There have been so many good articles out lately I had to share.
Ezra Klein examines the state of the progressive tax system and finds:
In 1979, the top one percent brought home 9.3 percent of the national income -- which is to say, for every $100 paid in wages, $9.30 went to the top one percent -- and paid 15.4 percent of federal taxes. The ratio of tax share to income share was 1.65. Their tax burden was 1.65 times larger than their income share. In 2005, they brought home 18.1 percent of the national income -- it had doubled -- and paid 27.6 percent of federal taxes. The ration was 1.52. In other words, it has gone down. The rich pay less taxes as a share of their income than they did in the 1970s, and they control much more of the nation's wealth.
ThinkProgress reports on a new conservative meme, "The Iraqis are Ungrateful for everyhting we've done for them". Or is it to them?
Even President Bush is confused about Iraqis’ frustration, telling Bob Woodward, “I don’t understand that the Iraqis are not appreciative of what we’ve done for them.” Woodward explained, “He thinks we’ve done this magnificent thing for them. I think he still holds to that position.”
The American Prospect takes a critical look at the claim that the housing bubble was the direct result of liberal policies toward minority home owners.
This is classic rhetoric of conservative reaction. (For fans of welfare policy, it is Charles Murray meets the mortgage mess.) Most analysts see the sub-prime crisis as a market failure. Believing the bubble would never pop, lenders approved risky adjustable-rate mortgages, often without considering whether borrowers could afford them; families took on those loans; investors bought them in securitized form; and, all the while, regulators sat on their hands.
Matthew Yglesias asks why southern republicans fought so hard against the bailout and wonder whether it had something to do with their relationship to foreign car companies.
This is, of course, but a small slice of the larger southern politics tradition which has always insisted since the end of the Civil War that cheap labor and a low-tax, low-service, high-inequality social and economic system are the key to prosperity. This approach left the South perennially poorer than the rest of the country, but over the past couple of decades this made-in-dixie failed approach to economic development has come to dominate national policy. Not coincidentally, during this period the United States has begun to fall behind high-wage, high-service, low-inequality northern European countries in terms of average living standards.
Empty Wheel points out the lack of coverage of UAW's repeated sacrifices at the bargaining table.
And here's what the AP didn't report (I'm sure it was just an oversight, really).
In its contract last year, the UAW made painful concessions, adopting a two-tier wage structure, such that new employees make just $12 to $15 an hour. The move is projected to bring the American manufacturers in line with their Japanese rivals' non-union labor costs in the near future.
In addition, the union has taken responsibility for providing retiree healthcare, thereby eliminating one of the last remaining competitive disadvantages for the American manufacturers' unionized workforce as compared to their Japanese rivals.
With these agreements, the UAW has managed to save jobs, while still providing the superior labor force that leads most segments (big PDF, see page 10-11) in terms of the most efficient plants measured in hours per vehicle.
The UAW's workers have made deep concessions to ensure American-owned auto industry remains competitive with its foreign competitors. Now that the American-owned manufacturers have eliminated some of the structural disadvantages that gave foreign competitors a market advantage, it would be a terrible waste for its country not to do what's necessary to sustain American manufacturing though this tough financial period.
Then there's Nobel Laureate in Economics Joseph Stiglitz piece in Vanity Faire entitled "Capitalist Fools" in which he lays out what he has deduced to be the cause of our financial meltdown.
The truth is most of the individual mistakes boil down to just one: a belief that markets are self-adjusting and that the role of government should be minimal. Looking back at that belief during hearings this fall on Capitol Hill, Alan Greenspan said out loud, "I have found a flaw." Congressman Henry Waxman pushed him, responding, "In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right; it was not working." "Absolutely, precisely," Greenspan said. The embrace by America--and much of the rest of the world--of this flawed economic philosophy made it inevitable that we would eventually arrive at the place we are today.
And just for fun, don't forget to check out Tom Tommorow's This Modern World with "The Attack of the Invisible Hand of the Free Market" from Salon.com.
