Corruption, Oligarchs, Take Action

May 25

Corruptonomics, Robert Reich

A memo to Democrats on campaigning …

The economy is lousy for most Americans because Trump Republicans are enabling super-rich oligarchs to siphon off most of its gains while exerting increasing control over it. …

1. Republicans in the House and Senate have put oligarchs in charge of America.

They raided Medicaid to pay for Trump’s giant tax cut, whose benefits are going mostly to the rich. …

They refused to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies.

The AI oligarchs have bribed Trump and congressional Republicans to allow unfettered and unregulated growth of AI and its data centers, …

The crypto oligarchs have bribed Trump and congressional Republicans to allow them to create the world’s largest Ponzi scheme — which is enriching Trump and his family while providing a means for criminals to hide insider trades, child trafficking, and drug deals.

The Big Oil and aerospace oligarchs have bribed congressional Republicans to allow Trump to go to war in Iran, resulting in massive profits for Big Oil — while the rest of us pay $1.50 more per gallon of gas — and giant profits for giant military contractors.

This war spending has also contributed to higher inflation, which the rest of us pay for in higher mortgage rates and higher rates on car loans and education loans. …

2. Republicans have created crony capitalism on steroids.

Congressional Republicans have been silent in the face of bribes paid to Trump and his family.

Congressional Republicans have also been silent about Trump’s “agreement” with the Justice Department to create a $1.8 billion slush fund and immunity to all future IRS audits of Trump and his family.

3. The larger Republican scam is to replace our economy with bribes.

The Republicans’ increasingly corrupt political system — rife with crony capitalism, corporate welfare, and payoffs to the powerful — inevitably produces a corrupt economy. … In such an economy, investors can no longer rely on a system of stable rules and reliable laws.

4. A lesson: Péter Magyar’s victory over Viktor Orbán relied on connecting the economic problems of ordinary Hungarians with Orban’s corruption.

5. Democrats must respond with a plan to revive the economy and end the corruption.

Democrats should propose: (1) more vigorous anti-monopoly enforcement, including busting up giant corporations, (2) prohibiting insider trading by all elected officials and their families, (3) getting big money out of politics, (4) raising taxes on the super-wealthy, including a wealth tax, and (5) using the proceeds to improve the lives of average working Americans through Medicare for all, universal childcare, paid leave, and free public higher education.

Knowledge, Ignorance, Action, Jason Anthony

We live in a time of great knowing. Fascinating discoveries come to light every day. … but we no longer live in a time when any of us can hope to master (or even be aware of) more than a fraction of what has been learned. … Science is a learning system, the most consequential that our species has invented … but science is only an advisor to Anthropocene culture, not its guide.

Our flood of knowing is not itself a wisdom that teaches us how to live. We might all define that kind of wisdom differently, but it’s not the wisdom we need if it doesn’t include a love for all the life that we know surrounds us, a loving defense of what remains amid our destruction, and a loving acceptance of our existential need to become less destructive. We need guardrails on the long dark road ahead. We need a set of ethics for both scientific inquiry and culture more broadly to ensure, eventually, that all human activity is beneficial to life.

Knowledge carries obligations. Effective action is rooted in both science and ethics. That feels like wisdom.

Video: Corporate Monsters, Survivors Guide To Earth

Solution: Once a product or service becomes infrastructure, e.g.: housing, healthcare, energy, food, communication, transport, it must operate as a utility. Technologies must be regulated by publicly accountable experts and made open source, so local businesses can emerge, invent and innovate. Like the electric outlet — where anyone can invent or improve an appliance that meets standards, and plug in.

Essential services like healthcare are shared infrastructure: universal and free. Providers and innovators are paid well, with rewards tied to outcomes — prevention, safety, effectiveness, long-term health. Innovation is driven by public investment, prizes, professional recognition, and adoption, not by rewarding profit from illness. Status shifts from who makes the most money to who improves the most lives.

Wealth and incomes must be taxed like we did after WW2 which created a middle class. And wage theft and tax evasion should be treated as crimes against the public trust. And this must be globally applied.

Video: Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture (68 min.)

The global food system is the largest source of greenhouse gases. Making changes to the food system is a huge lever to fight climate change. Also, global agriculture is among the most vulnerable sectors to climate change. A loss of agricultural productivity means less food availability for humanity.

Solutions: