OBOF TYMHM & MORE Vol 15 - No 23

OPINOINS  BASED  ON FACTS (OBOF)

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)

YEAR ONE

YEAR TWO

YEAR THREE

YEAR FOUR

YEAR FIVE

 

OBOF YEAR FIVE INDEX
OBOF TYMHM	Jan. 07, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 1	Jan. 19, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 2	Feb.  03, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 3	Feb.  23, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 4	Mar.  02, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 5	Mar.  06, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 6	Mar.  13, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 7	Mar.   23, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 8	Mar.  28,  2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 9	Apr.  13,  2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 10	May  02,  2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 11	May  09,  2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 12	May  19, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 13	May  26, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 14	May  29, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 15	July   28, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 16	Sept.  15, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 17	Sept.  20, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 18	Sept.  27, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 19	Oct.   07, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 20	Oct.  13, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 21	Nov. 01, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 22	Nov. 08, 2015
OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 23	Nov. 14, 2915

 

Agenda

1.  FROM  FLOYD

 

2.  Rattles Sabers—at the Climate Change Enemy (Part 1) Sanders Correctly

 

3.  The “New Democrats” Confront a New Reality

 

4.  Abuses that Wouldn’t Exist in a Socialist America

 

5.  Sanders Gains Support from Labor Unions in New Hampshire

 

6.  The Rigging of the American Market

 

 

 

                                                      

 

FROM  FLOYD

 

CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION, it just keeps getting worser, and worser, and worser.  Yes, I know there isn't any such word, but you get the idea.  Until we all ban together, and I mean this whole country, ban together and find some truly honest people and get them in the Presidency and Congress, we are going to completely lose our democracy. 

 

There are some honest one out there.  We had one here in Oklahoma, but after many years of trying to straighten things out and going almost broke in the meantime, he finally gave up.  He just couldn't take any more of what he saw happening.  He went back to his medical practice in order to build up his bank account again.  He was quite a guy and a Republican.  He has delivered more than 1,000 babies.  Anyway, we have to find enough like him at one time so that they can form their own caucus and won't feel it is an exercise in futility.

 

I really believe we have a start with Bernie Sanders.  Hillary is probably a very nice person and she no doubt has a lot of experience, but she also has to many ties to the wrong approach to save our Democracy.  Don't be fooled, we are on the verge of losing it.  

 

The following is a note from my Son and he tells you about a provable corruption with the Senior Senator from Oklahoma.   It is an absolutely true story that we personally know about.  I urge you to take a look at his short note and the video.  I started to tell you about this a couple of years ago, but it was still on going and complicated at that point, so I didn't get it done.  This really tells it great.  You will be glad you saw it.  Now from my Son. 

 

 

 

Hello All:

Please view the following video.  It is a real story about corruption in the U.S. Senate by the Sr. Senator from Oklahoma.  Please pass it around so that everyone can know what is happening in the U.S. Senate by some of our senators. 

 

Have you always wondered how some of them have become millionaires?  Some of them are worth a lot more now than when they were elected.  How did they get that way?  Maybe this video might answer some of the questions.  It really doesn't matter whether they are Republican or Democrat, some of them on both sides of the aisle do the same thing.  Please view the entire video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l72wtH7QxBs

 

Or, just go to "youtube" and type in "trailerpal" that will also get it.

 

 

A last note and the most important one.  This posting, and particularly the first article is, without a doubt, the most important one that I have given you in the past five years.  Yes, that is saying a lot, but that is the truth.  I strongly urge you to read, at least, the first article and look at the video that my Son refers to.  The rest is well worth your time too, but please at least do those two things.  Thanks so much and you will not be sorry.  Our future depends on much of this.

 

~~~

 

 

Rattles Sabers—at the Climate Change Enemy (Part 1) Sanders Correctly

 

  Author: Patrick Walker

  NationofChange | Op-Ed

Published: November 15, 2015

FROM FLOYD:

 

As I have said above, please read this article in total even if you don't read anything else, although this posting is filled with some really important and interesting news.

 

 

For everyone who understands climate change as humanity’s gravest existential threat ever, there was ONLY ONE winner of Democrats’ first presidential debate—Bernie Sanders.  Frankly, so immeasurably superior is Bernie’s understanding of humankind’s climate emergency that no one else belonged on the same stage.  If these debates were really about informing voters rather than providing a façade of democracy while Democrats coronate Hillary Clinton, the moderators would have silenced all other debaters while Bernie elaborated at length on his courageous, astute identification of climate change as our nation’s gravest security threat.

 

Clinton, by contrast, with characteristic spinelessness and hidebound views, gave no thought to climate as a security threat, and simply rubber-stamped the Beltway’s lunatic, unspoken consensus on continuing Bush’s “long war” on terror that will prove Obama’s worst legacy—with some gratuitous saber-rattling at Iran to boot.  This at a time when our globally overextended military, needlessly making new enemies daily, is the world’s foremost burner of dirty fossil fuels.  And when peace between nations is an essential prerequisite for addressing humanity’s encroaching climate catastrophe.

 

Unsurprisingly, news of Bernie’s overwhelming superiority on climate has filtered through to opinion leaders like Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein, who best understand our climate emergency, being in close, speed-dial touch with the world’s best climate scientists.  They know which candidate will best defend climate; they form our sturdiest defense against mainstream media’s criminally irresponsible refusal to frame elections in climate rather than “horse-race” terms—a refusal that allowed Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to waltz nonchalantly through their whole series of presidential debates without mentioning our planet’s gravest crisis at all. Unfortunately, the climate movement they lead has a virtual allergy to brass-knuckle, in-the-trenches politics.  Because Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein routinely dodge the controversy of endorsing candidates and naming reprehensible names—perhaps understandably, considering their desire to build a “big tent” climate movement—we have to discern their preferences by more subtle signs.

 

But given their global stature as climate change educators and their ready access to cutting-edge science, their preferences—however indirectly we must discern them—should be our foremost guides in deciding which candidates are and are not serious about climate.  And, with nearly minimal reading between the lines, those preferences unmistakably favor Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton.

 

So, while McKibben, to maintain an impartial appearance, understandably avoids stumping for Bernie on the campaign trail, he did speak at Sanders’ Vermont campaign launch and, shortly thereafter, wrote a scolding open letter to Hillary Clinton explaining why climate activists deeply distrust her. For those of us who publicly chastised McKibben for his excessive leniency with Barack “All of the Above” Obama, his gestures, already so implicitly critical of Clinton, read like an open declaration of war.

 

Naomi Klein, McKibben’s close associate and ally in climate education, has even weightier reasons for avoiding taking sides in U.S. politics.  She is, after all, Canadian, and so, outside the “big climate tent” motive she shares with McKibben, probably feels uncomfortable pronouncing on U.S. politics, having no personal skin (aside from climate justice, which impacts all of humanity) in our political game. Nonetheless Klein, acutely attuned to the central role our hegemonic U.S. superpower plays in global policy, can indirectly express her strong preference—for example, through her blog “The Leap,” closely associated with her groundbreaking book This Changes Everything and edited by her longtime research assistant Rajiv Sicora.  Sanders’ supporters’ hearts should virtually leap from their chests to discover a recent article there (not by Klein, of course) describing a global electoral swing toward climate justice and openly describing Bernie Sanders as the U.S. “climate justice candidate.”  And in case anyone missed the signal, the article, beyond stressing how Bernie took courageous climate stands later aped by Clinton, features a photo of Bernie at the podium, arms stretched wide (as if embracing the planet), as its “grabber” illustration.

 

Nor should McKibben and Klein’s recent conferrals of favor on Bernie cause any surprise.  They reward Bernie’s long history of pioneering courage on climate, dating to the days (even predating McKibben and Klein’s educational efforts) when climate was a fledging issue and persevering through the long years (hardly yet over) when it was a politically orphaned one.

 

Perhaps no moment better expresses Bernie’s dauntless championship of climate than his politically daring appearance with McKibben and Klein (along with journalist Chris Hedges and socialist Seattle mayor Kshama Sawant) on a panel at the People’s Climate March.  What other national mainstream pol—a U.S. Senator contemplating a run, to boot—would risk appearing in such controversial company, every one of them loathed by global Wall Street and fossil fuel interests—the same ones that donate daily to Hillary Clinton?  Even more striking, what national politician would risk appearing on a panel with Hedges, America’s conscience and moral scold, knowing (as Bernie did) that Hedges was sharply critical of both his foreign policy and his likely decision to run for president as a Democrat?

 

Could anyone picture Hillary Clinton voluntarily exposing herself to the hostile presence of a critical journalist for the sake of a vital cause she believed in? For someone so fickle in beliefs and so allergic to journalistic scrutiny, the question is obviously rhetorical, and it forcefully illustrates the stark difference between a fearless climate champion like Bernie and a spineless, self-serving political hack like Clinton.

 

Yet why, then, are leading progressive Democrats like Sherrod Brown and Bill De Blasio, and environmental organizations like the League of Conservation Voters (despite giving Bernie better grades), rushing like lemmings to place Clinton in charge of our nation’s climate policy, likely for the next eight utterly critical years?

 

Why indeed?  The answer, subject of the next article in this series, is depressingly familiar and unspeakably ugly—and shows we have zero chance of saving the climate without open revolt (the subject of its third and last).

 

NOTE OF IMPORTANCE:

 

This article is part of a three-part series, “Climate’s Deadliest HIDDEN Enemy:

 

The Clinton Political Machine.”  The series explains how, Hillary Clinton’s political machine, if unchecked by climate-activist revolt, will undemocratically crush Bernie Sanders’ presidential chances and will foist on us a candidate, Hillary Clinton, provably inadequate by policies and character, to address our planet’s climate emergency.

 

Part 1 is titled “Sanders Correctly Rattles Sabers—at the Climate Change Enemy”; Part 2, “Clinton’s Updated Tammany Hall: Destroying Democracy AND Climate Too”; and

 

Part 3, “Wake Up Zombie, Kick Up a Big Stink.”  The first two parts establish the case for revolt against the Clinton machine urgently pleaded for in Part 3—the call-to-arms finale of the series.

 

Bio: Patrick Walker is a progressive activist, writer, and veteran of the PA anti-fracking movement, which furnished much of his political education.  An “idea guy” focused chiefly on political analysis and strategy, he is a co-founding member of the peaceful but aggressive Pitchforks Against Plutocracy movement.

 

~~~

The “New Democrats” Confront a New Reality

 

Published: November 13, 2015 | Authors: Richard Eskow | Campaign For America's Future | Op-Ed

 

 

Several recent news articles have suggested that, in the words of a Washington Post headline, “there’s … a big economic fight happening in the Democratic Party.”

 

It’s true.  The corporate-friendly policies of the party’s more conservative wing have fared poorly, both as policy and as politics, and as a result the party has moved to the left.  The insurgent candidacy of Bernie Sanders is the most conspicuous sign of this shift. It’s a major setback for the so-called “New Democrats” who have dominated the party since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992.

 

Nearly twenty-five years after they rose to power, the ideas of the “New Democrats” don’t seem so new. Hence, the phenomenon that The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein describes as “the panic of Democratic centrists.”

 

Now they’re fighting back.  A Wall Street-funded Democratic think tank called Third Way has released a lengthy report that argues an inequality-based, populist theme will doom Democrats.  Its board member, former White House Chief of Staff (and JPMorgan Chase executive) Bill Daley, even insisted to HuffPo’s Stein that Sanders’ political positions are “a recipe for disaster.”

 

The Third Way report is available online.  It introduces a number of catchphrases, often paired in threes: the Hopscotch Workforce, the Nickel-and-Dimed Workforce, and the Asset-Starved Workforce; Stalling Schools, the College Well, and Adult Atrophy; the Upside-Down Economy, the Anywhere Economy, and the Malnourished Economy.

 

Sadly, most of the content amounts to Misleading Minutiae, Gimmicky Wordplay, and Downright Deception.

 

Here’s an example of the latter:  The paper’s authors use a poorly sourced Wall Street Journal article, rather than solid economic data, as a citation for their claim that Bernie Sanders’ Medicare For All plan would cost the economy $15 trillion over 10 years.  This figure is flatly false, and that article’s gross inaccuracies have been documented by a number of economists and commentators (including Robert Reich, among many, many others).  It is surprising that any policy group, much less one comprised of self-professed Democrats, would use it as a citation.

In an attempt to dismiss the harm caused by inequality – and by its own preferred policies – the Third Way paper dwells at length with the story of Kodak’s “disruption” into bankruptcy by new technologies.  The Kodak story is a familiar one to readers of popular business magazines and Silicon Valley websites.  (It is sometimes accompanied by the observation that Kodak, which once employed 145,000 people, has largely been replaced by Instagram, which employs 13.)

 

In telling this story, the authors are suggesting that technology, not trade or unequal wealth, is killing American jobs.  Unfortunately, Kodak’s anecdotal evidence is not borne out by solid economic data. As the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reported in August of this year:

 

“The United States lost 5 million manufacturing jobs between January 2000 and December 2014.  There is a widespread misperception that rapid productivity growth is the primary cause of continuing manufacturing job losses over the past 15 years. Instead, as this report shows, job losses can be traced to growing trade deficits in manufacturing products prior to the Great Recession and then the massive output collapse during the Great Recession.”

 

This directly refutes the “Kodak argument.”  What’s more, both of the job-destroying events cited by EPI can be directly traced back to New Democratic policies.  The trade deficits in manufacturing products was spurred by NAFTA and other trade deals, while the financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession was the product of a fraud-riddled Wall Street left unsupervised by deregulation.

 

Third Way’s argument against inequality as a leading source of our current economic woes puts them directly at odds with leading economists, including Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz. “Politicians typically talk about rising inequality and the sluggish recovery as separate phenomena,” Stiglitz wrote in 2013, “when they are in fact intertwined.  Inequality stifles, restrains and holds back our growth.”

 

The evidence is in, and the key economic policies of the “New Democrats’” have failed.  Consider:

 

Wall Street deregulation.  When Bill Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill in 1999 he said it would “enhance the stability of our financial services system.”  We now know better.Estimates for the total amount of national wealth lost as a result of that crisis range from $12.8 trillion to $25 trillion – or, by another measure, from $20,000 to $120,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States.

 

Trade.  The “free trade” deals they have promoted have led to the loss of American jobs, as the EPI and others have demonstrated.  One deal alone, NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), is estimated to have caused the loss of one million jobs in this country.

 

Austerity.  “New Democrats” urged cuts in government spending, especially in the wake of the 2008 crisis.  The result, as Paul Krugman puts it, has been “catastrophic … going far beyond the jobs and income lost in the first few years.”  As Krugman notes, the long-run damage could easily “make austerity a self-defeating policy even in purely fiscal terms.”

 

Welfare reform.  When he signed the “welfare reform” bill in 1996, President Clinton said that it would “end welfare as we know it and transform our broken welfare system by promoting the fundamental values of work, responsibility, and families.”  We now know that poverty increased as a result of this bill, and there is compelling new evidence which shows that welfare undermines neither the work ethic nor the personal values of its recipients.

 

The Third Way authors are as misguided on politics as they are on policy.  They argue that “the narrative of fairness and inequality has, to put it mildly, failed to excite voters.”  This is precisely backward.  As the polls make clear, populism is popular.

 

President Obama was foundering in the polls after embracing the “New Democrat” agenda for much of his first term.  His political fortunes were restored when he tacked somewhat further left rhetorically – in response to, among other things, the rise of the Occupy movement.

 

The Democratic congressional debacles of 2010 and 2014, on the other hand, can be directly attributed to the reluctance of many candidates to embrace a populist agenda.  Many insisted that they needed to lean right in order to reach “swing voters.”  But that’s a demographic that, by and large, doesn’t exist.  (From political scientist Corwin D. Smidt: “The observed rate of Americans voting for a different party across successive presidential elections has never been lower.”)

 

The Democrats’ shift to the right suppressed turnout among the base and failed to reach disaffected unaffiliated voters.  As a result, they lost the House in 2010 and were routed again in 2014.  Under the tutelage of Third Way and their fellow New Dems, those disasters are  likely to be repeated again and again.  Fortunately, fewer Democrats seem to be listening.

 

Today’s real “New Democrats” can be found among the many thousands of people who have turned out for Bernie Sanders’ rallies, many excited by the political process – and the Democratic Party – for the first time.  Other potential “New Democrats” can be found in the nation’s minority communities, and among the non-college-educated white Americans whose lives are being cut short by despair and self-destruction.

 

But Democrats won’t win these voters with a Third Way agenda.  It will take a platform that speaks directly to them – to their needs, their hopes, and their pain.

 

There are grains of truth to be found in the Third Way’s report.  Automation is a legitimate concern, even though it is not yet a major driver of unemployment.  Several of their minor proposals could be useful, even though they would not offer significant relief to large numbers of Americans.

 

That does not change the fact that, once again, Third Way and its allies are gravely misreading the economic and political moment.  If their influence continues to wane, perhaps one day Americans can stop paying the price for their ill-conceived, corporation- and billionaire-friendly agenda.

~~~

 

Abuses that Wouldn’t Exist in a Socialist America

 

  Authors: Paul Buchheit

 NationofChange | Op-Ed

Published: November 2, 2015

 

 

We Americans have been deceived by the notion that individual desires preempt the needs of society; by the Ayn-Rand/Reagan/Thatcher aversion to government regulation; by the distorted image of ‘freedom’ as winner-take-all capitalism; by the assurance that the benefits of greed will spread downwards to everyone.

 

Our current capitalist-driven inequalities will only be rectified when people realize that a strong community makes successful individuals, not the other way around.

 

These are a few of the ways we would benefit with a social democracy:

 

1. The Super-Rich Wouldn’t Make Our Decisions for Us

Decisions about higher education should be made by all of us, with public tax dollars allocated in a democratic fashion.  But our tax dollars have gone away.  The Reagan-era “government is the problem” attitude led to dramatic tax cuts and a resulting decline in government funding for public universities. Instead of paying for all the societal benefits heaped upon them, billionaires keep getting richer — just 14 individuals making more than the entire federal education budget two years in a row.

 

As a result, as noted by Larry Wittner, “campus administrators, faced with declining income, are increasingly inclined to accept funding from wealthy individuals and corporations that are reshaping higher education to serve their interests.”  The Koch brothers have spent millions funding universities and stipulating the kind of education that should be provided.

 

We’re left with philanthropy instead of democracy. The philanthropists, not we the people, are beginning to make these vital decisions. Said Charles Koch: “I believe my business and non-profit investments are much more beneficial to societal well-being than sending more money to Washington.”

 

Education is not the only area where we’re losing control.  Bill Gates’ contribution of $2 billion toward alternative energy solutions is admirable, but energy decisions should be made by society as a whole, with tax money, through our (well-chosen) representatives, and with the complementary support of private investors. Gates himself admits, “DARPA money is very well spent, and the basic-science money is very well spent. The government…should get about four times as much money as they do.”

 

2. We Wouldn’t Spend So Much Money on Security for Rich People

Nationally, we spend over $1 trillion per year on defense.  Not just the half-trillion Pentagon budget, but another half-trillion for veterans affairs, homeland security, “contingency operations,” and a variety of other miscellaneous military ‘necessities.’

 

But that’s not enough for the relative few at the top of our outrageously unequal society. The richest Americans build private fortresses to protect themselves from the rest of us, as they scoff at the notion of a 1950s-like progressive tax structure that would provide infrastructure funding for all of us.

 

3. We Wouldn’t Give All the Credit for a Tech Product to One Person

 

In the extreme capitalist mind, Steve Jobs started with boxes of silicon and wires in a garage and fashioned the first iPhone.  The reality is explained by Mariana Mazzucato: “Everything you can do with an iPhone was government-funded.  From the Internet that allows you to surf the Web, to GPS that lets you use Google Maps, to touchscreen display and even the SIRI voice activated system — all of these things were funded by Uncle Sam through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), NASA, the Navy, and even the CIA.”

 

That’s true of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and every pharmaceutical CEO.  They may be brilliant leaders, and they certainly deserve compensation for their roles, but the main accomplishment of each was to assemble the parts provided by years of public research.

 

4. Public Sentiment Would Prevail Over the Demands of Lobbyists

 

Society’s needs are often ignored in our individual-oriented capitalist system.  Over 90% favor laws on clean air and water, but Congress has proposed to weaken them.  Over 90% want background checks for gun purchases, but the NRA constantly bullies over 200 million Americans.

 

80% of us want to take on Wall Street.  Instead, authorities pick on disruptive 5-year-old black kids.

 

5. Our Jobs Wouldn’t Be Held Hostage in Tax Havens

The great majority of Americans — including many millionaires — want to end overseas tax loopholes for corporations.  But Fortune 500 companies ignore the rights of the public.  They owe more than $600 billion in taxes on their tax haven hoardings.

 

That’s a job for all 8 million unemployed Americans, at the nation’s median salary of $36,000.  For two years.

But our greedy super-capitalist system allows much of society to be deprived of opportunities to work.

 

A Social Democracy

 

Social-oriented economic systems are not incompatible with small business entrepreneurship.  In a social democracy, similar to those in Scandinavian countries, with elements of both capitalism and socialism intact, the worst abuses of a winner-take-all corporate-ruled system are avoided. The result is a land of opportunity.  As Harvey J. Kaye put it, with supporting references to Thomas Paine, FDR, Martin Luther King, and Bernie Sanders, “Social democracy is 100 percent American.”

 

Paul Buchheit

 

Bio: Paul Buchheit is a college teacher with formal training in language development and cognitive science.  He is the founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, RappingHistory.org, PayUpNow.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

 

~~~

Sanders Gains Support from Labor Unions in New Hampshire

 

  Author: AshleyCurtin

NationofChange  News Report

Published: November 4, 2015 

 

During his two-day swing through New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders was endorsed by various labor unions throughout the state.  Sanders was surrounded by workers at a news conference outside an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union Hall where the postal workers statewide union and two local trade unions—IBEW Local 490 and Service Employees International Union Local 560—confirmed their support for the Democratic presidential nominee over the weekend.

 

“Millions of Americans are working at wages that are too damn low,” Sanders said.

 

Sanders, who said he was proud to have the support of unions, outlined his plan to create millions of jobs, raise pay and reform trade policies.

 

“We have an economy that is rigged,” Sanders said.

While the middle class continues to disappear, Sanders told the crowd in Concord, New Hampshire that “we need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and create millions of decent-paying jobs.”

 

He will do so by investing $1 trillion dollars into infrastructure projects instead of giving tax breaks to millionaires and large corporations.  Sanders also talked about raising the minimum wage and granting equal pay for women workers.

 

Sanders, who is an outward opposer of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other similar trade deals, said he would reinvest in America therefore, create good-paying jobs instead of shutting down the nation’s factories and sending manufacturing jobs overseas.

 

“We need an economy that works for the middle class and not just the top 1 percent,” Sanders said.

 

With the support from labor unions, Sanders continues to poll well in New Hampshire as massive crowds lined up to hear him speak during his recent visit.

 

Next up on Sanders’ campaign trail, South Carolina, where he will kick off his two-day trip at the “First in the South Presidential Candidates Forum” at Winthrop University in Rock Hill at 8 p.m. on Friday.  He will then be a keynote speaker at the 2015 Southern Regional Meeting of the National Federation of Democratic Women on Saturday morning before going to Columbia to participate in a candidate committee press conference starting at 3:30 p.m. and finishing his day in Aiken at a Town Hall Meeting at the UCS Aiken Convocation Center beginning at 7 p.m.

~~~

 

The Rigging of the American Market

 

Author: Robert Reich

 NationofChange  Op-Ed

Published: November 2, 2015

Updated 11-13-15

 

Much of the national debate about widening inequality focuses on whether and how much to tax the rich and redistribute their income downward.

 

But this debate ignores the upward redistributions going on every day, from the rest of us to the rich. These redistributions are hidden inside the market.

The only way to stop them is to prevent big corporations and Wall Street banks from rigging the market.

 

For example, Americans pay more for pharmaceuticals than do the citizens of any other developed nation.

That’s partly because it’s perfectly legal in the U.S. (but not in most other nations) for the makers of branded drugs to pay the makers of generic drugs to delay introducing cheaper unbranded equivalents, after patents on the brands have expired.

 

This costs you and me an estimated $3.5 billion a year – a hidden upward redistribution of our incomes to Pfizer, Merck, and other big proprietary drug companies, their executives, and major shareholders.

We also pay more for Internet service than do the inhabitants of any other developed nation.

 

The average cable bill in the United States rose 5 percent in 2012 (the latest year available), nearly triple the rate of inflation.

 

Why? Because 80 percent of us have no choice of Internet service provider, which allows them to charge us more.

 

Internet service here costs 3 and-a-half times more than it does in France, for example, where the typical customer can choose between 7 providers.

 

And U.S. cable companies are intent on keeping their monopoly.

 

It’s another hidden upward distribution – from us to Comcast, Verizon, or another giant cable company, its executives and major shareholders.

 

Likewise, the interest we pay on home mortgages or college loans is higher than it would be if the big banks that now dominate the financial industry had to work harder to get our business.

 

As recently as 2000, America’s five largest banks held 25 percent of all U.S. banking assets.  Now they hold 44 percent – which gives them a lock on many such loans.

 

If we can’t repay, forget using bankruptcy. Donald Trump can go bankrupt four times and walk away from his debts, but the bankruptcy code doesn’t allow homeowners or graduates to reorganize unmanageable debts.

 

So beleaguered homeowners and graduates don’t have any bargaining leverage with creditors – exactly what the financial industry wants.

 

The net result: another hidden upward redistribution – this one, from us to the big banks, their executives, and major shareholders.

 

Some of these upward redistributions seem to defy gravity.  Why have average domestic airfares risen 2.5% over the past, and are now at their the highest level since the government began tracking them in 1995 – while fuel prices, the largest single cost for the airlines, have plummeted?

 

Because America went from nine major carriers ten years ago to just four now. Many airports are now served by one or two.

 

This makes it easy for airlines to coordinate their fares and keep them high – resulting in another upward redistribution.

 

Why have food prices been rising faster than inflation, while crop prices are now at a six-year low?

 

Because the giant corporations that process food have the power to raise prices.  Four food companies control 82 percent of beef packing, 85 percent of soybean processing, 63 percent of pork packing, and 53 percent of chicken processing.

 

Result: A redistribution from average consumers to Big Agriculture.

 

Finally, why do you suppose health insurance is costing us more, and co-payments and deductibles are rising?

 

One reason is big insurers are consolidating into giants with the power to raise prices.  They say these combinations make their companies more efficient, but they really just give them power to charge more.

 

Health insurers are hiking rates 20 to 40 percent next year, and their stock values are skyrocketing (the Standard & Poor’s 500 Managed Health Care Index recently hit its highest level in more than twenty years.)

Add it up – the extra money we’re paying for pharmaceuticals, Internet communications, home mortgages, student loans, airline tickets, food, and health insurance – and you get a hefty portion of the average family’s budget.

 

Democrats and Republicans spend endless time battling over how much to tax the rich and then redistribute the money downward.

 

But if we didn’t have so much upward redistribution inside the market, we wouldn’t need as much downward redistribution through taxes and transfer payments.

 

Yet as long as the big corporations, Wall Street banks, their top executives and wealthy shareholders have the political power to do so, they’ll keep redistributing much of the nation’s income upward to themselves.

 

Which is why the rest of us must gain political power to stop the collusion, bust up the monopolies, and put an end to the rigging of the American market.

~~~

As usual, if the good Lord is willing and the Creek Don't rise, I'll be with you again, I hope at least by next Sunday.  Tell your friends about this posting and urge them to read it.  Thanks a bunch.

 

God Bless You All

&

God Bless the United States of America.

Floyd