Author: Brian

Economic Policy Institute, By Ross Eisenbrey

Bush 2009 Budget Spends 100 Times More to Regulate Unions Than Employers

Many times they say survey results depend upon the right question. These are the right questions.

     
   All in all,
   are you satisfied or dissatisfied
   with the way things are going
   in the United States at this time?

   December, 2000 - 51% satisfied
   June, 2008 - 14% satisfied

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey – July 23-27, 2008

“How well are things going in the country today: very well, fairly well, pretty badly or very badly?”

NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll – July 18-21, 2008

“All in all, do you think things in the nation are generally headed in the right direction, or do you feel that things are off on the wrong track?”

Associated Press-Ipsos poll – July 10-14, 2008

“Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track?”

Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll. June 19-23, 2008

“Do you think things in this country are generally going in the right direction or are they seriously off on the wrong track?”

Newsweek Poll – June 18-19, 2008

“Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?”

Gallup Poll – June 9-12, 2008.

“In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?”

The Harris Poll – June 4-8, 2008

“Generally speaking, would you say things in the country are going in the right direction or have they pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?”

CBS News/New York Times Poll – March 28-April 2, 2008

“I’d like you to compare the way things are going in the United States to the way they were going five years ago. Generally, would you say things are going better today, worse today, or about the same today as they were going five years ago?”

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about. — Albert Einstein

“This jump in incarceration rates represents a massive intervention in American families at a time when the federal government was making claims that it was less involved in their lives,” according to University of Washington findings at the 2008 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. [link]

#1

There are billions and billions of pages indexed by Google.

When a subject returns 100 links or even 1000, we know there’s little interest, not much said.

I found only 1210 hits for “corporate psychopathy”.

C’mon people!

Corporate Psychopathy, Montague Ullman, M, D.

In psychiatry there is a diagnostic entity variously known as psychopath, sociopath and antisocial personality disorder. The central feature of this disorder is the failure to develop any ethical standards of social behavior, The concept of ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ is foreign to the psychopath. That remarkable advice is replaced by ‘do unto others as it pleases you regardless of consequences.’

In a democratic society government is supposed to serve the needs of every member of that society. There are two models for such societies, Both involve capitalism. The social democratic societies, such as in Scandinavia, temper the profit motive so as to restrict the massive inequities and ensure that health, education, security and opportunity is available to all. They do this by a system of taxation that succeeds in narrowing the gap between the haves and the have-nots so that a significant proportion of the population is not in trouble.

In the United States where capitalism is given a much freer rein there is the possibility of the profit motive getting so out of hand that those on top are enriched at the expense of those left behind, That is “wild capitalism”. The recent run of failures of formerly very profitable corporations are a prime example of that, and how painful it is for those who are ultimately victimized by it.

A corporation has been endowed with personhood by the Supreme Court. It is not a person but it is run by persons. If the ethical standards of those at the top fail to maintain a certain level of social responsibility, the result is the insidious onset of corporate psychopathic behavior. A few get very rich and the others wake up one day to find themselves abandoned by the institution they trusted.

Pinstriped Psychopaths by Eric J. Fry

Some psychopaths occupy a prison cell. Others occupy a corner office. Both are dangerous.

Psychopathy is destructive, no matter whether it roams the back streets or roams on Wall Street.

Is There a Cure for Corporate ‘Psychopathy’? by Jeffrey Nesteruk

Has corporate law created a monster?

There is no cure to corporate psychopathy as strictly speaking it is a personality trait not an illness. Wherever it is encountered, there is destruction and paucity of ideas and goodness. The closest psychopathy get to illness is the illnesses left after their passing.

Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington

The excesses of corporate America have become more than just a social crime; they are a direct threat to the well-being of our society… CEO bad boys, highlighting their personal extravagances such as ostentatious mansions, million-dollar birthday parties and interest-free loans straight out of the company kitty. As we all know by now, while these so-called business leaders enjoyed the very, very good life, market values for their respective companies were going down the tubes.

Psychopath in a suit by Leon Gettler

Is the boss a psychopath?

Not a murderer, a vicious criminal or rapacious scam-meister. But we know the type. Oozing charm and charisma but with no emotional depth; more sizzle than steak. These are the ones who are manipulative and ruthless enough to do whatever it takes and stick the knife into anyone standing in their way. With their finely honed political skills, sharp timing and chameleon-like abilities, they thrive on risk, chaos and upheaval. And they are cold-blooded enough to claim later that they did nothing wrong.

The Corporation, a documentary exploring the psyche of the corporation, came to the conclusion that if the corporation can be regarded as a legal person, as it is under United States law, its personality would meet all of the DSM-IV requirements for being a psychopath (such as conning others for profit and recklessness). [Interview with Joel Bakan author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power]

A comprehensive article on corporate psychopaths at FastCompany.

The more sociopaths are allowed to shape the world around them to best suit their own interests, the more damage they do to the society and the more sociopaths they CREATE.

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We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims. – Buckminster Fuller

When all is wrong by David Auerbach

Albert Camus said his greatest temptation was cynicism, and we all share that weakness. There’s a great comfort in a hopeless stupor where the chasm between action and effectiveness is uncrossable…

Moderate, healthy skepticism, when thoughtfully pursued, leads into either utter self-doubt or a superiority complex. Either you become paralyzed with uncertainty like Kafka, or you preach negation as gospel to the masses, like Alex Zubatov.

An exception is the case of E.M. Cioran, a little-known Romanian philosopher who has made it his mission to assault most people’s ideals and beliefs with far-flung rage.

“At any price
we must keep those
who have too clear a conscience
from living and dying in peace.”

Ed Ring at Ecoworld warns and reminds us with brave cynicism that there’s a climate of guile penetrating the green revolution, turning ecology and sustainability into a carbon trading, tax whipping and investor’s windfall orchestrated not by wise policy or smart entrepreneurs but likely by Wall Street:

“In many cases environmentalism, and the policies to enforce it, already constitute the most regressive hidden tax in history, and global warming alarm will catapult these hidden taxes into the stratosphere of economic stagnation. With carbon trading and carbon taxes and carbon offsets set to eclipse rational environmental policy, our economy and our way of life are what is in peril, not our planetary icecaps, and only financial traders, professional accountants, attorneys, credentialed consultants, academic experts, corporate cartels and the public sector will benefit.

“There is a lot of junk science out there on both sides of the environmental debate, as always with all debates, but extreme environmentalist junk science seems to be carrying the day, so that is where we most appropriately ought to shine our scrutiny.

“America is a lucky, lucky nation and perhaps cursed as well with troubles so huge, but complaining will not make the world better – and setting people free to compete, nurturing meritocracy, sustainably improving entitlements everywhere, encouraging building and development – and letting green resume its place within the dazzling spectrum of reality – will create the economic growth and tolerance for pluralism; will create the next step in the ascent of man.”

As water begins to form ice on a cold surface, it first lays down a frozen layer of single atoms.

The picture shows ice one atom thick on a very cold surface.

This is the very first stage of freezing, followed by a thickening formation of layers of ice crystals.

Sandia Labs snapped the first photos of nanometer-thick ice films taken by a scanning tunneling microscope to capture how water molecules deposited an ice film.

From Scientific American, phenomenal pics department.

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. ~ Edward R. Murrow

“…while we’ve all heard stories about how much waste and inefficiency there is in our military spending, this is always portrayed as either “corruption” or simple inefficiency, and not what it really is — a profound expression of our national priorities, a means of taking money from ordinary, struggling people and redistributing it not downward but upward, to connected insiders, who turn your tax money into pure profit.

“…the basic dynamic is transnational companies raiding the cash savings of the middle class.

“These fantasy elections we’ve been having — overblown sports contests with great production values, decided by haircuts and sound bytes and high-tech mudslinging campaigns — those were sort of fun while they lasted, and were certainly useful in providing jerk-off pundit-dickheads like me with high-paying jobs. But we just can’t afford them anymore.”

Economic Realities Are Killing Our Era of Fantasy Politics

“Corporate America is going to have to reinvest in our society. It’s that simple.”

via IMproPRieTies

That is, she worries that in rejecting government regulation, we’ve approved a defacto dictatorship in the form of the companies we put our trust in.

In rejecting government regulation, we’ve approved a defacto dictatorship in the form of the companies we put our trust in.

Bill Moyers is dredging news about “corrupt government officials and cronies dedicated to dismantling government by selling it off, making massive profits as they tore the principles of a representative democracy to shreds.”

Repeat:

“corrupt government officials and cronies dedicated to dismantling government by selling it off, making massive profits as they tore the principles of a representative democracy to shreds.”

While corporate media scorns our sensibilities, Moyers is keeping track of Jack Abramoff because as any true journalists would know “Jack Abramoff is the gift that keeps on giving” as the

Wave of “Capitol Crimes” Continues:

Over the last couple of years he has been singing to the authorities, which is why he has been kept in a detention facility close to DC and the reason his sentencing for tax evasion, the defrauding of Indians and the bribing of Washington officials has been delayed — the FBI is thought to be using Abramoff’s testimony to build an ever-expanding case that may continue to shake those who live within the Beltway bubble for months and years to come.

Bill Moyers Journal is airing an updated edition of “Capitol Crimes,” a special that was first produced for public television two years ago, relating the entire sordid story of the Abramoff scandals.

“Fantastic misgovernment is not an accident.“

“Do we Americans really want good government?”

That’s a question asked, not by Thomas Frank, but the muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens, writing more than a century ago in his book, The Shame of the Cities.

He wrote, “We are a free and sovereign people, we govern ourselves and the government is ours. But that is the point. We are responsible, not our leaders, since we follow them. We let them divert our loyalty from the United States to some ‘party;’ we let them boss the party and turn our municipal democracies into autocracies and our republican nation into a plutocracy. We cheat our government and we let our leaders loot it, and we let them wheedle and bribe our sovereignty from us.”

This guy just Kennedies me all over. I don’t look to massive change, but a cerebellum in office will be nice.

Obama said,
“Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face.

“So what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me.

“You know, ‘He’s not patriotic enough, he’s got a funny name,’ you know, ‘He doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.'”

For most of us who are not vegetarians, the strings of our hearts sometimes…

What do you think? Should a calf, a sow and a chicken have room to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs?

Should we place a limit on the use of factory crates, cages and extreme animal confinement?

Nicholas D. Kristof points out that people around the world are working to improve conditions for factory livestock. There’s new law in Florida, Arizona, Colorado and Oregon; Spain and Austria. He remembers his childhood on a family farm:

Then there were the geese, the most admirable creatures I’ve ever met.

We raised Chinese white geese, a common breed, and they have distinctive personalities. They mate for life and adhere to family values that would shame most of those who dine on them.

While one of our geese was sitting on her eggs, her gander would go out foraging for food – and if he found some delicacy, he would rush back to give it to his mate. Sometimes I would offer males a dish of corn to fatten them up – but it was impossible, for they would take it all home to their true loves.

Once a month or so, we would slaughter the geese. When I was 10 years old, my job was to lock the geese in the barn and then rush and grab one. Then I would take it out and hold it by its wings on the chopping block while my Dad or someone else swung the ax.

The 150 geese knew that something dreadful was happening and would cower in a far corner of the barn, and run away in terror as I approached. Then I would grab one and carry it away as it screeched and struggled in my arms.

Very often, one goose would bravely step away from the panicked flock and walk tremulously toward me. It would be the mate of the one I had caught, male or female, and it would step right up to me, protesting pitifully. It would be frightened out of its wits, but still determined to stand with and comfort its lover.

We eventually grew so impressed with our geese – they had virtually become family friends – that we gave the remaining ones to a local park. (Unfortunately, some entrepreneurial thief took advantage of their friendliness by kidnapping them all – just before the next Thanksgiving.)

So, yes, I eat meat (even, hesitantly, goose). But I draw the line at animals being raised in cruel conditions.

Proposition 2 on California’s November ballot [wiki] will make certain that animals “for the majority of every day” will be able to “to fully extend their limbs or wings, lie down, stand up, and turn around.

Specified animals include calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens, and pregnant pigs. Exceptions made for transportation, rodeos, fairs, 4-H programs, lawful slaughter, research and veterinary purposes.”

So far, 63% of California voters think this improvement in animal rights is a good idea.

Trojan Meat
But there’s no requirement to improve the livestock conditions for imported meat.

There have been improvements in the inspection system. The Centers for Disease Control are researching the global issue of shipping salmonella around the world. There have been Agency changes while the focus of new budgets includes bioterror. [search]

So far, we have no system telling consumers about imported livestock diet or conditions. We can ask our supermarket’s butcher department. Do they know? What about restaurant or fast food outlets? Can we trust brands?

In the UK, pig farmer Cameron Naughton travels markets with a Trojan Pig [story] to highlight cheap imports raised without the welfare of the animal in mind. He says 70% of imported pork would have been illegal to produce in the UK due to higher welfare standards.

“Just as the Greeks used a giant wooden horse to sneak soldiers into Troy, cheap, low welfare imports are being slipped in under the noses of unwitting shoppers due to unclear labels.” [pics]

To see photos of cruel (and atypical) livestock factory conditions, see the Animal Exploitation Photo Gallery.

“If we in this country would see ourselves as physicians to the world instead of militians, we would be much further ahead.” – Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.

Even a dog knows the difference between being kicked and being stumbled over. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Either intellectual dishonesty or sheer stupidity has taken us. To increase our prosperity, we give to the wealthy. To increase our safety, we provoke the world.

The Case For Impeachment (So Far)

“I don’t know if that’s what you ordered, but there it is.”

[via Cafe Nita Lou]

Astronaut Rusty Schweickart has noticed there are official reports floating around recommending a nuclear bomb to blow up any asteroid heading toward Earth. He’s warning us that this is a bad idea.

He’s telling us this idea is being used to justify nuclear weapons in space.

“The former lunar lander pilot said a NASA report that made that recommendation last year was misleading.

“He felt it was probably issued under political pressure to create some justification for putting nuclear weapons into earth orbit.” [link]

OK.

Political pressure. Political pressure and nuclear weapons. Political pressure and nuclear weapons and lies from our government.

Of course, Russia is using the same story. Pravda is reporting that Russia’s Center for Planetary Defense is preparing a megaton atomic blast to carry out the job quite nicely.

Now we know what to deflect.

Five surgeons from big cities are discussing who makes the best patients to operate on:

The first surgeon, from New York, says, “I like to see Accountants on my operating table, because everything inside is numbered.”

The second surgeon, from Chicago , responds, “Yeah, but you should try Electricians! Everything inside them is color coded.”

The third surgeon, from Dallas, says, “No, I really think Librarians are the best. Everything inside them is in alphabetical order.”

The fourth surgeon, from Los Angeles, chimes in, “You know, I like construction workers. Those guys always understand if you have a few parts left over.”

But the fifth surgeon, from Washington, shut them all up when he observed, “You’re all wrong. Politicians are the easiest to operate on. There’s no guts, no heart, no brains, and no spine, plus the head and the rear-end are interchangeable.”

The Center for Real Estate at UCIrvine completed a study revealing that defaulting borrowers did not cause the subprime dip as we’ve been told relentlessly.

You’ll be interested to know that the researchers we’re shocked to discover the cause directly points to Fannie and Freddie.

“We were quite surprised to find the intensity of subprime lending was insignificant after controlling for all the other factors influencing the market, but we were really blown away when Fannie’s and Freddie’s continuing presence in the market was shown to be so important,” said Kerry Vandell, UCI finance professor and Center for Real Estate director.

The researchers found that rising home prices up to 2003 could be explained by economic fundamentals, such as low unemployment rates, expanding household incomes and population growth. These factors fueled housing demand and, in turn, increased U.S. home prices. During this time, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac actively issued and purchased conventional, conforming mortgage-backed securities.

“But in 2003, political, regulatory and economic factors – including accounting irregularities that led to their senior officers’ resignations and the capping of their retained loan portfolios – forced the two entities to significantly slow their lending volume. Private funding in the form of asset-backed securities and residential mortgage-backed securities replaced conventional, conforming mortgage-backed securities as the prevalent source of mortgage capital.

“The new credit environment allowed looser underwriting standards and increased tolerance for riskier, high-yield loan products. Such products included adjustable-rate mortgages with low initial “teaser” rates, Alt-A loans that did not require income verification and nonowner-occupied investor products. This borrowing climate provided previously marginal borrowers with additional access to credit. The credit market shift led to a record increase in total mortgage volume and pushed up home prices with momentum characteristic of a bubble.” [story]

It’s a kick isn’t it? …political, regulatory and economic factors…

Mother Nature Knows Best
Here’s the warning from UC’s School of Business to the free market jingoists in Washington and Manhattan telling us that nature knows best and we should just leave the economy alone:

“It’s important policymakers consider [looser underwriting standards and increased tolerance for riskier, high-yield loan products] when they attempt to shape the markets in the future.”

Policymakers shaping markets? Shaping our ‘free’ markets? And also shaping the bogus and underhanded manipulation of an electorate commonly known as the United States of America.

Rand Corporation: “Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism.”

All terrorist groups eventually end. But how do they end?

The evidence since 1968 indicates that most groups have ended because

1. they joined the political process (43 percent)
2. local police and intelligence agencies arrested or killed key members (40 percent).

Military force has rarely been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups, and few groups within this time frame have achieved victory.

This has significant implications for dealing with al Qa’ida and suggests fundamentally rethinking post-9/11 U.S. counterterrorism strategy: Policymakers need to understand where to prioritize their efforts with limited resources and attention.

The authors report that religious terrorist groups take longer to eliminate than other groups and rarely achieve their objectives. The largest groups achieve their goals more often and last longer than the smallest ones do. Finally, groups from upper-income countries are more likely to be left-wing or nationalist and less likely to have religion as their motivation.

The authors conclude that policing and intelligence, rather than military force, should form the backbone of U.S. efforts against al Qa’ida.

And U.S. policymakers should end the use of the phrase “war on terrorism” since there is no battlefield solution to defeating al Qa’ida.

How Terrorist Groups End
Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida

A free .pdf of this document available from Rand as a public service. Report by Seth G. Jones, Martin C. Libicki.

Thorough review of McCain’s recent efforts as Senator:

Not surprisingly, then, the voters in Arizona seem to be less than enamored with their senior Senator.

In the AZ Republican primary, McCain managed to get only 47% of the vote.

…only 21% of Arizonans had a ‘very favorable’ opinion of McCain.

…McCain’s numbers have been trending downward in Arizona since the start of 2007.

The Presumptive Derelict.

Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet

The Democracy in America blog is annoyed that Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska has functioned poorly during 50 years [!] in Congress.

After joining the Senate in 1968, Ted Stevens lived only on his Congressional salary. He wasn’t wealthy. In fact, he was in debt in the 1980s because of his investments.

But after he began spending our government’s money as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, how much money did Senator Steven’s earn for himself?

As chairman of the Appropriations Committee, how much money did Senator Stevens earn for his cronies, family and friends?

According to Citizens Against Government Waste, an advocacy group, Mr Stevens brought home to Alaska a total of 1,433 projects worth $3,345,812,961 between 1995 and 2008.

From The Economist, “Even more disturbing is the fact that a significant amount of that money seemed to benefit himself, his family and his friends more than anyone else.”

Although Stevens may have misused his top position for many years, there are likely many, many hidden shenanigans that have been negotiated out of his recent indictment.

WorldNews.com Correspondent Dallas Darling:

Lost somewhere between Barack Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe was the debate over a civilian-oriented Commander In Chief. But then U.S. corporate hegemony, mixed with media malfeasance, has replaced the U.S. Constitution and proclaimed the litmus test for the office of Commander In Chief is one of militancy. Although the Commander in Chief is supposed to be first and foremost a citizen representing all of the people, it has become extremely popular to place the Armed Forces and Corporate-Pentagon in front of this constitutional principle.

I claim civilians are more potent than militians, proffer greater solutions and smack hierarchy to its place.

Emblazoned in the sky over the Republican Convention this September, there ought to be a chart of money spent on business cronies and pet projects next to money spent on citizens and children. Maybe new laser lights can draw these shameful numbers.

Today President Bush opposes rules that will ban lead and toxins in children’s toys and might veto reform at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Shake my head.

Exxon Mobil manufacturers diisononyl phthalate, or DINP, the phthalate most frequently found in children’s toys. The company spent a chunk of its $22 million lobbying budget in the past 18 months to try to prevent any ban.

Years go by. Shake, shake, shake my head.

“The great fear is that if a big, established chemical like this can be driven from the market, what’s next?”

Exactly!

Major media hoists a close race merely to jobshop headlines or to hustle its ‘fair and balanced’ pew. Major media shrinks issues into snipped differences to sell its pulpish conflict. But no matter how choked or false our pundits, this picture cannot be feigned.