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Too Big to Fail - Too Big to Exist -

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

senate.gov - By Senator Bernie Sanders - Nov. 06 (Statement) - Senator Bernie Sanders introduced legislation that would break up financial institutions that are too big to fail. "If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist," Sanders said. "We should break them up so they are no longer in a position to bring down the entire economy. We should end the concentration of ownership that has resulted in just four huge financial institutions holding half the mortgages in America, controlling two-thirds of the credit cards, and amassing 40 percent of all deposits."

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Why Keep Geithner?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

MSNBC - By Dylan Ratigan - Nov. 02 (News Analysis) - A year ago it was revealed to the American people that our banking system was a legalized Ponzi scheme in which bank and insurance CEOs paid themselves billions of dollars in personal compensation to lend and insure assets with money they didn't have

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Michael Specter’s new book ‘Denialism’ misses its targets

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By Tom Philpott - Oct. 31 (Review) - Like the great institutions of European Christianity, modern science has amassed tremendous power—and not always lived up to its founding creeds. Science needs a Gibbon—someone who appreciates its intellectual grandeur and potential, but who also can train a cold eye on the “inevitable mixture of error and corruption” that has accompanied its tenure since the Enlightenment. That Gibbon is not Michael Specter, a New Yorker staff writer and author of the new book Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives. His book purports to defend science from its philistine critics—people who, in Specter’s view, reflexively deny the validity of the scientific process. In his intro, Specter sets up the defining focus of the book. He contrasts the “rigorous and open-minded skepticism of science” with “the inflexible certainty of ideological commitment” (i.e., “denialism”). Already, we’re on thin intellectual ice; Specter evidently believes in a pure science, one that exists completely apart from ideology. In Gibbon’s phrasing, he’s defending a science as “she descended from Heaven [read: the Enlightenment], arrayed in her native purity.”

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Debates: Executive pay

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Oct. 28 (Other) - Debate statement: "This house believes that on the whole, senior executives are worth what they are paid."

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A Heroine of ’Capitalism’

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Lois Romano - Oct. 07 (Interview) - Elizabeth Warren is far from a household name, but that could change quickly, given her debut on the big screen this week in Michael Moore’s scathing assessment of the government’s handling of the banking crisis.

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The Cost of Corporate Communism

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Dylan Ratigan - Oct. 07 (Opinion) - The spike in unemployment, the destruction of retirement wealth, the collapse in the value of our homes, the worst recession since the Depression have all resulted directly from the abdication of proper government.

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Psycho Corporations Love Our Supreme Court

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

airamerica.com - By Mike Papantonio - Oct. 07 (Opinion) - when the conduct of that “corporate person” is so vile that they make decisions to kill people to increase profit, we hear the argument that it was a “corporate wide decision.” We hear that there was no single person to hold accountable. They tell us that many people were involved in the acts and we can’t throw their corporation in prison. The U.S. Supreme Court is now considering expanding the definition of “person” even farther for America’s corporations. The big winner will be the corporations that are the most corrupt.

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Where is the Defund Blackwater Act?

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Jeremy Scahill - Sep. 25 (Opinion) - Republican Congressional leaders are continuing their witch hunt against ACORN, the grassroots community group dedicated to helping poor and working-class people. Their campaign has gained bipartisan legislative support in the form of the Defund ACORN Act of 2009, which has now passed the House and Senate. Yet the bill was written so broadly that, as Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post has pointed out, it could "plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex."

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Barack Obama Must See Michael Moore's New Movie

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Arianna Huffington - Sep. 21 (Review) - Michael Moore has always had a remarkable feel for targeting the zeitgeist. He's done it again with his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, a withering indictment of the current economic order that brilliantly navigates a cinematic tightrope, alternating between heart-wrenching portraits of the suffering caused by the economic crisis and

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Bonus Battle

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Link TV - By Erin Coker - Sep. 19 (News Analysis) - The Fed stepped up today with the US version of a worldwide backlash on bonuses for bankers. Led by French President Nicholas Sarkozy, this is another example of the G20 nations' rising power. Sarkozy is dragging a reluctant US along on his crusade to curb banker's pay. It only works if the whole world does it - and that could never have happened in the past, even though majorities of Americans have steam coming out of their ears over the obscene bonuses.

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Coming Soon to a Democracy Near You ...

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Michael Winship - Sep. 05 (Opinion) - In the world of money and politics, "Hillary: The Movie" may turn out to be the sleeper hit of the year, a boffo blockbuster. Depending on the outcome of a special Supreme Court hearing on September 9, this little piece of propaganda could unleash a new torrent of cash flooding into campaigns from big business, unions and other special interests. "Hillary: The Movie" may turn out to be "Frankenstein: The Monster."

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The CEO Pay Debate: Why Reform Is Going Nowhere

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Chuck Collins, Sam Pizzigati - Sep. 04 (Opinion) - Shareholders have no reason to begrudge executives like these their fortunes. But the rest of us do. To grab those fortunes, after all, executives are making decisions that place our futures at risk. And that reality takes us right to the core of what's wrong with the current executive pay reform debate's single-minded focus on shareholders: Why should we let shareholders be the ultimate arbiters on the size of executive rewards when these rewards can and do create incentives for CEO behaviors that hurt people who aren't shareholders? In effect, all of us have become stakeholders in executive pay decisions - and we need, consequently, a stakeholder, not just a shareholder, approach to reform.

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Flushing Blackwater

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Jeremy Scahill - Aug. 26 (Investigative Report) - Blackwater, the private mercenary company owned by Erik Prince, has been thrust back into the spotlight by a series of stunning revelations about its role in covert US programs. Since at least 2002, Blackwater has worked for the CIA in Afghanistan and Pakistan on "black" contracts. On August 19, the New York Times revealed that the company was, in fact, a central part of a secret CIA assassination program that Dick Cheney allegedly ordered concealed from Congress. The paper then reported that Blackwater remains a key player in the widening air war in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where it arms drone aircraft. These disclosures follow allegations--made under oath by former Blackwater employees--that Prince murdered or facilitated the murder of potential government informants and that he "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe."

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During Crisis, Paulson’s Calls to Goldman Posed Ethics Test

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Gretchen Morgenson, Don Van Natta Jr. - Aug. 09 (News Analysis) - Months after Henry M. Paulson Jr. left office, questions linger about the former Treasury secretary’s interactions with Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis.Before he became President George W. Bush’s Treasury secretary in 2006, Henry M. Paulson Jr. agreed to hold himself to a higher ethical standard than his predecessors. He not only sold all his holdings in Goldman Sachs, the investment bank he had run, but also specifically said that he would avoid any substantive interaction with Goldman executives for his entire term unless he first obtained an ethics waiver from the government.

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CEOs paid more even as profits fall

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Baltimore Sun - By Jamie Smith Hopkins - Aug. 09 (Special Report) - Chief executives of public companies have long had a ready answer when criticized about high pay: It's all about company performance. That argument has been put to the test by the toughest financial environment since the Great Depression. If performance is the standard, many of the Baltimore area's top-earning executives seem to be on shaky ground. To see how last year's financial crisis and worsening recession affected pay, The Baltimore Sun analyzed the 20 companies in the metro area that paid their CEOs at least $1 million. Seventeen reported increases in their chief executives' compensation, even though just as many firms ended their fiscal year with lower-priced stock - substantially lower, for the most part.

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Single-Payer & Interlocking Directorates

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

FAIR - By Kate Murphy - Aug. 06 (Investigative Report) - A single-payer plan would allow the delivery of healthcare to remain private, but the government would pay for it out of a single federal health insurance fund. Like Medicare or Canada’s healthcare program, it would cut out the middleman by bypassing private health insurance companies. But such companies are well-represented on the boards of directors of media conglomerates—a factor that may help explain the blackout of such a popular possibility for reform.

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Give BB&T Liberty, but Not a Bailout

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Andrew Martin - Aug. 02 (Interview) - If Mr. Allison’s speech sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because it’s based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who celebrated the virtues of reason, self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism while maintaining that altruism is a destructive force. In Ms. Rand’s world, nothing is more heroic — and sexy — than a hard-working businessman free to pursue his wealth. And nothing is worse than a pesky bureaucrat trying to restrict business and redistribute wealth. Or, as Mr. Allison explained, “put balls and chains on good people, and bad things happen.”

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$100 Million Payday Poses Problem for Pay Czar

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By David Segal - Aug. 02 (News Report) - In a few weeks, the Treasury Department’s czar of executive pay will have to answer this $100 million question: Should Andrew J. Hall get his bonus? Mr. Hall, the 58-year-old head of Phibro, a small commodities trading firm in Westport, Conn., is due for a nine-figure payday, his cut of profits from a characteristically aggressive year of bets in the oil market. There is little doubt that Mr. Hall is owed the money under his contract. The problem is that his contract is with Citigroup, which was saved with roughly $45 billion in taxpayer aid.

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Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By David Pogure - Jul. 17 (News Report) - This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned. But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people’s Kindles and credited their accounts for the price. This is ugly for all kinds of reasons. Amazon says that this sort of thing is “rare,” but that it can happen at all is unsettling; we’ve been taught to believe that e-books are, you know, just like books, only better. Already, we’ve learned that they’re not really like books, in that once we’re finished reading them, we can’t resell or even donate them. But now we learn that all sales may not even be final. As one of my readers noted, it’s like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we’ve been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table. You want to know the best part? The juicy, plump, dripping irony? The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were “1984” and “Animal Farm.

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Why Silk Soy Milk's Parent Company Is Throwing American Farmers and Consumers Under the Bus | Environment | AlterNet

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Ari LeVaux - Jul. 15 (News Analysis) - Even as demand for organic food continues to explode, organic farmers in America are getting thrown under the beet cart they helped build. The Chinese are taking over market share, especially of vegetables and agricultural commodities like soy, thanks to several American-based multinational food corporations that have hijacked the organic bandwagon they only recently jumped onto.

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The Stumbles That Led to an Ethics Blunder

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Andrew Alexander - Jul. 12 (Opinion) - The Washington Post's ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record "salons" was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions. Publisher Katharine Weymouth and Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli have now taken full responsibility for what was envisioned as a series of 11 intimate dinners to discuss public policy issues. For a fee of up to $25,000, underwriters were guaranteed a seat at the table with lawmakers, administration officials, think tank experts, business leaders and the heads of associations. Promotional materials said Weymouth, Brauchli and at least one Post reporter would serve as "Hosts and Discussion Leaders" for an evening of spirited but civil dialogue. While Brauchli and Weymouth say they should have realized long ago that the plan was flawed, internal e-mails and interviews show questions about ethics were raised with both of them months ago. They also show that blame runs deeper. Beneath Brauchli and Weymouth, three of the most senior newsroom managers received an e-mail with details of the plan.

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Bankruptcy Judge Approves GM Sale

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Tomoeh Murakami - Jul. 06 (News Report) - General Motors won permission late Sunday night from a federal bankruptcy judge to sell its assets to a new government-backed company, setting the stage for the largest U.S. carmaker to complete a historic restructuring plan that is at the heart of the Obama administration's efforts to overhaul the ailing auto industry.

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Strange Martial Law via Food Control: HR 2749 « Food Freedom

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

foodfreedom.wordpress.com - By The Writers’ Collective - Jun. 23 (Advocacy) - We wanted good food. We never wanted to trap our farmers into an industrial prison on their own land, afraid moment to moment of not fulfilling some monstrous set of instructions that never end – rules the farmers loathe, rules that have not only nothing to do with real farming but which are antithetical to it. Why have we ended up with HR 2749, an intense corporate nightmare

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Historic Overhaul of Finance Rules

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Damian Paletta - Jun. 18 (News Report) - President Barack Obama urged policy makers to rewrite the rules governing U.S. finance, unveiling far-reaching proposals that would affect nearly every aspect of banking and markets. The White House hopes Congress can complete work on the plan by year's end. But it is sure to face opposition both from some on the right who say it threatens to throttle free markets and others on the left who say it doesn't go far enough. Some in Congress are cautioning against haste.

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Back When Food Was Really Local

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

onthecommons.org - By David Bollier - Jun. 15 (Review) - Americans have gotten so accustomed to getting food from supermarkets, which are supplied by huge corporations with heavily advertised, brand-name foods, that it is sometimes hard to imagine a world of rich, homegrown variety. If you went to Nebraska, you once got Nebraska baked beans. If you went to Georgia, you might get possum and taters. Alabama kitchens would serve up oyster roasts, Rhode Island would serve Jonny Cakes and Montanas considered fried beaver tail a delicacy. One measure of what our nation has lost – in terms of culinary variety and authenticity – can be found in a new book, The Food of a Younger Land (Riverhead Books), edited by Mark Kurlansky. Its subtitle says it all: “A portrait of American food – before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation’s food was seasonal, regional and traditional – from the lost WPA files.”

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