Yesterday, I posted the first part of Michael Massing’s excellent two-part essay on covering the world of power and influence in which the 1% live.
Today, I conclude the essay with part 2, where Massing offers numerous examples of untold stories and a few examples of excellent investigative reporting, such as the time that David Sirota broke the story that hedge fund manager John Arnold’s foundation was underwriting a PBS series on “the pension crisis,” without noting that he was a funder or that he has led an attack on public sector pensions. Sirota’s investigation compelled PBS to return Arnold’s money and to cancel the series.
He suggests several sectors that are not adequately covered by journalists: first, the philanthropies, which these days use their largesse to press their own political or ideological agenda; second, the world of higher education, which have come to rely on very wealthy donors who make gifts with strings attached; third, the world of think tanks, which have become increasingly dependent on donors who push their private agendas; fourth, the world of private equity operates beneath the surface, a world where vast sums are accumulated, along with vast political power; and for good measure, Wall Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and corporate America.
We learn from Massing that the media occasionally pull back the curtain, but all too often are willing to rewrite press releases and respond to marketing and branding campaigns. Investigative reporting requires energy, effort, and resources.
Massing himself, in a recent private communication, told me he is trying to set up a website to do what he calls for.
Let’s hope.
Information sustains democracy. Without it, we are all in the dark, not knowing who is pulling the levers of power. Those of us in education have seen the immense power of the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Walton Foundation, and hedge fund managers, yet the media usually is blissfully aware of who is manipulating public opinion and what their goals are.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The “skills gap” is a great example. Business leaders and the think tanks they fund pushed the skills gap because it explains why they weren’t hiring and why wages weren’t going up.
But it was so OBVIOUSLY self-serving for them to push this that it should have been questioned! They’d much rather talk about the shortcomings of the workforce rather than wages. Obviously. The CEO of Caterpillar doesn’t want to talk about how there haven’t been real wage gains for workers- instead he promotes the idea that employees are stupid and lazy.
The Obama Administration grabbed the “skills gap” with both hands. They ALL pushed it as fact. It was NEVER fact. It was always one theory- so why did they all lock-step buy it?
I think they all bought it because they were told it was true by CEO’s. That was all they needed. If the CEO of Caterpillar says he “can’t find” skilled workers that’s all they needed in DC. His claim was enough.
This isn’t “science”. It’s influence peddling.
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I was being told by politicians there was a “skills gap”, a shortage of people in skilled trades, WHILE the people I know in skilled trades were telling me they weren’t working.
obviously that’s anecdotal, but these are real people with a decade or more of experience and certification in a skilled trade and THEY knew the “skills gap” was nonsense.
So how do the President of the United States and the Secretary of Education not know it? How were they so thoroughly duped by people and organizations who have an obvious agenda?
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$$$ and influence.
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Yes, Yes and Yes. There are many good articles on this dating back to at before the last election. Peter Cappelli of Wharton eviserates the Myth “a shortage of of Diamonds is when diamonds are not available, not when they are not available at the price you want to pay.”
Our friend Dean Baker’s CEPR states . ” When there is a shortage of skills those with the skills are able to arbitrage those skills between employers and wages rise. This is not happening in hardly any of the economy”
Even Mr neo liberal in chief Lawrence Summers states. ” I am afraid we could educate a whole lot of people ton take the jobs of those that already have jobs.”
It would seem that CEOs see a shortage that no labor economist are able to find.
So yes we still are reliant on Adam Smith and the basic tenet of capitalism. Supply and demand. Where are the wage increases for skilled employees.
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The “skills gap” myth was started decades ago by silicon valley frat boys as a way to avoid paying high salaries to skilled tech workers. I attended a professional development conference years ago for Microsoft where the guest speaker was Bill Gates. He slipped and was using a PowerPoint presentation intended for investors. On one slide was a point about his plans to “eliminate the high priesthood of programmers” by introducing tools that could be used by lower skilled workers. In a crowd of thousands of nerds all thinking they would be the next Gates, I must’ve been the only one to catch it. I looked around and realized I was surrounded by gullible sheep with pocket protectors.
Enter the H1b program widely supported by Democrats like Bill Clinton and all Republicans. I read a canary-in-the-mine article 30 years ago by a Berkley professor (I can’t recall his name) warning of the dangers of the H1b program to American tech workers. I showed it to colleagues who scoffed and ridiculed me. Today, they are over 40 and out of work or in lower paying jobs. One admitted later I was right as he had to train his replacement from India. Companies abuse the H1b program even further through “consulting firms” and avoid the cap. Around Ohio, a major bank hires nearly all H1b scab workers, displacing American tech workers. The scabs inhabit the many apartments in the area (“company housing?”) and drive new cars while the over 40 American tech workers are bagging groceries or serving burgers.
It is a one sided globalization effect even Adam Smith would find perverse. Companies import workers to displace Americans, get a cheap slave labor force on H1b status, silence the voice of U.S. labor, and pay the few at the top millions for destroying our country. Yet these Benedict Arnold companies and their execs want the benefits if a safe, stable, pro-business America built by the workers they undermine and displace.
It is the new normal and voters just don’t seem to catch on as to who is sticking it to them, blaming the wrong people.
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The grand flaw in their plan is that they will eventually have to pay the price. Perhaps it will be their heirs that will pay the price. If the ever eroding middle class can no longer buy their goods or services, they will see their empires shrink. These opportunists don’t care about tomorrow; they want to make all they can at any price today.
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retired teacher
We do not have to wait. Tomorrow is here and an eviscerated middle class is incapable of generating the spending that causes economic growth. Thus Yellen is afraid to raise interest rates. The only time we see sufficient demand is when bubbles in financial markets cause “Irrational Exuberance” thank you Robert Schiller. Consumers than go out and borrow against their paper assets or homes.
The unemployment rate is far higher than the fictitious 5%. The worker participation rate of prime age males and females is 1 or 2 points lower than in healthier periods. Add that to the unemployment rate. Add a million behind prison walls to the rate.
The economic elites thought they would sell to a global market and make up for the American consumer, perhaps one day they will, that day hasn’t arrived.
The price they may pay is when the pitch forks come out. But they already are out . Working class voters are flocking to the demagogue.
Nobody ever said that they were rational. They are as exceptionally delusional as any other people. “Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss”
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Vale Math, thank you!!!!!
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And the Donald loves H1Bs and Right to Work. Sure to make America great again. So delusional are his supporters. In 97 little jowly faced economist for Business Week , Willy Wolman wrote “The Judas Economy: The Triumph of Capital and the Betrayal of Work”
In the height of the tech bubble he predicted that the tech sector would be outsourced at lightning speed.
” It took 30 years for textiles to move from the unionized north to the non union south, 5years to leave the south and country. ”
He predicted that tech work and research would leave at the speed of light.
So here we are the majority of H1bs are now held by Indian outsourcing firms used to train employees on the VISA in the states so as to bring the job back to India.
But Vale listen to Bernie on the Immigration bill in 2007 . And tell me he would not be kicking Trumps ass. I left out the adjective I wanted to use.
Bernie Sanders: Immigration Reform and Labor Rights (5/24/2007)
Bernie Sanders: Immigration, Labor, and Poverty (6/6/2007)
The blood is beginning to boil. I will say that an examination of Cornell
West’s “Race Matters” ( “underdog resentment and envy”)
will explain why Bernie is not the candidate that wiped the floor with the Orangutan.
This tightening race was so predictable. If the Black vote turns out in the numbers they tuned out in 2000 an 2004 hello President Donald .
So what would have countered this, a massive youth vote and splitting the White working class vote.
God help us.
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“It would also try to show the growing influence of university boards of trustees. ”
I’m very much looking forward to this. My university will have its own board next year. The board consists of one prof and one student. The rest: appointed (non-elected) businessmen.
It would be really interesting to see quantitative data on private influence on public universities: How many (much) and what percentage
–of profs are working on private companies’ projects?
–of research is not shared freely with the public, but instead covered by patents?
–of profs choose a research topic that benefits private companies instead of one that would benefit the public or contribute to the general knowledge in their science or arts?
–of profs are pressured to research a topic that benefits private companies instead of the public or their science or the arts?
–of profs teach incorrect or information for fear of losing their private funding?
–of universities evaluate profs’ work based on how much outside money they get from grants and other sponsorship?
–of each university’s tuition is spent on non-academic purposes: sports, oncampus private research institutions and facilities, private contracts, outsourcing to private companies?
–of each university’s tuition budget is spent on private contracts that were obtained without bidding or can be associated with conflict of interest?
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Thank you (not) Lewis Powell
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Wright State University, in Dayton, Ohio, exemplifies the business takeover of a public university. Trustees, appointed by a Republican governor, welcomed dubious money-making attempts, by a business-centric president. The schemes appear to have benefitted those outside of the university, at a steep cost to students and the school’s fundamental mission. There’s been wasteful spending that produced nothing of value. There’s been a federal investigation into misuse of work visas. Resignations and suspensions, of top level employees, have resulted. Oral contracts worth millions, are now the focus of lawsuits. Yet, the trustees’ failure in oversight hasn’t led to their own outster. No accountability for the politically connected.
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“No accountability for the politically connected.”
That’s weirdest thing, isn’t it? As if all these activities were going on without the knowledge of the trustees, while in truth the business mentality usually is planted into colleges from above and not by some direct osmosis from the surrounding market environment.
Where can I read about this stuff in Ohio?
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The Dayton Daily News can be credited with exposing WSU’s management failure. The superb investigative work of Josh Sweigart is of particular note. Newspaper readers learned that the son, of the President of the Board of Trustees, was hired, at a high salary, by a quasi-university organization, which was a dubious creation of the business centric hierarchy. They learned that one of the university visa employees was working in a trustee’s IT business.
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“voters just don’t seem to catch on as to who is sticking it to them…”
That seems to be the conventional “wisdom”.
When did the vote, of “we the people”, undermine the ceded power, of UNELECTED,
APPOINTED “leaders”, calling the shots?
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Reason I’m not watching Main Street news and listen to KPFA.org.
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Note Howard Blume’s less than enlightening report in the L. A. Times on Judge Goode’s ruling against using student test scores to evaluate teachers. He certainly avoided doing his homework for the article, withholding many of the reasons test scores cannot be used and limiting the reasons there is controversy. Could this be because of Broad’s funding, ya think?
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Address books of “journalists”, with a solitary education source of Fordham Institute, shout out, reporter inertia or bias. Chamber of Commerce terminology, e.g. “outsourcing”, instead of the appropriate description, “international labor exploitation and avoidance of health and safety precautions”, reflects reporter, mental laziness or bias. The term, “charter schools”, instead of “privatized public education”, indicates reporter sell-out, ideological bias or mental sloth.
Fifteen years into rephorm, US News finally told readers that public education is for sale (and, they were the first to do so).
That lengthy delay, makes a mockery out of the 4th estate. Bill Gates, among others, capitalized on media’s value bankruptcy, laziness and its economic disruption.
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