Need more evidence of Corporate Welfare? Remember the $2.7 billion allocated under TARP that went to British rum producer Captain Morgan?
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Thanks to DownsizeDC.org for this:
Quote of the Day: "Even in the best economic times, you won't find an investment with a greater payoff than what these companies have been getting." -- Sheila Krumholz, Executive Director of The Center for Responsive Politics
The Congressional Oversight Panel charged with monitoring the T.A.R.P. bailout scheme thinks more bailouts may be needed.
In case you've forgotten . . .
* T.A.R.P. stands for Toxic Asset Relief Program
* The T.A.R.P. was supposed to spend $700 billion buying so-called toxic assets from institutions that were supposedly too big to fail, but . . .
* After Congress said yes to this proposal the Treasury Department instead used the funds to buy stock in major banks
* In other words, The Toxic Asset Relief Program ended up having nothing to do with toxic assets
It gets worse. According to Wikipedia . . . .
"On February 5, 2009, Elizabeth Warren, chairperson of the Congressional Oversight Panel, told the Senate Banking Committee that during 2008, the federal government paid $254 billion for assets that were worth only $176 billion."
And even worse . . .
"During 2008, the companies that received bailout money had spent $114 million on lobbying and campaign contributions. These companies received $295 billion in bailout money."
Thus, our quote of the day. Spending $114 million on lobbying to gain $295 billion dollars from the taxpayers is a hell of a deal. Many thoughts flow from this . . .
* Those who told us that strong campaign finance laws would curtail corruption were wrong
* Those who tell us we need Big Government to control evil corporations overlook the fact that big corporations want big government, because they benefit from it, and largely control it
* The same kind of lobbying and corporate control is behind the scheme for increased government involvement in health care
* And the $800 billion stimulus bill was another heaping helping of corporate welfare too
Sadly, this isn't a new development. President Obama and the Democratic Congress are just continuing the policies of President Bush and the Republican Congress . . .
* Go back and scratch beneath the surface of Bush's prescription drug program and you'll find that it was mostly a corporate welfare scheme for Big Pharma.
* In addition, T.A.R.P. was passed under Bush and the Republican Congress.
As long as partisan loyalists continue to believe that their particular political party, and their particular political savior (be it Obama, Bush, whoever) is somehow different, we'll continue to be victims of the same insanity. And at some point we might as well change the country's name to . . .
The United States of Corporate Welfare
Here's the bottom line . . .
* If you want to stop the looting then you need to be heard to the same extent as the Big Corporate lobbyists.
* We created DownsizeDC.org to bring that about.
* But it isn't something we're going to achieve in a Big Bang.
* It's going to happen bit by bit and day by day -- because that's how real change usually happens.
* In fact, that's how the United States of Corporate America was created in the first place.
Please use DownsizeDC.org's Educate the Powerful System (sm) to send your Congressional employees another message opposing corporate bailouts.
Tell them you object to the Congressional Oversight Panel's report calling for T.A.R.P. to finally be used to buy toxic assets. If the past is any guide then these assets will be bought at above market prices, and will just be one more heaping helping of corporate welfare.
You can use DownsizeDC.org's "No Bailouts" campaign to send your letter.
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
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Republic or Democracy?
Republic or Democracy?
What’s a democracy?
Fundamentally, Democracy is mob rule where 51% choose for the other 49% under threat of violence to impose their will upon a weaker group of people.
Behold the Glory of a Constitution and the birth of the American Republic.
(it has really been dying for well over a century, more to the point its being killed)
Think we’re all just looking at this in the wrong light because as David Crockett said “It’s not yours to giveâ€.
My stance is: I forcibly take nothing from you, you take nothing forcibly from me. Mutual, contractual exchange. That’s pretty much it.
Now comes the real argument....
On the basic level people are advocating slavery.
You are demanding that I work X-amount of hours to pay for whatever fashionable idea you have in your head. (what the program is for is obviously moot)
You have then thereby asserted your ownership over a portion of myself as an individual.
Forcibly laying your will down upon someone who is opposed to it is called slavery.
Now as for rampant misunderstanding of the free market.
Laissez faire means: Let the common man choose and act; do not force him to yield to a dictator.
for a short chapter on the true meaning see...
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap27sec5.asp
I agree with Nick and I most
I agree with Nick and I most definitely agree with 2nd anonymous. I love you too Shelly :)
ditto the video. i am a
ditto the video. i am a capitalist. using government and media to pass massive government programs to fund their corporations is NOT capitalism. So we have this weird situation right now of government by corporate elites.
Keep up the good work,
Keep up the good work, Shelly.
I love watching your videos
I love watching your videos because you are so exquisitely beautiful and sexy and intelligent and good and right about what you say. What a woman! I love you, in a very distant and respectful way, of course. thanks
Beware making the best the
Beware making the best the enemy of the better.
A public health system - ensuring everyone in the society has basic health care - is a hallmark of a truly civilized society, in my opinion. A society that doesn't invest to that basic extent in the health of its own people has bizarre priorities that I for one find repugnant.
How this investment is made is a topic worthy of debate. There is no single recipe for success - and plenty of scope for trialing different methods and degrees of decentralization.
If the Obama Administration is able to achieve significant health care reform - providing universal coverage - it will be a great achievement. It may well also be true that the very best model doesn't get up. Politics is the art of the achievable. But it can always be made better later.
I write from Australia, which has a public health system. It's not perfect, but it does take care of everyone's basic health needs. Same in Britain (which includes dental treatment and is more comprehensive).
Since these countries got public health care, there has been substantial majority support for retaining it. Even right wing parties these days embrace the public health system if they want to get elected. That may tell you something.
In countries such as Australia and Britain, the public is never uncritical about the quality of public health - but will also never willingly go back to the old 'devil-take-the-hindmost' lottery system.
And yes, big corporations probably shall do well out of the new US public health system (if Americans get one). They have a habit of landing on their feet. But that doesn't necessarily make public health care a bad idea. It's crucial to have cost transparency and be eternally vigilant for anti-competitive practices, over-charging and rorts.
It might be a good idea to apply similar scrutiny to other sectors, by the way - most notably so-called 'Department of Defense' and 'Homeland Security' expenditure.
"A public health system -
"A public health system - ensuring everyone in the society has basic health care - is a hallmark of a truly civilized society, in my opinion."
There's nothing civilized about a system that forces people to pay for other people's health care. You are entitled to nothing and neither am I. Health care is a good, but NOT a right unless we say that others must service us at our behest with their money and labor to provide it.
"I write from Australia, which has a public health system. It's not perfect, but it does take care of everyone's basic health needs."
I'm sure it does...people in Australia, Canada, Britain, France, etc aren't dying in the streets. But it is a monopoly. And while social democrats hate corporate monopolies, they're obsessed with govt monopolies. Both are bad and have significant problems. You say it's not perfect, but those imperfections I see in these other Western systems are easily avoidable...with a free-market system.
"Since these countries got public health care, there has been substantial majority support for retaining it. Even right wing parties these days embrace the public health system if they want to get elected. That may tell you something."
Being in the majority doesn't mean you're correct. People always like to bring up they are on the "majority side" if they happen to be on one to prop up their side as the "right side". A fallacy. Right wing parties embracing it if they want to get elected means they care about their jobs. That's about it.
"but will also never willingly go back to the old 'devil-take-the-hindmost' lottery system."
This shows me you have no idea what the free-market system actually is which is what Shelly and so many others are arguing for. A lottery? How about the lotteries that go on in some smaller communities in Canada where there is such a low supply of doctors (as many have left for the US which isn't as heavily regulated in health care) that the doctors left have to have a lottery to see who will get an appointment this week. Or the long lines for some services in Britain.
Free-market capitalism isn't a lottery. It's providing you with options and choices and competition which keeps prices affordable. It's based on voluntary interactions instead of govt decree.
The reason our costs are so high here in America is because of HEAVY govt intervention in the insurance industry in the form of massive mandates and a resulting overconsumption making it so that if you don't have insurance you have incredible out-of-pocket costs and people losing coverage because of illness (our version of rationing). Obama wants to make coverage mandatory for everyone and force insurance companies to take everyone...but that won't eliminate the current rationing, but turn it into rationing based on wait-times which is an issue in Canada and Britain. Also, as with all socialism, you have problems with much slower innovation and evolution. The US still dominates in those areas in so many of our industries which aren't nearly as socialized as in other countries. I really don't see their health care systems much better than ours, just with different problems. All that's need is opening up the market place and allowing more insurance competition (with insurance going back to what it used to be...for catastrophic conditions only) price competition by health care providers and consumer awareness of cheaper options. Costs would drop and things would be affordable for everyone, all without $1 trillion needed. The govt ruling health care as a monopoly is not THE answer for a civilized society.
Nick, Well said. Are you on
Nick,
Well said. Are you on twitter or facebook?
Nick A short reply as time is
Nick
A short reply as time is short.
My reference to 'lottery' referred to the fact that at any one time, some (but not most) people in societies such as ours get sick, injured and otherwise in need of healthcare. A socialized system ensures the costs are shared and the benefits accrue to those in need.
Makes sense to me. Makes sense to most people who have this system already. Not sure what would make sense to you. Perhaps you'd like to orivatize the justice system too (a shocking State monopoly!). Why not sell places in the Judiciary to the highest bidders? Political office could also be bought and sold... privatize the police.... privatize the roads...
To be blunt, your one policy-fits-all view that privatization is always best suggests to me you belong in a debating society, not in the real world. That's how most of the civilized world sees things anyhow.
We look at the USA and see a country that imagines it can afford to spend more on the military than the next ten countries put together, but can't apparently afford universal healthcare that just every other developed society manages to afford.
We think you have values that are upside-down.
Here's little unsolicited friendly advice to the USA from the outside....
Cut your military budget - drastically. Close down US bases (there are hundreds outside the USA). Stop trying to dominate the rest of the world. Concentrate of civilizing yourselves. You have a way to go.
If not, you'll appear more and more absurd to the rest of the world.
America appeared a place of great promise in the era of JFK. These days, it's really a sad joke: a bankrupt economy, controlled politically by a Zionist elite, parasitized for the benefit of a foreign power, lower-grade public services, incompetent even in its own disaster relief... who'd want to emulate that in a free marketplace of ideas?
Shelly, I'm Canadian, and
Shelly, I'm Canadian, and while we as Canadians didn't go through the same situation at the time with the same type of leader as you are enduring now, I recommend if you haven't studied him to examine Pierre Trudeau.
You have your very own Trudeau in the White House right now. He's exactly the same... charismatic, ...persuasive, and completely venal.
It's impossible not to like and respect your current President, in exactly the same ways I'd say it was impossible not to like and respect Trudeau despite the things he did. I'd also like you (if you have the time) to examine the career of the Argentine president Menem.
History teaches us that
History teaches us that Hitler was also very charismatic and was an excellent and very affective and stirring speaker. Now before the liberals get all riled up, I'm not comparing Obama to Hitler. Hitler was very well liked, was a war hero and believed in Germany first. So the comparisons don't match. Just saying that Obama is HUGE failure and people are starting to see that he is also a jewish puppet like Bush.
The govt wants a new pot of money to use as a slush fund the way they do the other bankrupted programs like Social Security. They continuously double dip in to SSI in order to fund their military misadventures to please the heebs. This is just another fund they're creating that will bankrupt the first time it accumulates money.
Let's not fall for another of these hebrew hoaxes. If it smells jewish it is jewish.
Shelly, this time you only
Shelly, this time you only have it partly right. You haven't yet figured out that the last thing the insurance industry wants is a public option.
A public option will break their monopoly which is why they are fighting so hard against it.
The unintended consequence of free market dogma is monopoly; and the unintended consequence of regulation is that it stifles monopolies in ways never expected or anticipated.
All the deregulation of the past 50 years has done is foster monopolies and put more and more economic power in the hands of fewer and fewer people. The consequence is that the corporations now own the government lock, stock, and barrel and the government is bought and paid for.
When Clinton tried to give the public some kind of governmental health care, the insurance industry spent $100 million to defeat it.
This time around they may have already spent $250 million. Follow the money.
The big corporations who own the government get money from the government when they want it (corporate welfare) but they also prevent the government from spending money on the people when they don't want people to have it. This time it is the latter.
A public option will not be sending money to the insurance industry but any other reform will.
I will leave you with a quote from Mussolini who said:
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of corporate and governmental power."
And ask you a question.
What kind of political system are we when big business gets its way every time?
"Shelly, this time you only
"Shelly, this time you only have it partly right. You haven't yet figured out that the last thing the insurance industry wants is a public option.
A public option will break their monopoly which is why they are fighting so hard against it."
The insurance industry doesn't want to be put out of business, that's right. The public option could theoretically do that, but it has nothing to do with the public option being better, but that the public option can artificially make its prices low. Health insurance companies want to exist and if they think their existence is threatened they'll fight against it.
Your definition of "monopoly" is incorrect. Monopoly nothing to do with govt getting involved in the marketplace. Also you're too focused on the "evil insurance companies". Why do you think health care costs have increased so dramatically in the first place? Just because the insurance companies wanted them too? Pricing doesn't work that way. It's because we've become too dependent on insurance and increasing GOVERNMENT REGULATION in the form of insurance mandates have raised the costs to the point that if you don't have insurance the out-of-pocket costs are ridiculous. The mandates created an overconsumption problem (that's what determines market pricing...supply vs. demand) in which health care providers and consumers were shielded from looking at pricing, people went to any doctor, given any test, perscribed any medication not necessarily thinking about whether it was neccessary or not and costs skyrocketed. Now the insurance companies are partly to blame in that they don't mind these kind of regulations in that it automatically reduces marketplace competition. Market economies to evolve into monopolies on their own (monopoly being one company or GOVERNMENT dominating an entire industry)...it's pretty much impossible without govt intervention distorting the marketplace.
Health care is probably the worst example one could give of "deregulation". It's become more and more regulated...in most cases by the states over the past 50yrs. It was heavily deregulated in the 50s and it was extremely affordable. Look at it now in it's govt-regulated heavy state. It's a total disaster and a joke. If you don't like the current system, you don't want MORE of it.
Mispoke...I should've said in
Mispoke...I should've said in one sentence...market economies DON'T evolve into monopolies on their own.
We knew what you meant...and
We knew what you meant...and you are right on.
Thanks!
Thanks!
I would have to say though
I would have to say though that a problem I have here is not that Shelly Roche is not 100% accurate but more that since she's a "Hot Chick" it comes off as more of the "Spin Machine". "Hot Chicks" and "Way Cool Dudes" are what we've been getting on the Jewtube for so long now that anyone that is visually attractive lacks credibility now and seems like they're cashing in on their looks in order to sell you yet another Ponzi.
T.A.R.P. stands for Toxic
T.A.R.P. stands for Toxic Asset Relief Program
ha ha -- what an oxymoron -- toxic asset ? is that like ... billions of federal reserve notes that are valueless except for the bankers who will collect interest on them because they are adebt instrument .? -- in essence every FRN you have is like a miniature shackles , ball and chain and neck stock you put on yourself !! the zinc penny at least is some metal while the paper note is just that a piece of paper, with ink, water marks and magnet strip...
Awesome, as usual Shelly.
Awesome, as usual Shelly. Did you see that Congress is also buying themselves a suite of corporate jets? Since We the People own them, I wonder if we can take them out for a spin once in a while...
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