{"id":3153,"date":"2014-12-17T12:19:55","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T17:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=3153"},"modified":"2014-12-17T12:19:55","modified_gmt":"2014-12-17T17:19:55","slug":"oftwominds-charles-hugh-smith-heres-whats-wrong-with-corporate-america-and-the-u-s-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=3153","title":{"rendered":"oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: Here&#8217;s What&#8217;s Wrong with Corporate America&#8211;and the U.S. Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/charleshughsmith.blogspot.ca\/2014\/12\/heres-whats-wrong-with-corporate.html\">oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: Here&#8217;s What&#8217;s Wrong with Corporate America&#8211;and the U.S. Economy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"display: inline; height: 0px; overflow-x: visible; overflow-y: visible; padding: 1px 0px 1px 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><i style=\"background-color: white; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">Will we ever tire of navigating the multiple layers of intermediaries between the customer and the provider, while corporate profits soar to unprecedented heights?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><b style=\"padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><b style=\"padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">If we had to summarize what&#8217;s wrong with Corporate America and the entire U.S. economy, we can start with all the intermediaries between the provider and the customer.<\/b>\u00a0There are a number of examples we&#8217;re all familiar with.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">One is healthcare, where a veritable phalanx of intermediaries filters the interactions between doctors and patients so heavily that the traditional practice of medicine has been nullified.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">By\u00a0<i style=\"padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">traditional<\/i>\u00a0I mean the arrangement that was conventional a few short decades ago: you went to the doctor of your choice (typically, the same doctor your family used), he\/she treated you, and you paid the doctor&#8217;s bill in cash. Only hospitalization was covered by the minimal (and minimally limiting) healthcare insurance plans of the time.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; line-height: 21px; color: #000000;\"><\/span><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 21px; color: #000000;\"><b style=\"padding: 0px; margin: 0px;\">The second example is home appliances purchased at a Big Box retailer.<\/b>\u00a0Here&#8217;s the list of interactions between Corporate America and the customer:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!-- [if gte mso 9]><xml>\n <o:OfficeDocumentSettings>\n  <o:AllowPNG\/>\n <\/o:OfficeDocumentSettings>\n<\/xml><![endif]--> <!-- [if gte mso 9]><xml>\n <w:WordDocument>\n  <w:View>Normal<\/w:View>\n  <w:Zoom>0<\/w:Zoom>\n  <w:TrackMoves\/>\n  <w:TrackFormatting\/>\n  <w:PunctuationKerning\/>\n  <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas\/>\n  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Wrong with Corporate America&#8211;and the U.S. Economy. Will we ever tire of navigating the multiple layers of intermediaries between the customer and the provider, while corporate profits soar to unprecedented heights? \u00a0 If we had to summarize what&#8217;s wrong with Corporate America and the entire U.S. economy, we can start [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1937,1980,841],"class_list":["post-3153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-corporate-america","tag-profit","tag-us-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3154,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3153\/revisions\/3154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}