The Billionaire’s Ballroom Perfectly Suited to this Second Gilded Age Robert Reich Oct 23 Friends, In the first Gilded Age, which ran from the 1890s through the 1920s, captains of American industry were dubbed “robber barons” for using their baronial wealth to bribe lawmakers, monopolize industry, and rob average Americans of the productivity of their labors. Now, in a second Gilded Age, a new generation of robber barons is using their wealth to do the same — and to entrench their power. The first Gilded Age was an era of conspicuous consumption. The second is an era of conspicuous influence. The new robber barons are having their names etched into the pediments of the giant new ostentatious ballroom Trump is adding to the White House. They already own — and influence — much of the news Americans receive. And they are eager to promote their views. Marc Benioff, the billionaire founder and CEO of Salesforce, told The New York Times that Trump should send the National Guard to San Francisco. (After his remarks drew condemnation from many of the city’s civic leaders, he apologized. He seems about to get his wish nonetheless.) Marc Rowan, the billionaire chief executive of Apollo Global Management, is the force behind Trump’s recent “compact” calling on universities to limit international students, protect conservative speech, require standardized testing for admissions, and adopt policies recognizing “that academic freedom is not absolute,” among other conditions. The Trump regime dangled “substantial and meaningful federal grants” for universities that agree. (It didn’t work. Seven of the nine universities approached rejected the deal.) Billionaire Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of Blackstone, is also shaping the Trump regime’s campaign to upend American higher education. Schwarzman has emerged as a key intermediary between Trump and Harvard University. Other of America’s new robber barons are rapidly consolidating their control over what Americans read, hear, and learn about what’s occurring in our country and the world. They include Jeff Bezos; Larry Ellison and his son, David; Mark Andreessen; Rupert Murdoch; Charles Koch; Tim Cook; Mark Zuckerberg; and, of course, Elon Musk. Perhaps the new robber baron’s most lasting impression on the U.S. government will be the lavish White House ballroom Trump is constructing — a 90,000-square-foot, gold-leafed, glass-walled banquet room that will literally overshadow the so-called People’s House. It will not be an assembly hall, dance hall, music hall, dining hall, village hall, or town hall. It will be a giant banquet and ballroom designed to accommodate 650 wealthy VIPs. Trump claims that the East Room, the largest room in the White House, is too small. Its capacity is 200 people. He doesn’t like the idea of hosting kings, queens, and prime ministers in pavilions on the South Lawn. Trump’s real intention is to have the White House resemble Versailles. Potential billionaire donors have already received pledge agreements for “The Donald J. Trump Ballroom at the White House.” In return for donations, contributors are eligible for “recognition associated with the White House Ballroom.” Their names will be etched in the ballroom’s brick or stone edifice. Trump last week hosted a dinner at the White House for the project’s donors, which included representatives from Microsoft, Google, Palantir, and other companies, as well as Schwarzman, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and other billionaires. Meredith O’Rourke, a top political fundraiser for Trump, is leading the effort, paired with the Trust for the National Mall, an organization that supports the National Park Service. The trust’s nonprofit status means donations come with a federal tax write-off. Construction began Monday. Trump is now literally taking a wrecking ball to the White House — sending parts of the East Wing’s roof, the building’s exterior, and portions of its interior crumbling to the ground. It seems fitting that in this second Gilded Age — an age of conspicuous influence and affluent access — the People’s House will be replaced by the Billionaire’s House.

 

From the Robber Barons to Elon Musk: Will History Repeat Itself?

Preparing for the Trump Regime, Part 1.

Robert Reich Jan 3

Friends,

Ultra-wealthy elites. Political corruption. Corporate monopolies. Anti-immigrant nativism. Vast inequality.

These problems aren’t new. In the late 1800s, they dominated the country during America’s first Gilded Age. We overcame these abuses then, and we can do so again.

Mark Twain coined the moniker “The Gilded Age” in his 1873 novel to describe the era in American history characterized by corruption and inequality that was masked by a thin layer of prosperity for a select few.

The end of the 19th century and start of the 20th marked a time of great invention — bustling railroads, telephones, motion pictures, electricity, automobiles — that changed American life forever.

But it was also an era of giant monopolies — oil, railroad, steel, finance — run by a small group of men who had grown rich beyond anything America had ever seen.

They were known as “robber barons” because they ran competitors out of business, exploited workers, charged customers exorbitant prices, and lived like royalty as a result.

Money consumed politics. Robber barons and their lackeys donated bundles of cash to any lawmaker willing to do bidding on their behalf. When lobbying wasn’t enough, the powerful moneyed interests turned to bribery — resulting in some of the most infamous political scandals in American history.

The gap between rich and poor in America reached record levels. Large numbers of Americans lived in squalor.

Anti-immigrant sentiment raged, leading to the enactment of racist laws to restrict immigration. It was also a time of voter suppression, largely aimed at Black men who had recently won the right to vote.

The era was also marked by dangerous working conditions. Children often as young as 10, but sometimes younger, worked brutal hours in sweatshops. Workers trying to organize labor unions were attacked and killed.

It seemed as if American capitalism was out of control, and American democracy couldn’t do anything about it because it was bought and paid for by the rich.

But America reached a tipping point. The nation was fed up. The public demanded reform. Many took to the streets in protest. Investigative journalists, often called “muckrakers” then, helped amplify their cries by exposing what was occurring throughout the country.

A new generation of political leaders rose to end the abuses.

Teddy Roosevelt warned that “a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power,” could destroy American democracy.

After becoming president in 1901, Roosevelt used the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up dozens of powerful corporations, including the giant Northern Securities Company, which had come to dominate railroad transportation through a series of mergers.

Seeking to limit the vast fortunes that were creating a new American aristocracy, Congress enacted a progressive income tax through the 16th Amendment, as well as two wealth taxes.

The first wealth tax, in 1916, was the estate tax — on the wealth someone accumulated during their lifetime, paid by the heirs who inherited it. The second tax on wealth, enacted in 1922, was a capital gains tax — on the increased value of assets, paid when those assets were sold.

The reformers of the Gilded Age also stopped corporations from giving money directly to politicians or political candidates.

Then Teddy Roosevelt’s fifth cousin (you may have heard of him) continued the work through his New Deal programs, creating Social Security, unemployment insurance, and a 40-hour workweek and requiring that employers bargain in good faith with labor unions.

But following the death of FDR and the end of World War II, and after America had built the largest middle class the world had ever seen, we seemed to forget about the abuses of the Gilded Age.

The reforms that followed the first Gilded Age withered.

Starting with Reagan, taxes on the wealthy were lowered. Campaign finance laws were weakened. Social safety nets became frayed. Corporations stopped bargaining in good faith with labor unions.

Now, more than a century later, America has entered a second Gilded Age.

Monopolies are once again taking over vast swaths of the economy. So we must strengthen antitrust enforcement to bust up powerful companies.

Now another generation of robber barons, exemplified by Elon Musk, is accumulating unprecedented money and power. So, once again, we must tax these exorbitant fortunes.

Wealthy individuals and big corporations are once again paying off lawmakers, sending them billions to conduct their political campaigns, even giving luxurious gifts to Supreme Court justices. So we must protect our democracy from Big Money, just as we did before.

As it was during the first Gilded Age, voter suppression is too often making it harder for people of color to participate in our democracy. So it’s once again critical to defend and expand voting rights.

Working people are once again being exploited and abused, child labor is returning, unions are being busted, the poor are again living in unhealthy conditions, homelessness is on the rise, and the gap between the ultra-rich and everyone else is nearly as large as in the first Gilded Age.

So once again we need to protect the rights of workers to organize, invest in social safety nets, and revive guardrails to protect against the abuses of great wealth and power.

Seeking these goals may seem quixotic right now, just weeks before Trump and his regime take power with a bilious bunch of billionaires.

But if history is any guide, they will mark the last gasp of America’s second Gilded Age. We will reach the tipping point where Americans demand restraints on robber-baron greed.

The challenge is the same as it was at the start of the 20th century: To fight for an economy and a democracy that works for all rather than the few.

I realize how frightening and depressing the future may look right now. But we have succeeded before, when we fought against the abuses of the first Gilded Age. We can — and must — do so again now, in America’s second Gilded Age.

RAY McGOVERN: Decay, Decrepitude, Deceit in Journalism

 

RAY McGOVERN: Decay, Decrepitude, Deceit in Journalism Journalism is not like war: In war the victors get to write the history; in today’s journalism, the losers write it. Read here... _______________________________________________________________________________________ AIPAC Hijacks US Elections Medea Benjamin responds to the pro-Israel lobby’s second “win” of the U.S. campaign season. Read here... _______________________________________________________________________________________ Nationalizing US Rail There is little hope for any improvement of the U.S. rail system so long as it remains in the hands of the irresponsible and unaccountable Class I robber barons, writes Adam Barrington. Read here... _______________________________________________________________________________________ You can make a donation to Consortium News by   credit card online  or by  mailing a check  to   Consortium for Independent Journalism (CIJ) 2200 Wilson Blvd. Suite 102-231 Arlington, VA 22201     CIJ is a 501-c-3 tax-exempt organization, so your donations may be tax-deductible in the United States. (You also can direct donations to us through your company's charitible-giving programs.)   consortiumnews.com

 

While you weren't looking, the Biden administration ended involuntary servitude That is, if the rule survives ROBERT REICH JAN 10 Friends, Have you ever been forced to sign a non-compete agreement when you started a job? Some 30 million Americans are trapped by contracts that say if they leave their current job, they can’t take a job with a rival company or start a new business of their own. These clauses deprive workers of higher wages and better working conditions. In effect, they’re a form of involuntary servitude. Last week, while America was fixated on Kevin McCarthy’s travails, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a sweeping new rule that would ban these non-compete agreements. This is a big deal. The FTC estimates that such a ban could increase wages by nearly $300 billion a year (about $2,000 per worker, on average) by allowing workers to pursue better job opportunities. Non-competes also harm the economy as a whole, depriving growing businesses of talent and experience they need to build and expand. As historian Margaret O’Mara noted (via Matt Stoller), California’s ban on non-competes was a major reason for Silicon Valley’s success. The rule isn’t a sure thing. The public has 60 days to offer comment on it, after which a final rule could be published and then enforced some months after that. House Republicans will try to kill it, and I expect corporate America to appeal it up to the Supreme Court. For several decades, non-compete agreements have been cropping up all over the economy — not just in high-paying fields like banking and tech but as standard boilerplate for employment contracts in many low-wage sectors such as construction, hospitality, and retail. A recent study found one in five workers without a college education subject to them, disproportionately women and people of color. (Most don’t know what they’re signing or aren’t in a position to refuse.) Employers say they need non-compete agreements to protect trade secrets and investments they put into growing their businesses, including training workers. Rubbish. Employers in the states that already ban them (such as California) show no sign of being more reluctant to invest in their businesses or train workers. The real purpose of non-competes is to make it harder (or impossible) for workers to bargain with rival employers for better pay or working conditions. As we learn again and again, capitalism needs guardrails to survive. Unfettered greed leads to monopolies that charge high prices, suppress wages, and corrupt politics. As Adam Smith, the putative godfather of conservative economics, put it in The Wealth of Nations: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” America once understood the importance of fighting monopolies. The presidential election of 1912 was dominated by the question. Woodrow Wilson created the Federal Trade Commission to save capitalism from the depredations of powerful corporations and “robber barons” that had turned the economy of the Gilded Age into vast monopolies, fueling unprecedented inequality and political corruption. But as the FTC began prosecuting giant corporations, the robber barons saw the agency as a major threat — and did what they could to strip it of its powers. In 1976, when I ran the policy planning staff of the FTC, the agency again began cracking down on corporations under its aggressive chairman, Michael Pertschuk, who had been appointed by Jimmy Carter. (Pertschuk died just weeks ago.) George Tames/The New York Times Corporate capitalists were so unhappy with the FTC under Pertschuk that they tried to choke off the agency’s appropriation, briefly closing it down in 1978. But Pertschuk didn’t relent. He (and I) left the agency when Ronald Reagan appointed a new chairman, who promptly defanged it. Now, under its new Biden-appointed chair, Lina M. Khan, the FTC is again being the activist agency that progressives sought in 1914 and Pertschuk brought back to life in 1976. The FTC’s new proposed rule banning non-compete agreements marks the first time since Pertschuk headed the FTC that the agency has issued a rule prohibiting an unfair method of competition. As the old saw goes, history never repeats itself but it does rhyme. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the new radical-right Republicans now in control of the House tried to pull off a stunt similar to what the House tried in 1978. (The U.S. Chamber of Commerce calls the FTC’s proposed rule “blatantly illegal.”) More generally, the radical-right Supreme Court has signaled it will attack the constitutionality of independent regulatory agencies such as the FTC. So beware. In the meantime, kudos to Biden, Lina Khan (and her fellow commissioners Rebecca Kelley-Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya), and to the FTC for protecting American workers and economic competition — and thereby protecting American capitalism from the depredations of untrammeled greed.

FAIR: Corporate Looting as 'Rescue Plan,' Robber Barons as 'Saviors'

View article on FAIR's website Corporate Looting as 'Rescue Plan,' Robber Barons as 'Saviors' Joshua Cho Framing a massive corporate bailout as a "rescue package" (NPR, 3/27/20) was a PR coup. For a perfect illustration of how corporate media function as ruling class propaganda, watch how they spin a titanic upward redistribution of wealth as a “rescue plan” for the US economy, and paint a robber baron like US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin as a “savior” of the American public. In discussions of the (officially) estimated $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act—the largest government spending program in US history—before it was signed into law on March 27, corporate media largely abandoned the pretense of serving as watchdogs on behalf of the public in order to advocate for protecting and enriching the fortunes of their owners. Instead of scrutinizing the bill as the robbery in progress that it is—as an understandable story with identifiable victims and victimizers—corporate media sold the CARES Act as an urgent necessity required to combat the coronavirus pandemic for everyone. Like the previous corporate bailout during the Great Recession (Extra!, 1/09), corporate media avoided raising questions about the necessity of having the government bail out large corporations, or whether the bill could be restructured to serve people rather than profits. According to the Committee for a Responsible Budget, while the CARES Act dedicated $290 billion in direct payments to people and $260 billion in expanded unemployment benefits, it dedicated $300 billion in tax breaks and $875 billion in loans to big and small businesses—more than two dollars for corporations for every dollar for people, in other words. When corporate media reported on negotiations and deliberations over the CARES Act, they either hailed it as a bipartisan achievement, or else shamed politicians who accurately pointed out that it overwhelmingly benefited corporations at the expense of workers. On the day the CARES Act was signed into law, NPR (3/27/20) praised the bill as “the largest rescue package in American history and a major bipartisan victory for Congress.” Reporting in real-time, the Washington Post (3/24/20) spun the CARES Act as an attempt to “address the coronavirus crisis,” with the aim of “flooding the economy with capital to revive businesses and households.” When there was Democratic pushback over the Senate GOP bill for being “disproportionately tilted toward helping companies,” the Post described this as “partisan rancor and posturing on Capitol Hill” that blocked “the rescue bill.” The Post concern-trolled those who supported better legislation, and derided House Democrats’ putative attempts to chart their own “competing piece of legislation,” because “it could take even longer to arrive at a bipartisan consensus that can pass both chambers and get signed into law.” The New York Times' headline (3/22/20) left little doubt as to who was at fault. The New York Times (3/22/20) made it clear that protecting workers and imposing conditions on handing out trillions in taxpayer dollars were frivolous reasons to oppose the legislation, as the Times cast Senate Democrats as villains for ostensibly opposing the bill because it “failed to adequately protect workers or impose strict enough restrictions on bailed-out businesses.” The Times described the “party-line vote” as a “stunning setback” for both the Trump administration’s “ambitious timeline” and “the rescue package,” and warned Democrats that they “risked a political backlash” if “they are seen as obstructing progress on a measure that is widely regarded as crucial to aid desperate Americans and buttress a flagging economy.” The Times also drew parallels to the “spectacle in 2008,” when the House defeated a “$700 billion Wall Street bailout that aimed to stabilize the financial system amid a global meltdown.” Even in 2020, the Times is still spinning the upward redistribution of wealth from taxpayers to the big banks that caused the crisis as an ostensible success that saved what corporate media consider to be “the economy” (Extra!, 10/10). Days later, the Times’ “As Coronavirus Spread, Largest Stimulus in History United a Polarized Senate” (3/26/20) spun the 96-to-0 Senate vote in favor of the bill as a heroic bipartisan compromise on legislation “intended to get the nation through the crippling economic and health disruptions being inflicted on the world by the coronavirus.” The Times leaned into corporate media’s civility fetish designed to demobilize opposition to the Trump regime (FAIR.org, 8/1/18, 12/22/19) when it depicted Democratic opposition to Senate Republicans’ “corporate giveaway” legislation as politically reckless and harmful to the country’s interests: It was a shocking and politically perilous decision in the middle of a paralyzing national crisis, a moment when lawmakers are traditionally expected to put aside differences for the good of the country, or face a political backlash. By contrast, in the false balance endemic in news coverage in the Trump era, the Times portrayed Senate Republicans as reasonable leaders who were “willing to momentarily abandon their small-government zeal” in the interest of “sealing a quick deal with Democrats” (GQ, 12/10/19; Washington Post, 4/27/12). Though the legislation didn’t include a necessary suspension of rent, utility and mortgage payments, or guarantee monthly payments, as advised by many economists, the Times spun it as a legislative victory for Senate Democrats: In the end, Democrats won what they saw as significant improvements in the measure through their resistance, including added funding for healthcare and unemployment, along with more direct money to states. A key addition was tougher oversight on the corporate bailout fund, including an inspector general and congressionally appointed board to monitor it, disclosure requirements for businesses that benefited, and a prohibition on any of the money going to Mr. Trump’s family or his properties — although they could still potentially benefit from other provisions. The problem with this triumphant Democratic ResistanceTM narrative is that it happens to be false. Politico’s report (3/26/20) on the negotiations over what it also hailed as a “rescue package” revealed that the final bill largely reflected the Senate Republicans’ “unemployment insurance and direct payments schemes” as “originally outlined,” with Sen. Mitch McConnell claiming that the CARES Act was a bill that was “largely, not entirely but largely, produced by Republicans in consultation with the Democratic minority.” American Prospect's David Dayen (3/25/20): "It’s not a $2 trillion bill, it’s closer to $6 trillion, and $4.3 trillion of it comes in the form of a bazooka aimed at CEOs and shareholders, with almost no conditions attached." The Democratic leadership’s lack of concern with proper oversight of the bailout funds was also exposed when Speaker Nancy Pelosi chose her first-term congressmember friend Donna Shalala as part of the five-member oversight panel, despite her numerous conflicts of interest, evident lack of expertise or reported interest in the job (American Prospect, 4/18/20). The American Prospect’s David Dayen has done some of the best reporting on the CARES Act, and he’s observed (3/25/20) how means-testing the $1,200 stimulus payments by basing it off IRS data in 2018 and 2019 was designed to limit the number of Americans who can receive it. The miserly one-time $1,200 stimulus payment will primarily reach Americans who already have direct deposit information on file with the IRS, with the unbanked (who happen to be the poorest) having to wait up to four months for paper checks, and who will be lucky to remain at the same address during that time without a suspension of rent payments. While Democratic leaders like Pelosi opposed emergency universal basic income—and delayed payments to set up a bureaucracy ostensibly dedicated to make sure wealthy Americans don’t get anything—the richest Americans are in fact receiving an average stimulus payment of $1.7 million in the form of a millionaire tax cut. Dayen has noted how the official “$500 billion” provided by the CARES Act to bailout large corporations is actually underreporting the enormity of the federal government’s corporate giveaway, as Trump regime officials like Larry Kudlow and Steve Mnuchin admitted their intent to leverage the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending authority to turn $500 billion into a $4.5 trillion money cannon aimed at large corporations. What was in actuality a $6 trillion spending package had few conditions attached to the largesse given to large corporations, as the money can still go to mergers, executive compensation and paying dividends to shareholders, with no requirement that they keep employing workers to receive this handout. Richard Wolff (Guardian, 11/4/13) explained the "great austerity shell game": "Corporations and the rich used the money they saved by keeping governments from taxing them to provide the huge loans governments therefore needed." It’s hard to overstate the injustice and scale of this upward redistribution of wealth. Commenting on 2008’s bailout, economist Richard Wolff (Guardian, 11/4/13) pointed out how funding the bailout through borrowing money effectively transfers wealth upward from regular taxpayers to rich bondholders, because the government is borrowing money from—and paying interest to—large corporations and the rich that it could have taxed them for instead. Rather than letting shareholders be wiped out first, according to the ostensible rules of capitalism—where they are supposed to bear the risk, instead of the government—the government is shoveling money to tax-dodging corporations like Boeing who admit to not needing these funds. By borrowing the money for a program that prioritizes saving the rich, rather than printing money to fund an emergency universal basic income for the people like Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s proposal, the government is effectively paying the rich for saving them. The fact that these viable alternative stimulus proposals weren’t enacted is inexcusable. Especially when the Federal Reserve is hinting its willingness to increase the money supply by buying unlimited debt to fund the CARES Act, the fact that the necessary funds magically appear to fund corporate bailouts instead of necessary social programs (like Medicare for All) exposes the “How are you going to pay for it?” talking point as a fraud (Extra!, 6/12). Pam and Russ Martens of Wall Street on Parade (3/26/20) observed how the CARES Act also allows the Fed to create “Special Purpose Vehicles” and hide this money from their balance sheets, allowing them to avoid the FOIA requests used to the expose the enormity of the $29 trillion bailout from 2008, in addition to repealing public meeting and recordkeeping requirements for Fed-related programs. This allows the Fed to evade transparency and accountability by holding meetings in secret. Reuters (3/20/20) depicts Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as the "point man to rescue the economy from coronavirus devastation." But when corporate media aren’t busy spinning massive corporate robbery of taxpayer money as a rescue package for “the economy,” they’re busy spinning robber barons like Mnuchin as heroic “saviors” instead. Reuters’ “This Is No 2008: Mnuchin Borrows From Paulson's Economic Crisis Playbook” (3/20/20) depicted Mnuchin as an unlikely hero thrust into the role of solving the US’ economic woes, as they reported: US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has stepped into the breach as the Trump administration’s point man to rescue the economy from coronavirus devastation, taking on the role his former Goldman Sachs boss, Hank Paulson, played over a decade ago. Mnuchin has closely followed the financial crisis playbook used by Paulson when he led the Treasury Department in 2008, reactivating Federal Reserve credit market backstops and asking Congress for $1 trillion to prop up companies and consumers as the economy grinds to a halt due to the spread of the virus. Apparently, for Reuters, there is only one “playbook” to be followed for all economic crises: massive taxpayer-funded giveaways to large corporations, and crumbs for everyone else. The report contained praise from official sources praising Mnuchin for being “pragmatic” and “rising to the occasion,” with few questions beyond whether he can succeed in his noble mission, as Reuters wondered whether Mnuchin can “strong-arm executives or influence President Donald Trump to take the drastic steps the unprecedented crisis may demand.” Whether Mnuchin and the Trump regime are actually trying to “rescue the economy” is apparently unquestionable, even though Mnuchin would dismiss record-breaking levels of unemployment as “not relevant” only a few days later (Common Dreams, 3/26/20). For the Wall Street Journal (3/31/20), "Mr. Mnuchin has become Washington’s indispensable deal-maker." The Wall Street Journal’s “How Mnuchin Became Washington’s Indispensable Crisis Manager” (3/31/20) also peddled this fictitious savior narrative when it reported that “Mnuchin has become Washington’s indispensable deal-maker in trying to keep the crisis from throwing the world’s largest economy into the deepest downturn since the Great Depression,” while shepherding “a pair of rescue bills through Congress.” The Journal depicted Mnuchin’s ability to retain Trump’s confidence while working with Democrats as something that will be “all the more needed in the weeks ahead as the pandemic is expected to worsen,” in order to “get things done in partisan Washington.” Those “skills” didn’t seem to manifest when additional funding for state and local governments, and expanded food stamp benefits needed to rescue people, were left out of the “Phase 3.5” coronavirus legislation last week (Intercept, 4/22/20). The Washington Post’s “The Dealmaker’s Dealmaker: Mnuchin Steps In as Trump’s Negotiator, but President’s Doubts Linger With Economy in Crisis” (3/27/20) also praised Mnuchin’s efforts to “bridge divides” and forge bipartisan “agreements.” While to the Post’s credit, the piece noted how the “Treasury Department’s demands have often appeared to represent the interests of big business rather than workers,” its overall thrust was encapsulated by its subhead: “Can his economic rescue plan quickly stabilize an economy headed toward calamity?” The New York Times’ “How Powell and Mnuchin Became the Duo in Charge of Saving the Economy” (3/31/20) reported on Mnuchin’s “vital partnership” with Fed chair Jerome Powell, echoed the “unlikely hero” narrative, and described their efforts as “critical not only to workers and businesses,” but also to Trump’s “re-election” chances: The coronavirus poses the most significant economic threat since at least 2008, thrusting Mr. Mnuchin and Mr. Powell into key roles in determining whether the United States economy suffers a short, manageable slowdown or enters a deep and painful recession. When the Times briefly acknowledged concerns about the massive concentration in power and newfound influence in Powell and Mnuchin’s hands, and questions about the integrity of the “oversight” process, it treated the CARES Act favoring big corporations over workers as a hypothetical scenario, rather than a plain fact. In a unique situation where workers and small business owners have the shared interest in not being wiped out by the pandemic, how else does one characterize the disproportionately stricter conditions placed on small businesses to retain workers to receive bailout money—while big corporations have no such limitations—except as a plan to save big corporations over workers? The Times’ later reports (4/22/20, 4/26/20) on big corporations receiving bailout money intended for small businesses, and receiving concierge service for coronavirus aid at their expense, should’ve been predictable—as it was to some observers in real time (American Prospect, 3/25/20). Throughout this coverage, it’s quite telling who counts as “the economy” and what measures are considered “necessary” or “adequate,” because it reveals who corporate media consider to be disposable (working class America), and who needs “saving” (large corporations and the American oligarchy). With the CARES Act, corporate media reversed the narrative in a truly Orwellian fashion, portraying corporate looting of the Treasury as necessary to “rescue the economy,” while the main questions regarding “savior” officials like Mnuchin are whether his plans to “save the economy” can succeed. When 26 million Americans lost their jobs between March 18 and April 22, while the wealth of US billionaires increased by $308 billion (more than 10%), there’s no other way to look at corporate media spin as anything but ruling class propaganda to legitimize saving capital while letting people die (In These Times, 4/6/20). Read more

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