Archive for category Corporate Socialism
Reason Derangement Syndrome
Posted by Shane Smith in American People, Conspiracy theories, Corporate Socialism, Hypocrisy, People Are Nuts, Republicans, Tea Bag Party, The Koch Brothers on February 22, 2013
Think Progress reported yesterday that the painfully unaware State Rep. Dennis Hedke has introduced a bill that would prohibit public funds from promoting sustainable development. An interesting story, and a great example of rightwing hypocrisy and nincompoopery. But I also think it overlooks the real story.
The article points out that Hedke is so blissfully ignorant of his own actions that he can’t see why anyone would question a connection between his day job and his latest bill. This is interesting, since his day job is contract geophysicist for some 30 local oil and gas companies. Conflict of interest? Certainly not!
“I can’t see why,” Hedke said. “I didn’t think about that. It really never crossed my mind. I’d probably just say no.”
Worst ‘Socialist’ Ever
Posted by Richard Warnick in 2012 Elections, Barack Obama, Corporate Socialism, Economy, Mitt Romney, National Politics, Republicans, This Blog on October 28, 2012
The Romney campaign makes its closing argument, which can be paraphrased as: “OMG! Another four years of socialism will be the end of America!” Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL):
“The president’s just not a supporter of the free enterprise system. This isn’t the first time I’ve said it, and I believe it with all my heart.”
If President Obama is a socialist, Steve Benen recently pointed out, he’s “the worst socialist of all time.”
“A soaring stock market, record high corporate profits, private sector job growth … it’s almost as if the president didn’t listen to Karl Marx at all.”
- Since Obama came into office, the Dow Jones industrial average has gained 67.9 percent.
- The S&P 500, measuring the 500 largest publicly traded companies, is up 80 percent.
- Corporations made a record $824 billion last year.
In fact, as the financial website Motley Fool noted, President Obama is far and away the best president for corporate profits since 1900.
More info:
Clint Eastwood: America Can’t ‘Survive’ Another Obama Term
President Obama’s Marxist-Leninist Economics
Poverty Rate Highest Since 1965 While Both Parties Embrace Austerity
Posted by Richard Warnick in 2012 Elections, Barack Obama, Capitalism, Corporate Socialism, Democracy, Democrats, Disaster, Economy, Federal Budget, National Politics, Poverty, Republicans, This Blog on July 23, 2012
The Associated Press reports that census figures for 2011 reveal that American poverty is spreading at record levels. The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010 to 15.7 percent.
Meanwhile, in Washington, both major political parties have agreed to cut programs designed to keep more people from falling into poverty. Millions could fall through the cracks as government aid from unemployment insurance, Medicaid, welfare and food stamps diminishes. Right-wing media decries the increase in poverty while opposing anti-poverty measures such as the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
We’re about to fall victim to the Big Lie, as both parties push austerity plans for the middle class (not the rich) such as Simpson-Bowles and the Ryan budget proposal.
Cutting or eliminating government programs that benefit the less advantaged has long been an ideological goal of conservatives. Doing so also generates a tidy windfall for the corporate class, as government services are privatized and savings from austerity pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens.
U.S. financial interests that stand to gain from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security cutbacks “have been the core of the big con,” the “propaganda,” that those programs are in crisis and must be slashed, said James Galbraith, an economist at the University of Texas.
Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you’ll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
UPDATE: Black Americans Have Suffered an Historic Wipeout of Their Wealth, With Few Signs It’s Coming Back
BREAKING: Tim DeChristopher Thrown into Solitary Confinement By Anonymous U.S. Congressman
Posted by Cliff Lyon in Bush Administration, Bush Failures, Civil liberties Infringement, Climate Change, Corporate Socialism, Crimes, DeChristopher, Economic Exploitation, Energy, George W. Bush, Global Warming, Political Corruption, Public Lands, Republicans, Salt Lake City, Terrorism, Tim DeChristopher, utah, Utah Politics, Wilderness on March 28, 2012
Photo: (Al Hartmann | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Update March 29, 2012: Our outrage and phone calls worked; Tim was released this morning in advance the press conference. (see video)
We are lost as a nation when Big Oil can inflict still greater punishment than a Federal Court itself through an anonymous congressional proxy. This is too outrageous for words. It’s Kafkaesq.
You can read more about this new travesty of justice here, here, here and here.
DeChristopher’s legal team has scheduled a 1:30 p.m. press conference on TOMORROW (Thurs, March 29, 20112) in front on the Frank E. Moss Federal Courthouse, at 350 Main Street in Salt Lake City, to announce Tim’s appeal and discuss issues related to DeChristopher’s confinement. Source
Please join us there! But first, please make some phone calls.
DEMAND Tim DeChristopher inmate #16156-081 be immediately removed from the Special Housing Unit (SHU) and placed back in the Minimum Security Camp at FCI Herlong.
530-827-8000, Richard B. Ives, WARDEN, Eloisa DeBruler, Public Information Officer
202-307-3198, Charles E. Samuels, Jr., Director
PRIORITY CONGRESSIONAL MEMBERS TO CALL:
Jim Sensenbrenner, WI, Chairman of Subcommittee, (202) 225-5101
Louie Gohmert, TX, Vice Chairman of Subcommittee, (202) 225-3035
Jason Chaffetz, UT, DC: (202) 225-7751 UT: (801) 851-2500
Why Is Obama Covering Up Wall Street Fraud?
Posted by Richard Warnick in Bailout, Barack Obama, Corporate Socialism, Corruption, Disaster, Economic Exploitation, Economy, Jobs, National Politics, Occupy Wall Street, Poverty, This Blog, Unemployment on December 22, 2011
Our government, and the politicians who control it, want us all to be so afraid of terrorism that we’ll give up the Bill of Rights and habeas corpus. But most Americans are far more afraid of Wall Street. The middle class lost $7.7 trillion in household net worth since collapse of the financial sector three years ago. About 24% of homes with mortgages remain underwater, which means the so-called “homeowners” have negative equity. There are 13.3 million Americans officially unemployed, and another approximately 4.8 million who have dropped out of the labor market and aren’t counted anymore. A record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street financiers who caused all this are doing swell, paying themselves record salaries and bonuses. But wait a minute, didn’t the 2008 financial meltdown result from fraudulent mortgage securitization and other illegal activities? Why has the Obama Justice Department not prosecuted these crimes?
Jeff Connaughton, the former chief of staff to former Democratic Senator Ted Kaufman, who chaired Senate oversight hearings on financial fraud prosecutions (emphasis added):
The Obama Justice Department hasn’t tried a single Wall Street executive in a criminal court. Against a handful, it decided to let the S.E.C. bring civil charges of fraud, which are easier to prove. So if defendants’ wrists are merely being slapped by the S.E.C. instead of cuffed by the Justice Department, Obama has only his appointees to blame.
…But did the Justice Department’s senior leadership even make targeting high-level fraud a top priority? Did it plan, staff, fund, and direct a thorough, probing investigation of each of the primary potential defendants? While I was working in the Senate, conversations I had with Justice Department officials led me to believe that it didn’t.
President Obama recently told “60 Minutes” that “Some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street wasn’t illegal.” But it was illegal, so that can’t be the real reason. Matt Taibbi:
What makes Obama’s statements so dangerous is that they suggest an ongoing strategy of covering up the Wall Street crimewave. There is ample evidence out there that the Obama administration has eased up on prosecutions of Wall Street as part of a conscious strategy to prevent a collapse of confidence in our financial system, with the expected 50-state foreclosure settlement being the landmark effort in the cover-up, intended mainly to bury a generation of fraud.
…Of course, this is exactly the wrong way to go about things. If Geithner and Obama really wanted to convince the world that America’s markets weren’t broken, they would effectively police fraud, and by extension prove to everybody that at the very least, our regulatory system is not broken.
But by taking a dive on fraud, and orchestrating mass cover-ups like the coming foreclosure settlement fiasco, what they’re doing instead is signaling to the world that not only are our financial markets corrupt, but our government is broken as well.
One complication has come about due to last June’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Janus Capital Group, Inc. v. First Derivative Traders. The corporate-friendly justices decided to issue securities firms a license to lie, making shareholder lawsuits almost impossible. The precedent may apply as well to fraudulent mortgage securitizations going back to five years ago. Thanks to this irresponsible Supreme Court ruling, there is no longer a good reason to believe anything that’s written in a prospectus.
The Obama administration has got to stop covering for Wall Street, for three very good reasons: (1) Americans now have no confidence in our financial sector, as the middle class has taken a beating while the Top 1 Percent takes an ever-greater share of the wealth; (2) Nobody believes President Obama’s obviously false claim that that no banking or insurance executive deserves criminal prosecution for causing the 2008 collapse; and (3) By failing to prosecute Wall Street, the Obama administration is failing to deter ongoing and future financial fraud.
OWS is right. We can’t accept the funneling of wealth to the top anymore. Especially when it is done in violation of federal law, while our top officials in the Department of Justice and Treasury engage in a cover-up.
UPDATE: SEC Enforcement Chief Whines that Trying Cases Takes a Lot of Effort
The Faux-Controversy of the Year: Solyndra
Posted by Richard Warnick in 4th Estate (Media), Barack Obama, Bush Administration, congress, Corporate Socialism, Economy, Energy, National Politics, This Blog on December 20, 2011
Via AlterNet:
Founded in May 2005 when a global silicon shortage began driving up prices of solar photovoltaics, Solyndra was founded to provide a cost-competitive alternative. Although the company was once touted for its unusual technology, plummeting silicon prices led to the company being unable to compete with more conventional solar panels.
On March 20, 2009, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) made a “conditional commitment” to a $535 million loan guarantee to support Solyndra’s construction of a commercial-scale manufacturing plant. The Solyndra loan guarantee was a multi-year process that began in December 2006, under a program launched by the Bush Administration.
On September 1, 2011, the company ceased all business activity, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and laid off all employees. This company turned out to be a bad bet, but it comprises just 1.3% of DOE’s overall loan portfolio. To date, Solyndra is the only loan that’s known to be troubled.
The right-wing cries of “scandal” are based on the claim that one of the Solyndra investors was George Kaiser, a big-time Obama donor. The problem is that George Kaiser didn’t invest a dime in Solyndra. The nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation did. On the other hand, as Dave Johnson points out:
The conservative Wal-Mart Walton Family, however, were private investors through their Madrone Capital, and at the time that the Bush administration started pushing the Solyndra loan were in a position to personally profit from this investment. If any accusation of an expectation of personal enrichment obtained from political connections should be investigated, it is this one. Will the Republican House look into the connections between the Walton family and Bush administration officials, and the Bush administrations efforts to provide loans to Solyndra?
It’s often claimed that the Solyndra loan guarantee was “rushed through” by the Obama Administration for political reasons. What critics fail to mention is that the Solyndra deal is more than three years old, started under the Bush Administration, which tried to conditionally approve the loan right before Obama took office. Rather than “pushing funds out the door too quickly,” the Obama Administration restructured the original loan when it came into office to further protect the taxpayers’ investment. Then in August 2011 the DOE refused to bail out Solyndra, precipitating the company’s bankruptcy.
More info:
Exclusive Timeline: Bush Administration Advanced Solyndra Loan Guarantee for Two Years, Media Blow the Story
U.S. Rejected Solyndra Restructuring Bid Before Shutdown, Committee Finds
The Big Cities Usually Get It Right
Posted by Larry Bergan in Activist groups, American History, Authoritarianism, Capitalism, Corporate Socialism, Elections, Free Speech, Human Rights, Liberal on December 12, 2011
Because they have to. People in close proximity have to find a way to coexist with adverse views which results in better lawmaking. That’s why places like New York and California tend to lead the nation.
Just one mans opinion, but take a look at this:
You are also the 99%
Posted by Martin Bammes in American People, Bailout, Capitalism, Corporate Socialism, Corruption, Disaster, Economic Exploitation, Economy, Free Speech, Liberal, Media Corrections By The People, Occupy SLC, Occupy Wall Street, Poverty, This Blog, Unemployment on November 20, 2011
“If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.”
Vladimir Lenin
Today I reassured a man in the bar that he is not alone in loosing his house. He said to me “I worked all this time.” He’s always had a job, but you have to agree that there is something happening to America today.
People are stealing from you. You let it slide because you cant see their face, but I assure you, they are there. They are there when you pay your interest rate. They are there when you pay your health insurance bill, and what are you going to do about it.
GET ANGRY!!
It is no accident when people are kicked out of their home. The good news is you can do something about it. The bad news is, it will be very hard, and shake you out of your cultural norm. Your system is failing you. You could humbly stand aside and watch it happen, but what about your neighbors or your friends?
YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!
I encourage you, to stand with occupy SLC and get pissed!! There is a person who’s single goal in life is to end the way of yours. It’s time to grab him by the fucking tie and say ” I want my money back, bitch”
Thank you and Semper Fidelis,
Martin Bammes
This Land is YOUR Land
Posted by Martin Bammes in Bailout, Corporate Socialism, Corruption, Liberal, Military, Occupy SLC, Occupy Wall Street on November 18, 2011
Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen,
I want you to consider an America where we all have jobs in abundance. I want you to imagine being sick and going to a doctor, FOR FREE.
I want you to take into yourself the concept, that not all is lost, and get PISSED. I’m mad as hell!! When did we give these corporations authority to annihilate the American dream? When did you, the American working class, give the permission to General Motors to blight entire cities? Why did you let this happen?
Was it the thought that your free market could take (everybody to the top) ?
Was it the thought that the American Sofistaclass would NOT leave you behind?
News flash… They don’t give I flying fuck about you, and believe me, if they didn’t have to pay you minimum wage…. they wouldn’t.
The top 1% would like you to believe that everything will be fine as they kick you out of your home. When do we draw the line in the sand? 21 million homeless Americans? Well if thats the case, it would be today.
I invite YOU, if you are a real patriot, to join YOUR Occupy movement today.
You might even get to meet me in person….
Thank you,
Martin Bammes
Recent Comments