Today the New York Times mentioned in an article that Chelsea Clinton was now fully involved in her mothers campaign. Whereas she had previously been a mere stage prop, holding the coat of a supporter on one occasion, now she was in Hawaii touting details of her mother’s economic policies.
What whisked by, though, under the radar, was the offhand comment that Chelsea was an “associate” of Avenue Capital, a huge unregulated hedge fund controlled by Marc Lasey, a long-time Clinton friend and donor. I guess Chelsea has taken a few personal days off, or some earned vacation to assist her mother in the campaign. [I would personally be very interested in what Chelsea Clinton actually does in her position of “associate” with that hedge fund.]
Why does any of this make any difference? Well, let me tell you. Senator Clinton has posed as a “change agent” in the primary season of the race. Some of the change the nation is looking for is a change in the corporate control and seemingly unfettered power of corporations to avoid any regulation by the federal government. These massive hedge funds are prototype examples of the worst abuse of unregulated corporations and multi-trillion dollar funds, and apparently Hillary is fully supportive of such arrangements, as long as they have her name on them! But all this is what the Republican administrations have created for their own advantage. Am I to believe that Hillary is simply a Republican in Democratic garb?
I think so.
Sure, she and Bill came from Arkansas, but once they moved to Washington, they became East Coast elites, as much as the Kennedy family, the Kerry Family, etc, etc. She boasts of 30 years of experience in Washington, but what is really the outcome of that 30 years of experience? Personal wealth and walking with the well-heeled elites. This is not what America needs.
The Huffington Post did a story not long ago that revealed the true metamorphosis of the Clintons, from chicken-pluckers in Arkansas, to international magnates. The article details the Clinton relationship with Yucaipa Global Holding, a company that belongs to Ron Burkle, the billionaire investor. What was funny was the way in which the press was impressed and surprised when Hillary loaned her campaign $5 million, giving the impression that they were on the ropes of funding source. Pure nonsense. If she had pleased, some of her investors would have ponied up hundreds of millions of dollars! She is no less wealthy than Mitt Romney, and if the truth were known, is probably much, much richer than Romney.
A New York Times article detailed Bill Clinton’s connection with an attempt to corner the uranium market in a shady deal involving Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra. Guistra flew into Kazakhstan, accompanied by who – you guessed it; Bill Clinton, former president. The two proceeded to meet with the despotic president of Kazakhstan, [who, by the way, has been criticized by none other than Hillary Clinton, Bill’s wife and candidate for president of the United States!], supposedly on a philanthropic tour. But within two days, Mr. Guistra’s company signed agreements giving it the right to buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium agency, Kazatomprom. Now, that seems to be real philanthropy in action, does it not?
Long story short, the Clintons are so connected with the abusive business practices around the world that it is impossible that she could represent any kind of “change” in that status quo.
I am sure that these revelations were inadvertent, and that the Clinton’s have already chastised someone for revealing them, but they are likely to be only the tip of the iceberg, with a huge hidden lode of intrigue involving the Clintons. It does not bode well for Hillary Clinton’s campaign to be so hypocritical as to talk about change and anti-corporate control of the economy when her husband [and thus she herself] is up to his proverbial neck in the very things that need to be reformed!
In recent news, we now see that in her desperate last throws she is willing to sacrifice the long-term welfare of the entire Democratic party for her own personal grandiose goals. She will unleash all the learning from the many years that she has learned how to win from the likes of Karl Rove and others who will do anything short of murder (?) to win for their own aggrandizement and financial gain.
I post this to try to demonstrate to the Hillary defenders that not all of us are Hillary-haters, as they maintain, criticizing personal stuff like the way she dresses, the way she looks. I just despise her dishonesty, two-faced deception, hypocrisy, and her false outrage when someone speaks of “pimping out” her daughter, which is, in modern parlance, exactly what she is doing. Perhaps it is Hillary’s own attitude toward the Democratic voters that comes the closest to being pimping out. Enough already.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
A huge disconnect
A couple of weeks ago [February 1, 2008, to be exact], it was announced that the U.S. economy lost 17,000 jobs, a serious downturn for the first time in many months. Articles that appeared in many newspapers and online news sites repeated this story ad nauseum.
What was probably overlooked was that on that self-same day, the NY Stock Market exploded upwards, with a nearly 100 points gain for the day on the news of record profits by Exxon Corporation. Indeed, this news about Exxon was so important that the Evening News of NBC had an item on the program in which Jim Cramer from the Financial News Network appeared with Brian Williams to comment on that report. Long story short, when Williams asked why regular people should not be outraged at such profits when high prices for gasoline were wrecking havoc on the budgets of families, truck companies, airlines, etc, Cramer basically said that since the poor oil companies had been through rough times before, it was okay that they were finally getting some good news and good profits, and that he did not hold it against them.
Some capitalist thinking, eh?
Indeed, it is mind-blowing stuff, really. But it points out a phenomenon that I think we as citizens need to be aware. There is a huge disconnect [thus my title] between the stock markets and real people in our country. When the news is almost universal that the U.S. economy is tanking in a serious way, slipping into full recession, the astute observer must surely note that the stock market and Financial Channel pundits are glowing, and corporations are posting major gains and profits.
I have for a long time held the view that the stock market corporations, huge retirement funds and other huge investor class funds flourish on human misery. This is, in my view, so profoundly true that the average citizen can correctly conclude that when the stock market is flourishing, the average citizen is hurting and experiencing economic misery. In other words, reality in capitalist America is that when the stock market is up, average people’s lives are necessarily down, as the markets flourish on human misery. Misery of citizens is the fuel of the stock markets, and the markets are directly but inversely related to the people of the nation. That is to say that the stock market is related to our lives in a completely topsy-turvy way that when the stock market is up, we are suffering, and when the markets are down, the consumer gains and profits.
I don’t know how long it takes to make people see this, as it has been true for all of my own life [I am 65]. I suspect that it will be true forever, really, and that human misery has always been the fuel of American corporatist capitalism. For instance, during the Reagan years, my own recollection is that it was one of the most difficult eras that I can remember for our family and the average family in our country. It was in fact a time of huge transfer of public wealth [tax money, if you will] to private pockets that then had been in the world to that time. For some of us, Reagan was the worst president in our nation’s history, yet the conservatives taut him as nearly the Second Coming of Christ! In fact, the Constitution suffered some of its worst assaults during the Reagan disaster years, serving as a mere prelude to the all-out warfare against the poor of the two Bush administrations [don’t tell me you don’t remember the Savings and Loan debacle! http://la.indymedia.org/news/2004/01/99614.php ]. Reagan’s budgets and the deficit were the largest in the history of the nation, and Conservatism took on a new image as the party that reduces taxes and yet at the same time spends, spends, spends our nation into oblivion. In fact, this political tactic of the neo-Conservatives had a name; it is called “starve the beast.” http://www.wordspy.com/words/starvethebeast.asp It is still the unspoken tactic of the Republican party, and especially of the Bush administration and will likely be the policy of any Republican that takes office in 2009.
The Savings and Load government bail-out and rescue package made the Bush family mega-rich, and elevated the Bechtel Group and other multi-national corporations to the level of world powers, most all of which was due to Reagan’s all-out assault on regulatory agencies and a massive killing field against labor in the United States [don’t tell me you have forgotten Reagan’s breaking of the Air Traffic Controllers union by government fiat!] Later mine disasters would reveal that the Reagan-Bush assaults on regulation and control of dangerous corporations extend much further than the Air Traffic Controllers union.
There is something rotten about America’s version of capitalism. Whatever the American system is, it is NOT free market capitalism: it is a highly regulated system designed to severely regulate and control any input except for capital. Translated, this means that money controls the nation. When Jim Cramer comes on the TV and sheds crocodile tears for the poor corporations, we are in a world of hurt. Those same corporations are the ones that have moved trillions of dollars [that’s right, Martha: trillions] to off-shore shelters so that they do not have to pay taxes in our country. In another era, we would have held such organizations to be traitorous and summarily prosecuted for treason – and likely executed! But today, they are held out as heroes!
It was amusing – while at the same time frightening – to hear one of the presidential candidates talk about his tax plan [the so-called “fair” tax, which is not fair at all] as a plan that would bring back into our economy the $12 trillion [that’s right, Martha; $12 trillion] that had been squirreled away in off-shore tax shelters by mega-rich funds, individual, corporations, etc, so as to avoid paying taxes in our country, because, if you listen to them, the tax rate for corporations is way too high in the U.S., and those corporations are only doing the responsible thing. Duh.
The truth is that American corporations pay far less taxes than just about any nation’s corporations. The American corporate tax rate is 35%, but there is not a single corporation [at least intelligent ones] that pays that rate. Indeed, the richest corporations pay sometimes the lowest tax rates, as Warren Buffet has said, so that an absurdity arises. Warren Buffet commented that he made $46 million in a year [an off year for him, as I recall] but paid a lower rate of taxes than did his secretary in his office! http://sunspot.mercedsunstar.com/?q=node/3883
Here is a link for the reader to follow that will give the true percentages of taxes on top earning corporations in America, http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/corptax.html, Microsoft being one of the most profitable and most recognizable, a company that anyone who uses a computer can relate to: it makes hugely inferior products. It is the “China” of software products, funneling huge rivers of inferior products into a controlled and managed market designed especially for Microsoft and other mega-monopolies [What? Don’t tell me you forgot about laws against monopolies!]. The reader will immediately note from the website that for the year 1999-2000, Microsoft paid an effective tax rate of 1.8% [yes, Martha, that is right] on profits of nearly $22 billion! The reader can browse the other companies for some even more astounding facts. All of that information is put into proper relief by comparing with the average American family’s rate of around 17%. Plainly put, Microsoft Corporation paid 1.8%, you paid 17%. And Bush [and now McCain and every other Republican candidate] wants to cut corporate taxes again!
Given all this, would it not be at least logical, if not kind hearted, to wish for a stock market crash? I think so. When the stock markets are up, you are down, average citizen. Read it and weep.
What was probably overlooked was that on that self-same day, the NY Stock Market exploded upwards, with a nearly 100 points gain for the day on the news of record profits by Exxon Corporation. Indeed, this news about Exxon was so important that the Evening News of NBC had an item on the program in which Jim Cramer from the Financial News Network appeared with Brian Williams to comment on that report. Long story short, when Williams asked why regular people should not be outraged at such profits when high prices for gasoline were wrecking havoc on the budgets of families, truck companies, airlines, etc, Cramer basically said that since the poor oil companies had been through rough times before, it was okay that they were finally getting some good news and good profits, and that he did not hold it against them.
Some capitalist thinking, eh?
Indeed, it is mind-blowing stuff, really. But it points out a phenomenon that I think we as citizens need to be aware. There is a huge disconnect [thus my title] between the stock markets and real people in our country. When the news is almost universal that the U.S. economy is tanking in a serious way, slipping into full recession, the astute observer must surely note that the stock market and Financial Channel pundits are glowing, and corporations are posting major gains and profits.
I have for a long time held the view that the stock market corporations, huge retirement funds and other huge investor class funds flourish on human misery. This is, in my view, so profoundly true that the average citizen can correctly conclude that when the stock market is flourishing, the average citizen is hurting and experiencing economic misery. In other words, reality in capitalist America is that when the stock market is up, average people’s lives are necessarily down, as the markets flourish on human misery. Misery of citizens is the fuel of the stock markets, and the markets are directly but inversely related to the people of the nation. That is to say that the stock market is related to our lives in a completely topsy-turvy way that when the stock market is up, we are suffering, and when the markets are down, the consumer gains and profits.
I don’t know how long it takes to make people see this, as it has been true for all of my own life [I am 65]. I suspect that it will be true forever, really, and that human misery has always been the fuel of American corporatist capitalism. For instance, during the Reagan years, my own recollection is that it was one of the most difficult eras that I can remember for our family and the average family in our country. It was in fact a time of huge transfer of public wealth [tax money, if you will] to private pockets that then had been in the world to that time. For some of us, Reagan was the worst president in our nation’s history, yet the conservatives taut him as nearly the Second Coming of Christ! In fact, the Constitution suffered some of its worst assaults during the Reagan disaster years, serving as a mere prelude to the all-out warfare against the poor of the two Bush administrations [don’t tell me you don’t remember the Savings and Loan debacle! http://la.indymedia.org/news/2004/01/99614.php ]. Reagan’s budgets and the deficit were the largest in the history of the nation, and Conservatism took on a new image as the party that reduces taxes and yet at the same time spends, spends, spends our nation into oblivion. In fact, this political tactic of the neo-Conservatives had a name; it is called “starve the beast.” http://www.wordspy.com/words/starvethebeast.asp It is still the unspoken tactic of the Republican party, and especially of the Bush administration and will likely be the policy of any Republican that takes office in 2009.
The Savings and Load government bail-out and rescue package made the Bush family mega-rich, and elevated the Bechtel Group and other multi-national corporations to the level of world powers, most all of which was due to Reagan’s all-out assault on regulatory agencies and a massive killing field against labor in the United States [don’t tell me you have forgotten Reagan’s breaking of the Air Traffic Controllers union by government fiat!] Later mine disasters would reveal that the Reagan-Bush assaults on regulation and control of dangerous corporations extend much further than the Air Traffic Controllers union.
There is something rotten about America’s version of capitalism. Whatever the American system is, it is NOT free market capitalism: it is a highly regulated system designed to severely regulate and control any input except for capital. Translated, this means that money controls the nation. When Jim Cramer comes on the TV and sheds crocodile tears for the poor corporations, we are in a world of hurt. Those same corporations are the ones that have moved trillions of dollars [that’s right, Martha: trillions] to off-shore shelters so that they do not have to pay taxes in our country. In another era, we would have held such organizations to be traitorous and summarily prosecuted for treason – and likely executed! But today, they are held out as heroes!
It was amusing – while at the same time frightening – to hear one of the presidential candidates talk about his tax plan [the so-called “fair” tax, which is not fair at all] as a plan that would bring back into our economy the $12 trillion [that’s right, Martha; $12 trillion] that had been squirreled away in off-shore tax shelters by mega-rich funds, individual, corporations, etc, so as to avoid paying taxes in our country, because, if you listen to them, the tax rate for corporations is way too high in the U.S., and those corporations are only doing the responsible thing. Duh.
The truth is that American corporations pay far less taxes than just about any nation’s corporations. The American corporate tax rate is 35%, but there is not a single corporation [at least intelligent ones] that pays that rate. Indeed, the richest corporations pay sometimes the lowest tax rates, as Warren Buffet has said, so that an absurdity arises. Warren Buffet commented that he made $46 million in a year [an off year for him, as I recall] but paid a lower rate of taxes than did his secretary in his office! http://sunspot.mercedsunstar.com/?q=node/3883
Here is a link for the reader to follow that will give the true percentages of taxes on top earning corporations in America, http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/corptax.html, Microsoft being one of the most profitable and most recognizable, a company that anyone who uses a computer can relate to: it makes hugely inferior products. It is the “China” of software products, funneling huge rivers of inferior products into a controlled and managed market designed especially for Microsoft and other mega-monopolies [What? Don’t tell me you forgot about laws against monopolies!]. The reader will immediately note from the website that for the year 1999-2000, Microsoft paid an effective tax rate of 1.8% [yes, Martha, that is right] on profits of nearly $22 billion! The reader can browse the other companies for some even more astounding facts. All of that information is put into proper relief by comparing with the average American family’s rate of around 17%. Plainly put, Microsoft Corporation paid 1.8%, you paid 17%. And Bush [and now McCain and every other Republican candidate] wants to cut corporate taxes again!
Given all this, would it not be at least logical, if not kind hearted, to wish for a stock market crash? I think so. When the stock markets are up, you are down, average citizen. Read it and weep.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
A Budget Surplus? Whaaaa?
How about a non-religious item?
We are in the middle of a primary election season in our country, and stuff is flying around like a wind storm. Some of those things relate to our state, Michigan. And some of that stuff is very smelly stuff indeed.
One such odorous claim is that Michigan is, according to one national GOP candidate, a "one-state recession." Mind you, we have our problems, what with unemployment being above 7 percent and prospects for new jobs being dismal [ask anyone who has been trying to find work here]. But there are also some very positive things going on here, too, such as state-level leadership in Lansing.
Lest the readers and hearers of these presidential candidates be fooled that Michigan is about to go under, let them read the recent article in the Michigan Daily, entitled "State has surprise $350 million surplus." I wonder how many other states can make this claim. And that comes on the heels of a dismal fiscal state of affairs here in Michigan where previous administrations [read "Engler" here] had incurred a $1.7 billion [That’s BILLIONS, friends] deficit.
Governor Grandholm has successfully grappled with the serious fiscal problems of this state in an exemplary manner, in my view. Yes, it has taken some courage and has required some very difficult decisions, but she has demonstrated the courage and fortitude to take on the special interests that had benefited from the profligate largess of the previous administration. The amazing thing is written in the article:
"The surplus is for the 2006-07 fiscal year, a period in which a deficit of more than $1 billion was filled by delaying payments to state universities and community colleges, dipping into funds set aside for job training and substance abuse treatment and selling off the state’s future tobacco settlement. Taxes were not raised to deal with the shortfall."
What? A Democrat, fixing the budget by fiscal prudence? Shades of Bill Clinton!
Indeed.
The article goes on:
"The surplus is not part of this year’s budget agreement, under which taxes were raised by $1.3 billion and spending was cut or restricted by more than $400 million to help wipe out a $1.75 billion state budget deficit and place the state on a sounder financial footing."
Indeed!
I admit that there are remaining serious economic issues in our state. But fiscal irresponsibility and profligate spending of the past administrations are not now among those problems. Yes, we need to begin the really hard work of developing jobs and restructuring the bases for the new Michigan economy, but we can be thankful that we have the sound fiscal policies of the Grandholm administration to lean upon to leverage our efforts to restore our state to its former economic condition and productivity.
What I fear most is that, God forbid, De Vos might become governor one day, and like his close friend George Bush, be inclined to wipe out any surplus by a gigantic giveaway to his corporate friends. The people of Michigan must resolve to prevent this almost certain eventuality if De Vos is ever elected as governor.
And, by the way, giving more money to Detroit auto makers is NOT the answer! What they need to do is to give us a quality car and we will buy them out of trouble. So far, it hasn’t happened.
We are in the middle of a primary election season in our country, and stuff is flying around like a wind storm. Some of those things relate to our state, Michigan. And some of that stuff is very smelly stuff indeed.
One such odorous claim is that Michigan is, according to one national GOP candidate, a "one-state recession." Mind you, we have our problems, what with unemployment being above 7 percent and prospects for new jobs being dismal [ask anyone who has been trying to find work here]. But there are also some very positive things going on here, too, such as state-level leadership in Lansing.
Lest the readers and hearers of these presidential candidates be fooled that Michigan is about to go under, let them read the recent article in the Michigan Daily, entitled "State has surprise $350 million surplus." I wonder how many other states can make this claim. And that comes on the heels of a dismal fiscal state of affairs here in Michigan where previous administrations [read "Engler" here] had incurred a $1.7 billion [That’s BILLIONS, friends] deficit.
Governor Grandholm has successfully grappled with the serious fiscal problems of this state in an exemplary manner, in my view. Yes, it has taken some courage and has required some very difficult decisions, but she has demonstrated the courage and fortitude to take on the special interests that had benefited from the profligate largess of the previous administration. The amazing thing is written in the article:
"The surplus is for the 2006-07 fiscal year, a period in which a deficit of more than $1 billion was filled by delaying payments to state universities and community colleges, dipping into funds set aside for job training and substance abuse treatment and selling off the state’s future tobacco settlement. Taxes were not raised to deal with the shortfall."
What? A Democrat, fixing the budget by fiscal prudence? Shades of Bill Clinton!
Indeed.
The article goes on:
"The surplus is not part of this year’s budget agreement, under which taxes were raised by $1.3 billion and spending was cut or restricted by more than $400 million to help wipe out a $1.75 billion state budget deficit and place the state on a sounder financial footing."
Indeed!
I admit that there are remaining serious economic issues in our state. But fiscal irresponsibility and profligate spending of the past administrations are not now among those problems. Yes, we need to begin the really hard work of developing jobs and restructuring the bases for the new Michigan economy, but we can be thankful that we have the sound fiscal policies of the Grandholm administration to lean upon to leverage our efforts to restore our state to its former economic condition and productivity.
What I fear most is that, God forbid, De Vos might become governor one day, and like his close friend George Bush, be inclined to wipe out any surplus by a gigantic giveaway to his corporate friends. The people of Michigan must resolve to prevent this almost certain eventuality if De Vos is ever elected as governor.
And, by the way, giving more money to Detroit auto makers is NOT the answer! What they need to do is to give us a quality car and we will buy them out of trouble. So far, it hasn’t happened.
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