Super PACs raised about $181 million in the last two years — with roughly half of it coming from fewer than 200 super-rich people.

That’s the news from a study called “Auctioning Democracy” jointly conducted by Demos, an organization that says it practices “advocacy to influence public debate and catalyze change,” and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Both groups seek to strengthen, if not compel full disclosure and expenditure rules.

Super PACs’ power stemmed from the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 2010 SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission decision. The Court’s Citizen United decision further strengthened corporations’ claim to personhood and weakened the requirement for full disclosure of donations to super PACs.

Politico’s Ken Vogel and Abby Phillip’s analysis of the study noted that

A relatively few wealthy backers are keeping super PACs afloat — and they’re saying so. Last year alone, individuals gave super PACs $63 million.

The news only worsens.

Again, from Politico:

That includes 15 people who gave $1 million or more, such as DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, who gave $2 million to Priorities USA Action, the super PAC supporting President Barack Obama, and John Paulson, a hedge fund billionaire who gave $1 million to a super PAC supporting Mitt Romney’s GOP presidential campaign, according to FEC reports.

The figures don’t even include the $10 million that Adelson and his wife gave from their personal accounts to the super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich’s GOP presidential campaign after the year-end FEC reports.

And from the Demos/USPIRG report itself:

For-profit businesses use Super PACs as an avenue to influence federal elections. 17% of the itemized funds raised by Super PACs came from for-profit businesses—more than $30 million.

Because Super PACs—unlike traditional PACs—may accept funds from nonprofits that are not required to disclose their donors, they provide a vehicle for secret funding of electoral campaigns. 6.4% of the itemized funds raised by Super PACs cannot be feasibly traced back to an original source.

Super PACs are a tool used by wealthy individuals and institutions to dominate the political process. 93% of the itemized funds raised by Super PACs from individuals in 2011 came in contributions of at least $10,000, from just twenty-three out of every 10 million people in the U.S. population.

And still more from the report:

Nearly 20% of active Super PACs20 received money from untraceable sources in 2011. Six out of the 10 Super PACs that raised the most money in 2011 received money from untraceable sources. [emphasis added]

I have nothing to add except revulsion and disgust. Is this the method the Founders imagined would provide the United States with its best and fairest political leadership?

I tend to believe that Komen’s sponsors had nothing but the best intentions in donating their time and money to supporting a worthy cause. However, I also can’t help noticing that I haven’t heard a peep out of any of them regarding the foundation’s appalling decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood, an entity that doesn’t harness its public health mission to partisan prerequisites.

I can also guarantee you that the PR groups and agencies charged with representing the brands of these sponsoring organizations have been holding their collective breath, desperately praying that this will all blow over and nobody will notice them.

Fat chance. Here’s a list of Komen’s corporate sponsors. If you patronize any of these companies, perhaps you might consider asking them what they think of Komen’s behavior over the past couple of weeks.

• 3M
• ACH Food Companies: Bake for the Cure
• Acushnet – Titleist, Pinnacle and FootJoy Worldwide
• American Airlines
• American Blue Ribbon Holdings
• Anchor Bay Entertainment
• Ansell Healthcare Products LLC
• Aquage (SalonQuest, LLC)
• Arizona AFO
• Armouth International
• Ask.com
• Avcor Healthcare Products, Inc.
• Balance Walking by Foot Solutions
• Bank of America
• BCBG MAXAZRIA and ClearVision Optical
• Belk
• Berkley Packaging Company, Inc.
• BIC USA Inc.
• Boar’s Head Provisions Co., Inc.
• BoConcept USA, Inc.
• Boots Retail USA, Inc
• Boston Proper
• Boston Warehouse
• Bowl for the Cure
• Brinker International
• Brown Shoe Company
• Caché
• California Pear Advisory Board
• Caltrate
• Canari Cyclewear
• Candy Coburn – Pink Warrior
• Caribou Coffee Company, Inc.
• Carlisle Collection, Ltd
• Caterpillar
• Century Payments
• Charlotte Motor Speedway and The Dollar General 300 Miles of Courage
• Chasing Fireflies
• Chesapeake Bay Candle Co
• Citizen Watch Company of America
• Clean Ones Corporation
• Coldwater Creek
• Collegiate Shipping Products, LLC
• Crayola
• Dallas Cowboys – I Promise
• Dell
• Deluxe Checks
• Deuce Brand
• Dots
• DS Waters
• Eggland’s Best, Inc.
• Emdeon
• Energizer
• EuroBlooms
• Evian
• Evite and Postmark
• Exercise TV
• Exhale Enterprises, Inc.
• Fable Designs, Inc
• Feld Entertainment’s Disney on Ice presents Treasure Trove and Dare to Dream
• Ford Gum
• Ford Motor Company
• Forever 21
• Fragrance Marketing Group
• Freed’s Bakery, LLC
• FUZE and Honest Tea
• Garden State Growers
• General Growth Properties
• General Mills Pink Together
• Georgia-Pacific
• Global Filtration
• Globe Electric
• Goldtouch
• Graphique de France
• GUESS
• GUESS by Marciano
• Hallmark Gold Crown Stores
• Hampshire Designers
• Hand & Nail Harmony
• Hanesbrands
• Helzberg Diamonds
• Hewlett-Packard
• Holland America Line
• HSN – Shop for the Cure®
• HUE
• Hunter Boot USA, LLC
• Igloo
• Inliten
• Interfresh, Inc.
• IOGEAR
• J. Berry Nursery
• Jason Aldean
• Jersey Mike’s Subs
• Kelly Gale Amen Design
• Kent International, Inc.
• Kentucky Oaks Ladies First
• Key Brands International
• KeyBank Foundation
• King’s Hawaiian Bakery West, Inc.
• KitchenAid
• Kobian USA, Inc.
• Koch Filter Corporation
• Koi Design
• Kyocera
• La Madeleine
• LaCroix Sparkling Water
• Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA)
• Liberty Mutual
• LIFE Event-The Val Skinner Foundation
• Louisville Stoneware
• Lowe’s Companies, Inc
• LPGA Golf Clinics for Women
• Magaschoni
• Major League Baseball
• McAlister’s Deli
• MD Jockey Club – Preakness
• MegaGoods, Inc.
• Merck Consumer Care
• Meredith Corporation
• Microsoft
• Mobile Edge
• Mohawk Flooring – Decorate for the Cure
• Mottega
• Mrs. Baird’s Bakeries
• Napa Valley Naturals
• Nature’s Flowers
• NBC Today Show
• Nestle Purina PetCare Company
• New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc.
• New Global Charities
• NKOTB
• Nordstrom
• North American Licensing Company
• Not Your Daughter’s Jeans
• Nuun
• Oil Can Henry’s
• Old Navy
• On The Border – Fiesta for the Cure™
• Opal Orthodontics by Ultradent
• OPI
• Oracle Giving Commitment Grant
• Oreck
• Oregon Cherry Growers, Inc.
• Oriental Trading Company
• Otis Spunkmeyer, Inc.
• Palmer’s
• Pandora Jewelry
• Paris Accessories, Inc (MMG Corporation)
• Payless ShoeSource
• Philips Consumer Lifestyle
• Pink Ribbon Produce
• PNY
• Pottery Barn Kids
• Premium Outlets
• Pretzel Crisps
• Princess Cruises Community Foundation
• Prolacta Bioscience
• Provide Commerce
• Rally for the Cure®
• Redken
• REMAX
• RiceSelect
• Rich Products Corporation
• Robinson Home Products
• Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc.
• Samsung Electronics Europe
• Santa Barbara Design Studio and Designs by Lolita
• Sarah Fisher Racing
• Savvi Formalwear
• SELF Magazine
• ShoeDazzle
• Shoutback Concepts – Deals for the Cure
• Shuman Produce, Inc.
• Simon Malls
• SodaStream
• Specialized Bicycle Components
• Springs Global
• Stein Mart
• Stylemark, Inc.
• Sy Kessler Sales, Inc.
• Teasdale Quality Foods
• Testing
• The Hillman Group
• The Mohawk Group – Specify for a Cure
• The Republic of Tea
• Trident Seafoods Corporation
• True Religion Brand Jeans
• Tubbs Romp to Stomp Snowshoe Series
• U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation
• Verbatim
• Wacoal America
• Walgreens
• Wells Lamont
• Woman Within
• Yoplait USA
• Young Dental
• Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity
• Zumba Fitness

Thanks to Deanna Pierce for the story idea.

I know, I know, who is going to believe Unilever, one of the largest food and consumer products companies in the world, is Socially Responsible? What does that even mean, anyway? Well, leaving that aside for the moment, I’ve been following this area for a while, and in fact Unilever does spend a fair amount of time and money (relatively speaking) in this area. Why? Because there are an increasing number of investors that are demanding it. There are a whole raft of investment funds that specialize in SRI (Socially Responsible Investing) or ESG (Environmental/Social/Governance) issues, and while they’re not huge in the scheme of things, they are getting bigger. Not only that, but large pension funds, including government pension funds, have been taking an interest in these areas for some time as well, and this interest level continues to grow.

This is generally good news. Companies are out there to make a profit for someone, of course, usually their shareholders, but there have been stirrings of some emergence of broader thinking here. Most of the companies I pay attention to as an analyst are European or British, and most of them file big fat reports at year end called “Sustainability Reports,” in which they detail their measures across a range of issues, like improved recycling rates, emissions reduction other measures to reduce carbon footprints, labour relations, employee benefits, a whole lot of things. Siemens’ 2010 Sustainability report was 104 pages long—but Pirelli’s was even longer, much of it taken up with company and industry measures being undertaken to reduce the problems associated with getting rid of old tires and reducing energy inputs in the tire-making process, which is extraordinarily complicated and very energy intensive. You can find these reports on any company’s Web site. (Here’s the link to the Siemens 2010 Sustainability Report—it makes interesting reading.) Now, admittedly, much of this is work that the companies would have to report to appropriate regulatory bodies anyway—emissions of various substances, for example. And some of it is sheer gloss. But much of it is above and beyond what is minimally required, and some of it is downright impressive. I have to say that European (particularly the German, the Dutch and the Swedish) companies are light-years ahead of their US counterparts in this regard, for a number of reasons. There are few global warming deniers over here.

Now, this is interesting, but there’s an old debate here too, which Tett drags out again, which is why should companies be doing this stuff in the first place? Shouldn’t governments be doing this? And Tett actually has this to say, quoting the opposite viewpoint (although she ends up coming down in the middle somewhere):

But there is a powerful counter-argument, too: some business leaders retort that companies would actually do better to focus on their primary function – namely the business of making money – and leave governments to worry about those bigger social goals. After all, governments are elected to make countries better, so why do unelected company executives feel any duty to reach into other areas of life? “The fact that companies are doing all this CSR stuff just shows that government has failed,” muttered one British manufacturing executive.

Actually, it’s not just business leaders. It’s often portfolio managers and investors, too, who wonder why these two domains are being intermingled. Now, there’s a defensible argument here—if you want to give money to SRI things, including charities, invest in whatever will give you the best return and then given the money directly to wherever you want. It’s defensible, as I said, but not compelling, for any number of reasons, worth a post in their own.

But back to Tett’s column, because it raises some issues she doesn’t address. What’s missing here? Well, any kind of context, first of all. This is a nice airy-fairy conversation to have over wine at Davos, but Tett could at least have acknowledged a couple of things. First, governments are under a lot of stress to deliver services at any kind of appropriate level now—is there a European or North American government that isn’t cutting services right and left these days? It’s all fine to say “let the government do it” when the government can afford to do it. What about when governments can’t afford to do it any more, especially as the result of a number of totally unnecessary military actions that no one wanted to pay for at the time? Tett’s later comment that “governments are blatantly failing to pursue many of their core responsibilities, forcing companies to step in” ignores a fundamental economic reality right now—many governments are “failing” their responsibilities (to the extent that this is even true—Tett cites no examples) because they don’t have the money.

The other piece of information that Tett could have acknowledged, but didn’t, is just why governments don’t have that money. Well, there are many reasons, presumably, but one of them is certainly the fact that corporations continue to pay a lower and lower level of taxes to governments around the world. If, as Tett acknowledges elsewhere in her column, business leaders are increasingly concerned about growing “income disparity,” then the straightforward solution is for companies to pay higher taxes in order to give governments more money than they have right now to accomplish what governments are supposed to accomplish.

That hasn’t exactly been the recent pattern, though. In the US, corporate taxes as a share of federal government revenues continue to decline, and we had some famous instances in the press not all that long ago—General Electric being the most egregious example, but certainly not the only one. Tax rates actually don’t mean all that much when there are a multitude of ways to get around taxes, as there are in the US. The US has high corporate tax rates, but this actually means little. And the corporate share of taxes collected by the US government has been steadily declining, as this nifty little table from the IRS indicates:

In Europe, it’s a bit more complicated, simply because there are many more countries with a wide range of corporate tax rates (which the EU has been attempting to harmonize). Corporate tax rates have fallen in many countries, but overall tax revenues remain high, because individual rates are higher, and there are VAT taxes. Here in the UK, corporate tax rates have declined markedly since the 1970s, and in fact, continue to decline—from 28% in 2010 to 24% in 2013. In the EU-27, the decline in average corporate tax rates from 1995 has been meaningful, from nearly 36% to just under 24% in 2011. Even so, unlike the US, corporate taxes have remained roughly the same percentage of total taxation during this period, although they dropped in 2009 (and presumably since then) as a result of the recession. At no point since 1995, however, did corporate taxes in the EU-27 exceed 7% of total taxation. Note that this average masks a wide variance across individual countries—the UK had the highest percentage on average, but corporate taxes still never exceeded 10.6% of total taxation during this period.

It’s easy to say “raise their taxes,” but a bit more problematic to actually do it, given the extensive interests that have grown up specifically to prevent corporate taxes from rising anywhere at any time for any reason (this is a major industry, as well as an apparent object of religious faith, in the US these days). Given that, we might expect a bit more realism to accompany comments about governments abandoning their responsibilities than we got here. It ‘s certainly the case that what some corporations are currently doing in some of these “social” areas is a band-aid at best, and some of it is pure gloss.

But there is also some serious thinking going on here in a number of areas, particularly in areas such as transportation policy and sustainability and energy efficiency, what these mean, what are realistic goals and time frames, and how to achieve these–thinking that is just as incisive as found in any university, think tank or government agency. The people who run these companies—mostly men, of course—all go to Davos too, they all know the score on global warming and its implications for things like food and water supplies globally, and the world that their grandchildren might inherit, and many of them are as nervous about all of this as the rest of us. The difference between them and us, aside from the fact that they’re all much, much richer than we are, is that they’re in positions where they can actually do something tangible that can have broad impacts. Good behavior should be acknowledged and encouraged on those occasions when it emerges, and if it helps the share price, so much the better.

If you’re one of those people for whom any or all of the above casts a cloud over your ability to make it through the day, help is at hand. Your worst nightmares may soon be over. And all we had to do was sit back and let the Chinese embrace yet another Western cultural institution—the Business School.Twenty years ago, when China started making a significant dent in the global economy that continues to go from strength to strength, virtually no one attended business school or received an MBA—largely because no school in China actually offered an MBA until 1991. Now, according to the FT, applications within the business school community in China are growing at a 20% clip (and 25% this past year), and this year will see 90,000 young Chinese entrepreneurs and potential business leaders apply to Chinese business schools. And this doesn’t even count the number of Chinese who decide to go somewhere else—like the US or Europe—to get an MBA. International enrollment accounts for about 34% of US business school enrollment, according to Business Week, and China is one of the top three countries providing international students. Chinese enrollment at US business schools also happens to be up 20% this past year. (It’s not just business schools, of course—US graduate schools in general saw a 23% increase in Chinese enrollment this past year as well.)

China, as in so many other things, is looming increasingly large here. According to an outfit called the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (headquartered in Tampa and Singapore, which should also tell you something), there are over 1000 educational institutions in China offering business degrees. Of course, there are 1600 in India, 1600 in the United States, and 1000 in Mexico, so it’s hard to assess how meaningful this statistic is, other than it’s a lot, especially since Sweden, home to some of the world’s most successful multinational corporations, has 25, Norway has 34 and Denmark has, um, 11. The really scary statistic is that, globally, over 13,000 institutions offer business degrees.

And how does that 90,000 applicants last year number stack up? Well, hard to say—statistics are kind of hard to track down, although I imagine they’re out there. There are two ways to look at that. First, what are actual enrollments? Considering Chinese schools didn’t even offer an MBA before 1991, the programs have gotten pretty large. INSEAD estimated that there are about 25,000 people enrolled in Chinese business schools in 2009, and this number is virtually certain to escalate. Since there are 250 schools (at least) in China that now grant MBA, that works out to be about 100 per school—that sounds about right. (My own BS experience was at NYU, which was huge, but in part because it had a great part-time program.) The increase in enrollments in Chinese business schools mostly comes from women applicants, by the way—women made up 43% of the enrollments at China’s top B-schools in 2010, a considerably higher percentage than found in western business schools.

Second, how many MBAs get produced every year? Well, at last count (2007-2008), according to the AACSB, over 150,000 globally (although there may be more recent data that I haven’t found). And it’s been growing—way back in 2000, it was 111,000. This is nearly as scary to contemplate as Tom Paxton’s old song lyric, “In ten more years there’ll be one million lawyers.” (Actually, it’s an old song, and we passed that point a long time ago.) And it will only get worse. The curriculum here is pretty boilerplate, actually, and can be easily replicated—accounting, economics, finance, marketing, organizational behavior, some statistics, that’s pretty much it. And how hard can it be to get one, considering how many people have MBAs now? Of course, there are a whole lot of lawyers too, so maybe that argument doesn’t work.

So why does this matter? Hah, look around. The US economy continues to suffer, and will for years, the ravages of a financial lottery designed and implemented by MBAs as taught in business schools. The notion that “shareholder value” should trump everything else came out of some business school. “Corporations as persons” is the business school wet dream. Business schools hate government regulation—particularly those that relate to, say, worker health and safety—which should, if recent evidence is anything to go by, have some appeal in China. You will virtually never find the notion of economic “externalities” in the course offerings of most business schools. The havoc wreaked on the US economy over the past several decades was coined and minted at US business schools—a model that China seems more than happy to adopt. If MBAs can do to the Chinese economy what they’ve done to the US economy, maybe the playing field will even up a bit.

Orwell, George. The Road to Wigan Pier

even now, if coal could be produced without pregnant woman dragging it to and fro, I fancy we should let them do it rather than deprive ourselves of coal. But most of the time, of course, we should prefer to forget that they were doing it. It is so with all types of manual work; it keeps us alive, and we are oblivious of its existence.

Orwell lives his story. “[B]y no conceivable amount of effort or training could I become a coal-miner; the work would kill me in a few weeks,” he quickly realizes. He doesn’t just “tell,” though; Orwell is a master of the “show.”

It was not only the dirt, the smells and the vile food, but the feeling of stagnant meaningless decay, of having got down into some subterranean place where people go creeping round and round, just like blackbeetles, in an endless muddle of slovened jobs and mean grievances.

Particularly in the context of the hard lives of the working class, Orwell suggests that his own trade seems soft. “Words are such feeble things,” he says.

It’s hard to take him at his word about that, though, because Orwell writes description about as well as any writer could dream of. His opening sequence, set in a boarding house, rolls right into it: “Hanging from the ceiling here was a heavy glass chandelier on which the dust was so think that it was like fur.” Suspicious tripe, coal-black fingerprints on slices of bread, crumbs so long unbrushed from the kitchen tablecloth that “I used to get to know individual crumbs by sight and watch their progress up and down the table from day to day”—Orwell doesn’t miss a trick when it comes to setting scene.

The second half of the book grinds down into Orwell’s treatise on the pros and cons of socialism, although for this he can be forgiven. After all, Wigan Pier was written for the Left Book Club, and Orwell explicitly wrote his piece with the idea of social change in mind. “I would not do it if I did not think that I am sufficiently typical of my class, or rather sub-caste, to have a certain symptomatic importance,” he says. This portion of the book was, I admit, of less value to me as I look at the was creative nonfiction writers write about place, although I did go through it just for the sake of enjoying Orwell’s clarity of thought.

Orwell’s social consciousness and his sense of responsibility as a journalist went hand in hand—powered by incredibly literary skill. In Orwell’s hands, words are never such feeble things.

We were so naive back then about purchasing power financing campaigns. How times have changed despite the continuing fiction of claims by candidates of “popular” support. Our small $201 checks no longer matter. Other people write bigger checks. Corporations can write indescribably large checks.

A report from the Campaign Finance Institute following the 2008 election refuted their claims. Looking at small donors (at least $201), mid-range donors ($201-$999) and large donors ($1,000 and up), the CFI concluded that nearly half of the 450 million donations to President Obama’s campaign committee came from the $1,000-and-up donors.

Both Obama’s and McCain’s campaign made use of bundlers (fundraisers who package checks from other donors), a practice perfected by President George W. Bush. Each raised tens of millions of dollars through the bundled checks of large donors.

Well, presidential candidates are populists no more. Super PACs, organizations freed by the Supreme Court to raise unlimited amounts of money for electioneering communications, have killed that lingering civics-class fantasy.

President Obama’s campaign continues to try to perpetuate the myth that his principal support comes from “small” donors. He has raised about half of his campaign committee’s $125 million (so far) from under-$200 donors. The man of the people, Mitt Romney, has pulled in about $56.5 million for his campaign committee — and less than 10 percent came from small donors.

But enter folks like billionaire Harold Simmons. According to the Center for Responsive Politics:

Simmons and his holding company, Contran Corp., gave $8.5 million to three super PACs, two of which support candidates for the GOP presidential nomination, in the last quarter of the year. [emphasis added]

Enter casino mogul Sheldon Adelson et familia. Without the $11 million-plus given to super PACs by him and his family, Newt Gingrich would quietly drown in the political quagmires of his own creation.

And that small-donor populist, President Obama? First, he has a network of 445 bundlers who bring in millions of dollars to his campaign committee; 61 of those brought in at least a half-million dollars each.

Second, there’s the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action. Sadly, it’s relatively poor ($4.1 million) compared with pro-Newt and pro-Mitt super PACs. But give it time: As The Boston Globe reports, “reliably liberal donors” contribute. You know the ones: Hollywood and labor unions. They’ll eventually open their wallets. But will they be needed?

“That [super PAC] hasn’t really caught on with progressive donors,’’ said Anthony Corrado, professor of government at Colby College. “There are plenty of ways to support the president without having to give to a super PAC. At this point, the expectation is the president’s campaign committee will be very well-funded, and he’s not going to need the additional resources a super PAC might generate.’’

I’m not so sure. At least 290 super PACs exist. Of the top 10 grossing super PACs, conservative-oriented ones have raised nearly $60 million; liberal-oriented ones only $17.3 million.

The CFI report defined “large” donors as those who gave $1,000 or more to formal candidate campaign committees. But even those donors were limited to a maximum total donation. Not so the donors to super PACs. Thanks to reporting by Nicholas Confessore and Michael Luo of The New York Times, we learn:

Close to 60 corporations and wealthy individuals gave checks of $100,000 or more to a “super PAC” supporting Mitt Romney in the months leading up to the Iowa caucuses, according to documents released on Tuesday, underwriting a $17 million blitz of advertising that has swamped his Republican rivals in the early primary states. [emphasis added]

The law says super PACs cannot “coordinate” with candidates’ own campaign committees. But Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have exploded that particular legal dodge, haven’t they?

Super PACs, because they are permitted to spend half their revenues in “electioneering communications,” will have a far greater influence than candidates’ own campaign committees. In the four GOP primary contests, super PACs have spent about $44 million. And on what? Attack ads. Vicious, unrelenting, often misleading attack ads.

After just four nominating contests in January, the super PACs already account for nearly half of all television ads bought so far, according to the Wesleyan Media Project. Meanwhile, ads funded by the candidates themselves dropped 40 percent.

Super PACs are accumulating extraordinary amounts of political money. We’ve all been focused on the role of super PACs in the presidential campaigns. But as I wrote more than two years ago, billionaires rule politics beyond presidential campaigns. Think Bloomberg for mayor. Think Whitman for governor.

Super PACs will have more than enough money to pour into presidential politics. But the spending won’t end there. They’ve taken aim at backing candidates for or re-electing incumbents to Congress. Reports Dan Eggen of The Washington Post:

The powerful political groups known as super PACs, whose heavy spending has become a significant factor in the presidential race, are also beginning to play a role in congressional races around the country. The groups have set off a scramble among candidates in both parties, who are now struggling to cope with a flood of negative ads run by organizations that are outside their direct control.

Targets of super PAC money in recent months include at least two dozen pivotal House districts around the country, along with high-profile Senate races in states such as Massachusetts, Ohio, Utah and Indiana, according to Federal Election Commission data and interviews with political strategists.

Can super PAC-funded advertising in gubernatorial races be far behind?

Big political money, it seems, follows a basic Reaganomics principle: Trickle down. So much money controlled by the very wealthy, corporations, and unions now rules politics at an increasing number of levels.

If you take pride in giving the reportable $201 donation to a candidate’s campaign committee, you’re still living in a a fantasy that your gift matters.

And you’d be wrong. According to the fiscal 2011 financial report by the nation’s bookkeeper, the Government Accounting Office, some government agencies cannot soundly manage their fiscal affairs.

The GAO said in a press release today it cannot

render an opinion on the 2011 consolidated financial statements of the federal government, because of widespread material internal control weaknesses, significant uncertainties, and other limitations.

As was the case in 2010, the main obstacles to a GAO opinion on the accrual- based consolidated financial statements were: (1) serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DOD) that made its financial statements unauditable, (2) the federal government’s inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal agencies, and (3) the federal government’s ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements.

Surely the feds have tackled this problem, right? They’re getting a handle on it, right?

Well, no. In his fiscal 2010 press release, the GAO director said the office could not render an opinion on the 2010 consolidated financial statements of the federal government because of three factors:

• serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DOD) that made its financial statements unauditable.
• the federal government’s inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal agencies.
• the federal government’s ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements.

The press releases of Gene Dodaro, comptroller general of the United States and GAO director, are pretty easy to write. All they require is cutting and pasting from the previous year. That’s because fiscal 2011 is the 15th consecutive year the GAO “has been unable to render an opinion” on the finances of the federal government. As I wrote last year about the fiscal 2010 financial report,

You know the company’s in trouble when the auditor tells the company that its bookkeeper can’t manage the company’s finances, reconcile balance sheets among different departments, or prepare credible financial statements.

The financial report includes records from 24 major federal agencies and departments. Dodaro said last year that 19 of the 24 agencies received clean bills of financial health. This year, too, he said, while the majority of agencies received unqualified opinions, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security “have consistently been unable to receive such audit opinions.”

Auditors hand out unqualified opinions when they find evidence that financial information and accounting procedures are sound. A qualified opinion is not optimal. Inability to render any opinion may be evidence of mismanagement if not malfeasance.

Dodaro reported Social Security and Medicare accounts, too, could not receive unqualified opinions. Even if 19 of the 24 agencies are fiscally accountable, the sheer size of the share of the federal budget held by the DoD and Social Security alone — about $1.5 trillion in fiscal 2011 — continue to give pause about money management abilities in the federal government.

Regarding Medicare in 2011: The GAO’s difficulty in rendering an opinion was

primarily related to the achievement of projected reductions in Medicare cost growth. The consolidated financial statements discuss these uncertainties, which relate to reductions in physician payment rates and to productivity improvements, and provide an alternative projection to illustrate the uncertainties.

Dodaro also cited material weaknesses involving an estimated $115.3 billion in improper payments, information security across government, and tax collection activities.

Consider what Dodaro said in the fiscal 2010 report. Sound familiar?

In addition GAO was unable to render an opinion on the 2010 Statement of Social Insurance because of significant uncertainties, primarily related to the achievement of projected reductions in Medicare cost growth. The consolidated financial statements discuss these uncertainties, which relate to reductions in physician payment rates and to productivity improvements, and provide an illustrative alternative projection to illustrate the uncertainties.

Dodaro cited material weaknesses involving an estimated $125.4 billion in improper payments, information security across government, and tax collection activities.

Dodaro gives the Department of Homeland Security some props for attaining a qualified opinion for the first time since fiscal 2003. Gosh — only eight years to partially get its financial house in order.

When next you hear a a gaggle of politicians say they are trying to “do the work of the American people” in their wrangling over how to reduce the deficit, tell them get their own fiscal house in order first. Hire more and better accountants and auditors to work in the DoD, the DHS, and Social Security and Medicare. Demand a full, accurate accounting of how your tax dollars are spent.

The number of jobs eliminated in the newspaper industry rose by nearly 30% in 2011 from the prior year, according to the blog that has been tracking the human toll on the industry for the last five years.

Mutter, working with data from Erica Smith, author of the Paper Cuts blog, notes layoffs have been horrific over the past four years.

Since Smith began her running count of publishing layoffs in the middle of 2007, 39,806+ newspaper jobs have been eliminated. This represents 11% of the all the jobs in an industry that, according to the Census Bureau, employed 360,633 individuals in 2007.

Worse, Mutter points out, the number of journalists in America’s print newsroom is at an all-time low. The layoffs, over time, have taken a staggering toll on newsrooms.

Nowhere has the toll been higher than in newsrooms, where staffing has slipped each year since 2005 to successively new modern-day lows.

Nearly 1 in 3 newsroom jobs have been eliminated since the number of journalists peaked at 56,900 in 1989, according to an annual survey by the American Society of News Editors. At the end of 2010, only 41,600 scribes were left on the industry’s payrolls.

If only a fifth of the cuts identified by Smith in 2011 were in newsrooms, then barely 41,000 journalists will be left at America’s newspapers at year’s end.

I’ve written repeatedly about the increasing need for good — even great — journalism and the declining ability of the newspaper industry’s ability to provide it.

The reason’s no secret. A decimated business model that a decade ago arrogantly wrote off the Internet as a credible competitor and a tectonic shift in technology that turned Everyman into a supposed journalist killed the industry’s centuries-old reliance on ad revenues. According to Mutter, 2011 was

a year that many newspaper people had hoped would be a time of relative stability after five years of successive revenue declines. Instead of steadying, advertising sales slid throughout 2011 and likely will come in at less than half of the record $49.4 billion achieved as recently as 2005. [emphasis added]

With the number of journalists half that of the historical high, who will produce the local stories that matter those tens of thousands laid off no longer do? As one of my colleagues at S&R advises me, the citizen journalist and the neighborhood blogger are inadequate replacements to produce quality local news.

Citizen journalists … say they will do for free what journalists used to do for money, e.g., cover school board meetings. Whether they do or not is another matter, but as a general rule, in any industry where people are willing to work for free, you end up with a bimodal distribution of returns — a few who make it very rich, and the many who make almost nothing. Examples include writing, acting, music, fashion, etc. It appears that journalism, or at least column writing, has become one of those industries.

Plenty of opinions on how to fix the news biz exist (see here, here, here, here, and here). Recent attempts to revive industry revenues have met with uneven success — permeable and impermeable paywalls, dalliances with social media, and so on. Foundations and non-profit organizations have taken up the mantle of investigative reporting on regional and national levels. But good local news is a vanishing commodity.

I wish I had answers. I wish more than 41,000 journalists will be holding governments and corporations accountable — that’s the job that needs to be done — in 2012. But the trend suggests the next year will bring more dismal news for those remaining in newsrooms. If you value good local news, you’re likely to be increasingly disappointed.

If you’ve been paying attention at all, you’ve probably been alarmed by the ongoing assault on your privacy. If you haven’t been paying very close attention, though, things are likely worse than you imagined. Thankfully, Shaun Dakin and Jon Pincus over at PrivacyCamp have pulled together a brief catalogue of 2011′s top privacy stories.

Give it a look.

I first became aware of this issue by following Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) on Facebook. A comment there challenged Sen. Tester’s stance on job creation by calling attention to a vote several weeks ago where he broke with party on job creation. Sadly, the comment didn’t provide any salient details. Since it piqued my curiosity, I started to dig. Just that very day (well, of the comment), Sen. Tester had voted against party lines, so that couldn’t be it. As I scanned back through his voting record, sure enough I learned that he voted with the GOP on October 20, 2011, On Cloture on the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to S. 1726). But what the hell does that even mean? This voter intended to find out.

As it turns out, cloture is a parliamentary procedure. If a motion for cloture passes, debate on a bill ends. In the US Senate, motion for cloture is essentially a call to break a filibuster. From wisegeek.com:

In the United States, which has a long history of filibuster in the Senate, cloture was not adopted until 1917, with Rule 22. If a motion for cloture is put forward in the Senate, it requires a three fifths vote to pass, and there can be no more than 30 hours of debate on the topic after the motion for cloture passes. In this sense, cloture is used to limit debate and to hasten a vote, rather than to cut off debate entirely.

Tester broke ranks from the Democrats to vote with the GOP to break filibuster (debate) on a Motion to Proceed for a bill. GOP needed 3/5 (or 60 votes). Final vote was 57-43. GOP missed it by 3 votes. Dems avoided the end of debate, but no thanks to one of their own.

But where in that is any of the context? The comment that triggered all this volunteered nothing but the clue that led to the date on which Tester’s vote for something was cast, and now we know what that something was. At first pass, it doesn’t look like much.

Before we get to the substance of the something, however, let’s take a look at the timing and context of this vote. From Congress Matters:

The last cloture vote, on the substitute, was expected to pass without much Republican opposition, even though normally Senate Republicans have come to oppose such measures by rote, just to cause trouble. Now, there was a time in the now-distant past where once the amendment process was over with, appropriations bills generally passed in the Senate with large, bipartisan majorities. But those days are over with, and I expected a large majority in favor of cloture on the substitute primarily because Senate rules say that when cloture is invoked on a measure, that measure remains the exclusive pending business of the Senate until there’s a vote on passage. With the weekend coming, and a recess to follow, allowing cloture on the substitute means the Senate breaks for a week without any further consideration of any part of the American Jobs Act, including any reconsideration of the cloture motion on it that was rejected earlier yesterday. Not such a bad outcome, if you’re a Republican. And if you’re a Democrat, well, progress was made. So… cloture!

There won’t be any more action today. The Senate meets in pro forma session twice next week, and reconvenes the week following. That puts us into November, with the bulk of the appropriations work still unfinished, about two weeks left (at that point) on the current continuing appropriations bill that’s keeping the government open, and about three weeks from the supposed Super Committee deadline. So when the Senate returns on Halloween, we start the countdown on yet another government shutdown scare. Boo!

As it turns out, Tester’s vote was part of Roll Call 178 at 10:24 PM, the last cloture vote of the day (even though there was still quite a bit of other Senate activity that followed).

It might not seem like it yet, as the nuts ‘n’ bolts can be damned tedious things, but this is actually the plot thickening here. Tester broke ranks with the party to end a filibuster going into a weekend and a recess with much Senate work pending, Obama’s American Jobs Act matters to clear, and the 24/7 news cycle darling, the Super Committee, schedule to explode fabulously one way or the other within a month. As if that’s not juicy enough, we also have a bit of understated chicanery from no less than McConnell. See, he’s the one who moved for cloture. Faux pas! Also from Congress Matters:

And by the way, it’s pretty unusual for the Minority Leader to be filing cloture motions on his own. It’s one of those things that’s “simply not done” in the Senate. By golly gee, it is being done! Will you look at that?

For the moment, let’s just go ahead and be generous. This was merely McConnell being a little tired and cranky at the end of a long, well-paid day in the Senate, right?

So we know the Tester vote, what it was for, the timing, and even have some inkling that there was something unseemly in the whole thing. Surely Tester knew that it was impolitic for McConnell to be the one moving for cloture, after all.

Now, exactly what the heck is the bill under consideration, anyway? The short version is that the Withholding Tax Relief Act of 2011 would “repeal a tax code provision scheduled to take effect in 2013 that will require the government to withhold 3 percent of its payments to contractors and vendors” (Chicago Sun-Time Post-Tribune). And what would you know, it’s McConnell’s bill, co-sponsored by 20 Republicans, including the likes of Scott Brown, Marc Rubio, David Vitter and John McCain. This can only be good. Oh, I get it. Sponsor a bill these guys like and then move to cut off debate. “It’s mine, dammit, we can’t debate this.” Unseemliness heaped on unseemliness, of, for and by McConnell. Color us surprised.

If the short version is finally starting to get the hair on the back of your neck to prickle, just you wait. To fully understand what the Withholding Relief Act of 2011 is all about, first you’d probably want to read the text of the bill. For now, don’t worry about it. As bills go, it’s really short and sweet. However, to understand it in its entirety, you’d just need to research the following (just kidding, skip the text in green):

• It repeals Section 511 of the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 (it’s a tax cut – Bush years, lest we forget)
• Internal Revenue Code of 1986 then applies as though it had never been so amended (Reagan years!)
• It rescinds $30 billion in appropriated discretionary funds (oh, it’s a spending cut and a tax cut)

Of course, since it mentions something else outside the present bill, we don’t know off the top of our heads what section 511 has to say. Yet. To see what it is that McConnell and his tittering, jeering cronies are so eager to cut, I guess we’d best go look that up, too, while we’re at it. To understand that, we only need to understand this:

• Just add a new paragraph (t) to the end of Internal Revenue Code, § 3402, Income Tax Collected at Source (which is only 6,000+ words of tax law, if you want to know what (t) changes)

Luckily, this proposed (t) only has three sub-paragraphs and (2) only has nine and (3) only has one. How bad can it be? Now we just need to look up and comprehend all of the ramifications of the following:

• “This chapter” United States Code, Title 26, Subtitle C, Chapter 24, Collection of Income Tax at Source on Wages, which is where § 3402 happens to be
• “Chapter 3″ U.S.C., Title 26, Subtitle A, Chapter 3, Withholding of Tax on Nonresident Aliens and Foreign Corporations
• U.S.C, Title 26, Subtitle C, Chapter 24, §3406 – Backup Withholding
• U.S.C. Title 26, Subtitle F, Chapter 61, Subchapter A, Part III, Subpart B, §6050M – Returns Relating to Persons Receiving Contracts from Federal Executive Agencies
• U.S.C. Title 26, Subtitle C, Chapter 24, §3403 – Liability for Tax
• U.S.C. Title 26, Subtitle C, Chapter 24, §3404 – Return and Payment by Governmental Employer
• U.S.C. Title 26, Subtitle F – Procedure and Administration (except for Chapter 75, Subchapter A, Part I, §7205 – Fraudulent Withholding Certificate or Failure to Supply Information) as it relates to Chapter 24.

Naturally, looking all that up is just the hairy, scary beginning, because each of those references is likely to be rife with more references veritably infested with if’s, and’s, but’s, then’s and not’s.

The short and sweet of it, as I figure it, is that back when the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 was hammered out, the GOP had to throw at least a few bones to the Dems to get the rest of their agenda through, and Section 511 of that act was one of those bones. Now that Obama’s American Jobs Act is getting sliced and diced, the GOP is falling all over itself to take back a six year-old bone that levies a mere three percent tax on payments to contractors and vendors.

Naturally, the right wing casts a 3% withholding as an attack on jobs because it inhibits job creation by private contractors. However, just how many jobs would $30 billion in spending create or, alternately, how many jobs would a $30 billion cut destroy? As with most things Congressional, we won’t get any straight answers because the real answer is that the actual number of jobs affected would the difference between what’s “stifled” in the private sector and what’s created by government spending, plus or minus. And that’s just from this one very un-sexy debate in which Jon Tester runs a fifth column play for the GOP.

With that kind of complexity, is it any wonder our government is seen as a three-ring circus? I humbly submit that it’s so much worse than that. To follow the metaphor of the three-ring circus, the typical voter would have to at least be somewhat fluent in the basics of the three rings. Study after study shows that they are not. The American public has been dumbed down to embarrassing levels. As a result, rather than having a largely intelligent, informed and politically active electorate that at least relies on trustworthy sources to thoroughly and reliably do this kind of legwork for them and offer up a reasoned analysis for somewhat easier consumption, we have a largely under-educated, mis- and dis-informed, apathetic electorate content to let ill-considered sources let them know how to interpret what they see. And what do they see? A full circus? Not anymore. That would be too complicated.

Now all they get is a single Klown Kar with two clowns, a red one and a blue one. Blue Klown piles out of the left side from the back and wields a huge inflated mallet. Red Klown piles out of the right and wields a huge, floppy pair of rubber scissors. And we hoot and holler while Blue Klown tries to bop Red Klown and Red Klown tries to clip Blue Klown’s mallet. Think Tom and Jerry, but less smart. As for the car, you might notice that nobody is driving. For that matter, nobody even really understands the engine anymore. Now the engineers just place bets in the back alley as to whether the Klown Kar should even run at all.

As for me, I’ve got my popcorn and my cotton candy. For the most part, I’ll root for a clown based on my best guesses, gut instincts, and general principles. That’s all I’ll have time for. Sometimes I’ll do the legwork, at least some of it. I’ll raise some questions and pose some concerns. I’ll continue to rely on sources far better informed (I hope) than I. And I’ll try to not think too much about the time I first peeked under the hood. The clowns are so much… oooh! Shiny!

_____________

Dear ______________:

I know you’re aware of the issue so I’ll keep this brief. If the developers are allowed to blight the Highlands with high rises I will work aggressively for your opponent in the next election.

This cannot be allowed to happen, period. My guess is that about 90% of my neighbors feel the same way.

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Sam Smith

A couple of weeks ago, as I was lamenting what looked (at the time) like the end of the road for the NBA 2011-12 season, I explained that the league was facing an especially nasty confound. You had three factions (players, big market owners and small market owners), and there was simply no common ground between two of them (the players and the small market owners). When all the motivations were factored in, it was simply hard to imagine a long-term accord that served everyone. Now that the parties have settled, I’m looking at the new collective bargaining agreement and trying to understand how it’s anything more than a band-aid on a sucking chest wound.

I see how the players won. They gave back a few percent of revenue but prevailed on several critical structural issues. The big market owners (BMOs) have to deal with some new luxury tax issues but they’re still positioned to spend big and dominate the league. The faction that was the problem all along – the small market owners (SMOs) – seem to have emerged just as screwed as they were going in, maybe moreso.

The free agent and trade chatter in recent days proves the point. Chris Paul is angling to escape New Orleans. Dwight Howard is going to leverage his way out of Orlando. The Nets, the Lakers, the Celtics, the Knicks and the Clippers are the main suitors for these talents, with SMOs being just as out in the cold as they have been for years. My own Denver Nuggets have massive amounts of salary cap space, but there isn’t even a whisper of a chance that any premier players are headed this way.

And that’s not the worst of it for the SMOs. Thanks to one of those structural issues, there’s not only a salary cap, but a salary floor – even the least profitable small market franchise has to spend 85% of the cap max on player salaries this season and next and 90% thereafter. Bill Simmons explains some of the implications in excruciating detail, and his analysis is well worth the read. The short version goes like this: the new salary structure is going to assure that a lot of players make more than they’re worth. And a lot of those bad contracts are going to land on SMOs, who can’t attract the top talent but have to pony up the cash anyway.

Say you’re the GM of the New Sactowaukee Grizcats, for instance. No franchise players are coming your way at any price. But you have to dedicate around $49.3M to salaries minimum, even if the players who will sign with you suck. And, by the way, you won’t be competing for any titles.

Congratulations, SMOs. Oh, and by the way, this is the hose job you got when the players didn’t have any leverage. As Simmons explains, just wait and see what happens in six years, when either side can opt out.

The players could exact their revenge six years from now, if the league is booming and the owners have a vested interest in NOT missing a single game. Hmmmm … guess who will have the leverage at that point? I could see the players threatening to strike before the 2017 playoffs unless they get a better deal. I could also see the owners quickly caving — because again, you never want things to stop when you’re makingmoney — with everything getting briskly resolved and the players gaining an appropriate raise. That’s how big business works. It’s all about the leverage. This time around, the players didn’t have enough of it.

To sum up, then, my point has been that SMOs can’t be competitive. At best, they’re like the “jobbers” of pro wrestling. They’re there for one reason only – to lose to the superstars.

Ultimately, what the league needs is an operating dynamic that makes everyone happy and that allows everyone to be competitive. This means:

• Players enjoy freedom of movement – if the superstars want to congregate in sexy hotspots like NYC, LA and South Beach, so be it.
• Big market owners can spend to win and reap the benefits of their investments.
• Small markets can be competitive at the highest levels even though they can’t outspend the big markets or attract top players drawn to the big city nightlife.

How might this be accomplished? One thing is for sure, it won’t be a function of salary structures and CBAs. I explained in the last post what those problems are. What’s left? Simple: the rules. The laws dictating how the game is played on the court.

And the truth is that quite a lot can be accomplished relatively simply. The rules at present are as pro-prima donna as it gets. They favor isolations and make it very hard to defend a good two-superstar pick-and-roll system. How often do we hear about a player “taking over the game down the stretch”? That answer is closely related to how the game is marketed. We’re not encouraged to tune in as the Lakers face the Heat. We’re enticed by Kobe and the Lakers versus Miami’s Big Three. The Hornets don’t play the Clips, CP3 takes on Blake Griffin. The league has engineered its entire product around individuals, and it’s hard for me not to laugh myself just a little silly when the very star system they live by turns around and bites them in the ass, as it does every time a diva like Carmelo or LeBron holds a city hostage before finally taking their talents somewhere the lights shine a little brighter.

Want to minimize the impact that the divas can exert? Want to let them play by their rules but create a space where Toronto can compete on a level playing field? Sure. Change the rules to make it a team sport. Eliminate all the rules that limit what a defense can do, for instance. No more defensive three second calls. If the best way to take away the other team’s star post player is to pack the whole roster in the lane, fine.

A player like Carmelo benefits because he can hold the ball all night. You could implement something like the six-second call used in the NCAA at the NBA level. So hypothetically, you might implement a rule that no offensive player can possess the ball for more than five seconds without shooting or passing. That’s a little more gimmicky than I tend to like, but you could do it, and the sum of these rules would play to the strengths of an offense that was team-minded and it would put a crimp in the mojo of your superstar ball-hogs. New Sactowaukee may not be able to put the best player on the court, but they could perhaps put the best team on the court. Yes, talent and results do correlate, but hoops is one of those games where the whole can be more than the sum of the parts.

I don’t pretend to have a comprehensive answer here, and parts of what we might propose may not work in practice. But in principle, what the small markets of the NBA need is a competitive structure that increases their viability in the face of increasing player power that challenges the integrity of the game, both on and off the court.

It might work. If you’re a small market owner, it beats the hell out of where you’re going to be when the players opt out in six years.

A Washington state fruit processor that supplies the nation’s schools and a baby food maker is under scrutiny by federal health regulators for repackaging applesauce contaminated with several kinds of potentially dangerous, multi-colored molds, msnbc.com has learned.

Repackaging? What the hell is that?

Food and Drug Administration officials this week posted a warning letter to Snokist Growers of Yakima, Wash., saying the company cannot ensure the safety of moldy applesauce and fruit puree that has been reconditioned for human consumption.

Wait–I thought it was just repackaged. What is this?

“Your firm reprocesses moldy applesauce product … using a method that is not effective against all toxic metabolites,” read the FDA letter sent Oct. 20 to Jimmie L. Davis, Snokist’s president. “Several foodborne molds may be hazardous to human health.”

What? Processes moldy applesauce product? What’s “applesauce product?” Is that like “cheese food?” Wait, I don’t think I want to know. It doesn’t matter, though–whenever you think it can’t possibly get worse, it does:

Products recalled earlier this year by Snokist were blamed for illnesses of nine North Carolina children who became sick after eating applesauce at school.

The latest warning came after FDA officials said Snokist failed to adequately address problems identified during a June inspection in which regulators found large, laminated bags of fruit products that were supposed to be sealed and sterile, but instead were broken open and tainted with white, brown, blue, blue-green and black mold. Some of the compromised bags were bloated and one had “a strong fermented odor,” the report said.

Well,I’m sure these guys are out of business by now, right? How could they possibly stay in business? Especially since

The FDA’s letter identified at least eight instances last year in which Snokist had reprocessed the moldy applesauce into canned goods for human consumption. The inspection report said Snokist documents showed the company had reprocessed mold-contaminated applesauce at least 13 times between January 2008 and May 2011, repackaging food into 15-ounce cans, 106-ounce-cans, 300-gallon bags and 4.2-ounce, single-serve cups.

It’s not clear whether the mold-tainted applesauce went to schools. However, the June inspection followed a voluntary recall of more than 3,300 cases of canned Snokist applesauce in May after North Carolina schoolchildren became mildly ill after eating the fruit product. The recall was blamed on faulty seals on cans. The children have since recovered.

I’m getting really confused here. These guys are still in business? And why are children in North Carolina getting sick from moldy “applesauce product” being canned in Washington? You just know what’s coming next:

Snokist officials admit that they “rework” some moldy food for future use. But in an e-mail to msnbc.com, company officials said that the contaminated fruit represents only a fraction of the company’s products, that compromised product is typically separated and destroyed, and that any reprocessed food is heat-treated to kill toxins.

“If rework occurs, our thermal process is more than adequate to render the product commercially sterile,” Tina Moss, a company spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail.

See, no problem. Tina obviously sleeps well at night. I’m still not sure what to call this stuff, though. “Food” seems to be too generous. The company uses the term “rework.” The FDA says “reconditioned,” a term I normally think of as more appropriate for luxury cars and baseball mitts, but if the FDA, an agency of the US government, is using it, that’s good enough for me.

Anyway, MSNBC goes on:

The company said it has begun testing for patulin, a common toxin produced by mold in rotting fruit.

However, the FDA said the company’s tests are not adequate and that officials must prove they’re testing for other dangerous microbes: “Most mycotoxins are stable compounds that are not destroyed by heat treatment,” the letter said.

Well, it sure as hell doesn’t sound like much is adequate there. Here’s the really, really good part, though:

FDA regulations to allow companies to “recondition” food, but the final product must be free of contamination. Firms aren’t required to notify the agency they’ve reprocessed food unless they’re required to under terms of an inspection or other action, such as an injunction. In addition, rules prohibit mixing contaminated product with sound product to get to acceptable levels of filth, said Pat El-Hinnawy, an FDA spokeswoman.

Those italics are mine. I’m just stunned to learn that these guys don’t need to tell me, or the FDA, if they’re using “reconditioned” food. So what’s the point of food labeling if these guys don’t have to tell us stuff like this?

Here’s the rest, in one fell swoop, just to get this over with:

A 2009 consultant’s report showed that the types of molds in the Snokist fruit products included Alternaria, Fusarium and two types of Pennicillium, all of which can cause illness in people.

That report was commissioned by Snokist after a baby-food manufacturer returned dozens of bags of the company’s fruit product in 2009 because they were contaminated with “a large amount of mold,” according to the FDA inspection report.

In early 2010, the consultant recommended six steps that Snokist could take to fix the problems, but during the FDA’s June inspection, company officials said they’d implemented only two.

Snokist sold more than 3.3 million cases of processed fruit with sales of $53 million in 2010, according to the company’s annual report. That represents more than 50,000 tons of processed fruit.

In the past, Snokist has supplied applesauce to schools nationwide through federal nutrition programs, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A spokesman said he couldn’t comment directly on whether Snokist had been removed from the program, but added that no firm under investigation by the FDA would be allowed to participate.

Snokist officials said they were working to address all of the concerns raised by the FDA and were awaiting a new inspection to confirm progress. FDA officials said the company has 15 days to respond to the warning letter.

So this goes for baby food, too. Jeez.

So let’s sum up. Food producers can put “reconditioned” food into their products and they don’t have to tell anyone–that means you and me–unless they’ve screwed up and made people sick. Wait, that’s not quite right. They still don’t have to tell you and me–but they do have to tell the FDA. Which apparently responds by sending letters. And even if they’ve screwed up–by making people sick, that’s my definition of screwing up here– they can still put this into baby food until they’re told to stop? Although it looks as if they can’t foist their reconditioned product onto unsuspecting schoolkids at some point–although we don’t know if these guys are, or are not, currently providing reconditioned moldy “applesauce product” to children. Any bets?

The topics dominating the discussion about the Republican primary for president – Rick Perry’s inability to recall the details of his own campaign proposal and the sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain – may be captivating, but they don’t tell us what we need to determine who is best equipped to serve in the Oval Office.

Sure, we’d like our leaders to be pillars of virtue, but there have been some very effective presidents, governors and mayors whose personal lives were not exactly role models. Likewise, Perry’s gaffe in the CNBC debate was downright embarrassing, but should our judgments on the next leader of the free world be based on a 53-second YouTube moment? There must be better ways to gauge who would be a good president.

Mitt Romney would have us believe that a proven track record of running a successful business will produce similar results in the White House. It’s a message that resonates well with voters who often lament that government should run more like a business. It sounds good in theory, but how it plays out in practice is a different story.

Leadership in the public sector requires a different skill set than in the business world. CEOs can put their initiatives into action without having to negotiate and broker deals with legislatures and without worrying about transparency, public opinion polls and re-election.

Take former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine for example. With experience as CEO of Goldman Sachs, he appeared to be a perfect candidate to lead fiscally challenged New Jersey. But Corzine – even after having spent a few years in the U.S. Senate – did not have political skills that matched his fiscal experience. After a tumultuous first term, he failed to win re-election, and returned to Wall Street (and now is at the center of a major fiscal controversy).

When I was part of a new administration in Woodbridge Township, N.J., in the early 1990s, we thought it would be a good idea to tap some of the fiscal and management expertise in the Fortune 500 companies operating in the township. We invited them to explore the municipal budget and develop recommendations to run our government more cost effectively.

Their proposals would have saved money, but they were not feasible – unless we could have figured out legal and politically viable means of eliminating labor unions, Civil Service regulations, and costly programs that provided needed services, such as health-care screenings for individuals who otherwise would be unable to afford them.

So, if business skills are not the answer, what qualities should we look for in the candidates to determine who is best to lead the nation?

When I was working at the Hall Institute of Public Policy, I asked that question to Michael P. Riccards, the institute’s executive director, who also is a presidential scholar.

Leadership was at the top of Riccards’ list, but he noted that our greatest presidents not only were great leaders; they also stood for something greater than themselves. They were linked to a larger ideology.

Secondly, he said great presidents need the ability to assemble a good, working team. Like a successful baseball manager, they need to bring out the best among a group of highly talented, often egocentric individuals and convince them to work together.

Making the right judgments also helps, Riccards said, as does a little savvy – the ability to live off the capital of past presidents who laid the groundwork for programs that achieve success after they leave office. Building consensus also is critical, but very difficult in today’s political environment, he said.

Lastly, Riccards said a great president must be articulate in the media of his or her time.

I am sure there are compelling arguments for other factors that make great presidents, and I also am certain that some people would disagree with Riccards’ suggestions. But as a starting point for discussion, they are much better place to begin than Rick Perry’s debating skills or charges leveled against Herman Cain that may or may not be true.

Richard A. Lee spent more than 30 years as a journalist and government communications professional in New Jersey. He now is an assistant professor in the Russell J. Jandoli School of Journalism and Mass Communication at St. Bonaventure University near Olean, N.Y. Read more of Rich’s columns at richleeonline and follow him on Twitter @richleeonline.

I see them passing by the windows, looking in. Their faces, a mixture of curiosity and contempt I dare not interpret. My heart-beat is erratic. I am 10 kilos down. I sleep maybe two hours a night. I am exhausted.

These are the days and nights of the zombie business; too weak to live, too strong to die.

The cost of failure

It has been six years and I no longer wake up screaming, only unsettled and with a lingering pain that lasts through the day.

These days, when I pass by a business I can see is struggling, or closing-down-sale signs, I feel a frisson of pain. Almost the way men will feel when watching some poor guy take a nut shot. A little cringe of shared agony.

This economic crisis in the UK has seen countless high-street shops close. Bargain-seekers, like vultures, throng to the dying body, picking at the still-living flesh, seeking morsels of value. A new dining-room table for 90 percent less. A set of DVDs for a few pence. A $400 jacket for $10.

Once the customers are done then other businesses have a go. A point-of-sale system for next to nothing. Air-conditioning units. A complete catering outfit. My spotless coffee machine and refrigeration units.

It is a tiny tragedy. If the local economy is still good then perhaps the vacant store will be filled soon with a new shop, the ex-employees re-hired. If not, then another vacant space opens up in a high-street, gradually dying. The staff join the growing unemployment statistics.

All of this is necessary. All of this is the only way to heal. Even in the midst of my own experience I knew that this had to happen.

How else will the goods and equipment I was not using correctly find better utility? How will my staff find jobs that are sustainable? How will the daily agony of nursing my dying business end?

And consider the only other alternative: that such a zombie business must survive through charity from the state or private alms. The management knowing that there is no purpose to endeavour, for the business is not wanted. How do you motivate staff when there is no purpose? There are no customers.

In this way a private pain becomes distributed amongst everyone, whether they choose it or not.

No, far better that the company die, that the shop be refitted and repurposed, that the equipment find new uses and that the employees find better work.

As for the owner? It’s tough. You have a big hole in your curriculum vitae. Difficult to find employment again. Difficult to get back to “normal”.

It was my risk to take. I am sad at the failure. Sorry I couldn’t make it work. And I mourn a little every day. I don’t ask anyone to empathise or pity my experience. It wasn’t their risk. It wasn’t imposed on me. I took it on willingly and I accepted the consequences even if the world isn’t very forgiving of failure.

It isn’t particularly forgiving of success either.

The price of success

“Ten years from now, twenty years from now, you will see: oil will bring us ruin … Oil is the Devil’s excrement,” said Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo, one of the founders of OPEC, and Venezuela’s Oil Minister back in the 1970s.

This Paradox of Plenty distorts state expenditure, unbalances the economy, and leads to a higher currency valuation, reduced investment and greater reliance on imports. It also distorts the state, undermining the common law and creating incredible opportunities for corruption and inefficiency.

Brazil’s pré-sal oilfields, discovered in 2007, are already having an impact on their economy. The government has decided that the fields will be the exclusive monopoly of the state. The problem with any form of monopoly is that price discovery is lost. Prices rise as the state, awash in cash, pays through the nose for the goods it needs to support extraction, distribution and investment. This impacts on the whole economy, increasing inflation, inflating the value of the currency, suppressing exports and raising the cost of business.

The reason that economies should encourage competition is because a price of any good can only be found out by free trade. Price discovery through open competition. Every now and then some scientist comes out and says, “Human beings can’t run faster than x.” Then Usain Bolt comes along and proves them wrong. And he does so in competition with others.

There are rules. He must obey them. Within those rules he is free to push the barriers as far as he can take them.

The alternative is that some committee of worthies, or a public servant, has to pick a price for every good. How could they ever know what is correct?

Too many countries have thought that oil wells, gold mines or rain forests were licenses to print money. The sad part is that they are, with the same consequences for economic stability. Such commodities are tremendously volatile. At the top of the market they make a country seem wealthy but at the expense of creating an indolent population who are now too expensive to work. When the tide turns and prices fall the economy is left exposed. Chaos follows.

Gradually, economic thinking has trended towards treating such unusual and volatile wealth differently. Responsible governments no longer throw it into the trough of government spending. They create Sovereign Wealth Funds and use the money for structural investment. Norway’s oil fund is worth over $500 billion, even after a terrible investment year.

It’s a rainy-day piggy-bank for pensions and insurance. The rest of the time the money can be spent on critical infrastructure that improves the competitiveness of the rest of the economy.

Technology is especially volatile and the cycle of innovation, investment, boom and bust has shortened. Sadly, governments – and their citizens – still regard the wealth generated by technology as an entitlement. Hence the latest crop of enraged and baffled people camping outside stock exchanges singing the song that follows “This time is different”.

Yes, it’s that old ditty, “Capitalism is broken”.

The winners are the losers are the winners are the losers

Capitalism is the process by which cash is allocated towards its greatest investment return. Some people are sufficiently motivated (by money, recognition, power, innovation, sex, anything really) to dedicate their time, sacrifice other opportunities and take great risks to try new things. We don’t always notice them when they fail but, when they succeed, they surf the wave and take a very large proportion of the money generated from their success.

Since the product or process they invent is new it is impossible to know how big the market for it should be. The right size of market requires a discovery process no different from finding the right price. Speculators may then flock and vastly overvalue various me-too risk-takers. A bubble emerges and correction follows. Correction is messy, especially so for the would-be risk-takers who can go suddenly bankrupt.

It is a supreme folly assuming that such a bubble is a dependable way to finance state expenditure.

So, by all means, tax the wealthy, but treat whatever you get out of them as the Devil’s excrement and stick it in a Sovereign Wealth Fund for a rainy day.

In a free market the process of price-discovery should be quick. A good idea should be commoditised rapidly. A bad idea should be killed before it absorbs too much useful investment. The problem is that this rough and tumble is brutal, not only on the active participants, but also on dependants like governments (wanting a stable tax base) and employees (wanting a stable work environment).

Enter special-pleading. One of the earliest forms of this is protectionism in which we charge companies who wish to import a higher rate of tax on their products in order to promote local manufacturing. That doesn’t work as it leads to a trade war with the recipients of that country’s exports who raise taxes there.

Even if they didn’t, it simply raises prices for consumers. Removing the competitive pressure simply allows local companies to be less efficient and charge higher prices. They get rich at the expense of consumers.

Not all companies get to try special pleading. Those with large numbers of employees (the motor industry), are considered strategic (military manufacturing, agriculture, energy) or could cause economic carnage (banking) can all get an ear from the government and special favours when they need them.

The alternative is to let these companies fail. The consequences? Massive layoffs in manufacturing. Watching China’s military technology catch up with the US. Everyone loses the savings in their bank accounts.

And the protectionism works at both ends. Companies can claim unfair price discrimination and call for import taxes or subsidies on foreign competitors. Unions can call for unfair labour practices in foreign countries and similarly call for import taxes and subsidies.

There are a never-ending stream of protections, all of which undermine the price discovery process: never-ending patents, undying copyright, special access subsidies, distortionary tax loopholes, unfireable workers, mandatory prison sentences, peculiar license requirements for hairdressers.

The reasons don’t matter. The consequences are higher prices to support people and companies that are not competitive and you are storing up bigger problems for the future when you can no longer afford to keep subsidising, or paying the increased prices related to, this behaviour.

Structuring the post-crash economy

I’ve long said that, in order to restructure the economy to make it an actual free-market capitalist enterprise, it is necessary to be less dependent on the rich. That doesn’t mean “don’t tax them”. But it does mean ring-fence those taxes lest they distort your economy.

It is naïve to believe that the people who went out and over one weekend bought 4 million iPhones wouldn’t make Apple’s investors wealthy. It is just plain ignorant to imagine that those investors and entrepreneurs who spent years working on new cures for cancer, new ways of manufacturing microchips, improved plastic packaging, or the next big web application did so without some hope of success. And, if that business blows up to the point that it becomes an established product, it is foolish to imagine that they won’t benefit disproportionately.

Worse still is to imagine that, if you don’t wish to share in the pain of those who invest and lose, you should benefit from those who invest and win. Buy shares, become an employee or wait in line for the taxes they pay. But don’t think that you have a right to the disproportionate profits they generate just because they exist. Where were you during the painful period of risk?

The US has long been the home of such success. They are America’s oil well. A volatile gusher.

For those same people will be disproportionately hurt when that company is outcompeted or makes a critical error. They are the fountainhead and the fall is a killer.

The first step to unbundling them from their influence over laws and lawmakers is to remove their money from the general tax pot. Then make the laws symmetrical.

If you undermined your statutory legal system with special opt outs – if it’s legal to murder other people if you are important enough, or mug grannies if you wear the right hat – then you would expect a lot of frustrating muggings and murders by people who appear above the law.

The same goes for special-pleading. When you allow one group of people – no matter how worthy – a special right to a subsidy then you will know no end to it. Others will always come up with good reasons for such support. Soon you are not competing.

Don’t take that to mean that those harmed by a business failure shouldn’t be supported. But we know how to deal with that without giving the money to the business. It’s called unemployment insurance and it can pay income support and retraining where required. Maybe a portion of the taxes from the 1% can go into a fund to pay for such insurance?

The alternative to such insurance is to fund the businesses to keep them going. Which is a bit like preserving a condemned building with occasional props so that the tenants can keep living there. Why not let the building fall and the owner deal with the mess while you find the tenants somewhere else to live?

The problem with the jobs of the future

In 1943 it took 40 adults to harvest a single row of cotton on the average American farm. 1943 was also the year the first International Harvester cotton-picking machine made its debut picking one row at a time.

Political attitudes were different back then. Most cotton pickers were the children of slaves freed less than 100 years previously. Their lives hadn’t changed much since the end of servitude. Cotton-picking, whether performed by slaves or free men, is back-breaking, soul-destroying, low-paid hardship. Millions of people fled farms for America’s cities.

Americans remember the period after the Second World War as their glory days of mass production, rapidly rising productivity and tremendous social mobility. Nowadays, in our more enlightened times, a machine that put so many people out of work would probably be destroyed.

The degree of social change in the 1940s was far greater than even present-day China can aspire to. In 1945 it took 14 hours of labour to produce 100 bushels of corn on two acres of land. By 1987 it took 3 hours of labour to produce that same 100 bushels.

Industrialisation lowered costs and freed human beings to perform more interesting, better-paid work. It has also changed the gearing; the way in which such companies are structured.

GE, founded by Thomas Edison in 1892, has 300,000 employees today and $157 billion in annual revenue. Walmart, founded by Sam Walton in 1962, has 2.1 million employees and turns $400 billion.

Google, founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1998, has 23,000 employees and $23 billion in revenue. Facebook, founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, has 1,700 employees and revenues of $800 million.

These new companies employ fewer people, make more profits for themselves and less money for others.

The implications are that the jobs of the future will require a greater investment in education, and of a higher standard. Businesses will be smaller and so there need to be more of them. Big infrastructure projects, or big manufacturing businesses, will never employ the numbers of people they used to. Our economies and technology are too sophisticated for this.

Understand this, though: if you continue to use the taxes you get from the rich to support mandatory government expenditure then you will distort your economy. It will be less flexible, less capable of creating space for these small new companies, less adaptable to external and internal pressures.

Neither America nor Europe is dominant anymore. This is the great global rebalancing back towards the East for the first time in a thousand years. They are competitive as anything and they’re in a race, whether you choose to compete or not. They’re not going to stop for a while so you can catch a breather.

This isn’t the end of it, of course. Stabilising economies is only one small step on the way to directing that economy towards growth and job creation. But it’s a bit like climate change; first you have to agree it exists before you can get to the rather more complex problem of what you do about it.

In each case, though, accepting the existence of climate change, recognising the need to de-risk an economy by treating its most volatile revenue sources differently and taking a long hard look at whether the common law is still “common”, requires the selection of moderate, open-minded and intellectually honest political representatives.

The questions for you: would you elect a politician who told you the truth; that your economy needs to become fit again – sloughing off acres of fat; that legislation needs to be adjusted; that such legislation will create disruption not only for the rich but for all? Would you be prepared to hear that the solution that will fix the problem will take 20 years to implement, so far is your economy from competitiveness?

Would you even listen?

When we were putting S&R together in 2007 I hunted down Gavin Chait and begged him to join us. He’s one of the smartest guys I know, a relentless, good faith thinker and someone you can count on to hit you with a perspective you hadn’t thought about. He wrote our very first post and also penned at least one of our absolute very best posts.

We don’t always agree, though. (Which is good – how boring would it be if we did?) In a recent post, Gavin addressed the topic of the latest Discworld novel in a post entitled “Terry Pratchett and the redemption of the Orcs.” If you review the post and the comment thread you’ll see that I take Gavin to task for misrepresenting Pratchett. Gavin’s reply (@2) neatly gets to his overarching point:

The 1% sell us stuff. If we bought it, we’re complicit. Claiming that we bought under duress isn’t going to wash. Claiming that the 1% are different from ourselves does a disservice to us.

And I’m not claiming that the 1% are an oppressed minority. They’re already a minority, that’s a given. I’m saying that making these claims about them will turn them into an oppressed minority.

Normally I’d carry this discussion on in the comments, but occasionally I feel like a discussion deserves to be brought forward and addressed in a new post, and this is such a case. In sum, I agree, to some extent, with the point I think Gavin intends to make, which is that scapegoating can lead us down an ugly path. History certainly provides fodder for that argument. However, it strikes me that in invoking Pratchett in the way he does, Gavin does a disservice to the ethos of Discworld and undercuts his own thesis.

I’d begin with a challenge to his characterization of “the 1%.” The problematic concept here is “minority.” In normal parlance, this term usually connotes a social, political or economic disadvantage resulting from a group’s small numbers. However, the term is of no value when discussing groups that comprise a numerical minority but that have political or economic heft all out of proportion to their numbers. Gavin, being a native South African, needs no lessons from me on one prominent example, the ruling whites under Apartheid.

In truth, many societies have been dominated by “the 1%” throughout history. Only under modern theories of governance like democracy, communism or socialism are the majority assumed to possess the power. So any argument that America’s ruling elites are a minority in any meaningful way is numerically accurate, but otherwise misleading. They have a vastly disproportionate share of the power and wealth (the 400 richest Americans own as much as the poorest 150 million) and even an elementary study of contemporary America indicates their effectiveness in using this leverage to cultivate arguably the most mystifyingly potent hegemony in human history.

I’d also point to Gavin’s list of the grievances against American corporations and the section that follows:

Like the Spanish Inquisition before them, that one has had the thought that something is possible is all the evidence required to damn someone utterly.

Guilt is obvious, there is no appeal and there is certainly no need for anything so paltry as evidence or a trial.  The 1% are beyond redemption.  And when a body of people is beyond redemption then any form of collective punishment is seen as having divine sanction.  The vermin will be destroyed.

In this way minorities have been corralled and made sacrificial effigies for millennia.

This is compelling writing, but it asks us to believe that the bulleted list of charges sprang out of thin air. On the contrary, that list is not a collection of first principles that we are asked to accept as a priori assumptions, but is rather a concise rendering of conclusions based on expansive familiarity with the political economic dynamics that have ushered us to our present dire moment.

Further, the #Occupy protesters are not asking for a lynching. One of their explicit demands is that those who gamed the system to their gain and to the ruin of those who trusted them be brought to trial. No one is storming the jail or throwing a rope over a limb. Instead, what is demanded is the application of the rule of law, a function that has been corrupted by the aforementioned power and wealth.

Next, some thoughts on how Gavin characterizes the Discworld mythos. I haven’t heard Sir Terry talk about his politics, so all I can do is try and infer from his writings. The conclusions I’d draw are that he believes in communitarianism and strong, responsive government. If you pay close attention to the Granny Weatherwax cycle, for instance, there is no question that he sees it as a society’s responsibility to take care of its own. Granny and her fellow witches aren’t government agents (unless you count Magrat Garlick marrying the king), but they never miss a chance to encourage their constituents to behave charitably. Sometimes this encouragement is rather … pointed.

You might respond that this is purely libertarian, because we’re seeing the free will actions of individuals, and to a point I would grant you the argument. But look at Ankh-Morpork. There’s nothing remotely libertarian at work there – Lord Vetinari’s word is law, and he’s frighteningly pragmatic about things. All he cares about is that it works. There’s not much ideology anywhere in sight, and he’s not above using any tool at his disposal to assure that things continue to function.

The result? A prosperous, booming city that – and this is important – is a model of racial diversity. Dwarves and trolls coexist with humans (and vampires, and werewolves, and gnolls, and goblins, and the occasional zombie), and do so with no more in the way of violence and disharmony than you’d find in most major modern cities. A big part of why it works is because Vetinari is crafty about holding the traditional power elites in check. Doing so allows the bottom-up emergence of opportunity by those not born to influence.

Up next, Gavin makes a curious claim on Pratchett’s behalf.

Terry Pratchett, writer of the universally successful Discworld series of books, has been one of my favourite authors for more than 25 years.  Even his most evil characters are redeemable.  [emphasis added]

This strikes me as patently wrong. In fact, Pratchett has given us a goodly number of evil characters with no redeemable qualities whatsoever.

• Lady Felmet (a Lady Macbeth type from Wyrd Sisters) has very little to recommend her.
• Likewise Lilith, the evil fairy godmother in Witches Abroad.
• Gavin’s invocation of the Inquisition above is noteworthy as we consider the rank malevolence of Vorbis, head of the Quisition, in Small Gods.
• The elven queen in Lords and Ladies (and later in the Tiffany Aching cycle)? Sweet hell, where was the redemption in her?
• Angua’s brother, Wolfgang, demonstrates no apparent redeeming qualities in The Fifth Elephant.
• Carcer, from Thief of Time, is one of the most relentlessly evil characters you’re likely to see and he remains that way up until the moment of his death.
• Corporal Strappi in The Monstrous Regiment - pure Stasi.
• Then there’s the unparalleled sociopathy of Mr. Teatime in Hogfather.
• In a case that serves as a rather direct indictment of “the 1%,” consider The Grand Trunk Company and Reacher Gilt in Going Postal.
• In Unseen Academicals, Andy Shank seems to be every stupid, hateful British soccer hooligan all rolled into one, and if there is ever any hope of redemption for him it doesn’t happen in the actual book.
• In the latest novel, Snuff, we’re treated to two irredeemable characters, the younger Lord Rust (who doesn’t actually appear, but who is the unseen instigator of the crimes against the goblins) and the homocidal Stratford.

This isn’t the whole list, either. It is true that Pratchett finds hope for redemption in all races, but there is simply no argument to made for all individuals. Perhaps it’s the racial/collective angle Gavin is thinking of when he makes this argument:

He does not condemn, he does not judge. He offers compassion, empathy and the recognition that we are reflections and interconnections of each other.

I don’t know. I’d argue that Pratchett is judgmental as hell. Sam Vimes, for instance, is relentless in making and pursuing judgment against the corrupt. However, “compassion, empathy and the recognition that we are reflections and interconnections of each other” are perhaps the standards of humanity. It is the failure to live according to these values that is the hard line in the sand where judgment is concerned.

In the final analysis, the orcs and goblins seem to me to be in no way comparable to the 1%. On the contrary. It’s young Lord Rust who’s the 1% and the goblins are the 99% he’s selling into slavery.

Pratchett does, indeed, redeem the possibility inherent in every race and affords a space for redemption no matter what your station in life. On this point Gavin and I couldn’t agree more. Pratchett distinguishes between how we’re born and what we choose to do, and perhaps here is the nut of what I think is wrong with the argument Gavin frames out in his post. The 1% that Occupy Wall Street is protesting against is not a downtrodden minority and they are not the focus of prejudice in the way that Pratchett’s orcs and goblins are. The rage against them is rooted in law and evidence and the call is not for obliteration of a class but for a just and legal program of redress.

As presently constructed, the “orcs = the 1%” argument is like conflating armed robbers with African-Americans. Sure, both groups have their haters, but there’s no equivalency beyond that.

The Port of Oakland was chosen as the protest site because the International Longshore and Warehouse Union has a rare contract clause that allows workers to honor certain community picket lines. If workers arriving for a 7 p.m. shift decide not to cross the line, a shutdown could result. LA Times

So i suppose that neither sort of report is true, or even knowable yet.
There are also reports of wildcat strikes inside the port, but those may well be work related. It’s possible that the longshoremen will walk out when the Occupy protesters form their picket line outside the port. Anything’s possible at this point. OPD says that it will help marchers get to the port safely, which seems strange given that the picket is the most likely thing to bring about the port closure.

I crossed a picket line once. My best friend and i were probably ten years old, and had a little money for goodies. We really didn’t know why all the people were in a line in front of the grocery store. It was back in the olden days when even grocery store workers were unionized. There were like two workers and no customers. I can vividly recall that it was uncomfortable. When we got back to my friend’s house, his dad glared at our purchases and asked where we got them. Our answer brought about a short lesson in economics and labor. Mark asked if we liked all the things that made our lives pleasant; he asked if we liked the roof over our heads and the food on the stove; he asked if we enjoyed the summer trip to Cedar Point. And then he drove home the point that without the unions we’d likely have none of it. The lecture, i should add, was filled with coarse language and seething anger, delivered by a guy who did two tours as a door gunner in the 101st.

That was the only picket line i’ll ever cross. My guess is that most of the longshoremen in Oakland feel even more strongly than i do. If they walk, the Occupy movement goes to a whole different level.

Latest update is that marchers leave for the port in 30 minutes. There are also reports of vandalism, and almost no police presence.

Update: At the moment, the Port of Oakland has been closed by thousands of people blocking the entrances and bridge. No announcement from the Longshore and Warehouse Union.