Whose Money Is It?

The Republicans rode in on their white horses, at the last minute, and saved the day. Everybody cheer! Pats on the back to everyone for a job well done! Hip, hip, hooray!

The party atmosphere in the White House is almost palpable. Champagne corks are flying, party favors are passed out at the door. While that address on Pennsylvania Avenue celebrates its heroic victory of snatching Wall Street investors from the jaws of almost certain doom, taxpayers are footing the bill, again. Ex-homeowners are setting up new residences in tent cities across the country adding to the already shameful number of homeless right here in the richest and most affluent country in the world.

Sure, bailing out these large financial institutions was the most expedient method to prevent an even deeper recession, which, by the way, was created by these very same people, but how about sending some help to those people whose dreams of owning their own home were preyed upon by unethical money lenders whose own personal goals were to sell as many loans as possible.

By extending credit to questionable, borderline, at-risk individuals whose qualifications were based on some pretty creative credit score criteria, these short-sighted, greedy mortgage lenders knew these loans would probably never be able to be repaid and therefore they became one of the instruments that brought this economy to its knees. They were paid their salaries so they didn’t care if the loans would be paid or not. After all, to their irresponsible way of thinking, it wasn’t their money.

The result of the devastating wave of foreclosures will be felt for years to come in neighborhoods across this country, with the potential to affect entire cities. But, hey, it wasn’t their money so why should mortgage lenders care. They think their responsibility began and ended on the dotted line.

Lenders and servicers who hold those loans need to now step up and restructure high-risk loans, that they were responsible for, into lower-rate mortgages to help people stay in their homes in order to continue to be productive in this economy instead of a drain on it. It is their moral responsibility.

Here’s a message for anyone who deals with money: any government bailout comes out of our taxes and takes money away from other necessary projects. Projects we all benefit from, so, yes it is your money too. These narrow-minded mortgage lenders who wrought such havoc on our society will pay for their bad decisions, right along with the rest of us.

They share the blame for this faltering economy with those heroic rescuing Republicans on their white horses who saw to it that the wealthy don’t pay as much tax as the rest of us. In pushing corporate welfare they have upset a very basic tenet of a capitalist economy: there has to exist a buyer and a producer. When the buyer is drained of all financial ability to buy then the system falls apart. Very simple explanation, true, but this is what is happening. This republican government, in its zeal to do everything in its power to shift as much financial wealth as possible to the wealthiest among us, has, without going into an actual depression, created the largest welfare-dependent group of people in U.S. history.

The very backbone of this economy is being bled dry. America cannot afford to go deeper into debt. Americans cannot afford to support the fiscal irresponsible republican sacred cow of throwing money at a problem until it goes away. Corporate America has unashamedly raided pension plans to cover their leaders bad financial decisions, the federal government has tapped the Social Security system to cover short falls from a vast array of financial mis-management. An illegal war has drained billions of dollars away from needed infrastructure projects, healthcare, education, etc that still need to be paid for. The health and welfare of the American populace is being pushed aside to protect the rich from the after effects of their own lack of financial responsibility.

While the CEO’s and politicians responsible for this economic misery walk away, counting their financial spoils, millions of American taxpayers will be saddled with this bailout for years to come.

While politicians are enriched by corporate America’s lobbyists and CEO’s savor their sweetheart golden parachute deals the American taxpayer struggles to pay the ever increasing costs for the very basic needs of survival that these same politicians and CEO’s will never have to struggle for.

As long as our political leaders are more concerned with ensuring a profit for corporate America than for the public welfare of the working class whose hard work and purchasing power are instrumental in creating that profit, taxpayers will never get a break.

So, in the end, the venerable and steadfast hard working American taxpayer once again has his pockets ripped open by the unethically greedy and immorally bloodied hands of this administration in order to scrape out the last remaining nickel to cover their mistakes and feed the insatiable greed of corporate America.

Once again I ask, Whose money is it?

The Lesser of Three Evils Still Shines

We have a republican president who is buried so deeply in corporate pockets that he has effectively turned this government over to boardroom CEO’s. He has told numerous lies. He has instigated an illegal war and used the American military to facilitate the financial rape of a sovereign nation for the benefit of his cronies. He has mocked the very foundation of our government through the abuse of executive privilege. He has perpetrated countless cover-ups to protect his closest friends from criminal prosecution.

We have a republican candidate for president who clearly has memory issues and has flip-flopped on issues so many times that no one really knows what he will do in any given situation. Here are some examples taken from Jonathan Martin’s post dated May 28, 2008:

1. McCain doesn't even know who is in charge in Iran.

2. Iraq/Iran, Sunni/Shia: McCain doesn't know the difference.

3. McCain still thinks Czechoslovakia (which split into two countries in 1993) exists.

4. McCain wrongly claimed that Baghdad was mostly normal.

5. McCain called Baghdad market safe.

6. McCain can't even remember how little he knows about the economy.

7. McCain falsely claimed he never requested pork.

8. McCain falsely claimed that tax cuts increased government revenues.

9. McCain's claim to be untainted by special interest money is false.

10. McCain wrongly claimed he never supported amnesty.

We have a democratic candidate for president who has told blatant, easily contradicted lies in order to bolster herself as the best candidate. She has a documented history of using smear tactics to attack her opponent while avoiding issues. Her desperate and deceitful actions reveal her contempt for the democratic process. She has become a plasticized political shark devoid of most human qualities that will stop at nothing to get what is in her best interest, even tossing DNC rules aside if it will benefit her. Her nasty, low-class, leave-no-prisoners demeanor is proof that she will not be an asset to the presidency.

We have another democratic candidate who, while not being an experienced leader as the media loves to point out inferring that he would not be ready to handle the task of presidency, does bring the ability to work across the aisle to pull people together in working towards solutions instead of participating in the historical partisanship that congress is famous for. He has more experience in public office (8 years in Illinois senate and 2+ in U.S. Senate) than Hillary (6+ as U.S. Senator from New York). But this type of experience does not guarantee a qualified leader. After all, Abraham Lincoln served only two years in the U.S. House. In spite of being constantly attacked for what others around him say, and having been threatened with physical harm because of his race, he refuses to descend to their level and continues to focus on his goal. He doesn’t become involved in the divisive and hateful rhetoric that his opponent uses and he is attracting followers from both parties. This proves he has leadership skills.

We have GOP personnel supporting Obama. We have seen Clinton backers drop her in favor of Obama. Clearly, since these people who are closer to the presidential race than the majority of voters are jumping ship to support another candidate then that candidate must have something to offer.

We have people who will vote for a candidate just because that candidate represents their party never taking into account whether the person is truly qualified for the office. These people do not have the nations best interests at heart.

This presidential race has become a circus. It continues only because we have a two-party system that requires the republicans have someone on their ticket. Since McCain (McBush) is the best they can come up with then they are truly floundering as a party and can not bring themselves to face the certainty of defeat. McCain has proven on many occasions that he cannot handle presidential responsibility. He will have to rely so heavily on advisors to both keep his facts straight for him and to clean up this messes after he speaks without consulting his advisors first that we as a nation will become a bigger laughing stock that we are while under Bush. Or, worse, his misspeaking could trigger an international incident. Why would anyone want this person representing our nation?

McCain, Clinton, and Obama are serving in a political arena that is famous for corrupting morally and ethically weak individuals with its promise of power and untold wealth. Clinton has forsaken her sense of civic duty, McCain has more than likely forgotten his. Obama has not yet been tainted by this process causing many people to label him as naïve. This new blood may be just what this nation needs. Our best hope in redirecting where this government is headed is to have someone who can stand up to corporate lobbyists and deny them any further access to the political process. He may not be the person to do it, then again he has the potential. McCain is certainly not going to do it. Clinton is too politically savvy to turn down special interest money so she probably will not do it. And that leaves us with Barack Obama.

If I may use the analogy of nature, whenever some major natural catastrophe strikes nature has the ability to counteract it with fresh new growth in an attempt to recover what was lost. We are being given a chance to combat the damage of the wholesale looting that George W Bush and his corporate robber barons have participated in throughout his term. I may be considered naïve myself to think that one person and his team can correct these past sins against our democracy but the alternatives are clearly worse.

Why Do We Support Human Rights Violations?

Profits from companies based in the United States, France, Thailand, Australia, England, Canada, China and Switzerland, among others, help support the brutal and repressive military leadership in Myanmar.

The world condones and supports this behavior and consequently we all shame ourselves by allowing it to continue.

Any government would realize that a natural disaster is not something they can control. Yet when the May 3 cyclone devastated their country, killing up to an estimated 100,000 people, the ruling party in Myanmar viewed it as a personal affront to their ability to protect their citizens. The extent of the damages are unknown due to the suppression of journalists and internet access. Then when the world comes to their aid, their paranoia, or is it an intense (and petty) desire to not uncover what is really going on in the country, won’t allow these ‘uninvited intruders’ into their country. They would rather allow their citizenry to starve to death, or die of their injuries and the resulting diseases from rotting corpses to take its toll than to allow outside help.

They use this disaster as a propaganda tool to ‘show’ their people that the ruling party alone is providing aid. I don’t think humanitarians care about who gets credit for providing aid, but the fact that the junta is propping themselves up as humanitarian only cheapens themselves and they aren’t fooling anyone. Myanmar’s citizens know first hand of the brutality of this military regime.

The military junta came into power in September 1988, by killing thousands of unarmed demonstrators. Then, in 1990, they staged a ‘show of democracy’ by allowing multi-party participation and then blocked the results when they did not win. The leaders of the winning opposition party were placed under house arrest or were exiled.

In December 1996, students demonstrations were forcibly suppressed and universities were closed.

When Buddhist monks marched in Yangon, the countries capital, to protest the repressive military regime’s treatment of monks during a September 5, 2008 protest in Pakokku, thousands of supporters joined them. The military used tear gas, guns and clubs to disperse the crowd. Reports of 10 to 30 protesters had been killed, monasteries were raided and many monks were beaten and arrested.

The rest of the world knows of their brutality as well despite repeated attempts to prevent outsiders from being privy to internal conditions. Their refusal to allow aid workers into their country to help their own suffering citizens should remind the world that this highly repressive and petty regime should not be allowed to remain in power.

Journalist within Myanmar’s borders have to work in secret because they are under threat of imprisonment for stories that would offend the ruling party. And it doesn’t take much to offend them.

We condemn human rights violations on paper, we actively protest human rights violations during public events, yet we purchase products from the very corporations who are supporting (or are) the violators.

Myanmar has been pretending to be democracy advocates for 20 years and it is time the world take a stand and punish them as well as their supporters for their human rights violations.

Corporations should face stiff penalties for financially supporting such a hateful and repressive regime.

Unocal is the single largest American investor in Myanmar through a 28% interest in a pipeline that will pump gas from offshore fields through Myanmar to Thailand. The French company Total will build the pipeline, and the Thai and Myanmar Government energy companies also have stakes. Texaco and Arco also recently signed deals to drill nearby.

“Companies doing business in Burma argue their presence is constructive and will benefit the Burmese people, but they have yet to condemn the government’s abuses against its own citizens,” said Arvind Ganesan, director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “Keeping quiet while monks and other peaceful protesters are murdered and jailed is not evidence of constructive engagement.”

While foreign companies doing business with Myanmar are guilty of supporting this country, people who purchase products from these corporations should be ashamed of themselves. Profits ease the corporate conscience but what about the conscience of those individuals who buy these corporations’ products thereby providing the support funds?

Congress Gives Free Money to Big Oil

Oil companies receive hand outs!?!? Is this an April Fools joke?

Nearly $18 billion in tax breaks is given to the most profitable corporations in history. What a country.

This is almost as bad as 50% of the federal government discretionary spending goes to the military.

This is free money!

This is outrageous!

Congress brought top executives from five of the biggest oil companies -- Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips – before them to ask why big oil does not want Congress to take these breaks away. First of all, why is Congressing asking why? Let me get this straight. Congress wants to know why big oil does not want free money taken away from them. This must be a sham. A ‘get tough’ show for the American people. I can see it now, after the TV cameras are turned off, after the reporters have gone away, congress and big oil are slapping each other on the backs and laughing it up about how they pulled another one over on the American public.

Here’s a quick laugh, "Imposing punitive taxes on American companies will discourage the investments needed to safeguard our energy security," said Stephen Simon, senior vice president of Exxon Mobil Corp. Mr. Simon views paying his fair share of taxes punitive. He feels big oil is being unfairly singled out. Since when does an American corporation, or any corporation, feel discouraged from investing in its own future? And to use America’s ‘energy security’ as the reason they should continue receiving the largest tax break in history is shameless.

That $18 billion needs to go to other more pressing needs, such as, oh I don’t know, thinking right off the top of my head, education, health care, social security, infrastructure repair. Now these are investments needed to safeguard our security.

Trust me, big oil will find a way to make profits without free money from taxpayers.

Let’s kick them off of the welfare train and start investing in the taxpayers.