Benefit corporations

One of the problems of capitalism (at least I see it as a problem) is that its only fiduciary duty is to the shareholders. In other words, its business practices have to have the prime purpose of maximizing the returns to its investors, consistent with the existing laws. This makes sense, in a narrow way. After all, the shareholders are the ones who provide the money and in any large public company, they will constitute a varied group that has diverse interests. The only thing that they can be guaranteed to have in common is the desire for a good return on their investments. [Read more…]

Travel musings

Whenever I travel on work, as I did last weekend for a conference, the peculiarities of the pricing of items associated with hotels and airlines strike home.

Like a lot of people, I was annoyed when airlines started charging extra for meals, checking baggage, and so on when they used to be ‘free’ (i.e., already included in the ticket price). But after some thought, I think that this new policy makes sense. The practice of bundling everything into one price was introduced at the dawn of airline travel but that was a different time. After all, when we travel long distance by train or bus we do not expect to get meals as part of the ticket price. Why should air travel be different? [Read more…]

Austerians take a beating in Europe

All those governments in Europe who thought that it was a great idea to combat the recession by imposing drastic austerity measures and balancing their budgets by squeezing the poor, labor, and middle classes are taking well-deserved drubbings. Yesterday, the governments of France and Greece joined that of the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Denmark in getting kicked out of office. [Read more…]

For whose benefit are the current economic policies designed?

One of the mysteries of governmental responses to the current financial crises in the US and Europe has been the call for more austerity and belt tightening, even at the risk of social turmoil. One would think that the natural tendency for policy makers fighting a depressed economy is for increased government spending to stimulate employment and growth. And yet we hear endless blathering about the importance of balancing budgets and closing deficits, by which is meant cutting social programs that benefit the majority rather than cutting spending on defense or raising taxes on the wealthy. [Read more…]

Why I don’t file my taxes electronically

The deadline for filing taxes is April 17 and so I mailed in my tax returns over the weekend. Yes, I still send in paper returns via snail mail. It is not that I am a Luddite, not entirely anyway. In fact, I wrote my own spreadsheet for taxes many years ago that I update each year to accommodate any changes. All I have to do is input the data and it calculates my federal, state, and local taxes in exactly the same format as the tax forms. I then download the fillable pdf forms from the various government websites and copy the figures from my spreadsheet onto the forms. [Read more…]

Using education to entrench privilege

Suppose you are in charge of a community college and there turns out to be a huge demand for math and English classes so that students are being repeatedly turned away because they are full. You might think that it is a good thing that people are seeking more education and that the solution is to open up more classes to meet that demand by (say) hiring more math and English teachers. [Read more…]

The Brazil model for reducing hunger and poverty

The former socialist president of Brazil Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva grew up poor and knew what it was like to be hungry as a child. When he took office in 2003, he said that food was a basic human right and launched the Zero Hunger program. Part of it involves government-run restaurants that serve everyone healthy meals at low prices. This Marketplace report describes one such restaurant: [Read more…]

Does everyone have the right to affordable access to a landline phone?

[Update: David Cay Johnston emailed me to clarify some points in my post. He said:

Also, it is not necessarily a subsidy to provide rural service at the same price as other service. Calling it a subsidy depends, partly, on making a value judgement about the network. If you cannot reach a relative or business in a rural place the utility of the network is reduced, making it less valuable to you and everyone else. So urban callers get a benefit, too, from rural service.

And as my column carefully points out, people in URBAN areas could end up without phones or with only high-cost phones under the rules the phone companies are writing and getting enacted, in four states so far, into law.]

I must admit that this is not a question that had occurred to a city dweller like me who takes such access for granted. But David Cay Johnston says that there is a nearly century-old obligation for phone companies that provided landline service to also be providers of last resort to all at the same price, so that people in remote areas are not disadvantaged. [Read more…]

World Bank maneuverings

There is a job opening to head the World Bank and there have been some interesting maneuverings to fill it.

Ever since its creation in 1944, the job has gone to an American while the corresponding position at the sister institution the International Monetary Fund has gone to a European. While the decision is ostensibly made by consensus, the actual voting strength depends on the contributions of each country and the US has about 16% and the EU countries have about 29%. As long as they stick together, it will be hard for other nations to get one of their own into the position. [Read more…]