, is the best indicator of where the country stands in its financial relationship with the rest of the world. (Dollar Anxiety: The advantages of imperial finance have propped up the U.S. economy—but they may not last. By John Miller, in Dollars & Sense Jan/Feb 2006.) In his NYT analysis A Recession That Arrived on Cats' Paws, David Leonhardt writes: The nation's manufacturing sector managed to slip into a recession with almost nobody seeming to notice. Well, until yesterday. Dollars & Sense wasn't surprised, given our coverage of recent declines in the U.S. manufacturing sector. In the Mar/Apr 2004 issue of Dollars & Sense, John Miller wrote: By 2000 ... manufacturing had already hit the skids. Industrial production fell steadily, contributing to a general excess of industrial capacity. Today, capacity utilization rates still hover at about 75%, and the manufacturing sector has shed jobs for some 42 straight months. (High and Dry: The Economic Recovery Fails to Deliver) And in January 2003, Ellen Frank answered Dollars & Sense reader Lane Smith's questions about the effects of NAFTA on the U.S. economy: Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Mexico, and Canada went into effect, trade within North America has increased dramatically. In the NYT, David Leonhardt continues: Is the entire United States economy in danger of going the way of the manufacturing sector? Is it possible that we're headed for a real recession? Dollars & Sense on how the U.S. economy has spent years stiffing wage-earners: The current economic recovery has done less to raise wages and more to pump up profits than any of the eight other recoveries since World War II. No wonder inequality continues to worsen, and most people still doubt that the economic turnaround will ever benefit them.(Slow Wage Growth But Soaring Profits in the Current Recovery. By John Miller, in Dollars & Sense Sep/Oct 2004.) Also in March 2004's High and Dry: The Economic Recovery Fails to Deliver, John Miller discusses the causes behind today's turmoil: "Tax cuts, home sales, mortgage refinancing fueled by low interest rates, and Iraq-driven military spending—not self-sustaining job and wage growth—fueled the ... growth spurt." For the best (and most prescient) economic news and analysis, reports on economic justice activism, primers on economic topics, and critiques of the mainstream media's coverage of the economy, subscribe to Dollars & Sense. Labels: dollar, durable goods, manufacturing, recession, stock market, wages Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Texas Observer on TXU buyoutOn the Texas Observer's blog, Forrest Wilder sounds some further cautions about the TXU buyout:
Labels: carbon, coal, electricity, energy, global warming, TXU Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). TXU resourcesHere's the New York Times overview of the TXU green buyout.The Dallas Morning News has a handy timeline of all the shenanigans that preceded this development. And Daniel Mottola at the Austin Chronicle does an excellent job of fleshing out that timeline and the rest of this session's battle over global warming and air quality. Labels: carbon, coal, electricity, energy, TXU Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). More on the TXU carbon emissions agreementThe decision by TXU's private buyers to cut back its dirty coal permit applications and to reduce its existing environmental impact rested on the realization that in an energy market where consumers care about how their electricity affects their health and the environment, "the entrepreneurial and the innovative will get more profit" than the polluting approach, said Fred Krupp, executive director of Environmetnal Defense.Environmental Defense also says: In addition to withdrawing permit applications for eight proposed coal plants, Texas Pacific Group and KKR have agreed to:
Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which negotiated the deal with TXU's buyers, praised their organizations' Texas offices and all of the other organizations and activists who have put pressure on TXU to drop its plans to double its greenhouse gas emissions since the company filed the eleven dirty coal permits in April 2006. These groups included the Sierra Club, Public Citizen, Rainforest Action Network, the SEED Coalition, the Texas Cities for Clean Air Coalition, Texas Business for Clean Air, Citizens Organized for Resources and the Environment, and Neighbors for Neighbors. A representative of the Sierra Club's Lone Star chapter said, "I think that public, grassroots pressure played a big role in this. If the people hadn't spoken up loudly and consistently, the powers that be might still have gone through with it." For some groups, may be a bittersweet victory. According to Environmental Defense: As part of the negotiations leading up to the announcement, Environmental Defense agreed to settle its federal lawsuit against TXU (regarding the Sandow unit) in exchange for an aggressive environmental pledge from Texas Pacific Group and KKR. The new company will continue to pursue permits for the Sandow unit and the two Oak Grove units. Members of the press from Waco, which will be downwind from two of the TXU plants that remain in permitting, expressed concern about the Oak Grove facilities in a conference call with Environmental Defense and NRDC this afternoon. And long-time Dollars & Sense will recall the ongoing fight near Rockdale, Texas, against Alcoa's (and now TXU's) expansion of its aluminum smelter and associated lignite mines and plant in that area. The Sierra Club said that while the group views the withdrawal of the eight permit applications and the other aspects of the agreement as "really exciting, especially the endorsement of the carbon cap," it's important to remember that 11 of the 19 dirty coal permit applications that followed Texas Governor Perry's fast track permitting order in October 2005 are still under consideration. And of the three TXU plants still in permitting, she said, "The Oak Grove ones are the worst. The worst." The Sierra Club added that because these other plants are still under consideration, it's very important that concerned citizens keep pressure on the Texas legislature to pass laws this session that promote energy efficiency, promote renewable energy, and force coal permitting to slow back down—including a proposed two-year coal permitting moratorium that was recently introduced the the Texas Senate. A few days ago, Tom Smith of Public Citizen's Texas office told me that one of TXU's cardinal sins—one of its actions that helped generate so much public opposition to its plans—was trying to "sneak in under whatever emisisons legislation might be passed this session." A cardinal sin, maybe, but also a Texas political tradition (see the Alcoa story, above). David Hawkins of NRDC would perhaps say that cleaning up their act in the first place is the smartest and most just way that TXU could "sneak in" past pending legislation. Said Hawkins, once the session is over and emissions legislation is passed, "companies that have already reduced their emissions of greenhouse gases will automatically be rewarded because they'll have less work to do." Labels: carbon, coal, electricity, energy, global warming, TXU Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). TXU buyout cancels 8 of 11 dirty coal permitsEnvironmental Defense has announced that "as part of their plan to purchase Texas electricity provider TXU Corp, Texas Pacific Group and KKR have agreed to terminate the applications for eight of TXU's 11 proposed coal plants in Texas and will adopt a platform of initiatives that will significantly reduce the company's environmental impact in Texas."More information from the press conference call to follow soon. Labels: carbon, coal, energy, global warming, TXU electricity Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Clean energy in Texas: get involvedRead about Dallas-based energy company TXU's plans to build 11 new coal-fired power plants in Texas here. TXU is already Texas' largest source of carbon dioxide emissions, and the new plants would double TXU's CO2 output. In Texas and around the country, a half dozen major environmental organizations, seven local citizens groups, 36 cities, counties, and school districts, 400 business leaders, three major church groups, and thousands of individuals have been agitating against the plants. To join them, visit Stop the Coal Plant for letters and petitions, ways to donate, the latest press, and a handy fact sheet.Look for more coverage of this activism in the Mar/Apr issue of Dollars & Sense. Labels: carbon, coal, electricity, energy, global warming, TXU Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Delay in TXU coal plant permitting in TexasIn October 2005, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed an executive order that, among other things, cut the length of permit hearings for new power plants in Texas from 18 months to only six. Last year, Dallas-based power company TXU filed permit applications for 11 new coal-burning power plants that would more than double the company's emmisions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide—a consequence that many consider outrageous, considering that Texas leads the nation in CO2 emissions and TXU is the state's largest CO2 polluter.TXU argues that the new plants will meet Texas' desperately growing need for electricity and that not to build them would have sever consequences for the Texas economy. Opponents argue that the potential costs in federal funding and public health outweigh the alleged energy benefits, and that there are cleaner and more economically stimulating ways to provide the needed electricity. The TXU permit hearings were set to begin Wednesday, but on Tuesday Texas State District Judge Stephen Yelenosky ordered a four-month delay to allow opponents to better prepare their case. The permit hearings are now set to begin June 27. According to the Dallas Morning News, "Judge Yelenosky said his decision hinged on whether the governor may constitutionally direct a hearing officer to reach a decision by a particular deadline." Yelenosky wrote, "I have concluded that the plaintiffs are likely to prevail on their argument that the governor lacks that authority." Perry's office issued a two-sentence reply: "No one should be surprised that a single liberal Austin judge would rule against Gov. Perry and his efforts to increase energy capacity in Texas. We will take a close look at the ruling and make a determination on how we will proceed." No one should be surprised by Perry's response, either—considering that, since his October 2005 fast-track order, Perry's re-election campaign has received more than $100,000 from entities associated with TXU and its proposed plants, as well as five other proposed plants. As the new June 27 hearing date approaches, various legislative actions and activism are in the works to prevent the new plants altogether. A large coalition of state and national environmental, business, and citizens' groups are leading rallies and grassroots lobbying efforts, and the Rainforest Action Network is pressuring the banks that might finance TXU's plants to withhold their support should the permits be approved. Look for more on this story in the Mar/Apr issue of Dollars & Sense. Sources Environmental Defense's overview of the issue Fort Worth Star-Telegram Dallas Business Journal Dallas Morning News Labels: carbon, coal, electricity, energy, financial activism, global warming, TXU Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Bostonians: support local business and Dollars & SenseBoston Main Streets has created a benefit card to encourage Boston residents to shop and dine locally. It's called the Boston Community Change card, and when you present it at participating Boston businesses, those businesses give you a rebate and donate a portion of the sale to a Boston non-profit (such as Dollars & Sense). Buying locally helps keep local business thriving, and donating locally—well, doesn't that make you feel good?Bostonians, visit Boston Community Change to learn more or to sign up for a card. And if you'd like to name Dollars & Sense as your non-profit beneficiary, search for us as the Economic Affairs Bureau, Inc. (our offical name) in zip code 02108. That way, when you support local businesses, you can also help Dollars & Sense keep publishing economic news, progressive economic analysis, reports on economic justice activism, and critiques of the mainstream media's coverage of the economy for the benefit of professors, students, activists, organizers—and you. Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). The Drug War Comes HomeFebruary 21, 2007 My father is 96. A month ago, he shuffled around the house, up and down the stairs, quite well by himself. Then, as he puts it, "I fell on my arse!" Oops! Compression fracture of the spine. Treatment: pain killers and bed rest. But, if he is ever to walk again, he must get up regularly, and spend two or three hours a day sitting in a chair. The doc prescribes hydrocodone--acetaminophen (Tylenol) with a touch of codeine. That doesn't begin to control the pain if he sits or stands. "At my age," says my father, "I don't need to suffer." So he lies there on his back, reading or playing games on his laptop. Over three thousand years ago traders in the ancient Near East shipped opium packed in little jugs shaped like poppy capsules, with painted diagonal stripes to represent the slashes for collecting the resin. Opiates, including derivatives like codeine, morphine, heroin, methadone and oxycodone, are still the safest and most effective pain-killers known. People can use them for life with no more serious side effects than constipation. Yes, an overdose can kill you. But guess what? Two or three times the maximum daily dose of acetaminophen in hydrocodone can fatally damage your liver. And yes, opiates are addictive--for some people. So is alcohol--for some people. The United States controls "drugs of abuse" with a ferocity rare in other western nations. The policy started with the 1914 Harrison Act, directed at Chinese opium-smokers. But the drug war as we know it began under Richard Nixon, and metastasized under Ronald Reagan. It's what sociologists like to call a "moral panic"--a fear that undesirable groups somewhere are engaging in immoral behavior, and--BOO!--they might corrupt your children. For Nixon it was blacks, hippies and war protesters. For Reagan it was welfare queens and crack addicts. Some moral panics die out, like the one about gambling. Remember Guys and Dolls? That was before states hit the lottery jackpot. But the drug war fills too many political needs. Because drug possession or sale is a victimless crime, it permits selective prosecution. Even though whites and blacks use illegal drugs at about the same rates, blacks are arrested, prosecuted and jailed at many times the rate of whites. Southern states don't allow ex-felons to vote. As a result, in 2000, disenfranchisement of blacks in Florida gave the presidency to George W. Bush. Now the drug war has come back to bite him in Afghanistan, where black market opium funds the resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda. At home, the Drug Enforcement Administration keeps doctors under surveillance lest they over-prescribe strong opiates (Percocet, OxyContin) or worse, prescribe them to addicts. Pain specialists have been prosecuted, lost their licenses and even been imprisoned for careless prescribing. Doctors run scared. So if you have an elderly patient with a fracture--well, not a priority for pain treatment. (Yet all the DEA's watchfulness didn't stop Rush Limbaugh from filling multiple phony prescriptions.) My father has set himself up with everything in reach of his hospital bed--laptop, printer, telephone, files--an office on wheels. Time to go now. He's ready for his favorite diversion: clobbering me and my sister at internet Scrabble! &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& More Econamici I send Econamici--occasional emails with interesting attachments or links--to friends who are economists or care about economic issues. If you can't follow a link, I can send you the actual article. Polly Cleveland Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Real news raises newspapers' profitsWhen the Boston Independent Media Center and encuentro 5 brought David Barsamian, Cynthia Peters, and various representatives of Boston-based independent media together to discuss media issues last month, one topic that came up was the trend among the big media and entertainment corporations that own most daily newspapers for cutting newspaper staff—especially editorial staff—and citing declining newspaper readership and profits as their reason. John Grebe, host of Sounds of Dissent on WZBC, pointed out that we should look beyond the decline in profits and look at the profits themselves before we sympathize with this trend. Grebe cited reports of phenomenal 19% profit rates among entertainment and media conglomerates in 2005. Dollars & Sense's Esther Cervantes responded that, in that case, newspaper-owning corporations have the flexibility to support their newspapers rather than eviscerate them—if they want to.It now appears that maintaining newspapers' editorial integrity need not involve a trade-off with phenomenal profits. Last week, Reuters reported on a University of Missouri-Columbia study that shows, based on ten years of financial data, that newspapers that spend more money on their content make more money. According to the study's author, Esther Thorson, "If you lower the amount of money spent in the newsroom, then pretty soon the news product becomes so bad that you begin to lose money." If cutting newsroom staff isn't actually good business, then what are the real reasons behind the trend? Thanks to Bob Harris for the link. Labels: media Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Homelessness MarathonIf you're reading this between Tuesday evening (the 20th) and Wednesday morning (the 21st), tune into the 10th Annual Homelessness Marathon, originating this year from Fresno, California.You can listen online via streaming audio, or find a radio station near you that is carrying the broadcast. The current issue of Dollars & Sense includes an article about this unique, annual, overnight radio broadcast. This is arguably the largest broadcast on homelessness, and indeed on poverty, in the United States. If you miss tonight's broadcast, you can listen to excerpts from this and previous year's marathons anytime at the program's website. Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Representative Mica (R-Fla) Distorts on Corporate TaxesRepresentative Mica Distorts on Corporate TaxesThis issue's Dr. Dollar answers a question from Sandra Holt, a constituent of Congressman John Mica, who represents the 7th congressional district in Florida. A visit to Mica's official U.S. House of Representatives website confirms Sandra's suspicion that her member of congress is engaged in double talk on corporate taxation. On a page entitled "Protecting Jobs and the Economy," Mica says that he supports: "... efforts to spur business activity and keep more jobs here at home by reducing the corporate income tax. The United States has one of the highest corporate income tax rates, especially when compared to many of our primary economic competitors, such as Britain, France and Germany. Higher taxes on the returns to corporate capital inhibit the competitiveness of U.S.-based companies in foreign markets. With such a high tax burden to bear, many corporations are unfortunately attempting to cut costs by relocating abroad and taking good-paying jobs with them. Instead of punishing businesses for attempting to make a profit, I believe we need to reduce their incentive to sacrifice American jobs by lowering corporate income taxes." [Emphasis added.]But as Ramaa Vasudevan shows in her Dr. Dollar column, corporate taxes in the United States are not high compared to other developed countries: "Is the U.S. corporate tax burden higher that that of its competitors? Comparisons of 29 developed countries reveal that only three—Iceland, Germany, and Poland— collected less corporate income tax as a share of GDP than the United States. This represents a reversal from the 1960s, when corporate income tax as a share of GDP in the United States was nearly double that of other developed countries."Nor are corporate taxes burdensome: In 2002-03, U.S. corporations paid an effective tax rate of only about 23%. Forty-six large corporations, including Pfizer, Boeing, and AT&T, actually received tax rebates (negative taxes)! Far from being a crushing burden, corporate income tax in the United States has fallen from an average of nearly 5% of GDP in the fifties to 2% in the nineties and about 1.5% (projected) in 2005-2009.We submitted the following to the comment section on Mica's website: Dear Representative Mica, We eagerly await a response from the congressman. Labels: "double taxation", corporate taxes, dividend tax, John Mica Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Econ-Utopia: The Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas InitiativeEcon-Utopia: The Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas InitiativeBy Matthew Riddle, CPE Staff Economist An Econ-Utopia, brought to you by the Center for Popular Economics. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, grabbed headlines in Massachusetts recently when Governor Deval Patrick signed onto it, committing Massachusetts to a cut in its emissions of greenhouse gasses from power plants, and reversing Mitt Romney’s decision to abandon the agreement. In addition to rejoining RGGI, Patrick also outlined some proposals for its implementation, which may prove to be even more significant than his decision to join. But before going into the details, I should explain what RGGI is, how it came about, and why we should care. In 2003, the governors of nine northeastern states, from Delaware to Maine, got together to create a regional plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, in an effort to combat global climate change. They agreed on an approach often referred to as a ‘cap and trade’ system. Each state would set a cap on the total level of carbon emissions by releasing a fixed number of emission permits. Companies could then trade these permits to determine where the cuts would be made, but the total number of permits would not change. This approach provides another solution to the problem raised in our last econ-utopia: that the market price of fossil fuels is too low because the costs of pollution and other ‘externalities’ are not taken into account. A cap and trade program would raise the cost of burning fossil fuels to bring it closer to its true level by forcing companies to pay for emission permits in addition to the price of the fuel. The first use of a cap and trade system for controlling air pollution was introduced in the US as part of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, where it was used to limit sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants. More recently, one of Europe’s key programs to meet its targets under the Kyoto Protocol is a cap and trade system for large emitters of carbon dioxide. While these programs have been effective at cutting emissions, they suffer from one significant drawback: in the initial allocation, the emission permits were distributed to polluters at no cost. The result, which may sound surprising, is that electricity prices have been rising just as they would have if the emission permits were sold, and most of the additional revenue from these higher prices is captured by electricity generators as windfall profits. A recent study by IPA Energy Consulting found that under the European cap and trade system, companies in the UK would make £800 million ($1.4 billion) per year in additional profits beyond what they would have made with no restrictions. Meanwhile, consumers have to bear the cost, by paying higher prices for electricity. On the other hand, if the permits were sold to polluters, this money could be collected for public use. It could support greater spending on energy efficiency and renewable energy, provide assistance to displaced workers, be redistributed to consumers, or any combination of these options. In one proposal, known as a ‘Sky Trust,’ the money would be evenly distributed to each person in the country. For the majority of the population, and especially for low income families, the payment would more than compensate for the higher energy prices. The RGGI agreement among Northeastern states shows progress over these earlier programs: instead of giving all the permits away for free, the agreement requires that states auction at least 25% of the permits to polluters. In his announcement last month, Governor Patrick went farther, joining New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and the Vermont legislature in committing to auctioning not 25%, but 100% of the permits. The revenue from the auction in Massachusetts will be used to fund a new program promoting energy efficiency and the development of renewable energy, which would generate additional energy savings and help to reduce costs for consumers. In addition to its direct benefit in the northeast, RGGI could also set an important precedent for the design of a nationwide system. If a nationwide cap and trade program were imposed that covered all US carbon emissions, the permits could be worth as much as $100 billion. If used effectively, this money could have an enormous positive impact. But if the permits are given away for free, the money would instead go to enhance the profits of polluters, and this opportunity would be lost. Sources: For an overview of RGGI, see * Marc Breslow (2006), “The Northeast’s Global Warming Plan: a Primer,” as well as other summary information from MCAN’s RGGI page. * The official RGGI page. For coverage of Governor Patrick’s recent announcement, see * Boston Globe, Patrick Signs Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative 1/18/07 For more on the importance of auctioning permits, see * J. Andrew Hoerner, Redefining Progress, Regional Initiatives to Reduce Greenhouse Gasses: The Crucial Importance of Auctioning Permits for Jobs, Competitiveness, and Equity. * IPA Energy Consulting (2005) Implications of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme for the UK Power Generation Sector. For information about the Sky Trust proposal, see * Peter Barnes (2001), Who Owns the Sky? Our Common Assets and the Future of Capitalism, Island Press. * Peter Barnes and Marc Breslow (2001), Pie in the Sky? The Battle for Atmospheric Scarcity Rent, Political Economy Research Institute. © 2007 Center for Popular Economics Econ-Atrocities and Econ-Utopias are the work of their authors and reflect their author's opinions and analyses. CPE does not necessarily endorse any particular idea expressed in these articles. The Center for Popular Economics is a collective of political economists based in Amherst, Massachusetts. CPE works to demystify economics by providing workshops and educational materials to activists throughout the United States and around the world. If you would like more information about CPE please visit our website. If you would like to automatically receive CPE’s Econ-Atrocities by email, subscribe (or unsubscribe) by going here. Labels: global warming, RGGI, Sky Trust Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Success! Thank You for Your Calls!Thank you to all who called Barney Frank to ask him to allow New Orleans Public Housing residents to speak at yesterday’s meeting of the House Committee on Financial Services. And thank you to Barney Frank for recognizing the importance of including testimony from a resident at yesterday’s hearings. I received the following report from Anita Sinha, Staff Attorney at the Advancement Project, which, with Bill Quigley, Tracey Washington and the law firm of Jenner & Block, LLP, filed the class action lawsuit against HUD and HANO, on behalf of New Orleans public housing residents.
Labels: barney frank, congress, hano, hud, nola, public housing Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Lattes on the honor systemIn yesterday's Seattle Times, Amy Roe reports on the Terra Bite Lounge in Kirkland, WA, where patrons pay for their lattes and sandwiches on the honor system:
Thanks to Dollars & Sense subscriber (and occasional tech volunteer) Paulie Peña for the link. Labels: economic alternatives, Terra Bite Lounge Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Stop child labor: buy haute couture!Speaking of Boston's Metro as a tool for getting progressive economic views out to a wide audience: magazine editor Amy Gluckman is now the only member of the Dollars & Sense staff who hasn't published a letter to the editors of the Metro. Last fall, magazine editor Chris Sturr chided the Metro for paying more attention to Boston youth activists' clothing than their message when they testified before the Boston City Council about violence, police conduct, and safety in the city. Last February, editor Dan Fireside opined that of course fooling around with an intern is a much more serious offense than shooting your hunting partner and trying to cover it up. And today, business manager Esther Cervantes responded to an interview with Valerie Salembier, publisher of Harper's Bazaar, in which Salembier advised Metro readers that they could stop sweatshops and child labor by eschewing designer knock-offs (and, of course, spending much more to buy the real thing).
Resources
Labels: child labor, haute couture, sweatshops Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Econamici: Death and Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe
After Robert Mugabe drove her and other white Zimbabweans from their farms, Cathy Buckle refused to leave the country of her birth. She writes a weekly column documenting the disintegration of Zimbabwe: the mass starvation in the original breadbasket of Africa; the arbitrary arrests and killings; the collapse of public services; and the regime's ludicrous propaganda. Often she depicts the effects of hyperinflation. Cathy's columns remind us how much we take for granted in a modern economy. Here's a recent column, from http://africantears.netfirms.com/thisweek.shtml. Saturday 20 January 2007 Dear Family and Friends, This week the world watched how bad behaviour on a reality TV programme in the UK became international headlines. Diplomatically described as "alleged racist bullying" by women celebrities on a Big Brother TV series, the story ran as top world news for four days. People held protests and burnt banners in India, the British Prime Minister had to answer questions in the House of Commons and viewers of the TV programme increased from 1,7 to almost 6 million people in four days. In Zimbabwe, while this was happening, reality was also on display; not on TV with histrionics, not with make up and nail varnish, but just the grim, grinding reality of everyday events that the world seems to have turned its back on. Long before dawn I received a phone call with the news that an elderly man had died. For the family the pain and grief of the loss was almost immediately swamped with the horrific reality attached to dying in Zimbabwe in January 2007. Doctors have been on strike for over a month and hospital mortuaries are overflowing. The body of the deceased had to be moved, immediately. Petrol has increased in price from 2900 zim dollars a litre on Monday to 3400 dollars a litre by Friday. It was going to cost a whole month's pension for the new widow to have her late husbands body moved the few kilometres to the funeral home. None of the man's family are left in Zimbabwe. The request was made for a cremation so that the ashes could be later given to the family. Cremations are undertaken in Harare but there is no gas in the country for the ovens. It may be three weeks, at the very least, before a cremation could be done. For each single day that the body was kept at the funeral home the widow would be charged half of her entire monthly pension. A wood fuelled cremation could be done but only in Mutare, a town 180 kilometres away. The funeral home wanted 700 000 dollars to transport the body - the same as two and half years of the woman's pension. The quoted cost for the cremation, including the transport, was the same as five years of the widow's pension. A simple burial in a local cemetery in the least expensive coffin now costs 400 000 dollars. This is the same as six months salary for one of the doctors presently on strike. Young and old, professionals and workers - we are all alike in this horrible reality of Zimbabwe - we cannot afford to live or to die here. This is reality in Zimbabwe. Not reality TV, not a game show, just grim, sickening reality. We are a country that needs and deserves the world's attention. Is anyone watching?
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& More Econamici I send Econamici--occasional emails with interesting attachments or links--to friends who are economists or care about economic issues. If you can't follow a link, I can send you the actual article. --Polly Cleveland mcleveland@prdi.org Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). What can we do about the state of the American media?The state of the American media has been on the Dollars & Sense mind a lot lately, with our publication of the second edition of Eesha Williams' Grassroots Journalism, the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis in January, last night's event at encuentro 5 with David Barsamian, Cynthia Peters, and local radio producers Linda Pinkow and John Grebe, and this afternoon's radio discussion of media matters on 88.1 WMBR's Spherio.Grassroots Journalism is, as its subtitle tells us, a practical guide to practicing grassroots journalism: journalism about and in support of the strength, knowledge, experience, hopes, and deeds of ordinary people. The National Conference for Media Reform was an inspiring and important gathering of 3,000 people to discuss media issues ranging from media concentration and FCC regulations to media criticism, writing op eds, and what's next for alternative media. The encuentro 5 event and the Spherio broadcast were lively discussions among alternative media workers about how to increase our influence. Through this book and these events, we've learned that the ownership of multiple media outlets by entertainment corporations fosters programming that makes it hard to tell not only where the entertainment ends and the ad begins, but also where the news ends and the entertainment begins. We've learned that media concentration destroys local coverage and makes news media irrelevant to peoples' lives. We've learned that media concentration tightens the institutional bonds that keep even the most earnest mainstream reporters bound to the wishes of their outlets' executives and advertisers. We've learned that such commercialized media encourage a similarly commercialized public, which is bad for democracy. And we've learned that the alternative media can only get us so far—and we're not sure in what direction. The one question that keeps recurring, though, is this: All right. So the American media are in dire shape. What can we do about it? Here are a few possible answers.
Labels: media Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Cafecito: discuss trade & immigration this Sunday in NewtonSunday, February 4, 4 pm, at 624 Sawmill Brook Parkway in NewtonThis Sunday, a friend of mine from Texas, Judith Rosenberg, is hosting a cafecito to discuss the connections between free trade, fair trade, immigration, the US economy, and anything else her guests can bring into the conversation. I met Judith several years ago on a delegation from Austin Tan Cerca de la Frontera to the Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s, which organizes maquiladora workers on the Mexico-Texas border. Judith still works with ATCF, which has expanded its delegations from U.S.-->Mexico to include Mexico-->U.S. tours as well, through their Women and Fair Trade program. Judith brings this experience to the cafecito, as well as a copy of a new, award-winning documentary by Austin filmmaker Heather Courtney: Letters from the Other Side. The film interweaves video letters carried across the U.S.-Mexico border by the director with the personal stories of women left behind in post-NAFTA Mexico. The film gives an intimate look at the lives of the people most affected by today's failed immigration and trade policies. Judith and her cousin Linda Stern hosted a similar event last Sunday, which I attended. The film and the conversation were both stimulating. The topic I remember best was our discussion of fair trade and the trouble its producers have finding markets. As we were discussing fair trade tours by producers as a partial solution to the market problem, one guest* expressed her discomfort with the "ethnic" angle to fair trade—as though buyers are saying, I'll pay a fair price for your goods, but first you have to show me that you're authentic as well as oppressed. *—Tina, if you're out there, pipe up. I didn't get your last name. As a partial response, Judith told us about the Maquila Dignidad y Justicia that the Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s has founded, which is turning out fair-trade t-shirts and tote bags that it sells, with the help of North Country Fair Trade in bulk in the United States. Dignidad y Justicia hopes one day to produce blue jeans, as well. Find out more at this Sunday's cafecito, 4pm, at the home of Judith's cousin, Linda Stern. To RSVP or for directions, contact Judith at chelrose at grandecom dot net. Labels: fair trade, free trade, globalization, immigration, NAFTA Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Supply and Demand in Mexico: Rises in staple prices rile the population Supply and Demand in Mexico: Rises in staple prices rile the population By Marie Kennedy and Chris Tilly This is the first of a series of posts by D&S comrades Marie Kennedy and Chris Tilly, who are spending six months in Tlaxcala in central Mexico. The last year has been a fractious one in Mexico. Last May, in San Salvador Atenco in Mexico State, a group of street vendors and a wide range of allies protesting expulsion from the central square were brutally repressed, with hundreds arrested, beaten, and sexually abused by police. To the south in Oaxaca, Governor Ulises Ruiz launched a similar police operation against striking teachers in June, sparking the formation of a broad front that occupied the center of the city for months despite constant attacks by police and armed goons, only to be swept out in November by a vicious federal-state police assault. [For background on recent events in Oaxaca, see "Oaxaca's Dangerous Teachers," Dollars & Sense, September/October 2006.] Meanwhile, as the every-six-years presidential campaign heated up, a caravan of Zapatistas headed by Sub-comandante Marcos toured the country arguing that only grassroots mobilization, not a vote for one of the three major-party candidates, would change Mexican politics. July’s presidential election put the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) candidate, Felipe Calderón, ahead of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution’s (PRD) Andrés Manuel López Obrador (popularly known as AMLO) by a razor-thin margin, amid evidence of large-scale irregularities. AMLO’s supporters took to the streets, creating a festive tent city stretching miles along Mexico City’s main boulevard, La Reforma, and coming together in animated rallies of up to two million. Failing to change the election result, they declared a parallel government. In January 2007, all of these struggles have been heating up once again. Key Atenco leaders are getting out of jail. Activists are marching in Oaxaca city once again, and a major Triqui indigenous community in that state just declared itself autonomous from the state, federal, and “official” local governments. AMLO and allies across the country are gearing up what they call the Democratic National Convention, with the aim of building a new politics and writing a new Constitution. The Zapatistas unfurled an Encounter with the Peoples of the World, hosting 2000 delegates in their base communities. And across Mexico, the hot topic of the moment is… …the price of tortillas. Prices for this Mexican staple, just a few months ago selling at 5 pesos (about 50 cents) per kilo (2.2 pounds, about 40 tortillas), had by mid-January spiked up to 8, 10, and in some places even 12 or 15 pesos per kilo. It’s hard to convey to a U.S. audience how central tortillas are to the Mexican diet, but suffice it to say that tortillerías are sprinkled every couple of blocks across urban Mexico, and the great majority of families anchor their main meal with a kilo or two of tortillas. (When we first went to a tortillería and asked for ten tortillas, the vendor assumed she had heard us wrong and asked, “Ten kilos?”) Perhaps the closest U.S. equivalent in terms of breadth of impact would be if the price of gas doubled and in some places even tripled. Other prices are also climbing—milk, eggs, sugar, meat, and natural gas—but it’s the tortilla price surge that has grabbed Mexicans by the throat. A number of things are odd about the tortilla crisis. For one thing, there is no shortage of corn. Mexico had the largest corn harvest ever last year, more than twice as much as in 1980. However, the structure of corn production has changed dramatically. Hundreds of thousands of family farmers in central and southern Mexico once dominated the crop; today, northern Mexican agribusiness calls the tune. That plus NAFTA and other free trade agreements and the reduction of government subsidies mean that Mexico’s corn price is now the world price (which increasingly responds to demand for ethanol as well as for food products). In addition, observers including the President of Mexico’s Central Bank argue that speculation by large producers and traders is driving prices upward. Another oddity is the spectacle of a newly elected, pro-free trade president suddenly discovering the virtues of government intervention in the economy. President Calderón speedily negotiated an 8.5 peso cap with major corn meal and tortilla producers and retailers, promising to boost corn supplies so as to underwrite this price and stock the 24,000-odd government-run rural DICONSA stores that sell staples at subsidized prices. Ironically, he’s increasing the supply by importing corn from the U.S. Of course, once the price agreement was concluded, the tortilla industry began backing away from it. The corn meal giants clarified that this was a goodwill gesture on their part, not an ironclad commitment. Spokespeople for neighborhood tortillerías pointed out that they didn’t work for the big companies, so the agreement wasn’t binding on them. A few days after Calderón’s tortilla handshake, we spot-checked tortillas in Tlaxcala (central Mexico, where we are living for six months)—the two tortillerías we priced were both selling at 9. That same day, the state government of Tlaxcala announced with much fanfare that it had concluded a separate 8.5 peso agreement with tortillerías. So the next day we returned to the same two shops: one was closed (we stopped by too late); the other was still charging 9…. Around the same time, federal government inspectors found prices over 8.50 at 53% of the tortillerías visited nationwide. Still, two weeks after Calderón’s pact, federal authorities had only managed to check prices at just over 3000 shops, out of 75,000. On the other hand, the country’s giant supermarket chains, including Wal-Mart, made a big show of discounting tortillas to 5 or 6 pesos (as a visit to our local Wal-Mart confirmed). Not a fair comparison, declared the tortillería industry: they mix all kinds of non-corn filler into their nixtamal, and besides, Mexicans prefer their tortillas fresh, hot, and local off a neighborhood comal (griddle). Naturally, Calderon’s critics were not satisfied with his attempt to pull the tortillas out of the fire. AMLO and the PRD called for a 6-peso ceiling on tortilla prices and a 35% increase in the minimum wage (currently set at a laughably low $5 U.S. a day). Not to be outdone, the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers and Peasants (CROC—despite its fiery name, a mainstream union federation long affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party [PRI] that ruled Mexico for seventy years but has now slipped to third place) demanded price ceilings on 30 items of the canasta básica (the basket of basic consumer necessities tracked by the government). On January 31, these groups and more organized a megamarcha to protest the growing gap between prices and wages. Left-leaning daily La Jornada described the turnout in Mexico City as “tens of thousands”—numerically disappointing compared to other recent demonstrations—but what was particularly significant was the presence of activists from the PRI, two smaller parties, and a large number of worker and peasant organizations that had not previously joined PRD-led mobilizations. We had to miss the Tlaxcala branch of the action (it took place at the same time as the class we’re teaching), but we joined a smaller pre-march the Saturday before (see photos). A cheerful crowd of a couple of hundred, including a large contingent from the local chapter of the Social Security Administration union, rallied to slogans like, “No to PAN [both the name of the ruling party and the word for bread], yes to tortillas!” José Roberto Pérez Luna, Secretary of the union, told us, “The system is not meeting the needs of the majority. That’s what leads to revolutions. I’d hate to think that our government is fertilizing a revolution.” Pérez Luna is right. Whatever happens next with tortilla prices, the issues of the widening gap between most Mexicans’ salaries and the cost of living, and the other widening gap between the rich and the rest, are not going away. These are some of the same issues that fueled the Zapatista rebellion, the street vendors’ protest in Atenco, the teachers’ strike in Oaxaca, and the wave of anger at the elite that has made AMLO’s protests much more than the sour grapes of a losing candidate. Calderón’s strategy—continued free market reforms sprinkled with crowd-pleasing tactical concessions like the tortilla pact, and the mailed fist for protestors (“In this country, we will no longer confuse illegality with human rights,” he remarked recently in a not-very-veiled warning)—seems more likely to accelerate these trends than halt them. In the coming years, expect Mexican politics to heat up as hot as a tortilleria’s comal. Marie Kennedy and Chris Tilly are spending six months based at the Colegio de Tlaxcala in Mexico. Both are members of Grassroots International’s Advisory Board, and Tilly is a Dollars & Sense Associate. Kennedy is professor emerita of Community Planning at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and Tilly is professor of Regional Economic and Social Development at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). Good-bye, Molly IvinsAll of us here at the Dollars & Sense office are mourning the death of a great ally in the struggle for economic and social justice—and for wit, style, and conscience in journalism.I heard the news from Bob Harris, who links to the New York Times obituary. But visit Molly's journalistic home, The Texas Observer, for the fullest Molly retrospective. Quintessential Molly: There are two kinds of humor. One kind makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity—like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule—that's what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel—it's vulgar. And that's why we loved her, and will miss her and her work. —Esther, the office Texan Labels: media, Molly Ivins Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). |
