This is capitalism as originally envisaged. High taxes, large scale infrastructure spending on roads, bridges, dams and schools, etc., and contented citizens. Rather like modern Denmark.
What Reagan gave us was not vigorous capitalism, but socialism for the wealthy.
Unfortunately many administrations were actually anti - union. However many of the people who make their living from largesse of government were former employees or appointees from Republican administrations. During my tenure we privatized components that cost the taxpayers more in the long run, as the government had to pay more for contract services to do the same work.
I don't think this is actually "capitalism." Socialism for the rich and well positioned.
Of course you did (privatized that is). Done throughout much of the agencies. Remember Andy Card "Tell us how much of your work can be outsourced, and hint the answer out of my derrier is 50%" We thought Reagan's people were the worse. But then came Bush jr's people. And then Trump's people. A descent into hell. Wonder who teaches courses on the government in journalism classes? Maybe some guy out of the Heritage "Foundation". I say that because journalists have no idea what screwups these peope were/are so the American people certainly don't hear about it. .
Steve, I am not sure the journalists and others didn't and don't know what was/is going on, at least some of them. However, these days and for some time now, it has been profitable to just go along and keep promoting those who are making such bad decisions while whining that everyone else had it wrong. Throughout so much of the Reagan Administration, I kept hearing how "trickle-down" was such a good system and that corporations would definitely want to take care of their workers. That was nonsense, but Reagan was popular because of his grandfatherly manner. People rarely listened to his words, just like now with Trump, but thought of Reagan as soothing. They didn't understand that the economic world they knew was being eroded to a point they would hardly be able to survive. Business has had nearly free rein for the past 4+ decades; it's time for the pendulum to swing back somewhat so workers will have more rights, power, and better working conditions. It's time!
Gorbachev said that Reagan had a 'Nice Smile', but was a Cruel Man... 'Trickle-Down'.?.. I believe that there is an old Texas Saying, 'Don't Piss Down My Back, And Tell Me It Is Raining...' ...
Apache, I hadn't heard that Texas phrase in a while. Reagan was not a good person, just a decent political actor. He, like so many other Republican leaders had only one person in mind, himself, and everyone else was just a background for him getting whatever he wanted. He wrecked the Traffic Controllers Union and put the lives of so many people at risk by ditching all of those workers. Who does that but someone who is cruel and thinks as little as possible about consequences. Just like Trump's entourage, Reagan's team protected him from scrutiny and Grandpa kept on doing whatever he wanted no matter who was harmed. And, his guys benefited handsomely because of it. His VP and later successor, Daddy Bush, was just as bad, a racist misogynist who with his "thousand points of light" let people think he cared about the American people; it was just a lot of useless words because no one's situation improved, except maybe the defense contractors who made a lot off the war with Iraq and a few generals and journalists who became well-known. Republicans do nominate a lot of really despicable people for office. It's amazing that a few decent ones ever got through.
Scientific studies show that it's not deprivation that precedes progress, but a bit of progress -- that is, when things get a bit better, it gives people hope and they go for more. So, maybe the progress we got from Biden will spur us all to go for more with a Harris administration.
Well put Daniel and Michael. And this election we are not only fighting for our freedom from the formation of a controlling, dictatorial government, we are also fighting to take the "socialism for the wealthy" away and asking them to pay like the rest of us. It's like trying to wean the baby off the pacifier and potty train them at the same time... while convincing the "R" grandparents that you're not abusing the child, it's time AND necessary for the kid's social development and the family's well being.
Jeannie Strausburg: How about telling them to pay like the rest of us? I am tired of explaining. I am tired of begging. I am tired of asking. It is time to tell them.
Jeannie Strausberg ; Great analogy! Hahaha! My daughter weaned her daughter first, waited a couple months or so, and then potty trained her : it worked well, with only a few glitches in phase 2. I wonder how the obscenely wealthy could be weaned off socialism incrementally?
I doubt they can; however they can pay what "socialism" costs to use like the rest of us rather than a cheap version of their income while relying on the rest of us to cover what they don't pay.
Jeannie, the government could cut off the corporate subsidies first, then put in place some price controls. Unions could have a better chance of going into a company and getting workers on board, and our media could do a better job of educating the American people about what is really going on, what big corporations are doing to the people and how unions can help the workers fight back. It may have to be in chunks, but it needs to be started or we will just continue doing what we have been doing the past 40 years and just hope corporate greed and addiction to money and power will drift away as those owners and guys in charge see what they are doing and fix it. That will never happen, of course, so it will have to be up to "we the people" to make the necessary moves toware sanity.
We will do better by leaving out the “isms” in our discussion. The sculpture is so smart to be titled “reign in trade” rather than “capitalism”.
The isms are labels that are easily manipulated. Most Americans are for “capitalism” and against “socialism”, “communism” (and “fascism”). We put ourselves at a big disadvantage when we use words that we next have to explain that what we mean is not the feared (or loved) meaning.
IMO Bernie Sanders hurt his cause immensely by including “socialism” in his idea. He should have called it “fair economy“ and no one would have been immediately turned off. We are not going to do well if we first need to re-educate the public on the meaning of the words. Let’s start where people are. It shouldn’t be hard.
DK Brooklyn ; What a good idea. But it would not be long before the obscenely wealthy scream "Socialism"! Is it possible to educate Them? They currently own the Court where most important cases end up, and don't forget the media, which is owned by them, too.
I’m for progressives taking back pride in both capitalism AND socialism as the US has best demonstrated them. Like Thom Hartmann says: “Socialism SAVED Capitalism”!
My point is let’s not start off having to redefine a word that has a negative appeal.
When I googled what words (something like that) Americans hate the most it was fascism, communism, socialism.
So if Americans hate the word socialism it isn’t strategic to use that word to describe your ideas.
In my mind Democratic Capitalism means the same thing as Democratic Socialism, but one starts me off on the right foot and the other is tied to a negative one.
This is why I like the title “economic democracy” in an economic democracy, the localized economic decisions and policy come first and then out of that the politics come. It differs from socialism in that it stresses keeping decision-making, local and empowering local populations rather than central economic planning as in socialism.socialism may work better in small countries like Finland and Denmark, because they are in a sense one economic unit. But when you have a large country such as the United States and there are many communities with differing economic bases, the smaller geographical areas need more power to make decisions for themselves .
That may be why the Campaign for Economic Democracy was chosen as the name for their political action group by Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden in the late 1970s. I went to some meetings back in the day. It was a good group. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_Economic_Democracy
DK, Yes, words matter; they have denotations and connotations; they may carry emotional contents, and they may mask or disguise realities. "Capitalism" usually means private ownership of the means of production."Socialism" usually means social, communal ownership of capital. Is a corporation private or social? How about a cooperative? Is a state-run enterprise "social"? If a tree is to be judged by its fruits, the the "who" makes the judgment is key .
Keep it simple. So simple the average poorly educated citizen understands it and more importantly, intuitively agrees. If you have to explain your terminology you already lost most people.
You say it shouldn't be hard, but I went to a workshop once on trying to come up with those magical two-word phrases that evoke a whole frame, and it's much harder than it looks. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, but we need to appreciate the people who are good at it. George Lakoff knows all about this, and we should be listening to him more. I think Kamala does.
Michael, capitalism is actually a centuries-old system that was a significant improvement over the existing systems at the end of the Middle Ages. What you describe above is one direction that capitalism evolved in small wealthy progressive countries like Denmark and Finland. The evolution of capitalism in the United States took off in a negative direction resulting in the Great Depression, and economic catastrophes since then. Reagan did not start this de-evolution of capitalism, but he assisted it to once again jump any “guardrails” put in place to share the great wealth of the United States.
Now an economic/political system that can allow an unhinged Donald Trump to gain so much political power by his pandering to the ulta-wealthy needs to take another evolutionary leap to a system that is not dependent on greed for power and money to function. We need to create and implement a better system rather than to be constantly fighting a war against those who now hold the power behind the scenes.
I'm willing to bet that the industrialization of many nations took off in ways that Smith would not have wanted. Denmark and Norway were less industrial, more agrarian, much like France. The early industrial giants were the UK, Germany and the US, interestingly the main belligerents in both world wars. The early economic systems in these countries were remarkably similar to what we see in the modern US, characterized by an enormous disparity in wealth. Hence Karl Marx.
However, by the latter part of the 19th Century, especially in Germany and the UK, unions were beginning to form, and the wealth gap was steadily eroding, as Piketty points out. Marx never appears to have understood this, but simply assumed that what he saw as a young man in Germany, robber barons & all, would persist, and therefore that workers had no power other than revolution.
In the US, meanwhile, the robber barons lasted until they crashed the world economy in 1929. They were held at bay by FDR, at which time America embarked on a remarkable path to becoming an economic colossus, with wealth now much more evenly divided. Reagan's handlers brought the robber barons back, in large part through exploiting the racism of poor whites in the south.
Because of the socioeconomic peculiarities of the US, with its large and diverse population, it is conceivable that Adam Smith's vision can never be permanently realized. Smith recognized greed but thought it could be harnessed. I like your system of cooperatives, but it too could be pushed off the rails by the powerful.
In the meantime let's hope for a resounding Harris win, and hope that she doesn't sell out to her donors. We are in desperate need of a resurrection of FDR.
Billionaire FDR’s 1932 “New Deal” was provided to him by the 1930-35 Billionaire Canadian Prime Minister RB Bennett, who had used make-work, EI & other schemes to help the Cdn workers ‘riding the rails’, to begin recovery.
Now remember Harris’ British Commonwealth connections :
- mother from India
- father from Jamaica
- high school in Montréal, Québec, Canada, in the daily tension of a francophone-anglophone city.
While the British ran an Empire with all its faults, they still left a legacy in their former-colony countries of strong belief in the Rule of Law.
Hmm.....I never thought about it that way. Didn't know about Bennett, but do know that FDR was heavily influenced by Keynes (was that through Bennett?).
Made me think. You know, it's worth the trip to New Delhi to see the astonishingly vast and beautiful parliamentary and civil service buildings designed by Lutyens in 1909. The British would never have organized all this if they knew they would be gone in 40 years. They thought of themselves as modern Romans, quite distinct from all the petty, vicious and brutal empires of most other European nations.
It makes me wonder, given that the eighteenth century American elites were basically British, and quite open to the idea of representation in London, that, if George III hadn't been such a dick, the entirety of North America could have been incorporated into a very powerful empire that would have made WW1 and WW2 impossible, and might have resulted in, dare I say it? - a world government based in some neutral country like India. No Hitler, no nukes, no Nixon, no Clinton, no W, no Putin, no Xi. no Kim Jong Un, and NO TRUMP. Just World Government, without all the silly people.
Of course, you might argue, maybe people would still have found other things to hit one another over the head with.
@Mark Nevas Is it really Trump’s “pandering to the ultra-wealthy “ or is it more like Trump is the useful-idiot or puppet of the ultra-wealthy. Or is he reincarnation of Hitler
Back in 1976 on the trans Alaska pipeline, it was all union. It was a huge federal job. Jimmy Hoffa had disappeared in 1975. My union agent carried a gun. It was the wild, Wild West in Alaska. I don't think there's ever been anything like it since. Many people got on their feet financially from just that one big job. There were Drs. and Lawyers who were laborers up there. I worked with a fella who was a professor of statistics and knew another guy who was a philosophy professor out of Oxford. They made their jackpot and returned to the mainstream.
It was a cost-plus project so it was very expensive...and everyone made money.
“Cost-plus” means good for the corporations, corporate executives, and corporate shareholders holding the contract to do the work. The owner (government or private) pays the companies doing the work the contract cost of materials, labor, equipment and management overhead (the categories used in pricing a construction project) plus a guaranteed profit margin. Cost-plus frequently gets used on big projects with the potential for lots of unknowns, but also for those where few bidders exist, such as huge DOD contracts for planes and ships.
In the case of the pipeline, the history and construction of which I’m familiar from knowing the aerial surveyor that mapped out the original route to spending time in Alaska along numerous locations of the pipeline, there were plenty of physical restraint unknowns ranging from remote locations, permafrost, and the technical challenges of keeping the oil heated enough to keep flowing in winter, but insulated enough to keep that heat from transferring down the supports and melting the permafrost. (The pipeline would have sagged where above ground and portions of length are also buried below ground.) So for the time period, it was technically a major accomplishment. It was also built almost entirely out of foreign manufactured and fabricated steel and was one of the largest steel structures ever built up to that time.
Cost-plus contracts will cost the project owner and end user more money. We Californians live with that every time we flip a wall switch, because the California Public Utilities Commission guarantees the three investor owned big utilities a guaranteed profit margin.
YUP, that all sounds familiar. I can tell you stories about the time up there, some good ones. I oiled on a squirt boom, tire crane and we set vertical support members (VSM's) onto the upright pilings that came out of the ground.
They were in the permafrost. It was quite something the way they figured that one out. It was a major accomplishment for sure. I was chased by a bear once and once by a caribou in rut. The pipeliners from Oklahoma were feeding the bears and this one wanted food. There were Teamsters, Pipeliners, Pipefitters, Culinary, IUOE, IBEW, Laborers and more...all union. There were strange disappearances of equipment and materials that were never accounted for and increased the cost of the overall project. It got done tho. We were out in the middle of Alaska and it was hard to watch everything that went on out there. I really do need to write a book about that. It would be full of adventure stories.
I think as long as a major project has adequate public oversight, cost-plus is probably a good thing. You explain it well. Sad to think that we needed to use foreign steel. The rust belt was already much diminished by then, I suppose.
In Niagara Region ~10yrs ago, they condemned, because of aging, a ‘high level’ bridge from ~1900, for a major road well above mast height of ships passing through the WellandCanal.
Regional engineers designed the new bridge. Then council asked contractors to bid and took the lowest from a reputable bidder @ $66M.
Over the ~2yr construction period, the price soared to $96M. The public was never transparently told whose fault it was /what happenned :
- engineers’ error ?
- unexpected quicksand or other subsurface problems ?
- contractor collusion to bid lowest ?
- contractor corruption ?
- …?
Maybe Co$t-Plus would have been better, more honest, under dicey conditions.
Well, it wasn't perfect that's for sure. The cost of the project was higher due to the cost-plus and yes taxpayers suffered some. It would be interesting to know what the full effect of the overages as posed to the basic cost, would be. We'll never know that tho. So many unexpected variables showed up that couldn't have been planned for so the cost-plus covered those unknowns.
Sally ; You are on to something : There is something unnerving when I see "non profit" describing an entity. I can't pinpoint why it sets my teeth on edge, but it does. Have I been victimized by subliminal messages in the media? It is spooky. "win -win" Yikes! Not always.
Ha-ha! I thought you said, "Sally, you are on something!" Well, that may not be too far from the truth :)
The media has gotten extremely sophisticated in its use of psychology. Advertisements are extremely well-designed by some very bright people with dollar signs in their eyes! Wasn't it Coca-Cola that tried flashing a picture of the product with a pulse duration just below what most people can perceive?
Haha! maybe both ; You are onto something and it's like being "on something"! I don't doubt that Coca (Cocaine Originally) cola would do subliminal tricks. At some point in the past, they had to stop making their product addictive for real. so they loaded it up with sugar, which is addictive. Anything to make a buck.
❤️Reich❤️:"No goal is more important than making sure Donald Trump never again comes close to the[power that corrupts]"
Me:"No goal is more important than making sure GULLIBILITY never again comes close to the[power that corrupts]"
MAGA and Fascism and Nazism and Racism need to be put in the blender so we can see what they are all made out of: GULLIBILITY. Millions of dollars and decades of placebo science tell us that up to 60% of anxious people (aka America) are cured by placebo, up to 50% of depressed people are cured by placebo. Innocuous placebos can mutate into insidious placebos and vice versa: Moms replace baby's filthy thumb with a pacifier.
❤️😳😱🤕🫣🤯⚖️
Replace GULLIBILITY with (❤️FDR's and ❤️UN.org's)❤️FREEDOM FROM FEAR ❤️("Do one thing every day that scares you"--Eleanor Roosevelt❤️ and the science of anxiety)
❤️First Do No Harm ❤️...Stop the Lying😱🤕🤯⚖️... "Don't Sweat It" is a lie: Exercise and Exposure are mandatory and both cause sweat 😁 The US Senate's Dr Haidt's "The 3 Great Untruths"(google it) that Gen Z believes that are dooming Gen Z and democracy include "Exposure Therapy", demonization* and "State Dependent Learning"(google them).
Things have really gone south for labor since the Ron Raygun years that brought us 1. Strong anti-union rhetoric from the corrupt former President, 2. That same President ignoring the anti-monopoly law known as the Sherman anti-trust act, 3. Repealing the Fairness Doctrine which allowed for biased media monsters like fox to monoplize and flood the airwaves with lies and right-wing, pro-corporate and anti-worker propaganda while simultaneously drastically reducing the number of "voices in the marketplace" a necessary element in media and society to ensure a healthy democratic debate and awareness on key issues. Reagan was a horror show for labor and democracy, probably the worst President in my 70 years, with GW Bush and LBJ not too far behind, while trump waits in the wings with the potential to be an even more devastating trainwreck of an administration. How is this country still a going concern?
Keith, as pro-union as I am, the graph actually shows correlation, not proof. It’s the rest of the story that Prof. Reich offers that provides the proof. But I hope you’ll forgive me for being the stickler on scientific terminology that was drilled into me over 50 years ago in graduate school.
Having just finished Joseph Stiglitz's Path to Freedom I am still non-plussed as to what MAGA fans expect from Trump when he intends to continue the policies that put them in their current situation.
Amongst Stiglitz's recommendations was a liberal education for all.
I agree that education is part of the answer.
Even Project 2025 knows the power of education and intends to suppress it.
Private organizations and institutions whose motive and agenda is selfish, self centered, narcissistic and thus inimical to the common good. Our tax dollars are financing, among other things, right wing Christian academies and schooling, madrassas. yeshivas and profit oriented corporations, like charter schools.
IOW we are financing the instruments which will in the end enslave us. We are instruments of our own destructin.
Has our Constitution been changed? Reinterpreted? The First Amendment states that taxes cannot be used to finance schools that have a religious focus. I believe it's called the 'Establishment Clause'. Taxes may be used for secular instruction in a church setting but not for promotion of a religion.
Correct Chris. But if we think any church leader who takes our tax money will use it for "secular" education in their church.... we're nuts. Shame on us. I say not one dime for ANY church. Churches pay no property taxes but get all of the benefits provided by those taxes. Police, fire, EMT, water, sewer, parks and good local governments. Churches have been chipping away at this for decades. In the 1950's they were trying things like "let our kids ride the public school busses since they are going right by our schools anyway". If I remember correctly, they even thought they should get tax money to pay for their "non-religious" text books. These people will never give up their quest to steal our tax money from public schools to promote their religious agenda. My answer to them is if they want government to pay for religion then they should move to Iran or Afghanistan. One conservative political party and one religion paid for by tax money. Good luck. Also, remember religious schools are generally very selective about their students. If a student becomes a discipline problem they are out, if they don't keep their grades high enough, they are out, if their parents can't afford the tuition or don't participate, they are out. Most don't offer special education services either. These services are paid and provided for by public school tax dollars. So, when the "not-perfect" kids are thrown out of private or religious schools, where do they go? To public schools. They, and rightly so, have to accept "every" child!
The problem is Chris,that our constitution does not say that Taxes can not be use to finance religious schools.
My gripe is that from Joe shit the ragman to SCOTUS, left and right, the constitution is interpreted, like a Rohrschact test.
Here is what it says
CONGRESS shall make NO LAW RESPECTING an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It does not prohibit the several states from doing just that.
The Constitution is compact made between sovereign states, that agreed to delegate SOME authority to the Federal Government., while retaining rights for other things. That is why each state has it's own laws about voting, abortion, gun control.
Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that the Constitution's enumeration of certain rights does not deny or disparage other rights that are retained by the people. It was ratified on December 15, 1791 and is part of the Bill of Rights.
The Ninth Amendment's meaning and legal effect have been debated by judges and constitutional scholars. The courts have rarely relied on the Ninth Amendment.
The Ninth Amendment protects rights such as:
The right to vote
The right to travel
The right to privacy
The right to one's own body, including a woman's right to have an abortion
Here is the kicker, this is why we are so contentious
The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that any powers not given to the federal government are reserved for the states or the people
Bear in mind, that it was the elite, property owning wealthy and thus influential males that constructed these United States, and the drew up a document that protected their own interests, position and status.
Why would they do otherwise.? It is always the powerful that make the rules, be it the Mayflower Compact or a Constitution.
Our bicameral government, enables the house of commoners to make rules and fund the government, but it has to be approved by the house of lords (Senate) and finally signed by the Chief Executive.
William, thank you for this important clarification. It is worth to keep in mind that power comes with organization. Labor unions, and the right to strike are essential to a democracy.
William -- Right! Schools are supposed to teach children to think, not to take any damned fool bullshit on "faith". Religion and public education are incompatible.
I wonder if these private schools make a profit. The tuitions are usually high. Since Betsy DeVoss was pushing privatization of education, you know there must be money in it for someone. So while our public schools suffer from underfunding, where do our tax dollars go when given to private schools?
I'm nearly finished reading Stiglitz's "Road to Freedom" and recommend it. His use of Trump's behaviors in the chapter on "norms" was interesting in that we need to put in writing what we expect of the President since Trump surprised us by not following norms and traditions that we took for granted.
I've not read Road to Freedom yet so I can't say about it.
But I would put this near the top People, Power and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent (2019) Stiglitz.
Yes ,about hope Cyrano. It took a depression and war to beat back capitalistic excesses. The only thing I see on the horizon to stop or beat back runamuck capitalism is the climate crisis. Otherwise, I don't see a change in the material conditions that now exist which would cause progressive forces to make great headway. Maybe there are but I don't see them.
If the masses were reasonably educated, the GOP would not exist as it does now. Educated voters would vote for policies that benefited the common good. The unions gave us the greatest middle class in the world. The demise of unions gave us the greatest wealth disparity in the world. Thank you, Ronald Reagan.
Professor Reich: i was one of those people who grew up in the shadow of labor unions -- never a member of a union myself, but a grateful beneficiary of their waning power. nevertheless, i was always paid minimum wage for my work as i struggled and worked and saved every penny i could get my hands on to go to university, a decision that i saw as my path to freedom and prosperity.
well, it didn't quite turn out that way, sadly for me and millions of others who were similarly betrayed by our dreams of plenty that turned into dust in our mouths. i'm still a wage slave, barely scraping by, although a better educated one than i was when i started out.
I remember, back when I was in high school during the LBJ administration, that literature regarding college stressed how a liberal arts education enriches a person. It was acknowledged even then that this enrichment had little to do with monetary wealth. One of the first encumbrances I shed after college was car ownership, deciding to move to a place where a car wasn't necessary. I still rely on a weekly paycheck, but the family's debt-free: somewhat shabby, but content. Meanwhile, back in my hometown, my K-8 school and my high school have been torn down without any replacement I can discern expect a "Christian academy" at the heart of its hollowed-out downtown. I wonder how long I will continue to dodge the bullets.
your mention of a christian academy reminded me of ... my own experience.
as a scientist, most people think i never received a liberal arts education, but they'd be wrong. despite being an atheist, i did attend an out-of-state lutheran seminary college for my first 2 years (it was totally paid for!!) and there, i got a wonderful liberal arts education. interestingly, that college is where i discovered once and for all that i really am an atheist, thanks to the philosophical insights from a catholic priest at a nearby church.
sometimes, i think i've traveled a strange path in just about every way you can think of.
Victor -- "... by the thousands." That is encouraging to me! Pretty sure Religious schools also turn out a lot of abused children -- if not physically then certainly mentally abused -- they fill young minds with fear and superstition.
There was some bullying of children by teachers in my public school but nothing too awful. But would you deny that telling young children that they must take "on faith" a particularly irrational belief system or else (Heaven or Hell). I maintain that "putting the "fear of God" into young minds is abuse.
i think the main reason why religious schools "churn out atheists by the thousands" (REALLY??) is because the professors that teach at them are usually unafraid to critically confront the philosophical questions that many of us grapple with. most of my liberal arts professors were ordained and they had an exceptional knowledge of literature and history -- two of my favourite subjects. (along with science, of course.) the nearby catholic priest that i spent hours chatting with and verbally sparring with was also exceptionally well educated and very thoughtful and willing to invest the intellectual effort in asking me questions (as i asked him questions) that helped guide me to a more stable personal ethics.
Cyrano -- I can relate. A liberal arts education is invaluable. Too many techies and business majors lack any real understanding of how we got here. I live a sort of minimalist life, comfortable, debt-free, but without all the crap our material world is pushing. Also, I have put "Pig" on my movie wishlist.
A man and his truffle-hunting pig. An unusual story, dark and foreboding, set in a grungy west coast subculture called the restaurant business. A character study, at one point Robin Feld (Nicholas Cage) unemotionally explains that the next earthquake, expected roughly every 200 years, will flatten the city (Portland), level the bridges, and sweep it all away in a 10 foot high tsunami. But he’s just making conversation. Also starring Adam Arkin (son of actor Alan Arkin) as a restauranteur/gangster. [No pigs were harmed in the making of this movie!]
Sally, sounds like a good movie. Thank you for explaining it to me. I have, for some reason, never been a Nicholas Cage fan. I am YEARS behind in movie watching. I gave up TV back in the 'teens sometime. (Long story.) I think the last movie I watched was a Robin Williams movie before he committed suicide. I am telling you about it because it was a STUNNINGLY beautiful movie, and I can't even recall the name of it! (I guess I need to look up a list of his movies!) It was about reincarnation, death, potential suicide, and he was a doctor, I believe, and his wife was a well-established artist.
Now I am curious! I will try to look it up and send you another note.
My point about his suicide is that I watched this movie shortly before his suicide, so that made it even more poignant.
with Cuba Gooding Jr. and a lovely actress with an Italian name (Scorianno or something like that). Gooding has a small role. In my opinion, NOBODY should miss seeing this movie, it is so beautifully done.
GrrlScientist -- I don't mean to pry, but how is a PhD a "wage slave". I mean, there is probably only limited application for a parrot specialist -- you can't turn a parrot into an astronaut or a rocket scientist -- but still I would think academia and science journalism would pay better. Oh, well! Your Bio is an interesting one. Best of luck to you!
Isn’t it frustrating when Kroger brags about the discounts they give you, even as they nearly double the prices on groceries? It’s just a slick way of gaslighting their customers.
I live within walking distance of a Krogers, and frequently patronized it. Ever since I heard about the proposed merger, I have taken my grocery dollars to Publix, Aldi, etc. even though this means I have to drive.
Our local walk to grocery store was a local chain that went into the location of a previous local chain. The location closed because the shopping center owner was a slumlord. The are no longer any local chains within my region of Southern California. The closest, a Stater Brothers which is at least forty miles away, has prices much lower than the big national corporate chains. I wish they would expand, but their radius is what their 18 wheeler delivery trucks can round trip drive in one day from the warehouse. All other grocery stores are a short drive. Once there were six stores, owned by five different companies, within five miles, now there are four, owned by three. If the Kroger-Albertsons merger goes through, there will be three, owned by two.
Elaine -- I like Kroger's generally -- well-run, customer friendly, and unionized. But, yes! They (and all the other majors probably) have "Loyalty" programs and a lot of whoop-dee-doo designed to make you think you're getting a great deal. I just write it off as sales and marketing bullshit. They also recently started up a great, low-cost grocery delivery program.
Don't know where you live but here in my part of Ohio, it kind of sucks. Most of the time they leave out 10-15 of the 30-40 items I order, saying their advertised specials are unavailable or the're "in store only" offerings.. That means at least several days of planned meals can't be prepared, but I don't know that until the groceries are delivered. And they really aren't so cheap. The Boost membership is only the beginning. The quality of food is dependent on the shopper paying attention to expiration dates and produce freshness plus you are expected by the company who provides the shopper to tip them- even 5-10% on a $200 order is $10-20. additional PER ORDER. Then you have to be sure you got the advertised sale price or discount. AND you have to order by the day before, even though they don't shop more than a few hours before your scheduled delivery. If you are lucky enough to get one of their sporadic Kroger truck runs you don't have to tip, and they usually aren't missing more than an item or two. On the other hand, you don't have to shop in the store and if you're disabled it's a godsend. I suspect they will soon raise the membership; however, WalMart competes with them and you get to shop in rest of WalMart as well, so maybe not... One of the few good things from COVID was deliveries, telemedicine, and working from home!
Yeah, your mileage may vary certainly. I'm probably the kind of shopper they like. I rarely complain, I order the same stuff over and over and nothing too exotic, and I always choose next day Kroger Delivery because there is No Tipping involved. And you are probably (sadly) correct -- if Kroger is up against the wall the quality may slip and prices may rise (more). Anyway, good luck!
You will probably not read this Robert (you call us readers friends, so I'm using your first name), but look at Norway, where I live, 4 companies control 95% of the food market. Prices are just hiking up up up up. Thanks for writing your newsletters.
Thank you Prof. Reich for your re-statement of the harm of large mergers to workers. A question I have wondered for some time is: are there other drivers of the quest for mergers, acquisitions and higher executive pay? One answer that rarely appears is that we have large helper industries in the form of investment bankers, private equity, strategic consulting firms, executive search firms and remuneration assessment firms that all support and in some cases drive mergers and exec pay increases due to perverse incentives that are counter to broader economic goals of fairness and equality. If you are a helper being measured on how many deals, "synergies", and "carry" you accrue, and if as a headhunter firm you get a fee equivalent to a first year's Exec pay, you are incented to push for deals and inflate exec pay -it is pure self interest. With flat fee structures and changes in tax law we can tackle the merger mania as well.
The research of Charles Darwin might suggest that you have half the equation, Lorne. He reflected that all beings on earth seem to have both the quality of wanting to compete, be unique and stand-out to attract partners project status, power and hierarchy as you rightly point out, and at the same time possess other qualities of wanting to build relationships and community for collective survival, positive sum gains, the benefits of mutuality and protection of progeny.
Despite SCOTUS, corporations aren't people,but the owners/investors are, and they act i concert via a conspiracy called the board of directors, (BOD), the mandate of the board is to maximize profit and survivability/longevity.
To achieve those goals, they hire managers, Chief Executive Officer,, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, etc., and sometimes the major individual investor, chairman of the board and CEO are all the same person, like the Murdoch Empire.
You can't try a corporation for murder, theft or a crime, but you can the CEO and board of directors. But it never happens.
If by shareholders you mean Joe schit the ragman I agree. But it is the Board of Directors who set the compensation, and when the Chairman of the Board is also the CEO and largest individual shareholder, like Robert Iger, and Brian L Roberts then yes.
I haven't done a deep dive into Musk, but am pretty sure that his the CEO, Chairman and largest private shareholder of his corporations.
Founder, CEO, and chief engineer of SpaceX CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc. Owner, CTO and Executive Chairman of X (formerly Twitter) President of the Musk Foundation Founder of The Boring Company, X Corp., and xAI Co-founder of Neuralink, OpenAI, Zip2, and X.com (part of PayPal), and Starlink.
@William. Re Musk. Musk relied on investors to buy Twitter, now X, in 2022. Since then, his and his partners’ stake has shed $24 billion in value — partly because advertisers have fled the platform.
A Brazilian judge ordered the suspension of X on Friday following a dispute with Musk.
We have plenty of laws, but without enforcement there are no laws
As regards your last paragraph. The whole purpose of a corporation, they were once called joint ventures, and investors were called adventurers, was to avoid responsibility and the only thing at risk was the money they put up.
It is still the same corporations now have tens of thousands of shares, if not more, and there is no way to hold shareholders responsible. The best to hope for is to go after the CEO, and I cant thinkof a single case where the CEO was fined,much less spent time behind bars.
If anything corporations get fined, but take that as cost of doing business,if the fine is too heavy they file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and get bought up by another corporation.
That's what happened to Union Carbide, they deferred maintenance till there was a leak of toxic gas that killed thousands. Finally they were fined and declared bankruptcy, and bought up by Dow Chemical, and a corrupt Indian Supreme Court let them off the hook for the fine.
The origin of the United States, was a joint venture by wealthy London Merchants and lesser nobility named the Virginia Company of London,.
King James gave it a charter in 1607, to explore for gold and silver. It found none by thanks to Turkish tobacco seeds in the pouch of John Rolfe, it found a new enterprise, tobacco plantations.
King James hated tobacco and called it a noxious weed, finally two years after the Powhattan Surprise attack, aka Jamestown Massacre, and because there was no substantial return on investment. King James cancelled the charter and made it a Royal colony.. Some investors, like my 9th ggf, has already made his fortune and found a dynasty by marrying one of the few rich widows in the colony. Others who never left London,probably received their investment back from tobacco sales.
The only risk an investor has is his or her capital investment.
There are many forms of Corporations one of them is an LLC
A Limited Liability Company (LLC) is a business structure that combines aspects of a partnership and a corporation. LLCs are created by state statute and offer several benefits, including:
Limited liability: LLC members are not usually personally liable for the company's debts and liabilities.
Pass-through taxation: LLC profits and losses are reported on the members' personal tax returns.
An LLC avoids legal liability for the corporation.
I simply explained how it is that corporations can get away with murder, and not pay the price for the harm that they do.
I don't agree with it, just simply explained the history and the mechanism.
The challenge then is how do we, as a society, hold them accountable, and I don't mean the corporations by themselves, but he Board of Directors and officers of the corporations.
In America until the latter part of the 19th Century, states had laws that a corporation's life span was about 50 years, and to renew their charter they had to show that they were operating in the public good, and not harming the public.
John D Rockefeller couldn't do that, so he put out the word that he would move Standard Oil to the state that had the most favorable Charter Laws, and thus began the Charter wars.
New Jersey won the war, and he moved and became Standard Oil of NJ.
Delaware, barely lost, but changed their laws and are now the corporate home of over 600 corporations/financial institutions. Senator Biden was known as the Senator from Wall Street.
We agree on the problem, we agree on what needs to be done.
But a problem has a solution, and what is the solution. I see none, so long as money controls politics and elects politicians.
Politicians bullshit,. court, schmooze the public, but their campaigns depend on funds. And those with the money not only provide positive support, but they also fund negative opposition.
The billionaire heir Andrew Mellon, gave Trump $50 million dollars, and RFK Jr $25 million, because RFK jr was thought to take votes away from environmentally concerned voters who would vote for Democrats.
In his podcast, David Feldman addressed status and power as reasons why monopolies resist being broken up despite the boon to the economy and shareholders after the breakup.
Lorne -- mine is to get people to join and support Unions. I feel so strongly about this I will even show you my tits to get your attention! UNION! UNION! UNION! And TITS!
PS - "divine design" does not make me think you appear wise. Just sayin'.
PPS -- "Renaissance Man" -- seriously! We all wish we were perhaps, but just a little pretentious, doncha think?
You mean about the "tits"? Yes, I can be as big a whore as needs be when trying to survive in a patriarchy. It is a time-honored occupation. Use watcha got!
1. While I admire your dedication to visibility in promoting unions, methinks modern hyper transparency in women’s clothing may weaken your personal feminine attractiveness.
But milk mammaries to feed the union!
2. « divine design » is a way to show my /our amazement that life could evolve from a chemical soup to our current ecological perfection :
- eat and be eaten
- nothing wasted
- interdependent & balanced
Perhaps we would be advised to take the best from Biblical metaphors and practise Stewardship in having Dominion over nature.
3. “Renaissance Man” in the sense of being aware that
- nothing is simple
- nothing is the way it seems
- everything is inter-connected
satisfaction brings me back,
a curious cat 😇
to renaissance rebirth,
new thoughts of mirth.
Frankly, I expected « pretentious » might describe my analysis of
Well, I like what you say but your dialect is lost somewhere back in the 17th century, methinks. Re (2) - "divine design" implies Intelligent Design to most readers; re (3) again, it swirls round and round and it sounds good but I don't really know WTF you're saying. But that's how I felt reading Shakespeare, too.
Severely tax the PE people and investment bankers, when they push for concentration? That's a really good point you brought up. How to cut the " helper industry" back ..
Here's a Union story. It's been a long, bumpy, but profitable ride in the union for me a woman. Back in 1976 on the Trans Alaska Pipeline, I was hired on as a JOURNEYMAN Operating Engineer (heavy equipment) because of Affirmative Action and female quotas they had to hire me and other women as well as black, hispanic and indigenous men and women.. I have always been mechanical so I was able to figure things out. I went out of the union hall in Fairbanks, Ak to fill a quota and was told that after this big federal job ended, that I would not be able to do this work again anywhere. White men ran the union. I did research and found that what they told me was against the law. I had paid an initiation fee to IUOE (International Union of Operating Engineers). After the pipeline in Ak slowed down, I went to Colorado and signed up with Local 9 to help build a pipeline around Sloan Lake in Denver. Men were not used to seeing women working in that field so there were grievances made and I got moved around from job to job. News papers came out to take pictures of the 'woman' working construction and some of the men got jealous. I could write a book. I had been a stewardess for United Airlines so I didn't fit the mold of a construction worker. The union for stewardesses was weaker than IUOE. IUOE made me more money because it was always a mans' union and men made more money. 45 years later I'm retired after having weathered many storms working on heavy equipment in a mans' union. I became a mouthy broad who learned how to stand up for herself out there in the field. I'm lucky to be alive after what I went through. I support Union Labor anywhere. Unions aren't perfect but they are absolutely necessary! I'm thankful for my union even tho it was often rough, I lived through it!
My wife, Dee, is a retired certified building official, one of the few women in that occupation.
Most building inspectors are men, and their fee fees are hurt,having to work for a woman in what they consider a man's job, and they did everything they could to torpedo her, as did the city manager., even the public, the developers and contractors.
She survived and retired because she had her wits about her,and was a lot more intelligent than her inspectors and superiors.
It's the game of survivor for sure, outwit and outlast.
Seems like you also mastered the game.
By the way, my wife is also a heavy equipment operator. When we bought this property she was deadset on buying a tractor, backhoe, shovel combo. Me all I wanted was something by which to mow the lawn.
You make me laugh. Your wife and I would have a lot to talk about I'm sure. My home union is Local 302 WA and AK. I really enjoyed operating heavy equipment. The men on the ground didn't like a woman running equipment so much. They always wanted to tell me how to do my job. I became very picky about the swampers who rode with me sometimes from place to place around the job site to hook loads. I don't own a piece of equipment but I may get a little bobcat for this and that around here. I miss operating.
My wife was a certified building inspector, a prerequisite for being a building official, she was a journeyman carpenter, plumber and electrician and built her fathers house
A certified pest control applicator, and she a pofessional dry waller, none of the mud, paste and popcorn for her. two or three coats of mud, with sanding in between.
Yeh, my wife misses operating heavy machinery as well, she was the foreman for parks and recreation in Santa Cruz County, CA for a couple of years.
You know I think the best for women is operating equipment. Women are easier on the equipment and don't slam it and cram it as much as men do. I had a mechanic tell me this. It doesn't take as much physical strength to run equipment. It's still hard on the body. I have both hips replaced due to all the vibration on equipment over the years...and one knee too. I wouldn't change what I did even with that. It's been a life of adventure and ongoing change. The union helped me be way more fearless and confident. I did buy a sailboat and sailed Hawaii and back with a race crew and a delivery. My boat stayed in Port Townsend. She was sold in 2008. I'm a land luber now. She had a MD6A diesel engine in her and the union helped me understand all that maintenance. I hear about other strong women, like your wife, and it makes me feel so proud to be part of the change that women have made in the trades and so many other areas. I look forward to a woman president now!
The female body because it has a lower center of gravity, makes it better able to withstand G forces and thus better fighter pilots, also better reaction time reflexes
Females are biological evolved to withdstand pain and the cold better than men.
Yet special operations units have created extraordinarily high physical standards for entrance and training than are necessary for performing their duties.
The real purpose of which is to bolster their own ego's and to exclude male physical specimens and women who don't measure up.
There is no doubt that hormones, specifically testosterone, shape the male body.
I know that these physical standards are bullshit. I am a retired special operator, a mustang. When I entered the field I weighed 133 lbs at 5'10", I retired weighing 135 lbs. I routinely jumped out of aircraft with an addition 45 lbs of main and reserve parachute, 26 lbs of gear, and 80 to 100 lbs of equipment.
My first equipment jump was at 133 lbs, 45 lbs of parachute, 26 lbs of equipment and a parachute adjustable equipment bag with two railroad ties, that weight 100 lbs. And I had to lug all of that on to the aircraft, attach it to my harness, shuffle to the jump door and fling myself out with the green, jump, light. 304 lbs in all, and when I got on the ground I had to stuff the parachute into an aviators kit bag and tote it off the drop zone. Regular training jumps involved a lighter load, a rucksack weighing between 60 and 80 lbs, we left behind the aviators kit bag, but humped the ruck and equipment for miles, over hill and dale, through forest and brush, ice and snow and desert, and over mountains. And here I was a skinny little dude.
The only muscle that really counts is the one between the ears.Will power, pain tolerance, push through it like a second wind.
If these special ops courses cut out the bullshit macho shit, they would graduate a lot more women, but that would diminish the macho image of the instructors and NCO's already in the field.
Yes strength and endurance is required, but not being able to carry and jump 100 lb PAE bags, the only purpose of that jump was to wash me out of the program, they failed. A skinny dude sandwiched between hunks in a photo does not make a good recruiting photo.
Dee -- "News papers came out to take pictures of the 'woman' working construction..." I remember those days! We have come a long way! BTW, I am familiar with Sloane's Lake -- I will think of you next time I visit. It's a popular and prospering neighborhood today, as you are probably aware.
Here in Missouri the state Republicans are constantly taling about being "business friendly" ad nauseum. Not worker or family friendly. But we are hoping to pass a family friendly initiative to raise min wage and provide sick leave to workers.
I have not heard these words from big business ; unless ads that suggest that their products enhance one's life count as such a statement. Obviously they want to make money and will try to make the sale, and they suggest it will improve existence, at least in the area the product "improves".
I'd not heard the words from Government when Reagan made them but they clearly chimed with a view of part of the population. They set in motion a movement that swung the power balance in favour of the company executives and to a lesser extent shareholders and away from workers, customer choicen and innovation (through increased monopolistic power) and the general good (e.g. pollution, animal welfare, lack of control of internet influence of minors, external interference of elections, lobbying power etc.). If they acted just in the way you describe them there would be no issue but it has gone beyond the simplistic "the market is benign, so leave it be" notion.
The right loves to claim that the left socialistic polices lead to communism, their version of capitalism has led us to Greedism. While it’s not an official word to describe our current economic state it should be.
Democrats need to stress that their economic plan is compassionate capitalism where a rising tide lifts all boats not just the yachts. It’s the original intent of a capitalist economy. With all the manipulation of our laws, tax codes, and consumers, big $ has destroyed the once great American economy. Capitalism was never a race to be the wealthiest person in the world.
In this latest article, Robert Reich sheds light on a critical issue affecting millions: the soaring cost of groceries and the role of corporate consolidation in driving these prices up. Reich’s piece highlights how the recent mega-merger between grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons exemplifies the troubling trend of price gouging in the food industry. This consolidation is more than a mere corporate reshuffling—it’s a strategic move that has profound implications for everyday consumers, particularly those on fixed incomes.
The merger between these two grocery behemoths isn’t just about expanding market share; it’s about increasing pricing power and squeezing every last penny from shoppers. Reich points out that as these companies grow larger, they gain unprecedented control over pricing. This market dominance allows them to set higher prices with less competition to keep them in check. For the average consumer, this means paying more for everyday essentials.
For individuals on fixed incomes, such as retirees or those receiving disability benefits, the impact of these price hikes is particularly severe. Fixed-income households have a set budget that doesn’t adjust in line with inflation or rising costs. When grocery prices skyrocket, these individuals are forced to stretch their limited funds even further. This often results in tough choices between necessities, like food and medicine, and sacrifices that can severely affect their quality of life.
Reich’s article also emphasizes the deceptive practices companies use to mask their greed. For instance, grocery chains may tout special discounts or promotions while quietly raising prices on essential items. This tactic creates a false sense of savings and lulls consumers into complacency, making them less likely to recognize the true impact of the price hikes. It’s a classic example of corporate gaslighting, where companies use misleading information to distract from the real harm they are causing.
The broader implications of this issue extend beyond individual hardship. Rising grocery prices driven by corporate greed contribute to increased food insecurity, which has broader societal impacts. When people can no longer afford nutritious food, their health deteriorates, which places additional strain on public health systems and social services.
Addressing this issue requires more than just individual consumer vigilance. It calls for regulatory action to prevent monopolistic practices and ensure fair competition in the grocery sector. Legislators and regulators need to take a hard look at these mega-mergers and implement policies that protect consumers from exploitative pricing strategies.
In the meantime, consumers can take steps to mitigate the impact of rising prices. This includes exploring alternative grocery stores, buying in bulk where possible, and seeking out local or community-based food programs. However, these measures only go so far. The root of the problem lies in the unchecked power of these corporate giants and the need for systemic change.
Reich’s article is a timely reminder of the urgent need for reform in the grocery industry. As consumers, advocates, and policymakers, it’s crucial to push for greater transparency and fairness in food pricing to ensure that everyone, regardless of income, can afford the essentials they need to live.
You said a mouthful girl! I have a pension and social security, a fixed income, and still it's a challenge to keep up with costs when owning a home. My home is small and built in 1949.
As a retired person I now have time to be involved locally...and that feels good. Staying informed is so important. I will remain involved as long as my health holds out. I will remain involved in community no matter what happens in this election. I enjoyed your comment!
Yes, grocoeries aren’t the only thing that went up dramatically in the last few years. Utilities have too. And the cost of getting things done to maintain a home is getting out of reach. I know there are many complaining they cannot buy a house. They don’t yet realize that buying it is only the first step. Maintaining it is an additional large expense.
And we have to be grateful it is only $400 a month...it could be so much more. My insurance went up about 20% this last year while the deductible for roof replacement more than doubled to $2500!
My insurance company just sent me a new auto policy. They have adjusted too but also stopped coverage on some things. The worst part is that the policy is written in such a way that it’s word spaghetti and almost impossible to figure out. For example, one section will say something is covered but another section seems to contradict that. I need an interpreter.
Elaine -- I'm cross-eyed after reading your dissertation but...
1) Size also allows a large corporation purchasing power which can help lower prices
2) But probably true that greater profits more often go to higher stock values so Wall Streeters benefit.
3) I like your argument that the impact of poor-quality food is externalized as higher medical costs, analogous to how air and water pollution impact all of us in the Commons.
Consider adding: It is imperative that consumers understand who controls the price setting of goods and services, rather than incorrectly citing the Government/President as responsible for rising prices. While the Administration may try to influence prices, ultimately the Monopolies have the power to dictate prices and create barriers to prevent competitors from entering the market. (See Mirriam-Webster definition of Greed.)
Nothing bugs me more than ignorant, uneducated (not stupid) people stating it's "the President's fault" when private business or Congress and greed is responsible.
Wow. The time and place I grew up in felt normal to me, like most people and since it's what I knew, but it was in the middle of a short golden age of relatively unsevere economic inequality. And, I learned recently, the city I lived in had the strongest middle class, in terms of average working wage, in the country at that time or so I read. Think rust belt. It feels irreversibly lost now. And we're looking at Skidmark for President Redux which is a viable thing and a real possibility. I think so many of Robert's readers struggle with this as I do, not just to fight against but to take in. The lunacy of trading what we had then for what we have now is astounding. I don't believe the rich are really happier. At the very top, however, most of them seem to be nuts and utterly compulsive. And the damage. The waste. The absolutely needless resentment, polarization and distrust. And whenever I have such thoughts the first thing that comes to mind is Fox News. I know they were enabled by changes that began in the Reagan years but it's still the first thing I think of, and maybe the main sine qua non of the annihilation of our society.
James -- Re "rust belt": One thing I have wondered about is how we can have high wages in America but low prices for consumer goods, too. I mean, offshoring our manufacturing companies has meant hardship for some but lower prices for all Americans (except the unemployed, I suppose.) There must be a balance. I don't have the answers.
(Longterm newspapers, radio, TV are falling like flies in Canada.)
Journalists are the Fifth Estate whose research into scandal is what keeps politicians pure (a slight exaggeration).
What will replace MSM?
Substack? YouTube? …?!
Will ex-journalists be able to earn enough income to support quality research? I’m limited in paying for subscriptions, but read much more widely worldwide than I did before internet and social media.
Can I trust what I read today more or less than in 1964 or 1994 or 2014?
Yep. An ism is anything in which one has a belief,, to the exclusion of others. actually ideologies are secular and sectarian. Christianity, Islam are ideologies along with capitalism and communism.
As you might know, I have long and deep roots in the extreme right, before my epiphany. And accusing liberals of social Darwinism is one of their favorite tropes.
So I tread cautiously there. It is, in their lexicon, a tool of statists. Darwin is a favorite whipping boy of the right., where Calvinism reigns supreme.
Just as some liberals were/are racists (mostly pre-New Deal), so no doubt there also were/are Social Darwinists among them. Today, though, it seems that the ideology is confined mostly to some libertarians.
I volunteer with a food bank in rural Utah where there is a drive-by pick up every month. While our town population is under 300, the number of cars driving through is at least that or maybe more, and some cars pick up for two or three families. We don't turn anyone away, because it assumed that everyone qualifies, even if they live over the border in Arizona or New Mexico. Often, they live on the Navajo reservation, which is truly a food desert. People are hungry, and this merger is not going to help.
I wish there were some way to communicate this post to every household in America. But not only do the wealthiest of the wealthy control 70% of the wealth, they also control almost all mainstream media. In addition to anti-monopoly we,as a nation, need to assure there are at the very least three mainstream media corporations that are contracted and committed to fact check and report HONESTLY the news of the day. Total neutrality instead of this phony both sideism.
That graph that you provided proves that unions are the strongest force behind the middle class. When the unions do well the middle class thrives.
This is capitalism as originally envisaged. High taxes, large scale infrastructure spending on roads, bridges, dams and schools, etc., and contented citizens. Rather like modern Denmark.
What Reagan gave us was not vigorous capitalism, but socialism for the wealthy.
@Michael Hutchinson. I worked for the Department of Labor. https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/dolhistoxford
Unfortunately many administrations were actually anti - union. However many of the people who make their living from largesse of government were former employees or appointees from Republican administrations. During my tenure we privatized components that cost the taxpayers more in the long run, as the government had to pay more for contract services to do the same work.
I don't think this is actually "capitalism." Socialism for the rich and well positioned.
Of course you did (privatized that is). Done throughout much of the agencies. Remember Andy Card "Tell us how much of your work can be outsourced, and hint the answer out of my derrier is 50%" We thought Reagan's people were the worse. But then came Bush jr's people. And then Trump's people. A descent into hell. Wonder who teaches courses on the government in journalism classes? Maybe some guy out of the Heritage "Foundation". I say that because journalists have no idea what screwups these peope were/are so the American people certainly don't hear about it. .
Steve, I am not sure the journalists and others didn't and don't know what was/is going on, at least some of them. However, these days and for some time now, it has been profitable to just go along and keep promoting those who are making such bad decisions while whining that everyone else had it wrong. Throughout so much of the Reagan Administration, I kept hearing how "trickle-down" was such a good system and that corporations would definitely want to take care of their workers. That was nonsense, but Reagan was popular because of his grandfatherly manner. People rarely listened to his words, just like now with Trump, but thought of Reagan as soothing. They didn't understand that the economic world they knew was being eroded to a point they would hardly be able to survive. Business has had nearly free rein for the past 4+ decades; it's time for the pendulum to swing back somewhat so workers will have more rights, power, and better working conditions. It's time!
Gorbachev said that Reagan had a 'Nice Smile', but was a Cruel Man... 'Trickle-Down'.?.. I believe that there is an old Texas Saying, 'Don't Piss Down My Back, And Tell Me It Is Raining...' ...
Apache, I hadn't heard that Texas phrase in a while. Reagan was not a good person, just a decent political actor. He, like so many other Republican leaders had only one person in mind, himself, and everyone else was just a background for him getting whatever he wanted. He wrecked the Traffic Controllers Union and put the lives of so many people at risk by ditching all of those workers. Who does that but someone who is cruel and thinks as little as possible about consequences. Just like Trump's entourage, Reagan's team protected him from scrutiny and Grandpa kept on doing whatever he wanted no matter who was harmed. And, his guys benefited handsomely because of it. His VP and later successor, Daddy Bush, was just as bad, a racist misogynist who with his "thousand points of light" let people think he cared about the American people; it was just a lot of useless words because no one's situation improved, except maybe the defense contractors who made a lot off the war with Iraq and a few generals and journalists who became well-known. Republicans do nominate a lot of really despicable people for office. It's amazing that a few decent ones ever got through.
It's time. But not sure what will cause the swing back. In the past the material conditions changed-got worse- allowing change to happen.
Scientific studies show that it's not deprivation that precedes progress, but a bit of progress -- that is, when things get a bit better, it gives people hope and they go for more. So, maybe the progress we got from Biden will spur us all to go for more with a Harris administration.
Well put Daniel and Michael. And this election we are not only fighting for our freedom from the formation of a controlling, dictatorial government, we are also fighting to take the "socialism for the wealthy" away and asking them to pay like the rest of us. It's like trying to wean the baby off the pacifier and potty train them at the same time... while convincing the "R" grandparents that you're not abusing the child, it's time AND necessary for the kid's social development and the family's well being.
Jeannie Strausburg: How about telling them to pay like the rest of us? I am tired of explaining. I am tired of begging. I am tired of asking. It is time to tell them.
Jeannie Strausberg ; Great analogy! Hahaha! My daughter weaned her daughter first, waited a couple months or so, and then potty trained her : it worked well, with only a few glitches in phase 2. I wonder how the obscenely wealthy could be weaned off socialism incrementally?
I doubt they can; however they can pay what "socialism" costs to use like the rest of us rather than a cheap version of their income while relying on the rest of us to cover what they don't pay.
Jeannie, the government could cut off the corporate subsidies first, then put in place some price controls. Unions could have a better chance of going into a company and getting workers on board, and our media could do a better job of educating the American people about what is really going on, what big corporations are doing to the people and how unions can help the workers fight back. It may have to be in chunks, but it needs to be started or we will just continue doing what we have been doing the past 40 years and just hope corporate greed and addiction to money and power will drift away as those owners and guys in charge see what they are doing and fix it. That will never happen, of course, so it will have to be up to "we the people" to make the necessary moves toware sanity.
Good analogy!
Thank you
We will do better by leaving out the “isms” in our discussion. The sculpture is so smart to be titled “reign in trade” rather than “capitalism”.
The isms are labels that are easily manipulated. Most Americans are for “capitalism” and against “socialism”, “communism” (and “fascism”). We put ourselves at a big disadvantage when we use words that we next have to explain that what we mean is not the feared (or loved) meaning.
IMO Bernie Sanders hurt his cause immensely by including “socialism” in his idea. He should have called it “fair economy“ and no one would have been immediately turned off. We are not going to do well if we first need to re-educate the public on the meaning of the words. Let’s start where people are. It shouldn’t be hard.
DK Brooklyn ; What a good idea. But it would not be long before the obscenely wealthy scream "Socialism"! Is it possible to educate Them? They currently own the Court where most important cases end up, and don't forget the media, which is owned by them, too.
I’m for progressives taking back pride in both capitalism AND socialism as the US has best demonstrated them. Like Thom Hartmann says: “Socialism SAVED Capitalism”!
My point is let’s not start off having to redefine a word that has a negative appeal.
When I googled what words (something like that) Americans hate the most it was fascism, communism, socialism.
So if Americans hate the word socialism it isn’t strategic to use that word to describe your ideas.
In my mind Democratic Capitalism means the same thing as Democratic Socialism, but one starts me off on the right foot and the other is tied to a negative one.
This is why I like the title “economic democracy” in an economic democracy, the localized economic decisions and policy come first and then out of that the politics come. It differs from socialism in that it stresses keeping decision-making, local and empowering local populations rather than central economic planning as in socialism.socialism may work better in small countries like Finland and Denmark, because they are in a sense one economic unit. But when you have a large country such as the United States and there are many communities with differing economic bases, the smaller geographical areas need more power to make decisions for themselves .
That may be why the Campaign for Economic Democracy was chosen as the name for their political action group by Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden in the late 1970s. I went to some meetings back in the day. It was a good group. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_Economic_Democracy
DK, Yes, words matter; they have denotations and connotations; they may carry emotional contents, and they may mask or disguise realities. "Capitalism" usually means private ownership of the means of production."Socialism" usually means social, communal ownership of capital. Is a corporation private or social? How about a cooperative? Is a state-run enterprise "social"? If a tree is to be judged by its fruits, the the "who" makes the judgment is key .
Keep it simple. So simple the average poorly educated citizen understands it and more importantly, intuitively agrees. If you have to explain your terminology you already lost most people.
You say it shouldn't be hard, but I went to a workshop once on trying to come up with those magical two-word phrases that evoke a whole frame, and it's much harder than it looks. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, but we need to appreciate the people who are good at it. George Lakoff knows all about this, and we should be listening to him more. I think Kamala does.
"Bernie Sanders hurt his cause immensely by including “socialism” in his idea."
Agreed, the Sanders platform is basically Adam Smith's. Who would argue with that?
Michael, capitalism is actually a centuries-old system that was a significant improvement over the existing systems at the end of the Middle Ages. What you describe above is one direction that capitalism evolved in small wealthy progressive countries like Denmark and Finland. The evolution of capitalism in the United States took off in a negative direction resulting in the Great Depression, and economic catastrophes since then. Reagan did not start this de-evolution of capitalism, but he assisted it to once again jump any “guardrails” put in place to share the great wealth of the United States.
Now an economic/political system that can allow an unhinged Donald Trump to gain so much political power by his pandering to the ulta-wealthy needs to take another evolutionary leap to a system that is not dependent on greed for power and money to function. We need to create and implement a better system rather than to be constantly fighting a war against those who now hold the power behind the scenes.
I'm willing to bet that the industrialization of many nations took off in ways that Smith would not have wanted. Denmark and Norway were less industrial, more agrarian, much like France. The early industrial giants were the UK, Germany and the US, interestingly the main belligerents in both world wars. The early economic systems in these countries were remarkably similar to what we see in the modern US, characterized by an enormous disparity in wealth. Hence Karl Marx.
However, by the latter part of the 19th Century, especially in Germany and the UK, unions were beginning to form, and the wealth gap was steadily eroding, as Piketty points out. Marx never appears to have understood this, but simply assumed that what he saw as a young man in Germany, robber barons & all, would persist, and therefore that workers had no power other than revolution.
In the US, meanwhile, the robber barons lasted until they crashed the world economy in 1929. They were held at bay by FDR, at which time America embarked on a remarkable path to becoming an economic colossus, with wealth now much more evenly divided. Reagan's handlers brought the robber barons back, in large part through exploiting the racism of poor whites in the south.
Because of the socioeconomic peculiarities of the US, with its large and diverse population, it is conceivable that Adam Smith's vision can never be permanently realized. Smith recognized greed but thought it could be harnessed. I like your system of cooperatives, but it too could be pushed off the rails by the powerful.
In the meantime let's hope for a resounding Harris win, and hope that she doesn't sell out to her donors. We are in desperate need of a resurrection of FDR.
Billionaire FDR’s 1932 “New Deal” was provided to him by the 1930-35 Billionaire Canadian Prime Minister RB Bennett, who had used make-work, EI & other schemes to help the Cdn workers ‘riding the rails’, to begin recovery.
Now remember Harris’ British Commonwealth connections :
- mother from India
- father from Jamaica
- high school in Montréal, Québec, Canada, in the daily tension of a francophone-anglophone city.
While the British ran an Empire with all its faults, they still left a legacy in their former-colony countries of strong belief in the Rule of Law.
That’s a key plank in the Harris-Walz campaign.
Hmm.....I never thought about it that way. Didn't know about Bennett, but do know that FDR was heavily influenced by Keynes (was that through Bennett?).
Made me think. You know, it's worth the trip to New Delhi to see the astonishingly vast and beautiful parliamentary and civil service buildings designed by Lutyens in 1909. The British would never have organized all this if they knew they would be gone in 40 years. They thought of themselves as modern Romans, quite distinct from all the petty, vicious and brutal empires of most other European nations.
It makes me wonder, given that the eighteenth century American elites were basically British, and quite open to the idea of representation in London, that, if George III hadn't been such a dick, the entirety of North America could have been incorporated into a very powerful empire that would have made WW1 and WW2 impossible, and might have resulted in, dare I say it? - a world government based in some neutral country like India. No Hitler, no nukes, no Nixon, no Clinton, no W, no Putin, no Xi. no Kim Jong Un, and NO TRUMP. Just World Government, without all the silly people.
Of course, you might argue, maybe people would still have found other things to hit one another over the head with.
@Mark Nevas Is it really Trump’s “pandering to the ultra-wealthy “ or is it more like Trump is the useful-idiot or puppet of the ultra-wealthy. Or is he reincarnation of Hitler
He's the useful idiot puppet of the ultrawealthy, just like Hitler. Of course, that makes him the reincarnation of Hitler......
Another graph, depicting the effect at a personal level:
https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/rampant-socialism-in-the-us
Thank you for the visual.
So it was. But why did he?
Back in 1976 on the trans Alaska pipeline, it was all union. It was a huge federal job. Jimmy Hoffa had disappeared in 1975. My union agent carried a gun. It was the wild, Wild West in Alaska. I don't think there's ever been anything like it since. Many people got on their feet financially from just that one big job. There were Drs. and Lawyers who were laborers up there. I worked with a fella who was a professor of statistics and knew another guy who was a philosophy professor out of Oxford. They made their jackpot and returned to the mainstream.
It was a cost-plus project so it was very expensive...and everyone made money.
My brother and I represented families of workers from our home town killed working there.
Killed by gunmen or brown bears?
Dee, interesting experience. Thank you for sharing.
"Cost-plus" -- good for workers but not for the taxpayers, no?
“Cost-plus” means good for the corporations, corporate executives, and corporate shareholders holding the contract to do the work. The owner (government or private) pays the companies doing the work the contract cost of materials, labor, equipment and management overhead (the categories used in pricing a construction project) plus a guaranteed profit margin. Cost-plus frequently gets used on big projects with the potential for lots of unknowns, but also for those where few bidders exist, such as huge DOD contracts for planes and ships.
In the case of the pipeline, the history and construction of which I’m familiar from knowing the aerial surveyor that mapped out the original route to spending time in Alaska along numerous locations of the pipeline, there were plenty of physical restraint unknowns ranging from remote locations, permafrost, and the technical challenges of keeping the oil heated enough to keep flowing in winter, but insulated enough to keep that heat from transferring down the supports and melting the permafrost. (The pipeline would have sagged where above ground and portions of length are also buried below ground.) So for the time period, it was technically a major accomplishment. It was also built almost entirely out of foreign manufactured and fabricated steel and was one of the largest steel structures ever built up to that time.
Cost-plus contracts will cost the project owner and end user more money. We Californians live with that every time we flip a wall switch, because the California Public Utilities Commission guarantees the three investor owned big utilities a guaranteed profit margin.
YUP, that all sounds familiar. I can tell you stories about the time up there, some good ones. I oiled on a squirt boom, tire crane and we set vertical support members (VSM's) onto the upright pilings that came out of the ground.
They were in the permafrost. It was quite something the way they figured that one out. It was a major accomplishment for sure. I was chased by a bear once and once by a caribou in rut. The pipeliners from Oklahoma were feeding the bears and this one wanted food. There were Teamsters, Pipeliners, Pipefitters, Culinary, IUOE, IBEW, Laborers and more...all union. There were strange disappearances of equipment and materials that were never accounted for and increased the cost of the overall project. It got done tho. We were out in the middle of Alaska and it was hard to watch everything that went on out there. I really do need to write a book about that. It would be full of adventure stories.
Please do that, Dee.
If you’d like to start by telling your story orally, my Rotary Club,
www.RotaryFortErie.org
has a series of Vocational Videos to help students, laid-off workers, and people changing careers.
https://rotaryforterie.org/vocational-video-series/
Please contact us to make a 15min Zoom speech with whatever graphics you can find (PowerPoint?).
I think as long as a major project has adequate public oversight, cost-plus is probably a good thing. You explain it well. Sad to think that we needed to use foreign steel. The rust belt was already much diminished by then, I suppose.
In Niagara Region ~10yrs ago, they condemned, because of aging, a ‘high level’ bridge from ~1900, for a major road well above mast height of ships passing through the WellandCanal.
Regional engineers designed the new bridge. Then council asked contractors to bid and took the lowest from a reputable bidder @ $66M.
Over the ~2yr construction period, the price soared to $96M. The public was never transparently told whose fault it was /what happenned :
- engineers’ error ?
- unexpected quicksand or other subsurface problems ?
- contractor collusion to bid lowest ?
- contractor corruption ?
- …?
Maybe Co$t-Plus would have been better, more honest, under dicey conditions.
Well, it wasn't perfect that's for sure. The cost of the project was higher due to the cost-plus and yes taxpayers suffered some. It would be interesting to know what the full effect of the overages as posed to the basic cost, would be. We'll never know that tho. So many unexpected variables showed up that couldn't have been planned for so the cost-plus covered those unknowns.
Sally ; You are on to something : There is something unnerving when I see "non profit" describing an entity. I can't pinpoint why it sets my teeth on edge, but it does. Have I been victimized by subliminal messages in the media? It is spooky. "win -win" Yikes! Not always.
Ha-ha! I thought you said, "Sally, you are on something!" Well, that may not be too far from the truth :)
The media has gotten extremely sophisticated in its use of psychology. Advertisements are extremely well-designed by some very bright people with dollar signs in their eyes! Wasn't it Coca-Cola that tried flashing a picture of the product with a pulse duration just below what most people can perceive?
Haha! maybe both ; You are onto something and it's like being "on something"! I don't doubt that Coca (Cocaine Originally) cola would do subliminal tricks. At some point in the past, they had to stop making their product addictive for real. so they loaded it up with sugar, which is addictive. Anything to make a buck.
❤️😳😱🤕🫣🤯⚖️. "Don't Sweat It" is a lie:
❤️Reich❤️:"No goal is more important than making sure Donald Trump never again comes close to the[power that corrupts]"
Me:"No goal is more important than making sure GULLIBILITY never again comes close to the[power that corrupts]"
MAGA and Fascism and Nazism and Racism need to be put in the blender so we can see what they are all made out of: GULLIBILITY. Millions of dollars and decades of placebo science tell us that up to 60% of anxious people (aka America) are cured by placebo, up to 50% of depressed people are cured by placebo. Innocuous placebos can mutate into insidious placebos and vice versa: Moms replace baby's filthy thumb with a pacifier.
❤️😳😱🤕🫣🤯⚖️
Replace GULLIBILITY with (❤️FDR's and ❤️UN.org's)❤️FREEDOM FROM FEAR ❤️("Do one thing every day that scares you"--Eleanor Roosevelt❤️ and the science of anxiety)
❤️First Do No Harm ❤️...Stop the Lying😱🤕🤯⚖️... "Don't Sweat It" is a lie: Exercise and Exposure are mandatory and both cause sweat 😁 The US Senate's Dr Haidt's "The 3 Great Untruths"(google it) that Gen Z believes that are dooming Gen Z and democracy include "Exposure Therapy", demonization* and "State Dependent Learning"(google them).
*google.com/search?q=cbt+"mind+reading"
Power Corrupts. Your use of emojis, and all Caps, makes your comments almost impossible to read. I don't even try.
Just sayin
Over exuberance has it’s pitfalls.
I tried reading the words. Didn’t help
👌👌👌👌👌😊
PowerCorrupts -- Too artsy-fartsy for this crowd, I'm afraid! (Heart, heart, heart, BIG SMILEY FACE)
Things have really gone south for labor since the Ron Raygun years that brought us 1. Strong anti-union rhetoric from the corrupt former President, 2. That same President ignoring the anti-monopoly law known as the Sherman anti-trust act, 3. Repealing the Fairness Doctrine which allowed for biased media monsters like fox to monoplize and flood the airwaves with lies and right-wing, pro-corporate and anti-worker propaganda while simultaneously drastically reducing the number of "voices in the marketplace" a necessary element in media and society to ensure a healthy democratic debate and awareness on key issues. Reagan was a horror show for labor and democracy, probably the worst President in my 70 years, with GW Bush and LBJ not too far behind, while trump waits in the wings with the potential to be an even more devastating trainwreck of an administration. How is this country still a going concern?
And a very helpful link in the article to a table showing income according to gender, race, age, region, etc
100% agree!
Keith, as pro-union as I am, the graph actually shows correlation, not proof. It’s the rest of the story that Prof. Reich offers that provides the proof. But I hope you’ll forgive me for being the stickler on scientific terminology that was drilled into me over 50 years ago in graduate school.
Having just finished Joseph Stiglitz's Path to Freedom I am still non-plussed as to what MAGA fans expect from Trump when he intends to continue the policies that put them in their current situation.
Amongst Stiglitz's recommendations was a liberal education for all.
I agree that education is part of the answer.
Even Project 2025 knows the power of education and intends to suppress it.
Project 2025 suppresses ('destroys' may be more accurate) education for the general public, not the rich.
The right has pushed to privatize education too. Now our tax dollars go to private education organizations.
Private organizations and institutions whose motive and agenda is selfish, self centered, narcissistic and thus inimical to the common good. Our tax dollars are financing, among other things, right wing Christian academies and schooling, madrassas. yeshivas and profit oriented corporations, like charter schools.
IOW we are financing the instruments which will in the end enslave us. We are instruments of our own destructin.
Has our Constitution been changed? Reinterpreted? The First Amendment states that taxes cannot be used to finance schools that have a religious focus. I believe it's called the 'Establishment Clause'. Taxes may be used for secular instruction in a church setting but not for promotion of a religion.
Correct Chris. But if we think any church leader who takes our tax money will use it for "secular" education in their church.... we're nuts. Shame on us. I say not one dime for ANY church. Churches pay no property taxes but get all of the benefits provided by those taxes. Police, fire, EMT, water, sewer, parks and good local governments. Churches have been chipping away at this for decades. In the 1950's they were trying things like "let our kids ride the public school busses since they are going right by our schools anyway". If I remember correctly, they even thought they should get tax money to pay for their "non-religious" text books. These people will never give up their quest to steal our tax money from public schools to promote their religious agenda. My answer to them is if they want government to pay for religion then they should move to Iran or Afghanistan. One conservative political party and one religion paid for by tax money. Good luck. Also, remember religious schools are generally very selective about their students. If a student becomes a discipline problem they are out, if they don't keep their grades high enough, they are out, if their parents can't afford the tuition or don't participate, they are out. Most don't offer special education services either. These services are paid and provided for by public school tax dollars. So, when the "not-perfect" kids are thrown out of private or religious schools, where do they go? To public schools. They, and rightly so, have to accept "every" child!
Vote Blue. Cheers... GH
The Constitution has not changed but the Supreme Court has.
Very true, and fairly simple to do. The problem is not the Constitution but the billionaires who mock it.
The problem is Chris,that our constitution does not say that Taxes can not be use to finance religious schools.
My gripe is that from Joe shit the ragman to SCOTUS, left and right, the constitution is interpreted, like a Rohrschact test.
Here is what it says
CONGRESS shall make NO LAW RESPECTING an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It does not prohibit the several states from doing just that.
The Constitution is compact made between sovereign states, that agreed to delegate SOME authority to the Federal Government., while retaining rights for other things. That is why each state has it's own laws about voting, abortion, gun control.
Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that the Constitution's enumeration of certain rights does not deny or disparage other rights that are retained by the people. It was ratified on December 15, 1791 and is part of the Bill of Rights.
The Ninth Amendment's meaning and legal effect have been debated by judges and constitutional scholars. The courts have rarely relied on the Ninth Amendment.
The Ninth Amendment protects rights such as:
The right to vote
The right to travel
The right to privacy
The right to one's own body, including a woman's right to have an abortion
Here is the kicker, this is why we are so contentious
The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that any powers not given to the federal government are reserved for the states or the people
Bear in mind, that it was the elite, property owning wealthy and thus influential males that constructed these United States, and the drew up a document that protected their own interests, position and status.
Why would they do otherwise.? It is always the powerful that make the rules, be it the Mayflower Compact or a Constitution.
Our bicameral government, enables the house of commoners to make rules and fund the government, but it has to be approved by the house of lords (Senate) and finally signed by the Chief Executive.
William, thank you for this important clarification. It is worth to keep in mind that power comes with organization. Labor unions, and the right to strike are essential to a democracy.
To Chris Hayden: Tell that to the "supreme" court. It is the court that has gone rogue -- not the Constitution!
Chris: It sure has.
See my comments in Notes.
Trump’s appointees abolished the most fundamental principle of justice in British-descent countries worldwide
=> No one is above the law, not even the King (President) <=
It was so fundamental that your founders omitted Magna Carta, the Great Charter of King John, from the Constitution because everyone knows
=> No one is above the law, not even the King (President) <=
https://missouriindependent.com/2024/09/03/gop-incumbents-faced-opposition-from-school-choice-pacs-in-missouri-legislative-primaries/
William -- Right! Schools are supposed to teach children to think, not to take any damned fool bullshit on "faith". Religion and public education are incompatible.
That's true, Midwest: and 96% are pro religious organizations. So much for "Separation of Church and State"!
I "like" the truth in what you said, not that our tax $$$ go to [fund] private education.
https://missouriindependent.com/2024/09/03/gop-incumbents-faced-opposition-from-school-choice-pacs-in-missouri-legislative-primaries/
I wonder if these private schools make a profit. The tuitions are usually high. Since Betsy DeVoss was pushing privatization of education, you know there must be money in it for someone. So while our public schools suffer from underfunding, where do our tax dollars go when given to private schools?
I'm nearly finished reading Stiglitz's "Road to Freedom" and recommend it. His use of Trump's behaviors in the chapter on "norms" was interesting in that we need to put in writing what we expect of the President since Trump surprised us by not following norms and traditions that we took for granted.
I'm reading Timothy Snyder's "Road to Unfreedom," (2018) Have put Stiglitz on my list, in hopes of hope.
I've not read Road to Freedom yet so I can't say about it.
But I would put this near the top People, Power and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent (2019) Stiglitz.
Yes ,about hope Cyrano. It took a depression and war to beat back capitalistic excesses. The only thing I see on the horizon to stop or beat back runamuck capitalism is the climate crisis. Otherwise, I don't see a change in the material conditions that now exist which would cause progressive forces to make great headway. Maybe there are but I don't see them.
"Progressive Cannabalism" -- Eat the rich!
Stiglitz is great !! Did you know he does interviews with all sorts of little orgs in Africa and elsewhere that are trying to advance progressivism?
If the masses were reasonably educated, the GOP would not exist as it does now. Educated voters would vote for policies that benefited the common good. The unions gave us the greatest middle class in the world. The demise of unions gave us the greatest wealth disparity in the world. Thank you, Ronald Reagan.
Professor Reich: i was one of those people who grew up in the shadow of labor unions -- never a member of a union myself, but a grateful beneficiary of their waning power. nevertheless, i was always paid minimum wage for my work as i struggled and worked and saved every penny i could get my hands on to go to university, a decision that i saw as my path to freedom and prosperity.
well, it didn't quite turn out that way, sadly for me and millions of others who were similarly betrayed by our dreams of plenty that turned into dust in our mouths. i'm still a wage slave, barely scraping by, although a better educated one than i was when i started out.
I remember, back when I was in high school during the LBJ administration, that literature regarding college stressed how a liberal arts education enriches a person. It was acknowledged even then that this enrichment had little to do with monetary wealth. One of the first encumbrances I shed after college was car ownership, deciding to move to a place where a car wasn't necessary. I still rely on a weekly paycheck, but the family's debt-free: somewhat shabby, but content. Meanwhile, back in my hometown, my K-8 school and my high school have been torn down without any replacement I can discern expect a "Christian academy" at the heart of its hollowed-out downtown. I wonder how long I will continue to dodge the bullets.
your mention of a christian academy reminded me of ... my own experience.
as a scientist, most people think i never received a liberal arts education, but they'd be wrong. despite being an atheist, i did attend an out-of-state lutheran seminary college for my first 2 years (it was totally paid for!!) and there, i got a wonderful liberal arts education. interestingly, that college is where i discovered once and for all that i really am an atheist, thanks to the philosophical insights from a catholic priest at a nearby church.
sometimes, i think i've traveled a strange path in just about every way you can think of.
Religious schools churn out atheists by the thousands. The pro-religion justices in SCOTUS help explain the paradox.
Victor -- "... by the thousands." That is encouraging to me! Pretty sure Religious schools also turn out a lot of abused children -- if not physically then certainly mentally abused -- they fill young minds with fear and superstition.
Sally, not all religious schools are abusive, and plenty of secular schools are.
There was some bullying of children by teachers in my public school but nothing too awful. But would you deny that telling young children that they must take "on faith" a particularly irrational belief system or else (Heaven or Hell). I maintain that "putting the "fear of God" into young minds is abuse.
i think the main reason why religious schools "churn out atheists by the thousands" (REALLY??) is because the professors that teach at them are usually unafraid to critically confront the philosophical questions that many of us grapple with. most of my liberal arts professors were ordained and they had an exceptional knowledge of literature and history -- two of my favourite subjects. (along with science, of course.) the nearby catholic priest that i spent hours chatting with and verbally sparring with was also exceptionally well educated and very thoughtful and willing to invest the intellectual effort in asking me questions (as i asked him questions) that helped guide me to a more stable personal ethics.
Cyrano -- I can relate. A liberal arts education is invaluable. Too many techies and business majors lack any real understanding of how we got here. I live a sort of minimalist life, comfortable, debt-free, but without all the crap our material world is pushing. Also, I have put "Pig" on my movie wishlist.
Sally, what is "Pig" about?
Pig, 2021, Nicholas Cage
A man and his truffle-hunting pig. An unusual story, dark and foreboding, set in a grungy west coast subculture called the restaurant business. A character study, at one point Robin Feld (Nicholas Cage) unemotionally explains that the next earthquake, expected roughly every 200 years, will flatten the city (Portland), level the bridges, and sweep it all away in a 10 foot high tsunami. But he’s just making conversation. Also starring Adam Arkin (son of actor Alan Arkin) as a restauranteur/gangster. [No pigs were harmed in the making of this movie!]
Sally, sounds like a good movie. Thank you for explaining it to me. I have, for some reason, never been a Nicholas Cage fan. I am YEARS behind in movie watching. I gave up TV back in the 'teens sometime. (Long story.) I think the last movie I watched was a Robin Williams movie before he committed suicide. I am telling you about it because it was a STUNNINGLY beautiful movie, and I can't even recall the name of it! (I guess I need to look up a list of his movies!) It was about reincarnation, death, potential suicide, and he was a doctor, I believe, and his wife was a well-established artist.
Now I am curious! I will try to look it up and send you another note.
My point about his suicide is that I watched this movie shortly before his suicide, so that made it even more poignant.
No idea, but it is in Cyrano's Bio and stars Nicholas Cage.
Cyrano -- I read your bio. I always learn something on this website. Today I learned about the movie "Pig". Excellent! Darned good movie!!! Thank you.
SALLY: PROMISED MOVIE INFO:
Robin Williams :
"What Dreams May Come" from 1998,
with Cuba Gooding Jr. and a lovely actress with an Italian name (Scorianno or something like that). Gooding has a small role. In my opinion, NOBODY should miss seeing this movie, it is so beautifully done.
GrrlScientist -- I don't mean to pry, but how is a PhD a "wage slave". I mean, there is probably only limited application for a parrot specialist -- you can't turn a parrot into an astronaut or a rocket scientist -- but still I would think academia and science journalism would pay better. Oh, well! Your Bio is an interesting one. Best of luck to you!
Isn’t it frustrating when Kroger brags about the discounts they give you, even as they nearly double the prices on groceries? It’s just a slick way of gaslighting their customers.
I live within walking distance of a Krogers, and frequently patronized it. Ever since I heard about the proposed merger, I have taken my grocery dollars to Publix, Aldi, etc. even though this means I have to drive.
Our local walk to grocery store was a local chain that went into the location of a previous local chain. The location closed because the shopping center owner was a slumlord. The are no longer any local chains within my region of Southern California. The closest, a Stater Brothers which is at least forty miles away, has prices much lower than the big national corporate chains. I wish they would expand, but their radius is what their 18 wheeler delivery trucks can round trip drive in one day from the warehouse. All other grocery stores are a short drive. Once there were six stores, owned by five different companies, within five miles, now there are four, owned by three. If the Kroger-Albertsons merger goes through, there will be three, owned by two.
Elaine -- I like Kroger's generally -- well-run, customer friendly, and unionized. But, yes! They (and all the other majors probably) have "Loyalty" programs and a lot of whoop-dee-doo designed to make you think you're getting a great deal. I just write it off as sales and marketing bullshit. They also recently started up a great, low-cost grocery delivery program.
Don't know where you live but here in my part of Ohio, it kind of sucks. Most of the time they leave out 10-15 of the 30-40 items I order, saying their advertised specials are unavailable or the're "in store only" offerings.. That means at least several days of planned meals can't be prepared, but I don't know that until the groceries are delivered. And they really aren't so cheap. The Boost membership is only the beginning. The quality of food is dependent on the shopper paying attention to expiration dates and produce freshness plus you are expected by the company who provides the shopper to tip them- even 5-10% on a $200 order is $10-20. additional PER ORDER. Then you have to be sure you got the advertised sale price or discount. AND you have to order by the day before, even though they don't shop more than a few hours before your scheduled delivery. If you are lucky enough to get one of their sporadic Kroger truck runs you don't have to tip, and they usually aren't missing more than an item or two. On the other hand, you don't have to shop in the store and if you're disabled it's a godsend. I suspect they will soon raise the membership; however, WalMart competes with them and you get to shop in rest of WalMart as well, so maybe not... One of the few good things from COVID was deliveries, telemedicine, and working from home!
Yeah, your mileage may vary certainly. I'm probably the kind of shopper they like. I rarely complain, I order the same stuff over and over and nothing too exotic, and I always choose next day Kroger Delivery because there is No Tipping involved. And you are probably (sadly) correct -- if Kroger is up against the wall the quality may slip and prices may rise (more). Anyway, good luck!
You will probably not read this Robert (you call us readers friends, so I'm using your first name), but look at Norway, where I live, 4 companies control 95% of the food market. Prices are just hiking up up up up. Thanks for writing your newsletters.
It would be instructive to look at food price history in areas where there is no oligopoly.
Yup, outside Bergen. If I did not get TooGoodToGo bags of expiring food, I would not be able to eat very much...
Thank you Prof. Reich for your re-statement of the harm of large mergers to workers. A question I have wondered for some time is: are there other drivers of the quest for mergers, acquisitions and higher executive pay? One answer that rarely appears is that we have large helper industries in the form of investment bankers, private equity, strategic consulting firms, executive search firms and remuneration assessment firms that all support and in some cases drive mergers and exec pay increases due to perverse incentives that are counter to broader economic goals of fairness and equality. If you are a helper being measured on how many deals, "synergies", and "carry" you accrue, and if as a headhunter firm you get a fee equivalent to a first year's Exec pay, you are incented to push for deals and inflate exec pay -it is pure self interest. With flat fee structures and changes in tax law we can tackle the merger mania as well.
“are there other drivers of the quest for mergers, acquisitions and higher executive pay?”
www.cbc.ca/ideas once explored Longevity with a social science team.
Their conclusion answers your question:
=> it’s the competition for
Status, Prestige & Hierarchy
=> and this is the same in every
Mammalian society!
(It’s the divine design of life on Earth.)
I’m now looking for this Status factor in everyone :
Trump is obvious. Biden? Harris? Journalists? Teachers?
Methinks mine is to appear wise.
What’s yours?
The research of Charles Darwin might suggest that you have half the equation, Lorne. He reflected that all beings on earth seem to have both the quality of wanting to compete, be unique and stand-out to attract partners project status, power and hierarchy as you rightly point out, and at the same time possess other qualities of wanting to build relationships and community for collective survival, positive sum gains, the benefits of mutuality and protection of progeny.
Despite SCOTUS, corporations aren't people,but the owners/investors are, and they act i concert via a conspiracy called the board of directors, (BOD), the mandate of the board is to maximize profit and survivability/longevity.
To achieve those goals, they hire managers, Chief Executive Officer,, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, etc., and sometimes the major individual investor, chairman of the board and CEO are all the same person, like the Murdoch Empire.
You can't try a corporation for murder, theft or a crime, but you can the CEO and board of directors. But it never happens.
The late, great Molly Ivins said, "I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one".
Cheers... GH
@ William. The history of corporations is that shareholders are prey for managers. There is no correlation between results and compensation for CEOs.
If by shareholders you mean Joe schit the ragman I agree. But it is the Board of Directors who set the compensation, and when the Chairman of the Board is also the CEO and largest individual shareholder, like Robert Iger, and Brian L Roberts then yes.
I haven't done a deep dive into Musk, but am pretty sure that his the CEO, Chairman and largest private shareholder of his corporations.
Founder, CEO, and chief engineer of SpaceX CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc. Owner, CTO and Executive Chairman of X (formerly Twitter) President of the Musk Foundation Founder of The Boring Company, X Corp., and xAI Co-founder of Neuralink, OpenAI, Zip2, and X.com (part of PayPal), and Starlink.
@William. Re Musk. Musk relied on investors to buy Twitter, now X, in 2022. Since then, his and his partners’ stake has shed $24 billion in value — partly because advertisers have fled the platform.
A Brazilian judge ordered the suspension of X on Friday following a dispute with Musk.
Musk is a federal contractor. Federal government contractors are prohibited from making contributions or expenditures, or promising to make any such contribution or expenditure, to any political party, committee, or candidate for federal office, or to any person for any political purpose or use. . https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/federal-government-contractors/#:~:text=Federal%20government%20contractors%20are%20prohibited,any%20political%20purpose%20or%20use.
https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=Elon+Musk
And Trump is considering giving Musk a role in auditing U.S. agencies.
When I say shareholders, I mean people like ME.
It would be good to see studies on that correlation or lack thereof.
It should in my opinion. Maybe if that happened more often, these 'people' that run the corporations would think twice about what they are doing.
They think twice -- to put their interests before those of the shareholders. Thus the SEC.
And thus one of the eternal struggles
Tom C -- Not "all beings". But Mammals, including people, yes. Fish and Reptiles eat their own young.
We are each bundles of contradiction.
We have plenty of laws, but without enforcement there are no laws
As regards your last paragraph. The whole purpose of a corporation, they were once called joint ventures, and investors were called adventurers, was to avoid responsibility and the only thing at risk was the money they put up.
It is still the same corporations now have tens of thousands of shares, if not more, and there is no way to hold shareholders responsible. The best to hope for is to go after the CEO, and I cant thinkof a single case where the CEO was fined,much less spent time behind bars.
If anything corporations get fined, but take that as cost of doing business,if the fine is too heavy they file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and get bought up by another corporation.
That's what happened to Union Carbide, they deferred maintenance till there was a leak of toxic gas that killed thousands. Finally they were fined and declared bankruptcy, and bought up by Dow Chemical, and a corrupt Indian Supreme Court let them off the hook for the fine.
The origin of the United States, was a joint venture by wealthy London Merchants and lesser nobility named the Virginia Company of London,.
King James gave it a charter in 1607, to explore for gold and silver. It found none by thanks to Turkish tobacco seeds in the pouch of John Rolfe, it found a new enterprise, tobacco plantations.
King James hated tobacco and called it a noxious weed, finally two years after the Powhattan Surprise attack, aka Jamestown Massacre, and because there was no substantial return on investment. King James cancelled the charter and made it a Royal colony.. Some investors, like my 9th ggf, has already made his fortune and found a dynasty by marrying one of the few rich widows in the colony. Others who never left London,probably received their investment back from tobacco sales.
The only risk an investor has is his or her capital investment.
There are many forms of Corporations one of them is an LLC
A Limited Liability Company (LLC) is a business structure that combines aspects of a partnership and a corporation. LLCs are created by state statute and offer several benefits, including:
Limited liability: LLC members are not usually personally liable for the company's debts and liabilities.
Pass-through taxation: LLC profits and losses are reported on the members' personal tax returns.
An LLC avoids legal liability for the corporation.
I agree with all you are saying.
I simply explained how it is that corporations can get away with murder, and not pay the price for the harm that they do.
I don't agree with it, just simply explained the history and the mechanism.
The challenge then is how do we, as a society, hold them accountable, and I don't mean the corporations by themselves, but he Board of Directors and officers of the corporations.
In America until the latter part of the 19th Century, states had laws that a corporation's life span was about 50 years, and to renew their charter they had to show that they were operating in the public good, and not harming the public.
John D Rockefeller couldn't do that, so he put out the word that he would move Standard Oil to the state that had the most favorable Charter Laws, and thus began the Charter wars.
New Jersey won the war, and he moved and became Standard Oil of NJ.
Delaware, barely lost, but changed their laws and are now the corporate home of over 600 corporations/financial institutions. Senator Biden was known as the Senator from Wall Street.
We agree on the problem, we agree on what needs to be done.
But a problem has a solution, and what is the solution. I see none, so long as money controls politics and elects politicians.
Politicians bullshit,. court, schmooze the public, but their campaigns depend on funds. And those with the money not only provide positive support, but they also fund negative opposition.
The billionaire heir Andrew Mellon, gave Trump $50 million dollars, and RFK Jr $25 million, because RFK jr was thought to take votes away from environmentally concerned voters who would vote for Democrats.
In his podcast, David Feldman addressed status and power as reasons why monopolies resist being broken up despite the boon to the economy and shareholders after the breakup.
It's because humans are power worshipers. The power and the glory...
Lorne -- mine is to get people to join and support Unions. I feel so strongly about this I will even show you my tits to get your attention! UNION! UNION! UNION! And TITS!
PS - "divine design" does not make me think you appear wise. Just sayin'.
PPS -- "Renaissance Man" -- seriously! We all wish we were perhaps, but just a little pretentious, doncha think?
Sally, lost all respect for you on this one.
You mean about the "tits"? Yes, I can be as big a whore as needs be when trying to survive in a patriarchy. It is a time-honored occupation. Use watcha got!
1. While I admire your dedication to visibility in promoting unions, methinks modern hyper transparency in women’s clothing may weaken your personal feminine attractiveness.
But milk mammaries to feed the union!
2. « divine design » is a way to show my /our amazement that life could evolve from a chemical soup to our current ecological perfection :
- eat and be eaten
- nothing wasted
- interdependent & balanced
Perhaps we would be advised to take the best from Biblical metaphors and practise Stewardship in having Dominion over nature.
3. “Renaissance Man” in the sense of being aware that
- nothing is simple
- nothing is the way it seems
- everything is inter-connected
satisfaction brings me back,
a curious cat 😇
to renaissance rebirth,
new thoughts of mirth.
Frankly, I expected « pretentious » might describe my analysis of
“wise” as my method of seeking
Status, Prestige & Hierarchy.
Well, I like what you say but your dialect is lost somewhere back in the 17th century, methinks. Re (2) - "divine design" implies Intelligent Design to most readers; re (3) again, it swirls round and round and it sounds good but I don't really know WTF you're saying. But that's how I felt reading Shakespeare, too.
"Lorne": What the hell are you saying??? Do you even know????
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍👍🙏
Severely tax the PE people and investment bankers, when they push for concentration? That's a really good point you brought up. How to cut the " helper industry" back ..
Here's a Union story. It's been a long, bumpy, but profitable ride in the union for me a woman. Back in 1976 on the Trans Alaska Pipeline, I was hired on as a JOURNEYMAN Operating Engineer (heavy equipment) because of Affirmative Action and female quotas they had to hire me and other women as well as black, hispanic and indigenous men and women.. I have always been mechanical so I was able to figure things out. I went out of the union hall in Fairbanks, Ak to fill a quota and was told that after this big federal job ended, that I would not be able to do this work again anywhere. White men ran the union. I did research and found that what they told me was against the law. I had paid an initiation fee to IUOE (International Union of Operating Engineers). After the pipeline in Ak slowed down, I went to Colorado and signed up with Local 9 to help build a pipeline around Sloan Lake in Denver. Men were not used to seeing women working in that field so there were grievances made and I got moved around from job to job. News papers came out to take pictures of the 'woman' working construction and some of the men got jealous. I could write a book. I had been a stewardess for United Airlines so I didn't fit the mold of a construction worker. The union for stewardesses was weaker than IUOE. IUOE made me more money because it was always a mans' union and men made more money. 45 years later I'm retired after having weathered many storms working on heavy equipment in a mans' union. I became a mouthy broad who learned how to stand up for herself out there in the field. I'm lucky to be alive after what I went through. I support Union Labor anywhere. Unions aren't perfect but they are absolutely necessary! I'm thankful for my union even tho it was often rough, I lived through it!
My wife, Dee, is a retired certified building official, one of the few women in that occupation.
Most building inspectors are men, and their fee fees are hurt,having to work for a woman in what they consider a man's job, and they did everything they could to torpedo her, as did the city manager., even the public, the developers and contractors.
She survived and retired because she had her wits about her,and was a lot more intelligent than her inspectors and superiors.
It's the game of survivor for sure, outwit and outlast.
Seems like you also mastered the game.
By the way, my wife is also a heavy equipment operator. When we bought this property she was deadset on buying a tractor, backhoe, shovel combo. Me all I wanted was something by which to mow the lawn.
She saw it my way and we bought a Toro Zero turn.
You make me laugh. Your wife and I would have a lot to talk about I'm sure. My home union is Local 302 WA and AK. I really enjoyed operating heavy equipment. The men on the ground didn't like a woman running equipment so much. They always wanted to tell me how to do my job. I became very picky about the swampers who rode with me sometimes from place to place around the job site to hook loads. I don't own a piece of equipment but I may get a little bobcat for this and that around here. I miss operating.
My wife was a certified building inspector, a prerequisite for being a building official, she was a journeyman carpenter, plumber and electrician and built her fathers house
A certified pest control applicator, and she a pofessional dry waller, none of the mud, paste and popcorn for her. two or three coats of mud, with sanding in between.
Yeh, my wife misses operating heavy machinery as well, she was the foreman for parks and recreation in Santa Cruz County, CA for a couple of years.
You know I think the best for women is operating equipment. Women are easier on the equipment and don't slam it and cram it as much as men do. I had a mechanic tell me this. It doesn't take as much physical strength to run equipment. It's still hard on the body. I have both hips replaced due to all the vibration on equipment over the years...and one knee too. I wouldn't change what I did even with that. It's been a life of adventure and ongoing change. The union helped me be way more fearless and confident. I did buy a sailboat and sailed Hawaii and back with a race crew and a delivery. My boat stayed in Port Townsend. She was sold in 2008. I'm a land luber now. She had a MD6A diesel engine in her and the union helped me understand all that maintenance. I hear about other strong women, like your wife, and it makes me feel so proud to be part of the change that women have made in the trades and so many other areas. I look forward to a woman president now!
The female body because it has a lower center of gravity, makes it better able to withstand G forces and thus better fighter pilots, also better reaction time reflexes
Females are biological evolved to withdstand pain and the cold better than men.
Yet special operations units have created extraordinarily high physical standards for entrance and training than are necessary for performing their duties.
The real purpose of which is to bolster their own ego's and to exclude male physical specimens and women who don't measure up.
There is no doubt that hormones, specifically testosterone, shape the male body.
I know that these physical standards are bullshit. I am a retired special operator, a mustang. When I entered the field I weighed 133 lbs at 5'10", I retired weighing 135 lbs. I routinely jumped out of aircraft with an addition 45 lbs of main and reserve parachute, 26 lbs of gear, and 80 to 100 lbs of equipment.
My first equipment jump was at 133 lbs, 45 lbs of parachute, 26 lbs of equipment and a parachute adjustable equipment bag with two railroad ties, that weight 100 lbs. And I had to lug all of that on to the aircraft, attach it to my harness, shuffle to the jump door and fling myself out with the green, jump, light. 304 lbs in all, and when I got on the ground I had to stuff the parachute into an aviators kit bag and tote it off the drop zone. Regular training jumps involved a lighter load, a rucksack weighing between 60 and 80 lbs, we left behind the aviators kit bag, but humped the ruck and equipment for miles, over hill and dale, through forest and brush, ice and snow and desert, and over mountains. And here I was a skinny little dude.
The only muscle that really counts is the one between the ears.Will power, pain tolerance, push through it like a second wind.
If these special ops courses cut out the bullshit macho shit, they would graduate a lot more women, but that would diminish the macho image of the instructors and NCO's already in the field.
Yes strength and endurance is required, but not being able to carry and jump 100 lb PAE bags, the only purpose of that jump was to wash me out of the program, they failed. A skinny dude sandwiched between hunks in a photo does not make a good recruiting photo.
If needed I can rent one.
Dee -- "News papers came out to take pictures of the 'woman' working construction..." I remember those days! We have come a long way! BTW, I am familiar with Sloane's Lake -- I will think of you next time I visit. It's a popular and prospering neighborhood today, as you are probably aware.
Good for you, Dee!
Brava!
To adapt Reagan's phrase: 'The most mendacious words in the English language are "I'm from big business and I've come to make you better off"'.
Here in Missouri the state Republicans are constantly taling about being "business friendly" ad nauseum. Not worker or family friendly. But we are hoping to pass a family friendly initiative to raise min wage and provide sick leave to workers.
I have not heard these words from big business ; unless ads that suggest that their products enhance one's life count as such a statement. Obviously they want to make money and will try to make the sale, and they suggest it will improve existence, at least in the area the product "improves".
I'd not heard the words from Government when Reagan made them but they clearly chimed with a view of part of the population. They set in motion a movement that swung the power balance in favour of the company executives and to a lesser extent shareholders and away from workers, customer choicen and innovation (through increased monopolistic power) and the general good (e.g. pollution, animal welfare, lack of control of internet influence of minors, external interference of elections, lobbying power etc.). If they acted just in the way you describe them there would be no issue but it has gone beyond the simplistic "the market is benign, so leave it be" notion.
America long ago abandoned Capitalism and replaced it with
- Monopoly Capitalism
- Crony Capitalism
- Socialism for the Wealthy
(America owns civil service, roads, schools, army, police, prisons, airports, etc. that help 1,000 billionaires maintain control)
You can sum it all up with one ism word Greedism.
The right loves to claim that the left socialistic polices lead to communism, their version of capitalism has led us to Greedism. While it’s not an official word to describe our current economic state it should be.
Democrats need to stress that their economic plan is compassionate capitalism where a rising tide lifts all boats not just the yachts. It’s the original intent of a capitalist economy. With all the manipulation of our laws, tax codes, and consumers, big $ has destroyed the once great American economy. Capitalism was never a race to be the wealthiest person in the world.
Or perhaps: The wealthy own and sell to Americans most of what they require, for as much as they will tolerate paying...
At the time the great depression was known as "The republican great depression ".
Thom Hartmann always refers to it as "the Republican Great Depression."
Republicans also gave us the Great Recession.
In this latest article, Robert Reich sheds light on a critical issue affecting millions: the soaring cost of groceries and the role of corporate consolidation in driving these prices up. Reich’s piece highlights how the recent mega-merger between grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons exemplifies the troubling trend of price gouging in the food industry. This consolidation is more than a mere corporate reshuffling—it’s a strategic move that has profound implications for everyday consumers, particularly those on fixed incomes.
The merger between these two grocery behemoths isn’t just about expanding market share; it’s about increasing pricing power and squeezing every last penny from shoppers. Reich points out that as these companies grow larger, they gain unprecedented control over pricing. This market dominance allows them to set higher prices with less competition to keep them in check. For the average consumer, this means paying more for everyday essentials.
For individuals on fixed incomes, such as retirees or those receiving disability benefits, the impact of these price hikes is particularly severe. Fixed-income households have a set budget that doesn’t adjust in line with inflation or rising costs. When grocery prices skyrocket, these individuals are forced to stretch their limited funds even further. This often results in tough choices between necessities, like food and medicine, and sacrifices that can severely affect their quality of life.
Reich’s article also emphasizes the deceptive practices companies use to mask their greed. For instance, grocery chains may tout special discounts or promotions while quietly raising prices on essential items. This tactic creates a false sense of savings and lulls consumers into complacency, making them less likely to recognize the true impact of the price hikes. It’s a classic example of corporate gaslighting, where companies use misleading information to distract from the real harm they are causing.
The broader implications of this issue extend beyond individual hardship. Rising grocery prices driven by corporate greed contribute to increased food insecurity, which has broader societal impacts. When people can no longer afford nutritious food, their health deteriorates, which places additional strain on public health systems and social services.
Addressing this issue requires more than just individual consumer vigilance. It calls for regulatory action to prevent monopolistic practices and ensure fair competition in the grocery sector. Legislators and regulators need to take a hard look at these mega-mergers and implement policies that protect consumers from exploitative pricing strategies.
In the meantime, consumers can take steps to mitigate the impact of rising prices. This includes exploring alternative grocery stores, buying in bulk where possible, and seeking out local or community-based food programs. However, these measures only go so far. The root of the problem lies in the unchecked power of these corporate giants and the need for systemic change.
Reich’s article is a timely reminder of the urgent need for reform in the grocery industry. As consumers, advocates, and policymakers, it’s crucial to push for greater transparency and fairness in food pricing to ensure that everyone, regardless of income, can afford the essentials they need to live.
You said a mouthful girl! I have a pension and social security, a fixed income, and still it's a challenge to keep up with costs when owning a home. My home is small and built in 1949.
As a retired person I now have time to be involved locally...and that feels good. Staying informed is so important. I will remain involved as long as my health holds out. I will remain involved in community no matter what happens in this election. I enjoyed your comment!
Yes, grocoeries aren’t the only thing that went up dramatically in the last few years. Utilities have too. And the cost of getting things done to maintain a home is getting out of reach. I know there are many complaining they cannot buy a house. They don’t yet realize that buying it is only the first step. Maintaining it is an additional large expense.
Glad you are enjoying community involvement.
Insurance and taxes alone for my place amount to $400 a month,and I have no mortgage.
And we have to be grateful it is only $400 a month...it could be so much more. My insurance went up about 20% this last year while the deductible for roof replacement more than doubled to $2500!
My insurance company just sent me a new auto policy. They have adjusted too but also stopped coverage on some things. The worst part is that the policy is written in such a way that it’s word spaghetti and almost impossible to figure out. For example, one section will say something is covered but another section seems to contradict that. I need an interpreter.
Where do you live. Rates do vary by risk, and where you live determines your risk, looks like you live in a high wind area.
Wisconsin
Remember Reich's point that workers of monopolies are at a wage disadvantage as monopolies set wage rates.
Elaine -- I'm cross-eyed after reading your dissertation but...
1) Size also allows a large corporation purchasing power which can help lower prices
2) But probably true that greater profits more often go to higher stock values so Wall Streeters benefit.
3) I like your argument that the impact of poor-quality food is externalized as higher medical costs, analogous to how air and water pollution impact all of us in the Commons.
Consider adding: It is imperative that consumers understand who controls the price setting of goods and services, rather than incorrectly citing the Government/President as responsible for rising prices. While the Administration may try to influence prices, ultimately the Monopolies have the power to dictate prices and create barriers to prevent competitors from entering the market. (See Mirriam-Webster definition of Greed.)
Nothing bugs me more than ignorant, uneducated (not stupid) people stating it's "the President's fault" when private business or Congress and greed is responsible.
Wow. The time and place I grew up in felt normal to me, like most people and since it's what I knew, but it was in the middle of a short golden age of relatively unsevere economic inequality. And, I learned recently, the city I lived in had the strongest middle class, in terms of average working wage, in the country at that time or so I read. Think rust belt. It feels irreversibly lost now. And we're looking at Skidmark for President Redux which is a viable thing and a real possibility. I think so many of Robert's readers struggle with this as I do, not just to fight against but to take in. The lunacy of trading what we had then for what we have now is astounding. I don't believe the rich are really happier. At the very top, however, most of them seem to be nuts and utterly compulsive. And the damage. The waste. The absolutely needless resentment, polarization and distrust. And whenever I have such thoughts the first thing that comes to mind is Fox News. I know they were enabled by changes that began in the Reagan years but it's still the first thing I think of, and maybe the main sine qua non of the annihilation of our society.
James -- Re "rust belt": One thing I have wondered about is how we can have high wages in America but low prices for consumer goods, too. I mean, offshoring our manufacturing companies has meant hardship for some but lower prices for all Americans (except the unemployed, I suppose.) There must be a balance. I don't have the answers.
Yes, Sally. A lack of balance is unsustainable.
Prediction: no MSM by 2030.
(Longterm newspapers, radio, TV are falling like flies in Canada.)
Journalists are the Fifth Estate whose research into scandal is what keeps politicians pure (a slight exaggeration).
What will replace MSM?
Substack? YouTube? …?!
Will ex-journalists be able to earn enough income to support quality research? I’m limited in paying for subscriptions, but read much more widely worldwide than I did before internet and social media.
Can I trust what I read today more or less than in 1964 or 1994 or 2014?
One candidate seeks to "rein in".. The other seeks to "reign over".
Mergers have been horrible for the average American ever since Rockefeller days and Standard Oil:
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/donating-to-a-good-cause-how-billionaires
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/3-human-behaviors-you-lost-due-to
Rockefeller said "Competition is a sin"
William -- Which makes Capitalism a secular Religion, I guess.
Yep. An ism is anything in which one has a belief,, to the exclusion of others. actually ideologies are secular and sectarian. Christianity, Islam are ideologies along with capitalism and communism.
Social Darwinism seems to be popular among the billionaires.
As you might know, I have long and deep roots in the extreme right, before my epiphany. And accusing liberals of social Darwinism is one of their favorite tropes.
So I tread cautiously there. It is, in their lexicon, a tool of statists. Darwin is a favorite whipping boy of the right., where Calvinism reigns supreme.
Darwin and Calvin are antipodes.
Just as some liberals were/are racists (mostly pre-New Deal), so no doubt there also were/are Social Darwinists among them. Today, though, it seems that the ideology is confined mostly to some libertarians.
I volunteer with a food bank in rural Utah where there is a drive-by pick up every month. While our town population is under 300, the number of cars driving through is at least that or maybe more, and some cars pick up for two or three families. We don't turn anyone away, because it assumed that everyone qualifies, even if they live over the border in Arizona or New Mexico. Often, they live on the Navajo reservation, which is truly a food desert. People are hungry, and this merger is not going to help.
I wish there were some way to communicate this post to every household in America. But not only do the wealthiest of the wealthy control 70% of the wealth, they also control almost all mainstream media. In addition to anti-monopoly we,as a nation, need to assure there are at the very least three mainstream media corporations that are contracted and committed to fact check and report HONESTLY the news of the day. Total neutrality instead of this phony both sideism.