Problems With Wealth

The continent of Africa owns approximately 1% of the total wealth of the world.  
~Credit Suisse Global Wealth Data

Africa is huge, the world's second-largest and second-most-populous continent.  For the fifty-four countries with extraordinary natural resources and a willing workforce, why does their wealth flow to the developed world?  For hundreds of years, exploitation has been the norm with today's showcase elements being indebtedness and predatory trade practices.

Business and financial practices can be troublesome as they seek sustainable wealth extraction.  Multinational corporations apply their influence against tariffs and other trade restrictions.  A favorable rule broadens their market, increases workforce competition and lowers wage rates.  It enhances their profitability with little regard for socioeconomic impact. Current initiatives impose an external capitalist/business model on large social groups.

"Why is it that corporations give millions of dollars to elected officials? Do you think it's simply public-spirited behavior?"  ~Walter E. Williams

NAFTA:  After 20 years, the 'free trade agreement' has mixed reviews. The U.S. and Canada came out well enough, but Mexico ... The agreement removed tariffs on most agricultural products. U.S. and Canadian farms sell (govt subsidized) corn to Mexico, and Mexican corn farmers are unable to compete. "Entire towns are emptying because thousands of small farms have gone out of business. As many as 2 million farm workers have lost their jobs."  CBS News  Mexico does have increased exports of other products, but the workforce upheaval continues. Real wages are down, unemployment is up, and 25% of their children are malnourished.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP), both are NAFTA on steroids with risks.

• In 2013, Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz warned that TPP presented "grave risks" and "serves the interests of the wealthiest." 
• Organised labour in the U.S. argued that the trade deal would largely benefit corporations at the expense of workers in the manufacturing and service industries. 
•  The Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research argued that the TPP could result in further job losses and declining wages.
• In 2014, Noam Chomsky states that the TPP is "designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to maximise profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity." 
• Senator Bernie Sanders stated that trade agreements like the TPP "have ended up devastating working families and enriching large corporations." 
• Nobel Prize economist, Paul Krugman, reported, "... I'll be undismayed and even a bit relieved if the TPP just fades away", and said that "... there isn't a compelling case for this deal, from either a global or a national point of view."  Krugman also noted the absence of "anything like a political consensus in favor, abroad or at home."
• Economist Robert Reich contends that the TPP is a "Trojan horse in a global race to the bottom, giving big corporations and Wall Street banks a way to eliminate any and all laws and regulations that get in the way of their profits."

Such practices risk widening the GAP and creating persistent poverty in the lower income groups.  Today, about half the world lives on less than $5/day per person.  Improvements in recent decades have benefited the wealthy with comparatively little progress for lower income groups.

"More powerfully, this process of poverty creation - the forceful extraction of commonly managed assets to serve financial elites - is exactly what recent social movements have called attention to. Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, the African uprisings, even the anti-austerity stance of new political parties in Spain and Greece, all have one thing in common: The recognition that the only way for a tiny group of people to become obscenely rich is for huge masses of others to be kept chronically poor.

This cold logic of poverty creation tells us what needs to be done. Before obsessing about amounts of foreign aid, or pretending it can solve deep systemic problems, we need to all focus on changing the rules of economic systems to make them more inclusive, more participatory, more focused on creating well-being than simply extracting more aggregate wealth, and more accountable to those billions who are not being served by the current rules. This is how mass poverty truly can be brought to an end."  ~Jason Hickel, Joe Brewer, and Martin Kirk

Good-for-Nothing John

King John of England ran headlong into a brick wall.  Like his predecessors, he had ruled rather heavy-handedly on the basis of divine right, believing the king was the law and above whatever tradition there might be.  His decisions were arbitrary, often unjust, and folks finally got tired of the abuse.  They rebelled.

In 1215, King John signed the Great Charter, a precursor to the Magna Carta, as an attempt at peace.  The charter established the rights of freemen along with a host of constraints on rule.  King John reneged three months later, and war broke out with London and half of England being occupied by the rebels.  John died of dysentery the following year.

Such abuse of power has long been the root of unrest among common folk and continues so today.

• We acknowledge the rule of law.  However ...  
• The rightness of our laws must be continually proven.   

Deregulation of the financial industry has made an extraordinary mega-fortune for the top 1% at the expense of everyone else, and more than a million died as a result of the Great Recession that ensued.

The laws governing the financial industry have failed the intent of having laws in the first place.  The industry, still unrestrained, has added many to the list of the world's greediest, those who extract wealth from others, who gamble with the resources of others, and who indenture nations.

Overstated?  

One year after the recent financial collapse, the top 25 hedge fund managers earned approximately $25 billion, an average of $1 billion each.  ~Business Insider, Zero Hedge  More than enough for a thousand lifetimes each, pocketed in a single year and every year.

This is money extracted from the economy by individuals who provide no benefit to the citizenry.  Their 'work' brings no benefit to the marketplace, no opportunity for employment, no improvements in productivity, no food or water.  They serve themselves, pumping wealth out of the efforts and out of the pockets of others.  Why would government allow such activity?

Why, indeed.  In the absence of other evidence, it would appear that governments are managed by the rich.  Not all of it, of course.  Governments are necessary, and in many venues, they're helpful for all.  The rightness of laws, however, must be continually be proven.

"Why is it that corporations give millions of dollars to elected officials? Do you think it's simply public-spirited behavior?"  ~Walter E. Williams

MSM

MainStreamMedia - the business practice has evolved over the years.

When folks had access to just a couple of newspapers, a couple of radio and TV stations, news services were valued for timely informational content, for clarifying things.  When hundreds of channels and internet sites appeared, competing news services began adjusting their focus and presentation, targeting ideological segments of the market.

Revenues depend on ratings which depend on engagement which requires selective and emphasized presentations designed to appeal to and capture a particular audience.

This isn't really freedom of the press, is it.  Perhaps MSM is really MildlyStupidMusings or MoreSlantedMush, but it's not 'just the news' any more.  We all know that.


Actually, it's advertising.
If you were to use the same visual and narrative framework from MSM for, say, a new car model, it would look like today's advertising. The elements are the same, offering the appearance of information but actually designed and presented to appeal, to persuade, to reinforce a particular slant.  Whether the content is political, ideological, or cultural, it's a slanted sales pitch.  (That's the description of propaganda, by the way.)

Watching the news, the only thing we know for sure is that none of the MSM providers are 'fair and balanced'.  Knowing the direction and degree of bias for a provider helps.

The result of competitive propagandizing is the polarization we see today, a marked increase over recent decades.  Republicans and Democrats are farther apart than at any time in history, and both are extreme or nearly so.  Liberals and conservatives have little middle ground they share.


Most of us have deliberately chosen to distrust advertising.  We understand it's more persuasion than information.  We might reconsider our preference in information sources and our willingness to accept content just because it matches our preferences.   That isn't objectivity.  It isn't even honesty, is it.  Wouldn't we be better served by a more thoughtful consideration of all sides of an issue?


Def/Ref:  Media bias occurs when the media systematically emphasizes one particular point of view in a way that contravenes the standards of professional journalism. Claims of media bias include liberal bias, conservative bias, mainstream bias, and corporate bias. To combat this, a variety of watchdog groups research and report the facts behind both biased reporting and unfounded claims of bias.  Research about media bias is now a subject of systematic scholarship in a variety of academic and business disciplines.  Note: that includes how to do propaganda effectively.

The Brookings Institute, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact.com, Pew Research Center, ConservativeFactCheck.com, Snopes.com,  etc.

28 OCT 17 - Note: as an outsider observed today, MSM bias limits their content to fit their narrative.  The issues are much more complex than the simplistic headlines provide.

The problem, perhaps, is that there is much in government, politics, and business that needs to be transparent. Obama personally advised Trump not to appoint Michael Flynn as national security advisor, a warning Trump ignored. Flynn sat in on classified briefings with Trump while he was at the same time employed by foreign interests. Flynn's 24 day tenure is the shortest in the history of the office; he turned out to be both untruthful and deceptive, and was asked to resign. Later, we find out he was involved in political efforts in the U.S. by Russia and Turkey.

Godzilla, a hero?

You know Godzilla is the good guy in his latest movie, right?  

Stupid scientists have unleashed this other monster that's destroying everything, and Godzilla shows up to save the day for everybody. Visualize where Godzilla opens his mouth and this huge, unstoppable power stream flows out ... focused ferocity, blasting the creature that's been killing people and threatening the world.  It's a viscerally stunning portrayal.

Godzilla as the good guy, he gets to open up and fry the bad guy.  It's the right thing to do, from a monsterish point of view, and it's satisfying to watch.

So for a real-life good guy, does he ever get to do things like that? Does a good guy get to open up and define good vs. bad; does he get to speak what's right into existence and blow away the wrong?

The impediments - well, there's appropriate reserve and decorum and deference and political considerations.  And position! You can get bumped out of the pack if you pull the rug out from under the players. It happened to Peter Norman, but in the end, he was right and everybody had to admit it.  He paid a price, though.

Start to finish, we're told what to do and how to think.  For twelve years or more in school, we do what we're told, then comes employment where we do what we're told.  By the time the moment arrives, we've got years of living up to the expectations of others, doing what they want, what they think is best, not rocking the boat.

Culturally, we've put up a thousand walls against decisions of conscience. There are boundaries that constrain us to the group norm, to the authority above us, to the status quo and the flow of events.

Speaking the truth when it goes against the grain ... that's emotionally difficult, particularly for an adult who is assimilated into a structured culture.  Opening your mouth and sweeping away wickedness, replacing it with right and truth, that's a step of courage and conviction.

An example?
Well, there was slavery.  Brave folks opened up and spoke while facing tremendous opposition. One by one, they spoke until they could no longer be ignored.  They spoke truth against the established culture, the power players, and told them they were just wrong, in every possible way, wickedly wrong.  It took courage and conviction.  It was not a gentle conversation, and the battle continues.

How about examples today?   For just one, our culture today thrives on greed, economic abuse, and oppression.  It's called the GAP, the widening distance between rich and poor, or predatory economics. It's a monster with many tentacles, and it threatens the world.  It's the most grotesquely wicked element visible in today's international arena.

Feeling courageous?  Blast away, Godzilla.  :)  (Just speak the truth; no fire and melting.  You knew that.)

In case you passed by Peter Norman's story, give it a sec.

Why the difference?

Sources

Why, indeed ...

• We thought of humanity as separate races with significant differences until we discovered we're all from one origin and biologically the same.  That's new, or at least the science is.  
• Then we decided that our differences were culture, intellect, and character ... until after the Cold War when we discovered we're all virtually identical.  That's new also, and geography isn't it either.
• We've insisted that the top groups are ethically superior and more willing to work.  Then we find out the reverse is the reality; the ethically sound and hardest working aren't at the top of the income scale, they're at the bottom.  
• We've claimed that financial success was earned and a noble goal, but watching the worldwide movement of wealth (every natural resource, business and labor productivity, income, wealth creation), we find that the flow is bottom-to-top in virtually every local, regional, and world market and industry, and progressively more so through modern history.
• Generally off the mark on every premise so far, we watch the widening GAP between the top 10% or so and everyone else.  What does it mean?

Ever wonder if your perspective, your worldview, might be a bit incomplete?  Of course it is.  The difficult task is deciding what we're going to do next.  If we're conformers, we'll pass by on the other side of the street.

Want some fun suggestions?

We could pick a couple of targets we know and understand, then plan and finance them.  One local and one distant.  Help a friend, equip a family, make a difference.  Commit for the duration, know the folks involved.  It changes things at both ends.  :)

help out when you're asked, or better yet, before you're asked
help a kid through school, through college or trade school
help a family build their home and flocks and gardens
help a community build a library or a clinic
help a school with supplies for the kids
help some refugees get resettled and start over
help a community with med assistance
help a family through a rough spot
help a friend through a crisis
help the widowed and the orphaned here and elsewhere
help the hungry and sick and needy
...
or even go see for yourself.  It's more fun that way.

Ways to improve?

According to the U.S. Commerce Department, CORPORATE profits are at their highest
level in at least 85 years. Employee compensation is at the lowest level in 65 years.

What does that suggest?

How many ways might we improve this organization?

This is today's bottom-line driven, profit-motivated business model.  A good bad example - Walmart, perhaps.

The six Walmart heirs took more than $1 Billion each in profits last year.  

2014 Walmart sales associates make $8.81 per hour on average. This translates to annual pay of $15,576, based upon Walmart's full-time status of 34 hours per week.  That's below the poverty line for a family, of course.  (UPDATE: WMT upped their minimum to $9/Hr earlier this year, but it hasn't worked out that well as the change only benefits new hires.)

Costco, by comparison, pays a reasonable wage. Costco's CEO and president, Craig Jelinek, has publicly endorsed raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, and he takes that to heart. The company's starting pay is $11.50 per hour, and the average employee wage is $21 per hour, not including overtime.

Prices?  Walmart offers no advantage over Costco or Target.

And how do they treat their community? Working at Walmart means you qualify for for SNAP, EITC, and housing assistance programs.  “A single Walmart Supercenter cost area taxpayers between $904,542 and $1.75 million per year," in family assistance costs due to low wages and deliberately restricted hours.

Walmart stock is as unimpressive as their business practices. Costco and Kroger have beaten WMT performance impressively.

Feel free to comment about it to management.  The business still needs to be adjusted.

Walmart Executive Compensation; typical of large corporations, upper management is in the top 0.01% for income.

	Name/Title		2011	2012	2013	2014	2015

	C. Douglas Mcmillon/President and CEO		$8,806,408	$10,961,404	$9,563,093	$25,592,938	$19,392,608

	Charles Holley/Executive Vice President and CFO		$8,186,163	$5,112,172	$6,638,670	$8,199,391	$7,431,841

	Gregory Foran/Executive Vice President		-	-	-	-	$19,535,123

	David Cheesewright/Executive Vice President		-	-	-	-	$10,665,054

	Rosalind G. Brewer/Executive Vice President		-	-	$14,457,122	$11,664,423	$9,560,235

	Neil M. Ashe/Executive Vice President		-	$11,247,988	$8,350,945	$13,178,743	$9,436,775

According to the U.S. Commerce Department, CORPORATE profits are at their highest level in at least 85 years. Employee compensation is at the lowest level in 65 years. What does that suggest?