The rot in America began four decades ago, when the mildly demented Ronald Reagan became president. Tax breaks for the wealthy! Bust the unions! Government is always the problem!
But twenty decades of well-supported economic theory (i.e., not Friedmanomics) teaches that progressive taxation is a GOOD thing because a) it redistributes wealth in a way that improves the welfare of society (cf Denmark), and b) prevents anyone from getting too rich and therefore too powerful, for they will collude against society (i.e., those wealthy enough to pay for government lobbyists).
So, the experiment with trickledown is over. Friedman was a fraud.
There is only one way to reverse the rot: a sweeping Democratic victory in 2024 and a return to progressive taxation. Hopefully, the Trump-Desantis battle will help.
Crisis after crisis...the trillions found for wars while our schools and communities crumbled, the trillions found to bailout corporations responsible for the real estate crash, the trillions found for shareholders during COVID while the people worried about heat, food and rent, and of course, the trillions going to a small section of the population for decades while worker productivity skyrocketed and their purchasing power stagnated or dropped....it has all pointed to the same lesson...
From the very start of our nation right through today, the story of America is one of exploitation dressed up as innovation. We steal, suppress, enslave, siphon...and then a compliant media and purchased elected officials and carefully crafted textbooks and executives who already made it or dream of doing so paint a completely farcical picture of a country filled with brilliant ideas dreamed up by god-like titans who must be praised and followed and heard on every single topic. In truth, we are a country with some decent ideas and creators and millions of overworked, fearful, brainwashed, paycheck-to-paycheck wage slaves unable to speak up, change jobs, or sufficiently mobilize for the rights and pay and treatment they deserve thanks to regulatory capture and the destruction of every meaningful effort to provide healthcare, affordable housing, economic mobility, a fair tax system, childcare and support for worker organizing.
This will very likely end in the streets. The only real question is how much of the US will still be standing by the time that happens.
So what to do? How and when will we be able to vote-in politicians sufficient in numbers who care enough for the country as a whole so laws, regulations, social values and safety nets, voting rights (get rid of electoral college ), across-the-board fair taxation, infrastructure, national industry, education, sensible economic policies à la R. Reich, etc. can be agreed and legislated upon? Who, what, how can explain it better than in tonight’s blog, but how long will it take for enough people to get it and elect majorities great enough to make the difference and effect the commensurate changes? Will Mr. Reich, will WE still be here to see this happen? Who, how, when will teach the public en masse what the few are reading here? How slow, how slow the progress..... what dreadful situations will we have to experience as a country, as a world, before it is too late? Ok, chin up! Thank you again Mr. Reich. Would that there were such a position as Educator in Chief with regular national addresses.
THIS corruption is the core of our problem. It's what drives the political culture wars. If it's how the game is played, we need to identify whose influence was bought to attach that tax break for the ultra-rich to the omnibus bill. Those corrupt politicians need to be voted out. But we can't blame the others who pass the omnibus bill because it must be passed while they hold their noses. To blame the entire political class would be like calling every good apple in a basket a bad apple because one is starting to contaminate the bunch.
My friend and colleague, Alan Unell, has worked as a healthcare system analyst. He advocates universal healthcare in the U.S. and just started a Substack blog where he is detailing our dysfunctional healthcare "industry." This link leads to his post where he sums up how much we are getting short-changed and underserved. https://substack.com/inbox/post/90946759
Why does a lawyer get to deduct the cost of leasing a giant suv and it gasoline cost . While a working poor can’t deduct the cost of a car mostly used for work.?
The poor are carrying the rich on there backs. If a corporation makes money it’s barely taxed, if a corporation looses money it’s tax deductible . Then we get to carry the debt. Corporate Welfare.
"What's The Matter With Kansas" by Thomas Frank, 2004. How ..."the culture wars allowed the GOP to capture the populist language of social class and present themselves as the embodiment of working-class anti-elitism." And thus we have a large segment of the electorate that will continually vote against its own self-interest resulting in the outcomes discussed in Reich's piece.
Another zero-sum "industry" with which I am professionally aware is the health insurance industry.
Companies vie to offer plans which they tout to big corporations and little people as meeting their needs and giving them "health" for their workers or themselves, respectively.
The last time I checked, insurance has done NOTHING to improve the health status of actual people. They just hoover up an increasing percentage of our inflated health care costs to fund more PR, more executive salaries and perquisites while finding ever-increasing ways to deny or delay claims such as prior authorization, limited providers, out-of-network charges and the like.
We have just ended the annual cycle of Medicare enrollment and the tsunami of Medicare "Advantage" plans has thankfully ebbed. They specialize in claiming how well their patients would become while simultaneously telling the gubmint how very sick their subscribers are (to get higher reimbursements).
Manufacturing is not glamorous. It requires sustained effort and real investment of time and money. But it adds value. The games Robert Reich refers to are glamorous and sexy. But they add no value. The money goes round and round while the manipulators siphon off their cut. So less money makes it around. And so on until many have nothing and the few siphoning off their cuts have everything. Manufacturing causes money to create more every spin.
Think of sand, cheap sand. Reduce it to silicon and add controlled impurities in a very controlled manner and you get a chip that may be more valuable than gold, ounce for ounce. Or rusty rock. Reduce it and add carbon. You get steel. Add copper, rubber, polymers, and other things and you get automobiles from rust and latex sap. We are evolving from supplying valuable manufactured goods to supplying raw materials.
We value glamor. We value wealth. We value manipulation over production. We value talkers over doers.
You're right to add art to the list of more "pragmatic" material objects that add value to our lives and our society. The great Irish labor leader, James Larkin, once said, "If you have but two pennies, spend one on a loaf of bread and the other on a lily. You need food for you spirit as well as food for your body."
Let's connect the dots from the earth we're destroying to the marketocracy to cryptocurrency to social injustice to mass migrations to why aren't the entire GOP in prison.
Thank you! Every word is truth! Our best and brightest stopped going into science and instead went into careers in FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT! Instead of producing something of value, the real money is is made by inventing some algorithm for information and then figuring out a way to charge everyone in the world a tiny amount. It's like licking your finger and sticking your hand up into the wind to get whatever will stick to it. And then you accumulate so much money you can buy all the Manchins and Sinemas you need to lower your taxes.
How about we work at changing the definition of profit? Instead of thing that profit only accrues to the owners of capital, shareholders and the like, it includes wages. A better paid worker is counted as value, not an expense. It means that a dollar going to productive labor is counted the same, in terms of a companies worth, as a dollar going into the hands of an investor. Paying labor would not detract from the observed worth of a company, it would add to it. This is a tough sell because our mindset rests on the false notion that money determines worth. But money is a medium of exchange, its value is given to it by a societies granting it trade value status. Its value is gone if the grower of a head of broccoli trades it directly for a half dozen eggs. No money is exchanged, but both parties in the barter obtained value. So why should the value of money given to labor be less than the value of the money given to capital? Here I am talking about social value, status if you will, not simply exchange. With the perspective, which is a total fantasy I admit, the market "value" of a company would go up when they paid better wages (and treated workers well) and go down when it did otherwise. Ponzi schemes would never go anywhere because money would not have any value in itself.
Fantasy aside, when money becomes the end itself, it becomes "a root of all evil", and this has been recognized for millennia. Whether it be Bankman-Freid, Musk or the grifters in the Pentagon's accounting office, we have a significant problem with the honor money accrues to its holders, and they only understand the ethics of Scrooge McDuck.
I just don't understand how we the people allowed the nearly complete corruption of our economy that Dr. Reich describes. I suspect it was because it happened a little at a time, first ignoring anti-trust laws, then union-busting, but each of these happening around the edges and with excuses that worked to mostly silence protests. Then jobs just disappeared overseas and tax breaks were given for the transfers. Then private corporations began taking over our prison system, abusing and neglecting prisoners for profit. This was a good group to move in on because most people care nothing for prisoners as long as they are prisoners. I have even heard people say "well, prisoners deserve what they get." Then hedge funds crept in, scooping up billions they could use to take over, dismantle, and steal from smaller companies. That was hardly covered by media until people who had lost their jobs from such takeovers started complaining and challenging the actions of the hedgers. Nothing changed, but at least some of us began hearing about it. Then, there was the tech industry, run by a bunch of wunderkind who had some good ideas, but got huge businesses started "in the garage" so missed a lot of the necessary regulation that could have helped stop the 0 sum gains we now face. Now they are so big and diverse they, like banks are considered "too big to fail." Those wunderkind left college before they actually learned about people and being positive managers, so often treat and treated their employees like dirt or tools to be used and discarded. After the 2008 crash, our government should have bailed out the mortgage-holders who could have paid the banks and ended up owning their homes at the same time, a win-win. Because banks were/are allowed to pass mortgages on to investors who have no connection with the homeowners, it would have been really hard to rescue the homeowners and no one wanted to take that on. That practice continues. I can't help but wonder whose idea that was. Now, private insurance corporations who are doing a rather crappy job taking care of regular folks being insured through their companies, are moving in to take over Medicare and the American people don't even know it is happening until a treatment is refused and they find out it is refused by a huge insurance corporation. It is a 0 some gain here, but in reality, the ultra rich individuals and corporations are doing all the gaining and we the people are doing nothing to stop them. We keep electing people who are in bed with those corporations and are totally willing to give them whatever they want no matter who it hurts. Not smart!
Is it possible to get those who know how the game is played (that would include you, right?) to turn the tables? This seems far beyond the reach of ordinary citizens. Your anecdote about the staffer for the Ways and Means Committee indicates that the system is thoroughly corrupt. Yes, I see what you're pointing out. Do you see any way to correct this?
Seems like a dead end no win situation unless democrats get a set. This is not a way to defeat a mortal enemy. Aggression begets aggression. Overturn Citizens United, arrest and imprisonment for traitors, protect voters rights and most importantly expand the Supreme Court. We are always on our heels. It’s all about freedom. Fight like hell. Biden is a very effective wonderful president for getting things done in a democracy. It’s too bad that’s not the priority.
The rot in America began four decades ago, when the mildly demented Ronald Reagan became president. Tax breaks for the wealthy! Bust the unions! Government is always the problem!
But twenty decades of well-supported economic theory (i.e., not Friedmanomics) teaches that progressive taxation is a GOOD thing because a) it redistributes wealth in a way that improves the welfare of society (cf Denmark), and b) prevents anyone from getting too rich and therefore too powerful, for they will collude against society (i.e., those wealthy enough to pay for government lobbyists).
So, the experiment with trickledown is over. Friedman was a fraud.
There is only one way to reverse the rot: a sweeping Democratic victory in 2024 and a return to progressive taxation. Hopefully, the Trump-Desantis battle will help.
Crisis after crisis...the trillions found for wars while our schools and communities crumbled, the trillions found to bailout corporations responsible for the real estate crash, the trillions found for shareholders during COVID while the people worried about heat, food and rent, and of course, the trillions going to a small section of the population for decades while worker productivity skyrocketed and their purchasing power stagnated or dropped....it has all pointed to the same lesson...
From the very start of our nation right through today, the story of America is one of exploitation dressed up as innovation. We steal, suppress, enslave, siphon...and then a compliant media and purchased elected officials and carefully crafted textbooks and executives who already made it or dream of doing so paint a completely farcical picture of a country filled with brilliant ideas dreamed up by god-like titans who must be praised and followed and heard on every single topic. In truth, we are a country with some decent ideas and creators and millions of overworked, fearful, brainwashed, paycheck-to-paycheck wage slaves unable to speak up, change jobs, or sufficiently mobilize for the rights and pay and treatment they deserve thanks to regulatory capture and the destruction of every meaningful effort to provide healthcare, affordable housing, economic mobility, a fair tax system, childcare and support for worker organizing.
This will very likely end in the streets. The only real question is how much of the US will still be standing by the time that happens.
So what to do? How and when will we be able to vote-in politicians sufficient in numbers who care enough for the country as a whole so laws, regulations, social values and safety nets, voting rights (get rid of electoral college ), across-the-board fair taxation, infrastructure, national industry, education, sensible economic policies à la R. Reich, etc. can be agreed and legislated upon? Who, what, how can explain it better than in tonight’s blog, but how long will it take for enough people to get it and elect majorities great enough to make the difference and effect the commensurate changes? Will Mr. Reich, will WE still be here to see this happen? Who, how, when will teach the public en masse what the few are reading here? How slow, how slow the progress..... what dreadful situations will we have to experience as a country, as a world, before it is too late? Ok, chin up! Thank you again Mr. Reich. Would that there were such a position as Educator in Chief with regular national addresses.
THIS corruption is the core of our problem. It's what drives the political culture wars. If it's how the game is played, we need to identify whose influence was bought to attach that tax break for the ultra-rich to the omnibus bill. Those corrupt politicians need to be voted out. But we can't blame the others who pass the omnibus bill because it must be passed while they hold their noses. To blame the entire political class would be like calling every good apple in a basket a bad apple because one is starting to contaminate the bunch.
The New York Times has a series of articles about how legal but awful money business is costing lives by destroying hospitals. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/business/hospital-staffing-ascension.html
My friend and colleague, Alan Unell, has worked as a healthcare system analyst. He advocates universal healthcare in the U.S. and just started a Substack blog where he is detailing our dysfunctional healthcare "industry." This link leads to his post where he sums up how much we are getting short-changed and underserved. https://substack.com/inbox/post/90946759
COPORATE WELFARE !
Why does a lawyer get to deduct the cost of leasing a giant suv and it gasoline cost . While a working poor can’t deduct the cost of a car mostly used for work.?
The poor are carrying the rich on there backs. If a corporation makes money it’s barely taxed, if a corporation looses money it’s tax deductible . Then we get to carry the debt. Corporate Welfare.
"What's The Matter With Kansas" by Thomas Frank, 2004. How ..."the culture wars allowed the GOP to capture the populist language of social class and present themselves as the embodiment of working-class anti-elitism." And thus we have a large segment of the electorate that will continually vote against its own self-interest resulting in the outcomes discussed in Reich's piece.
Another zero-sum "industry" with which I am professionally aware is the health insurance industry.
Companies vie to offer plans which they tout to big corporations and little people as meeting their needs and giving them "health" for their workers or themselves, respectively.
The last time I checked, insurance has done NOTHING to improve the health status of actual people. They just hoover up an increasing percentage of our inflated health care costs to fund more PR, more executive salaries and perquisites while finding ever-increasing ways to deny or delay claims such as prior authorization, limited providers, out-of-network charges and the like.
We have just ended the annual cycle of Medicare enrollment and the tsunami of Medicare "Advantage" plans has thankfully ebbed. They specialize in claiming how well their patients would become while simultaneously telling the gubmint how very sick their subscribers are (to get higher reimbursements).
Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.
Manufacturing is not glamorous. It requires sustained effort and real investment of time and money. But it adds value. The games Robert Reich refers to are glamorous and sexy. But they add no value. The money goes round and round while the manipulators siphon off their cut. So less money makes it around. And so on until many have nothing and the few siphoning off their cuts have everything. Manufacturing causes money to create more every spin.
Think of sand, cheap sand. Reduce it to silicon and add controlled impurities in a very controlled manner and you get a chip that may be more valuable than gold, ounce for ounce. Or rusty rock. Reduce it and add carbon. You get steel. Add copper, rubber, polymers, and other things and you get automobiles from rust and latex sap. We are evolving from supplying valuable manufactured goods to supplying raw materials.
We value glamor. We value wealth. We value manipulation over production. We value talkers over doers.
You're right to add art to the list of more "pragmatic" material objects that add value to our lives and our society. The great Irish labor leader, James Larkin, once said, "If you have but two pennies, spend one on a loaf of bread and the other on a lily. You need food for you spirit as well as food for your body."
Let's connect the dots from the earth we're destroying to the marketocracy to cryptocurrency to social injustice to mass migrations to why aren't the entire GOP in prison.
Thank you! Every word is truth! Our best and brightest stopped going into science and instead went into careers in FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT! Instead of producing something of value, the real money is is made by inventing some algorithm for information and then figuring out a way to charge everyone in the world a tiny amount. It's like licking your finger and sticking your hand up into the wind to get whatever will stick to it. And then you accumulate so much money you can buy all the Manchins and Sinemas you need to lower your taxes.
Thanks for another eye-opening wake up with my coffee. Heck I barely needed my coffee after reading this piece! Well… very barely…
Recommended reading: THE SCHEME: How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
How about we work at changing the definition of profit? Instead of thing that profit only accrues to the owners of capital, shareholders and the like, it includes wages. A better paid worker is counted as value, not an expense. It means that a dollar going to productive labor is counted the same, in terms of a companies worth, as a dollar going into the hands of an investor. Paying labor would not detract from the observed worth of a company, it would add to it. This is a tough sell because our mindset rests on the false notion that money determines worth. But money is a medium of exchange, its value is given to it by a societies granting it trade value status. Its value is gone if the grower of a head of broccoli trades it directly for a half dozen eggs. No money is exchanged, but both parties in the barter obtained value. So why should the value of money given to labor be less than the value of the money given to capital? Here I am talking about social value, status if you will, not simply exchange. With the perspective, which is a total fantasy I admit, the market "value" of a company would go up when they paid better wages (and treated workers well) and go down when it did otherwise. Ponzi schemes would never go anywhere because money would not have any value in itself.
Fantasy aside, when money becomes the end itself, it becomes "a root of all evil", and this has been recognized for millennia. Whether it be Bankman-Freid, Musk or the grifters in the Pentagon's accounting office, we have a significant problem with the honor money accrues to its holders, and they only understand the ethics of Scrooge McDuck.
I just don't understand how we the people allowed the nearly complete corruption of our economy that Dr. Reich describes. I suspect it was because it happened a little at a time, first ignoring anti-trust laws, then union-busting, but each of these happening around the edges and with excuses that worked to mostly silence protests. Then jobs just disappeared overseas and tax breaks were given for the transfers. Then private corporations began taking over our prison system, abusing and neglecting prisoners for profit. This was a good group to move in on because most people care nothing for prisoners as long as they are prisoners. I have even heard people say "well, prisoners deserve what they get." Then hedge funds crept in, scooping up billions they could use to take over, dismantle, and steal from smaller companies. That was hardly covered by media until people who had lost their jobs from such takeovers started complaining and challenging the actions of the hedgers. Nothing changed, but at least some of us began hearing about it. Then, there was the tech industry, run by a bunch of wunderkind who had some good ideas, but got huge businesses started "in the garage" so missed a lot of the necessary regulation that could have helped stop the 0 sum gains we now face. Now they are so big and diverse they, like banks are considered "too big to fail." Those wunderkind left college before they actually learned about people and being positive managers, so often treat and treated their employees like dirt or tools to be used and discarded. After the 2008 crash, our government should have bailed out the mortgage-holders who could have paid the banks and ended up owning their homes at the same time, a win-win. Because banks were/are allowed to pass mortgages on to investors who have no connection with the homeowners, it would have been really hard to rescue the homeowners and no one wanted to take that on. That practice continues. I can't help but wonder whose idea that was. Now, private insurance corporations who are doing a rather crappy job taking care of regular folks being insured through their companies, are moving in to take over Medicare and the American people don't even know it is happening until a treatment is refused and they find out it is refused by a huge insurance corporation. It is a 0 some gain here, but in reality, the ultra rich individuals and corporations are doing all the gaining and we the people are doing nothing to stop them. We keep electing people who are in bed with those corporations and are totally willing to give them whatever they want no matter who it hurts. Not smart!
Is it possible to get those who know how the game is played (that would include you, right?) to turn the tables? This seems far beyond the reach of ordinary citizens. Your anecdote about the staffer for the Ways and Means Committee indicates that the system is thoroughly corrupt. Yes, I see what you're pointing out. Do you see any way to correct this?
Seems like a dead end no win situation unless democrats get a set. This is not a way to defeat a mortal enemy. Aggression begets aggression. Overturn Citizens United, arrest and imprisonment for traitors, protect voters rights and most importantly expand the Supreme Court. We are always on our heels. It’s all about freedom. Fight like hell. Biden is a very effective wonderful president for getting things done in a democracy. It’s too bad that’s not the priority.