Anti-trust Laws are necessary for well-regulated and reasonably regulated capitalism. Otherwise these oligarchies will continue with their corporate feudalism and technological totalitarianism. The international hedge funds control nearly everything through direct shares, circular ownership, shadow or shell corporations. Add Stakeholder Capitalism and it is no longer even beholden to all the shareholders, just the few.
"Stakeholder capitalism" is the euphemism coined to sell the snake oil con which co-opts and consolidates power by externalizing and then corrupting the motives that govern companies so they will be guided by incentives that are outside of those that optimize their interests and the interests of customers and individual sharehders. The rules of the new masters create rewards and punishments that force all companies to conform to the dictates and priorities of unelected 3rd parties who determine which will succeed and which fail based on politics and conformity to external dictates rather than customer and shareholder demands. The cost of this conformity is more consolidation, raising the burden to market entry by smaller players, creative/ disruptive ideas, products, practices, or companies and further insulating the larger and entrenched companies and interests. This creates and institutionalizes functional/defacto monopolies.
It's evident that stakeholder capitalism &/or private equity aligned with medieval religious hegemonic ideology is also managing to sanctify monopolies, at least well enough to boost their ratings on teevee. They're building the madness of crowds into sufficient mercenary force to leverage the commercial value and fascist dominance needed to burn up the biosphere and most of humanity as propulsion fuel in their elitist rush towards Godhead. It fits with Peter Thiel's Rene Girard / P. Teilhard de Chardin mystic/scientist world views and Elon Musk's fascination with Christ-like spaceman paradigm shifting characters. <> Mark Burnett has been operating as an Elmer Gantry-like showman, having boosted a loser drug addict, serial bankruptcy expert into the 45th & 47th presidencies of The USA. Leonard Leo as the Rasputin-like marcher for oligopolists has transformed the SCOTUS in more ways than weakening tax law and democracy. In the long march of private capital's resurgence after FDR and the liberal consensus, Calvinist and medieval Roman Catholic ideology merged into The Federalist Society, Marble Fund,, The Heritage Foundation, et al. They're running a bad, long episode of a Jerry Springer show turned into a Lord of The Flies riot. <> Pope Francis excommunicated Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former papal nuncio to the United States, for schism last July. Vigano, through The Catholic Information Center in DC had been in league with real fascist ideology loving mercenary officers in the Catholic Church: Leo of Knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, 5 of 6 conservative SCOTUS judges & Bill Barr, members of Opus Dei, Amy C. Barret, a hybrid of the above from People of Praise. They are part of the brains and generals running the war on democracy and decency. The Red state bible belt Evangelicals stay busy with their Christian academies, state legislature & public school board take overs, NASCAR & the whole universe of militant tribal identity bound cultist who've fallen prey to QAnon weirdos & hate radios jocks. Pope Frank could just boot out Vigano. Democracy defenders have the hard and long task of helping enough persuadable former Trump voters to rally enough support for recall elections and replace the bought off punks in Congress with mature and ethical adults who can restore and strengthen democracy before it's too late.
Unfortunately, these monopolies are pouring money into politics; our elected officials are bought and paid for by the very people who want Biden’s initiatives to fail.
We have allowed US POLITICS CARTE BLANCHE FOR THE PAST 25 YEARS. BURN THE CARDS NOW! WE CAN DO A LOT BETTER. JUST ASK ANY ORDINARY CITIZEN. WE HAVE MANY AREAS THAT CAN easily BE IMPROVED. RESIST! UNITE!
So, here what happens to Trump. First, he throws FBI and CIA agents under the bus for investigating him. Then h demotes and/or fires many of them. Then those agents learn of plots to”attack” TRUMP. They “realize” they are too busy because of layoffs to pursue leads to “off” his majesty. Sound like a Shakespearean play?
Why is it fair that two companies, both having the same income, should pay the same tax if one of them scrapes out only a 5% profit in a highly competitive market while the other, a monopoly or near-monopoly, earns a 40% profit in an noncompetitive market?
It seems to me that we could create an effective structural resistance to monopoly, or at least a disincentive to the use of monopoly power, by creating a progressive corporate income tax that was indexed to a company's profit margin in excess of some statutorily established norm, not just to their income. Such a tax, similar to the excess profits tax sometimes imposed during war time, would ensure that at least some of the unearned "economic rent" which today benefits monopolists would be returned to the people. (Note: Economists generally agree that taxing economic rent is non-distortionary and economically efficient...) As long as the tax never reached 100%, companies would remain able to benefit from higher margins but would be strongly encouraged to increase revenues by investing in productive assets and their workforce rather than in simply raising prices.
How can we overturn Citizens United? Corporations aren’t people. And they do not deserve First Amendment rights. The constitution is for We the People!
You got it Chris. And they are masters of manipulating us into funding them. I decided to detox off of Amazon so I could “walk my talk”. I learned so much by going cold turkey with Amazon. First I don't need a lot of stuff i’d buy on Amazon. If it wasn’t so easy to get I just forget about it in a day or so. One click consumerism lead me to accumulate a lot of things I didn’t need and would never use. And these things could eventually end up in some dump. The ease supported an addiction to accumulating what ever I thought I wanted in the moment. Extinguishing this pattern in my life, enables me to live a more sustainable life, and that serves the earth. I could go on, but you get the drift. I'm attaching a PSA I made about ‘One Step Consumerism’ that supported me while I went cold turkey from Jeff Bezos “machine”.
And Musk had the gall to call a meeting with his employees to tell them to hold on to their stock!!! Shades of ENRON. The upper management all unloaded their stock and the employees were left penniless.
I’m old enough to remember when monopolies were frowned upon and the government protected the American people by busting them up. Ma Bell comes to mind. Those days are gone and politicians get their palms greased to keep monopolies thriving to the harm of consumers.
Democrats used to be the party of the people, those days are long gone. They’ve lost the confidence of the working class and the mess the country faces today rests on the Democrats doorsteps.
Can we get rid of Citizens United? It sounds like it should be a good thing, citizens of the world united, but it’s just a means to buy your choice of president or any other leader at any level of government and get away with it. I didn’t vote for it, but I night have if I hadn’t read past the name. I live on SSA and Medicare. I’m scared. No one makes the best decisions when they are scared. I get hundreds of emails asked for donations, some I trust, like yours, and others I have heard on MSNBC, but if I won’t have any income in a month, even $1 is a lot to give to everyone who asks, and ActBlue deserves a tip, but then I have even less, but without them I wouldn’t trust the asker. There is so much to do, Senator Murphy. My state senators are Wyden and Merkley and I am lucky to trust them, and thanks to MSNBC and the personal issues you support, I trust you. I never thought there would come a time in my life when I didn’t trust the government I was raised to honor and respect. It breaks my heart.
Same here and I know we are not alone. I did se something disturbing on a request for money the other day. People were using the space to bash someone for asking for money. I am not going to name the candidate but they do a really good job. It was like a feeding frenzy. People were piling on with absurd comments. As I said, it was a candidate that’s out there fighting every single day.
You got that right, Senator Murphy!
Public Financing of Campaigns should be FIRST ON EVERYONE’S Agenda!
We need to break up the monopolies. Even the media. It's scary how everything we see is controlled by a handful of entities.
Anti-trust Laws are necessary for well-regulated and reasonably regulated capitalism. Otherwise these oligarchies will continue with their corporate feudalism and technological totalitarianism. The international hedge funds control nearly everything through direct shares, circular ownership, shadow or shell corporations. Add Stakeholder Capitalism and it is no longer even beholden to all the shareholders, just the few.
"Stakeholder capitalism" is the euphemism coined to sell the snake oil con which co-opts and consolidates power by externalizing and then corrupting the motives that govern companies so they will be guided by incentives that are outside of those that optimize their interests and the interests of customers and individual sharehders. The rules of the new masters create rewards and punishments that force all companies to conform to the dictates and priorities of unelected 3rd parties who determine which will succeed and which fail based on politics and conformity to external dictates rather than customer and shareholder demands. The cost of this conformity is more consolidation, raising the burden to market entry by smaller players, creative/ disruptive ideas, products, practices, or companies and further insulating the larger and entrenched companies and interests. This creates and institutionalizes functional/defacto monopolies.
100%
It amazes me how many work beside me in the senior management of the corporate world but who still don't understand this.
And this paradigm shift has been managed by Larry Fink, going back to the 2008 crash.
It's evident that stakeholder capitalism &/or private equity aligned with medieval religious hegemonic ideology is also managing to sanctify monopolies, at least well enough to boost their ratings on teevee. They're building the madness of crowds into sufficient mercenary force to leverage the commercial value and fascist dominance needed to burn up the biosphere and most of humanity as propulsion fuel in their elitist rush towards Godhead. It fits with Peter Thiel's Rene Girard / P. Teilhard de Chardin mystic/scientist world views and Elon Musk's fascination with Christ-like spaceman paradigm shifting characters. <> Mark Burnett has been operating as an Elmer Gantry-like showman, having boosted a loser drug addict, serial bankruptcy expert into the 45th & 47th presidencies of The USA. Leonard Leo as the Rasputin-like marcher for oligopolists has transformed the SCOTUS in more ways than weakening tax law and democracy. In the long march of private capital's resurgence after FDR and the liberal consensus, Calvinist and medieval Roman Catholic ideology merged into The Federalist Society, Marble Fund,, The Heritage Foundation, et al. They're running a bad, long episode of a Jerry Springer show turned into a Lord of The Flies riot. <> Pope Francis excommunicated Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former papal nuncio to the United States, for schism last July. Vigano, through The Catholic Information Center in DC had been in league with real fascist ideology loving mercenary officers in the Catholic Church: Leo of Knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, 5 of 6 conservative SCOTUS judges & Bill Barr, members of Opus Dei, Amy C. Barret, a hybrid of the above from People of Praise. They are part of the brains and generals running the war on democracy and decency. The Red state bible belt Evangelicals stay busy with their Christian academies, state legislature & public school board take overs, NASCAR & the whole universe of militant tribal identity bound cultist who've fallen prey to QAnon weirdos & hate radios jocks. Pope Frank could just boot out Vigano. Democracy defenders have the hard and long task of helping enough persuadable former Trump voters to rally enough support for recall elections and replace the bought off punks in Congress with mature and ethical adults who can restore and strengthen democracy before it's too late.
Unfortunately, these monopolies are pouring money into politics; our elected officials are bought and paid for by the very people who want Biden’s initiatives to fail.
Citizens United needs to go.
We have allowed US POLITICS CARTE BLANCHE FOR THE PAST 25 YEARS. BURN THE CARDS NOW! WE CAN DO A LOT BETTER. JUST ASK ANY ORDINARY CITIZEN. WE HAVE MANY AREAS THAT CAN easily BE IMPROVED. RESIST! UNITE!
So, here what happens to Trump. First, he throws FBI and CIA agents under the bus for investigating him. Then h demotes and/or fires many of them. Then those agents learn of plots to”attack” TRUMP. They “realize” they are too busy because of layoffs to pursue leads to “off” his majesty. Sound like a Shakespearean play?
What's wrong with that picture? We can do better. Fight! Resist! Unite!
Why is it fair that two companies, both having the same income, should pay the same tax if one of them scrapes out only a 5% profit in a highly competitive market while the other, a monopoly or near-monopoly, earns a 40% profit in an noncompetitive market?
It seems to me that we could create an effective structural resistance to monopoly, or at least a disincentive to the use of monopoly power, by creating a progressive corporate income tax that was indexed to a company's profit margin in excess of some statutorily established norm, not just to their income. Such a tax, similar to the excess profits tax sometimes imposed during war time, would ensure that at least some of the unearned "economic rent" which today benefits monopolists would be returned to the people. (Note: Economists generally agree that taxing economic rent is non-distortionary and economically efficient...) As long as the tax never reached 100%, companies would remain able to benefit from higher margins but would be strongly encouraged to increase revenues by investing in productive assets and their workforce rather than in simply raising prices.
Agree! Improve! Resist! Unite!
Corrupt=corrupt. We don't have to tolerate it , at all!
How can we overturn Citizens United? Corporations aren’t people. And they do not deserve First Amendment rights. The constitution is for We the People!
So, when are you going to lead a massive protest march against this authoritarian take over?
Many are participating! More every day. The frequency of demonstrating is also important.
You got it Chris. And they are masters of manipulating us into funding them. I decided to detox off of Amazon so I could “walk my talk”. I learned so much by going cold turkey with Amazon. First I don't need a lot of stuff i’d buy on Amazon. If it wasn’t so easy to get I just forget about it in a day or so. One click consumerism lead me to accumulate a lot of things I didn’t need and would never use. And these things could eventually end up in some dump. The ease supported an addiction to accumulating what ever I thought I wanted in the moment. Extinguishing this pattern in my life, enables me to live a more sustainable life, and that serves the earth. I could go on, but you get the drift. I'm attaching a PSA I made about ‘One Step Consumerism’ that supported me while I went cold turkey from Jeff Bezos “machine”.
Shop wisely! We can do better! RESIST! LOUDLY!
And Musk had the gall to call a meeting with his employees to tell them to hold on to their stock!!! Shades of ENRON. The upper management all unloaded their stock and the employees were left penniless.
Thank you Senator Murphy. It is evident in line at grocery chains where some cashiers seem ultra miserable!
I’m old enough to remember when monopolies were frowned upon and the government protected the American people by busting them up. Ma Bell comes to mind. Those days are gone and politicians get their palms greased to keep monopolies thriving to the harm of consumers.
Democrats used to be the party of the people, those days are long gone. They’ve lost the confidence of the working class and the mess the country faces today rests on the Democrats doorsteps.
Can we get rid of Citizens United? It sounds like it should be a good thing, citizens of the world united, but it’s just a means to buy your choice of president or any other leader at any level of government and get away with it. I didn’t vote for it, but I night have if I hadn’t read past the name. I live on SSA and Medicare. I’m scared. No one makes the best decisions when they are scared. I get hundreds of emails asked for donations, some I trust, like yours, and others I have heard on MSNBC, but if I won’t have any income in a month, even $1 is a lot to give to everyone who asks, and ActBlue deserves a tip, but then I have even less, but without them I wouldn’t trust the asker. There is so much to do, Senator Murphy. My state senators are Wyden and Merkley and I am lucky to trust them, and thanks to MSNBC and the personal issues you support, I trust you. I never thought there would come a time in my life when I didn’t trust the government I was raised to honor and respect. It breaks my heart.
Same here and I know we are not alone. I did se something disturbing on a request for money the other day. People were using the space to bash someone for asking for money. I am not going to name the candidate but they do a really good job. It was like a feeding frenzy. People were piling on with absurd comments. As I said, it was a candidate that’s out there fighting every single day.
When will someone make noise that Trump is insane? Not a joke. He is certifiably crazy. Let’s get on it!!
Thank you Senator Murphy for standing with Senator Booker during his record breaking filibuster! You’re a good man!
You really stepped up supporting Cory Booker!