Category: Corporate Power Page 2 of 5

In Corporate Debt, Corporate Power, Executive Compensation, Families, Labor, Public Interest, Social Responsibility, Standard of Living, Stock Buybacks, Worker Wages

(Editor Note: Insight Bytes focus on key economic issues and solutions for all of us, on Thursdays we spotlight in more depth Solutions to issues we have identified. Fridays we focus on how to build the Common Good. Please right click on images to see them larger in a separate tab. Click on the Index Topic Name at the beginning of each post to see more posts on that topic on PC or Laptop.)

Photo: wikipedia.org

To: CEOs – S & P – 500

From: The Progressive Ensign

Subject: Stock Buybacks Are Out of Control

Date: November 5, 2018

Congratulations, this past quarter you knocked earnings out of the park, profits were higher in particular, though revenues lower and you did well by raising stock prices to new highs in September via stock buybacks.

Source: Standard & Poors – 11/4/18

Ok, you did well on stock compensation too with soaring stock prices. You can take that trip to Cancun, buy a boat and a villa for extended stays. You have worked hard, your team has gone all out to make your companies successful, and worked harder. Remember, while you were traveling and making decisions on sales, financing, product development and marketing they are actually designing, building, shipping, selling and supporting your products and services.

Sources: The Labor Department, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Shot – 11/5/18

Next, you have not been making the investments in capital equipment , R & D and innovation to move companies along and be prepared for more overseas competition or increase productivity. Thanks for moving wages higher for less than high school educated workers recently they still aren’t enough to keep up with inflation though. If you can increase productivity we can give workers raises without it hitting the bottom line an increasing cost, and earning would be stabilized or even get better. You wouldn’t need to use financial gimmicks like stock buy backs to take stock off the market, and goose the price so earnings look better on a per share basis. Between 2010 and 2017 S & P companies spent 51 % of their operating earnings on stock buy backs. That’s money just hyping stock nothing else. Note that business investment is continuing to decline with lower highs and investments flat since 1998.

Sources: The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Shot – 11/5/18

Your joy ride on $1 trillion of stock buybacks needs to end. We want to see a plan by the end of the month on how you will use that $1 trillion dollars in meaningful long term ways such as raising wages, job training, purchasing new equipment and systems, and innovating new products. You are basically taking away the future of your workers and the country for your short term gain. Show by quarter how you will implement the plan and get your businesses actually growing again (in real dollars not financial gimmicks), workers supporting their families in sustainable lifestyle and making America stronger.

P.S. By the way, it is time to end your constant borrowing, rates are going up, and you spent most of the money on stock buybacks or other goodies not investing in the company. You are mortgaging the future of the business by taking on a record amount of debt. Please submit a plan for retiring this debt as part of your financial plan for investing in the company by the end of the month.

P.P.S. For those of you ( a minority) who are not doing stock buybacks, thank you, and you who are spending on capex and raising wages thanks a lot! Just submit a set of graphs showing your investments so we can show the other CEOs how it is done – as a best practice.

Wall Street Expects A Cash Return, Leaving Employees Out

By Patrick Hill

On October 24, 2018

In Corporate Power, Wages, Wall Street, Worker Power

Photo: wikipedia.org

Today, employees don’t share in the profits or success financially the way they did the past. Forty years ago, Sears offered their sales staff commissions, bonuses and retirement plans enough for many of them to retire on $1 million in today’s equivalent dollars. Amazon recently announced raising all workers to $15 @hr, yet they are eliminating stock and bonus plans. Hourly staff will be left with little for retirement except what little they can save.

What is driving management to not share company financial success with employees, or increase investments in productivity which would support a raise in wages? One factor is Wall Street expectations of corporate management to keep the cash machine cranking full speed.

Sources: The Daily Shot, The Wall Street Journal – 10/25/18

Companies that invested in capital equipment to increase productivity or R & D to innovate were penalized by Wall Street investors driving their stock price down. Note that on the lower chart the relative performance of investment focused on capex companies versus cash return in buybacks and dividends is 6 % less and has been falling since a year ago. Executives quite often receive as much as 80 % of their compensation in stock options based on stock performance and earnings targets. Spending money on expenses by increasing wages, capital equipment purchases or innovative research reduces profits and does not provide more funding for stock purchases to drive the stock price up.

Next Steps:

Our post this past Labor Day notes how Wall Street wields power over the economy, and drives executive decisions on allocation of resources.

“Wall Street, the citadel of capital, wields supreme power focused on profit throughout our economy and control of our government. Corporations pander to financial leaders with ever higher profits manipulated by stock buybacks juicing the value of share prices. Management ensures investors are pleased with financial results using loose financial gimmicks and laying on record debt. While workers have seen their wages stagnate for 30 years since the 1980s.”

Yet, Wall Street is beginning to change with major leaders beginning to recognize the need to invest in corporations that take social responsibility and worker value as core principles.

“We need to require corporations to report on how they are building employees as assets and worker contribution to increasing company value. The next step is for Wall Street to recognize social responsibility in their investments as Blackrock, CEO Larry Fink, has in a letter to CEOs of companies in their portfolio that he will be looking beyond profit, for implementation of policies by management in sustainability and worker advancement.”

Harry Truman had the right perspective:

“Our most productive asset is our labor force.”

Housing Has Not Recovered From the Great Recession

By Patrick Hill

On October 17, 2018

In Corporate Power, Housing, Local Politics, Solution, Wages

Image: 15146affordablehousing.weebly.com

As a percentage of GDP housing has not recovered from 2008. Particularly, in two key categories: (1) Furniture, Repairs & Maintenance and (2) Construction. Additionally we know that appliance sales have been lagging as well due to tariffs and price versus worker wages being stagnant.

Sources: BEA, John Burns Real Estate, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Shot – 10/18/18

Housing has not recovered from the Great Recession downturn from sub-prime mortgages and loose lending practices. As part of the recovery, banks were made whole with billions of TARP funds, but homeowners who tried to write down their principal loss on their homes to reduce mortgage payments were not allowed in court. Banks paid a small pittance of $50 million in homeowner relief that was distributed in a hazard manner. Millions of homeowners lost their homes and more importantly lost their equity. They could not replace their homes when the economy turned around, they had to take ‘make do’ jobs when they did finally find a job and are now left with little wealth to retire on except for Social Security.

Young prospective home buyers face a daunting affordability crisis as the inventory of affordable homes is low as builders focus on wealthy buyers, who buy high margin homes.

Sources: Scotiabank Economics, NAR, Haver Analytics, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Shot – 10/17/18

In all regions of the country affordability continues to fall after reaching a peak in 2012. Mortgage rates are at the highest level since the Great Recession, the inventory of middle class housing continues to decline and the commitment to homeownership is waning. We hear more and more about how ‘renting is really ok’ – for who? The wealthy landlords who continue to raise rents while raking in the cash. What about families who want yards for their kids to play in, or to gain ‘sweat equity’ by upgrading the home they live in or landscaping the yard. It is clear just looking at most neighborhood which homes are owned and maintained and which ones are rentals owned by an off premise landlord.

Next Steps:

Dropping the national commitment to home ownership is not the solution to the problem. We need to ensure that the 80 % who do the heavy lifting in the economy can afford to buy a home on their incomes. Corporations need to be increasing wages for workers at least as fast as their executives and more to ‘catch up’ to the raises and stock plans of the executive team receiving high compensation from stock and stock buybacks.

Reducing student debt, now at $1.5 trillion is critical so that prospective home buyers do not have student debt right at time they are starting families and purchasing a home. We have proposed a far reaching program building on existing student debt forgiveness programs to more comprehensive service for debt forgiveness programs.

Builders need incentives to build lower margin homes middle class homes in new developments. Local and state governments need to take on the charter of ensuring that affordable housing is a priority for zoning near commercial and business centers.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need to be committed to focusing on first time buyers and lower income prospective buyers innovating ways to get them into homes while at the same time being financially responsible. The Federal government needs to provide more funding for the two housing agencies to bring down rates to an affordable level. Working in cooperation with groups like Operation Hope, banks need to make a new effort to make mid and lower income buyers financially literate and help them move into homes. Think what a huge difference it would make for our cities and rural communities if people owned their homes and made improvements to their home and yards.

Workers Exercise Power Through Pensions on Corporate Policies

By Patrick Hill

On October 9, 2018

In Corporate Power, Corporate Reform, Retirement, Worker Power

Photo: commondreams.org

Toys R Us was saddled with billions of dollars of debt by private buyout firms like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Pension funds provide firms like KKR with funds to invest expecting higher returns than stock market rates. When the workers at Toys R Us petitioned the Minnesota Pension Fund that they had been denied a severance the fund suspended making investments with KKR. About 35 % of all private equity funding comes from public pension investors.

The New Jersey pension fund has listened to its pensioners on issues like not foreclosing on Puerto Rico residents who are recovering from Hurricane Harvey and an investment in a payday lender. Adam Liebtag, the acting chairman of the New Jersey State Investment Council, told the New York Times, “They are paying closer attention. They are following the money.”

Pension funds provide about 35 % of all private equity funding. providing a good channel of leverage for activist groups. The deals that pensions do with private equity firms continues to rise as well.

Source: Prequin Private Equity Spotlight, Value Walk – 10/2014

Sarah Bloom Raskin, a fellow at Duke University and a deputy Treasury secretary in the Obama administration, observed, “Workers don’t want their pension money invested in ways that hurt other workers”. Workers are waking up to the fact they have financial power to get private equity firms to listen to their concerns that private equity policies are hurting some workers as in the Toys R Us case, heavily loaded with $5 billion in debt from a private buyout.

Next Steps:

We see the pension leverage option on private equity firms as a model to build on. Why not require pensions to listen to their investor – workers by having a set of investor – workers on their board, participating in the investment decisions the board makes to begin with. Workers should be constantly polled for their concerns to ensure adherence to investment policies that are moving the lives of workers better in any company where the pension is invested. Workers are mainly left out of the financial decisions that manage their lives while working for a company, at least after retiring the money they have saved in a pensions fund should speak for them and their concerns in building a better life for all employees.

Resetting the Web’s Balance of Power

By Patrick Hill

On October 4, 2018

In Corporate Power, Internet, Social Responsibility, Solution

Internet pioneer, Tim Berners-Lee has an audacious yet powerful goal for his latest startup Inrupt. He wants to “reset the balance of power on the web and reignite its true potential.” Building work with other Internet activists at MIT he is developing a decentralized personal web based platform called Solid. He is introducing a ‘Netscape’ browser front end that gives the user control of all his own content. During a demo he shows a fundamental set of tabs with a To-Do List, Calendar, Chat Address Book and eMail. Yet, this screen hides from the user one basic difference, all his data is stored in a POD or Personal Online Data store. All the content he creates or uses is stored in a POD, not some corporate server like Google, or Facebook.

Source: Tim Berners-Lee – 9/29/18

Users of the Inrupt browser and applications are given a Solid identity and access key to personalize security. Berners-Lee envisions an Alexa like persona assistant, he calls Charlie where a user can be comfortable accessing health records, financial accounts and personal memos in POD storage not a Amazon cloud server. He sees global web developers writing appls for Solid and Inrupt to take back the Internet, provide the security and safety of personal identity management and reduce the need for government regulation.

We are excited about the opportunity to finally end the corporate control of user created content which we have always believed is the user’s property not the Internet application provider. Google, Facebook and Apple have the idea that they own our content, can do anything they want with it, including selling it to partners without our permission.

Solid and Inrupt are revolutionary in scope, technology and return the Internet to its original vision – to empower users and link them together on a peer to peer basis. Not, a corporate behemoth holding all the content power to a weak end user. Maybe with technology like Solid we can finally get back to a democracy of entrepreneurs, small business and users controlling their content, its use and distribution!

Amazon Raises Minimum Wage to $15@hr While Eliminating Bonuses, Stock

By Patrick Hill

On October 2, 2018

In Amazon, Anti Trust, Corporate Power, Labor, Minimum Wage, Wages

Photo: kansascity.com

Amazon announced the $15 pay raise today in response to criticism by progressive politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders who recently introduced a bill to tax companies like Amazon 100 % for employees on government assistance. The company plans to hire over 100,000 seasonal workers this holiday season, the raise will apply to all full – time, part-time and seasonal workers beginning November 1^st. The pay move by Amazon comes at a time when retailers are finding it hard to hire clerks and warehouse workers for wages generally under $15 @hr. Amazon’s move is a challenge to retail firms across the country forcing them to raise wages or lose out in hiring to Amazon. Sen. Sanders congratulated Amazon in a tweet, noting the raise was a ‘shot heard around the world, certainly for all hourly workers worldwide.

Sources: Amazon, The Wall Street Journal – 10/2/18

While the $15@hr wage increase made the headlines, the firm took away bonuses and stock awards for warehouse workers. The company said the wage increase more than makes up for the loss of bonuses and stock awards. What? Why is Amazon doing this? To mitigate the cost of raising wages to $15@hr to bottom line profits. Amazon needs to think through the message they are sending, do they want the ideas and dedication that bonuses and stock recognize or not?

In addition, the company said it would be lobbying in Washington for a raise of the federal minimum wage which has been stuck at $7.25 for ten years. Amazon uses a highly profitable server business to provide a cash feed to the retail business while building market share to eliminate competitors. Amazon raising wages makes it even more difficult for competitors to hire workers and retain them.

Next Steps:

We applaud Amazon for waking up and making this sweeping move to raise hourly wages to a baseline of $15 @ hr. At the same time we are concerned that with giving the wage increase they are taking away bonuses and stock awards – this policy sends the wrong message to workers. The wage increase is a strategic move as well, putting its weaker competitors back on their heels and in a worse political position. Are they going to oppose federal legislation that may come from a Democrat led House to raise the federal minimum wage? In a mid-term election year where non-supervisory workers have experienced stagnating wages since the 2008 recession Amazon competitors will be hard pressed to make their case to consumers. As politics is more in the spotlight for companies and consumers, brick and mortar retailers’ possible stand against raising wages may hurt sales and hiring.

With Amazon making the first move we agree with Sen. Sanders, who called on other major companies to start paying decent wages to their employees so they support their families, buy cars and purchase a home.

The e-retailer behemoth is in the cross hairs of political criticism in terms of work conditions like few bathroom breaks, to uncertainty with plans to add 40,000 robots over the next five years. The firm’s automation plans will have a significant impact on the workplace for non-college educated workers, we need to be working on a public policy recognizing the impact automation has on worker careers. Should robots be taxed as some have suggested? If so, based on what formula? How would the funding be used to support retraining and safety net needs for the workers displaced? Amazon has been able to amass a dominant retail position by using revenues from its business to business cloud server profits to mitigate the ecommerce business running at a loss and early development of brick and mortar stores. We stand by our earlier analysis that the server business – Amazon Web Services (AWS) be spun off from the e-retail business to level the market playing field with other retailers.

U.S. Healthcare Spending 41 % More Than OECD Countries

By Patrick Hill

On October 1, 2018

In Corporate Power, Corporate Reform, Drug Companies, Drug Pricing, Health, Health insurance

Image: consumersunion.org

The United States healthcare system is an expensive healthcare system compared to the OECD countries that spend 41 % less per person as a percent of GDP with a 4 year higher life expectancy rate.

Sources: The Daily Shot, The Wall Street Journal – 10/1/18

As U.S. spending continues to increase life expectancy rates are stagnant, simply not improving. Note that while OECD spending continues to grow at a much slower pace the life expectancy rate continues to climb. Americans are not getting the health care system performance that our European sister countries are achieving.

Sources: OECD, CMS – US, Moody’s Investors Services, The Daily Shot, The Wall Street Journal – 10/1/18

Even when looking at similar income level countries the cost difference is highly apparent in cost per capita.

What are OECD countries doing that the U.S. is not doing? For starters they do not have a private health insurance system which adds a profit motive to treatment, triages services to the higher income people and increases drug prices to consumers. Administrative costs in the U.S. are 8 % of the total healthcare spending versus the OECD countries which range from 1 to 3 %. One reason for the high administrative burden is administrative hiring was 650 % more than hiring of health services workers since 1970. Generalist physician salaries are significantly higher in the U.S. by 50% compared to developed countries. Drugs in America cost twice the average prices in comparable developed countries. The drug costs are distorted in the U.S. largely due to price controls in European countries so drug manufacturers charge as much as they can to U.S. providers and patients to make up the difference. Finally, another key reason is about 10 % of the U.S. patients are not covered by insurance. Which means they do not receive care from birth, let medical issues fester and go to emergency rooms for all their care (as U.S. law requires hospitals to serve all who come regardless of insurance). A study of the healthcare delivery system in Philadelphia showed that overall healthcare costs in the city could be reduced by 20 % if patients that needed care had services offered in doctor offices covered by insurance.

Next Steps:

We have recommended in previous posts that we have one insurance system in the U.S. as other developed countries. Administered by the Health and Human Services department, a health account would start as soon as a baby was born. Contributions by individuals, their employer and the government would go into one account. Private insurance could continue in those years where a worker is on the payroll of a company with benefits. In the event the worker is between jobs he or she would be covered by the government supported part of the plan. There would be only one formulary for drugs, and schedule for treatments and procedures. The administrative overhead could be cut to the 1 to 3 % range that other countries enjoy. Staffs in providers offices dealing with insurance idiosyncrasies and byzantine rules could be cut by 75 %. Drug companies would be prohibited from implementing stock buybacks which would make billions of dollars available to cut prices and innovate new medicines instead of lining the pockets of executives.

High Tech Behemoths Run State and Local Politics

By Patrick Hill

On September 25, 2018

In Corporate Power, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Housing, Local Politics, Social Responsibility

Image: youtube.com

Recently the high technology power houses like Google, Facebook, Uber and Amazon have appeared in the news related to national issues privacy, Russia hacking, driver contractors and conservative viewpoint censorship. There is an even more troubling trend; major high tech corporations are controlling key decisions, policies and direction of development for many major American cities and states. Amazon is throwing its weight around the U.S. in search of a 2^nd corporate headquarters.

Source: LA Times – 1/19/18

Amazon has already received millions of dollars in tax subsidies and compensation for locating warehouses in some regions. The Governor of Maryland has offered a $5 billion package of transportation and tax breaks to the company to locate in Maryland, while Newark and New Jersey have offered a $7 billion package of subsidies. Amazon has been adept at Seattle politics as well, when the city unanimously passed a $275 per employee tax on businesses to pay for homeless shelters and affordable housing. Amazon along with local businesses pushed back and the measure was repealed.

Apple purchased a site previously owned by Hewlett – Packard for its Apple Park spaceship headquarters. The Cupertino city council was delighted with the plan to put 14,000 employees on the site, doubling the number of workers at the large parcel. After the headquarters building was built the local council realized that the traffic congestion around the site and the city was going to be a major problem. The city then proposed a per employee tax to gain revenue of $10 million versus the present tax structure based on square footage would have netted only $800, 000. The proposed funding would have been allocated to buses, road widening, express lanes and other traffic flow enhancements. Apple and other businesses protested so the proposal was tabled until the 2020 election.

Uber has gone into cities all over the country from its base in San Francisco without authorization, creating major competition to local taxi companies. Cab companies in most cities purchase a medallion from the city at great expense, some in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to license them to provide ride services in the city. Uber has run into opposition in some major cities like New York, where the number of cars is capped.

Google has quietly purchased hundreds of acres of land in downtown San Jose, until newspaper stories began to spot light the land purchases. The high tech behemoth plans on deploying up to 20,000 employees around the city hub and train station. Planning for a huge employee center near public transportation makes sense, but local businesses and housing near purchased lots are under pressure to sell to make room for the corporate plan. Local housing groups are concerned about the availability of affordable housing and small business.

Next steps

Our concern is that major corporations, their planning departments and executives have so much power that local elected leaders have little clout to push back on building or development that may not be in the interest of the local community. As local government struggles to gain revenues lost to an Internet based economy, and stiff opposition from local citizens to raising taxes causes local city government power to decline.

Local leaders will need to rethink their base of power in the city, seeking alliances with local businesses while building a base of economic support for city services. Cities and states often interested in luring businesses to their local regions spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the process maybe missing the point of their charter. Building necessary infrastructure, affordable housing, fast transportation systems, healthcare for those not covered and safe streets are their mandate from local citizens. It is a challenging time for local and state governments, yet they need to take up the mantle and assert the policies and programs they were elected to implement. Plus, corporations need to take responsibility for their actions and how they affect building the common good of the community.

Hospitals Cut Non-Compete Deals With Insurers

By Patrick Hill

On September 19, 2018

In Anti Trust, Corporate Power, Corporate Reform, Health, Health insurance, Restraint of Trade, Teacher Wages

Image: wbur.org

Hospitals are the number one cost in health care nationwide at $1 trillion per year. Healthcare is close to 20 % of the U.S. annual GDP. Physician and clinical services are second followed by prescription drugs.

Sources: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, The Wall Street Journal – 9/19/18

Hospitals are at the center of the most intense and high care treatments for surgeries, interventions, procedures and emergency care. Most must take Medicare payments if they are to have a wide enough patient population to support their business. Yet, Medicare reimbursements often don’t cover the actual costs of treatment. Hospitals look to employer – insurer plans and cash customers to make up the difference.

The Wall Street Journal investigated a number of hospital – insurer contracts and found in some cases the hospitals and insurers were cutting contracts which included non-compete clauses. Thus, if a hospital had a dominant position in a patient market, it would require that the insurer not insure patients of their competitor. Clearly, a restraint of trade, causing employer plans to pick up the balance, and in some cases where doctors were affiliated with hospitals employees were having to pick up the extra cost. Employers have seen premiums from insurers going up to handle the extra cost of these sweetheart deals.

These close partnership deals between hospitals and insurers create higher costs where services are much cheaper outside of the hospital in a doctor’s office.

Sources: Health Care Cost Institute, The Wall Street Journal – 9/19/18

Instead of hospitals steering patients to their doctors for many services, they provide the services on an outpatient basis at a much more expensive price. Insurers pick up the outpatient cost and then charge employers and patients higher premiums than necessary.

Next Steps:

We have supported the Affordable Health Care Act provisions requiring insurers to insure all patients with existing conditions, and other patient oriented options. However, this law is only the first step in reforming the healthcare industry, rigorous enforcement of anti-trust laws needs to take place to eliminate practices like these non-compete agreements. We call for transparency in pricing of all drugs, and the relationship between drug manufacturers and pharmacies. We recommended in earlier posts that all Americans should have access to good quality health care, beginning with a healthcare account at birth. Then, as the patient takes a job, employer plans can be used, but always between jobs or disability the patient is covered. Medicare should be the first line of insurance for all from birth with employer plans supplementing the main plan. Medicare should have complete negotiating rights with drug manufacturers to get the best price for all patients. All health care for profit companies should be barred from buying back stock and wasting money on executives which is better spent reducing prices and increasing the quality of care.

Tariff Price Increases Hit Consumers

By Patrick Hill

On September 18, 2018

In Consumer Squeeze, Corporate Power, Tariffs, Trade

Image: powertime.co.za

The tariffs applied last year sheltered the U.S. appliance industry for washers and dryers. What happened is a case study for what is likely to happen in other sheltered industries. Retailers rushed shipments of appliances prior to the tariffs going into effect. Prices were slashed sales went up, bringing demand forward in April. By July of this year sales are down almost 3%. While appliance sales falling can be partly explained by the slowdown in housing sales, this trend does not explain the price increases buyers in the market did experience. Samsung and LG competing with U.S. manufacturers, GE and Whirlpool, increased prices from 4 – 8 % on their models due to the tariffs. U.S. manufacturers raised their prices as well, so consumers ended up paying more anyway. If anything, prices should have been going down with fewer buyers in the market, instead there was a distorted market.

Sources: Department of Commerce, The Wall Street Journal – 9/18/19

The South Korean manufacturers have already made permanent moves to end the price challenge with Samsung producing appliances in a plant near Newbury County, South Carolina beginning this past January. LG is following suit, by opening a plant near Clarksville, Tennessee this fall.

So, what has happened is consumers will pay more for appliances, and jobs will come to the U.S. which the tariffs may have intended. Consumers are paying the price of the switch and it is not clear if the consumer will be better off.

Next Steps:

With the U.S. manufacturers depending on tariff shelter protection, they may not be as competitive as they could be with their competition coming on shore to take them on from a U.S. staging point. Certainly, with plants in the U.S. there is a level playing field for all the appliance companies. Consumers are likely to pay to find out which manufacturer is best and will be around 5 years from now.

We don’t like to see the federal government picking winners and losers in the marketplace. Capitalism, entrepreneurship and innovation should take over providing the best products at the lowest price for consumers. We prefer to see the government ensuring there is a level playing field and true competition. Time will tell us if the tariff move was an good one for consumers and the economy.