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The Rigging Of The American Market
Submitted by Robert Reich via RobertReich.org,
Much of the national debate about widening inequality focuses on whether and how much to tax the rich and redistribute their income downward.
But this debate ignores the upward redistributions going on every day, from the rest of us to the rich. These redistributions are hidden inside the market.
The only way to stop them is to prevent big corporations and Wall Street banks from rigging the market.
For example, Americans pay more for pharmaceuticals than do the citizens of any other developed nation.
That’s partly because it’s perfectly legal in the U.S. (but not in most other nations) for the makers of branded drugs to pay the makers of generic drugs to delay introducing cheaper unbranded equivalents, after patents on the brands have expired.
This costs you and me an estimated $3.5 billion a year – a hidden upward redistribution of our incomes to Pfizer, Merck, and other big proprietary drug companies, their executives, and major shareholders.
We also pay more for Internet service than do the inhabitants of any other developed nation.
The average cable bill in the United States rose 5 percent in 2012 (the latest year available), nearly triple the rate of inflation.
Why? Because 80 percent of us have no choice of Internet service provider, which allows them to charge us more.
Internet service here costs 3 and-a-half times more than it does in France, for example, where the typical customer can choose between 7 providers.
And U.S. cable companies are intent on keeping their monopoly.
It’s another hidden upward distribution – from us to Comcast, Verizon, or another giant cable company, its executives and major shareholders.
Likewise, the interest we pay on home mortgages or college loans is higher than it would be if the big banks that now dominate the financial industry had to work harder to get our business.
As recently as 2000, America’s five largest banks held 25 percent of all U.S. banking assets. Now they hold 44 percent – which gives them a lock on many such loans.
If we can’t repay, forget using bankruptcy. Donald Trump can go bankrupt four times and walk away from his debts, but the bankruptcy code doesn’t allow homeowners or graduates to reorganize unmanageable debts.
So beleaguered homeowners and graduates don’t have any bargaining leverage with creditors – exactly what the financial industry wants.
The net result: another hidden upward redistribution – this one, from us to the big banks, their executives, and major shareholders.
Some of these upward redistributions seem to defy gravity. Why have average domestic airfares risen 2.5% over the past, and are now at their the highest level since the government began tracking them in 1995 – while fuel prices, the largest single cost for the airlines, have plummeted?
Because America went from nine major carriers ten years ago to just four now. Many airports are now served by one or two.
This makes it easy for airlines to coordinate their fares and keep them high – resulting in another upward redistribution.
Why have food prices been rising faster than inflation, while crop prices are now at a six-year low?
Because the giant corporations that process food have the power to raise prices. Four food companies control 82 percent of beef packing, 85 percent of soybean processing, 63 percent of pork packing, and 53 percent of chicken processing.
Result: A redistribution from average consumers to Big Agriculture.
Finally, why do you suppose health insurance is costing us more, and co-payments and deductibles are rising?
One reason is big insurers are consolidating into giants with the power to raise prices. They say these combinations make their companies more efficient, but they really just give them power to charge more.
Health insurers are hiking rates 20 to 40 percent next year, and their stock values are skyrocketing (the Standard & Poor’s 500 Managed Health Care Index recently hit its highest level in more than twenty years.)
Add it up – the extra money we’re paying for pharmaceuticals, Internet communications, home mortgages, student loans, airline tickets, food, and health insurance – and you get a hefty portion of the average family’s budget.
Democrats and Republicans spend endless time battling over how much to tax the rich and then redistribute the money downward.
But if we didn’t have so much upward redistribution inside the market, we wouldn’t need as much downward redistribution through taxes and transfer payments.
Yet as long as the big corporations, Wall Street banks, their top executives and wealthy shareholders have the political power to do so, they’ll keep redistributing much of the nation’s income upward to themselves.
Which is why the rest of us must gain political power to stop the collusion, bust up the monopolies, and put an end to the rigging of the American market.
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Our whole life is rigged.
"...put an end to the rigging of the American market."
Good Luck
Since day 1...which was many many moons ago...drip dy drop - its been getting worse.
Every single day is worse than the day before. How is that possible - unless we have been rigged since day 1
.
Tell me differently?
>>> RIGGED CASINO
>>> HONEST "MARKET"
Obama will not finish his second term! Current Events Linked to Ancient Biblical Prophecy!
http://motivationdose.com/is-america-babylon/
"The only way to stop them is to prevent big corporations and Wall Street banks from rigging the market."
How about eliminating the "market" altogether?
There is no need for a casino for "publicly-traded" stock companies.
All companies should be private with exceptions for due diligence for loans and tax liability.
The public should have real jobs with decent wages and companies that do not succeed should fail.
That is the "market".
This isn't rigging, this is building the Taj Mahal entirely out of bullshit and with the same structural strength.....
If you strip out the US markets, world stock indexes are a disaster
http://www.goldsqueeze.com/home/world-stock-markets-not-confirming-us-ex...
it makes me sad to think Anyone could Actually BELIEVE
our "Markets" could possibly be RIGGED.
i mean come on people Where is your sense of Graditude for the Awssome Recovery we're in?
A tale of the tribe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5zBjSgxudU
Howl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVGoY9gom50
The O.1% now have more wealth than the bottom 90% in the land of the free.
High cost for prescrption drugs is a tax on the middle class and poor:
Prescription drugs cost up to 10 times more in the United States than they do in other countries
For example, while the average cost of the acid reflux drug Nexium was $215 in the US, it was a mere $23 in the Netherlands, $42 in England, and $58 in Spain. The average price of the multiple sclerosis medication Copaxone stood at $3,903 in the US, but only $862 in England, $898 in New Zealand, and $1,191 in Spain. The depression drug Cymbalta was sold for $194 in the US, but for only $46 in England, $52 in the Netherlands, and $110 in Canada.
The survey also compared the average hospital costs along with the prices of a number of medical procedures. The average hospital cost per day in 2013 was $4,923 in the United States, while it was $481 in Spain, $702 in Argentina, and $1,308 in Australia. The average cost of bypass surgery was $75,345 in the US, compared to $15,742 in the Netherlands, $16,247 in Spain, and $42,130 in Australia. And while an angioplasty would run patients $27,907 on average in the US, it would only be $5,246 in Argentina, $5,295 in the Netherlands, and $8,477 in Australia.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/09/drug-o09.html …
John Galt will charge you what he likes for that cancer medication, after buying the patent and raising the price, and it is virtuous for him to do so.
I know this because a book I once read said this.
{I love junks. I eat them for breakfast. I use them as a cum sock as I masturbate to pictures of Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum - and not from when she was young, but from when she was really fucking gross and half senile. Mmmmm... love the junks. Awww so good! Aw.. I'm gonna cum! IM GONNA CUM!!!}
SIEGEL: How fast are cancer drug prices rising?
TEFFERI: Almost in an exponential fashion. The price of cancer drugs are doubling and tripling within a few years rather than decades, and they are going much higher than what's our average household income is.
http://www.npr.org/2015/07/23/425654456/doctors-speak-out-against-unsust...
This.
Cancer drug prices are increasing at an alarming rate (1), which is causing harm to patients.
• Prices have increased more than tenfold (2) between 2000 (average price $5,000-$10,000 per year) and today (average price of new cancer drugs exceeds $120,000 per year).
• The average price of cancer drugs is increasing by about $8,500 (3,4) a year. The average household income today for a family of four is $52,000, down 8% from a decade ago (5).
• Even patients with insurance have out-of-pocket expenses of 20-25% (6). Since each American has a 1 of 3 lifetime chance of developing cancer, every one of us is at risk of being unable to pay for the prescription medicines that will control and cure our cancer.
• This could force many families to decide whether to pay $25,000 a year for one cancer drug, about half the household income, or forgo the treatment to save the money for other necessities.
https://www.change.org/p/secretary-of-health-and-human-services-protest-...
"Cancer" is a scam, not a "disease." Strengthen your immune system and malfunctioning cells are disposed of.
http://www.naturalnews.com/051482_cancer_industry_overdiagnosis_false_po...
wow.
Gotta agree. diseases that make shareholders and Wall Street TRILLIONS of dollars cannot suddenly be "cured"!
John Gault wouldn't buy the patent, he would design a better widget and market it at a cheaper price driving you out of business.
not how it works in the real world.
in the real world, generic drugs no better than what's already out there are developed all the time. look at statins, for one example.
The guy who jacked the cancer drug price - that wasnt a wonder drug at all -
"The medicine, Daraprim, which has been on the market for 62 years, is the standard of care for a food-borne illness called toxoplasmosis caused by a parasite that can severely affect those with compromised immune systems. Turing purchased the rights to the drug last month and almost immediately raised prices."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/09/21/ceo-of-...
Look - you people worshipping at the altar of Rand aren't all wrong.
but you are really wrong about some things.
If you took your head out of your asses and looked at the real world, and asked whether human life should be reduced to economic terms, you might learn a thing or two.
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/11/generic_drug_pri...
Americans are getting absolutely ass fucked on med prices, its cheaper virtually everywhere else, and you don't think something's kinda fucked up?
Seriously?
....and why do you think that it is possible for a drug company to screw over its customers? The STATE. Government enforces copyrights and patents. Governments regulate (HA!) insurance companies preventing new and more efficient answers to whatever the market needs. Government forces you to buy insurance and by subsidizing parts of the medical industry while simultaneously forcing up costs via regulation force higher prices which are ultimately paid by you.
In the 1800's anyone with the cash (or a sponsor) could go to college to become a medical doctor. Hell, you didn't need a degree to hang your shingle, there were no licenses. Your reputation kept you in or out of the medicine racket. If you helped your patients, you attracted business, if you hurt them you attracted a lynching. Then the AMA was formed and convinced DC to establish licensing in order to insure patient safety with the AMA itself been the evaluating organization. The AMA was a price fixing monopoly designed to get as many MDs as possible to accept their inflated price schedule. If you didn't join and comply, you didn't get licensed.
Without the state anyone would be able to develop treatments for any diseases. Yes, most will fail, just as they do today, but those that are effective would draw market demand. If you try to raise your prices to more than the market can bear, some other Joe, based on market's demands, would develop a cheaper treatment and drive you out of business. Only the STATE can protect monopolies.
then Ayn Rand has a boner for John Galt!
...see this coming miles away
Pluto enters USA's 2nd House (Sibley chart)...collapse
Neptune leaves Dem's 10th House (Jefferson 'election' chart) ...collapse
Unplug, go off grid, and take care of yourself. Also realize that the productive output of a person is limited, so this neo-slavery can't go on forever.
Tangentially related, but I was on of several million victims from an information breach recently, so to "compensate" me (ha) I got free credit reporting services. I hadn't thought about it, but your credit report is a perfect indicator of how far off the grid you are. Thanks to paying cash for nearly everything and having the house paid off, my report consisted of my primary and backup credit cards and nothing else. It's completely disconnected from my assets and net worth, and utterly useless for TPTB that abuse. Indeed I've found the amount of marketing shit I've gotten had dropped over the past 10 years.
Especially if you have money, look poor to these abusers, and do your best to avoid the keeping-up-with-the-jones spending. Every dollar not spent is making them just a little more desperate and soon enough even they will know the party is over.
The only way to win, sadly, is to not play.
Politics is a dead end. Agorism works. You won't ever get the reins of the state, so stop wasting time. You can be free without "fixing" the state. Which is good, because those in power prevent reform.
+10 for using the word "agorism."
When the currency itself is a scam, everything else eventually becomes a scam. Don't participate.
The whole problem is this thing they call, "The Economy" which should never really exist anyway.
Financial markets must all die, dead. Before they eventually destroy the entire planet and leave nothing but a smoking black hole behind.
Rigging has been brought to a whole new level in the last six years. Everywhere you look. That's what socialism is all about peeps.
Funny you say that. The meaning of "socialism" has been totally inverted since the concept "socialism for the rich" - which was intended to be ironic - was first popularized.
The corporation's worst nightmares in the Senate, the ones who are all about ... "the rest of us [gaining] political power to stop the collusion, bust up the monopolies, and put an end to the rigging of the American market" ... are Elizabeth Warren - and of course Bernie Sanders, the "Democratic Socialist"!
Socialist is a description of one pole in the class struggle that Warren Buffet admits is being waged against the regular people of the US (including against small businessfolk.) "Socialist" policies that are not at least an attempt to purposefully further their (our) interests - be they successful or counterproductive - or a response to pressures from regular folk, aren't socialist at all, and using the word "socialism" to describe them is just rhetoric.
odd that the author would be such a big supporter of Clintons and Obama and the Democrats who run Wall Street...hasn't RObert made million via the Democrats high education scam and being lap dog of Corzine, Soros and the like. Capitalism worked for 200 years....we enable Glass Stegall and it all goes down the tubes. the Robber Baron at least bet their own money! Robert do you have Tim Geithner, Buffet and Steyer on speed dial?
That is a little like saying that you're in league with the devil because you're an asshole.
Just saying...
Since the end of August I've been 'all in' and made almost 25% on my money. I've almost recovered all the losses I had since the middle of August, and now I'm back to even money!
Ha Ha Ha Ha. You ZeroHeads are a buncha phookin' luzers!
"made almost 25%" ... "now I'm back to even money"
LOL. Enjoy the fantasy!
Yo...Artuuuur... no one3 gives a sheet about you and your personal journey into darkness. Fuck off. Join Facebook.
The same Robert Reich who was a Clinton douchebag.
Pay to play or stay outta the way.
Bulls make money; bears make money; pigs (and idiots) get slaughtered.
....and official inflation is basically declared to be at 0%.
How do they not blush when they spoon feed us this horseshit??!
The big trickle up:
a) Those with excess capital invest it and collect interest, dividends and rent.
b) Those with insufficient capital borrow money and pay interest and rent.
Sooooo, the solution is to use government, a monopoly that uses violence to force compliance, in order to bust up monopolies? Riiight...
Not only that but, the reason why corporations can be the way they are is that they run the political process. Who do you think wrote Obamacare? The insurance companies. What about farm bills? Monsanto. What about copyright laws? Immigration laws? or any other law that affects profit or power? Not the "people". Only the people (corporations)who contribute huge amounts of money to political campaigns.
So, easy, take money out of politics, right? Really? How? make political campaigns tax subsidized? Already there and it doesn't work. Forbid campaign contributions? Nothing doing. SCOTUS already determined that campaign contributions are forms of expression, therefore protected.
So, change the constitution, right? Who would do it? The same politicians that benefit from the current system? Ha! Replace the current politicians? How? The corrupt system that permits bribing politicians is the same system that would be used to replace those corrupt politicians?
The markets are rigged because the U.S. is a fascist country. In such a country, the government has merged with big business, creating a monstrous entity that is corrupt to the core.
The U.S. is, in essence, no different than the fascist regimes of Mussolini and Hitler.
The only way to remedy the situation is to sever all the ties between government and big business.
"As recently as 2000, America’s five largest banks held 25 percent of all U.S. banking assets. Now they hold 44 percent – which gives them a lock on many such loans."
Federal Reserve's solution is to double the size of banks, debt and printing each time.
Tax code, tax code, tax code. The billionaire next door isnt paying any taxes on all that loot b/c he's incorporated in the Bahamas or the Channel Islands and makes most of what gets sold overseas. . . You are driving your beater to work to get fully taxed every year for 100% of your W-2. That billionaire has about the same size exposure to Uncle Sam as you do. That's what's fucked up. He puts a fraction of what he saves in taxes into political donations, so that the guys who supposedly represent you are actually happily fucking you (and your wife, and your kids) right in the ass, at the command (and for the benefit of) that gazillionaire next door.
Trillions in Fed Easy Money just made the rich even richer, the working classes poorer and the lazy poor more comfortable. The Fed has been doing it for decades...
The bailouts and too big to fail equalled about 100 massive tax increases on the rich. Next time don't bail them out!
Letting rich people fail is the best regulation there is!!!
Barter and open source both should work well without force. Behind all this rigging and corruption is force. We are forced into dealing with these dickheads. Obama care is simply force to prop up a monopoly that has gone too far. Same goes for the other bailouts.
We should think of ways to avoid being forced or the forcing of others.
There are things we can do. Buy used good things is nice. Trading for those things is even better. Avoid using credit or debt.
One area where we all have power to change things for the better is the credibility gap. We need to show everyone all the lies. That is one aspect they cant handle. All the lies depend on the suckers falling for them. Do us all a solid and catch poeple that are falling for those lies before they get hurt.
The worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves. If someone is kind enough to point out our dogma? Thank them and pass it on.
Respect your fellow man by being honest and as truthfull as you can. No there is not much money in it. But that is just fiat anyway.
Just my humble opinion.
Typical libtard...no mention of the 200% inflation in healthcare costs thanks to Obozo and his party.
Is this the same Robert Reich who worked in the Clinton administration as secretary of labor? Does he not understand that all the crony corporatist monopolistic crushing of the average joe he's lamenting......would be impossible WITHOUT the government's involvment?
Wait lemme guess.....we just don't have ENOUGH government, right Robert? Or is it because everything would be so much better if the democraps could rid themselves of those pesky repukelicans?
They will suck us dry and dump us faster than you can realize it. They see no need for the virtuous cycle. Get ready third world lifestyle here comes the American Population.
Truth is how we show respect to others. More importanly its how we respect ourselves.
I think what we really need is an equal application of the rule of law. If there is criminal fraud it needs to be prosecuted with at least as much vigor as a petty theft.
If Hillery Clinton violated article 1 section 9 of the US constitution as well as violating the laws regarding the keeping of secrets then she needs to be prosecture at least and probably more vigorously than the ex-Bradley Manning ... because Hillery's secrets kill more people and betray as greater trust.
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21677259-britains-first-new-mine-n...
Yet as long as the big corporations, Wall Street banks, their top executives and wealthy shareholders have the political power to do so, they’ll keep redistributing much of the nation’s income upward to themselves.
Notice the complete innocence of the political class. I have no respect for this midget.
but...but...but....Ayn Rand tells us that giant corporations should be allowed to police themselves-with NO government interference-after all, it is to their benefit to treat their customers like decent human beings, and follow all laws....
(yes i know the government interferes, usually by people in the offending industry)
The Greatest strip-mining in the history of the Earth will soon end