Inside the Shadowy PR Firm That’s Lobbying for Regime Change in Syria. The Hypocrisy of ‘Helping’ the Poor. Obama's Recovery In Just 9 Charts. The Best "Democracy" Money Can Buy: For Every Dollar Spent Influencing US Politics, Corporations Get $760 Back. The first time we read the recent analysis by the Sunlight Foundation in which it combed through 14 million corporate records, including data on campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, federal budget allocations and spending, in order to determine the “rate of return” on lobbying and spending to buy political goodwill, we were left speechless.
To be sure, we had previously shown that when it comes to the rate of return on lobbying, the rates were simply staggering, and ranged anywhere between 5,900% for oil subsidies, to 22,000% for multinational tax breaks and even higher for America’s legal drug dealers. But nothing could prepare us for this. According to the foundation’s analysis, between 2007 and 2012, 200 of America’s most politically active corporations spent a combined $5.8 billion (with a B) on federal lobbying and campaign contributions. What they gave pales compared to what those same corporations got: $4.4 trillion (with a T) in federal business and support. Knowledge Is Power: New Revelation About U.S. History Is the Key to Justice on All Fronts. By Foster Gamble & Kimberly Carter Gamble | ThriveMovement.com When the Shaka Movement won the victory of banning GMOs for a year in Maui, it was only a matter of weeks before Monsanto and Dow Chemical filed a law suit against the County to stop the ban.
So why are we hopeful that the GMO battle, and many others like it, can be won? Because knowledge is power. And there is some information surfacing that is truly a golden key to securing not just the right to safe food, but to justice on all fronts. This Billionaire Governor Taxed the Rich and Increased the Minimum Wage. The next time your right-wing family member or former high school classmate posts a status update or tweet about how taxing the rich or increasing workers' wages kills jobs and makes businesses leave the state, I want you to send them this article.
When he took office in January of 2011, Minnesota governor Mark Dayton inherited a $6.2 billion budget deficit and a 7 percent unemployment rate from his predecessor, Tim Pawlenty, the soon-forgotten Republican candidate for the presidency who called himself Minnesota's first true fiscally-conservative governor in modern history. We Are the Most Unequal Society in the Developed World... And We Don't Know It. Piketty chart showing levels of inequality not seen since pre-WWI(image by Huffington Post) Reprinted from www.huffingtonpost.com.
Leonard Pitts: If GOP is right, why are red states so far behind? I have a question for my Republican friends.
Yes, that sounds like the setup for a smackdown, but though the question is pointed, it is also in earnest. In Economics and as CEOs. FDR On American Facism(image by JoeInSouthernCA) Reprinted from neweconomicperspectives.org Libertarians are profoundly anti-democratic.
The Federal Reserve. Cross-posted from Paul Craig Roberts This article co-written by *Dave Kranzler THE DARK HISTORY OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE...Deception and Murder for the Almighty Dollar!
(image by YouTube) Is the Fed "tapering"? Did the Fed really cut its bond purchases during the three-month period November 2013 through January 2014? From November 2013 through January 2014, Belgium with a GDP of $480 billion purchased $141.2 billion of US Treasury bonds. First-Ever Political Study of Top 1% Has Found Extreme Conservatism, Intense Political Involvement. Billionaires(image by Michael Fleshman) A year ago, to little public notice, the academic journal Perspectives on Politics published a landmark study, "Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans," by Benjamin Page, Larry Bartels, and Jason Seawright; which reports that, among the American aristocracy, there exists pervasive extreme conservatism, and also a virtual non-stop involvement in politics by them -- in other words, it finds the same two things that writers have hypothesized to exist among aristocracies throughout all of human history.
Western Looting Of Ukraine Has Begun. Source: Paul Craig Roberts The Rape of Ukraine: Phase Two Begins(image by YouTube) It is now apparent that the "Maiden protests" in Kiev were in actuality a Washington organized coup against the elected democratic government.
The purpose of the coup is to put NATO military bases on Ukraine's border with Russia and to impose an IMF austerity program that serves as cover for Western financial interests to loot the country. Securitized Rental Payments: Wall Street’s New Get-Rich-Quick Scheme – Uncategorized, Validated Independent News. As the housing market shows initial signs of recovery, Wall Street has developed a new way to profit.
As Laura Gottesdiener reports, Wall Street hedge funds and other private equity firms have been accumulating hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes—houses that homes were only foreclosed in the first place because of conditions perpetuated by these hedge funds. For example, Blackstone Group, a major hedge fund company, has been buying homes at bargain prices many from people forced out of their homes by the foreclosure crisis.
In one move, Blackstone bought 1,400 houses in Atlanta in a single day; and, across the country, it now owns over 40,000 homes. As Gottesdiener writes, “Few outside the finance industry have heard of Blackstone. Fed’s Dirty Little Secret: “The Gold Isn’t There… Exists as Paper IOU’s” The Federal Reserve doesn’t have enough gold to pay Germany back Mac Slavo | SHTFPlan.com The assumption by global depositors who have entrusted their national savings with the Federal Reserve and US Government has always been that when they request to repatriate their holdings the Fed would simply open the vault, access said assets and ship them back to where they belong.
That’s exactly what Germany expected would happen last year when the country requested that the Federal Reserve return about one-fifth of their gold reserves. How Ohio Pulled $4 Billion+ from Communities and Redistributed It Upwards. The Ohio General Assembly passed House Bill 66 promising to improve economic conditions for Ohioans. H.B. 66 eliminated the corporate income tax and reduced state income taxes by 21%.
Governor Taft from his 2006 state of the state speech: At this time last year we had a tax code that was mired in the distant past, punishing investment and ignoring innovation. We worked day and night to bring that code into the 21st Century. We cut the income tax. Study: Iraq, Afghan war costs to top $4 trillion. The U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will cost taxpayers $4 trillion to $6 trillion, taking into account the medical care of wounded veterans and expensive repairs to a force depleted by more than a decade of fighting, according to a new study by a Harvard researcher. Washington increased military benefits in late 2001 as the nation went to war, seeking to quickly bolster its talent pool and expand its ranks.
Those decisions and the protracted nation-building efforts launched in both countries will generate expenses for years to come, Linda J. Bilmes, a public policy professor, wrote in the report that was released Thursday. “As a consequence of these wartime spending choices, the United States will face constraints in funding investments in personnel and diplomacy, research and development and new military initiatives,” the report says. The Price of Free Enterprise. The Price of Free Enterprise Stephen H. Unger February 17, 2014. Jobs: Boehner-McConnell Hypocricy Blocks Action. By Robert Weiner, Emily Kopp, and the Michigan Chronicle It's time to call out the hypocrisy of House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other Republicans saying that President Obama is "ignoring jobs" when they have blocked and continue to oppose the American Jobs Act.
This bill, which the President has urged for three years, has a majority in the Senate but Republicans under their Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), used the 60-vote filibuster to block it, and the House leadership under Boehner simply by his dictum likewise will not allow a vote. Congressional Budget Office numbers say the bill would add 1-2 million jobs and would subtract a full point from the unemployment rate. Illusory Money and the Economic System Construct. Enough Is Enough: Banksters Are Not Our Only Option. JPMorgan Chase by transcend.org "Epic in scale, unprecedented in world history . " That is how William K. How Economists and Policymakers Murdered Our Economy.
Source: Paul Craig Roberts (image by economic noise) Want to Have a Happy Planet? Just Ask Costa Ricans About Their Banks. Want to Have a Happy Planet? Just Ask Costa Ricans About Their Banks. November 11, 2013 | Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism. World Bank Whistleblower Karen Hudes Reveals How The Global Elite Rule The World. Socialism and Capitalism. Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism. Was This Whistle-Blower Muzzled? The SEC Flacks Paint Lehman’s Looters as the Victims of a “Political” SEC. By William K. Black. Obama’s FBI Channels the Tea Party: Partner with the Banks and Blame the Poor for the Crisis. FBI Channels the Tea Party: Partner with the Banks and Blame the Poor for the Crisis.
By William K. Black. Richard Wolff on Fighting for Economic Justice and Fair Wages. 40 Statistics About The Fall Of The U.S. Economy That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe. Stunning Facts About How the Banking System Really Works … And How It Is Destroying America. Banking History Timeline - Follow the Money. Neighborhood income maps of U.S. cities. Who Runs The World? Solid Proof That a Core Group Of Wealthy Elites Is Pulling the Strings. Our Only Solution to the Fed Debt Trap. Iceland’s Hörður Torfason – How to Beat the Banksters. Ten Numbers the Rich Would Like Fudged. Finally, A Rich American Destroys The Fiction That Rich People Create The Jobs.