Robert Reich: "Don't be fooled. This is about corporate greed. It always is."

[kpete]

Link to tweet

?s=20&t=JNrwdvD6dJm8m-_6vIIwiw

[Kittycatkat]

1. How do we combat this?

[Silent3]

2. I'm not sure how much it would help, but perhaps a House or Senate hearing...

...with these CEOs publicly questioned about these prices and their excuses for them.

[Kittycatkat]

3. Huge conglomerates are destroying the world. Do we even have monopoly laws anymore?

[maxrandb]

7. Sure, but

those only apply to acquiring businesses.

The Robert's Court made sure that the wealthy can buy all the politicians they want.

[Kittycatkat]

19. Salient point.

[lastlib]

13. Cue the Katie Porter whiteboard!

We need to release OUR "Kraken"!

[Wednesdays]

16. In the long run, the marathon run...it's GOTV!

GOTV! GOTV!

Vote like your democracy depends on it, because it does!

[ck4829]

4. K&R

[2naSalit]

5. K&R

[jfz9580m]

6. I am guessing the living conditions of the animals factory farmed for meat

That is later sold by Tyson, have not improved one whit..

Tyson has been one of the worst offenders in this category for as long as I can remember. They never seem to improve either.

(Warning-the links below contain images of birds like chickens housed in horribly inhumane living conditions)

https://www.ran.org/the-understory/tyson_foods/
https://animaloutlook.org/owner-tyson-contracted-factory-farm-charged-animal-cruelty-enters-plea-agreement/

Animal outlook (formerly COK) and the Rainforest Action Network are respectable non profits as far as I know and anyway I can attest to having read many news stories irt about the inhumane treatment of chickens grown for Tyson chicken. I have no reason to think any of their products are sourced to humanely run or sustainable operations. If I don't dig around more, it is because it depresses me to read about Tyson Foods...

[Harker]

8. That's a good bet. n/t

[BlueJac]

9. MSM will not touch that topic!

Starting last year and continuing this year is in plain site. Record profits = inflation...it is that simple! Needs to be talked about everyday!

[Pobeka]

11. You beat me to it. :-)

[Duppers]

36. Absolutely!

[Pobeka]

10. Everytime a Dem hears "inflation", respond with "Caused by record corporate profits".

GOP would line up on a message like this and never vary.

DEMs gotta stop repeating messages that are going to work against them, and are mostly untrue anyway without full context.

[lambchopp59]

12. Even channel surfing past Fox News

Their ticker continually reads "Biden's economy" or similar. A couple times I've stopped to consume what I could stomach-' as usual, they propose no solutions. Just finger-point, bitch, and gin up the base.

[jaxexpat]

14. This is business-as-usual in the wacky world of capitalism.

Coast along, maintaining budget and a predictable return on investment and then, when the opportunity strikes, gouge the customer like there's no tomorrow. Managers and owners see these opportunities as their "just compensation" for all the time they put in doing the daily grind for the mere salaries which they regularly pay themselves. Never a thought or consideration that the grind, with even less regular compensation, is what their employees endure every predictably thankless day.

Had an employer once who made a windfall on a project. He decided that, since it was common knowledge that there had been a ridiculously large take-away, he would, in the future, provide 10% of unbudgeted profits to the field managers as a sort of incentive. However, when an opportunity to hook a new and important client arose, he had the estimators design a zero-profit proposal as bait. The project came in on budget and it was quite challenging for labor and management to prevent it being a loss. But since there was no profit anticipated per the budget, there was no bonus to be had for the field management. The next project proposal done for that client was profit loaded so when it was complete there was a ton of cash awarded to the field management. This whole inequitable scheme left such a mistrust among his field management personnel that about half of them left to form a competitor company of their own, taking over half of the work force with them. The 60-year-old company never recovered and was bankrupt within 4 years. Greedy folks, even in their most altruistic forms, see only the pile in front of their noses. Republicans, in my experience, are very short-sighted.

[PatrickforB]

22. This is a very thoughtful post. Thank you. Yes, greed is the major evil we all face here

in the end-stage capitalist utopia that is America (and much of the world, though nearly everyone is cheaper than we are in terms of cost of living). I just had a friend get back from vacay in Spain with her cousin, and she said they ate really well - full course meals with drinks, and never paid more than $40 for both of them. Try that here.

Maybe you ought to beef this up a little and make it an OP? We need to be coming back at these greed-heads every time, because they sure do shaft us every time. One more little vignette: I often shop on Amazon, and apparently the affiliated merchant who usually stocks the cat litter I use is temporarily out. So an alternate merchant is selling it for the same prices with $8.99 shipping, and another is selling it for $31 for 40 lbs - it is usually $18.99.

That's how it works. I imagine once the regular merchant gets stock it, the everyday price may well rise. It sure has been true for paper products. I get mine from Sam's now, because Amazon marks them up so ridiculously. You really have to shop.

The other thing is that Amazon used the tax loopholes provided through the giant, bloated, unnecessary 2017 Republican tax cut for billionaires and corporations to pay...wait for this....

$14,527

in taxes in 2021. They - again apparently - legally 'avoided' paying $5.4 billion. Gosh, that would fund a lot of healthcare, wouldn't it! Maybe if these fucking corporations actually paid their share in taxes, I wouldn't have had to take out a loan for healthcare 'services' this year.

And lastly, Amazon raised its Prime membership over 15% from last year.

So it's one big gouge.

What do I use Amazon? I'm disabled and not able to run all over the place with gas at $4 a gallon to shop in person for stuff, and have to buy almost everything online and have it delivered, including groceries.

Did you know that Kings (Kroger), Safeway, Wal-Mart and others contract with an outfit called Instacart? These drivers, like the Ubers and Lyfts, don't get any benefits, but work on solely a contract basis - when they want. For a big order of say, $250 or $260 (not that big anymore with inflation), they get paid a whopping $15 or $20. Now Instacart has it worked so if you sign up for a yearly membership at $99, there is no delivery fee, which is good, but if you have even a modicum of human decency, you're going to give the shopper at least a $15 tip. Seriously. Because the shoppers who have delivered my groceries are generally working part time at this with another job and are barely making ends meet.

Capitalism makes me want to puke everytime I see the fucking disgusting sausage of 'shareholder profits' being made at the expense of workers, consumers, whole communities and the earth itself.

It would be SO good if we:

1. Actually had the political courage to force changes in corporate charters so profits aren't held above everything else - a stakeholder approach forcing the corporations to hold worker welfare, consumer welfare and the environment as being equal in importance to shareholder profits. Then, perhaps, people wouldn't have to die or go without stuff they desperately need. Like insulin.

2. Raised taxes on corporations so they are paying more than 6.8% of the total tax revenue collected by the federal government while individual taxpayers are footing 86% of the bill. Think about that. A fair ratio would actually be the 35% (corporations) : 45% (individuals) we had ca. 1970. Seriously - HW was right in the way back when to call Reagan's supply side (cut taxes for businesses and they would create so many jobs the payroll taxes would more than make for the corporate shortfall) proposals VOODOO ECONOMICS. It was in 1980, and it SURE is now. Supply side never worked in the past, does not now work, and will never work. It's implementation forces the burden of paying out on all these defense contracts and prison contracts to us, while programs we need are cut, cut, cut. Witness the worm Manchin expressing his 'concern' over reducing the age of Medicare eligibility, and all the disgusting assholes who lie to our faces by telling we 'can't afford' Medicare for all Americans. We sure could if corporations and billionaires paid their fair share of taxes, and we had a tax on trades done by arbitrage 'bots on Wall Street, and we eliminated the payroll tax cap on Social Security. We could goddamned well afford these programs if we had the guts to reform our tax code so it is actually fair and balanced.

So now, folks, we have what we have - the end stage capitalist gouge, a war in Ukraine that is killing thousands and hurting the whole world, claims of supply side disruptions driving everything up even when not justified, and our species facing extinction if we can't learn to control our carbon emissions.

All for the sake of...wait for it...

SHAREHOLDER PROFITS

We might well go extinct because some greedhead billionaires can still line their pockets right up to the time its over.

Wow. That was quite a rant, particularly because of my hypocrisy in shopping at Amazon. But what else are we gonna do. We should all be calling our Senators and Representative every ten minutes on this shit, becaue the only thing we CAN do is get the people who supposedly represent our interests to actually DO that at a policy level.

[LT Barclay]

37. There is an old article, but one that I still mentally refer back to, it was called...

"Meet the Corporation" and should be available at Sierraclub.org. It covers much of what you are saying and was published about the same time the "Tea Party" was a thing. Part of the intent was to show the American Revolution was as much about defeating multi-national corporations as it was getting away from the monarchy.

[PatrickforB]

38. Thanks! Yes I have a friend who said the Boston Tea Party was not about taxes as much

as Britain giving the British East India Company a monopoly over importing tea that cut out the American merchants. I'll look up this 'meet the corporation' article

[ymetca]

35. My father worked as a business consultant

for a middling firm for which their modus operandi was to bilk the crap out of every company they consulted with. He often came across small companies with really good sales, and they just needed better controls in place to ensure their profits weren't frittered away, mostly by other businesses attempting to rip them off. He often found suppliers over-charging, double-charging, and so on, just by actually taking inventory and matching it up to the billing. The most rudimentary accounting was really all they needed, not continuing "consultations" for a fee.

He did an honest job, and actually helped some businesses quite a bit. But, of course, his bosses were not pleased, and so he got turfed out, basically, by giving him worse and worse "clean-up" jobs. On his way out, the owner of the last company he helped told him that he was the first honest businessman he had ever run across.

Can you imagine a guy, running his own business for 40 years, and only once in all that time meeting a single other businessman who was honest?

So I can't help but wonder if the only reason Trump isn't already in jail is because everybody else is doing the same shady shit, and they're all afraid the whole house of cards is about to fall.

And they're gonna punish us for all their malfeasance we've found out. It's just.. galling.

[jaxexpat]

39. Yes, grasshopper, the path to financial success is littered with moral bankruptcies.

Consider also this, change order forms for government contractors are often transmitted on unlocked excel sheets. How thoroughly do federal accountants look into every document which transacts less than $10,000? On the road to commendation/promotion, it is not expected by military accountants that ANY contract will be completed on budget. It's tradition, semper furtum.

[Magoo48]

15. Solution...don't eat meat.

Many folks live in food deserts. I know it isn’t as easy as it sounds.

For those of us who can though, abstinence from meat helps with the methane pollution and diversity disappearances.

[Farmer-Rick]

18. I know people like to blame animal farmers for global warming

But if you want a fully organic, sustainable farm, you have to raise animals of some kind. You need them to fertilize the vegetables and grains, unless you use human waste. We all know the drawbacks of human waste especially after going through a pandemic. And kitchen scraps aren't enough to fertilize fields of vegtables.

It's the factory farms with huge unsanitary feedlots that are really the issue. They abuse animals and don't recycle their waste.

But if you want organic, sustainable and healthy farming you got to have a system to replenish the nutrients the vegetation takes up to grow. You can buy it but to be sustainable and organic, you need to create it yourself and herd animals that eat leftover vegetation is the best way. It's a built-in recycling system.

In the end, vegetable farmers are really fertilizer and compost farmers. That's what really grows your food.

[Bettie]

17. So, were they asking customers to "pay for inflation" when they

raised the prices on meat regularly for the last couple of years?

It's greed because there is no actual competition anymore.

[fescuerescue]

26. If they were raising the prices

Then yes, they absolutely were asking customer to pay.

I honestly don't see a way that it couldn't be.

[Bettie]

29. Back before they were calling it inflation

they had all kinds of excuses.

It is pure price gouging now. I no longer believe that prices are tied to anything but the greed of the investor class, the billionaires who make more in an hour than most of us do in a year, who make more in a year than most of us will make in a lifetime.

[fescuerescue]

32. The weird thing is that since all investor class is doing it.

The buying power of their profit is reduced back to roughly where it was before. (i.e. anything they buy with that profit cost alot more)

In the end, they are only spinning their wheels and incurring bad press.

Unfortunately, it hurts us.

[Bettie]

33. And that may be the goal

though, I don't understand how the Republican dream of only rich people having money helps them.

[PatrickforB]

20. Krugman, Steglitz, Picketty and others, all good. But Reich? He is my FAVORITE

economist by far. You know, I got one of those emails where you take a 'survey' and then it solicits a donation (PLEASE give us money!) asking if I thought Robert Reich should run for some office.

I would like to see him in the Senate, no doubt because you can have real confidence in his policy knowledge. That he will vote the right way for the right reasons.

That said, he sure has managed to become a powerful voice without holding office. He has the blog where if you pay a membership you can actually chat with him while he's online, and of course he is a professor at Berzerkley, so he has a blog there: https://blogs.berkeley.edu/author/rreich/. And he often does editorials for the NYT and other major papers.

What I've always liked about Reich is he gets how economic policies affect real people and he talks about that.

[BobTheSubgenius]

23. Robert Reich should have a bigger voice.

He knows what he's talking about and has a good philosophical alignment. I read him ever chance I get.

[uponit7771]

24. K&R, Great minds (link)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216589780

[questionseverything]

25. When the post office stopped delivering live chicks

They pretty much ended any competition to factory farms

[fescuerescue]

28. The post office delivered chickens?

Wow I didn't know that.

[questionseverything]

30. Yep in ventilated boxes , in less than 24 hours, especially on the east coast to small farms

Dead boxes of chicks was one of the first clues dejoy was purposely delaying mail

[fescuerescue]

27. It's a disguised slur on Biden

Sure they love the extra profits, but corporations have always been greedy and not just this year.

This is about making Biden look bad and at the same time, cash in on the propaganda.

[Bettie]

31. They are extra greedy right now though

they have realized that no one will ever stop them from taking as much as they want to.

Without real competition they can charge whatever they like and if you don't pay, well, others will.

[questionseverything]

34. Biden has already warned meat packers against colluding to raise prices

So this message is just proving Biden was correct

[Emile]

40. Democrats need to talk more about who is fueling this inflation.

Republicans are unfairly pointing their finger at President Biden.