Conservatives like to brand themselves as the party of business and the free market. But this increasingly seems to be unrequited love. Business leaders are increasingly turning against their ideas on lack of regulation, law, and order in the name of “freedom”, their exclusionary racism and bigotry, their isolationism, their denial of science and resistance to public education and other public goods, etc.... Social media are shutting them out because they can’t behave themselves in the public arena. Corporations are punishing Georgia politicians for their recent attempt to reinstitute backwards and Neanderthal racist policies in that state.
Most recently, one of the leading CEOs of the country has warned of the destructive effects of conservative policies on this country:
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“Jamie Dimon is
very bullish on the US
economic recovery from the pandemic. And yet the JPMorgan Chase CEO is deeply concerned about the future of America.
In his
annual shareholder letter Wednesday, Dimon wrote that the Covid-19
pandemic, the "horrific murder" of
George Floyd and the painfully slow economic growth of the past two decades are all symptoms of a broader problem: "inept" public policy and broad government dysfunction.
"Unfortunately, the tragedies of this past year are only the tip of the iceberg — they merely expose enormous failures that have existed for decades and have been deeply damaging to America," Dimon wrote, adding that the nation was "totally unprepared" for the deadly pandemic.
“The fault line is inequality. And its cause is staring us in the face: our own failure to move beyond our differences and self-interest and act for the greater good”, he said.
Dimon's letter, which includes a roadmap for how to get America back on track, comes as business leaders face pressure to provide moral leadership on major issues in the face of dysfunctional government, ranging from
climate change and
voting rights to inequality.
Corporate America's willingness to engage on
Georgia's controversial voting law led Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to
warn of repercussions and former President Donald Trump to call for a
boycott of major American brands, including JPMorgan.
“The fault line is inequality. And its cause is staring us in the face: our own failure to move beyond our differences and self-interest and act for the greater good”, he said.
Dimon laid out a series of what he sees as root causes for America's issues, including short-term thinking, an overreliance on economic models, media hype and partisan politics.
"Our problems are complex and frustrating — but they are fixable with hard work," Dimon wrote.
He laid out 15 policies leaders should focus on, including improved wages for low-skilled work, training for jobs, making it easier for those with a criminal record to get a job, better fiscal and tax policy, reforming social safety net programs, reviewing regulatory red tape, modernizing infrastructure, intelligent industrial policy and proper immigration policies.
“While I have a deep and abiding faith in the United States of America and its extraordinary resiliency and capabilities, we do not have a divine right to success," he wrote. "Our challenges are significant, and we should not assume they will take care of themselves." “
Jamie Dimon is very bullish on the US economic recovery from the pandemic. And yet the JPMorgan Chase CEO is deeply concerned about the future of America.
www.cnn.com