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Calling All CounterPunchers!
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Calling All CounterPunchers!
Annual Fundraising AppealWe interrupt your regular reading habits to bring you the following important announcement: CounterPunch needs your financial support!
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Today's Stories October 28, 2009 Moshe Adler October 27, 2009 Mike Whitney Patrick Cockburn Stewart J. Lawrence Alan Farago Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Bouthaina Shaaban Brian M. Downing Elections in Afghanistan, the Second Time Around Iain Boal Carl Finamore Jayne Lyn Stahl Website of the Day October 26, 2009 Bill Quigley / Paul Craig Roberts Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Michael Snedeker Shamus Cooke David Michael Green Martha Rosenberg Patrick Bond Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day October 23-25, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Christopher Ketcham Jeff Gore Gareth Porter Jayne Lyn Stahl Saul Landau Mike Whitney Nikolas Kozloff Ron Jacobs Russell Mokhiber Missy Beattie Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Stephen Lendman David Ker Thomson Rannie Amiri Ronnie Cummins Norm Kent Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Ben Sonnenberg Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 22, 2009 Dan Pearson / Jonathan Cook Paul Craig Roberts The US as Failed State Mark Engler Johann Hari Brian M. Downing Eric Toussaint Tom Mountain Israel Shamir Charles Thomson Website of the Day October 21, 2009 Pam Martens Linn Washington, Jr. Liaquat Ali Khan D. K. Wilson Franklin Lamb Norman Solomon Stephen Fleischman Patrice Higonnet Binoy Kampmark Kevin Coval / Website of the Day October 20, 2009 Sharon Smith Tariq Ali Mark Brenner Bouthaina Shaaban Michael D. Yates Dean Baker Dave Lindorff John Ross Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Kevin Zeese Gilad Atzmon Website of the Day October 19, 2009 Mike Whitney Greg Moses John Ross Michael Donnelly Jayne Lyn Stahl Eric Walberg Russell Mokhiber Barbara Rose Johnston John V. Whitbeck Christopher Ketcham Website of the Day October 16-18, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Carl Ginsburg Ralph Nader Nikolas Kozloff Carlo Galli Dave Lindorff Catherine Rottenberg
/ Neve Gordon Marshall Auerback Nicola Nasser Windy Cooler James L. Secor Ron Jacobs Wes Jackson Jesse Lerner-Kinglake David Ker Thomson Against Leaders Missy Beattie Emily Ratner Stephen Martin Michael Snedeker Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Peter Stone Brown Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 15, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Brian M. Downing Ramzy Baroud Danny Weil M. Idrees Ahmad Margaret Kimberley Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Harvey Wasserman Nirmal Ghosh Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 14, 2009 Michael Neumann M. Reza Pirbhai Gareth Porter Paul Craig Roberts John Strausbaugh Fortress Moon Ralph Nader Dean Baker Charles Modiano Nadia Hijab Walter Brasch Website of the Day October 13, 2009 Peter Linebaugh Shamus Cooke John Ross Brendan Cooney Frida Berrigan Yves Engler David Macaray Dave Lindorff Mark Weisbrot Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day October 12, 2009 Pam Martens Mike Whitney Martha Rosenberg Jessica Arents Eamonn McCann Bill Hatch Sen. Russell Feingold Niranjan Ramakrishnan Gideon Levy Iyad Burnat Alan Cabal Dan Bacher Website of the Day October 9-11, 2009 Alexander Cockburn James Bovard Kathleen and Bill Christison Andy Worthington Marc Levy Tariq Ali Mike Whitney Paul Craig Roberts Alan Nasser Jack Z. Bratich Steve Breyman David Michael Green Dave Lindorff Paul Buchheit Jim Goodman Missy Beattie Michael Leonardi Nadia Hijab Mel Packer David Macaray James T. Phillips Charles R. Larson Michael Donnelly David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 8, 2009 Saul Landau Paul Fitzgerald / Linn Washington, Jr. Marshall Auerback Dave Lindorff David Rosen Chris Darimont / Misty MacDuffee John V. Walsh Stewart Lawrence Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 7, 2009 Brendan Cooney Paul Craig Roberts Dean Baker Jonathan Cook John Stanton Joanne Mariner Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada Stephen Lendman Sen. Russell Feingold Mary Lynn Cramer Website of the Day October 6, 2009 Mike Whitney Gareth Porter Jonathan Cook Boris Kagarlitsky Iain Boal Ron Jacobs John Ross Michael Dickinson Stephen Fleischman Ira Glunts Missy Beattie Website of the Day October 5, 2009 Pam Martens Mike Whitney Paul Craig Roberts Harry Browne Sara Mann Omar Barghouti Shamus Cooke Brenda Norrell Fred Gardner Binoy Kampmark Copenhagen Blues: McChrystal and the Afghan Trap Website of the Day October 2-4, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Saul Landau Diana Johnstone Greg Moses William Blum Brian Cloughley Russell Mokhiber John Ross Ellen Brown David Ker Thomson David Macaray Gary Engler Robert Fantina Lisa Stolarski / Naomi Archer Anthony Papa Joe Allen Harry Browne Ron Jacobs Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
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Tax the RichHow to Reduce Unemployment, Rebuild the Middle Class and Free Ourselves From Wall StreetBy MOSHE ADLER Ten percent of Americans are unemployed, and many doubt that President Obama's stimulus will create enough jobs to reduce this rate significantly. But given the structure of our labor force, more jobs is not necessarily what we need anyway. Our workforce includes 13.5 million people who don't belong in it at all. Permitting them not to work would free up jobs and raise the wages of millions of workers who belong in the middle class. It would also free all of us of our dependence on Wall Street. Currently, four million children under the age of eighteen work, filling the equivalent of two million full time jobs. (The actual number is higher. Even though the law permits the employment of children over the age of fourteen, the Census Bureau only collects data about workers who are older than sixteen.) Ten million college-age youth (between the ages of eighteen and twenty one) also work, and they fill the equivalent of eight million full time jobs. Five million of these college-age youth do not attend college at all. Finally, there are also four and a half million workers who are sixty six years or older, and they fill the equivalent of three and a half million full time jobs. The questions before us are then: Should these workers be removed from the workforce? How much would this cost? Can we afford it? And finally, what will our lives look like after all these workers stop working? That high school students don't belong in the workforce does not require an explanation. Of course, the families of these children need the money they earn, but their earnings are very small, just $19 billion in 2007, and they could be replaced by child subsidies to low income families. That high school grads belong in college is also pretty obvious. Today, workers must have a college education in order to do well. In 1950 the difference between the wage of a college graduate and a high school graduate was 27%. But by 2000 this gap grew to 75%. Nevertheless, just as the importance of having a college education has been increasing, it has become dramatically less affordable. Between 1981 and 2005 tuition in state universities increased four times faster than personal incomes did. Making college education free would both increase the number of youth who go to college and decrease the need of those who are already in college to work. Of course, providing all interested high school graduates with a free college education plus stipends cost will not be cheap. The average yearly tuition in public colleges is currently $6,585 and this figure covers 40% of the total cost of education. If all young adults chose to go to college, and assuming that tuition was entirely free, the additional cost to taxpayers would be $164 billion a year. The salaries and wages that all college age workers earned, both students and non-students, in 2007, was $135 billion. If the lost earnings are fully replaced by student-stipends, the total cost of providing college education to all would be some $300 billion. That old people ought to be able to retire shouldn't be controversial. But the social security payment of the median retiree amounts to just forty-two percent of the income she earned while working, and it is not surprising that many workers are forced to continue working even when they are old. Doubling retiree benefits would cost an additional $505 billion a year, and it is the most expensive item in our proposal. No doubt, not all young adults who are offered the opportunity to go to college will take advantage of it, and not all older Americans will retire even with higher social security payments. But for argument's sake if we assume that all these individuals will in fact leave, the cost of removing thirteen and a half million workers from the workforce, and giving all young adults free college education would come to $825 billion a year. This may sound like a large sum, but it is actually just 11% of the total income that households earn, excluding the wages and salaries of the workers who will no longer work. Can we afford an average increase of 11% in taxes (a higher increase for the rich, smaller increase for the poor)? Let's recall that between 1913, the year in which the income tax became constitutional, and 1981, the first year of the Reagan presidency, the highest marginal tax rate was on average 68%. Today it is 35%. What will our lives be like if millions of low-wage workers stop working? The most visible effect will probably be a drastic reduction in the number of stores that are open 24 hours a day, because it is the abundance of workers that keeps these stores open in the wee hours of the night, when there is nary a customer. But the most significant change will come from the shift to government financed higher education and retirement. Our lives will be remarkably more secure when we will no longer have to entrust our fate and the fate of our children to retirement and college savings invested in stocks. And when this happens, the incomes and the political power of stock brokers will decline precipitously; Main Street will no longer be in the clutches of Wall Street. Inequality would decline dramatically as well. With five million fewer retail and restaurant workers, a million fewer construction and a million fewer manufacturing workers, and a six million reduction in the numbers of workers available for work in all other industries, wages will rise significantly. Furthermore, the number of positions seeking workers will increase too, because in order to accommodate five million additional students, the number of jobs on colleges will have to increase by three and a half million. And if millions of old workers will be able to retire, the services that cater to them will also have to increase. The current crisis inflicts great harm on middle class and low-wage workers. But what we don't want is to return to the world as it was before the crisis. That world deprived millions of children of childhood and the chance for a good education; it prevented millions of youth from being able to attend college; and it deprived millions of old people from being able to retire. It also made all of us dependent on Wall Street. Instead, let's make sure that families have enough money to support their children, that high school grads can afford to go to college, and that older workers who want to retire can. Moshe Adler teaches economics in the dept. of urban planning at Columbia and his book, "Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science that Makes Life Dismal," will be published in January 2010 by the New Press. He can be reached at: ma820@columbia.edu
Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter! Obama and Black America Ten months into Obama-time, the plight of black Americans is terrible. Yet overwhelmingly they rally behind the president. In a powerful report from the Deep South Kevin Alexander Gray asks the question: what should the black political agenda be? Mark Rudd counterposes “organizing” with “activism” and describes what it will take to build a movement. H. Bruce Franklin gives a chronology of the march into Afghanistan. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents.Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Yellowstone Drift:
"Powerful and shocking ..
Waiting for
Lightning
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