Lagging behind? Sure. Not just in education but, as Charles Ferguson points out, even our broadband access in the US is behind broadband access in southeast Asia.
Ferguson was interviewed at length, and took phone calls, in Boston this morning. A former businessman, he's the guy who did such stellar work in his analysis of the crash on Wall Street in "Inside Job." Now he has a new book out, "Predator Nation," on inequality and the run-wild assault on America by corporations and the politicians who live in their pockets.
If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism.
Thus far, both political parties have been remarkably clever and effective in concealing this new reality. In fact, the two parties have formed an innovative kind of cartel ...Predator Nation
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This excerpt from a New York Times piece in April addresses the view of economists Emmanuel Saez's and Thomas Picketty's on the issue of inequality and the increasing protection of the ultrawealthy in the US.
The two economists argue that even Democrats’ boldest plan to increase taxes on the wealthy — the Buffett Rule, a 30 percent minimum tax on earnings over $1 million — would do little to reverse the rich’s gains. Many of the Republican tax proposals on the table might increase income inequality, at least in the short term, according to William G. Gale of the Tax Policy Center and many other left-leaning and centrist economists.
Conservatives respond that high tax rates would stifle economic growth, at a minimum, and cause some businesses and high-income workers to flee to other countries. When top American tax rates were much higher, from the 1940s through the 1970s, businesses could not relocate as easily as they can now, say critics of Mr. Piketty and Mr. Saez.
“I materially disagree with the idea you can raise a marginal tax rate to 70 percent and not have an impact on economic growth,” said Ike Brannon, an economist at the American Action Forum. “It’s absurd on its face.”
But Mr. Piketty and Mr. Saez argue that history is on their side: Many countries have higher tax rates — and the United States has had higher tax rates — without stifling growth or encouraging the concentration of income in the hands of the very rich.
“In a way, the United States is becoming like Old Europe, which is very strange in historical perspective,” Mr. Piketty said. “The United States used to be very egalitarian, not just in spirit but in actuality. Inequality of wealth and income used to be much larger in France. And very high taxes on the very rich — that was invented in the United States,” he said.
Mr. Saez added, “Absent drastic policy changes, I doubt that income inequality will decline on its own.” ...NYT
Hell-bent on ownership of all three branches of government, Republicans are now intent on convincing Americans that Obama's attack on Mitt Romney -- and what many see as his predatory history at Bain Capital -- is a covert attack on capitalism. I get the feeling we're moving into an era in which your abilities as a predator is have become the latest measures of your patriotism.
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Speaking of all three branches of government, Kathleen Parker, a cranky, sometimes bilious, but not-extreme Republican commentator in the Washington Post, got a little crazy and accused Democrats of.... well. you be the judge.
The president and his surrogates mount an aggressive campaign to intimidate the chief justice of the United States, implying ruin and ridicule should he fail to vote in a pivotal case according to the ruling political party’s wishes. ...
... The justice is, of course, John Roberts and the case involves the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a.k.a. Obamacare, which would be affordable only if the Supreme Court upholds the individual mandate requiring all Americans to buy health insurance.
The left’s narrative goes as follows: If the justices side with the Obama administration, they will be viewed as brilliant and nonpartisan. If the reverse occurs, why then, the justices are partisan, judicial activists who have delegitimized the court.
Writing in the New Republic, Jeffrey Rosen laid it out for Roberts, whose vote is likely to be decisive: “In addition to deciding what kind of chief justice he wants to be, he has to decide what kind of legal conservatism he wants to embrace. Of course, if the Roberts court strikes down health care reform by a 5-4 vote, then the chief justice’s stated goal of presiding over a less divisive court will be viewed as an irredeemable failure.”...WaPo
Parker frames it as a kind of "provocative" John Grisham drama. Grisham was able to make two justices disappear in "Pelican Brief." If there's a choice, I'm thinking Scalia and Thomas first, please. And, though I'm on the left, I doubt even an intelligent reading of the Commerce Clause would ever make me believe Roberts is "brilliant and nonpartisan." This time, Parker is just sloshing around in her own bile.
