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fr-economics · 4 years ago

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A Brief History of Neoliberalism #2

Here's the second post in which I summarize and discuss David Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism. In this post, you'll learn:

how a specific group of people plotted to advance neoliberal theory and ideology

how the U.S. created the Iraqi and Chilean governments to benefit the wealthy

the historical events that led to the adoption of neoliberal policies

how the Darkest Timeline emerged, as the 1% started to consolidate political and economic power

Please feel free to ask any questions. This post is longer than the previous one and this material is a lot to take in.

Chapter 1: Freedom’s Just Another Word...

The founding figures of neoliberalism specifically aimed for neoliberal thought to become dominant. In order to do this, they advanced a “conceptual apparatus,” as Harvey puts it, that appeals to our intuitions, instincts, values, and desires.

They aligned their theory closely with "political ideals of human dignity and individual freedom." These were, of course, threatened "by all forms of state intervention that substituted collective judgements for those of individuals free to choose.”

So who were these founders? In 1947, Austrian political philosopher Friedrich von Hayek and a group of advocates (including Ludvig von Mises and Milton Friedman) created the Mont Pelerin Society. They called themselves neoliberals after liberalism, in the traditional European sense, because of their (supposed) commitment to personal freedom, and neoclassical economics from the 19th century.

In the 1970s, advocates of neoliberalism aimed to garner financial and political support, such as in think tanks and academia (most notably, the University of Chicago). The theory also gained credibility "by the award of the Nobel Prize in economics to Hayek in 1974 and Friedman in 1976."

The Creation of Neoliberal States

According to Harvey, a neoliberal state is "a state apparatus whose fundamental mission [is] to facilitate conditions for profitable capital accumulation on the part of both domestic and foreign capital."

The promotion of "freedom" was used as a key justification for invading Iraq by President Bush. However, Bush had no intention of actually promoting the well-being of the Iraqi people. In 2003, Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, promulgated orders for "full privatization of public enterprises, full ownership rights by foreign firms of Iraqi businesses, elimination of nearly all trade barriers" and more. However, the labor market was strictly regulated. Strikes were forbidden in key sectors and the right to unionize restricted.

Some argued these orders violated the Geneva Conventions, "since an occupying power is mandated to guard the assets of an occupied country and not sell them off." However, "they would become legal if confirmed by a ‘sovereign’ government." The interim government appointed by the US was given the power to only confirm the existing laws, not edit them for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

We've seen this creation of a neoliberal state under the "coercive influence of the U.S." before. This famously happened for the first time in Chile in 1973, when Augusto Pinochet enacted a coup against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. This coup was backed not only by "domestic business elites threatened by Allende’s drive towards socialism" but also by U.S. corporations and the CIA.

This coup violently repressed and dismantled leftist social movements and popular organizations, such as community health centers. Pinochet then brought Chicago-trained economists into the government. Since the '50s, the U.S. had funded training of Chilean economists there "as part of a Cold War programme to counteract left-wing tendencies in Latin America." These economists "privatized public assets" and "opened up natural resources to private and unregulated exploitation." They also facilitated direct foreign investment.

Why the Neoliberal Turn?

After WWII, the aim of the "restructuring of state forms and of international relations" was to "prevent a return to the catastrophic conditions that had so threatened the capitalist order in the great slump of the 1930s." The new post-WWII states all accepted that "the state should focus on full employment, economic growth, and the welfare of its citizens, and that state power should be freely deployed, alongside of or, if necessary, intervening in or even substituting for market processes to achieve these ends.”

Keynesian policies were widely deployed to meet these goals. States regulated industry and constructed welfare systems, including healthcare, education, etc. State-led planning and even ownership of specific sectors were not uncommon. "This form of political-economic organization is now usually referred to as ‘embedded liberalism'," and it delivered high rates of economic growth in the '50s and '60s.

However, by the end of the '60s, problems emerged. Unemployed and inflation surged, causing "stagflation" well into the '70s.

One potential solution was to "deepen state control and regulation of the economy." "The left assembled considerable popular power behind such programmes," even in the U.S., where even Republican President Nixon oversaw a wave of regulatory reform, including creating the EPA. There was an "emergence of a socialist alternative to the social compromise between capital and labour" and "popular forces were agitating for widespread reforms and state interventions." This was obviously a threat to ruling elites.

Elites were also threatened by reduced economic growth in the ‘70s. U.S. control of wealth by the 1% plunged during this decade. Implementation of neoliberal policies in the ‘70s, such as deregulation under President Carter, helped the income and wealth of the 1% so much that some writers "have concluded that neoliberalization was from the very beginning a project to achieve the restoration of class power." "...Increasing social inequality [has] in fact been such a persistent feature of neoliberalization as to be regarded as structural to the whole project."

However, keen observers of American politics in the past couple of decades will note that there's often a tension or outright clash between actual neoliberal theory and what neoliberal politicians implement. There is even a tension within neoliberalism itself. For example, distrust of the state's intervention sits alongside the need for a coercive state that will enforce private property rights. Harvey says, "when neoliberal principles clash with the need to restore or sustain elite power, then the principles are either abandoned or become so twisted as to be unrecognizable."

Harvey concludes that the "theoretical utopianism" of neoliberal theory, meaning all that talk about human freedom and individual liberty, "primarily worked as a system of justification and legitimation for whatever needed to be done to achieve" the restoration of class power after the crisis of the 70s.

The Reagan Administration

Reagan's presidency was preceded by "the Volcker shock" in 1979. Paul Volcker, chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank under President Carter, promoted "a policy designed to quell inflation no matter what the consequences might be for employment." This was in contrast to Keynesian policies that aimed for full employment. By steeply raising interest rates, Volcker jumpstarted a recession "that would empty factories and break unions in the US and drive debtor countries to the brink of insolvency."

Reagan himself, starting with the 1981 air traffic controllers' strike, began an "all-out assault on the powers of organized labour at the very moment when the Volcker-inspired recession was generating high levels of unemployment (10% or more)." This began the long decline in wages, and was accompanied by massive deregulation in many industries and huge tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy—the top personal tax rate was reduced from 70% to 28%.

A series of events had begun in the '70s which came to a head in the '80s. The OPEC oil crisis of 1973 led to Middle Eastern oil-producing states being pressured militarily by the U.S. to funnel their wealth through New York investment banks. These banks needed new outlets for this influx of funds, and turned their predatory gaze towards foreign governments.

Previously, the U.S. exerted military pressure on various nations to meet its own financial needs, and primarily exploited raw material resources or cultivated specific markets. However, the New York investment banks became more active internationally by lending capital to foreign governments. Developing nations were "encouraged to borrow heavily... at rates that were advantageous to the New York bankers."

However, since the loans were in U.S. dollars, any rise in U.S. interest rates "could easily push vulnerable countries into default," leaving the banks exposed to huge losses. This was proved when the Volcker shock drove Mexico into default in 1982. Reagan's administration oversaw the pioneering of structural adjustment, in which the IMF, World Bank, and other lenders rolled over debt in return for the debtor countries implementing neoliberal reforms, such as cuts in welfare, privatization, and reduction of labor protections.

Remember that tension between neoliberal theory and practice, though? If free market principles were truly implemented, then the lenders would be on the hook for the loss if their borrowers default. They took the risk of lending, so it's their problem. However, in this case, borrowers are forced by the U.S. to repay their debts no matter the consequences for the well-being of their people.

The Meaning of Class Power

"While neoliberalization may have been about the restoration of class power, it has not necessarily meant the restoration of economic power to the same people." There are several trends under neoliberalism that reorganized what it meant to be part of the upper class.

First is the fusion of ownership and management of companies, for example, CEOs being paid in stock options. Stock values are then prioritized rather than production. Second is the reduction of the gap between capital earning dividends/interest and production/manufacturing. Large corporations became more financial in their orientation. An example of this is car companies opening departments to finance car purchases, instead of simply making cars. Mergers helped spur this trend, creating larger and larger diversified conglomerates.

There were also new innovations in financial services, creating "new kinds of financial markets based on securitization, derivatives, and all manner of futures trading." "Neoliberalization has meant, in short, the financialization of everything." Finance's tentacles became embedded in all areas of the economy as well as the state, and companies became more profitable not through gains in manufacturing, but through increased financial services.

All of these changes allowed "new processes of class formation to emerge," for example, the creation of tech millionaires and billionaires who got newly rich on new technologies, as well as newly acquired wealth through creation of conglomerates.

#ABHON #economics #real world #ABHON post

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leaagueofrevolutionarie · 5 years ago

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The Amazon-ification of America

By Steven Miller 8-14-2020

Last week, tech leaders spoke to Congress on Capitol Hill. Google’s Sundar Pichai, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos all spoke from prepared remarks. As the US economy shrank by 32.9%, Amazon’s share price rose by half, and Facebook’s growth rate approached 60%.

Congresspeople were supposedly “grilling” these uber-capitalists, but they were politely slobbering at their wealth. Since COVID began, American billionaires have made $637 billion, while 50 million people have lost their jobs. Timidly asking these billionaires questions about monopoly practices, the politicians refuse to address how this mega-wealth could be used to help people out in the greatest collapse in the history of capitalism.

Tech capitalism is fomenting the Amazon-ification and the Google-ization of America, right now in real time. This will culminate in a major re-organization and the State. This is class warfare on the rights of humans to control their own basic needs to live and thrive. Private property is on the march to seize every resource of the public and to re-organize society in its own image.

Microsoft has controlled the Pentagon’s cloud computing efforts since October, 2019. Big tech is constantly making inroads into the military, including $11 billion in contracts in the last 3 years.:

“’As we continue to execute the DOD Cloud Strategy, additional contracts are planned for both cloud services and complementary migration and integration solutions necessary to achieve effective cloud adoption,’ the Pentagon said”. (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pentagon-jedi-idUSKBN1X42IU)

Then just look at what we are already seeing! Capitalism’s massive collapse as a result of COVID means that an estimated 40% of African-American business will not open. One-third of restaurants will never open again.

What happens when the restaurants close? People increasingly order online. Big Tech becomes ever more dominant. Then Big Box stores enter the scene and become the only places that provide the distribution of the necessities of life. Private equity corporations and hedge funds actively finance this extermination. Amazonification aims far higher than replacing mom and pop stores. It also rises to counter the demand for the domination and extension of public property to benefit everyone..

Then Rent Apocalypse is about to hit, with multi-billion dollar corporations waiting to evict up to 28 million people by Thanksgiving. This tidal wave is lead by Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity management corporation. Blackstone works closely with Blackrock, the world’s largest asset-manager, and shadow bank to the world, which was founded in partnership with Blackstone in 1988. While Blackstone proclaims that the rentership society is here, Blackrock manages the government multi-trillion bailout for financial speculators and the financial industry. By driving millions out of their homes, these criminals will keep the homes empty, and turning them into rentals, in an attempt to extract more wealth from our communities..

“Today the fast-growing ETF (“exchange-traded funds) sector controls nearly half of all investments in US stocks, and it is highly concentrated. The sector is dominated by just three giant American asset managers – BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, the “Big Three” – with BlackRock the clear global leader. By 2017, the Big Three together had become the largest shareholder in almost 90% of S&P 500 firms, including Apple, Microsoft, ExxonMobil, General Electric and Coca-Cola….

“Giant pension and other investment funds largely control the stock market, and the asset managers control the funds. That effectively puts BlackRock, the largest and most influential asset manager, in the driver’s seat in controlling the economy.”

(https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/24/meet-blackrock-the-new-great-vampire-squid/)

These corporations are hell-bent on impose extractive capitalism on our communities and families. This model that vacuums wealth and information out of communities and sends it to the top. Oh yes, and what about the morality of evicting people to live on the street in the middle of a pandemic? Oh well, it’s just collateral damage.

That, of course, is what the Amazon-ification of America is all about. No longer even pretending to offer jobs, the capitalist class, lead by Big Tech, is re-organizing the economy and the government to extract wealth and give it to themselves.

Before COVID hit, the government had already authorized “Opportunity Zones” in 2017 to re-invest in impoverished American communities. Such predatory gentrification and dispossession is beloved by both Jared Kushner and Gavin Newsome. The giant capitalist equity companies and hedge funds are now in charge.

From “Displacement Zones: How Opportunity Zones Turn Communities into Tax Shelters for the Rich”:

“Boosters promised Opportunity Zones would help bring capital to the neighborhoods that most need it, but in reality allow wealthy investors to benefit from huge tax breaks while they speculate at the expense of the most vulnerable communities. The structure of the Opportunity Zones program was designed with the interests of speculators, not communities, in mind. Communities living inside many Opportunity Zones across the country are already experiencing rapid changes. Unregulated speculative investment will throw even more fuel on the fire. The Opportunity Zones program will exacerbate an already unbearable

“Opportunity Zones were created by the rich, for the rich.

“Opportunity Zones are an invention of the Silicon Valley millionaire-backed Economic Innovation Group, and contain some of the most generous tax breaks currently available. The program gives capital gains tax exemptions that scale up based on the length of time an investment is held, eventually culminating in a 15% reduction in the taxable basis of the principal, and complete tax exemption of any profits made on the investment after 10 years. Because the distribution of capital gains income is highly unequal, the overwhelming majority of these tax benefits will flow directly to the richest investors in the country. Indeed, 90% of all capital gains income in the United States is owned by the wealthiest 10% of people, and 70% of all capital gains is owned by the wealthiest 1%.” (www.saje.net/.../2019/11/SAJE_DisplacementZones.pdf)

This was before COVID. The virus is now aggravating and amplifying every tendency that existed before its advent. It should be no surprise, therefore, that New York Andrew Cuomo recently invited Google and Microsoft into the state to “re-imagine” the new world where Big Tech companies seize control of telehealth, public education and the entire society.

In other words, Cuomo is abrogating the responsibilities of government to guarantee a safe and healthy environment for everyone and turning this charge over to corporations. They, of course, will place private profit above the public good.

“This is a future in which, for the privileged, almost everything is home delivered, either virtually via streaming and cloud technology, or physically via driverless vehicle or drone, then screen “shared” on a mediated platform. It’s a future that employs far fewer teachers, doctors, and drivers. It accepts no cash or credit cards (under guise of virus control) and has skeletal mass transit and far less live art. It’s a future that claims to be run on “artificial intelligence” but is actually held together by tens of millions of anonymous workers tucked away in warehouses, data centers, content moderation mills, electronic sweatshops, lithium mines, industrial farms, meat-processing plants, and prisons, where they are left unprotected from disease and hyperexploition. It’s a future in which our every move, our every word, our every relationship is trackable, traceable, and data-mineable by unprecedented collaborations between government and tech giants.

“If all of this sounds familiar it’s because, pre-Covid, this precise app-driven, gig-fueled future was being sold to us in the name of convenience, frictionlessness, and personalization.” (https://naomiklein.org/the-screen-new-deal/)

The Social Response

Yes, the US capitalist class could have responded to the virus by taking steps, similar to Europe, to make things easier, but it didn’t. Now that the capitalist class is doubling down to make ever greater political and private profit from the crisis, we have already seen a decisive social force take the political stage. Two new generations have now mounted the stage of history. The great mass of protestors, though not all, in the massive George Floyd rebellion came from these new generations.

Millennials are roughly those who were born after 1980 and came to political awareness in 2000 or after, and who came into political maturity around 2000. This year they would be 40 years old. Rising behind them is he generation that came to political maturity with the Parkland Massacres in 2018, often called Gen Z by the corporate media. There are 74 million people in the US in this group who were born between 1995 and 2015.

These generations intend to assert their agency. They understand that their future will be there long after the Boomers have passed on. They intend to take control of the situation. For these generations, the American Dream is a hollow antiquated notion. They understood already that their future was imperiled with Climate Crisis. They already were the primary casualties of the digitally-driven laborless-production that is sweeping through every branch of the economy. Somehow, they must survive the Gig Economy that is consuming them. They are a substantial part of a new proletarian class, one that is being replaced by digitally-driven production.

The new social force already clearly holds government for guaranteeing the safety of the public. This issue began with the murder of Trayvon in 2012, and escalated with the response to Michael Brown’s and Eric Garners murders, to name a few. It expresses itself as righteous rage at white supremacy and police murder. And it correctly holds the government and the State accountable. This rising demand for the public good threatens to overflow the narrow limits that the Democratic Party tries to impose. Voices from myriad directions have been asserting that if government cannot do the job, we know very well how to govern ourselves and society.

This new proletarian class has much to learn, but objectively it cannot back down. We are witnessing the concretization for our times of Lenin’s famous statement that revolutions begin when the working class cannot live in the old way and the ruling class cannot rule in the old way.

As society is drawn further into political crisis with re-opening schools, massive voter suppression and an election that may well be suborned, the social response, sooner or later, will build its political consciousness. As Engels observed long ago, the people today are transforming themselves into the people of tomorrow:

“You will have to go through 15, 20, 50 years of civil wars and national struggles not only to bring about a change in society but also to change yourselves, and prepare yourselves for the exercise of political power.” [Revelations concerning the Communist Trial at Cologne]

Steven Miller

[email protected]

August 9, 2020

Steven Miller is a retired public school science teacher in Oakland, California

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dontletmeontheinternet · 5 years ago

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Addicted To Losing: How Casino-Like Apps Have Drained People of Millions

NBC News spoke to 21 people who said they were hooked on casino-style apps and had spent significant sums of money. The industry is almost entirely unregulated. From a report: Shellz, 37, a nurse from Houston, spends at least two hours a day with her husband playing a casino-style smartphone game called Jackpot Magic. The app offers a variety of typical casino games to play, including their favorite, called Reel Rivals, a game in which players accrue points by playing a virtual slot machine. As in a real casino, players exchange money for coins to bet. Unlike in a real casino, there is no way to win money back or earn a payout on coins. But that has not stopped Shellz and her husband from spending about $150,000 in the game in just two years. She asked to use her in-game username so her family does not find out how much money they have spent on the game. "We lie in bed next to each other, we have two tablets, two phones and a computer and all these apps spinning Reel Rivals at the same time," she said. "We normalize it with each other." Jackpot Magic is an app made by Big Fish Games of Seattle, one of the leaders in an industry of "free-to-play" social games into which some people have plowed thousands of dollars. Big Fish Games also operates a similar app, Big Fish Casino. Both are labeled as video games, which allows the company and others like it to skirt the tightly regulated U.S. gambling market. But unlike the gambling market, apps like Jackpot Magic and Big Fish Casino are under little oversight to determine whether they are fair or whether their business practices are predatory. NBC News spoke to 21 people, including Shellz and her husband, who said they were hooked on the casino-style games and had spent significant sums of money. They described feelings of helplessness and wanting to quit but found themselves addicted to the games and tempted by the company's aggressive marketing tactics. Most of the 21 players wished to remain anonymous, as they were ashamed of their addictions and did not want their loved ones to find out about their behavior. A 42-year-old Pennsylvania woman said she felt saddened that she spent $40,000 on Big Fish Casino while working as an addiction counselor. "The whole time I was working as an addiction counselor, I was addicted to gambling and with no hope of winning any money back," she said. Big Fish Games did not make anyone available for an interview, nor did the company respond to detailed questions. The company has said in previous court filings that only a fraction of the game's players actually spend money. In a response to NBC News' inquiries, the company issued a statement saying its games are not gambling and should not be regulated as such.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

from Slashdot https://ift.tt/35I6X2b

#Slashdot

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olko71 · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on All about business online

New Post has been published on http://yaroreviews.info/2021/06/house-bills-seek-to-break-up-amazon-and-other-big-tech-companies

House Bills Seek to Break Up Amazon and Other Big Tech Companies

House lawmakers proposed a raft of bipartisan legislation aimed at reining in the country’s biggest tech companies, including a bill that seeks to make Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -0.08% and other large corporations effectively split in two or shed their private-label products.

If the bills become law—a prospect that faces significant hurdles—they could substantially alter the most richly valued companies in America and reshape an industry that has extended its impact into nearly every facet of work and life.

One of the proposed measures, titled the Ending Platform Monopolies Act, seeks to require structural separation of Amazon and other big technology companies to break up their businesses. It would make it unlawful for a covered online platform to own a business that “utilizes the covered platform for the sale or provision of products or services” or that sells services as a condition for access to the platform. The platform company also couldn’t own businesses that create conflicts of interest, such as by creating the “incentive and ability” for the platform to advantage its own products over competitors.

A separate bill takes a different approach to target platforms’ self-preferencing. It would bar platforms from conduct that “advantages the covered platform operator’s own products, services, or lines of business over those of another business user,” or that excludes or disadvantages other businesses.

The proposed legislation would need to be passed by the Democratic-controlled House as well as the Senate, where it would likely also need substantial Republican support.

Each of the bills has both Republicans and Democrats signed onto it, with more expected to join, congressional aides said. Seven Republicans are backing the bills, with a different group of three signing on to each measure, according to a person familiar with the situation.

“Unregulated tech monopolies have too much power over our economy,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D., R.I.), the top Democrat on the House Antitrust Subcommittee. “They are in a unique position to pick winners and losers, destroy small businesses, raise prices on consumers, and put folks out of work. Our agenda will level the playing field.”

Rep. Ken Buck (R., Col.), the panel’s top Republican, said he supports the bill because it “breaks up Big Tech’s monopoly power to control what Americans see and say online, and fosters an online market that encourages innovation.”

The four companies didn’t comment on the proposed legislation Friday. All have defended their competitive practices and said that they operate their products and services to benefit customers.

Matt Schruers, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include Facebook, Amazon and Google, said the House bills would disrupt Americans’ ability to use products that they like. “Writing regulations for a handful of businesses will skew competition and leave consumers worse off,” he said.

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Critics of the tech giants praised the legislation. Roku Inc., which competes with several of the tech giants, applauded the lawmakers for “taking a crucial step toward curbing the predatory and anticompetitive behaviors of some of the country’s most powerful companies.”

Gaining sufficient Republic support for the bills will be an uphill battle: While Republicans are concerned about technology companies’ power, many are skeptical about changing antitrust laws. Even if they pass, the laws could take years to implement as federal agencies try to enforce them over the companies’ likely legal objections.

“The fact that there is day-one support from Republican antitrust leaders suggests these bills are definitely in the doable range,” said Paul Gallant, an analyst with Cowen & Co. “But the gap between sounding tough at a hearing and actually voting for a breakup is significant. I do wonder if these bills can get to 60 [votes] in the Senate.”

Friday’s announcement covered five bills designed to curb Big Tech’s dominance.

Another of the measures would force online platforms to make their services interoperable with those of competitors, which could mean different social networks must allow their users to communicate or allow e-commerce sellers to export their customer reviews from one site to another, according to a summary provided by lawmakers.

A fourth bill targets mergers, making it unlawful for a large platform to acquire rivals or potential rivals. The bill would have prevented only “a small percentage of all technology sector deals” over the past decade, the summary said.

Lawmakers also introduced a bill to raise filing fees for mergers valued more than $1 billion and lower them for transactions under $500,000. It would generate an estimated $135 million for antitrust enforcement in its first year, the summary said. Similar legislation recently passed the Senate.

Amazon’s Worldwide Consumer CEO Jeff Wilke discusses the prevalence of the company’s private brands. He speaks at WSJ Tech Live.

Four of the five bills narrowly focus on big technology companies. The definitions of companies targeted by the bills say they must have a market capitalization of $600 billion or more, must have more than 50 million active monthly users or 100,000 monthly active business users, and must be a “critical trading partner” that has the ability to restrict or impede another business’ access to customers or services.

While the bills don’t name any companies, only Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google currently meet the parameters laid out in those bills, according to the person familiar with the matter. They are the same companies that the House panel investigated as part of its probe into Big Tech. Walmart Inc., for instance, operates an online marketplace and has private-label products, but only has a $392 billion market valuation, so wouldn’t be subject to the restrictions.

The bill on self-preferencing bars actions that “restrict or impede business users from communicating…to covered platform users to facilitate business transactions,” invoking a common complaint from Amazon’s third-party sellers about limits on their ability to communicate with customers.

Amazon operates one of the world’s largest platforms for third-party sellers to hawk their goods, but also competes against these vendors with its business selling similar products under an assortment of its own in-house brands—often priced below the items from its third-party sellers.

Some lawmakers have said that the platform favors Amazon’s own goods at the detriment to sellers and have rebuked Amazon’s use of third-party data to inform its own line of private-label goods. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported about Amazon employees using the third-party data of sellers on its website to launch its own private-label lines, violating an internal policy.

Amazon later opened an investigation into the practice. When testifying to Congress, Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said: “I can’t guarantee you that that policy has never been violated.”

In the past, the Seattle-based company has said that “large companies are not dominant by definition, and the presumption that success can only be the result of anticompetitive behavior is simply wrong.”

If the Ending Platform Monopolies bill were to be passed, Amazon could have to split its business into two separate websites, one for its third-party marketplace and one for first-party, or divest or shut down the sale of its own products. Amazon’s private-label division has dozens of brands with 158,000 products. It is also a market leader on devices such as Kindle eReaders, Amazon Echos, Fire TV streaming devices and Ring doorbells.

The new bill would effectively mean “a search engine could not own a video service that it has incentives to favor in search results,” the summary from lawmakers said, in a thinly veiled reference to Google’s YouTube.

The bill that aims at self-preferencing could affect how Amazon conducts its retail business and how Apple operates its app store.

Congress has blocked or reversed big companies’ expansion before. The Ending Platform Monopolies Act has been compared with the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking. Though that provision has since been repealed, banks are still restricted from nonfinancial businesses under the 1956 Bank Holding Company Act. The 1906 Hepburn Act restrained railroads from ancillary businesses such as coal mining.

Absent congressional action, technology critics are looking to federal agencies. Google and Facebook are already fighting antitrust lawsuits, while Amazon and Apple are under antitrust investigation. Democrats on the Federal Trade Commission also want to explore the agency’s authority to regulate unfair methods of competition, although that authority is relatively untested and could face legal challenges.

How Amazon Wins

Write to Dana Mattioli at [email protected] and Ryan Tracy at [email protected]

#PAID

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rightsinexile · 6 years ago

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With Ethiopia’s border now open, why are Eritreans still fleeing to Sudan?

This short piece was contributed by Michael E. Kynaston Jones, a Research Analyst at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, and published under a Creative Commons license by African Arguments, an influential comment and analysis online platform for discussion of African current affairs and business.

When the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea reopened in September 2018, it was a momentous occasion for the two neighbours. For the first time in twenty years, people on both sides were free to reunite with their loved ones.

The border opening was particularly significant, however, for those in Eritrea. Over the last two decades, hundreds of thousands of Eritreans – around 12% of the entire population – have fled Africa’s “Hermit Kingdom”. They have braved an official “shoot to kill” policy at the closed borders to escape into either Sudan or Ethiopia and embarked on perilous trips – risking predatory militias, exploitation, sexual violence and unforgiving tundra – with the aim of reaching Israel, the Gulf or Europe.

The new ability to travel freely to Ethiopia – without a passport, permit or promise to return – suddenly offered an opportunity to leave Eritrea with far lower risks. Many have seized it. According to the UN Refugee Agency and local authorities in Ethiopia’s Tigray state, arrivals from Eritrea have soared. Between 12 September and 2 October alone, over 10,000 people entered reception camps in Ethiopia.

But while this much was anticipated, the numbers of people crossing into Sudan has, somewhat unexpectedly, not reduced. Concrete data is difficult to access regarding irregular migration, but in-country sources suggest that the streams of people entering Sudan remained relatively consistent since the border opening. The question is why.

How smuggling in Sudan works

Sudan has long been a permissive environment for smuggling. Corruption, insecurity and porous borders have enabled illicit networks to flourish, turning the country into a conduit for not just goods and firearms but people. A lucrative commercial ecosystem has emerged for people-smuggling with criminal networks supplying logistics, accommodation and transportation to satisfy demand.

Along Sudan’s eastern borderlands, smugglers tend to derive from the nomadic Rashaida, Bedouin and Hidarib communities. They ferry “clients” in pickup trucks for a stretch of the journey before offloading them to the next group. These segmented expeditions allow poorer migrants to adopt a “pay as you go” approach, travelling in stages and working ad hoc to pay off their debts and raise the next tranche of funding. This avoids the need for expensive lump sums.

For years, Sudanese smugglers have marketed these services upstream to Eritreans through front “companies” and local contacts. Exploiting shared kinship bonds and tribal affiliations, they placate suspicious migrants by framing voyages as “low risk” and insisting refugees will receive support from compatriots in the diaspora. Often recruiters entice customers by distorting their expectations with promises of informal welfare nets and assistance in finding employment along their journeys.

While this has proven to be an attractive package, such arrangements remain exceptionally precarious. In reality, Eritreans face sexual abuse and high fatality rates en route. The assured brokerage of local smugglers regularly falls through, leaving migrants vulnerable to extortion and trafficking once trapped in Sudan.

Why not go through Ethiopia?

Given the dangers of transiting through Sudan, why have numbers remained relatively consistent despite the presence of a seemingly easier route through Ethiopia?

One possibility is that many Eritreans remain highly sceptical of the political changes happening at the highest level. Since the peace deal with Ethiopia, there has been very little transparency around the pact or information regarding what it will mean for those in Eritrea.

To begin with, the usual factors compelling Eritreans to flee – including repression, indefinite conscription and economic hardship – are all still in place. There is little incentive for the regime to scale back the “garrison state” as national service and systems of indentured labour ensure a pliable society and secure its survival. At the same time, many Eritreans may be wary of taking the current changes at face value. Having lived under President Isaias Afwerki’s authoritarian and sometimes capricious rule for decades, many may wonder how long the border with Ethiopia will actually remain open, while rumours of security crackdowns abound.

The influx of migrants crossing into Ethiopia has also strained Tigray state’s reception camps, processing infrastructure and health services. Over-saturation and an under-resourced host population has led to a deterioration of living standards for refugees, revealing the bleak realities facing migrants who have already crossed the border.

Sudan’s resilient smugglers

A final factor behind Sudan’s continued appeal for Eritrean refugees is that its smuggling networks remain in operation and are likely to endure in the face of any broader regional shifts.

Sudan’s smuggling nexus is not composed of kingpins or cartels but flexible networks of small competitive cells subscribing to the “supermarket principle” of high volume with low costs. This decentralised quality makes local service chains extremely versatile, enabling them to adapt to the closure of old routes and rescale to manage fluctuations in demand. Bosses with political connections may (temporarily) control particular bottlenecks, but in relatively unregulated areas such as eastern Sudan, barriers to market entry are low. Here, the smuggling industry comprises a series of loose working relationships that dissolve and re-form in response to new opportunities.

This configuration has helped insulated the trade from dependency on individual strongmen. For instance, over the last two decades, senior members of the Eritrean Defence Forces such as Brigadier-General Tekle Manjus Kiflay have allegedly been embedded in a range of criminal ventures, including human smuggling. But while they expedited migratory flows, these figures are ultimately components of a far wider transnational network. Their reported recent marginalisation by Isaias therefore seems to have done little to seriously disrupt day-to-day operations on either side of the border.

The durability of Sudan’s networks also stems from their depth. Participation in, and profit from, smuggling is fairly ubiquitous in Sudanese communities living along migrant routes, with young men reportedly joining trafficking gangs to make quick cash before public festivities like Ramadan. More broadly, these exploitative practices have also become relatively normalised in these communities, especially in the context of Sudan’s own economic crisis, helped by the fact that they generate revenue streams and a cheap labour supply to satiate domestic shortfalls. Due to this significant level of public buy-in, there is little institutional capacity or inclination in Sudan to crack down on human smuggling. As a result, the trade has been able to survive and thrive as it responds to new challenges.

This resilience of Sudan’s smugglers combined with Eritreans’ mistrust of their government and Ethiopia’s difficulties in handling large numbers of arrivals may account for why refugees are not automatically opting to cross the open border to Ethiopia rather than journey through Sudan. Despite seemingly momentous regional shifts, these factors have contributed to situation in which irregular migrant flows from Eritrea to Sudan appear to have held relatively steady.

#refugees #refugee #asylum #smugglers #sudan #Ethiopia #Michael E. Kynaston Jones #migration

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anthonyekoehler · 7 years ago

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Former Chase Employee Exposes Unlawful Collection Practices

A class action lawsuit has been filed in federal court against JP Morgan Chase. The lead plaintiff, Johanna Sierra, was fired by Chase Co., and has since exposed the systemic fraud behind corporation’s robo-signing scheme. Sierra sued JP Morgan Chase & Co., its collections subsidiary the NCO Group, and the Austin-based debt-collection law firm Bickerstaff, Heath, Delgado & Acosta, in Manhattan Federal Court; she is represented by Jeremiah Frei-Pearson, with Meiselman, Packman, Nealon, Scialabba & Baker, of White Plains, N.Y.

Sierra claims the defendants “unlawfully obtained hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars from consumers,” through fabricated evidence, lack of evidence, and downright fraud. As it did in the mortgage and foreclosure crises, Chase and its business partners preyed on consumers in the unregulated debt market, using procedural shortcuts and constant harassment to collect on false and inaccurate debts. Chase took tens of millions of dollars from debtors, and from people who don’t owe debts, through robo-signing and “intentionally inaccurate record-keeping.” Chase and its associates knew that people didn’t owe the underlying debt, but ruthlessly pursued them nonetheless; Sierra will show in court that Chase cannot prove people actually owed them money.

Chase, one of America’s largest credit card companies (and banks), has issued $137 billion in loans in recent years, with over 90 million open accounts. Chase and NCO, its debt collection partner, “have instituted a debt collection system designed, not to ensure that the so-called ‘debts’ on which it attempts to collect are in fact past due amounts owed by its customers, but instead to ensure that it can collect on as many debts as possible regardless of their validity.” (quotes from the class-action lawsuit). Individual debtors are relatively powerless in the face of Chase’s army of lawyers—and many times, people weren’t aware that they didn’t actually owe Chase any money. This predatory behavior has generated millions, possibly billions, of dollars for Chase Corp.

“Robo-signers” are people who fill out affidavits that attest the validity of a debt; working for Chase, these robo-signers certified affidavits “without making any effort to actually validate the debts, or even to review a single document or the contents of the affidavits they are signing. These affidavits are filed in courts across the nation in what is nothing less than a massive fraud on the courts.” Not only did Chase and its cohorts collect on its own debt, real and otherwise, it also bought debts from other creditors—American Express, Citigroup, Bank of America and Capital One—and went after those too.

Sierra’s lawsuit is encouraging; finally, the unethical and greedy practices Chase has engaged in for decades is coming to light. The lawsuit was filed in lower Manhattan’s district court, a few blocks from Wall Street (and Chase’s headquarters); its judgement will have real consequences for millions of people.

If a collection agency has harassed you, you may be entitled to money damages up to $1,000.00, based on the FDCPA, which has been around for almost 35 years. The FDCPA is a federal law that applies to every state. In other words, everyone is protected by the FDCPA. The FDCPA is essentially a laundry list of what debt collectors can and cannot do while collecting a debt, as well as things debt collectors must do while collecting a debt. Plus, the FDCPA has a fee-shift provision. This means, the collection agency pays your attorney’s fees and costs. Founding attorney, Michael Agruss, has settled over 1,500 debt collection harassment cases. We want to help you, too.

The post Former Chase Employee Exposes Unlawful Collection Practices appeared first on Agruss Law Firm, LLC.

Former Chase Employee Exposes Unlawful Collection Practices published first on https://agrusslawfirmllc.tumblr.com

#Debt collection law #consumer law #Debt relief

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agrusslawfirmllc · 7 years ago

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Former Chase Employee Exposes Unlawful Collection Practices

The post Former Chase Employee Exposes Unlawful Collection Practices appeared first on Agruss Law Firm, LLC.

#Debt collection law #consumer law #debt relief agency

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