Category Archives: Corporate Rule

Neoliberalism — IT’S A COOKBOOK!!!

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“Market economics” was supposed to serve mankind. It didn’t. It really, really didn’t.

Neoliberalism – To Serve Mankind

In the early 80s people got sold on common sense kitchen-table economics. Taxes are theft. If you cut taxes government gets more money (but cutting taxes also starves the beast.) Market forces are natural law and consumers are better at making choices than government. Markets should set government policy. Government spending harms the economy. Individual choice is freedom. Big government and regulation interferes with markets. Government is the nanny state.

Reagan said, “Government isn’t the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Thatcher said, “There is no such thing as society. … no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.”

So we got government out of the way. We cut taxes and unleashed the corporations.

And here we are. The transfer of wealth – and power – away from the public into the hands of a very few people is nearly complete.

It’s Sinking In

“When something becomes incredibly, mind-numbingly obvious, people eventually start to see it.” – Dave Johnson

What happened to us is sinking in. As wealth (and power) concentration accelerates it has become mainstream obvious that the world was tricked. Even people like UK PM Burnham and Texas Senate candidate Talarico are using the word “neoliberal” and describing the damage done.

But now we’re in debt trap. With a few in control of the formerly-public wealth (and power) governments are rigged to “borrow” FROM the wealthy just to get by, and then pay tribute (interest) TO the wealthy for that privilege. The amounts are staggering.

IT’S A COOKBOOK!!!

In the Twilight Zone episode most of the the passengers are already in the spaceship. Mr. Chambers is still on the ramp and hears the “cookbook” warning – but it’s too late. He screams as the door closes on him.

The doors of the “end-stage capitalism” debt trap are closing on us now.

But There’s Still Time

Of course, there’s still time to get the money FROM where the money WENT. Just stop the game. Reassert power. Tax the rich. Tax back the wealth they stole from us. Before neoliberalism the top income tax rate was 90+% to prevent the very accumulation that has brought us to this point. The corporate tax was 50%. Inheritance taxes were designed to prevent dynasties from collecting vast fortunes that threatened democracy.

It’s a choice and it’s time to choose.

Most Voters Too Young To Remember

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This post first appeared at Government Cheese – Chronicling the collapse of democracy.

I was thinking about how most voters out there have no memory of all kinds of things people who are older remember.

Tax Cuts Will Pay For Themselves

They don’t remember Reagan promising that tax cuts for the rich will cause them to invest in the economy and bring all kinds of great things that meant the tax cuts “will pay for themselves.” They didn’t watch the resulting shift from government taxing the rich and doing things for people, into “borrowing” FROM the rich, doing nothing for the people, and paying massive amounts of interest TO the rich. AND the resulting massive inequality. They don’t remember that there weren’t billionaires. Now it’s billionaires with all the money vs people in food lines, etc.

Deregulating Corporations Will Unleash Growth And Bring Prices Down

They don’t remember Reagan promising that deregulation of corporations will “unleash” growth, causing them to provide more great things so we would all be so much better off. Now they pollute at will and scam everyone. They don’t remember the promise that getting rid of antitrust regulations would force prices down and make everything better. They didn’t watch as merger after merger transformed the economy into a few giant monopolies that charge whatever they want and make you pay monthly to use products you already paid for.

Elections Were Competitive

They don’t remember competitive elections before campaign finance was undone. Regular people could run for office. Now a few oligarchs decide elections with “dark money” so no one knows who pays for the ads and bots and propaganda.

They don’t remember the Democratic Party standing up and fighting for working people.

Before The Propaganda

They don’t remember that TV news used to have rules about serving the public interest. They don’t remember that commercials were not allowed to lie. They don’t remember when the benefits of belonging to unions was allowed to be discussed on the air. They don’t remember that “markets are better at making decisions than government (i.e. “democracy”)” was laughed at. They don’t remember that there was a fight to allow non-whites to vote. They don’t remember that women couldn’t get bank accounts or credit cards without their husband’s permission. They don’t remember that government existed to make people’s lives better.

There are all kinds of things they know nothing about…

For a lot of them ALL they are old enough to remember is Trump coming down an escalator and saying immigrants are all criminals who rape and murder, etc…

Iran Failure Shows What The ‘Deep State’ Was FOR

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Understanding things like the Strait of Hormuz and guiding policymakers on how to work with countries like Iran is what the Deep State was about.

The Strait of Hormuz is narrow and the Iranian side is mountainous, with cliffs at the shore.

Something like 25% of all oil, 20% of liquefied natural gas and 30% of urea and phosphate fertilizers passes through the Strait.

Iran could always have closed the Strait at any time. A single Iranian in a speedboat with a shoulder-launched missile can fired at a supertanker. Missiles could be fired from those cliffs or mountains. There is no level of naval escort or minesweeping or air power that ensure this cannot happen without invading. But invading and clearing the Iranian side would be a long, tough operation requiring a major invasion force.

But Iran has kept the Strait open, until now, because it needed the trade that went through and because closing it would trigger a massive military response. Trump took these reasons away and Iran responded by closing the Strait to any shipping from and to “the Enemy Bloc” – the United States & Israel and their allies, and others providing support for this war on Iran. And now the only way the Strait can be reopened is a major invasion — or by giving Iran what it wants. And Iran isn’t ready to even say what it wants.

The Deep State

The US government, its military and diplomatic corps had, over the decades, built up a “bureaucracy” of experts and diplomats and military strategists who studied and understood that and worked with that and helped policymakers plan around this understanding. Trump called these experts and institutions the “Deep State” and has worked to dismantle it all since retaking office.

Understanding things like the Strait of Hormuz and guiding policymakers on how to work with countries like Iran is what the Deep State was about. It is was government is. It is experts who know things and say, “If you to this, then here are the probable results.” They analyze problems and proposals and say, “History and data tell us the best approach to X is Y.”

The Deep State also existed to look at problems like healthcare, occupational safety, pollution, financial regulation, climate, seat belts, drugs, etc, and suggested the best approaches to developing policies, regulations and laws, diplomacy and all kinds of other things government does.

The Deep State advised that vaccines prevent serious epidemics. They advised that burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon into the air would eventually cause an extremely threatening climate crisis. The Deep State advised not to make war on Iran because they will close the Strait of Hormuz and throw the world into possible depression.

And that’s WHY they were eliminated from government. Because the experts said don’t let corporations pollute, don’t let the finance industry commit fraud and stop the oil companies from putting carbon into the air. Etc. So those industries and the billionaires who profit from them paid politicians to get rid of those experts.

Regulations Are Written In Blood

They say every regulation is written in blood because they come from the lessons learned when terrible mistakes are made, and try to prevent those terrible things from happening again. The Deep State’s understandings and protections and advice took decades to build. It only took a few months to destroy. It’s not coming back any time soon.

There will be blood.

Atari’s Collapse Is A Metaphor For The Iran War

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The Promise Of Easy Solutions Is An Easy Sell To The Uninformed

Back in the early days at Atari we had that original 2600 game machine. It had really clunky graphics. (Remember Pong?) Pixels were very large, big rectangles. A soccer ball would just be several rectangles pasted together moving around the screen. It was the way the machine worked, the hardware. It was just the way it was. But “marketing” (Warner Bros executives) didn’t understand the tech they were in charge of, and were always complaining about us game designers, demanding we “make the ball round.” They regularly threatened to replace us if we couldn’t make the ball round. They were convinced we were holding out on them. (A dozen or so of us were making the company millions. Originally we were not paid much at all, they were cleaning up.)

AI Sold As The Big Solution

In a Volts interview with David roberts, Cory Doctorow (“enshittification” guy) talked about how corporate executive types see AI as the solution to their big problem – employees. They see AI as the opportunity to finally not have to pay or deal with people anymore. (The capitalist ideology that businesses exist not to serve society, but to make them money, period.)

Cory Doctorow

… AI companies are much better at convincing your boss that they have a chatbot that can do your job than they are at making a chatbot that can actually do your job.

David Roberts

It is the AI industry’s one really transcendent, amazing, and admirable success.

Cory Doctorow

Oh, they’re pushing on an open door.

David Roberts

They have bamboozled the entire executive class.

Cory Doctorow

But they’re pushing on an open door. Bosses are insatiably horny for firing you and replacing you with a robot. And they will — literally, Elon Musk does demos of robots that can work in factories that are literally a guy in a robot suit. And bosses all over the world get, like, horrible priapism and have to go to the emergency room. Right? Like, this is — there is nothing easier than selling a boss on automation to fire workers.

I think about this when I see stories about these companies trying to force everyone to use AI… the employees see that it just doesn’t work like the promises say it does but the executives don’t really understand the tech they are in charge of so managers are all ordered to get it working so they can get rid of all the employees. The managerial/executive/finance class have all been sold by AI hype and are convinced the glory days are soon here.

Iran War Sold As The Big Solution

Now to the war on Iran. After Venezuela the Fox News hosts running the government thought they had the easy solution to the problem of the existence of “other cuntries.” In Venezuela they just “decapitated” the pesky leadership, stole the oil for themselves, and left the resulting mess behind. In a week. The Trump admin didn’t (care to) understand the world they are in charge of so they (literally) pulled the trigger thinking they could do the same with Iran.

Atari’s Collapse, AI And Iran

In 1983 Atari’s executives got sold on “ET” being the cure-all blockbuster game. They manufactured several million more ET game cartridges than there were game consoles to play them on and “stuffed the channels” – sold them to outlets all over the world for eventual sale to nonexistent customers. This ultimately collapsed the entire game industry.

I think Atari manufacturing more cartridges than there were game consoles to put them into is a metaphor for what’s happening with AI — and Iran.

PS Atari “marketing” was always bothering us to come up with a game titled, “Death From Above.”

Colbert, CBS, FCC and Election Interference

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Colbert stood up to the FCC and the new CBS. This is good.

But what we’re seeing here is not really a story of the little people overcoming the boot on the throat. We are seeing the boot arriving at the throat. This is the beginning of one piece in the coming wave of election interference. The signal has been sent to the stations and networks: No coverage for Democratic candidates, issues & viewpoints.

Colbert has power but the FCC has massive power. What happens now is every local station and national network will be afraid to give local, state & national Dem candidates and viewpoints airtime. And they will likely feel they should boost coverage of Republican and fringe right-wing candidates and viewpoints (even more than they already do).

We have already seen how this works. We’re old enough to remember a time before Reagan brought in the corporatization & commercialization of news, back when all kinds of issues were (required to be) discussed. We’ve seen how “news” – especially local news – became commercialized, sensationalized and fear-mongering. When was the last time you saw coverage of union leaders talking about the benefits to working people from joining a union?

Remember “hard-hitting” documentaries on the nation’s problems, etc…?

I fear that we are about to see another shift in what the public is shown.

AI Is Just Not Ready And The Bubble Will Pop

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The following experience reflects many experiences I have had using AI. I keep trying again because I’m a long-time techie so I am ever-hopeful that “tech will save us,” and because once in a while it actually does do something better than I could have done it myself. That one time buys another 5 or 6 unsuccessful tries.

I decided to try out something AI is supposed to be really good at. I asked Gemini “What Cambridge restaurants are open on Christmas day?” (I live outside of Cambridge, UK now.) It searched for a while, and found 9. But I knew of one that was for sure open, and asked, “Are there any others? What about The Boot?” It replied “Yes, I can confirm that The Boot is planning to be open, and I found another restaurant as well.” It then gave me an updated list.

So I gave up and started searching the internet myself and found a few more.

Efficient? Time-Saving? Not Ready For Public Use

If this is supposed to be “efficient” or “time-saving” … it isn’t. It wasted my time and made me less “productive” not more.

As I said, this experience reflects so many of the experiences I have had. And as I said, once in a while it can be great. But it just is not ready for public use, and seriously should not be out there in public because sometimes it is dangerously wrong and people are trusting it.

We’re In A Bubble That Will Pop

A lot of people warn that stocks are experiencing an AI bubble and the world’s economies are at risk if (when) this bubble collapses. But some (are paid to) say AI is “for real” so these astronomical valuations are just fine. (“This time it’s different.”)

Why are the tech oligarchs so wealthy that they can throw hundreds of billions into AI? Why are they allow to have these monopolies? Why are they inflicting obviously harmful tech on US? Why has the stock market been able to inflate so enormously?

It’s Corruption

Why hasn’t the government stepped in to protect the public? Because of corruption.

Techies are wealthy because of this corruption and there is this corruption because the tech bros are so wealthy. The wealthy techies are paying politicians, parties and regulators (“governments”) not to “interfere” and protect the public from what they are doing.

Everyone sees this. Everyone understands this. No one seems to be able to do anything about it.

Paid-off governments won’t enforce antitrust rules. Paid-off governments won’t regulate tech. Paid-off governments refuse to tax the wealthy and their corporations. And paid-off politicians and parties and regulators certainly won’t do anything to stop the flow of cash and perks they are receiving.

PS The Boot Is Really Good

The Boot, in Histon, is really good. But the best restaurant in Cambridge is The Dumpling Tree. I’m not just saying that, it really is that good. But is isn’t open on Christmas.
 

American Media Asymmetry

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There are things the American public just can’t be told. Here are a few examples.

Universal healthcare, like Medicare-for-All, would dramatically reduce American healthcare costs.

Cutting government spending usually just shifts costs onto the public or other government departments, and almost always increases those costs well beyond what was being spent before the cuts.

Immigrants are good for the economy — and also are human beings.

Taxing the rich to get money FROM the rich would mean the govt stops “borrowing” from the rich and forever after paying interest TO the rich. (It could also begin to address the problem of inequality if taxation levels are high enough.)

Renewables like wind and solar reduce energy costs while oil companies create life-threatening pollution and receive massive subsidies.

Joining a labor union brings tremendous benefits to workers. It increases their pay and benefits. It helps prevent mistreatment on the job.

These are just a few of the things you don’t hear in American “news” outlets.

The Real AI Question: Who Benefits?

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Here’s a different question about AI. Suppose it does what is promised, and does greatly increase productivity, and does bring all kinds of benefits. Who will gain from that? Will those benefits be shared? Will there be 3-day workweeks of 6 hours a day? 6-week vacations?

How Did Trade Work Out For Us?

Think about how it worked out with trade. Economists will explain that trade brings all kinds of benefits. One huge benefit was supposed to come from moving the worst jobs to places where people really need work, so the labor force is freed up to take on higher-level, higher-paid work, and the people on the other side of the trade border who needed jobs now have jobs. Over time this moves around the world lifting everyone. The same was supposed to be true about other benefits and gains from trade.

Democracies Would Make Sure Benefits Were Shared

But the economists assumed that everyone would benefit because democracies would make sure everyone shared those benefits. Why else would a democracy allow factories to close and imports to replace goods made at home? Why else would a democracy allow jobs to be sent away?

What Really Happened?

What really happened? The democracies were “captured” and instead of protecting the public government power protected the few at the top who had done the capturing. Jobs were moved out, factories were closed, and people were just laid off (too bad so sad here’s some Oxycontin). Unions were broken. Entire “rust belt” regions were utterly devastated. The middle class was forced downwards, while income and wealth shifted upward.

Here Comes AI

So now AI threatens to accelerate those changes. Democracy is gone and we all know the gains from AI won’t be shared. Instead AI will be used to force more and more people out of work, their wages instead going to a top few. This will further increase centralized power and wealth at the very top.

There Can Be Only One

This increasing concentration will accelerate and become a winner-take-all game. The oligarchs all understand this process of concentration, and are racing to be the winner in the AI race — to be the one person who gets it all. Literally all.

Hence the massive investment into AI we are seeing. Hence the bubble. It’s like nothing else matters.

Nothing Else Matters

It doesn’t matter to the massively-wealthy what happens when the bubble bursts. They understand this is about being the ONE person in control of what happens and who won’t be destroyed. They even say it – if AI becomes superintelligent they want to be the ONE person controlling that. And the current “system” is set up – by them – to let that happen.

That’s why they have rigged the system to keep We the People from stopping them.

American Manufacturing Was Sold Off For Profit

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China didn’t “take” America’s manufacturing jobs, greedy American investors and executives sold America’s farm and ate the seed corn. Same in the UK.

Paul Waldman writes about woodworking tools, in A Trump Tariff Case Study: Can the U.S. Again Be the Power Tool King? at The New Republic.

My DeWalt 20-volt cordless drill/driver combo set is a beaut—powerful, smooth, comfortable in the hand, and not too expensive; I got it on sale for about a hundred bucks. It’s also a tribute to the wonders of the transnational supply chain, its components traversing the earth before they came together and found their way to my door. The drill and driver were made in Mexico, but their batteries were made in China, as were the battery charger and the handy tote bag that came with it. DeWalt, a brand familiar to every woodworker and DIY enthusiast, is a division of Stanley Black & Decker, a global conglomerate headquartered in Connecticut that owns brands including Craftsman, Porter-Cable, Bostitch, and many others.

He writes about how tools once made in the US by American companies are now made elsewhere by international companies, why this is, and what it might take to bring the factories back. He nails it, just spot-on: Manufacturing ecosystems, the cost of bringing it back, the jobs that were good in the past. “(M)any started as American companies but are now part of multinational corporations.” “Unfortunately, there are serious impediments to achieving reindustrialization on a large scale, and Trump’s policies are just about the worst way to go about it.” “We could rebuild those manufacturing ecosystems in the U.S., but we can’t just wish it into existence.” “In fact, this entire debate seems animated by a vision of a bygone time.”

Yep, he nails it. And, as we all know, it’s not just woodworking tools. It’s the same story for … everything.

Same In The UK

It’s the same here in the UK as well. Jaguar/Land Rover are now owned by an Indian company. Trains, water, Royal Mail, British Petroleum (BP), British Telecom (BT) and many other iconic, privatized “British” brands are no longer British-owned. All were sold off to international “investor” conglomerates so a few already-wealthy people could get even more wealthy, under an economic “ideology” (free markets) that was really just a cover story for selling the farm and eating the seed corn. And the public, struggling to get by, now flails around hoping Trump (and here, the Trumpy Reform party) will make good on his promise to “fix it.”

China Did Not “Take” Those Industries

“China” (generic term for “somewhere else”) didn’t “take” those industries. American and British “investors” and executives did that – literally sold out their countries – enabled by US/UK governments run by politicians elected with money that those executives and “investors” took out of their companies to buy the politicians, so they could personally obtain great wealth. They did it because they wanted cheap labor and a way around the pollution and worker safety rules that democracies insist on.

“China” understood what they were seeing and planned and executed a strategy to build their industrial base – as a country. They set up manufacturing zones and put in place everything needed — from local financing, to a modern power grid, to roads, to training centers, to supply chains, to places for workers to come live. Everything.

It was a “public/private partnership” between American executives and the Chinese government. Those exectives also took that ecosystem apart in the US, piece by piece, and it can’t easily be put back together. They sent away the “institutional memory” and “ecosystem” of supply chains and training centers… much like how the Trumpers are now doing the same to the US government itself.

Beyond Neoliberalism

Last week I stepped back into a past life and attended the opening of the “Beyond Neoliberalism” conference (https://beyond-neoliberalism.org/) because it was literally right down the street here in Cambridge UK. Oddly America-centric (and attended by lots of Americans I used to know) it began with a rousing 2.5 hour panel discussion (mostly Americans) on Industrial Policy under Biden. They said a lot of the things you nailed down in your piece.

Biden tried with his IRA to the extent the “system” would let him. Obama tried in tiny ways with his Smart Manufacturing “hub” concept, setting up labs – like a sensor testing lab in Lorain, Ohio around community colleges that would train people to work in the labs, etc. Same with a 3-D printing hub in Youngstown.

They tried. They failed. Now the US has Trump and likely soon the UK will have Farage.

China Didn’t Take American Jobs

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Trump says other countries took advantage of the US. He says they “took” manufacturing and jobs from the US. This is just not what happened.

American Companies Did This

American democracy gave workers good wages and protections. It passed laws restricting the ability of companies to pollute.

“Investors” and executives running Amereican companies wanted more money. They wanted bigger profits, and saw America’s unions and resulting good wages and benefits as obstacles to greater profits – for themselves. They saw democracy’s protections and regulations and pollution controls as obstacles to greater profits – for themselves.

American investors and exeucites found a way around the borders of American democracy. The companies moved manufacturing to lowest-common-denominator places: lowest wages, minimal protection of workers, low regulation, allowing pollution etc. American companies did this, not evil foreign plots to take American jobs and companies.

The weaknesses of American democracy allowed American companies to move jobs out of the US. Those companies used this as a lever to force wages, taxes and regulations down INSIDE the US. This is a lot of what led to the inequality the US has now.

And they used the great profits to buy politicians who moved American democracy out of their way.

Foreigners didn’t do this to the US, American companies were allowed to do this.

THAT is what needs fixing. The weakness of American democracy, allowing government to be controlled by wealthy interests did this. The only way to undo this is to fully restore American democracy.

Healthcare CEO Killed

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United Healthcare apparently was the worst of the insurance companies for profiting from systematically denying claims. You pay an insurance company to cover you if you get sick, then when you get sick they refuse to cover you. As Bernie said about Wall Street, the business model is fraud. Except Wall Street takes away your house and life savings. Health insurance companies take away your health and sometimes your life.

These companies continue to be allowed, even encouraged to operate this way. Everyone knows this is because they pay politicians to do nothing that might keep the profits rolling in. Everyone knows this.

Top executives who pay politicians have impunity. Everyone saw this with Wall Street, when not one Wall Street executive was prosecuted after financial fraud caused the 2008 crash. (The ‘W’ administration got more than 2600 convictions of bankers for the S&L Crisis and 1706 bankers went to prison.)

Even when government is obviously and visibly absolutely corrupted, and refuses to prosecute the most horrific, egregious crimes, giving citizens no justice and no recourse, it remains wrong to “take the law into your own hands.” 

Even when the entire system is corrupted and everyone sees executives enriching themselves at the expense of the public and the planet, and “public servants” refusing to do anything about it and then when they leave “public services” they get lavishly compensated “jobs” or “consulting fees” “speaking fees” or “book advances” or other methods of payoff, it still is wrong to “take the law into your own hands.”

HOWEVER,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

PS Trump SAID he was that, but he ain’t that.

How Dem Betrayal Brought Us Trump

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Of all people, David Brooks, in a confession, does a good job or explaining Trumpism in Voters to Elites: Do You See Me Now? Read it all, but this about moving manufacturing out of the country,

We embraced a free trade policy that moved industrial jobs to low-cost countries overseas so that we could focus our energies on knowledge economy enterprises run by people with advanced degrees. The financial and consulting sector mushroomed while manufacturing employment shriveled.

In a word, “NAFTA,” which is the shorthand codeword for “markets over democracy” neoliberal policies that drove everything upward to the wealthy. Jobs went away, social services dried up and people were left on their own, infrastructure crumbled, entire regions were devastated.

I wrote this in 2010, and I think it describes why we have Trumpism:

As you drive from town to town in Michigan and Ohio you see one after another a ring of the “big box” stores and national chain stores around each city. You also see the “brownfields” of rusted-out, closed factories, empty, falling-down buildings. Then you go to the downtown and you see boarded up houses, empty storefronts, deteriorating and deteriorated communities, idle people standing on corners. As you drive into these towns you can just see what is happening in a nutshell.

You used to hear about how Wal-Mart was predatory, how it would show up in an area and after a while the downtowns would dry up, local business-owners would go broke, local business employees would be laid off, and the local people would have to work for low wages at Wal-Mart, while the region’s spending money would go off to the wealthy few who run these things.

Well a juicy story of devastation like that one gets around, and there are those who hear it and say, “Hey, that’s a great idea, I wanna get me some of that.” So the Wal-Mart business model has taken off and now there are any number of these vultures, ringing the cities and towns around the country, so often private-equity owned. They are draining away the lifeblood of the downtowns, fighting off the unions to keep wages down, even demanding tax breaks to move in and “create jobs.” You see all the same stores circling every town now, running all of the local and regional businesses unto the ground.

Here are some pictures from the inner Lorain area but you see it all around: (click for large)
P1000784P1000802 P1000791P1000795P1000789P1000787