The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between September 1st and 3rd of a nationwide sample of 1,389 registered voters, with a 3.3 point margin of error.
Thursday, September 05, 2024
Trump's Real Agenda Boils Down To Only Two Selfish Things
Donald Trump is campaigning on two major issues - immigration and inflation. Both of those are false issues!
Trump has said he would deport the 11 or 12 million undocumented immigrants living and working in the United States. That would be a logistical nightmare, and he knows it. And it's doubtful that his business buddies would allow him to do it, since it could wreck many industries that count on those immigrants to survive (like the meat industry). Heck, Trump even uses those immigrants to build (to avoid having to pay decent wages).
And his economic plan would not decrease inflation. The only thing he has proposed is to put tariffs of 10% to 60% on foreign goods entering the United States. That would not decrease inflation - it would increase it by making those goods more expensive for consumers to buy!
So, what is his real agenda? The only two things Trump really wants to do is decrease his own taxes (and those of his billionaire buddies and to stay out of jail.
He has said he wants to extend the tax cuts he got passed in his first term (82% of which went to the rich and super-rich). These are the only people in the country that don't need a tax cut - and it would add trillions more to the national debt.
But perhaps the most important thing he wants is to stay out of jail. He is unlikely to get a prison sentence for his New York conviction of 34 counts, but a prison sentence is very possible in the federal counts he faces and in the Georgia case.
If he was elected, he would appoint a sycophant as Attorney General and the federal counts would disappear. And the Georgia case would be unlikely to proceed while he was president.
While Trump is campaigning on false issues, his real agenda is a selfish one.
Wednesday, September 04, 2024
Apartment Owners Using An Algorithm To Illegally Fix Prices
The following post is part of an article in The New York Times by Binyamin Applebaum:
Illegal price fixing used to require a lot of work. . . .
Now there’s an app for things like that.
The Justice Department alleged in a civil antitrust lawsuit filed Aug. 23 that a Texas company called RealPage is orchestrating what amounts to a nationwide apartment cartel by persuading major landlords to use its software to set prices for millions of apartments across the country. RealPage markets its software by boasting that it increases rents by 3 percent to 7 percent.
The case is important because it highlights the growing use of algorithms to set prices — and the potential for companies that are supposed to be competing to instead coordinate at the expense of their customers by using the same price-setting formulas. The suit is part of a broader effort by the nation’s antitrust enforcers to catch up with the methods that modern corporations are using to squeeze their customers — in this case, by increasing the price of housing, the most expensive part of American life.
“We are seeing these kinds of technologies emerge throughout our economy,” Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general for antitrust, said in an interview. Technology, he said, “took something that may have been inherently difficult to do, in terms of putting a cartel together, and actually is making it much easier and more effective.”. . .
What the team found, the government says, is that RealPage calculates target prices for individual apartments by using proprietary data from its clients and then urges clients to use those prices by arguing that if everyone cooperates, everyone wins.
The complaint quotes a RealPage executive explaining, “There is greater good in everybody succeeding versus essentially trying to compete against one another in a way that actually keeps the entire industry down.” This may be true, insofar as one is interested in the greater good of landlords. Society as a whole, however, benefits more when companies are forced to participate in vigorous competition. Their pain is our gain. In the apartment business, that means rents would rise more slowly — or even go down. . . .
RealPage can orchestrate pricing because the ownership of large apartment buildings in major markets is increasingly dominated by the same handful of big national landlords. . . .
RealPage’s success, built on the market dominance of the biggest landlords, should be regarded as evidence that they have accumulated too much power. Ending algorithmic price fixing is a necessary first step to check that power.
Tuesday, September 03, 2024
ABC / Ipsos Poll Give Harris A 6-Point Lead Among Likely Voters
The charts above are from the ABC News / Ipsos Poll -- done between August 23rd and 27th of a nationwide sample of 2,496 adults, with a 2 point margin of error.
Giant Corporate Mergers Hurt Both Workers And Consumers
Last week, in a court in Oregon, the Federal Trade Commission began to rein in two giant runaway grocery chains — Kroger and Albertsons — that want to merge into the biggest grocery combination in history and gallop away with your money and many workers’ wages.
It’s the first time anti-monopoly law has been used both to tame consumer prices and help workers gain better wages. The case illustrates how the Biden-Harris administration is seeking to restructure the economy for the common good — and what the Harris-Walz administration will, hopefully, have the opportunity to do even more of.
Three arguments undergird the FTC’s case:
(1) Grocery prices are already through the roof, in part because there’s not sufficient competition in most local grocery markets to force chains to lower their prices. Kroger and Albertsons are the two biggest grocery chains in America. If they’re allowed to merge, the combined company, plus Walmart, will control 70 percent of the grocery market in over 150 cities. That means even higher prices.
(2) The proposed $24.6 billion merger would not only put 5,000 American grocery stores under one corporation. It would put 41 retail grocery brands and 4,000 pharmacies under the same corporation. It would signal to every other industry they can make big profits by further monopolizing.
(3) If allowed to combine, Kroger and Albertsons would also put their combined 700,000 workers under one corporation. These workers would then have to bargain with just one take-it-or-leave-it giant grocery chain. This would erode their bargaining power, leading to lower wages, worse benefits, and weaker worker protections.
This last point — the relationship between corporate concentration and lower wages and benefits — is almost never raised in antitrust litigation yet it’s hugely important for understanding the current structure of the American economy and why so many American workers justifiably feel shafted.
Since the late 19th century, the U.S. government has been deciding the extent to which corporations can join together to gain market power, and workers can join together in labor unions to gain bargaining power. This balance of power has had as much effect on prices and wages as supply and demand — in fact, it undergirds supply and demand.
In 1890 and then again in 1914, the United States enacted anti-monopoly laws. Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were fierce trust-busters. In 1935, FDR signed into law the National Labor Relations Act, which allowed workers to form labor unions and required employers to negotiate in good faith with those unions.
By 1950, big business and big labor were in rough balance. That balance of power was central to the growth of both the American economy and the American middle class. It fostered a basic bargain: As corporations became more profitable, their workers did, too. . . .
Over the last 40 years, though, union power has dropped precipitously while corporate power has soared. The result has been near-record levels of inequality (see chart, above).
In 1955, over a third of all workers in the private sector were unionized, which gave them considerable bargaining power to get higher wages. (Employers whose workers weren’t unionized often offered their workers almost the same wages and benefits as those in the unionized sector, to fend off unionization.)
Now, only 6 percent of private sector workers are unionized.
Meanwhile, over just the last two decades, more than 75 percent of U.S. industries have become more concentrated.
Four beef packers now control over 80 percent of their market, domestic air travel is now dominated by four airlines, and many Americans have only one choice of reliable broadband provider. Just four companies — Walmart, Costco, Kroger, and Albertsons — dominate the grocery industry.
When few workers are unionized, wages remain stagnant or decline. Without adequate competition, prices and corporate profits rise. The result: Wealth is siphoned off from workers and consumers to large corporations and shareholders. . . .
The Biden-Harris administration has made a good start at reining in corporate power and strengthening worker power. Stopping the Kroger-Albertsons merger is an important step along the way.
Here’s hoping the Harris-Walz administration will take many more such steps.
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