The Hollywood Liberal

Beggar Thy Neighbor, Y’all
It’s a good thing Alabama doesn’t have its own monetary policy. Otherwise it might be tempted to devalue its currency to boost exports. But it can still subsidize domestic industry, not least of all its plants of foreign auto companies….

SEC Chair Blasts “Multiple Failures Over At Least A Decade” On Madoff
We’ve been focusing lately on the growing signs of negligence by the SEC in the Bernie Madoff case. And now the commission itself has done the same. In an extraordinary admission of failure, SEC chairman Christopher Cox last night ordered…

Unions: An Effective Remedy for Insufficient Demand
Picking up on Paul’s question about why we didn’t go back into recession/depression after World War II (and following Randall’s point), I think unions did play a very important role. Strong unions are a great mechanism for ensuring that workers…

Sen. Blanche Lincoln: I May Vote Against Employee Free Choice Act
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is set to be one of the early battles between progressives and conservatives in the 111th Congress. The bill would give workers the option to form a union through a “card-check” system, in which a union would be recognized if a majority of workers signed a petition testifying […]

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is set to be one of the early battles between progressives and conservatives in the 111th Congress. The bill would give workers the option to form a union through a “card-check” system, in which a union would be recognized if a majority of workers signed a petition testifying to their desire to organize.

With the right wing and big business interests lining up against the measure, progressives need all the support they can get in Congress. However, the AP reports today that Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) is indicating she may vote against the measure:

Sen. Blanche Lincoln says she doesn’t think federal legislation that would allow labor organizations to unionize workplaces without secret-ballot elections is necessary. But in an interview with The Associated Press today, Lincoln gave herself room to support the measure if it’s brought up later.

Business and labor groups are pressuring the Democratic senator from Arkansas for support either way. Tim Griffin, a potential challenger to the senator’s 2010 re-election bid, has said her stand could be an issue in the race.

Lincoln’s potential opposition to EFCA is troubling. After all, unionization helps improve the economic conditions of workers, and Arkansas is in dire need of economic help. As the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo points out:

In 2007, just 8.8 percent of Arkansas workers were members of unions. That same year, an Arkansas worker’s average weekly wage was $712, which was 44th in the nation.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research has found that “unionization raises the wages of the typical low-wage worker (one in the 10th percentile) by 20.6 percent.” Furthermore, were the Free Choice Act to pass, it is estimated that an additional 14,157 workers in Arkansas would receive health insurance, while 11,164 would receive pension benefits.

Matt Yglesias, however, finds one reason Lincoln may be unwilling to back EFCA: Wal-Mart. The megastore has a long history of opposing unions, and Lincoln — along with other Arkansas politicians — are strong backers of Wal-Mart.

Who will win Lincoln’s vote? Wal-Mart or her struggling constituents?

Obama’s Chief Speechwriter, 27, Works on Inaugural Address While Making His Own Transition
The job requires him to work unnoticed, even in plain view, so Jon Favreau settles into a wooden chair at a busy Starbucks in the center of Penn Quarter. Deadline looms, and he needs to write at least half a page by the end of the day. As the espresso machines whir, Favreau opens his laptop, calls…

Team Obama ‘Clintonesque’ on Blagojevich
SAN DIEGO — It may be that neither President-elect Barack Obama nor anyone else on his staff has anything to hide regarding the pay-to-play scandal involving Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Then, by all means, Obama and his team should stop acting as if they do have something to hide. The loudest voices in politics and the media are coming from the critics and the cheerleaders. One camp is sure that Obama and his inner circle are guilty by association, and the other is sure they’re totally innocent. I’ll put myself in a third camp — of those who think Obama and his advisers may well be in the clear, but that they sure do a convincing job of suggesting otherwise.

Obama vs. Machine Politics
Ah, what a gift the media give us to see ourselves as others see us. With President-elect Barack Obama’s victory, Chicago was portrayed as a world-class model of political enlightenment. Then our governor got arrested. Among other outrages, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested for allegedly putting Obama’s Senate seat up for auction and a new debate was launched: Is the Land of Lincoln the country’s most corrupt state? Or is it merely more colorfully corrupt than, say, New Jersey or Louisiana?

Shock-and-Awe Easing
In a monetary version of shock-and-awe, the Federal Reserve unleashed a massive easing move with its FOMC policy announcement Tuesday — one that represents a sea change in central-bank operations. For starters, Bernanke & Co. established a new target range for the federal funds rate of zero-to-one-quarter percent. That’s right: zero-to-one-quarter percent. In doing so, the Fed is abandoning its fed funds target and essentially following Treasury bill rates in the open market, which have been trading close to zero for many weeks. The Fed also signaled the near-zero funds rate could last for “some time.”

Postponing Reality
Some of us were raised to believe that reality is inescapable. But that just shows how far behind the times we are. Today, reality is optional. At the very least, it can be postponed. Kids in school are not learning? Not a problem. Just promote them on to the next grade anyway. Call it “compassion,” so as not to hurt their “self-esteem.” Can’t meet college admissions standards after they graduate from high school? Denounce those standards as just arbitrary barriers to favor the privileged, and demand that exceptions be made.

The Scandal is What’s Legal
Righteous indignation over allegations about Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s “pay to play” brazenness camouflages the corruption inherent in all government. After all, what does it mean to be a politician if not that you promise favors — coerced from the taxpayers — in return for support from key constituencies? Ted Stevens, William Jefferson and Randy “Duke” Cunningham behaved egregiously enough to be convicted, but their actions didn’t cost taxpayers nearly as much as what their colleagues did supposedly acting in the “public interest.”

I Don’t Trust You People
Unlike many of my more tolerant fellow citizens, I possess no confidence in the ability of the American electorate to make sensible decisions. I have reached this conclusion based on an incontrovertible truth: You people will believe anything. This reality confronts me daily, as I am bombarded with fiercely stupid conspiracy theories from the exceptionally unwell. Worse, even people I once respected — folks with intellects and accomplishments that soar above my own — confidently will explain that the economy actually is controlled by a half-dozen shadowy individuals and Barack Obama has a birth certificate from Bangladesh stuffed in a bedside Quran.

Beyond Senator Caroline
WASHINGTON — Caroline Kennedy — or Caroline Kennedy’s political consultant — might like to read some of my e-mail. Usually, I know when I’m about to step on a hornet’s nest of unhappy readers. Last week, when I described my head vs. heart ambivalence about Kennedy’s interest in the New York Senate seat, I plunged heedlessly into the thicket. And boy, did I get some stinging comments, some expressed with, shall we say, Blagojevichian pungency. Caroline, brace yourself. “Much like you writing for the (Washington) Post, Caroline Kennedy is not qualified,” one reader wrote in one of the more family-friendly responses.

Myths of the Assembly Line
A famous news photo from the late ’30s shows toughs employed by the Ford Motor Co. beating up Richard Frankensteen, a United Auto Workers official, during the so-called Battle of the Overpass at Ford’s Rouge River plant in Dearborn. UAW chief Walter Reuther, walking with Frankensteen, got the same treatment. “Seven times they raised me off the concrete and slammed me down on it,” he later wrote. ” I was punched and kicked and dragged by my feet to the stairways, thrown the first flight of steps . and kicked down the second flight.”