Economy

In 1889, Andrew Carnegie, one of the most ruthless industrialists in American history, wrote an essay entitled “The Gospel of Wealth,” which became the moral playbook for the oligarchs of his time on what to do with their fortunes. Carnegie was determined to overcome his reputation as a “robber baron” by becoming one of the greatest philanthropists who ever lived. The “man of wealth,” Carnegie wrote, should “consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer... in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community.

On January 4, Justin Smith announced that he was stepping down as CEO of Bloomberg Media to found a startup. He would pursue a “new kind of global news media company,” one that would serve “unbiased journalism to a truly global audience.” Ben Smith, the New York Times media columnist, resigned on the same day. The two Smiths were joining together to work on what was known at the time only as “Project Coda.” In the flurry of press coverage that followed, some hubristic claims were bandied about. The era of the foreign correspondent was over, Justin insisted. Throughout the world, there were 200 million college-educated, English-speaking professionals who were underserved by current news media, Ben maintained.

If you’re the sort who rarely checks your 401K and other investment accounts, you may be blissfully unaware of what a dismal year (plus) its been for the stock market. Many prominent media personalities, particularly ones on CNBC, promised us that Biden would be a boon to the stock market because Trump was too erratic. But while the market started hot in 2021, it's mostly been ice cold ever since, with a few fake rallies thrown in to tease us. How bad has the Biden era been for stocks? Consider some numbers I crunched prior to the market opening on December 12.

The New York Times Guild announced on Friday that about 1,000 of its members would walk out if their demands regarding raises and pensions, among other issues, were not addressed by December 8, this coming Thursday. And Nikole Hannah-Jones, the 1619 Project essayist, has since announced her intention to join the walkout. Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men?... Cockburn is somewhat perplexed, because to participate in a walkout, you would presumably have to be an active employee doing some form of work for the New York Times. Hannah-Jones tweeted on December 3 that, “I will be joining my NYTimesGuild colleagues in walking out if [the New York Times] doesn’t agree to a fair contract by December 8.

Twitter Ratio King Chris Cillizza joined his friends Chris Cuomo, Brian Stelter and former boss Jeff Zucker in the long line of dismissed CNN employees on Thursday. While Cillizza may still offer up heaped dishes of bad takes on social media, he will no longer be doing so under the banner of the supposed new direction of CNN under CEO Chris Licht. What exactly do people like me mean when we call Cillizza the "Ratio King”? The ratio is what happens on Twitter when the number of comments on a tweet vastly outweighs its likes, retweets and quote tweets, meaning people are criticizing the tweet far more than endorsing it. And Cillizza, who may have accidentally even given birth to this unit of measurement, has owned the mantle for years now.

Election aftermaths are always an opportunity for taking stock. Since the 2022 midterms, we’ve heard prominent Republicans stressing the need to revisit questions ranging from electoral strategy to how to engage the culture wars. What desperately needs discussion on the American right, however, is conservatism’s approach to economic policy. Since 2015, American conservatives have been deeply divided over economics. Conservative skepticism about markets predates Donald Trump, but there’s little question that Trump shattered the favorable views of free markets that had prevailed since Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

When the media gives coverage to Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, it’s generally unfavorable. Business Insider attempted to smear "El Presidente" over his sexual predilections, then he brought the receipts. The New York Times outed him as being who he says he is — a degenerate sports gambler — only to reap the same results. What gets much less coverage is Portnoy’s love for America, American workers and American businesses. During the pandemic, when he used his stature to keep multiple small businesses afloat via the Barstool Fund, there were no glossy covers, despite the fund raising almost $42 million and supporting 443 businesses. In the mainstream press, only Fox News took note.

When the Wall Street Journal reported on November 21 that OPEC, the oil cartel dominated by Saudi Arabia, was planning to increase production by 500,000 barrels per day in December, the crude market immediately reacted. Oil prices plunged by 6 percent, bringing the Brent benchmark close to $80 a barrel. Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the older brother of king-in-waiting Mohammed bin Salman, immediately went to work disputing the report. No decisions at OPEC had been made, he said, and it was possible the cartel could even proceed with further production cuts if needed to maintain balance in the market (for the Saudis, "balance" is usually defined as padding the kingdom’s balance sheet). Abdulaziz’s intervention helped make up most of those earlier losses.

The Great Resignation continues, with a new study revealing that employees in many industries are quitting at higher rates than 2021. Accommodation and food services lost 5.8 percent of its workforce — 773,600 workers — in 2022, an increase of about 128,000 over the same period in 2021. Retail lost 3.82 percent, or about 600,000 workers, though this is 109,000 fewer than the same period in 2021. In third is the entertainment sector at 3.58 percent, accounting for 82,200 jobs, rising 7,000 compared to 2021. These industries happen to be where employees are in closest contact with customers — which would probably cause Cockburn to quit too, given how rude folks can be. Manufacturing and mining, by contrast, saw 2.42 and 2.3 percent respectively.

A philosopher once famously said that Hell is other people. What the world has learned from Twitter is that Hell is other people’s opinions. It’s no wonder, then, that when Elon Musk came bounding into Twitter headquarters in late October — after changing his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit” — a popular response, on Twitter and off, was, “welcome to Hell.” When Musk, in an open letter to Twitter advertisers, wrote that he doesn’t want the site to become a “free-for-all hellscape,” he touched a debate concerning a much larger issue — balancing free speech against the need to keep hate, propaganda and manipulation out of public forums, particularly digital ones that can spread malicious content around the world instantly.

For anyone seeking direct proof that woke capitalism is nothing but a scam, look no further than Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and former CEO of the now bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, who says as much in a direct message exchange with Vox reporter Kelsey Piper. He calls “ethics” a “dumb game we woke Westerners play” — presumably to avoid any scrutiny from journalists, employees, investors and consumers. I’ve worked for and with these people for decades. They want to convince you and the employees in their company that they are in it out of the goodness of their philanthropic hearts. They are just trying to make the world a better place, you see.

Bankrupted crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried is the talk of the town thanks to the implosion of his heavily celebrity- and lawmaker-endorsed digital currency platform, FTX. SBF cleverly disguised his shaky financial schemes behind an awkward personality and philosophy labeled as “Effective Altruism,” meaning giving away massive amounts of wealth in the name of simply doing good. It’s a popular philosophical fad that has caught on among progressive global elites in the philanthropy arena and seems to be quite popular among media elites as well. Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos announced a plan to donate most of his wealth, on the same day that 10,000 jobs were to be eliminated at Amazon.

Things aren’t going well for Tom Brady. His team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has a losing record. He is getting divorced, and FTX, the crypto exchange he was touting a year ago — and in which he was invested — has gone bust. He isn’t the only sports star with egg on his face after the collapse of FTX. Stephen Curry, Shohei Ohtani and Naomi Osaka, to name just three, also got greedy and believed the vision of Sam Bankman-Fried. Overnight, Sam Bankman-Fried has gone from crypto wunderkind to infamous huckster. The celebrities, influencers and traditional media outlets that helped make him a star shouldn’t be allowed to absolve themselves as quickly.

“He’s done.” That was the general consensus when I asked around about Donald Trump’s future in politics this week. And in the search for signs that Trump is in trouble, Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers are a good place to start. In the days since the disappointing midterm results, the New York Post, has already labeled the former president “Trumpty Dumpty” and praised his Republican rival Ron DeSantis as “DeFuture.” Trump's 2024 bid was relegated to page 26 on Tuesday, teased on the cover as "Florida man makes announcement." Things aren’t much better for the former president over at the Wall Street Journal. It has been crammed with anti-Trump op-eds since last Tuesday. One headline summed things up neatly: “Trump is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser.