New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Image from forbes.com
Cisco systems has already evaded 7 billion in taxes since 2005, but wants another tax break. Considering the corruption and corporatism that pervades the United States Government, it would be surprising if they didn’t get the tax break. The State of New Jersey is going to get a multi billion dollar loan from JP Morgan Chase. Chris Christie is supposed to be the very fiscally responsible governor, but he is going to get a loan from a private bank. It is mind blowing that this is even possible or legal. Christie has been a media darling and Republican favorite, and one could see why, he isn’t afraid to sell off his government to bankers, and for obvious reasons, this is really enjoyed by the Washington and Wall Street establishment. Darrell Issa fought any talk of charging Goldman Sachs or other financial institutions with crimes after the financial crisis in 08. While he was doing this, he was purchasing Goldman bonds. He actually threw 600,000 dollars at the company. This is largely ignored by the media establishment. The revolving door has been so persuasive in government, that there is no difference between lobbyists and government officials. Staffers from key members of Congress like Pelosi, Boehner, and even the late Ted Kennedy have went from working for the government to working for lobbying groups and financial institutions, further blurring the line between the two. Wall Street and our banking system is run by a small group of people. This is of course where most of the wealth is concentrated, making the “rags to riches American dream” story even more laughable. Even Afghanistan (rightly considered a failed state) has arrested bankers that were the movers and shakers of the financial collapse, something the United States has not done. Bank of America recently settled by paying a 14 billion dollar fine to the New York Fed, which is of course, a bank. The Fed only cut rates from swipe fees to 24 percent, instead of the 12 percent they promised they would cut it down to. As usual, the Fed sticks up for the big banks, because they are a big bank. As Blue Texan at FireDogLake writes: “It’s not encouraging to see that the people who destroyed the global economy through their greed and criminality don’t fear the US government.” Unlike the recent ad campaign championing gay rights, it doesn’t get better. Although 2/3rds of the population believe that the minimum wage should be raised to 10 dollars an hour, many Republicans and capitalist media outlets are arguing that the whole concept should be axed, something not even Barry Goldwater dreamed of doing.
Emails released from the inside show that natural gas drilling is basically a ponzi scheme. Which is no surprise, our whole economy is basically a ponzi scheme, as Bernie Madoff himself pointed out. Exxon Mobil and other oil companies have been funding climate change deniers and fake science institutes. The reason that global warming skepticism is so high is quite obvious, real scientists do not have the corporate backing that deniers have. Democratic Senator Carl Levin is pushing back against the administration’s emissions policy on automakers. He has good reason to do it, he gets tons of money from the major car companies. Many Republicans are trying to abolish the EPA despite it being a popular and rather effective agency. They are, as usual, doing the corporations bidding. House Democrats are showing they could do the same as well, as they are helping with the very consumer damaging AT&T merger . Nothing tells you what you need to know more than the fact that America is producing too many lawyers. There are now 3 times as many PR staffers than there are journalists. No one needs to look much further than these two facts to see what is wrong with our media, and why corruption so pervades our culture, especially in the political realm.
The two wars of Afghanistan and Iraq have cost American taxpayers 4.4 trillion dollars. Even though American troop numbers are “going down” in Afghanistan, the number of private contractors will increase. The Military-Industrial-Complex gets exactly what it wants, especially as Boeing has been massively overcharging the government for parts for helicopters.
So far this year, only 3 bills that didn’t name a building have become law, leading Politico to ask whether or not Congress is dysfunctional. Congress yells at Obama, and Obama yells at them back, but nothing gets done, and its hard to tell the difference between the two. Barney Frank is claiming that partisan politics is the reason that Dodd-Frank was watered down. This is simply not true, it was watered down by lobbyists, and politicians bought by the big banks, including Frank. The problem is not that there are two fundamentally different ideological sides constantly battling it out in Washington, the problem is that both parties serve the same constituency, the wealthy and powerful. There is partisanship, but there is only bickering, because both parties always set forth the same policies, and they are always the same when it comes to the big issues. President Obama’s stimulus contained a 2 billion dollar corporate jet loophole, showing you how serious he is when he wants to get rid of it. Jon Huntsman’s father is one of the richest people in the world, further showing that (as Ted Rall once told me in an interview), you or I cannot seriously run for President. You must be part of the oligarchical ruling class or you cannot afford to run. Lawyers at the FEC finally decided to do something about rampant campaign finance spending and declared the GOP Super-Duper-Pac ran by James Bopp illegal. However, unlimited donations by corporations and unions are still very very legal. GOP officials stopped the FEC from trying to investigate Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell even though she obviously broke campaign finance laws. In the New York 26th Congressional District special election, more money was spent by independent groups than political parties. Even though Mitt Romney is raising 20-30 million in the next quarter, he is getting greatly outraised by Obama. This is how bad our campaign financing is screwed up, Tim Pawlenty raised 4.2 million in the past 3 months, and its considered disappointing. John Cornyn has been rightly criticizing Obama for constantly fundraising, yet he showed his true colors by throwing a fundraiser for himself. Eric Cantor pulled out of budget negotiations, and we may know why now. He has been shorting treasuries and is part of a fund that would benefit financially if the US defaulted. This mind-numbing corruption and obvious conflict of interest is only rivaled by the moral bankruptcy of Joe Lieberman and Tom Coburn, who are trying to make seniors pay more for prescription drugs, and raise the eligibility age for Medicare. Research also shows that Ryancare wouldn’t even save much money. Congress passed a bill authored by John Conyers (a Democrat) that basically equals a “bailout” to big Pharma. No surprise that pharmaceutical companies are a huge donor to Conyers.
Corruption is not a problem, its the problem.
