While doing dishes this morning I heard a WBEZ segment with Lori Wallach, Director of Rethink Trade. They were talking about the completely failed Trump trade agreement to replace NAFTA which whole heartedly shafted Americans because Trump is a worthless business person (won’t call him a man) with numerous bankruptcies and Russia propping him up. Perhaps one day we will have a real president, but I’m not holding my breath. Russia’s deepest mole has done a lot of damage while engaging in wholesale corruption.
USMCA – Worst Trade Deal Ever
This thing has delivered a big fat zero on its promises. You can’t let someone who has had to file bankruptcy six times negotiate a trade agreement. He wouldn’t know a good deal if it bit him in the ass.
Smoke and Mirrors
Most every magician has a scantily clad “lovely assistant” to distract the audience. We see flash, sometimes smoke, always a distraction. This is okay. We are in on the con. We paid money to be conned in a manner some in the audience will find entertaining. The smoking hot chick with fantastic legs on stage is how a guy who doesn’t like magic shows tolerates taking his girlfriend (or worse, wife) to a magic show. Those guys paid money to fantasize about a chick they could never have.
Trade deals are the smoke and mirrors with a lovely assistant.
The grifter got you to look where they wanted.
Trade Deals Cannot Bring Manufacturing Back
Not only is it criminal fraud to claim they can, it’s a bigger con to claim they can create good paying jobs. They can’t! Current laws and regulations incentivize the exploitation of labor and criminal fraud.
First the Fraud
- CVS’ Aetna pays $117.7 million to settle US claims it defrauded Medicare
- U.S. Attorney Announces $37.76 Million Settlement With CVS For Over-Dispensing Insulin Pens To Patients
- CVS Caremark to pay $95M in Medicare fraud case
- Judge orders CVS to pay nearly $290M for Medicare false claims
I’m writing this on March 27, 2026 and that is the token handful of cases I found since June of 2025. You see, the fake Republicans (I’m a real one) in Washington get in front of cameras to talk about eliminating waste and fraud in Medicare/Medicaid then cut all of your benefits to do it all the while they are taking money from the actual criminals committing the fraud. You will notice in the above links that not one person from CVS management or board of directors went to prison for financial crimes that make grand theft auto look like a rounding error.
CVS total lobbying effort in 2025 was $9,930,000.
Elizabeth Holmes got 11 years and had to pay almost as much as CVS. She must not have spent nearly $10 million on lobbying.
Now the Exploitation
I’ve written about the exploitation of visa workers for years. How Disney wholesale replaced American IT workers with Indians in America expecting people to visit its parks and buy its streaming services. Apple and Nike have the Uyghurs.
The Fix
Until we start putting entire boards of directors along with CEO in prison, we can’t fix CVS level of financial fraud. We can bring manufacturing back and trim the the incentives for CVS level fraud.
It’s gone by various names, including Trickle Down With a Chainsaw. It limits the total compensation for any executive, board member, outside advisor, or consultant of a publicly traded corporation to 100 times the total compensation of the lowest wage worker anywhere their corporate tree or contracted supplier. It has fines and prison time for violations.
If Apple wants to use a factory that pays Uyghur slaves 10 cents per day, fine, his total compensation is capped at $10/day. Good luck trying to live in California on that. Since the pay scale requires employees make less than the CEO, good luck trying to get employees. They can flip burgers at McDonalds for more than that.
Much of this white collar criminal fraud is directly tied to executive compensation. Stock options, bonuses, and direct pay are all tied to “performance” and the best way to juice performance without having to actually innovate is to commit crime.
