Talk to your neighbors and you can sense how angry they are about the rich gaining ever more wealth during the Great Recession. They understand that the bailout money — our tax dollars — went to the largest financial institutions in the world which had caused the crisis in the first place. They sense that the middle class is getting screwed yet again.

What a teachable moment! But what are we teaching?

It looks as if this resentment may reinforce a conservative resurgence. The tea party storm troopers are but the tip of the renewed revulsion against big government that is likely to send many a Democrat to defeat. People will blame the government for its failure to reign in Wall Street. If they government won't punish Wall Street, then the public will punish the government.

If progressives don't intervene decisively, we'll soon return to the faith-based ideology that got us here in the first place. But what can we do in the face of so much wealth, so much lobbying power and so much weakness on the part of so many political leaders?

We can do the basics that every other movement in our nation's history has done. We need to work on three fronts:

1. We need a clear cut analysis and narrative that explains the problem in ways that everyone can understand.

2. We need a concise set of solutions that captures and directs the anger toward bold reforms.

3. We need a broad movement that takes the agenda door to door to build an organized, sustained response.

What's our Narrative?
This crisis is the direct result of a two-pronged, failed experiment starting in the late 1970s that supposedly was intended to lift all boats. The first part of the experiment was to set "free" the financial sector by taking away most of the strong controls put in place during the Great Depression. This was supposed to unleash financial innovation that would make our system stronger and richer.

The second part was to demolish the progressive tax system so that money would concentrate in the upper income brackets - the investor class. They supposedly would invest in new goods and services that in turn would create more jobs and increase incomes.

This experiment in deregulated finance and redistribution of income to the super-rich failed spectacularly.

Instead of an investment boom in the real economy, the super rich poured their money into Wall Street's deregulated fantasy finance casino. They got much richer. We didn't.

The last time our income distribution was this bad was 1929-28 when a similar fantasy finance casino exploded. One factoid tells it all: In 1970 the ratio of the top 100 CEOs compensation to that of the average workers was 45 to 1. By 2006 it was 1,723 to 1! (The Looting of America p.167)

The casino was betting on risky debt and pawning it off by claiming that the risk had been engineered away. When housing prices stopped climbing, the risk was revealed and the investments turned toxic. The financial sector froze up and pushed the real economy off a cliff. Unemployment rose rapidly and is continuing to rise.

To prevent another Great Depression, we poured trillions into the financial sector. Unfortunately we asked for and got little in return. The billionaire bailout society is still intact and we're paying for it.

What's our Agenda?
It's time for Wall Street and the billionaires at the public trough to pay their fair share:

a.) The President's Wage Cap: Until unemployment returns to below 5 percent, no one in the financial sector should earn more than the President of the United States: $400,000 a year. Why? Because the entire sector is on welfare to the tune of $13 trillion in TARP funds, liquidity programs, and various bond/asset guarantees. (See Nomi Prins ) This proposal calls for shared sacrifice. The super-rich can afford it more than the 29 million who are unemployed or stuck in part-time work because they can't find full time jobs.

b.) Windfall Profits Tax on Wall Street Profits: Until unemployment returns to below 5 percent, profitable Wall Street firms should return 90 percent to the US Treasury rather than to their shareholders and bonus pools. To make record profits during the deepest recession since the Great Depression is both obscene and impossible without tax payer support. It's time to pay us back.

c.) Wealth Tax of 5 percent a year on those with a net worth of over $500 million. Again, until unemployment goes below 5 percent, the super rich should pay their fair share. They benefited mightily from the billionaire bailout society that has unemployed so many and gutted the middle class. They can easily pay without suffering.

d.) Break up all institutions that are too big too fail so that they are small enough to fail. This is a no-brainer. Unless we do so, we'll always be bailing them out, making the billionaire bailout society permanent.

There's no need to be defensive about this kind of agenda. It's about as radical as the policies of Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt, who busted the trusts, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, who presided over an era where the marginal tax rate on those earning more that $3 million (in today's dollars) was 91 percent. These Republicans actually believed that a fairer income distribution was better for our country. These Republicans actually believed that concentrated power was a threat to liberty.

Obviously this agenda is not set in stone. Rather it could be a starting point for a discussion with our neighbors and other agenda creators. Only through a robust dialogue will we learn enough to formulate a final program that truly strikes a common cord.

How do we mobilize?
Ah, this is the hard part. We seem to have forgotten how to mobilize ourselves outside of elections that then disappoint us. But the civil rights and anti-war movements of a generation ago show that it can be done. However, it requires hard work and leadership by labor and church organizations that have sufficient resources to support a giant educational effort.

Somehow we have to get to a point where many progressive organizations are working in common to conduct a mass door to door canvassing campaign. The key is talking with our neighbors. I think you'd be surprised at how many people want to talk about how to end the billionaire bailout society and who currently are only hearing the voices of the Neanderthal talk shows. They know the system is messed up, and they know that Palin and Beck have some screws loose. But if those are the only critical voices they hear, then eventually those voices start sounding sensible. It's been a long, long time since we've had a door to door dialogue about the common good. (If we need devices to facilitate those encounters, it would be easy to come up petitions to deliver to congress and the media.)

I know, I know, many of us thought that by electing Obama, it would all change (and what, Paul Krugman would be economic Czar?). But it's never that easy. Nothing much of substance will happen unless we organize a mass debate around a common agenda and a definition of the common good.

Two things are certain: If we actually talk with our neighbors all over the country, our alternative agenda will become much, much stronger. And if we don't, we'll be stuck inside of the billionaire bailout society for decades to come.

 
This article was originally published on The Huffington Post.

It is also time to retire the “urban legend” about the ill-fated first draft of the organic regulations, in which Dr. Siddiqui had a role. As a staff member of the National Organic Program from 1994-1999, I helped write that draft rule, which the NYT (and just about everyone else) characterizes as “notoriously loose about allowing genetically engineered crops and the use of sewage-sludge fertilizers to be labeled as ‘organic.’”

The actual first draft of that rule, which gained approval all the way up the USDA hierarchy, including by Dr. Siddiqui, explicitly prohibited genetic engineering and irradiation. These prohibitions were subsequently deleted by OMB (Office of Management and Budget), which cited Administration policy supporting both genetic engineering and irradiation. Dr. Siddiqui was fully aware of the importance the NOP staff and the organic community attached to keeping the prohibitions in the rule, but did not include us in negotiations with OMB.

In desperation, the staff added a request for comments on genetic engineering and irradiation to the Preamble when the proposed rule was finally published, knowing what the comments would be, and expecting to use those comments as ammunition to restore the prohibitions in the final rule. EPA, which was lobbying hard to allow "biosolids" (aka sewage sludge) in organic production then insisted that a similar request for comments be included for their pet issue - but at no time was any of the “big three” of sewage sludge, genetically engineered organisms or irradiation ever proposed to be permitted.

Just another installment in the story of how the vision of organic has been subverted by those who claim to defend "organic integrity."

Entitled, "An Overview of Indian Energy Trends," it reveals that between 1990 and 2005 the country's GDP increased 2.3 times, but its energy consumption rose 1.9 times. Moreover, energy intensity (energy consumption related to production) is much less than China's, but also less than the United States' and comes close to the European level.

A good part of this performance may be explained by the price of electricity to industry - among the highest in the world. In transportation also, India demonstrates great efficiency: India's totalconsumption of gas and diesel in 2005 was less than the simple increase in consumption in China and the United States between 1990 and 2005. The high price of fuel plays a significant role, but so does the density of Indian cities, which limits the length of trips.

Vegetarian Diet

For domestic energy uses, there is better energy intensity by income level than in the United States. That may be explained by the significant use of biomass, but also by the very widespread vegetarian diet, which limits cooking needs: on average, an Indian consumes one twenty-fifth as much meat as an American.

However, India has not succeeded in eliminating poverty. Economic growth has benefited the upper and middle classes primarily, and 40 percent of the population does not have access to electricity.

Solar energy and natural gas seem to be the way of the future, but also adoption of supercritical coal-combustion technology (which improves yield and reduces polluting emissions), as well as reduction of energy losses in the grids.

——–

Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.

Cross-posted at Truthout.

The reason for this obstruction by the Commission? The implementation of energy efficiency would bear on carbon market prices. Consequently, there would be fewer "emission rights" on the market. Consequently, their price would drop. Now the European Commission - with Member State approval - has based its fights against climate change on the emissions market.

So they have just rejected the most efficient solution in favor of … a method that has not yet really proven itself. Implemented since 2005, it moves painfully forward, given the drop in prices evading VAT. At this time, the price for a ton of CO2 is 15 Euros - below the energy tax French consumers are going to pay. In fact, the rules of the emissions market's operation, the result of a compromise with the industries it affects, are too lax: in consequence, the price that develops remains too low to stimulate a rapid reduction in emissions.

Moreover, by means of another type of market, the so-called "mechanism for clean development," the European Union means to avoid realizing a big part of its reduction commitment. Indeed, I would need to write ten articles like this one to comprehensively explain how this whole system works. The carbon market is fractionally simpler than the derivatives market, if you see what I mean.

The basic problem is that it amounts to confiding management of the fight against climate change to the financial industry. The latter has, as we know, caused the current crisis and demonstrated its ability to escape all government control. Do you trust Goldman Sachs to act in the interests of humanity in the carbon market? In reality, as long as government - which in principle represents the public interest - has not resumed control over the financial system, we cannot hand over responsibility for the fight against climate change to the market.

In the short term, one thing is clear: the European Union must settle on true energy conservation objectives. If it gives that up, it will lose all credibility with respect to climate change, and, above all, the principal means to confront it.

——–

Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.

Cross-posted at Truthout.

The Resolution instructs the Obama Administration to prevent further consideration of the Goldstone Report (as it is informally known) in any international body. For Congress to do so, without a hearing where Judge Goldstone can testify and based upon a Resolution rife with factual errors, makes a mockery of assertions by the United States that fundamental protections of human rights laws law apply equally to all. It leaves the United States, and especially Congress, without a thread of moral authority.

This Resolution is a rush to judgment. It is a rush to judgment made on the basis of serious factual errors and mischaracterizations of the Goldstone Report. The Goldstone Report documents in a dispassionate and even-handed manner “violations of international human rights and humanitarian law and possible war crimes and crimes against humanity” committed by all parties prior to, during, and after Israel’s assault on the occupied Gaza Strip in December 2008-January 2009.

The text of the Resolution is directly at odds with the actual mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission and its report. The Resolution asserts that the mandate of the Fact Finding Mission was aimed only at Israeli violations of the laws of war. This is a blatant lie. In a letter to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Judge Goldstone states that the mandate he “demanded and received clearly included rocket and mortar attacks on Israel and as the report makes clear was so interpreted and implemented.”

The Resolution claims that the Goldstone Report “repeatedly downplayed or cast doubt upon” allegations of Hamas committing war crimes. In fact, however, it examined Palestinian militants rocket and mortar fire into Israel and concluded that “these attacks constitute indiscriminate attacks upon the civilian population of southern Israel and that where there is no intended military target and the rockets and mortars are launched into a civilian population, they constitute a deliberate attack against a civilian population. These acts would constitute war crimes and may amount to crimes against humanity.”

It is likewise with the spurious claim in the Resolution that the report “denied Israel the right to self-defense.” The Goldstone report examined the conduct of the party’s conduct of the war and not the right of Israel to use military force. As Judge Goldstone said, “Israel’s right to use military force was not questioned.”

The United States provides $3 billion for weapons and military equipment every year to Israel. The Goldstone Report concluded that “ grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention were committed by Israeli forces in Gaza: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. ” In these circumstances the United States has a special responsibility to insure that serious investigations are undertaken of the use of the weapons it supplies. Congress should not be blocking such an investigation.

 
Michael Ratner, an attorney, is President of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

In the last article, we were looking at things that you can only see under a microscope, and it would have been wonderful to continue in that vein because — as much as it creeps a lot of people out — there is so much "out there", and also "in here", that is invisible to the naked eye. I could have had such adventures with phytoplankton in my book (although I do talk about them in Chapter 5), fungal spores, single-celled amoebas and all sorts of other minute organisms that contribute to the rich tapestry of life on Earth.

But for some reason I was attracted to Nematodes. Actually, by logical necessity I had to progress to something around a millimetre in size otherwise the size of the book would have got out of hand; but even at that scale I could have chosen all sorts of fairly familiar things, like seeds, springtails and zooplankton (tiny floaty animals). The thing that made nematodes so compelling was that I knew almost nothing about them — few people do — and yet they were considered by those in the know to be some of the most important creatures on Earth:

There is a certain difficulty in gaining realistic statistics about the variety and quantity of nematodes; after all, nematodes were not formally discovered until 1808, principally because they are too small to observe properly with the naked eye. Victor Dropkin made a more sober assessment than [Nathan Cobb, father of Nematology] of the nematode population in 1980, stating: “Take a handful of soil from almost anywhere in the world . . . and you will find elongate, threadlike, active animals. These are nematodes. Or catch a fish, a bird or a mammal almost anywhere in the world…and in most cases you will find some nematodes inside.” Although nematodes are aquatic animals, in that they need water to survive, the best place to find them is in soil. Simon Gowen of the University of Reading tells his students that in temperate grasslands there are around nine million nematodes for every square metre of soil – then the same students are expected to count them for themselves (not all nine million of them, I hasten to add), just to get an idea of what this means. That is an astounding figure for something that is not a virus or a bacterium, but an animal. This means that the lush grasslands of New Zealand that produce rich butter, high quality lamb and 150 thousand tonnes of wool each year, but only constitute 5.5% of New Zealand’s land area, also hold something like 132,660,000,000,000,000 nematodes. That’s 132 quadrillion, for those of you who ever wanted to know how large a quadrillion is. Compare this with the apocryphal (but believable, and slightly disturbing!) figure of one million spiders per acre of grassland, and you find that nematodes outnumber spiders by 36,000 to 1.

Anyone like to hazard a guess on how many nematodes there are to each human being? I worked it out at about a trillion, for every single human being on Earth! If that's not interesting enough, there is also the fascinating division between what are considered "good" and "bad" nematodes: it depends to a great extent on whether you are trying to sell pest control devices and chemicals or not; but there are also a great number of nematodes that are unequivocally highly effective — more than almost anything else — at controlling the very "pests" that the agro-chemical companies make so much money out of. Not surprisingly, this relates very closely to the whole synthetic chemicals industry, as well as the often indecent world of biotechnology:

So why aren’t nematodes used all over the world, making most types of pesticide redundant? There are three reasons. First, not a lot of widely read research has been carried out on the usefulness of such nematodes; in fact many nematologists still believe that every nematode is a pest. Second, although nematode insect parasites were identified as effective controls in the 1930s, the availability of cheap, effective chemical pesticides in the 1940s caused this research to be largely ignored, and it was not until some chemicals were banned that research started up again. Finally, and linking these two together, it is clear from the continued lobbying of powerful companies like BASF, Monsanto and Syngenta, that the chemical industry will not give up without a fight. It is no coincidence that DDT was not widely banned until 20 years after clear evidence of its terrible impacts on wildlife was made public, and that the 2007 European Union REACH legislation – which enforces the control of hundreds of previously uncontrolled chemicals – took ten difficult years to come into force. Industry still calls the shots, even in an age when it is so obvious that natural ecosystems cannot cope with the torrent of chemicals being washed into them day after day.

Even with that said, there was even more to unearth in the shady and mysterious world of nematodes. It took me an awful long time to make the rather esoteric concept of Degree Days work on paper; but I had to because it related directly to Climate Change. I won't try and explain it here, but after about four rewrites I finally made it easy to understand, and thus showed (I think) how relevant a warming world is to agriculture and our force-fed dependency on the global food market. The most surprising thing of all, though, was that it was possible to knit together the fate of something we now take for granted in the West — to the extent that in some countries the familar yellow banana forms an integral part of the cultural milieu — with Industrial Civilization's obsessive quest for homogeneity, and just two types of nematode that could spell disaster for the world banana crop.

What strange and wonderful things nematodes are.

Keith Farnish is the author of "Time's Up! An Uncivilized Solution to a Global Crisis", which is published by Chelsea Green in the USA, and Green Books in the UK. He is also the founder of The Earth Blog and The Unsuitablog. He lives in Essex, UK, with his wife, two children and a much-loved garden.

The latest ploy to promote such a commission is to use the upcoming vote on increasing the national debt, scheduled for late November. Democratic deficit hawks such as Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota are working with Republicans such as Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, to condition an increase in the debt on creation of a panel. They have some allies in the White House such as Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, who has intermittently signaled support for such a plan. The Senate Budget Committee will be holding hearings on this idea in mid-September, according to The New York Times.

The whole approach is bad economics and bad politics on several grounds. First, there is no evidence for the premise that financial markets are anxious about the rising debt. As Dean Baker observes, they keep buying the Treasury's long-term bonds at a low 3.5 percent interest rate. If there were worry that the increased debt would spike inflation, investors would be demanding higher interest rates.

Secondly, it is not "entitlements" that have caused the big increase in the deficit and the debt. The cause is plummeting tax collections as a consequence of the recession. Social Security will be surplus for another generation, and both the House and Senate versions of the health reform bill do not add to the deficit, but help cut costs.

Third, obsessing about debts and deficits when the economy is still losing jobs has it exactly backwards. We probably need bigger deficits for a year or two, to propel a strong recovery. Higher growth will then bring the debt back down to tolerable scale. In World War II, deficits averaged about 25 percent a year (compared to under 10% this year.) But all of that war spending rebuilt the economy and powered three decades of economic boom and the big wartime debt was soon paid off.

Finally, the idea that such a commission could be "above politics" is a deception. The politics–very conservative politics–would be baked into the cake. Republicans on it would resist higher taxes except perhaps for regressive ones such a national sales tax or value added tax. The skids would be greased for deep cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid–even before health reform took effect. This would gut all the promises candidate Barack Obama made for a more just America.

Instead of being Mr. Consensus, and trying to please both sides, President Obama needs to weigh in strongly against the idea of a commission before it gains further traction. The House Democratic leadership, mercifully, thinks the commission is exactly the wrong medicine, and has told the White House so.

I spoke with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday. She favors a plan to increase spending as necessary in the short run to fight the recession, and then significant deficit-reduction once recovery comes–but not via a commission. "Let's have a public conversation in the people's House and in the Senate. This is a very important debate, and is shouldn't be done behind closed doors," she told me, adding: "My responsibility is to protect Social Security and Medicare. If some of the people at the table are opposed to protecting Social Security and Medicare, I'd have big problems. Congress passed these programs in the 1930s, and the 1960s. Why should we give someone else the power to decide their future?"

Amen.

The press for a debt-reduction commission, promoted by scare-mongers such as the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, is really an attack on social insurance masquerading as principled concern for the public fisc. It wasn't entitlements that caused the crash–it was financial high rollers who pushed for deregulation and then exploited it, such as Peterson and his friends.

If you can believe it, the latest gimmick of the Peterson Foundation is an invitation to compose haiku on the alleged fiscal crisis. I kid you not. Here's what the foundation recently sent its supporters:

Hello,

As one of our most active supporters, you've proven your commitment to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's work time and time again. We're grateful for all you've done — and we're excited to offer you a sneak peek of our newest initiative, Fiscal Haiku.

The site doesn't officially launch for a few more days, but we're inviting you to take a look before the rest of the country. Below is a copy of the message we'll be sending out for Fiscal Haiku's formal debut — please visit www.fiscalhaiku.com and start submitting your odes to the economy!

Thanks,

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation

Okay, Pete. Here is my own entry:

Spreading fiscal fear,
ideology parades
as principle. Shame!

Robert Kuttner author of Obama's Challenge, co-editor of The American Prospect, and a senior fellow at Demos.

 
This post was originally published on The Huffington Post.

Consider this:

While coal production in the US increased 32 percent between 1980 and 1999, coal-mining employment declined 66 percent, from 242,000 to 83,000 workers. Further, jobs in the coal industry are expected to fall by 36,000 workers between 1995 and 2020, even without any greenhouse gas–reducing policies, such as carbon caps or taxes, in place. [Source: Kammen, Kapadia, and Fripp, "Putting Renewables to Work: How Many Jobs Can the Clean Energy Industry Generate?" p. 14 (pdf)]

Update: the Bureau of Labor Statistics has numbers for 2008. Total employment in coal mining, from CEOs to hoist and winch operators: 78,340, down 5 percent from 1999.

In other words, the threat to coal miners' livelihoods exists even if nothing at all is done to combat global warming. On the other hand, if one of these policies is adopted, it will surely include some kind of "transitional assistance," such as job training programs, subsidized loans for new businesses starting up or moving into coal producing areas, and so on. That assistance is less likely if climate legislation is blocked. So coal miners have a bleak employment future ahead of them no matter what. The closest thing to a ray of sunshine they can hope for is strong climate legislation that opens the doors to new industries and job opportunities to replace the coal jobs that are already doomed.

At the end of last week, Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske issued a public statement firmly declaring, "Marijuana legalization, for any purpose, remains a non-starter in the Obama Administration." Earlier this year, he confessed to a certain lack of verbal acuity by admitting that the word “legalization” was not in his vocabulary.

Well, let me officially state here today – as the director of state campaigns for the Marijuana Policy Project, the nation’s largest organization dedicated to reforming our marijuana laws – that I agree with the Drug Czar. It is time for us to take marijuana “legalization” off the table.

Instead, we should join together in an effort to enact marijuana “regulation.”

“Legalization” is a term used by opponents of reform to overstate the goals of pro-reform organizations. It is intended to convey an image of wide open markets and widespread marijuana use by people of all ages.

People like me do not envision marijuana being “legalized” like pumpkins, which, as many of us observe this time of year, can be purchased from any farmer who tends to a patch and makes his pre-jack-o-lanterns available on his land before Halloween. Rather, we are fighting for a regulated market for marijuana, so that sellers and suppliers are licensed by the state and their product is subject to strict production and labeling requirements.

As my co-authors and I explain in the final chapter of Marijuana is Safer: So why are we driving people to drink?, a regulated marijuana market would limit where and when marijuana could be sold. And, of course, it would limit who could purchase the drug. Specifically, as with alcohol, there would be an age limit so that people under a certain age could not buy it.

Currently, none of these regulations exist. Anybody – including teens – can purchase marijuana whenever they want. In fact, it is probably easier for a teen to find and buy marijuana than an adult. And the strength and quality of the marijuana purchased is basically unknown. These are problems associated with an unregulated market – and it is what people like the Drug Czar are defending.

So in the spirit with which I have joined the Drug Czar in taking marijuana legalization off the table, I hope that he will join me in taking an unregulated marijuana market off the table.

The time to regulate marijuana is now. We should all be able to agree on that.

For the past thirty years we have minted billionaires, and we have created the most unequal distribution of wealth since 1928-29. This didn't happen by accident. We deliberately deregulated the financial sector and we deliberately eliminated the steep progressive taxes on the super-rich that had kept in check our income distribution.

By unleashing capital and finance we were supposed to get an enormous investment boom in real goods and services. Instead we got a fantasy finance boom as Wall Street marketed derivatives to those with excess capital.

We also got the biggest crash since the Great Depression.

Perhaps the most dramatic measure of our emerging billionaire bailout society is seen by comparing compensation for the top 100 CEOs and to that of average workers (the 100 million or so non-supervisory production workers). In 1970 the ratio was 45 to 1. By 2006 it was 1,723 to one. (The Looting of America p.167)

Another critical feature of the billionaire bailout society is the creation of institutions that are too big to fail. Historically, our anti-trust division was supposed to prevent that. But it became another casualty of our grand deregulatory experiment. So financial institutions grew to the point where their failure would bring down our system. We tested that idea last fall when we let Lehman Brothers go under: It crashed global financial markets and moved us to the brink of a depression.

So in our billionaire bailout society we bail them out instead of breaking them up. We bail out all of them - not just the basket cases like A.I.G, Citigroup, GM etc. The popular media line is that once a financial institution repays TARP, it no longer is on government welfare. No so.

TARP is only one of the many government bailout programs that pours billions into the coffers of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and, Morgan Stanley. Their bottom-lines and bonuses, for example, were fattened when we allowed A.I.G. to pay off its bets (with our money) at par value to these large financial institutions. Had A.I.G. gone under they all would have been on the edge of collapse.

As Joe Nocera put it in the New York Times :

So let's add it up: the $12.9 billion in A.I.G. help, the $10 billion in TARP, the F.D.I.C. guarantee program, the easy money trading distressed securities into the TALF program. I can't say for sure how much of the $16 billion the firm has set aside for bonuses can be attributed to government assistance of one form or another. But it's got to be a fairly substantial amount — at least $2 billion or $3 billion.

And that's a very conservative estimate. It might be the case that the entire bonus pool is equal to the subsidies pulled in from taxpayer support. But this is to be expected in our billionaire bailout society.

Perhaps the most damaging feature of our billionaire bailout society is the "jobless recovery." This oxymoron refers to an economy that is growing, but that can't produce nearly enough jobs to reach full employment (an unemployment rate below 5 percent). Our current jobless recovery will be the worst ever. Right now the BLS (U6) jobless rate stands at 17.0 percent — and climbing. (This counts those without work plus those who have part-time jobs because they can't find full-time work.) If the billionaire bailout society becomes permanent, we may never see full employment again.

Why is that? Because you don't need a full employment society to mint billionaires. Reflect for a moment on Goldman Sachs. They do not have individual depositors. They are not public brokers. They do not make loans to small business. They are in the business of making money by playing the financial markets, from mergers and acquisitions, from trading, and from creating and selling fantasy finance instruments.

In our billionaire bailout society these are unquestioned positive activities. But what value do they produce in the real economy? What is their contribution to market efficiency? How do they lower the cost of capital? How do these activities create jobs in the real economy? Good luck answering those questions because they don't do any of that. They just make money for themselves while producing little or no value to our society.

It's obvious we need to break up these large institutions so that we won't have to bail them out the next time around — which may come sooner than expected given the lack of jobs and the fact that the financial casino is open again.

But we can't solve the bailouts without addressing the billionaire part of the equation.

Two years ago the richest 400 Americans had a combined wealth of $1.57 trillion. Last year during the crash their wealth dropped to "only" $1.27 trillion. Now they are set to rise again. We need to tie their wealth of our richest to putting our people back to work.

Here's the simplest and most controversial approach: a 10 percent wealth tax on all those with more than $500 million — until unemployment drops below 5 percent. The money collected would come to about $150 billion a year. That money should be directly invested in public works programs to put our people to work — a Green Corps to weatherize every home and office in the country — a Youth Corps to provide work for unemployed high school and college graduates.

(I realize that many Americans detest the idea of taxing anyone's assets, even billionaires'. But let's be realistic: That's where our society's wealth has gone and we need that wealth to put people back to work. Some billionaires do create large numbers of jobs, but not enough. They can contribute more and not feel a bit of pain or suffering.)

To break away from the billionaire bailout society we need to tie the creation of wealth to the creation of work. We no longer have a system that can produce an adequate number of jobs through the normal working of the business cycle. The invisible hand of the market just won't do it. That's why it's called a jobless recovery. We need direct intervention.

But more importantly, we need to end our pell-mell slide into the billionaire bailout society in which everyone is out for themselves. We need to pull together to create a full employment society that can tackle our most pressing needs. Billionaires, no matter how thoughtful, kind, generous and inventive, can't do that for us.

We once understood that the common good required full employment. We once understood that the common good was more precious than individual riches. We once believed that public service to achieve such goals was a high calling. I hope that spirit still lies within us.

 
This article was originally published on The Huffington Post.

When asked who my role models were, Eleanor Roosevelt led the list. My mother read her column “My Day” every day. I discovered she wrote 8,000 of these columns, often working late into the night. I must have read over my mother’s shoulder, because I, too, was in awe of Mrs. Roosevelt, her travels around the world, her attention to the poor and the powerless.

Before the ceremony we were given a tour of Val-Kill by her grandson Elliot, and Doris Mack, who had worked for the family. I was struck by the modesty of the house and its furnishings. Photographs lined the walls of every room; Eleanor and Truman, Eleanor and Kennedy, Eleanor and the Queen of England, Eleanor (Elliot called her grandmere) and the numerous grandchildren. No paintings. She wanted to be surrounded by people.

Doris Mack pointed out the elegant china in the dining room, and then referred to the water glasses and the picture frames, “probably bought in the ten cent store.”

In the living room she explained, “None of the furniture pieces matched, just like the people she invited to her home—they came from all walks of life.”

Eleanor was very good to her staff but she couldn’t keep a cook. “They would quit after two weeks.”

“Why?” we asked.

“Because she would keep inviting people she met during the day for dinner, and would forget to tell the cook.”

Once, on the cook’s day off, three people showed up at the door. Eleanor had forgotten that she had invited them. There was no food in the house. What did she serve them?

“Scrambled eggs, toast, and champagne.”

In my research for my remarks, I found the resignation letter that Mrs. Roosevelt wrote to the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) when that organization refused to permit Marian Anderson to sing at Constitution Hall in 1939. Instead, Mrs. Roosevelt arranged for her to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, before a crowd of thousands.

I was surprised by its directness and simplicity. I read the typed letter out loud.

“My dear Mrs. Henry M. (the “Henry M.” was inserted in ink, as an afterthought) Roberts:

“I am afraid that I have never been a very useful member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, so I know it will make very little difference to you whether I resign, or whether I continue to be a member of your organization.

“However, I am in complete disagreement with the attitude taken in refusing Constitution Hall to a great artist. You have set an example which seems to me unfortunate, and I feel obliged to send in to you my resignation. You had an opportunity to lead in an enlightened way and it seems to me that your organization has failed.

“I realize that many people will not agree with me, but feeling as I do this seems to me the only proper procedure to follow.”

Mrs. Roosevelt, I noted, had the courage to act–and with that simple gesture, she changed lives.

Eleanor today remains famous for her succinct wise words. One quote that appeals to me at this stage of my life is: “When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.”

In my remarks after I received the medal, I quoted this line:

“Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run, it is easier.”

Courage is what I learned most from Mrs. Roosevelt. I noted that our lives were very different; she came from a privileged background and a political family. I did not have either, having been an immigrant to this country and raised by a single parent.

What we had in common is that we had re-invented our lives. She had no role models for the kind of First Lady that she wanted to be. She had to make herself up from scratch.

I, and the other woman who received a medal, retired New York chief judge Judith Kaye, also had few role models. With the help of the women’s movement, and the encouragement of others, we allowed ourselves to dream and to strive.

Like Eleanor, I too, needed the support of my women friends when I embarked on a political life. I could relate to Val-Kill where Eleanor met with the people who were closest to her, who loved her, unconditionally.

Lynn Rothwell was the mother of the woman who introduced me at the medal ceremony, Mary Rothwell Davis. She was one of a small circle of friends who sustained me throughout my years of public life. They stood by me, no matter how I voted or what I said.

In the audience, I could point to my husband, brother, daughter and some of my former staff and several good friends. I acknowledged the obvious; none of us win medals by ourselves.

The Friday before the event I had received an e-mail from the Pomfret, Vermont elementary school. I read it from the podium.

“Dear Mrs. Kunin. Congratulations on receiving your award on Sunday in Hyde Park. We are very proud of your accomplishments and as a leader, who just happens to be a woman. We are all involved in the leadership group at the Pomfret Elementary School where we are 6th graders. You are our modern Eleanor Roosevelt!

"Morgan Hartman, Anna Tracey, Hayley Usilton, Dana Burrington, Jocelyn Hewitt and Kaelen Heaton.”

The true meaning of ceremonies like this, I discovered, is not what they convey to the person being honored, but the message such events send to others.

The price of corn as I write is $3.90 a bushel. Some farmers I talk to say they have to have $5.00 a bushel to break even this year because of the high cost of fertilizer, fuel, and weedkillers recently. Economists say the break-even price is closer to $4.00 a bushel. The price seems to be inching that way. Whoopee.

So how do I figure on netting $550 an acre from my corn? I grow only half an acre for one thing, but don’t laugh. My figures would hold fairly well up to thirty acres worth.  Comparisons can be odious especially when someone with a feeble little crop like mine seems to be disparaging the professional grower of a couple thousand acres.   Nevertheless, I am going to do some numbers  because commercial farmers really aren’t thinking very well at the moment and some of them admit it.

Those ears of corn in the photo are from my crop this year. They measure up to 14 inches long, as you can see by the foot long ruler beside them. The longest one has 20 rows of kernels. It will shrink a little as it dries, but as far as I can learn from researching,  this is as big as any ear of yellow dent corn has ever gotten and is almost twice the size of any of today’s hybrids. (There are strains of maize in Mexico that produce ears two feet long but are very skinny.) I’ve had in previous years one or two 16-inch ears but they were frowzy on the tips, with only 16 rows of kernels. The fatter, slightly shorter ears in the photo above contain 22 and 24 rows of kernels, and I know from experience that the kernels will weigh as much per cob as those from the 14-inch ears.  There will be about a pound of kernels on each of these ears. If I had an acre where all the stalks produced one such ear and I planted 18,000 stalks per acre, which is about right for open-pollinated corn, (hybrid growers are planting as many as 30,000 stalks per acre) the yield would be 300 bushels per acre, right up  there with the world records for corn. If I could live 200 years maybe I could produce a crop of all fourteen inchers.  After all it took the Mesoamerican Indians thousands of years to get ears of maize up to five inches long.

I hasten to say that most of the ears on my corn are not as big as those in the photo. Most are still bigger than hybrid ears, but some smaller and quite a few nubbins. I will get fifty bushels from my half acre or a hundred bushels per acre this year. Commercial corn growers are averaging 160 bushels per acre, so my corn is deemed to be poor by comparison, giant  ears or no giant ears. But let us look at the numbers. My fertilizer cost was zero. I rotate corn with three or four years of pastured clover so I don’t figure I need any more fertilizer. Surely it is significant when 14 inch ears of corn can be grown without any commercial fertilizer at all.  My herbicide cost is zero. I control weeds with a  hoe and  a rotary garden tiller. If I were growing a couple of acres of corn or more,  I would have to have a tractor or horse cultivator but that would add only a little to my costs.  I paid zero for my seed corn because I save my own.  Farmers are spending upwards of $300 now for a bushel of GMO hybrid corn seed, which is just ridiculous. I have no land rent cost because the land is my own.  Farmers renting land are paying upwards of $150 to $200 a acre for it or more this year, almost guaranteeing a loss at today’s market prices.  I count no labor cost because experimenting with my open-pollinated corn is my golf game and a whole lot cheaper than golf. I have no harvest cost other than husking the ears by hand and throwing them in the pickup. Farmers used to husk 20 acres or more  by hand but if you used an old cornpicker instead, the cost would be minimal on 20 or 30 acres except for fuel. My drying cost is zero; the corn dries naturally on the cob in a crib that is so old it has long ago paid for itself. That could be true for larger acreages. Commercial farmers some years (this year for sure) have a huge cost in natural gas to dry their shelled corn. My hauling cost amounts to driving my pickup 500 feet from field to crib. Commercial farmers are hauling their corn in semi trucks half way across the county, sometimes farther. I do have fuel and machinery cost for plowing and fitting the land which I estimate at about $30 per acre. I put my total cost per acre at $50 to be sure to cover everything.

Growers of open-pollinated corn tell me, as I have also experienced, that livestock eat it more eagerly than today’s hybrids. And why not. Hybrid corn is bred today to resist injury from  machinery, weeds, bugs, and adverse weather. Why wouldn’t it resist animals and humans trying to eat it?  Commercial corn is dried by heating, sometimes overheating, with natural gas, which can reduce nutritional value. I don’t know how to put a dollar number on  that kind of profit.

If my 50 bushels are priced at $4.00 a bushel, that’s $200 worth of corn or $400 an acre. With a cost of only $50 on a per-acre basis, my net profit per acre is $350. If I had to buy those fifty bushels from the elevator, the cost would be around $6.00 a bushel (the elevators charge for handling, especially for handling and bagging small amounts), so I can say that my puny crop has a net return of $550 per acre. Compare that with losing $8 an acre on 2000 acres.

Whose the real farmer? One I know well farms 200 acres. He has most of his acres in rotated pasture and maybe 30 acres of corn— a commercial model of what I do. He will have more machinery and fuel costs per acre than I do,  but he will have no fertilizer, chemical spray, drying, or transportation cost to the elevator. He does not use high-priced GMO seed corn.  His machinery cost are much less than that of typical grain farmers because he is using older, smaller tractor equipment. His total costs will be only a fraction per acre of the large commercial grain farmer’s costs. Then he feeds his corn to his cows to make organic milk and sells it at a premium price.

So I ask again: who’s the real farmer?

 
Cross-posted from OrganicToBe.org.

]]>