Author: telegraph

My Morehouse Brother Chinedu Okobi Died After Being Electrocuted By Police

Posted on October 19, 2018

Every single day, families suffering from police violence find themselves in the fog of unspeakable setbacks. Some have lost their fathers or sons, their mothers or daughters, their brothers or sisters, their neighbors or friends. I am sometimes enlisted to help them. Before I was a journalist, I was a pastor, and it was often my job to guide families through grief and loss. But it’s a unique crisis to have the life of your loved one taken by the state. Who do you call? 911? Who leads the investigation? Who brings you justice? The answers for these families are altogether different than in other murder cases.

When I got the call that Chinedu Okobi had been killed by police from the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office in the San Francisco Bay Area, it was different. This was my Morehouse brother. You’d almost have to have lived at 830 Westview Drive, on that red clay hill in Georgia called Morehouse College, to truly understand how that bond is formed. We are close. We have each other’s back. Comparing Morehouse to a regular Greek fraternity is not good enough. It’s a brotherhood in the truest sense: It’s a family.

I was Chinedu’s student government president. He and I lived in the same dorm. He was close friends with many of my close friends. His sister Ebele, a revered executive at Facebook, is close with many of my closest friends at the company.

When I got a call from her this past Saturday to discuss Chinedu Okobi’s death, I had to fight hard to hold back tears. I was surprised at my own fragile state. My dear brother, Jason, just passed away a few weeks ago. While his death had absolutely nothing to do with police violence, for the first time I understood the unique pain of losing a brother who was supposed to have his whole life ahead of him.

Chinedu Okobi should be alive right now. At the very most, he should be in a hospital receiving mental health treatment. By now, he likely would’ve been released back to the care of his family. Local police have not responded to my repeated requests for more information about Chinedu’s death, but this much we know: While he was technically unarmed, meaning that he had no gun or knife or illegal weapon on his body, he was armed in a very American way. He was a big Black man, a dark-skinned Nigerian who was 6 feet, 3 inches tall and weighed 330 pounds. In the eyes of American police, that might as well be armed. This nation has long since weaponized blackness.

This country has also weaponized mental illness. Chinedu lived with mental illness. He received treatment, took medications, and worked hard to balance his life the best he could. I never knew it. What I do know is that in this country, when someone is having a mental health crisis, police are called — which is like bringing in a bulldozer to fix a leaky faucet. It’s a stupid system.

Chinedu needed to go to the hospital. He needed medical treatment. Instead, he was surrounded by officers who appear to have repeatedly used a Taser on him until he died. Let me phrase that another way: Chinedu was still shot, but by guns that electrocute people to death instead of tearing apart their flesh and organs with bullets. In the name of being safer than guns, hundreds of thousands of police officers have now been armed with Tasers, but they aren’t safe — not at all.

Chinedu’s black life didn’t matter. Those cops would not have treated their own family that way. If Chinedu was their son or father or brother, those men would’ve found another way to deal with his crisis.

Since 2000, American police have killed at least 1,000 people with Tasers. They are horrible. The primary company that makes them, Taser, has changed its name to Axon — just like Corrections Corporation of America, the notorious private prison company, changed its name to CoreCivic. It’s an attempt to escape their baggage, but it’s the same old shit.

And Axon has gotten a complete pass for what the company makes. The company deflects from the fact that they make machines that send uncontrollable electricity into people’s bodies. The problem, of course, is that the human body simply was not built to take these surges of electricity. Axon advertises these weapons as “less lethal,” but the comparison to guns and other weapons would be cold comfort for the more than 1,000 people who have died from the electric shocks.

Worse yet, the “less lethal” moniker has meant that many cities and states don’t have robust regulations for how law enforcement is supposed to use these weapons. So the mythical “less lethal” marketing is working — for the company, not for victims of the weapons.

That such dangerous shocks would be administered to people with mental illnesses is especially upsetting. Every single day in this country, hundreds of thousands of nurses treat adults and children who are living with mental illness. Those patients are regularly in crisis, and nurses consistently face them down without ever having to electrocute them into submission. If five police officers were unable to do the same thing with Chinedu without killing him, the problem is not Chinedu — it’s the police officers. It’s the consistent impatience with black people in distress that is shown by law enforcement.

The United States, particularly the United States government, seems to have long ago given up on completely reimagining how to solve its most complex problems. This much, though, should be obvious: Electrocuting people into submission is a horrible idea, no matter how supposedly “less lethal” the weapon is.

Living In A New Gilded Age

Posted on October 16, 2018

The Trump Justice Department has approved a $69 billion merger between CVS, the nation’s largest drugstore chain, and insurance giant Aetna. It’s the largest health insurance deal in history. Executives say the combination will make their companies more efficient, allowing them to gain economies of scale and squeeze waste out of the system.

Rubbish. This is what big companies always say when they merge.

The real purpose is to give Aetna and CVS more bargaining power over their consumers and employees, as well as pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers (which have also been consolidating).

The result: Higher prices. Americans already spend far more on healthcare and medications per person than do citizens in any other developed country – and our health is among the worst.

America used to have antitrust laws that permanently stopped corporations from monopolizing markets, and often broke up the biggest culprits.

But now, especially with Trump as president and lobbyists and CEOs running much of the government, giant corporations like Aetna and CVS are busily weakening antitrust enforcement and taking over the economy.

They’re also keeping down wages. Workers with less choice of whom to work for have a harder time getting a raise. So when local labor markets are dominated by a major drug chain like CVS or a big box retailer like Walmart, these firms essentially set wage rates for the area.

These massive corporations also have a lot of political clout – another reason they’re consolidating.

We see the same pattern across the economy. Wall Street’s five largest banks now account for 44 percent of America’s banking assets – up from about 10 percent thirty years ago. That means higher interest rates on loans, higher late fees, and a greater risk of another “too-big-to-fail” bailout.

But politicians don’t dare bust them up because Wall Street pays part of their campaign expenses.

Oh, and why does the United States have the highest broadband prices among advanced nations and the slowest speeds?

Because more than 80 percent of Americans have no choice but to rely on their local cable company for high capacity wired data connections to the Internet – usually Comcast, AT&T, or Verizon. And these corporations are among the most politically powerful in America. (In a rare exception to Trump’s corporate sycophancy, the Justice Department is appealing a district court’s approval of AT&T’s merger with Time Warner.)

Have you wondered why your airline ticket prices have remained so high even though the cost of jet fuel has plummeted?

Because U.S. airlines have consolidated into a handful of giant carriers that divide up routes and collude on fares. As recently as 2005 the U.S. had nine major airlines. Now we have just four. And all are politically well-connected.

Why does food cost so much? Because the four largest food companies control 82 percent of beef packing, 85 percent of soybean processing, 63 percent of pork packing, and 53 percent of chicken processing.

Monsanto alone owns the key genetic traits to more than 90 percent of the soybeans planted by farmers in the United States, and 80 percent of the corn. Big Agribusiness wants to keep it this way.

Google’s search engine is so dominant “google” has become a verb. A few years ago the staff of the Federal Trade Commission recommended suing Google for “conduct [that] has resulted – and will result – in real harm to consumers and to innovation.” But the commissioners decided against the lawsuit, perhaps because Google is also the biggest lobbyist in Washington.

The list goes on, industry after industry, across the economy. Antitrust has been ambushed by the giant companies it was designed to contain.

Under Trump and the Republicans, Congress has further squeezed the budgets of the antitrust division of the Justice Department and the Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission. Politically-powerful interests have squelched major investigations and lawsuits. Right-wing judges have stopped or shrunk the few cases that get through.

Trump and his Republican enablers rhapsodize about the “free market,” yet have no qualms about allowing big corporations to rig it to boost profits at the expense of average people. As the late Robert Pitofsky, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, once noted, “antitrust is a deregulatory philosophy. If you’re going to let the free market work, you’d better protect the free market.”

We’re now in a new Gilded Age of wealth and power similar to the first Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century when the nation’s antitrust laws were enacted. But unlike then, today’s biggest corporations have enough political clout to neuter antitrust.

Unless government un-rigs the market through bold antitrust action to restore competition, the hidden upward distributions from consumers and workers to corporate chieftains and major investors will grow even larger.

If Democrats ever get back in power, one of the first things they need to do is revive antitrust.

How To Fix Western Democracy

Posted on October 12, 2018

All over the world, we are seeing the rise of authoritarianism that is rejecting the norms of democracy, freedom of the press and individual rights. In many countries, we are seeing leaders using political position for personal gain and watching the deliberate instigation of bigotry and intolerance toward the “other”. We are witnessing the undermining and imprisonment of public officials, opposition leaders and journalists. Russia, China, Hungary, Brazil and Saudi Arabia are only a few of the countries moving in this direction.

Most of us who live in democracies believe “it cannot happen here”. But, for many of us in America, it has been stunning to see how quickly President Trump and his administration are shattering the cultural norms of the world’s oldest and most powerful democracy.

All of this is not happening by accident. European and American right-wing factions are in close contact with each other, share tactics and goals, and are organised, led and sometimes even funded by some of the same people.

Democracies, such as ours, that assert equal protection under the law and government accountability to its citizens are foundational to a healthy and humane society, must comprehend the scope of the ultra-conservative movement if we are to effectively confront it.

These organised groups are actively tearing down a post-second World War global order and replacing it with autocratic leadership based on self-interest. Unfortunately, the establishment is defending the existing order and ignoring the fears and insecurities of the people that this outmoded status quo has wrought.

Neither is conducive to a positive future, as neither will provide what so many are asking for: simply put, a decent quality of life. If we are to prevail, we must clearly articulate a vision of shared prosperity, personal freedom, economic fairness and, most importantly, human dignity – the basic tenets of a vital democracy.

That means creating policies that effectively tackle economic, environmental, racial and social justice issues. We must not be satisfied with incremental, transactional change that makes little progress and carefully avoids affecting those in charge or offending their lobbyists and large donors.

We must fight for transformational change that shifts the balance of power back to ordinary citizens and makes a real difference in their lives. The United States and Ireland have each had recent successes in terms of individual rights and economic justice.

These victories were hard won by people standing up and fighting back together – the only way real change ever takes place. We need to build on these successes and expand our partnerships on both a local and global basis.

The issue of war and peace is central to this fight for democracy. The United States has long used “democracy” as a reason to wage regime-change wars which have resulted in serious “unforeseen” consequences – whether it was overthrowing Mosaddegh in Iran, Allende in Chile, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, or a whole range of clandestine operations, interventions all over the world.

Many of these military actions might not have taken place if the public had been educated about the issues, if those with different ideas and foresight had not been marginalised, if there had been a civil debate of ideas rather than a group-think acquiescence.

I’m an educator. And I believe democracy depends upon an educated populace. Some of the important elements of education – inclusive with respect to human rights, accessible regardless of economic status, and essential in preparation for global citizenship – are also some of the most important aspects of a strong democracy.

Recognition that public funding for pre-school through university is not only an investment in the individual, but an investment in the future of the country, could shift the spending priorities of a nation while enhancing democratic values.

As we prepare our teachers, doctors, childcare workers, economists, lawyers and other professions for their chosen careers, we should also educate them for democracy. Perhaps we could learn from the Native American culture and cultivate a practice for our students – and our policymakers – of determining how today’s decisions will affect the next seven generations, impact the environment, and influence the growth and development of our children. Perhaps the media could assist by offering broader perspectives and fostering more debate on the facts, ethics and morality of particular stances regarding the economy, income inequality, budget policy and democratic principles in general.

In our schools and colleges, we need to put greater emphasis on economists working with students on global inequality and poverty. We need more scientists exploring the root causes of the planetary climate crisis and the necessity of sustainable development and renewable energies. We need greater focus in teacher-education programs on sharing the latest neuroscience discoveries and considering their implications for nurturing curiosity, creativity and confidence and cultivating a thirst for lifelong learning.

A consistent interdisciplinary approach could bring students in various fields together to work collaboratively, in teams, in respectful civil discourse. And, since we’re discussing democracy, there could be discussions about why policies that are best for the largest number of people, fairer for all, are – or are not – adopted in our nation’s capitals. Perhaps we could incorporate real-world case studies that review policies and actions not just from a what happened perspective, but why, what were the results, and how could we have done better?

Educating for global citizenship requires the ability to think critically, write clearly and communicate effectively. It requires media literacy and analysis. It requires an understanding of sustainable development, and the ability to identify and research complex issues. And it requires ethical behaviour.

Which brings me to our current electoral process. In today’s politics, the conventional wisdom is that it is no longer enough to defeat your opponent in a contest of ideas. According to the omnipresent highly paid consultants, the politics of today requires you to destroy them.

Negative television ads and mailings, paid for by special interests and large donors, bombard voters with reasons not to vote for this one or that one. The result is, they often decide not to vote – at all. We need to get money out of politics and, in the meantime, we need to not listen when money speaks. Don’t believe the negative messages. Demand that candidates give reasons to vote for them, not against their opponents.

In terms of civil discourse, we need to set the bar higher for our elected officials, candidates, the media and ourselves. We need to voice our opposition when we see the harsh, divisive and partisan rhetoric or the politics of personal destruction at work – regardless of whether we support or oppose the speaker or the target.

We can ask, and ask, and ask again that they all actively resist this coarsening of our culture whenever they observe it. We can let the candidates and the media know that we expect in-depth questions and answers about issues that affect our lives and that we expect them to engage in issue-oriented civil debate.

It’s Up To You

Posted on October 4, 2018

How do we get out of this mess?  It’s up to you.

First and most obviously: Vote! Even if you’re in a pure blue or deep red state or district, don’t assume your vote doesn’t count. You never know how close the vote can be.

Verify your registration, find your polling place, and make a plan to vote on Election Day. If you still need to register, do so today.

Second: Encourage others to vote. Typically, in midterm elections, only about 40 percent of eligible voters go to the polls. The upcoming election will be decided by turnout.

The most powerful way to motivate others to vote is the personal touch. So call your friends and family. Talk about what’s at stake in this election. If you live in a blue state or district, be sure to also call family and friends in red or purple states and districts.

 

 

Third: Get young people to the polls. In the last midterm election, in 2014, only 16 percent of eligible voters aged 18 to 29 voted, compared to 55% of people over 50.

The millennial generation is now the largest voting block in America, for the first time outnumbering Baby Boomers and older Americans.

So please urge your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and even their friends to vote. If they don’t already know, explain how important this election is to them and to their future.

Fourth: You can do even more to get out the vote. Host a phone bank, knock on doors, make sure people know where to vote, help drive them to polling places. Groups like MoveOn have tools to get you started today.

Folks, our democracy depends on all of us – now more than ever. This November 6th, please do your part.

Hoola Na Pua Gala Message

Posted on October 1, 2018

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard received the Ho’ola Na Pua Advocacy Award on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2018, for her dedication to serving and empowering human trafficking survivors in Hawai‘i. The award was announced at the annual Pearl Gala that recognizes individuals, organizations, and companies, who have demonstrated courage and advocacy in fighting against sexual exploitation of children in Hawai‘i.

 

 

“Unfortunately, tens of thousands of men, women, and children are victims of human trafficking every year – around the world, and in Hawai‘i,” said Rep. Gabbard. “Kids as young as ten or eleven years old have been taken from schools, beaches, and malls through an intricate network of sex traffickers. Too often, these cases remain under-reported and under-prosecuted. I’m grateful for the great leadership and service that Ho’ola Na Pua provides, shining a light on this epidemic, and supporting, caring for, and empowering female sex trafficking survivors. I am humbled to receive the Ho’ola Na Pua Advocacy Award and will continue to do my best to support these courageous survivors and ensure they get the care they need to heal and move forward with their lives.”

“Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has a long-term passionate record and commitment to bringing increased awareness and systematic change to the anti-human trafficking movement both nationally and locally,” said Ho’ola Na Pua. Background: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has fought to combat human trafficking throughout her time in Congress.  She is an original co-sponsor of the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act (H.R.459) and has supported a series of human trafficking bills, including the Global Child Protection Act (H.R. 1862), the Strengthening Children’s Safety Act of 2017 (H.R. 1842), the Adam Walsh Reauthorization Act of 2017 (H.R. 1188), the Targeting Child Predators Act of 2017 (H.R. 883), the Child Protection Improvements Act of 2017 (H.R. 695), and the TARGET Act (H.R. 1625).

Dr. Jane O’Meara Sanders: Future First Lady?

Posted on September 28, 2018

“The moment I saw Ireland from the boat, I finally understood that emotional connection everyone talks about. I used to dismiss it as silly when people called it their ‘motherland,’ and think it was terribly American, but now I get it.” Dr Jane O’Meara Sanders is smiling as she speaks to me about her extensive Irish connections.

The wife and senior advisor to former US Presidential Democratic candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders is softly spoken but undeniably passionate about what’s important to her. “I am 96% Irish –  at least, that’s according to Ancestry.com”, she laughs. “I have the Murphys in Youghal, the Kings in Westmeath, O‘Mearas from South Tipperary and the Reynolds’ in Drogheda. I’ve always had a very strong sense of being Irish. I know it is naïve, but it seems that people genuinely treasure friendship and conversations with a warmth that is refreshing.”

But there is nothing remotely naïve about Jane. Her career history is impressively crammed with hard-fought battles for social justice. Her politics match that of her husband’s –  Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. They were together for seven years before they married in 1988 and have a blended family with four children from previous relationships. Jane, originally from Brooklyn, in New York, has a doctorate (from the Union Institute), has she served as president of Burlington College, and through her work as a community organiser, started a teen centre, a daycare centre and after-school programs for disadvantaged children. Sanders is unequivocal in her support for her husband’s vision – eventually working with him as a spokeswoman, policy adviser and chief of staff. She was once quoted in the American Spectator as saying “If I didn’t work for him, I’d never see him.”

As part of her devotion to social justice, Jane Sanders is returning to Limerick next month for the I.NY festival – an event that celebrates the relationship between Ireland and New York. We have half an hour to chat about everything from her work on the upcoming inaugural Sanders Institute conference (more of which later) to women’s voices in politics, and of course, I want to know what it was really like on the campaign trail with Donald Trump. “That is part of the problem”, she chides, “The fourth estate is not informing the electorate because they are only focused on the ongoing gossip and the latest scandal. When you turn on the TV, it is ATAT – all Trump, all the time. It is worrisome, we really need to be involved in addressing the issues of importance and coming up with real potential solutions and answers.”

“When Bernie ran in the primaries, he talked about the issues relentlessly, and the media ignored him yet again because he refused to tear down his opponents. We don’t believe in tearing down people, we believe in offering a vision for the future.”

And she is right. We have become so obsessed with the scandal, the gossip and the drama of politics that we have started to take our eye off the ball when it comes to the issues that matter. We can blame the news, or Netflix, or our short attention spans, but it is refreshing to see the passion Jane and Bernie seem to bring to the real issues that affect people’s lives. “There is a lot to be concerned about. Around the world, democracy is endangered. The mission statement of The Sanders Institute is to revitalise it by actively engaging organisations and media in pursuit of progressive solutions and social justice issues.

“We believe that a democracy depends on an informed electorate, civil discourse and bold ideas and all of those things are in danger right now.”

But in an era of fake news, political mud-slinging and calculated misinformation, how do we get the world’s attention back in the room? “That’s why we are having the inaugural conference of The Sanders Institute,” Jane explains. “We will have some of the most progressive minds to visualise and actualise, to reach across generations and discuss, debate and articulate issues of concern and bold ideas and actionable solutions to address our country’s issues.”

It is going to have to be a very big and bold idea indeed if it is to make a dent in the current Trump reign. Jane says she worries that the traditional battle of ideas has become a battle of destructions. “Trump understood that there is a vast sloth of America that was not doing well and were increasingly suspect and distrustful of status quo…and rightfully so. I think that a lot of people felt that way – and it is something Bernie had recognised too from the start – people being left out of the recovery, those whose needs are not being addressed, people are not feeling secure and jobs being taken overseas.”

Could Bernie have won against Trump had things been different? Jane answers an emphatic yes. “All the polls showed taken in last several months of primary and then even up to the General Election, when the few that did put him in as if he was the candidate, showed there were many, many people who would have supported Bernie instead of Trump, because again, it would be a step away from the status quo. They thought he would fight for them and for the working people of America. So yes, I think he would have won. But that is not the way our system works.”

Jane says has no ambition to run for office herself, but is supportive of hearing more women’s voices across the political landscape. “I never judge a person by their gender or sexual orientation, by their race, or anything else. I judge them by what they are trying to accomplish politically and are they addressing the issues and not going to be swayed by corporate interests and getting the best person is what matters.”

“It is important to have more women’s voices, but they have to be the right voices.”

“From my perspective, I think they need to be progressive, women’s voices throughout Congress and we need a better percentage of that and it is happening, which is good but I don’t like the attitude which is becoming all too widespread in Trump Time – the attitude that you put people down, or putting down men in general, and I disagree with that as I had a wonderful Irish father, have a fantastic husband and an incredible son and grandsons . So it is not something that I agree with in terms of saying ‘we just need women.’ I think there are a lot of women that are doing the wrong thing as well.”

So what’s it like to slug it out against someone like Donald Trump? Jane says they’ve met, but not to discuss anything specific. “Bernie and I went to the inauguration because that’s the appropriate thing to do as Senator.

“We have not established a relationship with Donald Trump because a number of people who have tried to establish one on specific issues come out of meetings thinking one thing then the reality is that it didn’t happen. That happened over and over again. People tried to work on issues thinking they could find common ground but how can you find common ground when it is always shifting?”

Of course, all eyes are on who can take on Trump, and win, in 2020. Jane’s answer is predictable tight-lipped. “Right now we are considering everything. We’ll see how it all goes. Right now Bernie is in his election for Senator for Vermont which is up again in November so we are focused on that,” Jane says the other big focus for everyone is the upcoming mid-term elections. Democrats are poised to win up and down the ballot, despite the strong economy and Republicans’ advantages on the electoral map. The only question is how big the gains will be.

“It is rather disturbing that the entire Republican elected leaders and Congress has just completed unconditionally supported Trump because of their own political calculations of how they will do if he fights them. Every time he’s taken someone on they’ve lost in the Republican primaries. My concern is that the Republican party has been taken over completely by Trump.

“I fear that his ethics, or lack thereof –  and values, or lack thereof – are what is leading that party now and that is worrisome. Right now, I think everyone is focusing on the November elections because it is the only way to deal with the uncertainty and bigotry and all the concerns we have –  not only these issues but on how we are perceived as a country and how we are acting as a country.”

Together Is Stronger

That importance of perception is also what Jane believes the Limerick-based, I.NY festival is generating. In Ireland’s case – a positive global perception. “I think what Ireland is doing in terms of bringing people from the US back to Ireland and allowing them to learn more about the politics is a very smart move. I have started following Irish news and I know myself that I am talking a lot more about Ireland and Irish politics in my life. Inviting those back who feel a real kinship with this country is good for the economy. The more people love Ireland and Irish products, the more they think about it as a more powerful country even than they are. I think there are a lot of relationships that can be built.”

Building relationships is what Jane always says sustained her and her husband throughout their own political rollercoaster. “Seeing the hope and purpose on the faces of the people we met along the way – we couldn’t have done it without that. It finally seems that people in America now understand they have the power and they don’t need to think small anymore. Several years ago, it seemed that everyone thought that’s a nice idea but that can’t happen. But I think the presidential race and the actions of the community show that all these things can happen, all these things can be accomplished. If we stand together, there is nothing we can’t accomplish.”

Just When Should We Start Worrying About Deficits?

Posted on September 24, 2018

The U.S. deficit is rising again, a lot. The Congressional Budget Office just said it expects the deficit to top $1 trillion in 2019, a record. Some economists say that at some point, debt becomes a drag on growth. Is the U.S. approaching that threshold? Should we be worried? Bloomberg Opinion columnists Stephanie Kelton and Noah Smith met recently online to debate.

Stephanie Kelton: I don’t find the projections particularly interesting, nor do I find them disturbing — at least not in the “OMG trillion-dollar deficits are coming! Run for the caves!” sort of way. What I find interesting is not the budget forecast itself but the fact that Republicans added roughly $2 trillion in stimulus at a time when nearly everyone said it shouldn’t be done, citing proximity to full employment. “You don’t do stimulus at full employment,” was basically the argument. Well, here we are well into the experiment and … what’s the problem? Inflation remains in check, unemployment has ticked down a bit further, small business confidence is at a 45-year high and growth has accelerated. So that’s interesting.

Noah Smith: Here’s the problem. If you have a basic aggregate demand, Phillips-curve sort of view of the economy, then if stimulus is giving the economy a boost, it should also be raising inflation. Core inflation hasn’t accelerated and is right around the 2 percent target, even as unemployment has dropped, which raises the question of whether the tax cuts are really delivering much stimulus to the economy. We have reason to think that tax-cut multipliers are lower than spending multipliers, and that multipliers during booms are lower than multipliers during recessions, which tends to back up the notion that the tax cut probably isn’t doing much in the way of stimulus — the economy is recovering for other reasons. So really we’re just racking up debt in order to make the tax system more regressive. Is that wise?

SK: I agree that there were better ways to use the $2 trillion or so in fiscal space that we clearly had available at the start of the year. And, yes, the Republicans mostly used deficits to deliver a windfall to big corporations and the richest people in America, dishing out crumbs across the rest of the income distribution.

Here’s who benefited from the last round of tax cuts:

No one knows exactly how much of the pickup in economic activity is due to the tax cuts, but it ain’t zero. So they helped. And, as you note, they helped without raising inflation, which tells me they didn’t overstimulate, which further tells me there may be room to do even more. Tax Cuts 2.0, anyone?

Here’s who would benefit from the next round:

But here’s the thing Republicans seem to understand really well: The federal government’s deficit shows up as a surplus in some other part of the economy. And so while critics use terms like, “blowing up the deficit” or “drowning in red ink” to describe what’s happening to the government’s finances, Republicans seem more interested in the fact that their deficits will improve the private sector’s finances, especially the biggest corporations and wealthiest people in America. In other words, the GOP seems to understand that the government’s red ink is our black ink! It’s a point Goldman Sachs’ chief economist, Jan Hatzius, has made emphatically. And, of course, modern monetary theory folks routinely make the same point.

Instead of saying, “The 2018 budget deficit is expected to be $804 billion, rising to $1 trillion in 2019,” we could say, “The surplus in the non-government sector is expected to be $804 billion, rising to $1 trillion in 2019.” Is that disturbing?

NS: Why should we care about the private sector’s net surplus? According to the theory of balance sheet recessions, and to the theory of debt deflation, and also to the theory of the leverage cycle, it’s the private sector’s gross debt that poses a danger to the economy. In other words, what matters is how much companies and private individuals owe to each other, not how much the government owes them. So the point about the private sector’s net surplus is a bit lost on me. Who cares?

SK: Debt is only part of it. The other issue is the servicing of debts; if you moved everyone from 15-year mortgages to 30-year mortgages, you’d likely end up with higher debt-to-income and higher assets, since more people can handle the payments, and those that could already handle the payments can now afford the payment on more house. But the ability to service the debt is likely greater, all else equal. Even standard neoclassical macroeconomics on sustainable finance emphasizes the debt-service ratio over the debt ratio, even as the debt ratio obviously plays a role.

Setting aside the debate about the relative importance of debt-to-income or assets, or debt service, a government deficit adds to private-sector incomes (relative to debt or debt service) whereas a government surplus has the opposite effect. The most intuitive way to show this is through the sector financial balances. This becomes clear if you listen to Hatzius explain why he thinks sector-balance analysis can send a signal when the private sector’s financial positions are becoming overly fragile. And because it’s nothing more than accounting, it also tells us that the crowding-out story is 100 percent wrong — a government deficit raises private sector incomes; it doesn’t crowd out private finance.

NS: Putting aside the argument over financial crowding out, I still don’t see the relevance of all this. Let’s think in terms of real resources — not dollars, surpluses and deficits, but cars, pizzas, hours of labor. It seems clear to me that unless we have unused resources in the economy — idle workers and idle factories — that a government deficit can’t increase real output. At the end of the day, real output is what we care about — you can’t eat dollars, but you can eat pizzas. And if the U.S. economy is indeed nearing full employment, it means that there aren’t many unused resources lying around — and hence, the real benefit from deficits seems low. This is just standard Keynesian economics.

As for the financing side of things, the reason government debt matters is because of how government finances its borrowing. If it uses tax financing — including future tax financing — that can hamper the economy. If it uses monetary financing — getting the central bank to print money to finance the Treasury’s deficits — that could at some point explode into uncontrollable inflation. What do you have to say to those worries?

SK: This actually isn’t right. If the government were to finance itself by so-called money printing, that would mean either (a) the government runs an overdraft at the Federal Reserve, or (b) the Fed buys the government’s bonds, which leaves reserve balances in the Fed accounts of private banks instead. But, for the Fed to achieve a positive interest-rate target, it would have to pay interest on reserve balances at its target rate. In other words, printing money simply means that overnight central bank liabilities earning the central bank’s target rate replace, say, three-month government liabilities earning roughly the central bank’s target rate. And if the Fed doesn’t pay interest on these reserve balances, then that simply means it wants its target rate at zero. Overall, there’s little difference in terms of macroeconomic impact whether the government sells its securities or prints money because the latter isn’t actually a thing in the real world. And while this is something MMT has been saying for 20 years, it’s basically what Narayana Kocherlakota, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said a few years ago, too.

So the point is that deficits, per se, are not disturbing. Is there a limit to how big the deficit can safely climb? Absolutely! Deficits matter. They can be too big — risking accelerating inflation. But they can also be too small, robbing the economy of a critical source of income, sales and profits. At some point, something will happen to undermine the strength of demand in the U.S. economy, and the expansion will end. Given the current inflation outlook, I see no reason to believe that trillion-dollar deficits pose a risk to the expansion. If anything, it will be the Fed’s reaction to those projected deficits that brings the expansion to an end.

NS: It seems like you’re agreeing with me that accelerating inflation is a risk of deficits. The question is whether that would come slowly or quickly. If deficit-induced inflation comes slowly, we don’t have much to worry about, because we can see it coming and adjust policy accordingly. But if it comes quickly — if the economy switches suddenly between a low-inflation equilibrium and a high-inflation equilibrium — then the dangers of deficits wouldn’t become apparent until it was too late. Of course, we can never know where that breaking point is, so it’s hard to decide just how much precaution to take. But with the labor market looking very strong, it seems like the potential benefit of large deficits at this point in time is small. So it seems like an unknown risk in exchange for only a small potential gain — not the most enticing of gambles.

Why I’m Betting On Millennials This November 6th

Posted on September 23, 2018

Millennials (and their younger siblings, generation Z’s) are the largest, most diverse and progressive group of potential voters in American history, comprising fully 30 percent of the voting age population.

On November 6th, they’ll have the power to alter the course of American politics – flipping Congress, changing the leadership of states and cities, making lawmakers act and look more like the people who are literally the nation’s future.

But will they vote?

In the last midterm election, in 2014, only 16 percent of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 29 bothered.

In midterms over the last two decades, turnout by young people has averaged about 38 points below the turnout rate of people 60 and older. Which has given older voters a huge say over where the nation is likely to be by the time those younger people reach middle age and the older voters have passed on.

I’m not criticizing younger non-voters. They have a lot on their minds – starting jobs, careers, families. Voting isn’t likely to be high on their list of priorities.

Also, unlike their grand parents – boomers who were involved in civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, the anti-Vietnam War movement – most young people today don’t remember a time when political action changed America for the better.

They’re more likely to remember political failures and scandals – George W. Bush lying about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction; Bill Clinton lying about Monica; both parties bailing out Wall Street without so much as a single executive going to jail.

Most don’t even recall when American democracy worked well. They don’t recall the Cold War, when democracy as an ideal worth fighting for. The Berlin Wall came down before they were born.

Instead, during their lives they’ve watched big money take over Washington and state capitals. Which may explain why only about 30 percent of Americans born in the 1980s think it “essential” to live in a democracy.

Many young people have wondered if their votes count anyway, because so many of them live in congressional districts and states that are predictably red or blue.

Given all this, is there any reason to hope that this huge, diverse, progressive cohort of Americans will vote in the upcoming midterms?

My answer is, yes.

First, the issues up for grabs aren’t ideological abstractions for them. They’re causes in which Millennials have direct personal stakes.

Take, for example, gun violence – which some of these young people have experienced first-hand and have taken active roles trying to stop.

Or immigrant’s rights. Over 20 percent of Millennials are Latino, and a growing percent are from families that emigrated from Asia. Many have directly experienced the consequences of Trump’s policies.

A woman’s right to choose whether to have a baby, and gay’s or lesbian’s rights to choose marriage – issues Millennials are also deeply committed to – will be front and center if the Supreme Court puts them back into the hands of Congress and state legislatures.

Millennials are also concerned about student debt, access to college, and opportunities to get ahead unimpeded by racial bigotry or sexual harassment.

And they’re worried about the environment. They know climate change will hit them hardest since they’ll be on the planet longer than older voters.

They’ve also learned that their votes count. They saw Hillary lose by a relative handful of votes in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

They’ve been witnessing razor-thin special elections, such as Conor Lamb’s win by a few hundred votes in the heart of Pennsylvania Trump country, and Hiral Tipirneni’s single-digit loss in an Arizona district Trump won by 21 points in 2016.

They know the importance of taking back governorships in what are expected to be nail-bitingly close races – in states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Kansas. They’re aware of the slim but increasingly real possibility of taking back the Senate. (Who knew Ted Cruz would be so vulnerable? Who even knew the name Beto O’Rourke?)

As doubtful as they these young people are about politics, or the differences between the two parties, they also know that Trump and his Republican enablers want to take the nation backwards to an old, white, privileged, isolated America. Most of them don’t.

In my thirty-five years of teaching college students, I’ve not encountered a generation as dedicated to making the nation better as this one.

So my betting is on them, this November 6th.

The Best Evidence That The NFL Effectively Banned Colin Kaepernick

Posted on September 20, 2018

Colin Kaepernick should have an NFL job right now. He’s arguably better and more accomplished than half of the starting quarterbacks currently in the league. He’s better and more accomplished than every backup. Let’s not even talk about third-stringers. The notion that Kaepernick is not one of the top 100 quarterbacks in the league is preposterous.

Just for argument’s sake, though, let’s work from the premise that Kaepernick is not in the NFL right now for purely football reasons. Let’s start at the position that every quarterback in the entire league is better, more skilled, more capable, more accomplished than he is. All of them. And that he’s been out of the NFL for over 500 days simply because it has been determined on football grounds that he would not make a single team better. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single current or former NFL player to agree with such a position, but let’s just put all that aside for a moment.

Now explain why Pro Bowl safety and defensive back Eric Reid doesn’t have a job.

Reid is 26 years old and injury-free. He can play multiple positions and is an ethical, generous leader on and off the field. His rookie contract just expired, and he is widely known as a coachable, team-first athlete. Try to make the argument that he doesn’t belong on an NFL roster for football reasons.

It’s impossible. A deep analysis of his stats and value has already been done. Everybody who plays at Reid’s level has a job and a well-paying contract except for Reid. The NFL is riddled with athletes who’ve been suspended and arrested and convicted — and they’ve routinely been given second and third and fourth chances. But not Eric Reid.

That’s because Reid is clearly being punished — not just for taking a knee on the field, which he did, but for doing so alongside Kaepernick.

Reid was the first NFL player to join Kaepernick in his protest against systematic racism and police brutality in this country. As the protest gained steam, a small handful of black players joined in — some continue to this day, either by taking a knee or remaining in the locker room during the national anthem. But only Reid did so side by side with Kaepernick for an entire season.

We can’t know for sure, but it’s difficult to imagine any other reason why Reid does’t have a job in the NFL this season. It may sound far-fetched, but you have to remember that many NFL team owners and executives have said that they “hate” Kaepernick and have even gone so far as to compare him to a convicted murderer.

I suspect team owners and executives hate Kaepernick so much that their animosity toward him spread to Reid. I can’t make sense of it any other way. I’ve looked at Reid’s forced exodus from the league from every imaginable angle. It’s hard to believe that a mainstream American company — and that’s what the NFL is, a corporation — is willing to so obtusely tip their hand like this. But I think that’s exactly what they’ve done here. It’s preposterous!

I’m a sports junkie — have been my entire life. On sports talk radio, I regularly hear both the hosts and callers say that they think Kaepernick has been banished from the NFL — not just because of his on-the-field protest, but because he wore socks portraying cops as pigs or a shirt featuring Malcolm X talking to Fidel Castro. Let’s just pretend, just for the moment, that those articles of clothing — not the protests themselves — were the things that pushed NFL owners to effectively ban Kaepernick. Let’s say that that’s the case.

Then how do you explain Eric Reid?

No one has snapped pictures of Reid wearing politically radical clothing. He never rocked a full afro. He didn’t put up a Black Power fist during warmups or after a game.

What he did, though, was kneel by his teammate Colin Kaepernick’s side. It sure looks like it’s cost him everything.