A “license to loot” is what our guest, economist William Lazonick, calls stock buybacks. Until the Reagan Revolution, stock buybacks were considered market manipulation and at the very least are an unproductive use of profits used only to pump up the stock price and enrich upper management, while neglecting workers’ wages, capital expansion, and innovation. Ralph and Professor Lazonick break it all down for you.
Everytime I hear the word, Boeing, I think of the time, in 1997, when I was an employee of McDonnell-Douglas Corporation (MDC). It was announced that Boeing was pursing a merger with MDC, making the only two commercial aircraft manufacturers one company. I assumed that it would never happen as the Clinton administration would surely put the brakes on the plan in order to avoid Boeing getting monopoly power over the world's commercial airlines manufacturers, their only remaining competition being AirBus. The response, from Washington, was absolute silence. As with any monopoly, the history of the 737 MAX resulted in minimal financial damage to Boeing and, with no competition, no interruption in its winning contracts with the federal government.
Re the 737 MAX, according to Wikipedia, "During the certification process, the FAA delegated many evaluations to Boeing, allowing the manufacturer to review their own product." This has the same heartwarming value to the reader as the knowledge that Nuclear power plants are now performing their own safety inspections, allowing the government to save valuable taxpayer dollars. What Could Go Wrong???
McDonnell Douglas’ commercial division was in shambles at the time of the Boeing merger. Douglas’ only offerings at the time were updated planes designed originally in the 1960s. The MD-11 was based on the DC-10 and was already rendered obsolete by the Boeing 777 and Airbus A330/A340 which were newer, more efficient, and safer. The MD-11 has a very lousy safety record compared to other planes which came out in the same era. The DC-9 based MD-90 and MD-95/717-200 were better planes, but the MD-90 was an extremely slow seller and the MD-95, while superior to the 737-600 and A318 competition, existed in a very niche segment since airlines preferred to outsource small plane operations to contract airlines which much cheaper labor in the 1990s and 2000s. Even if the Boeing merger didn’t happen, McDonnell Douglas was likely to be out of the commercial market.
The merger of McDonnell and Douglas a couple of decades prior led to management decisions which essentially turned Douglas into a military contractor and not a commercial airplane manufacturer. They essentially did what Lockheed and General Dynamics/Convair did around the same time and decided to not worry about the whims of the commercial aviation market when there were such lucrative government contracts. Why risk getting caught offering bribes for commercial airplane sales, as Lockheed had been caught doing with the L-1011 Tristar, when these companies could legally lobby for appropriations from Congress?
That’s why McDonnell Douglas preferred doing things like buying Hughes Helicopters instead of investing in new commercial airplane designs. Around the time of the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger, Boeing was also buying up military contractors and the McDonnell Douglas merger was just part of that. McDonnell Douglas’ own Harry Stonecipher was CEO of Boeing for a while and him, along with others like Phil Condit, were behind turning Boeing into more of a military contractor than a commercial aviation company and they were also the same figures who started implementing some of the cost-cutting measures which caused the botched launches of the 787 and 737 MAX.
Even with the commercial aviation duopoly, it wouldn’t surprise me if Boeing leaves the commercial market themselves at some point in the next few decades. Why deal with the negative publicity (deaths, canceled flights, etc.) from commercial aviation cost-cutting when the government is so easy to please with relatively minimal lobbying efforts?
“This has the same heartwarming value to the reader as the knowledge that Nuclear power plants are now performing their own safety inspections, allowing the government to save valuable taxpayer dollars.”
As we know, or should know (certainly Boeing knows), government spending does not come from ‘taxpayer money’. With that, there is no reason to save ‘taxpayer money’ and the actual debate is whether there should be strong regulation, which does not come from ‘taxpayer money’, that saves lives or whether there should be deregulation which results in environmental damage, birth defects, and loss of life. The answer seems simple to ole’ Klassik, but obviously those who benefit from deregulation do not want the public to know this so we continue to hear myths about how the currency-issuing federal government budget is like a currency-user family’s budget. This is a problem.
Does anyone of you actually listen to "In Case You Haven't heard?" It's rapid fire reporting with no less than 15 "quotes" but zero "close quote," "end quote," or any other indication the first quote ended somewhere.
It can be tough to decipher considering the speed of the messaging.
No argument with the reporting, It would just be nice to know who actually said what.
Another expose on the criminal corporate plutocrat class which are in reality greedy, malevolent predators that voraciously seek for more and more of the economic power in the US. And most are low class crass materialists without real taste, but are constantly, like Trump, seeking to pimp up their social status and wash their ill gotten gains through highly public charities, whether for disadvantaged children, "human trafficking", "social justice", or feeding programs for the poor. It's all a con. The ministers and charities are so dependent on their ill-gotten gains that they treat them like royalty instead of doing the right thing as Bible prophets did and call them out and refuse their blood money. The Bible warns about accepting bribes from criminals.
Are there any mutual funds that guarantee that their investments do not include any companies that do stock buybacks? The arguments in this hour would indicate this would be a very good long-term investment strategy. If there is no such fund, there should be.
Sen Klobuchar and Doris Kearns Goodwin both have recently called for Campaign Finance Reform a la McCain-Feingold. Amendment is out of the question in this environment. Would it be possible for the Congress to pass such a reform in language so strong that it would survive a challenge in this SuCt? In his dissent in Citizens United JP Stevens wrote: "It is very difficult for a democracy to function when its constituents believe votes are being bought and sold."
While it is possible for a Congress to pass campaign finance reform legislation that would survive a SuCt challenge, it is not possible for the current Congress to pass any legislation that will be effective.
The problem with big money controlling our political process and politicians is that the big money politicians will only pass legislation that primarily benefits the big money interests and the big money interests have no interest in seeing effective campaign finance reform legislation passed.
The only way to pass such legislation is to first replace the big money legislators with small donor legislators. The problem has to solved before legislation to solve the problem can be passed.
Votes are not being bought and sold. Politicians are being bought and sold.
Votes are being given away to the big money politicians for empty promises despite the politicians telling citizens before the election that the promises are empty by taking big money.
Rather than validate politicians taking big money by voting for them citizens should demand that politicians do not take big money and enforce that demand with our votes.
If we start now for 2024 we could get 10% participation for 2024, build on that in 2026 and by 2028 be able to elect a congress and president that are not controlled by big money but by the votes and small contributions of ordinary citizens.
Much faster and more effective than legislation passed by big money politicians.
It won't be fast nor easy that's for sure. The system is deeply entrenched. Nonetheless, the zeitgeist seems ripe for a campaign of reform. It's refreshing to see that you have given this considerable thought. What org. would lead the charge? Public Citizen? Common Cause? Both? The subtly of the workings needs to be exposed to regular voters so as to enlist their support. This impasse must be broken or else. Justice JPS got it right in his aforementioned dissent; CITIZENS UNITED was perhaps the most widely anti-democratic decision by the court, albeit not the only one; the Court is becoming more irrelevant by the day. See book THE CASE AGAINST THE SUPREME COURT, by Chemerinsky. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Your points are well taken.
I have been trying for many years to get organizations such as Public Citizen, Common Cause, etc. and people such as Ralph to lead the charge and expose voters to this approach.
That has not yielded positive results (yet) but I did set up an organization of one with a website where citizens can sign up to participate in demanding small donor candidates and enforcing that demand with their votes at www.onedemand.org .
Citizens that are interested in exploring this approach can sign up and/or encourage people and organizations such as Ralph, Public Citizen, Common Cause, etc. to champion or at least discuss this approach.
I recently discovered Bernie Sanders' book, "It's Okay to be Angry about Capitalism." It has been out for a few months. I enjoyed hearing Bernie read it to me. Here's a link to a description from the library:
The block-chain secured web page "We the People" is now receiving yes/no votes on the First Question: Do you want to be your own representative in a constitutional democracy?
I have written numerous letters on behalf of the Heart Mind Alliance (.com ) which raised $25,000 for the development of this voting system in which each voter has a personal ledger to find a voting transaction in the block chain and verify that it was counted correctly. I have had no acknowledgement of receipt of any letter from Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Rachel Maddow, Amy Goodman and others. There seems to be no interest in celebrating the launch of this planetary first. Could that be? Can you give me your opinion as to why?
Looking forward,
Bob Dunsmore
Founder and president of the Heart Mind Alliance (.com)
Producer of the documentary "Bolivia Beyond Belief" (on You Tube) regarding the Bolivian Democratic Revo lution I witnessed while living in Bolivia from 2005 to 2008
Initiated as an Andean Cosmovision Amauta
After working in 20 countries in community development I have created a You Tube channel with 135 videos of the most successful appropriate technologies I learned of: "Community-based Appropriate Technologies" (Now on the Northern New Mexico College portal for international access)
Served as Area Director for South America and the Caribbean for Habitat for Humanity
Reflexologist certified by the International Institute of Reflexology
Founder of Colorado's San Luis Valley Solar Energy Association and Alamosa Childrens' School
Founder of the Rio Arriba Bioregional Council and the Espanola Valley Community Council, New Mexico
Author of I Am: A Journey Through Times and Spaces and the book The Great Mandate (available via Kindle)
Everytime I hear the word, Boeing, I think of the time, in 1997, when I was an employee of McDonnell-Douglas Corporation (MDC). It was announced that Boeing was pursing a merger with MDC, making the only two commercial aircraft manufacturers one company. I assumed that it would never happen as the Clinton administration would surely put the brakes on the plan in order to avoid Boeing getting monopoly power over the world's commercial airlines manufacturers, their only remaining competition being AirBus. The response, from Washington, was absolute silence. As with any monopoly, the history of the 737 MAX resulted in minimal financial damage to Boeing and, with no competition, no interruption in its winning contracts with the federal government.
Re the 737 MAX, according to Wikipedia, "During the certification process, the FAA delegated many evaluations to Boeing, allowing the manufacturer to review their own product." This has the same heartwarming value to the reader as the knowledge that Nuclear power plants are now performing their own safety inspections, allowing the government to save valuable taxpayer dollars. What Could Go Wrong???
McDonnell Douglas’ commercial division was in shambles at the time of the Boeing merger. Douglas’ only offerings at the time were updated planes designed originally in the 1960s. The MD-11 was based on the DC-10 and was already rendered obsolete by the Boeing 777 and Airbus A330/A340 which were newer, more efficient, and safer. The MD-11 has a very lousy safety record compared to other planes which came out in the same era. The DC-9 based MD-90 and MD-95/717-200 were better planes, but the MD-90 was an extremely slow seller and the MD-95, while superior to the 737-600 and A318 competition, existed in a very niche segment since airlines preferred to outsource small plane operations to contract airlines which much cheaper labor in the 1990s and 2000s. Even if the Boeing merger didn’t happen, McDonnell Douglas was likely to be out of the commercial market.
The merger of McDonnell and Douglas a couple of decades prior led to management decisions which essentially turned Douglas into a military contractor and not a commercial airplane manufacturer. They essentially did what Lockheed and General Dynamics/Convair did around the same time and decided to not worry about the whims of the commercial aviation market when there were such lucrative government contracts. Why risk getting caught offering bribes for commercial airplane sales, as Lockheed had been caught doing with the L-1011 Tristar, when these companies could legally lobby for appropriations from Congress?
That’s why McDonnell Douglas preferred doing things like buying Hughes Helicopters instead of investing in new commercial airplane designs. Around the time of the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger, Boeing was also buying up military contractors and the McDonnell Douglas merger was just part of that. McDonnell Douglas’ own Harry Stonecipher was CEO of Boeing for a while and him, along with others like Phil Condit, were behind turning Boeing into more of a military contractor than a commercial aviation company and they were also the same figures who started implementing some of the cost-cutting measures which caused the botched launches of the 787 and 737 MAX.
Even with the commercial aviation duopoly, it wouldn’t surprise me if Boeing leaves the commercial market themselves at some point in the next few decades. Why deal with the negative publicity (deaths, canceled flights, etc.) from commercial aviation cost-cutting when the government is so easy to please with relatively minimal lobbying efforts?
“This has the same heartwarming value to the reader as the knowledge that Nuclear power plants are now performing their own safety inspections, allowing the government to save valuable taxpayer dollars.”
As we know, or should know (certainly Boeing knows), government spending does not come from ‘taxpayer money’. With that, there is no reason to save ‘taxpayer money’ and the actual debate is whether there should be strong regulation, which does not come from ‘taxpayer money’, that saves lives or whether there should be deregulation which results in environmental damage, birth defects, and loss of life. The answer seems simple to ole’ Klassik, but obviously those who benefit from deregulation do not want the public to know this so we continue to hear myths about how the currency-issuing federal government budget is like a currency-user family’s budget. This is a problem.
I think the strongest PoliticaL Party in USA
is the PENTAGON PARTY.
Does anyone of you actually listen to "In Case You Haven't heard?" It's rapid fire reporting with no less than 15 "quotes" but zero "close quote," "end quote," or any other indication the first quote ended somewhere.
It can be tough to decipher considering the speed of the messaging.
No argument with the reporting, It would just be nice to know who actually said what.
Cheers,
Donal R.
Seattle
Good point, Donal. We'll tighten that up.
Another expose on the criminal corporate plutocrat class which are in reality greedy, malevolent predators that voraciously seek for more and more of the economic power in the US. And most are low class crass materialists without real taste, but are constantly, like Trump, seeking to pimp up their social status and wash their ill gotten gains through highly public charities, whether for disadvantaged children, "human trafficking", "social justice", or feeding programs for the poor. It's all a con. The ministers and charities are so dependent on their ill-gotten gains that they treat them like royalty instead of doing the right thing as Bible prophets did and call them out and refuse their blood money. The Bible warns about accepting bribes from criminals.
Are there any mutual funds that guarantee that their investments do not include any companies that do stock buybacks? The arguments in this hour would indicate this would be a very good long-term investment strategy. If there is no such fund, there should be.
Sen Klobuchar and Doris Kearns Goodwin both have recently called for Campaign Finance Reform a la McCain-Feingold. Amendment is out of the question in this environment. Would it be possible for the Congress to pass such a reform in language so strong that it would survive a challenge in this SuCt? In his dissent in Citizens United JP Stevens wrote: "It is very difficult for a democracy to function when its constituents believe votes are being bought and sold."
While it is possible for a Congress to pass campaign finance reform legislation that would survive a SuCt challenge, it is not possible for the current Congress to pass any legislation that will be effective.
The problem with big money controlling our political process and politicians is that the big money politicians will only pass legislation that primarily benefits the big money interests and the big money interests have no interest in seeing effective campaign finance reform legislation passed.
The only way to pass such legislation is to first replace the big money legislators with small donor legislators. The problem has to solved before legislation to solve the problem can be passed.
Votes are not being bought and sold. Politicians are being bought and sold.
Votes are being given away to the big money politicians for empty promises despite the politicians telling citizens before the election that the promises are empty by taking big money.
Rather than validate politicians taking big money by voting for them citizens should demand that politicians do not take big money and enforce that demand with our votes.
If we start now for 2024 we could get 10% participation for 2024, build on that in 2026 and by 2028 be able to elect a congress and president that are not controlled by big money but by the votes and small contributions of ordinary citizens.
Much faster and more effective than legislation passed by big money politicians.
It won't be fast nor easy that's for sure. The system is deeply entrenched. Nonetheless, the zeitgeist seems ripe for a campaign of reform. It's refreshing to see that you have given this considerable thought. What org. would lead the charge? Public Citizen? Common Cause? Both? The subtly of the workings needs to be exposed to regular voters so as to enlist their support. This impasse must be broken or else. Justice JPS got it right in his aforementioned dissent; CITIZENS UNITED was perhaps the most widely anti-democratic decision by the court, albeit not the only one; the Court is becoming more irrelevant by the day. See book THE CASE AGAINST THE SUPREME COURT, by Chemerinsky. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Your points are well taken.
I have been trying for many years to get organizations such as Public Citizen, Common Cause, etc. and people such as Ralph to lead the charge and expose voters to this approach.
That has not yielded positive results (yet) but I did set up an organization of one with a website where citizens can sign up to participate in demanding small donor candidates and enforcing that demand with their votes at www.onedemand.org .
Citizens that are interested in exploring this approach can sign up and/or encourage people and organizations such as Ralph, Public Citizen, Common Cause, etc. to champion or at least discuss this approach.
I've heard many surprising things on the RNRH over the years, but the ending of the 'Wrap Up' segment this week might be the biggest shocker yet!
i have no idea what you are talking about.
Appropriate considering the nation is "sleepwalking its way through Sucker Land" —Nader, 6/2/23
I recently discovered Bernie Sanders' book, "It's Okay to be Angry about Capitalism." It has been out for a few months. I enjoyed hearing Bernie read it to me. Here's a link to a description from the library:
https://lapl.overdrive.com/media/9383239
Seems we have 5 Major PoliticaL Parties:
(1) Republican
(2) Democratic
(3) Pentagon
(4) People’s
(5) Green
https://youtu.be/_E_LNUDXjW8
Dear Friend of a Regenerative Future,
The block-chain secured web page "We the People" is now receiving yes/no votes on the First Question: Do you want to be your own representative in a constitutional democracy?
https://wethepeople.directvotedemocracy.com
I have written numerous letters on behalf of the Heart Mind Alliance (.com ) which raised $25,000 for the development of this voting system in which each voter has a personal ledger to find a voting transaction in the block chain and verify that it was counted correctly. I have had no acknowledgement of receipt of any letter from Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Rachel Maddow, Amy Goodman and others. There seems to be no interest in celebrating the launch of this planetary first. Could that be? Can you give me your opinion as to why?
Looking forward,
Bob Dunsmore
Founder and president of the Heart Mind Alliance (.com)
Producer of the documentary "Bolivia Beyond Belief" (on You Tube) regarding the Bolivian Democratic Revo lution I witnessed while living in Bolivia from 2005 to 2008
Initiated as an Andean Cosmovision Amauta
After working in 20 countries in community development I have created a You Tube channel with 135 videos of the most successful appropriate technologies I learned of: "Community-based Appropriate Technologies" (Now on the Northern New Mexico College portal for international access)
Served as Area Director for South America and the Caribbean for Habitat for Humanity
Reflexologist certified by the International Institute of Reflexology
Founder of Colorado's San Luis Valley Solar Energy Association and Alamosa Childrens' School
Founder of the Rio Arriba Bioregional Council and the Espanola Valley Community Council, New Mexico
Author of I Am: A Journey Through Times and Spaces and the book The Great Mandate (available via Kindle)
Grandfather of three