June 30, 2009

Who Is Our Economy FOR, Anyway?

The Seeing the Forest question: Who is our economy FOR, anyway?

If the government provides good, low-cost health care to citizens it reduces the profits of the big insurance and drug companies. This health care battle lays down a clear choice of who benefits: citizens or a wealthy few?

Republican Senator Snowe of Maine announces her choice. See Open Left:: The Problem With The Public Option Is That It Lowers The Cost Of Health Insurance,

In an Associated Press interview in Portland, Snowe said it would be unfair to include a government-run health insurance option that would take effect immediately.

"If you establish a public option at the forefront that goes head-to-head and competes with the private health insurance market ... the public option will have significant price advantages," she said.

Well, duh. That is the whole point. You can't lower the price of health insurance unless you start offering lower-priced health insurance. It's a tautology.

So, naturally, during the fight to lower the price of health insurance, so-called moderate Senators think that the problem with the public option is that it would... lower the price of health insurance. While it may be news to so-called moderate Senators, protecting the crappy products of large corporations is not their job description.

Yes, this health care battle is stripping some of the camouflage from the real fight: do the people benefit from our government, or do a wealthy few benefit?

Who is our economy for, anyway? I first asked that question here just about seven years ago, and it became the blog's tag line. I think the financial crisis and now this health care battle allow people to clearly see and understand which choice their Washington representatives make. And I think the way these twin crises are unfolding helps people to understanding the choice their own elected representatives make. I think will make a big difference come election time.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:10 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

June 21, 2009

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Hey, suckers, take a look at where your money is going: Goldman to make record bonus payout,

Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year...

The bailouts were a wonderful corporate feast. They thank you.

See this chart showing how the bailouts cost more than all the wars, the New Deal, etc. combined. in our history

Up next on the corporate agenda: a law requiring you to buy health insurance from the big insurance corporations. Yes, the same ones who then don't even cover you when you get sick.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:42 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

June 20, 2009

Corp Media Wont Report On Health Insurers

Do read this by dday and then watch the video below. Health insurers refuse to stop denying coverage to people after they get sick. Testifying to Congress they said, "No" they will not stop this. Watch the video.

If you know about this at all it is because you read blogs. The corporate media outlets refuse to let the public know about this. You can come up with a number of reasons, but the fact is that they are not reporting on this story.

So go read Daily Kos: Paul Begala calls out the media: expose the insurance industry!

Since the media will not report on this, you have to. Send the video to people and explain to them what it means. Health insurance companies refuse to stop "rescission" which is denying insured people the coverage they have paid for -- after they get sick. This is why we need at the very least a "public option" in health care coverage. Demand this.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:28 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

June 17, 2009

Why A Public Option In Health Care Plan Is Necessary

In the discussion over health care reform the big debate is over whether to have a "public option" that lets people buy health care from the government instead of private companies.

Read about one reason this is necessary: Healthcare CEOs Shoot Themselves in the Foot | Mother Jones,

A Texas nurse said she lost her coverage, after she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, for failing to disclose a visit to a dermatologist for acne.

Of course a Medicare-For-All national health care plan is the best approach, and the only one that will work. But due to the power of large corporations over our democracy that is "off the table" and not even allowed to be discussed. So we are instead debating whether to let people buy a reasonable policy or just force them to give money to big companies.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:00 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

June 11, 2009

Naming Dems Who Are In It For The Money

Common Cause released a study of the recent vote on the legislation to allow bankruptcy judges to change the terms of mortgages (known as :cram-down") so people don't have to lose their houses. As you already guessed the Democrats who kept this from passing received money - a lot of money, an average of $58,894 in the 2008 election cycle - from the banking and finance special interests, while the rest of the Democrats did not. This vote was a strictly pay-for-play bribe and we need to do something about Democrats who take money from big corporations and then vote against the public interest. (All the Republicans voted with the big corporations, by the way.)

An article about the study t r u t h o u t | Study Follows the Money on Cram-Down Vote names the names:

[the] 39 Republicans needed Democratic help to kill the bill. And they got it.

The 12 Democratic senators who crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans were Max Baucus (Montana), Michael Bennet (Colorado), Robert Byrd (West Virginia), Thomas Carper (Delaware), Byron Dorgan (North Dakota), Tim Johnson (South Dakota), Mary Landrieu (Louisiana), Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas), Ben Nelson (Nebraska), Mark Pryor (Arkansas), Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania) and Jon Tester (Montana).

If you live in a state with one of these Senators, call their office and let them know how you feel about them taking money to vote for big corporate interests. This money-taking is nothing less than bribery, corruption and is an affront to democracy.

Also, more votes backing financial industry rip-offfs of the public:

Many of the Democrats who sided with the financial industry in the "cram-down" vote were instrumental in blocking a proposed 15 percent cap on interest rates that credit card companies can charge. Senators Baucus, Byrd, Carper, Johnson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Specter and Tester joined with Senators Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Evan Bayh (D- Indiana), Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico), Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), Kay Hagan (D-North Carolina), Ted Kaufman (D-Delaware), Patty Murray (D-Washington), Bill Nelson (D-Florida), Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas), Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire), Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia), in opposition to the anti-usury bill sponsored by Vermont's Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:42 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Holocaust Museum Shooting Demostrates Need for Employee Free Choice

Security guards at the Holocaust Museum, members of the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America, had tried to get protective vests from the company that employs them. The company didn't want to bother with this "cost" and wouldn't provide vests. Now one guard is dead.

Employees need to be able to have a say in their workplace. The "security" company was concerned with profits. The employees were the ones concerned with security. The company won out.

This is one more reason why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.

From page 2 of Grief, Shock After 'Outstanding' Guard Loses His Life in the Line of Duty - washingtonpost.com,

Faye said that during contract negotiations with Wackenhut two years ago, the union pressed for company-issued protective vests. Although Wackenhut seemed open to the idea, vests have not been issued, Faye said.

"I hammered this in our negotiations two years ago because of how sensitive that museum is," he said. "Our guards needed more protection." He said that one of the guards at the museum was "verbally assaulted by one guy walking by, saying anti-Semitic remarks. For that reason, I made that the center of the negotiation."

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:41 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

June 8, 2009

The Health Care Reform Question

I think the health care "reform" debate boils down to a simple question: Is this about delivering for the people, or about delivering for the big corporations? Or really I should say for the few wealthy people who benefit when big corporations get their way.

Really, as always it just boils down to a raw, naked fight between these competing interests. We, the People, or the wealthy few.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:46 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Health Care Reform Lost At Start

The current health care "reform" plan is that we will all be required by law to give our money to big insurance corporations who might or might not provide or deny some amount of good or not-so-good health care.

The only debate is whether to include a "public option" to let us pay to buy into a Medicare-type plan. But this isn't about taxing g corporations and the rich so we can have the health care that every other country provides. No, this is about making us pay instead of our receiving the fruits of our economy.

The original hopes for a system like what every other country in the world has, where our government - We, the People - provides some form of health care for us disappeared even before any debate began. Government-paid health care for all, the same as Medicare for those over 65 (sometimes confusingly called "single-payer"), is not even allowed to be discussed in the Congress. From this we can clearly see that the power of a few wealthy people who have access to corporate resources currently is greater than the power of all of the rest of the people of the country.

What we should learn from this is that we have reached a point where the only players in the national legislative process are big corporations and the wealthy. The interests of the public are no longer even a consideration. Right now it has reached the point where we have no voice at all.

The answer is to organize. If we organize we can fight this. Get connected, respond to calls to action, give money, and learn that you have to get off your butt and make noise or nothing will happen.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:43 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

June 6, 2009

Name The Enemy

I've been thinking lately, are conservatives the enemy, or are they just a front for the enemy? Please read Naming the Enemy

I've believed for some time that the big money interests just use the conservatives as a tool to enact their agenda (sort of like how Iran got them to invade Iraq...) and their money is what provided the conservatives with their power. It's not personal - just business. But now that support for the conservative movement might be waning, and the conservatives' ability to get things done for the money agenda is diminished, where will that money and power go to work next?

Read Chris Hayes' article, which has some ideas on that.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:42 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Health Care: Public Option Is A Must

I just want to go on the record here that any health care reform must include a "public option." This is an option for insurance that comes from the government, not from for-profit companies. Without it there really is no "reform."

This is a deal-breaker: no public option, then no anything, and we keep trying to get health care that works for the public instead of just taking our money to benefit a few.

Conservatives like to say that government is inefficient, incompetent, cumbersome, wasteful and can't compete with "the private sector." But NOW they're suddenly all worried that private businesses can't compete with government. The ONLY reason there is consideration of continuing the failed, greedy, destructive corporate insurance system is because the few who get rich off of it are paying off politicians to keep things they way they are.

This is about providing what is best for the people, not about watching out for corporate interests and the profits that get funneled up to a few people at the top. If business can serve the people better than the people (government) can, let them prove it by including a public insurance option in the health care reform.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:30 PM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

June 4, 2009

Think Tanking For Bucks II

There's big bucks out there for those willing to claim global warming isn't real.

I wonder who is putting up all that money?

Here's another: The Cato Institute's Generous Funding of Patrick Michaels | Center for Media and Democracy,

Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow with the the Cato Institute, a Washington D.C. think tank, is one of the leading global warming skeptics. Back in 1994, when his media profile as Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Virgina and a global warming skeptic was taking off, Michaels founded New Hope Environmental Services.

The firm, which he wholly owns, describes itself as "an advocacy science consulting firm." These days, New Hope's main activities are publishing the firm's blog, World Climate Report, and helping anonymous clients to publicize "findings on climate change and scientific and social perspectives that may not otherwise appear in the popular literature or media."

While both Michaels and New Hope Environmental Services are secretive about who their clients are, a little piece of their funding jigsaw is tucked away in the backblocks of the 2006 and 2007 (pdf's - see page 10) annual returns of the Cato Institute. In its returns, Cato reports that since April 2006 they have paid $242,900 for the "environmental policy" services of Michaels' firm. (In preceding years, New Hope Environmental Services was not listed amongst the five highest paid independent contractors supplying professional services to Cato.)

Go read the rest.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:17 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Think Tanking For Bucks

The Heartland Institute's Quest for "Real Science" on Global Warming | Center for Media and Democracy,

The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-headquartered think tank that has taken on the role of trying to coordinate the disparate global warming skeptics, has organized yet another conference to be held in Washington this week disputing the reality of global warming. "The real science and economics of climate change support the view that global warming is not a crisis and that immediate action to reduce emissions is not necessary," they claim.

But when the Heartland Institute talks about "real science," it is hard to ignore the fact that for years they have defended the policy agenda of the tobacco industry without disclosing that they were funded by Phillip Morris. Indeed, Heartland still claims to defend the rights of smokers, a ploy long used by the tobacco industry to keep themselves out of the spotlight.

Go read the rest.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:02 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

June 2, 2009

American Manufacturing

I am at the America's Future Now conference in DC (formerly Take Back America). I had a conversation today with people from the Alliance for American Manufacturing. This is an alliance of companies that make things in America, and the United steelworkers union. They have an interest in making things in America, and I'll likely be writing about this more and more.

The owner of a company that makes wind turbines for generating electricity talked about a wind farm his company is helping build. They need a special transformer -- and we don't make them in America anymore. So they have to go on a 52-week waiting list to get the transformer. This is just one example of the cost to us of giving away our manufacturing capabilities.

This loss of manufacturing capabilities comes from the increasing dominance of our economy by financial firms. They buy companies, strip things that have "costs," like pensions, and outsource what they can, then sell the company to the next financial firm.

More coming.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:20 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

May 27, 2009

Why Is Welfare A Bad Word?

"Welfare" has been turned into a bad word in the U.S. Like "liberal." How many people even know what the word really means, reacting instead of the negative spin it has? Many of us are so conditioned by propaganda that we can't even think about the meanings of words.

Merriam-Webster:

1: the state of doing well especially in respect to good fortune, happiness, well-being, or prosperity
2 a: aid in the form of money or necessities for those in need b: an agency or program through which such aid is distributed

Oxford:

• noun 1 the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group. 2 action or procedure designed to promote the basic physical and material well-being of people in need. 3 chiefly N. Amer. financial support given for this purpose.

"the state of being or doing well; condition of health, happiness, and comfort; well-being; prosperity" OOH - Bad!

So what about "welfare state?" Wikipedia on "welfare state": "A model in which the state assumes primary responsibility for the welfare of its citizens."

Your government watching out for your welfare. Imagine that.

Bad, bad, run away, run away.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:06 AM | Comments (3) | Link Cosmos

May 24, 2009

Big Ag Forces University To Stop Distributing Book To Students

It seems that books criticizing the actions of big corporations are too "controversial" for some universities. Washington State University dropped the book "Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" from their "common reading" program -- in fact dropped the whole program -- after a complaint from an agri-business-associated member of the board of regents of the University. Even though the university had already purchased 4,000 copies.

Big money makes the decisions these days. Apparently even about which books can be distributed at universities.

Through La Vida Locavore

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:52 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

May 16, 2009

The Cayman Islands Is Part Of Why We Don't Have Health Care

The Cayman Islands is part of what we don't have health care. Does that sound like a bizarre statement? Well, read this: A Lot of Our Money Is Buried in the Cayman Islands -- Let's Get It Back,

The Senate Permanent Investigations subcommittee puts the annual tax loss at $100 billion; Treasury sets the figure at $123 billion. Collecting those lost billions could mean that Americans could pay no withholding tax from November 15 to December 31; it could pay for healthcare for about 20 million of the roughly 50 million Americans without health insurance.

. . . Congress should pass a law funding pursuit of every major tax cheat, just as we pursue every killer, rapist and drug dealer. Using offshore accounts to cheat the government out of $50,000 or more for two or more years should be made a felony per se. Then let's provide an escape hatch, which would spare prosecution of anyone who fesses up and fully pays taxes, penalties and interest. The same law should make public the name and details of every person or company that skips the opportunity to make things right.

Why do we tolerate these offshore tax and corporate scams? Why don't we just put an end to it -- and get better schools, health care, etc. out of the deal?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:22 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

May 15, 2009

The Bailouts and Democracy

(This post appeared as part of the Issues Now! series leading up to the America's Future Now conference from the Campaign for America's Future.)

I have questions about the bailouts and I can’t seem to get answers. This by itself means there are big problems with the bailouts and the rest of this effort to restore the economy. I am a citizen in a (supposed) democracy and I am not getting enough information to allow me to do my job. As a citizen I’m in charge of all of this, yet I don’t know where my money is going, how it is being used, what alternatives were considered, who is profiting, who is gaming the system, and I can’t find out.

Like the old Soviet Union, when the institutions that are supposed to provide information are not trusted – or are not there – rumors and alternate explanations (read: “conspiracy theories”) abound. And so it is with the national discussion of the bailouts. Ask anyone on the street about the bailouts, read almost any blog, op-ed page, letter to the editor: people do not understand why these particular corporations are so special that they should get this special access to our money after they got themselves into trouble, and no one is doing a good job of explaining to the public-at-large just what is going on. “Trust us” is not democracy.

Take a look at this short video clip of Representative Alan Grayson (D-Fla) asking the Federal Reserve Inspector General what she knows about the trillions that the Fed has put up and the IG saying she doesn’t know:

Q: “You’re the Inspector General … do you know who received that one trillion dollars plus…?”

A: “I do not know.”

And there are reports that the Congressional Oversight Panel headed by Elizabeth Warren is having trouble getting sufficient information from the Treasury Department. So as far as I can tell, no one is getting sufficient information and reporting back to us citizens what is being done in our name and with our money. And it is a lot of money. Right-wing radio and blogs are certainly taking full advantage of this information gap to stir up anger and trouble. As David Sirota wrote the other day,

According to Bloomberg News, the White House, the Congress and the Federal Reserve have committed almost $13 trillion to the financial industry in one bailout form or another. If even more resources continue to be devoted to bailing out the same financial con artists who got us into this economic mess, that means far less resources will be available to tackle all of the nation's other challenges (health care, infrastructure, education, etc.). And when those challenges aren't met, conservatives will have a set of failures to cite as a powerful rationale for their own political revival.

So let me ask a few of my questions:

Are the stress tests being gamed as rumored? If so, why? They used 8.9 percent unemployment as their “worst case” and, as Dean Baker wrote, “The unemployment rate hit 8.9 percent last week and it is undoubtedly going higher.”

Is the Public/Private Investment Partnership (PPIP) plan being gamed as rumored with big banks using bailout funds to trade toxic assets at inflated prices and again fraudulently boost their balance sheets (BBuBfBBs)? (The dual-alliteration test might be just as valid as a stress test that used a sure-to-be-topped unemployment number as its worst case.) But seriously, is someone looking into this and stopping it if true?

Is it true that, as rumored, individuals at AIG are offering sweet deals (backed by taxpayer dollars) in exchange for very-high-paying jobs down the line with the recipients of those deals? Again, is someone looking into this and stopping it if true?

Why was it essential that those particular corporations be bailed out to get credit flowing? Couldn’t other banks take over their lending subsidiaries or departments with government help? Instead we’re giving billions to already-too-big corporations followed by rumors that they are using the money to acquire other companies and get even bigger. Are we making too-big-to-fail corporations into too-bigger-to-fail corporations?

Why do Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and others in the Obama administration appear (at least from the information I get) to think their employer is the financial sector instead of the People of the United States? For example, in the restructuring of GM they are allowing jobs to be outsourced. How does this match up with the idea that in our democracy those workers are their employer?

Along the same lines, why didn’t the legislation authorizing the bailouts prohibit the companies receiving taxpayer money from lobbying? Why didn’t it limit pay and bonuses at all levels to the amount earned by the President of the United States? Why did it have so many loopholes that allow these companies to game the system with our money? In other words, why does it seem like the people writing the legislation felt they worked for the banking industry instead of the people?

And here is a big question: Didn’t we go through something just like this with the S&L crisis not that long ago? What lessons did we learn from that? The causes of the S&L crisis were deregulation, “unsound real estate lending,” and connected insiders (with names like Neil Bush) gaming the system. I wrote about the connection between the S&L crisis and this one the other day,

People got really, really rich looting financial institutions, and then when the taxpayers came in to fix it connected insiders got really rich from that, too. … Valuable properties were sold to connected insiders for pennies on the dollar. Pretty much everyone was allowed to keep what they made from what we think of as bad practices.

So look at the results of the current crisis. A few got really rich by looting financial institutions, taxpayers on the hook to bail everyone out, and the cleanup looks like it involves connected insiders getting really rich. ...

So maybe the lesson WAS learned. For example, we think Lehman was a failure? But a few people made millions, even hundreds of millions from those decisions. ... And they were all allowed to keep the money.

So the lesson for US to learn is that this stuff works out really well for the people making the decisions. If we want these things to stop we need to get the money back … and put enough of them in jail. Otherwise the incentive structure guarantees this will happen over and over. It is set up that way.

Yes, these are a lot of questions.

And one last one: Do we want to “restore” our financial system, or change it? What we had didn’t work. In fact what we had demonstrated the most extreme example of “didn’t work” that any of us have experienced in our lifetimes. So why do we want to “restore” it? The words imply a wish to return to the way things were. Ryan Avent writes,

Many progressives want to use the actual process of crisis resolution to reshape the financial system, but this is like trying to install a sprinkler system while one’s home is on fire.

Ryan, this fire burned down the whole town. What I want is a complete investigation of how the fire started, who started it, why there wasn’t a sprinkler system, why the fire department wasn’t making them install a sprinkler system (and was someone paid off), and how much the fire department is spending on fighting the fire. And then I want complete accountability: who will go to jail for starting this fire and who will be fired because there was no sprinkler system. And when all that is out of the way I want new management at the fire department and a completely overhauled fire code that protects the public and never lets this happen again.

Shouldn’t we instead learn from what happened and make some fundamental changes to bring it more in line with our ideas about democracy and who is supposed to be in charge here? As I have been asking for years, who is our economy for anyway? Shouldn’t we see that too-big-to-fail is too big and limit by law the size of corporations – as well as limit the allowed percentage of ownership any person or entity can as they grow larger? Shouldn’t we realize that corporate money should stay in the corporation and not be allowed to influence our decision-making? Shouldn’t we all be asking more questions and getting answers?

If anything needs to be “restored” it is the understanding that We, the People are in charge here and have a right to all the information we want and need from our government and our elected officials. They work for us. Under our system We, the People are supposed to be telling the corporations what to do, not the other way around.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:02 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

May 8, 2009

Wall Street Lobbying

How much of the anti-government, anti-Obama hysteria being pumped from the lobbying PR firms is funded by Wall Street?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:33 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

May 4, 2009

Accountability

Is there any accountability yet? Have any major financial thieves been put in jail and/or made to give the money back yet? (I don't mean the Madoffs, I mean the ones who talked people into mortgaging their houses so they could sell CDOs.) Have any corrupt government officials from the Bush years been prosecuted yet? Have any lobbyists been indicted for giving bribes - or politicians indicted for taking them? Have any government officials been prosecuted for doing bug companies a favor and then leaving the governemnt and taking huge-paying jobs from those companies?

How about has anyone been held accountable for torture people and launching wars that killed tens of hundreds of thousands? Or how about just having pallettes of money shipped to Iraq for distribution?

How about something simple, like getting bonuses back from people who made millions and millions defrauding people and ruining the economy and destroying millions of people's retirement? Or maybe even just making them pay their taxes? Or how about just asking people making tens of millions to pay at least the same taxe rates that the rest of us pay?

Nope. Nada. Not that I have seen. No accountability yet. Nothing. The rich and the powerful can get away with anything. Anything. We have a two-tiered justice system in America now and no one bothers to deny it.

Is the new boss same as the old boss? Or will things change?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:49 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

Why Is This Company Allowed To Operate?

Why is Merck allowed to continue to operate?

Merck Makes Phony Peer-Review Journal -

Merck cooked up a phony, but real sounding, peer reviewed journal and published favorably looking data for its products in them.

From the linked article in The Scientist, Merck published fake journal,

Merck paid an undisclosed sum to Elsevier to produce several volumes of a publication that had the look of a peer-reviewed medical journal, but contained only reprinted or summarized articles--most of which presented data favorable to Merck products--that appeared to act solely as marketing tools with no disclosure of company sponsorship.

. . . The issues contained little in the way of advertisements apart from ads for Fosamax, a Merck drug for osteoporosis, and Vioxx.

. . . The claim that Merck had created a journal out of whole cloth to serve as a marketing tool was first reported by The Australian about three weeks ago. It came to light in the context of a civil suit filed by Graeme Peterson, who suffered a heart attack in 2003 while on Vioxx, against Merck and its Australian subsidiary, Merck, Sharp & Dohme Australia (MSDA).

They invented a phony "scientific" "peer-reviewed" journal to public marketing articles promoting their products, making it look like "science" validated them!

How many people did Vioxx kill? Question: Does this "pharmaceutical" company, like others, refuse to develop antibiotics - even though we (humanity) are running out of effective antibiotics - because they don't make enough profit?

Why are they allowed to call themselves a pharmaceutical company? Why are they allowed by our laws to be a corporation?

It is time to put a stop to all corporate lobbying of all types, and get a handle back on control of our own government!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:52 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

April 26, 2009

On Jerry Brown’s Campaign For California Governor

He was called “Moonbeam” and mocked, but he was right, and we were right, and the country needs to come to terms with this this so we can move on and finally DO right.

Jerry Brown was Governor of California from 1975 to 1983. He was a symbol of “the 60’s” even though it was the 70's, because he came from the times, cared about the issues of the times, spoke the language of the times and governed for the people, from the times. He opposed the Vietnam war. He talked about protecting the environment and conserving energy and providing education and "Buddhist economics." He fought corporate power and sued large corporations, particularly in the area of campaign finance. He was right.

For taking these positions Jerry was called "Moonbeam" and mocked for advocating things that we now all understand were correct and necessary. It is 30 years later and the country needs to get past that mocking of the people who were right. But the mocking and obstruction by entrenched interests are still in the way of letting us move on and do the things we need to do for the economy, the country, and the planet.

Now Jerry is again running for Governor of California and I think this is important to our current national conversation at a time when we must come to terms with the reasons that we have waited 30 years to start doing something about major problems. Jerry’s campaign will force a conversation that will clarify for the country that the "dirty hippies" were right, that we need to learn to ignore the mocking that is a primary weapon of the corporate right, that we need to take care of the planet, that we need to take care of each other, that we need to be in charge of the corporations, not the other way around.

In his speech to the California Democratic Convention he talked about how 30 years ago he changed California's energy policies, and how the result has been that California has barely increased its energy use since while the rest of the country has. He talk about a number of things like this, but what most resonated with me was when he talked about how we educate kids. The current emphasis on testing is stifling the creativity of kids. He says we need to bring back education that stimulates creativity. Wow -- how long since I have heard "60's" talk that's so right?! Talk that recognizes our humanity and says that we are not just cogs in a corporate machine. Who talks about these things today?

A few years ago, when Jerry was running for Attorney General, I wrote,

I've loved Jerry Brown since his 1992 campaign for President. During that campaign he proposed boosting the economy and helping the energy/pollution/Middle East problem with a national program to hire unemployed people to retrofit buildings to be energy efficient. Imagine if we had done that! So now 13 years later we have the Apollo Alliance but Jerry doesn't seem to get much credit for being so far ahead on this.

A few years before that I wrote,

In the 1992 campaign Jerry Brown made a suggestion that I haven't forgotten. He suggested putting the unemployed to work retrofitting buildings and homes to be energy efficient. It requires an up-front investment but it returns a more efficient economy (everyone paying less for energy) and national energy independence as a foreign policy bonus. Meanwhile all those unemployed people are getting and spending paychecks, boosting the economy. It helps everyone but the oil companies. Oh. I guess not, then.

I don’t know right now if Brown can or should win and this is not an endorsement. But I think this is a conversation that we all need to have and learn from.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:03 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 24, 2009

Prosecuting Wrongdoing

Do they just get away with it, thereby setting the baseline for future conduct?

Will we investigate and prosecute government officials who, for money, delayed the effort to fight global warming?

Will we investigate and prosecute government officials who, for money, stopped enforcement of the country's labor laws?

How many hundreds of examples can we think of from the last few years, where lobbyists were put in charge of agencies, or where officials did a corporation's bidding and then left to take a very-high-paying job in that corporation?

And, of course, launching illegal wars and ordering people tortured.

How else do we prevent things like that from happening again, the next time a paid-off political party gains power?

Or do they just get away with it, providing the incentive to do it again?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:46 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 19, 2009

America Was Created To Fight Corporate Power

Americans should all understand the reasons behind the formation of this country. We formed this country because a wealthy elite, called royalty, controlled the economy and set up legal monopoly operations for the benefit of their cronies, called corporations, and then set up the laws and tax structure to benefit those corporations and their owners at the expense of the rest of us.

We fought a revolution to change this. We set up a governement and economy that is supposed to be controlled by We, the People. Think about the meaning of that the next time you hear corporate-funded voices complain about "big government." They are complaining that the people make the decisions instead of the corporate elite -- once known as royalty.

PLEASE read The Real Boston Tea Party was Against the Wal-Mart of the 1770s

The real Boston Tea Party was a protest against huge corporate tax cuts for the British East India Company, the largest trans-national corporation then in existence. This corporate tax cut threatened to decimate small Colonial businesses by helping the BEIC pull a Wal-Mart against small entrepreneurial tea shops, and individuals began a revolt that kicked-off a series of events that ended in the creation of The United States of America.

They covered their faces, massed in the streets, and destroyed the property of a giant global corporation. Declaring an end to global trade run by the East India Company that was destroying local economies, this small, masked minority started a revolution with an act of rebellion later called the Boston Tea Party.

Later in the piece,

The citizens of the colonies were preparing to throw off one of the corporations that for almost 200 years had determined nearly every aspect of their lives through its economic and political power. They were planning to destroy the goods of the world’s largest multinational corporation, intimidate its employees, and face down the guns of the government that supported it.

A link to this was posted at Atrios' blog, by Avedon of The sideshow.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:51 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

April 18, 2009

Where Is Anger Over AIG Tax Scam?

Does everyone have bailout fatigue? Are we burned out from being angry about our tax dollars being used to help a few "too big to fail" operations?

How else can we explain that almost nothing is being said about revelations that AIG -- one of the biggest recipients of tax dollars in history -- was helping big corporations and the wealthy avoid paying their taxes?

WE - the ones who did pay our taxes - are bailing out a huge operation that got rich partly from helping the rich and big corporations avoid paying their taxes.

A few days back I wrote about AIG's Tax Dodge Business,

AIG FP was one of the biggest players in the business of engineering offshore tax shelters for corporate and private clients that resembled a multibillion dollar tax evasion scheme called Son of Boss (we don't have time to figure out why) that thousands of corporations and wealthy individuals used to book phony capital gains losses and evade most or all of their income taxes in the late nineties and early 00s.

When are we going to start talking about getting the money back? When are we going to start talking about accountability for the people responsible for all of this?

Why is Obama surrounding himself with people who come from Wall Street - Goldman Sachs in particular - whose solution is to pump all of our money into the Wall Street they come from and not even tell us how it is being used? When are we going to start demanding that Obama bring in people who will hold people accountable? (That applies to holding torturers accountable, as well.)

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:30 AM | Comments (4) | Link Cosmos

April 13, 2009

The truth about the Fox News Tea Parties

Save the Rich | The truth about the Fox News Tea Parties

Open Letter to Media: This is What Astroturf Looks Like 04/13/2009 - 21:04

"Astroturf." Fake grassroots. It's what you get when big business and rich zealots hire pricey consultants to manufacture public outrage.

With big budgets, limitless manpower, sophisticated targeting, and a sympathetic media channel, it's not difficult to generate anger.

Please go read the whole thing, and FORWARD the site to others!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:15 PM | Comments (5) | Link Cosmos

Teabagger Parties - Remember The Seeing the Forest Rule

The Seeing the Forest Rule: When right-wingers are accusing others of something it is usually a cover for something THEY are doing. Today's variation is when they claim they are doing the honest, innocent thing it usually means they doing are the dishonest, conniving thing. The promoters of the upcoming anti-Obama "tea parties" claim that they are "grassroots" but really they are one more corporate-funded, lobbyist-organized Republican bait-and-switch operation, tricking their supporters into supporting even more corporate tax cuts and tax cuts for the rich.

Here is what I am talking about. The NY Post is owned by the same company as FOX News. SO take a look at this: TEA PARTIES: REAL GRASSROOTS - New York Post,

...these Tea Party protests aren't the same old rituals with the same old marchers.

These aren't the usual semiprofessional protesters who attend antiwar and pro-union marches. These are people with real jobs; most have never attended a protest march before. They represent a kind of energy that our politics hasn't seen lately, and an influx of new activists.
[. . .] Instead of the "astroturf" that has marked the ACORN-organized AIG protests, this movement is real grassroots. So if you've had enough, consider visiting a Tea Party protest in your area -- there's bound to be one.

It's your chance to be part of an authentic popular protest movement, one that just might save America from the greed and ineptitude of the folks who have been running it into the ground.

There are numerous posts and articles like this one, all claiming this is a "spontaneous" and "grassroots" event. In fact, as Jane at Firedoglake points out, the tea parties are organized, funded and promoted by a big lobbyist organization. Think Progress also writes about this and Media Matters writes about how these anti-Obama events are receiving exhaustive on-the-air promotion from FOX News, to the point of calling them "FNC Tea Parties." (So does Think Progress.)

Also be sure to read Oliver Willis, The Seminal, Crooks & Liars, Washington Monthly, Newshounds and DownWithTyranny writes about the calls to violence associated with the tea parties.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:48 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

Stop The Corrupting Corporate Money At The Source

The way to stop corporate corruption of our political system is to stop the corporate money from leaking out of the corporation.

We can pass laws to prevent corporations from using money for anything other than the operation of the company. We can impose a regulatory structure that works, and stops them from using funds for lobbying, funding front-group "think tanks" and anything else that WE decide is corrupting our system. We can track the money, and punish executives who allow it to leak out of the corporation.

We can stop it at the source. Much easier than trying to patch hundreds of little loopholes that pop up to capture the flow of money after it has left the corporation. It is so much easier to spot money as it leaves the company, and plug that leak, than it is to try to control it after it is out. One law, one set of accounting rules, and it all stops.

We, the People grant corporations a charter to operate, within certain rules. We allow them to amass significant resources because it enables large-scale projects. But these resources are supposed to be used to run the company, not to corrupt our political system. This money is supposed to be the property of the shareholders and is supposed to be used ONLY to run the company. It is theft for executives to use it to fund anything that influences public opinion or policy to enrich themselves...

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:32 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

April 11, 2009

AIG's Tax Dodge Business

AIG was running a scam that enabled companies to dodge paying taxes. Yes, the same AIG that is now sucking up our tax dollars - and paying out million-dollar-bonuses - was in the business of helping companies not pay their taxes.

At what point do we feel completely harvested, bled, scammed, and done with this? Why aren't we raising taxes on high incomes -- the beneficiaries of all these scams that brought down the economy -- to pay for all of this?

WSJ: AIG's Tax Shelter Business Was 'Even Bigger' Than Their CDOs; IRS Calls At Least One Of Them A 'Sham' | Crooks and Liars

An attorney and tax shelter expert we spoke with today says AIG FP was one of the biggest players in the business of engineering offshore tax shelters for corporate and private clients that resembled a multibillion dollar tax evasion scheme called Son of Boss (we don't have time to figure out why) that thousands of corporations and wealthy individuals used to book phony capital gains losses and evade most or all of their income taxes in the late nineties and early 00s.

Go read.

So I found this from 2005: Court Papers Say A.I.G. Played Role in Tax Shelter,

New court papers indicate that the American International Group helped dozens of wealthy individuals make use of questionable tax shelters intended to shield hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from federal taxes.

A.I.G. is under scrutiny by federal and New York investigators looking into questionable insurance transactions that the company used to dress up its financial strength.

How much of this economic mess is because We, the People didn't demand that this company be broken up when this news came out?

Why haven't We, the People taken control and broken these "companies" up into little bite-sized chunks yet?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:07 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 10, 2009

FOX News -- PROMOTING, Not Covering Tea Parties

FOX News has become nothing more than an advertisement for anti-government activities like the "tea parties." Watch this compilation of FOX "coverage" of the anti-Obama tea parties and see for yourself. This is not a "news" network, this is an advocacy network, advocating for anti-government, anti-democracy, pro-corporate policies that benefit a wealthy few.

Go read Fox News Signs On To Tea Party Agenda, Aggressively Promoting Anti-Obama Protests,

Fox News isn’t the only right-wing organization involved in building up these so-called “grassroots” events. The tea parties have been heavily backed by corporate lobbyists. The principle organizers of many of the local events are actually the lobbyist-run think tanks Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Works, and Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions. The groups are heavily staffed and well funded, and are providing all the logistical and public relations work necessary for planning coast-to-coast protests.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:39 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 6, 2009

Corporate Corruption: So Obvious - How To End It

A company (or industry) makes a tremendous amount of money by scamming us, screwing us, stealing from us, killing us, poisoning us, destroying our environment or some other thing that one way or another a working democracy would stop immediately. But the company uses a portion of the money they are accumulating to pay off legislators, regulators, inspectors -- someone in the government -- to keep them from stopping the company from what they are doing. And they pay off others in the government to stop the rest of the government from doing anything about that. Meanwhile they spend a bit more of that money on marketing/propaganda/PR/trickery to make us look the other way.

So it continues. And we all get poorer while they get richer. And each year this continues they have even more money and power to use to keep us from stopping them.

We see it over and over again. It is becoming the primary path to wealth here. Companies and industries getting rich from corruption, bribery, buying elections, buying legislators, purchasing government subsidies or tax breaks or handouts or bailouts... It is so much more cost-effective than actually making something worthwhile and slowly building an industry based on quality and good service to customers that it is replacing the old, more honest business model.

How many examples can you think of just off the top of your head?

Of course we start with the tobacco industry, killing what, 400,000 Americans each year? But if I start writing about all the ways the tobacco industry has paid off legislators and others to ward off accountability I won't get anything else written for weeks...

And then there are the health insurance companies, reaping their fortunes off of keeping us from health care and from having a health care system like the rest of the modern countries of the world.

The pharmaceutical industry actually got the Republican Party to pass a law prohibiting the government from negotiating better prices for the drugs Medicare buys!

The military armament industry, grabbing one of the largest chunks of the US budget, continues the taxpayer gravy train by marketing fear and marginalization... Look what happens to anyone who suggests we shouldn't continue handing them more money than every other country in the world combined spends on their own military. Suggesting we cut this brings down the hammer.

The oil industry, what can I say? An industry that exists to take a resource out of the ground and sell it back to us -- as if the resources of the planet are not the property of the people of the planet -- paying off legislators to keep us from taxing them, all the while poisoning the planet, preventing alternatives...

Wall Street, hedge funds and the banking industry -- what do I need to say? They paid to get a law passed prohibiting the government from regulating credit default swaps. And now they pay to get the government to bail them out from the inevitable consequences!

How about the food industry -- paying to get the government to stop food inspections? Paying to be allowed to continue to sell food proven to makes people obese and give us diabetes - even children?

How about industries that market anorexia and self-hatred to women in order to sell clothes and makeup?

How long could I go on with this list? Leave a comment with an example of your own.

What do we do about it? It really is a simple answer. All we really have to do is remember that the first three words of our Constitution are "We, the People." WE are in charge here, not them. We are the boss of them. We own the country (and its resources), not them. We make the laws, not them. We are a one-person-one-vote not a one-dollar-one-vote country.

So it's very simple, really: We change the laws. We stop them from corrupting us with the money that our laws allow corporations to accumulate. We prevent companies from spending even one cent on anything other than what that company does. It is not their business to tell us what to do, it is our obligation as citizens in a democracy to tell them what to do. We need to say: not one cent can leak out of a company to influence the rules we set for how companies operate. No lobbying whatsoever. No propaganda. No funding "think tanks" that are just front groups for corporate PR. No astroturf, no PR, no influencing public opinion in any way whatsoever. Not one cent used for anything that even hints at telling us how to run our country. Not one cent for anything other than the operation of the company, and while we're at it that includes predatory marketing of their own products, marketing that influences our culture, marketing that makes us feel bad about ourselves, marketing that makes us feel bad about others, marketing that insults us and marketing that makes us think we should want things that we shouldn't!

And jail for anyone who breaks these rules. Because we are the boss in this country and they have abused that idea and in so doing have ruined our economy and harmed our planet.

We are the people, we are in charge. All we have to do to get this done is do it. Once you believe that you have the power, you do.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:18 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 4, 2009

Who Do You Think Paid For This? - Episode XXII

Down With Tyranny has the story: The End Of Tax Havens? Not Until The Far Right Is Wiped Off The Face Of The Earth

OK, this video is from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation featuring Dan Mitchell from Cato Institute who it also turns out is Chariman of the CFPF, and Down With Tyranny swears it isn't a spoof:

Billionaires and the shills who make a living by scraping and bowing before them and faithfully serving their interests-- like the Republican Party and GOP front groups like the American Heritage Institute, Fox News and the Cato Institute-- are hardly giving up and will fight a battle to persuade gullible Americans that tax cheats are true patriots. This video by Republican Party astroturf group, the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation explains, with a straight face, how absolutely fabulous tax havens are. This isn't a spoof; it's real (I swear):

The guy actually keeps a straight face while he says this stuff about why rich people and companies should be able to avoid taxes using tax-scam secret offshore accounts. (I'll bet they also complain that Obama's budget increases the deficit.)

So where do you think this "institute" gets the money to put out stuff about how really, really rich people (who got rich off of the infrastructure that We, the People built) shouldn't pay taxes?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:00 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

March 31, 2009

Teachers Fired To Pay For Huge Corporate Tax Cut -- Why?

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

I've been asking around and it seems that most Californians don't know that the budget deal that fires so many teachers also has a huge tax cut just for big, multi-state and multi-national corporations.

But it's true. Last month's budget deal that fires teachers, cuts essential government services, and guts the investments that bring future economic benefits also has a huge tax cut for the largest of corporations. While this part of the deal has been kept pretty quiet, the LA Times had a story, Business the big winner in California budget plan. From the story,

The average Californian's taxes would shoot up five different ways in the state budget blueprint that lawmakers hope to vote on this weekend. But the bipartisan plan for wiping out the state's giant deficit isn't so bad for large corporations, many of which would receive a permanent windfall.

About $1 billion in corporate tax breaks -- directed mostly at multi-state and multinational companies -- is tucked into the proposal.

But wait, won't a big corporate tax cut cause companies to come to California, creating jobs? No, they are already here and it will drive them away, because it is paid for by firing teachers.

A study by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, released in 2005, found that most companies decide where to locate based not on tax breaks but on factors such as the availability of a highly educated workforce. California's proposed plan would cut spending on higher education by hundreds of millions of dollars.

So how did this happen? This was part of the deal to get a few Republican votes. And why did the Republicans want this so bad? Because they understood who really elected them.

If you look at the independent expenditure reports for the 2008 California election you'll see a massive amount of last-minute money. For example, in the 19th Senate District, a political action committee (PAC) named "Californians for Jobs and Education" put almost $1 million into just one race: $570,653 into defeating Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson, and another $373,778 to help elect her opponent, Republican Tony Strickland. When you look this group up on ElectionTrack you learn that this money came from corporations like Arkansas' Wal-Mart, Blue Cross of Ohio (Ohio?), Reliant Energy, major real estate companies, and from other PACs.

Now it gets interesting. Many of the contributions to that PAC came from other PACs, especially one called Jobs Pac. When you track down Jobs PAC you find that it is a conduit for huge, huge amounts of money coming from large corporations like Philip Morris, ATT, Chevron, Safeway, Sempra Energy, Verizon, big insurance companies, big pharmaceutical companies, big real estate companies ... and other conduits like the Chamber of Commerce.

Why did these huge corporations put so much money into California state elections? Because we let them, and because of the return on investment they receive from tax cuts like the one that is forcing us to fire so many of our teachers.

There is a key lesson to learn from this. When it comes time to choose, that is when you can really see who is for or against something -- where their priorities really are. And in this case, when push came to shove, in the end who did the conservatives come through for? The large corporations. They danced with the ones that brung them.

Click through to Speak Out California

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:03 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

March 29, 2009

What Happened To The Economy

Go read what happened. It's kind of long, but good and explains it pretty well. The Big Takeover : Rolling Stone

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'etat. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

The crisis was the coup de grace: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess.

basically, after deregulation, the big investment banks couldn't find "enough unemployed meth dealers willing to buy million-dollar homes for no money down" tokeep the mortgage racket going.

And yes, what it comes down to is that all this means that housing prices still have a loooongggg way to fall. Every single house that sold for more than it should have, for all those years, to all those suckers, who took out all those mortgages -- they all have to go back where they should be. Bubbles unwind ALL the way down, every time, and you can't "reignite the housing market" or "stabilize" prices or anything else.

Go look at the trend line of house prices for the last hundred years, and that is where prices have to be -- where housing is relatively cheap, never more than 25-28% of your income (and that is the UPPER limit), and a mortgage plus taxes plus insurance plus maintenance is lower than rents by enough of a margin so that people can make money buying a house and then renting it out.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:40 PM | Comments (3) | Link Cosmos

March 27, 2009

'Centrist' And 'Moderate' Always Means 'Corporate'

Evan Bayh gets programs and legislation that people need killed and is called a 'centrist' and a 'moderate.'

It seems to me that whenever a legislator is getting tons of cash from corporations and then does that corporation's bidding, the action is always called 'centrist' or 'moderate.' Or when they kill things that people, regular people need, it's 'centrist' or 'moderate.'

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:54 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

March 25, 2009

The Latest Scam From The Banks

Do I have this right? Instead of lending with that taxpayer money to get the economy going, Citibank and Bank of America are using TARP funds as their "at risk" portion of the "public/private partnership" announced Monday to buy up each other's toxic assets. So it's Wednesday and the program is already corrupted.

The idea is that a portion of any loss investors take will be covered by the government, but because they put their own money into the deal there is still risk. EXCEPT these banks (and how many others?) are using TARP money as the "at risk" portion of the investment.

Crooks. Smart crooks, but still crooks. Enabled, of course, by a governing ideology that just can't bring itself to stop them.

Economist's View: "Has the Gaming of the Public-Private Partnership Begun?",

It certainly looks as if Citigroup and Bank of America are using TARP funds, not to lend, which was one of the primary goals of the program, but to scoop up secondary market dreck assets to game the public private investment partnership.

So not only are they seeking to extract far more than was intended even with the already generous subsidies embodied in this program, but this activity is also speculating with taxpayer money.

This sort of thing was predicted here and elsewhere. Welcome to yet more looting.

Why would a bank that is receiving TARP funds because they hold toxic assets be buying any toxic assets anyway?

Nationalize the insolvent banks, please. And fire Geithner for this, if it turns out to be true. At first I thought it was a creative idea, but maybe it's just more ideological blindness.

Update - Ian Welsh has more

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:23 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

March 19, 2009

Stop Corporate Lobbying With Taxpayer Money

This post originally appeared at the Commonweal Institute's Uncommon Denominator blog

Why are recipients of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) – better known as the Banking Bailout – allowed to continue to lobby? Taxpayer dollars should not be used to influence our government. We, the People should be telling them what to do, not the other way around.

TARP recipients spent $114 million on lobbying last year as the financial crisis emerged. In just the last quarter of the year eighteen bailout recipients spent $14.8 million to influence the government, as the TARP funds were distributed.

The lobbying has paid off. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, “The companies' political activities have, in part, yielded them $295.2 billion from TARP, an extraordinary return of 258,449 percent.”

TARP recipients are currently lobbying against compensation caps at companies receiving TARP, against increasing bank regulation – and even against increased oversight of the use of TARP funds in the TARP Reform and Accountability Act! They are also lobbying against the Arbitration Fairness Act, the Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act, the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act and the Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act, Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights and the Stop Unfair Practices in Credit Cards Act!

But these companies are not just lobbying in favor of their own(ers) interests; they are lobbying against those of the rest of us. Recently it has come to light that Bank of America, Citigroup and other TARP recipients are organizing efforts to oppose the Employee Free Choice Act – federal legislation that would enable workers to organize unions, which results in increased income and benefits for working people, thereby enabling them to make their credit card and mortgage payments.

Use of corporate funds to influence our government is a larger problem than just this current misuse of TARP. In fact, this BofA and other companies’ use of TARP funds to oppose the Employee Free Choice Act supports an argument that the current economic crisis is a result of corporate lobbying. A corporate-funded assault on government has resulted in de-legislation and deregulation, enriching a few at the expense of the rest of us, while eroding the foundations of our economy and our democracy. Now the public has been harvested in one scheme after another, plundered for every dollar as incomes stagnated, debt skyrocketed and savings fell. Consumption fell off the cliff as the work- and debt-load tapped out people’s ability to participate in the economy. The resulting crisis has led to taxpayer dollars propping them all up.

And now millions of those taxpayer dollars are being used for … even more lobbying.

Whether or not this collapse occurred as a direct result of lobbying and other influence buying, it was not a grassroots movement that led to repealing the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, allowing financial giants to trade mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. It was not citizens holding politicians’ feet to the fire that killed the Financial Services Antifraud Network Act. At the same time the lobbying-bought deregulation and suspension of oversight allowed these companies to sell trillions in credit default swaps without the necessary reserves to cover the potential downside. And here we are.

Companies understand lobbying as a way to profit, not to advance policies that serve all of us. A 2006 New York Times article discusses how Google felt it had “no choice but to get into the arena” to start “spreading its lobbying dollars” around to politicians and quotes a Google lobbyist saying the “policy process is an extension of the market battlefield.” According to the Washington Post, a lobbyist explosion occurred in the last decade, doubling to 34,750 between 2000 and 2005, the result of “wide acceptance among corporations that they need to hire professional lobbyists to secure their share of federal benefits.”

This lobbying does not bring We, the People any benefit, it only boosts the financial interests of certain individuals. This is not competition to improve a product or service or the efficiency of the company. It is paying off politicians to gain unfair competitive advantage or to receive subsidies or tax breaks.

Clearly it is time to demand that TARP recipients stop using corporate funds for anything other than operating their companies, and get their noses out of our business.

Lobbyists say they serve a necessary function, providing information to legislators. But corporations can’t have it both ways. If lobbying is purely informational and not intended to sway favor for particular corporations, then the funds are not being used to generate profit for the shareholders and the use of funds and resources is theft from the company. But if the lobbying is intended to tilt the playing field and gain benefits for a company over others it is really just bribery, an affront to our democracy and laws, corrupting our system. If the use of corporate funds to lobby is for the financial gain of a few executives, this is also theft from the company by those few for their personal gain.

We should immediately prohibit companies from engaging in lobbying while accepting taxpayer dollars. Restricting lobbying by TARP recipients would be a bipartisan solution, as Republican lawmakers have called for exactly this approach in the past. The 1981 Heritage Foundation Mandate for Leadership called for a ban on lobbying by recipients of federal funds, as did the 1995 Republican “Istook Amendment.”

And it is time to open a discussion about whether any corporate funds – whether the company is a recipient of TARP funding or not – should be used to influence our government. We should be telling them what to do, not the other way around.

Click through to the Commonweal Institute's Uncommon Denominator blog

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:29 PM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

March 18, 2009

Democracy?

Watch a representative of the People of the United States trying to get a corporate leader of a company that the taxpayers have given more than a hundred billion dollars to just answer a question:

Who is the boss of who here?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:46 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

March 6, 2009

Corporate Tax Trickery

This post first appeared at Speak Out California.

Here we go again with the "corporate taxes are passed along to the consumer" lie. Instead of telling the public about harm to the public interest from budget cuts, teacher layoffs, privatizing public resources, police cutbacks, etc., instead we hear about how taxing the rich is a terrible thing.

What am I talking about? See The Tax Foundation - Tax Foundation TV, Radio Ads Show That Corporate Income Taxes Cost the Average American Household $3,190. They have a couple of ads their corporate funders are paying them to run.

And of course there is the usual scholarly proof that we should all give ever more money to the corporate rich,

"Research from the Congressional Budget Office shows that in a global economy where capital is highly mobile but workers can't easily move abroad, workers end up bearing the brunt of corporate taxes. In 2007, Economist William Randolph found that 70 percent of corporate tax burdens fall on employees through lower wages and productivity, while the remaining 30 percent fall on company shareholders."

Taxes are not a cost that can be "passed on to the customer." Taxes are calculated as a percentage of profits, after all costs are figured in. A well-run business charges the most it can get for its product or service. If the business has competitors it has to price its product or service in some relationship to competing products or services. Were a business to add to to prices to cover taxes this would increase the price above what had been determined to be the optimal price! If a company were able to raise prices to cover taxes the it would mean the company was previously negligent in not pricing as high as the market would bear.

And if the company was negligent, then increasing prices to cover taxes would increase profits, which would increase taxes, which would require an additional price increase, which would increase profits which would increase taxes. Etc. - you get the picture. It's a silly idea.

In the same way, a properly-run business has as many employees as it needs. When profitability caused them to apy taxes, it means they employed the correct number of people to realize that profit, and certainly are not going to lay someone off because they made a profit that was taxed.

But one step further on this. A corporation itself is neutral on taxes. After all, a corporation is just a bundle of contracts, and doesn't really have interests any more than a chair has interests. It is the owners who have interests and it is a good idea to think about any "passing on" involving corporate taxes is that it can lower the amount of money that is "passed on" to those people at the top of the economic ladder. Realizing this changes the way the brain understands the problem here. The fundamental question then becomes WHO is benefiting from our economy, and our legal infrastructure that creates and protects corporations. It really is about which people are getting the cash, and seen in this light, this idea of lowering or elimminating corporate taxes takes on a new meaning.

This ad plays on public misunderstanding of taxes - a misunderstanding previously created by the same crowd. (Similar to the idea that if you earn a penny over $250K all of your earnings are taxed at the higher rate.) So it is like a further step in a strategy of creating increasing ignorance, so that you can further harvest the public... (Why can't WE think in terms of multi-stage strategies, but to instead increase public understanding and appreciation of democracy?)

So, when will we start hearing about the harm caused to the public interest by reduced taxes on corporations and the rich causing us to lay off teachers, cut police and firefighters, defer infrastructure maintenance, etc.? When do we hear about how this hurts, instead of always about how taxes hurt the rich?
Click through to Speak Out California

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:10 PM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

March 2, 2009

Watch Out For Wikipedia

Try this: start or edit a Wikipedia article that includes information that might be unfavorable to conservative corporate interests, perhaps in the area of tort reform (incl medical malpractice, etc) or trade/protectionism, etc. Try adding citations to studies that show that tort reform is a corporate-funded effort to keep people from being able to sue companies that harm them... I tried it and it was removed in a few minutes.

Or try to edit the entry on Protectionism, perhaps adding something like the words "unfair competition" as in protecting America jobs from unfair competition from countries that exploit workers. Someone did this the other day and the edit lasted a few minutes before it was removed because it changed the "long accepted definition of protectionism." In other words, the idea that our standard of living should be protected from competition using exploited workers is unfair goes against the corporate-interest meaning of the term.

Try editing entries covering other issues around trade, economics or corporate issues. See how long it takes before a pro-corporate viewpoint is returned to the article. Or add an article about a progressive organization. I added an article about the Commonweal Institute, and it was immediately removed, so I put another up and it was immediately flagged for removal. (I am working to save it...) An article about me - put up and edited by others - was also removed twice. The circumstances involved a professional "leading tort-reform advocate" -- while I'm the person who wrote this report about how the tort reform movement is involved with the corporate/conservative movement. Go figure.

This is a problem at Wikipedia. It is quite possible that there are people who are paid to show up and push Wikipedia to reflect a conservative, pro-corporate viewpoint. And why wouldn't this be the case as it is in so many other areas where corporate interests are affected? (I know of one corporate-funded conservative movement insider who spends much of the normal workday and evenings editing Wikipedia.) So it seems the Wikipedia organization may be unable to sufficiently police the site to keep this from happening, and to keep new people from having unpleasant experiences and being shouted down and driven away. There are so many areas of political life where conservatives shout down or intimidate everyone else until they give up and go away. Wikipedia is fast becoming one more.

This has real-world implications. Wikipedia shows up at the top of many if not most Google searches, and people tend to believe this means it is a reliable source. This positioning implies a public-interest responsibility for accuracy and objective presentation of material. On non-controversial topics Wikipedia is a very reliable and possibly the best source for information because over time the "wisdom of crowds" effect brings increased expertise to bear.

But like so many things today, in areas where corporate resources can be focused, the subject matter increasingly reflects the viewpoint that serves the interests of the few at the top. Wikipedia's prominence is the likely reason this conservative information-purging occurs. It is also the reason Wikipedia has a responsibility to do something about it.

(Edited a bit for clarity, focus.)

PS also see this about article deletions.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:59 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

February 26, 2009

How They Win

The Fairness Doctrine was a policy on use of the broadcast airwaves that said that since the public owns the airwaves we have a right to demand that companies we license to profit from them support democracy by presenting news and information that is in the public interest and present a diversity of opinion. The idea was that big corporations cannot buy up and use the public airwaves to spew right-wing corporate propaganda.

In 1969 the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Fairness Doctrine.

Ronald Reagan got rid of the Fairness Doctrine, saying that "markets" should decide what information, news and opinions people are presented with. The Congress immediately voted to bring back the fairness rules, but Reagan vetoed this.

Under George Bush the Congress again voted to restore these rules, but Bush vetoed it.

Under Clinton a majority of the Congress again voted to restore these rules, but the Republicans in the Senate filibustered.

So today they had a chance to bring back rules of fairness and democracy. What happened? DEMOCRATS cut their own throats and overwhelmingly voted to back corporate control of what we are allowed to know. "Democrats cave again." Does this sound familiar?

Do they think the corporate media is now going to say good things about Democrats and unions and democracy? Do they think Rush Limbaugh is going to praise them for backing him?

Senate Backs Amendment to Prevent 'Fairness Doctrine' Revival,

The Senate approved an amendment Thursday that would outlaw the so-called "Fairness Doctrine," an off-the-books policy that once required broadcasters to air opposing viewpoints on controversial issues.

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint's amendment passed by a wide margin of 87-to-11.

THIS is how Republicans win. They don't give up. They deny the popular will. And eventually they wear down the Democrats until they just cave.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:22 PM | Comments (6) | Link Cosmos

Unions

I asked a friend if she thought people would join a union where she works. She said "I think everyone would be too scared." But a recent survey found that 60% of all workers would choose to join a union if they could.

The Employee Free Choice Act is coming to the Congress one of these days. Keep that name in mind for when it comes up. This law would protect workers from being fired for talking about unions, and would allow workers to organize without the boss finding out using a method called "card check." Once a majority of workers in a company or at a location sign up for a union, the union is recognized as the bargaining agent and laws protecting organized workers take effect.

The current methods of organizing a union, where the workers have a day when they all vote in a secret ballot,will also still be available. The Employee Free Choice Act, though, lets them choose to have card check instead. The problem with the current method is that it happens entirely on management's terms, often delayed and delayed, and with the manager calling workers into the office one at a time to "explain" what will happen to the worker if a union comes in.

It would be nice if our economic system didn't have the kind of outcomes that make unions so necessary. But they are.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:54 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 24, 2009

Who Is Our Government For?

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

dday, writing in Giving Away The Tax Argument at Digby's Hullabaloo blog, asks why so many California newspapers have "tax increase calculators" but no calculators that show people how much the budget cuts affect them.

In my life, I have never seen a "spending cut calculator," where someone could plug in, say, how many school-age children they have, or how many roads they take to work, or how many police officers and firefighters serve their community, or what social services they or their families rely on, and discover how much they stand to lose in THAT equation. Tax calculators show bias toward the gated community screamers on the right who see their money being "taken away" for nothing. A spending cut calculator would actually show the impact to a much larger cross-section of society, putting far more people at risk than a below 1% hit to their bottom line.

[. . . The media already highlights the tax side of the equation over spending, dramatically portraying tax increases while relegating spending cuts to paragraph 27. It feeds the tax revolt and distorts the debate. And it's completely irresponsible.

In Why Are Public Assets Being Cut Right When We Need Them Most? Jay Walljasper, of OnTheCommons.org wonders why public transit, libraries and other things the government does for us are all being cut at exactly the time people need them? As the economy turns downward more people need to take the train or bus, or use the library. Jay makes the connection,

Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, one of the leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, proposes closing the state's budget gap by reducing corporate taxes and slashing state aid to local governments. This will mean painful cuts in public assets, such as transit and libraries.

. . . This loss of our public assets is an alarming threat to our society. The things we all own in common and depend upon--libraries, transit, parks, water systems, schools, public safety, infrastructure, cultural programs, social services--are being gradually but steadily undermined.

For many years I have been blogging at Seeing the Forest, often coming back to a question, "Who is our economy for?" For some time now regular incomes have stagnated, while incomes at the very top just go up and up. The GDP keeps rising, productivity keeps going up, but regular people see less and less of the benefit of this increase. In fact, if you look at charts and data, the stagnation of incomes started almost exactly at the same time as President Reagan took office and started implementing the corporate agenda of anti-tax and anti-government policies. So is this a coincidence?

Throughout human history we have seen one scheme after another wherein a few people seize power and devise a system to hold it and use it to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. This is human nature and through history we have seen it happen over and over.

America formed in reaction to the British monarchy's exploitation of its people. We, the People formed our government to band together and protect each other from attempts by the powerful few to exploit us. Our Constitution was supposed to be include a system of checks and balances to account for the nature of power.

It is time for the people to take back that power and use it to again benefit each other. And it is time for California's newspapers to do something for We, the People and include a "budget cuts calculator" as well as tax increase calculator. It is just as important, maybe more so, that we all understand how we're injuring and jeopardizing our future with the budget cuts the Republicans required in this year's budget negotiations.

Click through to Speak Out California

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:31 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

February 23, 2009

Chris Matthews -- Voice of the Village -- Says

Chris Matthews says that the stock market is a "scorecard" for how Obama is doing. And he says Americans are going to be really mad at Obama because "their" stocks are just going down and down.

Barack Obama didn't elect George Bush, and then elect him again even after it was obvious that a criminal conspiracy was dismantling the government and was looting the treasury. And it was the corporate media that enabled this, not Barack Obama.

So now the problems are really bad. Really bad. And not just the economic problems, the climate problem might be even worse than the economic problems.

Barack Obama has been in office one month now. We are all going to have to grow up, make sacrifices, stop being consumers and start getting involved, and pitch in to solve the country's problems.

And you, with your million-plus-dollar paycheck, if you can't grow up, just shut up. Really.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:55 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 20, 2009

Everybody Watch This Video On Worker Pay

The mayor of Lansing Michigan takes on Fox propagandist.

The $70 per hour figure is a lie that Fox repeats. Auto workers are paid much less than that. This $70 figure takes all the health care and pensions earned by RETIRED workers and adds them to the "hourly labor cost" to make a new car. The auto companies were supposed to have set that money aside to cover those benefits but instead paid it out as bonuses and dividends, and are now asking current workers to make it up.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:21 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 19, 2009

The California Budget Agreement

Dave Johnson, Speak Out California

California finally passed a budget. It is a bad budget, cutting essential services, borrowing a tremendous amount, selling our lottery revenues and giving a huge tax break to big out-of-state companies. Each of these came from demands by the very, very few Republicans who agreed to vote for the budget at all will, of course, just get us through another year while making it ever more difficult to pass future budgets.

California's 2/3 requirement means that a few corporate-funded extremists can hold the rest of us hostage. So they had to make a terrible deal to get the three Republican votes required by the 2/3 rule, or else lay of tens of thousands and stop paying California's bills. We the People of California were all held hostage to that threat.

The resulting deal was that if We, the People want schools, police, firefighters, roads & bridges, courts, all the things our government does for us, we had to agree to tax breaks for the big multinational corporations that kick in so much money to help elect the anti-government extremists. So the big companies - the kind that come in and crush local California businesses - get a big tax break while the rest of us have our taxes raised. Oh, and the oil companies can continue to take our oil out of the ground for free and then sell it back to us.

Here are some reactions around the California netroots:

David Dayen at Calitics,

"The cuts are going to be really, really bad: 10% across the board for education, huge cuts for public transit operations, health care, etc. The new revenues basically fill in the loss of revenue from massive unemployment.

[. . .] The "single sales factor apportionment," which is the massive business tax cut, doesn't kick in until FY2011, predictably and conveniently after Gov. Schwarzenegger is out of office and it will be someone else's problem to make up the revenue! It's almost like somebody planned it that way!"

Richard Holober at Consumer Federation of California,

"The deal reported today does not call on all California taxpayers to share in the sacrifice. Working Californians will face billions in higher sales tax and income tax rates. But businesses win about one billion dollars in new tax breaks. $700 million in corporate tax cuts result from a recalculation of how California taxes the profits of big multinational corporations. According to the Senate Analysis, the windfall to multinational corporations, and the revenue loss to California will eventually grow to $1.5 billion."

Robert Cruickshank at the Courage Campaign blog,

"The only way out, and the first reform that we must undertake - the tree blocking the tracks, the door that opens the path to all other reforms - is eliminating the 2/3 rule that gives conservatives veto power over the state and turns the majority Democrats into a minority party on fiscal matters. It's been talked about frequently on Calitics and in what remains of the media's coverage of state politics. So it seemed time for an in-depth discussion of the issue and the prospects for restoring majority rule to California."

David M. Greenwald at California Progress Report,

"Many Democrats and political observers fear that Maldonado strong-arming the legislature may set a bad precedent for future attempts at getting a budget on time."

So here we are. Our structural problems have enabled extremists to increase ... our structural problems. We are one more step down the road to intentional ungovernability.

Over the next several months, we who love this state must act to fix this. We must get rid of this 2/3 budget-vote requirement that allows extremists to hold us hostage. An initiative changing the 2/3 vote requirement is long-overdue but we'll need the support of every forward-thinking voter to make it happen. Let's work together to ensure that it does.

Click through to Speak Out California

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:48 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 18, 2009

Banks Gouging Customers

Someone I know has a balance on a credit card, has never missed a payment, and just got a letter that the bank is raising his interest rate to 30%!

Yikes, is this happening to lots of people?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:02 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs got $10 billion in bailout money from the Bush admin, and paid $6 billion of it straight out in bonuses to top execs.

Goldman Sachs owns much of Burger King. Full-time workers there are paid about $14,000 a year. If that bonus money had gone to them it would have meant $18,000 each. Instead Burger King workers cost the government an estimated $273 million a year "because workers lack access to affordable employer health coverage, are paid sub-poverty wages, and must rely on publicly-funded healthcare, income support, and food stamp programs."

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:46 PM | Comments (4) | Link Cosmos

February 15, 2009

Revive The Fairness Doctrine

Let's start a discussion about reviving the Fairness Doctrine to re-introduce the commons and the idea that we tell the corporations what to do!

A few years ago, in a popular post about the Fairness Doctrine, I wrote,

This "Fairness Doctrine" requirement was intended to protect the public from the possibility of moneyed interests buying up all of the information sources, leaving the public hearing only their viewpoint.

I think that this may be an opportunity - if done right - to reintroduce the public to the idea of the commons: that the public owns the resources of the country, and the laws, and has the power to tell corporations what to do instead of the other way around. If we can project that into the discussion, it leads straight to a discussion of the tight concentration of ownership of the media by a few corporations. What better issues than something called "Fairness" and that so clearly can be demonstrated. There just are no voices of labor and other non- corporate opinions on the airwaves. The public is ready to hear that.

The demise of the Fairness Doctrine paved the way for this media consolidation, because issues around media consolidation were no longer discussed in the media. And that's the problem now, as well, because it will be very difficult to get a good, honest, all-sides discussion of the commons and the Fairness Doctrine and media consolidation started -- because of media consolidation and lack of a Fairness Doctrine.

So do we let the corporations just win this? Reagan unilaterally scrapped public control of the airwaves, vetoed it when Congress voted to bring it back, and then the Republicans filibustered the majority in following years every time the Congress tried again. Does that mean the Congress should stop trying and we should all just let the matter drop, and leave the public thinking that corporations have the right to control the airwaves?

Or does renewing the fight revive public discussion and understanding of these issues, leading to increased understanding of the need for Net Neutrality so big corporations can't just block the public from even seeing union and progressive websites?

So I think reviving this fight is strategic, preparing the public for upcoming fights on all issues of public vs corporate control of public resources and decision-making.

In 96 I wrote,

Restoring the Fairness Doctrine would open up America's "marketplace of ideas." It would help to restore civility to our public discourse. It would help restore our democracy.

I say it is time to restore the Fairness doctrine.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:33 AM | Comments (4) | Link Cosmos

February 8, 2009

Let's Challenge Radio Station Licenses

Should we be organizing challenges to the licenses of radio stations that do not serve their communities in a balanced way?

Earlier I pointed to Bill Press' op-ed on how corporate radio shuts our progressive voices, Seeing the Forest: Corporate Radio Not Balanced. Press reminds us that companies are given radio licenses by We, the People and,

... according to the terms of their FCC license, "to operate in the public interest and to afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of issues of public importance."

Obviously many radio stations are violating the terms of their licenses, using OUR airwaves to spew anti-democracy corporatist right-wing crap all day every day.

Shouldn't we be organizing challenges to the licenses of these stations?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:40 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Corporate Radio Not Balanced

Corporate radio is using OUR airwaves to present only right-wing propaganda. The airwaves are used to tell us we should support right-wing Republican policies, and to mock the majority of us for wanting democracy.

See Another Right-Wing Conspiracy in Washington?

Companies are given a license to operate public airwaves -- free! -- in order to make a profit, yes, but also, according to the terms of their FCC license, "to operate in the public interest and to afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of issues of public importance." Stations are not operating in the public interest when they offer only conservative talk.

For years, the Fairness Doctrine prevented such abuse by requiring licensed stations to carry a mix of opinion. However, under pressure from conservatives, President Ronald Reagan's Federal Communications Commission canceled the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, insisting that in a free market, stations would automatically offer a balance in programming.

That experiment has failed. There is no free market in talk radio today, only an exclusive, tightly held, conservative media conspiracy. The few holders of broadcast licenses have made it clear they will not, on their own, serve the general public. Maybe it's time to bring back the Fairness Doctrine -- and bring competition back to talk radio in Washington and elsewhere.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:54 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 5, 2009

A TORT REFORM Lobbyist???! Updated.

Update - I have been assured by several people from consumer and trial lawyer groups that this person is OK, was not lobbying on tort reform, and is going to put a numb er of people into these positions who favor consumer rights over corporate. This person was previously an assistant to Joe Biden. However, I don't think people should be in government and then make millions working in any capacity that is based on the having been in government. That is not what workling for the public is supposed to be about.

Original post:

No, no, no. What is going on here?

Likely Justice Department nominee faces ethics hurdle - Los Angeles Times

The leading candidate to head the Justice Department office that oversees legal policy and judicial nominations recently has been a lobbyist for several business clients, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and would require a waiver from the Obama administration's recently imposed ethics rules.

. . . The likely nominee to head Justice's Office of Legal Policy, Mark Gitenstein, worked as a lobbyist for the chamber between 2000 and 2008, helping his firm earn more than $6 million in fees, according to federal lobbying records. The business alliance has pushed the White House and Congress to appoint judges and enact legislation that would make it harder for plaintiffs to sue large corporations and collect large damage awards, raising concerns from some activists.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:42 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

February 2, 2009

What About Microsoft?

In today's NY Times: Justice Dept. Under Obama Is Preparing for Doctrinal Shift in Policies of Bush Years

Question: Will the Obama Justice Dept reverse the Bush DOJ's dropping the Microsoft case? Eight years ago, after the Clinton administration WON a major antitrust case against Microsoft the Bush administration came in and "settled" largely on Microsoft's terms. This signaled that the Bush administration was open for businesses, and that companies who payed up and helped fund the Republican lobbyist machine could expect favors. And the floodgates of corruption opened wide.

Now we have a new administration, and Microsoft still has a near-monopoly in operating systems and a total monopoly in office software. Little has changed. (Yes, Mac has a small share of OS, but even the Mac requires MS Office to be usable in business.)

Can the antitrust suit be revived?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:42 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

January 27, 2009

TARP Money Used Against Labor

Bailout Recipients Hosted Call To Defeat Key Labor Bill,

Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority.

HOW much of OUR money was used for lobbying against our interests, funding conservative causes, etc?

We may never know. THANKS to all the Democratic members of the House and Senate who voted to hand this money over to Bush with few restrictions or requirements or transparency written into the legislation. The TARP bill should have banned all lobbying of any kind by any corporation receiving TARP funds. Good job!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:19 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 26, 2009

Citibank Uses TARP Money To Buy New Jet

Remember when the Bushies came to the Congress, demanding $700 billion in 48 hours? And remember how the Congress gave in and took out many of the taxpayer protections?

Citibank is using some of the money to buy a new jet for executives. It's not even American-made. Why would you expect anything different?

The French-made luxury jet seats up to 12 in a plush interior with leather seats, sofas and a customizable entertainment center, according to Dassault's sales literature. It can cruise 5,950 miles before refueling and has a top speed of 559 mph.

There are just nine of these top-of-the-line models in the United States, with Dassault's European factory churning out three to four 7Xs a month.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:05 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 22, 2009

Your TARP Dollars At Work

Merrill Lynch used TARP funds to give out $4 billion in bonuses.

According to the Financial Times

Last week, BofA said it would be receiving $20bn in Tarp money, in addition to the $25bn that had been earmarked for it and Merrill last year. It was then revealed that Merrill had suffered a $21.5bn operating loss in the fourth quarter.

Despite the magnitude of the losses, Merrill had set aside $15bn for 2008 compensation, a sum that was only 6 per cent lower than the total in 2007, when the investment bank’s losses were smaller.

The bulk of $15bn in compensation was paid out as salary and benefits throughout the course of the year. A person familiar with the matter estimated that about $3bn to $4bn was paid out in bonuses in December.

Nancy Bush, an analyst with NAB Research, described the size of the 2008 Merrill bonus payments as “ridiculous”.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:03 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

MPAA vs RealDVD -- Why You Care

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is suing to stop RealPlayer's RealDVD from being sold to computer owners. RealDVD lets you make backup copies of your movie DVDs onto your computer. It doesn’t let you make new DVDs or share the files from your computer with others -- it just lets you keep for yourself a backup. MPAA says this means computer users “steal” movies.

Why do you care? This affects you because it is another case of big corporations using their ability to influence our government to gain financial advantages that cost us money and convenience.

The MPAA sues people and companies that they say are “stealing” their movies. Of course within reason this is necessary and proper. But in their efforts to protect movie company profits, MPAA has been going too far, acting similarly to the infamous Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the recording industry group that sues anyone they suspect may have downloaded a tune, in order to make an example of them. (See MPAA Sues Grandfather for $600,000. His 12-year-old son had downloaded a movie.)

But fear that people are “stealing” may not be the real reason behind this lawsuit. In Why Hollywood Hates RealDVD, Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann writes that this is about a strategy to force Real and others to pay license fees to MPAA when they come up with new technologies. He writes that MPAA’s position,

“. . . forces technology companies to enter into license agreements before they build products that can play movies. . . . Those license agreements, in turn, define what the devices can and can't do, thereby protecting Hollywood business models from disruptive innovation.”

This fight traces back to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA limits how technology can be used, even limiting researchers from studying various kinds of computer encryption and other algorithms. Basically, it says that companies can’t make products that enable people to distribute their own copies of copyrighted material. Copyrighted music and movies contain code that tells the computer that this file can’t be copied, and computers and programs have to contain code that recognizes this.

Copyright, according to our constitution, is intended to "promot[ing] the progress of science and useful arts". The idea was to grant a legal monopoly on profiting from this kind of work for a few years to provide an incentive and reward for scientific research and creativity. This means the government uses its power to stop competition. As it applies to the arts this is how authors, musicians, filmmakers and others are able to make a living at all and that is why it is in the Constitution. But like so many corporate-inspired distortions of our laws and values in the last several years, the DMCA is primarily about benefiting big, established corporations and blocking rather than promoting innovation. In fact, when used like this it stifles innovation.

Something we have seen in recent years is businesses misusing legal tactics to increase profits. In other words, using their money-bought influence over our government to get special favors such as tax breaks, subsidies, grants of monopolies, “no-bid” contracts, etc.

Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society. He teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, contracts, and the law of cyberspace. In 1999 he said, “This is law and code conspiring to tilt market forces quite decidedly in one direction rather than another.”

More recently Lessig has written

“. . . when the D.M.C.A. protects technology that in turn protects copyrighted material, it often protects much more broadly than copyright law does. It makes criminal what copyright law would forgive.”

So here we have MPAA suing to block people from being able to get the RealDVD program, which lets people keep a backup on their own computer in case their DVD gets scratched or lost. (Unless they pay MPAA licensing fees – wink wink, nod nod.) MPAA also wants to make people buy new DVDs. But people want to make backups in case they scratch or lose their DVDs.

This case comes to court soon, keep an eye on it.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:06 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

January 19, 2009

A Metric For Right-Wing Opinion Influence

This poll measures people's understanding of global warming. I think it effectively measures the power and reach of the right's media machine -- on an issue campaign funded by Exxon. This is worth understanding as we go into fights for health care, etc. The insurance companies will learn from this and match Exxon's effort and poison the health care debate.

44% Say Global Warming Due To Planetary Trends, Not People,

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democrats blame global warming on human activity, compared to 21% percent of Republicans. Two-thirds of GOP voters (67%) see long-term planetary trends as the cause versus 23% of Democrats. Voters not affiliated with either party by eight points put the blame on planetary trends.

. . . While 64% of Democrats say global warming is a Very Serious problem, just 18% of Republicans and 33% of unaffiliated voters agree. Twenty-seven percent (27%) of GOP voters say it’s no problem at all, a view shared by 19% of unaffiliateds and only four percent (4%) of Democrats.

Forty-three percent (43%) of female voters also rate global warming a Very Serious problem, compared to 38% of men. Twenty-three percent (23%) of male voters say it is not at all a problem, but only nine percent (9%) of women agree.

Exxon wins.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:32 PM | Comments (5) | Link Cosmos

January 13, 2009

The "Tax Freedom Day" Trick

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

It takes a 2/3 vote to pass a budget in California. As we have seen this means any budget that does not completely meet the hard-core anti-tax, must-cut-government position of the Republicans in the legislature is voted down. Even though there is enormous public support for government - schools, roads, firefighters, etc. - they will not compromise at all. They demand that we gut the government, lay off tens of thousands of workers, or nothing. So California races toward economic ruin.

What do your taxes buy you? The average person benefits greatly from strong government. By gathering together into a community that is jointly managed (i.e. government) people can pool their resources and accomplish great things that cannot be accomplished by people who are on their own. Roads and bridges are examples of things that people cannot accomplish individually. Police, firefighters, public schools are other examples. Law and courts and a monetary system are still more. And then there are benefits like Social Security and the "safety net" of programs for people who lose jobs to food programs for those of us without enough to eat.

The reason we have almost everything that we value as a society, our education and (until recently anyway) jobs, the internet, buildings that don't easily burn down or blow away, drinkable water coming to our houses and sewage systems leaving them and (until fairly recently, anyway) a health care system that stops epidemics is our government. All of the businesses we see around us exist because of our government -- a corporation cannot even exist without the government that establishes it and the legal system that maintains it.

But there are some who would personally benefit more in the absence of government than in its presence. History has taught that there are some who would organize themselves to take what others have worked to build rather than do that work themselves. One need only look at the walls built around cities in the past to understand this. There have also been organized gangs and other criminal enterprises that take rather than build, and more recently we have seen that organized predatory enterprises also find ways to victimize and prey on people. Fraud, confidence and ponzi schemes, consumer scams and all manner of trickery prey on people who are left unprotected by their community. Government is what has always protected regular people from such predators.

Government -- the people banding together to guard and accomplish their interests -- serves to protect people from those who would just take rather than work with the rest of us to build.

So why did Ronald Reagan famously say "government is the problem" in his first inaugural address and he loudly and repeatedly attack the idea of taxes? The foundation and strength of government is the taxes it collect. Taxes are what provide government with its strength to do all of the good things described above. This is why anti-government ideologues reason that the way to cut government (and thereby bring in its alternative) is to cut taxes. They say that if they can just cut out the foundation of government, it will fall. Or, more famously, that they can "drown it in a bathtub."

One way that anti-government ideologues have worked to accomplish this is to turn people against their own government, tricking people into misunderstanding how taxes work and what government does for them. last week, in What Are Tax Brackets, I explained how one of these tricks works -- that you only pay bracket rates taxes on income that falls in that bracket, not on all income earned up to that bracket.

Another way they turn people against taxation and government is to misrepresent how much is collected and how it is used. Exaggerated statements like, "We pay half our income in taxes" are commonly heard, along with under-representation and misrepresentation of the benefits we receive from government.

"Tax Freedom Day" is one example of this technique. Tax Freedom Day is a product of The Tax Foundation, which is funded by the very same collection of right-wing donors that fund the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute and so many other components of the anti-government "conservative movement."

Tax Freedom Day is widely publicized by corporate media, and usually described as being when "the average American" has earned enough income to pay their taxes. Tax Freedom Day for 2008 is April 23. To calculate Tax Freedom Day the The Tax Foundation adds up all the taxes paid to the government from all sources, but it only includes certain forms of income. It doesn't include capital gains income, for example, yet includes capital gains taxes on the tax side of the calculation. These misleading calculations of course result in a much higher tax amount than "the average America" really pays. So while they say that 30.8% of "our" income went to pay taxes in 2008, anyone reading this who looks at their own tax bill can see that their taxes are substantially lower than this figure.

So the next time you hear about Tax Freedom Day, keep in mind who is making this claim, and why.

Click through and join the discussion at Speak Out California

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:26 PM | Comments (3) | Link Cosmos

January 12, 2009

The 401K Experiment Failed

I have been writing for a few years about the 401K scam (2006),

In the Reagan days, they sold people on the idea that 401Ks were somehow a good thing, and started moving everyone off of pensions. But a pension means your company puts the money away for you, on top of your pay. A 401K means it is entirely on the worker to fund retirement out of a shrinking paycheck. And people just can't do that - take home pay goes almost entirely to the bills.

Meanwhile corporate profits are WAY up since pensions were replaced by 401Ks. Part of that if from the money that had been used for worker retirements and gave it out as profits instead.

(2002),

. . . The primary "advantage" to workers is they don't pay income taxes on money they set aside in a 401(k) . . . Another "advantage" is that workers decide for themselves where to invest the money - which is why everyone lost so much in the market crash. The benefit to employers is that workers think they have a retirement plan.

[. . .] Meanwhile the money previously going to workers' pensions instead finds its way to the top of the economic ladder.

So, how has the 1981 401K experiment worked out? It's 2009, and no one can afford to retire. Wealth is massively concentrated at the top. So maybe it didn't work out so well - for us. Pretty well for those at the top, though.

But I'm not advocating a return to corporate-funded pensions for their workers. I think we should tax corporate profits and put money into greatly expanding Social Security so everyone - not just people who work for corporations - can afford to live well when they are old. That would be the solution a democracy would choose.

(PS another problem with 401Ks and the "individual" approach is that you don't know how long you are going to live, so you don't know how much to take out each month. When "pooled" as with a pension plan or Social Security actuaries can determine how much on average to pay out. The only plan that can work mathematically is a socialized plan.)

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:07 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

January 9, 2009

Local Food

We grow some of our own food in a small garden. Our garbage largely goes into a compost pile. This is in a regular neighborhood. So I thought I would pass this along: How You Can Start a Farm in Heart of the City,

Once you taste lettuce that actually has a distinct flavor, or eat a sweet tomato still warm from the sun, or an orange-yolked egg from your own hen, you will never be satisfied with the pre-packaged and the factory-farmed again.

. . . When you grow some of your own food, you start to care more about all of your food. "Just where did this come from?" we'd find ourselves asking when we went shopping. What's in it?

It's not just about flavor and health and quality. It's also about local control and about putting carbon into the air. Food that is shipped means carbon going into the air. Food from a giant supermarket is more money going to the corporate system and away from local farmers.

I stopped buying imported olive oil when I realized that this is something that is very heavy that is being shipped across the planet. What's the point of that?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:02 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 8, 2009

Second-Hand Smoke and Heart Attacks

Doctors did a study in Peublo, Colorado after the city banned smoking in workplaces and indoor public areas. They compared hospital admissions for heart attacks for a year before and three years after the ban, and compared the results with two nearby areas that did not have similar bans.

The study found a 41 percent drop in hospital admissions for heart attacks resulting from the public smoking ban.

It turns out that tobacco companies started studying this in 1971 and knew about these results. But instead of doing something about it "Philip Morris masterminded a massive global effort to confuse and deceive the public about the health hazards of secondhand smoke and to delay laws restricting smoking in indoor public places."

Read about the techniques they used to prevent smoking bans at: Deadly Deception: The Tobacco Industry's Secondhand Smoke Cover Up | Center for Media and Democracy

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:35 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

January 4, 2009

Big Companies Are Public Resources

Deep Thought: When companies reach a certain size, they are public resources. They are large because they do something that is important to many of us. They have a great impact on all of our lives. We all depend on their success and are hurt by their failure.

They are public resources. Do we usually leave public resources in the hands of a few people?

Think of startup companies as auditioning for a job. The ones who reach a certain size are then rewarded by getting the "contract" to, say, develop oil resources or make cars...

Update - You say this sounds radical? I never proposed that the government borrow $700 billion dollars and hand it over to giant companies. It was the "private property free market conservatives" who did that.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:00 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

December 24, 2008

Bailout Hall Of Shame

I put this widget in the right coloumn for a while:

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:22 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Taxes

Tom Friedman wants to know why America has fallen so far behind the rest of the world in keeping up our infrastructure.

Landing at Kennedy Airport from Hong Kong was, as I’ve argued before, like going from the Jetsons to the Flintstones.

. . . The next day I went to Penn Station, where the escalators down to the tracks are so narrow that they seem to have been designed before suitcases were invented. The disgusting track-side platforms apparently have not been cleaned since World War II. I took the Acela, America’s sorry excuse for a bullet train, from New York to Washington. Along the way, I tried to use my cellphone to conduct an interview and my conversation was interrupted by three dropped calls within one 15-minute span.

In 1981 we stopped asking the richest to pay taxes. To pay for that the country started borrowing, deferring maintenance and cutting what the citizens get from the government.

So yes, we stopped fixing things, and now everything is breaking. You didn't notice this before now?

There was another effect of this huge tax cut for the rich. By changing tax policies to let people keep fortunes made in a single year everyone started trying to make a fortune in a single year. Business became entirely about making as much as you can as fast as you can instead of building up solidly over time. Theft at the top became rampant. Everything became schemes. Manufacturing went away because it was easier to make a quick buck from schemes...

Friedman's solution? Use the Obama stimulus,

It has to go into training teachers, educating scientists and engineers, paying for research and building the most productivity-enhancing infrastructure — without building white elephants. Generally, I’d like to see fewer government dollars shoveled out and more creative tax incentives to stimulate the private sector to catalyze new industries and new markets.

In other words, back to where things were before Reagan.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:48 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 23, 2008

Deep Thought On Rule Of law

Ford pardoned Nixon, which led to the crimes/bribery/theft/fraud/lies/wars of the Reagan/Bush I administration. It also led to a common understanding that in America the big fish operate under different rules and are held to a different standard.

Reagan was let off the hook for Iran/Contra and Bush I pardoned everyone who otherwise might have testified against him. Then under Clinton they let bygones be bygones, bribery remain unpunished and stolen money stay stolen which led to the crimes of Bush II. (It also paved the way for Clinton's impeachment because they knew the Dems would let them get away with anything and the public was ready for a story about people at the top not being let off the hook.)

If you don't prosecute lawbreaking and hold accountable the lawbreakers, it will just happen over and over, worse each time. Throughout the Bush II administration the Dems refused to hold anyone accountable and look what's happening today.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:50 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 22, 2008

After The Bailouts -- A New Economic Paradigm

Think past today and picture the economic world after this crisis is over. Our economic paradigm will necessarily be different.

There is no longer the mask of calling something a "private" company. We have finally acknowledged the interlinked and interdependent nature of our economy in which many kinds of large companies play crucial roles. These components of our economy are resources that affect us to such a degree that they are public resources. They just are. When they affect all of us to the degree they do, so that when the crisis arrives we step in and exert the necessary control and provide the necessary backing, it demonstrates that they are in fact too important to us to allow them to fail. By the fact of these massive bailouts the mask has been removed.

Until now calling large companies "private" entities created an illusion that has worked to the benefit of a very few. By pretending they were "private" a select few received the bulk of the benefits they generated. But now the question is, since these companies are public resources whose importance requires our public intervention and infusion of massive public resources when needed, then why does this flow only go one way? Why is it public resources in, private benefits out? Why do We, the People pump our public resources into these entities, without sharing in the benefits created by these entities?

A select few end up with private jets, multiple mansions, huge yachts, and incomes in the hundreds of millions. WE don't even get health care, many of us don't even get sick or overtime pay.

The mask has fallen off. When a company grows up, it is a public resource. "Too big to fail" means public resource by definition. Whatever you want to call it, it affects us to the point where we have to prop them up.

So when do we start getting the benefits back? Who is our economy for, anyway?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:03 AM | Comments (4) | Link Cosmos

December 19, 2008

The Root Cause Of The Economic Catastrophe

Everyone understands that the root cause of this economic catastrophe was corporate money's influence on our politics. Corporations are able to concentrate money. We, the People let them do that because it enables them to undertake large-scale projects. But currently executives can access that money and use it to influence politics through bribery and/or manipulating public opinion. Deregulation, unfair tax codes, loss of consumer and worker protections and decades of falling wages and benefits have been the result -- hardly in the interest of the public.

Until we stop allowing use of corporate money to influence politcians and the public these problems will only increase.

When are we going to come to grips with that?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:57 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

December 14, 2008

Republican Opposition To Unions

A quick thought about Republican opposition to unions. I keep reading that Republicans are "ideologically" opposed to unions.

Republicans are opposed to unions because they are paid to oppose unions. Is this really "ideology?"

If they oppose unions because they believe America should be ruled by a few wealthy people, and that democracy is a bad thing, that is an ideology. In my opinion, if they oppose unions because those wealthy people pay them to work to destroy people's ability to fight corporate power, that isn't ideology, that's opportunism.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:42 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

December 13, 2008

B of A Uses TARP Funds To Buy Into Chinese Bank, Lay Off 30,000 In US

Your tax dollars at work Just go read it: Firedoglake - Bank of America Spends $7 Billion on Chinese Bank, Then Lays Off 30,000 Workers

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:17 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 10, 2008

European Statists

CNN has an "economist" on my screen saying Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are "European statists" for trying to save America's auto industry.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:46 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 8, 2008

A Thought On Conservatism

We attribute a lot of thought to conservative ideology. But is it thought, or just smoke? For example, isn't deregulation really just, "Look the other way while I steal all the money," and then later DIFFERENT people argue about how to pick up the pieces? The people who proposed deregulation and spent a bunch of (their company's) money pushing it, they're already gone with the money at this point.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:28 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

December 6, 2008

Ask GM About EV1

While I completely favor giving the auto companies a loan to keep them going, it must be under several conditions (including banning lobbying.) In the Congressional hearings on this Brad Blog wants someone to ask

What Happened to GM's EV1? Go read.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:20 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Tivo

I have Tivo. I have loved it, and especially if you move to HD you need Tivo.

BUT...

More and more Tivo is becoming about making money for Tivo, and not about features for the customer. Today the Tivo downloaded a new version, which emphasizes their Video On Demand feature. What this means is you pay Tivo even more than the monthly fee you already pay Tivo. And as you look through what this new feature offers, it also tries to sell you their Desktop Plus, for more features.

I am tired of the American corporate business model that involves harvesting the customer instead of serving the customer.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:59 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

Oil Companies Score Another Lobbying Victory

Democrats Set to Offer Loans for Carmakers,

Seeking to end a weeks-long stalemate between the Bush administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, senior Congressional aides said that the money would most likely come from $25 billion in federally subsidized loans intended for developing fuel-efficient cars.

They got rid of the fuel efficiency funds. Great. Democrats cave, Bush and oil companies score another victory. For old time's sake.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:07 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 3, 2008

The Bug Tax

My wife is a graphic artist. She has a Mac. Because Adobe has a virtual monopoly on graphic design software she has to use Adobe's Creative Suite, and the cost for this is hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds) of dollars. In fact, it is much more than the Mac itself.

She recently upgraded to Microsoft Office 2008. This brought out a bug in DreamWeaver CS3, where you cannot copy from Word and paste into DreamWeaver. Adobe won't patch the bug, instead requiring users to upgrade to CS4. The cost to upgrade just DreamWeaver is about $200.

Adobe could just send out a patch that fixes this bug, but is instead extorting this $200 from their customers if they want a working version. Read that page, they're not even shy about it.

The modern corporate business model is about harvesting the customer, not providing quality and service.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:38 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

December 2, 2008

Break The Bailout

It's time to Break the Bailout! | BreakTheBailout.com,$7.76 trillion. Is this a wise use of tax dollars? Are there better ways to use this money? Will this trickle down approach work this time, even though it has failed in the past?

It is time to break the bailout and put in place an approach that builds a new engine for economic growth from the bottom up. Liberty Tree has the joined the new campaign at BreakTheBailout.com and pledged to help Break the Bailout. On December 7, we take the first step toward taking back our economy and transforming it into an economy that puts the people’s interests first.

Join us BreaktheBailout.com, and pledge today and help build a movement that will stop the top down trickled down Wall Street economics and build the economy from the bottom up.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:44 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 28, 2008

Your Tax Dollars At Work

The insurance company AIG has so far taken about $129 billion from you and me to bail them out. They promised not to give out bonuses to the top seven execs. Of course, the Bush people only made the top seven execs promise not to take bonuses.

So instead of bonuses: AIG Gives ‘Retention’ Pay After Scrapping Bonuses.

Also, "cash awards."

But no bonuses. They promised not to do that.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:39 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

November 27, 2008

One Way To Start fixing The Economy

Executive Compensation: Tax Them Into the Ground.

Really, really go read this.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:53 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

November 25, 2008

How Much Do Auto Workers Make?

Go read The media myth: Detroit's $70-an-hour autoworker.

Auto workers make $28 an hour on average. No auto assembly-line worker makes $70 an hour, even if the media repeats that figure over and over. The $70 figure includes the "labor costs" of health care and pensions for retired and injured workers and the cost of management for that worker/hour, as if it was added to the number of labor hours that goes into a car today.

Yes, GM and the others have a high cost to cover the benefits to their workers. That was the point of our laws that set up corporations -- to benefit US. Japanese and German and other car companies have many of these costs paid by the government. They did it with taxes and had the government provide the benefits, we tried to do it throught the corporations themselves, and our model hasn't worked.

The point is that we need health care reform and decent pensions for all Americans, through We, the People -- the government. It certainly doesn't mean that we should just get rid of the last major manufacturers we have. Sheesh.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:40 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 24, 2008

Are Bailouts Funding Lobbying?

In the discussions of the bailouts progressives have talked about protecting the taxpayers through compensation limits, equity positions instead of just handing over funds, etc. But I don't think we have asked for what I think could be one of the most effective ideas for restoring and protecting democracy -- and thereby preventing disasters like the one we are experiencing.

Let's start demanding that companies receiving bailout funds stop lobbying and stop the other things they do to influence public opinion and policy decisions! This includes funding right-wing "think tanks," PR firms, etc.

My own preference would be to ban *all* use of corporate funds for any purposes of influencing public opinion or government policy. I am of the opinion that corporate money should be used to run the corporation, period. Lobbying, etc. does not benefit the interests of the corporations -- because corporations do not have interests. They are supposed to just operate within the rules WE set. What we are seeing is corporate resources wrongly being used for the personal interests of executives and a few wealthy shareholders, not to promote the broader interests of all the shareholders, the long-term well-being of the company, and our society. I believe that We, the People should be making the laws, telling corporations how they can operate, not the other way around. We are the boss of them.

So demanding that companies receiving bailout funds must cease all lobbying is a way to introduce this idea that the people should be in control of decision-making in general. It is an Overton Window tactic to start getting the public talking about the idea that corporations should be out of our politics, leaving the decision-making to We, the People.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:22 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Democracy or Corporate Rule. Choose One.

Why are We, the People allowing big corporations to use OUR broadcast frequencies to spread anti-democracy propaganda with no ability to respond with different viewpoints?

When is the last time you saw a representative of labor on TV talking about why people should join unions?

WE own the radio and television frequencies. WE license the use of these to private companies, and then they use them to push policies that harm us, without allowing anyone to come on and tell the other side.

It used to be different. Before Ronald Reagan came in and changed these (and so many other) rules to favor big corporations over the public's interests broadcasters were not allowed to use our airwaves for propaganda, and were not allowed to overcommercialize their programming. Reagan overturned decades of precedent, and when Congress responded by overwhelmingly passing a law to restore control by democracy Reagan vetoed it. Since then Republicans have vetoed or filibustered every attempt to restore democracy's control over our own resources.

Why do we allow big corporations to use OUR resources against us, for the benefit of a wealthy few? It is either democracy or corporate rule. Choose one.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:53 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 20, 2008

They

See a revised (better) version of this post at Speak Out California

I want to caution about the use of the word "they" in current policy debates. How we understand a problem has huge implications for how we decide to solve those problems. This use of "they" leads to a kind of understanding in our brains that might just be short-circuiting our ability to make rational decisions.

Let me use the auto companies as an example. "They" did bad things. "They" opposed higher CAFE standards. "They" pushed SUVs because SUV sales led to higher profits in the short term. Therefore "they" deserve what they get.

But who is the "they" here? What happens to your thinking about policy solutions if you instead understand that SOME executives were able to get their hands on the resources of the company, and did things that increased their own personal fortunes, even as their actions harmed the long-term profitability of the companies? THOSE executives might have already fled with the loot they got for themselves.

See what I mean? The first use of "they," where you think of a company as a sentient being, a monolithic entity that makes decisions by itself, you are led toward one kind of solution. Let "them" fail. Let "them" deal with the consequences of "their" decisions.

But if you think about it the other way, that certain individual bad actors were allowed to make personal fortunes off of their access to company resources and their control of company decision-making (and lobbying), that leads to very, very different conclusions about how to fix the mess we and our economy are in.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:36 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 18, 2008

Too Important To The System To Allow To Fail

Over and over we are hearing about companies that are "too big to fail." The meaning is that if they fail they take everything else with it, so we must bail them out.

Suppose that something happened to the atmosphere and air had to be manufactured. Suppose that all of our lives depended on the ongoing manufacturing of air. Would any of us, even the hardest-core Republicans, even consider allowing this function to be in the hands of a private company? Of course we would not allow this.

Isn't "too big to fail" the very definition of an important PUBLIC resource? If something is "too big to fail" because failure risks bringing down the entire economy, how did we ever allow such functions to fall into the hands of private companies in the first place?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:50 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 14, 2008

What To Ask For In A Bailout

Someone asked me, "If we bail out the auto companies how do we make sure they don't just go off and build gas hogs, and give all the profits to their executives again?"

The answer to this is the answer that should have been part of the Wall Street bailout: You benefit from the Public, so the Public had better start benefiting from you. You get the money and you start building cars that are lined up with the public interest. You serve the public, not harvest the public. You limit executive compensation and spread the wealth around. You pay taxes when you do well. You don't try to influence the political process in any way because We, the People tell you what to do, not the other way around. Etc.

(Question: why aren't these the explicit rules for doing business in the U.S. anyway - bailout or not?)

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:41 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 12, 2008

The Consumer Spending Slowdown Is NOT Because Of Credit

On The NewsHour today Alice Rivlin said that we need to free up the credit markets so people can buy cars. She said there are "credit-worthy" people waiting to buy cars and trucks who can't because they can't get loans.

Then, on the NBC News tonite the reporter said, "Without access to credit, shoppers are tightening their purse-strings."

This is just wrong, and these are people who move in in important policy and reporting circles who should know what is going on! It tells me that rest of the people in these circles also don't get it.

The credit crunch is not the consumer spending slowdown. Big companies are having trouble getting credit. But if you go to a car dealer tomorrow to buy a car, and have an income and good credit, they will bow down and kiss your feet. If you can't find a loan (if you have an income and good credit you CAN find a loan) the manager will loan you the money out of his or her own pocket. It is PREPOSTEROUS to suggest that people with incomes and good credit can't get loans, and that this is why people are not shopping up a storm!

The consumer spending problem is that consumers are "tapped out." Incomes have stagnated for decades, consumers have used up their savings and then resorted to second mortgages and credit cards.

Decades of predatory capitalism have sucked the average working person dry. That is the consumer spending problem. That policymakers and reporters don't know that tells a sad story about how this has come to pass.

Limit executive pay and use the money to hire more people for fewer hours, pay them more, give them health insurance and let people start unions if you want to see consumer spending recover. That's not rocket science.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:24 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Republican Opposition To Auto Bailout

I've been wondering why the Republicans are opposing any bailout of auto companies even as they add American Express to the list of companies getting taxpayer bailouts.

I think they are planning on using the financial crisis as an opportunity to get rid of unions. They are saying that the auto companies will have to get rid of "excessive labor costs" and "legacy costs" before they "deserve" a bailout. "Excessive labor costs" in this use means paying union members a decent wage, and legacy costs means paying the promised health care and pensions of retired auto workers.

P.S. This is why they are insisting the auto companies go into bankruptcy, when they didn't insist on this of financial firms that they bailed out.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:31 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 9, 2008

Bailout Money Used For Bonuses To Rich Execs

In case you missed this, because of the election news. I apologize in advance for making it bold type, but I am really pissed off and want to be sure everyone sees this.

Wall Street Fat Cats Are Trying to Pocket Billions in Bailout Cash,

... nine banks about to be getting a total equity capital injection of $125 billion, courtesy of Phase I of The Bailout Plan, had reserved $108 billion during the first nine months of 2008 in order to pay for compensation and bonuses...

The country's top investment bank (which since Sept. 21 calls itself a bank holding company), Goldman Sachs, set aside $11.4 billion during the first nine months of this year -- slightly more than the firm's $10 billion U.S. government gift -- to cover bonus payments for its 443 senior partners, who are set to make about $5 million each, and other employees.

CALL your Congressperson's office and demand to know why the taxpayer bailout money is being used for bonuses.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:59 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

Problem One is Corporate Money Influencing The System

The most important problem to address, in my opinion, is the way a few people have been able to use corporate resources to influence people and policies. These people don't use these resources to promote the betterment of society, or even of the companies whose resources they control. They use these resources to promote policies and ideas that are for their personal benefit.

Corporate resources should be used to run the company. And companies should operate under the rules WE set for them, for our benefit. It is time to make this the law. It is time "to bring private autocratic powers into their proper subordination to the public's government."

Fixing this problem will allow the system to operate the way it is intended again, which will allow us, We, the people, to start addressing the rest of the problems.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:22 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

A Thought On 'Center-Right'

When the corporate media and Republicans say Obama should "govern from the center" of a "center-right" nation, what they mean is that Obama should govern for the white, the rich, and the owners of corporations. They're saying he should follow all the policies that got us into the mess we are in.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:23 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 5, 2008

NOW We Start The Fight For A PEOPLE'S Economy!

OK, the Republicans are out of the picture. It will take parts of the country a while to come to terms with that. Especially the media, always behind the curve. Our TV screens and newspaper columns might still feature older, well-to-do, white conservatives but We, the People have taken back control.

One gift the conservatives gave us with their election tactics was a clear mandate for socialism. They spent weeks telling the country that an Obama victory was a victory for socialism. And We, the People came out and voted and provided a clear landslide mandate to "spread the wealth around."

NOW we start the fight to create a country and an an economy that works for US, for We, the People.

Things that are for the people: Health care. Vacations. Child care. Mass transit. Unions. Pensions. Environmental protections and clean energy. Education. Nutrition. Housing. Income security.

What needs to change? Wow, where to start.

Our fight starts with getting corporate power under control and working for us again. That is job one. Corporations exist because We, the People make the laws and the roads and everything else that allows corporations to exist and make money. And we do the work. Why do we do this? For OUR benefit -- Why ELSE would we? Did we set up this system so that a very few can use its resources to get all of the benefits of everything we all do? As this blog's motto has been for several years: Who is our economy FOR, anyway?

We need to get the influence of corporate money our of our politics and out of our lives. Corporate resources should not be used by executives to have influence on our politics. That is not what corporate resources are supposed to be for. We, the People are supposed to tell corporations how to behave, not the other way around.

We need to keep corporate influence away from how we think about politics as well! In a democracy it is up to We, the People to tell companies what they do, not the other way around. Beyond that, we also need controls on advertising to keep them from influencing our humanity -- what we think we need and want and how we think we should live our lives, just to sell products that harm us and the planet.

So job one is prohibiting the use of corporate resources to influence our politics, our thinking and our humanity

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:56 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

November 3, 2008

All Our Money And Power

Since Bush took office, all of our money has been transferred upward and outward, into the hands of a few.

When Bush took office, people had savings. Now they have debts. When Bush took office people had assets. Now we're "underwater." When Bush took office we had a very large federal budget surplus. Now we have a massive, massive deficit that looks like it could reach a trillion dollars! And the national debt has reached ten trillion dollars.

But not only has the money been transferred, control over our decisions has been transferred as well. The public, through our government, is no longer able to make our own decisions. Instead these powers have been handed over to a very few ultra-wealthy people hidden behind the mask of the legal structure called the corporation. The control of the country's resources and destiny has passed to the few and we need to take it back.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:35 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

October 29, 2008

Socialism

In Europe they get 5 weeks vacation, fully-paid health care for everyone, generous pensions at an earlier age, full maternity benefits AND child care.

They get PROTECTION from poison in their food, workers getting injured by their jobs, companies dumping crap in their air and water, corporate scams and other general exploitation of the public.

They get some say in how big corporations are run, and the corporations BENEFIT THE PEOPLE.

When McCain complains that Obama is going to "spread the wealth around" ... COMPLAINS about that!! I think maybe everyone in the entire country might just turn out to vote for Obama. Except a few, very few, fatcat corporate executives who are stealing everything they can get their hands on, at our expense. HELL yes, spread the wealth around! HELL yes!

Socialism -- another name for things that work. Compare that to what we've had here for twenty or thirty years. Is there even a question? Sign me up!

Who is our economy FOR, anyway?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:41 PM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

One Of The Worst?

This is one -- just one -- of the sleaziest Republican smear/deceit ads this year. Sen. Dole in North Carolina hires a voice impersonator to sound like her opponent, to say "There is no God" in an ad, saying her opponent "took godless money."

Wow. That's really creepy. And Sen. Dole apparently thinks North Carolina voters are really, really stupid. Is she right?

One thing that comes out of this election: I think it has become pretty obvious what the Republican Party is about. They say nasty and things to trick people who don't follow the news into voting for them, and then they hand over public money to a few wealthy corporation owners who fund all of this.

I think people are starting to become well-enough aware of this game to start doing something about it. ONE thing would be to stop allowing a few people to use corporate resources to influence our politics. It isn't corporations that are the problem, it is this abiloity of a few people to access corporate resources and use them to subvert democracy.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:43 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 19, 2008

Thanks For The Money, Suckers!

Our Congress was manipulated by fear into voting hundreds of billions for a Wall Street Bailout.

So see if you can guess where the money is going?

Wall Street bankers in line for $70bn payout,

Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.

Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are in line to pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bail-out from the US government that has already prompted criticism. The government's cash has been poured in on the condition that excessive executive pay would be curbed.

I'm sorry, what? You expected something different?

Every member of Congress who voted for this bailout needs to be recalled.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:42 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

October 18, 2008

Election - Final Stretch

We're about to see the full force power and fury of the right-wing machine unleashed. I'm not so sure Obama will keep his lead through the next phase, or if there will be a country when they're done.

The RNC and the McCain campaign has been accusing Obama and Democrats of being "un-American" or "anti-American" and "dangerous" and "terrorists" and anything they can think of. Today McCain said Obama's tax policies are "Socialist." Across the country the first phase of robo-calls has started, with nasty smears, lies, fear-mongering and you-name-it being pumped into people's homes at all hours.

It is only going to get worse. And then it will get worse. And then it will get really nasty. The next two weeks will go down in history. The corporate right faces the prospect of the people bringing them back under control, and a look at where all the money went. The authoritarian right faces investigations for torture and war crimes. The party operatives face jail time for illegal politicization of the entire government. They will not go without a huge fight.

I really don't know where things will go in the next two weeks, but keep up your spirits, and fight back.

And, of course, watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:31 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

October 8, 2008

Bailout - The RIGHT Thing?

It is possible, just possible that the Treasury is so scared by the financial meltdown that they might, just might do the right thing with some of the bailout money.

This just out from the New York Times, U.S. May Take Ownership Stake in Banks,

Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, according to government officials.

This is very different from buying the bad debts with taxpayer money. This injects capital into the banks, enabling them to make loans again and because it is an ownership stake the taxpayer will reap the returns.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:22 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

First Bailout Results Known

Sources: NRCC Secures $8 Million Loan for Final Election Pushl.

The National REPUBLICAN Congressional Committee has received $8 MILLION from Wachovia Bank.

Credit crunch? Unsecured loans impossible to find?

Chris Bowers at OpenLeft writes that,

in the short term, this is effectively an $8 million donation to the NRCC from Wachovia at a time when Wachovia is supposedly in dire straits, about to be bought out by other banks, and will receive money from the government via the bailout.

The Bush administration is about to start handing out taxpayer cash for bad debts, and suddenly the NRCC gets $8 million from Wachovia. Come on. How blatant can it be?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:51 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 7, 2008

How Your Bailout Money Is Used

After Bailout, AIG Executives Head to Resort

Less than a week after the federal government offered an $85 billion bailout to insurance giant AIG, the company held a week-long retreat for its executives at the luxury St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif., running up a tab of $440,000

Exactly what did you expect?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:44 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 3, 2008

Wall Street Pwns Congress

The Senate passed the bailout bill Wednesday night and the Dow dropped about 350 points yesterday. Nasdaq dropped about 4%.

The House passed the bill today, and the Dow, which was at plus 260, dropped to minus 160. How many points of a drop is that, anyway? Nasdaq down 29.

But hey, thanks for the money, suckers!

Note: The word 'pwned' isn't spelled wrong. It "implies domination or humiliation of a rival."

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:46 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 29, 2008

Getting Corps Out Of Politics - Solving a Root Problem

Everything Ian says.

And: any new bailout package must address the ROOTS of this problem. It is time to prohibit corporations from using money for anything except operating the company. Or more correctly, prohibit the executives from using corporate resources for anything except operating the company. This includes all forms of political influence including influencing public debate -- no lobbying "philanthropy," charities, etc. This means trade associations will have to be constituted differently.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:41 PM | Comments (4) | Link Cosmos

Fear Bill Pushed Through So Fast...

The Fear Bailout bill is being pushed through so fast, and in such secrecy, that you won't even have time to sign the Read the Bill First! petition before they vote.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:19 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

We Must Stop This Bailout Sold With Fear

This bailout bill hands over the rest of our money to a few Wall Street firms. It does not address the causes of the financial problems. In fact it likely makes them worse yet leaves us nothing to fix the actual problems.

It is being rammed through before the people get a chance to weigh in. It is being rammed through using fear and confusion. We, the People are not being allowed to understand and debate this massive, massive transfer of our money. That by itself should be sufficient warning that a scam is underway.

Stirling Newberry: The Fate of the Union,

We must say no. And we must tell the people who work for us. This bill is not nothing else than the meaning of America itself. We have a choice of two Americas, one where enabling acts are rammed through under the cover of darkness and obscurity, with and in the shadow of fear, the other where there is, yet, some slim hope for our Democracy. The waves of the people's revolution must overwhelm the dike and dams of privilege on this day, or there will be no tomorrow.

[. . .] Paulson's plan was not conceived in a few hours, but planned and prepared for months, and only launched upon the public at a moment of perceived panic. The executive hid it in its dark recesses, waiting for a moment to launch it upon us. This alone should be enough for a legislature with any scrap of republican spirit, or democratic pride, or American honor, to reject it out of hand and demand that it be worked a new, from wholly different principles.

[. . .] Who has spoken for the people? With all the cameras and conferences, we have not had a voice. Locked out from a Byzantine process, we have been told to wait while others decide our fate. A curtain of night and fog surrounded the negotiations, with repeated declarations that deal was reached, taking for granted in the absolute the people's assent.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:15 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 28, 2008

The Final Bailout Bill Is A Farce

Earlier I wrote that Exec Pay IS NOT In This Bailout Bill.

I want to hilite the update. Go here to read about what else is not in the bill. This is a right-wing perspective celebrating that most of what we had been led to understand was good in the bill for the people of this country has been removed from the final bill, including sufficient oversight. And the supposed three-step funding is a trick because it requires a 2/3 vote to stop it all from being handed over to the Wall Street firms.

This bill must not pass.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:34 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Exec Pay IS NOT In This Bailout Bill

OK, so the bailout bill is out. We have been talk all along that executive pay limits would be in a bailout bill. But it is NOT in the bill.

One of the ways this bailout was made somewhat palatable was that executives of firms bailed out would have their massive paychecks reduced. To me this meant:
1) They wouldn't be going for bailout money unless they really meant it
2) Bailout money wold be used to help pay their massive paychecks.

Instead there is a provision that limits tax deductions on executive pay for the top five executives. As if this means anything.

So with executive pay limits NOT in the bill, when we were told it would be, we need to find out why it this not in the bill, where it went, and why we are being told lies intended to sell us on the bill.

This is the kind of thing that sets us alarm bells for me.

Update - Here is what has happened to the bill, from a right-wing perspective. Interesting. Everything good appears to be out now.

Call your representative and DEMAND that they vote against the bill! It is JUST a handout of all the rest of our money, to rich Wall Street firms.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:06 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 26, 2008

Huckabee Makes Sense

this is interesting, Huckabee Calls McCain Debate Ploy a ‘Huge Mistake’,

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Thursday that Sen. John McCain made a “huge mistake” by even discussing canceling the presidential debate with Sen. Barack Obama.

. . . Huckabee said Thursday in Mobile that the people need to hear both candidates. He said that’s “far better than heading to Washington” to huddle with senators.

He said the candidates should level with the people about the financial crisis and say the “heart of this is greed.”

. . . Huckabee also was critical of President Bush’s handling of the crisis.

He said to lay the $700 billion obligation on the nation “in 24 hours” amounts to “holding the country hostage.”

“I just think the American people ought to be screaming their lungs out, saying to Congress, not so fast. That’s our money you’re giving away,” Huckabee said.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:56 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 25, 2008

Bailout Comment

If this story, Deal said near on big financial bailout is correct I think I feel a bit better about the bailout. Not completely better, but a bit.

1) If executives are really limited in pay (and stock) by this deal they won't be involving their firms unless it is really necessary. They won't be in it for themselves.

2) If we get equity in the companies that get bailout money then WE profit if they do.

3) It is phased in, so we don't just dump all the rest of our money onto a few companies at once. Instead we can see if it is working - and a new President can change what is being done.

If we get these things, it's a start. I think we should get rid of many of the executives responsible. I also think we need to redesign the system from scratch, insist that ALL corporate money be removed from politics immediately, impost a 90% or higher top tax rate and several other things.

And about this meeting with McCain and Obama at the White house today... is it possible they're going to be injected with something, and then replaced by pod-people?

Update - Through Atrios, here is an example of what we are paying to bail out:

When we the taxpayers foot the bill for the excesses of the bubble, we are bailing out the lenders who enabled the behavior below:

* The house was purchased on 2/6/1998 for $183,000. There was a $173,500 first mortgage and a $9,500 downpayment.
* On 8/21/2002 they refinanced the first mortgage for $165,500. They actually paid down their debt.
* On 3/12/2003 they opened a HELOC for $50,000, just in case... Their first taste of kool aid.
* On 2/13/2004 they opened a HELOC for $226,000. The kool aid is flowing now.
* On 10/22/2004 they opened an Option ARM for $492,000.
* On 5/2/2005 they opened a HELOC for $75,100.
* On 10/21/2005 they opened a HELOC for $126,000.
* On 9/28/2006 they opened a HELOC for $150,000.
* Total debt on the property, $642,000 plus accumulated negative amortization.
* Total mortgage equity withdrawal, $468,500 including their tiny downpayment.

Basically, these people put $9,500 into the property and made $459,000 in 8 years.

. . . If this property sells for its asking price, and if a 6% commission is paid, the US taxpayer is going to lose $209,694.

Note - at the asking price we ONLY lose $209K. But at the asking price the buyer has to come up with $90K AND have an income of $115K for a CONDOMINIUM.

The bailout's success depends on housing prices not dropping any more.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:46 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

September 24, 2008

On The Crisis

This is a great blog post explaining what is really happening with this financial crisis.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

CGI News Flash - Gore Calls For Civil Disobedience On Climate Change

At the Clinton Global Initiative Al Gore just called upon young people to engage in civil disobedience to prevent the construction of any new coal plants.

He also said that oil and coal companies funding the global warming deniers is a form of stock fraud.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:44 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 23, 2008

This Is Important Because

Since I am in New York I thought I would take a subway down to Wall Street this morning. Here it is, from behind the statue of George Washington, taken about 15 minutes ago. Now I am online from a Starbucks down the street.

Thinking about this financial crisis, I have an observation. Just a week ago there really wasn't that big of a problem as far as the Financial Elite were concerned. I mean, us out there in the hinterlands were feeling pain and trying to tell the Elite to pay attention. So we were "whiners." But the "fundamentals of the economy were found."

Now it is just ONE WEEK later and the entire world has collapsed and the Congress is working on a package to send ALL THE REST OF THE MONEY that the country can possibly borrow to Wall Street.

What happened? I think what happened is that something affected THEM, so it became IMPORTANT. This financial crisis is important because it affects the financial elite. And so we are presented with a "shut up and pay up" oackage to bail them out. Because THEY are important and we are NOT important, so the things that make them uncomfortable MUST be solved immediately.

But who is being asked to pay? We are. Not them, us. Have you once heard from Washington a suggestion that the rich and corporations start paying taxes again, to cover the costs of this massive bailout? Of course not.

They say that credit is drying up. My question is, according to the law of supply and demand is credit really drying up, or is the PRICE of credit rising to meet the cost of covering the risks of loaning to these clucks who screwed up the economy.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:02 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 22, 2008

A Better Plan

By shocking us with their Plan the Bush administration have once against defined the terms of the debate, and set all of the conditions. It all has to be immediate with no time to think it over and has to be done exactly the way we say or YOU will be responsible for killing the economy (and this kitten).

Krugman says,

I’d urge Congress to pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and try to seriously rework the structure of the plan, making it a plan that addresses the real problem. Don’t let yourself be railroaded — if this plan goes through in anything like its current form, we’ll all be very sorry in the not-too-distant future.

Calculated Risk adds,

A better plan would be transparent (all deals would be publicized), involve a share in ownership for the taxpayers, and have substantial oversight. We can do better.

Democracy can work. Give it a (last) chance.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:59 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 21, 2008

Wait A Minute -- Why Just U.S. Taxpayers?

Why are only U.S. taxpayers being asked to put up $700 billion to bail out the world's financial system?

The U.S. is $10 trillion in debt.

Europe's economy is the same size as ours.

China is sitting on hundreds of billions if not trillions of surplus funds.

Middle Eastern countries are sitting on hundreds of billions in oil profits.

So why is the AMERICAN taxpayer supposed to suddenly step in and save the world's financial system? Tell me that?

I suspect it is because we're the ones who are currently set up for harvesting, and our Congress can be stampeded to do this with 48 hours notice.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:30 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

September 20, 2008

THROW Them Out Don't Bail Them Out

Everything I have read about this massive bailout proposal sounds like they're going to try to treat the symptoms of a sick and failed system instead of the causes and instead of reforming or replacing the failed system itself. Nothing I have heard addresses the CAUSES of the problems!

I say THROW the system out and start building one that WORKS for US, don't bail the failed, corrupt system out. A bailout just keeps in place a bad system that has bankrupted all of us in order to enrich a very, very few.

Example: The CAUSE of this was corporate corruption of our political system. The deregulation, bankruptcy bill, oil company favoritism, "free" trade agreements that caused massive trade and job deficits, cronyism, etc. happened because corporate money was used to buy the political system. SO a bailout should prohibit ANY use of corporate funds to influence the political system in ANY way. This includes giving money to organizations like Heritage Foundation, Cato, CEI, DLC and the hundreds of other corporate front groups that influence our politics and our thinking.

Example: Why bail out the very people who caused this mess? Any company receiving a dime of bailout money from the taxpayers should agree to certain terms that benefit the taxpayers. Their taxes on any profits should be doubled or tripled for ten or twenty years. Their management should not be allowed to receive pay that is above ten times the American average. They should agree to start retrofitting their companies to be carbon-neutral. I can think of a hundred other things they should have to agree to.

Example: Lots of people have run up debt and can't pay their credit card bills because wages have not been going up, jobs are being outsourced, etc., while a few people at the very top of the system are getting vast, vast income and wealth out of the current system. SO reforming the system and imposing very high taxes of 90% or more on high incomes above, maybe $2 million, and using this money FOR THE PEOPLE should be a part of a bailout. These high taxes remove the INCENTIVE to lie, cheat and steal. They remove the reason a few people have been gaming the system. And with a 90% top tax rate hedge fund managers would STILL bring in $300 million a year. Think about that.

Example: Lots of people can't pay their mortgages and credit card bills because of health care costs. Completely reforming the health care system to provide everyone with health care would cost VASTLY less than this trillion-dollar bailout. SO a national health care system should be ONE component of a bailout.

These are just a few ideas for approaching any bailout. I have more. ALL of us would have many, many more if we get the time to think about it. And THIS is why they are trying to force this to happen immediately - THIS WEEK. If we get a chance to take a breather and think about what we're doing -- giving them all the rest of the money the country has -- we might have time to see a better way to proceed. They DON'T want that.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:40 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Bailout Question - Where Are They Going To Get The Money?

The financial crisis happened because of too much borrowing. They say it necessitates that we cough up ONE TRILLION DOLLARS for a bailout of the financial firms.

This begs the question -- where are we going to get the money?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:18 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 19, 2008

This Shock Doctrine Bailout Is Pure Fear, NOT a Response

It occurs to me that this sudden bailout demand - on a Friday - that the Congress hand over $1 TRILLION dollars NEXT WEEK is based purely on fear.

It is not a RESPONSE to an existing problem, where we could see what was going on and see the affected businesses and workers and regions and gauge the seriousness and allocate according to demonstrated need. This is based entirely on a fear story -- of we DON'T do this, then TERRIBLE things will happen.

Where just a few days ago all the people at the top were saying "the fundamentals are sound," suddenly they are all saying in unison that the sky is FALLING, and they have this PLAN, where the taxpayers have to hand them a $TRILLION dollars, IMMEDIATELY, or the most TERRIBLE things that you can't even imagine will certainly happen to you. And we have to do it next week, before you all head home to campaign. And all the Republicans are saying in unison we can't be partisan with something this important, just take our plan and pass it now.

The timing is just too convenient. Just before an election. Just before the Congress heads home to campaign. The amount is just too large. The need is just not demonstrated -- this is not a RESPONSE it is anticipation and fear. (In fact, the stock market is UP about 800 points in just two days.)

We all need to take a breather, wait a while, and be sure this bailout is needed. A couple of weeks, a month, to see if this is for real or not.

It really looks to me like this is a pure shock doctrine fear play.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:46 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Suddenly There IS $1 Trillion Available?

For decades we can't have a health care plan -- too expensive. Alternative energy? Too expensive. College paid for by the government? Too expensive. And Social Security was "in crisis" because it MIGHT come up a bit short in 40 years -- we have to raise the retirement age!

But THIS MORNING the Bush Administration announces a plan to spend $1 TRILLION (should put that as another trillion) bailing out the big financial firms and Congress will vote on it NEXT WEEK!

Suddenly, as with the Iraq war, there is a fast trillion to be had, with NO chance for anyone to think it over.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:58 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Let Bush Manage Bailout?

The Treasury Secretary wants the largest tax expenditure in history to be considered and passed IN A WEEK, just before an election. And then the BUSH ADMINISTRATION will manage how the bailout is handled.

Does this set off any alarm bells, people? The BUSH ADMINISTRATION is going to be in charge of deciding how trillions of our dollars are going to be allocated? The incompetent, "no bid contract," Halliburton, billions in cash disappearing in Iraq, Katrina, CORRUPT BUSH ADMINISTRATION allocating ALL THE REST OF THE MONEY IN THE TREASURY???

Hey, people, this is all of it. This is your retirement money, your hopes for a health care plan, your ability to buy food, all coming up in one massive spending bill IN A WEEK.

Tell me, what do you THINK is about to happen???

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:56 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Shock Doctrine Bailout: Taxpayers To Cover Debts Of Wall Street Zillionaires

Treasury Secretary Paulson just used the words, "A significant investment of taxpayer dollars." That's OUR dollars. And where is the money going? The plan is for U.S. taxpayers to bail out Wall Street. Not just a few firms this time, but all of it. The financial markets are, of course, soaring on the new bailout plan.

Where did all this bad debt come from? In the last few years millions were talked into borrowing money from Wall Street using houses as collateral. Sometimes to buy those houses, other times to buy cars and ... stuff. This paid for Wall Street's multi-million-dollar salaries and bonuses for the past several years. The easy borrowing ran up the price of houses, but now the party is over and the bill comes due.

What does this bailout plan mean to regular Americans? First: It means no money for a health care plan.

Second: it means no money for retirement. It means no money to cover what the government borrowed from Social Security to give those tax cuts to the rich. (The corporations long ago quit providing pensions to the people who did the work. THAT scam -- 401Ks instead of pensions; money transferred from workers to shareholders -- is what started the big Wall Street runup.)

In summary, this plan means our standard of living will drop in order to cover the mess Wall Street made while handing out those multi-million dollar bonuses.

The plan will be presented to Congress in these last days of the Bush administration, and a climate of disaster emergency urgency will be used to get it passed before anyone has time to consider the ramifications of what is happening.

Alternative: instead use the money to retrofit the entire country to a green economy. Make every building energy efficient. Replace the oil and coal-based electricity generation with alternatives. Build efficient power lines to the new wind generation system we will build in the Plains states. This would give every unemployed person a job, create an efficient economy, and pay dividends forever. This would probably cost much less than the bailout.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:53 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

September 18, 2008

Taxpayer Bailout Of Everything

There is a rumor that the government will step in and take over ALL the bad debt like it did after the Savings and Loan crisis and put the bill to the taxpayers. Stocks are up 450 on the rumor.

Stocks surge on report of entity for bad debt

Investors were cheered by the notion of a huge federal intervention like the establishment of RTC to acquire the real estate debt that has hobbled financial institutions and led to the intense volatility in the markets this week.

If there's an RTC-like entity, "it's going to take a lot of the bad debt off the balance sheets of these companies," said Scott Fullman, director of derivatives investment strategy for WJB Capital Group in New York. That would alleviate many of the pressures causing the credit crisis, he said, and open up the credit markets again.

The way the S&L bailout worked was, the government took over all the assets of the failed S&Ls. If you were a big Republican campaign contributor you got to buy all the good stuff for pennies on the dollar. Taxpayers put up all the money for the bailout.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:50 PM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

September 17, 2008

The Conservative Economic Experiment

The government just took over insurance giant AIG, at a cost of $85 billion to the taxpayers. They just finished bailing out Bear Sterns and Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. How many hundreds of billions of dollars have gone into other financial bailout efforts?

Since Reagan almost all of us are getting poorer, while a very few get vastly richer. Wages have largely stagnated since Reagan's election even as GDP and productivity have gone up. Pensions are a thing of the past. Health insurance is becoming a thing of the past as well.

As a result of the Reagan and now Bush tax cuts for the rich the government's debt is just about $10 TRILLION.

And corporations now rule us instead of democracy.

The conservative economic experiment failed a long time ago. When are we going to admit it and get things back on track? Will we wait until the United States declare bankruptcy? We're almost there now.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:29 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

September 14, 2008

McCain Campaign Lie Strategy - Will It Work?

The McCain campaign is being called out on some of the lies they have been telling. The campaign spokesman says that they are in this to win and don't care what the "media filter" says.

I think we will get a test of their theory that the "media filter" doesn't matter anymore. This is to a large degree about who controls the information channels now. The conservative movement has been building to this with their well-funded "liberal media" campaign. They have they're mouthpieces like Rush constantly telling his audience not to ever believe the media. The right has a very large following. The result is that most of the public believes that the major news media is a propaganda machine for liberals and should not be trusted.

And they have the advantage that repetition of messages does work. They are running ads that say Obama will raise your taxes, force sex talk on your kindergartners and all that stuff -- even one that says Obama is the anti-Christ. They have the money to run those ads over and over on shows that lots of people watch. And they have the wealthy and corporate-backed front groups running ads and robo-calls and smear campaigns, etc. against Obama. People don't necessarily watch or believe mainstream news, but they will see these ads again and again.

So do the authoritarian conservatives have the power to override facts and "create their own reality" as they did in the lead-up to the Iraq war? I really don't know the answer and wouldn't bet my house on it either way.

Remember, tobacco company marketing is able to get people to kill themselves, but to hand over much of their money in the process. Modern marketing methods can convince almost anyone to do or believe almost anything.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:00 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 10, 2008

They've BEEN Drilling!

Republicans, paid by oil companies, have been shouting "Drill Now!" Well, it turns out that the Republicans have BEEN drilling all along! And pumping. (Was that over the top?)

Report: U.S. Oil Program Rife with Conflicts, Favoritism, 'Promiscuity',

Government officials in a program that collects royalties from firms drilling on federal land partied and had sexual relationships with employees of oil and gas companies; accepted lavish gifts including ski trips, sports tickets and golf outings; and steered contracts to favored firms, according to a two-year Interior Department investigation released today.

Investigators said they "discovered a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" in the Colorado office of the program.

Also, Wide-Ranging Ethics Scandal Emerges at Interior Dept. ,

As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:46 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 4, 2008

Corporate Media Allows No Non-Corporate Analysis Of RNC

When the Democrats had their convention ABC and CBS constantly cut away to give "analysis" by Republicans and a few Democrats. During the Republican convention ABC and CBS have analysis by ... Republicans only.

See Media Matters - ABC, CBS aired no analysis from Dems during Day 2 of RNC coverage, despite airing analysis by Republicans during Day 2 of DNC coverage

Neither ABC nor CBS aired analysis from Democrats, Democratic strategists, or progressive media figures during their live coverage of the second day of the Republican National Convention on September 2 (the first day of the networks' live coverage of the convention). By contrast, both networks aired analysis from Republicans and conservatives, as well as from Democrats and progressives, during coverage of the second day of the Democratic National Convention on August 26.

By the way, when was the last time you heard about the benefits of joining a union from ANY corporate media outlet?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:55 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 1, 2008

Court: Republicans Can Force Companies NOT To Protect Citizens

In a new twist on the role of government a federal appeals court has ruled that the government can force companies to NOT test beef for mad cow disease.

The background is that some smaller meat packers wanted to test every cow, to ensure that citizens are safe from mad cow disease. Large meat packing companies felt this would lead consumers to buy from these companies that do the testing, and they don't want to spend any extra money to test their own beef. So they paid the Republicans to force the smaller companies to stop the testing. And there are enough Republican judges appointed now that they got this approved by a court.

U.S. can keep companies from testing for mad cow, court rules,

The government can prohibit meat packers from testing their animals for mad cow disease, a federal appeals court said Friday, overturning a lower court ruling that would have allowed such testing.

Because the Agriculture Department tests only a small percentage of cows for the deadly disease, Kansas meatpacker Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wanted to test all of its cows. The government said it could not.

Larger meat companies worry that if Creekstone performed the test and advertised its meat as safe, they could be forced to do the expensive test, too.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday overturned a lower court ruling. The appeals court said restricting the test is within the scope of the government's authority.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:45 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

August 28, 2008

Mile High

Ah, I have internet access at last! Did you catch Obama saying "Mile High Stadium" last night instead of "Generic Corporate Name" Stadium? Good for him!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:24 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

August 15, 2008

A Political Party Working For Oil Companies -- For Money

Republicans are insisting that our government give oil companies leases to drill off our shores. We are witnessing an unprecedented joint, coordinated campaign, involving oil companies and a political party, to trick the public into
1) supporting giving billions of dollars (more) worth of government leases to oil companies, for their profit, even while these companies are sitting on other millions of acres of leases and not using them and
2) supporting a political party with the same advertising message. This is what is called an "integrated" marketing campaign -- combining TV, radio, astroturf, industry-front "think tanks," "earned" news media, paid speakers and the unusual addition of a political campaign.

This at a time when the planet's climate is threatened by the CO2 going into the air from the coal and oil we are already burning.

With this coordinated campaign we see oil company advertisements on TV, hear them on the radio, read reports of "studies" from these industry front-group "think tanks," read op-ed pieces written by industry-paid "experts," and then to top it off elected officials and candidates reinforce the message (while the industry message reinforces their candidacy).

It is this addition of the political campaign in coordination with a paid industry campaign that is especially dangerous. This is elected officials and candidates working in conjunction with an industry to sell a product in exchange for political contributions and coordinated advertisements that support the message of the political party. The product is government oil leases to oil companies. The oil companies advertise about our country's need to drill offshore, which reinforces the political campaign of the Republican Party. This is not direct candidate advertisement so it is sort of legal, but any way you look at it it is big corporations spending tens or possibly hundreds of millions of dollars in obvious coordination with the political campaign, in a stealth manner that disguises that it is campaign advertising, while pretending it is an issue of national importance.

The other day I wrote a post, Republican / Oil Company Joint Campaign On Drilling,

I'm watching CNN and there is a report about the Republicans in Washington pulling a big stunt about drilling for oil. When the report ends, there is a commercial from the oil industry about why the country needs to drill for more oil.

It doesn't get much clearer than that. This is a political party involving itself in a corporate product marketing campaign, for money, which the corporations are involving themselves in the political campaign, for favors. This "drill now" campaign is funded by oil companies, is about giving them even more special government favors, and is about keeping the corporate political party in power.

This drilling campaign's level integration of a political party with corporate money may be unprecedented. We need new kinds of controls over the ability of corporations to influence our politics.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

August 12, 2008

One Effect Of Money's Influence On Policies

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

A new briefing paper from the Economic Policy Institute titled The China Trade Toll [PDF document] says that since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001 our China trade policy "has had a devastating effect on U.S. workers and the domestic economy."

The report shows that since 2001 California has lost 325,800 jobs (55,400 of these just in the last year) to China due to these policies. And since 2001 2.3 million jobs were lost nationally. According to the report even those workers able to find new jobs saw their wages drop an average of $8,146 per year. (These figures are only for jobs and income lost to China and do not include jobs and income lost to other countries.)

And, of course, this effect is not limited to the workers who lost their job. This also has an effect on works' ability to ask for raises and imporvements in working conditions. From the report,

It is also critical to recognize that the indirect impact of trade on other workers is significant as well. Trade with less-developed countries has reduced the bargaining power of all workers in the U.S. economy who resemble the import-displaced in terms of education, credentials, and skills. Annual earnings for all workers without a four year college degree are roughly $1,400 lower today because of this competition…

Specific industries were affected more than others by our massive trade deficit with China. Computer and electronic product manufacturers were hit hardest, losing an eliminated 561,000 jobs in this period. Jobs lost to the deficit tended to be better-paying ones,

More than two-thirds of the jobs displaced by China trade deficits were in manufacturing, which tends to employ a higher-than-average share of workers with a high school degree or less (43.7% of workers displaced) and to provide those workers with good wages and benefits. More than half (55.6%) of the jobs displaced came from the top half of the U.S. wage distribution, and among this group a disproportionate share came from the top 10th of all U.S. wage earners. African Americans (230,000 jobs lost), Hispanics (339,000), and other ethnic groups (219,000) all suffered from the loss of jobs such as these that pay substantially more and offer better benefits than jobs in other industries.

Here is what is going on. First, China "pegs" its currency to the dollar instead of letting it follow market rates as the dollar does. So the dollar's decline does not make it cost less to manufacture here, which would bring manufacturing jobs to the U.S. Next, China doesn't allow workers to organize labor unions. So their workers are not really benefiting from all of this. Wages there are kept low, and prices grow ever higher due to the currency manipulation of "pegging" to the dollar. And finally, China imposes barriers on imported goods. So while they manufacture and sell to the rest of the world, they keep their own people from buying things made elsewhere.

As a result China exported $323 billion in goods to the U.S. in 2007, and purchased only $61 billion in goods from the U.S.

The report concludes,

The growing U.S. trade deficit with China has displaced huge numbers of jobs in the United States and has been a prime contributor to the crisis in manufacturing employment over the past six years. Moreover, the United States is piling up foreign debt, losing export capacity, and facing a more fragile macroeconomic environment.

And, the report points out that this isn't particularly in the long-term interests of the Chinese people, either,

Is America’s loss China’s gain? The answer is most certainly no. China has become dependent on the U.S. consumer market for employment generation, has suppressed the purchasing power of its own middle class with a weak currency, and, most importantly, has held hundreds of billions of hard currency reserves in low-yielding, risky assets instead of investing them in public goods that could benefit Chinese households. Its vast purchases of foreign exchange reserves have stimulated the overheating of its domestic economy, and inflation in China has accelerated rapidly in the past year. Its repression of labor rights has suppressed wages, thereby artificially subsidizing exports.

Of course trade is good, when it is a two way street. If trade is fair, it benefits everyone involved. But this report shows that what the people who run American corporations call "free" trade is hurting our economy more than it is helping. Now that several years of these policies have passed we can measure the results, and the results have not been good for the American people.

Because of our country's trade policies with China 325,800 jobs have been lost in California. Meanwhile China is allowed to manipulate their currency, prevent unions, and set up barriers that keep their people from buying goods we make here.

What this has meant is big corporations can get out of paying American workers a fair wage because they can get away with paying Chinese workers hardly anything, while a very few people at the top of the American and Chinese food chains pocket the difference entirely for themselves. If you consider the huge amounts that some of these individuals are pocking from this scheme -- some receiving hundreds of millions of dollars each year -- aren't we at least benefiting from the taxes they pay? Unfortunately no, because of the tax policies of California and national Republican: low taxes for the rich, higher taxes for the rest of us, and borrowing to cover the resulting deficits. Here in California the Republicans are even blocking an effort to ask the super-rich to pay the same sales taxes that the rest of us pay on everything we buy when they buy yachts and private planes. But no, they don't even have to pay that tax.

The result of these tax policies is that while we lose jobs,and the remaining workers get pay cuts, we also lose out on government services like schools, fire protection, police, roads, mass transit and everything else our government does for us. And that's not all. Because of these tax policies the state and national governments are borrowing huge amounts, and we have to pay that back with interest.

All of this -- the China trade policies, the tax policies, the massive borrowing -- come from the influence that money buys in our political system. The minute someone is able to use some money to gain an advantage, of course they use that to get even more money, which lets them buy an even bigger advantage, and the cycle continues.

You can easily see the effects of the money with the massive ad campaigns around California's elections and ballot initiatives -- and the resulting budget gridlock as a few corporate-connected Republicans block every effort to ask the rich and connected to pay their share.

We are in a stranglehold situation. A very few wealthy people are exporting our jobs and pocketing the money they would have paid as wages and benefits. They are not even paying taxes on the ill-gotten gains, which forces our state and national governments to borrow. And they are getting away with it because they are able to use some of that money to further influence our political system.

Here's the thing. They're not even using their own money to purchase this influence. Since they have control of the resources of large corporations, they are using the money from those corporations to fund the system of influence, which directs much larger amounts of cash back to themselves.

I think the way to stop this is to prevent any use of corporate money for anything other than operating the corporation. I'll share some ideas on that in later posts.

Click through to Speak Out California -- Please leave a comment with your thoughts.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:50 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

August 9, 2008

If You Can't Do The Time, Don't Do The Crime

A new group called Accountable America is warning conservative donors about staying within election laws. The New York Times wrote about this the other day with the misleading headline, Group Plans Campaign Against G.O.P. Donors.

Of course it isn't a "campaign against GOP donors" it is a campaign warning against unlawful and unethical activity. But stopping unlawful activity just might dry up a lot of the Republican Party's -- and the right's supporting infrastructure's -- cash flow. This includes 501c3 tax-free "charity" think tanks and 501c4 "issue" organizations that are really illegally engaged in candidate activity, or otherwise acting as conduits for corporate money or for those who have "maxed out" (reached the legal limit) for political donations.

The other day I wrote about,

... companies intimidating workers to vote a certain way, churches, think tanks, front groups incorporated as c4s but doing candidate work, campaigns violating election laws, etc.

... Suppose [we could create] some concern among the Wal-Marts and the Sheldon Adelsons that they had better think about following the law?

What would this do to the funding sources of the right's machine?

So I guess great minds think alike. Heh.

There is plenty of need for an effort to get conservative and corporate donors to follow the law. Just for example -- last week's news about "curious" bundled political contributions made by employees of oil companies receiving billion-dollar contracts from the government to McCain and Republicans. Some of these donations came from people clearly unable to make such a donation on their own. This makes it appear that the companies may have illegally given these people money to give to McCain and the Republican Party and groups are demanding an investigation (that will never happen).

[Public interest groups] want the Justice Department to investigate whether bundlers for John McCain's presidential campaign are using "straw" donations -- those made in the name of someone else to evade contribution limits.

A story at TPM elaborates,

"An executive from a company that has a billion dollar contract to deliver oil to U.S. bases in Iraq possibly violated election law to funnel contributions to McCain. We think that warrants an investigation."

And on the Hess matter ... : "An office manager for an oil company that stands to gain millions in profits from offshore drilling makes donations for the first time this cycle to McCain, and did it at the same time nine other Hess donors do. That's worth an investigation."

Now that Accountable America is on the scene maybe corporations and big donors who are thinking about engaging in illegal activities will think twice.

If you want to help this effort you can donate by clicking here.

Update Kathy G writes about Accountable America in her post Liberal fascism strikes again!

* The new group will offer a $100,000 reward to those providing information that leads to the conviction or judgment against a conservative or business-related organization that violates the law.

* Accountable America will provide information to the public through television ads, mailings, phone calls and its Web site.

* Next week the organization plans to send a mailing warning nearly 10,000 Republican donors of the consequences of funding organizations that break or skirt the law.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

August 3, 2008

Question For Today

Question: Is there such a thing as a good or bad company? CAN a company be good or bad? (Is a company sentient?)

Is there any definition of a good or bad company beyond following the law and distributing profits to shareholders?

If a company is acting in ways that we do not like whose jobs is it to change the way the company is acting?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:03 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Republican Party Hired To Sell Product For Oil Companies

The Republican Party's hiring itself out to the oil industry for this coordinated "Drill Now" campaign reminds me of an old joke. (I'll shorten it.)

Kentucky Fried Chicken comes to the Pope and says, "We'll give you $500,000 a year to change the Lord's Prayer to 'give us this day our daily fried chicken'." The Pope says, "No way." Then they offer $1 million. The Pope gives a long spiel about this is a sacred prayer, from God, etc. They give their final offer: $10 million a year.

The next day the Pope meets with his Cardinals and says, "The good news is I have brought us $10 million a year."

"The bad news is I lost the Wonder Bread account."

The other day I wrote,

This is a political party involving itself in a corporate product marketing campaign, for money. This "drill now" campaign is funded by oil companies, and is about giving them even more special government favors. It isn't a lot different from changing a stadium's name to "Enron Stadium" or Pac Bell park" etc.
This political campaign is in conjunction with an oil industry PR campaign to try to get the government to hand them even more drilling leases than the millions of acres they already have (and sit on without drilling). It came just as oil prices peaked and suggests that oil prices peaked in order to prime the public for this campaign.

Your modern Republicans -- A political party reduced to hiring itself out to sell product!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:17 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

August 1, 2008

Republican / Oil Company Joint Campaign On Drilling

I'm watching CNN and there is a report about the Republicans in Washington pulling a big stunt about drilling for oil. When the report ends, there is a commercial from the oil industry about why the country needs to drill for more oil.

It doesn't get much clearer than that. This is a political party involving itself in a corporate product marketing campaign, for money. This "drill now" campaign is funded by oil companies, and is about giving them even more special government favors. It isn't a lot different from changing a stadium's name to "Enron Stadium" or Pac Bell park" etc.

This political campaign is in conjunction with an oil industry PR campaign to try to get the government to hand them even more drilling leases than the millions of acres they already have (and sit on without drilling). It came just as oil prices peaked and suggests that oil prices peaked in order to prime the public for this campaign.

We have seen this before, involving Republican coordination with tobacco companies... It is very much like a consumer product launch marketing campaign.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:54 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 31, 2008

Republicans See The Public As Losers and Whiners

We already know that Republicans hate government by the people. According to them, if you are not rich you are a "loser" who deserves nothing because you are not "contributing" to the corporate economy.

After New Orleans it was pretty clear that they also just hated the people. Recently McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm said the country's problems with the economy are a "mental recession," and said of people losing their homes, jobs, pensions and health care: "We have sort of become a nation of whiners"

Well, here is another example. Open Left found this. Here is Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, talking about the thousands who drowned in New Orleans:

So I don't want anybody telling me that we have to offset a disaster relief package for the Midwest where people are hurting, when we didn't do it for New Orleans. Why the double standard? Is it because people aren't on rooftops complaining for helicopters to rescue them, and you see it on television too much? We aren't doing that in Iowa. We are trying to help ourselves in Iowa. We have a can-do attitude. It doesn't show up on television like it did in New Orleans for 2 months.

People trapped in rising water, downing, were whiners "on rooftops complaining for helicopters to rescue them."

Conservatives say that the poor are "losers" who "made bad decisions" and shouldn't be "rewarded." Here is a typical example, at the Republican TownHall website,

Liberals feel an irresistible instinct to take sides with the less fortunate.

While the right wants to reward beneficial choices and discourage destructive directions, the left seeks to eliminate or reduce the impact of the disadvantages that result from bad decisions. In place of the conservative emphasis on accountability, the left proffers a gospel of indiscriminate compassion.

This leads directly, and inevitably, to the liberal passion to sanctify victimhood.

"Enlightened" lefties long to embrace and exalt all those who claim to have suffered from hard luck or oppression: the homeless, single mothers, "people of color," homosexuals, AIDS patients, feminists, convicted criminals, Native Americans, atheists, immigrants and many more.

[. . .] In fact, the recent hearings about the shabby treatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reade Medical Center represented a concerted effort to transform America’s military into a victims group worthy of liberal sympathy.

. . . Moreover, raising taxes on high earners in order to provide more give-aways to the unproductive clearly punishes success while rewarding failure.

. . . Leftists feel virtuous and unselfish for invariably embracing the losers, but with this persistent preference it’s society itself that loses most.

This is beyond nasty. This is hateful. Unfortunately it is just typical of what you find when you read conservative opinion these days. This is hatred of humanity.

People drowning in a flood are "complaining." The poor are "losers."

It is time to restore humanity to our discourse. It is time to reject these conservatives and their nasty, hateful excuses for their own greed and fear.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:52 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 28, 2008

More On Credit Scores

OK, so I'm a big corporation. I decide to shaft you for $157.29. You decide never to pay it because you didn't get what you ordered, or whatever happened.

So I, the big corporation, reports to the credit agency (another big corporation) that you didn't pay your bill. There you go, pure extortion: you pay up or we'll ruin your credit rating and you don't get to participate in the economy anymore.

Does anyone even remember democracy? That's that thing where the people set the rules and make the laws, and do it to benefit each other.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:23 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Corporate Media Largely White, Male

Media Matters has a study of 1700 guest appearances on cable news channels that shows that the people represented are largely white and male. Other Media matters studies showed the same on the Sunday news shows.

Media Matters - Cable Diversity:

Media Matters for America examined four programs on each of the three cable news networks during prime time, and recorded the gender and ethnicity of every guest who appeared during the month of May 2008 -- nearly 1,700 guest appearances in all. The results demonstrate that, at least in prime time, whatever effort the networks have made to increase the diversity of their guests have borne little fruit. Although there may be more African-American political analysts appearing during the daytime hours (particularly on CNN and MSNBC) in prime time -- when the audiences are largest -- white men continue to dominate.

And let me point out thatyou will never, ever see someone explaining the benefits of joining a union on corporate media outlets.

Key findings include:

* In total, 67 percent of the guests on these cable programs were men, while 84 percent were white.

* MSNBC featured the greatest gender imbalance, with 70 percent of its guests being male. CNN and Fox News were not far behind; each of those networks featured 65 percent male guests.

* Fox News was the whitest network, with 88 percent white guests. CNN and MSNBC were close behind, with both featuring 83 percent white guests.

* Latinos were particularly underrepresented. Though they now comprise 15 percent of the U.S. population, they made up only 2.7 percent of the guests. The worst of the three networks on this score was MSNBC, which featured only 6 prime-time appearances by Latinos during the entire month (out of a total of 460 guest appearances).

* A number of ethnic groups were shut out entirely, or nearly so, on some networks. During this month, there was only one appearance by an Asian-American on MSNBC, and only one on Fox News. Across all three networks, there were only four appearances by someone of Middle Eastern descent.

* Though white men make up only 32 percent of the population, they made up 57 percent of the guests on prime-time cable during this period. The host of every single prime-time cable show is white, and all but two (Greta Van Susteren of Fox News and Campbell Brown of CNN) are men.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:25 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 25, 2008

Getting It Wrong On Tomatoes

AP has a story today about the salmonella poisonings teaching the food industry a lesson. They just get it wrong. The story shows a fundamental lack of understanding about what is happening to us today. The story, The Associated Press: Food industry bitten by its lobbying success

One of the worst outbreaks of foodborne illness in the U.S. is teaching the food industry the truth of the adage, "Be careful what you wish for because you might get it."

The industry pressured the Bush administration years ago to limit the paperwork companies would have to keep to help U.S. health investigators quickly trace produce that sickens consumers, according to interviews and government reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

The White House also killed a plan to require the industry to maintain electronic tracking records that could be reviewed easily during a crisis to search for an outbreak's source. Companies complained the proposals were too burdensome and costly, and warned they could disrupt the availability of consumers' favorite foods.

The apparent but unintended consequences of the lobbying success: a paper record-keeping system that has slowed investigators, with estimated business losses of $250 million. So far, nearly 1,300 people in 43 states, the District of Columbia and Canada have been sickened by salmonella since April.

This is a consequence of our habit of thinking of corporations and industries as some kind of sentient entities. They are not.

Let me tell you how this really works: The executives who killed regulation pocketed cash -- when people later get sick insurance companies and shareholders are the ones who pay for it. There is no sentient being called "food industry" or "tomato company" at work here. There are a few executives who got rich, and everyone else pays for it.

As long as we use these mental frames of industries and companies as sentient entities we will make these mistakes. When we hear that a company has an opinion or an interest, we are not hearing from Bob in Sales or Alice in Accounts Receivable, they are told from the top. A company is only a piece of paper. The people in the companies are told what to do by a few people at the top. Those people act in their OWN interests, period. When we understand this we can start to write laws and regulations that deal with reality.

(Also diaried at La Vida Locavore -- "the blog for anyone whose crazy life includes planting, growing, weeding, fertilizing, raising, picking, harvesting, processing, cooking, baking, making, serving, buying, selling, distributing, transporting, composting, organizing around, lobbying about, writing about, thinking about, talking about, playing with, and eating food!")

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:35 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Just One More Bad Act By Republicans

Just one more of so, so many...

U.S. Rushes to Change Workplace Toxin Rules,

Political appointees at the Department of Labor are moving with unusual speed to push through in the final months of the Bush administration a rule making it tougher to regulate workers' on-the-job exposure to chemicals and toxins.

The agency did not disclose the proposal, as required, in public notices of regulatory plans that it filed in December and May.

Republicans making it harder for workers to protect themselves from exposure to toxins. They get paid a bundle of cash to help kill people. What a job. With the added bonus of doing it in ways that make it harder for legitimate government to fix it so people can again be protected.

And then, when they leave the government, they will be hired by the very companies that make a bundle from poisoning workers, and paid then for what they are doing now. A flat-out bribe that comes a year later.

You try to explain to people what is happening, and they think YOU are extreme. It does sound so extreme to say that people would do this. Yet there they are -- doing it.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:17 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 15, 2008

How You Can Help Atria Residents and Workers

Last week in Gouging Vulnerable Seniors -- What Can Be Done? I wrote about two big pension funds that have invested in the "Lazard affiliate" that owns Atria Senior Living, and suggested they ask Lazard to clear up their act. (If you are not familiar with what is happening with Atria, please click this.) One of these funds is in Quebec, the other in the Netherlands. These funds have signed on to the United Nation's Principles for Responsible Investment (UN-PRI) and these principles call for investors to take action when their investments are causing harm.

PGGM is a large pension fund in the Netherlands that serves that country's public social workers and health care workers.

La Caisse de Depot et Placements du Quebec ("CDP") -- a large public pension fund in Quebec.

These are prominent, large funds with good reputations on a global stage. They are responsible investors and take it seriously enough to be signatories to the UN-PRI. The Principles' FAQs say "The Principles suggest a policy of engagement with companies rather than screening or avoiding stocks based on ESG criteria (although this may be an appropriate approach for some investors)." I am writing here to encourage PGGM and CDP to ask Lazard to clean up their act, and have Atria treat their elderly residents and their workers better. Ask them to support the International Labor Organization's core conventions, especially Freedom of Association: "The right of workers and employers to form and join organizations of their choice is an integral part of a free and open society. It is a basic civil liberty that serves as a building block for social and economic progress. Linked to this is the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining. Voice and representation are an important part of decent work."

So OK, that's what THEY can do. What about you?

Do you have a pension fund? Maybe you have friends or relatives with pension funds? There are steps you can take.

YOU will retire some day. You will get old. So you should take this personally. Do you want to have a national corporate environment that means you will retire into a place like this? Or do you want to fight the system that accepts this kind of thing? Because it can happen to YOU.

Here is a partial list of the investors in the Lazard-Atria fund:

Public employee pension funds in the U.S.:
Virginia state pension fund
Wisconsin state pension fund
Colorado state pension fund
Utah state pension fund
New York state pension fund
IIlinois state pension fund
Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund

European / Canadian public funds:
La Caisse de Depot (Quebec fund)
PGGM (Netherlands public / healthcare workers fund)

Corporate funds:
General Motors Asset Management
Lucent Asset Management
AT&T Investment Management
IBM

Other investors:
Lazard Group
Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC)
Institutional Property Consultants
Southern Company

If you have money in one of these, this is not just some union dispute -- it is your money.

Are these funds doing their job on holding Lazard responsible? Are they responsible with their other investments? What about other places where you have money?

There is a way for them to start being responsible, and that is to join the UN-PRI commitment to responsible investing, and start fighting to create an economy that cares about people.

This isn't just about Atria and Lazard. This is about a national climate where people are human beings who are respected, not just economic units to be squeezed. You have the power to make noise and demand that people be treated with respect.

This post was sponsored in part by The Campaign To Improve Assisted Living.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 14, 2008

Who Is the Corporation?

I have been writing about Atria Senior Living, owned by a "Lazard-affiliate." Atria is big a chain of facilities where elderly people live. It offers assisted living care and "memory care"(which means Alzheimer's care facilities). Lazard is a big "Bermuda-based" (HA!) Wall Street "buyout firm."

Here's the deal. Big Wall Street firm Lazard buys a few senior-care facility chains and combines them into Atria. The "boomers" are aging and will need care so this is the Next Big Thing investment. Pension funds and others hand over to Lazard millions for this "investment," expecting Lazard to provide a rich return. This means the seniors (well, their incomes, actually) are the PRODUCT, not the customer here. The seniors are an annoyance, inefficient, demanding, in the way of maximizing revenue. Employees are even worse, of course, because they expect to get paid, and want to go home sometimes, and are generally in the way of the supreme goal of maximizing revenue.

And to complicate things Lazard has set up an extremely convoluted system of corporations "affiliated with" other corporations, some based in Bermuda (HA!) and none particularly traceable to being the actual owners of Atria. No one can really find who ultimately can be held accountable for the hundreds of violations of regulations that Atria commits.

So here is the thing. When you talk about a corporation doing something, who are you talking about? In reality you are talking about a few PEOPLE, not some anonymous corporation, PEOPLE. And when you talk about the people of a corporation you are not talking about Bob in Sales or Mary in Accounts Receivable. They are not the people who make decisions -- they aren't even asked. They are told from the top how it is going to be. When you talj about a corporation doing or saying something you are really talking about A FEW PEOPLE and the things these people do and say are not for "the company" they are necessarily for THEMSELVES. Corporations do not have voices or thoughts or ideas, a few people who have control of the resources of the corporation do, and always, always act for their OWN gain.

So who are we talking about today? Bruce Wasserstein is the guy at the top of this particular corporate food chain, reeling in the BIG bucks, and the residents of Atria are working to hold him accountable.

Saturday's New York Daily News had a story about this: Care-home grannies blast billionaire whose firm put their rents through roof

. . . a sneaker-clad foursome of seniors - representing numerous residents they say are too scared to come forward - recently tried to confront the ultrawealthy investment banker at his Rockefeller Center office.

. . . In a letter from the residents' board they tried to hand-deliver to Wasserstein, the women noted the stark disparity between his wealth and their fixed incomes.

"While residents at Atria struggle to manage rate increases ... the compensation packages for those at Lazard are in the millions."

Wasserstein lives in a duplex that combines the 10th and 11th stories of a posh Fifth Ave. building on the upper East Side. He also owns a Paris pied-à-terre, a sprawling East Hampton estate next door to Jerry Seinfeld and a Santa Barbara, Calif., spread worth $8.3million.

Lazard's board paid Wasserstein, who is worth at least $2 billion, more than $41million in salary and bonuses last year.

Atria is owned by a fund controlled by Lazard, although Lazard claims Wasserstein has no control over Atria's operations.

"Lazard" claims that Lazard has no control over Atria, which is owned and operated by Lazard. Meanwhile those elderly people are squeezed by writing ever-greater checks, and the employees have to get squeezed and squeezed. Everyone is squeezed, Wasserstein gets ever-richer, and NO ONE can be held accountable.

Nice system we got going here, huh? Works for Wasserstein. But not for the rest of us.

This post was sponsored in part by The Campaign To Improve Assisted Living.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 10, 2008

Balancing the Budget and Paying Off the Debt

Oh, so NOW they want budget deficit reductions!

Here's what I think: The money for those tax cuts was borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, and America's rich people have had quite a party with that money. That means that America's rich people owe the money to the elderly. It was borrowed from the elderly and it has to be paid back to the elderly. It is wrong to ask elderly retirees to accept less because we gave the money away to rich people to have a big party with.

And the money we owe the Chinese was borrowed and used to give tax cuts to the rich, and subsidies to oil companies, and no-bid contracts to defense contractors with Cayman Islands addresses.

Since the borrowing began in the early 80s there has been a massive shift in wealth from regular people to a very few wealthy people. Now that the borrowing has to start being paid back they are asking regular people to be the ones who have to work harder, accept less, drive on unrepaired roads and send their kids to bad schools.

We used to have a 90% top tax rate because we felt this kind of concentration of wealth was bad for democracy. Corporations used to foot a much greater portion of the country's tax bill, but this has also shifted onto the backs of regular people. And you know what? When we had those tax policies the economy worked better. In a consumer economy, regular people with more dollars in their pockets mean the economy does better.

I'm an independent contractor so I have to pay 15% to social security on my first dollar to my last dollar - before income and other taxes. That is a direct subsidy to those tax cuts. It pisses me off.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 9, 2008

Living and Working at Atria

Part three of our unfolding story is about living and working at Atria Senior Living.

Go read Unassisted Living: Atria Residents, Families, and Workers Tell Their Stories -- Boztopia.com,

“Not long after she became a resident, mom and I began to notice many problems with her level of care. They didn’t have enough staff to do even the one check that was part of her care plan. The short staffing was apparent in other areas. Crucial doctor’s appointments were cancelled without notice because there wasn’t a driver. Showers were not routine. Even after constant requests, too few staff were available to keep up with the requests.”

We are people, not economic units, and there is a difference. This may be a difficult concept to grasp after three or four decades of constant corporate-funded "free market" propaganda. But people make decisions for higher reasons than just making or saving a buck or two. Most people, anyway.

“My mother has been a resident at Atria Marina Place for almost two years. She pays $4,825 for a one bedroom apartment. Our contract with Atria is supposed to include assistance with daily care and monitoring of medications, but my mother is still paying an additional $400 for care and medication administration. In the two years my mother has been at Atria, there’s been a huge turnover in staff. I think only about five of the original aides are sill there from when mom moved in. It also seems like there is never enough staff to watch out for the residents—at night there are two aides in the entire building.”

"Let the buyer beware" means that it is up to the purchaser of goods or services to take all precautions before handing over the money. But what happens when you are up against a giant company that utilizes the best marketing and sales that money can buy? If you are looking for a home for your elderly parents, and the comforting ads backed by the reputation of a national chain work to reassure you that everything is safe and your parents will be well cared for, how can you go wrong?

But then you sign the lease, and GOTCHA! The level of service is not what was promised. The rates start increasing and increasing. The care is substandard, the management is distant -- you can't even find out who actually owns the place. But one thing is for sure, they want that check every month. And your parent or parents are elderly -- another move would be just devastating, and now you are afraid.

“It’s time the state holds these facilities accountable. Before my mother moved in, Atria promised the best food and plenty of caregiving staff. We had high expectations, but I feel like we’ve been deceived every step of the way.”

What about the employees?

People who don't see themselves primarily as economic units can make decisions about jobs based on non-economic factors. Some people choose to be teachers, for example, because they want to help children learn and become better human beings. Others go into caring professions. Believe it or not, there are people who go into caring professions because they care about people.

“I was told that I would have to start supervising the night nursing staff. I do not have any clinical background experience, I did not hire the staff that I was supposed to supervise, this would take my focus away from the successful program I’d developed to take care of the residents. In addition, I was working full time nine to five. But I was told that I should stop by unannounced at any hour during the overnight shift to see how the night nursing staff was doing. I feel this was the result of Atria’s corporate mentality. From my perspective as an employee, it always seemed like Atria put profits before people.”

But even though there are people who don't measure the value of their existence according to how well they feed the economic machine -- and their efficiency at generating profits for the wealthy -- this does not mean they do not deserve respect and fair compensation for their work. The caregivers at Atria, at every level, deserve to be treated with respect and compensated fairly for their work.

But they're not. Of course.

Of course, this is all exactly what Atria and Lazard and Bruce Wasserstein are counting on. This is what the people and pension funds and others who park their money at Lazard are counting on. To them the seniors and the workers are just economic units, revenue streams and costs to cut, to be replaced if they don't perform efficiently.

What can we do about this? I'll start writing about this tomorrow.

This post was sponsored in part by The Campaign To Improve Assisted Living.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 8, 2008

Press Praises Wealthy America-Hater Templeton

John Templeton Sr. died today. He had moved away and renounced his US citizenship because he hated our country.

But he was extremely wealthy, which makes him a hero to some. The Washington Post, for example: Billionaire Investor John Marks Templeton Dies at 95. Others called him a "philanthropist"

Even though he had renounced his citizenship and our country Templeton was a "conservative sugar daddy" who funded many U.S.-based anti-government organizations (as well as proponents of creationism and "intelligent design.") He funded many far-right-wing causes and includingpoliticians.

His son carries on.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Extreme Wealth Just Isn't Enough

Part One of the unfolding story was about the vulnerability of the elderly -- perfect targets for exploitation.

In Part One the Bermuda-based (HA!) "buyout" firm Lazard, LLC. set up Atria Senior Living which an "affiliated entity" owns.

Atria houses seniors, and collects a monthly fee, which ends up in Lazard's (affiliated) bottom line. ... Atria has been reducing services, raising rates, cutting wages, and generally treating the residents and employees like money trees that exist to be squeezed.

Part Two is about extreme wealth.

At Atria the seniors are captive, the services are cut, the rates are increased and the employees paid as low as possible. You see, there's always a waiting list of elderly people who need "memory care"' or assistance taking showers. These are the lucky duckies who have some money to pay to live at a place like Atria; there are few choices and if you don't have the money in America you are on your own. (Imagine being too old to even be able to shower by yourself but not have enough money to even pay an Atria. Welcome to today's "free market" America.)

The money is squeezed in ever greater amounts. And at the top of this food chain is a guy: Bruce Wasserstein. It seems he just has to have more and more and more. Already extremely wealthy, it just isn't enough. It's never enough and it seems the more you get the more you need. You need it bad enough to squeeze more and more money out of old people too frail to even shower without help. You need to so bad that you keep the wages of people as low as you can and you do everything in your power to keep them from forming a union. You need that money. You need that money. You need that money. And you do what you have to do to get even more.

Bruce Wasserstein, is Chairman and CEO of Lazard. Wasserstein was paid more than $42 million for the year 2007, a year when Lazard’s stock lost more than 14% of its value. He then signed a new five-year contract with Lazard worth more than $100 (not counting bonuses). So far this year their stock has dropped almost 10%.

Wasserstein and Lazard just have to have more and more. Elderly people who can't take care of themselves and low-wage workers are weak and vulnerable. Does this mean that we as a community of people join together and protect them? No, this makes them an easy target in today's America, so Wasserstein and Lazard have stepped in to harvest this vulnerability. They just have to have more. Already extremely wealthy, they just have to have more.

See the Brave New Films video, Gouging Grandma: Billionaire Bruce Wasserstein:

Bruce Wasserstein is the chairman and chief executive officer of Lazard, Ltd. and Lazard Group. He buys companies, cuts costs, and drives up their value—often for a quick profit at the expense of customers, consumers and workers. He is worth more than $2 billion.

Wasserstein and Lazard need to get their greed under control, take responsibility for their own actions and their own greed, stop cutting services and raising rates at Atria, and allow the employees to unionize.

This post was sponsored in part by The Campaign To Improve Assisted Living.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 3, 2008

The Campaign To Improve Assisted Living

Next week I'll be writing about The Campaign To Improve Assisted Living.

To get you ready, here's your homework assignment.

First, read this: Open Left:: Socially Irresponsible Investing

Then go to The Campaign To Improve Assisted Living and study up.

OK, go and get ready for this one. You can have tomorrow off but you are expected to work over the weekend.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 23, 2008

NASA's Climate Scientist Says Try Oil CEOs For Crimes Against Humanity

This is one of the most important things to read in a very long time. NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hansen spells out just how close we are to global warming tipping points. Then he says that CEOs of oil companies should be tried for crimes against humanity for spreading propaganda that is intended to boost their own wealth at the expense of the rest of us and the planet.

Dr. James Hansen: Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near on Global Warming:

Special interests have blocked transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link. Methods are sophisticated, including disguised funding to shape school textbook discussions.

CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature. If their campaigns continue and "succeed" in confusing the public, I anticipate testifying against relevant CEOs in future public trials

Conviction of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal CEOs will be no consolation, if we pass on a runaway climate to our children. Humanity would be impoverished by ravages of continually shifting shorelines and intensification of regional climate extremes. Loss of countless species would leave a more desolate planet.

Hansen says we need a big tax on fossil fuels, but that the tax be entirely given back as a dividend, equal amounts to each person.

Here is how it works. Let's say you collect $280 billion in CO2 taxes. You then give a $1000 check to each American. People who spend less than that in CO2 taxes benefit. People who spend more than that are given a huge incentive to cut back or switch to other forms of energy.

It is a great idea. It is one answer to the problem. It benefits everyone except the big polluters. Exxon will fight that tooth an nail.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:51 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Speak Out California Is Back Up And Running!

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California.

One day your website is yours, and the next day it is someone else's. Organizations, businesses and regular people are at the mercy of a confusing deregulated system.

A little over a week ago the Speak Out California website suddenly disappeared, and viewers instead saw a website full of advertisements.

We had no way of even knowing what had happened. It was just a surprise. One day typing "speakoutca.org" into a web browser took viewers to our website, the next day it took viewers to an ad site that someone else managed.

Some of us are more sophisticated and internet-savvy than most citizens so we were eventually able to track down some information. I'm not going into details here, except to say that no one at Speak Out California received any notice that this was going to happen. It took several days to even track down where the domain name (this is what internet addresses like speakoutca.org are called) had been registered, who had registered it, and contact info for the registrar. Then it took several more days to restore the domain name to us and get it working again.

Here's the thing: the only way we were able to get this name back and get the site operating again is because some of us are much more internet-connected than most people. Most people would have no idea where to even start to look for information and help solving a problem like this.

This is certainly not an uncommon problem. My wife had a business named Dancing Woman Designs with a website at dancingwomandesigns.com, and then one day she didn't. She received no notice, nothing. It was just there one day and gone the next and if she wanted it back it was going to cost her. It was going to cost her a lot. And so she doesn't have dancingwomandesigns.com anymore and that address takes you to an ad site. A whole business that took years to get going and build is history now. It was wiped out in a minute because someone was able to get the web name.

A larger business is more likely to have the resources to hire the necessary experts to fight something like this. But it can be an expensive proposition and it can take time.

This is the difference between regulation and deregulation. Regulations protect regular people. Deregulation enables and protects scammers, schemers, and cons. The Internet is largely unregulated and is full of scammers, schemers and cons. Most of the businesses and organizations on the internet are good, honest, credible and legitimate but regular people are also left completely at the mercy of numerous cons, scams, schemes and rip-offs and the burden is on us to find a way to tell the difference.

We got Speak Out California back up and running. It only took us a week and a little money. But we are sophisticated, internet-savvy and connected -- and lucky. Hmm ... maybe some new legislation is warranted.

Click through to Speak Out California

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 18, 2008

Drilling - See The Big Picture, Please

All of a sudden you can't get away from stories about the need to drill for oil in Alaska and off our coasts.

So what is going on? Why are there so MANY stories in the news, op-eds, blogs, columnists, letters to the editor and on the radio saying that drilling will solve the problem? Rational, informed people understand that it would take almost a decade before any new production showed up, that we are already at refinery limits and that we could have alternatives and conservation in place much faster with a much bigger impact. Why this huge push for drilling today?

People who look at this as a policy issue and try to respond with facts and logic are missing what is happening here, and misunderstanding how the corporate/conservative machine operates: SOMEone makes a bunch of MONEY if we open up drilling. And that SOMEone is paying to push a bill through Congress. It's just that simple. That's how the right's machine works today. It is entirely pay-for-play. I suspect that we are seeing a standard conservative multi-front coordinated PR push in support of an upcoming legislative agenda. This is how the corporate right organizes a campaign.

According to Google News there are 2102 news articles this morning under the heading, "Bush asks Congress to clear way for offshore oil drilling." Example, The Kansas City Star, Bush to Congress: Embrace energy exploration now,

With gasoline topping $4 a gallon, President Bush urged Congress on Wednesday to lift its long-standing ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, saying the United States needs to increase its energy production. ...

"There is no excuse for delay," the president said in a statement in the Rose Garden. With the presidential election just months away, Bush made a pointed attack on Democrats, accusing them of obstructing his energy proposals and blaming them for high gasoline costs

There are another 1000 or so under various other headings. This is just today.

People who watch the corporate right's machine have seen this bubbling up for a while. A couple of weeks ago there was a weird story circulating in theright-wing press about China drilling for oil off Florida. George Will got it into the Washington Post. Fox: China, Others Drilling for Oil Off Florida. Even Vice President Cheney repeated it. It didn't matter that it wasn't true: Cheney Acknowledges He Lied About China Drilling ‘60 Miles Off The Coast Of Florida’

At the same time, column after column has been appeared in the corporate right's outlets like but not limited to Townhall.com. (See a recent Townhall sampling here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and note this one: here. These and more just in the last few days and just at this site - which is one of so many.)

Also there are dozens and dozens of stories in other places most of us don't see. Please follow the link and read this one, it just follows the script so closely: Family Security Matters: A World Afloat on an Ocean of Oil,

The most fundamental fact about oil worldwide is that there is lots of it. . . For sheer insanity, however, consider a nation that has an estimated 31 billion barrels of oil offshore of its coasts and 117 billion barrels of oil under land owned or managed by the government . . . In just one area, a desolate place designated a wildlife refuge, there's an estimated 7.7 billion barrels untapped. . . . Most of the areas where oil is known to exist have been ruled off-limits to any exploration or extraction by the government.

In the areas where it is accessible, drilling for it is hugely encumbered and often denied by the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act.
. . . the price of a gallon of gasoline or heating oil, is making everyone miserable thanks in great part to environmental legislation . . . just to make matters worse, the government requires that every gallon of gasoline include the additive, ethanol, which reduces its mileage and increases its cost.

Newt Gingrich is, of course, all over the "drill now" story: Our Declaration of Energy Independence:

While Washington elites can't or won't act, the American people see the first step to a practical, common sense way out of this crisis: Drill here. Drill now. Pay less.

(By the way, I think Newt is vying to be the Republican nominee this year. Not kidding - I don't think it will be McCain.)

And, of course, the other side of the story also hits the airwaves - the warm, cuddly oil companies: CBS Praises Oil Company for $50 Million in College Aid,

For once, “CBS Evening News” gave viewers a break from seeing oil companies demonized.

At a time when gas has topped $4 a gallon and the media are looking for someone to blame for “pain at the pump,” “Evening News” took a different approach and showed how one oil company is reinvesting its profits – not in politically correct alternative sources of energy, but back into the community.

So is this really a corporate/right PR campaign? For those of us who track this sort of thing here is the big clue. On Drudge today there is a link to a fresh, new Gore smear from the "Tennessee Center for Policy Research" with the long headline: Energy Guzzled by Al Gore’s Home in Past Year Could Power 232 U.S. Homes for a Month - Gore’s personal electricity consumption up 10%, despite “energy-efficient” home renovations ,

In the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former Vice President’s home energy use surged more than 10%, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

“A man’s commitment to his beliefs is best measured by what he does behind the closed doors of his own home,” said Drew Johnson, President of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. “Al Gore is a hypocrite and a fraud when it comes to his commitment to the environment, judging by his home energy consumption.”

In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.

I haven't had time to turn on the radio, but I think I can safely bet that Rush and the rest of the radio crowd are on this, and have been plugging it for weeks. (Oh, and I'll bet they're planting stuff in online forums, especially sports forums. They use forums a lot for word-of-mouth generation.)

So see the big picture - see the forest - and learn from it.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 16, 2008

Bloggers - Time To Boycott Amazon?

Fellow bloggers - it looks like it is time to send readers to Barnes&Noble or somewhere else rather than Amazon for their books. It looks like Amazon is just another big corporation trying to use their market power to rig the system against publishers and consumers. Big is bad, and then they try to tilt the playing field in their favor to gain even more power, which they will use to tilt the playing field even more.

See Publishers feel pressure of Amazon's 'buy' button,

"Amazon seems each year to go from one publisher to another, making increasing demands in order to achieve richer terms at our expense and sometimes at yours," Hutchinson said in the letter. "If this continued, it would not be long before Amazon got virtually all of the revenue that is presently shared between author, publisher, retailer, printer and other parties."

[. . .] In the spring it started disabling the icons for some small publishers in the United States that resisted Amazon's demand that they use an Amazon-owned company, BookSurge, for print-on-demand services. Amazon is the dominant seller of such titles.

As a result, some smaller publishers in the United States have signed service agreements with Amazon. But a few refused Amazon's demand to shift the instant printing of their books to BookSurge, which they say has been demanding a discount of as much as 52 percent on the retail price.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:55 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 14, 2008

Another Corporate Gimmick - Arbitration

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California.

Does your credit card or bank loan agreement have an "arbitration clause?" More and more consumer-oriented contracts and "agreements" have clauses specifying that disputes must go to arbitration rather than our civil justice system. The justification for this is that arbitration saves the time and expense of working within our legal system. But here's the thing: the corporations choose the arbitrators and every arbitrator knows they will never, ever, ever, ever (ever) get another job if they rule against the corporations. Never.

And guess what: 98.8% of arbitrations end up in favor of the corporations. This is not a surprise.

The Progressive States Network's newsletter has a story about this today, Arbitration: "Set up to squeeze small sums of money out of desperately poor people",

The headline above is a quote from former West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Richard Neely, describing what his role was as an arbitrator at the National Arbitration Forum (NAF), a for-profit company hired to enforce mandatory arbitration clauses for credit card consumer loans. "NAF is nothing more than an arm of the collection industry hiding behind a veneer of impartiality," says Richard Neely.

In a devastating expose by BusinessWeek, Neely and other former arbitrators describe an arbitration system stacked completely against consumers-- a system where creditors win 99.8% of all disputes involving companies ranging from Bank of America to Sears to Citgroup. Arbitration clauses buried in the fine print of credit card offers means consumers lose the right to have disputes decided in an independent court and instead are forced into corporation-selected arbitration firms.

The BusinessWeek story mentioned in the Progressive States Network story is titled, Banks vs. Consumers (Guess Who Wins)

This story about credit card companies taking unfair advantage of consumers is one more attack on citizen rights to access our own legal system (one more of so many attacks). Think about what is happening here. First the big corporations fought against "regulations" which are the rules that We, the People set up requiring safe workplaces or environmental standards, or products that do not injure people, etc. Then when fewer regulations of course resulted in worker or consumer injuries or toxic spills or other harms the inured parties filed more lawsuits asking the companies to make good. So in response to these lawsuits the corporate-financed "tort reform" movement came along, working to limit the ability of citizens to be compensated for the results of corporate bad behavior. The result has been fewer regulations preventing harms and more restrictions on citizen access to courts where we can seek damages after we are harmed.

I didn't even bring up the corporate-conservative movement to install their own business-friendly judges in the courts.

But even those erosions of our access to justice has not been enough for the greedy corporations. Now there is arbitration: clauses that show up in contracts and agreements that remove your ability to take a dispute to the courts at all! And the judges in these courts are dependent on the corporations for their livelihood!

Deregulation, tort reform and now arbitration that is rigged against the consumer. Drip, drip, drip. One after another the big corporations are eroding the rights of citizens.

Click through to Speak Out California.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 8, 2008

Tobacco Money in California

Big tobacco is pouring money into the crucial California Senate District 19 race! See this story: Tobacco firm funds county GOP : Local News : Ventura County Star,

The nation's largest tobacco company has donated $50,000 to the Ventura County Republican Central Committee as the local party gears up to help GOP candidate Tony Strickland in what is expected to be a multimillion-dollar campaign this fall in the 19th Senate District.

[. . .] "There's an alarming trend of the tobacco industry increasing its influence by ramping up its political contributions," said Jim Knox, vice president of the American Cancer Society Action Network.

Knox noted the tobacco industry played "a major role in killing healthcare reform in California last year. They don't issue press releases, they don't testify at hearings, but they're hard at work in the halls of the Capitol."

Senate District 19 is the potential "flip" seat in the senate. If Hannah-Beth Jackson wins it could mean the vote that lets Democrats finally pass budgets.

So why is tobacco interested in keeping Republican ability to block budgets? Why did they fight to block health care reform?

Part of the financing of the healthcare plan was to have been a $1.75 per-pack tax increase on cigarettes.

Please go read the rest of the article if you care about health and politics - and the health of politics - in California.

Disclaimer - I do some work for Speak Out California, which was founded by Hannah-Beth Jackson, but this post comes from my own concern over this and is not related to that work.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 6, 2008

You're Too Old To Work Here

Today the unemployment rate jumped,

The U.S. unemployment rate jumped by the most in 22 years in May, reaching its highest level in more than 3-1/2 years and underscoring the recessionary risk the economy still faces.

Meanwhile: Google calls for hike in H-1B visas. H1-B visas allow workers from other countries to come and work here. But they are often paid less.

In Silicon Valley everyone knows that Google WILL NOT hire anyone over 40. Maybe, just maybe companies could look in their own backyards. Maybe, just maybe, the could pay taxes so we could have better schools and lower college tuition.

Click for larger:

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:07 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 2, 2008

SEIU Convention -- These Are PROGRESSIVE People

I am at the SEIU convention in Puerto Rico. There are 3500 representatives here, each representing a number of workers. SEIU now has 2 million members and growth is accelerating.

I'm in a darkened convention hall, listening and absorbing, with things coming at me from all directions. I'm talking to members and leaders. So I am not yet writing a lot. I'm just posting short posts until the larger stories appear and then I'll be writing a lot about this event and ongoing.

This is a great thing happening here. THESE people are going to really make changes happen -- with health care the first priority. This is janitors, health care workers, and others, a real bottom-up movement of people who work hard. This is one of the most diverse crowds I have been in and these are dedicated people. And these are PROGRESSIVE people!

The focus here is beyond the SEIU in particular and labor movement in general. The focus here is on the inequities in our current imbalanced economic system. We all know that it is working for a very few people at the top and not for the rest of us. And SEIU recognizes that they can't make the lives of just their workers better -- even if they could it wouldn't stick if other workers are still at starving wages with no benefits because employers can just use them as a wedge to pressure SEIU workers away from asking for a fair share. So they recognize that they have to work to make the economy start working for everyone.

More to come.

[Disclaimer: Blogger hotel and airfare paid for by the SEIU]

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 28, 2008

Republicans Pretending To Govern

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

A good op-ed appeared Saturday in the Boston Globe, America's faux government. The writer discusses how many parts of our federal government seem to no longer be functioning.

They sent everybody home a long time ago, set timers to make the lights go on, and locked the doors. Government is so much more cost efficient if nobody actually does anything.

We read about drugs harming people while drug companies make huge profits -- where was the Food and Drug Administration? We read about the Federal Aviation Administration asking the airlines to inspect themselves, and the airlines having to cancel so many flights because they didn't,

Whoever is still pretending to work there must have made Employee of the Month.

Why is this happening?

So we're now living in a Libertarian country, where the government doesn't actually provide any services except defense. The problem? We're paying taxes as if we live in a social democracy where the government provides all services except defense. They don't need defense because they have found that if you stop teaching history in schools, people forget that you actually need it sometimes.

How can you tell that we are Libertarians now? Because business is not complaining all the time. When the government is actually showing up for work, business groups say that they are being Crushed By Overregulation. Choked by Bureaucracy. I haven't heard a word of that in a long time, but it used to be the anthem of American business. OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, was on the news every night - truly, every night. When was the last time you heard of OSHA showing up for a surprise inspection?

Please go read the rest.

The column is written partially as humor, but the reality is there. We elected people who hate government to run our government, and look what has happened. They said regulations are bad, inspectors are intrusive and oversight should be "voluntary." The have stopped the regulators and inspectors and overseers from regulating and inspecting and overseeing.

The last several years saw the libertarian dream realized. Government was largely shut down. And what happened? Did this experiment bring "liberty?" Did the working person prosper in an "ownership society?"

No, what happened was what all the reality-based, experienced, practical people said would happen if we implement a libertarian system: the corporations immediately filled the vacuum and began to enrich themselves at the public's expense. And when Katrina came around, people were left on their own.

So what do we learn from this? I think it is important to remember that "the government" is not some "they" that just showed up from nowhere and "tells us what to do." The government is US, you and me and the rest of us, organized together to help each other. And it is up to US to keep an eye on things, for each other. When we listen to smiling hucksters who offer easy answers using nice-sounding words we ought to be extra careful. Tax cuts have brought us mountains of debt. Government cutbacks have brought us bad roads, bad schools and really, really bad disaster relief. And deregulation has brought us a corporate state.

Taxes, services, regulation and oversight have all become bad words. But now that we have performed the libertarian experiment we can see the consequences of this kind of thinking. It turns out that taxes are an investment in our future. It turns out that government services are us taking care of each other. It turns out that regulations keep the marketplace playing field level, which allows to enjoy the benefits of innovating businesses. It turns out that oversight keeps our government honest. And it turns out that conservative disdain for all of these didn't make government better, it made government worse.

Click through to Speak Out California

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 22, 2008

Private Greed vs. Public Good

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

As I wrote the other day, the California Chamber of Commerce has come out with their annual list of "job-killer" bills. The list only targets bills by Democrats, and the bills are all acts that would help the people of California by improving the environment, worker wage and safety, public health, etc.

The California Chamber of commerce is a lobbying association. They represent their members: businesses, many of which are large corporations. This is about private greed vs. the public good. The Chamber's job is to convince the legislature to pass laws that enrich the owners of the corporations that fund them. Nothing more, nothing less.

If that involves convincing the public of something, then they do that. Hence the label "job killer."

But the companies represented by the Chamber are the real job killers. They outsource jobs to other countries. They lay people off when they calculate it will maximize their profits. They employ as many people as needed to maximize the income to and wealth of their owners. Nothing more, nothing less.

The very idea that the Chamber of Commerce would care if something is a "job killer" is ludicrous when you understand their function. They are a lobbying association that represents the interests of companies that eliminate as many jobs as they want to, at their discretion, and then use some of the money that would have been paid in salaries to pay the Chamber to convince us to support their interests -- and the rest of it to enrich themselves, which is their primary interest.

That is how corporations work in the modern, "free-market" world that we find ourselves in since the Reagan era. Not for the public benefit, not necessarily even for the company's benefit, but for the financial benefit of the executives and (some of) the owners of the company.

Private greed vs. public good. Nothing more, nothing less.

So there isn't really an argument about whether the "job-killer" bills on this year’s list really do or do not "kill jobs." That is not the point of the label. Instead it is up to us to understand who we are hearing from. If we get caught up in arguing about whether these bills create more jobs than they might cost, we’re missing the point. Their arguments are propaganda with no basis in reality, designed to do nothing more than sway opinion. The point of the "job-killer" label is to make people afraid for their jobs, not to actually argue that these bills will or will not actually "kill" any jobs.

For example, a bill to require energy efficiency in new housing construction obviously creates many new jobs in the new, innovative "green" industries. But such a bill might lower the profits that go into the pockets of the executives and owners of some of the companies that the California Chamber of Commerce represents. (The LA Times on Wednesday said the Chamber’s agenda "seems dominated by development and energy interests".) And, again, it is irrelevant whether the bill might or might not really cost jobs in some of those companies. The Chamber doesn't care. That is not their function.

The use of the label "job killers" is about scaring the public. Nothing more, nothing less. It is about fear. It is about creating a climate in which people who are afraid for their jobs will go along with measures designed to enrich the owners of the companies that the Chamber -- a lobbying association -- represents.

So please don't be fooled. Don't be swayed by propaganda designed to make you afraid. As I wrote above, it is up to us to understand who we are hearing from.

Click through to Speak Out California

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May 20, 2008

Job Killers -- Or Just More Fear?

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

The California Chamber of Commerce has released its annual list of what it calls "job-killer bills."

Why is it that the Chamber's job-killer bills hit-list seems to only target Democrats? Not a single targeted bill belongs to a Republican. "Bad bills", like those designed to protect public health, climate concerns or consumer rights legislation, are all authored by Democrats. The chamber has always been a lobbying organization, but it has gotten so bad that the Chamber seems to have devolved into little more than just one more fear-mongering Republican Party front group.

The "job killers" on this list are any laws that protect consumers, reduce energy use, require worker protections or anything else that might hinder a very few corporate executives from reeling in another several-hundred-million dollars a year. The jobs that are "killed" are those of lobbyists for the energy industry.

The first group on the "job killer" list is bills that ask for any kind of energy or water conservation or environmental standards for new housing construction. For example, AB 1085. The bill describes itself as undating,

"building design and construction standards and energy conservation standards for new residential and nonresidential buildings to reduce wasteful, uneconomic, inefficient, or unnecessary consumption of energy."

But the Chamber's job-killer list says this

Substantially increases the cost of housing and development in California by implementing significant energy efficiency measures

Now, think about this -- if it costs less to heat and cool your house, this saves you money. If you want to add energy-saving technology like solar electric or water-heating on your house this creates good jobs. Maybe Exxon won't benefit as much from this as the new, upcoming solar industry, but heck, the solar companies aren't coughing up the big bucks and providing the good jobs to the Chamber of Commerce's lobbyists!

The next group of "job killers" is "workplace mandates" like paid sick leave for employees, disability pay for on-the-job injuries or providing California’s citizens with health insurance.

Ah yes, the money businesses pay out to provide sick leave and disability pay for those pesky employees "kills jobs." They could hire so many more people if they didn't have to actually pay them and keep them from getting injured! This is one of the oldest arguments in the books. Slaves are always cheaper. But why do we have an economy if not to provide US with good jobs and other benefits? Do we have an economy so a very few corporate CEOs get all the money and benefits, or do we have an economy so the people can also get good pay and benefits and safe working conditions? The evidence (this, for example) is clear that good wages and benefits do not hurt jobs or the economy.

Then there are “economic development barriers” like asking online retailers to collect the same sales taxes that you local business owner collects, asking the wealthy to help pay for our schools, raising fire standards in high-risk fire areas and protecting our environment. I guess the online retailers must be paying the Chamber more this year than the retailers who have to actually rent storefronts and pay wages in your town. I can't think of any other reason why SOME retailers should collect sales taxes and others should be exempt. Doesn't this change the playing field waaayyy in favor of online retailers and harm the prospects of businesses that actually set up in our local communities? God forbid we ask them to help pay for our schools and police and fire protection!

This “job killer” list is nothing more than the use of fear to scare us into allowing a few rich corporations to have their way. By saying that protecting workers or the environment might "cost jobs" they are trying to make us afraid to ask these big corporations to live up to their responsibilities to our communities. How long will we let these lobbyists make us afraid?

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May 18, 2008

McCain -- Fire The Lobbyists!

John McCain says he is against having lobbyists on his campaign. Yet his campaign has at least 112 lobbyists as staff or fundraisers, many in top positions.

Recently it turned out that one of his top campaign people was a lobbyist for the government of Myanmar - Burma!! That is the government that is shooting the monks, and won't let aid come in for victims of the recent cyclone that killed tens of thousands of people. Others are energy industry lobbyists - in charge of McCain's energy policies. It goes on like that. It's like Bush Crony Campaign II.

So go visit and sign the petition at Fire the lobbyists!

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May 16, 2008

Why Don't We Hear About Labor Issues Anymore?

Last week security guards working at Kaiser Permanente facilities in California went on strike to protest illegal anti-union activities on the part of their employer, Inter-Con Security. Instead of hiring security guards directly in California, or using a union-friendly security contractor, Kaiser contracts with Inter-Con. The strike lasted three days.

A few local TV news broadcasts covered the story, and there were a few newspaper articles announcing that there was going to be a strike. But there was almost no actual coverage of the strike except on progressive sites and labor outlets. What's up with that?

Why does the media barely cover labor issues?

Of course, when I write "the media" here I mean the newspapers, TV and radio that we usually call the "mainstream" media and lots of us call the "corporate" media. This is where most people get the news and information that forms the basis of their opinions and understanding about what is happening - and why it is happening. And therefore for most people the information presented by this mainstream or corporate media necessarily forms the basis of their voting decisions, their opinion poll survey answers, and their overall acceptance of and consent for actions conducted in their name by government and other institutions of society.

When things are repeatedly reported in "the media" as problems, most people begin to become concerned and perceive that these "problems" need to be somehow "solved." We see cycles of this development of public concern. In recent years, for example, the media has done a great deal of reporting on the problem if children being kidnapped. And there is a great deal of concern about this among parents -- to the point that societal patterns are changing and children rarely are allowed out of the house unaccompanied. Fewer and fewer children walk to school, go to parks alone, etc.

In reality child kidnappings are extremely rare, which makes this a case study of the power of the major media to sway the behavior of the entire country. Over the years similar media-driven concerns about drugs, shark attacks and satanic cults have created waves of national hysteria.

If actual threats held sway, car accidents, guns, and other real threats would receive much, much more public attention and concern.

The other side of this ability to drive public attention is the power to hide real problems. The national debt is approaching ten trillion dollars, and interest on that debt is approaching half a trillion dollars per year, but is rarely mentioned as a concern. The military budget is greater than the military spending of all other countries in the world combined, much, much higher than when we faced down the Soviet Union, while a lot of people are making a whole lot of money from it with little public scrutiny. (This is not even counting Iraq/Afghanistan spending.) But this is never brought up.

And then there is the problem that labor unions are trying to address. This is the domination of our government by big-business interests and the accompanying concentration of wealth into the hands of a very few people at the expense of the rest of us. Workers like the Inter-Con security guards who are trying to organize to demand even minimal pay and benefits are absolutely invisible in today's mainstream/corporate media. The illegal tactics being used - with the assistance of the Bush administration - are not covered by today's mainstream/corporate media. But what else would you expect, as the media becomes further and further concentrated into the hands of a few very, very large corporations? Do you think for a minute that a large corporation would allow any kind of pro-labor stories to be carried on news media that it owns?

You hear that the reason for this is that "labor is declining." Well there are a lot more members of unions in this country than there are Fellows at neo-con think tanks, but you sure do hear from them a lot in the mainstream/corporate media. There are a lot more members of labor unions than there are members of the far-right Christian Coalition, but you sure hear a lot about their concerns the corporate media. And there are a lot more people who work for a living in jobs that pay too little, don't provide adequate health care or sick leave or other benefits and need to hear about the benefits of joining unions. That's for damn sure.

In fact any coverage of the plight of these security guards is necessarily pro-labor. When you hear about their living and working conditions you will understand what I mean. My next post will be about that, so stay tuned.

I encourage you to visit StandForSecurity.org.

I am proud to be helping SEIU spread the word about this strike.

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May 15, 2008

Bush Authoritarianism Opens HUGE Corporate Security Problem

The Bush administration insists on the right to search and download to keep the contents of any memory device or hard drive taken across a border. That means that the government can now make copies of any laptop hard drive or "thumb drive" crossing the U.S. border.

Travel group warns: Corporate data at risk from laptop searches at border,

Companies need to review their policies to see if such searches will cause privacy problems for them or their customers, she said.

"For example, if you are carrying personnel information on your laptop, there are certain privacy violations that can ensue" if that data is accessed and downloaded as part of a border search, Gurley said. Other kinds of sensitive and proprietary information -- including intellectual property -- can sometimes be exposed via such searches, she said.

Many companies, especially in Europe, are having compliance officers look at the broader implications of such searches and have begun curtailing the kind of information their executives can carry on their laptops when traveling to the U.S, she said.

You can just imagine that big Republican corporate donors will see an opportunity here to get competitive info. "YCorp's patent guy is crossing the border at 11. Get us all the data on his hard drive." And if you and I can imagine it, you can be sure that YCorps' people are thinking about it, too.

So as a result of this every single corporate employee in the world is going to have to clean up everything on every device that might cross an American border. And this kind of cleanup is not easy. It is cumbersome, inconvenient, expensive, and might not be enough. I can foresee policies requiring installing fresh hard drives before any travel. (This includes Canada and Mexico.

All of a sudden corporate cronyism isn't looking so good to all those corporate types.

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May 14, 2008

Do Republicans Believe In Free Markets?

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

A news story on Monday, McCain urges free-market principles to reduce global warming. Which"free-market principles" does McCain mean?

McCain's major solution is to implement a cap-and-trade program on carbon-fuel emissions, like a similar program in the Clean Air Act that was used to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions that triggered acid rain.

Summary: the government sets a limit on how much CO2 companies will be allowed to emit. The government sets a fee for any emissions above that level. The government allows companies with emissions below that limit to sell "credits" to companies above the limit.

McCain describes this as a "free market" approach.

Conservatives always come up with nice-sounding ways to describe their ideas. They talk about "free markets." "Free" sounds so good. Has a nice ring to it. But is there really such a thing?

In McCain's example every single component of this market is defined, set up and regulated by government. But conservatives always say that government is the enemy of freedom and of markets. Do they not see the contradiction?

In fact, is there a market that is not defined, set up and regulated by government? Would markets even exist if there were no government? First, there is the money that is exchanged in a market. Unless we revert to a pure barter system where goods are exchanged money is entirely a creation of government. And it is entirely regulated by government. Next are the laws that, excuse the word, "govern" the market system. These laws are entirely a creation of government and it is government that enforces them and government that runs the courts that resolve disputes. And yes, these laws are "regulations."

So when conservatives complain about "government" and "regulation" and advocate "free markets" what is it they are really saying? The best way to understand what they want is to look at what they do, not what they say. If we look closely at the results of those times when conservatives gain power we can see that they really seem to mean they will use the power of government to protect the wealthiest people and biggest corporations.

For example, conservatives in government have always defended the big energy companies against threats to use of their products. They oppose mass transit, alternative energy research, even requiring cars to get better gas mileage.

A closer look reveals that what they really stand for is a protection of the status quo, defending the rich and powerful against the rest of us.

Click through to Speak Out California

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May 13, 2008

Buy High, Sell Low

Bush insists on buying oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at very, very, very high prices. Congress is trying to stop this.

Question, has there been a pattern of buying at high prices and selling at low prices? An enterprising investigative report might find a story here.

Is this a manipulation of oil prices, to the benefit of funders of the right and the anti-Gore global warming denial industry?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:47 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 10, 2008

Kaiser Security Guard Strike

This week I wrote about the Kaiser Permanente / Inter-Con Security Security Guard strike.

The post Security Guards Striking for the Right to Have Our Laws Enforced discussed why the guards are striking. They are employees of Inter-Con Security, Inc., which contracts services to Kaiser Permanente facilities in California. This company (not Kaiser) is trying to stop the guards from forming a union and the guards are striking to ask that laws allowing union organizing be enforced.

In Why They (And You) Need A Union a comparison with unionized security guards at Kaiser facilities in other states demonstrated the difference that forming a union can make to workers everywhere.

The post Unions: Sticking Together to Fight Corporate Power discussed how individuals are unable to stand up against the immense power and wealth that corporations are able to accumulate. Over time workers learned that by organizing into unions they were able to also build enough power to fight back and demand fair compensation and benefits for their work.

Outside of the blogs there was remarkably little coverage of this strike. Here is a roundup of some of the other coverage:

This is a good story online at Urban Mecca, Three-Day Strike by Hundreds of Security Officers at Kaiser Hospitals,

"The public needs to know that the security officers responsible for making Kaiser hospitals safe and protecting vulnerable patients are being denied our fundamental civil rights. Inter-Con freely uses intimidation, spying and retaliation to harass its workers," said Shauna Carnero, a security officer in Hayward.

The strike, which began May 6 and included major rallies outside Kaiser medical centers in Oakland, Sacramento and Los Angeles, followed numerous federal complaints that workers have filed with the National Labor Relations Board in recent weeks charging Inter-Con with unfair labor practices over the past two years.

The Pasadena Star-News had Kaiser guards strike,

Hospital security guards went on strike statewide Thursday, citing poor working conditions and lack of health coverage.

About 200 Southern California employees of Inter-Con Security, which is contracted by Kaiser Permanente to provide security guards, joined their Northern California counterparts who have been on strike since Tuesday, Service Employees International Union officials said.

[. . .] Security guards have little legal recourse when they are denied the right to organize, an SEIU attorney said. A loophole in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 gives security guards only one method of forming a union.

While most employees have the option of holding an election to bring in a union, security guards can only organize if their employers agree to recognize the union, said attorney Orrin Baird.

"It's sort of out-dated," Baird said. "If they were not guards they could file a petition with the (National Labor Relations Board) and then they would have to have an election."

While a few local TV stations carried news about the strike, there was a near-blackout of coverage in the corporate media. WHy do you think that is?

Please visit StandForSecurity.org.

I am proud to be helping SEIU spread the word about this strike.

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May 8, 2008

ANOTHER McCain Preacher Problem

See for yourself:

So when do you think the corporate media will start running these scary preacher tapes over and over?

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April 30, 2008

Industrial Agriculture Bad

A new independent report by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health says that the big industrial penal colonies for animals are causing long-term harm people and the planet. Never mind the horror inflicted on the animals and on our souls.

See You Animals! | Grist

The report (PDF) is: Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America

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April 28, 2008

Bring Back The 90% Top Tax Rate!

When Eisenhower was President the top income tax rate was 91%. But you had to have already made a LOT of money before you hit that rate. (Eisenhower, by the way, supported that 91% top tax rate.)

That 91% tax rate is what got us out of the depression, and helped create a middle class (with the help of strong labor unions). It payed for fighting World War II and the GI Bill, and helped build our highway system, education system and other infrastructure that is in place today (albeit crumbling now from maintenance deferral resulting from tax cuts.) We did all that without borrowing, and the rich still got richer.

Think about this: If tax rates at the top were 91% today, hedge fund managers would STILL be bringing in over $300 million EACH YEAR – but the rest of us would be able to get health care, fix the roads, good schools, and the other benefits that were the reason we - yes, we - enabled this economic system in the first place.

And think about this. If that top rate is 91% it reduces the incentive for corporate CEOs to bribe politicians to put policies in place that funnel all the wealth up to the top.

Who is our economy FOR, anyway?

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April 20, 2008

Are Clinton and Obama Communists?

The right has been cranking up the communist charge in this election. I guess it worked for the 50 years ago, so why not trot it out again?

I came across this today at the Republican TownHall site: Townhall.com::Obama, Clinton And Capitalism: It's Okay For Them, But Nobody Else,

The big irony here is that while Obama has done extremely well for himself in our very unique free-market economy, he has the “audacity” to demonize others who have done well for themselves, and to propose economic policies that, if implemented, would radically change our nation into something more akin to a Western European socialist state.

OK, let's examine that for a minute. Aside from the implications that they are communists, what does "Western European Socialist State" really mean? European citizens get 5 weeks paid vacation per year for everyone, free full-coverage health care for everyone, generous pays and pensions for everyone (with retirement earlier than here), corporations required to benefit the public, modern public transit systems, child care, clean public-oriented cities, governments responsive to the people instead of the wealthy, the corporations and the big military contractors, ... oh I could go on and on about the terrible state of things for Western European citizens...

And what are some of the examples of Clinton and Obama's supposedly communistic policies?

Obama has proposed a federal crack down on what he deems “excessive pay” for corporate executives. He has proposed that the federal government begin taxing people’s capital (not just earnings or interest payments, but, yes, capital itself). He has proposed that the capital gains tax rate be raised to 28%, nearly doubling its current rate of 15%. And he has made it a constant theme of his campaign to lament “Bush’s tax cuts for the rich,”

. . .[Clinton] has berated the reality of America being an “ownership society” (despite the recent increase in mortgage foreclosures, home ownership in America is still at an all-time high), saying that in reality we are an “on your own” society. Her remedy for the “problem” is for us to become a “we’re in this together society,” a nation of “shared responsibility” AND “shared prosperity.”

Conservatives lament that people should have to actually give back a bit to the public by paying taxes, after the public's investment in roads and bridges and law enforcement and military and schools and the legal and financial infrastructure made them rich. The writer thinks that the roads and bridges and schools and everything else that enabled that ecosystem which enables people to get rich just magically appeared. The writer doesn't seem to know that it was taxes that built that system -- OUR taxes -- and thinks the beneficiaries of this public investment should just freeload off the rest of us.

Taxes are the reason we have a thriving economic ecosystem. Tax cuts make us poor. And people getting rich off of our public investment and giving nothing back is the reason we don't get 5 weeks vacation, health care, and all the rest here.

If the conservatives are trying to scare me away from voting for Clinton or Obama by claiming that if elected they will bring us 5 weeks paid vacation a year, free health coverage and the rest, and that the cost will be taxing rich CEOs and corporations -- well I gotta tell you I want to get me some of that!

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April 15, 2008

Solving The Problem Of People Losing Homes With Huge Corporate Tax Breaks

The economic crisis is just another opportunity to raid the treasury on behalf of the big corporations. Like 9/11, Katrina, etc., making the vastly rich vastly richer. What else would you expect?

Big Tax Breaks for Businesses in Housing Bill,

The tax provisions of the Foreclosure Prevention Act, which consumer groups and labor leaders say amount to government handouts to big business, show how the credit crisis, while rattling the housing and financial markets, has created beneficiaries in the power corridors of Washington.

There is still time to fight this -- but only if we can get the public to start acting like citizens participating in their government instead of consumers watching a TV show.

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Sorry Joe, Time To Go

War on Greed: Starring Henry Kravis

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April 13, 2008

Under Republicans Corporations Audited Less, Regular People More

IRS eases pressure on Big U.S. companies, study says - International Herald Tribune:

The IRS's scrutiny of the biggest U.S. companies is running at a 20-year low, according to the study, conducted by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, a research group affiliated with Syracuse University.

The study, made public Sunday, points to "a historic collapse in audits." It found that major corporations - defined as those with assets of at least $250 million - have about a one in four chance of being audited, down from about three in four in 1990.

Individuals have about a 10 percent chance of being audited, more than double the odds in 2000, according to the IRS.

Did you know that our debt under Bush is getting pretty close to ten TRILLION dollars?

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April 8, 2008

Justice For ... All?

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

You hear a lot in the news about big corporate lawsuits. If you closely followed this week's business news, for example, you may have read about a jury ruling that Microsoft has to pay Alcatel-Lucent $367.4 million for violating patents. Imagine the money that must have gone into lawyers, research and experts -- even the copying bill must have been enormous. And these cases take months to hear.

There were also court rulings about the drug Prevacid, another covering dialysis machines, and many, many others.

All of them big-money corporate cases with millions, even billions of dollars at stake. These big companies have the money to take these cases to court.

But what if you or I need to go to court? Are we on an equal footing?

A recent issue of The Progressive States Network’s newsletter, Stateside Dispatch, says,

According to Access to Justice: Opening the Courtroom Door [PDF file] by the Brennan Center, federal funding for legal services in real dollars has declined dramatically over the last twenty-five years. In 2004, federally-funded programs turned away at least one person seeking help for each person served, leading to approximately one million cases per year being turned away due to lack of funding.

In fact, the Brennan Center report states that “most low-income individuals cannot obtain counsel to represent them in civil matters.” On top of that, government-funded legal aid services are now by-and-large prohibited from helping people when they are harmed by corporations.

What do you do if you are a regular person injured by a product, or denied a job because of your age, or defrauded out of money, or any of things that can happen to people? It used to be that a law firm might take the case based on a contingency fee, where they receive a percentage of any award resulting from your case. But more and more these fees are restricted or awards are "capped." So attorneys cannot afford to take your case. Even if you can find an attorney willing to take your case "pro bono" there is still the cost of research, depositions, expert witnesses, etc. to consider.

Is this fair? Is there anything more fundamental to our American concept of democracy than equal justice? Access to the courthouse is an example of democracy leveling the playing field and providing fairness. But we no longer have equal access. And this means we no longer have fairness.

So what can we do about this? First, we need to restore our own understanding of democracy and our individual stake in its preservation. We must all recognize that equal justice is a fundamental requirement of a democratic society. One reason this country was founded was to level the playing field between the rich and the poor. So we all need to demand equal treatment under the law.

In California we must demand a rollback of the "tort reform" measures that have taken away equal access to the courts and removed a regular person's ability to fight back when harmed by a big company. We must either remove the award "caps" and limits on attorney fees or implement a system of government funding for attorneys who represent regular people.

Click to continue.

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March 13, 2008

Oil Tax Defeated, School Budget To Be Cut -- What You Can Do

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

Tuesday's post began,

In Dubai, people get free housing, free medical care, AND $5,000 per month. The people of Dubai share in the country's oil wealth.

In Alaska, people not only do not pay state taxes, the state government writes every state resident a check every year. The people of the state of Alaska share in the state's oil wealth.

But in California the big oil companies get to pump our oil from the ground for free, and then sell it back to us. Right now these oil companies are reaping the highest profits of any industry ever in history, making a few people immensely wealthy, and are not giving back any of this wealth to We, the People of California!

Our state's budget reflects our priorities and our values. So I wrote that We, the People of California should ask big oil companies to give back some of the immense wealth they are generating for themselves with our oil, so we can fully fund our California schools. I honestly did not know that Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez was about to introduce a bill to do just that. Well, he did, along with a windfall oil profits tax, and this is what happened:

The bill, which required a two-thirds vote to pass, was defeated on the Assembly floor after Republicans refused to vote for the new taxes.

These are choices, and the people of California need to understand that a choice was made yesterday to continue to be the only state that allows oil companies to pump our oil and not pay anything for it. And instead of asking the rich oil companies to give back a bit they want to cut the school budget by another 10%.

Republicans said the bill was a publicity stunt, saying Democrats know that no taxes can pass as long as there is a rule allowing just a few Republicans to block the will of the vast majority. They mocked the effort as an "oil drill."

"I think this truly is a political drill on the eve of the layoff notices that will go out all across the state and on the eve of (the legislative) spring break when we will be at home in our districts talking to our constituents," Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, said during the Assembly floor debate that lasted about three hours.

But do the people of California understand this? Do they realize that just a few votes can allow oil companies to get their oil free, while their children face ever-worsening schools? We need more "publicity stunts" to help them understand the different values and priorities that are being reflected. Politics and life are all about our priorities, not just our choices. What is more important to our people: rich oil companies or well-educated kids?

A choice is being made here, priorities and values are being expressed: cut our schools by 10% rather than ask rich oil companies to give back just a bit. Say it over and over, and then do something about it. Write to your legislators and demand they ask the wealthiest to start giving back a bit.

And remember, this is an election year. This is the time when citizens can do something about it when their legislators are not responding. This is the time that you can remove legislators who give wealthy oil companies tax breaks while cutting school budgets. You can volunteer to work in election campaigns, and go from door to door in their districts, letting voters know that their legislator made a choice and voted to cut school budgets while giving tax breaks to oil companies.

Help spread the word!

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March 12, 2008

Bush Vows To Keep Airwaves One-Sided

At a convention of religious broadcasters Bush today vowed to keep progressive viewpoints off the nations airwaves. At issue is the Fairness Doctrine, which requires broadcasters using public airwaves to present different sides of issues. The doctrine was originally put in place because of concerns that wealthy corporate interests would buy up all the stations and use the power of mass broadcasting to dominate public discussion. The fear was that the corporations would then push public attitudes in the direction of their own interests.

And, of course, this is exactly what has happened. When was the last time you heard on the radio or TV about the benefits of forming a union?

Bush: ‘Fairness Doctrine’ unfair,

In Nashville today, during a speech to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, President Bush said there’s nothing fair about the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” that once required broadcasters to offer air time for competing ideologies.

We, the People stiff have a few rights, and a bit of power. If you don't speak out about this, we will lose the last little bit of opportunity to present alternative ideas.

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March 11, 2008

Spitzer

People do idiotic things. Not too long ago Republican Senator David Vitter turned up on a list of prostitution customers. How did the Justice Department respond? Well, it didn't. It helped keep his name secret. And good for them for doing that.

But this time it was a Democratic Governor who has been going after securities fraud cases. And the Republican Justice Department responded very differently. First of all, there are questions about how they found out about this at all -- questions that bring the letters FISA to my mind. Next, they organized a major prosecution of the Governor. Then, they gave his name to the press. Then they included details of wiretapped conversations intended to drive a press frenzy.

There is no question that this is another political prosecution. The Justice Department would not have gone full-steam into this if it were a Republican, and if it were not a Democratic Governor. A federal task force because a guy was seeing a prostitute?

Firedoglake has Some Questions About the Spitzer Incident. Please go read.

I have warned that political prosecutions are going to accelerate as election-time approaches. Watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 29, 2008

Domain Name Scam

I checked a domain name to see if it is available. Network Solutions' Whois says it is available. So I go to my web hosting service to register it and set up a site, and they say it isn't available. I check the Whois there and it says Network Solutions registered the name FOR ITSELF right after I checked it.

What a scam. If you CHECK a domain name, they immediately take it, assuming it has some value. And, being Network Solutions they can do that without paying for it.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:35 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 28, 2008

Reflections On Corporations II - Corporate Philanthropy

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

Who should decide whether our communities have museums, concert and dance facilities, parks and other cultural programs? Who should decide on priorities for funding for disaster assistance or research into cures for diseases?

Should the public make the bulk of these decisions, through the transparent and accountable systems of our democracy? Or should a few individuals who control vast wealth and resources make these decisions for the people?

Because of dwindling tax revenues many communities have come to rely on "corporate philanthropy" for assistance with cultural programs, or to supplement their schools, or for other community benefits.

The people who run corporations are in a position to decide to donate the corporation’s money to various causes. Many of these are things that the people, through our government, no longer have the resources to support. For example, the executives and Board of a corporation might decide to donate to build a museum. They might decide to fund a school.

And they might decide not to do these things.

So look at what is happening -- as discussed in the Feb. 26 post, Reflecting on Corporations, we have corporations using their resources to influence the public and government to change the rules of the playing field on which corporations operate - deregulating, lowering taxes, etc. As this corporate influence brings cuts in corporate taxes (as well as cuts in taxes paid by the owners of the corporations), our society is left with fewer public resources for building museums, conducting research, etc.

And then we have corporations stepping in, using some of their earnings to provide those benefits, with their executives deciding where to direct the resources. For which the public is supposed to be grateful, and feel more favorable to the corporations, and perhaps grant them further benefits.

These are functions that the public once prioritized and controlled. But today the balance of control of the country's resources continues to shift more and more to fewer private individuals. This massing of assets and resources into corporate hands takes away the people's ability to decide to build museums and fund schools. It puts more and more power to make decisions that affect the public into the hands of corporate executives. Is this compatible with our understanding of democracy?

And a related question: Should corporate earnings be diverted from the shareholders? Is it the proper function of corporations to make decisions about funding museums, etc?

Perhaps there should be controls that guarantee that corporate funds and resources are used solely for the benefit of the shareholders and broader pubic interest. Perhaps corporations should be prohibited from engaging in any activities that influence our government or lawmaking or public opinion. Perhaps they should operate on the playing field that We, the People lay out for them -- and not be able to influence that playing field for the benefit of a few individuals who control the corporation. Perhaps.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 27, 2008

Reflections On Corporations

This post first appeared at Speak Out California

How is it that corporations have the rights that individuals do, but not the responsibilities?

Let's reflect on what a corporation is. A business is formed by a few people. The business asks the government for a corporate charter, pays a fee, and is then this special entity called a corporation with special rights granted by the government.

Under our laws, corporations are fictional persons with certain rights. They can own assets, employ agents and engage in contracts just like people. But unlike you or me they have special benefits including limited liability and unlimited life.

Corporations enjoy limited liability -- if you or I commit a crime, injure someone, go bankrupt or get sued we're in big trouble and have to suffer the consequences. But this is not what happens to the owners of corporations. Their liability is limited and if their corporation is involved in any of these things they can just fly away in their private jets. In some jurisdictions corporate officers and directors are even shielded from liability for criminal acts the corporation commits.

Corporations have unlimited life -- which means the entity continues beyond any individual. The assets owned by a corporation can stay and grow in that corporation, and be controlled by its owners perpetually. So the corporation is able to amass significant assets and resources.

A corporation is not taxed the same as individuals. In most case they pay much lower taxes, the dividends they pay their owners are taxed at lower rates, as are the capital gains. In fact there are many circumstances where corporations do not have to pay taxes at all! So the burden of paying for the roads and schools (and wars) falls on the rest of us.

Corporations are able to compel large numbers of people -- employees, contractors, other corporations and other paid entities -- to do certain things. They can even tell people what to wear, how to wear their hair, even to wear makeup or not.

These special rights help corporations build up tremendous resources and power far beyond the ability of any individual in our society. So individuals finding themselves up against corporations face tremendous disadvantages. Many of the mechanisms for mitigating this disparity, including unions, the right to sue, taxes, even government regulation, have been reduced as a result of corporate-funded lobbying, ballot initiatives or other efforts. The ability to amass tremendous assets and power enables the people at the top of corporations to have great influence over our government and the laws it makes -- even to the point of granting them ever greater rights and benefits and tax cuts -- helping them to amass even greater assets, resources and power.

Corporations make decisions in ways that are very different from how We, the People of America and California make our community decisions through our governments. In our government all decisions and spending are participatory and transparent, meaning all of us can vote for representatives and can watch or otherwise look at how decisions are made and understand where all money is spent. In California it is even illegal for a city council committee to meet in secret. This is certainly not how things are done with corporations. (By the way, this is why some people say corporations are "more efficient"-- they do not have the procedures for the degree of transparency and accountability that governments and other public entities require.)

Question -- are these differences between public and corporate accountability and transparency compatible with our understanding of democracy? What about the ability of corporations to influence how our government regulates corporations? Keep in mind that corporations are nothing more than the creation of our laws. So discussing questions like these is essential to the maintenance of that democracy.

Click to continue

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:23 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 22, 2008

What You Eat If You Eat Meat

This is the Humane Society's video, that led to the huge beef recall. This is what was going on at ONE slaughterhouse, where the Humane Society managed to get video.

Do you trust the American corporate system with your health?

Does the corporate system have the capacity to be humane to animals? (Does that matter to people?)

If you eat meat in America, this is what you are eating.

Warning, graphic

Humane Society video page.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 18, 2008

Meat Recall

The government was forced by an animal rights group to recall 143 million pounds of beef, after videos showed obviously sick animals being led to the slaughterhouse.

Because of Republican policies there had been fewer and fewer inspections of the slaughterhouse or meat.

USDA Orders Nation's Largest Beef Recall: Financial News,

Authorities said the video showed workers kicking, shocking and otherwise abusing "downer" animals that were apparently too sick or injured to walk into the slaughterhouse. Some animals had water forced down their throats...

[. . .] Officials estimate that about 37 million pounds of the recalled beef went to school programs, but they believe most of the meat probably has already been eaten.

[. . .] Federal regulations call for keeping downed cattle out of the food supply because they may pose a higher risk of contamination from E. coli, salmonella or mad cow disease because they typically wallow in feces and their immune systems are often weak.

This is why I do not eat meat -because of the way animals are treated in corporate America.

And this is why the public needs to understand the harm that comes from unbridled corporatization of everything. We, the People are supposed to be in control, but we are instead being herded and harvested for our cash.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 5, 2008

Primary Election Day Thoughts

This post appeared today at Speak Out California

It’s primary election day in California. Don't let yourself forget to vote, and check our voter guide to help you figure out what those initiatives are about.

Here is a scary thought: People who are just old enough to vote for the first time in this election were ten years old when the 2000 election brought George Bush to the White House, and likely don’t remember much from before that.

They certainly don't remember California before Proposition 13 cut taxes, back when we had great roads and schools and colleges. They don't remember that there was a debate over whether the people should be allowed to decide how much to tax ourselves. Instead we now have a requirement that 2/3 of voters approve taxes - a level that can almost never be met.

They don't remember California before term limits. Proposition 93 is just a tweaking of the term limits rules, and there is no discussion over the merits of term limits generally. Young people don't know that there was a debate over the idea that people should be allowed to decide for themselves if they want to return their own representatives to office.

Last week I was caught in traffic so I couldn’t get home in time to watch the Clinton-Obama debate. I scanned the radio and not one single AM or FM station was carrying it. (Oddly one station was carrying an older Republican Presidential candidate debate.) FM was a sea of really bad commercial music, ads, and a few good Spanish music stations. AM was a sea of right-wing opinion, and ads. And then more ads.

I remember when it was considered a duty of a broadcaster to inform and serve the public. It was unimaginable that a candidate debate was not available. In exchange for licenses to use OUR radio spectrum for commercial purposes the broadcast companies agreed to serve the public interest. They would limit the number of ads and devote a large percentage of programming to documentaries, news and other information that served democracy. It was understood that WE owned the resource, and WE set the terms for commercialization of that resource. Imagine!

Yes, We, the People used to set the terms for licenses to commercialize the public resources. Now it's the other way around - the corporations give us credit ratings.

It seems like such an old debate over ideas like these. But younger people they have never heard these debates and likely don't even know there even was debate over these ideas. They don't know about a time when the people were considered to be the owners of the state's and country's resources.

If they ever did get an opportunity to hear about these debates they might even think it is a good idea for the public to make decisions. (Hint.)

Click to continue.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 31, 2008

Health Insurance

I learned today that our health insurance decided I can't have Lipitor anymore. I've been taking it for years. It works, and I don't have side-effects. But they know better than my doctor.

They also decided my wife can't have one of her prescriptions, either.

And they raised our prescription co-pay to $40. We also have co-pays and deductibles for office visits as well.

The two of us pay between $1200 and $1300 a MONTH for health insurance, and now we will also pay about $200 a month more for prescription co-pays - if they let us have the drugs at all.

And if we DO get sick, will they decide not to cover us?

This is what private health insurance companies are about.

The ONLY solution is setting up a Medicare-for-all system, run by the people for the people.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:57 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 28, 2008

Is Hillary Corporate?

I just came across this: The Left Coaster: Is Hillary Clinton a "Corporate Democrat"? - Part 1

Leave a comment.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 26, 2008

What Does Corporate Control Of Media Mean?

Think about this: When was the last time you heard, read or saw anyone in the major media explain the benefits of joining a union?

Almost all of the outlets for news and information in the United States are now owned by five corporations. From The New Media Monopoly,

When the first edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 1983, critics called Ben Bagdikian's warnings about the chilling effects of corporate ownership and mass advertising on the nation's news "alarmist." Since then, the number of corporations controlling most of America's daily newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, book publishers, and movie companies has dwindled from fifty to ten to five.

Think about that. Five corporations control almost everything that most people in the country "know."

Again, think about this: When was the last time you heard, read or saw anyone in the major media explain the benefits of joining a union?

So, do you think these five corporations are using this near-total control of information for their own benefit, or not?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 25, 2008

Another Anti-Government Propaganda E-Mail

I received one of those anti-government propaganda e-mails today. Look how they do it. It's a really funny story, until they inject the propaganda point as the last line:

The Firewood Story

It was already late fall & the Indians on a remote reservation in South Dakota asked their new chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell what the winter was going to be like. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold & that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared. But, being a practical leader, after several days, he got an idea.

He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service & asked, 'Is the coming winter going to be cold?' 'It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold,' the meteorologist at the weather service responded. So the chief went back to his people & told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared. A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. 'Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?' 'Yes,' the man at National Weather Service again replied, 'it's going to be a very cold winter.'

The chief again went back to his people & ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find. Two weeks later, the chief called the National Weather Service again. 'Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold' 'Absolutely,' the man replied. 'It's looking more & more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters we've ever seen.'

'How can you be so sure?' the chief asked. The weatherman replied, 'The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy.' Always remember this story whenever you get advice from a government official!

As if a corporate weather source would somehow be different. The government is US, and stories like this carry a profoundly anti-democracy message, intended to make people think that somehow privatizing government functions to corporations would be better for us.

But a corporate information source would be about screwing the customers and the employees and the public so the CEO could get a bigger jet. No one except a very few already-wealthy power brokers benefit when we hand over our common interests - even weather reporting - to corporations as they are presently constituted.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:14 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 20, 2008

EPA Refuses To Say WHY It Denied California Emission Waiver

EPA won't give details on denying emissions waiver,

Invoking executive privilege, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency refused to provide lawmakers Friday with a full explanation of why it rejected California's greenhouse gas regulations.

. . . The refusal to provide a full explanation is the latest twist in a congressional investigation into why the EPA denied California permission to impose what would have been the country's toughest greenhouse gas standards on cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles.

In denying the waiver last month, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson told Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that the federal government is implementing a national fuel efficiency standard.

Johnson's decision spurred congressional investigations and a legal challenge this month by California and 15 other states.

But we know why they did it. They did it because the oil companies are paying the Republican Party. DUH!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 17, 2008

Polling Firms Drop Edwards!

The message is clear: if you oppose the corporations, they will oppose you. Polling firms have decided, on their own, to leave John Edwards out of their polling. Remember, Edwards came in second in Iowa.

Lefty Lane: Oregon Poll Leave Edwards Out,

This has become a national trend. Numerous polling organizations have decided on their own that Presidential candidate John Edwards is not worth including in the polls anymore. Whether it's CNN, or Survey USA they want to keep to a two candidate narrative. It doesn't matter that Edwards is only five delegates behind Clinton and upset her well financed campaign in Iowa.

Go read the whole story.

Corporations were created by We, The People, for the benefit of We, The People. Why ELSE would we have created corporations in the first pace? But these entities have an ability to concentrate money and power, and are now being used by a class of wealthy elites to control us by controlling our government.

We need to bring the corporations back under OUR control.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:35 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 16, 2008

Republican Solution To Economy

Republicans are proposing a "stimulus proposal" for the economy: an additional 25% cut in corporate taxes. Guess who will make up the difference, one way or another?

Think Progress captured this:

At a press conference today unveiling the stimulus proposal, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) justified the conservative plan to give tax breaks to corporations — instead of working Americans — by arguing that people actually like working long hours:

I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We’re the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs.

Got that? Republican economics are GOOD because people WANT TO work long hours, and two jobs.

As for paying for corporate tax cuts? You either have to pay higher taxes to make up the difference, or the money has to be borrowed. In 2007 we paid $433 billion interest on previous Republican borrowing. But there are other, serious costs as well. The plunge of the dollar is a consequence of the borrowing. The rising cost of oil is, too. And soon we will all be experiencing more costs of the borrowing as the economy collapses.

The question is, what are you going to do about it?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos