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 Until those SCOTUS-spawned powers of “legal” BS are rescinded, the billionaires and oligarchs will continue to do things adverse to our rights and our communities’ interests because they can, and they will continue to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.
The US had a 90% maximum tax on Americans until the late 70's and 80's.... There was a strong reason for this. It CHANGED the incentives of people that owned large companies. It reduced their incentive to take as much CASH out of the company as possible and put it in their pockets and INCENTIVIZED them to leave the cash in the company and invest it in R&D, Plant and Equipment and employees.
That one change in the tax code would massively change the incentives of corporations... Say a 90% tax on all annual income over $10M. That would do it.
Thank you for another great solution to get our democracy off its backslide to autocracy. We just need enough elected and appointed decision-makers who recognize that their Constitutional purpose is to promote our general welfare using best practice-based solutions (like those you offered above and in your other comment). Unfortunately, we currently have those decision-makers serving the interests of the morbidly rich in order to get reelected.
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.
I am sorry but the US absolutely needs a Federal Reserve and we need it to be lead by the US Government not banks, the way is was during the Robber Barrons.
With out a Fed the Government could not send out checks the way they did during covid, keeping families alive. During the Depression the Fed was controlled by banks and instead of sending out checks the government let people fend for themselves. Aside from the sheer cruelty of this it also caused a snowball effect of lower and lower demand for goods and services and more and more layoffs.
The world has learned from the '29 crash (Ben Bernanke and several others just won the Nobel Prize for their empirical research on this) how a government controlled Federal Reserve can stop the snowball effects of crashes.
The Fed has one tool, it is interest rates. It is Congress responsibility to pass laws that increase wages of the working class so they do not pay the price of rate increases. The Fed can't do that, it is the job of Congress..
I totally agree in the need for a central bank, call it a fed or whatever. Hamilton was right. Franklin was right that every post office should have a branch. If so, the central bank could drive issues like inflation with precision, and people would have more money to spend. Traditional for-profit banks could focus on profitable stuff, a nice separation.
If only we had a Congress, but that's a dream, we haven't in my lifetime.
Now you are talking. A Post Office bank for ordinary Americans would massively improve people's lives. And the next time we have a sharp recession (like 2008 or Covid) the Fed can deposit money directly into people's bank accounts. And trace the transaction too...
The question is this. Should banks control the FED or should the person chosen by a popularly elected leader control the FED?
Nov 3, 2022·edited Nov 3, 2022Liked by Thom Hartmann
Great post. I'm more of an empiricist than a theoreticist. I'm fine with brain storming something, but given the choice, I'd rather buy a cow than build one.
As for the next congress, it's going to be a massive Democratic landslide. I do like that the media is lying 24/7 to Americans. The threat of losing all personal freedom is about the only thing that can motivate the 60% who never vote because neither political party represents the interests of America or Americans.
I've worked in 150 countries, 40 long enough I could parachute in and be fine, except the parachuting. I like to stick with what works. I've been in several countries that had postal banking. In every case, it was even better than your thoughts. It's proven, let's do it.
The FED is a problem. We certainly don't want banks controlling it. Government controlling it is ideal, but politicians controlling it is the worst possible idea. The problem is we can't get rid of the politicians as long as US laws do not apply to US politicians, not even laws against domestic terrorism, inciting, leading and protecting armed insurrection, and selling themselves to foreign powers.
I like my wife's idea, ignoring for a moment HOW to do it. Congress must have all powers stripped.
Members of Congress should not be elected at all. Make it illegal for political parties to participate in elections. Candidates should be chosen by their research and writing skills, by civil service exam. We have an annual recall to replace anyone not performing, and appoint the next highest exam score. It should be a firing offense for any member of congress who's known to voters. We want employees, not celebrities and thieves.
Congress can poll Americans for what WE THE PEOPLE care about, research the top 5 issues, then post the top 3 solutions for each, including environmental, financial, and social cost, and we the people vote on the solution we like, with choice 4 being "propose a different solution" and choice 5 being "We no longer want this". Congress would then implement whatever solution we chose, and if a cancelled item is still important, we the people will put it back on the list.
Since they aren't all that important with permanent staff doing most of the research, every year we hold a recall for all members of congress.
The SCOTUS should be changed so that membership is granted by lottery from the top 20 picks of a consensus of senior law professors. We hold an annual recall for them as well. The constitution says they have a job for life WHILE THEY MAINTAIN GOOD BEHAVIOR. We the people can vote on their behavior, and tenure. No term limits, we just send them home.
The president and the cabinet should be chosen by direct vote. To remove the corruption, we make it illegal for political parties to participate, don't allow publishing of the names and faces of candidates, and make the campaign 4 weeks long, changing if from choosing the most entertaining to the most capable. We have them run on their agenda, and definitely publish their accomplishments like any other job interview. Since people lie, we have the annual recall.
The point is technology now allows direct democracy.
Yes, we will have the delusional NaziRepublican Party cultists voting - but they will be using Ouija Boards or dice, or sacred cloud formations, something stupid, so they won't matter.
The solution to uninformed voting is copy Europe. Europe used to regularly descend into Fascism, because fascists excel at lying. We do what Europe did, don't try to stop fascism or fight stupid voters, GET RID OF UNINFORMED VOTERS. That's simple, we educate every citizen. Look at Norway, they still have right wing religious nutcase fascists, but the other 98% laugh at them and never let them have any actual power.
Your big idea was on Congress.. that is where your idea is similar to what Plato recommends. Especially Congress being tested and not elected directly by voters.
I think there is some merit to your idea. A pool of qualified candidates from each district is eligible. They use technolog to poll the public on policy..
One problem is the sheer number of bills that come up. The fast majority of voters will have not time to even read option 1 -4 much less form an opinion. Can't rich people and companies use propaganda to inform people which choice to select?
Plato? Greek classics are a gap in my exploration, I tend to focus on recent and ancient history. Thanks for making me [slightly] better educated.
I literally just Googled the number of bills that come up. 30K laws have passed since 1789, or about 128 per year or two a week. Assuming they will screw up half, that means 256 bills per year, or five per week. I can easily review 5 reviews a week, but I don't think that is the goal.
Apply human behavior. I care about what I care about, you care about what you care about, and we may or may not overlap, but whatever you care about that I don't care about, I'll just ignore that issue because I know you have it.
I believe we will "silo" into a dozen categories. I believe laws will be proposed in maybe five categories, and they will have to leave out the 90% pork and bribery or we will simply vote "try again jerks"
I learned something that changed my life in my MBA education. We did a class exercise. A plane crashes and you have to hike 50 miles for help. You rescue 21 items from the plane before it explodes and burns. You can only carry 7 items, so you need to rank the 21 items.
We were given 20 minutes to rank the 21 items. Everyone had them ranked in less than 10 minutes.
The class was then divided into 3 groups of 7 students, and given another 20 minutes to rank as a group. Mass pandemonium ensued, arguing and fighting, nothing accomplished. After 5 minutes, the Prof said "OK, I'm changing the rules, you all have 2 minutes to rank the items". Mass pandemonium became outright fighting, passionate people shouting other people down.
Then we compared our ranking to the ranking of survival pros.
First, the Prof asked how we felt. All 21 students believed they did better alone than as a group.
The Prof wrote the pro ranking on the board, then the 21 individual rankings then the 3 group rankings.
The HIGHEST score of any individual was 40%.
Every group scored over 80%.
We were stunned. How is that possible? The Prof explained that in a rushed decision, everyone yields to the most passionate argument, and the most passionate arguer is the one thinking "You all are f-ing idiots, the answer is obvious".
In other words, 15% of us can vote every week and still far outperform 500 corrupt failed lawyers who are more interested in robbing us than helping our great nation.
I think you have been reading Plato and his version of Democracy.
- Next Congress massive Democratic land slide. (Not according to the polls) Hope you are right.
- Fed. Keep the bankers away from the Fed. Better to be controlled by the President.
- SCOTUS. Love your idea. Decisions are so complex these days you can have a pool of experts for different kinds of decisions. Especially economic and business.
- President: How do you widdle down the number running to an amount that people can wrap their mind around? Same with the cabinet. Are they tested like you would have Congress?
- Republican Party = Fascist. Spot on
- Uninformed Voters: How do you 'educate" 30M "ANTI Vaxxer" "stop the steal" Trump lovers?
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.
Old Dave,
The US had a 90% maximum tax on Americans until the late 70's and 80's.... There was a strong reason for this. It CHANGED the incentives of people that owned large companies. It reduced their incentive to take as much CASH out of the company as possible and put it in their pockets and INCENTIVIZED them to leave the cash in the company and invest it in R&D, Plant and Equipment and employees.
That one change in the tax code would massively change the incentives of corporations... Say a 90% tax on all annual income over $10M. That would do it.
Thank you for another great solution to get our democracy off its backslide to autocracy. We just need enough elected and appointed decision-makers who recognize that their Constitutional purpose is to promote our general welfare using best practice-based solutions (like those you offered above and in your other comment). Unfortunately, we currently have those decision-makers serving the interests of the morbidly rich in order to get reelected.
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.
Stabilizer,
I am sorry but the US absolutely needs a Federal Reserve and we need it to be lead by the US Government not banks, the way is was during the Robber Barrons.
With out a Fed the Government could not send out checks the way they did during covid, keeping families alive. During the Depression the Fed was controlled by banks and instead of sending out checks the government let people fend for themselves. Aside from the sheer cruelty of this it also caused a snowball effect of lower and lower demand for goods and services and more and more layoffs.
The world has learned from the '29 crash (Ben Bernanke and several others just won the Nobel Prize for their empirical research on this) how a government controlled Federal Reserve can stop the snowball effects of crashes.
The Fed has one tool, it is interest rates. It is Congress responsibility to pass laws that increase wages of the working class so they do not pay the price of rate increases. The Fed can't do that, it is the job of Congress..
I totally agree in the need for a central bank, call it a fed or whatever. Hamilton was right. Franklin was right that every post office should have a branch. If so, the central bank could drive issues like inflation with precision, and people would have more money to spend. Traditional for-profit banks could focus on profitable stuff, a nice separation.
If only we had a Congress, but that's a dream, we haven't in my lifetime.
That might change soon.
Now you are talking. A Post Office bank for ordinary Americans would massively improve people's lives. And the next time we have a sharp recession (like 2008 or Covid) the Fed can deposit money directly into people's bank accounts. And trace the transaction too...
The question is this. Should banks control the FED or should the person chosen by a popularly elected leader control the FED?
What is your thinking on Congress changing soon?
Great post. I'm more of an empiricist than a theoreticist. I'm fine with brain storming something, but given the choice, I'd rather buy a cow than build one.
As for the next congress, it's going to be a massive Democratic landslide. I do like that the media is lying 24/7 to Americans. The threat of losing all personal freedom is about the only thing that can motivate the 60% who never vote because neither political party represents the interests of America or Americans.
I've worked in 150 countries, 40 long enough I could parachute in and be fine, except the parachuting. I like to stick with what works. I've been in several countries that had postal banking. In every case, it was even better than your thoughts. It's proven, let's do it.
The FED is a problem. We certainly don't want banks controlling it. Government controlling it is ideal, but politicians controlling it is the worst possible idea. The problem is we can't get rid of the politicians as long as US laws do not apply to US politicians, not even laws against domestic terrorism, inciting, leading and protecting armed insurrection, and selling themselves to foreign powers.
I like my wife's idea, ignoring for a moment HOW to do it. Congress must have all powers stripped.
Members of Congress should not be elected at all. Make it illegal for political parties to participate in elections. Candidates should be chosen by their research and writing skills, by civil service exam. We have an annual recall to replace anyone not performing, and appoint the next highest exam score. It should be a firing offense for any member of congress who's known to voters. We want employees, not celebrities and thieves.
Congress can poll Americans for what WE THE PEOPLE care about, research the top 5 issues, then post the top 3 solutions for each, including environmental, financial, and social cost, and we the people vote on the solution we like, with choice 4 being "propose a different solution" and choice 5 being "We no longer want this". Congress would then implement whatever solution we chose, and if a cancelled item is still important, we the people will put it back on the list.
Since they aren't all that important with permanent staff doing most of the research, every year we hold a recall for all members of congress.
The SCOTUS should be changed so that membership is granted by lottery from the top 20 picks of a consensus of senior law professors. We hold an annual recall for them as well. The constitution says they have a job for life WHILE THEY MAINTAIN GOOD BEHAVIOR. We the people can vote on their behavior, and tenure. No term limits, we just send them home.
The president and the cabinet should be chosen by direct vote. To remove the corruption, we make it illegal for political parties to participate, don't allow publishing of the names and faces of candidates, and make the campaign 4 weeks long, changing if from choosing the most entertaining to the most capable. We have them run on their agenda, and definitely publish their accomplishments like any other job interview. Since people lie, we have the annual recall.
The point is technology now allows direct democracy.
Yes, we will have the delusional NaziRepublican Party cultists voting - but they will be using Ouija Boards or dice, or sacred cloud formations, something stupid, so they won't matter.
The solution to uninformed voting is copy Europe. Europe used to regularly descend into Fascism, because fascists excel at lying. We do what Europe did, don't try to stop fascism or fight stupid voters, GET RID OF UNINFORMED VOTERS. That's simple, we educate every citizen. Look at Norway, they still have right wing religious nutcase fascists, but the other 98% laugh at them and never let them have any actual power.
Your big idea was on Congress.. that is where your idea is similar to what Plato recommends. Especially Congress being tested and not elected directly by voters.
I think there is some merit to your idea. A pool of qualified candidates from each district is eligible. They use technolog to poll the public on policy..
One problem is the sheer number of bills that come up. The fast majority of voters will have not time to even read option 1 -4 much less form an opinion. Can't rich people and companies use propaganda to inform people which choice to select?
Plato? Greek classics are a gap in my exploration, I tend to focus on recent and ancient history. Thanks for making me [slightly] better educated.
I literally just Googled the number of bills that come up. 30K laws have passed since 1789, or about 128 per year or two a week. Assuming they will screw up half, that means 256 bills per year, or five per week. I can easily review 5 reviews a week, but I don't think that is the goal.
Apply human behavior. I care about what I care about, you care about what you care about, and we may or may not overlap, but whatever you care about that I don't care about, I'll just ignore that issue because I know you have it.
I believe we will "silo" into a dozen categories. I believe laws will be proposed in maybe five categories, and they will have to leave out the 90% pork and bribery or we will simply vote "try again jerks"
I learned something that changed my life in my MBA education. We did a class exercise. A plane crashes and you have to hike 50 miles for help. You rescue 21 items from the plane before it explodes and burns. You can only carry 7 items, so you need to rank the 21 items.
We were given 20 minutes to rank the 21 items. Everyone had them ranked in less than 10 minutes.
The class was then divided into 3 groups of 7 students, and given another 20 minutes to rank as a group. Mass pandemonium ensued, arguing and fighting, nothing accomplished. After 5 minutes, the Prof said "OK, I'm changing the rules, you all have 2 minutes to rank the items". Mass pandemonium became outright fighting, passionate people shouting other people down.
Then we compared our ranking to the ranking of survival pros.
First, the Prof asked how we felt. All 21 students believed they did better alone than as a group.
The Prof wrote the pro ranking on the board, then the 21 individual rankings then the 3 group rankings.
The HIGHEST score of any individual was 40%.
Every group scored over 80%.
We were stunned. How is that possible? The Prof explained that in a rushed decision, everyone yields to the most passionate argument, and the most passionate arguer is the one thinking "You all are f-ing idiots, the answer is obvious".
In other words, 15% of us can vote every week and still far outperform 500 corrupt failed lawyers who are more interested in robbing us than helping our great nation.
I think you have been reading Plato and his version of Democracy.
- Next Congress massive Democratic land slide. (Not according to the polls) Hope you are right.
- Fed. Keep the bankers away from the Fed. Better to be controlled by the President.
- SCOTUS. Love your idea. Decisions are so complex these days you can have a pool of experts for different kinds of decisions. Especially economic and business.
- President: How do you widdle down the number running to an amount that people can wrap their mind around? Same with the cabinet. Are they tested like you would have Congress?
- Republican Party = Fascist. Spot on
- Uninformed Voters: How do you 'educate" 30M "ANTI Vaxxer" "stop the steal" Trump lovers?
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.