You Should Be Married?

On By southwerkIn business ethics4 Comments

You Should Be Married?

You may not be aware of this but the federal government has been in the business of propagandizing the positive effects of marriage. Almost a billion dollars has been spent encouraging people to tie the knot.

Are you feeling all “marriagey” now? Yeah, me neither. I got a sneaking suspicion that the advertising blitz didn’t work very well.

And apparently the facts back me up. Please read the attached article.

James Pilant

Nearly A Billion Dollars Spent On Marriage Promotion Programs Have Achieved Next To Nothing | ThinkProgress

The millions the federal government has spent on programs aimed at promoting marriage and boosting marriage rates have had little discernible impact on marriage or divorce rates, according to new research from the National Center for Family & Marriage Research.

Since 2001, the government will have spent about $800 million on the Healthy Marriage Initiative (HMI) by the end of the fiscal year. That year was when the Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children & Families decided that strengthening marriage was one of the nine main priorities for the agency. Spending increased by $117 million between 2000 and 2010, including a $150 million boost as part of the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act, peaking at $142 million for 2009. HMI programs can use the money on marriage education, skills training, and mentoring programs, as well as public advertising campaigns and high school education programs.

Yet over that same time period, the country’s marriage rate continued its “precipitous decline” that started in the 1970s, falling 26 percent over the decade after 2000, the report finds. The divorce rate didn’t see much of a change.

via Nearly A Billion Dollars Spent On Marriage Promotion Programs Have Achieved Next To Nothing | ThinkProgress.

Felons Should Be Able to Vote

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Felons Should Be Able to Vote

If only because of our ambivalent attitude toward marijuana, we should let people who have done their time, paid their debt to society, have the right to vote. The laws banning felons from voting were passed during a era of tiny prison populations. There were very few felons for most of American history. We didn’t become a mass incarceration nation until the 1980’s. A lot of this is due to the disastrous “war on drugs.”

It’s time to change the way we do things.

If someone has done their time, that should be it.

James Pilant

U.S. Attorney General: Time To Restore Voting Rights Of Every Person Who Has Completed Their Criminal Sentence | ThinkProgress

In the United States, some 5.8 million Americans can’t vote because they have a current or previous felony conviction — more than the individual populations of 31 U.S. states. That figure includes one in 13 African American adults. In Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia, one in five African Americans are barred by these felon disenfranchisement policies, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.

Citing these figures and many others, Holder called out state laws that block ex-felons from voting as a vestige of Reconstruction-era voter suppression, and called for for states to repeal every law that prohibits those who have completed their sentence from voting. Holder’s address Tuesday morning at a criminal justice reform symposium is the latest in his “Smart on Crime” initiative that has included scaled back prosecution of crimes with mandatory minimum sentences, less targeting of those complying with state marijuana laws, diversion out of prison and improvement of offender re-entry, and a move to cut short the sentences of some drug offenders.

via U.S. Attorney General: Time To Restore Voting Rights Of Every Person Who Has Completed Their Criminal Sentence | ThinkProgress.

Twenty Years of Lower Pay?

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

Twenty Years of Lower Pay?

Read below and see what you think? Should unemployment have these kinds of long term effects? Can we do something about it?

Is it a usual part of unemployment or is it a result of corporate and government policies against the unemployed?

I want to hear more. If anyone has some links to throw at me, this is a good time.

James Pilant

The Unemployed Make Lower Wages For Two Decades After They Get A Job | ThinkProgress

Unemployed workers’ wages take an immediate 31 percent hit compared to those who stay in their jobs. The effect dissipates over time, and these workers’ wages see a 2 percent recovery every year after the first drop. But even so, 10 years later, their incomes are nearly 14 percent lower than they would have been in the absence of unemployment, and they only fully recover 19 years later.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the discrimination the long-term unemployed face in the labor market, those who are out of work for 26 weeks or more see an immediate 67 percent drop in wages, compared to 24 percent for short-term unemployed workers. While the long-term unemployed recover at a rate double that of the short-term unemployed, 10 years later their incomes will still be 32 percent less than those who didn’t lose their jobs, while wages for the short-term unemployed will be just 9 percent lower. “The earnings gap also closes about three or four years sooner for short-term unemployed workers than for long-term unemployed workers,” the author notes, adding, “for a given number of years since an unemployment spell, someone unemployed for 40 weeks had nearly 1.5 lower earnings than someone unemployed for only 10 weeks.”

via The Unemployed Make Lower Wages For Two Decades After They Get A Job | ThinkProgress.

The Fed Cheated for NAFTA

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

22The Fed Cheated for NAFTA

It turns out the Federal Reserve took an active role in pushing for NAFTA which included denying Congress information about the instability of Mexican currency, information that could have sunk the deal.

James Pilant

Anatomy of an economic debacle: How the Fed proposed bailing out Mexico to pass NAFTA – Salon.com

The Federal Reserve is supposedly an independent central bank, that we’re told is above politics. By this telling, it is supposed to be staffed with ramrod straight central bankers, tight-fisted but apolitical. While the Fed can state its opinions on policy matters when asked by Congress, it isn’t supposed to use its power to manipulate the political system. And it isn’t supposed to propose bailing out a foreign country just to get the United States Congress to change policy.

But in 1993, that is exactly what the Federal Reserve did.

On Sept. 28, 1993, Jon LaWare, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, testified before the House Banking Committee in support of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. “I want to make clear that the Federal Reserve supports NAFTA without qualification,” he said, discussing throughout the hearing how NAFTA would help American banks penetrate the Mexican financial system. LaWare, like other regulators testifying at that hearing (including Mary Schapiro, then-head of the SEC before returning to the job under Obama), was pressing the agreement aggressively. The Federal Reserve has, broadly, two reasons to press trade agreements. One, the Fed wants lower labor costs, which reduces inflation. Shipping jobs abroad makes the Fed’s job easier. And two, U.S. banks, which are the regulatory customers of the Fed, wanted to get their hands on the Mexican banking system (which they eventually did).

via Anatomy of an economic debacle: How the Fed proposed bailing out Mexico to pass NAFTA – Salon.com.

From around the web.

From the web site, Systemic Disorder

http://systemicdisorder.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/investor-dispute-mechanisms/

A frequent criticism of “free trade” agreements is that corporations are elevated to the level of a country. It might be more accurate to say that corporations are elevated above countries.

The muscle in trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement or the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership is the mandatory use of “investor-state dispute mechanisms.” That bland-sounding bureaucratic phrase is anything but bland in its application — these “mechanisms” are the tools used to turn corporate wish lists into undemocratic reality.

 

The concrete form of these “mechanisms” are corporate-dominated secret tribunals that hand down one-sided decisions with no oversight, no public notice and no appeals. This is so is because governments that sign trade agreements legally bind themselves to mandatory arbitration in these secret tribunals despite (or because of) their one-sided nature. It is a virtually certainty that, should be they passed into law, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will contain some of the most draconian language yet in this area.

Chris MacDonald Gets It Right on Sochi

On By southwerkIn Capitalism
Chris MacDonald
Chris MacDonald

Chris MacDonald Gets It Right on Sochi

Good post. Good article. Good advocacy.

James Pilant

(As always with Chris MacDonald’s work, you should go to his web site and read the post in its entirety – and if you think my advice is any good – you should stay at his site and read some more of his fine writing. jp)

Sochi, and Solidarity With the Gay Community | The Business Ethics Blog

The business community can, and should, follow AT&T’s lead in speaking out in solidarity with the LGBT community. On February 4th, the company’s Consumer Blog featured an entry entitled, A Time for Pride and Equality. “We support LGBT equality globally and we condemn violence, discrimination and harassment targeted against LGBT individuals everywhere. Russia’s law is harmful to LGBT individuals and families, and it’s harmful to a diverse society.”

Russia’s anti-gay laws and attitudes are repugnant. Russian President Vladimiar Putin clearly wants hosting the Olympics to signal that Russia is a proud and globally-significant nation once again. But what it’s really doing is making the country look like an oversized banana republic, with values that don’t befit a serious world power. Putin is a man of the times alright — as long as the times you’re thinking of are the 19th century.

via Sochi, and Solidarity With the Gay Community | The Business Ethics Blog.

From around the web.

From the web site, York Pen.

https://yorkpen.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/sochi-winter-games-lgbt-rights-in-russia/

“The Anti-gay propaganda law” – the unofficial name for the federal law that banned the “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors” – was adopted by The Duman (Russian parliament) on Tuesday 30th of June 2013 and signed by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. In a few words, the distribution of information concerning LGBT rights to under-eighteens and within the media is banned and condemned with large fines. Indeed, fines to promote “non-traditional relations” can go up to 5,000 robles (around £90) for individuals and 1 million (around £17000) for organizations (NGOs, corporations etc). Foreigners can also be fined, imprisoned for fifteen days, or deported for breaking the law. The irony in this law is that it does not clearly uses the word “homosexuality”, but instead references “non-traditional sexual relations”, a euphemism prevalent in the Russian Orthodox Church’s discourse. The orthodox church of Russia, an institution that remains prominent and powerful in the devoutly religious country, is clearly hostile of same-sex relationships.

The Sochi Winter Games is an occasion to underline the infringements on human rights for the LGBT community in Russia. Indeed, the LGBT community obtained common rights very late in Russia: same-sex intercourse between consenting adult was only decriminalised in 1993, the possibility for transsexuals to legally change their legal gender came in 1997, the declassification of homosexuality as a mental illness came in 1999, and the age of consent for same-sex intercourse was only reduced to 16 in 2003. Still today, The Government do not recognize same-sex relationships in civil partnership. A law prohibiting gay parades has been condemned by the Strasbourg court in April 2011. The Russian Government banned 164 pride events and marches between 2006 and 2008. Moreover, since the law passed, violent attacks against homosexuals or “presumed homosexuals” are common in Russia today and often go unchecked.

Just Poor People and Rich People?

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

004dJust Poor People and Rich People?

(Please read the article below and see if you agree with my remarks.)

Is that where we are headed?  Is that what we want? Or do we matter any more?

For thirty years now, the middle class has been diminishing in its proportion of the population.

It’s not the inevitable result of globalization or automation or any other outside force. The destruction of the middle class is a policy decision involving tax rates and governmental allocation of resources. It was made deliberately and with intent. The philosophy dictating these policies is called Neo-Liberalism.

But there are other philosophies, some emphasize the importance of people over economic elites and downward wage pressure. Policies can be changed and there is time but not much.

Will there be action? I’m watching.

James Pilant

Daily Kos: Red Lobster Blues

This excellent article on “the eroding Middle Class” by Nelson Schwartz featured in the business pages of the New York Times yesterday.

Schwartz wasted no time painting a bleak picture. After describing middle-class department stores and restaurants closing up and down the East Coast only to be replaced by high-end clothiers and upscale eateries, he delivered this hard-hitting fact about our recent ‘economic recovery’: “about 90 percent of the overall increase in inflation-adjusted consumption between 2009 and 2012 was generated by the top 20 percent of households in terms of income.”

Whew. You read that right. Ninety percent of the growth from just the richest 20 percent of households. (What on earth could that statistic mean for the rest of us?)

Schwartz’s article is based on an equally excellent paper by Barry Cynamon and Steven Fazzari entitled “Inequality, the Great Recession and Slow Recovery” which is very much worth your attention, as well.

Thing is, of course, as Cynamon and Fazzari’s research points out, the middle class has been eroding for years…since the mid-1980’s in fact…

via Daily Kos: Red Lobster Blues.

From around the web.

From the web site, The Feral Librarian.

http://chrisbourg.wordpress.com/2014/01/16/the-neoliberal-library-resistance-is-not-futile/

So what I really want to talk about is my belief that Neoliberalism is toxic for higher education, but research libraries can & should be sites of resistance.

To do that, it would probably be good to define neoliberalism. What is neoliberalism?

There are plenty of definitions – but I like this one from Daniel Saunders, who defines neoliberalism as “a varied collection of ideas, practices, policies and discursive representations … united by three broad beliefs: the benevolence of the free market, minimal state intervention and regulation of the economy, and the individual as a rational economic actor.”

Neoliberal thinking emphasizes individual competition, and places primary value on “employability” and therefore on an individual’s accumulation of human capital and marketable skills.

A key feature of neoliberalism is the extension of market logic into previously non-economic realms – in particular into key social, political and cultural institutions.

We can see this when political candidates promote their experience running a successful business as a reason to vote for them, and in the way market language and metaphors have seeped into so many social and cultural realms.

For example, Neoliberalism is what leads us to talk about things like “the knowledge economy”, where we start to think of knowledge not as a process but as a kind of capital that an individual can acquire so that she then can sell that value to the market.

This is where I pause to ask if you have heard the joke about the Marxist and the Neoliberal? The Marxist laments that all a worker has to sell is his labor power. The Neoliberal offers courses on marketing your labor power.

The Neoliberal joke

The joke about the Marxist & the Neoliberal

So OK, Neoliberalism is a thing, a pervasive thing, and it includes the extension of market language, metaphors, and logic into non-economic realms – of special concern to us is the extension of neoliberal market frameworks into higher education and into libraries.

And it is really important to remember that one of the really insidious things about ideologies as pervasive as neoliberalism is that we barely notice them – they become taken for granted the way a fish doesn’t know it is in water, or the way many of us Dukies assume an obsession with college basketball is normal.

Obviously, I think this is a bad thing – not the obsession w/ college basketball, of course — but  the neoliberal encroachment on education.

I am one of those hopeless idealists who still believes that education is – or should be – a social and public good rather than a private one, and that the goal of higher education should be to promote a healthy democracy and an informed citizenry. And I believe libraries play a critical role in contributing to that public good of an informed citizenry.

So the fact that the neoliberal turn in education over the last several decades has led to a de-emphasis on education as a public good and an emphasis on education as a private good, to be acquired by individuals to further their own goals is of particular concern to me.

In the neoliberal university, students are individual customers, looking to acquire marketable skills. Universities (and teachers and libraries) are evaluated on clearly defined outcomes, and on how efficiently they achieve those outcomes.  Sound familiar?

We can find evidence of this neoliberal approach in plenty of recent trends in higher education – which are almost shocking in how blatantly they rely on a market model of education. The penetration of neoliberal thinking in higher education is so pervasive that it is no longer just market metaphors – colleges recruit students with blatant appeals to their economic self-interest and the mainstream argument for a strong education system is that it is an economic imperative – that we, as a nation, must invest in education in order to compete as a nation in the global economy.

As an example – This very recent article on fastcompany.com – Does Ikea hold the secret to the future of college? – reads almost like a parody of an unabashed, uncritical, unselfconscious neoliberal approach to higher education.

In discussing his enthusiasm for bringing his special brand of for-profit eduction to Africa, one educational entrepreneur explains, “There are a lot of young people in Africa who could be Steve Jobs”.  It is no mistake that the justification for bringing “higher education” to Africa rests on the image of one of the richest & whitest men in America — someone who also happens to be a college drop-out, by the way.

David Yamada Talks about Human Dignity

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice
David Yamada
David Yamada

David Yamada Talks about Human Dignity

I like to think of David Yamada as a business ethics authority. He comes at the workplace from a different angle but still his subject is business ethics.

He continually asks the questions: What is happening in the workplace. Is it ethical? Can we do better?

I share his concerns.

I recommend his web site and admire the energy of his regular posting.

James Pilant

http://newworkplace.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/making-human-dignity-the-centerpiece-of-american-employment-law-and-policy/

Making human dignity the centerpiece of American employment law and policy « Minding the Workplace

First, we must remain steadfast and unapologetic in calling for dignity in the workplace, even at the risk of being labeled foolish or naive. . . . In the face of likely criticism and even ridicule, we must make the case, without embarrassment, that workers should not have to check their dignity at the office or factory door.

Second, it is important to understand how we got to this place. The markets and management framework did not achieve dominance overnight or by accident. Its current, enduring incarnation has been the result of careful, patient, and intelligent intellectual spadework and political organizing. . . .

Third, just as the emergence of the markets and management framework was part of a broader political, social, and economic movement, the call for dignity at work cannot be made in a vacuum. . . . [D]enials of dignity occur throughout society, and therefore call for connected rather than atomized responses.

Finally, we must work on crafting messages that persuade the general public and stakeholders in employment relations. . . . [W]e need to translate these ideas into messages that reach people in legislatures, courts, administrative agencies, union halls, board rooms, and the media. This will not be easy, but at stake is nothing less than the well-being of millions of people who work for a living and those who depend on them.

via Making human dignity the centerpiece of American employment law and policy « Minding the Workplace.

From around the web.

From the web site, Workspace Practices.

http://cvakuffo.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/meet-professor-david-yamada-suffolk-university-law-school-professor-and-host-of-the-minding-the-workplace-blog-from-the-new-workplace-institute/

If you haven’t heard of David Yamada, professor at Suffolk University School of Law, chances are you will some time soon. In addition to his work as a legal professor, he is also the director of the New Workplace Institute, which has a WordPress blog of the same name. Through the institute Professor Yamada raises public and institutional awareness about workplace bullying.

The Workplace Bullying Institute defines bullying as repeated, health-harming mistreatment of the bully’s target. This mistreatment can include verbal abuse; offensive behavior, verbal or non-verbal, that is threatening, humiliating or intimidating; work sabotage which prevents work from being accomplished.

Bullying has particular resonance in Massachusetts, where in 2010 a high-profile case of teenage bullying led 15-year-old Phoebe Prince to commit suicide after sustained harassment by classmates at her high school with little if any intervention by school authorities.

While we know the perils of high school with its particular brand of tormentors, there is another kind — the bully who grew up and moved on from high school and is now a workplace bully. It is this kind of bully that Yamada’s work seeks to defang.

When he first started out, Yamada thought he wanted to practice public-interest law, although he wasn’t quite sure what that involved.  After receiving his JD from New York University School of Law he practiced at the New York Attorney General’s Office and the Legal Aid Society of New York City.

 

A Great Teaching Web Site!

On By southwerkIn Teaching

31A Great Teaching Web Site!

I came across this while cruising the web. Professor Steffens has the class turn in their work as comments on his topic. I read some of the student work and enjoyed it. I wanted to quote some for my posts but I wasn’t sure how Professor Steffens would feel about, you know, professional courtesy.

This is a great teaching method and it’s a fun read to see what the students can make of current journalism.

James Pilant

http://econ1051.wordpress.com/

Economics for the School of Journalism

Extra credit for spring 2013

Economic news is everywhere, and your job is to find it and relate it to our Hubbard and O’Brien text.

Find an article in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal or USA Today. You can find these articles on line.  Summarize the article and relate it to our text. You can see what other students have done as a guide. We’re looking for four-five paragraph posts. Each post is 3 points, and you can do 4, for a total of 12 points!

All you have to do is find your article, write about it, with a link and make sure I know your pawprint!  I left a few from last semester to show you the way…To Post — just type your comments into the REPLY window at the end of the other posts…

Prof. Steffens

From around the web.

From the web site, Real-world Economics Review Blog.

http://rwer.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/teaching-economics-new-developments-in-economic-education/

In 2001 French economics students petitioned their professors for a more realistic and pluralist teaching of economics. Since then, several books have been written on how to teach pluralist economics, including John Groenewegen’s Teaching Pluralism in Economics (Edward Elgar, 2007); Edward Fullbrook’s Pluralist Economics (Zed, 2009) and Jack Reardon’s Handbook of Pluralist Economics Education (Routledge, 2009). A new journal exclusively devoted to discussing how to implement pluralism in the classroom – the International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education – was founded by Jack Reardon. And several global organizations- the World Economic Association, the Association of Heterodox Economics, besides the International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics, for example – have emphasized the need for changes in economics curriculum.

Considering this background, this blog welcomes all the attempts that emphasize the need for further changes in teaching economics.

Pat Robertson Unpredictable!

On By southwerkIn Editorial2 Comments

Reading a newspaper i464Pat Robertson Unpredictable!

Sometimes, I can be surprised. Today is one of those days. I would never have thought to hear Pat Robertson say what he said about creationism and Ken Ham.

Read below and maybe you will share my surprise.

What’s the business ethics question here? A television network even one associated with a religion is still a business. What’s the issue? How about Pat Robertson saying what he considers to be true even though it will offend many of his viewers? I have to give him points on that one.

This is an extremely ethical act. He could have avoided the issue or said something moderately approving about defenders of the faith, and yet he did choose that path.

Now I have certainly disagreed with Robertson in the past and probably will in the future. But I grew up in the Fundamentalist Church, right wing Baptists (You might think that’s not possible but it is. Trust me.) they and many other evangelicals consider any questioning of Biblical literal truth as a form of heresy.

So, on this day I give credit and compliments to Pat Robertson for being willing to raise a difficult issue with his base of supporters.

James Pilant

Pat Robertson begs Ken Ham to shut up – Salon.com

Creationist Ken Ham is having his 15 minutes, following a live debate on evolution held between himself and Bill Nye “The Science Guy” on Tuesday.

And while you’d expect most folks to deem Nye the winner (which they have), Ham is receiving criticism from a source you might not expect: televangelist Pat Robertson.

On the Wednesday edition of his TV show, “The 700 Club,” Robertson indirectly implored Ham to put a sock in it, criticizing Ham’s view that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.

“Let’s face it, there was a bishop [James Ussher] … who added up the dates listed in Genesis and he came up with the world had been around for 6,000 years,” Robertson began. “There ain’t no way that’s possible … To say that it all came about in 6,000 years is just nonsense and I think it’s time we come off of that stuff and say this isn’t possible.”

“We’ve got to be realistic that the dating of Bishop Ussher just doesn’t comport with anything that’s found in science,” Robertson continued, “and you can’t just totally deny the geological formations that are out there.”

“Let’s be real,” Robertson begged, “let’s not make a joke of ourselves.”

via Pat Robertson begs Ken Ham to shut up – Salon.com.

From around the web.

Here’s an interesting link: http://youcallthatart.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/pat-robertson-disses-creationism-shocker/

It’s from the web site, You call that Art.

From the web site, WTVR.com.

http://wtvr.com/2012/11/30/pat-robertson-challenges-creationism-cites-dinosaurs/

Televangelist Pat Robertson challenged the idea that Earth is 6,000 years old this week, saying the man who many credit with conceiving the idea, former Archbishop of Ireland James Ussher, “wasn’t inspired by the Lord when he said that it all took 6,000 years.”

The statement was in response to a question Robertson fielded Tuesday from a viewer on his Christian Broadcasting Network show “The 700 Club.” In a submitted question, the viewer wrote that one of her biggest fears was that her children and husband would not go to heaven “because they question why the Bible could not explain the existence of dinosaurs.”

“You go back in time, you’ve got radiocarbon dating. You got all these things, and you’ve got the carcasses of dinosaurs frozen in time out in the Dakotas,” Robertson said. “They’re out there. So, there was a time when these giant reptiles were on the Earth, and it was before the time of the Bible. So, don’t try and cover it up and make like everything was 6,000 years. That’s not the Bible.”

Japan Arms Up

On By southwerkIn Editorial

Japan map CIA fact bookJapan Arms Up

It is obvious to the most casual observer that China’s actions in the South China Sea are fueling tensions in the region. Japan has been adding to its fleet, and I don’t doubt that we will see bigger warships and larger aircraft in the next few years.

Why is this in a business ethics web site?

That’s easy. American institutions like corporations and investment banks willingness to provide money and investment to a crass totalitarian government carries risks. China’s bellicose foreign policy demonstrates just how big that risk is. In the event of a showdown with the United States and its allies, what’s going to happen to hundreds of billions of dollars of investment?

We were told and continue to be told what a great place for investment, China is.

Yeah, just keep repeating that. But watch the news, and count how many carriers the Chinese now have (three).

James Pilant

Japan should reverse course on defense policy, panel says | Al Jazeera America

A government panel will urge Japan to allow its military to help allies that come under attack, a major reversal of the country’s ban on collective defense under its pacifist constitution. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants Japan to play a greater role in international peacekeeping and step up its defense posture, citing potential military threats from China and North Korea.

The panel on Tuesday discussed ways that Japan can improve its defense capability and said it will present its near-final draft recommendation in coming weeks, before its final report is expected sometime after April.

The 14-member panel, headed by former Ambassador to the U.S. Shunji Yanai, said the revision is possible if the government alters its current interpretation of the war-renouncing constitution. Formal constitutional change involves high hurdles, though Abe eventually hopes to achieve that as well.

The constitution, written under U.S. direction after World War II, says the Japanese people “forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation” and that “land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” 

The government has interpreted those clauses as meaning that Japan cannot possess offensive military weapons such as ICBMs or long-range strategic bombers.

Abe and other supporters of the change believe that restrictions should be removed from the military, and that Japan’s current self-defense-only policy is inadequate as the region’s security environment becomes more challenging. 

via Japan should reverse course on defense policy, panel says | Al Jazeera America.

From around the web.

From the web site, Consortium of Defense Analysts.

http://cofda.wordpress.com/2014/01/18/aircraft-carrier-race-china-vs-japan-india/

Discreetly, the Japanese aren’t boasting much about the 19,500-ton Izumo, which should be ready for action in two years, but Japan’s success in producing such a vessel may diminish the Chinese challenge to Japanese control over the disputed Senkaku islands, Diaoyu to the Chinese. No one doubts that Japanese shipyards, after decades producing some of the biggest, most sophisticated commercial vessels, could turn out still more in the Izumo class – and go up in class to full-fledged aircraft carriers.