Tag: corporations

FRONTLINE INVESTIGATES THE ROOTS OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

FRONTLINE Presents

The Warning

Tuesday, October 20, 2009, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS

In the devastating aftermath of the economic meltdown, FRONTLINE sifts through the ashes for clues about why it happened and examines critical moments when it might have gone much differently.

In The Warning, airing Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk (Inside the Meltdown, Breaking the Bank) unearths the hidden history of the nation’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. At the center of it all he finds Brooksley Born, who speaks for the first time on television about her failed campaign to regulate the secretive, multi-trillion-dollar derivatives market whose crash helped trigger the financial collapse in the fall of 2008.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/…

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities economists just confirmed the trends of the last 8 years — Most of the the Economic Gains went to the very Wealthy, while the rest of us struggled to just get by

TOP 1 PERCENT OF AMERICANS REAPED 2/3 OF INCOME GAINS In last Economic Expansion,

Income Concentration in 2007 Was at Highest Level Since 1928, New Analysis Shows

By Avi Feller and Chad Stone – September 9, 2009

Two-thirds of the nation’s total income gains from 2002 to 2007 flowed to the top 1 percent of U.S. households, and that top 1 percent held a larger share of income in 2007 than at any time since 1928, according to an analysis of newly released IRS data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez.

During those years, the Piketty-Saez data also show, the inflation adjusted income of the top 1 percent of households grew more than ten times faster than the income of the bottom 90 percent of households.

There is a clash of titan forces taking place in the American Economy right now. It’s a tale as old as Greed itself.  

It is the tale of the “Powers that Be” running into the watchful eyes of the “World that Should Be”.

The story involves how corporate Robber Barons avoid the watchful glare of the citizen Muckrakers.  

It is the tale of Deception and Greed vs Honesty and Fairness …

Rep Alan Grayson’s Apology



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Well, I would like to Apologize —

I would like to Apologize to the Dead.

44789 Americans die every year because they HAVE NO Health Insurance,

according to this Harvard Study.  http://grayson.house.gov

That is more than 10 x the number of Americans who’ve died in the War in Iraq

It’s more than 10 x the number of Americans who died in 9/11

but that was just once.

THIS IS EVERY SINGLE YEAR!

Take a look at this — read it and weep.

and I mean that Read it and WEEP!

Let’s remember we should ‘care about people’ — EVEN after they’re born.

I’m just back from seeing Michael Moore’s new movie, “Capitalism – A Love Story”.

It was moving, funny, and educational, all rolled into one. It made me feel both, proud and sad, to be an American. … but it’s recommended viewing if you still want to take OUR Country back, from the Powers that Be.

There are many lessons to be learned from the film — But the one that struck me, the one I’m motivated to write about now —

Is the Lesson of Plutonomy …

Finally a Democrat, willing to fight Fire with Fire — I mean extreme Rhetoric with Rhetoric!

Kudos to Alan Grayson who has the guts to dish back to the GOP, the same  “strong language” — that they’ve been dishing out for months!!!

Whose Side Are You On?  by Alan Grayson by Alan Grayson:

Last night, I went onto the House floor and did something that the Republicans aren’t used to.  I told the truth about the Republican health care plan.  The plan is simple:

  1. Don’t get sick.

  2. If you do get sick…

  3. Die quickly.

Sounds about right! The Party of No, Knows one thing — How to say NO!

It’s not like Grayson didn’t use any Facts to back it up …

44789 / 365 = 122.7 people per day

Die for “Lack of health insurance” …

What does 120 People a Day look like, anyways?

That about what it takes to fill up 2 city buses …

Corporate Rights and Responsibilities: Restoring Legal Accountability

Dr Dan Plesch & Dr Stephanie Blankenburg

[pg 4]

Giant corporations have the rights of a person, but none of the responsibilities.

Society needs successful businesses, but today business is taking over society.

– 51 of the world’s 100 largest economies are corporations

(Institute for Policy Studies, Top 200: The Rise of Corporate Global Power, 2001).

– 80% of the world’s industrial output is made by 1,000 corporations

(The Economist, 29 January 2000).

https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/570…  (pdf)

Staggering Stats! from nearly a decade ago!

If were not careful, metaphorically at least, that world of Terminator 2 may indeed come to pass … that day “When machines rise up rule the world”.

It may already be too late — despite the Human Face, we like to paint on our neighborhood global Corporate Entities …

Wyden amendment gaining support

By Tony Romm, The Hill – 09/22/2009

An amendment to the Senate Finance Committee’s healthcare bill that would permit employees to shop around for health insurance policies is slowly gaining momentum on the Hill.

The idea, pitched by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) last week, would open the proposed “insurance exchange” — where consumers can compare and purchase insurance plans — to Americans who already receive coverage from their employers.

…

What has made Wyden’s proposal especially appealing today, however, is the Congressional Budget Office’s recent cost estimate. By their math, his amendment would reduce the bill’s impact on the deficit by about $1 billion over the next 10 years.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-…

Health Reform’s Missing Ingredient

By Ron Wyden, Senator D-OR, NYTimes Op-Ed

September 17, 2009

The various bills making their way through Congress would, as the president explained, provide some consumer choice by establishing large marketplaces where people could easily compare insurance plans and pick the one that best suits their needs.

[…]

The problem with these bills, however, is that they would not make the exchanges available to all Americans. Only very small companies and those individuals who can’t get insurance outside of the exchange – 25 million people – would be allowed to shop there. This would leave more than 200 million Americans with no more options, private or public, than they have today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09…

Wait a second, I thought the Public Option, would give us a Choice —

give US ALL a Choice?

The Insurance Exchange will be closed to “more than 200 million Americans”?

that must be a typo!?!

The American people, from left to right, are forced to work for change within a culture of money, power and greed.  In my mid-fifties now, I’ve never seen a higher overall agreement level among the masses concerning the power corporations and special interests have over our politicians, our “representative” government.  The steady transfer of wealth to the elite 1%, the loss of millions of jobs, reduced wages and hours, increased health insurance and health care costs, the hegemonic march through the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and the erosion of civil liberties have most of the population in a daze and not liking it.  

We want health care reform so we work within the system to convince our politicians to do the right thing.  The corporations fight back and use their money to convince politicians and gullible citizens to do the right thing for the corporations.  The corporations will most likely win again and health care reform will go the way of torture prosecutions, indefinite detention, and the Patriot Act, absorbed and accepted with tails between legs.  On to the next issue dujour and the next corporate or special interest controlled political process.  All while the politicians continue their 20 day a month fund raising schedules.  

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    After reading Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH10) DKos post titled The Private Mandate Sausage Machine which explains how Health Care Reform may/will be twisted into a bill mandating that I purchase private insurance but lacks all content of reform, I would like to make the following statement.

    Dear Dems, Feed me a Sh!t/Sausage Sandwich on Health Care Reform and I’ll BURN THIS MFing TENT TO THE GROUND!!!!

    If the Private Health Care disaster is addressed by making it madatory that I buy junk insurance from the bastards that caused this mess, I will make it my personal business to drive the Corporate snakes from the tent and burn the tent to the ground.

    Simply put, if Dems pass a HCR bill with mandates and no public option, I will kick these Dems frakkin asses, and you should too.

    More below the fold and a call to action..

     

Poll Finds Most Doctors Support Public Option

by Joseph Shapiro, NPR — September 14, 2009

When polled, “nearly 3/4 of physicians supported some form of a public option, either alone or in combination with private insurance options,”

[…]

Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, conducted a random survey, by mail and by phone, of 2,130 doctors. They surveyed them from June right up to early September.

Most doctors – 63 percent – say they favor giving patients a choice that would include both public and private insurance.

[…]

another 10 percent of doctors say they favor a public option only; they’d like to see a single-payer health care system. Together, the two groups add up to 73 percent.

http://www.npr.org/templates/s…

Hmmm? I wonder if Doctors, know anything about our Broken Insurance System?

Ya think!?