To Shore Up The 1% They Were Willing To Destroy Democracy

They hate the government for taxing them and regulating them, so they decided to destroy it, which means they decided to destroy our democracy because that’s the kind of government we have here.

It began in the 70s with a memo Lewis Powell wrote to the US Chamber of Commerce. Workers had rights, polluters were being regulated, corporations didn’t like being taxed and regulated by a public sector that inhibited them from predatory practices.

You can read up on Lewis Powell at Bill Moyers' website, and learn more about Powell's influential memo that stole the economy back for the plutocrats. Powell went on to sit on the Supreme Court and help convert it into a law firm for the wealthy.

In the 70s the super-rich decided enough was enough and decided to fight back.

Slowly, over the past 3 or 4 decades, workers’ incomes have flatlined and infrastructure, schools, and trusted institutions have been deliberately degraded.

The Right knew that the only way to destroy democratic government was to defund it, degrade it, discredit it, make it not work, make people distrust and dislike it.

Now the Congress is owned by the people who own for a living. The Court works for the people who own for a living. And the president is one of the people who own for a living.

The Citizens United court ruling turned democracy into a proxy operation by which ordinary people voted for their government but wealthy corporate clubs owned and operated one major party and dominated the Supreme Court through the Heritage Foundation and the Club for Growth and a whole zoo of upliftingly and patriotically and vaguely named non-profits devoted to free market absolutism.

Bill Moyers has some very good analysis of the powerful octopus of tax-free lobbying operations led by Heritage.

They had a single goal: the total levitation of the owning classes above the bothersome social responsibilities that constitute citizenship, the stuff contained in the social contract by which you contribute of yourself and expect decency and fair play in return. The corporate absolutists who drove this Big Idea felt no obligations beyond themselves and felt the average citizen and his or her government owed them absolute freedom of action and total obedience. When you’re very very big and powerful your dreams are big too. The 1% now own the world.

"From Zero to Nixon in No Time Flat"

Stephen Colbert made that joke a few weeks ago and it’s only getting worse. (Was it ever funny?)

Nixon, for those of you not born in the early seventies, was infamous for his Enemies List which contained quite a few famous names, Paul Newman, Daniel Schorr and Congressman John Conyers among them. Who knew making salad dressing was so subversive.

Mother Jones is reporting that the incoming Trump administration is already creating a list of scientists to purge from the government. Their crime? Working with President Obama to slow and stop climate change.

New York Magazine is reporting that Trump has also been busy purging environmentalists from the Republican Party.

Bill Moyers reports that the Trump administration has already created an enemies list. What's the word I'm looking for? Yes: Nixonian.

Heather Cox Richardson, who wrote the article posted at Bill Moyers' website, is a well-respected Boston historian. Her special areas of study include Native Americans and the periods of American history from the Civil War through Reconstruction. We might assume that the Trump administration wants to scrub those histories clean to make sure no one is embarrassed by knowing about slavery or Jim Crow or the theft of a continent from the native tribes.

Who else might wind up on the “watch list”? Professors who do serious science instead of oil company “science”. Professors of economics who don’t worship unregulated capitalism. Labor historians. Also the millions of people who have spoken out about Donald J. Trump’s behavior and bigotry. It’ll be a very long list. We should make sure we are all on it.

Your Daily Trump––Trump the Business Failure

Everyone who is not in his cult now knows that Trump lost close to a billion dollars in 1996 and got American taxpayers to reimburse him for his stupidity.

Pulitzer Prize winning financial journalist David Cay Johnston goes over the fiasco in this article.

Frontline takes a close look at how the Trump failure unfolded, and it gives you a pretty good idea how rich people avoid losing big even when they fail big. His bankers didn’t foreclose on him publicly. They figured his name on the casino and hotel buildings was worth more than the encumbered real estate, so they left his name up. It appears that his name in large gold letters––just the letters, not the buildings–– might be the only real estate Trump owns. So the Trump name works as a neat metaphor for something that is all show and no substance.

That wasn’t the first time he lost that much. The first time was in 1990, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Chris Christie, Trump’s poodle who is also governor of New Jersey, is trying to spin the loss of $900+ million as a smart move. Even FoxNews laughed.

Christie himself softened Trump’s losses in New Jersey by cutting him a sweetheart bankruptcy deal. New Jersey's own reporters covered this story.

While Trump’s casinos lost millions Trump made millions. It’s very hard to lose money running a casino. Usually this is because casinos always make money. Trump’s didn’t. But Trump paid himself as if they did. Everyone who invested with him lost their money, but Trump paid himself millions. Reported by VOX.

By the way, the immigrants Trump says “steal American jobs”? They don’t. Billionaires do. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine appointed a task force which crunched the numbers and discovered the truth. Of course the folks inTrump’s cult despise experts. Reported by Bill Moyers.

College Education––Public or Private...or For-Profit?

Bernie’s free tuition proposal is only “radical” and “unrealistic” if you reject the policies that worked very well from Truman through Carter and accept and want to keep all of the rich-favoring tax breaks that came about since Reagan reset our economy. It was Reagan that set us on the road to dysfunction and unfairness.

This appeared in my news feed a minute ago from the Bernie campaign. Kind of puts the whole thing in context.

Bill Moyers explains some of the new tricks the for-profit college "industry" uses to fleece college students. This is why certain things don't lend themselves to the profit model. When you are focused on profit above all you are obligated to deliver profits when colleges should be obligated to deliver education.

How Our Kiss Up/Kick Down Tax Policy Could Be Fairer

Obama takes steps against too-big-to-fail banks. From VOX.

The Wall Street Journal thinks this is a bad idea, so it must be good for most people. Why not create a safer harbor for retirement savings than the predator filled waters of the financial sector, where the safest waters are reserved for the wealthy.

The new fiduciary rule means financial advisors would once again be obligated to you rather than obligated to the financial giants who’d like to use the masses of lower income retirees like a cash machine. From SLATE.

Pulitzer Prize financial reporter David Cay Johnston discusses a few of the sneakier dodges available to the 1%.

Did you realize that the helpful folks who devise the simple, easy to use tax software are not really helpful at all but predatory?

Which is why they oppose any new policy that would make tax filing easier for everyone.

VOX reports on Elizabeth Warren's good idea.

Propublica reports how the Turbotax people lobbied Congress to keep our tax code more complicated. Complicated tax laws make them very very rich.

Maybe the worst policy in recent years is the one that makes college loan debt unforgivable. I mean, even the worst felons are paroled eventually, but college loans persist after the death of the college student who incurred them. College debt interest ought to be tax deductible like mortgage interest. You incurred the debt to open up a better career, why isn’t it a business expense? Why in god’s name is it now suggested we make it a tax deduction for corporations to pay off your debt for you, when your paying it off wasn’t deductible? Reported at SLATE.

From the PARIS REVIEW, some history on the crime of indebtedness.

The unfairness of our Kiss Up Kick Down economy is finally sinking in. People are angry and understand what they are angry about. Before we’ll see a fundamental shift we need a critical mass of understanding, a consensus that the system is screwed up and isn’t working. It’s not just unfair, it is dysfunctional. From NEW YORK MAGAZINE.

The 1% are hoarders. While we work long hours they rake in millions they haven’t earned without lifting a finger, and they hide it where it can’t be taxed for schools and bridges and water systems. Reported by EVONOMICS.

Even Goldman Sachs may be realizing the current system is not working. Reported by BLOOMBERG.

One thing has to change: we need to quit putting the rich above the law. I’ve seen this expressed in another nicely cynical way: “I’ll believe corporations are people when they hang one in Texas." Reported by PROMARKET.

This kind of corruption has happened before. Bill Moyers revisits the corruption of a few decades ago.

Jesus the Corporate CEO

Bill Moyers asks the question: Why have Americans gone along with the concentration of economic privilege?

Where did Americans get the idea of Jesus the Venture Capitalist? Salon has the history.

This man works full time preparing gourmet meals for wealthy New Yorkers while his family lives in a homeless shelter. God bless our free economy. From Raw Story.

The gospel of trickle-down is proving untrue in the Deep South. From the Washington Post.

And finally, a Republican wonders why money always flows uphill in America, unlike in other countries. But he’s only pouting because it’s hurting him. Washington Monthly talks to poor deprived Republican candidate Lindsey Graham.

Oh, and one more thing... The problem of homelessness? There is a solution if you want to solve the problem. From Nashville Public Radio.

Of course it would cost money. The problem then is the Republicans, who think if you don't spend money on a problem there isn't a problem.

Working for a Living Vs. Owning for a Living

Jeb Bush said something odd yesterday: he said that our economy will do better if American workers will only work longer hours. Spoken like someone who owns for a living. The number of working people with jobs divided by those same workers working longer hours equals fewer jobs. It’s not that Bush is stupid, or that he is unable to think. His problem is he thinks like his money. His money thinks all problems should be solved to the benefit of money and people who have lots of it.

This from Bill Moyers. Lest anyone think Bernie Sanders is outside the American mainstream, he’s actually in the middle of it, historically. Unless you think every cooperative effort from barn raising to Social Security is unAmerican...

From The Guardian's George Monbiot: The Greek crisis is just a repetition of the age old conflict between people who work for a living (the 99%) and people who own for a living, between labor and capital. When it comes to money, capital always writes the rules.

The always perceptive and clearheaded David Cay Johnston writes about how venture capitalists loot pension funds. It’s a shame it’s in Al Jazeera where it will never persuade those it needs to persuade.

Why Have Insurers Been Silent on Climate Change?

I began asking this question among economists, opinion shapers and policy people. Then I read the article in the Guardian, about how Lloyds is finally beginning to charge for climate change risk. Then, just this week, Farmers Insurance began filing lawsuits, not against the fossil fuel companies triggering climate change, but against the communities who failed to plan for the harm climate change will wreak on properties insured by Farmers. Why did it take so long for the insurance industry to wake up?

Maybe they were distracted. Maybe they had (in Dick Cheney's famous phrase) "other priorities." Are insurers still in the business of protecting against risks? Is that just a sideline, a way of raising investment capital?

I would suggest that insurance companies stopped being insurance companies at least a decade ago. They evolved into financial companies whose main duty is getting maximum returns on Wall Street…and these days that means sizable investments in the very profitable peak-oil fossil fuels business. Damn the risks. Profits tend to speak louder than risks at shareholder meetings.

Last month* I put these questions to a small group of people whose job it is to think forwardly. One reply from (a national columnist’s intern) suggested I need to learn more about how business works. The rest was silence. It is important to consider which division of massive financial companies dominates the thinking.

There was another time, in 2006 and 2007, when huge profits dulled the financial sector’s awareness of significant dangers. We ended up paying for their stupidity. Which means they are probably still stupid.

* "When you think of the vast liabilities of violent weather and rising ocean levels, insurers should be mounting a narrative to overturn the fossil fuel industry's campaign.

One reason occurs to me why they’re not. Perhaps insurance companies are overinvested in fossil fuel stocks. The returns on these stocks are huge because of the subsidies and because of peak oil, but they cannot possibly outweigh the potential for disaster.

Can the issue be raised that insurers are investing in industries that are causing these disasters? The causal link would be difficult legally, but less so as a narrative, letting the public change its mind.

Maybe it’s time for people to start writing to insurance companies. Ask an actuary if climate change will pose risks to their insured and to their companies. These issues have enormous economic consequences. The losses may be even larger than profits can cover."