Why Are Professors Exclusively Leftist? My Latest Glazov Gang Moment

Google and Facebook Should Be Required to Be Labelled, Like Cigarette Packs

The President

The White House

Washington, DC

PO Box 130

West Shokan, NY 12494

July 11, 2019

Dear Mr. President:

Recent disclosures concerning Facebook and Google’s use of monopoly power to influence social networking and Web-search results require investigation and reform.    Property rights and economic freedom need to be balanced with protection from fraud.  America has yet to grapple with both the fruit of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration’s illegal use of political litmus tests in the granting of airwaves monopolies to the TV networks and subsequent, parallel political monopolization of the cable industry.

                With respect to social networking and Web-search technologies, the cloaked use of left-oriented censorship parallels that of the long-term health threats from tobacco.  People should have freedom to choose search engines even if they are biased, and suppliers should be free to compete and innovate as they choose.  However, to protect the public from fraud, please consider asking Congress to require that social networking and Web-search suppliers disclose that biases are built into their algorithms and what the biases are at the head of each search result, much as cigarette companies are required to disclose health threats on each pack of cigarettes.

                With respect to the airwaves and cable networks, which are federal- and state-granted monopolies, respect for property rights is consistent with a more interventionist response.  The cable industry should be asked to develop its own solution to current Democratic Party monopolization. The proportion of stations that openly support the Democrats is in excess of the cutoff for monopoly, often thought to be 80 percent of a market.  The cable-and-television networks should be asked to develop a plan to voluntarily balance partisan orientation, including to minor parties.  If the media firms are unable to come to an industry-wide solution, then a more interventionist approach to state-based cable monopolies will be appropriate.

Sincerely

Mitchell Langbert

Cc: Majority members of the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet

• John Thune, South Dakota, Chairman
• Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee
• Roy Blunt, Missouri
• Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia
• Ted Cruz, Texas
• Deb Fisher, Nebraska
• Cory Gardner, Colorado
• Ron Johnson, Wisconsin
• Jerry Moran, Kansas
• Mike Lee, Utah
• Rick Scott, Florida
• Dan Sullivan, Alaska
• Todd Young, Indiana

Video Claims That Google Is Functioning as an Arm of the Democratic Party

Google's Orewellian-named  ML Fairness system functions as a politically motivated information-massage system. It is consistent with the totalitarian trend among the Democrats, the media, social networking, and higher education.  I no longer use Google as my first choice for Web searches, although their technology is still the best.  I start with Bing and use Google as a backup. Hopefully, innovators will come up with technology that surpasses Google's, but that has yet to happen.  Relying on Google for information about current events is as stupid as relying on the spokesperson for the Democratic Party for information about the Republican Party.

JPMorgan Chase Needs to Stop Discriminating Against Republican-Owned Businesses

PO Box 130

West Shokan, NY 12494

June 29, 2019

Jamie Dimon, CEO

JP Morgan Chase

383 Madison Avenue,

New York City, New York 10017-3217

Dear Mr. Dimon

Since May 1 JPMorgan Chase stock has fallen from $115 to $112 while the S&P 500 has gone up from $292 to $293.  As an owner of 40 shares of JPMorgan Chase, I am naturally concerned about your stock's underperformance.  As well, as a holder of a Chase credit card, I am keen to do business with responsible firms.

I recently read a CNBC piece that was published in March that said that JPMorgan Chase has adopted a policy to stop giving loans to prison firms. The decision was in response to left-wing protests.  My guess is that you do not know whether any of the protesters are depositors or investors in your firm, nor is it clear to you whether the protesters represent as much as one percent of the American population. 

In general, decisions to discriminate on the basis of unrelated criteria (e.g., political belief or doing business with unpopular administrations) lead to suboptimal performance.  Gary Becker showed this with respect to racial discrimination, but the same is true of discrimination on the basis of political opinion. Hence, the weak performance of JPMorgan Chase stock since you've made the decision may be related your decision to favor Democrats over Republicans.

Moreover, this is a broader assault on the principle of privatization.  How can government services be privatized if banks choose sides in partisan battles?  The use of detention centers is a policy that the Trump administration continued from the Obama administration, but the policy had gone unprotested during the Obama years.    

Finally, because you may be harming the stock price,  the policy may amount to a breach of fiduciary duty.  For all of these reasons, I urge you to rescind it.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.