We, the People, call Dvid Gelles to testify on “How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America and How to Undo His Legacy”

Gelles: “..there is one CEO above all others..revered as a cultural and economic hero in his own time..who radically transformed the world around him and continues to hold sway even after his demise, who seized on changes in the zeitgeist and used them to rewrite..rules of our economy: Jack Welch.”

Gelles: “There is capitalism in America before Jack Welch, and after him…Look at..trend lines for any number of key economic indicators – wages, merger and acquisitions, manufacturing jobs, union representation, executive compensation, corporate tax rates – and its clear..right around 1981, the year Welch took over, things started to go off the rails.”

Gelles; “American manufacturing jobs peaked at nearly 20 million..nearly a quarter of full-time employment. [Then}.. he began his merciless campaign of cost-cutting and outsourcing.. Today [2022], there are roughly half as many manufacturing jobs in the United States as there were in 1980.”

Gelles: “Mergers and acquisitions Were relative rarities..acts of unusual corporate ambition or desperation. In 1980, the value of all..corporate deals in the United States amounted to a few tens of billions..Welch changed..that…that figure doubled and doubled again during the early years of Welch’s reign. By the end of his tenure, the value of mergers and acquisitions topped $1.5 trillion annually..”

Gelles: “..Welch’s lawyers did their best to pay the Internal Revenue Service the absolute minimum necessary..the share of taxes U.S. corporations paid..government steadily fell. When Welch became CEO, the effective tax rate on capital income was 46%. Twenty years later..35%..Today it is just 21%.”

Gelles: “Wealth grew more concentrated during his reign. Before Welch, Corporate profits were largely reinvested in the company or paid..to workers rather than sent back to stock owners…By the time o Welch’s retirement, a much greater share of corporate profits was going to investors and management..”

Gelles: “..Welch’s outsize pay packages helped usher in an era of runaway executive compensation that has steadily taken wealth out of the hands of workers..In 1980..average pay for a CEO of one on..top American companies was $1.85 million. In 2000, it was $21.5 million…CEO compensation has grown..940% since 1978…the average worker’s wage has increased..12%..”

Gelles: Welch’s star remained largely undimmed after he left GE..his opinion continued to hold great sway..he disparaged organized labor..he extolled mass layoffs..it amounted to a 20-year campaign to make his warped vision of capitalism the norm.. ahis extreme practices became commonplace. The myth..Welch’s way of doing business lived on..his influence reshaped the economy, eroding this country’s middle class, sowing distrust in once revered institutions, chipping away at the tax base, and exacerbating inequality.
“The empty factories, hollowed-out cities..unemployed workers – all lorded over by a wealthy ruling class – have contributed much to the broad sense of disenfranchisement afflicting so much of the country..”

Gelles: For..fifty years before Welch took over, corporations, workers..government enjoyed a relatively harmonious. equilibrium. Most companies paid decent wages, employees put in their time, just about everyone paid their taxes, regulations were accepted as necessary safeguards..government invested in things like education and infrastructure. It wasn’t perfect..but..worked well for much of the 20th century, giving rise to a diverse, thriving economy and a prosperous middle class.”

Gelles: “Then in the 1970s, the established order came under attack. A cadre of economists including Milton Friedman reimagined the purpose of the corporation and its role in society, laying..philosophical groundwork for an upending of the economic order. In their view, companies ought to maximize profits for shareholders at any cost, markets should be free, governments should stay out of the way, and the rest of society ought to take care of itself..anathema to the postwar balance..”

Gelles: “Welch decided to take GE – the epitome of..benevolent postwar employer – in a sharp new direction. He embraced..strategies promulgated by..economic revolutionaries on the right, devised his own mercenary twists, and refashioned GE from the inside out>
“Welch employed three main tools in his crusade: downsizing, dealmaking, and financialization…he instituted a series of mass layoffs that destabilized the American working class…He found the notion..a company should be loyal to employees..laughable…He fired workers by the thousands, convinced…a leaner work force meant lower labor costs..juicer profits..a higher stock price…Welch developed a new policy..Each year, managers rated..employees. Those who were in the bottom. 10% were let go.”

Gelles: “Welch championed offfshoring..reveled in outsourcing…Welch’s affinity for downsizing, which..employees called the “campaign against loyalty,” fundamentally altered GE…It became the..place..even a long-tenured employee might find themselves suddenly out of a job just before retirement, a company where what mattered most was not..quality of its people, but,,quantity of its profits.”

Gelles; “The second main weapon Welch employed..was dealmaking. Through compulsive mergers and acquisitions, he transformed GE from a proud domestic manufacturer to a cash-spewing collection of unrelated businesses, unleashing an M&A boom..well beyond GE… GE made nearly 1,000 acquisitions during Welch’s tenure, spending..$130 billion…GE sold..408 businesses for about $10.6 billion. No company had ever done so many deals so quickly. The biggest took GE far from its industrial roots. Often..deals were disasters. Sometimes, Welch quickly sliced up..companies he bought, then sold them off for parts…dealmaking served several of Welch’s greater goals. Welch wanted every business GE operated to be number one or number two in its respective category. If it couldn’t achieve that, it would be jettisoned… By selling companies – even ones..central to GE’s identity – Welch was able to retain only what he beieved..the most profitable..even if they had little to do with GE’s legacy manufacturing operations.”

Gelles: “The third dark art..Welch mastered was financialization…By the time he retired, the company derived much of its profits from GE Capital..essentially a giant unregulated bank. Welch got the company into all manner of risky debt instruments, insurance products, and credit cards. The finance division became GE’s center of gravity, ultimately accounting for 40% of revenues and 60% of profits. With so much money coursing through the finance division, Welch used it to his advantage…extracting whatever he needed to meet or beat analysts estimates for nearly 80 quarters in a row, an unprecedented run. Earnings targets were achieved using dubious accounting methods…profits flowed, and Welch used them to reward shareholders..”

Gelles: “..these tactics..served the same aim..aiding his endless quest to enrich his investors. if that meant cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs..companies were acquired and then sold for parts..playing fats and loose with accounting rules, what was the harm?….simply reducing what motivated Welch to greed is insufficient. He was possessed with a world-beating ambition..to make his GE a company for the ages…Welch was the embodiment of the shareholder primacy dogma hatched by Milton Friedman, and for 20 years just about everything he did worked. GE did become the most valuable company on earth. GE shareholders were showered with riches. Welch was revered as the greatest CEO of all time.””

Gelles; “..he elevated the role of..chief executive from..people manager to something closer to a pop star…The business press adored him…Business schools treated Welch like an oracle, turning his strategies into case studies and curricula. Wall street analysts marveled at his seemingly magical ability to hit the numbers, quarter after quarter… Welch was the personification of American, alpha-male capitalism…His exploits were so over-the-top, his personal wealth so enormous, it was impossible for other executives not to emulate him. At the end of his illustrious career, Fortune magazine dubbed him “Manager of the Century.”

Gelles; “That kind of success..made Welch singularly influential in the corridors of economic power…He was the first celebrity CEO..golfed with presidents..his love life was tabloid fodder, and his gargantuan pay packages..glorified at a moment when conspicuous consumption..in vogue. His roaring success inspired countless imitators… Welch redefined how corporations measured success, setting the standard for a genertion..”

Gelles: “..his strategies ultimately destroyed what he loved..Not long after he retired, GE fell into a spiral of decline set in motion by Welch’s short-term decision-making. Within months of his departure, it became clear..GE was deeply troubled, and in a matter of years, the corporation was falling apart…Welch’s underinvestment in research and development caught up with the company as it failed to introduce new, innovative products..incessant dealmaking resulted in. a series of bad trades that burdened the company with money-losing divisions..the quest for ceaseless growth in the finance division led GE to become a major holder of sub-prime mortgages just in time for the financial crisis of 2008. At its nadir, GE needed a $139 billion rescue from the Obama administration and an eleventh-hour investment from Warren Buffett to stave off collapse..”

Gelles: “Although Welch’s legacy was tarnished by the collapse of GE, his worldview continues to shape much of corporate America..methods he devised..still in use..priorities he established still shape decision-making in boardrooms..some of his disciples are still in charge of major multinational corporations…Welchism..the conviction..companies must prioritize profits for shareholders above all else..executives are entitled to enormous wealth and minimal accountability..everyday employees deserve nothing more than their last paycheck. Welchism ascribes moral worth to material success…the Welchist worldview adopts a Darwinian attitude toward the labor market, a smug conviction..those who don’t make it are to blame for their own misfortune..the poorest among us ultimately deserve their fate. The closest historical analog to Welchism is probably imperialism.”

[note; the above is a very brief sampling of Gelle’s book, “The Man Who Broke Capitalism.” If YOU. want another look at. WHY. the America of 202r5 is. NOT. like the America prior to 1980 – then read this book, in addition to many others cited here; in addition to unspun statistics from Census, IRS, CBO, GAO. Dig into the Chicago School of economics, and the”economists’ like them who have excused the unmatched post-1980 greed among the top 1%. Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winners have told. YOU. why “The American Dream” was stolen. Jack Welch is one of the perps who did it. He has many accomplices who eagerly rigged an economy that worked for all Americans into one that victimizes most Americans. And it only took 40 years for them to overturn much of 1789 – 1980 American democratic thought, intent, policies. The top 1% lies to accomplish this are matched only by the massive corruption it took to rewrite the rules.]o

We, the People, call Jeff Madrick to testify on “The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present.

[note: the following is a brief summary of Madrick’s “Age of Greed [2011],; 404 pages, 40 pages of notes]

Madrick: “In an op-ed piece..in the Financial Times in mid-2010, Sheila Bair..Republican-appointed chairman of the FDC, wrote Wall street had channeled hundreds of billions..into foolish speculation in housing in the 2000s..”..that capital was misallocated..”
“The same complaint would have been appropriate in each decade of the age of greed. In the 1970s…In the 1980s…thrifts, released from restraints by the Garn-St. Germain bill, spent savers’ money..on one foolish fantasy after another..”
“In the 1990s, an era of deceit helped promote the speculative bubble in high-technology and telecom stocks..Good money was invested after bad in one absurdist dream after another, justified by Wall street analysts…Accounting fraud reached new heights across corporate America..”

Madrick: “The question was not wether Wall Street bankers contributed enough to the economy to warrant their compensations, but how much they cost the economy in the damage done.”

Madrick: “..in the 2000s, capital investment was notably weak, even as corporations made enormous profits and built up coffers of cash of $2 trillion. Many bought back..shares of their own company to drive up their stock prices. Academic finance theory supported such strategies. Stock prices would rise and investors..sell..and..supposedly invest in more attractive corners of the economy, contributing to prosperity. this claim was made time and again..”
“In fact, there are many flaws in this theoretical argument. Capital investment in new ideas has always been risky…Another flaw is the assumption..business executives make decisions to benefit their firms..when in fact, under the tutelage of Wall Street, they often make decisions to make themselves rich..”

Madrick: “The amount of federal money spent to bail out failing financial institutions after a crisis was not the only cost of overspeculation…The money should have been invested more intelligently and productively. The collapse of the thrifts weakened the economy and helped precipitate a credit crisis and the 1990 recession..”
“Similarly, the cost of the $700 billion TARP bailout was small…the Treasury should have made a much better deal…more important, it should have demanded..firms that got the money lend much of it out. Lending remained weak.
“But the largest cost..was the steepest recession since the 1930s. GDP fell sharply. 8 million jobs were lost…Federal tax revenues were and will continue to be reduced..the budget deficit..much higher…None of this counts the severl trillion dollars of debt or loan guarantees made by the Federal Reserve, whose future costs cannot yet be computed.”

Madrick; “Over the four decades of the age of greed, financial assets as a percentage of GDP more than doubled. Revenues of financial firms rose from3% of GDP to 6%, and profits of those financial firms soared from l3% of all profits to 30-40%.”

Madrick: “..recent economic research finds high levels of personal compensation paid to bankers and traders..not remotely deserved.”

Madrick; “The true cost of the financial excesses of Wall Street and what would have happened to the economy were mooted by the federal government’s rescue. But one mainstream analysis by Alan Blinder and Moody’s analytics chief economist, Mark Zandi, estimated the damage that would have been done. In all, federal guarantees and loans came to more than $12 trillion.”…
“..had nothing ben done by Washington..Blinder and Zandi estimated..recession would have continued through 2011, and GDP would have fallen by 12%..rather than the substantial 4% it did fall..greater than any other recession in the post-World War II period…The unemployment rate would have reached 16.5%…a full-fledged depression”……..

Madrick: “..average compensation never grew as slowly in American industrial history than it did over the course of the course of the age of greed…Over this period, productivity rose significantly faster than worker compensation. In the 2000s, typically household incomes actually fell. Productivity gains flowed to corporate profits.”

Madrick: “The 1990s through 2002 was the most corrupt “decade” since the 1920s – and one of the most corrupt in American business history. An infrastructure of corruption..spread in the 1990s across the American establishment into elite professions…Blatant corruption in several enormous companies served by the Wall street financial infrastructure momentarily stunned the nation..leading to criminal convictions..and moderate congressional reforms..”

[note: reread what Madrick related – the numbers, the trends, the corruption, the costs, expert analysis – this, and MUCH MORE!!!! – is the reason for his title: “The Age of Greed”. – perpetrated by, GUESS WHO????? – those same THREATS TO DEMOCRACY – the rich and the corporations!!!!! You can’t make this stuff up – and – it actually occurred, AND – IS CONTINUING TO OCCUR. Wall street. “OWNS CONGRESS” – repeatedly said by people IN Congress. Angry about loss of YOUR purchasing power??? Look no further than the rich and corporations – they do not, and refuse to, suffer, inflation. check their comments on. “margins”. – short for their PROFIT MARGINS. – they maintained them during recent inflation. – THAT. is why YOU. pay more at the grocery store and for everything else.
in the plutocracy America really is, the rich decide what YOU. will be paid, and how much YOU. will pay for their products. If YOU don’t understand this – you are ignorant of what has happened in post-1980 America.]

We, the People, call Thomas Piketty to testify on “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”

Piketty: “The central thesis of this book is..an apparently small gap between the return on capital and the rate of growth can in the long run have powerful and destabilizing effects on the structure and dynamics of social inequality”

Piketty: The argument that the new information economy will allow talented individuals to increase their productivity many times is “often used to justify extreme inequalities and to defend the privileges of the winners without much consideration for the losers, much less the facts..” and without effort to verify this..”

Piketty: “..the first crucial fact to bear in mind is that inflation is largely a twentieth-century phenomenon.”

Piketty: “..the revival of private wealth is partly due to the privatization of national wealth.”

Piketty: “Between 1987 and 2013, the number of $ billionaires rose according to Forbes from 140 to l,400, and their totsl wealth rose from 300 to 5,400 billion dollars.”

Piketty: “Another important point is..wealthy people are constantly coming up with new and ever more sophisticated legal structures to house their fortunes. Trust funds, foundations, and the like often serve to avoid taxes..”

Piketty: “..the revival of private wealth is partly due to the privatization of national wealth.”

Piketty: “One characteristic of today’s financial globalization is that every country is to a large extent owned by other countries, which not only distorts perceptions of..global distribution of wealth but also represents an important vulnerability for smaller countries as well as a source of instability in the global distribution of net positions.”

Piketty: A 2011 Federal Reserve study showed “..the top decile own[ed] 72% of America’s wealth, while the bottom half claim just 2%.” Which may be an underestimation of the largest fortunes.

Piketty: “The inescapable reality is this: wealth is so concentrated that a large segment of society is virtually unaware of its existence.”

Piketty: “..the growth of a true “propertied middle class” was the principle structural transformation of the distribution of wealth in..developed countries in the 20th century…The rise of a propertied middle class was accompanied by a very sharp decline in the wealth of the upper centile..”

Piketty: ” since 1980..income inequality has exploded in the United States..”

Piketty: “..there is absolutely no doubt..the increase of inequality in the United States contributed to the nation’s financial instability..one consequence of increasing inequality was virtual stagnation of the purchasing power of the lower and middle classes..which inevitably made it more likely..modest households would take on debt, especially since unscrupulous banks and financial intermediaries, freed from regulation and eager to earn good yields on..enormous savings injected into the system by the well-to-do, offered credit on increasingly generous terms.”

Piketty: A study of 1977-2007 U.S. economic growth, “we find..the richest 10% appropriated three-quarters..the richest 1% alone absorbed nearly 60%..It is hard to imagine an economy and society that can continue functioning indefinitely with such extreme divergence between social groups..”

Piketty: “Goldin and Katz have no doubt..increased wage inequality in the United States is due to a failure to invest sufficiently in higher education. More precisely, too many people failed to receive the necessary training..because families could not afford the high cost of tuition.” In contrast to educational policies in the Scandinavian nations.

Piketty: The U.S. minimum wage reached its peak purchasing power in 1969. It was frozen by Republican presidents Reagan, H.W. Bush and G.W. Bush.

Piketty; “In practice, the invisible hand does not exist, any more than “pure and perfect” competition does..”

Piketty: “..the decrease in the top marginal income tax rate led to an explosion of very high incomes, which then increased the political influence of the beneficiaries of the change in tax laws, who had an interest in keeping the top rate low or even decreasing them further and who could use their windfall to finance political parties, pressure groups, and think tanks.”

Piketty: “..one can show that an effective tax rate of 30%, if applied to all forms of capital, can by itself account for a very significant deconcentration of wealth..”

Piketty” In France, 1945-75, “there was a fundamental unity to this society, in which everyone participated in the communion of labor and honored the meritocratic ideal. People believed..arbitrary inequalities of inherited wealth were a thing of the past.” For people born in the 1970s, “and even more for those born later, things are quite different.”

Piketty: “..democratic societies rest on a meritocratic worldview, or at any rate a meritocratic hope..in a democracy, the professed equality of rights of all citizens contrasts sharply with the very real inequality of living conditions.”

PIKetty: There is a danger of “an oligarchic type of diverge..a process in which rich countries would come to be owned by their own billionaires or, more generally, in which all countries..would come to be owned more and more by the planet’s billionaires and multimillionaires…This process is already well under way..”

Piketty: “..the recent rise of tax competition in a world of free-flowing capital has led many governments to exempt capital income from the progressive income tax…The result is an endless race to the bottom, leading to cuts in corporate tax rates and to..exemption of interest, dividends, and other financial revenues from the taxes to which labor incomes are subject.”

Piketty; “THe progressive tax is..a relatively liberal method for reducing inequality, in the sense..free competition and private property are respected while private incentives are modified in potentially radical ways, but always according to rules thrashed out in democratic debate. the progressive tax thus represents an ideal compromise between social justice and individual freedom.”

Piketty: Between 1932 and 1980, the top U.S. federal income tax averaged 81%, and the top estate was between 70% and 80%.

Piketty: Two phenomena that are “perfectly correlated: the countries with the largest decreases in their top tax rates are also the countries where the top earners’ share of national income has increased the most..”

Piketty” “The evidence suggests..a rate..of 80% on incomes over $500,000 or $1 million a year not only would not reduce the growth of the U.S. economy but would in fact distribute the fruits of the growth more widely while imposing reasonable limits on economically useless [or even harmful] behavior.””

Piketty. “..if democracy is to regain control over the globalized financial capitalism..it must invent new tools…The ideal would be a global tax on capital, coupled with a very high level of international financial transparency.


Piketty: Russia adopted a flat tax in the 1990s

Piketty: “The overall conclusion..is that a market economy based on private property, if left to itself, contains powerful forces of convergence…but it also contains powerful forces of divergence, which are potentially threatening to democratic societies and to the values of social justice on which they are based.”

[Note: please review what Piketty says. He based his statements on facts, graphs of which are posted throughout. Hr studies 200 years of tax and income material, from many nations. The choice is simple: we either return to the 1932-1980 tax rates – top rates of about 81%, plus high estate tax rates [70-80%], or we sentence OURSELVES and OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN to a feudal nightmare – an oligopoly of wealth. The evidence is right there: the peak middle class era of 1947-73. – vs. the post-1980 “Reagan Revolution” of ever increasing income/wealth inequality. As others have DOCUMENTED, the “American Dream” has been deliberately stolen – by the rich, thanks to in good part “campaign contributions” by Republican-dominated “Supreme Courts” [Buckley, Bellotti, Citizens United – which “legalized” bribery of government officials through use of “lobbyists” and “Pacs”] If YOU do nothing, it will get worse.}

Piketty: “The problem is simply that the entrepreneurial argument cannot justify all inequalities of wealth, no matter how extreme…fortunes can grow and perpetuate themselves beyond all reasonable limits and beyond any possible rational justification in terms of social utility.

Piketty: “Another important point is hat wealthy people are constantly coming up with new and ever more sophisticated legal structures to house their fortunes. Trust funds, foundations, and the like often serve to avoid taxes..”

Piketty: “The inescapable reality is this: wealth is so concentrated that a large segment of society is virtually unaware fo its existence..”

Piketty: “..the growth of a true “propertied middle class’ was the principle structural transformation of the distribution of wealth in..developed countries in the twentieth century.. TXhe rise of a propertied middle class was accompanied by a vey sharp decline in the wealth of the upper centile.”

Piketty: “Since 1980..income inequality has exploded in the United States..”

Piketty: “..there is absolutely no doubt..the increase of inequality in the United States contributed to the nation’s financial instability..one consequence of increasing inequality was virtual stagnation of the purchasing power of the lower and middle classes..which inevitably made it ore likely..modest households would take on debt, especially since unscrupulous banks and financial intermediaries, freed from regulation and eager to earn good yields on..enormous savings injected into the system by the well-to-do, offered credit on increasingly generous terms.”

Piketty; In a study of 1977-2007 U.S. economic growth, “we find..the richest 10 percent appropriated three-quarters..the richest l

We, the People, call Robert McChesney and John Nichols to testify on “The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy.”

McChesney & Nichols: “We’re back to the Gilded Age..to a future of plutocrats and peasants…a time of power inequality..Every decisions that matters about our lives is being made by a corporate CEO or a campaign donor or a programmer or a hacker or someone else we have never met. We “choose” politicians by rote after elections..crude in their messaging..vapid in their content..The politicians rubber stamps for the trade deals, tax rates..deregulations demanded by an enriched and empowered one-tenth of one percent.”

McChesney & Nichols: Kodak, with 145,000 employees is replaced by Instagram with 13 – as a part of Facebook with 10,082 employees so any wealth created doesn’t “trickle down.”

McChesney & Nichols: A 2015 report by strategic consulting firm, Cornerstone Capital Group, warned: “it’s not clear that cost inflation can be consistently offset by raising menu prices, so companies are considering new strategies to protect margins…automation is currently complementing labor, particularly in the ordering process. Should wage pressure intensify..the focus will likely shift and companies will look to replace labor.”

McChesney & Nichols: January, 2014, Google chairman Eric Schmidt at Davos World Economic Forum: due to rapid advances in technology, including Google projects, countless middle-class jobs seemingly beyond reach of computers and automation would be at risk in the near future; there was nothing on the horizon about new jobs for them. This would be the “defining” issue of the next 20-30 years.

McChesney & Nichols: “..the United States is not a democracy, if..we mean a government of the people, by the people, for the people. That is the Big Lie of..official discourse..it is a “citizenless” democracy. The only voice that matters..is that of the wealthy few from whom creative destruction is a business practice..”
“The two great and existential threats to human existence – militarism and environmental catastrophe – proceed largely unchecked by public policy..because very powerful interests see demilitarization and shifting away from fossil fuels as existential threats to their present lucrative positions.”

McChesney & Nichols:”The American news media is in freefall collapse..What coverage remains of politics and elections tends to be superficial..spoonfeeds the public what elites are saying.. If elites are in agreement on an issue, or do not wish to talk about it, it almost never appears as a significant story. Nowhere..more true than on economic issues, where corporate power and capitalism are off-limits..”

McChesney & Nichols: “Democratic Infrastructure..The right to vote means little without: – the infrastructure of effective elections [one person-one vote] and competitive races; the rule of law; stringent limits on money in politics; limits on power of judiciary to act in arbitrary and unaccountable manner; the effective ability to launch new parties or associations; free trade unions with effective collective bargaining; open, transparent governance; a credible, independent, uncensored free press/news media; universal free schools with civic education; a basic level of economic and social security, only limited by overall productive capacity; an environment that can sustain and nurture life.”…ground rules and institutions that empower the weakest to be political equals of the wealthiest; “breakers” to prevent existence of democratic enemies: corruption, private monopolistic control over the economy; significant economic inequality; government secrecy and surveillance; government propaganda; militarism.

McChesney & Nichols: A 2013 Associated Press study found 4 of 5 American adults “struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.”

McChesney & Nichols: “[The] “race to the bottom;” since Congress approved NAFTA, “Each of the FTAs has made it easier for multinational corporations to move jobs to countries with lower wages, fewer union protections, weaker environmental regulations and lousier records of defending human rights. The result is a hollowing out of American manufacturing ..”

McChesney & Nichols: “The biggest sellout is of democracy itself…When a trade agreement..includes [Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanisms..multinational corporations..[gain]..a new avenue for challenging government laws and regulations in the United States…U.S. investors abroad and foreign investors in the United can collect damages from..their host governments by virtue of..judgments of arbitration panels that are entirely outside of the legal structure of the respective countries..”

McChesny & Nichols: “In 1946..Congressman Wright Patman…requested the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress to make a detailed analysis of the historical record of fascism…The 206-page report concluded by characterizing fascism as a system that “favors big business, strengthens the position of heavy industries, retains enough of the profit system to permit the elite to build up personal fortunes…facilitates cartelization, and spends huge sums for military purposes.” Moreover, “free collective bargaining and self-government by labor organizations is abolished.”

McChesney & Nichols: “..the 1980 platform of the Libertarian Party, which featured billionaire David Koch as its vice-presidential candidate..called for, among other things”
-Repeal of all campaign finance laws and unlimited corporate and individual donations
-Abolition of Medicare, Medicaid, the Postal Service, and Social Security
-Abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency, and an end to most consumer regulation
-Privatization of the water system, railroads, public roads, and the highway system
-Abolish all income and capitals-gains taxation
-End all government funding and operation of public schools
-Abolish all social-welfare programs
-Make labor unions “voluntary” for employees, and collective bargaining possible only if employers agree; prohibit
the government from enforcing collective bargaining rights
-Repeal of antitrust laws and any government efforts to break up monopolies, as well as abolition of the Federal
Trade Commission
“This was Milton Friedman’s vision of a “free” society with no democratic infrastructure..a society where most citizens get nothing of value from government..are told they can never get anything of value from government..”



McChesney & Nichols: “..beginning in the 1980s, for the first time in U.S, history, the federal government began to systematically “privatize” public services and “outsource” to private firms what had traditionally been government activities. States and local governments have followed..The purported reason for privatization and outsourcing was to bring market efficiency to the public sector…Research suggests ..politics and greed had..most to do with what ..government privatized, and efficiency claims were rarely realized and often flat wrong. Instead, this became a cash cow for large corporations and wealthy investors and has fanned..flames of corruption.

McChesney & Nichols: “..corruption surrounding privatization and outsourcing is only the beginning of..damage it does to..democratic infrastructure. By removing..government from important functions, it lessens..ability of..citizenry to play a role in the economy and it locks in business domination. Privatization and outsourcing lessens ..ability of government to solve social problems and therefore generates cynicism toward it..to top it off, evidence suggests privatization has contributed to the rapid escalation of economic inequality.”

[note, the above content was from McChesney & Nichols” book, “People Get Ready.” YOU, are, agin and always on this site, encouraged to YOUR own REAL. RESEARCH. from UNSPUN. official data from the Census Bureau, IRS, CBO, GAO. Ask YOURSELF. the one BIG QUESTION: why is life in America in 2024 struggling to obtain the STATISTICAL middle class golden age of 1947-73??????? The partial answer: greed – by guess who: the rich and corporations!!!!!!!!!!!]

WE, the People, call upon Double Pulitzer Prize winners Donald Barlett and James Steele to testify on how The American dream for middle class people has been deliberately stolen – by the rich and corporations.

Barlett & Steele:”The betrayal of the American dream is the story of how a small number of people in power deliberately put in place policies that have enriched themselves while cutting the ground out from underneath America’s greatest asset – its middle class.”

Barlett & Steele: “..between 1999 and 2008, according to Tax Notes..foreign affiliates of U.S. parent corporations increased their employment abroad by 2.4 million jobs, or 30%..they slashed [U.S. employment].. by 1.9 million>’

Barlett & Steele: “..the ruling class is defined by its ability to move money beyond the reach of government supervision..we have created the world’s newest financial aristocracy.”

Barlett & Steele: “We are no longer the democracy we once were. We have become a plutocracy..In 2011, AdAge..declared the era of mass affluence over in America..”Simply put, a small plutocracy of wealthy. elites drives a larger and larger share of total consumer spending.”

Barlett & Steele: “..for tens of millions of middle-class Americans, as well as for the working poor..the American dream is over..Having dismantled the economic support network that underpinned the world’s largest middle class, the members of the ruling class have set their sights on another goal that..would put the middle class in an even deeper hole: they re promoting “austerity” in government budgets and policies – cuts in programs such as Social Security and Medicare – for everyone but themselves.”

Barlett & Steele: “The financial deregulation that enriched Wall street and triggered the Great Recession was just the latest in a long series of moves by the economic elite to consolidate their control of the American economy. They have:
– Created a tax system that is heavily weighted against the middle class.
-Deregulated sectors of the economy and in so doing killed jobs or lowered wages for employees across entire
industries such as airlines and trucking.
-Ignited in the financial sector a wildly speculative run-up in mortgage-backed securities of little value that
imploded in the 2008-2009 recession.
-Encouraged corporations to transfer jobs abroad and eliminate jobs in this country to bolster the value of stock,
increase dividends, and boost executive compensation
-Enabled companies to eliminate positions and replace permanent employees with contract workers t lower pay
and with no benefits.
-Allowed multinational corporations to shelter profits overseas and avoid paying taxes on earnings that could be
used to help stimulate jobs at home.
-Forced 11 million people with mortgages that exceeded the value of their homes to make monthly payments to
the banks that caused the housing collapse – a debt they will never be able to pay off.
-Refused to support the growth of new industries that could generate jobs for the future

Look upon all this as the end of a broad-based middle class in America.

Barlett & Steele: “The last decade alone saw the closing of 14% of the nation’s factories [56,190], the sharpest industrial decline in America’s history. A record 5.7 million factory workers lost their jobs [exceeding Great Depression job loss]..” The cause: “free trade”.. By the 1970s, it was clear..free trade wasn’t going to be good for America’s workers.

Barlett & Steele: “Pension plans were once an integral part of the American dream, a pledge by corporations to their employees: for your decades of work, you can count on retirement benefits.” {No longer]> “..you can thank the rule makers of Wall street and Washington who have colluded to rewrite the rules on retirement that will harm millions of middle-class Americans for decades. Here is what they have done:
– In addition to the 84,350 pension plans killed by corporations since 1985, companies have frozen thousands of other
other plans, meaning..new employees are barred from participating or benefit levels are frozen, or both. Freezing a
pension plan is often the first step toward eliminating it.
– The congressionally touted replacements for pensions – 401[k] plans – have insufficient holdings to provide a serious
retirement benefit. This even though millions will be depending on them.
– As companies have killed or curtailed pensions for employees, executive pensions have soared, largely because
they are based on executives’ compensation – which has ballooned in recent decades.
– At some companies the only employees who have pensions are the corporation’s executives.
– The 401[k] plans promoted by corporations and Congress that have replaced pensions as the main retirement plan
for many employees are uninsured, and they are less secure and cost more to administer than traditional pensions,
but they have provided a windfall of fees for Wall Street.
– Worker’s pensions are insured by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.., but the agency faces mounting
deficits, raising the question of whether it will be able to fully honor all pensions thay may be defaulted by private
companies in the future.”
“The result..is that America has devolved into a land of two separate and decidedly unequal
retirement systems – one for the have-mores and another for the have-lesses..”

Barlett & Steele: “The complete triumph of free-trade ideology has upset the balance. For many Americans, this has meant stagnant or declining earnings, reduced benefits, and fewer job opportunities. This is not the result of inexorable global economic forces. These trade and tax policies were bought and paid for by the major corporations through their investments in congressmen and the lobbyists [thery hired].”

Barlett & Steele: Bare minimum corrective steps: revise the tax code – why not a one-page 1040?; make free trade fair – demand fair treatment & enforce existing trade laws; invest in America – rebuild infrastructure; rethink training – need better apprenticeship programs; uphold the law – seriously prosecute white collar criminals; will the majority rule? – ask congressional candidates: 1] will you support tax reforms that benefit the middle class; 2] will you support a more balanced trade policy benefiting American manufacturing; 3] will you support government investment in U.S. infrastructure; 4] will you help keep benefits of U.S. innovation within the U.S., not outsources?

[note: read the book!!!!!! many more statistics that document how the greatest danger to American, and world, democracy are the rich and their corporations. Do nothing and YOUR lives and that of YOUR families will only get worse. Those of us remaining who lived in 1947-73 can only tell YOU about what America USED TO BE; about how may of us lived in “mixed’ blue and white collar neighborhoods, about the atmosphere of trust for government to do
the right thing” for the majority; about how government tried to “do the right thing” for people.
America has never been “perfect,” BUT we WERE moving in the right direction. Barlett and Steele have supplied YOU with much of the STATISTICAL evidence on how the rich and the corporations engineered “THE BETRAYAL. OF. THER. AMERICAN DREAM.”}

We, the People, call on Anne Case and Pulitzer Prize winner Angus Deaton to discuss “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism”

Case & Deaton: “..the healthcare system is a parasite on the economy.”

Case & Deaton: After analyzing all factors for post-1970 distress and despair, “..our candidate for the leading villain is..the American healthcare system..the enormous cost. The vast sums .being spent on healthcare are an unsustainable drag on the economy, pushing down wages, reducing the number of good jobs, and undermining financing for education, infrastructure, and the provision of public goods and services that are ..[or might be] provided..”

“The cost of healthcare is like a tribute..Americans have to pay to a foreign power..Warren Buffett likened the effect of healthcare costs on American business to those of a tapeworm; we think of them as a cancer that has metastasized throughout the economy, strangling its ability to deliver what Americans need.”
“Healthcare is not the only {cause}..[how] modern capitalism works..against less-educated labor..[corporate] market power..used against both workers and consumers..,” unenforcement of anti-trust laws, union declines, corporate consolidation [business less competitive] are all major factors.

Case & Deaton: “Our argument is..deaths of despair among whites would not have happened, or would not have been so severe, without the destruction of the white working class, which in turn, would not have happened without..failure of the healthcare system and other problems of..capitalism we have today – particularly persistent upward redistribution through manipulation of markets.”

Case & Deaton: “Robin Hood was said to have robbed the rich to benefit the poor. What is happening today in America is ..reverse of Robin Hood, from poor to rich..Political protection is being used for personal enrichment..a process known..as rent-seeking..Adam smith..noted that while tax laws could be cruel, they were “mild and gentle” in .comparison with..laws that..pressure of “our merchants and manufacturers has extorted from the legislature, for the support of their own absurd and oppressive monopolies.”..Rent-seeking is a major cause of wage stagnation among working-class Americans and has much to do with deaths of despair.”

Case & Deaton: “The healthcare lobby is the most powerful in Washington, and it is almost certainly impossible to have reform without paying them off at the time of reform. The alternative is to keep paying them off forever..[but].. a well-designed reform, with cost control, will slowly reduce the tribute we have to pay them..”

Case & Deaton: “The four-year college degree is increasingly dividing America..the widening gap between those with and without..not only in death but also quality of life..” those without see more pain, ill-health and serious mental distress and declines in..ability to work and socialize..gap also widening in earnings..family stability, and in community..”

Case & Deaton: “Many of the jobs..with..lower wages d o not bring the sense of pride..with being a part of a succesful enterprise, even in a low-ranking position, clerks, janitors, drivers, and customer service representatives “belonged” when they were directly employed..They do not “belong” when the large company outsources to a business-service firm that offers low wages and little prospect of promotion..”

Case & Deaton: “Men without prospects do not make good marriage partners..poorer prospects make it harder for people to build the life their parents had, to own a home, or to save to send kids to college. The lack of well-paying jobs threatens communities and the services they provide, such as schools, parks, and libraries.”
“JObs are not just the source of money; they are the basis for the rituals, customs, and routines of working class life. Destroy work and, in the end, working-class life cannot survive. It is the loss of meaning, of dignity, of pride, and of self-respect that comes with the loss of marriage and community that brings on despair, not just or even primarily the loss of money.”

Case and Deaton: “Other rich countries..face globalization and technological change but have not seen long-term stagnation of wages, nor an epidemic of deaths of despair. There is something going on in America that is different, and that is particularly toxic for the working class.”

Cade & Deaton: “..the American healthcare system is a leading example of an institution..under political protection, redistributes income upward to hospitals, physicians, device makers, and pharmaceutical companies while delivering the worst health outcomes of any rich country.”
“Many of those who..followed the opioid scandal see littler difference between the behavior of..legalized drug dealers and..illegal suppliers of heroin and cocaine..”

Case & Deaton: “We argue..[the healthcare] industry is a cancer at the heart of the economy..wildly metastasized, bringing down wages, destroying good jobs,..making it harder and harder for state and federal governments to afford what their constituents need.”

Caser & Deaton: “..the surge in deaths in America..people are doing this to themselves..drinking..poisoning..shooting..hanging themselves..All these deaths show great unhappiness with life.”

Case & Deaton: “Long ago, Emile Durkheim argued..to understand suicide – and the same could be said for other deaths of despair – we must look beyond the individual to society, particularly to breakdown and turmoil in a society that can no longer provide its members an environment in which they can live a meaningful life.”

Case & Deaton: “The opioid epidemic did not happen in other countries both because they had not destroyed their working class and because their pharmaceutical companies are better controlled and their governments..less easily influenced by corporations..The opioid story shows the power of money to prevent politics from protecting ordinary citizens, even against death.”

Case & Deaton: “One of ..[our]..themes is how the American economy has shifter away from serving ordinary people and toward serving businesses, their managers, and their owners…The American healthcare industry is the prime example..[of]..the use of market power to bring upward distribution, from a large number of people with little, to a smaller number with a great deal, is symptomatic..of American capitalism more generally…this process, run out over a half century, has slowly eaten away at the foundations of working-class life, high wages, and good jobs, and has been central in causing deaths of despair.”

Case & Deaton: “If a fairy godmother were somehow to reduce the share of..healthcare in American GDP..only to thr second highest, Switzerland, 5.6% of GDP would be available for other things..more than a trillion dollars…more than $3000 a year for each man, woman, and child in the U.S.”

Case & Deaton: “The political system, strangled by lobbying and..legislators’ need for deep-pocketed backers, has increasingly become a battlefield for competing commercial and professional interest. Congress..in a better-functioning democracy would have protected the interests of the majority, has mostly ignored them. The law, which ought to have protected the weak against rent-seeking by the strong, has increasingly moved to support the shakedown..”

[note: the above comes from Case & Deaton’s book, “Deaths of Despair.” Read it for much more detail on how the Rich and Corporations are very much a Threat to Democracy.]

We, the People, call Barry C. Lynn to testify on “The new Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction”

[note: Lynn’s testify is a small sample of data and analysis found in his book: “Cornered’]

Lynn: “I believe it now to be an incontrovertible fact..the people who control our financial systems and market systems – and through them the real economy of our nation – have already made absolutely clear they will not abide any fundamental changes in how these systems are regulated unless compelled to do so..They have already demonstrated a stunning ability to disregard the structural flaws and fragilities of the financial system itself. the avarice of these individuals trumps any concern..their actions might endanger their own children, let alone the wellbeing of the nation and the world.”

Lynn: “The meltdown of 2008..[revealed]..the structural monopolization of so many systems has resulted in a set of political arrangements similar to what we used to call corporatism..our political economy is run by a compact elite that is able to fuse the power of our public government with the power of private corporate governments in ways that enable members of the elite..to offload their risk onto us but also to determine with almost complete freedom who wins, who loses, and who pays.”

Lynn: “A generation ago a highly sophisticated political movement appeared in the United states..dedicated to taking apart the entire institutional structure..put into place, beginning in the mid-1930s, to govern our political economy by distributing power and responsibility among all people. The goal of this new movement was to enable the few, once again, to consolidate power entirely in their own hands.”
“That’s why one of their very first targets was our antimonopoly laws..to justify this, these revolutionaries preached an alternative philosophy..free market fundamentalism..a sort of organic mechanism that worked best if left untouched by human beings..the political lies that have been framed by the free-market fundamentalists and the economically deranging effects of these lies..[are the consequences we now face].

Lynn:”..Wal-Mart is under constant pressure from financiers to improve its margins..the easiest way..is to take business from other retailers..Wal-Mart is all but compelled to use its immense power to extract concessions from all those under its sway.”

Lynn: “..over the last generation a few people among us have resurrected Morgan’s centralized planning state – mostly without our even noticing the fact – and now use this private state to direct most of our consumer economy.”

Lynn: “..almost all lines of business in our consumer economy have been remade according to the principles espoused by John D. Rockefeller..The practical result is..a few immense trading companies..govern almost all the industrial activities on which we depend, and they back their efforts with what amounts to police power. This tiny confederation of private corporate governments determines who wins and who loses..”

Lynn: “When we were sold..globalization in the 1990s, we were assured..the new system would be safer and more resilient…..it could have been. Instead, we stopped enforcing..antimonopoly laws and allowed our financiers to rationalize our political economy as they alone saw fit.”

Lynn: $3 to $13 wheat in 2008 “was because the cumulative changes made in the name of “deregulating” our commodities markets in the last two decades made it easier for speculators routinely to manipulate the price..Just as similar changes..made it far easier for speculators to manipulate the prices..for our oil, natural gas, cotton, rice, even ship bottoms.”

Lynn: “A 2006 study by the American Medical Association made clear consolidation among health insurers is creating near-monopolies in virtually all reaches of the United States…….in 166 of 294 metropolitan areas, a single insurer controls more than half the business..”

Lynn: “..the single biggest problem with the physical stability of our industrial and financial systems is that we have seated almost complete control over these institutions and hence the real properties held within them, in a class of people whose interests are served not by building things but by breaking things.”

[note”. YOU might remember a slogan of the now authoritarian “high tech industry’ has been this: “move fast and break things.” YOU might also recall this book: “The Man Who Broke Capitalism” [considered a genius before he wasn’t!]. You might recall JohnDean”s “Broken Government.” Or, YOU can just think about all the things in 2024 America that aren’t quite right – which have been broken by greedy top 1% members and corrupt politicians [the ones who voted for the 2017 Trump tax cut – passed KNOWING it would add to the national debt; passed KNOWING t favored the rich, the powerful, the connected. As Lynn and many others have said – based on DOCUMENTATION – the 2024 America is not what existed during the golden middle class era of 1947-73 – because it was ‘too good of a deal” for them. Again – do YOUR homework. The facts are there [not erased yet b y Republican governors] – what Lynn said above is simply the truth – the rich and corporations wanted to return to the 1865-1901 “Gilded Age” – and have largely succeeded.}

Lynn: “..monopolization also helps to explain such otherwise mysterious phenomena as the following: Why it’s so hard to launch a successful small business; Why so many jobs were moved offshore so quickly; Why it’s so difficult to control medical costs; Why it’s taken so long to blend cleaner technologies into our cars and our homes; Why the quality of our food, drugs, and toys is declining; Why the U.S. trade surplus is so huge and persistent; Why corporate managers outsource so many activities; Why corporate profits reached such record heights just before the fall; Why the powerful keep getting more powerful.”

Lynn: “A generation ago a highly sophisticated political movement appeared in the United States..dedicated to taking apart the entire institutional structure..put in pace, beginning in the mid-1930s, to govern our political economy by distributing power and responsibility among all people. The goal of this movement was to enable the few, once again, to consolidate power entirely in their own hands.”

WE, the People, call Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway to testify on “How American Business Taught us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market”

Adam Smith: “We can’t have free markets because the world is too complex and interdependent
to let everyone run around doing whatever he or she wants to do. As a society, we have to
regulate conduct when it interferes with other people’s freedoms or when it threatens to
damage other people’s properties.”

Oreskes & Conway: “Market fundamentalism is not just the belief..free markets are the best means to run an economic system but also..belief..they are the only means that will not ultimately destroy our other freedoms; the belief in the primacy of economic freedom not just to generate wealth but as a bulwark of political freedom; the belief..markets exist outside of politics and culture, so it can be logical to speak of leaving them alone.”

Oreskes & Conway: “Market fundamentalism wasn’t just about economics..It also involved religion and mass culture.” Mont Pelerin Society and FEE promoters “overlapped with a movement called Spiritual Mobilization, designed to convince Christian clergy..unregulated capitalism was not merely compatible with Christian values but founded on them. Spiritual Mobilization’s biggest donor Sun Oil President Howard Pew..also backed Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale.”
“Pew was also friends with libertarian journalist Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder” the ostensible author of Little House on the Prairie stories. the stories had in fact been crafted into parables of individual self-sufficiency and government superfluousness by her libertarian daughter.”

Oreskes & Conway: Market fundamentalism was a giant public relations triumph; advocates built and sold the myth. “..a network of libertarian think tanks, heavily funded by industries selling dangerous products including tobacco and fossil fuels, had been established to promote these views in schools..universities, American life..; distributed free..millions of copies of Hayek’s..Friedman’s [and Rand’s] books.”

Oreskes & Conway: “A key part of [1930s] manufacturers’ propaganda was the myth of the Tripod of Freedom, the claim.. America was founded on three basic, interdependent principles; representative democracy, political freedom, and free enterprise. This was a fabricated claim. Free enterprise appears in neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution, and the nineteenth-century economy was laced with government involvement in the marketplace. But NAM spent millions” to sell the Tripod of Freedom myth and the Great Depression villain wasn’t “Big Business” but “Big Government” to weaken confidence in government institutions that protected ordinary citizens.”

Oreskes & Conway: A major creator and conduit of market fundamentalists ideology: the University of Chicago. Businessmen funded star Milton Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom.” Chicago economist George Stigler wrote an edited version of Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” [“Which expunged nearly all of Smith’s caveats about free market doctrine, including his extensive discussion of the need for bank regulation..adequate wages for workers..taxation for public goods”]. Aaron Director’s Antitrust Project argued monopolies represented economic natural selection in action: the fittest corporations were ones that survived. One of Director’s students was Robert Bork.

Oreskes & Conway: “Climate change IS a market failure, because markets, acting legally, failed to provide what people need and created a problem..markets have been unable to solve.”

Oreskes & Conway: “Contemporary conservatives, libertarians, and market fundamentalists are not really defending capitalism..They are defending a certain IDEA of capitalism, a vision of growth and innovation by unfettered markets where government jst gets out of the way. That capitalism is certainly not what Adam smith imagined or advocated.””..
“A group of individuals and institutions worked to make people believe they had to choose between “The Market” and “The State,” between unconstrained capitalism and Soviet-style centralized planning.”

Oreskes & Conway: “The FTC [1930s] found..industry actors had attempted to control the ENTIRE American educational system..grade school to university – in their own economic interest…focused on social sciences, economics, law, political science, and government – but also included engineering and business. Its purpose was to ensure “straight economic thinking” – by which NELA meant capitalistic, free-market principles – and to supply young people and their teachers with “correct information.” The goal was to mold the minds of the current generation and those to come.”

Oreskes & Conway: One estimate had NELA spending [in current dollars] $15 million a year on a media campaign. Supposedly “independent” articles and editorials were ghostwritten. “Red-baiting was pervasive..Advocates of the right of the people to own and operate public utilities “were labeled as “Bolsheviks,” “reds” or “parlor pinks.”..the goal – expressed outright in numerous documents – was to change the way America thought about private property, capitalism, and regulation.”

Oreskes & Conway: “Like NELA..the American Liberty League’s task was to “educate” the public about..benefits of unregulated markets and business freedom. It launched an extensive propaganda campaign to convince Americans to oppose New Deal labor reforms, utility and financial regulation, and relief and fiscal policies – and, above all, to persuade people..these policies threatened their freedom.”

Oreskes & Conway: “In 1948, Pierre du Pont would write to a friend..”it was a mistake to give negroes a vote, and it is also a mistake to give all white men and women a vote; that is if we are to have good government.”

Oreskes & Conway: “By promoting a false dichotomy between laissez-faire capitalism and communist regimentation, market fundamentalists would make it difficult for Americans to have conversations about crucial issues, such as appropriate levels of taxation or the balance between federal and state authority, or even how to appraise the size of..federal government objectively.”

Oreskres & Conway: Motion Picture Association of America head: “We’ll have no more Grapes of Wraith, we’ll have no more Tobacco Roads..no more films that treat the banker as villain.” During the 1940s and 1950s, libertarian moviemakers and their allies in business deployed censorship, intimidation, and overt propaganda to change the tone of America’s screens and disseminate the myth of the free free market.”

Oreskes & Conway: “..During HUAC, the content of movies changed..in 1947, about 20% of Hollywood films addressed American social problems; by 1953 only 8% did.” Big business as villainous [20%] and the rich as a moral threat [50%], decreased to “less than 5% during the fifties..”

Oreskes & Conway: “If market fundamentalism were a scientific theory, by the early 1960s it would have been viewed as refuted..European experience disproved its central premise – the compromises to economic freedom would necessarily compromise political freedom. European social democracies had taken steps toward..”the mixed economy”..”

Oreskes & Conway: Quoting Milton Friedman, a factory owner has a right to pollute; ‘if I own a factory, then my right to operate it as I see fit encompasses the right to pollute, and that right is “extremely important” and has to be given “considerable weight>”

Oreskes & Conway: “Most people think of revolutions as overturning ruling classes..The Reagan Revolution was the reverse…Reagan would promote the interests and ideology of some of the most powerful people in America..would ingeniously sustain the impression..the rich and powerful were somehow victims of an unfair system..work to reverse more than half a century of progress for ordinary people, and..do it all in the name of freedom.”

Oreskes & Conway: “Wall street never believed the rosy supply-side forecasts. They saw exploding deficits, not surging revenue. When the tax bill passed in August 1981, markets dropped, interest rates increased..the economy entered the deepest recession since the Great Depression. the investment boom that was supposed to follow the supply-side tax cuts never came..The. economy would not recover until late 1983..”

Oreskes & Conway: “..the crucial fact..the growing inequality of ther past 40 years has been driven by changes in the rules of how our capitalism operates. They include changes to our tax structure, forms of deregulation that hugely favor the wealthy, and these changes have been justified – in some quarters even celebrated – as “letting the market do its magic.”

Oreskes & Conway: “The Nordic countries are..happiest..Their high level..coincides with high levels of democracy and political rights, lack of corruption, trust among citizens and government, social cohesion, gender equality, and economic equality, and their people feel themselves to have a high level of freedom.”

Oreskes & Conway: “..Nordic countries [have] “..a virtuous circle,’ where well-functioning and democratic institutions provide citizens extensive benefits and security, so that citizens trust institutions and each other, which leads them to vote for parties that that promise to preserve the welfare model..the very thing NAM and opponents of the New Deal, Hayek, Friedman, and the Reagan Republicans all railed against.”

[note”. all the above comes from Oreskes & Conway’s “The Big Myth. They also wrote “Merchants of Doubt…How a handful of scientists obscured the Truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming.” These books document a SMALL part of the L I E S the Far Right, rich and corporations have been pushing for 100 ears – and they’re winning – look at the world YOU. ive in in 2024, compared to the world America USED TO BE, 1947-75. – before the Far Right succeeded in destroying that. STATISTICAL. middle class peak civilization.]

We, the People, call economist Dean Baker to testify on ”How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer.”

[Note; following information comes from Baker’s book: “The conservative Nanny state.” Mr. Baker will also be called in the future to testify on “How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy were Structured to make the Rich Richer” in his book “Rigged.”]

Baker: “Political debates in the U.S. are routinely framed a a battle between conservatives who favor market outcomes, whatever they may be, against liberals who prefer government intervention to ensure..families have decent standards-of-living. This..is inaccurate; both conservatives and liberals want government intervention. The difference..is the goal of government intervention, and..that conservatives are smart enough to conceal their dependence on..government.”

Baker: ”Conservatives want to use..government to distribute income upward to higher paid workers, business owners, and investors. They support the establishment of rules and structures that have this effect. First and foremost, conservatives support nanny state policies that have the effect of increasing the supply of less-skilled workers [thereby lowering their wages], while at the same time restricting the supply of more highly educated professional employees [thereby raising their wages].”

Baker: “This issue is very much at the center of determining who wins and who loses in the modern economy…It is essential to understand..there is direct redistribution involved..If restricting..supply of doctors raises..wages of doctors, then all..non-doctors..are worse off, just as if..government taxed all non-doctors in order to pay a tax credit to doctors.”

Baker: “Conservatives don’t only rely on the nanny state to keep..wages of professionals high, they want the nanny state to intervene through many different channels to make sure..income is distributed upward..conservatives want..government to outlaw some types of contracts, such as restricting..contingency-fee arrangements..lawyers make with clients when suing major corporations [conservatives call this “tort reform’}. This nanny state restriction would make it more difficult for people to get legal compensation from corporations that..damaged their health and property.”

Baker: “Conservatives also think..a wide variety of businesses..can’t afford..insurance they would have to buy in the private market to cover..damage they may cause.. Instead, they want the nanny state to protect them from lawsuits resulting from this damage. Conservatives even think..government should work as a bill collector for creditors who lack good judgment and make loans to people who are bad credit risks [conservatives call this “bankruptcy reform”].

Baker: “…conservatives..are happy to have..government intervene into..inner workings of the economy to make sure..money flows..upward. It is accurate to say..conservatives don’t like big government social programs, but not because they don’t like big government. The problem with big government social programs is..they tend to distribute money downward, or provide benefits to large numbers of people. That is not the conservative agenda..”

Baker: ”..conservatives don’t own up to the fact..policies thery favor are forms of government intervention. Conservatives..portray forms of government intervention..they favor..patent and copyright protection, as simply part of the natural order of things…[making].. these policies much harder to challenge politically. The public rightfully fears replacing..natural workings of the market with..intervention of government bureaucrats.. in part from a predisposition not to have..government meddle in their lives…the public recognizes..in many cases the market will be more efficient than..government in providing goods and services..”…

Baker: “The conservative framing of issues is so deeply embedded..it has been wide accepted by ostensibly neutral actors, such as policy professionals or the news media that report on national politics…news reports routinely refer to bilateral trade agreements, such as NAFTA or CAFTA, as “free trade” agreements. This..in spite..one of the main purposes of these agreements is to increase patent protection in developing countries, effectively increasing the length and force of government-imposed monopolies.””

Baker: “It is clever for proponents of these agreements to label them as “free trade”..but that is not an excuse for neutral commentators to accept this definition.”

Baker: “..media have even gone one step further – they routinely denounce opponents of these trade agreements as “protectionists.” This would be like having the New York Times refer to..opponents of the MX missile as “war mongers.”

Baker: ”In nearly every important area of economic policy, conservatives have set the terms of debate.”

[Note: Read the book!!! Sample chapter titles: ”Doctors and Dishwashers: How the Nanny state Creates Good Jobs for Those at the Top”; ”The Secret of High CEO Pay and Other Mysteries of the Corporation” [..”in a free market corporations do not exist”]…”The Rigged Legal Deck; Torts and Takings”…”Small Business Babies” [..the cuddly p.r. face”..]…”Don’T Make Big Business Compete Against Government Bureaucrats” [prevent Medicare negotiating prices!!!!!!!}

We the People, call Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston to testify on “how big companies use “plain English” to rob you blind.”

[Notre: thre following comes from Johnston’s book, “The fine Print.”}

Johnston: “How the promise of cheap, competitive and unlimited telecommunications service has ..turned into a reality of expensive, monopolistic and limited service is just one part of the larger transformation in the American economy sunce the late 1970s. A host of large industries, including banks, credit card lenders, electric utilities, health care, oil Pipelines, Hollywood studios, property insurance, railroads and water companies, all..worked quietly to rewrite America’s economic playbook in their favor.”
 ”..legislatures have rewritten basic business laws, some whose principles date back thousands of years. Too often the goal..to thwart competition, artificially inflate prices, hold down wages by decimating unions, reduce worker benefits and then restrict or bar access to..courts by those aggrieved. Businesses have gotten policies adopted that..allowed some managers to run corporations as, effectively, criminal enterprises, something..criminologists have a name for: control fraud.”..

Johnston: ”The worst of these laws in 19 states..let companies pocket..state income taxes withheld from their workers’ paychecks for up to 25 years.”..
 ”From the corporations’ point of view, the best part is that..workers are left in the dark. None of these states requires..workers be told..their state income taxes go to their employers..in effect being taxed by their bosses.”

Johnston: “What are todays’ bank costs for processing a bounced check? BofA won’t tell customers, but research papers on costs in the digital era suggest it could be less than a penny, making..markup by BofA in the neighborhood of 470,000%. But corporate values now so infuse our society..price gouging is easily brushed off as a function of competition, regardless..whether that’s..truth or an ideological fantasy.”

Johnston: ”No other modern country gives corporations the unfettered power found in America to gouge customers, shortchange workers and erect barriers to fair play. A big reason is..so little of..news..addresses the private, government-approved mechanisms by which price gouging is employed to redistribute income upward. When news breaks about one company buying another, the focus is almost always on the bottom line and how shareholders will benefit from higher prices and less competition; much less is said about added costs for customers..”

Johnston: “In Citizens United..the court went far beyond..narrow issues before it, holding..no law may constrain..spending by corporations, unions, nonprofits or others to influence elections and..names of those spending money can be kept secret. The notion is one..the framers of our Constitution would never have embraced, yet Roberts and his confreres insist..their guiding principle is strict adherence to the original intent of the framers..No honest originalist could possibly have signed on to Citizens United, but intellectually corrupt justices who worship corporatism, disdain the poor and enjoy ..perks of power did so..Citizens United is to..extension of corporate power what the big bang was to the beginning of existence – it is the whole universe.”

[NOTE:  rules changes – and corrupt referees – THIS. is how YOU. get robbed blind !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

Johnston: “..a few years back, Oregon passed a law requiring..electricity and natural-gas utilities taxes must be paid over to government or given back to consumers. As soon as irt was enacted, Buffett’s lobbyists began working to restore the system that let Berkshire Hathaway’s PacifiCorp..pocket taxes, diverting them from public coffers to Berkshire Hathaway’s accounts. In 2011, they had spread around enough money that the law was repealed.”

Johnston: “University of Texas law professor Johnson and his colleagues “have shown how Congress, by closing loopholes, could raise $1 trillion each year without any new taxes or tax rate increases.” [2012]      
  [Read this again!!!!!!! – if right-wingers in congress really want to lower the debt – THIS is all they’d need to do!!!]

Johnston: “..relaxation and removal of sound laws took more than two decades of campaign donations and favors for politicians. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Phil Gramm..did all he could to remove laws and regulations that ensured prudent conduct and protected taxpayers. Gramm then left office and became a vice chairman of UBS, the big Swiss bank..”

Johnston: “Laws weakened over many years changed America from a land where bank failures were almost unheard of from 1945 until the early years of Reaganism. With prudent rules and actual regulation fading into history, we began to get the bill..just weeks before the George W. Bush administration was to end..Treasury Secretary Henry..Paulson demanded..Congress give him $700 billion, no questions asked, so he could bail out the firm he had run before coming to Washington..deemed too big to fail.”
 ”Congress gave Paulson the money..The Bloomberg news agency, after analyzing..concluded..Wall Street bailouts put taxpayers at risk for $14.7 trillion..roughly one year of..all..economic activity of the entire nation.”..

Johnston: “..Congress and the Supreme Court are systematically destroying a crucial tenet of commercial law..The beginnings date to a 1925 law, the Federal Arbitration Act..The record from 1925 shows no intention to apply the law to consumers and workers, only to corporations..courts have..stretched the law into a parody of its original intent. In doing so they have encouraged misconduct by all businesses..As reinvented by the Supreme Court..the 1925 arbitration law now applies..in ways that eliminate consumer and employment rights in favor of business interests..and ignore the Constitutional right to jury trial in civil disputes..”

Johnston: “Massey Energy contributed more than $3 million to help elect Brent Benjamin to the West Virginia Supreme court..against another candidate..Blankenship feared would vote against Massey..the duly elected Justice Benjamin did indeed vote in favor of his political donor..In 2009, the Supreme Court found..Justice Benjamin should have reecused himself. The impropriety here is so obvious..it is hard to understand why the ruling was 5-4 instead of unanimous.
 The dissenting opinions are revealing. Justice Scalia belittled the majority.”….
  “Far more troubling was the dissent by Chief Justice John Roberts, who saw nothing amiss because the Massey funds went not to Justice Benjamin’s campaign but to an “independent” organization..Roberts wrote: “It is true..Don Blankenship spent a large amount of money..But this point cannot be emphasized strongly enough: Other than a $1,000 direct contribution..Justice Benjamin and his campaign had no control how this money was spent..a third party might distort..even though..”
 ”What chance..does a solitary victim..have in a rigged system in which someone as intellectually corrupt as John Roberts sits as the chief justice of the United States.”
    [!!!!!!!!!!!! read this section again – “intellectually corrupt..chief justice of the United States.” And it gets worse,
  the CORRUPT “Citizens United” decision comes next – legalizing bribery by “campaign contribution”]

Johnston: after the 2004 “American Jobs Creation Act,” 843 corporations brought $312 billion back to the United States, ”escaping almost $80 billion in taxes” – and American companies destroyed 100,000 jobs.

Johnston: former Treasury Department economist Sullivan calculated in 2008 American drug companies reported about 80% of their profits were earned in tax-favored offshore jurisdictions, up from 1/3 in 199.7. Problematic because foreign sales increased only from 38% to 52% of revenues !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Johnston: ”The core problem is with oligopolies and monopolies and their excessive prices, lower quality services and reduced innovation. They are the principle means, enabled by government, to redistribute income and wealth from the many to the politically connected few.”..
  “..since Reagan’s presidency, with gains going entirely to the top 20% and very heavily to the top tenth of 1%. Contrast this with the economics of Adam Smith..”

Johnston: ”If trickle-down is such a great philosophy, how do we explain the fact..after spending more than 40% of all the money in the world devoted to health care, we rank 37th in the quality of our health care and we still have roughly 50 million without health insurance? In 1981, when Ronald Reagan took..office, per capita health-care costs equaled 23% of the average salary of the bottom 90%.. By 2007 it had risen to 49% with all signs pointing to a growing share of the economy going to big, inefficient but stunningly profitable health companies.”

Johnston:: “..America, under the twin guises of Reaganism and the Chicago School, has allowed concentrated and largely unaccounted power, with only the most cursory government refereeing.. The result has been minimal competition, oligopolies everywhere, and removal of regulations that foster candor, integrity, and a reasonable connection between cost and price.”

Johnston: ”America’s corporate and political elites now form a reign of their own and they’re privatizing democracy. All the benefits – the tax cuts, policies and rewards – flow in one direction; up.” [Bill Moyers quote; page 247]

Johnston: $3830 is the estimated annual cost for a family of four because of artificially inflated prices due to corporate and government policies.

[Note; the above is a SMALL sample of the evidence Johnston details in this one book. How dumb are YOU??? Can there be any doubt the 2024 inflated prices YOU pay are largely due to CORRUPTION ???????? How many CROOKS have YOU voted for who obfuscated their true intent with bogus “culture war” and other scare tactics?????????

 [Again – note – mush/most of YOUR discontent has happened since 1980!!!!!!!!  The reason is “Reaganism” and all the wacko economic policies the Far Right imposed on YOU!!!  Lower 90% income/wealth is down; top 5%, especially top 1% income/wealth is hugely up – because they used government to screw YOU over. The NUMBERS. all show this }