Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Warning: You are about to enter the Twilight Zone.
Imagine, if you will, that you live in a state where a governor wields extraordinary power over its residents. Imagine, if you will, that your governor has the legal
authority to appoint an “Emergency Manager” to oversee the local government in the town where you reside. Imagine that the monetary compensation for the Emergency Manager of your community has no cap. Imagine that your Emergency Manager declares that there’s a financial emergency in your town and then takes over control of it. Imagine that the Emergency Manager can break contracts, seize and sell assets, eliminate services—and can also fire duly elected public officials who serve your community. Imagine, if you will, that the Emergency Manager empowered by your governor to run your town has the right to dissolve your school district and to disincorporate your town. AND imagine that you and your fellow residents have no say about what is going on! Just imagine how you might feel if you lived in a state where that kind of thing was going on. Well, the people who live in Michigan may not have to imagine much longer.
Who, you might ask, will be responsible for transforming the state of Michigan into a Rod Serlingesque otherworldly undemocratic Twilight Zone right here in the United States? Why, Governor Rick Snyder and his bold band of Republican state legislators–that’s who. In January, Governor Snyder called for “Emergency Manager” legislation—and the Republican state legislators were more than happy to comply with his request.
This all seems hard to believe, doesn’t it? I’m not making it up. Karen Bouffard of The Detroit News reported the following: Legislation that would allow emergency financial managers to throw out union contracts and overrule elected officials in financially distressed municipalities and school districts was approved Wednesday by the state Senate. Similar legislation passed in the House in February, and the two chambers are working on a final version to send to Gov. Rick Snyder.
In an article published in The Michigan Messenger, Eartha Jane Melzer wrote:
Under the law whole cities or school districts could be eliminated without any public participation or oversight, and amendments designed to provide minimal safeguards and public involvement were voted down.
An amendment to require Emergency Managers to hold monthly public meetings to let people know how they are governing was rejected by Senate Republicans, along with proposals to cap Emergency Manager compensation and require that those appointed to run school districts have some background in education.
Critics say that Republicans are manipulating concerns about budget problems in order to consolidate power by undermining unions.
According to E. D. Kain: Snyder’s law gives the state government the power not only to break up unions, but to dissolve entire local governments and place appointed “Emergency Managers” in their stead. But that’s not all – whole cities could be eliminated if Emergency Managers and the governor choose to do so. And Snyder can fire elected officials unilaterally, without any input from voters. It doesn’t get much more anti-Democratic than that.
Mark Gaffney, Michigan State President of the AFL-CIO said: This is a takeover by the right wing and it’s an assault on democracy like I’ve never seen.
Do you agree with Mark Gaffney? Do you think what’s going on in Michigan is an assault on democracy?
SOURCES
Rachel Maddow Exposes Michigan Republicans Secret War On Democracy (Politicus USA)
Michigan Governor Plays Fast and Loose with Democracy, Invokes Radical New Powers (Forbes)
Michigan Republicans Use Budget Crisis to make Outrageous Assault on Democracy (AFL-CIO)
Michigan Senate passes emergency manager bills (Daily Tribune)
Emergency managers bill sweeps toward final approval (The Michigan Messenger)
Conyers: Emergency Manager bill ‘raises serious constitutional concerns’ (The Michigan Messenger)
Financial manager bill passes Michigan Senate (The Detroit News)
Michigan bill would impose “financial martial law” (CBS News)
That little commuter line went kaput because of the predatory practices of a major airline that did not want to take the chance he could grow his line to create a competition problem for them. It has to do with Ronnie Raygun’s deregulation of the industry. Before that, he would have gotten his routes and the megagiant airline would not have been permitted to undercut his prices with below cost fares. And he is not bankrupt, the company was bankrupted by unscrupulous people. BTW, the airline that bankrupted him ended up in bankruptcy itself and was swallowed up by an even bigger airline. Less competition, you see, poorer service, and fewer routes are the price we pay for that. Thanks Pres. Raygun.
Dr. Scribe:
the fact remains that your friend is bankrupt and that his airline is kaput. Business acumen in one area does not necessarily translate to another.
It would seem simple enough to check to see if Delta or other major carrier were interested in those routes.
As I mentioned above Southwest started in similar circumstances and they are doing pretty well now.
In case you don’t believe me here is the company’s history:
http://www.southwest.com/swamedia/swa_history.html
Just because you say something doesn’t mean it is so. Just because your friend is a millionaire doesn’t mean he can do everything well.
Auntee Social:
I think gas was about $0.25 to $0.35 in 1965. But gas is actually cheaper now than it was in the 60’s. So I think your relationship is not working because of that.
Also food is cheaper now than it was in the 60’s, relatively speaking.
So I think I am right on the cost.
Let me help show you are wrong on this one maury.
If I have a vehicle in 1965 that held 20 gallons at .15 or .20 per gallon I have either put in 3 or 4 dollars which is 10 percent of the 40 dollar a week salary. That means I have spent at a maximum 10% of my salary. If I put gas in at 2009 prices say it was 2.99(9) lets call it 3 dollars that is 60 dollars for 20 gallons of gas. What per cent-age is that of the 272 dollar a week salary? Lets see…10 per cent is 27.2 dollars, how many more do I need to get to 60 dollars 20 percent is 54 dollars so let us just call it 23 percent of my salary to purchase gas. So far it does not seem like I have the same percentage of money in my pocket. I think you need to get more education quicker so you can help me figure out where my math is wrong.
Once again you are blowing smoke out your nether parts. First of all, my parents could not afford to send me to college. I worked full time and my wife worked. Then I put her through to her degree. I borrowed some money on a student loan and paid that back with interest. In graduate school I had a fellowship and taught classes for a pittance. Bootstrap all the way. Projection on your part, perhaps?
Second, my friend is a good businessman and tough attorney who has made millions in various business enterprises. Where do you think the got the money to buy a bunch of airliners? He had his ducks in a row. No one starting up a business should have to go kiss the collective asses of monster business enterprises like Delta or American in order to fly a short route between airports they do not even serve. There is a name for that kind of business model–it is called a protection racket.
It is you, troll-boy, that knows jack shit about running a serious business like an airline.
Auntee Social:
“$272.00 in the year 2009 has the same “purchase power” as $40 in the year 1965.
The 2009 observation is preliminary and will change.
Source note for “Purchasing Power of Money””
I dont think so. $272/week is 14,144 and that doesnt take into account taxes and social security. The cost of a state run school per year is about $16,000.00 in todays dollars. Which would be:
$2350.00 in the year 1965 has the same “purchase power” as $16000 in the year 2009.
The 2009 observation is preliminary and will change.
Source note for “Purchasing Power of Money”
$40/week is 2,080 so you are still short.
Anyway the reason school costs went up is because they were subsidised by government. Pell grants, student loans, etc. made college accesible to everyone and we still only have about 25% of the nation with college degrees. With the cost up and the quality down.
Dr. Scribe:
what is the whole story about your friend and his business?
Southwest made it under pretty similar beginnings, maybe he wasn’t a very good business man.
If I was the guy I would have made deals with the major carriers making sure I brought people right to their doorstep or had my ticket agents book them on connecting flights with the major carriers at the same time they were booking with me. Hell he probably could have made money on that as well.
Just because some guy knows a lot about aviation doesn’t mean he knows shit about business. I know many builders that know how to build that aren’t doing anywhere near as well as a guy who barely knows what a hammer is but is making money hand over fist and probably putting a few of those other builders out of business. He knows business, he is not a builder but a businessman. The others are builders but not businessmen.
It has nothing to do with deregulation.
Son,
Used to be College was affordable. You got in on your grades. Then a few people figured out that they could raise the rates when Vietnam broke out and people did not want to go to a conflict and they did. The costs have risen ever since. Learn to live in a real time market and you will understand that the price of gas was about 10 cents a gallon and you got your windshields washed, oil checked, water level topped off and S&H Green Stamps or Old Gold. Almost all cigarettes were non filtered and Freeways were free. So son, yes, it could be done and still have a few penny’s left over for a good warm beer.
you guys make me laugh, putting yourselves through school with jobs making 40/week. No way you did. You all got grants and loans or your parents paid for it, hopefully you paid back your loans.
The money you made went for beer and women. You cant pay your way through college flipping hamburgers at McDonalds or working at a liquor store and if you did it took longer than 4 years, probably 6-10.
Bdaman:
““Unfortunately, too many people think “free market” means pro-business. It doesn’t. Free market means laissez faire — prohibit force and fraud, but otherwise leave the marketplace alone. No subsidies, no privileges, no arbitrary regulations. Competition is the most effective regulator.””
you son, are a damn genius. Where did you learn that? You have hit the nail right on the head. That is what it should be about.
Keep the government out of business and business out of government. And if the company cannot compete then it should go the way of the Dodo.
Mike & Tony: “There is also the problem of large corporations using their economic surplus and market leverage to suppress competition.”
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An acquaintance of mine started a small commuter airline that would connect several smaller airports and communities with larger hubs. He is an attorney and former highly decorated Marine aviator who knows the aviation industry inside and out. No sooner had he started to build a really good customer base with a lot of flights, one of the major carriers started flying the same routes for fees less than wold cover his cost of fuel. He had to bankrupt his little airline. As soon as his equipment was auctioned off, guess what? The major carrier discontinued the flights on his old routes. That, my friends, is predatory competition and the direct result of the “Reagan Revolution” of deregulating the industry.
“@Mike S: There is also the problem of large corporations using their economic surplus and market leverage to suppress competition.
“For example, Microsoft blackmailed suppliers, threatening to cut them off of Windows if they provided a free, non-OS product (a browser) on their machines. In my opinion Microsoft has also filed numerous frivolous lawsuits and patent challenges against nascent competitors to attorney them to death, so to speak.”
Tony,
That is very true and I was Implying that in what I wrote. I also was specifically referring to MS’s actions with suppliers etc. My problem is, though you know doubt well know it by now, that as a writer I am overly verbose. Had I tried to state what you concisely did in one paragraph, my comment would have become a tome. Being aware of my tendencies I work hard to limit them, so thank you for clarifying what I was trying to express.
🙂
Brian,
Please don’t take this as patronizing because it is not meant that way. Nor is it because you say some things i agree with. However, I find your new manner of comments refreshing in that it allows you to add your views to the discussion at hand and that benefits us all. When we attack here it is not about a disagreement with someone’s beliefs it is when that someone in expressing their beliefs does so in a disdainful manner. for instance someone can criticize my political point of view, but when he does it calling me a “libtard,” or makes statements that all liberals are evil, or somesuch, than I feel free to return in kind.
You, however, haven’t represented that here. My quarrel with you was that too many of you comments were not only very long (something which I to am guilty of on occasion) but moved off into so many tangents that it was difficult to follow your line of thought. You are showing you have the ability to cub that tendency and that makes me glad. Personally, I want all opinions
represented here because that increases my knowledge and allows me to test out where my own misapprehensions may lie. Sincerely,
thank you for the change.
Mike
@Mike S: There is also the problem of large corporations using their economic surplus and market leverage to suppress competition.
For example, Microsoft blackmailed suppliers, threatening to cut them off of Windows if they provided a free, non-OS product (a browser) on their machines. In my opinion Microsoft has also filed numerous frivolous lawsuits and patent challenges against nascent competitors to attorney them to death, so to speak.
Many companies in an area have “competed” by selling at less than cost, just long enough to drive smaller competitors without deep pockets out of business, and then making up the loss with their re-acquired monopolistic pricing.
Competition is great, but competing by dirty tricks, fraud, intimidation and corruption and these other means that are completely unrelated to the qualities of their product or service is just thuggery and cheating, and that is why regulation is required if the benefits of competition are to be had.
“perhaps reinstating the anti-trust laws would be a good start?”
Woosty,
I agree and won’t argue this with you at all. However, my understanding, which is probably no better than yours, is that they’re still on the books but just aren’t being enforced. Someone
more knowledgeable than us on this will no doubt clarify it for our edification.
“@Maury: See? I think that is the difference between you and us liberals. I and many like me have worked beside the people we think should be helped, and having done that, we see the lies of the right about “self reliance” and “freeloaders” and “responsibility” for the hateful fictions they are.”
Tony C.,
Have you noticed that Maury has yet to respond to the work histories given here by many of us? Could it be that once a central myth to his misguided mythological view of the world, is given lie, he has no response? These Schmucks (I admit to the ad hominem nature of this characterization but I can’t over emphasize my disdain)try to characterize us as being out of touch with workers, when the reverse is true. Surveys this past summer showed that the majority of Teabaggers were wealthier than the general population and we all know of Dick (never did an honest day’s work in his life)Armey’s role in funneling in the support money from the Koch’s and their ilk.
By this gobbling up of competing companies the telephone markets’ free competition is diminished greatly. This leads to a stifling of innovation and the ability of the remaining players to arbitrarily raise costs.~Mike Spindell
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perhaps reinstating the anti-trust laws would be a good start?
(and don’t argue w/me on this, I am weak in my back-facts….other than when they were dismantled much economic oppression ensued…)
“During Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan and others used lynching as a means to control African Americans, forcing them to work for planters and preventing them from exercising their right to vote.”
Woosty,
Thank you. That era is no longer honestly taught when it is taught
at all. One can’t begin to understand the difficulties Black Americans still face without a knowledge of that time.
“Unfortunately, too many people think “free market” means pro-business. It doesn’t. Free market means laissez faire — prohibit force and fraud, but otherwise leave the marketplace alone. No subsidies, no privileges, no arbitrary regulations. Competition is the most effective regulator.”
Bdaman,
To a large extent I completely agree with you on this and in this concept I think lie the possibility of future reforms to the system that can satisfy almost all American, if the Corporate elite allows. The potential disagreement you and I might have is in defining the prohibition of “force and fraud” and “arbitrary regulation.”
Competition is indeed the most effective regulator. how one defines free competition though is a problem. The recent buyout of T-mobile by Verizon is an example. By this gobbling up of competing companies the telephone markets’ free competition is diminished greatly. This leads to a stifling of innovation and the ability of the remaining players to arbitrarily raise costs.
We see this allowed in all markets and the result is that a new innovative company in a particular field, even though profitable, gets bought up by its larger competitor and this absorption into the larger corporate structure, stifles the creativity that lead to its initial success. This requires government regulation from my perspective.
Microsoft is another example by their using their OS and its’ ubiquity to stifle other competitors products, which were arguably better. Windows is far from the best OS, but due to its’ widespread use, Microsoft was allowed to gain dominance with other software forms that were actually superior to their own. For instance, going back some years Wordperfect was a better word processor than Word, Lotus a better spreadsheet than Excel and Foxpro and others better than Access for database creation. By cadging windows code and by promos to have it installed on most PC’s, these better products fell to the rear.
MS Windows new versions are expensively overpriced and just become clunkier as time goes on. This does not represent a competitive market situation, but anti-trust regulation has begun to open up the market.
As far as subsidies go they usually are poisonous and anti competitive, however, this too is not always true. This country is desperately in need of high speed rail transportation and it would solve many diverse problems. Given that “rights of way” are needed and other incentives to make the costs of innovation less prohibitive, thereby giving an incentive to construct these systems, there is a role that subsidies need to play.
As for “arbitrary regulation” the majority of major corporations view agencies like OSHA with disdain and opposition. Yet it makes sense to me that all efforts should be made to ensure that workers in hazardous jobs receive the best protections of life and limb possible. The devil is of course is in the details and one person’s arbitrary regulations, may save another person’s life or limb.
The evil then is not in government per se, but in the system we have developed to allow bribery in the name of campaign contributions to influence government’s and elected officials
actions. In a large sense campaign reform is the greatest obstacle that we face in ensuring that we maintain our freedom from Feudalism and protect the competitiveness of markets and trade. In truth throughout our countries history it has been the power of wealth that has most gamed the system to their benefit.
This goes farther back than Obama and/or Reagan for that matter. It reaches back to the inception of our country and the ratification of the Constitution. Despite the ignorance spouted by people like Maury, I’m a firm believer in the growth possibilities of a competitive marketplace and its salutary effects on society. However, “free market” as it is used by the ardent proponents of today, does not as you pointed out
constitute what Adam Smith was writing about.
During Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan and others used lynching as a means to control African Americans, forcing them to work for planters and preventing them from exercising their right to vote.[15][16][18][19][20] Federal troops and courts enforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1871 largely broke up the Reconstruction-era Klan.
By the end of Reconstruction in 1877, with fraud, intimidation and violence at the polls, white Democrats regained nearly total control of the state legislatures across the South. They passed laws to make voter registration more complicated, reducing black voters on the rolls. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from 1890 to 1908, ten of eleven Southern legislatures ratified new constitutions and amendments to effectively disfranchise most African Americans and many poor whites through devices such as poll taxes, property and residency requirements, and literacy tests.~same source
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there is also statistical evidence (still looking for my notes…)that many lynchings as well as fraud in the courts occurred against those who were black and/or female, propertied and illiterate, or naive during that ugly period of time.