Ice in Florida and capitalism

My blog friends in Florida said the recent cold spell was a shocker. I include the following photo from Tampa which is across the bay from St. Petersburg, where my son, Marty, now lives. A grandson lives in Riverview, on the Tampa side of the bay.

https://www.comfortspringstation.com/2025/11/13/fla-november-record-breaking-lows-northern-lights/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fla-november-record-breaking-lows-northern-lights

Bayshore Dr Tampa Nov 11, 2025

Marty and Barb's new home, St. Petersburg FL (Google Earth photo 2022)

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And more interesting information...perhaps. At least it's not political (or is it?)

Warren Buffett gives more than other billionaires, born August 30, 1930

CNN says this Nov. 10:

New York — 

Warren Buffett, in his annual message as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway to shareholders – a tradition dating back to 1965 – said that he will be “going quiet” after he steps down at the end of this year. But the 95-year-old is not going away just yet.

Buffett will no longer write the message atop the company’s annual report, but he will continue to deliver an annual Thanksgiving message, and he will “step up” his philanthropy, giving away the $149 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock he continues to hold.

“The Oracle of Omaha” has become an investing icon, a billionaire who has cultivated a folksy image, particularly through his letters to shareholders. Although his market moves are closely followed by investors around the world, Buffett has also worked to present himself as a cheerleader for America and ordinary Americans – and for capitalism.

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Do either of these topics have anything in common? I read about homeless people coping with the recent cold snap. Perhaps, the economic disparity which I wrote about earlier, should be considered more!

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Robert Reich posted this Nov  14,

Last week, two things happened that may shed some light on where American capitalism is heading.

First, Tesla’s board caved in to Elon Musk’s demand that he get a pay package of $1 trillion (if he meets various goals).

Musk’s trillion-dollar pay package is so grotesque as to make a mockery of the most ardent free-market capitalists. Although his board is stuffed with cronies and relatives, he still had to hold it hostage to get his trillion — threatening that if he didn’t, his attention would wander elsewhere. Other Tesla shareholders got shafted.

Second, the voters of New York City — the capital of world capitalism — elected as their mayor a Democratic Socialist who thinks billionaires shouldn’t exist.

New York’s oligarchs spent more than $55 million trying to defeat Mamdani and get Andrew Cuomo elected instead. With Cuomo winning just under 855,000 votes, that came to about $65 per vote. Total spending for Mamdani was about $16 million. With Mamdani winning more than 1 million votes, that came to about $15 per vote.

One can’t draw vast conclusions from all this, but Musk’s bizarre pay package and Mamdani’s unlikely win together suggest that the unique form of harsh capitalism now practiced in America may be coming to an end.

No other advanced capitalist nation subjects its working families to as much fear and uncertainty over jobs, wages, health, and retirement as does America. None tolerates nearly the same inequalities of income and wealth (although some are moving in our direction). Musk’s pay and Mamdani’s victory are exhibits A and B.

Harsh American capitalism has become unsustainable, politically and economically.

The bottom 80 percent, whose paychecks haven’t kept up with inflation, have grown increasingly angry. That anger has infused both political parties with fierce antiestablishment populism and fostered deep distrust in all political institutions.

In 2016, much of the voting public went with Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump — two outsiders who at the time were neither Democrat nor Republican but who told voters what they already suspected: that the system was rigged against them. Both candidates promised fundamental change.

Unfortunately for America and the world, the corporate and Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party put an end to Sanders’s candidacy — leaving Trump to talk about the rigged market and convince voters he was on their side. In reality, he was and has remained on the side of the billionaires.

Antiestablishment populism continues to be the most powerful political force in America, within both parties.

Last Tuesday, Democratic populists prevailed. Even the so-called “moderate” Democrats who won the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey targeted utilities, AI data centers that demand huge amounts of electricity, big corporations that collude to keep rents high, and pharmaceutical middlemen that have been driving up drug prices — all populist targets.

When so much of the nation’s income and wealth moves to the top, the rest of the public doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going.

The richest 10 percent now account for half of all spending in the United States (up from a third three decades ago). And much of that spending is based on their stock market holdings, whose value has been soaring.

But it’s a house of cards. The stock market is now dependent on a handful of highly speculative stocks — centering on AI, big tech, and crypto — that could burst at any time, bringing down both the stock market and the confidence of many who are now keeping the economy going.

Trump’s unpredictable tariffs and his tax breaks and tax loopholes for the rich have added to the fragility — causing employers to hold back from making major investments due to uncertainty, and forcing consumers to struggle with rising prices for food, energy, clothing, and other necessities.

What does this all mean?

Musk’s success in getting a trillion-dollar pay package, coupled with the failure of corporate and Wall Street titans to prevent Mamdani from becoming the next mayor of the capital of global capitalism, don’t signal a sudden end to America’s system of harsh capitalism.

Rather, the two events are signposts to where that system is likely heading — not toward a socialist revolution but to a softer form of capitalism, more in line with advanced capitalism elsewhere around the world.

In the 1930s, Franklin D. Roosevelt saved capitalism from its excesses. His social insurance, public investments, and high taxes on the wealthy paved the way for the largest middle class the world had ever seen, in the first three decades after World War II.

But America got off that road in the 1980s and has been veering farther away from it since then. In opposite ways, both Musk and Mamdani pose the same question: Are we ready to get back on?

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And in other news...at least on FB since I've kind of skipped local and national news lately. Oh, Disney and YouTubeTV came to a contract agreement by Saturday, and so I'll get my local Asheville/Black Mountain NC news again!

But I wanted to give the Starbucks' employees who are striking a boost...even though apparently the employees in our local shops aren't.

I had received an order of Starbucks products (free) the day before the strike began. My friend who likes to drive through and pick up a latte said the ones she frequents aren't picketing at all.

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Open Yesterday's Pages - about the beginning of the Blue Ridge Parkway