Day: January 17, 2017

Barack Obama commutes the sentence of a soldier whom the Army never should have tried, let alone tortured: Daily Bullshit, January 14-17, 2017

benfell

I’m largely catching up today—the pace of news I consider worthy has been too slow to warrant an issue.

Chelsea Manning

Jordan Fabian, “Obama commutes Chelsea Manning’s sentence,” Hill, January 17, 2017, http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/314663-obama-commutes-chelsea-mannings-sentence

Brexit

Rafael Behr, “May can think big all she likes. Britain’s about to find out just how small it is,” Guardian, January 17, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/17/theresa-may-britain-prime-minister-speech

Jenny Gross and Nicholas Winning, “Prime Minister Theresa May Says U.K. Won’t Seek Membership of EU Single Market,” Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2017, http://www.wsj.com/articles/prime-minister-theresa-may-says-u-k-wont-seek-membership-of-eu-single-market-1484655569

James Mattis

Andrew J. Bacevich, “A Pledge for More of the Same at the Pentagon,” Atlantic, January 12, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/mattis-confirmation-pentagon-trump-iraq-afghanistan/513038/

Social Inequality

Pan Pylas, “Just 8 Men Have as Much Wealth as Half of the World, Study Says,” Time, January 17, 2017, http://time.com/4635696/world-wealth-distriubution-income-inequality-davos/

Basic Income

Marc Bain errs when he writes that “[Donald] Trump blamed trade policy for the job losses, though the real culprit is technology.”[1] Though it increasingly does appear that technology is and will be the culprit behind many job losses,[2] globalization has by no means been exonerated.[3] It would be more accurate to say that both are driving workers out of the labor force, but the emphasis on automation looks like another example of the mass media peddling its (and Barack Obama’s and the mainstream political class’s) preferred narrative.

Marc Bain, “Martin Luther King Jr. was decades ahead of his time in advocating for a universal basic income,” Quartz, January 16, 2017, https://qz.com/886516/martin-luther-king-jr-was-decades-ahead-of-his-time-in-advocating-for-a-universal-basic-income/

  1. [1]Marc Bain, “Martin Luther King Jr. was decades ahead of his time in advocating for a universal basic income,” Quartz, January 16, 2017, https://qz.com/886516/martin-luther-king-jr-was-decades-ahead-of-his-time-in-advocating-for-a-universal-basic-income/↩
  2. [2]Roderick Benns, “‘My heart tells me this is a fantastic solution’: Ontario Minister on Basic Income,” Leaders and Legacies, November 29, 2016, http://leadersandlegacies.com/2016/11/29/my-heart-tells-me-this-is-a-fantastic-solution-ontario-minister-on-basic-income/; Jennifer Broadhurst, “Guaranteed basic income for all: An idea whose time has come?” Christian Science Monitor, December 27, 2016, http://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Breakthroughs-Voices/2016/1227/Guaranteed-basic-income-for-all-An-idea-whose-time-has-come; Ross Douthat, “Leaving Work Behind,” New York Times, February 8, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/douthat-leaving-work-behind.html; Peter S. Goodman, “Free Cash in Finland. Must Be Jobless,” New York Times, December 17, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/17/business/economy/universal-basic-income-finland.html; Jon Henley, “Finland trials basic income for unemployed,” Guardian, January 3, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/03/finland-trials-basic-income-for-unemployed; Gerald Huff, “Don’t fear the robot economy,” Daily Dot, December 10, 2015, http://www.dailydot.com/via/technological-unemployment-robot-future-jobs/; Dylan Matthews, “Basic income: the world’s simplest plan to end poverty, explained,” Vox, April 25, 2016, http://www.vox.com/2014/9/8/6003359/basic-income-negative-income-tax-questions-explain; Vivek Wadhwa, “We need a new version of capitalism for the jobless future,” Washington Post, July 20, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/07/20/we-need-a-new-version-of-capitalism-for-the-jobless-future↩
  3. [3]Jeronim Capaldo and Alex Izurieta with Jomo Kwame Sundaram, “Unemployment, Inequality and Other Risks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement,” Global Development and Environment Institute, January, 2016, http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/TPP_simulations.html; Democracy Now! “NAFTA at 20: Lori Wallach on U.S. Job Losses, Record Income Inequality, Mass Displacement in Mexico,” January 3, 2014, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/1/3/nafta_at_20_lori_wallach_on; Democracy Now! “Zapatista Uprising 20 Years Later: How Indigenous Mexicans Stood Up Against NAFTA ‘Death Sentence’,” January 3, 2014, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/1/3/zapatista_uprising_20_years_later_how; Democracy Now! “Full Text of TPP Trade Deal Revealed — and Critics Say It’s Even Worse Than They Thought,” November 6, 2015, http://www.democracynow.org/2015/11/6/full_text_of_tpp_trade_deal; Cory Doctorow, “Independent economists: TPP will kill 450,000 US jobs; 75,000 Japanese jobs, 58,000 Canadian jobs,” Boing Boing, January 20, 2016, http://boingboing.net/2016/01/20/independent-economists-tpp-wi.html; Dave Johnson, “NAFTA At 20: 1 Million Lost Jobs, 580% Increase In Trade Deficit,” Campaign for America’s Future, December 30, 2013, http://ourfuture.org/20131230/nafta-at-20-1-million-lost-jobs-580-increase-in-trade-deficit; Manuel Pérez-Rocha, “NAFTA’s 20 Years of Unfulfilled Promises,” InterPress Service, December 29, 2013, http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/12/op-ed-naftas-20-years-unfulfilled-promises/; Eduardo Porter, “On Trade, Angry Voters Have a Point,” New York Times, March 15, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/business/economy/on-trade-angry-voters-have-a-point.html; Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, “NAFTA at 20,” Public Citizen, January, 2014, http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTA-at-20.pdf; Yves Smith [Susan Webber], “Administration Peddling Increasing Blatant Canards on Proposed ‘Trade’ Deals,” Naked Capitalism, January 6, 2014, http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/01/administration-peddling-increasing-blatant-misdirection-proposed-trade-deals.html; Jomo Kwame Sundaram, “The Real Costs of the Trans-Pacifc Partnership: Lost Jobs, Low Wages, and Rising Inequality,” Global Development And Environment Institute, February, 2016, http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/PB16-01TPP.pdf; Lori Wallach, “NAFTA on Steroids,” Nation, June 27, 2012, http://www.thenation.com/article/168627/nafta-steroids; Timothy A. Wise, “How Beer Explains 20 Years of NAFTA’s Devastating Effects on Mexico,” Triple Crisis, January 2, 2014, http://triplecrisis.com/how-beer-explains-20-years-of-naftas-devastating-effects-on-mexico/↩