The Earth’s head has got to be spinning. Humans are filling its seas with oil, chemicals, waste and massive islands of pollution, the process of mining natural gas is poisoning our ground water, rainforests and old growth trees are being razed at a dizzying speed, the ozone layer is being destroyed by a never ending spewing of CO².

The Earth has gotta be thinking about humanity, “Man, what total assholes!”

Perhaps we’ve been looking at the state of our environment in the totally wrong way.  We look at the damage done by the acquisition and usage of fossil fuels and conclude that what we need to do to solve this problem is seek renewable and less polluting sources of energy. Blocking the way for this though are the people who have profited from and been bought off by those who have profited from the plundering of the Earth.

Oil was around for millions of years, it’s existence  never harmed the Earth before. Oil, coal, natural gas, etc. are not the cause of our problems, it is the people mentioned above and their companies that are. We need two things, we need to move to non-polluting renewable fuels and we need to get these enemies of doing so out of the way.

So, my proposal is that we re-engineer the ethanol process so that we can use those humans who stand in the way of progress as the organic material from which ethanol is derived. We can call it, Soylent Green Power! Or maybe just People Power!

Think of how much energy could be converted from the average, obese pro-Republican! All those dimpled calories just bursting to get out! And those slimy oil company and Wall Street execs would be an energy bonanza! We could simultaneously solve the energy, corporate and population-related issues that are endangering the planet and if anyone complains, just ask them if they liked “The Matrix” because it’s kind of like that.

Want a Tiger in your tank? Let’s add celebrities who cheat on their wives to the list! And we could give the Tea Partiers an immediate way to shrink government, turn them from obnoxiously rude into valuable crude which would reduce the population in their communities and thus reduce the number of US Representatives there! It’s a win-win!

People could list on their Driver’s Licenses whether they wanted to donate their organs or the amount of fuel they’re converted into. Sorry Dr. Kervorkian but euthanasia could be conveniently performed at your local BP station, mourners attending a wake could receive an oil change and tune up with each service, driving away with a remembrance of their loved one every time they stepped on the gas.

Gas bags like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh could power fleets of buses in major cities for years. Take that socialism! That would be 100% American made fuel!

All of these enemies of progress and a life sustaining Earth could simply be told straight up, “Ask not what biofuels can do for you but what you can do for biofuels.”

It has been hailed as America’s most sensible solution for breaking our dependency on foreign oil and reducing the potential environmental destruction oil drilling can cause, such as the ongoing catastrophe in the gulf.

It has been marketed and promoted by such trustworthy sources as T. Boone Pickens, oil industy megabillionaire and former financier of the fraudulent Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Natural gas will save America. And hey, it’s natural!

Of course, so is benzine and many other cancer-causing chemicals which are now polluting our nation’s water supply like an epidemic because of the process used to get natural gas out of the ground.

The lie is that natural gas is better for the environment than oil. The truth is that while the exhaust from vehicles and generators that use processed natural gas is less polluting than oil, extracting natural gas from the Earth is a horribly destructive process to our environment.

The trade off is, our drinkable water for fuel. Does this make any sense?

It is in fact a kind of shell game, all that is promoted to the public is the final product, cleaner burning fuel. What is hidden is that the destruction to the environment to get that fuel.

There is a remarkable documentary now airing on HBO titled “Gasland” that keenly exposes this deceit and the fraud of “natural” gas.  Here is the trailer for this eye opening film:

What is at the root of the catastrophe that is natural gas production is the method of extraction that is called Hydraulic Fracturing (referred to as “Frac” or “Fracking”).  In essence, it consists of high pressure drilling of holes which create many fractures in the Earth’s crust then forcing huge amounts water bearing over 596 toxic chemicals in to free the trapped natural gas and force it to the surface.

What this is accomplishing is destroying ground water, rivers and lakes across America. If it continues at the current pace, we may have plenty of cleaner burning fuel for our cars and reduce some of our dependency on foreign oil but we may instead become dependent on importing our drinking water from foreign countries. And there is no alternative to pursue for our reliance on water.

The process of mining and refining natural gas actually produces an enormous amount of hydrocarbons and toxic chemicals into the atmosphere.

In Gasland, filmmaker Josh Fox documents how severely polluted the water table is becoming. In the trailer above, you will witness one of many cases presented in the film of people lighting their tap water on fire.  River water bubbles with natural gas and lights on fire. Water wells at people’s homes have exploded. People who have lived on ground water have become ill and have died. Many now have to cart in huge amounts of water on a weekly basis to fill plastic cisterns on their property so they can have water to drink, do laundry and water plants. Animals and vegetation have become poisoned and killed. Cattle, chickens, etc. drinking contaminated water enter the nation’s food supply.

A few pieces of information from Gasland that are interesting:

• The 2005 Energy Policy Act (nicknamed “The Haliburton Loophole”), drafted via Dick Cheney and his Energy Task Force that included the CEOs of most major oil and gas corporations in the U.S., exempted oil and gas companies from The Safe Water Drinking Act, The Clean Air Act and The Clean Water Act. They are permitted by law to put any chemicals they unilaterally choose to use, no matter how toxic or cancer causing, into the Earth and water that people drink and bathe in. The passage of this bill unleashed a stampede of companies to drill and the frenzy continues today.

• Despite the conclusion in 2004 by the EPA that Hydraulic Fracturing was causing water contamination, the industry-stocked panel that the Bush Admin put in place rejected the report, simultaneously acknowledging that this process was putting toxic, cancer-causing chemicals into water but declaring that there was no reason to investigate and it wasn’t a risk. Five of the seven members on Bush’s panels appeared to have had conflicts of interest due to their involvement in the oil and gas industries and would appear to benefit from the EPA not pursuing this matter.

• Each well, from drilling to the first flooding with Frac water (water that is contaminated with hundreds of toxic chemicals), requires 1,150 truck trips, often to distant, remote areas.  Out of all of the 400 to 600 tankers of Frac water that is injected in the drill holes, only about half of that amount comes back up and is removed…to open pits that allow for the Frac water to seep into the ground and some even have evaporation sprayers that spray Frac water up to evaporate into the air we breathe.  More problematic, the refining process for natural gas evaporates unwanted Frac moisture out of the gas and also releases it into the atmosphere. Ozone and pollutants in the air around such communities where such facilities are located are elevated and in some cases, far above EPA acceptable levels.

• There are approximately 450,000 natural gas wells around the U.S. at this time. For the Frac process, each well initially requires between 1 million and 7 million gallons of water. Wells are re-Fracked up to 18 times, each time another 1 million to 7 million gallons of water are used. The math looks like this, 450,000 wells times 18 times 1-7 million gallons is in the ballpark of 40 trillion gallons of water…all of it polluted with the 596 chemicals and undrinkable in the future (how long can this be sustained without severely and permanently depleting our nation’s potable water supply?).

• The Natural Gas industry is in the process of drilling and pursuing hundreds of thousands of more Frac wells across the country. The northern portion of the watershed area that supplies New York and the Delaware river basin, the largest unfiltered water supply in the world which supplies 15.6 million people with water (in NY, DE, PA and NJ),  is slated for natural gas drilling.  Around 50,000 gas wells are expected to be drilled in this area if drilling is not prevented (no NG wells have yet been drilled).

As with the Gulf state Governors who howl about the moritorium on deep sea oil drilling because of how it impacts the short term economy, this small minded ignorance of killing the golden goose to get its golden eggs today is reflective of the battle over a transition to clean energy.

The only way to make a transition is to reduce one element while increasing others. The problem here is that many states and corporations make a lot of money off of fossil fuels and will fight a real transition with everything they’ve got. Bobby Jindal, Mary Landrieu, Haley Barbour and other oil-company-owned pols in the Gulf will mindlessly campaign for more oil drilling even if it destroys their fishing industry and their wetlands…which will make another hurricane’s destruction of New Orleans more likely.  So, in order to save the Gulf, we must make destroying it more likely.

And the Natural Gas industry is smiling glibly at offering natural gas as a transitional fuel to get us to renewable energy but the more money they make and the bigger portion of the energy marketplace they hold is only a testament to the battle they will mount against ever moving off of natural gas to renewable energy.

The industry push for natural gas is the equivilent of a crack dealer offering their drug to help you get off of that nasty meth. It is not an answer, it is more quicksand for any pursuit of renewable and nonpolluting fuels. Unfortunately, many progressives (including me) and Dem politicians all the way up to Pres. Obama have been convinced along the way by the propaganda of natural gas and have supported it in the past.

As it was a wake up call for me, I hope policy makers and the President see “Gasland” and recognize that the terribly polluting process of obtaining natural gas is not outweighed by its cleaner burning properties and conversion should not proceed any further. At some point, there must be a somewhat bumpy change of course offroad from the Fossil Fuels Highway to the Renewable Fuels Highway. There will always be those that protest at the loss of jobs and business that fossil fuels “fuels” but that loss must occur at some time if we are to end our dependency on it.

Progress is painful but it is necessary. Avoiding pain in the short term at the cost of sacrificing necessary progress in the long term is short sighted and in the big picture, self-destructive.

After all, what jobs will left in the oil and natural gas industries anyway if there’s not enough water left for Americans to drink?

The spin of yesterday’s election that is all over the MSM today is, “It’s the year of the woman”.

Some would beg to differ. On the surface it is true, several winners of primaries yesterday were women. But the case could be made that half of the four most prominent women who won, were incredibly wealthy people who bought their elections. Billionaire Meg Whitman spent $81 million dollars of her own money to buy her win (ending up equaling $80/vote) and boasted that she would spend $150 million to win (buy) the Governorship.

Millionaire Carly Fiorina bought her primary at a comparable bargain, only spending about $7 million.

Down in Arkansas, corporate-owned Blanche Lincoln won. She was heavily funded by oil corps, Wall Street corps and health insurance corps, she boasted about blocking Obama on the Stimulus and HCR, she had Pres Obama and Clinton campaigning for her and meanwhile attacked Unions as outsiders and the enemy.

Isn’t the real common denominator here money, not sex? Or maybe sex in that there is no difference that gender makes when you can spend $80 million dollars to win an election? One could argue that there is no glass ceiling over the wealthy, whatever their sex. Their money is just as green and buys the same attack ads.

So why does the MSM focus on the sex of candidates instead of what really got them elected? Because it’s an effective way for the wealthy and corporations to pleasantly mask the real story of how our democracy is just an auction that goes to the highest bidder?

What is very instructive is what happened in California with ballot propositions. Two propositions, put up by corporations to benefit themselves at the expense of the public, nearly passed. Meanwhile, a proposition that would have allowed public funding to reduce the power of corporations over our elected officials and elections, was decisively defeated (big cheers and props to Choicelady for all her efforts on trying to get this passed!).

People seem so conditioned by commercial advertising, they can be convinced to vote for candidates and laws that clearly would hurt them.

This would instead seem to be The Year of The Billionaires. With the SCOTUS ruling permitting corps to spend unlimited sums on supporting candidates who will work for them and opposing those who are foolish enough to want to represent the citizens, billionaires have far more power and influence over our elections than ever before.

So, instead of being pacified with the pleasant, uplifting spin that what happened yesterday was a great win for sexual equality, if we consider the inequity between 99.5% Americans and corporations, the dominating influence and control they have over our elections and democracy, yesterday’s election should instead be a warning and a wake up call that our democracy is continuing to be bought right out from under the feet of men and women equally.

Well, Joe Biden was certainly right when he said that President Obama would be “tested” soon after taking office. The question is not so much “how did he do” on the test as it is, “when will the tests ever stop?” It is perhaps more accurate to look at these entire four years of the Obama administration (first or only) as an ongoing test, and one that grows increasingly difficult and challenging as it progresses, like the LSAT. Furthermore, much more is being tested than this still young presidency. The entire nation is being asked difficult questions about itself. Encapsulated into one question, what we are being asked is – As a nation, what are we?

- Are we a nation so divided by vapid ideologies that we can do nothing but shout at each other and hold those with whom we disagree in the utmost disdain, a disdain fueled by obnoxious purveyors of half truths and grotesque characterizations on our airwaves and our computer networks?

- Are we a nation that, forty years after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech must nevertheless experience a form of shock that we finally, finally, have managed to elect a person of color to the highest office in the land?

- Are we a nation that truly can envision no other course for itself than to keep fighting wars and wreaking destruction, even as the jury is no longer out about how effective these military escapades are in actually solving the problems our country faces in its dealings with adversaries?

- Are we a nation so beholden to the economic powers that essentially run things in this country that we powerlessly bear witness to the destruction of two of our most valuable national assets, the American Middle Class and the Gulf of Mexico, conceding all responsibility to big, self serving corporate entities that have shown time and again that their interests are, charitably, clearly NOT prioritizing the health and well being of our floundering country?

In the middle of the fray stands President Barack Obama. Born in the last year of the postwar Baby Boom, campaigning with the invigorating, motivational catch phrases, “Yes, WE Can!”, “Change We Can Believe In” and “The Audacity of Hope”, his victory in November 2008 inspired and uplifted a large portion of the American public, many of whom had nearly given up hope that the trajectory of self serving government, and the decline of America’s status globally, could ever possibly be reversed, particularly after eight years of a presidency that felt downright alien and Orwellian to them.

Yet, a few short months before crucial midterm elections, those catch phrases ring hollow. The Obama presidency, viewed as a whole, has not delivered in a way that justifies their bold and cheerful optimism. Indeed, many, I’m guessing millions, of Americans feel deceived about those words, and sold out by this presidency. It is as if Obama never really, truly, understood the nature of the  “change” that the majority of the American people wanted so desperately to believe in. 

I find myself asking, “Why did Barack Obama want so desperately to be president?” I am frankly stumped by this question. The question is much easier to answer when applied to his recent predecessors. Richard Nixon (a Shakespearean villain if ever there was one) wanted the job because nothing short of that would satiate his monumental ego and lust for power. Jimmy Carter had an evangelistic and fervent belief that the country itself was far more decent and honorable than its leadership, and that its true heart and soul were crying out to be affirmed. Ronald Reagan was so driven by his Ayn Rand-influenced philosophy about government, capitalism and communism that he stormed into office as a True Believer, ordained, or so he believed, with the power to remake the country into a sort of real-life version of “Atlas Shrugged” (it is interesting to wonder if he, and not Gary Cooper, had landed the lead role in the Hollywood version of “The Fountainhead”, that he may have gotten his  ya yas out that way, and spared the rest of us the consequences of his Objectivist wet dream). Bush the Elder and Bill Clinton were both convinced that they were the smartest guys in the room, and that nobody else was as capable as they were of running the enormous machinery that makes the world’s most powerful country tick. And Bush the Lesser was just a frat boy who, his entire life, basically proved the Peter Principle, simply coasting along on the zephyrs of forces and connections far more powerful than him to increasing Levels of Incompetency.

I am quite certain that Obama did not become president to, paraphrasing Churchill, preside over the demise of the American Republic as a great nation, and yet why does it appear that this is what he is doing? Is the job bigger and harder than he imagined it to be? Are many of his detractors right in proclaiming that he is in over his head, a “community organizer sent to do a president’s job”? Are the problems our country is facing too large and complex and metastatic for any leader to make headway against them? Is our president, like Hamlet, caught up in such a swirl of dark doings that he can only retreat into a cool, calculated inertia? At a time when the economy, the war in Afghanistan, the environmental catastrophe in the Gulf, etc.  – nothing is going right, does anyone really believe that this hesitancy to seize the zeitgeist and place his stamp upon it is a matter of him “playing chess” and “thinking three steps ahead of his adversaries”? If so, how does that Kool Aid taste?

Returning to the American public and the landslide victory it gave him, what was the change that we pinned our hopes on Candidate Obama to achieve? These were not small things. In a word, what we were hoping to see was a reversal of Reaganism.  Just as Hamlet was haunted by the ghost of a king, so it is that the Obama presidency, and the nation as a whole, are even now haunted by the “ghost” of a former president whose disdain for government shows up like fingerprints on all the troubles we are facing today. Remember James Watt? Reagan appointed him to head the Environmental “Protection” Agency as a slap in the fact to environmentalists. This country has more than enough trees, rivers, large bodies of water, etc. -  King Ronald decreed. While I’m president, no tree huggers are going to tie the hands of industry and keep this country from reaching its full economic potential! Now, because the environmental crisis in the Gulf of Mexico is foremost on everyones mind, that example seems particularly glaring, but run through all our current problems, the ones President Obama is charged with dealing with, from Wall Street to the military, to healthcare, to corporate outsourcing, etc., and they can be connected as if by Day Glo dots back to King Ronnie’s obsession with small social government and a huge military, and his Holy Mantra, “deregulation”. That was what we believed in as we threw our support behind Obama, that that could change. We’re not so sure anymore, are we? It appears abundantly clear that that was not the change that our president was referring to or envisioning. 

I truly believe that he is at heart, a good, decent man who wants his presidency to be a great one, one that goes far toward uplifting this country, morally, economically, ecologically.  I believe that, much as MBA George W. Bush believed that this country should be run and operated as if it were a company, former community organizer Barack Obama believes that this country can grow and flourish through outreach, networking, coming together and working together. Cooperation and sacrifice are his lifeblood, and what he has the power to extol us toward. But we need that voice! We need to believe that it applies to everyone, most obviously the arrogant, “Too Big To Fail” (Too Big to Make Sacrifices?) entities that have caused so much trouble with neither governance nor guidance from elected officials. “Guidance”; that is what they need. Even big companies are made up of little people, just like us. If the U.S. government, with Barack Obama as its leader, could take responsibility for telling the suits, “We are going to do things differently now. You are going to play a different role. Your interests and the interests of this country as a whole are going to conjoin. You are going to  play a large role in making this a great, safe, prosperous, and happy nation and you will have the gratitude of its people as you do so”, things would change. The nations of Europe, Japan, etc. have achieved this with far greater success than any of our leaders since the Reagan Revolution have managed. It’s doable, clearly. But if the country sees that its president and elected officials appear to be abdicating that role – the very role for which they were elected – then “hope” and “change” seem to be as hollow as the reassurances of BP officials, and as void of life as large swaths of the Gulf of Mexico have become.

1. Under the sea, an enormous, so-far-unstoppable eruption of oil endangers a huge swath of ocean, as well as the lives and livelihoods of a multitude.

2. On land, Climate Change has ushered in severe weather devastating towns and cities.

3. In our society, economic powers have wreaked havoc and damaged millions of lives around our planet.

Causes of the above:

1. Greed and addiction to fossil fuels.
2. Greed and addiction to fossil fuels.
3. Greed.

Though these are individual situations, for philosophical exploration’s sake, consider if they might also be pieces that fit together as pieces of a puzzle, illustrating what is intrinsically wrong in our society and continually damaging it.

Together, they present an image of a society that is battered by forces it is unprepared or unwilling to confront.

All of these disasters may have been averted if not for abdication to greed and to those who are the most avid practitioners of it.

Citizens outnumber corporations. They can vote, corporations can’t. The People have the power through democracy to change the way things are…and the first step is to pry corporate hands back off of their democracy so they can use it to affect change.

Big Picture thinking is difficult in a world where quick fixes and instant answers are too often sought and expected. However, if world leaders and their citizens were to consider the Big Picture, there might possibly be a conclusion that things, the way they currently exist, subservient to insatiable greed, are ultimately unsustainable and cancerous to society.

Greed is not good. It kills…economies, jobs, standards of living, the environment, futures, fairness, democracy and potentially, the very society in which it lives.

A new meme would seem to be required globally, one that rejects the religion of capitalism, a meme that puts greed back in its place and affirms that sustainability of an equitable society is the priority ahead of the pursuit of wealth and shallow, materialistic gratification.

The top 1% of American earners begins with households that make $100,000/yr. A couple making $50k each are in the top 1%. If you live in NY, LA, SF or a number of other expensive cities, you are well aware that this amount of income doesn’t make you wealthy.

So consider how small a percentage of this nation really is wealthy. Maybe .5% make over $1 million/yr. Consider then that around 99.5% of Americans are not wealthy. This is the intended result of capitalism.

Generation after generation of Americans have been brainwashed from childhood that capitalism is the greatest system in the world. If it’s truly great, shouldn’t at least 20% of our nation be wealthy? At least 10%? How about 5%? Not even 1%?! A system that concentrates wealth in only the top half of a percent of a nation of 300 million people is the greatest system in the world and shouldn’t be messed with? Really?

Though the possibility to come from the lower or middle class to become a millionaire exists and occurs, the odds are 99.5% out of 100% that it will never happen.

And in the meantime, while those not in the top .5% have seen wages decline or evaporate when their jobs are lost, our ruling class has juiced the rest of us through frauds and bubbles that suckered us to put our money where they could reach out and take it from us.

Capitalism is a fraud.

It is a conjoined twin not with democracy but with oligarchy and will use its power to dominate and corrupt democracy…which is in fact its natural adversary. The power of the masses over the power of money is not a value of capitalism, it is a threat to it.

Interesting that government working for the people is no longer called “democracy” by the wealthy but labeled “socialism”. Meanwhile, government giving pork, tax breaks, military contracts or TARP bailouts to corporations is called “capitalism”.

Now, a form of subordinated capitalism could be a great match with democracy, where corporations are not people and have a social responsibility to the society that helps it flourish. However, in a society where corporations are “people” and have the right to use their inordinate power and wealth to dominate 99.5% of the citizenry, it is not compatible.

Yes, capitalism in its younger days brought much innovation, opportunity and change to this nation. But like the parent of a child who was a sweet kid but has grown up to be a violent criminal, one can’t allow nostalgia of the past, of what American capitalism used to be to blind one to the true nature of what it is today.

Despite its assurances, capitalism  is not our best friend. It is our smiling, plotting adversary, taking every opportunity to assert its righteousness while using the trust acquired to take ruthless advantage.

The simultaneous exploitation and pollution of the land, water and air of our nation and the entire planet, which greed and capitalism has wrought, is already painting civilization into a corner in the long term. We are already taking for granted the flooding of our cities (and other cities and countries) by the severe weather Climate Change has generated.

Our oceans, sea life and those people and businesses reliant upon them continue to be acceptable collateral damage in corporations’ mercenary quest for greater profits at any cost.

Oil, sewage, garbage, pharmaceuticals and chemicals poison many of our lakes, rivers and oceans. We take for granted too that the fish we eat often have high levels of mercury and other contaminants…which means so do we. There is something horribly wrong with people literally being sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed (hmm…wonder if corporate greed with regards to polluting the environment instead of footing the bill for operating cleanly has anything to do with the epidemic of cancer in this nation?)

And what would we do if this eventually means that sometime in the future, there won’t be a plentiful amount of clean water for everyone? What if seafood became just too toxic to eat? How does capitalism make such possible outcomes work out okay in the end?

And what of the series of financial bubbles schemed by those steering the ship of capitalism over the last couple of decades, as they have simultaneously executed the greatest transfer of wealth from 99.5% of Americans to the top .5%?

Considering all of this, how much of the world and our futures must be traded for protecting the Lotto-type possibility that we may be millionaires one day? How many long term jobs and futures are we wiling to destroy in the name of short term jobs and profits as we cheer for “Capitalism”?

Can a civilization faced with all of this afford apathy or a resignation to the powers that be? Can they do so and still genuinely envision this as a sustainable society?

There is a remarkable film from 1983 called Koyaanisqatsi that uses visuals alone to tell the story of what the title means in Hopi, “Life Out of Balance”.

The trailer:

Things certainly seem to be terribly out of balance in the world at this point in history. The many are being swallowed by the greed of the very few. We have been sold a bill of goods about the identity and character of capitalism and it’s time to hand back that bill and demand a refund.

A period of great challenge that requires profound change doesn’t occur for every generation. People all around the world need to step up now to reject and restrain greed in order to protect themselves from irreversible harm and take a big step forward towards a better world. There is no acceptable alternative.

There is something sadly symbolic in the birthplace of democracy being destroyed by banks. The domination of corporatism over democracy across the world, using the freedom of democracy against itself, is a sad, terrorist type strategy that has unfortunately succeeded to date.

a. Greece created the roots of democracy.

b. Goldman Sachs helped destroy Greece’s economy.

c. Goldman Sachs has helped to destroy the roots of democracy.

Okay, it may be a bit of a reach but you get the symbolism here.

In a nutshell, what GS did was conspire with the corrupt government in Greece to fraudulently hide debt. Then, being the slime covered weasels that they are, GS turned around and bought into credit default swaps against Greece, meaning, they bet against Greece ever being able to pay off their debts which they helped Greece hide.

An allegory would be like a mechanic helping someone hide that their transmission is about to go out so they can sell their car to an unsuspecting person, then the mechanic announces publicly that he is betting against the car being in good running order.

When banks do these credit default swaps, it is publicly known in the financial world. It can be and was in the case of Greece, a fait d’accompli, causing the failure it’s betting will happen. With the financial world, including those with the most intimate knowledge of Greece’s finances, betting that Greece would fail to pay their debts, they insured that Greece would indeed fail. Naturally, the public knowledge of this chased away money from investing in Greece, preventing Greece from being able to pay towards its debt.

So Greece went bankrupt. And Goldman Sachs made an enormous sum for helping Greece try to hide its debt then made an enormous sum betting against Greece being able to pay all of its debt.

Greece had been operating irresponsibly, deficit spending enormously for many years with no regard for a day of reckoning but Goldman saw them as an easy mark and juiced them dry, coming and going, laughing and bonusing to themselves as Greece collapsed.

There are many differences between Greece’s situation and America’s but what’s happening there should be seen as a warning of what could happen here.

Primarily, since Greece is on the Euro, they couldn’t do what America did to address a lack of money, that is, just print more. Other than that, read this description below about Greece and consider how it may apply to the U.S.:

Greece has been living beyond its means in recent years, and its rising level of debt has placed a huge strain on the country’s economy.

The Greek government borrowed heavily and went on something of a spending spree during the past decade.

Public spending soared and public sector wages practically doubled during that time.

However, as the money flowed out of the government’s coffers, tax income was hit because of widespread tax evasion.

When the global financial downturn hit, Greece was ill-prepared to cope.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8508136.stm

Greece, now at the mercy of the banks and the EU and IMF for survival has had to apply severe austerity plans to its nation, as demanded by them. The cuts of services and huge rises in taxes have destabilized their nation and society. As reported today:

3 dead as anti-austerity riots erupt in Athens

By DEREK GATOPOULOS and ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer Derek Gatopoulos And Elena Becatoros, Associated Press Writer – 59 mins ago

ATHENS, Greece – Riots over harsh new austerity measures left three bank workers dead and engulfed the streets of Athens on Wednesday, as angry protesters tried to storm parliament, hurled Molotov cocktails at police and torched buildings. Police responded with barrages of tear gas.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in a nationwide strike to protest new taxes and government spending cuts demanded by the International Monetary Fund and other European nations before heavily indebted Greece gets a euro110 billion ($141 billion) loan package to keep it from defaulting.

The three bank workers — a man and two women — died after demonstrators set their bank on fire along the main demonstration route in central Athens.

On the streets of Athens, demonstrators chanted “Thieves, thieves!” as they attempted to break through a riot police cordon guarding Parliament and chased ceremonial guards away from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the building.

Tear gas drifted across the city center as rioters hurled paving stones and fire bombs at police. Firefighters extinguished blazes at least two buildings — the bank and a branch of the Finance Ministry — while protesters set up burning barricades and torched cars and a fire truck.

The marches came amid a 24-hour nationwide general strike that grounded all flights to and from Greece, shut down ports, schools and government services, and left hospitals working with emergency medical staff. The Acropolis and all other ancient sites were closed and journalists also walked off the job, suspending television and radio news broadcasts.

Violence also broke out in the northern city of Thessaloniki, where another 20,000 people marched through the city center and some youths smashed store windows.

Some fear the austerity measures insisted upon by the EU and IMF could make prospects for growth even worse.

“These people are losing their rights, they are losing their future,” said Yiannis Panagopoulos, head of GSEE, one of the two largest unions. “The country cannot surrender without a fight.”

Again, Greece is not innocent in this economic disaster, the government did dig a massive financial hole for itself on its own…Goldman Sachs just took a bundle from them to spread a blanket over the hole to hide it then took out accident insurance on Greece before pushing Greece into the hole. Ain’t capitalism grand?

The mercenary, corporate plundering of societies and nations around the world must either be reigned in or the fate of Greece may be the eventual fate of most nations and people. Banks and corporations will dictate how society operates and how people must live if most become financially beholden to them.

It would be ironic if the birthplace of democracy was ground zero for the death of it. In the U.S., democracy can be rescued by releasing it from the choke-hold of banks and corporations. Supporting a strong financial reforms bill and contacting your congresspeople to do the same would be something meaningful that could be done in the short term.

In the long term, corporate control in our political system needs to be broken. Addressing the SCOTUS/Citizens United decision, campaign finance reform and restricting lobbying should all be on the plate.

And enforcing the law against these crime lords running Wall Street wouldn’t exactly hurt either.

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This spring, the Move to Amend is on the move. Read on for the latest resources, actions, and upcoming events . . .

New resources:

* Our Field, Action, and Education Committee is working on a set of questions for candidates, to help you decide where current and potential legislators stand on issues of corporate personhood, corporate power, democratic reform, and constitutional amendments. The committee is also preparing a flier detailing the various responses to the Citizens United decision that different groups and members of Congress have proposed.
* With the help of Change.org, our Online Communications Committee is working on a short video about the Move to Amend, and about our core principles. Thanks to the many of you who have chimed in on Facebook, we have a great lineup of potential spokespersons for this video message.
* A brochure on the Move to Amend campaign is now available online as a PDF file. Please email us to order full-color print copies.

New website features:

We have heard from new groups across the country that are discussing how they can build support for constitutional amendments. To help individuals connect with groups and with each other, the MovetoAmend.org website will be adding some new features, making it more user- and organizer-friendly. In addition to expanded “events” and “take action” features, look for state pages with contact links and info on actions and campaigns. As we bring these improvements online, you will notice service interruptions from time to time; these are the websites growing pains.

On the local level–pass a resolution!

Take a small group and visit with each elected official of your municipal council, town board, or county board. Ask their opinion of the Citizens United decision (if polls can be trusted, they’re likely going to be on your side!) and what they’re planning to do to respond to the ruling and to protect their community and elections against corporate power. Share their response with your friends, co-workers and your local newspaper – hold them accountable!

Urge your local elected officials to sponsor a Democracy Resolution for your local government for discussion and passage in response to the Citizens United ruling. Remember, today most local government meetings are seen live and rebroadcast on community cable tv, an excellent opportunity to present the issue to a wide viewing audience.

You can use this Model Resolution to Legalize Democracy in the United States and Abolish Corporate Personhood as a starting point.

Upcoming events:

Yes, we are everywhere. Here are some of the next series of events featuring organizers the with the Move to Amend:

* May 3, Wisconsin ~ Ben Manski ~ UW-Stevens Point, 8:00pm, DUC Theater, Dreyfus University Center.
* May 4, Washington ~ Riki Ott ~ Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA, 5:00p.m., in the AIC building, Room 210.
* May 4, Wisconsin ~ Ben Manski, Mike McCabe ~ Madison, 7:00pm, WilMar Community Center
* May 5, New Mexico ~ Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap ~ Santa Fe, 7:00pm, Unitarian Church, 107 West Barcelona Road
* May 19, Massachusetts ~ Mary Zepernick, Sen. Eldridge, Rep. Atkins ~ First Parish in Concord, 20 Lexington Road, at 7:30pm
* May 22, Illinois ~ Riki Ott ~ United Church of Rogers Park, 1545 W. Morse Ave., Chicago, 1:00p.m.
* May 23, Illinois ~ Riki Ott ~ Chicago Green Festival, 3:00 p.m. in Room 319, Navy Pier, 600 E. Grand Ave., Chicago

Pres. Obama and  Congress have now turned to focus on passing financial reforms that are long overdue. Fox News and the Republicans tried trotting out the same Goebbels/Rove playbook on this one but it’s really hard to convince people that corporations are the victim when they are being fired and foreclosed on by them and have had their pensions and/or nest eggs stolen by them through fraud.

So, faced with a majority of Americans supporting Obama and the Dems on this, after attacking the Dems of being enemies of democracy by passing HCR despite the poll numbers against it, the Repubs naturally first chose to bathe in hypocrisy like an elephant taking a mud bath and kept right on espousing their latest Luntz talking point (see: “lie”).

However, once they let the poll numbers settle in on them, they must’ve realized that being so open about defending corporations’ right to dominate and destroy our economy and democracy, might not be the ideal campaign platform to attract a majority of Americans.

So, even if their intent is to slyly sabotage financial reform from the inside by pretending they want to work with Dems on it, the Republicans also claim they want financial reform.

What is deafening though is the silence from the Teabaggers. Funny, ain’t it that their defense of their apparent racism and hatred towards Pres. Obama has been that they are only concerned about financial issues and oppose him so angrily for that reason?

Uh-huh.

Anyone hear about any Teabaggers marching for, let alone supporting Obama on financial reforms? Wonder why that is? It just seems so black and white.

Though AZ’s descent into 1900′s racist laws (now we know that “We want our country back!” literally means that) has reignited immigration reform, there does seem to be a coalescing of people, parties and organizations around reigning in corporations.

The oligarchy that has replaced our democracy in this nation was dealt a setback with the election of Obama and the consensus in this nation after the economic crash against their inalienable right to dominate our democracy, economy and society.

However, in light of the SCOTUS ruling allowing them to drown out the voices and interests of The People with unlimited tsunamis of money and as we saw in HCR and are seeing in financial reform, their ownership of one political party and many in the other party, a time of reckoning needs to come.

This is a civil rights issue, a constitutional crisis, an issue of economic justice and viability for this nation, an issue of the salvation or demise of American democracy and even the right to the pursuit of happiness.

Corporations are not democratic, they do not operate as democracies, they do not respect democracy nor do they have any financial interest in sustaining a democracy. They happily deal with and in some cases prefer to set up operations in countries with the most oppressive societies and tyrannical leadership.

Corporations may have succeeded in defining themselves legally as “people” but since they currently have only one legal responsibility as a “person” that negates all others, to generate profits to their shareholders, they are de facto sociopaths.

And yet, these sociopaths have the greatest power (even more in light of the SCOTUS ruling) in our democracy. So what would be the logical direction in which corporations would want to steer this nation?

Perhaps towards a society where they control the government and the people don’t, wages and the standard of living are low so their expenses for labor are low, government services and entitlements for citizens are reduced or eliminated so there is more money to be drained from our government by them.

Maybe even a country with a citizenry that’s overweight, under-educated, prescription drug dependent, distracted by entertainment and continuously terrorized, all conditioning them into a state of virtual impotence…but thank goodness there’s an array of prescription medicines for that.

Corporations don’t even support capitalism. They base themselves offshore to avoid paying taxes and supporting America’s troops, education, infrastructure, etc. For example, Exxon earned $45.2 BILLION in pre-tax income…and paid $0 in U.S. Income taxes.

How else do corporations show their spite for capitalism? They smash unions (collective bargaining is a historic component of American capitalism),  they game the financial market to cheat investors and sabotage America’s long term economy and as we’re all familiar with, they believe that losses should not be suffered by them but in a twisted view of capitalism, should be paid off by the helpless taxpayers who they just victimized.

As potential evidence that the next major national campaign for civil rights may be the fight against corporate power, here are a some excerpts from MoveOn.org’s latest email blast (from Justin Ruben), apparently making this a new sustained battle:

Dear MoveOn member,

This is an unusual email, to ask for your help in launching what may be MoveOn’s most important campaign ever.

…after consulting with thousands of MoveOn members, we’ve made a decision: to launch a massive campaign to fix our democracy and put We the People back in charge.It’s a hugely ambitious idea. It won’t be done this year, or next, though I think we can make real progress quickly.

The first step is to bring together millions of people who share our frustration with business as usual in Washington. Change this big will require an honest-to-God people’s movement, and this is the right moment for it. There is overwhelming voter anger right now, and the number of people who believe that lobbyists and special interests hold sway is literally without precedent.

So we’re also going draw up a bold blueprint for renewing our democracy: a sweeping set of new rules to limit the influence of big money, corporations and lobbyists.

This will face enormous opposition. And take years. But it’s the only way we’ll ever build the America we all know is possible, with real freedom, opportunity, and shared prosperity.

Though the RW has said this about Gay Marriage, Terri Schiavo and keeping the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, this is genuinely a battle for the future of America’s soul, its future and its democracy.

Every Friday night, my Tivo fires up to save what is one of the best arguments for the existence of television, Bill Moyers Journal. As a human being and a journalist, Bill exudes the kind of  integrity that has all but disappeared from the practice of television journalism today.

This may explain my genuine shock to hear on his show this week that he is retiring as of the end of this month. His show will end then on PBS though he mentioned it will continue online.

He is too classy and too much of a gentleman to ever mention if this wasn’t his idea (there’s no indication it wasn’t as far as I am aware).

I have so many fond memories of his shows and discussions, he has been a voice of calm, reason, compassion and reality during difficult times. And he has never failed to astonish me with his even handedness especially when he’s had discussions with people who I find distasteful…I still don’t know how he does it!

One of my more recent favorite memories was when a Bill O’Reilly troll tried ambushing Moyers at a media conference in 2008. Using calm demeanor, his razor sharp mind and his unshakable persistence, Moyers took that little weasel to school and the journalists witnessing this followed the weasel hounding him as he had Moyers…of course the weasel could dish it out but not take it.

As far as my favorite interviews he’s hosted…it would be virtually impossible to choose one gem over another. So, I’ll just focus on his most recent show from last week, his penultimate episode, which presented a brilliant exploration into the reality of the banking and corporate domination of our nation, the machinations of Goldman Sachs in their fraud and other insights into the mercenary nature of our corporate system. One of his two guests, Simon Johnson, conclusively described America as no longer a democracy but an oligarchy. I can’t embed from PBS here so you can follow this link to view this enlightening and brilliant episode:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04162010/watch.html

With the passage of time, so much is gained and so much is lost. In the case of Bill Moyers, what is lost is a little bit of what’s best in this democracy and this nation.

First, props to SueInCa for her brilliant article,  The Next Credit Bust – 2012? which inspired me to post this as a kind of companion article.

For those who have expressed interest in GROW and/or focusing on addressing the SCOTUS decision giving corporations unlimited expenditures in elections, a bill is about to be presented in The Senate that would be a first step and it will no doubt need as much grass roots support, calling and emailing and writing Congresspeople, as possible. Here’s an article on it from The Hill:

Democrats prepare for election-year battle to craft Citizens United legislation

By Russell Berman
04/13/10 06:00 AM ET

Legislation that aims to counteract the landmark Supreme Court ruling allowing corporate and union campaign spending could be introduced by the end of the week.

Major provisions include strict disclosure and disclaimer requirements for corporate-funded campaign ads, including a mandate that CEOs and top donors appear on camera to “approve” messages, much as candidates are required to do now. The bill would also explicitly ban contributions from companies with a 20 percent or greater foreign ownership stake, as well as from government contractors or firms that have received and not repaid Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds.

“The heart of this legislation is going to ensure that the public is aware of who is actually putting up the money to finance these ads,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21.

Many reform advocates are hoping to add a provision that would require corporations to hold a shareholder vote for significant political expenditures.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/91797-dems-ready-for-election-year-battle-on-citizens-united-bill

The difficult issue is that, at least until the SCOTUS changes to have a more liberal majority, the only way federally to reverse their opening the floodgates to corporate spending on elections would be a constitutional amendment or a piecemeal state-by-state regulation of resident corporations.

During Vox Populi last week, there was discussion about the possibility of a coalition of organizations working together, in California as a start, to get a proposition on the ballot which would be sort of a Corporate Responsibility Act. What we discussed then was that it could require that corporate executives would be criminally liable for criminal acts perpetrated by the corporation they run. Additionally,  corporations could be required not only to provide the best profit for investors but since they are now classified as people, be required to balance that with the well being of their society (and employees). Campaign contributions by corporations could similarly be required to conform to the norm for “people”.

There are a variety of responsibilities that could be applied by a state to its corporations that could require them to act as good citizens of this society instead of mercenary sociopaths that have no responsibility to the society that allows them to prosper. Of course, all the possible responsibilities would have to be vetted for their viability and constitutionality so as much as some might be sought, there are legal limitations. 

So, there are two possible areas of direct action that could be pursued by those interested in confronting corporate domination. First and most immediate, being activist about getting your Congresspeople to support and vote for this bill. Second and longer term, exploring the possibility of using California’s proposition process to start a movement across the country for states to require that corporations which want to be treated as people, act as responsibly and socially constructive as other people are required to behave.

Appreciate your thoughts on this.

During and right after the mortgage crisis some were talking about the commercial crash and how that would soon hit.  At the time I thought, in a tunnel vision sort of way, Commercial Real Estate, which could be partially true but that would not even be considered the medium banana.  To get a sense of where the next credit problem is festering, think Private Equity(PE) Firms.  The crash is likely to happen because of Leveraged BuyOuts that have put many well-known companies in serious debt.  This excerpt is from “The Buyout of America”, a book by Josh Kosman:

It is late 2011 months before President Obama will run for reelection.  The U.S. economy is gradually recovering from four years of hovering on the brink of disaster.  Banks are lending money again, at least to strong companies and employment is stabilizing.

President Obama has finally begun to breathe a bit more easily, when the Secretary of the Treasury walks into his office one day.  “You better sit down,” the secretary says, “I’ve got bad news.  First Data, the largest merchant credit card processor, has defaulted on $22 billion in loans.  Clear Channel Communications which owns more than 1200 radio stations is on the brink.  The other credit tsunami that we knew was out there has begun”…….

“Considering what we have already been through, how bad can it be?” asks Obama  “Well”, says the Treasury Secratary, “PE firms  own companies that employ nearly 7.5 million Americans.  Half of those companies, with 3.75 million workers, will collapse between 2012 and 2015.  Assuming that those businesses file for bankruptcy and fire only 50 percent of their workers, that leaves 1.875 million out of jobs.  To put that in perspective, Mr President, NAFTA caused the displacement of fewer than 1 million workers, and only a slightly higer 2.6 million people lost jobs in 2008 when the recession took hold.”   A spike in unemployment will mean more people will lose their homes in foreclosure, and the resulting nosedive in consumer spending will threaten other businesses.  The bankruptcies will also hit the banks that have financed LBO’s and the hedge funds, pensions and insurers who have bought many of those loans from them.”

“Is this bigger than the subprime crisis?”

“It is similar in size to the subprime crisis meltdown.  In 2007, there were 1.3 trillion of outstanding subprime mortgages.  As a result of leveraged buyouts, U.S. companies owe about 1 trillion.  Sir, we are on the verge of the Next Great Credit Crisis”

President Obama is no longer smiling.

This picture painted by the Treasury Secretary is not total fantasy, nor is it worst-case scenario.  There are people in the financial world, including the head of restructuring at one of the biggest banks, who predict this outcome.  Some knowledgable observers predict the carnage will start sooner.

So, how will these Private Equity firms contribute to such a scenario?  PE firms buy companies with other people’s money by structuring the acquisitions like mortgages, but not quite like the average American would take out a mortgage.  PE firms have the company they are buying take out the loan for the acquisitions, making the company responsible for re-payment.  The PE puts down cash equal to 30 to 40% of the purchase price and the acquired company borrows the rest in what is termed as a Leveraged Buy Out(LBO).  From 2000 to 2007 PE’s bought firms that employed nearly 10% of the private sector(10 million people).  These loans taken out by the companies have balloon payments due 6-8 years down the line.  In the meantime, the PE manages the company and because there is little risk to them, they do not manage for long term success, they usually will turn around and sell the company five years down the line.  But while they are managing the company, they are also collecting management fees.  They are always looking for ways to cut costs and they usually do so by downsizing, selling off divisions, replacing current management, cutting back on customer service, raising prices and turning up production with fewer employees and cutting corners on the finished product.  With these cost cutting measures, they could re-invest back into the company, but they use those cost cutting measures instead to bring up the value of the company.  When they sell, it is not because they have actually brought up the market value by investing and growing the company, but rather by cutting back.  They manage to satisfy short term greed, not long term survival.

To give you an example of what could happen in a worst case scenario, Mervyn’s and Linens n Things were both LBO’s and both have filed for Bankruptcy and liquidated within the past few years.  With Mervyns the PE was only really interested in their real estate holdings.  When they started managing the first thing they did was to split the company, retail side and real estate side.  For many years Mervyns had succeeded because of their real estate holdings.  After the LBO, the retail side was barely solvent.  They had assets of $674mm and liabilities of $664 mm and were left with negative capital unable to pay debts of $22mm.  On the real estate side they borrowed $800 mm and increased the pressure on the retail side by raising rents to market value in order to pay back the loan.  Rents went from $80mm to $172mm and they closed 33% of the stores.  In the meantime, the PE took dividends and distributions of $400mm (which was taken away from the original loan).  The retail side tried to obtain financing to work out of the BK but could not secure because they no longer had the real estate to back the loan.  When Mervyns closed their doors in 2008, they let go approximately 18,000 workers with no severance and no vacation pay.  Mervyns could have survived if not for the rental increases.  The PE responsible for all this and who took no losses was Sun Capital Partners.  Apollo Management did the LBO for Linens n Things.  They received $15mm in transaction fees, plus $2mm per year management fees.  In the space of 2 years, LNT filed bankruptcy closing 589 stores and letting 17,500 employees go.

You are probably asking why a company would do this and why the banks would loan the money on these acquisitions.  The banks, just like in the subprime crisis, lent the money because they knew they were going to package the loans up(80%) and sell to another buyer down the line while collecting the fees for the exorbitant loans.  The tax loopholes that make this damaging activity possible have never been closed.  The company can treat the debt similar to capital expenditures – as an expense deducted from profits through depreciation tax schedules, greatly reducing their tax burden.  In an ideal situation, the company could use that savings to pay down the loan but new management is usually brought in to run the company and it does not happen.  In general the PE will also look at the company as “parts more valuable than the sum of the whole” and sell off piece by piece.

Beatrice, who owned Samsonite, Tropicana, Peter Pan PB, Avis, Swift, Wesson and CocaCola bottling plants was broken up in just such a transaction.  Because the principle for the loans for these acquisitions are not due until between 2012 and 2104 and most issued bonds due in several years rather than pay the interest, underfunded pensions that are counting on PE firms to save them are going to be in bigger trouble than they are now.  In 2006 when speciality retailers, Burlington, Michaels and PETCO took out such loans, Moody’s gave them a B2 rating which means ”assurance of loan compliance over any long period of time might be small.”  They said these companies would probably not be able to pay the loans within 1000 years let alone 6-8.  For another example of an LBO gone wrong, go to Wiki and take a look at MGM Studios.  Prior to reading this book, I would have looked at their recent troubles and thought, “Boy are they mismanaging things”.  But that is not the case, the PE is the one who is mismanaging things and a grand old tradition in Hollywood is being eaten up piece by piece.  Warner Records, founders of Atlantic, Electra and Warner have also been the subject of an LBO and have seen the company broken up.  First Data Resurces was also taken private and as a result have taken on $22b in debt.  While they have not made major changes yet, there are rumors already that their Dallas offices will soon be shuttered(see link below), moving the operations from Dallas to Omaha, their biggest facility.   I have been to the Dallas facility and they employ alot of people.  They have their own campus just outside of downtown Dallas.  The Hugo Boss factory in Ohio is scheduled for closure at the end of April, another LBO.  This closure will put approximately 375 more workers on the unemployment line.  Danny Glover brought attention to their plight at the Oscars and encouraged a boycott of the Hugo Boss label.

As with the sub-prime problem, the PE firms have also spread out to Britian and Europe so if a crash comes, it is going to pretty much be global, not localized to the United States.  Banks, although they have sold most of the loans, will suffer.  Hedge funds that invested heavily in LBO financing will suffer as well as CLO(Collateralized Loan Obligations), investers who took insurance will lose.  Purchasers of the even more derivitive vehicles built out of CLO’s will also lose.  Sound familiar?  It should, it is a miror of the sub-prime crash.

As is the case with most financial issues, it is almost impossible to correctly predict a crash as day to day so many things can happen to change the financial standing of any company, however if half of the total owed by these companies only causes a small tsunami, the workers and communities affected will not fare well.  Nor will our fragile economy so soon after the mortgage crisis.  People in the business of Private Equity firms will not be hurt except for their reputations and their are some pretty big players who are either now or have been in the business.  Some of the players are and have been: Mitt Romney(Bain Capital), David Rubenstein(Carlyle Group), Goldman Sachs, Ray Kravis(Kohlberg Kravis Roberts), Cerberus(John Snow/Treasury Sec/Clinton) and others.  Some of the companies involved in LBO’s: General Motors Acceptance Corp, Hertz, Michaels, PETCO, TXU(Texas) Energy, Sealy and Simmons Mattress Co, Hugo Boss, Burlington(Coat Factory), Warner Records, MGM, Mervyns, Linens n Things, General Instrument, Hospital Corp of America, Spire Healthcare, Vanguard Health Systems, Iasis Healthcare, Capella Healthcare, Ardent Health Services, Essent Healthcare, Hilton Hotels, Alltel, Clear Channel Communications, Harrah’s Entertainment, Kinder Morgan(pipelines).  And if you are looking for the banks who participated, they are the same villians as in the mortgage crash, BofA, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank.  In fact, Wells Fargo may have been brought in by default because Wachovia is in the mix and Merrill Lynch could bring more exposure to BofA.

If you know what you are looking for, you can find many articles and commentaries on this potential looming crisis, I have provided a head start below.  I certainly do not wish this tragedy on any of us or the companies involved, but it is better to be forewarned than to be surprised.  It is also better to educate yourself on these issues, I know it will change how I look at businesses being bought and sold and who I put my trust in for the future, it would, and should, factor into decisions in the employment search of any individual.

The Buyout of America, Josh Kosman(it is a surprisingly easy read for a financial industry book)

First Data

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/first_data_having_hard_time_paying_EyeJ8g003qxnrNh41me4GM

Pension Funds waiting for payoff on equity

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03equity.html

Hugo Boss

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/hugo_boss_takes_heat_in_ohio_9xwRqtjqhzRTdQgBRTrH7J

Buyout of America Website

http://www.joshkosman.com/private-equity-news

Probably not but in another amazingly corporate friendly decision a Federal appeals court struck down the FCC ability to prevent Comcast from punishing it’s own internet users. The court vacated a 2008 “net neutrality” ruling that guaranteed users access to all legal net traffic. Comcast had complained that it’s users who prescribed to BitTorrent used too much bandwitdh because it prevented other users from gaining as much bandwith. What the article and Comcast won’t tell you is that Comcast has an inherent bandwith problem with it’s cable modem technology where if you have allot of users on a particular local hub it slows down internet traffic for everyone unlike DSL technology.

BitTorrent was the softest target to attack because peer-to-peer networking has been under a barrage of lawsuits for years by the RIAA, Movie and Software industies. But this is not about peer-to-peer networking this is about internet providers who eventually want to team up with content providers like Google does now with Verizon as an example. Some day in the very near future if you use Comcast you may have to use Bing instead of Google because they have an exclusive contract. Furthermore this sets a very dangerous precedent where internet providers can limit or prevent streaming content like Pandora, Live365, Hulu and even C-SPAN.

Furthermore in their strategically evil way the right wing has been fighting the concept of “net neutrality” under the guise that it is an evil conspiracy by the FCC and allows illegal content even under Bush. They are trying to conflate it with the old media “fairness doctrine” but they are totally unrelated. What Republicans are really trying to do is use right wing paranoia to give their minions another reason to vote against their self interests.

Click here to read the whole story on Wired.

I think we all recognize that poverty in our nation has increased in the past three years, but what is not so much discussed is that it has been increasing steadily over the past 10 years.  In the past 10 years, millions of Americans who work full-time have consistently fallen below the poverty line and it is almost as though they are unemployed as well.

Any person who works full-time responsibly in this country should be able to earn enough to rise above the poverty line and have decent healthcare.  Our President and the Democratic congress took care of the latter and now it is time to address the former.  No economic system based on having 37 million of it’s citizens(as of 2007) living in poverty or only 1%-5% holding the most wealth can survive.  There needs to be an honest critique of capitalism in this country.  The McCarthyism that derides anyone who dares to question the perfection of unbridled capitalism needs to be confronted and soon.

Shortly after LBJ took office, he declared a “war on poverty”.  Through his efforts of abatement our country implemented Head Start, Medicare and Medicaid.  This war was fought on many fronts by people who recognized that poverty has many causes and consequences and it was a noble war that spoke to the deepest spiritual beliefs of the American people.  How much more successful would George Bush and his Republican led congress have been had they declared a “war on poverty” instead of their “war on terror”? 

Since the days of LBJ the war on poverty has gradually mutated into a war against the poor, a punative approach that places pressure on the “least of these”, our fellow Americans.  Today we need a 21rst Century version of the War on Poverty.  And we cannot just expect the government to fight it alone, it needs to be a partnership between the Private sector and Government.  With Healthcare signed into law, we now need to look at seriously reforming education(which President Obama has already started) and we need to deal with the minimum wage.  We need to learn to deal with poverty more agressively when it arises and to prevent poverty before it starts. 
Why is it that some people will excuse their lack of action by replying, “there will always be the poor among us”?

The injustices of an individual working full time at minimum wage, only to be rewarded with poverty, is not what this nation was founded on.  An individual working full time at the current national minimum wage, $7.25 per hour as of summer 2009,  will earn $15,370.00 prior to taxes.  Forget benefits because most employers who pay minimum wage do not provide benefits.  Add to that single worker the scenario of a single mother with two children and I think the picture becomes quite depressing very quickly.  What is the cost of a healthcare premium for one year, what about food, clothing and shelter?  It is very clear from the chart of minimum wage increases since 1955 which party has done the most on behalf of the workers, and it still has not been enough.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

Far from getting ahead, minimum wage workers have been steadily falling behind for at least the past 10 years.  As of 2006, the minimum wage had not been adjusted since 1997, so for 9 years it steadily lost it’s value.  During this same time pay for Congress went from $133k per year to $174k in 2009.  The increase alone amounted to nearly triple the annual income for a full time minimum wage worker(using only 2009 figures), if you go back the numbers are worse, much worse.  Tom Delay, an ardent opponent of increasing the minimum wage, made this statement in 2005 on a pay raise for congress

“It’s not a pay raise,” said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. “It’s an adjustment so that they’re not losing their purchasing power.”  and made this plea on the floor of congress, “Mr. Speaker, I will tell you something, Members of this House have families.  They have 2 homes, in most cases.  Some members are living in their offices because they cannot afford a second residence…..I am not making excuses or apologizing, it is difficult to raise a family and serve in Congress….My wife and my children suffer enough.”

Really?  Are you kidding me, Really?  At least we don’t have knowledge of DeLay staying at C Street, because that would make his plea even more insidious.  What about the purchasing power of millions of Americans, do they not count?  I am sure the members of Congress have a hard time making it but a fast food worker cannot even afford one home, much less two.  I doubt if Congress’ suffering is going to make America’s top 10 list of America’s most disadvantaged groups.  I am not saying they do not deserve the pay they get, and some might disagree with me on that, but don’t deny the same fair treatment to other Americans.

If corporations had been stagnant during this time period, you might be able to justify the mimimum wage, but that is not the case.  In fact when the “to big to fail” Banks nearly took our economy over the cliff they received attention within days and not much discussion was allowed prior to the “bottom falling out of our economy”.  And despite the tax benefits to Corporate America, they have been steadily moving operations offshore where they can pay a worker $0.50 an hour, if that.  Our manufacturing base has nearly disappeared and the United States is quickly turning into a “service industry” society.  Toga parties, conferences at posh resorts, parties in Las Vegas, have all been taken on the backs of the poor in this country.  Inequality, we  all know, is surging.  This erosion is neither an accident nor the product of apathy, it is the result of  a deliberate policy choice of the right.

Maury Weidenbaum, one of Ronald Reagan’s Economic Advisors once said:

If we had our druthers, we would have eliminated the minimum wage. 

Former Congressman from Pennsylvania, Bob Edgar, commented on this saying:

Since that would have been such a “painful political process”, he and other officials were content to let inflation turn the mimimum wage into an “effective dead letter”.

My question is where and how did the United States breed such distasteful and evil people?  Like Teddy Kennedy asked of the Senate, “Have you no shame?” Look at the Republican record(link above) when they hold the majority in congress.  What about the recent extension of unemployment, their stand on the recent jobs bill?  Do these members of Congress really have a bead on the public sentiment or have they spent so much time in the Beltway that they are immune to what happens in the real world?  Do they ever wonder about that worker who hands them a sandwich for their lunch and how they might be surviving?  The Right has two myths regarding the minimum wage; 1) increasing the minimum wage would destroy millions of jobs and 2) nobody actually earns the minimum wage, except for teenagers.  The contradictions of these two myths is amazing.  Millions of jobs have been sent overseas anyway and far more adults in this day are making minimum wage, and for millions more the minimum wage sets a floor that determines their pay.  Sometime when you have a few hours to spend, peruse the want ads, you will find entry level jobs for college graduates with at least a Bachelor of Arts starting not much higher than $30k a year, for High School graduates, it is around $20k, if you can find many these days.

Those working at or below minimum wage perform some of the most important jobs in our society, home health aides to the elderly and daycare workers for our children.  What about the hospitality industry?  Without them, these CEO’s couldn’t sleep in their “heavenly beds” in a hotel room that is clean as a whistle, nor could they entertain their important clients at the many restaurants in this country.  Who would stock the shelves in our stores, keep the offices clean, clean the pools, keep their golf courses groomed, provide the laundry services for their hospital beds?  Who would do all of this in the absence of minimum wage workers?  You can bet the wealthy would be complaining if these workers were suddenly gone and they would not feel the least bit bad about it, in fact they would find a 1000 ways to justify their whining and complain about the welfare roles.

Rewarding a hard day’s work with poverty is an abomination, but what we have not done is to frame a living wage as a “values issue”.  These workers work as hard as any other American.  We see them everyday, we smile, they smile back but the heartache and sturggles they face at home are invisible to us.  The minimum wage should be framed as a values issue in that it must be a living wage that properly reflects the cost of housing, food and other needs in individual markets.  A living wage in Arkansas would not be a living wage in New York or Los Angeles and should be adjusted based on the demographic. 

In some states responsible people have stood up for these people, led by grassroots activists, and minimum wage increases were passed by overwhelming margins.  In California the minimum wage as of January 1, 2008 was $8.00 an hour, $.75 above the national wage but still not enough.  There is an old African proverb that reads:

If you want to walk fast, walk alone.  If you want to go far, walk together.

The 9th Psalm verses 17-18 says:

The wicked bought a one way ticket to hell. For the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever.

Government and Private Industry need to work together, they need to “go far” not “go fast”.  So when the far right pulls out their “government is not the answer”, tell them it is the only institution capable of compelling corporations and individuals to observe the rules of fair play in the marketplace.  I don’t think the poor and middle class in this country want a big share of the wealth redistributed, they just want a fighting chance.