Dec 8, 2023·edited Dec 8, 2023Liked by Robert Reich
I totally agree. The framers of the Constitution 236 years ago could not have envisioned the complexities of a "Free Market Economy.” If Trump wins, he and his cronies will transform our democracy into “Demonocracy" with no regard to the original intent of the Constitution nor its amendments. The so-called “Free Market” is not free, it is us paying a heavy price in loss of freedom and an unfair burden of taxes.
Dec 8, 2023·edited Dec 8, 2023Liked by Robert Reich
The point of this lesson is that there is no "free market." I recently watched a video of economists being interviewed with a similar message. The "invisible hand" is invisible because it isn't there. There is no such thing. The idea of a market is a manmade creation with continuously changing rules according to the amount of power held by the rule makers to rig the game in their favor. That is why economics is not considered to be a science. It is not amenable to laws of nature. Thank you Dr. Reich. I love the illustration. Like they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words."
People in the "business" make money when the market moves. They don't care which way it goes, because they take a cut, i.e. commission.
There is also a lot of double dealing. Brokers recommend investments they have a stake in without disclosing it to the customer. DOL is proposing a "fiduciary rule: that would stop this practice. https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ebsa/ebsa20231031
I self manage my investments of stocks, bonds and mutual funds through Vanguard, an investor owned company. No brokers, no fees (except mutual fund management fees) and no commissions. Most financial advice is worthless, and it can actually be harmful to your financial health. The idea that the stock market is or should be a "free market" is total BS! The big investors manipulate and crush the little guys.
And what happens in the event you experience dementia and can no longer analyze your investments. ? Social Security is a model for providing retirement security that should be expanded.
You are correct about Vanguard pressuring customers to pay for advice. My wife and I ignore them! If you own individual stocks and bonds and can buy/sell with zero commissions, you cost of ownership is zero (other than changes in price of the investment). I believe that cost of investment ownership has a huge impact on how much money you end up in your retirement fund.
The only thing you left out, Tim, is you have to follow the market daily, time consuming (and,for some like me, boring.) I admire you and anyone willing to put their time and effort into 'working' the market to their advantage - it's just not for everyone.
Investing is simple and obvious.People refuse to see it.Popular delusions and the madness of crowds
Buffett explains it every year.We have been compounding at an average of 20% ( CAGR) since 1965 I think it was..For the 60 year growth then 31/12/2025 you need to look at the share price of Berkshire.Start at a price of $12 for one share in BRK.Compound that at 20% for 60 years and see if the share price is anywhere near that on said date.People will deny that 1 + 1 is 2.The facts don't fit in with what they want to see.
A company I own shares in has been compounding @14% ( CAGR ) since 1913. One share cost $2 in 1913.Compound $2 @ 14% for $110 years and you will be up near the $4 million mark .People have denied that every day for the last 110 years. They will deny it every day for the next 110 years.
Your commission free does not exist.The money is made on the spread..For example you buy shares in "Aussie",you order 1,000 @$10 each,you pay $10,000.You don't know what price the broker paid for them.The broker may have bought them for $9.98 The spread is 2 cents per share.Volume is the key.
For costs the same simple maths Start with $1,000.Compound that at 10% for 30 years.Then compound it at 9.5 or 9 75 for 30 years.The difference is how much it has cost you.
Just another indication of "us" and "them" is any dealings with Investment firms. If you have "this much money" we'll give you free advice, free transactions and a multitude of of other free stuff. If you only have "so much money" then we'll charge for the advice, the transactions and anything else we can. I just find it interesting that you get more free the more money you have. 😞
The 'free market' of credit default swaps, derivatives, etc., ran without rules or ahead of them. I don't believe the regulators even understood what was going on enough to foresee the collapse.
I am a Keynesian, so know what you mean. The "deficit" problem was generated by conservatives, who are funded by Plutocrats, who despise seeing "their" money (and they hardly pay taxes) going to educate the masses,which they would prefer to keep as mushrooms (in the dark and fed shit), as well as people who work to eat and die.
Is this the same Stephanie Kelton who promotes MMT, Magical Monetary Theory? I've listened to her talk. The important point that she seems to be the only one to mention is that deficits don't matter as long as there's no inflation.
Winslow: The only way to hold inflation at bay is by the Fed and banks loaning money at 0 interest rates. It is the interest on debts, public, corporate, private including your credit cards, that cause inflation.
I believe the question before us is whether we should apply our efforts to reforming the current system or to replace it. The New Deal reforms have been chiseled away and the Republicans are working toward dissolving Social Security and Medicare, the portion that is left. Reform isn't the answer.
Democracy is messy. This is a world wide problem. The way I look at it, most of it is criminal as the "free walk in the universe" is mostly manipulated.
The irony in a democracy is that ignorant cult members vote to end their own benefits. Only 58% of the electorate own any stock and most of that is through retirement mutual funds. The average investor, like me, has little or no control of our own investments because we have to rely on retirement funds. I have a unique perspective because I heard Sarbanes Oxley/Dodd Frank whistleblower cases.
Most of the people I know who play individual stocks rely entirely on advice from brokers, who in the abstract can care less if the customer wins or loses. .
This system doesn't work for most people. It works for people with the predator gene, not for most who want to contribute, share, and enjoy their families.
Like I said above, 42% have nothing but Social Security and maybe a home as savings.
SSI provides a subsistence existence to disabled people and to anyone over age 65 who is destitute. Funded through general taxation, part of the budget. DOL had plans for retirement plans that might have reached everybody with a job.
I worked and failed to sell a plan to the federal government that would have saved millions (billions in today's dollars) by consolidation of government services and elimination of duplication.
In a closed system, "dollar cost averaging" worked for those of us in retirement funds, like the US government Thrift Savings Plan.
Investing can also be messy unless you have a system. I do not believe in fiduciary trust any more than I believe corporate greed can be controlled. Individual brokers cannot be trusted. When I finally retired 12 years ago I studied Zack's Investment strategy. My wife and I paid cash for our current home and have been disciplined following investment advice using the Zacks' recommendations and a bank investment fund. In retirement I finally found enough time to concentrate on growing my savings with Zack's help. Dollar cost averaging works well over time, also.
Other than Luck, which I don't believe in, the way to prosper in the stock market is by having insider knowledge, which congress critters have, as do well placed owners and employees.
Congress critters should be forced to put their assets in a blind trust and be prohibited by law
from buying or selling in the market before they can be seated in the House or Senate. It’s the only way to make them prioritize their constituents instead of their portfolios.
Gloria, I totally agree that reform is not the answer. Can our current form of democracy be saved? No, because it allows for and encourages a major flaw, so called “free market capitalism" motivated by insatiable greed. Our the current system, political democracy, relies on the motivations of the class of career politicians and not the needs or desires of the governed. We need to look to a better improved version of democracy not based on capitalism.
I have been studying an elegant system for reorganizing economic activity and governance. It is called “Economic Democracy” where primary economic activity is through local cooperatives and the money stays in the region rather than being syphoned off to the pockets of wealthy capitalists. The cooperatives work together in federations up to the national and even international level.
Our current “Political “Democracy" is like a ship with dry rot. From the outside it seems seaworthy, but at some time the structure gives way and the ship suddenly sinks. In this case, the MAGA Republicans are truly the handmaidens of the capitalists. Here is a link to a concise explanation of Economic Democracy as an alternative to corporate rule.
SO MUCH to process. I am convinced a better system is possible, and not outrageously difficult to shape, but it is tough to get large enough numbers behind it because most of us just dont have a good understanding of all this. With SO many people, even a small percentage of the population is a huge number of people…and they can make a big noise objecting to what the majority wants to craft for our society. There are a great many forces in play. Our economy needs attention, and so does our bedrock system of governance.
Some seek to “remake” it altogether, and that really sends chills down my spine — I am not at all certain we CAN come up with a better basic idea. I worry about who would be at the heart of it and how a new power dynamic might arise — it might NOT be what we’re after. [Revolutions rarely deliver what they promise] I don’t want to throw out a workable skeleton of a governmental idea only because the body has too much fat on it. I’d rather work hard to put what COULD be a good governmental system — the one we already have! — into better shape. And use its strengths to craft a better market and economy.
Right now, we are faced with the prospect of an autocrat taking office and just dismissing our democracy by decree. We don’t want to let HIM do it, because I think we know we have the basics of a decent system, if we can keep it in hand and refine it where needed.
I’d like for people NOT to think we’re a good candidate for a major revolution or a Constitutional overhaul.
Can we pull off what is needed to put our economy on a better footing, with so many people and voices in the cacophony of public discourse? Can we organize the chaos of so many ideas? [I’m worried there are just too many of us. Can this many people manage to BE a unified society and get the things done that need doing? I hate how my thinking goes down these dark roads. I guess people of good will and rational thought just have to keep trying. Eeep]
Thanks for the reference. I have seen the positive effects of ESOP. If the government mandated this for all corporations above a certain size, I think it would have a major positive impact. The Unions are definitely trying to get to this.
I agree with what you said far above about “no free market,” but I don’t know what you’d like to replace our system WITH … I think put fences around what we already have and establishing rules over it is what this is all about. The market is a construct, and there’s a lot of it that can certainly work, if we give it the structure to work.
That is a discussion I would love to be part of. First, we could look at other countries, such as those with democratic socialism or China's socialism with Chinese characteristics and see how they work. I didn't know that other countries have several times more representatives per citizen than we do and don't have a House of Lords or Senates until I started researching. One country has an advisory committee instead of a Senate. What is the Senate for except to make sure the interests of the wealthy are protected? It looks like the House has become that as well. Then there are countries with ranked choice voting and countries where they don't have to wait four years for an election if the majority are dissatisfied. They call for another election. And why do we still have an electoral college except it's easier to game the system that way?
And there are countries that tried socialism that were a threat to us, or Capitalism, so we used the resources of our government to sanction and destroy their governments. I would like to have seen if they would have worked without our interventions. And would Russia's communism have worked with modern day technology such as bar codes and modern weather monitoring? The idea of selling and owning shares in a company is only a few hundred years old. Certainly, we can create another, more fare and humane way to manage an economy with the resources we have; computers, AI, wireless communication.
Modern economics started when a banker found out that a country at war will borrow enormous amounts that will be paid back with interest buy taxpayers (simplified version, but in the ballpark). Why can't we even consider other ways to govern? Is it because the people in power like the way it is? We need to begin this discussion and not be stuck because the people who currently have the power want to keep us stuck where we are because after a couple of hundred years, they have the world they way they want it.
ABSOLUTELY — I have long lamented that our system is entrenched in a two-party model, with the parties so embedded in the function of our bicameral Congress that reform would be {will be?} very difficult. I have long thought a parliamentary system in which multiple parties must work together to “form” a government, when no one of them carries a majority of support, sounds grand!
But it’s damned scary to think our constitution might be ditched, replaced with another, and NOBODY will “revere” its precepts as they do the one we have {for better or worse}, giving rise to a human tendency to upset apple carts when they have a gripe. If they don’t love a new constitution, they’ll have not trouble trying to trash it.
I worry about how big the country is {350 million in a world of 8 billon}, and about entropy at work in governing so many … We have to keep most of us — a really LARGE majority, at that — agreeing to submit to whatever government we structure, or we’ll foment chaos. It would not take a huge segment of 350 million to reject a new system and take up arms to plunge us into Mad Max World.
Am I too paranoid?
I actually like the idea of democratic socialism, but that word there scares people, too, who think of the classic socialism as government control of everything, including personal choices like what to study and where to work. That is NOT what I want, but I want a social structure that is geared to the greatest good. Oligarchy doesn’t seem all that different from Monarchy too me, actually, except there is even LESS obligation for the owner class to take care of the people in Oligarchy. At least Kings and Lords had Noblesse Oblige … [I’m only half kidding. I sure as hell don’t wanna see new kings/oligarchs in charge, either — not even the Koch Family of “philanthropic” fame]
I do want to reconfigure a lot of how we function, but I worry about losing it all by being too rash.. I THINK we have something now we could work with {except that two party thing — that’s hard to modify, but we could think about it}.
Yes, dump the Electoral College. [Then you’ll hear a hue and cry from rural areas that they are being disenfranchised and pushed around by Big Cities, where all the people are. How do we protect minorities? ]
So much to consider, and NEVER lose sight of human psychology, group dynamics, and what will drive large numbers of people together to “take action” for one cause or another … chaos ensuiing.
Gloria. The founders created a Republic, not a democracy, Only invested citizens (the elite) could vote, property owning white males), basically the Republic of Rome, in which certain classes of proles, were bribed to cast a pebble or clay marker in a bucket for Senators and Senators elected the consuls (two of them, so one would not have obscene power, but didn't work out either, and led to a dictatorship.
I will elucidate on your last paragraph. You elude to Lord Rothschild, who had an employee dispatched to monitor Wellingtons forces at the battle of Waterloo, when Wellington won, a carrier pigeon was dispatched, and Lord Rothschild, standing under a lamppost in what is now the Financial District of London (the Wall Street of the time) had word spread that Wellington lost, he was buying bonds issued to finance the war. He bought them up pennies on the pound, and reaped one hell of a profit.
Trying to put a fence around capitalism is like trying to contain a bulldozer with a picket fence! We are witnessing the bulldozer tearing up the fences we have.
The law is the fence. ONE of the bits of fence that did a decent job for a long time was Glass-Steagall. That got dumped during the Clinton administration and scarcely a decade later, those chickens came home to roost!
Actually, Social Security and Medicare aren’t bad, either, but the oligarchs are intent on getting rid of them, too.
I think a legal fence IS possible, but if we can’t keep “riding fence” and making sure nobody’s tearing up the fenceposts, you are right — it will not work Complacency will never be our lot, ever again.
I would replace "free market" with "fair market". The market rules would ensure as much as possible that no one has an unfair advantage. The problem for me is that in any market transaction, the guy with $ 1 billion dollars will almost always have some advantage over the person with only $ 1 thousand dollars. I don't know how to eliminate this advantage, other than getting rid of the billionaire!
Again,very simple maths.The guy with $1 billion gets exactly the same return as you do.You have 1 share worth $1000.He has 1 million shares @ $1000 each He spent more money than you did. The share price doubles over a period of time,you have 1 share worth $2000 ,he has 1 million shares worth $2 billion And thus the rich get richer,they are prepared to borrow and spend a lot of money.Of course this depends on debt to equity ratios,and the covenants that come with that.
You don't pay the mortgage the bank takes the house off you.The rich guy doesn't pay the debt,the bank takes the shares off him
There’s no time to replace it. Reforms need to be made so that we can fight climate change. of course what counts as reform, and what counts as replace depends on your definition. We certainly have to keep enough organized cohesion to fight for our environment. Calls for radical change along the lines of a revolution will only set us back.
There’s no way to replace the system we have now--
it wouldn’t get passed into law. What we have to do is modify it a little bit at a time. The 1st modification should be making private donations to campaigns illegal, with very stiff penalties for breaking that law.
The law should allow only public money--the same amount of money to each candidate for a specific office.
I understand that in order pass a law making private
donations to campaigns illegal it will require both
the House and Senate to have Dem majorities and
it will require a Dem president as well. It can be done. In fact, I think it could happen in 2024--
assuming republicans don’t find a way to cheat.
The next item would be to pass laws forbidding
members of Congress to buy or sell stocks, etc.
and pass laws requiring members of Congress to
to put all of their assets in a blind trust before they
can be seated in Congress. Once we have the flow
of easy money under control and an fec that doesn’t ignore their duties, we can turn to legislation
that would help people, like making the child tax credit permanent. Republicans have been against
making the child tax credit permanent, and I’m serious about this--the GOP balks at every piece
of legislation that helps ordinary people financially.
It’s been a pattern for a while. Republicans aren’t
going to announce they refuse to pass laws that
help families financially, they’ll find another excuse
But how to accomplish such things. I am beginning to think our culture is rotting. Probably what many older people typically think each generation. There are so many good laws and policies that could be implemented, but are not. Look how few amendments have been passed- 27 with the first ten in 1791. The last in 1992---31 years ago. Our Constitution is stagnating. Our Supreme Court with its originalism is taking us backwards with its states rights and expansion of freedom for predation. There are many in Congress who would be challenged to be a local official nevermind a representative in Congress. Instead of the best and the brightest we have a bunch of knuckleheads esp on the GOP side. Of course, Mark Twain said the same. But the system is designed, esp with Citizens United, to deliver the bribeable not the best.Can you imagine a company with the assets the US has being able to stay competitive with the knuckleheads we have in Congress ?
With their position comes power and there should be more constraints against abuse of that power. In a well-functioning democracy this would be a given.
You might think child tax credit would be something both Parties could agree on. Apparently not.
It is too late to stop global warming, what it really is, opponents of a heating planet, found that global warming got the Frank Luntz treatment and it became a slur, so they started using climate change instead.
Climate scientists agreed that 350 ppm of heavy gases, would result in all life on earth, save the insects becoming extinct, and much of the planet becoming desert. Anyone interested in antarctic real estate, after the ice melts?
We are now at 413 ppm and past the tipping point, even with technology and bright ideas, it is too late. I am not even sure that halting the consumption of fossil fuels will help us now.
If you are flying over the ocean, and notice that you have a fuel leak, and that there isn't enough gas to make it and you are passed the half way point, it is too late to turn back.
That is where we are. The only question is how many miles do we have left before we crash.? Or in our case, how much time?
This is not the case. It is not so much a crash as it is a slow descent into hell. The question is how far do we want to descend. You should read the IPCC reports at least the summary
The idea that the market is a rational “god-like entity” came from republicans of course. Every
time someone says we need a smaller government,
it’s “code” for “no regulations.” People who want no regulations are crooks, because the point of having
them is to rein in corporate/republican greed and
make sure industry properly disposes their waste
instead of dumping it in an empty lot across the
street from an elementary school, among other things.
Now republicans want to minimize/partially defund
food inspection and pay air traffic controllers less!
Here in AZ two republicans in the state government
want to put public schools in shopping malls and
allow teachers to have only a high school education.
I don’t know how else to say this--what republicans want to do is take us backwards in time.
In Arkansas Gov. Huckabee Sanders recently signed a law rolling back requirements that the state verify the ages of workers under 16. Pretty soon they’ll start putting lead in paint again.
He who has the money, has power,, and he who has power controls the written (and spoken) word and government.
Adam Smith's "invisible hand" has been bastardized by the Plutocrats, who also own and control Dictionaries , Encyclopedia's, and college courses, via think tanks and publishers.
Here is what Emma Rothschild had to say about the Invisible hand and Adam Smith, and it ain't what we have been told it is, he also mentions it in The Theory of Moral Sentiment., Wherein he uses it sardonically when describing some particularly nasty and ruthless rich proprietors , who are quite unconcerned with humanity and justice are concerned only with their
Where in the constitution is there any mention of free speech.
The only thing even close, and which has been bastardized by left, center, and right is the 1st Amendment, which lays a prohibition on congress, and nothing else. "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."
A law ignored by the theocrats that is ignored and will be totally ignored should Trump be elected.
so what do we call the thing that is not a free market ? The opposite of a free market is often described as a command economy where the government controls what products are produced and for whom. But the command economy is the other end of the spectrum. Clearly the free markets ideologues want to back us into a corner defending "unfree markets", a false choice.
Should we call what we desire, a mixed market ?
An accountable market ? The human-centered market ? A just market ?
The more I think about these things the more aware I become of how capitalism and its deep seated cultural assumptions has made it more difficult to think about such things and use language to more accurately capture reality.
We need a pithy label for what we are for. Otherwise we continue to lose the language game and concede power.
Co ops, they work. Not too long ago, the workers in a factory that was goiing out of business, pooled their resources formed a co op and bought the business, and I hear that is a coming thing.
I read somewhere that in the UK when a business is going under or closing, the government will loan employees the money to buy it and run it. Pooling resources and forming a coop sounds like a good idea.
Definitely, however co ops, while I support them, are only successful for makers of buggy whips, in other words they are inimical to R&D and innovation. People fear change and innovation is change. If Apple had been a co op, they would still be selling MacIntosh computers, or at least computers, not iPhones.
R&D is expensive, it requires an investment with no guarantee of reward. And that is why there would have been no internet, without Al Gore interceding with the government, with funding.
Most of our oh so necessary toys, food, devices would not exist without NASA and the Military.
There would be no Epipen, had it not been for DARPA inventing an easy to use injectable pen, for use as an antidote to Sarin., most drugs, and in some cases all drugs, were developed with grants from the government (and that is why their patents are illegal).
Co ops are cautious and hence conservative, decisions are made by a committee, and have you ever tried to get consensus from a committee it is exhausting and usually it is the loud mouthed bully that wins.
Democracy is frustrating and noisy, what they call sausage making, and nobody is happy.
Take the recent NDA (National Defense Authorization) that the military could be funded, the military had to abandon it's policies for womens health, and carve out aid to Ukraine.
Thomas Jefferson attended a Baptist business meeting in Danville, Pittsylvania Co, and was dismayed by the ruckus and lack of progress he witnessed in that democratic setting. and his experience shared with and by others of the founders, is why they founded a Republic, it took almost two hundred years and 27 Amendments to make it a democratic Republic, but the authoritarian imperative of the "little people" the deplorables, is militating to undo it all, they crave a strong man, so long as it is a man, is white, and promotes Christianity as a state religion.
Problem is, we need to specifically push back against the "free" part. Saying it is a market economy still leaves it open to other to characterize it as "free" with all the connotations and understandings that come with that label.
And calling a free market an unregulated market or polemically better, a lawless market. But the language gate keepers in media have a lot of power to set the language. Even so when the language no longer fits the reality as today, people will automatically grasp on to alternative language and it can spread like wildfire.
Looking for a term that describes what we want. Oligopoly is what we have now, It's also 5 syllables and too high brow. Was looking for a simple phrase that opposes "free market" .
Hard to beat "free" anything though. "Smart market", civic market. Free is dumb. Well -regulated, or managed, or restrained markets are smart. Eating too much ice cream because it's free will make one feel bad.
Economic the dismal science. There are way too many variables to be able to control to have a viable experiment. And why you will have economists with completely different opinions based on the same set of facts. That rarely happens in the other sciences.
Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish writer and philosopher, called economics "the dismal science" in reference to Thomas Malthus, that lugubrious economist who claimed humanity was trapped in a world where population growth would always strain natural resources and bring widespread misery. Dismal, indeed.
"While advocates of deregulation completely ignore its (invisible hand) corollary, expressed in the second chapter of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, in which he argues:
“Man is considered as moral because he is regarded as an accountable being. But an accountable being, as the word expresses, is a being that must give an account of its actions to some other, and that consequently must regulate them according to the good liking of this other.” https://hartmannreport.com/p/can-we-stop-the-greed-heads-from
Most interesting is that Adam Smith used the "invisible hand" in his chapter a bout international trade, where he argued against restrictions on imports and the merchants who favored them. as they form a "standing army" that intimidates legislatures.
Know who else argued for the invisible hand and against import tariffs? Karl Marx. He firmly opposed the "Corn Laws" of Britain, which imposed a tariff on grain and other imports.
The Great Soviet Encylopaedia hailed Adam Smith as one of their own and the intellectual father of Marx.
Yes a picture is worth a thousand words. But is homelessness a result of a failing market or of government regulations like zoning restrictions that prevent the construction of affordable housing? I live in San Francisco and there is a huge struggle going on about the policies that prevented for many years the construction of affordable housing, imposing huge rents and environmental damage. It is utterly unfair! SF is totally dominated by Democrats. The market is suppressed. Homelessness is a huge problem as the picture illustrates.
People, regardless of political party, don't like to pay taxes, especially property taxes, my taxes have doubled. Contractors won't build affordable housing or shelters, unless forced to by the city administration and that then is by laws, passed by a city council, which more than likely is composed of clients of developers and business.
I know this, my wife was a building official, and they work for Community Development Department, which was set up at the insistence of business owners and developers.
Besides the unwillingness to expend money with no profit, or at a loss (developers will die off doing that, as they are like sharks that die of suffocation if they don't stay in motion)
There is also NIMBY, of which a club that both Republicans and Democrats belong.
Save for a few, like families made homeless when the bread winner(s) lost their job, and lost their homes. Many homeless are mentally ill or just plain criminals.
They cause a lot of problems, robbing Mom and Pops, pick pockets, snagging purses, mugging for money., stabbings proliferate.
The Asian district of Seattle is hard hit, because the cops either don't respond, or are slow in responding, to store owners, and unlike in the 60's and 70's, there are no longer foot patrols. Every cop has a four wheeled office (that is what they call a cop car)
Dec 8, 2023·edited Dec 8, 2023Liked by Robert Reich
Currently we have a situation that was unimaginable over 200 years ago, where control of a single industry such as a distribution network, Amazon , could give one person so much wealth and power. Nor could they have envisioned that it would be a single man that had a monopoly over shooting men and supplies into space or that our Department of Defense would be forced to pay a communications network owned by the same man to maintain communications during a fight for democracy and the sovereignty of ones own country ( Ukraine.)
The larger question asked is “Why is American Capitalism So Rotten?” The large answer is because the goal of capitalism is to acquire an unequally large share of capital. An unequal amount of capital gives one power to skew the government in your favor so you can acquire more capital and squeeze out competition.
The game “Monopoly” is a perfect tool for teaching, for to win the game of Monopoly (capitalism) one must mercilessly squeeze your opponents into debt and then bankruptcy. When you have acquired all the capital you “win.” It is not a game of skill or honor; it is a game of cunning. One must be merciless in your quest to acquire all available capital no matter what the consequences to others. Donald Trump is our current example of one who uses cunning and merciless tactics to win. Part of that cunning strategy to to undermine the current system of democratic governance. Fascism is Trump's means to that end. If we want a working democracy for the people and by the people, we will all have to fight for it. That will mean changing the rules of democracy in favor of the people and not in favor of the capitalists.
Well that's what you get when people set out to drown government in the bathtub. An undercapacity to meet the needs of the people but the freedom for some to make a lot of money. Unaccountable power that screams "Go f*ck yourself" when anyone tries to hold them to account. And our Congress and we have accepted this. Embraced this even.
"We have a situation that was unimaginable over 200 years ago, where control of a single industry...."
That industry is energy. We have fought foreign wars, spent money and blood to defend foreign powers that undermine our economy. OPEC/Saudi/Russia control oil production and impose the equivalent of taxes that affect everyone. Oil profits are funding the Russian war on Ukraine. Saudis own our largest refineries, control companies like Exxon.
This isn't an "unseen hand." We should be recouping trillions for price fixing and price gouging.
The state of California is suing Amazon for price gouging. Musk is self destructing.....
At the time our nation was founded, the richest man in America was a real estate developer, who got the taxpayers to pay for a national road to access his vast land holdings in the west. His wife was a slave owner. When he was located in a "free" state, he had the slaves; toes amputated so they couldn't flee. He also was first in war, first in peace and our first president.
Daniel. I am going to have to call you on this. G.W. was born and died in Virginia, and was never relocated to a free state, and IIRC there was no such thing before, during and after the revolution, until slowly New England states abolished slavery.
Our 2nd president John Adams was a slave owner
As far as amputating their toes. Their were 317 slaves at Mt Vernon, GW owned 123, the Custis estate owned the rest.
The income producing crop of the Custis Estate was tobacco, amputating the toes of 317, involves a lot of lost productivity, and a huge dent in the wallet. Not to mention one hell of a horrendous undertaking
In 1780, Pennsylvania passed the Gradual Abolition Act, a law that freed people after they turned 28 and that automatically freed any slave who moved to the state and lived there for more than six months.
"From 1791, [Washington] arranged for those who served in his personal retinue in Philadelphia while he was President to be rotated out of the state before they became eligible for emancipation after six months residence per Pennsylvanian law. Not only would Washington have been deprived of their services if they were freed, most of the slaves he took with him to Philadelphia were dower slaves, which meant that he would have had to compensate the Custis estate for the loss. Because of his concerns for his public image and that the prospect of emancipation would generate discontent among the slaves before they became eligible for emancipation, he instructed that they be shuffled back to Mount Vernon "under pretext that may deceive both them and the Public". Thompson, Mary. "'The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret'", MountVernon.org
When he was in Philadelphia, and Pa. was a "free" state, had the slaves toes amputated. I can find this someplace. I remember it from a Pa History class.
Oh, and irrelevant thought, There is among GW's file in the William and Mary archives, bills of lading for fine silver, china, furniture and clothing bought from Richard Farrar and sons of London, not my ancestors, but rather distant cousins, we share a common ancestor, born about 1440 about
Wow, thanks for taking the time and educating me. Now that is something I didn't know and much obliged, genuinely.
Fr those not in the know. Dower is a word used for widows rights. That came along with her dowery when she married. As a genealogist I have come across many 18th and 19th Century indentures (that is what we call contracts, For instance one of 5th great grandmoms, relinquished her dowers rights when my 5th GGF sold his property in what is now the Independent Community of Manakin Sabot within the city limits of Richmond, and removed to Pittsylvania Co, VA in 1767.
They barely thought about it. IMHO the singular act of destruction was the slashing of taxes in 1980. This enabled corporations and wealthy individuals to lobby like never before. And what did they lobby for? Monopoly. In other words, a less free market.
Never allow the wealthy to become so rich and powerful that they can buy the government and collude against the public interest. Bring back high taxes.
Ah poor Jimmy, a fish out of water. Selected because he was a " clone" of JFk, with a simile of that quaint accent that is the London elite, and is the accent, nearly, of Massachusetts and Georgia.
It's occurred to me that this may be irreversible, but there is enough pent up anger out there that a liberal DNC platform may be able to change the status quo. But it will require another FDR. If there is no FDR out there, and the DNC continues to play GOP lite, then we are doomed to endure this level of income disparity with all its consequences.
Quite Michael. I am still disquieted by the fact that in 2024, like in 201, and 2020, the only reason I am voting is to keep that Orange NAZI out of office.
Absolutely correct! When I took a university economics course in 1979 our young professor advocated for a "free market economy" and "deregulation" (i.e., no or few governmental rules) of all industries, especially the airlines. However the industry tanked afterwards due to consolidation by the major airlines purchasing the smaller airlines who needed government subsidies, tax breaks, etc. to survive, and some did not. Many airline employees lost their jobs and the reduction of their purchasing capacity had negative consequences for the overall economy. There is nothing "free" about such as system. We can do better!
I agree completely. The airlines now are raking in record profits and are free to make travel a wretched experience for their passengers. The comfort level is less than an old fashioned Greyhound bus. (Actually, the busses have more leg room.)
It WILL be a Facist Dic(k)tatorship with all the underpinnings of one. In other words, if you support Herr F_hrer, as he will no doubt call himself, you will be a billionaire or a brain-washe cog. If you oppose him, you WILL be in a gulag!
It would be amusing to me if it were not so serious, that it is the "free market" when one corporation or group of corporations can make a bunch of money, get a lot of power in their area of practice, or are not held accountable for their bad behavior. It is government interference when they are held to account, are expected to follow rules, or have to pay their fair share of taxes. That "free market" let a small bunch of mostly white guys acquire a whole lot of money at the expense of everyone else, yet those super rich still whine that they are being treated unfairly. They are right, actually. They are being treated unfairly because the "free market" has become heavily weighted in their favor. I suspect they know it, but if they admit it, they would have to acknowledge the gifts they have been given and that luck also helped put them where they are, definitely more than their talent, skill, or anything else. Those are important, but not enough. I think that explains the need of the very rich and the wannabees to keep the myth alive even in the face of reality. Perhaps if we just acknowledge there is no truly "free" market, we could start building a much fairer economy. Alas, the very rich and the wannabees will do everything they can to stop that from happening, even forcing an ignorant fool into the White House again, knowing they can manipulate him to get them whatever they want, and who cares about the rest of us.
The concept of the 'Free market' is one that obscures what is really going on. It is a rationalization to confuse the public, who mostly do not understand economics , because those who worship the 'Free market" are the ones benefitting from this con game.
The implications are dark. The rich and powerful people preaching the wisdom of the free market are con men. They are not mistaken; they are self-serving liars.
I wonder if Leonard Cohen was blaming a woman for the fact that " old Black Joe's still picking cotton For your ribbons and bows And everybody knows"? Of course, men wore ribbons, if decorated for Valor , or wearing a bow tie. They were mostly silk or satin though: not cotton. Maybe a lift from Bob Dylan. : "Lately, I see, your ribbons and your bows, have fallen from your curls: Oh you ache, just like a woman..."
Ha! If you read the rest of his lyrics, his cynicism is, in fact, fueled by a woman who cheated on him:
"Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Oh, give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
Everybody knows"
However, ribbons and bows could be bought by a man to impress a woman in the economic system where men control the purse strings and dole out favours to women in exchange for sex. Perhaps Cohen bought the ribbons and bows for his unfaithful lover, reinforcing the idea that she's a whore. I read "ribbons and bows" as "finery" in general -- luxuries; the rich are happy to consign the bulk of humanity to slavery so that they can enjoy their frivolous excesses.
What ever happened to the idea of a transaction tax. Back in the day when the talk was whether the Dow would ever break the $1000 barrier, the trades were almost manual and the volume was in the thousands, not computer trades in the multi-million shares. The answer to the greed market should be in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has its 75th anniversary this Sunday, December 10th. What would Eleanor Roosevelt say about the world today, when we thought we had defeated fascism in 1945.
One of THE biggest disservices foisted upon an uninformed public has been the RUSE
that unfettered capitalism = Democracy! This has been THE false premise from which the
moneyed elites have hijacked BOTH the economic AND political machinery. All the math based on this FALSE EQUATION becomes not only skewed but, creates outcomes that are totally untenable
for the vast majority of society.
The NEW EQUATION should read: Unfettered capitalism = OLIGARCHY!!!!!
Great comment. I’ve been hearing that trope for years from various people, including family about capitalism being democratic. It doesn’t pass the smell test!
Yeah, they seem to equate the "law" of supply & demand with the LAW of gravity!?!
(Unfettered) capitalism is much more like the "dog eat dog" state of nature - if unregulated, it
becomes engineered and manipulated by the wealthy who monopolize profit and power for themselves. This class BECOMES the system rather than a participant (then, OF COURSE, our patriotism is questioned!)
After the debacle of 2008, the US government bailed out and protected the banks. They did nothing against the CEOs and Chairmen who had caused the problem in the first place. In Iceland, senior bankers were sent to prison. The same should have happened in the US.
But David, Larry, Tim and Rahm would never have allowed it, they were put there to monitor and control Barrack, for the benefit of their masters.. financial institutions.
Congress was the main culprit in creating a system of incentives to do rotten things. Yes, CEO's are culpable but the chief "villain" was our Congress. We should have sent many to jail. With our Congress bad legislation can only be redressed by electing someone else.
Robert, the problem isn't the system, in my opinion. The problem is that there are people who have no capacity to care about others. They have no compassion for others and no conscience about using others to feather their own nest.
They exist in our society, which by now is world-wide, because there is much cruelty in childhood leaving many people without the experience of being cared about, themselves. Deep in unconscious regions of their minds they have a need to feel important, powerful over others, because they felt so powerless and bereft of agency in their earliest years. Powerlessness, helplessness, is an unbearable experience so it's covered over later on in life by the unconscious determination to never feel that way again.
You can see this with the robber barons historically and today. The quality of all of their relationships, both personal and in the business world, is structured on what Martin Buber called an "I - It" basis. They see others only as objects to be manipulated so as to benefit themselves. They've not experienced an "I - Thou" relationship in infancy and early childhood so they don't re-create these in adulthood. Then if they're white and male, they unconsciously absorb the culture of cruelty passed along by fathers, older boys, and other role models. They compete with one another in business the way men compete in warfare...they dominate whomever they can...their workers, each other, etc.
I'm in business for myself and my colleagues charge twice as much as I do. I have license to charge more, under the rules of the "free market," but I don't because I care about the people who wouldn't be able to avail themselves of my services if I did that. It's not just what's missing in the system, it's what's missing in the hearts of the people who use the system to aggrandize themselves. And that's why the public needs government regulations to protect them, because without those protections, the robber barons of the world are exploiting and abusing the rest of us.
Thank you so much for your wisdom and your determination to share your knowledge. We love you!
Thank you for this thoughtful comment . I have long wondered how people whose whole reason for being is to get more no matter what the cost to others get that way.
Madeline. A problem has a solution, Find the solution, and enact it and problem solved.
What you describe are not problems, but difficulties, Difficulties that are part of our biological evolutionary make up. They have been with us since we were hominids eking out a subsistence in the Savannahs of Africa.
There is no solution to difficulties, if you try and solve a difficulty you only make it worse.
The remedy is to find a sensible way to solve a problem there you find backlash. Affirmative action was one such attempt, and the backlash was long in coming, but has had horrific
affects.
Same with Roe. The loss to the patriarchs was traumatic, and they were patient, liberals not so much, so they fell back, infected politics and universities, even corporations at all levels and finally got their man elected to office, as well as a compliant senate, and appointed federal judges at all levels, that would advance their agenda, via a "think tank" that they set up called the Federalist Society.
I don't think that we can get federal protection for a woman's right to choose, or the right to vote, not with the federal judiciary full of theocrats and fascist inclined.
Hi William, it seems to me that certain men in various cultures have been determined to retain their sense of importance by controlling women for at least 5,000 years. However, all that time, women have been determined to control their own bodies and their own lives and have found ways to do so. Men who are confident about their worth aren't threatened by women. Let's help boys feel better about themselves when they're young so they don't feel the need to oppress women and other men when they grow up.
Oh Madeline you are preaching to the choir. I am so much in agreement with you, save certain men in various cultures controllling women for a sense of their own importance.
It is quite different, biology and hormones.
To understand, we must look at nature, from fish to land animals, males compete to spread their genes, by fighting off other males, and accumulating a harem, or in the case of some species, attracting just one female.
It depends on the evolved biology of the species, Those with short lives, and are vulnerable to predators usually mate just once, and some like geese, ducks and penguins mate for life.
On the other hand buffalo, beef, gazelles, grazing animals, mate when the female is in heat, and the male is in muskh.
Carnivores build harems, and fight to be the alpha, and dominate the males. Dominated males experience a loss in testrone and thus are , for the time, chemically neutured.
Humans are carnivores,and many males, like religious and fundies, are neutured if the woman rejects him and his sperm. If he doesn't "feel" like a man, he can't erect and copulate.
He can only copulate when he is in control. That is way many women say that rape is power and control, it is he only way that the rapist can erect and copulate.
Incels are a prime example, they are unable to attract a woman for sexual release, so they demonize women and men who "get laid" IMO Incels are rapists in waiting, and don't act out for fear of the law, Remove consequences and "katie bar the gates"
About 4 decades ago, Europe, tired of soccer riots, funded a commission to study the cause of soccer riots.
Here is what they found. European men invest "their ego and Id" in their teams and when their team is beat on the field, their testosterone takes a dive, the way to rebuild and pump up testosterone is by initiating violence, like a tribe of Chimps.
The acquisition of wealth is just another way of proving your manhood and dominating the other alpha males.
It is the thing that is not spoken, but it all boils down to hormones. Hormones is what drives us, hormones what sends signals from the stomach to the brain. Hormones are chemicals, and we are slave to chemicals, be they opioids, which trigger the release of dopamine. or testosterone or estrogen which triggers the sex drive.
A reality that most don't want to face. We like to think that we have free will, and we do, we can master the drive of chemicals. Buddhist monks do it, The real ascetics have mummified themselves, while living.
I am doing it by ignoring hormones, limiting my intake of carbs and cutting out sugars, I am pre diabetic and want to stay that way. I have lost 44 lbs and got my blood glucose down to 100, goal is 95 which made make me non diabetic, right now I am on the cusp down from 126.
Maureen, the problem with "Buyer beware" is that there is no way buyers can beware or be aware of everything. That is the reason for regulation. We need our governments to help us to know when things are safe and there must be a way to hold those producing products and conducting services accountable when they are not performing as claimed. The penalties need to be deep enough so the behavior will stop. That is not happening these days to a sufficient level.
Ruth Buyer beware does not mean Buyer be aware. It means you are on your own, when you exchange money for goods and services. And product guarantees are worthless unless you have a filing system for all of your receipts and you detect a problem with 30 or 90 days, whatever the limit, and if it is made in PRC or Asia, forget about it.
Government (We the People) creates and manages the environment within which the economy operates according to arbitrary rules that have evolved over time to give a few who are wealthy more power to gain more wealth, and they have gotten away with this because We the People have not been engaged in our government.
The rich have gotten "less government" restriction on them being able to do as they please without regard for the consequences of their actions on others or on the environment.
Bob, America is built on many dangerous delusions and illusions. And then there are sales pitches that most people do not buy-today. Most people do not believe that the market is anything but rigged. That it is rigged is indeed the most common description you can find. The problem is What Ralph Nader has been fighting against his whole life-most people do not care enough to be engaged citizens activists. Democracy requires civic engagement beyond just voting. There has always been space for that to happen-for people to organize and there still is. But that space has become smaller and smaller. Empty civics space gets filled. Empty civics space gets filled by corporate commodification. Here is the dirty truth. Americans care more about comfort-instant gratification-materialism-making it- success-money to buy things than anything else. American's pay lip service to freedom-being citizens, but the fact is they are CONSUMERS who want to consume more and more. And those huge corporations produce those good cheaply so they can afford them. The role-the value of being able to be successful consumers is a higher value with more skill development there than the Value-the skills required to be engaged citizens critical thinkers. We are a Consumer society not a Civics Society. Finally, endless consumption is necessary for economic growth as we know it and want it-more and more material things. We are consuming ourselves to death. As we should and must as The Consumer Civilization. The real question is, will the forces of nature that Galbraith often turned to over politics-will climate change us before we consume ourselves to death.
Well-said, Glen...I agree completely. When we, the public, organize, when we go on strike or boycott a given company, we finally feel our collective power. But we've allowed ourselves to be brainwashed by manipulative advertising for the last 100 years, designed to make us feel as if we NEED this or that product. That's the "I - It" dimension wherein one's fellow and sister citizens are viewed only as objects to be manipulated for the benefit of the company.
The documentary called, "The Corporation," illustrates how corporations are like sociopathic individuals, with no conscience regarding how they're affecting the social surround. This is especially true when they are run by sociopathic individuals. The Koch brothers, for example, were raised by a Hitler-loving, Hitler-esque nanny. They experienced little or no tenderness in their most vulnerable and formative years and grew up having no capacity for tenderness towards others. They learned to dominate or be dominated, and fought legal battles with members of their own family when it ,financially, served them to do so. Sadly, ours is a culture that venerates sociopathic men like "the billionaires," instead of seeing them for the morally-bankrupt people that they are. The huge following of someone like TFG is, sadly, another example of this misplaced idealization of sociopathic men. As Tevye says in "Fiddler On The Roof," "When you're rich they think you really know." :(
Bob, America is built on many dangerous delusions and illusions. And then there are sales pitches that most people do not buy-today. Most people do not believe that the market is anything but rigged. That it is rigged is indeed the most common description you can find. Rigged resonated with Bernie supporters- rigged resonated with Trump supporters even Biden has been reported to have said the market is rigged. The problem is What Ralph Nader has been fighting against his whole life-most people do not care enough to be engaged citizens- activists. Democracy requires civic engagement beyond just voting. There has always been space for that to happen-for people to organize and there still is. But that space has become smaller and smaller. Empty civics space gets filled. Empty civics space gets filled by corporate commodification. Here is the dirty truth. Americans care more about comfort-instant gratification-materialism-making it- success-money to buy things than anything else. American's pay lip service to freedom-being active citizens, but the fact is they are CONSUMERS who want to consume more and more. And those huge corporations produce those goods cheaply so they can afford them. The role-the value of being able to be successful consumers is a higher value with more skill development there than the value-the skills required to be engaged citizens critical thinkers. We are a Consumer society not a Civics Society. Finally, endless consumption is necessary for economic growth as we know it and want it-more and more material things. We are consuming ourselves to death. As we should and must as The Consumer Civilization. The real question is, will the forces of nature that Galbraith often turned to over politics-will climate change us before we consume ourselves to death. We can blame the Corporate Society for everything-Yes blame is there top- down blame. But to be realistic- more honest- more blame lies on how we allowed and enjoyed the space filled by corporate ease of production so we can have more and newer and cheaper consumer goods.
I think we will survive for a long, long while...but our conscious will become more limited and dependent on consumer technologies-life will become more and more packaged-standardized for us producing a more and more monolithic culture and our quality of life- our pace of consumption will become more and more dependent upon us being consumers of technologies that make us less and less free of it... to be independent critical citizens. Independent critical thinking is needed to govern technology. Technology is great with this. But without this it has us serving it. Technology produces things-dependence so fast that we have less time or inclination to stop and think. Civilization is becoming more a monolithic consumerism...we are all staring at smart phones everywhere in the world-the poorest most remote peoples see consumer products that they too now want. Our economic dependence on growth-endless growth in a finite world of finite resources goes against that nature of the world. Stopping to think about the true costs of consumerism has been excluded from our economic models-textbooks. Initiating carbon taxes-the costs of oil-gas is a beginning step towards a more inclusive-holistic view of the nature of the world we live in. But our stronger instincts-thinking habits-are and will be to look to corporations to package answers for us to consume. We will look to buy electric cars-over the civics required to make our neighborhoods more livable-less dependent on cars with public transportation.
Agreed. Within our market, regardless of descriptive label, we are labeled according to our function: "consumers". In nature the roles are predator and prey. Predators do the consuming, but ironically "consumers" in human markets are actually the prey. Regardless of observing these twists in language, we are indeed destroying ourselves and our planet with endless consumerism.
We are actually natural born learners- questioners-holistic...but the strategies of suppression begin in how we are schooled siloed not to think but to be consumers. But of course, it begins at home by parents who have already been schooled to be consumers.
Steve, for kids! We are actually natural born learners- questioners-holistic...but the strategies of suppression begin in how we are schooled siloed not to think but to be consumers. But of course, it Begin's at home by parents who have already been schooled to be consumers.
Kids are in school so that is where it should start. Kids should organize there around a common cause. Kids should be getting involved with municipal government. I wholeheartedly recommend: Natural Born Learners Edited by Beatrice Ekwa Ekoko and Carlo Ricci...it loaded with ideas-authors- activists.
Money is speech and power ; We have rules that allow the Supreme court to give the wealthy Citizens United, and bank bailouts that leave people homeless, and give undeserving CEO's 'golden parachutes'.
The Babylonians had a bureau of weights and measures to keep cuneiform thumbs off the scales. The half of Leviticus that isn't about priestly bling and blood. . is about taxes Every Evangelical free marketeer should know that.
Look at the story of Joseph. (The "coat of many colors" story.) The pharoh's dream of seven fat cows and the seven starving cows who devour the fat cows.
Heavy tax and savings in times of plenty, then distribution during times of famine.
In modern terms, an economy that looks capitalistic with high taxes and government surplus savings during the boom, that pivots to look more socialistic with low taxes that raids the surplus savings for government assistance in times of bust.
I totally agree. The framers of the Constitution 236 years ago could not have envisioned the complexities of a "Free Market Economy.” If Trump wins, he and his cronies will transform our democracy into “Demonocracy" with no regard to the original intent of the Constitution nor its amendments. The so-called “Free Market” is not free, it is us paying a heavy price in loss of freedom and an unfair burden of taxes.
The point of this lesson is that there is no "free market." I recently watched a video of economists being interviewed with a similar message. The "invisible hand" is invisible because it isn't there. There is no such thing. The idea of a market is a manmade creation with continuously changing rules according to the amount of power held by the rule makers to rig the game in their favor. That is why economics is not considered to be a science. It is not amenable to laws of nature. Thank you Dr. Reich. I love the illustration. Like they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words."
People in the "business" make money when the market moves. They don't care which way it goes, because they take a cut, i.e. commission.
There is also a lot of double dealing. Brokers recommend investments they have a stake in without disclosing it to the customer. DOL is proposing a "fiduciary rule: that would stop this practice. https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ebsa/ebsa20231031
I self manage my investments of stocks, bonds and mutual funds through Vanguard, an investor owned company. No brokers, no fees (except mutual fund management fees) and no commissions. Most financial advice is worthless, and it can actually be harmful to your financial health. The idea that the stock market is or should be a "free market" is total BS! The big investors manipulate and crush the little guys.
And what happens in the event you experience dementia and can no longer analyze your investments. ? Social Security is a model for providing retirement security that should be expanded.
There are commissions but they are hidden in the value of the fund.
Vanguard pressures customers to pay for advice. The whole concept supposedly is they follow market averages, virtually all on automatic pilot.
You are correct about Vanguard pressuring customers to pay for advice. My wife and I ignore them! If you own individual stocks and bonds and can buy/sell with zero commissions, you cost of ownership is zero (other than changes in price of the investment). I believe that cost of investment ownership has a huge impact on how much money you end up in your retirement fund.
The only thing you left out, Tim, is you have to follow the market daily, time consuming (and,for some like me, boring.) I admire you and anyone willing to put their time and effort into 'working' the market to their advantage - it's just not for everyone.
Investing is simple and obvious.People refuse to see it.Popular delusions and the madness of crowds
Buffett explains it every year.We have been compounding at an average of 20% ( CAGR) since 1965 I think it was..For the 60 year growth then 31/12/2025 you need to look at the share price of Berkshire.Start at a price of $12 for one share in BRK.Compound that at 20% for 60 years and see if the share price is anywhere near that on said date.People will deny that 1 + 1 is 2.The facts don't fit in with what they want to see.
A company I own shares in has been compounding @14% ( CAGR ) since 1913. One share cost $2 in 1913.Compound $2 @ 14% for $110 years and you will be up near the $4 million mark .People have denied that every day for the last 110 years. They will deny it every day for the next 110 years.
Your commission free does not exist.The money is made on the spread..For example you buy shares in "Aussie",you order 1,000 @$10 each,you pay $10,000.You don't know what price the broker paid for them.The broker may have bought them for $9.98 The spread is 2 cents per share.Volume is the key.
For costs the same simple maths Start with $1,000.Compound that at 10% for 30 years.Then compound it at 9.5 or 9 75 for 30 years.The difference is how much it has cost you.
Just another indication of "us" and "them" is any dealings with Investment firms. If you have "this much money" we'll give you free advice, free transactions and a multitude of of other free stuff. If you only have "so much money" then we'll charge for the advice, the transactions and anything else we can. I just find it interesting that you get more free the more money you have. 😞
Have you read 'Night Call from a Distant Time Zone' by Herbert Lieberman (1988)? When I read it, the light went on for me.
The 'free market' of credit default swaps, derivatives, etc., ran without rules or ahead of them. I don't believe the regulators even understood what was going on enough to foresee the collapse.
I wish more people would read Stephanie Kelton’s ‘The Deficit Myth’. You can’t change the economy if you don’t know how it works.
I am a Keynesian, so know what you mean. The "deficit" problem was generated by conservatives, who are funded by Plutocrats, who despise seeing "their" money (and they hardly pay taxes) going to educate the masses,which they would prefer to keep as mushrooms (in the dark and fed shit), as well as people who work to eat and die.
You can't change the economy unless you can control it. Knowing how it works is insufficient..
Is this the same Stephanie Kelton who promotes MMT, Magical Monetary Theory? I've listened to her talk. The important point that she seems to be the only one to mention is that deficits don't matter as long as there's no inflation.
Winslow: The only way to hold inflation at bay is by the Fed and banks loaning money at 0 interest rates. It is the interest on debts, public, corporate, private including your credit cards, that cause inflation.
bill, you might want to re-read your reply.
Great informative site.
I believe the question before us is whether we should apply our efforts to reforming the current system or to replace it. The New Deal reforms have been chiseled away and the Republicans are working toward dissolving Social Security and Medicare, the portion that is left. Reform isn't the answer.
Democracy is messy. This is a world wide problem. The way I look at it, most of it is criminal as the "free walk in the universe" is mostly manipulated.
The irony in a democracy is that ignorant cult members vote to end their own benefits. Only 58% of the electorate own any stock and most of that is through retirement mutual funds. The average investor, like me, has little or no control of our own investments because we have to rely on retirement funds. I have a unique perspective because I heard Sarbanes Oxley/Dodd Frank whistleblower cases.
Most of the people I know who play individual stocks rely entirely on advice from brokers, who in the abstract can care less if the customer wins or loses. .
This system doesn't work for most people. It works for people with the predator gene, not for most who want to contribute, share, and enjoy their families.
Like I said above, 42% have nothing but Social Security and maybe a home as savings.
SSI provides a subsistence existence to disabled people and to anyone over age 65 who is destitute. Funded through general taxation, part of the budget. DOL had plans for retirement plans that might have reached everybody with a job.
I worked and failed to sell a plan to the federal government that would have saved millions (billions in today's dollars) by consolidation of government services and elimination of duplication.
In a closed system, "dollar cost averaging" worked for those of us in retirement funds, like the US government Thrift Savings Plan.
Investing can also be messy unless you have a system. I do not believe in fiduciary trust any more than I believe corporate greed can be controlled. Individual brokers cannot be trusted. When I finally retired 12 years ago I studied Zack's Investment strategy. My wife and I paid cash for our current home and have been disciplined following investment advice using the Zacks' recommendations and a bank investment fund. In retirement I finally found enough time to concentrate on growing my savings with Zack's help. Dollar cost averaging works well over time, also.
Other than Luck, which I don't believe in, the way to prosper in the stock market is by having insider knowledge, which congress critters have, as do well placed owners and employees.
Congress critters should be forced to put their assets in a blind trust and be prohibited by law
from buying or selling in the market before they can be seated in the House or Senate. It’s the only way to make them prioritize their constituents instead of their portfolios.
Gloria, I totally agree that reform is not the answer. Can our current form of democracy be saved? No, because it allows for and encourages a major flaw, so called “free market capitalism" motivated by insatiable greed. Our the current system, political democracy, relies on the motivations of the class of career politicians and not the needs or desires of the governed. We need to look to a better improved version of democracy not based on capitalism.
I have been studying an elegant system for reorganizing economic activity and governance. It is called “Economic Democracy” where primary economic activity is through local cooperatives and the money stays in the region rather than being syphoned off to the pockets of wealthy capitalists. The cooperatives work together in federations up to the national and even international level.
Our current “Political “Democracy" is like a ship with dry rot. From the outside it seems seaworthy, but at some time the structure gives way and the ship suddenly sinks. In this case, the MAGA Republicans are truly the handmaidens of the capitalists. Here is a link to a concise explanation of Economic Democracy as an alternative to corporate rule.
.https://www.proutinstitute.org/policy-solutions/economic-democracy-the-alternative-to-corporate-rule
Hi Marc,
Thanks for the link and the education about PROUT. This is very different! It requires a lot of discussion and deep thinking!
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/esop.asp
SO MUCH to process. I am convinced a better system is possible, and not outrageously difficult to shape, but it is tough to get large enough numbers behind it because most of us just dont have a good understanding of all this. With SO many people, even a small percentage of the population is a huge number of people…and they can make a big noise objecting to what the majority wants to craft for our society. There are a great many forces in play. Our economy needs attention, and so does our bedrock system of governance.
Some seek to “remake” it altogether, and that really sends chills down my spine — I am not at all certain we CAN come up with a better basic idea. I worry about who would be at the heart of it and how a new power dynamic might arise — it might NOT be what we’re after. [Revolutions rarely deliver what they promise] I don’t want to throw out a workable skeleton of a governmental idea only because the body has too much fat on it. I’d rather work hard to put what COULD be a good governmental system — the one we already have! — into better shape. And use its strengths to craft a better market and economy.
Right now, we are faced with the prospect of an autocrat taking office and just dismissing our democracy by decree. We don’t want to let HIM do it, because I think we know we have the basics of a decent system, if we can keep it in hand and refine it where needed.
I’d like for people NOT to think we’re a good candidate for a major revolution or a Constitutional overhaul.
Can we pull off what is needed to put our economy on a better footing, with so many people and voices in the cacophony of public discourse? Can we organize the chaos of so many ideas? [I’m worried there are just too many of us. Can this many people manage to BE a unified society and get the things done that need doing? I hate how my thinking goes down these dark roads. I guess people of good will and rational thought just have to keep trying. Eeep]
Daniel.
Thanks for the reference. I have seen the positive effects of ESOP. If the government mandated this for all corporations above a certain size, I think it would have a major positive impact. The Unions are definitely trying to get to this.
I agree with what you said far above about “no free market,” but I don’t know what you’d like to replace our system WITH … I think put fences around what we already have and establishing rules over it is what this is all about. The market is a construct, and there’s a lot of it that can certainly work, if we give it the structure to work.
If not, what do you propose in its place?
That is a discussion I would love to be part of. First, we could look at other countries, such as those with democratic socialism or China's socialism with Chinese characteristics and see how they work. I didn't know that other countries have several times more representatives per citizen than we do and don't have a House of Lords or Senates until I started researching. One country has an advisory committee instead of a Senate. What is the Senate for except to make sure the interests of the wealthy are protected? It looks like the House has become that as well. Then there are countries with ranked choice voting and countries where they don't have to wait four years for an election if the majority are dissatisfied. They call for another election. And why do we still have an electoral college except it's easier to game the system that way?
And there are countries that tried socialism that were a threat to us, or Capitalism, so we used the resources of our government to sanction and destroy their governments. I would like to have seen if they would have worked without our interventions. And would Russia's communism have worked with modern day technology such as bar codes and modern weather monitoring? The idea of selling and owning shares in a company is only a few hundred years old. Certainly, we can create another, more fare and humane way to manage an economy with the resources we have; computers, AI, wireless communication.
Modern economics started when a banker found out that a country at war will borrow enormous amounts that will be paid back with interest buy taxpayers (simplified version, but in the ballpark). Why can't we even consider other ways to govern? Is it because the people in power like the way it is? We need to begin this discussion and not be stuck because the people who currently have the power want to keep us stuck where we are because after a couple of hundred years, they have the world they way they want it.
We should talk about it.
ABSOLUTELY — I have long lamented that our system is entrenched in a two-party model, with the parties so embedded in the function of our bicameral Congress that reform would be {will be?} very difficult. I have long thought a parliamentary system in which multiple parties must work together to “form” a government, when no one of them carries a majority of support, sounds grand!
But it’s damned scary to think our constitution might be ditched, replaced with another, and NOBODY will “revere” its precepts as they do the one we have {for better or worse}, giving rise to a human tendency to upset apple carts when they have a gripe. If they don’t love a new constitution, they’ll have not trouble trying to trash it.
I worry about how big the country is {350 million in a world of 8 billon}, and about entropy at work in governing so many … We have to keep most of us — a really LARGE majority, at that — agreeing to submit to whatever government we structure, or we’ll foment chaos. It would not take a huge segment of 350 million to reject a new system and take up arms to plunge us into Mad Max World.
Am I too paranoid?
I actually like the idea of democratic socialism, but that word there scares people, too, who think of the classic socialism as government control of everything, including personal choices like what to study and where to work. That is NOT what I want, but I want a social structure that is geared to the greatest good. Oligarchy doesn’t seem all that different from Monarchy too me, actually, except there is even LESS obligation for the owner class to take care of the people in Oligarchy. At least Kings and Lords had Noblesse Oblige … [I’m only half kidding. I sure as hell don’t wanna see new kings/oligarchs in charge, either — not even the Koch Family of “philanthropic” fame]
I do want to reconfigure a lot of how we function, but I worry about losing it all by being too rash.. I THINK we have something now we could work with {except that two party thing — that’s hard to modify, but we could think about it}.
Yes, dump the Electoral College. [Then you’ll hear a hue and cry from rural areas that they are being disenfranchised and pushed around by Big Cities, where all the people are. How do we protect minorities? ]
So much to consider, and NEVER lose sight of human psychology, group dynamics, and what will drive large numbers of people together to “take action” for one cause or another … chaos ensuiing.
Eeeeep.
Gloria. The founders created a Republic, not a democracy, Only invested citizens (the elite) could vote, property owning white males), basically the Republic of Rome, in which certain classes of proles, were bribed to cast a pebble or clay marker in a bucket for Senators and Senators elected the consuls (two of them, so one would not have obscene power, but didn't work out either, and led to a dictatorship.
I will elucidate on your last paragraph. You elude to Lord Rothschild, who had an employee dispatched to monitor Wellingtons forces at the battle of Waterloo, when Wellington won, a carrier pigeon was dispatched, and Lord Rothschild, standing under a lamppost in what is now the Financial District of London (the Wall Street of the time) had word spread that Wellington lost, he was buying bonds issued to finance the war. He bought them up pennies on the pound, and reaped one hell of a profit.
Trying to put a fence around capitalism is like trying to contain a bulldozer with a picket fence! We are witnessing the bulldozer tearing up the fences we have.
The law is the fence. ONE of the bits of fence that did a decent job for a long time was Glass-Steagall. That got dumped during the Clinton administration and scarcely a decade later, those chickens came home to roost!
Actually, Social Security and Medicare aren’t bad, either, but the oligarchs are intent on getting rid of them, too.
I think a legal fence IS possible, but if we can’t keep “riding fence” and making sure nobody’s tearing up the fenceposts, you are right — it will not work Complacency will never be our lot, ever again.
I would replace "free market" with "fair market". The market rules would ensure as much as possible that no one has an unfair advantage. The problem for me is that in any market transaction, the guy with $ 1 billion dollars will almost always have some advantage over the person with only $ 1 thousand dollars. I don't know how to eliminate this advantage, other than getting rid of the billionaire!
Again,very simple maths.The guy with $1 billion gets exactly the same return as you do.You have 1 share worth $1000.He has 1 million shares @ $1000 each He spent more money than you did. The share price doubles over a period of time,you have 1 share worth $2000 ,he has 1 million shares worth $2 billion And thus the rich get richer,they are prepared to borrow and spend a lot of money.Of course this depends on debt to equity ratios,and the covenants that come with that.
You don't pay the mortgage the bank takes the house off you.The rich guy doesn't pay the debt,the bank takes the shares off him
There’s no time to replace it. Reforms need to be made so that we can fight climate change. of course what counts as reform, and what counts as replace depends on your definition. We certainly have to keep enough organized cohesion to fight for our environment. Calls for radical change along the lines of a revolution will only set us back.
There’s no way to replace the system we have now--
it wouldn’t get passed into law. What we have to do is modify it a little bit at a time. The 1st modification should be making private donations to campaigns illegal, with very stiff penalties for breaking that law.
The law should allow only public money--the same amount of money to each candidate for a specific office.
I understand that in order pass a law making private
donations to campaigns illegal it will require both
the House and Senate to have Dem majorities and
it will require a Dem president as well. It can be done. In fact, I think it could happen in 2024--
assuming republicans don’t find a way to cheat.
The next item would be to pass laws forbidding
members of Congress to buy or sell stocks, etc.
and pass laws requiring members of Congress to
to put all of their assets in a blind trust before they
can be seated in Congress. Once we have the flow
of easy money under control and an fec that doesn’t ignore their duties, we can turn to legislation
that would help people, like making the child tax credit permanent. Republicans have been against
making the child tax credit permanent, and I’m serious about this--the GOP balks at every piece
of legislation that helps ordinary people financially.
It’s been a pattern for a while. Republicans aren’t
going to announce they refuse to pass laws that
help families financially, they’ll find another excuse
and feed that to their constituents.
But how to accomplish such things. I am beginning to think our culture is rotting. Probably what many older people typically think each generation. There are so many good laws and policies that could be implemented, but are not. Look how few amendments have been passed- 27 with the first ten in 1791. The last in 1992---31 years ago. Our Constitution is stagnating. Our Supreme Court with its originalism is taking us backwards with its states rights and expansion of freedom for predation. There are many in Congress who would be challenged to be a local official nevermind a representative in Congress. Instead of the best and the brightest we have a bunch of knuckleheads esp on the GOP side. Of course, Mark Twain said the same. But the system is designed, esp with Citizens United, to deliver the bribeable not the best.Can you imagine a company with the assets the US has being able to stay competitive with the knuckleheads we have in Congress ?
Congressmen could be allowed to invest in the broad mutual funds of the Thrift Savings Plan. No individual stocks. Liz Warren has put legisation forward but Pelosi says no. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/19/1073865837/a-push-to-ban-members-of-congress-from-trading-individual-stocks-gains-momentum
With their position comes power and there should be more constraints against abuse of that power. In a well-functioning democracy this would be a given.
You might think child tax credit would be something both Parties could agree on. Apparently not.
It is too late to stop global warming, what it really is, opponents of a heating planet, found that global warming got the Frank Luntz treatment and it became a slur, so they started using climate change instead.
Climate scientists agreed that 350 ppm of heavy gases, would result in all life on earth, save the insects becoming extinct, and much of the planet becoming desert. Anyone interested in antarctic real estate, after the ice melts?
We are now at 413 ppm and past the tipping point, even with technology and bright ideas, it is too late. I am not even sure that halting the consumption of fossil fuels will help us now.
If you are flying over the ocean, and notice that you have a fuel leak, and that there isn't enough gas to make it and you are passed the half way point, it is too late to turn back.
That is where we are. The only question is how many miles do we have left before we crash.? Or in our case, how much time?
This is not the case. It is not so much a crash as it is a slow descent into hell. The question is how far do we want to descend. You should read the IPCC reports at least the summary
Were you thinking about a break everything down and start over kind of revolution?
Yes, which is something we don’t want to do.
If you've seen the movie 2001, Hal the computer.
That's a good place to start a discussion.
The idea that the market is a rational “god-like entity” came from republicans of course. Every
time someone says we need a smaller government,
it’s “code” for “no regulations.” People who want no regulations are crooks, because the point of having
them is to rein in corporate/republican greed and
make sure industry properly disposes their waste
instead of dumping it in an empty lot across the
street from an elementary school, among other things.
Now republicans want to minimize/partially defund
food inspection and pay air traffic controllers less!
Here in AZ two republicans in the state government
want to put public schools in shopping malls and
allow teachers to have only a high school education.
I don’t know how else to say this--what republicans want to do is take us backwards in time.
In Arkansas Gov. Huckabee Sanders recently signed a law rolling back requirements that the state verify the ages of workers under 16. Pretty soon they’ll start putting lead in paint again.
He who has the money, has power,, and he who has power controls the written (and spoken) word and government.
Adam Smith's "invisible hand" has been bastardized by the Plutocrats, who also own and control Dictionaries , Encyclopedia's, and college courses, via think tanks and publishers.
Here is what Emma Rothschild had to say about the Invisible hand and Adam Smith, and it ain't what we have been told it is, he also mentions it in The Theory of Moral Sentiment., Wherein he uses it sardonically when describing some particularly nasty and ruthless rich proprietors , who are quite unconcerned with humanity and justice are concerned only with their
vain and insatiable desires"
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2117851
WTF !!!!!
Where in the constitution is there any mention of free speech.
The only thing even close, and which has been bastardized by left, center, and right is the 1st Amendment, which lays a prohibition on congress, and nothing else. "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."
A law ignored by the theocrats that is ignored and will be totally ignored should Trump be elected.
so what do we call the thing that is not a free market ? The opposite of a free market is often described as a command economy where the government controls what products are produced and for whom. But the command economy is the other end of the spectrum. Clearly the free markets ideologues want to back us into a corner defending "unfree markets", a false choice.
Should we call what we desire, a mixed market ?
An accountable market ? The human-centered market ? A just market ?
The more I think about these things the more aware I become of how capitalism and its deep seated cultural assumptions has made it more difficult to think about such things and use language to more accurately capture reality.
We need a pithy label for what we are for. Otherwise we continue to lose the language game and concede power.
Economic Democracy is the alternative to Corporate Rule. https://www.proutinstitute.org/policy-solutions/economic-democracy-the-alternative-to-corporate-rule
Co ops, they work. Not too long ago, the workers in a factory that was goiing out of business, pooled their resources formed a co op and bought the business, and I hear that is a coming thing.
I read somewhere that in the UK when a business is going under or closing, the government will loan employees the money to buy it and run it. Pooling resources and forming a coop sounds like a good idea.
Definitely, however co ops, while I support them, are only successful for makers of buggy whips, in other words they are inimical to R&D and innovation. People fear change and innovation is change. If Apple had been a co op, they would still be selling MacIntosh computers, or at least computers, not iPhones.
R&D is expensive, it requires an investment with no guarantee of reward. And that is why there would have been no internet, without Al Gore interceding with the government, with funding.
Most of our oh so necessary toys, food, devices would not exist without NASA and the Military.
There would be no Epipen, had it not been for DARPA inventing an easy to use injectable pen, for use as an antidote to Sarin., most drugs, and in some cases all drugs, were developed with grants from the government (and that is why their patents are illegal).
Co ops are cautious and hence conservative, decisions are made by a committee, and have you ever tried to get consensus from a committee it is exhausting and usually it is the loud mouthed bully that wins.
Democracy is frustrating and noisy, what they call sausage making, and nobody is happy.
Take the recent NDA (National Defense Authorization) that the military could be funded, the military had to abandon it's policies for womens health, and carve out aid to Ukraine.
Thomas Jefferson attended a Baptist business meeting in Danville, Pittsylvania Co, and was dismayed by the ruckus and lack of progress he witnessed in that democratic setting. and his experience shared with and by others of the founders, is why they founded a Republic, it took almost two hundred years and 27 Amendments to make it a democratic Republic, but the authoritarian imperative of the "little people" the deplorables, is militating to undo it all, they crave a strong man, so long as it is a man, is white, and promotes Christianity as a state religion.
Correct Steve. As Thom Hartmann says "Bumper stickers" the right sure knows how to write them, liberals write an essay. Guiltly as charged.
The market; market economy. The "free" ornament is Republi-speak dating to the '80s
Problem is, we need to specifically push back against the "free" part. Saying it is a market economy still leaves it open to other to characterize it as "free" with all the connotations and understandings that come with that label.
How about "well regulated?"
It was well regulated DZK, until Reagan.
And calling a free market an unregulated market or polemically better, a lawless market. But the language gate keepers in media have a lot of power to set the language. Even so when the language no longer fits the reality as today, people will automatically grasp on to alternative language and it can spread like wildfire.
It's still capitalism but primarily not a free market. Does the term oligopoly work for you?
Looking for a term that describes what we want. Oligopoly is what we have now, It's also 5 syllables and too high brow. Was looking for a simple phrase that opposes "free market" .
Hard to beat "free" anything though. "Smart market", civic market. Free is dumb. Well -regulated, or managed, or restrained markets are smart. Eating too much ice cream because it's free will make one feel bad.
Ah, the invisible hand of the market. Sounds like Christo-nationalist economics!
Economic the dismal science. There are way too many variables to be able to control to have a viable experiment. And why you will have economists with completely different opinions based on the same set of facts. That rarely happens in the other sciences.
Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish writer and philosopher, called economics "the dismal science" in reference to Thomas Malthus, that lugubrious economist who claimed humanity was trapped in a world where population growth would always strain natural resources and bring widespread misery. Dismal, indeed.
"While advocates of deregulation completely ignore its (invisible hand) corollary, expressed in the second chapter of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, in which he argues:
“Man is considered as moral because he is regarded as an accountable being. But an accountable being, as the word expresses, is a being that must give an account of its actions to some other, and that consequently must regulate them according to the good liking of this other.” https://hartmannreport.com/p/can-we-stop-the-greed-heads-from
Most interesting is that Adam Smith used the "invisible hand" in his chapter a bout international trade, where he argued against restrictions on imports and the merchants who favored them. as they form a "standing army" that intimidates legislatures.
Know who else argued for the invisible hand and against import tariffs? Karl Marx. He firmly opposed the "Corn Laws" of Britain, which imposed a tariff on grain and other imports.
The Great Soviet Encylopaedia hailed Adam Smith as one of their own and the intellectual father of Marx.
Yes a picture is worth a thousand words. But is homelessness a result of a failing market or of government regulations like zoning restrictions that prevent the construction of affordable housing? I live in San Francisco and there is a huge struggle going on about the policies that prevented for many years the construction of affordable housing, imposing huge rents and environmental damage. It is utterly unfair! SF is totally dominated by Democrats. The market is suppressed. Homelessness is a huge problem as the picture illustrates.
People, regardless of political party, don't like to pay taxes, especially property taxes, my taxes have doubled. Contractors won't build affordable housing or shelters, unless forced to by the city administration and that then is by laws, passed by a city council, which more than likely is composed of clients of developers and business.
I know this, my wife was a building official, and they work for Community Development Department, which was set up at the insistence of business owners and developers.
Besides the unwillingness to expend money with no profit, or at a loss (developers will die off doing that, as they are like sharks that die of suffocation if they don't stay in motion)
There is also NIMBY, of which a club that both Republicans and Democrats belong.
Save for a few, like families made homeless when the bread winner(s) lost their job, and lost their homes. Many homeless are mentally ill or just plain criminals.
They cause a lot of problems, robbing Mom and Pops, pick pockets, snagging purses, mugging for money., stabbings proliferate.
The Asian district of Seattle is hard hit, because the cops either don't respond, or are slow in responding, to store owners, and unlike in the 60's and 70's, there are no longer foot patrols. Every cop has a four wheeled office (that is what they call a cop car)
Gloria, can you provide info on the video, please, if you can? Thank-you 😊
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L3FQDmYSjI This is another very interesting one.
Thank you, Gloria, for providing those links. I have them bookmarked for watching when I have time later today. This is very interesting.
Again, thank-you!
I'll try to find it. I think Mike Hudson was one of the economists.
https://michael-hudson.com/2023/11/understanding-americas-post-industrial-economy/
This is one I have recently watched that has given me food for thought.
Wonderful! Thanks so much for taking the time to look! I appreciate it!
Happy exploring.
Hi Gloria,
I agree. Thank you for the link.
😉
Indeed
Currently we have a situation that was unimaginable over 200 years ago, where control of a single industry such as a distribution network, Amazon , could give one person so much wealth and power. Nor could they have envisioned that it would be a single man that had a monopoly over shooting men and supplies into space or that our Department of Defense would be forced to pay a communications network owned by the same man to maintain communications during a fight for democracy and the sovereignty of ones own country ( Ukraine.)
The larger question asked is “Why is American Capitalism So Rotten?” The large answer is because the goal of capitalism is to acquire an unequally large share of capital. An unequal amount of capital gives one power to skew the government in your favor so you can acquire more capital and squeeze out competition.
The game “Monopoly” is a perfect tool for teaching, for to win the game of Monopoly (capitalism) one must mercilessly squeeze your opponents into debt and then bankruptcy. When you have acquired all the capital you “win.” It is not a game of skill or honor; it is a game of cunning. One must be merciless in your quest to acquire all available capital no matter what the consequences to others. Donald Trump is our current example of one who uses cunning and merciless tactics to win. Part of that cunning strategy to to undermine the current system of democratic governance. Fascism is Trump's means to that end. If we want a working democracy for the people and by the people, we will all have to fight for it. That will mean changing the rules of democracy in favor of the people and not in favor of the capitalists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Monopoly
The Anti-Monopoly game also called Bust the Trust, is more popular in Germany than here. Hmmmm. Might make a good Xmas gift.
I like it!
Indeed
Well that's what you get when people set out to drown government in the bathtub. An undercapacity to meet the needs of the people but the freedom for some to make a lot of money. Unaccountable power that screams "Go f*ck yourself" when anyone tries to hold them to account. And our Congress and we have accepted this. Embraced this even.
"We have a situation that was unimaginable over 200 years ago, where control of a single industry...."
That industry is energy. We have fought foreign wars, spent money and blood to defend foreign powers that undermine our economy. OPEC/Saudi/Russia control oil production and impose the equivalent of taxes that affect everyone. Oil profits are funding the Russian war on Ukraine. Saudis own our largest refineries, control companies like Exxon.
This isn't an "unseen hand." We should be recouping trillions for price fixing and price gouging.
The state of California is suing Amazon for price gouging. Musk is self destructing.....
At the time our nation was founded, the richest man in America was a real estate developer, who got the taxpayers to pay for a national road to access his vast land holdings in the west. His wife was a slave owner. When he was located in a "free" state, he had the slaves; toes amputated so they couldn't flee. He also was first in war, first in peace and our first president.
Daniel. I am going to have to call you on this. G.W. was born and died in Virginia, and was never relocated to a free state, and IIRC there was no such thing before, during and after the revolution, until slowly New England states abolished slavery.
Our 2nd president John Adams was a slave owner
As far as amputating their toes. Their were 317 slaves at Mt Vernon, GW owned 123, the Custis estate owned the rest.
The income producing crop of the Custis Estate was tobacco, amputating the toes of 317, involves a lot of lost productivity, and a huge dent in the wallet. Not to mention one hell of a horrendous undertaking
Records show that Washington acquired 9,744 acres on the Ohio River and owned another 23,341 acres on the Great Kanhawa, with an additional 234 acres in Pennsylvania near Great Meadows, 3,051 acres in the northwestern territory, and 5,000 acres in Kentucky. https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/ohio-river-valley/#:~:text=That%20document%20records%20that%20Washington,and%205%2C000%20acres%20in%20Kentucky.
Developed land in the Cincinnati area, some in what is now northern West Virginia and Kentucky. https://cincyshirts.com/blogs/news/george-washington-tristate-landowner
We used to stay in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, Washington's "other" home. https://wvtourism.com/berkeley-springs-washington/
Set aside funding for the "national road" now route 40. https://www.nps.gov/articles/national-road.htm#:~:text=The%20National%20Road%20opened%20the,%2C%20Maryland%20to%20Vandalia%2C%20Illinois. It went to his properties.
In 1780, Pennsylvania passed the Gradual Abolition Act, a law that freed people after they turned 28 and that automatically freed any slave who moved to the state and lived there for more than six months.
"From 1791, [Washington] arranged for those who served in his personal retinue in Philadelphia while he was President to be rotated out of the state before they became eligible for emancipation after six months residence per Pennsylvanian law. Not only would Washington have been deprived of their services if they were freed, most of the slaves he took with him to Philadelphia were dower slaves, which meant that he would have had to compensate the Custis estate for the loss. Because of his concerns for his public image and that the prospect of emancipation would generate discontent among the slaves before they became eligible for emancipation, he instructed that they be shuffled back to Mount Vernon "under pretext that may deceive both them and the Public". Thompson, Mary. "'The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret'", MountVernon.org
When he was in Philadelphia, and Pa. was a "free" state, had the slaves toes amputated. I can find this someplace. I remember it from a Pa History class.
Found this. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/living/Ona_Judge_George_Washington_Dunbar_slave_escape.html
When he died, he was the richest man in America. https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/death/washingtons-last-will-testament/
Oh, and irrelevant thought, There is among GW's file in the William and Mary archives, bills of lading for fine silver, china, furniture and clothing bought from Richard Farrar and sons of London, not my ancestors, but rather distant cousins, we share a common ancestor, born about 1440 about
Wow, thanks for taking the time and educating me. Now that is something I didn't know and much obliged, genuinely.
Fr those not in the know. Dower is a word used for widows rights. That came along with her dowery when she married. As a genealogist I have come across many 18th and 19th Century indentures (that is what we call contracts, For instance one of 5th great grandmoms, relinquished her dowers rights when my 5th GGF sold his property in what is now the Independent Community of Manakin Sabot within the city limits of Richmond, and removed to Pittsylvania Co, VA in 1767.
Thank you for all this new information regarding our first president.
Not so new.
They barely thought about it. IMHO the singular act of destruction was the slashing of taxes in 1980. This enabled corporations and wealthy individuals to lobby like never before. And what did they lobby for? Monopoly. In other words, a less free market.
Never allow the wealthy to become so rich and powerful that they can buy the government and collude against the public interest. Bring back high taxes.
Reagan's tax cuts were preceded by a capital gains tax cut in 1978. We sold the goose that laid the golden egg: manufacturing.
And the 1963 Kennedy tax cut, which my old man also wrote.
Ah poor Jimmy, a fish out of water. Selected because he was a " clone" of JFk, with a simile of that quaint accent that is the London elite, and is the accent, nearly, of Massachusetts and Georgia.
Unfortunately the wealthy are too rich already!
It's occurred to me that this may be irreversible, but there is enough pent up anger out there that a liberal DNC platform may be able to change the status quo. But it will require another FDR. If there is no FDR out there, and the DNC continues to play GOP lite, then we are doomed to endure this level of income disparity with all its consequences.
Quite Michael. I am still disquieted by the fact that in 2024, like in 201, and 2020, the only reason I am voting is to keep that Orange NAZI out of office.
You mean 1981, 1980 was an election year, and Reagan first raised his Alzheimer head.
Indeed
Absolutely correct! When I took a university economics course in 1979 our young professor advocated for a "free market economy" and "deregulation" (i.e., no or few governmental rules) of all industries, especially the airlines. However the industry tanked afterwards due to consolidation by the major airlines purchasing the smaller airlines who needed government subsidies, tax breaks, etc. to survive, and some did not. Many airline employees lost their jobs and the reduction of their purchasing capacity had negative consequences for the overall economy. There is nothing "free" about such as system. We can do better!
I agree completely. The airlines now are raking in record profits and are free to make travel a wretched experience for their passengers. The comfort level is less than an old fashioned Greyhound bus. (Actually, the busses have more leg room.)
It WILL be a Facist Dic(k)tatorship with all the underpinnings of one. In other words, if you support Herr F_hrer, as he will no doubt call himself, you will be a billionaire or a brain-washe cog. If you oppose him, you WILL be in a gulag!
It would be amusing to me if it were not so serious, that it is the "free market" when one corporation or group of corporations can make a bunch of money, get a lot of power in their area of practice, or are not held accountable for their bad behavior. It is government interference when they are held to account, are expected to follow rules, or have to pay their fair share of taxes. That "free market" let a small bunch of mostly white guys acquire a whole lot of money at the expense of everyone else, yet those super rich still whine that they are being treated unfairly. They are right, actually. They are being treated unfairly because the "free market" has become heavily weighted in their favor. I suspect they know it, but if they admit it, they would have to acknowledge the gifts they have been given and that luck also helped put them where they are, definitely more than their talent, skill, or anything else. Those are important, but not enough. I think that explains the need of the very rich and the wannabees to keep the myth alive even in the face of reality. Perhaps if we just acknowledge there is no truly "free" market, we could start building a much fairer economy. Alas, the very rich and the wannabees will do everything they can to stop that from happening, even forcing an ignorant fool into the White House again, knowing they can manipulate him to get them whatever they want, and who cares about the rest of us.
Well said.
The concept of the 'Free market' is one that obscures what is really going on. It is a rationalization to confuse the public, who mostly do not understand economics , because those who worship the 'Free market" are the ones benefitting from this con game.
Thank you so much. IMHO this is the most important issue of our time. Please continue your teaching.
The implications are dark. The rich and powerful people preaching the wisdom of the free market are con men. They are not mistaken; they are self-serving liars.
"Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still picking cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows."
-Leonard Cohen
I wonder if Leonard Cohen was blaming a woman for the fact that " old Black Joe's still picking cotton For your ribbons and bows And everybody knows"? Of course, men wore ribbons, if decorated for Valor , or wearing a bow tie. They were mostly silk or satin though: not cotton. Maybe a lift from Bob Dylan. : "Lately, I see, your ribbons and your bows, have fallen from your curls: Oh you ache, just like a woman..."
Ha! If you read the rest of his lyrics, his cynicism is, in fact, fueled by a woman who cheated on him:
"Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Oh, give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
Everybody knows"
However, ribbons and bows could be bought by a man to impress a woman in the economic system where men control the purse strings and dole out favours to women in exchange for sex. Perhaps Cohen bought the ribbons and bows for his unfaithful lover, reinforcing the idea that she's a whore. I read "ribbons and bows" as "finery" in general -- luxuries; the rich are happy to consign the bulk of humanity to slavery so that they can enjoy their frivolous excesses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxd23UVID7k
What ever happened to the idea of a transaction tax. Back in the day when the talk was whether the Dow would ever break the $1000 barrier, the trades were almost manual and the volume was in the thousands, not computer trades in the multi-million shares. The answer to the greed market should be in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has its 75th anniversary this Sunday, December 10th. What would Eleanor Roosevelt say about the world today, when we thought we had defeated fascism in 1945.
Your photo of FREE MARKET CAPITALISM is a perfect representation of America today with (homeless people and people less homes)
Indeed, and may I add, at what costs to the world's environment.
It is a perfect example of our rotten Capitalism.
Oligarchs on steroids
One of THE biggest disservices foisted upon an uninformed public has been the RUSE
that unfettered capitalism = Democracy! This has been THE false premise from which the
moneyed elites have hijacked BOTH the economic AND political machinery. All the math based on this FALSE EQUATION becomes not only skewed but, creates outcomes that are totally untenable
for the vast majority of society.
The NEW EQUATION should read: Unfettered capitalism = OLIGARCHY!!!!!
(now there's "math" EVERYONE can understand)
Bravo, David. I think that your “new equation” should become our watchword.
Free market=fascism. Or can in the end.
David,
Great comment. I’ve been hearing that trope for years from various people, including family about capitalism being democratic. It doesn’t pass the smell test!
Yeah, they seem to equate the "law" of supply & demand with the LAW of gravity!?!
(Unfettered) capitalism is much more like the "dog eat dog" state of nature - if unregulated, it
becomes engineered and manipulated by the wealthy who monopolize profit and power for themselves. This class BECOMES the system rather than a participant (then, OF COURSE, our patriotism is questioned!)
After the debacle of 2008, the US government bailed out and protected the banks. They did nothing against the CEOs and Chairmen who had caused the problem in the first place. In Iceland, senior bankers were sent to prison. The same should have happened in the US.
But David, Larry, Tim and Rahm would never have allowed it, they were put there to monitor and control Barrack, for the benefit of their masters.. financial institutions.
Congress was the main culprit in creating a system of incentives to do rotten things. Yes, CEO's are culpable but the chief "villain" was our Congress. We should have sent many to jail. With our Congress bad legislation can only be redressed by electing someone else.
Totally!
Robert, the problem isn't the system, in my opinion. The problem is that there are people who have no capacity to care about others. They have no compassion for others and no conscience about using others to feather their own nest.
They exist in our society, which by now is world-wide, because there is much cruelty in childhood leaving many people without the experience of being cared about, themselves. Deep in unconscious regions of their minds they have a need to feel important, powerful over others, because they felt so powerless and bereft of agency in their earliest years. Powerlessness, helplessness, is an unbearable experience so it's covered over later on in life by the unconscious determination to never feel that way again.
You can see this with the robber barons historically and today. The quality of all of their relationships, both personal and in the business world, is structured on what Martin Buber called an "I - It" basis. They see others only as objects to be manipulated so as to benefit themselves. They've not experienced an "I - Thou" relationship in infancy and early childhood so they don't re-create these in adulthood. Then if they're white and male, they unconsciously absorb the culture of cruelty passed along by fathers, older boys, and other role models. They compete with one another in business the way men compete in warfare...they dominate whomever they can...their workers, each other, etc.
I'm in business for myself and my colleagues charge twice as much as I do. I have license to charge more, under the rules of the "free market," but I don't because I care about the people who wouldn't be able to avail themselves of my services if I did that. It's not just what's missing in the system, it's what's missing in the hearts of the people who use the system to aggrandize themselves. And that's why the public needs government regulations to protect them, because without those protections, the robber barons of the world are exploiting and abusing the rest of us.
Thank you so much for your wisdom and your determination to share your knowledge. We love you!
Thank you for this thoughtful comment . I have long wondered how people whose whole reason for being is to get more no matter what the cost to others get that way.
Madeline. A problem has a solution, Find the solution, and enact it and problem solved.
What you describe are not problems, but difficulties, Difficulties that are part of our biological evolutionary make up. They have been with us since we were hominids eking out a subsistence in the Savannahs of Africa.
There is no solution to difficulties, if you try and solve a difficulty you only make it worse.
The remedy is to find a sensible way to solve a problem there you find backlash. Affirmative action was one such attempt, and the backlash was long in coming, but has had horrific
affects.
Same with Roe. The loss to the patriarchs was traumatic, and they were patient, liberals not so much, so they fell back, infected politics and universities, even corporations at all levels and finally got their man elected to office, as well as a compliant senate, and appointed federal judges at all levels, that would advance their agenda, via a "think tank" that they set up called the Federalist Society.
I don't think that we can get federal protection for a woman's right to choose, or the right to vote, not with the federal judiciary full of theocrats and fascist inclined.
Hi William, it seems to me that certain men in various cultures have been determined to retain their sense of importance by controlling women for at least 5,000 years. However, all that time, women have been determined to control their own bodies and their own lives and have found ways to do so. Men who are confident about their worth aren't threatened by women. Let's help boys feel better about themselves when they're young so they don't feel the need to oppress women and other men when they grow up.
Oh Madeline you are preaching to the choir. I am so much in agreement with you, save certain men in various cultures controllling women for a sense of their own importance.
It is quite different, biology and hormones.
To understand, we must look at nature, from fish to land animals, males compete to spread their genes, by fighting off other males, and accumulating a harem, or in the case of some species, attracting just one female.
It depends on the evolved biology of the species, Those with short lives, and are vulnerable to predators usually mate just once, and some like geese, ducks and penguins mate for life.
On the other hand buffalo, beef, gazelles, grazing animals, mate when the female is in heat, and the male is in muskh.
Carnivores build harems, and fight to be the alpha, and dominate the males. Dominated males experience a loss in testrone and thus are , for the time, chemically neutured.
Humans are carnivores,and many males, like religious and fundies, are neutured if the woman rejects him and his sperm. If he doesn't "feel" like a man, he can't erect and copulate.
He can only copulate when he is in control. That is way many women say that rape is power and control, it is he only way that the rapist can erect and copulate.
Incels are a prime example, they are unable to attract a woman for sexual release, so they demonize women and men who "get laid" IMO Incels are rapists in waiting, and don't act out for fear of the law, Remove consequences and "katie bar the gates"
About 4 decades ago, Europe, tired of soccer riots, funded a commission to study the cause of soccer riots.
Here is what they found. European men invest "their ego and Id" in their teams and when their team is beat on the field, their testosterone takes a dive, the way to rebuild and pump up testosterone is by initiating violence, like a tribe of Chimps.
The acquisition of wealth is just another way of proving your manhood and dominating the other alpha males.
It is the thing that is not spoken, but it all boils down to hormones. Hormones is what drives us, hormones what sends signals from the stomach to the brain. Hormones are chemicals, and we are slave to chemicals, be they opioids, which trigger the release of dopamine. or testosterone or estrogen which triggers the sex drive.
A reality that most don't want to face. We like to think that we have free will, and we do, we can master the drive of chemicals. Buddhist monks do it, The real ascetics have mummified themselves, while living.
I am doing it by ignoring hormones, limiting my intake of carbs and cutting out sugars, I am pre diabetic and want to stay that way. I have lost 44 lbs and got my blood glucose down to 100, goal is 95 which made make me non diabetic, right now I am on the cusp down from 126.
It takes diligence and sacrifice though.
There's nothing "free" about it. Caveat emptor.
Maureen, the problem with "Buyer beware" is that there is no way buyers can beware or be aware of everything. That is the reason for regulation. We need our governments to help us to know when things are safe and there must be a way to hold those producing products and conducting services accountable when they are not performing as claimed. The penalties need to be deep enough so the behavior will stop. That is not happening these days to a sufficient level.
Ruth Buyer beware does not mean Buyer be aware. It means you are on your own, when you exchange money for goods and services. And product guarantees are worthless unless you have a filing system for all of your receipts and you detect a problem with 30 or 90 days, whatever the limit, and if it is made in PRC or Asia, forget about it.
I cannot findwhere to pay! Record is burn ing a shoo a hole in my pocket Dulce! Your oss! Pal!
TANSTAAFM
There ain't no such thing as a free market.
Government (We the People) creates and manages the environment within which the economy operates according to arbitrary rules that have evolved over time to give a few who are wealthy more power to gain more wealth, and they have gotten away with this because We the People have not been engaged in our government.
The rich have gotten "less government" restriction on them being able to do as they please without regard for the consequences of their actions on others or on the environment.
So true
Bob, America is built on many dangerous delusions and illusions. And then there are sales pitches that most people do not buy-today. Most people do not believe that the market is anything but rigged. That it is rigged is indeed the most common description you can find. The problem is What Ralph Nader has been fighting against his whole life-most people do not care enough to be engaged citizens activists. Democracy requires civic engagement beyond just voting. There has always been space for that to happen-for people to organize and there still is. But that space has become smaller and smaller. Empty civics space gets filled. Empty civics space gets filled by corporate commodification. Here is the dirty truth. Americans care more about comfort-instant gratification-materialism-making it- success-money to buy things than anything else. American's pay lip service to freedom-being citizens, but the fact is they are CONSUMERS who want to consume more and more. And those huge corporations produce those good cheaply so they can afford them. The role-the value of being able to be successful consumers is a higher value with more skill development there than the Value-the skills required to be engaged citizens critical thinkers. We are a Consumer society not a Civics Society. Finally, endless consumption is necessary for economic growth as we know it and want it-more and more material things. We are consuming ourselves to death. As we should and must as The Consumer Civilization. The real question is, will the forces of nature that Galbraith often turned to over politics-will climate change us before we consume ourselves to death.
Well-said, Glen...I agree completely. When we, the public, organize, when we go on strike or boycott a given company, we finally feel our collective power. But we've allowed ourselves to be brainwashed by manipulative advertising for the last 100 years, designed to make us feel as if we NEED this or that product. That's the "I - It" dimension wherein one's fellow and sister citizens are viewed only as objects to be manipulated for the benefit of the company.
The documentary called, "The Corporation," illustrates how corporations are like sociopathic individuals, with no conscience regarding how they're affecting the social surround. This is especially true when they are run by sociopathic individuals. The Koch brothers, for example, were raised by a Hitler-loving, Hitler-esque nanny. They experienced little or no tenderness in their most vulnerable and formative years and grew up having no capacity for tenderness towards others. They learned to dominate or be dominated, and fought legal battles with members of their own family when it ,financially, served them to do so. Sadly, ours is a culture that venerates sociopathic men like "the billionaires," instead of seeing them for the morally-bankrupt people that they are. The huge following of someone like TFG is, sadly, another example of this misplaced idealization of sociopathic men. As Tevye says in "Fiddler On The Roof," "When you're rich they think you really know." :(
Madeline here is the full monty:
Bob, America is built on many dangerous delusions and illusions. And then there are sales pitches that most people do not buy-today. Most people do not believe that the market is anything but rigged. That it is rigged is indeed the most common description you can find. Rigged resonated with Bernie supporters- rigged resonated with Trump supporters even Biden has been reported to have said the market is rigged. The problem is What Ralph Nader has been fighting against his whole life-most people do not care enough to be engaged citizens- activists. Democracy requires civic engagement beyond just voting. There has always been space for that to happen-for people to organize and there still is. But that space has become smaller and smaller. Empty civics space gets filled. Empty civics space gets filled by corporate commodification. Here is the dirty truth. Americans care more about comfort-instant gratification-materialism-making it- success-money to buy things than anything else. American's pay lip service to freedom-being active citizens, but the fact is they are CONSUMERS who want to consume more and more. And those huge corporations produce those goods cheaply so they can afford them. The role-the value of being able to be successful consumers is a higher value with more skill development there than the value-the skills required to be engaged citizens critical thinkers. We are a Consumer society not a Civics Society. Finally, endless consumption is necessary for economic growth as we know it and want it-more and more material things. We are consuming ourselves to death. As we should and must as The Consumer Civilization. The real question is, will the forces of nature that Galbraith often turned to over politics-will climate change us before we consume ourselves to death. We can blame the Corporate Society for everything-Yes blame is there top- down blame. But to be realistic- more honest- more blame lies on how we allowed and enjoyed the space filled by corporate ease of production so we can have more and newer and cheaper consumer goods.
I think we will survive for a long, long while...but our conscious will become more limited and dependent on consumer technologies-life will become more and more packaged-standardized for us producing a more and more monolithic culture and our quality of life- our pace of consumption will become more and more dependent upon us being consumers of technologies that make us less and less free of it... to be independent critical citizens. Independent critical thinking is needed to govern technology. Technology is great with this. But without this it has us serving it. Technology produces things-dependence so fast that we have less time or inclination to stop and think. Civilization is becoming more a monolithic consumerism...we are all staring at smart phones everywhere in the world-the poorest most remote peoples see consumer products that they too now want. Our economic dependence on growth-endless growth in a finite world of finite resources goes against that nature of the world. Stopping to think about the true costs of consumerism has been excluded from our economic models-textbooks. Initiating carbon taxes-the costs of oil-gas is a beginning step towards a more inclusive-holistic view of the nature of the world we live in. But our stronger instincts-thinking habits-are and will be to look to corporations to package answers for us to consume. We will look to buy electric cars-over the civics required to make our neighborhoods more livable-less dependent on cars with public transportation.
Agreed. Within our market, regardless of descriptive label, we are labeled according to our function: "consumers". In nature the roles are predator and prey. Predators do the consuming, but ironically "consumers" in human markets are actually the prey. Regardless of observing these twists in language, we are indeed destroying ourselves and our planet with endless consumerism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y888wVY5hzw
The documentary The Corporation
YES ! Madeline, you said it well!
We are actually natural born learners- questioners-holistic...but the strategies of suppression begin in how we are schooled siloed not to think but to be consumers. But of course, it begins at home by parents who have already been schooled to be consumers.
If anyone has ideas for civic engagement for kids please post. Meeting with some people to discuss this and put into action.
Steve, for kids! We are actually natural born learners- questioners-holistic...but the strategies of suppression begin in how we are schooled siloed not to think but to be consumers. But of course, it Begin's at home by parents who have already been schooled to be consumers.
Kids are in school so that is where it should start. Kids should organize there around a common cause. Kids should be getting involved with municipal government. I wholeheartedly recommend: Natural Born Learners Edited by Beatrice Ekwa Ekoko and Carlo Ricci...it loaded with ideas-authors- activists.
Ok. I like the idea of involvement with local government which could take a number of different forms.
Money is speech and power ; We have rules that allow the Supreme court to give the wealthy Citizens United, and bank bailouts that leave people homeless, and give undeserving CEO's 'golden parachutes'.
Obviously, then, it is incumbent upon us to rid ourselves of this foolish notion that spending should be protected as a sort of free speech.
Excellent discussion, very enlightening. Please continue. Thanks!
The Babylonians had a bureau of weights and measures to keep cuneiform thumbs off the scales. The half of Leviticus that isn't about priestly bling and blood. . is about taxes Every Evangelical free marketeer should know that.
Look at the story of Joseph. (The "coat of many colors" story.) The pharoh's dream of seven fat cows and the seven starving cows who devour the fat cows.
Heavy tax and savings in times of plenty, then distribution during times of famine.
In modern terms, an economy that looks capitalistic with high taxes and government surplus savings during the boom, that pivots to look more socialistic with low taxes that raids the surplus savings for government assistance in times of bust.