Springtime for Billionaires? There are 800 US billionaires, and 3,500 globally. With US politics and the end of republican democracy, it’s more like Springtime for Fissure Kings.
However, as especially the sociologist Gerry Davis has pointed out, many of today’s largest and most dynamic companies do not conform to this model, but instead look more like a nexus of short-term contacts. Firms have become increasingly fragmented (or as David Weil puts it, “fissured”, as companies construct extensive networks of subcontracting and franchising that allow them to outsource all kinds of operations, using cheaper third party suppliers of goods and services to cut costs, particularly labor costs. This means that instead of being directly employed by the big core company (say, GM), workers are more likely than before to be working either on a freelancing basis (as “independent contractors”) or for some smaller entity in a network of subcontractors or branch operations that are formally independent but that are all part of a hierarchy in the service of the core company.(The American Precariat: U.S. Capitalism in Comparative Perspective | Perspectives on Politics | Cambridge Core) The Wall Street Journal recently reported that among the top 20 employers worldwide in 2017, five are outsourcing (“workforce solution”) companies that do not produce anything at all but simply supply workers to other companies on an on-demand basis.
This kind of fissurization has been facilitated by technological change. There are classic Coasian efficiency gains to be made. As technology has reduced the transaction costs of monitoring partner firms and employees, the incentives to subcontract have gone up. However, while they are enabled by technology, these strategies are motivated by employer efforts to reduce labor costs by replacing full time workers with more flexible temporary or short-term workers, thus externalizing the costs of adjusting to ups and downs in demand.
Trump being Trump means he is entering office as “president” with no mandate after he botched his cabinet nominations, the budget with his boss Elmo, and now pardoning criminal terrorists.
This is all good news, since it’ll help drive his popularity down and give the sadly timid Democrats some backbone to fight back.
Decades ago when I was going to graduate from the University of Arizona our Governor, Jack Williams gave a keynote speech and the title was " In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king"
Jack Willians had one eye.
May Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger, et. al. appear in whatever musicians upcoming to sing us out of the pit we seem to be sliding into. When the people are caught by a song no oppression can muffle it.
I did included the line that applies to those people who and institutions that engaged the predatory lending practices that did so much damage - “Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen.”
Metaphorically speaking, the scum bags who caused the mortgage meltdown robbed thousands of families with a fountain pen (or words on paper rendered by a word processor or copy machine.)
“COPENHAGEN (The Borowitz Report)—After rebuffing Donald J. Trump’s hypothetical proposal to purchase Greenland, the government of Denmark has announced that it would be interested in buying the United States instead.
“As we have stated, Greenland is not for sale,” a spokesperson for the Danish government said on Friday. “We have noted, however, that during the Trump regime pretty much everything in the United States, including its government, has most definitely been for sale.”
“Denmark would be interested in purchasing the United States in its entirety, with the exception of its government,” the spokesperson added.
A key provision of the purchase offer, the spokesperson said, would be the relocation of Donald Trump to another country “to be determined,” with Russia and North Korea cited as possible destinations.
If Denmark’s bid for the United States is accepted, the Scandinavian nation has ambitious plans for its new acquisition. “We believe that, by giving the U.S. an educational system and national health care, it could be transformed from a vast land mass into a great nation,” the spokesperson said.“
