Universal basic assets

Econ4’s Jim Boyce and Peter Barnes, author of With Liberty and Dividends for All, break down how universal basic income could be funded by common wealth:

The wealth we inherit and create together is worth trillions of dollars, yet we presently derive almost no income from it. Our joint inheritance includes invaluable gifts of nature such as our atmosphere, minerals and fresh water, and socially created assets such as our legal and financial infrastructure, without which private corporations couldn’t exist, much less thrive. If our common assets were better managed, they could pay every American, including children, several hundred dollars a month.

Read their piece here.

Power & antitrust

AT&T’s proposed $85 billion purchase of Time Warner is raising eyebrows – and fundamental questions about the purposes of antitrust law, writes James Stewart in the Times:

Politicians were piling on this week to criticize the deal, including Donald J. Trump; Tim Kaine, the Democratic nominee for vice president; and Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Al Franken of Minnesota….

A younger generation of antitrust scholars who are rethinking the nation’s fundamental approach to antitrust law may prove even more influential.

“Over the last 40 to 50 years, antitrust law has evolved to be almost completely indifferent to vertical mergers,” said Tim Wu, an antitrust and internet expert at Columbia Law School who coined the phrase “net neutrality” …

In vertical mergers, a company buys a supplier; in horizontal mergers, direct competitors combine.

But the new generation harks back to the original trustbusters of the early 20th century, who were most concerned about preventing corporations from gaining too much power.

“The antitrust system as it stands is focused on prices to consumers, innovation and efficiencies,” Mr. Wu said. “That reflects the triumph of the University of Chicago school of economics. But there’s an older tradition, embodied by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, that says a concentration of too much power in too few hands is bad for democracy and bad for consumers.”

Read more here. For more on corporate pursuit of power, see this piece by Econ4’s James Boyce.

Let them drink pollution?

The drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, is a wake-up call, writes Econ4’s James Boyce:

The tragic crisis in Flint, Michigan, where residents have been poisoned by lead contamination, is not just about drinking water. And it’s not just about Flint. It’s about race and class, and the stark contradiction between the American dream of equal rights and opportunity for all and the American nightmare of metastasizing inequality of wealth and power.

Read his post for the Institute for New Economic Thinking here.

Diminishing Marginal Utility

Or: Is a Dollar Worth More to a Billionaire or a Secretary?

Here’s a first example of Econ4’s instructional economics videos. More to follow if and when funding permits. Please stay tuned!

Staying awake during the climate revolution

Rebecca Solnit writes in the Guardian:

Dismantling the fossil-fuel economy would undoubtedly have the side effect of breaking some of the warping power that oil has had in global and national politics. Of course, those wielding that power will not yield it without a ferocious battle – the very battle the climate movement is already engaged in on many fronts…

Read more here.

Facing climate adaptation

Econ4’s James Boyce writes in the Los Angeles Times:

In the years ahead, climate change will confront the world with hard choices: whether to protect as many dollars as possible, or to protect as many people as we can.

 

Read more here.

The carbon dividend

Econ4’s James Boyce writes on newly introduced climate legislation:

A major obstacle to climate policy in the United States has been the perception that the government is telling us how to live today in the name of those who will live tomorrow. Present-day pain for future gain is never an easy sell. And many Americans have a deep aversion to anything that smells like bigger government.

What if we could find a way to put more money in the pockets of families and less carbon in the atmosphere without expanding government? If the combination sounds too good to be true, read on.

Read his oped piece in the New York Times here. Read more about the new bill here.

Banking on tax avoidance

When corporations avoid taxes, investment banks take their cut:

Investment banks are estimated to have collected, or will soon collect, nearly $1 billion in fees over the last three years advising and persuading American companies to move the address of their headquarters abroad (without actually moving). With seven- and eight-figure fees up for grabs, Wall Street bankers — and lawyers, consultants and accountants — have been promoting such deals, known as inversions, to some of the biggest companies in the country, including the American drug giant Pfizer.

Just last week, President Obama criticized these types of transactions, calling the companies engaged in them “corporate deserters.” “My attitude,” he said, “is I don’t care if it’s legal. It’s wrong.”

Read more here. Read President Obama’s remarks on “corporate deserters” here.

Rent in a warming world

Econ4’s James Boyce explains what rent’s got to do with climate change:

Read his piece here.

Wealth-building strategies for America’s communities

Resources for democratic, community-based economic development from the Democracy Collaborative:

http://community-wealth.org/