Author Topic: Elizabeth "Forked Tongue" Warren, Fauxcahontas, Harvard's first woman of color  (Read 45921 times)

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19316
    • View Profile
Re: Forked Tongue refuses DNA test, Harvard's first professor of color?
« Reply #50 on: March 12, 2018, 08:46:21 AM »
https://nypost.com/2018/03/11/elizabeth-warren-refuses-dna-test-to-prove-native-american-heritage/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPFacebook&utm_medium=SocialFlow&sr_share=facebook
I wonder how many tests she did privately before giving up.

I was watching this on Fox News Sunday yesterday and was very surprised by both the direct question and the answer that was obviously planned and ready.  Asked to take a DNA test to put this behind her, one would think her answer would be yes, go idea, or no, it's none of your business.  Instead she went into a (pretend) heartbreaking story about mommy and daddy and how they eloped because her Dad's miserable racist family would not allow him to marry an impure woman who might possibly be one sixteenth native American.  Warren herself was there during the elope so this story is something that was told to her later in life, perhaps last week by her deceased mother or deceased father.  This is not the story I have heard before. I thought it was the high cheek bones of her Grandma or native recipe they found written in settler English.  Was this the story she told Harvard?  She is saying, so what if she's wrong, she identifies Native - even though obviously she obviously doesn't.  Even if there was truth in the 1/32nds, I think it's safe to say she identifies with her 31/32 imperialist white side.

She can't be caught in a lie if she maintains that she always believed it and it can't be proven false if she won't consent to a test. 

I've joked since the beginning of the college admissions process that my daughter should change her name to Running Bear in case top ACT scores don't open the right door.  The difference is, I was joking, not defrauding an employer.

What does it mean politically?  Nothing I'm sure.  You already either like her or you don't - for other reasons.

We didn't get to see Trump's tax returns, Obama's grades or a Bill Clinton fidelity test and this is even less relevant.  People will vote for whoever they will.  The danger here is that her opponents will be cast as making fun of Native when the issue is lying and using false status to land a high paying pretend job.

Note the dishonesty but keep the focus on defeating her policy views.  Link her views and Bernie's to the economics of Venezuela and failure, and don't appear to be mocking Pocahontas or any aspect Indian culture, Disney version or not.  MHO.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile
IMHO painting her as an amoral cheater cynically exploiting the lunacies of affirmative action is part of a well-rounded attack.

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
IMHO painting her as an amoral cheater cynically exploiting the lunacies of affirmative action is part of a well-rounded attack.

Mockery is a potent weapon to use against the left.

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19316
    • View Profile
Mockery is a potent weapon to use against the left.

True, and foot in mouth has been an epidemic of the right.

I'm just warning, be careful.  They are already twisting the mockery into something against being Native.   

We need to clearly: "paint her as an amoral cheater cynically exploiting the lunacies of affirmative action".

More importantly, her policies will lead this country into ruin.


Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile
Agreed!

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Mockery is a potent weapon to use against the left.

True, and foot in mouth has been an epidemic of the right.

I'm just warning, be careful.  They are already twisting the mockery into something against being Native.   

We need to clearly: "paint her as an amoral cheater cynically exploiting the lunacies of affirmative action".

More importantly, her policies will lead this country into ruin.



As a member of a federally recognized tribe who has spent a lot of time in and around reservations, white people who claim Indian heritage without anything to back it up are held in utter contempt.

There might be a few lefty professional race baiters that will provide cover for Lieawatha, but the communities in general aren’t bothered by Trump hammering her on that point.

Ask “Low Energy” Jeb (please clap) and Crooked Hillary about how devastating these lines can be.


DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19316
    • View Profile
Repeating the gaffe pattern of NYT Thomas Friedman, the Forked Tongue Leftist heroine should be more careful with her praise.
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/elizabeth-warren-praises-red-china-whole-of-government-strategy-against-nkorea/
Elizabeth Warren praises communist China ‘long-term whole-of-government’ strategy

As just one example of why be more cautious with unchecked dictatorial praise, Communist China now detains 10% of their Muslim population in concentration camps.

Imagine her ire if US President Donald Trump did that!

“Look at what China is doing,” Warren continued. “China’s got the long term arc and it’s playing everybody. It’s playing North Korea, it’s playing South Korea, it’s playing the United States of America because it has a long-term whole-of-government strategy that keeps driving towards an end.”

Maybe one could add an adjective or two or three to what could easily be perceived as praise, such as, 'the despicably brutal totalitarian regime oppressing the people of China has some advantages in negotiating with a free country governed by separate branches with limited powers.'

I wonder if freedom, term limits and consent of the governed have advantages too...

https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/remembering-tiananmen-the-uighur-crackdown/5E12D9A4-1CAB-4612-9625-B2B6B05FC11B.html?mod=article_inline&mod=article_inline
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/02/asia/china-xinjiang-detention-camps-intl/index.html

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19316
    • View Profile
Deb Haaland on path to become first Native American woman in Congress
« Reply #58 on: June 11, 2018, 07:40:42 AM »
After her primary victory in New Mexico on Tuesday, Deb Haaland is on a path to become the first Native American woman ever to serve in Congress — a step more than 200 years in the making.   - Time Magazine  June 7, 2018
http://time.com/5304507/deb-haaland-first-native-american-congresswoman/

Elizabeth Warren, are you excited that Deb Haaland is on a path to become the first Native American woman ever to serve in Congress?

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Re: Deb Haaland on path to become first Native American woman in Congress
« Reply #59 on: June 11, 2018, 08:35:47 AM »
After her primary victory in New Mexico on Tuesday, Deb Haaland is on a path to become the first Native American woman ever to serve in Congress — a step more than 200 years in the making.   - Time Magazine  June 7, 2018
http://time.com/5304507/deb-haaland-first-native-american-congresswoman/

Elizabeth Warren, are you excited that Deb Haaland is on a path to become the first Native American woman ever to serve in Congress?

Anyone expect a professional journalist to actually ask her that?



Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile
Understood and agreed!

That said, as a political strategy, this one strikes me as having some efficacy.  Even FOX was going after Sec. Commerce Wilbur Goss hard for Swampism-- it is a charge readily believed by non-Trumpians about Trumpians.

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19316
    • View Profile
Elizabeth Warren Declares War On Billionaires, No New Rich People!
« Reply #63 on: June 18, 2018, 03:02:11 PM »
Policies like Warren's actually act to protect the market positions of the already-haves.  What those policies mostly do is stop the development of new businesses and new billionaires.

Senator, When you are ready to go full Chavez and just jail them and take their assets away, let us know.

The key lesson here is the us Vs. them approach.  The American people as she sees them against the rich who are by inference not the American people.  Giant corporation is undefined.  RIch is undefined.  Even billionaire is undefined.  Is she proposing to only raise taxes on people whose income or net worth is over a billion?  Not on your life.
------------------------------------
Warren:  "Until we have all the Democrats who are willing to take on the billionaire class, until we have all the Democrats who are willing to fight for the American people and not for a handful of billionaires and giant corporations, then it's going to stay an uphill fight."


IBD:  ...there are only 585 of them (billionaires) in the U.S. today, according to Forbes. And plenty of them are big-time Democrats. 
Does she intend, for example, to take on Warren Buffett, who, with a net worth of $84 billion, is the third richest man in the world? He's a longtime Democrat who's pushed for tax hikes on the rich, backed Hillary Clinton, and who gave 99% of his money to Democrats and liberal groups in the past four election cycles.

Maybe she means Michael Bloomberg, 11th richest man in the world (net worth $50 billion). He's a huge gun control supporter.

What about George Soros, who's worth $8 billion? He's an uber liberal who finances a multitude of left-wing groups like Center for American Progress and Moveon.org. He recently invested $3 million in The New York Times.

In 2016, Soros gave at least $7 million to Hillary Clinton's Priorities USA super-PAC. He's donated more than $61 million to Democrats and liberals since 1989, according to OpenSecrets.org.

Does Warren want to "take on" environmental activist Tom Steyer — net worth $1.6 billion. He donated more than $91 million to Democrats in 2016 alone, and funded a $20 million ad campaign calling for President Trump's impeachment.

Or perhaps she means Netflix CEO Reed Hastings (net worth $2.7 billion). Except that Hastings is another prominent Democrat who eagerly supported Clinton and just signed a deal with Barack Obama to produce programs for Netflix.

Other billionaires Warren says Democrats should have the "guts" take on would include liberals like Google's Larry Page ($48.8 billion), Laurene Powell Jobs ($18.8 billion), Oprah Winfrey ($2.7 billion), Starbucks' Howard Schultz ($2.7 billion), Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg ($1.6 billion).

Of the 36 billionaires who made campaign contributions over the past four election cycles, 40% of their money — totaling $148 million — went to Democrats...
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/elizabeth-warren-democrats-liberal-billionaires/

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19587
    • View Profile
FWIW , I am not sure how good this source is but 60 % of billionaires are libs .  it seems like a lot more from headlines we hear:

https://www.quora.com/Are-the-wealthiest-Americans-Republicans-or-Democrats


DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19316
    • View Profile
https://www.dailywire.com/news/32718/elizabeth-warren-responds-trumps-dna-test-james-barrett?utm_medium=email&utm_content=070818-news&utm_campaign=position2

According to Charlie Cook she is the Democratic front-runner and she seems to be losing tfhese exchanges to Trump even before we get to her wrong positions on the issues.

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
https://www.dailywire.com/news/32718/elizabeth-warren-responds-trumps-dna-test-james-barrett?utm_medium=email&utm_content=070818-news&utm_campaign=position2

According to Charlie Cook she is the Democratic front-runner and she seems to be losing tfhese exchanges to Trump even before we get to her wrong positions on the issues.

Funny how well fighting back works.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile
Forked Tongue Warren proposes changing corporate standards
« Reply #68 on: August 15, 2018, 06:04:01 AM »
Companies Shouldn’t Be Accountable Only to Shareholders
My new bill would require corporations to answer to employees and other stakeholders as well.
Companies Shouldn’t Be Accountable Only to Shareholders
Photo: Richard Drew/Associated Press
299 Comments
By Elizabeth Warren
Aug. 14, 2018 7:01 p.m. ET

Corporate profits are booming, but average wages haven’t budged over the past year. The U.S. economy has run this way for decades, partly because of a fundamental change in business practices dating back to the 1980s. On Wednesday I’m introducing legislation to fix it.

American corporations exist only because the American people grant them charters. Those charters confer valuable privileges—such as limited legal liability for their owners—that enable businesses to turn a profit. What do Americans get in return? What are the obligations of corporate citizenship in the U.S.?

For much of U.S. history, the answers were clear. Corporations sought to succeed in the marketplace, but they also recognized their obligations to employees, customers and the community. As recently as 1981, the Business Roundtable—which represents large U.S. companies—stated that corporations “have a responsibility, first of all, to make available to the public quality goods and services at fair prices, thereby earning a profit that attracts investment to continue and enhance the enterprise, provide jobs, and build the economy.” This approach worked. American companies and workers thrived.

Late in the 20th century, the dynamic changed. Building on work by conservative economist Milton Friedman, a new theory emerged that corporate directors had only one obligation: to maximize shareholder returns. By 1997 the Business Roundtable declared that the “principal objective of a business enterprise is to generate economic returns to its owners.”

That shift has had a tremendous effect on the economy. In the early 1980s, large American companies sent less than half their earnings to shareholders, spending the rest on their employees and other priorities. But between 2007 and 2016, large American companies dedicated 93% of their earnings to shareholders. Because the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households own 84% of American-held shares, the obsession with maximizing shareholder returns effectively means America’s biggest companies have dedicated themselves to making the rich even richer.

In the four decades after World War II, shareholders on net contributed more than $250 billion to U.S. companies. But since 1985 they have extracted almost $7 trillion. That’s trillions of dollars in profits that might otherwise have been reinvested in the workers who helped produce them.

Before “shareholder value maximization” ideology took hold, wages and productivity grew at roughly the same rate. But since the early 1980s, real wages have stagnated even as productivity has continued to rise. Workers aren’t getting what they’ve earned.

Companies also are setting themselves up to fail. Retained earnings were once the foundation for long-term investments. But from 1990 to 2015, nonfinancial U.S. companies invested trillions less than projected, funneling earnings to shareholders instead. This underinvestment handcuffs U.S. enterprise and bestows an advantage on foreign competitors.

The problem may get worse, because executives have a strong financial incentive to prioritize shareholder returns. Before 1980, top CEOs were rarely compensated in equity. Today it accounts for 62% of their pay. Many executives receive additional company shares as a reward for producing short-term share-price increases. This feedback loop has sent CEO pay skyrocketing. The average CEO of a big company now makes 361 times what the average worker makes, up from 42 times in 1980.

Corporate charters, which define the structure and obligations of U.S. companies, are an obvious tool for addressing these skewed incentives. But companies are chartered at the state level. Most states don’t want to demand more of companies, lest they incorporate elsewhere.

That’s where my bill comes in. The Accountable Capitalism Act restores the idea that giant American corporations should look out for American interests. Corporations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue would be required to get a federal corporate charter. The new charter requires corporate directors to consider the interests of all major corporate stakeholders—not only shareholders—in company decisions. Shareholders could sue if they believed directors weren’t fulfilling those obligations.

This approach follows the “benefit corporation” model, which gives businesses fiduciary responsibilities beyond their shareholders. Thirty-four states already authorize benefit corporations. And successful companies such as Patagonia and Kickstarter have embraced this role.

My bill also would give workers a stronger voice in corporate decision-making at large companies. Employees would elect at least 40% of directors. At least 75% of directors and shareholders would need to approve before a corporation could make any political expenditures. To address self-serving financial incentives in corporate management, directors and officers would not be allowed to sell company shares within five years of receiving them—or within three years of a company stock buyback.

For the past 30 years we have put the American stamp of approval on giant corporations, even as they have ignored the interests of all but a tiny slice of Americans. We should insist on a new deal.

Ms. Warren, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Warren-Sanders have a logo for their 2020 run
« Reply #69 on: August 24, 2018, 12:47:52 AM »


ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19587
    • View Profile
No 1 to 3 % does not justify claim of part Native American
« Reply #71 on: October 15, 2018, 08:37:53 AM »
For comparisons sake , what constituted being a Jew in Nazi Germany?

****Who did the Nazis define as Jews?
   
Immediately following the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, the Nazis issued the official definition of a Jew. According to German law, anyone with three Jewish grandparents was a Jew. In addition, anyone married to a Jewish person or who had one Jewish parent was also considered a Jew in the eyes of the law.

Those not classified as Jews under German law, but had some "Jewish blood," were categorized as Mischlinge, or hybrids. Those with two Jewish grandparents were to be known as Mischlinge of the first degree, while those with one Jewish grandparent were of the second degree. In short, Judaism for the Nazis was something racial, something someone was born into and about which they could do nothing.****

I remember meeting some who could trace her line back to the 1620 Mayflower.  Then I looked it up and it turns out so can millions of other.


Genghis Khan descendants estimated at ~ maybe 1 in 200:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/08/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan/#.W8Sz6Fw-dmA
« Last Edit: October 15, 2018, 09:12:39 AM by ccp »



G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile


Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile
WSJ: Harvard, Penn, & Warren
« Reply #76 on: October 17, 2018, 01:03:40 PM »


Ivy League universities spend a lot of time talking about how much they promote diversity. But numerous Ivy law faculty now insist they didn’t lift a finger to give an edge to a woman claiming to be Native American and in fact didn’t even know she was calling herself a minority. Why not? The academic history of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) doesn’t seem to square with the policies of the universities that employed her.

On Monday Sen. Warren, who used to call herself Cherokee, presented an analysis of her DNA suggesting that she had a Native American ancestor “in the range of 6-10 generations ago.” Later that day, the Cherokee Nation in Ms. Warren’s home state of Oklahoma rejected this latest effort to justify her claim of Native American status.

One might have expected the senator to simply acknowledge the tribal statement and apologize. But a campaign website is still featuring a story about her “Native American Heritage.” And she’s not the only one who still has a few questions to answer. Her former employers in the Ivy League have offered explanations about her years as a law professor that are hard to reconcile with their schools' stated efforts to recruit, promote and encourage minority faculty.

Here’s the Monday statement from the Cherokee Nation.:

    “A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship. Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America,” Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said. “Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation. Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong. It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven. Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage.”

It is hard to see how the senator will be able to stick with her claim of Native American heritage when the relevant tribe has rejected it. Leaders of other federally-recognized Cherokee tribes have been more kind to Ms. Warren in their responses and specifically the chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee has lauded Ms. Warren’s policy work, but none is embracing her DNA claim. According to the Associated Press:

    The DNA test that Sen. Elizabeth Warren used to try to rebut the ridicule of President Donald Trump angered some Native Americans, who complained that the genetic analysis cheapens the identities of tribal members with deeper ties to the Indian past... she’s not a member of any tribe, and many Indians take exception to anyone who claims to be part Indian without being enrolled in a tribe, especially for political purposes.

Still, the senator’s not ready to give up yet, nor is she relenting on her claim that she never gained any advantage from presenting herself as a minority law professor.

“Ethnicity not a factor in Elizabeth Warren’s rise in law” reads a recent headline in the Boston Globe. The Globe’s Annie Linskey reported:

    The Globe closely reviewed the records, verified them where possible, and conducted more than 100 interviews with her colleagues and every person who had a role in hiring decisions about Warren who could be reached. In sum, it is clear that Warren was viewed as a white woman by the hiring committees at every institution that employed her.

This same message is carried by various former colleagues who are offering testimonials in the senator’s campaign materials. One Warren video features a number of Harvard Law colleagues who were involved in hiring Ms. Warren and in granting her tenure saying that her claim of Native American status had nothing to do with their consideration of her and that they didn’t even know she was identifying as a member of a minority group.

Before teaching at Harvard, Ms. Warren taught at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2012 the Boston Globe reported:

    Robert H. Mundheim, the dean who hired Warren at Penn, laughed when asked whether he thought of her as a minority.

    “Somebody who’s got a small percentage of Native American blood — is that a minority?’’ he said. “I don’t think I ever knew that she had those attributes and that would not have made much of a difference.’’

Professor Mundheim thought the question was laughable in 2012, and this week’s DNA claim certainly seems to have added to the humor. But when did her colleagues start getting the joke?

In the 1980s and 1990s when she was working at Penn and then Harvard, she was claiming in a legal directory to be a minority and was identified as such in federal forms filed by these universities, according to the Globe. And as far as this column can tell no one at that time was publicly rebutting her claim. So why was her status not being considered?

The 2012 Globe report stated:

    At the time, elite East Coast law schools were facing protests from minority students and activists who wanted them to diversify their faculty. But they were not on the lookout for Native American scholars, said Colin S. Diver, who succeeded Mundheim as dean at Penn Law during Warren’s time there.

    “In Philadelphia and Cambridge, what mattered was African-American and Latino,’’ Diver said. “That’s where the pressure was coming . . . and that’s what you meant when you said ‘students of color.’’’

But this doesn’t seem to square with a February, 1991 report in the Globe about a lawsuit filed against Harvard Law School:

    The Harvard students, who filed the suit Nov. 20 in Middlesex Superior Court, claim that Harvard has failed to hire sufficient numbers of black, Hispanic, Native-American and women professors, denying students a full range of perspectives in the classroom.

A separate Globe report on the case noted that the law school did not have any Native American professors.

A November 1991 report in the New York Times on admissions at elite universities also suggests that at least when it came to students, schools were not simply looking for blacks and Latinos to enhance diversity:

    Even as the legality of scholarships expressly for minority students is under review in Washington, some of the nation’s largest and most prestigious universities continue to give preferential treatment to students from certain minority groups when making decisions about financial aid...

    “The marketplace is most competitive, particularly for African-American and native American students,” said Susan Murphy, Cornell University’s dean of admissions and financial aid. “Recognizing the difficulty in the marketplace, this is one way of trying to increase campus diversity.”

Randall Kennedy is one of the Harvard Law professors who appears in the Warren video saying that he has no memory of her ever claiming Native American status when her appointment was considered and says it was not a factor in Harvard’s evaluation of her.

In his book, “For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law,” Mr. Kennedy wrote about his own experience joining the Harvard faculty in the 1980s after being contacted by the dean of its law school. At the time Mr. Kennedy was in his final year as a student at Yale’s law school. An excerpt of the book appeared in Salon in 2013:

    This recruitment was highly unusual. Rarely does Harvard seek to persuade someone to apply for a faculty position. Dean Vorenberg and his colleagues did so in my case because influential professors at Yale had touted me, because I had written essays that appeared in a number of national publications, and because of the prestige in academic circles of the judges for whom I was clerking. They also took extra steps to recruit me because they wanted to add some color to a faculty that, in the mid-1980s, included only one African American and no Latinos, Native Americans, or Asian Americans. During the two years before my arrival, in 1984, the campus had been beset by highly publicized protests in which a substantial number of students and a small number of faculty members accused the law school administration of discriminating against minority academics of color or failing to reach out sufficiently to recruit them.

Then in 1990 the student lawsuit was filed against Harvard Law. Ms. Warren became a visiting professor at Harvard in 1992 and a few years later accepted a permanent appointment. To sum up, shortly after getting sued in part for not having a single Native American member of the faculty at the law school, the Harvardians say they never even knew Ms. Warren was calling herself a Native American and she maintains she never received any benefits from this status. Some commitment to diversity!

Could it be that the Cambridge crowd finds the idea of her being a minority just as funny as Professor Mundheim did?

***



DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19316
    • View Profile
Put a fork in Elizabeth "Forked Tongue" Warren, Harvard's first woman of color
« Reply #79 on: November 09, 2018, 09:05:27 PM »
Kim Strassel rips Elizabeth Warren in the WSJ.  Everyone she campaigned for lost.  The party and the voters rejected her ideas.  She won her own election but the Republican Governor got more votes.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biggest-loser-elizabeth-warren-1541721305


Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile
Warren: Companies should not be accountable only to shareholders
« Reply #81 on: December 31, 2018, 03:51:57 PM »
second post-- note date

Companies Shouldn’t Be Accountable Only to Shareholders
My new bill would require corporations to answer to employees and other stakeholders as well.
929 Comments
By Elizabeth Warren
Aug. 14, 2018 7:01 p.m. ET
Companies Shouldn’t Be Accountable Only to Shareholders
Photo: Richard Drew/Associated Press

Corporate profits are booming, but average wages haven’t budged over the past year. The U.S. economy has run this way for decades, partly because of a fundamental change in business practices dating back to the 1980s. On Wednesday I’m introducing legislation to fix it.

American corporations exist only because the American people grant them charters. Those charters confer valuable privileges—such as limited legal liability for their owners—that enable businesses to turn a profit. What do Americans get in return? What are the obligations of corporate citizenship in the U.S.?

For much of U.S. history, the answers were clear. Corporations sought to succeed in the marketplace, but they also recognized their obligations to employees, customers and the community. As recently as 1981, the Business Roundtable—which represents large U.S. companies—stated that corporations “have a responsibility, first of all, to make available to the public quality goods and services at fair prices, thereby earning a profit that attracts investment to continue and enhance the enterprise, provide jobs, and build the economy.” This approach worked. American companies and workers thrived.

Late in the 20th century, the dynamic changed. Building on work by conservative economist Milton Friedman, a new theory emerged that corporate directors had only one obligation: to maximize shareholder returns. By 1997 the Business Roundtable declared that the “principal objective of a business enterprise is to generate economic returns to its owners.”

That shift has had a tremendous effect on the economy. In the early 1980s, large American companies sent less than half their earnings to shareholders, spending the rest on their employees and other priorities. But between 2007 and 2016, large American companies dedicated 93% of their earnings to shareholders. Because the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households own 84% of American-held shares, the obsession with maximizing shareholder returns effectively means America’s biggest companies have dedicated themselves to making the rich even richer.

In the four decades after World War II, shareholders on net contributed more than $250 billion to U.S. companies. But since 1985 they have extracted almost $7 trillion. That’s trillions of dollars in profits that might otherwise have been reinvested in the workers who helped produce them.

Before “shareholder value maximization” ideology took hold, wages and productivity grew at roughly the same rate. But since the early 1980s, real wages have stagnated even as productivity has continued to rise. Workers aren’t getting what they’ve earned.

Companies also are setting themselves up to fail. Retained earnings were once the foundation for long-term investments. But from 1990 to 2015, nonfinancial U.S. companies invested trillions less than projected, funneling earnings to shareholders instead. This underinvestment handcuffs U.S. enterprise and bestows an advantage on foreign competitors.

The problem may get worse, because executives have a strong financial incentive to prioritize shareholder returns. Before 1980, top CEOs were rarely compensated in equity. Today it accounts for 62% of their pay. Many executives receive additional company shares as a reward for producing short-term share-price increases. This feedback loop has sent CEO pay skyrocketing. The average CEO of a big company now makes 361 times what the average worker makes, up from 42 times in 1980.

Corporate charters, which define the structure and obligations of U.S. companies, are an obvious tool for addressing these skewed incentives. But companies are chartered at the state level. Most states don’t want to demand more of companies, lest they incorporate elsewhere.

That’s where my bill comes in. The Accountable Capitalism Act restores the idea that giant American corporations should look out for American interests. Corporations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue would be required to get a federal corporate charter. The new charter requires corporate directors to consider the interests of all major corporate stakeholders—not only shareholders—in company decisions. Shareholders could sue if they believed directors weren’t fulfilling those obligations.

This approach follows the “benefit corporation” model, which gives businesses fiduciary responsibilities beyond their shareholders. Thirty-four states already authorize benefit corporations. And successful companies such as Patagonia and Kickstarter have embraced this role.

My bill also would give workers a stronger voice in corporate decision-making at large companies. Employees would elect at least 40% of directors. At least 75% of directors and shareholders would need to approve before a corporation could make any political expenditures. To address self-serving financial incentives in corporate management, directors and officers would not be allowed to sell company shares within five years of receiving them—or within three years of a company stock buyback.

For the past 30 years we have put the American stamp of approval on giant corporations, even as they have ignored the interests of all but a tiny slice of Americans. We should insist on a new deal.

Ms. Warren, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

Appeared in the August 15, 2018, print edition.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile
WSJ on Warren's candidacy
« Reply #82 on: December 31, 2018, 03:55:58 PM »
Third post

Elizabeth Warren Dives In
She’ll counter Trump’s populism with a left-wing economic version.
0 Comments
By The Editorial Board
Dec. 31, 2018 6:20 p.m. ET
Senator Elizabeth Warren announces she has formed an exploratory committee to run for president in 2020, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dec. 31.
Senator Elizabeth Warren announces she has formed an exploratory committee to run for president in 2020, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dec. 31. Photo: brian snyder/Reuters

The Democratic presidential nominee in 2020 will have an excellent chance of winning, so voters would be wise to pay attention even more than usual to the many candidates and their policies. Wasting no time is Elizabeth Warren, who dropped a video to unveil her exploratory committee on the last day of 2018. As the announcement shows, she intends to run as a troubadour for the populist left.

After 30 seconds of home-movie footage, the video takes a grim turn worthy of the Trump inaugural address. She has studied why some Americans “slip through the cracks into disaster,” says the Massachusetts Senator, “and what I’ve found is terrifying. These aren’t cracks that families are falling into—they’re traps. America’s middle class is under attack.” She calls it all a “scam” and adds that “corruption is poisoning our democracy.”
Journal Editorial Report: Hits and Misses of the Year
Journal Editorial Report: Hits and Misses of the Year
The worst and best from Kim Strassel, Mary O'Grady, Kate Bachelder and Dan Henninger

Ms. Warren plans to counter President Trump’s populism of the right with a left-wing economic version. “How did we get here?” she asks. “Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie, and they enlisted politicians to cut them a fatter slice.”

Like all Democrats these days, she favors higher taxes. Like many others, she supports Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for all” bill and she’d “abolish” and replace Immigration and Customs Enforcement with “something that reflects our morality,” which she doesn’t specify.

The Warren difference is that she also wants fundamental changes to America’s free-market system. Ms. Warren has proposed the Accountable Capitalism Act, which would require corporations with $1 billion in revenue to get a new charter from the federal government. Most corporations are state-chartered now.

Companies would have to fill 40% of board seats with employee representatives, among other stipulations. Ms. Warren wants to make businesses accountable not to shareholders, who are the owners, but to “stakeholders” who may have a different agenda than business success.

On trade, Ms. Warren’s rhetoric is Trumpian
—though she may be more protectionist. Globalization has “been tremendously profitable for the largest American corporations,” she writes in Foreign Affairs, but it has “not delivered for the middle class.”

Her suggestion? “Trade negotiations should be used to curtail the power of multinational monopolies,” she says. “We should leverage foreign countries’ desire for access to U.S. markets as an opportunity to insist on meaningful environmental protections.” This sounds like higher tariffs for countries that ignore U.S. dictates on climate policy.

On foreign affairs, Ms. Warren echoes Mr. Trump’s desire to exit “endless wars.” But unlike Mr. Trump, she says, “the Pentagon’s budget has been too large for too long.” It should be reset to “sustainable levels” with the savings put toward “other forms of international engagement and critical domestic programs.” Never mind that defense spending is down even with Mr. Trump’s increases to not much above 3% of GDP—the lowest in decades other than the brief holiday from history between 1998 and 9/11.

All of this amounts to a platform even further left than Barack Obama’s, but don’t think it can’t win. Democrats have moved markedly left in recent years, and Ms. Warren’s name ID and reputation make her potentially formidable.

One weakness is that she isn’t the most natural, or likable, politician. Exhibit A is her identity-politics faux pas, standing by her claim of Native American ancestry and then asserting vindication when a DNA test showed a smidgen—six to 10 generations back. Mr. Trump used it to raise questions about her political authenticity, and this could work against her in a party fixated on identity politics.

Let’s hope primary voters do their due diligence well. Putting the competing Democratic agendas to close scrutiny will matter—this year perhaps more than ever.


Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile
Elizabeth "Forked Tongue" Warren's announcement
« Reply #84 on: December 31, 2018, 10:11:55 PM »
Fifth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=rbH0RU4GcVo

===================================================

She's a school marm shrew and , , , well we all know.

That said, there are some interesting themes here-- ones that may be picked up by others.

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19316
    • View Profile
If Democrats pick Warren they will force debate on some basic economic points.  For example, is one person poor because someone else is rich?  Is the middle class stuck in place because a few [Democrats] have become incredibly rich?

She has a proven electoral history; she ran against a Republican in Massachusetts and BEAT HIM.

It's a divided country; she promises to divide us further.  Or as she might put it, unite us against them.  Within the argument that the civil war is already on, she is the perfect candidate.  That may be perfect for the Dem primaries.  But in game theory, everything she says gets answered - on twitter.  Her economic arguments have never been challenged, just spewed in the Leftist bubble.  Even Trump could shoot that down.

Does Warren in, mean Bernie is out?  Will the younger candidates attack her or ignore her?

She is a "fighter".  What fight has she won?  Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, immigration reform, tax reform, Medicare for all, foreign policy, trade, Wall Street, even consumer protection, what fight has she won?  Why don't we just admit it, she is an angry talker, not a fighter.

Once again they want the first female President to have no female qualities whatsoever.  I don't see the gender card helping her with women or men.  If you are a pure Leftist, she is your candidate, nor more, no less than Bernie.  Qualities men want in a woman:  https://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-lodolce/9-personality-traits-men-_b_11164558.html  Empathy, intelligence, sense of humor, kindness, great character.  Mean and ugly fighter doesn't make the list for either gender. 

Either you buy her economic argument or you don't.  Capitalism is destroying us or it isn't.
 We want to go the way of Venezuela or we don't. There is no blank canvas like 2008 Barack Obama offered to paint your own picture on the vagueness and platitudes he espoused.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2019, 08:42:11 AM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile
I underline that some of her themes there have political potency.

Predicition:  Others will be picking them up.

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19316
    • View Profile
I underline that some of her themes there have political potency.

Predicition:  Others will be picking them up.

Agree.  She lives and breathes the themes of American Leftism.  Does that attract new people in or just harden the base?  Does it win the 'rust belt'?  What then do they do in the debates if they all share or copy the same themes?  They have a mirror image problem of what Republicans faced in 2016.  Is the contest to see who is furthest Left?  Who is angriest?  Do they fight out their differences on the margin?  Do all these far Leftists split the base, never drop out, and someone with a slightly different take walks right through?

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile
Where she is most clever here I think is with the "fixing excesses of capitalism" meme.  Some of these will play well against Trump.

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19316
    • View Profile
Where she is most clever here I think is with the "fixing excesses of capitalism" meme.  Some of these will play well against Trump.


True.  "she is most clever here I think is with the "fixing excesses of capitalism" meme."

    - She will fix it by ending it.  

"Some of these will play well against Trump."

    - Yes, if not effectively challenged and refuted.

She is sort of an English-Irish-Cherokee version of Hugo Chavez - without the charisma.  He too was populist, railed against the excesses of capitalism - until those 'excesses' like food, water, oil and medicine were all gone.

The opponents of Sanders-Warren-Chavez-onomics need to stop allowing them to scoff off the similarities of their proposals to those of the failed states.  What you are proposing has failed everywhere it has been tried.  Socialism requires coercion which they quite openly support.  A good number of Americans want more economic equality without losing freedom but that is not what they are proposing.  

We need to pursue prosperity for all, not equality for all.

As some have put it, she is better at scolding than inspiring.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2019, 07:04:48 AM by DougMacG »

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Where she is most clever here I think is with the "fixing excesses of capitalism" meme.  Some of these will play well against Trump.


True.  "she is most clever here I think is with the "fixing excesses of capitalism" meme."

    - She will fix it by ending it.  

"Some of these will play well against Trump."

    - Yes, if not effectively challenged and refuted.

She is sort of an English-Irish-Cherokee version of Hugo Chavez - without the charisma.  He too was populist, railed against the excesses of capitalism - until those 'excesses' like food, water, oil and medicine were all gone.

The opponents of Sanders-Warren-Chavez-onomics need to stop allowing them to scoff off the similarities of their proposals to those of the failed states.  What you are proposing has failed everywhere it has been tried.  Socialism requires coercion which they quite openly support.  A good number of Americans want more economic equality without losing freedom but that is not what they are proposing.  

We need to pursue prosperity for all, not equality for all.

As some have put it, she is better at scolding than inspiring.

Hillary without the charisma.

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19316
    • View Profile
"Hillary without the charisma."

Yes.  Also Bernie without the sex appeal.



Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19316
    • View Profile
Detroit News [Opinion]:
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/nolan-finley/2019/02/12/finley-warrens-lie-should-end-her-campaign/2800550002/

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam put black shoe polish on his face when he was a medical student 35 years ago to pretend to be Michael Jackson in a dance competition. That revelation has brought a torrent of calls for his resignation.

Elizabeth Warren has pretended to be an American Indian for decades to boost her professional and political prospects — the equivalent of smearing her face with red shoe polish — and yet she intends to go ahead with her presidential bid.

What the Democratic Massachusetts senator did is every bit as offensive as what Northam did, perhaps more so. Northam’s bit of poor judgment appears to be an isolated incident deep in his past, committed before he entered public service.

Warren continued her egregious behavior until just days ago, when she finally admitted she was no Indian and apologized.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile
Ummm , , , forgive me but isn't there a touch of the glib in that?  His nickname was "Coonman" and whichever of the two he was on his med school yearbook page bespeaks more old school Southern confederate that young "wigger".

No argument on Squaw Warren however  :lol:

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19316
    • View Profile
Prediction:  Warren will be the first to drop out - even though she is one of the few with her own thread.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/02/poll-elizabeth-warren-lags-in-new-hampshire.php

She isn't popular in neighboring New Hampshire and she has no other place to go where she would have more appeal.  Besides no white and no black appeal, she couldn't win the Cherokee primary.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile
Squaw Forked Tongue in 2003
« Reply #97 on: February 21, 2019, 11:09:03 AM »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile
Forked Tongue" Warren: Lock 'em up , , , for negligence
« Reply #98 on: April 22, 2019, 11:00:53 AM »
Jailing CEOs to Please the Masses
Warren’s proposal would overturn hundreds of years of U.S. legal tradition.
By John F. Wood
April 21, 2019 3:05 p.m. ET
Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks in Reno, Nev., April 6. Photo: Tracy Barbutes/Zuma Press

Elizabeth Warren was one of my best law-school professors, but her political ambitions seem to have suppressed her once-reasonable instincts, particularly regarding corporate regulation. One of her recent proposals, the Corporate Executive Accountability Act, would upend hundreds of years of U.S. legal tradition and wreak havoc in boardrooms.

The proposal would make it a federal crime, punishable by up to a year in prison for a first-time violation, for corporate executives to “negligently permit or fail to prevent” violations of the law at their companies.

As a former U.S. attorney, I am all for prosecuting executives who knowingly engage in misconduct. But negligence is an extremely low standard ,normally reserved for civil enforcement and tort law. It means that a violation should have been avoided through greater care but was accidental. By definition, negligent executives are unaware of any wrongdoing.

For centuries, with very few exceptions, U.S. law has reserved criminal penalties for people who knowingly engage in misconduct. Otherwise, a person does not deserve to lose his liberty and be branded a criminal. Even if the sentence is short, criminal convictions carry significant moral and social stigma. That reputational damage is often impossible to repair.

Ms. Warren says we must lower the criminal standard from intent to negligence because it is hard to prove that top executives were “personally aware of all their company’s actions.”

She is correct—it is difficult to prove knowledge and intent. But that high burden of proof is a good thing. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “If justice requires the fact to be ascertained, the difficulty of doing so is no ground for refusing to try.”

Her proposal is also baffling in its limitations. If Ms. Warren truly believes oversight failures warrant jail time, shouldn’t she also call for the arrest and conviction of members of Congress who negligently fail to prevent their staffers from breaking campaign-finance laws?

Though she leaves lawmakers untouched, Ms. Warren’s proposed criminal sanctions for executives are extremely broad. They would apply to negligence at all companies with more than $1 billion in revenue if the company violates any federal or state criminal law. Roughly 2,000 U.S. companies, employing nearly one-third of all workers, meet these criteria.

The proposal would even criminalize negligence by executives at such companies that violate any civil law “if that violation affects the health, safety, finances, or personal data of 1% of the American population or 1% of the population of any state.” Ms. Warren points out that corporate executives who negligently cause the adulteration or misbranding of drugs may face criminal penalties under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. But that’s much narrower than making it a crime to fail unknowingly to prevent any violation of state or federal, criminal or civil law.

At the same time, Ms. Warren’s bill would make it harder for prosecutors to get the victims of corporate misconduct their due. The government often brings cases against companies when lower-level employees have acted inappropriately. In many instances, that is a good thing. A corporate fine encourages companies to be more vigilant in adopting and implementing compliance programs. Fines and settlements may also provide compensation to consumers and others who have been harmed.

But under Ms. Warren’s bill, executives can be jailed for civil violations for which companies are found liable or settle. This sets up very different incentives. It’s one thing for your company to pay a fine, another for your life to be ruined. CEOs may simply refuse to settle, and victims will either lose out on the money they are due or have to spend exorbitantly to get it.

If Ms. Warren’s idea becomes law, executives will have to pour more time and money into protecting themselves and less creating jobs and boosting shareholder value. That’s no way to run a company—or govern a country.

Mr. Wood is senior vice president, chief legal officer, and general counsel of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He previously served as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71948
    • View Profile