This is what I tell myself every day: the men in power revel in their power without a care for we the people who do the real work. Thank you for being my voice.
Well said! Those billionaires are not giants. They stand on the shoulders of giants: the people who build their villas, yachts and luxury cars, plant their gardens, clean their toilets, build roads and bridges, teach children, harvest the produce, drive the delivery vans, and the list goes on. They put up with low wages, often no benefits, and generally being treated like serfs. Most of those "geniuses" belong in jail. None of them ever does an honest day's work. Support your local activists!
Well, Timothy Wentworth may have finally "seen the light". But my daughter, a former Walgreens employee, was outraged that Walgreens management (pre-Wentworth) had no serious plan to deter rampant retail theft, which she observed daily and was unable to do anything (per management instruction) to stop. Her store sold liquor, and thefts of bottles of booze were a daily problem. The locked display cases were introduced to protect certain high priced easily resold items, but as Wentworth finally realized, just reduced legitimate sales. Walgreens reduced staffing to cut costs, which made those locked cases much harder to access. The real solution is to reduce the incentive to steal by making the rich people poorer, the poor people richer, the strong people weaker and the weak people stronger, a social equity problem that a single corporation cannot solve by itself. Maybe if those who steal (the have nots) were Walgreens stockholders (the haves), they wouldn't steal from Walgreens. If Walgreens were a customer-owned business, theft would dramatically drop. It's the business model that is the problem.
Hi, Jim. Thanks for all you do. I just wanted to say that both my parents were teachers, back when public schools were truly great. You know, when they still taught Civics.
Your vote in the 2026 mid-term election is crucial! The entire House is up for grabs and one-third of the Senate can be replaced. Follow your Congress peoples' votes and make sure that they know that you are watching. It doesn't hurt to reiterate your talking points ad nauseum. Don't let your Congress people off the hook!
I recently heard a new term in weather forecasting, 'atmospheric river'. Water is there power of the planet, heavy and relentless flowing downhill. Stop Hydraulic Fracturing for Natural Gas NOW! Water For Life,
Perpetrators of economic violence all. Then when they start donating their ill-gotten gains and having hospital wings, university buildings, and cultural venues named after them, we are supposed to worship their generosity. What if they had paid themselves a few million dollars less, paid workers more, and served the public better all along the way?
Sigh ... once again. Food deserts with grocery chains closing "unprofitable" stores, prescription drug deserts with pharmacy chains closing "unprofitable" stores, and so it goes. What's next? Yes, businesses need to make money, but even automakers have survived quite well with net profits of 3-5 percent I believe, give or take over the years. Maybe pharmacy and grocery chains need to look at the automakers? Or maybe I just know nothing about business.
What ever happened to respect for a target market and a consumer base? If no one has any money then the economy collapsed, right? Maybe credit cards and such electrical money, deficit spending and other number speakings will float the elite. I heard that it only took 53 days for Hitler to take over Germany after the Nazis crashed the economy
An old MAD magazine satire had some upper class type lecturing a laborer that "the cream always rises to the top." The rejoinder: "so does the scum."
The corporate econ system is focussed on the short term and its only purpose is profit, so it selects for scum. With its purchasing power, it selects political scum, too. Requiring endless growth on a finite planet, it defines away the obvious devastation of human communities and destruction of ecosystems as "externalities," as outside its parameters, thus unimportant.
Here's the shocker--there is no real empirical evidence on which this hellish glorification of greed is based. Yes, you'll see lots of numbers, the main function of which is to scare us lessers. But economists all start with assumptions. So much so that "assuming X..." is an insider joke.
The two main sources for corporate econ theory are known as the Austrian School and the Chicago School of Economics founded by Milton Friedman. The latter dominates in the U.S. and in effect, the entire western world. It arose from little more than a deep hatred of the New Deal and the fantasies of plutocrats. They just declare what's true. The great example is Friedman, who advised the Chilean government and admired the dictator Pinochet because "democracy interferes with market efficiency." The aim of the Republican Party is to end that interference.
The oligarchical elite of the Dem party knows this. The usurpation of the Dem party by neoliberals (econ not pol term meaning supporters of econ status quo) is not about adjusting to a post Reagan pol reality. This D elite dumped the New Deal and abandoned the working class majority decades ago because it fit with the insane demands of an ethereal, imperial, insatiable, disembodied and therefore ungrounded economic system.
The pols passed laws that enabled the corporate econ system and court decisions so that corporations could buy more pols...ad nauseam. Citizens U is a late stage effect.
Here's to an 85% income tax rate on anyone earning ( including their stock appreciation) more than 20 million a year. Musk made his billions by cheating and forcing out the actual inventors of the Tesla engine. We are living in the age of terminal capitalism where nearly all fortunes are made not from "better mouse traps" but from insatiable predatory greed and buying outright politicians of both parties to rig our entire economy into one giant vacuum cleaner emptying our wallets every day.
It’s the old saying: “money talks and bull…., I mean, the rest of us walk”. In reality if the population would realize that the middle class majority has the purchasing power to support, or not, these money hungry corporations, we could, in short order, bring them to their knees by using our purse to them know who’s boss.
Trouble is the Democrats stopped listening to the school teachers, family farmers, miners, construction workers when Bill Clinton signed on to NAFTA, and when Obama bailed out the banks instead of the home owners who'd been duped by the bankers. They supported those policies because they listened to the 'corporate giants' in America whose only interest was getting cheap labor and crummy, badly made products from China.
This is what I tell myself every day: the men in power revel in their power without a care for we the people who do the real work. Thank you for being my voice.
I agree.
Well said! Those billionaires are not giants. They stand on the shoulders of giants: the people who build their villas, yachts and luxury cars, plant their gardens, clean their toilets, build roads and bridges, teach children, harvest the produce, drive the delivery vans, and the list goes on. They put up with low wages, often no benefits, and generally being treated like serfs. Most of those "geniuses" belong in jail. None of them ever does an honest day's work. Support your local activists!
Exactly!
Well, Timothy Wentworth may have finally "seen the light". But my daughter, a former Walgreens employee, was outraged that Walgreens management (pre-Wentworth) had no serious plan to deter rampant retail theft, which she observed daily and was unable to do anything (per management instruction) to stop. Her store sold liquor, and thefts of bottles of booze were a daily problem. The locked display cases were introduced to protect certain high priced easily resold items, but as Wentworth finally realized, just reduced legitimate sales. Walgreens reduced staffing to cut costs, which made those locked cases much harder to access. The real solution is to reduce the incentive to steal by making the rich people poorer, the poor people richer, the strong people weaker and the weak people stronger, a social equity problem that a single corporation cannot solve by itself. Maybe if those who steal (the have nots) were Walgreens stockholders (the haves), they wouldn't steal from Walgreens. If Walgreens were a customer-owned business, theft would dramatically drop. It's the business model that is the problem.
You laid out the situation, from the micro to the macro, very clearly. Thanks.
That’s a good idea🙏
Hi, Jim. Thanks for all you do. I just wanted to say that both my parents were teachers, back when public schools were truly great. You know, when they still taught Civics.
Your vote in the 2026 mid-term election is crucial! The entire House is up for grabs and one-third of the Senate can be replaced. Follow your Congress peoples' votes and make sure that they know that you are watching. It doesn't hurt to reiterate your talking points ad nauseum. Don't let your Congress people off the hook!
You are so right. These are powerful tools. Here in Georgia, we might actually get rid of Marjorie Taylor Brownnose!
Absolutely right Mary. 68% of the electorate did not vote for Trump.
The question is - can we survive the next two years before the mid-term elections.
Our answer is: we can, we will, and we must. No going back!
I recently heard a new term in weather forecasting, 'atmospheric river'. Water is there power of the planet, heavy and relentless flowing downhill. Stop Hydraulic Fracturing for Natural Gas NOW! Water For Life,
Perpetrators of economic violence all. Then when they start donating their ill-gotten gains and having hospital wings, university buildings, and cultural venues named after them, we are supposed to worship their generosity. What if they had paid themselves a few million dollars less, paid workers more, and served the public better all along the way?
Sigh ... once again. Food deserts with grocery chains closing "unprofitable" stores, prescription drug deserts with pharmacy chains closing "unprofitable" stores, and so it goes. What's next? Yes, businesses need to make money, but even automakers have survived quite well with net profits of 3-5 percent I believe, give or take over the years. Maybe pharmacy and grocery chains need to look at the automakers? Or maybe I just know nothing about business.
What ever happened to respect for a target market and a consumer base? If no one has any money then the economy collapsed, right? Maybe credit cards and such electrical money, deficit spending and other number speakings will float the elite. I heard that it only took 53 days for Hitler to take over Germany after the Nazis crashed the economy
Thank you, Jim. But where is the reporting about these stories on broadcast / cable news, NYT, WSJ, even NPR? Murrow is crying in his grave.
An old MAD magazine satire had some upper class type lecturing a laborer that "the cream always rises to the top." The rejoinder: "so does the scum."
The corporate econ system is focussed on the short term and its only purpose is profit, so it selects for scum. With its purchasing power, it selects political scum, too. Requiring endless growth on a finite planet, it defines away the obvious devastation of human communities and destruction of ecosystems as "externalities," as outside its parameters, thus unimportant.
Here's the shocker--there is no real empirical evidence on which this hellish glorification of greed is based. Yes, you'll see lots of numbers, the main function of which is to scare us lessers. But economists all start with assumptions. So much so that "assuming X..." is an insider joke.
The two main sources for corporate econ theory are known as the Austrian School and the Chicago School of Economics founded by Milton Friedman. The latter dominates in the U.S. and in effect, the entire western world. It arose from little more than a deep hatred of the New Deal and the fantasies of plutocrats. They just declare what's true. The great example is Friedman, who advised the Chilean government and admired the dictator Pinochet because "democracy interferes with market efficiency." The aim of the Republican Party is to end that interference.
The oligarchical elite of the Dem party knows this. The usurpation of the Dem party by neoliberals (econ not pol term meaning supporters of econ status quo) is not about adjusting to a post Reagan pol reality. This D elite dumped the New Deal and abandoned the working class majority decades ago because it fit with the insane demands of an ethereal, imperial, insatiable, disembodied and therefore ungrounded economic system.
general STRIKE...NOW....in support of labor group suits AND the working class heroes.
Citizens United, the corporation that is a person, keeps buying the best people in government that money has bought.
The pols passed laws that enabled the corporate econ system and court decisions so that corporations could buy more pols...ad nauseam. Citizens U is a late stage effect.
Here's to an 85% income tax rate on anyone earning ( including their stock appreciation) more than 20 million a year. Musk made his billions by cheating and forcing out the actual inventors of the Tesla engine. We are living in the age of terminal capitalism where nearly all fortunes are made not from "better mouse traps" but from insatiable predatory greed and buying outright politicians of both parties to rig our entire economy into one giant vacuum cleaner emptying our wallets every day.
It’s the old saying: “money talks and bull…., I mean, the rest of us walk”. In reality if the population would realize that the middle class majority has the purchasing power to support, or not, these money hungry corporations, we could, in short order, bring them to their knees by using our purse to them know who’s boss.
Trouble is the Democrats stopped listening to the school teachers, family farmers, miners, construction workers when Bill Clinton signed on to NAFTA, and when Obama bailed out the banks instead of the home owners who'd been duped by the bankers. They supported those policies because they listened to the 'corporate giants' in America whose only interest was getting cheap labor and crummy, badly made products from China.
Once again, you nailed it. If snowflakes melt, maybe these creeps will as well and we can welcome spring.Something has to give.
Spot on, again!