Are we a Corporatocracy yet?

[maxx]

Maxx, What's up? You haven't mentioned the Koch brothers in this whole thread and now we know that David Koch and his wife gave Andrew Cuomo [[D) $87,000 toward his effort to become the next Democratic Governor of New York. Speculation?

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/20...uomo_camp.html

They all hedge their bets. We need to get Big Money out of our elections. Candidates should not be dependent on the rich. And the price of election goes up every couple years. The old USSR used to criticize the U.S. for all the money in our elections, and that was in the 1970s.

[Jimaz]

Corporations can't vote. Funding political advertisements has become their primary way of parasitizing legitimate voters into unwittingly acting as their voting surrogates.

After the recent Citizens United Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited corporate funding of election campaigns, voters will need a new strategy for interpreting political ads just to ensure they aren't being hoodwinked into voting against their own interests.

I plan to be more skeptical of high-budget ads. If one candidate appears to be better funded than their opponent, I plan to spend that much more time actively seeking information supporting their opponent before making the decision.

What's your strategy, voter?

[Relayer76]

Bush II was doing Ok until a couple of buildings fell.
He was working pretty hard to bounce the country back from the busted Clinton .com bubble and the housing bust that was fueled by irresponsible compassionates who thought everyone deserved a house whether they could pay for it or not.
That stupid Iraq war didn't help much either.

You are joking right? You don't seriously believe that it was "irresponsible compassionates" that caused the mortgage meltdown. Try greed and unregulated capitalism. And Dubya, along with Cheney and Rumsfeld wanted that "stupid Iraq war" to line the pockets of their buddies at Blackwater and US WMD manufacturers. Oh and lets not forget that AIPAC lobbied hard for the attack on Iraq in support of the right wing Israeli government's desire to dominate the M-E. If they have it their way, Iran will be next. The war on terror = more terror = perpetual war = total economic collapse.

[oladub]

You are joking right? You don't seriously believe that it was "irresponsible compassionates" that caused the mortgage meltdown. Try greed and unregulated capitalism. And Dubya, along with Cheney and Rumsfeld wanted that "stupid Iraq war" to line the pockets of their buddies at Blackwater and US WMD manufacturers. Oh and lets not forget that AIPAC lobbied hard for the attack on Iraq in support of the right wing Israeli government's desire to dominate the M-E. If they have it their way, Iran will be next. The war on terror = more terror = perpetual war = total economic collapse.

When did Senator Obama ever not vote to continue funding Bush's war? As President, he expanded the Afghanistan war which isn't going well. Fannie and Freddie are government creations as are some of their cost ineffective mandates. On Christmas Eve, don't forget, President Obama issued an executive order allowing the banksters to transfer bad loans to Fannie for their full value therby sticking taxpayers with the difference of their actual value. That rivals his vote for Bush's Wall Street bailout as an Obama corporatacracy highlight not to mention all the swell corporatist nods in Obamacare. It wasn't just Fannie and Freddie that sank the mortgage market. The Federal Reserve had and still has a policy of liquidity which floods the market with dollars and causes bubbles such as the Nasdaq and housing bubbles. The money has to go somewhere. Why just two weeks ago, the Fed let loose another $1.4T into our economy. The banks which own the Fed charge interest on all the money they make out of thin air. Obama just expanded the powers of the privately owned Fed. If you want to talk about corporatocracy, what could be grander?

[maxx]

And the people who would like the government to have full control over the Fed keep talking about how awful inflation will be when we are really looking into the jaws of a depression. And then what do you do when there isn't enough money in circulation?

For all the people who still think the 1950s were some sort of paradise, Jules Feiffer can remind you of the time when the Pentagon was telling people that nuclear fallout was good for them.
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/20...rd-rebroadcast

[maxx]

gibran: I would rather see a social jsutice party that truly represents all Americans or at least the 95% of us.

And how would they get enough money to run candidates?

[oladub]

And the people who would like the government to have full control over the Fed keep talking about how awful inflation will be when we are really looking into the jaws of a depression. And then what do you do when there isn't enough money in circulation?

It is the inflation of the money supply that always causes higher prices. If foreign countries all try to get rid of their dollars, those dollars will find their way back here. This will create a supply demand situation in which more dollars will be chasing the same amount of goods and will cause prices to increase. Also, if banks do ever start lending out money again, a multiplyer effect kicks in which will also have the effect of creating more demand and higher prices. That is why we had the nasdaq and housing bubbles. The Fed's solution is to do more of what didn't work and created collapsed bubbles caused by excess liquidity. The Fed has set a trap. In order to prevent a measure of delation, the fed has almost insured high inflation, perhaps hyper inflation, should we ever get out of this recession. I don't think that either Bernanke or Geithner have what it takes to jack up interest rates to 12% to reign in inflation when it appears.

Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich are talking about having the government have more control over the fed. I was talking about eliminating it as Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson[[D) eliminated the national banks of their day. It is Constitutionally Congress' duty to regulate the money supply; not a bunch of private banks who control the fed.

How come I'm on the side of government on this one and you're on the side of Goldman-Sachs? First the Kohn brothers and now this.

[maxx]

The fact that very few people even mention the recently-passed Finance Reform Bill shows how slowly government acts. The Consumer Protection Bureau won't be up and running for months and it will be a longer time before the new bank regs limiting the amount of risk they can take on go into effect. No doubt, the Republicans were not quick to set these processes in motion before the election. And you want the gov. to be responsible for everything the Fed does? There isn't enough Congressional jaw-boning now? What has the gov. done that hasn't taken at least months to get started? Well, there was that flurry of legislation back in 2001 when bills were voted on in the middle of the night and no one got a chance to read them, back when the Republicans ran the entire show.
The Fed was created to head off the frequent "panics" of the 19th c.. Jackson's breaking up of the U.S. Bank did nothing to stop the panic of 1837 which was one of the worst panics in the U.S..

[oladub]

maxx, Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress, not the Federal Reserve or any other private bank, the duty of coining money made of gold and silver and also the duty to regulate it's value. Congress, rather than the Federal Reserve, is thus responsible for control over the monetary system. As we know, Congress can also goof up but that is the law of the land. At least we can vote elected representatives out of office when they error. This is one of the few issues where I take the side of government and you take the side of private business and even corporatocracy. Don't forget the depression of 1921, the Great Depression, the Nasdaq bubble, and the housing bubble which all resulted from the Fed providing too much liquidity.

The Fed's new term 'quantitative easing' amounts to the electronic printing of money with no gold, silver, or anything else to back it up; a long way from Constitutional standards set up to prevent banksters and politicians from stealing from citizens. It didn't work in the Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe and it won't work for very long here.

[biggus]

Here is a little video that came out a few years ago. I find the movie to be spot on, but for those of you from the other side of the political spectrum just update the characterizations in the film with the politician and minority of your choice. http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/haha_america/

[Jimaz]

Small business fights back:

Local business groups seek distance from US Chamber of Commerce

Local chambers of commerce across the country are seeking to distance themselves from the US Chamber of Commerce, or are even breaking formal links with the national group, in the wake of controversy over its role in the current election cycle....

Aside from its partisan strategy -- it has overwhelmingly supported Republican candidates in this year's elections -- the US Chamber is also being criticized for increasingly being a voice for big business, rather than the local Main Street businesses with which chambers of commerce have long been associated.

"They’ve abandoned the interests of smaller chambers like mine for their larger corporate members," Stan Kosciuszko of the Butler County, Pennsylvania, Chamber told Washington Monthly. The Butler County chamber has also severed its formal links with the US Chamber.

[maxx]

oladub:
I don't know why you keep talking about the Fed as though it is doing something without the consent of the government, i.e., the Treasury Dept and the Congress.
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time....lieved-or-not/

However, Paulson appears to have lied to the TARP Oversight Comm.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_164589.html

"...Now there could be lots of policy reasons that Treasury might decide that it wanted this money to be in the banks. But our question is the one we put to Secretary Paulson, and that is, `are you putting it in and getting back assets that are worth equivalent value?' He told us yes; our independent investigation said no CHEN: So are you saying he was lying?
Prof. WARREN: Well, I'm telling you he told us yes and our independent investigation said no..."

[maxx]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/op...rich.html?_r=1

"...All three tycoons [2 Kochs and Murdoch]are the latest incarnation of what the historian Kim Phillips-Fein labeled “Invisible Hands” in her prescient 2009 book of that title: those corporate players who have financed the far right ever since the du Pont brothers spawned the American Liberty League in 1934 to bring down F.D.R. You can draw a straight line from the Liberty League’s crusade against the New Deal “socialism” of Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission and child labor laws to the John Birch Society-Barry Goldwater assault on J.F.K. and Medicare to the Koch-Murdoch-backed juggernaut against our “socialist” president..."

[oladub]

maxx wrote:

I don't know why you keep talking about the Fed as though it is doing something without the consent of the government, i.e., the Treasury Dept and the Congress

.
As previously mentioned, Congress is supposed to control the nation's monetary policy. Congress has no business fielding it's duties out or privatizing them. Congress has no more right to field out it's duties than, say, the Supreme Court has allowing the President to decide some of it's cases. Yet Congress illegally gave President Bush the authority to decide whether to declare war on Iraq. Similarly, during Woodrow Wilson's term, Congress allowed the privately owned Federal Reserve to conduct monetary policy.

The Fed is also "doing something without the consent of the government" in a different sense. Congress is not even authorized to ask certain questions of the Fed. HR 1207, which passed the House, would have required a full audit of the Fed to be made available to Congress. Questions might include, "How much money did the Fed supply foreign banks, which banks, and for what reasons? To the extent that the Fed is doing such things, the Fed is deciding foreign policy. That too should be the duty of Congress and the President: not Goldman Sachs. Congress is literally in the dark about some Fed activities. Unfortunately, Obama and enough Republican and Democrat Senators thoroughly watered down HR 1207's Senate version S. 603.

[maxx]

RE: HR 1207
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...iting-the-fed/
"...Mr. Bernanke has made it clear in recent testimony that he is not against all auditing of the Fed -- just not traditional monetary policy. He doesn't want second-guessing of the Fed's open-market operations or Federal Open Market Committee [[FOMC) decisions concerning the federal-funds interest rate, reserve requirements and discount window lending. He has said unequivocally that audits of the Fed's extraordinary new financial programs would not be unwelcome, nor would audits of any new regulatory authority the Obama administration might give the Fed. Why, then, is a majority of the House of Representatives calling for an unrestricted audit of the Fed, including an investigation of monetary-policy actions? A cynic might say it's a grab for power by Congress to influence future inflation. Why? To monetize an unsustainable rise in the federal debt? To let inflation devalue the currency instead of bringing the budget under control? The cynic might also point out that having the ability to influence interest rates before elections could tempt even the devil, let alone a politician.."



If you'll recall, a lot of the founding fathers were very concerned about the influence of "factions" in government.
I had to wade through 6 google pages of blogs by people I never heard of to find this article. And the Washington Times is no leftwing organ.

[oladub]

maxx, Once again you come to the rescue of corporatocracy. The Federal Reserve is not a faction of government. It is owned by a collection of mega-banks.

The further I dug into this opinion piece the crazier it got. The article makes the assumption that these private banks make US monetary policy and not Congress as the Constiution requires. To assume this is to claim that private corporate interests call the shots, Congress is not supposed to ask questions, and that Congress plays a secondary role in the nation's economy. It is the federal reserve which has caused massive inflation. Since its inception in 1917, the dollar has lost 95% of it's value and is no longer backed with anything except goodwill. Even Congress would struggle to do worse than that.

The entire HR 1207 bill under discussion is shorter than this bankers' cheerleader's article. The only people who even get to see the audit are " the Speaker of the House, the majority and minority leaders of the House of Representatives, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the committee and each subcommittee of jurisdiction in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and any other Member of Congress who requests it." The audit would not be released to the public. If Congress can't be trusted to get a thorough glimpse into the Federal Reserve, perhaps it is time to get rid of representative democracy. We can have 'trusted experts' make decisions for us. That always works out good.

Here it is. One page long if that. This is what President Obama, Chris Dodd, and the Wall Street bankers who heavily finance their campaigns are so worried about.

Text of H.R. 1207: Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009

[maxx]

The length of a bill is not important. It is its impact that matters.

And when I mentioned factions, I was talking about the highly politicized Congress. Wouldn't the party in power love to be able to control interest rates just before an election?

http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/ar...t-hr-1207.html
"...financial markets likely would see the grant of audit authority to the GAO with respect to monetary policy as undermining the Federal Reserve’s independence in this crucial area, particularly because GAO audits or the threat of a GAO audit could be used both to second-guess the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy judgments and to try to influence subsequent monetary policy decisions.
Permitting GAO audits of monetary policy also would likely cast a chill on monetary policy deliberations if policymakers believed that GAO audits would result in early publication and analyses of their policy discussions. Unfettered and wide-ranging internal debates are essential to identifying the best possible policy options for achieving maximum employment and stable prices in light of data that may be conflicting or, at best, ambiguous as to the optimum policy path.
Moreover, publication of the results of GAO audits related to monetary policy actions and deliberations would complicate and interfere with the FOMC’s communications to the markets and the public about current economic conditions and the appropriate stance of monetary policy. Households, businesses, and financial market participants would understandably be uncertain about the implications of the GAO’s findings for future decisions of the FOMC, thereby increasing market volatility and weakening the ability of monetary policy actions to achieve their desired effects..."

[oladub]

The length of the bill is important because it it short enough that you need not go to your high priests of the the status quo to interpret it for you and tell you what to think. The audit only goes to members of Congress. If you do not trust them then you are calling for something other than representative and Constitutional government. You are calling for a Corporate rule.

Here is Senator Bernie Sanders explaining his support for S. 603 the Senate version of HR 1207. He says he began to want complete transparancy when Ben Bernanke refused to tell him which banks received $2T of nearly interest free loans. Sen. Sanders takes the position that the American people have a right to know where $2T of their taxpayers' dollars went. You apparently do not.

Sanders Full Floor Speech on Federal Reserve Transparancy Amendment

[maxx]

So the U.S. taxpayers should also get a complete accounting from the Defense Dept. and the CIA?

[Jimaz]

From Raw Story: US Chamber of Commerce ‘entering the news business’: report

The US Chamber of Commerce is quietly developing its own network of media outlets to push for changes to the law that would make life easier for corporations, says a report from Harvard University's Nieman Journalism Lab....

The news comes as many critics of the Chamber grow increasingly alarmed over its spending on political ads in the current election campaign. The group has said it plans to spend $75 million on the current election cycle. This year through September, the Chamber spent a record $144 million on lobbying....

Earlier this month, the Chamber was criticized for sponsoring an event that instructed businesses on how to outsource US jobs. And the Democratic Party accused the Republican-leaning Chamber of "stealing the election" because of its use of foreign money in campaign spending.

This, and the Supreme Court's timely Citizens United decision are beginning to look like an orchestrated coup d'état.

Goodbye democracy. Hello fascism. This ain't the country your father fought for.

[Big Dog]

The mans too big, the mans too strong. Dire Straits.

[rb336]

So the U.S. taxpayers should also get a complete accounting from the Defense Dept. and the CIA?

considering they are over 50% of the discretionary budget, damn right!

[oladub]

So the U.S. taxpayers should also get a complete accounting from the Defense Dept. and the CIA?

You've changed three categories.
1) The Fed regulates monetary policy although it is Congress' duty to do so. The military does not regulate monetary policy. It just receives money.
2) HR 1207/S 604 would have only allowed Congress, not the 'taxpayers', to see a full audit of the Fed.
3) The fed is owned by large private mega banks. The Defense Department and the CIA are part of the government

Setting those three variables aside: Yes, Congress has a fiduciary duty to account for our money it spends. When Donald Rumsfeld said that the Pentagon could not account for $2.3T, Congress should have stepped in and had some heads at the Pentagon. When a cargo plane's load of cash disappeared in Iraq, someone should have taken a fall. It is Congress job to see that toilet seats, and anything else, doesn't cost too much.

[Jimaz]

From CBS News: As Elections Near, Big Oil Flexes its Muscle

This country is being run for the benefit of alien life forms. They’ve invaded; they’ve infiltrated; they’ve conquered; and a lot of the most powerful people on Earth do their bidding, including five out of our nine Supreme Court justices earlier this year and a whole lot of senators and other elected officials all the time. The monsters they serve demand that we ravage the planet and impoverish most human beings so that they might thrive. They’re like the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, like the Terminators, like the pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except that those were on the screen and these are in our actual world.

We call these monsters corporations, ...

Rebecca Solnit: Why a Battle in California Has Mobilized Big Oil Corporations Like Never Before

[Papasito]

the Dems attract people who would like to reverse the trend towards corporatocracization

Yeah, right.
The Democrat party soaks up all the Wall Street & Union money while the Republicans soak up Corporation money. Neither are grass roots or "for the people". If you tell yourself your party is fundraising fair and square, you are lying to yourself.

Democrats blast GOP 'front groups,' but use them too

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39918524...-decision_2010

Unless you have been living under a rock, you should also have noticed how big Unions have been exempted from health care laws and other legislation that has been passed in exchange for endorsing Democratic politicians.
Bribery is bi-partisan.

It's all crap.
Stop lying to yourself and hallucinating that your political party of choice has non-corrupt politicans who are not filthy rich - they all are disenfranchised from the general population.