Alternet has the article by Dean Baker – Massive Inequality Didn’t Just Happen—It Was Engineered by Conservative Government Policies.

The problem is that President Obama wants the public to believe that inequality is something that just happened. It turns out that the forces of technology, globalization, and whatever else simply made some people very rich and left others working for low wages or out of work altogether. The president and other like-minded people feel a moral compulsion to reverse the resulting inequality. This story is 180 degrees at odds with the reality. Inequality did not just happen, it was deliberately engineered through a whole range of policies intended to redistribute income upward.
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But the key point is that inequality didn’t just happen; it was the result of government policy. That is why people who actually want to see inequality reduced, and for poor and middle class to share in the benefits from growth, are not likely to be very happy about President Obama’s speech on the topic. His comment about the government being a bystander ignores the real source of the problem. Therefore it is not likely that he will come up with much by way of real solutions.

Those government policies that engineered this problem can be reversed.  Then we can try to engineer a policy that does not result in massive inequality.  Remember that life and economics are not binary systems.  It is not a choice between massive inequality and no inequality.  There are an infinite number of possible outcomes between these two extremes.  If we had any sense, we would stop pushing for less inequality before we got to the point of making life worse for everybody just so we could get more equality.  The goal is not equality for equality’s sake.  The goal is to have as decent a living standard for all as is possible.  The focus on the current massive inequality is just to show an obvious indicator that we are far from where we ought to be.

In the current situation, massive inequality is a good measure of our not making the economy work to provide at least a decent standard of living for all.  Making the economy work for all is the real goal. When inequality is not as massive as it is today, inequality will stop being  a good measure of how well we are doing in achieving our primary goal.

The Real News Network has the video Kansas Board of Regents Undermine Academic Freedom at State Universities.

Draconian measure enacted by Kansas Board of Regents that effectively ends tenure and limits academic freedom could be replicated at colleges nationwide

In my 4 day old blog post The Kansas Regents (Casually) End Academic Freedom, you had to read what William Black had to say. In this post you can sit back and watch the video about him discussing the same topic. Maybe seeing is believing.

The Rawstory has the article Rachel Maddow: Charles Koch buying sway over university hires is ‘objectively insane’.

“Forget naming rights to the stadium, or whatever,” Maddow said, explaining that Koch “purchased hiring rights for the faculty at Florida State’s economics department. And yes, Florida State has the word ‘state’ in it because it is a public university, and yes, it is objectively insane that the state of Florida allowed that to happen.”

As the Tampa Bay Times reported in 2011, a foundation funded by Koch gave $1.5 million to the school’s economics department in 2008, in exchange for Koch having the power to select members of an “advisory committee” that screens prospective new hires. A year later, Koch reportedly rejected 60 percent of job candidates suggested by FSU faculty.

Watch Maddow’s commentary, as aired on Monday, below.

I think I now understand the timing behind JaneS’s Facebook comment about Florida State University.

However, my recent rants actually have been inspired by the same story that Maddow discovered. On August 21, 2013, I had the post How Billionaire ‘Philanthropy’ Is Fueling Inequality and Helping To Destroy the Country.

Scientific American has the story A Solar Boom So Successful, It’s Been Halted.

Photovoltaics proved so successful in Hawaii that the local utility, HECO, has instituted policies to block further expansion
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Hawaiian Electric Co., or HECO, in September told solar contractors on Oahu that the island’s solar boom is creating problems. On many circuits, the utility said, there’s so much solar energy that it poses a threat to the system and a safety issue. Studies are needed on whether grid upgrades are necessary. If they are, residents adding solar must foot the bill. And starting immediately, contractors and residents would need permission to connect most small rooftop systems to the grid.

Are we engineers at fault here?  Things that are great ideas in small quantities become problems when everybody (or even a significant fraction or people) do it.  Aren’t engineers supposed to thing about those things in advance?  Or maybe the solar installers thought, “All we need is electricians.  We don’t need no stinkin engineers.”  Although, even an electrician regularly makes capacity calculations on household circuits.  Doing so for the power grid shouldn’t have been outside their capabilities.

When you install a backup generator in your house, you also install a switch to disconnect you from the grid when the generator kicks in.  This prevents you from putting power onto the electrical grid when the utility workers think the power is out and the wires are dead.  In the case of the solar panels, they are meant to put energy onto the grid when the grid already has power on it.  So how, would they detect the situation that the grid has gone dead and they ought not put power on it?  All the solar panels connected to the grid would have to recognize the power outage simultaneously, or the presence of power from one solar installation would fool the other installations into thinking the grid had power.

In the Army, I worked on a similar issue with periscope “windshield” wipers on a tank.  There were two or three separate wiper motors.  When you turn the switch off, there is a park circuit and switch for each motor that feeds power to the motor until the wiper is sitting in the park position.  When all three motors did not park simultaneously, one unparked motor would feed power to the other motor that was already parked, and unpark it.  You can see that it would be very unlikely that you could ever turn the wipers off once you had turned them on.

Salon has the article Women’s rights sold out again: McAuliffe’s betrayal.

After Terry McAuliffe won Virginia’s governor race by touting his women’s agenda, a key early move is drawing fire
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McAuliffe will reportedly reappoint current Gov. Robert McDonnell’s health secretary Dr. William Hazel Jr. as his own. And in so doing, McAuliffe, a Democrat who ran explicitly on his support for reproductive rights, has betrayed the very pro-choice voters who helped elect him.

Hazel, an orthopedic surgeon, is no friend to women’s rights. He was criticized for his handling of the adoption of a law that mandates an ultrasound be performed on a pregnant person seeking an abortion, regardless of medical necessity, and forces the patient to pay for it. As the Richmond Times-Dispatch has reported, he oversaw the health and human resources department at a time when draconian new abortion clinic regulations were promulgated. Hazel also spoke at Liberty University in opposition to the Affordable Care Act, an ultra-conservative university whose own code of conduct includes a $500 fine and 30 hours of disciplinary community service for students who have an abortion.

Makes you wonder if it is even worth voting for a Democratic male candidate.  Maybe it is not too late for the netroots to rise up in protest.

I like the wording above about rules for a “pregnant person”.  That’s gender neutrality.  It can be applied equally to men who are pregnant.

Seeking Alpha on November 25, 2013 had the story Intel: Going After Low-End PCs Could Compound Concerns.

Intel’s (INTC) most recent investor meeting was going well until 2014 financials were forecast, and much of the bullish sentiment that had been building throughout the event turned bearish.

You may or may not be interested in this topic.  However, I have been “contributing” stories in the comments section of the article about my experience in the industry and how some of that history may be replaying itself.  The conversation has been getting interesting lately, so I want to record the link to this story on my blog.  After all, that is the real reason why I write this blog, to record information I want to remember.

New Economic Perspectives has the article The Kansas Regents (Casually) End Academic Freedom.

The chief executive officer of a state university has the authority to suspend, dismiss or terminate from employment any faculty or staff member who makes improper use of social media. “Social media” means any facility for online publication and commentary, including but not limited to blogs, wikis, and social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. “Improper use of social media” means making a communication through social media that:
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Kansas is trashing the only remaining jewel in the state, its superb university system.  The ideological purge that removed virtually all of the “moderate” Republican conservatives from the Kansas legislature has now set its assault rifle sights on the universities.  Their view of the glorious “harmony” made possible only through ideological purity perverts a “right” of free speech or “academic freedom” into an act of disloyalty.  The new “efficiency” regime founded on “truth” as it was revealed to the Koch brothers and the NRA will gradually sweep discordant views from Kansas’ universities.  The purge leaders will eventually celebrate the date, December 18, 2013, on which the Kansas university system was officially Koched and NRAed

Now, maybe people can understand why I am so dead set against MIT’s accepting money to build a building and name it after David Koch.

The follow on article to the one above is headlined The Kansas Regents’ (Unintentional) Honesty about Academic Freedom.

In thinking about the rule I realized that I had failed to make in blunt terms five points about how radical it rule it was.  I circulated these five points about an hour ago to a number of my contacts.

1. The Regents’ rule allows the CEO to terminate tenured faculty upon their arrest for a felony.  There is no requirement for a conviction and no provision for reinstatement if not convicted.
2. Truth is no defense.  The comment that tenured faculty makes can be accurate and the faculty member can still be fired by the university’s CEO.
3. Lack of ill intent is no defense.  The faculty member can make an accurate statement of fact or well-founded statement of opinion for exemplary purposes and can still be fired.
4. There are no meaningful “standards” so the statement by the faculty member could unknowingly subject him/her to dismissal because the faculty member did not know that the CEO was a global climate change denier (or partisan) and believes that those with the opposite view pose a grave threat.  The concepts are so vague and subjective (“harmony” and “efficiency”) that a faculty member’s only sure means of safety is to say nothing.
5. The rule creates different levels of (not very) protected speech.  The same statement by a professor in a traditional physically published journal – if not posted online (recall that most print publishers also make one’s article available on line) — enjoys greater protection that any comment published “online.”

You can tell that the Oligarchs really feel threatened and will go to any length they need to suppress dissent. I’d say that they will come after the internet next, if it weren’t for the fact that Congress has already passed laws attacking freedom of speech on the internet.

Boston Magazine has the article Criminal Justice Reform Just Might Have a New Champion.

Democrat hopeful for Governor Juliette Kayyem does not have all the solutions to overhauling the ailing criminal justice system in Massachusetts, but at least she’s put her ideas into a campaign platform. And right now, her ideas for potential reforms seem to be the only ones out there in the gubernatorial race.

The Kayyem web site has the page Reforming the Criminal Justice System which is what this article is talking about.  Below I quote just one of the bullet points from her web page.

Decrease overly lengthy incarceration for non-violent technical violations.

This is not a “soft on crime” plan, as I read it.

We are well beyond believing that criminal justice reform is “soft on crime.” Juliette, who has confronted criminal conduct throughout her career in homeland and national security, knows that those words are just fear tactics. Criminal justice reform is about preparing prisoners who have served their time for re-entry into our state. It is about preparing our communities and our state for a different approach to crime and crime prevention. It is about our progressive politics and our humane treatment. Juliette will push for the more comprehensive overhaul that Massachusetts deserves.

The web page mentions some ideas that I have since found on the web The Justice Reinvestment Initiative: Experiences from the States and Justice Reinvestment State Brief : Texas.  I don’t usually associate Texas with progressive ideas on criminal justice, so I am going to have to read this.  Below is a brief excerpt from the Brief on Texas.

On Naked Capitalism Yves Smith has the article Steve Keen: Oh My, Paul Krugman Edition.

Yves here. In some ways, I hate to be having such a run of Paul Krugman posts, but his stand on the TransPacific Partnership and his continued defense of dubious economic ideas that were long ago disproven, like loanable funds, in combination with his prominence, means the attention is well warranted.
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Have you heard the old joke that an economist is someone who, seeing that something works in practice, then says “Ah! But does it work in theory?”. I’m not going to pull that swifty here: as I noted last week, I see the role of debt adding to aggregate demand as an empirical reality that economists have to explain – not something that can’t exist unless economists have a model that explains it.

In some  ways, I see this article as economists on both side misunderstanding each other and trying to argue over who is right about what happens in the real world, when a plain look at recent history seems to me to provide irrefutable evidence that debt does have an impact on demand under some (but not all) circumstances.

I don’t understand this wondering if debt creates demand.

I thought the whole housing bubble was about middle-class people artificially maintaining their customary buying power in the face of declining income by borrowing on the rising equity in their homes.

As soon as the rising value of the homes had a hesitation, the whole house of cards collapsed.

Isn’t this proof enough of the impact of debt on consumption?  Let’s move onto the next question already.

I also take the position as does Yves Smith that lowering the cost of borrowing is not going to make companies invest in new capacity if there is no demand for the products of that capacity.  This is a different circumstance from borrowing on home equity during the housing bubble.  Also one situation is talking about the difficulty in getting people to borrow (invest) as opposed to the impact that the borrowing has once the borrowing has been done.

I found the “PowerPoint” presentation Fiscal Space and Financial Stability: A Differential Analysis The U.S. vs. The Eurozone, Stephanie Kelton, Ph.D. FIELDS-INET November 1, 2013 on Scribd.  I call it a “PowerPoint” presentation because it is not an article that fully explains every “slide”.  I also must admit that I did not spend the time to understand all the equations and graphs.  I did get the gist of the story, and I selected two interesting quotes.

Fiscal Space with EMU

“[T]he power to issue its own money, to make drafts on its own central bank, is the main thing which defines national independence. If a country gives up or loses this power, it acquires the status of a local authority or colony.”

~Wynne Godley, 1992

and

There are No “Market” Constraints

“The treasury can always raise money by issuing securities. The bond vigilantes really have it backwards. There is always more demand for treasuries than can be allocated from a limited supply of new issues in each auction; the winners in the auctions get to place their funds in the safest most liquid form of instrument there is for US dollars; the losers are stuck keeping some of their funds in banks, with bank risk.”

~Frank N. Newman, 2013