We call on each West Coast occupation to organize a mass mobilization to shut down itslocal port. Our eyes are on the continued union-busting and attacks on organized labor, in particular the rupture of Longshoremen jurisdiction in Longview Washington by the EGT. Already, Occupy Los Angeles has passed a resolution to carry out a port action on the Port Of Los Angeles on December 12th, to shut down SSA terminals, which are owned by Goldman Sachs.
Occupy Oakland expands this call to the entire West Coast, and calls for continuing solidarity with the Longshoremen in Longview Washington in their ongoing struggle against the EGT. The EGT is an international grain exporter led by Bunge LTD, a company constituted of 1% bankers whose practices have ruined the lives of theworking class all over the world, from Argentina to the West Coast of the US. During the November 2nd General Strike, tens of thousands shutdown the Port Of Oakland as a warning shot to EGT to stop its attacks on Longview. Since the EGT has disregarded this message, and continues to attack the Longshoremen at Longview, we will now shut down ports along the entire West Coast.
Naturally, the self-righteous letter was signed “In Solidarity and Struggle, Occupy Oakland.” The labor dispute to which they refer has been covered by CEI’s Ivan Osorio on this site in the past. Essentially, the Longview, Washington, contingent of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union is upset that Longview grain terminal owner EGT wants to use a contractor that has a collective bargaining agreement with a different union, the International Union of Operating Engineers.
The dispute is essentially between two unions battling over who gets to represent about 35 workers at a new grain terminal (the Occupiers are mobilizing against international commerce over a fight among two member unions of the AFL-CIO and are choosing to support one union over another; meaning Occupy West Coast’s planned December 12 event is a union-busting action?). Several hundred of ILWU’s Longview club-wielding thugs members had previously responded by holding port security guards hostage, damaging rail cars, and dumping grain on the ground.
Feisty 86-year-old Hank Greenberg, long-time chief executive of AIG, is suing the Treasury Department and the New York Federal Reserve Bank charging that its 80 percent takeover of AIG in 2008 was unconstitutional. The suits, brought by Starr International and other AIG shareholders, say that the takeover violated the Fifth Amendment by taking property from those shareholders and using the company to transfer federal monies provided to AIG to banks that were trading partners of the insurer. The lawsuits seek damages of at least $25 billion. The “takings clause,” widely used to defend against eminent domain appropriation, reads “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
Greenberg is no stranger to legal controversies. He was the target of former NY State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s zeal, and it was widely bruited that Spitzer demanded Greenberg’s dismissal after 36 years at the helm of AIG or he would bring down the company. Greenberg left the company in 2005 and faced charges from Spitzer, the SEC, and the U.S. Justice Department, with the criminal charges subsequently dropped and some civil charges still unresolved.
Roger Cohen’s column in today’s New York Times is titled “Decline and Fall.” Channeling Gibbon, he compares America in 2011 to Rome in 475 A.D., says “the West is shot,” commits the broken window fallacy, and generally paints a picture of doom and gloom.
Classical references aside, Cohen seems to be innocent of historical knowledge. The graph below shows real GDP since 1929 (source). The wee little dip at the end is the cause of Cohen’s histrionics.
Yes, economic growth is weak. Far, far too many people are out of work. And it will probably be a few years before boom times return. But context, please.
The NLRB’s pro-union bias and penchant for overstepping legal precedent has spread to Minnesota. Governor Mark Dayton (DFL) issued an executive order calling for a vote to unionize child care providers. The move is an unapologetic sop to Big Labor. As reported by ChildCareFreedom.com, “Governor Dayton reportedly made a promise to union leaders to sign the executive order in exchange for their support in the last election.”
Gov. Dayton’s E.O. is legally tenuous and excludes a majority of child care providers from the voting process.
First and foremost, Gov. Dayton’s executive powers do not extend to mandating union elections. Considering that child care providers are independent small business owners, they are not even subject to collective bargaining arrangements.
To unionize a class of workers, Minnesota’s Labor Relations Act calls for a majority of workers to vote for union representation. In the vote to unionize child care providers, the majority of workers are excluded from voting. Out of 11,000 child care providers, less than 4,300 are eligible to vote. Eligible voters are state-licensed and -subsidized child care providers. To make matters worse Minnesota is a forced-unionism state. Gov. Dayton’s E.O. is unclear if the 6,000-plus child care providers ineligible to vote will be forced to pay their “fair share” dues to the unions. Given Gov. Dayton’s history of union favoritism, there is little doubt compulsory dues will be forced on all child care providers.
The annual session of United States – China trade talks was held last week, in the Chinese city of Chengdu. These talks look for ways to improve economic ties between the countries, and focused on currency issues, intellectual property and market access issues.
These discussions are a nice break from U.S. official rhetoric that places confrontation with the Chinese ahead of community-building and strengthening trade relations. Obama’s recent visit to Australia, where he committed 2,500 U.S. Marines to “project power and deter threats to peace,” was clearly aimed at Beijing. China’s response was unsurprising: they questioned the move and declared that they would watch developments closely, and took President Obama’s words as provocation.
The trade talks, led by U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan centered around the notion that, as Bryson said, “many in the U.S., including the business community and the Congress, are moving toward a more negative view of our trading relationship.” Wang echoed those sentiments, while urging U.S. officials and lawmakers to ease restrictions on Chinese high-tech exports and grant market economy status to China — which would make its firms less liable to dumping statutes and provide better access for its producers. In negotiating its accession to the World Trade Organization, China agreed to be treated as a “non-market economy” for 15 years, which leaves the country more open to charges of anti-dumping.
With Thanksgiving fast approaching, CEI President Fred Smith gives thanks in the latest installment of “Fred Weekly” for all the prosperity and opportunity capitalism has afforded us in our Age of Abundance.
And they are — but we have much to lose. See Iain Murray’s latest piece on the EU crisis.
The intellectual temptation — the Fatal Conceit — seems dominant in the political world (especially the financial world) today. It is not only a repudiation of limited government and democracy, it is also a repudiation of empiricism. They might have reviewed the record of central banks, IMF, and technocrats like Jeffrey Sachs. For the latter, see William Easterley’s (The White Man’s Burden — an exploration of the record of developmental aid) succinct graphic summary of his policy advice.
We’ve work to do. Never has there been such an opportune time to rethink the welfare/regulatory state, has society been so molten — but we must acquire the resources (directly or via creative alliances with business or other interest groups) to wage our reform efforts at the scale needed. Sigh.
MICHAEL HIRSH: “The Supercommittee and a Never-Ending Cycle of Dysfunction” “If the ’62 Mets were the worst team in major league history, it’s also fair to wonder whether any Congress has ever been more dysfunctional, with less cause, than this one. And whether there is a single politician left in Washington who can behave like a leader, or even play one on TV. Asked about the prospects for seeing some production out of the hitless and shut-out supercommittee–even a late-inning bid to solve part of the problem by delegating its special fast-track powers to regular congressional committees–Steve Bell of the Bipartisan Policy Center harked hopefully back to Senate precedent.”
RAMESH PONNURU: “The Freeloader Myth” “It began as a retort and became a fear. For years, when liberals would accuse conservatives of cutting taxes for the rich, our main argument was that low marginal tax rates on high earners were good for the economy. But we would also respond that rich people actually pay a large share of all income taxes. Over time, many conservatives grew convinced that the true fairness issue raised by the tax code is that this share is too large — and, even more, grew alarmed by how many people were not paying income taxes.”
JOHN TAMNY: “A Gold Standard Would Be Great, But It’s Not a Deficit Cure” “With monetary authorities domestically and internationally having failed the world’s citizenry in stupendous ways, a possible silver lining that’s emerged from this global crack-up is a desire for a return to gold-defined money. If true, particularly in the U.S. we might eventually excuse the Bush/Obama economic disasters for revealing in high resolution the need for true monetary reform.”
Carlos Rafael owns over 40 fishing boats that work the waters off of New Bedford, Connecticut. One his boats recently caught an 881-pound bluefin tuna — one of the biggest catches ever made (the record is 1,496 pounds). Authorities quickly confiscated the fish.
Fishing is a heavily regulated industry, and Rafael took every precaution to make sure his giant catch was within the rules:
Rafael, who in the last four years purchased 15 tuna permits for his groundfish boats to cover just such an eventuality, immediately called a bluefin tuna hot line maintained by fishery regulators to report the catch.
When the weather offshore deteriorated, the Apollo decided to seek shelter in Provincetown Harbor on Nov. 12. Rafael immediately set off in a truck to meet the boat…
However, when Rafael rolled down the dock in Provincetown there was an unexpected and unwelcome development. The authorities were waiting.
So he had a permit, he let authorities know right away, let them know it was an accidental catch, and they still took it away. Why?
Because Rafael’s men caught it with a net. Bluefin tuna are only allowed to be caught with fishing rods.
A dejected Rafael told the Cape Cod Times, “We didn’t try to hide anything. We did everything by the book. Nobody ever told me we couldn’t catch it with a net.”
At this point, it appears that Rafael will not be charged with a crime. The government, however, will sell his fish and keep the money. Most people would call this stealing; the government calls it asset forfeiture.
Financial Times’s November 18 interview with Baltimore native John Waters (available ungated at Slate) is a great read for a couple of reasons: First, because Waters — the cult film director who made a career out of transgressive quirk and camp — is now working on a one-man Christmas show; and second, because Waters has a singularly refreshing perspective on Occupy Wall Street and anti-capitalism.
After complaining about pressures to make movies for nothing (“I can’t be faux underground”) and slamming “liberal censors” for rating his last film NC-17, Waters starts talking about young people today:
“I think young people are still having fun. I never think my time was better. I think they’re having the same amount of fun because it’s something new to them. They’re down at the Stop the Wall Street thing, which is, to me, hilarious.”
Long before Occupy Wall Street, Waters was fond of protesting. “Riots are fun. I hate to say that, but in the Sixties I went to all of them. I was a Yippie. I was a Weathermen hag.” One of his youthful protests was a “Burn the Bank of America” rally, but now he banks with his former target. “I recognise the irony of it,” he admits.
He now believes in capitalism, he says, “because the more success I have, the more people I have to hire,” and he is embarrassed to think that he marched against the construction of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco (“Now when I look at it, it’s the most gorgeous architecture”).
As the Occupy Movement continues to annoy non-protestors at “occupied” cities, it’s a great comfort to think that among the rioters, there are likely future capitalists like John Waters in the making.
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