Tammy Duckworth, Il senator has put forth a bill to stop corporate price gouging. We all need to keep writing our Senators and Representatives asking them to cap CEO salaries, cap profits, and protect workers rights and safety.
I don't think Congress will pass any legislation directly controlling salaries and capping profits. Those that even attempt to introduce that type of legislation will be branded socialist. It appears that our economy's bumpy road is going to get worse.
I agree it looks very grim and it may be too late, but maybe not. I do believe that there are still politicians that believe in democracy and have dedicated their lives to trying to achieve that goal. I am 71. I grew up under segregation and we are better off than then. I think this country needs to take an example from Germany and tell the truth about our past, acknowledge that is not who we are now and learn from our mistakes. Then we believed in Manifest destiny that gave us the right to kill indigenous people and steel their land, use black people as slaves, and woman basically as indentured servants. We have never really acknowledged how fucked up all that was,and we have many that have never questioned what they have been taught that still hold a lot of that white male supremicist beliefs. We also have people who believe in the dream of democracy and are fighting for it, which is why I say we can never give into despair and stop fighting. I have lived my entire life as a second class citizen because I was born female. Under our constitution I do not have equal scrutiny under the law. The world woman is not even in the constitution, My life has been so much smaller and violent because of JaneCrow, but I will continue to belong to groups pushing to get the ERA into the constitution. and they do will continue to write to my representatives to fight for equality and equity for all. President Biden has gotten many things passed toward this goal, but they need to get rid of the filibuster and electoral college so the will of the people will be heard. Over. the past 40years much has been eroded, but I have to believe that we can still fight for a better democracy so I will continue to write my representatives
Thank you, Linda. As thousands of women around the world are now rising up to demand equal rights, I have both hopes for the future of women and fear there will be a terrible backlash-- as already happening after Dodd. To the women of Iran and Afghanistan I say never again wear those Hajar! To American women open health centers in every red state. The former requires sacrificing lives to gain freedom for the next generation. The latter will show the red states to be willing to throw good people into jail so that they can keep us as chattel. But if this world cannot change to give us freedom, then we must not make it easy to imprison us.
Malarky. Socialist would be nationalizing the corporations, which - by the way - ain't a bad idea for critical goods & services. The rest is the same old tired-assed, tax-dodging bullshit Wank-publicans have banged on about since at least Hoover. Total hogwash.
I'll believe there are socialists a'runnin' things the day I buy my gasoline from a Federal filling station facility, run under the jurisdiction of the DOE. Otherwise, they're all a'peddlin' porkies!
Those of us on this forum using the term "socialist" are likely talking about democratic socialism (like much of EU/UK, where the government doesn't own production, but sets rules of road for providing some basic services: healthcare, childcare, social security/safety net. Totally different thing from true socialism, where government owns means of production.
>Exactly<! However, the wank-publicans are calling us the radical left. Now, in my mind that's true socialism, as I suspect it is for everyone who buys into their bullshit. >That< why I consciously belabor the issue.
words can be scary. Socialism is one of those. So can capitalism. Our library system is a socialistic system and contributes to the social good. Capitalism is good until it becomes vulture capitalism, Much like the difference between Scrooge and Fizzywig. In a civil society we need to be concerned with the quality of life of our citizens. Services like healthcare, news, education, and prisons all suffer when they have been com sorted to make a profit. The on,y way to get a profit is to reduce services and make people suffer. Competition for goods helps increase quality of goods and capitalism makes sense in these instances. If we look at the countries with the highest happiness levels and highest quality of life they have combined socialist and capitalist theories to proved the greatest respect and equality for its citizens, The Supreme court is loosing respect and when it does,,there is no plan B to the loss of the rule of law. They are ruling on a case that could allow state legislatures to ignore the will of the people and put in who they choose. mWe are close to becoming an authoritarian country where our votes don’t mean any more than than the votes of Putins declared annexed parts of Ukraine. I urge you to watch 10/3 Rachel Maddows show and read Lady Justice by Dahlia Lithwick. We our losing rights, voting rights, womens rights, etc. No matter how many lawsuits are won, it is not enough, We must have codified laws that protect democracy.
Oh Linda, you are right about contacting our representatives and demanding laws that hold the correct people accountable while also protecting workers.
they can cap it as a %. Other countries have done it and before vulture capitalism, CEO’s here did it. As it stands now CEO’s make 1000 to4000 x what there lowest paid employee makes, It is immoral and exploitive and it can be regulated.
Our media is so under-prepared to report on complex issues. The belief that Republicans are “good” for the “economy”, and that the President controls prices are delusions continuously re-inforced by most media. Also, the foolish belief that the stock market is a measure of economic health - it’s been a plan to reduce the quality of public education by reducing funding of education.
Dr Reich - thank you for being a voice in the wilderness. ♥️
The media does not want to report that the stock market is a game played by mostly weathy people to extract wealth from the others for the benefit of the wealthy.
Martha, you are right about the media and their lack of either ability or unwillingness to tackle complex issues. They like 30 second reports that say as little as possible, but let listeners/readers think they have just learned something profound. Even NPR participates in this dumbing down of issues to phrases or getting reports that go on longer, but just reiterate the soundbites in several different ways with possibly a quick statement from someone that repeats what was just said. I know it has been better in the past. Why are we the people permitting this pushed ignorance?
I've just about given up on PBSnewshour. They have very good special reporting, and I appreciate that so many highly intelligent and articulate women of color are featured. But as far as economic and political news, it's not too good in my opinion. But then, I get my news from progressive websites like Common Dreams (which I regularly write to trying to get them to not confuse facts and opinion.) It's always good in my opinion to check a variety of sources, especially foreign newspapers.
The Republicans have never been "good" for the economy. They spent money on different things like tax cuts for the morbidly rich. Democrats would then be elected to fix what the R's broke.
Richard. Dr. Reich has my vote if my vote counted for anything. He would be an exceptional member, although the people he would have to work with -- I am not sure how long he could tolerate their lack of deep knowledge and weak backbone .
Workers would do well, but retired workers, maybe not so much. Someone please correct my thinking: Raising wages hurts retirees because, even with profits taxes and price controls, corporations can raise prices to cover the expense of higher wages. Retirees, at best, get a small social security increase. The average social security payment is nowhere near the average wage, so retirees fall seriously behind. The only thing I see that would help both workers and retirees is to forego wage increases but drastically decrease the gap between CEO and worker pay and return that money not to taxpayers but somehow equally to retirees and workers. Without that, great news for workers would send retirees to the poor house. On one hand, retirees have corporation greed. On the other, they have a matching force on the worker side, which right now has nowhere near the power of the corporate greed, but it's there. What does the retiree have other than an inadequate, possible increase on a meager amount of social security? If retirees have savings, unless it's enough to benefit from shareholder/corporate greed, that value falls with inflation and (soon) the dollar. And if it is enough to benefit from shareholder/corporate greed, then those retirees will lose if some force managers to increase wages at the expense of profits. Someone please show me where that thinking is in error so I can stop worrying that, no matter whether labor or corporate wins, retirees are scr#w#d.
If retired workers depend on social security they better get used to eating cat food. I get a pretty good SSA check each month, but in no way would this support me and my wife. My wife only gets about $750 a month from SSA and government takes out $170 for Medicare. If I did not have a pension and VA benefits we would not be able to pay our bills. Our car and house are paid off, but SSA would not feed us and pay insurance and all the other things. To think that SSA will pay for a retirement is a hoax.
I wasn't suggesting that Social Security would pay for retirement. I just can't calculate for every individual on the planet without having their personal information. Social Security provides an example. If you have a pension that has no COLA, then it's doing worse than S.S. If it has a COLA, then if wages increase more, it's doing worse than workers, and vice versa. If your VA benefits are rising slower than wages, then you're doing worse than workers, or vice versa. Still, obviously, wage increases don't benefit retirees, but they do raise prices to cover the expense, so they could hurt retirees, my point.
Mo...no worries! I know what you were saying. Yes, inflation hurts retirees the most. My pension and VA benefits tend to keep up with wages to an extent. Wages never keep up with inflation because workers are always playing catch up. When FDR did SSA it was supposed to be enough to support a retired worker in a basic style. Now SSA won't support my pet cat. I have multiple sources of income due to some good luck along the way. Even so the house next door sold for 2 million dollars. I bought mine for 70K 35 years ago. I could not buy my own house these days.
Because of today's greed the poor and low-income workers in our country do have a problem keeping up with inflation. I think changes will have to be made in the future that many in our country do not want to make today. The government will have to ensure that its citizens have a basic level of living benefits. If I am not mistaken many countries in Europe are already using this basic level of living benefit model.
Jack....a bagboy at my local grocery is a retired teacher. He is 80 years old and has to work as a bagboy to pay his bills. I retired from the postal service on disability 20 years ago. I do get a cola but until recently it was a joke. Fortunately, I have other sources of income, but it was mostly luck and not my brain power that provided for me. A pension without a cola is crap. We just lost 8% of our buying power due to inflation.
Agreed. I have two moderate government pensions, one from teaching for 15 years (of the 19 years I actually taught, but paid into SSA) the other for 14 years with a county. Although I paid into both pensions (they weren't free) and I couldn't live on either alone. My Social Security check is reduced by both WEP and GPO, even though I earned the Social Security by working full time 19 years and paying into the system plus another 5 or 6 years of part time paying into SSA. Of course, Social Security was never intended to fully support a retiree and years ago, full time workers were able to save and/or invest to supplement retirement. For the past twenty years savings from ordinary (the 98% of us) people has fallen.
Fay....do you believe the government taxes our SSA just because we are not dirt poor? FDR believed that SSA would provide a basic standard of living for the elderly. That is a joke now days. I get SSA and a very modest pension from Uncle Sam. I am just taxed to death on these monies. My wife and I are both disabled but we pay the same tax as everybody else.
I don't know the for sure answer, but I agree that is a strong possibility. As you are probably aware, back in the mid-30's the Republicans then in Congress fought tooth and nail against Social Security. They lost because although Franklin Roosevelt was a wealthy man from a very wealthy family he cared about common people. His alphabet soup agencies did a lot to lessen the effects of the Great Depression on ordinary people (although it was world war 2 that brought the world out of that depression). The Depression was caused, as usual by the criminal maneuvering of the Stock Market - again by the greed of the wealthier elements of society The Republican have been battling fiercely since 1935 to overturn Social Security or at least make it profitable for the wealthy. American citizens and the Democrats have put their energy into defending it.
MO, I don't get the connection. If workers are paid better, how does that impact retired persons? When workers get a price increase, it is a hope they can put some of that increase into retirement savings. Unfortunately as we have seen this month, prices went up about 6% while wages increased only about 5%. I have heard Social Security is planning a COLA this year that should help a bit. I honestly don't see the connection. I would like to see CEO et al pays capped for a while. They clearly don't do more than their employees, just have possibly some more responsibility but not more ability. Price gouging needs to be caught and stopped too. During COVID, those gougers got away with it and got their message out that it was worker wages that were causing inflation. Alas, they were not challenged seriously until recently. Well, now we need to join the senators and representatives who have figured it out and want to do something to correct.
Ruth, As I see it -- which definitely could be mistaken -- the connection is this: To a corporation, as wage increase is an expense. Corporations rarely just absorb an expense that large. To at least keep their bottom line from increasing, they have to increase their prices to cover that wage expense. So their service or product costs all of use more -- including retirees. Workers got a wage increase to cover that higher cost. Retirees didn't. Retirees fall (further) behind.
PS: in my original comment, I added that, yes, Social Security does give retirees increases, but the average Social Security check is considerably less than the average wage, so the above still stands.
The real question is why are so many economics journalists, pundits, and analysts so effing stupid? And why are Jerome Powell's minions so effing stupid?
I smirked at Jerome Powell's ever-so-carefully worded speech a couple of weeks back about how there will be "pain", ever-so-carefully avoiding saying exactly who will feel it. Disingenuous SOB.
Rex, Powell's speech really disturbed me too. It sounded almost as though he was gleefully reporting on something about his enemies instead of telling the world that the poor, near poor, and working-class folks were going to be screwed again (the pain) while the very rich piled on the bucks with no brakes on their actions. Powell is a Republican first and last. IF he can mess with the upcoming election on behalf of his Trump friends and keep voter attention on the economy instead of the fact that voters will lose a whole lot of their rights if Republicans (the Trump friends) are elected, it is a win for him. Biden wanted so much to go for bipartisanship, but there is no longer any hope of that. "Claims of Republicans and some Democrats of working across the aisle are nuts because Republicans can't work with anyone, if they even work at all.
Yes. Is it too late for Biden to replace Powell with Reich? On second tthought, think of the chaos if he did. The markets would immediately tank, investment would stop and the layoffs would begin.
The rich get richer, and the rest of us get the shaft. Where's Teddy Roosevelt when you need him? And where, for that matter, is Congress when you most need it???
Cynthia, yes, we could use TR right about now. Where is Congress? Well, the Republicans are finding new lies to tell the people about how much they care for them and really don't hate women and "gay" people, while Democrats are trying to explain complex issues to people who have already forgotten that Republicans are hell-bent on taking away as many rights as they can from everyone who is not rich, white, straight, "Christian," and male. They are all doing well personally, so what is going on with the economy is just something we are going through for Republicans. Democrats fret but can't get any traction on ideas to help the economy. How sad for all of us!
You are totally right, Ruth. I don't know if I mentioned this on this site or not, but yesterday, my son said to me Republicans will do anything they need to to please the rich and powerful, and then they'll seek to gin up the rest of their base who may be one-issue voters - say, against abortion and against gun control. And by appealing to all these folks, they hope to gain enough of a voter majority to win elections. And if that's not the case, they will do whatever nefarious work they can to undermine the vote, discourage certain individuals from voting, claim the voting was bogus, and whatever else they can stuff in their arsenal of authoritarianism and bigotry to hold onto power. He said, it's not as if they really believe in anything. Years ago, I wouldn't have agreed with him. Today I do.
I see a lot of talk about capping corporate profits. That will help the common folks, but it still doesn't tackle the root problem - greed of the wealthy. What we need is an income tax with a big hit on the wealthy, and which is dependent on the well being of all the people. That coupled with a tax on very high worldwide wealth like Elizabeth Warren has proposed. I'm working on the income tax solution. The basic plan is in the website bastilleamendment.org
My friend who worked her whole as a lawyer in the government said a wealth tax is not very feasible because it’s just hard to actually get the money from people I forget exactly what she said but I guess there’d be all this litigation involved and they’d be capable of figuring out how to dodge the tax one way or another…
Thanks Juliet. But, I think there's a way around that - by new laws and/or a Constitutional amendment. "Never, never, never, never give up." - Winston Churchill
I’m all for the tax, just saying. My friend knew a lot. Also, we need way more people to vote for Democrats if we want anything close to a Constitutional Amendment.
(I don’t know why anyone focuses on Constitutional Amendments who wants to change things. It just makes people who don’t know that much think Democrats are the same as Republicans, something I hear way too often on progressive comments sections. Sorry, this isn’t about you. I’m anxious about the election. I FEEL LIKE the House isn’t getting enough attention as a place to give money for elections and maybe even in the Senate with the current economic “news,” we’re fucked in the Senate too. We direly need more environmental legislation in these crucial, irrevocable years.)
Oh yes, Juliet, they would fight tooth and nail, but if the American people could be brought on board to support such a tax, it could work. Corporate CEOs and owners want to scoop up as much money as they can, but they don't want to be seen as greedy. We the people need to use that word more often and call out those men addicted to money and power and say often that this addiction to money and power is harming our communities. They are so lost in their drug, they care about nothing else. Compare it to heroine or fentinyl, or meth.
I think my friend, may she rest In peace, felt that it would be nearly impossible to make money from this, and just completely inefficient to the point of absurdity. I just wish people like Elizabeth Warren wouldn’t push something as if it were a cinch if only the stodgy corrupt Dems would put out legislation for it. I was trying to argue that we should do it and whatever, I just think we shouldn’t put the cart before the horse to the point of self-destruction. I imagine a great majority of elected Dems WOULD want such a tax. At present, in any case, Sinema is way in the way. Hoping for at least a 51-member majority….and for her ousting.
It’s just SO appalling to hear about the rich but I guess they probably think they give to charity more efficiently than the idiotic masses could get anything done (despite keeping SO MUCH). I could see doing this. It IS a drug. AND a lot of us, myself unfortunately included, with little on our actual hands, have spending addictions. The rich are stingy. This should be taught in school…🧐
Yes. I used a sine wave to take into account very little or no tax on low income people and then a gradual upswing as income rises. There should be no deductions.. Deductions were justified to supposedly get investment where it would benefit all people but it never worked that way. That's why I put in 15 categories of well being to set the top rate on the sine curve. So the rates vs income starts off slow, builds up and then levels off as it reached the top rate.
I’m an artist. Maybe artists should unite in rejecting the commerce of the endeavor. I’ve certainly thought along these lines for my own work. Of course, there’s all the dead people. And all the work currently owned. And we would need some source of funds to survivw
Here is a more simplicity way of looking at the economy in the USA today. We have a car wash in my city. When it opened 3 years ago you could drive through to wash your car for $5.00. Two years ago they increased their price to $6.00. Last year they increase their price to $7.00. Yesterday I took my car through and it was $10.00. Going forward I will park my car in the driveway and use my garden hose like I did in the 1960's and 1970's. What Washington DC does NOT understand is citizens know how to survive. Every day regular Americans are not stupid. Remember this saying, "It's the economy, stupid"? When will our politicans and educated elites get it? Last night on TV in our Phoenix, Arizona market they are now advertising for "housekeepers" at Talking Stick Casino. Sign on bonus of $1500.00 plus $21.00 and hour. Companies can adjust. The federal goverment is stuck in mud and 10 years behind the times.
I mean, it’s not made up of our elected officials. I am not happy that Biden didn’t oust Jerome Powell (a Republican pick) in the beginning of his term, I don’t know that that’s possible now. Actually this is more of a question
Unfortunately, to continue your example, car washes can charge whatever they want because unlike the 60s and 70s, washing your own car at home is banned in many places by your city/county/neighborhood association/HOA.
Gas was $3.19/gal on Wednesday. Thursday it was $3.39. The only thing that changed was the OPEC news. COVID and Inflation are just two excuses to raise prices and gouge people who can least afford it. And now, they can blame Ian and OPEC.
Here in the area around Seattle, in the pacific northwest, the price of gas is more like $5.39/gal. Many of us wish for pre-pandemic prices, but the corporations are raking in the profits because their are no guardrails to prevent it
Yep. You don't hear a single company/corporation complaining about inflation. Most are giving us double inflation by shrinking the product while increasing the price.
What do we need to do to get mainstream media to report on the connection between inflation and obscene profits? I guess it's just easier for them to regurgitate the pablum fed to them by the Fed than it is to actually do some investigative reporting. They are just plain lazy.
Vincent, you are right about being lazy. A lot of the TV and other journalists are more interested in the stories of violence in the community than how the Fed is hurting the American people. They would have to actually learn something and they feel they don't have to know much about the violence, just go to the site and moan about it and interview a person or two who complain how bad things are in the neighborhood. They occasionally interview a family member, but only a phrase or two. The Fed run by a conservative Republican who knows only to raise or lower interest rates makes people's eyes roll even if their mortgage will go up a lot. Then, they can blame the Democrats, as usual. They don't have to think about that either.
I read yesterday somewhere (don't remember where) that a big problem is that the Fed uses data reported monthly whereas corporate profits are reported only quarterly, and then you have to be on the earnings calls or a shareholder entitled to the quarterly report. By now, of course, the Fed has every bit as much information as Reich or Krugman or anybody else paying attention, but that was cited as a problem to the Fed's approach.
Beware of what? As if there were anything we could do about it. Walmart has frozen hiring because they are planning to start closing stores, and begin converting to a totally online business model because profits are greater there. Current workers will switch over to filling orders. I don't care because I quit going in stores long before Covid struck, but some people still like to use shopping as a meet and greet. I'd rather go to concerts for that, but I quit that a time back. You might say I'm a hermit, but I like it that way. Me and my 7 cats and the 6 or so feral ones that live here and show up for meals have a good time. Cats are better than humans, anyway. I feel for the kids who are growing up in this screwy world we live in. I grew up in the 50s and 60s. Those were optimistic times. We thought there was nothing we couldn't do. In fact, we headed for the Moon, and damn if we didn't get there in 1969. If it weren't for that goddamn war in Vietnam, things might even have been as wonderful as we had hoped for. But, alas, our stupid leaders' fear of Communism caused trouble. Anyway, the outlook now for young people is grim. Everything went off the rails somewhere pretty badly when Ronnie RAYGUNS was elected. Our naively optimistic approach was shot the foot, and it went down in flames from there and has stayed here. Just as it looked like we might head off in the right direction, damn if a bad Repub doesn't get elected, and everything goes haywire again. People in this country are so easily led off track by those that own everything. I fear that one day soon the rich will cause the economy to tank for good. If we on the left can't stand up to them and demand that they reel in their greed, the time may be nigh.
Hypothetically (if we disregard the affliction of authoritarian political gridlock), what tools can the federal government use to mitigate upward pricing pressure by corporates to expand margins? Specifically, I wonder about the wage and price controls that were applied during 1971-1973. Interested in your perspective.
Let’s talk about ethics and economics. Is it ethical to raise prices simply because you can ( get away with it)? After all the shareholders benefit, the senior management benefit but the workers suffer unless they get a raise too.
Considering that the majority of the population are not management or shareholders, the majority lose income or at least they have to dive into their savings, if they have any that is.
When I was much younger, more than 60 years ago, I was a born again Christian and while I have since become a none believer in such matters, the idea “Love thy neighbor as thyself “ still resounds in my mind.
No, it does not. Very important to bring up this point. Corps are for profit only, no matter the concerns in human costs. Ralph Nader writes extensively about this.
Raising prices because you can, aka price gouging or monopoly power or excess pricing power, does have a place, unfortunately, as one consequence of a so-called "free-market economy." We can thank Milton Friedman, the Chicago Boys who learned at his feet, and wave upon wave of Republican administrations, starting with Reagan, for that approach having been jammed down the country's throat for the last several decades.
The answer to it, of course, is to have a carefully regulated economy -- one that protects consumers and the environment, _and_ allows business a reasonable profit, thus stimulating growth and innovation. Equally obviously, those who stand to profit the most from an unregulated economy are those who do the most to kill the whole notion of regulation in its crib.
As we can plainly see from today's status quo, a free-market economy fairly quickly leads to grossly exploitative, destructive capitalism, cut-throat capitalism if you will, and grossly inequitable wealth distribution within the society.
Barry, I have my doubts that Love Thy neighbor has much impact in the business world. I am not sure it ever has. That is why good regulation is essential. I know there would be a lot of litigation if the income tax rates were raised for the very rich, but Congress had no trouble lowering them in a midnight session at the end of 2017. Maybe a midnight session when Marco is out playing around and a couple of others just happen to be away, could work to get it raised to around 50% on money over 10 million dollars say, They could also hire enough IRS and FBI agents to see that the law is obeyed. I know I'm dreaming, but it has been done in the past. It could be done now if we had the will.
Decades ago were having a national conversation about corporate responsibility to society and the nation. Milton Friedman ended our conversation by declaring (I paraphrase) that corporations have only one responsibility: Maximize Corporate Profits. That was around the time the movie "Wall Street" case out and reiterated Friedman's maxim, with "Greed Is Good".
If a natural person has no moral compass we call him a malignant narcissist. If a corporation has no moral compass it is also a malignant narcissist. Go figure.
Bob, I have always thought Milton Friedman was a jerk, a loud obnoxious one that got way more attention than he ever deserved. He forgot that a corporation owed a lot to its community, its workers as well as its shareholders. I have wondered if things would be better now if people in power had ignored Friedman and talked more about social responsibility, our social contract. I actually think it would be better. So, now we need a crusade for our American social contract to see that everyone can thrive and that those with the most help compensate those who have less. Our business schools need to start having a social responsibility component to what they teach. Those schools are a major part of the problems we are now having. They bought Friedman's crap whole with little serious examination of what it could do to us as a nation.
Georgia, you are right. Those in charge are playing from a warped late 20th century playbook of the Milton Friedman variety. The only thing in their playbook is to figure out how to constantly increase corporate profits so those in charge can rake in the bucks. Those at the top are so addicted to the money and power, they will do anything to get it. Cheating, lying, hiding their earnings, abusing workers, and more. Workers are there to be essentially paid slaves. Corporate bosses don't want them communicating with each other and demand they have as little break time as possible. In my opinion, those folks can't pay workers enough to endure the abuse that is regularly put on them. ?So economists who should know better like those on the Fed pump out the lie that it is the workers' increased salaries that caused the inflation. Lying works for the very rich and the people they buy to share the lie with those who can impact what Congress does. So far, it is working. Maybe workers need to go on strike for a day or two, at least those who have direct connection to the huge corporations: no coffee made for the bosses, no cleaning of their personal bathrooms, no catered food, no errand boys/girls, no bellhops, no product going out or taken in, etc. It would be interesting to see what those privileged whiny white boys would do. They'd scream to the media of course and would probably get volunteers from all over to take care of every tiny need. That is disgusting, but what happens when we revere and give privilege to the wrong people. It is the workers who make everything happen that we should be honoring, and not just on Labor Day (which we mostly ignore anyway).
Robert, I’m 80 and caregiver for my severely disabled Veteran son with only my SS and his SSDI checks and with a fixed income our buying ability sums keep diminishing each year as well as our COLA sums. NO HELP nor changes in sight!!! WHY???
Tammy Duckworth, Il senator has put forth a bill to stop corporate price gouging. We all need to keep writing our Senators and Representatives asking them to cap CEO salaries, cap profits, and protect workers rights and safety.
I don't think Congress will pass any legislation directly controlling salaries and capping profits. Those that even attempt to introduce that type of legislation will be branded socialist. It appears that our economy's bumpy road is going to get worse.
I agree it looks very grim and it may be too late, but maybe not. I do believe that there are still politicians that believe in democracy and have dedicated their lives to trying to achieve that goal. I am 71. I grew up under segregation and we are better off than then. I think this country needs to take an example from Germany and tell the truth about our past, acknowledge that is not who we are now and learn from our mistakes. Then we believed in Manifest destiny that gave us the right to kill indigenous people and steel their land, use black people as slaves, and woman basically as indentured servants. We have never really acknowledged how fucked up all that was,and we have many that have never questioned what they have been taught that still hold a lot of that white male supremicist beliefs. We also have people who believe in the dream of democracy and are fighting for it, which is why I say we can never give into despair and stop fighting. I have lived my entire life as a second class citizen because I was born female. Under our constitution I do not have equal scrutiny under the law. The world woman is not even in the constitution, My life has been so much smaller and violent because of JaneCrow, but I will continue to belong to groups pushing to get the ERA into the constitution. and they do will continue to write to my representatives to fight for equality and equity for all. President Biden has gotten many things passed toward this goal, but they need to get rid of the filibuster and electoral college so the will of the people will be heard. Over. the past 40years much has been eroded, but I have to believe that we can still fight for a better democracy so I will continue to write my representatives
Thank you, Linda. As thousands of women around the world are now rising up to demand equal rights, I have both hopes for the future of women and fear there will be a terrible backlash-- as already happening after Dodd. To the women of Iran and Afghanistan I say never again wear those Hajar! To American women open health centers in every red state. The former requires sacrificing lives to gain freedom for the next generation. The latter will show the red states to be willing to throw good people into jail so that they can keep us as chattel. But if this world cannot change to give us freedom, then we must not make it easy to imprison us.
Malarky. Socialist would be nationalizing the corporations, which - by the way - ain't a bad idea for critical goods & services. The rest is the same old tired-assed, tax-dodging bullshit Wank-publicans have banged on about since at least Hoover. Total hogwash.
I'll believe there are socialists a'runnin' things the day I buy my gasoline from a Federal filling station facility, run under the jurisdiction of the DOE. Otherwise, they're all a'peddlin' porkies!
Those of us on this forum using the term "socialist" are likely talking about democratic socialism (like much of EU/UK, where the government doesn't own production, but sets rules of road for providing some basic services: healthcare, childcare, social security/safety net. Totally different thing from true socialism, where government owns means of production.
>Exactly<! However, the wank-publicans are calling us the radical left. Now, in my mind that's true socialism, as I suspect it is for everyone who buys into their bullshit. >That< why I consciously belabor the issue.
words can be scary. Socialism is one of those. So can capitalism. Our library system is a socialistic system and contributes to the social good. Capitalism is good until it becomes vulture capitalism, Much like the difference between Scrooge and Fizzywig. In a civil society we need to be concerned with the quality of life of our citizens. Services like healthcare, news, education, and prisons all suffer when they have been com sorted to make a profit. The on,y way to get a profit is to reduce services and make people suffer. Competition for goods helps increase quality of goods and capitalism makes sense in these instances. If we look at the countries with the highest happiness levels and highest quality of life they have combined socialist and capitalist theories to proved the greatest respect and equality for its citizens, The Supreme court is loosing respect and when it does,,there is no plan B to the loss of the rule of law. They are ruling on a case that could allow state legislatures to ignore the will of the people and put in who they choose. mWe are close to becoming an authoritarian country where our votes don’t mean any more than than the votes of Putins declared annexed parts of Ukraine. I urge you to watch 10/3 Rachel Maddows show and read Lady Justice by Dahlia Lithwick. We our losing rights, voting rights, womens rights, etc. No matter how many lawsuits are won, it is not enough, We must have codified laws that protect democracy.
Oh Linda, you are right about contacting our representatives and demanding laws that hold the correct people accountable while also protecting workers.
Same representatives who are freely trading their own portfolios...
= /
they can cap it as a %. Other countries have done it and before vulture capitalism, CEO’s here did it. As it stands now CEO’s make 1000 to4000 x what there lowest paid employee makes, It is immoral and exploitive and it can be regulated.
yes
Our media is so under-prepared to report on complex issues. The belief that Republicans are “good” for the “economy”, and that the President controls prices are delusions continuously re-inforced by most media. Also, the foolish belief that the stock market is a measure of economic health - it’s been a plan to reduce the quality of public education by reducing funding of education.
Dr Reich - thank you for being a voice in the wilderness. ♥️
The media does not want to report that the stock market is a game played by mostly weathy people to extract wealth from the others for the benefit of the wealthy.
So true. Thanks from those of us in the streets.
$NeedsHelp999
Suzan
Martha, you are right about the media and their lack of either ability or unwillingness to tackle complex issues. They like 30 second reports that say as little as possible, but let listeners/readers think they have just learned something profound. Even NPR participates in this dumbing down of issues to phrases or getting reports that go on longer, but just reiterate the soundbites in several different ways with possibly a quick statement from someone that repeats what was just said. I know it has been better in the past. Why are we the people permitting this pushed ignorance?
I wrote to PBS Newshour to request they interview Robert Reich about inflation- no response, of course.
I've just about given up on PBSnewshour. They have very good special reporting, and I appreciate that so many highly intelligent and articulate women of color are featured. But as far as economic and political news, it's not too good in my opinion. But then, I get my news from progressive websites like Common Dreams (which I regularly write to trying to get them to not confuse facts and opinion.) It's always good in my opinion to check a variety of sources, especially foreign newspapers.
Switch to DW news for better balance & in-depth coverage.
The Republicans have never been "good" for the economy. They spent money on different things like tax cuts for the morbidly rich. Democrats would then be elected to fix what the R's broke.
Robt... will you head the Fed, please...
Yes, Richard! I'm with you. If only!!!
Richard. Dr. Reich has my vote if my vote counted for anything. He would be an exceptional member, although the people he would have to work with -- I am not sure how long he could tolerate their lack of deep knowledge and weak backbone .
Ruth - I hear you. Why are so many of the wrong people in positions that exert so much control over the quality of our lives and pocketbooks? Sigh...
Workers would do well, but retired workers, maybe not so much. Someone please correct my thinking: Raising wages hurts retirees because, even with profits taxes and price controls, corporations can raise prices to cover the expense of higher wages. Retirees, at best, get a small social security increase. The average social security payment is nowhere near the average wage, so retirees fall seriously behind. The only thing I see that would help both workers and retirees is to forego wage increases but drastically decrease the gap between CEO and worker pay and return that money not to taxpayers but somehow equally to retirees and workers. Without that, great news for workers would send retirees to the poor house. On one hand, retirees have corporation greed. On the other, they have a matching force on the worker side, which right now has nowhere near the power of the corporate greed, but it's there. What does the retiree have other than an inadequate, possible increase on a meager amount of social security? If retirees have savings, unless it's enough to benefit from shareholder/corporate greed, that value falls with inflation and (soon) the dollar. And if it is enough to benefit from shareholder/corporate greed, then those retirees will lose if some force managers to increase wages at the expense of profits. Someone please show me where that thinking is in error so I can stop worrying that, no matter whether labor or corporate wins, retirees are scr#w#d.
If retired workers depend on social security they better get used to eating cat food. I get a pretty good SSA check each month, but in no way would this support me and my wife. My wife only gets about $750 a month from SSA and government takes out $170 for Medicare. If I did not have a pension and VA benefits we would not be able to pay our bills. Our car and house are paid off, but SSA would not feed us and pay insurance and all the other things. To think that SSA will pay for a retirement is a hoax.
I wasn't suggesting that Social Security would pay for retirement. I just can't calculate for every individual on the planet without having their personal information. Social Security provides an example. If you have a pension that has no COLA, then it's doing worse than S.S. If it has a COLA, then if wages increase more, it's doing worse than workers, and vice versa. If your VA benefits are rising slower than wages, then you're doing worse than workers, or vice versa. Still, obviously, wage increases don't benefit retirees, but they do raise prices to cover the expense, so they could hurt retirees, my point.
Mo...no worries! I know what you were saying. Yes, inflation hurts retirees the most. My pension and VA benefits tend to keep up with wages to an extent. Wages never keep up with inflation because workers are always playing catch up. When FDR did SSA it was supposed to be enough to support a retired worker in a basic style. Now SSA won't support my pet cat. I have multiple sources of income due to some good luck along the way. Even so the house next door sold for 2 million dollars. I bought mine for 70K 35 years ago. I could not buy my own house these days.
Because of today's greed the poor and low-income workers in our country do have a problem keeping up with inflation. I think changes will have to be made in the future that many in our country do not want to make today. The government will have to ensure that its citizens have a basic level of living benefits. If I am not mistaken many countries in Europe are already using this basic level of living benefit model.
Power never gives anything without a demand. Fredrick Douglas said this over 100 years ago and he was right.
Jack....a bagboy at my local grocery is a retired teacher. He is 80 years old and has to work as a bagboy to pay his bills. I retired from the postal service on disability 20 years ago. I do get a cola but until recently it was a joke. Fortunately, I have other sources of income, but it was mostly luck and not my brain power that provided for me. A pension without a cola is crap. We just lost 8% of our buying power due to inflation.
Agreed. I have two moderate government pensions, one from teaching for 15 years (of the 19 years I actually taught, but paid into SSA) the other for 14 years with a county. Although I paid into both pensions (they weren't free) and I couldn't live on either alone. My Social Security check is reduced by both WEP and GPO, even though I earned the Social Security by working full time 19 years and paying into the system plus another 5 or 6 years of part time paying into SSA. Of course, Social Security was never intended to fully support a retiree and years ago, full time workers were able to save and/or invest to supplement retirement. For the past twenty years savings from ordinary (the 98% of us) people has fallen.
Fay....do you believe the government taxes our SSA just because we are not dirt poor? FDR believed that SSA would provide a basic standard of living for the elderly. That is a joke now days. I get SSA and a very modest pension from Uncle Sam. I am just taxed to death on these monies. My wife and I are both disabled but we pay the same tax as everybody else.
I don't know the for sure answer, but I agree that is a strong possibility. As you are probably aware, back in the mid-30's the Republicans then in Congress fought tooth and nail against Social Security. They lost because although Franklin Roosevelt was a wealthy man from a very wealthy family he cared about common people. His alphabet soup agencies did a lot to lessen the effects of the Great Depression on ordinary people (although it was world war 2 that brought the world out of that depression). The Depression was caused, as usual by the criminal maneuvering of the Stock Market - again by the greed of the wealthier elements of society The Republican have been battling fiercely since 1935 to overturn Social Security or at least make it profitable for the wealthy. American citizens and the Democrats have put their energy into defending it.
WEP and GPO 🤬
Thanks Beth, an Employee working for SSA informed me that was my penalty for working. (I was 80 at the time)
Good ideas
MO, I don't get the connection. If workers are paid better, how does that impact retired persons? When workers get a price increase, it is a hope they can put some of that increase into retirement savings. Unfortunately as we have seen this month, prices went up about 6% while wages increased only about 5%. I have heard Social Security is planning a COLA this year that should help a bit. I honestly don't see the connection. I would like to see CEO et al pays capped for a while. They clearly don't do more than their employees, just have possibly some more responsibility but not more ability. Price gouging needs to be caught and stopped too. During COVID, those gougers got away with it and got their message out that it was worker wages that were causing inflation. Alas, they were not challenged seriously until recently. Well, now we need to join the senators and representatives who have figured it out and want to do something to correct.
Ruth, As I see it -- which definitely could be mistaken -- the connection is this: To a corporation, as wage increase is an expense. Corporations rarely just absorb an expense that large. To at least keep their bottom line from increasing, they have to increase their prices to cover that wage expense. So their service or product costs all of use more -- including retirees. Workers got a wage increase to cover that higher cost. Retirees didn't. Retirees fall (further) behind.
PS: in my original comment, I added that, yes, Social Security does give retirees increases, but the average Social Security check is considerably less than the average wage, so the above still stands.
The real question is why are so many economics journalists, pundits, and analysts so effing stupid? And why are Jerome Powell's minions so effing stupid?
To Martha Ture - They do know. They are herd animals.
I smirked at Jerome Powell's ever-so-carefully worded speech a couple of weeks back about how there will be "pain", ever-so-carefully avoiding saying exactly who will feel it. Disingenuous SOB.
Rex, Powell's speech really disturbed me too. It sounded almost as though he was gleefully reporting on something about his enemies instead of telling the world that the poor, near poor, and working-class folks were going to be screwed again (the pain) while the very rich piled on the bucks with no brakes on their actions. Powell is a Republican first and last. IF he can mess with the upcoming election on behalf of his Trump friends and keep voter attention on the economy instead of the fact that voters will lose a whole lot of their rights if Republicans (the Trump friends) are elected, it is a win for him. Biden wanted so much to go for bipartisanship, but there is no longer any hope of that. "Claims of Republicans and some Democrats of working across the aisle are nuts because Republicans can't work with anyone, if they even work at all.
Yes. Is it too late for Biden to replace Powell with Reich? On second tthought, think of the chaos if he did. The markets would immediately tank, investment would stop and the layoffs would begin.
The rich get richer, and the rest of us get the shaft. Where's Teddy Roosevelt when you need him? And where, for that matter, is Congress when you most need it???
Cynthia, yes, we could use TR right about now. Where is Congress? Well, the Republicans are finding new lies to tell the people about how much they care for them and really don't hate women and "gay" people, while Democrats are trying to explain complex issues to people who have already forgotten that Republicans are hell-bent on taking away as many rights as they can from everyone who is not rich, white, straight, "Christian," and male. They are all doing well personally, so what is going on with the economy is just something we are going through for Republicans. Democrats fret but can't get any traction on ideas to help the economy. How sad for all of us!
You are totally right, Ruth. I don't know if I mentioned this on this site or not, but yesterday, my son said to me Republicans will do anything they need to to please the rich and powerful, and then they'll seek to gin up the rest of their base who may be one-issue voters - say, against abortion and against gun control. And by appealing to all these folks, they hope to gain enough of a voter majority to win elections. And if that's not the case, they will do whatever nefarious work they can to undermine the vote, discourage certain individuals from voting, claim the voting was bogus, and whatever else they can stuff in their arsenal of authoritarianism and bigotry to hold onto power. He said, it's not as if they really believe in anything. Years ago, I wouldn't have agreed with him. Today I do.
I see a lot of talk about capping corporate profits. That will help the common folks, but it still doesn't tackle the root problem - greed of the wealthy. What we need is an income tax with a big hit on the wealthy, and which is dependent on the well being of all the people. That coupled with a tax on very high worldwide wealth like Elizabeth Warren has proposed. I'm working on the income tax solution. The basic plan is in the website bastilleamendment.org
My friend who worked her whole as a lawyer in the government said a wealth tax is not very feasible because it’s just hard to actually get the money from people I forget exactly what she said but I guess there’d be all this litigation involved and they’d be capable of figuring out how to dodge the tax one way or another…
Thanks Juliet. But, I think there's a way around that - by new laws and/or a Constitutional amendment. "Never, never, never, never give up." - Winston Churchill
I’m all for the tax, just saying. My friend knew a lot. Also, we need way more people to vote for Democrats if we want anything close to a Constitutional Amendment.
(I don’t know why anyone focuses on Constitutional Amendments who wants to change things. It just makes people who don’t know that much think Democrats are the same as Republicans, something I hear way too often on progressive comments sections. Sorry, this isn’t about you. I’m anxious about the election. I FEEL LIKE the House isn’t getting enough attention as a place to give money for elections and maybe even in the Senate with the current economic “news,” we’re fucked in the Senate too. We direly need more environmental legislation in these crucial, irrevocable years.)
Oh yes, Juliet, they would fight tooth and nail, but if the American people could be brought on board to support such a tax, it could work. Corporate CEOs and owners want to scoop up as much money as they can, but they don't want to be seen as greedy. We the people need to use that word more often and call out those men addicted to money and power and say often that this addiction to money and power is harming our communities. They are so lost in their drug, they care about nothing else. Compare it to heroine or fentinyl, or meth.
I think my friend, may she rest In peace, felt that it would be nearly impossible to make money from this, and just completely inefficient to the point of absurdity. I just wish people like Elizabeth Warren wouldn’t push something as if it were a cinch if only the stodgy corrupt Dems would put out legislation for it. I was trying to argue that we should do it and whatever, I just think we shouldn’t put the cart before the horse to the point of self-destruction. I imagine a great majority of elected Dems WOULD want such a tax. At present, in any case, Sinema is way in the way. Hoping for at least a 51-member majority….and for her ousting.
It’s just SO appalling to hear about the rich but I guess they probably think they give to charity more efficiently than the idiotic masses could get anything done (despite keeping SO MUCH). I could see doing this. It IS a drug. AND a lot of us, myself unfortunately included, with little on our actual hands, have spending addictions. The rich are stingy. This should be taught in school…🧐
Yes. I used a sine wave to take into account very little or no tax on low income people and then a gradual upswing as income rises. There should be no deductions.. Deductions were justified to supposedly get investment where it would benefit all people but it never worked that way. That's why I put in 15 categories of well being to set the top rate on the sine curve. So the rates vs income starts off slow, builds up and then levels off as it reached the top rate.
I’m an artist. Maybe artists should unite in rejecting the commerce of the endeavor. I’ve certainly thought along these lines for my own work. Of course, there’s all the dead people. And all the work currently owned. And we would need some source of funds to survivw
maybe…we first have to retain the democracy and get a majority in both houses if at ALL possible…it’s not really looking good for that
Here is a more simplicity way of looking at the economy in the USA today. We have a car wash in my city. When it opened 3 years ago you could drive through to wash your car for $5.00. Two years ago they increased their price to $6.00. Last year they increase their price to $7.00. Yesterday I took my car through and it was $10.00. Going forward I will park my car in the driveway and use my garden hose like I did in the 1960's and 1970's. What Washington DC does NOT understand is citizens know how to survive. Every day regular Americans are not stupid. Remember this saying, "It's the economy, stupid"? When will our politicans and educated elites get it? Last night on TV in our Phoenix, Arizona market they are now advertising for "housekeepers" at Talking Stick Casino. Sign on bonus of $1500.00 plus $21.00 and hour. Companies can adjust. The federal goverment is stuck in mud and 10 years behind the times.
The Fed is kind of a separate entity than the government…
I mean, it’s not made up of our elected officials. I am not happy that Biden didn’t oust Jerome Powell (a Republican pick) in the beginning of his term, I don’t know that that’s possible now. Actually this is more of a question
The whole system is corrupt, broken, bloated and not working.
Unfortunately, to continue your example, car washes can charge whatever they want because unlike the 60s and 70s, washing your own car at home is banned in many places by your city/county/neighborhood association/HOA.
Mortgage rates have doubled in the last 6 months. I need to sell a house. Thanks, Feds. Why is Robert the only one talking about this?
Gas was $3.19/gal on Wednesday. Thursday it was $3.39. The only thing that changed was the OPEC news. COVID and Inflation are just two excuses to raise prices and gouge people who can least afford it. And now, they can blame Ian and OPEC.
Here in the area around Seattle, in the pacific northwest, the price of gas is more like $5.39/gal. Many of us wish for pre-pandemic prices, but the corporations are raking in the profits because their are no guardrails to prevent it
Yep. You don't hear a single company/corporation complaining about inflation. Most are giving us double inflation by shrinking the product while increasing the price.
Down the block here in Burbank, CA it's $6.69/gal 😡
What do we need to do to get mainstream media to report on the connection between inflation and obscene profits? I guess it's just easier for them to regurgitate the pablum fed to them by the Fed than it is to actually do some investigative reporting. They are just plain lazy.
Vincent, you are right about being lazy. A lot of the TV and other journalists are more interested in the stories of violence in the community than how the Fed is hurting the American people. They would have to actually learn something and they feel they don't have to know much about the violence, just go to the site and moan about it and interview a person or two who complain how bad things are in the neighborhood. They occasionally interview a family member, but only a phrase or two. The Fed run by a conservative Republican who knows only to raise or lower interest rates makes people's eyes roll even if their mortgage will go up a lot. Then, they can blame the Democrats, as usual. They don't have to think about that either.
I read yesterday somewhere (don't remember where) that a big problem is that the Fed uses data reported monthly whereas corporate profits are reported only quarterly, and then you have to be on the earnings calls or a shareholder entitled to the quarterly report. By now, of course, the Fed has every bit as much information as Reich or Krugman or anybody else paying attention, but that was cited as a problem to the Fed's approach.
Beware of what? As if there were anything we could do about it. Walmart has frozen hiring because they are planning to start closing stores, and begin converting to a totally online business model because profits are greater there. Current workers will switch over to filling orders. I don't care because I quit going in stores long before Covid struck, but some people still like to use shopping as a meet and greet. I'd rather go to concerts for that, but I quit that a time back. You might say I'm a hermit, but I like it that way. Me and my 7 cats and the 6 or so feral ones that live here and show up for meals have a good time. Cats are better than humans, anyway. I feel for the kids who are growing up in this screwy world we live in. I grew up in the 50s and 60s. Those were optimistic times. We thought there was nothing we couldn't do. In fact, we headed for the Moon, and damn if we didn't get there in 1969. If it weren't for that goddamn war in Vietnam, things might even have been as wonderful as we had hoped for. But, alas, our stupid leaders' fear of Communism caused trouble. Anyway, the outlook now for young people is grim. Everything went off the rails somewhere pretty badly when Ronnie RAYGUNS was elected. Our naively optimistic approach was shot the foot, and it went down in flames from there and has stayed here. Just as it looked like we might head off in the right direction, damn if a bad Repub doesn't get elected, and everything goes haywire again. People in this country are so easily led off track by those that own everything. I fear that one day soon the rich will cause the economy to tank for good. If we on the left can't stand up to them and demand that they reel in their greed, the time may be nigh.
Dear Professor Reich,
Hypothetically (if we disregard the affliction of authoritarian political gridlock), what tools can the federal government use to mitigate upward pricing pressure by corporates to expand margins? Specifically, I wonder about the wage and price controls that were applied during 1971-1973. Interested in your perspective.
They'd never pass the senate now, and the Federalist Society would set them on fire in the courts when the corporations sued.
Let’s talk about ethics and economics. Is it ethical to raise prices simply because you can ( get away with it)? After all the shareholders benefit, the senior management benefit but the workers suffer unless they get a raise too.
Considering that the majority of the population are not management or shareholders, the majority lose income or at least they have to dive into their savings, if they have any that is.
When I was much younger, more than 60 years ago, I was a born again Christian and while I have since become a none believer in such matters, the idea “Love thy neighbor as thyself “ still resounds in my mind.
Does this have a place in economics?
No, it does not. Very important to bring up this point. Corps are for profit only, no matter the concerns in human costs. Ralph Nader writes extensively about this.
Raising prices because you can, aka price gouging or monopoly power or excess pricing power, does have a place, unfortunately, as one consequence of a so-called "free-market economy." We can thank Milton Friedman, the Chicago Boys who learned at his feet, and wave upon wave of Republican administrations, starting with Reagan, for that approach having been jammed down the country's throat for the last several decades.
The answer to it, of course, is to have a carefully regulated economy -- one that protects consumers and the environment, _and_ allows business a reasonable profit, thus stimulating growth and innovation. Equally obviously, those who stand to profit the most from an unregulated economy are those who do the most to kill the whole notion of regulation in its crib.
As we can plainly see from today's status quo, a free-market economy fairly quickly leads to grossly exploitative, destructive capitalism, cut-throat capitalism if you will, and grossly inequitable wealth distribution within the society.
Barry, I have my doubts that Love Thy neighbor has much impact in the business world. I am not sure it ever has. That is why good regulation is essential. I know there would be a lot of litigation if the income tax rates were raised for the very rich, but Congress had no trouble lowering them in a midnight session at the end of 2017. Maybe a midnight session when Marco is out playing around and a couple of others just happen to be away, could work to get it raised to around 50% on money over 10 million dollars say, They could also hire enough IRS and FBI agents to see that the law is obeyed. I know I'm dreaming, but it has been done in the past. It could be done now if we had the will.
Dreams just might come true, unfortunately you are right, in this world there is no intersection of economics and ethics. BUT THERE SHOULD BE.
What now?
Decades ago were having a national conversation about corporate responsibility to society and the nation. Milton Friedman ended our conversation by declaring (I paraphrase) that corporations have only one responsibility: Maximize Corporate Profits. That was around the time the movie "Wall Street" case out and reiterated Friedman's maxim, with "Greed Is Good".
If a natural person has no moral compass we call him a malignant narcissist. If a corporation has no moral compass it is also a malignant narcissist. Go figure.
Bob, I have always thought Milton Friedman was a jerk, a loud obnoxious one that got way more attention than he ever deserved. He forgot that a corporation owed a lot to its community, its workers as well as its shareholders. I have wondered if things would be better now if people in power had ignored Friedman and talked more about social responsibility, our social contract. I actually think it would be better. So, now we need a crusade for our American social contract to see that everyone can thrive and that those with the most help compensate those who have less. Our business schools need to start having a social responsibility component to what they teach. Those schools are a major part of the problems we are now having. They bought Friedman's crap whole with little serious examination of what it could do to us as a nation.
"What can they be thinking?" Stuck in 20th Century, unsustainable mindset.
It's your typical, historical resource management----
> We are merely seen as the infinite font of money from which they dip their greedy cups.
And like all finite resources----
> The well can run dry.
Much pain to be endured . . .
Georgia, you are right. Those in charge are playing from a warped late 20th century playbook of the Milton Friedman variety. The only thing in their playbook is to figure out how to constantly increase corporate profits so those in charge can rake in the bucks. Those at the top are so addicted to the money and power, they will do anything to get it. Cheating, lying, hiding their earnings, abusing workers, and more. Workers are there to be essentially paid slaves. Corporate bosses don't want them communicating with each other and demand they have as little break time as possible. In my opinion, those folks can't pay workers enough to endure the abuse that is regularly put on them. ?So economists who should know better like those on the Fed pump out the lie that it is the workers' increased salaries that caused the inflation. Lying works for the very rich and the people they buy to share the lie with those who can impact what Congress does. So far, it is working. Maybe workers need to go on strike for a day or two, at least those who have direct connection to the huge corporations: no coffee made for the bosses, no cleaning of their personal bathrooms, no catered food, no errand boys/girls, no bellhops, no product going out or taken in, etc. It would be interesting to see what those privileged whiny white boys would do. They'd scream to the media of course and would probably get volunteers from all over to take care of every tiny need. That is disgusting, but what happens when we revere and give privilege to the wrong people. It is the workers who make everything happen that we should be honoring, and not just on Labor Day (which we mostly ignore anyway).
Robert, I’m 80 and caregiver for my severely disabled Veteran son with only my SS and his SSDI checks and with a fixed income our buying ability sums keep diminishing each year as well as our COLA sums. NO HELP nor changes in sight!!! WHY???