Juggling Dynamite

For well over a century, viscose rayon has been used to make clothes, tires, cellophane and everyday kitchen sponges. It was hailed as a wondrous new product when first introduced — but what most people didn’t know is how deadly manufacturing rayon was for the factory workers.

In his new book Fake Silk: The Lethal History of Viscose Rayon, Blanc, who is also a University of California professor of medicine, looks at how the manufacturing of viscose rayon served as a death sentence for many industry workers.

Here is a direct audio link.

A few giggles and many lucid points in this article from British commentator, comedian Frankie Boyle.  See here:  All presidents come into office with something to prove, it’s just rarely their sanity. Here are just two standout paragraphs:

I don’t really understand commentators who say it’s vital not to normalise any of Trump’s actions. They have been normalised for eight years by Barack Obama while many of the same people looked the other way. Banks and corporations writing their own legislation; war by executive order; mass deportations; kill lists: it’s all now as normal and American as earthquakes caused by fracked gases being ignited by burning abortion clinics. Of course, there is a moral difference in whether such actions are performed by a Harvard-educated constitutional law professor or a gibbering moron, and the distinction goes in Trump’s favour. That’s not to say Trump won’t plumb profound new depths of awfulness, like the disbanding of the environmental protection agency set up by hippy, libtard snowflake Richard Nixon….

Morally, I think you have to look at what you can do to change your own country first, as that’s the bit you have most influence on. This is complicated in Britain as we have a government that has undergone what is known in the business world as “regulatory capture” by corporate and financial interests, and is, broadly speaking, a vassal state of the US. What can we do practically to influence our own government that would truly affect the Trump administration? Well, in a country supposedly filled with restored national pride, we could not renew Trident and refuse to be his missile base. That kind of strategic loss would damage him deeply. No amount of likes or memes or petitions can achieve this. Really, if we want to survive as a species, it’s time for organised civil disobedience. It’s time to stop writing to your MP.

In a world of populist leaders and half-baked 140-character-thoughts, a sober, law and constitution-focused judiciary, is critical in checking abuse of power.  Relentless efforts to block the long-delayed fiduciary standard for those giving retirement advice is classic.

Inspired by President Trump’s recent memo to the Department of Labor to review and possibly rescind its incoming fiduciary rule, financial trade groups brought yet another application to the courts seeking to overturn it. Fortunately, Chief Judge Barbara Lynn for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas was there to hear and reject their arguments.  This marked the second time that the federal district court has upheld the fiduciary rule. A third court, rejected an earlier effort to stay its implementation.

Judges and lawyers know all about fiduciary duty, it is a legal standard that was established by the courts of equity in hearing thousands of abuse of trust cases over centuries. Only those enriched selling risk to others and calling it ‘advice’ in name only, would argue against the obvious need to put the client’s financial interests before the seller’s profits. But unfortunately, the sales force remains fully in charge of governments at this point.

This was confirmed last week by ex-Goldman Sachs head Gary Cohn–now Trump’s new National Economic Council Director– who said, apparently without any embarrassment:

“We think it is a bad rule. It is a bad rule for consumers, this is like putting only healthy food on the menu, because unhealthy food tastes good but you still shouldn’t eat it because you might die younger.”

Good one.  Yep, predatory, destructive financial products and advice do sometimes kill people via heightened stress, trauma and harm to health, but more often they just destroy peace, stability, families and happiness while undermining the financial strength of a nation and the world. No big deal, right?

We are living today through the carnage this sales-based, responsibility-free system has wrought.  And we will be paying the price for the deficits and debts it’s created for years to come.  It will require a strong judiciary as well as public revulsion to finally push the self-serving financial cartel back in service to the economy, rather than the other way around.  A fiduciary standard and personal accountability are foundational to recovery.