http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/economy/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Fri, 01 Feb 2002 14:34:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1404/enronomics_101/ Even more than the dot-coms, Enron—the aptly nicknamed “crooked E”—was the star of the new “information economy.” During the past decade, economic fortune-tellers said that the future of business lay in exploiting the Internet and information technologies to create boundless productivity growth and profits. At the same time, there was a continued ideological push toward deregulation of all markets, and financial firms increased their domination over producers of goods and services. Tapping into and deceptively feeding the decade’s collective delusion of unlimited wealth through computerized financial wheeling and dealing, Enron soared in a few years from a sleepy utility to the seventh-largest company in the United States—and one of the most widely praised. The sordid, still unfolding tale of Enron’s… economy Kari Lydersen Mon, 20 Jan 2003 01:15:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/422/bush_attack_on_older_workers/ President Bush may or may not go to war against Iraq, but we do know that he has already declared war against the economic well-being of the middle class and working families of this country. While he cuts back on Medicare and the needs of veterans, he wants even more tax breaks for the very richest people in this country. While he pushes efforts to privatize Social Security, there is no attempt to raise the minimum wage above its paltry $5.15 an hour. While he expands disastrous trade policies that have already cost us millions of decent-paying manufacturing jobs, he is proposing to slash the pay and benefits of federal employees through a massive and dangerous outsourcing scheme. While our… corporations economy labor politics Kari Lydersen Mon, 07 Jul 2003 21:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/454/laws_of_empire/ In 1996, Burmese peasant villagers filed a lawsuit against Unocal. They charged the U.S. oil company with knowingly collaborating with the country’s repressive military government to forcibly relocate peasants living in the path of Unocal’s oil pipeline project. The military used these peasants as slave labor to clear a path for the pipeline and build service roads. The suit claimed that those who refused to work were often killed, beaten, tortured, or raped. Documents filed in the case indicate that Unocal had been well-informed by its advisors of how the military operated, and knew of its history of using slave labor. The villagers, who had fled to Thailand, had no legal recourse under the Burmese military dictatorship, but they did… corporations economy government: judiciary international affairs Kari Lydersen Tue, 19 Aug 2003 07:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/466/trading_in_terror/ What does it take to end a career in public service? Mere treason evidently doesn’t cut it, as has been made clear by the gaggle of current administration officials who were co-conspirators in the Iran/Contra scandal, among them retired Adm. John Poindexter. As President Reagan’s national security advisor, Poindexter engineered the secret deal to sell weapons to our avowed mortal enemies, the mullahs of Iran, and then used the proceeds to fund the Contras’ bloody rebellion against the elected Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Under George W. Bush, Poindexter’s more recent endeavors have included the Total Information Awareness project, an ambitious effort to collect and organize personal data on all Americans that would have rendered any conception of “privacy” quaint at… economy government: administration Kari Lydersen Tue, 09 Dec 2003 15:37:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/489/corporate_medicare/ The Medicare “reform” bill recently passed by Congress manipulates the cost and quality of health care provided to older Americans in order to maximize the profit margins of HMOs, insurance corporations and drug companies—the very same entities that poured money into congressional election campaigns. Such political contributions are of course legal—a legislatively sanctioned form of bribery that corrupts the democratic process. In the case of the Medicare bill and its much hyped prescription drug benefit, this institutional corruption will prove lethal, literally, to seniors forced to choose between buying life-saving drugs and other of life’s necessities—food, shelter, heat. The role that the current campaign finance system played in the Medicare bill battle was the story behind the headlines. Consider the… corporations economy government: congress medical and health politics Kari Lydersen Tue, 17 Feb 2004 15:10:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/398/unocal_off_the_hook/ For now, California energy giant Unocal Corp. is not liable for the rape, murder, torture and forced labor that occurred during construction of the $1.2 billion, 40-mile Yadana natural gas pipeline in Burma, now Myanmar. On January 23, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney concluded that Unocal could not be held accountable for the actions of its subsidiaries—but ruled that the case could move forward if plaintiff attorneys used other means to prove libability. The court found that victims’ testimony was well documented and that “the evidence does suggest that Unocal knew that forced labor was being utilized and that they benefited from the practice.” The notoriously brutal Burmese military was contracted to act as security on the… civil liberties corporations economy southeast asia Kari Lydersen Thu, 19 Feb 2004 15:17:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/706/the_bush_budget/ There are few surprises in President Bush’s 2005 budget. The main contours follow the same pattern as his past budgets, with more tax cuts oriented toward the wealthy and increased spending on the military and homeland security. The result of this pattern of taxation and spending is large deficits that will prove unsustainable in the not-very-distant future. At first glance, increases in military spending in the Bush budget do not appear very large. The budget proposes that military spending increase to $467 billion in 2009 from $433 billion in the 2004 budget, with spending actually declining slightly to $429 billion in 2005. However, the proposed spending does not include any appropriations for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush intends… economy government: administration government: congress Kari Lydersen Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:33:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/709/jobs_not_well_done/ The presidential election this fall may hinge on what happens to people like John Mahoney and Robert Daems. Both are in their 50s, lost their jobs in December 2002 and still haven’t found work. If President Bush continues to oppose renewing federal extended unemployment benefits, their compensation soon will run out. “I don’t think the Republican Party even cares,” says Daems, who worked for Intel as a systems analyst in Phoenix. “I even feel the Democratic candidates don’t have an understanding of what’s happening out there.” A Democrat could win in November, however, if he can prove to Daems and other voters that he understands and can manage the economy better than Bush. Polls show that the economy is now… economy election 2004 Kari Lydersen Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:37:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/399/cokes_killers/ Coca-Cola representatives told a fact-finding delegation that its employees may have collaborated with paramilitaries in the deaths and torture of Colombian union members. Despite the possible collaboration, Coca-Cola officials in Colombia have not undertaken any internal or external investigation into the assaults against its employees. The company’s Colombian representatives insist any contact with paramilitaries, widely blamed for killing seven Coke unionists and thousands of others in recent decades, was unauthorized, according to a report released by Hiram Monserrate. This New York councilmember led a January delegation of U.S. unionists and students to Colombia. In a written response to the delegation, Coca-Cola says it “does not anticipate supporting in any way any form of ‘independent fact-finding delegation to Colombia,’” and that… civil liberties corporations economy labor south america Kari Lydersen Fri, 27 Feb 2004 16:06:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/710/who_owns_the_sky/ Former Interior Secretary Walter Hickel once explained: “If you steal $10 from a man’s wallet, you’re likely to get into a fight. But if you steal billions from the commons, co-owned by him and his descendants, he may not even notice.” Not since the Gilded Age of the 1890s has so much public wealth been shoveled into private hands with such brazen efficiency. Timber companies, corporate ranchers and foreign mining companies with cheap access to public lands are plundering our national patrimony. Congress obligingly turns a blind eye to the accompanying pollution, soil depletion and habitat destruction. Companies are rushing to patent our genes, privatize agricultural seeds and stake private claims on plots of the ocean. Broadcasters—who for decades enjoyed… activism economy environment politics social justice technology Kari Lydersen Tue, 02 Mar 2004 09:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/711/war_profiteering_and_you/ So the vice president’s former employer’s been in the news a lot lately. Bilking the U.S. government for millions in Kuwaiti oil imports to Iraq, turning the other way as employees take bribes, overcharging the Army for food served in mess halls. It gets to feeling like the whole “reconstruction effort” is just some bloated, corrupt muddle of patronage and war profiteering. But then comes February’s “Rebuilding Iraq: Small Business Subcontracting Opportunities,” convened near O’Hare Airport outside Chicago. Sponsored by the Small Business Administration (SBA) and featuring speakers from—you guessed it—Halliburton, among others, the daylong seminar was intended to show that profiting from the Bush administration’s foreign policy is anyone’s game. “We are literally here at the direction of the… corporations economy government: administration war in iraq Kari Lydersen Thu, 04 Mar 2004 09:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/148/ghost_in_the_machine/ There’s a discordant note in the title of distinguished journalist William Greider’s new book about fundamental problems of American political and economic life. Does capitalism have a soul? No, Greider acknowledges, but he thinks it could and believes very tentative efforts are under way in this country to implant one, even if the host doesn’t want it. As evidence, he writes, American capitalism produced material abundance but also created inequality, insecurity, anxiety and ecological destruction at home and around the world. Americans have a great deal of certain freedoms, but they are channeled into the consumer marketplace and the model of master and servant still defines the employment relationship. There is formal democracy but no meaningful debate on the country’s… corporations economy Kari Lydersen Thu, 04 Mar 2004 09:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/712/plunder_and_profit/ In September 1999, Bolivian officials signed a 40-year contract with a private company named Aguas del Tunari to take over the municipal water system of Cochabamba, the country’s third largest city. The company, largely owned by U.S. construction giant Bechtel, was the sole bidder for the contract, which guaranteed 15 percent annual profit in inflation-indexed dollars. With the encouragement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, since 1985 Bolivian governments have sold national public assets to foreign investors and opened their markets to global trade. Despite the promise of development by following the “Washington consensus” of economic liberalization, it remained the poorest country in Latin America. But World Bank officials still insisted that Bolivia privatize Cochabamba’s water… economy international affairs Kari Lydersen Sat, 13 Mar 2004 01:52:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/150/mind_the_gap/ Americans have had a long, uncertain history with taxation. A full national income tax wasn’t established until 1862, and it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court 34 years later. In 1913 the 16th Amendment to the Constitution permitted the income tax to be made a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system. For years, taxes generally were aimed at the wealthy as a way to ensure a measure of equality, but in the second half of the 20th Century this concept was turned on its head as the wealthy invented schemes to exempt themselves from these federal levies. As David Cay Johnston points out in Perfectly Legal, this trend intensified in the last 30 years and American families and… economy Kari Lydersen Wed, 24 Mar 2004 09:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/154/false_advertising/ I recently gave a speech in Cleveland. I feel so safe there. The bi-partisanship of Neocons working in perfect harmony with the Christian Right has made this city so safe that Cleveland’s mayor is actually laying off police persons and fire fighters. There can only be one word for a community that secure: “Utopia.” So many American communities are now such Utopias that only one issue remains to be dealt with in the next presidential election: Is the United States of America for or against homosexual marriage? I’m going to tell you some news. No, I am not running for President, although I do know that a sentence, if it is to be complete, must have both a subject and… corporations economy Kari Lydersen Fri, 26 Mar 2004 16:33:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/716/bought_and_paid_for/ It’s official: President Bush’s re-election campaign is underway. For those who haven’t been paying attention—and Bush, Cheney and their corporate cronies certainly hope you haven’t—the president officially launched his campaign at a March 20 “kickoff” rally in Orlando. “I’m looking forward to this campaign ahead,” Bush told the assembled party faithful between chants of “Four more years!” and “USA! USA!” “With you at my side, there is no doubt in my mind we’re headed to a victory.” Bush may claim the “political season” is just beginning, but he has spent the past nine months crisscrossing the country on a dash for cash, personally headlining 45 million-dollar fundraising events on the way to amassing an unprecedented $170 million campaign war chest.… corporations economy media politics regulation election 2004 Kari Lydersen Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/155/the_price_is_wrong/ You’ve got bladder cancer. Or maybe it’s chronic bronchitis. Same difference, right? Both are extremely painful and debilitating but not always fatal; both have environmental triggers that governmental regulation can prevent. So they’re basically the same thing—at least according to the Bush administration, which uses a crude array of malleable statistics to decide whether measures to protect the ecology and the public are worthwhile in economic terms. Unlike a terminal disease, which is worth spending several million dollars to prevent, your disease—either one—is worth dropping only about $260,000 to halt. Such decision-making happens under the innocuous-sounding banner of “cost-benefit analysis.” Cold-blooded calculations like this come under heavy fire in Priceless, a new book by economist Frank Ackerman and environmental law… economy Kari Lydersen Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:14:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/717/no_hoice/ Jim, John, Alice, Sam and Helen may carry the world’s most dangerous genetic markers. They are the Waltons, heirs to the global destructive force called Wal-Mart. With more than $100 billion in personal assets among them, the five Waltons occupy positions six through 10 in the Forbes billionaires rankings, twice as rich as Microsoft’s Bill Gates, the guy at the top. Collectively, they are antisocial malevolence with a last name. These spawn of Bentonville, Arkansas harbor an abiding hatred for the public sphere: business regulatory controls, nondiscrimination laws, wage and workplace safety standards, the social safety net—all of it—as expressed through the operations of their retail empire, which is both the largest employer in the United States and biggest importer… corporations economy politics Kari Lydersen Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:24:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/409/cola_wars/ Protesting a mass firing of union leaders, 30 Coca-Cola workers in Colombia began a hunger strike March 15, which was met by death threats from paramilitaries known to have worked on the company’s behalf in the past. A group of 91 workers—nearly three-fourths union leaders—was dismissed in February after Coca-Cola closed several plants. Protesters say the company targets union shops, and the hunger strikers in eight Colombian cities demand reinstatement of the fired workers. A group affiliated with the country’s most notorious paramilitaries, the AUC, released a statement declaring war on the union leaders and promising to “finish them all off” if they do not leave the country in three months. Paramilitaries acting with at least tacit approval of Colombian… corporations economy labor Kari Lydersen Thu, 15 Apr 2004 08:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/720/downsizing_the_ceo/ The omnipotent corporate chief executive emerged in the ’90s as a popular economic superhero, rivaling the high-tech nerd as creator of the economic boom. But that came to a crashing finale with misdeeds at Enron and dozens of other high-profile businesses—when a mix of executive greed, lawbreaking and deregulation built up then burst the stock market bubble. In the angry aftermath, the labor movement worked closely with public employee pension funds to create a new model of accountability for corporate executives, and this spring the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to issue new rules that will make it easier for shareholders to nominate directors. “This is the most important corporate governance reform to correct past abuses that we’ve… corporations economy labor Kari Lydersen