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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 28, 2018 - 09:56am PT
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Great article/interview discussing Elizabeth Warren's historical perspective and ideas going forward (which best aligns with what I want to see in a leader's vision for America):
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/elizabeth-warrens-theory-of-capitalism/568573/
The main ideas:
I believe in markets and the benefits they can produce when they work. Markets with rules can produce enormous value. So much of the work I have done... [is] about making markets work for people, not making markets work for a handful of companies that scrape all the value off to themselves. I believe in competition. There are so many people right now who argue against these reforms and other reforms, who claim they are pro-business. They’re not. They’re pro-monopoly. They’re pro–concentration of power, which crushes competition.
A minor point I quibble with:
There was a time in America when that wealth was shared among those who helped produce it. The workers and the investors. That’s just not true today.
I thought the shareholders ARE the investors? So that part doesn't make sense to me, but the part about workers does make sense to me.
Also, she talks about 1935-1980 as time of growing GDP, which increases wages, with workers receiving 70% of the new income in that time. This is juxtaposed with the Republican-led deregulation campaigns linked to growing corporate power and inequalities. I'm very much on board with that narrative, but she skips over the oil crisis and inflation of the 1970s that makes the story more complicated.
To discourage folks of differing ideologies from completely rejecting her characterization (and thereby rejecting everything else she says), there should be some explanation of what led to that '70s inflation and economic problems. It certainly is a distraction from the main point and simplified message that Warren is making, but I'd like to hear how she would address that. Was that an anomaly of OPEC and middle-east economic/warfare policies affecting our economy at home? Is that enough to explain the inflation? Was it a lack of regulatory controls that led to the inflation, or could it have been too much regulation?
Here's what I picked up with a little more research:
 https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/1970s-great-inflation.asp
https://www.thebalance.com/opec-oil-embargo-causes-and-effects-of-the-crisis-3305806
Late 60s and early 70s had big federal spending increases for LBJ's "Great Society" and Social Security increases and Vietnam War... Nixon made more budget deficits, stopped having US dollars backed by gold and just have value based on "because USA says it's good" (which screwed the foreign holders of USA dollars and might have pissed off the middle east oil folks a bit! Unilaterally devaluing a payment instrument can do that). And Nixon put pressure on the Fed (as many Presidents probably have) to make the economy look better in short term with lower interest rates to promote investment and job growth, without consideration for future impact on triggering inflation. Then the whole backing Israel vs Egypt thing (Yom Kippur war) and OPEC oil embargo inflamed US economic issues by making heating and transportation expensive (which undermines business activity in general and hurts lots of consumers directly).
So when this all caught up shortly after in the form of high inflation, it screwed President Ford and probably enabled Carter to get elected, and when we still hadn't climbed out of the hole, it also screwed Carter (presidential parties seem to flip-flop during bad economic times, people not understanding time-frame of delayed reactions and favoring CHANGE over coherent economic reason). This ushered in the era of Republican Presidents and policies, growing congressional Republican power, deregulation and increasing corporate power, which eventually led to the Newt Gingrich days of Contract with America and the long-term plan to stack the courts and train Republican leaders and permanently shift the balance of power in America toward the wealthiest folks.
Going back to that 1970s complexity, again we can see the roots of insufficient regulation in the causes of the problems. In this case it was not insufficient regulation of corporations, but insufficient regulation of the Fed monetary policy (making it too subject to short-term political considerations that favored the power of the politicians rather than the people of the country). The discussion of Gold Standard or not is too deep for me to entertain at this moment (gotta get back to work).
So we need regulations to limit corporate power, but also regulations to limit the use of government power to enrich/empower the people in office at the expense of individuals. This last part is a subtle/nuanced discussion, and should NOT be used as an argument to de-fang the regulatory/policing powers of the government! That is government doing it's job in the interest of people!
The way to remove the political pressures on monetary policy is to have an independent Fed not taking orders from the President or Congress (but answerable for the sake of transparency and oversight). That addresses the problem of how to regulate the government in this respect. But there is still a challenge for how to stop the Fed from getting unduly influenced through back-channel power plays (from politicians or from wealthy people/corporations). Perhaps transparency and public explanation of policy decisions, with subsequent discussions and critiques from experts around the world, is the best way to manage this. It is a challenge to have folks with the requisite experience and familiarity with nitty-gritty banking issues, but not have these same people with personal conflicts of interest in the banking industry (now or in the future) from making the monetary policy decisions. That should be part of Warren's proposals in parallel with stopping the revolving door of politican-regulators/lobbyists.
I am so much more interested in history and politics now than I was as a kid. I guess it's because I have a longer arc of experience to compare with, and I see repeating patterns, and my analytical mind seeks unifying principles to explain the patterns.
I would be curious to hear what more traditionally conservative or libertarian folks think about Warren's approach. Is this a strategy that could unify people of different ideologies? A way to reconcile different perspectives of Freedom and how we get more of it for more of us?
I'd also like to hear reasonable counter-examples or explanations of long-term policies and resultant economic impacts, perhaps favoring alternative narratives than is espoused here.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Aug 28, 2018 - 10:24am PT
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Is this a strategy that could unify people of different ideologies?
The strategy is always to divide people via nonsense wedge issues, steal from their productivity, and create an atmosphere of fear and hence dependency through murder or any means necessary to justify their useless positions.
A true 'unifier' would be killed prior to first base.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Aug 28, 2018 - 10:27am PT
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Warren is more pragmatic/wonkish than her critics will admit and I"m generally on board with her ideas.
In the long term goal of winning hearts and minds to make the world a better place for workers, I'm with her on that.
In the short/medium term of ever getting any actual legislation, I don't see it happening.
Workers have been losing bargaining power for a long time now. Union busting, automation, temp jobs, AI software. Even among middle class desk workers, there is much more job insecurity than in the past.
This makes it impossible for workers to demand a higher percentage of the pie.
R's just gave a trillion dollar tax cut to the 1%. This tax cut didn't even have majority support among republican registered voters, but our "representatives" pushed it through anyway and our "populist" president signed it with glee. I sure don't see any major pro-worker legislation getting through.
Well, subsidies for a favored few workers, coal jobs and steel plants, that fire the imagination of the Trump base. Not much else.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 28, 2018 - 11:38am PT
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Nut, why don’t ya pick a broader more complicated topic? 😉
I totally agree that corps need to be reigned in, especially the boolsheet thang of hiring people
as part timers so the corps don’t have to pay any benefits. Seems like that could be easily addressed.
If every employer had to contribute the same towards healthcare and pensions regardless of
how many hours a week one worked (and whether one is salaried) then the playing field would
be leveled.
Now, talking about inflation, economic cycles, and sustainability might be exceeding our brief.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Aug 28, 2018 - 11:42am PT
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August said:
Workers have been losing bargaining power for a long time now. Union busting, automation, temp jobs, AI software. Even among middle class desk workers, there is much more job insecurity than in the past.
Yes!
Gotta read the article. Don't know enough about her to have an opinion yet. I do know that we don't have true competition, and that the big players do serious damage to everyone but themselves when they limit competition and accrue vast subsidies to themselves.
BAd
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Aug 28, 2018 - 12:52pm PT
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I read the piece and most of her speech linked therein. Doe she have anything to say about debt/deficit reduction? It's really my thing, and as it builds, it will CRUSH almost every other concern. Top military officials have called the debt our greatest threat to national security. Of course, to get it under control, government spending will have to cut back, and I think we'll probably need some across-the-board tax increases, too, of some sort. If you doubt the seriousness of this issue, look to Illinois:
https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/29/investing/illinois-budget-crisis-downgrade/index.html
In Cali we've already had some cities declare bankruptcy. Greece, anyone? As one person put it: If something can't go on forever, it won't. Does anyone here think we can go on building our debt forever? No? Okay, then. So what does it look like when it stops? The glories of social security, medicare, medicaid, food and housing assistance, etc., etc., etc., start to fall apart. Except for Rand Paul, I don't see anyone with the courage to talk openly about this building disaster.
BAd
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Aug 28, 2018 - 01:28pm PT
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I'm short on time but an interesting factor in the strong economy under Clinton/Gore was incentivizing Savings.
People tended to spend responsibility with a focus on cash savings but this robs the markets of revenue in the view of Wallstreet. Managers have shown great creativity and worked diligently along with their subservient politicians to steer people to consume on credit and play the markets.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 28, 2018 - 01:41pm PT
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I have never tried to dig into financial consequences of policies during Clinton era because it coincided with the Gold Rush of the Internet, massive increases in productivity, that can swamp out other signals. Maybe I'll loop back and see what can be teased out there the next time I'm feeling a need for a longer period of distraction.
re: Savings in that era... I'll have to take a look, but I thought that was in the wake of the S&L scandals of the late 80s (which predictably followed deregulation) and then the early 90s recession that discouraged people from investing until the hype of the Internet started catching on.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Aug 28, 2018 - 02:24pm PT
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Sorry, NutAgain, but if your economic beliefs align with Warren's kookiness, well, we're farther apart than I thought. It's always easy to tell who toils in the public sector--they have excessive job security, a guaranteed pension, and don't have to concern themselves with those of us whose well being and retirement depend on the market. A huge share of those evil shareholders she maligns are 401k-type savers who would be none-too-happy with her vision in motion.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/elizabeth-warren-plan-nationalize-everything-woos-hard-left/
Under Senator Warren’s proposal, no business with more than $1 billion in revenue would be permitted to legally operate without permission from the federal government. The federal government would then dictate to these businesses the composition of their boards, the details of internal corporate governance, compensation practices, personnel policies, and much more. Naturally, their political activities would be restricted, too. Senator Warren’s proposal entails the wholesale expropriation of private enterprise in the United States, and nothing less. It is unconstitutional, unethical, immoral, irresponsible, and — not to put too fine a point on it — utterly bonkers.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 28, 2018 - 02:44pm PT
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^^^ Lituya, Maybe the laws she has proposed do have such clauses (I haven't researched), but that excerpt is not consistent with the words I just read as being directly from Elizabeth Warren or the philosophy she espouses. The headline adjective and inflammatory style of the article make me very suspicious of a clear intent to distort facts. She was talking about some board seats to be decided by worker representatives, taking a note from what Germany does:
https://global.handelsblatt.com/companies/why-german-corporate-governance-is-so-different-892389
This is not at all privatization, which makes that article a blatant source of disinformation.
I interpret Warren’s philosophy to be in favor of competition and freedom for all people (not preferentially applied to shareholders), which must be attained through regulations on corporate power that would otherwise jeopardize personal freedoms. This is not the same as crushing all corporations and profits and shareholder return. Sure it would cause reduced financial growth, and some marginal businesses might turn from barely profitable to not profitable. But that all happens in the framework of a competitive world, where the criteria for success are not just financial returns but returns within a framework that is satisfactory for employees and sustainable for all people regardless of what stocks they hold.
The Germany solution, to me, seems like an elegant way to bring corporate objectives in alignment with societal objectives, while still preserving the elements of competition and private property and personal gain. Our American focus on corporations solely for money place them at odds with humanity.
Lituya, I appreciate your responses and sometimes agree with them, but in this case it seems to me a veil for personal greed and fear apart from consideration of what system will work best for the most people.
Here’s an article that I think strikes at the heart of the discussion on corporate rights and responsibilities and how the government regulatory approach has been undermined and rendered ineffective:
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2018/8/15/17683022/elizabeth-warren-accountable-capitalism-corporations
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Aug 28, 2018 - 03:47pm PT
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Lituya, I appreciate your responses and sometimes agree with them, but in this case it seems to me a veil for personal greed and fear apart from consideration of what system will work best for the most people.
Seriously? Says the man who lives in a nice hillside home and enjoys a public pension? Why am I "greedy" for wanting to keep my market-risked retirement, but you're a saint for wanting to keep your guaranteed public payout? Shall we put your pension up for redistribution too?
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 28, 2018 - 04:49pm PT
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I do have a nice hillside home, but I'm not retired and I don't have a public pension. I do have some IRAs and 401k accounts sprinkled around. I'm ok if those take a hit in the service of transforming the nature of our country from one dominated by the corporate profit motive, to one with a balanced consideration for how corporate income should be spread among shareholders, employees, and managing the consequences of their business in terms of environmental/social impacts that affect the rest of society.
I attribute my relative good fortune to a combination of intelligence and being in the right place at the right time- beginning of the dotcom era gold rush in Silicon Valley in a career field that colleges were not yet prepared to satisfy in the workplace. I didn't go the start-up lottery route... I was a mercenary hourly worker piling up skills and cash and dumping it all into stocks and a house and a convertible Mercedes (my ex-wife's choice, not mine), tried my hand at a few business ventures from mild success to outright failure.
I lost all the money I had in the process of stock crash and divorce, including paying off a $120k+ of underwater mortgage on a second home (and fighting my ex who wanted a strategic default) because I believe in honoring financial commitments. I've been humbly working in the same company for the last 8 years- my longest stretch anywhere. I haven't maximized my income, but it's pretty good and a great work life balance.
I am able to have it easier now because I worked my butt off early on, became well known in my field, had an industry certification that translates well to $$, I was in the right place at right time to get a special set of skills ahead of others and wrote a book about it, had some patents along the way (but they are either owned by Cisco or my own I made no money off of). So lots of luck, and seizing opportunities that presented themselves.
I did benefit from a college education that lifted my station in life, and I received Pell Grants and other competitive scholarships and about $30k of Stafford loans that I repaid in full within my first 2-3 years of working. So I very much benefited from public assistance, in what I would say is a model way. The government invested in my education, and in return the government received much more tax money from me than if I had remained an uneducated minimum wage worker. To get to the college stage, I did have to drop out of high school and hitch-hike every day to a community college because my high school in a rural area could not offer classes I needed to be acceptance at a major university. So I received more public support for education. And I even got free breakfast and lunch at school for a while when my house burned down as a kid. More public aid!!!
I will be pleasantly surprised if I collect anything from social security... for now I'm more concerned about kids' college than my retirement, and hoping the housing prices (my main savings since I don't have room to save much else these days) don't totally collapse with a monster rise in interest rates.
So I don't see inconsistencies or hypocrisy in my economic status and my politics. I'm willing to pay taxes for a government that functions to protect the well being of as many citizens as possible. More broadly, I think our government should be a model of how to interact in the world in a way that meets our needs without causing widespread human misery. I am guilty of hypocrisy on this front... I burn a lot of oil traveling between NCal and SCal to live one life with my wife and a different life with my kids from a prior marriage. I don't see a good work-around for that one, but I do drive a Prius to reduce the carnage. And I offset it by working from home most of the time so no daily work commute in car.
Edit: One clue that the rational foundation of an argument against Elizabeth Warren is on questionable ground... calling her policies "kooky" and referencing a headline using the adjective "batty". There is not much of substance I can infer from those adjectives in terms of the potential efficacy of her policy vision. And not much else in the way of support that appears to be accurate and balanced in presentation. I am definitely open to hearing substantive arguments and adjusting my perspective.
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IntheFog
climber
Mostly the next place
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Aug 28, 2018 - 05:40pm PT
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Senator Warren's Bill isn't very long, although it will seem like it is if you aren't used to reading statutes. It will probably help if you follow Justice Frankfurter's three rules for understanding a statute: 1) Read the statute; 2) Read the statute; 3) Read the statute.
The text is here:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3348/text
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IntheFog
climber
Mostly the next place
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Aug 28, 2018 - 06:01pm PT
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For those who don't want to read Senator Warren's proposed bill, here's a quick summary of what it does:
0) This act applies only to "large" corporations, defined as those with over a $billion in gross receipts. According to Forbes, there are around 600 publically traded companies in the US with over a billion dollars in sales. (The list includes every company that's bigger than the Bank of the Ozarks.)
1) Requires that "large" corporations be federally chartered. To administer these charters, it establishes an "Office of US Corporations" in the Commerce Department.
2) Lists a broad set of "responsibilities" of federally chartered corporations. In making decisions, directors and officers of federal corporations are to take into account the impact on: shareholders, employees of the company, its subsidiaries and its suppliers, customers, community and social factors, the local and global environment, long and short term interests of the corporation.
3) Requires that at least 2/5 of the directors of these corporations be elected by employees.
4) Requires executives who get paid in stock to hold that stock for five years.
5) Limits the political activities of US Corporations;
6) Establishes procedures for revoking the charters of US corporations.
Obviously, how this law would actually affect corporations depends on the details, and on how its broad requirements are interpreted.
For example, the Act requires corporations to create a "general public benefit," defined as "a material positive impact on society resulting from the business and operations of a United States corporation, when taken as a whole." What exactly that means in particular cases is not at all clear.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Aug 28, 2018 - 06:36pm PT
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Nutagain- Just accept that you'll henceforth be known as the rich guy living in a house on the hill with a fat pension. Although it's false, Lituya casually makes sh#t up to advance his arguments.
For example, I'm forever the rich contractor that underpays his employees and hires illegals (according to Lituya).
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IntheFog
climber
Mostly the next place
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Aug 28, 2018 - 06:46pm PT
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Nut, that NatRev article is by Kevin Williamson. "Batty" and "kooky" are pretty tame for him. As for his pronouncements about what the Act will do, I'm not sure where he's getting those.
The word I'd use for the Act is "baffling." Take "Sec. 5: Responsibilities of US Corporations." That section requires each corporation to identify the "general public benefit" it will create, where the "general public benefit" is defined as "a material positive impact on society resulting from the business and operations of a United States corporation, when taken as a whole."
The Act then says that the directors are to run the company so it:
A) "seeks to create a general public benefit" AND
B) balances the "pecuniary" interests of shareholders with the "best" interests of "persons that are materially affected by the conduct of the United States corporation."
The post above gives the list of interests that can be considered, which range from stockholders, workers, suppliers, customers, to the environment and so on.
So far, this looks like a big change. But after imposing all of these broad responsibilities on the corporation, the Act then explicitly says neither directors or officers, or the corporation itself, can be sued for failing to create "a general public benefit." They can only be sued if they break some other law. And their charter can only be revoked if they break some other law.
In other words, corporations are required to create "a public benefit," but nothing bad happens if they don't. Talk about perverse incentives.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Aug 28, 2018 - 11:03pm PT
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^^William O Douglas - Wilderness Bill of Rights
I do have a nice hillside home, but I'm not retired and I don't have a public pension.
NutAgain, I stand corrected on the public pension. I recalled a conversation related to your annoyance with valley drones hovering near your home last year and likely conflated you with other liberals here--many who do, in fact, reside in the public bureaucracy. My mistake and apologies.
Your bio is fascinating and admirable--but I won't be reciprocating with mine. (Refer to the Jody hate-fest your fellows are presently engaged in if you really need to know why.) Rest assured I am not "greedy," as you called me. I happily pay my taxes, although property assessments here are becoming unsustainable. I am not a one percenter. We've saved and invested wisely, denying ourselves decades of short-term gratification, vacations, cars, etc. and I will not accept the Elizabeth Warrens of the world stealing it--or, again, liberals telling me I'm greedy. (My wife drives a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee with 210k miles on it--I drive a 2012 Toyota Yaris.)
I would ask you to reevaluate your position in this one respect: You are clearly an intelligent man with deeply-held political beliefs, yet you too-often try to pass yourself off as a third-way moderate. I do believe such a position exists--but the solutions you always prescribe are anything but compromise. In fact, they almost always reveal as nothing more than a left-of-Democratic-party wish list. Elizabeth Warren, for example.
Your civility here is appreciated--and needed. But stop pretending you're someone you are not. You're a liberal. So own it. I admire Gary here not because I agree with ANY of his ideas--but because he never poses as anything but who he is. A true leftist whose beliefs are well-informed.
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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Aug 28, 2018 - 11:51pm PT
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Also, she talks about 1935-1980 as time of growing GDP, which increases wages, with workers receiving 70% of the new income in that time. So she wants to make America great again? Heh.
I read the Atlantic article, but I'm not sure that past world she talks about really existed.
New policies always carry unintended consequences, some small, some great.
Possible unintended consequences of Warren's grand corporate plan?
A huge bureaucracy, under a new government department, run by a "czar" with immense power, new regulations drafted defining what is the “public benefit”, an army of gov't lawyers monitoring compliance, while unions demand more pay not based on productivity?
Huge new departments in corporations to comply with the latest adjustments to the perceived "public benefit", while corporate cronies in Congress pass exemptions to be exploited by favored corporations?
I like her idea's that we need to nurture small business, but I'd like to see other idea's with that goal.
For the growing divide between rich and poor...who really knows the fix? The cause of it is complicated and debateable.
I think this link shows what created the great middle class and what American exceptionalism really is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalism
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 30, 2018 - 11:21am PT
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Your civility here is appreciated--and needed. But stop pretending you're someone you are not. You're a liberal. So own it.
I'm fine if anyone wants to call me a liberal. I think more in terms of identifying problems and potential solutions (like I do in my job) and I try not to get bogged down in the labels and identity politics. I'm sure I fall short of that ideal often.
In nature, there is a process called natural succession as different waves of organisms help to shape the environment and create the changes that enable the next wave to take over (e.g. bare rock to lichens/algae, grasses/shrubs to towering trees). When an environment remains fairly static, it is because some forces or tendencies are acting in opposition. We humans like to have lawns and gardens that enforce a sort of static snapshot of a specific point in a natural succession. We have a similar desire for taming the economic wilderness.
The most common natural tendency of people and businesses is to use whatever is at their disposal to make more money, to consolidate resources. Over time, this naturally leads to those who are best at it getting even better as they acquire more strength and ability to reinforce their positions. Nothing is inherently evil or wrong in the individual motivations, but the emergent property of the system does not support the ideals of "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness".
In the era before industrialization and modern technologies, this consolidation in Europe peaked with the feudal system of lords controlling as much area as they can ride around in their horses and defend, and everyone else essentially under their control and giving most of the fruits of their labor to the lord for "protection". The very structure of national governments was a hierarchical layer on top of this following the same principles. Marriages between neighbors, between countries, was a means of aggregating power to fight off other neighbors. Gengis Khan took this to new heights with the introduction of technology for how to scale military organizations, communication, monetary systems, postal systems, etc. As a result, he was able to scale up his consolidation to cover a major part of the world.
Today, modern transportation technologies for moving materials and people, and modern Internet technologies for moving information, enable power to be consolidated indefinitely, until a handful of entities or maybe eventually one (which may or may not be governments) will end up controlling the world. That is what removing regulations will naturally lead to.
If we recognize and appreciate how much value we really get from being part of a civilization, and recognize that maintaining civilization is more desirable than our personal elevation in the midst of civilization destruction (which will lead to our personal destruction), then we see the value of supporting a government that helps to tame the economic wilderness and create an artificial system that better serves humans.
Our government should be invested with the power to counteract (rather than support) the natural consolidation and rising strength of wealthy individual and corporate power over time. Balancing those powers in opposition (government vs. corporations) is what creates a supportive space for civilization. Too much corporate power and we have increasing economic inequality, degraded working conditions, environmental destruction, loss of funding for education, science, and loss of the fundamental ingredients for creating opportunities across the broad spectrum of humanity. Too much government power, and it crushes out the creative and value-producing power of corporations. Individual creativity is great, but many of the biggest things we value in society require the organization and structure of a corporation to deliver. So the goal of our government should be to retain these good parts of hope and greed that come from creative hard work with expectation of a return, but then also not let it get so far out of hand that those who are successful at it can close the doors behind them and skyrocket to greater wealth fueled by the masses stuck in poverty.
If this thinking is considered liberal, then call me liberal. Liberal is free, and I believe in people being free to improve their lots in life, free from the impediments imposed by those who have been more successful in the past.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Aug 30, 2018 - 11:30am PT
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America has created a system where money is protected against voters. A system based on one dollar one vote instead of one head one vote. And globalization only contributes to this mess - free flow of capital, goods, services and workers are slowly destroying well functioning smaller nations based on a welfare state and distribution of wealth...
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