Progressive Opinion

creators.com — It's out! This year's list of American success stories has just been published, and according to its compiler, it "instills confidence that the American dream is still very much alive." Maybe you are one of these success stories. You might be a great public school teacher, for example, who motivated students to achieve new heights or an inventor who came up with an energy-saving device and got it to market at a fair price, generating a profit for yourself, the environment and society generally. No, no, no. Not that kind of success. We're talking money — the flow of mammon beyond regular people's wildest dreams. That's how Forbes magazine measures not only "success," but also a person's value: You are what's in your Swiss bank account. And, just to rank last on this year's "Forbes 400" listing of America's wealthiest people, you need more than a billion dollars in financial wealth.

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alternet.org — So, Mitt Romney now tells Sean Hannity he was “completely wrong” about the 47%.  On the surface that looks like a typical etch-a-sketch campaign pivot. But I think there is more to it than a little clean up in aisle three. My theory is that after careful research and analysis,  the smartest guys at 1% World Headquarters reached a disturbing conclusion. They decided that the whole fiasco needs to be contained as much as possible because it has the potential for serious damage well beyond the November election. How? Let’s see. First,  the setting.  This is how they think and talk among themselves.  It’s not just at fundraisers,  but in their churches,  country clubs and board rooms as well.  Their servants hear them all the time.  But they can’t tell for fear of being easily dismissed.  Thanks to YouTube we now get to see and hear for ourselves.

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huffingtonpost.com — Debates are as much about style points as substance. But substance with style points will win every time. And this is where Obama can always beat Romney. It starts with his record that Romney has run against. It's an astoundingly productive, and perfectly defensible record that keeps the focus on these crucial make-or-break election issues, the economy and health care, and then, his handling of foreign policy. Obama can say and keep saying that the economy despite the towering problems has shown clear signs of rebound, with unemployment down, with most economic indicators indicating positive growth, and the administration has proposed measures to reduce the deficit without putting at mortal risk Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

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economix.blogs.nytimes.com — Economic policy is always torn between helping the broader social interest – lots of ordinary people – and favoring particular special interests. Unfortunately, special interests typically win out in the kind of situation we have in America in 2012, when it’s all about spending money to win friends and influence people. The most effective way to push back against powerful special interests is to have the same rules for everyone – and to enforce those rules fairly, even when they are broken by the richest and most politically connected people in the land. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of New York took a major step toward restoring the rule of law this week, by bringing a case against JPMorgan Chase. But it will be an uphill battle; the forces against him are incredibly strong, including some within the Obama administration.

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alternet.org — Drastic changes are being made to American college and university life -- changes that are fundamentally altering the ecology of higher education in this country and undercutting the very mission of the college experience as we know it. A growing culture of reform has turned the campus quad away from preparing students for citizenship -- that combination of “intelligence plus character” the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. once famously described. In its place, we now have campus environments that hold certain aspects of student life hostage to corporate interests, molding students into consumers at the same time the voices and opinions of the student body are increasingly silenced. As a result, higher education, often noted as the best insurance policy toward social mobility, is now no such thing (at least good insurance policies pay their claims). Here’s a look at some disturbing changes taking place on campuses across the country.

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thedailybeast.com — During the financial crisis and bailouts of 2008, it probably occurred to very few average people that we were entering a period of hardship for billionaires. But among the nation’s economic titans, the idea of billionaire victimhood caught on immediately. And so, in the months and years that followed, the believers in true capitalism gathered in the nation’s parks to make their voices heard—and to complain sorrowfully about how this nation of moochers and looters persists in making snippy remarks about the successful. I admit that I was impressed at first by the unconflicted way in which these proud voices of the strong advanced their war on the world by means of tearful weepy-woo. But then I started to get it: self-pity is central in the consciousness of the resurgent right. Depicting themselves as victimized in any and every situation is not merely a fun game of upside-down; it is essential to their self-understanding.

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baselinescenario.com — Meg Whitman is what is known as a superstar CEO. She became CEO of eBay in 1998 and took it public; during her reign, eBay became one of the most successful, most valuable Internet companies in existence (and Whitman became a billionaire). She used her celebrity to mount a high-profile, expensive, and ultimately unsuccessful campaign to become governor of California (losing to career politician Jerry Brown) before being named CEO of HP, the iconic Silicon Valley company. Why did HP, one of the largest information technology companies in existence, hire Whitman, who preceded her stint at eBay (auction house for random stuff from people’s attics) with jobs at Disney, a shoe company, a flower delivery service, and a toy company? Because of the idea of the superstar CEO, with transferable general management skills, who can transform any organization. The problem is that the whole theory rests on a myth.

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blogs.reuters.com — One of the few things that President Obama and Mitt Romney are likely to agree on when they debate next week is the need for tax reform. Both candidates have backed streamlining America’s crazy-quilt tax code, and both have said that reforms could boost economic growth. Meanwhile, two key congressional committees held a rare bipartisan hearing last week – with lawmakers from both parties saying that tax reform is needed to rev up the economy. Yet exactly how and why tax reform would spur growth is far from clear.

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propublica.org — With the documents Mitt Romney released recently, we know a bit more about his taxes. We know, for instance, that Romney paid a rate of 14.1 percent on $13.7 million in income on his 2011 tax return, which he achieved by purposely overpaying. Though he was entitled to deduct $4 million in charitable contributions, Romney deducted only $2.25 million to keep his tax rate above 13 percent. We know that Romney has paid state and federal income taxes each year since at least 1990. And we know that Romney’s tax rate since 1990 never dipped below 13.66 percent, according to his accountants. Romney paid an average effective tax rate between 1990 and 2009 of 20.2 percent. But there’s still a lot we don’t know. “I think most of the major questions we had before are still out there,” said Brian Galle, a tax law professor at Boston College. Here are a few.

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alternet.org — If you want to see what’s wrong with America take a good look at the nauseating list of the 400 richest Americans – the Forbes 400 . While the economy struggled to create jobs, it was another banner year for the super-rich. They increased their collective wealth by a whopping $200 billion, which is more than enough to provide every student in the country with free higher education. Meanwhile, the median middle-class family saw its net worth drop from $102,844 in 2005 to $66,740 in 2010 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. So while the richest 400 Americans increased their wealth by 54 percent since 2005, the median middle-class family saw its wealth decline by 35 percent. The rich list gives us insight into how wealth is accumulated today. Are the super-rich “wealth creators” who bring new goods, services and jobs to our economy? Or are they “wealth extractors” who cleverly skim it from the rest of us?

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