This line from the movie, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", says a lot. We don't need to do a lot of things in life just to draw attention to ourselves; be it taking a dangerous selfie or spending hundreds on branded clothes, cosmetics, new & flashy cars, & even a damn big house, because ...
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Monday, March 28, 2016
Ivy League Study: The General Public Has Virtually No Influence on Policy
This news bite isn't so surprising or at least should not be surprising, if you don't live under a rock & actually think a little bit how the world actually works in real life.
As I have blogged several times in the past & as this news bite confirms it that democracy doesn't exist anywhere in the world, except, maybe, in very small countries with quite a bit of homogenous population in terms of race, ethnicity, & religious beliefs.
So, as this study concludes that public policy is heavily, or rather, completely, influenced by wealthy elites & the special interest / lobbying groups. The common man, or a woman, doesn't have any power in influencing public policies, even the ones directly & adversely affecting him / her.
Now, I know that correlation doesn't imply causation but you do have to wonder how come most, if not all, policies coming out of the government end up favouring the wealthy much more than the poor public. Be it the taxation debate or jobs discussion, or the minimum wage or homelessness, or any number of social & public problems, the rich & wealthy always win out, while the poor left holding the empty bag.
Democracy in the world, especially in the West, only exists superficially. The mass public thinks that since they are voting, their voice matters. Nope it doesn't. Take Canada, for instance. Majority of public is against Syrian refugees making Canada their new home or Canada supplying $15 billions of armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. But did the government listen to the public to actually not welcome Syrian refugees, especially when government is cutting funding to help reduce urban homelessness or rising unemployment through financial injections in the economy. Please keep in mind here that we are not discussing the morality of these issues. That's a whole different discussion in itself.
We can also take US public opinion when George Bush's approval ratings before winning his second term was the lowest of any American president before him but he still won a second term. Or how a majority of German public is against Merkel's insistence on keep welcoming more & more refugees & migrants? Once again, not discussing morality of such issues as refugee crisis. Or Japan where a majority of public was against Abe's decision to turn the country towards more militarism than pacifism. Or is it really democratic of all those dozens of nations involved in TTP (TransPacific Trade Partnership) without any input, whatsoever, from the general public, who will be taking the brunt of all the adverse effects of this trade partnership, while the rich elites make a fine buck out of this trade partnership?
Remember, democracy is not about voting in general elections, but actually about having an actual influence in how the country is run.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANTON WORONCZUK, TRNN PRODUCER: A new study titled Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, & Average Citizens (PDF) says what we've all long felt to be true: the rich & powerful have much greater influence than the rest of us. Political scientist Martin Gilens of Princeton University & Benjamin Page of Northwestern looked at about 1,800 survey questions of public opinion between 1981 & 2002, & they concluded "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."
So, Benjamin, tell us how you came to this conclusion. Tell us about the data that you looked at. And give us some concrete statistics to show that democracy gap between the public & the economic elites.
BENJAMIN PAGE, FULCHER PROF. OF DECISION MAKING, NORTHWESTERN UNIV.: Well, Marty Gilens & his people worked for about 10 years to do this. It's a very difficult study. ... . It involved gathering a lot of information about public opinion, about what affluent people think, & about what interest groups stand for. And we then looked at how public policy came out on these 1,800 cases. And it turns out, if you wanted to predict it, the average citizen simply appeared to have no influence whatsoever, no measurable influence, but organized groups had quite a bit, & affluent citizens even more.
WORONCZUK: So you looked at about two decades' worth of surveys of public opinion. Do you see a change in influence of economic elites over that time? Or is it relatively constant? And also, do you see a change in the kinds of elites that have influence over policy?
PAGE: Well, there appears to be some change over time. As economic inequality has increased & there's more money among the most wealthy people, they seem to use more of it for politics & have more influence. And, of course, the study data ended some time ago. This was before the Supreme Court decisions that increased the power of money still far further.
WORONCZUK: And so what kind of issues do we see the wealthy having a greater influence over? What kind of policy choices do they seek that differs from that of the desires of the public?
PAGE: Well, there are certain kinds of issues on which wealthy Americans tend to disagree quite a bit with the average. One of the biggest is Social Security, where the average American really likes the program, wants to increase it, & wealthy Americans tend to want to cut it to reduce budget deficits. Then there are a lot of policies that have to do with jobs & incomes where you get the same kind of situation--the wealthy people, of course, don't particularly get anything from those, & I think they may underappreciate their importance to average people. There are also disagreements about economic regulation. The average American's much more keen on regulating big corporations, for example. And there are difference about tax policy. The average American would like to close loopholes & have high-income people pay a substantially larger share, whereas upper income people are less enthusiastic about that.
WORONCZUK: Do you see any policy desires of the public or the economic elite that tend to converge?
PAGE: Yes. There are many of them, and particularly in this study. ... in many cases, the average person agrees & they get what they want, but apparently it's only because the affluent want it.
What we suspect but don't really have evidence for is that much wealthier people may be exerting most of that political influence. And they tend to have much more different policy preferences from the average person.
WORONCZUK: Okay. So judging this democracy gap that exists between the public & the economic elite, let's say that Obama called you tomorrow & put you on economic reform task force. What recommendations would you make to him?
PAGE: ... what I would suggest is that we really work hard to reduce the role of money in politics. The Supreme Court's made it a little harder, but there's still things you can do--full disclosure of all kinds of political donations, for example; limiting lobbying; & probably public financing of campaigns. Most people don't want to give a bunch of tax money to politicians, but the alternative is to have them rely on private money, & public funding would probably help quite a bit reduce that reliance.
As I have blogged several times in the past & as this news bite confirms it that democracy doesn't exist anywhere in the world, except, maybe, in very small countries with quite a bit of homogenous population in terms of race, ethnicity, & religious beliefs.
So, as this study concludes that public policy is heavily, or rather, completely, influenced by wealthy elites & the special interest / lobbying groups. The common man, or a woman, doesn't have any power in influencing public policies, even the ones directly & adversely affecting him / her.
Now, I know that correlation doesn't imply causation but you do have to wonder how come most, if not all, policies coming out of the government end up favouring the wealthy much more than the poor public. Be it the taxation debate or jobs discussion, or the minimum wage or homelessness, or any number of social & public problems, the rich & wealthy always win out, while the poor left holding the empty bag.
Democracy in the world, especially in the West, only exists superficially. The mass public thinks that since they are voting, their voice matters. Nope it doesn't. Take Canada, for instance. Majority of public is against Syrian refugees making Canada their new home or Canada supplying $15 billions of armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. But did the government listen to the public to actually not welcome Syrian refugees, especially when government is cutting funding to help reduce urban homelessness or rising unemployment through financial injections in the economy. Please keep in mind here that we are not discussing the morality of these issues. That's a whole different discussion in itself.
We can also take US public opinion when George Bush's approval ratings before winning his second term was the lowest of any American president before him but he still won a second term. Or how a majority of German public is against Merkel's insistence on keep welcoming more & more refugees & migrants? Once again, not discussing morality of such issues as refugee crisis. Or Japan where a majority of public was against Abe's decision to turn the country towards more militarism than pacifism. Or is it really democratic of all those dozens of nations involved in TTP (TransPacific Trade Partnership) without any input, whatsoever, from the general public, who will be taking the brunt of all the adverse effects of this trade partnership, while the rich elites make a fine buck out of this trade partnership?
Remember, democracy is not about voting in general elections, but actually about having an actual influence in how the country is run.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANTON WORONCZUK, TRNN PRODUCER: A new study titled Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, & Average Citizens (PDF) says what we've all long felt to be true: the rich & powerful have much greater influence than the rest of us. Political scientist Martin Gilens of Princeton University & Benjamin Page of Northwestern looked at about 1,800 survey questions of public opinion between 1981 & 2002, & they concluded "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."
So, Benjamin, tell us how you came to this conclusion. Tell us about the data that you looked at. And give us some concrete statistics to show that democracy gap between the public & the economic elites.
BENJAMIN PAGE, FULCHER PROF. OF DECISION MAKING, NORTHWESTERN UNIV.: Well, Marty Gilens & his people worked for about 10 years to do this. It's a very difficult study. ... . It involved gathering a lot of information about public opinion, about what affluent people think, & about what interest groups stand for. And we then looked at how public policy came out on these 1,800 cases. And it turns out, if you wanted to predict it, the average citizen simply appeared to have no influence whatsoever, no measurable influence, but organized groups had quite a bit, & affluent citizens even more.
WORONCZUK: So you looked at about two decades' worth of surveys of public opinion. Do you see a change in influence of economic elites over that time? Or is it relatively constant? And also, do you see a change in the kinds of elites that have influence over policy?
PAGE: Well, there appears to be some change over time. As economic inequality has increased & there's more money among the most wealthy people, they seem to use more of it for politics & have more influence. And, of course, the study data ended some time ago. This was before the Supreme Court decisions that increased the power of money still far further.
WORONCZUK: And so what kind of issues do we see the wealthy having a greater influence over? What kind of policy choices do they seek that differs from that of the desires of the public?
PAGE: Well, there are certain kinds of issues on which wealthy Americans tend to disagree quite a bit with the average. One of the biggest is Social Security, where the average American really likes the program, wants to increase it, & wealthy Americans tend to want to cut it to reduce budget deficits. Then there are a lot of policies that have to do with jobs & incomes where you get the same kind of situation--the wealthy people, of course, don't particularly get anything from those, & I think they may underappreciate their importance to average people. There are also disagreements about economic regulation. The average American's much more keen on regulating big corporations, for example. And there are difference about tax policy. The average American would like to close loopholes & have high-income people pay a substantially larger share, whereas upper income people are less enthusiastic about that.
WORONCZUK: Do you see any policy desires of the public or the economic elite that tend to converge?
PAGE: Yes. There are many of them, and particularly in this study. ... in many cases, the average person agrees & they get what they want, but apparently it's only because the affluent want it.
What we suspect but don't really have evidence for is that much wealthier people may be exerting most of that political influence. And they tend to have much more different policy preferences from the average person.
WORONCZUK: Okay. So judging this democracy gap that exists between the public & the economic elite, let's say that Obama called you tomorrow & put you on economic reform task force. What recommendations would you make to him?
PAGE: ... what I would suggest is that we really work hard to reduce the role of money in politics. The Supreme Court's made it a little harder, but there's still things you can do--full disclosure of all kinds of political donations, for example; limiting lobbying; & probably public financing of campaigns. Most people don't want to give a bunch of tax money to politicians, but the alternative is to have them rely on private money, & public funding would probably help quite a bit reduce that reliance.
The Resegregation of American schools
I used to, & still do, love TheRealNews network. I used to post their stories & my thoughts on their stories on my personal Facebook page, but since last year, when I started this blog, I haven't been able to go through any of the stories of TheRealNews network. But now, I am finally going through them.
Anyway, this news story / analysis didn't surprise me that much. The developed / Western world is becoming that much racist, & in general, discrimination of all kinds are increasing. Now, this story only explores how the American schools are re-segregating students based on skin colour. But, this re-segregation, & the story alludes to it a little bit, is symptomatic of larger & deep-seated socioeconomic problem.
That problem is centuries old. That problem is ingrained in the minds of leaders, & the general public, of the Western world. The general public is not generally racist or discriminatory but it discriminates unconsciously. The white leaders & a large proportion of the general public, who is white, think they are superior to other races.
Let me show this with an example. Let's take the example of a segregated school &, as the story explains below, how adversely it impacts a child of a minority or discriminated public.
When a poor African child studies in a segregated school, he/she is pretty much slated to be poor all his/her life. Reason being is that poor people of all walks of life, with all different skin colours, enroll their kids in these urban schools. These schools lack sufficient funding from government. Even if they are getting funding from governments, which are usually insufficient, they have parents with such socioeconomic backgrouds that these schools cannot even fundraise on their own. The parents of these poor students then grow up & make friends which are going through similar situations; homelessness, poverty, drugs, gangs, crime, broken families, etc.
Even if a child goes through all these social problems, which are going around him / her, unscathed, he / she graduates from a university or college but lacks those vital connections, which can land him / her in a job from where he / she can meaningfully improve his / her future.
All the while, white or wealthy children of other races, which are usually not that many, attend schools which have more than enough resources to give them a "complete" education & prepare them for a good, & perhaps even private, universities, where they themselves & their parents make those vital connections, from where they can land those financially-rewarding jobs & careers.
That's how the wealth & achievement gap starts to appear & keeps widening. And the cycle, or history, repeats itself & it goes around again with their children.
That's the same case with immigrants & their children in the Western world. African populations in Western world came to these countries by force, but immigrants were shown a world where, if they themselves won't be able to achieve a good life, then at least, their children will. That dream is generally coming apart for most children of the immigrants. Why people immigrate & how the West is complicit in that regard, too, is a topic for another blog post & has been blogged earlier.
Good / financially rewarding jobs are going to the wealthy children because of their own & their parents' connections. Of course, the well-connected rich parents can easily pass down their rolodex or connection lists to their children. Some prime examples are current Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, using his father's vital connections to eventually become a leader of a country, or the Bushes, Clintons, Obamas, & multiple other children of the politicians becoming politicians themselves, with the help of their parents' connections or children of famous celebrities becoming celebrities themselves. Whenever I come across a personality who is successful, I first go through his / her past & try to find that one piece of connection that must have created that first big opportunity for them. I usually find one easily. Nowadays, there are very few people in this world who get to the top without anyone's help, whatsoever.
So that dream or expectation of achieving greatness with education when never materializes hurts the children a lot. Hence, those children, then lash out at the society through violence, because that's the only method they know how to vent their frustration at the injustice & false dreams / promises of the society. That violence can be in the form of being involved with trafficking of all kinds, big or small crimes, or even moving to another country to join terrorist groups like ISIS or Boko Haram.
So, as we can see, that the impact of discrimination is huge. I always say that slavery / serfdom hasn't actually died, yet. It has merely taken a different shape. White people, all over the world, are still at the top, for example, if you go visit Dubai, you will find all the rich & glamourous downtown Dubai residences are taken up by wealthy white people from Europe, UK, Canada, US, & Australia. Of course, they are living in those expensive residences with the help of big fat tax-free paycheques they are getting because of their high & influential positions in companies over there. Immigration, or even refugee asylum, in the West is due to the fact that these Western countries need workers for the jobs for which their own white populations is voluntarily unavailable, for example, for agricultural work.
So, this discrimination starts from segregated school & go all the way up to employment, & immigration in the public arena. Consequences of this discrimination are one of the worst but governments don't want to do anything substantive because this discrimination on all levels is all planned & not an effect of unplanned & haphazard policy making.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: There's a brand new story out detailing how one of desegregation's success stories in the South has become one of the nation's most racially & economically segregated schools. Today, a third of black students attend schools in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that look like the 60-year-old Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that said separate schools for black & white students is unequal never happened.
Writing for ProPublica, Nikole Hannah-Jones writes, quote:
"Tuscaloosa's school resegregation--among the most extensive in the country--is a story of city financial interests, secret meetings, & angry public votes. It is a story shaped by racial politics & a consuming fear of white flight. It was facilitated, to some extent, by the city's black elites. And it was blessed by a US Department of Justice no longer committed to fighting for the civil-rights aims it had once championed."
...
NOOR: So, Nikole, you really get into this story by talking about Central High in Tuscaloosa. It was an all-white school before Brown v. Board of Education. It was desegregated over ... a fairly decent, long period of time, & it became, when it was desegregated, one of the top schools in the whole state. Tell us the story of how it went from being desegregated to re-segregated now & what the impact has been on the students.
NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES, REPORTER, PROPUBLICA: Well, Central High School was actually created by a federal court order. Before Central existed--came to existence in 1979, there were two high schools in Tuscaloosa. One had been the historic black high school, & one had been the historic white high school. And even in 1979, 25 years after Brown v. Board, they were still segregated. So a federal judge ordered the merger of the two high schools into one, & they created Central High School.
So Central High School became a city-wide high school, meaning any public high school in the city, no matter their race, no matter where they lived, all went to the same school. And it became a true powerhouse in the state. It was the second-largest high school in the state. It was a school that swept up academic competitions, math competitions, just as easily as athletic competitions. And it really became the pride of the town & kind of a story of how integration in the South could be successful.
But what happened is there were white parents who had been turned off by desegregation. And as we've seen across the country, there was white flight from the school district. And city officials decided that the court order that had created this school was the problem & that they needed to break this school apart in order to bring white parents back to the district. So in 2000, when a federal judge dismissed Tuscaloosa from its federal desegregation order, immediately the school board voted to break apart Central High School. It created three new high schools, & it turned Central High School into a 100% black, almost entirely poor high school.
NOOR: And so talk about what that impact is for the students that go there.
HANNAH-JONES: Well, I think, one, we should make it clear that black kids don't have to sit with white kids in order to learn. But what we also know is never in the history of this country has separate been made equal. So, in Tuscaloosa, once these kids were separated off from the rest of the kids in the district, they were then kind of ignored. These kids spend their entire education, starting in kindergarten through graduation, in entirely segregated schools. These schools were once called the dumping ground for bad teachers. A teacher could be let go from a school that was an integrated school & could be hired on to work at Central or the other all-black schools in Tuscaloosa. Or, until last year, Central High School didn't even offer physics to the students. There were many years where it didn't offer advanced placement courses. So the most integrated high school in the city offered 12. So these kids were not given the same education opportunity as other kids, & they suffered for it.
NOOR: And this story of resegregation is not just happening at Central High or Tuscaloosa; it's really happening all over the South. Talk about its broader impacts.
HANNAH-JONES: Okay. I mean, first I think we should note that the reason that I focus on the South was in 1954 the South was completely segregated, & it was the most segregated part of the country, but because of these court orders, by the early '70s the South had become the most integrated part of the country, far more integrated than the Northeast or the Midwest, & it actually remains the most integrated part of the country. So I wrote about the South because the South has the most to lose. It educates more black students than anywhere else in the country. And because it had actually desegregated, where, as we know, many northern cities never have, this is the one place we got traction.
And what we're seeing is, as hundreds of school districts have been released from their court orders to integrate in the last 10 to 20 years. And as they release, within a few years these districts almost always start to take actions that resegregate black students. And so we're seeing a rise in the number of black students that are attending intensely segregated schools, which are schools that are less than 10% white. And a large number of students, black students, are now attending what some scholars call apartheid schools. And those are schools that are 1% or less white. And as a result, we're seeing the achievement gap that had started closing during the height of desegregation has widened, & it has remained wide.
NOOR: And as you mention in your story, this is not limited to the South. In fact, the Northeast has a really high number of schools. And according to a new report out by the UCLA's Civil Rights Project, it's actually New York State & New York City itself that has the highest number of these apartheid schools that you just mentioned. And I worked at a Museum in New York & I taught at public schools across New York City, & it'd be an ordinary experience for me for one day, for example, to teach in the upper West side, often children of investment bankers, people that worked on Wall Street, very wealthy, & the next day I'd teach at a school in West Harlem, just a few miles away, where all the families there were African-American & lived in the projects. And you could see the resources were different. In New York City each school gets the same amount of funding, but for example, the schools in the Upper West Side, the parents of those students would raise $1 million every year for extra resources & extra funding, & even extra teachers. So I would teach kids as young as kindergarten, but then all the way up to high school & college, & you could see what the long-term impact of the lack of resources & the isolation & segregation are.
HANNAH-JONES: Absolutely. And I think even outside of additional funding that these schools are able to raise, you have to look at--districts make very clear which students they prize, & those students tend to be middle-class students, & they also tend to be white students, I think largely because people believe that their parents are more influential in the community.
So what happens is black schools & Latino schools, not just in terms of additional resources, but they don't get the same quality of teachers. They tend to get the least experienced teachers. For instance, I live in Bedford-Stuyvesant & Brooklyn, which is an almost entirely black neighborhood, & there's not a single talented & gifted program in the schools in my neighborhood. So these kids aren't even getting access to the same types of courses, the same types of rigor. And those are resources that school officials are providing, & it has nothing to do with the wealth of parents.
NOOR: Right. And ever since No Child Left Behind, & now Race to the Top, teachers in schools are evaluated by their student performance. And we know that the biggest predictor of student performance is your socioeconomic background, so there's no incentive for teachers to really teach in the most challenging schools, because they know that they'll be held accountable for their students' performance.
HANNAH-JONES: That's right. Teachers will be penalized for the way that school districts have allowed high poverty to be concentrated in certain schools. So there is a disincentive. That's why you tend to see young teachers right out of college teaching in these schools. And once they get experience, they move on to more integrated schools.
NOOR: But what's being done in places like Alabama, & even in New York City, to challenge these policies, if anything? And do you see any hope of re-segregating these schools? You know, we're talking about 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education.
HANNAH-JONES: I mean, to be honest, very little, very little is being done. I think we've seen very little national will to deal with this issue. Even President Obama, while the administration says that they support integration, if you look into how they fund school, they offer no financial incentive & really no larger incentive for districts to voluntarily integrate. And, in fact, some of the biggest incentives are for charter schools, which, of course, research shows in many places are more segregated than traditional public schools.
So I think we don't have a lot of will about this. I think we're still trying to make separate equal. That's what No Child Left Behind does, that's what Race to the Top does, is it tries to say, okay, we have these high-poverty black & Latino schools, let's bring them up to par, instead of doing what everyone knows can have a great impact on achievement, which is: why don't you break up the racial & economic isolation of these schools? But we're not really willing to talk about that.
NOOR: Worth mentioning: all these policies are supported by Democrats & Republicans.
HANNAH-JONES: That's right.
Anyway, this news story / analysis didn't surprise me that much. The developed / Western world is becoming that much racist, & in general, discrimination of all kinds are increasing. Now, this story only explores how the American schools are re-segregating students based on skin colour. But, this re-segregation, & the story alludes to it a little bit, is symptomatic of larger & deep-seated socioeconomic problem.
That problem is centuries old. That problem is ingrained in the minds of leaders, & the general public, of the Western world. The general public is not generally racist or discriminatory but it discriminates unconsciously. The white leaders & a large proportion of the general public, who is white, think they are superior to other races.
Let me show this with an example. Let's take the example of a segregated school &, as the story explains below, how adversely it impacts a child of a minority or discriminated public.
When a poor African child studies in a segregated school, he/she is pretty much slated to be poor all his/her life. Reason being is that poor people of all walks of life, with all different skin colours, enroll their kids in these urban schools. These schools lack sufficient funding from government. Even if they are getting funding from governments, which are usually insufficient, they have parents with such socioeconomic backgrouds that these schools cannot even fundraise on their own. The parents of these poor students then grow up & make friends which are going through similar situations; homelessness, poverty, drugs, gangs, crime, broken families, etc.
Even if a child goes through all these social problems, which are going around him / her, unscathed, he / she graduates from a university or college but lacks those vital connections, which can land him / her in a job from where he / she can meaningfully improve his / her future.
All the while, white or wealthy children of other races, which are usually not that many, attend schools which have more than enough resources to give them a "complete" education & prepare them for a good, & perhaps even private, universities, where they themselves & their parents make those vital connections, from where they can land those financially-rewarding jobs & careers.
That's how the wealth & achievement gap starts to appear & keeps widening. And the cycle, or history, repeats itself & it goes around again with their children.
That's the same case with immigrants & their children in the Western world. African populations in Western world came to these countries by force, but immigrants were shown a world where, if they themselves won't be able to achieve a good life, then at least, their children will. That dream is generally coming apart for most children of the immigrants. Why people immigrate & how the West is complicit in that regard, too, is a topic for another blog post & has been blogged earlier.
Good / financially rewarding jobs are going to the wealthy children because of their own & their parents' connections. Of course, the well-connected rich parents can easily pass down their rolodex or connection lists to their children. Some prime examples are current Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, using his father's vital connections to eventually become a leader of a country, or the Bushes, Clintons, Obamas, & multiple other children of the politicians becoming politicians themselves, with the help of their parents' connections or children of famous celebrities becoming celebrities themselves. Whenever I come across a personality who is successful, I first go through his / her past & try to find that one piece of connection that must have created that first big opportunity for them. I usually find one easily. Nowadays, there are very few people in this world who get to the top without anyone's help, whatsoever.
So that dream or expectation of achieving greatness with education when never materializes hurts the children a lot. Hence, those children, then lash out at the society through violence, because that's the only method they know how to vent their frustration at the injustice & false dreams / promises of the society. That violence can be in the form of being involved with trafficking of all kinds, big or small crimes, or even moving to another country to join terrorist groups like ISIS or Boko Haram.
So, as we can see, that the impact of discrimination is huge. I always say that slavery / serfdom hasn't actually died, yet. It has merely taken a different shape. White people, all over the world, are still at the top, for example, if you go visit Dubai, you will find all the rich & glamourous downtown Dubai residences are taken up by wealthy white people from Europe, UK, Canada, US, & Australia. Of course, they are living in those expensive residences with the help of big fat tax-free paycheques they are getting because of their high & influential positions in companies over there. Immigration, or even refugee asylum, in the West is due to the fact that these Western countries need workers for the jobs for which their own white populations is voluntarily unavailable, for example, for agricultural work.
So, this discrimination starts from segregated school & go all the way up to employment, & immigration in the public arena. Consequences of this discrimination are one of the worst but governments don't want to do anything substantive because this discrimination on all levels is all planned & not an effect of unplanned & haphazard policy making.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: There's a brand new story out detailing how one of desegregation's success stories in the South has become one of the nation's most racially & economically segregated schools. Today, a third of black students attend schools in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that look like the 60-year-old Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that said separate schools for black & white students is unequal never happened.
Writing for ProPublica, Nikole Hannah-Jones writes, quote:
"Tuscaloosa's school resegregation--among the most extensive in the country--is a story of city financial interests, secret meetings, & angry public votes. It is a story shaped by racial politics & a consuming fear of white flight. It was facilitated, to some extent, by the city's black elites. And it was blessed by a US Department of Justice no longer committed to fighting for the civil-rights aims it had once championed."
...
NOOR: So, Nikole, you really get into this story by talking about Central High in Tuscaloosa. It was an all-white school before Brown v. Board of Education. It was desegregated over ... a fairly decent, long period of time, & it became, when it was desegregated, one of the top schools in the whole state. Tell us the story of how it went from being desegregated to re-segregated now & what the impact has been on the students.
NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES, REPORTER, PROPUBLICA: Well, Central High School was actually created by a federal court order. Before Central existed--came to existence in 1979, there were two high schools in Tuscaloosa. One had been the historic black high school, & one had been the historic white high school. And even in 1979, 25 years after Brown v. Board, they were still segregated. So a federal judge ordered the merger of the two high schools into one, & they created Central High School.
So Central High School became a city-wide high school, meaning any public high school in the city, no matter their race, no matter where they lived, all went to the same school. And it became a true powerhouse in the state. It was the second-largest high school in the state. It was a school that swept up academic competitions, math competitions, just as easily as athletic competitions. And it really became the pride of the town & kind of a story of how integration in the South could be successful.
But what happened is there were white parents who had been turned off by desegregation. And as we've seen across the country, there was white flight from the school district. And city officials decided that the court order that had created this school was the problem & that they needed to break this school apart in order to bring white parents back to the district. So in 2000, when a federal judge dismissed Tuscaloosa from its federal desegregation order, immediately the school board voted to break apart Central High School. It created three new high schools, & it turned Central High School into a 100% black, almost entirely poor high school.
NOOR: And so talk about what that impact is for the students that go there.
HANNAH-JONES: Well, I think, one, we should make it clear that black kids don't have to sit with white kids in order to learn. But what we also know is never in the history of this country has separate been made equal. So, in Tuscaloosa, once these kids were separated off from the rest of the kids in the district, they were then kind of ignored. These kids spend their entire education, starting in kindergarten through graduation, in entirely segregated schools. These schools were once called the dumping ground for bad teachers. A teacher could be let go from a school that was an integrated school & could be hired on to work at Central or the other all-black schools in Tuscaloosa. Or, until last year, Central High School didn't even offer physics to the students. There were many years where it didn't offer advanced placement courses. So the most integrated high school in the city offered 12. So these kids were not given the same education opportunity as other kids, & they suffered for it.
NOOR: And this story of resegregation is not just happening at Central High or Tuscaloosa; it's really happening all over the South. Talk about its broader impacts.
HANNAH-JONES: Okay. I mean, first I think we should note that the reason that I focus on the South was in 1954 the South was completely segregated, & it was the most segregated part of the country, but because of these court orders, by the early '70s the South had become the most integrated part of the country, far more integrated than the Northeast or the Midwest, & it actually remains the most integrated part of the country. So I wrote about the South because the South has the most to lose. It educates more black students than anywhere else in the country. And because it had actually desegregated, where, as we know, many northern cities never have, this is the one place we got traction.
And what we're seeing is, as hundreds of school districts have been released from their court orders to integrate in the last 10 to 20 years. And as they release, within a few years these districts almost always start to take actions that resegregate black students. And so we're seeing a rise in the number of black students that are attending intensely segregated schools, which are schools that are less than 10% white. And a large number of students, black students, are now attending what some scholars call apartheid schools. And those are schools that are 1% or less white. And as a result, we're seeing the achievement gap that had started closing during the height of desegregation has widened, & it has remained wide.
NOOR: And as you mention in your story, this is not limited to the South. In fact, the Northeast has a really high number of schools. And according to a new report out by the UCLA's Civil Rights Project, it's actually New York State & New York City itself that has the highest number of these apartheid schools that you just mentioned. And I worked at a Museum in New York & I taught at public schools across New York City, & it'd be an ordinary experience for me for one day, for example, to teach in the upper West side, often children of investment bankers, people that worked on Wall Street, very wealthy, & the next day I'd teach at a school in West Harlem, just a few miles away, where all the families there were African-American & lived in the projects. And you could see the resources were different. In New York City each school gets the same amount of funding, but for example, the schools in the Upper West Side, the parents of those students would raise $1 million every year for extra resources & extra funding, & even extra teachers. So I would teach kids as young as kindergarten, but then all the way up to high school & college, & you could see what the long-term impact of the lack of resources & the isolation & segregation are.
HANNAH-JONES: Absolutely. And I think even outside of additional funding that these schools are able to raise, you have to look at--districts make very clear which students they prize, & those students tend to be middle-class students, & they also tend to be white students, I think largely because people believe that their parents are more influential in the community.
So what happens is black schools & Latino schools, not just in terms of additional resources, but they don't get the same quality of teachers. They tend to get the least experienced teachers. For instance, I live in Bedford-Stuyvesant & Brooklyn, which is an almost entirely black neighborhood, & there's not a single talented & gifted program in the schools in my neighborhood. So these kids aren't even getting access to the same types of courses, the same types of rigor. And those are resources that school officials are providing, & it has nothing to do with the wealth of parents.
NOOR: Right. And ever since No Child Left Behind, & now Race to the Top, teachers in schools are evaluated by their student performance. And we know that the biggest predictor of student performance is your socioeconomic background, so there's no incentive for teachers to really teach in the most challenging schools, because they know that they'll be held accountable for their students' performance.
HANNAH-JONES: That's right. Teachers will be penalized for the way that school districts have allowed high poverty to be concentrated in certain schools. So there is a disincentive. That's why you tend to see young teachers right out of college teaching in these schools. And once they get experience, they move on to more integrated schools.
NOOR: But what's being done in places like Alabama, & even in New York City, to challenge these policies, if anything? And do you see any hope of re-segregating these schools? You know, we're talking about 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education.
HANNAH-JONES: I mean, to be honest, very little, very little is being done. I think we've seen very little national will to deal with this issue. Even President Obama, while the administration says that they support integration, if you look into how they fund school, they offer no financial incentive & really no larger incentive for districts to voluntarily integrate. And, in fact, some of the biggest incentives are for charter schools, which, of course, research shows in many places are more segregated than traditional public schools.
So I think we don't have a lot of will about this. I think we're still trying to make separate equal. That's what No Child Left Behind does, that's what Race to the Top does, is it tries to say, okay, we have these high-poverty black & Latino schools, let's bring them up to par, instead of doing what everyone knows can have a great impact on achievement, which is: why don't you break up the racial & economic isolation of these schools? But we're not really willing to talk about that.
NOOR: Worth mentioning: all these policies are supported by Democrats & Republicans.
HANNAH-JONES: That's right.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Thursday, March 24, 2016
The losing game of publicly financed sports venues
Another great article on how taxes taken from hard-working public are used for something from which most of the general public will never get any meaningful benefit, & it reduces the money a municipal / provincial / state / federal government has to put it towards a better cause. Governments of all levels in the Western world are crying for more money & are putting in more austerity measures to cut expenditures & increasing taxes.
All the while, these same governments are spending the few money they have on things that are completely useless. These monies could be used for building more affordable housing for homeless & hence, reduce homelessness, or improving infrastructure (water pipelines, public transit, roads, cheaper & sustainable energy), which can also create jobs, which in turn, creates more tax revenue for the government, or simply providing or increasing funding for any number of social causes & NGOs.
But nooooo. The taxes from hard-working public, who itself, is trying to scrimp & save every nickel & dime by buying unorganic, cheap & unhealthy food, for instance, are being used to built expensive stadiums, which ultimately benefit the wealthy owners of sports franchises. They themselves pay much less in taxes but take full benefit of other people's taxes.
But then again, as the article asks that are governments merely stupid to bend to the demands of these wealthy individuals & then answers right away that sports subsidies are a political winner. So who is to blame here? Government or the public. The same public who will give their hard-earned money to a wealthy individual & wealthy players, & gets a paltry return for its own investment. Ironically, while the owners & players are swimming in cash & laughing how they have duped the public, the public is also not only cheering "their team" (who will leave the city as soon as it bleeds the city dry) but also buying expensive merchandise with their own money & still giving their taxes. I blame the public who claims to have open eyes & ears & have common sense, but then take such a stupid step.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-losing-game-of-publicly-financed-sports-venues/article25563294/
The people of Quebec City & Edmonton are falling prey to one of the oldest con games – the notion that spending public money on pro sports venues is a sound investment.
Facts don’t seem to matter in this game. And your city could be fleeced next.
Stacks of independent research over many decades have shown that building a stadium or luring a new franchise does little for a city’s economy. They typically don’t generate significant new tax dollars, jobs or growth. In most cases, the money would be more wisely spent on badly needed public infrastructure, such as roads, transit or schools.
And yet, governments serially ignore the evidence & continue to shower subsidies on team owners & their media partners.
In Quebec City & Edmonton, governments are currently sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into new arenas. In Quebec City’s case, the aim is to attract an NHL franchise. The rationale in Edmonton is to keep its team, the Oilers, from leaving.
Gobs of taxpayer cash will similarly be needed if Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre gets his wish of bringing professional baseball back to the city. The price tag for buying a franchise & building a new baseball stadium – presumably, a domed one – will top $1-billion. And it won’t happen unless taxpayers pick up a big chunk of the tab.
So why are governments so gullible?
The simple answer is that sport subsidies are a political winner.
They’re sold as investments in the economy. But it’s really about civic pride, the thrill of the game & cheering for the home team.
Montrealers, for example, overwhelmingly support the idea of bringing baseball back to their city more than decade after the Expos left for Washington, D.C., according to a recent Abacus Data poll. Nearly 90% of 500 residents surveyed expressed varying levels of support, ranging from lukewarm to strong. Just 12% are against it. Roughly 8 out of 10 respondents said Major League Baseball would be good for the economy & generate more taxes for the city.
The reality is quite the opposite, according to numerous independent economic studies conducted over several decades in North America.
“The weight of economic evidence … shows that taxpayers spend a lot of money and ultimately don’t get much back,” according to a 2001 study, “Should Cities Pay for Sports Facilities?” for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “And when this paltry return is compared with other potential uses of the funds, the investment, almost always, seems unwise.”
The subsidies rarely stop once the venues are up & running. Billions of dollars a year in hidden subsidies flow to existing sport venues, according to a 2012 book by Judith Grant Long, now an associate professor of sports management at the University of Michigan. In her book, Public-Private Partnerships for Major League Sports Facilities, Ms. Grant Long found that taxpayers are subsidizing 78%of the average professional sports facility in Canada & the US.
Earlier this year, US President Barack Obama moved in his budget to close down one financial vehicle that has encouraged subsidies by barring the use of tax-exempt bonds to finance professional sports facilities. In Canada, governments often fund the projects directly from their own coffers, tapping into lower government borrowing costs.
The real story, however, may be that the main beneficiaries of government largesse are team owners.
Quebec City’s $400-million Centre Vidéotron was built with a combination of municipal & provincial government money. It's ... a lure for an eventual NHL franchise sought by Videotron owner Quebecor Inc., controlled by Parti Québécois Leader Pierre Karl Péladeau.
The cost of Edmonton’s $480-million Rogers Place arena, due to open in time for the 2016-17 NHL season, is being split between the city & wealthy team owner Daryl Katz, who had earlier threatened to move the Oilers to Seattle.
Mr. Katz, who also owns the Rexall pharmacy chain, is now poised to cash in with a massive mixed-used residential, office & entertainment development he’s planning for the surrounding area, dubbed “The Ice District.” The $2-billion project will include 1,000 residential units, 1.3 million square feet of office space in skyscrapers that will rank among the tallest buildings in Western Canada, a luxury hotel & a public plaza with an outdoor skating rink, casino, restaurants & stores.
The private development wouldn’t make much sense without the subsidized Rogers Place as its anchor. And businesses elsewhere will lose as customers inevitably migrate to the new entertainment area, making the deal a wash on the city’s tax ledger.
This losing scenario will play out in your city too unless someone stands up and says, enough.
All the while, these same governments are spending the few money they have on things that are completely useless. These monies could be used for building more affordable housing for homeless & hence, reduce homelessness, or improving infrastructure (water pipelines, public transit, roads, cheaper & sustainable energy), which can also create jobs, which in turn, creates more tax revenue for the government, or simply providing or increasing funding for any number of social causes & NGOs.
But nooooo. The taxes from hard-working public, who itself, is trying to scrimp & save every nickel & dime by buying unorganic, cheap & unhealthy food, for instance, are being used to built expensive stadiums, which ultimately benefit the wealthy owners of sports franchises. They themselves pay much less in taxes but take full benefit of other people's taxes.
But then again, as the article asks that are governments merely stupid to bend to the demands of these wealthy individuals & then answers right away that sports subsidies are a political winner. So who is to blame here? Government or the public. The same public who will give their hard-earned money to a wealthy individual & wealthy players, & gets a paltry return for its own investment. Ironically, while the owners & players are swimming in cash & laughing how they have duped the public, the public is also not only cheering "their team" (who will leave the city as soon as it bleeds the city dry) but also buying expensive merchandise with their own money & still giving their taxes. I blame the public who claims to have open eyes & ears & have common sense, but then take such a stupid step.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The people of Quebec City & Edmonton are falling prey to one of the oldest con games – the notion that spending public money on pro sports venues is a sound investment.
Facts don’t seem to matter in this game. And your city could be fleeced next.
Stacks of independent research over many decades have shown that building a stadium or luring a new franchise does little for a city’s economy. They typically don’t generate significant new tax dollars, jobs or growth. In most cases, the money would be more wisely spent on badly needed public infrastructure, such as roads, transit or schools.
And yet, governments serially ignore the evidence & continue to shower subsidies on team owners & their media partners.
In Quebec City & Edmonton, governments are currently sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into new arenas. In Quebec City’s case, the aim is to attract an NHL franchise. The rationale in Edmonton is to keep its team, the Oilers, from leaving.
Gobs of taxpayer cash will similarly be needed if Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre gets his wish of bringing professional baseball back to the city. The price tag for buying a franchise & building a new baseball stadium – presumably, a domed one – will top $1-billion. And it won’t happen unless taxpayers pick up a big chunk of the tab.
So why are governments so gullible?
The simple answer is that sport subsidies are a political winner.
They’re sold as investments in the economy. But it’s really about civic pride, the thrill of the game & cheering for the home team.
Montrealers, for example, overwhelmingly support the idea of bringing baseball back to their city more than decade after the Expos left for Washington, D.C., according to a recent Abacus Data poll. Nearly 90% of 500 residents surveyed expressed varying levels of support, ranging from lukewarm to strong. Just 12% are against it. Roughly 8 out of 10 respondents said Major League Baseball would be good for the economy & generate more taxes for the city.
The reality is quite the opposite, according to numerous independent economic studies conducted over several decades in North America.
“The weight of economic evidence … shows that taxpayers spend a lot of money and ultimately don’t get much back,” according to a 2001 study, “Should Cities Pay for Sports Facilities?” for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “And when this paltry return is compared with other potential uses of the funds, the investment, almost always, seems unwise.”
The subsidies rarely stop once the venues are up & running. Billions of dollars a year in hidden subsidies flow to existing sport venues, according to a 2012 book by Judith Grant Long, now an associate professor of sports management at the University of Michigan. In her book, Public-Private Partnerships for Major League Sports Facilities, Ms. Grant Long found that taxpayers are subsidizing 78%of the average professional sports facility in Canada & the US.
Earlier this year, US President Barack Obama moved in his budget to close down one financial vehicle that has encouraged subsidies by barring the use of tax-exempt bonds to finance professional sports facilities. In Canada, governments often fund the projects directly from their own coffers, tapping into lower government borrowing costs.
The real story, however, may be that the main beneficiaries of government largesse are team owners.
Quebec City’s $400-million Centre Vidéotron was built with a combination of municipal & provincial government money. It's ... a lure for an eventual NHL franchise sought by Videotron owner Quebecor Inc., controlled by Parti Québécois Leader Pierre Karl Péladeau.
The cost of Edmonton’s $480-million Rogers Place arena, due to open in time for the 2016-17 NHL season, is being split between the city & wealthy team owner Daryl Katz, who had earlier threatened to move the Oilers to Seattle.
Mr. Katz, who also owns the Rexall pharmacy chain, is now poised to cash in with a massive mixed-used residential, office & entertainment development he’s planning for the surrounding area, dubbed “The Ice District.” The $2-billion project will include 1,000 residential units, 1.3 million square feet of office space in skyscrapers that will rank among the tallest buildings in Western Canada, a luxury hotel & a public plaza with an outdoor skating rink, casino, restaurants & stores.
The private development wouldn’t make much sense without the subsidized Rogers Place as its anchor. And businesses elsewhere will lose as customers inevitably migrate to the new entertainment area, making the deal a wash on the city’s tax ledger.
This losing scenario will play out in your city too unless someone stands up and says, enough.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
The Interview: Nobel laureate & economist Joseph Stiglitz
What I liked from this interview is about a little discussion on economic & financial inequality among the public. Politicians & economists of the world are trying to increase demand, & hence, GDP, but they are not trying to resolve the root problems of the recession & slow recovery, & keep trying to put in place harsh austerity measures for the poor public & tax cuts for the rich. These measures are counter-intuitive & decrease the national demand & hurt the national & international economies even further.
The tax cuts for the rich doesn't entice the rich to take that extra cash & increase the minimum wages or provide more benefits to their workers, & instead, they invest in their private yachts, sports arenas, sports clubs, racing animals, real estate, stock portfolios, or simply horde it all away in tax havens. The harsh austerity measures, coupled with more taxes in some cases, for the poor public reduce the free cash available to them, for discretionary purchases, & in many cases, even for needy purchases, which in turn, reduces aggregate demand in the country.
These measures create economic, financial, & social inequality. People cannot move up the social ladder, since they don't have enough money, but they can definitely move down, which is happening all over the world. The young populations of the world are seeing their dreams crush after spending a fortune on their education & building that dream where they would be owning their own homes, have families, build up their wealth, & finally, retire to a relaxing future. Instead, they are seeing their degrees pretty much worthless & jobs that pay so little that owning homes & building up wealth is becoming a very far-fetched dream. All the while, these same poor youths are also seeing people with no discernible talent making a lot of money, for instance, celebs like the Kardashian family or the rich billionaire kids of new billionaires in Europe, China, India, & Russia.
That inequality starts to breed hatred in these young minds. That hatred then tries to find an outlet in terms of violence; be it gun violence in America or Canada or gang warfare in Latin America or refugee crisis of Europe or ranks of terrorist groups like ISIS & Al-Qaeda in Middle East & Africa swelling up with young Westerners.
So, the root problem of violence in Middle East, Latin America, Europe, & in North America are all due to inequality all over the world. If only politicians & economists try to resolve this one major problem, we won't be having these fears of recessions hounding us all the time, & violence would definitely be down all over the world, which in turn, would save billions in arms & weaponry purchases, safety & security apparatus, & of course, millions of lives around the world. Those billions of money can then be used towards helping students in post-secondary institutions with their tuitions, improving infrastructure, creating more companies with subsidies, for instance, for green economies, which in turn, create more well-paying jobs, which in turn, would increase aggregate demand & reduce inequality. If only ... !!!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, a professor of economics at Columbia University, has written extensively about inequality in America, including his latest book, The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them. He’ll be a visiting scholar in the new Lind Initiative U.S. Studies at the University of British Columbia this fall.
...
Q: You’ll be lecturing at UBC on global inequality. Why should people be worried about inequality?
A: Inequality is very related to the problems we’re talking about. People at the top spend less money than those at the bottom so when you have redistribution toward the top, aggregate demand goes down. Unless you intervene, you’re going to have a weak economy unless something else happens. That something else could be a bubble. The US tried a tech bubble & a housing bubble, but those were not sustainable answers. So I view inequality as a fundamental part of our macroeconomic weakness. There have always been two theories about inequality. One is that it reflects just deserts. The other is that there are large elements of exploitation & inequality of opportunities. The evidence is overwhelmingly that the increase in inequality is associated with those negative factors. If it were all social contribution, then when the top did better, they would be contributing to everybody’s well-being. That trickle-down hasn’t happened. We’ve seen median income, people in the middle, actually worse off than they were 25 years ago.
Q: You’ve said that inequality is fraying the bonds that hold the US together. That sounds scary. Is it that bad?
A: Oh, I think it is. [It’s behind] a lot of what you see as dysfunctional behaviour & extremism. Particularly, young men are angry. You know, how can people like Donald Trump be so politically successful, running ahead in the Republican primary with no policy other than a sense of anger? What he’s been doing is pointing out the corruption in our system. I mean, Jeb Bush has Florida put $250 million of pension funds into Lehman Brothers & then when he leaves as governor he gets a job at Lehman at a salary of $1.3 million—those things resonate with Americans. The system looks broken.
What I argued in The Great Divide is that societies can’t function without trust, both politically & economically. And in the context of politics, what you see increasingly is young people not voting. The voter turnout in the last election was the lowest it’s been since the Second World War, when a lot of people were off fighting. In 2010, voter turnout among young people was 20%. Americans like to say we’re fighting for democracy, & yet young Americans have come to the view that democracy doesn’t deliver.
Q: It’s been 4 years since you wrote, “Of the one per cent, by the one per cent, for the one per cent,” which gave the Occupy movement its slogan “We are the 99 per cent.” Is inequality getting more attention now?
A: Very much so. You see Hillary Clinton has emphasized it in her campaign, but even the Republicans have said inequality is the major issue. To me that’s one of the optimistic things, that it’s finally moved to the top of a political agenda. The other optimistic note is that you see, across the country, 70% support for increasing the minimum wage. Congress can’t get it through because it’s dysfunctional & so we’re having strong grassroots movements to raise it, in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York. The grassroots people are saying our national government is broken; we have to do something about it.
...
Q: What about Canada? Do you think we have an inequality problem?
A: Oh, yes, clearly. But it’s in the middle of the OECD pack. It’s not as good as the Scandinavian countries. It’s not been doing as good a job as it did in the past in taking inequality of market income & reducing it. Also, you are a natural resource economy, & natural resource economies, with a couple of exceptions, tend to be very unequal. You can, in principle, tax the natural resource rents at very high rates & use that to create a more equal society. The country that’s been most successful at that is Norway. The more typical countries are those in the Middle East where a small group seizes those resources, uses it to buy arms to make sure that they can oppress the remainder, & you get these great inequalities. So Canada is among the better performing of the natural resource economies, but it’s still not up to the best performing.
Q: In Canada the share of income going to the rich has been falling for several years. We have better social mobility than in the US. Why is Canada better on inequality?
A: You have a more egalitarian education system, & I think your health care system is so much better than ours. A third aspect that clearly is part of American history is our racial issue. But the problems of inequality are even within the white group. 20% of American children grow up in poverty, & that means they get inadequate nutrition, inadequate health care, & because we have a very local education system, they get inadequate access to education. With those as a starting base, you perpetuate inequality. That’s why, here in New York, Mayor de Blasio has made a big deal of trying to focus on preschool education, because by 5 years old, there are already huge differences. We’ve finally begun to recognize it.
...
The tax cuts for the rich doesn't entice the rich to take that extra cash & increase the minimum wages or provide more benefits to their workers, & instead, they invest in their private yachts, sports arenas, sports clubs, racing animals, real estate, stock portfolios, or simply horde it all away in tax havens. The harsh austerity measures, coupled with more taxes in some cases, for the poor public reduce the free cash available to them, for discretionary purchases, & in many cases, even for needy purchases, which in turn, reduces aggregate demand in the country.
These measures create economic, financial, & social inequality. People cannot move up the social ladder, since they don't have enough money, but they can definitely move down, which is happening all over the world. The young populations of the world are seeing their dreams crush after spending a fortune on their education & building that dream where they would be owning their own homes, have families, build up their wealth, & finally, retire to a relaxing future. Instead, they are seeing their degrees pretty much worthless & jobs that pay so little that owning homes & building up wealth is becoming a very far-fetched dream. All the while, these same poor youths are also seeing people with no discernible talent making a lot of money, for instance, celebs like the Kardashian family or the rich billionaire kids of new billionaires in Europe, China, India, & Russia.
That inequality starts to breed hatred in these young minds. That hatred then tries to find an outlet in terms of violence; be it gun violence in America or Canada or gang warfare in Latin America or refugee crisis of Europe or ranks of terrorist groups like ISIS & Al-Qaeda in Middle East & Africa swelling up with young Westerners.
So, the root problem of violence in Middle East, Latin America, Europe, & in North America are all due to inequality all over the world. If only politicians & economists try to resolve this one major problem, we won't be having these fears of recessions hounding us all the time, & violence would definitely be down all over the world, which in turn, would save billions in arms & weaponry purchases, safety & security apparatus, & of course, millions of lives around the world. Those billions of money can then be used towards helping students in post-secondary institutions with their tuitions, improving infrastructure, creating more companies with subsidies, for instance, for green economies, which in turn, create more well-paying jobs, which in turn, would increase aggregate demand & reduce inequality. If only ... !!!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, a professor of economics at Columbia University, has written extensively about inequality in America, including his latest book, The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them. He’ll be a visiting scholar in the new Lind Initiative U.S. Studies at the University of British Columbia this fall.
...
Q: You’ll be lecturing at UBC on global inequality. Why should people be worried about inequality?
A: Inequality is very related to the problems we’re talking about. People at the top spend less money than those at the bottom so when you have redistribution toward the top, aggregate demand goes down. Unless you intervene, you’re going to have a weak economy unless something else happens. That something else could be a bubble. The US tried a tech bubble & a housing bubble, but those were not sustainable answers. So I view inequality as a fundamental part of our macroeconomic weakness. There have always been two theories about inequality. One is that it reflects just deserts. The other is that there are large elements of exploitation & inequality of opportunities. The evidence is overwhelmingly that the increase in inequality is associated with those negative factors. If it were all social contribution, then when the top did better, they would be contributing to everybody’s well-being. That trickle-down hasn’t happened. We’ve seen median income, people in the middle, actually worse off than they were 25 years ago.
Q: You’ve said that inequality is fraying the bonds that hold the US together. That sounds scary. Is it that bad?
A: Oh, I think it is. [It’s behind] a lot of what you see as dysfunctional behaviour & extremism. Particularly, young men are angry. You know, how can people like Donald Trump be so politically successful, running ahead in the Republican primary with no policy other than a sense of anger? What he’s been doing is pointing out the corruption in our system. I mean, Jeb Bush has Florida put $250 million of pension funds into Lehman Brothers & then when he leaves as governor he gets a job at Lehman at a salary of $1.3 million—those things resonate with Americans. The system looks broken.
What I argued in The Great Divide is that societies can’t function without trust, both politically & economically. And in the context of politics, what you see increasingly is young people not voting. The voter turnout in the last election was the lowest it’s been since the Second World War, when a lot of people were off fighting. In 2010, voter turnout among young people was 20%. Americans like to say we’re fighting for democracy, & yet young Americans have come to the view that democracy doesn’t deliver.
Q: It’s been 4 years since you wrote, “Of the one per cent, by the one per cent, for the one per cent,” which gave the Occupy movement its slogan “We are the 99 per cent.” Is inequality getting more attention now?
A: Very much so. You see Hillary Clinton has emphasized it in her campaign, but even the Republicans have said inequality is the major issue. To me that’s one of the optimistic things, that it’s finally moved to the top of a political agenda. The other optimistic note is that you see, across the country, 70% support for increasing the minimum wage. Congress can’t get it through because it’s dysfunctional & so we’re having strong grassroots movements to raise it, in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York. The grassroots people are saying our national government is broken; we have to do something about it.
...
Q: What about Canada? Do you think we have an inequality problem?
A: Oh, yes, clearly. But it’s in the middle of the OECD pack. It’s not as good as the Scandinavian countries. It’s not been doing as good a job as it did in the past in taking inequality of market income & reducing it. Also, you are a natural resource economy, & natural resource economies, with a couple of exceptions, tend to be very unequal. You can, in principle, tax the natural resource rents at very high rates & use that to create a more equal society. The country that’s been most successful at that is Norway. The more typical countries are those in the Middle East where a small group seizes those resources, uses it to buy arms to make sure that they can oppress the remainder, & you get these great inequalities. So Canada is among the better performing of the natural resource economies, but it’s still not up to the best performing.
Q: In Canada the share of income going to the rich has been falling for several years. We have better social mobility than in the US. Why is Canada better on inequality?
A: You have a more egalitarian education system, & I think your health care system is so much better than ours. A third aspect that clearly is part of American history is our racial issue. But the problems of inequality are even within the white group. 20% of American children grow up in poverty, & that means they get inadequate nutrition, inadequate health care, & because we have a very local education system, they get inadequate access to education. With those as a starting base, you perpetuate inequality. That’s why, here in New York, Mayor de Blasio has made a big deal of trying to focus on preschool education, because by 5 years old, there are already huge differences. We’ve finally begun to recognize it.
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Wednesday, March 16, 2016
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