 24 January 20
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23 January 20
Robert Reich | Abuses of Power in Trumpworld and Davos
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Reich writes: "As the Senate debates Donald Trump's future, chief executives, financiers and politicians have assembled in Davos, Switzerland, for their annual self-congratulatory defense of global capitalism."
EXCERPT:
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The House managers Jason Crow, Jerrold Nadler, and Adam Schiff, who on Day 2 of the Senate impeachment trial offered a sweeping survey of the House's case against Trump. (photo: Erin Schaff/NYT)
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Reich writes: "As the Senate debates Donald Trump's future, chief executives, financiers and politicians have assembled in Davos, Switzerland, for their annual self-congratulatory defense of global capitalism."
EXCERPT:
This has been their strategy for three decades, and it’s about to get worse. Three researchers – Daniel Greenwald at MIT’s Sloan School, Martin Lettau at Berkeley and Sydney Ludvigson at NYU – found that between 1952 and 1988, economic growth accounted for 92% of the rise in equity values. But since 1989 most of the increase has come from “reallocated rents to shareholders and away from labor compensation”. In other words, from workers.
What this means is that in order for the stock market to do as well in coming years, either economic growth has to accelerate markedly (won’t happen), or chief executives will have to siphon off even more of the gains from growth from workers and other stakeholders to their shareholders.
The latter will require even more downward pressure on wages, more payoffs to politicians for tax cuts and subsidies and further rollbacks of environmental regulations. All of which will worsen the prevailing discontent.
There was no mention at Davos of any of this, nor of the increasing political and economic power of these elites and the diminishing power of average workers and citizens around the world.
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The House managers Jason Crow, Jerrold Nadler, and Adam Schiff, who on Day 2 of the Senate impeachment trial offered a sweeping survey of the House's case against Trump. (photo: Erin Schaff/NYT)
Adam Schiff's Moment in the Trump Impeachment Trial
Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker
Glasser writes: "More substantively, Schiff offered a sweeping survey of the case that leaned hard into themes designed to resonate with national-security-minded Republicans."
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Jim Lehrer. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/AP)
Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker
Glasser writes: "More substantively, Schiff offered a sweeping survey of the case that leaned hard into themes designed to resonate with national-security-minded Republicans."
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Jim Lehrer. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/AP)
Remembering Jim Lehrer
Anne Azzi Davenport and Jeffrey Brown, PBS
Excerpt: "PBS NewsHour co-founder Jim Lehrer, a giant in journalism known for his tenacity and dedication to simply delivering the news, died peacefully in his sleep at home on Thursday, at the age of 85."
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Anne Azzi Davenport and Jeffrey Brown, PBS
Excerpt: "PBS NewsHour co-founder Jim Lehrer, a giant in journalism known for his tenacity and dedication to simply delivering the news, died peacefully in his sleep at home on Thursday, at the age of 85."
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Mike Pence. (photo: Getty)
There's a Video Posted on the Official White House YouTube Page Calling Homosexuality the Devil's Work
Shawn Langlois, MarketWatch
Langlois writes: "That's just a snippet of Bishop Jerry Wayne Taylor's fiery, and anti-gay, sermon over the weekend, which followed a speech by Vice President Mike Pence and was live streamed by the White House."
Shawn Langlois, MarketWatch
Langlois writes: "That's just a snippet of Bishop Jerry Wayne Taylor's fiery, and anti-gay, sermon over the weekend, which followed a speech by Vice President Mike Pence and was live streamed by the White House."
Associate of pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell. (photo: Laura Cavanaugh/Getty)
Ghislaine Maxwell's Secret Emails Hacked by Cyber Criminals in Potential New Blow for Prince Andrew
Emma Tucker, The Daily Beast
Tucker writes: "Ghislaine Maxwell's private emails have been hacked by cybercriminals after her email address appeared last year in court documents related to her former boyfriend and pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, Britain's Telegraph reported Thursday."
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Emma Tucker, The Daily Beast
Tucker writes: "Ghislaine Maxwell's private emails have been hacked by cybercriminals after her email address appeared last year in court documents related to her former boyfriend and pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, Britain's Telegraph reported Thursday."
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Chinese paramilitary police wearing masks stand guard at a Shanghai train station as the country faces a virus crisis at the start of the Lunar New Year holiday. (photo: AFP)
China: Five Cities Locked Down and Beijing Festivities Scrapped
Lily Kuo, Guardian UK
Kuo writes: "Chinese authorities have imposed lockdown measures on five cities in an unprecedented effort to contain the outbreak of the deadly new virus that has made hundreds of people ill and spread to other parts of the world during the busy lunar new year travel period."
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Lily Kuo, Guardian UK
Kuo writes: "Chinese authorities have imposed lockdown measures on five cities in an unprecedented effort to contain the outbreak of the deadly new virus that has made hundreds of people ill and spread to other parts of the world during the busy lunar new year travel period."
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Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg attends the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 23. (photo: Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA)
Mnuchin Said Thunberg Needed to Study Economics Before Offering Climate Proposals. So We Talked to an Economist.
Philip Bump, The Washington Post
Bump writes: "Speaking to reporters at the World Economic Forum's annual gathering in Switzerland, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was asked about calls from climate change activists such as Greta Thunberg for investors to pull their money out of fossil fuel stocks."
Philip Bump, The Washington Post
Bump writes: "Speaking to reporters at the World Economic Forum's annual gathering in Switzerland, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was asked about calls from climate change activists such as Greta Thunberg for investors to pull their money out of fossil fuel stocks."
EXCERPTS:
Speaking specifically about calls to divest, Wagner pointed to a letter released this month by BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink. In it, Fink announced the asset management firm he controls will divest — move investments away — from companies like those that are centered on fossil fuels and contribute to climate change.
“The evidence on climate risk is compelling investors to reassess core assumptions about modern finance,” Fink wrote in the letter, according to the New York Times.
“It’s precisely this scenario of having fossil fuels go the way of tobacco that makes fossil fuel execs the most nervous,” Wagner told The Post. He noted that Shell Oil Co. predicted the rise of activists focused on climate change — back in 1998.
We’ve seen past environmental action easily demonstrate more benefit to society than the associated costs. Amendments to the Clean Air Act introduced in 1990 provided $30 in benefits for every $1 in cost, manifested in better health, among other things. Mnuchin, asked about climate change in a CNBC interview after his comments about Thunberg, argued there were bigger issues that also needed to be addressed. When a host noted clean air rules as an example of something that might be more urgent, Mnuchin ignored the interjection.
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