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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 7, 2018)
Page 4A East Oregonian Friday, December 7, 2018 CHRISTOPHER RUSH Publisher KATHRYN B. BROWN Owner DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor WYATT HAUPT JR. News Editor Founded October 16, 1875 OUR VIEW Grownups must take power over tariffs This past weekend brought news of a possible truce in President Donald Trump’s trade war with China. At least there will be a pause before a new round of tit-for-tat tariffs. Some think the president’s style of chest-thumping ultimatums will ultimately bring economically useful concessions from our trade rivals — most of all China. Early on in his administration, Trump critics feared inexperienced leadership might drive U.S. industries off a cliff. So far, our economy has proven resilient. Stock markets, however, are flashing warning signs. After briefly signaling enthusiasm about the truce, markets tanked on Tuesday, as traders starting asking President Ronald Reagan’s classic rhetorical question: “Where’s the beef?” They see that tariffs have been almost all pain and no gain. While General Motors begins shuttering auto plants partly due to steel and aluminum prices driven by Trump tariffs, Northwest news stories about products from agriculture to timber to crab show we may pay a stiff price for international grandstanding. The East Oregonian has reported on lower prices for soft white wheat, potatoes and dairy — all things produced locally — tied to the back- and-forth tariff battle going on between the two countries. Coast River Business Journal has devoted significant coverage of tariff impacts on the seafood industry, while The Daily Astorian recently described how logs produced in the Northwest will suffer if the tariff truce doesn’t hold. Astoria Forest Products leaders, workers and suppliers were holding their collective breath to see if Trump and China’s President Xi would bury the hatchet. The answer was “maybe.” As it stands, hiking tariffs to 25 percent each way between the two nations will be delayed 90 days. Ten percent tariffs already in place are unaffected by the Trump-Xi talks. It also remains unclear whether seafood tariffs will be lowered in time to preserve the lucrative Chinese market for Columbia River processors who sell fresh Pacific Northwest crab for Chinese New Year celebrations. A growing Chinese taste for chum salmon also may wiggle off the line. Beyond short-term skirmishes and their consequences for local products, rising trade tensions in the past two years are a reminder that it takes a YOUR VIEWS Ruth Hall Pendleton Amsberry will be missed I recently learned that our super- intendent, Brigitte Amsberry, was going to retire at the end of Decem- ber. I, along with many other prison- ers at EOCI, was saddened to learn of her retirement. I first met Ms. Amsberry when she came here as a nurse. She was a great nurse and especially in this environ- ment. She moved up the ladder yet she remained compassionate, lev- el-headed and open to helping. That is very unusual in EOCI. I’ve dealt with a lot of superin- tendents and administrators in the over 35 years I’ve been incarcerated off and on. She will go as one of the best. She was slowly moving us for- ward and out of the punishment men- tality that has long been the core of our administration here, and I hope that our new superintendent will con- tinue doing that. I wish Ms. Amsberry the very best. Frank Roof Pendleton (EOCI) long time for industries and nations to build business relationships, shipping networks and trust. For now, we can only hope that tariff spats quickly simmer down without doing permanent damage. Will Chinese companies immediately resume buying Northwest timber? Will Chinese consumers hold onto a grudge and quit eating our wheat or crab? Only time will tell. The trade war taps into a vein of discontent among working Americans over stagnant wages and factories moving out of the country. We have legitimate gripes with the Chinese, some of whom are bullies when it comes to trade secrets and intellectual property. However, imposing what amounts to a high tax on American businesses is not the way to rectify this situation. Tariffs were a key cause of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Instead of giving the U.S. trading advantages, those tariffs made everyone in the world poorer and contributed to starting World War II. Responsible Republicans in the U.S. Senate must cooperate with Democrats in the U.S. House and wrest tariff power away from the White House. No president of either party should have the power to wreck decades of carefully wrought trade policies. OTHER VIEWS When CEOs cared about America ‘Nutcracker’ a joyous experience for all The recent Nutcracker Ballet per- formances must not go without spe- cial gratitude for such an endearing, uplifting and truly joyous experience for all attendees — which included representatives of most age groups! Very few small children noises were heard as they became mesmerized by the graceful dancing — and antics — of the performers. Heroines come in all styles, but in my book, Julie Sneden Carlson is a true heroine for her dedicated and successful efforts to bring Pendleton such artistic pre- sentations with her Pendleton Ballet Theater. This is not to say that commit- ted parents have not also contrib- uted hours to assisting in so many ways — to say nothing of the hours of sheer practice and education in so many facets of collaborative abil- ities that these wonderful students develop. What a well-rounded work- shop for their future! We are indeed lucky as Pendletonians to have this bountiful gift in our midst. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais President Donald Trump, second right, and China’s President Xi Jinping, second left, attend their bilateral meeting at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. T he October 1944 edition of Fortune magazine carried an article by a corporate executive that makes for amazing reading today. It was written by William B. Benton — a co-founder of the Benton & Bowles ad agency — and an editor’s note explained that Benton was speaking not just for himself but on behalf of a major corporate lobbying group. The article then laid out a vision for American prosperity after World War II. At the time, almost nobody took post- David war prosper- Leonhardt ity for granted. Comment The world had just endured 15 years of depression and war. Many Americans were worried that the end of wartime produc- tion, combined with the return of job-seeking soldiers, would plunge the economy into a new slump. “Today victory is our pur- pose,” Benton wrote. “Tomor- row our goal will be jobs, peace- time production, high living standards and opportunity.” That goal, he wrote, depended on American businesses accept- ing “necessary and appropri- ate government regulation,” as well as labor unions. It depended on companies not earning their profits “at the expense of the welfare of the community.” It depended on rising wages. These leftist-sounding ideas weren’t based on altruism. The Great Depression and the rise of European fascism had scared American executives. Many had come to believe that unrestrained capitalism was dangerous — to everyone. The headline on Ben- ton’s article was “The Econom- ics of a Free Society.” In the years that followed, corporate America largely fol- lowed this prescription. Not every executive did, of course, Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. Even when economic growth has been decent, most of the bounty has flowed to the top. and management and labor still had bitter disputes. But most executives behaved as if they cared about their workers and communities. CEOs accepted pay packages that today look like a pittance. Middle-class incomes rose faster in the 1950s and 1960s than incomes at the top. Imagine that: declining income inequality. And the economy — and American business — boomed during this period, just as Ben- ton and his fellow chieftains had predicted. Things began to change in the 1970s. Facing more global competition and higher energy prices, and with Great Depres- sion memories fading, execu- tives became more aggressive. They decided that their sole mis- sion was maximizing share- holder value. They fought for deregulation, reduced taxes, union-free workplaces, lower wages and much, much higher pay for themselves. They jus- tified it all with promises of a wonderful new economic boom. That boom never arrived. Even when economic growth has been decent, as it is now, most of the bounty has flowed to the top. Median weekly earnings have grown a miserly 0.1 per- cent a year since 1979. The typ- ical American family today has a lower net worth than the typ- ical family did 20 years ago. Life expectancy, shockingly, has fallen this decade. The great stagnation of living standards is a defining problem of our time. Most families do not enjoy the “rapidly rising level of living” that Benton called for. Understandably, many Ameri- cans are anxious and angry. The solution will need to involve a return to higher taxes on the rich. But it’s also worth thinking about pretax incomes — and specifically what goes on inside corporations. It’s worth asking the question that Benton asked: What kind of corporate America does the rest of Amer- ica need? Elizabeth Warren, the Massa- chusetts senator, is now rolling out a platform for her almost-cer- tain presidential campaign, and it includes an answer to this question. It is a fascinating one, because it differs from the usual Democratic agenda of progres- sive taxes and bigger social pro- grams (which Warren also sup- ports). Her idea is the most intriguing policy idea to come out of the early 2020 campaign. Warren wants an economy in which companies again invest in their workers and communi- ties. Yet she doesn’t believe it can happen organically, as it did in the 1940s, because financial markets will punish well-mean- ing executives who stop trying to maximize short-term profits. “They can’t go back,” she told me recently. “You have to do it with a rule.” She has proposed a bill in the Senate — and Ben Ray Luján, a top House Democrat, will soon offer it there — that would require corporate boards to take into account the interests of cus- tomers, employees and commu- nities. To make sure that hap- pens, 40 percent of a company’s board seats would be elected by employees. Germany uses a ver- sion of this “shared-governance” model, mostly successfully. Even in today’s hypercompetitive economy, German corporations earn nice profits with a philoso- phy that looks more like William Benton’s than Gordon Gekko’s. Is Warren’s plan the best way to rein in corporate greed? I’m not yet sure. I want to see poli- ticians and experts hash out her idea and others — much as they hashed out health care policy in the 2008 campaign. But I do know this: Amer- ican capitalism isn’t working right now. If Benton and his fel- low postwar executives returned with the same ideas today, they would be branded as socialists. In truth, they were the capitalists who cared enough about the sys- tem to save it. The same goes for the new reformers. ■ David Leonhardt is a colum- nist for the New York Times. The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
