#freemarkets — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #freemarkets, aggregated by home.social.
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@alineblankertz Relevant to the claim on your wall: [@georgemonbiot\.bsky\.social](https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/georgemonbiot.bsky.social) Why Neoliberalism given captive markets are not free? It is after all the Neoconservatives of both parties who have and are selling us out to antitrust monopolies and their fascist tech lords. [\#Neoliberalism](https://universeodon.com/tags/Neoliberalism) [\#Neoconservatism](https://universeodon.com/tags/Neoconservatism) [\#Neocons](https://universeodon.com/tags/Neocons) [\#Neofascists](https://universeodon.com/tags/Neofascists) [\#Neonazis](https://universeodon.com/tags/Neonazis) [\#CaptiveMarkets](https://universeodon.com/tags/CaptiveMarkets) [\#DoublespeakEmpires](https://universeodon.com/tags/DoublespeakEmpires)
[\#FreeMarkets](https://universeodon.com/tags/FreeMarkets) [\#EthicalMarkets](https://universeodon.com/tags/EthicalMarkets) [\#EthicalMarketsAreFree](https://universeodon.com/tags/EthicalMarketsAreFree) -
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social Why Neoliberalism given captive markets are not free? It is after all the Neoconservatives of both parties who have and are selling us out to antitrust monopolies and their fascist tech lords. #Neoliberalism #Neoconservatism #Neocons #Neofascists #Neonazis #CaptiveMarkets #DoublespeakEmpires
#FreeMarkets #EthicalMarkets #EthicalMarketsAreFree -
Where lawful corporate governance ends and the personalist regime begins
I embarrassed myself when, back in January, I asked whether wind energy investors had standing to sue the Trump administration over a presidential memorandum pausing all federal approvals for wind power development. I was suffering at the time from the delusion — common to most writers, I suppose — that readers would respond or at least consider the point. Instead, crickets. I guess it was what the experts would call a dumb question, which wouldn’t be the first one I’ve asked and won’t be the last, or it just wasn’t the sort of thing that grabs people’s attention nowadays. (I would never claim to have my finger on the popular pulse.) In any case, it was a failed bid.
I was, however, on to something. I just didn’t know what, but now I think I have a slightly better idea. It’s not only that Trump’s Quixotic madness about windmills has been on full display ever since; “adverse market development in the US,” as an Ørsted executive euphemistically puts it, has interrupted big projects like Empire Wind and sent wind energy stocks plummeting. It’s also that Trump continues to assert his (unlawful) prerogative to control and extort companies, whole industries, and markets.
Acting arbitrarily, corruptly (witness the Paramount or Tim Cook bribes), and with undisguised prejudice, Trump is trying to replace the invisible hand that we were supposed to believe was at work in the free market with his own bruised, rotting Chaos Monkey paw.
He has reserved for his regime a “golden share” as a condition for approving deals (auguring “a ‘meaningful shift’ in America’s approach to capital markets,” as a writer in the FT delicately puts it), spooked investors by calling unflattering economic data rigged, imposed import and export taxes with unfair exemptions for cronies and flatterers, arrogated to himself powers reserved for boards (witness the call, last week, for the CEO of Intel to step down), and repeatedly offended shareholder rights and prerogatives.
L’actionnaire c’est moi, or something like that, and though boards have gotten very good at ignoring ordinary investors, they are hardly known for standing up to this kind of political pressure. As for CEOs, they have shown that they are all too ready to capitulate and collude.
This non-stop chaos, oafish meddling, and strong-arm interference may at times look clownish, but it will have serious consequences. Sure, it creates “uncertainty” (the rhetorical fig leaf the business press uses when the Chaos Monkey exposes himself), and of course it will lead to misallocation of capital. But that’s hardly the main trouble.
It marks the spot where lawful corporate governance (such as we knew it) ends and the personalist regime begins.
Greg Ip, with whom I usually disagree, appears to make a fair point when he calls this “State Capitalism with American Characteristics,” but I would prefer State Capitalism with Coherent Industrial Policy to to what we actually have, and Ip’s label doesn’t quite capture the personalist element: L’etat c’est moi donc l’actionnaire c’est moi, or something like that.
Let’s just say that it looks like we are heading for — or perhaps we are already in the throes of — a full-blown governance crisis. It may already be too late to push back, but it sure would be nice to see boards and big institutional investors try.
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#AAPL #DNNGY #INTC #PARA #autocracy #capitalMarkets #corpgov #corporateGovernance #corruption #cronyism #freeMarkets #kakistocracy #kleptocracy #liberty #personalism #personalistRegime #ruleOfLaw #shareholderRights
