It’s become a virtual religion among America’s CEO class: maximize efficiency no matter what it does to customers, communities, or employees - Inefficiency, it turns out, has considerable upsides
Mar 1, 2023·edited Mar 1, 2023Liked by Thom Hartmann
Thanks Thom. Is is interesting also that your example of breaking up AT&T was eventually reversed allowing the Bells to merge (Southern Bell heading the way). So, the breakup was relatively transitory. Same with Standard Oil. It's another example of how corporations are only aligned with their self-serving goals (primarily money). I often think corporations should be required to include goals on ethics, worker and community responsibilities. Since all corporations are licensed by the government, this seems eminently reasonable - but politically unlikely.
This leads me to another thought - corporations should be governed as a 'system'. You describe parts of the system: cities, consumers, employees, retail outlets, corporate hq (to name a few). What I do not see is anything that analyzes and governs this system. As a simple example, corporations locating a new retail mega-store will usually bend the city/county over for low or zero taxes. They argue the benefits to local workforce. That's the carrot. The stick is they negotiate with other cities/counties as alternative locations. Thus they force all the localities to work against each other in biding wars.
Without viewing them as a system with a lifecycle, we miss how the corporation actually implements their monopoly.
We the people who struggle day to day see money as the prime motivator of human behavior, but it really isn't.
Sex. reproduction, is the prime motivator of all animals, including humans. And reproductive success depends on social status, that is power. Humans are not like most pack or herd animals, where only the alpha has breeding rights, as there are too many of us, and the system requires a steady supply of workers. However the impetus is still there, and is manifested in social climbing.
The need to be at top of the hierarchy, whatever the social environment may be, a drug lord, a street gang, a trailer park, a captain of industry, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, hedge fund, vulture fund,
The way to the top is power and to obtain and retain power, requires money Money to get the power, power to keep the money.
The pursuit of money and power is addictive, as addictive as gambling and gaming. (To all those who spend hours on computer games, you are as much an addict as Elon Musk, And you have to keep playing, so to they, for when the stop, the house of cards comes falling down.
I'm no expert on this subject. Sex certainly appears a primary motivator although the old 'flight vs fight' is also high on the list. From a cursory search it appears fairly complex. e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4864984/
Testing a particular theory appears to be difficult with experiments on rats common (I'll assume this is done to reduce the variables)
Yes, non sequitur means it does not follow. Your comment had absolutely nothing to do with the comment I made, ergo a non sequitur.
If we were commenting on Trump I would have a lot to say, well not really, everything that can be said about this piece of walking trash has been said.
Sometimes I miss living in the middle east. I almost always shopped from small stores my first few years, and I loved it that shopkeepers knew me and sometimes saved merchandise they knew I liked. And if I was short on money, they'd say, "no worry." I miss the human-ness of shopping. Once a shopkeeper and I rescued a starving cat. We fed him and kept him safe until a sanctuary came, and they found him a home in Toronto.
The main reason Asian immigrants are so successful is that they build, own and run their own businesses and bank together too. The money stays in the community. African Americans did a great job at that as well (Black Wall St.) until they were literally bombed (1921 Tulsa Massacre). Walmart is the consumate example of greed and avarice; each Walton kid has their own jet. And, these are 737's. NYTimes had a great article on how the top 1% in the US are the biggest polluters, by far. I was writing grants for a non-profit and applied for $ from the Walton Foundation; I couldn't even get $250! They give a fraction of what the Gates Foundation gives. Yet, the daughter has a billion dollar art museum in Bentonville, Arkansas - just what we need! Jeez.
How does one man have so much power to be able to do so much damage in such as short time? To say Reagan was a scoundrel is a great understatement. It is no wonder that his kids hated him. I’ve forgotten the title of the book I read about him about 15 years ago but more needs to be done to show just how he managed to dupe even many Democrats and how he got away with so many abuses.
The same question applies to the Supreme Court. How do a handful of self-important reactionary justices have the power to reverse progress and destroy lives? We need to understand the dynamics. We also need to understand how the American people are so easily misled.
Expanding the court and expanding Congress, especially at a time when the fascists have exposed their incompetence is an absolute necessity. The more power and control can be diffused, the better. Thom should be on the Supreme Court, of course.
I believe the book you are looking for is "Here's the rest of him". I read it in the late 1980's and have tried to find it since. Googling has netted zero results.
One point made in the book is that Reagan was an empty suit, He would sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval office. His cheek jowls sagging, his eyes lifeless, his face that of a funeral parlor, but when a speech was thrust in front of him,he sat upright, his cheeks flushed, he came alive. the Class B actor was back.
When much of Hollywood went off to war, phonies like Reagan and John Wayne, got exemptions.
He was an empty vessel, into which the plutocrats poured their own desires. A marionnette.
He wasn't smart enough to dream up the Iran Contra caper, and make a deal with Khomeini, but he was a willing tool
I found the book. You can buy it from Thriftbooks online for $55.99. It's rare and out of print. I also found it on Amazon. I'm surprised because it was published in 1968, long before he held any political office.
When the efficiencies of the morbidly rich spawn negative externalities that are forced upon our citizens and our country, the costs to fix their messes must be borne by those who profit. Specifically, the morbidly rich sociopaths who pull the strings and keep the GOP grifters in office. Unfortunately, the powers of corporate personhood will probably continue to be superior to those of our citizens as long as the master propagandists can manipulate enough poorly educated citizens into voting for GOP grifters. However, since their cultists make up much less than a majority of the electorate, the kleptocrats will continue to have to make their government whores cheat like a Trump with 21st Century gerrymandering, election fraud, and voter suppression tactics. Rove must be so proud.
Corporate control of politics is not limited to the GOP, to wit Sinema, Manchin and the rest of the conservadems in the house and senate.
I trace the current sad state of affairs to Bill Clinton, Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers and Goldman Sachs and their New Democratic Party or Democratic Leadership Council, latest version is The Third Way.
Bill created the rust belt(swing states) when he signed NAFTA and a revised GAAT. He officially killed the Fairness Doctrine and enabled the consolidation of media in the hands of rich right wingers, when he signed the Telecommunications act of 1996
Then there is the defense of marriage act. The Omnibus Crime Bill which increased the slave population of blacks (13thAmendment)
And yet Democrats voted for and defended him (as I did) because of Newt Gingrich.
Bill Clinton betrayed his base,labor,women, gays, yet we re elected him. Would Hillary have been any different.
We are being manipulated to vote for the lesser of two evils. Every four years the passengers on the ship of state, USA Inc, vote to change captains, the captains will make a slight veer to starboard or port, but eventually when the new Captain is elected, there is a course correction and the ship of state resumes it's charted course.
Except for pirates, and personal vessels, merchant ships are owned or hired by a combine of what was called "adventurers" (in the 17th century). and the adventurers, those who put up the money, select a board of governors to represent their interests. This is how America was first founded and financed.
Thank you for pointing out that grifters are working both sides of the aisle and I should have prefaced “GOP grifters” with “(mostly)” so it read “the morbidly rich sociopaths who…keep the (mostly) GOP grifters in office.” I agree that lots of bad and criminally stupid decisions were made by Clinton (like when the oligarchs of money arranged to repeal Glass Steagall Act and empowered them to bet on all the money they could get their hands on and make us pay for the mess). However, if we’re looking at the root cause of our sad state, I believe that it predates Clinton and falls to SCOTUS when their rulings began to create the powers of corporate personhood in the late 70s (i.e., money is speech and corporations are people). Or we can trace the beginning of our backsliding to the Powell Memo as the mission statement for corporatists, much like our Preamble is supposed to serve as the mission statement for our democracy. Those special powers enabled the oligarchs in the 90s to manipulate Clinton like they controlled Reagan in the 80s. And, to a certain extent, every other administration. Now that SCOTUS has achieved a critical mass of justices who are also grifting for the kleptocrats (whether sectarian or secular) we really need to elect a super-majority of competent officials who will serve to satisfy their Constitutional purpose.
Thanks for reminding me about Glass Steagall, the consequences of which was the crisis of 2008 and the "too big to fail" bailout. By the way guess which investment bank not only survived, but gobbled up the competition: If you guessed Goldman Sachs you win a koopie doll. Larry Summers is responsible for repeal of the Glass Steagalll act, the he got even richer under Obama
The 26 Alumni of Goldman Sachs who run the world: https://www.investopedia.com/news/26-goldman-sachs-alumni-who-run-world-gs/ and although Janet Yellen hasn't directly worked for Goldman Sachs, the next best thing, she was head of the Fed and the bank that controls the Fed is the FRBNY, and that bank is controlled by the Association of Primary Dealers in Government Securities of which Goldman Sachs is the chief and longest lived (seniority) player.
The APRDGS is is about 26 financial institutions including foreign firms, that have the first option in buying government securities which are then sold (by the FRBNY) to the Fed which then sells them through the Open Market window to regional feds which then sell them to member banks. In 1984, when I last studied them, persons (we know what that means) could buy government securities from the Fed in $5,000 blocks, and some were held back by Treasury, but most were sold to the Association, which resells them to sovereign funds (like France, China, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait) and investment portfolios and institutions like retirement funds, the teamsters, universities, etc.
Click on the list of Primary Dealers under this linkhttps://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/primarydealers and see how many are foreign corporations, like Hong Kong Shang Hai Bank or Deutsche Bank or Credit Suisse, etc. Want to know who owns America and why Bill Clinton kept extolling international financial institutions? Look no further than this list, these are also the financial institutions which own and control the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, which is the controlling bank of the Fed. Though Janet Yellen did not work directly for Goldman Sachs and the financial institutions she never the less knows who runs the world.
Timothy Franz Geithner (/ˈɡaɪtnər/; born August 18, 1961) is a former American central banker who served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013.
Trumps Sec of Treasury Steven Terner Mnuchin[1] (/məˈnuːʃɪn/ mə-NOO-shin;[2] born December 21, 1962) is an American investment banker[3] and film producer who served as the 77th United States secretary of the treasury as part of the Cabinet of Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021. Serving for a full presidential term, Mnuchin was one of the few high-profile members of Trump's cabinet whom the president did not dismiss.
Mnuchin was born in New York City. Upon graduating from Yale University in 1985, Mnuchin joined the investment bank Goldman Sachs where his father, Robert Mnuchin, was a general partner. Mnuchin worked at Goldman Sachs for 17 years, eventually becoming its chief information officer. Source of above profiles is wikipediea.
And less one believes that they work in our best interest remember finance is not national, it is global and corporations exist for one purpose and one purpose only... to produce a return on investment for shareholders.. Thus by their nature, and that of those who run the institutions they are sociopathic with no loyalty, conscience or concern other than self.
And let's not forget Robert Rubin and his contribution to the most negatively impactful financial frauds in history. If there is one thing we should have learned by now is that morbidly rich sociopaths will only change their behavior when they are forced to change. Here are a few quotes that make the point better than I:
“Regulators have to be much more involved. We cannot control ourselves.”
Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack
“Inside the financial world, there is a [mind-set of] ‘please stop us before we kill again,’”
Michael Lewis Author of The Big Short
“For heaven's sake please catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself.”
Thanks so much old Dave. I was frustrated because I could not remember the name of the man who Advised Bill Clinton to hire Timothy Geihtner, push for repeal of Glass Steagall, and create the Democratic Leadership Council. He spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs and other international financial institutions, as Bill Clinton constantly reminded us (inadvertently as he was indebted to them for personal welfare program, the Clinton Global Initiative), are the problem. Responsible for the crash of 2008, which they used to wipe out competition and bolster their power
Rupert Murdoch spoke truth and speaks for the oligarchs, there is no red or blue only green.
At least not for the ruling class.
How does one defang this viper, when it controls the lifeblood of the nation, if not the world, money and media.?
The simple answer is that we must nullify the powers of corporate personhood or they will continue to bribe and extort to get their way. Remember, besides being sociopaths they are tenacious and virtually immortal. Of course, how do you take away their ability to control laws with a law that will negate their ability to control laws? We need to elect a super-majority of competent decision-makers who serve to satisfy their Constitutional purpose. While in office they will need to pass legislation so that money is no longer speech and corporations are no longer people. A bit easier said than done, I think, but certainly possible.
The plutocrats, the neo nobility, believe and act like the economy, meaning the people, exist to serve them. It is neo feudalism, where the serf and the freeman are dependent on the good graces of the lard of the manor. And the lords of the manor look down upon serfs and freeman as instruments that exist for their benefit.
This attitude is infectious and has filtered down into all elements of society.
I’ve encountered people who act like the job exists for them. I’ve run into this mentality in some service jobs like waiters. You are not a customer who is to be served, you are there to provide them a
job.
A fish rots from the head down. When we see the shareholders of USA Inc, getting away with murder, theft, scoff laws, greed, self servance do you not think that we peons will follow.
Bolshevism has had the positive effect for the neo nobility, of putting capitalists on a high altar, whereas any criticism at all is labeled socialist, and in the deficient American mind that translates to communist, and there is a subsequent knee jerk defense of neo serfdom.
Let me add at this point. That Marx railed against the middle class, which he called the bourgeoisie.
In all his writings he had nothing to say about the elite, the nobility, the financiers, the lords of the manor. Marx’s society was, more or less as our “founding fathers” envisioned America, an elite commanding the horde. Royalty, the nobility, the Saxon baron and the ceorl https://www.britannica.com/topic/ceorl.
Which by the way is the ideal society of the libertarian, a society in which the Kochs and other elites, who fund the l likes of the Federalist society and libertarian causes have been funding and whose politicians they have been financing.
While the elites are in competition among themselves, they are united in one thing: Their real threat is the middle class, the bourgeoisie. The middle class is the rung on the way up the ladder, which poses the threat of displacing them, and it is the rung on the way down.
As evidence in the Lewis Powell memo, which warned the plutocrats, the elite, that their biggest danger was an educated, informed, middle class which had enough time on its hands to pose a threat to the power and privilege of the plutocracy.
The solution was to degrade the middle class. As paul Volker said The U.S. must trim it’s standard of living. https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/18/archives/volcker-asserts-us-must-trim-living-standard-warns-of-inflation.html. Echoed by the central bank of Central Banks, the Bank for International Settlements in Basle,Switzerland which in their annual report for 83/84 said that the U.S. and world must reduce their standard of living (pages p.'s 131 & 183 of the '83 Annual Report of the BIS
The B.I.S. is the central bank of central banks, it holds the reserves of its member Central banks, thus is the boss, just as the NY Fed is the boss of the other regional Federal Reserve Banks.
Some of us are walking out of Lowe's and Walmart, because they don't have any people checking out anymore, but as we walk out we ask for the manager and share why we are changing our shopping behavior.
The whining and Laziness by the US voters and Shoppers in the last 80 years have given us precisely what we thought we wanted. And because a relatively small percentage of Americans have lived and travel in other countries for much longer than the traditional Texas Skip-and-Hop across all European countries in 10 days, most don't know that there are different life styles available. So, as a result of Mr. Hartman's analysis let him know how many of us walk away from the robot stores.
Let's see how many get on local zoning boards to make sure that realtors and wheeler-dealers don't farm out the neighborhood. Typically builder associations such as the Home Builders' Association have along penetrated state regulatory systems to stop neighbors from preventing or penalizing growth.
This is an excellent Hartman Analysis, and it deserves to be used as a Blue print for people taking turns to sit in on local governance boards.
Mr. Hartman Citations:
Without local competition, they now charge whatever the market will bear, leading to that $5000 annual “monopoly tax” we all pay in higher prices because we live in Reagan’s America. Profits among America’s largest corporations soared so much in the past two years, unconstrained by competition, that they account for an estimated 60% of our problematic inflation.
Capitalism which is unlimited greed, and has been used for thousands of years, always ends badly for the peasants. With a maximum wage it could work and with a 90% tax rate on millionaires it would work even better. It always ends like the board game "Monopoly".
The Trump supporting Cult needs to read this article, but they won't because they have been brainwashed into believing it's all the Dems fault. Since about 1985 it appears to me that the GOP took over the dem party, thanks to the capitalist money and influence.
I strongly believe the reason the Federal reserve raised the interest rates under Jimmy Carter was to mess up the economy and get him thrown out of office. Same thing with the arms for hostages and the oil embargo, all staged to move the country further to the right.
Now the Federal reserve is doing it again I believe to crash the economy and get a right wing corporatist elected. So the autocrat fascists can work young people to death and let the old and disabled people die or send them off to war, then die.
Per the theory the 1000th monkey having learned something, at that point it goes universal. Therefore if an idea can reach enough people, it then spreads like wildfire..
I've actually been mulling over the idea of universal non violent resistance and I can't think of an instance where it was used or achieved change. I can, on the other hand, name instances where
such achieved change, when behind them was the threat of violence.
The sad fact is that change only comes from fear. It they don't fear they don't change.
South Carolina seceded because it had no fear from the Federal government, other states saw that there was no response and followed suit.
Then the war, and change, but the victors, anti separatists, the abolitionists, sat back resting on their laurels, tired of war, and not at all interested in the well being and fate of former slaves, caved into an unreconstructed white power structure and in The Compromise of 1877 an informal agreement between southern Democrats and allies of the Republican Rutherford Hayes to settle the result of the 1876 presidential election, marked the end of the Reconstruction era.
Without fear restraining them, the south resumed it's antebellum life and practices, with a slight modification, now slavery, if within the bounds of the 13th amendment was legal, and to "celebrate" Louisiana built a prison on the largest plantation in the state , Angola, named of course for the supposed source of slaves.
The South and the north found, following Karl Marx, a new form of slavery, wage slavery.
Marx had been imploring southern planters to free the slaves, hire them back at market wages, that way they could produce cheaper cotton, which his partner, Frederick Engels (who had inherited a textile mill) could then buy.
Southern cotton was too expensive, so Engels bought the cheaper but inferior, Egyptian Cotton.
So despite the death of 650,000 nothing changed, for the American Descendant of Slaves, except they could no longer be bought and sold and their families broken up, but the southern planters now found that their investment in King Cotton was more profitable than before the war.
And here we are almost 160 years after that suicidal event, back where we started, on the verge of a breakup because of a culture war, only this time, the basis of the culture war has been, cleverly expanded by demagogues, and the proponents of those who started this car are now in positions of power in the Supreme Court, FBI, NSA, DHS, most if not all law enforcement agencies, local, state and Federal as well as our military. The ranks, by and large come from red states, the officer corps, has long been contaminated by Dominionism.
Non violent resistance assumes a neutral government, that can be persuaded. I am not sure that we have that anymore.
Other than the rank and file, most of whom got mere slaps on the wrist, what traitors (yes traitors to the constitution) that are politicians or insiders have actually been punished. None, and will they? No because the Trump humping DOJ, has drug it's heels, letting the statue of limitations run out, and waiting for the anticipated right wing change of government in 2025
No fear, no actions, no consequences and we slide into perdition.
What I am saying is that non violent resistance, needs to be backed up with the threat of violence, otherwise nothing changes, because there is no motivation for them to change
The right wing knows this, and despite some stumbling blocks, they press forward and are winning.
That title doesn't sound familiar. I haven't seen the book since before I had to downsize and got rid of some books. I think I had given it to a relative or roommate whose opinions I had hoped to change. I remember vey little about the book except that the author made a very good case for dispelling the myth that Ronnie Raygun should get any credit for the removal of the Berlin Wall. I did a search but couldn't locate the book that I read. At best ,he was an obnoxious and arrogant old fool. But he truly did do a lot of long-term damage.
Employee wages, benefits are a variable cost and that is where companies fixate to increase profits, also electricity and water. Fixed costs are called overhead, CEO's,upper management, buildings, equipment. Equipment is either taken as a tax deduction in the year purchased or amortized over a period of time (as a tax deduction) The road to profitability for a company is to reduce variable costs.
Here in the United Kingdom, more and more places are ripping out cashier tills in favour of self-service channels.
One local supermarket here is mostly self-service with their queuing system. It looks like an airport check-in hall.
Thanks Thom. Is is interesting also that your example of breaking up AT&T was eventually reversed allowing the Bells to merge (Southern Bell heading the way). So, the breakup was relatively transitory. Same with Standard Oil. It's another example of how corporations are only aligned with their self-serving goals (primarily money). I often think corporations should be required to include goals on ethics, worker and community responsibilities. Since all corporations are licensed by the government, this seems eminently reasonable - but politically unlikely.
This leads me to another thought - corporations should be governed as a 'system'. You describe parts of the system: cities, consumers, employees, retail outlets, corporate hq (to name a few). What I do not see is anything that analyzes and governs this system. As a simple example, corporations locating a new retail mega-store will usually bend the city/county over for low or zero taxes. They argue the benefits to local workforce. That's the carrot. The stick is they negotiate with other cities/counties as alternative locations. Thus they force all the localities to work against each other in biding wars.
Without viewing them as a system with a lifecycle, we miss how the corporation actually implements their monopoly.
We the people who struggle day to day see money as the prime motivator of human behavior, but it really isn't.
Sex. reproduction, is the prime motivator of all animals, including humans. And reproductive success depends on social status, that is power. Humans are not like most pack or herd animals, where only the alpha has breeding rights, as there are too many of us, and the system requires a steady supply of workers. However the impetus is still there, and is manifested in social climbing.
The need to be at top of the hierarchy, whatever the social environment may be, a drug lord, a street gang, a trailer park, a captain of industry, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, hedge fund, vulture fund,
The way to the top is power and to obtain and retain power, requires money Money to get the power, power to keep the money.
The pursuit of money and power is addictive, as addictive as gambling and gaming. (To all those who spend hours on computer games, you are as much an addict as Elon Musk, And you have to keep playing, so to they, for when the stop, the house of cards comes falling down.
I'm no expert on this subject. Sex certainly appears a primary motivator although the old 'flight vs fight' is also high on the list. From a cursory search it appears fairly complex. e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4864984/
Testing a particular theory appears to be difficult with experiments on rats common (I'll assume this is done to reduce the variables)
I guess you never noticed Donald Trump.
Of course I have, but what has that got to do with anything.
Your comment is a complete non sequitur.
We just had 4 years with a president who literally never gave a damn about anything except money, and you say my comment is a non sequitur? Seriously?
Yes, non sequitur means it does not follow. Your comment had absolutely nothing to do with the comment I made, ergo a non sequitur.
If we were commenting on Trump I would have a lot to say, well not really, everything that can be said about this piece of walking trash has been said.
Sigh.
Sometimes I miss living in the middle east. I almost always shopped from small stores my first few years, and I loved it that shopkeepers knew me and sometimes saved merchandise they knew I liked. And if I was short on money, they'd say, "no worry." I miss the human-ness of shopping. Once a shopkeeper and I rescued a starving cat. We fed him and kept him safe until a sanctuary came, and they found him a home in Toronto.
The main reason Asian immigrants are so successful is that they build, own and run their own businesses and bank together too. The money stays in the community. African Americans did a great job at that as well (Black Wall St.) until they were literally bombed (1921 Tulsa Massacre). Walmart is the consumate example of greed and avarice; each Walton kid has their own jet. And, these are 737's. NYTimes had a great article on how the top 1% in the US are the biggest polluters, by far. I was writing grants for a non-profit and applied for $ from the Walton Foundation; I couldn't even get $250! They give a fraction of what the Gates Foundation gives. Yet, the daughter has a billion dollar art museum in Bentonville, Arkansas - just what we need! Jeez.
How does one man have so much power to be able to do so much damage in such as short time? To say Reagan was a scoundrel is a great understatement. It is no wonder that his kids hated him. I’ve forgotten the title of the book I read about him about 15 years ago but more needs to be done to show just how he managed to dupe even many Democrats and how he got away with so many abuses.
The same question applies to the Supreme Court. How do a handful of self-important reactionary justices have the power to reverse progress and destroy lives? We need to understand the dynamics. We also need to understand how the American people are so easily misled.
Expanding the court and expanding Congress, especially at a time when the fascists have exposed their incompetence is an absolute necessity. The more power and control can be diffused, the better. Thom should be on the Supreme Court, of course.
I believe the book you are looking for is "Here's the rest of him". I read it in the late 1980's and have tried to find it since. Googling has netted zero results.
One point made in the book is that Reagan was an empty suit, He would sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval office. His cheek jowls sagging, his eyes lifeless, his face that of a funeral parlor, but when a speech was thrust in front of him,he sat upright, his cheeks flushed, he came alive. the Class B actor was back.
When much of Hollywood went off to war, phonies like Reagan and John Wayne, got exemptions.
He was an empty vessel, into which the plutocrats poured their own desires. A marionnette.
He wasn't smart enough to dream up the Iran Contra caper, and make a deal with Khomeini, but he was a willing tool
I found the book. You can buy it from Thriftbooks online for $55.99. It's rare and out of print. I also found it on Amazon. I'm surprised because it was published in 1968, long before he held any political office.
When the efficiencies of the morbidly rich spawn negative externalities that are forced upon our citizens and our country, the costs to fix their messes must be borne by those who profit. Specifically, the morbidly rich sociopaths who pull the strings and keep the GOP grifters in office. Unfortunately, the powers of corporate personhood will probably continue to be superior to those of our citizens as long as the master propagandists can manipulate enough poorly educated citizens into voting for GOP grifters. However, since their cultists make up much less than a majority of the electorate, the kleptocrats will continue to have to make their government whores cheat like a Trump with 21st Century gerrymandering, election fraud, and voter suppression tactics. Rove must be so proud.
Corporate control of politics is not limited to the GOP, to wit Sinema, Manchin and the rest of the conservadems in the house and senate.
I trace the current sad state of affairs to Bill Clinton, Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers and Goldman Sachs and their New Democratic Party or Democratic Leadership Council, latest version is The Third Way.
Bill created the rust belt(swing states) when he signed NAFTA and a revised GAAT. He officially killed the Fairness Doctrine and enabled the consolidation of media in the hands of rich right wingers, when he signed the Telecommunications act of 1996
Then there is the defense of marriage act. The Omnibus Crime Bill which increased the slave population of blacks (13thAmendment)
And yet Democrats voted for and defended him (as I did) because of Newt Gingrich.
Bill Clinton betrayed his base,labor,women, gays, yet we re elected him. Would Hillary have been any different.
We are being manipulated to vote for the lesser of two evils. Every four years the passengers on the ship of state, USA Inc, vote to change captains, the captains will make a slight veer to starboard or port, but eventually when the new Captain is elected, there is a course correction and the ship of state resumes it's charted course.
Except for pirates, and personal vessels, merchant ships are owned or hired by a combine of what was called "adventurers" (in the 17th century). and the adventurers, those who put up the money, select a board of governors to represent their interests. This is how America was first founded and financed.
Thank you for pointing out that grifters are working both sides of the aisle and I should have prefaced “GOP grifters” with “(mostly)” so it read “the morbidly rich sociopaths who…keep the (mostly) GOP grifters in office.” I agree that lots of bad and criminally stupid decisions were made by Clinton (like when the oligarchs of money arranged to repeal Glass Steagall Act and empowered them to bet on all the money they could get their hands on and make us pay for the mess). However, if we’re looking at the root cause of our sad state, I believe that it predates Clinton and falls to SCOTUS when their rulings began to create the powers of corporate personhood in the late 70s (i.e., money is speech and corporations are people). Or we can trace the beginning of our backsliding to the Powell Memo as the mission statement for corporatists, much like our Preamble is supposed to serve as the mission statement for our democracy. Those special powers enabled the oligarchs in the 90s to manipulate Clinton like they controlled Reagan in the 80s. And, to a certain extent, every other administration. Now that SCOTUS has achieved a critical mass of justices who are also grifting for the kleptocrats (whether sectarian or secular) we really need to elect a super-majority of competent officials who will serve to satisfy their Constitutional purpose.
Thanks for reminding me about Glass Steagall, the consequences of which was the crisis of 2008 and the "too big to fail" bailout. By the way guess which investment bank not only survived, but gobbled up the competition: If you guessed Goldman Sachs you win a koopie doll. Larry Summers is responsible for repeal of the Glass Steagalll act, the he got even richer under Obama
The 26 Alumni of Goldman Sachs who run the world: https://www.investopedia.com/news/26-goldman-sachs-alumni-who-run-world-gs/ and although Janet Yellen hasn't directly worked for Goldman Sachs, the next best thing, she was head of the Fed and the bank that controls the Fed is the FRBNY, and that bank is controlled by the Association of Primary Dealers in Government Securities of which Goldman Sachs is the chief and longest lived (seniority) player.
The APRDGS is is about 26 financial institutions including foreign firms, that have the first option in buying government securities which are then sold (by the FRBNY) to the Fed which then sells them through the Open Market window to regional feds which then sell them to member banks. In 1984, when I last studied them, persons (we know what that means) could buy government securities from the Fed in $5,000 blocks, and some were held back by Treasury, but most were sold to the Association, which resells them to sovereign funds (like France, China, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait) and investment portfolios and institutions like retirement funds, the teamsters, universities, etc.
Click on the list of Primary Dealers under this linkhttps://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/primarydealers and see how many are foreign corporations, like Hong Kong Shang Hai Bank or Deutsche Bank or Credit Suisse, etc. Want to know who owns America and why Bill Clinton kept extolling international financial institutions? Look no further than this list, these are also the financial institutions which own and control the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, which is the controlling bank of the Fed. Though Janet Yellen did not work directly for Goldman Sachs and the financial institutions she never the less knows who runs the world.
Timothy Franz Geithner (/ˈɡaɪtnər/; born August 18, 1961) is a former American central banker who served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013.
Trumps Sec of Treasury Steven Terner Mnuchin[1] (/məˈnuːʃɪn/ mə-NOO-shin;[2] born December 21, 1962) is an American investment banker[3] and film producer who served as the 77th United States secretary of the treasury as part of the Cabinet of Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021. Serving for a full presidential term, Mnuchin was one of the few high-profile members of Trump's cabinet whom the president did not dismiss.
Mnuchin was born in New York City. Upon graduating from Yale University in 1985, Mnuchin joined the investment bank Goldman Sachs where his father, Robert Mnuchin, was a general partner. Mnuchin worked at Goldman Sachs for 17 years, eventually becoming its chief information officer. Source of above profiles is wikipediea.
And less one believes that they work in our best interest remember finance is not national, it is global and corporations exist for one purpose and one purpose only... to produce a return on investment for shareholders.. Thus by their nature, and that of those who run the institutions they are sociopathic with no loyalty, conscience or concern other than self.
And let's not forget Robert Rubin and his contribution to the most negatively impactful financial frauds in history. If there is one thing we should have learned by now is that morbidly rich sociopaths will only change their behavior when they are forced to change. Here are a few quotes that make the point better than I:
“Regulators have to be much more involved. We cannot control ourselves.”
Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack
“Inside the financial world, there is a [mind-set of] ‘please stop us before we kill again,’”
Michael Lewis Author of The Big Short
“For heaven's sake please catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself.”
William Heirens, the Lipstick Killer.
Thanks so much old Dave. I was frustrated because I could not remember the name of the man who Advised Bill Clinton to hire Timothy Geihtner, push for repeal of Glass Steagall, and create the Democratic Leadership Council. He spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs and other international financial institutions, as Bill Clinton constantly reminded us (inadvertently as he was indebted to them for personal welfare program, the Clinton Global Initiative), are the problem. Responsible for the crash of 2008, which they used to wipe out competition and bolster their power
Rupert Murdoch spoke truth and speaks for the oligarchs, there is no red or blue only green.
At least not for the ruling class.
How does one defang this viper, when it controls the lifeblood of the nation, if not the world, money and media.?
The simple answer is that we must nullify the powers of corporate personhood or they will continue to bribe and extort to get their way. Remember, besides being sociopaths they are tenacious and virtually immortal. Of course, how do you take away their ability to control laws with a law that will negate their ability to control laws? We need to elect a super-majority of competent decision-makers who serve to satisfy their Constitutional purpose. While in office they will need to pass legislation so that money is no longer speech and corporations are no longer people. A bit easier said than done, I think, but certainly possible.
The plutocrats, the neo nobility, believe and act like the economy, meaning the people, exist to serve them. It is neo feudalism, where the serf and the freeman are dependent on the good graces of the lard of the manor. And the lords of the manor look down upon serfs and freeman as instruments that exist for their benefit.
This attitude is infectious and has filtered down into all elements of society.
I’ve encountered people who act like the job exists for them. I’ve run into this mentality in some service jobs like waiters. You are not a customer who is to be served, you are there to provide them a
job.
A fish rots from the head down. When we see the shareholders of USA Inc, getting away with murder, theft, scoff laws, greed, self servance do you not think that we peons will follow.
Bolshevism has had the positive effect for the neo nobility, of putting capitalists on a high altar, whereas any criticism at all is labeled socialist, and in the deficient American mind that translates to communist, and there is a subsequent knee jerk defense of neo serfdom.
Let me add at this point. That Marx railed against the middle class, which he called the bourgeoisie.
In all his writings he had nothing to say about the elite, the nobility, the financiers, the lords of the manor. Marx’s society was, more or less as our “founding fathers” envisioned America, an elite commanding the horde. Royalty, the nobility, the Saxon baron and the ceorl https://www.britannica.com/topic/ceorl.
Which by the way is the ideal society of the libertarian, a society in which the Kochs and other elites, who fund the l likes of the Federalist society and libertarian causes have been funding and whose politicians they have been financing.
While the elites are in competition among themselves, they are united in one thing: Their real threat is the middle class, the bourgeoisie. The middle class is the rung on the way up the ladder, which poses the threat of displacing them, and it is the rung on the way down.
As evidence in the Lewis Powell memo, which warned the plutocrats, the elite, that their biggest danger was an educated, informed, middle class which had enough time on its hands to pose a threat to the power and privilege of the plutocracy.
The solution was to degrade the middle class. As paul Volker said The U.S. must trim it’s standard of living. https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/18/archives/volcker-asserts-us-must-trim-living-standard-warns-of-inflation.html. Echoed by the central bank of Central Banks, the Bank for International Settlements in Basle,Switzerland which in their annual report for 83/84 said that the U.S. and world must reduce their standard of living (pages p.'s 131 & 183 of the '83 Annual Report of the BIS
The B.I.S. is the central bank of central banks, it holds the reserves of its member Central banks, thus is the boss, just as the NY Fed is the boss of the other regional Federal Reserve Banks.
Some of us are walking out of Lowe's and Walmart, because they don't have any people checking out anymore, but as we walk out we ask for the manager and share why we are changing our shopping behavior.
The whining and Laziness by the US voters and Shoppers in the last 80 years have given us precisely what we thought we wanted. And because a relatively small percentage of Americans have lived and travel in other countries for much longer than the traditional Texas Skip-and-Hop across all European countries in 10 days, most don't know that there are different life styles available. So, as a result of Mr. Hartman's analysis let him know how many of us walk away from the robot stores.
Let's see how many get on local zoning boards to make sure that realtors and wheeler-dealers don't farm out the neighborhood. Typically builder associations such as the Home Builders' Association have along penetrated state regulatory systems to stop neighbors from preventing or penalizing growth.
This is an excellent Hartman Analysis, and it deserves to be used as a Blue print for people taking turns to sit in on local governance boards.
Mr. Hartman Citations:
Without local competition, they now charge whatever the market will bear, leading to that $5000 annual “monopoly tax” we all pay in higher prices because we live in Reagan’s America. Profits among America’s largest corporations soared so much in the past two years, unconstrained by competition, that they account for an estimated 60% of our problematic inflation.
Capitalism which is unlimited greed, and has been used for thousands of years, always ends badly for the peasants. With a maximum wage it could work and with a 90% tax rate on millionaires it would work even better. It always ends like the board game "Monopoly".
The Trump supporting Cult needs to read this article, but they won't because they have been brainwashed into believing it's all the Dems fault. Since about 1985 it appears to me that the GOP took over the dem party, thanks to the capitalist money and influence.
I strongly believe the reason the Federal reserve raised the interest rates under Jimmy Carter was to mess up the economy and get him thrown out of office. Same thing with the arms for hostages and the oil embargo, all staged to move the country further to the right.
Now the Federal reserve is doing it again I believe to crash the economy and get a right wing corporatist elected. So the autocrat fascists can work young people to death and let the old and disabled people die or send them off to war, then die.
Per the theory the 1000th monkey having learned something, at that point it goes universal. Therefore if an idea can reach enough people, it then spreads like wildfire..
I've actually been mulling over the idea of universal non violent resistance and I can't think of an instance where it was used or achieved change. I can, on the other hand, name instances where
such achieved change, when behind them was the threat of violence.
The sad fact is that change only comes from fear. It they don't fear they don't change.
South Carolina seceded because it had no fear from the Federal government, other states saw that there was no response and followed suit.
Then the war, and change, but the victors, anti separatists, the abolitionists, sat back resting on their laurels, tired of war, and not at all interested in the well being and fate of former slaves, caved into an unreconstructed white power structure and in The Compromise of 1877 an informal agreement between southern Democrats and allies of the Republican Rutherford Hayes to settle the result of the 1876 presidential election, marked the end of the Reconstruction era.
Without fear restraining them, the south resumed it's antebellum life and practices, with a slight modification, now slavery, if within the bounds of the 13th amendment was legal, and to "celebrate" Louisiana built a prison on the largest plantation in the state , Angola, named of course for the supposed source of slaves.
The South and the north found, following Karl Marx, a new form of slavery, wage slavery.
Marx had been imploring southern planters to free the slaves, hire them back at market wages, that way they could produce cheaper cotton, which his partner, Frederick Engels (who had inherited a textile mill) could then buy.
Southern cotton was too expensive, so Engels bought the cheaper but inferior, Egyptian Cotton.
So despite the death of 650,000 nothing changed, for the American Descendant of Slaves, except they could no longer be bought and sold and their families broken up, but the southern planters now found that their investment in King Cotton was more profitable than before the war.
And here we are almost 160 years after that suicidal event, back where we started, on the verge of a breakup because of a culture war, only this time, the basis of the culture war has been, cleverly expanded by demagogues, and the proponents of those who started this car are now in positions of power in the Supreme Court, FBI, NSA, DHS, most if not all law enforcement agencies, local, state and Federal as well as our military. The ranks, by and large come from red states, the officer corps, has long been contaminated by Dominionism.
Non violent resistance assumes a neutral government, that can be persuaded. I am not sure that we have that anymore.
Other than the rank and file, most of whom got mere slaps on the wrist, what traitors (yes traitors to the constitution) that are politicians or insiders have actually been punished. None, and will they? No because the Trump humping DOJ, has drug it's heels, letting the statue of limitations run out, and waiting for the anticipated right wing change of government in 2025
No fear, no actions, no consequences and we slide into perdition.
What I am saying is that non violent resistance, needs to be backed up with the threat of violence, otherwise nothing changes, because there is no motivation for them to change
The right wing knows this, and despite some stumbling blocks, they press forward and are winning.
T
That title doesn't sound familiar. I haven't seen the book since before I had to downsize and got rid of some books. I think I had given it to a relative or roommate whose opinions I had hoped to change. I remember vey little about the book except that the author made a very good case for dispelling the myth that Ronnie Raygun should get any credit for the removal of the Berlin Wall. I did a search but couldn't locate the book that I read. At best ,he was an obnoxious and arrogant old fool. But he truly did do a lot of long-term damage.
Your pint is well taken, however:
Employee wages, benefits are a variable cost and that is where companies fixate to increase profits, also electricity and water. Fixed costs are called overhead, CEO's,upper management, buildings, equipment. Equipment is either taken as a tax deduction in the year purchased or amortized over a period of time (as a tax deduction) The road to profitability for a company is to reduce variable costs.