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Cesspools of Corporate Crime Are Destroying America
We are witnessing the corporate destruction of capitalism in favor of a corporate state. The law can't save it because the laws are controlled by politicians many of whom are controlled in turn by these same business interests and campaign cash.
What Business Week magazine calls "the corporate crime wave" shows every sign of worsening, as more major corporations scramble to admit massive deception of investors, looting of pension funds, self-enrichment of top executives, restatement of earnings and giant farewell compensations packages to departing bosses who wrecked their companies to further their own megagreed.
So much of these corporate cesspools are oozing into the public's view that it is difficult to piece them into an understandable reform movement for workers, consumers and investors to support. The sanitation We are witnessing the corporate destruction of capitalism in favor of a corporate state. The law can't save it because the laws are controlled by politicians many of whom are controlled in turn by these same business interests and campaign cash. trucks can't begin to keep up with the spilling garbage of betrayed trust, pillage and plunder of trillions of dollars.
"Is Wall Street Corrupt" headlined Business Week? Inside the reporters showed the answer to be yes, yes, yes! The founder of the giant Vanguard Mutual Fund, John C. Bogle, declared "Our capitalistic system is in peril," and just started a shareholder-rights group with Warren E. Buffett. What communism could not do, the big business bosses are doing to the market system and the financial industry.
For every honest Congressman Henry Waxman and Senator Paul Sarbanes, there are scores of Congressional and White House politicians huddling with business lobbyists to stifle prosecutions, reforms and investigations.
The lead culprit is the retiring and shameless Senator Phil Gramm (Rep. Texas) whose wife just resigned from the Enron Board and its audit committee. On May 16th, he met with 30 corporate lobbyists to plan the surrender of Washington, D.C.'s national government against the crookery of Wall Street.
In American history, reforms usually followed scandals. Now over the past twenty years, scandals follow scandals because there are no reforms.
Sometimes the Congressional reaction is to weaken the existing laws and safeguards against corporate crime, fraud and abuse a even after imposing massive taxpayer bailouts of the culpable industries. Remember the S&L scandals that are costing taxpayers half a trillion dollars in principal and interest between 1990 and 2020.
Conflicts of interest are at epidemic levels in Wall Street and trust is being destroyed a the key confidence that investors must have in information and advice directed their way. A devastating new report a that has received little notice a by the only major non-conflicted ratings firm left in the country (Weiss Ratings, Inc. from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida) concludes:
1. "A deeper understanding of the crisis can be achieved through an analysis of "buy," "sell," and "hold" ratings issued to companies that went bankrupt in 2002: A total of 50 investment banking and brokerage firms issued ratings to 19 companies that filed for chapter 11 in the first four months of 2002.... 94% of the 50 firms continued to indicate that investors should buy or hold shares in failing companies right up to the day these companies filed for bankruptcy. Among the 19 bankrupt companies, 12 continued to receive strictly "buy" or "hold" rating on the date of bankruptcy filing."
Weiss Ratings receives no financial compensation from the companies it rates, unlike S&P, Moodys, and Duff & Phelps. Here are its unbiased ratings. "Among the 20 largest brokerage firms, 13 may be financially vulnerable if their finances deteriorate further, while seven have the financial wherewithal to withstand a severely adverse business environment."
Weiss Ratings gives low grades to JP Morgan Chase & Co, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, UBS Warburg LLC, Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse First Boston Corp. These firms have millions of customers who relied on their highly self-advertised, objective expertise. (For more details see http://www.weissratings.com)
There needs to be an aroused public to take control of their government and direct their public servants, before the November elections, to enact systemic action for reform, not phony legislation that allows crooked business as usual. For suggestions on what these reforms can be, log on to http://www.citizenworks.org
So much of these corporate cesspools are oozing into the public's view that it is difficult to piece them into an understandable reform movement for workers, consumers and investors to support. The sanitation We are witnessing the corporate destruction of capitalism in favor of a corporate state. The law can't save it because the laws are controlled by politicians many of whom are controlled in turn by these same business interests and campaign cash. trucks can't begin to keep up with the spilling garbage of betrayed trust, pillage and plunder of trillions of dollars.
"Is Wall Street Corrupt" headlined Business Week? Inside the reporters showed the answer to be yes, yes, yes! The founder of the giant Vanguard Mutual Fund, John C. Bogle, declared "Our capitalistic system is in peril," and just started a shareholder-rights group with Warren E. Buffett. What communism could not do, the big business bosses are doing to the market system and the financial industry.
For every honest Congressman Henry Waxman and Senator Paul Sarbanes, there are scores of Congressional and White House politicians huddling with business lobbyists to stifle prosecutions, reforms and investigations.
The lead culprit is the retiring and shameless Senator Phil Gramm (Rep. Texas) whose wife just resigned from the Enron Board and its audit committee. On May 16th, he met with 30 corporate lobbyists to plan the surrender of Washington, D.C.'s national government against the crookery of Wall Street.
In American history, reforms usually followed scandals. Now over the past twenty years, scandals follow scandals because there are no reforms.
Sometimes the Congressional reaction is to weaken the existing laws and safeguards against corporate crime, fraud and abuse a even after imposing massive taxpayer bailouts of the culpable industries. Remember the S&L scandals that are costing taxpayers half a trillion dollars in principal and interest between 1990 and 2020.
Conflicts of interest are at epidemic levels in Wall Street and trust is being destroyed a the key confidence that investors must have in information and advice directed their way. A devastating new report a that has received little notice a by the only major non-conflicted ratings firm left in the country (Weiss Ratings, Inc. from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida) concludes:
1. "A deeper understanding of the crisis can be achieved through an analysis of "buy," "sell," and "hold" ratings issued to companies that went bankrupt in 2002: A total of 50 investment banking and brokerage firms issued ratings to 19 companies that filed for chapter 11 in the first four months of 2002.... 94% of the 50 firms continued to indicate that investors should buy or hold shares in failing companies right up to the day these companies filed for bankruptcy. Among the 19 bankrupt companies, 12 continued to receive strictly "buy" or "hold" rating on the date of bankruptcy filing."
Weiss Ratings receives no financial compensation from the companies it rates, unlike S&P, Moodys, and Duff & Phelps. Here are its unbiased ratings. "Among the 20 largest brokerage firms, 13 may be financially vulnerable if their finances deteriorate further, while seven have the financial wherewithal to withstand a severely adverse business environment."
Weiss Ratings gives low grades to JP Morgan Chase & Co, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, UBS Warburg LLC, Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse First Boston Corp. These firms have millions of customers who relied on their highly self-advertised, objective expertise. (For more details see http://www.weissratings.com)
There needs to be an aroused public to take control of their government and direct their public servants, before the November elections, to enact systemic action for reform, not phony legislation that allows crooked business as usual. For suggestions on what these reforms can be, log on to http://www.citizenworks.org
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- you support small, local businesses.
- you destroy corporate financing of politics, corporate tax schemes, corporate welfare, and "special rules for powerful men."
and you make the world one giant shopping center for american consumers through the use of:
- caskets draped in american flags.
- "regime changes", resource security
- trade and financial strongarming through the use of the world bank, the w.t.o., f.t.a.a./n.a.f.t.a. agreements.
- you export what could have been american jobs to cheaper labor markets, such as asian and central american sweatshops, asian steel, south american beef, asian electronics...
- you watch as the whole way it works starts to change. america no longer produces anything in factories. it simply buys things from other places, and manages the money. america becomes a land of managers, bankers, executices and consumers, but not of workers.
and you have no problems about the following:
- you come to the realization that capitalism, and money, and finance, HAS NO ALLEGIANCE TO ANY NATION, TO ANY GOVERNMENT, TO ANY DEMOCRACY, TO ANY TOTALITARIAN REGIME, TO ANY MORALS, TO ANY IDEAS, OR TO ANY PEOPLE, AND WILL CONTINUE TO FIND THE CHEAPEST POSSIBLE LABOR. CAPITALISM'S ALLEGIANCE IS TO ITSELF. IT ONLY KNOWS HOW TO HELP ITSELF. and you have no problem with this.
- you start to buy more and more ridiculous products, such as: male and female breast augmentation, psychoactive pharmaceuticals for mood enhancement(i'm not depressed, i just want to feel better about this shitty world. thank's prozac!) (i'm 18, and i use viagra as a party drug!), cadillac luxury pickup trucks, ...
- you believe such statements as, "Consumption became a matter of psychology when the commodity was stripped of the burden to useful.", are nonsense. you have no problems with the fact that much of the american economy is leveraged on useless products that meet no real needs (old spice male facial wipes...). companies invent problems to sell you the solution. they play with your mind, then your wallet. but hey, it's your money...
- you have no problems with the social consequences of selling and marketing. how do you sell things? do you talk with honestly about them? hell no! you always put the best foot forward, only talk loudly about the benefits, only flash "good" images of your product on the screen, put everything in beautiful, eye catching packages. what are the consequences of this? what are the consequences of seeing 2000-3000 ADVERTISEMENTS EVERYDAY FOR 30 YEARS? COULD IT BE CYNACISM? COULD IT BE DISAPPOINTMENT AND NIHILISM, BECAUSE WHAT'S INSIDE THE PACKAGE IS NEVER AS GOOD AS THE PACKAGE ITSELF? and watch how the same kind of social dynamic starts to happen between two human beings. the "outside" is all that matters when you're shopping for people...
- you start to buy in to the belief that it is a patriotic, or at least american, duty to go shopping. even if you have nothing you need or want to buy. enforced shopping becomes a citizen's duty.
- you strongly beleive that america is the center of the universe, the center of the world, and the rest of the world along with all of the concerns and interests of other nations and peoples can fuck off.
- you wake up and realize one morning that america isn't Leading the world to anywhere special, but is instead Ruling The Entire World for the unhindered operation of ITS economic engine. "must find new markets and new raw materials. might makes right. rule of the gun."
- you don't wonder where all the local mom and pop stores and restaurants have disappeared to. instead you shop at wal-mart for everything, and eat at buger king every day. because they're the only choices left.
- as your children graduate from school, they no longer start new companies with fresh entreprenurial spirit and ideas. instead they immediately go to work with all that young energy for giant corporations who simply use their ideas to get bigger. they become just another cog. at the age of 55, when they've become the head of their division and buy a giant house on a golf course, they laugh at the dreams they had as a college graduate, and they laugh at the earnestness of the youngest employees. but it's a nervous, rationalizing kind of laughter...
- you sincerley believe business is only about the money. period. and not about any social good deeds, any relationship with customers, any pride, or craft. in other words, your product means nothing to you. an example of this attitude is when a c.e.o. for a car company in detroit resigns for better pay at a software company in japan. the environment in large corporations are exactly the same. it's simply about the money, not the product.
- you sincerely believe its a quantitative world, and not a qualitative world. you have no problem with the fact that sowly, everything around you is starting to be put in a package, and stamped with a price. even human beings. even periods of time, such as vacations.
- you have no problem with the fact that in order to be happy, you must buy something. MONEY MUST EXCHANGE HANDS. happiness is something you don't posess, so you must buy it.
- you realize and accept that in a capitalist society, it is too much to ask "to do what you want to do, the way you want to do it." instead you must do what the game demands, the way the game demands it. as an example, you own a company and your company has 4 direct competitors. their marketing lies, and spews falsehoods about your products and the products of all the others. this tactic is effective. but you wanted to run your company with strict integrity, as in no bullshit advertising, no taking the customers for a ride. you try to continue doing it your way, but you watch as your market share begins to slip. you lay awake at night, and you ask yourself, "can i play this game MY WAY and still feed my family? or must i play the game the game's way? i cannot compete with honesty. i must lie to my customers." and you realize that capitalism rewards the winners, and everything the winners must do to win. and that's all it rewards. there are no morals, or intergrity, or honesty, or empathy, or caring about anyone except yourself. there are only solvent companies or bankrupt companies. the end justifies the means. darwin. IF SURVIVAL MEANS LYING AND FUCKING EVERYTHING OVER, THAN THE COMPETITION IS ABOUT WHO CAN LIE AND FUCK EVERYTHING OVER THE BEST. YOU DON'T LIKE IT? TOO FUCKING BAD. YOU PLAY THE GAME LIKE A SLAVE, OR THE GAME PLAYS YOU.
so we'll see, in fact the entire world will see, in 10-25-50 years how awesome capitalism is supposed to be. and if it doesn't measure up to what the people (not just americans, but the people of the entire world) want, there's gonna be a lot of shit hitting the fan. and lot of broken, failed things being rammed through. and a lot of hatred, and a lot more wars...
too bad. put your dick back in your pants, prick. i'm not gay.
like you.
you got nothing to say to me except names to call me. your only response to what i've been writting is to imply that i am homosexual. it's stupid. you can't even argue my points! this is such an unbelievably typical response from you and joho, and all the rest.
"he's a terrorist!" "he's a pedophile" "he's a lesbian!" he's a faggot!" "he's a communist! end of discussion!" as if callin people these things was an argument in itself. when you can't argue ideas, when you have nothing to say, you simply attack people with slurs. duh.
you're dumb dude. you're a stupid-fuck. a prick.
put some ideas down. defend what you believe or fuck off.
put some ideas down. defend what you believe or fuck off.
Beginning in the late '80s, the big accounting firms expanded their business from independent audits of publicly traded companies -- the work that helped bail out Wall Street during the Depression and made Arthur Andersen et al such respected institutions -- to consulting gigs on tax shelters, financial statement preparation, and a host of other bookkeeping fields. This meant that the same company that investors relied on to provide unbiased financial information was now collecting fat commissions to prepare that same information on behalf of executive officers eager to boost their company's stock price. Levitt correctly worried that in the absence of any firewall between the two operations, companies like Enron could exploit the once-stellar reputation of Arthur Andersen to artificially inflate its stock price and take millions of everyday pensioners to the cleaners -- which, of course, is exactly what happened.
Levitt spent his years at the SEC fighting to implement conflict of interest rules such as preventing an auditing firm from both auditing and consulting for a client -- a practice that may have resulted in $100 billion in losses stemming from overstated earnings reports in the '90s. Both Arthur Andersen, Ernst & Young, and other big accounting companies fought him tooth and nail, even taking the unprecedented step to lobby congress to defund the SEC, which had been a sacred cow ever since the New Deal.
In the end, Levitt failed on every front, mostly because such major scandal hadn't hit and turned public opinion against Wall Street's excesses. The big five accounting firms won. By the way, their lawyer was a bulldog of a man named Harvey Pitt. Now that Nader has put Bush in the White House, who's running the SEC today? Harvey Pitt.
You can read more about this in the New Yorker's recent "Money Issue," published roughly two months ago. Frankly, I find this the most compelling reason to resent the day Nader ever decided to enter the presidential race -- and consider his moral capital just about spent.
first off, don't put words in my mouth mate. john fonte has nothing to say that i believe. in fact, i think he has more to say for your beliefs, namely: there is nothing anymore except capitalism. no states. no democratic laws. no morals. only capitalism. only capital flowing to new markets and to cheap labor. capitalism is the new democracy, the new law, the new life. hence pretty soon, we're all gonna be "transnational" and without allegiance, not because that's what the left wants, but because that's what the RIGHT believes is the easiest way to insure that capitalism WORKS EVERYWHERE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. ONE WORLD BABY, ONE CAPITALIST WORLD. EVERY OTHER CONCERN WILL COME SECOND.
his attempt to suggest that the left, what he calls "transnational progressives" are trying to set up new "versions" and definitions of democracy and freedom is completely disingenuous. globalization, led by Transnational Corporate Interests, are already leading the way in this regard. organizations like the w.t.o., the world bank, the i.m.f. along with trade agreements such as the f.t.a.a. can trump local and national laws. a canadian company producing a fuel additive that pollutes ground water near a gas station anywhere in the u.s.a., MAY SUE THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT FOR TRYING TO BLOCK ITS PRODUCT FROM BEING SOLD. IF THEY CANNOT WIN THE CONTINUED USE OF THEIR PRODUCT, THEY MAY SUE FOR "PROFIT LOST", BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. are these transnational orgnizations progressive n.g.o.'s? hell no! they're old world capitalist to the core. they're the ones who want ONE WORLD, ONE GOVERNMENT. this sure as hell sounds to me like a new transnational form of government, a canadian company determining living conditions for american cicitzens, and the corporation being unaccountable for its actions because it lies accross the border in canada. is this difficult for the right to see? i guess so, they lead the world but they're blind to how they rule...
>“The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve 'the common good.' It is true that capitalism does -- if that catch-phrase has any meaning -- but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification for capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man's rational nature, that it protects man's survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice." -- Ayn Rand<
justice! justice! being paid an honest wage for an honest days work, regardless of race, education and intelligence is justice. tyco chairmen being paid $100 million severance pay for fucking up his company? is that justice? sounds like hush money and rewarding failure to me. putting the jobs of employees at risk. ayn rand is probably turing in her grave over that guy. and enron? justice? where?
absolutely mrs. rand. capitalism does lie closest to the heart of how man lives. survival of the fittest. but what about the fact that man does not live by himself on an island? what about "context." is a man in control of his destiny, when due to the actions of his bosses, the company he works for, such as arthur anderson, is bankrupted and he's out of a job? is he in control of his destiny when the water he drinks is polluted by chemicals due to relaxed e.p.a. laws? where was this man when the decision was made to relax the restrictions? sitting at the gov. committee table. hell no! CORPORATIONS ARE THE NEW PEOPLE. THEY SIT BEFORE COMMITTEES AND DETERMINE THEIR FATE FOR THEMSELVES. THEY ARE THE "GROUP RIGHTS" THAT FONTE IS TALKING ABOUT. AND IN ORDER TO COMBAT THE GROUP RIGHTS OF CORPORATE INTERESTS, CITIZENS HAVE HAD TO BAND TOGETHER TO IN ENVIRONMENTAL "GROUPS." FONTE DOESN'T SEEM TO BE INTERESTED IN THE UNDERLYING MECHANICS AND THE QUESTION "WHY".
it's important to realize that capitalism works for you when you are in control of your actions and the risk involved. however it is does not give a shit about you when you work for a large company. the risks of management are put on the back of the worker. this is the context missing from mrs. rand's world view.
>"The challenge from transnational progressivism to traditional American concepts of citizenship, patriotism, assimilation, and the meaning of democracy itself is fundamental. If our system is based not on individual rights (as defined by the U.S. Constitution) but on group consciousness (as defined by international law); not on equality of citizenship but on group preferences for non-citizens (including illegal immigrants) and for certain categories of citizens; not on majority rule within constitutional limits but on power-sharing by different ethnic, racial, gender, and linguistic groups; not on constitutional law, but on transnational law; not on immigrants becoming Americans, but on migrants linked between transnational communities; then the regime will cease to be "constitutional," "liberal," "democratic," and "American," in the understood sense of those terms, but will become in reality a new hybrid system that is "post-constitutional," "post-liberal," "post-democratic," and "post-American.""<
lets rewrite this entire disingenuous paragraph:
>"The challenge from transnational corporate capitalism to traditional American concepts of citizenship, patriotism, assimilation, and the meaning of democracy itself is fundamental. If our system is based not on individual rights (as defined by the U.S. Constitution) but on corporate rights (as defined by transantional banking and financing institutions); not on equality of citizenship but on financial preferences for non-american corporations (including illegal corporate practices) and for certain categories of corporations; not on majority rule within constitutional limits but on power-sharing between different corporate, financial, industrial groups and public interest groups; not on constitutional law, but on transnational corporate rule-making; not on transnational corporations becoming American, but on capital flow linked between transnational corporations lying at separate ends of the earth; then the regime will cease to be "constitutional," "liberal," "democratic," and "American," in the understood sense of those terms, but will become in reality a new hybrid system that is "post-constitutional," "post-liberal," "post-democratic," and "post-American.""< this is already happening. this is the free market having its way.
what about this?
- you start to buy more and more ridiculous products, such as: male and female breast augmentation, psychoactive pharmaceuticals for mood enhancement(i'm not depressed, i just want to feel better about this shitty world. thank's prozac!) (i'm 18, and i use viagra as a party drug!), cadillac luxury pickup trucks, ...
and this?
- you believe such statements as, "Consumption became a matter of psychology when the commodity was stripped of the burden to useful.", are nonsense. you have no problems with the fact that much of the american economy is leveraged on useless products that meet no real needs (old spice male facial wipes...). companies invent problems to sell you the solution. they play with your mind, then your wallet. but hey, it's your money...
and this?
- you have no problems with the social consequences of selling and marketing. how do you sell things? do you talk with honestly about them? hell no! you always put the best foot forward, only talk loudly about the benefits, only flash "good" images of your product on the screen, put everything in beautiful, eye catching packages. what are the consequences of this? what are the consequences of seeing 2000-3000 ADVERTISEMENTS EVERYDAY FOR 30 YEARS? COULD IT BE CYNACISM? COULD IT BE DISAPPOINTMENT AND NIHILISM, BECAUSE WHAT'S INSIDE THE PACKAGE IS NEVER AS GOOD AS THE PACKAGE ITSELF? and watch how the same kind of social dynamic starts to happen between two human beings. the "outside" is all that matters when you're shopping for people...
and this?
- you don't wonder where all the local mom and pop stores and restaurants have disappeared to. instead you shop at wal-mart for everything, and eat at buger king every day. because they're the only choices left.
and this?
- you have no problem with the fact that in order to be happy, you must buy something. MONEY MUST EXCHANGE HANDS. happiness is something you don't posess, so you must buy it.
and this?
- you realize and accept that in a capitalist society, it is too much to ask "to do what you want to do, the way you want to do it." instead you must do what the game demands, the way the game demands it. as an example, you own a company and your company has 4 direct competitors. their marketing lies, and spews falsehoods about your products and the products of all the others. this tactic is effective. but you wanted to run your company with strict integrity, as in no bullshit advertising, no taking the customers for a ride. you try to continue doing it your way, but you watch as your market share begins to slip. you lay awake at night, and you ask yourself, "can i play this game MY WAY and still feed my family? or must i play the game the game's way? i cannot compete with honesty. i must lie to my customers." and you realize that capitalism rewards the winners, and everything the winners must do to win. and that's all it rewards. there are no morals, or intergrity, or honesty, or empathy, or caring about anyone except yourself. there are only solvent companies or bankrupt companies. the end justifies the means. darwin. IF SURVIVAL MEANS LYING AND FUCKING EVERYTHING OVER, THAN THE COMPETITION IS ABOUT WHO CAN LIE AND FUCK EVERYTHING OVER THE BEST. YOU DON'T LIKE IT? TOO FUCKING BAD. YOU PLAY THE GAME LIKE A SLAVE, OR THE GAME PLAYS YOU.
if they're irrelevant and unvalid questions, i'm due an explanation as to why.
here's one last observation:
in a capitalist society, not only must YOU survive, but capitalism ITSELF must survive as a massive system, and it will use any means necessary to continue to expand in an unhindered fashion. this is the key souce of never-ending friction. the last five obstacles to capitalism are:
1) the human body and our waking and sleeping cycle.
2) the human body being made of fragile flesh and bone.
3) the time it takes for us to grow from an infant to being physically and mentally able to handle labor.
4) the fact that we live and die.
5) the freedom of man to do, make, say and think as he or she wishes, and to make a living doing so.
"what? you don't want to work for that corporation? you hate how they do business? well who the hell are you going to work for? yourself? fine man, starve yourself. sell roses on street corners. see if i care. freewill died man. none of what you believe matters. this is a new world order. you should be glad they offered you a job..."
you're so flustered, and you feel so threatened by my words that you have to resort to this bullshit...
yeah, my "agenda" is that i'm a secret "transnational progressive" communist spy working to destroy america. yep, that's me. you caught me. damn...
pleeease prick.
agenda.- n. a list of things to do; program.
i don't have a list of things to do on this site. i write what i believe. i don't write to talk myself. i post what i think is interesting. people respond to what i write, or they don't. it's not my thing to tell people what to do and think. they have free minds, they can agree or disagree. if i see something i think is bullshit, or wrong, i respond. all of my writing, is really just venting ideas. thats it. perhaps my tone is bombastic, but that's just because i get emotional about this shit...
i think capitalism is all the world has, but unless capitalism can answer the questions that get posed to it, endlessly it seems, it's not gonna get better. its gonna get worse. not for capitalism, but for people. fukuyama is dead wrong. the story is not over. not even close.
why should i (or anyone, for that matter) be easy on our leaders, and feel unpatriotic for questioning their policies and their actions? why should i (or anyone, for that matter) be easy on capitalism, especially the systematic, corporate driven, un-local, anti-mom and pop store- kind we have here in our country? why? i live here in america. i live and breathe capitalism just like everybody else. i get my paycheck. i consume. why is it taken as such an unbelievably "radical" and "dangerous" thing to criticize capitalism, to critique how its practiced, to question it? you know, if i learned anything in my goddamn education, it is that criticism is a constructive action. it makes things better.
it seems that many on the right believe that our modern day capitalism is beyond question. they would like it to expand infinitley, because they insist that it is perfect. i refute that in the strongest possible terms. that is absolute bullshit. unless the problems capitalism faces can be addressed, it will crumble upon itself. communism (state capitalism) doesn't work. without capitalism, what is there? once the capitalist ship sinks because its captains are drunk on power, and there's nothing else to float on, we're all gonna drown. so what is there after what we have now?
more of the same? in 50 years time, it is my humble opinion, to have more of what we have today, WE WILL NEED ONE WORLD, ONE "GOVERNMENT", ONE ECONOMIC "WAY OF DOING BUSINESS" EVERYWHERE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. NOT 2, OR 3. 1. HOW CAN THIS BE POSSIBLE? WILL IT JUST "HAPPEN"? I THINK IT WILL BE DAMN BLOODY AND PAINFUL. HOW CAN AMERICA "UNITE THE WORLD" ACCORDING TO ITS PLANS, IF THE WORLD REFUSES?
JOHN FONTE IS RIGHT. TIMES ARE CHANGING. BUT ITS NOT FOR THE REASONS HE SAYS. ITS BECAUSE OF THE WORLD "FREE MARKET" MOVING FASTER THAN ANY SOVEREIGN GOVERNMENT CAN RESPOND. GOVERNMENTS ARE BECOMING CORPORATIONS, AND CORPORATIONS ARE BECOMING GOVERNMENTS. "TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVES"? WHAT? "TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATE INTERESTS" IS MORE LIKE IT. $ HAS NO ALLEGIANCE TO ANY IDEAL OR TO ANY PERSON.
it's disappointing that you cannot respond to my points and my list of questions and observations. its funny in a sad way that you believe they're some kind of tricky psy-propaganda. those are just questions, just my observations, just hypotheticals, just some opinions posed to capitalism. you say they're irrelevant because... "they're irrelevant". i think that's pretty cheap and very easy. but hey man, it's your brain...
THINK. EVERYTHING HAS NOT BEEN FIGURED OUT. THIS IS NOT THE END OF HISTORY. its not the "intellectuals" job to think about things. its not the politicians job to figure out how you're gonna live. its not the corporations job to tell you how much happiness is gonna cost... why lay down to authority...
Now, if I could convey something negative to Washington it would be this? "We the hard-working taxpaying citizens who live in this filthy rundown disaster of the city, could care less about your war on international terrorism. No, for we already have a war on terrorism that we're now losing being fought right here on the crime-ridden streets of our town. Now these particular terrorist's strike on a 24-hour basis using a signature drive-by shooting format that unfortunately for the poor residents here has become far too commonplace. Add to that these Latino gangs whose adolescent members now number in the tens of thousands per gang chapter and you get the picture.
They are breaking car windows, robbing homes, beating up the occupants of those homes, raping young and old women and murdering whom they please, "courtesy of that ludicrous judicial system and that insane open borders policy that Washington still embraces. Add to that MS-13 and you have a recipe for the worst "county damming violence" in any nation's history. Yes, I personally call it the time of "Timothy II" For many of the hard-working people living here in Toledo and other large metropolitan cities across this once marvelous country of ours can't even walk down the streets during the day time hours now without becoming unwilling victims of all this senseless gang related violence.
The best words to describe this is "Unprecedented violence" leveled against the hard-working taxpaying citizens who deserve something more than just empty promises from those corrupt bureaucrats in Washington. I've already researched a few crime statistics in general they're quite disturbing in every way, shape and form. According to the report that came from an anonymous 100% reliable source. The overall violent crime nationwide is reaching epidemic levels now, 70% of all American cities have reported a significant rise in gang-related violence. Yes the record speaks for itself. however , you won't hear Washington addressing this problem because these subhuman degenerates have no concept of what we call, "reality" Ironically, we the people who no longer have any representation in Washington, struggle day after day with a kind of lawlessness that would be best described as "shameful"
Moreover, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to acknowledge this fact, that if those borders remain wide open, and the current administration continues to strip even more power away from those border guards ( our only line of defense) I fear that the next 911 style attack perpetrated by a "homegrown terrorist entity" , will kill far more than just 3000 citizens.