OlsonOnline

Beatlenews

As one who came of age during the height of Beatlemania (I'm still a huge fan), I feel obliged to pass along these two news  items --with musical accompaniment.

First, from yesterday's Oregonian Living section, an article about "Eleanor Rigby".   Was she a real person?  Or did she spring from the imagination of Paul McCartney?  Either way, it turns out there's a statue of Eleanor Rigby in Liverpool, where people leave flowers to mourn her death.

That's nice to know.  Here's the song:



The second is the announcement that the Vatican has finally decided to "forgive" John Lennon for boasting the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus".

The greater sacrilege was actually John comparing himself to Jesus in his really great song "The Ballad of John and Yoko", the one that goes "Christ you know it ain't easy ...the way things are going, they're going to crucify me."

Here's the song. Listen for Paul's brilliant harmonies in the second half of the song:

Latest school news

UPDATED (below)

The Portland School Board has stymied the latest attempt to further charterize Portland Public Schools by turning down the application of the Emerald Charter School.

No big surprise there.  The board hasn't been big on charter schools for some time.

But neighborhood schools?  District policy --meaning school board policy-- hasn't necessarily been kind to them, either. 

Willamette Week --Beth Slovic once again on top of things-- reports that K-8 school consolidation --compounded by the recent spate of neighborhood school closures-- is endangering the lives of school children in outer Southeast Portland trying to walk to their "new" school, Clark K-8 @ Binnsmead. 

What's the problem?

"...heavy traffic creating trouble spots for young children... ."

Kids could be driven to school, I guess.  Some of them anyway (low income community, you know.)  But that creates, or contributes to, other problems.  Like childhood obesity, which can be as deadly as getting hit by a car.  

On a brighter note, Steve Rawley and Peter Campbell (Campbell has written several posts for PPS Equity) have been selected to serve on the superintendent's Enrollment and Transfer Advisory Committee.  The committee membership, in fact, seems heavily weighted toward the city's poorer schools, the ones that have been most negatively affected by the district's choice and transfer policies.  

Winterhaven's Rita Moore (she too has written for PPS Equity) was also selected.

That said, the language of the press release seems to limit advice to "priority and preferences in the school choice lottery", and "guarantees in student assignment."   And "other issues".

Maybe that last one --the all important "other issues"-- will open the door to a complete overhaul of the transfer policy, which apparently exists only for the benefit of Portland's advantaged students. 

UPDATE:  In a joint report by the city and the school district, the woman in charge of the Cully-Concordia neighborhood improvement project, Debbie Bischoff, says

"Strong schools and strong neighborhoods are inexorably linked."

The three schools in the Cully-Concordia neighborhood are poor and overcrowded.  Together they capture only 60% of the school children who live in the area.  The remainder transfer out, primarily to other, presumably wealthier, neighborhood schools.

Brits to raise income tax on wealthy

From the Financial Times:

"National insurance* contributions for both employees and employers will rise by 0.5 per cent. Those earning more than £100,000 will pay more income tax – with those on £150,000 facing a new higher tax rate of 45 per cent... ."

In American dollars, £150,000 is about $230,000, less than Barack Obama's $250,000 threshold for raising taxes on rich Americans (assuming he follows through on it.)

According to the British Institute for Public Policy Research, the package of new tax policies will result in "the most redistributive budget ... of the last thirty years", primarily benefiting the poor:

"By introducing a higher rate of tax, raising national insurance contributions, rebalancing and increasing personal tax allowances and enhancing child and pensioner benefits, the tax burden will be shifted away from those who can least afford to shoulder it."

A European social democracy at work. 

*(National insurance, or NIC, refers to national health, which the Brits, along with most of the rest of the civilized world, have.  And we don't.)

Final Beinhart

Anybody who wants to read Larry Beinhart's original post on taxes and the American economy can do so.  But I think it important to repeat some of his pithy analysis:

"Proponents of tax cuts take the position that taxes take money out of the economy.

"That's flat out not true.

"Governments don't keep the money they collect; they spend it. It goes right back in. It just takes a different route. It goes to different places.

"The places that government puts money are important. More to the point, they are important for business.

"All infrastructure is an invisible subsidy for all business." 

Obama plans a huge infusion of government cash into American infrastructure.  That's good.  It will create jobs in the short run and benefit business in the long run.  I can't think of a better economic stimulus, except maybe single payer national health care.

Think of what relieving the burden of employee health care would do for the bottom line of General Motors?

It's not good, however, that Obama is rethinking --waffling may be the better word-- tax increases on the wealthiest Americans.

And finally Beinhart's last word:

"What is certain is that tax cuts on the top brackets, and in particular on unearned income, do not produce healthy economic growth. Contrary to all expectations, tax hikes seem to produce the desired growth. All the explanations in the world, funded by all the right-wing anti-tax think tanks in the world, won't change that reality. If these explanations don't suit you, then supply a better one that will."

Amen.

Obama's "right-of-Clinton" economic team

Blue Oregon's Kari Chisholm reviews Barack Obama's announcement of his economic team and concludes, "So far, so good."

Not so fast.  The announced team has Steve Novick, my candidate for the Oregon U.S. Senate Democratic nomination, worried:

"Romer [Christina Romer, Obama's choice for Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors] has written a paper on tax policy that claims that tax increases (except for deficit reduction) are terrible for the economy - hard to reconcile with the strong economic records of many higher-tax European countries. Geithner has worked with Paulson to craft the ongoing bailout. So far the economic team is to the right of Clinton's. I am worried."

Novick is a smart guy.  If he's worried, then so am I.  All the Obama backers who voted for change should be skittish as well. 

The judgment from the left has been that Obama's cabinet appointees are Clintonesque. Novick is the first to suggest that, in truth, the economic team is ideologically to the "right" of Clintonesque.

And now it's come out that Obama may be rethinking, or "delaying", his tax increases on the wealthy.  Those, as you recall, were to supposed to fund his tax cuts for the rest of us.

Then there's the influence of "Rubinomics", defined by the New York Times as "balanced budgets, free trade and financial deregulation".  Three of Obama's top economic team choices are "acolytes" of Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury, Robert Rubin. 

Let me get this straight:  Didn't Obama run as a champion of "re-regulation" of the financial markets?  Why then the embrace of the man who almost single-handedly created investment-commercial bank hybrids?  You know, those multi-headed institutions that almost destroyed Wall Street and the American economy, and then, in turn, were canniballzed themselves. 

Who knows?  With the return of Rubinomics in combination with the taxpayer bailout of Wall Street, perhaps we'll see the resurrection of what the now defunct Glass Steagall Act had once prohibited. 

Call it the revivication of mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations, or The Monsters that Ate Wall Street.

Sunday Beinhart --Who's the economy for?

It's a question I've asked before, but I think Larry Beinhart would agree that maximizing profits on Wall Street certainly doesn't benefit the average Joe:

"Among the ways you can get more profit out of a going business are:

• Cutting the workforce -- possibly sacrificing long-term productivity
• Cutting salaries -- who cares if the employees are unhappy? The balance sheet improves.
• Selling off assets -- who cares what happens in 10 years? We can take the money now.
• Outsourcing -- which sends the "wealth" somewhere else.

"A whole host of devices were developed to do all of the above: junk bonds, leveraged buyouts, hostile takeovers, greenmail and the like.

"Lots of money could be made that way -- for a small number of individuals. But it doesn't produce 'wealth.' "

Not for the workers, anyway.

Daily Beinhart 2

More wisdom from Larry Beinhart:

"Once tax cutting began, the culture of business changed.

"It was no longer enough for a business to be a reasonably good business, making steady, reliable profits.

"Indeed, that became a very bad condition for a business to be in. It made it a target for takeovers by people who were willing to milk them of their profits."

I'm no economist, but it seems apparent that the chasm between "main street" and Wall Street is vast.  According to the Economic Policy Institute, as of 2006 fewer than half of American households were invested in the stock market "in any form".  Furthermore,

"The wealthiest 20% of households own over 90% of all stock value."

We should be paying more attention to unemployment figures than to the drop in the Dow.

I realize of course that the two are inextricably related in American capitalism.  But there's no excuse for the lax regulation that has turned the market into a glorified casino. 

What else can you call a system that allows speculators to profit on "bets" that financial entities will default on the debts they own?

The liberal media

From A Tiny Revolution comes the not so shocking news that Scott Horton, author of a recent Harpers piece on holding the Bush Administration accountable for its crimes of torture, was warned by PBS producers before an appearance on the NewsHour that

"...I could use the word 'torture' in the abstract, but that I was to refrain from applying it to the administration's policies."

Same for CNN.  Horton did refer to the "administration's torture policy" but was told by producers after the interview

"That's okay for CNN International, but we can't use it on the domestic feed."

That prompted this observation from blog author Jonathan Schwarz:

"As always, the question remains: why is the major US media so incredibly left-wing?"

**************************

Speaking of holding the outgoing administration accountable, what chance is there of Obama looking into the Bush excesses?    Given the kid glove treatment of Joe Lieberman, you'd expect that an inquiry into the crimes of George W. Bush is a long shot.

But then again, Scott Horton had this to say about Obama's Attorney General pick, Eric Holder, in an interview with Glenn Greenwald:

"... [what] I really like about Eric Holder is that notwithstanding this low profile orientation, he has principles and he adheres to them, and he was quite offended by things that the Bush administration did, including its torture doctrine adopted in the war on terror. And he spoke very forcefully against those things... ."

So there is hope accountability will prevail, and that Bush will be held up as an example to the American people of what Presidents shouldn't be allowed to do.  And that even a President is subservient to the laws that govern us all.

Daily Beinhart

As  promised yesterday, another installment of the wisdom of Larry Beinhart:

"Low taxes create an incentive for profit taking.

"It is easy to confuse profitability with wealth creation.

"They are not the same.

"President Eisenhower built the interstate highway system. There is no doubt that this gave the country an asset of great value, one that was very productive. It created great 'wealth.'  But, aside from the construction companies that contracted the work, it was not profitable.

"Selling subprime mortgages, trading in derivatives, packaging mortgage-backed securities and 'flipping' condos were all very profitable but did not create wealth."

As we now know, derivatives and "flipping condos" not only did not create wealth --except for a handful of gazillionaires-- they bankrupted the country. 

Dems ignore Sheketoff's advice

As I wrote yesterday, the Oregon Center for Public Policy's Chuck Sheketoff strongly recommended that Oregon raise taxes on the wealthy to close the impending state budget deficit.  He also advised that any cuts in state services would exacerbate the economic downturn.

So what does Governor Ted Kulongoski do?  He proposes across the board cuts in ALL state spending, including for schools and in aid to the poor.  No mention of a tax hike for Oregon's fat cats, like PGE CEO Peggy Fowler who plans to retire soon with something like $11 million smackeroos.

It could be worse, I suppose.  The Republicans, rather than the tax-averse Dems (in fairness Kulongoslki HAS proposed an increase in the  gas tax) could be in charge.  Senate Republicans have called "..for a tax cut to stimulate the economy." 

Apparently they don't know that tax hikes, not cuts, stimulate the economy.

I'm going to start to publish selected pieces of Larry Beinhart's wisdom every day.  I'll start with this bit:

"High taxes create an incentive to reinvest profits into long-term growth. ...

"The higher taxes are (and from 1940 to 1964 the top rates were around 90 percent), the more this is true."