Giants Destroying Democracy

I think there's a huge difference between first tier providers of products, like brooms and mattresses - from factory via distributor to store to customer. 

Behind first tier manufactures (usually small industries and small businesses) stand second and third tier conglomerates - huge holding companies that manufacture nothing, but buy, close down and reshape and sell; the giant banks and trading houses, the giant chemical companies that supply plastics, the agribusiness giants like Monsanto and their control of seeds and commodities … 

The little guy has little influence on Capital Hill; it's the giants who have the influence, the giants who are mostly for us just names, not products - boards of directors who share seats with one another on varying boards, grant giant salaries and perks for the few, and their joint efforts to fill government regulatory agencies and influence Congress and the Courts. 

For me, it's not a pretty picture, but a dangerous one threatening the very core of our democratic processes. 

Efficiency - in the Private Sector????

A friend of mine has raised a lot of concern about inefficiency in the public sector, especially education; at one point, my friend says: "as a lifelong educator in the classroom and at the administrative level, I can assure you there is plenty of our taxpayer $$ being wasted by poor planning, budgeting, and lack of half way decent financial skills."


He may well be right.


But I raise the following question: where, then, can we find efficiency, good planning, budgeting and financial skills?


America's banking industry?

Oh, that's right; they so cleverly invented "sophisticated" financial instruments and brought us the worst financial disaster conceivable, and then had the temerity to come to Uncle Sam with their hands out.

Big biz?

Goodness, any insider can ya' that big biz is no paragon of virtue, on any front.

Having spent a good part of my life knowing and talking with folks in various American industries - coal and steel in Pittsburgh, oil in Tulsa, the auto companies in Detroit, and the movie industry in LA - there is tons of waste, extravagance, poor planning, bad goal setting and a host of lesser sins. But it's mostly hidden from public view. American industry has no sunshine rules like the public sector.

One of the great American myths perpetrated by Reagan and Big Biz is that Big Biz is efficient, and could run government services so much more efficiently, and government is always the problem.

Horse patootie ... big time.

But myths are hard to defeat, and this silly myth of private-sector efficiency has brought us our knees, and has millions of Americans scrambling to dismantle public education in favor of charter schools, private schools and home-schooling. Ya sure, you betcha!

Every time I see a fire engine responding to an emergency, or visit a national or state park, or get a letter in the mail, I see just how efficient government is.

I'm a product of both private and public education, and while one might well promote private education for philosophical purposes, it's a total mistake to suggest that the private sector has a financial leg up on the public.

It simply doesn't, no more than anyone has a moral or ethical leg up on anyone else.

The myth is just that - a story, and not a very good one at that.

Give me the public sector any time, and give me the inefficiency of our public schools, and if we're going to improve our education, let's quit demeaning our teachers; let's start building them up, touting them as the heroes they are, and let's fully fund our schools, once and for all. And let's pay attention to the home, and let's quit being such silly hypersensitive parents who quickly attack the teacher when little Billy wets his pants.

But that's another story.

Big Gov Needed

We need big gov, and whatever sins that may mean, in order to restrain big biz and its greater sins.

As far as I can tell, big biz, unrestrained, always moves in the same direction - toward total monopoly.

As we see with the lastest Comcast move to drive Netflix into a corner.

Sure, why not?

All's fair in love and war, right?

But where's the balance?

Can we rightly expect someone in Comcast to say, "Oh no, we can't do that to Netflix and all of their customers"?

No, I don't expect that of Comcast. What I expect is Comcast to do everything it can to promote itself, provide a product and make money.

That's what I expect of Comcast and big biz.

There is only one reliable source of balance in all of this, and that's big gov - big enough to say "No!" and big enough to set some boundaries, lest the drive to monopolize progresses to its inevitable conclusion of total market dominance.

And, please, don't buy the propaganda that big biz loves democracy. They don't. What they love is the freedom to pursue their goals of dominance without restraint. Talk to employees and you'll hear the same story: there is no democracy within the companies - there's a lot of cruelty and control, and folks can lose their jobs in a heartbeat if they raise the wrong question, not to mention questions of moral responsibility.

Without a doubt, there are lots of good people at the top, but I think the bigger the biz grows, the more the tail wags the dog, and even good people are swept up and swept away in vast systems driven by power and profits. There is little morality left by the time the elevator reaches the 50th floor.

Nor do I look for an abundance of morality in big gov, but history makes it amply clear that government, by the people, for the people and of the people, can alone stand up against the Wall Street juggernaut. 

It's a question of balance.

As big biz has grown larger in the last 40 years, and government has been dismantled along the way, the seeds were sown for the economic disaster now in place, here in the United States and across Europe. In spite of its better instincts, Europe bought, lock, stock and barrel, the US model of market-driven capitalism, allowing the tentacles of international corporations, quite literally nations unto themselves, to strangle the world. And in turn, kill the goose that lays the golden egg.  And when the goose was dead and their were no more eggs to be had, they paid a visit to the very governments they manipulated and to the peoples they harmed and asked for a handout.

Amazing.

All of this might have turned out very differently had government maintained its regulatory vigilance, but thanks to conservative efforts, government was weakened to the point of ineffectiveness.

Whatever the sins of big gov may be, the sins of big biz have to be collared by someone or something big enough to reign them in.

I don't know of another entity, other than government big enough, to handle the job of regulatory restraint.

The Koch Brothers and Prop 23

Have given a million bucks to support Prop 23 ... the dismantling of California's effort on greenhouse gases, telling us that we have to do this to create jobs. Yeah sure ... what an unmitigated lie.

I wrote this for Digg earlier today:

Read and weep in the LA Times ... and then vote No on Prop 23 ... what makes anyone think that, either in the short-haul, or the the long-run, pillaging the environment to suit the interests of big biz will solve anything? When will Americans realize that big biz, driven by Wall Street and its lusts for insane profits and further entitlement, cares not a whit about the people. That you and I are only pawns in their game for self-aggrandizement. Big biz is a legion of false gods demanding our allegiance and promising rewards, which, of course, are never fulfilled. Giant corporations are hideous places in which to work, stripping the soul of consciousness, demanding the surrender of the conscience to corporate goals, holding all employees captive through a contrived system of medical insurance. These international giants are a law unto themselves, devouring the world as quickly as they can. And after years of GOP foolishness, that Americans would even give a moment's thought to the GOP agenda is mind-boggling. But never underestimate the power of the idol; the power of falsehood. Go ahead and read Revelation 13 for an insight into how this all works. 

By the way, just who are these Koch Boys ...?

Check out this note from the New Yorker - enough to chill your blood.

These are the kind of people who glad and quickly raised their hands in salute and shouted Heil Hitler because they knew that Hitler would play into their hands and plans for the domination of Germany's economy and Germany's dreams of world-domination (read Neo-cons).

But in time, their vanity and their lust filled the cup of wrath that was soon to be poured out upon Germany and the entire world.

Perhaps I exaggerate ... but, then, folks thought Barth and Bonhoeffer were exaggerating, too, when they decried Germany's drift into hyper-nationalism, the hatred of aliens, and the the steady manipulation of the church into a more accommodating mode, by blessing the church with power in exchange for its loyalty.

Managed Health Care

Hmmm, let's see - health care managed by the government?

Or by private companies ...

Who siphon off billions of our hard-earned dollars to fund corporate jets, junkets to expensive resorts, training seminars at places most of us will never see, tens of millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses, millions more for lobbying Congress to protect them ... millions more for advertising ...

Who then charge us for everything, who deny health care to millions, forcing millions more into under-coverage with impossible deductibles ... driving many into medical bankruptcy ... cutting hospital stays and threatening health follow-up ... telling doctors what procedures and tests they can and cannot offer ... restricting our health care at every level, while telling us the government is wasteful, terrible, untrustworthy and out to get our money ... while they, on the other hand, are efficient, reliable, and wanting only to serve our best interests.

P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute," and how right he was.

We're suckers to buy this kind of propaganda ... a long-established ploy of big biz to blind us to how they're robbing us and how the government is the real enemy. Wrong. Check with Teddy Roosevelt and how he busted the Trusts. Didn't take long for them to recover. FDR made a difference. Eisenhower, at the end of his term, recognized the terrible power of the industrial-military complex, but then it was too late for him to do anything about. Reagan bought it hook, line and sinker and spoon fed it to us with an "aw shucks pardner" down-home style; the Bushes, part of the elite, bought it and so did Clinton.

With Obama, we have a chance to clear the air and set things right for all Americans.

We have a chance.

But billions are being spent right now to mount one of the largest lobbying and advertising efforts we've seen in a long time - to convince us all over again that government is our enemy and big biz is our friend.

We're the laughing stock of the world, but as long as we keep believing we're the best, no matter how costly and perverted our health system is, and the rest of the world is crazy, I guess we'll keep on believing the spin doctors hired by the health insurance industry to fool us and fleece us.

Reply to Solveig ...

Solveig, that's just the point ... we're at a moment in time when big biz has had its way with so much of our life, shrinking the moral role of government, while screaming constantly that we need less government, that big gov is the enemy (talk about double speak) and big biz our friend, our savior, etc..

There is no substitute for good government, and I'm weary of the anti-government rhetoric crafted by the big biz interests. Our Federal government is far from perfect, but if you want to know imperfection, try a big biz board room, visit General Motors, or listen to how the health insurance industry will build a campaign to keep things the same.

I would rather put my money into government which has a far better chance of regulating it for the common good of all.

We do this with defense.

We'd never think of privatizing defense, although Blackwater might like that.

For 40 years, and going back even further to the union busting tactics of Boeing after World War 2, and their nefarious racist efforts to keep African Americans out of the unions, and the efforts of big steel and the coal mines - we've been living with certain well-financed myths that vilify government. Why?

So that big biz can keep a strangle hold on our lives. See the Fricks, the Carneigies, the Vandebilts ... and the Enrons and Madoffs and health insurance executives and Wall Street traders, and on and on it goes. This is the way it's been from the earliest days of industrialization, as Americans moved from the farms to the cities.

Yes, pit them against one another, but we must at least recognize that big biz in America has hoodwinked us - as they did when they tied health insurance to employment to prevent the government from getting involved. Big biz has squeezed government out, and government, for much of the last 40 years, was more than willing to surrender its constitution and moral responsibilities, because too many folks in Congress are in the "employee" of big biz. Where's Teddy Roosevelt when we need him?

It's time for real balance, and I can't think of a better place to begin that a government mandated and administered single-payer health insurance agency. The billions spent on administering thousands of plans more complicated then sending men to the moon would go for health care. The $14 million dollar annual plus salaries paid to insurance CEOs would go to health care, hospitals, nurses and research.

I don't see thousands of Europeans and Canadians flocking to our shores for medical help. No system is perfect, but ours is so seriously flawed right now as to make us the laughing stock of the world.

We can do better, and I believe we will.

Every American needs access to good medical care, and no one ever need delay medical work because they have to pay next month's rent or pay for pills they're already using.

The "American" Way

I am slowly learning, after 65 years, just how frightened American big biz is of government.

Why?

Woven into big biz's DNA is an overwhelming conviction that it's way is the right way, that its wealth and power proves moral right, that American workers are their unruly children, and if the workers only knew how nice big biz really was, they'd knuckle under and buckle down, being grateful for the crumbs that fall from the table.

The history of labor and management in this country is abysmal.

It is throughout the world, but in much of the world, big gov has come to the aid of the worker, enabling them to unionize and bargain for more than crumbs, insuring workers' rights and lowering health care costs while boosting health care results by tying health care into the gov's side of things with a single-payer system.

Nowhere else in the civilized world is medical insurance linked to employment, but big biz agreed to this in the post-WW2 years to forestall the gov from doing it.

We will NEVER resolve the issue of health care as long as we leave it in the hands of big biz. Health care belongs in the hands of the government - this will immediately lower the huge administrative costs presently "enjoyed" by the health insurance industry - 30% of every dollar is sucked up into the pockets of the companies - the average CEO salary is 14 million, not to mention the endless perks engineered into their contracts.

And now the commercials begin - funded by the mega billions of the health insurance industry highlighting the evils of Canada's health care and touting the wonders of America's healthy industry - because it's NOT health care in America, it's an industry making billions for its managers while:

DENYING insurance to 50 million Americans.
INADEQUATELY insuring millions more.
SADDLING many with impossible deductibles.
RATIONING HEALTH CARE to all the top echelons of our society.

The simple reality: you and I are a cash cow for the industry, at the expense of our health.

Is this the American way?

It is if you're big biz.

Big Biz Welfare

Would someone please tell me the difference between an oak tree 75 feet high, and one three-years old and three-feet high?

Other than age and size, is there any difference?

Both are oak, trees, right?

To disregard the small oak, to neither care for it not protect it, while lavishing all of our energies on the mature tree, jeopardises the future, though at the time, the small tree appears insignificant in the shadow of the larger.

Ever since Reagan (the Evil President) introduced numerous lies into the American psyche regarding the sanctity of big biz and the worthlessness of "welfare moms driving Cadillacs," we've been neglecting the little tree - while pouring billions into government bailouts for the big ones - including now the prospect of a bailout for Freddie Mae and Fanny Mac, done in by their own greed and lack of foresight.

Once again, we see how big biz is anything but a savior, and hardly to be trusted with the nephews and nieces. Big biz, like strange uncle Howard, has no sense of boundary and will feed only its own appetites.

Without government regulation (Reagan and his deregulation), big biz does what's natural - it devours everything around it.

At a recent conference on economics, it's been suggested that government listens too closely to Wall Street, that Wall Street is coming to rely upon Uncle Same to clean up the mess, a la Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae.

"The Fed listens to Wall Street," said Willem Buiter, professor of European political economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. "Throughout the 12 months of the crisis, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the Fed is too close to the financial markets and leading financial institutions, and too responsive to their special pleadings, to make the right decisions for the economy as a whole," he wrote in a paper presented to the conference.

Critics like Buiter worry that the Fed's unprecedented actions — including financial backing for JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s takeover of Bear Stearns Cos. — are putting taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars of potential losses. They also say it encourages "moral hazard," that is, allowing financial companies to gamble more recklessly in the future.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who spoke to the conference on Friday, defended the Fed's actions, saying they were "necessary and justified" to avert a meltdown of the entire financial system, which would have devastated the U.S. economy.

Yet, Bernanke also acknowledged that mitigating moral hazard is one of the critical challenges policymakers face as they weigh steps — including strengthening regulation — to make the financial system better able to withstand shocks down the road.

"If no countervailing actions are taken, what would be perceived as an implicit expansion of the safety net could exacerbate the problem of `too big to fail,' possibly resulting in excessive risk-taking and yet greater systemic risk in the future," Bernanke said.

Their failure would be a hardship for millions of investors and pension funds, but with the right kind of support for individual homeowners (who need to stay in their homes), and a recovery of the principles of Teddy Roosevelt and FDR, we'd go a long way toward preventing these catastrophic meltdowns brought upon us by mismanagement and poor planning.

And with billions no longer going for our expansionist war in Iraq and adequate regulation of the greed factor, we might once again reweave the social security net, create more jobs, bolster the American working family, boost education, provide universal health care, rebuild our aging infrastructure and create mass transit.

Greatness is measured, not by the success of Wall Street, but rather by the way we care for the little trees.

One of these days, we may learn: a just society is a profitable one!