Absolute Sovereignty: The Case of Syria

By the end of 2012, over 60,000 Syrians had been killed and over half a million had fled as a result of the civil war in Syria. Shortages of food and shelter were worsening inside Syria for civilians. In early January of 2013, a spokesperson for the U.N. said that the international organization was unable to feed a million residents in combat zones. Acute fuel shortages in Syria were contributing to the rising price of bread—at least six times greater than the pre-conflict price. Additionally, an outbreak of violence in a large Syrian refugee camp of 54,000 refugees in Jordan amid a winter storm was reported. “The incident followed a night of heavy storms, during which torrential rains and high winds swept away tents and left parts of the camp flooded,” an official in Save the Children said in a statement. One might ask what was really behind the deteriorating conditions.

The full essay is at "Absolute Sovereignty: The Case of Syria."

The Receding Chinese-American Economic Paradigm in 2011: Imbalances within Mutual Benefit

“For decades,” according to The Wall Street Journal, “plentiful Chinese labor kept down costs of a range of goods bought by Americans.” Then, roughly in 2010, the Chinese government began supporting higher wages to reduce labor unrest and boost domestic consumption while reducing reliance on exports. Partially as a result of this, the world saw higher prices for commodities in 2011; oil was another factor as protests in the Middle East increased political risk in the calculations of future supply (amid speculation). A shrinking workforce in China was also putting pressure on the labor cost. Even though relatively cheap labor was still in the interior of the country, higher transportation costs mitigated the cost advantage. The prevailing paradigm was showing cracks. To be sure, it certainly had them.

The full essay is at "Economic Imbalances between China and the United States."

Corporations as Citizens: A Right to Make Political Donations?

In Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court held that corporations and unions “should have the same right as individuals to pay for election ads and other electioneering,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Not addressed in the court’s decision was whether corporations and unions also have “the same right as individuals to donate money directly to candidates for Congress or the White House.”

The full essay is at "Corporations as Citizens: Political Rights?"

Democracy and the Courts: Alternative Checks on Austerity in Greece

In May 2011, “Athens agreed to impose a new $9 billion round of tax increases and spending cuts and speed up nearly $75 billion in promised privatizations.” In early June, a new round of tightening was being planned by the Greek government. It was feared that those cuts would deepen the recession and thus further shrink the tax base, making it even harder for the government to cut its deficit. Meanwhile, Reuters reported, “Greeks are showing signs of reaching the limits of their endurance as budget cuts imposed under Greece's first bailout a year ago have helped to push unemployment close to 16 percent.” The news service cited police reports of more than 80,000 people packing the main Syntagma square outside parliament on June 6^th—the 12^th consecutive day of protesting there.

                                              Reuters

The full essay is at "Democracy and the Courts: On Austerity."

On the Myopic Hyperbole of Wall Street: Overblowing Small Changes

I suppose that after looking at something closely for a long period of time, virtually anyone would perceive a small change in it as huge. This is reflected in how people formulate graphs. In particular, typically only a small interval is shown, the perceptual impact of which is that small changes look big. For example, Msnbc.com reported on June 8, 2011 that the price of oil “soared” on that day “almost $2 to near $101 a barrel.” My reaction in reading the report was that the word “soared” indicates a lack of perspective on Wall Street and the media.

The full essay is at "Exaggerating Market Volatility."

The Fiat 500: The American Taste for Convenience Revealed

One means of doing cross-cultural comparison is by contrasting consumer tastes; such proclivities tend to evince societal mores by which societies can be perceived to be distinctive. In the case of the E.U. and U.S., Fiat, a European auto company that controls Chrysler, an American company, is discovering some societal differences as it refashions the Fiat 500 for American customers.

The full essay is at "American Consumer Tastes."

Marx and Chinese Dynasties: A Postmortem on Occupy Wall Street

My essay that suggests that the Occupy Wall Street protests should have focused on the large corporation itself (i.e., that the large corporate form be expunged from modern society) rather than on a myriad of redistribution agendas resonates with Marx’s theory of revolution. In that theory, the proletariat finally throws off the chains and subdues the hitherto hegemonic capitalists in a materialist reading of Hegel's idea that history progresses toward greater freedom of the human spirit. The redistributive push of the Occupy movement fellf short because even increased redistribution advocated would have been within extant the political-economic system that the corporations dominate and run (i.e., including Congress). If the protesters were in fact serious about confronting corporate capitalism, their movement should have been radical rather than reformist because reforms are within the system that works for and by corporations.

The full essay is at "Marx and Chinese Dynasties: A Post-Mortem on Occupy Wall Street." 

On the Unfairness of the Bonus System on Wall Street

Craig A. Dubow, Gannett’s former chief executive, had a short six-year tenure that was, by most accounts according to The New York Times, “a disaster.” David Carr reports: “Gannett’s stock price declined to about $10 a share from a high of $75 the day after [Dubow] took over; the number of employees at Gannett plummeted to 32,000 from about 52,000, resulting in a remarkable diminution in journalistic boots on the ground at the 82 newspapers the company owns. . . .  the company strip-mined its newspapers in search of earnings, leaving many communities with far less original, serious reporting. . . . Not only did Mr. Dubow retire under his own power because of health reasons, he got a mash note from Marjorie Magner, a member of Gannett’s board, who said without irony that ‘Craig championed our consumers and their ever-changing needs for news and information.’ But the board gave him far more than undeserved plaudits. Mr. Dubow walked out the door with just under $37.1 million in retirement, health and disability benefits. That comes on top of a combined $16 million in salary and bonuses in the last two years.”

Besides the inherent unfairness in an incompetent manager getting millions of dollars in compensation (for championing incompetence?), it is morally problematic when, as Carr puts it, “the consequences of bad decisions land on everyone except those who made them.” 

The full essay is at "Unfair Bonuses on Wall St."

Source:

 David Carr, “Why Not Occupy Newsrooms?” The New York Times, October 24, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/business/media/why-not-occupy-newsrooms.html

Two Conflicting Views of E.U. Federalism: Accounting for Brexit

"You have lost a good opportunity to shut up," Sarkozy said to Cameron during a bitter two-hour exchange which held up a meeting of all 27 European Union states on 23 October 2011, according to the Guardian. Translating the relatively polite European English into American slang, Sarkozy’s statement becomes, Shut the fuck up. "We are sick of you criticizing us and telling us what to do," Sarkozy added. "You say you hate the euro, and now you want to interfere in our meetings." Cameron had insisted on participating in the euro zone meetings because he anticipated that, perhaps along the lines of taxation without representation, unfavorable regulations would be imposed on Britain without its consent, according to The Telegraph. Cameron also claimed that the euro zone crisis was having a "chilling effect" on all European states, including Britain. He insisted that all 27 E.U. state governments, rather than just the 17 using the euro, should be able to have the final say over Europe's rescue package, according to The Guardian. I submit that the argument portends in retrospect, at least, the decision taken by the British to secede from the Union. 

The full essay is at "Two Conflicting Views of E.U. federalism."

Source:

Bonnie Kavoussi, “Nicolas Sarkozy To David Cameron: ‘You Have Lost a Good Opportunity To Shut Up’,” The Huffington Post, October 24, 2011. 

Inequality in Corporate Capitalism: Beyond Redistribution

I contend that a concern that too much income or wealth is concentrated “at the top” in the U.S. does not necessarily translate into a demand for redistribution; rather, the inequality itself may be thought dangerous to the viability of a representative democracy (i.e., a republic form of government) and inherently unfair. Even though redistribution may be entailed as large banks and business corporations are dismembered, ridding the system of the concentrations of wealth does not in itself mean that those “at the bottom” should or would necessarily become richer. For example, to say that CEOs should not be allowed to make millions of dollars, especially when their companies or banks lose money, does not imply redistribution because there is no claim that the compensation be directed to others for their benefit. The point is that the compensation itself is unfair. Indeed, saying that corporate capitalism is itself unfair because some people benefit beyond what they deserve is not to say that their benefits should be redistributed; rather, the point is simply that such benefits should not be allowed.

The full essay is at "Inequality in Corporate Capitalism."

Chinese Censorship: Beyond the FCC in the U.S.

Regarding the Chinese government’s attempts to rein in microblogging and television programming, the New York Times observed in 2011, “Political censorship in this authoritarian state remains absolute.” It is therefore perhaps all the more surprising that bloggers in China have been able to post “whistle-blowing” reports at the expense (and embarrassment) of the political elite. That this has occurred at all suggests that once a Jennie gets out of its bottle, it is difficult to reverse course. This is the traditional Western view. Using television programming as a case study, I submit that the picture is actually more complex than the antiquated "black and white" version may suggest. 

The full essay is at "Chinese Censorship."

Source:

Sharon LaFraniere, Michael Wines, and Edward Wong, “China Reins in Entertainment and Bloggers,” The New York Times, October 27, 2011. 

China’s Strategy: Divide the Vulnerable E.U.

During the U.S. Constitutional Convention in 1787, delegates from the sovereign states feared that foreign states would seek to divide their American counterparts to the extent that the United States could split apart. So the delegates voted to move foreign policy from the state to the federal level. Unlike this case, government officials of the E.U. states held foreign policy closely rather than ceding it to the federal level. Whereas in the American case the delegates could adopt a federal perspective as distinguished from the immediate interests of the respective state governments, the state officials in the European Council can be taken even as personifications of their respective state interests. Foreign powers can take advantage of the state officials’ conflict of interest to the extent that the very functioning of the European Union is compromised.

China provides a case in point.

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The full essay is at "China Carving Up the E.U."

The SEC and the Courts on Wall Street Settlements in 2011

The SEC enforcement staff, including its chief, Robert Khuzami, decided to kick a gift horse in the mouth rather than to “take a lesson” and perhaps come out stronger for it. At issue was the rejection by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff of the SEC’s proposed $285 million settlement with Citigroup. In his ruling, Rakoff denounced the penalty as “pocket change” to the bank, which would not even have to admit to any wrongdoing. Investors duped into buying into a $1 billion deal called Class V Funding III had lost $700 million. Betting at the time of issue against half of the assets in the deal, Citigroup did not share knowledge of its hedge with the investors.

The reaction of the SEC staff in Khuzami’s department was simply to “put down their pencils” and wonder how they should go about arranging settlements with financial firms accused of misconduct before and during the financial crisis of 2008. The SEC “doesn’t know what to ask for anymore in the settlements,” one of the people familiar with the Citigroup settlement said. Rather than take the judge’s judgment to heart, Khuzami urged the five-person commission running the SEC to vote to approve an appeal, and they did so. Rather than take the less convenient course of insisting that the banks too big to fail that manipulated their own clients at least admit wrong-doing and reimburse the losses, Khuzami viewed the judge’s ruling as if it were a political obstacle to be obviated by asking an appellate court to ignore it. Given the political muscle that must surely go with Citigroup’s wealth, Khuzami could have been assuming that the bankers would see to it that sufficient pressure would plied on enough appellate judges to make the obstacle easily avoidable. In other words, Khuzami was likely assuming that Rakoff was a fluke, given Citi’s influence—perhaps even in the SEC itself.

The full essay is at "The SEC and the Courts."

A U.S. Visa Fast-Track For Rich Investors

The New York Times reported in December 2011 that affluent foreigners had been rushing to take advantage of a U.S. immigration program. The foreign applicants must invest at least $500,000 in construction projects within the United States. The number of applicants had nearly doubled since the end of 2008 to more than 3,800 in the 2011 fiscal year. The intent of the program is to spur economic development at a time of high unemployment. Yet the program has also been characterized as a cash-for-visas scheme. Besides the question of whether the program’s rules have been stretched in New York City to qualify projects in prosperous areas for special concessions, an ethical question can be raised concerning who should get a visa.

The full essay is at "Visa Fast-Track for the Rich."

The Kurds Betrayed: Iraq Retakes Kirkuk with U.S. Backing

For some reason, people tend to assume that the status quo has been around for a very, very long time—that it enjoys the perk of longevity. To mess with it even in part is typically assumed to “upset the apple cart.” The fear is excessive. A century after World War I, the fact that many of the extant countries in the Middle East had been artificially crafted by Britain and France paled under the presumption that those countries had been around for much, much longer. Accordingly, the fact that the Kurds voted overwhelmingly in 2017 to secede from Iraq was ignored or dismissed not only by Iraq, but also by other countries in the region and the United States. “Baghdad and most countries in the region had condemned the vote, fearing it would fuel ethnic divisions, lead to the breakup of Iraq and hobble the fight against the Islamic State.”[1] I submit that the fear was overblown and mistaken.

The full essay is at "Kurds Betrayed."

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[1] David Zucchino, “Iraqis Capture Key Kurdish City with Little Fight,” The New York Times, October 17, 2017.