“Taiwan is a vibrant democracy and reliable partner of the United States, and yet for several decades the State Department has created complex internal restrictions to regulate our diplomats, servicemembers, and other officials’ interactions with their Taiwanese counterparts. The United States government took these actions unilaterally, in an attempt to appease the Communist regime in Beijing. No more.
“Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions. Executive branch agencies should consider all ‘contact guidelines’ regarding relations with Taiwan previously issued by the Department of State under authorities delegated to the Secretary of State to be null and void.
“Additionally, any and all sections of the Foreign Affairs Manual or Foreign Affairs Handbook that convey authorities or otherwise purport to regulate executive branch engagement with Taiwan via any entity other than the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) are also hereby voided. The executive branch‘s relations with Taiwan are to be handled by the non-profit AIT, as stipulated in the Taiwan Relations Act.”
“The United States government maintains relationships with unofficial partners around the world, and Taiwan is no exception. Our two democracies share common values of individual freedom, the rule of law, and a respect for human dignity. Today’s statement recognizes that the U.S.-Taiwan relationship need not, and should not, be shackled by self-imposed restrictions of our permanent bureaucracy.”
The American Institute in Taiwan was created in 1979 as an informal US embassy in Taiwan. Such a move was necessary after the US recognized the People’s Republic of China as the sole representative of the Chinese people, ending US recognition of Taiwan as the sole representative of the Chinese state in 1949 after the Communist takeover of power. After the revolution in China, the Chinese government, led by the political party known as the Kuomintang. From 1949 to 1972, the US and other countries recognized Taiwan as a way of delegitimizing the Communist rule over China. That futile fiction ended with President Nixon’s visit to China and the issuance of the Shanghai Communique by which the US ended its recognition of Taiwan in return for a promise by Communist China that it would not pursue reunification with the island by military means.
The communique was designed to buy time for both sides and it did not resolve the underlying tension concerning US and Taiwanese interests in avoiding Communist rule in the island. The situation has always been ambiguous, leading to conflicts over what constituted US support for Taiwan and the nature of Taiwan’s ultimate relationship to Beijing. The Trump Administration has consistently moved toward treating Taiwan as more autonomous in ways that have angered the Chinese government, including a bricks and mortar building for the American Institute in Taiwan in 2018. For the Chinese, that building represented too much of an official embassy. Pompeo’s recent action angered Beijing and Xinhua reports:
“A Chinese government spokesperson on Thursday voiced firm opposition to any form of official ties between the United States and China’s Taiwan region.
“Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, made the statement when asked about U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement that the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations would visit Taiwan.
“Zhu voiced opposition to these ‘extremely wrong actions,’ saying they are violations of the one-China principle and the three China-U.S. joint communiques.
“The Democratic Progressive Party authority’s stubborn reliance on the United States to seek ‘Taiwan independence’ leads nowhere and will backfire, Zhu said”
Additionally, the Trump Administration is sending a high-ranking official to Taiwan: “The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, will visit Taiwan next week for meetings with senior Taiwanese leaders, Taiwan’s government and the U.S. mission to the U.N. said, prompting China to warn they were playing with fire.” The Chinese government has angrily responded to the decision:
“China on Thursday warned the United States would pay a ‘heavy price’ if its United Nations Ambassador Kelly Craft made good on plans to travel to Taiwan next week.
“Democratic and self-ruled Taiwan lives under the constant threat of invasion by authoritarian China, which views the island as its own territory and has vowed to seize it one day, by force if necessary.
“Beijing opposes any diplomatic recognition of Taiwan and has pushed to keep it isolated on the world stage.
“Outgoing US President Donald Trump has sent multiple senior officials to Taipei over the last year as he clashed with China on a host of issues such as trade, security and human rights.
“Craft’s January 13-15 visit will come just a week before the inauguration of US President-elect Joe Biden and creates a fresh diplomatic headache for the incoming administration.
“’The United States will pay a heavy price for its wrong action,’ a statement from the Chinese mission to the UN said in response to the planned trip next week by Craft.
“’China strongly urges the United States to stop its crazy provocation, stop creating new difficulties for China-US relations and the two countries’ cooperation in the United Nations, and stop going further on the wrong path.’”
I strongly suspect that the incoming Biden Administration is opening informal channels (he’s not President yet) to the Chinese indicating that the recent Trump decisions will be overturned. Such last-minute actions are quite typical of US administrations that are being succeeded by administrations from the opposing party. But overturning them is a burdensome bureaucratic task and the changes will be slow in coming. I suspect that the Chinese will be sympathetic to Biden, but their patience on Taiwan has been solely taxed since 1972. Let us hope that Mr. Trump does not attempt any further provocations such as naval actions in the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea which would box the Chinese into a very dangerous corner.
Robin Wright has written an essay for the New Yorker on global reaction to the assault on the US Capitol. That the assault occurred because of doubts held by some that the national election on 2020 was corrupted, and it is not at all unusual that such doubts arise every four years. There were serious questions about the election of 1960 in which John F. Kennedy became President even though there were concerns about the vote tabulations in Illinois. Similarly, there was great controversy about the election in 2000 which saw George W. Bush defeat Al Gore on the basis of contested votes in Florida.
But the sturdiness of the US system of election over two centuries is distinctive in political history. Having a regular procedure that is regarded as legitimate solves one of the most serious problem in politics: getting people used to holding power to give it up without a struggle. Political succession is more often associated with violence and it is the central problem facing most authoritarian regimes. The US example has been one of the most important attributes of American power in world affairs. It has conducted regular elections during the civil war, World Wars I and II, and the Great Depression. The election cycles persisted even when Presidents died, either from natural causes or assassination.
The attack on the Capitol has done irreparable damage to that asset. It may be the case that the US will return to its historical pattern, and it may be the case that the inauguration of President Biden will seem to some that the pattern was not in fact broken. But the images of the mob in the Capitol building will never fit that narrative, and those images are likely indelible. And those images delighted authoritarian regimes all over the world who no longer have to deal with the US example as a possible threat to their hold on power. Wright writes:
“Authoritarian leaders were gleeful about the chaos in the world’s most powerful democracy. As armed insurrectionists, white supremacists, and rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, the Foreign Minister of Venezuela—a failing state with rival claims to the Presidency, and shortages of power, food, and medicine—tweeted a warning about political polarization in the United States. With more than a whiff of Schadenfreude, Jorge Arreaza wished Americans well in finding ‘a new path towards stability and social justice.’
“Officials in Turkey, which has witnessed a dramatic erosion of democracy amid arrests of dissidents and journalists, called on all parties in Washington ‘to maintain restraint and prudence’—and then warned its own citizens in the United States to avoid crowded places. Iranian state television ran live coverage of the chaos at the Capitol, with a running ticker underneath, as Hossein Dehghan, a former Revolutionary Guard and a Presidential candidate in the upcoming June election, tweeted, ‘The world is watching the American dream.’ The Russian deputy U.N. Ambassador compared the turmoil in Washington, D.C., to the 2014 protests in Kyiv that toppled the Ukrainian government. On social media platforms like Telegram, supporters of isis and Al Qaeda celebrated the turmoil in the United States. An isis publication predicted that America would be consumed with turmoil for the next four years….
“America’s rivals cited the chaos at the Capitol as a sign that America has forfeited its claim to be a political model or world leader. ‘The celebration of democracy is over,’ Konstantin Kosachyov, the chairman of the international-affairs committee in the Russian upper house, said. ‘I say this without a hint of gloating. America is no longer charting the course, and therefore has lost all its rights to set it. And especially to impose it on others.’ In a televised address, on Thursday, the Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, said that the unrest in Washington ‘really showed that first how floppy and weak the Western democracy is, and how weak its foundations are.’ From Zimbabwe, which last year appeared on the verge of collapse as unemployment hit ninety per cent and inflation neared eight hundred per cent, President Emmerson Mnangagwa tweeted outrage on Thursday that Trump had once criticized the African nation. ‘Yesterday’s events showed that the U.S. has no moral right to punish another nation under the guise of upholding democracy,’ he wrote.”
It is always a mistake to consider the US as an “exceptional” country, but its strong commitment to the peaceful transfer of power placed it in a very select group of countries. With the loss of that important characteristic, the world has lost an important voice for restraints on authoritarian rule.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the storming of the Capitol building in Washington, DC was the stark contrast between the treatment of the Black Lives Matter protesters in June 2020 and the terrorists that broke into the Capitol yesterday. In Lafayette Square the consensus of most observers was that the protest was overwhelmingly peaceful. But a very well armed contingent of police used chemicals and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. The situation at the Capitol yesterday was that there were very few officers save the Capitol police who were inadequately armed and staffed.
There is a clear explanation for the difference between the two events which stems from the composition of the two protesting groups (people of color vs. whites) as well as the issues pursued by both (issues not supported by Trump and issues favorable to Trump). For me, that explanation is both valid and compelling.
But there is another concern raised by the difference: the degree to which security officials were prepared for the possibility of violence. In Lafayette Square there was overwhelming and armed preparation and we can probably assume that, if violence had broken out, it would have been quickly snuffed out. But at the Capitol, there was seemingly no preparation at all.
The lack of preparation needs to be explained. There was no lack of evidence that violence was likely on 6 January 2021. Indeed, on 19 December, President Trump tweeted: “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” There was a website (thedonald.win) posted on Reddit that allowed people to suggest that violence would occur on 6 January. The Washington Post quoted some excerpts from the site:
“The group said thedonald.win had more than 18 million visits in November, and the recent posts with calls for violence had more than 40,000 engagements. One particularly troubling post said protesters should travel in groups that should ‘not let [anyone] disarm someone without stacking bodies.’ It added that protesters should be ‘ARMED WITH RIFLE, HANDGUN, 2 KNIVES AND AS MUCH AMMO AS YOU CAN CARRY.’
“In one thread promoted by moderators Tuesday morning, titled ‘GOOD LUCK PATRIOTS, THE EYES OF THE WORLD LOOK UPON YOU NOW!!!,’ posters shared tactical guides on how to avoid police blockades and D.C. gun laws, including: ‘If you plan on carrying concealed, don’t tell anyone you have a gun.’ One commenter responded, ‘We The People, will not tolerate a Steal. No retreat, No Surrender. Restore to my President what you stole or reap the consequences!!!’”
A key question for the lack of preparation is why the National Guard was not called out earlier to provide security. The District of Columbia has its own National Guard, but, unlike the Guard for the 50 states, the DC Guard is governed by the US Defense Department. That Department has witnessed a very large turnover within its ranks since the election in November with many career officials being replaced by people clearly loyal to President Trump (and with very few appropriate credentials). The Washington Post notes the constraints imposed on the DC Guard just before the 6 January ceremony in Congress confirming the victory of Biden as President:
“In memos issued on Jan. 4 and 5, the Pentagon prohibited the District’s guardsmen from receiving ammunition or riot gear, interacting with protesters unless necessary for self-defense, sharing equipment with local law enforcement or using Guard surveillance and air assets without the defense secretary’s explicit sign-off, according to officials familiar with the orders.
“The D.C. Guard was also told it would be allowed to deploy a Quick Reaction Force only as a measure of last resort, the officials said.
“The need for higher-level approval appeared to have slowed the military response when the Capitol Police, the law enforcement force that reports to Congress and protects the House and the Senate, requested backup from 200 troops during a call with top Pentagon officials early Wednesday afternoon, according to officials familiar with the call.”
It appears to me that deliberate decisions were made to make the Capitol more vulnerable to violence and also to eschew an opportunity to demonstrate a willingness to repress violence that might have alienated the people who supported Trump. This possibility suggests that, for the next weeks and until the time that President Biden can replace some people in the Defense Department, there is a real possibility that decisions will be made that prioritize politics over security.
The Trump Administration has been unpopular with many in the world. Dissatisfaction with US leadership in world affairs plummeted after Mr. Trump’s election in 2016. Gallup has been conducting polls on global opinion of the US for many years and its analysis of Trump’s effect on US popularity is stark:
“After tumbling to a record-low 30% during the first year of Trump’s presidency, the image of U.S. leadership was not much better in the third year of his term. The median global approval rating for U.S. leadership across 135 countries and areas edged up to 33% in 2019. This rating is slightly higher than the previous low under Trump, but it is still one percentage point lower than the previous low of 34% under former President George W. Bush in 2008.”
Opinions in Europe (except for Poland, Kosovo, and Albania) and in Asia (except for Israel, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, the Philippines, Nepal, and Myanmar) were quite negative. Opinions in Africa (except for the north African states) were stable although low but in Latin America opinions actually improved. Interestingly, global opinions of Russia and China were also quite low:
“China and Russia continue to cluster closely together in the lower 30s. Although China edged slightly ahead of the U.S. in 2018 with an approval rating of 34%, China’s 32% rating in 2019 places it on par with the rating for the U.S. Russia’s approval rating of 30% in 2019 was unchanged from the previous year and now stands slightly lower than that of the U.S.”
The only country securing high approval ratings and where global leadership was feasible was Germany: “Across the 29 countries and areas that Gallup has surveyed so far in 2020, a median 62% approves of Germany’s leadership, up slightly from a median of 59% for this same group in 2019. Approval ratings are at, or top, previous record highs in 18 of the 29 countries.” Chancellor Merkel’s leadership appears to be quite attractive to many in the world even though she is due to step down soon. It seems unlikely, however, that the Germans would actively seek to take a more active role in world affairs.
It remains to be seen whether President-elect Biden can regain the trust that the US enjoyed during the Obama Administration. I suspect that most Americans want Biden to focus on domestic affairs and there will probably be little money available to re-establish an active US role in world affairs. In many respects, that outcome is probably desirable. But the stability of the global system is not self-executing–the expansion of influence by China, Russia, and Turkey in recent years suggests that a world system without the support of a major power or a collective of major powers could unravel into conflict fairly easily. That was the clear lesson of the years following World War I where Great Britain lacked the ability to act as a stabilizing force (not necessarily a good force) and the US lacked the will to perform a similar role.
Iran has announced that it will begin to restart its program of enriching Uranium to 20%. The number is significant because it is higher than the typical 4% enrichment necessary for peaceful nuclear reactors (but still far below the necessary enrichment of 95% necessary to build a nuclear bomb). Additionally, Iran has seized a South Korean oil tanker, accusing it of releasing pollution into the Persian Gulf. Both of these actions have heightened tensions between Iran and the US.
But the treatment of the enrichment issue has been handled poorly by the US media. For example, The Washington Post ran a story with the headline “Iran begins enriching uranium to 20 percent in new breach of nuclear deal”. The nuclear deal is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action which was signed in 2015 during the Obama Administration and included France, Great Britain, the US, China, Russia, and Germany. That deal included:
The JCPOA was carefully monitored, not only by the US, but also by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The consensus was that Iran had adhered to the terms of the agreement. President Trump, however, believed that the agreement was flawed because it did not include any terms over ballistic missile development nor over Iran’s support for groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah which continue to resist Israeli control over Palestine. The Arms Control Association was clear: “Despite Iran’s verified compliance with the deal, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA on May 8, 2018, and subsequently re-imposed all U.S. sanctions on Iran lifted by the accord.”
We should be clear: the US was the first state to violate the JCPOA. Iran held off on chipping away at many of the conditions of the agreement for a full year, and increased those violations marginally only in 2019. The decision to enrich Uranium to 20% represents the first major violation of the agreement and represents the first major departure from the agreement by Iran. On the other hand, the US not only refused to lift the sanctions promised in the JCPOA but substantially increased sanctions and forced other states to the agreement to follow those sanctions. There is no question that the sanctions have seriously damaged the Iranian economy and Iran has indicated that it would return to the terms of the JCPOA “within an hour” if the US decides to return to it as well. We do not know what President-elect Biden intends to do about the JCPOA, but The Guardian reports that “So far Biden has said he wants at first to focus on the narrow issue of lifting sanctions, and the US rejoining the deal in return for Iran fully complying with its obligations to restrain its nuclear programme.”
Given President Trump’s hostility toward Iran, buttressed by the Israeli conviction that Iran represents an “existential threat”, many are concerned that he might think that the US has only two weeks to assure the complete collapse of the agreement and, perhaps, to eliminate the threat perceived by Israel. Such actions would likely include a military strike on the nuclear facilities in Iran. I worry that such a strike would seem attractive to Mr. Trump as a way of distracting the US population from his other problems. The release of the tapes of Mr. Trump’s telephone conversation with Georgia’s Secretary of State only amplifies this fear. I have little doubts that Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu both believe that a military strike on Iran would completely ruin the possibility of a revived JCPOA.
There has been a lot of military moves recently. The US has sent B-52 bombers to the Middle East as a signal to Iran. The Hill reports:
“The U.S. military flew two B-52H bombers over the Persian Gulf on Wednesday in an effort to deter Iran amid ongoing tensions, according to U.S. Central Command.
“The two Air Force ‘Stratofortresses’ flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to deliver ‘a clear deterrent message to anyone who intends to do harm to Americans or American interests,’ the command said in a statement.
“The deployment marks the third such mission into the region in the last 45 days”
“‘The United States continues to deploy combat-ready capabilities into the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility to deter any potential adversary, and make clear that we are ready and able to respond to any aggression directed at Americans or our interests,’ Centcom head Gen. Frank McKenzie, said in the statement. ‘We do not seek conflict, but no one should underestimate our ability to defend our forces or to act decisively in response to any attack.'”
There has also been some interesting developments concerning the USS Nimitz, an aircraft carrier that has been patrolling the Persian Gulf since last November. Last Friday, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller announced that the Nimitz would return to its home base in Washington state. The move was described as a de-escalatory move. The New York Times reported: “Officials said on Friday that Mr. Miller ordered the redeployment of the Nimitz in part as a ‘de-escalatory’ signal to Tehran to avoid stumbling into a crisis at the end of Mr. Trump’s administration that would land in Mr. Biden’s lap as he took office.” But CNN reports that Mr. Trump ordered that the decision be reversed.
None of the explanations about the Nimitz make sense. Why de-escalate when the US is also sending B-52s to the Middle East? More likely is the fear that, if a war occurred, the Nimitz would be highly vulnerable in the constricted space of the Persian Gulf. The Iranian missile attack on the Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq after the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani last January confirmed that Iranian missiles are formidable. They were not detected before they struck and they were remarkably precise. Parts of the base were destroyed, but no US troops were killed and it seems as if the Iranians carefully calibrated the attack in order to reduce the chances of retaliation. If the Iranian missile capabilities are so sophisticated, then the Nimitz might have been highly vulnerable.
There is, however, a more insidious explanation. Perhaps the Nimitz was ordered to stay in the Persian Gulf in order to be an attractive target for the Iranian. An attack on the Nimitz would be considered an act of war, justifying a massive retaliatory strike. Obviously I have no idea why the decision was made and I have learned that is a mistake to overthink any of Mr. Trump’s decisions. But all these military moves are deeply troubling. Mr. Trump has only two weeks to make good on his promise to scuttle the JCPOA permanently and I worry that given the deeply unsettling situation in the US, that anything is possible.
Over the last ten years, researchers at the University of Vermont have measured key words in all Twitter users using the English language. Their primary concern has been to measure words that reflect “happiness” (like “love”) and distress (like “suicide”). Their results for 2020 are represented in the graph below. Not surprisingly, 2020 has not been a “happy” year, yielding results below the average of 2015-1019. If one wishes to check against previous years, one should check the “hedonometer” (such a ghastly name) at the University of Vermont site. Interestingly, one can make comparisons with other countries (France was less happy than Americans and South Koreans were cheerier).
In September 2007, 14 Iraqi citizens were killed and 17 were injured in Nisour Square in Baghdad. Among the dead was a nine year old boy, Ali Kinani. They were killed by four military contractors employed by a security firm called Blackwater at the time (it was renamed as Xe Services in 2009 and known as Academi after it was purchased by private investors in 2911). In 2007 Blackwater was run by Erik Prince, the brother of the current US Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.
“In October 2014, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were found guilty of 13 charges of voluntary manslaughter and 17 charges of attempted manslaughter, while Nicholas Slatten, the team’s sniper who was the first to open fire, was convicted on a separate charge of first-degree murder.
“Slatten was sentenced to life; Slough, Liberty and Heard got 30 years each.
“’In killing and maiming unarmed civilians, these defendants acted unreasonably and without justification,’ the US attorney’s office said in a statement. ‘In combination, the sheer amount of unnecessary human loss and suffering attributable to the defendants’ criminal conduct on September 16, 2007, is staggering.’
“The massacre left 14 civilians dead and at least 17 wounded. ‘None of the victims was an insurgent, or posed any threat to the Raven 23 convoy,’ the government said, in a sentencing memorandum filed to the court on 8 April.
In international law, states have the obligation to try suspected war criminals. If states fail to prosecute, international law allows international tribunals, such as the International Criminal Court or the Hague Tribunals, to prosecute. The failure of a state to uphold the laws of war is considered a serious abdication of one of the most important attributes of sovereignty–the protection of civilians from war crimes. The US conviction of the four mercenaries was a clear manifestation of this responsibility.
US President Trump has pardoned these mercenaries and there is a serious question whether that act violates treaties that the US has signed, including the Geneva Conventions. The United Nations has a working Group on the use of mercenaries within its Human Rights Council. That group believes that Trump’s pardons are a violation of US legal obligations and issued the following statement:
“‘Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families,’ said Jelena Aparac, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries.
“’The Geneva Conventions oblige States to hold war criminals accountable for their crimes, even when they act as private security contractors. These pardons violate US obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at a global level.
“’Ensuring accountability for such crimes is fundamental to humanity and to the community of nations,’ she said. ‘Pardons, amnesties, or any other forms of exculpation for war crimes open doors to future abuses when States contract private military and security companies for inherent state functions.’
“The Working Group is extremely concerned that by permitting private security contractors to operate with impunity in armed conflicts, States will be encouraged to circumvent their obligations under humanitarian law by increasingly outsourcing core military operations to the private sector.”
Chris Walker writes in Truthout and raises an important question: do the pardons violate the Geneva Conventions and are therefore not legally legitimate? The Constitution gives the US President the right to issue pardons and places no restrictions on that right.
“Article II, Section 2, Clause 1:
“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”
But the US Constitution also considers treaties to be the “supreme law of the land”. Article VI, paragraph 2 of the Constitution reads: “This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”
The people who wrote the US Constitution never anticipated a time when international treaties would deal with war crimes but it seems to me that Trump’s pardons are a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. Thus, a case could be made that the pardons of the war criminals is not legitimate or legal. It would be interesting to see how the Supreme Court would rule on this case although I have no doubt that it would find some way to rule that the Geneva Convention should not be considered “supreme law” in this case.
Ali Kinani, youngest victim of the Nisour Massacre
David Hope and Julian Limberg of the London School of Economics have published a paper entitled “The Economic Consequences of Major Tax Cuts for the Rich“. The study examines the ideology of “Trickle-down” economics which is used to justify reducing the tax burden on capital-rich individuals because such actions stimulate economic growth which ultimately benefit even the poorer members of society. The study examined data from 18 OECD democracies over 5 decades (1965-2015).
“Our results show that, for both matching methods, major tax cuts for the rich increase the top 1% share of pre-tax national income in the years following the reform (� + 1 to � + 5). The magnitude of the effect is sizeable; on average, each major reform leads to a rise in top 1% share of pre-tax national income of 0.8 percentage points. The results also show that economic performance, as measured by real GDP per capita and the unemployment rate, is not significantly affected by major tax cuts for the rich. The estimated effects for these variables are statistically indistinguishable from zero, and this finding holds in both the short and medium run.
“Our findings align closely with the existing correlational evidence showing that tax cuts for the rich are associated with rising top income shares (Atkinson and Leigh, 2013; Huber et al., 2019; Piketty et al., 2014; Roine et al., 2009; Volscho and Kelly, 2012). We make an important contribution to this literature, however, as our empirical strategy allows for the estimation of causal effects. This is particularly pertinent in this case, as there is a large political science literature on the power of rich voters and organised business interests to shape public policies (incl. tax policies) in their favour (Bartels, 2009; Emmenegger and Marx, 2019; Gilens, 2005; Hacker and Pierson, 2010; Svallfors, 2016), which suggests reverse causality could be a major issue in empirical studies lacking a clear identification strategy.
The study fits comfortably with other recent studies on income and wealth inequality in rich countries by scholars such as Thomas Piketty. For much of the 20th Century, the subjects of income and wealth inequality were largely ignored by most economists who concentrated more on the issue of bolstering economic growth. The assumption that a “rising tide lifts all boats” was a mantra of market capitalism. That assumption looks increasingly simplistic and wrong.
This post will be my last for two weeks. I am resolved to enjoy the holidays and to spend time with my family without paying attention to world affairs (unless there is some truly dramatic event). I hope that everyone has a peaceful and joyous period of time. I will be posting again on 29 December 2020.
The abolition of the Electoral College is long overdue in the United States. It is an archaic form of republicanism that now favors certain constituencies and diminishes that electoral power of many who deserve a voice in US politics. It truly distorts the idea of “one person, one vote”. To get an idea of how whacked out the Electoral College is, check out the graphic below.
As we bid good riddance to 2020, the video below of a poor woman in Ukraine enduring the futility of trying to walk on icy pavement. There have been many times this year that I have felt I was in the same position.
WATCH NOW: Ukraine's capital is covered in ice. And this woman just cannot stop falling on it. pic.twitter.com/iIXUrQrdp5
Democratic New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell has floated an interesting idea. He proposes that members of the House of Representatives who “signed onto an amicus brief supporting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s bogus Supreme Court case seeking to toss hundreds of thousands of votes in four swing states should be denied their seats in Congress”. The 3rd section of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution is the basis for this proposal. That section, adopted after the Civil War, reads:
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. “
I doubt that simply signing a brief constitutes a breach of the 14th Amendment because the brief simply invokes a legitimate process and does not therefore qualify as “insurrection or rebellion”. But I think that the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, should introduce a resolution to the House after the Electoral College votes to elect Joe Biden as President that reads something like this: “This House pledges to support Joseph Biden as the legitimate President of the United States”. Then she should deny seating any Representative who refuses to vote in favor of the resolution. Republican Representatives would then have choice: accept the results of the election or lose their seat. Those who vote to accept President Biden would have to endure the wrath of Mr. Trump’s constituencies, a welcome step to separate those who lust for power over the Constitution from those who accept the Constitution as the fundamental law of the land.
I am not a lawyer so I have no idea whether this makes any sense at all. But I have grown completely frustrated by the lack of consequences for actions that have no basis in fact. A refusal to accept the votes of the Electoral College subverts the Constitution. And such actions deserve to have consequences.
World Politics News 