Juggling Dynamite

As hearings on President Trump’s next pick for Supreme Court Justice proceed, Better Markets has published a detailed 20-page report on candidate Brett Kavanaugh’s history of corporate-biased decisions and writings, see Judge Kavanaugh: good for corporations, bad for your wallet:

“…potential justice, Brett Kavanaugh, has a record on business and financial cases that is hostile to the economic interests of working Americans, particularly if they are ripped off or injured by corporations.

There is little doubt that if Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed he will tilt the scales of justice in favor of corporations over consumers, workers, investors and retirees, while gutting the financial regulatory agencies’ ability to protect the public from scammers, predators and crooks.”

Sustainable systems require strong countervailing forces.  And the pendumlum toward more and more corporate-friendly policies, in motion for a couple of decades now, and has reached the point of extreme autocratic imbalance at the expense of all stakeholders.

Directly on this point, economist and former policy adviser John Perkins (who advised the World Bank, United Nations, IMF, U.S. Treasury Department, Fortune 500 corporations, and leaders of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East) has a new book detailing the inner workings of how domineering corpations and captured governments have steered the world down its presently self-destructive path in The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Perkins recently penned a synoposis article of some of the material here.  Here is a highlight:

I was taught that a good CEO earns a decent return for his investors and also makes sure that his company is a good citizen, that it serves a public interest. We were instructed to take care of our employees, giving them health insurance and retirement pensions, to treat our suppliers and customers with deep respect, and to honor the idea that good business is a win-win for all stakeholders. In many cases, CEOs made sure that their companies not only paid their fair share of taxes but also contributed money to local schools, recreational facilities and other such services.

All that changed in 1976 when Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize in Economics and stated, among other things, that the only responsibility of business is to maximize profits, regardless of the social and environmental costs. This was a perceived reality that became the defining goal for businesses. It convinced corporate executives that they had the right – some would say the mandate – to do whatever they thought it would take to maximize profits, including buying public officials through campaign financing, destroying the environment, and devastating the very resources upon which their businesses ultimately depend.

That perceived reality has resulted in a failed global economic system, one that is on the path to consuming itself into extinction – what some economists refer to as Predatory Capitalism.

It is time that we turn this around.

Danielle was a guest with Jim Goddard on Talk Digital Radio, talking about recent developments in the world economy and markets.  You can listen to an audio clip of the segment here.

Further to the comments about copper’s bear market (20% decline year-to-date) suggesting slowing global demand into 2019. Here’s the chart.

As I have mentioned before, I come from a long line of farmers and tradespeople, and was the first in my family to go to university.  And yes, my parents and teachers encouraged me to do so, and I appreciated their confidence in me.  Could I have built a successful business and happy life in a college or apprenticed trade instead?  With some good luck, I think so, since the traits and habits that make one successful, or not, tend to translate to whatever work we undertake.  I know that good manual skills are hugely valuable in life.  My husband and I have continually engaged in physical labor outside the office to great benefit all our lives.

Most fortunately, my family expected me to be not just studious, but also handy and adept at manual labor.  Many people who are trained for a desk job, are not expected to do be handy, just as many who are trained in the trades are not expected to be intellectual.  These things are not mutually exclusive of course, and we should not counsel young people to act as if they are.

I would note however, that ideas in this area seem to move in waves.  When my children were in high school they reported several career days, where teachers counselled the class to go into trades only and not university.   Our kids thought the anti-university bias also unhelpful.  We need knowledge and intuition to build skillsets for life–heads, hearts and hands.

Thanks to a reader for sending me the below clip–there many excellent points herein.

Mike Rowe, TV host of the popular show “Dirty Jobs”, testifies before the House Education & the Workforce Committee on the importance of career and technical education.  Here is a direct video link.