David Horsey Nails It

So much for the idea of trickle down economics and tax cuts lead to job creation.

Exactly. I was looking at a TED conference about inequality and the U.S. is the most unequal economically of all of the democratic market nations. As the speaker said, "If you are looking for the American Dream, go to Denmark."

So much for the civil contract and the idea of contributing for the benefit of the whole.

I know this guy and the horse he rode in on.

I'm working on it. A little late, but I'm working on it.

David Horsey has been gracing us with his political commentary in the form of cartoons for a very long time and (http://blog.seattlepi.com/davidhorsey) and I always feel like he's expressing what I've been thinking. If I were talented in this way, I can't imagine a better occupation. In any case, I just finished looking over months of cartoons and though I loved them all I chose a few to reproduce here along with my comments.

Worst mess in history?

As good as I think Obama is, he inherited the biggest mess in our history. I've been doing some reading lately to figure out just how bad our economic woes are and trying to employ some strategy that might help in these the worst of times. If you want to retain your optimism that America and possibly the entire Western world won't crash into the brink, don't read the April 2 issue of Rolling Stone, The Big Takeover, by Matt Taibbi in which he explains so well what really happened to our economy and who precisely is responsible. What is scarey is that this wasn't so much a perfect storm of innocent decisions and unforeseeable disasters that percipitated the present crisis, but a systematic takeover of our economy by Wall Street insiders with the full acquiesence of our so-called government regulators (many whom are themselves from the Street).

To quote a few pithy paragraphs from Taibbi's informative article that really lays it all out:

It's over -- we're officially, royally fucked. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step to far.

It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline -- a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British empire.

He goes on to explain that AIG lost $27 million dollars every hour or $465,000 a minute, or $7,750 a second. And that's only AIG.

And all this happened at the end of eight straight years that America devoted to frantically chasing the shadow of a terrorist threat to no avail, eight years spent stopping every citizen at every airport to search every purse, bag, crotch and briefcase for juice boxes and explosive tubes of toothpaste. Yet in the end, our government had no mechanism for searching the balance sheets of companies that held life-or-death power over our society and was unable to spot holes in the national economy the size of Libya (whose entire GDP last year was smaller than AIG's 2008 losses).

So it's time to admit it: We're fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidy. And the worst part about it is that we're still in denial--we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American dream.

Turns out the man most responsible for hitching everyone's star to AIG -- the Patient Zero of the global economic meltdown--was Joseph Cassano who used the instruments of our destruction, most especially credit-default swaps (CDS)in a massive gambling scheme that bet other people's money to return massive amounts of money to his own bank account and who has walked away from the mess with $280 million in earnings and is now holed away in his lavish penthouse in London.

As Taibbi at the conclusion of his article writes,

The most galling thing about this financial crisis is that so many Wall Street types think they actually deserve not only their huge bonuses and lavish lifestyles but the awesome political power their own mistakes have left them in possession of. When challenged they talk about how hard they work...
No one ever asked you to stay up all night eight days a week trying to get filthy rich shorting what's left of the American auto industry or selling $600 billion in toxic, irredeemable mortgages to ex-strippers on work release and Taco Bell clerks. Actually, come to think of it, why are we even giving taxpayer money to you people? Why are we not throwing your ass in jail instead?

If you are still interested in reading more about the present mess and a few of the people behind it and other Ponzi schemes for even more sleepless nights, I would recommend picking up the latest edition of Vanity Fair (April 2009) too and read several more articles on the subject of greed, stupidity and our failed system:

Over the Hedge, by Bethan McLean
Gating has given rise to the worst fears--that hedge funds are a roach hotel.

Greenwich Mean Time, by Vicky Ward

Madoff's World, by Mark Seal

Rethinking the American Dream, by David Kamp

Hail to the Chief

This is the time. This is the person. President Obama.

After a grueling campaign and a spate of nerves today, I was happy for an early, landslide victory for Obama.

Hope.

'Nuff said

BARacK for OBAMA

Jaeger, who lives in our condo complex along with his very wise human family members -- Grace and Cliff -- wears his allegiance proudly. Jaeger, we're with you -- barking all the way to the voting booth.

The race, the case, a hope for grace.

Conservative columnist and author, Peggy Noonan wrote of her support for Barack Obama in today's WSJ, Opinion (November 1-2, 2008) for president. This is some of what she said:

The case for Barack Obama, in broad strokes: He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief.

We witnessed from him this year something unique in American politics: He took down a political machine without raising his voice. A great moment: When the press was hitting hard on the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter, he did not respond wit ha politically shrewd "I have no comment," or "We shouldn't judge." Instead he said, "My mother had me when she was 18," which shamed the press and others into silence. He showed grace when he didn't have to.

She goes on to set the scene of a colleague whose 10-year-old duaghter walked in the room to see "Obama Wins" and "Alabama" on the TV screen. The girl said, "Daddy, we saw a documentary on Martin Luther King Day in school. That's where they used the hoses." The year was 1963, the hoses used against civil rights demonstrators. Says Noonan,

This means nothing? This means a great deal.

I might have to read her new book about grace in American politics.

'Nuff said.

This truly is a frightening Halloween

Despite my effort to ignore the economy, every day brings new, outrageous information about how capitalism has been hijacked to benefit the few at the expense of the many. In today's WSJ (Banks Owe Billions to Executives, Ellen E. Schultz, October 31, 2008), Schultz says:

"...overlooked in these efforts [to reign in executive bonuses and pay for banks that have received taxpayer handouts in the billions] is the total size of debts that financial firms receiving taxpayer assistance previously incurred to their executives, which at some firms exceed what they owe in pensions to their entire work force."

The practice of deferred pay to executives is good for executives, "who delay taxes and see their deferred-pay accounts grow, sometimes aided by matching contributions."

When did not paying taxes while receiving money from other tax payers become patriotic?

She goes on,
"Obligations for executive pay are large for a number of reasons. Even as companies have complained about the cost of retiree benefits, they have been awarding larger pay and pensions to executives. At Goldman, for example, the $11.8 billion obligation primarily for deferred executive compensation dwarfed the liability for its broad-based pension plan for all employees. That was just $399 million, and fully funded with set-aside assets."

'Nuff said.

McCain to continue Bush's "kleptocracy"?

Syndicated columnist David Sirota's column today (Here's hoping "White House Cribs" never makes onto the air", Seattle Times, October 27, 2008), talks about the redistribution of wealth during Bush's tenure saying that

"President Bush gave to those making more than $342,000 a year began dramatically shifting the overall tax burden from the rich onto the rest of us. Meanwhile, because of lobbyist-crafted loopholes, most corporations pay zero federal income taxes.." The result -- "When counting all taxes (income, payroll, property, etc.), billionaires and Big Businesses often pay lower effective tax rates than their employees." He goes on to say, "In the age of Halliburton fraud and ExxonMobile subsidies, our government spends $93 billion a year on corporate welfare. (For comparison, that's roughly three times what it spends on a traditional welfare program like food stamps.)"

For the entire article go to http://action.credomobile.com/commentary/index.xml

Palin's not qualified say Alaskan women

Friend Kathy sent me this link. It is an interview with two Alaskan women on Sarah Palin. It's honest and enlightening.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/alaskans-get-it.html

That was then, this is now.

Since 2005, when this editorial appeared, I have pinned it up in my office. Never has it been more relevant than right now. Especially when you consider John McCain's nine houses (so many he doesn't even know how many he has he says and please, let's not even get into the thirteen cars he has, so many he doesn't know that three are foreign having claimed he only buys American), but the fact that Dick Fuld, head of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. got $35 million in stock in 2007, only part of the $484 million he's collected since 2000, testified to the House Oversight Committee that the financial meltdown hurts him as much as it hurts us.

"Oh really? Is he offering to give severance to the Lehman secretaries left jobless? Is he going to let any of them who can't make their mortgage payments stay with him in at his mansion in Greenwich, Conn., his oceanfront estate in Florida, his ski chalet in Idaho, or his Manhattan apartment? says Margaret Carlson, syndicated columnist in today's Seattle Times editorial section (McCain as Captain Queeg; Obama as Presidential, October 12, 2008).

As she writes,

"...there's an awakening to what the non-elites did for the elites in the name of getting government off our backs. They created more elites, at least by income. There's a huge pay gap. Foreclosures are running at a record pace. Retirement savings have lost $2 trillion in value, while those who got us into this mess are still dining at Le Cirque and weekending in the Hamptons."

'Nuff said.

SNL VP Skit

Exporting not democracy but financial chaos

Ironically, as this administration and the GOP candidates espouse the imperialist policy of exporting democracy around the world, they have been killing it here and at the same time destabilizing economies of our allies.

In today's Seattle Times, syndicated columnist David Sirota(Capitalism trumps democracy, The Seattle Times, Monday, October 6, 2008) says,

As a financial crisis became a political panic, capitalism murdered democracy (ironically, while pursuing a vaguely socialist bailout.)
...
The fiasco started, like most, with unreasonable demands. Under threat of financial meltdown, capitalism's corporate lobbyists asked our democracy to forsake its usual deliberations and hand over $700 billion of taxpayer money in less than a week.
...
CNN's Ali Velshi frothed that "the banks and the companies don't care about the intricacies" of democratic deliberations. A CEO angrily told CNN that "the money is being held hostage to the political process" as if government resources are rightfully Wall Street's>
...
Instead of responding to this meltdown by updating regulatory institutions or investing in job-creating infrastructure, the bailout gives one unelected appointee -- The Treasury secretary -- complete authority to dole out $700 billion to bank executives, with little oversight. And here's the scary part: That lurch towards dictatorship was motivated not just by crony corruption, but also by a deeper ideological shift.

On another note, this today on Lehman Brothers -

The rescue plan, now law, was so rushed that the usual congressional scrutiny is only coming now, after the fact.

"Although it comes too late to help Lehman Brothers, the so-called bailout program will have to make wrenching choices, picking winners and losers from a shattered and fragile economic landscape," said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, the committee's senior Republican.

Waxman said that in January, Fuld and his board were warned the company's "liquidity can disappear quite fast."

Despite that warning, he said, "Mr. Fuld depleted Lehman's capital reserves by over $10 billion through year-end bonuses, stock buybacks, and dividend payments."

Waxman quoted Fuld as saying in one document, "Don't worry" to the suggestion that executives go without bonuses.

That suggestion came from Lehman's money management subsidiary, Neuberger Berman. Waxman quoted George H. Walker, President Bush's cousin and a Lehman executive who oversaw some Neuberger Berman employees, as responding with a dismissive tone to the idea of going without bonuses.

Figures that a Bush cousin, an executive at Lehman's, brushed aside the idea of executives going without their bonuses. As one legislator said to Fuld (CEO, Lehman) "How do you sleep at night?" My thought, very well in one of his mansions, drinking his rare wine from his wine cellar, tucked in by one of his servants, basking in the glow of the almost $400 million in bonuses he collected from the company since 2000 for the mere pleasure of his presence in the corner office. Copy and paste link below for the full AP story.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081006/ap_on_go_co/meltdown_lehman

'Nuff

Wall Street Heal Thyself

According to Robert M. Morgenthau, district attorney for Manhattan, N.Y., in today's WSJ (Too Much Money Is Beyond Legal Reach, September 30, 2008, Opinion, WSJ) trillions (that is, $3.4 trillion to be exact) sits in secrecy jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands. It seems that the financial industry could help itself out if it was just willing to fund its failures with its financial successes. Here is what Morgenthau says,
A major factor in the current financial crisis is the lack of transparency in the activities of the principal players in the financial markets. This opaqueness is compounded by vast sums of money that lie outside the jurisdiction of U.S. regulators and other supervisory authorities.
The $700 billion in Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's current proposed rescue plan pales in comparison to the volume of dollars that now escape the watchful eye, not only of U.S. regulators, but from the media and the general public as well.
...
If Congress and Treasury fail to bring under U.S. supervisory authority the financial institutions and transactions in secrecy jurisdictions, there will be no transparency with the inevitable consequences of the lack of transparency--namely, a repeat of the unbridled greed and recklessness that we now face.

To have Wall Street now point a finger of blame for the 700 pt drop in the market proceeding the failure of the bailout in Congress is both incomprehensible and infantile. Though it certainly hurts us all, it should serve as a lesson in greed for Wall Street, don't you think??

Jerry Large in his Monday, September 29, 2008 column in the Seattle Times quotes David Korten, Bainbridge Island author and lecturer (When Corporations Rule the World), "It is an illusion that if you are making money you are creating wealth. Real wealth is created by investing in the human capital of productive people, the social capital of caring relationships and the natural capital of healthy ecosystems." According to Large, What he rails about is not the bank on the corner, but the guy in a penthouse in New York buying and selling paper. His criticisms are shared by far more people now. Hardly anyone with a functioning brain still thinks the current system is fundamentally sound.
Large goes on to paraphrase Koren, Main Street is where people produce, distribute and consume real goods and services. It's where real wealth is created and where business activity, at its best, is rooted in community. But today, where Wall Street and Main Street interact, Wall Street is a predator...It buys businesses to break them up and consume their assets, and it turns home loans into fodder for speculators.
Finally, he concludes that we must be "willing to retool our institutions and our culture to produce a healthy economic system that works for all of us" if we want to learn a lesson from the current mess.

'Nuff said.

Obama on bailing out the rich

What were all of those wealthy citizens doing with their tax breaks? And now they need a bailout from you and me? Jeez. Things have certainly gotten weirder and weirder in this administration's eight-year run. I'm a contributor to Obama's presidential campaign. As such, I get frequent emails from the campaign office. Below is today's correspondence to supporters as he weighs in on the present crisis.

Denise --

The era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has created a financial crisis as profound as any we have faced since the Great Depression.

Congress and the President are debating a bailout of our financial institutions with a price tag of $700 billion or more in taxpayer dollars. We cannot underestimate our responsibility in taking such an enormous step.

Whatever shape our recovery plan takes, it must be guided by core principles of fairness, balance, and responsibility to one another.

Please sign on to show your support for an economic recovery plan based on the following:

• No Golden Parachutes -- Taxpayer dollars should not be used to reward the irresponsible Wall Street executives who helmed this disaster.

• Main Street, Not Just Wall Street -- Any bailout plan must include a payback strategy for taxpayers who are footing the bill and aid to innocent homeowners who are facing foreclosure.

• Bipartisan Oversight -- The staggering amount of taxpayer money involved demands a bipartisan board to ensure accountability and oversight.

Show your support and encourage your friends and family to join you:

http://my.barackobama.com/ourplan

The failed economic policies and the same corrupt culture that led us into this mess will not help get us out of it. We need to get to work immediately on reforming the broken government -- and the broken politics -- that allowed this crisis to happen in the first place.

And we have to understand that a recovery package is just the beginning. We have a plan that will guarantee our long-term prosperity -- including tax cuts for 95 percent of families, an economic stimulus package that creates millions of new jobs and leads us towards energy independence, and health care that is affordable to every American.

It won't be easy. The kind of change we're looking for never is.

But if we work together and stand by these principles, we can get through this crisis and emerge a stronger nation.

Thank you,

Barack



I have one question for the administration -- how much stock will I personally own in these companies once my taxes have bailed them out?

'Nuff said.

Power vs. Leadership

Not so long ago I read that the fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats is that the Republicans, like the rich corporations and wealthy that support them, are seeking power not leadership. If you run government like a business (which Republicans always tout) then you run it aggressively (swim with the sharks), ruthlessly, with winning the only goal, at great risk for the majority and the most benefit for the few. As for Democrats, (and I know I'm generalizing here) the party of diversity which includes all of the rest of the population, governing is about leadership. That McCain would laugh -- laugh! -- at Obama for his public service tells a lot about the differences between the parties. That the Republicans would choose a supremely unqualified candidate as VP is the height of cynicism. As syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. wrote in today's Seattle Times wrote about Palin,
Does she [Sarah Palin] actually think living across the Bering Strait from Russia constitutes foreign policy expertise? Does she really take the parable of Adam and Eve as literal truth?
He goes on to say that his first question to Palin would be about the books she wants to ban (apparently, the list I earlier blogged about Pitts says is a fake, but she did fire the town's librarian because she wouldn't agree to remove controversial books from the shelves). Pitts concludes his editorial with this:
We are becoming the stupid giant of planet Earth: richer than Midas, mightier than Thor, dumber than rocks. Which makes us a danger to the planet--and to ourselves. This country cannot continue to prosper and to embrace stupidity. The two are fundamentally incompatible. So do us all a favor: Annoy Sarah Palin. For goodness' sake read.

'Nuff said.

Is Palin For Real?

Another day, another email about comments and actions by the Republican's selection for VP, Sarah Palin. It's really scary to think this woman could be a heart-beat away from being president. REALLY SCARY.

Here is a list of books that Sarah Palin tried to have banned from the Wasilla Public Library, according to the official minutes of the Library Board. When she was unsuccessful at having these books banned, as reported in several newspapers, she tried to have the librarian fired. She now claims that she was only asking a rhetorical question about book banning.

The librarian was indeed fired shortly afterwards, along with 6 other department heads who had suggested alternatives to Palin's city policy ideas.

Note from editor -- the list was long and maybe incorrect so it was deleted.

And this --
Courtesy of R. Matter
Subject: Fw: Gov Palin Quotes Posted on MSNBC

This is unreal. Below are some actual quotes by Governor Palin during a series of interviews by the Anchorage Daily News in 2006 when she was running for Governor...

On Creationism:
The simple yet elegantly awkward moose proves God's creation and not evolution is the source of all life. How could something as oddly shaped and silly looking as a moose evolve through so-calle "natural selection?" Is evolution a committee? There is nothing natural about a dorky moose! Only God could have made a moose and given it huge antlers to fight off his predatory enemies. God has a well known sense of humor, I mean He made the platypus too.

On oil exploration and drilling in the ANWR:
God made dinosaurs 4,000 years ago as ultimately flawed creatures, lizards of Satan really, so when they died and became petroleum products we, made in his perfect image, could use them in our pickup trucks, snow machines and fishing boats.

Now, as to the ANWR, Todd and I often enjoying caribou hunting and one year we shot up a herd big time, I mean I personally slaughtered around 40 of them with my new, at the time, custom Austrian hunting rifle. And guess what? That caribou herd is still around and even bigger than ever. Caribou herds actually need culling, be it by rifles or wolves, or Exxon-Mobil oil rigs, they do just great!

On Alaskans serving overseas in Iraq:
Well, God bless them, and I mean God and Jesus because without Jesus we'd be Muslims too or Jewish, which would be a little better because of the superior Israeli Air Force.

Putting Palin in Perspective

The following is from an email sent by a fellow book club member (love my book club!) from an op-ed by Gloria Steinem.

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message


Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
By Gloria Steinem September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the 'white-male-only' sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.


Join the reader discussion on Gloria Steinem's Op-Ed article

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, 'Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs.'

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience. Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, 'I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?' When asked about Iraq, she said, 'I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq.'

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax.

Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on 'God, guns and gays' ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency. So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom.

If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act. Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves 'abstinence-only' programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family.

Of course, for Dobson, 'women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership,' so he may be voting for Palin's husband. Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest. Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women. And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it.Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children. This could be huge.

Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.

Dissing On Big Oil And Other Topics

I'm getting a lot of emails from organizations protesting oil companies big profits and grab for more land to drill. The following from the Sierra Club.

August 19, 2008: In This Edition of the Insider Stand Up to Big Oil!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Drill of It All
Did you know that oil companies are already sitting on 68 million acres of leases that they aren't even drilling? Which kind of makes you wonder: Why are Big Oil and its allies suddenly desperate to get their hands on the last few places that are still protected -- our natural treasures, wildlife refuges, and pristine coastlines? They wouldn't use the concerns caused by high gas prices as an excuse to grab it ALL, would they?

Check out our map showing how much of our country Big Oil has already got and spread the word by forwarding it to friends who agree: Enough is enough.

So far, one woman has stood up to Big Oil. Let's thank Speaker Pelosi for keeping a cool head and holding out for real solutions.

Moveon.org sent one on ExxonMobil's big $13.5 tax break:

Right now, even as they make the biggest profits in American history, oil companies like ExxonMobil are getting $13.5 billion in tax breaks.
But in September, all that could change. Democratic leaders in Congress are bringing a bill to the floor that would strip these tax giveaways. Which means that solar and wind power would have more of a fair chance against big oil on the free market.
Of course, some Republicans are trying to block this from happening--oil and gas companies overwhelmingly support Republic candidates. So we need to make a lot of noise if we want Congress to listen.

They go on to urge voters to make their voice heard with by signing a petition that calls for "No more tax breaks for big oil companies. Invest this money in clean energy sources like solar and wind instead."

And it's not just Big Oil getting big tax breaks. Fuse recently sent an email: Close corporate buyouts tax loophole

It's so beyond the pale that it almost sounds like an internet hoax, but unfortunately its true. The "Buyout Billionaires" tax loophole allows wealthy buyout CEOs to pay a lower tax rate than regular folks like teachers, nurses and firefighters.

Using loopholes in the tax code, the titans of the buyout industry manage to amass incredible personal fortunes while their companies pay a lower tax rate than working class citizens. We believe these kinds of abuses undermine the basic notion of fairness that our tax system should be based on, as well as our country's economic health.


I couldn't agree more.

Finally this from a recent issue of Parade Magazine, The World's Richest Nation?

Despite what the Presidential candidates are saying, America is not the world's richest nation. If you run the numbers, Switzerland has a higher median household income ($62,000, compared on our $48,000). And, at $44,000, our per capita GDP (the amount of national income generated per citizen) has fallen to third: The tiny nation of Luxenborg leads the way, with $78,000; Norway is second, with $52,000. Last year, the number of millionaires in China, Russia, and India grew aster than in the U.S.

Income inequality also is greater in the U.S. than in other developed nations, and some economist believe that makes us more vulnerable to hitting the skids than the rest of the world. "Low-wealth children are unlikely to become high-wealth adults, while high-wealth children are very likely to become high-wealth adults," says Dalton Conley of the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank. That should sound alarms for policymakers."

One more article in the Seattle Times: Economy punches hole into American Dream, Standard of living hasn't risen in 5 years for majority polled, worry over kids' future.

Work hard, play by the rules and tomorrow will be better than today. That implicit promise has been at the core of American experience through good times and bad.

But now, whipsawed by plummeting home values, $4-a-gallon gas, rising food prices and gyrating financial markets, Americans increasingly fear that the national bargain has unraveled, that their once-steady march toward affluence has derailed.

And news that confirms everyone's suspicion that the few (corporate executives) are robbing their corporations, their workers, and the rest of American citizens, this from the Seattle Times Business section:

CEO Pay/ The Northwest's five top-paid CEOs last year received compensation worth a combined $93 million; however, the median bonus was down 16 percent, a reflection of the economic slowdown.

It occurs to me that while these CEOs are making obscene amounts of money in flagrant disregard to the well being of their employees, but also to the health of the economy, at the same time they are shipping jobs overseas in the interest of cost cutting and making other countrymen very wealthy. Where is the outrage, I ask, and so does a Wall Street Journal article: Why No Outrage. Through history, outrageous financial behavior has been met with outrage. But today Wall Street's damaging recklessness has been met with near-silence, from a too-tolerant populace argues James Grant. (WSJ, Weekend Journal, July 19-20, 2008)

'Nuff said.

Corporate welfare under attack

Once again I was struck by an article in the Wall Street Journal, Companies Take Big Hits on Relocation as Executives' Homes Languish on Market. Qwest loses $1.8 million on CEO's house; angry shareholders are seeking recourse. (May 14, 2008, by Joann S. Lublin) The article talks about corporate policy that allows executives to dump their expensive homes on their companies when they relocate which then must sell them, often at a substantial loss. About 68-percent of 203 surveyed companies reimburse some or all of a staff member's loss on a home sale, according to data cited in the article. One CEO stuck his company with two homes for sale and "is getting housing allowances from the company" for both. We aren't talking $500K homes, but $8, 9, 10 million dollar homes.

But the a quote is what struck me most -- "The perquisite is 'a dramatic example of corporate welfare for the top brass.'"

Nuff said.

And while we are on the topic

Since I last blogged (just before heading to the Grand Canyon and points beyond) I wrote about CEO and executive compensation even when their failures are immense. Apparently, the subject is hot right now as this ABC prime news report reflects -- (copy and paste link) -- http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=7634126. According to the report, top executives are able to drive a company into the ground and still be insanely compensated because "the game is rigged." Analysts say that until the public shows their collective outrage, CEOs, with the blessing and collusion of their boards, will continue to rake in the dough.

All of this attention comes on top of Forbes release of the worst performing CEOs and their respective high compensation for failure.

Dissing

I just returned from a trip to Washington, D.C. And as I was toting around little S.G. who just turned 7-months and so could not really converse with me (though she babbled a lot, some times very loudly) on the issue of government by corporations for corporate interests (or government by the rich for the rich), the current state of our economy, and things of that nature. But I gave a lot of thought to it all and especially the last eight years of economic and political decline. So when I came across Paul Krugman's editorial in the Seattle Times today on the subject -- Americans smell the rot in the nation's economy -- I read it with much interest. Here are a few of the things he wrote that really resonated.

"... a recent Pew report found that the percentage of Americans saying that they're better off than they were five years ago is at its lowest level in 44 years of polling."

Why?

"A major reason we're feeling so down is that for working Americans the boom never did come back. Job creation in the post-2001 recovery was pathetic by Clinton-era standards; wages barely kept up with inflation. Instead, corporate profits and the incomes of a tiny elite surged -- sucking up so much of the economy's growth that only crumbs were left for everyone else." AND "... my impression is that the subprime crisis -- with its revelation that titans of finance were dealing in funny money and its tales of failed executives receiving hundred-million-dollar going-away presents -- has resurrected the sense that something is rotten in the state of our economy."

I honestly laughed out loud when I read today's Wall Street Journal discussing how angry investors took umbrage with WaMu's executives' moves to protect their bonuses by making sure they weren't tied to losses even though the company lost something like $1.6 billion dollars in the subprime debacle last year, and at the same time are laying off thousands of employees. What the heh?

Bruce Ramsey, in Seattle Times said in his editorial today that when an employee and shareholder challenged the WaMu executives to give up their multimillion-dollar bonuses a "wave of cheers and applause swept the hall" at their recent shareholder's meeting.

And how about subprime central, Countrywide's CEO trying to justify his, what is it, almost half a billion dollar salary and bonus in Congressional hearings? How can he justify such greed?

Coincidentally, I just received an email from Fuse, www.fusewashington.org, on a recent Boston Globe article:

"Here's some tax day news that really made me mad: the biggest private contractor in Iraq isn't paying payroll taxes. Kellogg Brown Root, a spinoff of Halliburton and by far the largest private contractor in Iraq, set up two offshore companies in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying payroll taxes. The companies essentially consist of a computer file -- they don't even have an office or phone number. That's right. A company making $16 billion a year off of U.S. government contracts hires its employees through a sham "foreign" subsidiary, costing Social Security and Medicare more than $100 million a year."

Talk about tax breaks for the rich!

Hopefully, but not likely, a new administration will bring about sweeping changes. What is the saying -- power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely?

At least people are starting to pay attention. I guess that's a start.