News digest / Catching up on news (08.24.2014)

Here's a news roundup from the past few weeks. Sorry I haven't had time to re-post these with the thoughtful and incisive commentary that you've come to expect from me:

"How Isis came to be," By Ali Khadery, August 22, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/4xx9z  -- FASCINATING, ESP. CONSIDERING THE U.S. HAS ARMED ISIS TWICE ALREADY

"Obama's legacy could be a revitalized NATO," By Anne Applebaum, August 22, 2014, Washington Post. URL:http://wapo.st/1p27Z8v -- A SCARIER RUSSIA DEMANDS A STRONGER NATO

"New Study Debunks Big Corporations' Tax Inversion Arguments," By Ben Hallman, August 19, 2014, Huffington Post. URL:http://huff.to/1vdX4Ow  -- THE FACTS DON'T SUPPORT INVERSION

"Left out in the cold by the ice bucket fad," By Michael Hiltzik, August 21, 2014, Los Angeles Times. URL:http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/08/21/237217/michael-hiltzik-left-out-in-the.html --  DONATE MONEY; CONSERVE WATER

"US still has time to stake out a position of strength in Ukraine," By John Bolton, August 21, 2014, Los Angeles Times. URL:  http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/08/21/237223/us-still-has-time-to-stake-out.html#storylink=cpy -- USUALLY I DISAGREE WITH 'YOSEMITE SAM' BOLTON, BUT HE'S BASICALLY CORRECT

"Shoddy US roads, bridges take a toll on the economy," By Don Lee, August 17, 2014, Los Angeles Times. URL:http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/08/17/236762/shoddy-us-roads-bridges-take-a.html  -- WHY LIBERALS AND DEMOCRATS CAN'T RUN AND WIN ON THIS SIMPLE FACT IS BEYOND MY UNDERSTANDING

"Among world leaders, the trend for acting like Vladimir Putin is catching on," By Adam Taylor, August 14, 2014, Washington Post. URL: http://wapo.st/1mKGRLp  -- JUST TAKE YOUR SHIRT OFF IF YOU WANT TO BE LIKE PUTIN!

"The GOP’s war on voters continues in Virginia," By Editorial Board, August 14, 2014, Washington Post. URL:http://wapo.st/1sHGEjf -- PESKY VOTERS! WISH THEY'D JUST STAY AT HOME!

"The case for free tampons," By Jessica Valenti, August 14, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/4vjeg -- IT GENERATED A LOT OF BUZZ ON THE INTERNETS

"City-Run Gas Station Makes Waves In Southeastern Kentucky," By Emil Moffatt, August 13, 2014, NPR. URL:http://www.npr.org/2014/08/13/340085122/city-run-gas-station-makes-waves-in-southeastern-kentucky?sc=17&f=1001&utm_source=iosnewsapp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=app  -- IN A TRULY FREE MARKET GOVERNMENT GETS A CHANCE TO COMPETE WITH PRIVATE GOODS AND SERVICES!

"Economic inequality, not just wages at the bottom, needs to be addressed," By Harold Meyerson, August 13, 2014, Washington Post. URL: http://wapo.st/1kCqWmT  -- AMEN BROTHER

"WATCH this to understand the level of Russia’s sickness," August 9, 2014, YouTube. URL: http://youtu.be/EwwBFJkwZ_Q --EVER WONDERED WHAT FASCIST STATE THEATER LOOKS LIKE?  HERE YOU GO

"Teenagers in US prisons: it's time for the savagery and neglect to finally end," By Sadhbh Walshe, August 7, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/4vh3h -- OUR COLLECTIVE SHAME

Meyerson: Why the EU's far-right is rising

Not that many Americans care about the recent elections to the EU parliament, but...

... Anyway, here's a message for my pro-Russian friends who are concerned about "Sudden Fascist Syndrome" in Ukraine:

Europe’s new far right is, at one and the same time, the continent’s analogue to our own tea party and the leading cheerleader for Russian President Vladimir Putin. With the divisions of the Cold War now safely confined to museums, a new transnational right is emerging, defined by a belief in a national volk and its traditions and a disdain for, if not loathing of, any neighbors — Muslims, Jews, social democrats — who either aren’t part of that volk or don’t believe in the politics of intolerance. Hence the spectacle of Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain’s U.K. Independence Party, and our own Pat Buchanan, expressing their admiration for Putin’s war on the moral flabbiness that comes with elevating democracy over traditional values — rotten though those values may be.

Looking deeper at the EU's existential crisis, Meyerson blames, first and foremost, as many others such as Paul Krugman have, the unworkable nature of the EU constitution's deficit spending and currency rules.  Essentially, the EU is too much like the Confederate States of America and not enough like the United States of America.

The EU must evolve to be more like the U.S. -- a fiscal and foreign policy union as well as a currency and trade union -- or else lose its weakest members... or worse, as many Europeans fear, collapse into the dustbin of history, just like the American Confederacy.

What fueled the rise of the Euro-right

By Harold Meyerson

May 29, 2014 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/1wv5nrc

Meyerson: The myth of shareholder capitalism

I can testify that business schools teach Shareholder Value Maximization not as theory, not as an option, but as the only "responsible" method of corporate governance.  

However, as Meyerson correctly notes, corporations' making all their decisions based on SVM is an ideological choice, not a legal or even moral obligation.  

Nor is there proof that SVM is even in the best long-term interests of the corporation, or the shareholders. Indeed, great American companies like Coca-Cola, General Electric, Procter & Gamble and Ford Motor Co. operated profitably for decades before SVM came into vogue in the 1980s.

The myth of maximizing shareholder value

By Harold Meyerson

February 12, 2014 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/1feDkk3

It's about total compensation

Today it's a three-fer, since each story is about the same thing: the consequences of low U.S. wages and the absence of benefits.

First, my man Harold Meyerson notes that low wages paid by big retailers and fast-food joints are now hurting big retailers and fast-food joints, because low-paid workers don't have money to buy stuff.  (Duh).  Furthermore, Meyerson makes the interesting observation that we've gone back to the pre-WWII era, before big retailers like Federated and Macy's actively backed New Deal-era reforms like the minimum wage, unemployment insurance, 5-day workweek, unions, and co-op banks. Back then, businessmen understood that a healthy middle class was in their own best interest. 

It seems we've forgotten, once again, what actually makes America go. (I blame this all on the historically amnesiac Tea Parties, who don't care about anything that happened in America between 1789 and 1980.)

Next, Heidi Moore reminds us that our recent focus on the minimum wage, while correct, actually obscures the key issue: total compensation.  Wages could theoretically stay flat, but if more employers were to offer health insurance, paid sick leave, vacation and a retirement plan, then wages wouldn't need to be as high.    

Moore also observes that low total compensation, historically speaking, has put a record-high strain on government poverty programs such as food stamps. So, with corporate profits at an all-time high and compensation at an all-time low, welfare becomes a subsidy for Big Business.  (Wal-Mart has long been the national poster child for forcing its employees to go on welfare).

Finally, Sarah Kendzior points out that the feminist debate over whether women should work or stay at home is all rather quaint, considering that women, just like everybody else, make such decisions based on hard economic realities. Paradoxically, due to the high cost of child care, it is often cheaper for a woman to stay at home rather than work; yet staying at home allows her skills to degrade, or at the very least carries a stigma with potential employers when she tries to re-enter the workforce. Educated, qualified women excluded from our workforce reduces our nation's overall productivity. 

So once again, the answer is for Big Government to step in and mandate paternity leave, provide free or subsidized daycare, and make giving birth at a hospital cheaper, so that young families don't start off in debt.  Because the free market has failed to address these failures.

For retailers, low wages aren’t working out

By Harold Meyerson

August 21, 2013 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/181Hg41

How low can you get: the minimum wage scam

By Heidi Moore

August 20, 2013 | Guardian

URL: http://gu.com/p/3t625

Mothers are not 'opting out' - they are out of options

By Sarah Kendzior

August 19, 2013 | Al Jazeera

URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/08/201381615448464851.html