We all know the story, an old-line U.S. industry, burdened by high wages and outmoded business practices, starts to lose out to foreign competition. Instead of bringing their pay more in line with world standards, they go running to the government for help.
Yep, that's the best way to describe the financial industry's efforts to roll back Sarbanes-Oxley and change other rules of corporate governance. Rather than cutting back the multi-hundred million dollar compensation packages paid to people like current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, they want to scale back the protections that make it more difficult for corporate management to rip off shareholders. Since management decides which capital markets to use, this is one way to gain a competitive edge.
Given who holds the positions of power in the U.S. government, there is a good chance they will succeed. The conflicts of interest in this story are glaring and should be highlighted in the reporting.
A second Trump administration will cement a right-wing majority on the Supreme Court for a generation, and put our collective future in the hands of someone who will be virtually unchecked by our institutions. The country has shifted rightward, and the reverberations will ensue for potentially the next few decades. In this climate, a robust independent media ecosystem will be more important than ever. We're committed to bringing you the latest news on how Trump's agenda will actually affect the American people, shining a light on the stories corporate media overlooks and keeping the public informed about how power really works in this country.
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