LaxPower Back-Up Stick

PizzaSnake wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 12:24 am Capitalism isn’t your friend, friend.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... hild-labor

The food thing in Wisconsin is gross. More of adults not taking responsibility…for their kids this time. I have the problem of my kids already obsessed with screens but that’s because “we” gave them tablets. (i stated my many objections my idiot wife made some specious claim about learning on them, yeah right, and I didn’t object strenuously enough because I Fng knew we’d get here and we have with them) Spoil them instead of be disciplined then blame them when they are still kids as teenagers. That’s absurd.

*caveat is I was hustling from an early age but wasn’t forced on me my dad slightly greased the wheels offering to front me for my first box of topps wax packs to I could pick the kids in neighborhood undercutting the baseball card shop and taking their allowance starting when I was 7 and then when I was 9/10 got a tax license under his name so I could buy wholesale but more importantly we’d set up at shows then I could trade with other dealers because I was one too, recall trading a McGuire rooking for a nice shape Whitey Ford early career card, things like that.

Krugman:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/opin ... ns-us.html

"It’s been a troubled few months on the economic front. Inflation has soared to a 28-year high. Supermarket shelves are bare, and gas stations closed. Good luck if you’re having problems with your home heating system: Replacing your boiler, which normally takes 48 hours, now takes two or three months. President Biden really is messing up, isn’t he?

Oh, wait. That inflation record was set not in America but in Germany. Stories about food and gasoline shortages are coming from Britain. The boiler replacement crisis seems to be hitting France especially hard.

And one major driver of recent inflation, in America and everywhere else, has been a spike in energy prices — prices that are set in world markets, on which any one country, even the United States, has limited influence. Donald Trump has been claiming that if he were president, gas would be below $2 a gallon. How exactly does he imagine he could achieve that, when oil is traded globally and America accounts for only about a fifth of the world’s oil consumption?

In other words, the problems that have been crimping recovery from the pandemic recession seem, by and large, to be global rather than local. That’s not to say that national policies are playing no role. For example, Britain’s woes are partly the result of a shortage of truck drivers, which in turn has a lot to do with the exodus of foreign workers after Brexit. But the fact that everyone seems to be having similar problems tells us that policy is playing less of a role than many people seem to think. And it does raise the question of what, if anything, the United States should be doing differently.

So why does the whole world seem to be running on empty?

Many observers have been drawing parallels with the stagflation of the 1970s. But so far, at least, what we’re experiencing doesn’t look much like that. Most economies have been growing, not shrinking; unemployment has been falling, not rising. While there have been some supply disruptions — Chinese ports have suffered closures as a result of Covid outbreaks, in March a fire at a Japanese factory that supplies many of the semiconductor chips used in cars around the world hit auto production, and so on — these disruptions aren’t the main story.

Probably the best parallel is not with 1974 or 1979 but with the Korean War, when inflation spiked, hitting almost 10 percent at an annual rate, because supply couldn’t keep up with surging demand.

Is demand really all that high? Real final sales (purchases for consumption or investment) in the United States hit a record high but are roughly back to the prepandemic trend. However, the composition of demand has changed. During the worst of the pandemic, people were unable or unwilling to consume services like restaurant meals, and they compensated by buying more stuff — consumer durables like cars, household appliances and electronics. At their peak, purchases of durable goods were an astonishing 34 percent above prepandemic levels; they’ve come down some but are still very high. Something similar seems to have happened around the world.

Meanwhile, supply has been constrained not just by clogged ports and chip shortages but also by the Great Resignation, the apparent reluctance of many workers to return to their old jobs. Like inflation and shortages of goods, this is an international phenomenon. Reports from Britain, in particular, sound remarkably like those from the United States: Large numbers of workers, especially older workers, appear to have chosen to stay at home and perhaps retire early after having been forced off their jobs by Covid-19.

While the problems may be global, the political fallout is local: Shortages and inflation are clearly hurting Biden’s approval rating. But what could or should U.S. policymakers be doing differently?

As I’ve already suggested, energy prices are largely out of U.S. control.

A few months ago, there were widespread claims that enhanced unemployment benefits were discouraging workers from accepting jobs. Many states rushed to cancel these benefits even before they expired at a national level in early September. But there has been no visible positive effect on labor supply.

Should current shortages inspire caution about Democratic spending plans? No. At this point, the Build Back Better agenda, if it happens at all, will amount to only about 0.6 percent of G.D.P. over the next decade, largely paid for by tax increases. It won’t be a significant inflationary force; if anything, more spending on infrastructure would help alleviate inflationary pressures over time.

Other things might help. I’ve argued in the past that vaccine mandates, by making Americans feel safer about going to work and buying services rather than goods, could play a role in unclogging supply chains.

What’s left? If inflation really starts to look as if it’s getting embedded in the economy, the Federal Reserve should head it off by tightening policy, eventually by raising interest rates. It’s important to realize, however, that raising rates too soon could turn out to be a big mistake, since the Fed won’t have much room to cut rates if demand weakens.

The most important point, however, may be not to overreact to current events. The fact that shortages and inflation are happening around the world is actually an indication that national policies aren’t the main cause of the problems. They are, instead, largely inevitable as economies try to restart after the epic disruptions caused by Covid-19. It will take time to sort things out — more time than most people, myself included, expected. But a frantic attempt to restore the status quo on inflation would do more harm than good."

This is where I go cradle. Krugman has long since not been an economist anymore than I’m an economist. It’s an oped of that level of weighting. With Janet Yellen or Larry Summers you might get differing arguments on various topics over time. With krugman I predicted it before reading it.

The worst is this specious argument that if they’re raise rates off an absolute (at least until we delve into theoretical) bottom then they’ll have to immediately reverse if the economy weakens as if he doesn’t believe in basics of economics such as business cycles. That’s a short term-ist political viewpoint not one of an economist.

Farfromgeneva wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 8:05 am This is where I go cradle. Krugman has long since not been an economist anymore than I’m an economist. It’s an oped of that level of weighting. With Janet Yellen or Larry Summers you might get differing arguments on various topics over time. With krugman I predicted it before reading it.

The worst is this specious argument that if they’re raise rates off an absolute (at least until we delve into theoretical) bottom then they’ll have to immediately reverse if the economy weakens as if he doesn’t believe in basics of economics such as business cycles. That’s a short term-ist political viewpoint not one of an economist.

Agreed; it is just an opinion, with a certain political bias. But I don't think that makes it unworthy of a read. Anyway, you have the remote and can change the channel. It's enough to understand that energy cost spikes and supply chain shortages are complicated, and the data showing how they come about is varied. Just a little education. How about those Braves?

seacoaster wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 8:09 am

Farfromgeneva wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 8:05 am This is where I go cradle. Krugman has long since not been an economist anymore than I’m an economist. It’s an oped of that level of weighting. With Janet Yellen or Larry Summers you might get differing arguments on various topics over time. With krugman I predicted it before reading it.

The worst is this specious argument that if they’re raise rates off an absolute (at least until we delve into theoretical) bottom then they’ll have to immediately reverse if the economy weakens as if he doesn’t believe in basics of economics such as business cycles. That’s a short term-ist political viewpoint not one of an economist.

Agreed; it is just an opinion, with a certain political bias. But I don't think that makes it unworthy of a read. Anyway, you have the remote and can change the channel. It's enough to understand that energy cost spikes and supply chain shortages are complicated, and the data showing how they come about is varied. Just a little education. How about those Braves?

Maybe others will appreciate it I just don’t like how he’s presented and tested like an agnostic academic.

OpEds used to test theory’s though. That would be educational. Thai ain’t about energy, and we’ve been measuring core CPI long enough that even the anti education crowd (Cradle - and I’m not being mean he intentionally carries the torch for no education is good) have made the point on these threads that measuring core inflation is bs (I disagree but separate point). He should address wage inflation, for better or worse (I think the former but we have to adjust structurally to that), where we are seeing a number of boomers took permanent early retirement through Covid. But attacking non-core CPI measure is anti educational.

This seems to be reverse inquiry of “I reject arguments made by the other side, so I’m going to argue against common economic agreement simply in order to make a case while wrapping myself in the veneer of academic”. And if it’s just political history without being educational then is your interest merely in spreading anti educational gospel? If that’s the case so be it but then it’s sort of disingenuous to say “change the channel” rather than dispute your intention of putting up dedicated politically biased material no different than I have with ridiculous stuff from OS, Kram, Brooklyn and Dis. Their efforts are pretty transparent though.

I don’t mind HCR she illuminates. This is different though. Inflation isn’t being driven by non-core energy and even the dimwits and know nothings know this.

Here’s the dirty little secret about all economics: it has zero predictive abilities. It’s good at telling narratives and perhaps some pattern recognition but when an “economist” pounds the table on predictive and wraps themselves in their economist blanket they are flat out lying.

Funny how this happens organically. Without govt involvement.

Also funny how I competed with a team in B school on a global a school computer simulation and we won over like 200 teams for keeping it simple and producing close by the largest market (Mexico to Us), had some strikes and stuff but all these elegant silly chains groups were building to sell into modest markets made zero sense and we blew them away. That was a bit over 15yrs ago.

Pandemic Rewrites CEO Rulebook—Putting Reliability Before Efficiency
Uncertainty in the global supply chain is driving executives to seek operations away from cheaper countries to locales affording greater control

By Thomas Gryta and Chip Cutter
Nov. 1, 2021 11:14 am ET

SAVE

SHARE

TEXT
1

Listen to article
Length 9 minutes

Queue
With the machinery of international trade slowed, business leaders are ditching, at least temporarily, overseas partners and the conventional wisdom of the global economy in favor of reliability, even if it costs more.

Some are moving workers and production facilities closer to home and relocating plants closer to suppliers. Others are buying their suppliers or bringing former contract work in-house.

“It’s about control. I want to have more control in an uncertain world,” said Ellen Kullman, chief executive of 3-D printing company Carbon Inc. and the former CEO of DuPont.

For more than a generation, many executives at large multinationals have pursued a tested strategy: securing inexpensive manufacturing in distant locales, outsourcing many low-skill jobs and relying on just-in-time production and ocean transportation to grind down costs.

But since the pandemic, many companies have had trouble getting raw materials as well as hiring production workers and booking space on shipping vessels. Input shortages and supply line bottlenecks are disrupting the availability and quality of goods and services for everything from sneakers to airline flights to breakfast hours at McDonald’s.

Ms. Kullman, who also is a director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Dell Technologies Inc., said some of her customers in automotive, medical and consumer durable goods, industries that rely on manufacturing facilities in Europe and Asia, increasingly want a presence in the Americas.

“They’re realizing, right now, they’re losing business because they’re kind of stuck with a very long, very efficient—but very inflexible—supply chain,” Ms. Kullman said.

“There are some people who are saying, ‘Look, what I need is short term because this is never going to happen again,’” she said. “Then there are other people who are saying, ‘This is going to happen more often than we think.’ The world is a very different place, and it’s not just the pandemic. It’s natural disasters. It’s the floods down in the South. It’s tornadoes, it’s hurricanes.”


Supply chain troubles at Benetton, the Italian clothing company, hit chief executive Massimo Renon in September. He tried to order a blue peacoat on the company’s website and found it was out of stock.


The Black Friday sale last year at a United Colors of Benetton kid's fashion store in Zurich.
PHOTO: ARND WIEGMANN/REUTERS
“I was asking my team, ‘How can that be?’ ” Mr. Renon said. “And they told me, very openly, raw materials are late, logistic transportation is a mess, production cost is increasing dramatically, control of the supply chain is impossible.”

The company has since decided to boost manufacturing in Serbia, Croatia, Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt, away from less expensive but more distant locales such as Thailand. It is a reversal of the decadeslong shift by many apparel companies to Asian factories that offered low-cost supplies.

Delta Air Lines Inc. discovered during the pandemic that its contractors couldn’t find enough people to clean planes or push wheelchairs in U.S. airports. The airline hired its own.

“I’m not waiting for them,” Delta Chief Executive Ed Bastian said in August. “I’ve in-sourced it, and I’m not looking back.”

Delta hired thousands of airport employees in the past months, Mr. Bastian said, paying entry-level wages generally higher than those offered by contractors. Many business leaders are waiting for the labor market to loosen, he said. But he isn’t holding his breath.

“I think a lot of people have retired. I think a lot of people have moved,” Mr. Bastian said. “If you’re running a hotel and you can’t find staff, well, staff isn’t going to show up magically. You got to go out and you got to be creative.”


A Delta Air Lines terminal this summer at Los Angeles International Airport.
PHOTO: MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES
In-house supply

Home builder PulteGroup faces daily shortages of such essentials as windows, paint and appliances. To keep work sites going, the company sometimes has to retrieve available materials from spots across the U.S.

“We also have to be flexible and creative in sourcing materials even if this means spending additional dollars,” Chief Executive Ryan Marshall said on a conference call last week.

The Atlanta-based company is building an automated manufacturing facility in South Carolina, set to open next year. The plant is intended to make up for a shortage of skilled workers expected to continue over the next decade. It will be Pulte’s second off-site facility to assemble components for its homes. The first, acquired last year and located in Jacksonville, Fla., makes wall panels, floor systems and roof trusses, which also have been in short supply.

“You’re in a bit more control of your destiny” by having your own facilities, Mr. Marshall said. The company plans to build six to eight of the factories in coming years, he said, but even that won’t eliminate uncertainty. The company needs raw materials, he said, “and, clearly, those are in short supply.”


Shipping delays and trucking bottlenecks are making many companies rethink geography for every part of their operations. Multinational companies got an early shock in the pandemic when border closings, local restrictions and lockdowns caused chaos. Some have decided on permanent solutions.

Majestic Steel USA, which processes and distributes flat-rolled steel for a number of industries, has used acquisitions to broaden its footprint to the West Coast, adding to locations in Ohio, Nevada, Florida and Texas.

“We want to be closer to our customers, whether because of trucking capacity or just the pure challenges and impediments in the supply chain,” said Dave Kipe, Majestic’s chief operating officer.

The company also is trying to close the distance from suppliers. In August, Majestic committed to building a 515,000 square-foot facility on the grounds of a Nucor Corp. steel mill in Arkansas.

“We get a lot of steel from Nucor,” Mr. Kipe said. “Instead of shipping it to Cleveland, we will be much closer to the site and can reduce lead time.”


A worker securing a roll of steel to a flatbed truck at a Nucor steel plant in Ghent, Ky.
PHOTO: TIMOTHY D. EASLEY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Disruptions from hurricanes and other severe weather also figures into production decisions.

Sherwin-Williams Co. decided to buy one of its suppliers with operations far from the Gulf of Mexico, where bad weather has hampered production.

The paint-maker has cut its 2021 earnings and sales projections because resin suppliers, hurt by Hurricane Ida this summer, are taking longer to resume production. By acquiring Specialty Polymers Inc., which has facilities in Woodburn, Ore., and Chester, S.C., Sherwin-Williams can increase output and reduce severe-weather risks, executives said.

“These plants on the East Coast and West Coast get us out of the heavy reliance on the coast down in the Louisiana, Houston area,” Sherwin-Williams Chief Executive John Morikis said in a September conference call.


A Sherwin Williams truck driving past the Northwest Container Services facility in Portland, Ore.
PHOTO: ALEX MILAN TRACY/SIPA/REUTERS
Closer to home

At Benetton, executives spent the summer studying how to overcome delays and rising costs in its supply chain. About 58% of the company’s production is in Asia.

Using third-party producers in Laos, Cambodia, China and Thailand is cheaper. But it requires regular visits to make sure manufacturing and materials meet quality standards, said Mr. Renon, the Benetton boss, and some aspects, such as production timing, aren’t under the company’s control overseas.

The plan is to cut its Asia-based production by half in the next 12 to 16 months and move the work to countries on the Mediterranean. Benetton plans to increase production in company-owned facilities in Serbia, Croatia and Tunisia. The remaining work will be done through partnerships in Egypt and Turkey. The moves will cut transportation costs, the company said, and travel times will fall from several weeks to one week.

Mr. Renon said he was confident the higher cost of production would be offset, in part, with better merchandise. Customers may buy less, he said, “but they come to us when they want to have something based on quality.”


Supply uncertainty is especially tough on young companies trying to get a foothold in their market. Bartesian Inc., a Chicago startup that makes a countertop cocktail machine, had to revamp its manufacturing strategy just as demand soared in the pandemic.

The company had a deal with Hamilton Beach to manufacture the machines in China, where Bartesian also planned to produce the recyclable capsules used to make drinks. The company last year scrapped its plan to make the drink capsules only in China, and it set up a second facility outside Chicago.

“We’ve learned that we need to have control,” Bartesian CEO Ryan Close said. “We can’t be at the mercy of our suppliers.”

Production in Chicago costs more than China, but the current shipping logjam would have likely left Bartesian empty-handed or losing money to import the products from overseas, Mr. Close said. The company was at stake.

“If we run out of capsules,” he said, “we go out of business.”

Write to Thomas Gryta at [email protected] and Chip Cutter at [email protected]

So does that mean Trump was a step ahead....maybe he knew covid was coming, maybe thats why he was picking a nit with China to get the US to realize we needn't rely so heavily on them, or maybe it was just dumb luck.

And before afan yells at me, wanting to bet me a steak dinner that I can't name one thing Trump did to help flyover America or manufacturing....my point is not what he accomplished in those tumultuous years, rather the vision.....much the same vision of "build back better".

youthathletics wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:59 am So does that mean Trump was a step ahead....maybe he knew covid was coming, maybe thats why he was picking a nit with China to get the US to realize we needn't rely so heavily on them, or maybe it was just dumb luck.

And before afan yells at me, wanting to bet me a steak dinner that I can't name one thing Trump did to help flyover America or manufacturing....my point is not what he accomplished in those tumultuous years, rather the vision.....much the same vision of "build back better".

You mean the vision like "what's in this for me?"

Getting to a similar place under different conditions is obviously not the same thing. It only demonstrates the desires of the people the politicians pander to are self serving populists who aren’t interested in engagement in compromise.

Kismet wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:12 pm

youthathletics wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:59 am So does that mean Trump was a step ahead....maybe he knew covid was coming, maybe thats why he was picking a nit with China to get the US to realize we needn't rely so heavily on them, or maybe it was just dumb luck.

And before afan yells at me, wanting to bet me a steak dinner that I can't name one thing Trump did to help flyover America or manufacturing....my point is not what he accomplished in those tumultuous years, rather the vision.....much the same vision of "build back better".

You mean the vision like "what's in this for me?"

Of course....that is expected.

youthathletics wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:59 am So does that mean Trump was a step ahead....maybe he knew covid was coming, maybe thats why he was picking a nit with China to get the US to realize we needn't rely so heavily on them, or maybe it was just dumb luck.

And before afan yells at me, wanting to bet me a steak dinner that I can't name one thing Trump did to help flyover America or manufacturing....my point is not what he accomplished in those tumultuous years, rather the vision.....much the same vision of "build back better".

youthathletics wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:59 am So does that mean Trump was a step ahead....maybe he knew covid was coming, maybe thats why he was picking a nit with China to get the US to realize we needn't rely so heavily on them, or maybe it was just dumb luck.

And before afan yells at me, wanting to bet me a steak dinner that I can't name one thing Trump did to help flyover America or manufacturing....my point is not what he accomplished in those tumultuous years, rather the vision.....much the same vision of "build back better".

So you believe Trump has a strategic vision of any kind other than how to get a POV around/over his fat gut of a paid for pornstar providing service to him?

Farfromgeneva wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:21 pm

youthathletics wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:59 am So does that mean Trump was a step ahead....maybe he knew covid was coming, maybe thats why he was picking a nit with China to get the US to realize we needn't rely so heavily on them, or maybe it was just dumb luck.

And before afan yells at me, wanting to bet me a steak dinner that I can't name one thing Trump did to help flyover America or manufacturing....my point is not what he accomplished in those tumultuous years, rather the vision.....much the same vision of "build back better".

So you believe Trump has a strategic vision of any kind other than how to get a POV around/over his fat gut of a paid for pornstar providing service to him?

It was more of a tongue and cheek observation, looking backwards.

youthathletics wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:23 pm

Farfromgeneva wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:21 pm

youthathletics wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:59 am So does that mean Trump was a step ahead....maybe he knew covid was coming, maybe thats why he was picking a nit with China to get the US to realize we needn't rely so heavily on them, or maybe it was just dumb luck.

And before afan yells at me, wanting to bet me a steak dinner that I can't name one thing Trump did to help flyover America or manufacturing....my point is not what he accomplished in those tumultuous years, rather the vision.....much the same vision of "build back better".

So you believe Trump has a strategic vision of any kind other than how to get a POV around/over his fat gut of a paid for pornstar providing service to him?

It was more of a tongue and cheek observation, looking backwards.

I just wanted to give you and everyone else that mental picture. His little hands pulling at his fat stomach so he could get that good downward eyes locking view except the fat layer isn’t accommodating his desire no matter how much he tries to pull it back or push it around to see more than just the back or bobbing highly teased hair.

I would kindly like everyone to take a gander at the CEO of Medable... Michelle Longmire. I would "invest" every day of the week and 5-6x on Sundays.

youthathletics wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 11:59 am So does that mean Trump was a step ahead....maybe he knew covid was coming, maybe thats why he was picking a nit with China to get the US to realize we needn't rely so heavily on them, or maybe it was just dumb luck.

And before afan yells at me, wanting to bet me a steak dinner that I can't name one thing Trump did to help flyover America or manufacturing....my point is not what he accomplished in those tumultuous years, rather the vision.....much the same vision of "build back better".

I don't want to yell at you, my man.

But geez, every President since Clinton has made the claim that they're bringing back jobs to American from overseas. We HAVE to call them on this BS when they do NOTHING to further that cause.

And yep, Biden will be no different when it come to producing things in the US when his four years are over.

How about we bet a steak dinner on that?

November 1, 2021
Heather Cox Richardson
Nov 2

Americans appear to be waking up to the reality that our democracy is on the ropes.

Emerging details about how hard Trump lawyer John Eastman pushed his memo with the plan of how Trump could steal the 2020 election, along with the chronology of the events surrounding the January 6 insurrection compiled by reporters for the Washington Post, show that we came perilously close to a successful coup d’état.

New polls show that 82% of people who watch the Fox News Channel believe the Big Lie that President Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election; 30% of Republicans think violence might be warranted to reclaim America.

And tonight, Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson claimed that he had heard a tape of a phone conversation between far right activist Ali Alexander and members of Congress, as well as state legislators, about descending on Washington, D.C., for the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6.

This information appeared to be an attempt to get ahead of the story. Carlson said that there was “no talk of insurrection.” (But why were lawmakers on any such call in the first place?)

Still, while there is increasing focus on the attempt to overturn the 2020 election and keep former president Trump in power, there has been little discussion of what the destabilization of our democracy means for the economy. This is no small thing, because since the late nineteenth century, it has been the stability of our nation that has attracted investment. That investment, in turn, has built our economy.

An October 27 article by Courtney Fingar, Ben van der Merwe, and Sebastian Shehadi in Investment Monitor warns that “efforts to undermine the integrity of US elections carry a heavy cost for businesses and could weaken investment in the country.”

The authors put a price tag on U.S. political strife. Drawing on a study by Texas-based economic analysts The Perryman Group, they estimate that Texas’s voter suppression measures will cost the state $14.7 billion in annual gross product by 2025 and $1.5 trillion over the next 25 years. The Perryman Group’s study itself warned that Texas would lose 73,249 jobs by 2025 as businesses and investment flee the state and as voter suppression is correlated to declining wages.

“For the first time since the Cold War, there is now concern about medium and long-term political stability of the US business environment,” Jonathan Wood, lead analyst for North America at global political risk consultancy Control Risks, told the reporters. “And what we are seeing in voter suppression acts and political gerrymandering, etc, is undermining that perception of the US as a very predictable and stable environment.”

Dr Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on authoritarianism, explains that when the rule of law, which treats every business equally, has been replaced by the whims of a dictator, success depends on closeness to the leader rather than on quality. “One of the biggest myths of authoritarianism is that it is ‘good for business,’” she said. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin has jailed over 100,000 business people on trumped-up charges of tax evasion, financial irregularities, etc. Anyone with a profitable enterprise becomes a target, regardless of their political sentiments. This practice goes on in Hungary and Turkey too. Business people should know that this can happen anywhere, to anyone, if autocrats take power.”

The Perryman Group concluded: "While there are many other important advantages to, and compelling reasons for, encouraging political participation by all eligible citizens, the economic ramifications are substantial and worthy of significant attention as restrictions on voter access are considered.”

An example of what it looks like economically when we lose the rule of law came last week in a story about Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) and his brother-in-law Gerald Fauth. Both men apparently dumped stock after Burr was part of a private official briefing in February 2020 about the looming coronavirus pandemic. After Burr sold more than $1.6 million in stocks, he called Fauth and talked for 50 seconds. A minute later, Fauth called his broker and sold between $97,000 and $280,000 in stocks. The next week, the market began a drop of what would eventually be more than 30%.

Burr claims he relied on public information when he decided to sell and that he did not coordinate with Fauth.

Meanwhile, the culture wars in which the Republicans are engaged at home keep focus off the damage the debt ceiling fight is doing to us in the world. In October, Republican senators allowed the Democrats to pass a measure to raise the debt ceiling to pay for measures Congress already enacted, but the Treasury will hit that new ceiling no later than mid-December.

Republicans have vowed they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling despite the fact that a default would send shockwaves around the world and would likely remove the U.S. permanently from its powerful position among other nations.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged Democrats to raise the debt ceiling by themselves if necessary. “If Democrats have to do it by themselves, that’s better than defaulting on the debt to teach the Republicans a lesson,” she told the Washington Post.

​​Today, Time magazine ran a story by Molly Ball about business leaders who are starting to stand up for democracy. The lower taxes and less regulation Republicans promise aren’t much good without a stable democracy, some business leaders told Ball. “The market economy works because of the bedrock foundation of the rule of law, the peaceful succession of power and the reserve currency of the U.S. dollar, and all of these things were potentially at risk,” former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer said. “CEOs are normally hesitant to get involved in political issues, but I would argue that this was a fundamental business issue.”

Republicans disagree. Today, in a remarkable op-ed in The American Conservative, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) called “corporate America... the instrument of anti-American ideologies.” He accused Wall Street of “devoting hundreds of billions of dollars to advance corporate propaganda” that promotes Marxist tactics. Rubio wants to “require that the leadership of large companies be subject to strict scrutiny and legal liability when they abuse their corporate privilege by pushing wasteful, anti-American nonsense.”

In a passage that sounds much like that of a political purge, he warned readers of “the current Marxist cultural revolution among our corporate elite,” and said that “the ultimate way” to stop them “is to replace them with a new generation of business leaders who consider themselves Americans, not citizens of the world…. That is how we defeat this toxic cultural Marxism and rebuild an economy where America’s largest companies were accountable for what matters to America: new factories built in America, good jobs for American families, and investments in American neighborhoods and communities.”

In the op-ed, Rubio played to the Republican base by bashing China, but he could not outdo his colleague Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who said yesterday at a political rally that the U.S. should demand $5 trillion in reparations from the Chinese for “unleashing” the novel coronavirus and if they would not pay up, we should simply seize their assets in the U.S.

It is long past time we stop permitting these people to call themselves “conservatives.”

This is loosely at best the most appropriate of the various threads for this piece I would think. Populism run amok on both sides. Interesting oped I’m WSJ I got sucked into how there’s really four parties and function more like a European parliamentary system these days.

A long term goal is to minimize the footprint our welfare system has on the US taxpayer. (the 1/20 salary ratio )

SO....if POTUSA Biden can mandate government contracted bizne$$ to be vaxxed.....why not require the same for payroll ?

Come ON Joe, make it a crime: The highest paid person can only earn 20 times more than the lowest paid employee. Don't like it? Sell your killing machines and it's "sofware" stuff at walmart and amazon....they are, essential, after all.

Fauci is maxed out, as a Federal Employee........why allow "private" (yet a STOCK/wallstreet traded thingy ) payrolls to be a ratio of 1 to 300 , for Federal contracted ....companies.

AOC thinks the idea is silly.....too. She is NO socialist.......water carrier for the oligarchs.

CU88 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 02, 2021 9:34 am November 1, 2021
Heather Cox Richardson
Nov 2

Americans appear to be waking up to the reality that our democracy is on the ropes.

Emerging details about how hard Trump lawyer John Eastman pushed his memo with the plan of how Trump could steal the 2020 election, along with the chronology of the events surrounding the January 6 insurrection compiled by reporters for the Washington Post, show that we came perilously close to a successful coup d’état.

New polls show that 82% of people who watch the Fox News Channel believe the Big Lie that President Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election; 30% of Republicans think violence might be warranted to reclaim America.

And tonight, Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson claimed that he had heard a tape of a phone conversation between far right activist Ali Alexander and members of Congress, as well as state legislators, about descending on Washington, D.C., for the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6.

This information appeared to be an attempt to get ahead of the story. Carlson said that there was “no talk of insurrection.” (But why were lawmakers on any such call in the first place?)

Still, while there is increasing focus on the attempt to overturn the 2020 election and keep former president Trump in power, there has been little discussion of what the destabilization of our democracy means for the economy. This is no small thing, because since the late nineteenth century, it has been the stability of our nation that has attracted investment. That investment, in turn, has built our economy.

An October 27 article by Courtney Fingar, Ben van der Merwe, and Sebastian Shehadi in Investment Monitor warns that “efforts to undermine the integrity of US elections carry a heavy cost for businesses and could weaken investment in the country.”

The authors put a price tag on U.S. political strife. Drawing on a study by Texas-based economic analysts The Perryman Group, they estimate that Texas’s voter suppression measures will cost the state $14.7 billion in annual gross product by 2025 and $1.5 trillion over the next 25 years. The Perryman Group’s study itself warned that Texas would lose 73,249 jobs by 2025 as businesses and investment flee the state and as voter suppression is correlated to declining wages.

“For the first time since the Cold War, there is now concern about medium and long-term political stability of the US business environment,” Jonathan Wood, lead analyst for North America at global political risk consultancy Control Risks, told the reporters. “And what we are seeing in voter suppression acts and political gerrymandering, etc, is undermining that perception of the US as a very predictable and stable environment.”

Dr Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on authoritarianism, explains that when the rule of law, which treats every business equally, has been replaced by the whims of a dictator, success depends on closeness to the leader rather than on quality. “One of the biggest myths of authoritarianism is that it is ‘good for business,’” she said. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin has jailed over 100,000 business people on trumped-up charges of tax evasion, financial irregularities, etc. Anyone with a profitable enterprise becomes a target, regardless of their political sentiments. This practice goes on in Hungary and Turkey too. Business people should know that this can happen anywhere, to anyone, if autocrats take power.”

The Perryman Group concluded: "While there are many other important advantages to, and compelling reasons for, encouraging political participation by all eligible citizens, the economic ramifications are substantial and worthy of significant attention as restrictions on voter access are considered.”

An example of what it looks like economically when we lose the rule of law came last week in a story about Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) and his brother-in-law Gerald Fauth. Both men apparently dumped stock after Burr was part of a private official briefing in February 2020 about the looming coronavirus pandemic. After Burr sold more than $1.6 million in stocks, he called Fauth and talked for 50 seconds. A minute later, Fauth called his broker and sold between $97,000 and $280,000 in stocks. The next week, the market began a drop of what would eventually be more than 30%.

Burr claims he relied on public information when he decided to sell and that he did not coordinate with Fauth.

Meanwhile, the culture wars in which the Republicans are engaged at home keep focus off the damage the debt ceiling fight is doing to us in the world. In October, Republican senators allowed the Democrats to pass a measure to raise the debt ceiling to pay for measures Congress already enacted, but the Treasury will hit that new ceiling no later than mid-December.

Republicans have vowed they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling despite the fact that a default would send shockwaves around the world and would likely remove the U.S. permanently from its powerful position among other nations.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged Democrats to raise the debt ceiling by themselves if necessary. “If Democrats have to do it by themselves, that’s better than defaulting on the debt to teach the Republicans a lesson,” she told the Washington Post.

​​Today, Time magazine ran a story by Molly Ball about business leaders who are starting to stand up for democracy. The lower taxes and less regulation Republicans promise aren’t much good without a stable democracy, some business leaders told Ball. “The market economy works because of the bedrock foundation of the rule of law, the peaceful succession of power and the reserve currency of the U.S. dollar, and all of these things were potentially at risk,” former Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer said. “CEOs are normally hesitant to get involved in political issues, but I would argue that this was a fundamental business issue.”

Republicans disagree. Today, in a remarkable op-ed in The American Conservative, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) called “corporate America... the instrument of anti-American ideologies.” He accused Wall Street of “devoting hundreds of billions of dollars to advance corporate propaganda” that promotes Marxist tactics. Rubio wants to “require that the leadership of large companies be subject to strict scrutiny and legal liability when they abuse their corporate privilege by pushing wasteful, anti-American nonsense.”

In a passage that sounds much like that of a political purge, he warned readers of “the current Marxist cultural revolution among our corporate elite,” and said that “the ultimate way” to stop them “is to replace them with a new generation of business leaders who consider themselves Americans, not citizens of the world…. That is how we defeat this toxic cultural Marxism and rebuild an economy where America’s largest companies were accountable for what matters to America: new factories built in America, good jobs for American families, and investments in American neighborhoods and communities.”

In the op-ed, Rubio played to the Republican base by bashing China, but he could not outdo his colleague Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who said yesterday at a political rally that the U.S. should demand $5 trillion in reparations from the Chinese for “unleashing” the novel coronavirus and if they would not pay up, we should simply seize their assets in the U.S.

It is long past time we stop permitting these people to call themselves “conservatives.”

I dunno if Heather is actually right with that first sentence.

Seems to me that only some Americans are "waking up to the reality that our democracy is on the ropes".

Seems to me that a big portion of America is quite asleep, indeed is actually buying into the outright authoritarianism that Rubio is spouting...now we have "Marxist" corporate and Wall street leaders? "Marxist"???

Yet, the sheep are buying into this, repeating it...no matter how absolutely crazy wrong. A big portion of America is quite willing to buy into the idea that I'd paraphrase as "well, maybe that's an extreme way to say it, but there's truth there too...and we're willing to 'fight' against it"...in other words, the propaganda is working...and by "fight", while some mean politically, others literally mean violence. But it's those who may well mean 'politically' who are actually the weight of the 'mob' that makes the authoritarian successful, as it gives license to any means necessary, with plenty of those willing to be violent encouraged to 'take action'...'direct action'...

These guys are deadly serious in their ambitions.
Power, control, any means necessary.