Bruce Brugmann

Akerlof and Stiglitz: Let A Hundred Theories Bloom

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George Akerlof, a Nobel laureate in economics, is Professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor at Columbia University and winner of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize, served as Chairman of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. Let A Hundred Theories Bloom is from Project Syndicate’s Unconventional Economic Wisdom series.

Let A Hundred Theories Bloom

By George Akerlof and Joseph Stiglitz

BUDAPEST – The economic and financial crisis has been a telling moment for the economics profession, for it has put many long-standing ideas to the test. If science is defined by its ability to forecast the future, the failure of much of the economics profession to see the crisis coming should be a cause of great concern.

But there is, in fact, a much greater diversity of ideas within the economics profession than is often realized. This year’s Nobel laureates in economics are two scholars whose life work explored alternative approaches. Economics has generated a wealth of ideas, many of which argue that markets are not necessarily either efficient or stable, or that the economy, and our society, is not well described by the standard models of competitive equilibrium used by a majority of economists.

Calvin Trillin: Obama’s China policy

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CHINA POLICY

1.

So why did President Obama

Decline to meet the Dalai Lama?

It’s said that he must curry favor

With Chiina. Yes, it has our waiver

To toss its people in the clink

For how they pray or what they think

And we’ve resolved that we won’t fret

About the way it rules Tibet.

2.

For going along when China’s rotten

It’s hard to think of what we’ve gotten.

Calvin Trillin, The Nation, ll/9/09

Health insurers: eliminate antitrust exemption

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Unlocking Competition: The Need to Eliminate the Antitrust Exemption for Health Insurers

By David Balt , Stephanie Gross

(The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all.)

View the full memo (pdf)

Competition is the lodestar of the marketplace. Where competition thrives, consumers benefit from numerous choices, low prices, superior service, and innovation. But where competition is absent, consumers pay more for less, have fewer choices, and are at the mercy of market participants with unbridled power. Bringing competition to health insurance markets is essential to achieve meaningful health care reform, and as a first step Congress should eliminate the antitrust exemption that prevents effective federal enforcement against health insurers.

It is becoming clear in the health care debate that health insurance markets are broken. A tsunami of health insurance mergers has led to high levels of concentration in practically every market to the point where there are only one or two dominant insurers in many states. New companies face substantial entry barriers, and so these local monopolies go unchallenged.

Jon Stewart: From here to net neutrality

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Josh Silver and the good people at the Free Press media reform group sent me a snapshot from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show (l0/26/09) that skewered the politicians who fought net neutrality for the big media conglomerates.
A masterful job and worth a dozen mainstream editorials, which of course were not and will not be written on the subject. B3

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
From Here to Neutrality
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Meister: A Halloween invasion from Mars!

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CBS radio on Halloween on Oct. 30, l938: “2X2L calling CQ, NewYork…Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t there anyone?”

By Dick Meister

“2X2L calling CQ … 2X2L calling CQ, New York …. Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t there anyone?

Millions of Americans – panic-stricken, many of them – waited anxiously for a response to the message, delivered over the CBS radio network in slow flat, mournful tones on a crisp Halloween eve. It was Oct. 30, 1938.

“Isn’t … there … anyone?”

There wasn’t. Listeners heard only the slapping sounds of the Hudson River.

Many of New York’s residents were dead. The others had fled in panic from “five great machines,” as tall as the tallest of the city’s skyscrapers, that the radio announcer had described in the last words he would ever utter. The metallic monsters had crossed the Hudson “like a man wading a brook,” destroying all who stood in their way.

Editorial: Gavin Newsom, lawbreaker

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Gavin Newsom, candidate for governor of California, doesn’t want to seem soft on crime, so Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, is siding with the federal authorities on deporting immigrant youth

EDITORIAL Mayor Gavin Newsom has set off something of a crisis in San Francisco government by insisting that he will defy the city law that seeks to protect immigrant youth from deportation. While Newsom claims that the sanctuary policy approved 8-2 by the supervisors last week violates federal law (something the same-sex marriage advocate hasn’t worried so much about in the past), this is really a matter of politics. Newsom, candidate for governor of California, doesn’t want to seem soft on crime — so Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, is siding with the federal immigration authorities.

He’s also putting out a misleading message about the law.

Center for American Progress

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Center for American Progress

Statement on Obama’s Upcoming Decision on Afghanistan and Press Call Advisory

CAP Experts Brian Katulis, Lawrence Korb, and Caroline Wadhams are available for comment on this statement over the weekend, and will be hosting a press conference call on Monday, November 30th, at 12:30 p.m. More information on the call below.

The Obama administration will soon release its much anticipated strategy on Afghanistan. Congress must subject this plan to comprehensive oversight and scrutiny in order to ensure the United States has a clear and comprehensive plan for advancing stability in Afghanistan and the broader region. Before it approves any additional funding for the war, Congress should require the Obama administration to outline a clear set of objectives with accompanying metrics and an implementation strategy that does the following:

* Establishes a flexible timeframe for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
* Ensures that the mission is shared with our international allies.
* Presses Pakistan to battle extremists within its borders.
* Requires good governance and internal reforms in Afghanistan.
* Plans for how the war will be funded.

Calvin Trillin: 3 explanations for Nobel prize

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THREE POSSIBLE

EXPLANATIONS FROM

THE NOBEL COMMITTEE

Don’t be surprised. Don’t gasp. Don’t faint.

We’ve simply said, “George Bush he ain’t.”

The prize diplomacy can reap’ll

Prevent this guy from bombing people.

Since Henry Kissinger has won,

You know that this is all in fun.

Calvin Trillin, Deadline Poet, The Nation, Nov. 2, 2009

U.S. in Afghanistan: Good help is hard to find

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Now the Obama administration and congressional leaders — with Sen. John Kerry playing a starring role in recent days — are making a determined effort to legitimize the Afghan government as a prelude to further U.S. escalation of the war.

By Norman Solomon

(Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, is the author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”)

Almost eight years after choosing Hamid Karzai to head the Afghan government, Uncle Sam would like to give him a pink slip. But it’s not easy. And the grim fiasco of Afghanistan’s last election is shadowing the next.

Another display of electioneering and voting has been ordered up from Washington. But after a chemical mix has blown a hole through the roof — with all the elements for massive fraud still in place — what’s the point of throwing together the same ingredients?

This time, the spinners in Washington hope to be better prepared.

Brownell: Stress in Congress over the color blue

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What happens when members of Congress get post traumatic stress syndrome and see blue, blue, blue

By Jess Brownell

(Jess Brownell is our Voice of the Heartland, a freelance writer who lives in Milwaukee.)

I know this was a while ago now in Andy Warhol Time, but good old Joe Wilson keeps popping into my mind. For me, the most interesting aspect of his “You lie” shout during the Obama speech to congress was its timing. To be fair, there are moments in any presidential speech when a shout of “You exaggerate,” or “You embellish,” or maybe even “You prevaricate” would be understandable, if out of order. But in this instance, Rep. Wilson chose a moment when the President was obviously telling the truth. Obama has advocated no health plan that would cover illegal immigrants, and the legislator from South Carolina must have known that.

Fair: Limbaugh’s long record of racist remarks

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fair.gif

Limbaugh defenders ignore his record of racist and race-bating remarks over a long period of time
10/16/09

In the wake of Rush Limbaugh being booted from a group of investors bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams football team, a minor media tempest has been stirred by conservative commentators who charge that Limbaugh has been falsely accused of making racist remarks.

Central to their charge are two quotes allegedly made by Limbaugh–in which the radio host supposedly praised slavery and Martin Luther King assassin James Earl Ray–that cannot be documented and may be bogus. Many of the commentators claim that the case against Limbaugh is based on little more than the two dubious quotes.

Meister: Shake now, buy later

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By Dick Meister

Attention fans of free enterprise: After the earthquake on Oct. l7, 1989, almost everyone with something to sell quickly began peddling earthquake specials

(Dick Meister is a longtime San Francisco journalist.)

Fans of free enterprise undoubtedly were pleased that the earthquake which caused such great damage in the Bay Area on Oct. 17, 1989, didn’t so much as dent the spirit of local entrepreneurs. They lost none of their eagerness to exploit any and all situations to their advantage – natural disasters unquestionably included.

Bankers and lawyers and utility companies, insurers, furniture and appliance stores, contractors and condo salesmen, jewelers and art dealers, office supply firms, clothiers, supermarkets, fast food outlets, hotels and restaurants, T-shirt vendors …

Meister: Radio noise that mattered post-quake

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After the earthquake of Oct. l7, 1989, commercial radio stations performed an invaluable public service and justified, if only briefly, the bright hopes when radio broadcasting was introduced 75 years ago

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister is a longtime San Francisco journalist)

To me, and doubtless to many others, commercial radio is nothing more than highly unwelcome noise. Turn the dial, and what do you usually get? Advertising. Lots and lots of advertising. Inane music and talk shows. News headlines conveyed with great speed and false excitement in hopes you will stay alert for yet another commercial.

It is radio designed primarily to deliver listeners to advertisers. But it can serve nobler ends. I know, as do millions of others in Northern California. We found out within minutes after the earth began the 15 seconds of terrible shaking that brought such great devastation to the region on Oct. 17, 1989.

Potrero Hill comes alive

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Potrero HIll is the gem of San Francisco neighborhoods, either cut or uncut depending on your point of view.
Here is the proof: a nifty jazz breakfast at the Potrero Hill neighborhood house (Saturday morning, Oct. 17) followed by the Potrero Neighborhood Street Fair on 20th between Missouri and Wisconsin sts.

PotreroHillFestival.jpg

Why do they hate America and love Brazil?

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What we have here with Rush Limbaugh and staffers at the Weekly Standard is a coup de foudre, a thunderbolt of love that strikes without warning and cannot be denied.

By Jess Brownell

(Jess Brownell is our Voice of the Heartland, observing the political scene as a freelance writer from Milwaukee.)

According to news reports, staffers at the conservative Weekly Standard cheered when they learned that Rio de Janeiro rather than Chicago had been selected to host the 2016 Olympics. Rush Limbaugh pronounced himself “gleeful,” I’m told. Others in that camp were equally pleased at the result.

Why do these people hate America?

Understand that I ask the question in a plaintive tone. In the past they were the people who could always be depended upon to love America unconditionally, without reservations, with all their hearts and souls, forever and ever, amen. When others ventured to criticize some little American venture – Viet Nam, Iraq – they were the ones who told us to love our country or leave it. They carried around flags to wrap themselves in whenever they thought the occasion called for it and a camera was in the vicinity. They admired the men and women of our armed forces so much they might almost have become one of them had they not heard a higher call to punditry. Now, without warning, they have transferred their undying affection to Brazil. How could this happen?

Jon Stewart: CNN leaves it there

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B3: Jon Stewart says, “CNN: Nobody leaves more things there.” In a short segment on his Daily show (l0/12/09),
Stewart gives one of the most incisive commentaries I’ve seen on the problem with television news. He nails,
among other things, the interviewing bloviator who allows the lies to go unchallenged, doesn’t ask the obvious followup questions, or do the research to get at the truth. How can CNN keep “leaving it there” (the lie), he asks, when it has a huge backup staff and a 24-hour news cycle?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Leaves It There
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Free concert: 40th Anniversary of Woodstock

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West1.jpg

From the producers of the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock:
Free Concert Golden Gate Park
Sunday, October 25, 2009

Event: “West Fest” Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock.
Attraction: 42 bands, 3 stages and 26 poster artists. Solar domes, Alternative vehicles, Electric bikes, Native American Tipi Village, Sustainable Living Road Show, Conscious Art Gallery, Light Temple, Holistic Healing Section, Hooper Heaven, Rock’n Green Kids Zone and Eco Village vendors. Narada Michael Walden featuring Vernon e Black leading 3,000 guitar players and closing the show with the Hendrix Experience reenactment and Superstar Jam
Admission: FREE
When: October 25, 2009, 9am to 6pm
Where: Speedway Meadows, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA USA
Producer: 2b1 Multimedia Inc. and the Council of Light in association with Artie Kornfeld, the original producer of “Woodstock 1969”
Contact: Boots Hughston, 415-861-1520 www.2b1records.com/woodstock40sf or woodstock40sf@yahoo.com

Solomon: The War Stampede

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The War Stampede

By Norman Solomon

Disputes are raging within the Obama administration over how to continue the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. A new leak tells us that Washington’s ambassador in Kabul, former four-star general Karl Eikenberry, has cautioned against adding more troops while President Hamid Karzai keeps disappointing American policymakers. This is the extent of the current debate within the warfare state.

During a top-level meeting November 11 in the White House, the Washington Post reports, President Obama “was given a series of options laid out by military planners with differing numbers of new U.S. deployments, ranging from 10,000 to 40,000 troops. None of the scenarios calls for scaling back the U.S. presence in Afghanistan or delaying the dispatch of additional troops.”

Dick Meister: Young workers and our future

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One of every five U.S. workers aged 18 to 25 live below the official poverty line. More than one third of U.S. workers under 35 are living with their parents because they can’t afford to live on their own.There are solutions.

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV’s Newsroom, has covered labor, politics, and other matters for a half-century.)

These are exceptionally painful economic times for the young Americans who will shape our future.

Editorial: PG&E’s biggest power grab ever

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Wake up, City Hall — and get moving on community choice aggregation power

(B3 note: I made a mistake in this story. See the correction below.)

EDITORIAL San Francisco’s chance to create a semblance of public power, through community choice aggregation, faces a devastating threat from Pacific Gas and Electric Co. — and the city needs to move with a sense of real urgency to get this program off the ground.

CCA would allow San Francisco to buy electric power in bulk and sell it to customers at a reduced cost. It wouldn’t create a true public-power system — PG&E would still own the transmission facilities. And while customers would see price breaks, the city wouldn’t make much money off the deal. But it would be a major step toward breaking PG&E’s illegal monopoly.

Joseph Stiglitz: Borlaug and the Bankers

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If neoclassical economic theory were correct, Norman Borlaug would have been among the wealthiest men in the world, while our bankers would have been lining up at soup kitchens.

Here is our monthly installment of Joseph E. Stiglitz’s Unconventional Economic Wisdom column from the Project Syndicate news series. Stiglitz is a professor of economics at Columbia University, and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, is co-author, with Linda Bilmes, of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict.

By Joseph E. Stiglitz

NEW YORK – The recent death of Norman Borlaug provides an opportune moment to reflect on basic values and on our economic system. Borlaug received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in bringing about the “green revolution,” which saved hundreds of millions from hunger and changed the global economic landscape.

Before Borlaug, the world faced the threat of a Malthusian nightmare: growing populations in the developing world and insufficient food supplies. Consider the trauma a country like India might have suffered if its population of a half-billion had remained barely fed as it doubled. Before the green revolution, Nobel Prize-winning economist Gunnar Myrdal predicted a bleak future for an Asia mired in poverty. Instead, Asia has become an economic powerhouse.

Scheer: AG Brown’s spokesman didn’t break the law

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In taping a reporter, AG Brown’s spokesman showed bad judgment, but didn’t break the law

By Peter Scheer

Attorney General Jerry Brown’s spokesman Scott Gerber was unceremoniously “disappeared” from Brown’s incipient gubernatorial campaign this week because of a lapse in judgment that, quite frankly, has been grossly overblown. Gerber’s mistake: to surreptitiously record a phone conversation with a reporter, which was later discovered because Gerber, in a plea for changes to the story, presented an editor with verbatim quotes too extensive and accurate to be the result of efficient note-taking alone.

Meister: The endless censoring of labor

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Dick Meister runs down some important labor stories that the mainstream press has ignored and in effect censored

By Dick Meister

(Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor, politics and other matters for a half-century.)

Did you know about the Bush administration’s rotten treatment of the air traffic controllers whose work is essential to air safety? That controllers were forced to work long, fatiguing shifts with little time to rest? That many quit because of that? Were you aware of the great potential for serious accidents that posed?

Did you know that President Obama’s appointees to the Federal Aviation Agency stepped in to rescind the onerous conditions imposed by Bush’s FAA appointees and end the controllers’ long struggle for decent treatment?

Well, you wouldn’t know about those vital developments if you relied solely on mainstream media. The Bay Guardian ran my column on the subject, but to most mainstream outlets, certainly including all Bay Area outlets, it was just another labor story to be ignored another labor story to be in effect censored.

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