The most important takeaway from today’s inflation crisis is that we must get our corporations back under control if we’re to have an economy that works for us instead of just for the billionaires
Of course, the extraordinary inflation that our economy is saddled with is not the only reason “ we must get our corporations back under control.” Every really bad thing that humans have inflicted upon the world is either caused, exploited, or exacerbated by those that choose to wield the powers of corporate personhood regardless of the sometimes lethal consequences. Until those SCOTUS-spawned powers of “legal” BS are rescinded, the billionaires and oligarchs will continue to do things adverse to our rights and our communities’ interests because they can, and they will continue to employ Jack Welch-like sociopaths to make it happen. We either Move To Amend or every battle to promote our general welfare will be ugly and too often futile.
I think the comment that to Powell, everything is a nail, is spot-on.
I'd go a bit further, in that the members of the Fed cannot be stupid about finance and money supply. They know as well as anyone that the Fed as an organization is necessary, but irrelevant, kind of like Dr Scholl's shoe inserts; worth the money but you can walk without them.
The Fed knows they have to do something or be "beaten up" politically, and all they have is this hammer................
This reminds me of my corporate life. We'd have an "event" that cost $10 million. I'd be sent to "fix it". I always "fix" it, but that was never enough. HQS wanted me to fire people and create new corporate rules.
Most failures resulted from not following existing corporate rules, for various reasons, but almost never the crew not wanting to follow the rules.
I refused to fire anyone unless they were truly too stupid to do the job. Pretty much nobody is that stupid. I often had to create new rules.
The most fun event was when the crew failed to respond to a catastrophic system failure in the 2 minutes available. They tried, but didn't guess right. I ended up writing procedures for how to properly perform during a catastrophic system failure of unknown cause. That pleased management at HQS. It also pleased the crew because I started every procedure with "Once it's determined that XYZ is the cause, do this". Obviously, if they knew the cause, they wouldn't have failed.
If only I had stock in companies that make bookshelves for rules nobody reads.
Of course the theory is correct that corporate America's behemoths unchained will price-gouge customers and wage-starve workers until their heads fall off. It was, is, and always will be the modus operandi of selfish, greedy assholes to manipulate the economy for financial and political power.
The evidence is staggering, and Thom has been exposing it for decades, pretty much following the scientific method (as much as one can in the realm of politics anyway), which nowadays is an oasis in a moral desert where a truth is a lie, and a lie is a truth.
(It's only natural that the biggest liar on the planet would name his blog "Truth Social" -- an unconscious admission that somewhere hidden deep inside this horrible human is a full understanding that his whole life is a lie. And he desperately wants others not to realize that ugly, ego-busting "truth," as obvious as it is.)
Lest we forget what we learned -- or should have learned -- back in grade school, sorely missing in today's fast-paced, shallow news cycles:
I see this slightly different, in cause, not result. The result is we all have crew cuts going into winter.
The cause, however, I see as CEOs unable to increase profits during the Trump Depression are catching up. The poor starving CEOs had to do with parsimonious $10 million bonuses for 4 years, so they are just catching up.
The good news is they have caught up, the kids and their phones and people like Thom have yanked the covers off the bed, and they won't be increasing prices that much again for a while, ergo, Thom Hartmann ended inflation.................
RE: "The most important takeaway from today’s inflation crisis is that we must get our corporations back under control if we’re to have an economy that works for us instead of just for the billionaires and their companies."
Hi Thom,
How many times does it take to recognize we are reliving the past where oligarchs have gained control of the economy despite government action? As long as oligarchs can always attain/maintain their unreasonable wealth, they eventually take control and try to usurp our government to stop new attempts at controlling their greed. As long as we maintain an economic system that empowers the oligarchs, our government of, by and for the people, is under serious and continuous internal threat.
As promoted by Professor Richard Wolff, getting corporations under control requires fixing our economic system in a more permanent fashion. Just re-regulating it without permanently diverting the pipeline that funds oligarch wealth is just beating our collective head against the proverbial wall.
Any new corporate regulations must include maximizing putting the workers in control, especially of large corporations that use excessive profit to enrich oligarchs, buy politicians and purchase MSM. Workers in charge will not vote to send their jobs overseas. Workers in charge will not pollute the communities they live in. Workers in charge will not divert their profit to empower oligarchs who disapprove of democratic processes.
Laws putting workers in charge will embed democratic processes in the workplace far beyond what unions have been able to do. Other new laws are needed to further empower and protect unions to give them more control over corporate profit so they too have a say in defunding corporate oligarchs. Additional taxation laws are needed to disempower the existing oligarchs and keep them from passing on their financial wealth to empower a new generation of oligarchs.
We need a new economic system that permanently disempowers oligarchs by empowering and protecting workers like never before. Check out Democracy at Work: https://www.democracyatwork.info
It's the idiots who vote like idiots, or don't vote at all, who are the dumbest, not necessarily the pretend idiots they choose to lead them astray. A gridlocked Congress can't do shit until people get over themselves (meaning their narrow ideological differences) and give their votes to the party that has rightly returned to them their hard-earned tax dollars-- going toward nearly every liberal benefit they've enjoyed since the FDR era. And most importantly, the Democratic Party did it honestly in full view of the public, whether or not Joe and Jane Lunchbucket paid attention.
That's good socialism, in broad daylight. Bad socialism happens in the dead of night in the shadows; it's all that Republicans have to offer: tax giveaways paid for by generations of the unwashed masses, exclusive benefits not available to the rest of us peons, and, in effect, total power awarded their richest donors. Those are the facts of history demonstrated repeatedly.
So, despite the odds, always pick the party that actually is trying to help you, the average person, rather than Wall Street billionaires. Allow the political organization, which famously has had the best interests of the people in mind all along, a workable majority at all levels of government, from city to county to state to federal. Counter to the "conventional wisdom" splashed all over corporate media loudly proclaiming bothsidesism, party bias is a good thing in the right context: for the greater good, or at least for the best shot at achieving a more perfect union ...someday over the rainbow.
There is almost no chance of true progress, though, if voters keep stupidly voting for authoritarian-minded Republican liars by clinging to the same mindset -- that, "Gee, if we only give equal power to both sides everything will somehow work out for the benefit of everyone." Ah yes, the allure of "magical thinking," as Paul Krugman would say.
No! Wrong!
Ask the right questions; do the research; figure out the most logical hypothesis; experiment (observe) in the real world; analyze the data and draw the right conclusions; then, most importantly, communicate the results, so that you and everyone else who cares about our country can pick the right candidates on their ballots, good people who still believe in democracy for all, regardless of race, culture, or religion -- or wealth.
Even a quick glance at the broad spectrum of news today reveals an unbridgable chasm between the two encampments dug in on each side. It is an obvious choice for anyone with a thinking brain: Vote for a Democrat and give Congress a big enough majority to overcome gerrymandering in the House, to get rid of the filibuster in the Senate, and to finally pass the progressive policies critical for the survival of democracy itself.
In conclusion, voters are responsible for whom they choose to represent them. If they choose not to vote or to vote for fascists, then they can't blame the so-called "leaders" in the parties who compete for power. "Power to the People" is not just something hippies chanted in the 60s -- an outdated concept in the minds of most Republicans these days.
The Supreme Court keeps accusing the corporations of being human. If that was even a little bit true, they would be the worst humans ever. True psychopaths.
Poor America has lost more than one million family members, and what do corporations do? Kick everyone while they are down and just starting to recover after a worldwide pandemic.
So go get 'em for their greed, Joe! I want to hear more about a minimum corporate tax. No mergers and no mercy---they are not human or humane.
The Fed only has one tool. It is interest rates. And increases in interest rates hurt the working class. Time to stop focusing on the Fed and focusing on Congress.
Congress has all the power it needs to offset the impact of interest rate hikes on working class Americans.
Congress can increase Min wage nationally, that will not influence what the Fed does to interest rates and it will help the working class.
Congress can phase back in the Child Care deduction that reduced poverty during Covid.
Congress can provide property tax breaks to first time home owners impacted by higher interest rates.
I can reel off a dozen other things Congress can do to ofset the Fed's increases in interest rates...
The fed is also reducing its massive balance sheet, which is good for all of us incases we have another crash like Covid or 2008.
Congress has to act and i see no leadership coming from Pelosi and you can be sure that when McCarthy and the GOP take over they will absolutely do nothing.
Of course, the extraordinary inflation that our economy is saddled with is not the only reason “ we must get our corporations back under control.” Every really bad thing that humans have inflicted upon the world is either caused, exploited, or exacerbated by those that choose to wield the powers of corporate personhood regardless of the sometimes lethal consequences. Until those SCOTUS-spawned powers of “legal” BS are rescinded, the billionaires and oligarchs will continue to do things adverse to our rights and our communities’ interests because they can, and they will continue to employ Jack Welch-like sociopaths to make it happen. We either Move To Amend or every battle to promote our general welfare will be ugly and too often futile.
I think the comment that to Powell, everything is a nail, is spot-on.
I'd go a bit further, in that the members of the Fed cannot be stupid about finance and money supply. They know as well as anyone that the Fed as an organization is necessary, but irrelevant, kind of like Dr Scholl's shoe inserts; worth the money but you can walk without them.
The Fed knows they have to do something or be "beaten up" politically, and all they have is this hammer................
This reminds me of my corporate life. We'd have an "event" that cost $10 million. I'd be sent to "fix it". I always "fix" it, but that was never enough. HQS wanted me to fire people and create new corporate rules.
Most failures resulted from not following existing corporate rules, for various reasons, but almost never the crew not wanting to follow the rules.
I refused to fire anyone unless they were truly too stupid to do the job. Pretty much nobody is that stupid. I often had to create new rules.
The most fun event was when the crew failed to respond to a catastrophic system failure in the 2 minutes available. They tried, but didn't guess right. I ended up writing procedures for how to properly perform during a catastrophic system failure of unknown cause. That pleased management at HQS. It also pleased the crew because I started every procedure with "Once it's determined that XYZ is the cause, do this". Obviously, if they knew the cause, they wouldn't have failed.
If only I had stock in companies that make bookshelves for rules nobody reads.
Of course the theory is correct that corporate America's behemoths unchained will price-gouge customers and wage-starve workers until their heads fall off. It was, is, and always will be the modus operandi of selfish, greedy assholes to manipulate the economy for financial and political power.
The evidence is staggering, and Thom has been exposing it for decades, pretty much following the scientific method (as much as one can in the realm of politics anyway), which nowadays is an oasis in a moral desert where a truth is a lie, and a lie is a truth.
(It's only natural that the biggest liar on the planet would name his blog "Truth Social" -- an unconscious admission that somewhere hidden deep inside this horrible human is a full understanding that his whole life is a lie. And he desperately wants others not to realize that ugly, ego-busting "truth," as obvious as it is.)
Lest we forget what we learned -- or should have learned -- back in grade school, sorely missing in today's fast-paced, shallow news cycles:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science-fair/steps-of-the-scientific-method
Fleecing us? Well, oh golly that breeze was cold.
I see this slightly different, in cause, not result. The result is we all have crew cuts going into winter.
The cause, however, I see as CEOs unable to increase profits during the Trump Depression are catching up. The poor starving CEOs had to do with parsimonious $10 million bonuses for 4 years, so they are just catching up.
The good news is they have caught up, the kids and their phones and people like Thom have yanked the covers off the bed, and they won't be increasing prices that much again for a while, ergo, Thom Hartmann ended inflation.................
RE: "The most important takeaway from today’s inflation crisis is that we must get our corporations back under control if we’re to have an economy that works for us instead of just for the billionaires and their companies."
Hi Thom,
How many times does it take to recognize we are reliving the past where oligarchs have gained control of the economy despite government action? As long as oligarchs can always attain/maintain their unreasonable wealth, they eventually take control and try to usurp our government to stop new attempts at controlling their greed. As long as we maintain an economic system that empowers the oligarchs, our government of, by and for the people, is under serious and continuous internal threat.
As promoted by Professor Richard Wolff, getting corporations under control requires fixing our economic system in a more permanent fashion. Just re-regulating it without permanently diverting the pipeline that funds oligarch wealth is just beating our collective head against the proverbial wall.
Any new corporate regulations must include maximizing putting the workers in control, especially of large corporations that use excessive profit to enrich oligarchs, buy politicians and purchase MSM. Workers in charge will not vote to send their jobs overseas. Workers in charge will not pollute the communities they live in. Workers in charge will not divert their profit to empower oligarchs who disapprove of democratic processes.
Laws putting workers in charge will embed democratic processes in the workplace far beyond what unions have been able to do. Other new laws are needed to further empower and protect unions to give them more control over corporate profit so they too have a say in defunding corporate oligarchs. Additional taxation laws are needed to disempower the existing oligarchs and keep them from passing on their financial wealth to empower a new generation of oligarchs.
We need a new economic system that permanently disempowers oligarchs by empowering and protecting workers like never before. Check out Democracy at Work: https://www.democracyatwork.info
It's the idiots who vote like idiots, or don't vote at all, who are the dumbest, not necessarily the pretend idiots they choose to lead them astray. A gridlocked Congress can't do shit until people get over themselves (meaning their narrow ideological differences) and give their votes to the party that has rightly returned to them their hard-earned tax dollars-- going toward nearly every liberal benefit they've enjoyed since the FDR era. And most importantly, the Democratic Party did it honestly in full view of the public, whether or not Joe and Jane Lunchbucket paid attention.
That's good socialism, in broad daylight. Bad socialism happens in the dead of night in the shadows; it's all that Republicans have to offer: tax giveaways paid for by generations of the unwashed masses, exclusive benefits not available to the rest of us peons, and, in effect, total power awarded their richest donors. Those are the facts of history demonstrated repeatedly.
So, despite the odds, always pick the party that actually is trying to help you, the average person, rather than Wall Street billionaires. Allow the political organization, which famously has had the best interests of the people in mind all along, a workable majority at all levels of government, from city to county to state to federal. Counter to the "conventional wisdom" splashed all over corporate media loudly proclaiming bothsidesism, party bias is a good thing in the right context: for the greater good, or at least for the best shot at achieving a more perfect union ...someday over the rainbow.
There is almost no chance of true progress, though, if voters keep stupidly voting for authoritarian-minded Republican liars by clinging to the same mindset -- that, "Gee, if we only give equal power to both sides everything will somehow work out for the benefit of everyone." Ah yes, the allure of "magical thinking," as Paul Krugman would say.
No! Wrong!
Ask the right questions; do the research; figure out the most logical hypothesis; experiment (observe) in the real world; analyze the data and draw the right conclusions; then, most importantly, communicate the results, so that you and everyone else who cares about our country can pick the right candidates on their ballots, good people who still believe in democracy for all, regardless of race, culture, or religion -- or wealth.
Even a quick glance at the broad spectrum of news today reveals an unbridgable chasm between the two encampments dug in on each side. It is an obvious choice for anyone with a thinking brain: Vote for a Democrat and give Congress a big enough majority to overcome gerrymandering in the House, to get rid of the filibuster in the Senate, and to finally pass the progressive policies critical for the survival of democracy itself.
In conclusion, voters are responsible for whom they choose to represent them. If they choose not to vote or to vote for fascists, then they can't blame the so-called "leaders" in the parties who compete for power. "Power to the People" is not just something hippies chanted in the 60s -- an outdated concept in the minds of most Republicans these days.
The Supreme Court keeps accusing the corporations of being human. If that was even a little bit true, they would be the worst humans ever. True psychopaths.
Poor America has lost more than one million family members, and what do corporations do? Kick everyone while they are down and just starting to recover after a worldwide pandemic.
So go get 'em for their greed, Joe! I want to hear more about a minimum corporate tax. No mergers and no mercy---they are not human or humane.
The Fed only has one tool. It is interest rates. And increases in interest rates hurt the working class. Time to stop focusing on the Fed and focusing on Congress.
Congress has all the power it needs to offset the impact of interest rate hikes on working class Americans.
Congress can increase Min wage nationally, that will not influence what the Fed does to interest rates and it will help the working class.
Congress can phase back in the Child Care deduction that reduced poverty during Covid.
Congress can provide property tax breaks to first time home owners impacted by higher interest rates.
I can reel off a dozen other things Congress can do to ofset the Fed's increases in interest rates...
The fed is also reducing its massive balance sheet, which is good for all of us incases we have another crash like Covid or 2008.
Congress has to act and i see no leadership coming from Pelosi and you can be sure that when McCarthy and the GOP take over they will absolutely do nothing.