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Corporatism

The United Nations Summit Of The Future Appears Stuck In The Past

September 18, 2024 Manuel Perez-Rocha, Inequality.org. , , , ,
The United Nations is hosting world leaders on September 22 and 23 for a “Summit of the Future.” Unfortunately, the draft action plan for the summit, while full of lofty language and some good intentions, does not challenge the neoliberal model or corporate control of the global economy. On the contrary, it proposes, for example, to “facilitate access of developing countries to the WTO and promote trade and investment liberalization.” It’s astounding that this plan, which is supposed to serve as the basis for an inter-governmental agreement, is so stuck in the past. For decades now, social movements and elected officials in many countries have become increasingly opposed to trade and investment rules that grant enormous privileges and power to transnational corporations.

Big Oil And Gas Infiltrate Higher Education To Slow Climate Action

September 6, 2024 Geoff Dembicki, DeSmog. , , , ,
A former Exxon executive sits on a university’s board of trustees. Fossil fuel representatives develop undergraduate courses. Schools lease out their land for fracking. Industry-funded studies end up influencing federal energy policy. These aren’t just isolated examples of oil and gas companies partnering with academic institutions, according to a new study published in the journal WIREs Climate Change by researchers with six universities, but an international effort by the industry spanning decades with the goal of obstructing and slowing down climate action. The authors came to that conclusion by conducting a first-ever review of dozens of existing academic and civil society investigations into fossil fuel infiltration of higher education, looking primarily at institutions in the U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia.

Campaign For Public Rail: Private Rail Companies Put Profits Over Safety

August 26, 2024 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , , , ,
Private railroad corporations are failing their workers, their clients and the public in general. Their drive for profits means fewer workers, longer hours and neglecting basic safety protocols, unpredictable schedules for freight customers, which is devastating for farmers, and delays for passengers as well as deterioration of railway infrastructure. Clearing the FOG speaks with Maddock Thomas, the author of a new white paper, "Putting America Back on Track: The Case for a 21st Century Public Rail System," who explains the problems with the current system and how a public, electrified rail system would cost less, have a lower carbon footprint, and benefit workers and customers. Thomas is part of a new campaign, Public Rail Now.

UAW Rips ‘Corporate Greed’ Of John Deere

July 31, 2024 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. , , , ,
The United Auto Workers on Tuesday condemned the manufacturing company John Deere over recent mass layoffs at factories in Iowa and Illinois, arguing the company's strong profits, lavish handouts to investors, and exorbitant CEO pay give the lie to claims that the job cuts and outsourcing were necessary. "John Deere's reckless layoffs and job cuts are an insult to the working-class people of Iowa and Illinois, and the United Auto Workers will fight for justice for our members and communities affected by these moves," the union said in a statement. "Let's be clear: there is no need for Deere to kill good American jobs and outsource them to Mexico for cheap labor.

Statement On Attempted Trump Assassination

July 15, 2024 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. , , , , , , ,
The assassination of Trump would not remove the yearning of tens of millions of people, many conditioned by the Christian right, for a cult leader. Most of the leaders of the Christian right have built cult followings of their own. These Christian fascists embraced magical thinking, attacked their enemies as agents of Satan and denounced reality-based science and journalism long before Trump did. Cults are a product of social decay and despair, and our decay and despair are expanding, soon to explode in another financial crisis. The efforts by the Democratic Party and much of the press, including CNN and The New York Times, to discredit Trump, as if our problems are embodied in him, are futile.

The Supreme Court Made Regulating Corporations Nearly Impossible

June 30, 2024 Anthony Grasso, The Progressive Magazine. , , , ,
On June 28, the Supreme Court published its decision in the case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. While the case has not attracted as much attention as some of the Court’s recent spate of controversial rulings, it revoked a long held precedent and will limit government agencies’ ability to do their jobs. Loper Bright deals with seemingly mundane questions of commercial fishing regulation. Current federal law requires fishing companies to allow National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) monitors to board their boats for regulatory purposes. The NMFS, however, has interpreted federal law to create a new rule requiring the industry to subsidize this monitoring at a cost of roughly $700 per day.

SCOTUS Overturns ‘Chevron’ Deference, Massive Transfer Of Power To Courts

June 30, 2024 Sharon Zhang, Truthout. , , , , , , , ,
The Supreme Court ruled along ideological lines on Friday to overturn a 40-year-old doctrine known as Chevron deference in a seismic decision that could see a major erosion of federal administrative rule in issues of public health, labor rights, environmental protection, food safety, and more. The Court ruled 6 to 3 in a pair of decisions that hands a massive amount of control over federal regulatory powers to the courts, overturning the doctrine that allowed federal agencies to have interpretive authority when there was any ambiguity in a law. Chevron deference allowed experts at federal agencies — as people better situated to make decisions on issues within their regulatory purview — to interpret statutes rather than judges.

Big Food, Big Profits, Big Lies

June 11, 2024 Veronica Riccobene, Portside. , , ,
As food costs have skyrocketed for Americans, some of the country’s biggest chains and grocery brands, including General Mills, PepsiCo, and Tyson, have blamed the price hikes on supply chain issues and economywide inflation. But behind the scenes, these companies have expanded profits and quietly authorized billions of dollars in lucrative stock buyback programs and dividend payouts to shareholders.

Mine Water Is Spewing Into This West Virginia Community

June 8, 2024 Ellie Heffernan, In These Times. , , , , ,
Wolf Pen, W.Va.—Trees line Tina Christian’s driveway, and the rolling mountains of southern West Virginia rise around her yard. Her grandchildren play in the peaceful creek that twists through the woods behind her trailer. Or, at least, they did — until a geyser of dirty mine water shot out of an abandoned gas well behind the home in February 2023. It flooded the yard for weeks. Now, Tina and her husband, Jamie, are afraid to have their grandchildren visit at all. “I’d hate for them to come down here and visit and spend the night, and ten years down the road, they find out they’ve got cancer from playing at momaw and popaw’s house,” Tina Christian says.

Former US Treasury Secretary Reveals TikTok Purchase Plans

March 21, 2024 Orinoco Tribune. , , , , ,
Former US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said he is building an investor group to acquire TikTok, a day after the House of Representatives voted to force the social media platform’s Chinese owner ByteDance to sell the app or face a US ban. The US House passed the legislation by a vote of 352-65 on March 13, citing national security risks. The bill now goes to the Senate. US President Joe Biden previously said he would sign the bill into law if it passes both houses of Congress. “I think the legislation should pass and I think [TikTok] should be sold,” Mnuchin, who leads Liberty Strategic Capital, told CNBC on March 14. “It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok.”

Corporations That Pay Their Executives More Than Uncle Sam

March 16, 2024 Sarah Anderson, William Rice and Zachary Tashman, Inequality.org. , , , , ,
Corporate tax dodging and CEO pay have both gotten so far out of control that a significant number of major U.S. companies are paying their top executives more than they’re paying Uncle Sam. Tesla is perhaps the most dramatic example. Over the period 2018-2022, the electric car maker raked in $4.4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk became one of the world’s richest men. When it comes to fleecing taxpayers while overpaying executives, Tesla is hardly alone. A new report we co-authored for the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness analyzes executive pay data for some of the country’s most notorious corporate tax dodgers.

Fighting Wall Street’s War On Workers

March 2, 2024 Steve Early, Labor Notes. , , , ,
One of the occupational hazards of being a labor activist is over-exposure to “corporate bullshit”—on the job, in the community, and in politics. When workers try to win collective bargaining rights, employers conduct propaganda campaigns to spread every imaginable falsehood about the union. Once forced into negotiations, management shows up at the bargaining table with a new line of BS about not being able to afford union wage demands or agree to a grievance procedure. And in the legislative-political arena, corporate interests have long used disinformation to thwart labor campaigns.

Corporate Ownership Of Media Has Failed Canadians

February 19, 2024 Marc Edge, Canadian Dimension. , , , ,
For-profit media ownership has decimated journalism in Canada and continues to gouge us with some of the highest prices in the world for telecommunications services such as cellular phones, cable TV and Internet access in order to meet the ever-greater profit expectations of their owners. The private equity players and US hedge funds that own most of our largest newspapers are now harvesting them for hundreds of millions in cash and stripping their assets, all the while complaining to Ottawa that they’re losing money and need subsidies. Postmedia Network, which owns 15 of our 21 largest dailies, has been laying off journalists relentlessly for the past 14 years in order to drain the company of more than $500 million in debt payments.

Report: Plastics, Oil Industry Deceived Public On Recycling Use

February 17, 2024 Adam M. Lowenstein, DeSmog. , , , ,
An explosive new report finds that the plastics industry has misled the public for decades about the viability of recycling plastic, promoting reuse despite the fact that mechanical recycling was not feasible – perpetuating the plastic waste crisis the world faces today. “The plastics industry has ‘sold’ plastic recycling to the American public to sell plastic,” according to the report by the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), a nonprofit organization that advocates for legal action to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable. In a statement, CCI claims the study, called “The Fraud of Plastic Recycling: How Big Oil and the plastics industry deceived the public for decades and caused the plastic waste crisis,” includes “evidence that could provide the foundation for legal efforts to hold fossil fuel and other petrochemical companies accountable for their lies and deception.”

Wealthy Corporations Use Investment Agreements To Extract Millions From Developing Countries

January 25, 2024 Nicholas Kusnetz and Katie Surma, Scheer Post. , , , ,
When Rafael Correa entered Ecuador’s presidency in 2007, the nation faced an opportunity and a challenge. Ecuador’s economy depended on oil, and global crude prices were near a record high. Much of the oil was extracted by foreign companies, however, so as prices surged more wealth began flowing overseas. More than a third of Ecuadorians were living in poverty, and Correa had come to power as a leftist promising “radical, profound and quick changes to the current model of so much exploitation, of so much injustice.” Soon after taking office, Correa increased a recently enacted windfall tax on oil companies. The idea was to use the tax as leverage to extract better terms from the companies, and this fight against foreign firms quickly became a high-profile pillar of Correa’s broader campaign to assert the nation’s sovereignty.
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