TSI is fully PDA compatible
The Transformative Studies Institute (TSI)
fosters interdisciplinary research that will bridge multidisciplinary theory with activism in order to encourage community involvement that will attempt to alleviate social problems. As part of the mission, scholars, activists, and other concerned individuals in fields such as social sciences, humanities, and law will be invited to conduct research and become involved in like-minded various grass roots organizations. The Institute is concerned with issues of social justice and related activism, and its aim is to provide a working model of theory in action, through shared research, governance, and operation of the center. As such, the institute may provide a working laboratory for evolutionary socioeconomic forms of organization. Further, we invite literary participation through our independent, peer-reviewed journal Theory in Action, through which research associates, scholars, activists, and students may disseminate their research and expand thematic social dialogue. TSI also welcomes opportunities to work with national and international scholars who serve as research associates and fellows. In addition, the institute plans on collaborating with various worker education programs, labor centers, universities, think-tanks, advocacy groups and non-profit organizations. TSI is managed and operated by a dedicated global team of academic scholar-activists, grassroots activists, and the concerned public. Many of TSI’s members have multiple graduate degrees, multiple years of secondary and college level teaching experience throughout most disciplines. TSI also provides consulting services, custom policy papers/projects, etc.
Editorial July 14, 2008
Re-Living the 1930s
In January 2008 the Fed tried to save corporations from total meltdown by slashing interest rates which contributed to inflation. Then they ’saved’ Bear Stearns by dismantling it and saddling taxpayers with over 29 billion dollars in worthless securities. Of course, if they did not we would have seen collapses (Bank runs) much sooner such as that of Indymac Bank (one of the largest) which was seized by the Feds on July 11, 2008. Now, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are collapsing and being taken over by, yes, the Feds to save their stock holders. The cost? A 300 billion dollar line of credit!
The cause of all this? A liquidity crisis due to bad mortgages-we are told. The true and deeper cause: a totally defeated labor movement resulting in inadequate purchasing power or simply put: people are broke! For much of this we have neo-liberal globalization to thank for enslaving Export Processing Zone workers at cents per hour for formally first world jobs. The solution? Organize! Act! Challenge! Resist!
Letter to the Editor
June 29
The NY Times article on the housing crisis (Sunday, June 29, 2008, p.1 and 21) points out that the present “rescue” bills would only reach a small fraction of those in trouble. With 9 million homeowners owing more than their homes are worth, rising unemployment, further fall in house prices expected, and a large burden of credit card debt and home equity loans, the dimensions of the problem are huge and the remedies through government-backed renegotiation are limited.
This problem results from the redistribution of income and wealth upward in the last 30 years, aided by tax cuts for the rich and the destruction of the post-war “social contract” under which both employees and employers shared in productivity increases. This has created an unhealthy system in which American business depends on ever increasing borrowing by consumers. The cure has to be the restoration of that post-war social contract, and the undoing of the last 30 years squeeze on the majority of Americans. We have the productivity to do this if we share the benefits of technology and trade, instead of having the top few percent hog them.
To combat unemployment we need a public works program that addresses the potentially disastrous decay of our infrastructure (as described in an article in Science (January 18, 2008). To pay for this without further increasing our huge national debt, which was quadrupled by Bush tax cuts and the Bush war in Iraq, we should have not only restoration of pre-Bush tax rates on the higher income groups, but a further increase designed to pay back the national debt which those tax cuts and that war caused. These people put Bush in office and supported his spendthrift spending and tax give-aways – now let them pay back the debt increase they caused with a serious increase in their taxes.
The long-term problem of our economy is the stagnation of the majority’s real income over 30 years during which productivity increased greatly – resulting in the creation of an enlarged class of multi-millionaires and billionaires at the expense of the majority of the population. Does anybody really believe that these people suddenly increased their productivity to raise their incomes ten-fold?
This could be reversed by imposing a requirement that corporations making large profits share them with their employees – all their employees, not just the top managers who have been increasing their salaries ten-fold with bonuses and stock options. Profit-sharing would allow future increases in productivity to be matched by mass consumer demand, and encourage increases in public savings. It also has proven productivity effects. This would give a sound basis for productive businesses to sell their goods. In a strong labor market, money-losing corporations would find their employees voluntarily moving to jobs in the more productive and well-managed firms, improving the overall efficiency of the economy.
Allen H. Barton
118 Wolf’s Trail, Chapel Hill, NC 27516
allenbarton@mindspring.com
Editorial April 11, 2008
A Greek Asks that we Extinguish the Olympic Flame
China should not have been chosen to host the Olympics. What might the Olympic flame mean in a dictatorship that suppresses freedom of speech and assembly, the press, and self-determination for its peoples?
Sports do not trump freedom. That Western governments wish to participate in this fiasco only raises questions about their own commitment to democratic values. How committed is the United States to democracy, when it is willing to squander trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in Iraq but will not form a ‘coalition of the willing’ to take even a symbolic stand for democracy in China. The U.S. ‘cared’ about the gassing of the Kurds in Iraq, but it seems to have forgotten the Tiananmen Square massacre. Why participate in an event that legitimizes a brutal 20th century dictatorship?
Perhaps it is because boycotting these Olympic Games (in contrast to cold war boycotts) would cost corporations and advertisers too much. After all, what are Chinese lives worth to those who care not for their own citizens back home suffering in poverty, lacking healthcare, and (foreclosed)housing. Then again, maybe we need to keep the door open to cheap Chinese goods and the profitable outsourcing of jobs to China’s virtual slave labor markets.
Dr. J. Asimakopoulos,
Greek-American
Editorial March 17, 2008
Great Deals
Securitized mortgage assets have been identified as the basis for the current global economic meltdown. Of course no one in government or industry mention a word about the true cause of the collapse which is the obliteration of labor rights and working salaries in the developed world, especially the United States. And while the Federal Reserve and the White House run to the aid of Bear Stearns, the idea of helping the working class as with unemployment extensions is … well not even a thought! As for those securitized mortgage investment assets, no one knows what they are worth thus the lack of confidence in the markets. Fortunately, our TSI economists have been able to calculate these values which to our surprise Wall Street institutions claim to be unable to do. They are worth precisely $0. By the way, the Federal Reserve purchased $30 billion of these $0 value assets to make the acquisition of Bear Stearns by J.P. Morgan Chase possible since the latter refused to assume responsibility for these ‘assets’ …
Editorial January 22, 2008
What does the Fed’s interest rate cut mean for you:
In an attempt to prevent the inevitable collapse of the financial-housing pyramid scheme, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 0.75 basis points on January 22, 2008. The move is supposed to preempt a U.S. recession and general collapse of international stock markets. Initially, we agree that recession is more important to the working class than inflation, a view increasingly shared by corporations. However, although inflation has a negative impact on all social classes, its impact will disproportionally affect the working class.
Specifically, lower interest rates lead to a weaker dollar. Given that America imports most everything, not to mention high-priced oil, consumer level inflation will continue to soar. Unfortunately, the average pay increase for most employees is about 3 percent. If inflation hovers around 5-6 percent, then you just got a pay cut.
Those with physical assets however are protected to an extent. Most Americans own next to nothing in terms of assets. For example, the bottom 80% of Americans own 15.5% of all assets whereas the richest 20% own 84.5% of all assets (
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html?print). Consequently, corporations and the wealthy who are the vast owners of assets are partially protected from inflation. Furthermore, corporations typically have the power to pass a portion of the inflationary costs to consumers.
In other words, rate cuts and resulting inflation have a disproportionate impact on those who depend on incomes for day to day living. What about the benefits of avoiding recession? Unfortunately, the long-term cause of such economic downturns is ultimately the lack of well paying jobs due to globalization/outsourcing and years of attacks on U.S. labor rights. As for corporations, the interest rate cuts provide a temporary relief given the availability of ‘cheap’ money which is what caused the current bubble in the first place.
Numbers that All Americans Need to Know and Follow:
Halliburton’s No-Bid Iraq Contracts: $7-$13 billion
Budget for Head Start: $6.8 billion
Source: http://www.saveheadstart.org/backpages/bkPresidentFY2007Budget.pdfData for 2006-07
Trade Deficit: $763 billion
Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/13/business/trade.phpData for 2006
Human Cost of War (Iraq):
U.S. Casualties: 4,077 Wounded and medical evacuations: 40,229
Source: http://icasualties.org/oif/
Iraqi Civilian Deaths: 83,521 – 91,094
Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
Financial cost of the War in Iraq
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Universal Health Care Expenditures: $0
Source: Our Eyes
A wonderful time — the War:
when money rolled in
and blood rolled out.
But blood
was far away
from here —
Money was near.
LANGSTON HUGHES, “Green Memory” (complete poem), 1949,
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel, 1994
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