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Eamonn Fingleton gives a stunning account of how the elite press – the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, the New York Times and Washington Post - pilloried US autworkers while systematically concealing the hidden subsidies which have allowed Japan and Korea to destroy Detroit. All this with the connivance of the US government. Also in our latest newsletter: Michelle Obama comes to Merced. Bill Hatch, the Balzac of the Central Valley, gives an uproarious account of Michelle’s state visit to UC’s new campus. 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 gear make great presents.
How the U.S. Press Helped Destroy the Auto IndustryOrder CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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Today's Stories June 5 -7, 200 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Jennifer Loewenstein Franklin Lamb Missy Comley Beattie Farzana Versey Stanley Heller Robert Weissman Dave Lindorff William Blum Ernest Callenbach / June 4, 2009 Arno J. Mayer Mike Whitney Gareth Porter Ayesha Ijaz Khan Mouin Rabbani Jordan Flaherty Adam Turl Nikolas Kozloff Yifat Susskind Website of the Day June 3, 2009 Paul Craig Roberts Kathy Kelly Alan Farago Franklin Lamb Bill Hatch Nadia Hijab Dean Baker Binoy Kampmark Manuel Garcia, Jr. Remi Kanazi Behzad Yaghmaian Website of the Day June 2, 2009 Uri Avnery Robert Weissman Conn Hallinan Gideon Spiro Roger Burbach Dylan Quigley Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Belén Fernández Martha Rosenberg Willie L. Pelote, Sr. Website of the Day June 1, 2009 Pam Martens Yitzhak Laor Mark Weisbrot Ramzy Baroud Saul Landau Eugenia Tsao Afshin Rattansi Debra Sweet Abdul Malik Mujahid Bill Quigley John Wright Website of the Day May 29-31, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Vijay Prashad Gary Leupp Ray McGovern Rannie Amiri Bill Hatch Chellis Glendinning, Stephanie Mills and Kirkpatrick Sale Phyllis Pollack David Yearsley Jean-Christophe Servant Dave Lindorff James McEnteer Missy Beattie James C. Faris David Macaray Harvey Wasserman Adam Federman David Ker Thomson Mark Seth Lender Stephen Martin Joseph Nevins Sophia Mihic Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 28, 2009 Joan Roelofs Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Mouin Rabbani Joe Bageant James McEnteer Dedrick Muhammad Richard Morse David Macaray Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day May 27, 2009 Joanne Mariner Paul Craig Roberts Walden Bello Dave Lindorff Brian M. Downing Carlos Villarreal Nadia Hijab Adam Federman Laray Polk Isabella Kenfield David Michael Green Website of the Day May 26, 2009 Manuel Garcia, Jr. Mike Whitney Sharon Smith Marjorie Cohn Dean Baker Deepankar Basu Fred Gardner Jordan Flaherty Josh Ruebner Brian Cloughley Website of the Day May 25, 2009 Diane Christian John Ross Kenneth Hartman Uri Avnery Fred Gardner Cindy Sheehan Sen. Russell Feingold Sibel Edmonds Franklin Lamb Dave Lindorff Daniel Wolff Website of the Day May 22-24, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Michael Teitelman Mike Whitney Ray McGovern Sonia Cardenas / Clive Hamilton Conn Hallinan Fred Gardner Carlo Cristofori Dean Baker Rannie Amiri Andy Worthington David Macaray Nadia Hijab Franklin Lamb Ted Newcomen David Ker Thomson David Rosen Mark Weisbrot Robert Fantina Heather Gray Farzana Versey Chris Genovali Ron Jacobs Jay Diamond Dr. Susan Block Ben Sonnenberg David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 21, 2009 Jeffrey St. Clair / Paul Craig Roberts Chris Floyd Gerald Paoli Zach Mason Uri Avnery Andy Worthington Niranjan Ramakrishnan Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff Website of the Day May 20, 2009 Michael Hudson Gary Leupp Michael D. Yates Jonathan Cook Peter Lee Binoy Kampmark Peter Zinn William Loren Katz Gary Lapon Trudy Bond Website of the Day May 19, 2009 Kristoffer Rehder Mike Whitney Ray McGovern Vijay Prashad Mirjam Hadar Meerschwam Mustafa Barghouthi Andy Worthington Binoy Kampmark John Walsh David Macaray Website of the Day May 18, 2009 Dave Lindorff Abdul Malik Mujahid Jonathan Cook Ben Rosenfeld Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Stephen Soldz Eugenia Tsao Walter Brasch Roberto Rodriguez Charlotte Laws Website of the Day May 15-17, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair David Rosen Mike Whitney Bruce Page Jeremy Scahill Fred Gardner Tom Barry Mats Svensson Ramzy Baroud Mark Engler Mark Weisbrot Farzana Versey Ron Jacobs Hannah Wolfe Cal Winslow David Macaray Christopher Brauchli Mark Seth Lender Robert Fantina David Ker Thomson Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson Chase Madar Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 14, 2009 Michael Hudson Andy Worthington Paul Craig Roberts Jonathan Cook Ray McGovern Lance Selfa David Green Dave Lindorff Frida Berrigan Sue Udry Website of the Day May 13, 2009 Brian M. Downing Gareth Porter Robert Sandels Ricardo Alarcón Eric Walberg Dave Lindorff Deepak Tripathi William S. Lind Kevin Zeese Franklin Lamb Website of the Day May 12, 2009 Gary Leupp Richard Neville Wajahat Ali Dean Baker Franklin Lamb Norman Solomon Paul Craig Roberts Lisa M. Hamilton Bob Fitrakis / David Macaray Website of the Day May 11, 2009 Andrea Peacock Michael Hudson Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader John Kelly Saul Landau Dave Lindorff David Michael Green Anthony Papa Paul Krassner Website of the Day
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Weekend Edition "Onward, Thru the Fog!"By George! Austin Leads the National RecoveryBy GREG MOSES It's a wistful headline, I admit. But it covers a considerable hope. The Austin-Round Rock metropolitan area was nearly alone among USA cities for its ability to report year-over-year job growth in April, 2009 (up by 3,400 jobs). And it was the only major metro area (out of 38) to report an increase in the employment rate (+0.4 percent). To believe that this slim green shoot is the first sign of economic Springtime in America requires a bit of the Oat Willie determination to go "Onward thru the Fog." Which, actually, is what I intend to do. But first a note: more notice should have been given to Odessa-Midland which, unlike Austin-Round Rock, gets split into two separate metro areas. Odessa employment was up by 1,800 over the year, while Midland was up by 1,500. Why these sister cities don't get hyphenated into a single metro is curious. Still, these Texas numbers look like boutique novelties in a warehouse of national economic crisis. The volumes are crushingly large. Los Angeles has lost 240,000 jobs, the New York metro area is down by 234,000. Chicago down 190,400, Detroit down 143,400, Phoenix and Atlanta down by 129,700 and 123,600. How all these jobs will get re-started is not easy to see. Where are the new paradigms of labor to come from? Stock watchers are reading reports about large dollar supplies stored up by investment managers and standing ready to flow back into a wary market of stocks and bonds as soon as things get more steady. But the dynamic reminds me of Truman's exhortations on fear. Don't things continue to fall harder the longer the investment managers wait? In some circles one hears a constant drumbeat for buying gold, which may be a way to own something that won't crash in value this year. But what use is gold, really? In the great classic of American political economy, Progress and Poverty, Henry George defines capital as that part of wealth which is put back into productive use. He encourages a view of capital as something which enables labor to be more productive and he therefore discourages taxation on capital. Taking a Georgist view, I would think that gold is wealth that serves very little productive purpose. To the extent that gold is a way of holding some savings for retirement or rainy days, I don't see how it should be valued much differently than any other form of savings. But to the extent that gold is hoarded up as a pile of fear, doesn't it become its own effect, pulling wealth out of productive equity investments, drying up more jobs, etc.? From my armchair view of internet chatter, it seems to me a wise thing for policy makers to devalue the dollar in the near-term as a means of coaxing cash into markets. But if devalued dollars simply get transmuted into gold shares, then the alchemy gets dark. A Georgist approach to systemic reform begins with tax policy. Capital and labor should be taxed last. Then property values should be clearly divided between improvements and the land they rest upon. Let the improvements also move to the back of the tax line. This leaves land value at the head of the line for taxation. George's reasons for land tax could be summed up in a Kudlow motto: "tax it and you get less of it." But with land, there is no danger of taxation reducing the supply, there is only the promise of land monopolists unloading every acre that they are not already putting to productive purpose. Thus, under the Georgist model, the land tax -- as the only tax -- could never result in an absolute decrease in land supply. The land tax would only tend to decrease the amount of land that is held, like piles of gold, for unproductive use. As for gold and other means of piling up unproductive wealth, I can't see right away why a tax on such things wouldn't hasten the development of a more productive economy for all. George says that supply and demand are misleading terms to use when trying to understand the causes of the unemployment cycle. Workers are not quitting their jobs because they have earned all they need. They are not refusing to produce or to consume. We never have all we want, and the example of Austin in April proves that we are ever willing to earn the next leg up. So why do so many workers find themselves at massive rates closed out of productive opportunity? The problem lies at the door of unproductive wealth, because there is still plenty of it. Yet for some reason unproductive wealth is encouraged and allowed to pile up, even sometimes as an excuse for "real value." If we taxed land, unproductive wealth, and gold supplies, I wonder, wouldn't we quickly motivate and incentivize tons of wealth into capital that would eagerly call for full employment now? Greg Moses is editor of TexasWorker.org. He can be reached at gmosesx@gmail.com.
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