The Latest from the Prospect
 ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

View this email in your browser

 

APRIL 28, 2022

Meyerson on TAP

Capitalism's Endemic Shortages

Oil to end Russia's stranglehold on Europe? Creating enough
semiconductors? Only publicly owned companies can deliver those goods.

The campaign to keep Russia from taking over Ukraine has hit a snag. So
has the campaign to bolster domestic industry here in the States so that
our economy can produce what it needs.

In both cases, the snag is the same: corporations' and Wall Street's
desire for higher profit margins.

In the case of Ukraine, as The New York Times explained

this week, European nations now dependent on Russia-and still paying
Russia-for its oil and gas would welcome ending that dependence if the
U.S. could supplant Russia by exporting more of its own oil and gas to
the continent. The snag is that our own fossil fuel giants don't want
to boost their supply of oil and gas for fear that their abundance will
cause their price-and with it, those companies' profits-to fall.

Well before the

**Times**got wind of this reluctance, the

**Prospect**'s Lee Harris reported

that our big investors (we're looking at you, Wall Street) didn't
want to make the investments that would enable our fossil fuel giants to
increase production, as maintaining high prices at the pump meant
correspondingly higher profits for those investors.

Such intransigence follows logically from the doctrine of maximizing
shareholder value, from which such deviations as defeating expansionist
Russian authoritarianism and providing relief to American motorists
matter not a whit. It would be nice if we could assign our investors'
reluctance to increase oil and gas production to their concern for the
planet's climate crisis. It would be nice, but it would be wrong.

A similar snag-that shareholder value

**über alles** thing-underlies the push behind legislation, currently
in conference committee on the Hill, to boost domestic production of
semiconductors, which are critically important to the manufacture of
cars, planes, laptops, iPhones, and damn near everything else. Time was
when we could meet the need for semiconductors largely through their
domestic production, but as with most crucial industries, it proved more
profitable to investors to let them be produced in lower-wage nations.
The bill now in committee allots more than $50 billion to onetime
domestic production champions like Intel to increase production here at
home. Bernie Sanders, always on top of such matters, has questioned why
we need to subsidize such massively profitable companies, particularly
if we don't condition those grants on iron-clad assurances that those
companies won't take the money and run to other nations where the cost
of labor is lower.

Well, here's a modest proposal. Why doesn't the government take an
equity share in those companies as a condition for their taking those
grants? Better still, why doesn't the government use some of that
money to set up its own semiconductor production company, since that's
really the only reliable way to ensure that production proceeds within
our borders? For that matter, as Bob Pollin has argued

recently in these pages, why don't we nationalize our fossil fuel
industry, as other democratic nations have done, so we can control the
output of this strategic commodity and hasten our transition to
renewable sources?

After all, squaring national imperatives with the imperatives of
shareholder primacy is like squaring a circle. You can't.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

[link removed]

Republicans Admit Biden Can Cancel Student Debt

A new bill tries to claw back authority given to the executive branch on
debt cancellation. BY DAVID DAYEN

Build Back Better Dies ... Again

In a final admission of defeat, the administration is rebranding its
'Build Back Better World' foreign-policy initiative, removing
references to its failed domestic agenda. BY AUSTIN AHLMAN

The Best Hope for Peace in Europe Is Victory for Ukraine

America should continue its limited support for Ukrainian arms. BY RYAN
COOPER

To receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, click here to
subscribe. 

[link removed]

 

Click to Share this Newsletter

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

The American Prospect, Inc.
1225 I Street NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC xxxxxx
United States
Copyright (c) 2022 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.

To opt out of American Prospect membership messaging, click here
.

To manage your newsletter preferences, click here
.

To unsubscribe from all American Prospect emails, including newsletters,
click here
.