GOP GOES "GRASSROOTS," WASHINGTON-STYLE

Jim Hightower — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Congressional Republicans have spent the first two years of the Obama administration as the rock-solid party of "no," "uh-uh," "no way," "forget about it," "nothing doing," "we're-agin-it-and-we'll-kill-it." This is one reason their job approval rating is in the ditch.

But now, GOP leaders in the House say they are shifting from pure negativity to step forward with their own bold policy ideas. Terrific! What are some of those? "Uh... um... well," say the leaders, "we don't know yet, but that's why we've launched an exciting new campaign that we call America Speaking Out. We'll go directly to the grassroots people, asking for their ideas, giving them a voice and letting them shape "the new Republican agenda,"

Again, terrific! Where are you starting? "Uh... um...," stumble the leaders, before mumbling : "Washington DC."

Indeed, only six weeks after America Speaking Out was introduced as "an unprecedented initiative to listen to the American people," ASO did not rush out to hold a policy-crafting get together in an open town hall forum in Fargo or Fresno – but in the snug privacy of Rep. John Boehner's Capitol Hill office. And who were the just-plain-folks that the House GOP leader invited? His e-mailed solicitation went to just 20 top lobbyists representing big corporations and such business front groups as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. This is the bunch that Republican leaders consider to be their real "grassroots" constituency.

Well, sniffed an ASO spokesman, it's important to "receive input" from the nation's largest employers.

Bovine excrement! These corporate lobbyists give their input every day, usually with campaign donations attached. They're the problem, not the solution – and ASO is just more of the same.

WALL STREET'S "MOM & POP" BANKERS

Jim Hightower — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Don't cry for Jamie Dimon, America.

As CEO of JPMorgan Chase, this ruling mogul of Wall Street must now cope with the recently-enacted financial reform bill, which imposes a host of new regulations meant to rein in the rip-offs, frauds, and other excesses of Wall Street bankers.

Republican lawmakers, however, are crying that the Democrats' reform bill puts a crushing burden on the poor financial giants. While these Wall Street apologists wail and keen, though, slick operators like Dimon are wasting no time on tears. Instead, they're devising ways to slip out of the new regulatory reins. For example, the law limits the outrageous overdraft fees that banks have been sneaking onto our debit card accounts. No problem – the giants are quietly imposing new "maintenance fees" for basic checking accounts. Forget receiving a free toaster for opening an account, banks now hit you with up to $15 a month just for the privilege of putting your money in their bank.

Dimon insists that this is necessary: "If you're a restaurant and you can't charge for the soda, you're going to charge more for the burger," he lectures.

Come on, Jamie, drop the mom & pop pose. You're not a little restaurant struggling to make ends meet – you head a monopolistic financial behemoth that helped ruin the economy for America's moms & pops, then took billions in taxpayer bailouts, used the crisis to increase its monopoly power, continues to get federally-subsidized money, just announced a 78-percent hike in profits, and recently paid you a salary and bonus of $18 million.

The Dimons of Wall Street keep picking our pockets because they believe they're entitled to excessive profits and paychecks. To help bring these greedheads down to Earth, visit Americans for Financial Reform:
www.ourfinancialsecurity.org.

GOLDMAN'S GOLDEN DEAL

Jim Hightower — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

That'll teach 'em, won't it?

The SEC, Wall Street's top regulator, has whacked the mighty Goldman Sachs with one of the largest penalties in financial history. The high-strutting banking conglomerate will pay more than half-a-billion bucks for selling a complex investment scheme that was designed to fail. "This settlement is a stark lesson to Wall Street firms," a stern SEC official stated. They will pay "a heavy price," he warned, if they violate "the fundamental principles of honest treatment and fair dealing."

Atta boy – go get those self-serving, narcissistic banksters!

But, wait – on the day that SEC officials imposed this supposed "humbling" penalty, Goldman's stock price went up by five percent. Far from being deterred by the penalty, high-rolling speculators saw it as a vindication of Wall Street's casino ethic. "It looks like a big win for Goldman," gloated one financial analyst, adding that SEC's $550 million assessment "seems like a paltry sum."

Now, I could never put "$550 million" and "paltry" in the same sentence, but if you do the Wall Street math, you can see his logic. Goldman hauls in half-a-billion dollars in profit every 15 days. In fact, that one-day five-percent boost that Goldman got in its stock price added far more than $550 million to its market value – so the giant actually made money off the deal!

What we have here is not punishment, but blatant political favoritism for the most politically-connected bank in our country. Goldman Sachs is not merely a huge bank, but a longtime inside-Washington player that literally helps bend the regulator rules for its personal gain. To help push structural reforms that really can restore "fair dealing" to our financial system, contact Americans for Financial Reform:
www.ourfinancialsecurity.org.

ONCE AGAIN OBAMA ABANDONS HIS FRIENDS

Jim Hightower — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Shirley Sherrod Story started as a beautiful anecdote of redemption and personal growth, which she recently related at a meeting of the Georgia NAACP.

Her story would have ended there, unnoticed by the rest of us. But it was picked up in a malicious political wind that swept it all the way to Washington. There, it sucked up an enormous volume of hot air, then burst into the national news like a furious tornado, ripping the roofs from several big houses of power to reveal a mess of ugliness within.

Ugly Number One is Andrew Breitbart, a far-right-wing blogger who is striving for his 15-minutes of infamy by intentionally distorting, manipulating, and lying about the actions of unsuspecting people to create explosive political tales. He took a 38-second, edited clip that perverted Sherrod's Georgia speech, making it look like she and the NAACP are anti-white racists. The guy is a creep.

Ugly Number Two are the Becks, Hannitys, O'Reillys and other foam-at-the-mouth Fox TV blatherers. These shameless media muggers eagerly grabbed Breitbart's crap and hurled it across America as "truth."

Ugly Number Three is the Obama White House, which swallowed the Breitbart-Fox false story whole and immediately dismissed Sherrod from her federal job. They literally tracked her down in her car and forced her to phone in her resignation, without letting her tell the true story!

To me, the Obama ugiliness is the worst, for it reveals a shameful lack of loyalty, fairness, and feistiness. Like ACORN and Van Jones before, Sherrod was under vicious and false attack from Obama's enemies – but the Obamacans are so afraid of right -wing smear artists that they instantly run from them, cravenly abandoning their friends. Hello – if you don't stand for your friends, who'll stand for you?

WHY ARE WALL STREET BANKERS GRINNING?

Jim Hightower — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Banker greed is like ugly on a toad – it can't simply be rinsed off, no matter how much regulatory soap you use.

Congress has now enacted new rules to govern America's huge banks, thus completing Washington's response to the unbridled Wall Street greed that crashed the financial system and crushed our economy. The regulatory reforms were hailed by Democrats as possessing powerful cleansing power, while Republicans wailed that the new rules were overly caustic, imposing such a heavy-handed governmental scrub that the delicate layers of Wall Street innovation and profitability will be rubbed away.

Meanwhile, big bankers are grinning from ear to ear, for the bill requires no restructuring and decentralizing of the monopolistic grip that these giants have on America's credit system. Thus, they still retain the power to rip off consumers, gamble with depositors' money, haul in exorbitant profits, and pay themselves ungodly bonuses – all while remaining "too big to fail."

Yes, the banking barons now have to adjust to stricter regulations, many of which are good and long overdue. But these guys are experts at slipping out of governmental leashes. JPMorgan Chase, for example, had 90 "project teams" plotting end runs around the regulations even before they were passed. Take electronic derivative trades, the casino game that caused the Wall Street implosion. Rather than outright banning them as an intolerable threat to our economy, Congress' bill attaches a bunch of strings to the game, hoping to tie it down. But JPMorgan alone has long had more than 100 of its derivative traders and other casino technicians scheming to untie the strings – so you can bet they'll keep their game going.

They won't stop gaming the system until we fundamentally restructure Wall Street. The way you'll know that real reform has come is that the bankers will have those grins wiped off their faces.

SAVE THE CONGRESSIONAL MILLIONAIRES

Jim Hightower — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Let's hear a cheer for a much maligned group of American workers, for they have stood up and done the right thing!

Not pimps, not drug chieftains, not Big Oil executives or Wall Street bankers – more maligned even than these. Yes, members of Congress! With a public approval rating ticking down toward single digits, these 535 workers could use a bit of good press, and they recently earned some. Actually, it was not for anything they did, but for something they did not do: they did not increase their pay this year.

So let's all lift our glasses of Dom Pérignon champagne to toast these frugal political stalwarts who voted to restrict their pay to the level they’re presently drawing – a mere $174,000 each. Plus health care. Plus pensions. Etc.

Okay, that's a far better deal than 95 percent of American workers get, but it's the thought that counts. And lest you think that our lawmakers are living the life of Riley while their constituents are scrambling to stay one step ahead of bankruptcy, let me point out that they, too, have been hit hard by the Great Recession, and their level of wealth has taken a tragic tumble. Did you know, for example, that the median net worth of U.S. Senators has fallen to only $1.79 million?

The media establishment gives wide coverage to the plight of the unemployed, but it ignores this compelling story of congressional wealth decline. Worse, we're given sensationalist reports that while only one percent of Americans are millionaires, 44 percent of our lawmakers are in the millionaire class.

But, guess what? That supposedly damning number means that 56 percent of the members are not millionaires. How do you think that makes them feel? Let's show some kindness here. It's time for a national movement to save the congressional millionaires! Give generously, won't you?

FIGHTING THE SUPERBUGS OF ARGRIBUSINESS

Jim Hightower — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Not so long ago, the "miracle cure" of antibiotics prompted doctors to prescribe them for illnesses as minor as colds and upset tummies. But, then, people began to die. In droves.

Why? Overuse of antibiotics led to the rapid evolution of savvy bacteria resistant to the miracle drugs. These superbugs cannot be killed, so they swarm infected patients and kill them. Its become an epidemic – about 100,000 people a year are killed by unstoppable bacterial infections that they get in hospitals, plus many others die from superbug infections they get elsewhere.

To add absurdity to this horror, the real culprits in the overuse of antibiotics are not our doctors, but giant meat processors. In the massive factory operations of such conglomerates as Tyson Foods, millions of chickens, hogs, and cattle are routinely dosed each year with antibiotics. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that 84 percent of all antibiotics go not to us humans, but to the animals in these industrial facilities.

Why? One, because the facilities are filthy, making the animals sick. But second – and worse – the agribusiness profiteers use antibiotics simply to force the chickens, hogs, and cows to grow faster, thus reducing corporate costs. Never mind the cost in human health. This is so senseless that it makes your brain hurt.

At last, however, federal regulators are taking tentative steps to – O, progress! – stop meat processors from using antibiotics to bulk up animals. Of course, the corporate powers are swarming Congress like – well, like bacteria, in an all out effort to kill any reform.

In the past, special interest money of agribusiness has been able to clobber common sense, but this time the momentum is on our side. To help give it a push, contact the Union of Concerned Scientists: www.ucsusa.org.

WIMPY LEADERS IGNORE A STRONG PEOPLE

Jim Hightower — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Right-wing Republicans and corporate Democrats have become a pathetic bunch of "No-can-do Nancys."

Faced with an economy reeling from the plutocratic policies that these same lawmakers pushed down upon us, they are now whimpering that America is too weak to meet the obvious needs of its own people. "We must surrender to the Gods of Economic Despair," they cry. At a time when history calls for our leaders to step forth with a bit of FDR boldness and rally grassroots people to rebuild our economy, they trumpet for retreat, giving up on America's historic ideal of the common good.

A jobs program? "Everyone for themselves," they shout. Health care for all? "Go to the emergency room," they scream. Social Security? "Socialism," they screech, "run away from it!" Public education? "Can't afford it," they tell us, as they turn their backs on hundreds of thousands of teachers soon to be fired. Repair America's rotting infrastructure? "Too big for us, " they wail, "leave it to the next generation."

Wagging teabags rather than picking up the tools of real recovery, the woeful voices of American failure insist that they speak for the People. Hogwash. Americans are a strong, community-minded, democratic-spirited, can-do people. Indeed, the latest Gallop poll shows that 60 percent of the public favors "additional government spending to create jobs and stimulate the economy."

"But we must balance the budget," whine the naysayers. Of course we should, and big majorities say we should do that by putting people to work, taxing the superrich to pay their fair share of Social Security and other public needs, as well as by slashing the $12 billion a month we're spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's time for our "leaders" to stop whining – and catch up to the people.

DELL'S DECEPTIVE "GENIUS"

Jim Hightower — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:17:29 -0700

Let us now sing the praises of Dell Incorporated. The computer giant offers an object lesson for the laissez-faire ideologues who keep insisting that we should turn our government over to corporations, since they are so efficient and customer-oriented.

In a fairly short time, Michael Dell's concept of tight inventory control, direct marketing, and cheap-labor production in offshore factories quickly turned him into both a multibillionaire and a celebrity CEO hailed as a genius.

But – oops – turns out that Michael's genius has a few unsightly hickies on it. His corporation is now being sued by some of its biggest customers for peddling shoddy products, then deliberately deceiving buyers about the shoddiness.

Beginning in 2003, for example, Dell shipped millions of faulty desktop computers to customers. Even after executives learned that the products had a bad component that would cause a 97 percent failure rate, they urged employees to keep this quiet. "We need to avoid all language indicating the boards were bad or had 'issues,'" says one internal email. "Don't bring this to customer's attention proactively," instructed another Dell document.

The company even tried to shaft the law firm it had hired to defend it against aggrieved customers, balking against fixing 1,000 faulty computers Dell had foisted on the firm. Good grief! Shaft your best friend, cheat your own mother, but messing with your lawyer is a death wish.

Adding to Dell's problems is a tumbling market share and plummeting stock prices, aggravated by federal charges that the corporation has been cooking its books for years. Indeed, the genius himself is even facing federal accusations of fraud and misconduct.

Genius is as genius does. Why should we entrust our public business to such people?

SURPRISE! THE PEOPLE SPEAK

Jim Hightower — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Michael Duke is the Big Wally of Walmart. As CEO of the low-wage behemoth, he siphons some $19 million a year in personal pay from the global retailer.

How much is $19 million? Let's break it down in terms that Duke's own workforce can appreciate. While Big Wally's workers average about $9.50 an hour, Duke's pay comes to about $9,500 an hour. So he pockets as much in two hours as Walmart workers make in a whole year! But Walmart doesn't give a damn about such gross pay gaps between privileged elites and the rest of us. As a spokesman scoffed, "I don't think Mike Duke... needs me to defend his compensation package."

Really? If not you, who?

Those who think that the hoi polloi don't notice, much less care, about America's growing income disparity, should take a peek at a recent opinion survey run by the right-wing, corporate-funded Peter Peterson Foundation. This outfit intended to show that the general public backs the teabag agenda slashing of government spending, including balancing the federal budget by putting Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block.

But – woopsie-daisy – the survey of thousands of Americans went badly wrong for the Peterson ideologues. For example, far from wanting to gut Social Security payments, 85 percent of the people favored extending the program by the making rich pay into the fund, like all the rest of us do.

And – hey, Mike – this one's for you: nearly six out of 10 of the folks involved in the foundation's "America Speaks" survey want a new, higher tax bracket to make millionaires pay their fair share of providing for the common good.

The foundation tried to bury these surprisingly progressive results, but you can see a good analysis of them at the Center for Economic Policy and Research: www.cepr.net.