Mod

this category refers to moderating infliences, the elements that keep balance, allow the system to self-correct with timely and accurate information

not to be confused with moderate, which refers to politicians

unions as mod:=<div class="print-content"><div id="node-1033303" class="node node-story view-mode-print clearfix" about="/economy/robert-reich-why-americans-are-screwed-and-europeans-are-not" typeof="sioc:Item foaf:Document" style="position: relative;"><div class="headline"><h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title">Robert Reich: Why Americans Are Screwed and Europeans Are Not</h1></div><div class="byline economy">By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/robert-reich-0" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Robert Reich</a> [1] / Robert Reich's Blog</div><div class="story-date">March 15, 2015</div><div class="authors_signup" /><div class="top-tools"><div class="left"><div class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://www.alternet.org/print/economy/robert-reich-why-americans-are-screwed-and-europeans-are-not" data-title="Robert Reich: Why Americans Are Screwed and Europeans Are Not"><div id="atstbx" class="at-share-tbx-element addthis_32x32_style addthis-smartlayers addthis-animated at4-show" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; -webkit-animation-fill-mode: both; -webkit-animation-duration: 1s; opacity: 1 !important;">
</div><div id="atstbx" class="at-share-tbx-element addthis_32x32_style addthis-smartlayers addthis-animated at4-show" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; -webkit-animation-fill-mode: both; -webkit-animation-duration: 1s; opacity: 1 !important;">The U.S. economy is picking up steam but most Americans aren’t feeling it. By contrast, most European economies are still in bad shape, but most Europeans are doing relatively well.</div></div></div></div><div class="the_body body_economy clearfix">What’s behind this? Two big facts.First, American corporations exert far more political influence in the United States than their counterparts exert in their own countries.In fact, most Americans have no influence at all. That’s the conclusion of Professors Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, who <a href="http://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">analyzed</a> [2] 1,799 policy issues — and found that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”Instead, American lawmakers respond to the demands of wealthy individuals (typically corporate executives and Wall Street moguls) and of big corporations – those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns.The second fact is most big American corporations have no particular allegiance to America. They don’t want Americans to have better wages. Their only allegiance and responsibility is to their shareholders — which often requires lower wages  to fuel larger profits and higher share prices.When GM went public again in 2010, it <a href="http://www.gm.com/content/dam/gmcom/COMPANY/Investors/Corporate_Governance/PDFs/StockholderInformationPDFs/Annual-Report.pdf" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">boasted</a> [3] of making 43 percent of its cars in place where labor is less than $15 an hour, while in North America it could now pay “lower-tiered” wages and benefits for new employees.American corporations shift their profits around the world wherever they pay the lowest taxes. Some are even morphing into foreign corporations.As an Apple executive <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?r=0" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">told</a> [4] the New York Times, “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems.”I’m not blaming American corporations. They’re in business to make profits and maximize their share prices, not to serve America.But because of these two basic facts – their dominance on American politics, and their interest in share prices instead of the wellbeing of Americans – it’s folly to count on them to create good American jobs or improve American competitiveness, or represent the interests of the United States in global commerce.By contrast, big corporations headquartered in other rich nations are more responsible for the wellbeing of the people who live in those nations.That’s because labor unions there are typically stronger than they are here — able to exert pressure both at the company level and nationally.VW’s labor unions, for example, have a voice in governing the company, as they do in other big German corporations. Not long ago, VW even <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/11/19/the-strange-case-of-the-anti-union-union-at-volkswagens-plant-in-tennessee/" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">welcomed</a> [5] the UAW to its auto plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. (Tennessee’s own politicians nixed it.) Governments in other rich nations often devise laws through tri-partite bargains involving big corporations and organized labor. This process further binds their corporations to their nations.Meanwhile, American corporations distribute a smaller share of their earnings to their workers than do European or Canadian-based corporations. And top U.S. corporate executives make far more money than their counterparts in other wealthy countries.The typical American worker puts in more hours than Canadians and Europeans, and gets little or no paid vacation or paid family leave. In Europe, the <a href="http://20somethingfinance.com/american-hours-worked-productivity-vacation" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">norm</a> [6] is five weeks paid vacation per year and more than three months paid family leave.And because of the overwhelming clout of American firms on U.S. politics, Americans don’t get nearly as good a deal from their governments as do Canadians and Europeans.Governments there impose higher taxes on the wealthy and redistribute more of the wealth to middle- and lower-income households. Most of their citizens receive essentially free healthcare and more generous unemployment benefits than do Americans.So it shouldn’t be surprising that even though U.S. economy is doing better, most Americans are not.The U.S. middle class is no longer the world’s richest. After considering taxes and transfer payments, middle-class incomes in Canada and much of Western Europe are <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/upshot/the-american-middle-class-is-no-longer-the-worlds-richest.html?abt=0002&abg=0" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">higher</a> [7] than in the U.S. The poor in Western Europe earn more than do poor Americans.Finally, when at global negotiating tables – such as the secretive process devising the “Trans Pacific Partnership” trade deal — American corporations don’t represent the interests of Americans. They represent the interests of their executives and shareholders, who are not only wealthier than most Americans but also reside all over the world. Which is why the pending Partnership protects the intellectual property of American corporations — but not American workers’ health, safety, or wages, and not the environment.The Obama administration is casting the Partnership as a way to contain Chinese influence in the Pacific region. The agents of America’s interests in the area are assumed to be American corporations.But that assumption is incorrect. American corporations aren’t set up to represent America’s interests in the Pacific region or anywhere else.What’s the answer to this basic conundrum? Either we lessen the dominance of big American corporations over American politics, or we increase their allegiance and responsibility to America.It has to be one or the other. Americans can’t thrive within a political system run largely by big American corporations — organized to boost their share prices but not boost America.</div></div></div>

NEPA brought ppl into checks and bal 38; post watergate reforms/post earth day revived trad FF dominance of legis; FOIA ups democ/ppl power since we have access to info/sci rfk2

We mostly assocaite this with the 4th estate, the press, which is a meta-check on the the three branches of government.  However, becuase of media consolidation which has cut resources of investigative and science reporting, just when we need them most becuase the science is getting more imprtant and complex, and because the anti-global warming propaganda is getting more sophisticated. (scarily, many journalists are going over the the dark side and working for PR firms (which is not merely an extension of bad or journalists under pressure merely tweakig press releases (really scary are video press releases).

Newspapers in particular have been hard hit by loss of classified ad revenue, since they do local and indepth reporting (caught up in colsolidation, but also a death spiral of job cuts lead to quality drop which leads to loss of readers etc).  See escalator effect of bogus papers, but also coopting of op-ed/letters to the editor scam being passed off as endorsement by the news side ie vetted and impartial).  Blogs can scoop other medias.

Compounding these structural business problems, we have actual suppression of the press.  In its most benign and venerable form, it's just restricting access to people who will not tell your story as you wish it to be conveyed.

The line is crossed when the RWI goes on offense, trying to disseminate disinformation, intimidating journalists, or trying to turn them.

One important tool is lawsuits.  The tobacco companies managed to intimidate CBS, at least for a while with a SLAPP suit.  Later Dan Rather ( Creative response concepts) was hounded out for using apparently forged documents, though the story was accurate. (a blogger made a claim that the font was not available at the time to documents were created, but this turned out to be wrong.

Monsanto and dairy industry leaned on Fox to fire two investigative reporters on rBGH

Danielle Ivory subject to oppostion research, formerly reserved for opposing candidates.

Entine hack for hire, denies he gets $ from AEI.  Hit piece in Forbes on Haynes UCB