Yes, prior to the Reagan Revolution American companies actually invested in their workers, their communities, and their business. They attended to the needs of their customers, by in large...
I was in the middle of these changes as my own legal practice until health forced me to retire was predominantly as an antitrust and trade regulation lawyer. The evolution you so accurately describe really began before Reagan, though, with the GTE-Sylvania case in 1977, in which the Supreme Court effectively made presumptively legal “vertical” restrictions aside from price imposed by manufacturers on distributors. I was largely a defense attorney, but with each new decision loosening regulation, I warned my colleagues that they were cheering the demise of their practices, not just the end of the anti-monopolistic thrust and intention of the antitrust laws.
It was more rewarding to me to help clients comply with what I viewed as extremely important protections for the businesses, people and places you identify than to win victories for heavy-handed restrictions imposed by my corporate clients. To no avail. By the time I was forced to retire some twenty years ago, antitrust enforcement had become so moribund that my practice became predominantly focused on intellectual property and securities regulation. I found neither as appealing, vital, or intellectually stimulating as antitrust law, and clearly saw in concrete ways the negative effects of its demise.
But I fear that the best intentions of a hopefully re-elected Biden Administration will be thwarted by Big Money and its servile, captive SCOTUS majority, for which I have lost all respect. It is worse than the court FDR faced early in his Presidency. It is the worst court since the one under Chief Justice Roger Taney that issued the Dred Scott decision. It will effectively gut any new legislation or Executive Orders designed to strengthen antitrust, anti-monopoly or oligopoly regulation in this country. All of us, save the morbidly rich, will be the poorer as a result. We are truly the United $tate$ of America...
Thom said Bork, "He never considered the impact on a community now having no say in how destructively businesses in that community were run. He never considered the impact on workers of giant employers engaging in nationwide union-busting and pension-stripping."
I think Bork considered those outcomes but rejected them as not as important as helping the wealthy get wealthier. He wanted to go back to the gilded age, before FDR leveled the playing field.
Thanks again for explaining what happened to us and what needs to be done.
Reaganomics ruined business in our country by getting rid of our economy based on Business, and created a Financial Model economy. Business no longer existed to better their products/services and to please their customers. They instead focused only on pleasing their investors. Now, business exists only to make Quick profits for Wall Street. So we saw good jobs disappear as production was moved overseas for cheap labor. Even customer service was forwarded to India. Only low wage service jobs remained here.
The extremely wealthy do not care about gay rights, racism, religion or abortion. All they want is more money. Anyone that cannot make them money will be called a communist or a Marxist or socialist or a humanist.... Those people whether they are mentally or physically disabled whether they are old or they are criminals or they are intellectuals and journalists, will be punished. Since it is too expensive to lock up about 80 million Americans, the fascists will have to exterminate them. That is what fascists do best.
I have never heard (or researched) the time period that MAGA wants to return to. Maybe this has been well established, and if not, I can make assumptions. I assume that it would be before Neoliberalism began leading us to where we are today. Great people like Thom and Robert Reich do a fantastic job of breaking down what has happened economically, and why, but it is still not reaching enough people.
Let us remember that poor reagan was quite not the sharpest tool in the drawer. He was surrounded by people who told him what to do and was supposedly happy to comply. No fuss no mess. Most probably not the first neither the last president coached is such a damaging way for the american people and some more around the planet. Heil kapitalismus!
Obama and the Democrats started designing the ACA to be based on the establishment of a Public Option. IT WAS the Republicans who demanded it be ditched. It was republicans who insisted on bringing the insurance companies to the negotiations. By doing this, they kicked out one leg of a three-legged stool.
Stock buybacks are the most offensive form of insider trading and they are allowed by law because of a rule passed by the Reagan administration. Executives take most of their pay in stock, so they have their corporations buy back their shares as often as possible.
Even conservatives know this results in market manipulation for the benefit of the executives. Trump appointee SEC commissioner Robert J Jackson, Jr reported that stock prices did increase immediately before a buyback. https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/speech-jackson-061118
The problem is not that buybacks in themselves are harmful, it’s that executives are allowed to control the corporation to buy back their own shares.
To make this issue more confusing, the rule (SEC 10b-18) that the Reagan administration passed on this issue begins by prohibiting a corporation from buying back executive shares but then provides a loophole the size of a black hole. It is permitted if the buyback meets four very complex conditions called a safe haven. SEC chair Mary Jo White said that exemption was so complicated the SEC could not enforce it and so executives are completely free to have their corporation buyback their shares.
The reform needed is not to prohibit all buybacks, but to eliminate the safe haven provision that allows the corporation to buy executives shares. The prohibition on this practice should be absolute.
I'm not going to mince words about the fact that the old way of having Mom & Pop community stores could be abusive as well. There was racism, price gouging, and a lot of tax cheating. It was much harder to regulate the bad eggs.
That's the difference now, with computing power, we are better able to protect the customer and collect taxes. If only the damn conservatives would stop thinking that rich people do what they do so they can create jobs. If only Republicans had some respect for the customers and workers that are the real engine that drives the economy.
We shouldn't waste our ability to regulate, bust the trusts, and collect taxes. We owe it to the people that drive the economy; we don't owe anything to the billionaires who go shopping for politicians and judges!
"...[Bork] never considered the value of good food freshly made in a local restaurant as opposed to things arriving from across the country in giant plastic boxes to chain restaurants..." This reminds me of the longstanding knock against conservatives, to wit, that they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
The spark that lit the fire was the Powell Memorandum written in August of 1971 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and that decried the power of workers' unions and the need to counter it with business organizations. Membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce increased tremendously as did corporate lobbying of public officials. Powell's reward was his appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court the following year.
Another turning point was enactment of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 with Congress overriding Truman's veto. It could not have passed without the support of members of the Democratic Party.
Gore Vidal accurately observed "It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people." Few people realize that the party bosses choose who to put on the ballot as with Truman replaccing three trerm VP Henry A Wallace and so becoming president a few months later or as with Sanders not being on the ballot and votes having neocons like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden as "choices".
I could write a thank-you to you almost every day for your insight, diligence, and fearlessness. Today’s message just grabbed me and inspired me to let you know that your well researched, well reasoned, and thoughtful take on the “Reagan Revolution” and its attendant slow burn catastrophes reminded me once again why I follow you.
I have much gratitude for what you do and how you do it. Please keep up the great work!
Boeing's decline of market share from 70% in 1996 to 42% today does seem to mirror America's waning economic influence and lessening ability to nimbly produce what the world's consumers demand. Of course corporations and economies rise and fall--what firms are listed in the Dow industrial average has changed many times in a century--but when US Steel was sold to Japanese company that didn’t say anything good about America's industrial capacity now or in the future. An emphasis on short term profits is no way to run a modern nation, no matter what goods or services it produces.
And another part of turning things around would be reviving the Depression-era laws, particularly Stegall-Glass, which separated commercial and investment banking. Clinton happily "reformed" things by approving its repeal, though it was weakening long before him. (Some sections, like the FDIC, are still in effect.) There are arguments that after it was killed investment speculation increased, leading right into the Great Recession. Bork might consider uncontrolled speculative investments by large banks to ultimately "help" the consumer in a more efficient economy. But most people would disagree with that.
I was in the middle of these changes as my own legal practice until health forced me to retire was predominantly as an antitrust and trade regulation lawyer. The evolution you so accurately describe really began before Reagan, though, with the GTE-Sylvania case in 1977, in which the Supreme Court effectively made presumptively legal “vertical” restrictions aside from price imposed by manufacturers on distributors. I was largely a defense attorney, but with each new decision loosening regulation, I warned my colleagues that they were cheering the demise of their practices, not just the end of the anti-monopolistic thrust and intention of the antitrust laws.
It was more rewarding to me to help clients comply with what I viewed as extremely important protections for the businesses, people and places you identify than to win victories for heavy-handed restrictions imposed by my corporate clients. To no avail. By the time I was forced to retire some twenty years ago, antitrust enforcement had become so moribund that my practice became predominantly focused on intellectual property and securities regulation. I found neither as appealing, vital, or intellectually stimulating as antitrust law, and clearly saw in concrete ways the negative effects of its demise.
But I fear that the best intentions of a hopefully re-elected Biden Administration will be thwarted by Big Money and its servile, captive SCOTUS majority, for which I have lost all respect. It is worse than the court FDR faced early in his Presidency. It is the worst court since the one under Chief Justice Roger Taney that issued the Dred Scott decision. It will effectively gut any new legislation or Executive Orders designed to strengthen antitrust, anti-monopoly or oligopoly regulation in this country. All of us, save the morbidly rich, will be the poorer as a result. We are truly the United $tate$ of America...
Thom said Bork, "He never considered the impact on a community now having no say in how destructively businesses in that community were run. He never considered the impact on workers of giant employers engaging in nationwide union-busting and pension-stripping."
I think Bork considered those outcomes but rejected them as not as important as helping the wealthy get wealthier. He wanted to go back to the gilded age, before FDR leveled the playing field.
Thanks again for explaining what happened to us and what needs to be done.
Reaganomics ruined business in our country by getting rid of our economy based on Business, and created a Financial Model economy. Business no longer existed to better their products/services and to please their customers. They instead focused only on pleasing their investors. Now, business exists only to make Quick profits for Wall Street. So we saw good jobs disappear as production was moved overseas for cheap labor. Even customer service was forwarded to India. Only low wage service jobs remained here.
The extremely wealthy do not care about gay rights, racism, religion or abortion. All they want is more money. Anyone that cannot make them money will be called a communist or a Marxist or socialist or a humanist.... Those people whether they are mentally or physically disabled whether they are old or they are criminals or they are intellectuals and journalists, will be punished. Since it is too expensive to lock up about 80 million Americans, the fascists will have to exterminate them. That is what fascists do best.
I have never heard (or researched) the time period that MAGA wants to return to. Maybe this has been well established, and if not, I can make assumptions. I assume that it would be before Neoliberalism began leading us to where we are today. Great people like Thom and Robert Reich do a fantastic job of breaking down what has happened economically, and why, but it is still not reaching enough people.
Let us remember that poor reagan was quite not the sharpest tool in the drawer. He was surrounded by people who told him what to do and was supposedly happy to comply. No fuss no mess. Most probably not the first neither the last president coached is such a damaging way for the american people and some more around the planet. Heil kapitalismus!
Obama and the Democrats started designing the ACA to be based on the establishment of a Public Option. IT WAS the Republicans who demanded it be ditched. It was republicans who insisted on bringing the insurance companies to the negotiations. By doing this, they kicked out one leg of a three-legged stool.
Stock buybacks are the most offensive form of insider trading and they are allowed by law because of a rule passed by the Reagan administration. Executives take most of their pay in stock, so they have their corporations buy back their shares as often as possible.
Even conservatives know this results in market manipulation for the benefit of the executives. Trump appointee SEC commissioner Robert J Jackson, Jr reported that stock prices did increase immediately before a buyback. https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/speech-jackson-061118
The problem is not that buybacks in themselves are harmful, it’s that executives are allowed to control the corporation to buy back their own shares.
To make this issue more confusing, the rule (SEC 10b-18) that the Reagan administration passed on this issue begins by prohibiting a corporation from buying back executive shares but then provides a loophole the size of a black hole. It is permitted if the buyback meets four very complex conditions called a safe haven. SEC chair Mary Jo White said that exemption was so complicated the SEC could not enforce it and so executives are completely free to have their corporation buyback their shares.
The reform needed is not to prohibit all buybacks, but to eliminate the safe haven provision that allows the corporation to buy executives shares. The prohibition on this practice should be absolute.
I'm not going to mince words about the fact that the old way of having Mom & Pop community stores could be abusive as well. There was racism, price gouging, and a lot of tax cheating. It was much harder to regulate the bad eggs.
That's the difference now, with computing power, we are better able to protect the customer and collect taxes. If only the damn conservatives would stop thinking that rich people do what they do so they can create jobs. If only Republicans had some respect for the customers and workers that are the real engine that drives the economy.
We shouldn't waste our ability to regulate, bust the trusts, and collect taxes. We owe it to the people that drive the economy; we don't owe anything to the billionaires who go shopping for politicians and judges!
I agree wholeheartedly and would add that this consolidation of power has been accelerated in the health care industry by the Affordable Care Act, you might want to have Matt Stoller on your show to elaborate. https://www.levernews.com/how-obamacare-created-big-medicine/?utm_source=newsletter-email&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=newsletter-article
"...[Bork] never considered the value of good food freshly made in a local restaurant as opposed to things arriving from across the country in giant plastic boxes to chain restaurants..." This reminds me of the longstanding knock against conservatives, to wit, that they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
The spark that lit the fire was the Powell Memorandum written in August of 1971 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and that decried the power of workers' unions and the need to counter it with business organizations. Membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce increased tremendously as did corporate lobbying of public officials. Powell's reward was his appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court the following year.
Another turning point was enactment of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 with Congress overriding Truman's veto. It could not have passed without the support of members of the Democratic Party.
Gore Vidal accurately observed "It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people." Few people realize that the party bosses choose who to put on the ballot as with Truman replaccing three trerm VP Henry A Wallace and so becoming president a few months later or as with Sanders not being on the ballot and votes having neocons like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden as "choices".
Hi Thom,
I could write a thank-you to you almost every day for your insight, diligence, and fearlessness. Today’s message just grabbed me and inspired me to let you know that your well researched, well reasoned, and thoughtful take on the “Reagan Revolution” and its attendant slow burn catastrophes reminded me once again why I follow you.
I have much gratitude for what you do and how you do it. Please keep up the great work!
Boeing's decline of market share from 70% in 1996 to 42% today does seem to mirror America's waning economic influence and lessening ability to nimbly produce what the world's consumers demand. Of course corporations and economies rise and fall--what firms are listed in the Dow industrial average has changed many times in a century--but when US Steel was sold to Japanese company that didn’t say anything good about America's industrial capacity now or in the future. An emphasis on short term profits is no way to run a modern nation, no matter what goods or services it produces.
And another part of turning things around would be reviving the Depression-era laws, particularly Stegall-Glass, which separated commercial and investment banking. Clinton happily "reformed" things by approving its repeal, though it was weakening long before him. (Some sections, like the FDIC, are still in effect.) There are arguments that after it was killed investment speculation increased, leading right into the Great Recession. Bork might consider uncontrolled speculative investments by large banks to ultimately "help" the consumer in a more efficient economy. But most people would disagree with that.
...by AND large
Expand the Court! It’s the only solution. One I come to very reluctantly