Escaping from the Inescapable Casino of “Free” Market Capitalism

5fish

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what do you think i should learn?
It too much power in to few hands and vote fixing is taking place...


Which means I own corporate America because my 401-k account is invested in two of the big three.
You may own a piece of them but they have incredible voting power at the shareholder meeting... They could control every companies boards...

I think missed this part of the article... They coordinate their votes... its called vote fixing...


With corporate ownership comes shareholder power. BlackRock recently argued that legally it was not the “owner” of the shares it holds but rather acts as a kind of custodian for their investors.

That’s a technicality for lawyers to sort. What is undeniable is that the Big Three do exert the voting rights attached to these shares. Therefore, they have to be perceived as de facto owners by corporate executives.

These companies have, in fact, publicly declared that they seek to exert influence. William McNabb, chairman and CEO of Vanguard, said in 2015 that, “In the past, some have mistakenly assumed that our predominantly passive management style suggests a passive attitude with respect to corporate governance. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When we analysed the voting behaviour of the Big Three, we found that they coordinate it through centralised corporate governance departments. This requires significant efforts because technically the shares are held by many different individual funds.

Hence, just three companies wield an enormous potential power over corporate America. Interestingly, though, we found that the Big Three vote for management in about 90% of all votes at annual general meetings, while mostly voting against proposals sponsored by shareholders (such as calls for independent board chairmen).
 

5fish

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This article even points out market failing @Jim Klag , in two sectors of our economy is in an oligarchy state...


Research is still nascent, but some economists are already arguing that this concentration of shareholder power could have negative effects on competition.

Over the past decade, numerous US industries have become dominated by only a handful of companies, from aviation to banking. The Big Three – seen together – are virtually always the largest shareholder in the few competitors that remain in these sectors.

This is the case for American Airlines, Delta, and United Continental, as it is for the banks JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citigroup. All of these corporations are part of the S&P 500, the index in which most people invest.

Their CEOs are likely well aware that the Big Three are their firm’s dominant shareholder and would take that into account when making decisions. So, arguably, airlines have less incentive to lower prices because doing so would reduce overall returns for the Big Three, their common owner.

In this way, the Big Three may be exerting a kind of emergent “structural power” over much of corporate America.

Whether or not they sought to, the Big Three have accumulated extraordinary shareholder power, and they continue to do so. Index funds are a business of scale, which means that at this point competitors will find it very difficult to gain market shares.
 

Jim Klag

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You may own a piece of them but they have incredible voting power at the shareholder meeting... They could control every companies boards
Jeez. Who cares? Have you any evidence of shenanigans in any company whose stock is owned by the big three? We still have a Securities and Exchange commission and a Commerce Department and laws governing the running of companies. Take a Prozac and chill.
 

5fish

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Here a video for those who chose not to read the article...

 

5fish

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America is a Oligarchy nation state... The few run the masses...


According to a new study from Princeton University, American democracy no longer exists. Using data from over 1,800 policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page concluded that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of – or even against – the will of the majority of voters. America’s political system has transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where power is wielded by wealthy elites.
 

Jim Klag

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America is a Oligarchy nation state... The few run the masses...


According to a new study from Princeton University, American democracy no longer exists. Using data from over 1,800 policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page concluded that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of – or even against – the will of the majority of voters. America’s political system has transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where power is wielded by wealthy elites.
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, et. al. were also the elites of their day. Andy Jackson and Abe Lincoln were anomalies. Most of our presidents have been from the upper crust or pals with the upper crust. Same with the Senate. The House is a littld more egalitarian but it is not antwhere near a mirror image of our society. So what's new. Stsrting with Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, Robert Morris we were led by the wealthy.
 

rittmeister

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Washington, Jefferson, Madison, et. al. were also the elites of their day. Andy Jackson and Abe Lincoln were anomalies. Most of our presidents have been from the upper crust or pals with the upper crust. Same with the Senate. The House is a littld more egalitarian but it is not antwhere near a mirror image of our society. So what's new. Stsrting with Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, Robert Morris we were led by the wealthy.
your constitution (especially the ellectoral college) is set up to have a ruling class of rich folks
 

5fish

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The right graph of the wealthiest over time... markets of wealth creation are broken... click and learn...


Here is another comparing thier wealth to GDP of nations...

 

5fish

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Old article but still holds...


The US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite.

So concludes a recent study by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page.
This is not news, you say.

Perhaps, but the two professors have conducted exhaustive research to try to present data-driven support for this conclusion. Here's how they explain it:
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

In English: the wealthy few move policy, while the average American has little power.

The two professors came to this conclusion after reviewing answers to 1,779 survey questions asked between 1981 and 2002 on public policy issues. They broke the responses down by income level, and then determined how often certain income levels and organised interest groups saw their policy preferences enacted.

"A proposed policy change with low support among economically elite Americans (one-out-of-five in favour) is adopted only about 18% of the time," they write, "while a proposed change with high support (four-out-of-five in favour) is adopted about 45% of the time."

On the other hand:
When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it.

They conclude:
Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organisations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.

Eric Zuess, writing in Counterpunch, isn't surprised by the survey's results.
"American democracy is a sham, no matter how much it's pumped by the oligarchs who run the country (and who control the nation's "news" media)," he writes. "The US, in other words, is basically similar to Russia or most other dubious 'electoral' 'democratic' countries. We weren't formerly, but we clearly are now."

This is the "Duh Report", says Death and Taxes magazine's Robyn Pennacchia. Maybe, she writes, Americans should just accept their fate.
"Perhaps we ought to suck it up, admit we have a classist society and do like England where we have a House of Lords and a House of Commoners," she writes, "instead of pretending as though we all have some kind of equal opportunity here."
 

5fish

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Here a short video showing our business sectors are run by oligarchies... 3:14

 

5fish

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You will see the tax cuts since the 60's have only gone to the wealthiest among us... That one party that cries for tax cuts only ever cuts taxes for the wealthiest what a scam....

 

O' Be Joyful

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You will see the tax cuts since the 60's have only gone to the wealthiest among us... That one party that cries for tax cuts only ever cuts taxes for the wealthiest what a scam....
 

5fish

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This link to the first Chapter of Denise Hearn book "The Myth of Capitalism" ... its a good short read with graphs showing her point... It shows what the first article shows every market turns into an Oligarchic state... @Jim Klag your perishes view of capitalism is threaten by the lack of competition...


Summary of her book:

The Myth of Capitalism tells the story of how America has gone from an open, competitive marketplace to an economy where a few very powerful companies dominate key industries that affect our daily lives. Digital monopolies like Google, Facebook and Amazon act as gatekeepers to the digital world. Amazon is capturing almost all online shopping dollars. We have the illusion of choice, but for most critical decisions, we have only one or two companies, when it comes to high speed Internet, health insurance, medical care, mortgage title insurance, social networks, Internet searches, or even consumer goods like toothpaste. Every day, the average American transfers a little of their pay check to monopolists and oligopolists. The solution is vigorous anti-trust enforcement to return America to a period where competition created higher economic growth, more jobs, higher wages and a level playing field for all. The Myth of Capitalism is the story of industrial concentration, but it matters to everyone, because the stakes could not be higher. It tackles the big questions of: why is the US becoming a more unequal society, why is economic growth anemic despite trillions of dollars of federal debt and money printing, why the number of start-ups has declined, and why are workers losing out.
 

Jim Klag

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This link to the first Chapter of Denise Hearn book "The Myth of Capitalism" ... its a good short read with graphs showing her point... It shows what the first article shows every market turns into an Oligarchic state... @Jim Klag your perishes view of capitalism is threaten by the lack of competition...


Summary of her book:

The Myth of Capitalism tells the story of how America has gone from an open, competitive marketplace to an economy where a few very powerful companies dominate key industries that affect our daily lives. Digital monopolies like Google, Facebook and Amazon act as gatekeepers to the digital world. Amazon is capturing almost all online shopping dollars. We have the illusion of choice, but for most critical decisions, we have only one or two companies, when it comes to high speed Internet, health insurance, medical care, mortgage title insurance, social networks, Internet searches, or even consumer goods like toothpaste. Every day, the average American transfers a little of their pay check to monopolists and oligopolists. The solution is vigorous anti-trust enforcement to return America to a period where competition created higher economic growth, more jobs, higher wages and a level playing field for all. The Myth of Capitalism is the story of industrial concentration, but it matters to everyone, because the stakes could not be higher. It tackles the big questions of: why is the US becoming a more unequal society, why is economic growth anemic despite trillions of dollars of federal debt and money printing, why the number of start-ups has declined, and why are workers losing out.
Sorry. Marxism has lost. Socialism has lost. Free market capitalism is triumphant. It ain't nearly perfect, but it is the best system. By far.
 

5fish

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It ain't nearly perfect, but it is the best system. By far.
It is failing us can it survive and here is a video by NBC about it... it only 4 min long... the four beliefs we have adopted from the 1980's that are failing us today...

 

Jim Klag

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It is failing us can it survive and here is a video by NBC about it... it only 4 min long... the four beliefs we have adopted from the 1980's that are failing us today...

Okay, Mr. Fish. To what economic system would you suggest we convert?
 
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