Published on Tuesday, November 2, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Link to watch (121 minutes)


Introduction to the video clip:
The first Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture is delivered by veteran journalist, Bill Moyers. Citing Zinn as his inspiration, Moyers focuses on the challenges facing our democracy. He decried what he says has been a 30-year trend toward plutocracy, where the rich get richer at the expense of the average citizen.

Howard Zinn, the political activist and author who taught for 24 years in the College of Arts & Sciences political science department, died in January. The Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture is made possible by a generous gift from Alex MacDonald, Esq. (CAS'72), and Maureen A. Strafford, MD (MED'76).

Presented at Alumni Weekend on October 29, 2010.


TRANSCRIPT:

The following remarks were prepared for delivery on October 29, 2010 as part of the Howard Zinn Lecture Series at Boston University:

Link to read

EXCERPT:

And what about the country? Between 2001 and 2008, about 40,000 US manufacturing plants closed. Six million factory jobs have disappeared over the past dozen years, representing one in three manufacturing jobs. Natalie Ford said to the Times what many of us are wondering: "I don't know how without any good-paying jobs here in the United States people are going to pay for their health care, put their children through school."

Now, if Connie Brasel and Natalie Ford lived in South Carolina, they might have been lucky enough to get a job with the new BMW plant that recently opened there and advertised that the company would hire one thousand workers. Among the applicants? According to the Washington Post; "a former manager of a major distribution center for Target; a consultant who oversaw construction projects in four western states; a supervisor at a plastics recycling firm. Some held college degrees and resumes in other fields where they made more money." They will be paid $15 an hour - about half of what BMW workers earn in Germany.

In polite circles, among our political and financial classes, this is known as "the free market at work." No, it's "wage repression," and it's been happening in our country since around 1980. I must invoke some statistics here, knowing that statistics can glaze the eyes; but if indeed it's the mark of a truly educated person to be deeply moved by statistics, as I once read, surely this truly educated audience will be moved by the recent analysis of tax data by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. They found that from 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to everyone but the rich increased from 64 percent to 65 percent. Because the nation's economy was growing handsomely, the average income for 9 out of 10 Americans was growing, too - from $17,719 to $30,941. That's a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.

But then it stopped. Since 1980 the economy has also continued to grow handsomely, but only a fraction at the top have benefited. The line flattens for the bottom 90% of Americans.  Average income went from that $30,941 in 1980 to $31,244 in 2008. Think about that: the average income of Americans increased just $303 dollars in 28 years.

That's wage repression.

Another story in the Times caught my eye a few weeks after the one about Connie Brasel and Natalie Ford.  The headline read: "Industries Find Surging Profits in Deeper Cuts." Nelson Schwartz reported that despite falling motorcycle sales, Harley-Davidson profits are soaring - with a second quarter profit of $71 million, more than triple what it earned the previous year. Yet Harley-Davidson has announced plans to cut fourteen hundred to sixteen hundred more jobs by the end of next year; this on top of the 2000 jobs cut last year.

The story note: "This seeming contradiction - falling sales and rising profits - is one reason the mood on Wall Street is so much more buoyant than in households, where pessimism runs deep and unemployment shows few signs of easing." There you see the two Americas.  A buoyant Wall Street; a doleful Main Street. The Connie Brasels and Natalie Fords - left to sink or swim on their own. There were no bailouts for them.

Meanwhile, Matt Krantz reports in USA TODAY that "Cash is gushing into company's coffers as they report what's shaping up to be a third-consecutive quarter of sharp earning increases. But instead of spending on the typical things, such as expanding and hiring people, companies are mostly pocketing the money or stuffing it under their mattresses." And what are their plans for this money? Again, the Washington Post:

... Sitting on these unprecedented levels of cash, U.S. companies are buying back their own stock in droves. So far this year, firms have announced they will purchase $273 billion of their own shares, more than five times as much compared with this time last year... But the rise in buybacks signals that many companies are still hesitant to spend their cash on the job-generating activities that could produce economic growth.

That's how financial capitalism works today: Conserving cash rather than bolstering hiring and production; investing in their own shares to prop up their share prices and make their stock more attractive to Wall Street. To hell with everyone else.

Hear the chief economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, Ethan Harris, who told the Times: "There's no question that there is an income shift going on in the economy. Companies are squeezing their labor costs to build profits."

Or the chief economist for Credit Suisse in New York, Neal Soss. As companies have wrung more savings out of their work forces, causing wages and salaries barely to budge from recession lows, "profits have staged a vigorous recovery, jumping 40 percent between late 2008 and the first quarter of 2010."

Just this morning the New York Times reports that the private equity business is roaring back: "While it remains difficult to get a mortgage to buy a home or to get a loan to fund a small business, yield-starved investors are creating a robust market for corporate bonds and loans."

If this were a functioning democracy, our financial institutions would be helping everyday Americans and businesses get the mortgages and loans - the capital - they need to keep going; they're not, even as the financiers are reaping robust awards.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. But he's run off with all the toys.

 

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Good read. Only got to speed read.


-- Edited by Sanders on Wednesday 3rd of November 2010 10:00:45 PM

edit added to title "CHALLENGES FACING OUR DEMOCRACY"



-- Edited by Sanders on Thursday 4th of November 2010 03:22:27 PM