I think the malaise in our society has everything to do with huge inequity.
Unions allow people that feel insignificant and unworthy because of this huge inequity to have a good self sense in a world that otherwise ignores them.
Workers have become so marginalized as their CEOs benefit from the workers contribution.
I suspect if w’d had a more prolific unionized spectrum for workers ,
Trump wouldn’t have been so successful in asserting his “victimhood” with his supporters actual victimhood .
So much would have been different.
Poverty has become endemic in cities and counties whose industry
has fled to Mexico or China , but away from our Country.
The perception that people who live in cities are wealthy intellectuals is an attempt to lie about and separate rural and urban communities.
In the last few years I’ve become aware of the intense poverty of city dwellers in my Upstate NY city.
The suburbs are quite wealthy or at least well off.
In our county , there
was Covid money for citizens. You would think that money that wasn’t utilized
by those citizens might assist with other issues in that population.
But our County Executive decided to use that money to build an Aquarium for millions.
Because the very poor would much rather see sea creatures than eat.
Another lie and refusal to accept reality and have compassion for struggling families.
This is the attitude that is so excessively represented in politics.
Its not good for anyone. If these city dwellers had Union representation. I daresay things would improve drastically.
These are the same people who are marginalized voters.
True victims of the same system that pushes them out of participation in elections, because they are African Americans or Asian or Hispanic or just poor.
The ‘WOKE ‘ are our best resource in this struggle,
I speak from experience having lived in the rural south, and in which all of my fathers family lives, and all of them live in the shadow of Georgia Pacific mills (Cancer Capitol of the U.S.)
The denizens of flyover country and the south, except for the cosmopolitan areas are captives of the priest, pastors and local media. They are ultra religious, conservative, misogynistic and racists (yes, there are exceptions) but as general rule tis true.
They are the organic Trump base., and inclined to support anyone that reinforces their bigotry, which is organic, hereditary,learned and reinforced.
Go into any state, including Washington State, and drive a few miles away from the cosmopolitan areas and you have wandered into Alabama. Like in "orange is the new black"
when they called that one inmate Pennsyltucky.
Washington State is two "states", separated by the Cascade Mountains, in the west on the coast where the most population lives, where Boeing and Microsoft, who employs a lot people from south Asia, you are in progressive heaven, except for the cops, who like cops everywhere are a racist GESTAPO, who is above the law, not even a mayor can control them, not even a Chief of Police because of the power of the Union. (always a downside to Unions)
drive over the Cascades on Interstate 90, or shadow the Colombia river and you find yourself in Alabama.
Patricia I just upvoted your comment. I do agree. May I add some additional information.
Unions, until Raygun represented white blue collar workers, and fought like hell for laws that excluded and kept the blacks "in their place" because of fear that POC would work for less wages and not be in favor of unions.
Just like fhe Irish, Italians and Jews were not considered white, because these heavily accented immigrants would work for less than a "nativist" and until they lost teir accent and could no longer be singled out, where considered non white. A feature that Chassidic Jews carry to this date.
Are you old enough to remember the anti bussing violence in Boston, after the Warren court ruled on Brown v Board of education.? The Boston police department, which supported the violence by white folk, is almost entirely white. Just like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, and so many of the right wing ideologues, they got there's but want other minorities to disappear. Sadly the same with Italians and Hispanics (like Enrique Tarrio and Nicholas Fuentes), now sadly and inexplicably, it seems that quite a few black males have become Republicans and Trumpists,nothing like pulling a Roman, lying in a warm bath and slitting your wrists, bless me.
You took the words right out of my keyboard about white unions excluding people of color. The Wagner Act, like much of the New Deal, didn't do much for most black and brown people. Another thing about unions in the halcyon (??) decades after WWII: They bent over backwards to avoid being called socialist, communist, or "red" -- this was the McCarthy era after all -- and anything that was too pro-worker was by definition socialist, communist, or "red". Living in the UK in the mid-1970s showed me just how tame U.S. unions were compared to their British and European counterparts.
And in the real world Joe Biden blocks a railway workers strike, offering them a contract with no paid sick days and calling it a "good deal." Union leadership sides with Democrats because that's where the money is, union members know it's a scam. I don't hear Biden using the bully pulpit to champion the cause of Starbucks ro Amazon workers, while poor Bernie Sanders is out there every day with a megaphone offering them support. Barack Obama did not say ONE WORD about the massive protests in Wisconsin when Scott Walker was implementing right to work. Not one. So you can be "for" organized labor and make a few motions to support it without really being for it. https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-signs-bill-to-block-us-railroad-strike-/6860131.html
A massive ship, and in this case, that's an inadequate metaphor, can't stop and turn on a dime. Obama's no longer in office, so what he did is not relevant anymore. A rail strike during this most recent impasse may have well shoved the country even further to the right by the time their media got done with blaming Biden and the Dems. And there was this in June that occurred quietly, as positive news usually does...
The actions of pols are always driven by their need to somehow keep several sides happy - they can't afford to get anybody upset and sometimes that leads to NOBODY being happy & their reputation for 'no principles' !
... make a few motions? do you not listen to what potus says in every factory he visits ? i'm not understanding what you are trying to say/-/in fairness I have a go to the Biden signs a bill to block news story , but let me put your mind to rest: " my dad was a union man"
will, no doubt, beyond his tombstone. In the interim, how about helping the indentured servants from the islands working in Caregiving in south Florida for eight dollars an hour with not one paid sick day , not one paid vacation day
IMO, Biden was playing the numbers. He knew that if the RR unions went on strike, the disruption of the supply chain,would mean empty shelves, empty bellies, empty fuel tanks, and power stations shut down, followed by an economic collapse and the media would blame him.
As a purist I would have liked him to back the Unions, which he could have done with Art II powers and force the RR cabal to meet union demands,but unlike his predecessors, from Reagan,to Clinton,Bush and Trump he is reluctant(afraid?) to use his constitutional powers, because they might worry and piss off the mega donors.
, As regards Bernie he released a statement: that the Russian invasion of Ukraine "has to be resisted," and that the Congressional Progressive Caucus was right to withdraw a letter that urged President Biden to negotiate an end to the war with Russian President Vladimir Putin.The statement was withdrawn. So there is that. Also he opposed he Iraq war as did I. I even marched in San San Francisco in opposition to his fathers war against Saddam. A war of choice at the behest of the Arab Sheikhs of Kuwait and the Gulf States, which incidentally (not by coincidence served the interests of the international oil cartel.
It's true it may make it seem that republicans are the only ones engaged in this kind of class warfare and of course they are not. Democrats moved away from labor into Clinton / DLC etc era, and hopefully all know / acknowledge this.
Warren Buffett's quote us such a good one to emphasize because we are usually in "politics" bubble where things like "economic class analysis" don't apply. In Richard Wolff's (frequent guest) world and in this piece it's showing the economics side.
Also from personal knowledge of the Department of Labor I do not discount what Thom lists here and its support for certain aspects of labor law. There are some good people in the sub-agencies of DOL that Trump might have gotten rid of by now who have done a whole bunch of good things, and do support rights of unions, and who have helped enforce laws when it comes to things like crypto in retirement plans.
Again agreement, we have to keep this up. Richard Wolfe is one of my all time favorites, of course I learn nothing new from him. B.A. major in econ and fortunate to have professors who were Marxists and Friedmanites. (Not simultaneously of course)
Thank you, I deal with union members on a daily basis and most of the rank and file, as well as many of local chapter heads, are disillusioned with Democrats in general and Biden in particular.
That is because of the leadership in the DNC and those old tired horses, that have paid their dues, and occupy seats in Congress like Pelosi and Schumer. It has been lip service during campaigns to POC, Gays, Women, but no follow through once elected. And he leadership in congress like Pelosi, absolutely hates progressives when she controlled the DCCC she backed conservatives like Joseph Kennedy Jr against progressives like Sen Markey of Mass, and a homophobe against an out gay.
And there is the obnoxious Rahm Emanuel, the champion of privatizing schools, who called progressives "fucking retards", he has many companions in the DNC
I characterize the DNC as "wham, bam, thank you Ma'am" but it appears that Joe is changing his tune, could it be because he needs the loyalty of progressives now, with all that is coming at him from Gym Jordan and the greed and stupidity of his feckless son Hunter.
Yet again, I will hold my nose and vote to keep Republicans out of office I am so tired of voting for that reason alone. I would love to vote,for a change, because of the positive aspects of a candidate, and not against the opposition.
"Telling our lives is important for those who come after as, for those who will see our experience as part of their own historical struggle."
--Linda Hogan, CHICKASAW
How important it is for us to support one another. How important it is for us to know our culture and to share our experiences with one another. How powerful it is to be authentic. How important it is to hold no secrets. I am as sick as my secrets.
Grandfather, allow me today to be willing to share with my brother and sister. Let my eyes see You in their eyes. Let me not judge them but only love them. Grandfather, help me, for I am Your humble servant.
If you're hired at Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Amazon, etc. one of the first requirements of orientation is watching an anti-union video. These corporations spend millions fighting organizing efforts all over the country. The game is rigged in their favor. Our economic inequality is even greater now than it was during the time of the robber barrons. These are not simple problems and although union members may think it's a scam, their choices are as limited as their paychecks. If we want a middle class again, (and that means not just poor people who like to think they're middle class) we're going to have to fight like hell to make that happen.
This is personally painful. I got to spend undergrad and grad years researching and writing about labor: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Marie Equi, Bisbee, Arizona, the IWW, an endless list. Over the course of learning about the lives of thousands, they became family. It is personal. Yet, as a federal employee I got only the occasional eye roll with even the slightest mention of the benefit of Unions. That was even more painful.
Since the emergence of RR and the mantra of "He who dies with the most toys wins", and "Greed is good", getting labor back to a place of power is gonna be one slow walk.
The french Physiocrats were on the right path three centuries ago. they just did not go far enough in their analysis of the Economy. All economies are composed of three components:
1) Raw Materials
2)Labor
3)Markets
Raw materials eg. metal ores, petroleum, land, etc. (The Club of Rome listed 19 in their seminal report The Limits To Growth decades ago. More can now be added, like rare earth metals, lithium , cellulose fiber, land, potable-non-salty-unpolluted water, and much more). All of these raw materials are of no use to us until they are converted into a humanly-useable form.
It is Labor which performs this conversion. Labor converts the raw materials into things we humans need and use, from baby food to automobiles and computers and cell phones, you name it, labor makes it. Nothing in this planet has any value until labor converts it into something we can use.
The finished products are then distributed among the society's population according to some institutionalized arrangement. We call it Markets, or Marketing in our Capitalist system of private ownership of the means of production.
All economies in all societies must do at least these minimal things involving Raw Materials, Labor, and Markets (or "distribution") if the society is to continue surviving into the future in some recognizable form.
The function of government is to organize the exclusive right to use power in some more or less legitimate fashion. Power is the ability to get people to do something. To force people, even against their own will, to do what the holder of power wants them to do. Mao Tse Tung was correct when he said "Power comes through the barrel of a gun."
Power and influence are similar in that they both get people to do something. But influence gets people to do something by getting them to agree to do it. Think of persuasion or propaganda. Control over resources or products and services is also a source of power because those who own and control access to products and services can control the population; as long as government backs them up with raw power.
The function of the military in an empire is to insure that the owners of the economic system have unfettered access to Raw Materials, Labor, and Markets all over the known world.
None of this is possible without LABOR. Labor is primary in all economic systems throughout history and everywhere, in every society.
There are two sources of power, then, in modern society Government and Business. It is obvious why Business hates and fears government. Especially if it is hard for Business to control Governments which are democratically controlled by citizens. There's more. But this is all for now, I think.
Under developed countries are exploited by ignorant thugs, motivated by money, money to gain power, power to keep the money. And the likes of Putin, Exxon Mobil,Shell step in to secure their hold on power, by getting exclusive access to the mineral and vegetable wealth of these countries, and the only motivation the people have is religion and tribalism. And if a real nationalist took command of a country and its resource, they find themselves the target of the real overlords.Patrice Lamumba is a good example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba
And if he was anti white and a pan Africanist, he had good cause, considering how the Congo suffered under King Leopold. and that is ahorror story in it's own right
You are correct about poor countries and especially a true Nationalist like Lumumba who loved his people.
King Leopold surpasses Hitler in lives taken by cruelty.I assume you have read King Leopold's Ghost? Only Stalin and possibly Mao beat his record.
The important difference between Stalin and Mao, however, is that Stalin set up his country for failure. Look at the disaster the unfortunate Russian people have suffered while he lived and after he was removed by death. Mao, on the other hand, freed his country from western exploitation and set up the Chinese to recover their historically accustomed position on the world stage: Challenging the U.S. economically. Putin is badly mistaken if he thinks returning to the "Halcyon Days" of Stalin are worth returning to.
Gerald, great comment. Totally agree. I might add something or two.
It is little known, but I discovered in researching a paper for my MBA that the USSR was a combine of seven trusts organized along the lines of resources and production. There was a trust for labor, called the KGB, a trust for mining, agriculture, timber, heavy industry, etc
Each trust had their own bank,and the GOSBank was the clearing house, or central bank.
When one trust needed a resource from another trust, the accounts were settled first by barter, if that didn't do the job, then by transfer of gold. The trust with the most gold was, of course, the KGB, the incorporating papers for the trusts were held in neutral Sweden, that is why Sweden stayed neutral until Putin's invasion of Ukraine, because after Gorbachev, the trusts were irrelevant and theKGB/FSB under Putin sold off the assets to his friends the oligarchs.
Marx was not a communist or even a socialist, he was a proto libertarian, and from him Fred Kochs who built refiners and oil wells for Stalin, got his ideas, mainly Art II of the1936 Soviet Constitution which simply says "If you don't work, you don't eat:".
The USSR also faithfully subscribed to Marx's lover of gold as the standard of value (not labor like so many believee) that the fathers of the USSR valued the ruble at .9851 grams fine gold, and only issued the amount of rubles that were held in the GOSBank.
It was so vital to the Russian economy, that it was a felony to take a ruble out of Russia, The customs officials scrutinized incoming baggage for "counter revolutionary" material including books,and outgoing baggage for rubles.
The holder of a ruble could redeem them for gold at the USSRs window to the world, the NordBank in Paris, and that reduced the supply of gold.
The USSR was insanely obsessed with recovering gold from sunken ships, because of its economic role.
Where as in the west with it's fractional reserve system, where a bank could create money out of thin air, by loaning out money, based on a fraction of the reserves that it held, and the reserves were gold, government securities and demand deposits (checking accounts, savings accounts did not count, hence they actually drew lower interest rates than checking accounts, or do so today.
Title 12 of the US Code authorized banks to monetize corporate debt, that is included them in it's reserve base, but had no need to act on that, until Trump, then because of a lack of government securities, it started to monetize corporate debt.,and the Fed lowered the interest rate to favor Trump, with Biden in office it has raised the interest rate on Government security, the excuse of Lewis Powell is to cool inflation.
But raising interest rates actually spurs inflation, later, when the bill comes due and needs to be redeemed.
Title 12 US Code, gives the fed one mandate, and that is to manage the credit of the nation. Nothing in it about cooling inflation. and the politicians and DC, firmly in the pocket of the Banks and the APDGS (Association of Primary Dealers in Government Securities,) say nothing, primarily because, like my Econ 101 professor, don't understand money, only economic theory. and thus are buffaloed by the banks. You can find them via google just drop the word association.
The APGDS is about 25 inernational banking institutions , many with home offices in France,Germany and even (IIRC) Saudi sovereign funds.
The Treasury, on the authorization of congress sells it's securiies at discoount to the APGDS, which in turn sells them to the Fed and the much loved by Clinton international financial institutions at a profit, the Fed in turn sells them to the 12 regional banks, through its Open Market Window, and the regional Fed sells them to member banks all at a profit.
The fed holds back some securities to sell toAmerican investors, mainly insurance companies, mutual funds, universities and people who can bid for large blocks of securities, the minimum order quantity, back in the 1980's was $5.000
In the 1983/84 Annual Report of the Bank of International Settlements, in Bassel Switzerland,
(The B.I.S. is the central bank of central banks, aka big boss, (it started as an institution to handle Germany's reparations from WWI) there was a single sentence, the USSR is a failed economic experiment and needs to be restructured, shortly after Gorbacheve became President, and Raygun most certainly with knowledge, made his famous "tear down this wall" speech.
Gorbachev's reward was a Dacha on lake Geneva, with a non profit created just for him, The Green Cross.
Things are not as they appear, thus my transformation from a conservative to a progressive,and my distrust of the media and politicians.It all started with research for a paper in pursuit of my MBA with emphasis in finance and accounting. The real world disabused me of any notion about going into finance, and I am not greedy, nor do I lack ethics.
Mr. Farrar, Thank you for that info about the seven trusts in the Soviet system. That's news to me.
Your comment "in the West with its fractional reserve system where a bank could create money out of thin air by loaning out money based on a fraction of the reserves that it held" caught my eye. This system of "creating money" as you call it has interested me for some time now. The money which banks create in this fashion should be called "Phantom Money." It is not currency or what I would call "True Money." Only sovereign nations can create currency. This is almost the definition of sovereignty for a nation state, a country. It is their exclusive right to do so and they (the nation's government) own the currency. Citizens use the currency as money but they do not "own" it. The government allows them to use it and has the right and the power to take some of it back in the form of taxes. The value of the currency was based on gold reserves until under President Nixon when the U.S. was taken off the gold reserve system over a period of two years. Two separate, but related acts were used to take us off the gold standard . Since then, the value of American money has been based on faith. Faith in the strength and continuity of the American economy.
Nixon might have been a criminal. But he was not stupid.
As for the "Phantom Money" I mentioned, which is "created" by banks; here is how I see the system functioning on a day to day basis:
Let's say that I put $100 of government currency into my bank. the bank says it has $100. My neighbor Mr. O. borrows $100 from my bank to buy an appliance. Mr. O. gives that $100 to the corner appliance store. The appliance store puts that $100 into my bank. The bank says it now has $200. My other neighbor Ms. M. borrows $100 from my bank to buy an appliance. The appliance store puts that $100 into my bank. My bank says it now has $300. Well, you get the idea. Multiply this hypothetical process by hundreds of millions of times in a nation of 330 million people and you see that a great deal of "money" has been "created" by banks. But this is not currency printed by the U.S. Treasury. It is "Phantom Money" which is not backed by currency. If we depositors all went to the bank(s) and demanded our money; the bank(s) would be unable to give it to us. As you know, this is called a "run on the bank." Such things have in the past, and do presently, happen. This is why banks are legally required to always keep a minimum "fractional" amount of "money" in "reserve." This is also why institutions like the FDIC have been created. the FDIC guarantees that the U.S. government will give depositors their money, up to $250,000 today. Before this happens ,however banks will sell off some of their assets and /or borrow money from somewhere to pay out to their depositors who demand their dough. This is what recently happened to The Silicon Valley Bank in California and the bank in New York. I forgot its name. It was in the news. Both banks went under. SVB was purchased by another institution.
I am sure this is not new to you. You are well aware of how the system works.
But here is what I am driving at: the U.S. Treasury must ---MUST--- periodically put more-that is extra money in the form of currency into the economic system in order to assure that there is enough money to keep things running more or less smoothly. And how does the government do that? By spending more money in Federal Programs than it takes from citizens in the form of taxes. In other words: The U.S. Government must---MUST--- engage in deficit spending, deficit fiscal policies are necessary, required. As the population of the U.S. grows and the economy increases its productivity, it is absolutely necessary for the Gov. to engage in deficit fiscal policies.
There are intelligent people in Washington who understand this. Janet Yellen is surely one of them and there have been hints lately that Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden and some others, on both sides of the isle are beginning to understand it. Franklin Roosevelt began to see it. The cry that deficit spending creates debt is a non sequitur. Nonsense. Only ignorant sheep believe it means something rational. Those who want to find reasons to cut domestic programs which benefit ordinary people scream and cry about the "debt" created by deficit spending. However, when the military needs a trillion dollars next year for new aircraft carriers and jet fighters nobody says "NO! That creates debt" except Bernie Sanders They begin to preach Austerity as The Raygun did and Margaret Thatcher did and all right wing autocrats all the way back to Mussolini and Hitler.
There have been over a dozen periods since the founding of the republic when the U.S. gov. began to "balance" the budget and sometimes actually spend less than what was collected in taxes, in a forlorn attempt to "pay down the national debt." Every single one of these attempts was followed by an economic downturn which we have euphemistically called a depression, recession, business downturn, business cycle. By my calculation they have come about every 7.5 years. The two worst were under President Jackson who reduced the deficit by 100% and Hoover who tried to match Jackson. Jackson's policy helped stimulate agitation to start the War Between the States. Hoover's policy gave our parents the Great Depression. I was born just as it was ending.
Having said all this, there is one more important trend in our unrestrained Capitalist system which must be pointed out.
In rough figures, about 90% of the wealth in the U.S. is "owned" and controlled by 1% or less of the population. The remaining 10% is divided up by the other 99% of us. Under these circumstances we do not have enough money to buy back all of the goods and services we produce. This causes all kinds of dislocations and problems which I need not go into here. But, we must recognize that this is inevitable under our current form of unrestrained Capitalism and unrestrained private ownership.
All that passes for money, even gold and silver, exist because of faith\
It is faith that values gold, as the supply of gold rises, and falls, so does it's value.
In the 19th century there were devasting depressions because there was not enough gold, to support the money
The along come Presidents Garfield and McKinley, both were advocats of bimetalism, (gold and silver), both were shot before they could do anything, and bimetalism died on teh vine.
Williams Jenning Bryant was a right wing demogogue, a racist and a religious extremist (we've seen them before Trump, but he didn't have the internet, TV and social media)
Bryant was right on one thing, with his Crucified on a cross of gold speech, but that is how right wing populists work, the broken clock syndrome, like Trump and his "the media is the enemy of the people, the very media that made him president, same with Law enforcement, which is a hive of right wingers and racists, now Trump has turned on them.
Very few people, especially economists and gold bugs, have never heard of gold and silver inflation, yet that is precisely what brought down the Spanish Empire.
Spain sent much of its gold and silver to the Netherlands for processing into coins and jewelry, there was so much gold and silver, especially as the mines of Potosi . Located in the Bolivian Tin Belt, Cerro Rico de Potosí is the world's largest silver deposit and has been mined since the sixteenth century,
The influx of these "precious medals" caused an inflation that ruined the economy and military prowess of Spain, and made it the target of Queen Elizabeth's privateers and pirates.
Before the Federal Reserve Act (Title 12 USC), if interested visit a university library, or a good public library, legal section, and read it for yourself, it has only one mandate, "To manage the credit of the nation.. Nothing in it about inflation control.
It is a power that they have assumed.
Before the Federal Reserve act, states and even communities would print their own money, on the basis of "deposits". And of course there were runs on the bank, easily started with rumors that the bank did not have enough gold to cover deposits. And even after, until all banks that had not joined the Fed were bankrupt, and the Fed expanded it's reach and power, then the government came up with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or FDIC, of which only which member banks could join, it isn't free.
Companies, mostly in mining and timber, that produced chits, that could only be redeemed at the company store, and pay the rent for company homes. My mother and I lived in one in Pt Neches Texas while Dad was off in the Pacific.
There was one in Crossett, AR famous for being the Cancer Capitol of the US, and the homes in Crossett served to house the workers of the Crossett Lumber company, now Charles Koch's, Georgia Pacific.
From the frying pan to the fire.
The very first run on a bank, was shortly after the East India company, opened its Bank of England. It took in deposits, printed money, but soon the truth hit the streets, and there was not enoughgold to cover the demand ,so they brilliantly turned to a PR ruse. They hired,as Warden of the Mint, the most famous alchemist in England, Isaac Newton,who was not yet a Sir.
The people believed that an alchemist could transmute base metal into gold, so that stopped the run.
The Bank of England was created when Charles II, a profligate gambler with a string of mistresses ran out of money (gambling and lavishing his mistress Barbara Villiers, a cousin of George Villiers who was James I, "favorite" courtier.
He also gifted the castle Henry VIII built for the teenage Katherine Howard, before he had her head severed for treason (having an affair with Thomas Culpepper).
Barbara sold off Nonsuch castle stone by stone.
Charles blew through that debt, and now approached the Bank of England (East India Company) for another loan, this time they demanded collateral, the crown jewels, the orb and sceptre which are the symbols of sovereignty and thus the sovereignty of England passed to the Bank of England, they subsequently rebuilt the crown, orb and sceptre, but those are only replicas.
Nixon when he abolished the gold "standard" was only recognizing reality (Nixon was a mixed bag, he created some outstanding cabinets and programs, but was also a crook and a racist.
There was not and never was enough gold to cover every U.S. Dollar. not even 1%.
Gold and silver as money are a mirage, the mirage only exists because of a long history of fables and believes, it as much fiat money as the printing press dollar, only it's value is erratic, and by hoarding can cause depressions and by over supply cause inflaton (as pointed out previously)
When Charles and David Koch first launched the Libertarian party (David was it's Presidential nominee)
I considered the party even attended lectures, but when I discovered that they were gold "bugs" I backed away, fast. Because gold as a standard of value is a myth, and embrassing gold, puts you at the mercy of the !% who have the ability to buy up all of the gold, create a depression, and then dump it, at a profit, and create gold inflation.
I bet you didn't know that.
The problem with the Fed is that the interest on the debt causes inflation. By debt I mean all debt, public and private, not only government securities, but your debt, your credit cards,unpaid balance and the interest you pay on that, your mortgage, you car, plane plan and boat debt. Anything financed.
The act of borrowing money, incurs a debt. Debts have to be repaid with interest.
If I borrow $1,000 at 7% current rate for a mortgage, or 27% current rate for credit cards.
I have to repay the loan, at the end of the year with Money ($1,007 or $1027), with 7$ or $27, which I don't have.
But lending institutions (credit Unions, Savings and Loans, Banks) have a deal for me, instead of paying it off,, they spread the financing over years, and that way make a huge profit, more than than the initial percentage. By the time you pay off a mortgage over 30 years, you have paid out at least twice what you paid for the house.
And there , my friend,is the real cause of inflation. In economic myth, oops theory, inflation is too much money chasing too few goods,and that is b.s. I am 84 and have lived through inflation, where the shelves were empty, in fact look around and you see that now, obscene prices and near or actually empty shelves, that aren't getting restocked. Some of that is greed, caused inadvertently or on purpose by supply chain issues,either caused by the middle man, the wholesaler, the transporter, or the producer, who cuts down production so he can increase demand thus increase pricing, and from what I've seen they don't even use that pretense.
My COLA is eaten up, hundreds of times over, from my local ISP and pesticide applicator service, to Heinz, Campbell's , Breyers, Dryers and every food suppliers. Not to mention the fossil fuel and PhARMA cabals.
There is a lot in your comment to dig into, And I have exhausted myself replying to this much.
Wow Mr. Farrar, that is fascinating. Too much in there for my weak old fingers and hands to reply to in any complete fashion. But because I have been a Shake-Speare buff since I was 18 and love anything smacking of the Tudors, and because I completed an undergraduate major in mathematics and found great fun in Sir Isaac Newton's goofy scribblings. When I was young, naive and impressionable Newton was my hero. Then I discovered he was a religious fanatic who did not even believe his own claim about gravity because it seemed like an insult to his God. Furthermore, I read some history and discovered that the notation everyone in the world is using was the much more useful Calculus of Leibniz. (Leave it to a Kraut to one-up a Limey. Even though the honor of first place must go to the Brit.) Full disclosure here: My mother's family came to these shores from Wales 400 years ago; while my father's family immigrated from the Village on the Dobbertin Sea in Mecklenburg as recently as 140 years ago. "Newcomers" by some standards. So I seem to have a foot in both camps.
The upshot is that I found your dissertation informative and fascinating.
This is my second response Gerald, there was a lot to digest in your comment, some would say T:DR,but is right up my alley.
Not much to add, except repeat that the primary cause of inflation is the interest on the debt, public AND private. That is something that is obscured by the media and even university courses on Economics and finance.
All money created out of debt, is wiped off the books, as if it never existed, when and as, the debt is paid down and paid off, all except the interest on the debt (public and private)
Thought experiment
11 of us are shipwrecked on island. I have a printing press and gold paint.. I gather up some rocks, paint them gold, and with my printing press, tell the people that I have gold, and that on the basis of it's value, I can loan them money. So they line up and I loan them $100 each at 10%, due at end of the 12 months.
Comes the due date, and collectively they owe me $1100.00. Where is that extra $100 coming from, well some are bad at business, some waste their money on things they MUST have, and some made a profit, yet there is only $1,00 dollars in circulation.
Inflation, now they come back begging for another loan, this time I demanded real wealth, collateral, which at the end of the year, they still can't pay, so now I dispose them of their collateral (having appointed myself or a favorite stooge as the sheriff).
I am a Keynesian, and John Maynard Keynes was correct, the government owes itself, and printing press money, if constrained, serves the public good and creates jobs and a healthy economy, for lessons learned to the contrary, look no further than Bolshevik Russia. With it's 100 % gold standard.
The problem with a government having unfettered access (no restraint mechanism) to limit currency is evidenced in the hyper inflation of 1922 in Germany, which in itself helped Hitler to take power.
You can also see the ruins in South America, when those countries stsart to print their own currency
The Federal Reserve was authorized as the brakes on the government, but it quickly became a political tool, run by greedy men and beholden to shareholders.
Here is how it works. There is the Fed (in reality the Federal Reserve Bank of NY). There are 12 regional feds, A former boss, a Captain when we were friends, and a planner of Operation Eagle Claw, was a Colonel and when he retired he went to work for the San Francisco Fed.
The Federal reserves is "owned" by it's shareholdeers,which are major banks, national and international, most of which are also the Primary Dealers in Government securities.
This is the real Fed, When the Fed raises interest rates, the increase is passed on to the borrowers, and actually creates inflation, not cools it down as Jerome Powell proclaims, and Janet Yellen as well.
Financial institutions are by nature conservative, they are, by law, driven to make a profit for their shareholders.
Want some fun, dig out who owns who in financial institutions, other than credit unions and you will go nuts, it is a Gordian Knot.
97 % of our economy is privately owned. Think of that as 100% for our purposes. The way owners accrue their wealth is by reducing the price they pay for raw material as low as they can. This is what the military does for them on a worldwide scale. Next the owners reduce the amount they pay for labor as low as they can. Governments at all levels function primarily to help them do this. Then when the finished product, the commodities are sold in the market place the sellers demand a price for those commodities which is vastly greater than the total they paid out for the cost of the raw materials plus the cost of labor combined. The difference between the expenses the owners paid out and the much greater price they get for the commodities and services which they sell in the market is their profit. Everything in this economic system is designed to help the owners receive the greatest profits possible. There is no such thing as the "invisible hand " operating in the markets which functions in a way to determine prices which customers pay. The "invisible hand" is a fiction. It is an idea based upon something Adam Smith said in The Wealth of Nations only once, and that was two centuries ago. Furthermore, Adam Smith was using the expression "the invisible hand of the market" in an altogether different context than modern Economists use it today. What we have is essentially a system of Monopoly Capitalism in which the owners of the system SET PRICES. And we consumers either pay the price or go without. It's that simple:
Biden is not the most pro Union president ever in the United States of America. FDR would mop up the floor with him. What else could Biden mention that would be a lie. After listening to Trump for years lying and lying and lying, American should know you cannot trust a liar. But their own parents in their Church lie to them since birth. Unions are necessary when you do not have a maximum wage that is tied to the minimum wage, like a maximum wage about 10 times the minimum wage, you would not need unions. Instead with unlimited greed the rich want to own everything and everyone and then some. Nature, science and the truth be damned! Begging from the robber barons or brown nosing whatever you want to call it, will do no good because they actually like having common people grovel at their feet, of all races and genders.
The main conclusion is extremely good and warranted as I have significant career experience with the dol and know department heads who are now heading up the specific dol initiatives noted. This isn't just a fluff biden piece - its conclusion is correct various things at DOL really matter.
For example I have mentioned esg investing elsewhere and agencies like dol and sec will support this only under a democratic administration, with Biden's positions and picks being fairly supportive.
Among the best pieces of the year, this provides insight using certain examples, and should be taken more broadly as showing how the capital / investment / economics side of things directly affects public policy and everything in politics.
This is why it's worth looking into the topic of ESG Investing.
Politically, the financial interests were successful over decades at taking what's good for "Wall Street" and subjecting labor and retirement systems to its control.
We now have the ESG initiatives on the table which (although largely corrupted by industry players until now) could be improved and could be used to drive greater public awareness and participation in matters of social impact, labor relations, etc of companies. This is why all ESG initiatives are despised by republicans. It's worth knowing more about how the younger people are polled on this and how much it's already part of the investment and reporting systems globally.
Among the basic things to understand about this is that there's currently no system to adequately track data that does not involve some kind of control and manipulation by companies themselves, and some kind of consistent way of defining and tracking certain things - especially environmental impacts and issues - so in the first place we need to create a system of data reporting capturing information important for environmental, social, labor rights and similar purposes.
Also, information on political donations by companies and investment managers could be brought forth in a more accurate and prevalent way, highlighting which companies or investment funds are supporting bad actors and creating poor esg ratings making it bad for business.
There are two sides of sec rulemaking, one for companies and one for investments:
slavery and colonization of Native Americans land also contributed to the creation of the evil wealth (profits) of American companies (cotton, rice, lumber,railroads and liquor... to name a few. Indirectly banks, loan companies and insurance outfits...
Thom's union article is totally awesome. I wish I could take it to union organizers, which I think I will. Right out my door is a union, so I will download this article. If Thom actually reads this, I first want to say how incredible this article is, which we need authors like Thom, and we need me to distribute this article, which I will do today right now. But then I want to tell Thom, the new electronics as stated by Matrix Deciphered, which Thom does not need to get involved in, because Thom is already good enough, and is doing a service to our country, but I am enmeshed in what Renee Pittman decries as an obscenity which is really the penal system going after us with amazing electronics. At least Thom will know, but like I say he is already doing yeoman's work for the good cause of workers. I ought to know this is an awesome article about GM because I have 22 years with them. Sincerely Harriet Elliott
It's a common fallacy that paying workers less creates higher profits. A number of years ago BMW opened a plant in SC; duplicating the production line in one of their German plants. The loaded mean hourly labor cost was $60 in the German plant vs. $13 in the South Carolina plant.
Well the German plant was more profitable; as the 1st sentence pre-figured. Yet the labor cost differential strains credulity. The difference is in attitudes. In Germany any plant with 500(?) employees must be unionized and union members must be well-represented in plant management and production planning. They after all are the ones that know the kinks in the production line. And they know their contributions are valued, their jobs secure, their vacations and sick leave never in doubt. The worker in S. Carolina is probably working a 2nd job; fears taking a sick day; and her feedback concerning working conditions or manufacturing process scorned. They come to work exhausted and are bossed by line managers who children went to college and live at home burdened with debt. Their wage betokens the scorn. (Does anyone really care if the torque wrench is out of spec; if the new batch of widgets is out of tolerance . . .)
I recall praise of Bidenomics a few weeks past: "I cut one Trillion dollars from the debt". About half of that was reneging on promised student loan relief. - "Nothing significant was cut."
Were it very simply true that a corporation is but organized money then I'd concur that that power can be balanced by organized labor. That was the dialectic that largely applied from the 30's through the 60's. Yet Thom, though you speak powerfully of the problems created by '76 Valeo, '78 Bank of Boston, 2010 Citizens United, 2017 McDonnell; you fail to see the totality of the fascist transformation that those unchallenged rulings guaranteed. These ruling guaranteed that merger of State and corporate power that Mussolini called fascism - but with a twist: The corporations hold the power. Each corporate sector pushes legislation to pad their profits. There is no plan but profit. Eventually interests in different economic sectors come into conflict. In my mind the most chilling example is in the Manchin/Biden Debt Ceiling debacle. Courtstripping was used in Sect 324 for Manchin's pipeline to accelerate profits from climate collapse. This is complemented by an effective attack, Sect. 322, on the absolutely essential transition to solar. The US has about 1TW of installed solar. Plans for another 2TW have been proposed. Sect 322 dictate a schedule of studies to determine 'if' powerlines are needed to distribute that power. That 2, 3, or more year delay changes the investment potential for large solar farms.
This is why the Dark Money, the big money was on Biden in 2020. In 2024 that will be more emphatically true as the Don & Ron are the clowns that would be Fuhrer. The corps. did not fund law school chairs, Federalist Society, ALEC. . . just to let some slimeball seize power
Just the possibility of the union has been useful for workers to try to get their fair share. Without that threat looming over their heads, employers would not cough-up the benefits and pay what they do. Period. End of discussion.
The other HUGE contribution unions have made is to workplace safety. Without it, society would be footing the bill for a lot of injured people, spouses, and orphans. We still are, but there would be so much more expense and heartache connected to workplace injury and deaths.
As much as we hate the strikes, haggling, and politics concerning unions, America would be so much farther behind without some democracy for the people doing the real work. It's obvious the loss of unions resulted in horrible income disparity, and it has resonated with the youth in this country. They know loyalty only goes one way if you let it. They are just getting started with this issue and with voting. That must scare the crap out of conservatives.
That "lefty" Taylor Swift just made the news for giving her crew from her billion dollar tour some big fat bonuses. If only all employers were like her!
I've seen and experienced this inside a union and outside in management. This Report is so true, Thom.
continuing reply to DO fm PA: no health insurance of any kind, certainly no 401(k), paying for their own continuing Ed, licensure, ET AL...ALL ‼️ ...? unions know it is a scam ? This is scam reportable to the CFPB? FTC? scamguard.org? maybe trust pilot? ahhh: OPEN SECRETS! There u go//best hurry to report these POLS (sic vcragain).
.... what is POL intended to describe anyway?
...i attempted x two to respond to your vitriolic rampage against Hartmann's cabral (sic)--fortunately both were accidentally deleted, and I tired of replying to such a recalcitrant mind fix.
Why I support unions. Amen!
I think the malaise in our society has everything to do with huge inequity.
Unions allow people that feel insignificant and unworthy because of this huge inequity to have a good self sense in a world that otherwise ignores them.
Workers have become so marginalized as their CEOs benefit from the workers contribution.
I suspect if w’d had a more prolific unionized spectrum for workers ,
Trump wouldn’t have been so successful in asserting his “victimhood” with his supporters actual victimhood .
So much would have been different.
Poverty has become endemic in cities and counties whose industry
has fled to Mexico or China , but away from our Country.
The perception that people who live in cities are wealthy intellectuals is an attempt to lie about and separate rural and urban communities.
In the last few years I’ve become aware of the intense poverty of city dwellers in my Upstate NY city.
The suburbs are quite wealthy or at least well off.
In our county , there
was Covid money for citizens. You would think that money that wasn’t utilized
by those citizens might assist with other issues in that population.
But our County Executive decided to use that money to build an Aquarium for millions.
Because the very poor would much rather see sea creatures than eat.
Another lie and refusal to accept reality and have compassion for struggling families.
This is the attitude that is so excessively represented in politics.
Its not good for anyone. If these city dwellers had Union representation. I daresay things would improve drastically.
These are the same people who are marginalized voters.
True victims of the same system that pushes them out of participation in elections, because they are African Americans or Asian or Hispanic or just poor.
The ‘WOKE ‘ are our best resource in this struggle,
Because they are awake to reality.
WOKE support Union Representation.
I speak from experience having lived in the rural south, and in which all of my fathers family lives, and all of them live in the shadow of Georgia Pacific mills (Cancer Capitol of the U.S.)
The denizens of flyover country and the south, except for the cosmopolitan areas are captives of the priest, pastors and local media. They are ultra religious, conservative, misogynistic and racists (yes, there are exceptions) but as general rule tis true.
They are the organic Trump base., and inclined to support anyone that reinforces their bigotry, which is organic, hereditary,learned and reinforced.
Go into any state, including Washington State, and drive a few miles away from the cosmopolitan areas and you have wandered into Alabama. Like in "orange is the new black"
when they called that one inmate Pennsyltucky.
Washington State is two "states", separated by the Cascade Mountains, in the west on the coast where the most population lives, where Boeing and Microsoft, who employs a lot people from south Asia, you are in progressive heaven, except for the cops, who like cops everywhere are a racist GESTAPO, who is above the law, not even a mayor can control them, not even a Chief of Police because of the power of the Union. (always a downside to Unions)
drive over the Cascades on Interstate 90, or shadow the Colombia river and you find yourself in Alabama.
It is true of course that Unions can protect those who shouldn’t be protected. That is a real downside.
However , the police are already inherently corrupt , union or not.
There is something about power that without the balance of compassion
becomes twisted up and oozes out corruption.
I also think that Trump
made abuse of power without accountability a routine for many people who embraced power.
Unfortunately many of them without the discipline of respect, cross lines into abuse.
The inability to have empathy is hugely popular now .
Without self respect these people need to take others to task by suppressing their humanity.
Seen most recently by the blatant pogroms on LGBTQ individuals, suppression of the vote and their rights in general.
or respect for others
Ill never understand how black and brown Americans have any use at all for the likes of Trump and other republican thugs.
They’ve been so betrayed, so many times.
And it seems like any trust in these white supremacists will be shattered.
But it seems sure that anyone that doesn’t approve of their bigoted
approach is easily replaced.
Patricia I just upvoted your comment. I do agree. May I add some additional information.
Unions, until Raygun represented white blue collar workers, and fought like hell for laws that excluded and kept the blacks "in their place" because of fear that POC would work for less wages and not be in favor of unions.
Just like fhe Irish, Italians and Jews were not considered white, because these heavily accented immigrants would work for less than a "nativist" and until they lost teir accent and could no longer be singled out, where considered non white. A feature that Chassidic Jews carry to this date.
Are you old enough to remember the anti bussing violence in Boston, after the Warren court ruled on Brown v Board of education.? The Boston police department, which supported the violence by white folk, is almost entirely white. Just like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, and so many of the right wing ideologues, they got there's but want other minorities to disappear. Sadly the same with Italians and Hispanics (like Enrique Tarrio and Nicholas Fuentes), now sadly and inexplicably, it seems that quite a few black males have become Republicans and Trumpists,nothing like pulling a Roman, lying in a warm bath and slitting your wrists, bless me.
You took the words right out of my keyboard about white unions excluding people of color. The Wagner Act, like much of the New Deal, didn't do much for most black and brown people. Another thing about unions in the halcyon (??) decades after WWII: They bent over backwards to avoid being called socialist, communist, or "red" -- this was the McCarthy era after all -- and anything that was too pro-worker was by definition socialist, communist, or "red". Living in the UK in the mid-1970s showed me just how tame U.S. unions were compared to their British and European counterparts.
And in the real world Joe Biden blocks a railway workers strike, offering them a contract with no paid sick days and calling it a "good deal." Union leadership sides with Democrats because that's where the money is, union members know it's a scam. I don't hear Biden using the bully pulpit to champion the cause of Starbucks ro Amazon workers, while poor Bernie Sanders is out there every day with a megaphone offering them support. Barack Obama did not say ONE WORD about the massive protests in Wisconsin when Scott Walker was implementing right to work. Not one. So you can be "for" organized labor and make a few motions to support it without really being for it. https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-signs-bill-to-block-us-railroad-strike-/6860131.html
A massive ship, and in this case, that's an inadequate metaphor, can't stop and turn on a dime. Obama's no longer in office, so what he did is not relevant anymore. A rail strike during this most recent impasse may have well shoved the country even further to the right by the time their media got done with blaming Biden and the Dems. And there was this in June that occurred quietly, as positive news usually does...
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/most-unionized-us-rail-workers-now-have-new-sick-leave-2023-06-05/
The actions of pols are always driven by their need to somehow keep several sides happy - they can't afford to get anybody upset and sometimes that leads to NOBODY being happy & their reputation for 'no principles' !
Not a coincidence that most Congress Critters (House and Senate) are lawyers. trained to lie and have no ethics or principles other than make money.
... make a few motions? do you not listen to what potus says in every factory he visits ? i'm not understanding what you are trying to say/-/in fairness I have a go to the Biden signs a bill to block news story , but let me put your mind to rest: " my dad was a union man"
will, no doubt, beyond his tombstone. In the interim, how about helping the indentured servants from the islands working in Caregiving in south Florida for eight dollars an hour with not one paid sick day , not one paid vacation day
IMO, Biden was playing the numbers. He knew that if the RR unions went on strike, the disruption of the supply chain,would mean empty shelves, empty bellies, empty fuel tanks, and power stations shut down, followed by an economic collapse and the media would blame him.
As a purist I would have liked him to back the Unions, which he could have done with Art II powers and force the RR cabal to meet union demands,but unlike his predecessors, from Reagan,to Clinton,Bush and Trump he is reluctant(afraid?) to use his constitutional powers, because they might worry and piss off the mega donors.
Again agreement.
, As regards Bernie he released a statement: that the Russian invasion of Ukraine "has to be resisted," and that the Congressional Progressive Caucus was right to withdraw a letter that urged President Biden to negotiate an end to the war with Russian President Vladimir Putin.The statement was withdrawn. So there is that. Also he opposed he Iraq war as did I. I even marched in San San Francisco in opposition to his fathers war against Saddam. A war of choice at the behest of the Arab Sheikhs of Kuwait and the Gulf States, which incidentally (not by coincidence served the interests of the international oil cartel.
Ok ok
The article is a good one.
It's true it may make it seem that republicans are the only ones engaged in this kind of class warfare and of course they are not. Democrats moved away from labor into Clinton / DLC etc era, and hopefully all know / acknowledge this.
Warren Buffett's quote us such a good one to emphasize because we are usually in "politics" bubble where things like "economic class analysis" don't apply. In Richard Wolff's (frequent guest) world and in this piece it's showing the economics side.
Also from personal knowledge of the Department of Labor I do not discount what Thom lists here and its support for certain aspects of labor law. There are some good people in the sub-agencies of DOL that Trump might have gotten rid of by now who have done a whole bunch of good things, and do support rights of unions, and who have helped enforce laws when it comes to things like crypto in retirement plans.
Again agreement, we have to keep this up. Richard Wolfe is one of my all time favorites, of course I learn nothing new from him. B.A. major in econ and fortunate to have professors who were Marxists and Friedmanites. (Not simultaneously of course)
Mr. Kaufman, you could not be more correct. Recently, my union friends and I have voiced the same complaints.
Thank you, I deal with union members on a daily basis and most of the rank and file, as well as many of local chapter heads, are disillusioned with Democrats in general and Biden in particular.
I agree with much of what you write.
But it really seems unnecessary to jump on with the twisted Maga to try and further bury. Hunter Biden.
There are troubled people in the world but they don’t deserve the chronic garbage that the Magas pile on .
Of course the distraction from Trumps Massive Criminal Agenda is a feather in their collective a**.
There is no question that
We have enough constant hatred from Magats.
No need to join them in their contrived interest in hurting the Biden family. The cruelty is still the point.
Do you ever ask them what Trump will do to them, not for them? Of course you don't, because they are the Trump base.
That is because of the leadership in the DNC and those old tired horses, that have paid their dues, and occupy seats in Congress like Pelosi and Schumer. It has been lip service during campaigns to POC, Gays, Women, but no follow through once elected. And he leadership in congress like Pelosi, absolutely hates progressives when she controlled the DCCC she backed conservatives like Joseph Kennedy Jr against progressives like Sen Markey of Mass, and a homophobe against an out gay.
And there is the obnoxious Rahm Emanuel, the champion of privatizing schools, who called progressives "fucking retards", he has many companions in the DNC
I characterize the DNC as "wham, bam, thank you Ma'am" but it appears that Joe is changing his tune, could it be because he needs the loyalty of progressives now, with all that is coming at him from Gym Jordan and the greed and stupidity of his feckless son Hunter.
Yet again, I will hold my nose and vote to keep Republicans out of office I am so tired of voting for that reason alone. I would love to vote,for a change, because of the positive aspects of a candidate, and not against the opposition.
Native American
"Telling our lives is important for those who come after as, for those who will see our experience as part of their own historical struggle."
--Linda Hogan, CHICKASAW
How important it is for us to support one another. How important it is for us to know our culture and to share our experiences with one another. How powerful it is to be authentic. How important it is to hold no secrets. I am as sick as my secrets.
Grandfather, allow me today to be willing to share with my brother and sister. Let my eyes see You in their eyes. Let me not judge them but only love them. Grandfather, help me, for I am Your humble servant.
If you're hired at Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Amazon, etc. one of the first requirements of orientation is watching an anti-union video. These corporations spend millions fighting organizing efforts all over the country. The game is rigged in their favor. Our economic inequality is even greater now than it was during the time of the robber barrons. These are not simple problems and although union members may think it's a scam, their choices are as limited as their paychecks. If we want a middle class again, (and that means not just poor people who like to think they're middle class) we're going to have to fight like hell to make that happen.
This is personally painful. I got to spend undergrad and grad years researching and writing about labor: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Marie Equi, Bisbee, Arizona, the IWW, an endless list. Over the course of learning about the lives of thousands, they became family. It is personal. Yet, as a federal employee I got only the occasional eye roll with even the slightest mention of the benefit of Unions. That was even more painful.
Since the emergence of RR and the mantra of "He who dies with the most toys wins", and "Greed is good", getting labor back to a place of power is gonna be one slow walk.
The french Physiocrats were on the right path three centuries ago. they just did not go far enough in their analysis of the Economy. All economies are composed of three components:
1) Raw Materials
2)Labor
3)Markets
Raw materials eg. metal ores, petroleum, land, etc. (The Club of Rome listed 19 in their seminal report The Limits To Growth decades ago. More can now be added, like rare earth metals, lithium , cellulose fiber, land, potable-non-salty-unpolluted water, and much more). All of these raw materials are of no use to us until they are converted into a humanly-useable form.
It is Labor which performs this conversion. Labor converts the raw materials into things we humans need and use, from baby food to automobiles and computers and cell phones, you name it, labor makes it. Nothing in this planet has any value until labor converts it into something we can use.
The finished products are then distributed among the society's population according to some institutionalized arrangement. We call it Markets, or Marketing in our Capitalist system of private ownership of the means of production.
All economies in all societies must do at least these minimal things involving Raw Materials, Labor, and Markets (or "distribution") if the society is to continue surviving into the future in some recognizable form.
The function of government is to organize the exclusive right to use power in some more or less legitimate fashion. Power is the ability to get people to do something. To force people, even against their own will, to do what the holder of power wants them to do. Mao Tse Tung was correct when he said "Power comes through the barrel of a gun."
Power and influence are similar in that they both get people to do something. But influence gets people to do something by getting them to agree to do it. Think of persuasion or propaganda. Control over resources or products and services is also a source of power because those who own and control access to products and services can control the population; as long as government backs them up with raw power.
The function of the military in an empire is to insure that the owners of the economic system have unfettered access to Raw Materials, Labor, and Markets all over the known world.
None of this is possible without LABOR. Labor is primary in all economic systems throughout history and everywhere, in every society.
There are two sources of power, then, in modern society Government and Business. It is obvious why Business hates and fears government. Especially if it is hard for Business to control Governments which are democratically controlled by citizens. There's more. But this is all for now, I think.
Under developed countries are exploited by ignorant thugs, motivated by money, money to gain power, power to keep the money. And the likes of Putin, Exxon Mobil,Shell step in to secure their hold on power, by getting exclusive access to the mineral and vegetable wealth of these countries, and the only motivation the people have is religion and tribalism. And if a real nationalist took command of a country and its resource, they find themselves the target of the real overlords.Patrice Lamumba is a good example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba
And if he was anti white and a pan Africanist, he had good cause, considering how the Congo suffered under King Leopold. and that is ahorror story in it's own right
You are correct about poor countries and especially a true Nationalist like Lumumba who loved his people.
King Leopold surpasses Hitler in lives taken by cruelty.I assume you have read King Leopold's Ghost? Only Stalin and possibly Mao beat his record.
The important difference between Stalin and Mao, however, is that Stalin set up his country for failure. Look at the disaster the unfortunate Russian people have suffered while he lived and after he was removed by death. Mao, on the other hand, freed his country from western exploitation and set up the Chinese to recover their historically accustomed position on the world stage: Challenging the U.S. economically. Putin is badly mistaken if he thinks returning to the "Halcyon Days" of Stalin are worth returning to.
GFD
Gerald, great comment. Totally agree. I might add something or two.
It is little known, but I discovered in researching a paper for my MBA that the USSR was a combine of seven trusts organized along the lines of resources and production. There was a trust for labor, called the KGB, a trust for mining, agriculture, timber, heavy industry, etc
Each trust had their own bank,and the GOSBank was the clearing house, or central bank.
When one trust needed a resource from another trust, the accounts were settled first by barter, if that didn't do the job, then by transfer of gold. The trust with the most gold was, of course, the KGB, the incorporating papers for the trusts were held in neutral Sweden, that is why Sweden stayed neutral until Putin's invasion of Ukraine, because after Gorbachev, the trusts were irrelevant and theKGB/FSB under Putin sold off the assets to his friends the oligarchs.
Marx was not a communist or even a socialist, he was a proto libertarian, and from him Fred Kochs who built refiners and oil wells for Stalin, got his ideas, mainly Art II of the1936 Soviet Constitution which simply says "If you don't work, you don't eat:".
The USSR also faithfully subscribed to Marx's lover of gold as the standard of value (not labor like so many believee) that the fathers of the USSR valued the ruble at .9851 grams fine gold, and only issued the amount of rubles that were held in the GOSBank.
It was so vital to the Russian economy, that it was a felony to take a ruble out of Russia, The customs officials scrutinized incoming baggage for "counter revolutionary" material including books,and outgoing baggage for rubles.
The holder of a ruble could redeem them for gold at the USSRs window to the world, the NordBank in Paris, and that reduced the supply of gold.
The USSR was insanely obsessed with recovering gold from sunken ships, because of its economic role.
Where as in the west with it's fractional reserve system, where a bank could create money out of thin air, by loaning out money, based on a fraction of the reserves that it held, and the reserves were gold, government securities and demand deposits (checking accounts, savings accounts did not count, hence they actually drew lower interest rates than checking accounts, or do so today.
Title 12 of the US Code authorized banks to monetize corporate debt, that is included them in it's reserve base, but had no need to act on that, until Trump, then because of a lack of government securities, it started to monetize corporate debt.,and the Fed lowered the interest rate to favor Trump, with Biden in office it has raised the interest rate on Government security, the excuse of Lewis Powell is to cool inflation.
But raising interest rates actually spurs inflation, later, when the bill comes due and needs to be redeemed.
Title 12 US Code, gives the fed one mandate, and that is to manage the credit of the nation. Nothing in it about cooling inflation. and the politicians and DC, firmly in the pocket of the Banks and the APDGS (Association of Primary Dealers in Government Securities,) say nothing, primarily because, like my Econ 101 professor, don't understand money, only economic theory. and thus are buffaloed by the banks. You can find them via google just drop the word association.
The APGDS is about 25 inernational banking institutions , many with home offices in France,Germany and even (IIRC) Saudi sovereign funds.
The Treasury, on the authorization of congress sells it's securiies at discoount to the APGDS, which in turn sells them to the Fed and the much loved by Clinton international financial institutions at a profit, the Fed in turn sells them to the 12 regional banks, through its Open Market Window, and the regional Fed sells them to member banks all at a profit.
The fed holds back some securities to sell toAmerican investors, mainly insurance companies, mutual funds, universities and people who can bid for large blocks of securities, the minimum order quantity, back in the 1980's was $5.000
In the 1983/84 Annual Report of the Bank of International Settlements, in Bassel Switzerland,
(The B.I.S. is the central bank of central banks, aka big boss, (it started as an institution to handle Germany's reparations from WWI) there was a single sentence, the USSR is a failed economic experiment and needs to be restructured, shortly after Gorbacheve became President, and Raygun most certainly with knowledge, made his famous "tear down this wall" speech.
Gorbachev's reward was a Dacha on lake Geneva, with a non profit created just for him, The Green Cross.
Things are not as they appear, thus my transformation from a conservative to a progressive,and my distrust of the media and politicians.It all started with research for a paper in pursuit of my MBA with emphasis in finance and accounting. The real world disabused me of any notion about going into finance, and I am not greedy, nor do I lack ethics.
The APDGS
Mr. Farrar, Thank you for that info about the seven trusts in the Soviet system. That's news to me.
Your comment "in the West with its fractional reserve system where a bank could create money out of thin air by loaning out money based on a fraction of the reserves that it held" caught my eye. This system of "creating money" as you call it has interested me for some time now. The money which banks create in this fashion should be called "Phantom Money." It is not currency or what I would call "True Money." Only sovereign nations can create currency. This is almost the definition of sovereignty for a nation state, a country. It is their exclusive right to do so and they (the nation's government) own the currency. Citizens use the currency as money but they do not "own" it. The government allows them to use it and has the right and the power to take some of it back in the form of taxes. The value of the currency was based on gold reserves until under President Nixon when the U.S. was taken off the gold reserve system over a period of two years. Two separate, but related acts were used to take us off the gold standard . Since then, the value of American money has been based on faith. Faith in the strength and continuity of the American economy.
Nixon might have been a criminal. But he was not stupid.
As for the "Phantom Money" I mentioned, which is "created" by banks; here is how I see the system functioning on a day to day basis:
Let's say that I put $100 of government currency into my bank. the bank says it has $100. My neighbor Mr. O. borrows $100 from my bank to buy an appliance. Mr. O. gives that $100 to the corner appliance store. The appliance store puts that $100 into my bank. The bank says it now has $200. My other neighbor Ms. M. borrows $100 from my bank to buy an appliance. The appliance store puts that $100 into my bank. My bank says it now has $300. Well, you get the idea. Multiply this hypothetical process by hundreds of millions of times in a nation of 330 million people and you see that a great deal of "money" has been "created" by banks. But this is not currency printed by the U.S. Treasury. It is "Phantom Money" which is not backed by currency. If we depositors all went to the bank(s) and demanded our money; the bank(s) would be unable to give it to us. As you know, this is called a "run on the bank." Such things have in the past, and do presently, happen. This is why banks are legally required to always keep a minimum "fractional" amount of "money" in "reserve." This is also why institutions like the FDIC have been created. the FDIC guarantees that the U.S. government will give depositors their money, up to $250,000 today. Before this happens ,however banks will sell off some of their assets and /or borrow money from somewhere to pay out to their depositors who demand their dough. This is what recently happened to The Silicon Valley Bank in California and the bank in New York. I forgot its name. It was in the news. Both banks went under. SVB was purchased by another institution.
I am sure this is not new to you. You are well aware of how the system works.
But here is what I am driving at: the U.S. Treasury must ---MUST--- periodically put more-that is extra money in the form of currency into the economic system in order to assure that there is enough money to keep things running more or less smoothly. And how does the government do that? By spending more money in Federal Programs than it takes from citizens in the form of taxes. In other words: The U.S. Government must---MUST--- engage in deficit spending, deficit fiscal policies are necessary, required. As the population of the U.S. grows and the economy increases its productivity, it is absolutely necessary for the Gov. to engage in deficit fiscal policies.
There are intelligent people in Washington who understand this. Janet Yellen is surely one of them and there have been hints lately that Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden and some others, on both sides of the isle are beginning to understand it. Franklin Roosevelt began to see it. The cry that deficit spending creates debt is a non sequitur. Nonsense. Only ignorant sheep believe it means something rational. Those who want to find reasons to cut domestic programs which benefit ordinary people scream and cry about the "debt" created by deficit spending. However, when the military needs a trillion dollars next year for new aircraft carriers and jet fighters nobody says "NO! That creates debt" except Bernie Sanders They begin to preach Austerity as The Raygun did and Margaret Thatcher did and all right wing autocrats all the way back to Mussolini and Hitler.
There have been over a dozen periods since the founding of the republic when the U.S. gov. began to "balance" the budget and sometimes actually spend less than what was collected in taxes, in a forlorn attempt to "pay down the national debt." Every single one of these attempts was followed by an economic downturn which we have euphemistically called a depression, recession, business downturn, business cycle. By my calculation they have come about every 7.5 years. The two worst were under President Jackson who reduced the deficit by 100% and Hoover who tried to match Jackson. Jackson's policy helped stimulate agitation to start the War Between the States. Hoover's policy gave our parents the Great Depression. I was born just as it was ending.
Having said all this, there is one more important trend in our unrestrained Capitalist system which must be pointed out.
In rough figures, about 90% of the wealth in the U.S. is "owned" and controlled by 1% or less of the population. The remaining 10% is divided up by the other 99% of us. Under these circumstances we do not have enough money to buy back all of the goods and services we produce. This causes all kinds of dislocations and problems which I need not go into here. But, we must recognize that this is inevitable under our current form of unrestrained Capitalism and unrestrained private ownership.
Thank you for lending me your ear.
GFD
If I may expand my comment.
All that passes for money, even gold and silver, exist because of faith\
It is faith that values gold, as the supply of gold rises, and falls, so does it's value.
In the 19th century there were devasting depressions because there was not enough gold, to support the money
The along come Presidents Garfield and McKinley, both were advocats of bimetalism, (gold and silver), both were shot before they could do anything, and bimetalism died on teh vine.
Williams Jenning Bryant was a right wing demogogue, a racist and a religious extremist (we've seen them before Trump, but he didn't have the internet, TV and social media)
Bryant was right on one thing, with his Crucified on a cross of gold speech, but that is how right wing populists work, the broken clock syndrome, like Trump and his "the media is the enemy of the people, the very media that made him president, same with Law enforcement, which is a hive of right wingers and racists, now Trump has turned on them.
Very few people, especially economists and gold bugs, have never heard of gold and silver inflation, yet that is precisely what brought down the Spanish Empire.
Spain sent much of its gold and silver to the Netherlands for processing into coins and jewelry, there was so much gold and silver, especially as the mines of Potosi . Located in the Bolivian Tin Belt, Cerro Rico de Potosí is the world's largest silver deposit and has been mined since the sixteenth century,
The influx of these "precious medals" caused an inflation that ruined the economy and military prowess of Spain, and made it the target of Queen Elizabeth's privateers and pirates.
Before the Federal Reserve Act (Title 12 USC), if interested visit a university library, or a good public library, legal section, and read it for yourself, it has only one mandate, "To manage the credit of the nation.. Nothing in it about inflation control.
It is a power that they have assumed.
Before the Federal Reserve act, states and even communities would print their own money, on the basis of "deposits". And of course there were runs on the bank, easily started with rumors that the bank did not have enough gold to cover deposits. And even after, until all banks that had not joined the Fed were bankrupt, and the Fed expanded it's reach and power, then the government came up with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or FDIC, of which only which member banks could join, it isn't free.
Companies, mostly in mining and timber, that produced chits, that could only be redeemed at the company store, and pay the rent for company homes. My mother and I lived in one in Pt Neches Texas while Dad was off in the Pacific.
There was one in Crossett, AR famous for being the Cancer Capitol of the US, and the homes in Crossett served to house the workers of the Crossett Lumber company, now Charles Koch's, Georgia Pacific.
From the frying pan to the fire.
The very first run on a bank, was shortly after the East India company, opened its Bank of England. It took in deposits, printed money, but soon the truth hit the streets, and there was not enoughgold to cover the demand ,so they brilliantly turned to a PR ruse. They hired,as Warden of the Mint, the most famous alchemist in England, Isaac Newton,who was not yet a Sir.
The people believed that an alchemist could transmute base metal into gold, so that stopped the run.
The Bank of England was created when Charles II, a profligate gambler with a string of mistresses ran out of money (gambling and lavishing his mistress Barbara Villiers, a cousin of George Villiers who was James I, "favorite" courtier.
He also gifted the castle Henry VIII built for the teenage Katherine Howard, before he had her head severed for treason (having an affair with Thomas Culpepper).
Barbara sold off Nonsuch castle stone by stone.
Charles blew through that debt, and now approached the Bank of England (East India Company) for another loan, this time they demanded collateral, the crown jewels, the orb and sceptre which are the symbols of sovereignty and thus the sovereignty of England passed to the Bank of England, they subsequently rebuilt the crown, orb and sceptre, but those are only replicas.
Nixon when he abolished the gold "standard" was only recognizing reality (Nixon was a mixed bag, he created some outstanding cabinets and programs, but was also a crook and a racist.
There was not and never was enough gold to cover every U.S. Dollar. not even 1%.
Gold and silver as money are a mirage, the mirage only exists because of a long history of fables and believes, it as much fiat money as the printing press dollar, only it's value is erratic, and by hoarding can cause depressions and by over supply cause inflaton (as pointed out previously)
When Charles and David Koch first launched the Libertarian party (David was it's Presidential nominee)
I considered the party even attended lectures, but when I discovered that they were gold "bugs" I backed away, fast. Because gold as a standard of value is a myth, and embrassing gold, puts you at the mercy of the !% who have the ability to buy up all of the gold, create a depression, and then dump it, at a profit, and create gold inflation.
I bet you didn't know that.
The problem with the Fed is that the interest on the debt causes inflation. By debt I mean all debt, public and private, not only government securities, but your debt, your credit cards,unpaid balance and the interest you pay on that, your mortgage, you car, plane plan and boat debt. Anything financed.
The act of borrowing money, incurs a debt. Debts have to be repaid with interest.
If I borrow $1,000 at 7% current rate for a mortgage, or 27% current rate for credit cards.
I have to repay the loan, at the end of the year with Money ($1,007 or $1027), with 7$ or $27, which I don't have.
But lending institutions (credit Unions, Savings and Loans, Banks) have a deal for me, instead of paying it off,, they spread the financing over years, and that way make a huge profit, more than than the initial percentage. By the time you pay off a mortgage over 30 years, you have paid out at least twice what you paid for the house.
And there , my friend,is the real cause of inflation. In economic myth, oops theory, inflation is too much money chasing too few goods,and that is b.s. I am 84 and have lived through inflation, where the shelves were empty, in fact look around and you see that now, obscene prices and near or actually empty shelves, that aren't getting restocked. Some of that is greed, caused inadvertently or on purpose by supply chain issues,either caused by the middle man, the wholesaler, the transporter, or the producer, who cuts down production so he can increase demand thus increase pricing, and from what I've seen they don't even use that pretense.
My COLA is eaten up, hundreds of times over, from my local ISP and pesticide applicator service, to Heinz, Campbell's , Breyers, Dryers and every food suppliers. Not to mention the fossil fuel and PhARMA cabals.
There is a lot in your comment to dig into, And I have exhausted myself replying to this much.
so later.
Wow Mr. Farrar, that is fascinating. Too much in there for my weak old fingers and hands to reply to in any complete fashion. But because I have been a Shake-Speare buff since I was 18 and love anything smacking of the Tudors, and because I completed an undergraduate major in mathematics and found great fun in Sir Isaac Newton's goofy scribblings. When I was young, naive and impressionable Newton was my hero. Then I discovered he was a religious fanatic who did not even believe his own claim about gravity because it seemed like an insult to his God. Furthermore, I read some history and discovered that the notation everyone in the world is using was the much more useful Calculus of Leibniz. (Leave it to a Kraut to one-up a Limey. Even though the honor of first place must go to the Brit.) Full disclosure here: My mother's family came to these shores from Wales 400 years ago; while my father's family immigrated from the Village on the Dobbertin Sea in Mecklenburg as recently as 140 years ago. "Newcomers" by some standards. So I seem to have a foot in both camps.
The upshot is that I found your dissertation informative and fascinating.
thanx
GFD
This is my second response Gerald, there was a lot to digest in your comment, some would say T:DR,but is right up my alley.
Not much to add, except repeat that the primary cause of inflation is the interest on the debt, public AND private. That is something that is obscured by the media and even university courses on Economics and finance.
All money created out of debt, is wiped off the books, as if it never existed, when and as, the debt is paid down and paid off, all except the interest on the debt (public and private)
Thought experiment
11 of us are shipwrecked on island. I have a printing press and gold paint.. I gather up some rocks, paint them gold, and with my printing press, tell the people that I have gold, and that on the basis of it's value, I can loan them money. So they line up and I loan them $100 each at 10%, due at end of the 12 months.
Comes the due date, and collectively they owe me $1100.00. Where is that extra $100 coming from, well some are bad at business, some waste their money on things they MUST have, and some made a profit, yet there is only $1,00 dollars in circulation.
Inflation, now they come back begging for another loan, this time I demanded real wealth, collateral, which at the end of the year, they still can't pay, so now I dispose them of their collateral (having appointed myself or a favorite stooge as the sheriff).
I am a Keynesian, and John Maynard Keynes was correct, the government owes itself, and printing press money, if constrained, serves the public good and creates jobs and a healthy economy, for lessons learned to the contrary, look no further than Bolshevik Russia. With it's 100 % gold standard.
The problem with a government having unfettered access (no restraint mechanism) to limit currency is evidenced in the hyper inflation of 1922 in Germany, which in itself helped Hitler to take power.
You can also see the ruins in South America, when those countries stsart to print their own currency
The Federal Reserve was authorized as the brakes on the government, but it quickly became a political tool, run by greedy men and beholden to shareholders.
Here is how it works. There is the Fed (in reality the Federal Reserve Bank of NY). There are 12 regional feds, A former boss, a Captain when we were friends, and a planner of Operation Eagle Claw, was a Colonel and when he retired he went to work for the San Francisco Fed.
The Federal reserves is "owned" by it's shareholdeers,which are major banks, national and international, most of which are also the Primary Dealers in Government securities.
This is the real Fed, When the Fed raises interest rates, the increase is passed on to the borrowers, and actually creates inflation, not cools it down as Jerome Powell proclaims, and Janet Yellen as well.
Financial institutions are by nature conservative, they are, by law, driven to make a profit for their shareholders.
Want some fun, dig out who owns who in financial institutions, other than credit unions and you will go nuts, it is a Gordian Knot.
.
97 % of our economy is privately owned. Think of that as 100% for our purposes. The way owners accrue their wealth is by reducing the price they pay for raw material as low as they can. This is what the military does for them on a worldwide scale. Next the owners reduce the amount they pay for labor as low as they can. Governments at all levels function primarily to help them do this. Then when the finished product, the commodities are sold in the market place the sellers demand a price for those commodities which is vastly greater than the total they paid out for the cost of the raw materials plus the cost of labor combined. The difference between the expenses the owners paid out and the much greater price they get for the commodities and services which they sell in the market is their profit. Everything in this economic system is designed to help the owners receive the greatest profits possible. There is no such thing as the "invisible hand " operating in the markets which functions in a way to determine prices which customers pay. The "invisible hand" is a fiction. It is an idea based upon something Adam Smith said in The Wealth of Nations only once, and that was two centuries ago. Furthermore, Adam Smith was using the expression "the invisible hand of the market" in an altogether different context than modern Economists use it today. What we have is essentially a system of Monopoly Capitalism in which the owners of the system SET PRICES. And we consumers either pay the price or go without. It's that simple:
1) Raw materials
2) Labor
3) Markets.
Finito
GFD
Biden is not the most pro Union president ever in the United States of America. FDR would mop up the floor with him. What else could Biden mention that would be a lie. After listening to Trump for years lying and lying and lying, American should know you cannot trust a liar. But their own parents in their Church lie to them since birth. Unions are necessary when you do not have a maximum wage that is tied to the minimum wage, like a maximum wage about 10 times the minimum wage, you would not need unions. Instead with unlimited greed the rich want to own everything and everyone and then some. Nature, science and the truth be damned! Begging from the robber barons or brown nosing whatever you want to call it, will do no good because they actually like having common people grovel at their feet, of all races and genders.
Quite agree. Bob take the time and read Robert Reich's essay on Guiliani and Broken Windows,it is very enlightening https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-common-good-chapter-4-exploitation?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=emailit is a fact filled essay about how political crimnals become the new normal
edit added I corrected the link, I copied and pasted the wrong link
The main conclusion is extremely good and warranted as I have significant career experience with the dol and know department heads who are now heading up the specific dol initiatives noted. This isn't just a fluff biden piece - its conclusion is correct various things at DOL really matter.
For example I have mentioned esg investing elsewhere and agencies like dol and sec will support this only under a democratic administration, with Biden's positions and picks being fairly supportive.
UNION YES! GO JOE!
Right on, Thom!
Among the best pieces of the year, this provides insight using certain examples, and should be taken more broadly as showing how the capital / investment / economics side of things directly affects public policy and everything in politics.
This is why it's worth looking into the topic of ESG Investing.
Politically, the financial interests were successful over decades at taking what's good for "Wall Street" and subjecting labor and retirement systems to its control.
We now have the ESG initiatives on the table which (although largely corrupted by industry players until now) could be improved and could be used to drive greater public awareness and participation in matters of social impact, labor relations, etc of companies. This is why all ESG initiatives are despised by republicans. It's worth knowing more about how the younger people are polled on this and how much it's already part of the investment and reporting systems globally.
Among the basic things to understand about this is that there's currently no system to adequately track data that does not involve some kind of control and manipulation by companies themselves, and some kind of consistent way of defining and tracking certain things - especially environmental impacts and issues - so in the first place we need to create a system of data reporting capturing information important for environmental, social, labor rights and similar purposes.
Also, information on political donations by companies and investment managers could be brought forth in a more accurate and prevalent way, highlighting which companies or investment funds are supporting bad actors and creating poor esg ratings making it bad for business.
There are two sides of sec rulemaking, one for companies and one for investments:
https://www.sec.gov/files/ia-6034-fact-sheet.pdf
https://www.sec.gov/securities-topics/climate-esg
... in your conscious mind you really put ADAM, PELOSI, the Justins,
Harris, ' love and the constitution 's'
Maryland HOUSE REP , Maryland governor --oh so many more-- in your barrel of money grabbers ?
Really really ? Or are you adding OPM benefits?
slavery and colonization of Native Americans land also contributed to the creation of the evil wealth (profits) of American companies (cotton, rice, lumber,railroads and liquor... to name a few. Indirectly banks, loan companies and insurance outfits...
Thom's union article is totally awesome. I wish I could take it to union organizers, which I think I will. Right out my door is a union, so I will download this article. If Thom actually reads this, I first want to say how incredible this article is, which we need authors like Thom, and we need me to distribute this article, which I will do today right now. But then I want to tell Thom, the new electronics as stated by Matrix Deciphered, which Thom does not need to get involved in, because Thom is already good enough, and is doing a service to our country, but I am enmeshed in what Renee Pittman decries as an obscenity which is really the penal system going after us with amazing electronics. At least Thom will know, but like I say he is already doing yeoman's work for the good cause of workers. I ought to know this is an awesome article about GM because I have 22 years with them. Sincerely Harriet Elliott
It's a common fallacy that paying workers less creates higher profits. A number of years ago BMW opened a plant in SC; duplicating the production line in one of their German plants. The loaded mean hourly labor cost was $60 in the German plant vs. $13 in the South Carolina plant.
Well the German plant was more profitable; as the 1st sentence pre-figured. Yet the labor cost differential strains credulity. The difference is in attitudes. In Germany any plant with 500(?) employees must be unionized and union members must be well-represented in plant management and production planning. They after all are the ones that know the kinks in the production line. And they know their contributions are valued, their jobs secure, their vacations and sick leave never in doubt. The worker in S. Carolina is probably working a 2nd job; fears taking a sick day; and her feedback concerning working conditions or manufacturing process scorned. They come to work exhausted and are bossed by line managers who children went to college and live at home burdened with debt. Their wage betokens the scorn. (Does anyone really care if the torque wrench is out of spec; if the new batch of widgets is out of tolerance . . .)
I recall praise of Bidenomics a few weeks past: "I cut one Trillion dollars from the debt". About half of that was reneging on promised student loan relief. - "Nothing significant was cut."
Were it very simply true that a corporation is but organized money then I'd concur that that power can be balanced by organized labor. That was the dialectic that largely applied from the 30's through the 60's. Yet Thom, though you speak powerfully of the problems created by '76 Valeo, '78 Bank of Boston, 2010 Citizens United, 2017 McDonnell; you fail to see the totality of the fascist transformation that those unchallenged rulings guaranteed. These ruling guaranteed that merger of State and corporate power that Mussolini called fascism - but with a twist: The corporations hold the power. Each corporate sector pushes legislation to pad their profits. There is no plan but profit. Eventually interests in different economic sectors come into conflict. In my mind the most chilling example is in the Manchin/Biden Debt Ceiling debacle. Courtstripping was used in Sect 324 for Manchin's pipeline to accelerate profits from climate collapse. This is complemented by an effective attack, Sect. 322, on the absolutely essential transition to solar. The US has about 1TW of installed solar. Plans for another 2TW have been proposed. Sect 322 dictate a schedule of studies to determine 'if' powerlines are needed to distribute that power. That 2, 3, or more year delay changes the investment potential for large solar farms.
This is why the Dark Money, the big money was on Biden in 2020. In 2024 that will be more emphatically true as the Don & Ron are the clowns that would be Fuhrer. The corps. did not fund law school chairs, Federalist Society, ALEC. . . just to let some slimeball seize power
Just the possibility of the union has been useful for workers to try to get their fair share. Without that threat looming over their heads, employers would not cough-up the benefits and pay what they do. Period. End of discussion.
The other HUGE contribution unions have made is to workplace safety. Without it, society would be footing the bill for a lot of injured people, spouses, and orphans. We still are, but there would be so much more expense and heartache connected to workplace injury and deaths.
As much as we hate the strikes, haggling, and politics concerning unions, America would be so much farther behind without some democracy for the people doing the real work. It's obvious the loss of unions resulted in horrible income disparity, and it has resonated with the youth in this country. They know loyalty only goes one way if you let it. They are just getting started with this issue and with voting. That must scare the crap out of conservatives.
That "lefty" Taylor Swift just made the news for giving her crew from her billion dollar tour some big fat bonuses. If only all employers were like her!
I've seen and experienced this inside a union and outside in management. This Report is so true, Thom.
continuing reply to DO fm PA: no health insurance of any kind, certainly no 401(k), paying for their own continuing Ed, licensure, ET AL...ALL ‼️ ...? unions know it is a scam ? This is scam reportable to the CFPB? FTC? scamguard.org? maybe trust pilot? ahhh: OPEN SECRETS! There u go//best hurry to report these POLS (sic vcragain).
.... what is POL intended to describe anyway?
...i attempted x two to respond to your vitriolic rampage against Hartmann's cabral (sic)--fortunately both were accidentally deleted, and I tired of replying to such a recalcitrant mind fix.