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Show Volume XXVIII Issue XI The Ogden Valley News Page 3 April 15, 2021 Who’s Running America? Part I A Dollar A Head, Plus orcalvesMinus a Few Million By Shanna Francis advanced, totalitarian and democratic, capitalist and By Lois Garcia are still worth half of what they were prior In the textbook Who’s Running America? (8th edition printed in 2016), author Thomas R. Dye, Florida State University’ Emeritus Professor of Political Science, breaks down the various powerbrokers exerting their influence on the affairs of our nation behind the scenes. Dye breaks down these powerbrokers—people who deliberately affect the distribution of political or economic power by exerting influence—whom he calls our nation’s institutional elites, those who “direct and manage the largest corporations, banks, and insurance companies; the giant media conglomerates; the prestigious law and lobbying firms; the most heavily endowed foundations and universities; the influential policy-planning organizations (think tanks); and the leading civic and cultural institutions.” Top positions in these institutions, considered collectively, “control over half of the nation’s industrial assets, over one-half of all U.S. banking assets, and over three-quarters of all insurance assets. They control the television networks, the investment firms, the influential newspapers, and the major media conglomerates. They control over half of all the assets of private foundations and two-thirds of all private university endowments. They direct the nation’s largest and best-known law firms in New York and Washington, as well as the nation’s major civic and cultural organizations. They make the largest political campaign contributions. They occupy key federal government positions in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches [of government].” Sociologist Charles Murry describes the position of these powerbrokers as the “narrow elite,” about 4,102 positions covering the corporate, public, and governmental sectors of our nation. He states, “At the top are those who have risen to jobs that directly affect the nation’s culture, economy, and politics. Some of them wield political power, others wield economic power, and still others wield the power of the media…. The narrow elite incudes the lawyers and judges who shape constitutional jurisprudence, the people who decide how the news will be covered on national news programs, and the journalists and columnists whose bylines are found in the leading print media and on the Internet. It includes the top executives in the nation’s largest corporations, financial institutions, foundations, and nonprofit organizations. It includes the producers, directors, and writers who create the nation’s films and television dramas, the most influential scholars in the nation’s elite universities and research institutes, and senior government administrators and politicians.” In Chapter One, “Elitism in a Democracy,” Dye begins, “Great power in America is concentrated in a handful of people. A few thousand individuals out of 310 million Americans decide about war and peace, wages and prices, consumption and investment, employment and production, law and justice, taxes and benefits, education and learning, health and welfare, advertising and communication, life and leisure. In all societies—primitive and socialist—only a few people exercise great power.” Next, Dye explains that power is not an attribute of an individual but can be attributed to various individuals’ roles in a social system that lend themselves access to what C. Wright Mills calls “major institutions, for the institutional positions men occupy determine in large part their chances to have and to hold these valued experiences.” Dye elaborates, “When the social, economic, and political values of elite groups, or, more importantly, the structures of the institutions themselves, limit the scope of decision-making to only those issues that do not threaten top elites, then power is being exercised”—and not “by the people.” “The institutional structure of our society and the people at the top of that structure encourage the development of some kinds of public issues but prevent other kinds of issues from ever being considered by the American public….” Corporate Directors - Dye explains that America’s corporate power is highly concentrated. The elite of the nation’s top 500 nonfinancial corporations collectively take in about 75% of the nation’s total GDP (2016); the remainder, collectively, only about 4%. Even within these top 500 businesses, there is another top layer of power, which rests in the hands of about 1,500 officers and directors of the nation’s 100 largest nonfinancial institutions. This equates to about one-thousandth of 1% of the U.S. population. “These managers, not the stockholders or the employees, decide major policy questions, choose the people who will carry out these decisions, and even select their own replacements.” More and more, this narrow slice of corporate elites is competing on a global scale against a number of international high-stakes players who have expanded their markets throughout the world, investing in overseas businesses and banks, and often merging with foreign corporations. Large global firms compete very effectively for world business, even inside the U.S. In 2020, the countries that were home to the most multinational corporations (MNCs) were the U.S., Japan, and major countries of Western Europe. China, although still considered a developing country, is also the headquarters for several growing MNCs. Increasingly, larger MNCs exert pressure on foreign states as they constantly vie and jockey for limited resources, often manipulating local legislation and influencing powerbrokers who can benefit their aims. For instance, it is interesting to note that today, at least fifty-one of the world’s hundred largest economic entities are corporations and not countries, and that the 500 largest corporations account for 70% of the pie of world trade. A 2013 report from Brigham Young University by Steve Kapfer and Dr. Brian Champion titled “The Growing Power of Multinational Corporations” states, “Corporations not only have the political power to influence states, but also the economic clout to devastatingly affect a state’s economy should the state try to oppose a multinational corporation.” Money Elite - As influential as corporate power is, the concentration of financial assets in AMERICA cont. on page 12 Beef Promotion and Research Act (commonly known as the Beef Checkoff) program raised over $40 million dollars last year, 93% of which was paid by U.S. cattle producers. Yet, the program does not directly promote U.S. beef. The $1 per head Beef Checkoff assessment on every sale of cattle became mandatory when the program was approved by 79 percent of producers in a 1988 national referendum vote. Since the inception of the Checkoff in 1985, foreign and domestic forces in the beef industry have changed and merged. The voices of independent U.S. cattle producers have been canceled by the political influence of meat packers and importers. During the government’s economic shutdown in 2020, meat importers and packers rejected American producers and earned billions of dollars in profits, in some cases having a record year while U.S. farmers and ranchers struggled to survive. According to the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture), beef imports increased by 12% in 2020, from 2,107,771,000 pounds from January to August 2019, to 2,349,398,000 pounds during the same time period in 2020. Packer profits were $2,000 to $3,000 per head, while feeders were losing $200 to $500 per head. Since the NCBA (National Cattlemen’s Beef Association) has been administering the majority of Beef Checkoff funds, the U.S. has lost nearly half of its cattle producers, beef consumption has declined by 30%, and the four largest meatpacking corporations’ control 82% of the market. The NCBA was awarded $27 million of beef checkoff dollars in 2020. In 2020, family ranches were dying, insurance companies stopped selling insurance to farmers, and Costco told Drew Jorgensen, a seventh-generation Utah sheep rancher, that “they only buy from Australia.” Big 4 Packer Profits - R-CALF USA is a national, nonprofit organization representing U.S. cattle and sheep producers in domestic and international issues. R-CALF filed a class action lawsuit in 2019 alleging that the Big 4 Packers conspired to artificially depress prices paid to U.S. cattle producers. In 2020: • Tyson Foods had a gross profit of $5.121 billion dollars for the twelve months ending December 31, 2020—a 0.27% increase year-over-year. • Cargill Inc. had a net income of $3 billion and paid its owners a record dividend in its 2020 fiscal year after profits surged on the back of volatile agricultural markets. Cargill decided to stop releasing their results publicly in 2020. • JBS USA Holdings, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of a Brazilian company that is the world’s largest processor of fresh beef and pork, had more than $50 billion in annual sales as of 2017. • The National Beef Packing Company’s annual revenue in 2020 was $2.18 billion. The NCBA - In 2015, the NCBA joined foreign beef producers and the World Trade Organization to push the U.S. Congress to repeal Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (M-COOL) on beef. The next year, in 2016, cattle producers saw the price of their calves drop almost 50%. U.S. to M-COOL being repealed. None of this fall in price, and arguably quality, is translated into lower prices for the consumer. Consumers pay the same price for imported beef as we do for U.S. born-and-bred beef. The USDA allows packers to import beef, minimally process and package it, and call it “Product of USA.” Retailers and wholesalers don’t want to put product on their shelves labeled with multiple countries as the origin, because they know American consumers prefer U.S. beef. Without M-COOL, there is no differentiation on the supermarket shelves between U.S. and imported beef. The NCBA claims to be “a consumer-focused, producer-directed organization,” but their actions are anti-consumer and anti-producer. American consumers and American cattle producers are being duped, thanks in part to the efforts of the NCBA. In 2010, an audit of one short period of Beef Checkoff program management found more than $200,000 in improper spending by NCBA. The USDA then performed a full audit of the program, but did not release it to the public, claiming in emails that it would cause embarrassment for the USDA and harm the beef industry if the details were made public. In 2014, the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) sued the USDA under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to release public audit and financial documents related to Beef Checkoff program spending. The NCBA argued that FOIA policies did not apply to the audit documents from the Beef Checkoff, a public program. The final summary judgment briefing schedule in the case was closed in March 2019, five years after the lawsuit had been filed. M-COOL legislation, which the NCBA helped to repeal, benefited U.S. cattle producers and consumers far more than the hundreds of millions of dollars farmers and ranchers have paid into the Beef Checkoff program since its inception. Ongoing Controversy Over U.S. Beef -In an October 2020 interview with Tri-State Livestock News, Greg Hanes, CEO of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board said, “I think there is a way that we can promote U.S. beef,” and “...it may be possible to promote U.S. beef.” When asked if a campaign urging consumers to “Eat U.S. Beef” could be supported with beef checkoff dollars, he responded, “I think we can do something like that.” This conflicts with public statements from state beef councils. A legal brief from the Montana Beef Council concluded that “The Act and Order prohibit any Beef Checkoff funds be used for domestic marketing promoting exclusively domestic beef.” The National Farmer’s Union states that it is their policy that mandatory producer assessments (like the Beef Checkoff) should not go to organizations that engage in lobbying, and no contracts should be awarded to organizations that carry out political or lobbying activities. According to Wikipedia, the NCBA is a “lobbying group working for the American Beef Producers and consumers in the United States.” While different groups discuss whether or not U.S. beef can be marketed truthfully, as U.S. beef, DOLLAR A HEAD cont. on page 13 E D E N , U TA H |