Hartmann Report

When people consider monopolies, or even highly concentrated markets like airlines or pharmaceuticals, generally the only thing they think of is the ability of companies in concentrated markets to set prices wherever they’d like. But there are fully three primary benefits to monopoly or oligopoly, from the monopolists’ point of view. In addition to setting prices by restricting competition, monopolies can (and typically do) drive down wages so that they end up with a steady supply of cheap labor, and—both by market (selling) control and labor market (workers) control—they send vastly more money flowing to stockholders and senior management than can companies in truly competitive marketplaces.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Are Jack Smith's odds for holding Trump accountable shrinking? — Not only do right-wingers have a plan to turn the fed over to Trump .... but wait, there's more! — The German newspaper I used to read when I lived there just took down America's so-called journalism — Without drama or fanfare, Biden advances policies that matter — Crazy Alert! Who else is disgusted that Trump's VP favorite is boasting she shot her puppy instead of training it or finding it another home? Does that show she is a tough decision maker or a heartless psychopath? — Wisdom School Alert! Is the Logic of our "Younger Culture" Harmful to our Planet? — Hunter in a Farmer's World Alert! ADHD: Don't be a "blamer." — Because of climate change, scientists are calling for a new "category 6" for hurricanes

The simple reality is that conservatives throughout modern history have viewed democracy with a jaundiced eye, and the Supreme Court's Republican appointees are no exception... Many Americans are confused by the spectacle they heard (we couldn't "witness" it because Republicans on the Supreme Court won't allow their proceedings to be televised) yesterday as an attorney for Donald Trump, at least three different times in different ways, argued that Trump was above the law and should be treated as such. Even more baffling was the apparent agreement with that position by at least four of the six Republicans on the Court.

The problem for Republicans is that unions are "democracy in the workplace," and the GOP hates democracy as a matter of principle... The UAW's successful unionization effort last week at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee — the first successful unionization effort at a car factory in the South since the 1940s — is breaking the brains of Republicans in that region. They're truly astonished that workers might not trust their corporate overlords with their working conditions, pay, health, and retirement. Tennessee's Republican Governor Bill Lee — along with Governors Kay Ivey (AL), Brian Kemp (GA), Tate Reeves (MS), Henry McMaster (SC), and Greg Abbott (TX) — issued a joint statement last Tuesday condemning the vote... The problem for Republicans is that unions represent a form of democracy in the workplace, and the GOP hates democracy as a matter of principle. It's why conservatives have opposed every effort to expand voting rights from the Jim Crow era, through fighting woman's suffrage, to opposing voting rights legislation from 1965 to this day.

Trump's vision of fascism, supported by the neofascist ideologues behind Project 2025 and Project 47, is claiming the Democratic Party is so extreme it's a threat and needs to done away with... Like good fascists throughout modern history, Donald Trump and the RNC are rolling out a program to try to intimidate minorities and Democratic voters so badly they'll leave polling places without voting... Claiming fraud or proclaiming the illegitimacy of their political opposition is an old, old trick. And now Trump's RNC is embracing that claim and the other major aspects of fascism with gusto.

Our entire popular understanding of the cause of much crime — enough to "tipping point" a society into crisis — is usually wrong… In the midst of all of his trials, in a moment pregnant with irony, Donald Trump recently claimed that if he was reelected he would seize direct control of Washington, DC because, he said, crime there was out of control. "We're going to federalize it," Trump told attendees to a Las Vegas rally. "We're gonna have the toughest law enforcement in the country. We're not going to have any more crime and it's going to look beautiful." As usual, Trump doesn't know what he's talking about.

Both homeless & inflation are the result of America allowing housing to become a commodity that can be traded & speculated in by financial markets & overseas investors... Back in 1967, a friend of mine and I hitchhiked from East Lansing, Michigan to San Francisco to spend the summer in Haight-Ashbury. One ride dropped us off in Sparks, Nevada, and within minutes of putting our thumbs out a city police car stopped and arrested us for vagrancy. The cop, a young guy with an oversize mustache who was apologetic for the city’s policy, drove us to the desert a mile or so beyond the edge of town, where we hitchhiked standing by a distressing light-post covered with graffiti reading “39 hours without a ride,” “going on our third day,” and “anybody got any water?” Vagrancy laws were so 20th century.

"That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are their means of acquiring property strictly so called." —James Madison, Property, March 29, 1792 While the monopolization of wealth and political power by giant corporations and the billionaires they create has reached crisis proportions in this country, the monopolization of middle-class wealth by white people—and, particularly, white men—is also a crisis that keeps our country unequal and out of balance.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — Will Trump face stronger contempt charges for violating his gag order while sitting in court? And, if Trump is jailed, will there be mass protests? Does anyone really care? — Ukraine may lose by the end of 2024 — will our Congress stand up to the Putin caucus or let down democracy? — Why do Republicans in Congress want banks to be able to continue to “squeeze customers with junk fees”? A — Will the “FART” team work for House Republicans? — Wisdom School Alert: Is There Power In How We Think About Things? — Crazy Alert! House Democrats filed a bill to make Marjorie Taylor Greene “Putin’s Special Envoy to the US Congress.” — Hunter in a Farmer’s World Alert: ADHD: “Good German Schools” Come to America — Hospitals are “so scared” of GOP abortion laws that they’re turning away pregnant women in trouble. — Good News Alert! During periods in 30 out of the last 38 days, 100% of California’s power came from renewable, non-nuclear sources. — More good news...Maine’s legislature passed sweeping gun safety laws in all-night session.

Seriously. We should have known, but, still, the science is shocking: when conservatives run governments, suicides and homicides go up; when liberals run governments, suicides and homicides go down. We got the first clue back in 2002, when, in a 100-year longitudinal study published that year in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Australian researchers found that the suicide rate in that country and the UK increased throughout the 20th century whenever a Conservative government (similar to Republicans here in the U.S.) was in power and declined measurably when the liberal Labour Party was in charge. The BBC cited the research, noting that tens of thousands of Australians and Brits would not have committed suicide if conservatives had never run either government during the 20th century.