Gosh, who owns the vast majority of newspapers? Corporations. You think Jeff Bozos (deliberately misspelled) wants Amazon's profiteering reported on in the Post? In spite of a massive revenue spike thanks to COVID, Amazon jacked up its Prime fee by about 20%. Gordon Gekko was right, greed is good - - for the 1%.
Thanks to the MSM for helping usher in authoritarianism while "both-sides-ing" every political and economic story. I'm beyond disgusted. Even last night, two days before the election, 60 Minutes was doing another "both sides" piece. I changed the channel to save my cardiovascular system.
Great story...wish it had been written several times and months earlier....I don't understand what's happening with the media and the lack of focus in bringing facts to the forefront. Exhausting fighting politicians, corporations and media! In the absence of wide spread facts and civics in our schools, democracy is dead.
What's happening to the media has been happening for 25 years: 1) corporate consolidations changed priorities -- newsrooms became "cost centers;" 2) this trend was exacerbated by the fact that the media owners were publicly traded and thus stockholders became more important than readers or advertisers; 3) the media's corporate leaders failed to understand the potential of the Internet to ENHANCE their franchises and their business and dismissed the competition that was developing; 3) as Google and then Facebook drained advertising, corporate leaders cut costs when they should have been investing in new technologies; 4) As newspapers, TV stations and radio stations began to seriously hemorrhage, the cuts in the newsrooms became significant and enchanced the decline -- less content, less subscribers/viewers/listeners; 5) media corporations began to "fail" and were sold off to hedge funds which have sold off assets, made deep cuts into newsrooms, programming and products.
So, 25 years later, we have a crippled industry which, I would argue, is vital to our democracy.
With less staff, the newsrooms pick off the low hanging fruit which is: The President is responsible for the economy, specifically, inflation; who's winning and who's losing?; and what is Mr. T. up to today?
I say all this from the perspective of having been a professional journalist for 33 years. It deeply saddens me that tens of thousands of my colleagues are no longer asking tough questions, digging to deeper truths and explaining the intricacies of our economy and existence.
And I applaud the work of Popular Information and just signed up for a paid subscription. Perhaps people like Judd, Rebecca and Tesnim are onto the future of journalism.
Thanks Judd. To any thinking person this is a no brainer. Corporate profits or price gouging are fully supported by the republican party who will in turn receive their kickbacks from the corporations. As for the CNN poll claiming "Abortion, which ranked second, was cited as the most important issue by just 15% of voters." I would question whether CNN polled any females.
Corporate greed will screw up everything in the not-so-long run. This feels a whole lot like 1929. The big corps are very near-sighted. The public only has so much money. When people can't buy anymore, there is no other source of $$$. The balloon pops.
Really what is on the ballot is whether the US is going to survive as a democratic republic. The inflation is worldwide and has more than one cause. Certainly big corporations are taking advantage to make profits for their investors. It is the job of politicians to call that out. The only politician I see doing it consistently is Bernie Sanders. Where has everyone else been?
A Country that wants to survive as a democratic republic will have a sense of unity of the importance of being a democratic republic. All the other problems stem from the rockiness that occurs from lack of unity on the shared beliefs based on our Constitution and the rule of law. Free and fair elections were always what defined us despite all of our many frailties. The politicians who deny the 2020 election as legitimate are saying that they no longer want the US to be a democratic republic. Anyone who votes for a politician who denies a free and fair election is casting a vote to never vote again.
Unfortunately, the MSM has by and large ignored the fact that corporate greed is to a large degree driving inflation (especially with respect to the oil companies), thereby aiding and abetting the Republicans. And, the sad fact of the matter is that more people worry about inflation, which has always been transitory in our society, than about the fact that the (Republican) party screeching about it won't say anything about how it would fix the problem, or about how its corporate backers are contributing to the situation.
I reposted Judd's article on the Facebook pages of Peterson Institute, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. (I don't use twitter.)
But because the media continually lies to them with the “blame game”, it seems justified.
We really need to expose this treachery of raising prices ( because they can). Biden probably never realized he would be
‘Everyones go to guy for blame of every kind’.
However , He , and we, have been at the mercy of severely crooked media.
It seems that we have chosen to turn away from the truth , in ever capacity.
The Big Lie is the GOPMagas raking election lies over all of us .
Its pure distraction from whats really going on.
The corruption between large corporations , who receive huge tax breaks from Gopmaga encourages them to hike prices for even more profits.
Who suffers? We all do .
Has there ever been a greater division between the rich and the poor ?
Perhaps proceeding the French Revolution, perhaps not.
The scale we are defrauded on , is greater than ever.
We, who are at the mercy of the biased media and politicians on the crooked right, suffer from the pure Greed of corporations and their beneficiaries, the already rich.
Very informative. Corporations a leading cause of inflation but in more sectors than I imagined. None of us like paying $7 for peanut butter. Aww how I hate the 1%. If we vote Blue and win perhaps that will send a message. I know if we vote red Democracy is doomed.
I don't understand it either - except, as Judd explains, they are being kept in the dark by corporate-owned media. But it's also a problem of the imagination. It's definitely easier to blame a person, such as our President, as the source of all our problems than it is to truly comprehend the global scope of greed. We can vote someone out of office if we don't like them, but how do we untangle our lives from being enmeshed with corporations?
Both Judd and Robert Reich have similar takes on flailing democracy - Reich speaks to the arrogant childish so-called billionaires - Musk and Trump - and the despicable effects they have on the world. Judd looks at big media's both-siderism and wanting to have it both ways. Judd and Robert are both right, and we, the public, voters have very little say up against all the money that's driving this madness! You both have good ideas about WHY, but the powers that be have no ideas about HOW to stop the madness! Just more harping about voting, when voting matters less than the money driving it! Politicians are beholden to the unconscionable billion$ spent on a mid-term election!
And why did the pandemic leave people flush with money? Because the prior administration -- the Republican administration -- didn't care enough to do what needed to be done to prevent it. They were too busy making sure that everyone knew that it came from China and didn't care if people in "blue states" died. Why not say that part, too? Often?
Gosh, newspapers/television news wouldn't be slighting the fact that outrageous corporate profits contribute to inflation because corporations advertise in newspapers and on television, would they?
I commented above, but I do not think it's any grand conspiracy. I just think it's the result of corporations taking over the media and being corporations they are driven to grow, increase profits, reduce expenses and reward stockholders. Readers/viewers/listeners become secondary. Newsrooms are secondary. Tens of thousands of journalists have been expelled; no longer is there the womanpower to dig into the complexity of stories. And the demise of the professional media is one of the biggest threats to democracy and one of the biggest stories untold. (And one that no corporate owner is going to want its reporters to write, THAT I will admit.)
This analysis informs why all the talk of "we're in this together" during the ongoing pandemic as expressed by corporations is laughable. Certain companies continue to make record profits. Not exactly feeling the proverbial pinch, are they?
Gosh, who owns the vast majority of newspapers? Corporations. You think Jeff Bozos (deliberately misspelled) wants Amazon's profiteering reported on in the Post? In spite of a massive revenue spike thanks to COVID, Amazon jacked up its Prime fee by about 20%. Gordon Gekko was right, greed is good - - for the 1%.
Thanks to the MSM for helping usher in authoritarianism while "both-sides-ing" every political and economic story. I'm beyond disgusted. Even last night, two days before the election, 60 Minutes was doing another "both sides" piece. I changed the channel to save my cardiovascular system.
Great story...wish it had been written several times and months earlier....I don't understand what's happening with the media and the lack of focus in bringing facts to the forefront. Exhausting fighting politicians, corporations and media! In the absence of wide spread facts and civics in our schools, democracy is dead.
What's happening to the media has been happening for 25 years: 1) corporate consolidations changed priorities -- newsrooms became "cost centers;" 2) this trend was exacerbated by the fact that the media owners were publicly traded and thus stockholders became more important than readers or advertisers; 3) the media's corporate leaders failed to understand the potential of the Internet to ENHANCE their franchises and their business and dismissed the competition that was developing; 3) as Google and then Facebook drained advertising, corporate leaders cut costs when they should have been investing in new technologies; 4) As newspapers, TV stations and radio stations began to seriously hemorrhage, the cuts in the newsrooms became significant and enchanced the decline -- less content, less subscribers/viewers/listeners; 5) media corporations began to "fail" and were sold off to hedge funds which have sold off assets, made deep cuts into newsrooms, programming and products.
So, 25 years later, we have a crippled industry which, I would argue, is vital to our democracy.
With less staff, the newsrooms pick off the low hanging fruit which is: The President is responsible for the economy, specifically, inflation; who's winning and who's losing?; and what is Mr. T. up to today?
I say all this from the perspective of having been a professional journalist for 33 years. It deeply saddens me that tens of thousands of my colleagues are no longer asking tough questions, digging to deeper truths and explaining the intricacies of our economy and existence.
And I applaud the work of Popular Information and just signed up for a paid subscription. Perhaps people like Judd, Rebecca and Tesnim are onto the future of journalism.
The 1% bought the media. The rich takeover plan
Thanks Judd. To any thinking person this is a no brainer. Corporate profits or price gouging are fully supported by the republican party who will in turn receive their kickbacks from the corporations. As for the CNN poll claiming "Abortion, which ranked second, was cited as the most important issue by just 15% of voters." I would question whether CNN polled any females.
Corporate greed will screw up everything in the not-so-long run. This feels a whole lot like 1929. The big corps are very near-sighted. The public only has so much money. When people can't buy anymore, there is no other source of $$$. The balloon pops.
Really what is on the ballot is whether the US is going to survive as a democratic republic. The inflation is worldwide and has more than one cause. Certainly big corporations are taking advantage to make profits for their investors. It is the job of politicians to call that out. The only politician I see doing it consistently is Bernie Sanders. Where has everyone else been?
A Country that wants to survive as a democratic republic will have a sense of unity of the importance of being a democratic republic. All the other problems stem from the rockiness that occurs from lack of unity on the shared beliefs based on our Constitution and the rule of law. Free and fair elections were always what defined us despite all of our many frailties. The politicians who deny the 2020 election as legitimate are saying that they no longer want the US to be a democratic republic. Anyone who votes for a politician who denies a free and fair election is casting a vote to never vote again.
Unfortunately, the MSM has by and large ignored the fact that corporate greed is to a large degree driving inflation (especially with respect to the oil companies), thereby aiding and abetting the Republicans. And, the sad fact of the matter is that more people worry about inflation, which has always been transitory in our society, than about the fact that the (Republican) party screeching about it won't say anything about how it would fix the problem, or about how its corporate backers are contributing to the situation.
I reposted Judd's article on the Facebook pages of Peterson Institute, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. (I don't use twitter.)
And Maersk, Hertz, Avis, Exxon.
But because the media continually lies to them with the “blame game”, it seems justified.
We really need to expose this treachery of raising prices ( because they can). Biden probably never realized he would be
‘Everyones go to guy for blame of every kind’.
However , He , and we, have been at the mercy of severely crooked media.
It seems that we have chosen to turn away from the truth , in ever capacity.
The Big Lie is the GOPMagas raking election lies over all of us .
Its pure distraction from whats really going on.
The corruption between large corporations , who receive huge tax breaks from Gopmaga encourages them to hike prices for even more profits.
Who suffers? We all do .
Has there ever been a greater division between the rich and the poor ?
Perhaps proceeding the French Revolution, perhaps not.
The scale we are defrauded on , is greater than ever.
We, who are at the mercy of the biased media and politicians on the crooked right, suffer from the pure Greed of corporations and their beneficiaries, the already rich.
Very informative. Corporations a leading cause of inflation but in more sectors than I imagined. None of us like paying $7 for peanut butter. Aww how I hate the 1%. If we vote Blue and win perhaps that will send a message. I know if we vote red Democracy is doomed.
Tomorrow in oh so many ways is Judgement Day.
Good article.
It seems to matter very little to the consumer that they are the victims of extreme Corporate greed
Truth. Blaming Biden is easier and promoted
I don't understand it either - except, as Judd explains, they are being kept in the dark by corporate-owned media. But it's also a problem of the imagination. It's definitely easier to blame a person, such as our President, as the source of all our problems than it is to truly comprehend the global scope of greed. We can vote someone out of office if we don't like them, but how do we untangle our lives from being enmeshed with corporations?
A very good question. Im afraid that we’re going to have to get much more active in fighting this . The ease of which will appear
FTC has a lot of work to do.
But antitrust is hard work. Let’s just kneecap the poors, so they can’t absorb the price increases, and hope they don’t wreck the country too much.
Both Judd and Robert Reich have similar takes on flailing democracy - Reich speaks to the arrogant childish so-called billionaires - Musk and Trump - and the despicable effects they have on the world. Judd looks at big media's both-siderism and wanting to have it both ways. Judd and Robert are both right, and we, the public, voters have very little say up against all the money that's driving this madness! You both have good ideas about WHY, but the powers that be have no ideas about HOW to stop the madness! Just more harping about voting, when voting matters less than the money driving it! Politicians are beholden to the unconscionable billion$ spent on a mid-term election!
And why did the pandemic leave people flush with money? Because the prior administration -- the Republican administration -- didn't care enough to do what needed to be done to prevent it. They were too busy making sure that everyone knew that it came from China and didn't care if people in "blue states" died. Why not say that part, too? Often?
Gosh, newspapers/television news wouldn't be slighting the fact that outrageous corporate profits contribute to inflation because corporations advertise in newspapers and on television, would they?
I commented above, but I do not think it's any grand conspiracy. I just think it's the result of corporations taking over the media and being corporations they are driven to grow, increase profits, reduce expenses and reward stockholders. Readers/viewers/listeners become secondary. Newsrooms are secondary. Tens of thousands of journalists have been expelled; no longer is there the womanpower to dig into the complexity of stories. And the demise of the professional media is one of the biggest threats to democracy and one of the biggest stories untold. (And one that no corporate owner is going to want its reporters to write, THAT I will admit.)
This analysis informs why all the talk of "we're in this together" during the ongoing pandemic as expressed by corporations is laughable. Certain companies continue to make record profits. Not exactly feeling the proverbial pinch, are they?