Sunday, August 26, 2018

Los que le apuestan al fracaso de AMLO

CIUDAD DE MÉXICO (Proceso).- Quienes antes se preocupaban por las constantes críticas y descalificaciones de la sociedad civil a las instituciones gubernamentales, hoy, de repente, se angustian por las hipotéticas expectativas “demasiado altas” en torno al gobierno de Andrés Manuel López Obrador, que se iniciará el próximo 1 de diciembre.
Las mismas voces que antes se regocijaban por el éxito de nuestra fantasiosa “transición democrática” a partir de la alternancia entre el PRI y el PAN, hoy se preocupan por un presunto retorno al autoritarismo inmediatamente después de la elección presidencial del pasado 1 de julio, la más democrática en décadas. 
Las mismas plumas que antes defendían a los gobiernos de Carlos Salinas y Ernesto Zedillo, e inflaban las expectativas en las “reformas estructurales” de Enrique Peña Nieto, ahora atacan ferozmente a López Obrador por su supuesto priismo.
Estas aparentes contradicciones en realidad no lo son. Cada una de estas posiciones buscan un mismo objetivo: la desmovilización social y la pasividad ciudadana. 
El mito de la transición democrática tenía el propósito de convencer a los mexicanos de que habíamos llegado al “fin de la historia” y que ya no valía la pena “luchar” por una transformación política de fondo, sino que habría que confiar en que la nueva “institucionalidad democrática” fuera resolviendo por sí sola los grandes problemas nacionales.
De la misma manera, las preocupaciones actuales con respecto a las altas expectativas en el próximo gobierno son en realidad angustias sobre la gran fuerza que podría llegar a tener la ciudadanía en la defensa de sus derechos.
Cuando un pueblo se llena de esperanza e ideas utópicas se vuelve más exigente y es mucho más difícil de controlar desde el Estado y los mercados financieros. Pero cuando los ciudadanos moderan sus expectativas suelen aceptar más fácilmente resultados mediocres sin protestar o generar olas en la esfera política.
Una encuesta reciente publicada por El Universal (véase: https://bit.ly/2OD6DWN) demuestra que 64.5% de la población cree que López Obrador “cumplirá con sus promesas de campaña” y 69% está convencido de que “México mejorará” durante el próximo sexenio. La misma fuente revela que si se repitieran las elecciones presidenciales López Obrador volvería a ganar con 60% de la votación, mientras que Ricardo Anaya sólo obtendría 11%. La encuesta ni siquiera reporta el porcentaje –minúsculo, sin duda– que recibiría José Antonio Meade. 
Los comentócratas del viejo régimen le apuestan al fracaso del gobierno de López Obrador. Quieren que incumpla sus promesas y decepcione a sus seguidores, para dar pie a un desánimo generalizado que obligue a la ciudadanía a aceptar su derrota en materia política y así permitir un retorno de terciopelo al viejo neoliberalismo autoritario de siempre.
La enorme esperanza por la llegada de López Obrador es un peligro para este proyecto de desánimo y pasividad social porque es precisamente lo que necesita el nuevo presidente para romper con las cadenas de la simulación institucional y el servilismo global a que nos han malacostumbrado los gobiernos del PRIAN. 
Ahora bien, las erradas teorías con respecto a la supuesta continuidad del régimen priista con López Obrador tienen el mismo fin de generar pesimismo y desmovilización. De acuerdo con este punto de vista, la Cuarta República se reduciría a ser apenas una cuarta transformación del viejo régimen del partido de Estado, iniciado con la creación del PNR, después transformado en PRM, luego en PRI y finalmente transmutado en Morena. 
Esta tesis histórica no es, en realidad, más que una extensión de las descalificaciones electoreras esgrimidas por Ricardo Anaya y Jorge Castañeda durante la campaña electoral sobre el “PRIMor”, y retomadas con profundo sentido racista por el mismo Enrique Ochoa Reza, quien fuera presidente del PRI, cuando se lanzó públicamente en contra de los “PRIetos”. 
Aunque resulta que el distinguido historiador John Womack también coincide con las coordenadas generales de este análisis. En una entrevista reciente con la periodista Dolia Estévez (véase: https://bit.ly/2uW9lza), el antiguo maestro de Carlos Salinas de Gortari en la Universidad de Harvard afirma que López Obrador a lo sumo representaría un reciclaje de “la izquierda del PRI”. 
“Es priista, nació y fue creado como priista”, afirma el historiador. Y agrega: “Los priistas tenían la misma retórica (que López Obrador), la misma oratoria, la misma demagogia para la gente que no reflexiona, que no piensa”. 
Womack acepta que “mucha gente vio sus sueños izquierdistas realizados en el triunfo de López Obrador”. Sin embargo, señala que “lo que ahora llaman izquierda es una izquierda que, como tal, es muy pobre”, ya que no es ni comunista ni anticapitalista.
Pero lo anticuado no es, en realidad, López Obrador, sino precisamente quienes insisten en descalificarlo por sus ideas supuestamente anticuadas. Tanto el neoliberalismo rapaz de Anaya y Castañeda como el sectarismo de Womack son reliquias de un mundo inmerso en una guerra fría que terminó hace ya casi tres décadas. 
Ha llegado la hora de innovar esquemas y marcos teóricos para poder abrazar y sacar todo el jugo posible al actual proceso de transformación histórica y estructural de la nación en un contexto de constante movimiento también al nivel global. 
www.johnackerman.blogspot.com
Twitter: @JohnMAckerman
Este análisis se publicó el 19 de agosto de 2018 en la edición 2181 de la revista Proceso.

Capitalism, Socialism, and Unfreedom

Minimal government doesn’t remove power from our lives
Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist

There are two articles currently on the Times home page – an opinion piece by Corey Robin, and a news analysis by Neil Irwin — that I think should be read together. Taken as a pair, they get at a lot of what’s wrong with the neoliberal ideology (and yes, I do think that’s the right term here) that has dominated so much public discourse since the 1970s.
What, after all, were and are the selling points for low taxes and minimal regulation? Partly, of course, the claim that small government is the key to great economic performance, a rising tide that raises all boats. This claim persists – because there are powerful interests that want it to persist — even though the era of neoliberal dominance has in fact been marked by so-so economic growth that hasn’t been shared with ordinary workers:


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The other claim, however, has been that free markets translate into personal freedom: that an unregulated market economy liberates ordinary people from the tyranny of bureaucracies. In a free market, the story goes, you don’t need to flatter your boss or the company selling you stuff, because they know you can always go to someone else.
What Robin points out is that the reality of a market economy is nothing like that. In fact, the daily experience of tens of millions of Americans – especially but not only those who don’t make a lot of money – is one of constant dependence on the good will of employers and other more powerful economic players.

It’s true that, as Brad DeLong says, many of Robin’s examples would actually apply in any complex economic system: I’ve wasted time dealing with both Verizon and the Social Security Administration, and in both cases my socioeconomic status surely made it a lot easier than it would have been for a minimum-wage worker. (I have, on the other hand, had consistently good experiences at the much-maligned DMV.) But the idea that free markets remove power relations from the equation is just naïve.
And it’s even more naïve now than it was a few decades ago, because, as Irwin points out, large economic players are dominating more and more of the economy. It’s increasingly clear, for example, that monopsony power is depressing wages; but that’s not all it does. Concentration of hiring among a few firms, plus things like noncompete clauses and tacit collusion that reinforce their market power, don’t just reduce your wage if you’re hired. They also reduce or eliminate your options if you’re mistreated: quit because you have an abusive boss or have problems with company policy, and you may have real trouble getting a new job.
But what can be done about it? Corey Robin says “socialism” – but as far as I can tell he really means social democracy: Denmark, not Venezuela. Government-mandated employee protections may restrict the ability of corporations to hire and fire, but they also shield workers from some very real forms of abuse. Unions do somewhat limit workers’ options, but they also offer an important counterweight against corporate monopsony power.
Oh, and social safety net programs can do more than limit misery: they can be liberating. I’ve known many people who stuck with jobs they disliked for fear of losing health coverage; Obamacare, flawed as it is, has noticeably reduced that kind of “lock in”, and a full guarantee of health coverage would make our society visibly freer.

The other day I had some fun with the Cato Institute index of economic freedom across states, which finds Florida the freest and New York the least free. (Is it OK for me to write this, comrade commissar?) As I pointed out, freedom Cato-style seems to be associated with, among other things, high infant mortality. Live free and die! (New Hampshire is just behind Florida.)


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But seriously, do the real differences between New York and Florida make New Yorkers less free? New York is a highly unionized state – 25.3 percent of the work force – while only 6.6 percent of Florida workers are represented by unions. Does this make NY workers less free, or does it empower them in the face of corporate power?
Also, New York has expanded Medicaid and tried to make the ACA exchanges work, so that only 8 percent of nonelderly adults are uninsured, compared with 18 percent in Florida. Are New Yorkers chafing under the heavy hand of health law, or do they feel freer knowing that they’re at much less risk of being ruined by medical emergency – or cast into the abyss if they lose their job?
If you’re a highly paid professional, it probably doesn’t make much difference. But my guess is that most workers feel at least somewhat freer in New York than they do in FL.
Now, there are no perfect answers to the inevitable sacrifice of some freedom that comes with living in a complex society; utopia is not on the menu. But the advocates of unrestricted corporate power and minimal worker protection have been getting away for far too long with pretending that they’re the defenders of freedom – which is not, in fact, just another word for nothing left to lose.
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Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography. @PaulKrugman

NYT

I am grateful for John McCain



Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, is a member of the U.S. Senate.
I couldn’t bring myself to write this piece until today. It’s not that I didn’t try. But something in my mind convinced my hands that if I put it off, somehow John McCain might be with us a little longer. I needed that. The country needed that.
But a call from Cindy late this week told me it was time.
I’ve never known Washington without John McCain. I started on Capitol Hill more than 30 years ago interning for Dennis DeConcini, “the other senator from Arizona,” which is what they call every Arizona senator not named McCain. When I eventually became the other senator from Arizona, too, I came to understand that it’s a title that comes with being in the shadow of a giant. It was like having an older brother to protect me. The guy nobody wants to mess with.
But John McCain has been much more than that to me. Just as he taught the country the value of standing alone to do what is right, he taught me that as well. Early in my service in the House of Representatives, I managed to incur the wrath of a host of locally elected officials and newspaper columnists by challenging funding for a number of parochial spending projects. I was feeling pretty low, wondering if I was doing the right thing.
In the midst of my inner tumult, on a flight from Washington to Arizona, Sen. McCain made his way back to my seat with a stern look on his face. “Oh, no,” I thought. “Not him, too.” He stuck his finger in my chest and demanded: “Don’t. Back. Down! You’re in the right, they’ll come around.” It was all that I needed.
Over the years, I’ve been educated and entertained traveling a few miles with John McCain. From Douglas, Ariz., to Dixville Notch, N.H.; from Ajo, Ariz., to Afghanistan. I’ve heard him inspire and motivate soldiers in isolated outposts. I’ve seen him hold court with heads of state and empathize with exiled dissidents. I’ve seen him captivate journalists with a knowledge of obscure sports trivia and literature on the Straight Talk Express. I’ve seen his face light up as he received calls from Cindy and the kids.
But perhaps what says the most about John are the miles he usually traveled alone, such as during the mid-1990s to a veterans home in Northeast Washington to visit former Democratic congressman Mo Udall. By then suffering through the late stages of Parkinson’s disease, Mo often didn’t know John was there. But still John went, not for any political benefit, but to show love and respect for a lonely friend who meant so much to him and who had given so much to his country.
Life’s last mile took John to his beloved ranch in northern Arizona. It was there a few months ago where we sat for an hour or so, just the two of us, watching Oak Creek gently ripple under the shade of giant cottonwood trees. He named the birds singing above us in the branches. He quoted lines from the novels he loved. We reminisced about the past, of personalities come and gone. He spoke wistfully of those he admired and expressed optimism that such leaders would rise up in the future.
And now, in a way that would probably have him making wisecracks, we are wistful for John McCain. We may never see his like again, but it is his reflection of America that we need now more than ever. He was far too self-deprecating to ever have thought of himself as just such a towering figure, so I will go ahead and say it. He showed us who we are and who we can be when we are at our best. And he devoted his life to service and to the exalted idea of America that was bigger and better than him. Bigger than us all. His fidelity to that idea, and his idealism in balancing fierce political battles with a determination to always see the good and find the humanity in his opponents is an example that transcended politics and made him the man that he was.
As I got up to leave that day, he said, “The doctors tell me I’m halfway there.” He paused. “The more I see this end coming, the more I am grateful for what I have.”
Today, I am grateful for John McCain. I’m grateful for the long and meaningful miles he traveled, and for having the privilege of having traveled just a few of those miles with him.



Saturday, August 25, 2018

Paul Manafort’s trial in D.C. to take 3 weeks, probe Ukraine lobbying world


Robert S. Mueller III (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

The Paul Manafort trial set for September in Washington is expected to last three weeks and, on the basis of a list of 1,500 possible exhibits, will delve far more deeply into how he operated as a lobbyist and consultant than was done in his ­just-completed trial in Virginia.
The estimated trial timeline and exhibits were included in a joint filing Friday night in federal court in Washington by Manafort’s defense and prosecutors with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
The required filing is a road map of the next trial facing President Trump’s former campaign chairman, convicted Tuesday in federal court in Alexandria on eight of 18 tax- and bank-fraud charges after a trial that focused on Manafort’s finances.
Manafort’s trial in the District, set to begin Sept. 17, will cover much of the same ground but will scrutinize more closely his political work from 2006 to 2017, during which he allegedly reaped $30 million as a consultant for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine.
Manafort, 69, has pleaded not guilty to charges related to his advising of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. In his upcoming trial, the list of prosecution exhibits suggests how Manafort became an architect of Washington’s modern-day influence industry, gaining access to foreign influence and foreign money.

Paul Manafort (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Manafort faces seven counts in the District charging him with conspiring against the United States, money laundering, failing to register as a lobbyist, making false statements and witness tampering.
The last count arose after prosecutors in June accused Manafort and a longtime associate they linked to Russian intelligence of repeatedly contacting two members of a public relations firm and asking them to falsely testify about secret lobbying they did at Manafort’s behest. Manafort has been in jail since then on the order of U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is overseeing the case in Washington.
Prosecutors disclosed the list of 1,500 potential exhibits with minimal descriptors, but among the subject lines in emails and other correspondence are references to Democratic power lobbyist Tony Podesta, whose firm, the Podesta Group, went out of business after Manafort’s indictment was unsealed; former GOP congressman and Jeb Bush adviser Vin Weber of Mercury Public Affairs; and former Barack Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig, who this year left his job as of counsel at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
The exhibit list also mentions items citing “OVD” and “Oleg,” which appear to be references to Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate and ally to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin who employed Manafort as an investment consultant.
The list also appears to refer to many of the purchases of high-end clothing and consumer electronics that were discussed in the Virginia trial as prosecutors there laid out their case about Manafort’s income and wire transfers from foreign accounts.
For the trial in Washington, the government said it expected to complete its work in 10 to 12 trial days — similar to the 12 days of testimony it presented in Alexandria — and to use three of the same expert witnesses: two FBI forensic accountants and an Internal Revenue Service agent.
A list of all witnesses who might be called was not part of the filing Friday.
Manafort’s attorneys did not commit to put on a defense but told the court that if they did, their presentation could take three or four days.
Mueller’s prosecutors, led by Andrew Weissmann, wrote, “The government hereby gives notice as required” that in the unlikely case Manafort reverses himself and decides to testify in his Washington trial, “the government intends to offer for purpose of impeachment the defendant’s prior convictions in the case United States v. Manafort.”
Manafort’s defense said it had not had time to review the government’s exhibits, reserved its objections to all of them and declined to agree to 23 proposed joint “stipulations” of undisputed facts that could be presented to a jury without argument, including some to which both sides agreed in Alexandria.
“At this time, there are no agreed upon stipulations,” wrote Manafort’s defense, which is led by Kevin M. Downing.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III declared a mistrial on the 10 remaining charges in Manafort’s trial in Alexandria and gave the government until Aug. 29 to decide whether to retry Manafort.
A juror who spoke publicly after the Virginia verdict said that all but one of the jurors wanted to convict Manafort on all of the 18 charges he faced.
Manafort opted to face trials in two jurisdictions on charges brought by the special counsel rather than consolidate the bank- and tax-fraud case into the District case.
Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.

Friday, August 24, 2018

The Tax-Cut Con Goes On

Why Social Security and Medicare are on the ballot.
Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist

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CreditCreditStephen Maturen/Getty Images

What will happen if the blue wave in the midterm elections falls short? Clearly, at this point it still might: Democrats will surely receive more votes than Republicans, but thanks to gerrymandering and population geography, the U.S. electoral system gives excess weight to rural, white voters who still have faith in President Trump. What if, thanks to that excess weight, the minority prevails?
One answer, obviously, is that the unindicted co-conspirator in chief will continue to be protected from the law. And for those concerned with the survival of American democracy, that has to be the most important issue at stake in November. But if the G.O.P. hangs on, there will also be other, bread-and-butter consequences for ordinary Americans.
First of all, there is every reason to believe that a Republican Congress, freed from the immediate threat of elections, would do what it narrowly failed to do last year, and repeal the Affordable Care Act. This would cause tens of millions of Americans to lose health insurance and would in particular hit those with pre-existing conditions. There’s a reason health care, not Trump, is the central theme of Democratic campaigns this year.
But the attack on the social safety net probably wouldn’t stop with a rollback of Obama-era expansion: Longstanding programs, very much including Social Security and Medicare, would also be on the chopping block. Who says so? Republicans themselves.

In a recent interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, Representative Steve Stivers, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee — in effect, the man charged with containing the blue wave — declared that, given the size of the budget deficit, the federal government needs to save money by cutting spending on social programs. When pressed about whether that included Social Security and Medicare, he admitted that it did.
And he’s not alone in seeing major cuts in core programs for older Americans as the next step if Republicans win in November. Many major figures in the G.O.P., including the departing speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, and multiple senators, have said the same thing. (Meanwhile, groups tied to Ryan have been running attack ads accusing Democrats of planning to cut Medicare funding — but hey, consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. So, apparently, is honesty.)
Now, Republicans who call for cuts in social spending to balance the budget are showing extraordinary chutzpah, which is traditionally defined as what you exhibit when you kill your parents, then plead for mercy because you’re an orphan. After all, the same Republicans now wringing their hands over budget deficits just blew up that same deficit by enacting a huge tax cut for corporations and the wealthy.
So it might seem shocking that only a few months later they’re once again posing as deficit hawks and calling for spending cuts. That is, it might seem shocking if it weren’t for the fact that this has been the G.O.P.’s budget strategy for decades. First, cut taxes. Then, bemoan the deficit created by those tax cuts and demand cuts in social spending. Lather, rinse, repeat.
This strategy, known as “starve the beast,” has been around since the 1970s, when Republican economists like Alan Greenspan and Milton Friedman began declaring that the role of tax cuts in worsening budget deficits was a feature, not a bug. As Greenspan openly put it in 1978, the goal was to rein in spending with tax cuts that reduce revenue, then “trust that there is a political limit to deficit spending.”

It’s true that when tax cuts are on the table their proponents tend to deny that they’ll increase the deficit, claiming that they’ll provide a miraculous boost to the economy and that tax receipts will actually rise. But there’s not a shred of evidence to support this claim, and it has never been clear whether anyone with real political power has ever believed it. For the most part it’s just a smoke screen to help conceal the G.O.P.’s true intentions.
The puzzle is why Republicans keep getting away with this bait-and-switch.
Fifteen years ago I wrote a long piece titled “The Tax-Cut Con,” describing what was even then a time-honored scam; it reads almost word for word as a description of Republican strategy in 2017-18. Yet I keep reading news analyses expressing puzzlement that men who were strident deficit hawks in the Obama years so cheerfully signed on to a budget-busting tax cut under Trump. To say the obvious: These men were never deficit hawks; it was always a pose.
And the gullibility both of the news media and self-proclaimed centrists remains a remarkable story. Remember, Ryan, who was utterly orthodox in his determination to cut taxes on the rich while savaging programs for the poor and the middle class, even received an award for fiscal responsibility.
Which brings us back to the midterm elections. Rule of law is definitely on the ballot. So is health care. But voters should realize that the threat to programs they count on is much broader: If the G.O.P. holds its majority, Social Security and Medicare as we know them will be very much in danger.
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Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography. @PaulKrugman
A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: The Tax-Cut Con Goes On. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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