Category: Money

Have you heard of TTIP?  Most people have no idea what it is.  It’s the Trans Atlantic Investment and Trade Partnership.  It’s all about removing “non tariff trade barriers”.  In other words, allowing businesses to undermine government.   They put aside the idea that Democratically elected governments SHOULD reflect the will of the people.  More often now these purchased government officials represent the lobbyists who’ve bought them.  That must be remembered as context for the remaining explanation.

Think about a dark, smokey room, closed doors, full of billionaires and politicians from the EU conducting these “negotiations”.  That’s not much exaggeration.  It’s what’s happening right now and it is the greatest threat to regional government sovereignty in the history of planet earth.  The premise is simple from the corporate perspective: removing regional legal barriers to international trade will result in prosperity for big business and therefore prosperity to all.  An international “trickle”.  Except this is pissing on everyone and everything for profit, not just the working poor.  The international version of “What’s best for Wall Street is best for Main Street”, the ongoing farce wrapped inside corporate PR lies.

Imagine a country having rules in place about GMO’s, environmental protections, addictive substances such as cigarettes voted on and supported democratically by the voters of that region or country.  Then understand that a built in component of the TTIP, an ISDS or Investor State Dispute Settlement clause, would allow corporations to file suit against a government for imposing laws that impact a corporations profits.  That’s right, a direct mechanism for international corporations to undermine democratically enacted laws for consumer, environmental and economic protections.  It’s ugly.  Real ugly and many a pro-business corporatist will stop at nothing to proclaim this a benefit.  Really, allowing corporations to over ride local and regional government regulations and protections a benefit?  I don’t give one damn how they try to candy coat that BS.  It stinks.

Again, these negotiations are all taking place very much in secret.  Recently the BBC questioned this transparency and the only pro corporatist panel response was “transparency could help businesses decide”.  That infuriated me.  How about this… Screw your big business and your single track profiteering mind!  Profit seems to be the only thing these people can correlate anything to.  The transparency is needed for the human beings these negotiations will inflict havoc upon.  In case the smart ass, pro corporate geniuses haven’t noticed corporate profits do not translate into jobs or a more stable economy for the middle class, they enrich the 2%.  The European estimates show 600K jobs lost to TTIP.  European farmers will be undermined as TTIP lowers import standards for US foods while they must adhere to local laws.  The will of the people is going to be undermined by the will of corporate leaders and profiteers who will stop at nothing, including killing people, making others destitute and destroying the environment all in the name of a return to shareholders.  This is not an exaggeration.

It’s noted that 97% of European consumer consults reject TTIP.  Ninety seven f*#king percent.  Yet they move ahead with these “negotiations”.  Why?  Corporate influence.

The counter argument in favor of ISDS is that corporations should be able to invest in foreign lands without the threat of new laws undermining their profitability.  Governments see this as a way to entice multinational corporations.  In other words, they want to negate international investment risk and insure future corporate profits.  Too big too fail, tax payer bailouts, ISDS – all mechanisms distorting what they refer to as a “free market” in the name of sought after, insured revenue and profits.

How much longer is the world going to stand by and let the wealthy international corporations tear down all consumer protection barriers to insure profit?  Not long from now we will literally be paying taxes to insure corporations and industries do not fail and that shareholders are guaranteed returns.   Workers, humans, the environment, be damned.  To these short sighted fools it’s ALL about profit, all the time.  This is not just unsustainable, it’s f*#king ludicrous and self deprecating.  It’s a miscalculated destruction of a world wide consumer base over the long term.

When you hear anything about globalization sold as beneficial remember that LOCAL is best.  LOCAL wins.  We cannot continue to hand over the will of the people in LOCAL communities to big business so their shareholders are insured profits.  I don’t know how these corporatist pigs can sleep at night after worshiping at the altar of the dollar every day.

But I do ride through the intersection, by the Wendell Auto Brokers lot, almost daily.  Sometimes straight through the lot on my bike.  And I got into an argument on the phone with Amy Shirley once because of an undisclosed towing fee for all wheel drive cars.  It was before she claimed her fame and became too important to answer the phone.

Many Americans, in their immeasurable wisdom, support the war on labor.  They despise many of the vile things unions and labor rights provided: high wages, benefits, workplace safety.  These efforts raised the price of goods right, made it harder for American corporations to compete?  Pensions almost put several companies and municipalities in bankruptcy.  Labor rights, as so many Americans assert, set the stage for U.S. corporations and local governments to fail.  Damned unions!

We don’t need labor laws because the “free market” handles all of those things labor advocates are concerned about (the simpleton version, dumbed down for easy digestion):

• The market will dictate an employees value, no union representation is required to insure a living wage.
• Employer sponsored benefits only hurt a companies bottom line.  Don’t like your benefits, quit and get another job.  Or the universal old, ignorant, white guy solution: start your own business.  Everyone can work for themselves!  That’s realistic, sound advice.  No?
• Workplace safety is self correcting, if a company has an accident their workman’s comp insurance will go up so they have an inherent duty to a safe workplace.

Now lets return to reality.

It was indeed union negotiation that lead to the real problem, the pension, not workers rights.  America has a pension problem, not a labor problem.  Someone damn sure needs to be advocating for higher wages because Big Corp., Inc. and their masters, Wall St. shareholders, certainly aren’t.  America needs to return to being a model of stakeholder capitalism, not shareholder.  Customers and employees should be every companies first priority, not insuring returns to the “hard working” investors (the wealthiest of whom never worked a hard day in their lives).

Instead Americans fill their heads with corporatist propaganda from Fox News as they correlate anti-abortion legislation to vile labor laws.  They get their heads programmed to believe that “union thugs” are responsible for the downfall of GM.  While partially true due to pension negotiations, shitty, gas guzzling cars and recalls remain the true reason GM can’t get out of the red.  There I go with reality again.  We’re all supposed to ignore that, it’s called denial.

So, if we are going with “the rich are powerful, we should worship them because they earned it” let’s at least be honest about what conservative, anti-labor advocates really want; a class system.  Americans want haves and have-nots.   No middle class, nothing to insure fair wages, no upward mobility and definitely no job security.  No, we want “right to work” states.  Let me translate “right to work”.  Despite semantics and double talk explanations “right to work” really means right to fire your ass for any reason at all without liability.  Hell yes.  What a win!  That way entrepreneurs and businesses don’t have to worry about insuring employment.  They can downsize at any time so our businesses (never forget we are all independent owners/operators or “corporate persons” in America… or you’re supposed to be) can insure those guaranteed returns to the shareholders.

Yes, America hates labor.  We hate the labor movement, working for honest wages, we hate being a burden to corporations because they are people with feelings too.  We hate labor because liberals and progressives support the labor movement and they’re all going to hell in an abortion basket.  Labor is evil because it’s possible shareholders could actually face risks on their investments.  Better the wealthy investors and Wall St. have insured returns than employees have living wages.

Record profits. If that doesn’t work then record quarterly profits. Not making profit? Then try for some record revenue to reach record profits. Got decent profit? Get more.

This is the model of the retail industry. This model hits everyone in the economy on some level regardless of how distanced they perceive themselves to be from the drive for more profit under any circumstances by retailers. We already know that almost every product in America has been off shored for manufacturing thanks to the retailers demands for increased margins. This is one of the obvious costs to US workers and the economy. There are less obvious and more ominous tactics used by retailers to increase profit at the expense of working Americans.

Here’s one example: the price of cotton. A year ago it was trading in the mid $90’s/100 lbs. It’s now down in the mid to low $80’s. When prices rose retailers raised the price of everything from garments to drop cloths to maintain their margins. Okay fine, their costs went up from their vendors. Now the raw materials price is dropping and the manufacturers, distributors and vendors are enjoying a few more points themselves, which is rare. Not so fast say the retailers, we want our price drop, based on raw materials cost, or you will lose our business to someone else willing to practically give us merchandise. Okay fine… vendors/distributors drop the price under retailer demands to keep the business. So as a consumer you should see your retail price go down in turn correct?  Wrong.

Retailers establish industry or product base lines of what consumers are willing to pay and they stick.  True, competitive discounts to consumers between retailers may cost them a point or two but it does not come close to the margin increases they enjoy as consumer prices rise and their procurement costs fall.  In short, most big boxes don’t pass savings on to their customers.   They pass them on to shareholders.  Once again shareholder capitalism rears it ugly head.  Stakeholders such as employees of Big Box, Inc. don’t enjoy wage increases along with product margin increases.   Customers don’t enjoy price breaks.  It’s Wall Street investors who enjoy the additional cash in the coffers and possible dividends.  Placing investors above all else, a relatively new part of the American experiment, is unsustainable and works to greatly exaggerate the growing inequality in the United States which, despite any argument against the poor and the reason for being so, will lead to the countries ultimate demise.  Stay tuned.

Here’s what “sharing economy” means: People want to offer goods and services outside of the scope of regulation, let caveat emptor reign supreme.  This is not going to be a popular post.

Want to rent out a room in your house without any of the restrictions placed on hotels while dodging the taxes these legitimately run businesses have to pay?  Claim “sharing economy”.   Want to hire out you car without having to be a licensed taxi?  Yep, scream “sharing economy”.

Sounds like pure free market huh?  Just great until it is YOUR next door neighbor’s house that becomes a revolving door of strangers in their new illegal, unlicensed bed and breakfast.  “Ride sharing” services like the God foresaken Uber are all fun and money until women get raped and assualted.  Good times when your credit card gets unexpectedly nailed for what would have been an $18 cab ride during a claimed “surge”.  Cashing in on hipster ignorance seems to be Uber’s business model.  Bad actor Ashton Kutcher, with his passion for hipsters, pumped money in so he can take from his fan base during a “surge”.

Consumer safegaurds matter with regards to both physical and financial safety.  The desperately sought lack of regulation in the “sharing economy” provides neither and once these alernatives have to play by the same rules as legitimate player in the industry they will learn WHY no one did it before.  In the past people were smart enought understand they would not make money if they had to play by the rules.  We now have a generation of hipster trickies who think the rules don’t apply to them.  Please, let’s hear the word “entitled” used out of context some more.  Meanwhile let these little ego trips manifest while defying authority for profit.   Then lay down the hammer and bankrupt their grandchildren who haven’t even been born yet.   Portland and New Delhi and poised to start arresting Uber drivers and inpounding their cars.  PROCEED.

The US government and large corporations are counting on Americans growing ignorance in mathematics.  The US economy is on an unsustainable path and despite Republican hopes that it is all a “spending problem”, sorry, it is not a spending problem alone.  There are revenue and trade deficit problems as well.  Let’s look at some simpler numbers to understand the real effects of Free Trade Agreements and their effects on the US trade deficit:

When NAFTA was passed and signed by Bill Clinton in 1993, with applause and love from big business, the US had a trade SURPLUS with Mexico of 1.6 billion dollars.  We now have a trade deficit of 16.3 billion with Mexico because many companies, including Ford, sent their US manufacturing jobs to the land of cheap labor.

In 1985 we had a trade deficit with China of just over $2 million, yes million with a small m, and as of 2010 this deficit had boomed to a world history high of $283 billion.  Ya, that worked.

Free Trade Agreements have been sold by both political parties since the 90’s as “good for America”.  Yes, even Barack Obama used those words.  So he lied to because the math shows that these agreements have been horribly bad for most working Americans while enriching large corporations, the wealthy and other nations.  We handed them jobs.  How many?  Since 2001 53,000 US manufacturing facilities have closed.  It is estimated that over 20 million US jobs left the country thanks to Free Trade Agreements.  All touted by the “job creators” as good for America.

The growing trade deficit can’t be explained away by blaming the US government for too much spending.  This trade deficit is overwhelmingly the result of US consumer spending on foreign goods, not government spending.  Sorry Tea Party, no smoking gun or ammunition here for a misguided rant.  You can however blame both political parties for looking out for the corporations touting themselves as “job creators”.  Yep, they are creating jobs alright.  In Mexico, India, Bangladesh, China and even Pakistan, a country where the majority would like to go full Jihad on America and where textile exports are huge.

So the next time you here any politician talk about “brining jobs back to America” and then give another speech touting the positive virtues of “free trade” please recognize the blatant hypocrisy.   Also recognize they are no more than funded mouthpieces for those with the real control in America, large corporations.

It is sad we now live in a country where a candidate can never again run on a platform for a sustainable America.  A country where we could again produce for ourselves, staff call centers with Americans who speak English as a first language and focus on educational initiatives.  The numbers don’t add up on Free Trade.  Are we going to continue to ignore the math and listen idly while politicians continue to champion off shoring?  Or are we going to wake up and call bullshit on their corporate masters and repeal these laws that are exporting US jobs and US dollars out of the country?

I shook hands with Margret Thatcher on my second visit to Williamsburg, VA in 1997 while she was Chancellor at William and Mary.  She spoke at a commencement and I took pictures.  A few years earlier I met Dan Quayle while attending Liberty University.  That’s as much as I have to say about either encounter except that not long ago I went back to Williamsburg with Amy and we got drunk at a bar near the William and Mary campus.  It was a much more rewarding experience.

I forced myself to watch The Iron Lady when it debuted on HBO.  I was pleasantly surprised it didn’t paint Thatcher as the grand savior of England.  Champion of individual responsibility, she even proclaimed “There is no such thing as society, only self”.   Well, to me that’s just about as arrogant, short sighted and pretentious as it can get.   It also fully qualifies her to be the champion of Teabilly’s globally (which is now a concentrated minority in the southern United States.  England has grown up and moved on).  Here’s a list of Thatcher the Milk Snatcher’s achievements.   I would like to hear the conservative response to each since their admiration of self-centered evil is unwavering.  I would be willing to bet most of her US supporters know very little about her antics and comments or they might loath her as much as most Britons.

1. She publicly described Nelson Mandela as the leader of a “terrorist organization”.
2. In 1990 Thatcher was denounced by her own conservative party and ultimately forced to resign her office because she implemented a poll tax that caused rioting in the streets.
3. She embraced censorship, collusion and the documented killing of her citizens through covert operations (Sandbaggers).
4. She wrote off (killed) England’s manufacturing industry and decided she could live with 2-3 million newly unemployed, causing the highest rate of unemployment in England’s history .  I know, it will be hard to find a sympathetic conservative response to the negative effects of unemployment verses any immediate revenue gains for the private sector, benefiting very few.
5. She embraced banking and business deregulation with Reagan, coupled with Clinton’s ignorant repeal of Glass-Steagall, setting the ground work for the 2008 mortgage industry meltdown (Please, tell another lie about Barney Frank twisting the arms of bankers to make sketchy loans to unqualified borrowers.  We haven’t heard this hollow farce enough.  The Banksters made billions so even if it was true they need to send Barney some thank you letters).
6. She chose to embrace draconian military policies in Ireland, never entering negotiations with “terrorists”.  After she left office tensions between Northern Ireland and the British diminished as serious political negotiations proceeded and by 1997 the IRA cease fire became permanent.
7. Her son was found guilty of financing a military coup in New Guinea.  He was given a suspended sentence and a plane ticket home.  A sentence reserved for a select few with connections to the political aristocracy.
8. She never won an election by more than 48% of the popular vote.  This has been called a “landslide” in England but only because they are not a two party system.   So at any point at least half the population did not support her policies.  In the first election she won to become Prime Minister more than 60% of all votes went to other candidates.  Could you imagine the backlash if a US Presidential candidate won office with less than 40% of the popular vote?
9. The woman who despised social services and championed privatization was to have the 5th state sponsored funeral in England during the 20-21st centuries.  The last was Winston Churchill.  This was pre-negotiated by Thatchers representatives and the Queen.   She may even lay in state at Westminster Hall on the Briton’s Euro.  This is actually perfectly fitting because it personifies the blatant hypocrisy always on display by staunch conservatives.
10. She supported the NHS.  Yes, even a woman as conservative as Thatcher could see the benefits and necessity of national health care.  You can’t praise the woman and simultaneously denounce her policy positions.

Want to see how good England’s model of austerity under Thatcher works?  Look no further than Spain or Greece which adopted her model so their aristocracy (sorry…”job creators”) could continue to avoid paying taxes.  Millions are suffering, a tiny few are thriving.  Just the way conservatives seem to like it.