Ana de Armas, Billy Porter, Quentin Tarantino among 2023 Golden Globes presenters
January 03, 2023
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Last week’s bailout of small banks (and it was a bank bailout) needs to be seen in the larger context of America’s soaring inequality.
The standard conservative explanation for why inequality has widened is that individuals are paid what they’re “worth” — and that a few Americans at the top are now worth extraordinary sums while most Americans are not.
Their argument is easily confused with a moral claim that people deserve what they are paid in the market. Yet the amounts people are paid are morally justifiable only if the legal and political institutions defining the market are morally justifiable, which they are not.
Markets depend on who has the power to design and enforce them — deciding what can be owned and sold and under what terms, who can join together to gain additional market power, what happens if someone cannot pay up, how to pay for what is held in common, and who gets bailed out.
These are fundamentally moral judgments. Different societies at different times have decided these questions differently. It was once thought acceptable to own and trade human beings, to take the land of indigenous people by force, to put debtors in prison, and to exercise vast monopoly power.
So we need to ask: Is it morally acceptable that the typical worker’s wage has stagnated for the last 40 years while most of the economy’s gains have gone to the top? Do we believe that people who are rich are succeeding because of their own inherent worthiness or because the game is rigged in their favor? Have people who are poor failed, or has the system failed them? Is it morally acceptable that the pay of American CEOs has gone from an average of 20 times that of the typical worker 40 years ago to over 300 times today? Are the denizens of Wall Street — who in the 1950s and 1960s earned modest sums but are now paid tens or hundreds of millions annually — really “worth” that much more now than they were worth then?
Inequality in America began widening in the late 1970s and then took off. Inequality hasn’t widened nearly as much in other advanced economies. Why not?
Corporate and financial executives in America have done everything possible to prevent the wages of most American workers from rising in tandem with productivity, in order that more of the gains go instead into corporate profits and stock prices. Their major strategy has been to make workers less secure so they accept lower real wages (adjusted for inflation).
Some of this insecurity has been the result of trade agreements that have encouraged companies to outsource jobs abroad — protecting the firms’ intellectual property and financial assets but not the labor value of the people who work for them.
Some insecurity has resulted from shredded safety nets. Public policies that emerged during the New Deal and World War II placed most economic risks on large corporations through wage contracts and employer-provided health benefits along with Social Security, workers’ compensation, and 40-hour workweeks with time-and-a-half for overtime.
Now, those safety nets are mostly gone. Full-time workers who had put in decades with a company can find themselves without a job overnight — with no severance pay, no help finding another job, and no health insurance. Today, nearly one out of every five working Americans is in a part-time job. Two-thirds live paycheck to paycheck. Employment benefits have shriveled: The portion of workers with any pension connected to their job has fallen from just over half in 1979 to under 35 percent.
Some insecurity has resulted from the government’s policy of fighting inflation by raising interest rates to slow the economy — putting most of the inflation-fighting burden on average workers who thereby lose their jobs or don’t get real wage gains, rather than on corporations through tough antitrust enforcement, laws against price gouging, and price controls.
Most basically, the prevailing insecurity is due to the demise of labor unions. Fifty years ago, when General Motors was the largest employer in America, the typical GM worker earned $35 an hour in today’s dollars. America’s largest employer is now Walmart, and the typical entry-level Walmart worker earns about $9 an hour. The GM worker was not better educated or motivated than the Walmart worker.
***
The people who now hold a record share of the nation’s wealth justify their wealth (and their low tax rates) by utilizing three myths.
The first is trickle-down economics. They claim that their wealth trickles down to everyone else as they invest it and create jobs. Yet for over 40 years, as wealth at the top has soared, almost nothing has trickled down. (Trump provided a giant tax cut to the wealthiest Americans, promising it would generate $4,000 in increased income for everyone else. Did you receive it?)
The super-wealthy do not create jobs or increase wages. Jobs are created when average working people earn enough money to buy all the goods and services they produce, forcing companies to hire more people and pay them higher wages.
The second myth is the “free market.” As I noted above, the ultra-rich claim they’re being rewarded by the impersonal market for creating and doing what people are willing to pay them for. The wages of other Americans have stagnated, they say, because most Americans are worth less in the market now that new technologies and globalization have made their jobs redundant.
Rubbish. There’s no reason why the “free market” would reward vast multiples of what the rich were rewarded decades ago. Besides, the market can induce great feats of invention and entrepreneurialism with lures of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars — not billions.
The ultra-wealthy have rigged the so-called “free market” in America for their own benefit. Billionaires’ campaign contributions have soared from a relatively modest $31 million in the 2010 elections to $1.2 billion in the most recent presidential cycle — a nearly 40-fold increase. What have they got for their money? Tax cuts, freedom to bash unions and monopolize markets, and government bailouts. Their pockets have been further lined by privatization and deregulation.
The third myth is that they’re superior human beings — rugged individuals who “did it on their own” and therefore deserve their billions.
Baloney. Sixty percent of America’s billionaires are heirs to fortunes passed on to them by wealthy ancestors. Others had the advantages that come with wealthy parents.
Don’t fall for these myths. Trickle-down economics is a cruel joke. The so-called “free market” has been distorted by huge campaign contributions from the ultra-rich. The ultra-rich were lucky and had connections.
There is no moral justification for today’s extraordinary concentration of wealth at the very top. It is distorting our politics, rigging our markets, and granting unprecedented power to a handful of people.
***
The last time America faced any comparable degree of inequality was at the start of the 20th century. In 1910, President Theodore Roosevelt warned that “a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power” could destroy American democracy.
Roosevelt’s answer was to tax wealth. The estate tax was enacted in 1916, and the capital gains tax in 1922. Since that time, both have eroded. As the rich have accumulated greater wealth, they have also amassed more political power — and have used that political power to reduce their taxes.
Years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt saw the 1929 crash not only as a financial crisis but as an occasion to renegotiate the relationship between capitalism and democracy. Accepting renomination in 1936, he spoke of the need to redeem American democracy from the despotism of concentrated economic power.
“Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities,” he said, an “industrial dictatorship” now “reached out for control over Government itself … [T]he political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor — other people’s lives … Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people’s mandate to end it.”
FDR gave workers the power to organize into labor unions, the 40-hour workweek (with time-and-a-half for overtime), Social Security, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation for injuries. He raised taxes on the top. And he regulated finance — making banking boring.
Since then, these reforms have also eroded.
The two Roosevelts understood something about the American economy and the ultra-rich that has now reemerged, even more extreme and more dangerous. Wealth creates power; power creates more wealth. Unattended, this can become a vicious cycle.
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Donald Trump ally Robert Costello spoke to the grand jury on Monday as a defense witness for the former president to discredit lawyer Michael Cohen, who has been giving information to the district attorney.
Costello said that he began by handing D.A. Alvin Bragg five bundles of papers that he said should be given to the grand jury.
"In 2018, I gave essentially the same information to the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. Only after they notified me that Michael Cohen had executed a waiver of the attorney-client privilege," said Costello.
He went on to call it a "stupid" move because it allows him to be able to hand over incriminating information, he said.
Costello also claimed that the SDNY clearly didn't coordinate or with Cohen on anything after that fact, implying that it was due to his "evidence" that he provided and Cohen's lack of reliability that Trump wasn't ever charged federally. The Justice Department never acted on the information that Cohen gave them because there is a policy of not indicting the sitting president.
IN OTHER NEWS: GOP's Hawley flattened in brutal profanity-laced column for berating St. Louis reporter
"Today after giving all those materials to the Manhattan district attorney's office, out of 321 e-mails they cherry-picked six e-mails to ask me about," Costello continued. "And of course, they took them out of context. When they took them out of context, I told the grand jurors, I don't know whether this will ultimately come to fruition or not. I told them to ask for the entire packet. And I held it up. I said there's 321 e-mails. You need to see each and every e-mail, which follows in chronological fashion and gives you the life history of Michael Cohen dealing with our firm. I understand that earlier, there were some comments made by the folks out here that you were waiting for Trump's lawyers. We are not Trump's lawyers. We do not represent Trump. We have never represented Trump."
Instead, Costello has represented Rudy Giuliani in matters around Trump issues and his election and Steve Bannon in other unrelated matters.
Costello went on to say that Cohen was panicking after the FBI executed a search warrant to his office and home.
"He was imagining the worst for himself," said Costello. "Although at that moment in time, he still hadn't been charged with any crimes. So Michael Cohen in that state of high anxiety, when he said to us numerous times I'm looking for a way out, I need an escape hatch, how do I do this, I need to know what my options are. And his options were as he mentioned, he said do I have a chance for a pardon? Do I have a chance for a commutation? I'm not sure he understood what that term actually meant. Do I have a chance for a cooperation agreement? He said I don't understand why they did this to me because I was already cooperating with the house and with the FBI. Of course, he forgot to mention that he lied to the House, for which he was later convicted. So, I of course following my obligations as an attorney explained each of his rights and what he could do."
One of those things, according to special counsel Robert Mueller's report was to reassure Cohen that he'd be taken care of because he had friends in high places.
Cohen will deliver a rebuttal on Monday evening with MSNBC.
See that full video below or the link here.
Robert Costello www.youtube.com
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Iowa nurses have been sanctioned recently for being drunk at work, using cocaine, sleeping on the job and assaulting a patient.
One of the disciplinary cases that recently come before the Iowa Board of Nursing involves Lacey Friis, 39, of Sioux City, who has agreed to surrender her license to practice nursing. Board documents indicate Friis was working for an unspecified hospital from June 2015 until June 2022 when her employment was terminated.
According to the board, on June 7, 2022, Friis was seen using profanity and behaving unusually at work. She allegedly showed signs that she couldn’t focus and appeared to be falling asleep on the job.
Two weeks later, on the morning of June 23, Friis allegedly reported to work and behaved normally but according to the board, she had been seen purchasing and consuming alcohol at a nearby grocery store at midday, during her shift, before being sent home by management, and again after work.
The board charged Friis with excessive use of alcohol in a manner that might impair a nurse’s ability to practice the profession with reasonable skill and safety. Friis agreed to surrender her license.
Friis has worked at UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s Hospital in Sioux City since 2015. Board records indicate Friis has not previously been subject to any public discipline. However, court records indicate she was convicted of drunken driving in 2014, 2015 and 2016. In 2016, she was also arrested and charged with felony theft for allegedly stealing $240 from a taxi driver. She pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of misdemeanor theft.
Last month, Friis was charged with drunken driving after police alleged she was found in a Target store parking lot, slumped over in her car, which was running. That case is pending.
In 2018, Friis was the recipient of the Daisy Award for Extraordinary Nurses.
More nurse disciplinary cases
Other Iowa-licensed nurses whose licenses have been restricted recently include:
Danny Trent Mendez-Patterson, 42, who, under the name Danny Trent Nazareth-Patterson, was charged by the board with being convicted of an offense directly related to the duties and responsibilities of the profession. He recently agreed to surrender his license. Court records indicate that in December 2021, Mendez-Patterson was employed by the Parkridge Specialty Care nursing home in Pleasant Hill where he assaulted a resident of the facility.
Danny Mendez-Patterson (Photo courtesy of Polk County Jail)
After being charged with assault causing injury, Mendez-Patterson pleaded guilty to the offense. In March 2022, he was sentenced to one year of probation. According to police, witnesses alleged they saw Patterson push, slap and hit the 77-year-old woman, causing bruising around her right eye. The woman suffered an anxiety attack and was briefly hospitalized, according to court records.
Donna Kemker, a travel nurse from Georgia, who has agreed to relinquish her right to practice nursing in Iowa. The board alleged that while working as a travel nurse, Kemker was assigned to a hospital in May 2022 and she arrived for work showing signs of drowsiness, slurred speech and an unsteady gait.
She was evaluated in the hospital’s emergency department where, according to the board, tests showed she had a blood-alcohol level of 0.265 – more than three times the legal limit for driving. Kemker allegedly admitted she had consumed a large amount of alcohol before reporting for work and could feel its effect.
Valerie Barfield, 50, of Wellman, who has agreed to relinquish her right to practice in Iowa. The board alleged that in July 2022, Barfield was working at an unspecified care facility through an Iowa staffing agency. While on duty, Barfield repeatedly slept, and was seen by co-workers sitting in a recliner for extended periods.
Care-facility records indicated Barfield claimed to have administered multiple medications to residents throughout her shift, although video footage suggested the residents never received their medication. The video footage allegedly showed Barfield procuring multiple pills for residents without ever administering the drugs. According to the board, she later tested positive for cocaine.
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.
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