Fake News on NAFTA

NAFTA: More Fake News from Trump. The White House threw together a rushed announcement of a “preliminary” agreement with Mexico on auto industry tariffs and perhaps wages. This was conjured up on short notice to divert attention from Trump’s rising legal woes and the appalled reaction from legislators of both parties to his refusal to keep the White House flag at half-staff to honor Senator John McCain, who passed away on August 25.

What makes the NAFTA announcement fake? First, an agreement to raise slightly the North American content (from 62.5 percent to 75 percent) required to qualify autos for tariff-free import into the U.S. has always been the low-hanging fruit of the deal. It’s all the other provisions—on the environment, on the ability of corporations to sue in special tribunals to block regulations, on farm and energy provisions, and on myriad others, that have and continue to be the sticking points.

Second, there is no revised NAFTA deal on autos without Canada, and it’s not clear that Canada will agree to such a partial deal. Third, there is no such thing as a preliminary agreement—either NAFTA is renegotiated or it isn’t.

This is complex stuff, but not all that complex. Yet most of the press coverage has taken the White House announcement at face value. Have a look at The New York Times.

Not addressed were Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs, or revisions in policies that compromise Mexico’s energy independence, a priority issue for Mexico’s new progressive president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Besides diverting attention from other embarrassing Trump pratfalls, the NAFTA announcement was intended to peel off labor support. It didn’t work. Here is a statement just released from America’s leading industrial union officials:

We are aggressively engaged in pursuing an agreement that works for working people in all three countries, and we are not done yet. There is more work that needs to be done to deliver the needed, real solutions to NAFTA’s deeply ingrained flaws.

Any new deal must raise wages, ensure workers’ rights and freedoms, reduce outsourcing and put the interests of working families first in all three countries. And working people must be able to review the full and final text and have the confidence not only in the terms of the deal, but its implementation, monitoring and enforcement. We remain committed to working with the administration to get NAFTA right. Our members’ jobs depend on it. But, as always, the devil is in the details.

Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President

Leo Gerard, United Steelworkers (USW) International President

Gary Jones, International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) President

Robert Martinez Jr., International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers International President

Chris Shelton, Communications Workers of America President

Don’t expect a real NAFTA breakthrough any time soon, and don't fall for Fake Trump News. Now, back to the special counsel. That's real. ~ ROBERT KUTTNER

August 27, 2018
Citizens Trade Campaign

SIGN THE PETITION TO DEMAND A REAL NAFTA REPLACEMENT If you've already signed, you can make an even bigger difference by forwarding this request to others!

Trade negotiators from the U.S. and Mexico announced they’ve come to a basic understanding on how to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) — but labor allies who have seen some of the secret texts are warning that, “There is more work that needs to be done to deliver the needed, real solutions to NAFTA’s deeply ingrained flaws."

U.S. Economy to Slow Down

Damage To U.S. Economy From Trade War

U.S. economy expected to slow, damaged by trade war. Reuters: “U.S. economic growth will slow steadily in coming quarters after touching a four-year high in April-June, according to a Reuters poll of economists, who expect President Donald Trump’s trade war to inflict damage. Boosted in part by $1.5 trillion of tax cuts passed late last year, the U.S. economy expanded at an annualized rate of 4.1 percent in the second quarter, its strongest performance in nearly four years. But the latest poll of more than 100 economists taken Aug. 13-21 showed they expect the U.S. economy to lose momentum and to end next year growing at less than half that rate. The U.S. economy was forecast to grow 3 percent in the current quarter and 2.7 percent in the next, a slight upgrade from the previous poll. But the short-term boost to growth from tax cuts was expected to wane. Economists trimmed their growth projections across most quarters next year leaving the outlook broadly unchanged and vulnerable to the trade conflict with China.”

Lorain, Ohio | NAFTA | AFL-CIO Video

Bernie Sanders on Amazon and Jeff Bezos

I want to ask you to clear your mind for a moment and count to 10.

1…

2…

3…

4…

5…

6…

7…

8…

9…

10…

In those 10 seconds, Jeff Bezos, the owner and founder of Amazon, made more money than the median employee of Amazon makes in an entire year. An entire year.

Think about that.

Think about how hard that family member has to work for an entire year, the days she or he goes into work sick, or has a sick child, or struggles to buy school supplies or Christmas presents, to make what one man makes in 10 seconds.

According to Time magazine, from January 1 through May 1 of this year, Jeff Bezos saw his wealth increase by $275 million every single day for a total increase in wealth of $33 billion in a four-month period.

Meanwhile, thousands of Amazon employees are forced to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and public housing because their wages are too low. And guess who pays for that? You do. Frankly, I don't believe that ordinary Americans should be subsidizing the wealthiest person in the world because he pays his employees inadequate wages.

But it gets remarkably more ridiculous: Jeff Bezos has so much money that he says the only way he could possibly spend it all is on space travel.

Space travel. Have you ever heard of such a thing? It is absolutely absurd.

Well here is a radical idea: Instead of attempting to explore Mars or go to the moon, how about Jeff Bezos pays his workers a living wage? How about he improves the working conditions at Amazon warehouses across the country so people stop dying on the job? He can no doubt do that and have billions of dollars left over to spend on anything he wants.

Robert Reich: The Military-Industrial Drain

To Make America Great Again, Make Our Capitalism Accountable Again

To Make America Great Again, Make Our Capitalism Accountable Again



Corporations and Capitalism.  Important !

Warren Proposes a Second New Deal

Elizabeth Warren Proposes a Second New Deal. When Bernie Sanders offered up his definition of socialism in a speech at Georgetown University in 2015, he basically equated it with the governmental programs created by the New Deal. Sanders cited Social Security, and New Dealer Lyndon Johnson’s three-decades-later follow-up, Medicare, as the primary U.S. examples of publicly funded universal programs that provided older Americans with income and access to health care. That, said Sanders, was a tradition he sought to renew, by creating single-payer health care for all, free public university educations, and a host of other programs.

The historic ground on which Sanders took his stand was the experience of the United States when New Deal programs were most effectual. Before they’d been eroded by the financialization and globalization that commenced in the 1970s, FDR’s New Deal gave the nation its one and only period of broadly shared prosperity.

But it wasn’t just the programs FDR signed into law that did the trick. It was also one further bill that didn’t expand government’s capacities and responsibilities as such, but simply gave workers power: the National Labor Relations Act. By enabling workers to join unions without fear of dismissal, the NLRA facilitated the growth of unionization to the point that just over one-third of the nation’s workers were unionized and thereby wielded sufficient power to affect corporate behavior. In the three decades following World War II—the three decades of unions enforcing worker power—median worker income rose in tandem with productivity, and CEOs made on average 20 times what their average employee made.

That world has long since vanished into the mists of time and financialization. As I noted in my Tuesday email, profit margins (that is, the share of revenue going to profits) reached an all-time high in the last quarter, while wages, when factoring in the rise in the cost of living, actually declined.

Comes now Elizabeth Warren, like Sanders, seeking to re-create the New Deal’s creation of a vibrant middle class—but in this instance, not through an updated version of governmental social provision, as Sanders suggested, but through that other dimension of New Deal success: bolstering worker power. Yesterday, Warren introduced a new bill, the Accountable Capitalism Act, which seeks nothing less than the compelled conversion of American corporations from their current creed of maximizing shareholder value to the friendlier confines of benefiting all corporate stakeholders.

To this end, she proposes two fundamental changes. The first is to end corporate chartering by the various states, replacing it through requiring corporations with more than $1 billion in yearly revenues to be federally chartered, and to have those charters redefine the corporations’ mission so that they benefit not just shareholders but their employees and communities as well. The second change she proposes is to require corporations to have 40 percent of their boards of directors elected not by their shareholders but by their employees. In this, she’s following the lead of her colleague Tammy Baldwin, who introduced a bill earlier this year that required corporations to set aside one-third of their board seats to employee representatives. And both senators are following the lead of the Germans, where a 50-50 split of board membership between owner and worker representatives has long been required by law.

As Warren noted in an op-ed she wrote for the Wall Street Journal yesterday, over the past 35 years the financialization of the American corporation has meant that shareholders now extract more funds from corporations than those businesses devote either to investment in their own enterprise or wage increases for their workers. (University of Massachusetts economist William Lazonick, the doyen of share-buyback scholars, documented these developments in a piece he wrote for the summer issue of the Prospect.)

Warren, then, is seeking to reinvent the “corporate conduct” side of the New Deal, much as Sanders wants to reinvent its social-rights dimension. This is not to say either is opposed to the other’s endeavors: Warren, for instance, supports Sanders’s Medicare for All bill, among other similar proposals. Both also support the next iteration of labor law reform, which would renew the promise of the NLRA by restoring workers’ rights to associate and bargain.

Republican Tax Scam

Remember the tax scam that the Trump administration and their Republican allies jammed through late last year? The one that was supposed to "help working families," and "provide relief for the middle class"? 

The evidence is here -- and it proves what we've known all along. Here's a chart that shows exactly who is benefiting from this travesty: 


That's right: This deficit-busting tax law hasn't done a thing to lift real wages for workers. All it's done is deliver massive gains to big corporations and the ultra-wealthy executives who run them. 

It's a scam -- and as more and more Americans catch on, Republicans are starting to distance themselves from what they called a "victory" only months ago. 

We won't forget, and it's time to hold representatives accountable for their support of this bill. Join Team '18 today, and get to work in this critical push: s

Toward a Progressive Political Economy in the Aftermath of Neoliberalism’s “Creative Destruction” | Portside

Toward a Progressive Political Economy in the Aftermath of Neoliberalism Creative Destruction| Portside



An important summary essay on the historical role of neoliberalism. And, suggestions for alternatives.

Five Financial Consequences of Trump Getting His Hands on the Economy | Portside

Five Financial Consequences of Trump Getting His Hands on the Economy | Portside



Excellent.  By Nomi Prins.

Trump Feeds Corporate Military Industrial complex.

Military Spending 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/us/politics/fact-check-trump-military-spending.html

http://inthesetimes.com/article/21359/defense_bill_senate_house_nuclear_economy_jobs?

This is corporate pay off to the military/industrial complex.

"-- as well as 93 F-35 Lightning II and two dozen F/A-18 E/F fighter jets. The House version also calls for a dozen new Navy ships."

Billions of dollars for 93 F-35s.  We could use 6.  And, the new Navy ships??

June 6 (UPI) -- The House Appropriations Committee unveiled a $674.6 billion defense spending bill Wednesday.

While the committee scheduled a markup session for Thursday and debate with the Senate's version of the budget will likely take months, the House version provides $605 billion in base discretionary funding. That figure is less than President Donald Trump's administration requested, but more than the 2018 level.

The proposed funding would pay for more than 15,000 additional troops and pay raises for those already in military service -- as well as 93 F-35 Lightning II and two dozen F/A-18 E/F fighter jets. The House version also calls for a dozen new Navy ships.

The procurement budget includes more F-35s and littoral combat ships than the military requested, but Congress supports buying the equipment to keep factories and shipyards working and available for future orders, The Hill reported.

RELATED Navy taps Raytheon, Kongsberg for Naval Strike Missile

"With the changing global dynamics and ever-growing threats to our security, it is absolutely imperative that our military is properly trained, equipped and fully supported in order to do their jobs," panel chair Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., said in a statement. "This legislation does all of this by including robust funding for our troops, the defense programs and activities necessary to accomplish our national goals and ideals, and to continue to rebuild our military."

See updates in the NYT article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/us/politics/fact-check-trump-military-spending.html

Germany. How Citizens Enabled Hitler

Expert on Nazi Germany Explains How 'Average' Citizens Enabled Hitler — Just Like Trump: 'Ordinary People Will Do Horrible Things'

Historian Richard Frankel, an expert on Nazi Germany, says history doesn’t have to repeat itself — if we stop it.

By Chauncey DeVega /  Salon

August 6, 2018, 3:50 AM GMT

https://www.alternet.org/expert-nazi-germany-explains-how-average-citizens-enabled-hitler-just-trump-ordinary-people-will-do?

Tariffs

Trump’s Tariffs are Not Really the Point

We pay too much attention to President Trump’s tariffs. We’ve missed the point of what China is doing, and what we want. 

Ronald Reagan told us that markets are good, government is bad, and we should let free markets solve all our problems. Winners will prosper, and gains will trickle down to workers and communities. 

At the global level, this meant free trade policy that blurs national boundaries, and merges or integrates our economy into the global economy. This approach shifts power in favor of global corporations, while reducing policy space for governments, workers, communities, and the environment. 

China has never accepted our free-trade free-market model. Zhang Xiangchen, China’s ambassador to the WTO, made this clear a few days ago.

China has been vigorously exploring a road of market economy, which suits China’s own national situation and circumstances, and we have made remarkable progress in this endeavor. Whatever others may say, we will march along this road unswervingly.  … As for those who speculated that China would change and move onto a different path upon its WTO accession, … that was their wishful thinking. 

Robert Reich: The Biggest Threat to Our Democracy (That You Haven't Hear...

Corporate Earnings

CORPORATE EARNING BONANZA: "America's biggest companies are reporting some of the strongest earnings growth since the recession, boosted by lowered tax rates and a robust U.S. economy that is fueling demand across industries," Thomas Gryta writes in The Wall Street Journal. "Profits at S&P 500 companies jumped an estimated 23.5 percent in the three months through June, according to data from Thomson Reuters, more than 2 1/2 times revenue growth in the same period." 

The Republican-backed tax cuts that passed in December were a big reason for the earnings boost, the Journal reports. The legislation reduced corporate taxes to 21 percent, down from 35 percent. Still, the Journal reports, "any lasting tax-related benefits will depend on how companies use the savings" — that is, whether they use it for investments that could spur longer-term growth. More here.

Aug. 2018.

Apples $1 Trillion Milestone Reflects Rise of Powerful Megacompanies - The New York Times

Apple;s $1 Trillion Milestone Reflects Rise of Powerful Megacompanies - The New York Times

President Trump has made 4,229 false or misleading claims in 558 days - The Washington Post

President Trump has made 4,229 false or misleading claims in 558 days - The Washington Post