OPINOINS BASED ON FACTS (OBOF)
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Jan.
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 1
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19, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 2
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Feb. 03, 2015
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Mar. 23, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 8
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Mar. 28,
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 9
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Apr. 13,
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Agenda
1.
Thoughts from Floyd.
2.
Now we know why TPP has been
kept from the public.
3.
Loyalty to Country over loyalty to Government.
4.
Big bank bad boys bully our country and blow it.
THOUGHTS FROM
FLOYD
First, as you may have assumed
due to timing of posts, I have been having a bit of a rough time physically and
emotionally. Long story short, in
addition to regular aches and pain, which I just live with, as many of you do,
I have developed some serious blood circulation problems in my legs.
Speaking of talking with all of you, I
want to sincerely thank you for signing on even when I miss some posting times.
Second, our Country, as I am sure you know,
is continuing to be in a real mess and getting worse. I am a Democrat, as most of you know, and I
have been a strong supporter of the President, BUT I am totally disappointed in
him. I can not imagine
what
he is trying to do for this county. It
seems that we are now starting to see the "real President Obama Stand up.
I
cannot understand his actions regarding TPP and Social Security and wanting to
give SS to Mexico
~~~
Now We
Know Why Huge TPP Trade Deal Is Kept Secret from the Public
Authors:
Dave Johnson
Campaign for America's Future | Op-Ed
Published:
March 28, 2015
FROM FLOYD:
I have been giving you a number of articles in the past couple of
months about The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Why, because this, so called, trade agreement,
is so much more and is so damaging to our country.
To begin with, what little we do know about it is that it has more
than 1,000 pages and of that 1,000 only 36 pages refer to trade
agreements. Now, while there is even
some problems in the trade agreement portion, the rest of the agreement is
really scary. For example, any of the 11
countries involved can sue any
companies or individuals in our country and
the hearings would be held in a new universal court, or Tribunal, if you will. Our laws can be set aside and even our
constitution can be declared null and void.
Our sovereignty is
truly in the balance .
There is another trade agreement in the works that, so far, we
haven't heard a much about. This
agreement is with the European countries.
Apparently, they want to get TPP in the bag first.
From what I know about these agreements, I feel it is important to
keep telling you about them and as often as you can, let your Senators and
Representative know how you feel about them.
Right now, the Obama administration is pushing to Fast Track TPP through
Congress. That would mean for it to be
brought up for a yes/no vote with no opportunity for discussion or amendments.
~
A key section of the secret Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) trade agreement has been leaked to the public.
The New York Times has a major story
on the contents of the leaked chapter
and it’s as bad as many of us feared.
Now we know why the corporations
and the Obama administration want TPP, a huge “trade” agreement
being negotiated between the United States
The section of TPP that has leakedis the “Investment”
chapter that includes Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clauses.
WikiLeaks has the text and analysis,
and the Times has the story, in “Trans-Pacific Partnership Seen as Door
for Foreign Suits Against U.S.“:
An ambitious 12-nation trade accord pushed by President
Obama would allow foreign corporations to sue the United States
The Trans-Pacific Partnership — a cornerstone
of Mr. Obama’s remaining economic agenda — would grant broad powers
to multinational companies operating in North America, South America
and Asia. Under the accord, still under negotiation
but nearing completion, companies and investors would
be empowered to challenge regulations, rules, government actions and court
rulings — federal, st ate
or local — before tribunals organized under the World Bank
or the United Nations.
The WikiLeaks analysis explains this lets
firms “sue” governments to obtain taxpayer compensation for loss
of “expected future profits.”
Let that sink in for a moment.
“..companies and investors would be empowered to challenge
regulations, rules, government actions and court rulings — federal,
state or local — before tribunals…” And they
can collect not just for lost property or seized assets,
they can collect if laws or regulations interfere
with these giant companies collecting what they claim are “expected
future profits”.
The Times’ report explains this clause also “… giv[es]
greater priority to protecting corporate interests than promoting
free trade and competition that benefits consumers.”
The tribunals that adjudicate these cases will
be made up of private sector (i.e. “corporate”) attorneys. These
attorneys will rotate between serving on the tribunals
and representing corporations that bring cases to be heard by
the tribunals. This is a conflict of interest because
the attorneys serving on the tribunals will have tremendous
incentive to rule for the corporations if they want
to continue to get lucrative corporate business.
The Corporate Influence Over the TPP
Largely ignored
by the media – until now.
TPP has been in a negotiation process
for more than five years. The TPP has 29 “chapters”
covering various issues, but only five of the7se chapters cover what
would normally be considered “trade.” It is a “docking”
agreement, which means that any country in the region (i.e. China
These negotiations have been conducted in secret,
but more than 500 corporate “trade advisors” have access to text
of the agreement. Many of the negotiators themselves
are past (and/or likely expect to be future) corporate
attorneys or executives. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, for example,
“received over $4 million as part
of multiple exit payments when he left Citigroup to join
the Obama administration,” according to a report, “Obama Admin’s TPP Trade Officials Received Hefty
Bonuses From Big Banks” by investigative journalist
Lee Fang.
This one-sided process has been causing concern
among representatives of many of the key “stakeholder”
groups that have been excluded from the negotiating process. Labor
unions, environmental groups, consumer groups, health groups, food-safety
groups, as well as LGBT, democracy, faith, and other
“stakeholders” who have been denied a seat at the TPP negotiating
table have feared that the process would produce an agreement
that tilts the democracy/plutocracy power balance even further
in the direction of corporations and billionaires
than it is now.
ISDS Tilts Playing Field To Corporations
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, speaking March 18
at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, compared
the extraordinary ability of corporations
to sue governments to the lack of redress when labor
organizers are murdered to explain how ISDS tilts
the playing field to corporations over other stakeholders:
ISDS is just a fancy way to give corporations
a special legal system that circumvents democratically accountable
laws and courts.
ISDS allows corporations
to directly challenge almost any law or regulation based
on ill-defined concepts such as “fair and equitable treatment.” In contrast, all provisions
for enforcing labor rights in TPP require action by member
governments—neither workers nor unions can enforce the labor
rights provisions on their own even by suing in national courts.
I’m not just
talking theory here. In the first three years of the Labor
Action Plan in Colombia U.S.
But here’s
the thing: unlike the clunky labor provisions, which require workers
to wait for government action, these ISDS provisions
can be used immediately by multinational firms to challenge
efforts by TPP member countries to develop a modern regulatory
state in key areas. ISDS tilts the playing field away
from democracy, from workers and consumers,
and toward big business and multinational investors.
In sum, if corporations feel they have been denied
“expected” profits by a government regulation, ISDS lets them
circumvent a country’s courts and go to an international
corporate tribunal with their grievance. But if labor organizers
are murdered, workers and their families have nowhere to go.
This shows the extent to which the playing
field gets tilted. The same
imbalance exists between corporate interests and the interests
represented by environmental groups, consumer groups
and all other non-corporate stakeholders: a special channel
for corporations, a brick wall for the interests
of the rest of us.
Advantage: Foreign Firms
While ISDS would give American multinational corporations
tremendous powers over other governments, it places non-U.S.
corporations (and, of course, non-U.S. subsidiaries of American
multinational corporations) at a tremendous advantage over U.S. firms by giving only them – not U.S.-based
firms – this right to challenge U.S.
Global Trade Watch explains this advantage:
The TPP would
grant foreign investors and firms operating here expansive
new substantive and procedural rights and privileges
not available to U.S. firms under U.S. law, allowing foreign
firms to demand compensation for the costs of complying
with U.S. policies, court orders and government actions
that apply equally to domestic and foreign firms. The text allows foreign investors
to demand compensation for claims of “indirect
expropriation” that apply to much wider categories of property than those to which similar rights apply in U.S. law.
expropriation” that apply to much wider categories of property than those to which similar rights apply in U.S. law.
TPP is the largest trade agreement
in history, involving more than 40 per cent
of the world’s GDP. One way President Obama
and the Chamber of Commerce sell TPP is by saying
it will change everything and will rewrite the rules
for doing business for the 21st century. This leak shows us that they
are right about TPP changing everything and rewriting
the rules. But the leak
shows that the people and organizations opposing TPP were right,
too, because the changes give corporations vast new powers
to overrule democratic governments.
Origins Of ISDS
This ISDS mechanism originates from a time when 441investors
in wealthy, developed countries wanted to invest in projects
in unstable “third-world,” “banana-republic”-style countries,
but worried that dictators or revolutionary governments could
decide to seize their property – a refinery, railroad
or a factory, leaving them with no recourse.
So before investing, the target country agrees
that in the case of disputes a tribunal
is set up outside of and beyond the reach
of the country’s justice system (courts where the judge
is a brother or other crony of the dictator,
for example), providing recourse in the event of unjust
seizure of property. This would make investment less risky.
However, under agreements like TPP, these provisions
apply to and override the laws of modern, stable, developed
countries with democratic governance and fair court systems.
The corporate representatives negotiating modern trade agreements
see such democratically-run governments as “burdensome” and chaotic,
introducing “uncertainties” and “interfering” or “meddling”
with the corporate order. As one supporter of these ISDS provisions put it,
they protect corporations from “the waves of madness
that occasionally flit through the population.”
Secret And Rushed
It is understandable that the giant, multinational
corporations want TPP kept secret, and want Congress to pass
“fast track” trade promotion authority that requires Congress to pass
TPP within 90 “session” days after the agreement is made
public. Fast track sets up a rushed process that does
not give the public time to read, understand, analyze
and consider the ramifications of it – never mind time
to effectively organize opposition. This is because, as Sen. Elizabeth
Warren pointed out, “supporters
of the deal say to me, ‘They have
to be secret, because if the American people knew what
was actually in them, they would be opposed.’ ”
“Think about that.
Real people, people whose jobs are at stake, small-business owners
who don’t want to compete with overseas companies that dump
their waste in rivers and hire workers for a dollar
a day—those people, people without an army of lobbyists—they
would be opposed. I believe if people this country would
be opposed to a particular trade agreement, then maybe
that trade agreement should not happen.”
Fast track also prevents
members of Congress from amending (i.e. “fixing”) flaws
that might be found in the agreement even
in the limited time available to comprehend and analyze
the agreement. With the expected massive corporate public relations
campaign that will occur as the agreement comes
up for a vote, this sets up a rushed process
where the Congress becomes more concerned with not “killing the whole agreement” with getting
it right.
Reaction
Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers
of America (CWA), says the leak shows that TPP
is “worse than imagined”:
“The 56 pages
of the Investor chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
are worse than imagined and must be a wake
up call for our nation. Amazingly, this chapter is sealed
for four years after either adoption or rejection
of the TPP. Everything
we read and learn makes “Fast Track” authority unimaginable.
It’s secrecy
on top of secrecy.
The TPP is shaping
up to be an exercise in words about citizen
rights that are not enforceable versus expanded corporate rights
to sue governments for supposed diminishment of corporate
profits. Section B of the leaked chapter documents
new provisions of Investor
State
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown released
the following statement:
“It appears that the
investor state provision being considered as part of TPP will
still amount to a corporate handout at the expense
of consumers despite the assurances of our negotiators. We need strong language to prevent
multinational corporations – like Big Tobacco – from using
trade agreements to challenge health and safety laws.
“It’s telling when Members
of Congress and their staff have an easier time accessing
national security documents than proposed trade deals,
but if I were negotiating this deal I suppose
I wouldn’t want people to see it either. Trade agreements should lift American workers
and their counterparts abroad, rather than creating a race
to the bottom.”
From the Wikileaks statement:
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks
editor said:
“The
TPP has developed in secret an unaccountable supranational
court for multinationals to sue states. This system
is a challenge to parliam
W23 ews000entary
and judicial sovereignty. Similar
tribunals have already been shown to chill the adoption of sane
environmental protection, public health and public transport policies.”
Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch has this Analysis of Leaked Trans-Pacific Partnership Investment
Text
“The leaked text provides
stark warnings about the dangers of ‘trade’ negotiations occurring
without press, public or policymaker oversight. It reveals
that TPP negotiators already have agreed to many radical terms
that would give foreign investors expansive new substantive
and procedural rights and privileges not available
to domestic firms under domestic law.”
Authors
Bio: Dave has more than 20 years of
technology industry experience. His earlier career included technical
positions, including video game design at Atari and Imagic. He was a pioneer in design and development of
productivity and educational applications of personal computers. More recently he helped co-found a company
developing desktop systems to validate carbon trading in the US
Authors:
Michael Payne
NationofChange
| Op-Ed
Published:
March 22, 2015
Some Americans think that country and government are
one in the same but that is simply not the case. The Founding Fathers created
this government and charged it with the responsibility to govern the country
according to the provisions of the Constitution and the will of the people.
The U.S. Constitution is the bedrock, the solid
foundation upon which this nation was built, based on these principles;
separation of powers, limited government, checks and balances and individual
rights. We might add ethics, fairness
and justice.
An organizational chart would show the government
reporting directly to the country and the people of America
But here’s the problem. While the Founders may have had the best of
intentions of creating the best government possible there was no way that they
could possibly guarantee that future governments would adhere to those
principles or follow the will of the people. Today, we are painfully becoming aware of that
reality as this government has clearly become an oligarchy that openly serves
the interests of the rich and powerful.
There have been times in this nation’s history when the
government, the country and the people have been in sync and on the same
frequency; where there was a close bond between the people and those who govern
the nation; when the government was very responsive to the needs and interests
of the people, above all else. That’s
when government understood that it must listen to the people and largely base
its objectives accordingly.
When one sees this government engaged in actions that
violate this country’s Constitution as well as the principles of ethics and
morals, then there is no question that a person must not accept and condone
them but must do what is right for the country. The Founding Fathers were very clear on that
point; when citizens find their government committing unacceptable acts then
they must strongly speak out against them. That’s a responsibility that comes with being
a citizen of this country.
Carl Schurz,
Union Army General, later US Senator, and, still later, US Secretary of the Interior said: “The Senator
from Wisconsin American Republic
So, we the people have the responsibility to “set it
right” whenever that is necessary and do everything in our power, using
peaceful dissent to protest against abuses. When the Founding Fathers were faced with an
oppressive government that stifled the will of the people, they refused to bend
to its dictates. They declared this
country’s independence; they then created the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights, and gave birth to a new nation.
The vast majority of Americans love their country but,
increasingly, do not feel that same love for their government. They see it as a bloated bureaucracy, heavily
corrupted, and plagued with deceitful politicians; many have lost all trust in
it.
Can someone tell me even one major initiative or
important piece of legislation produced by this Congress in the past 14 years? Something is terribly wrong when we have 535
supposed representatives of the people who each make $174,000 annually, and
their leaders even more, and then, collectively, do absolutely nothing. Some
Americans think that country and government are one in the same but that is
simply not the case. The Founding
Fathers created this government and charged it with the responsibility to
govern the country according to the provisions of the Constitution and the will
of the people.
The U.S. Constitution is the bedrock, the solid
foundation upon which this nation was built, based on these principles;
separation of powers, limited government, checks and balances and individual
rights. We might add ethics, fairness,
and justice.
An organizational chart would show the government
reporting directly to the country and the people of America
But, here’s the problem. While the Founders may have had the best of
intentions of creating the best government possible there was no way they could
possibly guarantee that future governments would adhere to those principles or
follow the will of the people. Today, we
are painfully becoming aware of that reality as this government has clearly
become an oligarchy that openly serves the interests of the rich and powerful.
So, there have been times in this nation’s history when
the government, the country and the people have been in sync and on the same
frequency; where there was a close bond between the people and those who govern
the nation; when the government was very responsive to the needs and interests
of the people, above all else. That’s
when government understood that it must listen to the people and largely base
its objectives accordingly.
When one sees this government engaged in actions that
violate this country’s Constitution as well as the principles of ethics and
morals, then there is no question that a person must not accept and condone
them but must do what is right for the country. The Founding Fathers were very clear on that
point; when citizens find their government committing unacceptable acts then
they must strongly speak out against them. That’s a responsibility that comes
with being a citizen of this country.
Carl Schurz, Union Army General, later US Senator, and,
still later, US Secretary of
the Interior said: “The Senator from Wisconsin American Republic
So we the people have the responsibility to “set it
right” whenever that is necessary and do everything in our power, using
peaceful dissent to protest against abuses. When the Founding Fathers were faced with an
oppressive government that stifled the will of the people, they refused to bend
to its dictates. They declared this
country’s independence; they then created the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights, and gave birth to a new nation.
The vast majority of Americans love their country but,
increasingly, do not feel that same love for their government. They see it as a bloated bureaucracy, heavily
corrupted, and plagued with deceitful politicians; many have lost all trust in
it.
Can someone tell
me even one major initiative or important piece of legislation produced by this
Congress in the past 14 years? Something
is terribly wrong when we have 535 supposed representatives of the people who
each make $174,000 annually, and their leaders even more, and then,
collectively, do absolutely nothing to earn that money. We might as well throw it down a black hole.
This is a dark
period in America Washington
D.C.
I won’t go into great detail over all the many failures
and shortcomings of this government and why it no longer is doing what is right
for its country and people. However, the
following synopsis will highlight the reasons why we need to put the loyalty to
this country above that of the government.
From the president to the Congress to the State
Department to the Pentagon, an agenda of military hubris continues to spread
across the world. Wars, invasions,
occupations, and interference in the internal affairs of other countries have
become a primary objective.
This government has, in effect, “declared its
independence” from the people of America
We have a Congress divided in half with members of the
opposing parties entirely incapable of working together on this nation’s
critical problems. It’s like East is
East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. It is heavily corrupted, answering only to
special interests.
Our education system and the national infrastructure
should be top priorities for funding; they are not. Our manufacturing system
and workforce have been decimated, and with it, the middle class. Congress has no intention of doing anything to stop the
bleeding.
Government agencies, the NSA and the DEA in particular,
are spying on the American people. Our
privacy is being invaded in many ways; we have Big Brother constantly looking
over our shoulders.
We must reduce our huge dependency on petroleum and
develop solar power and other alternate energy; but nothing is being done
because of the grip that the oil corporations have on this Congress.
Climate change and global warming are threats to this
country’s future and that of the planet. They are being ignored and given no attention.
The inequality of wealth and income is more and more
problematic as the standard of living for the average American is rapidly being
eroded.
We have a president that promised change and “Yes we
can” but we’ve seen no evidence of any of it. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but his
foreign policies and actions indicate that this was a very questionable choice.
The Supreme Court is not a champion of the U.S.
The Justice Department has watched as the white collar
criminals on Wall Street have broken laws and bent regulations to enrich
themselves at the expense of the American people and has not prosecuted even
one of them.
So, is that how this government shows its loyalty and
dedication to this country and its people?
Now what about the many Americans who are watching this
government’s many questionable and often disastrous policies and actions? What do they think, how are they reacting to
its many failures? Well, I would divide the American people into three general
categories to answer that question:
Those who, no matter how egregious the actions of the
government might be, accept and condone them and strongly deny that their
government would ever do anything wrong. That’s called blind loyalty.
Those who are fully aware of such egregious actions, but
who feel that they have to be loyal and obedient to their government no matter
what it does. They might consider
themselves as patriots but that’s not what true patriots do.
Those who love their country and respect their
government but who, when aware that the government is taking this country in
the exact wrong direction, refuse to accept and condone those actions and will
do everything in their power to reverse this direction.
The vast majority of Americans can be found in
categories 1 and 2 and far too few in category 3.
So the lesson to be learned by the American people can
be found in these words of wisdom from Mark Twain: “Loyalty to country ALWAYS,
loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
Michael Payne
Michael Payne is an independent progressive
activist. His writings deal with social, economic, political and foreign policy
issues; and especially with the great dangers involved with the proliferation
of perpetual war, the associated defense industry, and the massive control that
Corporate America holds over this government and our election process; all which are leading this nation down the
road to eventual financial ruin if the conditions are not reversed. He is a graduate of Northwestern
University , Evanston ,
Illinois and a U.S.
~~~
Big-Bank Bad Guys Bully Democracy
&
Blow It
Authors:
Richard Eskow
Campaign for America's Future | Op-Ed
Published:
March 31, 2015
For so-called “masters of the universe,” Wall
Street executives sure seem touchy about criticism. It seems they don’t like being painted
as the bad guys.
But if they don’t like being criticized,
why do so many of them keep behaving like B-movie
villains? That’s exactly what executives
from Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America
They’ve cheated customers and defrauded investors.
Now they want to use our legalized system
of campaign-cash corruption to protect themselves from the very
government which rescued them.
Dark Matters
According to a well-reported recent Reuters article, “Big Wall Street U.S.
“Symbolic protest”?
“Heavy-handed threat” is more like it. That sentence suggests that they’re
seeking not only to punish Warren and her allies, but all
Senate Democrats – presumably until they reduce or eliminate
her influence within the party.
Although the Reuters piece cites only “a maximum
of $15,000” in potentially withheld contributions per bank,
the threat is considerably greater than that. That maximum
only applies to political party contributions from a PAC. (PACs
can also contribute up to $5,000 to each individual
candidate.)
But PACs aren’t where the action is. It turns out that the campaign
contribution game isn’t all that different from Wall Street’s
other financial activities: in both cases the real money’s
in “innovative instruments.”
“Super PACs,” for example, can raise unlimited sums
of money. They can then “spend
unlimited sums to overtly advocate for or against political
candidates,” as OpenSecrets.org explains. The list of 2014’s top 100 donors
to these outside spending groups includes a number of Wall
Streeters.
Bankers also contribute as individuals. When JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon
testified before the Senate Banking Committee about his bank’s “London
As if to underscore the power
of his connections, Dimon wore outsized cufflinks emblazoned with the presidential
seal while giving his Senate testimony that day. (Apparently that’s a favored
way for Dimon to signal his power to lesser mortals. As his bank was negotiating
its way out of the foreclosure fraud scandal,
he reportedly wore cufflinks featuring the FBI logo to Davos.) Unsurprisingly, the senators were
largely indulgent toward Dimon.
Then there are the “bundlers,” high-net-worth
individuals who assemble large “bundles” of contributions
from their peers and subordinates. They’re responsible for major
cash infusions to campaigns from both parties.
Top bundlers for the 2012 Obama campaign included
92 people from the securities and investment community,according to a study by the Center for Responsive Politics. They included executives from such
scandal-plagued institutions as Barclays, Citigroup, and Goldman
Sachs. (The Romney campaign failed to voluntarily provide a full list
of bundlers, but CRP identified a number fffffof bankers
as well as 69 registered lobbyists.)
Spending is also skyrocketing for “dark money” groups,
which are not required to disclose their donors.
The banking industry is presumably well-represented there
as well, although the veil of darkness surrounding these
mountains of cash makes it impossible to know for sure.
We might have known, had the Securities
and Exchange Commission followed through on plans to require
publicly traded companies to disclose their political spending. But the SEC changed its mind,
which may have been inevitable once prosecutor-turned-Wall-Street-lawyer
Mary Jo White was selected to run it. President Obama, who appointed White
to that position, could
do a lot to fix the dark money problem. As Lee Fang points
out in The Nation, Obama could expose most
of it with a stroke of the pen by requiring
government contractors to disclose their contributions.
He should. The Brennan Center studied dark money
in 13 of last year’s toss-up congressional races. It found
that dark money dominated outside spending in those campaigns,
and that dark money constituted virtually
all outside spending in seven of those races.
Shakedown Street
The Reuters article named four banks in last week’s not-so-subtle
shakedown attempt: Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America
Readers may well wonder whether these banks are even
permitted to band together for the purpose of blackmailing
a political party. They
are – campaign cash is “speech,” remember? But then, bankers collude with one
another even when it’s not legal.
And why wouldn’t bankers engage
in unlawful conspiracy and fraud? It’s not like any of them
have gone to prison for it.
Does campaign cash correlate with good outcomes
for Wall Street? Consider this:
The “Citigroup amendment” to last year’s “Cromnibus” budget deal
– so named because Citigroup lobbyists literally wrote much
of the bill’s language – served the top five banks
(including the four who so crudely threatened Democrats last
week) very well.
Democrats who voted for that deal received twice as much in campaign contributions
from the financial industry as those who voted
against it.
Given all this, it’s not hard
to see why Wall Streeters would target Warren
and Democratic colleagues like Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). (Sen. Bernie Sanders wasn’t mentioned,
presumably because he’s not a Democrat.)
The rise of the Democrats’ “Warren Warren
The Showdown
With the 2016 campaign coming up, this is
a critical moment in the struggle for the Democratic
Party. Venture capitalist Alan Patricof, described last year as a “longtime
Hillary Clinton friend and bundler,” was asked in January whether “deep Democratic pockets” were
enthusiastic about contributing to her campaign. Patricof said they’re “tripping
over themselves” to contribute. He also said that Clinton
In his defense, Patricof invests in actual
businesses, ventures which are part of the productive economy
rather than the ephemeral financial sphere. The four banks that threatened
the Democratic Party last week are far more dependent
on the Federal government – a government that allowed
them to become too big to fail, bailed them out when
they collapsed from their own fraud and mismanagement,
and has since allowed them to become bigger than ever.
The last thing these bankers want is a debate within the
Democratic Party about reforming Wall Street and breaking
up their too-big-to-fail institutions
– a debate that could energize the “Warren wing”
and leave finance-friendlier Dems on the defensive.
For her part, Warren was unfazed, describing the threat as “warning shot …
a showy way to tell Democrats across the country
to be scared of speaking out, to be timid
about standing up, and to stay away from fighting
for what’s right.”
Added Warren
One thing is clear: This wasn’t just a threat
against a few senators, or a Democratic Party faction.
It was a naked attempt to crush public debate
with campaign cash. That makes
it an attack on democracy itself. If the big banks weren’t
unpopular already, this undertaking would certainly help turn public
opinion against them. They have
made the case more convincingly than their critics ever could:
We need to get money out of politics
– and break up the big banks.
Warren and her allies clearly have public opinion
on their side. 79 percent of voters have
an unfavorable view of Wall Street. 80 percent of voters in last year’s
battleground states agreed that politicians do too much
to support Wall Street and not enough for the middle
class. 60 percent favor stricter regulation
of Wall Street.
But then, we’ve known it since the days
of the B-movies: Americans hate
to see the bad guys win.
Bio: Richard (RJ) Eskow is a writer, a former Wall Street executive
and a radio journalist. He has
experience in health insurance and economics, occupational health, risk
management, finance, and IT
~~~
If the good Lord is willing and the creek
don't rise, I'll talk with you again at the end of this week, hopefully, on
Friday. I know it has been a long time
since the last posting and I'll keep trying to improve.
Just a short note, here at the end. I have a number of health problems, but the
worst has shown up as a bad circulation problem in my legs. It is a little touch and go as to whether
I'll be able to keep my legs. That could
be the end. Two months and I'll be 91.
God Bless You All
&
God Bless the United States of America
& help us all to
save her.
Floyd
