Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes—The Monopolization of America: The Biggest Economic Problem You’re Hearing Almost Nothing About:
Not long ago I visited some farmers in Missouri whose profits are disappearing. Why? Monsanto alone owns the key genetic traits to more than 90 percent of the soybeans planted by farmers in the United States, and 80 percent of the corn. Which means Monsanto can charge farmers much higher prices.
Farmers are getting squeezed from the other side, too, because the food processors they sell their produce to are also consolidating into mega companies that have so much market power they can cut the prices they pay to farmers.
This doesn’t mean lower food prices to you. It means more profits to the monopolists.
America used to have antitrust laws that stopped corporations from monopolizing markets, and often broke up the biggest culprits. No longer. It’s a hidden upward redistribution of money and power from the majority of Americans to corporate executives and wealthy shareholders. [...]
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QUOTATION
“In fact, there is perhaps only one human being in a thousand who is passionately interested in his job for the job's sake. The difference is that if that one person in a thousand is a man, we say, simply, that he is passionately keen on his job; if she is a woman, we say she is a freak.”
~~Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society (1971)
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2009—On the wrong side of America on same-sex partnerships:
Republicans are an old party, and their retrograde bigoted positions on equality are repulsive to younger voters. Obama won the youth vote 66-32, and nothing the Republicans have done since then have made them more palatable to those voters. In fact, by doubling down on hatred, Republicans are merely cementing the millennial generation into the (D) column for years to come.
So Michael, it's true that many Americans agree with the Republican position. In fact, per the polling, that number appears to be about 38 percent, or about 114 million Americans. That's a lot!
But that's not 50 percent, which is useless to you in elections, and it's a shrinking number as new youngsters reach voting age and the seniors pass on. Time is the bigot's worst enemy.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: We'll soon learn whether murdering coal miners is what the coal miners wanted. Elaine Chao enters the cabinet corruption contest. McCain, ACORN and the beginning of the end. The Weekend in Trump plumbs previously uncharted depths of corruption.
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