The Bland Leading the Bland

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The Chicago Tribune has reported that trustees and administrators at the University of Illinois are at the center of a scandal regarding the admission of politically-connected students who were less qualified than the general pool of applicants. After the newspaper ran an investigative piece several weeks ago that sparked outrage, Governor Pat Quinn created an independent Admissions Review Commission to investigate allegations of preferential treatment.

Examination is surely in order. As ACTA has long argued, trustees must be more than just fundraisers, boosters, or rubber stamps. Board service is an honor, and it is also a responsibility. As ACTA noted in its guidebook for governors, it is vital that governors “appoint thoughtful, active trustees” who have “a clear sense of their responsibilities to the public.” Trustees do not serve for the benefit of friends or special constituencies; they are stewards of the public interest — appointed to safeguard the academic and financial integrity of the university — for the benefit of the entire community.

ACTA’s Must Reads, Posted by Heather Lakemacher on July 02, 2009

I probably shouldn’t pick on the ACTA so much, but since I did wonder out loud recently how they would respond to the ongoing ‘class scandal’ here in Illinois I thought a comment was justified. Their acknowledgment of the problem is remarkably non-committal and perhaps inevitably bland. This neutrality is curious, given the ACTA’s promotion of high moral and political standards.

I’d think that they would decry this sort of corruption as another example of how the American system of meritocracy and a-political education has been undermined by special interests. They certainly never pull any punches when it comes to what they see as the abuses of diversity and the “special interests” of the professors. Affirmative action, is not so bad, I guess, if it’s for the powerful.

I think this timidity, too, represents what might be called the Obama-effect, a not-so-buried fear rippling through the culture of the powerful, an anxiety that “business as usual” might be a little more disrupted than they hoped. The trustee system is certainly a prime candidate for populist change, especially if it becomes more visible. How can they make this look good?

Is the ACTA, and other like minded folks, wondering if these hearings risk pulling on a thread that might unravel the assumptions that allowed business people (aka Capital) to take over the governance of public universities? It wasn’t always that way, of course, and it”s easy to imagine a more progressive trustees model rooted in community service and academic-self governance.

Posted in: Economics, Language, Online Places, Writing

The Big Lie Nears Climax: E.F.C.A.

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America’s unionized private workforce has declined by approximately 27 percent since 1958. This, according to McMahon, has been a sign that unions have failed to respond to workers and market forces.

“(Small businesses) have to be nimble and flexible in their costs,” McMahon said. “Labor unions have not figured out a way to deal with that.”

He added that this reduction has led to a retirement and pension crisis for labor organizations.

“If you understand the Social Security problem, then you understand their problem,” McMahon said.

Union rep: card check vote imminent, BRUCE SIWY, Daily American Staff Writer

When I spend a little time looking around for relatively reasonable criticism of the Employee Free Choice Act, I have a hard time finding anything of substance. This piece, from a small paper in Pennsylvania, at least tries to set out somethi8ng resembling a debate. The E.F.C.A. is both so important and so simple, though, that critics can’t quite get a handle on it.

I certainly don’t meant to imply that the right’s rhetoric is based in an ideal of informed debate! But on certain issues like the current climate change bill they do at least make some effort at argument. I’d say that their arguments fall apart on closer examination, but at least they go through the motions.

E.F.C.A., however, generates the same cynicism and manipulation that surround the debates over terror and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein has nukes that can hit the U.S. in 45 minutes; the terrorists have a plan to kill thousands of people tomorrow and only by torturing them can be stop the plot; E.F.C.A. is the end of the world as we know it.

Posted in: Economics, Language, Online Places

Universal Health Care: Put Everything Else on Hold

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Momentum for universal health care is slowing dramatically on Capitol Hill. Moderates are worried, Republicans are digging in, and the medical-industrial complex is firing up its lobbying and propaganda machine.

But, as you know, the worst news came days ago when the Congressional Budget Office weighed in with awful projections about how much the leading healthcare plans would cost and how many Americans would still be left out in the cold. Yet these projections didn’t include the savings that a public option would generate by negotiating lower drug prices, doctor fees, and hospital costs, and forcing private insurers to be more competitive. Projecting the future costs of universal health care without including the public option is like predicting the number of people who will get sunburns this summer if nobody is allowed to buy sun lotion. Of course the costs of universal health care will be huge if the most important way of controlling them is left out of the calculation.

Robert Reich’s Blog, June 19, 2009

I think common sense and plain speaking has taken a serious hit in the last several weeks, especially when it comes to health care. First was the growing realization that we’ll be talking about a “public option” rather than universal health care. It sounds like a too-clever-by-half Clinton strategy. I don’t think the voices of big Capital will be fooled by this sort of semantic game.

I’ll admit that there is something pleasing about the idea of setting up a alternative system so well run it puts most of the private system out of business. If done well, even a “public option” would have enourmous advantages, as Reich suggests, from the economies of scale to the built in administrative savings. Something tells me that big Capital won’t be fooled by this, either.

Reich is correct: Obama needs to become a champion of common sense and of good old American progressive pragmatism, making a very public case for universal health care and against the big Capital interests who seem hell-bent on driving the car right off the cliff, taking us with them. If we can get this and the Employee Free Choice Act we have a running chance at real change.

Posted in: Economics, Online Places

Banking and the U.S. Moral Economy

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At this time of widespread economic crisis when many families are experiencing financial hardship, consumer advocates are calling on regulators to prevent banks and tax preparers from making usurious refund anticipation loans which take a big bite out of low-income people’s tax refunds.

The California Reinvestment Coalition joins 30 consumer groups nationwide at a hearing on Thursday testifying before the Office of Thrift Supervision to oppose Republic Bank’s application for a charter in order to merge with Republic Bank & Trust Company.

Republic is one of the nation’s top providers of refund anticipation loans (RAL). The Kentucky-based bank charges the most expensive RAL fees of any lender, ranging from $34 to $125 and amounting to an APR of at least 161%. For a typical refund of $2,600, a RAL borrower at Republic pays a $110 loan fee. That doesn’t include a $30.95 fee to set up an account, another $30.95 for electronic deposit, and any tax preparation and filing fees.

California Progressive Report, Banks Target the Working Poor During Fiscal Crisis, Kevin Stein, Associate Director, California Reinvestment Coalition

Here’s another example of the stark depletion of the U.S. moral economy, much of it rooted in unquestioned conservative economic principles. Certain ideas just don’t come up in debate very often, almost as if they were taboo. Criticism of usury is a good example, despite the recent attempts to reform credit card laws. What’s shocking is what is so un-shocking.

In fact, the reforms just seem to have prompted the credit card companies to find other ways to rip us off. And, of course, the new rules and regulations don’t cap or in any fashion limit how much interest can be charged. That’s why these workplace loan sharks are so astonishing; they’ve pushed usury almost to its logical limit, often charging effective annual rates of several hundred percent.

You would think that this would simply be a crime that no one would question anymore than anyone questions any other sort of theft or confidence game. After years of propaganda against government regulation and a religious market idolatry, though, we seem incapable of seeing these sorts of crimes as problems, much less as crimes. Let the buyer beware has become a license to steal.

Posted in: Economics, Language, Online Places