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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter! Drug Companies and Psychiatrists
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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter!
Drug Companies and Psychiatrists
Partners in CrimeEugenia Tsao reports on the upcoming revision of one of the most important books in America, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Here’s where the drug lords, the shrinks and the insurance companies collude in establishing hundreds of bogus psychic conditions requiring the psychotropic drugs from which they reap billions every year. There are about 250,000 migrant laborers in Israel, mostly from the Philippines and Thailand. Meanwhile tens of thousands of Palestinians can’t find work. From Tel Aviv, Yonatan Preminger reports on Israel’s vicious employment strategy. Also in this latest newsletter Andrew Cockburn updates his CounterPunch world exclusive on how the U.S. has secretly helped build Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. 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.
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Today's Stories July 10-12, 2009 Alexander Cockburn José Pertierra John Ross Conn Hallinan Nikolas Kozloff Clifton Ross / Carl Ginsburg Michael Neumann Gilad Atzmon Ellen Hodgson Brown Jim Goodman Christopher Bickerton Wendell Potter Raymond Lawrence Walid El Houri Stephanie Westbrook July 9, 2009 Ronnie Cummings Jonathan Cook Nikolas Kozloff James Bovard Norman Solomon Afghanistan: the Escalation Scam Allan Nairn Andy Worthington Tomas Borge Nadia Hijab Paul Krassner Website of the Day July 8, 2009 Saul Landau Dean Baker Winslow T. Wheeler Eric Walberg Ray McGovern David Rosen Dr. Mona El Farra Ron Jacobs Benjamin Dangl Alan Farago Website of the Day July 7, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Uri Avnery Brian M. Downing Gary Leupp Gregory A. Burris David Macaray Laura Flanders Alan Farago Greg Moses Dan Bacher Website of the Day July 6, 2009 Patrick Cockburn Diana Johnstone Nikolas Kozloff Gary Leupp Jonathan Cook Tim Wise Franklin Lamb Charles R. Larson Carlos Benemann Shepherd Bliss Jerry Kroth Karyn Strickler Website of the Day July 3-5, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Eamonn Fingleton Jeffrey St. Clair Mike Whitney Pam Martens George Ciccariello-Maher Paul Craig Roberts Patrick Cockburn Anthony DiMaggio Roger Burbach John Ross Nikolas Kozloff Gareth Porter Andy Worthington Saul Landau David Macaray Adam Federman Jane Slaughter Labor's Vague Rally for Health Care Russell Mokhiber Black Caucus Muzzled on Israeli Kidnapping of McKinney Robert Jensen Robert Bryce Belén Fernandez Missy Comley Beattie C. G. Estabrook Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson Lorenzo Wolff Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend July 2, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Nikolas Kozloff Wendell Potter Ellen Hodgson Brown Christian Christensen Iran: Networked Dissent? Patrick Irelan Binoy Kampmark Returning Iraq Nicola Nasser Brian Tokar Dan Bacher Website of the Day July 1, 2009 Vijay Prashad Alberto Vallente Thorensen Paul Craig Roberts Robert Weissman Manuel García, Jr. Victor Figueroa-Clark / Pablo Navarrete Norman Solomon Franklin Lamb Martha Rosenberg Diane Rejman Website of the Day June 30, 2009 Michael Hudson Esam Al-Amin Benjamin Dangl Jonathan Cook Franklin Lamb George Wuerthner Todd Gordon Ron Jacobs Kenneth Libby Julian Vigo Website of the Day
June 29, 2009 Ishmael Reed Nikolas Kozloff Clifton Ross Patrick Cockburn Uri Avnery Conn Hallinan James G. Abourezk Ralph Nader Carol Miller Greg Moses Website of the Day June 26-28, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Doug Peacock Daniel Wolff Mike Whitney John Ross David Rosen Emily Ratner Gareth Porter Farid Marjai Nadia Hijab Paul Craig Roberts Fred Gardner Carl Ginsburg Paul Watson David Ker Thomson Farzana Versey Geoff Berne Todd Alan Price Ramzy Baroud Jeff Sher Dr. Carol Paris Despite My Arrest by Max Baucus, I Will Continue to Advocate for Quality Health Care for All Walter Brasch Adultery as Family Value? Glen Johnson Charlotte Laws Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 25, 2009 Kathy Kelly Jack Bratich Wendell Potter Charles R. Larson Alan Farago Jonathan Cook Gareth Porter Bitta Mostofi / David Macaray Mark Schuller Website of the Day June 24, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Dean Baker Andy Worthington James Bovard Diana Gibson / P. Sainath Gareth Porter Robert Alvarez Dave Lindorff Steven Colatrella Remembering Giovanni Arrighi Website of the Day
June 23, 2009 David Price Patrick Cockburn James Ridgeway / Dave Lindorff Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero Gary Leupp Brian M. Downing Robert Bryce Nicholas Dearden Yousef Munayyer Website of the Day June 22, 2009 Michael Hudson Esam Al-Amin Chris Floyd Jack Z. Bratich Atash Yaghmaian Laura Carlsen Paul Craig Roberts Vijay Prashad Fred Gardner Andy Thayer David Macaray Website of the Day
June 19 - 21, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Al Giordano Henry A. Giroux Anthony DiMaggio Paul Craig Roberts John Ross Gareth Porter Carl Ginsburg Tommi Avicolli Mecca Joe Bageant Serge Halimi P. Sainath Jim Goodman Dave Lindorff Rannie Amiri Robert Fantina Harvey Wasserman Walter Brasch David Ker Thomson Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Ben Sonnenberg Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
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Weekend Edition How the Poor Manage Their MoneyDiaries of the DistressedBy CHARLES R. LARSON Good news. Great news. Many of the world’s poor employ sophisticated ways of managing their money, or—as the authors of this important study state—“…living on under two dollars a day requires unrelenting vigilance in cash management—strategies to cope with the irregularities of income…. Being poor does not disqualify you from being inventive in your finances.” In 2005, 2.5 billion people around the world lived on $2.00 or less a day; of that number, 1.1 billion on $1.00 or less. Many of these people have learned to practice the tradition of musti chaul: “of keeping back one fistful of dry rice each time a meal was cooked, to hold against lean times, to have ready when a beggar called, or to donate to the mosque or temple when called to do so.” As with rice, money is held back, reserved for similar emergencies. In Portfolios of the Poor, Daryl Collins and his colleagues studied nearly 250 households, had them keep elaborate financial diaries of their lives in slums and villages in South Africa, India, and Bangladesh for a period of twelve months. Every penny was tracked. Rarely was everything that was earned spent but, rather, something was retained for emergencies (sickness, death) or the anticipated higher expenses (weddings, school fees, etc). No one in the study lived hand to mouth, though from household to household living conditions varied significantly—often depending on the number of children and the number of workers within the family. The interpolated case studies are revealing, certain to question some of our stereotypes of the poor. In Africa, where funerals can be particularly expensive (and where mortality rates have increased substantially during the past two decades because of AIDS), actual costs are often staggering. “One broad study of funerals in South Africa showed that, for households with incomes in the range of $155-$300 a month, funerals typically cost in the order of $1500. The South African financial diaries suggest that households need to spend about seven months’ income on a single funeral. Such costs cannot be met out of cash flow, and if they are to be met at all a financial instrument, or combination of financial instruments, must be brought into play.” Informal financial groups (friends, relatives, savings clubs, for example) were often combined with insurance policies (sometimes more than one) set up expressly for funeral expenses. “Large sums are cobbled together from smaller ones: loans are taken, gifts received, savings depleted,” yet this piecemeal approach typically worked for the households studied in South Africa. Procedures were different in Bangladesh and in India, where microfinance organizations were available, at least at the time of the study, though these financial organizations were often supplemented by informal ones. In short, multiple strategies appear to be the norm. Interest rates are often quite high by Western standards but Collins and his colleagues demonstrate that often the high interest rates act as an incentive to pay loans off quickly. One fascinating example from India describes a savings plan set up by a woman of the slums named Jyothi who collected “small deposits from her customers, most of them housewives. She gave them a crude passbook, just a card divided into 220 cells made up of 20 columns and 11 rows, so that savers could keep track of their progress. When all 220 cells were ticked off, Jyothi returned the savings to the value of 200 of the 220 cells, holding back the remaining 20 cells’ worth of her fee for the service. Thus someone depositing a total of $44 with her, at 20 cents a day, would get back $40.” Call this negative interest rates, if you want. “Put this fact to the savers and they will tell you to forget your fancy calculations: the fact is that they needed their $40 to ensure that they could pay school fees to keep their children in class for another year. With husbands earning irregularly, the only sure way to build up this sum was to take pennies from the housekeeping each day and hand it over to Jyothi. It costs them only $4 to form the $40, and Jyothi did all the work. Taken within this context, this is a reasonable price to pay to build badly needed saving.” Significant space is devoted to recording the details of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh’s success with microfinance, awarded (along with its founder Muhammad Yunus) the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Currently this bank and others in Bangladesh service twenty million customers. The authors of the study praise the evolution of Grameen’s policies, describing them as “organized finance for the poor,” still evolving at a rapid pace. As a layman, not an economist, I found Portfolios of the Poor fascinating. It certainly exposed some of my own stereotypes of the world’s poor, but I do have two reservations. First, two of the countries under study (India and Bangladesh) share a number of historical and geographical similarities. I wonder if another Asian country, say Cambodia, might have revealed something else. And, as far as African goes, South Africa is in many ways atypical of most countries south of the Sahara. If Zambia or even Nigeria had been used instead of South Africa, would the conclusions about money management have been the same? Thus, in part I wonder if other countries had been chosen would the “encouraging” conclusions have been the same. Second, what about those at the very bottom who certainly live from hand-to-month? The day I finished reading Portfolios of the Poor, I read a lengthy article in The Washington Post (“Pakistan’s Kiln Workers Bricked in by Debt,” by Pamela Constable, 3 July 2009), which certainly presents a more horrific picture of people at the bottom. From what I’ve observed in my travels, too many people are stuck at the very bottom. Still, it’s difficult not to be impressed by Collins, Morduch, Rutherford, and Ruthven and their important work. Charles R. Larson is Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C.
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Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Yellowstone Drift:
Spell Albuquerque:
Waiting for
Lightning
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