Saturday, January 7, 2012 Working Together
This is an historic opportunity for the labour and co-op movements. They have a unique opportunity to remind people of the tools they have to create change, as well as an obligation to play a leading role in offering new strategies for economic justice. For unions, this agreement is an opportunity to explore the potential of co-operative ownership instead of the usual adversarial relationship with capital. For the co-op movement, it is an opening for greater solidarity with working people everywhere -- not just in their own co-ops. It is also a reminder of one of MondragĂłn's core principles for success: investment in community development, job creation and expanded co-operative ownership.
Sunday, September 18, 2011 What's the Problem With Unearned Income? by William Spademan (3 comments)
For William Spademan, "making a fortune and living off the interest is central to the American Dream. We aspire to luxury and leisure." Keith Olbermann lends credence to this argument with his April broadcasts regarding "Lotto Nation".
Spademan says that "economic justice boils down to one question: Am I producing more goods and services than I am consuming?"
If extortion and freeloading are unfair, then how are we to view what the IRS calls "unearned income" -- that is, investment income: rent, interest, dividends, capital gains, and other passive profits? Return on investment is an exponential function in a finite environment, siphoning credit from the poor to the rich.
Many environmentalists and economists insist Americans need to 'get a new dream'. Spademan's proposed alternative is what he calls "Common Good Finance", and it's worthy of serious consideration.
Friday, April 22, 2011 Lotto Nation: by Keith Olbermann (1 comments)
How are the Republicans getting the principal victims of Republicanism to dig their own political graves? The answer is startlingly simple. Those who are unwittingly collaborating with the radical right, those who should want the government to spend every dollar on the people who need it (like themselves), those who are interested in protecting the rich are convinced -- utterly, profoundly, life-alteringly convinced -- that they themselves are going to BE rich. It's 'Lotto Nation', the myth of 'upward mobility', 'The American Dream'. The mice have been convinced, or have convinced themselves, that they will someday become -- cats.
Thursday, April 21, 2011 The Mondragon Experiment: by Greg MacLeod
A corporation is considered by the law to exist as a legal person. The corporate person receives great benefits from society -- and, in return, it must exercise great responsibilities. One of the most basic responsibilities is job creation, a fundamental need in any society.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 Remedies for the Perversion of Business Corporations: by Greg MacLeod
Scientific and technological discoveries do not start from zero; they presuppose a vast accumulation of pre-existing science. The body of science and knowledge that we possess today is the result of generations of investments by a host of governments and public bodies. In many countries universities are a major source of invention and new knowledge. Since governments and society in general support universities it seems unfair that university researchers are allowed to sell their knowledge to the highest bidder as intellectual property. Clearly, it is a distortion when corporations claim absolute ownership of knowledge contents.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010 The Case for Worker Co-ops by Nancy Folbre
Since many of our most prestigious economic institutions have embarrassed themselves at our expense over the past two years, maybe it's time to look around. Worker-owned and -managed businesses combine entrepreneurship with solid family values and commitment to community. With more complex goals than maximizing profit, they are less growth-oriented than other companies. Don't tell Wall Street, but that could be a good thing.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010 Mondragon: Reclaiming Regional Production Capacity by Judith D. Schwartz (3 comments)
Zero unemployment is not merely a byproduct of the Mondragon system. It is their primary objective. Replication of this model in the U.S. requires, not just a transfer of systems, but a transformation of fundamental values. The good news is it only takes four or five like-minded individuals to change the world forever. So which of us brave Americans will step up to the plate and become "The Beatles" of the 21st Century?
Monday, November 29, 2010 Steelworkers-Mondragon Talk by Rob Witherell (1 comments)
This article is submitted with some apprehension. In a genuinely democratic workplace, anonymous, absentee "shareholders" don't exist, so there are no directly opposing interests. This arrangement typically renders "bargaining" and "worker protection" unnecessary in the traditional sense. But perhaps the USW has something else in mind. Nevertheless, this article does seem important regarding the Mondragon-USW collaboration.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010 U.S. Steelworkers to experiment with factory ownership, Mondragon style: by Carl Davidson
The vision behind the agreement is job creation, but with a new twist. Since government efforts were being stifled by the greed of financial speculators and private capital was more interested in cheap labor abroad, unions will take matters into their own hands, find willing partners, and create jobs themselves, but in sustainable businesses owned by the workers.
Monday, January 18, 2010 Steelworkers Form Collaboration with Mondragon, the World's Largest Worker-Owned Cooperative
What we are announcing today represents a historic first â€" combining the world's largest industrial worker cooperative with one of the world's most progressive and forward-thinking manufacturing unions to work together so that our combined know-how and complimentary visions can transform manufacturing practices in North America.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 Who's Afraid of the Independent Press?
Some powerful points here, particularly that the relationship between journalists and political powers should be adversarial, exposing the lies of the latter to the general public. But if the goal of journalism is to challenge and ultimately to eliminate the role of a ruling class along with their lies, then what incentive will remain for anyone to become a journalist? With no battle to fight, what need is there for soldiers?
Saturday, October 10, 2009 'Capitalism' not a love story (4 comments)
Moore never really defines “capitalism” so that you can understand how these abuses are unique to it. I left the movie thinking that the real villains are government officials. By systematically stripping away sensible regulations, our elected representatives have left the capitalist system defenseless against greed, indifference and all the darker forces of human nature.
Friday, September 25, 2009 Corporations Moving In: By Scott Cooper
Distracted by extremes in the health care shoutfest and updates on the Gosselins' break-up, few will notice a move by corporations to cement their control over our politics. Any reforms to our broken health care will be rendered toothless if limits to corporate powers — accountable to none but boards of directors seeking wealth — are lifted while our attentions are elsewhere.
Thursday, August 13, 2009 Single Payer 101
This primer endeavors to articulate the nature and advantages of a single payer system. Importantly, the term "single payer" is different from "socialized medicine" and "universal health care." Single payer does not specify a health care delivery mechanism; it specifies a health care financing mechanism.
Thursday, August 13, 2009 Economics - Profitability: By Gerhard Adam (1 comments)
If we acknowledge that the market cannot solve every problem and address every circumstance, then questioning the free market status of health care is a reasonable position to take. The first thing to establish when examining a company or industry is whether its function is rightly subject to free market considerations and competition. If not, then whatever else it is, conventional supply and demand models do not apply.
Sunday, August 9, 2009 Health Insurance - The Smoke and Mirrors Industry (1 comments)
We might all be better off eliminating the health insurance companies and negotiating directly with doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceuticals to obtain better prices. In fact, a strong argument could be made, that the costs of health-care are artificially high because the health industry knows that their bills will be paid by insurance companies.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 The Economics of Health Care
Most people believe that you cannot buy and sell health care like other goods and services. They believe that health care is different. This is what is sometimes called a "common-sense" approach to the issue. Economists approach the same question rather differently. They analyse the question of health care and markets from a theoretical perspective. The main theory they use is called market failure.
Monday, July 27, 2009 Health Care and the Demand Curve
Government is the only way that health care will ever be accessible to those who need it because there is no downward sloping demand curve. The demand curve charts the quantity of a good or service demanded at any price. It is downward sloping because the higher the price, the lower the quantity demanded will be...UNLESS YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING THAT WILL SAVE MY LIFE.
Saturday, July 25, 2009 "Mad as Hell" tour of doctors demands single payer and "taking back" our democracy (1 comments)
It is happening, folks... a brave group of doctors from Oregon, sick and tired that the political process has been coopted by corporate America, and that our democracy is as good as the money you have to buy it, is getting on the road to express their outrage. The "Mad as Hell" tour will start in Portland, Oregon, make about 14 stops, including Philadelphia, and arrive in DC around September 29.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 Why we must vote on the public health care plan
Insurance companies don't really do anything to make people healthier. They need to be efficient gatekeepers on behalf of their shareholders. They rely on a formula to provide as little health care as possible for each dollar they take in. With taxpayers, consumers and workers paying an enormous amount more than necessary because of this model, it seems odd that we would be so concerned about protecting it.
Monday, July 20, 2009 Single Payer / Medicare for All: An Economic Stimulus Plan for the Nation (3 comments)
This study demonstrates that a comprehensive Medicare based Single Payer system can make a significant contribution to access of quality care for all US residents and in the process generate a much needed and very substantial economic stimulus in the form of jobs, enhanced business and public revenues and increased wages for the population at large.
Monday, July 13, 2009 Wendell Potter and Bill Moyers on Profits Before Patients
Bill Moyers doesn't understand that the interests of insurers are directly opposed to the interests of doctors and patients. But with almost 20 years inside the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter saw for-profit insurers hijack our health care system and put profits before patients. Now, he speaks with Moyers about how those companies are standing in the way of health care reform.
Friday, July 10, 2009 Health Care is Our Right (4 comments)
The United States is the only country in the world which has a health care system based entirely on the free market economy. What are the consequences of health care that places a market value on its services? At the onset of 2004, nearly 50 million Americans are without health insurance, and that number is shooting up right alongside unemployment figures.
Friday, July 10, 2009 Testimony of Wendell Potter: Profits Before Patients (2 comments)
Last month (June 24, 2009), testimony in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation by a former health insurance insider named Wendell Potter made news even before it occurred: CBS NEWS headlined: "Cigna Whistleblower to Testify." After Potter's testimony the industry scrambled to do damage control: "Insurers defend rescissions, take heat for lack of transparency."
Wednesday, July 8, 2009 Bernie Sanders and Nurses Tell Obama: Embrace Single-Payer Health Care
Barack Obama is seeking a victory, a political victory, rather than having an honest policy debate. The Obama administration has been very adept at getting the institutional players who have premier health insurance at the table to talk about what the rest of America gets. The majority, of Americans who have either inadequate healthcare, or no healthcare, are not welcome in the debate.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 Lawmakers Reveal Health Care Investments
Almost 30 key lawmakers helping draft landmark health-care legislation have financial holdings in the industry, totaling nearly $11 million worth of personal investments in a sector that could be dramatically reshaped by this summer's debate. More than 20 members of the House leadership and the House Financial Services Committee also hold investments in companies that received more than $200 billion in federal bailouts.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009 Obama on Single Payer Health Insurance (2 comments)
Barack Obama: "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan. Everybody in, nobody out, a single-payer health care plan. That's what I'd like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately, because first we've got to take back the White House, we've got to take back the Senate, and we've got to take back the House."
Thursday, June 25, 2009 Barack Hoover Obama: The best and the brightest blow it again
Like Herbert Hoover, Barack Obama is attempting to realize a stirring new vision of society without cutting himself free from dogmas of the past -- without accepting inevitable conflict. Just as Hoover internalized the "business progressivism" of his era as an alternative to futile, counterproductive conflicts of an earlier time, Obama internalizes Clinton's "business liberalism" -- and like Hoover, Obama is bound to fail.
Sunday, June 21, 2009 Manufacturing Poor People (1 comments)
Even as the overall population of the world continues to increase, the increase in the number of poor people outstrips that growth. How is this possible? Wake up liberals, Democrats and progressives! Wake up conservatives, Republicans and libertarians! And smell the system of wealth transfer and betrayal. Only the top 10% will survive unless you kill capitalism before it kills you. There is no wrong way to kill capitalism.
Saturday, June 13, 2009 While Workers' Wages Fall Obama Administration Rejects Limits on Bankers' Pay
Workers, retirees, young people and small businessmen will all see their living standards and future prospects devastated, but nothing can be allowed to interfere with the pursuit of personal wealth by the financial aristocracy. The Obama administration is a right-wing capitalist government pursuing a deliberate and sweeping attack on the American working class.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 GM's Turn on Obama's Chopping Block
The alarm bells should be ringing day and night about what's being prepared at General Motors - the ripple effects could produce tidal waves. Obama cannot be "pressured" into doing the right thing. Labor must now, more than ever, take an independent stance in defending their interests. The fate of the labor movement hangs in the balance.
Thursday, May 21, 2009 Flush With Energy
Unlike America, Denmark, which was so badly hammered by the 1973 Arab oil embargo that it banned all Sunday driving for a while, responded to that crisis in such a sustained, focused and systematic way that today it is energy independent. Frankly, when you compare how America has responded to the 1973 oil shock and how Denmark has responded, we look pathetic.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 Sweden's Fix for Banks: Nationalize Them
The Swedes have a simple message to the Americans: Bite the bullet and nationalize.
Sweden placed its banks with troubled assets into a so-called bad bank, where they could be held and then sold over time when market and economic conditions improved. In the meantime, it used taxpayer money to provide enough capital to allow banks to resume normal lending.
In the process, Sweden wiped out existing shareholders.
Sunday, May 10, 2009 The First Hundred Lashes (er, I Mean, Days)
Obama was elected to protect and serve state capitalism, to provide a curtain of legitimacy for the undemocratic supremacy of a savage class system undergirding the privileges of the plutocracy.
So we have no right to be disappointed or surprised (so said Naomi Klein). Obama telegraphed his perfidy perfectly from his very first slick and manipulative line.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 Program Your Own Money
Once we accept the fact that the money and banks we have grown accustomed to using are not the only ways to generate capital, we liberate ourselves and our businesses from a finance industry that has enjoyed a monopoly over our commerce for much too long.
Friday, May 1, 2009 Swine Flu? A Panic Stoked in Order to Posture and Spend (2 comments)
Despite the hysteria, the risk to Britons' health is tiny - but that news won't sell papers or drugs, or justify the WHO's budget. During the BSE scare of 1995-7, grown men with medical degrees predicted doom... This science-based insanity was repeated during the Sars outbreak of 2003. The same lunacy occurred in 2006 with avian flu. Epidemiologists love the word "could" because it can always assure them of a headline.
