Politics and Press

School Daze: America Commits to Dumbing-Down

Facing budget deficits with little or no hope that the federal government can bail them out (nowadays bail outs with public money are reserved for private corporations like Goldman Sachs, AIG, etc.) cities, towns and states are faced with a Hobson’s choice; raise taxes or reduce services. And in almost all cases the people opt for the latter.

Concord Massachusetts recently decided to turn off street lights in certain parts of town unless the nearby homeowners would pay a special fee of $17 a month per light. By calling it a fee they obviously avoid the “T” word.  Boston has eliminated 58 library staff positions and proposes closing several branches, and a town in California is now charging a fee for ambulance service  – to be paid in advance as a hedge against needing it later.

But America’s schools are taking the biggest hit and cities and towns are coming up with strategies that range from bizarre to simply inexcusable. Many schools are dropping “less important” courses like art, civics, physical education, foreign languages and music. Others are charging fees for what used to be important services – school buses, sports programs, school clubs – even books! In Utah the possibility of simply eliminating the 12^th grade has surfaced for consideration. Other areas are moving from a five day to a four day week. But the typical approach is to simply reduce the number of teachers, consequently increasing classroom size and reducing teachers’ ability to provide the kind of one on one instruction that can make the difference between success and failure.

In some areas citizens are raising funds outside the tax structure to provide additional support to their children’s schools; increasing the disparity among schools in different socio-economic districts, and excusing citizens from a basic responsibility to support the education of  our future  citizens. It is clear to many that in short-changing our children we are contributing to a serious decline in America’s ability to compete in the global economy and to move toward a higher quality of life. We will reap what we sow and at present it looks like a lot of weeds in our future.

World Cup, Bring it on – G8 and G20 meetings, Send them to Baffin Island

The Canadian government is spending 2,5 billion dollars (yes that is a b), instead of the originally budget 20 million dollars (yes that is an m) to provide security for the upcoming G8 and then G20 conferences, first in backwater Ontario and then in Toronto. Having learned nothing whatsoever from the catastrophic Greek government’s philosophy of living beyond its means, Prime Minister Harper has decided to impress the world by following suit. One of his most creative ventures is to spend who knows how many millions to create an artificial lake with real Muskoka chairs .(i.e. Adirondack chairs in deep south parlance) for the economic wizards of the world to relax in deep in black fly country. Apparently no one told the Alberta-born primo that there are countless lakes up there that you don’t have to build. Then there’s the 8 million dollar fence set up in central Toronto to mimic the Berlin Wall. Nobody told him that Baffin Island is comparatively black-fly free and easily isolated at a thousandth of the price – and it’s certainly also more interesting than Toronto for those sightseeing tours.

The World Cup of Soccer on the other hand is taking place in South Africa, and plenty of those same western experts who will leave Ontario after a week of sound and fury signifying nothing (pace Copenhagen) and had been predicting a disaster in primitive Africa, can settle down before their tv sets and watch a very big public event in which even South and North Korea are both participating . As far as my brother and I can see, the only violence has been in the incessant horn-blowing of the capacity rainbow-coloured crowds. We’re sure there has been some real money spent on security for the month of the tournament in South Africa, but nothing like the absurd amounts being spent for a week in Ontario. So what gives? Can’t we either send those suited economic chaps out onto the soccer pitch in short pants to duke it out for economic bragging rights just like Monty Python sent out the Greek and German philosophers against each other in one of their most compelling skits. In the end they could even exchange shirts and make sweatily embrace the previous enemy. And if they refuse, send em to Baffin Island.

A German “Peace Corps” Comes to America

With the U.S. economy still climbing out of its greed-induced recession, support for government services to the disadvantaged is hard to find. Trapped by reduced  revenues and laws  against deficit spending, states, cities and towns have been forced to  lay off  employees that provide   many of their most important services: teachers, librarians, mental health workers, social workers, homeless shelter staff, etc.

Historically the Republican party and conservatives in general have sought to limit the role of government under the mantra of reduced taxes without adequate consideration of long term consequences. Their strategy of “starving the beast’ is very simple: reduce support for basic services to the point where the services are hopelessly inadequate, blame the government providers for not being able to perform and then call for further reductions in taxes by eliminating “wasteful services”. It becomes an endless cycle in which schools get worse, libraries cut hours, and the disadvantaged of all stripes are left to fend for themselves.

It is in this context that we find help coming from Germany, a country that we helped rebuild after WW II and that now supports a small but helpful reverse Marshall Plan. Young Germans – unlike Americans – face mandatory military service or – if they are conscientious objectors, mandatory public service. The Boston Globe has reported that for at least one small group of young Germans this has meant coming to the United States to provide care to a group of Americans “with conditions such as autism, mental retardation and emotional disabilities.” While we can be grateful for Germany’s help, that we need that help is one small example of how the strategy of “starving the beast” can bear bitter fruit.

A day of reckoning is coming but it seems unlikely to be reckoned right. With groups like the Tea Party clamoring for more  tax cuts – as long as they don’t affect programs they benefit from  – America seems headed for a continuing slide into mediocrity. The tea party folk do not seem to be arguing for less defense spending and they sure as hell do not want to cut their medicare or social security – which leaves them to argue for cuts in the future. It may only be a matter of time before the future, in the  form of their  children and grandchildren, turn around and bite them in the ass by cutting the programs aiding the aging middle class in favor of their own short-term needs and wants. “Be careful what you wish for” would not be a bad mantra for the tea party ‘s members.

A Tale of Two Immigrants

As Canada becomes more and more the place where immigrants can make their way financially with little interest paid to their backgrounds, a German and an Austrian have hogged the headlines of late, and for diametrically opposed reasons. It used to be that “the American dream” was an understood concept that suggested that anyone entering US society had the chance to reach any goal, even to become president, and the election of Barack Obama suggested that that dream is still alive. However the way he is being treated by what seems to be a significant (majority?) part of the population as he attempts to make his dreams a reality, suggest that this assumption might be seriously misplaced.
Meanwhile, north of the border, where a health care system is in place that is being attacked in the US parliament in extraordinarily ignorant ways, an Austrian immigrant, who arrived in Canada with $200 in his pocket, has just bought a well-known car brand , Opel, the European version of GM cars, as he tries to fulfill his long dream of manufacturing his own cars in Canada. Frank Stronach, who transformed his tiny savings into a multi-billion dollar car-parts business and whose daughter came close to becoming Prime Minister, is given a good chance of actually doing this by economists, thugh he has been hamstrung by having sales to the US and China blocked. By and large, Canadians wish him well.
The deportation two weeks ago of Karl-Heinz Schreiber, on the other hand, an immigrant from Germany, was met with a collective sigh of relief. He managed to lead Canadian legal experts, law enforcement folks and immigration officials on a decade-long merry chase through the sleaze left by carefully-leaked documents that left a former prime minister as well as an apparently grotesquely incompetent legal system flailing in hopeless panic. He apparently was having a good time for a whole decade as the country squirmed uncomfortably and could not figure out how to get rid of him. His absence is as welcome as is the presence of Frank Stronach.

World Economics 101

It is time to give a surprise quiz about the state of the national economies of the world. There may still be a general understanding that, despite all negative developments of the last decade, the US still packs a powerful economic punch. But President Obama has displayed a surprising and very disappointing isolationist, fortress-America position on economics. The front page of last week’s edition of the Canadian national news magazine MacLean’s dealt with a topic that is being considered in many countries: “Obama, Why He’s bad for Canada – His ambitions could cripple our economy”. US Buy America policies have been put through by his regime, with the predictable Canadian retaliation, despite long-standing Free Trade agreements. The very big question of the future markets of Canada’s immense energy reserves is now being discussed with regard to European and especially Asian markets, with far less dependence on US markets. The result could be a blow to the economies of both the increasingly antagonistic neighbours. Last week the US Homeland Security lads forced an Air Canada plane flying from Fredericton, New Brunswick to Montréal, Quebec to turn around in mid-flight, somewhere over Maine, because a Canadian citizen was on board whom they didn’t like crossing US air space. You can’t get much less neighbourly than that.

Perhaps these are problems that can be addressed, however, and the US still produces over 30% of the world’s economy. But what about China, which garners much of the journalistic interest in trade and economy these days? How dominant has it become in that sphere? Do you think that China will soon replace the US as leading economic power? Well, think again. The fact is that China’s economy is still only one tenth the size of Japan’s, and produces less than 10% of the world’s economy. Many economists feel that India, not China, is the real rising economic power in Asia, as it reacts more flexibly to the current economic crisis and deals with it through a banking system that is much more reliable.

The destruction of US cities

The Baltimore Opera went bankrupt last week and its assets are being auctioned off to pay off debts. This is not something that will be recovered, and one of America’s most historic and, well, real cities will have one more empty theatre and has suffered another serious body blow to its reeling downtown core. Rumour has it that the venerable Baltimore Sun is in trouble and perhaps one of the great American newspaper cities will soon share the fate of newspaperless Denver and online-only Seattle.

How could these bitter blows be allowed to happen in the richest country in the world? Hundreds of millions of dollars owned by the citizens of this country, who would like to read the paper and occasionally go to the theatre, are being given away to the worst corporate executives imaginable who display no shame at the exposure of their unimaginable greed in accepting that money. Was that the former president of Harvard we saw on tv claiming that contracts like this could not be broken? Is that what they teach in the Business Administration programmes at universities that charge incredible sums for students to suck up such knowledge? Maybe it’s time to send those kids to universities that teach the economics of civic pride, corporate honesty, the necessity of spending money to keep cities livable, and the fair distribution of that money.

The GOP: Grand Obstructionist Party: Part III – Healthcare Reform

There are two things about the U.S. healthcare system that are obvious to all but the comatose: one is that it is the most expensive system in the world and the second is that it is far from the most effective.

A 2005 study by the Commonwealth Fund reported that the annual per capita cost for health care in the U.S. was $6697. The next highest, Canada’s, was $3326. Virtually all of Western Europe followed, just below Canada’s cost. The Fund’s measurements of effectiveness AND efficiency in delivering health care placed the United States behind virtually every industrialized nation in almost every meaningful measure: infant mortality, access to care, mortality amenable to health care, healthy life expectancy at age 60, etc. To see the Fund’s reports go to this link.

The Republican opposition to any and all administration suggestions for action has focused on scare tactics that are clearly not relevant and a vague threat that Obama wants to “Europeanize” us. This would presumably mean making us more like France, Germany or Italy with their programs of universal health insurance and accessibility to the best healthcare available in those countries. Since healthcare in those countries ranks as high or higher than care available in the U.S. in almost every category – at approximately half the cost in terms of per capita dollars spent annually as well as in relation to national GDP- it is hard to see the Republicans’ downside.

If indeed we were to Europeanize our health care system we would in effect cut costs in half, improve the measurable overall health of the population, reduce infant death rates, increase longevity and make health care available to all Americans. The existence of powerful private sector lobbies will most likely keep us from replicating the plans in France or Germany or Italy and that is too bad. But clearly some action is required to reduce costs, increase accessibility to health care, and improve the overall quality of life in America. And if taking on a slight French accent is part of the cost, well, c’est la vie.

GOP: The Grand Obstructionist Party, Part II

Three GOP governors are competing for Überscrooge and each manages the affairs of a state with reprehensible basic human services programs. Recently Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal stood on the Capital steps wearing what looked to be his bigger brother’s overcoat proudly throwing his unemployed constituents under the bus by stating his intention to refuse federal stimulus funds aimed at increased unemployment benefits. He was joined by Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina who is determined to provide as little support as possible to his un-or under-employed constituents. And Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi simply cannot stand the thought of opening the floodgates of minimal federal support for his constituents. They stand in stark contrast to Governors Crist of Florida and Schwarzenegger of California who recognize the human needs of their constituents, the failure of past (and present) Republican economic policy, and the responsibility to put the country ahead of their narrow political ambitions.

The three obstructionist governors share a disinterest in the welfare of their lower-class constituents, and a blind commitment to economic policies that have become something of a joke after the disasters of the Bush economy. And two of them – Sanford and Jindal – are playing to the nutty rightwing fringe of the Republican party to put themselves in position to steal the next presidential nomination from the current party darling, Sarah Palin.

It will not matter much which of these putative candidates end up with the nomination as long as they hold onto their frozen-in-time economic theories. But it does matter to those of their constituents who need help to survive in the current Republican-produced economy. To put their behavior in some context: CQ Press has for 18 years published its state livability rankings and its most recent publication placed Mississippi dead last, barely edging out South Carolina which came in 49th four spots behind Louisiana (45th). For discussion of how the rankings are developed, see this LINK.

America’s Health Rankings, done annually by the United Health Foundation since 1999 puts Louisiana at 50th place in the country, Mississippi at 49th, and South Carolina at 48th place. For details on these rankings see this LINK.

So, governors of the three least desirable states in terms of the health of the population and livability in general (including education, poverty, income, infant mortality, education, etc.) are carrying the flag for the Republican party while their constituents are left to fend for themselves. In his response to President Obama’s speech to Congress last night Jindal’s message was to simply follow his example, meaning that soon the entire country could be in the same miserable situation overseen by these three obstructionist idealogues.

In other news: Michael Steele told a Fox News host (who else!) that he was “open to” punishing Senators Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter for their votes on the stimulus package, by withholding RNC monies for their re-election bids. He then said he was “open to everything, baby”. Simply cannot make this stuff up.

GOP: The Grand Obstructionist Party, Part I

Some of us thought the Democratic Party won the last election. Eight years of the Bush/Cheney fiasco and the budget-busting, deficit-building, war-mongering GOP-led Congress through most of those years had taken their toll on virtually every part of America and in November the people spoke. But the just-completed “debate” on Obama’s recovery plan makes it clear that the GOP refuses to accept both the results of the election and the fact of their mind-boggling eight-year mismanagement of the country’s affairs.

Obama has won this round in the fight to get the economy off its back but at some cost to his view of bipartisanship, and hopefully considerable cost to the American people’s trust in the intentions, courage and judgment of the Republican Party. The recovery program proposed by Obama included a mix of tax cuts, infrastructure spending, other employment-related programs, investments in historically underfunded health and education programs and funds to maintain needed relief programs for the unemployed and underemployed. Based on past experience there was never much of a sense that the tax cuts would be especially productive but they were included to move toward Obama’s apparently mythical bipartisanship.

But in this time of national crisis the GOP produced a bunch of whining know-nothings, committed to pure obstructionist behavior. They wedded sarcasm to ignorance in cherry-picking minuscule pieces of the bill to criticize while working to gut any spending that might advance the interests of the American people. For some it seems hard to remember when President Clinton built huge budget surpluses which Republicans have turned into the largest budget deficit in the country’s history – due largely to ill-advised tax cuts for the very rich and a trillion dollar war, which the GOP eagerly funded.

What would they have us do? Boehner, McConnell, Kyle, Cantor, McCain et alia do not have a clue. They mumble about tax cuts, which they tried under Bush and which increased the budget deficit and made the very rich a bit richer; and they cry about spending money after wasting past and future trillions on the Iraq mess.  But at the end of the day they have no ideas, only the capacity to do all possible to obstruct and drive the country into ruin in the hope that they will get another chance to enrich their pals and further their narrow interests at the expense of the country’s future.

The Obama stimulus package is surely only a down payment on what is necessary to turn the Bush/Republican economy around. The fact that three GOP Senators forced reductions in education-related spending while increasing tax cuts in the bill is an indication of trouble to come as they will no doubt continue to obstruct until the country is in total free-fall and then hope to move in to finish their task of turning American into their own banana republic.

Iceland the canary bird

With its 800 billion dollar attempt to stop the bleeding of an economic system in trouble because it spent too much money based on borrowed money, the US sent out the most dramatic warning to the world of the dangers of credit financing. But that tremendous amount of money, which is being followed by more, is about 5% of the US GNP. Iceland, its smallest NATO ally, was in hock for no less than 12 times its GNP, a situation that had led its rational economists to predict forlornly that the Icelandic economy would collapse like a house of cards when credit became harder to get and debts were called in. The private jets that continually discharged Icelandic salesmen who were busy buying products throughout the world with monopoly money would suddenly stop flying and their passengers would disperse like rats from a sinking ship.
On October 6, 2008, Icelandic prime minister Geir Haarde announced that he would make an afternoon speech on television, which normally is not on the air at that time and told the Icelandic people “that the moment had come in the history of Iceland when the people must gather themselves together and face the enemy courageously in the eye …. we must convince our children that the world is not at the edge of the abyss. God protect Iceland.” These words that seemed to be taken from an Old Icelandic saga, referred to a very contemporary problem – the collapse of Iceland’s financial house of cards. Within days all 3 big international Icelandic banks were bankrupt , and had to be taken over by the government, which itself couldn’t pay their debts, their employees were suddenly unemployed and Great Britain froze all their assets in the UK, crudely using legislation that had been passed with regard to terrorists, because at least 300,000 Brits had bought into the Icelandic credit system through their pension plans. While Icelanders felt betrayed and insulted by their NATO neighbour, whom they had defeated in the Cod War only a couple of decades ago, there was nothing they could do about being declared a pariah. Economically they were and continue to be as there is no solution in sight other than the one offered by our second cousin in Shanghai, Loki, who worked for the Icelandic bank there until very recently. “No problem, we can always fish and raise potatoes”, he opines. It is a solution not open to many other credit-happy societies, who haven’t protected their fish stocks while sinking into debt, though not to the depth of the Icelanders.