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Playing Monopoly With Our Economy, For Real

Playing Monopoly With Our Economy, For Real

Shouting “Down with big government,” today’s tea party Trumpateers claim to be tax rebels — direct descendants of the Boston bunch who boarded three British ships in 1773 and heaved their cargo of tea chests into the harbor. But wait! That historic Tea Party wasn’t actually a tax protest. The audacious colonists were rebelling against the British East India Company’s tea monopoly, which excluded local importers.

What the gutsy rebels were actually tossing was monopolistic corporate power. Get your heave-ho muscles in shape, for the monopolists are back, and they’re going for more than our tea; they’re rapidly locking up major economic sectors. The louder Donald Trump touts his commitment to competition and free markets, the faster his corporate operatives, lobbyists and congressional henchmen scheme to create cartels and combines. His Justice Department, regulatory agencies, monetary policies, tax rules, judicial appointees (especially Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch) and other inside players are all at work greasing the skids for the monopolization of America.

This era’s corporate dominance did not, of course, begin with Trump. The merger wave swelled in the Reagan years, but because his Federal Trade Commission stopped collecting industry consolidation data in 1981, its full extent is hidden. But we do know, thanks to public interest watchdogs, that a tsunami of monopoly power now threatens our economy at the very time Trump Inc. is dismantling consumer protections and facilitating the rise of dominating behemoths in airlines, banks, computer tech, pharmacies, groceries, hospitals, meatpacking, media, oil, online sales, pharmaceuticals, railroads, software, telecom services and other essential industries.

While Americans are told to worship the magic of the free market, real markets are being hogtied by a handful of crony capitalist oligarchs.

Two giants, Verizon and AT&T, controlled 69 percent of U.S. cellphone service last year. Two others, Facebook and YouTube (owned by Google) have 64 percent of social network visits, and another two, Android (launched by Google) and Apple, control 99 percent of smartphone operating systems.

Five Wall Street mega-powers now control nearly half of all U.S. financial assets; 20 years ago, the top five controlled only about 20 percent. In recent years six of the largest U.S. airlines merged into three, which now control 50 percent of U.S. flights.

Three decades ago, 50 conglomerates owned 90 percent of media outlets; today, just six mega-monopolists control 90 percent of the market. America’s two largest newspaper owners are not even media chains but GateHouse Media and Digital First Media hedge funds that now own some 670 papers, including dailies in Augusta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Denver, Phoenix, and St. Paul. And Digital First is now attempting to take over the Gannett chain of 100 more papers.

As of August 2018, Apple’s stock value was greater than that of Bank of America, Boeing, Ford, Volkswagen, Walt Disney, and 20 other colossal corporations — combined. In 2015, just 30 supersized corporations grabbed half the profits generated by all corporations listed on the stock market.

The two largest truck and bus manufacturers now control 62 percent of the market. The two largest drugstore chains, shipbuilders, and mattress makers have over 60 percent of each of those markets. And the two largest home improvement chains control about 80 percent of the market.

Periodically throughout American history, the tension between democracy and plutocracy has reached a breaking point, and people have risen up in great confrontations with elites who assert that their property rights and wealth must reign supreme over the majority’s interests and our nation’s common good.

And here we are again. A handful of corporate consolidators and property rights supremacists are dictating pay and conditions for America’s workers, crushing unions, jacking up prices, squeezing out independent businesses, controlling the media, suppressing the vote and public dissent, encouraging monopoly,  literally running our government … and becoming even bigger, richer and more powerful. That’s our real fight. We’re not merely up against the Little Tweeter Man in the White House — but against the unfathomable greed and oligarchic ambitions of the moneyed powers who are using him.

Populist author, public speaker and radio commentator Jim Hightower writes The Hightower Lowdown, a monthly newsletter chronicling the ongoing fights by America’s ordinary people against rule by plutocratic elites. Sign up at HightowerLowdown.org.

IMAGE: 3D printed Apple logo seen in front of a displayed cyber code in this illustration taken February 26, 2016. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Solar-Power Amendment On Florida’s Ballot A ‘Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing’

Solar-Power Amendment On Florida’s Ballot A ‘Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing’

Let the scum shine.

The solar-power amendment on Florida’s ballot is a slick, oily fraud. Promoted as a way to expand solar energy and protect residents who want it, Amendment 1 would do just the opposite.

All you need to know is who’s bankrolling the massive advertising campaign: Florida Power & Light, Duke Energy, Tampa Electric Co., Gulf Power, and a few nonprofits funded heavily by Exxon Mobil and a pair of right-wing billionaire brothers named Koch.

When is the last time they all banded together to do something wonderful for the average consumer?

These are not fans of broadening our energy choices. These are politically powerful utility and oil interests seeking to restrict and monopolize the burgeoning solar industry. The last thing they want is free-market competition. The prospect worries them so much that they’ve forked out almost $22 million to push for Amendment 1.

Their political committee calls itself “Consumers for Smart Solar.” The PR wiz who came up with that name must have gotten a good laugh, because consumers would be the long-term victims of this measure.

From its beginning, the secret strategy for selling Amendment 1 was to deceive Floridians into believing it was a populist, pro-solar movement. Last week, reporter Mary Ellen Klas of the Herald obtained a devastating audiotape of a presentation made by an executive of a Tallahassee think tank that provides “research” to the state’s big electric utilities.

On the tape, Sal Nuzzo of the James Madison Institute is heard praising Amendment 1 as “an incredibly savvy maneuver” that “would completely negate anything they (pro-solar groups) would try to do either legislatively or constitutionally down the road.”

After Nuzzo’s comments became public, JMI hastily issued a statement saying he “misspoke” during the industry conference at which he was recorded. But the damage was done, Nuzzo’s confident remarks confirming what opponents of Amendment 1 (including the Florida League of Women Voters) have been saying all along. The whole idea is to screw solar providers that could some day compete with the major electric companies.

The amendment was word-crafted with the sole intent of trickery. The first item supposedly gives electricity consumers a “constitutional right” to own or lease solar equipment “for their own use.”

Guess what? We’ve already got that right — no amendment necessary.

The second part of the ballot item is the trapdoor: “State and local governments shall retain their abilities to protect consumer rights and public health, safety and welfare, and to ensure that consumers who do not choose to install solar are not required to subsidize the costs of backup power and electric access to those who do.”

That language opens the way for municipalities and the state to hit local solar providers with fees and regulations that could prevent them from selling low-cost electricity to customers, which would basically defeat the whole purpose of the technology.

Planting the fear that non-solar users might be forced to “subsidize” grid access for solar customers is a groundless and sleazy scare tactic that exposes the cold desperation of the big power companies.

FPL and Duke Energy are investing heavily in solar, and they don’t want to compete with smaller firms that might offer lower rates to people.

Meanwhile, mulling their huge investments in coal and petroleum, the ever-meddling Charles and David Koch have been waging war on solar power all across the country. They’ve taken a particular interest in smothering that industry in sunny Florida.

Solar is an extremely popular concept here. Many families and business owners like the idea of clean, abundant, affordable energy.

“Solar polls very well,” remarked chatty Sal Nuzzo to his audience of power-company players last month.

No wonder, then, that Amendment 1 has been disguised as a pro-solar, pro-consumer initiative. Otherwise it wouldn’t have a prayer of passing.

“A wolf in sheep’s clothing,” wrote Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara Pariente in her dissent, when the court voted 4-3 to allow the measure on the ballot.

Because changing the Florida Constitution requires the approval of 60 percent of voters, “Consumers for Smart Solar” has been pulling out all the stops, including buying top advertising positions on the Google search engine.

The TV commercials and “Yes on 1 For the Sun” all-media campaign radiate admiration for the rooftop-panel technology, while promising to protect you and me from unspecified “ripoffs” and “scams.”

But the biggest scam of all is Amendment 1 itself. Florida’s electric monopolies are counting on all of us to fall for it.

Vote no. Show them the light.

Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for the Miami Herald. Readers may write to him at: 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132

Photo: Solar panels at the Pittsfield Waste Water Treatment Facility (Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection/Flickr)

Dollar General Raises Bid For Family Dollar

Dollar General Raises Bid For Family Dollar

New York (AFP) — Dollar General on Tuesday sweetened its bid to acquire Family Dollar and threatened to launch a hostile takeover campaign in the latest twist in a bidding war among discount retailers.

Dollar General, the largest U.S. deep-discount chain, raised its all-cash bid for Family Dollar to $80 per share from $78.50, while also agreeing to pay Family Dollar $500 million if a deal is not completed for antitrust reasons.

Dollar General said its latest bid would provide Family Dollar shareholders with about $640 million in greater value compared with a proposal by rival Dollar Tree that has been favored by the Family Dollar board.

“We are confident that our enhanced proposal sufficiently addresses any concerns that led Family Dollar’s Board of Directors to reject our prior proposal without any discussions between our companies,” said Rick Dreiling, chief executive of Dollar General.

“If the Family Dollar Board fails to seize this opportunity to maximize value for its shareholders, we will consider taking our superior proposal directly to the Family Dollar shareholders.”

Dollar General’s Tuesday bid marks its second effort to woo Family Dollar, the number two company in the discount sector, after Family Dollar in August snubbed an earlier proposal worth $9.7 billion.

On August 21, Family Dollar rejected the bid by Dollar General, saying it could run afoul of U.S. anti-monopoly rules. Instead, Family Dollar, said it still favored a $9.2 billion offer from Dollar Tree.

But Dollar General said Tuesday it was confident it could win antitrust clearance after consulting antitrust experts. To win regulatory approval, Dollar General said it would agree to divest as many as 1,500 stores if ordered by the Federal Trade Commission.

Dollar General had previously pledged to divest up to 700 stores to get the green light from antitrust officials.

Family Dollar released a statement confirming it received the latest Dollar General Proposal and pledging to “review and consider” the bid in consultation with legal and financial advisers.

A Dollar General-Family Dollar combination would have nearly 20,000 stores in 46 states and sales of more than $28 billion. That compares with Walmart’s 4,900 mostly much larger U.S. stores which generate 12 times that much in sales.

In early trade, Dollar General jumped 1.5 percent to $64.92, Family Dollar shares rose 0.6 percent to $80.28, and Dollar Tree gained 0.8 percent to $54.07.

AFP Photo/Joe Raedle

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Motorola Defends Contracting Practices, Dismisses McClatchy Stories As Containing ‘Innuendo’

Motorola Defends Contracting Practices, Dismisses McClatchy Stories As Containing ‘Innuendo’

By Greg Gordon, McClatchy Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Motorola Solutions Inc. is rejecting as “innuendo” a series of stories in which McClatchy examined the company’s decadeslong dominance of the nation’s emergency communications market.

Published on March 30, the stories described multiple ways in which city, county and state officials have favored Motorola with noncompetitive contracts, including from at least nine of the nation’s 20 largest cities. The firm has reaped billions of dollars in annual revenues amid a nationwide push to avoid a repeat of the radio failures of Sept. 11, 2001.

In a statement, the company called it “very disturbing that a news organization would cast suspicion of any Motorola contract with a government entity that did not fit a generic, competitive-bid model, and at the same time cast aspersions on the integrity of the government entities with which we do business.”

Motorola issued the statement and sent a letter to The Sacramento Bee, a McClatchy newspaper, which published an editorial Sunday challenging policymakers to ask hard questions about how the firm has preserved an estimated 80 percent share of the public safety radio market.

Motorola said that various “legally available” contract vehicles that forgo competitive bids enable governments to “procure in a manner that can achieve cost savings for taxpayers, and enable faster implementation, which can be an important consideration for equipment that can serve as a lifeline for first responders.”

The company did not address concerns about its radio prices — as much as $7,500 apiece.

McClatchy also reported that foundations for the firm and its former parent donated more than $25 million over a recent six-year period to nonprofits with law enforcement- and firefighting-related missions, aiding a constituency that has backed its products.

The company called it “very disturbing that a news organization would question a law-abiding company’s community citizenship.”

“Motorola’s employees and shareholders are deeply proud of the investments our Foundation makes to better the communities where we operate,” it said, adding that the donations “further the invaluable partnership we have with the public safety community.”

In addition, the company defended former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who responded to radio outages from Hurricane Katrina by spearheading a push for a new statewide radio system and a separate high-speed broadband data-delivery network for first responders.

Motorola won both contracts, which could generate $300 million. Months after leaving office, Barbour registered as a Motorola lobbyist, McClatchy reported.

Barbour, a Republican, showed “tremendous leadership … throughout the rebuilding of the devastated areas of Mississippi,” the company said.

“Leaders like Governor Barbour personally understand how the public safety community relies on survivable, interoperable communications during disasters and crises,” the company said. “That kind of leadership and experience is invaluable to us and the first responders Motorola Solutions serves every day across the country. We are proud to have Governor Barbour on our team.”

Photo: JonJon2k8 via Flickr