Nye - Gateway to Nevada's Rurals » Corporate Greed

GOP Rep. Joe Barton apologizes to BP

Featheriver — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:00:57 +0000

Joe Barton (R-TX) was on the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee yesterday when BP officials appeared in Congress.

Barton made the following remarks to the BP company.

I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown.

Good old Joe. He is steadfastly sticking to the Republican plan to criticize President Obama at every opportunity. Barton added “I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday.”

…it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown…

[Source: Talking Points Memo]

What is wrong with some of these republicans? They don’t want corporations regulated. They side with corporate businesses ignoring the people of the gulf coast who are having to endure the damage caused by the oil spill.

Barton was born in Waco, Texas. He is a graduate of Texas A&M holding a B.S. degree in industrial engineering. He was also a consultant for Atlantic Richfield Oil and Gas Company before being elected to Congress in 1984. He represents the 6th congressional district in Texas.

Barton has taken $1.4 million in campaign contributions from the Oil industry since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He Barton has consistently opposed proposals to reduce the nation’s dependence on oil.

That he doesn’t care about ordinary people was shown by Barton’s opposition to the Combating Autism Act of 2006. But he takes care of his family. He paid his wife, Terri, $57,759 in salary and bonuses from his campaign funds in the 2006 election cycle. He also paid his daughter, Kristin, $12,622 in salary and bonuses. Additionally he paid his mother, Nell Barton, $7,000 for a car.

Makes one wonder what is wrong with Texas voters in the 6th District.

He established the Barton Family Foundation to support charities in his congressional district. His daughter-in-law, Amy Barton, is the Foundations Executive Director. Major energy corporations, such as the Chicago-based nuclear energy producer, Exelon Corporation, make major gifts to the Foundation. In June 2008, at a time when Barton had introduced legislation to assist corporations with the recycling of spent nuclear fuel, the corporation donated $25,000 to the Foundation. Exelon has also donated $80,000 to Barton’s campaign funds.

Barton voted against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. He also voted against the Affordable Health Care for America Act. Barton has received almost $2.2 million from the Healthcare industry, $1.5 million of that coming from PACs. [Wikipedia]

Jack Abramoff Out of the Joint

Featheriver — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:51:31 +0000

Jack Abramoff, disgraced former lobbyist, was transferred Tuesday from prison to a Maryland halfway house to serve out the remainder of his sentence. [CREW] He is scheduled for release on December 4.

Abramoff, once a high-rolling Republican lobbyist, pleaded guilty to a raft of federal corruption charges in 2006. He admitted illegally showering gifts on officials who provided favors for his clients and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Among other things, the inquiry led to prison time for a former congressman, Ohio Republican Bob Ney; for Stephen Griles, once the Bush administration’s deputy interior secretary; and for several former congressional staffers.

Abramoff is one of the symbols of money corruption in Congress. He was one of the lobbyists who carried bags of money to some members of Congress buying their influence to gain advantages for his clients and himself.

Drill, Baby, Drill

Featheriver — Mon, 31 May 2010 15:14:40 +0000

Photo: A view of the oil slick from space by NASA on May 24, 2010.

The Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill is the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history. It is an oil gusher from the sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico that started April 20, 2010 about 40 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast in the Macondo Prospect oil field.

The explosion killed 11 platform workers and injured 17 others. Ninety-eight workers survived.

The gusher originates 5,000 feet below the ocean surface. British Petroleum estimates over 5,000 barrels to 100,000 barrels of crude oil is being infused into the Gulf of Mexico. Additionally an unknown amount of natural gas is in the mixture.

The oil slick covers 2,500 square miles. Immense underwater plumes of oil, not visible, lie below the water’s surface.

From 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of oil continue to flow into the gulf per day. As of May 27 it is estimated between 440,000 and 700,000 barrels as of that date have poured into the gulf.

It is predicted the oil will be picked up by the Gulf Stream and carried around Florida and up the eastern coastline of the United States.

How long will the oil spill last?

Nobody knows. Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia has said it could take the ecosystem years, possibly decades, to recover from the infusion of oil and gas. CNN reports that BP is not expected to contain the spill until August, if then.

The fishing industry along the gulf has been closed down. Losses from tourism have been estimated at $3 billion. Five corporations connected to the spill have lost $21 billion in market capitalization since the explosion.

BP argued against new, stricter safety rules proposed last September by Minerals Management Service saying additional regulation of the oil industry was unnecessary; that the voluntary system of safety procedures was adequate, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Hurricanes

The hurricane season officially started June 2 causing the worry that “a hurricane might turn the millions of gallons of floating crude into a crashing back surf,” according to the Associated Press. It is feared that the combination of damaging winds and large waves will push the oil deeper into the Louisiana estuaries and wetlands leaving miles of debris-littered coastline. The furthering damage to the coast line will weaken as future tropical storms and hurricanes arrive in the years ahead.

Regulate, Baby, Regulate

Over the years the federal government has been deregulating corporate industry. You’ve heard the arguments about big government’s intrusion into private enterprise.

Around 80 “oil spills” have occurred across the globe since 1937, according to Wikipedia. The most recent occurred in the Singapore Strait resulting from a collision of two marine vessels.

We Must Get Off Oil

T. Boone Pickens says the United States today imports 65% of the oil we use. That is up from 24% in 1970. “Every day 85 million barrels of oil are produced around the world. And 21 million of those are used here in the United States.” That’s 25% of the world’s oil demand. Used by just 4% of the world’s population. America imports 12 million barrels a day, and Saudi Arabia only produces 9 million a day.

Pickens adds, “In additional to putting our security in the hands of potentially unfriendly and unstable foreign nations, we spent $475 billion on foreign oil in 2008 alone. That’s money taken out of our economy and sent to foreign nations, and it will continue to drain the life from our economy for as long as we fail to stop the bleeding.”

Deregulation of Oil Drilling

Featheriver — Thu, 13 May 2010 19:00:17 +0000

From a number of perspectives the governmental approach of deregulation of industries doesn’t work.

The oil industry is supposed to be regulated by Minerals Management Service (MMS). Last Wednesday a Coast Guard Captain asked a regional supervisor, federal regulator:

It’s my understanding that [a blowout preventer is] designed to industry standard…manufactured by the industry, installed by the industry, with no government witnessing or oversight of the construction or installation. Is that correct?

The regional supervisor, federal regulator MMS answered:

That is correct…

Senator Bill Nelson stated it this way in the Wall Street Journal:

If MMS wasn’t asleep at the wheel, it sure was letting Big Oil do most of the driving.”

Critics say MMS was too close to the industry and had an inherent conflict of interest.

This story lays bare the far-reaching (and largely unnoticed) emasculation of government regulatory power, as it has succumbed to corporate agendas over the past several decades. Janines examines this, and other disturbing trends, in her book Shadow Elite, writes Linda Keenan and Janine R. Wedel in The Huffington Post.

And it’s imperative that we dissect the modus operandi of BP, its elite hired guns, assorted patrons, and compromised, enfeebled regulators, to better spot their tactics being used across government, corporate America, and Wall Street. This pernicious M.O. could be detected in both the recent Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, the bank industry collapse and the bailout that followed. So we should ask ourselves not just “how did these catastrophes happen?” but also, “how do we spot the next one waiting to happen?”

This deregulation trend had it’s etiology in the Reagan era.

[T]he push for “small government”, and often deregulation. Ironically, this drive led them to create a bigger, far less transparent “shadow government” — by steadily passing government work, cache — and, crucially, power — over to business interests. One result: the lines between business and government have blurred, making it hard to figure out who’s in charge, or what an agency even is. Case in point: the MMS. Was MMS a government regulator or an arm of the industry? You be the judge of this description, from the Wall Street Journal.

It is supposed to be a watchdog that halts drilling when it spots unsafe behavior. But it is also supposed …. to generate government revenue from drilling on government lands…..Of MMS’s fiscal 2010 budget of $342 million, nearly half comes from the oil industry….

The idea that industries can regulate themselves has proven to be a fallacy. It simply doesn’t work.

Gulf Coast Oil Spill

Featheriver — Fri, 07 May 2010 16:31:25 +0000

Is off-shore drilling for oil worth it? I have my doubts.

The oil from the BP spill is now onshore leaving much devastation in it’s wake. Wildlife killed indiscriminately. Nature’s food chain broken, perhaps irrevocably.

The fishing industry along the gulf coast decimated.

The oil spill keeps flowing—and has for the past three weeks. Take a look at at the photos on Huffington Post. Makes the Drill Baby Drill cry sound so empty.

President Obama has put a hold on offshore drilling. Governor Schwarzenegger has withdrawn his support for offshore drilling along the California coast.

Mankind is destroying the earth we live on.

We just never seem to learn.

Free showing of Capitalism: A Love Story in Pahrump

Featheriver — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:29:27 +0000

Citizens of Pahrump will be treated to a free showing of Michael Moore’s new documentary Capitalism: A Love Story.

Capitalism: A Love Story is a 2009 American documentary film directed, written by and starring Michael Moore. The film centers on the financial crisis of 2007–2010 and the recovery stimulus, while putting forward an indictment of the current economic order in the United States and capitalism in general.

Topics covered include Wall Street‘s “casino mentality”, for-profit prisons, Goldman Sachs‘ influence in Washington, DC, the poverty-level wages of many airline pilots, the large wave of home foreclosures, and the consequences of “runaway greed.”

The film also features a religious component where Moore examines whether or not capitalism is a sin and if Jesus would be a capitalist.

When and where is it showing for free in Pahrump?

When: Sunday, March 28, 2010
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Where: Salvation Army, 721 S. Buol Road, Pahrump, NV
Admission: Free
RSVP: Val Von Holt at (775) 751-1776

The Moore film has won awards at the Venice Film Festival, the “Leoncino d’Oro” (“Little Golden Lion”) award for his documentary, and he also received the festival’s Open Prize. The documentary was also nominated for the festival’s Golden Lion award.

The film runs for 127 minutes. I’ve seen it twice. I can tell you that if you are into politics at all you will find the film enlightening and it will hold your undivided attention. Be sure to go to the bathroom before the film starts.

A tip of my hat to Val Von Holt and Margery Kay Hanson for putting all this together.

Capitalism and Greed

Featheriver — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:21:22 +0000

Wall Street Greed

Yesterday I watched Capitalism: A Love Story again. It is the production of Michael Moore, the acclaimed conservative film maker. (Yes, I know he is not really an “acclaimed conservative film maker.”) I had watched the movie/documentary when it first came out at a movie theater in Las Vegas. (We don’t have a movie theater here in Pahrump.) I got the DVD of it from NetFlix.

Capitalism: A Love Story is a 2009 American documentary film directed, written by and starring Michael Moore. The film centers on the financial crisis of 2007–2010 and the recovery stimulus, while putting forward an indictment of the current economic order in the United States and capitalism in general.

Topics covered include Wall Street‘s “casino mentality”, for-profit prisons, Goldman Sachs‘ influence in Washington, DC, the poverty-level wages of many airline pilots, the large wave of home foreclosures, and the consequences of “runaway greed”.^[2] The film also features a religious component where Moore examines whether or not capitalism is a sin and if Jesus would be a capitalist.^[3] The film was widely released to the public in the United States and Canada on October 2, 2009. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 9th, 2010. [Wikipedia]

The Moore documentary is two hours and seven minutes long. It is fast moving. Funny in places, heart rendering in others.

Some “nuggets” in the film keep sticking in my mind:

The top 1% of the population controls more financial wealth than the bottom 95% combined.
The financial meltdown began with Ronald Reagan and the policies of Don Regan which “turned the bull loose” for free enterprises, corporations gained more political power, unions were weakened and socioeconomic gaps widened.
Exposing “dead peasant insurance” life insurance policies used by corporations such as Wal-Mart to profit upon the death of their employees.
“Plutonomy” where economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few.

Overall Moore characterizes the capitalistic economic system as greed gone berserk. Even Catholic priests denounces it as “evil.”

Then this morning The Dailey Beast has the following:

A new report offers new insight into how Lehman Brothers fell into mortal peril at the start of the financial crisis, and the details aren’t pretty. The 2,200 page report by a court-appointed examiner describes an accounting trick known as “Repo 105″ that the company used to hide some $50 billion in assets from its balance sheet for two quarters. According to the examiner, the creative accounting could open up Lehman’s executives to lawsuits as shareholders can use them to show they were deceived by the company. Lehman’s collapse is widely credited with helping trigger the financial meltdown in the Fall of 2008 when it declared for bankruptcy.

See Marketwatch for more detail. You might want to read about the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers here. Even so, Richard Fuld, head of Lehman Brothers, said that he had in fact taken about $300 million in pay and bonuses over the past eight years.Lehman Brothers executive pay was reported to have increased significantly before filing for bankruptcy.

Greed.

Bank of America to end debit overdraft fees

Featheriver — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:47:44 +0000

Bank of America announced it will end overdraft fees on debit cards this summer, a move that will cost the bank a large amount of revenue and pressure others to follow suit.

Customers who don’t have enough cash in their accounts to make a purchase will simply be declined.

More than 60% of overdraft fees charged by Bank of America come from debit cards.

A new federal law is forcing banks to get permission from customers before allowing overdrafts on debit purchases and ATM withdrawals, fees that earned banks $20 billion last year.

Regulators became concerned by reports of people paying as much as $40 for a cup of coffee thanks to overdraft fees, and Congress is considering even more restrictive rules.

A 2008 study by the FDIC found that while 75% of customers are never charged overdraft fees, a small group—14% of cardholders—generates 93% of the fees.

[Source: New York Times via Daily Beast]

Notice that B of A didn’t end these fees voluntarily. It happened because of the new federal law passed in Congress.

Health Insurance Industry push back on attacks

Featheriver — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:36:10 +0000

Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, said insurance industry workers “do not deserve to be vilified for political purposes. … For every dollar spent on health care in America, less than one penny goes toward health plan profits. The focus needs to be on the other 99 cents.” AHIP plans to spend more than $1 million to run television ads on cable stations nationwide beginning in the next few days to push back on the attacks on insurers.

As “President Obama makes his final push to get health care reform through Congress, he is “seizing on a report showing that market concentration for health insurance is so monopolized that insurance companies are willing to raise prices and lose customers in an effort to help their bottom line,” HuffPost’s Sam Stein reported.”

[Source: Huffington Post]

Why there is no single-payer public option

Featheriver — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 22:53:07 +0000

Amy Goodman on Democracy Now stated “Republican lawmakers remained staunchly opposed to using the federal government to regulate health insurance.” Republicans want the current health care bill dumped in the trash and to start all over.

Goodman interviewed Trudy Lieberman (no relationship with Joe Lieberman that I know of) a contributing editor and blogger to Columbia Journalism Review. Lieberman noted, “as a country, we are still extremely divided….We have a deep cleavage in this country about how much government should do and how much government should not do.” She referred to the issue of how much regulation of insurance companies should government engage in.

Goodman quoted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on President Obama: “…a year ago…you (Obama) said ‘The public option is one way to keep the insurance companies honest and to increase competition.’”

Quoting Pelosi further, “the public option, which would save $120 billion, keep the insurance companies honest, and increase competition.” Pelosi continued, referring to Senator’s Enzi, Snowe and Durbin proposing exchanges “because the insurance companies opposed the public option. They couldn’t take the competition.”

So Goodman asked Lieberman “Why did President Obama drop the public option?”

Lieberman didn’t know but speculated that it was because, perhaps, campaign contributors to the Obama campaign, stakeholders such as insurance companies, doctors, hospitals, the business community led by the Chamber of Commerce, didn’t want the public option.

Goodman turned to her other guest, Dr. Margaret Flowers, a Baltimore pediatrician and congressional fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program, who is in favor of a single-payer public option.

Dr. Flowers responded “we’ve been excluded from this discussion….the special interests …have been involved in this process.”

“…the President and Congress are talking about—cost controls, increasing coverage, excluding pre-existing conditions—all of these would be met through a national Medicare-for-All system. But—so we win, you know, on the policy. But there is such a heavy influence from the insurance and pharmaceutical companies that they, I guess, felt threatened by the presence of the single-payer advocates.”

Goodman fortified Dr. Flowers assessment of why the single payer public option has failed. “Just looking at a report from the National Journal by Ashlie Rodriguez, who writes, ‘Health care interests have given $46.6 million in campaign donations since 2005 to [the] 21 lawmakers’ at the bipartisan healthcare summit, including Senator Max Baucus, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, and to the summit’s host, President Obama, according to this new report.”

Goodman added, “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found that health professionals, political action committees, hospitals and nursing homes, pharmaceutical and health product companies, health services firms, SHMOs and accident insurers have given heavily to all summit attendees.”

Goodman then asked Dr. Flowers, “How dies that affect this discussion…?”

Dr. Flowers’s response was, “…pretty strongly….members of congress need to get reelected, and if they speak out against the interests who are funding their campaigns, they’re not going to get that funding.”

Flowers added,

Because we have this system of multiple private, for-profit—or profit-driven, really—insurance companies—their bottom line is not health; it’s profit—we’re wasting a third of our healthcare dollars, over $400 billion a year at this time.

——————

The foregoing focuses upon the impact of campaign fund money to members of Congress that precludes good legislation for the benefit of ordinary citizens. It is a major problem in government which has to be ended. The only way I know how to do that is to cease voting for members of congress that represent moneyed special interests rather than their constituents.