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444176 |
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Date: November 16, 2024 at 18:18:02
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: bezos gets superrich on the backs of his underpaid workers... |
URL: https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/11/15/were-taking-on-americas-most-anti-union-company-and-were-going-to-win/ |
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these superwealthy asswipes are beyond disgusting...
November 15, 2024
We’re Taking on America’s Most Anti-Union Company and We’re Going to Win
Dori Goldberg
I work at one of the most profitable companies in the world, yet I’m barely able to get by.
In August 2023, I got hired as a warehouse associate at an Amazon delivery station in San Francisco. Within months, it became clear just how unjust and dysfunctional the workplace was.
I start work at 3:20 a.m. and spend eight hours a day processing thousands of packages. By the end of the shift, my shoulders are sore, I’m lightheaded, and I often feel like I’m running on empty.
Our workplace isn’t safe. Heavy boxes routinely fall on my co-workers’ heads. I’ve seen people get chemical burns from cleaning up hazardous materials. It’s not unusual to sustain long-term injuries from being overworked.
In short, my co-workers and I come to work every day, breaking our backs for a company that treats us as disposable — and refuses to offer living wages or adequate health care plans. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We have the power to demand better.
That’s why my co-workers and I are organizing with the Teamsters Union, standing up to our bosses, and demanding Amazon recognize our union.
Management makes false promises, wanting us to believe that if we just work hard enough, we’ll climb the ranks to become a manager or get a raise. But favoritism is rampant, and consistent understaffing makes us physically, mentally and emotionally stressed, leading to burnout.
We won’t let this company continue to exploit us. We’re demanding union recognition and a Teamsters contract because we know that when we stand together, Amazon will be forced to hear our demands.
Management has tried their best to stop us from talking to each other about workplace issues. They say they can only deal with people’s issues one-on-one, because Amazon knows that when we come together as a group, we have the power to actually change things for the better.
We’re showing our co-workers and the company that we can make our workplace safer and healthier as a union. We are fighting for a living wage, a safe workplace that’s free from harassment, and quality health care and benefits. We’re unionizing in order to have a voice and call out Amazon for their mistreatment of workers.
So at 3:00 a.m. one day this fall, my coworkers and I marched into work and demanded recognition for our union.
Amazon wasted no time in launching their union-busting crusade. We aren’t falling for it. They made $30 billion last year while paying us pennies. Amazon is scared of us. They see we have strength in numbers, and we’re not backing down.
Getting Amazon to recognize our union is going to take considerable community support. The day after we demanded recognition, we rallied outside of our facility with our co-workers, fellow union members, and elected officials. As we continue to fight for recognition and a Teamsters contract, we must continue to show that organized labor, officials, and the community stand with us.
We’re taking on this fight not just at one facility, but around the country. I’m proud to be standing with my fellow Amazon Teamsters in San Bernardino, California; Skokie, Illinois; Queens and Staten Island, New York; and Northern Kentucky. As our numbers grow, our power grows. We must set our sights on forcing Amazon to come to the bargaining table and win a strong contract.
This is our moment. Let’s seize it.
Dori Goldberg is an Amazon DCK6 warehouse worker and Teamster in San Francisco, California.
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Date: November 16, 2024 at 18:22:09
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: bezos gets superrich on the backs of his underpaid workers... |
URL: https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/11/15/the-trump-white-house-money-laundry/ |
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speaking of rich assholes...
The same day that Trump won back the presidency—November 5—his own Hole-in-the-Wall gang running Trump Media and Technology Group (TMG or just Trump Media) released its third quarter results and other SEC filings, proving yet again that the presidency only matters to Trump as a get-rich-quick scheme.
Trump didn’t run again for the White House to deal with Ukraine “with one phone call” or so that he could attend endless meetings on Social Security funding reforms. He ran, as he did in 2016, to stay one step ahead of the bailiffs and to rob trains.
In theory, Trump Media should be winding up its business, which, according to its filings, has this stated goal:
The mission of TMTG is to end Big Tech’s assault on free speech by opening up the Internet and giving people their voices back. TMTG operates Truth Social, a social media platform established as a safe harbor for free expression amid increasingly harsh censorship by Big Tech corporations.
Given that Trump has won the presidency and given that he has now appointed Elon Musk, the proprietor of X (emblematic of “Big Tech”), to head up what Trump is calling the Department of Government Efficiency, the reasons to hang on to Trump Media have gone away.
But Trump Media only ever truly had one “mission,” which was to set up a public company under Trump’s control that could act as a drain on his supporters’ cash and allow Trump bag men to use a stock market listing to collect direct “investments” in the new president.
* * *
Don’t kid yourself for a minute thinking that Trump Media is an operating social media business or a going concern.
As of September 30, 2024, Trump Media posted nine-month revenue of $2.6 million, which was down from $3.3 million the year before, but stunning when you consider that the market capitalization of TMTG on that date was about $6 billion and that the company’s accumulated losses for the nine-month period were $363 million.
Plus the SEC filings indicate that the company hasn’t even been paid for the few ads that have run on its social media pages. The report notes: “Unearned revenue of $2,453.5 was recognized as revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2024…”
So pretty much all of its revenue is fictitious, and the SEC states proudly that TMTG will not divulge traditional measurements (numbers of clients, etc.) of a social media concern.
Putting the above in layman’s language, the figures means that Trump Media has no paying customers, millions of dollars in start-up losses, no business plan that makes any sense, and a terrible management team consisting of Trump remittance men.
I doubt in the history of Nasdaq if there has ever been a company with a $6 billion market capitalization—and no revenue.
TMTG isn’t even a meme stock; it’s a cryptocurrency issued on the assumption that the likes of Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Matt Gaetz can bring down the American government.
* * *
Trump Media does, however, now have a mountain of cash—close to $700 million, raised by flogging the dubious stock on both the gullible Trump base and directly to heavy hitters who are looking to corner the market of Trump’s presidency.
In exchange for not one dollar of investment capital, Trump was given close to 60% of the company’s outstanding shares.
In other words, Trump’s stake in Trump Media (a company with no earnings and accumulated loses ofclose to half a billion) is worth in today’s market about $3.5 billion. (As Trump’s cultural hero, Al Capone, liked to say: “You can go further with a smile and a gun, than with a smile alone.”)
Even if Trump Media’s stock price were to drop from $29 today to $3.5 (closer to its book or liquidation value), Trump would still have a claim on 60% of the balance sheet cash, about $420 million, again without having invested one dollar of seed capital.
All Trump has ever done for Trump Media is promise to post his social media messages there for six hours. After that, he’s free to post wherever he pleases, including on the site of his Department of Government Efficiency tsar’s social media company, X.
* * *
During the third quarter of 2024, Trump Media raised an additional $339 million through the issuance of its common stock, which is why the company’s management can now boast that it has a “clean balance sheet” with no debt and almost $700 million in cash.
In theory, even a terrible management should be able to invest some of that money in operating businesses that could throw off earnings that pay better than money-market time deposits.
That could be promising if, say, Donald Trump had the investment chops of a Warren Buffett or Charlie Munger and if he was drawn to operating businesses that have good management and are selling at low multiples.
Buffett took the railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe private for about $44 billion, and since the transaction he has realized more than $50 billion in dividends, while still retaining 100% of the business.
By contrast, in the third quarter Trump Media spent $132 million to acquire an entity called WorldConnect Technologies, LLC (WCT), so that the Trump social media mouthpiece can stream its own television and video content.
I cannot say whether the company paid too much for WCT, but I can say that WCT only has value if Trump Media remains a going concern. If it fails, in any resulting bankruptcy (something Trump does often and well) WCT will be valued at nothing.
* * *
Given that Trump is heading back to the White House and given that Elon Musk (the Dr. Evil of Big Tech when Trump Media was formed), does Trump Media have a role or future other than as Donald Trump’s piggy bank and black bag, through which sketchy oligarchs can buy influence with the incoming American president?
I think not. Where Trump Media shines is as a funnel into the money-hungry soul of Donald Trump.
Until mid-September, Trump’s shares in the company were “locked up” for six months, but since that deadline has passed, Trump has been free to sell his TMTG shares to anyone, including Vladimir Putin, the Saudi royal family, or Kim Jong Un, all of whom might well like, for example, to own 20% of Trump Media for $1.2 billion. In buying his shares, they can pay the money directly to President Donald Trump, and it’s all perfectly legal.
It’s the first time in American history that a president-elect or president has been listed on a major stock exchange.
Of course, another option is for Trump to sell his controlling 58% stake of TMTG to his new government efficiency expert, Elon Musk.
What could be more “efficient” for both Trump and Musk than for Trump to invoice his new best friend $1.2 billion for bringing him into the government in a cabinet-level position? As Bertolt Brecht liked to ask: “What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?”
* * *
The real problem with Kamala Harris wasn’t that she was soft on transgenderism or that she could not control the border. Her problem was that she failed to conceive of the presidency as an initial public offering or leveraged buyout.
Trump ran on the platform that anyone who pays him can find a voice in his administration, and Musk, for example, showed the proper democratic spirit by passing out million–dollar checks on Trump’s behalf in the swing districts of western Pennsylvania. (Only for “little people” is the presidential contribution limit $3,300.)
When Trump talks about bringing back “market efficiency” to government, what he means is that the Trump presidency will be accessible to the highest bidders, and for the moment the most efficient way to settle your accounts with the incoming president is to buy shares in Trump Media (ticker symbol DJT).
After the polls closed, it was clear that Harris never could have won. By about 3 a.m. on November 6, it was evident that the country had its heart set on electing to the presidency a man with 34 felony convictions, adjudications as a sexual offender, pending cases under the sedition and espionage acts, and court judgments for fraud and defamation totaling almost half a billion dollars.
Unless Harris managed to come up with a similarly impressive rap sheet, she was never going to win the presidency. She was running as Sergeant Preston when what the country wanted was Butch Cassidy.
Matthew Stevenson is the author of many books, including Reading the Rails, Appalachia Spring, andThe Revolution as a Dinner Party, about China throughout its turbulent twentieth century. His most recent books are Biking with Bismarck and Our Man in Iran. Out now: Donald Trump’s Circus Maximus and Joe Biden’s Excellent Adventure, about the 2016 and 2020 elections.
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Date: November 16, 2024 at 18:25:16
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: bezos gets superrich on the backs of his underpaid workers... |
URL: https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/11/15/the-planet-under-threat-of-breakdown/ |
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imagine their surprise when they realize their money-grubbing ways has cost them the planet, and everything they have...
November 15, 2024
The Planet Under Threat of Breakdown
Robert Hunziker
Image by Elena Mozhvilo.
There’s a new trend in the world that’s working against the planet, you know, the one you’re standing on. This new trend, over the past year or so, spells “thumbs down” for planet Earth. It’s a disheartening, and fraught with danger, change in attitude, dismissing commitments, left and right.
A figurative Planet Support Switch has been turned off by several key players. Proof of this agnostic attitude is found in every meeting of nations of the world over the past couple of years. They are turning their noses up on prior commitments. This is a new attitude. And it’s happening as climate change has turned into an ogre of destruction that’s impossible to ignore, featured on nightly news programs with automobiles tumbling as if children’s toys in torrential rivers of city streets (Paiporta).
Meanwhile, COP29, the UN Conference of the Parties on climate change, Nov 11th-22nd, is being held in oil-rich Azerbaijan. Such a strange coincidence: UN climate meetings have become an outgrowth of oil producer largess. After all, they do have spectacular venues, hmm. Gotta wonder what they’ll do to stave off all-time record heat, caused by fossil fuel emissions, Co2? The paradox is devastatingly inescapable.
A key data point exposes the challenge COP29 faces: Annual CO2 released into the atmosphere, 37.4 billion metric tons in 2023 vs. 9 billion metric tons in 1960.
According to Dr. Patrick McGuire, of the University of Reading and National Centre for Atmospheric Science: “The new Global Carbon Budget reveals a disturbing reality – global fossil CO2 emissions continue to climb, reaching 37.4 billion tonnes in 2024. Despite clear evidence of accelerating climate impacts, we’re still moving in the wrong direction. The need for rapid decarbonization has never been more urgent.” (Source: Fossil Fuel Co2 Emissions Increase Again in 2024, University of Reading, November 13, 2024)
Also, of more than passing interest at COP29, according to Victoria Cuming, head of global policy at BloombergNEF: “Donald Trump’s dramatic victory in the US election will drip poison into the climate talks.” (Source: Bloomberg Green Daily: COP29 Climate Money Fight)
The planet is losing key support. Yet, it doesn’t take a climate scientist to figure out the planet has already gone ballistic with (1) rampant wildfires (2) torrential rains (3) massive destructive floods (4) brutal scorching droughts (5) pounding hailstorms (6) frightening thunder/lighting all unprecedented and all on a regular schedule nowadays. There are no more once-in-100-year storms; they’re every other year.
Recent talks on protecting nature at the UN Biodiversity Conference d/d October 21-November 1st in Colombia collapsed when nations could not agree on key goals. This was the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. It was a disaster: “Talks were overshadowed by a lack of progress on implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the landmark ‘Paris Agreement for nature’ deal made at COP15 in Montreal in 2022.” (Source: Carbon Brief Nov. 2, 2024) By summit’s end, only 44 out of 196 parties had come up with a new biodiversity plan. This is pitiful.
As for Net Zero prospects to halt global warming, forget it!
At the G20 summit September 9th-10th countries demanded rolling back promises to cut back burning oil, coal, and gas (Source: G20 Countries Turning Backs on Fossil Fuel Pledge, Say Campaigners, The Guardian, Sept. 10, 2024).
“Over the last few months, we’ve seen everyone from major corporations to countries backpedaling on climate commitments made in the recent months and years. Despite growing, urgent evidence that climate change continues to accelerate, this is no real surprise.” (Source: Countries Are Rolling Back Their Climate Commitments, Climatebase, October 7, 2024)
Global corporations from Ford to J.P. Morgan Chase are all rolling back their commitments to climate change, which is all deeply intertwined with what played out ahead of COP29, now playing before bemused Middle Eastern oligarchs.
“Instead of indicating that the money required to green the economy is ready to flow, industry leaders now say their first priority is delivering financial returns for clients—and that means energy-transition investments will only be undertaken if they’re considered profitable,” (Source: Wall Street Wants You to Know Profit Comes Before Net Zero, Bloomberg, September 18, 2024.)
The bankers are pointing their fingers at the politicians and governments, who have been largely unwilling to make significant headway in fighting climate change globally.
Meanwhile, stating the obvious, which cannot be emphasized enough, climate warning signs have never been stronger than this year. Just for starters, a 2–3-foot sea level rise hangs by a cryosphere thread at the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. If it goes down for the count, and there’s reason to think it’ll happen during current generations, all bets are off for 8 of the world’s 10 largest megacities, nestled along coastlines. This is but one of several tipping points at the edge, and tipping. The protagonist is fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide (CO2) which makes up around 76% of total greenhouse gas emissions, making it the primary greenhouse gas responsible for the majority of climate change impacts.
And it is a fool’s errand that carbon capture/sequester will save the day; it’s too slow too unwieldy too expensive too inefficient takes too long and overwhelmed by the task at hand, sans super-duper-effective technology. “Despite its long history, carbon capture is a problematic technology. A new IEEFA study reviewed the capacity and performance of 13 flagship projects and found that 10 of the 13 failed or underperformed against their designed capacities, mostly by large margins.” (Source: Carbon Capture Has a Long History of Failure, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 1, 2022)
Losing key support for the planet couldn’t come at a worse time. According to Perilous Times on Planet Earth: 2024 The State of the Climate Report, 25 of 35 planetary vital signs are at record extremes. Two-thirds with record-extremes is viewed by climate scientists as a clear mandate for a planet “on the edge.”
Alas, losing key support because of “concern over profits” is nonsensical and trivial at best, thinking small, not big. A report by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research contradicts that notion and exposes the silliness behind focus on “profit over planet,” to wit: “The analysis of data from 1,500 regions over the past 30 years showed that 30 percent have managed to lower their carbon emissions while continuing to thrive economically.” (Source: Green Growth: 30 percent of regions worldwide achieve economic growth while reducing carbon emissions, Potsdam Institute For Climate Impact Research, Oct. 29, 2024)
Beyond the insanity of profits at the expense of mitigation efforts for the planet, which exposes the underbelly of high-end capitalism, some good news: According to some climate experts, Trump’s re-election and his statements that green energy is a scam, and the likelihood that he withdraws the US from UN Climate agreements might drive a new sense of unity, even building a coalition that actually does something positive to stop fossil fuel emissions to support a parched planet. It’s possible, but here in America Wall Street prefers profits over planet. Umm, honestly, shouldn’t that be reversed?
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.
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Date: November 16, 2024 at 22:16:41
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: bezos gets superrich on the backs of his underpaid workers... |
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Interesting juxtaposition of articles. Macrogreed
enacted on an individual morphs into planet death.
I know a person who does landscaping work mowing
lawns, trimming bushes cleaning yards in all kinds of
weather, mostly blistering hot through the summer and
who refused to work at Amazon because it was too
miserable a job. Absolutely echoed almost verbatim
your first post.
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