in a sickening way, this post reminds me of Bush’s methodology of changing the definition of a word just as the Sheriffs come knocking at the door.
The plan is to cut all government services to the bone. Social security? Turn the $$$ over to the honest money men on Wall Street. SEC enforcement? The market can take care of itself (like it did in Harken, eh George?) Carpooling? Nah, turn the entire road system over to private companies. When the poor people can’t afford the tolls the rich will have less traffic to deal with. Natural disasters? FEMA did a heck of a job in NOLA. Medical care? The insurance and healthcare industries are making a bundle so what’s the problem? Of course, when giant corporations default on their pension obligations then it’s OK to ask the taxpayers to bail them out. Just not the top 1% of the taxpayers. When all is said and done the country will still be running huge deficits to finance the war machine that keeps our oil flowing out from under those pesky foreigners. And law enforcement to protect the children (i.e. totalitarian state apparatus). The damage BushCo has done cannot be undone in a decade.
Wouldn’t if be nice to learn the details of how Lay and Cheney were divvying up the oil fields in Iraq on a big map, even before 9/11?
Bush’s world, no courts, just bullets.
This law would protect the big law and accounting firms and corporate management. Shareholders are just sheep, too. They are being fleeced and their investments are being driven into the ground by management. The average ’shareholder’ is about as powerful as the average voter. ‘Management’ — that’s the CEO’s and their teams of accountants, lawyers and bankers — run corporations. All they have to do is pack the board, which is easy enough to do, just nominate and elect. Most shareholders don’t attend annual meetings, they just sign their proxies. Large blocks of shares are held by pension funds and other financial mgmt outfits — how do you think those shares are voted? In fact, hijacking corporations from shareholders is an old art and is probably the model for what we see in government, the admin running the country despite the voters. To check my accuracy here, see who is really getting the lion’s share of record corporate profits. Shareholders just get enough to keep them quiet.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/ jan-june07/equity_02-08.html If I caught the gist of the story correctly, loose groups of uber-rich investors are joining forces & pooling their immense resources so-as to buy out formerly publically-traded companies. Then they break ‘em up for all the wealth they can wring out of the pieces-parts, & simply dump the trashed remains (as well as whatever employees or investors may have been attached there-to). Am I on target if I blame repubs/Bush administration for continually loosening controls on investment schemes & scams???
I believe that Big $ is just extending their game, this time they’re doing it with a whole country. When the US is an empty husk they’ll just move on to Paraguay. We’ll stay here and life will be nasty, brutish and short. They are a parasite that kills the host.those that hate government should not be allowed to govern. They may participate in government, but they should not be allowed to govern.
Bush is continuing his campaign to remove all our protections and all our money in the time left to him. But, hey….he’s just trying to *pertect* us, right? If we had two nickles left in our pocket they might rub together, make a spark, and set our clothes on fire.