The idea of a Donald Trump presidency has me musing about what we were supposed to learn in school. We were taught that capitalism (the force that always wore the white hat) was good because the invisible hand of competition ensured that consumers always had choice and low prices while good businesspersons made money. What capitalism did not need was government getting in the way. Capitalism was good when left unfettered.

Socialism was generally painted in a negative light because it was such a close relative to communism. And communism was that force that spread red ink all over the world as it emanated from the Soviet Union and flowed every direction but north. It would envelop us unless we stopped it. So even if socialism was a system that was designed to put the common good above individual profit, it received short shrift because of the company that it kept.

How things have changed. Russia (the distilled version of the old Soviet Union) is now very much in favor with Donald Trump. In fact, he and Vladimir Putin must be BFFs on some hidden Facebook page. In the 1950s, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said, “we will bury you” to the Americans. It seems that Putin is silently saying “we will co-opt you” as he manipulates our cyber system and invites American businesses like ExxonMobil to do some heavy lifting in Russia, with Putin always having the phrase “nationalize it” going through his mind.

I remember some fifty years ago taking a course in college called “Business-Government Relations.” I was excited about taking it because in my naiveté, I thought that no one ever connected to two and it would be interesting to see how some professor might explain whatever relationship existed.

I think that I learned better than any previous high school history course that there was constant tension in America between business and government. For most of the first half of our nation’s history, business had been able to run free in whatever fashion it wanted to, whether it was taking land from Native-Americans, hiring workers for pittance pay and with little regard for safety, and the creation of monopolies being just fine because Darwin had already taught us of the genius of survival of the fittest.

But concern over monopolies grew at the end of the 19^th Century and Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act that put a curb on some of the unfettered capitalist practices.

As the 20^th Century opened, the Progressive Era began with President Theodore Roosevelt. More progressive legislation was passed in the administration of Woodrow Wilson. Then we had FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. All of these eras brought us reasonable restraints upon runaway Capitalism.

The dialogue that we are not having now is what principles should guide the relations between businesses and government. It is de rigueur for businesses to ask various levels of government for tax breaks, subsidies, regulation wavers and anything else that can lower their cost of doing business. It is truly a free market system for businesses as they can shop from country to country, state to state, metropolitan area to metropolitan area, municipal tax authority to municipal tax authority to get the best deal. It is truly a race to the bottom for all levels of government to see who will give the most to expectant businesses.

Trump clearly wants to bring us back to more of an unfettered capitalism. He proposed Secretary of Labor, Andrew Puzder, is opposed to most of his bureau’s regulations regarding wages, safety, and union organizing. He envisions his main constituency becoming robots rather than human beings in the labor force.

Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Scott Pruitt does not accept climate change and seems comfortable with businesses not having to curb their activities because some scientists think that emissions from fossil fuels causes climate change.

Trump and other Republicans railed through the campaign complaining about regulations without ever asking the question of why we have them. From the pure capitalist’s point of view, they only exist to hamper businesses. There was a time when Republicans said that we have to get rid of “bad regulations” but now it seems like all regulations are on the chopping block.

Democrats are not always perfect on these issues, but at least they recognize that worker safety, environmental considerations, consumer safety and assurance of competition are all considerations to be weighed against the interests of any single corporation or industry.

Lyndon Johnson used to say, “Let us reason together.” He actually meant it. By the way, what did Donald Trump learn at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business? Was the word “balance” ever uttered?

Is that why “unbalanced” is one of the best ways to describe his administration?

The post With Trump, is there a line between business and government? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

During the first Presidential debate of 2016, the one issue that Trump “won” was trade. Clearly, Hillary Clinton needs a better answer on this issue—particularly because it’s an issue that resonates in swing states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Clinton should not allow Trump’s simplistic ideas on trade to stand. Nor should she sit by while he threatens to “tear up” all of our existing trade agreements.

Trade agreements come in many different forms. According to the Office of the US Trade Representative, we engage with 154 nations in the World Trade Organization, and we have individual free trade agreements with 20 additional countries.

I do not pretend to understand trade agreements, but I think that Hillary Clinton does. So, if I were asked to contribute a few lines to a new answer to Trump on trade, here’s what I’d suggest:

“Trade between nations is a complicated issue. There are no simple answers. We have trade agreements that are multinational—such as the WTO—and we have 20+ agreements that are between just the US and one other country. Each of these agreements is negotiated separately, so you have to study up on the particulars of each situation and each relationship. There is no one-size-fits-all.”

[She could add some facts about special situations with particular countries here.]

“And, by the way, there is a reason that we call them trade ‘agreements.’  They are the results of conversations, collaborative problem-solving and good-faith negotiations. For them to work, both sides have to agree. We don’t create trade agreements by dictating the terms to our trading partners.

“And, finally, when a potential president threatens to ‘rip up’ all of our existing trade agreements,’ our trading partners start feeling uneasy. As a former Secretary of State, I can tell you that that is not a good idea.  As I said at the debate, ‘Words matter.’ We need our friends and allies to feel that they can trust us to keep our promises and to negotiate in good faith.”

Just an idea.

The post What Hillary could say about trade agreements appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Throughout the coming weeks of sport and competition, keep in mind the cost Rio and Brazil are bearing to host us. More than 77,000 citizens have been forced from their homes and communities and placed in public housing far out on the peripheries. Many can’t afford their new rent.

Since 2009, “Pacification” forces have been deployed throughout many of Rio’s working-class communities, (paradoxically) killing 307 residents in 2015 alone  — the majority young, black men. A “shoot first, ask later” attitude matched with virtual impunity has lead to the deaths of children by stray bullets, innocent youth by prejudice and suspicion, and a retaliatory spike in violence and crime (followed by a 103% increase in police killings only recently). An involved property developer was quoted admitting the “pacification” strategy was really one of deliberate isolation, designed to hide the squalor and disarray working-poor communities are subjected to not by gangs, but by the government. His goal, he said, was to make Rio, or at least give the impression of, “a city of the elite.”

Very few plans for improvements in these communities that helped win Rio the games in 2009 were implemented. The single metro line that was completed only reaches the most affluent areas, and bus lines have been changed to avoid poorer areas. Some of those areas have been literally walled-off from highways and travel routes. Rio legislation requires community participation in budgeting, yet the community as a whole has been left in every meaning of disregard. The internationally-lauded family financial assistance program that helped raise 50 million Brazilians into the middle class over the last decade recently ran out of funding. Schools and hospitals have seen funding cut and even been closed over and over while politicians and elite public servants raise their salaries and ignore the constitution (well, at least they’re working to change that so their activities wouldn’t be illegal…). Even the police and other first responders, who are clearly playing such a central role in this event, went without pay because of shameless corruption and mismanagement on the city and state levels.

On the Federal level, President since 2010 Dilma Rousseff was ousted several months ago amid the largest corruption scandal in Brazilian history on accusations of accounting tricks in order to clean up her record for reelection. The Senate investigative committee, full of those who voted to impeach her, found no evidence at all of the crime. More than half of those in Congress who voted to impeach her, however, are implicated and/or convicted in the multibillion dollar scandal, among others (of course). Several recorded conversations have been leaked revealing that the motivation behind impeachment is killing the investigation. The former-Speaker of the House Eduardo Cunha, who championed and prioritized her impeachment process over the past year, was found guilty of multiple counts of corruption and stripped of his title (though not his perks, unlike Dilma). Current President and former-Vice President Michel Temer — who is also implicated in the ongoing scandal — operated very closely with Cunha to drive the effort for impeachment, promising cabinet offices to leaders of major parties to draw support. Within three weeks, three cabinet ministers in Temer’s all white, all male, all millionaire cabinet had resigned facing corruption charges (including, ironically, the anti-corruption minister). REMINDER THAT HIS PREDECESSOR DILMA WAS THE COUNTRY’S FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT.

This so-called “soft coup” by the pragmatic corporatist party of Temer, Cunha, and Rio’s mayor — Eduardo Paes — has been fueled in large part by the country’s mass-media, who have a history of supporting conservative coups. For instance, when paper Folha de São Paulo polled Brazilians on their thoughts on Dilma vs. Temer, Folha published results construed to show that the majority of the country wanted Temer to remain president until the end of the term. In reality, originally unreleased data implied that a clear majority still wanted new elections. Domestic media as a whole are now suggesting Temer run for reelection in 2018, though he is legally banned from doing so for violating campaign finance laws in his last personal campaign. Other media have downplayed anti-Temer protests and highlighted and even exaggerated anti-Dilma acts, while offering mostly pro-impeachment commentators on air and in print.

Though most Brazilians did and do support Dilma’s impeachment for her lack of charisma along with her being head of government during a major scandal, just as many or more did and do not want Temer as president (he received a shockingly low 1% of the vote in a presidential poll only months ago). He’s less popular now than Dilma at her worst. Yet, he, unlike Dilma, refuses to entertain the notion of new elections. With no vote or other input by the nation, he is pushing major “reforms” with a huge swing to the right from the previously social-democratic government, privatizing the nation’s resources and slashing any and all social programs (in order to please “Goldman, Sachs and the IMF” and his adoring foreign investors — those with no investment whatsoever in the country or people, only in making money), while simultaneously increasing the salaries of the judges who will vote on whether to proceed with Dilma’s impeachment and whether or not to indict he and those in his party and new coalition. That coalition heavily features the right-wing party who has lost four consecutive elections to Dilma’s center-left party.

Clearly, there is quite a bit for Brazilians to be angry about, so please — POR FAVOR — cut them some slack over the next few weeks. They, like most of us, would prefer to continue to be able to go to school and to get an ambulance in under 5 hours. Keep them and their struggles in sight and in mind. An investment of your patience, attention, and empathy will go a long way to finally grant the longtime “Country of the Future” its rightful place as a country of today.

The post The social and political costs of the Rio Olympics appeared first on Occasional Planet.

One of the oddities, for me, about what is happening in education now is how those promoting more standardized testing are called “reformers.” Really, what kind of reform? I guess that it’s similar to those who advocated that prisons move away from rehabilitation and just focus on warehousing.

But now, the standardized test addicts have new friends in, of all people, hedge fund managers. Yep, those Wall Street folks who know how to make money without making anything else. Well, the hedgers love numbers, and many of them are very good at using them to their personal advantage, while not contributing anything tangible to society. And now that seems to be what they’re doing in the far-flung field–from them–of education.

Justin Miller reports in The American Prospect, “How Hedge Funders Built the Pro-Charter Political Network.”

The hedge-fund industry and the charter movement are almost inextricably entangled. Executives see charter-school expansion as vital to the future of public education, relying on a model of competition. They see testing as essential to accountability. And they often look at teacher unions with unvarnished distaste. Several hedge-fund managers have launched their own charter-school chains. You’d be hard-pressed to find a hedge-fund guy who doesn’t sit on a charter-school board.

Apparently what hedge fund managers like in education are (a) charter schools, (b) competition and (c) accountability. They don’t like teachers’ unions. It might seem innocent enough, but let’s drill down a bit.

Charter schools were initially established to create competition for public schools. That, in itself, was a controversial idea because it involved siphoning money from the public school coffers and directing it toward individual schools outside the system. The teachers in those schools did not have to be unionized, so that created a threat to public school teachers. But the upside would be that these new schools could go in their own direction and use techniques that often-calcified public schools rejected out of hand. They could focus more on the needs of the individual students without having to protect a system that was top heavy with a large bureaucracy. In a sense, it would be a marriage between the independence of private schools with the access to public monies that public schools have.

Since large urban public school districts were mostly in financial distress, it would have been difficult to imagine that schools affiliated with the systems would make money. But hedge fund managers, and before them “education companies,” knew where to look for profit sources. The plan with charter schools was to make their operation more efficient than public schools, to reduce expenses so that there would be a profit to skim off the top. Additionally, charter schools set up profitable arrangements with universities in partnerships, presumably to improve the educational offerings to students. Large corporations saw charter schools as opportunities for philanthropy, and then the possibility of claiming partial responsibility for how well these charter schools could do.

But how would they know if the charter schools actually did “better” than public schools? The answer lay in standardized test scores. The model had been tried for decades, with companies like Princeton Review and Kaplan offering tuition-based courses to high school students to improve their college admission test scores. That seemed to work, in part because what Princeton Review and Kaplan were doing was to prepare students to take tests that they were more-or-less indebted to take.

The standardized test factor was a great metric, if the idea was to find a way in which elementary and secondary schools could be tracked. But what did it measure? Well, it measured students’ abilities to perform well on tests, and teachers’ skills in preparing them. Never mind that this was a perfect storm to create cheating, and it did, but it was somewhat like the tail wagging the dog. In this case, the tail was the standardized tests and the dog was the students.

Is this really what America wants to provide learning opportunities for its children? Schools that are test-driven and sources of profit for corporations that include hedge fund managers. Where is each individual student’s curiosity, critical thinking skills, and pure love of learning? It’s time to “stop the madness,” but neither hedge fund managers nor charter school companies have been known for doing that. Perhaps they should take a renewed look at the movie, “Race to Nowhere,” which questions so much of what they are doing.

The post With friends like hedge fund managers, education reform does not need enemies appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Hillary Clinton finds herself on the defensive, doing rope-a-dope, against certain charges from both the media and Bernie Sanders. Where Sanders is concerned, Clinton’s Achilles heel is her relationship with Wall Street. Specifically, Clinton is vulnerable with her contention that she has never been influenced by the money from Wall Street that has been paid to her as speaking fees or cash contributions to her campaign and associated SuperPACs.

Clinton contends that there is no evidence that she has never changed a vote or a policy position because of money from Wall Street. There is some validation to this because so far no one, including those on the right wing, have been able to relate any policy positions that she takes to the millions that she has received from Wall Street.

But a real question is whether her contention passes the giggle test. The fact that there are people giggling may help explain why her support is so poor among young voters. According to the New York Times,

Some 87 percent of likely New Hampshire primary voters ages 18 to 29 said they would vote for Mr. Sanders in the state’s primary on Tuesday, compared with 13 percent for Mrs. Clinton, according to a UMass-Lowell poll conducted Feb. 1 to 3.

The conundrum for Clinton is that even if it may be true that she has never been influenced by Wall Street, it’s too big a stretch for young voters to believe. It’s as if the university president at an SEC university said that the scholar-athletes were among the university’s most serious students.

So here’s a suggestion to Hillary Clinton and her campaign. Simply say that while it is her belief that she has never been influenced by Wall Street money, she understands that there is a wide-spread perception that she has been. Furthermore, she is as determined as Bernie Sanders to reign in the excesses of Wall Street and she knows that she will be taken more seriously if she is no longer taking money from either Wall Street or other big corporate interests.

If Clinton would take this step, there would be several clear benefits. First, she would have much “cleaner arguments” in her effort to curb Wall Street abuses. Second, she would be building immunity to Sanders’ charges that she still is too cozy to the Street. Third, it would counter the argument that she’s always “late to the party” when it comes to acknowledging her mistakes.

It took her thirteen years and two presidential campaigns to finally apologize for her 2002 Senate vote endorsing President George W. Bush’s already-failed strategy with Iraq. And who can forget the pain, all through the summer of 2015 and into the fall, until Clinton acknowledged that she had made a mistake in how she handled her e-mails while Secretary of State. And her initial answer to Chuck Todd’s question about whether she will release the transcripts of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs seems to indicate that we’re in for a long wait before they see the light of day.

For progressives, Clinton is often “right” on the issues, but in far too many cases it takes time for her to get there. It would be great if she could catch up with Sanders on Wall Street. What if she went a step further and was able to get President Obama to say that if he was running now, he too would not accept Wall Street donations. What a coup!

Like many, I currently prefer Bernie Sanders on the issues. However, I respect Clinton’s experience and also think that it is time for the United States to have a female president. I just hope that she can quickly move to reform her campaign to bring more credibility to her progressive ideas.

The post What Hillary Clinton might say to help herself appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In the 19^th Century, the Victorian historian Thomas Carlyle coined the phrase “dismal science” for the field of economics. With the help of new insights and the world of computing power, it has become more accurate, like a physical science. However, there are still vast realms of uncertainty, and that certainly is true as we consider the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership. Some call the TPP “NAFTA on steroids,” and if you like NAFTA, this must be good, and if you don’t then we have a problem.

The chief American proponent for the agreement is President Obama, but by listening to him you would hardly know it. He seems to speak about it only in secrecy, which is interesting because that is the way in which he wanted the U.S. Senate to consider the terms of the Partnership. The Senate complied last week by putting it on a “fast-track” for consideration, thereby forbidding amendments or filibuster. Debate and discussion will be quick and without nuance, resulting in an expeditious up or down vote. While that might be desirable in the case of a presidential nomination, it hardly seems appropriate for a complicated economic pact laced with unintended consequences.

Supporters and opponents of the Partnership agree that it will be a bonanza for multi-national corporations. If you believe in top-down or trickle-down economics, then “what’s good for business is good for the United States” (and by extension, the world). If you’re somewhat suspicious of the motives and practices of large multi-national corporations, then you have plenty of reason to pause in offering support for the Partnership.

For those who are not direct beneficiaries of the largesse of big business, there are two key questions to initially ask, (1) would the loss of wage gains of American workers be worth the savings for American consumers, and (2) on an ethical level, are we comfortable with American workers losing economic power while laborers in developing countries see their wages, and hence purchasing, power rise? There are other important considerations, such as what impact the TPP would have on American and global environmental issues, how would labor safety and working conditions be affected, and is the establishment of “private courts” really a fair way to settle international disputes?

Let’s take issue one, the loss and gains for American workers and consumers. The TPP should result in lower prices for American consumers, because it will make it easier for companies to produce goods and services and overseas, distant from prevailing American wages and salaries.

Should we be concerned about the prices that American consumers are paying? Below is a chart representing changes in the Consumer Price Index over the past three years, as calculated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In only one month over the past three years has inflation reached 3 percent, and this past February, we actually had deflation, prices falling.

The concerns of the American middle class and the poor have not been about high prices, rather about job opportunities, job security, and salaries that provide the necessary income to support a family. As shown so clearly by the Economic Policy Institute,

The pay of American workers was increasing along with productivity until the late 1970s. Since then, wages have essentially remained stagnant, while productivity has more than doubled. In other words, corporations are increasing their earnings at the expense of the sweat and intellectual prowess of their employees. More and more households now have two wage-earners, and in some cases, families are worse off now with two wage-earners than they were a generation ago with one. If one of the fundamental questions in considering the merits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership is whether to look for ways to benefit the American worker rather than the American consumer, the evidence seems to be clear that consumers are doing well-enough, and workers are struggling. Workers need the help, and the TPP would not be good for them.

The second question is whether the increase in wages for workers in developing countries is more important than increasing wages for American workers. From a global and non-biased point of view, it may be better in the short run to favor the benefits that workers in developing countries would accrue with passage of the TPP. However, in virtually every developing country, it would be better to put laborers to work on projects needed in their countries, such as infrastructure, housing, schools, and health facilities. With the TPP, most of the products that they would produce would be for the benefit of foreigners. At the present time, it is fair to argue that helping American workers close the gap between their incomes and those of the wealthy is of greater importance. The United States still has a long way to go in creating more economic and political equality, and that should be our first order of business. As the U.S. does that, it can play a fundamental role in helping the economies of developing countries by providing them with the capital and skills to make their economies more self-reliant. Once that is done, they can participate more in international trade in a way that benefits their citizens as both workers and consumers.

The TPP is not an easy issue, but considering how it will furtively be considered by the U.S. Senate (and American people) and the damage that it will do to American workers, it seems that the prudent position would be to oppose the TPP. It’s a shame that, in this case, President Obama favors action that can be so detrimental to American workers.

For a quick, visual explanation of the problems with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, what this animation offered by  former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich:

The post Trying to look sympathetically at Trans-Pacific Partnership appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In the next few years, two of the biggest potential economic developments in the St. Louis metropolitan area may be a new stadium for the St. Louis Rams and a new location for the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. These are both complicated projects with numerous financial variables. One way to simplify matters, though rarely discussed, is for the federal government to step forward to clarify and equalize tax burdens.

The Rams stadium situation is one that is being repeated across the country, and possibly soon across the ocean to London and beyond. The Rams moved to St. Louis from Los Angeles twenty years ago. St. Louis built a domed stadium for the Rams and gave team ownership the most favorable lease in the league. Now the team argues that the stadium is not in the top 25 percent of stadiums in the league, and under the terms of the contract, they are now free to move elsewhere. Los Angeles, which has been football starved for twenty years, is anxious to have the Rams back. Concurrently, NFL teams in Oakland, CA and San Diego, CA are looking for ways to leave their traditional venues and to also move to LA.

This is the kind of mess where you want “an adult in the room” to appear. As it presently stands, cities are battling against one another for sweetheart deals from each of the municipalities with whom they are negotiating. In order to make new stadiums most feasible, they are looking for the best possible tax breaks in Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland, and St. Louis.

The adult in the room that is needed is the federal government. It can solve these problems rather easily, but the political will to do so seems miles away. The federal government treats the NFL as some super-sanctified profitable non-profit organization (somewhat akin to the Catholic Church). NFL, Inc. has non-profit status, yet it makes billions of dollars each year. We’re not talking about just the money that the 32 individual franchises make; we’re talking about what the corporate monolith accrues.

What is needed is for the federal government to put the interests of the fans of the franchises ahead of the billionaires who own the teams. This means that the government must set in place rules that forbid communities from bidding for professional football teams, largely on the basis of waiving state and local taxes that most any other business would have to pay. Who can give the most to the Rams, St. Louis or Los Angeles? Who can give the most to the Raiders and Chargers? This question has been asked about storied franchises such as the Miami Dolphins and the New Orleans Saints.

It’s time to stop the madness, and one way to do that is to strip from states and locales the power to levy most taxes. If the federal government had a series of progressive taxes that took the place of the bizarre hodge-podge of state and local taxes that now exist, it could make the system much simpler and much fairer (two values that even Republicans espouse).

Regarding relocation of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, four sites in the St. Louis metropolitan area are being considered. One is in Illinois, adjacent to Scott Air Force Base. The land is already owned by the federal government, so the purchase price would be zero. Since the federal government does not tax land, no tax revenue would be lost if the NGIA relocated there.

A preferred site for people in St. Louis is in north city, adjacent to the infamous Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project of years past. Much of this land is privately owned and would have to be purchased through  eminent domain. The expected cost to the city would be $8 to $10 million for residential properties and millions more for several businesses located in the area. Even if the city purchases the land and sells it to the federal government at fair market value, the city would still lose all the property tax that it is currently collecting from the area. This again is the kind of problem that would not exist if the federal government had the role of tax collector in our metropolitan areas, meaning that no locale would need to worry about loss of tax revenue if a public development is built.

As feasible as the idea of the federal government as tax collector for all jurisdictions would be, it is not on our political radar.A serious consideration of reforming our taxes in a way that stops localities from cannibalizing one another is indeed a worthwhile goal. It would not help St. Louis and the Rams, nor St. Louis and the NGIA, but it could help us several decades down the road when similar problems occur. As always, keep the dialogue flowing.

The post Let the feds be tax collectors for all appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Good news for health-insurance shoppers, bad news for Obamacare haters. For the 2015 enrollment period [which begins on November 15, 2014], healthcare shoppers will have more options. In state after state, more health insurance companies are getting on board and offering plans. In fact, HHS, which oversees the Affordable Care Act, reports that, nationwide, insurance-company participation in ACA exchanges is up an average of 25 percent.

Apparently, some companies who stayed on the sidelines in the first year of ACA enrollments, and who watched enrollment in ACA plans soar to cover 7.3 million people, have made the calculation that there’s money to be made in the ACA healthcare exchanges. So, they’re jumping in. And the not-so-invisible hand of the market is making a move.

According to CNBC:

77 new issuers will be joining insurers that sell plans in 43 states and the District of Columbia where data about insurance participation was available, HHS said. Those states include the 36 states whose residents bought plans on the federal Obamacare exchange HealthCare.gov, as well as eight states that are operating their own health exchanges.

HealthCare.gov will get the lion’s share of the new insurers: 57 more than this year, a 30 percent increase that will bring the tally up to 248 issuers.

As an example of the direction participation in ACA is taking, United Healthcare, one of the biggest health insurance companies in the U.S., is increasing the number of states in which it’s offering marketplace or exchange plans, from four states in 2014 to as many as 24 next year. Its CEO recently said:

…We plan to grow steadily from this point forward, advancing our participation in a measured manner in public exchanges in 2015, 2016 and beyond…The Congressional budget office estimates that more than 75% of the exchange market is yet to develop. And we believe there will likely be meaningful membership activity in the market after the initial experience of this year and as second year pricing is presented.”

Did you catch that? “More than 75% of the exchange market is yet to develop.” The health-insurance industry sees a huge upside in the ACA exchange market. [No surprise, of course, as the ACA was designed as a giveaway to private insurance companies, who stand to gain tremendously from it and are now positioning themselves to cash in to the max.]

So, for the “free-market” Republicans who have opposed the ACA [or, really, to support it covertly while using anti-Obamacare propaganda as a fundraising trigger], the jig is up. The market is speaking. And the market—that is to say, the health-insurance industry, which ponies up large batches of cash for candidates, in exchange for votes that hew to whatever is the current corporate line—has a very loud political megaphone.

So, lawmakers and candidates, with the news of more health insurance companies mining the ACA market for the gold that’s out there, it would be politically unwise to continue to oppose the Affordable Care Act. It’s making money for your corporate donors and for the lobbyists you work for. While we probably won’t see a total switcheroo, just yet, there are going to be a lot of politicians who suddenly go mum about the ACA—muzzled by their funders and their own political self-interest.

But don’t be surprised when, in a few years, when the Affordable Care Act is as entrenched as Medicare and Social Security, Republicans completely turn around and try to take credit for creating it.

The post More health insurers offer “Obamacare” plans, shifting the political landscape appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Bob Moore, a retired automobile service manager and advocate of healthy eating, founded Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods with his wife Charlee, in 1978. If you shop in health food stores, you may be familiar with their distinctively designed, old-fashioned looking bags of healthy flours and cereals. Today, the company has 209 employees, revenues of over $30 million a year, and offers over 400 varieties of stone ground flours, whole grains, cereals, and bread mixes. Bob’s Red Mill is located in Milwaukie, Oregon, a suburb of Portland.

In 2005, the USDA released new dietary guidelines advocating at least three servings of whole grain foods daily—a recommendation in line with Bob and Charlee’s thinking about healthy eating. Happily, both Oprah Winfrey and the Today Show highlighted Bob’s Red Mill’s products as a way to satisfy whole grain dietary needs. Since then, the company has grown 20 to 30 percent each year.

On his 81^st birthday, Bob decided to give the company to his employees, and has begun transitioning Bob’s Red Mill to an employee stock ownership program (ESOP). In this type of ESOP, stock is held until retirement or the employee leaves the company. Anyone who has three years or more tenure is fully vested.

Bob has proven that a business doesn’t have to exploit workers, or be ruthlessly focused on the bottom line to be successful. By keeping the company privately owned, he has been able to concentrate on the long-term health of Bob’s Red Mill and its employees while avoiding the short-term pressure of quarterly reports and the demands of shareholders. Happy with their working conditions, some of Bob’s employees have been with him for decades and were able to put their kids through college.

On December 18, 2010, Senator Bernard Sanders [I-VT] introduced two bills: S. 2914, to provide for the establishment of the United States Employee Ownership Bank, and S. 2909, to provide programs to encourage employee ownership and participation in business decision making throughout the United States. Both bills were co-sponsored by three Senate colleagues: Senators Sherrod Brown [D-OH], Patrick J. Leahy [D-VT], and Robert Menendez [D-NJ].

For more information on ESOPs, click here.

• There are approximately 11,500 ESOPs in place in the U.S., covering 10 million employees (10% of the private sector workforce). Approximately 3% of ESOPs are publicly owned.

(Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Occasional Planet on Feb. 23, 2010.)

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You’re familiar with the classic situation of somebody who gets hoodwinked because they didn’t read the small print. Well, it looks like we’ve got some purveyers of very, very small print (so small that it’s not even there) here in Missouri. These are the folks who devised and are promoting the proposed Missouri Constitutional Amendment 1 (House Joint Resolution Nos. 11 & 7). This is the August 5 ballot language that voters will see:

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to ensure that the right of Missouri citizens to engage in agricultural production and ranching practices shall not be infringed?The potential costs or savings to governmental entities are unknown, but likely limited unless the resolution leads to increased litigation costs and/or the loss of federal funding.

However, the Linn County Reader informs us that :

… although the official ballot language voters will see when they go to the polls next month gives no indication of this, the Fair Ballot Language that voters won’t see when they go to the polls on Aug. 5 states, “A ‘yes’ vote will amend the Missouri Constitution…subject to any power given to local government under Article VI of the Missouri Constitution.” Instead, the voters will see official ballot language that reveals nothing about the impact of Amendment One on the ability of local government to regulate CAFOs.[…] If Constitutional Amendment One passes, you will be left without any ability to provide reasonable health and welfare safeguards for neighbors living in the rural areas of your county.”

If you doubt that all is not what it seems, note that Missouri GOP Senator Roy Blunt, a.k.a. Monsanto’s man in Washington, came out recently for the Amendment, dubbed yet another “Montsanto Protection Act” by one writer who is concerned about the proliferation of genetically modified foods and the dominance of the biotech sector in agriculture.  Blunt straightaway set about trying to assuage fears that rather than protecting the “family farms” that supporters are piously evoking in their pro-Amendment 1 TV ads, the bill is intended to protect powerful corporate factory farms whose questionable agricultural practices might be vulnerable to regulation and so-called “nuisance” suits that threaten the bottom-line for the Blunt-friendly big-guys.

The fact that Blunt is the latest pro-Amendent 1 batter up speaks for itself, as does the likely source of the amendment:

A year ago, the North Dakota [right to farm] measure was a topic for discussion as legislative agriculture chairmen from across the U.S. gathered for a conference in Vancouver, Canada. The event by the State Agriculture and Rural Leaders Association was financed by dozens of agriculture businesses, including Archer Daniels Midland Co., Cargill, DuPont Pioneer, Deere & Co. and Tyson Foods. Among those present was Missouri Rep. Bill Reiboldt, a farmer who sponsored the right-to-farm amendment referred to this year’s ballot by the Republican-led state Legislature.

If you’re interested in why one would oppose what seems on the surface to be an almost meaningless reiteration of support for farming, this video of former Missouri Lt. Governor Joe Maxwell speaking against the bill spells out the ways that Amendment 1 not only threatens the family farm, but the safety of our food supply:

Among other points Maxwell makes, he  suggests that Amendent 1 could result in weakening the protections for the family farmer that were spelled out in the 1975 Family Farm Act. As he noted elsewhere:

This amendment is about ensuring the largest multi-national corporation constitutional rights here in Missouri so they can do whatever THEY want to us neighbors out in the country. […]. What other industry has constitutional protections to do whatever they want and strips the local voice, either at the local level, the county level or even at the statehouse from being able to put in safeguards for neighbors out in the country?

Not only will supporters of this stealth legislation not answer these questions, they would prefer that you not even realize that anyone is asking.

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