Business Roundtable Moves In A New Direction

Click here for an article at Inc.Com by Peter Gasca, entitled "In This Single Statement, CEOs From the Largest U.S. Corporations Just Changed the Purpose of Business," subtitled "The influential Business Roundtable issued a new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, and businesses everywhere should pay attention."

Wikipedia: The Business Roundtable (BRT) is a non-profit association based in Washington, D.C., whose [192] members are chief executive officers of major U.S. companies. Unlike the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose members are entire businesses, BRT members are exclusively CEOs. [The current BRT chairman is Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase.]

On August 19, 2019, the BRT issued a 300-word statement:

Americans deserve an economy that allows each person to succeed through hard work and creativity and to lead a life of meaning and dignity. We believe the free-market system is the best means of generating good jobs, a strong and sustainable economy, innovation, a healthy environment, and economic opportunity for all.

Businesses play a vital role in the economy by creating jobs, fostering innovation, and providing essential goods and services. Businesses make and sell consumer products; manufacture equipment and vehicles; support the national defense; grow and produce food; provide health care; generate and deliver energy; and offer financial, communications, and other services that underpin economic growth.

While each of our individual companies serves its own corporate purpose, we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders. We commit to:

Delivering value to our customers. We will further the tradition of American companies leading the way in meeting or ­exceeding customer expectations.

Investing in our employees. This starts with compensating them fairly and providing important benefits. It also includes supporting them through training and education that help develop new skills for a rapidly changing world. We foster diversity and inclusion, dignity, and respect.

Dealing fairly and ethically with our suppliers. We are dedicated to serving as good partners to the other companies, large and small, that help us meet our missions.

Supporting the communities in which we work. We respect the people in our communities and protect the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses.

Generating long-term value for shareholders. [They] provide the capital that allows companies to invest, grow, and innovate. We are ­committed to trans­parency and effective engagement with shareholders.

Each of our stake­holders is essential. W­e commit to deliver value to all of them, for the future success of our companies, our communities, and our country.

I enrolled in a business and economics course back in 1970 with the aim of receiving a business degree. Unfortunately, that was at a time when economic thought in the Western world was undergoing a sea change, from the principles espoused by John Maynard Keynes to those of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School, and I found myself in immediate and profound disagreement with my professors and the new wave of economic thought.

In 1970, Friedman wrote what came to be known as the Friedman doctrine, saying "There is one and only one social responsibility of business -- to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits ..."

For years, this philosophy has been espoused by most businesses based in capitalist economies, and it is indicterined [sic] in every newly-minted MBA ... In 1997, ... the Business Roundtable formalized this philosophy with a definition of corporate purpose as 'The paramount duty of management and of boards of directors is to the corporation's stockholders. The interests of other stakeholders are relevant as a derivative of the duty to stockholders.'

In other words, the number one rule of business is to increase shareholder wealth.

The BRT's statement, if put into practice, signals a very significant turn in corporate direction:

In the statement, the BRT mentions creating value for customers, investing in employees, fostering divers ity and inclusion, dealing fairly and ethically with suppliers, supporting the communities in which we work, protect the environment -- all before ever mentioning "shareholders," which does not happen until the last paragraph.

Unfortunately for my academic career, I was entering university at exactly the beginning of a 50-year interregnum when economic thought was dominated by right-wing conservatives. If this is the beginning of a pendulum starting to swing in the reverse direction, I'm all for it.

Click here for another article along these lines at The Washington Post, written by David Ignatius and entitled "Corporate panic about capitalism could be a turning point."

Dimon had warned earlier this year in his annual letter to his company’s shareholders that the American Dream was “fraying for many” because of stagnant wages and income inequality.

Numerous other indications of a change in the direction of economic thought are mentioned in this article. Interestingly, Ignatius writes that FDR considered "the right-wing demagogue, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who had routed the Bonus Army from its camps," to be the most dangerous man in America. “Did you ever see anyone more self-satisfied? There’s a potential Mussolini for you," Roosevelt wrote.

Click here for an article in The Week, by Windsor Mann, entitled "The false prophet in the White House."

People believe Trump because they want to be deceived. In her book The Confidence Game: The Psychology of the Con and Why We Fall for It Every Time, Maria Konnikova writes, "The true con artist doesn't force us to do anything; he makes us complicit in our own undoing. He doesn't steal. We give. He doesn't have to threaten us. We supply the story ourselves. We believe because we want to, not because anyone made us."

An evangelical told me that God put Trump in the White House "for a reason." Maybe the reason is to teach us a lesson: Don't ever do this again.

Joy Reid at MSNBC tweeted: "This might be the truest article I’ve read about the Cult of Donald Trump, whose supporters really do say (and have told me) he was sent to Washington by God."

Arnie's Message: "Your heroes are losers. You are supporting a lost cause."

"Believe me, I knew the original Nazis."

Click here for an article at The Week, by Peter Weber, entitled "Arnold Schwarzenegger, who grew up around 'broken' and defeated Nazis, has some blunt advice for the alt-right (and Trump)."

Schwarzenegger had a message for "the neo-Nazis and to the white supremacists and to the neo-Confederates," which began: "Your heroes are losers. You are supporting a lost cause. Believe me, I knew the original Nazis." He explained that he was born in Austria in 1947, right after World War II, and growing up he "was surrounded by broken men, men who came home from the war filled with shrapnel and guilt, men who were misled into a losing ideology. And I can tell you that these ghosts that you idolize spent the rest of their lives living in shame. And right now, they're resting in hell." He said it isn't too late to change course, and he wasn't buying Trump's "fine people" excuse for the Charlottesville marchers.

"If you say 'Arnold, hey, I was just at the march, don't call me a Nazi, I have nothing to do with Nazis at all,'" Schwarzenegger said, "let me help you: Don't hang around people who carry Nazi flags, give Nazi salutes, or shout Nazi slogans. Go home. Or better yet, tell them they are wrong to celebrate an ideology that murdered millions of people. And then go home."

Rebuttal to Tucker Carlson's "White Supremacy Is A Hoax" Segment

Click here for an excellent rebuttal to Tucker Carlson's dimwitted segment I discussed in my post below, ""Tucker Carlson: White Supremacy Is a ‘Hoax’ and ‘Not a Real Problem in America.'"

The link is to The Atlantic, and an article by Conor Friedersdorf, entitled "Dismantling Tucker Carlson’s White-Supremacy Argument," subtitled "The Fox News host’s recent segment was among the most poorly reasoned ever."

QAnon!

Feel up to watching a nice little conspiracy-theory video about a sinister plan on behalf of the criminal elites to dominate the world for their evil purposes? Great! Here it is:



According to Q theory, the Mueller report was to bring everything to a head: Mueller would reveal the existence of a vast worldwide criminal cabal, run by the criminal elites -- especially the Bushes, the Clintons, and Barack Obama -- resulting in those evildoers, along with large numbers of Hollywood stars, business magnates, and of course Democrats -- being seized and rushed off to Guantanamo in chains. But it didn't happen! There was much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, but the Q theory lives on.

Click here for a great companion article, explaining the QAnon nonsense in some depth, by Will Sommer at the Daily Beast, entitled "What Is QAnon? The Craziest Theory of the Trump Era, Explained."

Review Of Steve Bannon's Film, "American Dharma"

Click here for the review, at ScreenDaily, by Lee Marshall. The film's been out there for a year, but no one wanted to give Bannon's rancid worldview any publicity. Director Erroll Morris grapples with Bannon's ideology and methodology and suggests that ignoring the political strategist is more dangerous than engaging him.

If you can’t convey the attraction, the director seems to be saying, you can’t convey the danger.

This is the issue with taking on a subject as media-savvy as Breitbart News co-founder Bannon: a man who is used to playing others, and controlling the message, was always going to be hard to play. Morris faced a similar challenge in The Unknown Known, his last cinematic sparring match with one of liberal America’s chief bogeymen, Donald Rumsfeld. But Rumsfeld was also, like The Fog of War’s Robert McNamara, a consummate politician unable to resist the cut and thrust of a debate on strategy. Bannon, for all the abyss that divides the two men’s views and styles, is a weaver of narratives, creator of images and editor of the truth, just like Morris, and simply goes quiet when asked questions he finds uncomfortable.

The result is a fascinating but also in some ways frustrating film, a game of tag that looks resoundingly cinematic but feels like more of a cable or VOD prospect - not least because it lacks the killer punch, the Bannon stumble or revelation that would make American Dharma newsworthy.

"The Hunt," A Film From Universal Studios -- Will It Ever Air?

Here's a trailer for a Universal film scheduled for a September release -- though it may not ever be shown. Called "The Hunt," it shows wealthy liberal patrons of "The Manor," a luxurious hunting camp -- where the game being hunted is MAGA supporters.

"Did anyone see what our ratfucker-in-chief just did?" one character asks early in the screenplay for The Hunt, a Universal Pictures thriller set to open Sept. 27. Another responds: "At least The Hunt's coming up. Nothing better than going out to the Manor and slaughtering a dozen deplorables."

The script for The Hunt features the red-state characters wearing trucker hats and cowboy shirts, with one bragging about owning seven guns because it's his constitutional right. The blue-state characters — some equally adept with firearms — explain that they picked their targets because they expressed anti-choice positions or used the N-word on Twitter. "War is war," says one character after shoving a stiletto heel through the eye of a denim-clad hillbilly.

How will a film like this go over after the national trauma of the El Paso/Dayton weekend? A Universal executive says the movie "is meant to show what a stupid, crazy world we live in," adding, "It might even be more powerful now." [The film, scheduled for release in September 2019, was released on March 20, 2020.]

Tucker Carlson: White Supremacy Is A Hoax (Like Russia)

Click here for an article at the Daily Beast by Justin Baragona entitled "Tucker Carlson: White Supremacy Is a ‘Hoax’ and ‘Not a Real Problem in America.'"

“It’s a hoax,” he declared. “Just like the Russia hoax, it’s a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power.”

I don't get Fox and therefore don't see Carlson's program (although I've seen enough Carlson clips to have despised the man for more than ten years). But I've read that it would be difficult to differentiate between a transcript of a Tucker Carlson show and the "Hispanic invasion" manifesto of the El Paso shooter.

Crediting the president for condemning white supremacy while addressing the recent mass shootings, Carlson not only blasted critics of the president but took it a step further and dismissed the issue of white supremacy altogether, saying “the whole thing is a lie.”

Carlson says the white supremacy threat is "actually not a real problem in America. The combined membership of every white supremacist organization in this country would be able to fit inside a college football stadium."

That may or may not be true -- I don't think there are a bunch of well-organized white supremacist organizations with thousands of followers -- but the reality is that these wackos are lone-wolf shooters who do not belong to any "organization," and they draw comfort and support from Trump's bigoted, racist remarks in his tweets and at his rallies.

He opens the piece by saying, "It's not the job of this show to defend the president, everything he says, and some things we're not going to defend." I'd be interested to know just what those things are that you're not going to defend, Tucker.

He goes on to say about Trump: "He never endorsed white supremacy, or came close to endorsing white supremacy. That's just a lie."

Quite the straw man Tucker has set up there. I've never heard anyone say that Trump has said "I'm a white supremacist," or "I endorse white supremacy." He hasn't. It's all done with dog whistles, and the white supremacists hear it loud and clear. And while all Trump supporters are not white supremacists, all white supremacists are Trump supporters, because they know he wants to accomplish the same things they do. David Duke loves him; comments on The Daily Stormer regularly refer to Trump as "the god-emperor."

Hoverboard Channel Crossing

Click here for an article at The Verge, by Andrew Liptak, entitled "French inventor successfully crosses the English Channel on a hoverboard." He reached a top speed of 106 mph on the 22-mile trip, stopping halfway and landing on a platform to refuel. Watch the video: He looks to be a good 100 feet in the air.

When Trump's Promises Go Unkept

Click here for an article by Paul Waldman at The Plum Line, a Washington Post blog, entitled "How Trump’s biggest broken promise will make white supremacist terrorism even worse."

Is Trump's rhetoric inspiring murders? Waldman says:

There’s another vital question we need to ask: not whether Trump is inspiring murderers, but whether he is now, and will in the future, disappoint them in ways that could lead to more deadly violence.

Trump promised "a return to when people like them were on top. The Muslims would be banned, the minorities would be shown their place, a “big beautiful wall” would be built from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico — and Mexico would pay for it."

The problem will arise, Waldman says, when Trump supporters realize he can't fulfill his promises:

As historian Rick Perlstein noted just after the 2016 election, Trump made practical promises he couldn’t possibly keep, but “the biggest, only made implicitly, was the same one fascist strongmen always offer: transcendent national renewal, built upon the cleansing of dangerous untermenschen from the body politic.” Once that promise inevitably fails to be fulfilled, the results could be catastrophic. “The more Trumpism fails, the more, and more violently, scapegoats will be blamed.”