Tuesday, September 27, 2011
October2011.com---an organization for the people (and guest post)
"We Stand With the Majority of Americans: Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed A large majority of the American people consistently support the following agenda: Tax the rich and corporations End the wars, bring the troops home, cut military spending Protect the social safety net, strengthen Social Security and improved Medicare for all End corporate welfare for oil companies and other big business interests Transition to a clean energy economy, reverse environmental degradation Protect worker rights including collective bargaining, create jobs and raise wages Get money out of politics The government, dominated by elite economic interests, is going in the opposite direction from what the people want. The American people’s agenda is our agenda. The broad agenda for Stop the Machine: Create a New World is to end corporatism and militarism and shift power to the people, so necessities can be met. In addition to stopping the machine we also want to show the “new world” we want to see. The seven issues above are part of our agenda, each of these issues are discussed below, primarily in relation to showing that according to polls, large majorities of Americans support each issue and in many cases have done so for years. While our agenda is based on fact, science and the type of world we want to see, not on polling, it is useful to know that the American people are in favor of the types of reforms October2011.org is advocating. We share these polling results to show that in all of these critical areas the government is going in the opposite direction than the people want the country to go. October2011.org is on the side of the people." Links: http://october2011.org/; https://www.facebook.com/pages/October2011com/128339797264686?sk=wall#!/pages/October2011com/128339797264686
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14 comments:
So what happens when the poorest 55% decide they don't want to work, and want the remaining 45% to support them?
That has never happened in the history of humankind. Why would it start now?
That has never happened in the history of humankind. Why would it start now?
What about Greece? Don't know the proportions, but there's no money left and somehow 'anarchists' are protesting reduced government handouts. It starts because for years some politicians have bought votes with government benefits--works great, until other people's money runs out.
Actually, I don't think it's anarchists protesting at all. From what I've read, it's the middle class protesting in Greece, at least in some-maybe large--number.
It ain't pretty, that's for sure. It's somewhat similar at least in part to wha'ts happened here. That is, the government bailed out the banks and the wealthy but they're cutting services and pensions and even salaries to the middle class and poor. Clearly Greece has heavily overspent and so their debt. There don't seem to be any easy answers to Greece's problems, that's certain, too.
http://m.nypost.com/p/news/international/greek_anarchists_hurl_petrol_bombs_kiPqEyyi0L9XNrHQpEAzlL
Maybe this is an isolated incident, and misreported.
The problem isn't the corporations, the problem is that government will bail them out, or give them special privileges. It was wrong when it was loan guarantees to Chrysler in the 70's, wrong to intervene in either GM or Chrysler now. It was wrong to penalize Japanese motorcycles for being better than Harleys. (On the other side, it was also wrong for the government to prohibit shared research and development among American auto companies, forcing duplication of effort where European and Japanese companies were allowed to cooperate)
But it is also wrong for the government (and especially the federal) to bail out individuals, or to favor certain types of ownership over others. Ultimately, corporations are owned by individuals.
Ah, but it is the corporations that are the problem, at least in some ways and several countries.
The 2008 banking collapse is directly due to the corporations--banks and mortgage companies, mostly--who sold mortgages to people that were crap, then some of those same corporations, along with others, sold those billions and trillions of dollars of loans at AAA rating and that's well known and documented.
It's the abuse of the corporate status, time and again, that is causing and has caused problems--big problems--across the world. Sure, it's not the only problem but it's a big, big issue.
Other "corporate problems" are oil companies that aren't as safe as they should be because it costs more money so they end up with huge oil spills, as we all know. Still another example is cost-cutting corporations who would rather pollute our air than put on clean scrubbers so we don't come down with asthma and other direct problems from their functions. The mining companies that, again, emphasize cost-cutting, only to have their miners killed--sometimes in large numbers--all so their bottom line is bigger.
It is the corporation, time and again, as I said, at least in plenty of instances.
Yet the CEO can take home million--frequently hundreds of millions--of dollars per year.
And that's not right, either.
GM and Chrysler, both, not only still have the millions of people employed because we bailed them out this last go-round but they just posted big increases in sales (link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204524604576608594202667616.html).
We're stronger, right now, as a nation, because we bailed Chrysler and GM out.
The mortgage collapse would not have happened without government meddling, without government-created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, without government-demanded redlining before the civil rights era, then an overcompensation forcing the granting of loans to minorities without regard to creditworthiness.
Oil companies were given maximum liability limits to spills, encouraging risk. Cleanup was routinely interfered with by petty bureaucratic idiocy--skimmer ships that removed 99% of the oil were banned, because their discharge was considered a pollutant.
Real pollutants should be regulated of course--but in a sensible way that allows business. OSHA is a joke--It is impossible to pass an OSHA inspection, they are more concerned with improper use of extension cords (virtually any use for more than a few minutes) than actual dangers, because the extension cords create a quick fine that isn't big enough to be worth fighting.
The only reason the GM and Chrysler jobs were saved is that they belonged to politically-connected unions. If those companies had gone bankrupt, someone would have bought the assets and hired the workers--Not at union wages, but Honda workers are treated and paid better than most non-auto workers. For every UAW job saved, several non-union jobs were lost to pay for the bailout money.
...and if Honda were in financial trouble, they would not have been bailed out, despite a higher percentage of US sold Hondas being US made, and higher domestic content than the "US" brands.
Nonsense.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did not, by themselves, cause the 2008 financial collapse by any means. Countrywide, out in California and Goldman Sachs alone did billions of dollars worth of deals and those were not created by nor propped up by F. Mae or Freddie.
To add to the insanity of G. Sachs deal, they created plenty of those mortgages, which were valueless, sold them as AAA value, which we now know, then even had a separate part of the same company--G.Sachs--bet on their collapsing.
For you to say, about the oil companies, that "Cleanup was routinely interfered with by petty bureaucratic idiocy--" is patently untrue. The cleanups were bought off by those same corporations because our government is FAR too cozy with Big Oil, as it is with the Big Banks and too many other industries. The government's own rules and regulations were far too lax and not stressed enough because Big Oil had the overseers in their pockets, especially after George W. Bush's administration.
For you to say "Real pollutants should be regulated of course--but in a sensible way that allows business" is rather silly, too, as nothing our government does doesn't "allow business". Nothing. We no more want to be like China, with it's gross pollution than we want to shut down business. Those are two extreme ends of situations we neither want.
If GM and Chrysler weren't bailed out this go-round, millions more people would be unemployed AND we'd have lost a HUGE segment of our working economy. And you would have wanted that?
I don't know if Honda would have been bailed out or not and I also don't know how many they employ (though I'm sure I could google it right now and good idea of the numbers). Some senators, somewhere, would have pleaded with Congress and the President of the moment, I'm sure, to bail them out. That said, they are a Japanese company, as we know, so I'm not sure what your point is, really.
The cleanup was absolutely hampered by bureaucratic power trips. Maybe it would not have made much difference--but there were cleanup vessels stopped and harassed over life jackets, there were several weeks when skimmer ships could have been removing oil--but some idiot was applying the rules for oil content of bilge water to the discharge of the skimmers. That they were drilling there in the first place was because safer sites had been put off limits. None of this means that BP shouldn't be held responsible--the entire company should be at risk for accidents like this--but more government meddling put a liability cap on spill damages.
A constant problem with bailouts is that the costs are diffused and hard to see, but the results are concentrated. For every union payroll dollar saved, more than a dollar was lost somewhere else--I make far less than a union auto worker, but I'm paying for their job to be 'saved'.
If GM and Chrysler would have gone traditionally bankrupt, someone would have purchased the useful assets. Demand for cars would remain, many of the jobs would have come back relatively quickly with a different employer--although not at inflated union wages. I've worked at both Honda and GM plants. Honda workers don't make the same, but they are still paid and treated well, and there isn't nearly the obstructionism I saw for myself at GM.
Okay, that may have happened. If so, it wouldn't have been the first. After all, it is one job of the government to try to help keep people safe.
But the fact is, BEFORE this oil spill debacle in the Gulf happened, BP was cutting costs ridiculously and that lead to the blowout and ensuing oil spill and killing of jobs and plant and animal life there.
Clearly, in this case of the bailout for GM and Chrysler, it benefitted the entire nation, without question. It was the right thing to do.
Somehow it is fair for a person making $15 per hour without benefits to be forced to subsidize a union auto worker's $28 with fantastic benefits?
Well this is a terrific and very welcome turn of events. Sevesteen sticking up for the "little guy."
When and where--give me an example of what you're referring to--does a " person making $15 per hour without benefits..." is "...forced to subsidize a union auto worker's $28 with fantastic benefits." Where is that? How does that work?
Anyone making $15.00 per hour with no benefits isn't Union, for starters, and so, would pay nothing for or to a Union member's pay and/or benefits.
Honestly, Americans dislike of Unions in the last few decades is astonishing. Too many know nothing of the history of the Unions, corporate power and even our own nation's history and they rail against the Unions. Maddening.
What else would you call spending lots of taxpayer money on preserving those union jobs and union pensions?
That taxpayer money went to save millions of non-union jobs, too.
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