Love of money is the mother of all evils.
Deogenes (400-325 B.C.)
“We’re on a knife edge now, teetering toward authoritarian rule.
What it really is is crony capitalism and that’s what unites this administration with
[Russia’s Vladimir] Putin, [Hungary’s Viktor] Orbán, [India’s Narendra] Modi and others.
Alex Gibney warns about the dangers of dark money
“There are two things that are important in politics.
The first is money and I can’t remember what the second one is.” Mark Hanna
The scam was this: The banks unloaded their debts
onto the taxpayer, and then the fiscal hawks dutifully began screaming
about how we were drowning in debt and how Social Security and
Medicare were responsible. Cuts in your earned benefits will pay for
the banks bad loans. Beautiful !: Mike
Lofgren, The Party is Over
When enough money calls the tune, the general public will not be heard.
Justice Steven Breyer, McCutcheon v FEC.
"...pitting market values against human values, is the real
culture war of our time." James Gustave Speth: America
the Possible
There is ... an obvious risk of political capture by the
financial elite. In the United States, to a greater degree than in any other advanced
democracy, politics is driven almost entirely by money.
Wealthy individuals and the organizations they control can mold
government policy through political contributions and lobbying, often
producing outcomes that are clearly at odds with what the
public actually wants. As those at the apex of the income distribution
become increasingly detached - living in a kind of bubble that
insulates them almost entirely from the realities faced by typical Americans - there
is a real risk that they will be unwilling to support investment in the
public goods and infrastructure upon which everyone else depends. The
soaring fortunes of those at the very top may ultimately represent a
threat to democratic governance."
Martin Ford: The Rise of the Robots
America is ... the international kleptocrats’ favorite place to launder money.
In a 2011 forensic study of grand corruption cases, the World Bank found that the United States was the leading jurisdiction of incorporation for the entities involved in the money laundering schemes.
“The money is coming from everywhere,” says John Tobon, head of the Department of Homeland Security Investigations in Miami, where its Foreign Corruption Investigations Group is headquartered.
This should not be the case if the U.S. AML system were fit for its purpose.
Money Laundering for 21st Century Authoritarianism by Ben Judah
“You can’t have the mass radicalization that we’ve seen without extraordinarily wealthy people funneling money in.”
Michael Edison Hayden
BREAKING: Massive Trump scandal Uncovered
Trump and the Republicans are planning to Transfer $100 Billion of your Tax Dollars to Rich Bitcoin Owners pic.twitter.com/NX9ZL0EZWd
Although the tax system is a crucial tool for tackling inequality, it also faces potential obstacles.
Tax evasion ranks high among these, as recently illustrated by the Paradise Papers revelations. The wealth
held in tax havens has increased considerably since the 1970s and currently represents more than 10% of global GDP.
The rise of tax havens makes it difficult to properly measure and tax wealth and
capital income in a globalized world. While land and real-estate registries have existed for centuries, they miss a large fraction of the wealth
held by households today, as wealth increasingly takes the form of financial securities. Several technical options exist for
creating a global financial register, which could be used by national tax authorities to effectively combat fraud.
World Inequality Report 2018
"If you’re worried about the deficit, pay
attention to the fact that it’s almost all attributable to military spending and the
totally dysfunctional health program." Noam
Chomsky
If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes,
bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the
surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on
well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again… the
note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with
the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and
its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than
it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and
the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the
way of this, the above would be better than nothing.
Keynes.
"Nothing can be passed by Congress
that is opposed by Wall Street or large
corporations. Nothing." Senator Bernie
Sanders
“When all the trees have been cut down, when all
the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover
you cannot eat money.” ~ Cree prophecy
Republicans on the debate stage tonight keep claiming they're worried about the debt.
Republicans happily added $8 trillion to the national debt under Trump, about a quarter of that resulting from tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. #GOPDebate
So it turns out that the credit downgrade the United States received had little or nothing to do with Biden; the main reasons listed on the report were Republican's fighting on the debt ceiling and January 6th. Trump has a way of screwing our economy even when he isn't in…
"If you wonder why the United States is the only
country in the industrialized world not to have a national health
care program, if you're asking why we pay the highest price in the
world for prescription drugs, or why we spend more money on the
military than the rest of the world combined, you are talking about
campaign finance. You are talking about the unbelievable power that
big-money interests have over every legislative decision."
Senator Bernie Sanders (Vt)
The NRA buys off Congress. No action on guns.
The oil industry buys off Congress. No action on climate.
Insurance companies buy off Congress. No action on health care.
Pharma buys off Congress. No action on drug prices.
Whoa! Here it is. The moment in 2018 when Donald Trump removed the Dodd-Frank regulations that would have prevented the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. Don’t let anyone forget this. pic.twitter.com/3ccLFMWH2o
We elected a government of billionaires who rewarded
themselves with large tax cuts, increased funding for the military,
militarized the police, continued universal surveillance, continued to
concentrate mass media to strike fear into the people,
and they will not hesitate to use force to discipline the people.
The unifying, underlying principle of the Republican agenda
is directing public money to private profit. That explains the
world's most expensive healthcare,
tax cuts for the wealthiest,
life threatening fossil fuel subsidies,
harsh privatized prisons, proliferation of charter schools,
the senseless gun culture,
deregulation that sacrifices the public interest, cuts to social programs,
force for the military-industrial complex, and,
in general the massive extraction of wealth from the people.
The middle class has been sinking since Reagan was President.
To pay for these gifts to themselves, they will say that they need to fix Social Security
by cutting it, cannot afford health care for anyone not able to pay, heap obscene debt on to college students, and to enable corporations to extract as much wealth from people as possible.
Republicans proclaim Christian values, but what they really worship is money.
Corporations actually do run
government through lobbyists, campaign funding, and the revolving door,
and other corruption. It's the very definition of Fascism.
As the ruling elite game the system further (as in North Carolina), elections become a sham. Mass rallies replace press conferences. Actions of government is increasingly secret. Whisleblowers punished harshly. Media ever more corrupt.
As people sink into poverty
they resist, there will be a need to discipline them by force as has
already happened in poor communities mostly of color. The U.S, has, by
far, the world's largest prison population, is militarizing the police, has the largest military in the world, and has troops in 150 countries. Its empire
overthrows many popular elected governments and installs dictators,
exploits poor populations for the benefit of corporate investors who
are our ruling elite.
We will relearn the lesson from Syria. A minority elite government will judge the poor unworthy and
deserving of destruction. When you see Republicans campaigning posed with guns, believe them.
Considering the Trump actions, we may be punished even earlier.
He alone can decide to use nuclear weapons.
We fought the rise in Fascism in WWII, but it is rising again here at home.
It looks like we lost WWII.
What we learn from Aleppo,
Syria that an elite, ruling government will suppress or even destroy
its people by force if it is threatened. The Nazis and other right wing
governments made enemies of their people as well.
Among nations, the U.S. has become a pariah. It bombs other countries that pose no threat, tortures,
assassinates using drones, does not honor international agreements, works to undermine the U.N.,
continues to expand its nuclear arsenal (feel safer ?),
"TeleSur" - An international poll found that the
United States is ranked far in the lead as “the biggest threat to world
peace today,” far ahead of second-place Pakistan, with no one else even
close. (1/17/2015)
or (10/21/2014)
As the reality of climate
change becomes evident, there will be crop failures, droughts,
fisheries collapse, the majority will sink into poverty, there will be
mass migration causing a right-wing extreme politics
and a decline in democracy and culture.
As I mentioned in my piece today, the backers of Musk’s deal are interested in unseating the dollar as the world’s reserve currency for oil, and will try to use control of the information environment to do it. https://t.co/np8Hcy00nq
“As I have said for many years, I happen not to
believe that within the framework of the two-party system, the Democratic Party
and Republican Party, that we are going to be able to bring about the
real changes in this country that are needed to benefit the vast
majority of our people. Essentially, it is my view that the leadership
of the Democratic Party and Republican Party are tied to big money
interests, and that neither of these parties will ever represent the
people in this country who are demanding the real changes that have to
take place.” – Bernie
Sanders
1)Here are some numbers for Mitch to chew on. Under Ronald Reagan 2 terms debt increased by 186%. GHW Bush 54%(one term) Clinton 31% 2 terms. George W 105% 2 terms Obama 69% 2 terms and financial crisis Trump 33% one term. Theme...GOP is responsible for most of our national debt
If you're wondering why the President of the United States has spent the morning attacking the Fed for raising rates, remember that every time it raises rates, it personally costs Trump millions of dollars. If they do the cut he wants now, he'll save millions. Simple as that.
The Pandora Papers have revealed in stark detail the critical role major Western countries play in enabling dictators and autocrats by allowing illicit transnational flows of cash to flourish.https://t.co/o6vwTxYNl2
Anonymous political spending snatches power from the American people and hands it off to big donors & corporate interests. It’s the force behind voter suppression, partisan gerrymandering, and the capture of our courts. This was never about freedom, only control.
“Money flows across frontiers, but laws do not.” Until this situation changes, the lawyers, bankers and drafters of deliberately loose financial laws
will continue to prosper. Meanwhile, governments will continue to be starved of revenue, global inequality will grow,
economies will be destabilized and struggling voters will blame everyone – poor immigrants, liberal elites
– except those actually responsible for creating the destructive offshore world. From a Review of Moneyland
That's funny. Jamie Dimon seemed fine with corporate socialism when his bank got a $416 billion bailout from American taxpayers. https://t.co/KYhvG2kVvt
Communities of any size, from the local to the national
level, can start initiatives that dramatically enhance their own
economic well-being. Perhaps the most dramatic example in the past
century was the revival of the nations of Western Europe after World
War II, taking them from destitution to the highest living standards in
the world through the principles of social democracy - combining
self-interest with civic values. Working though their trade unions,
cooperatives, and multiparty systems, the citizens of Western Europe
responded to the rebound of their economies by raising their
expectations. During the decade after 1945, these countries embraced
their citizens' demands for universal health care, decent pensions,
cheap and accessible public transit, tuition-free university education,
at least one month of annual paid vacation, free child care, paid
family sick leave, and maternity leave - to name only a few of the
amenities fostered by this collaboration between local and national.
Sixty seven years after 1945, however,
the United States - the victor in World War II and long touted as the
richest nation in the world - offers none of these civilized services
for all of its people. Not one. We do not have a multiparty system in
which smaller parties with pioneering agendas can be part of governing
coalitions. Instead, we have a winner-take-all two-party dictatorship,
its voting blocs broken into gerrymandered districts largely dominated
by one party or the other. We have the weakest, most obstructionist
labor laws among industrialized nations, which have led to the lowest
percentage of labor union members in the Western world. A much smaller
segment of our economy is devoted to consumer cooperatives. In short,
the institutional flaws of our government have allowed powerful
corporate interests to drive the American standard of living downward
for the past thirty-nine years." Ralph Nader:the
Seventeen Solutions
"Money, money, money - it whispers everywhere in politics.
It twists a
little here, bends a little there. And far too often, it tilts in the
same direction:
in favor of those with buckets of cash to spend." Elizabeth Warren A
Fighting Chance Pg 250.
1. Justice Kennedy retired abruptly to make way for Brett Kavanaugh. 2. Kennedy’s son Justin signed off on Trump’s loans at Deutsche Bank. 3. Justin’s boss was Tom Bowers, who “killed himself”. 4. Trump’s loans were backed by Russian state-owned VTB Bank.
"...it is hard to escape the sense that debt
panic was promoted because it served a political purpose
-- that many people were pushing the notion of a debt crisis
as a way to attack Social Security and Medicare. And they did immense
damage along the way, diverting the nation's attention from its real
problems -- crippling unemployment, deteriorating infrastructure and more -- for
years on end." Paul Krugman NYT 7/21/2014
MAMMON, 'The god of the world's leading religion. His chief
temple is the holy city
of New York. --Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1887
Let’s not overcomplicate this:
Republicans passed a $2 trillion tax cut for billionaires and corporations.
The people who are risk-averse are the rich, who become like Fafnir in
Wagner's Ring. You know in Wagner's Ring, the gold is cursed. The two
brothers fight each other over the gold. Fasolt gets killed. And Fafnir
gets the gold and what does he do? (From the viewer's point of view for
the next 12 hours in Valkyrie and Siegfried,...) In real life, for a
long time, until Siegfried becomes mature, he sits immobilized, having
turned himself into a dragon guarding the gold. So what was the gold
for?" Leon Botstein, President of Bard College.
The credit system, which has its focal point in the allegedly national
banks and the big money-lenders and usurers that surround them, is
one enormous centralization and gives this class of parasites a fabulous
power not only to decimate the industrial capitalists periodically but
also to interfere in actual production in the most dangerous manner—
and this crew know nothing of production and have nothing at all to
do with it. — Marx, Capital, vol. 3, chap. 33
quoted in Doug Henwoods Wall Street (free to download)
The definition of money as the sublime good
because it can be turned into all other goods results in the
depreciation of all values that do not pay. What is moral is what
returns a profit and satisfies the judgment of the bottom line. Freedom
comes to be defined, in practice if not in commencement speeches, as
the freedom to exploit. This commercial reading of the text of human
nature gives rise to a system that puts a premium on crime, encourages
the placid acquiescence in the dishonest thought or deal, sustains the
routine hypocrisy of politics and proclaims as inviolate the economic
savagery otherwise known as the free market or freedom under
capitalism. It is no accident that in a society that presumes a norm of
violence, whether on the football field or in the conduct of its
business, people speak of deals as killings. No other modern
nation, whether capitalist or socialist, shares the American tolerance
for
crime. The indices of murder and theft in the United States (whether
measured in absolute numbers or percentages) dwarf the comparative
statistics in England, France, West Germany and the Soviet Union. From Money
and Class in America, Notes and observations on our civil
religion: Lewis H. Lapham (1988)
Money is a human-created artifact that does not work for most
people. It is the highest value for Republicans
and their right-wing allies because, increasingly, it keeps an elite in power.
Much of the economy relies on underpaid or even unpaid
people doing vital work: childcare, eldercare, etc
Realistically, there is a global surplus of labor
which in the U.S. has resulted in falling wages
and a sinking middle class. It is sure to get worse as automation
creates more joblessness. For example, many jobs are for vehicle
drivers, but, as self-driving vehicles are soon to be on the highways,
those jobs will disappear. Most jobs can be automated.
Automation should benefit everyone. As it becomes unnecessary to
work so hard, there should be a better standard of living for everyone.
But, given our current trajectory, we are more likely to find ourselves
with a Southern Plantation (Wal-mart)
economy. The ultimate victory of property rights is slavery.
In response to the inevitable rising unemployed, a strong social
safety net would be a good countermeasure. Republicans don't think so.
It is a mystery to me why a group of mostly elderly Tea Party people
would want to join a Party that wants to 'reform
entitlements".
As Republicans fret about the
deficit, be aware that the US has
embarked on a program to rebuild the nuclear
arsenal, a trillion dollar program over the next 10 years. It has negative value. The
best we can hope for is that these weapons will never be used, and
that they can be safely stored for long periods. If they ARE used,
they will have unlimited destructive potential. Therefor they are not
'goods', they are 'bads' and should be deducted from GNP, not added.
We could forgive all student debt for about that same amount and we
would not add to the US killing machine. Richard Nixon, on his last
day in office, commented that he could destroy millions of people
with the touch of a button. So we know that these weapons are not
compatible with democracy, are at odds with international agreements
that we have signed, and have the capacity to destroy the planet.
As infrastructure decays, Trump thinks it's a great
idea to build a wall.
" cutting Social Security benefits,
rather than raising financial speculation taxes, or other progressive
taxes, cannot honestly be called making tough choices. It is making a
cowardly choice. It is serving the interests of the rich and powerful
at the expense of the vast majority of the population."Dean
Baker
Jay Hanson
writes: economics
is an expression of political agendas that are hidden within
known-false assumptions. If one accepts those false assumptions, then
one accepts those hidden political agendas. www.jayhanson.org
We were broken into small groups and I found myself
in the company of two other retirees, and two Political Science
students, one from Turkey and the other Bosnia. We opposed the Ryan budget and we were able
to compare the US to countries elsewhere.
Denmark, in addition to
universal healthcare and a standard of living better than ours, has
free education
for qualified students including books, apartment rental and other
expenses.
Just about everywhere in the West except
the United States, where there is no mandatory paid time off, workers
not only get vacations but also short work weeks, government health
care, large pensions, high minimum wages, subsidized childcare, and so
forth. Why is the United States the exception?"
Claude
S Fischer, Boston Review
It is not by happenstance that America
today looks more like a Third World country than an advanced industrial
state in international comparisons of social health such as longevity,
infant mortality, income distribution, social mobility, labor
protection, average number of vacation days, and many other metrics.
Our tax policies have ensured that the rich got richer and the rest of
us got stuck with the bill. Congressional obedience to corporatized
medicine ensured that Americans pay an average of 50 percent more for
their health care that citizens in Western Europe. Union busting,
leveraged buyouts, and the offshoring of jobs guaranteed lower wages
and fewer labor protections.
The Party is Over, Mike Lofgren
General Government Spending
Wind down
the empire. The economy is no longer healthy
enough to support it.
Besides, we have clearly lost the moral high ground.
Slim down
our worlds largest military. If there is
justification for
international war, then there should be international support.
Pre-emptive
war is a crime. If we shift to renewable energy, as we should, we could
stop gratuitous wars.
Solve
problems with diplomacy, not the military. Live up to international agreements. Since we
are faced with global problems, quit undermining
the UN.
Close the
School of the Americas. The US has a shabby history of supporting
dictatorships in much of the world. Start supporting democracy instead
of corporate interests.
Stop
building the nuclear arsenal. Live up to the NPT (Non Proliferation
Treaty). Draw down the number of nukes.
Stop
spending money on star wars. MIT experts
don't think it will ever work.
Shut down
the NSA and other black
operations that have demonstrated the
corrosiveness of secrecy in government:
Surveillance, like unjustified
secrecy, threatens freedom, civil liberties, journalism, privacy
rights, and can only lead to totalitarianism.
Shut down
secret prisons, stop renditions, recognize torture
for the crime that
it is, and bring strong oversight to government activities. There
should be a new Church Committee.
Reforms:
Fix our
crumbling infrastructure. Put the unemployed to work fixing it while
interest rates are still low. High unemployment represents an unhealthy
economy and output that is lost forever. Many of our fiscal problems
show that the economy is not fully functioning. Cutting the budget, the
Republican austerity agenda, is
counterproductive.
We should
have high speed Internet as good as South
Korea's. To do that there
should be fiber to the curb. Private entities, like a combined Comcast
and Time/Warner, will not do it, and anyway it should be public
infrastructure not subject to Corporate policies. Continuing business
as usual, corporations will slowly eat away at net neutrality.
Support
and encourage the use of Free Software.
It is crowd-sourced, open, and
therefor more trustworthy. It is essential for the integrity of voting
machines.
Most of
our problems with healthcare are directly
attributable to private
entities like pharma and the insurance
companies. We pay twice as much
as any other country for healthcare. Single payer would be best. There
would be massive savings if we had a system comparable to other
advanced countries.
The US is
number one in incarcerations. Surely there is money to be saved by
reducing the prison population. It would be
cost effective to stop the War on Drugs.
Our black agencies have a history of actually
running
drugs. They are out of control.
The fix is in now that the Supreme Court
consistently sides with Corporations
and against the public interest. Campaign finance law is the foundation
of all other law and we can only get our republic back if Citizen's
United is overturned. The Supreme Court should have term limits, more judges, it
should be held to the same ethical standards as are the lower courts,
and it should not have the power of ultimate review of the law because,
message to the originalists, the Constitution never said so. People should rule, not the Court.
The most pressing problem, ignored in the
conversation, is the 97% certain climate
crisis we are facing. For the most stark statement of this problem
see Guy McPherson's website, Nature
Bats Last. Ignoring this problem is suicidal for humanity.
Don't believe them when they tell you that the worst problem is about money.