Robert Reich | Abuses of Power in Trumpworld and Davos

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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:

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)

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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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."

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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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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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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."

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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Pence and Pompeo Pushed for the Killing of Suleimani

12 January 20

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Pence and Pompeo Pushed for the Killing of Suleimani

John Cassidy, The New Yorker
Cassidy writes: "The Trump-Iran story continues to develop in alarming ways. On Thursday, reports that Western governments believe Iranian military forces mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing a hundred and seventy-six passengers and crew members, produced a predictably divided reaction."
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Sen. Mike Lee speaks at the Utah Eagle Forum convention in Sandy on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020. (photo: Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune)

Republican Mike Lee Signs on to Bernie Sanders' Bill to Prevent Funding for Military Intervention in Iran
Ryan Nobles, CNN
Nobles writes: "Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has agreed to co-sponsor Sen. Bernie Sanders' legislation that would freeze funding for any military action in Iran without express approval from Congress."
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'Twelve schools have kicked off the pilot program, which will go into effect statewide this fall.' (photo: Shutterstock)

New Jersey Schools Begin LGBTQ-Inclusive Curriculum
Daniel Reynolds, The Advocate
Reynolds writes: "An LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum in the Garden State is coming to fruition."
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People walk and drive across a bridge on the U.S.-Mexico border in Laredo, Texas. Thousands of people cross back and forth every day, in cars or on foot. (photo: Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP/Getty Images)

This Migrant Won in Immigration Court, and the US Sent Him to Mexico Anyway
Joel Rose, NPR
Rose writes: "For a moment, Jesus thought his ordeal was coming to an end. Three months after fleeing Venezuela, he got his chance to tell a judge how he and his mother escaped political persecution."
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Elizabeth Wurtzel in 2000. (photo: Neville Elder/Corbis/Getty Images)

Elizabeth Wurtzel and the Illusion of Gen-X Success
Ginia Bellafante, The New York Times
Bellafante writes: "A few years ago I got an email from Elizabeth Wurtzel telling me that her cancer had returned, and that it was advanced. Saying I was sorry would render precisely the wrong response, she let me know. Her illness didn't scare her."

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John Campbell, Jessica Petersen and Eileen Sambos are involved with the Poor People's Campaign in Iowa. (photo: Rekha Basu/Des Moines Register)

When 140 Million Americans Are Poor, Why Has Poverty Disappeared From Public Discourse?
Rekha Basu, Des Moines Register
Basu writes: "Someone from the Poor People's Campaign called last week, disturbed that presidential candidates haven't pushed hard enough for a debate on poverty. I responded by rattling off the sources of disagreement between the left and center candidates, such as single-payer health coverage and free college tuition."

EXCERPT:

The incomes of the top 1% of Iowans grew by 125% between 1979 and 2012, while those of the bottom 99% saw a 15 percent increase, according to the PPC, a national movement organized by religious and civil rights leaders and poor people. It has issued a "Poor People’s Moral Budget" that identifies a potential $350 billion in savings from annual military cuts and $886 billion in additional annual revenue from taxing the wealthy, corporations, and Wall Street. It plans a presence in Des Moines during next week's Democratic debate.

As the cost of rent has skyrocketed, government anti-poverty programs have been slashed. Monthly benefits under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, an income support program, have declined steadily and are now at or below two-thirds of the federal poverty level (less than $26,000 a year for a family of four). By one estimate, it helps only 23% of poor families with children. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently adopted regulations to deny food stamps (now called SNAP) to nearly 700,000 Americans by tightening work requirements for adults without children.

Some of the worst changes are in how communities have re-segregated by race and class and how poor people are depicted as a drain on society. U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said of SNAP that it was becoming a "way of life" for too many Americans. Yet as Rev. William Barber II, a pastor and co-chair of the national Poor People's Campaign, pointed out, "When banks fail, politicians come together and say they are to big to fail and find billions to lift them up. But when 140 million people struggle and fail under the weight of poverty and low wealth, Republicans tend to racialize poverty, Democrats tend to run from poverty and only talk about middle class, and neither deal fully with policies to address the reality of poverty."

Barber cites a 2011 Columbia University public health study showing 250,000 deaths in 2000 were linked to poverty-related causes such as low education and poor social support. The lingering legacy of slavery, and consignment to live in polluted areas, drink contaminated water or work at unsafe jobs all have health effects.

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Along Kamilo Beach, plastic is ever present. (photo: Liz Barney/Guardian)

Welcome to Hawaii's 'Plastic Beach,' One of the World's Dirtiest Places
Liz Barney and Michelle Broder Van Dyke, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "An array of plastic crunched underfoot as Mattie Mae Larson walked down Kamilo Beach. Toothbrushes, a plastic broom, a leaking bottle, the back of a TV."

EXCERPTS:

Hawaii sits at the center of swirling ocean currents, just east of the Great Pacific garbage patch. As a result, its shoreline catches plastic from all over the world, some of it decades old. Just a few weeks prior, Larson found a vintage Sea and Ski tanning lotion bottle, most likely from the 1950s.

On Kamilo Beach, plastic pollution accumulated unchecked for decades due to inaccessibility. The very first cleanup here was organized after the group’s founder, Bill Gilmartin, witnessed the birth of a rare Hawaiian monk seal pup on the massive piles of plastic. In 2003, he led a team in removing more than 50 tons of marine debris over three days.

Regular cleanups have prevented the return of 10ft tall piles of plastic, but daily debris continues to trickle in, with no end in sight. HWF estimates that between 15 and 20 tons of debris wash up here annually, and that 96% of it is plastic. The group has so far removed 283 tons of plastic debris from the shores of Hawai’i island, and a significant portion has been from this location alone.

Hawaii’s efforts to push back on rampant plastics consumption have been among the boldest in the country. In 2015, it became the first state in the US to ban plastic bags at grocery stores. Earlier this year, Maui and the Big Island banned polystyrene containers. And Honolulu, the state’s capital, in December passed one of the most restrictive plastic bans in the US, prohibiting all single-use plastic food containers, including straws and utensils, as well as Styrofoam.

Most experts agree that without big changes in the way corporations produce and consumers use plastics, places like Hawaii will continue to bear the brunt of the planet’s dependency.

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