CHINA CRACKS DOWN ON BILLIONAIRE POWER & TECH…

 

CHINA CRACKS DOWN ON BILLIONAIRE POWER & TECH…

 

In the past few months, China has clamped down on areas from anti-monopoly practices to cybersecurity, and tightened rules on data security. 

Regulators have tightened their hold on domestic tech giants for much of the past year, from the suspension of Ant Group’s $34.5 billion listing, to Alibaba’s $2.8 billion antitrust fine, and a cybersecurity probe into ride-hailing firm Didi. 

“When the U.S. government wanted to crack down on monopoly, it could take years and decades simply because of the institutional checks and balances,” he said.

 

“China’s model is slightly different — other people think it’s a lot different,” Li said. “That model allows them to do things quickly, identify issues decisively, and then make a policy right after that, and then move on to implement that.”

 

-       Beijing crackdown is a ‘wake up call’ for China’s corporate giants, says former chief of HKEX, CNBC

 

By Gregg Wall (8-7-2021)

 

Due to equal parts boredom w/ US financial news reporting, the mountain time zone I live within, combined with an equal measure of curiosity, I pivoted to Asian financial news reporting in the last several weeks.  My timing couldn’t have been more fortunate, as China’s government has begun cracking down hard on tech monopolies and even running over a billionaire or two.  China’s reevaluation of capitalism didn’t just start over the last several weeks… earlier this year, Beijing began to rein in Jack Ma and Ant Group.  

 

China’s new regulatory regime comes at a time when the Biden administration has weighed in against the evils of monopoly, by the signing of an executive order … orders designed to promote competition and inveigh against M&A and resulting layoffs, gouging the consumer via pricing power, and anticompetitive monopsony power against business creation & small business owners.  But Biden's fight appears to be an uphill battle and possibly may be little more than window dressing: with US regulatory agencies entirely captured by the industries they allegedly govern; the massive flows of money from billionaires and multinationals into political races; the gross corruption Americans see in the US congress every day; and a US stock market that thrives on monopolies’ obscene profits, crushing labor, and greater concentrated power. 

 

In short, Biden’s orders don’t have many teeth, nor has the admin begun anything in the way of antitrust enforcement, which could take years, if not decades.  And given America’s right-wing, pro-business courts as well as a possible shift to a future republican administration (which could unwind Biden’s efforts w/ the stroke of a pen), even the antitrust path is not guaranteed to succeed. Our do-nothing congress often talks a great game against US tech behemoths, but it’s taken seven months just to produce a simple bipartisan infrastructure bill in the Senate and even that is little closer to passage. 

 

Anyone who has read the JMH blog knows I have written extensively about the evils of billionaires, monopoly, and private equity … all are devotees, or vehicles, of concentrated economic and political power.  Power that is a direct threat to democracy, a healthy US economy, and the theory that the American government is a government of the people and for the people.

 

 

 

 

Since Biden has come into office, we’ve seen Wall Street drive up the price of commodities; we’ve seen powerful monopolies & utilities exercise pricing power over the consumer and labor; and we’ve seen foreign supply chains and concentration bring US auto production to a grinding halt.  These actions did not happen by accident nor within a vacuum but were designed to usurp the will of the American people and drive inflation, so as to cut off debate and action on Biden’s New Deal promises.  Americans are often worried about the coercive power of the state, but seem far less concerned about the corrosive, destructive, and pernicious power of the private sector.  

 

And is it any wonder, as we read glowing write ups in the financial press about how Warren Buffet scores another profits coup, by investing in monopolies: that are on auto pilot, destroy the planet, face no competition, suffer little or no regulatory oversight, crush labor, and destroy the fabric of democracy and the American dream itself.  Or perhaps the MSM can produce yet another puff piece on how Ri-Ri scored her first billion.

 

If Biden & congress were even remotely focused upon reining in the twin scourges to the US economy and the political process -- billionaires and monopolies -- he’d have to attack the problem on several fronts: 1) by taxing, significantly, the dividends, stock appreciation, and wealth of the billionaire class; 2) instructing the Federal Reserve to stop jacking up the stock market (why would entrepreneurs invest in business creation or go up against American monopolies, when they can earn fortunes in a rigged stock market); 3) telling the FED to raise interest rates and cut off the mother’s milk of concentration and monopoly (i.e. cheap debt); 4) using the Defense Production Act to attack monopoly concentration, especially Big Pharma, and reorganize industry, including ordering businesses and the US economy home (if a pandemic, half the US in flames, and monopoly rule doesn’t provide enough crises with which to use the DPA, what does?); and 5) removing the revolving door in regulatory agencies and have them attack the monopolies and utilities (including, but not limited to, tax audits and antitrust enforcement).  Biden also needs to use the bully pulpit of the presidency to attack senators and congressmen, who stand in his way (as well as their donors). 

 

Biden might even try a few carrots, incenting businesses to break up and unwind?  Hey, Biden says he’s modeling his presidency on FDR… seven months in, it’s time to start.

 

 

 

 

 

If all this seems daunting or pie in the sky, coming from a president whose greatest campaign promise was to his billionaire donors, assuring them nothing would change (so far, Biden sure as hell has delivered in this regard) … perhaps we should consider the alternative, a democracy facing collapse.  

 

From a health care system that just came in dead last, to rising poverty rates, to near zero social mobility and declining life expectancy, the US is not well.  In fact, it looks down right banana republic. 

 

To be sure, I’m not a fan of Communist China’s totalitarian leadership, gulags, or crushing oppression… but what I am a fan of are governments that get things done, highly positive things like reining in billionaires and state control over monopolies (cartels & monopolies should not exist in a healthy capitalist economy).  Please notice, when the Sino stock market indexes took the inevitable hit from leadership’s recent actions, China’s communists, alleged free marketeers, didn’t even flinch.  If the markets had cratered in the US, American politicians would have turned to Jell-O. 

 

It’s easy for me to sneer about communist oppression, but what about billionaire, monopoly, and Wall St. oppression?  Is a dictatorship of moneyed elite much different than a dictatorship of a single hegemonic political party? 

 

And is America’s two-party system little more than a front for single party rule, that is to say, oligarchy aiming for complete kleptocracy?

 

If that’s the case, well then, mission accomplished.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2021

Doomsday Machine

Doomsday Machine

 

… is that the whole point of the doomsday machine… is lost if you keep it a secret.  Why didn’t you tell the world, eh? 

 

-       Dr. Strangelove (played by Peter Sellers)

 

It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday.  As you know, the Premier loves surprises. 

 

-       Soviet Ambassador, Alexei Sadeski (played by Peter Bull)

 

From the Movie Dr. Strangelove, Directed, Produced, Co-written by Stanley Kubrick

 

By Gregg Wall (7-24-2021)

 

Recently, I had an opportunity to watch Dr. Strangelove, again.  In watching the movie, the thought occurred to me that the premise of the entire movie -- that of a doomsday machine that threatens nuclear annihilation for the entire world, and the insanity of man -- might be alive and well. 

 

Without digressing too much, the movie takes place during the heart of the Cold War, when game theory, and the MAD doctrine (mutual assured destruction), arguably, controlled global foreign policy (as two superpowers – the former Soviet Union and the United States – wrestled for global control).  Ah, simpler times.  At the start of the movie, a rogue & unbalanced US Air Force commander launches a first strike.  As the president and the joint chiefs attempt to pullback and unwind the strike, it comes to light -- via Soviet Premier Kissov and his ambassador -- that Russia, unbeknownst to the world, has a doomsday machine.  A doomsday machine which will automatically destroy the world (via a radioactive shroud for 93 years) in retaliation for a first strike attack. The fact that nobody knows about the doomsday machine, under game theory, defeats the purpose of having such a device.  If you haven’t seen the movie, or it’s been a while, I highly recommend it. 

 

Today, does America have a doomsday device and what exactly is it?  If we examine the structural defects of the US Constitution and our government, we quickly learn that the entire system revolves around protecting the wealthy and the powerful (aka the privileged white male).  Starting with the US Senate, we’ve seen repeatedly, over the last several decades, that it is nearly impervious to change.  From the filibuster to the gerrymandered nature of the Senate, and including the fact that elections are often sold to the highest bidder (a feature of all US elections), the Senate basically ensures and protects the highly failed – laissez faire, neoliberal – status quo.  The unelected SCOTUS, with a hard right-wing majority, also guarantees that our monopoly system, oligarchy, and resulting American lethality are impervious to change.  Add in a highly corrupt duopoly, with both parties serving many of the same billionaires and multinational interests, with no term limits, and you have several key structural defects that ensure a failed stasis & oligarchy – no matter how dangerous – all remain in effect. 

 

The structural defects extend to the US economy itself, which has been placed into the hands of a highly privileged few.  Concentration and monopoly -- thanks to free money policies of the Federal Reserve and Wall Street’s insatiably appetite for M&A and obscene profits -- are now the dominate feature of the US economy.  And with that, as we’ve seen repeatedly, comes diseconomies of scale, failure, and a US government defiled by extreme wealth & privilege (But that’s not a problem, at least in the short term, because congress is more than happy to bailout boardrooms, c-suites, malevolence, stockholders, and failure: frequently, often, and unconditionally). 

 

At the center of all this lies the US stock market, which I have argued has become a money laundering operation and a means to loot the US government.  (See the FED’s QE programs, rampant privatization, and the 2008 and 2020 Wall Street bailouts… see also, captured regulatory bodies and Big Pharma).  The moral hazard surrounding the stock market and the preeminence of the stock market, as the center of the US economy, and the lengths that congress and the powerful will go to protect this vehicle for the redistribution of wealth, is yet another key structural defect w/in the US economy. 

 

A defect that ensures numerous business practices, products, and services that are highly detrimental, not only to the United States, but indeed, the world, stay in place and are impervious to change (see again, Big Oil and fossil fuels).  Add in our stock trading US congress, combined with insatiable greed, and the doom loop, and feedback loop, is complete. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, what’s the problem?  America has had this system government & robber baron economy, structural defects and all, for many of our nearly 250 years.  Moreover, many of the defects of the American system are also prevalent throughout Western democracies, many of them also captured by powerful billionaires and multinational interests (who believe that rigged markets and the almighty dollar, euro, or pound should dictate our fate). 

 

Well, if anybody has paid attention, as of late, the globe is facing the ravages of what appears to be a manmade pandemic -- possibly created in a lab -- as well as, a global climate catastrophe, created by humanity’s insatiable need for energy and fossil fuels.  In fact, the events facing humanity today -- brought about by the structural defects themselves -- are the existential crisis of our times, perhaps for the end times?

 

These structural defects then, quite possibly, are America’s – indeed, the world’s – doomsday machine.  The sad part is, all this could be addressed and remedied, perhaps before it’s too late, but for the doomsday machine. 

 

Humanity’s inability to change, reform, pull up from pending apocalypse – as a result of the aforementioned structural economic and political defects, and abject corruption – appears to be the hallmark of our times.  

 

That, and billionaires attempting, desperately, to flee the planet.  A planet beset by catastrophes largely of the oligarchy’s making. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2021

 

  

Hypocrisy Nation

Hypocrisy Nation 

President Biden chimed in Saturday: “Everybody knows of the rules going in. Whether they should remain the rules is a different issue, but the rules are the rules. ... I was really proud of the way she responded.”

 

Under WADA’s policies, substances are placed on the prohibited list if they meet two of three conditions: They have the potential or proven ability to enhance performance, they have the potential to cause harm to an athlete, or their use is considered against the spirit of sport.

 

-       The doping rules that cost Sha’Carri Richardson have a debated, political history

By JM Hamilton (7-10-2021)

 

The suspension of Sha’Carri Richardson – a world class American athlete - from the pending Tokyo Olympic games - really burned some nerve endings for this writer.

 

For me the story is personal, for reasons I will not share this week, but on an entirely different level: the story speaks to the rank hypocrisy we see every day in the United States, from our courts, our Congress, our government… right into the boardrooms and C-suites, which are loaded with murderers.  We see it globally as well, with billionaires, oligarchy, and Saudi princes. 

 

At a time that the nation finds it worthy to persecute a star athlete for taking a relatively benign, but federally banned substance, it’s simply amazing that America turns a blind eye to the rank hypocrisy surrounding the criminal elite. 

 

What rank hypocrisy are you writing about JM? 

 

Well, I’m so very glad you asked. 

 

This week, fifteen states’ attorneys general signed on to a deal that would allow the Sacklers, owners of the infamous Perdue Pharma, to basically walk away from murdering hundreds of thousands of Americans with their billions safely left in their possession.  The Sacklers designed synthetic heroin, pushed it on doctors and the public as a less addictive pain killer alternative, and, also, made money on the rebound, by selling drugs to wean addicts off Purdue Pharma’s addictive opioid products.  International drug dealers have a new patron saint, named Sackler. 

 

The American West has been ablaze, as has Western Canada, thanks to the climate crisis and Big Oil & Gas.  Exxon, et al., of course, knew of the hell that they were unleashing upon the earth, for decades, and covered it up.  As a result of the global heat wave & climate change, hundreds will die, and thousands already have.  Moreover, neighborhoods surrounding oil refineries and operations have long been known as cancer communities, with significantly higher rates of preventable disease & illness.  More recently, an Exxon lobbyist was recorded as admitting that, to present a cleaner image, Exxon supported a carbon tax because – the US congress is so entirely corrupt & owned – that a carbon tax would never become law. 

 

Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of endless war, died recently.  The flames of hell are dancing merrily.  Mr. Rumsfeld played a considerable role, during the Bush Administration, in destroying the sovereign nations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The WMD and Al Qaeda claims, used to justify invading Iraq, of course, were all great works of fiction.  The Iraqi nation was destroyed, tens of thousands of civilians were killed; and conveniently enough, Big Oil & Gas as well as military defense contractor stocks soared.  And Rumsfeld’s epitaph, if there was any justice in this world, would read: Mass Murderer. 

 

And speaking of Big Oil, seems to be a theme, the Saudi Prince, who ordered Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, killed… well, it turns out that members of his hit squad were trained by the United States.  

 

But these are trifling things: Saudi princes getting away with murdering journalists; C-suites and boardrooms selling drugs and highly addictive synthetic heroin; Big Oil and Gas destroying the planet; a Wall Street that tells Americans they can’t divest of these criminal enterprises; and an entirely corrupt, and complicit, US congress that sits on their hands and obstructs positive change. 

 

After all, the US has far more important things to do, like persecuting a world class athlete, who just happens to be black.  Not unlike the persecution of blacks throughout American history, via: slavery, indentured servitude (see sharecropper); Jim Crow; systemic racism embedded in the US economy; the criminalization of cannabis usage; the resulting ‘law & order’ politics; the GOP’s racist Southern Strategy; and lest we forget, mass incarceration (a profit center for the private prison industrial complex and a boon for American lawyers).   

 

Isn’t it all so very special, malignantly evil, wrong, and … quintessentially, American?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So what to do about Ms. Richardson?  The FT reported, yesterday, that the Biden Administration has taken a personal interest, and plans on discussing the circumstances surrounding Ms. Richardson’s ban from the pending games with the World Anti-Doping Agency (yet another, opaque supranational body, directly and indirectly controlled by commercial interests and sponsors?)

 

But let’s cut to the chase, shall we?  What really should be done?  Not necessarily in this order: but perhaps the US Olympic Committee, and its subsidiary, the US Anti-Doping Agency, should get down on bended knee and beg Ms. Richardson to appear in the Tokyo Olympics. These organizations should also provide a written statement to the effect that it was wrong to make Ms. Richardson apologize for her cannabis usage, and the matter is now considered closed, except to make sure it never happens again. The US Senate should, immediately, vote, and pass into law, cannabis legalization. 

 

And above all, whether the IOC or the World Anti-Doping Agency are on board or not, Ms. Richardson should appear in these Tokyo Olympic games and compete.  Ms. Richardson – in Tokyo - should be presented for whom and what she truly is: An undisputed American champion.  Such a move is, likely, a political and commercial winner as well. 

 

This would be a tremendous start in the United States’ rehabilitation, and a pivot away from the nation’s, and its elite’s, recidivism concerning endless hypocrisy. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2021